Misty water coloured memories

[purrns]

Characters: Adrien/Chat and YOU - Open to anyone, if we plotted or not!
Date: February 8-12
Location: Various
Situation: Memory share event
Warnings/Rating: Parental neglect, that's about it!



A: Every super hero has an origin story (Adrien or Chat, let me know which flavour you want!)

[Who knows how you ended up coming into contact with Adrien. Maybe he bumped you while serving you some food in the Midnight Hotel, or while he was working in the Healer's Guild. Perhaps he was just a friendly shoulder bump while talking to him. Or maybe you didn't come into contact with Adrien at all, and it's Chat Noir you touched. Either way, a memory is unveiled, if he wants it to or not.

You find yourself in an enormous room. It's filled with many things to occupy a teenage boy, but most of it remains perfect. Untouched. Nothing here is important. Not really. On the floor, rolling along on a recently emptied toilet paper roll is a tiny, cat-like creature. It's also listening to Adrien, who is staring at the silver ring he constantly wears - currently in the palm of his hand.

"But I'm stuck here, I'm not even allowed to go to school," Adrien seems more frustrated than he usually outwardly shows. "What good is a superhero who's imprisoned in his own house?"

"No good! That's why it's all going to change soon. If you're willing to change, that is," the creature watched Adrien slide the ring onto his finger, determined. "Claws out. That's how you transform."

"Got it!" Adrien just barrels right ahead. "Plagg, Claws out!"

Plagg panics, frantically trying to grab hold of the toilet paper roll as he's sucked towards the ring.

"NO, WAIT!!! I HAVEN'T FINISHED EXPLAIIINIIIIIING"

Plagg vanishes into the ring, it turning jet black with a familiar-to-some green pawprint on it. There's some flashy lights and one magical girl boy transformation later, where Adrien stood is Chat Noir, grinning manically at his gloved claw-hands. Wow. Shock. Surprise. No one saw that coming. What a twist. ]

B: 80% of them have parent issues too (Adrien)

[Or maybe you trigger a DIFFERENT memory. Here, Adrien sits at a table, where an older man seems to be arguing with him. A woman with a red streak in her hair stands by, head bowed.

"I already told you that it's out of the question for you to go to school!"

"But Père!" Adrien stands, desperation in his eyes.

"You have everything you need in this house. I forbid you from going outside, it's too dangerous!"

"Why do you always want to shut me off in a cocoon? I'm always alone," desperation has made Adrien bolder, but there's still fear in his eyes- fear to stand up to this man. "Why can't I have friends like everyone else?"

"Because you're not like everyone else," the man snaps back. "You are my son, Adrien. Resume."

The man turns on his heel and walks out. Leaving Adrien where he is, giving no more quarter for an argument. Fun times.

Comments

awww yeeeee

[purrns]

Adrien really didn't understand what was happening, it was bizarre, like seeing a movie about someone else's life. But he could recognise Bisi, at least, even if the rest seemed strange to him.

"I- what was that?"

[ten_zero]

"Sedna," she replied, kind of thoughtlessly. It was probably not a satisfactory explanation but it was an accurate one.

"I don't- know what that was."

She'd seen something in Adrien's past as well. "Who was that? The man named Père?"

[purrns]

"I'm...not sure what Sedna is," but hey, if he can focus on someone else's problems than his own, he absolutely will. "...Is everything okay?"

He can't avoid her question forever, though. Maybe he can make this painless.

"My father. That's what Père means in French. Father."

[ten_zero]

"It's a planet. A dwarf planet, like Pluto or Eris. That was a colony." A neutral colony, in one of the few places not dominated by the Grineer on the planet.

She hadn't wanted Adrien to know any of this, but he notably wasn't asking about Loki. Maybe he'd missed it?

Bisi is just as interested in taking Adrien's own track by ignoring his question and continuing with her own line of questioning. "Oh. He seems." Not homicidally insane. "Nice?"

She wishes she could remember her own father better. From before the Zeriman. But those memories are very old and... poisoned. She shivers just thinking about it.

[purrns]

"Is there a reason you were so nearby it? I mean, why not go closer?"

He's working his way in gently. Best that, than overload her with questions and never get an answer at all. And hey, finally someone has something nice to say about his father. That's...a nice change.

"He uh- he means well. I guess."

[ten_zero]

This was frustrating, she knew he heard Ordis. Adrien isn't dumb, so he was just playing dumb for her benefit. Did he think her so fragile? She supposed it was her fault if he did.

"Because," she started. "If the Grineer saw a Tenno in the colony, they'd destroy it."

[purrns]

He is absolutely doing that. Being careful. Dealing with this with kid gloves.

"...But why? Why would anyone want to attack you guys?"

[ten_zero]

She sighed. This was probably long-overdue, anyway. This was a fantasy, trying to be 'normal' with Adrien and... maybe she didn't need it anymore.

"Because we're at war with them. They knew we were a threat before we even started to wake, and since then we've been halting their conquest, destroying their siege engines, disrupting their supply lines, culling their forces. Them and the Corpus both."

She looked down at her hand, which she cupped and started to form a ball of Void Energy.

"Their Twin Queens tried to capture me, but instead I executed them."

She was afraid to look at him, to see his reaction.

[purrns]

He'd always assumed that any fighting Bisi would be on- that she would be on the side of good. He still wants to believe that, completely and wholy- but when she talks about executions, his eyes widen, and he steps back a little.

"I- you executed them? So you...you killed them?"

[ten_zero]

"We don't have the resources to try to hold them. The Grineer already regularly attack our Relays and they've even successfully destroyed them in the past, and that's without an incentive like holding their supreme leaders."

She shook her head. "Leaving them alive would have been idiotic. It was a crippling blow to the Grineer, something we needed desperately. And- well, they were hardly the first. Not even the hundredth. Or the thousandth."

At this she did turn to Adrien. Her face was a mask of resolve. This is what she was. A soldier. An agent of death.

[purrns]

Adrien really isn't taking this well at all. Back home, he refuses to let the go of the idea that ANYONE is irredeemable. There's always a way, and you have to fight and battle your way to that goal. No matter how hard the battle, it's the only way, to him.

He steps a little further back, mentally and physically putting a little distance between them. He looks devastated- that they had to die, that his friend is the one who did it.

"But just killing them? That's not- there had to have been a better way. There's always a better way than that."

[ten_zero]

She shakes her head. "There isn't."

She believed that. She had to believe that or... well, then everything she was and everything she had ever done was wrong and for nothing.

"I'll go." She didn't think Adrien wanted to see her anymore, and... she didn't like this. And... she didn't want him to see her cry.

She started towards the door, using every piece of her willpower to push those feelings down until she could be alone.

[purrns]

Adrien realises he stands on a precipice between his own hard fought morals and actually...putting himself into someone else's shoes. He doesn't know Bisi's world, he has no place to judge what she can and can't do. As much as he hates the idea of killing- as much as it reviles him to his core, he likes to think she wouldn't do it if she had no choice.

"Bisi, wait!"

He reaches over to take her arm, to stop her before she walks out and he loses an actual, decent friend.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound-" like a jackass.

[ten_zero]

What happened next was difficult to explain. In hindsight she would be at a loss to explain her actions, or her expectations. There was only a rush of a billion kinds of feelings all at once, and Adrien's closeness, and her vulnerability, and him suddenly touching her.

She found herself reaching out to grab a handful of his shirt and kissed him.

[purrns]

Adrien had been expecting perhaps a slap- or maybe Bisi would have just walked out and not spoken to him again. What he absolutely had not been expecting was that. She only has a few seconds of contact before he pulls back, shock and confusion on his face. Very quickly, a lingering sadness moves in to replace them.

This isn't the first time a girl has has these feelings towards him- and just like before, he surprises himself by not seeing it sooner. He hadn't seen it with Lila, and he hadn't seen it with Bisi. He wonders if part of it is him not wanting to see it. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. He steps back a little expressions still sad, but gentle.

"Bisi..."

He hates this. He feels like a heel. But he's not going to give her false hope. He's not going to make her think there's a potential there that truly doesn't exist. Just as with Lila, he's not the sort of person to drag another along. He just...can't.

"Bisi, I'm sorry. I just- don't feel that way about you."

[ten_zero]

Bisi knew pain. She knew how it felt to be stabbed, shocked, burned, electrocuted, suffocated. She knew how it felt to have her soul ripped from her body.

So why did this hurt so much?

"Oh."

Stupid.

"No, I-"

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

"It's..." Fine? It wasn't fine. Nothing was fine. Nothing would ever be fine ever again. Everything was irrevocably broken.

"Why?" she asked.

Was that even a question? Obviously he hated her, after what he just learned. Unless he never liked her even before that. Which was worse? What answer could he give her that wouldn't hurt even more?

[purrns]

"Because I'm in love with someone else."

The truth came out easily. He couldn't have lied to her anyway. Bisi meant a lot to him, even if she didn't mean that to him. His shoulders slump as he looks over at her. She looks so- sad and he did that to her. He caused this.

"I'm sorry," he says again- sorry that he didn't see this sooner to nip it in the bud, sorry that he's making her hurt. "You're a really good friend, and I'm really happy to have you in my life but-"

But his heart belongs to Marinette. Completely and absolutely. Even if she hadn't returned his feelings, he doesn't think he could have ever stopped feeling that way.

"But not like that."

[ten_zero]

That was... she didn't know what that was. There was someone else?

"W-who?" Who was better than her? Who was taking him away from her?

She consciously knew these were bad thoughts, possessive thoughts, unhealthy thoughts, but they were being drowned. Someone had betrayed her, stolen from her.

"Marinette?" It wasn't hard to deduce, when she put even the smallest thought into it.

[purrns]

"Yes."

He knows there's a risk in being open about their relationship, especially to those who knew his feelings for Ladybug. It wouldn't be hard to put two and two together on that front. But he doesn't want to lie about his feelings for her. Certainly not now.

He knew a thing or two about jealousy. He's been on the sharp end of it before. He doesn't think Bisi will do anything, but at the same time...

"I really am sorry. I-uh. I'd still like to be your friend...if that's okay."

[ten_zero]

She shook her head. What was so special about her?

The only thing she knew about Marinette was how much she'd suspected her of being Ladybug. But she wasn't Ladybug, because-

-be your friend-

"What?" She was getting lost in a haze. Had she heard that right?

"I don't-" Can she do that? Does she want that? Does he? "Are you... sure?"

[purrns]

He could give a long list about what was so special about Marinette, but it really wouldn't be a good time for that. He smiles a little, still nervous, still worried that him turning her down has done some irreparable damage to their friendship.

"Well, of course. I meant it when I said you're a good friend to me. I don't want to lose you. But I can understand why it would be...awkward. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

[ten_zero]

"I have to... think about this." This was all new. All of it. Having a centuries-long-delayed puberty? Do not recommend.

[purrns]

"I understand," and he does, in his own way.

She needs time and frankly, he could use time of his own to process this and work out exactly why this kind of thing keeps happening- if only to make it stop. He exhales softly, taking a step back- giving her both metaphorical and literal space.

"I'll....uh. Let you go. "

[ten_zero]

There are times when being able to teleport into your warframe from wherever you are is very beneficial. When you're under attack is the most obvious one, but she had just found an extremely useful secondary function.

In a flash, she disappeared from Adrien's doorstep, retreating into the plasteel cocoon of Valkyr back in her home.