With Time: Chapter 31 - Stoneheart
Author’s Note: I'm always excited for update days! That said, some of you are probably on edge. If you pay attention to my comment replies, you'll know this chapter isn't exactly... nice to Adrien. To the point where I'm adding a warning.
At the end of this chapter, Gabriel's treatment of Adrien crosses several lines. He was bad before, but you could argue that it was more along the lines of (extreme) neglect. Now, at the end of this chapter he goes out of his way to make things very bad. I really don't think canon Gabriel would do this, but With Time Gabriel... ooooh. He is vile.
If you don't think you'd be comfortable reading it, then just skip to the author's note once Adrien gets home. I can give you the gist of what happened there, so that you know what happened without having to read it out in detail.
Love you guys! 💕
Chapter Summary: Ladybug and Chat Noir get help to deal with Stoneheart's return.
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Being right next to a school like Françoise Dupont is good in one way only. As a superhero who has to deal with akumas, it often means Marinette is very close to the attacks - given the frequency of attacks at or around the school.
Marinette is pinning fabric together when there’s another alert. It’s different in that it’s a repeat.
Stoneheart has returned again.
She sighs, and Tikki looks at her expectantly.
“Tikki, Spots On!”
Ladybug swings to the roof of her old school, looking around. There’s no sign of Stoneheart, Ivan must have been elsewhere when it happened.
While she’s pulling up the akuma alert so that she can actually look at the location this time, she feels rumbling.
That’s one way to find him.
She ends up meeting with her partner as they both pursue the akuma. “Hey, Kitty.”
“My Lady.”
“Any idea what got Ivan mad?”
“I don’t pay attention in school much anymore.” he says flatly. At her disapproving look he continues hurriedly, “Well, I mean, I pay attention to the work, but besides that I kind of… don’t?”
She shakes her head, looking away bitterly. “That’s my issue.”
Oh. She’s not mad at him.
There’s a crash nearby as a car is thrown into the pavement.
“I think we’ve found him.” Chat says.
Stoneheart is stomping around, picking things up and throwing them seemingly without reason. He punches buildings and kicks at the street.
“What is he doing? Where’s Mylène?” Ladybug looks around for the skittish girl.
Stoneheart roars angrily, turning around as he continues his rampage and spotting the two heroes.
“LADYBUG! CHAT NOIR! GIVE ME YOUR MIRACULOUS!”
“You’d think that after a year of this Hawkmoth could think of a more creative way to tell us what to do,” Chat drawls.
Ladybug gives him a look, jumping to a rooftop closer to Stoneheart. Chat follows.
“I can’t see what his akumatized object would be.” Ladybug looks down at the akuma, who is growling up at them, attacking the building they’re standing on, “Is he holding something again?”
“I can’t really tell-” the building begins to cave, and they move further, “-he’s mostly just punching things…”
“Fun.” Stoneheart has yet to reveal any clear goal, just rampaging. Once the heroes moved further, he lost interest and moved on to destroy more stuff.
“Alright then.” Ladybug says hesitantly, “I guess we’ll go after him now…?”
“Sure.”
The duo follow the victim, avoiding as much of the destruction as they can. Without the miraculous cure, Paris would be screwed. Stoneheart has taken to chucking cars as far as he can, or just smashing them into nearby buildings.
Ladybug and Chat run parallel on opposite rooftops, following Stoneheart and trying to spot an akumatized object. No luck so far.
“Should we find Mylène? Do you think she’s in any danger?” Ladybug calls over to her partner.
“MYLÈNE?!?!” Stoneheart overhears the heroine, and grows even angrier, picking up a nearby car and throwing it at her head. She ducks.
Chat can see and feel the moment Ladybug drops - playing dead again. Sure, he knows what’s going on now, but the fact that she’ll just be occasionally doing this in the middle of akuma attacks will never fail to fill him with sheer terror.
Fortunately, Stoneheart doesn’t seem particularly focused on attacking them, simply returning to his destruction while Chat hurries to his partner.
Once again, she’s curled in a ball, her legs to her chest and eyes closed.
“Oh, Bug…” he scoops her up, “Not that I can blame you - I wouldn’t want a car thrown at me either - but one of these days I’m going to faint from the fear of you doing this.”
Obviously, she doesn’t respond and he carries her to a rooftop further from the razed buildings and street. Now that they’re in a safer area, he feels comfortable sitting down so that she can recover.
It doesn’t take too long, and she bolts awake looking around in confusion. She seems to realize what happened, “Oh no. Did I…?”
“I mean, you did get a car thrown at your head…”
“Still! I’m so sorry Chat.” She hugs him apologetically.
“I told you, there’s nothing to apologize for. You can’t help it-”
“I still feel bad. It’s got to be stressful for you.”
“It is un-fur-tunate that you’ll be going cat-atonic whenever-” his grin grows as he speaks.
“Alright.” she pushes him back by his nose, turning away and standing, “That’s enough of you.”
“Oh, M’lady, you can purr-tend all you want, but I know mew love my puns.”
She huffs, “I love you. The puns are just an unfortunate part of a package deal.”
“Don’t you mean-”
“I don’t-”
“Un-fur-tunate?” “No. No I do not.” She changes topic abruptly, “How are we going to take down Stoneheart?”
“Ask your yo-yo.” he shrugs.
She shrugs, “Lucky Charm!”
A familiar tea kettle falls into her hands.
---
“Master, the lucky charm said to come here.” Marinette explains quickly.
“Hmm. So you are here for back-up?” he leads her to the gramophone, entering the code, “Who did you have in mind?”
She hesitates, considering her options. The fox wouldn’t work well - illusions would be gone the moment Stoneheart threw debris at them.
The bee is a fighter. Venom requires getting up close, and bees don’t like to stay back from a battle. Stoneheart is too violent for that, it’d be a risk.
At her indecision, she sees a flicker of hope in Wayzz’s eyes.
“Master?”
Fu already seems to have come to the same conclusion, but waits for her to say it herself. “Yes, Marinette?”
“Could I take Wayzz?”
He nods, slipping the bracelet off and handing it to her as Wayzz disappears.
“Thank you.” she heads out the door, transforming once more as she goes. She’s got someone in mind.
---
“Well? You wanted akumas, and I delivered. I can see the footage of Stoneheart right now, and it’s bad enough that Ladybug left. You’ve had plenty of opportunities from me now, and I can keep that up. I held up my end of the deal…”
“I suppose you did. Fair enough, I will hold up my end. Fail to keep up your end and I will revoke-”
“You should know me by now. I don’t fail.”
The call ends.
---
“Allan Poirot, this is the Miraculous of the Turtle, which grants the power of protection. You will use it for the greater good. Once Stoneheart has been defeated you will return the miraculous to Chat Noir or I. Do you accept?”
“Wh-what?” he stares at her in disbelief, eyes darting between the box in her hand, and her eyes. “M-me? Are you s-sure?”
“I am.” she reassures.
“Okay.” he takes a moment to steady his breathing. She can see his hands shaking slightly as he slips the bracelet on. He makes a startled noise of surprise when a green light appears and Wayzz looks at him.
“Hello, I am Wayzz.” The Kwami smiles at the boy.
“Hi, I’m A-Allan,” his surprise fades slightly, being replaced with confusion.
“I am the Kwami of Protection. I can turn you into a hero to assist Chat Noir and Ladybug in the fight against Hawkmoth.”
“O-Okay. Um, how do I do that?” Allan remains hesitant. Ladybug can relate, but at least he won’t be in the spotlight. Akuma attacks don’t draw as much attention at this point - Parisians know to just stay away until they see the ladybugs.
“It is simple! Say ‘shell on!’ to transform, and ‘shell off!’ to detransform. When you are transformed, you can say ‘shell-ter’ to form a protective shield for you and your allies. Once you have done so, you will only have 5 minutes before you will change back, which the bracelet will display for you.”
“Al-alright?”
“Allan, it’s alright. I understand the stress of suddenly being told that you’re a hero,” Ladybug reassures him, “But you were chosen for the traits you already have. The only difference is that now you have a magical bracelet. You won’t be alone - Chat and I will help you - and no one expects you to do perfectly, especially on your first fight,” she leans forward conspiratorially, “A little known secret? Chat and I are totally winging it. Every single time. We have no idea what we’re doing.”
That draws a smile from the boy. He looks at the bracelet consideringly, then takes a deep breath and says, “Wayzz, Shell On!”
Ladybug catches the soft smile on the Kwami’s face as he’s sucked into the miraculous. A bright green light overtakes Allan, eventually fading to reveal the hero’s outfit.
The boy is now dressed in a forest green jacket, his undershirt is a lighter green, a hood on the back covering his head. The long sleeves turn into gloves at the end, protecting his hands.
Around his waist is a dark green belt with various pouches and pockets, which would probably be useful, all things considered. His boots are the same color. In place of a mask, the boy’s face has goggles, silver with green lenses.
“Welcome to the team!” Ladybug cheers.
“Thanks,” he says hesitantly, “Uh, should I decide on a name soon or…?”
“No, no, take your time,” she reassures, ”I was honestly surprised how easily the others were able to decide on a name.”
“Okay.”
She leads him to the rooftops, giving him time to adjust to being transformed.
Eventually, he seems to catch on pretty well and gives her a small smile. She gives a thumbs up, and he follows her to the attack. Even if her yo-yo didn’t show her where Chat is, following the path of destruction would have been easy enough.
Chat spots them approaching and meets them halfway, “Welcome back, LB. Good to see you got help.”
“Uh, I’m not so sure about that,” the turtle hero admits.
“We’ll see. I have faith in you!”
The turtle smiles awkwardly.
A loud crash nearby reminds them why they’re here.
“Right, Stoneheart,” Ladybug sighs, “Any luck on finding the object Chat?”
“No, sorry Bug.”
“Alright.”
She pauses, thinking. Stoneheart doesn’t seem particularly focused, which is strange. Not that he’d been particularly dedicated before, but really… he’s only making a mess.
It’s… odd. She wouldn’t complain though. The fact that many akuma’s weren’t exactly the best minions made their job easier.
“I guess, let’s just try and take him down. He doesn’t have any sort of goal we can take advantage of, so I’m really not sure,” she admits.
So that’s how they go about it. On the bright side, the turtle hero got plenty of practice with running around Parisian rooftops with a miraculous. It was unusually simple, and they were able to follow Stoneheart around without much issue. He didn’t really try to go after them, and Hawkmoth began to contact him more and more so they got the feeling that there wasn’t a grand plan to be concerned about.
As they follow him from the rooftops, Chat notices something. At first, it’s so tiny, he thinks he just saw it wrong, but he can’t shake the feeling off.
Curiosity killed the cat, so maybe he just wants to learn more. For whatever reason, he focuses on it.
It’s a tiny black dot, seemingly with a white design of some sort.
That’s promising.
“Ladybug!” he calls to his partner, who has been visibly slowing down the longer they’ve been out, “I think I found something!”
He doesn’t want to be too blunt, because he doesn't want to risk setting off Stoneheart.
Ladybug and the turtle hero cross the street over to him. The boy in green speaks first, “Did you find the object?”
“Yeah. Or, at least, I think so. It looks like he’s holding something in between his fingers. It’s really small, but it’s our best bet so far. Worst case scenario we have to recharge.”
“Okay, what do you want me to do?”
Chat takes in the two before him, Ladybug, who was beginning to slump and hasn't really been actively involved in their conversation; and their newest team member, who had certainly adjusted to having a miraculous, but likely wouldn’t do well under more stressful actions at the moment.
“I think you and Ladybug can distract him, and I’ll try to get the object from him. I mean, even if I don’t get it, it’s small enough that it could just slip from his hands,” he decides.
“‘Kay,” Ladybug yawns lightly and he smiles at her sympathetically. The turtle hero nods.
“Lucky Charm!”
A cassette player falls into Ladybug’s hands, a tape already inside. A moment passes, and she nods, gesturing for the turtle boy to follow her as she swings ahead of Stoneheart. She lands some distance in front of him, standing her ground on the road.
The akuma looks at her disinterestedly, as her teammate lands beside her. She raises the player above her head and presses a button.
With the street being abandoned, the music is easy to hear.
Smelly wolf, smelly wolf
Trapped in the stinky hut.
Stoneheart freezes, then glares at the spotted heroine.
Smelly wolf, smelly wolf
“THAT’S HER SONG!”
I'm gonna kick your....
“YOU CAN’T-” The rest of the sentence is lost to the sound of Stoneheart storming over to the pair, furious.
Ladybug doesn’t react, just blinking at the akuma as she lets the song keep playing.
Smelly wolf, smelly wolf
“Uh, Ladybug?” The boy next to her glances between her and the fast approaching akuma, “He’s kinda’ on ‘is way over.”
She nods.
Not seeing another option, he raises his arm and nervously speaks, “Shell-ter!”
He winces, closing his eyes in case it didn’t work. Maybe he’d done something wrong.
Nothing hits him, and he seems to still be alive, so he hesitantly peeks towards Stoneheart.
A glowing green dome composed of hexagons has formed around them. Stoneheart pounds against it fruitlessly.
“Yay. Good job,” Ladybug cheers. She doesn’t say it particularly energetically, which finally draws his attention to how tired she looks.
He knows she struggles in the cold, but hadn’t realized how much.
Stoneheart continues to beat against the shield as Chat Noir lands behind him quietly. In his anger, the akuma doesn’t realize that something slips loose.
A small black circle falls from his fist, landing on the ground quietly. Chat spots it, extending his baton to carefully drag it safely to himself. He picks it up and crushes it between his fingers.
Stoneheart turns back into Ivan, and after a moment of confusion, the turtle hero figures out how to retract the shield. Ivan looks around in confusion, and the turtle hero manages to mask a frown to help him up.
He may not like Mari’s old class, but clearly he’s already upset, so there’s no need to be rude on top of it.
Hate spawns more hate.
Ladybug throws the charm into the sky, saying the words to restore the city.
As always, it’s like nothing ever happened.
Ladybug yawns again. Chat smiles at her softly, “My Lady, you can head home. I’ve got it from here.”
She opens her mouth to protest, then closing it, nodding. Something in her says she should hug him, so she does.
“Bye, Kitty.” Then they part, and she swings away.
Chat Noir turns to Ivan, “Will you be alright?”
He really doesn’t care why he got akumatized. These people had caused Marinette enough pain that, in his opinion, she shouldn’t care about them.
She’s too kind for that, so he takes that mantle upon himself.
“M-my girlfriend broke up with me. She gave me my pin back,” Ivan mumbles, sounding like he hardly believes it himself.
Chat’s eyes widen. He certainly hadn’t seen that coming.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says automatically.
Ivan nods tearfully and walks off.
“We can get closer to your house before your time runs out,” Chat says to the turtle hero.
When the bracelet begins to give it’s second to last warning, they drop into an alley. Allan hands off the bracelet to the Cat hero.
“You did really well!”
“Thanks,” Allan says, seemingly taken aback.
“I am so proud of you!” Wayzz cheers, “You make a wonderful turtle!”
“Are you free tonight? Ladybug and I have been trying to take our back-ups on patrol to keep you guys in practice. It’ll just be you tonight, but you’ll meet Honey and Kit eventually.”
“Uh, yeah. Will ya’ just come by my house or…?”
“Yep! Thanks for helping us out!” Chat gives a two finger salute as he takes off again.
---
Adrien has finally made it back to the house. He walks into the house to see Father waiting for him.
That’s never a good sign.
“Adrien. You are two minutes and seventeen seconds late,” The man reprimands, “I have taken the time out of my day to speak with me and you cannot bother to respect that?”
“Sorry Father, traffic-”
“I do not want your excuses. You have wasted enough of my time as it is.”
“Yes, Father.” Adrien looks at the floor.
“I have put much thought into this, and I have decided to reward you with a privilege I previously would not grant you,” Gabriel declares drily, “You will have a girlfriend.”
Before Adrien can even process what his Father told him, the man continues.
“Lila Rossi has proven to be a worthy enough individual to co-represent the Agreste brand. A budding relationship with another high status individual may prove to be more profitable than your availability, if the research is to be believed.”
His heartbeat pounds in his ears. What?
“She will also be able to monitor you at school to be sure that no.. unsavory individuals can bother you.”
He can’t breathe.
“You should be honored that a girl such as herself is willing to put up with the many potential downsides that will come with dating someone with your lifestyle. She has graciously offered to plan all your dates herself, and will contact Nathalie so that they will be scheduled accordingly. She has been given access to the tracking system on your phone so that she will be able to find you even when you are busy and cannot tell her where you are. We decided that this would be easier than her being forced to call Nathalie anytime she wished to spend extra time with you.”
Adrien assumes that this is all, but Gabriel continues, “Finally, she informed me that your recent misconduct is due to the influence of several problem people. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Claude De Rosier, Allegra Coudriet, Allan Poirot, and Felix Voclain. Your number has been changed to keep them from contacting you. Frankly, I am disappointed that you were incapable of identifying this yourself. You should be aware that people such as this only want to use you for your money. You are of no use to them otherwise. That is all. Go to your room now.”
“Yes, Father.” Adrien barely manages to keep the stutter from his voice as he robotically makes his way to his room.
Somehow, he sits on his desk chair.
He can’t breathe, and everything is spinning. The thud of his pulse in his ears is just emphasizing the world closing in on him.
He’s shaking and there’s nothing to do to stop it. His mind is reeling. There’s no way that just happened. No way.
It’s impossible.
It has to be.
Dating Lila.
He’s going to be sick.
He’s going to die.
This can’t be real.
No.
No no no.
No no no no nonononononono.
A voice says something. He can’t make it out.
“Kid.” the voice again. Plagg.
He tries to look, but his vision is filled with tears, and everything is blurry.
“Adrien. You need to breathe,” Plagg says seriously.
Adrien shakes his head. He can’t breathe, he can’t.
“You’re having a panic attack.”
What?
“Come on, breathe in.” Plagg begins to count.
Adrien tries, he really does. He inhales shakily, but not even halfway through the counting he chokes on it, his hyperventilating fighting him.
“It’s okay. Try again.” Plagg stays calm, counting again.
Plagg continues to lead his breathing for what feels like forever. Eventually, the room stops spinning, and his pounding heartbeat is no longer taking over his thoughts.
Utterly exhausted, Adrien goes to his bed, curls into a ball, and goes to sleep.
---
Author’s Note: Hooo boy. This chapter has a lot.
Yay for our turtle hero! I'm going with the name Tortue Verte for now, but I'm not particularly sold. His name has been changed four times now. For whatever reason I just can't think of one. Though I've been looking at so many types of turtles, I suppose I haven't given any one name time to settle. Reference slides for Allan's hero outfit here.
Oh hey, I'm back now. What was just a line break to you guys was... *checks time* over one hour of redesigning Allan's entire outfit as quickly as I could.
Anyways, that last scene. I did not like writing that. For something so short, especially considering that I already knew what I was writing, it took me a while. It was not fun to write.
For those of you that skipped it (mental health is important, that's fine), the gist of it is that Gabriel is 'graciously allowing' (read: forcing) Adrien to date Lila. Adrien's real friends have been labeled as bad influences and he is not allowed to contact them. His number was changed.
My poor baby.
Hey, it's International Fanworks Day! Should I post something for it? The prompt is characters reading fanfics about themselves if I remember correctly?
I feel like there was something else? Who knows.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any thoughts, theories, constructive criticism, or anything really in my ask box, in replies or through reblogs. I love seeing what you think!
Edit: Hey, everyone!!! Thanks to Roman's 6:23KJV, you'll be getting some positivity at the end of the rougher chapters to ease the pain, especially if there is no comfort in the chapter itself. I may need reminders though, but feel free to tell me if I post a chapter you think warrants some happiness. I compiled some stuff, which you can find here. Love you guys!
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