AN: I am sssooo sorry I've been away from this story for so long. Like, a year long. I've no excuses, just new ideas often make me lose that excitement over other WIPs I already have.

I have this plan in my head that as I have so many fics and I feel bad for working on exactly zero of them during my 2 weeks off work, I plan to do a new chapter on each before I return to one I've just updated, so you'll have to wait till I've done a new chapter of A Crushing Revelation, Clowder, Rite of Passage, Roofie and A Feline's Family before I write more for this story again.

Recap: Adrien and Nino found themselves in an alternate timeline where Hawkmoth never attacked and so the Miraculous heroes were never chosen. Marinette has no memory of Adrien as her husband, but has grown closer to him over time spent trying to help with the situation. Discovering they have doubles in this universe, and that alternate Adrien appears to have the Peacock kwami obsessed with him while he sleeps has lead to an investigation, which Master Fu is helping with. But things didn't go to plan when Chat laid eyes on his long lost mother and dropped his transformation...

Now: Marinette has now lost all communication with Chat and desperately races to the mansion to find out what has become of them

When she'd suddenly lost contact with Chat, the phone screen going black and the speaker frustrating silent, Marinette's first instinct had been to get to him as quickly as she possibly could. The Agreste mansion was frustratingly far enough from her apartment that she couldn't expect to get there safely on foot, and it's not like there was any public transport running during the night, so she'd called a cab and grabbed for her bank card – dwindling money be damned. When they had arrived, the driver had asked three times if she wanted him to wait before finally departing, clearly not expecting the pyjama-clad young woman to be given entry to the famous family's home at 4:32 on a Saturday morning. Given that she had no idea what sort of welcome she might be offered, or who might be the one to let her in (if she got in at all), she insisted he leave to avoid any more suspicious eyes catching sight of the heroes.

Steeling herself and preparing to scale the ominous-looking walls if she needed to, Marinette pressed the entry buzzer repeatedly, even jamming it down until she realised that it wasn't designed to continue sounding that way and resorted to tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for some kind of response.

"Hello?" a tired and nervous sounding woman said from the intercom speaker.

"I want to see Chat," Marinette demanded, hands wringing behind her back in an effort to release some of her nervous energy without giving away her fear to the camera pointed at her.

"Chat?" the voice asked before another voice sounded in the background, though not loud enough for her to discern words or even the gender of the speaker. "She is?" the woman quietly answered them before returning her attention to Marinette herself, "Please, come in. Quickly."

There was a loud buzz as the gate in front of her swung inwards slightly, barely enough for a body to fit through, and it quickly swung back again the moment Marinette had slipped through the opening, causing her to jump. She quickly dashed to the front door, only jumping for a brief second when a hulking figure of a man opened it inward and gestured for her to come inside with a short jerk of his head.

She followed his silent instruction and found herself in the hallway of the most impressive home she had ever seen, her spike of panic simmering down to a mere discomfort when she spotted a transformed Master Fu gesturing to her from a nearby doorway.

Racing inside, she came across the most surreal scene she had ever set eyes on in her admittedly uninteresting life.

There was a strange sort of sitting area, descended into the floor of what she recognised as the atelier Chat Noir had been standing in when she had lost contact with him. And thereupon the pristine seating was Adrien, Carapace sitting beside him with a hand placed comfortingly on his shoulder as the man rested his face in his cupped palms, elbows leaning against his knees. Opposite him was Gabriel and Emilie Agreste, both looking nervous, but not frightened and both suddenly staring at her with shocked confusion.

Tearing her eyes from them, she looked at the dejected man lifting his face to see the new person who had entered. He was so utterly distraught that Marinette didn't even need to think at all about whether or not it was really her place as she dashed down to meet him, both throwing their arms around one another tightly.

Adrien had no idea why she had been so willing to throw herself into potential danger to check on him, or why she was humouring his need for comfort now. Although, he was willing to admit the tight hug was welcome. More than welcome in fact, it was still a new step up from their recent level of closeness. He was confused but intensely thankful for her lack of issue with their newfound intimacy as he sobbed into the juncture between her neck and shoulder, his tears dripping down to drench her thin pyjama top.

As the worst of his sobs tapered off and awareness of the situation returned fully, he tensed a little. Marinette's hand was still softly running through his hair, petting at the nape of his neck at times and the side of her face nuzzled into him ever so softly –but she was seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was doing this in front of everyone. The alternate versions of his parents were sitting opposite him and he was sure the two turtle-men and his alternate bodyguard were nearby. A suspicion quickly confirmed as he pulled back and looked around the room.

"Can someone get Marinette a robe or something, please?" he choked out, swiftly averting his eyes from her chest as the woman herself seemed to remember just how thin her sleepwear actually was and clamped her arms around herself in a mixture of embarrassment and the chill.

"Oh! Of course," his alternate mother said in apparent horror at her sudden lack of hosting skills for such an insane situation, "Come with me, dear. I'll get you one of mine."

"Actually, I'd rather stay here with Adrien," Marinette said with just a hint of awkwardness, "In case he needs me."

Adrien felt his face warm with fierce adoration for the young woman who both was and wasn't his wife. He eyed the lower lip she was chewing at awkwardly and fought down the desire to kiss her so that she wouldn't be able to continue to mar the soft flesh. "Here," he said suddenly, shrugging off the blue hoodie he was wearing and wrapping it around her shoulders, "you can wear this until mo- Mrs Agreste can find you something else." He cleared his throat loudly in the hopes no one would notice his slip up.

"Thanks, but this'll do – as long as you don't mind." He watched as she slipped her arms into the soft material, zipping up the front and sinking her shoulders down into the warmth he'd left behind. She smiled shyly at him and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before tugging the hood over her head for extra heat.

"The gentlemen were just explaining the –frankly insane– situation to us before you arrived," Gabriel interjected as if from nowhere, causing Marinette and Adrien to jump in surprise, "And as much as I would love to not believe them, I've seen some of their abilities now."

"Not to mention, you're the exact double of my son," said Emilie.

"Of course, he is!" came a sudden shrill voice, "my dumb tomcat here may be many things, but he's not a liar!"

"Hello, Plagg," said Marinette sweetly, holding out a hand for him to land on.

Instead, he dropped himself onto her shoulder on the inside of the hoodie, his voice dropping low conspiratorially as he whispered in her ear, "Thank everything you're here. I'm no good at this comforting bullshit. He's an absolute mess and he needs you."

"Be that as it may," Gabriel continued, "it's an incredibly difficult story to believe. I mean, superheroes? Villains?"

"Adrien actually getting to be his own person?"

"Plagg!" Adrien snapped.

"Okay, dudes! Maybe we should focus a bit?" Carapace said in an awkward attempt to keep the peace. Turning to the couple still dressed in nightclothes and robes he said, "So, we've told you our side. Don't you think we ought to hear you tell us why your Adrien has a kwami flying round his head every night?"

The two looked at each other in some kind of silent discussion for a brief moment, Emilie's eyebrows pulling together in a concerned manner, while Gabriel's expression remained stern and unwavering. As several minutes passed, it was almost like she was trying to telepathically wear him down over something until finally, his face relaxed in defeat.

"Fine," he said as his wife smiled warmly, "But first I need to make some calls. I have a feeling I'm not going to get any work done for the next few days now. And I need to find a task to distract Adrien from this – our Adrien, that is."

"You could always, you know, tell him?" Adrien said with a frown. He felt as Marinette reached out and gripped his hand tightly, intertwining their fingers in a show of support. "He deserves to know about things going on in his own life as much as anyone else does."

He was drastically unprepared for the look of victory that danced across his mother's face as she glanced at his father. "Gabriel and I often have this exact argument," she said.

"He wouldn't understand," he said back to her.

"As Adrien himself, I feel I have to tell you that it's a miserable fucking existence when your father keeps you in the dark on things," he snapped.

"And if you don't tell him we will!"

Adrien raised his eyes to look at the woman beside him, hand still gripped tightly in his as she stood, towering over his seated father as if she was the powerhouse in the room and not the world-famous fashion designer she was raising her voice at.

"What the fuck?!"

As one unit every face in the room turned to the doorway, light from the risen sun pouring in through from the hallway and casting a dark shadow on the floor before the sudden intruder.

A sleep-tousled Adrien Agreste stood in the doorway gaping at them all.

AN: Woop!

So, how will Altdrien react? What do you think of the tension between our Adrien and his dad? Is Marinette getting a little too close to the guy who she married in another life? Is Plagg right to get involved or is it not the best time to rip Gabriel for his less than stellar parenting?

Let me know what you think!

Also, is there anything in the way I write that really annoys you guys? Like, do I use certain words too much, or make the same grammar mistakes over and over again? I ask because I use Grammarly to check my writing and it's made me parnoid about my use of really and actually, so I want to know if it's just Grammarly being a stickler for concise writing or if it's genuinely a problem.

Comments are appreciated!