AN: … You guys asked for it.

Removing the ring under normal circumstances would have posed difficult for Adrien to pull off. That ring offered him freedom, offered him Plagg. Yet, in the heat of the moment, his father's words still echoing across the caverns of his brain (how he was a sentimonster, how he was different), he found himself slipping it off without a second thought.

Yes, he would admit the move hadn't been his brightest, but he needed a clear head. To get away. To escape it all. And that hypothetical image, the one of Plagg staring at him in abject horror, his chosen not even being a human, it was just too much. He couldn't face him — or anyone, for that matter.

Ladybug, apparently, hadn't caught onto that message.

Instead she came to him, hurling piteous pebbles by the riverside and offered a shoulder to lean on. Ladybug gave him warmth. Love.

Home.

As the skies had darkened, evening twisting into night, she had offered him the unthinkable. Not just any home, but hers.

And with that, her identity.

Now, on any other occasion he would have been thrilled. Absolutely over the moon that his teammate was none other than the Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Same girl from his class, same girl who poured her heart and soul into everything and anything she did, be it helping the class or creating new designs. It wasn't that he wasn't. As over the moon as part of him was, he couldn't shake the overbearing cold. It clutched him in its grasp, clawed at him, tore at every scrap of soul in his body until he was left an empty husk, hollow all the way through. Numb.

He'd never been- never felt so, so… betrayed. So broken. Shatterable. His father's words were worse than whatever any of his previous akumas thrown at him. Miraculous cure wouldn't be able to heal all wounds this time.

Only time.

A lot of time.

"My parents say you can take the chaise." Marinette led him into her room, so pink, so her thathe couldn't help but manage a hint of a smile. After spreading out her arms in a sweeping gesture, she started twiddling her thumbs. "So long as we don't- AH you know! No funny business."

He had a feeling his cheeks were as red as hers.

"I really can't thank you enough for this my- uh, Marinette. Thank you." He meant it, too. Without her there was a very distinct possibility he would still be staring off into the Seine, night having swallowed him whole. "I'm a gentleman!"

"Yeah, yeah you are." She seemed to shake herself before continuing. "The trouble is all mine. GAH, I mean, no trouble! No trouble! There is… absolutely no trouble with you being here."

Adrien relaxed a little, Marinette's fumbling of words not being something he had heard in a while but, nevertheless, still just as adorable as before. The prospect of her tripping over her words in such a way as Ladybug was baffling to say the least, and he had to admit he was confused about its return. Yet it was endearing, a good old dose of classic Marinette to reintroduce a sense of normalcy into his otherwise upturned life.

"Bags! You can unpack here and..." She blinked, as if taking in him and his baggage-less self for the first time (that was, if you didn't count the emotional type.) Adrien sent her a guilty shrug. The plan had been 'get the heck out of that house' and it had only had as much as one step. Remembering to pack had been the least of his worries.

"Ooooor not… sorry! I'm just so used with Alya and all that- hah, don't need to bother with that then… we'll sort all of this out in the morning. My Papa might have an old shirt you can use." Knowing Marinette's father as he did, having him put in one of his few-sizes-too-big shirts would be enough to have his father, had he been here, faint from the mere idea. O' the audacity! An Agreste in something other than a branded, form fitting outfit? Whatever had the world come to, o' however shall the name live after he had dragged it through the dirt as so? Thankfully, the man was nowhere in sight and he couldn't help but grin at the thought. Or crumble. Grumble- uh, no, he didn't mean that at all! Was it right to be thankful he was gone yet miss home all the same?

Adrien let out another thank you before his thoughts drew him in too deep again.

"Heh, um, anyway." Marinette sobered up — well, not literally considering she wasn't ever drunk in the first place, in the very least he assumed so but you kind of never knew with this girl — her whole demeanour shifted into a self-dubbed business mode™, eyes brimming with concern. She spoke softer, "Are you going to be okay? I need to use the bathroom to dress and I don't want to leave you on your own for a while. Tikki's in here and I know you have Plagg but-" The namedrop of his kwami sent a guilty jolt down his spine. "I just don't-"

"I'll be okay- promise!" Adrien hastily added at her dubious expression, "This cat knows how to take care of himself… M'ilady."

It had been the first time he'd reverted back to using one of his many given pet names from their superhero dynamic. It was odd, no masks, but despite all else they were still them. They were treading in new waters now and it just felt… right. Peculiar. But right.

That seemed to ease her as she offered up a playful smile, glad to return to some sort of norm. Marinette proceeded to dive for her clothing chest, pulling out a pair of pyjamas he recognised fondly, albeit with a hint of embarrassment. They had to have been a pair she designed herself — the aspiring designer she was — with her floral insignia printed over the plain white spaghetti strap top. Incidentally, it was the pair she wore as they ran across Paris, escaping from the rabid sea of fans who may as well have been bloodhounds with how they managed to track them down (they latched onto anything really.) He really did feel bad about dragging her into all of that, but hey, it made for a fun, interesting day out.

The trapdoor shut behind Marinette with a thud, her pigtails bobbing as they disappeared down below. His heart fluttered out to her from his partner's display of kindness, before the weighty knot returned as it hit him just why she had to do so in the first place.

It took a moment before he registered the cold metal that brushed against his fingertips, the action had long since become an unconscious habit. His ring (Plagg) still sat at the bottom of his pocket, cold to the touch.

He'd slipped it off in the heat of the moment, a need to get away away away. The air had long since chilled by now.

Releasing that one traitorous breath he didn't recall holding, Adrien slipped his Miraculous back on. A simple action but…

With a burst of acidic green (the colour of just how queasy he felt), Plagg materialised in front of him just as he had done before, though lacking the grumbling.

Instead: "Kid, what were you-" A pause as he went uncharacteristically sombre. "Oh, Adrien. I- where's some good cheese when you need it the most? Mmmm, Camembert, that sweet gooey texture always makes me feel better."

Of course it was cheese he wanted to give him. But, as he'd learned in recent months, it was a way of showing he cared. In typical 'Plaggy' terms, that was.

"We're at Marinette's, I doubt she has hordes of camembert to prepare just for the likes of you. I think her parents sell cheese pasties-" He didn't miss the way Plagg's eyes gleamed. "But don't get any ideas, her family has already done enough for me. I'm not stealing from them!"

"For you maybe." Adrien's cast him what could only be summed up as an 'are you kidding me' look. "Alright, alright!"

After raising up his paw stubs in a defensive manner and floating back to a comfortable distance, Plagg visibly drooped.

"… I'm sorry, Adrien." The use of his name alone raised red flags, especially paired with an apology. He'd known there'd be something or other coming from Plagg about all of… this. But an apology? What in the name of Dieu did his kwami feel the need to apologise for?

"I take it you're not apologising because you suggested theft." Which, he should mention, isn't what you'd call a good idea (Thought he'd put that in there to be doubly sure, just before some angry reader commented that he was promoting cheese theft. He was in fact not. Plagg was.)

"Eh nah. That was a good idea. I'm hungry." See what he meant? Still, he knew exactly what Plagg was doing here. Simple lighten the mood, distract the other from whatever was plaguing (hah) their thoughts. He knew this, it was a Chat Noir™ tactic.

"When are you not?"

A deep, clearly unnecessary breath. Did kwamis even have respiratory systems? "Kid, I-" Plagg let loose a groan. "Gah, I'm not good with this mushy stuff, but eh, I guess I'm doing this now because of your influence on me."

"You're a good kid Adrien, and not that bad of a Chat Noir — trust me, you are. You're one of the most human I know. You see the good in people, may be a bit naive at times, and I sure don't but, eh, I mean what I say. You're one of my kittens, and I'll be damned if clip-on-tie gets his hands back on you."

"You think I care you're not human? You may have not noticed, but neither am I. And I'd say I'm real, heh, the dinosaurs sure knew that."

"I guess what I'm saying here is you don't have to be human to be a person." The kwami froze, instantaneously becoming all too aware of the dead silence that encompassed the room. He floated closer to his chosen. "Kid? Kid? Are you- oh."

Adrien swiped a sleeve across his face, doing his best attempt at drying up the cascade of tears that had managed to fall outside of his awareness. Though, unlike the blotchy, heartbroken tears of earlier, these new ones shimmered with a heartwarming emotion he had been starting to miss. Joy.

Had he not been focusing on the swell of emotions he was currently under, he may have stopped to wonder where all of these tears had come from. Hadn't there been enough shed today already?

(But for once, he didn't mind that someone had left the faucet running.)

Plagg exhaled an emphatic 'Kid' before nuzzling into Adrien's cheek, the latter bringing his hands up to cradle him.

"Thank you, Plagg," He murmured, taking no notice of how his efforts to clean away tears were wasted, "I needed that."

Surprise of the day: Plagg could be quite the motivational speaker when he cared for it. Adrien may have even teased him about this new discovery, had he not felt like shattered china. Right now he was grateful for it, a small segment of his heart began to pulsate with warmth, tethering up a segment, and cracking on that glue.

Having his kwami there for him in that moment was just enough.

(And Tikki, munching a cookie on a shelf, couldn't have been prouder.)

AN: Started this the same week as I posted part one, and figured I should start clearing out my docs... so here we are. Into the next year XD Happy 2020

(Once again hope characters are, you know, in character.)