Olivia Agreste

"Smile, Olivia!" The photographer had said. Olivia did. Adrien did as well, but it was superficial. It was just certain combination of stressed muscles that turned his grimace into something more photogenic. He smiled as he did because he knew from experience that if he didn't then he would only have to pretend longer.

Olivia Agreste, as far as Adrien was concerned, didn't exist. As for the rest of the world, Olivia was Gabriel Agreste's perfect daughter. But Olivia Agreste wasn't real. She was a character that Adrien had no choice but to play. She was a caricature of grace and beauty that dressed up in fancy gowns and attended fancy parties and charmed the masses.

Olivia had been around for seventeen years. She was Adrien's role since he was born, the protagonist he was destined to play. Adrien almost laughed at the irony. The protagonist in this show was more like an antagonist in his life. More than just the antagonist, Olivia was the scariest antagonist there could be. She was the villain who could turn yourself against you. The villain who stole your body, who convinced the world you aren't really you, and who you're forced to imitate. In a lot of ways, she seemed to Adrien to be frighteningly similar to an akuma.

Adrien really just wanted to stop acting for a moment. He wanted to go out and not have to hear about Olivia. He was a good actor, a very good one, but no one can stay in character for seventeen years.

But he couldn't break character. People needed Olivia. People wanted Olivia. Not like Adrien. Whenever Adrien showed up anywhere people just asked where Olivia went. "That's not the way a proper lady acts, Olivia." They'd say, or they'd tell him, "Honey, those clothes are for boys! You should get something cuter." (Adrien honestly thought he looked cute in his button-up and suspenders but it didn't matter what he thought anyway.) Every second he went out as himself, people reminded him how he'd never be able to measure up to Olivia. How he was a disgrace to Olivia. How terrible it was that he decided to show up instead of her. If Adrien had to hear one more lament, he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle it.

So he stopped listening.

Olivia Agreste's tragedy was in its final act, and Adrien didn't care anymore whether the audience wanted an encore. That was a performance that would not be repeated.

Adrien had cut his hair years ago, that wasn't an issue even with his father. Stylists could do just about anything, anyway. It was, strangely enough, binding that freed him. He'd never worn a binder to a photo shoot before. They always asked for Olivia, after all, so why would he? But he was experienced with wearing them, since he often wore one to school.

"Here is your schedule, Adrien." Natalie said one Monday morning, handing him a tablet. He glanced at it, his schedule rarely changed much, but shoot times could occasionally vary pretty widely and he needed to know when he wouldn't be able to patrol with Ladybug

"Thank you, Natalie." He responded, handing her the tablet back. His next shoot would be that afternoon, and he didn't have any late shoots that week, so he could just check his computer for his schedule if he needed to look at it again.

He didn't need to convince the driver to bring him back home after school, rather than heading straight to the photo shoot. The large man was accustomed to this extra stop. At first, Adrien said he wanted to just drop off his bag, and he never asked questions. It wasn't his job to ask questions, just to drive. It was when the man smuggled the new binder Adrien had bought online to him from the post office (keeping the package far away from his father), without being asked, that Adrien admitted to him that the real reason he needed to go home before a shoot was to take off the binder he wore, if he wore one that day.

The driver didn't ask questions, and Adrien was thankful for that.

That day though, the stop was for the exact opposite reason. Adrien didn't wear his binder to school, since he had planned that morning to wear it to the shoot and he was always cautious about wearing it too long. If he hurt himself he might not ever be able to wear it, which is something he would classify as very bad. He didn't plan on actually modelling that day. No doubt there'd only be women's clothes set out for him, and he'd decided that that was the day he'd put a stop to it. The real reason he wanted to wear the binder to the shoot was because he wanted to be as Adrien as possible, to make it clear to everyone exactly who he was.

So he carefully put it on and returned to the car. If the driver noticed anything, he didn't mention it.

Arriving at the set, Adrien heard something he'd heard many times before. "Oh Olivia! There you are! I don't know why you dress like that all the time, you'd look so much better if you stopped dressing like a boy."

"I am a boy." Adrien said, not even bothering to step four feet from the car after climbing out. He felt himself buzz with nerves as he looked the photographer in the eyes with practiced control. "And it's Adrien, please."

Natalie rushed over to them. "Olivia, what are you doing? You need to get to work."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry Natalie, but I can't keep modelling girl clothes. I'm done. If you want me to model boy's or gender-neutral clothes, I will, but I can't do that anymore." Sighing, he gestured to the dress someone was carrying over to them.

Natalie hesitated to answer, and when she did her voice was careful and neutral. "Adrien, if you make a fuss, then your father will find out."

"That's fine. I just can't keep doing this."

He held her gaze for a few moments before she closed her eyes and nodded. "I'll do what I can to smooth this over with the company, but with your father…"

"I know. Thank you. I'll talk to him." He knew his voice shook when he said it, and watching Natalie's detached expression turn into one of concern as she pat his shoulder gently left him nearly on the verge of tears.

Because he was terrified, he essentially quit a job, which would be enough of a reason to be frightened of repercussions, and he was going to tell his father what he would and wouldn't do, something his father always decided. What would this mean for his future, his career, his life? Would his father pull him out of school, to homeschool him again? Would his father ignore him, and keep setting him up to model women's lines? Would this ruin his career as a model in the first place?

Because he was happy, he'd only seen Natalie allow herself to care for him twice. Even on his birthdays, or on holidays, when he was all alone, she'd kept carefully detached. He knew she just didn't want to cause trouble. The only other times she'd given him any sort of comfort was once after he'd gotten injured fighting an akuma (she didn't know the real reason he was injured though, of course). She had broken down then and went full mom-mode, doting on him until he recovered. Their relationship was never quite the same after that, but she went back to being a more distant figure after he returned to his normal schedule. The second time was when he first asked her to call him Adrien. That time was a lot more like this most recent one. She gave him a look that he could only read as worry mixed with pride, and silently supported him and his decisions with a nod.

Because he was relieved, he was confronting this, finally. No matter the outcome, soon it would be in the open and behind him. No more wondering, dancing around words, acting. No more Olivia. Adrien hoped he finally had the courage to stick to that, no matter what his father's response was.

Plagg

It's when the low points hit, Adrien figured out, that one can most easily identify their friends. Plagg, with his cheese stench and troublesome attitude, was a rope bridge across the chasm.

It was absolutely terrifying, in the most awestriking way. As you step onto it, letting it support more and more of your weight, it creaks and sways and when you're totally one hundred percent reliant on it, it keeps swaying and bouncing and throwing you off balance. It's unpredictable and can occasionally be stressful, but the one thing it never does is give out.

Plagg was always, always, there to support Adrien when he was needed. And it took Adrien a long while to figure it out, but Plagg's dismissive, simplistic answers to his problems weren't jokes at all. If Adrien was legitimately distressed by something, Plagg was totally serious. And often, he was right.

"Plagg, how do you think my father's going to react?" Adrien asked nervously, hiding in a secluded spot at the park and trying desperately to prolong his outing. His father wouldn't be home, but that house was the last place Adrien wanted to be at the moment, so he told Natalie he was going out and left.

"Why would I know?" Plagg said lazily. "You usually see him yourself." He yawned, stretching his mouth to an almost comical proportion of his face, and then looked over, sighing. "Fine. I don't think he'll care."

"You… don't?" Adrien asked. He had a hard time imagining his father not angry with him.

"Oh, he'll be pissed at you, definitely." Plagg yawned again, making Adrien yawn in response. "But that's because you skipped today's shoot. Even if he doesn't like it, as long as you refuse to model girl stuff he'd rather set you up with boy stuff than lose the money."

Adrien wasn't sure whether that made him feel better. But Plagg wasn't one to sugarcoat the truth, it was like looking through the boards and clearly seeing the rocks and rapids under him as he crossed the bridge. Nothing was hidden, and in a way Adrien was thankful for that too. Plagg was the only place he got that.

Adrien saw Plagg look at him. Plagg did that sometimes. He looked at him with an odd expression, considering, calculating even. His ear twitched as he dismissed some thought that must have occurred to him (Adrien knew because he had the same habit as Chat Noir), and his deep green eyes looked straight into Adrien, seeing something deeper that Adrien couldn't even imagine.

His lips twitched, and he flashed his fangs. "Do you want to be Chat for a while?"

Adrien swallowed his own saliva, hoping it would do something for his dry throat, and nodded.

He wasn't sure what it was about the transformation, whether it was magic or just a really effective suit, but he was always pleased to find that when he ended up clad in tight leather, he was almost totally flat-chested. He could still feel his breasts, and he once had to unzip the suit to get access to an injury, so he knew they were still there, but the skintight suit gave him the figure of a boy, and it didn't feel any more constricting than normal spandex would.

It made him feel good, free, not perfect, but a whole lot closer to being comfortable in his body. It also helped that the entirety of Paris called him a boy without question. Even Ladybug had no idea. Adrien remembered when he first met her, she jumped in to save him from an akuma (which he learned very quickly could not be dealt with very easily on his own). He, of course, said something particularly exasperating in the midst of his harmless flirting after the akuma had been cleansed, and Ladybug threw her hands up and turned away, muttering, "Boys."

She had no idea that he was too overcome with glee to be even the tiniest bit offended by that.

Ladybug has since found out, but it was still a tightly kept secret from the rest of Paris. Adrien desperately just wanted that one place where he wasn't a girl, and he wasn't a trans boy, instead he was just a boy. He knew how lucky he was to have that, and though he would scream from the rooftops that it was Ladybug's influence (Ladybugs bring good luck, after all), he knew that was far from the truth. Ladybug was one of the luckiest things to happen to him, yes, but he only had the opportunity to be himself, and the opportunity to meet her, because of Plagg.

It was just like that kwami to be both infuriating and the best thing in his life.

Ladybug

Ladybug would probably disagree with him, but Adrien thought that it wasn't worth it to live his life for other people.

It was the fundamental difference between them, he figured, that he did things selfishly and her, altruistically. But it wasn't a bad thing and he wasn't ashamed of it.

When he sat on a tall building, looking out over the Parisian cityscape, he saw thousands upon thousands of people going about their own lives, with their own problems, their own drama, their own solutions, their own happiness. It always struck him when he realized just how many people lived their lives one hundred percent separated from his own, or with only fleeting encounters between them. How many people, he thought, would not even notice if he wasn't there?

Well, not Chat Noir, maybe, not in Paris, but Adrien Agreste. Who in the city would even care?

It occurred to Adrien that he could consider that thought two different ways. He could accept the truth, that most people don't even know he exists in the first place, and his disappearance wouldn't affect their lives in the slightest, and he could take that as a sign that his life doesn't matter. He could devote his life to being as important as possible, turn into a philanthropic businessman and do everything he could to touch as many people as possible (and he knew on some level that he'd never be satisfied, he'd make his mark but he'd never touch enough people) or he could end it all. What would it matter anyway, really, when there's maybe three people in the world who give a crap about him?

Or, and this is how he preferred to look at it (though he occasionally lapsed into the more damaging thoughts), he could take his inconsequence as a sign that he should stop worrying. He'd never help enough people, touch enough lives, and he wasn't convinced that if he did he'd do it in the right way. So instead he decided that he should live his life the way he wanted to, the way that made him comfortable. After all, how many people would really be affected by his choices anyway, in the grand scheme of things?

He just had to have faith that any ripples he caused would do more good than bad.

So he did things selfishly. If he didn't feel good by being Chat Noir, protecting the citizens of Paris, and being with Ladybug, he wasn't sure he would. In fact, he was fairly certain Paris would have to live without its black cat. But he loved all of those things, and that's why he was there. He was there because he enjoyed it, and little more than that. Everything else was just happy coincidence, really.

Ladybug was a shining star, and he was enraptured by her. She caught him in her orbit and she kept on shining bright. As far as Adrien was concerned, she was the reason the city of light lived up to its name.

And if she was a star, he was a satellite. A planet, an asteroid, it didn't matter. He got caught up by her, and if he shone, well, that's mostly just reflected light. That was perfectly okay with him though, after all, who else gets to bask in her light so closely? He got to soak up the warmth and do his own small part to make sure she knew just how wonderful she was.

The phone in his baton rang, snapping him out of his thoughts.

He answered, delighted to see the spotted mask once again, even if it was through a screen. "Hello, My Lady. You called?"

She looked at him questioningly. "I heard you were out. I'm not busy so I thought I'd just check to make sure everything's okay."

"Purr-fectly fine. I just wanted to get out for a while. No sign of an akuma, if that's what you're worried about."

Ladybug shook her head. "No, that's not what I'm worried about." She pursed her lips. "Are you okay, Tomcat? You look upset."

He gulped. After three years working together so closely, they'd gotten good at reading each other. They don't try quite so actively to hide their identities anymore (both of them were already pretty sure they knew who the other was, anyway), but they still agreed not to reveal themselves. Still, they knew things about each other's personal lives. He knew that she was part Chinese, that she liked fashion and that she designed her own clothes, and that she loved her parents and they loved her. She knew about his fencing, piano, and Chinese lessons, about his deceased mother and about his strained relationship with his father, among other things. "Yeah, I am, a little." He admitted. "I just… I kind of just indirectly came out to my father, and I'm a little afraid to go home."

He watched as her eyes darted across the screen, just below the camera so it appeared to him as if she was looking down slightly, and her eyebrows furrowed together. "I'll be right there." She said simply, ending the call.

The next hour or so for Adrien was filled with embraces, soothing reassurances, and sweet snacks she had brought (and, on Adrien's side, lots of crying, and heartfelt admissions as he told her about all of his fears).

Gabriel Agreste

Gabriel Agreste was waiting for him when he got home that day. Adrien briefly wondered how such a busy man found time to wait forebodingly at the top of the stairs in the entrance hall just to be intimidating when Adrien finally did show up (Most likely he got a heads-up from Natalie since Adrien texted her when he started heading home).

"Would you like to explain just what you were thinking when you ran away from today's photo shoot?" He asked, gazing coldly down at Adrien. He was a glacier. Slow moving, icy cold, harsh, uncaring, and indiscriminate. If anything stayed under his gaze for too long, it'd eventually be swept under and crushed.

Adrien gulped, drawing on the support of Ladybug, Natalie, Plagg, and everyone else to find just enough courage to stand a little straighter and say, "I would, actually." It wasn't lost on Adrien how his father used the stairs to give himself the high ground and literally place himself above whoever he talked to. Adrien knew that tactic, he'd seen it at work many times, and he'd even used it a few times as Chat Noir. So as he started talking, Adrien moved forward, walking up the stairs to his father's level and knowing that that action wouldn't be lost on his father either. "My name," He said, repeating the mantra he'd started so many years ago, "Is Adrien Agreste." His father raised an eyebrow, though Adrien couldn't be sure whether it was to his name or to how aggressively he knew he was approaching. "They kept asking for Olivia, and I'm not doing it anymore. If you want me to keep modelling, I'm going to do it as Adrien."

"Stop talking around the point." His father said coolly, not quite scolding just yet but edging that line.

"I'm a boy." Adrien said. "I'm not a girl so I'm not going to model girl clothes."

They were quiet for a moment, and Adrien reached the step just below the top. "Is that all?" His father asked.

"Yes." He responded, consciously leaving off the "sir" that wanted to add itself to his statement.

Adrien faced akuma on a regular basis. He had faced down lightning, fireballs, torrents of water, a swordsman mime, an actual freaking knight, and even hordes of feral cats; there was no way he'd flinch now of all times, under one man's gaze. He crossed his arms stubbornly and looked his father in the eyes as the older man considered him. "What you did this afternoon was juvenile and irresponsible. If you are dissatisfied with your work, act like an adult and talk to someone about it rather than throwing a tantrum."

"Talk to who, exactly?"

"Me."

"And when was I supposed to do that? I only see you twice a week at most. Sometimes you're gone for months. The last time I tried talking to you about anything, you punished me and told me never to waste your time again."

"I was busy, that was during the-"

"You're always busy!" Adrien felt himself bristle. There was an uncomfortable swelling in his chest that he knew too well for his liking (He hated being angry). "You haven't stopped working for five minutes since I can remember! This was the only way to get your attention long enough for you to actually listen to me, so yeah, I threw a freaking tantrum. What do you expect?"

Adrien glared at his father, standing up quite formidably (in his opinion) to the man. Gabriel Agreste seemed to loom over everything, despite their relatively equal footing, but Adrien was far too accustomed to it, and he had come much too far, to back down. "I will not have my own son talk to me with such insolence." Adrien felt like something had pushed him, or punched him in the gut. He felt off balance, off center, and his stony expression finally dropped in the sheer shock. "Go to your room. We will talk about your punishment after you can speak civilly again."

Adrien felt so thrown off that he couldn't think to argue back, and stumbled quietly to his room. His mind could only think about one thing, how his father had referred to him. "My own son", he had said. "Son".

He was angry, frustrated, and frightened. He felt as if his stomach was tied up in knots and his heart was beating faster than as if he had just fought an akuma. But clinging to one word, said just as coldly as the rest, Adrien dared to find just a tiny bit of hope. A small spark illuminating him, warming the hearth in his too big home. A tiny ember to fight off the chill of the looming glacier inching its way toward him.

Chloe Bourgeois

Adrien, or rather Olivia, still had a shoot the next day. Adrien wasn't sure exactly what his father was going to do, but even if he did support him, that shoot would be inevitable. It was too soon, too important, and far, far too uncomfortable. But Adrien was resolute, Olivia was gone. So he called up the only person he knew who could do anything about it.

Some (or many) wondered why Adrien was still friends with Chloe. Years ago, people thought it was because he didn't have anyone else. He was homeschooled, and Chloe was the only person his age he was ever allowed to play with. Now, he was popular, he had other friends, and he was considered exceptionally kind, so people couldn't help but wonder how he ended up friends with overbearing, aggressive, arrogant Chloe Bourgeois, especially given her persistent advances on him.

Adrien just wondered what he'd do without her.

Chloe was a hurricane. She was a verifiable force of nature who tore her way through whatever was unlucky enough to be put in her path. She was fearless, powerful, and selfish, which like him was the defining feature separating her from Ladybug. But if there's one thing he'd learned, it's that selfishness isn't always a terrible thing.

Never before had Adrien met someone so self-assured and willing to do what was necessary for her own happiness. Adrien knew and acknowledged that in Chloe's case, it could often blind her to other people, but he felt honored that her insistence on her own happiness extended to him as well. Selfish as she was, she protected the ones she cared about, even, as was abundantly clear, if they didn't feel the same way she did.

Adrien was convinced that Chloe would fight for Adrien even harder than Ladybug would, and that was beautiful and terrifying. Like the storm, throwing around cars, carrying with it the storm surge that destroyed everything. It was absolutely horrible, and Adrien couldn't look away. And unlike Ladybug, Chloe fought dirty. She did what it took to get what she wanted done, done.

Like Adrien, who was happier knowing Ladybug was happy than he would be being with her knowing she didn't like him back, Chloe placed his happiness as a priority. That's how he knew her feelings for him weren't as shallow as their classmates believed. But he was selfish, and he couldn't date her because he wouldn't be happy.

Chloe understood that better than anyone, and she respected that. That's why she tried so hard to win his affections, like how he tried so hard to win Ladybug's, and why she never gave up. Because she was selfish as well, and she loved him. It was the best case scenario for her, like Ladybug liking him back would be for him. Chloe was never one to settle for second best, but if he truly found happiness, she wouldn't dream of ruining it.

That's why she had been behind him every step of the way. He remembered as kids, when he was too scared to ask his parents for male clothes, Chloe went out and bought a full wardrobe for him. He remembered when he was first really questioning his gender identity, he asked Chloe "Am I a girl or a boy?" and she responded "You're a treasure." He remembered feeling terrible about his own body, and constantly bothering Chloe with questions about how well he was passing, or how he could pass better, and she was always remarkably patient and always had a clever tip on her tongue, and how after he'd finally settle on an outfit she'd just look him over, or send him a text, telling him how handsome he was. He remembered being nervous when he went to school with everyone else, and how scared he was to come out, knowing that he'd have to answer questions about it at some point, and how Chloe would look him in the eyes with the utmost confidence and tell him "If they can't see how wonderful you are then they don't deserve you anyway" and how at the beginning whenever things would get too overwhelming Chloe would place him in the eye of her storm, keeping out anyone and anything else that dared come close.

So he called her, explained the situation to her, and she was at the set within minutes.

She came in loudly, and from the moment she stepped foot on the grass everyone knew that there was no chance of the shoot happening. She blew in and made short work of the entire thing. A few choice words to a few choice people (and anyone else who was unlucky enough to find themselves on her war path) she was stealing Adrien away and driving him to no particular place except away from the photo shoot.

The two had been friends since childhood, so Chloe needed little more than a glance before telling him, "We're proud of you, you know. All of us." He didn't need to ask to know that she meant his friends. "We only want you to be happy."

They were both silent for a long time. "I know." He said, finally. "I think… I think I am happier. I'm relieved, at least."

She hummed. "You always were better at dealing with consequences than the actual thing. You'll be fine now that the hard part's over."

"I hope so."

"I know so."

Chloe was a hurricane, but no storm on Earth persisted forever. Adrien felt, then, like he was standing out in gentle rain. The pattering was soothing, and the water dripping down his face cooled his heated frustration and anger. Chloe was always there to remind him that he was alive, that he was valued, that he was wanted, and most of all, that he was wanted the way he was, totally and unapologetically.