Work Text:
1.
“Adrien, your photoshoot has been moved.” Gabriel pushes open the door to his son’s bedroom, eyes scanning the tablet in front of him. “Nathalie will send you your new schedule for—”
His gaze flickers up, locking on the blonde sitting on the edge of his bed as well as the red-and-black-spotted heroine crouched in front of him. Her hands on his knees, spreading his legs wide, face mere inches from his crotch, her blue eyes are wide with fright. A bright red has stained Adrien’s face, from the tips of his ears to the nape of his neck. Neither make an effort to correct their precarious positions.
There’s a stillness that follows his arrival, and all occupants freeze as they realize the predicament they’ve found themselves in. Gabriel’s mouth drops open, questions he’s not sure he even wants answers to on the tip of his tongue, but he still feels the need to ask.
“Adrien,” he begins, “Why is there a superhero in your room?”
“N-Nice to meet you, Mr. Agreste.” Ladybug flashes him a warm but shaky smile, hands slipping from Adrien’s knees to his inner thighs. “I was just passing by.”
The uncomfortable silence hangs heavy in the space between them. “Is there a reason you’re looking at my son’s genitalia?”
Adrien lets out a low groan, falling back on the bed with a muffled thump, and Gabriel double-checks that Ladybug’s hands haven’t moved. Grabbing a pillow, Adrien drapes it over his face to hide from his friend and father, refusing to come out for air.
There’s a quiet rustle as Ladybug pushes herself to her feet, giving Adrien a hearty pat on the meat of his thigh. “Well, Adrien, I’m happy to say you didn’t split your pants when you fell down the stairs.”
“Thanks, Ladybug,” squeaked Adrien from beneath his pillow.
The superheroine jumps onto the edge of the window she’d obviously climbed through and sends them both a small wave of farewell as she pulls back her arm and flings her yo-yo out into the city. With a zip, she’s gone, vanishing over the gate that borders the Agreste mansion. Gabriel reminds himself to change the locks on his son’s window.
Speaking of his son…
“Adrien,” Gabriel begins, but he’s not actually sure what you’re supposed to say when you’ve stumbled into a room with your son and your archenemy. For some reason, the Parenting Handbook didn’t cover this section.
“Please,” Adrien begs, finally relenting in his attempt to suffocate himself. “I fell down the stairs at school. I was just lucky Ladybug was swinging by and helped me home.”
Okay, he tells himself, it’s better than I thought. A superhero who is worried for her citizens is something he can accept, but the possible alternatives that could be occur still frighten him. For good measure, he tells himself to make sure that Nathalie has the Superhero and Sex Talk™ with Adrien later on.
“Next time,” he tells his son, “Have her drop you off at the front door.”
2.
After the akuma that recently ravaged central Paris, Gabriel hightails it to his son’s bedroom because the akumas as of late have a tendency to seek out Adrien for some odd reason. (Honestly though, it’s cutting too close to home, and he worries that his secret might be found out, and then what is he supposed to do?) The last place he’d seen Adrien was buried under a stack of books in the top corner of his bedroom, reading about some subject for a school report, before the akuma had slipped in through a top window.
He’s serious about changing those locks now.
As soon as his hand touches the knob, the voices filtering out from behind the maple wood door are crisp and crystal clear. It leaves him shivering in his Florsheim Castellano Wing-Tipped shoes.
“—you could have died, you know.”
There’s a huff that follows. “I can take care of myself, Ladybug.”
“Seriously,” the superheroine says as Gabriel slowly pushes open the door, peering into the room with a curious eye. “The akuma had a bow and arrow. You know, a sharp thing. You’re gonna be a kabob one of these days if you don’t stay out of the way.”
Ladybug is sitting on the window sill, hands curled around the edges to keep herself balanced. Adrien, on the other hand, stands in front of her, arms crossed against his chest as he stares up at her with a wry smile. Both are too engaged with one another, lost between the words and quiet stares, so Gabriel steps into the room unnoticed.
“I can help you,” Adrien tells her in a serious tone. “Sometimes Chat Noir isn’t there, and you can’t do it alone.”
“You don’t have powers!” Ladybug says.
“I-I’m learning to… parkour!” Adrien snaps back.
“Use the front door,” Gabriel sighs.
Heads whip towards him at the sound of his voice, eyes wide with fright. Gabriel, meanwhile, side-eyes the climbing wall and skateboard ramp above him. Perhaps he should have those uninstalled and smother Adrien’s superhero dreams before they can spark to life. It’s what every responsible supervillain father should do. He’s sure of it.
“S-Sorry, Sir,” stammers a blushing Ladybug. “He was in the middle of an akuma attack, Sir, and I wanted to make sure he got home safe.”
“Yes,” Gabriel says matter-of-factly. “You have a habit of saving the day.”
He’s sick of it.
“She’s just doing her job, Father,” Adrien interjects, as if he has to come to her rescue, and Gabriel really has to break him of that before he gets hurt. Even if he hates her, he admits that Ladybug has a point. Adrien needs to stay out of the way.
“Well I’m glad you're safe, Adrien,” he announces before nodding to the window. “Ladybug, I don’t believe your services are necessary any longer.”
The superhero wastes no time in taking her leave.
Adrien buries his face in his hands.
(Gabriel really needs to get those locks fixed.)
In effort to destroy Adrien’s dreams of being a superhero, he lays off the akumas for a week.
Paris throws a parade.
3.
Ladybug’s wide eyes greet him the moment he opens Adrien’s door.
The smack of Gabriel’s hand smacking his forehead is audible in the silence that follows. This typical routine is becoming too much for him to handle, and he figures he’d have better luck if he created akumas to bodyguard Adrien versus the current plan of them wrecking havoc on the city. Ladybug seems to spend everyday in his son’s vicinity anyway.
“Is there a reason you’re in my son’s bedroom?” he asks her, too afraid of her answer.
“Physics homework,” is the only one she offers though.
“I’m tutoring her,” Adrien supplies.
It takes him a moment to spot the textbooks strewn across the floor, the papers piled up around the pair as they pour over equations and theories. Both smile innocently as if they have nothing to hide, but Gabriel remembers being a teenager. He remembers what happens when they think they’re alone, when they develop things called relationships and try to hide them from parents.
Back in his day, physics really meant chemistry, and they studied the spring constant of mattresses (again and again and again).
“Ladybug,” Gabriel says politely, “Go home.”
“Father, she’s going to fail.” Adrien was very concerned.
Too bad, so sad. Gabriel always fails to steal the Miraculous when Ladybug and Chat Noir foil his plans, then at least he can return the favor with Ladybug’s physics grade. And protect his son’s chemistry grade.
After Ladybug has vacated the premises, Gabriel turns on his son with a stern expression. “Adrien,” he says, “No studying with or saving superheroes.”
He doesn’t give him time argue.
He sends Nathalie an outline of his pre-approved Sex Talk to share with Adrien.
She emails it back with a note to “tell him yourself.”
It’s a traumatic experience for both father and son.
4.
This time there are dark circles under Adrien’s eyes as he stares at the ground, refusing to meet Ladybug’s icy glare. He fingers the silver ring on his hand, the one Gabriel still can’t remember gifting his son with, the one that tugs on the corner of his mind, alerting him to some grand revelation he has yet to discover. Ladybug, on the other hand, stands across from him with hands on her hips and lips pursed in a thin line.
“Ladybug,” he announces, startling both from their showdown. “I see you still haven’t managed to learn how to use a front door.”
The glare Ladybug flashes him is full of frost and fear. It startles him somewhat, and it’s enough to freeze him in his tracks. “Don’t worry, Mr. Agreste, I was just leaving.”
To Adrien, she says, “If you knew, you should’ve told me.”
“You didn’t want to know.”
“This… This I would’ve.”
She disappears out of the unlocked window, and Gabriel has changed the fucking locks twice already, so now he’s going to have an aneurysm. But there's more important things going on right now. Adrien collapses in on himself again, and it’s clear he’s hurting but not in any way that can fixed with bandages or medicine. That much is, at least, clear. Gabriel wonders what he should do as he never learned the proper protocol for comforting a broken teenager.
Siri, how do I hug a fifteen-year-old?
He pats Adrien a few times on the shoulder. “There, there.”
Adrien cringes away from him.
Gabriel reads a parenting book for teenagers that night. It doesn’t help.
He makes sure to send Ladybug extra vicious akumas the next few days.
It’s the least he can do.
5.
There’s a crash that pulls him to Adrien’s room a few days later. He is prepared to yell at his son for trying to parkour or whatever the fuck he’s decided on as his current hobby, but the sight that greets him is something he should have really seen coming. Ladybug and Adrien are against the wall, Adrien pinned under the superhero’s hands, as they kiss each other breathless.
Gabriel is not drunk enough to deal with this.
He slams the door closed as quickly as he opened it, still catching a glimpse of their startled faces and Adrien’s rushed, “You didn’t say no dating!” over his shoulder, and wishes that there was something he could do to stop his son from dating a superhero. Despite going against his wishes, he really hadn’t forbade him from dating a superhero, so honestly… his hands are tied.
Admit defeat when you’re wrong, the parenting handbook had said.
Gabriel decides to take one for the team.
He still buys Adrien a box of condoms and puts them on his bed for the next time Ladybug inevitably sneaks in through the window.
He could hear his son’s scream from across the house.
+1.
He opens the door to find Chat Noir perched on the top window of Adrien’s bedroom, one leg hitched over the sill as if he’s attempting to break in or out. From the bathroom, there’s the sound of the shower. Both superhero and father track the trail from the shower, to the open box of condoms on the bed, and to the leather-clad superhero sneaking into the bedroom.
“I-I can explain,” Chat Noir says.
“Please don’t,” Gabriel begs.
Chat Noir leaves.
The next day, Gabriel makes a sizeable donation to a local LGBT+ organization.
He has more parenting books to buy.