Song fic based around The Butterfly Effect by FJØRA
Read on Ao3
Link to Chapter 1, Verse One
Link to Chapter 7, Bridge
Read Chapter 8, Chorus Final, below
the butterfly effect
when you open up your soul
Adrien doesn’t think this is his fault. His dream has been playing in the back of his mind on a loop, like an itch he cannot scratch away. Of course he’s going to explore. Of course he’s going to stick his nose into places that he shouldn’t. Of course he’s going to find things that were meant to be hidden away.
Adrien presses his fingers against the mosaic tiles, and doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed to find the safe hidden in his father’s office. It’s another sign his dream had its roots in reality—in another reality.
When he opens the safe, he finds the grimoire from his dreams, but he finds no sign of the Butterfly nor Peacock Miraculouses.
He doesn’t know what he would have done if he had found them. The are almost certainly with the villain who has been terrorizing Paris this past year. He’d have been horrified to find them here.
He doen’t even know why he’s chasing these fragments from his dreams. Does he want proof that the girl behind the bakery counter is someone he truly loves or absolution from some past life where he ruined his friends’ lives and his own?
But, just like his dream, the book describes the powers of different Miraculouses. He recognizes the Black Cat and the Ladybug, of course. He’s familiar enough with them in the waking world. The Red Fox and the Turtle, though, he’s never seen in person, but here they are, with the powers that he remembers from his dream.
“There you are,” his mother says, pushing open the door just as he turns to the very page that describes bringing the Black Cat and Ladybug Miraculouses together. His heart pounds with the urge to know more, even as the anxiety at being caught churns in his gut.
“Mother, I—” But he doesn’t have an excuse.
She lifts her eyebrows as she sees the book laid out on his father’s desk and the safe door open behind Adrien. She seems to be doing some quick calculating and stalls by taking a sip of her wine.
Finally, she says, “That was Nathalie’s.”
He feels like he’s walking across thin ice, but if she isn’t going to scold him… he presses forward.
“Did Nathalie have one of these… powers?”
“We found two.” His mother comes closer and peers over Adrien’s shoulder to look down at the book. She brushes her hand against the picture of the Black Cat and the Ladybug kwamis in their true forms, then flips back to the previous pages.
She stops on the peacock.
“It was broken when we found it,” she says. “Your father’s been trying to fix it ever since she got sick. Like if he could fix it, he could fix her.”
Adrien swallows as he puts together the implication that Nathalie not only found one of these Miraculous but she used it and it killed her—just like what had happened to him in his dream. There was something else from his dream, something about his mother, that tugged in his brain but he couldn’t recall what it was. The memory of his own physical pain was too prominent.
“Does father still have it?”
“He does.”
Adrien is fairly certain that the villain who has been fighting Scarabella and Chat d’Ombre is a woman, but dread pools in his gut all the same. “He hasn’t used it, right?”
“No, I don’t believe he would.”
But the dread in Adrien’s gut does not abate. “You said Nathalie found two.”
the butterfly effect
so long gone from the world
When his mother begins to get sick, Uncle Colt and Félix come to stay.
When his mother begins to get sick, Adrien tells his father everything.
When his mother begins to get sick, the villain Holly Blue, who has been terrorizing Paris with the butterfly and peacock miraculous, vanishes without a trace.
In her place, Hawk Moth and Petit Plume pursue the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses, certain there is no other hope for Emilie than a wish.
It occurs to Adrien one day, as he is doodling the Ladybug from his dream into his notes, that he’s allowed himself to become a villain once more, just like his nightmare. But it’s worth it, isn’t it? If he makes the wish right, this will be the last time…
“Are you drawing that bakery girl as a superhero?” Félix asks.
Adrien slams his notebook closed.
He looks up to see the classroom has mostly emptied. It’s only Félix, sitting in Nino’s old seat, since Nino decided to move into the empty seat next to Alya. Nino and Alya are lingering by the door, fingers laced together, but waiting for him and his cousin.
“You can admit you have a superhero kink, Adrien,” Nino says with a grin.
His cheeks burn as he shoves his notes into his bag, but he can’t explain to his friends that whatever he and Marinette Dupain-Cheng had belonged in another universe, and he is doing everything he can to bring it into this one.
“I mean, Nino certainly has one,” Alya quips, and Nino’s face flushes.
“Oh—like you don’t,” he spits back, and Alya laughs.
“Of course I do,” she grins and kisses his cheek.
Félix is unamused, as he always is by Adrien’s friends, and Adrien’s school, and Adrien’s life as a whole. He checks his watch. “Your father was quite clear we had to return before five, so if we want to stop at that bakery and watch—for the seventeenth time since I’ve arrived, I will point out—you try and fail to hold a meaningful conversation with a girl behind a shop counter, we had better hurry.”
Adrien slings his bag over his shoulder and tries not to think about the way Félix has always said, “your father,” and never “Uncle Gabriel.” But Félix is no less affectionate with his own father. The closest thing to intimacy with another human that Adrien has ever seen from Félix is the tenderness in his eyes when he takes his ill Aunt Emilie’s hand. Adrien thinks that has less to do with Emilie and more to do with the mother that Félix doesn’t dare speak of.
When Adrien stands, dizziness flits through his chest and into his head. He takes a moment to steady himself on his desk, hoping no one notices. But in his attempt to recover before someone can ask if he is okay, he moves too quickly and stumbles down the stairs. Félix is not fast enough to catch him, but Nino is.
With cat-like reflexes, Nino bounds the aisle’s step and catches Adrien beneath his arms before Adrien can hit the floor.
“You alright, man?”
Adrien remembers the aches of his nightmares and grits his teeth. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He is fine, for the moment. He lets Nino help him stand.
Alya’s brows knit together behind her glasses. “Maybe you should call your car instead of walking to the bakery.”
But Adrien knows if he and Félix call for a car, all that will mean is returning to a large quiet house with his mother dying just like Nathalie did, just like Aunt Amelie did, just like Adrien did in another universe. And if Adrien is lucky, his father will ask him to put on the Peacock Miraculous and give him at least a small reprieve from the cavernous mansion.
“I’m fine,” Adrien insists. “Félix is right; we should hurry.”
Félix says nothing, but his gray eyes survey Adrien more critically than usual.
“I’ll take your bag,” Nino says, already lifting the strap over Adrien’s head before Adrien can protest.
“Here, just to be safe,” Alya says, and links her arm with Adrien’s. Her other hand, once again, joins with Nino’s.
Félix follows, and Adrien can feel the hair on the back of his neck prickle, like Félix’s eyes are fixed on his back, like he can see the future in Adrien’s bones.
But it isn’t the future Félix is seeing; it’s only his own past, and his memory of the first time his mother had a dizzy spell, and the first time she tripped down the stairs, and the first time she collapsed in the garden.
And the last time.
let the light wash over
Scarabella is getting sick of Hawk Moth and his painfully persistent partner. She does have to admit that Hawk Moth is a more bearable villain than Holly Blue, if only because he’s more careful about interrupting her school schedule.
Max once pointed out that the rare times Hawk Moth does attack during the school day occur with a 0% chance of Petite Plume making an appearance, and Scarabella does not like thinking that Petite Plume is a student somewhere just like her.
It’s one thing for her to ask for a friend’s help—to give Juleka the Tiger Miraculous for a day, or Kim the Monkey—but it’s another for a villain to use a child in his pursuit for power.
Today, she’s asked another friend for help. While Monsieur Pigeon is usually a fairly predictable villain, he must have been particularly peeved about something today. Instead of merely controlling pigeons, he’s gained the ability to turn people into pigeons, and the enormous Senti-Pigeon that Petite Plume has crafted keeps emitting sonic screeches that threaten to render her deaf.
So she chose the craftiest person she could think of to assist her and Chat d’Ombre today.
Monsieur Renard, in his orange waistcoat, complete with coattails tipped with white like a fox’s tail, scrutinizes the battle. His usually gray eyes glint with gold, and it takes him only a moment to offer a solution.
“Cataclysm the Senti-Pigeon, and I can manage it from there. Surely you can deal with Monsieur Pigeon.”
“We can’t get close to him. I was hoping you could help me with that and Chat could handle our other feather-themed friend.”
Chat d’Ombre is busy distracting the villains, dancing just out of reach of the pigeon wings, but his luck won’t hold out long.
“You want to send the cat to chase the bird? Typical,” Monsieur Renard huffs, but he does not have time to argue with her any further. There’s a high-pitched whine above them, the only warning they have.
Scarabella grabs Monsieur Renard and dives off of the building and rolls just out of range of the Senti-Pigeon’s sonic screech.
“Lead Monsieur Pigeon to the Seine,” Scarabella snaps at him, “and I’ll be ready.”
There is no room to argue.
Chat d’Ombre had accused her of being bossy when they had first started working together. Maybe she took charge readily, but it was her Miraculous that helped them come up with plans. His miraculous required a lot of care and precision, something he didn’t always take.
But their partnership had evolved and they had learned to trust each other. She’d fallen for him quickly; she’d had no idea he’d been falling for her, too, but rather the person she was without her mask.
Deciding to come clean to each other about their identities, despite Master Fu’s warnings, had only brought them closer together.
Scarabella called on her Lucky Charm for the second time that day. The first had led her to Master Fu, where she had selected the Fox Miraculous for Félix. Now, a mirror dropped into her waiting hand. She surveyed the banks of the Seine and the bridge where Monsieur Pigeon and his flock were chasing an illusory version of her and Chat d’Ombre. Overhead, Chat tousled with Petite Plume on the back of the enormous pigeon.
She didn’t see a need for the mirror, and she didn’t have time to work out a more detailed plan. As the illusory Chat d’Ombre and Scarabella dropped their disguises, revealing a pair of plain-looking young adults, and tossed the “miraculouses” into the water, Monsieur Pigeon dove in after them. Scarabella dove in, too.
As Monsieur Pigeon’s hands passed through the illusions, Scarabella’s hand yanked the whistle from his neck. His eyes widened with shock and confusion, but there was nothing for him to do. She snapped the whistle in two.
Scarabella surfaced and helped Monsieur Ramier to the edge of the water and up onto the bank.
The pigeons had gone, but overhead, the Senti-Pigeon still soared. It rolled suddenly and with a final shriek into the sky, it vanished. Petite Plume and Chat d’Ombre plummeted towards the ground, followed by a small blue feather.
Chat d’Ombre used his staff to stall his fall, and he reached for Petite Plume, but Monsieur Renard was faster. He leapt into the air, grabbed Petite Plume, and landed on the bridge. Scarabella used her yo-yo to snag the butterfly and feather out of the air and restore Paris to its usual ratio of persons to pigeons.
She hurried onto the bridge, where Monsieur Renard had Petite Plume pinned underneath his black boot. Chat d’Ombre landed beside her.
“He caught him,” he whispered breathlessly and let out a low whistle.
Monsieur Renard did not even turn to look at Scarabella and Chat d’Ombre. He reached down for the peacock-shaped brooch on Petite Plume’s chest.
Petite Plume’s gloved hands scrabbled desperately and futilely at Monsieur Renard’s leg. He tried to knock away Monsieur Renard’s hand, but pinned as he was, there was little he could do to escape.
“Don’t,” he begged, “please—”
Monsieur Renard pulled the pin from Petite Plume’s breast. In a flash of blue light, Petite Plume vanished, and in the light’s wake lay Adrien Agreste.
“Please,” Adrien begged, clinging to Monsieur Renard’s wrist, “Please don’t let it be for nothing.”
let the sun come closer
Scarabella’s hands fly to her mouth, but it’s not surprise that coils through Chat d’Ombre’s chest. It’s anger.
“Why?” he demands. He tries to approach, but Monsieur Renard holds a hand out to stop him. There’s something protective in the fox’s golden glare that holds Chat d’Ombre back.
His hands tighten into fists at his sides, even as his ring begins to flicker. He had Cataclysmed Petite Plume’s amok and his time is limited.
Scarabella’s earrings, too, are flashing their warning. She takes a step forward, but is no more interested in challenging Monsieur Renard than Chat is.
“What could you possibly want with our Miraculous?” she asks.
“I don’t,” Adrien says, voice cracking with tears. “My mother—she wanted to bring back her sister and her friend—but she got sick—and my father—”
Chat swallows, and the target of his anger shifts rapidly. His father had made him do this?
“Let him up,” Scarabella says, “and hand me the Peacock.”
Monsieur Renard takes his foot from Adrien’s chest, and reaches a hand down and helps Adrien stand. He does not even stagger as Adrien leans on him for support. His other hand tightens around the brooch.
“The Peacock doesn’t belong to you,” Monsieur Renard says.
“I’ll return it to where it does belong,” Scarabella promises.
She reaches her hand out for it. Her other hand still holds her Lucky Charm, a compact mirror. Chat isn’t sure what it’s use was, but he sees a flicker of blue and orange in its surface and he turns, just in time to see Monsieur Renard—at least he thinks it’s Monsieur Renard—reach for Scarabella’s earrings.
He thrusts his palm into Renard’s chest, shoving him backwards just as the black-clawed tips of his gloves brush against Scarabella’s earrings. She gasps as the Adrien and Monsieur Renard before her shimmer then fade and turns to see the much-more solid Monsieur Renard regain his balance.
He’s changed almost completely. His eyes glint with red instead of gold. The foxtail-like coattails have transformed into an array of blue peacock feathers with brilliant red spots, and the stems of the feathers climb his orange coat. Around his neck hangs the fox tail and pinned to his chest is the peacock.
“You made a second illusion?” Chat snarls. “How?”
Renard’s upper lip curls back in a sneer. “You can push your powers, you know. If you don’t mind if it kills you.” He spreads the fan and plucks a feather from it.
“Wait, Félix—” Scarabella puts her hand out to stop him, and he snarls as she uses his real name.
“Don’t you dare—”
“Is it really Adrien? That was an illusion, but do you know—is that true?”
Félix hesitates, and Chat wishes Scarabella would make a move. They don’t have time to talk. They should be getting the Peacock back and asking questions later.
“Why do you think Adrien’s been getting sick?” he asks, and tosses the feather into the air.
colors take their form
Chat d’Ombre lunges for Félix, but all of his power and cat-like reflexes are for naught. From the ground beneath his and Scarabella’s feet, Félix’s Senti-Snare springs to life, ropes tightening and coiling around Chat d’Ombre’s and Scarabella’s wrists and ankles as if it were woven from snakes.
“We’re not your enemy,” Chat snarls and yanks against the bindings, but they only tighten and tug him to his knees. His ring flickers down to his last minute. “We should be hunting down Hawk Moth, all of us.”
Félix reaches out for the ring, but a flash of light catches him in the eye, blinding him for a moment.
Scarabella flashes her mirror at him, but its a useless stall. Her power won’t last any longer than the cat’s.
“Hawk Moth’s Miraculous won’t save Adrien,” Félix says. He does not say that the Butterfly would not bring back his mother or save Adrien’s, but he can imagine all the things Adrien might have wanted the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses for.
Once he has his sight back, Félix reaches for the ring once more. Chat d’Ombre tightens his hand into a fist as Félix pulls.
“It’ll come with a cost,” Scarabella warns. She, too, is tied fully to the floor and the living ropes continue to writhe and push her against the ground.
Félix squeezes Chat d’Ombre’s wrist until his hand flexes and he yanks the ring free. He’s startled when Nino Lahiffe appears at his feet, but he schools his features.
“It can’t be worse than it already is,” Félix says, and reaches for Scarabella’s earrings. He does not tell her how he can feel the tethers in the peacock, the strings that tie him and Adrien to their fathers. He does not tell her that he would gladly trade his father for his mother, if given the choice, and though he hasn’t asked Adrien, he imagines Adrien must feel similarly.
Scarabella snaps at his fingers with her teeth, but the pain of the bite means little to Félix as he wishes for a world where he has a family and a chance for freedom.
with the butterfly effect
When Adrien wakes, the first thing he thinks is that it hurts to breathe.
He clutches his chest and rolls to the edge of his bed, wondering if he’s going to be sick.
“Are you okay, kid?” Plagg asks.
“Nightmare,” Adrien grunts and squeezes his eyes closed. He has so many nightmares these days. Nightmares about Monarch murdering his father, about being akumatized into Anti-Cat, about Ladybug crumbling in his arms…
This one was different, but thankfully it’s already fading.
Plagg hovers near his shoulder, offering his presence as comfort. Adrien appreciates his kwami more than he can say, particularly in light of some of the pieces of his memory that linger.
“I think I was sick,” Adrien murmured.
“Not this time,” Plagg says, frowning at Adrien and the empty bowl that now lives by Adrien’s bed to cope with the battles against grief and terror each night.
“No, in my dream,” Adrien says. “I think I was dying…” But the finer details are already fading.
He reaches for his phone to text Marinette—he always tells her when he’s awake from a bad dream, and she always calls—but he pauses, hand halfway to his phone.
His parents’ wedding bands glint in the dim moonlight. They were important in his dream, but he can’t quite recall why.
He remembers wearing the brooch. He remembers feeling a string, a tie, a connection…
“Plagg, I would know if I was created by the Peacock Miraculous, right?”
Plagg wrinkles his nose. “I think maybe you had too much cheese before bed.”
Adrien grabs his phone and texts Marinette.
the butterfly effect
Marinette’s phone buzzes and she fumbles for it without lifting her head from the pillow. She sits up, shocked to find her pillow wet with tears. She wipes her cheeks dry and tiptoes down to her parents’ room.
She presses her ear against the door and hears her father’s snores and her mother’s breathing. Something tight in her chest unwinds with relief.
She climbs back upstairs and Tikki stirs on her pillow.
“Marinette, why are you awake?” Tikki murmurs.
Marinette knows what the text from Adrien says before she opens it. “Adrien had a bad dream,” she says. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
The finer points of Marinette’s dream are already fading, but she remembers something about Adrien wielding the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses. She swallows and can’t help but wonder if somehow Adrien ended up with the Butterfly after his father died. But she can’t imagine it—can’t imagine Gabriel would so desperately beg her to keep it all from Adrien if Adrien had any idea of the truth.
She gnaws on her lower lip and her thumb hovers over the green call button. She knows this world has been altered by Gabriel’s wish, but it wasn’t remade, right?
“Tikki, if we were living in a Recreation Wish, we would know, right?”
“Probably not,” Tikki yawns. “There’s always fingerprints from an old reality left behind, though. Connections and friendships and,” Tikki yawns again, “other things,” she finishes sleepily.
“But how do you know if your world is the right one?” Marinette asks.
“There is no right world. There just is.” Tikki closes her eyes and curls up on Marinette’s pillow.
There are a million universes bursting in and out of existence in Tikki’s mind; Marinette cannot fathom the nature of existence the way a kwami can. All she can do is trust Tikki.
She calls Adrien; she doesn’t tell him about her nightmare, and he doesn’t tell her about his. Instead, they talk about everything and nothing until the sun rises.
the butterfly effect
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