Rebel Adrien AU 6
Adrien’s relationship with his dad isn't too (terribly) bad to begin with (really). I mean... Bad is when the kid starts to skip out on the scheduled father-son meals that Gabriel actually decides to attend. Adrien just leaves a note with Nathalie explaining where he is & what he’s doing (usually studying) along with a request to not be disturbed. Gabriel doesn’t let it show, but getting brushed off by his son really STUNG.
Whenever an assigned father-son meal comes around, unlike before his punkification, Adrien gets super depressed because of it despite being the one to make the decision to skip out. The reason being that he's innately aware that their relationship has deteriorated so badly & to such a distressing degree, that not even he himself is willing put in the effort to try anymore & that… that hurts… more than any missed meal… or broken promise... or threat to remove him from public school... or degradation of his friends... because that means that... that Adrien doesn’t care anymore. At least, not enough to actually do anything about it... but at the same time, he WANTS to care… he just can’t anymore. It hurts too much to be the only one putting any effort into rebuilding even a semblance of a father-son relationship.
He’d been putting in so much effort before. THROWING HIMSELF into being the perfect, most well-behaved son possible & hoping against all hope that it would… what? Convince his father to let him in? Be a part of each other's lives again? Try to help each other through the loss of his mother?
Obviously, that was all just the pipedream of an optimistic child searching for comfort in a dark place. It didn’t work, so might as well find his own way out & just live his life the way he wants to from now on.
Fath- Gabriel just has to figure out how to navigate his way blind like Adrien... or reach out for his son's waiting hand. For that connection that they both desperately needed.
