Title: my heart is true as steel
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Rating: Teen
Length: ~300 words
Content notes: Choose Not To Warn
Author notes: Assume spoilers for all of S3 aired to date.
Summary: Agreste men love most dangerously. —This is false: is false: is false—


Agreste men love most dangerously.

(—This is false: it comes to Adrien from Gabriel—who got it from his mother; she from hers.)

Agreste men are a sturdy sort. Stubborn, also. Strong.

(—This is false, and so it's been for generations: spun glass, their hearts, and spiderwebbed with cracks.)

Agreste men deserve better.

(—This is false: it must be—what is 'better'? what's 'deserve'? and why?)

Agreste men are better.

(—This is false: that Adrien and Gabriel still stand, when Émilie lies there, Snow White in glass, and Marinette sprawls red and still across the grass—no victory for either man.)

Agreste men choose rightly.

(—This is false: is false: is false: and both men hear a heartbeat, and do not know whose it is—)

Agreste men steer straight.

(—This is false: is false: is false: what sailboat keeps its heading in a storm? but Gabriel claims to rule the storm—a metaphor: he does not have Kagami, he cannot command Ryūko—he claims to rule the very storm that roils his son between the waves.)

Agreste men sacrifice.

(—This is false: is false: is false: pruning twigs is not a loss, and Adrien's still standing, and Marinette is not. There's more that he could offer her: he stands—that's proof enough.)

Agreste men love: a danger, danger.

(—This is false: is false: is false—)

Agreste men love—

"For Émilie, I'd burn the world."

Agreste men love—

"You're her son. You understand."

Agreste men love: it's false, it's false—

"—I am her son. And your son too. And she's your wife—and she's my partner." More important: Ladybug's alive.

Agreste men love: a danger, danger—

"Did you think I'm nothing like you? Did you truly think that, Father?"

Agreste men love—

(For Émilie, a world on fire.)

"Why would—how could you think that?"

(With Marinette, he'll save it.)