Despite the obscurity surrounding his upbringing, he has a deep sense of morality and integrity, for a 14yo at least, and this will reflect in his relationship with Kagami and this fic’s adaptation of S5 “Elation”. He will start and remain a bit stuck in being socially clumsy, due to his warped reality of becoming CN, which he will be tempted to use as a front to “suspend” said morality. His mistakes will be meaningful to the growth of his character.
I’m yet to determine at what age he loses his mother, it’s important to know when his life of seclusion has started; if this was also the case with Emilie around. As fate would have it, he becomes CN about the same time he’s allowed to go to school. Even though he’s ecstatic about the prospect of “getting out of the house”, he has difficulty fitting in; he mostly hangs around Chloé, until he starts getting swooped up by Nino.
His start as Cat Noir pretty much remains unchanged, but one line from the movie comes to mind: “Finally, I’ve found my incentive.” He regards his new persona as his main purpose in life, especially when he gets to share it with the beautiful and mysterious Ladybug, which might not be the most healthy thing for his growth as a regular teenager.
The Umbrella scene remains unchanged, of course, but for one little tweak: when Marinette pops the Umbrella over her head, Adrien shows concern first, making sure she’s alright; he lifts the umbrella up and shoves his own head half inside to confirm, ending up with both their heads close to each other for a little “cutesy” moment. After that, they crack up as in the canon.
The Agreste household remains a classic tug-of-war story between Adrien, Gabriel and Nathalie for the remainder of the Act: Adrien wants to socialize more often → Gabriel gets annoyed → Nathalie tries to temper these emotions → Adrien gets pissy about it and rebels. One important added nuance compared to the canon: the Amok’s potency is slashed in half, because the other ring remains on Emilie; its power is not absolute.
His athleticism makes him competent in combat, but a far cry from his max potential because he’s too busy wooing Ladybug, instead of being focused.
The Ladynoir dynamic runs its course as we know it, with his confession as the first key event, basically in the same setting as S2 “Glaciator”: he gets “stood up” and “happens to run into” Marinette for some comfort. Ladybug then later appears to give him a “soft landing”, he seems to make peace with it.
They relationship starts exactly as in the canon: they are sparring partners with Kagami catching feels, and making moves when he gets all mopey from his heartbreak (“Change target”). Due to the awkward pacing of their romantic relationship stint in the canon, I’m going to try to not have it happen at all, it would look a bit OOC with how I’m trying to depict Adrien.
Act 1 will end with a rift between himself and both instances of Maribug. Marinette will look at him in a completely different light after the “Museum Incident”. He attacks Ladybug after getting duped by Mayura’s Sentibug and, naturally, causes a breach in trust. Prior, he promised her his feelings wouldn’t get in the way anymore, after his confession got rejected.
He’s starting to realize Marinette is more than “just a friend”, but in typical MLB fashion, it’s too little too late: Marinette has moved on. He regresses back to his sheltered self and banks everything on his alter ego. Kagami, finding out he has a thing for Marinette now, makes the same snide remark that she “wished he would’ve looked the same way at her”.
The addition of two new team members causes some friction initially, but after stepping up and really getting his head into the game, he leaves the other three into his dust. I’m considering to symbolize his “mentality change” into altering his costume, Nightwalker style, I hope to get some feedback on that from the community.
The girls are loving it of course, which begins to bloat his ego once more. Considering he promised himself to keep strictly professional with Ladybug from now on, he focuses his (toned down) antics on Rena Rouge and Queen Bee, but you guessed it: Ladybug gets a little jealous, resulting in a very complicated situation.
(S5 Elation) After a long while, he approaches Marinette once more as Cat Noir, who seems to have developed feelings for him (What are the odds, am I right?). As upstanding as he tries to be, Marinette is surprisingly forward, and he indulges, with catastrophic consequences: he faces an Akumatized Marinette. Luckily, he manages to bring her back, but it’s an experience that will cut deep for both of them.