Chapter Text
The day started with aggressive banging on the door. It was early, the sun peaking over the horizon like a shy critter. Earlier than any respectable caller should be arriving. And the banging did not stop or go away.
Adrien jerked awake with a start at the sound of loud voices, aggressive and stern. He could make out his father’s voice, though the others were unknown. He’d fallen asleep at his desk, still half-dressed, the night before. It did not take long to become semi-respectable. Straightening his shirt, tying the laces at the collar. Running a hand haphazardly through his hair, not that it helped the mussed situation it was in. Oh well, who has time for respectability when the voices downstairs are getting louder and more heated by the minute?
Buttoning his waistcoat as he left his room, Adrien paused to take in the scene before him.
An official looking man, holding a writ of some sort, surrounded by a posse of armed National Guardsmen. The household staff, being gathered in one of the nearby sitting rooms. The Vicomte de Montfaucon, looking like he’d just eaten a ghost pepper, or several, to the point that Adrien was mildly surprised steam was not radiating off of the man. The Vicomtess stood a little ways behind, watching her husband and the official.
Adrien took this as his cue, seeing the cockade upon the man’s collar, “What’s going on?” He asks, brain still buffering from sleep as he makes his way down the stairs.
The Vicomte turned, as if just realizing his son’s presence, as if to say something, or perhaps tell him to leave the immediate premises, as if he could talk his way out of what was happening. Anything he was bound to say was interrupted and lost as the official stepped forward.
“Citizen Montfaucon, how good of you to join us. I am Citizen Étienne Moreau, I am here as an agent of the Committee of Surveillance.” Moreau extends a hand to Adrien, his tone rapidly changing from the stern, borderline hostile one used with the Vicomte to a respectful, level one as he addressed the younger Montfaucon.
Adrien, blinking slightly, takes it briefly, “A pleasure.” a pause, “I ask again, what’s going on here?”
Moreau handed the writ to Adrien, who took it and broke the seal, eyes skimming the contents, “It’s all here, but to put it briefly, under the Law of Suspects, the Montfaucon family, barring yourself, is to be detained under suspicion of counterrevolutionary leanings, as well as sustained contact with those of royalist leanings.” he explains, perfectly professional.
Adrien hums, “Barring myself?”
“You have proven yourself devoted to the Republic and her people time and time again, you have nothing to fear.” Moreau says it like it’s the most perfectly normal thing. Which, to him, it likely is.
Adrien hums again, folding the writ and handing it back, “Very well. I will not stand in your way. What do you require of me?”
Moreau smiles, pleased that this early morning raid appears to be going well, “Do you have know of what correspondence your father kept?”
Adrien nods, “I do.”
“If you’ll show me to where that was kept, we’ll need to confiscate that, and whatever else may be used for the investigation, you understand? Standard procedure.”
Adrien nods, brain finally spooling up to semi-functioning capacity, “Of cour-”
“You’ll do no such thing.” The Vicomte finally breaks into the conversation, “I am still the head of this house, and Adrien, no matter how involved in your party, is still a child. He cannot-”
Adrien, realizing that his father, who while currently in a precarious situation was still on relatively sturdy ground, could very well damn himself before getting the chance to defend himself, breaks in, “If there’s nothing damning, then there should be no issues? It might be smart to stay quiet, lest what you say be misconstrued, no?”
Moreau, who’d been watching the interaction with what can only be described as the expression of a cat who’d cornered the mouse, adds on, “Citizen Montfaucon is perfectly capable of handling this.” He turns, “After you, Citizen.”
Adrien nods, turning to lead Moreau and a pair of the Guardsmen down the hall. As this happened, he witnessed the remainder collecting his parents, leading them away. A dutiful son should have felt bothered. Adrien, however, felt nothing of the sort.
Reaching the study, Adrien stops, “Here.” a pause, “What can be expected of this… investigation?”
Moreau, keeping his pleasant demeanor, answers “Currently, your family is simply accused. There’ll be evidence compiled, a trial, and if all goes well, they will be released.” he waits a beat, “After all, it’s like you said. If there’s nothing damning, there should be no reason to worry, right?”
Adrien nods, “Right.”
“Wonderful. Then I must ask you to remain out here as we search the area, you understand?”
Adrien nods a final time, a sinking feeling in his gut making him wonder exactly how innocent those letters his father kept were.
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Adrien’s charcoal hadn’t moved in a good half-hour. That was the first sign that something was wrong. The second was that he was still as the stone gargoyles perched atop cathedrals. It wasn’t a ‘I read something so outlandish and now my brain is buffering’ kind of still, nor a ‘Replaying a conversation for the fifth time over and thinking about alternate routes it could’ve taken’ kind of stillness. No, this was the stillness of uncertainty, of a lapse in belief. And that was, to Adrien, almost as disconcerting as the morning's events.
His stillness eventually attracted Robespierre’s attention, and this time Adrien welcomed it. If there was anyone to sooth his racing mind, he was most definitely the one most able.
“Something is on your mind, Montfaucon. What weighs on you?” the lawyer-turned-politician sits down next to the younger man, head tilting slightly.
“Just… turning over the past few hours.” Adrien finally responds, though his tone puts him as very much not fully in the here-and-now, “I suspect…. Well, I suspect that whatever this investigation turns up, it’ll be a mite more incriminating than I have been led to believe.”
Robespierre lets the admission set for a few moments, “Then so be it. Let the systems put in place to handle situations like this do their jobs.” a pause before a slightly more reassuring statement, “Suspicion is not conviction, do not become so convinced of one possible verdict that you ignore the chance of another.”
Adrien hummed, having moved his hand holding his charcoal progressively closer to his face, to the point where one looking on might start to worry the boy is one bad notice away from eating his art supplies. It’s not quite out of the realm of possibility, given the amount of teeth marks one would find on some of his more commonly used brushes back at the Montfaucon Estate.
Adrien finally answers, “And my mother?” The root of the problem has been given words. Adrien was not particularly worried for the Vicomte. Their relationship had always been strained, the two were much too similar in temperament and behavior, and it had reached a breaking point in the last few months. Especially after Adrien had so clearly chosen his side, and it was not the side of the family. But Adrien, while not being particularly close to her, did not want the same fate for his mother.
Unfortunately, if evidence is brought against the former Vicomte, then no doubt there will be damning evidence on the former Vicomtess as well.
Robespierre’s expression softens ever so slightly, “Your mother must answer for her own actions, not merely those of her husband’s. If she has committed no offense, then there is nothing to fear.”
He watches Adrien’s expression. “Whether that is the case or not, it too must be established. We cannot afford to make exceptions for those we love, Adrien.”
Adrien finally looked up from his page, “Of course… Otherwise we would be trading one form of injustice for another.”
Robespierre reaches over, giving Adrien a comforting squeeze on the shoulder, “Take heart. You have done nothing wrong by allowing the investigation to proceed. Do not burden yourself with its conclusion before it has even begun.”
Adrien watched the man stand, before muttering a quiet, “Of course.”
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The weeks that followed were occupied by inquiries, examinations, and proceedings from which Adrien was not required to concern himself. The matter, he was assured, was in capable hands. The Republic, having taken the Vicomte and Vicomtess into its custody, was not inclined to return them in a hurry.
He had kept his mind elsewhere, didn’t react when the news that the letters that he had turned over included what had been described as ‘conspiracy against the Republic’, had thrown himself headfirst into his work. Trust the Republic. Trust that the laws and statutes put in place would do what they were made to do. The conviction had been swift, and now the people who raised Adrien, his parents, even when they fought, which was often, were facing the scaffold, alongside probably a dozen others, all similarly convicted.
It didn’t bother Adrien, at least, that’s what he told himself. And with that same mantra repeating in his head, Adrien made the choice, on the eve of their deaths, to make one last visit.
Which was how he found himself outside of, and then quickly inside of, the prison they had resided in for the last few weeks. A dingy, dirt-floored place. A stench of what could only be described as living death. Squalor incarnate. Completely unbefitting of the Aristocracy, which, Adrien thought, was probably why they were here.
The cell was not large, though apparently that did not stop the Vicomte from pretending his son were not present. Adrien instead went to the bars before his mother, sinking to his knees to be at eye level with the woman who had borne him. Who still, despite all that had transpired, had the love in her body to turn and address him when his own words failed him.
“Oh, my sweet boy,” the Vicomtess turned, “You’ve grown.” One hand cupped the side of his face.
Suddenly feeling a lump in his throat, Adrien swallowed, fighting the urge to turn away, to avert his eyes, “Not really. It’s… It’s only been a few weeks. Not much change can happen in that time.”
His mother smiled softly, “No. Maybe not physically, but you’ve changed.” she pauses, letting her hand carresse his cheek, “I hope, with that change, comes the strength to survive the coming years.”
At that, Adrien leaned his forehead against the bars and took a shaky breath, “Fair winds, Mother.”
“Fair winds, my little falcon.”
____________________________________________________________________________
All things considered, it was a beautiful day. There was an Autumn chill in the air, the sun was out, not a cloud in the sky. The air had the crisp scent of coming cold. It was a beautiful day.
Such a shame that something so unbeautiful as death was present to tarnish it.
Adrien stood at the foot of the scaffold, Amelie, the dutiful betrothed, on his arm. Adrien, who had stood through several days of mass execution by this point with nothing but a bored expression.
Amelie, who had stood with him for a number of those, lest she or her family be the next to face detainment, accusations, conviction. Amelie, who loved the man next to her, but was not so sure she loved how far he had proven he could go.
That uncertainty would soon prove uncertain no more.
Adrien stared up, unblinking at the scaffold before them. They were close enough that the blood, the mud, the evidence of what horror transpired, had seeped far enough to stain the soles of his shoes. Of his, and the mass of bodies surrounding them, all pressing in to see what traitors would meet their ends that day. In the hand of the arm that Amelie was not on, Adrien held a little brown notebook. In it, dates, names, lists, last words. Records of everyone he had watched go to the guillotine, recorded for… posterity? Remembrance? Because he could? He didn’t have an answer for why he did it, he just did.
And today, two names that were as familiar as his own would be added to that little brown notebook.
Amelie’s eyes lingered longer and longer on Adrien, as the line grew shorter, as the bodies piled further. As fresh, sanguine blood was added to the pond already forming. Today was different.
Today, Adrien wore a smile.
A smile reminiscent of the one a person would wear in the presence of their best friend, large and real and directed quite clearly at the people above them.
A smile that grew as the Vicomte de Montfaucon was marched up the steps, fastened in, and swiftly removed of his head.
The Vicomtess was next, and Amelie half expected Adrien’s expression to change upon seeing the silent, tearstained face of his mother. Nothing. Not even a flicker of compassion. No sadness, or grief, or… anything.
Adrien just scratched out his parents names, the date, their ages. Like his whole world hadn’t changed that day. Like it didn’t mark the point that would prove a pivotal moment for all of them.
Amelie was suddenly very sure, she did not love the man Adrien had become.