"If there's one thing that Tom Dupain will not stand, it's threats against his daughter. So when Mr. Agreste demands that Marinette and Adrien break up or else, Tom isn't about to let that stand. So he makes a call that ends up setting off a chain of events that no one could have expected."
Written by quicksilversquared
, Papa Bear is a one-shot Miraculous Ladybug fic about what would happen if Tom Dupain stood up to Gabriel Agreste on Adrian's behalf. The author also states that it's a Fix Fic both for the Chat Blanc episode and because of their frustration that Marinette's parents are often unhelpful when it comes to her problems.
This one-shot provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Gabriel's emotional abuse of Adrien is revealed for all to see. That's not the only thing that gets revealed...
- Adoption Conflict: The Dupain-Chengs work to get custody of Adrien away from Gabriel, and act as a surrogate family for him. We never see Gabriel’s reaction to losing custody his son, but it’s implied that it wasn’t good.
- Adopting the Abused: The Dupain-Cheng family lets Adrien stay with them while the stuff with his father is being worked out. He later goes to stay semi-permanently with his bodyguard, who's agreed to act as a foster parent for Adrien for the time being.
- Adults Are Useless: Averted. While this trope is very common in the show itself, here the fic shows what would happen if Marinette's parents took action against Gabriel's manipulation of Adrien.
- Bittersweet Ending: Leans more heavily on the sweet: Hawkmoth and Mayura are defeated, Adrien is forever free of Gabriel, and the teen has the Dupain-Chengs, Gerald/The Gorilla, his friends, Plagg, and (most importantly) Marinette to support him. That said, he learned that his father was the very supervillain he's been fighting for years, and found his mother in her comatose state (the result of her using the damaged Peacock Miraculous). While it's heavily implied that he'll recover from this, it's obvious that it'll take some time.
- Call-Back: Some of Gabriel's more abusive actions (such as giving Adrien nothing but pens for several years) in the series are referenced as examples of the emotional manipulation Adrien's suffered.
- Child Abuse Is a Special Kind of Evil: Even before Gabriel is outed as Hawkmoth, everyone is utterly disgusted at the emotional abuse and neglect he's given Adrien. No one is shocked or upset when he officially loses custody of Adrien. It's briefly noted that isolating kids, like Gabriel is doing to Adrien, is taken very seriously by the authorities. In addition, Paris is cracking down on abuse in general because situations like those tend to spawn akumas.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Tom notes that, after several months, akuma attacks barely phase the people of Paris anymore. The most he and Sabine do about them is keep stress-relieving tea on hand for the more disturbing of attacks.
- Convicted by Public Opinion: At one point, Marinette worries that Gabriel might use his wealth and connections to escape consequences for his abusive treatment of Adrien. Tom declares that if that happens, he's more than willing to give the security footage of Gabriel threatening his daughter to Nadja Chamack, which would utterly destroy his public image.
- Department of Child Disservices: Averted, hard. When Tom reports what Marinette and Adrien have told him about Gabriel's abuse, he calls Child Services. They're as concerned as Tom and immediately launch an investigation. Said investigation reveals Gabriel's abuse and removes Adrien from his father's custody. They also give the Dupain-Chengs the useful advice to carefully lock up the bakery at night to avoid retaliation from Gabriel.
- Dramatic Irony: After Marinette and Adrien discover Emilie's coffin-thing, Tom starts to wonder if magic might be involved — but decides that if that's the case, it's Ladybug and Chat Noir's concern, not Marinette and Adrien.
- Family of Choice: It's all but stated that the Dupain-Chengs have become this for Adrien.
- Good Parents: Tom and Sabine are more than happy to act as Parental Substitutes for Adrien. When The teens come home after making a disturbing discovery and are left in a state of shock, Sabine stays with them until they calm down while Tom makes them both Calming Tea, then informs the police of what they've discovered.
- Heroic Blue Screen of Death: Adrien and Marinette both have a brief one when they learn that not only has Emilie Agreste been kept in a magically-induced coma in the Agreste home all this time, but that Adrien's father is Hawkmoth. Marinette mostly sits stunned on the couch, while Adrien takes it way worse, getting sick and crying (needing both Marinette and possibly Plagg to comfort him).
- Internal Reveal:
- When alone together, Adrien and Marinette reveal their super identities to one another.
- The reveal to the public that Gabriel is an abusive father.
- The revelation that Adrien's mother is in a magical coma and that Gabriel's been Hawkmoth all along.
- Ironic Echo: Gabriel wants Marinette to break up with Adrien because she's "negatively impacting his company's image." Tom vows to show him a real negative effect on the company image and calls child protective services, grimly noting that an investigation into his parenting will trash his reputation far worse than his son's choice of girlfriend ever could. At the very end, Tom briefly reflects that the Gabriel brand is going to be decimated by the reveal that its CEO is a supervillain...but the only one who's really at fault for that is Gabriel himself.
- My Greatest Failure: Tom seems remorseful that he didn't do enough to try and stop Marinette's bullies at school, which is why he's so much more involved in helping Adrien.
- Papa Wolf: Tom Dupain is the one who sets off the chain of events that frees Adrien from his father's control forever. Why? A) he hates that anyone could treat their own child the way Gabriel treated Adrien, and B) Gabriel tried to force Marinette to break up with Adrien. No one makes his little girl cry and gets away with it.
- Parental Neglect: The fact that Gabriel has no involvement in his son's life except to micromanage everything (basically keeping Adrien prisoner) is one of the red flags that Child Services catches.
- Parental Substitute: By the end, Adrien has this in Tom, Sabine, and the Gorilla (real name Gerald), who agrees to take him in as a foster parent.
- Point of Divergence: Both Tom taking umbrage on the way Gabriel just threatened his daughter and him making the decision a short time earlier of placing security cameras inside of the bakery to prevent thieves exploiting Akuma attacks, which leads to Gabriel's threat being caught on tape.
- Police Are Useless: Zig-zagged. On one hand, Tom finds it disappointing that, despite their searching the Agreste home after Emilie Agreste's disappearance, the police didn't find anything suspicious (let alone the secret lair that proves Gabriel is Hawkmoth). On the other hand, Tom and Ladybug are impressed that the police figured out a way to separate Gabriel and Nathalie from the Butterfly and Peacock Mircaculouses, respectively, without a fight before they arrested them.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Invoked, then averted. The Child Services agent that gets the statements from Adrien and the Dupain-Chengs informs Tom that Gabriel may attempt to retaliate, especially if the Dupain-Chengs are keeping Adrien until a more permanent home can be found. As such, the Dupain-Chengs close up the bakery early and lock it down. Despite their precautions (or because of them), no retaliation is launched.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: As the CPS investigation into Gabriel starts to dig up other shady behavior on his part, it becomes clear he paid off someone in the police department to ensure he was never properly investigated after his wife's disappearance. Marinette also worries that Gabriel might invoke this to escape consequences for abusing Adrien, though Tom reassures her by pointing out they have security footage of Gabriel threatening her and can go the Convicted by Public Opinion route if that happens.
- Secret Relationship: One of the options Tom suggests for handling Mr. Agreste if he won't back down on his threats is for Marinette and Adrien to publicly stage a break-up and keep dating in secret.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Since this fic takes place in the Chat Blanc timeline, Adrien is one for Marinette at the beginning of the fic. It's heavily implied (and confirmed by an author's note) that he came directly to see Marinette and confessed after she told him his dad tried to force her to dump him.
- Shipper on Deck: Tom and Sabine for Marinette and Adrien. When Tom suggests Adrien's teachers as relatively unbiased sources of information, the CPS agent wryly quips that he means they'd be less likely to refer to Adrien as their future son-in-law. Tom can only sheepishly concede the point. That said, he's still a responsible adult and makes clear that Adrien will be staying in the guest room and not in Marinette's room for the duration of his temporary placement with the Dupain-Chengs.
- Spanner in the Works: Tom's contacting the authorities is pretty much this for all of Hawkmoth's plans.
- Take That!: To the original episode. When Marinette seriously considers breaking up with Adrien to keep Gabriel from pulling him out of school, Tom immediately tells her not to do that, because it would devastate Adrien and she shouldn't have to bow to Gabriel's completely unreasonable demands just to keep Adrien from being pulled out of school. Instead, he tells Marinette that the most important thing is to keep Adrien informed about the situation rather than doing something rash that will leave them both heartbroken and offers alternative solutions in case they can't force Gabriel to relent. He also points out that this kind of controlling behavior is a serious red flag about Adrien's home life and is more than enough to justify calling child protective services on Gabriel — which he then proceeds to do.
- What If?: What if, instead of standing by and letting her break up with Adrien during Chat Blanc, Marinette's parents recognized Gabriel's actions as emotionally abusive behavior and contacted the authorities?
- You Can't Go Home Again: The ending implies that, with all he's learned, Adrien won't ever want to return to his old home.
