He felt a shiver at that respect me. It hit way too close to home and for the end of that sentence, he sounded so much like Adrien's version of him that the boy found himself cringing back.

He tried to put himself back together before the other universe Gabriel could turn around with his coat.

"I never much had a choice in what I'd be," he said flatly, shoving down the terror as hard as he could, trying to hide it. Sadly that meant he couldn't quite control the bitterness. "Even when I thought I finally did, it was an illusion. I was the same thing I'd always been." A puppet.