Chapter Text
Adrien sat dumbfounded in his bedroom. It had been nearly four hours since he had gotten home from school, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. About Marinette. His princess. She had run off again, acting as strangely as ever. He had been playing the moment on repeat through his head.
“Oh me?” She mumbled, “I need to go feed my pet cat! Yeah that’s right!”
Marinette didn’t have a cat. And Adrien knew she had only dreamed of getting a hamster. Not to mention, she sounded almost afraid. Most people couldn’t decipher Marinette's odd behavior, but he could. Adrien could. He almost always knew when she was lying about something or when she was hiding the full truth.
Adrien caught the slight shift in her voice as it broke before she had run off. Alya suggested that maybe he was overreacting. He had to have been, Alya was her best friend after all. He had to be overreacting, right?
x
After Marinette had escaped her situation, she dashed to the back of the school. She couldn’t take any of it anymore, the bullying, the lies, the pain. She dropped to her knees, curled up in a corner and began to sob. Brutal, painful, and unfiltered sobs. She hadn’t noticed it when Tikki, her sweet kwami, had flown up to hug her cheek.
It took Marinette a full two hours to stop crying behind that alleyway. She was vulnerable, and so, so scared. Scared that Lila or Monarch would jump out, ready to hurt her.
At first, when Lila lied, it was mostly harmless, sure, it got her in annoying situations, and it caused some of her “friends” to gang up on her, but it hadn’t put her in immediate danger.
It was two months ago, when the bullying had been getting bad. Lila had always threatened Marinette with words, and occasionally pinched her. Little harmless things. Until recently, she could take it, it was bearable.
Oh, how things had changed. Marinette didn’t know what to think about it. She was constantly in danger but couldn’t tell anyone.
Lila had gone through with her threats twice, she could do it again. If Marinette was sure of anything, she was positive of this.
She couldn’t speak out against it. She had to endure it. She had no other choice.
Her family was in danger. And she was going to have to take the hits.
She was about to stand up when she locked eyes on the person in front of her. All the blood drained from her face.
“Hello Marinette.”
The voice was vicious and unforgiving. Marinette had to run, but she couldn’t, she was frozen in place.
x
“Plagg, I need to check on her. Something’s not right.”
For once in his life, Adrien was surprised by the response of his normally annoying kwami.
“I agree, let’s go, just say the words.”
His voice sounded serious, unlike his normal, playful demeanor. Adrien felt his gut screaming at him to go faster.
“Plagg, claws out!”
x
When Cat Noir had finally reached the rooftop of Paris’s famous Boulangerie, he took a few deep breaths, attempting to convince himself that the girl inside was fine.
He pushed down his nerves and knocked rhythmically, a secret code he and his princess had come up with a few months ago so that he would give her a near heart attack when he went to visit her.
When the girl didn’t answer, his heartbeat quickened.
Steadying himself, he peered inside, eyes darting around the room. She was nowhere to be seen. His princess was gone.