Chapter 2: Rescued

"HELP!" cried Marinette.

Sabine and Tom came rushing into the lower part of her bedroom.

"Where are you honey?" called Sabine.

"Up here in bed," said Marinette.

The parents climbed the ladder and saw her bound and chained.

"Oh honey, what have you gotten into?" asked Sabine.

"There's someone on top of her!" said Tom. "He must be an older man to have gotten her into all this garbage. I'm going to pull him out of there and kill him!"

"Dad, the other suit is empty. There's nobody in there now," said Marinette.

"Now? Who was in there before?" asked Tom.

"I can explain," said Marinette. "It's not what it looks like. Just help me get out of this."

"Who tied you up and left you like this?" asked Sabine.

"It was an akuma victim," said Marinette. "A classmate, Nathaniel Kurtzberg, was akumatized – he was the Evillustrator. He could make anything he drew turn real. He came through my window by magic and asked me on a date for his birthday. He was really nice at first, and then it went wrong. He got mad and tied me up."

"Did he rape you?" asked Tom.

"No there was no rape," said Marinette.

"Did he have sex with you?" asked Sabine.

"There was no sex. I was helping Chat Noir. I got Evillustrator's magic pencil away from him, but he got it back. He was so mad at Chat Noir and me that he tied us up together. He wanted to kill us, but he went after Chloé first."

"And then Chat Noir got away but left you tied up? That's terrible. He should never have involved you in the first place," said Sabine.

"People who get hypnotized by akumas sometimes don't have clear memories," said Tom. "I think we should get her to the police and have them do a rape kit."

"Good idea," said Sabine.

"No, please don't bring in the police. I just need to get out of this suit."

"We're doing this to protect you, darling," said Sabine.

"All right I'm going to have to tell you. I'm Ladybug. Chat Noir and I were trying to catch an akuma victim. I led Evillustrator on, and set up a fake date to trap him."

"You're Ladybug? I don't believe it," said Tom. "Ladybug is a real lady. She doesn't do fake dates."

"I'll prove it. Come on out, Tikki. I have to show them."

"No," said a small voice from under the pillow. "Nobody should see me but you."

"She's hiding under the pillow. Mom or Dad, if you could get a chocolate chip cookie and push it under the pillow then I can show you."

"Poor Marinette, you've come unhinged from the stress," said Sabine. "Throwing your voice doesn't fool us. We need to call the fire department to get you out of those chains. They have jaws of life or something to cut them."

"I can get out of them quickly if you give me a cookie"

"Look," said Tom. "If we humor you and get you a cookie will you let us do what we need to protect you?"

"Yes, I promise because I won't need protecting."

"The villain must be still out there," said Sabine. "Otherwise, the chains would be gone as part of the Miraculous cure."

"No he's already cured. The suit stayed on because of a transformation mess-up by me. If I had known this would happen I would have detransformed while the magical ladybugs were fixing things. Please just get me a cookie. I badly need to pee and you won't get the suit off faster any other way."

Thumb sighed at the nonsense his daughter was saying, but he went down to the bakery and got her a cookie.

When he started to put it in her mouth, Marinette said, "It's not for me, it's for my kwami. Put it under the pillow."

Tom did, and he was surprised to hear soft munching sounds.

After about a minute, Marinette said, "Tikki, spots on!"

Transformed back to the freedom of her spotted jumpsuit, Ladybug hopped up from the bed.

"You are Ladybug," said Sabine.

"I told you," said Ladybug. "Now I'm going back to Chat Noir. I'll give him back his ring and detransform, and then he can Cataclysm the bondage suit off of my normal form."

She spun her yo-yo and was out of the skylight.

"I may hang out with him for a while, if he wants me... I mean, if he wants," Ladybug called from the roof.

"Do you understand any of that?" Tom asked.

"I think our little girl is growing up too fast," said Sabine.

The End