Marinette felt heavy and light at the same time.
It was as if her entire body was made from lead as she felt weighed down to the very pits of darkness. None of her limbs appeared to move the way she wanted them as she tried to sit up and her eyelids were still firmly shut no matter how hard she tried to force them open. She felt as if the whole world was pressing down on her and stealing all of her air and smothering her with a never-ending darkness.
Yet simultaneously she felt as if she was being cradled by a cloud. The soft, cushy, sensation beneath her lulled her into feeling safe and comfortable. The unmistakable brush of cotton sheets against her skin was gentle and light, and in return she felt like she was nothing but a wisp of air herself.
Marinette groaned loudly as she forced herself to wake up.
She had to wake up.
She couldn't remember why but she knew she couldn't stay asleep like this.
Was she late for school?
She was always late for school though Tiki would usually hold Marinette's alarm clock to her -
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
The gasp ripped out of Marinette's lips as she shot up. Marinette's memories of earlier suddenly crashed over her – the dinner, the spicy soup, Adrien passing out, and then Gabriel Agreste confessing to have drugged her before revealing he was Hawk Moth! She immediately flopped back onto the ridiculously over the top fluffy pillow as the restraints round her wrist kept her from actually sitting up. Marinette's eyes were wide with fear as she took in her surroundings.
The bedroom was deceptively innocent looking, with all of it's light and bright colours.
The bright lights sparkled from the small crystal chandelier fitting and lit up the pale blue walls, and the frilly matching curtains, and the sweet flower paintings in clean, stylish, white frames. It would have been the nicest guest room in an up-market Bed and Breakfast. Only up-market Bed and Breakfasts didn't have tall, imposing, middle-aged men standing at the end of the bed like some terrifying shadow.
Marinette let out a wordless yelp of shock mingled with fear.
"Interesting," Gabriel murmured, "the sedative barely lasted at all in your system. The Miraculous certainly gives intriguing gifts, does it not? Welcome back to the world, Ladybug," his lips curled in a mocking smile, "or should I say Miss Dupain-Cheng?"
Marinette inhaled sharply as she struggled against her restraints. Her scarlet suit was long gone and was replaced once again with her usual pink jeans, white t-shirt, and black jacket combo. She couldn't see Tiki anywhere.
Where was Tiki?!
"I should have guessed you were my nemesis the day you returned my book to me," Gabriel mused, either not noticing or simply not caring that Marinette was on a verge of a panic attack, "but I was fooled by that simpering, stuttering, love-struck fangirl act to give it much thought."
Marinette flushed at that but kept her mouth firmly shut.
There was no way in hell she was going to tell him that her stammering, tongue-tied, ways weren't an act but the real deal!
She didn't need additional mocking to her situation right now!
What she needed was Tiki and a way out of these restraints.
He had tied her wrists to bed's headboard which was made of white wooden railings. If she had her super-strength from the Miraculous she could have broken free but now, with the drowsy lingering effects of whatever drug Gabriel Agreste had used on her, she was weaker than a normal bug. Her ankles were tied together too, so any chance of kicking her captor and somehow using her legs to break free was also off the table.
She needed Tiki!
Where was Tiki?!
"Looking for something?" Gabriel smirked as he held up his hand. There, right in between his fingers, glistened two ruby earrings with black ladybug spots. He had her Miraculous! "I am afraid, Miss Dupain-Cheng that your days as Paris' favourite heroine are done but that's something to celebrate, is it not? You said you wanted to be ordinary again."
The way he sneered the word ordinary made Marinette flush all over again with humiliation but she refused to let him get to her like that. To see her vulnerabilities when he already has her at his mercy.
"Not like this," she whispered, "not by losing to such a monster."
"A monster?!" Gabriel repeated disbelievingly. "You think I'm a monster, Miss Dupain-Cheng? I'm not the one that goes charging around the city destroying things and hurting people."
"You possess people and make them do it!" Marinette hissed. Her fear and humiliation evaporated in an instant for righteous anger. "You might as well be the one that destroys the city and harms it's people!"
"I do not possess people and make them do anything," Gabriel's eyes flashed with indignation, "I merely offer them an opportunity to take vengeance and find some form of happiness. What they choose to do with that power is out of their own free will. They chose to brutally smash the school bully to the ground, or to erase all that wronged them from time itself, or to boil a young spoiled chit alive, or to flood the city. I didn't tell them to do that, I merely watched and advised when to take your Miraculous. I have nothing to do with the wanton destruction of selfish human behaviour."
Marinette snorted disbelievingly. "You take advantage of people's feelings and manipulate them!" she snapped.
"I am very persuasive when I offer people my deal to be Akumatised, yes," Gabriel acknowledged, "but it is no more manipulative than trying to persuade those to invest in my business. A lesson you'll need to learn, young lady, if you ever want to succeed as a fashion designer."
"Well it certainly wasn't one of your Akumas that drugged Adrien and me and then tied me to a bed!" Marinette spat out. "That's actual criminal behaviour to kidnap an underage girl and essentially date rape your son!"
Gabriel's nostrils flared at that. "Don't you dare insinuate such disgusting things about me and my son!" he hissed. "Adrien had to be asleep as well. Otherwise he would get upset and interfere with my attempt to take your Miraculous. He's oversensitive like that."
"It isn't being oversensitive to have morals and ethics!" Marinette said tartly. "And if you have to hide all of this from your son then you know this isn't right!"
"Adrien is an innocent in the world," Gabriel said dismissively, "I have no intention of destroying that especially when my intention is to bring him great happiness. Adrien deserves the best, and the best includes his mother."
Marinette's eyes widened at that.
She knew something had happened to Mrs Agreste but she didn't know what. The news articles round that time only said she went missing while Adrien barely spoke of it, and she wasn't going to press him on something that obviously upset him. Whatever happened must have been awful, for Gabriel Agreste to go to such desperate measures to bring her home!
But it didn't excuse the terror he inflicted on Paris or the fact he had kidnapped her!
"You want the wish to bring your wife back," she murmured numbly.
"I do," Gabriel inclined his head, "and now you know my motives are not nefarious, would you agree to stay out of it while I take Chat Noir's Miraculous?"
"No," Marinette replied immediately and flatly.
"No?" Gabriel repeated dumbfounded. "What do you mean no?!"
"I mean no!" Marinette spat out. "What do you think I meant?! No means no, not yes or you can persuade me, just no! I won't stay out of it. I would interfere the hell out of this."
"You dare interfere between me and my wife?!" Gabriel growled furiously. "You dare to try to ruin the happiness of someone you claim to love?!"
"I dare to keep Adrien safe and happy as possible!" Marinette shot back crossly. "Making a wish on the Miraculous comes with consequences! What if you get your wife back at the expense of Adrien's life?!"
"I am not some simpleton who doesn't know how magic works!" Gabriel said hotly. "I have many years of experience wielding a Miraculous long before you were even a thought in your parents' head! I know how to word my wish to keep both Emilie and Adrien alive, safe, and well!"
"The price will fall on someone else then," Marinette shook her head, "and it would be just as devastating."
"Who cares about someone else?" Gabriel said dismissively. "As long as my family is together again the world could burn for all I care."
Marinette shook her heard disbelievingly.
How could someone who had such noble and loving intentions be so cold and cruel?
"You're a monster!" she cried out. "A monster of the very worst kind because you don't even see what you are doing is wrong! To sacrifice someone without a single thought? To be so ruthless and brutal in getting what you want that you don't consider other people's feelings and the repercussions of your actions. You are worse than your own hideous creations. Your wife will hate you for what you have become, and Adrien would be so disgusted at you. You won't get them back, you'll lose them for goo-"
SMACK!
The sound of Gabriel Agreste's slap reverberated through the room. Marinette's cheek stung with the pain as she blinked back bewildered tears. Gabriel Agreste was always so composed that she never thought she could actually provoke him into physical violence with her childish words, and on top of that, for some reason, the slap had hurt far more than she expected.
Then she felt a drop of blood roll down her cheek to her chin.
It was a tiny, insignificant, little drop but it was a drop of blood nonetheless.
Gabriel stared down at his own hand just as stunned as she was and she could see the rubies of her earrings sparkle in his hand and it suddenly clicked.
He had just slapped her with the backs of her earrings!
He had scratched her with her own Miraculous!
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, either way there was a slight bubble of sheer hysteria caught in her throat, and she didn't know what to do.
She just wanted to take Tiki and go home!
"I apologise," Gabriel said stiffly, "I never meant to physically harm you. That was never my intention for this evening."
"Sure," Marinette said sarcastically, unwilling to show how frightened and upset she actually was, "because just drugging me, stealing my Miraculous, and keeping me prisoner isn't harming me!"
"You are not my prisoner!" Gabriel protested. "You are my guest!"
"I'm tied to a bed!"
"You wouldn't be if you would just compromise!" Gabriel said exasperatedly. "I was willing to untie you if you promised to behave and just sit here until I got Chat Noir's Miraculous but nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" he sounded almost like petulant child as he rolled his eyes melodramatically. "You had to be a goody-two-shoes with all these black and white morals and ethics, and refuse to help me."
"Of course I refuse to help you!" Marinette shrieked. "You're potentially inflicting a great danger onto the world!"
"And that," Gabriel said triumphantly, "is why you're tied to the bed!"
"Urgh!"
"I wouldn't get too wound up about it, Miss Dupain-Cheng," Gabriel said rather patronisingly. Marinette's teeth immediately went on edge as she levelled him with a deadly glare. "You won't be tied up for too long. I will be sending out a live message to Chat Noir and undoubtedly he'll run to your rescue, and by the end of tonight I shall have my wish granted and you can go home to your parents unhar...well," he shot a contrite look at the scratches he had left on her cheek, "relatively unharmed."
"Ha!" Marinette spat out. "Joke's on you, Hawk Moth!" she taunted gleefully. "Chat Noir and I don't know each other's secret identities so he won't be coming to my rescue anytime soon! There's no way he would give up his Miraculous was some random civilian."
Never before had she been so glad that she and Chat Noir decided to keep their civilian identities secret from one another! This was exactly the kind of situation they had wanted to avoid! And if it meant she had to be Gabriel Agreste's prisoner for far longer than she ever wished to be, then that's what she was willing to sacrifice to keep Chat and his Miraculous out of Hawk Moth's hands.
"Is that so?" Gabriel said silkily. "Are you so sure you're just some random civilian to Chat Noir, Miss Dupain-Cheng?"
"Of course I'm sure!" Marinette said indignantly, "So you're not getting Chat Noir's Miraculous anytime soon and I will find a way to escape these restraints and together we'll defeat you once and for all!"
"Because I happen to recall many, many, times where Chat Noir comes to your rescue very quickly when Marinette Dupain-Cheng is in danger," Gabriel continued as if Marinette had never spoken, "in fact I have noticed quite frequently in my observations through my Akumas that Chat Noir comes to your rescue far more quickly than he does for any other civilian."
Marinette gulped at that.
"And I do believe," Gabriel smirked, "that he has been rather affectionate towards a certain girl in pink to the point it almost rivals his affection for his scarlet lady. So perhaps he does not know Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Ladybug are one and the same," Gabriel shrugged, "but I suspect he would charge straight into the flames of danger for his sweet damsel in distress all the same."
"N-n-no!" Marinette said shakily. "No way! He wouldn't!"
"Oh I think he will," Gabriel said smugly, "so you just sit there like the pretty empty-headed damsel in distress you are and it'll be over before you know it, and who knows? Maybe I'll send you home with an internship for next summer."
"You and your internship can go to hell!" Marinette snarled. "I would rather work with the d-hmmph!"
He had moved so swiftly that she hadn't seen it coming. One moment he stood there all composed and the next he slapped over a piece of duct tape over her mouth.
"Much better!" he crooned. "Has no one told you, Miss Dupain-Cheng that children should be seen and not heard?"
"HMMPH!"
"I'm sorry," Gabriel grinned, and it hurt because it was such a cheeky, boyish, grin that Marinette was momentarily reminded of Adrien. "I didn't quite catch that, could you repeat that?" she glared up at him fiercely as she refused to play his silly little game. "I thought as much," he said smugly, "I'll be back eventually when it's time to shoot your staring role as Chat Noir's bait. Until then, don't move!"
He laughed at his own pathetic joke before he shot her one last triumphant look and left the room with his head held up high like some imperial emperor.
The door barely shut with the quietest click before Marinette immediately started to struggle against her bindings.
She had to get out of here!
She had to escape before Gabriel came back for his stupid video demanding Chat Noir's Miraculous for her safe return!
She had to get Tiki back and kick Gabriel Agreste's arse from here to the other side of Paris before she firmly locked him up to prison, and she had to do it yesterday!
Chat! Oh Chat! She thought desperately to herself. Whatever you do, don't come for me!
MLBMLBMLBMLBMLBMLB
Gabriel hummed the entire journey from the guest room on the second floor that he had Miss Dupain-Cheng locked in to his office down on the ground floor. There was a strange flutter of joy inside his chest that he hadn't felt in years.
He just felt so triumphant and victorious for a change!
For once things were finally going his way, and it felt so good!
He had been a little bowled over when the glamour of the Miraculous transformation had vanished to reveal a child no older than Adrien. Younger, in fact, as he distinctly recalled the file Nathalie had prepared on the girl and her other classmates. His furious thoughts of crushing the little impertinent bug for all the times she had defied him and delayed his reunion with his beloved had vanished in an instant.
He may be a cold, calculating, bastard but he was a cold, calculating, bastard with some honour.
He wasn't going to lay a hand on a child.
Which was why it shocked him that he allowed himself to be provoked into slapping the girl moments before.
She just had been so defiant despite the fact she was his captive and not the other way round! Her blue eyes blazed with self-righteousness and fury rather than fear and it irked him to no end that she refused to see things his way. That she wouldn't sympathise and empathise with him. That her stupid rules and black and white view of the world was more important than his and Adrien's happiness.
Not that it mattered any more.
He had successfully silenced her and soon enough Chat Noir will come charging in on her behalf. Without Ladybug to back him up, Chat Noir wasn't going to last long in a battle with Hawk Moth, and Gabriel will soon be twice as triumphant as before.
He opened up the safe behind Emilie's portrait and gently placed the earrings inside, they were so small that he was frightened he would accidentally lose them before he got to use them, and then he happily slammed the safe shut and firmly locked it before anything unexpected could happen.
"Tonight, my love," he promised to Emilie's beautiful face, "we shall be together again, tonight! But first," he grinned, "I have to script my video, I have to sound like the perfect villain if we want Chat Noir to come barging in without a care for his own safety, do we not?"
Emilie remained silent and Nathalie, who hovered nearby with the camera at hand already, merely rolled her eyes in response.
….Neither Nathalie nor Gabriel noticed a pair of emerald cat eyes burning with the utmost fury behind a conveniently placed pot plant.
The same pair of green eyes that had followed Gabriel's every step since Ladybug and Adrien had collapsed at the dinner table...