Marinette/Ladybug

Marinette yanked on her chains, muttering to herself as she tried to break free, but she knew all the while that she wasn't really focusing, that there were insistent thoughts still streaming through her head. Her crush, the boy who she had missed so much when he hadn't been present at school (she decided to interrogate him about that later) was actually Chat Noir, Paris's other superhero of whom she worked with every day. How could that be? Where was it written in the universe that this could ever be possible?

But after Adrien started to talk, after he described his suspicion about his father and after Marinette suggested something that was most likely true, her emotions towards Adrien mixed with those of Chat Noir, and she finally accepted that she was talking to the same person, one of which she was super shy to and the other she was extremely confident. She also reminded herself that Adrien knew he was talking to Ladybug, the girl that he knew so well, not so much the seemingly invisible Marinette.

But as she struggled against her bonds, she felt that it was a time to think everything through, to continue to revel over the thought of spending so much time with Adrien - er, Chat Noir, whichever - and that they knew each other so well. An inner voice, however (and a very practical one), reminded her that she needed to get out of captivity, and at that time she needed to be Ladybug, even though she wasn't wearing her miraculous.

Ladybug. I'm still Ladybug.

And worry about Tikki washed over her; she knew that she had to save her kwami, so she yanked and thrashed again, but Adrien told her that it was no use. "You're right," she mumbled. "What are we going to do?"

"Come on," Adrien replied. "We shouldn't just depend on our powers. We're still Ladybug and Chat Noir, we're smart -"

Marinette couldn't help but smile. That sounded an awful lot like Chat Noir. As she relaxed, her hands brushed against something, and her eyes widened. "Wait," she said. "My purse!"

"You have it?" Adrien asked hopefully.

"Yes, I never leave the house without it, in case I have to transform into Ladybug."

"And do you have anything useful in it?"

"Let me think…" Then she remembered, though it had been a couple of weeks ago. "That's it! I've got a button that I designed for my campaign to be student council rep… it should be in here somewhere, if I can just…"

Marinette now shifted her wrists, trying to rummage around in her purse until she found what she was looking for. It took a couple of minutes, which felt like forever, and she kept her tongue in between her teeth before she grabbed the familiar metal surface… "Aha!" she cheered. "I've got it!"

"Well, we'll call it our lucky charm, Bugaboo," said Adrien.

Marinette looked up into those green eyes, of which currently seemed to be laughing, and though she normally would have scolded Chat Noir for saying such a silly thing, she felt love fill her heart before smiling and turning away gingerly.

She started to fidget with the button, and was happy that her wrists weren't bound together, but simply to the floor, which allowed her to have some space to move. It also allowed her to reach the lock at the end of her chains, and struggle with the sharp pin on the end of the button. Come on, she whispered to herself as she moved the pin around in the lock, waiting for the insistent click, and then finally she heard it. The chains fell to the floor in a heap and Marinette got up, relieved, rubbing her wrists.

"Yes, Marinette, you are the best," Adrien chanted as she walked over to him, using the same technique to break his chains.

"Come on, Kittycat. Let's get out of here and find Hawkmoth."

And so, they raced toward the door (which was, thankfully, open; Hawkmoth must have thought the chains would be enough) and stepped through, then down the long hallway and toward nowhere in particular. They simply raced along, Marinette taking in all the details of the dimly-lit corridor. "Where are we?" she asked.

Adrien shook his head. "Some abandoned warehouse, I think, but I don't know which."

Then they saw it.

On a passing door, it read in thick black letters, Agreste Design. Over that, obviously spray-painted, was a purple butterfly - the logo of Hawkmoth. Marinette felt her heart sink. So her theory was true. Hawkmoth was Adrien's father.

His son sighed. "I can't believe this."

Marinette put a hand on his shoulder, which made her heart flutter like crazy, but she ignored it. "It's okay. We're in this together."

Adrien smiled weakly at Marinette, and she felt her heart do another somersault, then the two raced off once again.

"Where could he be?" Marinette wanted to know, but it wasn't long before they reached it. At the end of the hallway were two oak double-doors, and when Marinette and Adrien wrenched them open, it admitted them onto a balcony. The room that they entered was huge but obviously broken-down, with once beautiful but now burnt-out lightbulbs hanging from the tall ceiling, crumbling decorations here and there, and a balcony that wrapped around the entire room. Marinette and Adrien looked down on a frozen assembly line, half of the conveyor belts and controls cracked. But they were all branded Agreste Design.

"This must have been one of my father's factories," Adrien said. "And it must have broken down several years ago."

"It's… creepy," was all Marinette could say. And then she heard it - distant cackling, then the soft pad of footsteps. Marinette and Adrien dived behind one of the withering plants that flanked the doorway, then looked out over carefully.

Hawkmoth was down below, walking amidst the conveyor belts, and he had two jars in his hands. Marinette realized that they contained her and Adrien's miraculouses, of which looked worried but determined. They banged their little fists on the glass and screamed, but couldn't be heard.

Hawkmoth laughed again. "There's no use yelling, little kwamis. Soon, you won't have the power to do anything, let alone yell. My contraption is almost complete."

"Contraption?" Marinette whispered to herself, and followed Hawkmoth's gaze - he was looking at two little jars that connected to a large machine behind them by countless wires. It looked incomplete, but not by much - Marinette guessed that the kwamis would go into the jars, and the machine would suck out their powers… after all, that was what Hawkmoth had wanted for so long. Marinette gulped. They had to act fast.

Adrien seemed to be thinking the same thing, too, and his body was tensed as if ready to spring. "Wait," Marinette told him. "We need a distraction."

They both looked around, thinking of what they could possibly do, when Marinette saw it - the fire alarm. If she pulled it, it would definitely cause Hawkmoth to go see what was going on, which would allow her and Adrien to sneak downstairs and free their kwamis.

Slowly and quietly, though Hawkmoth wasn't looking over the balcony, Marinette slunked down the hall and placed her hand on the red handle, taking a deep breath before she pulled it down. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Alarms blared around the ceiling, and Hawkmoth looked up. Marinette heard him mutter something under his breath before he walked away, not forgetting to set down the kwamis carelessly on an unmoving conveyor belt.

She turned to Adrien and nodded. Now was the time to finally turn into Ladybug and Chat Noir and deal with Hawkmoth.