Chapter Twenty Nine – Calling the Parents

Anxiety washes over Marinette in waves as the phone rings. She figured at this time of day she'd have a better chance of reaching them if she called the bakery phone, but after five rings she's doubting herself. The phone goes to voicemail, her dad's cheery voice making her smile and she almost hangs up when the phone clicks.

"Hello? Hello? Marinette?" Her mum's voice is frantic and Marinette swallows down her guilt so she can answer – and hopefully not give too much away to Cat.

"Hi Mum."

"Marinette, of thank God! Tom? Tom, Mari's on the phone." Sabine lets out a sigh. "You've had us worried sick. Where are you?"

"Um . . ." She can't really say 'on a roof on the other side of Paris'. "I'm . . . safe."

"'Safe'? That's good, but where are you? Are you with someone?"

"Yes. I'm . . ." She swallows and almost looks back at Cat – who she can hear occasionally talking in muted tones to who she assumes is his dad since he's never mentioned a mum – before she stops herself and forces her eyes forward. "I'm with a friend. You don't have to worry."

"Of course I'm worried!" Sabine's worry quickly turns into anger and Marinette winces but keeps the phone to her ear in case Cat can overhear. "I haven't seen you since this morning! You didn't even come home for lunch, and then you didn't answer your phone! How could I not be worried?"

"I–I'm sorry Mum." She tries to swallow the lump forming in her throat. "I . . . Li– . . . can we talk at home? Please?"

There's a pause. "Was it that girl? Lila?" Her dad asks this, so she assumes that her mum's either passed the phone to him or it's on speaker.

"Y–Yeah. I just . . . I needed to get away for a while. But I am safe and I'm on my way back."

"Tell me where you are, I'll come get you." Sabine says.

"No!" Marinette cringes at her shout and puts a hand over the speaker momentarily, taking a deep breath to calm herself down. "No, it's fine. I'll be there soon. I promise. You don't have to–I mean . . . I'm okay. I'm safe. You've met my friend before and you liked him."

"Him?" She facepalms at the excited tone in her dad's voice. "Which him? Who are you with? Is he your boyfriend? Sweetie, why didn't you tell us? Will we get to meet him? Oh, he must stay for din–"

"Tom, calm down." Sabine says, although Marinette can hear the amusement in her voice. "Remember what happened last time?"

"Eh, Cat Noir survived."

"Barely." Marinette mutters. "No Dad, he's not my boyfriend, he's just someone I trust, who is my friend, who went after me when I ran." The fact that he's wearing a cat suit and chased her over rooftops for an hour is beside the point. "And you won't get to meet him, at least not tonight. He has to get to his own home."

"Okay, sweetie." Her mum says before her dad can say anything. "We'll see you soon?"

"Yes."

"You will call us if you change your mind and want us to pick you up?"

"Yes. Definitely."

"Okay. We'll . . . we'll talk when you get home."

"I promise. I love you." Her parents chorus an 'I love you too' before she hangs up. She can still hear Cat murmuring to himself behind her and when she puts her phone back in her purse she notices that Plagg's gone, but she knows that he's comforting Cat and she smiles.

Adrien, on his part, listens to Nathalie's lecture about how irresponsible he is and that he should be grateful that Nathalie assumed he had simply run off with Kagami – he must tell her they broke up at some point, especially before they have to do any more 'date' type stuff, like go to Galas – and therefore has not alerted his father (yet) and instead had sent the Gorilla out to find him (shockingly, he has been unable to do so, so far). Despite the anger in her voice, even Adrien can hear the undertone of worry and relief. Not for the first time he thinks of how different (how . . . nice) his life would be if his father realises how much Nathalie loves him and gives her a chance. It's not like his mother seems to be coming back anytime soon, and he's always been quite fond of Nathalie.

Once he has finally managed to convince her to let him hang up (she was determined to have him stay on the line until he was safely inside the Gorilla's car and on the way back to the mansion), by which point Plagg is snuggled into his neck and purring to help keep him warm – don't ask him how, he just puts it down to the power of the kwamis – he feels emotionally drained and has no idea how he's going to make it to the Eiffel Tower in under an hour so the Gorilla can pick him up from his 'date'. Thank god for rush hour, otherwise he may only have ten minutes.

"Everything okay, Cat?" Ladybug asks.

He nods again and Plagg snorts. He rolls his eyes. "Yeah. I just have to get to the Eiffel Tower in less time than I have."

Marinette frowns and opens the train timetables app she has on her phone, doing a location search to find the nearest train station. "We're about a block from a station, and a train is leaving in four minutes for the Eiffel Tower. It'll take you about half an hour. Would that be enough?"

"More than enough." Adrien beams and almost spins around to hug her, before remembering and forcing his eyes straight ahead. "What about you?"

Marinette purses her lips. It would be safer for their identities for him to take the train and her to go via rooftop, but it would be much quicker by train. She'll just have to wait for the next on or the one after that so there isn't a possibility they may run into each other and potentially know/recognise who the other is. Marinette may want to broach the topic of revealing identities, but now isn't the time, and neither is a public place like the Eiffel Tower train station.

"I'll catch the train after you, or the one after that."

Despite his best efforts, excitement bubbles in Adrien's chest and he finds himself grinning inanely once again. "So, you live around the Eiffel Tower, too?"

Marinette closes her eyes. "It's a train Cat. They make other stops." Plagg laughs loudly and gets off his shoulder, clutching his belly and all but pointing at Adrien's stupidity.

Adrien clears his throat. "Right. Well, Plagg, claws out."

Plagg stops laughing immediately. "But I didn't get to say goodbye to the p–"

"That wasn't very nice." Marinette says, before calling on her own transformation. As soon as it's over she's gets to her feet and turns to face her partner, a genuine smile ghosting her lips.

Cat waves his hand dismissively, beaming at Ladybug. "He'll get over it."

She hums and removes her yoyo from her waist in preparation for getting off the roof. "He won't let you forget it. Will you tell him I said goodbye as well?"

"Of course." Cat steps closer to take her hand out of instinct, but thinks better of it. He smiles instead and holds his fist out. "Pound it?"

Ladybug giggles and knocks her fist against his. "Pound it. Thanks kitty."

Cat blinks in surprise, before shaking his head. For a second he could've sworn Marinette's voice just left Ladybug's mouth. "No worries, milady." He dips into an overexaggerated bow and is rewarded with an eyeroll and a fond smile. "You can count on me anytime, day or night."

"So can you." Ladybug almost steps forward to hug him, but quickly reminds herself what persona she currently is.

He's about to leap off the roof in the direction of the station – now that he has his night vision back he can see where it is without having to Google it (or look at his staff map) – when he notices Ladybug's frown. "LB?"

"You haven't called me 'milady' in a while." She muses. Cat jolts slightly and scratches the back of his head, glancing down at the roof beneath their feet. "It's kind of weird hearing it again."

"Sorry, I . . . I'm trying not to call you that because I know you're not actually mine, and that you don't want to be." It's only a half truth, but he doesn't really want to say that he had a girlfriend and now he doesn't have a girlfriend but he likes another girl and apparently has since the start of the year without realising it because that would just be a lot of unnecessary information and he already knows she thinks he's an idiot so he doesn't want to give her any more proof, but he stopped calling her 'milady' in the first place because it felt like he was cheating on Kagami and now it would be impossible to cheat on Kagami because they're not together and . . . it's just a lot to explain. "I guess I slipped back into autopilot a bit there." He grins sheepishly.

Ladybug waves her hand dismissively. "It's fine. Like I said it just sounded a little weird after not hearing it for so long." She smiles. "I like 'LB'."

"Good," He removes his staff from his back and extends it. "Because that's the only nickname I've come up with that you don't hate."

Before she can form a reply, Cat's bounding off the roof and into the night surrounding them. She smiles after him and uses the time before she has to follow suit gazing up at the stars and getting her story straight for her parents. She plans to tell them as much of the truth as she can – even the bit about Cat Noir. She'll tell them that Lila said some things and she got upset and she ran out of school and bumped into Cat Noir who followed after her when she didn't stop and then took her to a place – with other people – so she could be away from everything for a while but she can't remember the name of the place only that it is about forty–five minutes from the school – which will allow her some leeway with how long it's taking her to get home. Yes, that's what she'll say.

. . .

Much to his surprise, when Adrien gets home he discovers that Nathalie still hasn't informed his father of his absence, and doesn't plan to. So long as he never does this again. While he knows he can't entirely promise this – an akuma could attack at any moment and he'll need to disappear to defeat it – he does so anyway, with his fingers crossed behind his back. He's sent up to his room where he immediately showers, and by the time he emerges Nathalie's brought him up his dinner and set it on his desk.

"Do you think Ladybug will be okay?" Adrien asks as he and Plagg eat their dinners (well, cheese in Plagg's case).

Plagg shrugs, or at least does the kwami equivalent of a shrug. "I hope so." He glances up at Adrien before focusing back on his cheese plate. "She's strong, and she has Tikki and Wayzz and the other kwamis. She'll be . . ." He clears his throat, revealing his uncertainty. "She'll be okay, eventually."

Adrien nods and shifts his food around his plate, appetite wanning. "I hope so."

He can't help but think back to when he saw her. He was checking the school steps for Marinette after he and Kagami had a talk to ensure they were both okay in each other's presence – and for her to interrogate him on why he hadn't asked Marinette out yet – when he saw Ladybug running over the rooftops across the street like she was running towards an akuma (because why else would she be going so fast?) and he ducked into an alleyway and transformed without a second thought, chasing after her.

He never imagined the monster she was chasing was internal, or that it would be the closest she had come to letting him in in months.