Author's note: Hi. Thanks for all of the reviews. Just for clarity, Miraculous Ladybug taking place in France means that at 18 you're considered to be a legal adult and no longer under any parental jurisdiction and can drink.

/

"Adrien… Adrien wake up. You're going to have to walk, okay?"

The voice speaking to him is soft and concerned. He wants to do what it says but he can't. His head is slow and his legs are heavy. He drifts off once more.

He's in a state of semi-consciousness but feels the slight crisp chill of the morning air. It isn't all that unpleasant, not in the heat of the south. His head is hanging low, rolling but he can't do anything about it. His eyes flutter. He drifts in and out of consciousness. There's a sense of exhaustion which he just can't quite seem to shake. Every time it feels like he might be able to haul himself out of the darkness, something seemingly grabs him, dragging him back into it. His legs are scraping against the ground, it's a bit painful. He wants to do something about that but can't. What his mind desires and what his body is willing to accomplish are two different things altogether.

Everything seems slow, dull. It's like he's not quite plugged into the world around him. He wants to scream, to pull himself out of the darkness but is unable to do so. Trapped within the confines of his own mind, the teen does the only thing that he feels he can and tries to work out where he is. His memory is gone. He can't say where he is or who the people around him – for he knows they're there. Perhaps it would be easier to just drift off again and escape this numbness...

Being thrown without ceremony, like a rug and landing face down on some concrete, that, he feels.

He lets out a grunt of pain as the wind is knocked out from him. The impact must cause his body to pump some adrenaline through his system as for a few brief moments, he regains some sense of control. Instinct demands that he react to this attack. His mind is too foggy to determine whether that meant fighting back or fleeing. He can do neither as it turned out. His legs and arms are heavy. They wobble and whilst he might able to move them to a degree, they're unable to bear his weight. He flops around for a few moments, like a fish that's been dragged out of water. Even turning himself over would be welcome.

There are hands on his back. Gentle but firm, they discourage him from moving around as he had been. Instead, they assist him in turning over, allowing him to lie on his side. He allows them to move his arms and leg around, it's not as if he could resist, even if he wanted to. They might be speaking to him, he can't quite tell… At any rate, he can't answer. Weary, he lies there, doing his best to recover and come back to himself. The teen breathes deeply, as if he's trying to push out whatever is poisoning him by allowing oxygen to take its place.

He wasn't entirely sure just how long he spent lying there. It felt as if it could have been hours as easily as it could have been minutes. All he knows is that he isn't alone and whoever is with him is the only to have shown him any kindness so far.

Eventually, he musters the strength of body and presence of mind to open his eyes once more. He manages to glance up at the figure of whoever is currently with him. It's dark and his vision is still blurry, so he ends up going more on instinctual feelings than he does anything that he can actually see. In his sluggish and swimming mind, there's only one person who would be here for him right now, who would be able to comfort him like this.

"Mom?"

"No…" The voice speaks softly, a mercy in itself as he finds himself with sensitive ears. "It's me, Nathalie."

"Oh… Close enough." He groans, struggling to pull himself back together. "Better..."

He tries to sit back up but thinks better of it. Nathalie pushes him back down gently, ensuring that he doesn't harm himself. His gaze travels around… Wherever they are. The space he finds himself in is dark. It's a challenge to make out anything so he relies on his other senses to try and get some sort of a feeling. It's warm and dry. There's a stench of dirt and dust, oil as well. He's lying on concrete. Ordinarily he might complain but it's pleasantly cool against his skin. One thing's for sure, they're somewhere he can't identify.

After a while, he gives up and asks:

"Where are we?"

"I don't know exactly..." The woman next to him responds quietly. "A warehouse… We were driving for a few hours."

"Did they drug me?" The question feels stupid but he's obliged to ask all the same.

"They put you under for a while, yes."

He summons what little strength he has at his disposal to try and sit up a little. It's then that he realizes that he's in handcuffs. It would seem that whoever their captors are thorough. Perhaps it would be simpler for him to just stay here like that. Adrien shifts to look at Nathalie searching for some kind of comfort from her. It's then that he notices something – well, a couple of things – in the moonlight.

It takes him back. He remembers that they were taken. How they were taken. A lot of it is blurred but the pain he'd felt comes back suddenly. That wasn't what struck with him the most however. In the darkness, it was difficult to tell but what he'd initially mistaken for shadows cast across the woman's face, he soon realizes are no such things. Instantly, anger takes over him. He growls as the memories come back. Nathalie must sense that he's angry. She looks away for a moment, it dawns on him that she doesn't have her glasses either. She must be almost blind.

"I'm going to-"

"It's okay Adrien..." She speaks softly, soothingly.

"They hurt you Nathalie..." He mutters through clenched teeth.

"I know but..."

"That's enough over there!"

A loud voice shouts at them harshly. It causes Adrien to jump. In the corner of the room, he sees a tall figure. It's one of them who first took them. Has he been there the whole time or did he just sneak in and the teen failed to notice? It doesn't seem to matter all that much.

Nathalie becomes subdued but refuses to back away from the still recovering teen. On the other hand, he doesn't feel quite so timid. There's a sense of rage and injustice, perhaps some fear as well. He finds himself searching in his mind for the fact of the one who had been responsible for striking the woman a few hours ago, this isn't him. So Adrien stands down for a moment. As soon as the man is content that they're going to be quiet, he goes back to leaning against the wall. His eyes don't leave the two of them however. The eighteen-year-old finds himself assuming that their captor has been there the whole time. Why he suddenly decided to object to their communicating is beyond him.

"Why are we here?!" Adrien demands, he wants to yell but his vocal chords won't permit it. "Why did you take us?! Answer me!"

"Shut up kid!"

"Was it my parents?! Did they put you up to this?!"

"Adrien..." Nathalie's pleads with him discretely.

"They did, didn't they?" He ignores her, anger taking hold. "How much are they paying you?!"

The man's had enough. Taking only a few strides, the stranger was standing in front of him. Sensing what's about to happen, Adrien did his best to shift round. He finds his legs to be heavy and rather more unresponsive than he had been expecting. Evidently whatever they injected him with is still present in his system, getting pumped around, slowing him down. He can't escape. Nathalie moves over towards him but finds herself being pushed aside roughly, as if she was nothing. It's a momentary distract, the teen looks over to her panicked.

The slap reverberates through him. He's not sure if he's ever been given a blow quite like it. Stunned, the teen's head falls back. Adrien likes on the ground for a short while, stunned. Slowly but surely, the pain begins to register as a burning on the right side of his cheek. Eventually, his gaze drifts back up to see the man who just struck him. Clenching his teeth to avoid letting out any more complaints, he glared coldly at his attacker. The man raises his hand once more, apparently judging that the lesson has not been learned yet.

"You've made your point." Nathalie grumbles from next to him.

She probably spares him another brow. The man grumbles something under his breath about keeping his mouth shut from now on. The clout that Nathalie receives as their captor passed by is arguably not quite as harsh. It's clearly intended to let her know she's not to be making demands. The woman takes it without letting out so much as a sound. Something tells Adrien that this isn't the first time that she's found herself on the front side of a fist since they were taken. He growls quietly but holds off doing anything physical about it.

Right now, it would only aggravate the situation.

So the two of them sit there. Well, Adrien just lies. There's a pain in his shoulder and two cuts which have obviously bled, it would seem that he was struck with something there. No doubt it's what had brought him down in the first place a few hours ago. He's still trying to get a feel for his body. He's not too sure what they injected him with but it was certainly potent. Even now, it's tempting to just close his eyes and drift off to sleep. He fights against it, reasoning that he needs to keep Nathalie company, even if he does so silently. She sits with her back to an iron beam, her head hung lowly, seemingly exhausted. It's as he lies there that Adrien comes to a startling realization. He still has his ring. Indeed, after a few seconds, he spots Plagg. The creature is hiding nearby.

Why not take his ring? He almost asks but thinks better of it. Perhaps these men don't know exactly what he's wearing. That might point to the culprits not being sent by his parents. Surely they would have removed his source of power.

The second thing that occurs to him as he stands there is that he's in his pajamas, as is Nathalie. Neither of them had been offered the opportunity to change before coming here. They've only got bare feet to boot. In his mind, he assumes that it will limit any chance they have of escaping – meaning that it could easily have been a conscious decision on their captor's part. These men aren't amateurs, that much is clear. Which is all the more troubling. Does anyone else know they've been taken?.. Marinette's probably sleeping soundly in her bed at this time, blissfully unaware of what's befallen him and his guardian. Nathalie contents herself with closing her eyes, blocking out the world around her.

There will be no Ladybug coming from them. Worse, in her current state, Nathalie might not be much help if she can't see anything. He knows how terrible her vision is without her glasses. If nothing else, the woman has already received enough of a beating for the teen to be reluctant to put her in any more danger. No… If there's any more risks to be taken, then he will be the one to take them.

Eventually, one of the other men, the ringleader – or at least that's whom Adrien assumed him to be – makes his presence known. He calls for the man who has been watching them and suddenly, they are left alone in the dark.

"Man… Do you know anything?" Adrien takes a chance and whispers after they've been left alone.

"Not much. They weren't very talkative..." She glances nervously towards the door, keen to ensure that they are being left alone before continuing. "We can speculate."

"This is my parents, isn't it?!" It's less of a question, more of a challenge for her to refute him.

"It seems likely. Given that they happened to know you and I would be at the Cabanon..." Nathalie lets out in a sigh before quickly adding. "Keep your temper, we might not have long."

Adrien nods. Reluctantly, he must agree that raging isn't going to do him much good. Perhaps he'll be reunited with his parents, then he might be able to put his temper to better use. Until then, he's got to keep a level head. There are other matters which need to be addressed right now. First on his mind is just why they've done this. Abduction is a pretty big offense. If this were to get out… It would mean the two of them going behind bars for quite some time.

"A risk like this..." Adrien mutters quietly to himself. "They must be planning something."

"Probably." Nathalie seems to have slipped into one of her monosyllabic mode.

"What? What could be worth this? I mean..." He pauses, wondering how to phrase this. "They must know this isn't going to make me want to go back with them."

"They might not need to convince you to like them." Her eyes open once more, fixing him this time. "With a wish..."

Nathalie's voice trails off. She doesn't need to finish her sentence. He understands the implications. A wish is limitless. With the two miraculous united together, they could quite literally do whatever they pleased. For a moment, Adrien considers the possibilities. They could force him to like them or perhaps simply change things so that he'd never left them in the first place. Both prospects cause the young man's skill to crawl as he instinctively rejects the notions. They're just hypothesis at this point but he treats them as if they are a very real threat.

"I'd rather die!" The teen snaps.

"Shh!" Plagg dares to drift just a little bit closer to him. "Don't worry. It won't get that bad. We just need to figure out a way out of this."

"I could transform." Adrien suggests eyeing the door carefully. "Nobody here to see. I could use cataclysm and take down a wall, carry you out and go and get some help."

"We might be a few kilometers away from any towns." Nathalie informs him. "Could you carry me that far?"

"Probably, I mean-"

"I thought I told you two to shut it!"

This time, it's all four of the men from earlier who enter. Adrien is quiet instantly as Plagg hides once more. They storm over to the two of them but stop a little short. It's clear that the intention is to intimidate. It's probably successful given that neither of them have it in them to stand or to otherwise resist at this point. The leader contemplates his two prisoners for a few moments. The teen dares to hope that they might be about to be provided with some manner of explanation regarding just what all of this is about…

It's a few seconds before finally, he speaks:

"Okay. Here's how it's going to go. Both of you are going to sit in the back of the car quietly. If you try to signal anyone or any other funny business, you will regret it, as will your friend." He allows that to settle in before continuing. "Are you going to have to go for sleep again Goldilocks?"

As if on cue, two of the men approach him. They grab him by the arms. Initially, Adrien intends to fight back, to inflict some pain. There's a voice inside of his head which whispers of another plan, especially when he spots the needle being brought towards him. Instead of giving them hell. He allows himself to sag, forcing them to actively strain if they want to pick him up. The teen plays the game, pretending to attempt to stand but not quite being able to do so. No sense in them thinking he's got his strength back quite yet… One of the men looks back to their boss and the other with the syringe and shakes his head: another dose would be overkill.

They're forced to practically drag him back to the car. It's different to the large black vehicles they had initially been packed into. This one is far more mundane, less noticeable; just an ordinary red saloon. The rear windows were tinted, which was perhaps the only thing marking the older vehicle out as being unusual. There is another vehicle however, a larger more expensive one. It's impossible to see the occupant but someone is clearly inside, the ringleader of the men who have taken them seems to be discussing something with the unidentified third-party. He can't ask any more questions before he finds himself being shoved into the back seat of the car.

They're bundled into the back without much ceremony. One of their captors sits between them, making communicating impossible. Adrien gets a single pained look in before he is told to fix straight ahead of him and nowhere else.

He bites his tongue. Patience is key… He'll get his opening soon enough.