Penguin: Hello everyone! Here's the next chapter!

~Responses to MMTT~

Panteabooks: Thank you! That's so nice of you to say that! :D

ImperialOtaku: That's great! And thank you!

Two guards went into the design studio with Marinette. Adrien insisted on that surveillance. She wanted to get inside, she wanted to get her place ready, and she could do just that. But, she would have his men with her every moment.

Adrien sat in the back of his car, his gaze on the building. Maybe he shouldn't have told Marinette about his trip to the hospital in Paris. But the truth was going to come out, soon enough.

Especially since he planned to take her to Paris within a few hours. "The plane's ready?" Adrien asked Nino. He opted to leave the Jag at home and have Nino do the driving today. He has plans that he needs to make, and he could multi-task better with Nino at the wheel.

"Yes, sir. The pilot's on standby."

"Good." He'll wait until Marinette finished her work, then they would leave. No one else might have believed her story, but he wasn't like the others. If Marinette said that she was forced off that road…

I want to find out what happened in Paris.

And he couldn't go to the city on his own. Marinette was too uncertain of him now. He asked for her trust and she hesitated. No, he had to keep her close. But he also has to be very, very careful. In Paris, it would be easy for him to stumble. For her to discover more about his life. About the last seven years.

There were some things that she would be truly be better off not knowing.

"I need a list of your lovers." Adrien told Marinette when she returned to his car that evening. He just pulled up, seemingly at the perfect time, but she knew one of his agents must have contacted him and told Adrien that she was calling it a night.

Exhaustion pulled at her, but his growled demand…

I need a list of your lovers.

"This isn't show and tell," she mumbled as she felt her cheeks flush. "I'm not asking for-"

"The detective, Nathanael, was right. The man after you could be an ex. Someone who had you once, and doesn't want to let go."

She glanced out the window. The city passed her in a blur. "It could be an ex, or it could be some nut-job who saw me on the street. Maybe someone who even saw me at one of my fashion shows. Sometimes, people get models confused with the attitude they show on stage." She had been plenty of people over the years. A designer. A model. A sound producer. A-

"The list of your lovers will be the starting point for us. You'll find that my resources are much stronger than the detective's. I can find these men, clear them, or-"

"They aren't guilty."

The car eased to a stop. Then turned right. Nino was up in the front. She inched forward. This wasn't the way back to Adrien's penthouse. Not unless Nino was taking a different route home. "Tell me their names."

She glanced over at Adrien. "They're not even in the city, okay?" There was only one ex-lover for her in Chicago, and he was sitting far too close and taking up far too much room in the vehicle. One light brow rose. "It's not hard to hop a flight or a train to Chicago."

No, it wasn't.

Rain began to fall, splattering against the window. Her shoulders stiffened. Fine, if he wanted the list, she would give it to him. In all its short and sweet beauty. "Ivan. He decided to be a set designer before we broke up."

Brilliant. Determined. Way too exacting. "Who else." The impatience in his tone grated. It wasn't like she had a four-page list. I bet he does. "Kim, he became an actor." One who made it pretty big recently. "But he's in California now so I don't see he could possibly-"

"Keep going, Marinette." His voice was clipped. There wasn't very far she could go. "Max."

The car's interior got very, very quiet. "Say the name again." Adrien growled. "Why? You heard me the first time." She glanced out the window once more. A frown pulled her brows low. This definitely wasn't the way to the penthouse.

"You slept with your doctor?" Adrien demanded. His voice was low and cold. Sometimes, he did that. When he was angry, his voice would drop to that lethal softness.

"He wasn't my doctor at the time." She had been so alone, and Max was the only one there for her. Always smiling. Coming by with doughnuts and flowers. One night, drinks had led to something…more.

"Why aren't you with him now?"

"Because I couldn't stay in Paris." Her lease had been up, and she didn't have the cash to renew it, not after all her medical bills. Insurance can only stretch so far.

"The fucking doctor…" Her head snapped towards him. "Look, who I've been with shouldn't matter-"

"It matters to me." Gritted. "It matters a great deal." She would never figure him out.

"You've been screwing your way through every model or actress you could fine, so don't act like some ex-lover I had does something to you. We both know I made your ancient history list a long time ago."

He leaned towards her. In the darkened interior of the vehicle, she wished that she could see his expression. But he was still hidden by shadows. "It does something." He said. "It makes me fucking furious."

"Adrien?"

His hand slid over her cheek. "I want you to forget them. I want to take you to bed, and I want to wipe away every memory you have of them all."

She couldn't take a deep enough breath. "We're over, Adrien. You know-"

"How can we be over, when I still want you so much?" His hand slid down her cheek, down her jaw, then down to the column of her throat. His fingers splayed over her neck, lightly touching the pulse that race frantically beneath her skin. "And how can we be over, when you still want me so much?"

Because he ruined her for other men. It was a sad and humiliating fact. The sex was good with the others, but with Adrien…

I was always comparing. How had that been fair? Maybe that was why Ivan and Kim had ended things. They told her, both of them, that she wouldn't let them get close. That she put up a wall to keep them out of her life.

After Adrien, she needed that wall. Because she didn't ever want to hurt that much again. When he left me, I felt broken. It had taken too long for her to put the pieces of her life back together. "If I'm wrong, tell me now."

Adrien's hand seemed to singe her skin. "Tell me to back the hell off, and I will. I won't push for something you're not willing to give. I want all of you. All or nothing."

Wasn't that the way it had worked between them before? She had given everything to him. What did Adrien give? The car stopped.

"All or nothing, Marinette. Make the choice." Then he pulled away from her. Shoved open his door. She sucked in some much needed air. A frantic glance to the left made her realize- definitely not the penthouse.

He door opened. Only Nino wasn't standing there, holding said door. Adrien was. She scrambled out. "What are we doing here?" And here was- the airport?

"Taking a flight. My jet's waiting." He had a jet? Right, of course, the mega-wealthy guy he became would have his own jet. Marinette didn't step away from the car. "Where are we going?" Why was this pulling teeth with him? "I have my studio opening, I can't just-"

"You want this son of a bitch caught, don't you? Well, to do that, we need to head back to the beginning. If he started following you in Paris, then we can try to learn more about him there."

He seriously thought she was just going to jump on a flight to Paris? Right then? "I'm not going to-"

"You can make the people in that city talk to me. The models, your old neighbors. By you being with me, they'll share more. Maybe someone saw something. Maybe someone saw him." His fingers still gripped the door. "I need you to come with me. We'll be back before the studio opens, I promise you that."

Once upon a time, she loved Paris. But she ran away from it, so desperate to get away. Only…now she wondered…had she been running from the city? Or from the man who'd been after her? The dark shadow that seemed to stalk her, with every step she took?

Before the accident, she started to become so nervous. Jumping at the slight noise. She hadn't been able to shake the feeling that her actions were being monitored. Watched. Always watched.

And he had been in her home. She knew he had broken inside, even though there had been no indication of a forced entry. "Let's end this," Adrien urged her. "Come with me to Paris. Let me do the job that I know how to do. I'll find him, and I will stop him."

She glanced towards the waiting airport. A plane had just taken off, and the rumble of its engines filled the air. "All right. I'll come with you."

Nino slammed the trunk. Her head jerked towards him, and she saw that he was carrying two bags. One bag belonged to Adrien, but the other bag-

It's mine.

"I thought you might see things my way." Adrien murmured. Confident, cocky bastard. He took her hand. "Not still afraid to fly, are you?"

Yes, she was. Terrified. But she wasn't about to admit that fact to him. He already thought she feared too many things in this world.

I do.

She first started to fear when she was eight years old. When her parents didn't come home from their dinner. When she heard her babysitter whispering about an accident. When she stood in a graveyard and watched as flowers were put on two caskets.

She feared when she went to the first foster home. When she went to the second. To the third. She feared when hard hands had reached for her during the night. When she was hurt. Pain that came again and again. Her only escape was to design.

A social worker had introduced Marinette to design. She had taken her to a community center, and Marinette had gotten lost in the sewing machine, in the fabric.

She designed. Day after day after day. And she feared…

Until she looked up and into a pair of bright, angry green eyes. The fear stopped then, for a time. But it had come back all too soon.

It always returned, eventually.

Penguin: Thank you for reading and I'll see you soon with a second part of a one-shot! :D P.S: After the fifth time, I finally found the Traces in this chapter, so I went back and fixed them. Please let me know if you see anymore so I can go back and fix them. Thanks to all of the people who told me they were there!