Thankfully, the pizza palace wasn't busy, since it was past lunch hours and a bit too early to be considered dinner. There would be no plastic orbs from the ball pit being flung at her head and in her meal today.

"Marceline!" Came a resounding howl before something collided into her side, almost toppling her over. Once she'd register what had just happened, she threw the offending lump off of her and punched it in the shoulder.

"Yo, Finn. I'll take two not menus please."

"You got it." Finn grinned, but it was blurry by the way he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Where's Keila?" He queried, peering around her as if he'd find Keila hiding in her shadow.

"She had a run in with a bad bun at the bakery so, out of commission today."

"Aw, man. I hate when that happens." He sympathized. "Like, Jake won't eat anything off a street cart anymore after he saw a guy choke to death on the first bite of his hotdog. And I say, 'hey man, s'long as you don't try to inhale the whole thing in one go and chew your food, you're golden!' And whatever happened to that guy, you tried your best to save him, so.'" Finn shrugged sadly. "Still won't go for it though, says something about bad omens and stuff."

"Oof. That's rough. Hope he's feeling better, like, in general." She tapped her temple. "Especially in his head and stuff."

"Yeah, oh yeah, I mean he hasn't really talked about it in a while." He led the way towards their usual circular booth. "Hey, so if you didn't bring Keila then why'd you ask for two menus?"

"Because I have her with me in here, obviously." She jested, patting her left rib cage.

"You guys are really great together." Finn chuckled.

Marceline punched his arm again before sliding into the booth. "Duh, we're best friends. And I'm actually here with one of Paul's lab nerds. She cured my headache, so I owe her food."

"Wow, that's amazing. You have an in-house doctor at your job. Where is she?" He twisted around, scanning the palace for a woman that he wouldn't recognize.

"She said she needed to do something in her monstrosity and told me to go ahead and order first." Marceline explained. Finn tilted his head to one side and furrowed his brows so she went ahead and answered his question before he would ask it. "If two of the most ragingest of beast monster trucks got together and mated, her car would be the aftermath."

His face went through a series of motions as he processed that. Then it broke into a wide grin. "Awesome. She sounds awesome."

"FINN," boomed a voice somewhere across the palace behind the counter.

Finn jumped to his feet as if only just realizing where he was. "Oh shoot, gotta get back to work, I'll be right back with the menus," he babbled, already halfway across the palace before he finished speaking.

She ordered.

Finn served her a steaming bowl of noodle soup within 15 minutes.

She thought to wait longer for Bonnibel so as to not seem rude but decided to eat after a few more minutes of doom scrolling. She'd explain that the noodles were gross when they got soggy and would instead wait for her to come inside before ordering next time.

If there was a next time.

Bonnibel still hadn't walked in yet when Marceline was taking the last bite.

She wondered how much time had passed. There wasn't a clock to be seen to help her gauge that.

Did she just get ditched at the pizza palace? But, that wouldn't make much sense. Unless, maybe there was an emergency that demanded Bonnibel's immediate departure.

Her brain had rolled through these similar thoughts a couple of times now. In the end, concluding that she was probably overthinking it and that Bonnibel would be walking in any minute.

It had steadily gotten busier in the store. If this was the dinner crowd trickling in, then that would be an approximation for how long she had been sitting there. She watched as Finn became too busy to seem like he would get a moment for the rest of the evening to pop by her booth for a chat.

Marceline sighed, deciding that she was done waiting. After she used the restroom, she would go out and assess the situation. Perhaps suggest another time for her to pay the woman back, get dropped off by her vehicle. She could head home, find her phone, and possibly go and keep her hopefully not so ill friend company for the rest of the evening. Yes. Sounded like a solid plan.

She slid decisively out of the circular booth and headed for the restroom.

Her hands were still damp by the time she was pushing her way through the thickening crowd to get to the exit. Her eyes slammed shut as soon as she stepped outside. The shine of the sun starting its imminent descent assaulted her retinas and continued to burn harshly through her eyelids.

Using one hand to shade her vision as best as one could while the sun was positioned more or less at eye level, she squinted around the parking lot and spotted Bonnibel's car almost immediately. It was in a different spot now than it had been before she'd gone to eat. Which probably meant that she had gone somewhere, came back, and had to resort to parking mega far away from all the normal sized cars clustered in the parking spaces closer to the restaurant.

Marceline snorted at the thought of what a sheer inconvenience having a car like that would be.

Marceline could hear the engine still running as she approached and felt her ire marginally subside. It wouldn't fade completely before she's heard the reasoning behind whatever this was, but at least Bonnibel had come back, just now, it seems, from whatever might have needed to pull her away.

When she opened the door to the passenger side, Bonnibel was nowhere to be seen. The keys were hanging nonchalantly in the ignition, unsupervised. Weird. Perhaps she had finally headed into the palace at the same time that Marceline left, and they had just missed each other. Or.

She stepped away from the car, leaving the passenger door ajar. Although she didn't really know her, it didn't seem like the woman was anything along the lines of careless or absent-minded.

Oh crap. What if something happened? What if she was kidnapped. Her mind raced, creating an imaginary scene where a helpless little Bonnibel was being snatched easily by faceless nabbers and rushed away in some inconspicuous vehicle. How long has it been? Shit! Why didn't I just come out to check on her.

She tried to fight it, but her anxiety riddled mind couldn't help but present her flashes of what could be happening by now. For every new horrifying theory, the lump in her throat thickened until it was uncomfortable to breathe, and it hurt to swallow. And of course, she had no phone to call for help right away.

While she willed the stressed and stiff muscles in her legs to find mobility, she thought to herself that she would turn back, use a phone at Saucer's maybe, or ask Finn to pull up surveillance or whoever had the authority to do it.

Before she had a chance to follow her own instructions however, she heard a sound come from inside the car. Beyond the racket of her frenzied pulse roaring against her eardrums, she could hear a low pitch whistling drifting in the air from somewhere inside the big ridiculous vehicle.

"Bonnibel?" her voice came out strained and a bit hopeful.

She wasn't sure if it was the loud panic inside of her relenting or if the whistling noise was increasing in volume. Marceline knew before she bounced up on her toes that she was too short to peer through one of the back windows. There were no footholds to help her up either. Then another thought crossed her mind. What if… what if she's just messing with me. Then I'd just look like a right idiot shuffling around out here.

It didn't- couldn't escape her that this might be more sinister than the last idea provided so to be safe she yanked on the back seat doors to see if she could uncover the noise that she felt was taunting her at this point. Maybe attempting to lure her even.

Locked.

Well then.

The whistling stopped.

Ugh.

Marceline took a deep breath and held it.

She rushed towards the open passenger side while exhaling heavily. There was no point dragging this out any further. What could happen in a parking lot full of cars anyway?

Bracing herself, she hoisted herself up hastily into the vehicle. As soon as she was in the seat, she twisted, more than a little frenetically, around to get a look at the back.