Vanished (Lukadrien) • Miraculous Ladybug

Chapter 30 | an outrage

Things weren't going well for Gabriel. Ever since the police released the report to the public, the suspicions of abuse had been stronger. The court of public opinion was definitely agreeing he's guilty, and they're making it loud and clear. His sales have gone down, sponsors and investors and pulled out, his stock being pulled from shelves, #gabrielagresteisoverparty has been trending worldwide for days.

You could say he was full on cancelled.

But, he was still rich. Even if he'd lost his influence through all this, he still had money. He'd been locked away in his house for the last few months and hadn't said a word to the media or police. Like a coward knowing he was in the wrong, he was hiding. He couldn't exactly continue design work while this mess was going on, so he'd turned is attention to hawkmoth duties. Nathalie hat noticed he'd been dwelling down in his butterfly cave for days now, and she'd been upstairs in her room thinking everything over.

After her initial realisation that she'd been in the wrong this whole time, she'd been wondering what to do next. Adrien missing, the cosplay falling apart, her boss hawkmoth, her permanent health damage from being mayura.

Would she even be able to go out and look for Adrien in her condition? Could she survive outside the walls of the Agreste mansion in her condition? What was she meant to do now? Holding onto the ring, she stared at it and her mind raced with all the possibilities. If she took the ring, if she could find Adrien and give it to him... he'd be able to live his life away from his father safely and at his own free will. Completely free will.

She knew that she'd never be able to take back the things she did as Mayura and standing by and letting Gabriel hurt his son. But maybe she could at least let Adrien have his own life, she could tell him the truth and she could walk away from everything and start all over again.

Would Adrien be able to handle the truth?

Even if he couldn't, he deserved to know.

The more she dwelled on it, the more guilty she felt, the more she hated Gabriel, the more she wanted to be free. She promised Emilie that she'd protect Adrien, and she failed. She wanted to do what she could to fix that.

And with that she decided, even if her condition was an absolute mess at the moment. She'd find Adrien and give him the ring, Gabriel didn't need to know, he could just stay under the assumption he lost it.

She needed to track down Adrien somehow, if the police couldn't even do that then how would she? Maybe she could make an amok to go find him? But if she used the miraculous again, even though it was fixed she'd still damage herself. Maybe she could question his friends? No, they wouldn't trust her since she worked for Gabriel who they all hated.

How the hell would she find him? By now he'd not only look different, but be using a different name too. Where would someone running away go? Probably as far as they could away from the household, somewhere they could stay without being detected... unless the police did find him, but didn't figure out he was Adrien...

Picking up her tablet, she went straight to the police database and looked for any recently found runaways. Even if the police didn't recognise Adrien, maybe she would since she'd been in his life for so many years. Scrolling through the database of closed cases she looked for anyone that even resembled Adrien just in case it was actually him.

"Come on... surely he'd have been picked up by now..." she muttered to herself.

She scrolled further, finding pages upon pages of missing children that had been found recently. It was saddening to know a lot of kids were in similar positions to Adrien. She was about to give up, when she noticed a photo that looked similar yet very different. After a double take, she tapped on the file and zoomed in on the picture.

An androgynous person with messy longish hair, dyed black but grown out and showing blonde. Wearing a green hoodie, had green eyes and Eyebags from being on the run for so long.

"It can't be..." she muttered to herself.

He looked to different... much taller, so androgynous, but the eyes and shape of the face were almost identical. Reading the file, she wondered if it was really him.

Chaton Anderswan
15
Male
Runaway child.

Abused at home, homophobic parents. Found living for months in abandoned building. Currently housed by Detective Lilith Slyder, under good care.

The rest of the details were classified, but it was all she needed to figure out that this was absolutely Adrien under a fake name. She examined the picture some more, the blonde roots matched his colour, the green eyes matched his mothers, he was a bit disheveled but it was definitely him.

It took her a moment to fully realise it, as Adrien had disguised himself well by styling his hair differently, the dye, dressing differently and he'd deliberately chosen the style of his hair and clothes to be more androgynous, further masking it was him. But Nathalie had been in Adriens life for years, so she was able to see past the new look with a few double takes.

That was him, and according to the file he was being housed by a detective working in a station on the other side of the city, on the outskirts of it. If she could find this ladies address, she'd find Adrien.

Gabriel didn't need to know... he'd never find out if she did this when he wasn't looking...