Watching Miraclebound

A Grimm Reality

The sun was just peeking its head above the horizon as the van pulled into downtown Washington D.C. The vast number of blaring horns is what finally woke Nino from a dreamless sleep and startled Adrien too from his slumber.

"Are we there already?" the blond mumbled, rubbing his eyes and sitting up, his hair more tousled than normal from lying at an odd angle. Beside him, Chloe groaned something unintelligible and Alya smacked her shoulder to make her be quiet.

"Almost," Louve answered. "Adrien, you're closest to the back. Do you think you could wake the others for me? We're going to be coming to a security checkpoint here soon and they'll need to have their kwami ready."

"A checkpoint?" Marinette echoed, leaning up and retying her hair into ponytails as Tikki tiredly stuck her head out of her bag. "I didn't know there was so much security here!"

"There's not usually," Louve admitted. "But we're not going to, say, mill about in the streets all day like a bunch of clueless tourists. We're going to a remote part of the city where no one would ever expect the Miraculous outpost to be hidden."

"It's in the Washington Monument, isn't it?" Adrien guessed, leaning back now to tap Reine and Cygne gently on the shoulders.

Louve pointedly neglected to answer, focusing once more on her driving, but that was all the answer needed.

Alya and Marinette began to stir, the former groaning with protestant and the latter humming something unintelligible. Nino glanced their way momentarily before his eyes were drawn toward the window as a large brick building caught his eye. "Is that what I think it is?" he gasped, his voice squeaking slightly.

"What?" G-Force asked sleepily as she lifted her head to see what all the commotion was about. "Radio City?"

"It is!" Nino exclaimed. "Louve, can we stop? Just for a second? Please?"

"Uh..." Louve glanced hesitantly at her watch. "We really do need to keep moving, Nino. I'm sorry, but we don't have the time right now. Passage to the Guardian's temple only happens once a day and we can't miss it. Maybe later, all right?"

"No, you're right," Nino sighed, slumping in his seat. "We're supposed to be here on a mission. We aren't sightseeing. Later. For sure."

"Sightseeing," Chloe groaned. "The only sightseeing I want to see is my own nice warm bed with incredibly plush pillows so soft your peasant heads would explode."

"Hmmm, nice visual," Alya commented, earning a snicker from Reine and Louve just shook her head as she pulled the car around a corner and off to the side.

"Heads down," she instructed as a posse of wailing sirens blazed past them. Immediately, the others ducked to obey, Mkango even going so far as to pull a baseball cap over her eyes to hide her face.

The police continued on downtown and Nino cautiously peeked up to see Marinette doing the same. "Uh...why are we hiding from the police?" he asked, thinking of Sabrina's father. "Shouldn't we...I don't know...be asking them for their help? They might be able to tell us something about Nick that could help us locate him!"

"No cop in this town is going to help us," Cygne answered, leaning up to poke her head between Alya and Chloe who both jumped. "'Why' is a bit difficult to explain without saying too much too soon, but the best way to say it would be to confess that we've all...had a bit of history with them."