Keep the Mask, It Goes With Your Costume

~Chpater Nine: The Risk~

The following day continued just as the previous one had, no one had any success in the search for Marinette. Her parents were heartbroken, as well as her friends and Cat Noir. Ladybug wasn't doing much better either, she now had no place to live or do anything. Throughout the day while Ladybug "searched" she discreetly went to various places buying small amounts of food to keep it not suspicious, but getting enough to last her for a while, a week at least. By the end of the day everyone went in and a lot of them lost hope, starting the following morning the city-wide search would be officially called off and it would no longer be excusable to skip school or work in order to search for Marinette.

This actually made Ladybug relieved, nothing hurt her more than having to give people false hope that Marinette was coming back and was really just hoping people would forget about her as soon as possible.

After the sun set and she bid her goodbyes to Cat Noir, Ladybug found herself alone on one of the top levels of the Eiffel Tower, staring up into the starry Paris sky.

The city was darker than she would have imagined, and very few people seemed to be out. She put the goods she had collected into what looked like an abandoned janitors closet near where she was, and laid down in deep thought. She knew it would be better if she actually ate something, but there was too much going on in her head and stomach already that it wouldn't really make her feel better. So she closed her eyes on the concrete, and slowly drifted to sleep.

This continued for the next 10 days, and if Ladybug was being honest with herself, she was miserable, absolutely miserable. She watched every day as her parents came out and searched for her, coming to tears every time. They had closed their bakery from the first day Marinette disappeared, and in their grief it had yet to be reopened. It killed her inside to watch Cat Noir scolding himself inside every night that the poor girl still hadn't been found and it was his fault. For ten days this continued as Marinette spent every night alone in the Eiffel tower wallowing in her misery.

This couldn't last, it just couldn't. Ladybug couldn't bear the thought of having to live like this like for months, or maybe even years before she could take off her miraculous. And with Master Fu gone, there was absolutely no one she could turn to. Usually when she had problems with her double life, Marinette asked her Kwami for help and advice, but, obviously, that wasn't an option this time. This had to have been the lowest point in her life since the whole situation happened just under 2 weeks ago. She lied down in sorrow as she had been doing, letting tears fall down her cheeks, it was nearly midnight. And of course, in that moment, something happened just to make everything in her life worse.

Tom and Sabine Dupain-Cheng walked out of their temporarily closed bakery into the cool, Paris night, hand in hand. Ladybug watched from the Eiffel tower as they looked at each other, and called quietly out her name, in what seemed like a final desperate act to give them hope. As Marinette saw her loving parents and heard her name, it hurt her inside. And it hurt even more and she watched them go back in on the verge of tears.

That was it. Marinette couldn't stand being alone anymore. In her loneliness she was feeling anxious and depressed, which was clouding her judgement. That very moment, she made the riskiest decision ever, too distracted by her sadness she didn't think of the possible consequences, and found herself right in front of the Dupain-Cheng bakery door.

The sign on the door clearly read "closed," so Marinette knew her parents would be surprised for someone to show up the late, but they would understand her reasoning soon enough. In a moment, she knocked rapidly on the door just a few times, and deeply inhaled as she heard her mother getting up to answer it from inside.

Sabine slowly opened the door and to her surprise, saw the masked super heroine of Paris. As she wiped away a few tears, she spoke.

"Oh! Hello ladybug. We are closed right now, is there anything you need to-"

But before she finished pronouncing the "n" in need, Ladybug wrapped her arms around Sabine Dupain-Cheng and embraced her tightly.

Of course this startled Sabine quite a bit, it wasn't very normal for a superhero to go hugging a random citizen at midnight.

"L-ladybug?" She stuttered "what's wrong-"

"Its me!" Ladybug spoke loudly through her tears. "I'm Marinette!"

The eyes of her parents widened as this statement, they couldn't believe what they just heard. Tom then walked up to where the two of them were.

"Marinette?" He said hesitantly "you're really ladybug?"

She spoke not again, but merely nodded her head in her mother's embrace. When Sabine realized that what Ladybug said was true, she wrapped her arms immediately around the hero, grabbing into her tighter than over. And Tom joined in as well, all 3 of them with watering eyes.

Marinette took a deep breath in as she remained wrapped in her parents embrace and mumbled out what she'd been wanting to say to them for so long.

"I love you guys so much" she said quietly "I really, really missed you."

Neither of them said anything back, but just tightened their arms around their finally found daughter, feeling so at peace.

But this would not in the end bring peace.

This was the biggest risk Marinette would take, and as most risks do, it wouldn't end pretty.
~

Hey guys! Your every day Ladybug Elise here!
Just for clarification, assume the events that happened in the canon episode "Miracle Queen" take place in between Chapters 8 and 9. So as of now and into the future, Master Fu is gone.