Sorry to anyone who read the last chapter when the format was messed up! I copied it from my Tumblr blog and the coding came with it, I guess! Thanks to LovePuppy25 and Hopeshard for the heads up!

-o-o-

After finding the box for a Miraculous, Adrien had told Nino and Alya that he was going to go up to the roof to look for clues. He had never gone through the inside of the building to get to the roof terrace, but Alya had given him instructions on how to get up there. Unfortunately, he had to go over Marinette's bed to climb out of the roof hatch, which had not helped his completely flustered mind to be in Ladybug's bed for even the few seconds that it took to crawl across.

Once he was out, he shut the hatch and immediately yanked Plagg out of his shirt pocket.

"You knew, didn't you?" he demanded. "You've been acting weird all morning. You knew that Marinette is Ladybug."

Plagg sighed and nodded.

"Sorry, but yeah. I did," he replied. "Kwami aren't allowed to share the identities of other Miraculous wielders. There's old magic protecting your identities, even from each other. Sometimes especially from each other. Would you want Nooroo to tell Hawkmoth who you are?"

Adrien hesitated for a moment, seeing the little cat's point. Even if he was really upset that Plagg had been keeping Ladybug's identity a secret for the last four years, he could understand why the magical gag order was necessary. He wasn't sure how many Miraculous holders had gone bad over the centuries (and even millennia), but he was sure that Hawkmoth was not the first, nor would be be the last. There had probably even been evil Chat Noirs and Ladybugs.

"Okay," he said in acceptance. "So what do we do now?"

"You're gonna have to find her on your own," Plagg answered, though he had the decency to look adequately annoyed about it, at least. "I can't lead you to Hawkmoth any easier than I can lead you to Ladybug."

"So then you think Hawkmoth took her?" the blonde asked quickly, looking back up at his kwami.

"I don't know," Plagg said with a shrug. "Seems likely."

"What if we go all around the city? Could you tell me if we were close to one of their kwamis?" Adrien tried.

Plagg shook his head.

"Can't do it," he replied.

Adrien sighed in an explosive manner, obviously frustrated with this conversation getting nowhere. He was afraid for Ladybug, for Marinette, and he had nothing to go off of as to where to find her. Now that he knew who she was, it was even more likely that his friend was in grave danger.

"Ladybug is missing, Plagg! She might be hurt or worse! Her kwami could be hurt or worse," he exclaimed in an upset tone. "Don't you care? They could be dead and we'd be standing around here doing nothing! We have to try!"

The teenager had no idea how to read the look that came over his kwami's face after being yelled at. They had had some fights over the last four years, but nothing really serious, and they usually just consisted of Adrien getting annoyed and Plagg being indifferent until they made up. This was completely different, though. If he had to guess, he could only describe Plagg's current emotion as fury.

"Have you ever spent over five thousand years with the same partner?" the kwami asked sharply. "You can't even begin to know what Tikki means in my life. Don't tell me that I don't care. What you're doing is useless, though. Walking around on this roof yelling at me might make you feel better, but it's not gonna bring Ladybug back."

He sighed, clearly calming down again, the anger quickly leaving his tiny body.

"If I could help you more, I would," he added. "You have to do this on your own."

Adrien nodded in understand, not knowing what else to do.

He had never seen Plagg mad at him before. He must have really overstepped in his own desperation. His kwami clearly had strong feelings for Ladybug's kwami, which wasn't something that he had ever really thought of before today. Plagg had always seemed like his own personal friend, so much so that he sometimes forgot that the little creature had been around for thousands of years, so long that he had once said that he wasn't quite sure how old he was. It was hard to picture his relationship with another of his own kind, but he supposed it made a lot of sense. Ladybug was more than just his partner to him, even from the first time they'd worked together. He couldn't even imagine what Plagg and this Tikki must share after so long.

"I'm really sorry, Plagg," he apologized after a moment.

"Don't worry about it, kid," Plagg responded, waving a hand as if it was nothing. "Humans are emotional and I know how you get about Ladybug."

The night before when he had been worried about Ladybug, he had tried to make himself believe that nothing bad had happened to her. He had wanted to think that she had just had some very good reason to miss patrol and to take her earrings off. Trying to call her had been his only real attempt at searching for her.

He had looked for Marinette, but that search had been entirely different. He had looked for her mainly with his eyes, using the height rooftops as his advantage. He hadn't known what she had been wearing or how far she could have possibly gone. He had just been hoping to get lucky, which really wasn't what he was known for.

Knowing that the two missing girls were the same person, though, was a game changer, now that he thought about it. He knew so much about her. He knew both ways that she could look now. He knew how she smelled, thanks to his time with her as Ladybug. He knew what kinds of things she liked to do for hobbies as Marinette and what kinds of places she might visit. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time he had had to track her down.

"Alya and Nino are just going to have to forgive me for disappearing," he stated. "We've got a bug to find. Plagg, claws out!"

-o-o-

Marinette wasn't sure what she had been expecting being captured to be like, but she had certainly been left alone more than she had thought she would be. She couldn't really be certain about what time it was or how many hours had passed, but the pain in her wrists from her bindings told her that it had been a significant around of time.

Her captor had been in earlier to gloat about getting her earrings and her current predicament, but he had given her some water. Apparently he wasn't entirely as cruel as he had previously seemed. That or he didn't want his Chat Noir bait to die of dehydration while they waited for him to figure out where she was.

She had to admit that she couldn't tell if she wanted her partner to find her. On the one hand, he would be walking right into a trap. She had been taken prisoner with the express intent of luring the other superhero to her location. If he showed up to save her, there was the very real possibility that he would have his Miraculous taken, as well, and their enemy would win. Surely her life wasn't worth the lives of however many people would be in danger if the two Miraculous jewels were used together. Tikki had never really explained it to her, but if it was what a villain wanted to do, it couldn't be a good thing.

On the other hand, she knew that her life was worth it to Chat Noir. He cared about her deeply, in a way that she couldn't explain, and she had to admit that her eyes had been darting to where she knew the door was now every so often, in hopes that he would show up. She wasn't used to needing to be rescued, but she didn't mind it as long as it was him. They were a team.

Some teammate she was right then, though. For all she knew, any minute now, light would burst into the dark room once again as her captor threw her partner inside, his fate the same as hers. What would happen then, if they were both taken prisoner?

She really didn't want to think about it.

-o-o-

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