Adrien freezes. Marinette watches him stiffen, the sudden tensing of his muscles, the blue pulsing of his veins conspicuous. His dark shirt seems thinner than it was earlier.

He's hiding something.

She asks again. "Do you know who Hawkmoth is?" She says carefully, sounding out each constant with precision and emphasis. Marinette yearns to know who the man is behind her inhumane treatment, behind her anguish and torture. He took her life away. He robbed her from her family and her friends and from the life she once had. The vengeance swirls within her like a storm, a tornado gradually increasing and readying itself to destroy. She needs to know. And if Adrien knows, he must tell her.

"I..." Adrien begins, startled, sounding as if a knife is being held to his throat. His eyes seem cold, like gateways to a wall of secrets yet to be uncovered. Marinette's sharp glare remains expectantly, intently.

"I don't know for sure. But I have an idea," he finishes. The look upon his face reflects something like guilt.

She feels disappointment rush through her like waves sloshing onto shore. He didn't see Hawkmoth leave? Her eyes fall to the floor. This cannot be. Adrien was the last one there. Adrien was the only one who could see Hawkmoth. Adrien was her only witness.

And he didn't see Hawkmoth.

Then she recalls what he had said: the explosion shot him onto the streets. So it would be likely that she flew in the opposite direction.

Marinette sighs and Adrien shifts awkwardly, both noticing the discomfort that had eased its way into the atmosphere. Marinette numbly looks to a spiderweb dangling from the ceiling like a sparkling chandelier in the sunlight. It glistens when she stares from different angles.

"So today we'll be off then," he affirms, finding also a thoughtless interest in that spider who obliviously works its way up the wall.

***

When Marinette wakes up, she's still in the shabby car. She groans, popping her neck, before glancing absentmindedly out her window. The sky is dark, cloaked by clouds, and ebony of the night pregnant of the birth of dawn. In the distance lines silhouettes of trees, large and jagged. Marinette presses her thumb against the cold of the glass window.

"Where are we going again?" Marinette mumbles, and the car unsteadily rolls upon the roughly paved road.

"You'll like it," Adrien smiles at her, white teeth glistening in the pale moonlight.

A speckle of white sticks to the window; then, another follows another and soon a serenade of white flutters from above. Snow. It falls in sprinkles, dotting the grass, and Marinette can't help but to manage a smile; simple things like snow were things she took advantage of in the past. To see it once again for the first time in over two years is a feeling Marinette can only describe to herself as refreshing.

Reminiscing, she recalls a memory of a snow-glazed Christmas. She remembers the year that Adrien went missing on Christmas only to be found wandering around with "Santa." It causes her to giggle yet cringe at herself; that year, she sang a tragic lovesick song about her fondness of Adrien and how she couldn't bear to be without him. It still makes her feel numb that, all along, he was Chat Noir fighting right by her side.

Suddenly she wonders if she and he will ever return to the public eye. How strange it would be for Ladybug and Chat Noir to appear again! Reporters would shove microphones and questions in their faces, paparazzi would dig as deeply as their pleas could manage merely to create gossip for their flashy magazines. Out of thin air, they disappeared two years ago; now, then, out of thin air they would appear!

Perhaps they would return after she defeats her antagonist—and actually defeat him. This is her plan, after all: leave Adrien secretly and return to the lab to fight those who tortured her. But every passing day, Adrien is driving her further and further away from the lab; every day traveled away from the lab is another day she'll have to trek back by herself. How will she pull it off?

If only she had a connection to the lab. If only she knew where it was...

"We're almost here," Adrien's voice breaks her raging thoughts. "I do need to do something first, though," he remarks with a suspicion hanging in his voice. Suddenly Adrien veers to the side of the road and onto the edge of a snow-thick ditch. They jerk slightly forward at the abrupt halt of the break.

"I'll be right back."

Marinette stares dumbly as Adrien fiddles in the cockpit of the car, grabs a grocery bag and a tool box, and retorts to the back of the car. He carefully conceals her door with a thin smile.

A few minutes pass and Adrien renters the car with the license plate; he changed it! Marinette frowns, but doesn't say a word.

"This is just to keep us off the radar. Don't want them finding us, you know," he grins, beaming at his own wits; Marinette realizes how he found her and that facility. Though he may be a proud cat, he is a clever one.

Suddenly, an idea comes to her mind.

"Where was the facility, anyway?" She asks as nonchalantly as possible, running her index finger along the numbers and letters of the yellow license plate. It's cool to the touch. "I just wanna know how far we've come."

"You really wanna know? It was a nice place, I'll say. My father vacationed there a few times," Adrien sighs, and Marinette can't help to mentally question his strange demeanor. "I wouldn't mind going back for a trip if those crazy people weren't there."

Adrien starts the car and begins the monotonous trip oncemore. "It was some place in Germany; Bavarian Alps, I think? Pretty place—held a light chill. It was well-hidden. It's hard to believe Hawkmoth made a facility there...who knew?" He chatters, as though the topic is merry; it isn't to Marinette. She silently watches the windshield wipers sway a few clumps of snow to the side.

The rest of the ride, Marinette decides to close her eyes and pretend to sleep. She adjusts herself and rests her head upon the awkwardly-stretched seatbelt.

Germany, huh? That will be quite the journey. I know I can get some help somehow. Perhaps I could get a job. Would Adrien let me get a job?

"Hey, man..." trails Adrien's voice.

Marinette freezes. Adrien is on the phone.
She squeezes her eyes shut, heaving her chest slowly. He thinks I'm asleep.

"We're on the way....yeah, I got her the disguise."

The ugly disguise. The blasted hair...I look like an idiot!

"Yeah, I'm alright. She seems to be okay too....I know, I can't stop thinking about that night.
I saw Nathalie. Glasses and bun and all. I swear it was h-her...."

Nathalie. Glasses and bun. NATHALIE...that name!

Marinette almost leaps beneath the seatbelt.

All of a sudden, like a splash of cold water or a slap in her face, the realization strikes her: Nathalie was Adrien's "nanny." His "assistant."
Marinette recognized her from somewhere, with the blue eyes of cutting sapphires and navy and red hair. She did change the tint of her hair slightly; the red overpowered the navy, almost as though Nathalie inverted the colors simply to trick her. Maybe Marinette was so dazed she never paid mind to the fact that the "bun woman" was nothing other than a robot with feelings of indifference.

But now? Oh, now, Marinette has a way to get back. And she knows just how to do so.

"I don't want to believe it. Man, I don't want to. It's—it's hard. I don't know how we're going to do this, how long I can keep her a secret. And I don't want to go back to that...that forsaken place...."

I'm going back, Marinette thinks. I am going back with whatever it takes within me. And I know I can do it for sure now.

***

Helloooooo :) Another update. I only rewrote it once because I'm so lazy. Rip. Hope you enjoy!

EDIT: I changed the location of the facility from Poland to Germany. I don't know the geography of Poland that well, so...

- lilacfrost021