The Missing Purrincess

Chapter 36: Worse Than I thought

How many times would she have been actively theorizing about Ladybug when she was right next to her? She would have heard all my fangirling. Surely that would have made her uncomfortable. Is that what she felt like with Adrien? 

---Nino's POV---

What great timing. Me and Alix finally got the class out, then the fight is over and everything goes back to normal. 

"Hey, thanks anyway man." Kim thanked me.

"Yeah, whatever you need dude. Sorry I wasn't more help."

"Are you kidding Nino?" Nathaniel questioned.

"I would have died if I had to take the lead like that." Mylene added.

"It was pretty cool." Julika mumbled.

"No way dude. That was a total disaster."

"It was Lila's fault if anything went wrong. I mean, she GAVE the bag back to Sabrina!" Alix noted, skating back towards the classroom with the rest of us following.

"I can't believe Lila would do that! She's was so nice." Rose sighed, "I never should have believed her. She was just so convincing!"

"Not everyone was convinced."

The class went silent as they all realized what I had just said. What I ment. The weight of that meaning heavy on everyone's conscious. It took until we were back in the classroom, with the exception of Chloe, Sabrina, Ivan, and Adrien, for Max to say something.

"That napkin would never have hurt me."

"She never knew Jagged Stone."

"No way that she actually sent my comic book to a manga publisher."

"Lila didn't have a bruise when she fell down those stairs. Why didn't I notice that?"

Over and Over. Stuff that Alya had said nothing about, at least to that point. Knowing Alya, she most likely had everything she ever said ready to use against Lila. 

---Alya's POV---

As soon as the magic ladybugs came, my leg felt a million times better. I guess since the fall was because Lila pushed me to get away from Karma, the magic considered that to be damage caused by said akuma. Lucky me.

I made my way back to the classroom, as we were always instructed to do after an akuma attack, but my mind was filled with questions. Theories. Things that just couldn't be true. 

Ladybug had mentioned in her rant causing an ice cream akuma by claiming that the ice cream wasn't magic. I knew for a fact, that Marinette had done that exact thing with Andre the Ice Cream maker. She said that his ice cream wouldn't make Adrien appear, then he was akumatized. Surely that was a coincidence right?

Ladybug was also very similar to Marinette in appearance. Her eyes, hair, and general build were identical to the girl I sat next to daily. To be fair, she also looks similar to Kagami, with bluish black hair and build, though I was pretty sure that Kagami's eyes are brown.

There was also the fact that Marinette had never been akumatized, even with how nasty we were when it came to her and Lila. Then again, Adrien had never been akumatized either, and he definitely wasn't Ladybug.

Yeah, I wasn't going back to class. Technically speaking, the school can't punish students for not going back after an attack, because there's no telling who ended up where. One time I was stuck on the top of The Eiffel Tower for an hour before Cat Noir came up to get me. The magic butterflies aren't exactly scientific. There's no telling what they'd count as damages by the akuma or something else.

Turning around, I ran straight to my house. My room. I left all my stuff at school, but it didn't matter. I had everything I needed to disprove this stupid idea that was floating in my head, and I wouldn't have been able to focus on anything else till I did that. Marinette Dupain Cheng cannot be Ladybug.

If Marinette and Ladybug were the same, than I was an even worse friend than I thought. How many times would I have been actively theorizing about Ladybug when she was right next to me? She would have heard all my fangirling. Surely that would have made her uncomfortable. Is that what she felt like with Adrien? 

No. Marinette couldn't be Ladybug. Surely, I had some sort of proof to that. A single picture or mention of a memory where the two were together. Where I had physically seen Ladybug saving Marinette.  A video clip with Marinette in the background. Something. ANYTHING, because Marinette wasn't Ladybug.

I spent hours going through every file I had. Video clips, audio recordings, pictures, articles, everything. And I found nothing. Not one instance where Marinette was in the same place at the same time as Ladybug.

This was ridiculous. Maybe they were never SEEN together, but I've never been next to Adrien's mother, and I'm NOT Adrien's mother. 

Sighing, I opened up the Ladyblog and begun a post:

"Hey Ladybloggers! 

Ladybug seems pretty down lately. Let's try to cheer her up! Right here, comment something about Ladybug; without mentioning the mask or hero stuff. Something about her personality, her appearance, or a favorite, non akuma related memory."

I opened a picture of Marinette that I hadn't looked at for a while. A selfie we took a while ago, at the park on her birthday. Her smile so big and bright, reminding me about how close we were. 

Was it possible that I had missed such a big part of her life? A part that would explain so much. How often she was late, why she was always hesitant to agree to things, how she would always tiptoe around uncomfortable topics, why she never hid from akumas with the group, but ran off on her own.

The more I tried to disprove it in my head, the more it made sense. Things that never quite made sense about Ladybug were made clear. Why she chose to give ME the first miraculous when she barely spoke to me and knew full well that I ran the Ladyblog and posted pretty much everything on there. 

Maybe.

(A/N Sorry if this isn't my best chapter. I had a rough weekend that involved my brother eating something he was allergic to and not having an epi pen available. He's fine now, but I'm still a little on edge.)