Vanished (Lukadrien) • Miraculous Ladybug

Chapter 20 | toss and turn

It seemed no one could sleep tonight. Luka lay awake looking up at the roof of his room with one thing stuck in his mind.

Adrien.

He wanted to confront him. He wanted to see him again, talk to him, hold him in his arms again. But he knew that as long as Gabriel was a risk, he couldn't utter a word to a single soul about the fact he knew where Adrien was. He just wanted to know he was ok.

What did he do? Give in to his urge to reunite with him and show up at his door swearing to keep it a secret or stay away and watch from a distance? There were so many ways each situation could play out and a lot of them weren't good. He rolled over to try and fall asleep, but the thought wouldn't leave his mind.

Hearing a tap on his window his lingering thoughts on Adrien were snapped out of. He sat up and looked over at the window, to his surprise he was met with Ladybug. Confused, he got up and opened the window for her.

"Ma- uh Ladybug... what are you doing here is there an akuma?" He questioned.

"No, but since you're a permanent holder now I need to pass this onto you. I've been looking into people who've been akumatized to find some kind of connection. Before the charms to prevent re-akumatizing existed the majority of people who've been akumatized more than once have something in common, apart from a few outliers" she began to explain.

This was interesting, it could potentially be the trick to finding hawkmoth.

"They're all students. Teenagers to be exact. And it seems a lot of them know each other too. Almost as of hawkmoth is preying on people he had a loose connection to. I think that maybe he has a kid going to one of the schools nearby and is repeatedly akumatizing their friends since it's easier to track and watch them"

Hawkmoth would akumatize anyone who was having negative emotions at the time. So a good chunk of Paris have been akumatized at least once. Of all ages, genders and occupations. So ladybug must have sifted through hours and hours of work to even notice that the repeat victims are all close in relation.

"He's targeting teenagers as repeats? Like a certain friend group?" Luka asked.

"It seems like it. Apart from a few exceptions like Mr Pigeon, most of the repeat victims are kids from nearby schools. Telling us that not only is hawkmoth in the general area, he must have a child attending one of those schools, or maybe works at one of the schools in order to keep an eye on the kids to he repeat victims" she replied.

"Ugh, as if this guy wasn't bad enough akumatizing half of Paris, but targeting kids in particular? Gross. Any ideas on who it could be?"

Ladybug seemed to pause for a moment, even though Luka knew who she was she didn't know that yet. Marinette was under that mask trying to hide the fact she knew Luka as Marinette as well as Ladybug.

"Well... the repeats include lady wifi, relflekta, princess fragrance, the bubbler, all of chloes various forms and you. So either it's someone at your school or at the school the others go to. You all know each other, some of you go to school together. So unfortunately I think someone in the general friend group may have a parent or family member that's secretly hawkmoth. Either that or maybe one of the school staff" She explained, conveniently leaving out that she attended the school as well, even though Luka secretly knew.

In fact, that bonus bit of into made sense. If Ladybug and Cat Noir as well as a few other hero's went to that school too it made sense that they got the miraculous in the first place. They were given them to hide and fight in plain sight in a way.

"That's interesting... but kind of scary to think about. I'll keep an eye out for anything suspicious and tell you right away if I see anything" Luka replied.

"That's exactly what I was going to ask, you're one step ahead of me. That's why you're a good miraculous wilder. If I find anything else out I'll tell you and the other hero's the second I can... and if I'm able to contact cat noir..."

That right... with Adrien gone so was cat noir. It'd been almost 5 months without him, and in all honesty the akuma fights have been getting harder without him. Once hawkmoth realised cat was gone it's almost like he was deliberately designing akumas and senimonsters that are hard to defeat without cat noirs power.

"I can't imagine he's gone forever. He's not that kind of person, I'm sure whatever has happened must be something he's trying to work though. Maybe he's injured and still healing?" Luka said.

"Maybe... it's odd he hasn't been responding to me thought. I hope he's ok, and I'm waiting for the day he comes back, I know he will. I just hope it's soon, it's so unlike him to just leave like this. Whatever happened must have been sudden"

It killed Luka that he couldn't say anything about where Cat Noir really was, since it'd reveal identities. But he didn't want to ruin the obviously very emotional and impactful reveal that would eventually happen between them. One day when it's safe enough they'll have to reveal and he knew that it'd be a big moment, he wanted them to do that on their own terms.

"I have to go tell the other heroes, plus it's late and you should be asleep" Ladybug said, stepping back up onto the window.

"You should be sleeping too Ladybug" Luka replied.

"As soon as I'm done with this"

"Thank you for telling me"

"Us heroes need to stick together, bug out!"

And with that she swung off, leaving Luka standing in his room with the information he just learnt. Closing the window and slipping back into bed he pondered on it for a moment.

Hawkmoth was someone close to the group? Maybe a parent or staff member as well... it was a bit worrying to think about the fact hawkmoth could be watching them at school. But it also made finding out who he was a bit easier since there was a limited pool of people it could be.

His mind got foggier as the tiredness of the night started to take over his body, still lazily pondering on who hawkmoth could be. Who was that evil? Who was willing to hurt teenagers like that? And who was close enough to them that fit the profile.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, a dreadful realisation hit him. He knew exactly who fit that profile.

The man that abused his son, the man willing to hurt those close to his son, the man who was the father of someone in the friend group.

And given the situation with Adrien...

"No... it couldn't be Gabriel... could it?"