Secrets and Betrayals

Chapter 7: Self Hate and Late Meeting Part 1

/N: Hi guys! Wow, this chapter took forever to write! My author kwami decided to take a vacation and leave me with a horrible case of writers block! Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter 7: Self Hate and Late Meetings Part 1

When Marinette came home, she greeted her parents, grabbed some food, and headed upstairs. After flinging her book bag against the wall, where it made a satisfying whump, she collapsed onto her bed and finally let the tears flow.

She wasn't cut out for this. She shouldn't have fooled herself into thinking that she could have ever been a superhero. And she was all alone. She couldn't talk to her parents. They couldn't find out she was Ladybug. It hurt that she couldn't reveal herself to them, but it was for their own safety.

Alya, her best friend, and also Ladybug's greatest admirer, could never know her identity either. It was far too risky. She loved Alya and she knew her friend would probably keep the secret, but Marinette couldn't be sure. Alya was a natural journalist. And if there was one thing that Marinette had learned in the past few days, it was that people were capable of doing things that no one would ever expect from them.

There was no one else at school that she was close to. Nino was a good friend, but she didn't know him nearly well enough to share something like the fact that she was freaking Ladybug. And Adrien... Goodness, she couldn't even utter a coherent sentence around the boy. But Adrien was gone... And Chat Noir...

Marinette cried even harder as she thought about Chat Noir. She had been so stupid. Now that she was emotionally drained, she realized just how idiotic she had been to let her temper go off like that... all those horrible things she had said.

She had just needed time to cool off. Then maybe she could have gone and found Chat and they could have talked it out. And they could've been back racing around on the rooftops, fighting akumas and saving Paris. But now she had a new reason to hate the leather clad boy.

He had kidnapped Adrien. No, forget about Adrien. That wasn't even the most important part. He had kidnapped a civilian to get to her. Sure, she had been mad that night too. She had wanted to punch that smirky little grin right off of his face. But to go so far as to involve an innocent civilian out of jealousy...

It was disgusting and pathetic. She had always believed in the good of Chat Noir's personality, despite having not known him very well. She had figured that anyone risking his neck every day to save his city had to be a good person, right?

It was then that Marinette realized how little she knew about her former partner. She knew that he was a flirt, and she knew that he was always willing to throw himself into danger and take hits for her. That didn't mean that he was in love with her. In fact, it most likely meant that he was a player, and very reckless and carefree. The fact that he had flirted with her when they had worked together with the Evillustrater showed that he clearly had more girls than just her on his mind. What if he was only in it for the glory?

And he didn't just kidnap Adrien, he hurt Adrien. Badly. Well, they didn't technically know that, but she just had a feeling. One of her little lucky feelings. Her gut was trying to tell her something, but the message was so jumbled that she couldn't figure out what it was.

Suddenly, her phone buzzed. Tikki looked up from where she had been sitting sadly in the corner. Marinette wiped her eyes dry enough that she could see the screen without her vision being blurry.

Alya: The police dude texted me back! Here, I copied and pasted exactly what he said:

A blood test using samples from past doctor visits led the forensics team to confirm that the blood on the ransom note was in fact the blood of the teenage model kidnapped yesterday, Adrien Agreste. That's all they would tell me, but I assure you a serious investigation is under way.