Masked Permanently

Contributing Factors

"None of these books even slightly mention an idea of a solution to fix Ladybug's development!" Chloe whined, closing yet another book. The group had spent a half hour skimming through their books for more possible aid to add to their search.

"What are you three working on?" Miss Bustier suddenly asked from behind Adrien.

"Nothing!" Chloe yelped anxiously.

The teacher glanced at her suspiciously.

"Just looking up our favorite heroes for the project," Alya spoke up quickly, yet nonchalantly. Everyone knew she was practically obsessed with anything Ladybug-related, so it was expected she'd be searching up something of that topic.

"Alright, please try to keep it down. We have another fifteen minutes before lunch, so please keep up the good researching," Miss Bustier said before leaving to check up on another group.

"Kim, we can't research how to carve a duck out of a football!" The group heard, and Miss Bustier scowled, running over to where it came from.

"You boys better be joking! I swear, you better not have spent all this period researching that!" Miss Bustier yelled.

Adrien chuckled a bit, "Poor Nino got stuck over there."

"Oh, right! I forgot about Nino! Haha," Alya laughed, a hint of guilt in her tone.

"We have fifteen minutes left for this period, guys. What are we going to do? Ladybug doesn't have much time, and Nathalie is practically clueless," Chloe reminded them restlessly.

"Well, there has to be something Nathalie knows or something we can find. Chat Noir's kwami should've been paying attention to the research Felix was doing at the time," Adrien grumbled the last part accusingly.

He felt a heavy pinch on his chest, causing him to grimace in pain. The blonde lightly flicked the part of his chest where his kwami sat in his pocket.

Chloe groaned at their behavior, already knowing Adrien was referring to his own kwami. Alya narrowed her eyes in confusion at why Adrien was acting strangely.

"Well, we said we would go check out the computers if we couldn't find anything more, right? Let's see if there's anything that we could put together," the blogger decided.

Adrien felt his shirt being yanked repeatedly by the kwami. It was their simple code that Plagg needed something from the boy whenever they were in public.

"Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll catch back up with you two in a minute. I got to... uh- hit the John," Adrien said, then slipped away from the two.

"Who says 'hit the John' when they need to use the bathroom?" Alya asked Chloe, shaking her head once he was out of hearing range.

"I have no idea. He watches too many cartoons and anime shows," the blonde sighed, then headed off to the computers. The girls logged into their school accounts and got started.

* *

"Plagg, what's going on?" Adrien asked once they were alone in the bathroom, allowing the kwami to fly out of his shirt.

The kwami surprisingly didn't seem peeved or irritated like he usually got with Adrien when he did something, but instead looked... almost hurt.

"Look, I'm sorry if I flicked you a little too harshly. I should've been more careful," the boy began to apologize.

"He kept everything so secretive, Adrien."

"What?"

"I don't know why he didn't use his own research when his development went wrong, Adrien. I swear, I don't even know how Felix fixed Nathalie. He never said a word of how he did it. She just went to sleep and woke up as a civilian again," Plagg rambled, "I don't know if he gave her anything before she went to sleep or if he had to do something magically. I don't know, Adrien!"