Masked Permanently

Coming Home

Nathalie made her way quickly out of the house by transforming then using Adrien's open window to escape the house. She'd just agreed to give up her life in exchange for her best friend's, and Adrien had no idea. She hoped he'd be happy and understand why she took his miraculous. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered whether or not she was akumatized by Gabriel since it would've had the same outcome. The only difference is that she'd forget everything after as a victim, and that might've been easier than having to consciously make bad choices.

She heard a faint calling out for her from behind, but she knew lots of people had her name. Who would be calling her anyways? Adrien and all his friends were at school, and it wasn't like she knew people in this city outside of work purposes. She was already transformed, and not a lot of people knew her secret identity.

A male voice was practically screaming out her name, and she knew it wasn't Gabriel's voice. It sounded almost familiar, but she couldn't possibly be right. She just chalked it up to her mind playing tricks on her, and just left it. Using her yoyo, she made her way up to the rooftops.

She thought she might as well go up to the school's roof to check in on Adrien. If she wanted him to be perfectly safe from his own father, who she just found out was Hawkmoth, she'd just pull him from class and make sure Gorilla drives him away for a while, but first she would have to get his miraculous.

* * *

"Nathalie!!! Nath!! NATHALIE!!!" Felix chased out all the way to the window, yet she jumped off and swung away as her heroine counterpart. He banged his forehead into the glass, letting it slump down a little. He was too late to stop her from leaving.

Glancing up through his short eyelashes, he could see the back of her dark, shiny ponytail whipping as she continued to run across the rooftops, only going further and further from him.

"She jumped out the freaking window," Marinette announced exhaustedly. "Why didn't she use a door like a normal person? Not to mention, she has my miraculous, so I can't exactly chase her down."

"As we were running, I noticed the doors and bottom-level windows were all covered by metal traps," Felix pointed out, still bummed that he missed her.

"I guess we're just going to have to climb then, aren't we?" Marinette smirked, causing him to look at her with confusion. She did everything blindly as Ladybug, therefore she knew she was able to do dangerous things without resulting in death.

Then again, she had wings and a yoyo back then, so she wouldn't end up a ground pancake.

"What if we slip off and die? We literally just got our lives back," he reminded her nervously.

He was right, she knew, but there weren't many exits around them, so unless they wanted to deal with a grumpy Gabriel Agreste, the window was their only way out.

"Just be careful," Marinette told him, using the back of the television desk to boost herself up into the open window. She carefully stood up on the small window ledge, then used the sides of the window to balance herself as she used the tips of her toes to stand on the outer edge of the window.

With only two glass panels, she would just have to lean really close to the window until she could make it to the concrete wall of which she could perch her feet on.

"Marinette, don't you dare— Get back in here!!" Felix finally noticed she where she actually was. "The thing you're standing on is way too thin to support you! There's nowhere to grab on for support except more of those slippery thin window panels! Grab my hand," he held out his hand.

"Calm down, this is the only way to get out of here. Just... just give me a second," Marinette huffed, still using the sides of the open window for support.