"I was always expected to be in some place where I was not, and now all of Paris will feel the frustration of being somewhere where they are not supposed to be! And it's starting with you, Gen!" A swoosh of lilac light enveloped the middle-aged man from the odd akumatized villain's gun. He looked almost like some sort of astronaut or space-ranger, with a portly belly and a thin face.

Marinette really needed to get away and transform, but currently she had been pulled into a hiding place with a large portion of her classmates, and the only way to escape from them was to run right through the path of the Delayator, as he had called himself.

"Marinette…" a hesitant little squeaky voice echoed out from near her shoulder. Luckily enough, she was not close enough to her class for Tikki to be easily noticeable, but she hushed her anyways.

She surveyed the road from her spot near the beginning of a gap between two buildings. Max was peaking around the other corner slightly, supporting himself on his tiptoes. Everyone else was jammed in the back of the alley, so much so that Marinette could barely tell one person from the other. She hoped all of her friends were back there, or had ran off to some other area.

The Delayator was slowly getting closer, and Marinette began to realize that if someone did not do something, they would all be found out. So she gathered her breath, closed her eyes, and steadied herself. Okay Marinette. You can do this. All you need to do is run to the other side of the street, pull his attention away, and then Ladybug will come swooping in, and the others can escape. She opened her eyes, ignoring all the other voices inside her head that were screaming she was crazy. She braced herself with one hand on the wall, and quickly measured the distance from one side of the street to the other. Then she pushed off, and ran.

And ran.

And tripped.

She fell flat on her face, and her bag jumped off of her, as if it was an insect. Slowly she raised herself off the ground with her hands, and looked down the street. Fortunately, one part of her plan had worked. Unfortunately, that was not good in her current situation.

Marinette reached blindly behind her for her bag as the Delayator began stomping over to her. "And where are you going?" he asked with a grin. "Oh well. You'll never get there on time."

As he said this, he leveled his teleporter gun at her. Marinette was still wildly reaching for her bag strap behind her back, as she stared at the gun charging up. Come on, find your bag, you moron! Where is it?!

Suddenly there was a cry from above and to her left. She finally looked somewhere else then at the akumatized villain in front of her, and saw Cat Noir, jumping down and towards her.

Then she saw an overwhelming lilac light, and then she saw grey stone walls.

"Marinette! Marinette, are you alright?"

There was a groan and something that might have been a "yes" as Marinette pulled herself up off the ground into a sitting position. She rubbed her head and fully opened her squinted eyes to stare out at a small room. The walls were made of layered blocks of grey stone, and there were old fluorescent lights on the ceiling, flickering in their old age. The room was bare, except for her, and the completely unwanted Cat Noir who was standing in front of her, glaring at the walls. "How did we get here?"

Marinette gave him a bland look and stopped rubbing her head. "The akumatized villain… he can teleport people. You seriously didn't know this?" She groaned exasperatedly, ignoring Cat Noir's salty reply. Instead she sunk into her thoughts. Okay, so you're in a small room. A small room with no noticeable doors… for some reason. A small room with no way out and your superhero partner right beside you, except he doesn't know that you're Ladybug, so how are you gonna get out of this without using your powers? She let the prologue of her plan trail off into the farther corners of her brain as she realized something. Where's my bag?! "Tiki?" she whispered carefully.

"Huh?" Cat Noir quickly turned his head towards her, from where he had been leaning up against a wall, seemingly listening to it. It was a weird thing to do, but frankly, she was not the least bit surprised.

"Oh, nothing!" Marinette stuttered out loud. "Have you seen my bag?"

"Uhhh…" The black-clad superhero seemed to think on it a little, then answered her with his head tilted slightly. "Well, Little Lady, I do believe that it was a couple paces behind you on the street. Do you need it?"

Marinette mumbled and shook her head vaguely. She tried to not scream out in frustration, and remembered what she had told Tiki so many times. "I'm soooo clumsy Tiki, there's no way that me having the Ladybug Miraculous is a good idea!" She grumbled inside her head and continued to herself. And where am I now? Stuck in a stone room with nothing except stupid Kitty over there. Which, I guess, if I did have Tiki with me, I wouldn't want to reveal my identity to him… Okay, Marinette. You can do this. You're smart enough; just try to find another way out of the room. And for goodness sake, use your resources, even if they are annoying. "Okay, Cat Noir. What do you think we should do?"

His grass green eyes darted to her and his nose wrinkled up under his mask as he thought. "I think I could use my Cataclysm, I just need to figure out where the door used to be in this place, the walls seem pretty thick… I haven't been able to find it though. The walls all look pretty much the same."

Marinette got up from the ground, and started walking around, musing to herself and examining the walls. She felt Cat Noir watching her, and suddenly he blurted out, "You know, you don't seem half as scared as most girls your age probably would be in this position."

Marinette blanched slightly, and turned to him with a bit of a too-wide smile. "Oh, you know, it's probably just adrenaline mixed with the fact that this happens all the time in Paris. Uh, but, I have an idea… if you would accept my input."

"Of course; I'll always accept ideas from a lady as pleasant as you," Cat Noir replied charmingly.

Marinette gave him a flat look, but continued anyways. "I don't think you should use your power. The walls here seem pretty thick, and we can't risk you picking the wrong one. It could backfire, and the whole place could collapse on us, or you'd just lose your powers and in a few minutes I'd be able to see who you are, and that's not a secret I'd like to have. But… don't you have a way to contact the other superheroes of Paris?"

"Oh!" The cat's eyes lit up, and he reached for his stick. Then he paused in the process, and looked at Marinette sideways. "How do you even know that?"

Her face flushed and she waved her arms awkwardly in front of her body. "Oh, I… I just guessed, and I also often read the Ladyblog, I think it might have been mentioned on there at one point in time… or something…"

He seemed to not care tremendously though, since he had turned his head back to his staff and flicked the top of it up. Immediately he went to call Ladybug, but nothing happened. "That's strange…"

Marinette butted in again. "You can just call one of the others, right? It's not like you need Ladybug. Maybe she's doing something important, or maybe it's something else." She started to ramble, getting tangled up in her personal thoughts. "You know, I always wonder if people rely on her too much. Like, what if she was sick one day, when an akumatized villain came up? What if she was badly injured and couldn't fight? I mean, maybe she's not such a brave person as the whole city makes her out to be, and she's just a clumsy, bumbling fool underneath it all, seconds away from messing up so badly she might put all of Paris in danger."

She was staring at the floor, and did not notice Cat Noir glaring at her, eyes sharp like glass. He murmured harshly under his breath. "Don't say that. You don't know her."

Marinette glanced up at him and suddenly was acutely aware of the position she was in. "Yeah… sorry, I guess I don't. I just get worried sometimes, you know? I don't want the fate of all of Paris to be in the hands of someone who is incapable of holding it. I don't want the people that are dear to me to get hurt. How much do we really know about her? That's all I'm saying."

Cat Noir's gaze softened as he looked at her. "It's alright Marinette. I know Ladybug well enough to realize that she's smart and brave and capable. So you're safe, and everyone you love is safe. Cat's honor." He went back to calling the other two superheroes that defended Paris alongside Ladybug and Cat Noir.

Before he did anything though, Marinette wondered out, "I'm surprised you remember my name."

He glanced at her and smirked. "A cat's memory is as long as its lifespan and as reliable as the fact that it lands on all of its feet."

She giggled slightly, and sat down against a wall as Cat Noir went to call the bee and the fox.

He was sitting next to Marinette on the floor, their backs against one of the grey stone walls. He had been pacing slightly before, but they had been here for about forty-five minutes, and pacing got tiring after a while. He had called his partners, who had been looking for the Delayator- such a stupid name. Ladybug had not appeared, but they promised that they would come rescue him and Marinette as soon as possible. Unfortunately, it seemed that they were underground, or at least in some place that was messing with the signal for his communication device, and also the map aspect. Therefore, the two others predicted that it might take them some time to find where Cat Noir and Marinette were trapped.

Both he and Marinette had been decently quiet. She seemed worried about something, and he was a bit too lost in his thoughts to want to talk. Where was Ladybug? But suddenly, she blurted out something. "What if this is a trap?"

His eyes flickered over to her face, which was staring at the distant wall. "Huh?"

She turned towards him and elaborated. "What if the villain meant for this to happen, for us to be trapped here? We don't know exactly how his power works; at least I have no idea; so he might be able to chose where he sends us. Maybe he sent us to this room on purpose; maybe he even already knew it existed! For example, is it not a bit strange that there's no obvious doorway, but there is clear lighting?"

He thought on it a bit, looking up at those withering old lights. They reminded him of a hospital's lighting; broken-like. "I guess that could make sense."

There was really nothing more to say on the idea though, and they both grew silent again. Marinette's gaze turned to a corner diagonal from her, and he was able to focus on her face, without her noticing. He always sort of admired her freckles, thinking they provided a decent show of her character. She was normally a happy, bubbly, and open person; qualities he always had trouble with. Right now though, something in her gaze was different. She was concentrated, with locked features focusing on a distant area. Her mouth was a flat line and her eyes were hard.

"Is something worrying you, L'Lady?" he ventured cautiously.

Marinette's gaze snapped back to his, and she fumbled a bit with her words. "No… well, not really. Kinda. I don't know. Do you ever worry, about your job?" She gestured to his suit as she said this.

Cat Noir nodded sharply. "It is a big responsibility. But, I have good friends to help me, and I try to just take it one step at a time; be free for a while. There's something simple about saving people."

Marinette's gaze turned to her hands curled in her lap. "I have no idea how you do it. Saving all of Paris all the time seems like such a stressful task… I would never be able to be so easy-going about it. All my personal problems just dwarf in comparison."

He cocked his head at her and smirked softly. "And what would those problems be? I know a cat that's good at keeping secrets and might be able to help."

The young teenager raised her eyebrows at him and chortled softly. "Oh gosh. It's nothing; just normal stuff like school and family and boys."

"Boys, hmm?" He waggled his eyebrows at her and she giggled again, which quickly turned into a long and ferocious yawn. "Are you tired, my young miss?"

Marinette grinned vaguely, her eyes clearly showing that she'd rather be in a bed currently. "It's been a long day."

The cat blinked at her quickly, and then ventured back into their past topic. "Well, maybe talking about your boy problems would help."

"Why, is Paris' Cat Noir secretly out for gossip?" It would have been more snarky of a reply if it had not ended in a yawn on Marinette's part. When she got no reply on his part, she sighed, and it seemed that some part of her that was more closed off earlier, sprang open in her tiredness. "It's really nothing. I just have a crush on a boy at school, and I'm such a total klutz that I have a hard time dealing with it."

Behind the black mask, his own curiosity as Adrien began to peek through. "Who is he?" he asked honestly.

Marinette glanced off into the distance and let out a sigh that was mixed with a yawn, as she leaned her head up against the wall and adjusted her position to a more comfortably suiting one. "Why do you want to know?"

He shrugged. "Maybe it would be good for you to just talk about it? I'm also impartial on the subject." He felt that she was fading, and only half expected a reply.

"Well, you might actually know him."

This caused him to startle with unease. "What? Really? Why?"

The last words uttered from Marinette's mouth were small and far more startling once he thought them fully through. "Well, not personally obviously. But his dad is a famous fashion designer; Gabriel Agreste. His son appears in a lot of magazines, modeling clothes and such…"

And with that, she was asleep.

"Kitty, we're hee-re!" A shrill, sing-songy voice rang out. Queen Bee. Wait, they were here?! He could just hear it through the wall. Coincidentally, it was the one they were leaning right up against. Marinette was startled awake, and almost self-consciously edged away from him and his shoulder, where her head had just been leaning. "He is in there, right?"

"Yeah, I think so," the almost inaudible reply came.

"Okay Kitty, well, if you hear us," she did not sound totally convinced, "we've opened the doorway a bit, so use your power."

Cat Noir sprang up, and Marinette, now fully awakened, inched back from the wall. He was glad for the action; his thoughts had been clouding his mind too much in the time that Marinette had been sleeping. He called his Cataclysm, and then slammed his palm into the wall before him.

It crumbled away to reveal the busy-bee and tricky-fox standing in the dust. The yellow and black clad lady was coughing a bit, while the other smirked at him. She was holding a small bag, clenched in her fist.

Cat Noir gestured for Marinette to leave the room as the fox held up the bag she carried. "I believe this is yours. Saw it on the street when we fought the Delayator."

Marinette's eyes lit up, and she snatched the bag away, as Cat Noir spoke to the ladies with his usual charm. "So glad you lovely girls could join us. I'm always appreciative to have a hive of help!" The pun fell flat on everyone in his company, and he received a couple glares.

Marinette suddenly spoke up. "Well, I can't believe I was rescued by so many superheroes today, but I really have to go, my parents are probably really worried."

And with that, Marinette darted off, waving slightly, but ultimately bolting out into the distance. He knew that Ladybug would come later to save the day; he trusted her after all, she was his partner. But now, some part of his mind strayed. He thought back to what Marinette said; all of it, not just the him-part. Did he really know Ladybug? How well? And here there was another girl, a friend, who actually liked him? He could only think one thing to himself, and that was, What are you going to do Adrien? What are you going to do?

A/N: Ugh, bad title again, but I was not naming it "The Delayator", so there. Sorry for the abrupt ending; I'm just not confident enough to write an fight scene yet, and I kinda wanted Adrien's personal solution to be a bit open-ended. Also, at this time today, I posted a request based on this fandom over on my DeviantArt page, so if you want to read more of my Miraculous writing right away, go check it out.

A couple more notes: This one is set in season 2 or 3, not that I know what they're about. Some of the things I made up are so-so, but it's just so Marinette and Cat Noir could be trapped in a room and have a little chat. I tried to keep the mention of Alya and Chloe as superheroes as limited as possible, in order to keep this as close to the (albeit unknown) source as possible. I also feel like the characters are a bit off, but that might just be because I'm not sure how Cat Noir would really act with Marinette in this instance.