Chapter Text
Sabine knew her daughter. She knew what she liked, disliked, her hobbies, her friends, her boyfriend. She knew where she was at most hours of the day, but when she didn't, it was okay. She trusted Marinette, she was responsible, respectful, Marinette wasn’t the kind of kid to get into trouble, except for the akumas. Sabine knew her daughter. And she knew she had responsibilities beyond the likes her mother would ever be able to understand.
Sabine wanted nothing less than to add to her daughter's stress, so she never told her when she put the pieces together. She just silently became a bit more lenient with Marinette's lateness, her disappearing acts, her tiredness and sleeping in, she knew being ladybug was hard work so what kind of mother would she be if she kept Marinette on a strict schedule on top of that?
She also gained an interest in the battles, always tuning in to watch them on tv, of course in the beginning every citizen in Paris would watch the colorful superheroes defeat Hawkmoths latest victim, but over the months the glamour started to wear off, and people couldn't drop everything every time a person was akumatized, but Sabine started watching again. This didn’t shock her husband too much, Tom loved Sabine's curious mind and assumed this was just another thing she became interested in, so he started tuning in more often to watch with her.
Tom didn't know Ladybugs secret identity, Sabine never told him, it wasn't her secret to share and as much as she loved him, Marinette's clumsiness didn’t come from nowhere. She didn't entirely trust him not to spill the beans on their knowledge to their daughter, and Tom never picked up on it on his own, he wasn't as observant as his wife.
There was another secret their daughter held that Sabine never told her husband. Another quite literally painful, quite literally cutting secret that she didn't have the heart to break to her husband.
The first time she noticed was in mid July, three months ago, when Marinette had opted to wear swim trunks over her usual one piece. Sabine didn’t think much of it, of course she noticed, but she simply thought her daughter might have been going for a new style. After all, Marinette loved fashion and often experimented with her personal clothing. Of course, Sabine also worried that Marinette might be experiencing some insecurities about her body, so she made a mental note to remind her more often how beautiful she was and maybe check that she was eating enough, still nothing to worry too much about unless anything escalated.
The thought of self harm hadn't even crossed her mind up until a week later, in the early days of August when she asked Marinette for help with the chores, specifically a load of dishes while Sabine worked on other tasks around the kitchen. Marinette of course agreed to help but she never rolled up her sleeves, and Sabine noticed, she thought it was strange, they were getting wet and she couldn’t imagine that it wasn't uncomfortable but she held off asking until her daughter finished up.
“Oh silly me, I must've forgotten, you know how forgetful I am. I should go change my shirt now that my sleeves are all wet, I'll be right back mom!” Marinette spoke in a panicked voice, her body language even more fearful and protective, she ran off while she was speaking. This was suspicious, Sabine was worried.
For the next two months Marinette had never rolled up her long sleeves which she never took off, she had also abandoned the shorts she would usually adore during this time of the year, soaking up the last of the summer. Sabine had a feeling she knew exactly what was going on but she didn’t want to accept it.
At the end of September Sabine had seen it. Visual confirmation that her daughter, her sweet girl, was hurting herself. It was a Tuesday morning, Marinette was walking out of the bathroom into the living room, rolling down her sleeve as she opened the door and Sabine caught a glimpse of the very marks she had feared. Looking up at her daughter's smiling face the only thing she wanted to do was hug her and take that away, the stress, the sadness, the anger. Whatever feelings her daughter was taking out on herself. She wanted to eat them, take them as her own and never let her child touch a knife again. But she kept quiet, asking how she slept, what she was gonna do in school that day, and she thought. She thought and she researched, that whole day, about what to do, and she decided to wait.
The Dupain-Cheng household was open, they talked, and she believed her daughter would soon open up about her habit, or at least what was worrying her to this point. But now it's the end of October and Marinette hasn't said anything. She spoke about stressful school work, drama with her friends, projects that she was worried about, but never anything new. It's been three months that her daughter has been struggling enough to put a blade to her own skin and she never told her or her husband.
This confirmed two things in Sabine's mind. This was ladybug related, whether it was the stress of a new supervillain sprouting up right after her daughter had defeated the last one, or the stress of being ladybug for so long had finally caught up, or some other advancement in the superhero world that Sabine wouldn't even be able to guess, this was related to her daughters secret double life, and Sabine needed to confront her about it. She couldn't just let her daughter inflict pain on herself. It had already been three months and who knows the damage she's already done and the dangers of the damage she can do. So she decided, she would tell her husband, and they would, together, form an action plan, and if Sabine needed to confront her daughter about Ladybug as well, she would.