Chapter Text
Landing lightly atop a building, Marinette rounded on her partner furiously.
“What the hell was that, Chat?! We’re supposed to be a team!”
He cowered a little at the expression on her face, which reminded her that she needed to control herself. Slowly, Marinette shut her eyes and counted to ten, attempting to calm the raging storm in her head. Once she’d composed herself, she opened her eyes and spoke deliberately.
“This is the third time in the last week that you’ve shown up to an akuma fight after it’s already over, then taken credit for it anyway.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What’s going on, Chat? Is something happening in your civilian life?”
His eyes darted away, and she knew she’d hit the nail on the head. All of the lingering anger rushed out of her. Sighing in commiseration, she sat on the edge of the roof and patted the spot next to her in invitation. Slowly, cautiously, he sat down. He stared at the backs of his hands, and Marinette was eventually forced to break the silence.
“C’mon, talk to me. I want to help.”
After a long silence, he spoke. “What would you do, if you had to choose between your friends and your family?”
“I’d choose my family,” she replied without hesitation. “Friends will come and go, but family is forever.”
Chat nodded thoughtfully.
There was a peaceful silence for a long while as Marinette allowed him to ponder. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to let her guard down, knowing her partner had her back. A soft summer breeze ruffled her hair. A dog barked in the distance. The smell of melting cheese wafted up from the apartment building below them. Like this, she could almost imagine that Hawkmoth and his akumas didn’t exist, that the two heroes were just normal teenagers who snuck out after curfew. A wistful smile twisted her mouth at the thought. If only.
The moment was abruptly shattered when she felt gloved fingers on her earlobes, attempting to pry the backing from her earrings. Marinette jerked away and covered her ears on instinct, eyes flying open. Stunned, she gaped at Chat Noir. He stared steadily back at her.
Scrambling to her feet, hands still cupping her ears protectively, she backed away from the hero.
“Minou? Is everything okay?” Her voice wavered. This couldn’t be happening.
He stood, staring at her with a predatory gaze. She suddenly felt very small and vulnerable. Her partner had never looked at her like this.
“I’m sorry, Ladybug,” he said evenly. “I have to choose my family.”
Without another word, he lunged for Marinette, claws swiping for her ears. She turned and fled across the rooftops, mind racing. Was Chat being mind controlled? What was making her kitty act like this? She narrowly avoided being caught by her friend as she swung towards the Eiffel Tower. Finally reaching her destination, she turned and immediately was forced to dodge the hand hurtling towards her.
Feeling an odd sense of deja vu, she cried, “What the hell are you doing?!”
Never ceasing his efforts, Chat spoke through gritted teeth, like every syllable pained him.
“I have to choose my family,” he repeated. “I need your Miraculous. It’s the only way.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she rapidly blinked them away. She could feel later. Right now, she needed to protect the Ladybug Miraculous. Marinette continued dodging, realising that the only strategy she had was to fight fire with fire. Only Ladybug and Chat Noir, yin and yang, could remove the Miraculi of other wielders. Chat Noir was compromised, and was now a danger to both herself and the Miracle Box. He needed to be neutralised. She had to take the Black Cat Miraculous.
Hardening her resolve, she struck when grasping hands next reached for her. Chat was thrown off by the sudden retaliation and faltered, giving her the chance to slide the ring from his right ring finger. It went easily, like the Kwami within was eager to escape its current wielder.
Marinette backed away, clutching the Miraculous with both hands. She should’ve left, but morbid curiosity rooted her feet to the floor. She had to know. Chat, her kitty, her confidant, had betrayed her, and she needed to know who would do such a thing. The black suit fizzled away agonisingly slowly. As the identity-concealing enchantment faded, a horrible feeling twisted her gut. Finally, Chat Noir was revealed.
Adrien Agreste.
Reeling, Marinette prayed, “Please, let this be a terrible dream. Please, let me wake up.”
She didn’t wake up. The tears she had been holding back finally burst free, streaming down her cheeks as she stared at Chat. Who was Adrien, her friend, her first crush, the sweet, innocent boy that she trusted with her life. Marinette had trusted him, both as a hero and as a civilian. The knife of betrayal twisted ever deeper.
Adrien’s eyes narrowed, and he darted forward in a desperate attempt to regain the lost Miraculous. Instinct kept Marinette moving. She leapt off the Tower, swinging out of sight, then looped around and tracked Adrien as he made his way home. Without the heightened senses of the Black Cat Miraculous, he was an easy target.
Once he’d entered the gates safely, Marinette turned away and made her way home.
***
She forced herself to keep it together until she was safely in the privacy of her own room. The roof hatch clicked shut as she fell to her knees in the middle of her room, finally letting everything sink in. Her hands covered her mouth as silent sobs painfully forced their way from her lips. The room around her blurred. Marinette felt the tingle of detransformation wash over her unbidden, and a familiar weight rest on her thigh. She cried harder, silently. Always silent.
An eternity later, reality filtered back in. Conscious enough to think, Marinette felt a jolt of panic at the thought of being akumatised in this state. She began to draw slow, deep breaths and drew the wall separating her from her emotions back up until comfortable numbness settled in. Rubbing her eyes, Marinette looked at Tikki.
“Any advice?” she asked wryly.
Tikki flew up and hugged her cheek. “Marinette, I’m so sorry!” she cried.
“Me too, Tikki. Me too,” Marinette sighed, before straightening with a determined glint in her eye. “But Paris still needs protecting. I’ll just have to do it alone.”
The Kwami eyed her skeptically but nodded. “If anyone can do it, you can.”
Marinette felt a pang of loneliness and pushed it away. She got up and grabbed one of her notebooks and a pen before sitting on the bed. She tapped the pen to her lips thoughtfully as she considered where to start.
“This could be a blessing in disguise. Cha— Adrien gave us a lot of clues with what he said,” she mused thoughtfully.
“Marinette,” Tikki started, “Are you sure you want to do this right now?”
She waved a hand at her dismissively. “This is important. It can’t wait.”
Marinette clung to the distraction like a lifeline. She had to stay busy; it wasn’t safe to be alone with her thoughts. Akumatisation wasn’t an option. Her hand began to move across the page, jotting notes down as she thought aloud.
“Chat Noir is Adrien Agreste. Chat had to choose between family and friends. He chose family.” Marinette spoke clinically, detached. “His family needed him to take the Ladybug Miraculous. Adrien Agreste’s family is Gabriel Agreste. Gabriel Agreste needed the Ladybug Miraculous. This most likely means that Gabriel is Hawkmoth. Nothing else could have shifted Chat’s loyalty like this.”
This information was utterly unsurprising. The thought had been brewing in the back of her mind since Adrien was revealed, but it felt good to write it down. It made it feel real.
Marinette chewed the end of her pencil as she pondered what to do next. Ladybug couldn’t make arrests, so she would need to get authorities involved. Luckily, she didn’t need to worry about the Agrestes fleeing, since they were still after her Miraculous. It might be best to lay low, though, and lull them into a false sense of security before striking.
She nodded to herself and looked at Tikki. “For now, it’s business as usual. I’ll alert the mayor once their guard is back down.”
The Kwami nodded. “Okay. Now can you please go to bed? You need to sleep.”
Marinette sighed but acquiesced. She did have school tomorrow, and she had to seem as unaffected as possible with Adrien in such close proximity. The Earth didn’t stop turning just because your best friend who was also your other friend had betrayed you and ripped your heart out and stomped on it and— She cut off her mental spiral. She had school tomorrow.
Robotically, she went through the motions of getting ready for bed and turned out the lights. As she slipped under the covers, Marinette prayed that she’d be able to get some sleep tonight.
***
Marinette dragged her feet across the pavement, each step bringing her closer to certain doom. The phrase didn’t even feel like hyperbole. Beyond the doors of the school laid not only Adrien, but Lila and her posse. They had been relentless since they started lycée, quickly turning Marinette into a pariah. Everyone, from the newest students to the principal, thought that she was a cruel, manipulative bully. The irony was not lost on her.
Despite her foreboding, Marinette trudged through the doors. She just had to make it through this last day, and Seconde would be over. She’d have a whole summer before being forced to see the faces of her tormentors again. With that hopeful thought in mind, Marinette made her way to her first class. She slumped into her seat and attempted to get a quick nap in. She hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, mind too busy analysing every interaction she’d ever had with both Chat and Adrien.
Before she could even close her eyes, though, a shadow fell over her table. Marinette looked up, not sure whether she should be relieved or devastated that it was Lila. At least she was alone this time.
“Hi, Lila,” she said emptily. She had figured out long ago that trying to argue with her would make their interactions longer, so now Marinette endeavoured to make herself as passive as possible.
Lila hesitantly started, “Hey, Marinette, um.” She visibly braced herself before rushing the rest out in one breath. “Can I ask you something?” she squeaked.
“Go ahead.”
“Um…” Lila looked around before leaning in and dropping her voice to a whisper, cupping her mouth. “You’d better start looking for another lycée, because for my end of year prank, I’m getting you expelled.”
As the poisonous words left her mouth, Lila maintained both the expression and tone of apprehension. Marinette was honestly impressed. Threats like this had been made before, of course, but Lila was a liar through and through. She pondered on what she could say that wouldn’t somehow get twisted by the manipulative girl.
She elected to simply stay silent.
Lila’s eyes slowly began to well with tears as she stared at Marinette in horror. She turned and fled the room. All the eyes in the room turned to stare at Marinette, and she shrunk in her seat.
It was going to be a long day.
***
The bell rang, signalling the end of an excruciating chemistry class. With Adrien as her desk partner, Marinette had been fighting to maintain a calm demeanour and was eager to escape. Before she could leave for lunch, though, M. Lavigne called her to his desk.
He scowled as she approached. “Go to the office. The principal wants to talk to you.”
Dread settled in Marinette’s gut. Surely even Lila wouldn’t go this far? She nodded mutely and made her way to the principal’s office. She was shooed in by the secretary and fought not to freeze as multiple pairs of eyes landed on her.
Lila sat in one of the chairs before Mme. Beaufort’s desk, flanked by her parents. Marinette’s own parents stood behind the second chair. Marinette took the seat clearly meant for her, shaking. She swallowed around the lump in her throat and attempted to speak calmly.
“Pardon me, Madame Beaufort, but what is going on?”
Mme. Beaufort stared harshly at her. “I think that is best explained by Mademoiselle Rossi.” She turned her attention to Lila and kindly asked, “Can you tell everyone what you told me, dear?”
Lila took a steadying breath before nodding. “Marinette has been being pretty mean to me since we met back in collège,” she started, staring at her hands. “My parents always taught me to be kind, especially to those who might not deserve it, because those people need kindness the most. So even when she was awful and called me names and pushed me around, I tried to be kind to her. I didn’t report her, because I wanted her to change. I thought— I thought that if I showed her that no matter what, nothing would stop me from being nice to her, that maybe we could move on and become friends.”
She looked up, teary-eyed and earnest. “Before I continue, please, I really think that Marinette is good deep down! So don’t be too harsh on her.”
“You have my word,” the principal replied. Marinette couldn’t tell whether she was lying. She felt the gazes of her parents searing into the back of her head.
The girl nodded gratefully and continued, tears now streaming down her face. “Well, that didn’t really work. Being kind, I mean. She sort of just got worse. Um, so I put up with it for years, obviously. But…”
She reached into her bag and tenderly pulled out a small, worn patchwork blanket. It had been ripped, burned, and heavily stained. Lila’s parents let out horrified gasps.
“Lila,” her mother started, “Is that…”
Lila gently cradled the ruined blanket. “Yes Maman,” she choked. “I’m so sorry.”
Madame Rossi bent and hugged her daughter tightly. “You have nothing to apologise for, darling. You did everything right.” She opened her eyes and glared viciously at Marinette. “Would you like to explain how my mother’s handmade blanket ended up like this? Or will you force Lila to tell us?”
Marinette simply stared back at her, lost for words.
“Stop it, Maman,” Lila scolded gently. “I can say it.”
She straightened and ran her hand over the blanket in a self-soothing gesture. “This was my baby blanket. My grandmother made it for me because I was premature and wasn’t able to keep myself warm. I told my friends about it, and Alya’s trying to learn how to sew right now, so she asked if I could bring it to show the craftsmanship. I did about a week ago, and Marinette saw me showing my friends and asked if she could borrow it to study. Marinette sews, so I thought she was being genuine. I was hoping maybe she had turned a new leaf. So I gave her my blanket. I asked for it back today, since it’s the last day of school. All she did was stare at me and smirk, and that’s when I realised I’d been tricked again. I panicked and asked my friends to help me look for it. We searched all of Paris— sorry for skipping school,” she added sheepishly, “— and finally found it in the dumpster of the Dupain-Cheng bakery. She burned it and ripped it and dragged it through who knows what, and I don’t know what I’ve done to her. I’m starting to worry she’ll kill me someday.”
Finished saying her piece, Lila allowed herself to hide in her mother’s embrace and held the bundle of fabric close to her chest. She shook with the force of her sobs.
Mme. Beaufort turned her attention to Marinette, attempting to give Lila some privacy. “I think, considering what we’ve been told, that there is no question that you are no longer welcome at this school, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng. You are expelled.”
Unexpected grief hit Marinette like a truck. She’d known that this was coming since she stepped foot in this office. Having it said to her, though, made her realise that Lila had won. There was nothing more she could take from her. Marinette lowered her head in defeat.
The woman steepled her fingers, before saying, “However, in respect to Mademoiselle Rossi’s wishes, I will not involve the authorities.”
Lila’s head shot up in panic before she quickly smoothed her expression. “Oh, Madame Beaufort, I understand if it’s too much to ask,” she said quietly.
“Nonsense, dear,” the principal responded gently. “You should be allowed at least this choice in such a terrible situation. It’s not what I would do, true, but you are much kinder than I and I will respect that.”
A grateful smile spread across Lila’s face, the only hint of her true feelings lying in the slight twitch of her eyebrow. “Thank you so much,” she gushed.
Marinette suppressed a sigh of relief. By now, acceptance had set in, and she just wanted to go home.
Mme. Beaufort eyed Marinette’s parents. “I trust that you were unaware of your daughter’s behaviour?”
“We had no idea.” Sabine’s voice lilted through the air.
“We will be discussing this at home,” added Tom.
Satisfied, Mme. Beaufort replied, “Let’s start the paperwork then, shall we?”
***
The Dupain-Chengs were completely silent as the door to their apartment closed. Marinette shivered. Her family had always been so full of life, but now, they were cold and distant.
Sabine spoke first. “Marinette, sit on the couch. We’re going to talk.”
The girl wordlessly obeyed and watched her parents sit on the barstools facing her. She felt like she was about to plead her case to a jury.
It was silent for a beat, then Tom said, “How could you do such a terrible thing, Marinette?”
“Papa, I didn’t do that. I didn’t bully Lila, and I definitely didn’t destroy her baby blanket!” she exclaimed. “Lila is bullying me, not the other way around. She’s manipulated everyone into hating me and spreads lies about me bullying her. You know I’m not like that,” she finished, pleading for her parents to understand.
Cooly, Sabine replied, “You’re telling me that Lila destroyed her own blanket specifically to get you in trouble?”
Marinette sighed in relief. “Yes, Maman, thank—” she was halted off by her mother’s hand in the air.
“You are lying to us,” Sabine said, clipped.
Tearily, Tom murmured, “How did we raise you to become this? A liar and a bully? That’s no child of mine.”
He raised his head, determined. “That’s no child of mine,” he repeated.
Marinette caught on a split second before her mother did, and her heart dropped. “Papa, please!”
Sabine tilted her head before nodding decisively. “Tom is right. You are no longer our child. You lost that right when you threw every lesson we taught you away.”
She turned away. “Pack your things. I want you gone within the hour.”
Marinette couldn’t cry. She couldn’t protest. She couldn’t beg. This had never occurred in her worst nightmares. All she could do was silently stand up and go to her room. She pulled out her luggage. She packed. 16 years of her life was stuffed into two suitcases, a duffel bag, and a backpack.
Slowly creeping down the stairs with the duffel, Marinette found the living space empty. She quickly brought down the rest of her bags and left the apartment. She had always thought that she’d leave home with a party, and tears, and pictures, and joy. Instead, she left quietly, with nobody to see her off. Somber, Marinette walked through the bakery. She mentally said farewell to her beloved home.
Stepping onto the street, she allowed her feet to take her wherever they may go.