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stormiclown · 3 years ago

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Ladies and Gentleman: Him

After reading a post from @critical-thinking-is-mandatory, which was essentially about Adrien having an antagonist who is a model, I decided why not? All Adrien has to do is breath and he gets all the girls, wealthy or not. So this is my take on an Adrien antagonist, who is a model, rich, a bully (somewhat), hates Chat Noir’s guts, knows how to dazzle an audience (like Liar Rossi), and has feelings for Marinette because we all know that if Marinette had a bully for a love interest like Adrien does and she protects him even though uwu, sunshine boy is clearly ~suffering~, the fandom would have her executed. Ugh. Just. Ugh.

Stephan Vladislav expected many things when he transferred to Francois Dupont from his previous high school in Russia. That didn’t mean he wasn’t ready for anything. He did his research and found that many of his classmates were high profile individuals.

Adrien Agreste: The son of Emile and Gabriel Agreste. A well known model just like him.

Alya Cesaire: Creator of the Ladyblog which has become the number one akuma battle news source in Paris.

Nino Lahiffe: Founder and creator of his own film website, Turtle Pictures.

Chloe Bourgeois: Daughter of Style Queen and the Mayor of Paris.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Daughter of the best bakers in Paris, the well known fashion designer MDC, publicly endorsed by the Style Queen herself, Jagged Stone, Nadia Chamack, Clara Nightingale, and many other high profile celebrities.

The list went on and on. Francois DuPont was certainly different from his previous schools. He attended the most prestigious schools for most of career. The students there, while rich and influential, were flimsy, lazy, snobbish to anyone they deemed less worthy than themselves. The fact that many of them were untalented spoke volumes of how they expected their status to get them through life (what morons).

But they weren’t even a challenge to Stephan, as what looked like a fight to the rest of his schools was, in reality, a one-sided massacre. Students who at the top of the food chain when he arrived were left broken, alone, and friendless by the time of his departure.

He wasn’t a bad person per say. Stephan just liked winning by his own talent and merits. He was the son of the famous Russian luxury fashion designer Nicolas Vladislav and his mother Laurice Vladislav, a dark skinned woman who was a famous photographer and known for discovering many of the famous models and actresses we see today.

His new school may be filled to the brim with competition, but the Vladislav family thrived off of opposition and he had a lot going for him. If it was grades, he would work tirelessly to make sure he was at the top of the class. Sports? He had a knack for baseball and archery. Music? The flute as well as drums come easy to him. Art? Say hello to his shelf displaying all the trophies and certificates he won from several art competitions. Extracurriculars? He can speak Russian, English, French (obviously), German, and Mandarin. In depth understanding in photography, fashion, and the business world. Not to mention he is a very well known model. They’ve got nothing on him!

*******

Standing in that classroom, Stephan realized he had been wrong about his class.

Instead of the hardworking, ambitious, and goal driven classmates Stephan had been looking forward to competing with (and winning against), he was met with a literal zoo of students screaming, crowding around one Italian looking student, and sending harsh glares over at a few students in the back who looked embarrassed at their classmates‘ behavior.

He hadn’t even been in there for five minutes and he could already list everything wrong with his new class.

First off, the teacher (Ms. Bustier he would later learn), had no control of her students whatsoever. Her eyes would frequently go to the back of the classroom to a blue haired student as if begging her to make the class listen even though she was the teacher. Pathetic.

Secondly, it seemed the class was catering to what could only be a chronic liar. Seriously, all it took was a simple google search to disapprove her lies. Not to mention all her stories contradict each other if anyone bothered to use their brain. The only ones not fooled were the four students sitting at the back of the room (Alya, Nino, Marinette, and Chloe).

And no. Just no. He won’t even get into the topics of the class’ lack of critical thinking skills, their herd/mob mentality, and blatant disrespect to anyone with a different opinion from them, specifically pertaining to one Lila Rossi.

And to think he prepared every trick and every tactic in the book crush the others on the his to the top.

It took seven minutes top for the red-haired “teacher” to get the rowdy class under control.

Madame Bustier gestured to his person when the class finally noticed his presence with a plastered smile on her face.

“Class, please welcome your newest classmate and transfer student. He’ll be studying with us from now on,” she clasped her hands in front of her and sent Stephan a smile, “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

Snapped out of his pondering, the Russian stepped into the classroom completely from his spot at the doorframe. He strode confidently to the center of the class with his head held high.

”Hello, everyone. My name is Stephan Vladislav. I’m from Russia and I enjoy modeling, and art”. Judging from the shocked looks from most of Bustier’s class and dawning recognition on others, they very well knew who he was. He spotted an Italian girl sitting next to a very uncomfortable Adrien Agreste looking at him with a greedy look in her eyes. He knew that look well and it was always crushed when he destroyed the girls whom they belonged to.

Though one student seemed to be looking at him in confusion. Marinette’s eyes roamed the new boy with fixed concentration from her spot next to Alya, where her bestie had been sentenced for not believing Lila along with her boyfriend Nino, and enemy turned sort of ally Chloe.

The bluenette swore she had her the name Vladislav before. The new certainly looked like a model like he had so boldly mentioned.

She was certain Stephan really was Russian, as his French was heavily accented by it. He had dark skin, close to Alya’s complexion, probably biracial. Curly black hair that fell over his eyes slightly, sharp and calculating bright hazel eyes which contrasted against his happy-go-lucky expression. He wore a light green leather jacket with ‘Vlad‘ embroidered onto his top right breast pocket, a black dress shirt made of what looked like silk, light blue jeans, and boots that matched his leather jacket to complete the look. He seemed nice, but she knew better than to judge from appearances.

Everyone else thought he and Adrien would get along great because of their careers as models.

”You think he’ll get along with Adrien?” Alya leaned over to her bestie who had been studying Stephan before she answered.

”What do mean? Who even is he?” She whispered back to Alya.

Nino joined the conversation with a look of disbelief on his face, “You really don’t know who Stephan Vladislav is, Dudette?”

When Marinette shook her head, Alya whipped out her phone, typing something into the search engine.When the results came up, she showed Marinette, “He’s only one of the most well known models there is. He has influence that eclipses Adrien’s. His father is Nicolas Vladislav, a fashion designer even more wealthy and successful than Gabriel Agreste. How could you not know who he is?”

Nino chuckled, “We’re talking about the girl who had no clue who Adrien was despite his face being plastered everywhere.

”Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous,” Chloe muttered playfully.

Marinette was so busy trying to defend her self against her friends laughing at her expense, that she didn’t even notice Stephan making his way towards her. That was until a shrill, high pitched, unwanted voice interrupted them.

”I wouldn’t sit back there if I were you,” Lila said in her sweetest fake voice.

Chloe and the others glared at Stephan, expecting him to believe her, only to take them by surprise.

”Well you aren’t me. I don’t appreciate you telling rpms what I should or shouldn’t do,” Stephan flipped her off.

Lila immediately started the water works, “How could say that. I’m only trying to warn you about the others in the back. They’ve had it out for me ever since Marinette got expelled.”

”How could you say that about Lila!? She just wants to help!” Sabrina protested.

”We know you’re knew and all but that’s no reason to be awful about it,” Ivan agreed.

”Lila is right thought. Those four have been awful to her,” Mylene comforted a crying Lila. The Russian boy could tell that she enjoyed the sympathy and attention.

”Shut up. We’ve been avoiding Lila like the plague for over a year,” Alya snapped back.

”Don’t lie! Lila showed us the text messages you guys send her. You’re nothing but bullies who scorn her just because Marinette got expelled.

Expulsion? Stephan tucked that in the back of his mind to investigate later.

Seeing Marinette wilt under the scrutiny of the class, Nino backed his girlfriend up, “You mean her unjust expulsion with flimsy evidence and no investigation!”

”As if I would concern myself with a girl that has such an ugly hair style. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous,” Chloe dismissed them as Stephen examined her nails.

This went on for about five more minutes before Bustier finally began the lesson. Stephan sat in the chair across the staircase next to Marinette on her right. The lesson moved peacefully at first. This gave him hope that Bustier wasn’t a failure on all fronts. That hope was promptly crushed when Rossi interrupted the lesson to prattle on about how she was a descendant of Socrates after Bustier covered famous philosophers in Ancient Greece. The wasn’t true as everything that had come out of her mouth since he‘d arrived had been nothing but a lie.

Subtly, he leaned over and whispered to Marinette, “Is it always like this with them?” He casted an annoyed glance at the class.

Turning towards him, said bluenette sighed, “Yes. They hang off her every word. Especially if it’s promises of connecting with people to jump start their dreams. I don’t even think that things will go back to normal even after they find out the truth. They called me a bully and ended their friendships with me with only word of mouth as their proof.”

The young Vladislav just sat there as the pieces clicked into place. It was clear the class didn’t really care about what Lila did, but rather the promises of what she could do for them. They didn’t ditch Marinette because they thought she was a bully. They did it to gain Lila’s favor and thus a golden meal ticket. Coattail hangers. The lot of them.

”Well it seems that they won’t take the truth very well. Especially since she lied about celebrities that could help them,” Stephan faked a concerned voice. He couldn’t care less about those gold diggers.

Marinette turned to face him completely and Stephan’s first thought was, she blue really be that blue? The bluenette had lovely Raven locks that looked muted against her pale skin. Cute frekles over so slightly decorated her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. And her azure eyes almost seemed to glow.

”Yeah, well, they don’t like hearing what they need to hear.”

Stephan forced himself to look away from her pretty face and looked at his plain notebook page. Ms. Bustier hadn’t said anything noteworthy, therefore the page remained blank. “Most morons don’t,” he muttered and Marinette laughed.

He had to force down the growing blush on his cheeks.

It was about two months into his attendance at his school when Stephan decided that very few people were worth his time.

Competing for best grades was dull since the class as a whole sans Chloe, Alya, Nino, and Marinette had the IQ of a pencil. He reached the top in no less than three weeks much to the robot geek’s humiliation.

Being the best in sports was essentially useless as Alix and Kim stopped entering contests, instead choosing to hang off of Lila’s promises of connecting them with big shot Olympic athletes.

Music was practically nonexistent as the band “kitty section” comprised of some of his… classmates hadn’t preformed a gig in almost a year, he learned. Not to mention that their lead guitarist Luka, he heard from Marinette decided to go solo to save himself the embarrassment of failed performances.

Adrien was as good as a wet napkin, so the Russian didn’t even try to one up him in extracurriculars.

Stephan knew how to pick his battles, and as such, he refused to fight any of his classmates if they refuse to even try. Otherwise it would just be some delusIonal one-sided fight and he was anything but delusional. He had far too much pride.

Found with a lot of free time, the Young Vladislav decided to fill it in by spending time around Marinette and her friends and found that it kept him sane in the asinine situation that is their class.

He even began looking forward to hanging out with them. The fact that they were goal driven, witty, and intelligent was just a bonus.

Alya was an aspiring journalist, respected by all of Paris? He would swoop in and get better footage of akuma attacks. The two would often one up each other with their recordings and shove it in each other’s faces. Neither knew when the other would strike so their little war kept them on their toes. But it was all in good fun, and neither wanted to back down.

Nino’s website Turtle Films was the go to place for short films? The two males would challenge each other’s ideas, editing plans, and scripted writing. They high-fived over Nino’s newest film which took the media by storm. They combined their ideas and collaborated on their master piece. Stephan was surprised to feel the thrill of success while working with someone else was refreshing compared to achieving it all on his own.

Chloe was thinking about enrolling in online business management classes? Both blonde and ravenette were relieved to find someone who spoke their language. Even if their business jargon ended up with multiple broken dishes, ripped paper, and screaming matches.

Marinette had the attention of many celebrities? Stephan took better photos of her produced clothing. He had a knack for photography, something he inherited from his mother. Both sets of photos always went on her website at the end of they day. And when they weren’t doing that, they were having a baking competition every other week.

But despite being so competitive with them, the one thing they allied together against was the lying shrew Lila Rossi.

Their fist encounter ended up being their last. Lila began telling lies about her achievements to impress him knowing who he was. It was very likely that she liked the idea of two models vying for her attention. She would not allow Marinette and friends sway him over to their side. If she could date the Stephan Vladislav, a well known model whose father had even more money and popularity that Gabriel Agreste, her name would be in lights and her fame would be garenteed . Except he did not react they way she expected him to.

He called her out on being fake. He mocked her for the fact that she had such an unfulfilling life that she had to pretend to be someone she’s not just so people would like her. Stephan pointed out that her lies were unbelievable at best and desperate at worse.

The young Vladislav then reiterated the tale of a girl from his past who shared many qualities with Lila.

Angela Voss.

She, like Lila, was a desperate liar and wanting fame, attention, and all the boys in the school. She was known for bullying anyone who called her out on her lies or tried to sabotage her goals. Angela tried flattery to get Stephan to date her, but he publicly rejected her. She became the joke of the school for weeks. In her humiliation, she spread rumors about him, meaning to sully his reputation but it only served to provoke his ire. After the very clear declaration of war, he used every trick in the book to be rid of her.

Including but not limited to manipulation, slander, libel, sabotage, destruction of property. He dragged her name through the mud so far that even her parents grew tired of her. The final nail in the coffin was a subtly placed enrollment paper regarding a boarding school in Switzerland and she transferred out fasting than he could have dreamed. On her last day, he made it his personal mission to make it absolute hell by throwing her shattered kingdom into her stupid face by spreading her “rumored“ departure around the school. The look of shock on Angela’s face was sweet, but her tears of devastation and her humiliating fall from stardom left a smile on his face for the rest of the month.

He told a pale and shaking Lila that she had better watch who she messed with and made it a point to tell her just how easy it would be to destroy her as well. To threaten her a bit more, he casually added that one word from him could have her blacklisted from ever working at even the smallest of fashion houses and crush her modeling career before it even started. Stephan emphasized the fact that Angela was a daughter of influential Russian politicians and he still managed to win. What would happen to Lila if he were to use the full force of what he did to Angela on Lila? Some girl who was the daughter of a woman who was barely the secretary of an ambassador.

Finally, he warned her to stay away from Marinette and any and all transgressions would be met with no mercy.

The threat was clear to Lila and Adrien, the latter having over heard the conversation.

Lila better back off or Stephan will make her back off.

She scurried away from him in fear and the look of horror was priceless. However there was no backtracking from this. The Italian was smart enough to know that whatever she, she would always remain on Stephan’s ‘harm eventually’ list. Dammit. She just had to go and piss him off.

Stephan snorted. He was willing to reckon Rossi never experienced being threatened before. Well he’ll show her the difference between a cat and a spider.

When a certain blonde appeared from the corner of the hall where he had been listening in, Stephan didn’t even bother to look up when he addressed him.

”What do you want, Agreste?”

Adrien on the other hand, was disappointed. He could tell Stephan wasn’t buried in Lila’s deceit like the rest of their classmates but he never said anything, which was good. Just when he thought he wouldn’t have to deal with another person trying to expose Lila, the Russian up and threatens her career over a few silly lies. Clearly, Adrien needed to have a discussion with him about taking the high road or he’ll cause tension in the class.

”Don’t you think you were a bit harsh with her?” the blonde strides over to Stephan and stops a few feet away from him.

“It’s not my fault Rossi thought her flattery and fake achievements would fool me. It‘s high time someone told her she is it as amazing as she thinks she is,” Stephan sniffed at the blonde model with distain and placed his hands on his hips.

”Lila is just looking for some friends,” Adrien ignored Stephan‘s haughty snort, “If the truth gets out, the class will ostracize her and she’ll end up friendless and alone,” he ended with the same disappointed glint in his eyes that made Marinette back down.

Hazel eyes just stared at the blonde like he was stupid. He had a few suspicions about Adrien‘s true character and this confrontation was just proving them.

“And when the truth gets out and the class realizes that she basically took advantage of them and played them for fools for who knows how long, how do you think they’ll feel?” Stephan stated becoming annoyed with the conversation at hand.

”I’m sure she’ll realize that she’s wrong and apologize. Then everything will go back to how it was before,” Adrien said brightly.

But the Russian knew better. After being a model for so long, he could practically smell a fake person, and Adrien was covered in that particular stench.

”Oh really?” The young Vladislav raised a perfectly trimmed eyebrow, “Things will not ‘go back to normal’. After seeing how quickly their so called friends were willing to turn on them and how easily they’re swayed by promises that will solidify their careers, there’s no doubt in my mind that Marinette and the others will not just roll over it.”

Adrien crossed his arms over his chest and his lips thinned, not liking the way the other model stared at him condescendingly.

”Sure they will. After all friends don’t stay mad at each other. I know it’s been rough for them, but if they hadn’t kept antagonizing Lila they would still have friends. Especially Marinette,” he ended with a disappointed scowl when he mentioned the bluenette like he had every right to.

As far as the ravenette was concerned, that was the last straw of this ”conversation”.

Hearing him talk about the Asian girl that way made his blood boil like nothing he ever experienced. If he were emotionally inclined, Hawkmoth would have a field day.

It took several weeks of hanging out with Marinette from the beginning of his transfer to now to realize he developed a crush on her. It was strange at first, especially when he never looked at anyone romantic feelings in mind.

Trying to sort out his feelings, he spent the next few days planning out how he would ask Marinette out and came across an interesting discovery.

From one of Alya and Nino’s conversations, he was made aware of Marinette’s crush on Bratdrien. His mood was soured as he glared at Agreste every chance he got, attempting to figure out just what Marinette saw in the blonde.

In conclusion, he had miffed feelings about Agreste before his miserable attempt at lecturing him about the high road. Stephan gathered that Adrien was, for a lack of a better term, a self righteous prick who was willing to gaslight and scapegoat anyone he viewed as morally lesser than him. Before this, the Russian hadn’t planned on ruining Adrien despite really wanting to, but now? The idiot sealed his own fate the second he thought it would be a good idea to reveal his true colors to Stephan.

Stephan continued to internally seethe all while keeping his stoic and uninterested mask as Adrien continued his prattling, “Honestly, if she had done what I said, the class wouldn’t be so full of tension and-”

His line was cut off when Stephan introduced his back to the right wall of the hallway. The Russian’s death grip on either side of his shoulder kept him in place and the blonde had a sinking feeling that was validated when he saw the dark scowl resting on Stephan’s features. Adrien felt his knees shake as the Russian addressed him.

”Looks like the sunshine of Paris has come to the delusional conclusion that I’ll let that happen,” the young Vladislav hissed with venom lacing every word, “You think you’ve got everyone fooled with this angel facade wear everyday. Honestly I shouldn’t be surprised at the level of deceit displayed by Gabriel’s son. But it wasn’t enough to fool me. I can see you for what you truly are. I’m sure you think that you’re such a saint and therefore have the right to lecture and project your disappointment on to people you feel don’t live up to your moral standard. But you’re not. You’re just a coward with no backbone or force that you could be mistake as a puppet or doll. You won’t do anything about Lila because on some conscious level, you know what she’s capable of”.

Adrien’s eyes widened in fear as he tried to come up with a rebuttal, but any comeback he had quickly died on his lips when he saw the intense look in Stephan’s eyes as he continued his threat. He wasn’t about to let Agreste get a word in.

”So you decide to kill two birds with one stone. You used your “good boy” reputation as a means to appease bullies and trouble makers while seeming nice and benevolent but in reality you don’t care about giving second chances or about helping be better because it’s much easier to defend the bully rather than stand up to them isn’t that right?” The Russian smirked cruelly as he watched Adrien‘s expression morph into one suitable for a fish.

”That isn’t it at all!” Adrien splutterred at Stephan’s bold accusation, “I’m not trying to save my reputation. Making a bad guy suffer won’t change them into a good guy!”

Adrien tried to say more, but Stephan’s low and even voice rang with power and stabbed hI’m with authority that demanded nothing less than silence and attention, “Bull.Shit. Please, if I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think you like the attention bullies give you. Female bullies that is”.

”Woah! Since when was Lila a bully?”

”Don’t play dumb with me, aphid. You know well, how Lila has alienated Marinette, Alya, Nino, and Chloe from the rest of the class with fake tears and false tales. You just choose to ignore it because it’s better they become scapegoats in the name of keeping false peace. For God’s sake, I heard she got Marinette expelled even if it was redacted. How have you not realized Lila has it in for Marinette and anyone who sides with her by now?” Stephan narrowed his sharp eyes at the clearly uncomfortable blonde. Pretend what he may, it was obvious he knew on some level that Lila was a bully who didn’t what to change.

Adrien fumbled for an excuse that didn’t sound bad, “Well- I didn’t want to risk losing my friends over this,” he admitted meekly and winced as Stephan’s grip on his shoulders tightened.

”Ha! Friends? You have the audacity to claim they’re friends when you’re letting them get manipulated and used? And lets not forget the whole sad boy with daddy issues. True, your father is controlling and over bearing, but you use that as an excuse to avoid the others or make them feel bad for you. Gives the sunshine trope more merit. And when you aren’t being Sadrien Depreste, you find ways to guilt trip and emotionally manipulate the class into forgiving people who are harming them, like with Chloe” At this point, Stephan was practically snarling the words like a panther ready to strike.

”You’re really making me the bad guy? I hope you aren’t planning to expose Lila. Listen-“ Adrien tried to get a word in Stephan’s tirade, but the ravenette was more annoyed than he thought.

”No, you listen to me, Bratdrien,” the Russian model said menacingly, having enough of beating around the bush. “Here’s what will happen. You will stay out of my way and continue being a wet napkin. Something you excel at. Stay away from Marinette. If I catch you trying to guilt trip, gaslight or scapegoat her into catering Lila’s whims, I will expose the liar as well as the fact that you knew and didn’t bother to say anything.”

Chills ran down Adrien’s spine as he finally seemed to register the danger he was in, “Y-you can’t do that. You have no proof!” He wasn’t sure if that was true, but the blonde felt like he had no choice but to say that.

“I have my ways,” the ravenette responded nonchalantly. “Know this. I have the power to make you miserable. If you even cross any of the lines I’m setting up by a hair, I can have you gone like that. Turning your classmates against you with your past reactions to Chloe’s bullying will be a walk in the park. I have an even more influencal position in the modeling industry than you. I won’t even have to lift a finger to boot you out of the spotlight if I wanted to. And winning Marinette’s affection? I’m not a coward, I have a sort of sense of justice, I can speak multiple languages, I have extracurriculars that will actually help me get by in life, I have my own standing not just my parents son, and I know a lot about the world of fashion and business. It’s clear that I’m the one Marinette will choose”.

”What does Marinette’s affection have to do with anything?” Adrien’s fear was momentarily replaced by sincere confusion.

Stephan rolled his eyes at the blonde’s naivety, “It’s pretty obvious that Marinette has a crush on you. Or has. From what I’m seeing, it’s dwindling by the day. Chloe also had a crush on you and Lila is currently vying for your attention. I’m fairly certain that Chloe and Lila liked you because they knew you wouldn’t go against them, and in Marinette’s case, she was fooled by your appealing visage and was unaware of the rot lying underneath”.

Stunned, Adrien could only gape at his model counterpart. Marinette had a crush on him? Suddenly all of the stuttering, falling over herself, and blushing made sense. But if she liked him, then why wasn’t she following his high road advice? Maybe he could use her crush to remove the cotton from her eyes and make her see reason…

Stephan’s eyes sharpened into slits as if hearing Adrien’s thoughts. “See, DuPont High School will be mine. I get to decide who succeeds or who fails. Who thrives and who will get crushed. Only those who follow the rules will be spared. So, Adrien, if you don’t follow those rules, we will have a problem. So what’ll be? Either you keep your head down and mind your own business or you stand in my way and get destroyed,” Adrien tried to placate him. That it didn’t have to be this way but Stephan just continued, “You don’t have to answer right away. I’ll give you till the end of tomorrow”.

Stephan finally released his grip on Adrien and stalked away.

And Adrien watched him go because what was he supposed to do? If he took what the Russian had said about Angela Voss into account, this wouldn’t be the first time he’s destroyed someone.

Gulping, Adrien finally walked away.

It took exactly a day for Lila to recover from Stephan’s threat.

She smirked before breaking down in fake tears reiterated a tale, accusing Marinette of stealing her designs and selling them as her own.

There was no way anything Stephan said could be true. Sure he might be more assertive than Adrien, but Mr. Vladislav must have him on a tight leash like Mr. Agreste does Adrien. So the threat didn’t scare her for long.

”How could you, Marinette?” was heard from Rose as she stared at said bluenette in disappointment.

”It’s one thing to bully Lila but another to steal her hard work and pass it off as your own,” Kim seethed.

”Totally low,” mumbled Juleka as she added her own thoughts.

There were more voices of disapproval.

Lila felt a thrill of vindictive pleasure at Marinette’s shocked face as she tried to defend herself. Chloe, Nino, and Alya hadn’t arrived yet so there was no one to vouch for her case.

Just then Adrien stood up and urged the class to quiet down. Lila felt rage rising as the blonde looked prepared to defend the Asian girl. Quickly hiding her expression, she put on the beginnings of a hurt facade.

”Come on guys. You know Marinette would never steal Lila’s designs,” Hope over took Marinette’s face until Adrien said, “She probably mixed them up and took Lila’s by mistake. We all know how clumsy she can be”. And just like that, Adrien sealed his fate.

Adrien knew Lila would make a scene if he defended Marinette, so he came up with a way to blame Marinette’s clumsiness. It was mean but she would get over it. Lila was just sensitive and wanted attention.

”That would be highly unlikely,” a familiar snooty voice added in.

Several students whirled out to see Stephan, standing at the top of the stairs near the back of the classroom with his phone in hand and a scowl on his face. Both Lila and Adrien shuddered at the long look he casted at the two of them.

”Yeah? What would you know,” Ali’s was the first to sneer, prompting similar responses from the others.

The Russian just stared them down impassively before speaking as if they hadn’t interrupted him.

”As you can see, Marinette uploads videos of her design process and tailoring procedure to the very detail. The idea of Marinette who is a designer noticed by Jagged Stone, Audrey Bourgeois, and Clara Nightingale, stealing Lila’s designs is impossible. Not to mention we’ve never witnessed the harpy design anything,” Stephan browsed through a selection of Marinette’s clothing, clearly displaying videos attached to each one, proving plagiarism to be unlikely.

The students of Madame Bustier’s class shifted uneasily as Marinette’s innocence of stealing was proven, while Marinette looked at Stephan as if he were an angel, and Adrien had to keep himself from scowling. Didn’t Stephan realize how close he came to exposing Lila?

The young Vladislav focused his gaze on Lila, and with his gaze she could see her career, her dreams of ruling the fashion world with Adrien being flushed down the drain.

After class, Stephan caught up to Adrien and walked in stride with him. With a smug smirk and a raised eyebrow he declared war, “Looks like you’ve made your choice Adrien. I’ll make you and the class of pathetic sheep miserable. I’ll expose Lila and make sure the class knows that you were aware the whole time. And I’ll make Lila seem like a saint compared to me. Watch your back,” the Russian whispered that last part threateningly.

Before the blonde could respond, Stephan smiled innocently and caught up to Nino and the others as if he hadn’t just declared war on him in broad daylight. Which was a lot more bold than anything Lila had ever done.

Adrien Agreste had a bad feeling that he had made the biggest mistake in his entire life.

That following Monday was the start of Stephan’s wrath.

Lila received a phone call from Mr. Agreste, terminating her modeling career and black listing her from Gabriel.

Still, she hoped Adrien hadn’t been notified so she could still use that to cow the boy.

That plan was buried next to her terminated job as she came face to face with the ravenette and she knew he was behind this.

Apparently he had brought up Gabriel’s newest muse with his mother. Laurice than raved about how the Agreste patriach had made a mistake in hiring Lila Rossi in front of a social gathering. Not to mention her sausage hair was horrendous.

The video went viral with people agreeing with her to the point where Gabriel had to fire her to save face.

Needless to say, the ordeal ended with an akuma. Though Ladybug couldn’t understand why Chat was so eager to blame Stephan. (Especially when she herself agreed that Lila was a disgrace to fashion). The leather wearing boy claimed that the Russian was nothing but trouble and was determined to hate him.

When Lila tried to pin the blame of a lost career on Marinette and Alya (the reporter was the one who recorded the whole ordeal with Laurice Vladislav), who tried to defend themselves, Adrein and Bustier pressured them to apologise to Lila, Stephan decked out a knew plan.

Outraged and seething, Nino, Chloe, and Stephan convinced Alya and Marinette to resign from their positions as deputy and president respectively.

Bustier held another re-election to which none of Marinette’s friends participated in. When no one stepped up on the claims of being too busy, Bustier shot an expectant look at Marinette and Chloe, both being former class presidents and asked them to reconsider. Chloe vehemently denied it with her usual “ridiculous utterly ridiculous,” while Marinette piped up that she was too busy.

Adrien asked Marinette what could be so busy with that she would ignore her duties when Stephan chimed into the conversation and suggested that Adrien should try his hand at being the class president with Lila as his deputy.

The blonde in question paled as he tried to state that he was too busy but Bustier and the class latched onto that idea. They knew his dad was controlling but maybe he would lessen his load if Adrien was class president.

Chloe caught onto what Stephan was doing and smirked viciously at the paling pair, “Yeah. With so many connections, I‘m sure Adrien will rock as class president.”

The female blonde had been disappointed in Adrien ever since she had discovered that he knew Lila was lying and just sat there and watched as they were ostracized from the class. What kind of friend does that?

The job Adrien had tried to force onto Marinette and Chloe was a lot harder than he thought. This was something that his extracurriculars just couldn’t help him accomplish.

The Halloween mingle was bust. He had forgotten to book a reservation for a revenue as well a caters since the old ones were unavailable (Marinette’s parents). Chloe invited Alya, Marinette, Nino, and Stephan to her own Halloween party with the rest of the school.

School trips were either boring or canceled completely. Turns out Adrien hadn’t know how difficult fundraisers were. His father refused the fund the trips and Lila was no help at all. After going to Marinette’s place to request that she do the bake sale, he was told to take a hike. Stephan took his friends out for fabulous trips around France.

He ended up doing the bake sale himself. Most of the students and even Bustier began avoiding him after his pastries gave several of them food poising and started a small fire.

This put him at odds with the others as he found himself snapping at them more often. About if he was such a bad president then they should get off their high horses and do it themselves.

Despite it being completely true, the akuma class was known for taking criticism as a personal attack. He found himself being invited to outings less and less and they didn’t attend his photo shoots anymore. All Adrien could do was grit his teeth and bare it.

Add in his constant modeling shoots, his rabbit diet, and forced extracurriculars, he found it harder to sneak away to become Chat Noir to battle akumas. Eventually, the stress had become to much and it was beginning to show during his photo shoots. After finding the source if his son’s faulty modeling, Gabriel demanded that Adrien quit being class president.

The blonde happily did so, much to the relief of the class. They all unanimously agreed that he was a horrible president. Lila was forced into the position despite being utterly useless with Rose as her deputy.

It ended in a disaster.

Stephan enjoyed it every second of the blonde’s misery. And the best part? He didn’t even have to lift a finger. The ravenette completely underestimated just how reliant the class was on Alya and Marinette, that things ended in catastrophe if the weren’t in charge. It was pathetic really. Nino agreed.

Due to Marinette’s rising popularity as the very much demanded designer MDC and the fact that numerous A list celebrities were battling for spots on her commissions list like children, Gabriel instructed Adrien to get close to Marinette and thus weasel her into the company, much to Audrey Bourgeois‘s dismay.

Stephan caught Adrien cornering an uncomfortable Marinette trying to convince her to apply for an internship at his father’s company. Sensing the opportunity to once again thwart the blonde’s plan, he gave subtle recommendations to Nikolas Vladislav to check out Marinette’s website.

Impressed by what he saw, he emailed the bluenette and offered her an internship that would look very good on her college application. As expected, Marinette accepted it in a heart beat, not wanting to deal with seeing Adrien too often. Her crush had completely soured by this point and she wanted nothing to do with him.

The Russian boy was thrilled as this meant he could spend more time with her and shove it in Gabriel and Adrien’s faces. After a week of interning with Mr. Vladislav (who had a similar appearance to Stephan except he had fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes), Marinette ran into Laurice. Immediately after taking in the Asian girl’s appearance, the dark skinned woman practically flew over to her and suggested she should try modeling. Apparently, Laurice Vladislav had a taste for rare mix racial models of all shapes and sizes. Italian-Japanese, Spanish-British, Brazilian-Haitian, German-Swedish, and African American-Russian (Stephan’s nationality) to name a few. Laurice mentioned that she had never met someone who was a mix of French and Chinese.

Stephan was all for letting Marinette model. He understood why she was never. This was Laurice Vladislav they were talking about. She was a world renowned photographer, responsible for launching the careers of many S ranked models of their era. She had the power to make or break a person. After seeing Lila’s humiliation and ruined modeling career, it’s understandable that she would be hesitant.

Only one model shoot was what Marinette bargained. After it aired, all of Paris went crazy. Who was this gorgeous bluenette posing with the equally gorgeous Stephan Vladislav himself? Many people were demanding that she be sponsored in another shoot and that’s how Marinette’s side job as a model began.

Chloe told the young Vladislav that Gabriel Agreste had been furious to lose Marinette to the even more successful Nicolas Vladislav. He gave Adrien the cold shoulder for days.

That was when Adrien‘s suffering at Stephan’s hand truly hit home.

After all, what Stephan wants, Stephan gets.

I’m going to end it here. What do you think?

#mlb adrien #adrien salt #marientte dupain cheng #nino sugar #alya sugar #mlb prompts #mlb post response #critical thinking is mandatory #lila salt #class salt #Male antagonist

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shivering-isles-cryptid · 2 years ago

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I have massive Martin Septim Specific Writers Block™ so here's a fic for my other hyperfixations Adrien Agreste and Kagami Tsurugi.

Knight in Shining Armor

1/?

This inspired a fanfic on Ao3, feel free to check it out: Miraculous: Tales of Pendragon and Chat Noir (and Ladybug)

When a new student transfers from a Welsh school, Adrien doesn't expect him to be so.... Amazing, or for Hawkmoth to akumatize his ex girlfriend. And especially not for the three of them to grow unpredictably close.

Tw. Homophobia, bad parents, arson, dead civillians being brought back to life by magic ladybugs, Kagami Tsurugi crying, y/n feeling heartbreak for a few days, cops, domestic violence

Adrien tapped on his desk, staring at the chalk board bored out of his mind. He had already learned this when Natalie was homeschooling him, so he wasn't paying close attention. Until the door swung open and the principal walked in with a, well he could only be described as gorgeous, boy behind him. His eyes were e/c, and sparkled with joy, like he could burst into laughter at any moment. His hair was a faded but still fire like red with h/c showing at the roots. He stood next to Mr. Damocles, his hand folded in front of him. "Everyone, this is your new classmate Y/n L/n. Please give him a warm welcome." The entire class greeted him at the same time with various levels of enthusiasm. "Bonjour y/n". He smiled and his eyes closed, crinkling up in the corners. "Bore da everyone!" Adrien's eye widened in shock then her smiled and nodded at him. "Bore da." Y/n stared at him in shock, then smiled again, nodding at him. "He is a tramsfer student from the Avalon School of Literary Arts. He's here to study French literature for an unspecified amount of time, so get to know him and be nice." Mr. Damocles said, and most eyes turned to Chloe. "Now, Y/n, why dont you tell us a bit about yourself." Ms. Bustier said, folding her hands over her stomach. "Well, I'm Y/n, as the principal just said, and I just transferred her from Wales. I'm also enrolled into the fencing classes, and I speak 5 languages. But that doesn't include French." He laughed scratching his neck. "Why don't you have a seat over there, by Nathaniel." Y/n nodded and walked down the aisle to a shocked Nathaniel. "Well, lets have a small recap for out new friend..." Adrien was still turned around, staring at Y/n. Fencing, multiple languages, and a school for Literary Arts? Hes amazing.

Adrien slid down his helmet, watching his fencing teacher as he introduced Y/n to the class. "This is Y/n L/n, a transfer from Wales. He was the captain of his schools fencing team and will be joining us for an unknown amount of time." Y/n nodded to the class with a smile before climbing down the stairs and grabbing a sword. He looked around for someone to spar with befire his eyes landed on Adrien. When Adrien noticed his gaze, his face started to burn. By the time y/n got to him, he thought his face would melt the helmet. "Hi, Adrien right? We have class together." Y/n smiled again, and held his hand out. Adrien stared at him before shaking his head and grabbing his hand. "Uh yeah, thats me." Adrien smiled and scratched his neck. "Everyone seems to have a partner already, do you mind if we spar?" Adrien's eyes widened and his helmet fell down. "Sure, Kagami is late so I would be happy to spar you." Y/n nodded and pulled his helmet down. "Great!" The lined up, bowed, and the teacher yelled out the starting words. Y/n lounged at Adrien, who parried. Adrien pushed forward and y/n pushed back. The sound of their swords clashing was the only thing either could hear as they eventually moved off the mat and Adrien had y/n backed up against the wall. He went for the point, but y/n put one foot on the bench next to him, then launched himself up, pushing off the wall and landing behind Adrien, who spun around and blocked his attack. Lunge, parry, lunge, block, jab, parry, lunge. They had eventually found themselves on the sidewalk outside the school with y/n standing on the stairs handrail and Adrien on the 4th step. Adrien jabbed at y/n who flipped off, landing in a crouch before pulling himself up and they kept fencing until finally a sword point touch Adrien's chest. But it wasn't y/n's. "Kagami!" Adrien lifted his helmet, a smile on his face. Y/n took off his helmet and smiled at Kagami. "Hi, I'm y/n. You must be Adrien's usual partner." He held his hand out and Kagami shook it. "Yes. Adrien, I apologize for beind late. There was a car crash on the way here and we had to take an alternate route." Adrien shook his head and put a hand up, "its fine Kagami. You're here now, and that's what matters." Y/n looked between the two, concern on his face. "Are the people who were in the crash okay?" The two Parisians looked at him, Kagami had a small smile on her face. "Yes, Ladybug handled it." Y/n looked even more confused. "Who's Ladybug?" Adrien laughed and put a hand around Y/n's shoulder a small blush on both their faces, "I'll explain the whole thing to you."

Y/n grew used to his new schedule. Class with Ms. Bustier, Classic French Literature with Ms. Bustier, Fencing with Adrien and Kagami, 4 laps around the pool, and then the rest of his day was free. He usually spends his time at the park, or at the library, learning all he can about Paris's superheroes. One day, while he was sitting at the park, reading a book inder a tree, he heard a loud this, someone groaning, and stone breaking. He dropped the book and ran to where the noise came from, finding Chat Noir laying face down in a small crater. Ladybug was fighting the Akumatized Chloe, or Miracle Crusher, or whatever, and Chat wasn't getting up. Miracle Crusher tossed Ladybug aside and started walkimg towards the still down Chat. Y/n ran forward, grabbed Chat's staff and stood between the two. Miracle Crusher laughed and said, "Move before I crush you like I'm going to crush them!" Y/n stood his ground, crouching into position. Miracle Crusher laughed again and then charged. Y/n stood still, not moving a muscle until she was almost within arms reach, then he swung the staff, hitting her in the stomach and sending her flying. She flew through the fountain, breaking it, she flew through the fence, breaking it, and she finally landed on a wall, causing a small crater to form in it before she fell off the wall, landing on her face. Y/n lowered the staff and knelt besides Chat, rollimg him over. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be sleeping. Y/n looked at him a bit before slapping him across the face. "Chat's eyes snapped open and he jumped up, his fists up. "Chat. Miracke Crusher is over there, heres your staff." Y/n said, tossing to him and walking back to his book. The villain was defeated and a bunch of Ladybugs swirled around the city repairing things. Y/n snapped a few pics of his own, then went back to reading. He was sitting there for a few minutes before Adrien ran up to him. "Adrien, hi." Y/n smiled, closing his book. "Hey y/n, I saw what you did back there with Miracle Crusher, that was super cool." Adrien said, sitting next to him. "Aww, thanks Adrien. It was nothing, Chat was in danger so I helped, the same way he does for all of Paris." Adrien had a small blush on his face and y/n moved his fingers so they were on top of his. "You really think it was cool?" Y/n was now blushing too, as he looked at Adrien, who had a starstruck look on his face. "Yeah, and brave, and amazing, and..." The two were moving closer together, their faces a couple inches apart when they heard the click of a camera and someone running away. Adrien and y/n stood up and watched as a man with a camera ran from the park. "No, no, no, no, my father is going to be so mad." Adrien panicked as he ran from where the blushing y/n was still standing.

The picture of Adrien amd y/n's almost kiss was front cover news immediately. It was all over the web, on most news channels and was defiently going to be in many magazines. Adrien was right, his father was livid. Adrien was forbidden to not only leave the house, but to have any contact with y/n ever again. But that wasnt the worst thing to happen.

Kagami was lighting a candle on her ancestors shrine when she received the message. It was from an unknown number and was a picture of Adrien and y/n looking like they were about to... To... Kagami dropped her phone and the candle she eas holding when she dropped to her knees, the sadness, pain, and jealousy coursing through her body once more, just like it did with Lila. But now it was worse because y/n wasn't only a boy, he was her friend. Was. She cried into her hands, not noticing when the black butterfly landed on the candle until Hawkmoths voice filled her mind. "Suncutter, I am Hawkmoth. You have once again been betrayed by the one you love. But this time, you have been betrayed by not only him, but also someone you believed to be your friend. I'm giving you the power to make them feel the fire of your anger." Kagami stood, her hands clenching the candle in her hand. "They will burn under my scorched blade."

"All I ask for in return is Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miravulous."

Y/n sat next to the fountain, doodling in his notebook when he heard the roar of fire and the cry of sirens. He dropped the notebook, and stood up. A woman was walking down the street, flames flowing from her blade, setting everything she passes on fire, even the people. They screamed in pain for maybe 3 seconds before they couldnt anymore. The woman was now standing at the gate of the park, Ladybug and Chat Noir standing infront of her. Y/n turned around and went running until he reached the Siene. The roars of the burning city and the cries of its people fileld his ears as he dived into the river, floating just under the surface as flames surrounded it. He went up for air every 3 minutes until two figures, one in red and the other in black dived into the water. Ladybug placed her open yo-yo on his face and they all swam away until the reached somewhere they could stand. As soon as they broke the water, y/n threw down the yo-yo and began to talk at a mile a minute. "Ladybug, Chat Noir, how is the fight with Kagami going? What's the akumatized object? Do you have a plan to stop her? What is it? Can I help? What do I do?" Ladybug placed a hand on y/n's soaked arms and smiled. "You do have a part in the plan. Y/n l/n, I'm offering you the Miraculous of the Dragon which grants you the ability to control an element of your choosing. You will use it to help us defeat Suncutter and will return it to me when we're done. Can I trust you?" Y/n put the choker on and watched as a small ball of light swirled around him. "You can trust me Ladybug." The ball of light solidified into a small red dragon. "All you have to say is 'Longg, Unleash The Storm!'" Y/n clemched his fists, smiled and yelled "Longg, Unleash The Storm!"

Y/n dropped down behind Suncutter the flames would be messing with him if it hadnt been for the fire potion Ladybug had given him. "Water Dragon!" He yelled and a blue sphere erupted from his chest and surrounded him and Suncutter. The woman spun around, steam curling from her body before it burst into flames again. "You're using my Miraculous!" She screamed and charged at him. He parried and kicked her stomach, a thin layer of water surrounding him. He called on a column of water to surround her and he walked towards her. "Suncutter, my name is Pendragon and I need you to stop. You're killing people!" Y/n yelled charging Suncutter. Their swords clashed against each other. "They are only feeling the fire of my anger!" Suncutter kicked Y/n's chest, sending him flying. "Why are you so angry?!" Y/n held his hand up, water splashing doen around Suncutter, again putting out her flames. "The love of my life kissed a boy I thought was my friend!" Suncutter dropped to her knees, the water swirling around her. "Hell hath no fury." Y/n entered thr water pillar, a pocket of air opening up for him, and he kneelt infront of Kagami. "I get it. The guy I like, he likes another girl. I try to get close to him, but I know he'll never love me as much as he does her." Y/n put a hand on Suncutter's. "Kagami, I'm sure whatever happened was a big misunderstanding. You cant let a third party influence you when the truth is so easily found." She looked up at y/n, tears falling feom her eyes, curling up into steam as soon as the touch her cheek. A purple butterfly appeared infront of Kagami's face and she clutched her head. "No, Adrien will tell me the truth, and no matter what he says I will accept him Hawkmoth, no matter what!" The butterfly broke and Kagami picked up the sword, twisting the handle until it broke. A purple butterfly flew from it, and was caught by Ladynug, who was waiting on a rooftop. Y/n waved his hand and the water pillar disappeared, but the sphere stayed until the Ladybugs finished putting out all the flames and reviving all the victims. "Kagami. That was amazing, and don't be scared about talking to Adrien. He will always love you, I know that as a fact." Y/n said and turned around before she could see the hurt in his eyes.

"Pound it."

A few days later, y/n was walking to fencing, when he saw Adrien and Kagami talking. He smiled to himself and snuck past until he heard Adrien say, "I do have feelings for him Kagami. Its just, I'm not sure how to handle it." Y/n watched as the two hugged and as Adrien's bodyguard watched them closely, looking to make sure y/n didnt make an appearance. Y/n spun around and ran, dialing Ladybugs number as he went. "Ladybug, meet me behind the Louve."

Y/n paced behind the Louve, waiting to see if the spotted heroine appeared. He was about to leave when he head a soft thump and a sharp zip and Ladybug landed behind him. "Y/n, what was the emergency?" Y/n turned to look at her, her eye widened when she saw the puffiness and tears around normally happy eyes. "Ladybug, this will sound strange but you need to give me the Miraculous back. I need to see Adrien. He has been banned by his father from ever seeing me again after the photo that appeared on all those tabloids. And I won't be able to sneak inside his house without superpowers. I know that the Miraculous aren't meant for personal use, but please Ladybug, I need this. I need him." Ladybug looked at him in shock, before biting her lip, thinking. The Miraculous aren't meant for personal use, but with how he looks and how hes acting, he very could get Akumatized if he doesn't see Adrien. She had seen the magazine's, and noticed how Adrien no longer showed up to class. "Okay, but I'm going to come with in case something happens." She looks him up and his shoulders drop. "In case I get Akumatized you mean." Ladybug bit her lip then nodded before handing him the Miraculous.

"Longg, Unleash The Storm!"

Y/n landed inside Adrien's room, looking around for him. Ladybug was standing on the window, watching him. Y/n sat down on Adrien's bed to wait, then the door opened and Adrien walked in, slamming it shut and rubbing something from his eyes. "Adrien." Y/n stood up and walked towards him. "Pendragon? What are you doing here?" Y/n stopped smacked his forehead then opened his arms up. "Longg, Open Skies." The costume disappeared and the Kwami hid inside Y/n's hoodie pocket. "Y/n!" Adrien yelled and ran in for a hug. The two embraced each other, just holding the other. "I've missed you so much Adrien. I missed you so much I asked Ladybug to give me a Miraculous just so we could see each other." Y/n said, resting his forehead on Adrien's. "Really? Thank you Ladybug, I don't know how much longer I could have gone without him." Adrien said looking up at her. Ladybug smiled and nodded to them, then her eyes narrowed when Adrien's door was kicked open. "Adrien! I told you you could never see him again!" Gabriel yelled walking into the room with Natalie and Adrien's bodyguard behind him. He shoved the two away from each other, Y/n landing on the floor and Adrien tripping over a skateboard and hitting his head on the couch before being picked up and held by his bodyguard. "Hey!" Ladybug jumped and landed infornt of Gabriel. "Mr. Agreste you just assaulted not only two citizens of Paris, but also your own son." Gabriel stood straight, his hand behind his back. "Ladybug, I thank you for the multiple times you have saved both me and my son, but I must ask that you leave now. This is a family matter and does not concern you." Ladybug tightened her fists, the nodded. "Okay, I'll leave. With Adrien and Y/n." She said, sending her Yo-yo flying at the bodyguard. It hit him in the nose, sending him stumbling back, and then it wrapped around Adrien who she pulled twoards her. Y/n stood up and grabbed Ladybug who ran out the window and jumped away.

"Officer, I'd like to report a case of domestic violence as well as assault." Y/n stood uncomfortably behind Ladybug, with Adrien next to him. All the officers in the station looked at the trio as Ladybug filled out the paperwork to repoet a case. Y/n was slipping Longg a cracker when not only his mom, but Kagami and her mom barged into the station. The three of them went straight to the other three, the two adults discussing things with Ladynug and the officers while Kagami, Adrien, and Y/n sat in a closed circle. "Adrien, y/n are you both alright?" Kagami asked, a hand on both of their arms. Adrien nodded, still in shock. His eyes haven't looked up from the floor since we left. "Im alright." Y/n said, giving a small smile. His hand brushed over Longg's head for comfort, Kagami noticing the movement and her eyes widening when she saw inside Y/n's pocket. "Longg." She whispered, catching both Adrien and Y/n's attention. "You know Longg?" Y/n asked, both happy and confused. "Yes, I'm Ryuko." She said nodding. Y/n's smile grew and he put a hand on hers. "I'm Pendragon!" He whispered excitedly. Kagami's eyes widened, her mouth open slightly. "You're the one who talked me down when I... When I.." Y/n squeezed Kagami's hand, shaking his head. "Kagami, that wasnt you. You were being controlled. Hawkmoth weaponized you jealousy and rage. You had no choice." Kagami stared at y/n in amazement, a single tear falling from her eye before she bowed her head. The three of them sat there together, there foreheads resting on each other's. "Adrien, Y/n, Kagami." The three friends looked up at y/n and Kagami's mothers. "The police have begun an investigation, and since they can not allow Adrien to return home until they decide it's safe, so Adrien will be staying with the Tsurugi's." Adrien and Kagami looked at each other and nodded, but y/n wasn't quite so satisfied. "You expect me to just leave Adrien's side after having not seen him in almost 3 weeks? I just got him back and his dad would have beaten us because of it if not for Ladybug. Im not leaving him until I know its safe." Y/n was now standing, with Kagami and Adrien having a hand on each shoulder. "Very well, y/n may stay with us as well. Let's go children." Kagami's mom began to leave after recieving an okay from y/n's mom, who followed them.

The three teens were laying in the Tsurugi Mansion's backyard staring at the night sky, Longg laying between Kagami and Y/n. "So, tonight was interesting." Adrien said. The three of them laid in silence for another minute before they broke into fits of giggles. "Defiently. First, I talk Ladybug into giving me a Miraculous so I can see you." Y/n said to Adrien. "Then you both get hit by Adrien's father." Kagami said, now sitting up. "Then Ladybug kidnaps me." Adrien said, rolling over onto his stomach. "Then it's revealed that not only did Ladybug give me a Miraculous, she's given Kagami the exact same Miraculous." Y/n was now sitting up too, with Longg on his knee. "And then its decided that the three of us will be living together until the police decides what to do with Mr. Agreste." Kagami said, scratching Longg's head. "And then Ladybug decides to let not only Y/n but also Kagami, keep the Dragon Miraculous in order to keep us safe until the case ends." Adrien said, twisting the ring on his finger. "And then of course there's the fact that a famous model, his equally famous ex girlfriend, and his new boyfriend are all sleeping in the same room. Which I got to say, is the most unrealistic part in all of this." Y/n said, staring at the other seriously, then breaking into a fit of laughter alongside the other two. "Well, since were talking about how abusrd this night is. I might have something that will top the rest of it." Kagami and Y/n stopped laughing, looked at each other than Adrien. "I'm Chat Noir." He said, opening his shirt for Plagg to fly out. "Please please, no autographs." The small kwami said, striking a pose. "Well then. I think i can still top that." Y/n said, catching both people, and both Kwamis off guard. "How can you possible top me?" Plagg said offended. "I think i have feelings for both of you, not just Adrien." Y/n said, staring at the ground with a blush. Adrien and Kagami stared at y/n in shock, then at each other. "Oh. Yeah, I think that beats me." Plagg said and floated down to where Longg was. They sat in silence for 2 mimutes, y/n getting more and more panicky until he felt two pairs of lips kissing his cheeks. Kagami on the left, and Adrien on the right. Y/n stared at them in wonder and the three of them embraced, laying in the yard for the rest of the night.

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cornholio4 · 3 years ago

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Chloe’s Luck Ran Out

If you don't like Adrien Salt or Chloe Salt then please look away. @nobodyfamousposts

"Okay girl, let's take it from the top and please repeat after me... I Marinette Dupain-Cheng..."

"I Marinette Dupain-Cheng..."

"Am allowed to feel any vindication and pleasure to the long overdue karma of a bully who had been tormenting me for years..."

"I will not let any pretty boy model guilt trip me into thinking pity for someone who doesn't deserve it..."

"And I will agree to babysit my super cool best friend Alya Cesaire's Sapotis twin sisters and her boyfriend's brother for her while she and Nino go out on dates with no pay."

Marinette in her room just silently glared at Alya with her arms folded as Alya started laughing, "Come on girl, I know there was little hope of me getting you with that but you can't blame me for trying girl..." Alya laughed as Marinette just humphed.

"Actually I do blame you very much Alya but thanks for the help here." Marinette replied her face forming into a smile as she thought about what had happened a while ago:

She was at the Le Grand Paris Hotel meeting with Jagged Stone over final preparations of a design for a new album cover when she looked up the stairs and saw a visitor had accidentally bumped into Chloe who reacted as only Chloe could. She was furiously ranting to the girl their age about the coco that she just spilt on her jumper without letting the girl try to apologise and then poured the rest over her head and pushed her down the stairs.

Marinette went and caught the poor girl before she land flat on her face though she ended up with a hurt ankle, Marinette glared at Chloe who looked unconcerned as she walked down but then there was Mayor Bourgeois and zooming past him in worry and concern was a very important looking man in a suit who took the girl who was his daughter into his arms to check on her. Marinette and Chloe were open mouth to discover this man was the French Prime Minister who had just arrived and asked what had happened and the girl relayed the story.

The Prime Minister was in a fury and Mayor Bourgeois tried to placate him and Alya gave a half hearted apology and even put more blame onto the girl than Chloe did. Marinette noticed the Akuma butterfly coming and pushed the Prime Minister back asking him to calm down as they noticed the Akuma before his bodyguards could take her off.

The Prime Minister had been brief of the Akumas and thanked Marinette for saving her and Marinette had been humble and jokingly said that she wanted to prevent another Akuma if she could help it and especially not another one caused by Chloe.

This alarmed the Prime Minister who asked for details and then he had to be told by his daughter that he was overwhelming poor Marinette, Marinette ended up saying about how many Akumas she had caused to most people she comes across and among the other students in their class and school. The Prime Minister had pulled back his calm telling Mayor Bourgeois that they will be checking in with a rival Hotel and he will be seeking legal action for Chloe's assault against her daughter and no attempts to placate him would change his mind as they left with his family's luggage. The man's wife needed no convincing after being told that that their daughter was thrown down the stairs by the owner of the hotel's unapologetic daughter.

In the investigation for the case there were plenty of witness testimony about how Chloe treated eachother and the students at Francois Dupont were more than happy to talk about what Chloe gets away with on a daily basis. Their families and others were joining in what was becoming a class action lawsuit. The CCTV footage of the hotel from the incident and others along with testimonies were damning evidence on their own but the train filled with people that she almost got killed trying to play hero and never apologised more brought even more charges against her.

Chloe was becoming more and more confused about how her father hadn't got her out of trouble yet and the lawyer had to spell it out for her that doesn't she think that even with the evidence against her; a high ranking politician of the entire country would have more resources than a city mayor even if said Mayor owned his own successful hotel?

Said hotel business' stock was going down and the opponents in the city election were more than happy to take advantage of this to mudsling Mayor Bourgeois.

Marinette found herself as a celebrity hero with the news talking about how she not only saved the Prime Minister's daughter from a harsh landing and suffering possible injuries but also saving the Prime Minister from being Akumatized. Nadja Chamack had so much pride in her voice talking about Marinette's role in the news story.

Chloe was taken out of school for now and this was met with celebration from the students and most of the faculty, Marinette was being celebrated as a hero to her shock. Chloe was expected to spend years in a juvenile centre and then a stint in prison. Adrien had started sadly speaking up wandering how Chloe was feeling isolated from her friends and everyone hating her, plus what as going on. Plus he seemed disappointed in Marinette after an interview where she opened up about what Chloe had put her through for years.

Marinette was taken aback but thankfully she had support of her classmates who were starting to give Adrien the cold shoulder, even Nino was disappointed in Adrien and that while he understood that Chloe was his childhood friend; that didn't change the fact that she was an unrepentant bully to the rest of them for years and had finally found the wrong target to bully. Even Sabrina couldn't bring herself to try and defend Chloe.

Sabine Cheng shouted that Marinette's boyfriend Luka Couffaine was here, "Now let's get your mind off Adrien because here is another pretty boy that is more worth you thinking about." Alya smiled as she helped Luka in and let the two love birds have their peace. Luka when asked didn't have any kind words about the bully of both her sister and her girlfriend, what he felt about Bob Ruth was tame in comparison.

#ml salt #ml salt fic #also on ao3 #also on fanfiction #also on fanfiction and ao3 #also on fanfiction.net #Lukanette #luka x marinette #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #alya cesaire #adrien salt #chloe salt

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mochegato · 3 years ago

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Even the Losers

Chapter 7

Chapter 1 Chapter 6

Marinette rubbed her head as though the action might actually have an effect on her throbbing headache. It hadn’t any time she’d tried it in the last hour, but it gave her brain the illusion that she was doing something to help other than just waiting for the painkillers to kick in. The action also gave her something to focus on other than the pounding hangover from not getting nearly drunk enough last night. Because somehow despite the massive amounts she, Jason, and Roy had drunk last night, all of her problems still existed. Utter bullshit, that. And now she still had to deal with all her problems and felt like crap on top of it. Double bullshit.

She adjusted her sunglasses again, fighting the urge to squint because squinting hurt. Although honestly, she wasn’t sure which hurt more, the florescent lights, the sunlight beaming through the hotel windows, or squinting. She was sure there was some way to settle the glasses on her face to block out all light, she just hadn’t been able to figure it out. She now realized why people significantly smarter than her wore those godawful, ugly glasses that wrap around their head and cut out all sun.

She took a deep breath and braced herself for the full blast of a suspiciously sunny Gotham morning. Gotham has like three sunny days a year and one of them is today? What the Hell did she do to Tikki to deserve the last few days? She wandered out of the hotel still contemplating revenge. How does one get revenge against a god anyway? How many ways can she destroy cookies?

She didn’t get more than a few steps before she sensed someone in front of her. She weaved slightly to the left but quickly realized there was someone there too. She weaved to the right and finally looked up when she realized there was someone there. There were people all around her, taking pictures of her, shoving phones in her face as they yelled questions at her.

She stumbled back a few steps and blinked at the group of reporters that had apparently been camping out in front of the hotel for her. She quickly plastered on one of Adrien’s patented PR smiles and nodded to them. She tried to push through them, expecting them to move out of her way, as they did in Paris for Adrien. But reporters in Gotham clearly did not show the same respect that Parisian reporters did because none of them moved out of her way.

Her smile strained slightly as she looked to the one in front of her. “Excuse me, please,” she requested in the most sickeningly sweet voice she could manage.

The reporter sent back an excited smile. “Ms. Dupain Cheng, would you care to comment on your relationship with your family? Perhaps explain why Gotham hadn’t had the pleasure of your presence before?”

Marinette looked the reporter up and down. She looked at the group surrounding her, noting how they had closed the circle to the point of touching her. She’d been to raves with more personal space. She moved to push through a small gap between reporters, but stopped when they quickly closed the gap. Marinette gritted her teeth and widened her smile. “There’s a reason we’ve chosen not to speak about this and that reason was NOT to discuss it in an exclusive with you at this exact moment. Now if you will excuse me, I would very, very much like to get some coffee. I’m sure you can understand the difficulty of starting a day without it.”

She gave them a conspiratorial smile, hoping if they felt like they were in on the joke they would let her through. Instead, her response emboldened the reporters, who started shouting out her name and more questions.

“Will you attend more Wayne functions now?”

Marinette didn’t even know which reporter shouted the question to address them if she wanted. She huffed and decided to give up on pleasantries. She was hung over. She was hungry. She wanted coffee. “Why would people change a relationship that doesn’t involve you because you know about it?” she grunted as she tried to push through the cracks between people.

The reporters closed ranks tighter around her, making it impossible for her to break through without injuring someone, which she was sure was the plan of at least a few of them. Whether it was to get a more salacious story or to sue Bruce Wayne, she wasn’t sure. Probably both. She looked back to the hotel lobby hoping the concierge would see her predicament and help her, but he was determinedly ignoring the scene in front of the hotel.

She set her jaw and prepared herself to create a scene channeling her best imitation of an irate Chloe Bourgeoisie. She’d deal with the fallout later. Right now, she needed to get out of this situation before someone actually did push a little too hard and tiny gods decided to curse the city. She opened her mouth to yell but instead heard someone else’s voice boom through the crowd.

“I think my sister told you to leave her the fuck alone.”

Marinette looked around to try to find the source of the voice but couldn’t see past the wall of reporters. She didn’t have to wait long for him to push his way through the crowd like a wrecking ball, not worrying about injuring anyone as he shoved his way through. Jason stopped in front of her with a smirk. “She just says it in a much more polite way than I do.” He held up a bag and a tray of coffee. “I come bearing gifts so you don’t have to deal with this shit out there somewhere.”

Marinette shot him a grateful smile and turned back toward the hotel. “That sounds brilliant. Thank you.”

Jason winked at her. “I got you.”

They didn’t stop or even look at each other until the elevator doors closed behind them. Marinette leaned against the wall and finally took a full breath. She looked over to Jason with another grateful smile. “Thank you. I wasn’t expecting that and I…” She looked down for a moment to collect her thoughts. “I wasn’t prepared. I’ll do better next time.”

Jason’s eyes softened. The press was a lot for all of them to get used to. None of them had taken naturally to it, especially Gotham’s press. They at least had the advantage of starting young and knowing what to expect, not to mention since they were kids, the press didn’t have a lot of chances to get to them. Marinette had just been thrown out there without a life preserver. Bruce didn’t even send any guards. “Don’t worry about it. I thought you could use the save.”

Marinette laughed and narrowed her eyes at him. “That was a socially acceptable version of a kidnapping. I had no way of getting out of that without exposing that there is no relationship.”

“Should have just exposed it then,” he shrugged, not remotely nonplussed by her comment. “I just thought you could use some sustenance after last night.” He held up the bag for her as they exited the elevator and made their way to her room. “I know you must be used to fancy French food so I got a variety of food from the best bakery in town. And I didn’t know how you take your coffee or if you prefer tea so I got both and lots of sugar and creamer.”

Marinette giggled as she opened her door. “You’re not wrong. My parents owned a patisserie. I grew up on the best baked goods in France.”

Jason blinked a few times at her before setting the drinks and food on the coffee table. “That’s it, next family reunion is at your place.”

“Not so sure that’s going to be a thing,” she said quietly. She reached for one of the croissants and ripped off a small piece, popping it in her mouth. “Not really sure I count as family. That’s kind of been made clear.”

“Yeah well, we didn’t know and we’d like to get to know you, if you’re okay with it,” he said biting off a chunk of cheese Danish. “Look, I’m not looking for family dinners and brunches and shit, I just… want to make sure you’re okay.” He looked up at her earnestly for a moment before his eyes turned mischievous. “Although if you grew up in a bakery, I might want all that at your parents’ place.”

“At least you’re asking. That’s something anyway,” she grumbled as she took another small bite.

“Speaking of family, where is model boy?”

Marinette puckered her lips in disapproval as she watched the crumbs fall from Jason’s mouth as he spoke. She looked away before she snapped at him. “He and Max went apartment hunting.”

“Without you?” Jason asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Neither of them were suffering from a raging hangover that took double the normal dosage of painkillers just to take the edge off of,” she said pointedly.

“Coffee,” Jason grunted, motioning toward the coffee. “Lots of coffee and food and water.” He pushed the bag toward her. “Not the bird bites you’ve been taking.”

She studied the croissant in front of her with a furrowed brow as though it had some kind of answers for her. She nearly dropped it when she heard a knock on the door. She looked through the peephole and gasped, flinching back from the door. Jason immediately jumped up and ran over to her. “What is it? Another reporter?”

“No,” Marinette rasped out, her eyes never leaving the door. “Worse.” Her heart started racing and her breathing became labored. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready to speak with him. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to speak with him? She didn’t even know how she felt yet. She hadn’t sorted through this all yet. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes. She wasn’t ready. This was happening too fast.

She flinched visibly when he knocked again. He’d had time to prepare. He’d had time to think this through. He knew how he felt about this. He’d had time to plan and prepare. She had none of that and here he was on her doorstep. He knew about her and she knew nothing about him. He was ready and she wasn’t given that chance.

She was just expected to deal with it. She was just expected to handle it. She was just expected to accept it. He’d created this entire situation and she was left to pick up the pieces and move on. And now he was here. He was on her figurative doorstep in person and now she had to deal with it, on his timetable, according to his preference, because yet again it all had to be done on his terms. Her preferences didn’t matter. Her feelings didn’t matter. Her opinion didn’t matter.

“Want me to kick their ass out?” Jason offered already reaching for the handle.

Marinette shook her head and let out a calming breath. He thinks he can come in after twenty years gone and act like everything is fine and expect her to play nice, he has another thing coming. He wanted a detached relationship? She could do that. She’d seen it enough growing up with Adrien and Chloe’s parents. She knew how to play the game.

She shook her hands to get the tension out before finally reaching out to open the door. “Mr. Wayne. This is an unexpected pl… experience,” she stuttered. She mentally grimaced. She was showing weakness. She needed to be strong. She plastered on a clearly fake smile. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being weak. She wouldn’t cry for him. She hadn’t cried because of him in the twenty years he’d been absent, she wouldn’t do it now.

Bruce took a breath. “Marinette…” He froze for a second. He hadn’t thought hard enough about this. He knew what he wanted to say, what he wanted to tell her, but he hadn’t thought about how to tell her, how to lead into it. “I was hoping to speak with you,” he rushed out, wincing internally at the sound of it.

“Well, that’s a first,” she scoffed before she could stop herself. She slapped her hand over her mouth and mentally berated herself. What was she doing? She was supposed to be calm not cruel. She was losing this game!

Jason grinned and propped his arms behind his head as he kicked out his legs, the very picture of relaxed. “I like her. I’m keeping her.”

Marinette shot him an appreciative smile but Bruce did a double take, frowning at the sight. His mind raced as to what it meant that Jason was there. Was it good? It was good, wasn’t it? She was getting close to one of her brothers already. But that brother was Jason, and despite the fact that he loved Jason, he was well aware their relationship was still contentious at best. Not exactly the best brother for her to get close to. And he was already encouraging her hostility against him. Not that he didn’t deserve it, he knew he did, it was just that any of the other brothers would help mitigate that hostility. Jason would fan it. “Jason, what are you doing here?”

“Brought baked goods and coffee,” he answered casually, a smirk making its way onto his face. “You?”

Bruce let out a heavy sigh through his nose and smoothed out his face. Getting annoyed now would do nothing for his goal. If Marinette was connecting to Jason, getting frustrated with him would just push her further away. “As I mentioned, I was hoping I could speak with Marinette about the… situation. I wanted…”

“‘The situation’,” Jason mocked shaking his head at Bruce. God was he always this bad with his kids? He thought it was just him. “Way to sound sincere, B.”

Bruce’s lips pursed until they were no longer visible. He didn’t need Jason sabotaging him right now. He was doing a good enough job of it on his own. “I’d like to speak with Marinette on our own, please. Why don’t you go home?”

Marinette’s eyes went wide and her chest clenched. She didn't want Jason to leave. She wasn't ready for Jason to leave. Once Jason left it was just her and him. Just thinking about it suddenly she couldn't breathe. Suddenly the air felt too thin and too heavy at the same time. No. She needed somebody else here.

Jason shot a look over to Marinette, letting his eyes pass over Marinette like he hadn’t been noting her body language. He let his eyes wander for a second before returning to Bruce with a tilt to his head. “No. I’m witnessing this, unless Pixie tells me to go home.”

Marinette could have kissed him… on the cheek. Because he was her br… it was complicated. But she was beyond grateful he had spoken up for her. She let out the breath she’d been holding and raised an eyebrow at him. “Pixie?”

“Small, violent,” Jason grinned at her.

Marinette laughed and playfully narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine, whatever, Goliath.”

Jason leaned back again. “Oh, no, that one’s already taken. By a dragon bat, no less.”

Marinette’s face scrunched in confusion. She tried to search through her Americanisms for what a dragon bat could be. It had to be a species of bat right? Maybe? But then again it was American English so for all she knew it could be a flower. “A what?”

“Jason!” Bruce admonished. He was really not looking forward to trying to explain what a dragon bat was or how Damian came to be in possession of one.

Jason rose up enough to grab one of the croissants and shove half of it into his mouth before he spoke. “I’ll introduce you sometime, or Damian will have to actually… which he won’t. I’ll show you a picture, you seem like the kind of person who likes terrifying animals as long as they’re fuzzy.”

“I… fair,” Marinette conceded easily.

“If I can bring us back to the topic at hand,” Bruce interjected loudly, cutting off any more discussion of dragon bats.

“Family bonding, right?” Jason cut him off with a pointed look. “Isn’t that what we were doing?”

Bruce glared at Jason for a few seconds, which did nothing to wipe the smug smirk off his face. Giving up on Jason, Bruce focused on Marinette. “At the gala you mentioned you didn’t plan on being in town much longer, leaving today actually. I was hoping I could convince you to stay a bit longer.”

Marinette examined him with a dour curiosity. She cocked her head to the side. “And why might that be? You don’t need me here to make an announcement that we prefer to keep our relationship private, hence they didn’t know about me.”

Bruce let out a deep sigh. That was fair. It was a fair response. Sabine had warned him she would be suspicious of him. “This isn’t for the public,” he assured her.

“Isn’t it?” She blinked a few times at him, her face blank. “Are you sure? It feels like it is.” She turned to Jason. “Doesn’t it feel like it is to you?”

“It does indeed,” Jason nodded in agreement, keeping eye contact with Bruce as he did.

“Jason…” he started threateningly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you relying on me to make fixing your fuck up easier for you? Wrong kid. You’re looking for Dick or Tim… actually I wouldn’t rely on Tim for help explaining why being an absentee father isn’t actually that bad.”

“Jason, I think it’s time for you to go home,” Bruce growled.

Marinette straightened up and moved between him and Jason. She wasn’t going to let him bully Jason for standing up for her. “I don’t think so. So far he’s the only member of my family I like.”

“Ooh, you should totally give Cass and Steph and Duke a chance too,” Jason offered with a faked enthusiasm as though the confrontation with Bruce didn’t just happen. He kept his eyes on Marinette but relished the increasingly frustrated scowl on Bruce’s face as they ignored him.

Marinette nodded. “I’ll consider it.”

“Oh and Alfred… and I guess Tim too. He’s a prick but he’s alright I guess,” Jason continued.

Marinette blinked at him. It was like a never ending list of people. An ongoing list of people he had taken in after walking away from her. A long list of people he’d cared about and for without having to be pressured into it by the press. A mile long list of people he wasn’t pretending to care about. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“We have a lot,” Jason corrected her. They were in this together and he’d remind her of that as many times as she needed. “Alfred isn’t a sibling though. He’s like a grandfather.”

Marinette paused at that. She hadn’t considered that. Another grandfather figure. Another grandfather that didn’t want anything to do with her. Sure now Grand-père Roland loved her but for the first fifteen years, he’d known about her and didn’t care. Maybe it was her. It had to be her right? Two grandparents, that isn’t coincidence. That’s a pattern and the only commonality was her. She pursed her lips together to focus on something other than the tears welling up behind her eyes. “Sounds like the kind of person who definitely would have known about me.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “I… don’t know the answer to that,” he answered slowly.

Marinette nodded, slowly going numb. “So, what I’m getting from this so far is I have a another grandfather-type figure that knew about me and didn’t feel any kind of interest in me and a ton of people that my father decided were worthy of his love and affection when I wasn’t. So it isn’t that my father didn’t want to be a father, just that he didn’t want to be my father.”

“That isn’t…” Jason started. This was going down the wrong path. He was trying to show her he had her back, not remind her about the pain. But instead, now Marinette was getting hurt, remembering the pain. She’d lost her sass and impertinence and now was moving toward hurt. And she was blaming Alfred. Alfred was one of the only good things about being a Wayne!

“Jason! I think it’s time for you to go home. Now!” Bruce roared.

Marinette contemplated Bruce coldly, numbness consuming her fears and insecurities and morphing into cold, analytic contemplation. He was blaming Jason. Her frustration wasn’t because of Jason or anything he said. Her pain wasn’t because of Jason, it was because of him, because of his decisions. And instead of taking responsibility for it, he was blaming Jason.

Jason blinked a few times, no longer certain of his role in this interaction. He looked back and forth between Marinette and Bruce, noting Marinette’s hardening features. She was getting ready for a fight. He could see it developing, but he wasn’t at all sure Bruce did. He held up his hands in surrender and sat back down calmly. “I promised I wouldn’t leave unless Pixie asked me to. I intend to keep my promise to her,” he said calmly.

Bruce glared at him again and faced back to Marinette, a fake smile plastered on. “As I was saying. I’d like a chance to get to know you, if you would let me.”

“And how many members of the press did you want to be there when you do?” she inquired sharply.

Bruce sighed and rubbed his forehead. “That’s not fair.”

Marinette’s mouth dropped and she shook her head at him incredulously. “Wow. Way to pull the rich, white guy entitlement card. ‘I know everything about this situation has been unbelievably unfair to you, but now I’m being inconvenienced in the mildest way possible and I don’t like it,’” she mocked. She rocked back on her heels and narrowed her eyes at him. “Rest assured M. Wayne, I do not intend to speak out against you. Your reputation will not be harmed by me. Tell the press whatever you want. I won’t contradict you. You can relax.”

“Marinette…” he started, unsure of where to go. Everything she had said was so far from the truth, he didn’t know where to start. Her view of the situation was so skewed, he didn’t know how to put it back on kilter. His shoulders sagged in defeat. “This has nothing to do with the press. I had put plans in motion to get in contact with you before any of this started. Mr. Fox will confirm that for you if you don’t trust me. You seem like quite an impressive young lady and I would like to get to know you better, if you’ll give me the chance.”

His tone was contrite and quiet, but Marinette wasn’t done being upset yet. She wasn’t ready to move on and let go of the anger. “And if I wasn’t, you would continue to ignore me? If I was a problem child, if I had social issues, if I couldn’t find a job, you’d continue to treat me like I never existed? I’ve finally done enough to gain your attention. Oh thank you so much for letting me know.”

“That isn’t what I said,” Bruce rushed to assure her. “I meant to compliment you not say you had to earn my attention.”

Marinette pursed her lips and looked over to Jason. He was looking back at her with sympathetic, concerned eyes. She let out a long sigh and looked away from them both. “Look, I meant what I told the press earlier. I had no intention of you seeing me at the gala. I had no intention of anyone finding out about me. I didn’t even know there was anything to find out when I made the plan to come here. And I have no expectation of anything about our relationship changing.”

Bruce perked up slightly, but focused on keeping his body language the same, so she wouldn’t see the difference. That was an opening; expectation instead of intention. It wasn’t that she intended not to change it, it’s that she didn’t expect it. “I do,” he assured her, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, keeping it calm and even. “I would like to change our relationship. I would like the chance to explain and try to start to make it up to you. If you would like to try.

“If you’re open to it, I can extend your reservation until you are ready to move on, or if you would prefer, you are more than welcome to stay at the manor. I would love to have you stay with us but I understand that may be overwhelming. Or, WE has have some flats available, with multiple bedrooms. You and your friends could stay there for a while. Your friend is going to need a place to stay while he looks for an apartment, right?

“I’ll leave the choice to you. Whether we pursue a relationship, if you stay, where you stay; they’re all your choice. Here,” he handed her a paper with several numbers hand written on it. “These are my numbers; office, home office, cell phone, manor. You can use any of them to contact me.”

Marinette took the paper impassively. She squeezed her other hand in an effort to keep the tremble from being too obvious. “Thank you, M. Wayne. I will consider your words.”

Bruce nodded, letting the very formal use of his name wash away. This was still progress. This was still movement in the right direction, even if it wasn’t as much as he would want. He knew it could take a long time. He knew he wouldn’t be able to fix this today. “Thank you, Marinette. That’s all I can ask for. And I’m sorry for ambushing you here. I tried to call and text you all yesterday to set up a time to talk in person so you could prepare but it seems like your phone was off.”

He let out a small breath seeing her eyes widen at his admission. That had to be a good sign. Maybe he actually said the right thing for once. He nodded to her and left her to think, hoping Jason would urge her to call. He seemed to want a relationship with her as well. Hopefully, he would realize this was the best way to get that.

Jason sighed and looked up at her as soon as the door closed behind Bruce. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m not. It’s… it’s a lot. I think I want to be alone,” Marinette said absently staring at the numbers in her hand.

Jason nodded. “It is. I understand. If you want to talk, at all, about anything. About where to drink in town, best burger, anything, give me a call.” He gently took the paper Bruce had handed her out of hand, letting her decide if she gave it to him or not. When she let go, he put his number on it as well. “I only have one number, but now you have it.”

Marinette nodded at him. “Thank you, Jason.”

Jason hesitated briefly. “For what it’s worth, if you decide to stay you should take him up on the flat. The hotel is stupid expensive and WE offers the flat to visiting collaborators all the time, so it’s not like it’s all that special… if you want to avoid being treated special.”

Marinette nodded at his words, barely taking them in as her mind tried to fight the numbing process. Jason watched her tentatively. “You look like a hugger,” he said uncertainly. “Did you… do you want a, um, a hug?”

Marinette looked over at him and blinked a few times, not sure how to take his words, partly because he seemed unsure of them himself, but partly because things were having a harder time permeating her brain right now. Jason took her curious look as doubt. “Oh come on. It’s fine. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it. Trust me. I tell Dick to fuck off enough when he tries to hug me. I have no problem saying no to hugs I don’t want. I’m offering because I mean it.”

Marinette blinked a few more times but finally nodded vacantly. Jason pulled her into a warm, comforting hug. After a few moments he pulled away. “It will all be okay. No matter what you decide, it will all be okay. And no matter what you decide, I’m here. Nobody’s replacing you as my sister. So get ready for some completely inappropriate Christmas presents this year.”

Marinette smiled absently at his joke, her eyes never meeting his. “Thanks, Jason.” She leaned against the door after she closed it behind him and slid down it, staring blankly at nothing. The room felt colder than it was before, but she couldn’t manage to care enough to get up and get a blanket. She thought there might have been ambient noise going on around her but none of it registered. Nothing registered. Not the numbing sensation that was rapidly overtaking her body from her fingers and toes up to her head until she stopped feeling anything. Not even the point she was staring at. She didn’t know how long she stared at the nothingness before black overtook her vision and she passed out.

Chapter 8

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soulmate-game · 4 years ago

Text

Maribat March 2021 @maribatmarch-2k21

Day 1: Found Family

“Ah! Bonjour!” A cheery voice called, as a short Eurasian girl bound over to the unfairly intimidating mob of tall people with sharp eyes. Chloe had called in a favor. “My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Chloe told me that your tour guide cancelled at the last minute, so she blackmail—sorry, begged me to fill in for them. You are the Wayne’s, non?”

The one at the front of the group, clearly Bruce Wayne since Marinette didn’t live under a rock and had seen the man on several American news broadcasts before, nodded and cleared his throat. Man, was he intimidating. Even when he shot her a dazzling smile that was sure to blind Paparazzi with fake cheer. It was a nice smile, Marinette wasn’t about to deny. But it was empty. Distant. And Marinette wasn’t going to buy it for a second.

“Yes, that’s us. Mademoiselle Bourgeois mentioned she had asked a close friend of hers to take care of our tour.”

Marinette nodded again, clasping her hands behind her back. “I guarantee, you won’t miss anything the tour guide would have shown you. In fact, Chloe mentioned that you all were very curious about the now retired Parisian heroes, right? My former best friend ran the Ladyblog back when they were active. I am more than confident that I can answer any questions you have while we go through the city.”

A boy with a white streak in his hair rose his hand, as if he was in a class and needed to wait to be called on. Which, considering the sheer size of their family, Marinette was actually grateful for. But damn, this was another imposing figure. Slightly taller than even the six-foot-three-inches that Bruce Wayne owned, he was solidly built and rocked a brown leather jacket and ripped black jeans. Marinette smiled and nodded for him to speak.

“How old are you? Because I don’t know if twelve year olds are allowed to do guided tours,” there was an obvious tease in his voice, but there was also legitimate concern in his blue-green eyes. Marinette almost missed that concern amid her quickly building annoyance. She even felt her eyes twitch.

“I’m turning eighteen in a few months if you need to know, Monsieur,” she evened out the bite in her voice with an overly sweet smile. “And if you want to get lost and possibly pickpocketed in the busy streets of Paris, then please continue to make comments on my height. If not, we can begin our tour and you might even enjoy it.”

Several Wayne’s snickered at her comeback, one man in particular elbowing the white haired gentleman with a little too much glee. Even the stoic Bruce laughed softly, and a boy with enough bags under his eyes to make the airport jealous nearly fell over himself with his suppressed laughter.

The man himself just snorted, sending her a lopsided smirk that oddly radiated approval. It was almost as if she had passed some sort of test.

“My name’s Jason, Pixie. You already know B. The guy trying to break my ribs,” he pointedly shoved off the one who had elbowed him, “is Dick. He’s Bruce’s first adoptive casualty. The one that looks like a zombie is Tim, we might need to take a break to get him more coffee before he passes out halfway through. The one who hasn’t stopped glaring at you is Damian, the badass redhead is Barbara but we all call her Babs. The annoying blonde is Stephany, the other cool badass over there is Cass. She doesn’t talk much. And the one trying to pretend he doesn’t know us is Duke.”

Each member he introduced gave her a little wave or nod. Even Damian managed a short nod of acknowledgement before resuming his glare. He looked to be a couple years younger than her, so she just brushed it off as teenage drama.

“Alright then! It is very nice to meet you all. Now, Chloe did inform me that you guys are very multilingual, which is another reason she asked me instead of one of our other friends. If you ever need it, I obviously am fluent in both French and English. But added to that, I am fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian, and I know basic survival Japanese. I also know French Sign Language, though I’m not sure if that’s very useful for you unfortunately. If you ever need to communicate non-verbally, I will do my best to accommodate that. Now, I believe you guys were scheduled to start the tour with a visit to the Louvre, non? Right this way.”

As Marinette led the large group out of the Grand Paris, they didn’t bother taking time to admire the sights before asking questions.

“Have you ever met one of the heroes?” Dick, who might have been shorter than Jason and Bruce but was muscular enough to still inspire caution (and admiration), asked. His blue eyes seemingly stared right through Marinette as he continued; “If you’re almost eighteen, then they must have been active through a lot of your school career.”

Marinette smiled. “They did only retire last year,” she agreed with a nod. “Yes, I have met all of the Parisian heroes at least once,” she snorted at a stray thought. “In fact, I met Chat Noir quite a lot. You see, my old College was basically ground zero for a lot of akuma attacks. And by a lot, I mean a majority of them,” she shook her head before pausing to get everyone to cross a street. “After a while, Chat Noir started calling me ‘princess’ to make fun of how often he had to save me. He’s an annoying ass.”

Despite her words, everyone behind her could easily hear the fondness there. They all traded glances. What if this was a Lois and SuperMan situation? Regardless, they all had a suspicion that Marinette knew more about the heroes than she let on. Or, at least more about Chat Noir.

“When you say that your school was a hotspot for Akuma attacks,” Bruce spoke up cautiously, his Dad Senses going haywire. He didn’t like how nonchalantly she had said it— she was far too casual. Sure enough, he watched as the muscles between her shoulders stiffened slightly at the conversation change. “What do you mean? Surely it couldn’t have been that bad if the school is still around.”

Marinette sucked her teeth, grimacing. “The school is still there, yeah, but only because of Ladybug’s ability. You’ve heard about the Cure, right?” It was Tim who answered her;

“Yeah. It fixed the damage done during a fight, right?” He asked, tilting his head a little. Marinette ignored her brief thought that the gesture made him look like a curious puppy. She sighed.

“Yeah. But when they say damage, they mean everything. Injuries, collateral. Death,” she said the last example darkly, far too much weight behind the word for it to be meaningless. She heard Jason hiss in sympathy. “But there are good things. The Cure also erased anyone’s memories of dying besides the vague knowledge that it did happen, so there isn’t much trauma there to unpack. Not as much as there could have been anyway,” she assured them. “And I’m one of the lucky ones. I never died, and I was never Akumatized.”

“Hmph,” Damian’s voice cut through the brief silence that followed her admission. She looked back at him to see his sharp green eyes staring right into her. “You don’t honestly believe that’s lucky.” It wasn’t a question. Marinette clenched her jaw, turning around and ignoring him.

Because, no. It wasn’t luck. It wasn’t lucky that she was the only one that remembered everything— all of the deaths, all of the Akumatizations, everything that others mercifully forgot. Since she lived through all of it, she remembered all of it. And survivor’s guilt is nothing to scoff at.

But she wasn’t about to reveal her trauma, or at the very least the full scope of it, to people she had just met and was leading on a tour.

“If you look to the left, you’ll see a statue that was made depicting Ladybug and Chat Noir back during the first years of their activity,” she suddenly told them, gesturing to the still-standing statue. Nobody missed the obvious topic change, but nobody commented on it either. Turns out the statue was something they had been looking forward to seeing in person, Tim even went up to take a few photos with his camera. Barbara took a few circles around the statue, easily pivoting her wheelchair around it as if she was trying to see every angle and imperfection possible. Marinette couldn’t help but chuckle fondly at the sight.

“Your family are pretty big fans, huh?” She asked Cass and Duke, the only ones that had stayed back with her. Duke snorted, and Cass gave her a small grin.

“They like to keep up to date with all the heroes,” Duke answered with a shrug. “Since we’re so high profile, it isn’t weird for us to be saved by one here or there even when we’re away from Gotham.”

Marinette just gave him an odd look, furrowing her brows. “But the Miraculous team has been disbanded since HawkMoth was defeated,” she reminded them. “There’s no need for them to save anybody anymore.”

“Old habits,” Cass spoke up softly, her voice barely a whisper. Her eyes locked with Marinette’s. “Not easy to break.”

The smaller woman had a feeling that Cass wasn’t talking about her family’s habit of keeping up to date on heroes.

“Alright! We need to head to the next stop or we might not have time to see everything!”

The tour went pretty similarly. The walks between stops were pleasant, and filled with questions about the period of time where HawkMoth was active. Marinette wasn’t even the least bit surprised nor put off; everyone was curious about those years now that the tourism restriction was lifted and people could ask freely about it. Besides the many questions about the Heroes, Marinette found the group to be very pleasant company. They were polite, but also rowdy in a very endearing way. She caught a lot of inside jokes they had with each other, and a lot of good natured teasing and fighting. They even managed to rope her into it somehow, and she found herself snidely teasing Damian or casually threatening Tim with not allowing them a coffee break. She even got to ride on Jason’s shoulders for a bit after he made another comment on her height that she Did Not Appreciate. But the ride she got made it worth it.

But soon the sun was high in the sky, and it was about time for them to take a lunch break. They had all been walking for hours with only a few chances to rest, and honestly Marinette was impressed that none of them seemed too tired out by it.

“Alright,” she put her hands on her hips proudly. “Since some of you won’t stop whining about needing coffee or being hungry— Dick, don’t you dare buy anything from that vendor! I’m gonna lead you all to my parent’s bakery so we can have lunch and caffeinate all of you. And conveniently enough,” she smiled widely. “The bakery is right across the street from my old College! So you’ll be able to get a look at where the majority of Akuma attacks happened, and maybe I can tell you a few specific stories if you want,” she offered. There were a couple cheers (Tim and Dick) from the crowd and everyone seemed pretty pleased with the next step in their tour. Smiling, Marinette turned and began to lead them in the direction of her home.

Sirens blared, a fire truck zooming down the street next to them.

Headed in the same direction.

Marinette frowned, watching it go. “That’s weird. I hope everyone’s okay, whatever happened,” she mused idly. But as they kept going forward, the sirens didn’t get any softer. If anything, they started getting louder again after a while. Marinette was visibly concerned by then, her pace picking up. “This is my neighborhood,” she told the solemn group behind her. “I know everyone on this street—“ they rounded the corner, and Marinette stopped in her tracks. Her world ground to a halt.

There was the fire truck, stopped right in front of her bakery.

Which was completely ablaze.

A string of curses flew out of her mouth, the little Eurasian wasting no more time before sprinting towards the building. She could hear people yelling at her to wait, slow down, stop! But she ignored them. The only thing on her mind was that her home was on fire.

“Marinette! Wait!” Dick reached out to grab her arm, but like a snake Marinette easily slipped out of his grip and continued forward. Steph was next, deciding to just tackle Marinette— to no avail. The Parisian just shouldered the bigger woman off of her with pure adrenaline fueling her muscles, and everyone else knew by then that they could not stop her. The Wayne’s decided all they could do was jog behind Marinette, keeping her in sight as they tried to gauge the damage.

“The top floors don’t look like they have even been touched by the fire yet,” Tim whispered, though his eyes flew between the building and their tour guide. Marinette was speaking rapidly with a firefighter that wasn’t immediately busy, trying to get information. But before anyone could decipher what was said, Marinette tore a large strip off the bottom of her shirt and tied it in a hasty mask around her mouth.

“Wait!” Bruce was the first to realize what was happening, with his years of experience with self sacrificing children and their stupid stunts. But Marinette managed to kick him away before he could grab her, dashing into the inferno without paying any heed to the many protests that followed her.

The group of Gothamites could do nothing but watch the flaming building, then. If they went inside, it would only overcrowd a hazardous area. Minutes passed, and there was movement in the fire. Out of the doorway came Marinette and a firefighter, both having to work together to carry the body of a large man outside. The sight of the man made the Gotham family blink— he was as big as Bane! And that was nothing to scoff at. But despite his unusual size and muscle mass, the man had all the signs of being a normal civilian.

Marinette didn’t stop there. She ran back in. Coming out a lot more quickly this time with a barely conscious Asian woman— everyone saw the resemblance between her and this new woman immediately.

It had to be her mother.

“Shit,” Duke hissed. Nobody else could say a word. It wasn’t looking good, and this wasn’t a situation where random vigilantes showing up out of nowhere could actually help. Not this late into the fire. Bruce’s hands curled into fists.

The woman that everyone guessed was Marinette’s mother was suddenly struck by lucidity; she gasped and grabbed at Marinette’s hand without seeming to see who she was even talking to. A single word that none of the Waynes could hear left her throat, and judging by Marinette’s returning panic it hadn’t been good.

She rushed right back into the building, and came back out with the last firefighter who had been searching inside.

Marinette carried a child. She screamed out in panicked French;

“She’s not breathing! I need first aid now!”

That was their cue. The firefighters started their hoses, focusing on getting rid of the flames now that nobody was left inside the building. Bruce and Damian got to Marinette first, and this time she listened as they instructed her to set the child down. Damian, being smaller and having more hands-on medical knowledge, took charge of the resuscitation. Marinette sat there silently, eyes riveted to the small child— a girl.

But Marinette wasn’t reacting like a normal civilian to tragedy. She was eerily calm, eyes focused and barely concealing a terrible rage. She took over chest compressions when Damian started to lose momentum, not giving up.

But then the EMTs arrived, and it was only five minutes with the child hooked onto oxygen that the news arrived—

Marinette heard the monitors on the ambulance flatline before she even registered what people were trying to tell her. Manon. Manon was—

Marinette didn’t register Nadya Chammack at first. She was just another body in the quickly growing sea of them. That is, until she heard Nadya’s pained shriek. A mother who had just lost her baby girl.

“Perhaps we should head back,” Bruce offered softly, giving Marinette space but keeping a keen eye on her. He saw her begin to tremble, then shake. He was pretty sure he could hear the grinding of her teeth for a second before she went still. Just… all movement stopped, the tears that had been building just falling silently for a second before they ended.

And he recognized that carefully practiced emptiness in her bluebell eyes. The same emptiness he had seen in Damian’s eyes when he had first arrived at the Manor. The same emptiness he saw in Dick’s eyes in the days following his parent’s deaths.

The same emptiness he saw in the mirror, every time he had another nightmare about the day Jason had been taken from him, years ago.

Suddenly he could imagine all too well exactly what kind of strength she had to have, to avoid her negative emotions ever being used against her during Hawkmoth’s reign. Especially if she had constantly been dealing with her friends and family being Akumatized and/or dying on multiple occasions.

She didn’t even seem to have heard him. Bruce sighed.

“I called Chloe,” Barbara informed everyone solemnly, holding up her phone for emphasis. “She’ll be here in five.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Chloe hadn’t come alone. With her had been Adrien Agreste, former model when his father hadn’t been… well, in prison. Nowadays he was just a normal student who occasionally gave lectures on neglect and child abuse, and how to help children in those situations.

And, apparently, he was also Marinette’s closest friend. Even more so than Chloe. As soon as they arrived back at the Grand Paris, Chloe herded everyone up into her suite and she and Adrien surrounded Marinette with pillows and blankets. Adrien curled around Marinette like an affectionate cat, and Damien even swore he heard the guy purr at some point

“We should probably leave,” Bruce whispered to their hostess, who looked inbetween him and her friends for a moment before jerking her head towards the door.

“I wanna talk to you first,” Chloe whispered back. Once they all filed out into the hallway and the door was safely closed, Chloe took a breath. “First, I want to tell you that I got a call from the hospital. Marinette’s father is stable, but in a coma right now.”

“Is that the man who looked like he could bench press a car for fun?” Dick asked, earning a weak grin from the Bourgeois heiress.

“Yeah, that’s him. But…” Chloe’s face fell, and she looked around as if to double check nobody was eavesdropping. She still lowered her voice anyway. “Her mother, Sabine. She…” Chloe swallowed a lump in her throat, images of the extremely kind Chinese woman flashing through her mind without permission. “She didn’t make it.”

Several people took a sharp breath, acknowledging everything that had gone so wrong for Marinette on a day that had started so perfectly.

“The smoke?” Cass asked gently, but Chloe winced and shifted on her feet.

“No. They… there were rope marks on Sabine’s neck,” Chloe clenched her eyes shut at the admission. “Marinette’s dad might be big, but he’s not a fighter. Sabine, though… Sabine was. She was raised in a martial arts family back in China. I’ve seen Sabine take down five men at once, all twice her size,” Chloe kicked her lips, shaking her head in disbelief. “Somebody knew… somebody knew that the little Chinese woman was a threat but the big baker with tons of muscle was harmless.”

Nobody took that well. Not only had Marinette just lost her home and half of her family, but her father was in a coma and it had all been foul play.

“Okay,” Bruce nodded once the news had time to sink in. They could help with this; this was their specialty. They might have only known Marinette for six hours, but she had made a big impression. It wasn’t just anybody that could mesh with his family so seamlessly in that short span of time. “Is there anything else?”

“I want you to get temporary custody of her,” Chloe said it the way only Chloe Bourgeois could. With her back straight, chin high, and the tone of a woman who expected to be listened to or else she’d make life Hell for the person that didn’t take her seriously. Bruce could only blink.

“Can I ask for your reasoning?”

“Marinette has been closing herself off more and more over the years,” Chloe admitted. “Hawkmoth’s reign was hard on her. Only Adrien really knows everything she went through during those years. But even after the disbanding of the team, she hasn’t… she hasn’t allowed herself to get close to anybody new. That’s why I tricked her into doing your tour. She needed to socialize with new people, and if she wouldn’t do it herself then I had to pull some strings.”

A few eyebrows raised at the admission that Chloe had fully planned for Marinette to be their tour guide the whole time. It honestly seemed like the kind of well meaning manipulation that one of them would try to pull off.

“She likes you,” Chloe’s voice went soft again, showing how uncharacteristically serious she was about that fact. “She was comfortable enough to let you guys carry her back here. To let you try to help Manon. That might not seem like a big deal to you, but it says a lot to me and Adrien. And… getting her away from Paris for a while is probably a good idea. She was planning to go to Gotham for university anyway.”

The Waynes traded glances before Bruce crosses his arms and asked some more questions first. Doesn’t Marinette have other family? Answer; only her grandmother, who travels all the time and nobody ever knows where she is until she shows up. Bruce agreed that Gina Dupain didn’t exactly seem like a good candidate for Marinette’s new guardian with that description. But finally, to none of his children's surprise, he did end up agreeing.

“But,” he held up a single finger. “We’ll Wait here in Paris for a week, so that she can try to salvage everything she can from her house and so we can get an idea on how her father is doing. There’s still a chance he’ll come out of his coma fairly quickly. And of course, we will only go through with this if Marinette agrees when we ask her tomorrow.”

Chloe agreed to those terms, looking like a weight had been lifted off of her.

Chloe never cut corners when taking care of her hive. And if that meant making sure that her brave soldier bee could move on to start a new hive, one that was better equipped to take care of her, then Chloe would do everything she could to help that move. And really; Chloe was far more resourceful and observant than people gave her credit for. The butts definitely matched, and Bruce Wayne was her last hope to get Marinette the support she needed. Outside of Adrien, anyway.

Chloe took a breath, watching the Waynes trickle off into their own rooms. Marinette was like the little sister she never wanted, but grew to love more than anything. Though, Chloe knew she really chose Marinette as her sister the same way they both chose Adrien as their brother. She just didn’t want to admit she was sentimental like that. But Chloe knew that someone like Marinette needed a bigger family. More support.

She could only hope that Marinette and the Waynes grew to become family for her like she and Adrien had. Kwami knew that Marinette needed all the help she could get for the foreseeable future.

“You did good, my Queen.”

“I know, Pollen. Now we just have to find out who dared hurt my hive.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Dude this took so long to write, but I’m actually really proud of it. Probably gonna take this Maribat March a little differently than last year, and make a few longer stories by connecting some of the prompts together. Maybe each week will be a full story? Idk I’ll figure it out. I know I’m behind but I’m working on it.

I tried to keep the angst out, but it found it’s way in here anyway. Oh well!

#mlb x dc #ml x dc #maribat #maribat march 2021 #Maribat March 2k21 #platonic brucinette #found family #day 1 #Maribat March #day 1 found family #I was a little late but oh well

743 notes · View notes

sturchling · 4 years ago

Note

Hey can you do a daminette fanfic where marinette transfers to gotham because of lila's lies and becomes the class favourite, then lila's class goes to gotham for a trip and, unlike the french class, this one can see through her lies and work together with damien to protect marinette and expose lila. Adrijon pairing and lila salt and alya salt please

Marinette felt nervous as she approached the gates of Gotham Academy. She had never thought she would leave Dupont, let alone Paris. Now, here she stands in a new country, at a new school, on the other side of the world from her home. She had never wanted to leave Paris, she truly did love the city. But Lila hadn’t left her a lot of options.

-----------------

Lila had stayed true to her word for once. She had systematically removed Marinette from her friends. Marinette had been so sure that her friends would see through any lies Lila told about her. But it didn’t take much from Lila to convince the class that Marinette was nothing more than a bully. It had been heartbreaking. Marinette had tried everything she could to convince the class that Lila was a liar and tried to prove her innocence but nothing worked. The only people that believed her were Adrien and Chloe.

-----------------

Adrien obviously knew that Lila was lying and stayed by Marinette’s side, despite the class’ pressure to leave the bluenette. Chloe believing her had surprised Marinette. But Chloe had known Lila was a liar since that incident with the Ladybug summoning dance. Of course, even without that, Chloe would have known. She may not like Marinette, but even she knew that it was utterly ridiculous to think of the girl as a bully. Marinette was the furthest thing from a bully.

----------------

But as time went by, even their support wasn’t enough. The class got worse. They were harassing Marinette any chance that they had, and Adrien and Chloe couldn’t be with Marinette constantly, though they tried. It was eventually decided by Marinette’s family that a change of scenery would be good. They looked at several study abroad programs, eventually deciding on Gotham Academy. The school was excellent and even had a very well reputed arts program. It was perfect for Marinette. Luckily, Gina had a friend in Gotham named Alfred that she had met on her travels who, after speaking with his employer, agreed to host Marinette during her time in Gotham. Soon, Marinette was packed and on her way to Gotham.

----------------

That is how Marinette found herself living at Wayne Manor, in Gotham, about to start a new life at a new school. To say she was nervous would be an understatement. She would have been even more nervous, if not for Damian standing at her side. When she moved into the manor with Alfred, she was introduced to his employer, Bruce Wayne and his sons, Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian. They all immediately like Marinette, as a lot of people had a tendency to do. They quickly started acting like her older brothers, and made Marinette feel at home in Gotham.

-----------------

So, on her first day at Gotham Academy, she was being escorted in by all of the Wayne boys. She was in the same class as Damian, which made her feel slightly calmer. Damian had agreed to stay by her side, knowing how nervous she was to meet her new class. After everything that happened in Mrs. Bustier’s class, Marinette was worried that the same thing might happen here. That she might become the class outcast and be alone again.

-----------------

Needless to say, that obviously didn’t happen. When Marinette was escorted into the classroom by Damian Wayne, it definitely got the attention of her new class. Damian wouldn’t hang out with just anyone. They became curious about this new girl, and were instantly charmed by Marinette. The whole class became very fond of the designer and they were all fast friends. And they acted like friends. They didn’t always ask Marinette for impossible favors, and they helped Marinette as much as she helped them. Adrien and Chloe would often visit her as well, and when they couldn’t visit they made sure to video call with her everyday. Marinette was the happiest she had been in a long while, starting to forget the problems she had in Paris.

------------------

But trouble had a way of finding Marinette. It was during one of their video calls, that Marinette found out that Mrs. Bustier’s class was participating in a program that had them visit classrooms around the world and learn how schools taught in different countries. And of course, the American school they would be visiting is Gotham Academy. And of course, it was Marinette’s class that they would be joining for the week. Just like that, all of Marinette’s worries came crashing back. What if Lila targeted her again? What if Bustier’s class started harassing her again? Or worse. What if Lila turned her new class against her?

-----------------

Damian had grown quite close with Marinette over the last several months. They had even begun dating, much to Gotham’s collective surprise. He had learned almost everything there was to know about Marinette and loved her quirky personality. So, when Marinette grew quiet and nervous like she had been when she first arrived in Gotham, Damian quickly noticed the change in her behavior. Marinette changed almost immediately after her latest video call with her friends. He tried talking to her, to try and fix whatever was wrong. But she would just say “I’m fine.” and walk away, trying to handle everything herself. She didn’t want to bother Damian with her drama. But Damian wasn’t going to give up, he was going to help his angel with whatever was bothering her.

------------------

He also had contact information for Adrien and Chloe so he reached out to the two, trying to figure out what had changed during that video call. That is when he found out about the visiting Parisian class. He instantly knew what Marinette was worried about. She must be worried about the liar making people hate her again. As much as he wished that she wouldn’t worry about it and trust that her friends here would have her back, he couldn’t expect that after what happened in Paris. Of course she would still be worried about it. But Damian was going to make sure that not only did the liar not mess anything up here, he was also going to keep that horrible class as far from his angel as he could.

---------------

He only had about a week to get things in place, but that was enough for Damian. He gathered the class together one morning, when Marinette was out of the classroom. He told them everything he knew about the Parisian class and what they had done to Marinette. Needless to say, Marinette’s new class despised the Parisians before they even arrived. They couldn’t believe everything they had done to Marinette, but they were determined to protect their friend for the whole week. And to try and destroy the liar that had hurt her. They had no idea what kind of lies to expect from this Lila girl, but they knew she must be a gifted liar to make anyone think that Marinette is a bully.

-----------------

Bustier’s class had arrived and Lila wasted no time trying to impress the Gotham class. She went on and on about her usual stories, while also adding in some new Gotham centric ones. Like how she had helped Batman several times, and how she is very close with the Waynes, practically dating Damian. But then immediately contradicted that by claiming that she was dating Adrien Agreste, completely ignoring when Adrien denied it in front of everyone. Mrs. Bustier’s class ate it all up, as usual. But the Gotham class just stood in shock. This girl was a terrible liar. How did this other class believe a word she said?

-----------------

But Marinette’s worries were partially realized fairly quickly. Once Mrs. Bustier’s class saw her sitting in the classroom, they started in on her. Lila tried to cry about how Marinette had bullied her and the rest of Mrs. Bustier’s class started yelling at Marinette. The young designer started to shrink into herself, until she noticed that none of her new classmates seemed to buy it. They were all glaring at Mrs. Bustier’s class and circling around Marinette to shield her from her old class.

-------------------

Mrs. Bustier’s class finally noticed that the Gotham class was shielding Marinette and glaring at them. Alya became infuriated that they were standing in the way of them defending Lila. “Why are you protecting her?! She is nothing more than a bully! She bullied Lila horribly when she was in Paris, you have no idea what she did!” Lila pulled out the fake tears and cried some sob story about all the horrible things Marinette had done to her, expecting that when she peaked out from her hands after, this new class would now turn against Marinette and be glaring at her. But when she did look, this class didn’t look impressed. They were still glaring at her, some even rolling their eyes.

------------------

Lila, after seeing this, quickly turned back to her class, realizing that this Gotham class wouldn’t be easily swayed. “They don’t believe me! I’m just trying to warn them!” The Parisian class consoled their crying friend, while Alya stepped forward to defend her friend. “How could you keep protecting that monster?! She bullied my best friend and is a horrible person!” The Gotham class collectively rolled their eyes, before Damian stepped forward, having heard enough. “We are still protecting her because unlike you, we don’t turn on our friends on the word of a liar.” Lila wailed louder, trying to earn some sympathy, which just enraged Alya more. “How dare you! Lila isn’t a liar! Where is your proof that she is?!” Damian pulled out his iciest glare, making most of Mrs. Bustier’s class back away. “Where is your proof that she is telling the truth? Regardless, I know she is a liar. Marinette is the sweetest girl I have ever met, a literal angel. There is no way she would bully anyone. Besides that, I know that the liar’s stories about the Wayne family are completely made up.” Lila whips around, forgetting that she is supposed to be upset, angered that this boy had called out her best lies in front of this new class. “And how do you know that huh?! Not like you would know the Waynes. I will get my Damian down here and he will make you regret calling me a liar.”

---------------------

The Gotham class couldn’t hold it in anymore. They all started howling with laughter at the liar who didn’t realize what she just did. Even Marinette had started to smile. Lila shrieked, “What’s so funny?! Why are you all laughing?!” Damian stared coldly at Lila. “They are laughing cause you just said you are dating Damian Wayne and didn’t even recognize him standing in front of you. I am Damian Wayne, and I have never met you before.” Lila stood shocked, trying to think of anyway out of this. “W-well, I said we were practically dating. Besides, I am dating Adrien.” Adrien had had enough and pushed to the front to stand in front of Lila. “No you are not! I don’t like you. I have never liked you. Besides, I am dating someone else.” As if on que, which if you ask him he will deny that this was planned, Jon Kent burst through the door making a beeline for Adrien. “Sunshine! Finally came to see me again! Jon hugged Adrien tightly, while Mrs. Bustier’s class just stared in shock. They had really thought that Adrien and Lila were dating, but keeping it quiet so his dad didn’t find out. Or at least, that is what Lila had said. Slowly they began to realize that maybe just because Lila said so, doesn’t mean that it is true.

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The rest of the week was spent quietly. Lila kept trying to win over this new class, while also trying to win back favor with Mrs. Bustier’s class but that was a lost cause. Alya kept trying to defend her friend, refusing to acknowledge that she was a liar. The rest of Mrs. Bustier’s class did finally see the light though and apologized to Marinette. Marinette did forgive them, but they still weren’t going to be friends again. The damage to the relationships was too much. The week at Gotham had ended for Mrs. Bustier’s class and they left. Things returned to normal for Marinette. She was surrounded by Damian and her new friends, who truly cared for her. She was the happiest she had been in ages, and was finally able to rid herself of the fear that Lila would ruin everything again. She felt safe and happy, and nothing was going to change that.

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