#aotq free to be

Chapter 8 | Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

“Oh, look, the queen’s holding court again,” Marinette mutters when she and Adrien enter the classroom and find Lila surrounded by their classmates as she spins her latest story. Adrien snorts.

“Just smile and wave,” he says.

“Yeah, or she’ll get me expelled again. I’m still mad that you’re acting like my meat shield and you have to suffer because of it.”

Adrien frowns. “How do you know about my deal?”

“Oh!” Marinette’s eyes widen. She defaults to the excuse that she seems to be relying on more and more these days. “Ladybug told me! When I was worried about you!”

“Look.” Adrien turns to face Marinette. “It sucks, obviously. I wish I didn’t have to deal with her. But I’m the only person here who has even a bit of power over her, and you’ve done so much for me already. Like, you got my father to let me go to New York! You’re always taking care of everyone else. Let me take care of you for once. You know, like real friends do!”

Marinette squeaks. She remains rooted to the spot, her whole body flaming until she’s hotter than the sun, burning any words that form in her brain before they can pass to her mouth. She finally opens her mouth, ready to say something–

“Adrien! Hi!” Lila’s by their side in an instant, inserting herself between them to latch on to Adrien’s arm and push Marinette away. Marinette takes a deep breath and counts to ten. Snapping won’t help…snapping won’t help…

“Hi, Lila,” Adrien says dully.

“Lila was just telling us about your latest photoshoot in the park!” Rose squeals and claps her hands.

“Oh, yes, it was amazing!” Lila says, physically pulling Adrien over to the group. She sits him down and crowds next to him, and it takes every little shred of self-control for Marinette to not transform then and there and whisk Adrien away from his legitimised stalker, because he doesn’t deserve this. No one deserves to be treated the way he’s being treated!

“You okay, girl?” Alya says, sidling up next to Marinette. Marinette takes another deep breath.

“I’m fine,” she forces out. Alya frowns at her and then follows her gaze.

“Look, I know you don’t like that Lila’s working with Adrien –”

“It’s not about that. It’s about her lying to force herself on him and stalk him.”

“Lying? Marinette, we’ve been through…this…” Alya’s gaze unfocuses. “Wait. Ladybug’s BFF. You said she was lying. You couldn’t have known her before she got here. You knew–”

“I tried to tell you,” Marinette shrugs, but her insides celebrate because finally, finally, someone else is clueing in!

“Don’t give me that,” Alya retorts. “You’ve got Jagged Stone’s phone number. Adrien and Chloé are in our class. Rose still talks to Prince Ali. Juleka’s dad is Jagged Stone. I got to interview Ladybug so many times and then it turned out I was her best friend all along. Sue me for believing that Lila could have stories of her own.”

“Right. You’re right. Sorry, Alya. I just got so caught-up in knowing that Iwas right.”

“So, how does Adrien even know that she’s a liar? And no, I haven’t accepted it that quickly. I’m just compartmentalising.”

Marinette snorts. “She met him in the park with the book she stole from him and tried to pretend she was a Fox hero and knew me. I set the record straight.”

“Set the record – Marinette. No.” Alya facepalms. “Please tell me you didn’t tear into her. Tell me that’s not why she was akumatised.”

“That’s not why she was akumatised?” Marinette says with a sheepish grin, choosing not to mention how close she’d come to giving up her Miraculous when Volpina had pretended to kidnap Adrien and threaten his life. Alya gives her a Look.

“You’re so lucky I love you, girl,” Alya sighs. “And that I’m here to keep your head screwed on.”

“Oh! Marinette!” Lila gestures her over. Warily, Marinette links her arm with Alya’s and heads over to Lila’s court. Lila never talks to her these days, so whatever she wants can’t be good, and a knot of apprehension starts to form in Marinette’s belly.

“Yes, Lila?” Marinette says slowly. Lila beams and starts tapping on her phone.

“I saw something the other night that I just had to show you all! I wouldn’t want you to feel left out!” She angles her phone towards her classmates, and the knot in Marinette’s belly starts to grow sickeningly heavier when she sees that it’s the Agreste mansion. Specifically, Adrien’s window in the late afternoon, right as the sun’s starting to set. Oh. Oh, no. “Look!”

Nothing happens for a few seconds after Lila presses play. Then a flash of red zips into the frame and stops outside Adrien’s window, and everyone gasps together when the flash finally stops moving and it’s revealed to be –

“Ladybug!” Max exclaims. Marinette’s frozen in place, struggling to contain her ragged breathing, her shaky breaths – she knew it, she knew this would put Adrien in danger, of course someone had to see, and it had to be Lila –

“I know!” Lila’s voice is warbled, like Marinette’s underwater, drowning in icy blue sea. “I was ever so shocked because Ladybug never told me she was visiting Adrien! She’s usually so much more careful when she visits me!”

“Dude…” Nino says as the window on-screen opens and Ladybug slips inside. Adrien’s face turns an interesting shade of green, not unlike the colour of Chat Noir’s eyes.

“Adrien,” Lila tuts, but she’s looking directly at Marinette with her evil green eyes narrowed in glee, “you really should be more careful when sneaking superheroes into your room. Especially when she’s Paris’ sweetheart! I think someone like Volpina would be much better suited to the task.”

“Volpina?” Alya says. “But Rena Rouge is –” She pauses as Marinette lurches forward. “Marinette, no–”

“How dare you?” Marinette slams her palms down on the desk in front of Lila. Everyone gasps and backs away.

“Marinette, I know this must be hard to see –”

“I don’t give a damn who’s visiting him! How dare you invade his privacy like that!” Marinette jabs a trembling finger at Lila, ignoring Adrien frantically shaking his head and Alya trying to pull her away. “Adrien doesn’t deserve to have sneaky little foxes filming his own house, especially when you weaselled your way into a modelling contract just to get closer to him!”

“Marinette –” Alya’s trying to say.

“You’re a stalker!” Marinette declares. Her classmates gasp yet again. “You made Adrien pretend to be your friend in exchange for walking back your lie about my expulsion!”

“Marinette!” Lila wails with crocodile tears in her eyes. “I have a lying condition! I thought you understood that I couldn’t help it!”

“Lying condition! Ha, so what? Does a lying condition make you hang off Adrien like he’s a piece of meat? Does being a liar make you film his bedroom window – and what were you even doing there in the first place? Does being a sneaky little liar make you blackmail him into being friends –”

“Marinette!” Alya grabs Marinette by the shoulders and steers her away. “Stop it.”

“Oh, thank you, Alya!” Lila says. Alya rolls her eyes.

“I’m not doing it for you,” she says shortly. “I’m doing it so Marinette doesn’t get akumatised, because I’m pretty sure Ladybug isn’t in the mood to deal with it right now.”

Alya’s words pierce the red fog that’s descended on Marinette’s mind. She gulps in a deep breath, takes in her wide-eyed classmates staring at her like she’s a ticking time-bomb, and she sniffles and backs away, covering her face.

“I can’t do this,” she croaks. “I can’t – Ladybug can’t – she shouldn’t put Adrien in danger –”

“She was just making sure I was okay after Mr Bourgeois got akumatised!” Adrien says. “You know, since I was there, and I spoke out against the Project Oxygen ad I was in, and everyone knew my father wouldn’t be happy! What makes anyone think I just have a superhero on-call in my room?”

“Yeah, Ladybug’s dropped by my place plenty of times,” says Alya, which technically isn’t a lie. “Since I’m the Ladyblogger and all.”

“And she’s been in Chloé’s room more than a few times,” Nathaniel adds. He scratches the back of his head. “Not that I’d know one of those times or anything…”

“We just care about your safety, Adrien!” Lila croons, running her fingers down Adrien’s arm. Marinette inhales sharply and looks away before she says something in front of everyone else that she can’t take back.

“If you really cared about my safety, you wouldn’t be filming my room. That’s too far even for friends.”

“Yeah, I gotta agree,” Alix says. “Look, I love-hate Kim as much as the next brainless jock, but I reckon I’d be arrested if I was filming his room. Not that I’d want to see what goes on in there anyway.”

“No way you’d pass up the chance to see my man cave,” Kim grins. Alix rolls her eyes.

“Oh!” Lila says. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realise I’d crossed a line!”

“What the hell is going on here?” Chloé demands from the doorway. Her makeup is ever so slightly smudged around her eyes, but no one dares to comment on it. Not after her outburst that followed her akumatisation into Queen Banana.

“Oh, Chloé!” Lila waves. “I was just showing the class the video I got of Ladybug sneaking into Adrien’s room!”

Yeah, she really seems cut-up over accidentally outing herself as a stalker. A pit of foreboding starts to form in Marinette’s stomach as Chloé’s eyes narrow and she storms up the classroom to Lila’s desk, Sabrina rushing behind her.

“You did give her a charm, right?” Alya mutters to Marinette.

“Yeah, but anything could happen,” Marinette hisses back. “Half the class doesn’t have one yet.”

“Are you kidding me?” Chloé screams. She hurls Lila’s phone at the ground, smashing the screen into tiny pieces, and Lila cries out and dives after it. “As if Ladybug hasn’t done enough to me, now she’s visiting someone who isn’t me? She’s trying to steal myAdrikins?”

“I’m not your Adrikins!” Adrien says with his hands up. “You said we weren’t friends anymore, remember?”

“I don’t give a damn what I said!” Chloé dives across the desk and grabs Adrien by the front of his shirt, hauling him over the shiny wood. Nino exclaims and tries to pull Adrien back by his shoulders, while Sabrina wraps her arms around Chloé’s waist and attempts to pull her away. “First Ladybug takes my Miraculous, then she gives it to someone else, and now she’s taking you?My friend? She’s taking everything away from me! Let me go, Sabrina!”

“Chloé, no!” One of Sabrina’s hands slips from around Chloé’s waist, and she scrabbles to reattach it somewhere, anywhere, to keep pulling Chloé back. Her hand lands on the thin string around Chloé’s neck. It happens in slow motion.

SNAP. The yellow charm clinks on the desk. Marinette’s breath freezes in her chest.

“Akuma!” Mylène shrieks. Everyone cries out and starts scrambling away, desperate to put distance between them and the evil purple butterfly winging its way towards a panting Chloé.

“Come on!” Alya tugs on Marinette’s arm. “Marinette, come on!”

The last thing Marinette sees is a shimmering indigo mask appearing over Chloé’s face as she looms over Adrien, who’s frantically crawling away along the side of the room. Then the classroom door slams shut and Alya starts to lead Marinette down the hallway until they come across a storage closet.

“In there!” Alya pushes Marinette inside. “Hurry and transform!”

Darkness takes over when Alya shuts the closet door. Marinette breathes in – out – in – out – calming herself down, composing herself before she transforms and goes to take down Chloé. Again.

“Are you ready, Marinette?” Tikki says from somewhere in front of her. “You’ve calmed down?”

“I’m functional,” Marinette says, which is as good as she’s going to get these days. “Spots on!”

“We’re gonna have a talk later about the whole “functional” thing,” Alya says dryly when Ladybug pushes her way out of the closet. Ladybug rolls her eyes.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Alya mutters something under her breath, then sighs. “Look. I’m gonna stick nearby. Not just for Ladyblog stuff, but for you to come find me if you need me. You got that? You don’t have to do this alone.”

Ladybug smiles and gives Alya a quick hug. “Thanks, Alya. Bug out!” She sprints through the school hallways, darting from room to room, trying to find where Chloé or Adrien or Chat Noir could be. It’s not until she hears crying coming from the courtyard that she has the faintest clue of where to go, and when she bursts through a doorway onto the balcony running around the courtyard, she’s greeted with the sight of her pretty black kitty standing over someone who’s snivelling, shaking, smoking, scorched, curled in a ball on the ground. She takes a deep breath and leaps over the balcony railing.

“Well, this looks fun,” she says sarcastically. Chat Noir grins at her, so she raises an eyebrow back at him.

“I’m just happy you’re here!” he says hurriedly. “Not that someone’s suffering!”

“Of course, kitty,” Ladybug drawls.

“The akuma’s Chloé. Her magic charm came off and she got akumatised again.”

“I know. Because I was stupid enough to go back and see Adrien again.” Ladybug covers her face with her hands. A moment later, warm hands grasp her shoulders, and she looks up to see Chat Noir smiling kindly down at her.

“No,” he says. “Don’t blame yourself for that. Don’t ever blame yourself for being happy. It’s Lila’s fault for invading Adrien’s privacy like that.”

“But –”

“Bugaboo. Listen to me. If you stop visiting Adrien, I’ll kidnap you and take you there myself. You need to be happy. You deserve to be happy. Just follow my lead when I visited Marinette and do it under the cover of night so people can’t spy on your secret rendezvous.”

Ladybug’s shoulders slump. She’s still not fully convinced, but there’s a victim writhing on the ground, reminding them that there’s an akuma that needs dealing with. Her issues can wait until later.

“Thanks, kitty.” She squares her shoulders. “Let’s go find Chloé.”

It’s not very difficult to find Chloé when she’s helpfully left them a trail of moaning, shivering victims to follow. Ladybug frowns as they bound along the rooftops.

“What do you think she’s doing to them?” she says.

“No idea. Let’s just not get hit, yeah?”

“You mean you better not get hit. You’re the one always throwing yourself in their way, you silly cat.”

“Just doing my job, milady.”

Ladybug frowns and opens her mouth to retort. But then they reach the Eiffel Tower, where a flaming figure is standing, so there’s not much she can do about Chat Noir’s suicidal tendencies right now.

“Let me try and talk to her first,” Ladybug says. “It’s me she’s upset at.” She swings until she’s hanging from the beams of the Tower, above the platform where a blazing Chloé is howling out at Paris. “Chloé!”

Chloé looks up. Her eyes, now full of bright golden fire, flare. “You!” Her voice spits and crackles. “How dare you show your face to me?”

“Chloé –”

“My name is Heartspurn! And you’re going to know exactly how it feels to be rejected! To suffer!”

Heartspurn shoots jets of gold flames up at Ladybug, who squeals and swings out of the way. The flames hit the metal beam behind her, and it starts to bubble and melt.

“Chloé – Heartspurn – look, I know you’re angry –”

“Don’t act like you think I’m anyone special!” Flames. “Like you care about me!” Flames. “Like you’re worthy of Adrien’s love!”

Adrien’s love? Ladybug slips on a beam and slams into the one beneath her, groaning. Heartspurn leaps up to her, floating up on a cloud of golden fire, a twisted smile marring her snow-white incandescent face.

“W-What?” Ladybug stammers. Dimly, she’s aware of someone landing behind her and helping her up, and soft gold flickers in the corner of her eye, but her vision is tunnelled. “Adrien’s love?”

Heartspurn cackles. “Oh, that’s rich! You don’t even know that Adrien’s in love with you!”

“What?”