Sometimes you gotta sprinkle sugar on your gf because that’s just how you flirt now
I’m sure y'all already know about the bakery enemies au by @buggachat, but if you don’t you should go read it! It’s on a break right now so it’s the perfect time to catch up ❤️
“Little kitty on a roof…all alone without his lady…”
A series of not-quite memories tumbled into place as the sad, melodic voice broke the eerie silence surrounding Marinette.
There was a timeline when Chat Noir had been akumatized and this was it. Chat Blanc was the one in this world with her.
The memories were hazy in her mind. The original Marinette’s reality had been changed by her actions, erasing this universal possibility from existence when it had come up, but the memories were still there. Time travel, reality rearranging, or whatever superhero science mumbo-jumbo was used to refer to it, what had happened to Chat Noir had still…happened; Ladybug’s original interference had just shifted it to another universe.
This universe.
Marinette frowned and rubbed at her temples. Her head was starting to pound again. This was all just a bit too much.
There were faded emotions attached to the memories.
Heartbreak.
Sorrow.
Fear.
And even though she could feel the dull tug of the emotions, they didn’t belong to her. Not anymore.
She was a different Marinette from the moment she’d been created. And since she was different, she figured there was no use hiding from Chat Blanc. It wasn’t like she really had anywhere to go with the watery expanse just below her anyway. A scene from a Ghibli movie, this place definitely was not.
She could make out his bright silhouette along the roof ledge a building past the one she was perched on. His shoulders were rounded forward and the long belt of his tail hung limply behind him.
She cleared her throat. “Chat?”
The singing abruptly stopped and she watched him tilt his head.
“I’m behind you,” she called out.
His spin was too fast to track. One second he was still facing away from her and the next, he was on his feet and looking across the expanse. His eyes were too blue against all of that white, even in the distance. She’d hardly dared to breath and then he was leaping across the space between them and suddenly in her space.
“It’s you!”
There was something off about his voice, or at least the voice she had to match Chat Noir. There was almost a sing-song quality to it now.
He circled her on all fours before standing up and moving into her space, his tail wrapping around her legs. “My princess, you’re here.” While still off, his tone was softer. “I can’t believe you’re here…” He cupped her cheek with a gloved hand and smiled.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. She’d tried to convince herself that the original Marinette’s emotions didn’t belong to her, but being this close to Chat Blanc was proving that wasn’t entirely true.
“I’m not…I’m…” She reached up to her ear and felt the cool stone of one of the earrings. “I’m different.”
His clawed fingers covered hers and one tapped against the earring. “Empty.” His brow furrowed beneath his mask. “Wait, no. Not good.” He stepped back, tail slipping away with him, and grabbed at the sides of his hair. “Not good, Marinette, not good.” His voice rose in hysteria. “Chat Blanc messed up. Have to fix it. Have to fix it. Have to…”
She reached out for him. “Adrien?”
“No!” Blue eyes went wild in the starch white mask. “Not him! Not him anymore!”
“Okay, okay!” Marinette held both her hands out. “It’s okay, Chat. Just calm down. Uh, take a breath! We just need to breathe.”
“Fix this! Need the Miraculous! Have to go back!” He doubled over with a cry of pain. “Fix it!”
His hysteria bound her chest in panic, making it hard to breathe. “I don’t know how!”
“Bring them back…have to…”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Tears stung her eyes. “I can’t help…I’m not her, not really. I’m so sorry, Chat.”
Chat Blanc dropped to the rooftop with a sob. He curled in on himself and covered his head with his arms. Frantic, muffled words flew out of him and Marinette knelt down beside him as her heart dropped like he had.
“Killed her. Killed everyone. Everyone dead. Everyone dust. Everyone water. No fixing. No fixing.”
Marinette wasn’t sure if Bunnyx actually thought her words were comforting when the rabbit hero spoke them, but there was no time to ask questions before she was dropped through a portal and left to fend for herself.
She was finding that life was proving to be rather like that most of the time, in the six hours since her creation, at least.
Rude and abrupt.
She didn’t like it.
A droplet of rain hit her cheek and Marinette scowled up at the cloudy sky.
“Figures,” she sighed.
Her memories were spotty, the sharpest ones beginning at the point the akuma copied the original Marinette and created her, but she knew a few things to be true.
One, she probably wasn’t completely human. Or maybe she was. She was created from magic and it was still iffy if she wasn’t going to go poof at any given moment. She felt real but maybe that couldn’t be trusted. In any light, that’s where the portal came into play.
After the akuma had been defeated, Bunnyx offered to take her and the other clones to different universes and timelines so they would possibly have chances at life that wouldn’t interfere with the current one where they’d appeared.
It sounded like a good deal at the time since Marinette liked the idea of suddenly NOT not existing when she’d only just began, but as the skies opened and rain poured down, it was hard not to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to let her original erase her existence with the Miraculous Cure when all was said and done.
She rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. No. She wasn’t going to think like that. She was going to make a new life in this new place and everything would be fine.
She was Marinette Dupain-Cheng…kind of…and she was made of strong stuff.
The second thing she knew for a fact was that the woman she’d been copied from played superhero and was pretty good at it from what she could tell. She’d survived for years against akumas and amoks and all kinds of other villainous things. There was no reason she couldn’t do just the same as her predecessor.
And sure, she realized as she looked around the absolutely wrecked landscape, maybe she hadn’t exactly been dropped in the easiest of places to survive, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t!
Maybe there was a reason she was here, after all. The more she looked around, the more memories seemed to unlock and drop into place in her mind. It was still broken like a rushed Tetris round where the pieces didn’t quite fit together, but she was beginning to get a picture of where she was.
This had all happened before.
Or…it had been a possibility?
There was something or someone that was really important about this place. And she felt sad about it.
Not exactly a shining endorsement for her new home.
She closed her eyes against the pain beginning to thud in her left temple. She was freezing and drenched and her head was starting to hurt and she hadn’t even existed a whole day yet. It was hard but it was much too early to throw in the towel. She had to think.
The first thing she should do is find a shelter. It wasn’t going to do her any good to stand in the rain indefinitely.
With a determined huff, Marinette squared her shoulders and started walking forward…until she reached a ledge. So she was on a rooftop. That was interesting and more than a little terrifying.
Instead of roads, eerily still water sat down below the height of the building. In fact, the building was at least partly submerged. And when she looked around, she realized all the buildings were submerged at different points, the water right up against windows that should’ve only be accessible to birds in the world she knew. Some of the buildings were even slanted as if their foundations had started to give away.
There was a very serious temptation to freak out…and maybe she would give into it, but not yet.
Marinette took in a shaky breath and turned around. She needed to see what lie on the other side of the building ledge. Maybe there would be a way for her to get lower or find a way into a closer shelter from that angle.
She could do this. She could.
She was going to ignore the tears stinging her eyes for now and find a place to rest for a while.
It wasn’t a very complete plan, but it was a plan, and Marinette liked having a plan. That was something she knew for certain.
She was halfway across the rooftop when a sound caught her ear. It was familiar somehow and as the rain began to die down, it became clearer.
“Little kitty on a roof…all alone without his lady…”
Hey everyone! Sorry I’ve been missing for a while, but I’ve had a lot going on and lacking inspiration, until the other day! I know that Lila thinks she’s the smartest person in the room and that everyone else it too stupid to figure her out. So, I decided to let her “think” she’s being smart, but gets caught because she did something stupid. Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!
Lila was happy. Since she had become a model, she had acquired a small fan base of people that thought she had beauty and talent. Granted, it wasn’t as large as she thought it should be, but she had only done three photo shoots and had been mentioned in one magazine. But this was just the beginning; soon, all of Europe would know her name and reporters would be clamoring after her for pictures.
But at the same time she was very angry.
This was because Marinette had been mentioned in the same magazine as her. And where Lila got a single photo that showed more of Adrien than it did of her, Maribrat had gotten an entire article and multiple photos about her designs and the collaboration she was doing with Style Queen Audrey Bourgeois since the woman had decided to stay in Paris. She had even looked at the girl’s website and saw that there was an actual wait list to receive one of her original designs.
Enraged that someone she considered to be plain, talentless, and all around lower in status than her, Lila started coming up with plans. She wasn’t about to share her spotlight with anyone, let alone Maribrat.
She was tempted to accuse the bluenette of stealing her designs and ruining her reputation, but since she had been designing for longer than Lila had been in Paris, that had too much of a chance to backfire. She’s thought of sicking one of her classmates/sheep to break into her house and destroy her commission projects, but that also had too much of a chance to backfire since they would likely blab if they were caught.
No, she needed a different type of plan. Something that would be farther removed from herself so nothing would blow back on her, but harsh enough so that even Maribrat wouldn’t connect what happened to her. It took a few weeks and a lot of planning, but she came up with something that would work. It had been the perfect plan, a way to get Marinette out of her life and the spotlight for good.
All it took was some sweet talking one of her new followers; a large, burly boy named Henry that was a couple years older than her and not very bright. He would have done anything for her… including going after a “stalker” that had threatened to hurt her. She barely even had to suggest anything before the boy assured her that he would protect her at all costs. It even seemed to be working when Maribrat was suspiciously absent from school for a few days after Henry said he would “take care of it”.
It had been the perfect plan…
Until the police showed up.
She had just gotten home when the police arrived, saying that she was wanted for questioning in an open case. They had already been in contact with her mother and Greta Rossi had promised them their full cooperation. Rather than risk looking guilty, Lila called her mother to make sure they were telling the truth before grudgingly going with them.
When she got to the police station, she was met by her very confused and furious mother. This wasn’t the first time she had been in trouble with the law. There had been an incident in Rome where she’d been accused of pushing a boy, Simone, down the stairs, and her mother had been forced to pay his medical bills. She had made it very clear that if Lila caused any more problems at school, it would not be pleasant.
So there she was; sitting with her mother and a couple of police detectives that she didn’t recognize, who were giving her condescending looks. “I am Detective Cooper, and this is Detective Raimus. We understand that you have been made aware of your rights, correct?”
“Yes, multiple times. What is this all about? You can’t just bring my daughter in for questioning like she’s some common criminal.” Her mother said as she stared down the two men.
“Mme. Rossi, we need to ask your daughter some questions in connection to an assault that took place against one of her classmates.” Stated Cooper, a detective with a thick mustache.
“Are you or your daughter familiar with a M. Henry Mortaure?”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Lila lied with a shrug.
“Neither have I, who was attacked?” Her mother asked, suddenly worried about what her daughter might have gotten involved in.
“A Mlle. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, are you familiar with the name?” Asked Raimus, who looked a bit older than his partner.
Greta Rossi thought for a second before nodding. “Lila has mentioned her a couple of times, said that she was a bully. What about her?”
“The Dupain-Cheng residence was broken into a few days ago by M. Mortaure. He was armed and confessed to be doing so with the intent of killing Mlle. Dupain-Cheng.” Mme. Rossi gasped in shock while Lila was attempting to hide her smirk with a look of worry. “The Dupain-Chengs were not harmed, although the same cannot be said for M. Mortaure.” Cooper placed some photos in front of them on the table, gaining another gasp from Greta. Three of the man’s limbs were wrapped in heavy gauze, his face was swollen and bruised from a black eye and a seriously broken nose.
Lila didn’t flinch when she saw the photos, but was now fighting a scowl at the knowledge that Henry had failed her. And since she was here in an interrogation room, it could only mean that the idiot had blabbed. But that didn’t matter, she could just say that he must be a crazy stalker who had somehow found out that Maribrat was bullying her and decided to take things into his own hands. After all, it wasn’t like she had called or messaged him from her personal phone. She had bought a burner phone with cash just for this occasion.
“Despite being armed with a pistol, he never had a chance to use it,” Raimus stated as pushed one of the photos towards Lila. “He will require reconstructive surgery on his face from being hit multiple times with a rolling pin. His arms were severely burned when he fell into a fryer, it’s likely that he’ll never have full use of them again. Despite the burns, he attempted to go for a kitchen knife after being disarmed. That knife was turned on him and he ended up with a perforated lung.”
Greta looked like she was going to be sick, unable to look away from the pictures in front of her. But she eventually did, casting a harsh stare at her daughter. “Please, tell me you had nothing to do with this.”
Doing her best to fake her shock, she shook her head and pushed away the photos. “I swear, I had nothing to do with this. I don’t even know why he would do this.”
“We were wondering the same thing and discovered that he’s a fan of yours. He has multiple pictures of you, as well as Mlle. Dupain-Cheng. We suspected that he had been stalking you and came to the conclusion that he thought she was bullying you and decided to protect you on his own-”
“Oh no, that has to be it!” She exclaimed, skillfully faking shock. “Marinette followed me out of school last week and threatened me to stay away from my boyfriend. This boy must have seen her and decided to get rid of her.”
“If that’s the case, why are you questioning my daughter?” Greta pressed, not completely believing Lila but seeming to be coming around to her side.
“As I was saying,” stressed Detective Cooper. “We had suspectedthat M. Mortaure was stalking your daughter, until we got the warrant for his phone. It seems that someone, supposedly Lila, has been corresponding with him for many weeks. She had been flirting with him, sending him photos of herself, and then Marinette. She went on to tell him that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was a stalker and had threatened her. M. Mortaure seems to have done what he did with the understanding that he was protecting Lila, at Lila’s own behest.”
“I would never do that!” Lila cried before reaching into her purse to pull out her personal mobile and set it on the table in front of them. “Check my phone, I never messaged him.”
“We have already checked your phone records against the one that has been messaging M. Mortaure, and found that the numbers did not match.” Detective Raimus said, and Lila watched her mother visibly slump from relief… but it was short lived.
“We did, however, track the number to a burner phone that was purchased in cash from a gas station. We thought it was a dead end, but the person who bought the phone made a mistake.” Raimus continued as Detective Cooper pulled out his own mobile and dialed a number. “The person who bought it has kept it on, and it is currently active.”
Seconds after Cooper pressed send, a ringing came from Lila’s purse. Greta Rossi stared at her daughter in shock before yanking the purse out of Lila’s hands and pulling out a second phone from inside. When Cooper cancelled the call, the second phone stopped ringing.
“What have you done?” She spat at Lila.
Panicking, she shook her head while looking around the room for an exit. “That’s not mine! They must have planted it on me when they brought me here! They’re trying to frame me!”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” Greta screamed at her daughter, causing Lila to practically fall out of her seat in fear. “You convinced someone to commit MURDER for you! That makes you just as guilty as him!”
“But-but I have diplomatic immunity! I can’t be charged for any of this!”
“Yes, you can,” Greta said, her voice going cold. “I may be a secretary to the Italian Ambassador, which grants me immunity, but that doesn’t extend to you! I told you to behave! I told you to never cause trouble like you did in Roma after what you did to that boy that called you out on your…” Understanding washed over Greta’s features as her expression morphed from anger, to understanding, and then disgust. “That’s it, isn’t it? Marinette never bullied you. She knew about your lies and you set out to hurt her just like before!”
Standing up quickly, her mother started pacing the room before looking back to the detectives. “I’ll still need to speak with the ambassador, but you can expect our full cooperation in this.”
“Mom, no!”
“What are the charges?” Greta asked, acting as though Lila wasn’t even there.
“As Lila is a minor, she can be charged with Complicity to Commit Murder, the decision of sentencing is ultimately up to the judge. But seeing as she purposefully bought a burner phone to use and has also lied to the police, I wouldn’t hold much hope.”
~oOo~
The trial took longer than expected. At first, things had been looking up since her followers from class had come to act as character witnesses. All of them saying how wonderful she was, a great friend that did so much for them and everyone she knew, and that she would never do something so terrible. That Marinette was just jealous of Lila, so it was better to take whatever she said with a grain of salt.
Then, the prosecution started their case. Showing evidence of Lila falsifying records at school, video evidence of her purposefully framing Marinette for assault and theft. As well as the communications between herself and Henry, encouraging him to kill Marinette.
Her followers had still been a bit sceptical to believe what the prosecutor was saying about her, not wanting to believe that they had supported someone who would try to get another person murdered. But then came her past victims, many of whom her mother had never known about. Simone from Rome, Sara from Florence, Giulia from Venice, Daniel from Viterbo, and Sofia from Palermo. All of them testifying against Lila, many with screenshots of threatening texts from her, photos of ruined property and injuries she had inflicted on them, and all around proof that Lila was the reason behind many hardships that had happened to them. And all because they had figured out that she was a liar and she had done everything in her power to hurt them.
After all that, the judge had not been kind.
“It is clear, Mlle. Rossi, that you are a very disturbed girl in need of help,” the judge said, not bothering to hide how offput he was by Lila. “I cannot, in good conscious, allow you to roam freely. Having seen that these habits of yours have not only been repeated over and again, but have escalated to attempted murder. I have no choice but to have you returned to Italy where you will be kept in a juvenile detention center until you turn 18, at which point you will be transferred to a mental hospital for treatment for no less than five years. At which point, you will be evaluated to see if you will be able to safely rejoin society.”
Lila was immediately escorted back to Italy in disgrace. Her name slandered across every newspaper and magazine across Europe for what she had done. She was now famous, with most everyone knowing her name and reporters scrambling to take her picture as she did her walk of shame out of the courthouse. She was finally famous, but for all the wrong reasons
In case you are wondering. Henry made the mistake of coming after Marinette when she was with her parents. Tom and Marinette were in the bakery kitchen and Sabine was at the front. Tom saw the gun and hit him in the face with his rolling pin twice. He dropped the gun but was still coming after Marinette, she tripped him and he landed in the frier, which had been turned on to make donuts, and splashed oil all over him. Sabine had rushed back in time to see a bleeding and badly burned Henry grabbing a knife, she did some wicked moves that resulted in Henry stabbing himself. By then, he passed out from the pain and the Dupain-Chengs had called the police. The officers that came were both impressed and terrified by what happened to the boy, but the surveillance footage proved that they were only defending themselves.
The final part of my “Marinette’s Haunted Doll” series. It took a lot of time and effort to write, but it was really worth it. By request, I have included the Adrien salt and redemption ending. Please let me know qhich ending you liked the most. And thanks again to @unmaskedagain for the prompt that inspired this story. Blood, gore, and character death ahead. You have been warned.
It had been the most eventful week of Marinette’s life. And considering she had gotten her miraculous, became a central figure in Paris, met Chat Noir, and met Adrien in a single week; that was saying something.
It all started when Lila convinced Alya to dump a jar of paint on her during the class photo. Mme. Bustier didn’t do anything to help, neither did Adrien. She just went home crying and told her parents what happened. They had been furious by the state of their daughter and her mother took pictures of the damage to her dress, the smeared makeup, and the bruises and scratch marks on her arms and face. Marinette attempted to salvage her dress; but it proved to be beyond saving. She could hear her parents on the phone with the Board of Governors when she got out of the shower and they did not sound happy. But there was only so much that could be done until the class, Mme. Bustier, and Adrien stopped blaming herfor Lila’s behavior. All that happened on Monday.
On Tuesday, things started happening. First, Kim and M. Damocles both fell down the stairs and someone from the Board of Governors had to come to take over until their principal could return to work. She had a feeling that her parents’ call the night before might have had something to do with it. When she saw Lila try to blame her for both of them falling, Marinette wasn’t sure what to expect, seeing as the teachers of the school kept letting her down. But when M. Rupere confronted Lila and pointed out that if she had been pushed down the stairs, she would be injured, Marinette almost cried in relief and Lila later showed up with detention slips. The day got even better when Nino came up and apologized to her. It was a relief to have one of her oldest friends back on her side.
Wednesday morning, she heard the news about Alya and couldn’t help but cry for her former friend. She had hoped that somewhere down the line, Alya would have figured out the truth about Lila and they could try to start over, but that was gone. A part of her admitted that she was relieved that Alya would never torment her again, but that feeling was fleeting. She would miss the girl that she had met on the first day of the school year and shared a macaron with.
Then after lunch, M. Rupere was in class, saying that Mme. Bustier had decided to take the rest of the day off for personal reasons. Much to her relief, he kept a keen eye on Lila for the rest of the day and stopped her every time she tried to interrupt the lesson to tell one of her stories. At one point, even threatening to give her another day of detention for every time she interrupted class. For the first time since Lila came to school, Marinette felt like they actually learned something in class.
When Mme. Mendelieve’s class came; she and the rest of the class watched in horror as Max and Alix’s experiment literally blew up in their faces and burned them. The smell of chemicals and burning flesh nearly made her throw up as she covered her face with her sleeve. Classes ended not long after that and Marinette decided to go visit her former friends in the hospital, knowing that Lila wasn’t likely to do it. Although she wasn’t allowed to see Max and Alix, she was permitted to see Kim. She brought him his favorite macarons from the bakery to cheer him up, already knowing how much he hated hospital food from the time he broke his collarbone when they were nine years old. He was happy to see her, saying that she was the only person to come see him and that he appreciated it. He even apologized for being a bully, since being stuck in bed with nothing to do but think, as well as listening to his mother chastise him for his bad behavior, made him realize what a terrible person he had been.
Not long after she got home, Mylene and Ivan came over to visit and apologized to her as well. They even brought her fabric to replace her ruined dress, apology cards, a new sketchbook, and money to pay for the things they had asked for but never paid for; going so far as to ask for receipts to pay back everything to her. Marinette had started crying and hugged the two of them in relief.
Thursday morning, she went to school early with her mother, since M. Rupere had apparently called the day before and asked them to come in to talk. After arriving, he asked her why Lila had accused her of causing Kim and M. Damocles’ accident. Since he had already proven to be a more trustworthy educator than Damocles and Bustier combined, she told him everything. It was Kim who took her bag and dumped it out, then ran up the stairs with Serafina and tripped near the top, and the doll was still missing. She told him about how much Lila lies and that she’d had it out for her since she called the italian out after she returned from her “trip to Achu” and threatened Marinette. That she hadn’t said anything because Adrien had asked her to take the high road, but Lila hadn’t stopped.
She told him about the day she was expelled; the test answer sheet, the fake push down the stairs, and necklace in her locker; pointing out that her locker had been broken into before, that the answer sheet had been crammed into the top of her bag, and that M. Damocles had never looked at the CCTV footage. And through the entire incident, Bustier and Damocles had basically refused to listen to her side of the story and believed Lila without a second thought. They only reversed their decision after Lila told them that she had a lying disease, which did not exist in any of the medical journals she had looked into.
Then, just earlier that week while they were taking the class photo, Mme. Bustier had forced her and Lila to sit next to each other in an attempt to make them get along. She had seen the jar of paint seconds before Alya went to dump in on her. Marinette had tried to get out of the way, but Lila had gripped her arm so tight that her nails dug in. When she started really struggling, Lila threw an elbow into her face and then got out of the way before Alya dumped the paint on her head and down her dress. Sabine pulled out her phone to show M. Rupere the photos she took after arriving home, and he looked quite disturbed by what he saw.
He asked her what Mme. Bustier had done and that brought Marinette to tears. Her teacher had told her to stop causing a scene and not touch anyone, or else she would ruin the photo for everyone else. She was then sent home for the rest of the day and told that she simply would not be in the photo that year.
M. Rupere listened to her before looking something up on the computer. A moment later, he turned the screen to show Marinette the entire incident from Monday, happening exactly as the girl had described it. He also showed them a recording of Marinette and Lila arguing at the top of the stairs before the other girl practically skipped down, sat on the ground, and began crying. Sabine was furious that the girl she had thought was simply sick from a diseasewas actually hurting her little girl.
They were interrupted a few minutes later when Rose came rushing into the office, saying that Sabrina had fallen with a bag of knives and razors in her hands and was badly hurt. Their meeting was paused for a long while before M. Rupere returned to place something in his desk drawer, and then called the Italian embassy to have Mme. Rossi join them. From what Marinette could hear, the woman sounded very amicable and agreed to come to the school right away. He left the office once again and returned with Lila herself, forcing the nervous girl to sit in a vacant chair.
“Now, Mlle. Rossi, Sabrina claims that she got that bag from you. Do you want to explain why you brought a bag of weapons onto campus?” M. Rupere asked, his tone indicating that she had to answer.
Marinette watched as Lila began her act, covering her face as she pretended to sob. “I-I didn’t mean for this to happen, i-i-it was Marinette’s fault. *sniffle* She blames me for what ha-happened to Alya, but that doesn’t make sense. This-this morning, just before class, she-she practically threw that bag at me and told me to use it. *sob*”
Her gaze switched from the liar to M. Rupere, he was looking at the girl with a hard glare while writing everything down. “You said that Marinette gave you the bag full of sharp objects?” Lila nodded. “And she did this right before class, correct?” She nodded again. “About how long was that before Sabrina got hurt and Rose came to get me?”
Marinette saw Lila hesitate, but she still answered. “N-not long. *sniffle* Maybe, ten minutes at most.”
He nodded, writing that down while Marinette fought the urge to smile. She and her mother had been in the meeting with him for close to half an hour before Rose came. And before that, she’d been with her parents at home.
“And why would she do that?” He asked her.
Marinette barely caught Lila’s snide glance before going into her sob story about how Marinette bullied her, threatened her, had stolen from her and pushed her down the stairs. True, she had been very lucky to not be seriously hurt, but that was because she’d been trained by an uncle who was a stuntman in Hollywood.
By the time Lila had finished spinning her tale of all the reasons Marinette was jealous and had been bullying her; her mother, Greta Rossi, had arrived and sat next to her daughter. Everyone saw the utter shock and unease on Lila’s face the moment the woman stepped into the room. Marinette had to keep herself from smirking, knowing that the liar wouldn’t be able to spin such tales with her mother sitting next to her.
“Is everything alright? What happened?” Mme. Rossi asked, looking from M. Rupere to Sabine.
“Mme. Rossi, your daughter was just telling us about her life. But before we get into all the things she’s been saying,” M. Rupere paused as he reached into his desk and pulled out the object he had placed in his desk earlier, one of the knives that he had taken from inside the bag. Marinette and the other two adults saw Lila’s face pale significantly when he placed it on the desk, while Mme. Rossi looked at it with a bit of shock. “Do you recognize this kitchen knife?”
The woman’s brow creased. “It looks like one of our old kitchen knives. Lila said that they were beginning to rust and that we should throw them out. We got the new ones last night.” Then she turned to her wilting daughter. “Why in the world would you bring that to school? Someone could have gotten hurt!”
“Someone did get hurt, Sabrina Raincomprix fell with the bag in her hands and had to be rushed to the hospital.”
“But those aren’t our knives!” Lila practically yelled in a panic. “I told you, Marinette threw them at me before class and told me to ‘use them on myself’. She basically told me to kill myself!”
Greta Rossi turned back to M. Rupere in shock. “Is that true?”
“That your daughter claimsthat Mlle. Dupain-Cheng gave her the bag of knives a few minutes before Mlle. Raincomprix was injured, yes. The problem with her claim is that she, her mother, and I were in a meeting for close to a half hour before I was alerted to the incident. So, unless she was in two places at the same time, your daughter is lying.”
“Well, considering how terrible those vigilante heroes are at doing their jobs, that could be a possibility. After all, the school was closed down for months when Principal Damocles was akumatized.”
His brow creased at that. “I apologize, Mme. Rossi, but the school never closed for that amount of time for akumas. However, there isthe matter of the trip you and your daughter took to the kingdom of Achu, missing four months of school. If you are saying that is not the case, your daughter will be charged with truancy, will very likely be expelled, and you will be paying some significant fines. And then there are the other matters to be addressed. Such as the assault and destruction of property your daughter committed against Marinette, of which we have picture and video evidence. Framing the same girl for assault, which we also have video evidence, and there are likely to be other charges added on once the Board of Governors, of which I am a member, concludes their investigation.”
The meeting quickly devolved into a lot of shouting after that; with Lila’s lies coming undone, recordings of her purposefully framing Marinette being shown to the woman, and talk of possible jail time since she had brought weapons to school and a police officer’s daughter had been seriously injured. Marinette could see that even though Lila was nervous and angry that she was in trouble, she wasn’t really scared. After all, she had a magical safety net known as diplomatic immunity.
She even had the nerve to roll her eyes at the adults discussing her fate. “So what if I’m expelled? I’ll just be enrolled in another school by the end of next week. That’s the worst anyone in this country can do to me since I have diplomatic immunity.”
“No, you do not.” Greta sneered as she coldly stared at her daughter. “Only the higher ranking members of the embassy have immunity. I’m a secretary at the embassy, I don’t have immunity which means you don’t either. And even if you did, I would have it revoked.”
“HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT!?” Lila screamed, standing from her chair.
“If I didn’t, the embassy would have. But that’s neither here nor there. And as for your next school, it will be a reformatory school in Italy and you’ll be staying with your Zia Francesca.”
Lila’s jaw dropped even more. “But-but Zio Simone andZia Francesca don’t have internet, cell signal, or even a tv at their house!”
“Do I look like I care? You are in big trouble, young lady. This is not something you talk your way out of. You are going to answer for everything you’ve done. Including committing assault, property damage, and slander; while trying to frame this girl for assault, theft, slander, and threatening you with deadly weapons. At this point, you’ll be lucky if I can convince the courts to try you as a minor instead as an adult since you were fully aware of your actions.”
Marinette saw it happen; the shift in her expression, posture, and pallor to alert her that she was about to do something. She barely had time to react when Lila screamed, grabbed the kitchen knife from the desk, and dove at her own mother. Her Ladybug reflexes had her leg lashing out and striking Lila in the chest. The girl, not expecting the blow, was thrown back into the desk and fell to the floor in a heap. The two women had jumped from their chairs while M. Rupere dashed around the desk to restrain Lila, only to pause when he turned her over. Marinette looked on in shock when she saw that the knife had impaled her throat and she was quickly losing blood. Marinette quickly removed her jacket to staunch the blood while her mother called for an ambulance.
A few minutes later while the paramedics were treating Lila, Greta Rossi approached Sabine and Marinette with tears in her eyes. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you for Lila getting hurt. You likely saved our lives, mine at the very least, when you kicked her away. And I promise you, Lila will answer for everything she’s done to you.”
Seeing that the woman was on the verge of a breakdown, Marinette hugged her and whispered words of remorse that she was going through something so horrible. And she really hoped that things would get better very soon.
M. Rupere excused Marinette from school for the rest of the day, but she was expected to speak with the school counselor the next day. She thanked him before she and her mother left for the police station to give their statements.
It was a little after 3pm by the time she got home, but didn’t stay for long as the Nadja reported another akuma on the news. She half expected it to be either Lila or Mme. Rossi, considering how upset they had been, but no. It was Nino, back as Bubbler and at least three times as powerful as before. She expected it to be difficult, but Chat Noir was surprisingly on top of his game that day. Apparently, he was aware of Alya’s passing and knew that Nino had been dating her, so he wasn’t messing around this time. They soon defeated Bubbler and restored Nino to normal. Ladybug gave him a hug, telling him that she knew about Alya and although they didn’t always see eye-to-eye about what she was reporting, she knew Alya was a good person, a wonderful Rena Rouge, and would miss her greatly.
Friday morning came and everyone in school knew about Lila’s freak out, attempted murder, and that Marinette had been the one to stop her. She was glad to hear that Sabrina would be alright, although she had suffered nerve damage and would have to go to physical therapy to regain full use of her hands again. Kim had joked with her about being therapy buddies to push each other to get better sooner. Nino was a bit of a mess, but Marinette set a box of his favorite pastries in front of him and got a small smile in return. Alix and Max were still in the hospital, and were not likely to return until after their surgeries. It was now suspected that Lila had mixed up the chemicals to go after Marinette but the other two had grabbed those bottles instead, though this could not be proven.
M. Rupere had hired a substitute teacher as Mme. Bustier was on leave for the foreseeable future. Although it wasn’t mentioned, most of the students were pretty sure it was because she had a nervous breakdown at the school the day before. One of M. D’Argencourt’s students had found her hiding in a corner of the supply closet just after lunch and it took a couple hours to coax her to come out. They did hope that she would get better, she was a really nice teacher, afterall.
Adrien also wasn’t in school that day and he wasn’t answering his phone. Most everyone in the class tried to reach him, but received no reply. It wasn’t until during lunch that they got their answer on the news. Gabriel and Emilie Agreste had been found dead in their home by Adrien the day before from heart failure and an apparent suicide. Although details were scarce, Adrien mentioned that he had been out to see his friends but returned to find his parents in his father’s office. He guessed that his mother had returned to their home on the brink of death and passed away. His father had not been able to handle it and took his own life to be with his wife again. Anyone watching could see how broken Adrien appeared and knew that he would never be the same. Nadja went on to report that the investigation was still underway, but the thoughts and prayers of Paris went out to the last surviving Agreste.
Adrien Redemption
Marinette went out that night as Ladybug, focused on going to see Adrien and comfort him in any way she could. What she hadn’t expected was to find him sitting on the front steps of his house in the dark. He barely even acknowledged her when she landed a few feet away and then sat beside him.
The two of them sat for a long time in silence, tears slowly leaking out of Adrien’s eyes before nodding absently. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“About my father being Hawkmoth. You were right, M’Lady.”
It took her a moment for her brain to fully comprehend the meaning of what he’d just said. She had only told two people her theory about Gabriel Agreste being Hawkmoth; Master Fu and Chat Noir. And since the Master had recently lost his memories and left the city…
“Kitty?” She gasped, surprised at herself for not figuring it out sooner. “But… how-”
Plagg flew out of Adrien’s shirt pocket before reaching in to pull out a folded piece of paper, holding it out to her. Ladybug carefully unfolded it before reading the elegant script.
Dear Adrien,
I am not one to admit defeat, and I refuse to do so now. However, I am also a businessman and recognize a failed investment. And the endeavor I have been participating in has failed.
For the past year, I have been operating as Hawkmoth in order to obtain Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous. This was so I could bring your mother back to us. She fell into a deep sleep after using the damaged peacock miraculous, and I was going to use the wish to wake her.
However, after today’s failure, Nooroo informed me that Emilie has been dead for a number of months and I was only preserving her body at this point. He also informed me of the cost of using the wish. If I were to wish your mother alive, you would have likely taken her place. If you had died, she would have never forgiven me. Therefore, I have relinquished my claim to the butterfly and peacock miraculous.
All I have wanted was to hold your mother in my arms and hear her voice. With that out of reach, I can not go on.
I expect you to maintain the dignity of the Agreste name and protect the company in my stead. Nathalie will assist you as she did me, if necessary.
Goodbye,
Gabriel Agreste
Ladybug couldn’t help but read the letter again once she had finished. M. Agreste’s reasoning for wanting their miraculous made a lot more sense now. But she didn’t miss the underlying statement that he had only had himself and his wife in mind. He didn’t even tell his only son that he loved him in his final words, only that he was to uphold the Agreste name. Part of her wondered, if he had been a little further gone, would Gabriel have sacrificed his son to get his wife back? From the tears in Adrien’s eyes, he believed that he would.
“After we saved Nino, I hung out with him for a while to make sure he would be okay. When I got back to my room, I saw that letter on my desk with both of the miraculous beside it,” he said, his eyes unfocused as he remembered what had happened. “I must have read it four or five times before realizing exactly what it meant and ran downstairs. They were in his office on the floor and I just… I couldn’t move. I mean, the paramedics told me that they were both dead for a while when I found him, it must have happened just a few minutes after we saved Nino.
“After the paramedics left with their bodies, I confronted Nathalie. She denied everything at first until I showed her the letter. She was Mayura, that was why she was getting sick. She tried defending Father, that he was only doing what he thought necessary to bring Mother back…” A shuttered sob escaped him as he gripped his hair in both fists. “I lost it. I yelled at her, told her she was fired. She packed most of her things and left a few minutes before you got here.”
Tears brimmed in Ladybug’s eyes as she wrapped her arms around her kitty and held him close. The moment she did, the floodgates opened and he was sobbing into her shoulder. They sat there for a long time, holding each other as he let everything out, and she never once loosened her grip on him.
It was a long time before he gently pulled away from her, but only so he could reach into his pants pocket and show her the butterfly and peacock miraculous. “I am returning these to you, the new Guardian, to keep them safe. I had the chance to talk to Nooroo and Duusu earlier, they’re sad, but they’ll get better with the rest of the kwamis.” Then he paused, giving Plagg an apologetic look before removing the ring from his finger and holding it out to her as the little cat disappeared.
Shocked, Ladybug stared at the ring for a long moment before shaking her head as her own tears trailed down her cheeks. “No, I can’t take that. You’re my kitty, I could never replace you.”
“It has to be done M’Lady. After losing them and knowing what the wish is capable of, I’ll be tempted. And despite you saying that you love someone else, I’ve loved you since we defeated Stoneheart together. Meaning that you would be the person I lose if I ever got your earrings and made that wish, and I won’t risk it. So, I’m begging you, M’Lady. Let me be a hero one last time and give you my ring to make sure that you and Paris will be out of danger.”
With trembling fingers and her eyes blurred with tears, Ladybug gently took the ring from his hand and placed it safely in her yoyo. “That was the most noble thing I have ever seen in my life. And with or without the mask, you will always be my kitty.”
Adrien gave her a sad smile before looking away from her. “I realize that you’ll have to tell Paris that Hawkmoth is gone, but…”
Knowing what he was asking, she tilted her head back to look at the stars that were beginning to form in the sky. “I’m going to tell them the truth. That Chat Noir discovered the identity of Hawkmoth and Mayura and was able to retrieve their miraculous, they are no more and will never be able to harm anyone again. However, while doing so, Chat worried that he had become corrupted by the events that had taken place. Rather than risk anyone being harmed by his future actions, he gave up his miraculous to live a normal life.”
He nodded, grateful that she was willing to let his father keep his good name in the end. It was more than the man deserved, but Ladybug wasn’t doing it for him. She wanted Adrien to be able to live in peace; and as difficult as it would be with the knowledge of who his father had been, she wasn’t about to make it worse with the world against him for being Hawkmoth’s son.
“So… what are you going to do now?” She asked him, a little worried about what his answer would be.
“I, um, called my Aunt Amelie this morning. I’m going to be moving to live with her and my cousin Felix in London. I just… if I’m not my father’s perfect model son anymore and I can’t be Chat Noir, I need a fresh start to figure out who I am. I’m hoping I can figure that out away from Paris.”
Ladybug nodded, knowing that he was right. “While you’re doing that, you can start by knowing this; you are a good person, Adrien Agreste. Not because of your status or what your father made you to be; but because you made the choice to put others before yourself when it really mattered. Start with that, I think you’ll eventually be okay.”
That gained a soft smile from him before looking her in the eye. “May I ask one thing from you before you leave, M’Lady?”
“Anything.”
“I know that I’ll probably never see you again with me going away and you staying here to watch over Paris. So, before I go, can I have a kiss that I’ll actually remember?”
A sad chuckle bubbled up, thinking of the two kisses they had shared but how he hadn’t been able to remember either. Reaching towards him, she gently cupped his cheeks between her hands and gave him a lingering kiss that said so many things: “I will always care about you”, “you are a wonderful person”, but the saddest one of all, “goodbye”.
Breaking the kiss, Ladybug wiped away her tears before yo-yoing away.
~oOo~
Saturday morning, Ladybug met with Mayor Bourgeois and had him hold a press conference where she alerted Paris that Hawkmoth and Mayura had been defeated by Chat Noir and that Ladybug was now in possession of their miraculouses. There were a lot of questions and a lot of tears when they asked where Chat Noir was.
With tears in her eyes, she told them. “Chat feared that he might have been corrupted and refused to put the city he loved in danger. As many citizens have been akumatized, you know the kind of influence he had and how skilled he was at getting into peoples’ minds. Chat refused to risk that. To protect Paris and its people, he gave up his miraculous and opted to live a normal life. It was the bravest and most heartbreaking moment of my entire career as a hero. He is truly the embodiment of what a hero is meant to be and I am honored to call him my partner.”
The Mayor immediately declared that a new statue would be erected in honor of Chat Noir’s sacrifice and that he would not be forgotten. Ending the press conference with declarations of celebration across the city, as they were finally free to feel again.
Back home, Nooroo and Duusu’s miraculouses were where they belonged in the miracle box. She had asked the kwami if she should retire as well, but all of them agreed that even though Hawkmoth was gone, the world may still need Ladybug.
By Monday morning, school was a very different place. Adrien was gone, Mme. Bustier was on permanent leave, and M. Damocles had been let go with M. Rupere taking over as his replacement for the rest of the year. Word has also gotten around that Lila had completely lost use of her vocal cords and had attacked a police officer with a syringe while in the hospital when they came to arrest her. That resulted in her being drugged into a stupor and immediately deported back to Italy where she would be tried on five counts of attempted murder, assault, property damage, slander, as well as other charges being added on every day as the investigation into her actions continued. Max and Alix would not be returning to school that year, as it would take time to recover from their upcoming surgeries. And then there was Alya’s funeral, which would be taking place after school.
However, on a good note, classes were a lot more peaceful. People were finally expressing themselves in ways that they hadn’t been able to do in over a year. And someone had found Serafina. The porcelain doll had been left sitting on top of her desk when she got to school that morning. Although her outfit was a little worse for wear after being kwami knows where for close to a week, she still looked to be in pretty good condition. Giving the doll a hug, she carefully placed her in her bag before turning forward since the class was about to start.
Serafina was satisfied. Marinette’s enemies had been punished, she was no longer in danger, and she had even regained some of her friends. All that, and she had only killed two people. It might have been easier to just kill everyone, but it was worth the effort to see this special girl smile. Adrien had even surprised her when he had not only handed over the butterfly and peacock jewels, but also the ring of the black cat to make sure that his lady would never be in danger from him. For that reason, she had decided that the knowledge of his father’s identity was enough punishment.
She also hoped that those she had punished had learned their lessons. Because, if she was forced to step forward again to protect Marinette, she would not be so kind next time.
Adrien Salt
When Ladybug arrived at the Agreste Mansion, she immediately sensed something off with the atmosphere and was on high alert. The front door was open, she could hear movement inside, and the smell of blood and death had her covering her nose and mouth with her hand. Following the sound, she cautiously entered the mansion and opened the door to M. Agreste’s office. The inside was an absolute disaster area, nothing like the organized workshop she had seen during the Simon Says incident. The chaos of the room had been so drastic, it took her a second to clear her head and look at Adrien.
With bags under his eyes, rumpled clothes, and cuts on his hands, it looked like he hadn’t slept at all since finding his parents. She might have considered that an understandable reaction if he wasn’t manickly pacing the room, while looking over the Miraculous book with the butterfly and peacock miraculouses beside it. She must have gasped or made some sort of noise, because Adrien stopped what he was doing and turned to her with a large smile.
“M’Lady! I’m so glad you’ve come! Now I can fix everything once you give me your miraculous!”
So many things ran through her head in the moment Adrien was reaching for her ears. First was that only Chat Noir called her M’Lady. Second, since the butterfly and peacock miraculous were both on the desk, her previous theory about Gabriel Agreste being Hawkmoth had been correct and he’d tricked them. And third, the way Adrien was acting, she was having some serious flashbacks to Chat Blanc.
Just as she felt his fingers graze her cheeks, Ladybug shoved him away with all her strength before diving across the desk to grab the other two miraculous while she could. By the time Adrien was standing again, she had already placed the jewels securely in her yo-yo. When he looked at her, she could see the shock and a bit of hurt in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, M’Lady. I didn’t mean to be rude. And you didn’t have to snatch the other miraculous like you did, I was going to give them to you as soon as I saw you. Now, can I have your miraculous, please? It’s the only way I can fix things.”
“Kitty?” Unable to help herself, she stepped closer to him. “I don’t understand, why do you need my miraculous?”
His eyes went wide and manic for a split second before rushing over to the book and pulling out a piece of paper to show her.
Dear Adrien,
I am not one to admit defeat, and I refuse to do so now. However, I am also a businessman and recognize a failed investment. And the endeavor I have been participating in has failed.
For the past year, I have been operating as Hawkmoth in order to obtain Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous. This was so I could bring your mother back to us. She fell into a deep sleep after using the damaged peacock miraculous, and I was going to use the wish to wake her.
However, after today’s failure, Nooroo informed me that Emilie has been dead for a number of months and I was only preserving her body at this point. He also informed me of the cost of using the wish. If I were to wish your mother alive, you would have likely taken her place. If you had died, she would have never forgiven me. Therefore, I have relinquished my claim to the butterfly and peacock miraculous.
All I have wanted was to hold your mother in my arms and hear her voice. With that out of reach, I can not go on.
I expect you to maintain the dignity of the Agreste name and protect the company in my stead. Nathalie will assist you as she did me, if necessary.
Goodbye,
Gabriel Agreste
She was genuinely shocked. Gabriel Agreste had been trying to steal their miraculous so he could bring back his wife, but committed suicide when he found out the cost. She remembered Tikki and Master Fu telling her a while back about the dangers of having the black cat and ladybug miraculouses out into the world and something about a wish and the cost. If M. Agreste had brought his wife back, Adrien would have died.
“It’s all here,” he said looking from her to the book. “By merging our miraculous together, we can be granted one wish. Any wish we want. My wish would be to fix everything. My parents would be back, you’ll be safe, and we can be together. Even if someone has to be sacrificed, it doesn’t have to be someone I know, any random person will work-”
“Kitty, stop! Are you listening to yourself? You’re talking about human sacrifice to resurrect your parents after your father…” Her voice trailed off as she saw his brow crease and his lips turn into a grimace.
“You’re not even listening, you don’t understand. Plagg, claws out!”
Ladybug jumped into action before he even finished transforming, jumping up to wrap herself around his right arm and drag him down into an armbar. She moved fast, grabbing his ring and yanking it off his finger before he could call for his Cataclysm. He transformed back into Adrien, giving her a hurt and anger look as he struggled to free himself from her hold. But without his transformation, he was no match for her strength.
“Why won’t you help me fix it! We’re soulmates! You’re supposed to help me no matter what!”
“We are not soulmates,” Ladybug said between gritted teeth as Adrien continued to struggle, her own heart breaking as she realized it was as true for Adrien as it was for Chat Noir. “We were only ever to be partners to keep Paris and its people safe, but you never listened to me when I told you ‘no’. And now you’re willing to let people die, just to get your wish? I can’t let you do that!” Giving his arm a twist, not enough to break anything but it would still hurt, she jumped a safe distance away. “As Guardian of the miraculous, I hereby reclaim the ring of the black cat. You are unworthy of its power and will never come by it again.”
Without waiting for his response, she sprinted out the door and yo-yoed away. His anguished scream chasing her every step of the way until it faded in the distance.
~oOo~
Saturday morning, Ladybug met with Mayor Bourgeois and had him hold a press conference where she alerted Paris that Hawkmoth and Mayura had been defeated and that Ladybug was now in possession of their miraculouses. There were a lot of questions and a lot of tears when they asked where Chat Noir was. Although it made her uncomfortable, she didn’t want to completely destroy the city’s memory of Chat Noir.
“As many of you know, Hawkmoth had the ability to get into peoples’ minds and corrupt them. Chat Noir fell victim to his manipulation and it affected him even after I had the butterfly and peacock miraculouses in my hands. For the safety of Paris, I had no choice but to relieve Chat Noir of his miraculous. And although I will not reveal his identity, I believe that he will not be a danger to Paris. Nor should we blame him for what transpired. We should all wish him a happy life and future.”
The Mayor immediately declared that a new statue would be erected in honor of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s defeat of Hawkmoth. Ending the press conference with declarations of celebration across the city, as they were finally free to feel again.
Back home, Nooroo and Duusu’s miraculouses were where they belonged in the miracle box. Plagg apologized and told her how he tried to calm his kitten down, but the loss of his parents sent him over the edge. Plagg was glad that Ladybug had reclaimed his ring before Adrien could do something that he would later regret. She had asked the kwamis if she should retire as well, but all of them agreed that even though Hawkmoth was gone, the world may still need Ladybug.
By Monday morning, school was a very different place. Lila was gone, Mme. Bustier was on permanent leave, and M. Damocles had been let go with M. Rupere taking over as his replacement for the rest of the year. Word has also gotten around that Lila had completely lost use of her vocal cords and had attacked a police officer with a syringe while in the hospital when they came to arrest her. That resulted in her being drugged into a stupor and immediately deported back to Italy where she would be tried on five counts of attempted murder, as well as other charges being added on every day as the investigation into her actions continued. Max and Alix would not be returning to school that year, as it would take time to recover from their upcoming surgeries. And then there was Alya’s funeral, which would be taking place after school.
On a good note, someone had found Serafina. The porcelain doll had been left sitting on top of her desk when she got to school that morning. Although her outfit was a little worse for wear after being kwami knows where for close to a week, she still looked to be in pretty good condition. Giving the doll a hug, she carefully placed her in her bag before turning forward since the class was about to start.
When Adrien walked into the room, Marinette couldn’t help but tense a little. His posture was ridged, he looked to be wearing the same clothes that he’d been wearing on Saturday, and he appeared exhausted. If she had to guess, he still hadn’t slept since he found his parents.
When the class started talking about everything that had happened the week before and someone mentioned Lila and her lies. What happened next, Marinette would say that it came down to how angry and exhausted Adrien was. He jumped up from his seat, turned to glare at her in the back of the room, and yelled “Stop trying to expose Lila, Marinette! Her lies aren’t hurting anyone and I don’t want to deal with her getting akumatized again! Stop antagonizing her!”
It was only when he was met by her shocked expression and the intense silence from the classroom that Adrien realized exactly what he had done. Or more specifically, what he had said to Marinette.
“Dude, you knew that Lila was lying to us? How long did you know?” Nino asked, not bothering to hide how hurt and angry he was at his friend.
“Um, since Ladybug confronted her?” Adrien responded, still seeming dazed but what he was saying.
Ivan glared at him from the back of the room. “When was that? A week ago? A month ago? When did you find out, Adrien?”
“The first day she was here. Ladybug told her not to spread lies about her or claim to be the fox miraculous holder.”
Nino growled when his friend said that. Not only had Lila lied to them for close to a year, but she lied about having Alya’s miraculous! If he had been angry before, he was becoming more furious by the moment. “How could you not tell us about this?”
“Well, it, her lies weren’t hurting anyone-”
“How can you say that after what happened to me?” Sabrina snapped at him with tears in her eyes. “She told me that Marinette gave her a bag of knives and razors and told her to ‘use it’, but she brought those from home herself! If she hadn’t brought those in and lied about them, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt!”
“And what about me?” Kim glared. “Lila suggestedthat since Marinette tried to dump paint on her during the class photo to ruin her outfit, she wished that someone would show her what it was like to have their stuff sabotaged. I’ll admit that I did what I did myself and the fall was my own fault, but it might not have gotten to that point in the first place if you had told us!”
“Lila got Marinette expelled, too!” Rose said in the most disapproving tone. “Do you have any idea what that can do to someone’s student career? Assault, theft, and cheating are not things that will just disappear from your record. Notes like that stay in files. Because you let Lila lie and get away with everything, Marinette might not have been accepted into lycee!”
Adrien wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to argue that he was right, that all you had to do was ignore the person lying until they left you alone, just like his father taught him. But the evidence to the contrary was literally staring him in the face. Sabrina’s hands, Kim’s broken bones, Marinette’s permanent record; all hurt because he didn’t out Lila. And looking back, even though she hadn’t been outed earlier, she had still been akumatized multiple times for petty reasons that were out of his control.
“I… I just-”
“Didn’t think her lies hurt people.” Nino growled at him. “I know you were sheltered, dude, but that was just mean and wrong.”
Without another word, Nino picked up his bag and moved to the back to sit with Marinette. Everyone else turned away from him. Even Marinette looked at him with utter disappointment before turning away from him to comfort Nino. He wanted to say something else, try to defend himself, but the substitute teacher came in and they got down to the lesson.
By the end of the day, Adrien had practically been slapped in the face as he realized just how alone he was. He’d lost his father, his mother all over again, his Lady, and now all of his friends. There was literally nothing left for him in Paris. On the way home, he called his Aunt Amilie in London, set on asking if he could come live with her and Felix. Maybe he just needed a new start, a place to find out who he was if he wasn’t his father’s perfect model son or the masked superhero.
Based on @unmaskedagain post “Marinette’s Haunted Doll” this is my take on the story and the kind of things Serafina would have done to get even. There’ll be three parts, and will hopefully be posted through the week. Blood, gore, and character death ahead. You have been warned.
She was seven years old when her Grandma Gina’s sister, Ramona, passed away. Marinette couldn’t remember ever meeting her. Her dad said that she was a very private person and didn’t get out much. Since she had never married or had any children, all of her relatives were asked to come over to the house and divide the property before the rest was sold and equally divided.
While her parents had been in the kitchen, looking over some family cook books, Marinette had wandered around the old house until she came to a small room. It was full of spiderwebs and old toys, which greatly interested her. She spent a long time looking through the boxes and shelves until she found a locked chest in the closet. Remembering the key she had seen in a dresser drawer, she retrieved it to see if it worked. It was hard to turn, but she heard the click and was able to open the lid. Inside was a box with an envelope laying on top of it. Curious she opened the envelope and read the note as best as she could.
“If I’m dead, Serafina killed me.”
Tilting her head in curiosity, Marinette set the letter aside and opened the box. Inside was an old looking porcelain doll. It was covered in spiderwebs, the dress was old and ripped, she was missing a shoe, and the hat looked like it was stained with red paint.
“Are you Serafina?” She asked the doll before carefully lifting it out of the box. “I don’t think you’re bad, you just look lonely. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of you!” Giving the doll a gentle hug, the little girl got to her feet and left the room and letter behind. Finding her parents, she asked if it was okay to take the doll home so she could take care of her.
Tom remembered seeing that doll when he was a kid and had always thought it was creepy, but if his little girl saw the good in it, he would trust her. And since none of the other relatives wanted anything to do with the doll, it came home with them.
Once home, the little girl raced up to her room with the doll and immediately got to work. She threw away the old dress, hat, and shoe before cleaning away all the dirt with a washcloth and carefully combing out the knotted hair. Then Marinette got to work on making Serafina a brand new outfit with new shoes and a hat. It took a few days, but she was really happy with what she came up with: a pink Victorian dress with rose and pearl accents, a wide brimmed hat with maroon feathers, and maroon slippers that tied with ribbons around the ankles.
Proud of what she had made, Marinette held the doll up high as she twirled around her room. She had been interested in fashion and clothes for months now, and making the pretty outfit for Serafina was a lot of fun. If anything, it proved to her that fashion design was what she wanted to do.
“I hope you like your new clothes, Serafina. You make the perfect little model, so I hope you don’t mind if I make more clothes for you later on. I promise to only make you clothes that will make you feel pretty.” Giving the doll a kiss, Marinette placed her next to her computer before skipping down stairs for dinner.
~oOo~
Serafina had not been expecting this when the young girl, Marinette, had opened her box. It had been decades since anyone had shown her any kindness. For so many years, she had been passed from person to person, shoved into boxes and hidden from sight or attempted to be sold off. Serafina had had no choice but to punishmany of her past owners, and she had not been lax with their punishments.
But she didn’t feel the need to do that with Marinette, this girl was different. She wasn’t afraid of her. She didn’t scorn her and hide her away where no one could see her. No, this girl was kind and made Serafina feel loved; something she hadn’t felt in nearly a hundred years. Staying with Marinette, she knew that she would be happy. So, no one needed to die here.
And she was.
The porcelain doll smiled quietly on Marinette’s desk as the years passed, and felt more for this girl than she could remember with anyone else. She felt beautiful whenever Marinette used her to experiment with a new outfit before she would make a full sized outfit for herself. She had fun when the girl would sing and dance around the room, sometimes even picking her up so she could dance with her. She felt entertained when she would play movies on her computer, one time watching a movie about a haunted doll like herself; they didn’t watch much before she turned it off, but Serafina thought it was funny. Scratching people and leaving notes wasn’t scary, she had done muchscarier things than that.
As Marinette grew into a teen, Serafina felt proud as she grew from a shy girl into a fearless superhero. Her owner had a lot of love and light to give, so it made sense to her that she became Ladybug. She also felt scared for the girl, not wanting to lose her to Hawkmoth, but silently promised her that if she was ever hurt, the people who hurt her would pay her back in blood.
Serafina was also aware of the tiny god that gave Marinette her power, just as Tikki was aware of her. No doubt, the god could sense the darkness that dwelled in her porcelain body, but realized that she cared for the girl and would not harm her. So the little god wisely said nothing, she would hate it if Marinette suddenly feared her.
After all, the three of them were happy and at peace.
Until the day Marinette came storming into her room, complaining about a girl named Lila. From what she could hear, this girl was a liar and was using her friends. Knowing how much her human cared for other people, that didn’t sit well with how it would affect her. Then she didn’t hear anything about the girl for months. But when she was mentioned again, it quickly got worse from there.
Serafina heard about the threats, the lies, almost being akumatized, her crush Adrien telling her to take the high road, all of it. She watched as one by one, her friends turned against her. Bullying her while accusing herof being a bully until only three of her classmates remained. She knew that the teacher and principal were useless and even accused Marinette of being a problem, especially after the expulsion. Serafina had nearly enacted her revenge that day, but held back when she was reinstated the next day.
Nathaniel, Rose, and Juleka were the only people left that believed her or even bothered to try and help in her class. There was also Kagami and Luka, Juleka’s brother. Serafina would admit, that boy was sharper than most. When he first saw her, his blue eyes studied her intently for a long moment until Marinette spoke up.
“That’s Serafina, she’s been passed down through my family for a long time. She was in really bad condition when I got her and took a lot of work to get her fixed up, but it was worth it. She was my first ever model and I’ve never felt lonely since she’s been around.”
Luka looked back over at the doll and gave her a smile. “I can tell, I’d bet no one gave her the proper love or attention until she came to you. And I think, if she could talk, she would say that you kept her from feeling lonely too, and all she wants is for you to be happy.”
Serafina liked that boy, a lot more than she had liked Adrien when he had come to play video games. The boy genuinely seemed to care for Marinette. And even though he could somehow sense that she was more than just a doll, he didn’t spill her secret. Yes, she approved of this one.
And then, less than a week after she returned to school, came the worst day. They were taking pictures at the school and Marinette had worked so hard on a new dress; it was pale purple cotton with teacup sleeves, a tulip skirt and pink lace at the hem. It was so sweet and looked like she was going to a spring tea party. Then half way through the day, she came into her room crying. Her makeup was smeared, there were bruises and scratch marks on her arms, another bruise on her cheek, her hair was a mess and covered in dark blue paint. The same paint that covered almost half of the dress. Tikki was doing her best to comfort the girl as she showered. Marinette was unable to save her dress and ended up throwing it away before she cried herself to sleep on her bed.
Serafina was angry, the kind of anger she hadn’t felt since Ramona had attempted to burn her in the fireplace… and that hadn’t gone well for her. Tikki flew over to face her. “I know what you’re thinking and I can’t condone you falling into old habits and killing her entire class. Despite how much they’ve hurt her, it would still break her heart if they all suddenly died.”
The doll actually considered that for a moment before picturing some very specific people. Lila, the liar that was trying to take away/destroy the person she cared about. Alya, the best friend that betrayed her, acted like a hypocrite, and took joy in hurting her. Adrien, the boy that not only broke his promise to help her as a civilian, but continually harassed her as a pseudo-hero. And finally, Hawkmoth, the person that was constantly putting her in danger. Everyone else that had harmed her would be punished, paying back the harm they had done to Marinette in blood, but those four would pay with their lives.
Tikki shook her head. “As angry as I am with Adrien, you can’t kill him. Marinette still has feelings for him and if he dies, she might never get over him. I can’t stop you from punishing them, but please try not to kill them. You know that she has a big heart and it would hurt her to lose any of them, so please keep that in mind.”
Serafina would have argued, but the little god was right. Killing around Marinette would only upset her. So she would do her best to punish them without killing them… although, accidents do happen.
~oOo~
It was easy enough to sneak herself into Marinette’s bag the next day of school. It was even easier to select her first victims. One of her classmates, Kim, stole her backpack and dumped out all of her stuff, including her. The boy laughed about Marinette bringing a doll to school as he ran up the stairs to keep it away from her. It took little effort to make the boy trip, in full view of everyone that had been watching, and fall backwards down the steps.
Serafina had landed at the top landing with a perfect view of the boy’s tumble, and it was oh so satisfying. She could see his knee bent in the wrong direction, a bone in his arm protruding from the skin, and blood dripping from the cuts and open wounds. But the sound was even better, all the cracking and popping of bone before he began crying like a little girl, begging for his mom. Ah, she hadn’t realized how much she had missed those sounds.
When the principal came out to see what was happening, she hid her presence and let the principal trip over her and fall as well. He even landed on Kim, causing more injuries to both of them. She held back a laugh as the grown man wailed and cried until the paramedics arrived. Loading the two into the ambulance while one of the teachers called the Board of Governors. A representative, M. Rupere, quickly came to take over the principal’s duties while he was gone, and was surprised when a bunch of students tried to blame Marinette for the incident.
“And how is it her fault?” He asked the students that surrounded him. “Did you see her push or trip M. Le Chien or M. Damocles down the stairs?
“Marinette brought in a doll and Kim was distracted by it when he was going up the stairs, that’s how he tripped and fell,” Lila told him with tears in her eyes. “Then M. Damocles tripped over the doll and fell down the stairs too. It’s just like how she pushed me down the stairs last week and I hurt my knee. I think she’s actually trying to hurt people.”
The man looked at Lila for a moment before looking to the top of the stairs, but there was no doll there. Then he looked back at Lila with a stern glare. “Young lady, if you had been pushed down the stairs last week, you would have been severely injured just like your friend or M. Damocles. And whether or not it was Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s doll that caused the incident or not, does not mean that she is at fault for the accident. To the principal’s office, right now. I think we should have a discussion as to why you are trying to blame another student for something she did not do.”
Totally shocked, the girl looked around to her followers for some support, but they were now looking at her with uncertainty. They had just seen two people fall down the stairs and receive severe injuries, so how was Lila walking around just fine without a scratch on her? Huffing in annoyance, Lila stomped her way to the office while the class stared after her, most of them noticing the lack of limp to her walk.
Serafina was pleased with how this was turning out, she had already punished two of the people that had betrayed Marinette and had begun sewing seeds of doubt with the liar. At the moment, she was hiding in the classroom, observing everyone so she could figure out the best way to punish them. She noticed Rose, Juleka, and Nathaniel sitting close to the girl and doing their best to comfort her. She also noticed Nino, a boy she had seen a couple of times over the years, casting looks back at Marinette.
During the first break, the boy cautiously approached her, clutching his hat in his hands. “Hey dudette, listen… I, um, wanted to say I was sorry,” he said, having a hard time looking her in the eye. “After Kim fell, what that Governor dude said about Lila not being hurt, and the fact that I’ve known you forever. I felt so stupid. You would never push someone down the stairs or cheat or steal from someone like that. And I tried looking up Jagged’s discography to see if there was any mention of a song about Lila, and there was literally nothing. I tried telling Alya, but she didn’t want to listen and-”
Nino was interrupted by Marinette giving him a hug. Serafina smiled at that. The boy had thought for himself and admitted that he was wrong. He apologized and Marinette was willing to offer him forgiveness. She supposed that Nino could also be exempt from punishment, so long as he never betrayed the girl again.
Half way through the second lesson, Lila had returned to the class with two weeks worth of detention and had a meeting scheduled with herself, M. Rupere, and her mother at the end of the week. Serafina decided to let the girl’s empire fall before going in to completely destroy her.
During lunch, when all the students had left. Serafina got to work on punishing Mme. Bustier. She started by slamming the door shut, it made the woman jump and look around the room, but there was no one there. Then the giggling started, causing her to look around the room again. This time, she walked up the steps to see if anyone was hiding in the room, but she was completely alone. When she turned back to her desk, the papers she had been grading were torn to pieces. A bit panicked, Bustier tried to run out of the room, but the door was locked. As she struggled with the door, she heard the scraping of chalk and froze for a moment before looking at the board. Large words were scrawled in block letters: LIAR, ENABLER, MEAN, CRUEL, and the most frightening of all, YOU WILL PAY.
Bustier’s hands were shaking as she erased the words from the board, not understanding what was happening. Only taking a breath when the door opened and her students began to file in. Serafina quietly laughed at the teacher’s fear, she was another person that she would take her time in punishing. Payback for failing to help Marinette. For now, it was time to take out her biggest supporter.
Again, it was much easier than it should have been to sneak herself in Alya’s backpack and go home with her. When the girl found her she sneered. “The klutz must have put you in my bag by mistake.” Then she smiled cruelly at her. “I think I’ll give you to Etta and Ella to play with before giving you back to Maribrat, maybe tell them that you need a makeover and give them some permanent markers too.”
Turning to take the doll out to her sisters, she stubbed her toe on her desk chair hard enough that she felt a crack and dropped back on her butt while hissing in pain. When she was finally able to think past the pain, she realized that she had dropped the doll and didn’t see it on the floor. After wrapping her foot, she looked all over her room but couldn’t find it anywhere.
That night, things got… more than scary. Alya was absolutely terrified.
First, her computer turned on, on its own, and started printing off papers saying “YOU KNOW THE TRUTH”. She turned the computer off, only for it to turn back on after she’d climbed into bed and the browser pulled up past searches; specifically, the searches that proved that Lila had been lying. She had found that out after Lila had disappeared from school for months, but had kept to herself so she wouldn’t lose her credibility on her blog or have to admit to Marinette that she’d been right. Turning it off again, she’d decided to sleep on the couch when her phone suddenly let out a hiss and burst into flames.
Letting out a shriek, Alya rushed to her door, and had just barely opened it when it slammed shut on her fingers, causing her to scream as she struggled to pull her hand free. She could hear her parents and Nora shouting on the other side of the door, trying to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Her head got fuzzy and she suddenly felt cold, she realized that she was going into shock. Her parents’ shouts became garbled background noise and Alya heard the sound of tiny feet running around the room. She tried reaching the light switch so she could see, but it was out of reach.
From the light outside her window, she could barely make out the movement of a small shadow, moving from one part of the room to another. Coming closer and closer to her with every sweep. Alya began tugging harder on the doorknob and her hand. She needed to get out. Something was in the room with her. She could almost feel the darkness creeping closer. It wanted to hurt her!
What happened next, Serafina couldn’t have planned better if she’d tried. Alya jerked back her trapped arm and the doorknob at the same time Nora threw her shoulder into the door as hard as she could. Sending the teenagers flying into her bedside table and her head hitting the corner with an audible *crack*. The doll smiled silently in the corner of the room as the paramedics were called and listened to her parents cries for their horrid daughter to wake up. They called time of death at 2:03am.
~oOo~
It was a bit more of a chore for Serafina to get back to the school, but it was still manageable as her mother had to inform the school of her daughter’s death and pick up her things. The woman had also noticed the information that had been brought up on Alya’s computer and thought that she had been up late chasing a lead. And as the lead had to do with the disturbing behavior of one of her daughter’s classmates, she thought it best to show the acting principal the information before taking her leave.
Making her way back to the classroom, she saw that the news had spread already. Nino seemed to be hit the hardest, as it was his girlfriend, but he would get over it. Kim was still out of class, and likely would be for a few more days. Tikki saw the doll when she was peeking out of the purse and gave her a disapproving glare, but there was nothing she could do. And in Serafina’s defense, she had only intended on maiming the failed journalist, her death had been an “accident”.
When class let out for lunch, Serafina got back to work tormenting Mme. Bustier. Today, the door slammed and locked shut a few minutes after the last student left. The woman shrieked and was struggling to open the door when the giggling started again. Bustier started screaming for it to “go away” but the giggling continued. Turning back to the door, books began flying at her from all over the room, hitting her chest, back, arms since they were shielding her head.
Then the door opened to show a panicked looking M. Rupere. “I heard screaming, are you alright?” The red haired teacher looked extremely frazzled; her hair was a mess, eyes wide and dilated, and her hands were shaking.
“The books,” she said in a trembling voice. “There was giggling, the door wouldn’t open, and the books attacked me. And this was the second time!”
His eyebrows rose to his hairline as he stared at the woman. “Did you see who was throwing the books at you?”
Bustier shook her head in a frantic manner. “There was no one, the books just started flying at me after the giggling.”
Giving her a slow nod, Rupere gently motioned her to step out of the room ahead of him. “How about you take the rest of the day to recover? Some rest will do you some good.”
To his relief, Mme. Bustier agreed and collected her purse before leaving the school. Looking around the room, he was confused to see all the books in place on the shelves. Curious, he went to examine her desk and saw essay papers… covered in red ink with large “F’s” on every one of them. Reading the paper on top, all he saw were a few grammar mistakes, nothing that should have resulted in a failing grade. A bit unsettled, Rupere called the Board to schedule a psychological exam for the teacher. Serafina watched the man with satisfaction, at the rate she was going with that terrible teacher, she wouldn’t be around much longer.
Her next victims were Max and Alix during science class. She switched a couple of labels on the tubs on their desk before hiding in the room to enjoy the show. Half-way through class, Max poured a large amount of reactive chemical into the mix while it was warming over a burner, and the glass exploded. The two screamed and cursed in pain as Max tried wiping the liquid away from his face, only succeeding in getting more in his eyes. Alix tried wiping it away with a cloth, not noticing in time that the fabric was also soaked in the chemicals that now covered her entire face.
Serafina was impressed with how quickly Mme. Mendeleiev reacted to the incident. Doaning on gloves in an instant and leading the two students to the chemical wash station. Both students looked to have chemical burns on their faces, arms and necks. She could already see the burns covering a large amount of their exposed skin. While the class was distracted, Serafina switched the labels back so it would appear that the two had not been doing as instructed.
When school let out, the doll hid away in Mylene’s bag and ended up going on a date with the girl and Ivan. They commented on the bad luck their class seemed to be having and wondered out loud at what the cause might have been.
Mylene was hesitant to speak as the two ate their ice cream. “Do you think… maybe it’s karma coming back on our class?”
“Why do you think that?” Ivan asked her, seeming genuinely curious. Deciding that their conversation might lead to something more, Serafina waited and listened.
“It’s just… ever since Kim fell down the stairs, it’s got me thinking. Lila says that Marinette pushed her but the only injury she says she got was a bad knee, and she’s been walking around fine since then. And then she tried blaming Marinette for Kim and M. Damocles, when Kim shouldn’t have been running up the stairs and M. Damocles tripped at the top of the stairs when she was still down in the courtyard.”
“You’re right, now that I think about it. Lila lied to that new principal and she did it really easy.” Ivan nodded slowly, his brow creased as he pulled out his phone. “I wonder if she lied about anything else.” Mylene watched over his shoulder as he looked up the story about saving Jagged Stone’s kitten from an airplane. There was nothing, the only article that came up about a pet was his crocodile, Fang. The story said that he had hatched the reptile himself seventeen years earlier and any other pet wouldn’t be as rock’n’roll as Fang. “I don’t think Jagged ever had a cat, this article says that he’s only had Fang for longer than we’ve been around.”
Mylene pulled out her phone and called Rose, putting the call on speaker when she answered.
“Hi Mylene, did you hear anything about Max and Alix? Are they going to be okay?” The girl asked as soon as she picked up.
“Ivan and I haven’t heard anything about them yet, but we have a question for you, Rose, and it’s something only you would be able to answer.”
There was a slight pause on the line. “Go ahead.”
“Do you still chat with Prince Ali?”
“Sure I do! We video chat every Saturday and I send him videos of our performances with Kitty Section. Why do you ask?”
“Ivan and I were wondering… Has he ever mentioned Lila to you?”
There was another pause, although they could hear a hushed conversation in the background. “So, you guys figured out the truth about Lila?” When they didn’t respond right away, Rose continued. “I found out a few weeks after Lila says she came back from Achu. I mentioned Lila to Ali and asked him about the charities they had been working on together, but he’d never heard of her. And Ali is only working on charities involving children, nothing with the environment. When Juleka and I tried asking Lila about it, she got really mean and threatened us if we told anyone. I would have been akumatized if Marinette hadn’t been there to calm me down.”
Ivan and Mylene were horrified, not only had Lila been lying to them, but she had threatened Rose, Juleka, and probably Marinette too. “What should we do?”
“First, you should apologize to Marinette for how you’ve been treating her and let her know that you know the truth.” They heard Juleka over the phone. “Lila has been more terrible to her than anyone else and she keeps getting in Lila’s way to protect us and Nathaniel since we know the truth about her.”
“Who all knows?” Ivan asked, feeling a bit sick to his stomach. Sure, he and Mylene hadn’t really hurt her or done anything, but they hadn’t stood up for her either and they were supposed to be her friend.
“Us, Luka, Kagami, Nathaniel figured it out when she said she could introduce him to Stan Lee, Nino figured it out yesterday, and Adrien’s apparently known from the start but didn’t say anything because he doesn’t think her lies are hurting anybody.”
Both of them could hear the acid in Juleka’s voice when she mentioned Adrien, and they couldn’t argue with her. They knew he had led a sheltered life, but how could he claim that ‘lies don’t hurt anybody’ after sitting back and watching Lila and her friends torment and bully Marinette?
Mylene hadn’t even realized that she had asked that question out loud until Rose answered them. “He told us that it was Marinette’s own fault for antagonizing Lila, and ‘If she just took the high road like I told her, then Lila would leave her alone’. It took everything I had not to slap him.”
Coming from Rose, that really was saying something.
Serafina was then taken on a shopping trip to an arts supplies store, a card shop, and a stop at an ATM before going to Marinette’s family’s bakery. She smiled quietly and with great respect to the couple as they apologized to her girl, gave her cards, an entire bolt of soft purple cotton the same color that her ruined dress had been, a new sketchbook, and money to pay her back for some of the things that Marinette had given them over the past year. They even asked her to provide them with proper receipts, and admitted that they knew the amount they had given her wasn’t enough to cover everything. But they promised to pay her back before asking for anything else, as well as pay in advance for any future items or baked goods.
The little doll would have cried right along with Marinette if she could. These two had proven themselves to her and would avoid punishment, just as Nino had.
I read a short story on AO3 a while back about a teacher or adult sending a letter to the Board of Governors about the teachers of the school and how terrible they were, and decided to write a story about the person who was assigned to look into the accusations. Got some salt and justice coming along. And I must say, this was very therapeutic to write. Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!!
Inspector Walters had a bad feeling about the Francois-Dupont College since the moment he’d received the assignment. The Board of Governors had been debating conducting an investigation on the school since one of the classes had been nicknamed “The Akuma Class” by social media and a few news sources. It became a necessity when a complaint had been filed by the Dupain-Cheng family about their daughter’s expulsion.
That complaint had surprised him. Only the Board of Governors had the power to expel a student after an investigation, and they hadn’t expelled the girl. The parents claimed that it was done on the same day as the accusations against the student, and was then retracted the following day. Again, something that only the Board of Governors had the power to do.
Looking over the incident report, the details were slim at best. Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was accused of cheating on a mock exam and the answer sheet was found in her backpack. When looking at the schedule, he saw that the mock exam had been taken the day before and the teacher only noticed that the answer sheet was missing afterreceiving the exams. A fact which bothered him a bit, but he’d seen a few scatterbrained teachers, as well as students make the mistake of not getting rid of the evidence. However, he also saw from her student records that she was one of the top students and always got high grades, so there was some doubt that she would have cheated.
The next thing was the accusation that she had pushed another student, Mlle. Lila Rossi down the stairs, injuring her right knee. However, there was no mention of an ambulance being called or even a trip to the nurse’s station. It was also suspect that there was no mention of other injuries that someone would have received after falling down stairs; no recorded cuts, bruises, or anything. So either Rossi had the most well placed fall that kept her from major injury, or she was lying.
The last part of the report was that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng had stolen a necklace from Mlle. Rossi and put it in her locker. Again, he was a bit skeptical considering that the same two girls had been involved with a separate incident on the same day. There was a picture of the locker, but Walters quickly noticed that there was no actual lock on the locker, something that he shouldbe seeing since the Board had funded upgrades for lockers months ago. There was also no CCTV record attached to the incident report, meaning that the system was down and not reported, or the principal never checked them and only went by the word Mlle. Rossi.
Looking over the rest of the file, it was even more suspect when he saw that only Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s parents had been called in. Mlle. Rossi’s contact, her mother, had been listed as “unavailable”. This was yet another thing that didn’t sit well with him. Following his gut, M. Walters set aside the Dupain-Cheng student file to look more closely at the Rossi student file.
Not five minutes in, he knew that things were not right. The disabilities she had listed in the current file were not consistent with the files from her previous schools, and there were no doctors notes to support them as being recently discovered ailments. He attempted to call the number listed on the current file, but it kept going straight to voicemail. Comparing the number to the previous files, he noticed that the number did not match.
Finding himself very unhappy with the incomplete file provided by Principal Damocles, he decided that he would have to go to the school in person the following morning and see for himself what was really going on.
~oOo~
First stop he made was to the principal’s office. M. Walters had not alerted him of the inspection so that the man would not have a chance to change or hide specific documents, he’d seen that happen more than once. What he had not expected was to see a grown man playing with dolls/action figures behind his desk. Damocles quickly straightened up, hiding the dolls in a drawer before scowling at him. “What is the meaning of this? You can’t simply barge into my office without-”
“Actually, M. Damocles, I can,” he interrupted, pulling out his identification. “Inspector Walters, I’m with the Board of Governors, looking into a recent complaint filed against the school.”
“Complaint? What complaint?” He asked, sputtering a bit in surprise.
“The expulsion of Mlle. Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” he glared at the man.
“Oh, that incident has already been handled.”
“Is that so? Then please, explain to me how the incident was handled.” Pulling out a chair, Walters flipped open his notepad and clicked open his pen. Some of his colleagues considered the whole pen and paper thing to be a little old-school at times, but it had its purpose. He waved a hand at Damocles to begin.
“Well, Mlle. Lila Rossi suffers from a rare disease that makes her lie uncontrollably when she is stressed-”
“I’m going to stop you right there, M. Damocles. We will get to the reason why you reinstated Mlle. Dupain-Cheng in a moment. First, I want you to go through everything on the day of the incident.”
“Oh, of-of course,” he was beginning to fidget. “I was sitting in my office when I heard screaming outside of my door. When I came outside, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was standing at the top of the stairs and Mlle. Lila Rossi was at the bottom of the stairs, crying that she had been pushed.” Walters wrote this down and waved a hand for him to continue. “M. Harpele and I brought her upstairs and wrapped the knee that was injured, and then contacted Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s parents to talk about the incident, seeing as Mlle. Rossi had been badly injured.”
Walters finished writing that down before looking back up at Damocles. “And is that when you called an ambulance to look over Mlle. Rossi’s injury and check to make sure there were no other injuries?”
It was no surprise to him when Damocles mouth did an impersonation of a fish for a moment. “Well, um, no. I did not call an ambulance-”
“Then I can only imagine that you called the school nurse to your office to look her over and deem whether or not a trip to the hospital was necessary?”
Again, he began impersonating a fish. “I-I didn’t think it was- Mlle. Rossi claimed that she was fine and that only her knee was injured.”
“You just told me that you believed Mlle. Rossi was, and I quote ‘badly injured’, and yet she received no medical attention?” Walters hummed in a disbelieving manner as he looked down at his notepad and wrote down his thoughts. “That was quite irresponsible of you. I’ve read your personnel file and nowhere does it list that you have a medical background. Yet, you thought yourself qualified to treat and diagnose a girl that claimed to have been pushed down the stairs and could have underlying injuries, such as a concussion, broken bones, or internal bleeding?”
To his satisfaction, the principal began to sweat, but he was nowhere close to finished yet. “I can imagine that Mme. Rossi was upset when you called her to the school for the meeting with M. and Mme. Dupain-Cheng.” Just as he suspected, Damocles wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You have contacted Mme. Rossi about the incident, have you not?”
“Well, Mme. Rossi is an ambassador and is very busy-”
“Are you meaning to tell me that you failed to alert a parent that their child was injured while in your care?” When the principal looked away again, Walters glared before double clicking his pen and writing down more notes.Taking his time as he wrote to allow the man to sweat and worry about what was being written.
“We will return to your failure at contacting parents and guardians later. Now, tell me what you observed when you reviewed the CCTV footage of the stairs at the time of the incident.” Just as he suspected, the man became flustered and refused to meet his eyes. “Are you telling me that you did not, at any time, look over the footage to corroborate whether Mlle. Rossi was pushed or accidentally fell?”
Hesitating again. “I, um, thought it unnecessary. It was clear that she was pushed-”
“And you know that for fact, how, exactly?” He glared as he kept writing.
“As I said, Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was standing at the top of the stairs while Mlle. Rossi was at the bottom of the stairs, crying that she’d been pushed-”
“You also said, and I quote ‘I was sitting in my office when I heard screaming outside of my door’. Meaning that you did not actually see whether Mlle. Rossi was pushed or simply fell. Am I to understand that you believed one child over another without gathering evidence to prove or disprove the claim?”
Walters watched as the man’s parlor turned a pale green while muttering multiple failed excuses, which only served to anger him further. So far, Damocles had failed to show him, in any way, that he was qualified to run this school and had let an innocent girl suffer for his mistakes. “You are going to pull up that footage right now, and have it prepared for a meeting I will be setting up with Mme. Rossi later today. And not just the stairs, but the footage of the classroom to see exactly who stole the test answer sheet and the lockerroom to see if the accusations of Mlle. Dupain-Cheng stealing Mlle. Rossi’s property is at all valid. And allow me to make something very clear, you are already looking at being brought up on negligence and abuse of power, seeing as you expelled and reinstated a student, something that only the Board of Governors has the power to do. If I find out that the footage is somehow ‘missing’, I will have no choice but to assume that you have purposefully erased it to protect yourself and will have you brought before the Board by tomorrow morning. Am I clear?”
The man gave a shaky nod, as he immediately got on his computer and began pulling up the footage from that day.
Getting on his phone, Walters called the number that Mme. Rossi had listed in the previous files and it went straight through. He easily scheduled a meeting for later that day and hung up.“I will be sitting in on Mme. Bustier’s class for the rest of the day, until Mme. Rossi arrives at 1pm for our appointment. Have all the footage ready by then.” Without another word, Inspector Walters left the office and made his way down to the Akuma Classroom.
~oOo~
Lunch had finally come and Walters was anything but impressed by what he had seen. To her credit, Mme. Bustier had been polite and understanding towards his presence in the classroom and seemed to go about teaching as usual. She was also a very upbeat type of personality, something needed in a city plagued by akumas. But that was the extent of his compliments towards the teacher.
During the first half of the day, he witnessed the woman allow her students to become disorderly multiple times. Three of which stood out to him beyond the normal rowdy teenage energy that is normal for a classroom.
The first was how a boy in the front of the room kept flinching and curling into himself whenever another student, who just happened to be Mlle. Lila Rossi, touched him. She was sharing his desk in the front, sitting inappropriately close, clutching his arm in a possessive manor, and ignored him when he asked her to let him go or give him space. All this was done in full view of Mme. Bustier, and she did nothing.
During the literature lesson, they were studying Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mlle. Rossi interrupted and began telling a story about being a descendant of Vlad the Impaler. A complete falsehood since Vlad’s only child had been killed as an infant. This was a fact that the teacher should have corrected or told the girl to pay attention to the lesson, but she did nothing. Allowing the girl to prattle on for close to 15 minutes before returning to the lesson.
The worst though, was when Mlle. Rossi, made another scene when she began complaining about how her leftknee was still hurting from when Marinette pushed her down the stairs. The other students proceeded to glare and speak harsh words about the girl. It was at this time that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng stood from her seat in the back and attempted to defend herself. Mme. Bustier did intervene this time, but she did not reprimanded the other students that were ganging up on the one girl. Instead, she reprimanded Marinette and told her that she was not setting a good example for the class. Then forced her to apologize to Lila for upsetting her. Blatant victim blaming, right in front of him, and the teacher had the nerve to smile at him as if to say that she had handled the situation.
Walters had written everything down, already deciding that he would need to call the Board at the first possible moment to alert them to the incompitent administrative practices of Damocles, as well as the toxic teaching methods of Bustier. It was now little wonder why this class had produced so many akumas. It was a miracle that there were any students left in the class that hadn’t been akumatized. But seeing as one student was clearly being bullied and the other was being sexually harassed, it likely wouldn’t be long.
He was just barely able to fit in the call and look over the CCTV footage before his meeting with Mme. Rossi in M. Damocles office. That had been interesting, to say the least. Before the meeting had even started, Mme. Rossi was voicing her worry about the amount of time that the school had been closed due to akuma attacks…
Oncethathad been cleared up, M. Damocles got to the matter at hand. Beginning with requesting information and doctors notes at her earliest convenience pertaining to her daughter’s injuries, disabilities, as well as requesting more information about her lying disease. Again, that had been a very interesting conversation that resulted in the woman yelling at Damocles in French and Italian about how incompetant he was and why hadn’t he gotten ahold of her sooner?
But the worst reaction came when Damocles told her about the day of the incident. They showed her the footage found of Lila, and yes it was Lila, stealing the answer sheet off of Mme. Bustier’s desk and then slip it into Marinette’s bag on her way back to her seat. Then the footage of Lila breaking into Marinette’s locker and planting the necklace. And finally, Lila smiling at Marinette before walking down the stairs and sitting on the ground before she started screaming.
By then, another inspector from the Board of Governors had arrived to assist in the situation that he had reported during his earlier phone call and the students had returned from lunch. Walters requested Mme. Bustier to join them and to bring Lila along. When the girl entered the office and saw her furious mother and principal, she paled immediately and started lying.
Even when Walters, Damocles, and her mother tore apart every one of her lies, she kept trying to turn things around and make herself a victim. And to Walters’ horror, Damocles was actually buying her lies! It was at that moment that he decided that the man had no right being a school administrator and would be put on leave, pending the end of his investigation and the Board of Governors decision.
Bustier attempted to side with Lila as well, claiming that the girl suffered from a disease and shouldn’t be punished. Completely ignoring that Mme. Rossi told her that her daughter suffered no such ‘disease’. The other inspector, Marchand, looked on in disgust before pulling out his phone and calling the Board of Governors right there, relaying his support of Walters’ recommendation against Damocles and Bustier.
Walters took charge of the situation, forcing Damocles out of his chair to take his seat. “Mme. Rossi, as an inspector of the Board of Governors, I must ask if you fully understand the situations that your daughter has caused?”
The woman took a deep breath before slowly letting it out, all the while retaining a firm grip on her daughter’s arm after she had attempted to flee the room earlier. “If you would, please go over everything from the top.” The woman requested, her voice a bit hoarse after yelling at the principal, the teacher, and her daughter.
Giving the woman a sympathetic nod, he flipped open the notebook and went over his notes while Marchand kept Damocles and Bustier quiet and standing in a corner. “I have personally observed your daughter disrupting class, bullying a student named Marinette Dupain-Cheng, lying to her peers, leading them to also bully Mlle. Dupain-Cheng, and sexually harassing another student who verbally asked her to stop. We have video evidence of her committing theft, harassing the same student I witnessed her bullying, framing that student for assault, as well as framing that student of theft and cheating. All that, as well as your testimony of her lying to the school administration about different injuries and illnesses, fraud in regards to changing your contact information, and four months of truancy.
“At this point, the school has no choice but to suspend Lila, pending an investigation to be completed by the Board of Governors,” he said, handing her the paperwork to sign, which she did right away. “At the time the investigation is complete, she will have the opportunity to plead her case to the Board. However, I want to make it clear that, from what I have seen, it is very likely that your daughter will be expelled.”
To her credit, Mme. Rossi held her head high as she nodded and handed back their copies of the suspension papers. “I suspected as much. However, I do request that a meeting be scheduled with Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s parents so that Lila may apologize in person. I also want her to apologize to the class and admit her lies to them so that there won’t be any backlash on that poor girl.”
Lila turned to her mother in a panic. “No, Mom! Please don’t make me-”
“YOUNG LADY, you are going to tell the class everything you lied about, apologize to that girl, and admit that you have been bullying her. Am I clear?” Walters was impressed that the girl simply nodded as she curled into herself before Mme. Rossi looked back to him. “I will not allow Lila to escape her punishment, that includes telling the truth to the people she has wronged.”
He nodded in understanding. “I’ll see about arranging a meeting. However, the suspension will be taking effect immediately, if you wish to have her confess to the class, I suggest doing so right now before school lets out.” Walters then turned to give the teacher a hard look that had her wilting under his gaze. “I’m sure Mme. Bustier would have no problem with that, I will also accompany you. M. Marchand, would you mind keeping an eye on M. Damocles?”
“Of course, I would like to word with him in private, myself.” He said, sending the man his own scathing look.
Mme. Bustier quietly escorted the Rossis and himself back to the classroom. The gym teacher, M. D’Argencourt had been watching over the class while Bustier had been in the meeting. Walters asked him to stay, and that they would only be there for a moment before turning to nod at the other teacher.
“Students, may I have your attention, please?” She waited a few seconds as the students put away what they were doing, likely hearing the tremor in the woman’s voice. “As you know, M. Walters, from the Board of Governors, has been sitting in with us today. It has been brought to my attention that one of our students has not been honest with us and has been causing a fair amount of trouble.”
Looking back at the girl and her mother, Mme. Rossi forced her daughter to step forward while keeping a hand on her shoulder. At first, she didn’t say anything. Then her mother leaned forward to whisper something in her ear, causing her to slump and tears to fall down her cheeks. “I-I lied, about everything. *sniffle* I don’t know any celebrities. I’ve never helped charities or been to Achu. *sniffle* I don’t have tinnitus, arthritis, or anything like that. I’m not Ladybug’s best friend and I’m not related to Vlad the Impaler. And-and…”
“And…” Mme Rossi said in a forceful tone, ignoring the stunned looks they were receiving from the class. Lila tucked her chin to her chest, muttering the rest of her confession under her breath. But her mother wasn’t going to allow that. “Speak up so everyone can hear you, unless you want to be grounded for twice as long with no allowance at all.”
The girl’s hands fisted at her side as she spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “Marinette never bullied me. I-I bullied her. I told her that I would take her friends from her. I pl-planted the answer sheet in her bag. *sob* I put my necklace in-in her locker. She never pushed me down the stairs either, I faked it to get her expelled.”
“Andwhydid you do all of this to that girl, Lila?” Her mother asked, making it clear that she had to answer.
“Be-because sh-she knew that I was lying *sob hiccup sob* and I wanted her gone.”
“And what do you have to say to Marinette?”
Lila lifted her chin, glaring dangerously at the girl sitting in the back. “Sorry,” she snapped.
Mme. Bustier looked up at the girl, giving her a kind smile. “And do you accept her apology, Marinette?”
That really pissed him off, that woman had no right to put that girl on the spot after Rossi had done everything in her power to ruin that girl’s life. Before she could say anything, Walters stepped in front of Bustier. “Marinette, you are under no obligation to accept her apology, that is completely up to you.” Waiting a moment he saw the absolute relief on the girl’s face before quietly shaking her head and settling back in her chair.
Walters then instructed M. D’Argencourt to continue with the class while he escorted Bustier back to the office while Mme. Rossi took her daughter home.
There was still a lot to do in this school, it was clear to him that the two educators, and he used that term loosely, needed to go. There was paperwork to fill out, more CCTV footage to go over, interviews with the students of Bustier’s class, and calls needed to be made to the Dupain-Chengs and the Agrestes about Lila Rossi and what she’d done to their children. The investigation literally had weeks of work to do, but it had to be done. But Walters knew, by the time they were done cleaning house, the students and school would be better off for it.
~oOo~ Four Weeks Later ~oOo~
Walters was working on the last of the paperwork having to do with the Francois-Dupont College debacle, greatly relieved that it was over.
Lila Rossi had been officially expelled after the investigation for bullying, harassment, theft, sexual harassment, cheating, destruction of property, fraud, and truancy. During her trial before the Board, the Dupain-Cheng family had been present and she had been forced to apologize to them for what she had done to her daughter. From her file, he saw that the Dupain-Chengs, as well as the Agreste family, had placed restraining orders on the girl. The Agreste family were also pressing charges for sexual harassment. Mme. Rossi had mentioned a reformatory school for delinquent children in Italy, stating that she had already enrolled her daughter, despite the outcome of the Board’s decision. He was glad that the woman was taking everything in stride and seemed to be doing the right thing.
The investigation into M. Damocles had uncovered even more skeletons than Walters had expected. Negligence and abuse of power, those were easily confirmed. They also uncovered proof of favoritism, taking bribes to ensure that certain students were not punished for offenses or that they passed their classes, despite failing grades. But the nail in the coffin was when Walters tracked down the money that was supposed to go to upgrading the lockers, Damocles had embezzled it to fund his vigilante superhero activities. He had officially been fired and blacklisted from ever working for the educational system or any branch of the government. The new principal was a vice principal from another school, well versed in bullying situations and had degrees in accounting as well as education. She would be going over all the books to see exactly how much money Damocles had embezzled over the years, so the Board of Governors would be able to sue for the proper amount of restitutions.
The issue of Mme. Bustier turned out to be an interesting matter. While looking into her qualifications, it had been revealed that her teaching license had been suspended beforeshe had been hired by Damocles to teach at the school. Not trusting her file, Walters contacted her previous school and found out that they had fired her for much of the same reasons he had put her on leave. She had enabled bullies, blamed the victims, and pressured her “star pupil” to take on the work of a teaching assistant. When that same student complained and refused to help anymore, Bustier had told his parents that the boy was a troublemaker, refused to follow instruction, and was talking back. The boy had insisted on talking to the principal, who had cleared things up with the student and his parents. Bustier had been fired for her behavior and her license suspended until she completed anti-bullying classes, which she never attended. She simply applied to a new school, where the principal didn’t look too closely at her paperwork, and resumed her toxic teaching methods. Because of this; Bustier had been fired, blacklisted from ever teaching again, as well as arrested for teaching without a license.
The whole of Bustier’s class had been assigned counselling sessions for the foreseeable future until the toxic habits that the teacher had instilled in the class could be rectified. Though Walters was pleased to see that there seemed to be progress, as none of the students had been akumatized since the day he had gone to the school. A new record for time between akumatizations. The substitute that had been hired was stern, well versed in squashing bullying habits, but was sympathetic to the victims. That was what that class needed for the time until the Board could find a suitable, permanent replacement.
All in all, Walters felt that he had done his job with investigating the Dupain-Cheng expulsion, and was happy to hear that the girl was doing much better. Her record had been cleared, her grades were still at the top of the class, and she had given the Board a basket of baked goods on the day of Lila’s trial, which had been like eating little bites of heaven. She had even given him a custom notebook cover, that he was pretty sure she made herself, and a matching pen. It was a very kind gift, and might have thought it was a bribe if anyone else had given it to him, but he could tell that she was just grateful to him for listening to her and making her school life better.
This story was inspired by the idea of a what would happen if a civilian tried to go after Ladybug or Chat Noir’s miraculous and it got caught on video. Origially, I was going to have Alya be the one recording, but I decided someone outside of the Akuma Class needed some love. Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!!
Aurore Borell considered herself a dedicated weather girl and journalist. She paid attention to leads, always checked her sources, listened to witnesses after akuma battles, and always minded her safety when there was an attack. The akuma of the day was a boy from her school, she didn’t know him personally but he was going by the name Stillshot. Aurore had heard on the news that he had the ability to freeze people in place if he took your picture.
The battle had moved close to where she lived and she hadn’t felt safe in her home, seeing as the akuma was a street level type and she lived in a lower apartment with her parents. So, she had moved to the roof of her apartment building with her phone to record everything she could see from her vantage point.
And boy, did she see a lot.
Ladybug and Chat Noir were barely keeping clear of the beams that were shooting from the camera in Stillshot’s hands. They were even more encumbered because they were carrying a civilian around with them. Aurore recognized her as Lila Rossi, another student from her school. She didn’t know her well, but was pretty sure that the girl was a total liar. She’d once heard her say that she used to be a junior weather girl in Italy, which was admittedly impressive. But when Aurore looked her up, she couldn’t find a single news or radio station that ever listed her as an employee, intern, or even a volunteer; so she was pretty sure that it was a total lie.
Looking down, her phone in hand, she could see Stillshot shouting at the two heroes for protecting the girl. To her surprise, Ladybug and Chat Noir didn’t look thrilled by the situation either, but were still doing their best to protect her. When Ladybug called for her Lucky Charm and got a can of hairspray, Aurore was excited to see how the heroes would use it to save the day.
Lila was quickly tossed to the side, Chat Noir used his Cataclysm to destroy the top spray button, and then Ladybug chucked the can at the akuma. Hairspray practically exploded all over him, covering his lens with a thick coat of the sticky substance and making it impossible for the camera to focus enough to take a picture. Then the yo-yo shot at the camera, breaking the lens and freeing the little purple butterfly to be caught and purified.
Seeing the magical ladybugs swarm around the city always made Aurore smile. So much so that she almost missed Ladybug and Chat Noir jumping over her roof and landing on the building next to hers. It was a story lower than her apartment building, which gave her a good vantage point to look over at them. It was a bit surprising to see that they had brought Lila with them… and they appeared anything but happy with the girl.
“Thank you so much for saving me! I was so scared, and I have no idea why he was coming after me-”
“Will you stop lying already? There’s no one here to show off for.” Ladybug snapped at the girl, surprising both Lila and Aurore. “We know that you told that poor boy that you would get him a personal interview with Gabriel Agreste to become one of his photographers, and he believed you because you’re a Gabrielmodel. Then when he went to the mansion, at the time you told him to, he was arrested for trespassing!”
Chat Noir put a hand on his partner’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, but he didn’t look any happier. “This has got to stop, Lila. We’ve heard about all the things you’ve been doing; lying about having disabilities, sexually harassing Adrien Agreste, getting Marinette Dupain-Cheng expelled from school because she called you out on your lies! Do you not care that your lies are hurting people?”
The facade that Lila had been wearing at first faded into a cruel scowl that caused a cold shiver to crawl down Aurore’s back.
“Do I look like I care? I only tell people what they want to hear. If they’re stupid enough to believe me, then that’s their own fault.”
“And what about the danger you’ve put your family in?” Ladybug asked, seeming almost desperate. “What if Hawkmoth sees that fake interview on the Ladyblog of you claiming to be my best friend? He’ll target you or your family, just to get leverage to get out miraculous!”
Lila let out a manic laugh before stepping closer to Ladybug. “Like I would care about that? If anything, I would gladly help him if it meant taking you down!”
That’s when the girl lunged at the red and black spotted hero, her hands reaching for her ears as Ladybug was knocked back onto the roof in surprise. But before she could rip the jewels from her earlobes, Chat Noir had grabbed Lila by the back of her jacket and flung the girl away from his partner. The italian landed hard on her shoulder and Aurore could see scrapes on her cheek and knees from the impact as Chat helped Ladybug to her feet and checked her ears to make sure her miraculous were still in place.
Aurore made doubly sure that she was out of sight as she kept recording, barely believing that someone would dare try to take Ladybug’s earrings while knowing what would happen to Paris and its people without Ladybug. Lila’s smile reminded her of a feral animal as she stood up. “Now I’ll make both of you regret ever challenging me! Everyone saw you carrying me away, I’ll tell everyone that you beat me up.”
“And why would we even do that?” Chat snapped at her.
“I’ll think of something,” she continued to grin. “A few tears, tear my clothes a bit more, you’ve already given me a few marks to make it more believable. By the time I’m done with the two of you, you’ll be just as infamous as Hawkmoth.”
Chat and Ladybug were alerted by their miraculous that they were down to their last minute and had no choice but to flee, glaring at the girl before jumping away. Aurore continued to record as Lila grabbed the sleeve of her jacket and ripped it at the shoulder, then slapped herself across the face to leave nail marks on her right cheek, opposite of the scrape on the left . She paced around for a moment, muttering to herself before she began crying.
“I don’t know why they did it. *sob* They carried me to the roof, I thought it was to make sure I was alright, but then they started blaming me for the akuma, said that they should have just let it have me and then they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore.*hicup-sob-hicup*I tried to get away but Ladybug slapped-” she stopped crying suddenly, giving her head a shake “No, I can do better than that.” Then she started crying again “I tried to get away, but Chat Noir grabbed me and threw me down, it hurt so bad. Then Ladybug slapped me and said that if she ever saw me again, she’d do worse than just scare me. Chat Noir even said he would gladly use his Cataclysm on me. Please, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!”
Then Lila’s face went back to that manic look that gave Aurore the creeps before skipping over to the fire escape and began climbing down. She stopped recording as soon as the girl was out of sight and then played the recording back. She’d never been so relieved to have a good quality phone, the camera had caught everything that happened and picked up every word that was spoken.
She was nearly in a state of panic, indignation, and urgency as she raced inside and down the stairs, calling her producer at KIDZ+ news to call an emergency meeting and get some police there as well. The producer sounded skeptical at first, but when Aurore went on to say that she had proof of someone that was not akumatized trying to steal Ladybug’s earrings, that got her moving.
~oOo~
The entire upper level staff of KIDZ+ and TVi News were present when Aurore arrived. Officer Roger Raincompix had come, along with Mayor Bourgeois. They had been in a meeting when Roger received the call and the mayor insisted on coming, saying that if someone was threatening the heroes of Paris, he wanted to be in the know. She began playing her recording from the beginning, attempting to prove how recent it had been made and that she’d of had no time to doctor the footage. When it came to the footage from the roof… the reaction to her recording had been immediate and about what she had expected; shock, horror, fear, and disgust at the girl’s actions.
“Are you sure this recording is accurate?” Officer Roger asked, looking like he was about to be sick.
“I’m sure,” she said before sliding it towards him. “Check it, put it through every test you can think of to see if it’s authentic. I recorded that video from the roof of my building, it was right by where the akuma battle ended. I’ll give you my address so you can make sure it’s right.”
“I can also say, from a preliminary look, that I didn’t see any cuts, skips, or changes in color or texture which would indicate that this recording has been altered.” Nadja Chamack stated as she restarted the video and looked it over with a more critical eye. “At this point, I’d say that this is authentic, but I agree that we’ll want to run some tests to be absolutely sure before putting in on the news.”
Just then, Roger’s phone rang. He mentioned that it was the station and that he had to answer it. Stepping away, Aurore watched his back go stiff and his brows crease into a deep scowl. “I understand. Are her parents present?” Another pause and he nodded. “Put her in a private interrogation room, and don’t let her talk to anyone else. Tell her that we cannot do anything or properly take her statement unless she has a guardian present. Do what you can to keep her at the station and her mother present. I’ll be in touch very soon.”
Hanging up his phone, he turned back to the group. “Apparently, a Mlle. Lila Rossi has just come to the police station claiming that she was assaulted by Ladybug and Chat Noir. Her injuries that Officer Laurent told me, match the ones that were shown in the video.” He then looked to the President of TVi News. “How long will it take your people to inspect the recording?”
“Since it hasn’t been uploaded to any social media sites and we have the date, location, the phone that recorded the video, and the person who recorded it; not long, maybe a few hours.” She glanced at the clock, reading 11:27am before looking back at Officer Roger. “It could be ready and verified in time for the 6 o’clock news tonight.”
“Get started,” Roger nodded, “I’ll be sending a few of my people from our tech division to observe and double check the work. Once it has been verified, I want copies made for evidence.”
“I will also need a copy,” Mayor Bourgeois spoke up, finally finding his voice after the shock of the video. “If I’m not mistaken Mme. Rossi is employed by the Italian Embassy, meaning this could result in an international incident. If this turns out to be true, I will not allow this horrid girl to remain in my city or to ever set foot on French soil again.”
The TVi President nodded, writing down notes while Officer Roger called his best tech people from the station to drop whatever they were doing and come to the TVi station immediately. Then he turned to Aurore, took her statement, her address, and had her send him a copy of the recording before calling another one of his officers to meet him at that address to compare the video to the scene. As well as sending officers to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery and the Agreste Mansion to get corroborating statements.
~oOo~
Lila was beginning to get tired, she had been fake crying for hours and really wanted to go home and take a nap. It had become even more taxing when she was forced to call her mother to the station or else the police wouldn’t be able to take her statement. At least her mother had bought her story hook, line, and sinker and was already talking about filing charges against the city of Paris for allowing a couple of vigilante teenagers to run around and hurt her daughter.
It was just after 5pm when Officer Roger, Sabrina’s dad, entered the interrogation room along with Officer Laurent. The younger officer had taken her statement not long after her mother arrived at the station but had told them that, due to the serious accusations being made, it would be best to take this up the chain of command to make sure that nothing was overlooked. That had made Lila nervous at first, but she was confident that they would believe her. After all, she was the one that had been hurt and Ladybug and Chat Noir were nowhere in sight to contradict her story.
“Hello Mme. and Mlle. Rossi, I’m Officer Roger. I want you to tell me what happened.” He said as he placed his tablet and a notebook on the table and pulled out a pen.
“Do I have to do this again? Just thinking about what they did scares me.” Lila squeezed her eyes shut as she pinched her inner thigh to draw tears. Her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulder in comfort, eating it up.
“I understand that this must be difficult, but I need to hear your statement.”
Giving a shaky nod, Lila went into her story again, making sure that her voice trembled a bit and to keep her shoulders hunched. “I don’t know why they did it. *sob* They carried me to the roof, I thought it was to make sure I was alright, but then they started blaming me for the akuma, said that they should have just let it have me and then they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. *hicup-sob-hicup* I tried to get away, but Chat Noir grabbed me and threw me down, he even kicked me. It hurt so bad. Then Ladybug slapped me when I was trying to get up and then grabbed my face, it felt like she was going to crush my chin. She said that if she ever saw me again, she’d do worse than just scare me. Chat Noir even said he would gladly use his Cataclysm on me. Please, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!”
Officer Roger nodded as he continued to write everything down. “And you’re willing to testify to this in a court of law?”
Mme. Greta Rossi was already nodding to the affirmative. “Yes, those incompitent vigilantes are going to pay for hurting my daughter. I want to file lawsuits against them for assault and intimidation.”
Roger nodded in understanding but then gave Mme. Rossi a curious look. “I understand that you are upset, but I don’t see how Ladybug and Chat Noir could be labeled as incompitent. They have always defeated the akumas sent by Hawkmoth.”
“That’s not true, my daughter’s school was closed for months, months, because those two couldn’t beat the principal of her school after he was akumatized and damaged the school.”
He blinked at her. “Mme. Rossi, I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but our daughters are enrolled in the same school and attend the same class. There have been days when an akuma will cause the school to open a bit late or close early, but it has never been closed for months. And as for M. Damocles being akumatized, that occurred after school hours, with the majority of the battle taking place off of school grounds, and he was returned to normal before the end of the night. It did not interrupt the school at all.”
Hearing this, Mme. Rossi’s mouth dropped open before turning to look at her daughter, who had gone suspiciously quiet and was ducking down a bit in her chair.
“And as for the lawsuits that you wish to file, you should be made aware that there lawsuits being filed against your daughter by three different parties for assault, slander, intimidation, sexual harassment, and a few other charges.”
“WHAT!?”
“Yes, Madame. Some of those charges are being filed by the city of Paris, itself.”
“How dare you!” Mme. Rossi yelled as she stood so quickly that she knocked her chair backwards onto the floor. “My daughter was assaulted by those two and the city has the nerve to blame Lila? I won’t stand for this!”
Officer Roger stayed calm as he turned on his tablet and played the video he’d queued up. As Mme. Rossi watched the video, her anger ebbed away into surprise at the things the two heroes said and how Lila didn’t deny it; then shock when Lila attacked Ladybug for her earrings only to see that she was injured because Chat Noir had protected his partner; back to anger as she watched her daughter rip her clothes, scratch her own face, and then practice the lines she had told the police, almost word for word. Officer Laurent was forced to come around the table to steady Greta before righting her chair so she could sit down.
“For the record, Mme. Rossi, multiple people have inspected this recording, including TVi News and members of the Paris Police Department, and have come to the conclusion that it is authentic. No tampering whatsoever. Your daughter assaulted Ladybug in an attempt to steal her miraculous, which is designated as a terrorist act as she and Chat Noir are the defenders of Paris, and currently our best defense against the known terrorist, Hawkmoth.”
Lila had been silent since giving her statement again, she hadn’t expected her mother talking about the school being closed or Officer Roger destroying that lie so easily, but that was something she might have been able to recover from if given the chance. But now with that recording, actual hard evidence that proved that she’d been lying, had attacked Ladybug, and had faked her injuries and lied to the police… there was hardly a single thin straw for her to grab at, but she had to try.
Lila turned up the tears as she desperately gripped her mother’s arm. “Mom, you don’t actually believe them, do you? You know I would never do the things they’re saying I did. That video has to be a fake! Please, you have to believe me!”
To her dismay, her mother removed her grip on her arm, stood from her chair, and began pacing the room. “Who are the other parties that are filing lawsuits against her?”
“Mom!”
“Be quiet!” Mme. Rossi snapped at her daughter, glad that her mouth snapped shut before slumping lower in her seat. “Who else has she hurt?”
“M. Agreste is planning on filing lawsuits for sexual harassment and slander. The Dupain-Chengs are filing lawsuits for slander, intimidation, and harassment. I have looked into the school and found that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was indeed expelled after your daughter accused her of assault and theft, but later recanted her story while claiming that she suffered from a disease that makes her lie uncontrollably. Mlle. Dupain-Cheng also claims that your daughter has been bullying her by spreading lies and rumors about her to isolate her from her friends.”
“She’s lying! Marinette’s the one that’s been bullying me!”
“I SAID BE QUIET!”
Lila jumped in her chair that time before cowering, she’d never seen her mother this angry before. It was actually kind of scary, but even worse… she was sure that her mother wasn’t going to support her or back up her lies. She was on her own.
~oOo~
When the news broke an hour later, Mme. Rossi had never been more humiliated in her life. The Embassy had called her as well, saying that she would be on leave pending an investigation, meaning that she would be lucky to still have her job by the end of the week. After leaving her daughter at the police station to face the charges against her, Greta had made a beeline for the school, demanding to know why they had never contacted her about the truancy, the disabilities, or her daughter’s supposed tumble down the stairs. The teacher and principal had given her less than satisfactory answers like “Lila said you were busy and we didn’t want to disturb you” and “she promised that she would get us those doctors notes”. She was on the phone with the Board of Governors before she was off the property. Since they had also seen the news, she could easily say that they were almost as upset as she was and the two incompitent educators would be lucky if they were still employed at the end of the week.
The visit to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery was even more enlightening. From the stories Lila had told her during the past few months, she expected Marinette to be cold, callous, and rude. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Sabine Cheng had invited her up to the livingroom to speak and Marinette soon joined them. She was a shy but sweet girl that offered to get her a glass of water and whatever she would like from the bakery. To be honest, she had wanted to try the pastries from the shop months ago, but had made the mistake of believing her daughter when she said that they were terrible. So she asked for a berry scone and Marinette gave a kind smile before going down stairs and coming back up with the scone, a few different macaroons, a croissant, and a chocolate chip cookie.
When Mme. Rossi looked at her in surprise, Marinette gave her a kind smile. “You look upset, I thought having a variety of sweets might help cheer you up.”
The sincerity on the girl’s face nearly brought tears to her eyes. She couldn’t believe that her daughter had been tormenting this sweet girl just because she had called her out on her lies. She asked the girl honestly, what her daughter had done to her. And although hesitant, Marinette told her everything; from the threats and lies, to acting like she had been pushed down the stairs and planting her necklace in Marinette’s locker; if it could even be called that since it didn’t lock.
After that, Marinette asked to be excused and Greta proceeded to speak with Sabine. She admitted that she’d had no knowledge as to what Lila had been up to, that the school had never contacted her about any of the incidents, she had already filed a complaint with the Board of Governors, and recommended that they do the same. Despite Lila’s terrible treatment of Marinette, Sabine accepted the advice with gratitude but informed her that they would still be filing the lawsuits against Lila. Greta stated that she hadn’t come to change their minds, but to hear Marinette’s side of the story.
Just before she left, Marinette hurried down the stairs with a small white silk square with royal purple flowered embroidery. In one corner, the initials G.R. were stitched in elegant script and looked to be hand sewn. “It’s a handkerchief, my way of saying ‘thank you’ for hearing me out. Other than my parents and the police officers that came by this morning, you were the first person to really listen to what I had to say about Lila. Thank you.”
Not bothering to hold back tears this time, Greta accepted the gift and asked the girl for a hug, which she easily gave. Then turning to Sabine, she told her. “You are wonderful parents, I am so sorry that my daughter has put you through so much. I just hope after this, she’ll learn that actions have consequences.”
After that, Greta jumped in a cab and made her way over to the Agreste Mansion. This was a completely different experience compared to the Dupain-Chengs. She never actually spoke to Gabriel Agreste, only Adrien and Gabriel’s assistant Nathalie. Adrien explained that he discovered that Lila was lying on the first day when she claimed to be best friends with Ladybug and the descendant of the wielder of Fox Miraculous. That was when Ladybug had shown up and chastised her for lying about her. Adrien agreed due to the danger of tempting Hawkmoth.
He went on to say how Lila claimed that she was traveling the world with her mother and was friends with all sorts of celebrities. If Mme. Rossi wanted a more complete list of her lies, to check out the Ladyblog, as she had done several interviews. Adrien also went on to talk about how during their first photoshoot together, Lila wouldn’t keep her hands off of him and it made him uncomfortable. Lila had told him that unless he wanted Marinette to suffer even more, he’d stop complaining.
When Greta mentioned that she was told that the photoshoot was a relationship announcement between the two teens, and that she’d had no idea that she was a Gabriel model, Nathalie pulled up Lila’s contract on her tablet. The one that Greta had supposedly signed to grant her underaged daughter permission to work as a model. Mme. Rossi told the assistant at a glance that it wasn’t her signature and Lila had never shown her any such paperwork. To which Nathalie informed her that Gabriel would also be adding forgery and fraud to the list of charges being filed against her daughter, Greta simply nodded in acceptance. After all, forgery and fraud weren’t nearly as bad as assault, sexual harassment, or terrorism.
~oOo~
When her daughter was brought to trial two weeks later, Greta Rossi sat dutifully behind her daughter but refused to testify on her behalf, not that it would have helped her. Between all the charges that were filed against her by the city of Paris, the Agreste family, the Dupain-Cheng family, and the investigation into the school and Lila’s actions by the Board of Governors; her daughter had no leg to stand on. She also made the mistake of lying to the judge on the first day and committing perjury, which only added to the charges.
The trial lasted for three days due to all the evidence and testimonies brought against her and the fact that Lila was the daughter of a diplomat. However, the evidence was overwhelming and the Italian government had already revoked any immunity that Lila might have had. The jury found her guilty and the judge declared that the sentencing would lie in the domain of the Italian government. Although it was decided that Lila would not be permitted to return to France.
Mme. Rossi made it clear to the court that she was already preparing to send her daughter to a juvenile corrections center in Italy, where she would remain until her 18th birthday and the courts would decide further sentencing.
Lila had screamed at her mother, accusing her of betraying her only daughter and that she was not her mother anymore. She had also hissed and attempted to attack Marinette for “ruining her life because she couldn’t keep her nose out of her business” and “why couldn’t you have just killed yourself”. Greta did her best to ignore the cruel words, but found herself pulling out the handkerchief that Marinette had given her. It was a small comfort, but it was more than what she deserved after Lila had hurt so many people.
Some fan art of this ficby@ehlihr where Adrien is a professor in New York and has an adopted daughter and also hasn’t talked to LB in decades. I’m always a hoe for Mari/Adrien reconnection stories and even though this one ends beforehand I simply CANNOT help myself from imagining the next part like a total dweeb. ALSO I’m obsessed with dad bodrien
Ladynoire and Mister Bug! Or as I’ve renamed them Blue-Bell and Golden-Bug! I was originally gonna keep the original names, but I realised they no longer suited their new designs.
I hate canon Ladynoire’s design. I‘m sorry but I do. I think it’s because I’m tired of Marinette’s outfits all being the same skin tight catsuit with different haircuts. Where the variety? Chat Noir’s suit is really good because it’s segmented. Ladynoir honestly could be renamed Lady Gray, since they had to make her suit grey so she wouldn’t become an amorphis black void. It’s so boring. And why the green accents? Green just doesn’t suit her. Go with blue like her eyes, canon!
So she’s the most changed. I actually love her braid, but it doesn’t work in 3D. So she’s getting some Anime inspired drill buns for cat ears. My idea is for Chat Noir and Blue Bell to both be black cats, but Chat Noir is a short haired slinky cat while Blue Bell is a fluffy cat. So she has ruffles and a thicker tail cape. If they both have to be Black Cats, I still want them to be a variety of black cats.
Golden Bug. No it’s not a Tikki and Pollen unification. It’s just Tikki. I quite like canon Mister Bug, even if it’s just Chat Noir recoloured. It’s not that bad. And I didn’t want to make a couple of tiny changes. I wanted to go big. And I remembered that yellow Ladybugs exist, I had to do it. Plus in the rewrite they briefly exchange Miraculous around the time the love square is reverse. And guess what yellow Ladybug’s represent? A NEW LOVE. It’s perfect.
I got some help for Golden Bug! @gale-gentlepenguin gave some helpful critiques for his hair (it was originally gonna be a royal blue). And @hades-999 for the weapon suggestion. They reminded me of some concept art for Ladybug where she creates a staff from the yo-yo. Since my Chat Noir requires a cane to walk, it fits him perfectly. And he’s yet again charmed that his weapon acknowledges and accommodates for him. But imma be real I don’t think he’d bother walking when he can fly. Just sayin’. He’s going to be so disappointed when he gets his ring back. And again I wonder if Tikki turns yellow to match her holder? I think so. And Plagg’s eyes would turn blue to match Blue Bell.
Blue Bell is so freaking adorable, but I guess that is to be expected form Marinette.
The fact that Marinette has wrapping paper all over her windows now really shows that she’s trying…okay…she’s trying.
From what I’ve gathered from this teaser so far, this episode really seems to be exploring Marinette’s struggles as a guardian: babysitting the kwamis, trying to hide them from the outside world, keeping Fu’s “past life” a secret and as seen…it seems that Su-Han will appear this episode itself. She’s trying so much.
I’m so proud yet I feel like crying at the same time.
