Robin's Angel

Chapter Thirty One - Crumbling

Having been up at three in the morning, Marinette had thought she deserved a little break. But the world decided otherwise because not even a few hours after she collapsed on the bed in her and Chloe's hotel room she was being shaken awake by a similarly exhausted looking Chloe.

"Adrien woke me up. The class is going to Gotham Academy today and if I have to suffer through this, then so do you." There was no room for argument in her tone, but Marinette still didn't move, only giving Chloe a blank stare. "And I'll buy you coffee from the cafe next door," she conceded.

Marinette sluggishly got up, moving towards the bathroom while Chloe muttered under her breath about her coffee addiction, but Marinette paid it no mind.

Knowing that Marinette was basically a zombie at this point, she opened her purse and packed a few extra things, knowing she was going to need them throughout the day.

While the two girls finished getting ready, Adrien and Nino had just walked back from the cafe with a couple drink trays in hand. Unfortunately, most of their class, including Lila, were also waiting in the lobby.

"Awe, Adrikins, that's so sweet! You went out of your way just to get me my favorite drink! Oh, you're just the sweetest!" Lila loudly declared, grabbing the attention of the entire lobby. She latched on to Adrien's arm, ignoring how he tried to shake her off and dug her nails into him.

Lila knew she had Adrien's father in her back pocket, even after that stupid photoshoot incident she knew still had some pull left. She could get him to drop the restraining order after the media had calmed down.

"Ew, get off," was all Adrien got to say to Lila before she was shoved aside by an exhausted coffee addict.

Lila huffed and automatically turned to glare at whoever shoved her off Adrien. Surprised, she saw Marinette now standing beside Adrien. Shoving down her triumphant smirk, she turned on her tears, making her eyes watery and then widening them to make her look innocent.

"Marinette, why would you do that? I was just trying to thank Adrien for getting me my drink. Are you so jealous that you won't even let me near him anymore? I know we're not friends, but I thought we could at least get along."

Lila waited for Marinette to respond, but it seemed Marinette wasn't even going to acknowledge her existence. In fact, now that she looked at the class, they didn't really seem all that surprised by what happened, they just looked resigned.

Alya offered Lila a hand and pulled her onto her feet, "Sorry girl, I should've warned you, Marinette gets really aggressive if someone gets in the way of her coffee. It's nothing personal, really."

Lila looked back at the others and they had actually backed far away from where Marinette was standing. What the Hell?

"What do you mean, Alya?"

"Sorry Lila, it's best you don't know. We all agreed never to talk about that day again. It was a little traumatizing for all of us." Lila's group of sheep all nodded solemnly at Alya's words.

That just made Lila want to know even more! But when Lila saw the haunted look in some of their eyes, she knew that they would be more likely to burst out crying than tell her what happened if she pushed. What exactly did Dupain-Cheng do to cause that?!

When Lila first entered this class, she had assessed all of them and had deemed the tiny girl a non-threat. Was that a mistake?

Marinette shifted her gaze fixedly between Adrien and Nino, both of which looked frozen, like they were staring at a snake that could decide to strike at them at any moment.