A Ladybug's Wrath

Three

For the first time in years Marinette was up before her first alarm went off. She stretched her arms above her head and woke up her lethargic muscles. She took her time getting ready with a smile on her face, taking extra care with her appearance. When she looked in the mirror her makeup looked the same, but if you looked closer you'd see it was a little sharper than usual.

She took her giant binder of class president duties and plopped it into her school bag, her smile only growing wider at the thought of what she was about to do. She practically skipped out of the bakery, her parents watching her almost incredulously seeing that she was on time for once.

Marinette paused before she reached the school so that she could mask her emotions. This would be her first day back from almost being expelled and nobody really knew what happened yet, so she'll have to play this right. She can't look even remotely guilty or people would think she actually did something to get expelled and she couldn't look overly cheerful because that would set off alarms with Lila.

She slowed her pace to a moderate one and allowed a small smile onto her face like it was just any other day to her. Let the game begin.

She walked up the stairs and made her way to the classroom, pretending she didn't notice as a few classmates looked at her in shock that she showed up before the bell. She walked by all of them, pretending she didn't see any of them.

Marinette walked in the classroom and walked straight to the back of the room and sat down in her seat, ignoring her jaw-dropped teacher.

3...

2...

1...

Marinette counted down in her head mentally and when she reached zero Alya came storming in, just as she predicted, leading the charge as the class came right to her, excluding Lila, Chloe and Adrien, who apparently hadn't arrived yet.

"Girl! What happened last Friday? People were saying you'd been expelled or something!"

Ah, Lila must not be here yet to spread her stories, she must've wanted to do that in person, how unfortunate for her.

"I'm so sorry Alya, I've been working in the bakery all weekend, I haven't had any time to text you what happened." She looked at Alya through wide guilty eyes, gazing up at her through her eyelashes. She watched Alya visibly lose her steam and soften at her apology.

"As for what happened on Friday," Marinette paused to draw the rest of the class in, "Lila had a bit of an incident. I can't really say much, just because I don't want to violate Lila's privacy. I can tell you that a medical issue of Lila's started acting up and led to a big misunderstanding. It honestly explains so much about her and now that we've updated Lila's medical history I don't think there will be any more misunderstandings."

Marinette made sure her tone was hopeful and that she smiled tentatively. Adrien had texted her about what he had done to get Lila to bring her back to school, so she knew all about LIla's little "lying disease." Madam Bustier looked at her with clear approval in her eyes and it made Marinette want to roll her eyes. She always knew her teacher enabled bullies and didn't like involving herself in the classroom dynamics, especially with how she enabled Chloe's behavior all these years instead of correcting it, but this was something else.

"Does that mean you're done fighting with Lila?" Alya's smile widened, clearly only focusing on the part she wanted to hear. It made Marinette's heart ache, but instead of showing it she gave a tentative smile and a small nod.

"That's great! We were so worried that Lila spending so much time with Adrien doing photoshoots might be blinding you. I'm so glad you've come around!"