Marinette Dupain-Cheng was done. Lila Rossi had held up on her promise to steal Marinette’s friends, and now the French girl was all alone. No one would talk to her anymore, and why would they? The pathological liar and convinced them all that Marinette was just a jealous, self-absorbed bully. Lila was bad for lying, but no one could deny that she was good at it.
It hadn’t even taken that long for her friends to turn on her. Adrien, surprisingly, was the first one to go by hopping aboard the train bound for the high road. Then went Chloé and Sabrina, being fooled by Lila’s manipulations that once again revolves around her connections to Ladybug. Of course, Ivan and Mylène weren’t far behind, what, with Lila bragging about all the charities she participated in. Max and Kim and even Alix were more subtle with multiple things persuading them to side with Lila. Rose was swayed with talk of Prince Ali, and Juleka would follow Rose to the ends of the Earth if it meant getting to see her smile. Nathaniel was convinced by Alix, though it took a difficult amount of time to turn him against Marinette. But, what struck the raven-haired girl the most was the betrayal of Alya and, subsequently, Nino. She had been blinded by her unjustified faith in her supposed best friend, and thus didn’t allow herself to realize until it was too late that Lila had convinced the reporter that Marinette was useless and the brunette could do so much more for her. Nino automatically agreed with Alya, turning his back on Marinette without Lila even having to say anything to him.
They exiled her to the back of the room, no one talking to her and some even glaring, as if she were worse than Hawkmoth. Had she not done everything for them? Had she not done so many things that they wholeheartedly took advantage of with grins? Had they not just been referring to her as their everyday-Ladybug? Where was that love and appreciation now? It was as if her years of hard work and selfless dedication to helping and supporting her friends were nothing more than a mirage created by the wicked Volpina herself.
Marinette didn’t know what hurt more: that her friends were so quick to replace her or that Lila could have been easily debunked had they just looked it up. But they didn’t look it up. They didn’t look any of it up. Because they didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Marinette was filled without doubt that they had actually jumped at the opportunity to ditch her and that they had all been itching for a reason to do so.
Tikki solemnly helped Marinette take the pictures of her ex-friends down off the walls of the teen’s room, but she refused to go up and watch as Marinette placed the small trash bin on the floor of her balcony and dropped a lit match into the open metal container, lighting the pictures aflame as she grimaced at the flickers. She let the smoke choke her until her eyes were watering, though she didn’t know if it was from the carbon monoxide or from emotional pain. She didn’t snuff out the fire, instead leaving it to burn as she went back inside.
She was mad, and it felt good to be mad after suppressing her feelings for the sake of people who she now knew wouldn’t do the same. After the numbness of isolation, the fire in her chest burned brighter than the memories. After her pillow going weeks without being dry, it felt good to lay alone with her thoughts and not feel the need to dampen it once again. When her hands balled into fists, she loved the feeling of her nails digging into her palms, teasing at the skin and threatening to tear it. And, oh how she loved it when she got to glare back at her classmates, to be able to not have to worry about being nice and instead displaying exactly how she felt. It felt amazing. The feeling was just plain miraculous.
Now, there’s something that very, very few people know about Marinette Dupain-Cheng: if she so chooses, then she can be pettier than a conservative office worker. If she wants, she can pull out all the stops to fill people with regret. Marinette Dupain-Cheng stews, she listens and observers, and she never forgets. One who has tread paths with her never dares to do so again. Her classmates would come to understand this with impeccable clarity very, very soon.
