Summary:
Marinette may be the one Lila declared herself at “war” with, but she’s not the only victim. Or even the one who would be the worst off for it if things continued. After all, more than one person would be suffering from the toxicity.
In which Lila can be outed any number of ways, there are real results of Lila’s manipulations, and people besides Marinette have to deal with consequences of poor choices.
Chapter 1: Nino
Summary:
Lila’s made a lot of promises. Sooner or later, someone is bound to expect her to follow through.
Chapter Text
The thing about making false promises was that sooner or later, people would expect them to be followed through on.
When Nino first met Lila, she had told him all sorts of amazing things about her adventures around the world. The places she had seen. The people she had met.
She keyed in on his desire to make movies and assured him that she could get him in touch with a major Hollywood movie director. And all throughout her time as part of their class, he had been holding onto that promise.
Even when Marinette tried to warn him.
Even when Lila had him push Adrien to help her.
Even when things just…didn’t add up.
He still believed in her.
Everyone else had. Alya certainly had, and she was the journalist. Surely if anyone would have known her claims were false, it would have been her. And the clincher was that despite Marinette’s insistence on what she had seen Lila do, Adrien had never spoken up about it. And of course his bro would have told him. Adrien would never leave him in the lurch like that.
If Marinette was right, Adrien would have confirmed her story or at least have said something to Nino about Lila when he asked Adrien to help out on her behalf. Because he’d never put his best friend in that sort of position and of course Adrien would never let Nino be played.
So he also chose to believe in Lila’s word.
Because why would she lie? Why even lie about something like that?
So Nino stayed the cool friend he was. Helping Lila when she needed it. Trusting her when she told him things. And waiting patiently on the promise she had made that could move his dream forward.
Which was why he’d worked so hard. Not just with his music, but with his movies. His directing. Building and buying better equipment. Writing up better scripts. And when a competition for Young Filmmakers came up, he knew he had to enter.
“You’ll do great!” Alya assured him.
“Yeah, you should give it a try!” Adrien agreed.
“It’ll be a great opportunity!” Marinette encouraged, actually hanging out with them for once. He had missed hanging out with her, since she stopped sticking around as much given the tense situation with Lila. But to be fair, Nino had mostly stayed out of it altogether since he had been so busy.
