Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CHALLENGE A QUEEN, IDIOT!” Chloe’s gleeful, shrill laugh seemed to shatter whatever spell had the entire cafeteria silenced.

The entire place erupted into chaos. People stood in their chairs, someone had collapsed to their knees, a lady behind the food bar had her phone out. She was crying.

Marinette had absolutely no idea what to do, so instead of moving, she stood stock still, staring at the people around her in confusion, heart fluttering in her throat and silvery-grey eyes wide in awe. ‘They’re on my side… ’ She blinked, staring at the crowd, and suddenly her entire chest felt light as pixie dust. ‘ They’re on my side. ’ Marinette’s heart swelled and she spun in a quick circle, taking in everyone around her, hope and glee filling her up from the tips of her toes to the top of her scalp in a showering tingle.

‘They’re on my side.’

It felt so much different when it wasn’t just her closest friends. It felt so much more satisfying to have people she’d never met before cheering her on.

But the best part, the absolute best part, was Lila’s dumbstruck face.

Her mouth hung open in a gape that would’ve made a snake jealous, her eyes blown wide open. The only indication she hadn’t died was her occasional baffled blink.

The entire room had erupted into anarchy, but for a split second the only two who existed were Marinette and Lila.

‘How does it feel, Lila? How does it feel to finally be outnumbered?’

And for perhaps the first time in the four years Mari had known her, Lila was well and truly speechless.

“Students!” Mlle. Bustier’s voice faintly cried over the warring din of her class.  Several of them—mostly just Kim and Alix—climbed on their chairs and shrieked their contributions that were made completely indecipherable by the cacophony of Gotham’s finest business minds. 

“Students, please calm yourselves!” Mlle. Bustier’s voice was growing increasingly desperate. “Alix Kubdel, get down from there this instant—”

Marinette’s glowing smile was unparalleled.

“Employees of Wayne Enterprises!” Mr. Grayson’s voice called, loud and booming, a victorious grin overtaking his face and voice. “Please settle down! Lunch will be over in 30 minutes, and I don’t want anybody to lose their leftover food to the night shift again!”

“You mean Tim?” a lady with dyed blue hair behind the bar shouted. A couple of scattered laughs rang through the crowd.

Mr. Grayson snorted and gave an exaggerated shrug, still grinning widely. “Who else?”

“Marinette!” Mlle. Bustier’s voice finally had some weight, now that the majority of the noise had died down. “Marinette would you come with me for a moment? We don’t want the crowd to get so riled up again!”

That happy bubbling in Mari’s chest fizzled down to a tiny spark as her teacher squeezed her way through the crowd towards her. “Of—of course, Mlle. Bustier.” Marinette had been through this song and dance enough to know exactly what kind of lecture she was about to get. She mustered up a smile anyway. ‘Well… I guess the victory wasn’t going to last much longer anyway…’ She knew that was a lie… but right then it was the only lifeline she had to keep from falling. 

“Miss Bustier, if you don’t mind?” 

Mari whirled around. Mr. Grayson stood a few feet away, and the warning glint in his eye was back. “I would like to go as well. Security is standing right there to calm the crowd and chaperone the kids, and I’d like to learn about your teaching process whenever possible.”

‘Why is he acting like he knows and can do so much more than he’s letting on? Where have I seen his face before?! ’ 

“Oh!” Mlle. Bustier said, her face practically glowing with a radiant smile. “Why—thank you! And of course! I’m doing my best to spread my method of teaching wherever I can!”

“Really?” Mr. Grayson said, the warning gleam in his eyes somehow increasing the ‘ Run Now ’ factor tenfold. “Fascinating. In that case, I’m very glad you’re letting me come along.”

The hairs on the back of Mari’s neck stood on end.

Mlle. Bustier, the same oblivious teacher as always, simply smiled wider, and gently nudged Marinette in the direction of the office hallway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dick was furious.

It was one thing to try and separate Marinette from the crowd in an attempt to get people to calm down, it was another thing entirely to shove the blame onto her, as though she had any control over how others acted. As if Miss Rossi’s disrespectful comments were her fault, or she was wrong for standing up for both herself and the right thing.

But maybe Miss Bustier wasn’t aware of the true cause.

Maybe Miss Rossi was a model student in class, or a teacher’s pet whenever the teachers were around. Maybe she sat at the head of the table and no one bothered to see that her chair was made of others’ successes.

He was beginning to see why Marinette lied about the badge that morning.

“Miss Bustier,” he said the moment they got into the hallway. “Would you mind if I talked to you a moment?”

“Oh… well…” She glanced from Dick to Marinette, then back again. “I… I suppose. Please do make it quick, M. Grayson, I don’t want to be kept too long from my students.”

Dick nodded. “I understand, and this won’t take long at all.”

“Marinette,” Miss Bustier said with another smile. “Please sit in one of those chairs by the door while we talk.”

Dick frowned and glanced at Marinette, who was watching the two of them with sharp, cautious eyes. She seemed pensive, but an odd spark of hope—or was that curiosity?—showed on her face. She didn’t say anything, simply nodded to Miss Bustier and left for the chairs, lightly tapping the cast on her left arm against her hip.

Dick turned back to Miss Bustier, filing away Marinette’s behaviour for later. “Miss Bustier, I wanted to take a moment of your time to talk about the badge incident from this morning.”

“I don’t know what you mean, M. Grayson.” Miss Bustier said, frowning slightly and tilting her head.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, ma’am,” Dick said, hoping beyond hope that she wasn’t, “but Miss Rossi stole Miss Dupain-Cheng’s badge this morning, which is why we couldn’t find it and had to bring out the backup.” ‘Should I mention her tripping Miss Rose Lavillant?’

Miss Bustier gasped, eyes wide in absolute horror. “M. Grayson, are you quite sure? Have you been talking to Marinette?”

Dick frowned. Nope, he should not, under any circumstances, mention that Rossi had tripped Lavillant. “I beg your pardon, Miss Bustier, but what does Miss Dupain-Cheng have to do with Miss Rossi stealing her name badge?”

Miss Bustier sighed, her mouth twisting into a little button as she fixed her gaze on her clipboard. “Marinette was my star student for such a long time, and I know deep down she’s still the good student she was four years ago, but…” She shook her head, lowering her voice slightly and glancing at Marinette’s solitary figure. “Ever since Lila arrived she’s been slowly isolating herself from the rest of the class, acting out of jealousy, refusing to accompany anyone but Chloe or Adrien anywhere... I’ve told her countless times how she must be the example to help Lila recognise her own problems and try to change, but she stopped listening to me just over a year ago. She’s so alone, M. Grayson. Adrien says he’s her friend but he stays with Lila so often, it’s plain to see it’s simply out of pity.” She looked back at Dick, her face twisted into a thoughtful, disappointed expression. “I’m especially disheartened by how she sees Chloe now. Chloe used to have some attitude problems, and was very jealous of Marinette and her ability to make friends…” she sighed. “Marinette’s dedication to being the bigger person paid off in the end, and now they’re very close, but if Marinette would only open her eyes, she would see her own best friend is proving the exact principle I’ve been trying to get her to use with Lila this whole time. If she only thought about it, she’d realize that perhaps if she showed Lila the same kindness it would carry over.” She shook her head again. “But she never does… She’s stopped talking to me except to ask about lessons. I’m very worried about her.”

Dick chewed on the inside of his cheek, mulling over his possible courses of action. None of the reasonable ones included not chewing out this teacher and teaching her about a little thing called victim-blaming. So instead, he crossed his arms, nodding slightly for her to continue. ‘If only I’d thought to record this conversation, she would’ve never been able to teach again...’

“I am unbelievably proud of how she acts most days,” Miss Bustier continued, seemingly completely oblivious to Dick’s growing anger. “She’s setting such a good example for the rest of the class with her kindness…” Her small smile faded into the disappointed knot again. “But then… there are days like today. They’ve been few in number, of course, though she’s still learning about acting out in such matters, but on occasion…” She shrugged slightly, eyes weary. “If only she acted toward Lila how she acted toward Chloe all those years ago. If only she would open her eyes and see that setting an example has already worked…” Miss Bustier finally fell silent, shuffling the papers on her clipboard, face drawn into a vaguely worried knot.

Dick’s fingernails dug into his crisply ironed button-up shirt sleeve, every ounce of energy dedicated to keeping himself from shouting. “I still don’t see quite how this impacts Miss Rossi stealing her badge this morning.”

“Oh,” Miss Bustier said, looking up with wide eyes. “Well, what I’m trying to say, M. Grayson, is that I’m sure whatever she told you about Lila is quite far from the truth. She’s a very talented and exceptional young lady in almost all fields, except where Lila is concerned. Honestly with the sheer number of times she’s tried to feed the faculty lies about Lila to get her in trouble are truly shocking, especially considering Marinette’s own upstanding record.”

“Ah.” Dick said, pursing his lips and breathing out slowly through his nose. “I see.”

“Please don’t punish her, M. Grayson,” Miss Bustier pled, a worried frown on her face.

“...What..?”

“I can see you’re upset,” the oblivious teacher continued, concern and condescension clear on her face as she clutched her clipboard closer to her chest. “But you must understand, she’s quite the wonderful student, and while what she did today to Lila was horrible, I don’t think it warrants more than a lecture and a nudge in the right direction.”

“Ma’am…” Dick said through gritted teeth, “I have not talked to Miss Dupain-Cheng at all since she helped me pick up the nametags, and even then, she never once mentioned Miss Rossi.”

Miss Bustier blinked, standing up to her full height, eyes wide as she frowned. “Oh… But then how did you come to your conclusion about Lila stealing Marinette’s badge?”

Dick took a deep breath and shook his head. “Miss Bustier, I saw —”

“No,” Miss Bustier cut him off, shaking her head. “No, you must be mistaken. Lila would never! Perhaps she dropped her own badge and was picking it up again, or she intended to hand it to Marinette afterward!”

“I saw her pick it up and hide it in her sleeve, Miss Bustier.” Dick said, praying for his father’s patience during board meetings. “And even if that were true, why didn’t she hand it over when I asked?”

“Well,” she said in a condescendingly patient tone. “If she did take it, then she didn’t realize at the time!”

“... What?! ” Dick half-whispered, doing everything in his power not to loom over her. His patience was wearing as thin as Jason’s during breakfast hours.

“She has a condition, M. Grayson, where she does things and lies about them. Sometimes her brain doesn’t log any of the information during the time of theft or what have you, and so her tales aren’t lies, per se, simply accidental misinformation!”

Wait.

Alright, if she had a genuine medical disorder that would explain most of her actions. It didn’t excuse them, and it didn’t explain Marinette’s obvious distrust and borderline fear of her (unless there were a good many more issues with Marinette than he’d first thought), and it definitely didn’t help that—judging by the frequency of these occurrences—she seemed to be untreated, but it was still something.

“I see. What’s the name and nature of her disorder?” he asked, making a mental note to do some research into the medical benefits provided by Françoise Dupont. Judging by the symptoms Miss Bustier had mentioned, it could be a combination of kleptomania and compulsive or pathological lying.

“Lilainitis,” Miss Bustier chirped. “She’s the first case in over a hundred and fifty years, they first diagnosed her when she was fourteen, and they officially started treatments once they confirmed her disorder. They even named it after her since she helped with some of the research!”

“Uh...uh-huh…” Dick said, frowning slightly. That sounded… suspicious. But he wasn’t a medical professional, and whether or not it was fishy, he had the wonderous power of Medical Professionals on Speed Dial. “Is her disorder listed in her file? Wayne Medical is one of the top research facilities in the world and I’m sure they’d be more than happy to help with research and development for treatments and possible cures.”

“Oh! Well, that’s very kind of you. But due to the nature of the disorder, we decided against listing it in her file. No school would take in someone who couldn’t tell the truth! She seemed especially grateful for it.”

Dick’s brain ground to a halt. All he could do was blink stupidly.

Now it was true, he did not know every disorder. He would never pretend to. And he especially wasn’t up to date on every single disease and disorder that was being discovered.

However.

This particular situation stank wholly of complete. Crap.

He couldn’t actually prove whether the disorder was real or not, so he’d have to look into that more, but if it was real? This woman and whoever else on the board of directors at Françoise Dupont knew about this, and they had just doomed this girl to eternally suffer under her illness. If it wasn’t real? They had bought her story with no research to back it up. Either way, they should be fired, and Jannet Hillsborough of Wayne Medical was getting called about a ‘new illness’. Either way, this woman was an idiot. He could barely form cohesive thoughts.

“Is… is she... medicated ?” He was going to be working with this woman and her class for the next eight months. He almost wanted to die. Not quite.

But almost.

“Oh yes, she’s been prescribed by the top doctors in the world. Though with regards to today’s slip-up, it’s quite possible she forgot to take her medicine this morning due to the time differential.”

Dick wanted someone to die, and it didn’t have to be him.

“I… see.”

“Well,” she said, as cheerily as if she had just solved world peace. “If we’re finished, I think I’ll call Marinette back over so we can talk to her.”

Dick was so beyond angry he could probably be told he had literal smoke coming out of his ears and he would be disappointed it wasn’t fire.

He wished he could retreat to the gym to take out his frustrations on a punching bag or a mannequin, but instead he had to witness what was rapidly dragging his mental state from ‘I want to break something’ to ‘ I am seconds away from pulling a Jason ’ as Miss Bustier called Marinette from her chair and began lecturing her about what was ‘proper behaviour’ and how they ‘were in a new country, couldn’t she just let Lila be’ and how she had to ‘lead by example’ and how disappointed she was in Marinette.

In all honesty, Dick heard every word the ‘teacher’ was speaking, but he registered very little of it, and if he were asked to repeat the conversation he would probably devolve into ramblings about how he wished Miss Bustier was never born, or at least that she’d never become a teacher.

He was seconds away from screaming.

And Richard Grayson didn’t scream. (Except that one time when Jason, wearing a cheap Starfire mask from some local costume shop, kicked down his door while he was getting dressed and shouted at the top of his lungs, asking Dick when they would be bat-having bat-kids, but to be fair, most people would scream in that situation.)

Marinette looked even more tired than she’d been the night she busted her arm, and as the conversation— Lecture.— continued, she deflated, picking at her cast with her right hand. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes had lost the spark she’d had during her whole thirty second victory over Rossi. Now, her eyes were dull, almost hollow, and so horrendously tired that he’d be willing to bet a week of meetings that she received these lectures a lot more than Miss Bustier would ever let on.

Dick wanted to just walk out and take Marinette with him, maybe genuinely sign custody over her to get her out of this class... But he couldn’t, legally, and he didn’t need another member of his family breaking the law with no regard for consequences. He was responsible for the class, but he wasn’t technically in charge. The only power he had was a general authority over them if they got too rowdy, or if Miss Bustier left the group for some reason.

And the woman was almost as much of an unrepenting leech as she was an idiot.

When Miss Bustier finally walked away, saying something about needing to check on the damage Marinette had caused, it took everything in him to keep from shouting at her. He inhaled a supposedly cleansing breath, but it only served to fuel the fiery rage building up in his chest.

He was going to go insane.

Dick forced another breath, and looked down at the tiny girl beside him. The stifled light in Marinette’s eyes was shining just a bit brighter than before as she gave him a tiny, tiny, smile and a miniscule nod, and walked into the cafeteria and all the wolves that lay within, her head held high as she went back, a noose made of gaslighting and feigned concern wrapped tight around her neck.

Dick snapped out his phone and began furiously texting everything to Bruce. If he called him, Dick would have to go to a sound-proof room so he could yell, because there was  no way on ANY Earth he would be able to keep his voice down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

30 minutes later, Dick sat in the corner of the cafeteria, the diluted stormy light from the rain-covered floor-to-ceiling window casting the world in shades of grey, still texting Bruce in a private chat. He didn’t need Jason busting down the door to kidnap a girl who didn’t even technically know him. That would be illegal, terrifying to Marinette and anyone else involved, and illegal. Not that it would even cause much of an uproar in the class, given their reactions to her in the very short amount of time he’d seen them interact with her.

Dick sighed heavily, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair. He’d cooled down a bit since the lecture, but he was still furious beyond belief, and Bruce wasn’t much better.

The moment Dick had finished his first text-essay—text-ay, if you will, Bruce had started doing research on Marinette’s class, and apparently they had been the biggest source for akumas in Paris for the entirety of Hawkmoth’s reign. 

The League had been unable to do anything about ‘Bird-er-fly’—as the Flash liked to call him—during his rule due to the nature of his powers and the pleas of the already-overworked French heroes, but they’d done their best to help Team Miraculous whenever they could. Dick had never met Ladybug himself, but he’d heard she was a wonderful and very sweet person. Wonder Woman had trained her and the rest of Team Miraculous on and off for the last two years since Hawkmoth’s bizarre resignation and so far, she’d had nothing but good things to say about them.

The reign of one of the worst (and stupidest) villains aside, it seemed that Marinette’s class was a hotspot for akuma activity and every single member of her class except for herself and Adrien Agreste had been akumatized. That in and of itself was a bad sign for both the school and Miss Bustier, but the fact that no other classroom would accept Marinette’s transfer application, even insisting they had never received it, was the biggest red flag since Communist China.

A little more digging into their public files revealed that Marinette’s personal applications to change homerooms were never sent to the teachers responsible for those rooms. No, they never made it past Principal Damocles.

They were actively imprisoning her in the classroom of their worst teacher.

Another short search into their Public. Files. showed that Miss Bustier and Principal Damocles had sent public emails to the whole school system, with a few targeted comments towards Marinette’s parents, saying that they were relying on Marinette to keep her class under control, and that they trusted her to handle the responsibility as the class representative in more ways than one. If she left that class, they were sure akumatizations would increase exponentially, and while they may not have been wrong, they had essentially guilt tripped and blackmailed Marinette’s family into keeping her in the school.

That, coupled with the fact that all of Paris seemed to know that this class was an akuma hotspot, ensured that any application to any school that called themselves legitimate would be instantly denied. It didn’t matter if the applicant had never been akumatized, they were in That Class, and therefore could be either working with Hawkmoth, susceptible to frequent akumatizations, or able to ‘spread’ volatile emotions or situations that would increase the akumatization rate in their own school. Even after Hawkmoth’s disappearance, the feeling of ‘what if’ lingered.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was stuck in perhaps the worst class to be stuck in, one that was holding her back six ways to Sunday. Unable to leave, unable to complain, unable to fight… it was a wonder she was still sane.

Dick was about ready to drag international affairs into this convoluted mess, but they technically didn’t have any grounds for it, and instead were stuck gathering evidence to fire her for a mayor who would most certainly not give a flying pig’s tail about any of this. Worst comes to worst, they would present the evidence to France’s national education board and pray they weren’t as corrupt as Paris’s leadership. Françoise Dupont was the top high school in France at the moment, and Miss Bustier’s class was, academically, the cream of the crop. But not a single other school would touch them.

To be frank, Dick was worried about all of these kids’ futures.

How would any of them get a decent college if literally every school in Paris—and many throughout France—refused to harbor ‘the akuma class’? Technically, their numbers were only slightly higher than average, but people remember when one person has turned into a technicolor rage-monster six times. The record had gone to one Miss Chloe Bourgeois for a solid two years with a total of five, and then Lila Rossi beat that record to a pulp with her eighteen akumatizations during the last three years of Hawkmoth’s terror.

She was the main reason the class was so reviled.

She had to be.

It made all her twisted promises to get everyone a leg up in their lives settle like a thin sheet of ice over a lake in early winter. Pretty, but if you try to support yourself on it for more than a moment, you’re plunged into ice-cold water that’ll drown you if you don’t get out in time.

She was no better than the fame-hunters who ceaselessly barraged his family with promises to help their company prosper.

And she was only 18.

And worse than that, they’d scanned the entire medical database for any mention of a ‘’Lilainitis’’ and come up with nothing. The team of medical professionals who had their fingers in every pie the medical community had to offer had come up empty and confused when Dick asked them to look into it. They were doing more research into different possible names for the condition, but given the vague description and the symptoms Jannet had texted him for other known and documented illnesses that Rossi could’ve renamed for the sake of her own fame, the fact that Rossi fit none of them only strengthened Dick’s suspicions.

They were still looking into it, and doing research into any doctor she could’ve had or who could’ve done research on the issue—if she truly did have something approximating this new compulsive-lying disease, there was no way they could rule out her disorder simply because she said the top medical professionals worked on it. She could be lying about anything, and they didn’t know where to start looking if they didn’t find what they needed on their first go—and even when they found somewhere to start, they would have plenty of doctors, patients, forms and treatments to look over. The investigation could take months.

But from where he stood? She was a liar, a manipulator, and a dirty cheat six ways from Sunday.

Dick sighed and sat up, sending a final text to Bruce before leaning his elbows on the table and staring at the metallic surface. It was going to be a long eight months.

“Excuse me, Mr. Grayson?”

Dick looked up to see Marinette Dupain-Cheng standing by his table, fiddling with her purse strap and looking a good deal happier than she’d been when she returned to the cafeteria.

He smiled. “Can I help you?”

Marinette shook her head. “You’ve already done all you can. I just wanted to say thank you. For not believing her, I mean.” 

Dick blinked. “You… want to thank me for not believing the biggest load of manipulative crap I’ve heard in a long time?”

She laughed, but it was tinted with a hint of doubt. “Yes? Sorry I don’t… have many people who like, I mean, like it’s just Alix, Kim, Chloe, Adrien, and I who know there’s more than one person in our classroom who’s absolutely horrid, and like, I-I mean I wasn’t trying to, insult your intelligence or—or anything I-I just meant…” She clenched her teeth and let out a stabilizing puff of air.

Dick wasn’t sure whether to be amused or worried.

“You’re one of the first and only adults I know who knows about this and recognizes it as a problem,” she said finally, chewing on her lip. “So… thank you.”

“What about your parents?”

Marinette shrugged. “I haven’t told them.” She seemed to be growing more and more uncomfortable. ‘Nice going, Grayson. Fabulous job. You’re freaking out the kid with anxiety.’ “Mlle. Bustier was a good teacher for a while… or I thought she was… and they already knew about Lila. We couldn’t get into any school, or even transfer classes so I didn’t… really think of telling them.”

“I see…” He cleared his throat. “Well, just so we’re clear, I didn’t think you were insulting my intelligence, I was just baffled you have to thank people for having common sense.”

Marinette’s laugh was laced with relief.

Victory.

“I would be baffled too, monsieur,” she said, her hand resting on her purse strap instead of fiddling with it, “if I weren’t the one living my life.”

Dick burst out laughing. “I need that on a t-shirt.” He said.

Her eyes lit up. “I bet I could arrange that.”

“Well,” he said, still chuckling slightly. “Whenever you do, I'll order the first one.”

Marinette held out her left hand to shake. “Deal.”

Dick, a little surprised but still grinning, took her hand and was abruptly reminded of her cast.

Hm.

Nightwing knew exactly how she broke her arm, but Dick Grayson didn’t, and Jason’s test at the hospital wasn’t entirely fair, given her mental state.

Just to be safe…

“Oh,” he said, frowning slightly at her aggressively pink cast. “How did you break your arm?”

Marinette withdrew her hand a little faster than what Dick would consider normal and shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Well… I’m, uh, I’m kinda clumsy, and I, uh, I broke it in the hotel falling out of a chair on our balcony.” She waved her free hand dismissively. “I’m a huge klutz—it happens a lot more often than you’d think.”

“Uh-huh…” He frowned a little. “Sorry to hear that. My brother recently busted his hand on a run, so I get it.”

Marinette let out a short burst of laughter, eyes wide with wonder and amusement. She seemed a little nervous still, and reasonably so, but again relief laced her tone. “I’m sorry,” she said, waving a hand to emphasize what she was saying. “But I met someone at the hospital with the same story! I wonder, would you know a J...?” she frowned for a moment. “Sorry, I was barely conscious at the hospital… His name starts with a ‘J,’ I know it…” She squeezed her eyes shut, her entire face twisted into a knot of concentration. “JAY! That’s his name! I don’t think he gave me his last name… He said something about the ‘Bats’ being stupid or some—”

“HAH,” Dick interrupted. “He would! That spiteful leather zombie!”

Marinette blinked, a small, confused smile on her face. “I take it you know him then?”

“He’s my little brother!” he said, smothering his gleeful cackle. “Never mention the ‘little’ part to him though, or he’ll punch you in the face.”

“I’d like to see him try.” She snorted. “Plus if he hits me, he’s got my entire squad of angry teenage nerdeliquents to fight off.”

Dick genuinely stopped breathing for a moment before he wheezed, the mirthful tears in his eyes completely blinding him as he almost fell out of his chair.

According to sources he wouldn’t name—Marinette—it took him three minutes to calm down. 

“Ahem, so, how serious was the break, anyway?” Dick asked once he’d composed himself enough to speak like a normal human, still barely holding back a chuckle. “Also, can I please tell him you said that.”

“Sure!” Marinette seemed incredibly pleased, despite her mild confusion. “Hopefully he’ll laugh too.”

“Thank you, Miss Dupain-Cheng, you just made my week,” Dick said, taking out his phone and messaging the group chat.

She smiled again, rocking back and forth on her heels. “No problem! And it’s Marinette to all the adults I like. Or used to, anyway.”

Dick let out a final breath to compose himself as he hit send and put his phone back down. “You can call me Dick, most of the students I tutor at Gotham Academy do.”

Marinette blinked, eyes widening. “Are… are you sure..?”

“Full name is Richard. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t on purpose. Anyway, you didn’t answer my question, though.”

She blinked. “What... OH, you mean how serious was the break?”

“Yeah, was it bad?”

“Well, it wasn’t… super bad at first, just a compound fracture, I believe the English term is, but the taxi ride kinda aggravated it. Like I said, I wasn’t super conscious for the whole thing. I didn’t sleep for like, four days straight beforehand and the pain wasn’t doing much to keep me lucid.” She snorted. “Chloe almost killed me when she found out how long I'd been awake. Probably would have if my arm wasn’t broken.”

Dick stared at her. It had really just hit him that this tiny, tiny, mouse of a girl had been awake for four days straight. “Would you, by any chance, happen to be related to a Tim Drake?” There was no such thing as too careful.

Marinette shook her head. “No. Why?”

“Another relation.” Dick waved his hand dismissively. “Sleeps about as often as Batman does interviews.”

“Does he walk around on roofs at four a.m. because he can’t decide if cereal is soup or not?” she asked, stifling a snort.

Tim had done that.

And it was while he was Red Robin.

And he also went out on rooftops at four a.m. regularly.

As Red Robin.

“Y’know, he has done that a couple of times… Last week we were… out, and he posed the question. Spent almost an hour arguing with Jay about it.”

“Hey!” someone, Dick remembered hearing them ask questions during the tour but couldn’t provide a face or name to the voice, cried from the other end of the cafeteria. “What’s that thing on the window…?”

Dick frowned, looking up at the massive, wall-to-wall window at the other end of the cafeteria that overlooked the dismal grey fog of Gotham’s skyline. Small grey objects were stuck to each of the clear, stained-glass-like panes that made up the window, and the glass itself seemed to shiver.

Dick was on his feet in an instant, adrenaline sending an electric shock through his body, just as all the Gotham natives began shouting various colorful variations on ‘ get away from the window .’

He bolted for the other end of the cafeteria, calling for people to take cover as he made his way towards the French class. Marinette was right on his heels, shouting the same in French, her eyes wild with an unexpected mix of determination and deadly calm as heads ducked under tables, sheer panicked confusion on their faces—

TTSHHHH

The window exploded inward, thousands of tiny glass nuggets raining down on all the screaming civilians who hadn’t gotten to cover in time, as dozens of men armed to the teeth rappelled into the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette reeled away from the window; her feet slipped on something wet and sticky, and she was suddenly on the floor. Something slammed into her temple, and the world went white.

A warm tingling on the side of her face signaled Tikki’s healing as the cafeteria slowly came back into focus.

Struggling to regain her bearings, she clambered to a sitting position to take stock of the room, the blurry corners her vision slowly regaining clarity. Cold rain spattered in through the window, coating the floor in a slick layer of rainwater, the masked mens’ breath fogging in the October air, and overall making everything seem about ten times more ominous than it had any right to be.

‘This is not good.’

Something hard and round was shoved roughly into the base of her neck, and it didn’t take five years of experience to know that was a gun barrel. She glanced at Mr. Grayson, who was being dragged to his feet by a masked goon holding a rather unpleasant looking machine gun.

‘This is not good.’

Blinking away the brain fog and the pulsating headache that was quickly forming, Mari raised her hands and stood, surveying the room as she did so.

Roughly 50 armed men trooped around the room, their faces obscured by blackish-purple all-environment masks, green-tinted goggles, and ski masks as they dragged people out from under tables and held the small group that was already gathered at gunpoint.

‘This is not good.’

A faint zzzzzzzzzzzz echoed in the now almost-silent room as a tall, lanky man slid down the wire into the cafeteria. Marinette’s headache increased tenfold.

He landed with a click on one of the cafeteria tables, his poison-green suit with purple question mark patterns slightly damp from the rain.

“Welcome, everyone,” said the Riddler with a broad grin, sitting his plum-purple velvet bowler hat crookedly on his head, “to my recruitment center!”

‘This is not good.’

No one spoke, the sounds of panicked breathing the only noise other than the rain.

The Riddler merely laughed, eyes gleaming as he snapped his fingers. One of his goons tossed him a question mark cane catching it smoothly, and swinging it a large, dramatic circle over his head. “If the correct person answers my riddles correctly, they get a free ride with me to meet my compatriots! But if the incorrect person answers incorrectly, they get a one-way ticket out the window we just opened for you.” His cane echoed on the tabletop as he let it slide through his fingers to land with a cLANgg on the table below. Leaning on it and looming over the huddled hostages cowering together in the middle of the room, his grin turned downright gleeful. “Who wants to go first?”

Silence. Someone in the middle of the room choked on a sob.

“Oh goodie, you’re going to make it fun .” The Riddler, his gleeful, knowing smile never waning, motioned to one of the men standing at the doors, who promptly began corralling off some of the hostages into groups of two.

Tables were overturned and thrust aside to form a makeshift barrier; people were kicked and cuffed into place. Mari didn’t put up a fight as the frigid gun barrel was thrust more violently into the base of her neck. She walked as calmly as she could into the middle of the room, gritting her teeth against the steady throb of her forehead.

The more cooperative you were, the less people looked at you. The less they noticed you. The more of a surprise it would be if you did strike back.

The goon who seemed keen on keeping Mari at gunpoint shoved her abruptly to her knees, just next to the table barrier. The glass nuggets on the floor cut through her leggings and into her knees. Holding back a glare, she put her hands behind her head, gritting her teeth as the end of her cast rubbed uncomfortably against the inside of her arm. Her elbows jutted out awkwardly, nearly poking Mr. Grayson in the eye as he was shoved to the floor by her left, his face twisted in a mix between pain and discontent.

Not fear.

Not worry.

Just… general displeasure with the faintest hint of ‘this shouldn’t have happened today’ annoyance.

‘Who IS this guy?’

Mari squinted at him.  He half-shrugged in reply, cutting off his own indifferent action as his eyes widened and he stared at her forehead for a moment, worry finally overwhelming his face. She probably had a cut or something.

“Ow—” a familiar and entirely unwelcome voice hissed.

“Shut it, Frenchie.”

“I am Italian you—”

“I said shut it. ”

Marinette could hear the pursed lips and death-glare at the wall. ‘...Why.’ Casting a pained glance to her right, she prepared herself for a hissing argumentative girl who never seemed to realize that Hawkmoth was gone and these situations were very real, when she instead felt her stomach freeze for a moment. Alya’s signature floof of hair half-covered the new cuts and bruises on her face as she was plopped a couple yards away. Lila was right beside her, almost completely unharmed.

Alya was going to bear the brunt of the goon’s anger if Lila had her way. And that anger was going to mount fast if Lila’s previous record was anything to go by.

Mari’s heart-rate spiked, her eyes darting around the room, scanning the table-barriers and doing her best to move her head only the tiniest amount in the process to avoid getting the butt of a heavy-duty gun to the head.

Several words which she never would’ve said in front of a news crew ran through her head at the speed of light. Hostages being kept in groups of two, at least one armed guard to each group, on the inside of the table-barriers and around the rest of the hostages clustered together in the middle.

They’d made a hostage wall.

No one could get in or out without the hostages suffering.

Even if Riddler got who he wanted, he had the power to kill anyone and everyone who tried to be a hero. One false move on their part, or on the police department’s, and anyone in the room could be shot.

‘This is NOT good.’

“Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between,” Riddler said, opening his arms wide, the hook of his cane loosely hanging off his right hand. “This meeting shouldn’t take too long! All I need is for one of you to answer a couple of questions.” He lowered his arms and snapped his fingers. A skinny goon walked up to his table and handed him something. “Now, since you didn’t speak up when I asked, I’m happy to say we get to play a few simple riddle-games to pass the time until you show yourself!” He held up a phone, three simple phone-charms dangling from its casing. An orange foxtail, a green turtle shell, and a little red ladybug.

Alya’s phone.

“One of these things is not like the others!” the Riddler said, his smile even wider than before. Mari swallowed heavily. He wasn’t talking about the phone charms. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

Mari felt what little blood was left in her face drain away.

Having nowhere to transform was nothing new.

Having to defend a bunch of civilians with no way to ensure her own safety was nothing new.

A hostage situation was nothing new.

Heck, being held at gunpoint while acting as a human meat-shield was nothing new. But none of that mattered because she was being taken hostage by a villain who knew someone in her class was Ladybug.

And he very likely suspected Alya.

“Riddle number one!” Riddler said, his finger resting on the power button as one by one his goons began forming a more solid line around the main group, leaving each hostage pair with only one guard. “My beginning is sweet as honey, but give me an end and the shell I grow is tough as nails. What is my name?”

“Beetle,” Mari whispered after a moment, her voice so quiet no one could hear. She needed brain-space to think of a way out, and riddles were too distracting. She had to get the answer out so she didn’t have to think about it anymore. She scanned the cafeteria wall, considering the ins and outs of ventilation, air ducts, and escape-hatches. The Wayne family was infamous for getting kidnapped by villains, so much so that nearly every building had ‘Bat-Tunnels’ built into the walls to help the caped crusader in times like this.

“No one? Not even a guess?” The Riddler’s voice was just as loud as before, but Mari ignored him, since it was ‘ get the FLIP OUTTA DODGE’ hour and she was keen to keep things on schedule.  “A pity. The answer was ‘beetle!’”

Mari was doing her best to not pay attention to him. She honestly was. But good glory was that not working. He was so. Freaking. Loud.

“Which, until I’m corrected, will be the name of my unspecified friend.”

Marinette’s heart stopped beating, and she slowly turned her head to stare at him, doing everything in her power to keep her expression as unpanicked as possible.

“Well, Red Beetle would be much more… fitting, given what I know of them, but that’s neither here”—he put the phone in his pocket, twirling his cane as he did so—“nor there.” His gaze slid from face to face around the room. “Riddle number two: Fire, blood, and scars-let me appear; / From my head to-my-toes, I a-rose right here. / The hood of a cardinal's a cardinal thought; / As the first in a rainbow, I'm rarely forgot.”

Mari looked back at the wall she was supposed to face, her vision fading in importance as noises and thoughts overwhelmed most of her senses. ‘ If I try to draw attention away from Alya and make a break for it, I’ll get shot, which means that Chloe and Adrien are on their own.’ Mari’s distracted gaze wandered over to find Chloe and Adrien. Adrien was held with Max, and Chloe was held with the blue-haired girl from behind the food bar. ‘They’re more than capable, but we need all our chips down.’ Mari’s teeth creaked in her skull as she ground them together to keep from fidgeting. ‘If I admit I’m Ladybug, he might not believe I’m the real deal, and who knows if he’ll try to take Alya to make sure no one else tries to follow, but if I sit and do nothing he’ll just take Alya anyway, and heaven only knows what he’d do with her…’

A dark shape slid down the wall near a tall plant.

Marinette’s gaze snapped to it, her back shuddering slightly in preparation for a new threat. But instead of another goon, the shadowy figure was wearing dull yellow, albeit obscured almost entirely by a pitch-black cape and a black hood drawn over the top of their head.

And in a split second, like a distant clap of thunder, a plan formed in Mari’s mind. She smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alya was not freaking out.

She’d been taken hostage a million times or more back in Paris, and all those times she’d been fine. She’d been almost sacrificed a couple times, died once or twice—which was trippy, she didn’t like that—and once she was nearly turned into part of a gigantic flesh-monster. But every time that happened, she knew Ladybug and Chat Noir were on the way to save her. Every time that happened, she believed deep in her very soul that she was going to be okay, because even if it took them a while, they’d fix everything. Especially Ladybug. Chat was wonderful, and you’d never hear Alya complain about him, but Ladybug was unequivocally her favorite.

They weren’t in Paris anymore, though.

And a supervillain who wasn’t an akuma controlled by a magical supervillain with too many butterflies was throwing around the least subtle hints she’d ever heard implying that Ladybug was in her class. Alya was a lot of things, but obliviously stupid wasn’t one of them, and if those riddles Nette made her… If those riddles she’d been forced to memorize because it was common sense with akumas everywhere were any indicator, Mr. I-Totally-Have-An-English-Degree was convinced that Ladybug was here.

Logically, the only way that would be possible was if someone from her class—or someone else in this room who just so happened to be visiting from Paris, France at the same time as Françoise Dupont—was the one and only Lucky Charm of France.

Alya would almost be convinced it was Lila, if not for her frequent akumatizations. Poor girl had a heck of a life. But no, she was going to think this through more carefully than she had when she was fourteen. A lot more carefully.

“A pity. The answer was beetle,” Riddler was prattling on. “Which, until I’m corrected, will be the name of my unspecified friend. Well, Red Beetle would be much more… fitting, given what I know of them, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Alya held back a disgusted shiver as his gaze flicked around the room. Poor Rose was seconds from tears, though they seemed to be tears of Justice rather than fear. She’d become a lot more confident and calm over the last few years, which was good, but she was still Rose. Which was also good, in Alya’s book.

“Riddle number two,” Mr. Looks-Up-Riddles-On-The-Internet continued, still grinning like he knew everyone’s secrets. “Fire, blood, and scars-let me appear; / From my head to-my-toes, I a-rose right here. / The hood of a cardinal's a cardinal thought; / As the first in a rainbow, I'm rarely forgot.”

“Red.” Nette’s barely discernible whisper came right after Riddler finished speaking. Alya forced herself not to look at her. She’d done enough already, and now she was trying to get caught.

‘Overwhelmed and sorting her thoughts,’ the part of her that thought she knew what Nette was like said. ‘She’s whispering them anyway.’

‘ Trying to prove how smart she is,’ the rehearsed whisper sneered back. ‘And she’s saying them out loud in a hostage situation.’

Alya’s face soured and she glared at a piece of glass on the opposite side of the room. Six months later and she still couldn’t look Nette fully in the face after what she did .

‘Exactly.’ the bitter whisper said. ‘Think of what she did .’

Mr. Twenty-Gun Questions rambled on about some third riddle, and Nette answered in kind, but her tone was different. Lighter.

Alya couldn’t help the glance at her ex-best friend, and blinked, squinting through the crack in her glasses to be sure… yeah, Nette was smiling.

‘She has a plan! She’s figured something out, we’re gonna make it out okay!’

‘She’s figured out how to get more of the spotlight on herself. She’ll get us all killed in her pathetic search for more attention.’

“Her.”

Alya’s eyes snapped to an approaching guard who had been standing somewhere behind them, as he walked straight over behind Nette, grabbed her by the back of her sweater, and started dragging her towards the Riddler’s table.

“Not happening!” Mr. Grayson shouted, getting abruptly to his feet as he spoke, and punching his guard in the nuts.

Alright, maybe he was cool. Dang.

But the cool lasted only for a split second as seven goons jumped him and pinned him back to the ground. A resounding crAck echoed around the room as what Alya hoped was his nose instead of an eye socket smacked against the floor. She couldn’t see much of him beneath the swarm of goons, but what she could see was blood.

Nette’s choked gasp dragged Alya’s gaze like a magnet. She was still being gripped entirely too firmly by the back of her neck and roughly hauled to her feet.

‘Oh… oh kwami…’

A swollen, jagged, bleeding cut ran across the left side of Nette’s forehead, thick tracks of blood crusted down her head. There were glass cuts all over her face, hands, and legs, and one of her eyes was swollen half-shut, a nasty bruise forming around it.

Alya had been on the opposite side of most of the damage.

She’d had no idea it was this bad…

“Those three as well,” the Riddler said, his purple-gloved finger pointing at first Chloe, then Adrien, and finally Alya.

She grit her teeth and squared her shoulders, standing up to the best of her ability as she was roughly dragged across the room, seeing Adrien and Chloe in similar positions.

The three of them were stood before Riddles McGreen, and he seemed to scrutinize the three of them carefully before his gaze finally fell on Nette, who was somehow still lucid despite her obvious blood loss and was staring him down like he was just another villain of the week.

Didn’t she realize how serious this was? How was she so calm?

‘She finally got her spotlight. And she’s going to cause not only your death, but Chloe’s and Adrien’s too.’

‘She would never! She’s a good person!’

‘Are you sure? Because I’m not.’

“Well, well, well…” The Riddler leaned on his cane, artificially whitened teeth disturbingly bright against the rest of his outfit. “It certainly took you long enough.”

‘What!?’

“You really should keep your whispers to yourself if you know what’s good for you.”

Nette blinked, looking faintly taken aback, but she steadied herself like she always did.

‘Don’t even pretend to be surprised, we both know all that crap about the riddles was for people to notice just how smart you are.’

‘She was just thinking out loud!’

Alya glanced outside. A cloud was rolling in, ominous and cold, sending a shudder down her spine.

“I have one final riddle for you four. Just a test, a little experiment.” He leaned back, a wave of fog rolling in from the window behind him. “If one of you answers correctly, they get to decide which of the three of them dies.”

‘Wait, three? Why do I get the feeling I don’t have the whole picture?’’

“Answer incorrectly, and you get thrown out the lovely window we’ve opened, down, down, down just over two hundred stories and then splat. ” He smiled. “I’ll give you five minutes to think it over,” he said, tapping his cane on the tabletop. A goon stepped forward, and ripped off a squared bag on his back that Alya had assumed was armor. “And one parachute. Guess within a minute, and whoever gets tossed out gets to carry it with them. We’ll have to hope the rain doesn’t wet it too much!”

Alya was going to die.

There was no way Nette would let Adrien or Chloe die, and Adrien would rather jump out without a parachute than say any name.

Alya, though? Alya was old news. Alya was yesterday’s trash. Alya was a dead squirrel you find on the road and drive straight past.

‘Oh, that’s sad,’ you think when you see the corpse. ‘Too bad.’

Out of the other three, not one would choose from among the trio. Chloe had somehow attached herself to Nette, and it seemed Nette responded in kind. No one would vote for Adrien.

And Alya couldn’t vote for Nette.

She pretended she could.

She told herself she would.

She wanted to.

She’d woken up that very morning, convinced that if this situation were to arise, she would, and she’d be stoically happy about it.

But deep down she knew she could never sentence Nette to die, no matter what she’d done. They had been best friends for almost five years. It took more than six months to get over that kind of friendship.

Well.

At least it did for her.

“Time to get your thinking caps on!” Riddler chirped, clicking his heels on the table, the sound ringing through Alya’s head like the chime of a doomsday clock. “My final riddle: Two halves of my name have I, / A pair of wings to let me fly, / A crimson flush, a dash of luck, / Spotted when pests might run amok. / A lady soaring way up high, / A song to sing with morning nigh, / So please betell me, what am I?”

She’d never heard that riddle before.

Alya’s brain couldn’t function.

She couldn’t think.

She could barely breathe.

She was going to die and she couldn’t even solve some stupid riddle.

She couldn’t do anything.

“A ladybug.” Nette’s voice was shockingly clear for having the current health of a dying squirrel.

“Ding-ding-ding!” Riddler said, pure glee written on his face.

“A… a ladybug…” Alya choked out, gaze fixed on a small pile of glass a few feet from her. “It was a ladybug… a stupid, stupid ladybug...”

“Stupid, you say?” Riddler’s voice sounded… wrong. But Alya couldn’t hear anything besides the ringing in her ears.

‘ I should’ve known that. I should’ve known that .’

“Well, my dear.” Riddler’s cane tapped on the table he was standing on. “Too bad you didn’t speak up earlier.”

Alya was violently jerked to her feet as hands like steel pincers fastened around her upper arms. “Hey! Let go of me!”

Whoever was holding her shook her, their grip somehow tightening even more as her glasses clattered to the ground and the world was reduced to a vague grey blur.

“To the window,” Riddler’s cold voice purred.

The blood drained from Alya’s face.

The person holding her lumbered slowly towards the whitish fuzz of the window, and she suddenly found herself being held above a who-even-knows-how-far drop, her back to the remnants of the cafeteria.

Alya felt sick.

“No! What? No! I answered the riddle in under a minute!”

Alya genuinely couldn’t tell if Nette was feigning concern anymore. Something a lot like the rain splashed on her hand.

“Yes, yes you did,” Riddler said. “But I’m afraid your friend broke the rules.”

“You never said only one person could answer, just that the first person who did  chose who dies!” Nette challenged.

‘YOU’RE GOING TO GET ME KILLED. STOP NO, WHY?! WHY???’

“Very true, I did.”

“You also said whoever answers in under a minute gets to give whoever falls a parachute!”

Alya’s mind was screaming but she still couldn’t look away from the dull grey drop. She closed her eyes. Oh. Those were tears.

“Very true.”

“So, I choose Marinette Dupain-Cheng to fall.”

Alya’s eyes flew open. Her gaze whipped over her shoulder to Nette, whose blurry figure, bloodied and leaning heavily on someone blond, was staring the Riddler square in the face, her body rigid. Alya, blinking through her tears, stared at her ex-friend.

‘Nette, what…?’

‘I TOLD you. ’

“Excellent!” His voice carried the creepiest smile. “Which one of you might that be?”

Marinette squared her shoulders, standing on her own, arms stiff by her sides. “Me.”

“HAH!” The Riddler’s laugh echoed through the cafeteria. “I thought so! How novel! You really think I’d throw away a chess piece it took me this long to find?”

“I’ve been in America for three days.  If this is your idea of commitment, I’d hate to see what your relationships look like.”

Someone inside the cafeteria snorted.

The Riddler’s whole body stiffened. His gloves squeaked on his cane’s handle as he pounded it twice on the table. “Come out, come out, bat-boys! I know you’re there!”

Alya glanced from Mari’s strangely fidgety body language to the three black blobs that stepped out from behind random tables. One particularly large black blob vaulted over the bar. Possibly. She had been a part of enough over-dressed hostage situations to know exactly the kind of ominous glare the Riddler was sporting, but her mind was preoccupied with the smallest blob—a bat-boy she assumed—who was practically vibrating with… something.

She couldn’t see his face—it could’ve been with rage, like an akuma, or excitement, like Chat when Ladybug had a plan, heck, it could’ve been nervous jitters for all she knew. But he was vibrating and it was weird.

“Sorry to break up whatever this is,” the tallest blob (whose entire head was maroon, so he was probably wearing a helmet, so he was most likely Red Hood) said, gesturing at the Riddler’s general position, “but I’m afraid your cell at Arkham is getting cold, and you know how expensive heating is these days.” The trio—maybe? Alya thought she saw a fourth, larger figure in the back.—began walking forward. The shortest one still vibrating with some undefinable emotion—and oh gosh the potentially angriest one had a sword.

“Ah-ah-ah!” Riddler tapped his cane again, and suddenly Alya became much more invested in gripping her captor’s arm with all her strength as they let a single finger slip from their grip on her sweater. “One false step and I’m afraid Frenchie takes a rather unfortunate nose-dive to the pavement.”

A lot of American curses were flung back and forth, but Alya was a bit too queasy to pay them much attention. ‘There’s no Miraculous Cure. There’s no Ladybug here to save me… I’m going to die.’ She could barely distinguish between her tears and the rain, her stomach in a solid knot and her heart beating faster than she’d thought possible, but her heart was in her throat and it was beating rather too fast, which her instincts distantly informed her was bad. ‘I’m going to die.’

“One more step and she drops!”

She heard that.

“No! No don’t!” Nette’s voice cried through the cacophony of Alya’s mind. “No please I-I’ll go with you please don’t—”

“Put her down, Riddler,” Probably-Red Hood’s disembodied voice said. “ Inside the cafeteria. No one has to get hurt.”

“Funny to hear you, of all people, saying that.” Riddler’s wheedling tone made her want to vomit. “Riddle me this, bat-brats,” he snarled. “How fast can you run? ” 

Alya’s head snapped around just in time to see Riddler’s blurry figure raise his cane.

Tap.

And then she was falling.

She couldn’t tell if she was screaming or not, but suddenly she was tumbling and her heart stopped beating and her stomach was suspended in the air where she fell from, and oh no this is a long way down.

She never realized how much raindrops hurt when you’re falling.

Two arms wrapped around her chest, and a way-too-heavy something slammed against her upper back.

Instinct kicked in and Alya was writhing in the air, kicking, scratching, wondering whether the noise that was a constant hum in her brain was just her screaming or the wind.

The something that fell on her grabbed her shoulder, and she fully heard her own desperate scream as Alya spun onto her back and—and it was Nette.

Her eyes were huge and her chest was heaving, and strapped to her back was the giant square of the parachute.

Alya stopped thrashing, opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

Nette didn’t say anything as she flipped Alya so she was facing the ground again, wrapped her arms and legs around Alya’s torso and pulled the parachute cord.

Nothing happened.

Time stopped but everything was moving, and Alya couldn’t feel her legs.

Alya couldn’t see Nette’s face as they plummeted, but her fingers increased their desperate speed.

She pulled the backup cord.

Nothing.

Alya could feel her panicked breathing as they fell.

And then it hit her.

No, not the ground.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng dove out of a skyscraper to save her.

Alya had stopped breathing what felt like forever ago, but somehow she found it in her to exhale a long, shuddering breath. Her eyes burned, and not just from the wet air. She opened her mouth to say something, anything—

“Hold on!” Nette called over the wind. And her grip on Alya shifted. Confused and terrified, she turned her head to see Nette... taking off her sweater?

Her face was set, and her eyes were terrified as she continued to strip down her top layers, looping the parachute around her leg. Her scarf had long since flown off, and her now-loose hair was buffeted wildly by the rain and wind, and as Nette whipped off her loose Jagged Stone tank top, Alya noticed some scar-like tattoos she’d never seen before.

They wrapped around her torso, partially hidden beneath her sports bra—that she hadn’t taken off and didn’t seem to intend to, neat, delicate patterns like stained glass panes.

And suddenly the tattoos were shimmering, glowing with pearlescent-pink light and they burst from her back into two glistening pairs of insect wings.

She didn’t have time to react as her stomach felt like it was being shoved through her spine, and then all her support was gone as Nette’s wings caught on the air and abruptly wrenched her straight up and away, violently tearing Alya from her unprepared ex-friend’s hold.

And once again she was falling.

The parachute straps were somehow tangled around her right ankle, some of the smaller straps slapping against her calves. She was crying, somehow, as she rolled around in the air, gasping for breath and desperately grasping for something to hold on to, anything to stop her—and arms wrapped around her torso and lifted... and she was no longer tumbling.

She stared at the foggy void beneath them, taking shuddering breaths, opening her mouth to say something—and suddenly her voice was snatched away permanently, and everything in Alya’s mind snapped into place like a broken bone being set.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was Ladybug.

Alya turned away from the swirling grey of the clouds and the needle-sharp stings of rain to her savior.

Paris’s Savior.

Nette’s face was scrunched, but her silvery eyes were blown wide. Her chest was shaking, but her arms were firm and strong as steel cables, the cast scratching through her sweater under Alya’s left arm.

Alya didn’t have to think to know exactly where she’d seen that same expression, that same body language, those same eyes before.

She’d always thought when she found out Ladybug’s identity she would gasp, run to her all-time favorite hero, and envelop her in a hug that would show Alya’s half-decade of gratitude. She thought she’d at least make a noise, laugh a little, anything.

But instead she couldn’t breathe at all.

Alya was silent. Her ribs seemed to be slowly closing in on her heart, stabbing and curling and twisting, imploding in the slowest, most agonizing way possible. Her throat was sealed tighter than a submarine, and her lungs, which seconds before had been balloons filled nearly to bursting, were now wads of chewing gum spat on the sidewalk.

The rain stung her face, pelting her with little stones of judgement and realization after realization after realization.

‘ What… what have I done… ?’

Nette’s face released some of its tension, a spark of relief in her silvery eyes— ’Did she see something?’ —and she sped to the left.

Alya couldn’t focus on anything besides Nette’s terrified, determined face.

‘How long have I been this dumb…?’

Her brain snapped back to reality as her feet suddenly collided with a gravel rooftop. Sharp, cold, wet rocks were scattering through the air and for a split second as she tumbled forward, the world was ordinary, and she remembered the world outside her spiraling thoughts existed again.

But then Nette’s arms tightened their hold around her torso, her tiny body wrapped around her back, and two pairs of at least partially-magic wings enveloped her, and they were tumbling over the rooftop, Nette’s tiny body keeping her from the worst of the gravel. Alya’s teeth rattled in her skull and for a moment she feared they would tumble off the other side of the building, but then they were sliding to a stop, covered in tiny cuts and soaked through with rain and slick with whatever kind of corporate rooftop mud was mixed with the gravel. The parachute lay a few yards away, the material scuffed and torn, bits of whitish material showing through the canvas-like outside.

‘...Ow.’

Nette groaned.

Scrambling to her knees, heart in her throat as she wiped the rain from her eyes, Alya turned toward her former best friend. “Ne—M-Mari—Lady— URGH I am so stupid are you okay?”

Nette sat up, blinking wearily at her slightly crumpled wings. There was a vicious tear running up from the middle of her upper-left wing, a jagged rip like lightning rising almost to its ’shoulder’ as it pulsated with neon pink light.

Alya stared for a moment, her stomach stuck halfway up her throat. Slowly, her scraped hand reached out of its own accord to touch the tear.

Nette jolted with a small cry and scrambled away from her, pupils dilated and breathing erratic.

Alya’s hand jerked away from Mar—from Nette ’s wing, curling up to her chest.

The rooftop was silent for a moment as Nette deflated slightly, glancing away and clenching her hands into fists. “Sorry,” she whispered.

Alya shook her head.

Ne—no.

No, Nette was the name of a girl who would’ve left Alya to take a nose-dive for the asphalt, shrieking that she would never believe ‘Lie-la’ as she fell.

Marinette was the name of a girl who would’ve jumped out that window after her, even without a parachute. She would’ve jumped through the window to save anyone, even if it was Lila. Marinette was the name of the girl who flinched away from Alya’s hand like she was scared she would hit her.

“I-I saved these for you…” Marinette said, taking something out from her shorts pocket. She offered the thing to Alya. “The goon guy kinda… made you drop them earlier. I picked them up when… when they dropped you.”

Alya slowly took the thing.

Her glasses.

The lenses were even more cracked than before, the left lens was virtually shattered, and the frame was bent heavily, but Alya couldn’t stop staring at them.

She… she’d thought to grab her glasses.

“O-oh no…” Marinette whispered. “I’m so sorry they’re… I-I can fix this.” She reached for the glasses, but paused a few inches away. She slowly withdrew her hand. “I… I… nevermind…” She tapped her cast on her thigh. “I-if you still use the same prescription I have the contacts you left at my house i-in my bag.”

Alya blinked.

Marinette paled, and started flailing her arms around wildly. “I-I’m sorry that probably sounded super creepy I just never threw them away and I always kept an extra pair in my bag out of habit, y’know since you’d drag me out t-to go hunting for Ladybug— NOT THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO GO, I just—I m-mean… n-nevermind you probably have spares anyways I’m sorry.”

Alya opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no sound came out.

‘You… you kept the spares…? You didn’t… you…’

Marinette got shakily to her knees, her wing slowly knitting itself back together.

‘What?!’

“There’s less rain under that overhang,” she said in a whisper. “You should wait there for the police.”

‘How long has— how many times has this happened that she isn’t even noticing her wing fixing itself ?!’

Marinette was standing now, shifting her weight from foot to foot, clenching and unclenching her fists, lightly smacking her cast against her hip. “N-nevermind.”

Alya’s entire body was numb, her chipped-polish-covered fingernails digging holes into her knees, unblinking eyes staring at the roof. She didn’t know how long she spent sitting in the freezing rain, unable to move or think, before a soft whisper that had been mounting for so long she didn’t know when it had started finally broke through her bubble.

“So,” Marinette paced on the roof, muttering a rambling plan to herself, “they know I’m here, but how? They couldn’t know about Paris, the Justice League promised to keep that on the down-low, so how did he know ?” The gravel crunched. Alya could just barely make out Marinette’s pacing boots in the corner of her vision.

‘ How didn’t I know? ’ Alya ground her teeth to keep the tears from her eyes. ‘ How didn’t I know?! ’

“...Underground network?” Marinette’s musing shattered Alya’s fragile bubble of grief for a moment. “Had to have been. Wait, the hotel is near Crime Alley! Some low-life must’ve seen Robin break my arm! Yes, of course! Word travels fast! I doubt they stuck around when the Bat showed up, that would probably be a bad idea, given his connections. So then...”

Alya’s lungs stopped working. ‘ What?! Is… is that why no one knows how she broke her arm?’ Her fingers curled into fists, balling up the hem of her skirt, her eyes wider than she’d ever thought they could be, and yet she still couldn’t blink. ‘ How much of your life have you been hiding? ’ Alya curled further toward the ground, her back bent as though the weight on Ladybug’s shoulders had been dropped on her own, pressing the base of her palms into her temples, hot, angry tears streaming down her face.

‘But that weight HAS fallen on you now too. And Marinette’s share is a billion times heavier.’

Marinette’s rambling stopped abruptly, breaking Alya from her spiral.

She looked up just to see Mari pause, reaching towards her.

Marinette’s bloodied fingers twitched in the slightest flinch and she withdrew her hand, tightening it into an anxious fist. Mari looked away for a moment, staring at the rain.

“You can’t tell anyone about this,” she said softly, looking back at Alya. Her eyes were melting from their usual silver into an ocean blue, and somehow they seemed to stare straight into Alya’s soul, the blood slowly washing off her face in the seemingly ceaseless rain. Her wing was almost completely mended now. “Please. I know—I know you hate me…”

‘I used to wish I could.’

“But please. I can’t have anyone know.”

‘Now I think I should’ve been hating myself the whole time.’ Alya stared at her, mouth dry. “Why—Why didn’t you…”

“Because if Hawkmoth had known, do you really think we’d ever have been safe?” Mari’s eyes were filled with desperate, torturous, silvery-blue fire. “If he’d known, my family would’ve been constantly targeted. If he’d known, you would—” Marinette closed her eyes and inhaled slowly through her teeth, knuckles going white and her cast creaking in protest.

‘What kind of strength has she been hiding all this time?’

“One bad day, Alya,” she whispered, eyes still squeezed shut. “That’s all it would’ve taken. One bad day, and my secret was out. We were fourteen. You would’ve wanted to post about it. You wouldn’t have, I— I hoped. I prayed every single night that if you ever found out you’d know not to tell.” She opened her eyes again and the electric Ladybug-blue shot Alya straight in the face with sheer, raw, open misery. “I wanted to tell you. I stayed up night after night after night, crying, because you were my first Best Friend and Best Friends were supposed to be honest, and… and I couldn’t be.” Marinette looked away. “I don’t know why you… why…” Her voice cracked.

Alya’s chest was suspended in mid-breath, her muscles stuck, paralyzed.

She couldn’t speak.

“I don’t know why you’re so angry with me,” Marinette finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. “If I knew I’d try to fix it. But I don’t know and you never let me try to explain.”

Alya’s heart was thumping heavily in her throat, her mouth full of things it wanted to say but had no words for because Marinette was Ladybug and Alya had practically told her to die.

Mari opened her mouth as if to say something, but she cut herself off.

Her cast creaked again.

“Stay safe, Alya,” Marinette whispered. And like a shimmering pink ghost, she disappeared into the rain, and Alya was left alone with her thoughts.

And for the first time in her life, she was truly, deeply horrified by them.