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After purifying the Akuma, Ladybug turns to the two boys next to her, “Marc and Nathaniel? By now you realize there was a big misunderstanding, but if you give each other a chance, I'm sure you'll find out how well you can work together.”
Looking between Ladybug and Nathaniel, his hero and the boy he had a crush on, Marc was tempted to reach his hand out and forgive the tomato, until he remembered what he had done. Gaze hardening, Marc smacked the hand away, “Yeah, I’m not going to forgive you that easily.”
Marc turned his heel and left, leaving a very confused hero and a saddened, but understanding redhead. Distantly, he could hear Ladybug comfort Nathaniel, saying that he’ll come around but Marc had already made his decision and he’s not going to cave that easily.
“-AND THEN LADYBUG HAD THE AUDACITY TO TELL ME TO WORK WITH HIM!” Marc finishes off his rant with a small scream of frustration, not noticing his cousin's awkwardness.
“haha, yeah, how dare she demand that of you,” Marinette laughs nervously.
“I KNOW RIGHT?!?!?” Marc sighs as he sits down, he’s not THAT mad, but he needed to get that out of his system, “Thanks for listening to my rant, this whole thing just made me really need to vent.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Marinette laughs, “Anyway-”
Unbeknownst to either of them, a third person was listening in on their conversation. A person with a plan. After all, how dare that-that maniac hurt poor, sweet Marc. Sure she had never actually met Marc, and she never really interacts with Nathaniel, but she heard enough from this conversation to know that something needs to be done about Nathaniel.
“We need to do something about the aggressive monster in this class!” Alya declares suddenly before Nathaniel gets to class.
“Kim can be confrontational sometimes, but he’s not a monster!” Rose tries to defend her classmate.
“Ugh! Not Kim! I’m obviously talking about Nathaniel!” Alya groans.
“Woah! Just because Nathaniel has bipolar disorder doesn’t mean he’s a monster! I didn’t know you were ableist, Alya!” Alix glares, how dare Alya try to call someone a monster because of their condition!
“Nathaniel has bipolar disorder?” Alya glances at Alix in confusion before remembering her point, “Whatever, I was talking about how he destroyed Marc’s journal!”
“Who?” Everyone except for the art club asked.
“Marinette’s cousin!” Alya shouted in frustration.
At that, everyone gained looks of understanding before becoming angry.
“How dare he hurt Marinette’s cousin!” Kim yelled, outraged.
Alya waited a few minutes for them to calm down, glancing at the door to make sure Nathaniel wouldn’t walk in on their planning.
Nathaniel walked in nervously, immediately noticing that everyone kept glancing at him. He hesitantly walked to his seat, making sure no one did anything to it, before sitting down.
He decides to just sketch until the bell rings, so he can ignore them. Pulling out his sketchbook, he’s suddenly reminded of ripping up Marc’s journal, wincing slightly, Nathaniel reminds himself to buy Marc a new one. Nathaniel soon gets lost in his drawing.
Once Ms.Bustier starts talking, Nathaniel quickly dozes off, too tired to care about sleeping through class.
Ok, something is up. Nathaniel had been getting glances and glares all day, but no one was doing anything. Everything else is the same. Is this some kind of psychological warfare??
Nathaniel had no time to think about it though, the day is ending soon. He has to go home soon. As grateful as he is that his sisters aren’t stuck with Roy, he longs to be in the custody of his mother. His mother who was always loving and caring, who never left him home for 2 months with barely any money for food, his mother who never slapped him when he was late.
The bell rings. School is over. Nathaniel sighs as he stands up, trying to rush as much as possible so that his father doesn’t hurt him. As Nathaniel practically runs out of class, he feels a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey! I heard what you did to Marc” Nathaniel turns to find Alya glaring at him.
“O-Oh, do you know Marc? Can you tell him I’m sorry and I-I’ll buy him a new journal as soon as I get the chance!” Nathaniel stutters out, looking for an escape from this situation, he needs to get home now.
Alya falters slightly before her gaze hardens, “Listen, we both know that you’re trying to take advantage of poor, sweet Marc!”
Nathaniel finally manages to wrench his arm out of Alya’s grasp and quickly runs off, “Listen, can we talk about this tomorrow?! I really need to get home!” He calls over his shoulder, leaving Alya to stew in her anger.
Nathaniel skids to a stop in front of his house, sighing in relief when he realizes he isn’t late. Walking into the living room, he instantly spots the note.
I’m going to be gone for 2 weeks. Don’t do anything stupid. Your food money is next to the note.
-Roy
Nathaniel feels a twinge of disappointment at the single euro next to the note, but he quickly pushes it down, this is what commission money is for. Besides, it’s good that Roy isn’t here. He can relax, with no worries about the consequences of stepping out of line.
“Alright, we need to come up with a new plan!” Alya shouts angrily after Nathaniel ran away from her, “He doesn’t seem affected by the isolation!”
“Yeah, that’s cause you never pay attention to him anyway” Alix retorts, not liking how everyone treats her friend.
“So,” Alya continues, ignoring Alix, “We need to do something more”
“What?!” Alix suddenly looked a lot more alert, “I swear to god if you try to hurt him-”
“Relax, we won’t do anything that bad,” Alya waves her off, “besides, he deserves a little name-calling or something, he’s bullying Marc!”
Alix continues to glare at her before sighing, “I’m out, I won’t help you bully my friend because he made a stupid mistake.”
The rest of the art club follows her soon after.
Alya continues to stare after them, “Whatever, we don’t need them.” She mumbles, before turning back to the room with a bright smile, “Let’s get this started!”
The glares Nathaniel had received the day before seemed to have doubled. Ducking his head down, Nathaniel slowly made his way to the back of the room.
As Nathaniel sits down, uncomfortably aware of everyone’s eyes on him, he has a jolt of realization, his bag is lighter. Why is his bag lighter? Frantically, Nathaniel searches through his bag, desperate to find out what is missing. What could it be? He rarely ever takes anything out of his bag! What if it’s his food money?
thunk
Nathaniel hears the sound of an object dropping on his desk. He looks up, Alya and Kim are standing there with their arms crossed. Dread washes over him as he slowly looks down. His sketchbook… his… destroyed sketchbook.
Slowly picking up the pieces of the drawings that he poured hours into, Nathaniel’s vision started blurring.
Why? Why would they do this? Do they just hate him that much? Nathaniel glances up, desperate for any kind of support. Alix is sick, not here. What about the other art club members?
Juleka looked down and while Rose looked a bit angry, she didn’t say anything. Desperate for any sliver of hope, Nathaniel turns his pleading look on Marinette who… is asleep.
Nathaniel’s gaze returned to his desk where all of his drawings lay. All of his drawings for the past 2 months. It was just about full and he was about to buy a new one to replace it, well he’ll still have to replace it. Now all of that work is gone.
“How do you like getting a taste of your own medicine?” Alya says scornfully.
“What?” Nathaniel asks blankly, his gaze still fixed on his destroyed sketchbook.
“We all know what you did to Marc!” Kim exclaims indignantly.
“Huh? Oh. M-Marc told you about that?” Nathaniel laughs nervously, hunching down.
“Yeah! Dude, we know everything! Not cool dude.” Nino pipes up.
“L-Listen, I apologized a-and I’m going to...buy...him…..a…..new……..one” Nathaniel’s voice tapers off into a whisper by the end, too nervous to go any louder under his classmate’s intense glares.
“If you would just tell the truth then maybe we wouldn’t be so hard on you!” Alya yells in frustration, “Why are you so sad about this? You can give it out but you can’t take it?!”
Nathaniel can feel the tears well up in his eyes as he desperately looks for an escape route. Nothing. They have him blocked on all exits, well it’s either that or his brain is too fried from the stress to think.
Ding Ding Ding Ding
Nathaniel lets out a small sigh of relief as Ms. Bustier walks in and class begins.
The relief didn’t last after class ended, throughout the whole day, kids were tripping him, calling him names, and overall making him have a terrible day. All in the name of Marc.
He could understand Marc not accepting his apology, but this? Making the whole school bully him? How bad did Nathaniel mess up? How important was that journal? Maybe Marc just wasn’t as nice as he thought. Maybe he was just waiting for this opportunity to use it as an excuse to bully him.
Whatever the case is, Nathaniel is getting bullied because of Marc.
“Girl! We totally got him! Maybe he’ll stop being a bully now!” Alya shouts happily to Marinette.
“Haha! Yeah! Wait, who did we get?” Marinette asks, confused.
“The guy bullying your cousin! Nathaniel!” Alya exclaims, looking at Marinette worried. After all, how do you forget someone bullying your own cousin?
“Nathaniel...bullying...Marc?” Marinette trails off with an even more confused look, “Oh do you mean when he ripped up Marc’s journal?”
“Yeah! Don’t worry, though! We totally got him back for that!” Alya says, cheerfully.
“Umm… how exactly did you get him back?” Marinette asks, concerned.
“Don’t worry we only did what he did to Marc! We ripped up his sketchbook!” Alya answers.
“Oh good, you only ripped up his sketchbook.” Marinette relaxes before shooting up again, “YOU DID WHAT?!?!” She shrieks.
“Why are you so angry? He bullies Marc!” Alya asks, now confused.
“Listen, I have to go. See you later!” Marinette says, distractedly, mind focused on finding Nathaniel.
Marc was just walking around, head down, being your average shy boy™ when he heard a faint crying from down the hall. Now, Marc is not usually the type to go after crying people, he has enough issues, he doesn’t need to listen to other people’s problems and comfort them. Sure, that might seem a bit selfish and mean, but he doesn’t think he could listen to other’s problems without bursting into tears himself. The point is, Marc usually just leaves crying people alone, but for whatever reason, today he felt compelled to go check on whoever this person is.
The faint sobs slowly got louder as Marc walked down the hall. There, at the end of the hallway, was a boy curled up in a ball in the corner. Except, it wasn’t just any boy, it was The Boy. The redhead he’d had a crush on (still has a crush on).
Nathaniel must have heard him, as his head quickly shoots up and he tries in vain to wipe up the tears streaming down his face. Marc can see a flicker of recognition in Nathaniel’s eyes before the other boy scrambles even further into his corner.
“U-Um hi Nathaniel. Are you...ok?” Marc asks uncertainly, “Well of course you’re not ok, you’re crying in the corner of a hallway” Marc laughs awkwardly I’m just making this worse, aren’t I? He thinks, still looking at Nathaniel, concerned.
“L-Listen, what- what do you want? Did- did you come here to rub it in my face? Can you p-please just l-let it go! I apo-apologized already!” Nathaniel manages to choke out before breaking down into sobs again.
“What?” Marc asks, confused.
Rub it in his face? Rub what in his face? What did he do? Why is Nathaniel crying and why does he seem to blame him?
“D-Don’t act like you don’t know! You’ve had the whole school bullying me!” Nathaniel glares weakly.
“What! No, I haven’t!” Marc exclaims, defending himself, “Wait, people have been bullying you?”
“You mean you... don’t know?” Nathaniel sniffles, looking up, “Everyone has been bullying me all day ‘cause of what I did to you.”
“They… have?” Marc asks weakly as he finally takes in the boy in front of him, noticing the barely developed bruises adorning the redhead’s body, obviously made recently.
“Listen, can you just… leave me alone?” Nathaniel stands up shakily.
“I-I-I have to tell them to stop doing this! How dare they hurt someone in my name!” Marc feels a surge of anger looking at the state that his crush is in.
“You… will?” Nathaniel asks, just a little hope seeping into his voice.
“Of course!” Marc exclaims.
Tomorrow, Nathaniel’s classmates won’t know what hit them.
Ok so maybe asking them to stop is an under exaggeration. Marc is definitely going to threaten them with his knife, but that’s just a given. They used his name to bully someone. Someone very cute.
“Alright, you little shits, which of you has been bullying Nathaniel?” Marc asks, storming into Nathaniel’s class, knife already out.
The class seemed to be in shock, staring between Marc and the knife in his hand. Slowly, all of the class (minus the art club) raised their hands.
“We thought you didn’t like Nathaniel! He bullied you!” Alya exclaims, “Did he make you come here and do this?”
“Oh, yes he did! Thank you so much for bullying him!” Marc says before promptly stabbing Alya in the arm.
Marc didn’t come in here planning on actually stabbing anyone, but that girl is very annoying and he needs to take his anger out on something.
“HOLY SHIT!” Kim shouts over Alya’s screams, “YOU JUST FUCKING STABBED HER!”
“Yes, I did,” Marc says nonchalantly, as though he’s done this many times before (which he has).
“Somebody get a teacher!” Someone screams horrified.
“This is a lot of blood, dude!” Nino says, holding Alya, “Is she going to die?!”
“Overdramatic much, it’s just a little stab in the arm! I’ve survived way more!” Marc scoffs, annoyed, “Why don’t we get back to the subject of you hurting Nathaniel!”
“Now, children what is all this commotion!” Ms. Bustier walks in, having heard the noise, her eyes widen as she sees Alya’s wound, “Oh my God!” She says before pulling out her phone, probably calling a hospital.
“We’re never going to get back on topic, are we?” Marc sighs as the class continues to freak out.
Nathaniel walked in on a very… interesting sight. Kids were screaming, Marc was standing in a corner, playing with a… is that a knife?!?! And Alya is in Nino’s arms… bleeding.
“What the hell happened here?”
Marc was expelled, obviously , he stabbed someone!
Nathaniel has to admit… he looked kinda hot with blood splatters on his clothes.
Whatever, It’s not like he’ll really see Marc now that they go to different schools.
Is what he thought. So, why is he sitting in a dirty alley while Marc sharpens his knives? Does this count as a date? Probably not. Right? Maybe. Marc is pretty weird… he kinda likes it.
“So… so you, maybe want to… go out sometime?” Marc asks meekly, fiddling with his hoodie. How he can be that shy while holding at least 20 knives, Nathaniel doesn’t know.
“Sure” Nathaniel blushes, looking away slightly.