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Marinette’s point of view.
Marinette entered the classroom, happy to be early for class for once instead of having to rush. She met Alya’s eyes and gave a small smile before heading to her seat in the back of the classroom. Alya was engaged in a spirited conversation with Lila and Marinette wasn’t going to let some new drama disrupt her pleasant mood.
Her relationship with Alya had been strained since the arrival of Lila and Marinette found herself actively avoiding Alya whenever she was with her new friend. The lies Lila had spread about Marinette had tarnished all of her relationships in the class, to the point where no one really noticed her anymore. No one trusted her so no one would talk to her, expect Adrien, but he was usually too busy to spend anytime with her. Marinette sat in her seat and pulled out her sketch pad and tried to ignore the small talk as the classroom slowly filled up. When Adrien entered the room, he flashed her a big smile before sitting down at his seat in the front of the class. Marinette watched as Lila flung her arms around Adrien, in the seat in front of her, and tried to whisper into his ear before he tensed up and shrugged her off. Marinette just shook her head and returned to her drawing. There was literally nothing else she could do.
Shouts could be heard in the hallway. The class began to nervously look at each other before a group of men burst into the classroom and locked the door.
“Grab the desk!” One shouted, as two other men pushed the heavy teacher’s desk in front of the door. The men were heavily armed and by the sounds of their accents, American. The man who shouted first, must have been the leader. He swung a big gun over his shoulder before turning to face the class a big smile on his face. “All right kiddies, get comfortable. We are going to be here awhile.”
Marinette slowly put away her sketchbook so as to not draw attention to herself. She needed to get out of this room so that she could transform into Ladybug. Damn, no good can ever come from waking up early, she thought to herself. She watched as one of the men began counting the students. Damnit!
“15 hostages, sir.” he said.
“Good.” The leader looked at the class. “Stay in your seats and no one will get hurt” He turned his back on them as he conversed with one of the gunmen. Marinette thought about trying to move out of sight before she noticed the terrorist who had counted them was facing the class, watching them. Making sure no one was going to try anything foolish.
Marinette looked around at her classmates. The look of terror filled most of their faces. Rose was crying softly into Juleka’s shoulder. Mylene was clutching Ivan’s hand, wordlessly communicating her fear with her eyes. Alya had pulled out her cell phone as was discreetly trying to record the men without their knowledge. Lila was sitting back in her chair, taking in the scene a look of contemptment on her face. And Adrien, Adrien was staring at her, panic in his eyes, and something else that Marinette couldn’t place, it was almost as if he was worried about her.
The leader spotted Alya with her cell phone and smirked. “Time to get to business.” He walked over to Alya and pulled the phone out of her hand. “And you are already live streaming. Perfect!” The man was smug as he looked at the phone before turning it to selfie mode. “Hello Paris,” he said with an evil grin upon his face. “We have your children. And if you want them back alive, we want the miraculous of Ladybug and Chat Noir as well as transportation out of the country.” He turned the phone away from him showing the classroom full of students. “Let’s just see who we have here,” He took time to show the faces of each member of the class. “I don’t know who arranged these classes but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to put so many children of important people in one class.” He laughed, a laugh that sent chills up Marinette’s spine. “Chloe Bourgeois, daughter of the mayor. Adrien Agreste, famous male model. And look, Lila Rossi, Ladybug’s very best friend. I don’t know that we could have picked a better class.” A dark smile crossed his face as he turned the camera back to himself. “We have 15 hostages and we will kill one every hour our demands are not met. Ladybug and Chat Noir, your time starts now.” He turned off the phone and took a seat in Mme. Bustier’s chair, the smirk never leaving his face as he stared down the students, as if daring them to cry.
Marinette didn’t know what to do. She hoped that Chat Noir would be able to create some kind of distraction so that she could escape unnoticed. She wondered for a minute if she should just transform now to protect her class but quickly decided against it. These terrorists had picked her classroom by sheer coincidence (she hoped). If her identity was revealed it would put all of them in danger of more such attacks. No, she would wait and hope for Chat Noir to make an appearance before the hour was up.
She sat primed at the edge of her seat, ready to make a move if the opportunity should present itself. The room was eerily quiet, the occasional sniffle breaking the silence. The men at the front of the room paced, waiting for their demands to be answered. Marinette focused on the ticking of the clock in the room, trying to ease her tension as each minute passed. She thought of Chat Noir, wondering if he was waiting for Ladybug to come up with a plan.
Each click of the clock seemed to irritate their captures. The leader began pacing the floor and he stared at the clock, the confident smile had long left his face.
“They think we are bluffing,” Marinette heard him say. “We have to make an example. Show we mean business.” Marinette began to panic. Were they really about to kill one of them? She watched as the 3 armed men talked amongst themselves. Please Chat Noir, hurry!
“Times up,” the leader said, glancing at the clock. Marinette felt as if her heart stopped beating as the man walked towards her classmates and grabbed Lila roughly by the arm. “Where’s your best friend, huh? Guess you weren’t as important to her as we thought.” He pushed Lila into the arms of the other man. “We’ll do it in front of the school. Where everyone can see.” Lila began to scream and cry as the man gripped her shoulders tightly. Marinette had to do something, even if it was Lila, the person who had destroyed her life.
“Stop!” Marinette yelled, jumping up from her seat. “Take me instead.” The class turned around staring at Marinette, at least she was seen again by her classmates.
“Yes! Yes! Take Marinette!” Lila shirked.
Marinette walked down the steps, refusing to make eye contact with any of her classmates. She had an idea. She knew that she was strong enough to disarm one of the men without being Ladybug, and hopefully she could escape and transform. It was their only chance. She just needed the men to take her instead of Lila, and her only hope was to piss them off enough that they wanted to kill her.
She continued to walk down the steps focusing on her words, having no fear of tripping down the steps now, she was Ladybug after all. “You guys are really stupid you know. Willing to kill one of your valuable hostages right off the bat.” She smirked at Lila. “She’s Ladybug’s best friend after all, do you really want to deal with the wrath of Ladybug? You need to take me, I’m nobody. I am easily expendable.” She walked past Adrien and heard him hiss at her.
“Shut up, Marinette! What are you doing?” But she couldn’t look at the boy she loved. Couldn’t allow him to break her determination.
“You heard her! Take her instead of me!” Lila continued to shirk. At this point Marinette had walked to the front of the room and was staring in the face of the man who planned to kill her and all of her friends.
“You want to make a statement and you are going to kill this sniveling little girl. Some man you are!” Marinette spat in his face. The leader pulled his gun and pointed it at Marinette. “Go ahead you stupid Son of a Bitch.”
“You are going to die for those words, little girl.” he said, snarling at her and then backhanding her across the face. But Marinette remained firm, glaring back at the man, even with her eyes starting to swell and turn black from the hit.
“I will die protecting the ones I love.” The man snarled at her before motioning to the other terrorist to release Lila and grab Marinette.
“No! You can’t take her!” screamed Adrien, who tried to leave his seat but Nino was holding him down.
“Ooh, it’s the model’s girlfriend.” The leader laughed. “She is the better choice after all.” He moved to the door, followed by the one man gripping Marinette. He nodded to the third terrorist. “Make sure you lock the door behind us. If anyone gets up, shoot them.” He looked at Adrien who was desperately trying to make eye contact with Marinette but she steadfastly refused to look at him. She was afraid that looking at Adrien would break her resolve, make her question this plan that she had made in an instant.. “Say goodbye, loverboy,” he laughed again as they dragged Marinette out the door.
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Adrien’s Point of View
He couldn’t breathe. He felt like life itself had been sucked out of him when he heard Marinette speak from the back of the classroom. He had been trying to figure out how he could transform but since he was sitting in the front of the room there was no way his being missing would go unnoticed. He knew that Ladybug needed him but knew that he couldn’t reveal his identity. That may make things worse.
And then the terrorists grabbed Lila and Adrien began to get desperate, praying for Ladybug to swoop in and save the day. Only to have his everyday Ladybug do it for her. He watched as she made her way down the classroom steps, focused on the scene in front of her. Adrien shook his head at her, terror overtaking his handsome features but she refused to look at him.
“Yes! Yes! Take Marinette!” he heard Lila yelling and could feel a growl rise in his chest, anger racing through his body as he clenched his fists. He didn’t need Cataclysm to destroy them all. He would ripe Lila apart with his bare hands given the chance.
He watched Marinette stand up to the terrorist. Looking more beautiful and terrifying than he had ever seen her before. She reminded him of Ladybug, the way she was confident and so sure of what she was doing. Marinette was brave. Willing to sacrifice herself for a group of friends who had turned their backs on her.
Either that or Lila had gotten her wish and Marinette was suicidal, but Adrien didn’t want to think like that.
The man backhanded Marinette but she barely even flinched, causing Adrien to jump out of this seat but found Nino next to him holding his shoulder tightly to keep him down.
“You can’t do anything for her,” he muttered. “You’ll only make things worse.” Adrien looked at Nino and found Nino’s eyes brimming with tears. He looked around the classroom. Alya was sitting in her seat, silent tears streaming down her face. Rose was sobbing into Juleka’s shirt. Even Chloe looked scared, her head hanging down. The only one who didn’t look scared or defeated was Lila. Lila looked satisfied at the turn of events and had stopped struggling with her capture.
Adrien watched as Marinette stood tall, there was no stutter in her voice. “I’ll die protecting the ones I love.” Marinette said. Adrien began to panic, thinking that he may never hear her stutter again, never see her smile again, never see her face blush red again.
“No! You can’t take her!” screamed Adrien, who tried to leave his seat as Nino pushed down harder. He saw t\he leader of the terrorist laugh and say something to him but Adrien blood was pumping through his head as his body shook with anger and fear as he desperately tried to get Marinette’s attention, to confess his love for her with only his eyes, before she was dragged out of the room.
Everything happened in slow motion. The clock on the wall refused to click another minute. Nino was saying something next to him. Lila was scurrying back to her seat. Adrien watched as the man left behind moved towards the door to lock it. He couldn’t take it anymore. Fuck his secret idenity. All that mattered right now was getting to Marinette.
“Plagg, Claws Out!” he roared as his transformation overtook him. He was vaguely aware of screams filling the room as he dove across the room and attacked the man who had stayed behind before he reached the door. He tackled the man, slamming him into the ground. He kicked the gun out of his hand and the terrorist rolled over and tried to grab the gun before it was out of reach. “Cataclysm!” he yelled as he touched the gun, watching it disintegrate into a pile of black ash. The man then tried to throw his weight against Chat Noir as the two men wrestled upon the ground before Chat Noir was able to throw a clean punch which hit the man on the jaw. Adrien watched the light leave the man’s eyes as he succumbed to unconsciousness.
Adrien felt his heart racing in his chest as the events in the room began to play in real time again. He heard the screaming again but this time he realized it was coming from Alya and wasn’t directed at him.
“You told them to take her!” Alya screamed at Lila, Nino now holding Alya back to keep her from attacking the brunette.
“So what?” Lila said, unphased by the attack of her friend. “You heard her, yourself. She’s a nobody.”
“She saved your worthless life! Don’t you dare call her a nobody!” Alya collapsed, sobbing on the ground. Lila didn’t even look at her, focusing on her nails instead.
“It was all a lie, wasn’t it?” Nino whispered. Lila didn’t respond. “Marinette was right about you.”
Mentioning Marinette wake Adrien from his daze at everything that had happened. He didn’t hear the lying girl’s response. Adrien jumped off the unconscious man and ran to the door. Just as his hand touched the knob, a gunshot rang through the empty halls of the school.
That moment was frozen in time. He was broken. Adrien would spend the darkest moments of his life reliving the pain he felt in that one second as the sound of a single gunshot echoed through his brain. He was too late. He had lost her. And it was more than losing a friend or even a girl that he might have had a crush on. It was the loss of something more. The loss of a possible future with his beautiful classmate that he never had the nerve to recognize his true feelings. The loss of his innocence. The loss of what might have been, Adrien let his transformation drop as fear and sadness flooded through his fragile body. Silence filled the room only broken by the sounds of his sobs.
Footsteps pounded in the hallway outside of the door. Someone was running towards them. Adrien pulled himself to his feet and looked around at his class, seeing their panicked faces. His feelings didn’t matter, he would deal with the pain later. He had to protect the rest of his friends. He needed to be strong like Marinette. He steadied himself, prepared to call his transformation when the classroom door burst open.
Marinette appeared before the class, a wild look in her eyes, clutching her right shoulder with her right hand.
“We have to get out now!” she shouted. Everyone stared at her in disbelief. “Move!” she yelled again, waking everyone from the trance that seemed to hold the class as they hurried out the door, Marinette leading the way. Adrien followed behind blindly. As they hurried out the building, Adrien looked down a side hallway and saw the two terrorists unconscious on the ground. What had happened?
Once they reached the front of the school, they were greeted by screams of relief and engulfed in hugs by family members and friends who had gathered at the school. Adrien looked around wildly, he needed to find Marinette. He finally spotted her, sneaking off to the side of the school, avoiding her parents who were actively looking for her. He rushed towards her and grabbed her, wrapping her in a hug before she had time to realize he was before her, not giving her time to protest. She let out a cry and pulled away from him.
Adrien looked at Marinette and saw the tears running down her face. He held her at arm's length, refusing to let go of her completely when he noticed the blood running down her arm. He gasped as he watched the eyes roll back into her head as she collapsed into his arms. Marinette had been shot.
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The rest of the week was a blur of integrations, rampant rumors, and new information coming to light. After Adrien had carried the bleeding, unconscious girl to her parents, screaming for an ambulance the entire way, he was whisked off by his bodyguard and locked into his home, with the promise from his father that he would never return to that dangerous school again. It wasn’t until hours of pacing his room later, when he got a text message from Alya, telling him that Marinette would be alright, the shot had been through and through, that he finally collapsed on his bed as the implications of the day caught up with him.
Once his class had exited the building, authorities entered and found all three terrorists who were still out cold. The perplexed adults couldn’t figure out how the men had arrived in that position but nonetheless took them into custody. It turns out they were just desperate men, in search of the Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous in order to sell to the highest bidding country.
No one was sure why Ladybug and Chat Noir didn’t show up at the school that day but many assumed it was because the event had nothing to do with Hawk Moth. No one in his class had revealed what Adrien had done meaning that so far his identity was safe.
In the aftermath of the incident, most of Lila’s lies came to light, thanks mostly to Alya finally doing her due diligence as a reporter and fact checked all of Lila’s stories. Lila decided to switch schools rather than face her disgruntled former classmates.
With much begging and pleading and a little bit of threatening, Adrien was able to convince his dad to allow him to return to school. The school had been closed the week following the attack and Adrien was anxious to see his friends, especially a certain friend who told Alya she would be back at school when it opened.
Not hearing from Marinette in a week, not seeing her blush red when he spoke to her, not hearing her quiet laugh when he told a stupid joke was enough to convince himself he was madly in love with that girl. It must be true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. While he still cared deeply for Ladybug, Marinette had stolen his heart, it just took losing her to realize it.
Adrien arrived at school and anxiously waited at the edge of his seat for Marinette to make an appearance. Most of the class seemed to be waiting for the girl, many of the girls holding flowers or stuffed animals, small tokens of appreciation for their classmate that they had taken for granted in the previous months. After much waiting and anticipation, Marinette appeared in the doorway. Adrien could no longer contain himself, he was the first one out of his seat and rushed to his classmate. He grabbed her elbows, avoiding her shoulders because one was still in a sling.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said, looking deeply into her blue eyes. And then, not waiting for permission although later he realized that was a mistake even though he was caught up in the moment, he kissed her passionately, in front of their entire class. Wolf whistles and hollers filled the room and when the couple broke apart both had faces red enough to rival Ladybug’s suit. The rest of the class gathered around Marinette giving her hugs and kisses, placing the gifts on her seat in the front of the class next to Alya since Adrien would not let go of her free hand. Things finally began to settle down but everyone still had questions.
“Girl, what happened in the hallway?” Alya asked. “How did you get away from them?” Marinette began to blush again before answering. She had planned out her answer before class today because she knew she would be asked.
“Oh, um, Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up and rescued me.” she said, looking around the room at the stunned faces of the class around her. She swallowed.
“Ladybug and Chat Noir?” Alya asked.
“Ummm, yeah. I was shot when the gun accidentally went off when Ladybug kicked one of the men while Chat Noir was fighting the other one.”
“Chat Noir was there too?” Nino asked before looking over at Adrien. In fact, most of the class was looking confused between Marinette and Adrien.
“Yeah,” said Marinette as she tried to figure out why they were questioning her. “Of course, Ladybug couldn’t have fought off two attackers on her own.” She noticed the class exchanging glances between each other. Adrien looked at her with wide eyes as if he was seeing her for the first time.
“Marinette,” Alya began, looking around. “Chat Noir took out the guard with us.” she began. “He couldn’t have been in the hallway with you. What really happened?”
“What?” Marinette exclaimed. “How did Chat Noir get in here?” She looked around at her classmates who were refusing to meet her gaze but were instead flicking their eyes towards Adrien. She gasped and met Adrien’s eyes, seeing the familiar green that always greeted her on their patrols.
“Chat?” she whispered. The smile that answered her was Chat’s classic toothy grin.
“Milady,” he whispered back.
“Oh My God!” exclaimed Alya, eyes wide, looking at the faces of her two friends.
“What’s going on?” shouted Nino. “Who fought off those men?” Most of the class was shaking their heads, wondering what they had missed. Alya turned to face her boyfriend and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Ladybug did.” she said, giving her best friend a knowing smile. “Only Ladybug is that brave and strong. She is a real hero.” She leaned down and gave Marinette a tight hug, carefully avoiding her shoulder. Alya whispered into Marinette’s ear. “You owe me an interview.”
Marinette smiled and blushed. Damn.