Chapter Text
Today was the last day of summer vacation, and Marinette mourned that fact much more than she thought she would. She supposed anyone would mourn the loss of being able to sleep in, and have much more free time to work on whatever they actually wanted instead of schoolwork, but the thing she would miss the most, was not having her ‘friends’ around.
Marinette winced as she ran the thought in her head, that sounded pretty bad but she couldn’t help it being true. Especially since Lila came along.
Every Time she’d try to hang out with any of her classmates, the lying snake would somehow turn up every time. Even if she wasn’t personally invited, she’d have conveniently been exactly at the right place at the right time of their outing, and of course her friends, especially Alya, would jump to invite her and Lila would turn the whole thing about her.
Oh they were going to see a movie? But Lila needs to go shopping for an important party this weekend! They were on their way to the park? Well Lila knows this new expensive restaurant that opened up recently, and she knows that if they all pitch in together they’ll be able to afford it!
It was maddening to say the least.
For Marinette however, that wasn’t what really tipped her. She could deal with the passive aggressive remarks and the condescending jabs that her classmates easily took as compliments, when she would conveniently seem to forget her wallet at home whenever the bill appeared, it wasn’t even the inevitable isolation with Lila forcibly entering every conversation and subtly kicking Marinette out of them, no, it was all the lies that Lila spewed with every breath she took.
“Did you know that Prince Ali personally invited me to spend summer with him? He even face timed me to ask and he was blushing so much when he did! It was sweet since it’s so obvious he has a crush on me but I turned him down so I can be with you guys!”
And,
“I once went out with this super popular rockstar that was the love of my life,and he’d write songs for me that would become smashing hits. Honestly Jagged Stone’s music is so dull compared to his, and so I was so heartbroken when I had to break up when I moved here, and what’s worse you can’t even find his music anywhere in Paris!”
Or even,
“So I have an uncle that was one of the best chefs in the world. Even better than your uncle Marinette! Did you know since I grew up as his apprentice, he taught me how to review and criticize all kinds of food and recognize good food from bad, and Marinette, maybe it’s because of the praise your bakery gets instead of criticism, but I noticed that your bread tends to be a little dry and crumbly. I’d have my uncle tell you himself but he’s traveling the world right now!”
It didn’t help seeing her friends all accept whatever came out of her with as much seriousness you’d get from someone watching breaking news. Especially when they were quick to take Lila’s crying waterworks over Marinette’s pleas to at least do a quick google search about any of Lila’s claims.
Those scenarios always tended to end with Marinette being the one kicked out or left behind.
So with nothing else to do, she had decided to spend more time and energy working on commissions for Jagged Stone and even Clara Nightingale, who had reached out after seeing her work for Jagged. Over the summer, her name had grown more and more popular around the entertainment business, and was even offered a contract by Bob Roth to work for XY exclusively. However after talking it over with her parents, she decided she was still too young to work on something of such a large scale, considering she was just 17 and still in high school. (Not to mention she’d have a hard time managing her superhero gig at the same time too)
She politely declined the offer and took a step back in her work, choosing to take commissions mostly just from her favorite stars, Jagged and Clara.
Amidst all of this, Luka had stopped by the bakery to check how Marinette was, he had grown worried since she had withdrawn from her friend group and had been scarcely answering Juleka’s calls. Marinette barely stopped herself from telling him that she had been barely answering any of the other girls calls at all, instead told him that she was just taking some needed space away from her friends.
He didn’t push, seeing how uncomfortable she seemed about the topic, and asked if she wanted to hang out with him instead, to which Marinette had beamed as she replied absolutely. Even though they had used to date when they were younger, they had quickly realized their love for each other was platonic. After realizing this they broke up quickly only to begin growing much closer as friends, having figured out who they were to each other, and Marinette felt for the first time what it would be like to have a brother.
Later Luka would introduce her to his own friends from school, and most happen to attend Françoise Dupont. Among them was Aurore Beaureal, who was in the same grade as her and in Ms.Mendeleiev’s class, after meeting her they had gotten along so well they had exchanged numbers, frequently meeting up later.
Marinette was ecstatic to have someone to hang out with again since she was basically avoiding Alya and her group at this point, and Luka was as busy as he was with his job and managing his band, but it came to a crashing halt when Aurore had asked one day if she had wanted to meet her the rest of her friends from her own class.
Marinette knew that this was a completely different class, but still some paranoid part of her said there’s no way that Lila’s tall tales hadn’t reached them at all, yet she swallowed her dread and told Aurore that she’d love to.
She was nervous when she sat down at the cafe table surrounded by friendly faces and genuine smiles, she had tried her best to smile back and after talking with them for a while, she slowly began to relax, that is, until all of their phones pinged with a notification simultaneously. She had a hunch before even pulling her phone out of what it might have been.
Her suspicions were confirmed right when she saw a post uploaded by none other than Lila featuring multiple photos of her badly posing in contrastingly high quality photography. The caption read:
“I was invited by none other than Gabriel Agreste himself to model once again as his muse! I’m thinking of making this little side gig official and just accept his proposal of working as a model alongside his son @AdreinAgreste !”
Marinette’s finger halted at the photo with Lila posing rather intimately with a slightly uncomfortable looking Adrien, before turning her phone off.
Of course when Marinette was in a brand new friend group she’d somehow find a way to slither in and ruin everything even when she wasn’t there.
“Ugh, does she seriously have to tag everyone in every single post she makes? I even blocked but it’s just no use!”
Marinette’s head had shot up to see Aurore holding her phone as if it’s disgusting to hold, before putting it away with a scoff.
“I know right! It’s so annoying especially when it's always just the dumbest bullshit!” another voice piped in and soon multiple joined the train of complaints.
Marinette could only stare, jaw nearly slack with disbelief. After only hearing Lila being mentioned in sickening praise and put on a pedestal it was practically jarring to hear people curse her out.
It quieted however, when the focus seemingly converged onto Marinette herself.
“Oh, uh Marinette you’re in Lila’s class aren’t you?” Aurore awkwardly coughed, ”sorry we don’t mean to be mean-and you don’t have to agree with us! but we just don’t like her.”
“Because she’s such a lying bitch!” Mireille happily chirped in.
“Mireill-!”
She was cut off when Marinette burst into uncontrollable laughter, and it actually took her a second to compose herself.
“Oh tell me about it! This one time she bragged about how she saved Jagged Stone’s pet kitten!” Marinette’s smile only grew wider when she saw her friends' baffled faces morph into mock outrage, and soon lighthearted jabs and jokes making fun of Lila’s attention seeking lies.
It was at that moment that she knew she had made the right choice by taking the chance of being here.
Marinette sighed, currently flopping to the side of her bed as she fondly thought about her new friends, maybe going back to school won’t be so bad after all. Sure, they won't be in the same class, but it still will be comforting to know that she won’t be completely alone.
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Marinette liked to think of herself as a responsible person, she was patient, creative and worked her damn hardest under stress. There were probably more she could think of, but the one trait she wished she actually had was punctuality.
This was her desperate wish as she skidded around the corner that revealed her school. She had lost track of time once again only saved with Tikki’s screech for her to stuff her breakfast or else they’re gonna be late-
By the time she had reached the door to her classroom panting, she was definitely late. Marinette gave herself a second to collect herself, and with a final sigh she crept into the class and quickly tried to make her way to the back, taking care to try and not meet anyone's eyes.
“Ah Marinette! There you are! I was starting to worry the class president might have slept in after all.”
Marinette flinched as she slowly turned around with a meek smile to meet Miss Bustier who raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry miss Bustier! I didn’t mean to be late, I just-”
“It’s all right, just disappointed considering it's the first day of the semester. Let’s try to turn a new leaf this time, Marinette. It’s important to set an example as the class president after all.”
Usually whenever Miss Bustier would go off like this Marinette used to protest to at least her her out since most of the time she's be late for pulling an all-nighter taking care of her actual class president duties. Instead she nodded with a strained smile before turning to run up to the back.
However she was stopped once again by a hand grabbing her wrist tightly, and Marinette looked in surprise to see Alya smiling at her.
“Hey girl! Guess what? There's a spot here so you can actually sit here today.” Alya beamed.
“What?” Marinette asked, confused. “But what about-”
“Marinette please sit down! Class is disrupted enough as it is.” Miss Bustier called with a slight aspiration in her voice which made Marinette scuttle to the seat beside Alya which she now finally realized had been empty.
As the teacher began to drone on whatever lesson they had, Alya leaned in.
“It’s so nice to be together like this, just like how it was back then huh?” she smiled, “Of course it’s a shame that Lila had to miss the first day of semester like this but it couldn’t be helped.”
“Yeah, just like the good old days.” Marinette didn’t have it in herself to ask just why she was sitting here in the first place, but as the period continued on she fell back into a nostalgic sense of normalcy when everything was actually fine. Back when her school life wasn’t so overly complicated and her friends were always there for her.
In the end, she ended up keeping her questions about her to herself and tried to focus on the lesson, ignoring the unsettling feeling of sitting in a familiar seat she doesn't own anymore.
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The school bell for lunch rang and with it Marinette found herself skipping to lunch happily chatting away with Alya, all previous uneasy thoughts discarded as she naturally fit into her role of a caring friend listening as Alya ranted about the lack of exciting content for her blog recently.
“Honestly I’ve been losing subscribers to my blog more than I’ve been gaining them, if only there was a way I could get in touch with one of the miraculous holders again and snag an interview..”
At this Marinette chuckled awkwardly and pretended to not notice Alya’s pointed gaze, it was obvious the brunette was hoping Marinette could set up another meet and greet with Ladybug. Before Marinette could give a half-hearted answer, she was greeted loudly by her classmates sitting at their lunch table, and Marinettte quickly took a seat.
“Oh Marinette! You guys came just in time! Look, Max is just setting up the call.” Rose hyper chipper voice cut through Marinette’s temporary bliss.
“What? What for? Alya, can you tell me what’s going on?” Marinette inquired as she realized that her classmates were gathering where Max was sitting infront of her. She ignored them all and turned to Alya who just looked surprised at her statement.
“I thought you knew Marinette, it was all over the group chat, and all the girls been talking about.”
‘You kinda kicked me out remember?” Marinette grumbled, subconsciously tugging at one of her pigtails in anxiety. It was when Lila accused Marinette of cyber bullying her, and while Mairnette had tried to prove her innocence Lila had turn to Alya with a tearful request. It wasn't suprising when Marinette found herself banned from the group later, with a firm message from Alya that she'd be let in again if she apologized. Marinette didn't bother responding to anyone's messages after that.
Alya, already looking as if she was ready with a terrible rebuke and opened her mouth to answer, but before she could get one word in, another voice cut in right behind Marinette.
“Well of course sweet Marinette’s out of the loop as always. Is anyone going to educate her already or is that upto me?”
Marinette nearly jumped out of her seat in shock, before fixing her face into a frown and turning around to face the person already knowing who it was. There stood Chloe Bourgeois in all her glory, one hand on her hip and her chin up with her face obviously displaying her amusement at Marinette’s reaction.
She glared at the offending girl. “In my defense, no one told me anything!”
“That’s the point loser, get some better friends already.” Chloe rolled her eyes and tossed her hair over her shoulder.
"Like you have any room to talk Chloe, I'm not getting told off by someone who has one friend." Marinette replied. "Sabrina might've told you about whatever this is-"
"As if!" Chloe visiously cut in. "I knew about the gala before all of you idiots! Daddy told me about it weeks ago since he was one of the people funding. In fact, I could've gone if I wanted to, if it weren't for the fact I didn't want to waste my time with that ridiculous show!"
"Gala? Wait-"
"It's true!" Sabrina dutifully piped in. "She vented to me how unfair it was that her dad had to handover her invite to her mom at the last minute-"
Chloe slapped her hand over her friends mouth before she could continue. "Th- that's not true! Mommy had just flown in from america to see me so ofcourse I gave her my invitation out of the goodness of my own heart!"
"What-"
“Hate to interrupt..whatever this is,” Max coughed. “But it’s set up! She’s going to pick up the call for any second.”
“Who?” Marinette whined, drained with the whole interaction at this point.
“Lila ofcourse!” Rose chirped.
"She got invited to the gala as a VIP!" Alya finally explained. "Isn't that so cool? She even promised to video call us so we can have a look of what's it like in there! Even the media won't get to peek inside this early in the event. Man, I can't wait to ask if she's got nay good scoop-"
“She picked up! Look! The call’s starting everyone!”
Everyone immediately turned to the Laptop Max had set up on the lunch table.
Marinette clenched and unclenched her fists, deeply wishing she had Aurorre with her. A part of her wanted to scoff, a gala? Now that she thought of it, Jagged had talked to her about some big shot event he had to go to. From what she heard, only the top socialists were allowed to attend, so this had to be another one of Lila's fibs to get herself some more popular points. Though numerously Jagged said he could easily get her in as a guest, (Marinette politely declined every time since the thought of stepping in such a high class event full of social sharks was enough for her gut to curl) so maybe it's not impossible to get in..then again Jagged Stone is the no.1 rock star of Paris-
She was broken out of her trance when she felt a finger tapping at her shoulder. She looked to see Chloe leaned in at her side with a grimace on her face.
“I’m going to take a nap in the library so I don’t have to witness this, it’s too ridiculous for me to watch. So if you share the sentiment..you’ll know where to find me.” Chloe grumbled while looking at anything except at Marinette.
“Oh, um.. Okay?” Marinette stammered out but Chloe had already whirled away with a huff, with Sabrina following diligently behind.
She watched them exit the cafeteria, still having her mind process what had just happened. It was the first time she had seen an expression that didn’t bleed mockery and rage, and instead..well, she wasn’t sure what that was.
Sure, Chloe had definitely backed off lately and left her alone for the most part, and Marinette had hoped that maybe after being Queen bee even for a short while she had reflected on her actions and behavior.
“Hello everyone! Aww, look at all your little faces on the screen!”
What she did know however, as she slowly turned back, was the owner of that voice. The voice that hurt her time and time again. Marinette stared with narrow eyes at the laptop screen and saw Lila Rossi grinning back at her.
“It’s so nice to see you!”