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“Hey, you seen Alya?” Marinette asks Nino.
“I was going to ask you that,” Nino says with a slight frown to his features. The DJ takes off his cap and runs a hand through his hair as his focus goes into the middle distance. “But it’s not just me, right?”
“Wish it were,” Marinette says.
Alya had been---well, there wasn’t a better way to say it---off most of the day. Normally she was a reliable source of bubbly enthusiasm and a solid source of optimistic encouragement. On a good day she was bedrock enough to make Chat Noir’s unwavering adoration of Ladybug look about as constant as a pile of sand beset by waves.
But today she’d been inattentive and distant, with a constant kilometer stare. She’d been yelled at twice in a couple classes for not paying attention, had responded tepidly, had accepted her detention on the third offense with about as much reaction as a corpse.
Even that, ahem, incident---she was going to need to start numbering these with how often they happened---where Chloe had showed off a video that half the class had instantly recognized as footage ripped straight from the Ladyblog, displayed on Chloe’s own half-assed, creatively bankrupt Ladybug fansite hadn’t drawn more than a listless roll of the eyes from Alya. Even Adrien had gotten on Chloe’s case when he’d seen the video, but Alya hadn’t so much as said a word in outraged protest.
And now, when they were supposed to meet up for lunch, Alya was nowhere to be found.
“Look,” Marinette says to Nino, “you go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”
“Marinette---” Nino begins to protest, but Marinette waves him off.
“There’s only so many places she can hide, Nino,” Marinette says.
“That’s not my point,” Nino says. “I’m worried about her too, I’ll come along.”
Marinette snorts and acquiesces as the two walk back into the school. “Just so long as you don’t follow me into the girl’s restroom.”
“You walked in on us once,” Nino says, hands tucked into his pockets.
“By accident!” Marinette protests, flushing slightly. “And that’s not an excuse.”
“Just saying,” Nino says. “Pot, kettle.”
Alya isn’t in the restroom.
She isn’t in any of the classrooms, either, including the computer lab.
A quick search around the grounds turns up a continued and distinct lack of redhead.
“Basement, maybe?” Marinette says, looking around.
“How are you that fast?” Nino wheezes, leaning heavily against a wall.
“I take exercise,” Marinette says vaguely as she trots quickly towards the basement door. She jiggles the handle, finding it unlocked. “Come on.”
No Alya there.
“Roof?” Nino suggests after a moment’s thought.
“Worth a shot,” Marinette says, checking the time on her cell. With a sigh, she drops it back into her purse, clicking it shut as she marches out to the stairs.
They hear the quiet crying the instant Marinette cracks the door open. The two of them freeze in their tracks.
“Uh,” Marinette whispers. “Do you want to handle this?”
“Why me?” Nino replies in the same hushed tones. “You’re her best friend.”
“And you’re her boyfriend.”
“You’re better at the whole comforting thing---”
“Uh, in whose book---”
They break off suddenly as the sound of sobbing breaks off suddenly and the roof creaks with shifting weight.
“Fine, I’ll go,” Marinette says.
She wrenches open the door and marches up onto the roof. She glances left and right, and finds Alya on her right, hastily wiping at her face with a sleeve of her shirt.
“Hey, Alya,” Marinette says gently. “You all right? Nino and I heard you crying.”
“Uh, what?” Alya says, wiping a last tear from her cheek and forcing a smile with the look of rigor mortis about it onto her face. “Oh, no, come on, you know me, I’m okay!”
"Right,” Marinette says, sitting down next to Alya. “Listen, was it that whole business with Chloe? We can talk with Adrien, get him to get her to take it down.”
“What, that?” Alya says with a bark of laughter. “Geeze, I power through that shit for breakfast! Come on, do you know how many people have stolen video from the Ladyblog before?”
“None of them have left you like this before,” Marinette says. She decides to risk it and places a hand on Alya’s shoulder. Alya doesn’t move aside from hugging her knees a little tighter to her chest. “Come on, Alya, it’s me. You can talk to me.”
“Can I?” Alya spits with sudden heat.
She retracts the rebuke half a beat later, as Marinette stares at her in stunned, hurt confusion. “Sorry, sorry,” Alya stammers out. “I’m sorry.” She takes a deep breath, the exhale coming out a little less shaky than the inhale. “Look, I’ll be fine, just, just go on ahead, I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe,” Marinette says slowly, “but I want to help you be fine sooner. What’s up?”
Alya doesn’t speak for a couple long minutes.
“It’s just been a lot of shitty things all coming up at the same time,” she finally says. “Mom’s been working late a lot, I’ve had to deal with the sibs, and I forgot all about that test last Friday and Mom yelled at me when she found out, and then there was that whole argument with Nino.”
Marinette shudders a little. Alya and Nino rarely got to the shouting stage, but when they did the best response was evacuation.
This one had been over Alya’s near-suicidal run into an active combat zone to get footage for the Ladyblog---come to think of it, it was the footage that Chloe had stolen. Nino had torn into her the first chance he got for her recklessness and Alya, well, had responded like Alya always did. Marinette had been dragged between a rock and a hard place by sheer proximity to them, and had, as even-handedly as she could, sided with Nino. Alya had nearly gotten squished two or three times, after all.
Alya had seemed to respond well to the combined pressure. Apparently not.
“And it’s just been eating away at me all week,” Alya continues. “And then there was that bullshit with Chloe and I just couldn’t take it anymore, I just needed a little time and a little space.”
Marinette can think of no other response than a weak and terribly insufficient “I’m sorry.”
Alya shakes her head, but keeps her eyes pointed straight forwards. “It’s fine.”
“Not if it hurts you this much,” Marinette says. “Look, we’re just worried that you’ll take it too far one day and get really, seriously hurt.” She sees the frustration and hurt flare up again, heated lightning crackling through her stiffening shoulders and in the corners of her eyes and mouth and adds hastily, “But that’s no excuse, I know, it’s no excuse.”
“The Ladyblog means a lot to me,” Alya says after a quiet few seconds.
“I know,” Marinette says. “But you mean more to us.”
Alya sighs and leans against Marinette, her head coming to rest against her friend’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry for coming down on you like that,” Marinette says.
“I’m sorry for worrying you guys,” Alya says.
Marinette’s stomach makes a loud complaint at precisely that moment, and Alya giggles damply.
“Lunch?” Marinette suggests. “Mom’s probably getting worried.”
“Sure,” Alya says.
The three of them walk to Marinette’s home together.