Chapter Text
Lila fantasised about defeating Ladybug a lot. Almost every night. It was her second favorite scenario to fall asleep to. The first one was kissing Marinette. But she wasn’t going to tell her that. And she didn’t need to. That’s what she’d wish for. Courage to tell Marinette her feelings. Someone could be a supervillain, terrorising Paris every day, but a little crush could still make her heart nervous. Despite this, she still used the opportunity to akumatise Marinette after Adrien broke up with her. Well, that was actually her fault, but no one needed to know that.
“Forgive my intrusion, I sensed a negative emotion coming from you, what’s wrong?” Chrysalis sat next to the crying Marinette.
“My Adrien,” Marinette said between sobs, which somehow caused a sharp pain in Chrysalis’ chest. “He doesn’t love me anymore”
“Poor thing” she held Marinette’s hands. “What happened?”
“Adrien thinks I cheated on him. I would never do that, I would never hurt anyone. Yet somehow I broke his heart” Marinette cried even more. The supervillain was trying to think what to say but it was hard, when the girl she loved more than anything was sobbing in her arms.
“I have a proposal,” Lila said, hugging Marinette with a bit more joy than she should have. “I give you the power to fix broken hearts. You can fix his heart and more importantly, your heart.”
“No, no no! I don’t want to hurt people” Marinette said, while she was fighting the akuma.
“Easy, you don’t have to hurt anyone. I only need Ladybug’s and Cat Noir’s Miraculous in exchange” Chrysalis looked into Marinette’s beautiful blue eyes.
“Okay, I can do that” Marinette nodded, then to Chrysalis’ surprise she reached for her earrings.
“What are you doing?” Chrysalis’ said with widening eyes.
“I am giving you my miraculous” Marinette tried to get rid of her earrings. “I am Ladybug”
“You… are?” This was the only situation Lila wasn’t prepared for. Because she thought it was just a coincidence that Marinette is similar to Ladybug. Both of them were incredibly stubborn, hated lies, and could lighten anyone’s mood in seconds. They both could help anyone. Except for themselves.
“I’m willing to give it to you, I can’t do this anymore” tears rolled down Marinette’s cheeks.
“Wait” Chrysalis wiped a tear away with her thumb gently. “What’s wrong?”
“Gabriel Agreste. He was monarch. And I-” Marinette was gasping for air. Oh, crap, a panic attack.
“Breathe, you didn’t do anything wrong” Chrysalis reached for Marinette’s hand. A supervillain who had to deal with someone’s PTSD. That’s new.
“I lied about him. To protect Adrien. Because it was his last wish” Marinette said between sobs.
Chrysalis kept one hand cupped against Marinette’s cheek, thumb gently wiping away the tears that wouldn’t stop. The other hand rested over Marinette’s racing heart, feeling every panicked beat.
“Breathe with me,” she murmured. “In… and out. You’re safe. You’re not alone right now.”
Marinette’s fingers were still half-raised toward her earrings, trembling. “I can’t… I can’t carry it anymore. Gabriel… Monarch… I lied to everyone. To Adrien. For years.”
“You protected the person you loved the only way you knew how,” Chrysalis said softly. “This doesn’t make you a villain.”
She pulled Marinette into a careful hug, letting the girl sob against her shoulder. The earrings were in her sight, but the hunger for power was quieter than the ache in her chest she felt.
“I’m not going to force anything on you tonight,” she whispered into Marinette’s hair. “Not the Miraculous. Not a deal. Not even a ‘fix.’ Just stay here until the worst of it passes. That’s all.”
Marinette clung tighter for a long moment, then slowly nodded. Her breathing gradually evened out. When she finally pulled back, her eyes were red but clearer.
“Purification,” she said quietly, almost like a promise instead of a command. The akuma dissolved into a harmless butterfly that drifted away into the night. Marinette’s posture straightened a fraction, the heavy pressure of the near-akumatization lifting from her shoulders.
“Go home,” Chrysalis told her. “Rest. Tomorrow will still be hard, but it doesn’t have to be faced alone.”
Marinette hesitated, searching the villain’s face as if looking for the trap. Finding none, she gave a small, exhausted nod and left.
“Tikki…” Marinette finally spoke after a long time. “What the hell was that?”
“She decided to cancel the akumatization.” The kwami sat on Marinette’s shoulder. “I didn’t hear a single thing, Marinette. You were reaching for your earrings, then you stopped. After this, the akuma was gone"
“I told her. I told her everything. Gabriel. Ladybug. Monarch.” Marinette started, and Tikki’s eyes widened in fear. “And she… comforted me. She held me. She didn’t pull a trick on me. She just disappeared.”
“That doesn’t sound like her at all” Tikki floated around the room.
“I know. But it felt real. Like she actually cared about me.” Marinette let out a shaky sigh. “How pathetic is that? The supervillain I’ve been fighting against for months is the one who sat with me while I had a panic attack about the secrets I’ve been keeping.”
Tikki stayed quiet for a moment, then said softly, “People can surprise you. Even the ones who’ve hurt you.”
Then the door opened, and Tikki quickly hid. Adrien stood in the doorway, breathing hard, hair messy from running, green eyes wide with worry.
“Marinette, finally!” he stopped when Marinette looked at him with eyes still red from crying.
“You shouldn’t have come back” Marinette said with a flat voice. “I’m fine”
Adrien stepped inside and closed the door gently. “You’re not fine. You look like you’ve been crying for hours.” He hesitated, then added quietly, “I know the truth now. About what happened. I know you never cheated. I know someone set us up. I should have believed you from the start.”
“You should have. But you didn’t. You didn’t even let me finish talking.You just pushed me away. And now you’re here saying you know the truth, like that suddenly fixes everything.” Marinette looked at him.
Her words sounded angry, but in reality she was just disappointed. All she ever wanted was Adrien. But now? She couldn’t imagine being with him again.
Adrien looked like he had been slapped. He opened his mouth, closed it, then gave a small, defeated nod.
“I understand. If you need anything, just call me. Even if it’s the middle of the night. Even if you just want to yell at me for being gullible.” He lingered a little more, eyes searching her face for any crack in the wall she had put up. “If you won’t ever give me… us another chance, that’s alright too. But please, I want to be in your life. As a friend. as a lover, as literally anything”
“Goodbye, Adrien” Marinette looked him in the eye one more time before the boy left.
“He’s still trying” Tikki came out again.
“That hurts the most. Because I can’t be with him again. Trying after the damage is already done doesn’t erase the part where he didn’t trust me when it counted” Marinette said. She stayed in the library for a long time, then she decided to head home. She needed some rest.
Across the city, Lila stood alone in her room, the butterfly brooch cold against her palm. The memory of Marinette’s tears, the way the girl had clung to her, the quiet gratitude that had never been spoken but had been written all over her face, it just refused to leave.
“What are you going to do, master?” Nooroo studied Lila’s face.
“I’m going to save her” Lila reached for a box on the table. She prepared the akuma weeks ago for something else. But this was more important. The dark butterfly flew out as she opened it, hitting her bracelet.
“Chrysalis, I need the power to go back in time. To stop Gabriel Agreste. To help Ladybug. To save Marinette from this”
Violet lights exploded around her. She was still Lila, but now she had the ability to think of a day in her life and go back.
“If it’s needed, I can cancel the akumatization, and bring you back” Nooroo started, then a circle shaped portal appeared in front of Lila and Bunnyx stepped through with an unreadable expression.
“I knew you’d come. You’re here to stop me.” Lila took a step back. “I want to do this. I don’t care about the timeline. I don’t care what’s supposed to happen. I just want to save her. And I’m willing to fight”
“Nope, not correct” Bunnyx leaned against a nearby wall. “Every timeline where the Butterfly Miraculous keeps being passed from one broken person to the next eventually collapses into worse. This is the timeline that ends it. I’m not going to stop you”
“You’re actually letting me do this?” Lila blinked.
“I’m telling you it has to happen this way.” Bunnyx’s said “The girl you love has carried enough. Go make sure she never has to.”
“Then why are you here?” Lila narrowed her eyes, as she opened her own portal.
“I just wanted to witness it, don’t mind me,” Bunnyx said with a laugh.
Chrysalis took one last look at the room, then walked through.
Two weeks before Ladybug’s final battle against Monarch
The morning sun was bright over Collège Françoise Dupont when Lila Rossi walked through the gates as if she had never been gone. She smiled at the students who glanced her way. She didn’t tell exaggerated stories. She didn’t lie. She talked to them if they asked her about her comeback, but that was all.
“So, Lila” Myléne stepped beside her. “Are you really back?” she asked, raising an arrow, while almost the whole class was standing next to her, waiting for the answer.
“I am, yes. And I owe all of you an apology. I’m aware I hurt you in the past” she looked around her classmates, who were looking at her with curiosity, surprise and doubt in their eyes. “I want to change. For real this time. I know you probably cannot trust me. I completely understand that. But I’ll try to prove how serious I am about this”
Rose’s expression softened first, the way it always did when someone showed genuine remorse. “That’s… really mature of you, Lila. I hope you mean it.”
“I do,” Lila answered simply. No dramatic gestures, just a steady voice.
Ivan gave a small grunt of approval. Rose clasped her hands together with a hopeful little smile. Juleka offered the tiniest nod from behind her bangs. Alya, however, kept her phone half raised, her eyes narrowed in journalist mode. Nino glanced between Lila and Alya, clearly waiting for something to happen.
Marinette stood a few steps behind the group, sketchbook clutched tight against her chest, with her pencil between her fingers. Her blue eyes were locked on Lila.
Lila Rossi did not return to school without a performance.
Lila Rossi did not look at her classmates, like she actually cared about them and their opinions about her.
Marinette’s stomach twisted.
“Am I hallucinating?” Alya walked to Marinette.
“You are not hallucinating. She is back. Really back” Marinette murmured. “And she actually looks different this time”
Lila’s eyes flicked across the group and landed on Marinette for half a second longer than necessary. Marinette’s fingers tightened around her sketchbook. She knew the game had started. She just didn’t know what the game was.
In class, Lila sat in her usual seat, but she didn’t interrupt the class, didn’t namedrop random celebrities, didn’t claim to have spent the weekend saving dolphins and orphans in another country.When Miss Bustier asked if anyone had questions about the history assignment, Lila simply raised her hand and asked an actually relevant one. When Kim made a joke, she smiled politely instead of coming up with a random story.
Every small normal action made Marinette more suspicious of her.
During lunch Lila sat alone at the edge of the courtyard with a simple sandwich. All alone, no audience, no performance. She occasionally glanced toward Marinette, but immediately looked away when Marinette glanced back.
“Maybe she hit her head,” Nino said. Marinette finally paid attention to her friends’ conversation.
“Or she’s planning something.” Marinette said, looking at Lila. “I’m going to be careful. And I’m going to find out why she’s here.”
Across the courtyard Lila felt the weight of that stare like a physical touch. She kept her eyes on her notebook, but her pulse had picked up.
Nice, she thought. Stay suspicious. Stay sharp. Just don’t figure out the real reason I’m here until Gabriel is already finished.
She grabbed her notebook that was on the table next to her and started writing.
She wrote a list of every piece of evidence she would need to expose Gabriel Agreste. Every few lines her pen stopped, because the memory of Marinette crying in her arms refused to leave her alone. She had come back to save that girl from the weight she should never have carried.
She could only hope that Marinette would eventually forgive her for every single thing she did to hurt her.