Note :

Hi !
I wanted to say the biggest thank you to XanLee, who translated this story from my original fic in french. Thank you so much, you did an amazing work :D
THANK YOU !

You can find XanLee on Ao3 undre the name XanLee or on tumblr under the name sadrien-depreste. If you liked this fic, please do not forget to thank XanLee for the translation ^^

Original story : Mindell, "Ecchymoses"
Available in french on my account

"Marinette, you have a bruise on your arm," Alya suddenly points out to her best friend. "Did you bump into something?"

Sitting next to her, Marinette looks at her right forearm with surprise. Spanning her milky skin is nasty violet-blue mark, almost purple. Her eyes immediately widen with shock, as her cheeks delicately flush.

"Ah, uhh, yeah," she stutters. "I… I fell in my bathroom this morning. On a puddle of water. I got hurt trying to catch myself… I am so clumsy!" she concludes with a shrug a bit too tense to be natural.

"Again?" Alya stresses with an eyebrow raised in suspicion. "Last week you fell down the stairs. And the time before that, you tripped on the rug in your room… it's beginning to be a lot of falls, don't you think?" she finishes in a voice of skepticism.

"Haha, what can I say, I'm really, very clumsy," Marinette answers back with a nervous laugh.

Alya is hardly convinced by her friend's argument. Far from that. Very, very,VERY far from that. Marinette is a great girl, she's absolutely sure of that. But she's definitely a horrible liar.

Letting out a small sigh, Alya leans over to her deskmate.

"If I didn't know you so well, I would think that you were hiding something…" she whispers in a low voice.

Marinette jumps violently, as if struck by lightning.

"Me? Hiding something?" she repeats a bit too sharply. "No. No, no, no. What… What could I possibly be hiding, haha… Oh!" she exclaims, pointedly holding up her phone to wave it under her friend's nose. "You see the time? I promised my parents that I would help in the store, I'm going to be late! See you tomorrow!"

Without wasting a second more, Marinette hastily sliding her belongings into her bag. Pencils, books, notebooks, she shoves everything in haphazardly without bothering to make sure she wasn't damaging anything, stammering out a goodbye as she headed out of the classroom.

Alya's gaze follows her, suspicious. Once Marinette is out of view, she lets out another sigh.

Despite her young age, she prides herself in being and excellent journalist. Few things in the world fascinate her as much as finding a scoop - except for perhaps mingling in her best friend's love life. She loved finding clues, analyzing them, picking them apart, turning them around and around in her head until she came across a conclusion.

For her, things are now clear.

Marinette is hiding something from her. It's evidence, even. Alya has been thinking about this question for weeks now, and now she has no doubt about it. With an admirable persistence, she had dissected each of her friend's words. Each hesitation, each inconsistency, each lie. She had cross-checked the fact, analyzed the manner that Marinette had reacted to certain remarks, examined the slightest events that seemed out of the ordinary under a microscope.

The secret of Marinette is like a puzzle.

Alya had searched for the smallest details, had studied them carefully, before putting them together one-by-one. Then, rapidly, a crystal-clear image drew itself before her.

And the result of these reflections does not please her.

Ten days later, Alya notices a new mark on Marinette's arm. The left one, this time. This bruise is less pronounced than the last, but it's visible enough that it doesn't escape her vigilance.

Alya reaches her hand out to her friend and gently taps her skin with her fingertip, just a centimeter below this new wound.

"Another bruise?" she asks sharply.

"Huh?" the girl jumps, before looking down at her arm. "Oh, I didn't even see it…"

"Marinette, are you sure you're okay?" Alya presses. "You know that you can talk to me. If you have problems, I'm here for you."

"Problems?" Marinette repeats automatically. "What problems? I don't have any problems. Absolutely not. I'm just…"

"Clumsy," Alya completes for her friend, holding back a sigh. "I know, you never stop repeating that. But don't think that I didn't notice-"

"Well, we can talk and talk, but we're going to be late for gym class!" Marinette cuts her off as she gets up abruptly. "I'm going on ahead!"

True to her word, the girl crosses the classroom as fast as if she was being chased by a horde of rabid dogs, tripping over Adrien's bag, followed by a breathless "You see?" over her shoulder. Then, without a word more, she leaves out the door and disappears in the hallway.

Alya wanted to scream.

She loved Marinette.

Sincerely.

But some days, her friend drove her crazy.

No. Not quite. It's not just her friend who's threatening her sanity. It's also what she's certain she's discovered about her. The only logical explanation she sees for her strange attitude, her refusal to communicate, and all those bruises that decorate her arms.

At his own desk, Adrien had followed the strange exchange despite his best efforts. Not that he particularly wished to eavesdrop on the conversation of his neighbors behind him, but Alya's voice had a tendency to carry when she spoke about subjects she felt strongly about. Clearly, her little interrogation fit perfectly in that category. And so, without meaning to, Adrien had caught every word of his classmate.

The words of the latter intrigue him. Worry him, even.

The young man exchanges a brief look with Nino. Judging by the perplexed expression that painted his friend's features, he wasn't the only one that had questions. A silent discussion takes place between the two boys, with a great fanfare of interrogative shrugs, far-fetched eyebrow undulations, and miming that borders on ridiculous.

Then, unable to hold it back any longer, both turn to Alya with the same gesture.

"Hey, you okay?" Adrien asks her with a worried look.

He doesn't particularly like to meddle in others' affairs, but here, the situation is too concerning for him to turn a blind eye. Alya makes her worry for her best friend very clear, and it rubs off on Adrien.

Especially since he holds a lot of affection for Marinette.

She's the person that he considered as his friend, coupled with a talented apprentice designer whose creativity he admires enormously. If his Lady wasn't a part of the picture, perhaps he would have considered her differently.

"It's about Marinette" Alya responds, nervously turning her cell phone between her fingers. "It's… With her, it's complicated at the moment."

"We figured as much," Nino replies immediately. "Things have seemed tense between you two the past few weeks."

"Yeah," Alya sighs heavily as she shoots a look of regret in the now empty seat next to her.

Then, quickly, a determined spark lights up in her eye. Alya rises from her chair slightly, unconsciously clings to the edge of her desk, and leans towards her neighbors in front of her.

"I think… No, I know that Marinette is hiding something from me," she whispers to them in a conspiratorial tone. "Something serious. And I think I know what it is but she refuses to talk to me."

"Are you sure you're not getting ahead of yourself?" retorts Nino with an eyebrow raised in intrigue.

"I'm sure," she replies in an offended voice, clearly outraged that anyone would raise doubt on her deductions. "I've discovered something about her. Something serious. Like really, really serious. And I… I'm not sure what to do with this information. Every time I try to approach the subject with her, she runs."

"If you want, you can tell us about it," Adrien offers to her, as Nino agrees with a vigorous nod.

As long as he doesn't know what's concerning Alya, Adrien isn't sure how much he can really help.

But regardless, he's full of resources, as Adrien and as Chat Noir, and the least he can do is offer his support to his friend. And considering the desperate expression now drawing itself on the girl's face, she clearly needs it.

Alya looks nervously at the door, mechanically pushes her glasses up, and finally leans forward a bit more. Her eyes shine with a strange light, determination now mingling with anger.

"I think someone is beating Marinette," she finally lets out.

If the situation hadn't been so critical, Alya almost could have laughed at the astonished expressions that quickly overtook her friends' faces. But she's in the mood for anything but joking.

She wanted to be wrong. She really, really wanted to be. And yet…

For a brief instant, Alya was lost in her thoughts. In great detail, she sees Marinette's tears on her face when. Last winter, her best friend told her that she had caught a conversation between Nino and Adrien.

A conversation in which the one she loved confessed to be madly in love with a girl.

When Alya tried to console her friend by telling her that Adrien might be talking about her and that it was quite possible that his feelings were mutual, Marinette started crying more and more. Between sobs, she explained to Alya that she was sure that, unfortunately, wasn't possible. Paralyzed by shock, she could only helplessly listen to the whole discussion, and when Nino his friend for more details, the latter had distinctly confided that the one who had stolen his heart was co-worker.

A model, certainly, Marinette had supposed. Or a photographer, a makeup artist, a stylist, an intern, whatever.

Someone that wasn't her.

That was all she needed to know.

That was all it needed to break her heart.

Alya remembers all too well the long hours she spent comforting Marinette. The lengthy talks with her, trying to get her mind off it, to do everything to repair wounded heart. Little by little, Marinette started to get better. Smiling again, laughing too. Even succeeding in talking to Adrien without running away a few minutes later to hide somewhere and burst into tears.

And then one day, Marinette announced to Alya that she had fallen in love again.

Another boy, she explained to her. One of her friends that harbored feelings for her since their meeting, but she had never given him the chance as she was so focused on Adrien. One of her friends that she had finally started to see differently.

In a voice where her joy for life was palpable, Marinette explained at length to Alya about how this young man was extraordinary in her eyes. How he made her laugh, how she felt she could count on him no matter what the circumstances, how he had become the center of her universe.

Then, as she arrived one morning, cheeks red and eyes sparkling with joy Marinette told her best friend that she was finally going out with this boy that made her heart tick.

Alya recalls with a certain bitterness how pleased she was that Marinette had finally turned the page.

Of course, she had always found it strange, with all of the mysteries that her friend held around this new relationship. Even today, Marinette still refuses to let slip anything concerning the boy that she now shares her life with. Name, age, school… Alya knows absolutely nothing about him. And it's not for lack of trying. These secrets tickle at her journalistic instinct push her to dig, dig and dig further.

But Marinette sometimes knows how to be even more stubborn than she is.

No matter what Alya begs. No matter her indirect questions. No matter how much pouting she does, and her appeals to a code of honor between best friends. Marinette refuses to say anything. As time went by, Alya finally let it go. It's fine, she tells herself. Marinette is happy, and that's all that matters.

At least, that's what Alya thought until the nice weather returned.

Until Marinette goes back to wearing T-shirts and other short-sleeved tops, and she discovers those bruises that mar her friend's skin a little too regularly.

Even as she delves deeply into her memory, Alya doesn't remember seeing such bruises on Marinette's arms during the previous autumn.

Alya wanted to be wrong. She really, really wanted to be.

To believe that Marinette wasn't concealing anything from her.

And yet… Her bruises, her evasive explanations that were downright absurd, this love life that she adamantly refuses to talk to her about… All of these strange facts were becoming too much for them not to be related. There are too many mysteries surrounding Marinette, too many lies for Alya to chalk them up to a simple coincidence.

For her, there is only one possibility.

A single secret hiding behind her friend's bruises and the boy she was now seeing. And if these two facts are indeed connected to each other, it leads Alya to only one possible deduction. Whoever this boy who was now a part of Marinette's life is, he is obviously a violent person who doesn't hesitate to lay a hand on her.

Alya would have made anyone regret inflicting the slightest blow on behalf of her friend. But Marinette is obviously in denial. Too in love with this guy to leave him, undoubtedly.

"Beating…" Nino repeats, stupefied, pulling Alya suddenly out of her thoughts. "Like… beating, as in domestic violence?"

"Exactly," Alya confirms, wringing her hands anxiously. "You know that she's had a boyfriend for the past two or three months? And well, she refuses to tell me anything about him," she continues, seeing her friends give a small nod. "And just by chance, EXACTLY at the same time, she starts to have bruises that she doesn't want to explain to me. It's this guy, I'm sure," she continued emotionally, her eyes shining with tears.

"You're really certain that you're not mistaken?" Adrien insists flatly. "That Marinette is…"

Adrien stops himself abruptly, clenching his fists in rage.

Marinette is one of the most gentle, most adorable girls he knows.

The simple that that someone could do any harm to her repulses him. It makes him want to find the guy in question and explain to him his way of thinking, to the tune of a Cataclysm to the face.

"There's no other logical explanation," Alya resumes in a trembling voice. "I'm sure that he's hitting her, but she's covering it up because she's in love. You know how Marinette is," she continued with a sigh. "She's the type that's convinced that everybody has a good side, whatever happens. Maybe she's sure he'll change, maybe she stays with him for I don't know whatever other reason, but… I refuse to sit idly by!"

"What can we do?" Nino soon asks, as Adrien agrees with a quick nod of the head.

"I don't know…" Alya sighs. "I'm already trying to find out more about this boy she's dating… Maybe she'll agree to tell me more about what exactly is going on between them. And if she continues to refuse to talk to me, then I'll go to the next level."

Alya stands up abruptly. On her features, anxiety has given way to an implacable anger, and her eyes shine with a determined spark that makes her two friends shudder.

"And I hope for his sake that she leaves him before I find out who he is," she concludes in a tone low and menacing. "Because if not, I swear to you that I will make him pay for everything he's done. Very, very, VERY dearly."