With an exasperated sigh and the sound of her forehead meeting with the wood of her desk once more, Marinette allowed the grip of her thumb to slacken from it's position marking the beginning of the last row of the paragraph she was trying to read...
The pages slipped from her grasp flopping gracelessly over her head, to which she just sighed again and simply lowered her now empty hand, not even making an effort to move the pages off of her.
"Marinette?" Came Tikki's voice, floating somewhere to the side of her head, quiet and with a hint of worry. "What's wrong?"
Marinette felt a small pang of guilt at worrying her friend, but she just couldn't find the strength to move just yet "... just tired, Tikki... and I'm just not getting this" she mumbled, referring to the pages still draped over her head.
The corners of her lips started to curl upwards and she huffed in slight amusement before letting her head roll to one side, somehow managing not to dislodge the pages from ontop of her, so as to be able to look at Tikki. "Do you think if I fall asleep like this the words will transfer to me?"
Tikki zoomed at her, and she could feel her little body cuddle against her cheek, "Oh Marinette, you and I both know it doesn't work that way."
The whimper-groan that left her mouth was mostly in jest, but not entirely dissimilar from any she'd done after getting hit during battle. With a final huff of defeat, she sat back up and picked her reading assignment.
"You can do it Marinette," Tikki encouraged "there's only three pages left, and tonight is Chat's turn to patrol, so you can go to sleep right after."
Marinette flipped through the pages verifying Tikki's count, "three pages..." she mumbled and settled back to the last page she'd been in, glaring as if it'd personally offended her.
Only, when she tried to settle her thumb back on the last paragraph she was at; index finger quickly tracing the words, she couldn't remember which it had been despite having read it at least three times just now...
With a sinking feeling she started backtracking, trying to find something she recognized, trying to remember what she had just spent the last hour reading through, just to find a blank in her memory.
Flipping back to the beginning of the reading she deposited the pages back on her desktop and calmly stood up from her chair. "Tikki, let's go sleep".
"Marinette?" Tikki's voice had a baffled sound to it.
"It seems I'm too tired to be reading, I can't remember a word of what it said" she answered, giving a half-shrug and gesturing towards the pages.
"I'll... I'll read them tomorrow." She added, mouth unconsciously pulling into a snarl of disgust at the idea.
Tikki sighed before floating towards Marinette and giving her the biggest hug she could. "It was a long day," the little kwami agreed "let's sleep; it'll be easier in the morning."
Marinette turned off the lights and went to settle in bed, giving her desk and the six pages of assigned reading a last glare before turning and tucking in for sleep.
Notes 1: you know that part from the PV where Bridgette gets splashed by the moving car and turns and looks at the camera and kinda smiles and shrugs; that's the mental image I have in the 'half-shrug' Marinette does here.
Notes 2: I've got this headcanon that Marinette is dyslexic. Plus, I need more dyslexic characters, and more dyslexic superheroes
Feel free to come talk to me at my tumblr miraculouseyracat