Ex. 2 - Marinette POV
Marinette landed softly on the ground in front of her collège and looked around, made sure no one was watching before de-transforming. She still did patrol the school, because knowing Nathaniël, he wasn't going to give up the Lila chase – and she needed to be there, in case something happened.
She couldn't let him get hurt.
But after a tiring stretch swinging around the school only to see no akumas, nothing out of the ordinary, Marinette wanted to take a break. She stretched out on the steps of the school.
Her intuition told her something was off when she heard footsteps, but she brushed it away – she couldn't do anything about it anyway, and heck, she was in a school. Of course there'd be footsteps.
The footsteps grew louder, as though they were coming in her direction. Does the principal know I'm here? I'm supposed to be expelled! Oh shoot, what if he finds me here? Will he tell my parents?
Collect yourself, Marinette, she chided herself. A panicked Marinette will get herself in trouble. The footsteps are too light to be Monsieur Damocles'.
She was about to leave the area, following what her mind told her to do, when the person arrived. Marinette recognized her instantly, with the swishing brown hair and green eyes.
"Look who I found," she sneered. "It's Marinette!"
Marinette turned away angrily. "What are you here for, Lila. You already ruined my life. Anything more?"
"And you ruined mine. But now, my parents know. I know your little minion Nathaniël told her. And now, what better way to make him pay than hurting his girlfriend?"
Marinette almost said the automatic "I'm not his girlfriend" but stopped herself. That's not what she should focus on. "Harming? What can you do, Lila? You're not akumatized."
Lila narrowed her eyebrows, then turned away. "Never mind."
She walked away, and Marinette stretched out on the stairs again… but it was barely a moment before she heard a whooshing of air, a slash of a blade through her cheek, and the feeling of the stairs rushing up toward her before she collapsed.
Before her eyes closed, she heard Lila say tauntingly: "Oops, I tripped."
The next think Marinette knew, she was in the hospital. White and blue clad nurses hovered around her, taking measurements, monitoring her.
Her eyes blinked open. "U-Um…" she started, her throat feeling dry.
Instantly, a petite nurse with curly red hair and freckles ran up to her. "Are you okay? How do you feel? Do you need water?"
"Calm down, Amelia," an older, dark-haired nurse said. "Let the girl relax."
Marinette moved her hand up and touched her cheek. "What happened?"
"You tripped down the stairs while exiting your school," the dark-haired nurse, who's nametag read Amira, said. "Your teacher, Madame Bustier, found you lying on the stairs and brought you here immediately."
Marinette shook her head. "That's not…"
"Relax," Amelia, the red-haired nurse, said. "How are you feeling?"
"A bit dizzy," she mumbled. "I…"
The room suddenly started spinning, maybe because it took too much effort from the speaking, maybe because she was sitting upright for too long. She collapsed back on her bed, drifting into oblivion.
She awoke a few hours later when her parents raced into the room. Her condition had taken a turn for the worse, and her parents were talking to various nurses, their anxiety obvious.
"Maman? Papa?" Marinette asked.
Sabine Cheng and Tom Dupain immediately raced to their daughter, enveloping her in a hug. "Oh sweetie," Sabine said. "I'm so glad you're awake!"
"You don't know how worried we were! Always be careful! No more stairs for you." Tom Dupain groused, his overprotective side showing again.
"Any friends you want to call?" Sabine asked. "You're allowed visitors now."
"F-Friends?" Marinette questioned.
"Yeah. Alya?" Tom responded, already pulling out his phone.
"N-No," she said, already half asleep and not sure what she was saying. "Not Alya… Nathaniël. I want… N-Nathaniël…"
She fell asleep again, but heard her parents fussing, saying "Quick, what's his number!" and "A boy? With Marinette? In a room?"
She grinned, classic Tom Dupain, especially protective after that Chat Noir and Weredad fiasco.
Nathaniël arrived almost immediately after, and her conversation with him was brief – but she managed to convey just the extent of Lila's damage, telling him what she couldn't tell anyone else, that it was Lila that landed her here.
Maybe… this would convince him to stop.
Because Marinette knew that Lila was dangerous, and it wasn't worth their lives to drag her down.
She drifted back into sleep, this time with nervous thoughts about Lila's next plans… but also happy thoughts peppered with a certain red-headed boy's shy smile.