The inevitable confrontation with Adrien happened later than she'd been expecting, but she would have preferred it never happen at all. Still, she didn't regret it, and wouldn't change things if given the chance to go back in time and do things differently.
It took Adrien a full two days before he finally managed to catch her while she was by herself. She'd made the mistake of letting her guard down, and hadn't realized that everyone else had left the art room ahead of her.
She hadn't told anyone that she was avoiding Adrien, because saying it out loud would just...make it seem so much more serious than it was. She didn't want anyone to think she was afraid of Adrien or anything, because she wasn't! She just...dreaded the guilt-trip she knew she was in for if she let him have his way. She resented him for his naivety and refusal to pick a side. She liked Adrien- -loved him- -but…
But she really wasn't in the mood to deal with his bullcrap.
Unfortunately, Adrien didn't care what she wanted.
He shut the art room door, an action that was tantamount to blasphemy. No one ever shut the art room door. It was always kept open, because no one would ever be shut out. The art room was the one place in the school where everyone was welcome without judgement.
Adrien knew that. And he knew what it meant that he was shutting the door. This wasn't a rule that went unspoken, it was painted onto the door itself. Adrien looked at that rule even as he violated it.
He waited until she looked up from her painting at the sound of the door clicking shut, waited until she realized that they were alone, waited until she knew exactly what was going on, before he spoke.
"You shouldn't have hit Chloé, Marinette." He said, crossing his arms over his chest and very purposefully standing in front of the door, blocking her only avenue of escape.
He had the audacity to make his tone of voice condescending and crestfallen, like she'd disappointed him. "That was just mean."
Oh, gods help her.
Not bothering to dignify that statement with a response, she carefully put her paintbrush down, picked up her canvas, and walked it over to the drying area where it would be safe and out of the way.
Then she walked towards the door, aiming to go past Adrien and out into the hallway.
He stepped into her way, blocking the door even more blatantly than before, his brow furrowed in a righteous glare. "No, Marinette, we need to talk about this."
She glared right back, quickly losing what small bit of patience she'd had to begin with. This is exactly what she'd wanted to avoid.
"Talk about what, Adrien?" She snapped, crossing her own arms over her chest defensively.
She'd spent too long arguing with Chat Noir to dare gesture with her hands. All it took was a momentary slip of her guard for him to grab her hand so he could kiss it like he thought this was a fairy tale, instead of assault.
At this point, keeping herself defensive and contained was instinct, especially when she was being lectured about how she needed to calm down and stop taking things so seriously.
Adrien wasn't exactly arguing that she should treat Akuma battles like a game, but he was about to tell her that she shouldn't take Chloé's insults and bullying so seriously. He was about to tell her that she should have just sat there and let Chloé insult Max, let her tell Max that Marinette hated him.
Adrien was about to tell her that she shouldn't have stood up for herself or for her friend. Adrien was about to tell her that she should have just sat there and let Chloé bully Max.
Adrien was about to tell her that Max's feelings didn't matter. That her feelings didn't matter. That the only thing that mattered was keeping Chloé happy and doing whatever Chloé wanted because Chloé was the only person Adrien cared about besides himself⏤!
He took another step forward, until he was standing way closer than common courtesy allowed.
Suddenly, all Marinette could think about was the memory of watching Adrien laugh while Chloé insulted Mylène to the point of tears, and then she continued around the room to insult everyone else. Marinette's friends had been having so much fun learning how to make cookies from her dad, had been so proud of their creations, and Chloé had ruined it and been cruel on purpose.
And Adrien had laughed, "She'll never change."
And then he'd leaned into Marinette's personal space, far closer than he needed to be, so he could ask for a macaroon. She'd felt so flustered and nervous when she turned around to see his face just inches from hers. She'd almost started hyperventilating, the butterflies in her stomach were fluttering like they wanted to suffocate her.
But that was just what love felt like, right?
He was in her personal space now, and this didn't feel like love.
It felt an awful lot like hatred.
She pushed past him towards the door, not even waiting for him to answer.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled hard enough to stop her, and she froze, every fiber of her being thrilling with rage.
"Let go of me." She said softly, not turning to look at him. He was so close she could feel his body heat, and she knew that if she turned to look, if she turned around to find his nose inches from hers, she would lose control.
He had stood this close that day too, and maybe that had given him the confidence to do this.
He didn't release her, so she said again, raising her voice, feeling like her insides were writhing with snakes, "I said let go of me!"
He tightened his grip. "I'm not gonna let you just walk away, Marinette." He said, "Not after what you did to Chloé. It was wrong, and I can't just stand by and do nothing. You need to apologize to Chloé, or I can't be your friend anymore. I can't be friends with someone who thinks it's okay to hurt people like that, no matter what mistakes they've made."
The sheer incredulity of it made her finally spin to face him. She could not believe her ears.
She found him just as close as she knew he'd be, just inches away so that his eyes were boring into hers.
She couldn't even feel her hands, the rage boiling in her veins was so strong. She couldn't tell if the grip he hand on her wrist was hard enough to hurt.
"Let. Me. Go." She yanked on her hand to try to get him to let go, but he yanked back, his glare intensifying, keeping her trapped in place.
When she had thrown the book at Chloé, it had been a spur of the moment decision. She hadn't thought about it at all. It had been pure, a unbridaled crime of passion.
She knew exactly what she was about to do.
She gave him one more chance. She tried to rip her hand out of his grip, pulling down instead of back, trying to knock him loose. But he held on grimly, even baring his teeth to snarl at her, tightening his grip even further, his nails biting into her skin.
So she brought her knee up as violently as she could, aimed directly between his legs, just like her mother had taught her.
She'd come home one night after an Akuma attack stressed to the point of tears, and hadn't been able to help but confess a fraction of the truth: A strange boy had bothered her at the park, getting in her personal space and trying to hold her hand and trying to kiss her, kept asking her out after she told him she wasn't interested, and wouldn't back off no matter what she said, until she finally had to run away. And she'd had to run away from her home and take a long, confusing route home because she was terrified he would follow her.
Her mother had been horrified, and seeing the look on her mother's face, seeing her taking it as seriously as Marinette did, was the push that made Marinette break down in tears she'd been holding back for months. Chat Noir treated it all like such a joke she'd been afraid- -terrified- - that whoever she told would laugh at her and tell her she was overreacting. That she needed to lighten up and get a sense of humor.
Her mother wasn't laughing. She looked as sad and scared as Marinette had ever seen her outside of an Akuma battle. She let Marientte cry herself out, then helped her download an app to her phone that would let her automatically call her parents by pressing a single button.
Then she sat her down with a plate of cookies, and began the lesson she'd hoped she would never have to teach.
"If you're alone, don't yell 'rape' or 'help', because it might scare people away instead of getting them to help you, or they might think it's a joke. Always yell fire, because a fire will endanger everyone, and they have to go towards you to help put it out. If you're somewhere there are other people, like at the park or at school, don't keep quiet, even if you're embarrassed.
"Make your feelings clear. If someone is trying to touch you, yell 'Stop touching me!' or 'Let go of me!'. If they're trying to ask you out, yell, 'I already said no, leave me alone!' You have to make sure that everyone around you knows that what's happening is serious. Be loud, make a scene, and make sure the people around you know it isn't a joke. Shout things like, 'I don't know you, leave me alone!' because if it's an adult, people might assume you're just a kid throwing a tantrum..."
Then she showed her some self-defence techniques, a refresher course on the moves she'd been taught as a small child, with her father helpfully playing the role of an attacker so her mom could show her the different ways to react to different attacks.
To showcase the offensive moves, they used one of Marinette's mannequins.
Plastic mannequins didn't gasp in pain though, or double over, or collapse to the floor, groaning and clutching between their legs while they cried.
Her wrist was hurting horribly, and Marinette was shocked to find lines of red blood streaked over her hand when she looked down. Adrien's nails had actually bitten deep enough to scratch her. The welts were raised and pale, and quickly filling with blood.
She felt sick as she stumbled backwards.
This was what she'd had a crush on? This boy, who had grabbed her and refused to let go, and dug his nails in until she bled? This boy, who had never stood up for her or defended her, even when he said he was her friend, who only ever tore her down and made her feel guilty for standing up for herself and others?
This was the person she'd fallen in love with?
If she could go back in time, she would go back to the day she first met him, and warn herself to stay away.
But time travel didn't exist, and even if it did, it wouldn't help her.
She couldn't change the past.
But she could take charge of the future.
She turned away from Adrien crying and moaning on the floor, opened the art room door, and walked herself directly to the principal's office, keeping her injured wrist elevated as it continued to bleed. She'd gotten paint on her shirt because she'd forgotten to use an apron, and didn't want to risk dirtying the wound even further.
Mr. Damocles was on the phone and looking out the window when she pushed the door open with one foot and walked inside. He turned distractedly towards her at the sound, lifting one hand to shoo her away-then he caught sight of her bloody hand and wrist, and his eyes widened.
"I'll have to call you back! Student emergency!" he exclaimed into the phone, barely hanging up before he was striding towards her, expression alarmed. "What happened? Are you alright? We need to get you to the nurse's office!"
"Adrien Agreste didn't think my two weeks of detention were punishment enough for what I did to Chloé, so he decided to confront me himself. I didn't want to hear it, so I tried to walk away, and he grabbed me, and wouldn't let go even when I told him to, three different times. He kept squeezing tighter and even scratched me, so I had no choice but to kick him between the legs, and came straight here to tell you what happened." Marinette said all in a rush so he wouldn't have a chance to interrupt her.
Mr. Damocles stared even as his shocked mind continued to process her rush of words. He could see the blood-covered evidence for himself.
This wasn't like the case with Lila saying Marinette had pushed her down the stairs, this was a real tangible injury, and a very dramatic one at that. Marinette didn't have any clean cloth she could use as a bandage, so while the bleeding had begun to slow, it hadn't stopped completely, and the drying blood covering most of her hand was a horrifying sight to behold, not to mention the forming bruise around her wrist in the unmistakable shape of a hand.
When Mr. Damocles' mind finally processed the fact that Adrien had done this, his mouth fell open in shock, but he still ushered her out the door and into the hallway, trying to lead her towards the nurse's office a few doors down. He didn't seem to know what to say.
"Kicked him, you say?" He finally managed, sounded nervous, even more nervous than he'd been in the meeting with Chloé's dad in the debate for Marinette's punishment. "Was he injured?"
Marinette planted her feet just outside the door, refusing to follow him to the nurse's office. "He was on the ground when I left. It happened in the art room. But I'm not going to the nurse's office, I'm going home. I live right across the street, and if you have to, you can call my parents to come pick me up, but I'm leaving for the rest of the day."
It suddenly occurred to her that aside from showing her parents, she should be taking pictures. It was a bit awkward having to reach across her body to get her phone out of her pocket, but she managed it, and immediately started taking pictures of her hand and wrist, mentally smacking herself in the face for not thinking of it immediately. She needed real, tangible proof so no one would be able to claim she was lying. Gabriel Agreste was as infamous as he was famous-he was vicious and cutthroat, and no one dared stand against him. Those who did disappeared from the fashion industry entirely. She wouldn't put it past him to try and sweep this whole thing under the rug and say she was lying about it.
Mr. Damocles tried to protest, either her statement of leaving, or the fact that she was taking pictures of the horrible sight, but either way, she didn't want to hear it. When she started walking away, aiming for the stairs so she could go home, he seemed to be too shocked to do anything to stop her.
She took the stairs two at a time, and jogged across the courtyard towards the exit, holding her breath so she wouldn't start crying. She wasn't sure how she'd managed to stay so calm while talking to Mr. Damocles, maybe that was just plain old shock, but whatever it was, it was fading fast, with every step she took, with every painful beat of her heart in the bruise on her wrist.
Another student opened the main doors for her, their eyes wide in concern and horror, and offered to walk her home, but she declined as coherently as she could through the lump forming in her throat. Her house was less than fifty feet from the shool, and it was her arm that was hurt, not her legs.
She set off down the stairs and across the concrete, feeling like everyone on the street was staring at her in horror, thinking to herself ironically that since she'd hit Chloé, she'd dreaded Adrien confronting her.
Now she was dreading the reactions of the rest of her friends when they found out what she'd done.
At least she knew her parents would support her.
By the time she reached the door of the bakery, she was crying in earnest, and it was only her luck that there were only a few customers in the store instead of a full house.
There were a few gasps of shock, but no one stopped her as she stumbled into her father's arms and cried helplessly.
What few customers were in the store left gladly when her mother told them that the bakery would be closing early due to a family emergency. Most people who visited their bakery were regulars, they know who Marinette was, and many of them viewed her like a niece.
Her mom locked the door and hung the closed sign, and her father led her up the stairs.
She showed them the pictures she'd taken while they cleaned the scratches on her arm, and her mom used her phone to take more pictures of the cleaned wounds, then texted the pictures to both her parent's phones, and emailed them to herself. No matter what happened to Marinette's phone, those pictures would still exist. They had real concrete proof that no one could argue with.
The same could be said for what Marinette had done to Chloé, but the Mayor for whatever reason hadn't decided to press the issue.
Maybe because he still keenly felt the threat of a guillotine against his neck from the very public incident where Chloé had purposefully crashed a train full of people. He had power, but his grip on that power was weakening with every stunt his spoiled brat of a daughter pulled that revealed just how much he was willing to let her get away with.
They cleaned the scratches, applied antibacterial cream, and stared in horror and rage at the very clear bruise that had blossomed around her wrist, very distinctly in the shape of a hand.
"Marinette," He mother said, after Marinette had had time to drink some water, eat a few cookies, and calm down, "You're staying home from school tomorrow, and you aren't going back until that boy is expelled. If- -"
Marinette took the opportunity to interrupt her, blurting out the idea that had been hammering through her heart since she hit Chloé with that textbook. "I don't want to go back."
There, she'd finally said it.
She didn't want to go back to her school.
Not if Chloé was still going to be there. Not if Adrien was still going to be there. Not if Ms. Bustier was still going to be there, not if Lila was still going to be there, not if everything was just the same as when she'd left.
She was tired of being bullied. She was tired of being guilt tripped. She was tired of being told that setting a good example was more important than standing up for herself. She was tired of being told that Chloé's feelings mattered more than everyone else's.
She was tired of the stress. She was exhausted.
She'd been thinking about this for a while, but the incident with Chloé in the library had been the tipping point that made her really, seriously consider the idea.
Not going back would mean not seeing her friends all day, but there was nothing stopping them from spending lunch and afterschool together. Walking to Marinette's house during the lunch break was faster than going home, and Marinette was sure they would be delighted at the prospect.
"I've been researching online schools for a while now," She said, finding it hard to believe how easily the words came, "They're technically public schools, so we won't have to pay for anything at all. They'll even send us a laptop and help pay the internet bill…"
She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but whatever it was, it didn't happen.
"Are you sure?" Was all her mom asked.
"I'm sure." Marinette answered.
"Alright. I'll get on the phone with Mr. Damocles and tell him we're pulling you out, then I'll check through these online schools and figure out which one you'll be going to. In fact, I'm going to call the rest of the parents and tell them what happened. I didn't know that online schools were free, and I'm sure they don't know that either. They might change their minds about allowing their kids to attend the same school as those horrible Bourgeois and Agreste if they know there are other options available."
Her mom didn't waste any time mincing words with the principal, and within ten minutes, Marinette had officially been pulled out of Francois-DuPont highschool while her father went on the laptop to apply to one of the public online schools.
Then her mom got on the phone with Alya's parents, then Nino's, then Max's, then Kim's, then Rose's, then Juleka's, then Ivan's…
Marinette's mother was many things, and one of those things was a leader. It hardly took her any time at all to explain to the other parents what had happened, and what they were doing.
Marinette watched her mom pace back and forth with the phone on speaker as one by one, she convinced the families of Marinette's friends that Francois-DuPont was better left abandoned. Chloé Bourgeois' bullying had been going on for years, and the teachers did nothing to stop it, to the point that Marinette had to defend her and her friends physically to get it to stop. And now Adrien Agreste, another member of the bourgeois, had physically attacked and injured their daughter.
This was a call for action, and Sabine spelled out for the others what she was asking them to do and what she wanted to accomplish. She wanted them to reach out to all of the other parents they knew, and she wanted them to pull their children out of that school. Whether temporarily, in solidarity, or permanently, it didn't matter. The awful going on at Francois-DuPont had gone on long enough, and it stopped here.
Marinette sat on the couch and watched in wonder as her mother started a revolt.
It took her twenty minutes of listening, completely rapt, for her to realize that she had her own phone, and her own list of contacts.
She opened up her group messenger, deleted and blocked Adrien's number, set up a new group chat with everyone but Adrien, and began typing.
The first thing she sent was, delete and block Adrien. He tried to tell me I was wrong to stand up to Chloé, and attacked me when I tried to leave the room. He grabbed me hard enough that I have a bruise on my wrist, and scratched my arm bloody.
It didn't take long for the shocked and concerned replies to flood the chat, and for her phone to start ringing with a joint call.
Marinette hadn't been thinking when she'd thrown the book at Chloé, but she'd known exactly what she was about do to before she hit Adrien.
This time, as she went upstairs and set her phone to video call so she and her mom wouldn't get in each other's way, she knew exactly what she was doing.
She'd tried for years to stop Chloé from hurting her and her friends. But some things couldn't be fought from the inside.
Some things you just had to destroy.
And Francois-DuPont highschool was one of them.