By Wednesday, Maman had said Marinette was well enough that she was unlikely to be contagious anymore, so despite the extreme lack of sleep caused by the virus, Marinette was up bright and early in the morning for school. Her Papa had snuck into her room and reset her alarm so that she would actually make it on time for her first day back.

Marinette was really beginning to wish she just hadn't woken up at all this morning.

"Don't come near me! Sabrina!"

Sabrina lurked near Chloe with a fan and anti-bacterial hand gel.

"Do you know what it does to my complexion when I get sick? And I don't want to get whatever made you look like that…Or wait, isn't that just what you look like normally? My mistake," Chloe laughed cruelly.

Ignore, ignore, ignore, Marinette chanted in her brain. While some part of Marinette was actually impressed by the insults, as they were more intelligent than normal, for the most part, she just didn't have enough energy to care. At this point, she was running on fumes.

As she went to slide into her seat beside Alya, and just ignore Chloe by way of sleeping on her desk, her day managed to get worse. To be honest, Marinette had been surprised that Monday's argument hadn't resulted in an akuma attack, especially considering the article suggesting Paris' heroes were going through a rough patch, but she supposed that Hawk Moth hadn't wanted to repeat an akuma – that, or he'd been busy elsewhere at the time of the most potent emotions. So it shouldn't really have been a surprise that Alya shifted to the side when Marinette went to sit beside her.

But it was.

"You sure you want to sit next to me? What if I get too close and upset your boundaries?"

Marinette thought she could hear her heart break. She'd wanted to apologise, to talk things out with Alya, but she couldn't do that from a different seat.

"Uh, why don't I swap with you dudette?"

Honestly, thank God for Nino. If it wasn't for him, Marinette might have just started crying - as it was, it was a close call. Marinette couldn't even be happy that she was sat next to Adrien, she just felt crushing heartbreak. She had been very carefully putting off thinking about what Alya had said during their argument, reminding herself again and again that Alya probably hadn't meant half of what she'd said, but her carefully constructed mental walls lacked solid denial – and they were ready to come crashing down around her at any moment.

Marinette elected to place her head on the table beside Adrien and just blank out into comfortable oblivion for a nice good few days.

Who cared?

She woke to Adrien's finger poking her in the side, and Mme. Bustier calling her name in the register for what sounded like the third, or maybe even fourth time.

"Here, Mme. Bustier," Marinette mumbled loudly, voice still fogged with a small amount of sleep.

Giggles sounded from the front left row, and just…Marinette gave up. She didn't even care why Chloe and Sabrina were laughing anymore. They could giggle, and she could go back to sleep. That sounded nice. Her head was halfway to the table before Adrien nudged his knee into hers and she jerked awake. She glared at him. Hard. The desk was so inviting. Why would he stand between her and sleep?

"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to.. it's just that… Um… we have Mme. Mendeliev next?"

Well wasn't that just peachy. Of course Marinette had to come back on the only day they had double Mendeliev first and second period.

She spent all of the lessons daydreaming, totally caught up in her own head. Adrien, bless him, nudged her nervously when she was called on, or she needed to take notes, though for the most part, she just copied his.

Inside her head, her thoughts roiled.

Mostly, she focused on Alya and plans to fix things between them. She needed to convince Alya to take down that article. But thinking about the article led her to think about Chat and his reaction when she'd showed it to him, about how the last time she'd seen him as Ladybug, she'd been throwing cutting remarks his way and watching him bleed despair. About what Alya had said, that she was glad Ladybug was fighting with Chat Noir, because it meant she could make their fake-relationship real. About the absolute personification of perfection, complete with all his flaws that sat next to her. About the way he kept nudging her and she hadn't once jumped out of her seat in panic.

She wanted to attribute it to being too exhausted. But she didn't need Tikki (or Alya) to tell her that that wasn't what this was about. This was about the fact that Adrien didn't take up every thought anymore. This was about the fact that he was perfect in her eyes, but … but she, she…

Their fight. When Chat had been off. How hard was it to admit to herself that she'd missed it? Why couldn't she acknowledge that…that…that she liked it when Chat flirted with her? It wasn't just that she liked the light-hearted teasing and flirting either. Even she knew what it meant that the world felt fundamentally wrong and strange when Chat didn't flirt with her. She liked it. She liked booping him in the nose when he made a flirty comment, even though the hurt in his eyes always wrecked her (and wasn't that telling). Maybe now she could finally admit it.

Maybe.

Ok so this was proving harder than she had thought it would be. Turns out that rigid denial and mental compartmentalisation are rather difficult to work through! But she was making steps! Baby steps were still steps.

Fundamentally, it was like this: Adrien, in all his beautiful sunshiney , wasn't who she liked anymore. And the person he'd blinded her to…Well maybe now that every thought towards Chat wasn't cut off by 'my heart belongs to Adrien' she could admit that there was someone else who had wormed their way into her heart through bad jokes, even worse one-liners, late-night hang outs, failed dates, emotional conversations and teasing.

Now, maybe she could admit that she possibly quite liked Chat Noir.

Now, maybe she could see that Adrien had blinded her to the different type of perfection that had been right by her side the whole time.

Yeah, she liked Chat Noir.

Revelation over, and Marinette was going to ignore all the squirming feelings it brought with it, because she did not have enough brainpower for this and she couldn't really freak out in the middle of class and she still had her problems with Alya to deal with and Mme. Mendeliev wanted to know what the difference between an endothermic and an exothermic reaction was and honestly, this was one problem that was screaming to be left for Future Marinette to deal with.

Problem one, solved.

Problem two, still a glaring problem.

Break was spent hiding in the toilets. Yay. Through the tears, Marinette could admit that she could have foreseen this if she hadn't been so blinded by naïve hope. Why would Alya have wanted to talk to her at break? She'd made her position perfectly clear this morning, so why would that change now? And Marinette had more friends than just Alya, but Nino stuck with Alya and Adrien stuck by Nino and all her other friends weren't exactly – comforting to be around when she wanted to burst out crying – she'd much rather talk to Tikki. So here Marinette was, sniffling in the toilets, hugging Tikki to her chest.

"What do I do to fix this, Tikki?" Marinette sniffed, rubbing a hand over her eyes.

"You know, Marinette. Every problem has a solution."

Much as she loved her kwami, Marinette did have to admit that vague, mystical advice was the best she'd get from that corner.

She would have to solve this herself.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath in, and opened her eyes with a new determination shining in them. She was going to come up with a plan if it killed her. This was just another problem to solve, and if Ladybug could do anything, it was solve problems.

A small smile.

The aims were for Alya to take down the article, and for Alya to forgive her.

The current situation was that Alya was mad at her for what she'd said about boundaries, and that she campaigned to keep the superheroes' identities secret. The article was one of her most popular. Nino was tentatively on Marinette's side, and Adrien seemed to be at the very least neutral, if not sympathetic. Not everything was as bleak as it had appeared at first.

Cutting remarks and rejection were hurtful, but they were small things in the scheme of things. Marinette tamped down on the hurt welling up in her heart. It would not be helpful.

If she apologised to Alya, could they talk it out?

Well first she'd have to get close to Alya, and also, that had been the original plan, so obviously a new idea was needed – after all, repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was the definition of insanity.

What about asking Tikki to send a magical wave to mess up the website? Could she even do that?

That was definitely something to look into. Failing that, she needed a backup plan.

Could she…no…but…it would be perfect….

What if Marinette wrote a note for Alya, talking about how this was obviously encroaching on the superheroes' privacy?

Or, even better!

She could get Chat to talk to Alya!

But, no…she couldn't put Chat in that position. He was probably already hurt enough by the article.

She could go as Ladybug?

That…that was perfect…

Alya looked up to Ladybug, she'd care about Marinette's alter ego's opinion, even if she hadn't even properly listened to Marinette's.

She had a plan.

Line Break

During the rest of the day, Alya stayed stubbornly silent. At least she wasn't joining in with Chloe's petty harassment, but it still stung, being completely ignored by Alya. The encounter at break was still fresh in Marinette's mind.

"Alya, I wanted to…" Marinette heaved, as she finally caught up with Alya.

Alya's pace sped up a smidgen.

"I feel terrible about what happened and-"

From her bag, Alya drew a pair of headphones, connected them to her phone and slipped them into her ears.

Desperately, Marinette jogged forward (she'd thought the extra training had helped!), but as soon as she got close enough to tap Alya on the shoulder, she was simply shrugged off. Nino looked on, wincing in pain, but he was obviously staying out of this. And Marinette knew he agreed with her, but he was loyal to Alya. She couldn't fault him for that, Marinette supposed.

Once again, Marinette tried to grab Alya's attention, this time going as far as to grab Alya's arm. In hindsight, it was a move too far, but Marinette just couldn't, she just couldn't let her chance to apologise to Alya go.

Alya whipped around, violently dislodging Marinette's grip on her (it hadn't been strong in the first place) to give her the most vicious glare Marinette had ever had aimed at her.

"Some people have boundaries, Marinette," Alya spat. "So go find someone else to bother."

Recoiling at the vicious tone cost Marinette precious seconds, giving Alya time to storm off, every line of her body displaying her anger and irritation.

Nino lingered behind. "I think you have to give her some time to cool down, ok, dudette? You really hurt her yesterday, and…uh…Alya's temper only lasts so long. After that, her anger is pure stubbornness, and you have a chance with that. Just…let me handle it, yeah?" with that, he rushed after Alya, and Marinette could only watch for long enough to see him hold Alya's hands between his own and press his shoulder against hers, before they rounded a corner and were out of sight.

Stunned, she backed up to the nearest wall, quickly fleeing for the toilets afterwards, holding tears back so that no one would well-meaningly enquire what had happened. Marinette just needed to be alone.

This time, at lunch, rather than approach Alya again, she headed over to Alix, Kim and Max, who were walking to the race track, so that Alix could brush up on her skating for an upcoming competition, and Max could time Kim's speed, as Kim was convinced that he'd grown faster over the weekend.

"You ready, slowpoke?" Alix teased, skating backwards in effortless circles round Kim.

Marinette watched from her vantage point at the bench. Slowly, in careful, wobbling steps, she straightened out into a standing crouch. Then, with powerful strokes, she skated over to Alix. While Marinette wasn't anywhere near as good as Alix at skating (that would have been near impossible) and couldn't do any fancy tricks, she had still spent enough time with Alix on skates to be able to enjoy a lunch period racing round the track. If Max was timing Kim, she'd figured Alix would enjoy some company, and a little friendly competition, so she'd asked Alix to borrow her spare skates earlier, and now she was free to speed through the air.

"I'm ready," Kim scowled, "You need to move, Alix!"

A laugh burbled out of Alix and she skated gracefully away. Max was also biting back a smile, which only deepened Kim's frown, although the effect was rather undermined. by the quirk of his lip.

"Finally, Marinette! Some worthwhile competition!"

Internally, Marinette rolled her eyes.

"We have some skating to be doing!"

The sun beat down on the dusty red ground, and the wind rushed past Marinette as she raced – cutting through the air like a knife. There was something about roller-skating that couldn't even be matched by swinging though the air by yoyo, when you were going fast enough. Alix was spinning, going through fancy steps for the competition. Graceful, loping strokes were interchanged with shorter, more furious ones, in a rhythm Marinette couldn't understand or emulate, but could watch and admire. Alix was a bird flying through the air, graceful and elegant. Marinette herself felt like a panther racing over the ground, metre by metre swallowed by her incredible speed.

It was enough to lift her spirits. Alya would come around, it was inevitable, and in the meantime, Marinette could exist in this half-space, between the wind and the air. Exhilaration bubbled beneath her skin and she threw her hands out in a wide arc, feeling the wind push against them.

"Alix, show me that spin trick?" Marinette called, and together they spent the lunch break improving their skills, and in Marinette's case, working off steam.

While they were shedding their skates, and preparing to walk back to the school, Alix coughed, cleared her throat and began to speak.

"Did you want to… God, I'm bad at this…uh…" Alix trailed off, arms clutched tight against her chest. "I just wanted to say that Alya's being a terrible friend."

"And, uh, I enjoyed skating with you, if you want to do it again," she added in a rush.

Alix hopped from foot to foot, before Max called her name and she rushed away.

A slow, but persistent smile worked its way onto Marinette's face. She was not alone.

Line Break

In other news, Adrien had an absolute heart attack when Marinette wandered into class, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, and hair the colour of midnight tumbling down around her shoulders, still dressed in the exercise clothes she'd put on to skate. Needless to say, he wasn't very productive for the remainder of the school day.

But it was alright – Marinette took notes for him.

A/N:

So, this was the chapter equivalent of a really winding path, but it has several things I wanted to include – including Marinette's final realisation! Are you excited? I'm excited. Next chapter, Ladybug and Chat Noir talk for the first time since Ladybug got injured. :)))