Summary: An akumatized Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a terrifying Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Too bad Lila never got the memo.
The words "Who the fuck pissed off Marinette?" was not what Adrien expected to hear when Alya stormed into the classroom, slamming the door behind her. She pushed Mlle. Bustier's desk against the door and stood in front of the class, crossing her arms. Adrien couldn't tell if she was disappointed, afraid or livid.
Accusing gazes landed on Chloé's desk. She tensed, fists clenching underneath her desk. Chloé had barely said a word these past few weeks─not since Miracle Queen. She hardly messed with Marinette, or anybody, since. Adrien had a hard time believing that she was behind whatever happened.
Speaking of… "Why?"
Alya inhaled deeply, staring him down. Something was off with her, but Adrien couldn't place what it was. "Marinette's…" Alya flinched, eyes flitting about the room. Nino went to her side, grabbing her hand and smiling reassuringly. That didn't calm her down in the slightest. "Marinette's been akumatized."
It was almost comical how the class jumped into action. Alix raced for the windows, yanking the cord on the blinds. Juleka dived under her desk, pulling Rose down with her. Nathaniel's drawings scattered to the winds as he scrambled about. Lila yelled out and Mylène rushed to reassure her, even as she shook sporadically. Chloé groaned loudly as Sabrina fretted over her, shouting about needing to protect her. Kim and Ivan each grabbed a hold of one of Adrien's arms, pulling him out of his seat and towards the back of the classroom.
Honestly, it was as if they'd practiced this reaction─but the sheer terror they went through at that very moment left them scrambling.
"H-hey!" Adrien struggled to get out of their hold. He definitely could break out, but Adrien didn't want to risk hurting them. "Put me down! What are you doing?!"
Alya fiddled with the blinds, pulling one up and opening a window. She stared out at the empty courtyard.
Alya took hold of Chloé. "If Mari's been akumatized, it was caused by you, Lila or Chloé. We need to get you guys out of here before she kills somebody." Chloé struggled against her grip, but when Alya whispered something into her ear, she went limp.
"What?" he asked. Adrien could understand Chloé and Lila, but what did he ever do that would cause Marinette to be akumatized? She's one of his greatest friends!
"This contingency plan has been in place for nearly two years, Agreste. We only recently added Lila. How have you not heard about it?" Alix asked. She peeked out through the blinds. "I don't see any signs of her. Why wasn't there an akuma alert?"
Max frowned at his phone. "The Ladyblog is down. Could Marinette have done that?"
"Definitely." Alya shivered. Something shimmered above her wrist.
Adrien bit his tongue. That was way too methodical for an akuma.
"Did you see it happen?" he asked.
"No," Alya said. "I saw her in the park─she didn't see me. She was just standing there and talking to Hawkmoth. I don't know what her goals are or what happened." Was it just him or was her neck shinier than usual? But only across the middle. Weird.
"Could it have been somebody else?" Mylène hopefully asked.
"No." Alya said. Her eyes were glassy. "No, it was definitely her. Even with a mask on, I could always recognise my best friend."
"Guys, calm down," Lila said, having miraculously gotten over her panic attack in a matter of seconds. "It's just Marinette. I'm sure Ladybug and Chat Noir will defeat her in three hours, tops."
An awkward silence filled the room. Adrien didn't like not knowing what made them all so afraid of Marinette's akuma.
"Lila," Alya said. "You've never seen Marinette when she's dead set on doing something, have you?"
Adrien frowned at the glances that came his way. He should really start reviewing all of his interactions with his oldest friend if everybody thought he'd done something to warrant her wrath.
"Of course I have," Lila said. Even she was staring at him. Yeah, maybe Adrien Agreste should disappear. "But I don't see how─" Whatever had cut Lila off had claimed the attention of his entire class. He used the distraction to pull himself out of Kim and Ivan's grasp. Adrien put distance between them, but it wasn't until he looked up that he noticed what the problem was.
There, sitting at her desk like there wasn't a problem in the entire world, was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Only, she wasn't Marinette. Her hair was longer, her outfit tackier and half of her face covered by a black mask. Her earrings were missing. She held onto a black marionette control bar, and smiled as if there wasn't a single problem in the world. The smile looked out of place on her face─it was cold and sharp. Marinette's smiles were warm and soft. This felt wrong on so many different levels.
How'd she even get in here? All of the entrances and exits had been blocked off.
But that's not what the class was staring at.
Lila's entire body was suspended by strings, almost invisible and terribly thin. But they were there and they wrapped around Lila's neck. Lila gasped loudly. She attempted to struggle but that was clearly futile. Adrien knew it was only a matter of time before she ran out of breath.
"Marinette," he spoke up. Adrien stood slowly, his hands held up placatingly.
Her eyes narrowed. "Marionette," she corrected. Despite himself, his lip quirked. That didn't even make sense. The marionette was the puppet, not the master … perhaps it did make sense. But Adrien couldn't blame Hawkmoth for this one─he'd never be able to pass up the opportunity.
"Marionette," he said. Adrien had no idea what to do here. "Could you… not kill Lila, please?"
"Why not?" Marionette murmured. Her lips were blood red, standing out against her stark teeth. "Would you rather I take the high road, Adrien?"
She said his name coldly. He was used to her stuttering and blushing whenever she said his name─something that had calmed down over the past couple of months, but this… this was something entirely different. Her voice held no emotion. Right now, she was just an empty shell for Hawkmoth to direct in order to gain access to Ladybug and Chat Noir.
He's not going to let Marinette get used like a puppet.
And god. Ladybug doesn't even know. The Ladyblog is down so there wasn't an alert put out. Shit.
"I'd rather we sit down and talk, but I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon."
Marionette let out a laugh. It grated on his ears. Her laugh, so devoid of humour and emotion, sounded like nails on a chalkboard. She smiled a smile that was too wide, too empty. "You were always so good, Adrien."
Despite himself, he smirked. "Well, you know what they say."
Stop, he told himself. This isn't just any akuma. This is Marinette. You're not Chat Noir right now. Marinette doesn't need a superhero. She needs a friend.
Marionette stood. "Do I?"
And as she took that first step towards him, he resolutely stood his ground.
But he hadn't heard a word out of their classmates in a hot minute.
It was pretty obvious why. He saw it the second he dragged his gaze away from Marionette's icy stare. Strings wrapped around them, holding them in place and forcing them to obey. And he realised something else.
Ever since Alya had ran in, he'd known something had been off with her.
Now he saw it.
Wrapping around her were those strings that he hated to be accustomed to so early. She'd been under Marionette's control ever since she stepped foot inside.
Adrien brought a hand up to his neck. He felt skin, smooth and devoid of any material.
For whatever reason, Marionette hadn't touched him with her strings.
She took the steps up to meet him. Adrien felt more caged in than ever before─even when his father was keeping him locked inside, he'd never felt like this. It wasn't even the fact that he'd pressed himself into a corner when escaping from Ivan and Kim.
Marionette's stare made him feel like stone. He didn't─couldn't─move from his spot. His legs wouldn't obey him. But no, there weren't any strings holding him there.
His fear kept an iron grip on his body.
He'd always thought that, come hell or high water, Marinette would never be touched by Hawkmoth. She was good. Way too good for Hawkmoth to ever think about touching.
"I'm disappointed─" she started, reaching up to take hold of the hand that wrapped around his throat. The pressure was heavy, but not threatening. Not yet. "─that you think I'd ever hurt you, Adrien."
"Marinette─"
The grip tightened to a point of discomfort, but still he didn't feel pain. He grimaced.
"Marionette," he corrected himself. "What happened?"
Marionette smirked. God, he hated that look on her face. She leaned forwards to whisper into his ear, "take a guess."
He looked over Marionette's shoulder. Their classmates watched them with varying degrees of shock and fear. All except Lila, who was struggling to breathe. Marionette was keeping her on the verge of suffocation, releasing the string pulled taut around her neck sporadically.
She was letting Lila breathe, but just barely so.
"Lila," he murmured. Marionette pulled back to look him in the eye. He needs to be very careful with what he says right now. A hand creeped across his chest, an unfamiliar weight settling in his shirt. "What did she do?"
Marionette laughed harshly. Adrien didn't look away, no matter how much he wanted to flinch at the noise. "Nothing she hasn't done before, Adrien. But it seems the high road was closed for construction. So here I am!" Marionette stepped back, arms sweeping out and fists clenching. Gasps and grunts filled the room as the cords wrapped around their classmates' necks tightened. They couldn't even reach up to pull at the strings. Marionette was hardly the puppet in this moment─she was a god playing with their lives, dangling them over the snake pit for her enjoyment. "I'm free, Adrien! I have everything! Now, somebody will believe me when I tell them that Lila's a liar!"
"I always believed you, Marinette," Adrien said.
The snarl that she let out left him pressing further into the wall. Marionette stalked forwards, taking hold of his chin in a bruising grip. He didn't flinch, resolutely staring into her burning gaze. "My name is Marionette!"
There's no reasoning with an akuma. No matter how much you want to beg them to come back, to stop and think. It can't be done.
Adrien needs to get away, transform and find Ladybug.
He needs to save Marinette.
"What do you want?" Adrien asked, forcing his jaw to move even as her hold tightened. "You have me, you have Lila. You have the entire fucking class at your beck and call. So why haven't you gone after Ladybug and Chat Noir already?!"
Marionette smiled. A thousand emotions played out in her eyes but he couldn't understand a single one of them. She let go of his chin, reaching down to take hold of his hand. Marionette pressed her lips against his knuckles.
"Oh, Adrien." She hummed. Marionette reached up with her other hand to brush his bangs back. "I've already destroyed Ladybug. It's only a matter of time before Kitty shows up."
Blood rushed to his head, sound fled his ears and black spots danced across his vision.
"I've already destroyed Ladybug."
She was lying. She had to be lying.
Ladybug… she couldn't have…
No, she's lying.
Marionette did not destroy Ladybug.
Ladybug was probably out and about, blissfully unaware of the akuma attack. She didn't know about Marinette and she hadn't been destroyed.
Ladybug, his Lady, his Bugaboo, was fine.
But it didn't stop Adrien from reacting.
A purple mask appeared on Marionette's face, prompting him into action. He pushed her away. She fell into Ivan. Adrien hopped onto Nathaniel's desk, using it as leverage to hop to the front.
Alya had opened a window earlier. It had been after she'd pushed the big, heavy desk against the door and Alix had closed all of the blinds. She'd done it so casually that Adrien hadn't thought to protest against her actions.
She let Marionette inside.
Adrien dodged the sluggish hands reaching out for him. He dived out of the window, ducking into a roll. His classmates clambered after him, fighting to get out first. Doors burst open around him, his peers flooding out of the classroom and after him.
Adrien forgoed the stairs, hopping over the rail and landing in a crouch in the courtyard below. He ran for the large double doors, kicking D'Argencourt out of his way as he went.
He pulled open the doors, grabbing Max's incoming hand and pushing him back into Rose. The doors swung open. Adrien scampered out, very much ignoring the hundreds of mindless Parisians who were focused on handing him over to Marionette.
Just think of them as fangirls.
That prompted him to move, dodging and ducking wildly as he weaved through the grappling crowd.
"ADRIEN!" Marionette screamed out. He didn't even know that noise was humanly possible. "Don't do this!"
Adrien ignored her. He couldn't waste time─he needs to escape.
He ducked into an alleyway, climbing onto a protruding chimney and using it as leverage to hop onto a stairwell. He climbed up until he was on the roof of the building. He ducked behind a billboard, finally letting Plagg out of his shirt.
"Plagg!" he hissed. "Marinette's been akumatized and Ladybug's nowhere to be seen!"
"Uh, yeah," Plagg chuckled nervously, scratching his head. "About that..."
"We don't have time! Plagg, claws─"
"Don't transform!" a high-pitched voice rang out.
Adrien whirled around, fighting stance ready but unnecessary.
"Tikki?" he asked. He dropped back into a crouch as the kwami zoomed towards him. She dropped two earrings into his open palm. "What…? You mean Ladybug's…"
"Ladybug can't help you fight the akuma," Tikki said, her voice filled with pain. Her eyes were big and sad. "She's… busy."
"Tikki," he said. "I'm begging you to tell me where she is. Marionette said that she destroyed Ladybug and I… I don't think I can defeat her without my Lady."
"I─"
"Marinette's Ladybug!" Plagg exclaimed, perhaps without thinking. Either way, he didn't look even slightly guilty, even as Tikki whirled on him.
"Plagg!"
"What? He needed to know." Plagg frowned.
"How'd you escape, Tikki?" Adrien asked. He didn't know why he asked. He felt the need the know.
"When Marinette realised she couldn't fight off the akuma, she took off her Miraculous and made me leave without alerting Hawkmoth to my presence." Something about that had Adrien calming down.
He could hear Marionette shouting down in the streets.
Plagg frowned, tilting his head. "Hey, Sugar Cube, if Marinette's the Guardian… and she's been akumatized…"
Tikki gasped. "Adrien! You need to get the Miraculous Box!"
"Where is it?" he asked, already standing.
"In her room," Tikki said. Adrien could already see her balcony from his position on the roof. Marinette's room was very close to François Dupont.
"Alright." He held the Ladybug Miraculous in a tight grip as he transformed into Chat Noir.
He could do this. He's sneaked around Paris before.
He can do this.
Adrien doesn't know what will happen if he can't.
Tikki pointed him to the box. The hiding spot was… something. Marinette was scary good at keeping things hidden. Adrien could've scoured the room for decades and would've found nothing if not for Tikki's directions.
He opened the box, examining the contents.
"It's safe to assume that everybody in Paris is under her control," Adrien said, frowning down at the box. "I can't do this alone. Or as Chat."
He needed the Ladybug Miraculous to purify the akuma, but he can't combine the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculouses. That would be catastrophic.
He transformed, removing his Miraculous and storing it inside of his box. He put on the Ladybug Miraculous, staring at all of the ones available to him.
He knows what he has to do. Even if it costs him his mind.
Adrien grabs the Snake, Fox, Turtle, Horse and Bee Miraculouses.
He's well aware of the dangers. He ignores Tikki's protests as he pulls them on.
He had wanted to wear them all, but Adrien needed to be thinking somewhat rationally to get his Lady back.
But before that, he needs to hide the box
It must've been disconcerting for a portal to open up behind you all of a sudden. But credit is given where credit is due. Marionette didn't even blink at his sudden appearance. She dodged his yo-yo, smirking. A purple mask appeared over her face. Whatever Hawkmoth said had only annoyed her.
"Hello, Kitty," she smiled, dragging her hand up and resting her chin on it. Adrien just realised that her nails were much longer. She pouted exaggeratedly. "Although, I guess you're not exactly a kitty right now. Where'd you get those toys?"
"You never know what you'll find in trash cans, Princess. You know, I think I saw your boyfriend─what's his name, Aiden Amess─in there once. He was wearing a yellow banana suit and crying about his daddy issues."
Marionette snarled. "Don't talk about Adrien like that!"
He dodged the strings that attacked him, taking a surreptitious glance around the courtyard. Their classmates waited off to the side. Lila was clearly in pain, but Adrien couldn't do a thing to protect them right now.
He needs to save Marinette.
He plays a tune on his flute. Multiple versions of himself appeared, taunting Marionette. Running and jumping around her, clouding her vision. Marionette lashed out with her strings, cutting half of them out of the equation. Adrien ran into her blindspot, using her distraction as leverage to sting and paralyse her. He reached down, grabbing onto the bracelet wrapped around her wrist and breaking it under his foot.
…
No akuma.
His eyes widened and he looked Marinette over. She didn't have anything else that looked like the akumatized item.
What?
Adrien dodged an attack as Alya and Nino simultaneously sprung into action, attempting to bring him down.
He needed to check Marionette over again.
"Second chance!"
It's not there.
"Second chance!"
Not her shoe.
"Second chance!"
Her mask's safe too.
"Second chance!"
Nope.
"Second chance!"
Her insanely long nails are innocent.
"Second chance!"
Her strings are unbreakable, so no.
"Second chance!"
He messed up.
Adrien wanted to struggle against the strings binding him in place and to her will.
Marionette laughed, streaking her nails down his cheeks. He winced, blood running down his face. "I have you, Kitty," she smirked. She forced him onto his knees, binding his arms behind his back. He could move his hands. "Where's your Miraculous?"
"Where's the akuma?" he returned, staring back up at her.
She smirked. "Do you really think I'm dumb enough to keep it on me?"
Oh.
219 times did he go back in time, and not once did he pause to consider that she had taken it off.
He got why everybody thought that she'd make a horrible akuma.
Marionette's hand closed around his chin, forcing him to tilt his head up at an uncomfortable angle.
"Where is it?"
Adrien's thumb strained to reach the Miraculous on his wrist, but he did it.
She looked at him expectantly. He opened his mouth obediently.
"Second chance!"
The look of annoyance was almost satisfying.
He used Trixx to create multiple versions of himself, like so many times before, but instead of attacking, he retreated.
He had an akuma to find.
Adrien fed the kwamis, leaning against a wall to consider his options.
He needs to find that item, but he had no idea where it could possibly be.
Before he did anything, he needs to apologise to the Dupain-Chengs for stealing from their bakery.
Adrien found a pad of paper, but no matter where he searched, a pen was nowhere to be found.
Something poked his chest and Adrien reached in. He was baffled to find that he had a pen the entire time. He could've saved twenty minutes of searching by checking his own shirt. But Adrien swore that he'd never seen this pen before in his life.
He clicked it, scribbling on the pad to make sure that it wasn't empty.
"Stop!" his head snapped up at Tikki's shout. "That's it! The akuma touched Marinette's pen! That pen!"
"What?" When had…?
A hand creeped across his chest, an unfamiliar weight settling in his shirt.
"Holy shit. She gave it to me."
Well… he smiled slightly. Marinette had made his job infinitely easier.
"Alright."
He donned the Miraculouses, clutching the pen in a vice like grip. He called for a Lucky Charm, which was just a picture of their school. He needs to be with Marinette for this.
Adrien didn't bother with the theatrics when he arrived. He broke the pen under his foot, catching the akuma and watching as Marinette fell to her knees, the akumatized form abandoning her. He threw the picture into the air, feeling the ladybugs wash over him, healing his cuts and bruises.
Everything's back to normal…
Except it's not.
He ignored Alya's shouts, asking where Ladybug was, as he grabbed hold of Marinette. He picked her up in a princess carry, not paying attention to her struggle and Lila's wail. He swung the yo-yo and moved.
It wasn't until they were alone, on the Eiffel Tower, did Adrien set her down.
"Chat! Er, Misterbug! Um, you can let me go. I need to go and do things!"
His head lolled forwards. He looked at his feet, his hands clenched at his side.
"What happened, Mari?"
He didn't know what it was, but Marinette paused. She looked so vulnerable as she wrapped her arms around herself. Adrien just wanted to hug her.
She covered up with a tense smile. "I'm fine, Chat. It was just a bad day. Things just got to me, I guess."
Adrien stared at her. She shouldn't feel the need to lie to him.
"Tikki, Kaalki, separate."
She frowned. "Chat?"
"Tikki, Wayzz, separate."
Her eyes widened. "Stop─"
"Tikki, Sass, separate. Tikki, Trixx, separate."
"Don't you dare, Chat─"
"Tikki, Pollen, separate."
"Please don't do this─"
"Tikki," he started. Adrien held her stare. This needs to be done.
Marinette hasn't been saved yet.
"Spots off."
Marinette's eyes betrayed thousands of emotions and Adrien could name every single one of them. Anger, shock, grief, sadness, denial, fear, love, happiness. And then there were the emotions that he couldn't assign a name to, yet he understood with all of his heart.
"Bug," he said. His voice cracked. He reached for her hand. "What happened?"
Adrien is going to kill Lila Rossi.
The next day, school at François Dupont resumed as normal.
Well, not exactly.
Kim was collecting money from his classmates─he'd bet on Adrien causing the akuma and clearly he'd been right.
Alix disagreed.
"Come on, did you see what she did to Lila? Clearly, that's who she wanted. Adrien was just there so she took advantage. He's not why she got akumatized!"
"Bullshit. It was definitely because of Adrien. She was obsessed with him!"
"She's already obsessed with him!"
"Can you two shut up?" Alya hissed, looking away from Lila. Her friend was still traumatised from Marionette's actions. They needed to be sensitive to her needs, not making stupid bets.
"I just─I don't know what I did! I didn't do anything to make her angry before she was akumatized, so why did she─"
"It's not your fault, Lila. People don't know what they're doing when they're akumatized."
"I think that the real question is why didn't Marionette care about Chloé?" Max pondered.
"Don't open that can of worms," Nino warned him, nodding to Sabrina. She looked to be itching for a fight.
"I hope Marinette's okay," Rose said. "Whatever happened must've been horrible if she was that angry. Do you think she'll be coming in today?"
Lila whimpered loudly. "Don't make me talk to her, please."
"Lila─"
"Alya, I can't even breathe properly when I think about what she did. Please, don't make me!"
Considering what she went through yesterday, that might be true.
But the high road's still closed for construction, so Adrien doesn't feel even slightly sorry when he storms into the classroom, up to her crowded desk and slams the paper down onto her desk.
She flinched. "A-Adrien?!"
"That's my name."
"What is this?" Alya asked. His hand was still covering it, obscuring the words on the letter from view.
"How stupid are you?" he asked Lila. "Did you really think she wouldn't fucking tell me?!"
"I-I don't know what you're talking about."
"Are you having memory problems, Lila? How about I remind you."
He leans forwards, whispering into her ear. He echoes the letter, allowing Alya to take it from him and read it. Her resounding shriek falls on deaf ears as their classmates peered at it.
"Is this real?" Alya demands.
"If it's not, it's an excellent forgery," Max says. "The handwriting is identical."
Adrien doesn't spare Alya a glance. "It's real, believe me. That's why Marinette got akumatized."
"I'm gonna kill you," Alya tells Lila.
"It's not from me!" Lila protests. "I'm not even fluent enough in French to write a full letter to somebody!"
Max frowned. "There are several grammatical errors here."
That only further incriminates Lila.
"It can't be that bad," Rose said. Max wordlessly hands her the letter. She makes it through a paragraph before she starts sobbing into Juleka's shoulder.
"How do we know that Adrien didn't forge that to frame me?! After he rejected Marinette, he realised that it would damage his reputation if it got out so he decided to make me take the blame!"
Ugh, Adrien's head hurt everytime she spoke.
The woman of the hour, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, sprinted into the room.
"Adrien, you don't need to─" horror dawned on her face as she realised that Adrien already had.
"It was necessary," is his excuse.
Marinette shook her head. "I didn't want to cause any more pain."
"Don't worry," Adrien said. He has a contingency plan in place. "Lila's not gonna get akumatized."
"How d'you know that?" Kim asked.
He smirked. "I called her mom."
And let it be said, Mrs. Rossi doesn't waste time when getting the hell out of dodge. She takes Lila back to Italy.
Adrien managed to call in a few favours (some of them his own, some of them him blackmailing his father into giving to him) in order to get Lila blacklisted from hundreds of locations. Marinette should never have to deal with Lila Rossi again.
Speaking of, the students of François Dupont bent over backwards to make sure that Marinette was never akumatized again. Nobody wanted to deal with that.
Adrien eventually managed to convince Marinette that she's not a horrible person for having emotions, and they lived (relatively) happily ever after.
There was that time with the toaster… oh, and the supervillain after them, but you know.
They lived well enough.
I swear if Marinette gets akumatized in season four, I will cry. It'll probably be done amazingly and all character development will be tossed away the next episode, but I'm excited regardless.
So I read this amazing BSD fic recently, 'I Was Screaming Your Name Through The Radio' by ElectricSplatter (AO3) and I honestly love it. It's one of my favourite fics ever and I read all 256k of it in less than a day. Fun times.
Have any of you watched WandaVision? I binged it when ep 9 came out and it was genuinely amazing. I'm waiting to watch TFATWS but I already know that it's gonna be amazing.
Anyways, tell me what you thought of this chapter. I've waited long enough to do an akumatized MDC chapter, because it's just way too much effort for my tired self, so I was pretty vague on some parts (specifically whatever the fuck Lila did). It's pretty obvious, but I just never got down and dirty with explaining the shit Lila put in the letter.
Hope you guys enjoyed, I'm gonna go and regret my life choices and shit now.