Miss Bustier slammed the door shut and Marinette jumped and then cringed. Chloé didn't move in fact she simply stared straight ahead tears still streaming down her face with not so much as a sniffle following. Miss Bustier sat at her table and stared at both girls but Marinette looked away. Finally, Miss Bustier spoke.
"What has gotten into the two of you? I know that you've never gotten along, but getting into a fight and causing a scene in the middle of the school is too much!" She said and the two girls shrunk further into their chairs.
The reprimand caused new tears to rise in Marinette's eyes. She had never been yelled at by a teacher. To have a teacher she so respected yell at her made letting down Paris seem like a minor failure.
"Well? I'm waiting for an answer." Miss Bustier said crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair.
"...Chloé has been bullying me for a few days now." Marinette whispered her voice cracking on the way out. Chloé snapped her neck to look at the girl but said nothing in rebuttal.
"What do you mean by bullying?" Miss Bustier asked. That question rekindled the rage that Marinette felt earlier.
"Do I have to explain bullying?! She trips me in the hall, steals my stuff, and ruins my work! I haven't even been able to walk to my classes without looking over my shoulder every 2 seconds! She even-even... well it doesn't matter! I had enough." Marinette explodes shooting daggers into miss Bustier's eyes.
"Then why didn't you tell me?" She asks.
Marinette laughs bitterly and crosses her arms. "You wouldn't have believed me, and even if you did nothing would have happened because princess over here just has to call her 'daddy' and everything gets swept under the rug."
A pale pink washes over miss Bustier's cheeks. She clenches her fist on the desk and though her anger was clear, Marinette also noticed the pain and the sadness in her eyes. She knew it was true.
"How dare you?! My father has nothing to do with this!" Chloé screamed.
Marinette laughed again. "Seemed like he had everything to do with it earlier." Immediately as the words left her mouth, she regretted the statement. She saw the sudden hurt and shock in Chloé's eyes before Miss Bustier interjected.
"Enough! Chloé, is what Marinette said true?" Miss Bustier said turning her stare toward the blonde girl.
"Well! W-Well! And so, what if it is?!" Chloé shouted while crossing her arms over her chest.
"This is serious Chloé! I expect more from you; from both of you." Miss Bustier said. The room goes still and quiet once more with the weight of her disappointment hanging in the air.
"Here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to call your parents because I think you know what you did is wrong and I'm sure it won't happen again." She angled the girls with a look. "However, this doesn't mean you want be receiving punishment. Both of you will be working the dance on Friday and you won't be able to attend as regular students at all. Along with that, I want you to write 2 letters of apology; one to Chat Noir and one to each other. I also want you to spend an hour together in my office for a week." She declares setting her palms down on her desk.
The girls looked at each other in disgust and then back at Miss Bustier, as if they didn't know who to hate more, the person they'd be stuck with at the dance tomorrow and the following week, or the woman who would make it happen.
"I'm glad we're in agreement. Now, go back to class before I change my mind." She said and Chloé is the first to bolt out of her chair and stomp away. Marinette slowly gets up out of her chair and shuffles toward the door.
"Marinette." Miss Bustier said, back to her usual kind tone. Marinette turned back to look at her with one hand already on the door knob.
"You know that you can talk to me about anything, don't you?" Miss Bustier whispered with a reassuring smile on her face. Marinette's throat closed up as images of Chloé, Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Adrian flash through her mind. No, she couldn't talk about those things with anyone.
"Of course." She said and though she said it with a smile on her face Miss Bustier's expression fell. Her eyes dropped to her desk and then to her computer beside her without a word. Marinette turned the door knob to Miss Bustier's office and let herself out into the quiet hallway.
Her hands started to shake as she began walking down the hall to her classroom. Everyone would stare. How would she face everyone without crying? How would she face Adrian?! Everything was so messed up and she wasn't sure anything would ever be right again. She was such a whirl wind of anger, sadness, frustration, and heartbreak that she wound up running right passed her classroom and into the girls bathroom.
She slammed herself into a stall and quietly listened for any movement. When she realized that no one was around, as if on que, her tears began to poor over her cheeks in rivers and it seemed as if the stream would never stop. Tikki floated above the girls head for once at a loss for what advice to give or the right thing to say.
"I just want to go home, Tikki, and I can't even do that." Marinette whispered through hitched breaths once her tears had slowed.
"You can't go home, but Ladybug can." Tikki said patting Marinette's hand. Marinette looked up at Tikki through watery eyes that questioned if it was okay to use her powers like that. Tikki nodded and Marinette wiped away her tears standing a little straighter though her head remained hanging.
"Spots on." She said and felt her costume set in place around her body like a hug.
"I'm already in trouble. How could it get any worse, right?" She said to herself as she exited the bathroom and then the school.
She was swinging across the buildings so fast that she couldn't see what was going passed. She just wanted to get as far away from everything and everyone as fast as possible. She threw her yo-yo hard and swung to the next building but she slipped and began to fall. She felt her heart leap into her chest. Her yo-yo was taking too long to return! She closed her eyes waiting for the impact but instead felt two strong arms wrap around her shoulders and under her knees. Chat Noir had caught her and was now aiming for a nearby roof to land on. She gasped at the impact of his feet hitting the roof, but it was much better than hitting the pavement.
"Falling for me again, M'Lady?" Chat Noir asked grinning down at her. She knew that he expected a witty quip, or a grumpy look, maybe even a mean comment, but all she could do was throw her arms around him and hug him close.
"Woah…you okay Ladybug?" He said hugging her back, but unsure of what to do. She shook her head no trying to keep back the new tears that were threatening to come out. "Its okay. I'm here. I'll take you somewhere we can be alone, ok?" He said and when he got no response, he leapt away careful not to jostle her too much as he looked for some privacy.
He found himself at a balcony to an apartment that over looked Paris. He set Ladybug down and she looked around. "Does anyone live here?" She asked and the rasp in her voice made his heart break just a little. She must have been crying for a long time before he found her.
"No, it looks like they just moved out. The balcony is long enough that no one will see us from up here, but if you want to go somewhere else, I can do that." He said gesturing out at the city.
Ladybug shook her hand at him and then bent over to sit on the concrete against the balcony doors. Chat Noir sheathed his stick and sat down next to her. Her head fell onto his shoulder and they stayed like that in silence before she spoke.
"Sometimes I feel like you're my only safe space. Like the world could be falling apart but it's okay because you're with me." She said in a flat and exhausted tone, but her words made his heart race nonetheless.
"I feel the same way M'Lady…" He trailed off putting his arm around her and stroking her shoulder. "Whatever you need I'm always here." She suddenly shot up from his arms and looked at him dead in the face. At first, he thought he had made her upset by being too touchy, but her eyes were wide in horror.
"That's what she needed. She didn't need to be saved. She just needed a friend to be there with her when things got hard; someone to understand her and not judge her." She said scrunching her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.
"What are you talking about?" Chat said looking around as if the answer would be floating in the air.
"I messed up Chat. We're superheroes. We're supposed to be there for people when they need us, and … I wasn't there for someone when they needed me. She thought we had started to become friends and I left her behind, and judged her when she opened up to me." She sighed and buried her face in her knees.
Ladybug rarely ever looked so small and frail. Chat always felt as if she was larger than life, even though he was several inches taller than her, so he hated seeing her so helpless.
"You can't always be a hero. You can't always know what people need." He said reaching out and touching her shoulder. She looked up at him with tired eyes and nodded.
"I guess not." She turned her head and looked out at Paris. So much crime and injustice that she would never know about was going on down there right now. Chat was right its impossible to do the exact right thing all the time.
How was she supposed to know that the bratty girl who had always been so mean to her wanted her to keep her company during an akuma attack? How was she supposed to know Chloé would spiral from being neglected? How was she supposed to know that she had been unfairly compared to her every day of her life?
"You're right Chat, but that doesn't mean I cant try to make things right." She said standing up and walking over to the rail of the balcony. Chat Noir couldn't help but admire her resilience…and the way her hair shined in the sunlight.
He looked at his reflection in the glass balcony doors behind him and frowned. He had messed things up pretty badly too. Marinette deserved an apology and a proper response to her confession, regardless if Chloé sent it or not.
He turned back to Ladybug and smiled. She was standing straighter and she had that look of determination on her face that meant nothing could stop her now. He got up and joined her at the railing. She was beautiful in every sense of the word. It was moments like these that he noticed it. Moments when it was clear why she was chosen as the holder of the ladybug miraculous. He kissed her on the cheek and to his surprise she just smiled and continued to look out at Paris.
"I believe in you, Ladybug." He said and she turned to smile at him.
"You always do."