Summary: With how Marinette is calling Lila a liar and bullying her, the akuma class decides to give her the silent treatment and ignore her until she can admit her mistakes and apologize. They only realize the truth once it's too late.
Cross posted on Ao3.
Closed Off - Spez101Dog - Miraculous Ladybug [Archive of Our Own]
When Lila first came to Dupont, no one expected this to be the result. The class as a whole thought that Lila was this amazing girl. She knew more celebrities than they did combine, helped out with so many charities, and was riddled with so many unfortunate conditions that they thought she was a saint incarnate. The only one who didn’t think so was Marinette.
From day one, the bluenette called her a liar. She claimed that Lila was lying, that she did not know any celebrity or did any of the things she said she did. It was unusual behavior for the class rep, but the cause became clear. Even if Lila denied it, it was clear to the class that she harbored feelings for Adrien. Given Marinette’s past behaviors involving the model, it wasn’t that far of a stretch to think that she was just being jealous.
The class collectively thought that Marinette would soon grow out of her petty ways. She had became, if not best friends with then good acquaintances with Kagami. Surely she’ll admit that she was jealous and befriend the Italian.
That didn’t happen. Instead, the bluenette only seemed to double down on her instances. No matter what anyone in the class said, Marinette could only see Lila as a liar.
They decided to ignore Marinette. It was for the best, after all. If they gave her time to cool down and reflect on her actions, then maybe she would come crawling back with an apology to their newest friend. Their decision was settled when Lila came to class one day in tears, admitting that Marinette had been bullying her.
Bullying was something they hadn’t expected from the girl. They didn’t know how to respond. With how Miss Bustier didn’t correct Chloe on her behavior, they couldn’t receive adult help on the issue. Ignoring the girl would have to do. No one talked to the girl or responded to her with anything more than a curt answer before turning away.
This continued for months, with the hopes that once Marinette had the time to step back and see that her behavior was getting her no where, she would go back to the girl she was before. Kind, caring, selfless Marinette. They took away the class representative position early on, passing it off to Alya and Lila. They hadn’t excluded her from class trips, but it seemed that no one remembered to tell her when they were.
After everything, they expected to see some progress made. Maybe Marinette hesitating when trying to act out during class, or her asking to join hang outs. There was a change, but not one the class expected.
Juleka, surprisingly, was the first to see it. Perhaps from her tendency to be quite during class and watch instead of talk. She saw how Marinette would tense when people ignored her, but thought it was from frustration. It was only after a few weeks, when Marinette merely looked at the class for a moment before trudging to her seat in the back, that Juleka understood what it really was: anxiety and acceptance. Acceptance that it was better not to try.
She had brought it up to the girls but they thought it was a good thing. Once Marinette had some time to reflect on herself and her actions, she would come back.
Next up was Nathaniel. He knew how excited Marinette could get about art club. Before she became friends with Alya and closer to the girls in their class, she lived for the art room. It was a private place where she could work on her designs, as well as branch out into other modes of art and creativity. She had started to come less and less as she got busier thanks to class rep duties, but he thought she’d be there more once she was removed of that position.
He was wrong.
Nathaniel didn’t know when the last time she had visited the art room was. But once he was looking out for it, knew she hadn’t been there once in at least three weeks in a row. Marinette had never gone longer than a few days without visiting the art room, if only for a few minutes. When he asked the other art kids, they said that they hadn’t seen her at all besides brief passings in the hallway.
One by one the rest of the class began to notice the new Marinette. She would come into class right on time, not a minute early or late. She’d scurry up to her seat in the back, pull out her books for the day, and stared at them. She’d disappear right when class was let out for lunch, and didn’t appear again until the very start of their next lesson. She never would respond to questions, staying silent until the teacher moved onto asking another student. Soon they didn’t bother trying to call on her at all.
No one knew what to expect from this new Marinette. No one knew what caused it. Except for one.
Adrien could admit that he was largely at fault for how Marinette became like this. He was taught that it was best to ignore rumors and lies less it ruin the brand and his image. His hands were tied with what he could do to call out Lila on her lies. Adrien’s were, but Chat’s? What his father and Natalie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
He couldn’t help out a lot. By the time he realized how far Marinette was, there was little he could do. The best he could offer was going over at night, letting Marinette use him as a weighted blanket to fall asleep at night. She never wanted to talk about what was happening. Any time he tried to bring it up, she’d shake her head slowly while looking at the ground.
It took two weeks after his visits started that he was able to get her to let him help with any bruises she might have gained from Lila cornering her at school. Even once he knew about the bruises and became aware that Lila was bullying her, Marinette didn’t want to talk about it.
All she wanted to do was silently lay on her chaise, in her bed, even on the floor, staring off into space as his worried purrs filled the silence in her room.
As Adrien, he did the only thing he could think of: try to keep Lila away from Marinette. If Lila was kept distracted and happy, then she wouldn’t hurt Marinette. All he had to do was keep it up until the class realized the truth on their own, then Marinette would be safe for good.
With his mind filled with Marinette, it took him a bit to realize that Ladybug was off. Sure, she still showed up to patrols and to akuma fights, but she didn’t have the same energy as before. She’d give comfort to the victims, “pound it” after she purified the butterfly, but at patrols her smiles were few and far between. The games they used to play were cut down to nothing. Most nights they would do a quick lap or two around Paris and call it a night.
Weeks turned into months, and the more the class watched Marinette, the more they could tell that something was wrong with this Marinette. Every time she felt the room and came back during the day, she seemed to be worse than Lila, who would have another mean thing that the bluenette had said to her to tell the rest of the class.
Summer hit, and the class were still puzzled over what was going on. They did the only thing they knew how to do now: ignore Marinette until she came to them. Let her come to them and say what was happening. The summer break passed without the bluenette trying to reach out once. By the time the next school year came, one major thing had changed: Lila was no longer at Francoise Dupont.
The first week, they had assumed that she was finishing up another charity campaign and would be back in a couple days. When a week turned into two, Alya finally texted Lila to ask how things were going. Lila responded with a short message, saying how her mom’s assignment had changed and now they were back in Italy. When trying to dig for more info, like why Lila hadn’t told them before moving, she was met with silence on the other end.
It took another two weeks filled with talks of Lila, and how she could just ghost them after the year they spent together, before they remembered Marinette. Marinette, who Lila said was a bully. Marinette, who had became a stranger to them.
After some debating, they decided to approach Marinette first. Sure, they wanted her to admit that she had bullied Lila out of jealousy, but maybe if they bring it up then she’d be willing to admit it with an apology. Alya decided to be the one to step up and do it. Given how the girl still ran from the room after classes were done, they didn’t have an opportunity to confront her until the end of the day.
“Hey, Marinette?” Alya said, speaking right before the final bell rang. She quickly stood on the steps, blocking Marinette’s escape.
Upon hearing her name, the bluenette’s eyes glanced up. No one in the class missed how she curled into herself, body tensing as if bracing herself for something unpleasant.
“I wanted to talk to you about Lila.”
Seeing how the girl reacted to the Italian’s name was enough for the class to freeze in shock. There was no disgust in Marinette’s eyes. Only fear. No one knew what to say next.
“Marinette, I think that Ms. Mendeleiev wanted to see you so that you could turn in the homework from last night.” Adrien, the last person anyone expect to speak up, said. His voice was soft, and he gently pulled Alya out of the way. “She should be in her classroom. You might want to give it to her before you go home.”
The bluenette did not say anything. She didn’t even give him a second glance, instead gathering up her stuff in seconds and running out of the room.
When they tried questioning the blond for answers, he remained silent. The strange pattern continued. Any time someone tried to talk to Marinette, Adrien was there. All it took was one slight movement of her tensing or a flinch for him to make up some excuse for her to leave the situation.
It took three months since that development for an even stranger one to occur. Adrien, who had stayed dutifully in the front of the room with the empty seat of where Lila once was, was now in the back of the class. Next to Marinette. The two never spoke. Adrien blocked the way for any of their classmates to try and approach Marinette, but made sure to move out of the way when the bell rang so the bluenette could zip out of the room.
Mid way through the school year, the whole class was shocked with new news. Both Marinette and Adrien would not be returning. They weren’t at the same school. Adrien had transferred into a private school, one that allowed him to do his curricular actives as electives so he didn’t have to do them after school. Marinette had switched to doing online schooling.
None of the class was successful in getting answered. Both students were simply gone. They didn’t know what was wrong, until one day answers came. It was on accident. Alya, when preparing her blog for part of her application for a reporters summer camp, decided to add some extra information and sources to her old blog posts. Some of which included Lila’s stories.
Needless to say, there was no source online that could support Lila’s claims. In fact, there was plenty of sources that easily disprove everything she had ever said. Jagged Stone never owned a cat. Prince Ali only focused on Go Green charities. Ladybug had never and would never become friends with a civilian. Alya went through every story Lila told, everything that they all had taken as fact, and found something to contradict it.
Together the class spammed Lila, demanding answers, but she wasn’t there to give it to them. The wool had been pulled off their eyes, allowing them to begin to see exactly what Lila had done.
Marinette had been telling them the truth. Lila was a liar. And if Lila lied about Marinette bullying her, then was it Marinette who had been getting bullied?
They tried to flood the bluenette with questions and apologies, but were not heard. Instead of Adrien acting as her guard, it was her parents. Or her new friends, the ones at Adrien’s private school which she joined, who all refused for them to get close to the designer. Marinette had begun the process of healing from what she experienced at Francoise Dupont, they wouldn’t allow her to get hurt again.
They were the ones who pushed her away, ignored her and allowed her to suffer. Now they could face the consequences of their actions.
Roughly the first time i’ve drawn the mlb characters and using tumblr but I really wanted to get this idea out so please don’t mind that it’s messy :) I can very much see how Ladynoir can fit into the entire song so give the song a listen too!
