Ladies and Gentleman: Him
After reading a post from @critical-thinking-is-mandatory, which was essentially about Adrien having an antagonist who is a model, I decided why not? All Adrien has to do is breath and he gets all the girls, wealthy or not. So this is my take on an Adrien antagonist, who is a model, rich, a bully (somewhat), hates Chat Noir’s guts, knows how to dazzle an audience (like Liar Rossi), and has feelings for Marinette because we all know that if Marinette had a bully for a love interest like Adrien does and she protects him even though uwu, sunshine boy is clearly ~suffering~, the fandom would have her executed. Ugh. Just. Ugh.
Stephan Vladislav expected many things when he transferred to Francois Dupont from his previous high school in Russia. That didn’t mean he wasn’t ready for anything. He did his research and found that many of his classmates were high profile individuals.
Adrien Agreste: The son of Emile and Gabriel Agreste. A well known model just like him.
Alya Cesaire: Creator of the Ladyblog which has become the number one akuma battle news source in Paris.
Nino Lahiffe: Founder and creator of his own film website, Turtle Pictures.
Chloe Bourgeois: Daughter of Style Queen and the Mayor of Paris.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Daughter of the best bakers in Paris, the well known fashion designer MDC, publicly endorsed by the Style Queen herself, Jagged Stone, Nadia Chamack, Clara Nightingale, and many other high profile celebrities.
The list went on and on. Francois DuPont was certainly different from his previous schools. He attended the most prestigious schools for most of career. The students there, while rich and influential, were flimsy, lazy, snobbish to anyone they deemed less worthy than themselves. The fact that many of them were untalented spoke volumes of how they expected their status to get them through life (what morons).
But they weren’t even a challenge to Stephan, as what looked like a fight to the rest of his schools was, in reality, a one-sided massacre. Students who at the top of the food chain when he arrived were left broken, alone, and friendless by the time of his departure.
He wasn’t a bad person per say. Stephan just liked winning by his own talent and merits. He was the son of the famous Russian luxury fashion designer Nicolas Vladislav and his mother Laurice Vladislav, a dark skinned woman who was a famous photographer and known for discovering many of the famous models and actresses we see today.
His new school may be filled to the brim with competition, but the Vladislav family thrived off of opposition and he had a lot going for him. If it was grades, he would work tirelessly to make sure he was at the top of the class. Sports? He had a knack for baseball and archery. Music? The flute as well as drums come easy to him. Art? Say hello to his shelf displaying all the trophies and certificates he won from several art competitions. Extracurriculars? He can speak Russian, English, French (obviously), German, and Mandarin. In depth understanding in photography, fashion, and the business world. Not to mention he is a very well known model. They’ve got nothing on him!
*******
Standing in that classroom, Stephan realized he had been wrong about his class.
Instead of the hardworking, ambitious, and goal driven classmates Stephan had been looking forward to competing with (and winning against), he was met with a literal zoo of students screaming, crowding around one Italian looking student, and sending harsh glares over at a few students in the back who looked embarrassed at their classmates‘ behavior.
He hadn’t even been in there for five minutes and he could already list everything wrong with his new class.
First off, the teacher (Ms. Bustier he would later learn), had no control of her students whatsoever. Her eyes would frequently go to the back of the classroom to a blue haired student as if begging her to make the class listen even though she was the teacher. Pathetic.
Secondly, it seemed the class was catering to what could only be a chronic liar. Seriously, all it took was a simple google search to disapprove her lies. Not to mention all her stories contradict each other if anyone bothered to use their brain. The only ones not fooled were the four students sitting at the back of the room (Alya, Nino, Marinette, and Chloe).
And no. Just no. He won’t even get into the topics of the class’ lack of critical thinking skills, their herd/mob mentality, and blatant disrespect to anyone with a different opinion from them, specifically pertaining to one Lila Rossi.
And to think he prepared every trick and every tactic in the book crush the others on the his to the top.
It took seven minutes top for the red-haired “teacher” to get the rowdy class under control.
Madame Bustier gestured to his person when the class finally noticed his presence with a plastered smile on her face.
“Class, please welcome your newest classmate and transfer student. He’ll be studying with us from now on,” she clasped her hands in front of her and sent Stephan a smile, “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”
Snapped out of his pondering, the Russian stepped into the classroom completely from his spot at the doorframe. He strode confidently to the center of the class with his head held high.
”Hello, everyone. My name is Stephan Vladislav. I’m from Russia and I enjoy modeling, and art”. Judging from the shocked looks from most of Bustier’s class and dawning recognition on others, they very well knew who he was. He spotted an Italian girl sitting next to a very uncomfortable Adrien Agreste looking at him with a greedy look in her eyes. He knew that look well and it was always crushed when he destroyed the girls whom they belonged to.
Though one student seemed to be looking at him in confusion. Marinette’s eyes roamed the new boy with fixed concentration from her spot next to Alya, where her bestie had been sentenced for not believing Lila along with her boyfriend Nino, and enemy turned sort of ally Chloe.
The bluenette swore she had her the name Vladislav before. The new certainly looked like a model like he had so boldly mentioned.
She was certain Stephan really was Russian, as his French was heavily accented by it. He had dark skin, close to Alya’s complexion, probably biracial. Curly black hair that fell over his eyes slightly, sharp and calculating bright hazel eyes which contrasted against his happy-go-lucky expression. He wore a light green leather jacket with ‘Vlad‘ embroidered onto his top right breast pocket, a black dress shirt made of what looked like silk, light blue jeans, and boots that matched his leather jacket to complete the look. He seemed nice, but she knew better than to judge from appearances.
Everyone else thought he and Adrien would get along great because of their careers as models.
”You think he’ll get along with Adrien?” Alya leaned over to her bestie who had been studying Stephan before she answered.
”What do mean? Who even is he?” She whispered back to Alya.
Nino joined the conversation with a look of disbelief on his face, “You really don’t know who Stephan Vladislav is, Dudette?”
When Marinette shook her head, Alya whipped out her phone, typing something into the search engine.When the results came up, she showed Marinette, “He’s only one of the most well known models there is. He has influence that eclipses Adrien’s. His father is Nicolas Vladislav, a fashion designer even more wealthy and successful than Gabriel Agreste. How could you not know who he is?”
Nino chuckled, “We’re talking about the girl who had no clue who Adrien was despite his face being plastered everywhere.
”Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous,” Chloe muttered playfully.
Marinette was so busy trying to defend her self against her friends laughing at her expense, that she didn’t even notice Stephan making his way towards her. That was until a shrill, high pitched, unwanted voice interrupted them.
”I wouldn’t sit back there if I were you,” Lila said in her sweetest fake voice.
Chloe and the others glared at Stephan, expecting him to believe her, only to take them by surprise.
”Well you aren’t me. I don’t appreciate you telling rpms what I should or shouldn’t do,” Stephan flipped her off.
Lila immediately started the water works, “How could say that. I’m only trying to warn you about the others in the back. They’ve had it out for me ever since Marinette got expelled.”
”How could you say that about Lila!? She just wants to help!” Sabrina protested.
”We know you’re knew and all but that’s no reason to be awful about it,” Ivan agreed.
”Lila is right thought. Those four have been awful to her,” Mylene comforted a crying Lila. The Russian boy could tell that she enjoyed the sympathy and attention.
”Shut up. We’ve been avoiding Lila like the plague for over a year,” Alya snapped back.
”Don’t lie! Lila showed us the text messages you guys send her. You’re nothing but bullies who scorn her just because Marinette got expelled.
Expulsion? Stephan tucked that in the back of his mind to investigate later.
Seeing Marinette wilt under the scrutiny of the class, Nino backed his girlfriend up, “You mean her unjust expulsion with flimsy evidence and no investigation!”
”As if I would concern myself with a girl that has such an ugly hair style. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous,” Chloe dismissed them as Stephen examined her nails.
This went on for about five more minutes before Bustier finally began the lesson. Stephan sat in the chair across the staircase next to Marinette on her right. The lesson moved peacefully at first. This gave him hope that Bustier wasn’t a failure on all fronts. That hope was promptly crushed when Rossi interrupted the lesson to prattle on about how she was a descendant of Socrates after Bustier covered famous philosophers in Ancient Greece. The wasn’t true as everything that had come out of her mouth since he‘d arrived had been nothing but a lie.
Subtly, he leaned over and whispered to Marinette, “Is it always like this with them?” He casted an annoyed glance at the class.
Turning towards him, said bluenette sighed, “Yes. They hang off her every word. Especially if it’s promises of connecting with people to jump start their dreams. I don’t even think that things will go back to normal even after they find out the truth. They called me a bully and ended their friendships with me with only word of mouth as their proof.”
The young Vladislav just sat there as the pieces clicked into place. It was clear the class didn’t really care about what Lila did, but rather the promises of what she could do for them. They didn’t ditch Marinette because they thought she was a bully. They did it to gain Lila’s favor and thus a golden meal ticket. Coattail hangers. The lot of them.
”Well it seems that they won’t take the truth very well. Especially since she lied about celebrities that could help them,” Stephan faked a concerned voice. He couldn’t care less about those gold diggers.
Marinette turned to face him completely and Stephan’s first thought was, she blue really be that blue? The bluenette had lovely Raven locks that looked muted against her pale skin. Cute frekles over so slightly decorated her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. And her azure eyes almost seemed to glow.
”Yeah, well, they don’t like hearing what they need to hear.”
Stephan forced himself to look away from her pretty face and looked at his plain notebook page. Ms. Bustier hadn’t said anything noteworthy, therefore the page remained blank. “Most morons don’t,” he muttered and Marinette laughed.
He had to force down the growing blush on his cheeks.
It was about two months into his attendance at his school when Stephan decided that very few people were worth his time.
Competing for best grades was dull since the class as a whole sans Chloe, Alya, Nino, and Marinette had the IQ of a pencil. He reached the top in no less than three weeks much to the robot geek’s humiliation.
Being the best in sports was essentially useless as Alix and Kim stopped entering contests, instead choosing to hang off of Lila’s promises of connecting them with big shot Olympic athletes.
Music was practically nonexistent as the band “kitty section” comprised of some of his… classmates hadn’t preformed a gig in almost a year, he learned. Not to mention that their lead guitarist Luka, he heard from Marinette decided to go solo to save himself the embarrassment of failed performances.
Adrien was as good as a wet napkin, so the Russian didn’t even try to one up him in extracurriculars.
Stephan knew how to pick his battles, and as such, he refused to fight any of his classmates if they refuse to even try. Otherwise it would just be some delusIonal one-sided fight and he was anything but delusional. He had far too much pride.
Found with a lot of free time, the Young Vladislav decided to fill it in by spending time around Marinette and her friends and found that it kept him sane in the asinine situation that is their class.
He even began looking forward to hanging out with them. The fact that they were goal driven, witty, and intelligent was just a bonus.
Alya was an aspiring journalist, respected by all of Paris? He would swoop in and get better footage of akuma attacks. The two would often one up each other with their recordings and shove it in each other’s faces. Neither knew when the other would strike so their little war kept them on their toes. But it was all in good fun, and neither wanted to back down.
Nino’s website Turtle Films was the go to place for short films? The two males would challenge each other’s ideas, editing plans, and scripted writing. They high-fived over Nino’s newest film which took the media by storm. They combined their ideas and collaborated on their master piece. Stephan was surprised to feel the thrill of success while working with someone else was refreshing compared to achieving it all on his own.
Chloe was thinking about enrolling in online business management classes? Both blonde and ravenette were relieved to find someone who spoke their language. Even if their business jargon ended up with multiple broken dishes, ripped paper, and screaming matches.
Marinette had the attention of many celebrities? Stephan took better photos of her produced clothing. He had a knack for photography, something he inherited from his mother. Both sets of photos always went on her website at the end of they day. And when they weren’t doing that, they were having a baking competition every other week.
But despite being so competitive with them, the one thing they allied together against was the lying shrew Lila Rossi.
Their fist encounter ended up being their last. Lila began telling lies about her achievements to impress him knowing who he was. It was very likely that she liked the idea of two models vying for her attention. She would not allow Marinette and friends sway him over to their side. If she could date the Stephan Vladislav, a well known model whose father had even more money and popularity that Gabriel Agreste, her name would be in lights and her fame would be garenteed . Except he did not react they way she expected him to.
He called her out on being fake. He mocked her for the fact that she had such an unfulfilling life that she had to pretend to be someone she’s not just so people would like her. Stephan pointed out that her lies were unbelievable at best and desperate at worse.
The young Vladislav then reiterated the tale of a girl from his past who shared many qualities with Lila.
Angela Voss.
She, like Lila, was a desperate liar and wanting fame, attention, and all the boys in the school. She was known for bullying anyone who called her out on her lies or tried to sabotage her goals. Angela tried flattery to get Stephan to date her, but he publicly rejected her. She became the joke of the school for weeks. In her humiliation, she spread rumors about him, meaning to sully his reputation but it only served to provoke his ire. After the very clear declaration of war, he used every trick in the book to be rid of her.
Including but not limited to manipulation, slander, libel, sabotage, destruction of property. He dragged her name through the mud so far that even her parents grew tired of her. The final nail in the coffin was a subtly placed enrollment paper regarding a boarding school in Switzerland and she transferred out fasting than he could have dreamed. On her last day, he made it his personal mission to make it absolute hell by throwing her shattered kingdom into her stupid face by spreading her “rumored“ departure around the school. The look of shock on Angela’s face was sweet, but her tears of devastation and her humiliating fall from stardom left a smile on his face for the rest of the month.
He told a pale and shaking Lila that she had better watch who she messed with and made it a point to tell her just how easy it would be to destroy her as well. To threaten her a bit more, he casually added that one word from him could have her blacklisted from ever working at even the smallest of fashion houses and crush her modeling career before it even started. Stephan emphasized the fact that Angela was a daughter of influential Russian politicians and he still managed to win. What would happen to Lila if he were to use the full force of what he did to Angela on Lila? Some girl who was the daughter of a woman who was barely the secretary of an ambassador.
Finally, he warned her to stay away from Marinette and any and all transgressions would be met with no mercy.
The threat was clear to Lila and Adrien, the latter having over heard the conversation.
Lila better back off or Stephan will make her back off.
She scurried away from him in fear and the look of horror was priceless. However there was no backtracking from this. The Italian was smart enough to know that whatever she, she would always remain on Stephan’s ‘harm eventually’ list. Dammit. She just had to go and piss him off.
Stephan snorted. He was willing to reckon Rossi never experienced being threatened before. Well he’ll show her the difference between a cat and a spider.
When a certain blonde appeared from the corner of the hall where he had been listening in, Stephan didn’t even bother to look up when he addressed him.
”What do you want, Agreste?”
Adrien on the other hand, was disappointed. He could tell Stephan wasn’t buried in Lila’s deceit like the rest of their classmates but he never said anything, which was good. Just when he thought he wouldn’t have to deal with another person trying to expose Lila, the Russian up and threatens her career over a few silly lies. Clearly, Adrien needed to have a discussion with him about taking the high road or he’ll cause tension in the class.
”Don’t you think you were a bit harsh with her?” the blonde strides over to Stephan and stops a few feet away from him.
“It’s not my fault Rossi thought her flattery and fake achievements would fool me. It‘s high time someone told her she is it as amazing as she thinks she is,” Stephan sniffed at the blonde model with distain and placed his hands on his hips.
”Lila is just looking for some friends,” Adrien ignored Stephan‘s haughty snort, “If the truth gets out, the class will ostracize her and she’ll end up friendless and alone,” he ended with the same disappointed glint in his eyes that made Marinette back down.
Hazel eyes just stared at the blonde like he was stupid. He had a few suspicions about Adrien‘s true character and this confrontation was just proving them.
“And when the truth gets out and the class realizes that she basically took advantage of them and played them for fools for who knows how long, how do you think they’ll feel?” Stephan stated becoming annoyed with the conversation at hand.
”I’m sure she’ll realize that she’s wrong and apologize. Then everything will go back to how it was before,” Adrien said brightly.
But the Russian knew better. After being a model for so long, he could practically smell a fake person, and Adrien was covered in that particular stench.
”Oh really?” The young Vladislav raised a perfectly trimmed eyebrow, “Things will not ‘go back to normal’. After seeing how quickly their so called friends were willing to turn on them and how easily they’re swayed by promises that will solidify their careers, there’s no doubt in my mind that Marinette and the others will not just roll over it.”
Adrien crossed his arms over his chest and his lips thinned, not liking the way the other model stared at him condescendingly.
”Sure they will. After all friends don’t stay mad at each other. I know it’s been rough for them, but if they hadn’t kept antagonizing Lila they would still have friends. Especially Marinette,” he ended with a disappointed scowl when he mentioned the bluenette like he had every right to.
As far as the ravenette was concerned, that was the last straw of this ”conversation”.
Hearing him talk about the Asian girl that way made his blood boil like nothing he ever experienced. If he were emotionally inclined, Hawkmoth would have a field day.
It took several weeks of hanging out with Marinette from the beginning of his transfer to now to realize he developed a crush on her. It was strange at first, especially when he never looked at anyone romantic feelings in mind.
Trying to sort out his feelings, he spent the next few days planning out how he would ask Marinette out and came across an interesting discovery.
From one of Alya and Nino’s conversations, he was made aware of Marinette’s crush on Bratdrien. His mood was soured as he glared at Agreste every chance he got, attempting to figure out just what Marinette saw in the blonde.
In conclusion, he had miffed feelings about Agreste before his miserable attempt at lecturing him about the high road. Stephan gathered that Adrien was, for a lack of a better term, a self righteous prick who was willing to gaslight and scapegoat anyone he viewed as morally lesser than him. Before this, the Russian hadn’t planned on ruining Adrien despite really wanting to, but now? The idiot sealed his own fate the second he thought it would be a good idea to reveal his true colors to Stephan.
Stephan continued to internally seethe all while keeping his stoic and uninterested mask as Adrien continued his prattling, “Honestly, if she had done what I said, the class wouldn’t be so full of tension and-”
His line was cut off when Stephan introduced his back to the right wall of the hallway. The Russian’s death grip on either side of his shoulder kept him in place and the blonde had a sinking feeling that was validated when he saw the dark scowl resting on Stephan’s features. Adrien felt his knees shake as the Russian addressed him.
”Looks like the sunshine of Paris has come to the delusional conclusion that I’ll let that happen,” the young Vladislav hissed with venom lacing every word, “You think you’ve got everyone fooled with this angel facade wear everyday. Honestly I shouldn’t be surprised at the level of deceit displayed by Gabriel’s son. But it wasn’t enough to fool me. I can see you for what you truly are. I’m sure you think that you’re such a saint and therefore have the right to lecture and project your disappointment on to people you feel don’t live up to your moral standard. But you’re not. You’re just a coward with no backbone or force that you could be mistake as a puppet or doll. You won’t do anything about Lila because on some conscious level, you know what she’s capable of”.
Adrien’s eyes widened in fear as he tried to come up with a rebuttal, but any comeback he had quickly died on his lips when he saw the intense look in Stephan’s eyes as he continued his threat. He wasn’t about to let Agreste get a word in.
”So you decide to kill two birds with one stone. You used your “good boy” reputation as a means to appease bullies and trouble makers while seeming nice and benevolent but in reality you don’t care about giving second chances or about helping be better because it’s much easier to defend the bully rather than stand up to them isn’t that right?” The Russian smirked cruelly as he watched Adrien‘s expression morph into one suitable for a fish.
”That isn’t it at all!” Adrien splutterred at Stephan’s bold accusation, “I’m not trying to save my reputation. Making a bad guy suffer won’t change them into a good guy!”
Adrien tried to say more, but Stephan’s low and even voice rang with power and stabbed hI’m with authority that demanded nothing less than silence and attention, “Bull.Shit. Please, if I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think you like the attention bullies give you. Female bullies that is”.
”Woah! Since when was Lila a bully?”
”Don’t play dumb with me, aphid. You know well, how Lila has alienated Marinette, Alya, Nino, and Chloe from the rest of the class with fake tears and false tales. You just choose to ignore it because it’s better they become scapegoats in the name of keeping false peace. For God’s sake, I heard she got Marinette expelled even if it was redacted. How have you not realized Lila has it in for Marinette and anyone who sides with her by now?” Stephan narrowed his sharp eyes at the clearly uncomfortable blonde. Pretend what he may, it was obvious he knew on some level that Lila was a bully who didn’t what to change.
Adrien fumbled for an excuse that didn’t sound bad, “Well- I didn’t want to risk losing my friends over this,” he admitted meekly and winced as Stephan’s grip on his shoulders tightened.
”Ha! Friends? You have the audacity to claim they’re friends when you’re letting them get manipulated and used? And lets not forget the whole sad boy with daddy issues. True, your father is controlling and over bearing, but you use that as an excuse to avoid the others or make them feel bad for you. Gives the sunshine trope more merit. And when you aren’t being Sadrien Depreste, you find ways to guilt trip and emotionally manipulate the class into forgiving people who are harming them, like with Chloe” At this point, Stephan was practically snarling the words like a panther ready to strike.
”You’re really making me the bad guy? I hope you aren’t planning to expose Lila. Listen-“ Adrien tried to get a word in Stephan’s tirade, but the ravenette was more annoyed than he thought.
”No, you listen to me, Bratdrien,” the Russian model said menacingly, having enough of beating around the bush. “Here’s what will happen. You will stay out of my way and continue being a wet napkin. Something you excel at. Stay away from Marinette. If I catch you trying to guilt trip, gaslight or scapegoat her into catering Lila’s whims, I will expose the liar as well as the fact that you knew and didn’t bother to say anything.”
Chills ran down Adrien’s spine as he finally seemed to register the danger he was in, “Y-you can’t do that. You have no proof!” He wasn’t sure if that was true, but the blonde felt like he had no choice but to say that.
“I have my ways,” the ravenette responded nonchalantly. “Know this. I have the power to make you miserable. If you even cross any of the lines I’m setting up by a hair, I can have you gone like that. Turning your classmates against you with your past reactions to Chloe’s bullying will be a walk in the park. I have an even more influencal position in the modeling industry than you. I won’t even have to lift a finger to boot you out of the spotlight if I wanted to. And winning Marinette’s affection? I’m not a coward, I have a sort of sense of justice, I can speak multiple languages, I have extracurriculars that will actually help me get by in life, I have my own standing not just my parents son, and I know a lot about the world of fashion and business. It’s clear that I’m the one Marinette will choose”.
”What does Marinette’s affection have to do with anything?” Adrien’s fear was momentarily replaced by sincere confusion.
Stephan rolled his eyes at the blonde’s naivety, “It’s pretty obvious that Marinette has a crush on you. Or has. From what I’m seeing, it’s dwindling by the day. Chloe also had a crush on you and Lila is currently vying for your attention. I’m fairly certain that Chloe and Lila liked you because they knew you wouldn’t go against them, and in Marinette’s case, she was fooled by your appealing visage and was unaware of the rot lying underneath”.
Stunned, Adrien could only gape at his model counterpart. Marinette had a crush on him? Suddenly all of the stuttering, falling over herself, and blushing made sense. But if she liked him, then why wasn’t she following his high road advice? Maybe he could use her crush to remove the cotton from her eyes and make her see reason…
Stephan’s eyes sharpened into slits as if hearing Adrien’s thoughts. “See, DuPont High School will be mine. I get to decide who succeeds or who fails. Who thrives and who will get crushed. Only those who follow the rules will be spared. So, Adrien, if you don’t follow those rules, we will have a problem. So what’ll be? Either you keep your head down and mind your own business or you stand in my way and get destroyed,” Adrien tried to placate him. That it didn’t have to be this way but Stephan just continued, “You don’t have to answer right away. I’ll give you till the end of tomorrow”.
Stephan finally released his grip on Adrien and stalked away.
And Adrien watched him go because what was he supposed to do? If he took what the Russian had said about Angela Voss into account, this wouldn’t be the first time he’s destroyed someone.
Gulping, Adrien finally walked away.
It took exactly a day for Lila to recover from Stephan’s threat.
She smirked before breaking down in fake tears reiterated a tale, accusing Marinette of stealing her designs and selling them as her own.
There was no way anything Stephan said could be true. Sure he might be more assertive than Adrien, but Mr. Vladislav must have him on a tight leash like Mr. Agreste does Adrien. So the threat didn’t scare her for long.
”How could you, Marinette?” was heard from Rose as she stared at said bluenette in disappointment.
”It’s one thing to bully Lila but another to steal her hard work and pass it off as your own,” Kim seethed.
”Totally low,” mumbled Juleka as she added her own thoughts.
There were more voices of disapproval.
Lila felt a thrill of vindictive pleasure at Marinette’s shocked face as she tried to defend herself. Chloe, Nino, and Alya hadn’t arrived yet so there was no one to vouch for her case.
Just then Adrien stood up and urged the class to quiet down. Lila felt rage rising as the blonde looked prepared to defend the Asian girl. Quickly hiding her expression, she put on the beginnings of a hurt facade.
”Come on guys. You know Marinette would never steal Lila’s designs,” Hope over took Marinette’s face until Adrien said, “She probably mixed them up and took Lila’s by mistake. We all know how clumsy she can be”. And just like that, Adrien sealed his fate.
Adrien knew Lila would make a scene if he defended Marinette, so he came up with a way to blame Marinette’s clumsiness. It was mean but she would get over it. Lila was just sensitive and wanted attention.
”That would be highly unlikely,” a familiar snooty voice added in.
Several students whirled out to see Stephan, standing at the top of the stairs near the back of the classroom with his phone in hand and a scowl on his face. Both Lila and Adrien shuddered at the long look he casted at the two of them.
”Yeah? What would you know,” Ali’s was the first to sneer, prompting similar responses from the others.
The Russian just stared them down impassively before speaking as if they hadn’t interrupted him.
”As you can see, Marinette uploads videos of her design process and tailoring procedure to the very detail. The idea of Marinette who is a designer noticed by Jagged Stone, Audrey Bourgeois, and Clara Nightingale, stealing Lila’s designs is impossible. Not to mention we’ve never witnessed the harpy design anything,” Stephan browsed through a selection of Marinette’s clothing, clearly displaying videos attached to each one, proving plagiarism to be unlikely.
The students of Madame Bustier’s class shifted uneasily as Marinette’s innocence of stealing was proven, while Marinette looked at Stephan as if he were an angel, and Adrien had to keep himself from scowling. Didn’t Stephan realize how close he came to exposing Lila?
The young Vladislav focused his gaze on Lila, and with his gaze she could see her career, her dreams of ruling the fashion world with Adrien being flushed down the drain.
After class, Stephan caught up to Adrien and walked in stride with him. With a smug smirk and a raised eyebrow he declared war, “Looks like you’ve made your choice Adrien. I’ll make you and the class of pathetic sheep miserable. I’ll expose Lila and make sure the class knows that you were aware the whole time. And I’ll make Lila seem like a saint compared to me. Watch your back,” the Russian whispered that last part threateningly.
Before the blonde could respond, Stephan smiled innocently and caught up to Nino and the others as if he hadn’t just declared war on him in broad daylight. Which was a lot more bold than anything Lila had ever done.
Adrien Agreste had a bad feeling that he had made the biggest mistake in his entire life.
That following Monday was the start of Stephan’s wrath.
Lila received a phone call from Mr. Agreste, terminating her modeling career and black listing her from Gabriel.
Still, she hoped Adrien hadn’t been notified so she could still use that to cow the boy.
That plan was buried next to her terminated job as she came face to face with the ravenette and she knew he was behind this.
Apparently he had brought up Gabriel’s newest muse with his mother. Laurice than raved about how the Agreste patriach had made a mistake in hiring Lila Rossi in front of a social gathering. Not to mention her sausage hair was horrendous.
The video went viral with people agreeing with her to the point where Gabriel had to fire her to save face.
Needless to say, the ordeal ended with an akuma. Though Ladybug couldn’t understand why Chat was so eager to blame Stephan. (Especially when she herself agreed that Lila was a disgrace to fashion). The leather wearing boy claimed that the Russian was nothing but trouble and was determined to hate him.
When Lila tried to pin the blame of a lost career on Marinette and Alya (the reporter was the one who recorded the whole ordeal with Laurice Vladislav), who tried to defend themselves, Adrein and Bustier pressured them to apologise to Lila, Stephan decked out a knew plan.
Outraged and seething, Nino, Chloe, and Stephan convinced Alya and Marinette to resign from their positions as deputy and president respectively.
Bustier held another re-election to which none of Marinette’s friends participated in. When no one stepped up on the claims of being too busy, Bustier shot an expectant look at Marinette and Chloe, both being former class presidents and asked them to reconsider. Chloe vehemently denied it with her usual “ridiculous utterly ridiculous,” while Marinette piped up that she was too busy.
Adrien asked Marinette what could be so busy with that she would ignore her duties when Stephan chimed into the conversation and suggested that Adrien should try his hand at being the class president with Lila as his deputy.
The blonde in question paled as he tried to state that he was too busy but Bustier and the class latched onto that idea. They knew his dad was controlling but maybe he would lessen his load if Adrien was class president.
Chloe caught onto what Stephan was doing and smirked viciously at the paling pair, “Yeah. With so many connections, I‘m sure Adrien will rock as class president.”
The female blonde had been disappointed in Adrien ever since she had discovered that he knew Lila was lying and just sat there and watched as they were ostracized from the class. What kind of friend does that?
The job Adrien had tried to force onto Marinette and Chloe was a lot harder than he thought. This was something that his extracurriculars just couldn’t help him accomplish.
The Halloween mingle was bust. He had forgotten to book a reservation for a revenue as well a caters since the old ones were unavailable (Marinette’s parents). Chloe invited Alya, Marinette, Nino, and Stephan to her own Halloween party with the rest of the school.
School trips were either boring or canceled completely. Turns out Adrien hadn’t know how difficult fundraisers were. His father refused the fund the trips and Lila was no help at all. After going to Marinette’s place to request that she do the bake sale, he was told to take a hike. Stephan took his friends out for fabulous trips around France.
He ended up doing the bake sale himself. Most of the students and even Bustier began avoiding him after his pastries gave several of them food poising and started a small fire.
This put him at odds with the others as he found himself snapping at them more often. About if he was such a bad president then they should get off their high horses and do it themselves.
Despite it being completely true, the akuma class was known for taking criticism as a personal attack. He found himself being invited to outings less and less and they didn’t attend his photo shoots anymore. All Adrien could do was grit his teeth and bare it.
Add in his constant modeling shoots, his rabbit diet, and forced extracurriculars, he found it harder to sneak away to become Chat Noir to battle akumas. Eventually, the stress had become to much and it was beginning to show during his photo shoots. After finding the source if his son’s faulty modeling, Gabriel demanded that Adrien quit being class president.
The blonde happily did so, much to the relief of the class. They all unanimously agreed that he was a horrible president. Lila was forced into the position despite being utterly useless with Rose as her deputy.
It ended in a disaster.
Stephan enjoyed it every second of the blonde’s misery. And the best part? He didn’t even have to lift a finger. The ravenette completely underestimated just how reliant the class was on Alya and Marinette, that things ended in catastrophe if the weren’t in charge. It was pathetic really. Nino agreed.
Due to Marinette’s rising popularity as the very much demanded designer MDC and the fact that numerous A list celebrities were battling for spots on her commissions list like children, Gabriel instructed Adrien to get close to Marinette and thus weasel her into the company, much to Audrey Bourgeois‘s dismay.
Stephan caught Adrien cornering an uncomfortable Marinette trying to convince her to apply for an internship at his father’s company. Sensing the opportunity to once again thwart the blonde’s plan, he gave subtle recommendations to Nikolas Vladislav to check out Marinette’s website.
Impressed by what he saw, he emailed the bluenette and offered her an internship that would look very good on her college application. As expected, Marinette accepted it in a heart beat, not wanting to deal with seeing Adrien too often. Her crush had completely soured by this point and she wanted nothing to do with him.
The Russian boy was thrilled as this meant he could spend more time with her and shove it in Gabriel and Adrien’s faces. After a week of interning with Mr. Vladislav (who had a similar appearance to Stephan except he had fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes), Marinette ran into Laurice. Immediately after taking in the Asian girl’s appearance, the dark skinned woman practically flew over to her and suggested she should try modeling. Apparently, Laurice Vladislav had a taste for rare mix racial models of all shapes and sizes. Italian-Japanese, Spanish-British, Brazilian-Haitian, German-Swedish, and African American-Russian (Stephan’s nationality) to name a few. Laurice mentioned that she had never met someone who was a mix of French and Chinese.
Stephan was all for letting Marinette model. He understood why she was never. This was Laurice Vladislav they were talking about. She was a world renowned photographer, responsible for launching the careers of many S ranked models of their era. She had the power to make or break a person. After seeing Lila’s humiliation and ruined modeling career, it’s understandable that she would be hesitant.
Only one model shoot was what Marinette bargained. After it aired, all of Paris went crazy. Who was this gorgeous bluenette posing with the equally gorgeous Stephan Vladislav himself? Many people were demanding that she be sponsored in another shoot and that’s how Marinette’s side job as a model began.
Chloe told the young Vladislav that Gabriel Agreste had been furious to lose Marinette to the even more successful Nicolas Vladislav. He gave Adrien the cold shoulder for days.
That was when Adrien‘s suffering at Stephan’s hand truly hit home.
After all, what Stephan wants, Stephan gets.
I’m going to end it here. What do you think?