Bio!dad Strange Part 20
wow, this is nice to be back on track. will be posting the ao3 update later tonight or tomorrow for the main If Marinette was the Rogue’s Princess story. another paris update, and before you ask, yes, this is is important for team dynamics and has some (light) angst from Marinette .
--
School was different this year. She wasn’t in the same class as last year, and it was the first time she and her friends weren’t all together.
Apparently it was an attempt to make things easier on everyone with the akumas—scatter more easily akumatized kids into various classes so their classmates could ‘buffer’ their akumatazation tendency.
She was kept with Max, Rose, Juleka and Mylene. Somehow Felix was going to their school now and weaseled his way into her class.
He and Adrien swapped regularly. She wasn’t joking—they took each other’s classes sometimes.
She seemed to be the only one in the group to know when they swapped—granted Adrien shot her more ‘are you going to break’ looks while Felix tended to shoot her ‘so who am I destroying with you?’ looks.
In her defense, Felix ending up in her friend circle officially happened by one means and one means only: the class representative rule.
No one volunteered in her class. Rose was too busy with some band she was in, which, fair, and the other kids were also focused on their own programs (or hiding being meta).
Their teacher turned to Felix. “Would you like to try your hand Mm. Graham de Vanilly?”
Felix was the only one not swamped as he wasn’t there for any specific program; he got to write and follow his own year long plan for mastering various illusions with an adviser. That left him with, objectively, the most time to dedicate to the role and the skillset to do it.
Felix stiffened. “I suppose…”
“Wonderful,” their teacher clapped their hands. “Now, who will be your deputy?”
Felix turned to Marinette sitting in front of him. She could feel his eyes on her, and she was a bit tired. Which meant her usual brain-to-mouth filter wasn’t working just right.
“Only if you can guess my favorite color correctly.”
Her old friends stiffened. Max shook his head beside her—not even Chloe or Kim got this one right. Everyone assumed pink. She always wears it, right, so it has to be pink! Wrong. Marinette and Max operated on the light spectrum in terms of what a favorite color was—shade, tint, saturation and more was a completely different question. Marinette knew pink was a distinct shade of red deemed its own color, and only used pink as her color because they couldn’t figure out how to get everyone in their school to leave Kim alone if he was pink and she was red for their color.
Thus, everyone got her favorite color wrong on their first guess. Everything about her is so ‘pink’ to her aggressively pink room (defensive, kept her friends from claiming things with ‘their’ color on it) to it always being on her outfit somewhere (it goes well with so many things as an accent) to the Halloween she was not allowed to dye her hair pink—so Alix did and had pink hair since.
“Red.”
The room was laughing.
Max and her groaned.
“Fine.”
The room stared at the pair.
“Light spectrum,” Max clarified while their teacher handed them information on their classmates.
Marinette figured out everyone’s ‘genius’ in a week and coded it in her notes on everyone. She knew Max had superintelligence. Juleka was able to stop being perceived, essentially invisible to people and animals, but not cameras. Rose was able to infect others with her emotional state—it seemed to be a pheromone based but she wasn’t sure without her Rose. Mylene was normal, but from what she saw of from her father, he had some mechanism to superimpose his thoughts onto reality through miming. Aurore was able to toy with pressure systems. Wayhem was a shapeshifter who did whatever she asked.
In less than two weeks she decided Felix was a friend of a very specific kind: the one you insulted regularly while judging others together (like she does with Chloe on fashion choices) but without it being malicious.
“So, what gave me away as Felix this time?” he asked just before class began. “I do need to work on my Adrien routine.”
Marinette rolled her eyes at his comment. Apparently he and Adrien have turned fooling her into a competition. “Adrien doesn’t, well,” how did she politely put that Adrien missed or ignored insults aimed at Felix when he was pretending to be Felix. “Fight back the way you do.”
Felix raised an eyebrow. “Are you implying Mr. Ran-away-to-school-on-a-whim, he-who-bakes-at-midnight and the boy who tackles his friends to say hi, doesn’t fight back?”
Marinette blushed as she tried to explain. “I just, you snark back. He… its like he’s incapable of snarking people he doesn’t know well.”
Felix hummed with a wide grin. She regretted telling him already. “So what you’re saying is,” he leaned into her personal space. “To pass as my cousin, I need to be less aggressive.”
Marinette nodded, coming to regret this entire conversation.
“Excellent.”
--
Marinette wondered if it was weird she got along better and better with Nuit and Felix lately. Aspik was her partner, she knew this. It wasn’t even a question. But… Nuit anticipated her plans and the movements she’d need from him. Aspik tried but he faltered a lot. Duchess worked out okay, but her abilities were tricky to plan for and she honestly prefers her as Queen Bee nowadays.
Especially whenever Marinette Dupain Cheng attended an AAG or Anti-Akuma Governance meeting.
Nuit would escort her to and from, and backed up her points on planning for strategies as well as pointing out that she was focusing on letting the miraculous heroes handle the bulk of the fighting while citizens, damage minimization (akuma prevention, collateral damage, ect,) and aiding the heroes in their search for Hawkmoth should be the AAG’s priorities.
She wished Talia was at the meetings, but Fu wasn’t letting her out. Not yet anyways—Daesuqa was a last resort for if Marinette was lost in a battle.
She wondered sometimes if it was bad she let Nuit look over her designs during his solo visits—he was a good critic and she loved hearing his feedback on her historical pieces for class. She let being JMC slip once. Only once.
He promised to take that secret to the grave.
She… believed him.
--
One day Chloe came in mad. Not a little, but really. She took Marinette to the bathroom with so much rage in her eyes Marinette wondered how she wasn’t akumatized.
“How could you!”
What did she do? did Chloe know about Ladybug? Or her Gotham identities—no, those were the only ones safe in Paris. Did she forget an event? Too early for birthdays, no hangouts had been planned…
Her confusion must have shown.
It only added fuel to the fire.
“You stole Adrien!”
Marinette stared at Chloe then. Really stared because… “I know he switches with Felix now and then, but I’m pretty sure neither of them have any interest in me that way.”
Chloe’s eyes hardened. “Did you even see this,” Chloe shoved a piece of paper at her, “love letter he wrote!”
Marinette skimmed the contents, her brow furrowing. “Chloe, my eyes aren’t blue. Maybe he likes Mirelle or someone else?”
“They don’t talk and—oh my god don’t tell me you’re this oblivious.”
Marinette really didn’t get it. Adrien is in the friend zone, and she knows Felix is in hers and vice-versa. Adrien was given the little brother treatment by both of them.
“Chloe, I assure you, the notion of Adrien liking me is more alien than the Martian Manhunter.”
“I—Marinette!”
“He’s a baby duck, how do you see a baby duck as anything but a baby duck?”
Chloe looked ready to snarl at her. She barely stopped herself—and Marinette knew it too.
She gave her a flat look. “You call him a baby duck.”
“Yes? Rose is a bigger Sunshine than him, so she is Sunshine, and he is a member of the Sunshine Squad as Baby Duck.”
Chloe reared back at that. “You don’t see him as…”
“Chloe.” Marinette didn’t know how to stress this enough. “Girl Code on top of it all.”
Chloe relaxed then. “Right, right… that, that makes sense.”
They both knew Marinette was incapable of actively betraying any of the rules they agreed to in their personal Girl’s Honor Code: never leave a friend in need alone, never let a crush get between you, and whoever declared crushing first retains full rights to pursue the person while the later crushee forfeits in early stages unless otherwise negotiated between parties.
Chloe hesitated before hugging her, whispering a million apologies and insulting herself.
Marinette called Kagami to cancel their training session that night, stating a friend was spiraling and she needed to get her out of it.
She and Sabrina stayed with Chloe the whole night. They both looked out for any possible akumas, and neither slept until long after Chloe cried her eyes out and fell asleep.
Marinette and Sabrina formed a clear akuma prevention plan afterwards; recording comforting and calming techniques they’d used on Chloe and themselves and comparing it with Marinette’s theories on how to ‘break’ the akumatazation and the conditions needed to remain akumatized or susceptible to akumatazation.
--
Marinette almost lost it when Duchess admitted, to the entire public, that Ladybug was a meta when an akuma was intent on destroying metas. She didn’t know why, just that this akuma had, in fact, almost killed Marinette as a civilian. Key word being almost—she didn’t bleed out thanks to her civilian protection squad.
Apparently Maman’s broken broom came in handy.
And so did Kagami’s sword…. And her mother’s sword. And Gorilla’s fists.
Pegasus had nabbed her and brought her to Fu’s.
Talia put on the Miraculous and became Daesuqa for a bit to heal Marinette, promptly left a semi-conscious Marinette with Fu.
She didn’t remember a lot, but she did see Trixx and Mullo out and remembered them talking in quiet voices to each other and arguing with Fu about something she wasn’t fluent enough in Guardian to know of in good health, let alone in her state.
When she was awake she cast the cure, went into a small coma at home (Maman didn’t argue, but refused to let her out of her sight) only to turn on the news and see both Duchess AND Aspik beyond furious at a citizen that defended the akuma’s stance.
Needless to say, Marinette got to witness the morbid horror and wonder that is one angry cat girl and snake boy vs. the anti-meta government. And said cat girl somehow getting some public support for metas?
“If it wasn’t for Ladybug none of you would even be alive right now—don’t try to give me any crap about it not being true. Her kwami refuses to take on new holders since she’s a perfect match, and despite the fact her using the miraculous is literally killing her, she saves every. Single. Person.”
“Those cures she casts? That’s her soul shattering into thousands, maybe even millions of Ladybugs to save our city. A meta child is saving and reviving Paris after each battle, despite knowing she could die for casting the cure, despite knowing that our city wants her to be dead for having what? Abilities beyond the norm—newsflash, magic’s been running around for ages and we give magic users nothing but respect for their ability and let them dedicate time to mastering it.”
“The second a meta asks to do the same so they can be their best and help our city, you cowards tear them from everything they know and love.”
“So if you hate metas, guess what? You hate Ladybug too. You don’t get to say someone isn’t what they are because it makes you uncomfortable.”
Marinette wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or scream or what.
Maman turned off the TV and told her to ignore it. Pro-meta movements never stuck in Paris before, why would a magic-wielding meta hero make a difference?
--
She tried to ignore the way the other metas were sharing looks. It wasn’t hard to see if you knew what to look for. They all knew each other at a glance—it was in the way you held yourself, the mask a bit too perfectly placed and shoulders a touch tight. Near constant adrenaline and the mention of ‘meta-debates’ sending a wave that cracked that mask for just a second. The fix was quick but the damage was done.
She heard it everywhere, the grand Ladybug and Meta discourse.
“Do you really think she’s one [of us]?”
“What do you think she can do?”
“Healing, obviously.”
“Magic dude, her meta side.”
“Oh, uh, super smart?”
“If she’s one, why isn’t she doing more?”
“She’s doing more than enough.”
“She’s going overboard.”
“You think she’s suicidal or something with how the cure works?” (those comments made her feel sick)
“She can’t be a meta, metas are all monsters. Ladybug is a queen.”
“No, Duchess and Aspik are Queens. Ladybug is a goddess and meta and I love her.”
“She should just give up or die or something so someone normal can be Ladybug like it should be.” (Those ones were rarer, and she felt violently ill when someone said it to her one time. Max and Felix went after them with Kim and Alix on their heels. Chloe and Sabrina were the only ones that saw Marinette looked ready to vomit and stuck with her. Somehow it devolved into ‘get the old girlsquad together’ time with their former classmates. Juleka was the only one that seemed to realize Marinette wasn’t completely not-meta, and whispered to visit her whenever she needed a space to just let lose… she took her up on it later.)
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The next update set after this is (probably) going to be when I cover Juleka’s akumatazation in Reflekadoll, Mayura’s first appearance, and Lila starting to help Paris against Hawkmoth... so multiple updates once I feel comfortable with where i am writing them.
And hopefully this wasn’t too angsty--its going to let up in future updates (the closer we get to hawkmoth’s butt being kicked, the better)
@pirats-pizzacanninibles @chaosace @daminett4life @emeraldpuffguide @dast218 @weird-pale-blonde-person @ilovefluffbutsmutisalsogreat @mystery-5-5 @mosseaters
