Cats Always Come Back

student

As she grew up in Paris, her life didn't get much easier, but it was still easier than in Gotham.

Instead of putting effort into things that she already knew, she focused on things that would give her a challenge, being creative. She started with small doodles in the corner of her class book pages. As time went on, she began to put more effort into making the clothes look good, rather than the people in the doodle. She was 12 when she decided she wanted to design clothes and made her own outfit, a surprisingly good quality for a twelve year old... Then again, she couldn't exactly be classified as normal ...

At lunch, she would either sit with Marc under the stairs, or go to the art room. Of course that was only if she wasn't dragged away by Kim. She still couldn't understand why he took a particular liking to her but she didn't mind him. Except it was also Alya too, she was much harder to shake off, plus going to assume she liked Adrien because she bought ONE magazine, purely for the admiration of Gabriel's work, and to see how the stitching worked.

She would formulate plans to get them together, she had explained the situation to Adrien so it was much easier to play along as him not wanting to be with her. It was easier than convincing Alya that she didn't like him but instead a childhood friend.

That's another thing, no matter what, the person who most frequently turned up in her doodles, was Damien. The rest of the Wayne's occasionally popped up, but it was definitely prominently Damien. She would religiously deny any reason why that was, even though she knew herself the exact reason.

She was relatively liked all round. No one had any ill will towards her. Except Chloe, but she was scared of her. The teachers respected her more than their boss which often ended up with them attempting to get her to help with their work because she's a genius and the class representative thing was all fake in her case as all it meant was she got more work so she quit that.

She was having a decent day until she walked into school to hear someone called Lila saying she was Ladybug's best friend. That pissed her off. If she did that in Gotham by saying she was friends with Batman or the Wayne's she'd have been killed by any of the rogues within days or used for blackmail.

"You don't actually believe her do you?" Marinette asked Alya.

"Why wouldn't I?" She responded.

Marinette rolled her eyes, not that surprised that she fell for it. "Ladybug won't even talk to press and hardly talks to her partner, what makes you think she'd make friends with a random girl and let her blab about being friends with her?"

She seemed to make a bit of progress, Alya questioning her thoughts a bit but didn't come to a concrete conclusion.

What really piqued Marinette's interest, was the snake dragging her cat to the library, Adrien was obviously somehow entranced, most likely having been told a lie.

She followed and while Lila appeared to be trying to seduce Adrien, Marinette was more focused on the book they were looking at. "That's it isn't it?" She said to Tikki, who nodded in response.

After class, Marinette followed the two to the park, discretely. She saw Lila put the book in the bin and took that as her que. She transformed.

"Me and Ladybug are such good friends, we've known eachother forever!" Lila said and Adrien's eyes shined but he seemed as though he knew the truth, very deep down.

"Could you repeat that?" She said as Ladybug, she was sat in a tree, hood pulled up, hiding her features as she did small tricks with her yo-yo.

Lila jumped out of her skin and clung to Adrien. She knew her kitten was accustomed to her appearances which is why he didn't seem shocked which is also what made Adrien question himself.

"Wh-what?" Lila said.

"You heard me. Go on. Repeat it." Ladybug said, almost completely void of any of her emotions which made it even more chilling.

Lila couldn't seem to form words.

"I don't like talking to people. And what you did could get you killed. Don't pull stunts like that you'll be used as bait. Trust me, I grew up in Gotham a wrong move and you'd end up in Joker's weird fun house. So I suggest you keep your mouth shut before I do it myself." Ladybug hissed.

Lila scampered away and Ladybug took a seat next to Adrien, dropping her head to her hands.

"Are you okay?" Adrien asked, not being able to tell anything from her expression as her hood was covering her head.

"Just missing someone kitty cat..." She said, thinking of a different set of acid green eyes, paired with black hair and assassin genes.

"K-kitty?!"

"Quiet. I'm not blind, you know that better than anyone."

Adrien fell silent, not entirely surprised. "Y-you miss someone?"

She sat back on the bench, hiding herself in her cloak. "I... Didn't grow up in Paris... I'm... Different... Before I tell you anything else... I need you to promise that this won't get out, not to anyone... And that... You won't ever fall for lies like that. You'll stand confidently on the side of the truth."

Adrien was at a loss for words. He'd never heard her speak that much, or even stick around long enough to. "O-of course!"

"Damien Wayne..."She said, barely audible.

:)