Broken....But Not Destroyed

Chapter 5

⚠️Mention of suicide and self-harm ⚠️ 

Two days later, when Marinette showed up to work, she saw that she was getting given dirty looks from her other co-workers. Of course she was used to her presence not being noticed due to the claims made by Agreste, but somehow it seemed different today. 

She decided to look past it, and headed to her office, where Felix was already waiting for her, and he did not look happy.

Did Agreste and Rossi say something about me?, she thought. Was she going to lose everything again?

But when she looked into Felix's eyes, she saw that there was no disappointment or anger. Instead he felt sorry for her?

"Feli- Mr Graham de Vanily, is everything alright?", Marinette asked, a bit scared.

"Marinette, you're going to want to sit down for this", Felix instructed.

"What happened?", Marinette asked again.

Felix sighed. "Here, you're going to wanna read this", he handed her his tablet, with an article opened.

As she read through the article, she tried her best not to breakdown and start crying. And when she got to the end, she saw the name of the journalist who wrote the article. Alya Cesaire. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop the tears from falling. The words kept flowing in her mind.

'Marinette Dupain-Cheng, tries to destroy Gabriel brand in order to get revenge of Adrien Agreste, for chosing Lila Rossi over her'

'Marinette obsessed with her high-school crush, steals top model, Lila's designs out of jealousy'

'Marinette will do anything to get Adrien'

'Marinette has always been jealous of Lila and her achievements'

"-nette! Marinette!"

Marinette looked up at Felix, her eyes still full of tears.

"I'm sorry", she whispered, before dashing out the door. She ran out of the bulilding, into her car, ignoring the stares and whispers.

She drove back to their house and crying in her room, as Tikki explained to the other kwamis what had happened. 

"ALYA DID WHAT?!", Trixx yelled. 

"She published an article about Marinette, saying that she is jealous of Lila, cause Adrien and her are engaged, and that Marintette will go to all lenghts to destroy Lila, out of jealousy", Tikki explained. 

"But surely people will not believe it", Dusuu cried out. 

"I'm afraid they will", Plagg sighed.

"What do you mean, Plagg?", Xuppu asked, worried about their guardian.

"Adrien had already put out a statement as to why he fired Marinette. So people are most likely to believe it", he explained, anger clear in his voice.

"And Alya is a well known journalist, isn't she?", Sass added. 

Back at the office, Felix didn't know what to do. He had know idea what the link between Alya Cesaire, Lila, Adrien and Marinette was, but he guessed from the article, that they were all friends in high school. And Marinette liked Adrien? He knew he had to do something, but he couldn't do anything without knowing what had happened. 

"I need to know. I want to help her", he said, to no one in particular. 

Felix didn't know it himself, but Marinette's presence itself brought him happiness, something he hadn't felt since his mother passed away. It had always been him and Amelie, ever since his father died when he was 14.