In the Home of Chat

Sticking up to Stuck ups

When they were finally allowed to leave the common room, Marinette knew in her heart she would be late to the seminar. Everyone was moving so slowly out of the room that she doubted any of the ones who were forced to the back of the line, much like she was, were not going to be getting a place close to the podium. She kept her eyes on her phone's screen as she walked across the courtyard, hoping that by paying attention to the time she could somehow slow it down in some way. She had grown used to being late to practically everything during the first year of her retirement, but she thought she was getting better about being on time. Days like this one made her realize that there was nothing she could do about being late to something she was excited about if fate didn't deem it to be. She sighed, letting out a puff of steam that soon faded away to nothing before her eyes, and glanced up at the building she was currently headed towards. Students lined the stone steps leading up to the front doors, some even standing in the grassy areas that were perfectly landscaped on either side of them, all moving in like a slow tide in hopes of getting a seat in the conference room. She held no hope of that for herself. The knowledge that her year was the largest class to date told her that there would be quite a few of their numbers standing in the back of the room and craning their necks in hopes of catching sight of this  year's speakers. She knew that she would be apart of those numbers and silently grieved her position. Marinette had not seen Therisa since the akuma Alert Drill, she hoped that the girl who seemed to be in the running for Chat Noir's number one fangirl managed to get a good spot. Afterall, she seemed so excited to see Adrien even if she couldn't speak to him herself, it warmed Marinette's heart to see someone so fiercely adamant about her adoration for both of Marinette's old friends.

She made it to the bottom step in time to hear the dean's voice calling out an alert for all first year students to get a place in the conference room or risk missing out on this year's seminar. Her pulse sped at the sound and she found herself taking two steps at a time only to be stopped by a wall of bodies that were not moving for her or anyone else. She puffed out her cheeks in irritation, by the looks of it she would be one of the one's left out of the room entirely. The students were moving again, allowing her to take one step closer to the door. She couldn't even see past the mass of bodies before her. She longed for the warmth of her long finished drink, her palms would certainly not be stinging with the bite of the cold wind drifting across the courtyard if she had her cup to hold between them.

Her hands were shaking with cold as she pushed them into the pockets of her faux fur lined jacket. The foresight that it took to wear it was not her own, in fact she nearly rushed out of her apartment that morning without thinking about the weather before Tikki stopped her at the door and demanded she cover herself properly for the day. Tikki truly cared for her still, in a motherly way that made her feel the warmth of her home at the slightest touch from the kwami. It caused a small smile to spread across her lips as she ran her finger over Tikki's head and felt her nuzzle into the touch.

The crowd was moving again, agonizingly slowly for Marinette who was sure that she would not have the slightest chance of even getting into the seminar at all at this point. There was just so many students ahead of her and she doubted the capacity of the room. Those thoughts were just causing her lips to pull into a firm frown when the sea of bodies surged forward quickly. Her brows raised at the sudden change in energy around her and she looked down to her pocket quickly to see Tikki poking her head out of it enough to give her a small shrug in answer to her silent question. Even without being Ladybug, luck seemed to still be on her side for the most part.

She managed to work her way inside the room, finding a spot near the back wall was a bit harder yet she trusted that the stroke of luck had not yet run its course. She found herself positioned under a portrait of the universities first dean, a clear line of sight to the podium allowing her to see the speakers even if she couldn't hear them that well. Her classmates half whispered conversations drowned out the sounds coming from the sound system located on the raised platform that the guest speakers were currently sitting on. She saw a flash of honey blonde hair and felt a faint fluttering in her heart as Adrien's face filled her mind. She tilted her head to get a better view just as a large built young man stepped into her line of sight and she felt her lips fall into a frown of disappointment.