The Power I Possess - A Miraculous Ladybug Adrienette Fanfiction [ON HOLD]

F I V E

160 hours, 52 minutes and 45 seconds until explosion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They arrived at their apartment after leaving Adrien's place. They made sure that he had a glass of water and an aspirin ready for when he woke up. "I'm to old for this shit," Nino grumbled tiredly, dropping onto his bed. "Shelly, you're legit twenty two," Alya tugged on a pair of sweatpants. "Exactly. I feel old," he replied, before they both fell into silence.

They lay side by side, staring at the ceiling blankly. Alya pondered on Marinette, her best friend. Before her, Ayla had no friends. Everyone stood on a specific social platform at her old school. She was bullied. Ridiculed. Humiliated. Ayla Cesairé was the made the butt of the joke because of her glasses. Because of her interest in superheroes and supernatural activities.

"Why can't you be like every other girl? Play with dolls, braid hair instead of videogames and action figures," One of her bullies landed a punch to her gut and she keeled over. He gripped a fistful of her hair and hunched over to meet her tear filled gaze, " You're different. Weird and lame. No one wants you, outcast," He chuckled darkly and threw her to the lockers, proceeding to walk away but not before adding, " Why don't you run off to your little troop of darkies?"

He had left, laughing, his cronies flanking beside him. Oh, Ayla was bullied for many things. Her nerdy glasses. Her interests. Her hobbies. But, most of all, Alya Cesairé was bullied for her skin colour.

It had left her depressed and agitated. Her anger only shot through the roof when she found out that both her little sisters had been pushed to the mud at school, the culprit leaving them with the quote, "There, home sweet home. Dark, ugly and grimy. Just like you."

But then, when her parents found out about the bullying, (and filed a lawsuit about the physical distress and racism), the Cesairé family moved to Paris, where they forged new lives there.

Alya then met Marinette. Oh, sweet, kind and caring Marinette. Alya found friendship in the French-Asian girl's bakery-warmth, and they both soon became the bast of friends.

Alya was utterly grateful to her lucky stars of having landed a new friend. Her only friend. They grew up together - strode their way through highschool with newfound pride and confidence every step of the way.

Before they moved, Alya Cesairé never had anyone- even her family- on the sidelines, encouraging and supporting her about her future career.  She never had anyone to let her into their apartment at three am, fully aware that she was drunk and it was inconvenient. No one for her to wallow in the sorrows of her breakups and failures, teary eyed and ice cream intoxicated.

No one until Marinette.

Mariette Dupain-Cheng came into Alya Cesairé's life and altered it in the best way possible.

Now, it was far due time to pay her back.

Because now, Marinette was somewhere in Paris. Alone. Heartbroken. Deceived. And it was all her fault. Alya knew she was in the wrong. But its wasn't time to play the blame game, it was time to make it right.

To make everything right.

Alya shifted to pluck her phone from the bed side. "What's up?" Nino moved to lay on his side, facing her with and arm propping his upper body up. "I need to know where she is," Alya logged onto Instagram. "You think that at a time like this, she's gonna update her Instagram?" Nino gave her a quizzical look. "Yeah, when Marinette goes somewhere, you know she'll take a picture or something."