When Lila Gives You Lemons

by Clouds (myheadinthecoudsnotcomingdown)

Summary:

Lila has made good on her promise to turn all of Marinette's friends against her and isolate her from Adrien. As a result, Marinette thinks she probably holds the record for near akumatizations. But has she found a way to turn even this situation to her advantage and use it to beat Hawkmoth?
After all, when Lila gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

Chapter 1: The Sour State of Things at College Francois Dupont

Marinette ran out of the classroom holding back tears and sat on the dirty hall floor with her knees pulled into her chest. She looked at her watch, a fancy new digital one that showed the time down to the millisecond and rummaged in her school bag until she found the repurposed sketchbook and created a new entry.

Then she waited.

It wasn’t long until she saw the familiar black butterfly. She wrote something else before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Enough practice had made it easy for her to slow her breathing and let her emotions fade. When Marinette opened her eyes again, the akuma was fluttering indecisively centimeters from her face. She swallowed her fear, then took another deep breath and exhaled, blowing the akuma away from her. The butterfly hesitated for another long second before it flew away down the hall.

Marinette picked up her sketchbook again, writing one last thing before glancing at Tikki, who had left the girl’s bag in favor of her shoulder since there was no one else in the hall. The kwami was looking at her holder with a mixture of concern and pride. They both looked at the list in Marinette’s sketchbook, the neat lines and columns filling the page and nodded to each other. Marinette smiled.

They had enough.