Chapter Text
Today has been one of the most peaceful days Marc has had in a long time. He had finished the latest dialogue for his and Nathaniel’s comic and even had extra time to work on his submission for the Writers of The Future contest going on in a couple of days. But like all good things, this moment of peace came to an abrupt end when his cousin, Marinette, came full on sprinting into the art room.
“Have you seen Nathaniel?” she asked between breaths. Her azure eyes were wide with panic, which alarmed Marc given how she’s never panicked about her friends like this before.
“I can’t say I have,” he answered, fear slowly seeping into his own voice, “Why? Did something happen?” The bluenette nodded her head.
“Him and Lila got into a little disagreement, which escalated way quicker than I imagined, and she ended up threatening to ruin him and his future. Now normally I don’t give a crap about her threats, but I saw Sabrina with his stuff earlier.”
“Crap,” Marc began to shove all of his belongings into his own bag and rushed to the door, “you check the courtyard and Bustier’s room. I’ll check the cafeteria and the restrooms.” The two cousins broke into a sprint in the opposite directions. However, before Marc or Marinette could reach any of their destinations, Lila’s shrill laughter echoed through the school, causing the two of them to screech to a halt. They saw her in the courtyard, Sabrina and Alix standing on either side of her. On the ground in front of her was a sketchbook. The writer in Marc was screaming at the condition of the sketchbook. There were footprints on the front cover, many of the pages were torn up, and the ones that weren’t had orange writing on them that Marc couldn’t make out from his viewpoint above the courtyard.
Marinette moved first. She sprinted down the stairs and stormed up to Lila, yelling at her about what she did. However, she was silenced when Alix slapped her clean across the face. Marc was fuming at this point; he approached the group of girls, and turned on the camera on his phone, but kept it out of anyone’s view. When he was in front of them, he could finally see what was written all over Nathaniel’s sketchbook; loser, talentless, loner... pathetic.
Before Marc could say anything, someone walked into the courtyard.
“What’s going on-” Nathaniel sharply inhaled when he saw the remains of his sketchbook on the ground. He dropped to his knees and picked up the torn up sketchpad. Lila brushed past Marinette and Marc and approached the redhead.
“Perhaps this will teach you to keep that big mouth of yours shut. My threats are not threats; they’re promises,” she turned to Alix and Sabrina, “let’s go, girls; we’re done here.” Nathaniel stared at Alix, his eyes filled with betrayal. She stuck her tongue out in response. He gathered up the torn up sketchbook and sprinted off.
“Nath, wait!” Marc ran after him while Marinette ran off elsewhere. It took the writer a good five minutes to find where Nathaniel had run off to; but eventually found him in the bathroom. He was going through the remains of his sketchbook, hoping to find at least one thing that was salvageable.
“It’s all destroyed, gone,” the artist mumbled as he flipped more frantically through the sketchbook. “DAMMIT!” he threw the book on the ground when he reached the end of it.
“Nathaniel?” The writer moved next to Nathaniel, whose head was now buried in his lap. “Are you okay?” That was all it took for the dam to burst. Marc hugged the artist tightly as he mourned the loss of his sketches.
“That was my ticket to the WB Paris internship!” he eventually cried out, “Between this and her sabotaging my drawing tablet, there’s no way I could even enter the WB building!” Marc’s eyes widened as he took another glance at the sketchbook in front of him. The project he told me so much about…
“Don’t worry about a thing, Nathaniel,” Marc soothed the redhead, “Everything will be okay in the end.” I’ll make sure of it myself. After a while, an akuma found the both of them and headed for Nathaniel, but was stopped by a textbook being thrown at the black butterfly, crushing it. Nathaniel was so out of it, he didn’t even notice. Marc looked up to see Marinette standing there, her arm outstretched.
“You guys want to leave for the day?” She asked.
By the time the three of them were in Marinette’s room, Nathaniel had stopped crying but was emotionally exhausted enough to clock out on her couch. Once Marc was sure he was asleep, he turned towards Marinette, the warmth in his eyes completely gone.
“Is this the first time this has happened to him?” he asked Marinette. The bluenette solemnly shook her head.
“She’s done it to his drawing tablet and some of the comics you guys were working on. Juleka and I have tried to stop her in the past, but it only resulted in our own things getting destroyed. She pushed Juleka down the stairs and made spitballs at Nath and I, And that’s just what I can list off the top of my head. To make things worse, whenever either of us three go to Bustier about this, we’re told to be the bigger person and forgive our tormentors.”
“Kim comes back tomorrow right?” The resident swimmer had been at a junior olympic competition for the last month and a half. Because Marinette knew everyone’s schedules off the back of her head, she was one of the few people that remembered that he would be coming back tomorrow.
“Yeah, but what does that have to- oh my god.”
Marc stood up, any trace of his shy and social awkwardness was gone, and in its place was someone who extruded confidence and a hunger for justice. Lila had gone too far this time. She messed with his friends and his family; and anyone that knew the true Marc knew that that is a line nobody should cross. Marinette stepped out of his way as he made his way to the trunk containing all of Adrien’s future birthday presents. He pushed aside the many hats and shirts and reached for the small box at the bottom. Marc opened the box and pulled out the familiar red chess piece. It felt heavy in his hands after all these years. Marinette’s eyes went wide with both fear and excitement. After all these years, he was finally coming back...
“It’s time.” After all, If the king doesn't move, then his subjects won't follow.