Chapter Text
July 8th 2021
Marinette believed that she had lived a good life.
At thirteen, she was the revered heroine Ladybug, sworn saviour of the City of Love. At fourteen, she became the Guardian of the Miraculous. They were coveted titles, both sought after and feared. And Marinette was more than happy to carry them for as long as she lived. And by eighteen, ranking at possibly one of the greatest personal achievements of her teenage life, she was an intern at one of the biggest fashion houses in Paris—no, the world— Gabriel.
Growing up, Marinette was surrounded by fame and people who oozed talent out of every pore. She had once counted Alya Cesaire as her best friend, who was now on her way to becoming one of the top reporters in the country and a widely admired blogger who posted the most consistently reputable and up to date source of Miraculous information. There was also Nino Lahiffe, her childhood friend who she supposed now was better known for his pseudonym DJ Lahiffe. Nino was a rising star in France's music and the entertainment industry, whose name will no doubt be household in every Parisian home in the years to come. Her other peers such as Mylène, had starred in numerous period dramas and movies, and Kim, who became one of France's youngest swimmers to have ever won an Olympic medal. Yes, there was no doubt that many of her other classmates from Dupont had gone on to become more successful than she could imagine.
She should be lucky to have known them at all. And she was lucky.
Above it all, her true tour de force was her becoming Marinette Agreste. Marinette, who was married to the man of her dreams and heart’s desire, Paris’ Golden Boy himself— Adrien Agreste, the biggest name in fashion, who was famously dubbed the Sunshine of Paris. His name danced on the tip of everyone’s tongue. His image was captured on every flashing headline, and lingered on everyone’s minds. And she? Marinette was a lucky and ordinary girl, the mere plain jane that married him. A romantic tale of rags to riches. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, a baker's daughter. An aspiring fashion designer, who had one of the most powerful men in Europe's fashion scene as a husband. It was a story that seemed to have been pulled straight out of a fairy tale.
Through everything, Marinette always tried to do good whenever and wherever she could. She took the extra hours at Gabriel, she never once complained if other employees pushed their work onto her. She never once gave up even if she had to carry burdens that weren’t hers to bear. Even when rumours spread that she was a fraud, she didn’t let it get her down. When the press had accused her of using Adrien for his money, she didn’t let it break her.
In the end, she had a job in fashion, in Gabriel. The kind of job that countless of young aspiring designers like her would kill for. She was married to Adrien Agreste, the boy she pined for since she met him, and they had the most perfect wedding.
So really, she was living the good life, right?
No. Wrong.
That was a lie. Her life, in the end was nothing but a slow unravelling of tragedy. And Marinette had never imagined that it would end this badly.
‘Is this what dying feels like?’
Marinette felt the bite of the cold in her bones, long before the chill of death could claim her. Her body lay crumpled on the floor, and her leg was twisted at an unnatural angle where she writhed painfully on a steel panel leading towards Emilie Agreste’s tomb. Dying rays of evening light beamed through the window— its round frame and butterfly motif watched them overhead, like a divine unblinking eye.
A witness to the events that would soon unfold.
Everything hurt. The thick and bitter taste of copper pooled in her mouth, choking back her breath. Her vision swam, and the ceiling seemed a thousand miles away. Above her, the industrial and brutalist roof stretched on, ugly, and real. Very much unlike the rest of the Agreste mansion which resided above, with all of its facades and false light, masking the horror which it hid underneath.
The Crypt.
Slick with blood, her fingers trembled uselessly where they laid curled back against the polished steel panel beneath her— cold and unyielding. Marinette's only solace came from the soft hum of the discarded Miraculous Box nearby. Even then, she could achingly sense the Kwami within were thrumming with despair, fear and helplessness.
An eerie dirge, to accompany the death of a Guardian.
Lila’s heels clicked nearby, with that same mocking sway, like she did back when they were in Dupont. Poised like a predator, bored of playing with its prey. Bored— of waiting for its prey to die.
“You never learn,” came Lila’s voice. Soft and sickeningly sweet, she lets out a low mocking laugh. “Always so stubborn. Still, the good girl— still, playing the victim. Even when faced with the end, you’re still you. Of course you and that bug are the same person.”
She sneers, her hand coming down to harshly grip Marinette by her face. Her long acrylic claws dug into her cheeks, smearing blood on her soft porcelain skin. Marinette glared into Lila’s murky green eyes, her own burning with anger and unshed tears.
“Oh look at her Gabriel, she’s going to cry,” Lila crooned, tilting Marinette's head forcefully towards Emilie's tomb. Marinette lets out a low hiss at the sight. The light behind the seemingly deathless woman, pulsing slow and steady like a dying heartbeat.
Beyond her blurred vision, her head throbbed sickeningly with pain and her earlobes burned from where Lila had ripped them open to steal her earrings. The mangled flesh hung raw and trembled bloodily, flush against her pale cold skin. Which what once rested the Miraculous of creation, now was a torn crater, the edges jagged, and weeping.
Marinette watched on in silent horror when Gabriel Agreste stood before his comatose wife, her skin white and colder than stone. He lifted his hand, which glimmered with Plagg’s ring, to press against the frosted glass. His earlobes sparkled with Tikki’s earrings, emitting a soft but ominous ruby red glow. Marinette gave out a slow tremulous exhale.
He turned his head, and nodded towards Adrien. His cold dead eyes, glimmered with conviction, which would only end in the fusion of Life and Destruction.
“Come, my son.”
“N-no,” Marinette gasped. She tried to lift her arm, and thrashed weakly in Lila’s vice grip. She made a weak attempt to turn her head agonisingly to the one person who might still save her— save the world, and stop Hawkmoth.
Her kitty. Her partner. Her husband.
“Adrien…” she pleaded. Her voice raw, and tasting like rust.
He stood silently at Gabriel’s side; his eyes empty. He looked away.
“Adrien…Please, don’t do this.” Marinette begged. For Adrien to do something, anything. She writhed, even when every nerve in her body screamed and begged for her to stop.
“You don’t know what you’re doing! Please, stop this!”
Lila laughed a cruel, victorious sound as she dug her nails further into the soft flesh of Marinette's face. The heroine cried out in pain, as the sadistic model leaned in closely and gripped the dying heroine by the hair. Craning her head which dripped with crimson in a such a torturous way, just so that Marinette would be faced at her would-be killer.
“I’ve always hated you. So just shut the fuck up and die already Marinette. It’s the end of you anyway. You’ve lost. Just give up.” Lila hissed as she leaned in even closer, her breath hot against Marinette’s bleeding face. Her smirk grew, as she scratched another wound into the heroine's mutilated cheek.
“Still clinging onto hope, bug? Look, at me while I’m talking to you, cunt.” Lila growled. “I told you Adrien would be mine, that I would take everything away from you. Even your sad pathetic life.”
Marinette whimpered in pain; the sound as broken as she felt at Adrien's betrayal. She bit her lip, unwilling to give Lila any more satisfaction of hearing further cries of her agony.
“Eat shit and die, Lila,” Marinette spat in the brunette’s face. The unholy mix of mucous and blood, dripped everywhere onto the model's face who could only scream in disgust.
Lila slammed Marinette’s head down against the ground with a sharp crack. A burst of white and static danced behind Marinette’s eyes as the pain splintered through her skull like lightning. The pain is nearly enough to drive her into unconsciousness. It almost makes her forget about the searing pain in her side from her stab wound, only this is magnified by a thousand.
“STUPID BITCH.”
Marinette didn’t care what Lila wanted to do with her. She didn’t care if she was bleeding, or that her body was too broken in different places for her to do anything about it. She wished didn't care that her husband, who was Chat Noir all along, had turned traitor. That she could pretend that her heart wasn't twisting in the same different directions as her limbs, trying to pinpoint when it was that it all went horribly wrong.
Closing her eyes, a small crimson river ran down the side of her cheek. And she wished she didn't care that Hawkmoth had the miraculouses, and the entire world as they knew it was doomed. That she too, was doomed, dying, and marked for death.
And Marinette couldn't do anything to stop it. Her eyes snap back open, as pain burns through her body.
Lila continued her relentless assault on the heroine, ripping out her hair and scratching up her face. It burned. Marinette suppressed a scream with every sharp strike that Lila laid ruthlessly against her. She slowly felt her life leaking away from her, her vision darkened and blurred around the edges. It didn't take long for her to begin feeling the numbness from her blood loss begin to sink in. She could barely register the pain the longer the assault went on.
Her head lolled to the side and watched as Tikki and Plagg cowered in both fear for her…and for themselves. For what they would be forced to do. A mixture of tears and blood welled up in her eyes.
Tikki, Plagg…!! Oh, I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me...!
For what felt like an eternity, Lila only ceased her assault on her, when Gabriel, standing a little distance from the carnage with Adrien at his side, let out a weary sigh.
He didn’t speak at first. Just stood there by Emilie’s tomb, backlit by the glowing light around her coffin. His expression was unreadable, as though it were chiselled in place of a real human expression. His mouth pressed into a thin, bloodless line—unmoved and uninterested. As if he were presiding over an audit, not watching his daughter-in-law bleeding out in front of him.
“Miss Rossi, that’s enough. Leave Miss Dupain-Cheng be. She won’t be needed in our new world once I make my Wish. It’ll just be a waste of your energy.”
Adrien nodded sagely, and avoided looking at Marinette as he weakly motioned for Lila to release her. Marinette felt her stomach sink and her blood go cold. It was as if he never even knew her. Tears prickled her eyes.
“W-why,” Marinette rasped, when Lila finally released her grip on her, “Adrien…you said…you told me…you told me, that you l-loved me.”
Lila scoffed, as she made her way to clutch Adrien by the arm. Her eyes glittered with mirth and her mouth morphed into a malicious sneer.
When Adrien finally looked at Marinette, he stared at her silently like he was considering her for the first time. As if they weren’t just to together and in love this morning. As if they haven't been together as since they were 14.
He blinked once. “I did,” he murmured. He turned to look at his mother’s glass tomb. His grim face set with determination. “But I love Mother more.“
“I’m sure you understand Marinette. You’re our Ladybug. Father’s wish will fix everything."
Gabriel hummed absently, his eyes hardly ever gazing over Marinette’s broken body, before he turned to regard his catatonic wife once again. “You have been a constant thorn in my side. A threat to everything I’ve built, Ladybug,” he spat harshly. “You would have ruined our future. Adrien’s future. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Miss Rossi would’ve been a more perfect match for my son,” he said with a sigh. Lila preened from where she clutched an apathetic Adrien by the arm. “But at least you were good at something, Miss Dupain-Cheng. Your life, will bring back my precious Emilie.”
At once, Gabriel raised his hands, and chanted, “Now. Tikki, Plagg, REVEAL YOURSELVES!”
Lila snuggled closer into Adrien, as she looked back at Marinette with undisguised mirth. “Bye-bye, Marinette.”
"You coward..you fucking coward!" Marinette cried, as the bright light blinded her. It was too late. He was going to wish back his wife who has long been dead to this world, and sacrifice Marinette in her place.
And in that moment, as the world around them starting shifting and flickering with flashes of images and mess of noise, she realised with growing horror of what was going to happen to her.
This wasn’t a final stand. This wasn’t just them making a wish to bring back Emilie Agreste, and morphing the world around them to do it.
No.
It was an execution.
And she was to be their sacrificial lamb of slaughter.
There would be no miraculous cure. No backup plans. No Ladybug to save the day. No Chat Noir to help.
This was how Marinette Dupain-Cheng would die.
Alone.
Betrayed.
Forgotten.
Marinette cursed them. She hated them. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. What the fuck did she do to deserve this? She wasted her teen years, her childhood and her life. And all for what? To die, cold and alone on the floor of Hawkmoth’s lair? To become an instrument to their grand plan and become just another footnote in history whose death with be misconstrued as a villain forever while they get to live happily ever after?
No. No! She won’t let this happen. She can’t let this happen.
She stared up at Gimmi. They listened on absent-mindedly to the whims of her three killers, their arms crossing with boredom. And for a moment, the deity stole a curious glance at Marinette who laid as still and as broken on the floor. Or with as much curiosity as grand deities and beings of the universe are capable of processing— at the Ladybug holder bleeding out on the ground behind the three people who summoned them.
As Gabriel’s voice rang out, triumphant and clear. “Gimmi, I wish—”
No. Marinette’s mind demanded, screamed it, even as her body failed. The words—the sacred, forbidden language of the Guardians—rose unbidden to her lips. Words spoken to her in secret by Master Fu long ago, before his untimely retirement. Her final anchor. Her last defiance. Her mouth moved, blood trickling in the corners and raw on her throat.
She prayed that Gimmi would hear her. Prayed to every deity she knew- to her beloved Kwamis who served by her side for 6 years, that Gimmi would hear her, understand her and take mercy.
At once, Gimmi’s luminous eyes flickered to her. Their head tilted curiously.
“Ah… how curious you are, little Guardian. So stubborn, even on death’s doorstep. Very well! It shall be done."
Gimmi giggled, with arms spread, eyes sparkling and smile wide. They clapped, giving one toothy grin and laugh, before a bright light engulfed everyone.
And just like that, Gimmi vanished. Leaving Lila, Gabriel and Adrien struck with confusion as Emilie’s body continued to sleep dead in her tomb.
Marinette smirked, and felt a maddening cackle begin to bubble up within her, but her body was too broken to laugh.
The deed was done. And while Lila, Adrien and Gabriel surrounded her, trying to force her awake to fix what Gimmi could not do, Marinette felt herself letting go of whatever tether she had on this life, and she succumbed to her wounds as she died. And the last thing she felt was a single tear, which trickled down her cheek, while she felt her own life rapidly slipping through her fingers like water. Their voices fading out into a vast space of nothingness.
She had done it; she had prevented them from making their wish. As her final duty as Ladybug and Guardian of the Miraculous, the universe would be spared from the backlash. She couldn’t be happier. But, despite the victory, the bitter feeling of regret bubbled in her slow rising chest. Never once, did Marinette feel genuine love. Not in her childhood, or adulthood. The man she thought loved her back the way that she loved him, abandoned her. Betrayed her. Played a hand in her death.
And the life she wanted to live? Wasted, devoted to a living a lie. Working endlessly as an abused intern in Gabriel despite her talents only being diminished by her very own father-in-law. And her reputation as a designer, in shambles all because of Lila.
Marinette wished for a lot of things, as her life flashed before her eyes. There was so much life left for her. So much more in this world she wanted to do, live and see. She wished that she could experience love once more. She wished that she didn't work so hard so nothing. She wanted relive the rest of her life. She would do anything, for a second chance at a new life. If she knew then, what she knew now, she wouldn’t have squandered it like she did. She wouldn’t have wasted her life on things that didn’t matter. She wouldn't have let Lila destroy her life before Marinette had the chance to even taste it, enjoy it, live it, love it.
She wouldn’t have been lived so miserably till the end. Dying friendless, cold and alone.
I wish for a chance to undo all my wrongs. To find love, live my life and prevent this from ever happening.
One more time. Please, give me more time.
So, in the end, the French heroine bathed in red, with hair darker than the midnight sky, eyes blue like the sapphires, and skin like starlight- died, surrounded by her enemies.
In any other tale, the story would end in tragedy. The death of the young, bright, 20-year-old up rising designer Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Who, would eventually have been revealed to have been the heroine of Paris that sacrificed her life to save the world, and was murdered by the evil supervillain Hawkmoth Gabriel Agreste, the former hero Chat Noir and famous Gabriel model Lila Rossi. Statues, would have been erected in her honour and she would have been known as a hero for many years to come.
However- this isn’t that kind of story.
And so, the threads holding up the universe undid themselves. Our heroine's story still starts off the same, and yet, it’ll be different this time.
No one can say that the Gods don’t have a sense of humour.
Marinette story starts again, from the beginning. The same script, the same cast.
Then, she woke up.