marinette's point of view

"Marinette?" A sudden knocking is heard in the distance but I'm not awake enough to react to it. "Marinette!" The knocking is heard once again and this time I jolt up after hearing the door that leads to my staircase open up. I fell asleep doing homework, again. "What time is it?" I ask my mother with a yawn, rubbing my sleep filled eyes. I look around at my surroundings and pinch my cheeks a bit to make sure this isn't a dream and I don't say something embarrassing like I normally do. I then look back at my mom who had set a plate of food on the wooden floor of my bedroom. The plate had steam coming off of it, so I knew it was freshly made. I get out of my chair slowly and then walk over to her, bend down, and grab the plate along with a fork she gave me. "Thank you." I say with a bit of a wince. I've been so sore due to how much exercise I've done in the past few weeks from fighting akuma after akuma. Hawkmoth has grown restless and it's difficult to keep going like this and keep up a normal schedule.

"Marinette, did you forget something?" My mother asks and I respond with a confused look on my face as I start to eat my dinner of grilled steak, stir fried mush rooms, broccoli, and a dinner roll. What could I have forgotten this time? "Uh..care to let me know what I'm blanking on..?" I ask and she sighs. "What am I going to do with you, child? You forgot to deliver the cookie assortment to the Bourgeois family. They've been calling and complaining for a good thirty minutes now, so after you eat please take that to Le Grand Paris hotel." My mom explains and my eyes widen before I fall back into my chair, letting out a groan. "Do I really have to go by myself? Chloe's mean to me." I shake my head and my mom calls out; "Just do it." before closing the trapdoor and leaving me alone in my room. That is, until Tikki decides to fly out from behind my computer, where she was hiding.

"Can you believe that, Tikki? I have to go all alone to that brats house..hotel...whatever it is!" I pout and Tikki pulls a piece of the bread off of my sweet roll and takes a bite out of it before speaking. "Marinette, it won't be that bad. All you have to do is deliver the cookies to the front desk and they'll take them up to Chloe and her family. Don't sweat it too much." She explains and I lift my head up before smiling softly. "I hate when you're right." I admit, receiving a giggle from my little kwami. It feels good to joke like this after the month we've had, It all started after Hawkmoth akumatized Lila again. I don't understand how or why she lets him akumatize her so much, but she's becoming a danger to Chat Noir and I because she's really close to me in school and she could easily trick Chat into believing whatever she says, but that's not the point. The point is, is that Hawkmoth has been akumatizing a person each day of the week for a straight month now to try and burn Chat and I out and to make us give up. It's been messing up my sleep schedule  and putting me behind in classes again because being Ladybug takes up all of my time. I can't even imagine how hard it is on Chat Noir, either. He shows up to the fights looking tired and worn out, maybe even drained. I'd ask to help him but he might slip and tell me something about himself that I'm not supposed to know, so I just show him that I'm there for him by patting his shoulder or scritching his chin. I think he knows it's a sign of affection because he enjoys it and it usually brightens his mood.

After finishing my thought as well as my food, I get up and take my plate downstairs for it to be washed before putting my jacket on and heading downstairs. My father was in the bakery waiting for me with two boxes of cookies and explains that he made the second batch as an apology for them being late. Great, now I have to carry two huge boxes of cookies to Chloes. Wonderful. "Alright, I'll see you when I get back." I say as I pick up the two large pink boxes with the bakery's logo on them and head out of the door. The sun was going down and the air smelt like rain, so I knew I had to hurry up and deliver them before they got soaked and we owed them a third batch of apology cookies. I step out of the building and onto the sidewalk and begin making my way to the hotel on the quickest path there is. The sooner I can get this done, the better.
I walk for a good five minutes and my arms start to get tired because I'm carrying literally 150 cookies my parents made. I furrow my eyebrows and scrunch up my nose like I usually do when I'm angry, and then? It starts raining. My eyes widen and I let out a loud exasperated sigh before continuing my journey, just with a little more speed in my step. I keep walking until I'm almost to the hotel, and then I hear a voice.
"Hey Marinette! What are you doing?" A voice that belongs to the one and only love of my life aka Adrien Agreste asks. I freeze and then slowly turn to see him, looking a little more depressed than usual. This is probably why he didn't wanna tell me what was wrong..it was probably really bad. "Adrien? Oh I'm uh..just delivering the cuties- I mean- cookies to the Bourgeois family. They're catering for a small party Audrey is holding..you know, rich people stuff." I say with a laugh and Adrien's mood instantly changes. He walks over to me with a smile and takes one of the boxes from my grasp, nudging me with his hip softly in the process. "Let me help. Maybe I can get Chloe to not be so mean to you."
"Good luck with that." I let out a snort and then my eyes widen, a blush covers my entire face before I cover my mouth with one hand, carrying the cookies in the other arm now. Adrien then starts to laugh, but it's a genuine laugh that makes him look ten times happier than he did before. I smile at him and we talk the whole way there, with me stuttering like a mess but feeling so hopelessly in love that my legs feel like jello. When we make it to Le Grand Paris, we are greeted by the Bourgeois family butler and he follows us upstairs to the main party room where we set up the cookies onto trays they had there at the hotel. The whole time, Adrien looks at the cookies as if they're the last thing on the planet left to eat, so I secretly hand him a cookie and he gives me a shocked but happy look, and I hold my finger to my mouth and 'shhh' him. He smiles at me and takes a bite out of the cookie and in the background you can hear a certain loud blonde bimbo making her way over to the two of us.

"And what do you think you're doing here, Dupain-Cheng?" Chloe asks, waving her finger around as she usually does. Adrien then turns to her and smiles, doing his best to deal with Chloe as he normally does. "Chloe, Marinette was just delivering the cookies your family ordered for tonight from the bakery and I saw her walking and decided to help her." He explains and I nod, looking from Adrien to Chloe who is crossing her arms. "Well I'm sure those cookies aren't even that good anyways-" she begins and before she can finish her sentence, her father walks over to the table excitedly. "Audrey dear! The cookies we had especially made for us are here! Do you want me to sneak you one before the guests get here? They're so good!" He says before grabbing four cookies and walking away, an angry Chloe stomping her feet and walking behind him. "Unacceptable, utterly unacceptable!" She gripes and I nudge Adrien, who lets out a laugh.
"I don't know how you deal with her sometimes." I say as I finish placing the last few cookies on the trays to make it look presentable. "She's been mean to me ever since we met. I don't know why she doesn't like me, but we always just clash." I explain, looking over to Adrien who is throwing away the boxes and walking back toward me. "Well, Chloe and I grew up together. She was the first person who was there for me and even though she can be really selfish at times, she has a lot of good in her. I'm sorry she's so mean to you, I wish I could stop it but she's just..got a lot of stuff going on at home with her parents. Her mom is gone all the time and her dad is always busy. It can't be easy." He says, his mood changing into a solemn one. I place my hand on his shoulder gently to try and comfort him, and he all of a sudden hugs me tight. "Thank you for letting me help you today, it got my mind off of a lot of tough things. You're a really great friend, Marinette." He expresses and I smile with a blush on my cheeks, hugging him back gently. I then hear his stomach growl and I laugh softly, letting go of the hug. "Why don't we go back to the bakery and get you something to eat? Maybe some croissant sandwiches or a hot chocolate? On the house." I say and see his face light up.

"That sounds wonderful Marinette. I'd like that a lot." He says with a smile and we leave the hotel and start to head back to the bakery, only stopping to look at Nadia's news report. She had the camera on the Eiffel Tower, where Jagged Stone stands there in his akumatized persona. He declares that he's going to take Ladybug and Chat Noir's miraculous because a world without instruments is a world of shame. I look at Adrien with wide eyes and he grabs me and walks in to the closet shop and tells me to stay where I am, and that he's going to go find help. As soon as he's gone, I walk outside and go into the closest alleyway I can and I transform.
 
"Tikki, Spots on!" I shout as a swirl of bright flashing red light surrounds me and transforms me into my alter ego, one of the two protectors of Paris, Ladybug. I then run into the street and swing my yo-yo to get it to attach to a rooftop, and I fling myself up into the air, swinging on the string until I get to the Eiffel Tower where Chat Noir awaited my arrival. "Good evening, Bugaboo." He says and bows down before kissing my hand.
"Hey Chat Noir, any info about where the akuma is?" I ask, looking up to the top of the tall tower to brace us for battle. Chat shakes his head, "No clue where the akuma is, but I know he's taken two people hostage." He says and I nod, throwing my yo-yo and hoisting myself up to the very top, where Jagged had been waiting for us.