A/N: In which I flip a trope in 3 parts and 10 reasons

1. She's Beautiful

It all starts because Jughead Jones is many things but stupid isn't one of them. When he overhears Jason Blossom whining, actually whining, about how he can't take out Polly Cooper unless someone also takes out her little sister, Betty, he thinks this could be his chance. All thanks to the Cooper family rule implemented after one too many generations on their mother's side ended up pregnant before graduation.

The twisted logic being, of course, that they'll somehow manage to cockblock one another as if Betty wouldn't acquiesce to whatever her sister wanted and vice versa. Despite that, the rule still stood and it was as infamous in the halls of Riverdale High as the Cooper girls were beautiful.

Having transferred at the end of their sophomore year from Ohio, to spend time with his dad before leaving for college Jughead spent more time observing than interacting. And one of his favorite things to observe is Betty Cooper.

Which is how he ends up telling Jason he'll do it when the redhead starts offering money to whoever gets Betty to go out with them. She hasn't accepted a single date in the last year for reasons unknown but Jughead Jones is both stubborn and relentless.

He also has a plan.

At Jason's disbelief he insists he's serious and wants to know the terms of what's expected of him. He doesn't really think that the entitled and spoiled less interesting Blossom sibling needs to know he'd have done it for free. A hundred dollars plus expenses per date is what he offers and as they shake on it, Jughead is already thinking about step two to his plan.

Being impulsive has its advantages and disadvantages he discovers as he realizes he hasn't the nerve to talk to Betty all that often over the last year but he took the deal now he's got to follow through. It would be weird to admit that he knew where she was on a Thursday afternoon but he does so if it's weird, so be it.

He also knows he has about twenty minutes to catch her before she leaves for cheerleading practice, something else he's not proud to have the knowledge of but Jughead has never been an underachiever at his pining for Betty Cooper. If it were a sport he'd have a letterman jacket with at least three first place trophies. Making his way to the school newspaper office he's trying to calm his nerves as what he's actually done starts to set in.

Standing in the doorway he sees her, her back facing him as she adjusts her ponytail, short cheerleading skirt riding up her thighs making him forget his name, both of them, for a moment why he's even there. He's startled out of his thoughts when she turns and jumps, her hand to her chest and eyes wide.

"Oh, Jughead! You scared me," she says to him, bending to pick up her bag that was next to her feet. "What can I help you with?"

"Uh," he stutters out, lost in the length of her legs. "Uhm-"

Tilting her head at him in confusion she raises her eyebrows. "Uhm…?"

Clearing his throat he tries again. "Yeah, uh, so-" Taking a deep breath he says the rest as quickly as possible. "-I need to talk to you about something. When you're free. I mean, when you can. If you want, of course, you don't need to talk to me if you don't want to but I want to talk to you about something-"

"Jughead," Betty interrupts. "You want to talk to me about something?"

"Yeah," he murmurs then louder says, "Yes."

"Sure. Can it wait until after Vixen practice?" she asks, hauling the strap of her bag over her shoulder as she makes her way to the door to leave. "We can meet at Pop's if you want, no wait, if someone sees they might tell my mother. How about the library tomorrow morning?"

"That's uh, yeah, that's fine," he gets out as she walks past him into the hallway. "What time?"

"Seven?" she questions, spinning around to face him. "Is that alright?"

"It's fine," he tells her. "See you tomorrow."

"Bye, Jughead," she calls over her shoulder as she makes her way toward the gym.

The next morning he was pacing nervously in front of the library doors while waiting for Betty to show. He'd practiced what he was going to say until way too late and talked himself out of doing it at least three times before sucking it up and deciding to take the chance. Concentrating on his pacing he doesn't notice her walking up behind him.

"Hey," she says behind him, making him jump and turn, looking at her with wide eyes.

She's trying not to laugh as she smiles at him, waiting for him to speak.

"Oh, hey. Hi," he manages to get out. "Shall we?" he asks, motioning towards the library door.

"Sure," she answers, walking ahead of him and thanking him as he opens the door for her.

Finding a table at the back for even more privacy than one can expect in a school library at seven in the morning he walks around it, pulling out a chair for her as he sits in a chair across from her.

"So…" she says, tapping her fingers on the table while waiting for him to start.

Taking a deep breath he decided to just rip off the band-aid and get it over with. "Okay. Uh, okay, here's the thing, Jason Blossom wants to date your sister, right?"

She nods at him in agreement. "He does."

"But because of the rule or whatever your parents have, if you don't go then she doesn't go-"

"Also true," Betty interjects.

"Right. So, yesterday he started offering money to anyone who could get you to go out with them so he can take your sister out," he tells her quickly so she can't cut him off.

Betty's eyes get bigger than usual and her mouth drops open slightly in surprise. "What?"

"Yes, but here's the thing, I told him I'd do it," he admits softly.

"You what?!" she whisper yells at him, her face changing into a mixture of shock and anger.

"Wait, wait, hear me out before you completely take off my head," he insists, leaning further over the table in her direction. "I was thinking we could take his offer and split the profits."

"Are you saying you want me to fake date you? To make money?" she questions him with narrowed eyes. "For what reason?"

Jughead swallows the lump that suddenly found itself in his throat. "Okay so when you put it like that it sounds weird-"

"I'll do it," Betty cuts in with a shrewd look on her face. "But it's fifty-fifty or nothing and if you're going to pretend to be my boyfriend, you better be really ready to act like it."

He knows he must look slightly scared at the smirk Betty shoots him because she just smiles wider and sticks her hand out to shake on it.

"Deal?"

Hoping he didn't just walk into a disaster of his own making he reaches out to shake her hand. "Deal."

2. She's Cunning

"Here's what's going to happen, Jughead," Betty says as they walk out of the library, "whether you wanted it or not, you've got yourself a girlfriend. Well, fake girlfriend anyhow." She grabs his hand and he almost jerks out of her grip in surprise but manages to school his face before he gives himself away. "So, I hope you're ready to be a boyfriend."

Totally thrown by her aggressive attitude about the whole thing he just mumbles a quick agreement before asking, "Can I ask why you said yes to this so fast?"

Stopping, she twists to glance at him before continuing to walk, pulling him by the hand once more. "Jason Blossom is a spoiled brat, right?"

"True."

"But I also think he genuinely likes my sister-"

"So why mess with him like this?" he interrupts.

"One, it gets Polly what she wants, which is to go out with Jason and two, it gets me what I want," she informs him.

Confused but still following her by the hand she has hold of he asks, "What is it you want?"

"I get to prove a point to all the guys who tried to date me just so they could either get to Polly or to win a bet," Betty tells him, intertwining her fingers through his as they slowed down before reaching her locker.

"Polly? Over you?" he blurts out and can immediately feel the heat crawling up his neck and all the way to his ears.

"Thanks," she says. "I think, anyway. But here's the deal, Jughead, I know you have your bad boy brooding rep to maintain but you're gonna have to suck it up and act like you love me, alright? If we're doing this, we're going to make them believe it."

He immediately feels guilt over using Jason's offer to try and get to know her better even though he had been mostly honest about his intentions. It's the intentions he hadn't been honest about that were the problem.

"Betty-"

She makes a hmm sound at him as she stops at her locker, putting in her combination to unlock it.

"Look, Betty, there's a reason I said I'd take Jason up on his offer," he confesses quietly.

She spins around to face him. "What?"

"There's a possibility that I agreed to help Jason so that I'd have a reason to ask you out?"

"Was that a question or a statement?" she asks him, confusion clear on her face.

Rubbing the back of his neck before adjusting the hat on his head he sighs out a soft reply of, "Statement."

Betty is staring at him, seemingly considering what she's going to say, or do, to him when she lifts her chin a little and asks pointedly, "Why not just ask me out?"

"Because I am unbearably socially awkward and impulsively make bad choices from time to time?"

Narrowing her eyes at him she leans back against the still closed locker. "Are you saying that asking me out would have been a bad choice?"

"What? No!"

"So you're saying you'd only ask me out impulsively?"

"Of course not!"

Smirking at him she continues her questioning. "So, which am I, Jughead? An impulsive choice or a bad one? I really hope I'm not both."

Scrambling for an answer he almost misses the amusement on her face. "You're messing with me, aren't you?"

Standing up and turning back to her locker she shrugs. "A little, yeah."

"I'm sorry, you know," he tells her and he can see the bobbing of her ponytail as she nods. "I went about it all wrong-"

"Yeah, maybe, but hey," she starts and then turns around again, "we can still take Jason for all he's worth, right?"

"Wait, what?"

Leaning closer to him to whisper into his ear, "Hear me out, okay? My reasons still stand for doing this so if you're game, so am I. Also, maybe one of these days I'll let you take me on a real date."

"Yeah?" he asks, trying to fight a smile.

"Sure," she says, turning to her locker again. "Besides, you're not half bad to look at. But I'm telling you now, if you're a bad kisser the whole deal is off."

3. She's Brilliant

Betty tells him to meet her outside the cafeteria before lunch so they can make their entrance together. He's standing just outside the doors when he sees her walking up with the only person he's ever known to be intimidating while wearing a string of pearls.

Making her way right over to him she holds her hand out. "Ready, boyfriend?"

He pretends his knees aren't slightly weak and takes her hand. "You bet."

Veronica Lodge glides by him with the clicking heels of what he assumes are expensive shoes and looks at him from the corner of her eye. Just before she passes him completely he sees a wicked smile on her face as she says in a low tone, "Oh, this is going to be fun."

Betty leads him to her regular table, the one he's so very good at pretending he's not watching every day and sits, indicating for him to sit down next to her. Once he's settled, his nerves of everyone watching Betty Cooper hold hands and sit with the not new yet still newest kid in school start to make him fidget and she grabs onto his leg, stilling him.

"Act natural," she whispers to him. "Do you bring your lunch or buy it?"

"Buy it," he tells her, gesturing to the growing line on the other end of the cafeteria.

She stands, leaving her bag in her chair, grabbing his to do the same as she takes him by the hand once more, pulling him towards the line. "Come on."

"Everyone is staring," he whispers in her ear as they walk. "I mean, seriously, everyone."

"Mmhmm," she murmurs to him, holding his hand tighter. "They are."

"Is this what you expected?"

"I expect worse by the time lunch is over," she informs him softly. "I hope you're alright with PDA, by the way."

"Yeah, sure-" Jughead stops. "Wait, what?"

"Hey, you brought me in on this deal, so we're gonna sell it," she insists, as they grab the trays for their lunches.

Jughead feels like he's walking underwater by the time they get back to the table and sit down. Veronica is staring at him with a knowing gleam in her eye and Archie Andrews is just looking at him confused about what's going on.

Me too, Archie, he thinks.

"What's this, Betty?" Archie asks her, gesturing back and forth between them.

Betty sends him a bright smile as she replies, "Haven't you heard? Jughead's my boyfriend now."

"Jughead? Really?"

"Yup. Is there a problem, Archie?" The sweet tone of her voice sounds like there's danger underneath of it.

"Nope, none," Archie quickly responds, returning to eating his lunch.

Jughead leans over to quietly ask, "What's the point of all of this?"

Laying her head sweetly on his shoulder she tells him, "We're making a spectacle of ourselves."

"I can see that, but why?"

"Jughead, come on. The only thing that moves faster than the speed of light is gossip."

Veronica snorts a laugh from across the table and Betty smiles at her as she reaches to hold his hand again.

By the time they're done eating most of the school has heard about Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones, canoodling at the lunch table with no shame. As they leave and pass by Jason Blossom sitting next to Polly he winks at Jughead, making him wish he could roll his eyes. He wonders if Betty sees it but by the scoff he hears from her, he knows she did.

"I'd feel worse about what we're doing but honestly, Jason's been sending his neanderthal buddies after me for months, usually ones who don't understand the word no," she explains as they move out and into the hallway. "Walk me to class?"

As if I had a choice, he says to himself. He lost control of the situation from the moment the calculating look in her eyes landed on him in the library. "Sure." Taking initiative for the first time that day, he grabs her hand and leads them to Betty's science class.

Stopping outside of the door, she leans into him while playing with the collar of his jacket, pulling him down and kissing the corner of his mouth. "I'll see you later, Jug."

He knows his face is showing the shock the rest of him is feeling as he looks past her into the classroom of everyone watching them. "Yeah, uh, later is good."

Walking away he feels like an idiot, true. But he feels like an idiot who just got kissed by Betty Cooper.