"I have to admit, it's not what I expected after reading that note," Alya said, looking at the note once more.
Marinette slouched in her desk chair and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Well, it's not the worst that could have happened, you know? It's...close to what I wanted, anyway.
Alya stepped toward Marinette and pulled her out of her seat into a hug. "Don't worry, it'll work out for the best!" she said, holding her best friend at arm's length. "This way he'll get to know you, I mean really know you, and he'll fall for you anyway!"
Marinette smiled. "Maybe you're right," she said, and it felt like a lie.
Alya looked at her, full of sympathy, but her attention was jerked away by the sound of screaming outside Marinette's window. Alya leapt over to the window and opened it wide, astonished to see an akuma victim reminiscent of a moth flapping by the window, cackling hysterically as she pointed her camera at people. Each click of the camera and a person disappeared, somehow getting sucked up into the lens.
"I need to go!" Alya said, grabbing her cell phone and bag. "Ladybug's gonna be out there any second now! You coming?"
Marinette waved her hands feebly. "Go on. You know how much I hate violence!"
As soon as Alya was out the door, Tikki flew out of Marinette's purse, and the partners in justice nodded at one another. It was time to transform.
Moments later, Ladybug was on the rooftop, chasing down the latest victim of catastrophe in Paris. The moth girl was small with dark skin and curly blonde hair. Her colour scheme reminded Ladybug of mints or the moon, but she didn't seem familiar other than that. At least Chloe hadn't likely caused this akuma, Ladybug reflected. She really knew how to take advantage of small blessings.
She leapt from rooftop to rooftop, chasing after Flashdance as fast as she could without the aid of flight. The moth woman whirled and laughed, focusing her lens on the superherione. Ladybug yelped, and nearly had her picture taken, when a blur of black and blonde pushed her out of the way.
Flashdance growled in frustration, and flew away. "You won't be getting in the way of me taking back what was taken from me!" she said as she dwindled into the distance.
"Miss me, My Lady?" Chat Noir said, helping Ladybug up.
"You're lucky you didn't get snapped!" she replied, glaring in the moth's general direction.
"If any woman snaps me up, it's going to be you," he replied, grinning capriciously.
She rolled her eyes. "You're going to have to stop saying things like that, Chat," she told him. "She's taking photos of people, and wants to take something back...Wasn't there a popular photography exhibition on the other side of town? Maybe she's the photographer from that."
"It's as good a place as any to start," he replied with a shrug, and they were off.
"The Galerie de Agathe," Chat Noir said as they approached the unassuming building they had traced the photographer to. "It doesn't look like much but she must purretty talented to get her work showcased here."
Ladybug laughed despite herself at his pun-which wasn't even one of his better ones-but remained focused on the mission at hand. "Are you familiar with it?" she asked.
He shrugged. His father liked to believe himself a patron of the arts, despite never actually showing up to these kinds of galleries. He sent Nathalie and Adrien in his stead, and so Adrien got a pretty healthy dose of contemporary art in Paris. He obviously couldn't explain all of that to Ladybug, so he settled for, "I know it well enough."
Before the conversation could be finished, Flashdance herself showed up, dragging a 20something year old hipster by his scarf.
"That doesn't look good," Ladybug said dubiously. "We should get in there!"
"I love it when you read my mind," Chat Noir agreed, and they leapt down from their perch to deal with the akuma victim and the akuma victim's victim.
The fight from there on was pretty straight forward. Flashdance had trapped the young man in the gallery, forcing him to look at photos that he apparently did not take, but had stolen from her online gallery. The heroes couldn't exactly condone the actions, but an akuma victim was an akuma victim nonetheless. After destroying part of the ground Flashdance was standing upon, forcing her to flap into flight with very little warning, her camera swung out from her neck, and Ladybug used her red and black spotted scissors to slice the lanyard keeping the camera fastened to Flashdance.
With a solid stomp, the camera was broken, and the akuma was purified. Flashdance turned to a teenage girl with red glasses, simply looking baffled at what was going on. Chat and Ladybug completed their customary fist bump, and fled the scene of the crime.
"You really are something, you know," Chat said, grinning at Ladybug.
"You really have to stop saying things like that," Ladybug replied, sticking her tongue out at him.
"Why? I mean them!"
"Because…" she paused, and she looked away, conflict in her face. "I have a boyfriend."
It was like a punch in the stomach for Chat Noir. On one hand, he was devastated, but on the other he couldn't quite figure out why he was so saddened by this news. Someone as bold and as beautiful as Ladybug had to have a hundred boys chasing her, and surely it was not too much to imagine that one of them had wormed their way into her heart. Still, now he could imagine what Copycat had felt all that time ago.
His shock only showed on his face for a moment, before he smiled. Perhaps (purrhaps) he thought, he could make use of his situation with Marinette in his alter ego lifestyle as well.
"How do you know I don't have a girlfriend?" he asked.
From the look on her face, the idea hadn't occurred to her. Hurtful, but fair, he supposed. After all, he hadn't imagined that she might ever have a boyfriend.
"You're such a terrible flirt!" she admonished, swatting him lightly. "If you have a girlfriend then you can't go around talking like this!"
He laughed. "Well, maybe I don't have a girlfriend. Anyway, why do you need a boyfriend when you've already got a catfriend," he said, leaning close.
She pushed him away, as she always did. "I don't want to end up a crazy cat lady, now do I?" At the near simultaneous beeps of their Miraculous, she waved him farewell, and trotted off to detransform somewhere he couldn't see her.
In his room, later, he sat back at his desk and sighed. He'd pulled up information on Alya's Ladyblog, which reported Ladybug and Chat Noir acting friendly throughout their take down of Flashdance. Alya theorized that Chat and Ladybug knew each other outside of their identities, to support their camaraderie in combat.
"If only," Adrien sighed.
"This is why I don't bother with girls," Plagg said around a mouthful of cheese. "Dairy products don't leave me for better cats."
"He really must be something great," Adrien mused. "After all our time together, all I've gotten is a kiss when I was unconsciously trying to kill her."
"Maybe he's richer than you," Plagg said, and promptly went into a food-coma.
Adrien shook his head, and sat forward to resume looking through Alya's blog when his phone rumbled. A text from Marinette, it seemed. He smiled and opened it, glad to remember that despite the love of his life seeing someone else, at least he had good friends to keep him company.
[Text From: Marinette Dupain-Cheng 5:19 PM]
Hey Adrien! I have some questions about this arrangement of ours. I hope it's not too much trouble! Thank you! I hope you're doing well!
She texted like a grandmother, he noted. It was, in it's own way, pretty adorable. And it was only natural that she be curious about how this ought to work-he himself did not quite know, yet.
[Text To: Marinette Dupain-Cheng 5:20 PM]
I think we can figure it out as we go, so don't worry too much. We just have to pretend to be a bit more physically close in a bf-gf way I think. Are you ok with that? like i might have to touch your shoulders or smthn
He took his phone with him and laid down on his bed. He tried to picture going into class the next day with Marinette, arm around her shoulders. He went so far as to imagine kissing her cheek before he became too embarrassed for his mental story to continue. He covered his face with his hands. How was he going to do this without feeling like he was going to make Marinette massively uncomfortable, not to mention feeling like he was two-timing Ladybug.
But how could he be two-timing someone who wasn't interested in him? She had a boyfriend now and...ah, but he was still faithful to her. He couldn't believe himself.
[Text From: Marinette Dupain-Cheng 5:28 PM]
Whatever it takes to help you!
Adrien looked at his phone curiously. She'd taken quite a while for such a short text. He supposed she was busy designing fashion or hanging out with Alya or whatever it was she did. With a jerk, he realized that he would have to know what she did. If someone smart like Chloe asked why he'd decided to start dating Marinette, he would need to have a reason.
[Text To: Marinette Dupain-Cheng 5:30 PM]
Hey do u thinkg we should come up with a reason why we're dating? Like if someone asks. i'd say something like 'she's really pretty and kind and good at designs!' which sounds believable because all of that is true ;) but whatre u gonna say so it doesnt sound like i blackmailed you
[Text From: Adrie 5:30 PM]
Hey do u thinkg we should come up with a reason why we're dating? Like if someone asks. i'd say something like 'she's really pretty and kind and good at designs!' which sounds believable because all of that is true ;) but whatre u gonna say so it doesnt sound like i blackmailed you
Her heart pounded in her chest. First of all, she couldn't believe that she was just casually texting Adrien. Every fibre of her being was telling her that this was too good to be true. She'd hit her head and was in the hospital, dreaming about Adrien feeling close enough to her to send her texts full of typos and winky faces. But reality was there-this was all a facade. An elaborate fake to keep him distant from other girls.
Still, she couldn't help but be more than thrilled when he described her as 'pretty, kind, and great at designs.' It sounded so genuine...but perhaps he was just a better actor than even she'd given him credit for. With his acting skills and her genuine feelings, this ruse would be easy to pull off.
Marinette sighed and thought about how to respond to this text. Should she really just list out the things that were wonderful about Adrien? She couldn't-he'd catch on to her real motive for pretending to date him, and would never trust her again. She clutched her phone to her chest and wished Alya were there to help compose this text-but Alya was busy with her Ladyblog. With a small smile, she wondered how Alya would react upon finding out that she was devoting all of her freetime blogging about her best friend.
She had read Alya's latest update as it came out, always trying to figure out what conclusion Alya had leapt to this week so that she could continue steering her assumptions away from the truth. This time, Alya thought that Ladybug knew Chat Noir in day to day life. Marinette supposed it was possible, but she simply didn't know anyone that obnoxiously flirtatious.
She'd felt a little guilty, telling Chat that she had a boyfriend. It was technically true, but it felt so much like a lie-and the look upon Chat's face was unbearably pitiful. He'd recovered quickly, but she still couldn't help but feel like her words had taken one of his nine lives.
"How do you know I don't have a girlfriend?" he'd said, grinning wide.
Marinette wondered now if he did have a girlfriend. Was there some lucky lady who had no idea that he was spending his time by Ladybug's side? Maybe he really was just a flirt and all his kind words were typical for him. Maybe it was just that that had his girlfriend love him so much.
For a reason Marinette couldn't quite put her finger on, the idea disturbed her.
"Are you going to answer?" Tikki said, bringing Marinette's attention back to her phone.
"What do I even say, Tikki? He's going to think I'm stupid, or boring, or crazy or...worse, he'll think I'm in love with him," she complained, staring at the text message once more.
"Is that really so bad? He's clearly fond of you!" Tikki insisted.
Marinette sighed. "He told me I'm a good friend today," she admitted. "He only sees me as a friend."
"Friendship is a better basis for a relationship than being enemies, don't you think?" Tikki said, smiling beatifically. "Just say something nice! He'll appreciate it!"
Marinette nodded with renewed determination.
[Text To: Adrie 5:45 PM]
Easy, I'll talk about how much I admire your modeling. Is that convincing enough or too bland? :-)
Hands shaking, she put her phone down in her lap.
"What do you think, Tikki?" she asked.
"I would have talked about his beautiful green eyes," Tikki said, giggling.
[Text From: Adrie 5:46 PM]
Nothing about how i'm a "cool guy" or anything, huh? oh well :p i'll see you tomorrpw at school!
Marinette clutched her phone to her chest, blushing bright pink despite the fact that nobody was there to see it, and fell back onto her bed. It was simply too much for her to handle.