Some time ago, Nino Lahiffe was reading a comic book at the school library. He was humming a tune to himself; a song on the radio he had heard earlier that day.
Just as he began to subconsciously beatbox, his best friend Adrien walked up to him.
"Hey-hey, if it isn't the man of the hour!" Nino said smugly.
"Where is it?" Adrien demanded, not even flinching.
"Where's… what?" Nino replied back, feigning obliviousness.
"Come on, Nino! I saw it in your hand just a few minutes ago. Stop being a jerk and give it!"
Nino, chuckling, reached into his bookbag and pulled out a small notebook. Adrien immediately swiped it.
"I'm really sorry, dude," he giggled. "I was gonna give it back right away, honest."
"Uh-huh." He noticed Nino giggling. "You saw, didn't you?"
"Maybe…" Nino accentuated.
Adrien's face scrunched up, and his cheeks flushed a deep red.
"So, you want to tell me what's going on there or what?" Nino pried.
Adrien sheepishly looked off to the side for a minute, before he finally closed his eyes and sighed. He flipped through his own notebook, taking note of all the doodles of Ladybug inside, some infested with hearts.
"Okay, fine" he muttered. "I… I have a crush on Ladybug. Okay? It's not a big deal."
Nino scoffed. "You're right, it's no big deal! It's nothing to be ashamed of! Half of the guys in our school are practically in love with her. You should see Mich-"
"Yeah, but I still don't want anyone to know," Adrien interrupted, speaking softly as he could. "Please, just keep it between you and me, okay?"
Nino stifled a giggle, but Adrien narrowed his eyes. With a nervous gulp, Nino rapidly nodded.
"Okay, alright, dude! We're cool! I promise I won't tell anyone. Scout's honor."
Adrien breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, dude."
"No problem," he said, patting Adrien on the back. "What are best buds for?"
"I don't know, how about not peeking at my notes without asking me?" Adrien retorted, glaring at him.
Nino just shrugged and gave a nervous smile. But Adrien took a seat and groaned loudly, bowing his head.
"It's not like it matters much," he bemoaned. "I doubt she would ever love me back. I don't think she even knows I exist."
"What makes you say that, bro?"
"Because I saw her once, when I was just me. Well… just me going about my day, I mean. It was the day that freaky meme was running amuck all over Paris. That's when she saw me. I looked at her, she looked at me, and… I could see it in her eyes."
Nino frowned.
"She clearly didn't know who I was."
If only you knew just how wrong you were, bro…
The day after his photoshoot in the park, Adrien was now deeply rooted into his fencing practice. His fencing partner was giving it his all, but luckily, so was Adrien, and the two were fiercely matched.
In the midst of all the fighting, Alya poked her head in through the gymnasium door. Noticing the locker room unoccupied, she carefully snuck past all of the fencers and made it into the locker room.
It was a stroke of luck that Alya was even able to figure out which of the numbered lockers was Adrien's. She had Adrien's phone in her hand, and it was open on a picture of Chloé Bourgeois gleefully wrapping her arm around Adrien's shoulder in front of his open locker. It was pretty clear by Adrien's expression that the selfie was not of his consent.
But the important detail for Alya was that she could just make out the numbers of the lockers adjacent to his in the picture, this allowing her to pinpoint which one it was.
As she walked up to it, she reached out to open it, but then began to hesitate. Thinking of Chloé caused Alya to flashback to the last time she had suspicions about one of her classmates being a superhero: the incident that pushed her to become Lady Wifi.
"She's guilty of invasion of privacy! I have proof!"
"What? Seriously!? All I did was take a measly photo!"
"You're suspended for a week, Alya."
"She's no superhero, she's super-psycho!"
"I'm Lady Wifi, and I'll expose the lies of anyone who covers up the truth!"
The memory of these events caused Alya's eyes to water up. Shaking her head, she took a ferocious look at the locker, and started to walk away.
"I jumped to conclusions once before, and all it did was get me in a lot of trouble and hurt my friends," she lamented. "I'm not going to make that same mistake again, especially not with a close friend like Adrien."
Just as she was about to walk away completely, a single noise cut her thoughts.
"Burp!"
Alya whipped her head around.
"That… sounded like it was coming from his locker…"
She bit her lip as she mulled over what to do, but decided it was worth checking out. Pulling out a hair pen, she fashioned it into a lockpick and picked open Adrien's locker with a wincing face.
She yelped when she saw what was inside.
A small, black bug-like creature lay inside Adrien's locker, sleeping on top of Adrien's gym bag with a piece of cheese over his chest. It was snoring rather loudly.
"What… is that thing? Some sort of tiny black… cat?" she thought to herself.
The creature rolled over in his sleep. "No more… no more camembert, please…" it muttered. "Well, okay… Maybe one or two more…"
"It talks?"
Cautiously, she picked the creature up by its stubby leg and tried to speak to it.
"Um… hello? Excuse me?"
"Just five… five more…" it muttered.
Losing patience, Alya shook the creature up and down, until it finally began to stir.
"Okay, I'm up, I'm up! Geez!" he shouted.
"Ummm… just, what… are you?" Alya inquired.
Plagg's eyes shot open as he realized his situation and he began to flail his arms around nervously, before instinctively assuming a stiff robot-like position. He began to move his body around as if he were a wind-up toy.
"Hello! I am your friend, Mr. Happy-Cat!" he said, in a robotic voice. "Play with me! Play with me!"
"Yeah, nice try," Alya responded.
"Won't you please play with me?" Seeing that Alya wasn't convinced, he began to move erratically and declared, now with stifled anger in his voice, "Caution! Caution! I am a defective toy! If you don't put me down now, I'm going to shock you!"
Alya huffed. "Look! I know you're not a toy, I saw you sleeping! And… I also know that Adrien is Chat Noir," she said for the first time with confidence.
Plagg grumbled nervously.
"Please… can I borrow you for just a few minutes?" Alya pleaded. "I just want to ask you some questions for an interview, and then I promise I'll be out of your hair and you can go right back to sleep."
"I don't know," Plagg replied. "I don't think Adrien would like me doing that…"
Alya, determined not to lose her only lead, scanned Adrien's locker for valuables. She noticed a container marked "Camembert", and instantly struck an idea. She picked it up and held it in front of Plagg.
"Hey. Is this yours? This… camembert cheese?" Plagg started to sweat. "That's right. I heard you talking in your sleep. You like this cheese a lot, don't you…?"
"Yaahh! That's mine! Give it back!" Plagg begged, trying with all his might to grab it.
But instead, Alya took the cheese box and tossed it into her own bag.
"I'll tell you what. I'll give this back to you, but in return you have to give me just five minutes of your time. Sound like a fair deal, little bug?"
Plagg crossed his arms, trying to resist her dastardly trick. But finally, he gave in.
"Ugh, fine."
"Awesome!"
Meanwhile, Nino was once again in the library.
This time however, he wasn't reading a comic book. Instead, he was on a computer.
On his screen was a picture of Marinette, scanned in from one of the many pictures he'd taken of his fellow classmates on his phone. Marinette was smiling at the camera with her arms at her sides.
Nino took a moment to fret over this picture. Then, he clicked over to the other picture he had open in Photoshop. It was a photo of Ladybug taken straight from a newspaper article. She was smiling courageously, and had her arms at her sides similarly to Marinette, but with her trusty yo-yo in one arm.
Nino squinted as he tried to discern the two photos in conjunction with each other. Then, he went for a more practical method. Using the Lasso tool, he cut out Ladybug's mask from the picture, and pasted it in front of Marinette's face.
All of a sudden, it was like he was looking at a picture of Ladybug wearing his friend's clothes.
"I just… can't believe I never saw this before," he thought out loud. "I've known Marinette for who knows how long, and… Ugh, seriously! Both of them, blue pigtails!? It's so freaking obvious, and yet-"
"Umm, Nino?"
Nino tensed up. He immediately minimized his work, and then turned to face…
"Oh… H-hey, Marinette, what's happening?"
"I'm not interrupting you doing something important, am I?" Marinette asked.
"Uhhh… no, I was just… writing something for the school paper!" Nino lied. "Yeah, Alya's letting me write an editorial on, uhh… the freshest… beats for… students to jam out to on Homecoming night! Yeah!"
"Okay…" Marinette eyed him weirdly, but continued. "I just wanted to ask if you knew where Alya is. I haven't seen her at all since we were in the park together yesterday."
Nino sighed. "I'm sorry, Marinette. I haven't seen her anywhere either."
"Man, where is she? I really need her help figuring this whole thing out!"
"Why? Is… something up?"
Nino wasn't sure what was going on, but he wanted to be there for his friend, as well as his girlfriend. He got up from the computer to stand alongside Marinette, but she glumly looked down and went to sit at a nearby table instead.
"It's… it's something I can't tell you about, Nino. I don't… I don't think you'd understand."
"Marinette…" Nino sat down across from her, and put a hand on her shoulder. He smiled with conviction. "It's okay. I, uh- I already know."
"Wait, you do?" Marinette groaned. "I guess Alya did tell you after all..."
"Oh no, she's not the one who… Well, I mean- it wasn't her fault, I sort of accidentally saw you ch-"
"You haven't told anyone else, have you?" Marinette interjected.
"No! No, of course not! Your secret's totally safe with me," Nino assured, placing his hand over his heart.
"Okay, good." Marinette sighed in relief. "The last thing I need right now is for everyone else in the school to breathe down my neck about my crush on Adrien, especially Chloé."
"Your cr-" Nino stammered out. "Wait… what?"
"Alya told me that she talked to Adrien and he just wants me to be 'myself' for this big party thing. But I have no idea what he means by that! I don't know what part of me he truly likes and would be really wowed by!" Her face slumped completely down to the desk and she cried out in a muffle, "What does it matter, anyway? Adrien barely even knows I exist."
"Marinette, I… I don't…"
Nino's mind raced at a thousand thoughts per minute.
"Marinette has a crush on Adrien? Ladybug has a crush on Adrien!? Then… then that means Adrien was wrong! When he told me a while ago that Ladybug didn't know who he was! But she does know him! What am I supposed to say here!?"
Before this conversation could get anywhere else, a large boom shook the whole building. Everyone in the vicinity immediately began to stand up and panic.
"Look! The city's under attack!" Kim shouted, looking out the window.
"It looks like another one of those akuma baddies!" said his friend Max.
Marinette and Nino gasped simultaneously.
"We have to hide!" they both said.
"You hide over there, I'll go find somewhere safe!" said Marinette.
"Wait, why? You can just…" Then Nino paused. "A-actually, you know what, you're right! It'd… it'd be better for us to split up! Good thinking, Marinette!"
Marinette looked at him oddly, but ran off anyway. Nino watched as she took off down the halls. At the other end, Adrien was running through the building, looking around desperately.
"Plagg?" he called out. "Plagg, where are you!?"
"…and then all he has to do is say 'Claws out!' and the ring just kind of sucks me in and I end up working my magic," Plagg was in the middle of explaining. "I don't have a lot of control over it, so it gets kind of annoying sometimes. But yeah, that's pretty much how it works."
He took another bite of cheese, while Alya paced around the empty staff room they were both chatting in, jotting down notes on her pad.
"Wow, this is all so amazing… Plagg, right? Is that with one 'g' or two?"
"Two… I think."
"I just… can't believe I've been sitting behind Chat Noir this whole time!" Alya gushed. "One of Paris's great superheroes, right there in our classroom!"
Plagg let out a huge yawn.
"Can we stop now? I should be getting back soon before he starts to wonder where I am, and before my sleep schedule gets totally thrown off."
"Of course, absolutely! Just uh… one more question," said Alya, still trying to contain her excitement. "So, this is just a minor formality that doesn't mean a whole lot to me personally, it just helps fill in some details. You wouldn't be able to tell me… who Ladybug really is under the mask, could you?" she asked, barely concealing her huge, ecstatic smile.
Plagg stared at her for a moment, and then just shrugged.
"You… don't want to tell me who she is?" Her face drooped, as her eagerness shifted to disappointment. "Alright, well that's… fine, I guess. I get it, privacy and all that. I didn't mean to pry."
"It's not so much that I don't want to tell you," Plagg clarified. "It's just that I really don't know who she is."
Alya blinked several times in confusion.
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"I just… don't!" he shot back. "It's not mine or Adrien's responsibility to know Ladybug's real identity."
Alya's eyes shifted around as she pondered these words. "Are you saying that… Chat Noir doesn't even know who his loyal crime-fighting partner really is?"
Plagg nodded.
"But- but, that doesn't make any sense!" she exclaimed. "He and Ladybug have so much great chemistry, and they're amazing as a team! I was sure they must be a couple, or at least extremely close friends!"
"I don't know what to tell you, kid. When Tikki and I were assigned to find the next Ladybug and Chat, we both went our separate ways and picked our heroes out on our own. It's what we always do."
"Wait… Tikki?"
"Yeah. She's Ladybug's Kwami. I've known her for thousands of years. She's pretty cool." Alya didn't respond. "Um… are you okay there, Alya?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. It's just…" She put a finger to her chin as she tried to think. "Tikki. I can't help but feel like I've heard that name before…"
"Hmm. Well anyway, yeah she's really nice. Although between you and me, she can be a little high-strung sometimes. Makes her kinda difficult to work with, if you catch my drift." He finished his sentence with a burp.
Alya decided to shrug off the mystery of Tikki and hastily wrote down the rest of Plagg's answers.
"Ohh, this is such a hot scoop!" she said, sounding eccentric again. "So, thousands of years you've been doing this? Then that means my theory about there being multiple Ladybugs throughout history was correct!" Her smile faltered again as she realized something. "Huh. Well, now I'm confused as to why 'our' Ladybug had that textbook from our school then… And, come to think of it, why was Marinette trying to convince me that-"
"Plagg!" a familiar voice called out. "Plagg, are you in there?"
Plagg shot up and jittered. "Oh no, it's Adrien!"
Alya immediately opened up a cabinet nearby and crouched inside of it.
"I'll hide, you just pretend I'm not here," she whispered, and then shut herself inside.
"Huh? But why are you-"
Before he could say another word, Adrien burst through the door.
"Plagg, there you are!" he said exasperatedly. "What have you been up to!?"
"Uhh, well… I uh…"
"You can explain later! Right now, there's an akuma attacking! Plagg, CLAWS OUT!"
Plagg found himself being sucked in again, as Adrien commenced yet another transformation into the bringer of bad luck, Chat Noir.
"Time to go save everyone again!" And with that, Chat whipped out his baton and used it to climb up and out through the window. "YAHOO!" he shouted, taking off towards the villain of the day.
Once he was gone, the cabinet creaked open again. It actually wasn't shut all the way. Alya slipped out with her camera in her hand, her face aglow with shock and amazement.
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! I got to see Adrien transform into Chat Noir live and in-person, and I got it all on camera!"
