Author's note: Thanks a lot for following, favoring and reviewing this! I'm not quite sure of the review etiquette though! I thought about answering directly (apart from the guests of course), but I didn't want to bother you, so I chose not to. Feel free to express your thoughts though and tell me if you want any answer :D
On a random note, I can't wait for the new episodes to come out!
Adrien achieved one of his two goals; he managed to shake Chloé off himself (the girls had been keeping her busy before and took the responsibility of keeping her company once again), but that burden in his chest did not leave him. He was smart enough to realize the cause of it, but it was just Marinette! He liked Ladybug, he shouldn't be feeling jealous over Marinette. She may as well be her, but they were still 2 different people in his mind. Could his feelings be so fickle? And could Luka really be the guy?
"Bud, are you feeling alright?" asked Nino who was sitting opposite him.
"Eh?" Adrien looked first at Nino and then noticed everyone was looking at him. "I'm ok, sorry," he apologized lingering his gaze towards Marinette longer. She looked at him puzzled and worried. "My mind drifted off a bit," he smiled apologetically.
"No problem, your face just looked like you were in pain."
"Yeah, you were thinking really hard," Alya agreed.
"In pain? Haha, no. I was thinking of work. You know how it is," he kept a cheery voice, although he was surprised he was showing his emotions so easily. He wasn't known for his poker face, but it wasn't so bad.
"Are you sure?" Marinette asked him. He looked at her warmly.
"Yes, sorry for worrying you."
"Oh no, not at all. I mean, it's not that I don't care, just… well, it's ok…" she stopped herself from talking more.
For a while, the conversation flowed easily with Chloé doing her usual antics, the girls trying to help Marinette as much as possible, everyone enjoying their time in different ways and different conversations and Adrien took his mind off Luka and gave in to conversing with everyone.
Marinette was also having the time of her life in this picnic. She was sitting next to Adrien, she could keep a conversation up (with minor speech setbacks), was having fun with everyone and the food was really good. She was happy over Luka coming too. She hadn't met him that many times, but they had common interests and it was fun talking to him.
Soon, Luka arrived and sat between Juleka and Marinette after greeting everyone. Adrien's smile fell a bit, but he didn't notice any special interaction between the two and he had told himself that he had nothing actually against him so he pushed away his irrational thoughts and talked to him normally.
"So, what's up with you guys? We haven't met for a while."
"You know us, still in school and covering Ladybug's adventures," Alya answered. "You can guess which is more exciting."
"Haha, school is like that. Mine isn't all that interesting either, but we have band practice almost every day after school, so it makes up for it," he smiled.
The conversation was moving fluently for a long while, although Chloé seemed to lose more patience by the minute. She was keeping herself busy trying to attract Adrien's undivided attention towards her, although she was failing for the most part as he was participating in other people's discussions, as well.
"How is the band going?" Adrien asked interested after he had answered one of Chloé's infinite questions.
"Pretty good, actually. We got a couple more gigs coming our way. You are all invited of course," he gestured towards everyone.
"That's amazing!" Alya exclaimed and everyone agreed. Juleka was shining with pride for her brother.
"What's so amazing about that?" A voice was heard. Of course, it was Chloé's.
"What do you mean?" Juleka asked defensively.
"He's just playing a guitar. Anyone can do that," she scoffed.
"Can you?" Alya retorted, but Chloé ignored him.
"Unless you can be as popular as Jagged Stone, any fool can pretend to be a musician," she waved her hands and got closer to Adrien. Before anyone could say anything, Marinette stepped in. She refused to let her ruin their day for more than she had already done and letting her run off her mouth like that was not the right thing to do.
"How can you be so rude, Chloé? What do you know about musicians? You can't even do anything on your own and you have the audacity to judge someone else's efforts?" Marinette flared, backed on by the oppressed anger she felt towards her for a while now. She was clenching her fists without even meaning to.
"How dare you!" Chloé gasped.
"No, the real question is how dare YOU! You came along today and what have you done, Chloé? Sit around," she looked at Chloé's hands around Adrien's arm, but held back mentioning him, "order us around and comment negatively on everything and anything. What have you done that earned you the right to comment on others' actions?"
"As you know, I am the mayor's daught–"
Marinette cut her off. "Yes, we all know your dad is the mayor, but that is just your dad. What have you done?"
Chloé's eyebrows shot up, probably because she wasn't used to being spoken to like that and her mouth opened twice, before her face was suddenly restored to her previous nonchalant posture, although even more smug. No one spoke or moved during that pause.
"Oh my, aren't we awfully upset, Marinette?" she almost purred, but her voice always had a snobby edge to it and she couldn't get rid of that.
"What do you mean?" she was confused momentarily, blinded by her anger. There were times she had felt sorry for her and she knew Chloé was her fan, but it seemed that her existence was literally there to torment everyone.
"You seem angry all of a sudden for no apparent reason, no less. Is it because of this boy? What was his name again? Louis? Lucas?"
"Luka!" Juleka shouted. Everyone else, including Luka who was the cause of the fight, was still sitting silently watching back and forth the exchange. They probably hadn't realized it yet themselves what exactly was happening, although at the back of their mind there was this liberating feeling of having someone telling Chloé off. Most of them have talked back to her (or tried to at least) and even Marinette has held her ground against her, but this was more on the unusual side.
"Whatever," she flipped her hair.
"W-what?" Marinette faltered, because she lost the purpose of this conversation. They were talking about Chloé and her ways, so how had this suddenly turned on her?
"What's wrong, Marinette? Are you… shy for some reason perhaps?"
"N-no!" she fought to get her composure back. She could see now where she was getting at and felt her anger coming back up again. Despite her feelings, her face had betrayed her as a warm red was blossoming on her cheeks. She wanted to shake her head to lessen the blushing, but also couldn't really help feeling rightfully embarrassed with Adrien AND Luka right over there. She liked both of them (differently, of course) and she would hate having Adrien misunderstand. "I… just don't understand how you could be so insensitive sometimes, Chloé!" This time her voice was calmer, yet firmer.
"I am insensitive?" she asked offended.
"I thought you were a fan of Ladybug. Do you think she would approve of this behavior?" Marinette ventured knowing first hand Chloé's loyalty towards her superhero identity.
"I'm best friends with Ladybug, of course she supports me! She knows fully well as I that I'm being nice to others!"
Everyone knew she was lying through her teeth, even Luka who hadn't seen her before and Adrien who looked at her funny. She ignored their gazes though and sat back in her chair, her arms crossed.
"That's not true!" she couldn't control her mouth. She shouldn't have continued towards that line of questioning, but she was lying and she didn't know how to back off right now. She was still sitting down, but her fists were still clenched, she could feel the nails biting a bit into her flesh, her face was almost on fire, but most of all, she could feel sitting straight up and looking Chloé eye to eye. Adrien was sitting right next to her and he felt his gaze on her too together with everyone else's and she had no idea where she could hide now. Did she even want to hide when it had come to this?
"What did you say?" Chloé turned her head towards her sharply.
"I said it's not true. Ladybug and Chat Noir are the city's protectors. They would never approve of your bullying!"
"What baseless accusations are these?! I'll call my dad," she took her phone out of her purse and was ready to start dialing.
"That's what you always–" Marinette flared up again before getting cut off by Adrien who put his hand on Chloé's phone and spoke, breaking the unnatural stillness everyone had until then.
"Now now, there is no need for that," he tried to smooth things over with a smile.
"There is always time to tell dad about people harassing me," Chloé defended herself.
"HARAS–" Marinette moved forward a bit, but Adrien put his other hand on her shoulder gently and looked at her, effectively stopping her at her tracks.
"You are both a bit over the edge currently. You should calm down for now," he addressed both of them with almost an apologetic smile. How could Marinette go against him?
Once Adrien spoke, everyone else seemed to wake up from their stupor and tried to revive the conversation, but it was hard to do that as everyone felt a bit awkward, especially Juleka since it was her own brother Chloé had insulted. Adrien was trying to contain her and Marinette wasn't speaking much, since she was mentally berating herself and thinking how much of a fool she had made of herself for Adrien to step in.
She was absentmindedly playing with a cookie in her hands, answering Alya's and Rose's questions whenever they tried to lure her into their fun, but couldn't very well follow up.
"Thank you for sticking up for me," suddenly a voice from her right was heard close enough to her ear, so she was the only one who could hear it.
"Eh?" she turned her head abruptly, taken aback. She saw Luka's face really close to hers and moved back a few centimeters with wide eyes.
"For before, when that blond girl, Chloé, was talking about me," he clarified. He seemed sincere, but a small smile grew on his face watching her jump like that.
"Ah, it was nothing," she awkwardly smiled crushing the cookie by accident. "She is always like that."
"It wasn't nothing! I don't think I could handle her, especially like you did."
"I'm sorry, it was too much, wasn't it?" she apologized dropping her head a bit.
"It was great! It surprised me to be honest. I'm used to express my feelings through the guitar, but you did it so easily without any of that. Impressive, really."
"Th-thanks you." She mumbled all embarrassed again. "I mean, you know, thanks… to you," she stuttered a bit, laughing to cover it up.
"Haha, I know," he warmly laughed with her and she felt comfortable enough to look at him instead of avoiding his face, because of her mistakes.
"Guys, I think it's time to go." Alya said loudly so she could be heard by everyone. "It's almost evening and judging by the clouds, it may rain," she pointed upwards, but to Marinette it was obvious she was trying to break them up, because everyone was still awkward. She couldn't help blaming Chloé, knowing that if she hadn't come at all, everyone would still be there having fun. Because of her, she couldn't even look at Adrien anymore; half of embarrassment and half of not wanting to see her clinging even more to him.
Despite her thoughts, she stole a glance towards him once Alya had spoken and for one unnerving second, she could have sworn Adrien was looking at her with the corner of his eye. But she blinked and the moment was gone and she was sure she must have imagined it, because why would he be looking at her? Or maybe he was silently judging her for before? She blushed at the thought and chastised herself looking away.
"Marinette?" Luka nudged her shoulder.
"Wh-what?" She jumped a bit, coming back from her thoughts.
"Do you want to go home with us?" he pointed towards himself, Juleka and Rose.
"Yeah, Marinette! We'll take the bus," Rose nodded happily.
"Hmm? But we came with Adrien, it would be impolite to not return back all together," she explained, but Luka was already pointing towards him.
"I don't think there will be a problem."
Marinette turned her head again, only to see Chloé in one of her moods. Adrien was trying to calm her down, but she refused to listen at that moment. She heard him mention that she wasn't treating us right and that he thought they had already talked about her behavior towards the rest, but she wasn't having it.
Not again. Marinette thought dejectedly.
"Chloé, are you feeling ok?" Marinette heard Alya asking her. She was surprised Alya would care that much, but she looked back at her again.
"No, I'm not feeling ok!" she repeated. Marinette was about to roll her eyes, but Alya was already standing and going towards her. "What do you want? Hey, don't touch me!" she demanded trying to push her away, but Alya ignored her and touched her forehead.
"You're running a fever."
"She is?" Adrien seemed worried and touched her forehead himself. "She's right, you're burning up just a tad," he seemed surprised.
"Awww, poor Chloé," Rose chimed in.
"I knew there must have been a reason for you to be worse than usual today," exclaimed Alya, but before Chloé could answer, she continued. "I noticed later on that your face was more red than usual, but thought maybe it was the natural light not agreeing with you, at first."
"What? How dare you?!" she shouted, but then she put her hand on her head, as if she were dizzy and Adrien caught her just in case. "Ah, Adrien, can you please take me home, right away?" Her voice dropped a couple notches.
Marinette was caught between seriously rolling her eyes watching her being a drama queen and actual guilt for possibly making her feel worse before. She never meant to fight with her, much less when she was apparently sick. She felt that apologizing would be the right thing, but couldn't bring herself to do it when she saw her grab the chance to monopolize Adrien.
"Sure, Chloé. We'll clean up and go home with everyone else."
"No! I'm not feeling well, I want to go home right now!" she pouted and then added. "Please?"
"Chloé…" he started, but Nino cut him off.
"Dude, it's ok. You can take her home and we'll return once we are done here. No worries," he thumbed up.
"Are you sure?" Adrien looked a bit dejected himself and guilty to just abandon them there. After all, Chloé wasn't his priority in this outing, but he couldn't leave his oldest friend there alone.
"Of course. Right, guys?" Nino asked everyone else. They agreed readily. The girls wanted to help Marinette more, but they knew it wasn't the right time or place for that, since Chloé would only make it worse.
Everyone got up and started picking up things, while Adrien was helping Chloé with her things to walk back to the parked car. Marinette was picking the bowls from the ground, trying to hide her disappointment, when Adrien came next to her and whispered close to her ear.
"I'm sorry for today."
"Ah? N-no, um… For what?" she stumbled over her words, but continued. "It's not your fault. She wasn't feeling well and I, well… I shouldn't have shouted at her. I should apologize," she looked towards her, but made no move.
"She can be a bit difficult… or a lot, I suppose," he almost chuckled.
"… I suppose." Marinette tried to smile back.
"Adrien!" Chloé's shrill voice came around.
Adrien looked apologetically to Marinette, excused himself to everyone and left with her. Marinette stood there for a few seconds watching their backs, Chloé leaning towards him feigning weakness so Adrien could help her up, which he did, because he cared.
If only he could do that to me… She sighed and was about to turn when she saw Chloé turning her head behind her, looking at her and sticking her tongue out. She frowned, but the second Chloé turned forward, Adrien looked back at her smiling and his gaze lingered a bit longer, before they took a turn and she couldn't see them anymore.
