The ballroom was beautiful.

No, beautiful wasn't quite right. Breathtaking was a slightly more appropriate word.

Unlike the entrance hall, silver and marble dominated the ballroom. Golden lilies twisted and turned, wrapped around the tops of the polished marble columns lining the room, a couple feet away from the walls, between which were tables covered in silver tablecloths either holding platters of bite-size delicacies or showcasing more fashion pieces from the Agreste line. Dark silver vines curled around the outer edges of the dance floor, striking against the snow-white marble, and petals from the flowers that bloomed on the vines fell into the center of the room where the name Agreste was outlined in golden script. The silver chandelier which hung above it all cried teardrops of crystals, casting the whole room in subtle refractions of light in certain places. Even the attendees who seemed to have seen more than a few extravagant parties in their lifetimes admired the room in awe.

Butlers and maids could be seen wandering the room with silver platters, each as beautiful as they come. They held themselves gracefully, offering refreshments or desserts to those they passed. Most people simply nodded at them, not even blinking an eye at the gourmet food being offered to them.

Up until that moment, Marinette had never truly felt the distance between the lifestyles that herself and Adrien lived. Maybe it was the fact that they attended the same school that she was able to ignore that difference. Maybe it was because he always seemed nice to everyone. Regardless, the contrast was suddenly highlighted in heartbreaking detail. What chance would she have with someone like that—a modern day prince?

"Alya! Where have you been? You just suddenly left without saying if you'll be back or not and—" Nino suddenly stopped mid-sentence as he took notice of who exactly was trailing behind the girl. "Ladybug?"

Nino, who had been anxiously scanning the room, now fully turned to stare at her. Marinette had to admit, Nino looked different. Whether it was a good or strange different, she wasn't sure.

The boy wore a formal suit with red borders. That itself wouldn't have been strange, but his usual hat and headphones were missing.

Unfortunately, Nino wasn't the only one to be surprised by Ladybug's appearance. People nearby were already turning at the name and just as Marinette thought that a repeat of what happened outside was about to occur, a new voice spoke up.

"Come on people, don't stop and stare. Don't you all have better stuff to do?"

Marinette turned, fully expecting to see the same woman from earlier. To her surprise though, it was a different woman, despite the similarity in voice. This new woman was dressed in a gown that seemed candy cane themed, if the half-eaten candy cane in her hand was anything to go by. As the woman caught Marinette staring, she smiled.

"I'm Eliza. My sister texted me to watch out for you," she explained. Then she frowned at the handful of people who still surrounded them. "What are you waiting for? Go on, shoo."

With reluctant grumbles, they dispersed back to the dance floor. Eliza smiled at Marinette. "You have fun with your friends tonight. Don't let anyone ruin this for you; you're not helpless."

Touched, Marinette could only nod in reply. And with that, Eliza left.

"Do you know her?"

Marinette turned to see Alya giving her the same unreadable expression. Marinette shook her head.

Nino frowned. He knew Alya enough to know that something was off about the girl. Heck, she hadn't even pulled out her phone in the past few minutes and Ladybug was right there. "Alya, what's up? Why did you bring Ladybug here?"

Ignoring him, Alya continued to fixate her gaze on Marinette. She gestured to the girl's dress.

"This dress...is it yours?"

"M-my dress?" Marinette looked down in fake surprise. Luckily, she'd already thought of an excuse for this. A poor excuse that she had no faith in working, but it was an excuse nonetheless. "Ah, a girl made it for me as a favor. She was going to come in a similar dress—"

"Aha!" Alya pointed accusingly at her. "So you destroyed her dress to be the center of attention!"

"I—what?"

"Yes, I see it now," Alya said, nodding grimly. "You saw Marinette's dress and asked her to make you a similar dress but since you wanted to be the center of attention, you destroyed her dress so that she couldn't come!"

"Alya, that's ridiculous," Nino interrupted. "Ladybug would never do that!"

"Think about it, Nino. Who else could have gotten into her room during the day when they have to get through Marinette's parents first?" Alya argued. "I won't let anyone get away with that, even if it is Ladybug!"

Nino sighed. "Alya, does Ladybug really seem to be the kind of person who would destroy the dress of the person who made her a dress? You've been following her the most out of all of us so you should know the answer to that."

"Well, no, but—"

"Do you really think that Ladybug's that petty?"

"No," Alya admitted. "But—"

"But what?"

"I mean," Alya turned to Ladybug with half-hearted suspicion. "Do you have proof?"

"Well," she said slowly. "I don't have proof that I didn't destroy the dress. But if you ask Marinette, she can tell you that what I said was true. And I talked to her before coming here; her parents said that someone went to her room."

"What? Who?" Alya asked, her brows knitted.

"Er, she didn't say. She probably wanted you to have fun tonight so she didn't tell you," Marinette quickly said, just as her friend whipped out her phone. "She wanted me to surprise you too since you're such a big fan."

Alya studied the girl quizzically.

"C'mon, stop. We still need to find Adrien," Nino reminded. He put a hand on Alya's shoulder who jolted at the contact. "It's about time he came out."

Alya sighed. "You're right. Let's go." She smiled at Marinette. "Sorry, Ladybug. I'm just a little stressed about this whole situation. But if Marinette wants me to have fun, I'll have fun."

Relieved, she smiled back at her friend. "It's okay."

"Great, now that that's settled, let's go find Adrien." Nino clapped his hands together. "Ready, Alya?"

Alya nodded. "Yeah, let's go. Ladybug, you come too."

"Huh?" Marinette asked, confused. "Why?"

Alya rolled her eyes. "Girl, you can back up our claims when we accuse Chloe."

"And Adrien's gonna be ecstatic when he sees that you're here," Nino added with a grin. Then he frowned. "Chloe too, actually."

"What happened to forgetting about revenge for now and going to have fun?" Marinette asked wearily but allowed herself to be pulled after them around the dance floor.

"Seeing Chloe suffer is my idea of fun," Alya replied. "Nino, there's too many people. How are we going to get there?"

"By going around the dance floor," Nino said, weaving through the wallflowers. "Pardon me—We'll get there eventually."

"Eventually," Alya echoed.

"Where are we going?" Marinette asked. As far as she could tell, they were simply weaving around the dance floor. The center of the room was taken up by many people already dancing in pairs to the waltz music which had begun playing during their conversation, without Marinette's notice. Now, what had previously been a place where people mingled and chatted among themselves, the room had transformed into a dance floor with bystanders standing near the sides of the room as others danced near the center.

"The other end of the room," Nino called back, slightly raising his voice over the music. "Adrien said that he will be entering from over there once most people have arrived. Something about his dad wanting to make a suitable entrance or something, I dunno. But we should be there to snag him when he comes out."

"He told you that?"

"I know him," Nino replied, dodging a giggling couple. "You could say I'm his right-hand man. Dude has no secrets from me."

"Wouldn't he come down the staircase at the entrance?" Marinette wondered. "No one's going to see him here; there aren't any stairs or anything for him to stand on."

"Yeah, his dad wanted him to come down from there. Adrien didn't want too big of a scene though." Nino shook his head. "You'd think that the model side of him would love the attention. Anyways, there's the door."

Nino pointed at a large double door less than a dozen meters away. Like many things in the room, the door was outlined in silver. Gabriel Agreste himself stood by the set of doors, a crowd of people surrounding him as the man talked to each of them, a glass of champagne in his hand. As she watched, the man glanced pulled out a pocket watch and glanced at it before clearing his throat.

"Thank you all for coming today. Now, as you may know, the Agreste family is not without an heir. So I now present to you my pride and joy, Adrien Agreste as well as the daughter of the mayor of Paris, Chloe Bourgeois." He stepped to the side of the doors as they opened outward, presenting a very uncomfortable looking Adrien with Chloe clinging onto his arm.

Author's Note:

ALL the references! A couple reviewers already guessed correctly which fandom I've been referencing ;)

Huge thanks to the amazing jg13145 for beta reading this chapter and the next! There's a problem of OOCness in this chapter that I'll attempt to fix/explain in a future chapter so please bear with me .

I already have nearly 8 pages of the next chapter written out and it was supposed to be combined with this one but had it cut since I didn't expect the ball to be so dang long to write. The length, coupled with a family and grade emergency and a few personal problems really delayed this chapter so I apologize for that; heavens forbid I ever have more than an hour's time to write.

Thank you for reading!