Chapter 11

The next morning, Adrien was sitting patiently waiting on the steps to the college for the ever-late Marinette to arrive when Alya and Nino found him. Alya furrowed her brow, confused as to what Adrien was doing hanging around outside, but they sat down next to him nonetheless and started chatting about the previous night's homework, waiting to talk about their special project until their quartet was complete.

Where are you, girl? Alya thought, looking at her watch. If Marinette was late to class for a third time that week, Alya would run out of reasonably believable excuses to tell their teacher for her.

Just as she looked up, the brunette spun around the corner. Giving her a mock-disapproving look, Marinette responded in kind with a roll of her eyes.

"I'm two minutes early!" she exclaimed to Alya in exasperation.

Alya gave a small chuckle, and noticed out of the corner of her eye that Adrien was suddenly sitting straight up, his eyes fixed intensely on Marinette. He rose to his feet quickly to start walking over to her. When he got in front of her though, he seemed at a loss of what to do.

"Um, hi," he said, giving her an awkward pat on the shoulder.

Marinette, however, was in rare form, and Alya looked on proudly like a crooning mother as Marinette gave Adrien a coy smile, leaning over to kiss him softly on the cheek.

"Hi," she responded, before turning to Alya, grabbing her best friend's hand and pulling her towards the door. "See ya in there, guys!"

Alya dutifully followed, but as soon as they were out of sight, she took her hand from Mari's and fake-punched her in the arm.

"Oh. . Mari! You heartbreaker!" she exclaimed, in awe of her friend's sudden confidence with her crush, and slightly startled by the hardness of the bicep she just punched. When did Marinette become a bodybuilder? She thought.

Marinette just shrugged, trying but failing to conceal her smile. "We...bonded yesterday," she revealed, cryptically.

"You bonded, or your lips bonded?" Alya muttered jokingly, but the sudden blush that erupted across Marinette's face stopped her short.

"OH MY GOD! TELL ME EVERYTHING."

Marinette's blush got deeper, but sighed in visible relief when the warning bell sounded. She started to hurry in the direction of the classroom, Alya following closely behind.

"We are not finished, young lady!" she called after her, but was honestly thrilled for her best friend.

Adrien stood in shock outside the college until Nino walked over, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Hellllooo? Earth to Agreste? Anyone home?"

Adrien swatted at him and tried to compose himself. He was more awkward about this than he thought he'd be. Last night was amazing. Marinette was his Lady, and everything was open between them. No secrets to hide, no act to put on, but he still wasn't sure how to translate that easy relationship when they were alone to the one the world would see. How to explain his connection to this girl, when as far as anyone else knew, they were mere acquaintances until a few days ago? In fact, the beginning of this very week, he had been convinced that she still hated him from the Chloé incident on his first day.

He looked over through the door of the college and could just see Alya interrogating Marinette off in the corner. He didn't know how long he stared, but he felt Nino hovering over his shoulder, looking in the same direction.

"Man, you've got it bad." Nino stated simply.

Adrien didn't bother denying it, grateful as he was for his friend's easy understanding. He turned his head to look at Nino, and noticed his gaze was fixated no less intensely on a certain glasses-clad auburn.

"You're one to talk," he smirked, and Nino lightly shoved his shoulder and started walking into school. He didn't deny it though, Adrien smirked and followed him up the stairs.

"Alright, kids. Dish." Alya, plopped down on the grass in the park across from the college. They had decided to meet during their lunch break to discuss their secret project, but Marinette could tell her best friend had more than just Adela's cold case on her investigative agenda. She had managed to dodge Alya's questions and teasing in between classes, but 2 hours of free time seemed like a sisyphean task, even to this teenage superhero.

To be honest, one of the reasons she had so doggedly avoided engaging Alya was her own confusion over the situation. They had kissed. More than once, she thought with a smile, remembering the night before. The two of them, getting over the initial shock, talked for hours about how oblivious they both were, and about how there were many near-misses where they almost accidentally revealed their identities to each other. It had been peaceful and effortless, and she saw Adrien relax more and more as the night went on. She hoped it gave him a reprieve, if only for a few hours, from all that she knew weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Despite everything though, Marinette was still uncertain. What were they? Friends? Partners? Something more? They hadn't discussed it. Things had seemed obvious the night before, but his hesitation this morning made her think twice. Had last night been a fluke caused by the shock of her reveal, or the start of something real?

She dropped her head into her hands. When her worries started to sound like prose, she was starting to overthink things. She was exhausting herself with her own thoughts. She had made the move this morning, making herself and her position very clear. For the first time, the ball was very squarely in Adrien's court.

Looking back up to a waiting Alya, Marinette took control of the conversation.

"What did you and Nino find out about the picture?"

Alya gave her a look of annoyance for once again avoiding the real question, but Marinette just stared back.

"Fine, keep your secrets. But don't think for one second I'm not interrogating lover-boy the second he gets here," she pointed a finger and wiggled it in Marinette's direction. "And speak of the devil..." She trailed off and waved over Nino and Adrien, who were just at the entrance to the greenspace.

"Pop a squat, guys. We're just about to debrief."

They both sat, Adrien directly next to Marinette so their knees were firmly touching, she noted with pleasure. Maybe not a fluke afterall, she thought with a smile.

"Did you find something out about the picture?" Adrien asked, and she wondered if he wasn't deploying some diversion tactics of his own.

"Oh did we ever. Nino?" As if awaiting this, Nino pulled out his laptop and a post-it laden notebook.

"My god, Alya. A picture's worth a thousand words, but maybe not an entire doctoral dissertation!" Marinette gasped in amazement, and a bit in horror, at the amount of information Alya was going to spew at them. Forget two hours, it would take them two days to go through this.

"That is why, my lovelies, our music man over there has put together a brief presentation for your enjoyment to summarize our findings." Nino nodded, but was studiously setting something up on his computer.

Adrien leaned over to her and whispered, "Why do I feel like I just showed up to class in my underwear?" She giggled, but she completely understood. She suddenly felt very underprepared, but they had other things going on last night. She blushed again thinking about it, and Adrien smiled softly at her, guessing the direction of her thoughts. He took her hand in his, discreetly hidden by their touching knees.

Alya cleared her throat, breaking them out of their shared little world, and directed their attention to the screen of Nino's computer. It showed the picture of Adela that Adrien had memorized by this point, but on it were several red circles and arrows pointing out various aspects of the background with numbers attached to each one.

For the next hour, Alya painstakingly went through each aspect of the image and what it indicated about Adela's surroundings, treatment and possibly where she might be being held.

"So, in conclusion," Alya finally finished in her most polished news reporter voice, "We've narrowed down Adela's location to somewhere in the southern arrondissements, but most likely within a half a kilometer from the Seine, and she's definitely somewhere above ground. I'm betting on somewhere in the 15th or 7th, because of the time of day the picture was taken and the angle of the light through the windows, but that's not definite."

"We also think we figured out where the photo was developed," added Nino.

"Wait, what?" Marinette interrupted. "Like, film developed?"

"Yeah," Nino continued, much more animated than he had been throughout Alya's spiel. "The quality looked weird to me, definitely not digital, but then there's all sorts of crazy filters out there that could maybe create that effect. But then there was the date in the corner too. Digital cameras have that option, but most people don't turn it on. So I had my cousin run an analysis on it for me. He's in uni for filmmaking and photography. He said the camera is definitely at least 30 years old, and basically it some special kind of film that had this grain pattern-whatever that means. Long story short, only 6 places in the city still develop this kind of film. Two are in the 7th arrondissement, so I'd say we start there."

Marinette just sat, mouth gaping, staring at Nino.

"Dude," Adrien exclaimed, raising his hand for a fist bump.

"Why didn't you start with that!" she practically shouted, while Alya just looked on smugly and shrugged.

"Okay, okay, okay. Any leads from the ever-loquacious Gabriel Agreste."

A frown immediately marred Adrien's face as he remembered the strange encounter with his father the day before. Marinette gave his hand a squeeze and answered for them.

"I know he's technically still a suspect in the police reports, but we found evidence to the contrary. And honestly, if you guys had seen him yesterday...there's no way. He obviously really loves Adela, and...we think he's being blackmailed." She trailed off, looking to Adrien to continue.

He looked at her briefly, and then turned to Nino and Alya.

"My father is Hawkmoth."