Are we famous

It was the last afternoon that the students were to spend in the temple. The weather was sunny and fine and there were different activities they could enjoy before the time to prepare the last dinner for this group of students and everyone was distributed to different tasks. The government guide took pity on the beaten up kids and relieved them of the water duty for the whole day, and most of the cleaning part, so they walked around the temple and enjoyed the sun.

It turned out that Alya had sent strange requests for all the photos from their whole trip in china to Ling and Ye too, with a rather unbelievable excuse so the two older teens decided not to do it. Ling even replied that the current network was too slow (which was not entirely true but not completely a lie either).

"Perhaps there is nothing wrong with Alya." Adrien spoke quietly. Marinette flipped her head towards him so quickly that her neck hurt her. "Perhaps someone had stolen her phone." Adrien frowned. He had some experience with issues like these, although he never had to deal with those himself, there were people in the company paid to do that.

The three other teens stared at the boy. Each of them got to the same conclusion. That would explain the odd messages Marinette's cousins got, but why would someone steal the phone and then demand more information than was already there. It did not make much sense.

"That is why nobody is allowed to have phones at the secret photo shoots and that is made common knowledge." The boy spoke up. "It is not about the device, it is the information on the phone that can be sold."

Ye and Ling had incredulous looks on their faces, they were not buying that.

"Or they are not satisfied with the information on the phone and want more?" Ye shrugged.

"There is no limit to human greed." Ling shook her head.

"That makes sense." Marinette shrugged. "It still does not explain why they did not contact me." She was doubtful they had all the information needed to reach the right conclusion.

"Perhaps … Perhaps they do not know about you?" Ling said as she wondered what could be the reason. That did not make much sense either, although Marinette avoided sending any photos so it was possible that whoever took the phone missed her as a possible source of more informaiton.

All three teens shrugged while Adrien decided to type a short message to Nino to check if Alya's phone was stolen. All four of them decided that was sufficient and wanted to move on to brighter subjects.

"So, we are going to Paris?" Ling was practically jumping with excitement while she spoke. It was obvious that was all she wanted to talk about.

"Well if Chloe or the Mayor of Paris invited you, then you are definitely going." Marinette smiled back. She used the tone that stated clearly they were not really given the choice not to go. She knew how determined Chloe could be. "I am just not sure if you want to be her guests." the girl shuddered when she remembered what Chloe was able to say or do, she did not want her cousins to be exposed to that. But then, perhaps she would be nice to them, it was not possible to know in advance.

"Why?" Ling frowned. Being invited as guests of Mayors daughter was certainly an honour, why would anyone avoid it was beyond the older teen.

"She can be … difficult." Marinette looked towards Adrien before she chose the last word and he nodded approvingly. She was still worried about insulting his childhood friend. Little did she know how far from an insult she had been.

"How difficult?" Ye cut in. He had few experiences with other kids that were marked as difficult. Aside from exhausting attention seekers, the kids were usually just fine, just had some quirks of their own, nothing much.

"Well she is the Mayor's daughter." Marinette shrugged. "She likes to treat everyone as her servants." She took a deep breath. "Sometimes she can be a real brat."

"A spoiled brat?" Ye asked incredulously and Marinette nodded.

"Is not that a shame for a politician? To have a spoiled child who is abusing his position?" Ling asked curiously.

"Um, not really, not always, at least not with her." Marinette replied lost in thought. She remembered just how many times Chloe threatened with calling her daddy whenever something was not according to her wishes.

Adrien was busy checking messages from Chloe and Nino on his phone. He smiled and Marinette was relieved. The boy either did not hear or did not mind what she said.

"I agree about Chloe. But apparently some other people considered me a brat too." He smirked.

Marinette bowed her head in shame.

"What?" Ye asked.

"Who?" Ling exclaimed.

Marinette raised her hand as if she was asking the teacher for attention ins school and nodded sheepishly as she admitted she was the guilty party.

"Well, I am sorry about making that wrong conclusion about you." Marinette spoke quietly.

"No, this is not just about the way we met in school." Adrien teased. "Apparently my legal guardian had a certain opinion about me too, but it is cleared up now." He grinned as he showed his phone again, but nobody wanted to read the correspondence and he was not in the mood to go into details.

"Well, you have a way with people." Marinette teased back relieved this was not about that gum incident, again.

"Um, yes, apparently." Adrien admitted as he bowed his head down and retrieved back his phone.

"I do not like this conversation, it turned too serious." Ling complained.

"We were talking about us going to Paris." Ye reminded them all.

"Apparently all of us are invited by the Mayor and you can stay with Chloe." Adrien narrowed his eyes while he was reading the most recent post from Chloe on her social network account. But that got them exactly to the starting point of their conversation and the other three teens went silent again.

Adrien smirked, he wondered if Chloe was aware she was inviting Marinette's cousins because one of her messages mentioned that the two students might be invited to stay in her suite. He said nothing out loud. Perhaps Chloe was changing for the better and decided to be a nice host to the civilian heroes who helped defeat a Parisian villain although they had never been there. Or perhaps the clue was in her last message 'You showed those two superheroes how to fight a villain.'

"Anyway, you are coming to Paris and if you do not want to stay with Chloe, who definitely can be a brat … " Adrien started. He wanted to offer his own room, but he was not sure if it was really in his power to offer that. He also understood that it was not a good idea to just let the two teens stay with Chloe if the girl turned inhospitable out of pure whim.

"You can stay in my pink room." Marinette pointed towards Ling. "And you can stay in the small guest room downstairs." She pointed towards Ye. The young teen knew better than to throw her cousins at Chloe's mercy. She was ready to give the girl a chance, but not really throw everything on it. It will take a lot of time for Marinette to trust her again, and to throw her cousins at her mercy? That was a bit too much to ask.

"You know, according to Chloe, nobody published my name, any of our names, because the two of us are minors and they do not know the others." Adrien smirked. "They just recognized my face on the live stream." He was not sure how many people recognized Marinette in the video. He was not sure Chloe recognized her in the video because she never mentioned her in any of the messages.

"I did not find a single piece of news where our names are published, they just mention me as a minor without my name and request that nobody posts the snapshots from the fight without our faces blurred." Adrien continued.

"So we are not famous?" Ye said jokingly.

"Where is my fifteen minutes of fame?" Ling asked the skies in mock exasperated tone.

"I think the fight took longer." Marinette frowned and then winked at her cousin.

"Oh you are famous, they just do not know your names." Adrien replied. "Or they do, but need your agreement in order to publish them."

"That is exactly what that journalist asked me in that message I got. Now I understand." Ling replied.

"Well if my face is blurred, then they do not know my face either." Ye mock complained and even emphasized his feign frustration by raising his hands. He wanted to continue with their banter.

Everyone laughed.

"Oh, you will be famous as soon as you are seen with Adrien, that is for sure." Marinette teased.

"You mean I did not have to fight?" Ye asked in mock exasperation.

"Nope." Marinette waved her head.

"I took all those blows for nothing?" Ye continued.

Marinette nodded her head.

"All we had to do was to take a few selfies with Adrien?" Ling raised her eyebrows.

"Um yes, that is the reason most people take selfies with me, actually." Adrien looked to his feet. He was a bit saddened with his realisation. Really, Chloe and Lila were truly using him and his fame for their own self promotion.

"But we have so many photos with you and never published any." Ling smiled as she waved her phone. Adrien laughed back. He enjoyed being treated like a normal human being, he warned them only not to publish his name and avoid his photos because his father or Nathalie might stumble upon the photos and he wanted to keep his travel a secret. But now there were no more obstacles for them to publish those photos.

"Don't speak so loud." Ye whisper shouted. "They will hear you. Someone will steal your phone" The boy said pretending to be a spy from a film.

They all laughed.

"Well, someone wants me to send her all the photos, you know?" Ling waved her phone again.

Adrien frowned his face again and opened the messages he exchanged with Nino.

"Alya has her phone but claims she did not send out any messages since last night, she is busy with her sisters. Nino finally sent her an email and she replied from her computer." The boy read the message. That did not make sense to the boy. If Alya still had her phone, then she was really asking for all that information? She said she did not. Then who did it and how?

"Okay, then someone snatched her account in the messenger application. That is easily done from a computer, you just need the phone number, but if she does not see the messages that were sent, then someone tampered with her phone." Ye shrugged.

"I'm writing Nino to contact Max." Adrien replied quickly and typed.

"Okay, but really, what about that being famous stuff?" Ling asked incredulously as the subject shifted to serious again and she was in the mood for joking.

"Do we have to pose for more selfies now?" Ye said as he snapped a picture of the four of them, none of them had a pose and Adrien barely raised his eyes from the phone.

"Oh, you do not need selfies, you can just run around Paris with him while you are wearing your pyjama for fifteen minutes and you become famous." Marinette joked about the day she helped him reach the cinema to see the film starring his mother.

Adrien laughed his heart out while he stared at the sky. Then they told the story together about that day and everything that happened until the moment Gorzilla took Adrien from the cinema.

"Okay, so far this is how I understood you deal with fame." Ye snickered and took a short pause while he spoke, he inhaled deeply to increase the dramatics and emphasise the words he was about to say. "Don't panic and bring a towel." He was barely suppressing his laughter at first, but him and Ling were laughing their hearts out as soon as he finished talking. Adrien joined them in laughter but Marinette missed the point.

"That is form the Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy." Ling said once she calmed down.

"That is sci-fi I read just before I joined school." Adrien explained how he knew.

"Ah, you mean the towel on my head? I also had googles." Marinette smiled back.

"I hope we will be able to walk around Paris without a helmet, a towel and the googles." Adrien sighed. He was used to fame and he did not enjoy it.

"What else do they say about us?" Ye asked as Adrien opened yet another news site.

"Apparently, Ling, you are very skilled film maker, they praised the way the composition of the video turned out?" Adrien laughed as he read and finished with a question.

"I hid wherever I could and just kept the phone out." Ling grinned.

"Ye has amazing fighting skills, it is obvious he trained several combat sports." Adrien continued.

"Well, I did have gym class in school." Ye flexed his muscles, assumed a fighting position and then made a few moves as if he was fighting, but in slow motion. But the older boy also struggled to keep his face straight as he wanted to burst into laughter again. It did not help him that all three other kids were laughing at his antics.

"And Pema and Dorje show how the monks trained ancient combat skills." Adrien nodded his head. Marinette was silent. That was probably the only truth in the article so far. "They discuss many martial arts, I doubt any of them is ancient or taught in this temple."

"I train fencing, but they knew that." Adrien continued as he read the article. "They do not mention my name, so I assume they were writing about me in this part." He continued and then he burst out laughing. "There is some crap about me learning Chinese and I do not even know what they wanted to say with this sentence it is meaningless."

All three read were laughing as Adrien was reading the endless sentence full of long words that did not have any information or meaning.

"Marinette she … " Adrien could not read aloud, translate or interpret. Soon his eyes became wet and he pulled her into a hug. She hugged him back. She did not know what was written in that stupid article that made him so sad. Or was he sad? He was crying and he held her tight, but he did not seem sad.

Adrien gave the phone to Ling and pointed to the text while he held the girl.

"The young girl who faced Hawk Moth did not spare herself one single moment. She threw herself between the villain and the others, she was willing to sacrifice herself to save the boy … blah blah blah … The depth of her feelings and devotion to the boy is obvious and judging by his reaction the feelings are mutual. We only hope this event that had made them closer will not also keep them apart … " Ling continued reading.

Adrien held Marinette tight and she held him back tighter and tighter with ever y word.