Nino's troubles
Adrien and Marinette retrieved their phones with a perfect excuse, they had their purpose. They did the online check in for the flight from the train while they ate their lunch. Adrien took the phone and waited for the application to open 24 hours in advance. He and Marinette agreed to do it through his phone and get the seats together. He kept refreshing the web page through the lunch.
"Eager to leave?" Ye asked.
"I just want to be able to chose the seats." Adrien replied. What he really wanted was to sit next to Marinette, just like he did on the way over.
Once the check in was opened, Marinette and Adrien were quick to type in the data for all the passengers. They put everyone in the same seats as on their arrival and smiled.
But then Adrien scrolled through the messages. There were messages from his classmates, mostly to hang on and have a safe trip home and that they kept contact through Nino. Well, he avoided reading messages from both Alya and Nino but he was about to face them. He also got more messages from Chloe, but he was in no mood to call her. Nino on the other hand he wanted to talk to. But first, the messages.
Nino: Dude, Alya is a mess, please do not read any messages from her.
Nino: I talked to Alya, she does not accept the truth.
Nino: This is serious, ignore Alya, you do not need that right now.
Nino: okay dude, I know I was angry, but please call me when you read this.
Adrien looked to his side, Marinette was just reaching for her own phone. She was probably going to read her messages. And the first message from Nino hit him. He grabbed the girl and pulled her back. She squeaked but sat beside whim with raised brows.
"Could we call Nino again?" Adrien grinned.
"I wanted to check what Alya wrote to me first." Marinette argued, she remembered Alya's phone was taken away but she knew the girl would find a way.
"Nino says you shouldn't do it, now let's call Nino and hear what is wrong, okay?" the boy smiled.
Ling frowned, she and Ye did not get any messages from the girl for a long time.
"Hey Adrien." Nino greeted from the phone and yawned.
"Good morning Nino." Adrien greeted back with a smile.
"Hi Nino." Marinette waved.
"Hi Marinette." Nino smiled back. "How are you."
"Very well considering we just ate a meal we cooked ourselves." Adrien could not help himself but be proud of what he did.
"You cooked?" Nino frowned, his initial concerns put aside for the moment.
"For the whole family." Adrien replied with a huge smile.
"And they ate it?" Nino asked.
"They all did." Adrien smiled.
"They had no choice." Marinette winked.
"I think they liked it." the boy added.
"Good. Great. Great to know you can cook. You can cook for Chris and me when you move in." Nino continued calmly as if he said nothing particularly important.
Marinette squealed.
Adrien laughed.
"I am moving in?" The boy asked excitedly, he was almost bouncing where he was sitting, but there was no space for that, he would hit his head into the ceiling. Marinette kept him from bouncing.
"Well you can move in as soon as some papers are signed by everyone, including your bodyguard." Nino smiled.
"Sou you want me there?" Adrien could not believe his luck. But then he looked at Marinette, he also liked the idea of staying with her parents.
"Of course I do, dude, you are my best bro. Sorry I was a bit angry the last time we spoke, it was just I was thinking if we could have prevented this situation with Alya, but it was not as if we could, dude." Nino smiled sadly.
"Is Chris jealous?" Marinette asked cautiously, she knew the boy.
"Um, we will have to get him with a few of those games of yours, you know?" Nino told Adrien.
"Of course." Adrien replied with a wink.
"How is Alya?" Marinette blurted out the question she wanted to ask first. Well the question should have been expected.
"She ." Nino sighed. "I tried to reason with her."
Adrien nodded. Marinette frowned. So it was not resolved yet, Marinette knew she should have done something, she should have said something, but Alya did not have her phone and Marinette would not call her parents or Nora not to put her friend in more trouble than she already was in.
"What is wrong?" The girl asked quietly and seriously. She was determined to face it whatever it was.
"You have not seen the interview that Lila gave, right?" Nino asked. The boy was certain his two friends would be far more concerned if they did see the interview, they would not start with talking about lunch, for sure.
"No. We have not." Marinette replied swiftly. Adrien simply waved his head. So it was Lila, something neither of them really wanted to face.
"Okay, so Alya refuses to believe that Lila is the one who lied to her. The others from the class understand now that she lied in the interview. But Alya, you should understand, she is too invested in Lila, she published interviews with Lila on her blog." Nino took a breath.
"I warned her." Marinette whispered.
"Yeah, you have, she did not believe you then and she refuses to believe the facts now, Marinette, because then she has to accept that she made her blog a piece of bullshit. Who would believe any information they find there now?" Nino sighed.
"But they still believe the news about the superheroes and the akuma alerts?" Adrien frowned.
"I knew this was going to happen." Marinette waved her head. "But if she removed the interview?"
"There is more than just one interview, because Lila is Ladybug's best friend you know." Nino mocked as he pronounced the words Ladybug's best friend. It was obvious he did not believe those words either.
Marinette groaned. Adrien sighed.
"Can we help her somehow?" Marinette asked exasperatedly.
Nino raised his eyebrows. He knew Marinette was ready to help anybody, but he was still surprised.
"She did help me cheat Nathalie into thinking I was in Paris." Adrien added.
"I … I don't know. Wait, there is someone at the door." Nino was walking towards the entrance to his flat.
"Hi Max, Hi Markov" Nino greeted.
"Max! Markov!" Both teens exclaimed when they heard.
"I have Adrien and Marinette on video call." Nino raised his phone and both teens could see Max with his robot floating next to the boy.
"Hi Nino, Adrien, Marinette." Max exclaimed. "It is so nice to see you. It was clear from the start how Nino knew Lila was lying. And once you know the first thing she said was a lie, you do not believe anything else she said. How are you?" The boy barely waited for an answer. Nino whisper shouted something like 'they did not see it' so the boy quickly switched the subject in the end of his rant.
"That fight you did, I ran some statistics, you had nearly zero chance of winning, did you weaken their powers somehow?" Max was adjusting his glasses and staring at the screen smiling.
"I am really glad to see you both okay. According to my computations from previous battles recorded in Paris, a civilian would not have a chance against a magical villain. But the sample was too small to draw and reliable conclusions." Markov recited.
"It was … their powers were weakened somehow." Marinette stumbled out an explanation. Adrien was not sure how much should they reveal about the magical powers in the temple.
"I am here because … I was at the police early this morning. Lila cheated Markov and me to break the code for a web page she visited. After that interview, we checked it. We decided to report on that. Officer Roger Raincomprix now knows what is there. It is about Hawk Moth." Max said in one breath.
"There was one in two hundred billion chance for that." Markov added.
"There was one in one chance for that with Lila." Adrien whispered through gritted teeth.
"And I have built a software that allowed me to fact check everything that Lila said and I can report that eighty nine percent of everything she said was not true." Markov reported.
"And the rest was misinterpreted and twisted truth." Marinette groaned.
"Actually, Markov would report that as a lie too." Max looked proud of himself. "I am sorry we did not think of that sooner." Max looked down. "So we came here to you Nino because Alya still does not have her phone and she might want to use this software to check what she published?"
"I wish she did." Nino looked down.
They entered Nino's room, Chris was sitting at the computer.
"Playing games on my computer again Chris?" Nino scolded.
"Actually, I am talking to your girlfriend." Chris raised his nose.
"What?" Nino exclaimed and ran over to his desk.
Alya was on the screen, pale and with huge bags under here eyes.
"Nora let me use her computer for this. I removed the interviews and published an apology last night." Alya said flatly.
"That is great news Alya." Nino smiled. "I am glad you reconsidered your choices." Nino was intentionally vague as he knew Adrien and Marinette were listening. He wanted to spare them.
"I … my parents made me do it, and Nora, you know how she can be .. persuasive." Alya continued. "I had to use their computer, mine is still with the police."
Marinette and Adrien deflated, so it was not because she believed Lila was a liar.
"Then they made me think and … I was wrong, Lila lied and cheated on me. I realize that now. I realized that late last night." She was obviously very tired. "I did not sleep much last night." She added. "My phone is still with the police. I can't remove the emails I sent to Marinette and Adrien, they probably hate me now."
"I have Adrien and Marinette here on the video call." Nino raised his phone so she would see it better.
"We do not hate you Alya." Both teens shouted in unison. They had no idea what she wrote, but was under Lila influence, so they decided to forgive.
"They have not read what you wrote." Nino said calmly. He did not know what it was, but he had an idea.
"Please, please, just remove the emails, please do not open them, okay?" Alya begged. "I sent emails from the twins tablet because my phone and computer are taken."
"Okay." Marinette replied calmly.
"We will." Adrien confirmed cheerfully.
"In fact, Markov and me have something that could help you." Max cut in and Nino stepped to the side while Max elaborated on the software and how to use it.
"Are you sure she needs this right now?" Marinette asked incredulously. Adrien hugged her closer. Trust Marinette that she would worry about the person who actually hurt her. Adrien was concerned for Alya too but did not have the time to voice it.
"Hey Max, Alya looks really tired right now, perhaps you could … " Nino started to intervene but was cut off by his girlfriend from the screen.
"That is exactly what I need, I wanted to remove the whole blog." Alya cried.
"Okay then, I will leave the three of you to your business." Nino went to the kitchen.
"So the news here are that police wants something from Italian embassy." Nino winked.
He could see smiling faces and hear cheers.
"How are you? When are you returning back? Are you returning back?" Nino inquired.
"We are on the train. We just did online check in." Adrien stated proudly. "We fly back tomorrow."
"Tomorrow, dude?" Nino exclaimed.
"Yes" Adrien exclaimed.
"Wow." Nino replied.
"And I plan to go to school on Monday." The boy added.
"Gosh, there is school on Monday, but that is in two days. Where are my books?" Nino shouted.
Marinette and Adrien laughed.
"Mine are in the locker in school." Adrien laughed. "you can borrow mine if you do not find them."
"Mine are probably mostly there. I do not know. I have to find my school bag." Nino replied.
"You have two more days." Marinette noted.
"Yeah I do." Nino replied.
"My school books should be in my locker too." Marinette shrugged. "It seems so long ago I do not even remember."
"Anything new with you?" Nino asked with a smile. "You learned how to cook, anything else?"
Both teens blushed.
"Tom offered to adopt me." Adrien grinned as he remembered the conversation from that morning.
"Maman thought I was smuggling some drugs but uncle Wang confirmed it was just a kind of tea." Marinette added.
"I actually proposed." Adrien whispered in mock confidence. "That her great uncle was such a great chef because he used in his soup." The boy teased.
"But he does not." Marinette raised her nose. "He is just an excellent chef." She added. "And he has a lousy sense of humour because he liked that joke that sleep deprived Adrien made of the soup last night."
"It was closer to this morning I think." Adrien pretended to ponder.
"Fortunately he persuaded maman to make that tea, or we would not have slept for the rest of the night." Marinette added.
"Yeah, I would hate to keep everyone awake with my screaming in my sleep." Adrien was down.
"You scream in your sleep?" Nino asked. "You should have told me before, dude. How am I going to sleep?"
"Um, I had a nightmare. And I kept poor Tom and Sabine, everyone, awake." Adrien sighed.
"I had nightmares too, they were awake because of me too." Marinette did not want the boy to feel guilty.
Nino smiled.
"It is so nice to see you two together." The boy said quietly without thinking.
They both blushed again.
Adrien was restless, he wanted to tell Nino they kissed, he even wanted to tell his best friend how he felt about Marinette and everything, but he could not put it into words and there were too many people around so he simply turned around towards the girl and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Marinette squeaked and blushed. Adrien smirked and looked back at Nino. The boy hoped his best friend took the message and the smile he got beck from the screen told him that he did. Marinette, on the other hand collected herself, took a deep breath, turned her head and gave Adrien a peck on the cheek.
"Oh boy." Nino exclaimed form the phone. Adrien blushed and Marinette turned back to the phone proudly.
"Yeah." Adrien smiled.
"Nino, you should go back to your room and check on Alya," Marinette spoke quietly.
"Yes, I should … leave you two. Bye." Nino greeted and cut the call. He was happy for his friends, but he had a problem to attend to. And it was a kind of a problem that he could not solve it by making a playlist. Fortunately he had a little help from his friends. He had Max. And Markov.