Nathalie slowly pushed open the door to Adrien's bedroom, all was quiet since he was at school. She flicked on the lights and strutted across the room, steeling herself for what she was about to do. "Bring it over here," she commanded. Adrien's bodyguard backed into the room carrying a large extendable ladder. She stood back and watched him haul it to the corner of the room across from the door.
As the brutish man went about setting it up, Nathalie opened her hands and glanced down; a small black domed object was sitting in her hands, a camera.
She fisted the camera and held it against her chest with a sigh. I'm sorry Adrien.
"Come on girl, seriously? Adrien took you, alone, to an alleyway. You are really telling me that it was 'just a fashion thing'?" Alya snorted. Marinette cringed at her friends prodding, but she was so knee-deep in the lies nowadays that she couldn't bring herself to make up anything more complicated at the moment.
"Uh, totally! It was 'cause his dad is so… so- famous! He told me he didn't want to make a scene or embarrass me, or anything, heh heh…" Marinette's voice fluctuated wildly as she tried to come up with a story. She tapped the ends of her index fingers together and smiled unconvincingly at the group that assembled around her.
Alya had invited Marinette out with the promise to find André the icecream matchmaker, but when she had arrived at the Eiffel Tower she was besieged by all five of her female friends from school. All of them had one thing on their minds, and it was unfortunately not ice cream.
"That kind of makes sense, Adrien's dad is famous." Rose reasoned optimistically. Mylène and Juleka shared a skeptical look, while Alya rolled her eyes.
"Okay, cool story. Now, why don't you tell us what really happened?" Alix challenged. She should have known this wouldn't be easy, but Marinette was close to caving from her friend's onslaught. She groaned in defeat and dropped her head against her knees.
Alya sat next to Marinette on the stairs and placed an arm over her shoulder reassuringly. "We just wanna know what's going on between you two! Did you finally confess to him or what?" she prodded again.
"What?" Marinette squeaked.
"Come on Marinette, were your friends! We just want to know what's up!" Mylène added encouragingly.
"Yeah, and the fact that you are avoiding it so hard is kind of worrying us." Juleka deadpanned.
With that Marinette looked up at the faces of her friends and felt something in her heart give out. Letting out a long, defeated sigh caused her friends to all relax and prompted Alya to pump her fist victoriously.
"Okay… fine." Marinette conceded. She steepled her fingers over her mouth and looked hard at the concrete beneath her. Her eyes darted across its marred surface as her mind raced. Finally, she closed her eyes and sat up taking a deep, and somewhat shaky breath.
"Nothing happened," she said quietly. A couple of her friends let out soft gasps when they took her quiet tone for one of sadness. "No no! It's just complicated." she tried to reassure them. They all crowded in, eager to hear the full story, but Marinette shook her head. She sat a little more upright as she felt a little of her Ladybug persona spilling over.
"I'm sorry guys, I really am, and I am sorry to disappoint you. But there really is nothing going on between us and nothing you need to worry about," she said calmly.
"What?" Alya demanded.
"H-he was really nervous about getting in trouble. that's all. You know how tough his dad can be, he just needed… reassurance that things were gonna be okay." she explained carefully. All these months of hiding her identity, and the last weekend's chaos of wasting all that effort. She was beginning to worry just how easy it was getting to lie to her friends. Even if it wasn't really a lie…
"Nothing else happened..." she finished gruffly.
Alix, Rose and Mylène collectively sighed while Alya's arm tightened on Marinette's shoulder.
"That's too bad. We noticed something was going on between you and Adrien recently, we were hoping that was it…" Rose murmured sadly.
"By the way, thank you for telling them all about the alleyway thing Alya." Marinette snapped half-heartedly.
"The classroom has windows girl! We all saw Adrien grab your arm and make a run for it. I was just filling in the very suspicious gaps." Alya retorted. Marinette's jaw dropped and her friends giggled at her expense.
"Well, speaking of relationship drama..." Alix said, changing the subject much to Marinette's relief. "You will never guess the amazing picture I took the other day."
Alix stood in front of Marinette and Alya, brandishing her phone to reveal a somewhat blurry picture. The picture was of Cat Noir and Ladybug embracing, complete with Ladybug bending her knee to lift one leg into the air behind her.
Both girls gasped and Alya reached desperately for the phone which Alix pulled just out of reach.
"Where did you get that?!" Alya asked excitedly. Marinette knew, obviously. They had met up under the pretence of going on patrol, but Cat Noir had insisted on a goodbye hug and she couldn't say no to Adrien. Marinette wanted to shrink from embarrassment, but how would she explain being embarrassed over a picture of the city's heroes?
"Oh, do you think they're together now? That's so cute!" Rose squealed when Alix moved her phone to show the others.
"Not a chance..." Marinette muttered absentmindedly. Alya snorted at her friend's reaction.
"Why are you always so against them being a couple?" Alya demanded, her voice laced with laughter.
"I think they're perfect for each other," Mylène said dreamily, Juleka nodded and hummed in agreement. Marinette stared at the concrete gloomily, her change in demeanour unnoticed as Alya sat up to grab Alix's phone for a closer look.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take! Snap out of it Adrien!" Plagg demanded. The model grunted absentmindedly into his pillow as his kwamis tantrum unfolded. Plagg not-so-softly landed on his masters head and began tapping his feet impatiently.
"Hello? Anyone in there? Jeez! If this girl really stole your heart then she must have stolen your brain too!" The embodiment of destruction cried.
"Plagg…" Adrien grunted.
"What's the problem now? She knows who you are now right? It's been days and you are still moping!"
"She hates me..." Adrien replied weakly. He turned his head, forcing Plagg to hover into the air and face his red-faced miraculous holder. Plagg grunted anxiously at the sight.
"What are you talking about Adrien?" The black cat begged, his aloofness starting to crumble with worry. "You two talked for hours the other night! You even tried to kiss her and she didn't immediately throw up like I was going to!"
Adrien turned onto his back and covered his eyes with his arms. "I wanted to do my best for her, and I ended up getting akumatized and getting her more upset," he said quietly.
"And you are gonna get akumatized again if you keep wallowing like this!" Plagg retorted desperately.
"It's been three days Plagg, if Hawkmoth wanted to akumatize me he would have done it by now…"
"This is too easy, he's miserable..." Gabriel commented quietly. He laced his fingers and leaned closer to the screen, it was showing a live feed from Adrien's room.
Nathalie quietly busied herself with a stack of papers and peered at her boss. She couldn't make anything of his carefully constructed expression as he watched his only son from a hidden camera.
"I am worried about him sir. Do we have any idea what happened?" she asked cautiously.
"Whatever it was has to have been Ladybug's fault. As if I needed more incentive to want her taken down." he hissed.
Nathalie peered at the monitor, Adrien appeared to be talking to himself. Laying in bed, he threw his arms out to the side and sat up hugging his legs tightly. He looked up to his left and silently followed something with his eyes until they landed directly ahead of him.
"I felt it when I akumatized him, you must have as well. She betrayed him." Gabriel continued, a devious smirk crawled across his features and he clenched his fist in the heat of the moment. "I can use this, a perfect opportunity has practically been thrown into my lap..." he marvelled.
Nathalie frowned slightly as Adrien smiled weakly and moved to hold his cupped hands against his cheek. 'Thank you' he mouthed clearly, followed by something that looked like 'Bleg'.
Daaaa daaa daaa dah! Here it is! I have been wanting to continue this story for a while, and now that I have some *ahem downtime I am finally writing it. Some minor disclaimers: This story started before I knew about the "give up your miraculous when someone knows your identity" rule. So we are having none of that nonsense.
Also, the story starts some time after the season two finale, but before Weredad (foreshadowing). Also, I despise Lyla. Not as a character, in fact she is a really effective villain. But I don't have any plans on including her in the story because thinking about her makes me mad.
I also realized (after reading some other people's fanfictions) that my chapters actually tend to be pretty short. I realize now that my style is paced like an episode, I tend not to add a tonne of detail in order to keep things flowing (or maybe that's my excuse for being an amateur writer).
Does anyone actually read these commentaries? What do you think about my "style"? Any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated! Thank you all, and stay safe everyone!