Sup, my dear readers and thank you for checking out this oneshot ^^ I hope you enjoy it and please, be a dear to leave a review =D They really make my day ^^
Summary: Marinette is Ladybug. Adrien is Chat Noir. Alya knows that. Nino knows that. Their friends don't. And therfore, it is obviously Nino and Alya's mission in life to bust that stupid lovesquare!
Disclaimer: I don't own Miraculous Ladybug, much to everyone's delight because that show'd be ruined in one episode.
Edited the paragraphs, I hope it's easier to read now ^^ and thank you to Atea1793 and yellow 14 for pointing out the issue ^^ I didn't notice and I hope this makes the fanfiction more enjoyable ^^
(And of course a bid shoutout to Neeko96 and everyone who followed and favourized (is that a word? I don't know). It means a lot to me ^^)
Why aren't they dating?
.o.O.o.
Sometimes, Alya cursed her nosiness. It had gotten her into plenty of dangerous situations already, which wasn't all that bad by itself (the scoop was always worth it after all!), however it greatly pissed of Nino, Marinette and Adrien. Somehow, her friends got mad at her every single time she hunted down an Akuma to satisfy the constant demand of fresh footage by her loyal followers. It was exasperating, really.
Today, however, was no such day. As in, Alya didn't curse her nosiness, she had definitely gotten herself involved in another Akuma attack and it had made the footage all shaky.
It was just so hard to keep her phone straight while running away from reanimated trees.
God, that had been terrifying.
But no, today, Alya praised her nosiness. Because, said nosiness had made her stumble upon a panting Marinette, right after having transformed back from being Ladybug.
That's right, ladies and gentleman, she had just found out that her best friend was Ladybug.
Marinette was Ladybug. Ladybug was clumsy Marinette.
This was amazing!
And also explained her friend's sudden addiction to caffeine, that poor girl must be sleep-deprived (Alya's incredible pattern recognition skills at that moment also pointed out someone else with a remarkable caffeine addiction, but the reporter decided to file that connection away for later).
It all just made so much sense!
And the most amazing part was that her ship would finally set sail! Everyone knew Adrien had a crush on Ladybug (Ok, well, almost no one knew and the only reason Alya had found out was because Nino had accidentally let a comment slip and you can bet your sweet, sweet soul that Alya hadn't left him until she had gotten the confession) and everyone (this time Alya actually meant everyone except for that one, obnoxiously oblivious moron that called himself Adrien Agreste) knew who Marinette was crushing on.
This was perfect. Simply perfect! No wonder Ladybug had always ignored Chat Noir's advances and shut down his flirting (though, he had mostly stopped doing that by now anyway – it had came out of nowhere and left Paris wondering whether the superhero clad in black may have gotten himself a girlfriend). Why take a mangy alley cat if you were in love with Paris' sunshine boy? It was only then that Alya realized Marinette being Ladybug meant her other OTP wouldn't ever set sail.
Oh, well, Adrinette came before LadyNoir. Her best friend came before Chat Noir. He may be cool and a superhero, but not even close as cool and amazing as her best friend was.
And thus, Alya turned away from the closet she had been peeking through, wondering how to proceed from here, when she spotted Chat Noir vaulting through the hallway of her school. And Alya, being the good reporter that she was, immediately followed him, hoping to get a short interview (would he, too, be having endless nightmares about magical tree people chasing him?). But once again, Alya got more than she bargained for. Namely, when she peeked into another classroom, in the process of throwing the door open, this time watching Chat Noir transform into Adrien.
Adrien Agreste.
Alya's brain stopped working for a second right there.
Screw that, at least a minute. Luckily Adrien was too busy talking to some weird, floating cat (what even was that?!) to leave the room and stumble upon his friend silently observing him (Nino would later add that it was more like "stalking" but whatever). After that minute, however, Alya's keen sense of connecting dots sprang into action once again and she realized just what exactly this discovery meant.
They...Her two friend's were Ladybug and Chat Noir. Marinette was Ladybug. Adrien was Chat Noir.
They were secretly crushing one each other's alter-egos. And they didn't know.
And it was that exact moment that Alya decided to be the best friend one could possibly be by getting them together.
She even decided to not disclose their secret identities! Wasn't she just the best friend in the world?
.o.O.o.
Getting Adrien and Marinette together was harder than Alya had imagined. She knew her two friends would never forgive her if she just told them. Plus, they'd probably get mad at her for knowing in the first place. Therefore, Alya's idea was to make them figure it out "on their own". And Alya decided that there was no better partner in crime other than Nino, who willingly (I mean, come on, who wouldn't use every chance to spent some quality time with your girlfriend/"we're not dating Nino, I don't know what you're talking about"?) agreed to help her out.
And as such, she even mercifully told him about their friend's secret life.
He didn't seem to be surprised all that much.
"Yeah, dude, I already figured that out like a few months ago."
At that moment, Alya's brain decided to short circuit once more.
"Why I didn't tell you? Uh, well, you're the Ladyblogger."
For a second Alya just stared at him, waiting for him to explain himself. Nino, however, didn't say a thing. Instead she saw a blush forming on his cheeks and he nervously stared at his nails.
"So? So what if I'm the Ladyblogger?"
"Well, you know...I was scared you would have made it public..."
"You think I would have betrayed my friends like that?!"
"I mean, no, but you do tend to make some rather rash decisions sometimes..."
Being severely pissed off by that statement, Alya decided Nino didn't even get to choose anymore whether he wanted to help her or not.
And thus, Operation "Bust the Lovesquare" was born.
.o.O.o.
Alya's initial plan had been to simply shove Adrien and Marinette into a closet, lock the door and wait until they had finally come to the conclusion that they were truly meant for each other. Or until one of them eventually lost their patience and transformed before the other to help them out. Whatever the outcome, it was worth it. Nino, however, had pointed out that that was a bad idea and would most likely just get them in trouble. No, they had to find a subtler way of doing it. And Nino's first idea was to just give them some alone time. Lots of alone time in fact. That way they had to talk to each other and then at some point, one of them was sure to slip up.
It was genius. Really! Though, it did give the two of them a reputation of regularly bailing on their friends, because really, the only way for them to get their two friends to spent some time together was by pretending it was going to be a group outing.
Alya felt like the only reason Nino had come up with this plan was so that he got to spent some alone time with her too, but she really couldn't blame him. It was fun after all. And they even did something nice for their friends!
Sadly, this plan failed to gain any traction as they found out when Alya was sitting in Marinette's room (the walls were now barren of any Adrien posters, courtesy of the blonde coming over so frequently) and listening to her best friend's wailing.
"Ugh, this is terrible, Alya! It's like I'm falling in love with him all over again! This just...Things have to stop!"
Accusingly Marinette stared at her best friend, who tried her best feign innocence.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, don't give me that look! Do you really think I wouldn't notice how everytime we make plans you and Nino ditch us?"
"Uh..."
"Please, just stop this, will you? It's...it's not fair to me. And it's not fair to him either. We both know he'll never notice me..."
And that was how Nino and Alya decided to move on to plan C.
They still had to try out plan A, shoving them into a closet, but Nino was adamant that plan was doomed to failure.
.o.O.o.
"Are you sure they don't already know?", Nino asked at some point. Plan C was simple. They just kept dropping hints about it. All the time. Alya kept pestering Marinette about the possibility of Adrien being Chat Noir and supposedly, Nino was doing the same with Adrien. Except, he kept insisting that Marinette and Ladybug just had sooooo many things in common.
"If they know, they'd be dating by now, duh, so of course!"
And thus, they continued.
It was an afternoon when the idea came crashing down around Alya once more.
They were talking about Alya's new, favourite subject once more and then Marinette broke down crying.
And it had been such an innocent remark at that!
"Remember that one time I had that weird idea that Adrien was Chat Noir? Crazy, right? Though, I must admit, it is weird that he never got akumatized..."
For a second, Marinette had merely starred at her. And then there were tears. Lots and lots of tears.
At this point Alya was wondering whether maybe, just maybe, Marinette had different problems other than boy trouble.
.o.O.o.
"Why don't you just ask her out? Ladybug, I mean?"
It was a simply question and one that hadn't even been part of the plan in the first place, though Nino and Alya had decided that dropping hints just wasn't cutting it. Their friends were rather dense after all. Incredibly dense.
To be fair though, they had already known that.
No, the new plan was to get Adrien and Ladybug together. If they wanted to topple the lovesquare, they simply had to make one side happen. Ladrien.
"A-a-ask her out?"
A blush crept up on Adrien's cheeks and he started rubbing his neck, just like he always did whenever he was incredibly nervous.
"Yeah, of course. You're a model and famous, its not like you're someone she had never heard of."
"Uh...I'm...I'm not sure if that's a good idea..."
"Oh, come on! What could go wrong?"
"She-She might not like me! She doesn't like Chat!"
"Yeah, but you're not Chat!"
At that, Adrien fell silent. And so did Nino. Was that the problem? Did Adrien think Ladybug didn't like him? But...Surely Marinette would jump at the chance to ask him out, now that she knew who her crime fighting partner was, right?
"Trust me, dude! I'm sure the girl beneath the mask loves you dearly! She's probably even some kind of obsessive fangirl!"
Nino had hoped the remark would cheer his friend up, but it hadn't. Instead, a dark shadow fell on Adrien's face and his next words made Nino shiver. They sounded so...defeated.
"No. I'm pretty sure that she'd hate me even outside the mask."
.o.O.o.
It was infuriating! Nothing worked! It was almost as if the universe itself tried to prevent the entire lovesquare from happening.
Plan B to D had failed to bring in any results at all and they didn't really know what else to do other than writing secret love notes.
So, that's what they did. In the library. Far away from anyone. They were faking their best friend's handwriting to get them to confess to each other.
At this point, they might as well just tell them.
However, other than learning that dust made you sneeze even without being allergic to it (it was a very, very deserted part of the library) the place Nino and Alya met at to carry out their devilish plans had another advantage.
Or disadvantage. Depending on whose side you were on.
Fact was, both of them completely failed to notice yet another Akuma that tried to destroy the school. They did, however, notice both Chat Noir and Ladybug tumbling through the door, hastily throwing themselves under a table before de-transforming in a flash of red and green light.
At this point, Alya's left eye started to twitch.
"What the..."
"Do you think anyone saw us", a hushed voice whispered. Alya and Nino could see their friends beneath the table, one tangled up mess, but if it weren't for the fact they already knew who they were, they wouldn't have been able to recognize them.
Alya took a picture anyway, simply for later teasing rights, before grabbing Nino at the collar and hiding themselves. The moment they were about to witness would be magical. It was the reveal! Alya was so close to live streaming the entire ordeal.
"I...I don't think so? There's no one here", Adrien answered, slowly peaking out from beneath the table, cautiously scanning the room. Alya stopped her breathing. Who knew whether his cat-senses stayed even if de-transformed. But luckily, he didn't see her and didn't hear her either. Ever the gentleman, he helped Marinette out from beneath the table (both of the blushed at the action – something was off, Alya just didn't know what it was yet) before leaning onto it himself and sighing.
"That was a close call, I swear, that Akuma..."
"Worse than the Tree Akuma, that's for sure..."
Marinette sat down on a chair and buried her face in her hands. God, she hadn't even had coffee yet and their break would be over in no less than ten minutes.
Being a super hero sucked.
It especially sucked, if all of sudden and out of nowhere your best friend decided to show up, an ecstatic grin on her face, dragging your other friend along and squealing from delight.
Marinette simply didn't get paid enough for this.
Which meant she didn't get paid at all. Which was incredibly unfair. Incre-di-bly unfair.
"I KNEW IT! I SIMPLY KNEW IT!", the redhead exclaimed, letting out yet another ecstatic squeal. Immediately, both Adrien and Marinette froze, horror spreading on their face. No, no, no, no…
But then Marinette got pissed. They had waited! They had waited and hidden in order to expose her secret identity! How dare they?! Though, sadly, Marinette didn't get any time to be all too angry at her friend, as Alya, being Alya, switched to interview mode.
"Come one girl, what does it feel like, finally knowing who your...Wait! You...You two...You aren't shocked?"
Marinette looked bewildered now (not any less mad though). One could even make out a frown on her face.#
"Shocked? At what? That you are too nosy for your own g..."
"That you guys are Ladybug and Chat Noir? That you just found out each other's identities?"
Marinette fell silent, confusion spreading on her face until realization set in. Oh. Yeah. No one knew, right?
"Oh! Uhm, we, uh, well, we...uhm...So you see, there was this one time in that classroom and uh, well, we..."
"What Marinette is trying to say", Adrien interrupted the now stuttering girl, squeezing her shoulders in the process (She was going to explode, Marinette just knew it).
"Is that we already knew."
Silence. Then a single, simultaneous "What" from Alya and Nino. And then Nino sputtered:
"How? When? How long?"
The DJ seemed to be rather put off by this information and so did Alya. Adrien wasn't sure why though. Was it that much of a surprise they knew each other identities? Well, he guessed, considering Marinette had insisted that they had to pretend they didn't. That way, Hawkmoth couldn't try to use the information against them. And maybe it helped her cope knowing that her beloved partner was Adrien, the boy she seemingly still disliked. More than once had she slipped up during patrol and started stammering around him.
It was disheartening. He had hoped Ladybug would at least like his persona without the mask. He was Adrien Agreste after all, so maybe he would have the chance to ask her out as the "real" him, but of course, curse his luck, Ladybug turned out to be the one girl in all of Paris that disliked him. It just wasn't meant to be, he had decided. And almost accepted.
After he had spent entire nights laying awake, trying to convince himself he could totally move on. And like always, Plagg wasn't any help at all. He had just stared at Adrien very long and very intensely before declaring his beloved cheese the second most intelligent person in this room, right after himself of course.
He had also dully ignored Adrien's protest that neither he nor cheese were people to begin with.
"Three months."
Marinette's words kept Adrien's words from spiralling out of control and at once, he jerked his hand away from her shoulder. He had to stop touching her, regardless of whether he wanted to or not. She didn't like him as Adrien and although she defended Chat Noir every time Chloé made a hateful comment, she clearly didn't like Chat Noir either.
Well, at least not romantically. He was glad she had stayed his friend even after the reveal.
The moment Adrien's hand left her shoulder, Marinette felt herself fall into a black hole of sadness again.
She hated this. She hated this whole, awkward situation. Marinette wasn't even going to talk about how incredibly awkward patrol was nowadays. Why did it have to be Adrien?! She had been on the point of getting over him, she had been so close! She had almost decided to pursue Chat instead, his god damn moonlight visits making her knees get weak ever single time, but then, of course!, that stupid cat had been revealed to be the very boy she had tried to get over. Argh. The boy that saw her as nothing but a friend! The moment they had revealed themselves he had stopped flirting with her and Marinette took it as a sign he just couldn't love the girl beneath the mask.
She couldn't blame him.
"We, uh, kinda, well, transformed in the same empty classroom", Adrien answered once Nino asked, ripping Marinette away from her thoughts.
"Ladybug came in through the window and I saw he transforming and then transformed a few seconds after he...So yeah. That's something that happened."
Nino and Alya fell quiet for some time. Then the Ladyblogger started to frown, watching her two friends who were innocently standing next to each other with way too much space in between them, as if they were trying to prove a point.
"But if you already know, then...way aren't you two dating?"
It was a simple question, one Alya couldn't answer. Had they still not confessed? But, at the very least Ladybug knew that Chat liked her, right? He constantly flirted with her! But then again, he had stopped doing so roughly three months ago…
Alya's question hit the two superheroes like a bomb and both of them froze on impact, a look of pure horror on their faces.
"D-d-d-dating?! Why...Why would we be dating?!", Adrien sputtered, turning roughly as red as Marinette did, whenever he looked in her general direction. Alya raised an eyebrow. Wait a second…
"Yeah!", Marinette chimed in, her voice suspiciously high-pitched in addition to her definitely beating Adrien when it came to whoever was better at cosplaying as a tomato.
"Why would we be dating, amirite, Adrien? I mean, uh, it's...it's...eh...it's not like he likes me or anything!"
"Yeah, Marinette doesn't like me that...Wait what?"
The two of them just stared at each other for a moment, before furiously blushing.
"What...What did you just say?" "I...I don't like you? that's not even..." "I, uh..."
Meanwhile, Alya's brain just completely shut down. They...They...how? How did that even happen? Like, how thick was the wood in front of those two moron's eyes?!
But then her brain had already rebooted and she decided that it was time for some more drastic measures.
"Remember Nino, when I told you about my first plan", Alya asked innocently, turning around to face her boyfriend. Not that their two friends could hear them anyway. They were to busy being morons.
"The one of just shoving them into a closet?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, I remember that one."
"Cool. You take Marinette and I take Adrien."
And thus, they did.
Marinette was too distracted by the whole situation (Adrien had a crush on her?! Adrien didn't mind her being Marinette?! Adrien wasn't mad or disappointed?!) to realize what their friends were doing.
Well, she was too distracted until she heard the familiar "click" of a door being locked and realized she had been pushed into a closet.
Which wasn't all too bad on its own.
Except that Adrien had been shoved into the exact same closet and was standing way too close and oh my god how do you breathe again and why did he have to be so…
"YOU GUYS CAN STAY THERE! AN YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED OUTSIDE UNTIL YOU HAVE CONCEIVED EMMA!"
"Emma? Who is Emma?"
"OH MY GOD, ALYA, LET ME OUT!"
Desperately Marinette was banging against the door, trying to ignore Adrien's curious look. Why? What had she done to deserve a friend like this?!
"NO! TALK! BOTH OF YOU!"
And then all they could hear were steps leaving and if once really tried a voice (most likely Nino's) saying "I'm sorry."
Though that voice didn't sound sorry at all. And thus, our beloved heroes were stuck in a closet, both of them blushing furiously.
It was Adrien who broke the silence first.
"So, uh, you like me?"
Marinette simply whimpered in response.
"Well, that's great! Great! Because, well, uh, I really like you too!"
Another whimper. Adrien scratched his neck.
"Uh, who exactly is "Emma"?"
This time his answer was nothing short of a nervous breakdown.
.o.O.o.
It was a Monday, when she got the news. A simple text message. She had to come over. Now. So, Alya did what a best friend did and made her way to Marinette's apartment in a hurry.
Marinette didn't wait a single second to break the news. And when she did, Alya smiled proudly, like the future aunt she was going to be and reached for her handbag, pulling out a keychain. Her smug grin made Marinette rather suspicious, but she didn't say anything, instead carefully eyeing the object.
"What?"
"The key. To the closet."
Leave it to Alya to add a dramatic pause right here.
"After all, you finally managed to conceive Emma!"
Marinette almost turned as red as she had when she was shoved into that damn closet (Adrien had insisted that said closet had to be his best man during their wedding, much to Nino's dislike)
And years later, a certain Emma finally lifted the mystery of the mysterous, locked door in their school.
Was it a door to another dimension? Did it hold all the wisdom in the universe? Was it, perhaps, a secret candy stash?
No. Just a simply closet. With an open door. How utterly boring.
That's it, I hope you enjoyed it ^^ I'd much appreciate it if you guys could leave a review and tell me your thoughts on it, as reviews are what I'm living for ^^ Have a great day and stay safe!