Ex. 3 – Adrien POV
Adrien was naïve.
He knew that – he'd lived most of his life being homeschooled, his only friend being Chloé Bourgeois. He thought she was a good friend.
He'd only recently gone to school, and he was clueless about half the things in his social life – making friends, keeping friends – all that was new to him.
He'd thought, though, that he'd learned from that. That he'd gotten better…
And then Lila arrived, with her tales of visiting places like Achu, with her kind demeanor, and how – even seeming to move around so much, even seeming to have come from a similar background as him, with her mom away most of the time and her dad dead – she was able to make friends so easily.
Adrien… envied Lila.
No, that wasn't right.
He admired her, wanted her talent but at the same time wanted to be friends with her too.
They were so similar, he realized, the more he talked to her. Lila told him about her mother, an Italian ambassador. She rarely paid much attention to Lila.
"My father's the same way," he told Lila. "After my mom's… disappearance, he's not been himself, often leaving me alone with Nathalie and my bodyguard."
"Disappearance?" Lila had asked curiously. "My father's dead. Do you mean dead?"
"No… I don't think she's dead," Adrien said slowly. "She's just… gone."
He'd confided so much in Lila that he never realized that maybe she wasn't real. Maybe she was… a liar. The thought never even crossed his mind, not even when Marinette called her out.
She'd misunderstood him at first, too, thinking him to be a snob. Maybe she was just bad at reading people.
Lila's tales just got better – she said she knew Ladybug, and her knowing his crush sparked even more desire to become friends with her. If Lila introduced him to Ladybug, well if Chat Noir didn't have a chance, Adrien might.
But all of a sudden, Ladybug left, leaving her earrings not with him but with another hero named Renaise.
Over the fortnight they spent together, the two of them grew closer. Renaise was different from Ladybug. He was shyer, more reserved, but he still had a driving passion that drew Chat Noir to him. He trusted the fox-bug.
He made this mistake before, trusting Volpina.
Trusting Renaise felt different.
He began to realize, however, that Renaise was keeping a secret. Something the boy wanted to tell him, but couldn't.
So Adrien opened up more, trying to get Renaise to trust him back. And… it worked.
Adrien didn't know whether he regretted the fact that he did this. If he hadn't talked to Renaise, he wouldn't be feeling so foolish right now.
But he guessed it would just have been all the worse if he'd been closer to Lila when Renaise, or someone else, dropped this bomb.
"Who is it? I can help expose them?" Chat Noir had said when Renaise told him someone he knew was fake.
"Lila."
Adrien spent the rest of the week looking for signs that Lila was lying – and he couldn't believe himself when he found so many. The Ladybug dance, for one. Then her fake tinnitus, and the fact that she was best friends with Ladybug – he couldn't believe that he'd bought that.
Adrien found Nathaniël at school after finally convincing himself of what he now knew to be the truth, vowing to come to the school and expose Lila.
He felt bad; after all, she was a friend.
Not anymore, he told himself. She lied.
There may have been more to her story, but all Adrien could feel was betrayal. And feeling safely hidden in his black-cat attire the next day, he channeled that betrayal into courage, finally solidifying the words that Marinette and Nathaniël and Renaise and probably Ladybug had tried to tell everyone – Lila is a liar.
Maybe now… he wouldn't be so naïve. He would learn from this, just like everyone else. He'd get over this – he might've felt a deeper connection with Lila, but he still had Renaise, and Nathalie, and everyone else who supports him.
Renaise disappeared from patrol the next day, Ladybug came instead. Adrien was slightly disappointed, but was also excited to see his Lady back. "You fine?" he asked her.
"Better than ever!" she said.
Meanwhile, Adrien also began to develop a friendship with a boy he'd hardly talked to – Nathaniël. He was reminded a lot of the former fox-bug hero as they talked, and maybe… maybe he was.
A/N: I'm back! Miss me?