"Oh," Marinette started, looking between Adrien and her best friend. "It was an accident. We didn't mean for it to happen. At least, I didn't mean for it to happen. I don't know about Adrien."

"I've been ready to know since day one, my lady," he flirted, causing Marinette to blush once again.

"Honestly, it was kind of a dumb mistake for us to have made this far into our superhero careers. Last night's akuma," Marinette began, "he was one of those akumas that focused on trapping people, you know? He managed to hit both of us at the same time and trapped us in this box thing together. It was super strange. I called for my lucky charm and Tikki gave me a hand drill, so I tried to use it to get through the walls of the box, but they were impenetrable. Adrien tried his cataclysm and touched the wall, but it ended up regenerating super quickly."

"It was weird," Adrien added, "usually, the Cataclysm will prevent regenerative things like that, but something about that box was different. I'm still not sure what it was."

"So, you know, our timers give us 5 minutes after we use our abilities," Marinette chimed back in, "we transformed back and sat back to back in the middle of this box with our eyes closed. After another minute, I asked why we bothered having our eyes closed because we were sitting back to back. Adrien agreed, so we both opened our eyes."

"Neither of us realized beforehand that the walls were mirrored and by the time we opened our eyes, it was too late. After seeing each other's faces, we both decided to just go with the flow," Adrien added, smiling at Marinette. "We defeated the akuma and met at the Eiffel Tower at midnight."

"We ended up staying out talking until like 2, exchanged numbers and Adrien, the bastard, invited me to a sunrise photoshoot," Marinette told them. "I'm kidding," she clarified to Adrien, "I had a lot of fun today, I'm just not a morning person. Less than 4 hours of sleep would usually have me dead on my feet. I don't know how you're alive without having coffee this morning."

"It's one of my superpowers," he told her, "Plagg gives me the power to pretend to be okay when I'm lowkey dying." Marinette immediately reached out to take his hand in hers. She held it up and made direct eye contact with him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he lied, "of course I am. I'm not a big fan of modeling, but it's not ruining my life or anything. At least I know that if I'm working with our crew, they're not working with some model who is out to get everyone fired like this total liar Gabriel hired a few years back. She was only on staff for a few months, but I still sometimes feel bad about leaving the crew to deal with her when I wasn't around."

"Was her name Lila," Alya asked almost immediately.

"Uh, maybe? I really tried to forget her after Nathalie convinced father to fire her. She was mean to like everyone on the staff and kept trying to get too close to me. It was really weird, you know? The crew, at least, knows that if they're working with me, I might be tired some days, but I've made sure that every single one of them knows that the worst thing I'd ever do is forget to thank someone."

"Did she ever mention being friends with Ladybug," Marinette asked, "sorry. There was a girl we went to school with who did that and it was terrible for everyone involved. She tried to get me expelled, but thankfully the security cameras took away all the 'evidence' she tried to provide."

"I think she might have," he admitted, "but I really just try to ignore when people say things like that about us. You wouldn't believe how many models have bragged about the fact that they 'met Chat Noir in a bar and he asked for their number' to me, the real Chat Noir. I should probably go on record and say that's not me, but I haven't figured out how to without drawing suspicion."

"That's rough," Marinette said, "I'm sure Alya could post something, though. If you'd be comfortable, you can probably do an interview and she can bring up the rumors and you can turn them down." Marinette looked at Alya, hoping she'd agree to go along with it. Alya nodded.

"Definitely," she told her friends, "I would love to help if I can. I know how much people lying about Ladybug bothers Marinette, so I can't imagine how much harder it is for you, being famous on both sides of the mask and having people probably saying things about you all the time. I can almost certainly get access to a studio at the station later this week and we can do a video interview if that's okay with you."

Adrien nodded excitedly. "Please," he sighed, "I really don't want people thinking I'm a playboy or something, going out to try to pick up any girl. I mean, I know people are aware of my flirting with Ladybug, but I feel like there's a pretty big difference between flirting with your best friend and trying to hit on anything in a skirt." He winced at the notion.

"Great," Alya said with a smile. "I'll have Marinette text you with some possible times once I get to see what times we have available."

"I'm fine with you having my number, unless you'd prefer to go through Marinette," he said to her, "I mean, obviously I'm not asking for your number like those models said Chat Noir was doing, but you and Nino both seem cool and we've been heroes together for like 7 years, so I think we might be at phone number sharing levels of friendship. I might be wrong, though."

Marinette gently scratched his back. "You're fine, Minou," she told him, "Alya doesn't think you're hitting on her just because you're trying to schedule an interview."