The next three days went by without much of a change. Adrien seemed to be so busy with different commitments that he was barely in school, and they left him too shattered to pop in and see Marinette after he and Ladybug had been on patrol. At least he still managed to text her: mostly with silly memes that Marinette would not admit to smiling at and sometimes even snorting to. Alya had caught the ravenette on occasion, and because of how persistent the aspiring reporter could be, Marinette just simply explained that her and Adrien were exchanging memes to brighten each other's day.
It was not exactly a lie, as her days had definitely become brighter since they started texting: Adrien had made the exact same observation to her.
Alya was stoked for her best friend, but promised not to make a big deal of it. So far, the bespectacled teen had, indeed, kept her word.
As Ladybug, Marinette chose to stay her usual self when they had been together, and felt a little hurt that Chat did not volunteer the information about someone finding out his identity straight away. It took the hero until the second night of patrol for him to break the news, but he was so nervous, and so typically Adrien when doing so, Ladybug did not have it in her to chastise him.
Instead, the red and black polka dotted heroine told her partner that she trusted his judgement; if she had not been the person who knew who he was however, it may have been a different story. She may have even been jealous about the 'amazing person' he gushed about, and the 'wonderful friend' that person had been to him, but the teen would never admit it. Ladybug was required to hide her blush, and decided to work out how she would always get home before he arrived on her rooftop when he did manage to pop over.
Sitting in class on Friday morning, Marinette was not surprised when Alya sat in Adrien's seat in the front row. They had already had a discussion about Nino wanting to check everything was okay between them, but she was slightly confused when Adrien fist bumped his friend and then came up to sit next to her
"Dude," Nino called after him, "Alya sat in your seat so we could sit together again."
"Well, she should have sat in this seat then, because this is where I sit now." Adrien shrugged, "sorry."
It was completely out of character for the blonde as far as Nino was concerned, and he earned more than a few questioning eyebrows at his reply to his best friend.
"Maybe you should go and sit with him," Marinette encouraged quietly, "he wants to speak to you about the other day an-"
"I'll catch him at lunch," Adrien replied while getting his tablet out, "I have a question for you that is of catmost importance." His cocked brow was out of place and all Marinette could do was imagine him in his masked form. The cursed blush was appearing once more.
"That wasn't funny."
"Shhh, it was."
Marinette rolled her eyes and skeptically prompted: "you gonna ask me then, or leave me in pusspence?"
"And you said mine was bad…" he shook his head in mock disapproval, causing Marinette to giggle and poke her tongue out playfully in his direction.
"Man, look I'm sorry," Nino suddenly appeared at Adrien's side with a dejected look on his face, "can we talk?"
Adrien turned and smiled genuinely at his cap wearing friend, "of course. I'm not getting picked up, so we can have lunch today if you want?"
Nino instantly relaxed and perked up with a grin. "Awesome my dude! I'll catch you in a bit then."
Once Nino patted Adrien's shoulder and sat back in his seat, the hero noticed Lila's eyes on them once more and his periodots narrowed suspiciously; the blonde made a mental note to be conscious of Lila's whereabouts at all times. Turning his attention back to Marinette, Adrien smirked when leaning into the budding designer's space. The ravenette, who had become lost in her notebook, jumped when she realised he was so close.
"That question…"
the teen sighed while her heartbeat returned to what could be counted as normal when he was right next to her. "Yes Adrien."
"Are you busy tomorrow morning?" That smirk of his was just too much like Chat, and the pumping eyebrows caused Marinette to push him away by his nose. The blonde had a brief look of astonishment, but soon smiled smugly. Whispering quietly, Adrien leaned in to speak into her ear, "y'know, there's someone else who does that…"
Marinette felt her cheeks flush again, the nose push was something Ladybug did: she would have to remember herself in future. "I've seen pictures…" The teen trailed off casually, trying to act as aloof as possible while covering her tracks.
Adrien chuckled quietly, "my everyday bugaboo…" Marinette's blush instantly spanned her face and Adrien could not hide his toothy grin at the accomplishment. "Anyway," he continued, "would you like to join me on the set for the fragrance commercial I'm shooting tomorrow?" He deflated a little and stared at the top of his desk, "they can be pretty boring, but it would be nice to have a friend there-"
"Y-yes Adrien." Marinette said quickly, being on the set and seeing the different aspects of how it was put together would fascinate her. "I love would to come!"
"Pawsome." He smiled broadly, completely accepting her jumbled words as if they made complete sense..
Marinette rolled her eyes and let out a feigned sigh of exasperation, the pun was just the ticket to remind her that he was her Kitty, "if you keep dropping puns like cat, then I think a certain person might cat-ch on…"
Marinette's eyes flickered to the front row where Alya was watching them with a curious head tilt and Adrien smiled sheepishly at Marinette. Typically, he rubbed the back of his neck with an apologetic wince.
"I think you might be right there."
Marinette simply raised her eyebrows at him in a way that communicated 'you think?' while her face returned to a somewhat normal shade.
"So… we cool dude?"
Adrien smiled understandingly at his best friend, "of course man, I'm sorry for bolting off, it was just one of those days."
Nino patted the blonde on the shoulder, "nah, I get it, and I really didn't mean to upset you." Nino retracted his hand and adjusted his cap. "I was just being a dick, I-I thought that it would allow you to open up about the situation."
"I get it," Adrien smiled warmly at his friend, "I appreciate the thought, but in all honesty, it just reminded me about how spineless I seem to be when it comes to my father…" the blonde trailed off with a sigh. "He cares in his own way, I know that, but sometimes I just want a little bit of freedom and it just frustrated me and reminded me that I don't have a say in what I can and can't do sometimes."
Nino scrunched his face up in thought while looking at the steps they were standing on before making their way back into the school after lunch. "I'll be more aware of that from now on then, and you never know," Nino brightened up, "things might start improving. I heard Lila say that she's going to be on set tomorrow morning so you have a friend to talk to between takes!"
Adrien grimaced and hunched his shoulders as if repressing a shiver, "yeah, my dad said when I spoke to him last night and I guess she hasn't been told yet."
As they began walking up the stairs, Nino gave him a curious look. "Told about what?"
A happy smile split Adrien's face, "that she won't be needed anymore."
"I don't get it."
"I have to admit," Adrien explained as they made their way to the locker room, "after the other day, I did actually kinda stand up to my 'ol' man' as you put it."
Nino apologetically winced and Adrien chuckled softly.
"He told me that I needed someone my own age to be around while attending these shoots, and he explained he had arranged for Lila to come… but I told him I didn't want her there if she didn't have to be, as she causes trouble and is not exactly nice to some of the crew members, and I said that I knew someone who would really benefit from attending."
Nino gawped at his best friend as they reached Adrien's locker, "what did the dude say?"
Adrien chuckled again, "first he was not impressed that I wanted to challenge him, but once I explained that it was someone who has already won two of his design competitions, he uh, was intrigued to say the least."
Nino twisted his lips into an impressed smirk, "go on…"
Adrien shrugged while hiding his slight blush by briefly routing through his locker. "So he's agreed for Marinette to come along to my shoots-"
"Dude!" Nino exclaimed with excited astonishment, "I knew there was something going on between you two!"
Adrien raised a brow while holding up his hands in a defensive motion, "no, it's not like that at all, she's just…" he twisted his lips and took a breath while deciding how to phrase 'she knows I'm Chat Noir and has been really cool about it' in a vague way that would stop Nino from jumping to conclusions. "She's been great to talk to, and it's my way of thanking her… at least one of us will want to be there tomorrow."
When Adrien stuck his head back into his locker, to make sure he had enough cheese on his person for Plagg during the afternoon lessons, the blonde missed Nino's skeptically raised brow. The light blush on his cheeks had done nothing to deter the DJ from deducing the wrong conclusion. "Right~ and you've started sitting by her because you get to talk… in class?"
"No," Adrien popped his head back out and shut his door with a little too much force. "I sit with her in class because you now sit in her seat, and she's been pushed to the back on her own."
Adjusting his cap, Nino avoided looking at Adrien for a moment before glancing up with a sheepish expression on his face. "Dude, Lila needed-"
"Then really you, me, Chloé or Sabrina should have moved. Not Marinette." He led the way to Nino's locker so the aspiring DJ could retrieve his books for the afternoon. "There was no need for Marinette to move to accommodate Lila, so why should she be the one who is expected to change."
Nino opened his locker and shoved his bag inside, "I don't... I don't know, okay. That's just how it ended up." A beat went by until Nino's head emerged from his locker and he sighed with acceptance. "I wanted to sit by Alya okay? So when Lila needed my seat, the whole class decided to switch seats and that was just how it ended up."
"That's fair enough, thank you for being honest," the blonde smiled but the gesture did not reach his eyes which Nino noted. "But I can assure you that whole class did not decide the changes, as neither myself nor Marinette were part of the discussion… and even though Lila does not need to continue sitting there anymore for whatever reason-"
Nino rolled his eyes which Adrien ignored,
"-me and Marinette continue to sit together. I don't know if you realised this when it happened Nino, but I didn't want to sit next to Lila as much as Marinette didn't want to be pushed to the back, but you wanted to sit with Alya, and that's okay. So being as I'm on a roll with relaying my feelings, I think it's only fair that I'm honest with you about how that made me feel."
Nino's brow furrowed, "hang on a sec' dude, I thought you and Lila were-"
"No, whatever you believe about me and Lila is wrong. I had to pressure Lila into getting Marinette back into school after she was wrongfully expelled." Nino stared at his blonde friend who was obviously beginning to get wound up. "I knew she had lied about what Marinette had done, and I was the one who got her to admit that she lied to Damocles."
"Dude! Does Marinette know?!"
"No," Adrien glared, "and she doesn't need to either, no one does. Everything seems to have calmed down for now and I don't want this information to cause any upset." The teen saviour let out a breath to calm himself, "can you, maybe, not tell Alya? Please?"
"Course!" Nino gazed at him with slight surprise displayed on his features, "but I don't see why it would."
"Trust me on this Nino," the blonde levelled with his conflicted looking friend, "it's not worth finding out."
Thanks for reading, your follows, faves and kind words on the first chapter =)
So Lila's had the boot? How will the Italian take it?
Until next time =^.^=
Take it easy!
Lady Rhi X
