Marinette thought she was done going to parties with Alya after she started 'dating' Adrien, but she was wrong. Alya loved supporting Nino's DJing, but he didn't have many chances to talk during his sets, so Alya continued taking Marinette to parties. Marinette didn't usually enjoy going, but sometimes Adrien was free and she liked seeing him.

When they were younger, Ladybug and Chat Noir had done three weekly patrols together, but when they went to university, they both had less time for that many patrols. Ladybug took their normal Tuesday night patrols, Chat Noir took over their Friday night patrols, and they still patrolled together on Sundays.

Marinette was thankful that she didn't have to reject going to parties to go on patrol, but she always hated the fact that it seemed like Adrien was busy every single Friday night. He would only go to one of the parties Nino was DJing at if it was on a Saturday night. At least Marinette still got to spend time with her best friend.

This particular Friday, Marinette was excited to go out, which was strange for her. She put on a red dress in a vintage style that had black details on it. It was clear from the black polka dots that it was meant to have a vague Ladybug theme, but it wasn't enough to make anyone suspicious of her secret identity.

She had the dress paired with a black leather jacket and a pair of black booties. She liked how the outfit combined the general look of Ladybug with a few Chat Noir elements. Alya brought Marinette a drink when she came back to where she was standing and Marinette smiled. She took a sip and coughed.

"Jeez, Alya," she laughed when she finished coughing, "are you trying to get me drunk? Why is this so strong?"

"Sorry, Mari," Alya apologized, "I guess I didn't realize your tolerance. Do you want me to make you a different one?"

"I'll get it myself, you goofball. Nino can have this one if he wants." Marinette rolled her eyes at her best friend and went over to the drink table to get herself something else. Alya went a little closer to Nino to talk to him while one of his longer mixes was playing. She offered him the drink and he accepted it with a bright smile on his face.

He was more used to drinking than Marinette, so he was fine with the ratio that Alya had given him. Marinette smiled at her friends and then turned to face the table. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a sharpie. She wrote 'Mari ' on the side of her cup like always then started pouring her own drink.

"Hey Mari," a guy said approaching her. It was clear that he was just reading her cup. Most of her friends had nicknames of their own for her and very few actually called her 'Mari.' She looked up and saw the guy who had started talking to her. He looked like he was a couple of years older than her, not enough that she was uncomfortable with that, but he looked like he should have already graduated university.

She didn't like that this guy acted like he knew her name from the beginning when she knew she had never met him before, but she didn't want to be rude. "Hello," she responded, trying to sound more confident than she felt about talking to the stranger. She hated smalltalk in situations like this.

"What brings a beautiful girl like you to my party tonight?" She was nervous about the fact that the party was apparently his, she didn't want to stand in the way of him hiring Nino as the DJ again if she ended up saying the wrong thing to him.

"I got invited by my roommate," she said honestly, "she's dating one of the guys here." She tried to keep her breathing steady, but the guy took a step closer to her.

"Sounds like I should thank your roommate for inviting you, then." His eyes scanned over her and Marinette was glad that she added the leather jacket before she left home so that she had more of her skin covered than just the dress by itself. "I'm Théo."

"It's nice to meet you, Théo," Marinette responded, trying to subtly take a small step backwards as he tried to draw closer to her. She felt her heart pounding in her chest, his steps were larger than hers and she didn't want to mess anything up. She was Ladybug, so she knew she could handle herself in any situation, but it would be suspicious if she tried to fight this guy who was almost 30 cm taller than herself.

"How about the two of us go somewhere a little quieter, get to know each other a little bit?" Marinette visibly swallowed and continued trying to back away from him.

"I have a boyfriend," she said with as much of her Ladybug confidence as she could.

"This isn't the first party I've seen you at," he told her, "and I've never seen you with a guy before. Just another girl." Marinette hated the fact that this guy had been apparently paying that much attention to her. She wanted to throw up and she almost wished she could have just to get him to stop giving her attention.

"I'm sorry I'm late, princess," she suddenly heard from next to her. She felt a gentle, supportive pressure on her shoulder and could immediately tell that it was Adrien. She didn't know why he was there that night when he couldn't usually come out on Fridays, but she had never been happier to see him. "Sorry for interrupting. Who's your friend?"

Marinette took a breath that was calmer than most she'd been taking for the last few minutes. She looked up toward Adrien and felt her heart rate fall back to a normal level. "This is Théo," Marinette told Adrien, placing her own hand around the back of his waist. "This is his party," she added after a second. She rose onto her tiptoes and gave Adrien a quick kiss on his cheek.

Adrien nodded, but it was clear to Marinette that he didn't care who this guy was, he was just getting involved in the conversation to ideally get Théo away from Marinette. Adrien and Marinette became 'wrapped up in their own conversation' and Théo went ignored as the two talked about their days.

He had a grumpy look on his face when he gave up on chasing Marinette. "Does that happen to you a lot?" Adrien asked once it was only the two of them paying attention to their conversation. He hated the idea that Marinette was dealing with this and never told him, even if he was just her fake boyfriend.

"No," she affirmed, "this was the first time that someone didn't believe that I was dating someone." In the back of his mind, Adrien was curious how often Marinette was being hit on when he wasn't around. He knew that people hit on him kind of often, but that, unfortunately, came along with the territory of being a model.

He made a mental note that he should ask Ladybug if he could move his Friday night patrols to Thursday nights instead so that he could go with Marinette and make sure that she wasn't being bothered like she was that night. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if he hadn't shown up when he did.

"Do you want to go find Alya and Nino?" Marinette smiled and nodded, taking his hand in hers as they walked back over to their friends. Marinette had a smile on her face for the rest of their evening, despite her experience with Théo earlier. She had a nice time with her friends while they were at the party.