Wingwoman chapter 2: A Scheme on the Seine

A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

By Mintaka14

"Did Alya say why she wanted a girls' meeting before the Kitty Section rehearsal?" Juleka asked, tapping her foot on the arm of the couch as she picked at the edges of her purple nail polish. Rose was sprawled on the floor, turning her history essay into a glittery work of art.

"Don't know," Rose said absently, then she looked up with a bright smile. "Maybe it's another Adrienette plan."

"Does Marinette even like Adrien anymore?" Juleka mumbled at her fingernails, and Rose frowned at her.

"Of course she does! She's been in love with him forever-"

"A year," Juleka said under her breath.

"-and they'd be so cute together!"

Juleka thought of her stupid brother, and didn't say anything.

The noise of Alya's arrival was hard to miss, and Juleka swung herself upright. The crash as Alya flung open the door made her flinch. Behind the reporter, Alix rolled her eyes and dropped her bag beside the door.

"Hey Juleka," she said drily, and wandered off to get herself a drink.

"We haven't got much time," Alya announced, not waiting for greetings. "Adrien will be here soon, and we need to have our plan in place-"

"Is Marinette coming? Shouldn't we wait for her?" Rose interrupted.

"She doesn't know about this," Alya said. "It's for her own good. She gets too nervous every time we plan something, so we're going to set it up to make it easy for her to talk to Adrien this time. Adrien thinks this is just another Kitty Section practice and I got him to promise he'd come, and then we can get them alone together, and this time for sure Marinette will confess."

Alix rolled her eyes. "Yeah, 'cause that never goes wrong."

"We've got to do something!" Alya insisted, planting her hands on her hips. "I want Marinette to be happy. I'm going to get my girl her dream guy if it's the last thing I do."

"Even if she's changed her mind?" Juleka nerved herself to ask.

Alya waved that away.

"She's just getting distracted because she thinks that Adrien is hooking up with Kagami now, but if we can just get Marinette alone with Adrien so she can confess, then he'll fall in love with Marinette and they can double date with me and Nino and be happy ever after, and she doesn't have to settle."

Behind her fringe, Juleka frowned. Settle? That was her brother that Alya was dismissing as a poor second.

Rose tucked her hands under her chin, leaning over the back of her chair to follow Alya's pacing.

"So what's the plan?" she asked.

"We keep it really simple," Alya said decisively. "That way there's less chance for things to go wrong."

Alix snorted, and behind her fringe Juleka's expression echoed the sound. Alya ignored them.

"I'll keep Mari down here so she doesn't go wandering off, and then when Adrien gets here you bring him down to the loungeroom." Alya stabbed a finger at Rose, and Juleka frowned at that. "But don't give it away that there's anything going on by getting too excited and blabbing. Then all we have to do is say we need to set up something on the deck, and leave them alone for the magic to happen."

Alix snorted again. "It's your funeral. But it's been a boring week, so I'll play along."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alya asked, her hands on her hips.

Alix just shook her head and wandered out the door. The rest of the girls followed her up onto the deck to wait, and Rose bounced over to the boat-rail to keep a lookout.

"Marinette's here," Rose squeaked, and Alya hurried over join her. "With Adrien!"

"Yes! It's wor-" Alya broke off and scowled as Kagami got out of the car. "What's she doing here?"

"At a guess, she wants to listen to Kitty Section," Alix said deadpan. "What have you got against Kagami, anyway?"

"She has no taste in journalism," Alya said darkly, and Juleka rolled her eyes. So Kagami had said something disparaging about the Ladyblog. That explained a few things. "And she's snowed Marinette into thinking that they're friends so that Marinette'll back out of fighting for Adrien. Marinette's just too nice for her own good, so I have to do it for her."

Marinette hopped off the gangplank onto the deck of the Liberty, and then Adrien held out a hand to help Kagami across the narrow boards. Juleka swung back to rest of the group, and Alya's narrowed eyes were fixed on the point where Adrien still held Kagami's hand, even though they were safely on the deck now. Juleka was almost surprised that Alya hadn't left scorch marks.

Rose was looking anxiously from Marinette to Alya.

"What do we do now? Adrien seems really into Kagami," the blonde whispered.

"Leave it to me," Alya said in a voice of iron determination. "And get me a drink – juice or something. Something that'll make a bit of a stain."

"What are you planning to do?" Rose asked.

"Nothing serious. I'm just going to make it so that Kagami has to spend a bit of time getting cleaned up."

"I… don't think Marinette would want you to do that. Isn't that a bit mean?" Rose said hesitantly, but Alya just waved her off with a flip of her hand.

"Mari doesn't need to know. It's all in a good cause, and it's just a bit of juice. Just get me a cup. I'll do it myself."

Juleka sighed deeply and stayed silent. This was going to go badly.

Alix, on the other hand, shrugged and wandered off. She came back with a mug in her hand.

"It's your funeral," she said again as she handed it to Alya.

"What are you doing?" Rose hissed, and then Kagami joined them, with Adrien and Marinette on either side.

Alya said brightly, "It's so good you could all make it," and her hand started to move.

That was when Juleka lurched into her.

And the juice went everywhere. Marinette gave a startled gasp as it soaked into her blouse and dripped down to puddle on the deck. That… hadn't quite been part of Juleka's calculations.

"Oh, no! The boat rolled," Juleka muttered, righting herself.

The thing about fading into the background and being overlooked was that it turned out you could get away with a lot. No one even suggested that they didn't feel a thing, or that Juleka was strangely unsteady for someone who had grown up on a boat. Juleka wasn't sure if she should be pleased or annoyed that Alya obviously didn't even consider that Juleka might have done it deliberately.

It made more of a mess than she'd anticipated, though. Juleka shrank a little as the juice dripped down Marinette's top. Everyone fussed, and a perfectly dry Kagami whipped out a pristine white handkerchief, dabbing at Marinette's stain as it spread further.

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry," Juleka cringed, but Marinette gave her a tiny smile.

"It's okay, it's just juice." She held her top away from her soaked chest. "But I'd probably better head home."

"You can borrow a clean shirt," Juleka offered.

While Juleka burrowed through the piles of mostly clean clothes, Marinette stripped off her soaked blouse and towelled dry.

Juleka hesitated, her hand on a faded Jagged Stone shirt that had seen better days. But it was clean, even if it was going to be huge on Marinette, and she tossed it to the other girl before she could overthink things. Marinette caught it and started to tug it over her head.

"I'm really sorry," Juleka repeated.

"Accidents happen." Marinette's voice was muffled by the shirt, then she yanked it down and she was swamped by the Jagged Stone artwork on the front. "I'm just glad this one happened to me and not to Kagami. She and Adrien aren't supposed to be here in the first place, and if she went home covered in juice or wearing someone else's clothes it'd be weeks before her mother would let her out again."

Juleka flinched guiltily.

"Chloe had this plan once to get Kagami to sit on some cake so that she couldn't spend time with Adrien," Marinette was saying, her attention on the hem of the t-shirt as she fiddled with it. "And I almost did it."

"But you didn't, did you?" Juleka said. She was starting to wonder if Marinette had figured out what had been behind that accidental spill.

"But I almost did. I went along with Chloe because I was so caught up in another plot to get Adrien's attention." Marinette lifted her head, and her blue eyes met Juleka's with an odd resolution. "I don't like a lot of the things I've done because I was crushing on Adrien. I don't like me when I'm chasing Adrien."

Juleka hesitated, opening her mouth to speak just as they heard someone clattering down the ladder into the galley. Luka swung around the edge of the door.

"Jules, have you seen-" Juleka knew the moment that he spotted Marinette in his favourite Jagged Stone t-shirt that was just a bit too long for the shorts she was wearing, because that was when he broke off what he'd been saying with a noise that sounded like he'd swallowed his own tongue.

While her lame brother and Marinette were trying to recover their powers of speech, or stop blushing, Juleka mumbled something and bundled up Marinette's wet blouse, hustling it out the door before they could stop her. If she had anything to say about it, it would be a while before Marinette's top was dry enough to be worn home.

She leaned her back against the closed door, listening to the soft murmur of voices start up in the room behind her, and she allowed herself a small smile behind the fall of her hair.

Things were going well.