To Rose Tiger: Don't worry, some of the answers are in this chapter.
To GuenZhenXuan2020: Which lie do you mean? In chapter 5 or at the very beginning of the entire story? Adrien says Plagg's lying about being annoyed by how "cute" he and Marinette are. The bigger things do eventually get answered.
To anonymousfriend27: The question of why they didn't talk it out already gets answered in this chapter. But it comes down to a question of timing and priorities.
To Dragon Lord Draco: That gets answered eventually. It's a little more complicated than either of those options.
Alya sat across from Marinette at the dining room table in her parents' apartment, both hands wrapped around her steaming teacup. The twins were playing with their Heroes of Paris dolls in their bedroom, leaving the two girls free to talk. The Kwamis sat on the table between them sharing a croissant quietly. Marinette had her feet up on the chair, hugging her knees tightly as she stared into the depths of her own teacup. She'd been like that for the better part of an hour, refusing all of Alya's attempts to start a conversation.
At school that day, she and Nino had both realized right away that something was off with their two best friends. Although Marinette was polite and outwardly affectionate, she wouldn't look at Adrien for more than a minute at a time. Adrien for his part hadn't noticed her strange behavior; he was too distracted by his own thoughts. More often than she could count, Alya had witnessed Nino nudging Adrien under the desk so he would unclench his fists and pay attention to the lesson. After the final bell rang, Alya gave Nino a look and glanced over at Adrien meaningfully. Nino nodded and wrapped an arm around Adrien, steering him out of the room. Divide and conquer it is…
And all Alya had gotten from Marinette for her trouble so far was stony silence. "So…" Alya tried again, hesitantly, "what's going on with Adrien? School was weird today…"
Marinette stirred herself and groaned. "You're telling me! He was almost arrested for stealing from Agreste yesterday, and the only reason he wasn't was because his lawyer convinced the police to wait until they have actual evidence against him! But what if he is arrested and it goes on his permanent record and he's never able to find a job again and no one will work for him so Agreste has to close and–"
"Whoa, whoa, girl!" Alya nearly shouted, interrupting Marinette mid-rant. "Slow down! There's no way Adrien would have done something like that! He's the richest kid in the school, and he also cares the least about money out of everyone we know! It has to be a misunderstanding, and they're going to sort it all out."
"Of course that's all a misunderstanding," Marinette agreed, exasperated, "but that's not what's really wrong."
"So what is really going on?" Alya pressed. "Please! I'm your best friend. You can tell me. Let me help you."
"It's just… I refuse to believe that Adrien is cheating on me!"
"Wait, what?" Alya nearly shouted. Tikki and Trixx both jumped into the air at the noise; Tikki mirrored Alya's expression of slack-jawed shock. Alya continued, "Of course that boy isn't cheating on you, girl! He's head-over-heels in love with you. I know it. You know it. Everyone at school knows it. Hell, there are probably undiscovered tribes in the jungle that know it! If you asked him to go and fight a giant octopus, he would evolve gills on the spot!"
"So you say…"
"So I know!" she insisted. "If he's a 'Sunshine Boy,' then you are his sun, girl."
"But what if he is cheating on me?" Marinette demanded, lower lip quivering, pain clear in her eyes. "What if the reason he's been hanging out with Kagami so much lately isn't because of a fencing tournament but they're secretly planning to run off together and elope and move to Australia and have a pet kangaroo and–"
Alya groaned and glanced over at the two Kwamis. She raised an eyebrow at Tikki, who started out of her own dazed reverie, shut her mouth, and shook her head affectionately. Trixx just stifled an amused snort.
"–and then they'll have three children named–" Marinette cut off abruptly as Tikki slapped her gently on the cheek.
"Earth to Marinette…" Alya called, waving a hand in front of her face. "You're spiraling again. There's no way for any of that to be true. There's no way that Adrien would ever cheat on you!"
"But–"
"No 'buts'!"
"I have proof!" Marinette wailed.
"What? What proof?" Alya demanded, suddenly feeling her anger build in spite of herself.
"He's looking to hire a new lead designer – after insisting all year that eventually he wants that to be me! He wants me out of Agreste; that's why he's leaving information for other fashion houses on my desk!"
Alya scoffed. "Isn't your design team room an open floor plan? Anyone could have left those things on your desk."
"But what about the picture?" Marinette retorted.
That got Alya's attention. "There's a picture? Of what?"
"Adrien. At a fancy restaurant," Marinette answered, bottom lip trembling with every syllable. She pulled out a picture she had printed off and stuck in her purse. "With another girl."
Alya's jaw dropped as she looked at the photo, Tikki hovering next to her head. Adrien could clearly be seen sitting in a fancy restaurant, smiling across the table at a girl who looked about their own age. The girl faced away from the camera, and Alya couldn't make out any distinguishing features beyond her dark hair. "I-I don't believe it… have you confronted him about this yet?" asked Alya.
Marinette shook her head. "How could I?" she asked, tears starting to pool in the corners of her eyes. "I only received the email after he was taken in for questioning. Then when he came to the bakery after leaving the police station, he told me they had nearly arrested him! I couldn't throw something like this at him on top of everything else! He needed my support! What kind of girlfriend would I be if I accused him of cheating on me or broke up with him when he had literally just avoided being arrested?"
"But why didn't you say anything to me?" Tikki demanded, eyes flashing. "My partner spends every moment with him, and he would tell me the truth… if that mangy cat knows what's good for him!"
Marinette just shrugged. "You were talking to Plagg when I saw the picture, and when you came back, the police thing just seemed more important."
"Sometimes you are just too nice for your own good, girl," Alya told her, shaking her head. "I think you would have been completely justified in getting the truth about this yesterday, police or no. If he actually did something like this, he wouldn't deserve your support in the other thing. And if he didn't do it, you deserve to know that so you really can support him, not this half-hearted thing you were doing today.
"But back to the photo. Did it come with a note or anything?"
"Nothing." Marinette's shoulders slumped. "But the photo itself has a timestamp from two nights ago. When he said he was going to go straight home to the mansion to hang out with Nino and stay there for the night instead staying at the bakery."
"Wait… two nights ago?" Alya pressed, looking at the bottom corner of the photo to confirm. On seeing the timestamp for herself, Alya burst out laughing.
"Alya!" Marinette moaned, tugging on her pigtails. "It's not funny! My boyfriend lied to me and went out with another girl – and your boyfriend must've known about it! My life is over!"
"Actually," Alya admitted, wiping tears from her eyes, "it really is kind of funny! You see, he actually was out with another girl that night. And I know who he was 'cheating on you' with…"
"What? Who?" Marinette demanded, glaring at her.
"Mylène," Alya replied smugly.
"WHAT?" Marinette's jaw dropped open in shock and she nearly dropped her teacup. "She would do that? To Ivan? To me? I gave that girl a Miraculous!"
"Hold up, girl," Alya cautioned as Marinette started rooting in her purse for her cell phone. "Don't go on the warpath just yet. Does the girl in this photograph look anything like Mylène? Adrien traded patrol nights with me at the last minute. Nino won tickets to a concert that night, and Adrien agreed to take my patrol so Nino and I could have a last-minute date. So Adrien spent the whole night patrolling with Multiplice, not meeting up for some late-night rendezvous with his 'side piece.'"
"Wait, so you're saying that this photo is…"
"A fake," Alya confirmed with a nod. "Trixx?" The Kwami darted over to the supply drawer while Alya grabbed a water bottle from the counter. She held the photo up to the light, using the water bottle as a makeshift magnifying glass. "I saw this in a movie once," she explained. She studied Adrien's image carefully, as well as everything around him. Nothing caught her attention until she examined his eyes. By then Trixx had returned with a ruler and pencil. Alya placed the photo on the table and started drawing lines on the photo, adjusting the ruler each time.
"Alya, what are you doing?" Marinette asked, leaning over her shoulder carefully to avoid blocking her light.
"Something is off in the lighting on Adrien," Alya answered, not looking up from her work. "You can just barely see light in his eyes, like he was looking into the camera flash, but the light source for the rest of the picture is clearly to the side, not in front of him. Shoot," she muttered. "It's got to be a fake, but it's very expertly-done. If I didn't already know he had an alibi, I probably wouldn't have bothered looking close enough to realize. If you send me the original file I can definitely confirm it with my photo-analysis software. But it has to be a fake. We can still check with Mylène, but he was definitely on patrol with her all night. I even saw them on the roof when we left the concert."
Marinette tapped a few buttons on her phone before she let out a relieved sigh and slumped back into her chair. She furrowed her brow and stared at Alya. "But what about the fashion house applications? The lead designer contest?"
"Does that really sound like something Adrien would do to you?" Alya demanded, opening her laptop. "If the two of you had a problem, wouldn't he talk it out with you?"
Marinette nodded, wide-eyed.
"Have you gotten any hint of trouble in paradise before today, girl?"
Marinette shook her head. "Just the opposite," she admitted. "The same day this photo was supposedly from, our office manager tried to fire me."
Alya's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, that jerk tried to fire you?"
Marinette nodded. "I called him out for mistreating another intern. He dragged me into Adrien's office and everything. I honestly thought Adrien was about to Cataclysm him, he was so furious."
"That doesn't sound like a boy who's trying to replace you – in the design room or the bedroom!"
"Alya!" Marinette squealed, flushing crimson.
Alya giggled. "Relax, girl," she told her. "I already know you're both too pure for that. But you should be happy: your 'happily ever after' is still on!"
"I know." Marinette groaned and buried her face in her hands. "I just – I can't believe I jumped to this! How could I have doubted Adrien like that? How could I have believed this about him, and after everything we've been through together? I – the last day or so, ever since I saw that photograph, I've been distant from him. I've pulled back because I was afraid he was going to hurt me, and right now is when he needs my support more than anything else, what with these accusations hanging over him."
Alya spun the laptop around to face her. "If it's any consolation, this photograph was doctored so well it barely registered on my software – I might have just chalked it up to photo quality. And this program is designed to catch most forms of photo alteration, even if all I normally use it on are amateur five-minute self-insert PhotoShop jobs. But whoever did this really knew what they were doing. This–this was done by a professional. Again, if we didn't already know for a fact where he was when this picture was supposedly taken, we never would have figured it out.
"The fact is, whoever did this knew exactly how to get to you, Mar. They attacked you as a designer, and they attacked your relationship with Adrien."
"All the same," Marinette vowed, anger flashing in her eyes, fists clenched so tightly around her teacup Alya feared it might break, "I'm never going to fall for something like this again. There is no way I'm letting something like this get between me and Adrien ever again! And if I catch the person who did this…"
"Slow down, girl," Alya told her, shooting off a quick text. "You can plot your revenge later. I'll even help. But as soon as Sabrina gets her to watch the twins for an hour or two, I think we need to go over to the mansion. Nino said Max was going to join him and Adrien to play video games tonight to keep Adrien's mind off of things. Nino seemed pretty excited about it, especially after they canceled on Monday. It's too bad, really, because that's not going to be happening now."
"And why is that?"
Alya smirked and raised her eyebrows at her suggestively. "Because Max is going to be too engrossed in helping me untangle this little web of yours. And Adrien's going to be too engrossed in you!"
"Alya!"