In which Alya slightly cracks the fourth wall, because why not.

Ladybug and Chat parted with a promise to catch up again soon, and maybe run a few more races. By the time Marinette got home and detransformed, it was well past midnight. She closed the window with a contented sigh and fed Tikki a cookie before getting ready for bed.

About to brush her teeth, she caught sight of her reflection: flushed cheeks and tousled hair, eyes shining with excitement. She gave herself a toothy grin that would have rivalled one of Chat's. He's back. He's back. As she brushed her teeth she planned out the patrols they would do together, just for old times' sake. Maybe they could actually spend some time together, with no Papillon looming over them and no awkward one-sided romantic feelings between them. Maybe this summer wasn't going to be so bad.

She got into bed, checking her phone out of habit before turning off the light. She had a Facebook message from Alya informing her that if she didn't see her for coffee this weekend, Alya would personally come and drag her out of the apartment by her hair. Marinette grinned and sent her a thumbs up, just to annoy her. There was a WhatsApp from her mother, a Twitter notification from the Ladyblog, and a text from an unknown number. Frowning, she opened it.

Hey Mari! Want to meet up for coffee this weekend? I have some ideas to chat about with you.

Marinette switched off her bedside light and said, "Goodnight, Tikki." Tikki, from the little shoebox she liked to sleep in, murmured something unintelligible in reply. Marinette got comfy in bed and then held up her phone again, her fingers tapping swiftly against the screen.

Sorry, I don't have this number! Who is this? She wondered if it was Rose or Alix, both of whom occasionally got in touch to catch up. Either could have got a new number and forgotten to tell her—especially Rose, who could occasionally be a little ditzy.

Her phone chimed. Marinette read the text, and froze. Her heart, who had apparently not received the we no longer have a crush memo, started banging crazily in her chest as if it had forgotten how to beat normally. She stared down at the screen in shock, wondering if she was somehow misreading the words. But no, there they were in black and white.

Oh, sorry! It's Adrien Agreste. :)

"Ahhhh!" shrieked Alya. "What happened next?"

Marinette rolled her eyes. "Calm down, Alya, you'll give yourself a—"

"I CAN'T CALM DOWN!" yelled her best friend, grasping Marinette by the shoulders and shaking her. "ADRIEN ASKED YOU OUT!"

Marinette could hear the extra exclamation marks. She extricated herself from Alya's overexcited grip and tried to hold her at arm's length. "Please can you just take it down a notch? You're drawing attention to us." She glanced uncomfortably at the people giving the two of them strange sideways glances.

"JUST TELL MEEE!"

"Okay, okay!" Marinette dug in her handbag for her phone, feeling it was the lesser of two evils. She knew she shouldn't've begun this conversation in public. "Here. You can see for yourself."

Alya's attention was instantly drawn to the phone, and she whipped it out of Marinette's grasp. "Oo," she said, sounding like a child who had been given a lifetime supply of their favourite sweets. "Yesss, lemme see that sweet Adrienette chat."

"It's in my texts—wait, what?"

"Where? Oh, I see. Oh my gosh, cuuute, he called himself Adrien Agreste!"

"Did you just make up a couple name for us?! Alya?"

Alya ignored her, scrolling through the messages eagerly. They reached a bench and sat on it, Marinette peering over her shoulder at the phone, half afraid and half curious of Alya's reaction.

A: Oh, sorry! It's Adrien Agreste :)

M: Oh. How did you get this number?

A: I got it off Nino!

Alya snorted. "Nice."

"Yeah," said Marinette flatly, "remind me to thank your fiancé for that one."

M: I see. Um, what do you mean, ideas to chat about?

A: It's important. It's about Nino and Alya.

M: What about them?

"You were so cold to him!" exclaimed Alya. "What'd he do, murder a kitten?"

"It just seemed really weird," said Marinette stiffly. "We haven't hung out for ages and ages, and then out of the blue he wants to meet up?"

A: It's a secret! :)

M: Okay…

A: Sunday morning?

M: I'm busy, sorry.

A: What about the afternoon?

M: I won't be free until about 4.

A: 4 is perfect!

M: I do have quite a lot of work though

A: I won't keep you long. Promise. ;)

Alya squeaked. "He sent you a WINKY FACE."

"I know," said Marinette, disapprovingly. He probably sends them to all the girls he talks to. She had hated herself for it, but last night she may have spent a few minutes (half an hour) scrolling through Adrien's Instagram again and reading all the comments from his fans. It hadn't exactly helped her feelings of animosity towards him.

M: Well, if it's that urgent I guess I can spare half an hour or so. Where do you want to meet?

A: How about the café from the other day? It was really nice there. And don't worry, I'll make it worth your while!

Alya choked. Marinette, rolling her eyes, patted her on the back.

M: Ok. See you then.

A: Awesome! :) xxx

"HE… KISS… ADRIEN… YOU…" said Alya, eloquently.

Marinette waited patiently, and then prompted, "Yes?"

"HE SENT YOU KISSES. HE WANTS TO KISS YOU."

"That is not what kisses in a text mean!"

"My ship is sailing," Alya proclaimed dramatically, waving the phone around for emphasis. "My OTP. My—" She gasped. "Oh. My. Gosh. We should have a double wedding."

Marinette decided this tangent wasn't going to get them anywhere.

"So… yeah, that was the gist of it. I'm still not sure whether to go. You'll be my back-up cancel plan, right?"

Alya was too busy re-reading the texts, grinning widely, to answer.

"I feel like it's going to be super awkward. And I don't know what he can possibly have to say to me that's so important. I know I'm going to embarrass myself again and to be honest, I'm not sure I want to waste my Sunday afternoon on a model who thinks he's the centre of the universe—"

"MARINETTE, YOU HAVE A DATE WITH ADRIEN AGRESTE," Alya shouted, seemingly incapable of speaking at a normal volume.

"Please, Alya, use your indoor voice—"

"YOU AND ADRIEN ARE GOING ON A DATE. OHMYGOSH. THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE."

"It's not a date."

"IT'S TOTALLY A DATE!"

"No it's not!" squealed Marinette.

Alya gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. "What are you going to wear?"

A wave of panic crashed over both girls. "I don't know!" Marinette wailed. "Help me!"

"I will. Promise. I'll come over tomorrow and pick you out something nice."

"Thank you. You're the best."

"I know." Alya handed back Marinette's phone. "Okay, my curiosity is satisfied. We can go get ice-cream now."

"Gee, thanks."

They were halfway there when Alya suddenly said: "Wait, he wants to talk about me and Nino!"

"Oh yeah." Marinette had forgotten about that. "I thought that was a bit strange."

"What do you think it's about? I swear, Mari, if he bitches about us to you I will murder him, love of your life or not."

"Ma chouchoute, you know I would already have killed him for you. No one says anything mean about my favourite people in the whole world and gets away with it."

They giggled, Alya looping her arm around Marinette's waist, and descended into an argument over which ice-cream to get—a familiar topic of discussion between them, especially when the weather was as warm as it was becoming now. Marinette maintained that strawberry ice-cream was the best food in the entire world and couldn't possibly be improved upon, while Alya didn't understand why she was still friends with someone who didn't like the chocolate flavour. Once they had got their respective treats, they wandered back through the park towards Marinette's flat, still bickering amiably.

"I wonder what Adrien's favourite flavour is," said Alya, licking a drop of melted ice-cream off the inside of her wrist. "I bet it's something really boring, like lemon. This is why you two are meant to be."

"Not this again," groaned Marinette. "I thought we were done with this."

"OTP! OTP! Mari and Adrien, sitting in a tree—!"

"I thought Ladybug and Chat Noir were your OTP?" teased Marinette, then immediately wondered why the hell she'd said that.

"Ahh, Ladynoir," sighed Alya, theatrically. "Yes, you're right, maybe they're my OTP. You and Adrien can be my OOTP. Other One True Pairing."

"Do you have ship names for all the couples you know?" asked Marinette with biting sarcasm.

"Yep." Alya bit off a huge chunk of her cone with a loud crunch. "Me and Nino are DJWifi."

"What?" Marinette stopped to stare at her best friend. "Because of your akuma identities? Doesn't that… I dunno, weird you out?"

"Meh," she answered with a shrug. "Some people are weird about their akuma name, but I think mine was kinda cool. Yeah, I was a victim of Papillon, but why try to pretend it never happened, ya know? Own it, that's what I say."

Marinette grinned. "DJWifi. I can get on board with that. Can I make Adrien put that in the best man's speech?"

"Sure."

"Excellent."

They walked on quietly for a moment, and then Alya suddenly gave a shriek that made Marinette's blood run cold. It had been years since the last akuma, but her instincts still went into overdrive whenever anything unexpected or concerning happened. She clutched Alya's arm and swore.

"Don't do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"I just remembered! Did you see my blog post yesterday? There was a sighting!"

"Ah, yes, I did see! Super cool, huh?" The Ladyblog was still up and running, but very quiet these days. Thankfully, Alya had slightly grown out of it and now looked back on it fondly but without regret that Ladybug's heroic career had more or less come to an end. Marinette had been terrified of upsetting her, and hugely relieved when Alya had shown no signs of fury. The Ladyblog had served its purpose—both in giving Alya experience in hosting an extremely popular website, and functioning as an excellent portfolio for her journalism applications.

"So cool! I got all these amazing photo submissions. I only posted the best ones but there were so many it was hard to choose. I can't believe Chat is back! It was incredible to see them together again. I wonder where he's been…?"

Marinette listened patiently to her long list of theories about what it all meant, quietly interjecting every now and then with slightly more sensible suggestions.

She also found herself, for no good reason, blushing quite violently when Alya pulled up one of the photos on her phone and dreamily pointed out how much "hotter" Chat had become. Alya had always been a Ladybug fan first and foremost, but she was not the kind of girl to not notice certain things like sculpted abs and well-shaped butts. Marinette cleared her throat, pretending her cheeks weren't burning, and told herself that it was perfectly acceptable for people to ogle her partner, who was indeed a very good-looking man. There was absolutely no reason to feel strange about it.

All the same, she was glad when Alya changed the subject.

I love these girls! They remind me of me and my bestie.

Thanks as always for your wonderful reviews. You guys are amazing! Sorry for the delay, but I have tons of editing work at the moment and we've just decided to move house, so way too much on. But I promise I'll sneak every chance I can to sink into ML madness!