"Hey." Nathanaël said shyly, and Lila debated whether she just turn around right now and flee. But no, Lila didn't run from her problems like that (she does every single time, she's lying to herself), and she stood her ground.

"Hey…" Lila said back, wondering if he was going to fly into a fit of rage and/or jealousy.

"Um." Nathanaël began, and then Lila could have sworn she could see his knees begin to shake. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for how I acted this morning. I wasn't trying to be rude." He managed to get out. Lila cocked her head slightly.

Ohhh, Nathanaël was worried about his behavior from earlier. That was the complete opposite of what Lila had been expecting, and she lowered her defensive armor.

"I didn't want you to get the wrong idea. I was just, um-" Nathanaël continued.

"Jealous?" Lila supplied for him easily, and he blushed a bit and averted his gaze.

"Yes." Nathanaël ducked his head nervously. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you know, too. Everyone does. Anyway, I also wanted to say that I'm not going to do anything."

Lila looked at him blankly, confused by what he meant by that.

"I mean, I won't do anything to your or Marinette. She doesn't like me that way. I'll have to give up on her." He hurried to clarify, and Lila watched as his shoulders went down in sadness. Oh.

The poor kid.

"I, um… thanks." Lila said, suddenly unsure of how to handle the situation. "For telling me." She appreciated that Nathanaël had not just called her over to bite her head off. And even if she was dating the love of his life, she thought she might like to be friends with him. He seemed like a really nice pal.

"Yea…" Nathanaël scratched the back of his head and looked away.

"I hope we can friends." Lila suddenly blurted out, surprising both herself and Nathanaël, who brightened considerably. While this was something Lila said often to everybody for the sake of popularity, she rarely said it with a genuine intent to befriend. It seemed as if some of Marinette's amiability had rubbed off on Lila.

"Me too." Nathanaël said and smiled, and Lila was suddenly struck with the realization that had she not moved to Paris when she did, Marinette may have fallen for Nathanaël. Because looking at him now, Lila had to admit the boy had an extremely charming smile, alluring blue eyes and a quiet but attractive personality. Marinette could have fallen in love with him if Lila hadn't been there.

Lila thanked the heavens that she had been there.

"Thanks." Nathanaël smiled again, showing off blindingly bright teeth. Jesus, the boy belonged in a dentist commercial. "And I'm happy for you and Marinette. See you around!" And then he took off, blushing while fleeing the scene as Lila had done previously whenever she encountered Marinette. Lila felt a little bad, because Nathanaël was so nice, but she also felt triumph over being the object of Marinette's affections.

Lila continued walking and the gears in her head started to turn. She realized that like Nathanaël, there were probably other people who crushed or will crush on Marinette, and probably could do a better job at loving Marinette than Lila could. And here Lila was, stumbling awkwardly through a relationship. Even though Lila considered herself as Marinette's significant other, she wasn't acting enough like it.

Lila pursed her lips as she thought. She was lucky to be the one Marinette liked back, and she decided that she needed to try harder. She needed to do a better job of showing her affection and keeping Marinette's eyes on her. Lila narrowed her eyes and picked up the pace, her heels clacking on the sidewalk with determination. She had some mild Facebook detective work to do. And by that, she meant she needed to find out more about Marinette and her interests and adopt them as well. If they had more in common, perhaps they would be less awkward and Marinette would like her more. Lila would also probably try to slam on her suave flirty face.

She just wanted Marinette to keep liking her. She couldn't lose her girlfriend.

So instead of walking to the brightly colored apartment of her Grandma, Lila turned and continued to her own, gray house.

Marinette was similarly disheartened over the awkwardness of the day's lunch. She'd thought that after the texting confession and such it would be easier, but it seemed that whenever she saw Lila she kind of seized up, or forgot how to speak, or something of the sort. It also seemed like Lila was acting a little off again, like she had directly after the akuma attack on Saturday, when she'd seemed distant.

"She's probably just trying to act cool, you know." Tikki said as Marinette opened the hatch to her bedroom.

"I don't know." Marinette replied a little sadly. But that made a little sense; Lila had said that she tried being cool around Marinette sometimes. And she'd been "cool" earlier by catching Marinette that morning and saying what she did. Even so, Marinette liked knowing that she was able to make Lila flustered and drop the facade. Although this way, she supposed Lila now knew that she too could make Marinette flustered.

"I know Lila likes you a lot." Tikki tried again, flying in front of Marinette's face. "Don't worry. It's only been a couple of days, she's probably not used to it."

"Don't you think Lila has probably dated before?" Marinette asked as she set her backpack down. Lila traveled frequently, so she consequently met a lot of people. Plus she was pretty and had connections and could flirt easily, so it would come as no shock if she had dated a couple of times.

But to her surprise, Tikki just laughed.

"Not with the way she's acting around you, no." She said, smiling.

"No way!" Marinette said, mouth slightly open in shock. That couldn't be true, not after how Lila held her close and said what she did.

"Well, certainly someone with more experience would know dating works. And you've seen from today how awkward you two are." Tikki flew down to sit in Marinette's hand.

"Isn't that my fault? I don't know how to act around her." Marinette said, frowning.

"I'm certain it's the same for her. Lila's not acting like an experienced girlfriend." Tikki continued, a knowing expression on her face.

"You mean I'm her first girlfriend?" Marinette realized as she suddenly flushed. That would mean their kiss was probably her first, too.

"I think so." Tikki said.

"So we're both dating noobs?" Marinette put a hand to her head, wondering why she'd thought Lila had probably already dated even after all of her awkwardness. It had probably been the way she acted that morning. All suave and cool

"Yep." Tikki nodded. "And if she did date before, it probably wasn't for much at all."

"Wow." Marinette whispered.

"You two need to work out this relationship." Tikki advised. "And you just need to be yourself. Lila likes you, so be you."

Marinette smiled at Tikki, understanding what she was saying. It was kind of hard to accept that she was good enough for Lila because she didn't always have a lot of self-confidence. But Tikki had never steered her wrong, and she had enough confidence. And it may be hard to be around Lila, but with time she was sure she would get used to it, and they would both be happier for it in the future.

"Thanks, Tikki. I'll try." Marinette resolved. And perhaps she needed to show Lila that she didn't need to act cool or anything. Because Marinette also liked Lila for being Lila, not because she was popular and knew famous people. Not because Lila was cool and suave. But because Marinette felt her heart thud when she looked at Lila's smile. Because she was able to see Lila's honesty.

"And you still need to ask her how she knew." Tikki added, and Marinette groaned.

Meanwhile, Lila was a people-pleaser. She wanted people to like her, and part of the way she could get that was by pleasing people (and lying). She wanted Marinette to like her, so she was going to please her by liking what she liked. And she was going to be a cool girlfriend. Marinette deserved better than her awkward self. She deserved someone who had more in common with her, who could actually talk to her. So Lila was going to hopefully become that.

That was why she was currently reading about Ultimate Mega Strike 3, the Gabriel fashion line, and news about Ladybug. Lila had dabbled in video games before, but she preferred role-playing games to fighting ones. Marinette had apparently won the Ultimate Mega Strike 3 tournament for their school with the green-shirted boy Max. She had found that out among a myriad of other things. Gabriel Agreste was also her favorite fashion designer, and Lila laughed a bit upon remembering how Adrien was the man's son. Lila had previously thought that Marinette liked Adrien, but that thought had been quelled when Marinette had kissed her. She'd probably crushed on Adrien before Lila came along.

But now Lila was here, and she and Marinette were dating. As Lila scrolled through Gabriel Agreste's website and glanced over pictures of Adrien amongst other models, she recalled how she had seen hints of him in Chat Noir the day she'd become Volpina again. Lila wondered if the boy actually was Chat Noir. They both had blond hair and green eyes, even if Chat Noir's hair was styled a bit differently. They weren't mirror images of each other like the way Marinette and Ladybug were, though. When she'd thought of it on Saturday though, she was so upset about how perfect it was for Marinette to have a crush on the boy who was Chat Noir who crushed back on her superheroine self.

Although that was different now. She and Marinette were together, and Adrien seemed to support it. So if Adrien did turn out to be Chat Noir, well, that would be funny. He was supporting his own demise, then.

Lila clicked back onto the Ladyblog tab, wondering if she could glean any information about Marinette's likes from there. But aside from fighting super villains and saving Paris, Ladybug did nothing else. There was not much more Lila could get from the various forms of social media she'd friending Marinette on. It was just fashion, some video games, and a little bit of art stuff. So that was what Lila had to go on.

Lila already had a solid knowledge base on fashion, but she never really knew much about the Agreste line. And she had only a beginner's skill at fighting games. But Lila had enough time to learn a good chunk more. With her soon-to-be-learned-knowledge and endless charm, she could definitely be the best girlfriend.

The next day was a fine, sunny Tuesday. Marinette came to school determined to talk some more with Lila so they could stop being awkward. So when she saw her walking down the road to school, she pounced immediately.

"Lila!" She called out, and then she was walking alongside her, all sunshine and flowers.

"Hey." Lila answered in a calm voice. She smiled down at Marinette.

And then they walked in a painful silence for about a minute. Marinette was dying on the inside. Lila looked away, and Marinette frowned. This was the opposite of what she wanted.

"Remember! Take the initiative!" Tikki whispered from inside her jacket. Marinette narrowed her eyes, remembering what she'd resolved to do. She looked down to eye Lila's hand, which was thankfully open and swinging alongside her. Marinette took a breath and reached down and grabbed it, immediately entwining their fingers. Then she was too scared to actually look at Lila's face so she just kept looking ahead, focusing on the warmth she felt on her palm. But neither of them said anything still.

Well, at least this was an improvement.

Lila had been about to break the awkward silence by breaking out some sick Agreste knowledge. Gabriel released a new line a couple of days ago to fit with the Spring season, so she had done some studying up on it. But then Marinette had gone and grabbed her hand, effectively halting whatever words had been about to leave her mouth. Lila looked at Marinette in the corner of her eyes, but Marinette wouldn't look up. Lila could see a faint blush along her cheeks, and then she had to look away in order to briefly make a face of shock in reaction to how cute Marinette was being. They said nothing for awhile, but then they were walking up the steps to the school.

Be the cool girlfriend, Lila repeated to herself, thinking she was doing a piss-poor job at dating Marinette. She couldn't hold a dang conversation and she could barely handle Marinette holding her hand. They had to let go after going to their lockers, but when they left the locker room and had to part ways, Lila reached for Marinette's wrist and lightly pulled her back from leaving. Marinette was about to say something, but was stopped by Lila putting her other hand on Marinette's shoulder and pressing her lips against hers. Then she backed up and smiled at Marinette's surprised but pleased expression.

"I'll see you later." Lila said smoothly as landmines went off inside of her, and then she walked off, deciding she could break out her sick Gabriel fashion knowledge some other time while simultaneously congratulating herself for being cool.