"Well, well, well Marinette, you look different..."
Marinette jumped at Alya's comment, and tried to ignore the memories floating to the surface of her mind. It was only first period and already her friend had noticed something off about her. She struggled to form a realistic lie, and ended up going with old reliable.
"Me? D-different? What, you're crazy, I'm the same old Marinette, just a little, uhhhh, tired is all, haha!"
Alya raised her eyebrows and started to question her friend more intensely.
"Really? You've been avoiding my texts all weekend and you look like you've swallowed a frog! Seriously, just tell me what happ-"
"Alya, Marinette, be quiet! This is your final year of schooling before collage and you shouldn't be wasting your time chatting when you could be taking important notes! Now, listen to me please! So, as I was saying, it was in 1786 that the ship sailed for..."
Marinette breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god! Alya would have gotten the truth out of her somehow, but now she had until the end of this period to come up with a really convincing lie. If she didn't, the news of Chat kissing her would be online in seconds. Not that Alya would be mean about it, but she's terrible at keeping secrets. That was really the only reason she hadn't told her she was Ladybug. She sighed and started scribbling some notes on a piece of paper, staring at the back of Adrien's head like she did every class. After a few minutes, a strong sense of déjà vu overwhelmed her, but she ignored it and kept thinking of better and better lies to tell her best friend.
"So, that's why I'm acting a little weird, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
Alya had a blank expression on her face, giving nothing away.
"Let me get this straight. You were rescued by Ladybug, got her to say hi to me on video, and then broke your phone so you lost the video and couldn't answer my texts, and now you feel guilty about it and didn't want to tell me in case I got mad at you?"
Marinette felt a drop of sweat sliding down her face, and tried to ignore it so Alya wouldn't notice how nervous she was. She had a huge smile plastered on her face and was nodding vigorously in response to her friends question. Her lie seemed to work however, as Alya laughed and ruffled Marinette's hair, saying,
"Girl, you don't need to hide stuff like that from me! Yeah, it's annoying that you lost the video but I'm not gonna be mad about it! It's sweet that you even thought about getting it for me! Thanks Mari!"
The girl smiled, a real smile this time and put her arm over her friends shoulder, walking with her to her next class, and being so relived and relaxed that she even winked at Adrien in the corridor! Of course, two seconds after that she realised what she'd done and it took 10 minutes for Alya to calm her down, making them late for their next class. Ms.Bustier was out, however, so they got a free period, and Marinette spent the time blissfully staring at Adrien, unaware that every time she looked away, he stared back at her.
"You sure about this? I mean, aren't I just kinda using her? I don't wanna make her upset..."
"When have I ever been wrong?"
Adrien raised his eyebrows at Plagg's question but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Alright, transform me!", he exclaimed, and the kwami quickly flew into the silver ring, kitting Adrien out head to toe in his signature black leather. Chat Noir then jumped out of the window into the moonlight, his grin wide and his mind focused on one thing: Marinette.
The girl in question was currently snoring loudly on her bed, Tikki beside her. She tossed and turned a lot in her sleep, waking her kwami up regularly, and tonight was no different. Tikki opened her eyes sleepily and groaned. She should just sleep somewhere else. She sighed and flew lazily over to Marinette's dressing gown and dropped into one of the pockets, cuddling down into the soft fake fur. She was so tired she didn't notice the shadow at the window, and fell asleep almost instantly, so she never saw the interesting events that unfolded.
"Just a bug..", Chat muttered as he peered through Marinette's window. He shook the niggling doubt from his mind and turned to look at Marinette herself, sleeping peacefully in her bed, her hair out of its pigtails and flowing around her head like a halo. He purred softly and then flushed red with embarrassment and looked away from the girl, instead focusing his thoughts on opening the window as quietly as possible. He undid the latch and dropped down onto the rug as silently as he could, careful not to bump into anything. He walked over to Marinette's bedside and was about to wake her up when an alarm bell went off in his mind. He was having second thoughts. His brain was screaming at him not to do this. His body didn't seem to listen however, and he clamped his hand over the girl's mouth, making her eyes burst open in shock.
"Hello, my princess."
