Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On a normal Monday morning, there were a variety of different things that you’d find Alya Césaire doing. These consisted of talking to friends, eating breakfast in the library, or maybe even finishing an essay last minute. And occasionally, you would find her still fast asleep in her bed at home, bound to be late for the school day.

This Monday morning, however, was much unlike the others. Because on this Monday morning, you could find Alya Césaire making out in the bathroom on the second floor of Collège François Dupont. This was quite unusual for her, as she was one to keep her love life more private and away from the eyes of her classmates. She didn’t like the fact that people could use this knowledge to gossip about her behind her back and start rumors. That, and she didn’t want her father catching onto the fact that she liked girls as well as boys.

All of these thoughts were rushing through Alya’s mind as she was pushed against the wall of the bathroom by her girlfriend, a bluenette no longer wearing her gorgeous hair in two pigtails, as the red hair ties had been pulled out just moments before. Now Alya was running her fingers through it, sighed as Marinette’s tongue licked her lower lip, and slowly made its way into her mouth. It was a very slow, passionate kiss, full of the love that the girls had for each other.

Soon, they parted, aware that they had to be in class soon. Marinette smiled at Alya, causing for the said girl’s heart to skip a beat. It was cute, how the crystal blue eyes staring into hers sparkled with not just excitement, but also the joy of having someone to share her passion with.

“We should probably get going, huh?” the girl wearing orange asked.

“Yeah,” Marinette replied, her face slowly starting to turn red. “I should probably put my hair back into pigtails. We don’t really need anyone knowing that we’re dating quite yet. We probably shouldn’t have kissed here in the first place, either.”

“I know, I know, but you were really just looking amazing this morning and I couldn’t just not kiss you.”

“You were looking quite nice, too. I love that new necklace that you have, too,” Marinette giggled, fingering the hook-shaped pendant that hung around Alya’s neck.

“Why thank you. A very special person gave it to me,” the other girl said, booping her girlfriend on the nose with her finger tip. The bluenette’s blush deepened.

“So-” Marinette started, but was cut off by a loud noise. It was the warning bell, and it indicated that they had a mere five minutes until they had to be in their seats for first period. “Well, I guess that’s our cue to stop flirting and get our asses into Madame Bustier’s classroom. I don’t really need another tardy on my record, I’m already late enough to class as it is,” she backed away from Alya and took a brush out of her purse, starting to put her hair up once again. “You can go to class, Alya, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“No, I can wait,” the brunette protested.

“Just go. Besides, it would probably be best if we entered separately. I think that Alix might be onto us, and we shouldn’t give her another reason to be suspicious. I mean, I’d trust her not to be mean to us about our sexualities, she was a nice person, but that girl can’t really keep a secret, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Alya agreed. She smiled. Then, her thoughts returned to the worries that were filling her head earlier, when she’d first met her girlfriend in the bathroom. Her demeanor quickly returned to the serious one that it had been not too long ago. “Hey Marinette, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Well… I was thinking.” Alya swallowed, nervous. “Actually, we’ve got to go to class right now so can we talk later?”

“Sounds good,” Marinette nodded. There was a hint of worry on her face, though of course she’d be worried if Alya needed to talk to her.

“Alright, I’ll see you in a minute.” With that, Alya hastily picked up her bag and pushed the door open and rushed to her first class of the day. A little voice came from her bag, presumably Trixx pushing her to walk faster (that little creature couldn’t stand it when Alya was late for anything) but she ignored it.

Soon, Alya was walking into the classroom. Everyone else was already there (well, except Marinette, of course,) and ready to start taking notes. Nino, who was talking to Adrien, waved at Alya as she climbed the wooden stairs and took a seat.

Moments later, Marinette rushed in, nearly out of breath. Alya was pretty sure that she had ran there. She was glad that she did, though, because the bell rang barely five seconds after she entered the room.

“Hey girl,” Alya greeted. “So, where were you?” she teased.

“Oh nowhere. Just slept in again.”

“Mhm.”

___

Hours later, it was around noon and the class was on their lunch break. Alya and Marinette were walking to their usual table, where Adrien, Nino, Kagami, and Lila were already sitting. When the two approached, Lila smiled and moved over to make room for the others.

“So how come you two were late this morning?” Lila raised an eyebrow, grinning at them once they were seated.

“Oh um…” Marinette stuttered, immediately going red.

“Hmm, that’s what I thought,” Lila said, picking up a carrot off of her plate and taking a small bite of it. Lila’s comment didn’t worry Marinette and Alya though, because Lila already knew that the two of them were together. The three of them had been really close friends, ever since both Lila and Alya had been new students at the school two years ago, so the couple just didn’t feel right keeping such a big secret from the other girl.

“Anyways,” Alya rushed to change the conversation before anyone else overheard them talking, “Did you understand anything that Madame Bustier was saying this morning? Last week when she said she’d be speaking a lot of English today, I didn’t think that she’d be teaching in English for the entire class period.”

“Kind of,” Lila started. “There was a lot of things that she said that I didn’t catch though. At the end there, I couldn’t tell if she was talking about the bears in the mountains or not being barefoot in the mountains. Actually, I wasn’t sure if she was even talking about mountains in the first place.”

“I thought that she was talking about fountains, not mountains,” Marinette responded. “My English is terrible, though, so you’re probably right. I really hate that class; I wish that we didn’t have to take a class on both French literature and the basics in the English language. I’m really terrible at learning other languages. I’d be much better at a class just focusing on French.”

“Same,” Alya agreed. “I think we have to write an essay in English sometime this week, too. I’m not really looking forward to that.”

The three of them continued talking for the remainder of their lunch period, about how English was so difficult, and other things, such as their mathematics project that they’d been assigned last week, or the confusing science experiment that they’d done recently. They also briefly discussed fencing with Adrien and Kagami, and talked about some music with Nino. Finally, as their time started to run out, they began to make plans for a sleepover that following weekend.

“So, do you girls want to come over and spend the night at my place on Friday?” Marinette offered. “We haven’t had one in forever, and so I was thinking that it’d be really fun.”

“Of course!” Alya exclaimed (though a tad nervously, but no one else noticed that), while Lila also said yes.

“How about after school we all can walk over to the bakery? Does that sound cool?”

Once again, both Alya and Lila agreed.

“Alright, it’s a plan, then!”

___

That night, long after school had ended, Alya texted Marinette.

Alya Césaire: Hey, can we talk?

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Yeah, sure!!! What do you need?

Alya Césaire: I need to ask you something.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Go ahead.

Alya Césaire: Like, I need you to be here in person.

Alya Césaire: You can come in through the window.

Alya Césaire: If you don’t mind.

It was a long moment before Marinette responded and Alya tapped her foot on the wooden floor nervously.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: I’ll be there in a minute.

With the bluenette’s reply, Alya shuffled to the doorway of her bedroom and called to her parents a goodnight, then closed the door and walked back across the space to open up the window.

Within ten minutes, there was a figure in red swinging in through her window. Then a flash of pink and Marinette was standing in front of her. “Hey, Alya, you said you wanted to talk?”

“Yeah,” Alya started nervously. “I was thinking that… well, Lila. She’s been our friend forever. And I was thinking that we could tell her about our, y’know, miraculous?”

“We really shouldn’t, Alya, it’d put her in danger.”

“But also not telling her would put her in danger too. Like, for example, say that there was an akuma attack in the library or something, and she was there alone. And, I don’t know, she didn’t want to call us because she’d think that she’d put us in danger when really we could help her? And so she wouldn’t call us and end up getting hurt? I know that doesn’t really make sense… My point is, though, I don’t like not being able to tell her the truth. We’re all best friends, and I want there to be no secrets between us. The last time we held a secret from her, it just caused so much tension and so many fights between us. I don’t want that to happen again,” Alya finished.

“I’ll think about it.”

Chapter Text

“Hey mom!” Lila called out as she entered her apartment. It was really cold in there, the brunette, noticed, shivering a little bit. “I’m home!”

Nothing.

“Hello?”

Still no response.

Lila shrugged, sitting down at their dining room table to do her homework. Her mom must have been working late today, though the girl wasn’t surprised. She was always coming home late nowadays.

Before Lila started on the work that her teachers gave her, she unlocked her phone and decided to text Adrien in an attempt to procrastinate.

Lila Rossi: Your fencing tournament is this sunday, right?

The reply came within moments. He always responded to her texts pretty quickly.

Adrien Agreste: yes, it is

Lila Rossi: Is it possible that I could come? I think I’d be really cool to watch one of your tournaments. I’ve never seen a fencing tournament before.

Lila Rossi: I mean, if that’s alright with you.

Adrien Agreste: of course

Lila Rossi: Thanks so much!!!

Lila was glad that Adrien accepted her request to come to his tournament on Sunday; she needed to hang out with him more. Her mother had been pestering her a lot recently to spend more time with him, but Adrien’s schedule always seemed to be quite hectic, so she was having trouble finding sometime to invite herself over.

Speaking of which, she needed to tell her mother about her get together afterschool on Friday. Lila knew that she’d be thrilled to hear that she would get a chance to lurk around Marinette’s house to look for clues.

Clues for what, you ask?

Clues that Marinette was Ladybug.

You see, her mother had been working with Papillon for quite a while now, helping to attack Paris through using the miraculous of the bee. (When the akuma Miraculer had attacked, Mayura had gotten a chance to swipe it from Chloé and was able to hold onto it long enough to return it to Papillon. Later, when the infamous villain finally trusted her, he gave the miraculous of subjection to Lila’s mother. That’s all that really Lila knew, though; her mom tended to keep things quite secretive.) Two years ago, Lila and her mom had moved to Paris due to something having to do with this. And ever since then, Lila had been given the task to keep a close eye on Adrien, Marinette, Alya, and Kagami and report to her parent whenever one of them mysteriously disappeared or gave any hints of having an alter ego.

And Lila had been doing just that.

Recently she’d been paying better attention, too, since they had for sure figured out that Adrien was Chat Noir. That meant that there was larger probability that Marinette was Ladybug and that Alya was Rena Rouge. (At first, they’d suspected that Kagami might have been Ladybug, but that was proved to be false when the two had obviously been in the same place at the same time.) And if Lila were able to find something to show that this was definitely the case, her mother would finally be able to set up the perfect trap for them and end their lives once and for all.

It was a shame, too, because Adrien, Alya, and Marinette were really nice people.

If only the three superheros’ actions hadn’t ultimately led to the death of her father during an akuma attack, maybe her mother would be more inclined to keep them around. Even if it was an accident, they were still at fault and some revenge needed to happen.

___

That following Friday, during the last period of the school day, Lila was doodling in her notebook, having no idea of the good fortune in store for her later that evening. She was merely thinking about the poor weather outside and was drawing rain clouds and umbrellas in the margins of her paper, not paying attention one bit to the teacher’s lecture.

As soon as she knew it, the final bell of the day rang and Lila was rushing out of the classroom to meet up with Alya and Marinette. They weren’t in the same class at the end of the day; Lila had science, while the other two had art. It was unfortunate, as it meant just a tad less time for her to spy on the couple. (As if she didn’t already spy on them enough.)

Just a minute passed of her rushing down the hall and she saw the two of them chatting near the door of their art class. Rose and Juleka walked passed them, hand in hand, and the two of them gave a little wave to everyone they passed. Luckily they weren’t the ones who Lila’s mom was after; they were quite lovely girlfriends.

“Hey girl!” Alya exclaimed as the brunette approached them. As Lila was walking, she noticed Alya fingering something around her neck… a hooked pendant. The shape was strikingly similar to the fox miraculous. How long had she been wearing that for?

“Hi Alya, Marinette,” Lila nodded her head at the two of them. “Ready for our sleepover tonight? I found some good would you rathers online.”

“I’m so ready! I haven’t had a sleepover in like… forever, I think.” Lila noticed that Alya tucked her necklace under her shirt as she was speaking. So that’s why she hadn’t seen it before.

“Me neither,” Mari added. “Let’s go, shall we? I brought an umbrella to school this morning so that we wouldn’t get drenched.”

“Huh, I didn’t even think of that,” Lila commented as they started towards the main entrance of the school.

___

“Oh my gosh, Alya, what the heck is that?” Marinette giggled at the picture that her girlfriend was showing her. It was close to 10 pm, and the three of them were already in their pajamas. It was still storming outside too, so every now and then there was a roll of thunder.

Lila smiled and insisted to see, too. Alya obliged and turned her phone, and Lila immediately laughed at the picture of a blobfish photoshopped perfectly to look like Marinette. “When do you even have the time to do these sorts of things?”

“You see, I don’t,” Alya said, grinning. “I did it instead of homework last night. Of course, now my essay’s going be late, but with everything else, like school, the ladyblog, and being-” Lila noticed how the other girl quickly cut herself off. Her demeanor suddenly turned serious. “Actually, I- we, Marinette and I, wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Talk about what?” Lila questioned curiously.

“Well…” Marinette started. “We wanted to tell you something that you didn’t know and that could possibly cause us to grow further from you…”

Lila raised her eyebrows in confusion. “You guys are keeping secrets from me?”

“No no no we aren’t” Alya quickly tried to clarify. “Well, actually, we kind of are, but like, it was for your own safety.”

Lila was catching on to where this was going and mentally smiled to herself. “What is it?”

“Well, we’re…” Marinette started.

Alya finished. “We’re Rena Rouge and Ladybug.”

“Wow!” Lila feigned surprise. “What’s it like? What’s Chat Noir like? Is it fun?”

“You’re not mad?” Marinette spoke.

“Of course not!” the brunette answered. “I know that it probably puts me in danger, but I don’t mind, I’m your friend, and I should be here to support you two.”

Alya smiled.

And Lila smirked.