Chapter Text
Nino liked to think he was a good person. A person who did what he could - loved his family, stayed connected with his friends, did his best on his studies, and enjoyed his hobbies. He liked to think that he hadn’t really done anything to warrant too much bad luck, apart from the occasional akuma. Those were nearly unavoidable thanks to Hawkmoth’s tendency to take advantage of the poor Parisians.
He had a pretty good life. A good, if a bit overzealous, girlfriend, a great best friend, fantastic classmates, a dream in mind. Things were going pretty well for Nino Lahiffe.
Well… at least. It had been.
It had been another school day. They’d just come back from an emergency evacuation where an akumatized janitor had sent cleaning supplies out to chase the ‘naughty littering students’ of the school. Classes hadn’t restarted yet since some students were taking their sweet time coming back from where they’d run away.
Nino’s eyes dart all over the room, bored. His girlfriend, Alya, was excitedly chatting it up with Lila about something or another. He wasn’t really paying too much attention - when the two of them were talking, things tended to get a little too heated for him. So usually he bounced out or tuned them out.
His eyes follow Alix hopping up the steps to her seat, taunting Kim. The taller boy sticks his tongue out at her before swiping at her, only for Alix to hop up on her desk and blow a raspberry at him. Their mutual friend, Max, only shakes his head as he goes to take his seat - only to yelp as Kim lunges at Alix.
The thump that resounds is loud, but it doesn’t call the others’ attention. He supposes it was natural, though - the two of them got incredibly rowdy at times. It was often too tiring to tell them off when they were in the mood to bother each other specifically.
Speaking of things too tiring…
Nino tunes back into Lila and Alya’s conversation, only catching the tail end of Lila’s words. “... and so I said, wow, really, Ladybug?! Thank you so much! You really are a true friend!”
“That’s so cool, girl, but… you shouldn’t really be telling me this, you know?” Alya warns softly, her eyes darting around nervously. Nino raises an eyebrow in confusion. “People could be listening.”
Lila gasps, covering her mouth. “Oh no! I wasn’t talking that loud, was I?”
Nino coughs into his fist.
Alya and Lila glance at him, and Alya squints at him. “You didn’t hear anything, did you, babe?”
“Caught the end of her words. Something about Ladybug?” Nino could only guess what Lila had said about Ladybug this time. She had - and he was not joking about this - so much to say about her. He supposes it was a given though. Alya had had so much to say about Marinette once.
That had been before, though.
Recently, Nino had found that Alya had begun to distance herself from Marinette, ever since the girl had begun to insist more and more that Lila was ‘a liar’. Tired of trying to convince Marinette otherwise but stubborn enough to hope that the two could be friends, they’d had a rather long, long argument over it. Which had ended with Alya accidentally throwing a book at Adrien’s face by mistake when he’d walked into the room at the wrong time.
That had been a week or so ago, though. They hadn’t really spoken ever since. At least… not like Alya and Lila currently were. It was a sad occurrence, but Nino hadn’t really been given too much time to dwell on it - not when Alya seemed insistent on reaffirming that ‘Lila wasn’t a liar’ and that ‘Marinette was just dwelling on her jealousy for some stupid reason or another’.
Privately Nino thought that that was stupid, and that Marinette wasn’t really the type to dwell on jealousy that much, but he hadn’t talked to Marinette himself in a while, so he couldn’t say for sure. He didn’t want to discredit Lila, because honestly it seemed unbelievable that she’d lie about everything she’d said, but he also didn’t want to distrust Marinette. Not after they’d known each other for years.
Maybe he should try and talk to her when Alya wasn’t looking and get her side of the situation...
Alya turns to Lila with puppy dog eyes. “Oh, can we let Nino in on it? He won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
“I don’t know, Alya…” Lila twirls a lock of hair around her finger coquettishly. Had Nino not known better, he would have said she was flirting with either him or Alya. But that was stupid. “You did say that I shouldn’t have been telling you in the first place…”
Nino nearly gets knocked over by Alya’s pleading. “Nino is trustworthy, Lila, I promise. He’s the most trustworthy person in this room!”
“How can I know for sure though?” Lila asks in worry.
Alya taps her chin thoughtfully before a lightbulb lights up over her head. “He’s the only one in this classroom whose first akumatization was on someone else’s behalf and not his own.”
“Don’t remind me.” Nino blanches, reminded of the Bubbler. “I looked like a clown. On steroids.”
“But you were doing it for Adrien,” Alya soothes, something that makes Lila’s eyes flash something fierce. Nino’s not sure what emotion crosses her face, or if it had been really there at all, because Lila’s suddenly looking incredibly tickled pink at the idea of telling him now. “You cared about him a lot and just wanted the best birthday for him, right?” She taps his nose. “Not your fault Hawkmoth can’t dress people for shit.”
Lila touches the area where her heart would be gently. “Oh wow… you and I are so alike, Nino. We both care so much for Adrien - even though it could put us in danger!”
“Uh, I guess…?” Nino didn’t want to admit it, but he didn’t like the look on Lila’s face. Her smile was sweet, but her eyes said something else.
“I can totally tell you this then…” Lila gestures for Alya and Nino to lean closer before showing both of them a ring on her hand. Seated gently on her middle finger, the ring is a soft rose gold, with five gems that looked like peridots nestled on prongs arranged around each other like a tiny pawprint. The ring itself is ridged with dark silver stripes. “Ladybug came to me last night in the middle of patrol for a visit. I thought it was because she was just checking up on me as usual and making sure I was safe, but lo and behold, she gave me a Miraculous!”
Nino’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but he doesn’t say anything yet, prompting Alya to say jealously, “It’s your first time with a real Miraculous, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and it’s such a heavy weight on the shoulders,” Lila preens, gently patting the ring. “I know she just gave it to me last night, but already I’m worried I won’t be a good enough hero for Paris to believe in!”
Nino scratches at his cheek thoughtfully. “Well… I mean… if you’re gonna be a permanent hero… people are gonna have to trust you, right? And since you’re helping Ladybug directly… it shouldn’t really be a problem as long as you actually help her like the other temporary heroes.”
“Are you saying I wouldn’t help her, my best friend?” Lila asks, schooling her face into a hurt expression.
Alya elbows him before amending, “That’s not what he meant! He means that you shouldn’t worry about being a good enough hero, because actions speak louder than words! Right, Nino?”
“Uh, that’s pretty much what I just-” Alya elbows him again. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I meant, dudette.”
Lila smiles. “That’s so sweet of you to say, Nino… you really are such a good friend. I’ll totally ask Ladybug if she can give you a Miraculous too! Surely the great Nino Lahiffe deserves a permanent Miraculous too, right? And the amazing reporter Alya Cesaire!”
“Oh, but-” Nino yelps when Alya elbows him again. “I don’t think- you shouldn’t- you don’t need to do that, dudette. Ladybug can decide for herself if we’re worthy.”
Alya turns to Lila excitedly. “But it wouldn’t hurt to have Lila put in a good word or two, right?”
“I’ll try my best,” Lila says. “But you two have to keep it secret that I have a Miraculous now, okay?”
Nino looks down at the ring again. “What Miraculous is this one then? Looks a lot like Chat Noir’s.”
“That’s because we’re in the same family!” Lila smiles sweetly, just as Miss Bustier enters the classroom and gestures for them all to get back in their seats. “I have the Tiger-”
“Lila, please go back to your seat,” Miss Bustier calls. “We’re going to start class now.”
“Ah, sorry, Miss Bustier!” Lila apologizes before winking at Alya and Nino and going back to her seat next to Nathaniel. From where Nino is seated, he sees her try to engage in conversation with him, but the artist didn’t seem like he was having any of it, so she eventually gave up. It wasn’t really weird - Nathaniel didn’t enjoy one-on-one conversation very often, and Nino wasn’t sure if he’d warmed up to Lila enough just yet. Which was fair - Lila was overwhelming in her own right.
As Nino goes to face the board, Alya taps his shoulder. “Hey, Nino?”
“What?”
“You think…” Alya lowers her voice even further. “You think she’ll do it?”
Nino squints at the whiteboard. Miss Bustier’s writing was getting impressively harder to decipher by the day. “Do what?”
“Like… recommend to Ladybug that we keep our Miraculous permanently,” Alya whispers excitedly. “That’d be so cool - we could be Rena Rouge and Carapace and do patrols, and keep watch over Paris, and be recognized as permanent heroes-”
“Alya,” Both of them flinch at Miss Bustier’s chastising. “I don’t see any note taking there. Stop bothering Nino and please focus on your studies!”
Alya nods, abashed, and when the teacher turns around again she whispers, “It’d be like Spiderman. I could set up my camera and Spiderman everything-”
“It’d be nice,” Nino agrees. “But shouldn’t we just… wait for Ladybug to trust us fully?”
“What’s one little recommendation gonna hurt though, Nino?” Alya, thankfully, had decided that taking notes was in her best interest - well, at least, Nino thought she was taking notes. When he looks over, he sees her doodling out plans. “I have to be more trustworthy for Ladybug. I have to. I’ll talk to her tonight on patrol and ask about Lila, actually-”
Nino frowns. “But, that’d be like interrupting her patrol-”
“Nino, Alya, if you two don’t stop talking in class, I’m going to have to ask you both to switch seats,” Miss Bustier’s voice cuts through their discussion, and much to their embarrassment the others are staring at them. Marinette and Adrien in particular seemed to watch with blossoming curiosity from their new seat in the back, across from Lila. Much to Nino’s surprise, Marinette didn’t look at all that flustered to be seated next to Adrien as she should have been.
“Sorry Miss Bustier,” The both of them apologize.
When she turns around, they both actually go to write notes this time.
Later, after class, Marinette taps on his shoulder as he’s packing up, and asks, “You and Alya seemed pretty talkative earlier, huh?”
“Oh- oh yeah, definitely,” He laughs, tucking in his pencilcase. “Were we really that loud?”
“A little,” She admits bashfully. “Adrien could hear it all the way from where he was seated, and told me about it.” Her voice lowers. “So… is it true?”
Nino raises an eyebrow, suddenly wary. “What is?”
“Adrien said…” And here she leans into his ear. “Adrien said Lila got the Tiger Miraculous last night? From Ladybug?”
Nino blinks in surprise. How had Adrien heard all that over the noise of the classroom? “Uh-”
“NINO!”
Both he and Marinette jump as Alya storms over, pasting a rather fake smile on her face at the sight of Marinette. The sight is unsettling to Nino - Alya never smiled like that at Marinette before.“Oh, hi , Marinette. You don’t mind if I steal my boyfriend, do you? We have a date this afternoon.
“He’s all yours, Alya,” is all Marinette says, voice as dry as the desert before Alya whisks him away, him just barely managing to grab his bag before she does so.
He nearly misses Adrien walking past them back into the classroom and heading towards Marinette, the door shutting between him and his best friend.
Later that night, an akuma attacks Paris. Something about ‘annoying night lights’ or another. Nino hadn’t really been paying attention.
Much to his surprise, Ladybug appears on his balcony - or rather slams against his bedroom window hard enough to scare the shit out of him and make him drop his headphones. Once he recovers, however, he scrambles to open the windows as Ladybug tumbles in with a gasp.
“Ladybug, are you okay?!” He asks, helping up the superheroine.
Ladybug groans, rubbing at the back of her head just as Chat Noir goes sailing with a scream into a nearby building. “There’s no time- I need your help once more Nino. Can I trust you?”
“You know you can trust me, Ladybug,” Nino promises, drawing a cross over his heart. Did Lila actually…? “Can’t wait to see Wayzz again.”
Ladybug shakes her head, a wry smile on her face. “Not this time, Nino. I need someone who understands that patience is a virtue, but is not afraid to encourage his friends in a way that bolsters their strength.”
Nino blinks. Three times exactly.
“Nino Lahiffe,” Ladybug begins, holding out the familiar black box of the Miraculous. “Here is the Miraculous of the Tiger, which grants the power of synergy. You will use it for the greater good. Once the job is done, you will return the Miraculous to me. Can I trust you?”
Nino’s entire bloodstream freezes over.
“The… the Tiger Miraculous?” Nino asks weakly.
Ladybug raises an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”
“I just… no,” Nino takes the box, and opens it up. A dark pink light bursts out from the Miraculous inside the box, revealing a cute magenta tiger-like kwami.
The kwami bares her teeth at him. “Hi! I’m Roaar. Wow, is this your room?” Roaar looks around Nino’s room in wonder before squealing, “There are so many interesting things here!”
“There’s no time for that now, Roaar,” Ladybug reminds. “We have an akuma to-”
“LADYBUUUUUG!” Chat Noir howls in the distance.
Ladybug winces. At the shout, Nino slips on the panjas bracelet. The bracelet turns into something like a gauntlet around his hand.
“This is really the Tiger Miraculous…?” Nino turns his hand over, something akin to dread settling in his stomach.
Ladybug raises an eyebrow. “Why? Is there an issue?”
“N… nothing Ladybug. Nothing at all.” Nino swallows, and remembers Lila. Remembers Alya, and Marinette. He barely hears Roaar say the transformation phrase to him before one sentence makes itself incredibly loud and clear in his head.
He so owed Marinette an apology.
“Roaar, into the light!”
If she would even forgive him after he’d abandoned her like that.
Some childhood friend he was.