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“I can’t do this, Alya!”
Alya was unsure how Marientte got herself into these situations. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. A crippling inability to say no combined with the time management skills of a particularly indolent hare made up for at least fifty percent of Marientte’s daily woes. Mooning over Adrian added another twenty five percent. Twenty percent was random Akuma attacks, and that left the remainder open for zany-hijinks straight out of a romantic comedy. It would have been funny if Alya wasn’t always the one providing damage control.
“You can, girl,” Alya insisted. “This is your chance!”
The day far had definitely taken a hard right into the zany-hijinks bucket. Marionette was the only girl Alya knew who could turn a day out with friends to see a celebrity—and maybe wind up in the background of a music video if they were very lucky—into her staring in said video alongside the love of her life Adrian Agrest. Only Marinette was that lucky and only Marientte could turn that luck into a full fledged freak out anyway.
“Everyone is going to see me in... this,” she pressed, gesturing at the Ladybug body stocking. “I can’t go out there.”
“Not even to see Adrian in Chat’s suit again?” Alya teased, waggling her eyebrows. She glanced at the dressing-room door, wondering how Adrian was doing avoiding the crowd of teenaged girls while wearing a all leather.
Marinette glared at her while blushing scarlet, the latter half of which rather undermined the former.
Alya sniggered. “You are too easy to work up. Come on, this is half of Paris’ dream come true. You get to be Ladybug for a day!”
A terse sigh escaped Marientte. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
She dropped onto the sofa, clutching her head in her hands. “What am I going to do? I...” Marinette scrunched up her face, her typical trying to think of a lie expression, and stared at her feet. “I look too much like her.”
Alya stared. Too much like Ladybug? That was a ridiculous complaint, it was half the reason she’d been picked. Marientte had the same build, the same general hair style and the same attitude. Most would say there was only one other girl in Paris better for the role and that was the real Ladybug
“Ooo, gotcha.” Alya pursed her lips. Marientte was just a mask away from looking like Ladybug’s twin. That posed a problem.
Marinette looked up, suddenly. “You what?” she demanded, before stopping herself. “I mean, what have you got?” she continued, more hesitantly.
With her professional smile firmly in place, Alya sat next to Marinette and put an arm around her shoulder. “You’re worried people are going to think you’re Ladybug, Hawkmoth will go after you and there will be this big thing before the actual Ladybug swings in to save the day,” Alya explained, as if being targeted by supervillains was a day to day worry.
“Umm... yeah something like that.” Marinette pointedly looked anywhere but at Alya.
“Well quit it, girl!” Alya punched her playfully in the arm. “Everyone already knows you’re not Ladybug, and wearing a costume isn’t going to change that.”
“Right...” Marinette did a sudden double take. “Wait, they know what?” she demanded.
Alya rolled her eyes. “Jeeze, it’s like you don’t even spend all day on the Ladyblog. Look, I’ll show you.”
She pulled out her phone and went straight to the Ladyblog. With speed born of long practice she flipped to the ‘Identity Speculation’ section and then to ‘People who AREN’T Ladybug’.
“So, about half my regulars spend an alarming amount of their day speculating about who Ladybug could be,” she said, smirking.
“I’m aware,” Marinette muttered, scowling at the blog.
Alya scrolled down until she reached Marinette’s entry. “Well, to stop them harassing random girls on the street,” she continued. “Whenever someone conclusively proves they’re not Ladybug I put the evidence up here. That way we can just point people at the black-list and they usually drop their dumb theory of the day. Here you are.”
Marinette’s entry had only a single video clip. It was from the Timesnatch incident, Alix could be seen skating into shot. Then Ladybug yelled from off screen, the camera panned quickly passed Marientte and then up to Ladybug. A few still frames had been highlighted from later in the video, Marientte’s look of surprise, her running away while Ladybug was running toward the Akuma and a distant shot of Marientte and Ladybug facing each other.
“I didn’t know you had that on camera,” Marinette admitted, peering closer. “Is this really proof enough?”
Alya shrugged. “Well, there’s always some people who won’t let go of their pet theory. Let’s check this week’s poll.” She flipped to another tab where the regular weekly ‘Lady is secretly...’ poll was running. “Ah, here we go. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, currently thirty-seventh most popular with three thousand and twenty five votes.”
“Three thousand people think I’m Ladybug!” Marinette shrieked, staring goggle eyed at Alya’s phone.
“Psh, this is the internet, girl. You can find a few thousand people willing to believe that Cholé and her father are secretly lizard people. Oh, on that note Cholé is currently at number twenty-two.”
“Alya, please, this is—” Marinette cut herself off and snatched up Alya’s phone. “Ten thousand people think Cholé is Ladybug!” she exclaimed, incredulously. “Cholé! The girl who’s caused more Akumas than anyone else in Paris?”
Alya snorted and delicately retrieved her phone before Marinette could drop it. “You really don’t spend enough time on the internet, Marinette. Don’t worry, it’s just because she’s famous enough that people know her name. Heck, Adrian ended up on the top one hundred list for a while.”
“Adrian as Ladybug?” Marinette cocked her head, then her eyes widened suddenly and she blushed beet red.
“You were picturing him in—“
“In the suit, yes,” Marinette snapped, attempting to brush Alya off.
Smirking, Alya squeezed her closer. “You dog, Adrian just got into Chat’s suit and you already want to see him out of it.”
“Alya!”
“I call it like I see it, it’s a journalist thing,” she said, preening. “Now come on, get that mask on and get out there! Your adoring public is waiting.” Not to mention the boy she was putting off adoring.
Marinette glanced across at the mask. “Really?”
“Really. It’ll be fine, trust me.
Sighing, Marinette pushed herself to her feet and, after a moment’s literal handwringing, grabbed her mask from a nearby bust and slipped it over her head. “How do I look?” she asked, turning, and clutched one elbow while hunching her shoulders.
Alya hummed appreciatively. The stance was wrong, Marientte was a little less muscular as well, but it would definitely fool a causal observer. “Ninety percent.”
Marinette shot her a look. “Ninety?” she shot back, sounding affronted.
“I’m the premier Ladybug expert, girl, and you do not have her strut,” Alya teased, grinning. “But I think Clara Nightingale will be pleased. Adrian too.”
“Maybe…” Marinette’s eyes went distant for a moment, lost in the well mapped land of a happy future with Adrian. She shook it off a moment later. “And this is okay?” She gestured down at the suit.
“The last person anyone will think is Ladybug is the girl who plays her on TV.” Alya stood and put a hand on Marinette’s shoulder, before guiding her firmly towards the exit.
“You’re sure?”
Alya rolled her eyes and opened the trailer door. “Sure. If no-one thinks you’re Ladybug despite your superhuman ability to get around Paris, you never being around during Akuma attacks, your increasingly ridiculous excuses for being late and your only alibi being the two Ladybugs incident, then they’re never going to.”
Marinette let out a relieved sigh. “You’re right, if… Wait a minute—“
“Get out there already!” Alya snapped, pushing her bodily through the door. “And give Adrian a kiss for luck!”
She slammed the door closed before Marinette could get a word in edgewise. For a moment Alya just stood there, heart hammering. Marinette did not attempt to open the door, or even knock, instead Alya heard a distant cheer from the waiting crowd.
“And, you know,” Alya said to no one. “Maybe tell me the truth one of these days.”