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“Look, girl, I know you’re busy being the guardian and Ladybug, but you haven’t been out of your room for a month unless its been for school or to fight an akuma. There is more to life than being a superhero!”
Alya stood in her best friend’s bedroom, surrounded by the fog of Marinette’s recent batch of power ups. The poor girl was still in her pajamas, her hair pulled up into a bun that would give a new definition to the term ‘messy’, and had a crazed look in her eyes. She understood and appreciated the obsession that was driving her friend, but even heroes needed sleep and showers and…fun.
“Not for me, Alya. Not right now. I have to work more on understanding the grimoire Master Fu left me, find out how Shadowmoth is defeating my protections, and see if I can do a better job of tracking him down somehow.”
“I understand stopping Shadowmoth is important, Marinette, but so is your health. You aren’t taking care of yourself. You need a shower and some fresh air and exercise that doesn’t include a spotted super suit. How can you take care of others if you are running on empty yourself? You are the person that has to stay safest, you know.”
Marinette sighed. “I know. Its just… things are just easier when I’m Ladybug. Things are simpler when its just fighting the bad guys and cleansing the akumas.”
She put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. Marinette was so strong as Ladybug, with a laser-like focus she generally only had when she was working on a design project. As a normal girl, she was a mess and her normal life was unpredictable. The two did not mesh well, hence her withdrawal into the Ladybug life whenever she could.
But Alya knew her best friend well and if there was one thing that would pull her out of a funk it was helping someone, especially if that someone was a certain green eyed model and classmate.
“You know, its too bad you don’t want to go out,” Alya said sadly. “‘Cause Nino and I could really use your help trying to cheer Adrien up. He has been pretty down lately and he won’t tell Nino what’s going on.”
“Adrien’s sad?” She dropped the vial of ice power up she had been concocting and it spilled all over the floor, crystalizing on impact. “I wonder what’s wrong.”
“No idea, but he hasn’t been himself. Not that you’ve noticed.” Alya glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye. “Nino is even worried that he’ll be akumatized.”
“Do you think it is about Kagami breaking up with him,” she asked, a slight frown creasing her forehead.
“Nino says not. I mean, he was clearly bummed about it, but this is something bigger. Something deeper.”
“Well, I’ll make sure to bring him some croissants tomorrow morning,” she said, definitively. “He loves Papa’s croissants.”
“While I’m sure that will help, I was thinking we could drag him off to the movies or go window shopping or something. What’s his schedule like tomorrow?”
“Piano practice,” her friend replied instantly. Alya rolled her eyes. For all Marinette kept claiming that she was giving up on romance because of her Ladybug responsibilities, she kept Adrien’s schedule for the next three years in her head and probably knew what he was going to be doing better than he did. She still cared about him and, without Luka on her radar confusing her anymore, she could be making a move of her own. But her brave hero friend still stammered and fumbled her way through any conversation and confronting her about it only resulted in the reply of “I can’t put him at risk.”
“Girl, why don’t you just-“
“Give it a rest, Alya,” Marinette snapped, slamming her fists down on her desk. “Of course I still love Adrien and I’ll do everything I can to keep him from getting akumatized, but isn’t it bad enough everyone considers me flaky and unreliable? I have to keep bugging out to take care of akumas and I can’t tell anyone else about that! Thats why things didn’t work out with Luka and I wouldn’t want to put Adrien through that too. Did you think of that?”
Alya came forward and wrapped her arms around her friend. Marinette had been stretched to the breaking point until she told her she was Ladybug and while having someone in her corner now was helping, Alya could tell that the stress hadn’t diminished. It was still simmering under the surface, ready to boil over when any shift in the balance of her life occurred.
“You’re my best friend, Marinette,” she said softly. “You know I love you, right?”
There was a brief pause before her head rested on Alya’s shoulder, her arms hugging her waist. “I know you do. Its just… too much. I’ve hurt Cat and Luka and you. I’m barely sleeping these days and trying to stay on top of everything is just… impossible. Something had to go and I guess it was me.”
“I know, girl. But you have to take better care of yourself. You need to have things in your life that let you relax, unwind, and have fun. Otherwise you’ll become a victim of Shadowmoth, too, and then where would we be?”
Marinette sniffed and pulled away, wiping her eyes. “I know. I really do. I’m just not sure what to do about it.”
The thought that her friend, the one who always had the answers and solved every problem when it came to fighting super villains, felt so lost and alone pricked at Alya’s heart. Well, if Ladybug needed backup then Rena Furtive was always there and if Marinette needed someone to help remind her what love and fun were, Alya was going to make sure it happened.
“Look girl, I’ve got to go. Stuff to do, but call me if you need anything, alright?”
“Sure thing and thanks, Alya. You’re the best!” There was a swift hug and she turned to her desk again. By the time she and Trixx were at the trapdoor, Marinette was lost again in her world of being Ladybug and the guardian.
As soon as they were outside, Alya texted Nino.
Alya: Hey! Can you come over this afternoon?
Turtle boy: Sure thing, babe! What’s up?
Alya: My girl’s still locking herself away.
Turtle boy: And my dude’s still depressed too.
Alya: I think I have a way to solve both of our friend problems.
Turtle boy: ???
Alya: Meet you at my place and we can discuss it, k?
Turtle boy: You know I dig it when you get all take charge, right Foxy?
Alya: You know it, babe! xx
She tucked her phone back into her pocket. Operation: Valentine was a go and, with Nino’s help, she would bring the light back into the smiles of both their friends or die trying.
———
Operation: Valentine - Attempt #1:
Alya was poised for action. She and Nino had spent hours yesterday coming up with plans for how to get their two besties alone together. At first, Nino had suggested that they find a way to lock their friends in a closet or something, after all it had worked for them, but then he remembered about Adrien’s discomfort with being locked up. They had tossed around ideas until they had a full list. Alya was going to ask the other girls to help out too, but she wanted to start slow first.
“No sense in tipping off the Bug that something is up until we have to, right,” she thought as Marinette dozed peacefully on her shoulder on a bench outside the school. They had had a early release due to a teacher coming down with a cold and Alya was thrilled at the opportunity.
Nino and Adrien were sitting a short ways away, playing some sort of racing game on their phones. She saw Nino glance up at her and she gave him a thumbs up.
“Hey, guys,” she called softly. They both looked over at her. “I need to visit the little girl’s room. Adrien, could you sit with Marinette? She hasn’t been sleeping well lately and I don’t want to wake her up if I don’t have to.”
He smiled and nodded. “Sure, Alya,” he murmured as he came over. “I haven’t been sleeping well myself, so I understand.”
“Thanks, Sunshine,” she said, with a wink, holding the sleeping Marinette up so Adrien could slip into place. “Just a heads up? She sometimes likes to cuddle when she’s asleep.”
“I don’t mind.” The soft look on his face when he looked at Marinette put the lie to all the times he had called her “just a friend”. He eased her head down against his shoulder with a soft sigh. “You go ahead. I’ve got her.”
She and Nino made their way back into the school, heading towards the restrooms.
“Do you think its going to work,” Nino asked, fiddling with his headphones anxiously.
“Its a start, isn’t it? You told me that Adrien said he hadn’t been getting enough sleep lately. He just told me so himself. And Marinette’s been all over the place the last few months. Every time she gets too tired like this, running on fumes, she gets cuddly and we both know how Adrien feels about hugs. He can’t get enough of them! We just set them up for success, thats all.”
“I hope you’re right, Babe.”
Alya made sure to give them a good five minutes before coming back out. What she saw might have been the cutest thing she had ever seen. Adrien was curled up next to his “just a friend”, his head in her lap and hugging her around the waist while he slept as if she was his own giant teddy bear. Meanwhile, her bestie had one hand tangled in his blonde hair and the other on his back, her chin resting on her chest. There had never been two such peaceful smiles in all of Paris!
Alya snapped a picture while Nino stood beside her, struggling to smother his laughter. “Dude! Who knew Adrien snores like a kitten?!”
Sure enough, as they got closer she could hear a faint sound almost like a purr coming from their friend.
They were so precious together, as innocent as babes in the woods. Well, they were her babes and she was going to lead them into the light of love, so help her, or her name wasn’t Alya Cesaire!
At that moment, the silver luxury car pulled up next to the school. “What do we do now,” Nino asked, eyeing the body guard in the car with trepidation.
“We wait until the Gorilla tries to wake them up, of course. He’ll either honk the horn really loud or go and wake them himself. Then they will both wake up in each other’s arms and there will be blushing and apologies and explanations all around!” She was whisper-squealing and bouncing up and down with excitement as she turned her phone to record the whole thing.
The bodyguard, whom Nino had nicknamed The Gorilla, waited patiently in the car for several minutes. When Adrien still had not arrived to be driven home, the large man started looking around. When he spotted his charge sleeping on the bench with a female classmate, his glacial expression thawed slightly. Exiting the car, he silently climbed the stairs until he was standing over the pair.
Alya heard Nino swallow hard, but she could have sworn she saw the man smile. The imposing man patted Marinette’s hair in a surprisingly tender gesture. Then, as gently as you would pick up a sleeping infant, he lifted Adrien in his arms, being careful not to disturb her. He carried his charge to the car and presumably buckled him in prior to driving away, all without disturbing either Adrien or Marinette.
Alya and Nino both stared after them with mouths open.
“Well,” Nino said upon recovering himself. “That was unexpected.”
“Don’t worry,” she replied, determinedly. “I’ve always got a plan.”
————-
Operation: Valentine - Attempt # 3:
So cuddles hadn’t worked and the trip to the arcade had only shown that both her little cinnamon rolls could get pretty competitive about video games. “I’m surprised Marinette didn’t get us kicked out of there with all the noise she was making!” But today’s plan had to work.
Alya had borrowed a seam ripper from Marinette’s sewing stuff. This was going to take precision, but what better way to get her and Adrien closer than by having to fix a torn seam? Marinette was running late again and Adrien was sitting right in front of her. She gave Nino a slight nod. The plan was a go!
He immediately started in on her suggested conversation about video games and Adrien enthusiastically replied, turning to face his friend across the desk. This left the back of his white over shirt free for her little alterations. As lightly as she could, Alya leaned over the desk and picked out three or four stitches right at his shoulder. Adrien brushed absentmindedly at his shoulder once or twice, but she managed to get a good twelve stitches free before anyone else came into the classroom.
“There! That should be enough for things to start to come apart on their own,” she thought proudly. Now all she had to do was wait for someone to notice and then suggest that Marinette could help.
As the day wore on, Adrien’s shirt started to pull apart where she had picked the seam until, by lunchtime, the was a hole about three inches long. “Perfect,” Alya mused. “Now to get everyone’s favorite designer to save the day!”
“Hey, Sunshine, what happened to your shirt,” she asked, twitching the hole between her fingers and ‘accidentally’ making it worse.
“What are you- oh!” Adrien’s voice was full of surprise as his eyes caught the hole in the shoulder seam. “I’ve no idea how that could have happened.”
“Dude, is your dad going to be mad,” Nino asked, glancing at Alya with a worried look.
Adrien sighed. “To be honest, I think almost everything makes my father angry these days.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” she declared. “Hey, Marinette!”
Her bestie’s eyes looked up from the lunch tray she was carrying and caught sight of them across the cafeteria.
“Hey guys,” she said, her eyes flicking from between them and landing on Adrien. She blushed.
“Girl, can you do anything about this?” She gestured at Adrien and saw Marinette’s eyes widen and her blush spread to her ears as well.
“A-about what? Adrien’s fine! I mean, he looks fine! I mean, you’re fine, aren’t you? You always look fine to me, I mean in general. Of c-course, I know you have your bad days too, but I-“ Alya rolled her eyes and reached across to put a hand over her best friend’s mouth. Honestly, Ladybug or not, what would this girl do without her? No wonder no one had ever figured out her secret!
“Adrien’s shirt,” she said distinctly, interrupting Marinette’s babble train. “There’s a hole in the shoulder.
“Yeah, and we don’t want his dad to get all uptight about it,” Nino added.
“You don’t mind, do you Marinette?” Adrien’s voice was soft and kind and Alya could see Marinette melting over it. Seriously, how the boy didn’t see how much she loved him would always be a mystery to her!
“S-sure! I’ll he bappy too! Er, be happy too!” She all but dropped her lunch tray on the table and started digging through her backpack for the small sewing kit she kept there.
“You could just take it home and I could pick it up tomorrow after fencing,” Adrien suggested, starting to take the shirt off.
“N-nope,” she squeaked, blushing as red a rose now. “I c-can fix it here! No problem. Don’t want your father to find out, after all.”
So Marinette spent their lunch break sitting very close to her sunshine boy, her near invisible stitches mending the sabotaged seam. Alya kept a close eye on them both while she chatted idly with Nino, sneaking a few pictures in while they weren’t looking. Marinette had to lean close and every time her hair or breath brushed Adrien’s cheek, Alya was pleased to see him blush bit too. Marinette herself was lost in the mechanics of sewing and almost appeared to have forgotten where she was and that she was working on a shirt worn by the boy of her dreams instead of on her sewing dummy at home. She even forgot herself so much as to lean forward and bite the excess thread off his shoulder. When she looked up, they were nose to nose, staring into each others eyes in confusion.
“This is it,” Alya squealed to herself. “My ship is finally sailing! There is no way they can deny their chemistry now!”
Then the worst possible thing happened.
The bell rang for classes.
Startled, Marinette jumped up from her seat, somehow knocking her tray of uneaten lunch all over herself.
“You’re supposed to eat your lunch, not wear it Dupain-Cheng. Or is that what you think passes for fashion these days,” Chloe called out gleefully from a nearby table. Sabrina and Lila both chuckled and Marinette glowered at them. She got up calmly, almost regally, and left the room, leaving Adrien looking flushed, Nino concerned, and Alya gritting her teeth to keep from launching a verbal attack on the class bully.
Alya groaned. Maybe she had spent too much time with Cat Noir, for it certainly seemed like she had been cursed with the luck of a Black Cat.
Operation: Valentine - Attempt # 7
Alya paced around her room in a storm of frustration. “Okay, cuddles didn’t work because of Gorilla going all ninja and managed to sneak Adrien away while he was still asleep. The Arcade didn’t work because they got too competitive with each other and nearly got us kicked out.”
“Almost banned for life,” Nino put in mildly, blowing bubbles from where he sat on her bed. “Not to mention the bowling incident.”
She waved her hand at him in annoyance. “Having Marinette fix Adrien’s shirt seemed to be working, until the bell rang and she freaked.”
“Seamed,” he chuckled. “Are you sure you’re not hanging out with Cat Noir again?”
She glared at him over the tops of her glasses. “Don’t go there, Nino. Not in the mood.”
He gestured for her to calm down. “I’m not jealous. Just sounded like you were making a pun is all.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned, flopping down in the bed beside him. “What am I going to do, Nino? Everything I am trying starts to work then falls apart! I’m supposed to be a superhero and I can’t even help my best friend!”
He quickly put the bubbles away. “Come here, Babe,” he murmured, pulling her into a hug and rubbing her shoulder. “You’re a great super hero. I just think you need to consider that this is something you can’t fix because, maybe, it doesn’t need fixin’.”
“What do you mean,” she demanded, pushing away from him with a scowl. “Marinette has been in love with him for ages! He already talks about her a lot and treats her differently than he does his other friends! They’re made for each other! We all know it! The only one who doesn’t is Adrien!”
“No arguments here,” he said wrapping his hands around hers. “They would be perfect together, but we need to admit that maybe the time isn’t right yet. Besides, all the scheming in the world isn’t going to match them up if the timing or the hearts involved aren’t ready.”
She stared at him. Alya knew Nino was smart and it was only the way he talked that convinced people otherwise, but… “Since when did you become so intuitive,” she asked, nudging him with her elbow.
He tugged on his cap, failing to hide a blush. “Its just the turtle in me,” he said with a shrug. “But seriously, Babe, I think you just need to give them time to talk. Get to know each other better, like we did when Ladybug locked us in the panther enclosure, remember?”
“Time to talk,” she mused. “Maybe that is what we need, give them time alone to talk. Something they can’t ignore or bail out of. Something where they are helping a friend so they will both stick to it…”
“Um, Alya, did you even hear what I said?”
She didn’t and that was how Adrien and Marinette spent an afternoon running around Paris with his bodyguard, taking panoramic shots of akuma battle locations for a ‘new feature’ of the Ladyblog. That is, until an akuma let loose at the Louvre and somehow ended with Marinette spraining an ankle and Adrien falling into a fountain.
“Girl! You are Ladybug! How can this even happen to you,” she moaned, shaking Marinette by the shoulders later that evening.
“I’m only Ladybug in the suit, Alya,” she retorted, adjusting the ice pack over her swollen ankle. “If I get hurt before or after I transform, it sticks around.”
“And Adrien in the fountain?”
“He was trying… to catch me and I…pushed him in.” Her face was red with embarrassment. “I just hope he doesn’t catch cold.”
“You’re just lucky I was here waiting for you when you guys got back,” Alya said teasingly, adding another pillow behind Marinette’s back. “I got a great shot of Adrien looking all worried over you.”
“Alya, don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to,” she said, giving her a stern look, the kind that Ladybug leveled at Cat when he was flirting during battle. “Why are you pushing this? I’ve told you I can’t put him at risk and Adrien doesn’t deserve to be manipulated into a relationship! No one does!”
“Look, Marinette. Its gotten you out of your Ladybug fog and you can’t deny you still have feelings for Adrien. Its written all over your face whenever you’re near him! Besides, Nino says Adrien hasn’t been this happy in a while.”
Her friend crossed her arms. “I know a ripped seam when I see it, Alya.”
“You just leave it to me, girl,” she said, patting her friend’s arm before running down the stairs from her loft bed. “Tiger Lily has got this in the bag!”
She did. Alya Cesaire was going to bring some love into Ladybug’s difficult life or die trying!
—————
Operation: Valentine - Attempt # ….12?
She was dying.
Alya Cesaire was dying of frustration, secondhand embarrassment, and failure all combined and it was thanks to Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain - Cheng!
Cuddles, video games, hot chocolate dates, movies, mending, photo dates, bowling, sneaking Marinette into one of Adrien’s photoshoots, and everything else she had tried had failed, each more spectacularly than the last! Either she was a horrible matchmaker or the universe was out to get her friends and leave them alone and miserable.
Well, today was the day. No more hiding, no more plans, just open, honest truth. “And the universe can bite me!”
Alya ground her teeth as she paced up and down the stairs in front of the school, waiting for her two friends to come up the stairs. Nino took one look at her and scuttled off for a safe place to hide.
The silver car pulled up outside and Adrien came up the stairs, waving at her cheerfully. “Hey, Alya. Have a good weekend?”
“No! No thanks to you!”
He looked startled. “Whats going on, Alya? I haven’t seen you since Friday.”
She gave him the same look she gave her twin sisters when they set out to misbehave. “You stand right here and wait until I’m ready for you,” she declared loudly, pointing her finger at the stair below the one she was standing on.
Adrien quailed under her fierce gaze. He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, Alya. Whatever you say.”
She knew she was being ridiculous and that her unusual behavior was drawing a crowd, but she was going to deal with this insanity once and for all.
Marinette was climbing the stairs now, slightly early for once, looking at them oddly. “Hi! Where’s Nino?”
“Don’t where’s Nino me, Marinette,” Alya snapped.
Her friend’s eyes opened wide. “Alya, whats wrong?”
“I have had enough and this is going to be finished today. Do you both hear me?”
“Do you know what she’s talking about,” Adrien asked Marinette. She gave him a tight lipped smile.
“Alya, we’ve talked about this,” she hissed through her grimace.
“No, girl. We’ve talked about this!” She gestured between the two of them. “You haven’t!” she swung her hand between Marinette and Adrien. If she wasn’t so angry at the pair of blind idiots, she would have been hysterical, her phone out recording the landed fish expression on Adrien’s face and Marinette looking like she was filling with boiling water.
But she wasn’t. Alya Cesaire had reached her breaking point. Enough was enough!
“You!” She stabbed a finger at her best friend’s chest. “Just tell him you’re in love with him already!”
Now it was Marinette’s turn to look like a landed fish, her mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out. Her flush had disappeared and her face had gone ashen, her hands shaking visibly.
“And you!” Alya turned on Adrien. “You need to admit you have feelings for Marinette!”
Adrien turned bright red, his green eyes the size of saucers in his shock. “B-but I don’t… I mean - Marinette’s just-“
“I have proof, Adrien, and if you call her ‘just a friend’ one more time I will sock you in the nose, Buttercup!”
Adrien gasped, his startled eyes going from her face to Marinette’s and back again. “B-b-buttercup?!” His voice broke over the nickname.
Marinette’s face was in her hands, shaking her head, and moaning about disasters. Adrien glared at Alya, a determined glint in his eyes. “Alya, I don’t know what you’re going on about, but this is no way to treat your best friend!”
“Shut up, Buttercup!” Alya whipped out her phone, opened the photo app and thrust it at him. “There’s your proof, Sunshine! An entire album of it! You stare at her as if she’s your whole world! Get over yourself and just ask her out already.”
“Alya,” Marinette shrieked. “Don’t you dare tell Adrien to shut up! I don’t know why you think its necessary to-“
“How could anyone calling themselves a friend do this to Marinette,” Adrien yelled at the same time.
Alya could feel her temper rising. She glared at the two oblivious babes trying to defend each other at the tops of their lungs and something inside her just snapped.
She grabbed both Marinette and Adrien by the back of the head and smashed their faces together in a kiss. Cheers erupted from the crowd of students around them as Marinette and Adrien both blushed scarlet. After at least a full minute, she let them go and they pulled apart slowly with a loud smacking sound.
“Well,” she demanded, but got no response as the two stared at each other with open mouths. Marinette’s fingers creep up to touch her lips which are now as rosy as her cheeks and Adrien, darkly flushed and sweating, rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. Neither said a word.
That was it! She’d had it! She was never playing matchmaker again! “I’ve done my best! Alya is out!” And she stormed off to class, leaving her two friends looking as if the world had been cataclysmed and rebuilt around them.
——-
It took a while for Alya to cool down, but when she did… oh, remorse was like an akuma hit her in the stomach. “I really shouldn’t have done that,” she groaned into Nino’s shoulder after school.
He just sat on her bed, holding her comfortingly. “Its okay, babe.”
“Its not okay! I just outed my best friend’s crush in front of him and the whole school, Nino! Marinette is never going to forgive me!”
“It might take her a while, sure, but I bet she’ll forgive you. Marinette’s just cool like that.” He grasped her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “You know, if you had listened to a wise turtle like me, you would have just let them grow closer on their own.”
She sniffed and shot him a watery glare. “Are you trying to tell me you told me so?”
“See,” he replied with a smile, caressing her cheek. “My foxy lady is smart too!”
She couldn’t help but giggle and leaned into his comforting presence. “So what do I do now?”
“Well, the first place to start in making things right is to admit when you’re wrong,” he said. “So why don’t you go over to Marinette’s and try to apologize. Then see where it goes from there.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Turtle Boy!”
He tugged on the brim of his cap. “Any time, babe. Now go!”
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
Nino rubbed the back of his neck. “Nah. I have my own fences to start mending too. I should apologize to Adrien for how everything went down. Well, my part at any rate.”
“Okay, catch you later?”
“Always!”
Alya grew more nervous as she walked towards the bakery. Would Marinette forgive her? Would she take away her miraculous for breaking her trust? Could she somehow punish her as Ladybug for getting her into this situation when she was afraid of putting Adrien at risk?
“Oh boy! What am I going to do,” she thought as she opened the bakery door.
“Good afternoon, Alya,” Sabine called from behind the counter. “What can I get you?”
“Nothing, Ma’am. Is Marinette home? I really need to talk to her about something.”
Sabine looked confused.
“Sorry, dear. She’s out right now. Why didn’t you just text her?”
“This is kind of something that needs to be done in person.”
“I see. Well, she should be home soon.” She placed a few cookies into a bag and handed them to her. “Why don’t you take these and wait over in the park? She should be coming back that way and it is such a beautiful day for this time of year. Seems a shame to waste it!”
“Thanks, Sabine,” Alya replied, taking the cookies and heading for the park. She flopped down on a bench and nibbled on a cookie, wondering what on earth she was going to say to her friend that could possibly smooth things over.
The cookies settled like stones in her stomach, churned into gravel by guilt and remorse.
“I was so stupid,” she groaned. “Why couldn’t I just leave well enough alone?”
Then she saw something that made her eyes blow wide behind her glasses.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng was walking through the park, hand in hand with Adrien Agreste. They were smiling and laughing over something, both looking happier than Alya had seen them in months. Adrien leaned over and whispered something in Marinette’s ear and she blushed prettily. He gently brushed a strand behind her ear, looking at her as if every wish he had ever made had come true before his eyes. Alya couldn’t hear what he said to her then, but Marinette stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek softly with the sweetest of smiles.
“WHAT?!”
They both jumped and landed in defensive positions, side by side as if they had been fighting together all their lives. The tension shifted only slightly when they saw who was yelling at them.
“Alya,” they both asked at once.
She found herself on her feet gesturing at them wildly with her mouth hanging open. “WHAT IS THIS?!?!”
Adrien relaxed and put his arm around Marinette’s shoulders. “Its called a ‘date’, Alya. Do I need to have a talk with Nino about stepping up his game? Cause it kind of sounds like I do.”
“Adrien,” Marinette hissed, struggling not to giggle. “Be nice. She is our friend.”
“True, but my teeth are still objecting to banging against yours.” He rubbed his jaw ruefully. “I say she’s on probation.”
Alya had no more words. This morning there was ‘just a friend’ and stuttering and blushing like crazy. Now, there was hand holding, cheek kisses, and inside jokes.
“Wha-“ She swallowed and tried again. “What happened to you two?”
The look they shared was so sweet and full of happiness, that Alya could scarcely believe it. Everything proclaimed their rightness together, from the way they stood ready to take on the world, to the way they held hands, to the way they locked eyes. They really were made for each other and now they both knew it.
“Lets just say,” Marinette said, sharing a smirk with Adrien. “That we had some sense knocked into us.”
Alya’s grin was so wide it hurt as she rushed to them and wrapped them both in a hug. “I’m so sorry I was pushy with you two! Really, I am!”
Marinette patted her on the shoulder. “All’s forgiven, Alya, but lets talk about it tomorrow, okay?”
“Why,” she exclaimed. “I want to know how you worked this all out!”
“Because my girlfriend and I have a date to play video games that I refuse to miss,” Adrien said, drawing Marinette away with a bright smile.
As they headed towards the bakery, Alya could’t help but snap a picture of them walking away, arms around each other in the crisp February evening. She sent it to Nino.
Turtle boy: Well, what do you know about that?
Alya: ADRIEN JUST CALLED HER HIS GIRLFRIEND, NINO!
Turtle boy: I know! He texted me like half an hour ago.
Alya: AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?!?!
Turtle boy:…and miss getting yelled at by my fiery foxette? No way!
Alya: I’m going to get you for this one, Turtle Boy!
Turtle boy: You know you love me, babe!
Alya laughed. Now that her friends were so happy, no matter how they had got there, her whole world seemed brighter.
Alya: I guess Operation: Valentine was a success after all!
Turtle Boy: Only by the skin of their teeth!
Alya: NINO!
But he never responded back, leaving her to smirk at her own lovable dork, glad that she had someone who loved her so much herself.