Chapter Text
Adrien could feel his heart twinge and beat oddly as he stared at two of his best friends. The two were talking in hushed whispers as they gossiped in a corner, large grins splitting their faces before Marinette giggled in a way Adrien had yet to achieve in months. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
She was as happy as she could be, always grinning and cracking jokes with everyone. But she lost the sparkle in her eyes. Or, more accurately, the sparkle she had when she talked with him . Otherwise, she was still the everyday Ladybug everyone knew and loved. Instead, the sparkle only flashed when she looked at Jon. He tried to be quiet, but her obvious favoritism to the new student was abundantly apparent. In her defense, everyone seemed to love him. Except Lila. It had to be the fact that she was no longer the center of attention or that everyone seemed to gravitate towards the American with all of his interesting stories with the Supers in Metropolis and Lex Luthor and other weird villains in America, not that Paris could talk. Adrien could see the hurt look in Lila’s eyes when she glanced at Alya. All Lila seemed to want were friends and Adrien couldn’t help but feel pity for her. Alya just up and left as soon as she realized she shared a class with the son of her two biggest idols.
Something about Jon had always rubbed him the wrong way. Sure, they are amazing friends but it always felt like there was something the guy was hiding. Marinette seemed in on it so it couldn’t be too bad, but it just rubbed him wrong.
“Hey, Loverboy!” Adrien snapped his head in the direction of the noise when he heard his nickname, glancing at Alya questioningly when she began waving him over as she leaned against a wall out in the courtyard.
“Hey, what’s up?” He glanced around as he asked the question. Where was Nino? Wherever Alya went, her boyfriend always followed.
“Oh? Me? Nothing. But Lila’s been acting strange? I know the two of you spend a lot of time together, wanted to know if you knew anything about her behavior recently.” Alya’s eyebrows wiggled suggestively as she smirked at him and Adrien felt a blush rise at the false accusation. Unfortunately, that also caused a grin to appear on his bespectacled friend’s face.
“M-me? Nothing!” He had his hunches, nothing concrete. Alya would jump on anything he said and he did not need her making assumptions with no proof.
“Hmm. Whatever you say, Loverboy .”
Adrien ignored whatever Alya was implying and feared whatever she assumed. She was planning something, he just hoped it wouldn't end up with someone getting akumatized.
Alya pushed back against the wall into a normal standing position and turned towards Marinette and Jon, glancing back at him with a mischievous wink before lifting her heels off the ground as she seemed to sneak up on the two still joking in the corner. He was missing something, that much he knew. What exactly he was missing he had no idea.
Jon and Marinette were facing each other as they stared at Jon’s phone, laughing wholeheartedly at whatever they were looking at. They were too engrossed in their own little world that Jon even didn’t notice Alya right behind Marinette. Jon always had a sixth sense of sorts when it came to knowing where people were, it was weird. It came in handy here and there but it was still weird .
He must not be paying attention? Or maybe he couldn’t see Alya? Or hear her? He said something in rapid fire English into his phone, an accusatory glare at whoever he was talking to. Marinette laughed at that, causing whoever was on the other end to huff impatiently. Adrien struggled to translate what was said. In theory, as difficult as the language was, he still knew it and could speak it. In practice, dialect was different and paired with how fast he spoke, things were taking an embarrassingly long time to compute. Combine that with Jon’s accent and it was a misunderstanding waiting to happen.
When he was able to translate and digest the information, he felt his spine straighten and glanced at Marinette in confusion. He had to have misheard or incorrectly translated a word or two because otherwise it made no sense whatsoever.
Jon glanced up and saw Alya who raised a finger up to her lips with a wink. So, Alya just wanted to give Marinette a quick jump-scare? Oh. That made more sense. Jon must’ve gotten the same idea because instead of making it obvious that he knew Alya was there, he pulled Marinette back towards him in a way Alya wouldn’t be seen in her peripheral vision.
Adrien felt his heart stutter at the action, bile rising to the back of his throat. As much as he liked Jon as a friend, he did not want him that close to Marinette, especially when her eyes blew wide and her face turned red. He knew they were good friends, it was obvious, but she looked so uncomfortable and embarrassed that Adrien couldn’t help but feel like he needed to get Marinette out of here as soon as possible.
Despite that, Adrien tried not to flinch when he realized that was the same look she had given him just a few months ago. Maybe he also made her uncomfortable but didn’t say anything? It made sense. She likely didn’t trust him for a while even after he gave her his umbrella and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable after that so he gave her space. Did he not give her enough? Did he give her too much space? She was comfortable now though, right? She had to be.
Marinette was tense even though Jon barely held her at an arm’s length, though for some odd reason he could see her smirking a bit.
“Hey, Als. Sneak up a little louder, would you?”
Alya stumbled, surprise clear in her face as she wasn’t expecting to get caught. Adrien didn’t have time to respond. Before he knew it, Alya tripped and crashed into Marinette, sending her tumbling into Jon’s arms.
A brush was all it took for Adrien’s blood to boil and for his heart to lurch into his throat. Marinette pulled away from Jon like she was burned, and with how red her face was, it looked as if it wouldn’t be far from the truth. Her hands reached up to her lips, glancing at Jon who was basically mirroring her.
Adrien’s breath caught.
This was unexpected to say the least. His heart was practically bursting from inside his chest and his head felt far too woozy for him to just stand there doing absolutely nothing. He needed to sit down.
No, it would be best if he just helped Jon and Marinette. They both looked red and jumpy. He should go to the nurse’s office and get them both some ice. No, that would be too much. He should go to the water fountain and get a few cups of water for them. Yeah, that’s it. That would make the situation better.
Adrien tried to move, he did, but it seemed like his feet were glued to the ground. Instead, all he could do was stare helplessly as Alya wiped herself off with a large grin as she stared at the two. For some reason, Adrien got the notion that she had in fact gotten the desired result even if she hadn’t gotten it the way she intended.
Adrien forced himself to watch as the two shook out of their stupor and hesitantly steal glances at each other.
He couldn’t put a name to the emotion, but he knew he had to turn away before he did or said something he might regret. Finally, his body listened to what he was telling it to do and scrambled its way into the men’s bathroom. Consulting with Plagg would take up far too much energy and so he ended up tuning out whatever teasing came his way.
Perhaps he just read the room wrong? Or he was overreacting? Yeah, that had to be. He was overreacting about something silly and unimportant. Or the situation wasn’t nearly as bad as he interpreted it. Or there wasn’t anything serious going on between the two of them.
Adrien could still feel the repulsive feeling creeping up whenever he glanced at either Jon or Marinette for the rest of the day. There was always a sickeningly sweet smile or grin and the two both practically had large hearts in their eyes whenever they made eye contact.
Maybe it was just how easily the two got along. It took him almost a year to be able to converse with Marinette like a normal human being, and not for his lack of trying. And Jon just walked into class one day and the two hung off each other in a way that made even leeches jealous.
Relief never felt like it’d come. He wasn’t jealous or anything, at least not romantically. He didn’t like Marinette or Jon that way and he obviously wasn’t dating either of them. It had to be how close they’d gotten in such a short amount of time.
Jealousy ? Yeah, right. He should be happy that two of his closest friends got along so well and were practically at the point of dating. So, why did he feel like he’d just let something important slip out of his fingers, never to be found again?