Chapter Text
Alya stared long and hard at her best friend sitting next to her doodling in her sketchbook. Marinette had been much happier as of late, and while normally this wouldn't bother Alya, her friend seemed skittish every time she mentioned this sudden change in attitude. To top it all off, her friend who had been fawning over the boy sitting in front of her for the better part of the year started to almost ignore him completely.
Ignore might not have been the word Alya was looking for in her mind unless it was in a romantic sense. Marinette was actually much friendlier to Adrien, full sentences and barely even a blush as she spoke, a drastic change from her usual inability to get out a full sentence around him.
Speaking of which, Adrien seemed to have a change in demeanor as well. He was much more animated and interested in what Marinette had to say, and Alya had seen him rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as he so does when he's nervous twice in the span of a five minute conversation between the two of them. Needless to say, Alya's journalistic curiosity was at its peak around the two of them.
Especially at the mention of Ladybug and Chat Noir.
The two of them had always had a weird way of talking about the superhero duo, as if they knew them personally, closer than the few encounters Alya knew they had had in the past, but lately whenever one of them was mentioned, Marinette who usually had nothing much to say about Chat Noir would listen much more intently, and Adrien who had always had a glaring crush on Ladybug, spoke about her in a friendlier way.
"Nino, have you noticed anything different about our two friends there?" Alya asked the DJ one day at lunch after the two aforementioned people had left to go home.
"If you mean how they both seem to be on cloud nine all the time, then yes," he replied, fingers tapping on his phone screen.
"That's not just it though. Has Adrien mentioned Marinette at all lately?"
Nino looked up from his phone in thought. "Actually, now that you mention it, he seems to talk about her a little more than usual. I hadn't really noticed it though since she seems to be a lot more active in our conversations, so it's only natural that he would have more to say about her."
Alya nodded her head in agreement. "But don't you think it seems like they're hiding something?" she asked.
"Are you sure you're not just looking too much into this? If Adrien had a secret, I'm sure he'd tell me. And with where you're going with this, I believe you're implying he has a crush on her. Which he definitely would have told me."
"Maybe he thinks you still have a crush on her, and that's why he hasn't mentioned it?"
Nino snorted. "That confusion was cleared up a while ago. We've uh, talked about that no longer being relevant."
Alya narrowed her eyes at him, but let it slide. "I still think they're both hiding something." Suddenly she gasped. "Do you think they're secretly dating?!"
She looked expectantly at him from across the table and he just shrugged. "You know neither of them can keep a secret for shit right? Especially from you."
"Which is why I've figured it out so quickly. I need to have a chat with Marinette, and I want you to find out as much as you can from Adrien. Got it?"
"I don't think I'll find much, but I'll play along. It's nice to see my bro actually happy all the time."
When Marinette got home for lunch, her mom had a sandwich ready for her, but instead of eating it at the table, she grabbed the plate and ran upstairs with a call of "I have a great idea that I need to jot down now or I'll forget thanks for the sandwich maman!" before the hatch to her room slammed shut.
When she got inside, Chat was laying down on her chaise lounge, shit eating grin present on his face. Which was impressive considering she lived across the street from the school and she knew he was also in school.
Marinette took a moment to put the plate down before a grin rivalling his own appeared on her face. He sat up a little and motioned for her to go over to him. She walked over to his outstretched hands and before she could lower herself on the chaise as well, he pulled her on top of him, earning a squeak and then a whine of "Chaaaat, that wasn't nice."
"Sorry princess, I'm just excited to see you."
She rolled her eyes. "You saw me last night, you silly kitten." And then at an akuma attack a half hour later.
"Class was just so boring this morning and all I could think about was being able to do this," he said and then kissed her. She returned the kiss with just as much force as him before pulling back and sitting up.
"I did more or less the same. Our teacher was rambling on about something in history. I know it's gonna come back to bite me in the butt, but it's just so boring."
"Ask that classmate of yours, Rose, for help. Didn't you say she was good at history?"
Marinette blinked at him, impressed that he'd remembered her saying that. "Yea, that's actually a good idea. I know she has trouble with English which I'm pretty good at, so maybe I'll offer to help her with that in return."
"Excellent idea Mari. I'm sure she'd appreciate the help," he replied, and attempted to pull her back down for another kiss.
She dodged his mouth and slipped off his lap to sit at her desk and eat her lunch. "I don't know about you, but if I don't eat, I'm going to deeply regret it during gym class later."
"But we've still got-" he looked at her clock to check the time, "- forty-five minutes! That leaves thirty-nine minutes for cuddling, five to eat, and another minute to get back to school!"
She shook her head but laughed none the less. "So let me eat first so we can have maximum cuddle time before I have to leave."
He huffed but accepted that anyway. She handed him half of her sandwich because she knew whenever he came to see her during lunch time, he'd forget to eat himself. He accepted it graciously and promised her he'd bring some treats when he saw her after his post-school activities. He never told her exactly what they were, but that didn't bother as much as it should since it was her that decided to keep their superhero lives a secret.
"So I think Alya is catching on to me," she said once they were settled back on her chaise. His hands were playing absentmindedly with her hair and they stopped when she had said that.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well I've been trying to keep myself the same as I was before but I think she's noticed that I'm overall happier. She's been trying to ask me why but doesn't seem to believe that I'm just happy for no reason."
"So do you think she knows anything?"
Marinette sat up and turned to look at him. "I'm honestly not sure. I don't think she knows that I'm technically dating anyone, and if she does, I'm almost sure she doesn't know it's you."
Chat mumbled something that she couldn't hear despite her close proximity.
"What was that?"
"Would it be so bad if she did?"
Marinette stared at him as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, a familiar gesture to her, but her mind was focused on the words that had just come out of his mouth.
"A little bit, yea," she said.
"Look, I know you don't want to know who I am just yet, and while I'd be fine telling you, I understand why, but why would it be so bad if she knew that we were together?"
"For two reasons. One, she's the creator of the Ladyblog which documents everything you and Ladybug do. Me being her best friend or not, I bet she'd be dying to know who you are and using me to get to that answer. Two, if Hawkmoth found out, he would definitely use me to get to you. And I'm not okay with you being in danger like that."
Chat smiled fondly at her, knowing she was doing all this out of entirely good intentions, but he couldn't help wishing they could be a normal couple. "I know princess. I just really want to be able to take you on a real date, spoil you rotten. I may have never had a girlfriend before, but I do know those are things that normal couples do."
"We aren't a normal couple though. You're a superhero and I'm just... me. A normal civilian." She said, even though she knew it wasn't true. And honestly, she had been thinking a lot since they started dating about telling him she was Ladybug. While she didn't want him to tell her who he was, she found it unfair to him to be around him as Ladybug.
"Marinette, listen to me. You may be a civilian, but you are anything but just normal. You're kind, and witty, and smart, and you've even helped me with an akuma before. So while we may not be a normal couple, I want to show you how much I care for you like a normal boyfriend would. But better, because you deserve the best boyfriend, and I wonder how I got so lucky."
"Aw, Chat..." she said before a beeping sound cut through the air. She glanced down at his miraculous which still had 5 spots on it and looked back up at him in confusion. The beeping happened again and she noticed that it was her phone, reminded her that class started back up in two minutes.
"That's my cue to go princess. I may be a superhero, but we still have to get an education."
"See you tonight?" she asked.
He pecked her on the lips before whispering, "tonight," and jumping out her window.
Alya was sure that her suspicions were right on the money, when both Marinette and Adrien came back from lunch looking both in love, and a little more red and swollen around the lips than normal. There was no way they weren't secretly dating. She just had to get the details and a confession.
Alya knew that Adrien had fencing after school, giving her the perfect opportunity to talk to Marinette without her running off to be with him. She invited her to go get ice cream at the park, knowing Marinette couldn't resist.
"So, Marinette," Alya started. Marinette looked back at her and shrunk back a little upon noticing the wicked smile on her friends face, the kind she got when she had a lead on an exclusive story.
"Yes Alya?"
"I noticed that you're not as shy around Adrien anymore, what changed that?"
Marinette planned her words out carefully before speaking. "Well I realized that it was incredibly stupid of me to get so shy around him. How can I get him to like me if he can't even get to know me?"
Alya raised her eyebrows in surprise at the thought Marinette had put into getting closer to Adrien. "Fair point. I don't know, I guess I just noticed that you two were getting pretty chummy lately. You're also both off in your own little worlds more often than not, stupid smiles on your faces."
"I already told you Alya, I've just been in a better place lately since I've been getting more sleep." While not entirely a lie, she was getting the same amount of sleep, but sometimes Chat would stay with her until she fell asleep and she found that she slept much better knowing that.
"Okay, okay, no need to get defensive. I just want to know everything that's going on in my best friend's life. You just seem to be a little distant, and you can't tell me that you're spending all that time thinking about sleep. You have the face of a love sick fool to be honest."
Marinette's face heated up and a light blush dusted across her cheeks before she could stop it at the thought of her being love sick for Chat Noir.
"HA! I knew it! Spill! Who is he? Is it Adrien?!" Alya exclaimed.
"Not so loud Alya! And no, it's not Adrien, I think you'd know if it was."
"So what you're saying is that you were lying about why you can talk to Adrien easier. So who is it?"
Crap, Marinette thought. She was caught red handed with no explanation to give her overly curious friend.
"Not entirely... it started out that way and then when I started getting to know this person... I guess it just got easier without my immense crush in the way."
"This person? That's all I'm getting? I'm your best friend Mari, how could you not tell me this?"
Marinette saw how Alya looked genuinely hurt by her keeping these secrets, but there wasn't much she could do. "I'm sorry Alya, it's not that I don't want to tell you it's just... I can't. You don't know him anyway."
"Well I'd like to considering he's dating my friend. He needs to know how much shit he'd be in if he hurt you. What school does he go to?"
"I can't answer that."
"How old is he?"
"I can't answer that either."
"Alright, here's an easy one, what's his first name?"
"I can't-"
"Marinette, it sounds like you don't know the answer to these questions." Alya said, voice flat, until she saw Marinette's face. "Are you kidding me? How do you not know his name?"
"Look, it's not that I don't know per se, it's just in our best interest that I don't know his real name, and I can't tell you what the name I call him is because it could be dangerous."
Alya took in all the information her friend had given her and then watched her facial expressions. Marinette was too expressive and that was often why she had a hard time lying to her friends. A boy she didn't know, who she couldn't know anything about, who Marinette didn't know much about...
Suddenly it clicked. The secrecy, the possible danger, her sudden piqued interest in akuma attacks... Alya knew this was a long shot but for some reason, it just seemed to make sense.
"Marinette, I need you to be honest with me. Are you dating Chat Noir?"
Her jaw dropped and Alya knew she had hit the nail on the head.
"How did you- there's no way you could- Alya, how in the hell did you manage to figure it out so quickly?"
"Lately you've been super interested in what I had to say about him. You've always been defensive but it's been more than that. And the fact that you don't know his real name or basically anything else about him. Damn, now I owe Chloe twenty bucks."
"If I had known it was gonna be that easy for you to figure out, I would have just listened to Chat and told you a week ago. Wait, why do you owe Chloe money?"
"We had a bet about whether or not Ladybug and Chat Noir were dating. Chloe didn't think Chat Noir deserved Ladybug."
"That's awful! Of course he does!"
"Yea but in case you're forgetting how we got here, you're dating him."
"Which you can't tell Chloe. So you don't owe her anything."
"Oh yea! Perfect! Although I'm sure they're eventually bound to find out that they aren't together, but at least that gives me more time."
Marinette's eyes widened with the realization that Alya now knew she was dating Chat, and any thought she had about telling him she was Ladybug were screwed. Even if she did tell him, they couldn't be a couple as superheroes or Alya would think he was cheating on her. Son of a-
"Marinette? Are you alright? You look upset."
"Oh, sorry. No I'm fine. But Chat is gonna be at my place soon and I need to tell him you know. Oh and can you promise me not to tell anyone? I know this would be a great Ladyblog scoop but for his safety and mine, I'd appreciate it."
"Don't worry girl, I got your back. Although if you end up finding out his identity, I'd love to know..."
"Alya..."
"I'm kidding! Now go be with your man, but I want details!"
Marinette bid her friend goodbye, and when she was out of sight, she went back to panicking. She had seriously thought about telling him who she was so that even if they couldn't do normal couple stuff, they could at least be seen outside together without anyone thinking anything of it. Just Ladybug and Chat Noir out on patrol, with the occasional hiding on rooftops to make out. The thought made her blush but she had more important things to work out.