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Adrien opened the trapdoor to Marinette’s room to see the oddest sight. Hunched over her desk, wearing safety goggles and oven mitts on both hands, Marinette was poking with a cotton swab at…
“Is that my phone?”
Faster than the blink of an eye, Marinette’s hands were out of the mitts and the phone was whipped behind her back as she turned to face him.
“No.”
“I was looking for that! Where did you find…” he trailed off as he realized her guilty stance. “Did you take my phone?!”
“I was going to give it back! I just…need to delete a message, first.”
“Delete a message…? Oh, is that why you called earlier?”
“Did you listen to it?” Marinette asked, eyes wide and face pale.
“No, I saw that you’d called and assumed it was to remind me about the ceremony…but then you didn’t show up, of course, so I assumed you had called to say that something had come up, but then I couldn’t find my phone afterwards to find out…”
“Yes…well…um…it wasn’t that.”
Tikki flew out into the open.
“At least now you can ask Adrien to unlock it for you!” Tikki said.
“I can’t do that! He’ll want to listen to it!”
“What’s the big deal about the message?” Adrien asked.
“Nothing!”
“Oh, Marinette and Alya were talking about you, and Marinette accidentally “butt-dialed” you, as Alya put it, and Marinette feels she would be embarrassed by some of the things she said while it was recording,” Tikki answered.
“Tikki!” Marinette said, looking wide-eyed at her kwami. “Don’t tell him that!”
Adrien grinned.
“Well, now I really want to listen to it,” he said, and made a grab for his phone. Naturally, Marinette saw it coming, and dodged him easily, leading to a brief chase around the room. He succeeded in catching her and knocking her to the floor, but she twisted such that the hand clutched around his phone was safely tucked underneath her. He continued to wrestle playfully for a bit, but she didn’t yield, easily holding her own against him even when they were both untransformed.
Marinette’s phone rang, and without getting off her, Adrien swiped her phone from her desk. Fair was fair, after all. Marinette, however, knocked it from his hands with her free one, and answered.
“Everything taken care of?” Alya asked. Marinette opened her mouth to respond, but Adrien interrupted.
“So, Alya, mind telling me why Marinette won’t give me back my phone?” he teased.
“Oops,” Alya said, laughing a little. “Bad luck, Marinette, sounds like you got caught.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Marinette said, tilting her phone so that Alya could get a glimpse of her current predicament. “I could use a little help here!”
“Sorry, you’re on your own,” Alya said, still trying to suppress her laughter. Marinette pouted.
“Betrayed by my best friend!”
“Aw, Marinette, you’d know I’d help, but I just can’t ignore the call of a good scoop! I’m trying to investigate the Chat Noir robbery right now!”
Adrien winced at the mention. He hoped Alya of all people didn’t believe he was guilty…
“What? Chat Noir got robbed?” Marinette said incredulously. Adrien raised an eyebrow at her and looked pointedly at where she held the phone beyond his reach. She stuck her tongue out at him and turned her attention back to Alya.
“Of course not! Didn’t you hear about it? It’s all over the news, Chat Noir just stole the Mona Lisa! I just have to get to the bottom of this! Sorry, Marinette – I’ll come and help you afterwards, I promise.” With that, Alya hung up. Marinette looked up at Adrien, eyebrows furrowed.
“What’s this about you stealing the Mona Lisa?”
Adrien sat up and scooted off of her, and rubbed his neck as Marinette sat up as well, still keeping the phone out of reach.
“Ah…that’s…actually what I came here to talk to you about. The sculptor got akumatized and he’s impersonating me. I would’ve called, but you know. I didn’t have my phone.”
“The sculptor? What happened? Do you know what the infected object is?”
“Don’t know where the akuma is, no, but he looks just like me so whatever’s different would be my guess. And what happened is that he was sad that you didn’t show up to the ceremony…”
“Adrien got jealous.”
“Plagg!” Adrien said, glaring at the kwami, who just gave him a look right back.
“What does he mean by that?” Marinette asked suspiciously.
“I…alright, yeah, I might’ve gotten a bit jealous. He was talking about you, and I didn’t like it, and I…might’ve told him that…you and I…were a couple,” Adrien admitted reluctantly, averting his eyes on the last few words.
“You did what?” Marinette hissed, jumping to her feet. She began pacing. “We agreed – we agreed that no matter what happened between us, Ladybug and Chat Noir were going to stay strictly professional…that way if one of us was compromised, it wouldn’t necessarily reveal the other…”
“I know,” Adrien said, hanging his head as he stood up. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“And we aren’t even really together, even like this, we’re just in whatever weird thing we’re in…”
“I’m sorry,” Adrien offered uselessly. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know I messed up and got the sculptor akumatized. But I can’t fix it without you.”