A Masked Deal

Affection

"He has dated a Miraculous holder, Alya! How do I not know about this?"

Marinette was pacing Alya's room. The live stream had finished and Chat Noir had an 'appointment' to attend. They'd agreed that they'd meet up to talk this out later, neither had seemed particularly happy by the answer to the final question.

"Marinette, calm down." Tikki had come to float in front of her, obviously worried about her holder's mental stability after such a shocking revelation.

"He's been with another Miraculous holder!" Marinette said.

"What I want to know, though, is who have you been with? I thought you'd only ever dated Luka?" Alya said.

"This isn't about me."

"I think it is, girl. If you've only been with Luka, and you've been with a Miraculous holder, does that mean Luka is one of us?"

Marinette shied away from her friend, suddenly interested in Alya's perfume bottle.

"Viperion!" Alya shouted out. Marinette flinched. "I'm so right!"

"Fine, yes! Viperion is Luka, happy! Now help me with my issues. Chat has been with a holder, he's dated a holder." She looked in towards her friend, moving her face closer to Alya's. "Who have you cheated on Nino with?"

Alya barked out laughing.

"Geez, Marinette! Give me some credit! I've only ever been with Nino."

"Rockatear." Marinette stated.

"You know as well as me that was a lie. I didn't know what to say. Perhaps that's what he meant about being with another holder, perhaps he was referring to me."

"He doesn't know you're Rena though. Think, think, think. I mean it's not like he's dated Vespira, or Pigella, or ..." Marinette froze, "Ryuko?" Her voice had trailed off. There's no way? Is there? It couldn't be Adrien Agreste, could it? How would she have never noticed?

"You ok?" Alya had noticed her friend had gone pale.

"I just -" Marinette looked at Tikki. The kwami stared back with wide eyes, filled with concern. There was no way Chat Noir was Adrien Agreste, she'd seen them together a couple of times in the past, and he didn't have the power of illusion to help him.

"Just?"

"Don't worry Alya, I've just had a bit of a freak out. I'll be ok. He's with me now, no need to worry about another holder stealing him from me." She gave Alya a fake smile before summoning Tikki into her earrings. "Well, time to go and meet ... him."

With a fake smile, Ladybug launched herself off Alya's balcony and into the night sky, ready to meet Chat Noir with way too many thoughts running through her head. The main one being, what the hell was she going to tell Chat?

•••••

"Dude, you don't need to look so smug."

Adrien was lounging back playing video games with Nino. So the appointment he needed to go to was actually a little white lie. Really he just wanted to go and gloat to Nino.

"Listen, the girl of my dreams has literally been crushing after me since she was thirteen.
I mean what are the odds?" Adrien pressed a few buttons, only for his Mech to take out Nino's in a perfect round.

"I'm not playing anymore." Nino threw his controller down and made his way over to the can of cola on his desk taking a large swig and placing it back down with a thud.

"Ok Cat-sanova, what are you going to tell the bug? If you tell her the truth she'll know who you are." Plagg was sitting next to Adrien feasting on his cheese.