The Naked Truth

Epilogue 2 (For the Craic, but not only!)

"Absolutely not!" hissed Marinette under her breath, glaring at Plagg who was floating right in front of her nose. "There's no way that you're really going to follow through with this ridiculous idea of Alya interviewing you!"

Plagg looked at her with an amused gleam in his electric green eyes. "Pigtails, relax! How long have I been alive for? Do you have any idea?" He smirked when Marinette shook her head, even if the girl hadn't lost her decisive frown. "In kwami form it's only been a few thousand years, but as the God of Destruction, I've been alive since the beginning of time. Tikki's the only Goddess that is older than me. By a few seconds." He looked up to where Tikki was staring at him behind Marinette's shoulder and smiled a sly smile.

"How is your age relevant to this?" groaned Marinette.

"Do you even need to ask? I'm not the kind of creature that can be fooled by stupid questions. Leave the matter to me. You did say that Alya has made the last couple of days a living hell for you!"

Marinette brought the palm of her hand to her face and growled. Plagg was right. Since the day she found out by accident about their identities, Alya hadn't left any occasions to stress Marinette out to gain information. About Ladybug. About what had happened in the bubble. And deets (Marinette's new most hated word) about their first night... as if it were Alya's right to get a description in detail of such a night only because she had done the same with her first time with Nino.

As if Marinette had asked about that, at the time, or even cared. No, Alya had been so excited that she had chosen to spill the beans, and now she felt she had the right to know all the details of Marinette's personal life too. It was NOT going to happen. Not until the day she died. She loved Alya. She really did. And she was extremely grateful to her for having helped her out that night, by providing condoms when they both hadn't even thought about it at all. But she still didn't think this authorised Alya to be a busybody and know all the details of their sex life.

"Tikki has always said that you have very low bargaining standards when it comes to the things that you like. What happens if she offers you a whole batch of well aged Camembert?"

Plagg put his arms behind his head and started floating on his back. "Nah. First of all, she would need to know what my favourite snack is, which I don't think she does. Second, Adrien can get me more and better aged Camembert than any of your classmates put together. Nah. I wouldn't risk upsetting THAT balance." He looked with nonchalance at his paws.

Marinette exchanged a look with Tikki. They seemed to be having a sort of nodding and glancing conversation, until Tikki flew up to Plagg's height and looked at him with her paws crossed over her chest.

"Okay, Stinkysock. You win. Have your interview," she said, immediately followed by Marinette, who continued, "but we stay in the room. And if we hear a hint of a single detail of what she's most interested in, we'll call the interview off."

Plagg rolled his eyes. "All right, all right. Keep your hair on!"

And that was how Adrien, Marinette, Alya, Plagg and Tikki all found themselves in Marinette's room. They had agreed to have the interview the day that Marinette's parents would be back from Marseilles. The main reason was that Tom and Sabine would arrive only in the evening, so that would give Alya plenty of time for her interview. And plenty of privacy. It was also a Saturday, which meant that school was off. Besides, by some grace of God, Adrien's schedule had left him with a free afternoon that day.

It was nearly surreal. Alya on one side, notebook in hand, ready to take notes (they had just tried to record Plagg's voice on her phone and the silence when she had tried to play it back had been deafening), and the little black God of Destruction on the other, his body fully relaxed in his floating position on his back, his arms comfortably resting behind his head.