Anything For a Friend : A Miraculous Ladybug Fanfic

Chapter 1

"Did you notice that Chloe went through and liked every single photo on your official instagram?" Nino asked, scrolling through his phone with an expression of distaste.

"Is that look for my pictures or for Chloe?" Adrien asked, fiddling with his pencil rather than doing any homework. Nino was possibly the worst influence when it came to homework completion, but having him over for homework was possibly the only way Adrien's father would allow him through the doors these days. "And yeah, she checks the page every day. Sometimes she comments her phone number."

"Well, she's got points for being cheeky I guess," Nino replied. He set his phone down and looked curiously at Adrien, who raised his eyebrows in response. "What's it like, getting so much attention from girls?" he asked.

"Obnoxious," Adrien responded honestly. "I feel like if I ever take off my shirt I'll be responsible for six fainting episodes and a bloody nose."

"I don't know if that's too much anime or a too huge ego talking, my friend, but you're probably right. Which just makes poor old me upset," Nino said, laughing.

Adrien shrugged. "There's nothing to do about it. As long as I'm single, they think I'm free game."

He turned away from Nino's thoughtful expression, honestly dubious about whatever idea he was ruminating upon, and took the time to do a few math problems. Part of him worried that Nino would stay true to his previous ideas and attempt to ask Adrien's father for some help with the problem. He could only imagine what would happen if Nino succeeded that persuasion attempt--would his father conscript another of the teen models to pose as his girlfriend? He snorted as his own word choice. Model? Pose? He was a genius.

"My friend, you may not acknowledge it, but you are in the presence of a genius," Nino announced, striking the temporary fear that Nino might be able to read Adrien's thoughts into his heart. "Your problems only persists as long as you're single, no?"

Adrien narrowed his eyes. "True," he said.

"Then you need to get a girlfriend!" Nino said, hands proudly on hips.

"I don't like any girls though," Adrien replied. He hated to shoot down Nino's ideas but he couldn't picture any girl other than one spandex clad super heroine on his arm. The idea of a Chloe or a Rose so much as holding his hand made him uncomfortable.

"A boyfriend?" Nino offered.

"More tempting, but my father would likely kill me. Anyway I kinda do have a thing for one girl, but she doesn't go to our school and she definitely doesn't like me back," he said, laughing.

Nino pondered, and his thinking face was so dramatic that Adrien couldn't help but laugh.

"What about a fake girlfriend?" Nino suggested at last, looking less convinced of this idea than he had the previous two, but still hopeful. "Someone who knows they're not really in a relationship with you, but is willing to pretend so that you stop getting harassed."

"I..." Adrien began to shoot the idea down, but he paused, thinking about it a bit more. "We'd have to find someone who is really selfless to want to do that."

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Marinette was hardly listening to the lecture. She knew it had something to do with physics--or at least that was a very likely topic of the lecture, given that she was sitting in Physics class. But when would physics help her in day to day life? True, she had a fairly good grasp of how fast something was going to fall, how much the wind affected things, and whether or not she had enough momentum to make jaw dropping leaps--but that wasn't really physics, right? More like instinct.