Hey girl," Alya greeted. "Glad to see you're early for once!"
"Well, I was determined this time," Marinette said, setting down a bag of pastries and two cups of coffee. "I needed to talk to you this morning."
"About what?" She wondered.
"The whole phone trick you pulled," she replied. "Look, I'll accept the karma of me having stolen your phone to be helpful, but seriously. Sending that text? Not cool. You're lucky it worked out, so thanks I guess, but that was not okay and could've seriously backfired."
"What are you talking about?" She asked.
"You know exactly what I mean," she gave her a look.
While Alya gave her an expression so confused that it just might be innocent, Marinette felt a sudden weight on her head and arms wrapped around her waist.
"Morning, Princess," Adrien muttered. "How are you awake?"
"Morning, kitten," Marinette said. "And the answer is coffee. I grabbed you some too on the way out."
"Bugaboo you are the light of my life right now!" He said, taking the offered cup.
"So," Alya grinned mischievously. "What's up with you two this morning."
"You know exactly what's up," Marinette said. "And again, while it worked out, I really don't appreciate you forcing my hand like that."
"She's right," Adrien nodded. "Luckily I was okay and was just going to try and talk her down from a little of the wording in that text. It could've really backfired if I didn't take it well, and she'd have no clue why. You really need to work on writing fake love confessions."
"I'm still lost," Alya said.
Marinette was starting to think something was actually up. While she tried to give Alya a stare down, hoping she would crack, more classmates trickled in. All of them noticed how cozy she and Adrien were, and they were getting some very excited grins. Along with a few instances of money being exchanged, but she was going to ignore the class bets.
Although, Chloé seemed not to notice as she leaned against Adrien.
"Ugh," Chloé groaned. "As much as I love having Jagged at the hotel, Fang is a headache. Love him too, but it’s ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous! Oh! Coffee!"
"Chloé," Marinette warned. "Give Adrien his coffee back. He stayed up until three am texting me."
"Well that's his fault," she said. "I didn't get any sleep at all because I had to babysit a crocodile!"
She was half way through another sip when she noticed that Adrien still had his arms around Marinette. There was a moment where she just stared, processing. Then the rest of that coffee was chugged, and she snagged the other one on the desk.
"Excuse you," Marinette glared. "That one's mine."
"I'll buy you another later," Chloé said. "I knew I felt a disturbance in the force last night. Couldn't you have waited another week? Now I owe Alix money."
Before either could respond, she walked off to her desk and absentmindedly sipped the coffee as she tried to stay awake.
"Don't worry," Marinette said, holding up the pastry bag. "I brought breakfast too."
"Oh, thanks!" Adrien grinned, finally letting her go to take the bag. "As I said, the light of my life!"
As he dug through the bag and pulled out a croissant, and unfortunate addition found itself attached to his arm. Neither Hero was sure where she'd materialized from, so they jumped in surprise.
"Oh, Adrien," Lila grinned, smiling somewhat flirtatiously. "Should you really be eating that? I'm sure Marinette's baking is fine, but you do have your figure to maintain!"
"He's allowed to eat," Marinette glared.
She would've said more, but Adrien gave her a look. Not a disapproving one, but a 'let me handle this' one. A definite upside to having Adrien be Chat Noir is that she could read his expressions so well in these situations.
"You know, Lila," Adrien said, pointedly taking her hand off his arm. "While I’m discouraged from eating anything too unhealthy, I do have free reign to eat whatever I want. As long as I keep a healthy weight, which is easy with my extracurricular activities, I could buy enough cheese to feed a small god and no one would care!"
He and Marinette laughed at the inside joke, much to Lila's confusion and annoyance. Especially once he put his arm around his new girlfriend and decided to ignore her.
"Okay," Alya said. "You two still need to explain what exactly you're mad at me for because I am so lost!"
"Yesterday when I 'lost' my phone," Marinette said. "You sent a text to Adrien, pretending to be me confessing my love. I understand you were impatient and trying to help but that wasn't okay and could've gone so wrong!"
"I didn't- I'd never-" she stopped, before turning to Lila with an incredulous expression. "What the hell did you do?!"
"Nothing!" Lila said. "I have no clue what you're talking about!"
"While I'm sure she did something," Marinette said. "What does she have to do with this?"
"Well," Alya looked a bit guilty. "I wasn't the one who found your phone yesterday. But we knew that if you found out Lila and been near it, you'd get all suspicious and pick a fight. I thought it'd be better to avoid that and tell you I found it."
Oh. Lila stealing her phone and sending that message makes more sense. Though in her case, it wasn't intended to be 'helpful'.
"Right," Marinette said. "Sorry I accused you of sending that message Alya. Although, considering I had no idea about Lila's involvement, you're not going to say that my annoyance at her over this is 'jealousy', right?"
"I'm sorry," Lila said, realizing she'd been caught and trying to control the situation. "I was trying to help. I know you have a crush on Adrien, but you hadn't been able to confess. I figured sending a text might be the easiest way to confront the whole thing. Especially since if I helped set you up with Adrien, you wouldn't think I'm trying to steal him from you, and we could be friends!"
"I get what you were doing," Alya said, placing an arm on Lila's shoulder. "But that wasn't okay."
"You really need to work on your love confessions," Adrien said. "The wording was very overzealous. You're lucky I know Marinette well enough to know that she would never be that possessive. Hell, despite being in love with me, she tried to help me date Kagami! And they're still friends!"
"Oh, speaking of," Marinette said. "We need to talk to Kagami about this. I'm pretty sure she'll be okay with you choosing me, but it might be a little rocky for a bit. I hope she won't be too upset though."
Talk to Luka too," Juleka interjected.
Oh. Right. Marinette nodded, already planning to stop by the Couffaine houseboat later.
