Miraculous The In-Betweens

Struggle

 Marinette sighed to herself as she stared at the sunny blonde sitting in front of her, she doubted he wanted anything more than friendship with Chloe, though why he wanted even that much after everything she'd done was beyond her. Still, jealousy ensued her thoughts. Alya, meanwhile, was glaring at a different, more haughty, blonde across the room. 

"Adrien, Alya, and Marinette. While I appreciate you attempting to look busy, I hope your mind is not in the clouds right now, we are going over test material." Mrs. Bustier said snapping the girls and Adrien out of whatever stupor they were in. After mumbling a sorry to their teacher, Alya refocused. However, the mention of the others names was enough to re-distract Adrien and Marinette. Each wondering what the other had been thinking about. 

Nino glanced over at his bud, though he didn't know exactly what was going on, he could tell Adrien was struggling over something. What was Adrien doing though? When Chloe came in before their last class of the day she'd brought in a stack of papers and handed them to Adrien. At a glance it seemed to be a list of the classes, but why would Adrien need that? Unless it was something for his dad, some kind of competition thing those people were interested in. What he didn't know was Adrien had set his plan in motion, those papers had nothing to do with his father, they had everything to do with Ladybug. 

Adrien wanted nothing more than to have Ladybug's identity hidden to him again, which was funny to him since he'd wanted to know who she was for so long. But his want to keep her secret stemmed from the trust they'd built over the long months. He didn't want to break that trust and he certainly didn't want to lose her friendship. That meant everything to him. He hadn't had many friends in his life, Chloe was the oldest one he'd had, now he finally had a best friend in Nino, Alya, and....and....well, he was friends with all his classmates. Ladybug though, he held her friendship in a different light. She was his crush, yes, but that aside, she was his teammate, they fought together, which had built the ultimate trust between the two strangers. Now though, what if they weren't just strangers. He'd wanted nothing more than to know that she was in his class, she sat right behind him, she knew about him, but mostly, that she would like him and accept him for who he really was. The real him wasn't the Adrien facade he had to put out, it was the freeing Cat Noir persona he got to pull out that was him. Ladybug didn't like him like that though, she didn't accept Cat Noir yet as someone worthy of her romantic attention. Of course, Adrien knew that it was possible she had a crush on him as Adrien, after all, the "totagraphs" in her room were a little strange. I mean, sure he was used to it, but that didn't mean he expected it, they weren't there last time he was in her room after all. 

Nevertheless, he figured the only way to do this was to make himself confused, once he could do that all would be well and he wouldn't think that Marinette was Ladybug anymore. Still, even though he said that to himself, he couldn't help but see everything Marinette did a little differently, comparing her to the Ladybug he knew and loved. If she wasn't Ladybug, then he was being really unfair, Ladybug and Marinette seemed, for the most part, two different peas completely outside of each others pod. Ladybug was, well, heroic! She gave off a commanding kind of way, she always had a plan, she was brave, smart...well, Adrien could go on and on about her. Marinette, on the other hand, was a little timider, she was a good leader, kind, and really talented. Adrien was sure though, that he'd seen her at her best when she didn't notice him or focus on him, and those were the moments that he wanted to forget for now. Because those were the moments when he saw the Ladybug in her.