Shattered

28) Secrets

Jessie's POV
The moment I got home from the Agreste's, I made a group call.

"Lyss? Cole! Janson! Something is off, very off."

"Slow down Jess," Alyssa replied, "What are you talking about?" And with that I explained everything I had heard at the Agreste's.

The receiving line went cold until Cole broke the awkward silence.

"Do you think the twins know?"

"Know what?" Janson responded, "we don't know if they were telling the truth or if they're just delusional. We need to keep an eye on those two."

"Agreed."

"And we can't say a word to Hugo and Em until we know what's going on."

"Yeah."

"Okay," I concluded, "let operation time heroes begin!"

"Time heroes?" Cole smirked.

"You got anything better?"

"How about we just leave the name up for editing?" He proposed.

"Fine. See you guys tomorrow, and watch those two like a hawk."

- • - • - • - • - • - • - • -
Adrien's POV
The rest of the school week went by quickly, but something just seemed... off.

Janson wouldn't stop talking about superheroes, for instance. Almost every time we saw him he would interrogate us on the heroes and our opinions on them.

Cole wouldn't stop watching us, every time we turned around his eyes were trained on us... almost as if we had a target on our backs.

Even Alyssa would continuously throw out references to historic events, especially the battle against Hawkmoth.

Jessie on the other hand, wouldn't even look our way. Whenever Mari or I tried to talk to her or ask her a question, she would get all jumpy and nervous.

Now I'll be the first to admit, my girlfriend and I are not the greatest at picking up hints... but after four years of crime fighting we've learned to identify when someone is hiding something.

And no doubt about it, these four definitely were.

"So, who's you're favorite? Ladybug or Chat Noir?" Janson over eagerly asked on Friday morning.

"Ladybug," I responded, "who's yours?"

"Ladybug," he quickly answered before changing the topic, "why is she your favorite?"

"Umm..." something was definitely up. "She's brave, selfless, and has devoted herself to the greater good?" My response sounded more like a question, but I was too busy trying to read Janson's expression to notice.

"Is something wrong?" I finally questioned. "You've been acting kind of... well... strange lately. Are Kayla and I making you uncomfortable or something?"

"What? No... sorry," he quickly rambled, looking as if he just broke a train of thought, "I've just been a little off lately. Sorry if I made you feel-"

"It's fine." I quickly amended, "but if you ever want to talk..."

"I'll let you know." And with that he hurried off in the opposite direction, his mind obviously set on something.

What are they up to?
- • - • - • - • - • - • -

"Well, I'm not usually one to get in other people's business," Marinette thought out loud, the two of us discussing what had come over our new "friends", "but whatever's making them freak out obviously has something to do with us."

"Okay, lets think about anything we've said or done that could of made them suspicious."

By this point we were sure whatever was disturbing them had something to do with time or our superhero personas, due to their odd requests and comments.

"Well we've almost slipped up with our names a few times, obviously that fighting match at pe, telling them we came from two very different cities, talking about ms5 like it hadn't been released yet, not to mention, both Cole and Jessie have been inside the house since we've arrived."

"So basically," My girlfriend concluded, "almost anything could have tipped them off. The question is how much they actually know."

"Well, I don't think they really trust us right now," I began, stating the obvious, "but we do know someone they will..."

"Make that two."

- • - • - • - • - • -
Hugo's POV
The next morning Emma and I invited our friends over for the afternoon.

We could watch a movie, play some games, figure out what they knew about our time traveling superhero parents... you know, just your usual Saturday.

The night before, Adrien and Marinette has explained their theories about our friends' odd behavior, and as much as I hated to admit it... it made sense.

So Emma and I agreed to play spies for an afternoon before mom and dad got back.

"Are you ready special agent Agreste?" I asked my sister as the doorbell rang.

"Just shut up."

"C'mon!"

"You just want me to call you a special agent, don't you?"

"Maybe?"

"Fine. Yes, I am ready special agent Agreste."

I opened the door to reveal Janson, Cole, Alyssa, and Jessie.

I had to admit, it was perfect irony. Our friends thought we didn't know they were spying on us, and in return we got to spy right back.

Because at the end of the day it didn't matter if we were friends, it didn't even matter if we were like family, we all had secrets we would do anything to keep... and ours just happened to be one of the most dangerous in the world.

We're doing this for them, I tried to reassure myself, we're doing this to keep our friends and our family safe.

So with that I smiled and greeted them inside.

Targets acquired. Let the mission begin.