Milk & Cookies || MariChat & Adrienette

T e n

The next morning, Marinette woke up with vivid memories of last night. It was so wonderful and so generous of the feline to drop in and surprise her, not in the way she thought he would, but it was still generous, regardless.

She was in heaven. She's been most definitely happier than normal for the past few days and she has herself a reliable boyfriend besides Adrien Agreste. The bluenette skipped downstairs happily humming a tune she heard playing on her computer, cooking up some waffles.

"You seem to be in a happy mood, again," the voice caught her off guard, causing her to flinch, and sending her waffles flying.

"Why are you here?" She tried to recover cooly, cleaning up the waffles that fell on the floor in the aftermath.

"I simply find your family's bakery a relaxing place, that's all. I also find you an interesting person as well," he rested his head on the palm of his hand. "I hope you don't mind."

Marinette didn't know if he could tell or not, but he was striking, unarguably, the perfect pose. Model reflexes huh, she thought quietly to herself, getting back to work on fixing waffles for the second time.

An uneasy silence settled on the bakery, the only background noise being from the downstairs TV. Even though Adrien lacked details on where her parents were, she assumed they were restocking on ingredients at the market.

Despite the quietness, Marinette couldn't stand it. "How's your love life?" She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. Damnit! I'm so stupid, I wonder if he'll think I'm a creep— her thoughts were stopped by Adrien chuckling.

"It's average, I must say. I'm not particularly interested in anyone, but my father is pushing me to date a certain girl, so that way he can get more revenue from photoshoots. Apparently if you have your significant other in your photoshoots, your popularity rating skyrockets. Therefore, you make more revenue." He explained and concluded, in which Marinette took a mental note of what he said.

"I might know this certain girl you speak of," she commented and he looked up at her, a bit irritated.

"Oh, you definitely know her," he mumbled, but she still heard him. "I wish it could be you— I mean! Sorry, that wasn't too appropriate."

"Not too thrilled with her?" Marinette assumed, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. He nodded quietly in reply.

"Yeah, you know her damn well. I've thankfully learned to step up and defend myself against girls like her," he paused, waving one of his hands in apology. "My bad. Anyways, her name is—"

"Adrien!" A familiar, feminine voice rang through the bakery as a girl opened the door. "Oh, Adrien honey! How I missed you dearly!"

Marinette gasped. The orange that stood out in her outfit gave it away, her distinct hairstyle as well.

The girl practically threw herself onto Adrien, the poor model looking worse than miserable. "Li..la."

The bluenette stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do about this entire situation. "Um, may I help you?" She attempted to ease up the tenseness in the atmosphere.

"Oh, it's you, Marinette!" Lila pretended to act innocent to see if she could get her way. Marinette knew well that she wasn't going to let this shady girl slip by her that easily.

"Yeah, hi. Is there anything I can get you today?" She already got annoyed by the liar's presence, as well as her lack of objective to be in the family bakery. "Hmm?"

As each second ticked by, Marinette became progressively more irritated. "Well? Are you going to make a selection?"

After Lila rubbed all over Adrien for a solid minute, she finally answered. Except, her answer wasn't really useful, as it was only another question in response. "I beg your pardon?"

She focused her bluebell eyes on the brunette. "I said," she rose her voice steadily. "Is there anything I can get you today?"

"Oh, I know!" Marinette was more than delighted to hear that Lila had an actual answer instead of another question.

"Cwan I take Adwien?" She pouted, trying to be cute, and giving Marinette innocent puppy eyes.

"I mean, sure. I don't mind, after all, you are acting like his servant rubbing all over him like that." She didn't hesitate against the liar and Lila instantly changed her mood.

"I'm not some sort of slut!" She pouted again, but adjusted her tone to be more angry.

"Oh boohoo, Lie-la," Marinette rolled her eyes at the brunette's once again failed attempt. "Just get out already and take him with you if you really want to, that's if you aren't going to buy anything."

Lila smirked and grabbed Adrien's arm, yanking him out of the bakery. "Wait, Marinette—!" Unfortunately, the door slammed shut before he could finish his sentence.

The bluenette felt a different feeling pulsing through her veins, although she couldn't identify it. I'm in love with Chat Noir, but is this.. jealousy? Hmm. She tapped her chin and went up to her room, filled with thoughts.

To get her mind off of things, Marinette cleaned her room, but stumbled across a bunch of pictures of Adrien specifically. She hesitated, but she threw the remaining pictures that she found away in her trash can, occupying the space next to her desk.

After being satisfied with how clean her room was, she heard commotion from outside. She climbed up to her balcony and quickly noticed the Akumatized villain causing chaos upon the city of Paris. Immediately, Marinette scrambled back down into her room, shouting, "Tikki, transform me!"

Her spotted kwami flew into her earrings, effortlessly transforming into Paris' superheroine, Ladybug. She threw her yo-yo and zipped herself out of her room, passing a couple of buildings in the process. Behind one of those buildings, she heard two people laughing, so she decided to investigate.

She peeked behind the wall of the building she was suspicious of and found two superheroes chuckling. One of them was Chat Noir and the other was— Alya? Ladybug thought, genuinely surprised on how Chat got ahold of one of the Miraculouses.

"Chat, why is Rena Rouge.. here?" She asked, confused, displaying how she felt in her thoughts about this situation.

"Oh, it's Volpina." The fox turned around to reveal herself.

"Oh.. that's— different." The spotted heroine felt like she'd seen her before, as she also recognized her voice.

"You know me, sweetheart." She cupped Chat's cheek, caressing it.

"O-Of course!" The feline's face turned red as he quickly looked away from the sneaky fox.

Ladybug attempted to ignore that interaction between them.

I don't trust her one bit.