SHIELD likes Miraculous

Chapter 19

The bell rings and the class begins, as Marinette barrels through the door at the last second. Miss Bustier takes no notice.

Marinette faces resolutely to the front of the classroom, not really paying attention to the words on the board, ignoring Peter's whispers from across the classroom, and not even touching his passed notes.

She thinks back to last night. Chat had messaged her on her yo-yo. He had logged into the tracker account and watched the signal go up, and up, and up, until it had stopped and disappeared. The tracker is made to track across countries, so that means wherever Peter is staying must be able to cancel the signal.

Unless he's found the tracker.

Marinette makes it all the way to lunch, trying to act casual and nice to avoid suspicion, but she also feels violently sick from betrayal everytime she looks at Peter, until Alya confronts her in the bathroom.

"What is up with you, girl?" she asks, exasperated, one hip cocked to the side. "Why are you avoiding Peter?"

Marinette is torn as she panics. She can't tell Alya the truth, but she's also terrible at lying, but it would be great to get some advice from her best friend. Ah!

"I- well- technically I'm not avoiding him," she stammers, and Alya raises an eyebrow. "I just don't exactly feel comfortable talking to him right now..."

This isn't exactly a lie. She hasn't been intentionally avoiding him, but perhaps she has been acting a bit coldly...

Alya sighs dramatically, relaxing her stance and dropping her arms to her sides. "Is this about Adrien? If you like Peter, too, then you like Peter, too. It's simple. You shouldn't hate him for it."

"What?! Alya, no!" Marinette rushes to interject, all but slamming her hands over Alya's mouth to get her to stop talking. "That's not what this is! It's-"

Marinette is cut off- saved- from answering by Alex slamming the door open, exclaiming, "Oh my God! You guys have got to check this out!"

-

Adrian feels Peter sit next to him at the lunch table, he doesn't bother to look up from his sandwich, as he desperately wishes that Nino will hurry back from the computer room.

"That gym class was brutal," he hears Peter drone on, taking out his lunch bag from his school bag, and setting his food on the table. "Kim really needs to give the other boys a chance- apple?" he offers.

Adrian shakes his head, and Peter takes a bite from the fruit.

How had he not seen this before? He thinks amongst Peter's crunching and his obnoxious chattering. Peter's reflexes in sports have always been way better and faster that everybody else's, even - he reluctantly admits - his own.

"Do you ever think about why Marinette is late everyday?" Peter asks, his tone curious and light.

It makes his blood boil.

"No," he says, his tone bland and carefully balanced, "Why would I?"

"Do you think she's doing something secret? I don't believe she always sleeps in," he says, leaning in like it's some kind of conspiracy.

"I don't care; it's none of our business," Adrien shrugs, taking a sip of his orange juice.

There is a moment of irritating, skin-crawling silence, where Adrien tries to focus on his drink.

"Can you show me how to answer this question from Miss Bustier?" Peter asks, and Adrien fights back his groan. Peter sets his book out on the table. "I just can't wrap my head around it."