Second day, second chapter in this love story. You have no idea how much I laughed when I read this prompt, or while I was writing this...
The last two days had been terrible for Marinette. Her secrets had caused Luka to be Akumatized and then forced them to break up, and then, after Kagami too was Akumatized for other reasons, her friends had been Akumatized for trying to help her just that hard.
She thought she had found a way out of her maddening stress by admitting her secret to Alya, but she also had to explain that no, Lila wasn’t Ladybug’s best friend, the interview was a lie… And her friend was PISSED.
“Calm down!” Marinette told her, interrupting her tirade of what sounded like Antillean Creole cusswords (she didn’t want to know what the ones that didn’t derive from French meant, thank you very much). “You risk being Akumatized!”
Wait a minute, the head in the trap door-
“I’ll have you know, I don’t have such degenerate grooming habits.” Lila said as she entered. And of course the teen traveler from Rome knew another language’s swearwords…
“YOU!” Alya roared. Then paled and asked: “How much did you hear?!”
“I opened the SOUNDPROOFED trapdoor as you started cussing me. I take you found out something I’m not supposed to know before the bit about the prank interview?”
“Wait, prank?” Marinette asked.
“Well, what kind of idiot would lie on camera while showing crossed fingers and expect to be taken seriously?”
As Alya blushed mortified, Marinette guessed it could have been to have plausible deniability. But before she could decide to voice her guess or not, Lila continued.
“And in the end it turned out a prophecy of sort, after all on the same day Ladybug saved me and we became friends.”
“Sure you did.” Marinette replied. “You’re here for the measuring, right?”
“Originally, yes. Though I just found out we need to start fake dating.”
“Wait, what?” Alya asked.
“Well, you heard that Adrien and Kagami-kun broke up, right?”
“THIS. This is reason number one.” Lila said as she took a picture of Marinette. A Marinette with a surprisingly hopeful look. “As anticipated you are rebounding, and that’s unhealthy under normal circumstances, let alone rebounding on your old stalking target.”
“I wasn’t stalking him!” Marinette protested.
Lila didn’t say anything, she just moved her arm to indicate the many pictures of Adrien still decorating the room.
“She has a point…” Alya admitted. The traitor.
“The second reason is that Gabriel Agreste thinks you’re a bad influence on his son, and he did so even before I tried to convince him of it.” Lila continued. “Better give him the impression you aren’t going to try and date Adrien before he does something extreme AGAIN.”
Wait, again? Did Gabriel Agreste tell Lila to have her expelled?! Was her modeling job payment for it? Wait, this may be paranoia, better ask later when Alya isn’t around to try and kill Lila and get Akumatized in the process.
“And finally, the big thing, the one I know for a fact will convince you: Adrien’s fan club, the darker part.” Lila said.
“I’m in.” Marinette replied.
“What? Why?!” Alya asked. Right, she didn’t know.
“Certain parts of Adrien’s fandom are insane, criminally so.” Lila explained. “And it’s well known that Kagami-kun, the two of us, and Bourgeouis are the closest girls to him, and while Bourgeouis has all their families by the balls and can get away with stunts like last Valentine’s Day and they learned not to mess with Kagami-kun after they tried to harass her the day after they went public, we don’t have the reputation to scare them off. But if they saw we’re dating, we should be safe. Especially my knuckles.”
Alya’s palm met her forehead. She knew how she felt at the absurdity of the situation, having to pretend dating her enemy to keep herself safe. She wondered how Adrien would take it.
“Wouldn’t be easier to have the Gorilla take care of them? He used to do this kind of stuff, before Father poached him from uncle Colt.” Adrien asked as soon as he got them alone after they went public with their fake dating.
“She’s the daughter of a diplomat, she can’t take this kind of solution.” Chloè pointed out. “Otherwise they’d have already hired someone.”
“Bold of you to assume we need to hire someone.” Lila replied.
What did Marinette get herself into?
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