(This made me laugh, so I ran with it. It kind of escaped me, though. Sorry not sorry?)
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“-And I’m just so sick of it, you know?” Nino concluded, waving wildly at a rather amused-looking Marinette. “Ladybug, Ladybug, Ladybug! I feel like an American Sitcom! Ladybug is all I hear!”
“Don’t worry, Nino, I won’t yak your ear off about Ladybug.” Marinette batted her eyelashes at him and smirked. “Soo…Adrien likes Ladybug…?”
Nino shot her a look. “Not that I’m objectionable to you dating my boy, Mari, but…I don’t want to spend the day listening to you fawn over Adrien, either. That’s just trading one name for another.”
“Okay, one, I actually know my celebrity crush - Adrien hasn’t interaction with Ladybug at all outside of the akuma that have been after him or his father.” Marinette pointed her spoon at Nino to emphasize her point before she dug it back into her bowl of ice cream. “Second, I don’t fawn over Adrien nearly as much as he and Alya gush about Ladybug.”
Nino’s look said he didn’t believe her as he scooped up a spoonful of caramel and shoved it into his mouth decisively. “I just want someone to talk about normal things.”
“Like the last akuma?” Marinette asked innocently.
“No! Like…school. We’ve got a French test on Thursday, does anyone care about that?” Nino gestured wildly with his spoon. “And the fitness test last week in gym class, what was that about?”
“The one that…everyone passed?” Marinette’s eyebrow cocked quizzically as Nino dished up another bite of his sundae.
“Yes!” Nino jabbed the poon towards her for emphasis. “Since when does everyone pass the fitness test! We’re all in way too good shape from running away from freak bad guys.”
Marinette scooped up her next bite and hummed consideringly. “Not going to disagree with you. Even Ivan passed, and he’s always been a terrible runner.”
“Seriously, right?” Nino glared at his bowl and jabbed the spoon at it, stirring the remaining ice cream around furiously. “But can we talk about that? No, it’s always how pretty Ladybug is, or the new pictures on the blog - man, that boy loves the candid shots. Like I don’t get to hear about them enough because Alya is calling to demand I go look at them as soon as they’re posted, I get Adrien sending me copies of the ‘good’ ones.”
“What makes a photo ‘good’?” Marinette asked around her spoon, head tilted curiously.
“That’s a matter of some debate.” Nino muttered under his breath. “Anyway, not only am I bombarded by demands that I go look at photos, then I’m subjected to fangirl squealing - and if you don’t think Alya can’t go toe-to-toe with you in the fangirling department, you are dead wrong. Worse, Adrien can go toe-to-toe with Alya in the fangirling department - and he’s not even a girl!”
“Really?” Marinette bit her lips, trying to imagine calm, composed Adrien acting anything like Alya on a tear. Did he squeal and clutch his hands to his chest too? Marinette giggled helplessly.
“You don’t even know.” Nino deadpanned. “Seriously! Every time some akuma is after him, he runs for the shower. What’s up with that? Did he hear some kind of earthquake or tornado story about safe places, and figure it works for akuma too? Or does he just hope Ladybug will catch him undressed?”
Marinette dropped her spoon as she choked on a bite. Nino chuckled ruefully and passed Marinette a bottle of water to help clear her airway. Helpfully, he nudged her dropped spoon further onto the table so she didn’t accidently knock it over with her flailing.
“S-seriously?” Marinette gasped, setting the bottle down on the table with more force than strictly necessary.
“Well…” Nino rubbed the back of his neck and offered her a rueful smile. “Maybe? Maybe not? It’s hard to tell with him, but every encounter he has with her seems to begin or end with him in the shower. I mean, probably not? I’m just a little frustrated, I guess.”
Adrien wanted her to catch him in the shower? Marinette was really having a difficult time processing that tidbit, even as heat flooded her cheeks.
Nino looked at her flatly. “You are not sitting here with me imagining my best friend in the shower.”
“N-no!” Marinette stuttered, “Of course not!” Picking up the water bottle, she took a gulp to distract herself from her thoughts.
“Thirsty?” Nino smirked, “Or are you thirsty?”
“Shut up, Nino.” Marinette muttered rebelliously. “You started it.”
“Yeah, I kind of did. Sorry.” Nino offered. “I’m just…sick of it, you know?”
“I know.” Marinette nodded solemnly. “I mean, I only get Alya’s side of things, and that’s enough.”
“Yeah, I feel that.” Nino mottered. “I’ve started dreaming about Ladybug, I hear about her so much. I want to start up a Chat Noir fan club, just to spite them.”
“We totally should!” Marinette smiled, happy to distract her friend. “Chat isn’t appreciated nearly as much as he should be. I’ll be your first member!”
“You can make the t-shirts!” Nino agreed cheerfully. “I’ll mix up a theme song. We’ll be way more rockin’ than the Ladyblog.”
Chat would love a theme song, Marinette reflected. It was just so…him.
“You could link it back to your mix site.” Marinette mused. “And maybe I could start up a little Chat themed shop. We could totally build up business for ourselves, get our name out. And spite Alya and Adrien.”
“Yeah,” Nino sighed. “I need to get my name out, or I’m not going to get any good scholarships.”
“Still not much traffic on your site?” Marinette frowned when Nino shook his head. “I’m sorry; your music is awesome.”
“I’ve been making mixes and handing them out, but not much feedback for it so far.” Nino nodded. “Maybe a superhero appreciation website would help.”
“Maybe… but not if your heart’s not really in it.” Marinette allowed. “Maybe you could put some music on Alya’s site? You know, combine your passions.”
“That’s a thought.” Nino sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “But that would also encourage her to gush about Ladybug more… Which is kind of the opposite of what I’m going for.”
“That would be a downside.” Marinette allowed. “But you could also get her talking about coding and site design - things that interest her that aren’t Ladybug. She could help you with your music site, and maybe make it better? And, you know, give you two more opportunities to hang out? Hmm?” Marinette smirked as Nino’s cheeks colored becomingly.
“Yeah, maybe.” Nino muttered, but Marinette could see that he was thinking about it.
She smirked. “So, have you studied for that French test on Thursday?”
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It was almost two months and six akumas later that fate smiled down on Marinette.
The day’s akuma had happened near their school, and Alya was waiting for an interview afterwards, arms waving and Nino by her side. It had been a relatively easy fight: neither she nor Chat had needed to use their special attacks, so they actually had a few minutes to talk.
And, truthfully, even though Marinette was careful to not show favoritism, she enjoyed helping Alya out when she could.
“Ladybug! Chat Noir! Do you have a minute for a few questions?” Alya was standing on the wall around the school, of all places. Which seemed terribly odd, but it was definitely convenient for the superhero duo.
“Ah, the Ladyblogger herself.” Chat murmured, leaning lazily against his bo staff length baton. “Shall we, My Lady?”
“You got anywhere you need to be urgently?” Ladybug asked, cocking an eyebrow in his direction. At his negative reply, she nodded. “Then sure, let’s indulge her.”
“Ladybug! Chat Noir!” Alya beamed as they landed in front of her. “Do you have time to answer a few quick questions for your fans?”
“Sure,” Ladybug nodded, “but only a few. Why don’t we go down to the lawn, though? It’s a little safer.”
Once they were safely on the lawn, Alya turned, pulling up the camera app on her phone and shoving it at her boyfriend
“Here Nino, hold this.” Alya beamed while she dug around for the small notebook of questions she carried around.
Alya was often taking fan question suggestions from the Ladyblog, or using questions that were popular in her online polls. She would credit the fan questions with their online tag, and would mention what percentage of her followers wanted to know the answer to the particular question. She would mix those questions in with ones of a more journalistic bent, and Ladybug thought it was a rather clever tactic to include and engage her followers in her website.
Ladybug’s eyes widened dramatically as they landed on Nino.
“Nino?” She gasped a little, and hoped that it wasn’t too dramatic. “Nino Lahiffe?”
“Um, yeah?” Nino blinked at her owlishly around the raised phone. “That’s me.”
“Are you Nino the musician?” Ladybug grinned. “The one who does the electronic mixes?”
“Ah…remixes.” Nino nodded bashfully. “I don’t write much of the music, but I do remix songs.”
“I know!” Ladybug grinned. “I’m a big fan of your work. I especially love the one…Oh, what was the name? But it was piano, and you had remixed it to techno music? I didn’t recognise the composer of the piano, though.”
“Ahh,” Nino nodded in comprehension. “A9? Yeah, that piano was actually played by my boy Adrien.”
Alya and Chat were openly gaping at the two of them, and Ladybug didn’t even bother to repress her glee, knowing that it would just look like a happy fan.
“That’s it!” She snapped her fingers and nodded. “It was great!”
“Yeah, Adrien is a big fan of yours too.” Nino nodded. “Almost as big as Alya- ow! Sorry, okay, I take it back!” He yelped, jostling the camera as he ducked her her playful swipe. “Nobody loves Ladybug as much as you do.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Chat chimed in, and Ladybug rolled her eyes. “After all, she’s my Lady.”
“Adrien might fight you for that.” Nino muttered, then backed away as Chat raised an amused eyebrow in his direction.
“Adrien…?” Ladybug asked leadingly, as if she didn’t know who he was talking about.
“Agreste.” Alya supplied. “He is a big fan, but not nearly as big as I am.”
“Still gonna argue this.” Chat muttered.
“Ehh…I’m actually a bigger fan of Chat Noir.” Ladybug shrugged, then smirked at the various looks, from Nino’s raised eyebrows to Alya’s surprise and Chat’s open-mouthed stare. “What? Haven’t you heard of him? Tall, blonde, black cat suit, terrible sense of humor? One half of the Miraculous duo? He’s my favorite superhero.”
Aww, was her kitty blushing? That was precious, and Ladybug resolved to get a screenshot of Chat’s pink cheeks for further blackmail material as soon as possible.
“So!” Ladybug clapped her hands together and turned back to Alya. “We’ve got Nino Lahiffe, my favorite musician, and Chat Noir, my favorite superhero, right here. And you’ve got questions for us? We’re flattered! What did you want to ask us?”
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