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The Story of the Year

Chapter 2: News

Notes:

Yes, the fluff continues. Ah, well. It's my first Miraculous fanfic, in my defence, and I just want them to be happy!

Thank you to everyone who left kudos, comments or bookmarks! I've never seen such a quick reaction to one of my fics! Thank you! You guys are simply the best!

Chapter Text

Three hours later, the bell finally rings for lunch.

Marinette has barely closed her bag when a vice-like grip clamps around her wrist and she’s being dragged away.  She just has time to wave and mouth “Bye!” at Adrien before they’re in the corridor outside and Alya hasn’t even slowed.

Resistance being futile, Marinette allows herself to be towed out of the school gates and around the corner to her street. 

Of course, Alya was bound to interrogate her in her own home.

“Hi Mme Cheng!”  Alya shouts as she throws the door to the bakery open with a crash. 

A customer looks startled, but Sabine is used to the juggernaut that is Alya and smiles indulgently.  “Hello, girls!  Are you home for lunch?”

Before Marinette can speak, Alya is answering for her.  “Can’t, Mme Cheng.  We’ve got some serious gossip to discuss!”

Sabine nods knowingly.  “Ah, something to do with the Ladyblog?” 

Alya seems momentarily confounded, as if she had completely forgotten about the Ladynoir development in the wake of her latest earth-shattering discovery. 

For a second Marinette feels her heart freeze.

“Go right up,” Sabine continues, blissfully oblivious to the turmoil she has inspired.  “I’ll make you two some sandwiches to take back to school.”

Alya brightens, instantly distracted.  “Thanks, Mme Cheng!  I’m starving!”

Then they’re on the way up the stairs, not stopping until they reach Marinette’s room.

And now Marinette is sitting in her desk chair and Alya is standing over her with a hard look.  It’s her investigative journalist face, and as Marinette watches, the Ladyblog’s finest leans over and turns on the desk lamp, shining it directly into her eyes.

“Alya!”  She gropes blindly for the switch to turn it off.

“Well?  Spill!”

“OK!  I’ll tell you!  Just turn it off!”

Alya laughs and Marinette can see again.

“So, tell me!”

“Oh my God, Alya!”

Alya just shrugs, completely unrepentant.  “Seriously, though.  Tell me!  You better not have been holding out on me!”

Her tone is light, but Marinette can hear the hint of hurt underneath it.  Ignoring the much bigger Ladybug secret, she reaches out at once to take her friend’s hands, squeezing them desperately.

“No!  I swear!  It’s only just happened!  Yesterday, after school,” she flushes again, then adds quietly. “We got talking.”

Alya makes a noise of disbelief, and Marinette glances at her sharply.  “We did!  I-I did what you said.  I told him how I feel.”  She’s fairly sure her face might melt off, but she perseveres, refusing to meet her friend’s eyes, concentrating on twisting the hem of her shirt instead. 

 “And then… He said he likes me too.”  That sneaking smile pulls irresistibly at her lips again. 

There.  That was more or less the truth.  No need to add secret identities into the mix just yet. 

Now to wait for the explosion.

But there isn’t one. 

Instead, Marinette finds herself being enveloped in a hug.

“I’m so proud of you!”

Craning her neck back, Marinette can see that Alya does, indeed, have tears in her eyes, like a mother on her daughter’s wedding day.

 “I mean it!  That takes serious guts!  I’m so proud!  My little Marinette, all grown up!”

“Alya!  We’re the same age.”

Alya wipes her cheeks with an indulgent smile.  Marinette can’t decide whether she should be insulted.

But she doesn’t have long to ponder, as Alya drags her towards the chaise and pushes her onto it, before plopping down next to her.

“So!  What happened then?  Why didn’t you call me?  You could’ve at least texted me, you know.”

“I’m sorry!  But I was so happy!  I didn’t think.  And then it got really late and we were talking…”

“Talking?” Alya’s eyes glimmer with interest.  “On the phone? ”

They’d kissed on Notre Dame, sweet and chaste.  Then Chat had suggested they go to the Eiffel Tower to talk.  Somehow this had turned into a side trip to the Centre Pompidou, the Louvre, the Musée D’Orsay… anywhere and everywhere they could think of.  

 “…Yes.  Oh, and Alya!  He texted me too!”

That, at least, was true.  She’d given Adrien her number before they parted.  He’d texted her as soon as he’d gotten home, complete with a cat emoji.  The excitement of receiving it had fended off sleep for a good hour, at least.

Alya sighs dreamily.  “That’s so cute.”

“I know!  I am sorry I didn’t text you, though.  I didn’t mean to keep it from you.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it.  I appreciate you had other things on your mind.”

Not liking her tone, Marinette ploughs on.

“Anyway, I was going to tell you this morning, but I totally spaced.  And then I saw him, and I just got so excited.”

“I’ll say!  You practically sucked his face off.”

“Alya!  I did not!”

Alya laughs, pulling herself up on her knees and wagging her finger in the air with a knowing grin.  “You did too!  Honestly, I was shocked.  I thought Adrien was a nice boy!”

“He is!”

“And you.  You have been holding out on me!  Where did you learn to kiss like that, girl?  Pretty sure I saw some tongue action.”

The first time his tongue brushed her lips, she’d almost pushed him off the roof of the Louvre in surprise.  By the time they got to Orsay, she’d worked up the nerve to try again.  By the time they got to Eiffel, talking was the very last thing on either of their minds.

“And I’m pretty sure you could boil an egg on my face right now.  Stop!  Besides.  It wasn’t… well, it wasn’t our… first… time.”  Alya has to lean close to hear the last part, and her face is positively gleeful.

“What?  There was kissing too?  When?!  Your first kiss!  You didn’t mention that!”

Technically, Marinette reflects, their first kiss had been almost a year ago, last Valentine’s Day.

Moving on.

“Well, after we – I guess – confessed, we went for a walk by the Seine to Notre Dame.”

Technically true, if you counted leaping over rooftops as a walk.

“Nice, Adrien.  Very romantic.  What then?”

Marinette squirms. 

“Do I have to tell you everything?  It’s embarrassing!” 

Alya only rolls her eyes.  “Mari, if you’re going to be dating a hot stuff model, I’m going to need all the details.  Face it.  You’ll definitely be needing my advice a little further down the line.”

Marinette shakes her head.  “I don’t think I want to know.”

Alya smirks, with a gleam in her eye to match Chat’s.  “Oh, you will.”

Anyway, we talked and kissed a… few times.” 

She’d lost count somewhere around the Arc de Triomphe.  There was so much to learn about each other that, it seemed, could only be learned with their mouths.  Neck, mouth, tongue, cheeks, every inch of exposed skin. So much, and yet never enough.  They tried though.  With his hands cupping her head, or on her hips or at her back, probably burning a hole through her costume, she was very happy to try. 

“Then I came home, and he texted me, like I said.”

Alya gives her a long, measuring look, then nods in apparent acceptance.

“OK.  And then you came to school and gave the rest of us a hell of a show.”

Despite everything, Marinette blushes.  “I didn’t even think about that, to be honest.  Was it really bad?”

“Well, Chloe will probably try to have you deported.”

“What!”

“Relax.  I said “try”.  And I think you may have just crushed Nathanael’s dreams.”

“Oh, no!  I forgot about that.”  She considers Nathanael with his sketchpad and his shy smiles and his innocent crush (akuma attack aside).  “I feel awful.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.  This is Nathanael we’re talking about.  He’s probably enjoying the opportunity to be a brooding, Byronic hero.”  Alya taps her lip thoughtfully.  “The rest of us were just surprised.  Well, me and Nino more than anyone else.  Speaking of which…”

She fishes her phone out of her pocket as it buzzes and grins at it triumphantly. 

“Great!  They’re here!  Come on!”

She disappears down the stairs before Marinette can say anything.

It doesn’t matter though.

The moment she sets foot on the stairway to the bakery below, she can hear his familiar voice floating up to her, filling her with a sense of impending doom.

“Good afternoon, Mme Cheng.  We’ve met before.  I’m Adrien.”

Notes:

This story was inspired by BullySquadess' excellent story, Tandem. Check it out at the following link (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5462420/chapters/12627611). After reading it, I just thought, I would so love to see our favourite dorks kiss in front of all their classmates, and this story was born! Other than that, the stories are completely unrelated. But a huge thank you to BullySquadess! Your writing is inspiring and has kept me very entertained!