Chapter Text
If there was one thing Lila Rossi was good at, it was lying. It was even in her name.
So, when she saw chat noir on Marinette Dupain-chengs balcony one night, she saw it as the opportunity of the lie of a lifetime.
So many times had she lied to make Marinette look bad and it never worked, her friends had too much faith in her and always eventually took her side. But if she lied to make Marinette look good, while still ruining her life in some way, then maybe it wouldn’t backfire like it had in the past.
The next day she told her mother that the school had reopened though she suspected that it might shut again very soon because of all the Akuma attacks.
She made her way to school, sitting at the very back of the class, getting there before anyone else.
The class flooded in and as always everyone noticed her, asking her so many questions about the fictional trip she had made up this time.
“Oh well it was unseasonably cold this year, we were expecting a heatwave, but it snowed the entire time. I got to teach the local kids how to ski at least though so that was nice.” She went on until she saw Marinette almost at her breaking point, so close to trying to expose her lies. “What about you Marinette? What have you been up to?” this caught her off guard, her face very quickly going from anger to shock
“What do you mean?” she asked through gritted teeth
“Well, I was on a walk late last night, my jet lag was getting to me and walking always helps deal with it. And I actually ended up walking past your house” there were a few murmurs from her classmates trying to figure out where this was going. “And while I was walking past your house, I noticed a certain superhero on your balcony.” The classes murmuring got louder in surprise, “you and chat noir looked awfully cosy… almost as if you’re dating”
“Is that true Marinette”
“Utterly ridiculous, we all know that ladybug is the only one for chat noir!”
“Girl! Why didn’t you tell me? I could have asked you to get an exclusive for the lady blog!”
There was almost no chance for Marinette to speak through it all, and before she could properly object to the claims, miss Boustier walked in and everyone fell silent, finding their seats as the class began.
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Marinette didn’t know why Lila would make up such a lie, especially when if anything, it made her look good. Though she didn’t really see it that way, but she could understand how others would see it.
Halfway through the class when there were partner discussions about the questions they had been working through, Adrien Agreste, the boy she was in love with, the man of her dreams, turned around to speak to her, “it’s pretty cool that you’re dating chat noir” he began, “even if you’re just friends with him, that’s pretty cool”
“Adrien, your partner is Nino, not Marinette, turn around please” miss Boustier warned.
If Adrien thought, it was cool then she had to do it. By the time the class had ended Marinette had created a whole plan.
Her and chat noir would date for a little while, in this time he would stop hitting on ladybug for a while hopefully, and she could possibly even introduce chat noir to Adrien. Adrien would love that. Then they would have a messy, very public break up over something really stupid like him not being able to tell her who he really is, which would all be ladybugs fault of course. After the very public break up, Adrien would be there to console Marinette, until they slowly grow closer together until Marinette is able to confess her feelings to Adrien and they will fall in love and get married and live in a lovely little house together and have three kids and a dog and a hamster named-
“Marinette!”
Someone grabbed her shoulder, stopping her from walking out into the street and getting hit by a car. She had completely zoned out and walked off of school grounds. she had barely made it to lunch before nearly being hit by a car yet somehow it was a new record for her. She turned around to see who saved her.
Adrien.
“So, is it true?” he asked, “are you dating chat noir?” she didn’t notice the slight smirk on his face as he asked her.
“I- er- well- I mean… it's complicated, we talk on my balcony most nights and I think one time he took me to a date that he intended for ladybug, but she didn’t show, but I don’t know if were dating” she said, taking care to slow her talking so that she didn’t begin to ramble too much or stutter. He nodded and nudged her slightly towards the school before walking towards it. “Come on, we’ve got to get to our next class”
The rest of the day was considerably normal for Marinette, classes went on, with the occasional question from her classmates about the whole chat noir situation. On her way home there was an akuma attack which her and chat noir dealt with easily as always. She got home, helped out in the bakery, did her homework and then went up onto the balcony, hoping that chat noir would be there.
And sure, enough he was.
“Hello purr-incess,” he said as she climbed up
“Hi chat”
“What? No telling me off tonight? Nobody lets me call them purr-incess, not even ladybug”
She let out a small laugh, he didn’t see the irony in this, though she knew only she was the only one who would.
“I guess I’m just in a good mood today” she leaned on the railing and looked out at the night sky.
“And why is that purr-incess?” she shot him a disappointed glance this time, “what? You let me use it! I’m running with the opportunity. So go on, why are you in a good mood?”
“I don’t know” they stood in silence for a while as they always did. Just having each other’s presence being enough for them
“Oh! So, get this, one of my classmates, saw you up here last night and she created a rumour that we're dating”
“Really?” he said, trying to sound surprised
“And I tried to tell people that we're just friends and that you just come up here to spend time with me as a friend, but they didn’t believe me and so what I’m trying to say is my whole class thinks were dating”
“Okay… want to make it true?”
“what”
“Well, I know from past experience that you don’t like lying, even if you’re not the one doing the lying. And it could be fun. Don’t you want to date a superhero? We could even do the upside-down kiss thing, though I might need ladybugs help with that because her yoyo might be able to keep me upside down better than my staff. Your friends would probably find it pretty cool too, I could meet them all sometime, though I think I might have met most of them already, I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of your class has been akumatised at this point.”
“chat”
“Yes…?”
“I’ll date you”
And so it begins.