Chapter Text
The sun was shining, birds were chirping, today had been a crime-free day, and Adrien Agreste had just successfully escaped Le Gorille and gotten out of the house for a walk on his own. Adrien was having a pretty good day.
Or at least, he was until two of his classmates and a robot abducted him and dragged him into an alley. "We need to talk to you about Lila," Max, Rose, and Markov said in unison.
Adrien blinked, like a confused baby deer that had just stumbled across humans for the first time. "What?" he whimpered.
"This might be a shock to you, Adrien, but Lila is not who she says she is," Max said. "Everything she's ever told us about herself is a complete lie!"
Adrien's eyes went from wide with horror and fear to half-lidded with prior knowledge. "Uh, guys? I already know that."
"WHAT?!"
Adrien began to explain. "Well, yeah. Lila was the scared new kid with no friends, and I know all about that. She lied to get people to like her. What's so wrong with that?" He let out a squeak as Rose grabbed him by his shirt and shook him much harder than someone of her size should be able to shake anybody.
"SO YOU KNEW?!" Rose roared. The roar that cam out of her was nothing short of primal, and many octaves deeper than her typical speaking voice. "YOU KNEW THAT LILA WAS LYING AND SCAMMING PEOPLE AND YOU DID NOTHING ABOUT IT?! HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT, YOU MONSTER?"
"Rose, I-" Adrien was cut off by Rose shaking him again.
"DOES SHE GIVE YOU A CUT OF THE MONEY? IS SHE PLOTTING IT WITH YOU? TELL ME!" Rose was shaking Adrien harder than most bartenders shake a margarita.
"Rose, let him go. He can answer properly that way," Max said. Growling, Rose let the boy model go. "Adrien, how much did you know about Lila's lies? Tell us the truth."
Markov hovered over to the left of Adrien. "We can easily find out if you're lying to us, too."
"And if you're lying, the consequences will be painful." Rose cracked her knuckles for emphasis.
Words spilled out of his mouth like verbal vomit. "I knew that Lila was lying about the celebrities and the medical conditions, but I genuinely had no idea about her stealing from charities."
"Technically, it's fraud under false pretenses with the charity as the pretence," Max added. Markov and Rose glared at him. "But potayto potahto. And why didn't you say anything?"
"I wanted people to like me, and Lila had already become so popular," Adrien confessed. "I was the second-newest kid in school, and if Lila wanted to, she'd just turn everyone against me. Or worse, she could get my dad to send me back to home-schooling and I would never get to see my friends again. Before I came to Francoise Dupont, the only kid my age I'd get to talk to was be Chloé. I can't go back to that!"
Adrien's assaulters shivered with horror. Imagine your only link to the outside world being Chloé Bourgeois. The horror.
"So, you genuinely had no idea about the scamming?" Max reiterated.
"Not a clue. And I thought the charity work, at least some of it, was real. Obviously none of the stuff that involved a celebrity."
"How is Lila a model if she lies about so much stuff?" Markov asked.
Adrien's eyes misted with tears. "I don't know. I really don't. I mentioned being a model and just a few days later, she's got a contract with Gabriel, working with me. I know my dad does a lot of strict background checks and lays down a lot of rules for his models, so the fact that she just breezed in is . . . creepy. If it wasn't for her being a second everyday Ladybug, I would never have gotten some breathing room."
That last sentence left Rose, Markov, and Max feeling a little lost. "And . . . what does that have to do with anything?"
"I mentioned her helping the class with stuff and the day after I said that, he suspended her from modelling because she would need to focus on her school responsibilities. It meant I got to model without her grabbing onto me like some sort of handsy leech."
Everything seemed to slot into place when Adrien said that. He didn't know the full extent of Lila's lies, and she had him trapped. He was just as much a victim as anyone else.
"Adrien . . . would you help us take Lila down?" Rose asked.
Adrien smiled. Genuinely smiled, and not the practiced model smile he'd spent years giving to cameras. "Yes. Just tell me what to do."