Author's Note: Since we didn't get to see it happen, I thought it would be fun to imagine the conversation that went down between Nino and Alya after Ladybug traps them inside the cage! Enjoy (and shoot me a message at chassecroise on tumblr!) :)

"You'll be safe in here!" says Ladybug brightly, but firmly, as she tosses Nino and Alya into the cage and shuts the door.

"You okay, or what?" says Nino, and Alya sighs with irritation as Ladybug leaps away. Not only is she about to miss out on some prime Ladybug footage, she's stuck in an animal cage with a boy who has a crush on her and she doesn't like at all.

"Save it, Nino," she says, sitting down on the floor in a corner of the cage and pulling out her phone and opening up Notes. If she can't film Ladybug, at least she can start drafting a new post.

He doesn't take the hint. Instead, he sits down beside her and looks curiously at what she's written.

"What are you working on?" he says. "Is it something for the Ladyblog?"

Alya raises an eyebrow. "Are you actually interested, or are you trying to impress me?"

Nino shrugs. "Just curious." He pulls out his water bottle and takes a drink as he looks out the cage at the deserted zoo.

Alya looks at him. "You know I only see you as a friend, right?"

Nino looks at her, perplexed. "So…do…I?"

"Are you kidding me? Why did you tell Marinette that you had a crush on me then?" shouts Alya.

"How do you know that?!" sputters Nino defensively.

Alya rolls her eyes as she stands back up and waves her hands around. "Marinette was nervous about going on her date with Adrien, so she was wearing an earpiece connected to me so I could help her say the right thing. She doesn't exactly have a history of being articulate around him. But then you showed up instead of him, and things still went south."

Nino stares at her, eyes wide, as he processes this new information. "So you were listening the whole time?"

"Yes, I was. And I heard you tell her you like me. So what's the truth?"

Nino looks down, embarrassed. "Actually…it's Marinette I like, but I chickened out at the last moment—but wait, what does Adrien have to do with my date with her? Why did she think that he would be—oh, wait…oh, man. Dude."

He trails off as he connects the dots, and Alya groans. Marinette's going to kill her when she learns that Adrien's best friend now knows about her crush on him. But to be fair, the girl has been taking way too long to tell him about her feelings! The longer she takes, the higher the chances that other people are going to figure it out.

"I can't believe I never figured it out before!" he exclaims with a laugh, smacking his hand against his forehead. "It seems so obvious now! No wonder she's always so awkward around him!"

Alya glares at Nino and points her index finger in his face. "HEY! Don't you dare tell him a word about her crush, and don't you dare tell Marinette that you know about it either."

"But I can help them get together!" protests Nino. "Marinette's so sweet and cute, she'd be the perfect girlfriend for Adrien. They have so much in common."

Alya shakes her head. "Hold up. Didn't you just say you liked her? And now you want to set her up with Adrien? Do you even know what you want?"

Nino laughs. "Well, honestly, my crush on her is a recent thing. When I saw how amazing she was at that Mecha Strike tournament, and how she helped her uncle at the cooking tournament on tv—she's just so cool! It made me want to ask her out on a date."

Alya nods. "Yeah, Marinette is pretty great."

"You've been best friends since primaire, right?"

"Yup. The first time we met was when we were five. She loved my dress and I loved the chocolate chip cookie she was holding in her hand, so I guess you could say it was love at first sight!"

Nino laughs. "That's so funny! I love chocolate chip cookies too."

Alya smiles in spite of herself. "Oh yeah? They're the best at the Dupain-Cheng's bakery. It's been years, but I'm still obsessed. Have you ever been there?"

"Not for a while! I used to go a lot until recently, but now that I think about it, I haven't been there since I started hanging out with Adrien."

Alya thinks. "That's—about a year, right? That's a long time."

"Wow, you're right—I hadn't realized it's been that long. I need to go back! I can't remember the last time I even had chocolate chip cookies."

"How did the two of you become such good friends, anyway? Adrien's only been going to our school for the past year."

"I guess it was because we were sitting next to each other in class. He seemed like a nice guy, but nobody was talking to him except a bunch of girls who recognized him from his photoshoots, so I figured I should say hi. And then we started talking and it turns out that he's a pretty cool dude! And a good friend."

"Oh yeah?" replies Alya. "How so?" This is turning out to be an interesting conversation, and she might even be able to get some useful information about Adrien for Marinette.

Maybe it won't suck so hard to be stuck in this cage with Nino after all.

Nino looks at her with mild embarrassment. "Well, actually, you know how you said Marinette was wearing an earpiece connected to you? Iiiii might have been wearing one that was connected to Adrien myself."

"Seriously?"

"Oh yeah. Actually, he was giving me the worst advice. He was telling me to say "J'taime, Marinette,' when all I actually wanted was a way to make regular conversation with her. Talk about going from 0 to 100 too fast."

"Wait a minute, are you telling me that Adrien actually said, 'J'taime, Marinette', out loud?" screeches Alya, grabbing Nino's shoulders and leaning right into his face. "Please tell me you have a recording! I'll buy it off you!"

"Whoa," breathes Nino, totally overwhelmed by Alya's bright hazel eyes and the fact that her lips are about two inches from his. Suddenly, she's looking like much more than just a friend.

Alya realizes the position she's in and immediately lets go of his shoulders and backs away.

"—Sorry! I just got really excited. I thought it would make a great birthday present for Marinette."

"It's, uh, it's okay," stammers Nino. "And I'm sorry, but I don't have a recording. I could get him to say it again though, if you want."

Alya giggles and shakes her head in disbelief. "You're gonna ask Adrien to say "J'taime, Marinette", and you expect him to agree? I'll believe it when I hear it."

Nino winks. "Not in that exact order. I'm a DJ, remember? I can just ask him to say "J'taime" and "Marinette" in two separate sentences and then splice the audio and put the words together. And voila! You'll have a recording of Adrien saying J'taime, Marinette."

Alya stares at him, impressed. "Okay, okay. I have to admit that's pretty cool. What else can you do with audio? Can you make adjustments for noise caused by friction?"

He nods. "You want to make clear recordings for when you're following Ladybug around, right? I've noticed that there are audio problems in your video blogs sometimes, even though the visuals are on point."

Alya smiles. "You watch my videos?"

"Yeah!" says Nino, grinning. "They're like real life action films. Your editing skills are amazing."

"Wow, thanks! That's really nice of you to say," says Alya, blushing. She's a confident girl, but the pleasant surprise of Nino's earnest praise has her feeling, well, butterflies.

And judging from the look on Nino's face as she leans in closer, it would appear that he feels the same way.

Later, after the zoo staff lets them out of the cage and they walk out of the entrance, Alya suggests going to the Dupain-Cheng's bakery and picking up a bag of chocolate chip cookies, since Nino hasn't been there in such a long time. She figures she can catch up with Marinette there as well, as she hasn't seen or heard from her friend since Animan appeared.

Thankfully, Marinette's okay, and as curious as ever. But even though she's Alya's best friend, there are probably some details from what happened in the cage that are best left to her imagination, and so she stops Nino from adding too many details that nobody needs to know.

"Yeah, well, we don't have to tell her everything, okay?" says Alya, and Nino realizes that perhaps Marinette doesn't want to hear the details about how her best friend is really good at kissing and that they got to second base and that they've made plans to go on a real date this Saturday.

"Oh yeah, right...'scuse!"

And then, now that he knows about Marinette's huge crush on Adrien, he wants to do something to help and figures that's the next best thread of conversation, since she's Alya's best friend—totally forgetting that Alya has forbidden him from mentioning it or doing anything of the sort.

And so, instead of another kiss, Nino's effort to help Marinette only earns him a stomp on the foot and a loud scolding. He has a feeling that he should probably invest in thicker shoes, because something tells him that Alya's gonna be doing that a lot more often from now on.

But that's how she is, and damn if it's not kind of hot.