This is the last chapter! There is only so much of this I can write before it gets repetitive. Thanks for your favs and reviews!

There had been another akuma sighting where Nino had jumped into the action, hindering, yet somehow helping, the local heroes. However, this time Ladybug had politely, but firmly, told the wanna-be hero to stay out next time. Sure he brought up clever ideas or helped with finding the object the akuma was hiding in, but more importantly, Ladybug and Chat Noir were always on edge about his safety when he was with them.

"We already got enough on our hands without having to look out for you, buddy," Ladybug had explained.

And just like the other times he had been told to butt out, Nino had apologized for the trouble, but with absolutely no intentions to stop.

Alya was paying attention to him, even blogging about him. She kept repeating how awesome he was. She spent more time with him. As far as he was concerned, it was all worth it.

Whistling to himself, he scrolled through the comments of the latest article on the Ladyblog. There were those who complimented his bravery, and those who thought he was stupid for interfering, and then there was this comment which made him snicker:

Cutieangel17: your bf is cute. If he's looking for a new girlfriend i'm here

Mod: Back off he's mine!

His male ego was stroked, but unfortunately for Cutieangel17, he wasn't planning on looking for a new girlfriend anytime soon. Though he did appreciate the fact he had a couple of fangirls now...

#####

Nino was on his way to make an errand for his mom after reluctantly agreeing (she could be quite convincing). Moving to the beat of the music in his headphones, he danced his way to the local shop, but never got to go inside.

A raccoon-like teen, mask and tail, crashed out of the shop, yelling something about not being a shoplifter. That was a stretch to believe as the newly created Akuma scurried away, bills of money escaping the black bag he carried over his shoulder.

A few bystanders couldn't help picking up the bills, either wondering if it was real money or wanting to make a quick buck.

Both ideas failed when the paper money stretched larger and wrapped around the persons who had held it in their hands. Unable to move, they fell down like rolled up carpets and tried to wriggle free, in vain.

Witnessing the whole scene, Nino was relieved the others had been quicker than him to touch the notes. (If anyone asked, he'd say he was way too virtuous to take money from the street.)

Nearby, the raccoon akuma cackled as more people down the street unable to resist free money got trapped.

"Greedy humans! All of you! If you love money so much, then be thankful you get to be together forever!"

"I wouldn't put my money on that!"

Both the akuma and Nino turned in shock and relief, respectively, at Chat Noir's showy appearance, standing on a tall street light. Ladybug followed suit but she huffed in disapproval when she noticed Nino standing idly among the trapped victims.

"Again?" She rolled her eyes and motioned to her partner who was already engaging the newly dubbed akuma Cooper in battle. "Handle this a minute, I need to take care of this guy!"

Chat Noir deflected a flurry of bills by rotating his baton. "Go easy on him, my lady. He doesn't mean to get in the way." The hero was too busy to watch his best friend's fate and had to keep his attention to the akuma.

Nino actually took a step back when Ladybug jumped off her perch directly in front of him, her eyes not reflecting their usual friendliness. She looked like someone whose path you better not cross.

"Um, hey, LB. What's up?"

"I thought I told you to stay out of the battles! I've had it with you interfering!" She put her hands on her hips like an angry mom. "And yet here you are again?"

"No, no! It's a misunderstanding, man!" the poor boy babbled, agitating his hands in front of him. "This time I swear I just happened to be there! Honest! I was just going to the store and-"

"I don't want to hear it. I'll have you keep out of the way this time, whether you like it or not!"

Nino gasped as he was lifted off the ground, Ladybug grabbing him and throwing her yo-yo at a nearby tree branch. "Hey, what are you doing!" he yelped as they were both pulled in the air.

Herself hanging from her wire , she hung Nino on the tree by slipping the end of a branch under his t-shirt. The boy now dangled helplessly in the air, the branch coming out from the opening for his head and poking him in the neck. Satisfied, Ladybug withdrew her wire and jumped off.

"LB! You're not really leaving me like this, are you?" Nino tried to wriggle free, but he was thoroughly stuck. "Alya will be here soon, for sure! I can't let her see me like this! If I don't do something cool, she'll lose interest!"

Ladybug blinked once in confusion, before the pieces were put into place in her brain and she frowned.

"Is that what this is all about? Impressing Alya?" The girl gave a loud groan. "You mean you've been purposely throwing yourself in danger all this time just so she would think you're cool? "

"Well, kinda, yeah." Nino's feet swung back and forth as he grew embarrassed. "But you don't understand! She's always chasing you or writing her blog about you or talking about you! Oh, don't get me wrong, I think you're awesome too! But she never has time for me, it's always about Ladybug, all day every day. Since she's always looking at you, in one form or another, she'd have to see me too if you and I were at the same place!"

Ladybug stared in disbelief. That was one of the stupidest things she had ever heard. That guy really had it bad for Alya, though. Then again, Marinette knew how obsessed her best friend could get about her alter ego. It wasn't too farfetched to believe Nino was telling the truth about being severely neglected in favor of Ladybug. Although he was definitely going about it the wrong way.

"This might sound crazy," the hero began sarcastically, "but have you tried, I don't know, talking about it with her rather than directly throwing yourself in the line of fire?"

"I…" The boy now hung motionless on his branch. "Well, not exactly, I guess…"

Ladybug gave a strong sigh. "Listen, I gotta go help Chat Noir. We'll continue this discussion later." With that, the superhero ran off to join the battle.

"Wait!" Nino wailed. "You can't leave me like this!"

The girl was already avoiding wads of cash that Cooper fired and no longer heard him.

"You're back, my lady, "Chat Noir smiled. "Let's give this raccoon a run for his money!"

The akuma now had a shield made of bills and had switched to shooting coins out of a bazooka made of rolled up notes. There seemed to be an infinite amount of money coming out of Cooper's bag so the heroes decided the akuma must be hiding in there. The carpet of bills accumulating on the floor might have seemed appetizing if it weren't for the fact that touching it trapped you like a sausage roll.

Meanwhile, Nino had stopped trying to wriggle free because doing so would only result in either getting his favorite shirt ripped or result in him slipping out of his shirt and finding himself shirtless in a public space after plummeting down from a few meters. Neither were appealing so he'd just wait for someone to come get him.

Almost right on cue, Alya showed up on the scene, breathing heavily after running the entire way as soon as she heard the name Ladybug on the news. She whipped out her phone, filming the millions of Euros blowing in the wind ahead of her.

"Woah. Imagine all the amazing phones I could buy with that."

She thought better then picking any of it up when she saw the akuma shuffling more bills around and the people rolled up in the paper squirming on the ground.

"Alya!"

Hearing her name, the girl looked left and right in confusion, unable to locate where the familiar voice came from.

"Over here!"

Raising her head (and phone), she finally caught sight of her pitiful looking boyfriend up in a tree.

"Nino?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"Hey there, how's it going?" Nino said as smoothly as someone hanging from a tree could.

"Why the hell are you hung like laundry up there?"

"Nevermind that." The boy swung his legs in frustration. He hated for Alya to see him in such an inelegant position, but she was the only person available right now. "Could you get me down?"

Alya looked at Ladybug fighting in the distance, then back at Nino. "You mean right now? But Ladybug-"

"Please!" he pleaded.

The girl sent one more desperate look towards Ladybug and Chat Noir and sighed, before walking backwards to the tree, making sure her phone remained pointed at the battle. Once her back hit the tree, Alya 's mind searched for scenarios where she could climb a tree while still filming Ladybug but the answered was always: this is not physically possible. She considered holding the phone in her mouth and tilting her head in hopes she could catch some of the fight that way, but didn't want to risk dropping and breaking it or slobbering over it.

Her phone in her pocket, Alya cursed her lack of athletic skills or agility as she grabbed the trunk and tried to hoist herself up. She had about twice her own height worth of climbing to do, and although she was not scared of heights, she was somewhat scared of strenuous physical effort that did not involve superheroes. She was capable of incredible physical feats when Ladybug was involved, but otherwise she struggled with exercising. After many unhappy grunts and huffs under his cheering, she managed to reach the branch Nino was stuck on.

She flinched when the branch lowered under her added weight, but thankfully it was sturdy enough to support her. Alya crawled her way to Nino, pulling herself on the branch until she got to him. He twisted his head up to grin at her.

"Alright, you made it!"

However, he quickly returned his gaze to the ground to hide a blush when her angle above him gave his eyes a perfect view of her cleavage. Now really wasn't the time.

"Okay, how am I gonna do this?" That was a rhetorical question because Alya gave no warning before simply grabbing Nino's shirt and pushing it off the branch is one brusk movement.

The boy suddenly fell down with a yelp and rolled on the grass below when his legs were not prepared to hit the ground so soon.

"Oh man! Are you alright?" Alya asked in actual concern.

Nino rubbed his knee and gave her a shaking thumbs up. "Uh, yeah, totally."

"Great cause you're going to catch me."

"Uh?"

Alya threw herself down the tree with no further notice and Nino's brain had just enough time to assess the situation and grab her, although the sudden surprise made him fall back.

The girl twisted around and found herself right on top of him in a position that would make any love comedy anime proud. However she ignored any romanticism or Nino's cheeky "Hey there, come here often?" and right away got to her feet, pulling out her phone and resuming her filming.

Sadly, the battle with the akuma had already been completed, Cooper turned back into a confused teenager all traces of money vanished. All was not lost though, because Ladybug and Chat Noir were headed right towards the duo.

"Oh, Ladybug!" Alya shouted excitedly. "What were your thoughts about the battle? Did Chat Noir make tons of money-related puns?"

"Oh, you can bet I told him to put his money where his mouth was!" Chat Noir laughed.

"Sorry, Alya," the spotted hero began, "I came here to discuss something else." She turned to Nino. "Sorry about earlier. Are you okay?"

"A little bruised is all…"

Ladybug nodded at him then crossed her arms with a severe look on her face. "Alright, you two. We gotta do some talking." She put her hand on Alya's shoulder and motioned to Nino with her head. "This boy here is so in love with you, he was willing to throw himself in harm's way just so you'd notice him more. He put himself in danger on purpose so you would look at him. I can't deal with the burden of protecting him on top of everything else, so please do something about it."

"Nino, is that true?" Alya asked with eyes showing a mix of trouble and confusion.

"Yeah...I guess?" Nino rubbed the back of his neck. "I know you're all about Ladybug 99% of the time, so I figured if I wanted you to pay attention to me I had to be where Ladybug was...or something? I don't know man, but it seemed like it was working?" He turned to the heroes. "Is it really such a big deal?"

"No more getting involved in the battles!" Chat Noir chimed in. "Even if you were kind of cool sometimes."

"Don't encourage him, Chat Noir!" Ladybug corrected. "It's not safe for Nino, or for us."

"You did that just because you thought I wasn't paying attention to you?" Nino nodded and Alya gave his arm a squeeze. "You're so silly!" Then she paused, a pensive and remorseful look on her face. "I guess it's true I have been neglecting this relationship…"

"This dude loves you so much," Chat Noir added, a fond look towards his best friend. "Do you think you could spend more time with him and less time getting the both of you in trouble?"

"It's not that I don't want to spend time with him!" Alya explained, growing more upset. "But I really want to film you, Ladybug! For my blog, for myself, for the sake of information, even! I want to see everything! I can't be a good reporter if I don't have exclusivity and…"

Nino put both hands on his girlfriend's shoulders and look at her sympathetically. "It's okay, Alya. I understand. I did something really stupid. We'll just spend time together whenever you're not busy. I can wait, I'm patient."

There was an awkward silence between the four teenagers, each of them wondering what the perfect solution to this issue could be. Was there a way Alya and Nino could both get what they wanted?

"I got it!" Ladybug clapped her hands together. "Consider this: a Ladybug date."

The others, including Chat Noir, gave her a puzzled look so she explained further.

"Alya, as a future reporter you won't be the one holding the camera. You'll be the one doing the talking and being the face of the show, right? And Nino, you like making movies and music, yeah? How about you two work as a team? Nino, you do the filming and Alya, you do the presenting! From a safe distance, mind you."

A smile grew on the couple's faces. The idea was so simple and made so much sense that neither thought to ask how come Ladybug knew so much about their respective hobbies.

"Yeah, that could work!" Alya beamed. "I wouldn't have to worry about constantly holding a phone while I interview you!"

"It would be awesome to film both my hot girlfriend and the heroes of Paris at the same time!" Nino laughed. "And we would spend tons of time together that way!"

"And you'd be able to keep said girlfriend and yourself out of our paws!" Chat Noir added with a snicker. "If you promised to be good from now on, I'll give you an exclusive interview next time, how about it?"

Alya looked at Nino and he could swear she was the sun at that very moment, radiant and beautiful.

"Well, will you be my partner, Nino?"

The boy took her hand and kissed the top of it. "I've always been your partner, my lady."

Chat Noir hissed. "Hey, stop stealing my style!"

#####

That night, Alya edited what little footage she had managed to capture of today's battle. She picked a few scenes that would go on the Ladyblog, before her attention was caught by the short clip she had taken of Nino stuck in the tree.

She decided not to include that on her blog. Because she did not want to humiliate her boyfriend in front of millions of viewers, but also because Nino's shirt stuck on the branch had ridden almost all the way up as a result of his struggling. Alya pursed her lips and thanked God for HD as she zoomed in on the dark skin of his bare back and the curve of his hip bone. He didn't quite have any formed abs to show, but the dip between his hip and stomach was still quite alluring to the teenage girl, as was the black treasure trail sticking out of the line of his boxers.

Alya hurriedly exported that scene and hid it in her personal folder.

#####

From then on, as soon as a new akuma surfaced in the city, Alya and Nino gave each other a knowing grin. It meant it was time to go to work! The two teammates always made it to the Ladybug sighting in records time and got a front row seat to the battle (while still remaining at a safe distance!).

Nino manned the camera (actual tripod and HD camera they had bought together, no more shaky phone footage!) while Alya commented the battle and questioned bystanders. Ladybug and Chat Noir were also much more eager now to give a short interview after the fight, as if they wanted to check up on good friends at the same time…

Being able to share her passion, share such a huge part of her life with someone else made Alya very happy. She now had a comrade, an accomplice that would follow her anywhere. She was actually ashamed she had never thought of asking Nino to join her, choosing to do everything on her own. She no longer had to take on all the responsibilities and the risks alone and Nino and her had grown that much closer from it.

Being able to witness the joy on her face as Alya did what she loved most made Nino feel so privileged and blessed that she chose to share something so important to her with him. He felt like an idiot for opting for a stupid and dangerous plan rather than ask if he could join her in her beloved hobby. And it wasn't just her, he had fun chasing Ladybug too. They were inseparable now.

Nino was delighted when the 'About Me' section of the Ladyblog changed into an 'About Us' section. And Alya was pleased at the selfies of Nino and herself took at the scene of each Ladybug appearance that she had decided to add at the bottom of each article now, as a sort of signature.

Nino was in charge of the video editing, which removed a huge workload off Alya's shoulders. Editing had always been a necessary evil that she could now avoid to concentrate on writing better articles. The boy was also adding his own remix music to the montage, with a discreet link to his channel on the blog. His popularity soared and he was sometimes asked to do small DJ gigs. He was now even known as the 'Ladybug DJ' among music enthusiasts.

Or sometimes they would do the editing together, making sure to take a makeout break every now and then. Now that their interests were combined into one super project, there was no talk of neglect anymore. (Well, at one point Marinette and Adrien had each gotten a bit jealous, but that had been easily resolved with a bi-monthly scheduled girls night and guys night, respectively.)

With the brand new format of cameraman plus reporter, the Ladyblog had never been so popular. So many comments were posted each day that Alya had made Nino into an admin so he could help moderate them.

The DJ took his job seriously, especially since Alya appeared in every video now and comments akin to 'I love you, Alya! Marry me!' and 'Alya you're so hot, here's my number' were commonplace. Nino made a point to delete those kinds of comments as soon as they appeared because, you know, hands off my girlfriend. These were spam anyways, right?

Oh, but he conveniently forgot to remove comments such as 'Nino, you're the cutest' and 'We want more Nino please!'...

#####

Another battle finished, Nino and Alya watched Ladybug and Chat Noir disappear into the sunset. The superhero duo had given the interview of a lifetime to the reporting duo just before leaving, one in which they actually discussed their relationship (Strictly professional, Ladybug has said, but Chat Noir had argued the opposite). A story like that was sure to get the fans wild!

Even Alya took a while to calm down her own fangirling about it. She knew her followers were especially craving that kind of gossip fuel. This article was going to be so awesome! Maybe the best one yet!

"Nice work again, partner!" she beamed.

"Likewise, partner. Wanna go home and work on that sweet interview?" Nino offered with honest excitement.

Alya looked at her phone, then at Nino's genuine smile and shook her head.

"You know what," she began as she put her phone away, even going as far as turning the power off before pushing it in her pocket. "We've got all night. Let's go to that café I've been meaning to try around the corner first!"

Thanks for reading this far! It's actually my first Miraculous fic and also my most decent fic! I hope you enjoyed.
As always, your feedback is welcomed and needed! I'd love to know what you liked or did not like.
See ya some other time, maybe!
-Sapphire Luna