Marinette stares at the ceiling with the sort of distant detachment she'd always kind of associated with nervous shock, copious blood loss, and finals week.

"My life is over," she says, with complete certainty.

"Oh come on, girl," says Alya, putting an arm around her shoulder. "It wasn't that bad."

Marinette looks at her.

Alya winces. "Okay, it was that bad. But he probably didn't notice your, uh… interesting response. He hardly ever notices what you do!"

"Gee," says Marinette dully. "Thanks, Alya."

"You know that's not what I meant!"

"Just put me out of my misery now," she sighs, putting an arm across her forehead. "I am doomed to a life of loneliness and sorrow. I will spend my days eating out of take-out boxes and staring into the distance, surrounded by my millions of pictures of Adrien taken from the internet, magazine clippings, and the hiding spot in the bushes fifty feet away."

"And that's different from the way it already is… how?"

"Alya!"

"The only real change is that you're going to need a camera with some serious zoom if you want to achieve that level of stalk-age."

Marinette groans and lets her head fall onto her friend's shoulder. Alya pats her comfortingly.

Twenty minutes earlier.

It was the first day back from spring break, and Marinette was ready to take the rest of the semester by storm. She had spent her vacation designing two new outfits, defeating four akumas, and chilling out on the beach with Alya, and she was tanned, rested, and ready to slay.

She threw the classroom door open triumphantly.

The first thing that greeted her was Alya's laugh. "Hey, girl! Don't you look ready to take the school by storm!"

"You should talk!" said Marinette. "Once everybody sees your new red highlights you'll be lucky if the boys ever leave you alone."

"Hey, guys," said a familiar voice. Marinette turned around. "How was your vacation?"

Adrien.

Adrien with golden skin and golden hair that somehow only brought out his perfect green eyes and perfect white smile even more.

Adrien staring at her, confused, waiting for an answer.

Alya elbowed her discreetly in the side.

"A-Adrien!" Mari blurted. "You're looking god-like, as usual. I mean God! I—I mean good! God, you look good!"

Adrien looked even more confused. Alya slapped a hand over her face.

"Oh look at the time! I have to go!" said Marinette desperately, and ran out the door.

A long beat passed, during which Alya and Adrien just kind of stared at the door in mutual bemusement.

"Isn't class about to start?" Adrien asked.

"Yup," said Alya.

Sure enough, a moment later the door swung open again and Marinette slunk back in, head down. "My vacation was very good, Adrien, thank you for asking," she muttered, far too formally.

And then she took her seat and stared at her desk until class started.

"I thought I'd started building some immunity to him, but then I don't see him for two weeks and it's like all my progress has vanished!" Marinette wails. "It's hopeless, Alya! I should just resign myself to dying alone with my five hundred and twenty-three cats!"

"It is not hopeless," says Alya firmly. "We just need to try something different."

"Like what?"

"We need," says Alya. She pauses dramatically, "to bring in an expert."

"What kind of expert?" Marinette asks.

"An expert on the male psyche."

Mari thinks about that. "Do those exist?"

"I don't know," her friend admits. "But at least we can ask some males. Maybe they can give us some insight into the situation."

"I guess," says Marinette doubtfully.

"C'mon," says Alya. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"How to seduce a guy?" Nino repeats, looking confused. He glances over at Marinette, who's still hiding behind Alya, her bright red face pressed into her friend's shoulder.

"Yeah, like how to make someone fall for you. You know!"

"Uhh… I'm not exactly the world-expert on making people fall for me. I'd go to Adrien for that."

Marinette's head jerks up to look at Alya helplessly.

"Oh," says Nino. "Ohhhh."

"'Oh' what?" Marinette demands. "'Oh' what!?"

"Well, I'm totally down with it—heck, I've been shipping it for months now, but Adrien's kinda in love with Lad—"

"Who ever said anything about Adrien?" Marinette shrieks.

"I mean, the guy," says Nino hastily. "Whoever the guy is! He might be in love with Ladybug."

The girls stare at him.

"What? Any given guy might be in love with Ladybug. She's hot."

"What was that?" Adrien asks, coming up behind Nino. Marinette nearly jumps out of her skin. "Did I just hear you call Ladybug hot?" His tone is light and even pleasant, but somehow the question sounds more like "any last words?"

"No," Nino whimpers.

"Oh," says Adrien, and suddenly the skin-prickling cloud of vengeance seems to disappear just as quickly as it came. "Could've sworn I'd heard you guys talking about her."

And he gives them a little shrug and a heart-stoppingly perfect smile, and goes back to the bookshelf he'd been examining.

"Seriously," Nino whispers, quick and frantic, as soon as he's gone. "I love Adrien like my own brother, but I wouldn't touch his love life with a ten-foot pole. And I suggest you don't either!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Marinette asks once Nino has moved away.

"Men," says Alya, long-suffering. "Who can understand them?"

"How to seduce a guy?" Kim asks, aghast. "How would I know? I've never tried! I mean, I've never wanted to! Why would I want to! I'm not gay! Why would you ask me that? Why would you think that? Max is just my friend, okay? I've never even thought about him that way even once, ever!"

"Uh," says Marinette.

"I'm not gay! I've never been into guys! Not even a single one! Why would you ask me that? Do I seem gay? I'm not gay!"

"Right," says Marinette, and makes a hasty exit, stage left.

"How to seduce a guy, huh?" Max mutters. His gaze seems to be drifting elsewhere, over Mari's shoulder, to where…to where Kim is standing, actually. He sighs. "Well I wouldn't know. Tell me if you procure any useful data, though, all right?"

"Sure, Max."

"You just gotta be really, really gentle," says Ivan, as if divulging a very important secret. "The trick is to not scare them off. Just go real, real slow and eventually it'll work out!"

"If I went any slower with this guy I would be going backwards," Marinette sighs. "But thank you, Ivan. I really appreciate it."

Nathanael drops all of his books on the floor.

Marinette gasps and bends down to help him pick them up. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to startle you…"

"H-how to s-seduce a…" Nathanael manages. "A…"

"A guy," Marinette supplies. "What do you think I can do to make someone attracted to me?"

"I, uh," says the boy. "I wouldn't…"

He trails off and Marinette looks up at him, and for a long moment they stay like that, paused in picking up his materials from the floor, and she it occurs to her that their faces are just a couple of inches apart, their hands even closer.

The silence stretches for a long, long moment.

"Well!" says Nathanael, grabbing the rest of his stuff in one motion, his face bright red. "I have…a thing. In a place! Right!"

"He didn't even answer the question," says Marinette, disappointed, watching him go.

"Dad," Marinette asks when she gets home, "how do you win over someone you like?"

"You don't," says her father.

Mari stares. "I… don't?"

"No," says her father matter-of-factly. "When you reach marriageable age, your mother and I will select a worthy mate for you. Then you'll spend a few years—you know, like twenty or so—getting to know each other, talking and so on. Then if it goes well you can move to hand-holding, or maybe, maybe, putting your arms around each other's shoulders. Then if that goes well you can take it a little further. It can be a nice little twenty-fifth anniversary surprise, to show him that you do, in fact, have knees! And then, after thirty years…"

"Don't listen to a word your father says," says her mother, patting his arm fondly. "He has no idea what he's talking about."

It's two hours into patrol that night when she realizes that the solution is right in front of her. Literally.

They've done the rounds of Paris twice and have ended up taking a break on the edge of the roof of one of Paris's tallest skyscrapers, taking in the the slow night traffic and quiet city sounds below them. Only a handful of inches and a comfortable silence lay between them.

"Hey, Chat…" she says, turning to him. "You're technically male."

Chat laughs. "Thanks. I think." He waggles his eyebrows at her. "Why, do you need something only a man can give you?"

Ladybug sighs. "You're impossible. But actually…yes."

Her partner seems to sober slightly, maybe picking up on her serious tone. "Oh, really," he says, moving just a bit closer to her on the ledge. "What can I do to help, My Lady?"

Marinette bites her lip. "You have to promise not to laugh at me."

"You know I can't give guarantees on adult behavior, it's against my code of ethics."

"You don't have a code of ethics."

"Sure I do. Rule 1, no girls allowed in the Cat Cave, unless it's My Lady. Rule 2, no promise for any kind of maturity. Rule 3, nobody gives me rules, unless it's My Lady."

"I see there are a couple of loopholes in this cat's ball of yarn," says Ladybug teasingly.

"There's no rule against loopholes. In fact, I like 'em. I like getting out of things. I like getting out of many things, in fact…" He pulls on his collar and winks.

Marinette rolls her eyes. "Yeah, like the point of this conversation!"

"I apologize, My Lady," says her partner, not at all apologetically. "How can I service you tonight?"

"I need help seducing someone."

Chat nearly falls off the roof.

"What?" he splutters, when he's regained his balance. "What? Who?"

She raises an eyebrow at him. "What, you want his name, address, and social security number?"

"Yes," says Chat immediately.

"What?"

"What? Oh, you were joking! W-well, so was I! Haha!"

Ladybug blinks. "I'm lost."

Chat composes himself enough to give her a smile. Which is nice, even though for some reason it looks kind of…fanged, and she has to fight down the oddest urge to run in the opposite direction. "Just his name will do for now."

Mari takes a deep breath and says, "His name is A—", before it suddenly dawns on her that Chat Noir knows Adrien Agreste. Everyone knows Adrien Agreste. His face and body are plastered all across the city, not to mention the magazines and publicity interviews… If Chat knew she was crushing on the most lusted-after boy in Paris he would never let her live it down. There's no way he would give up the opportunity to croon "Oh look, it's loverboy!~" every time they pass one of his billboards…and God forbid they ever actually see Adrien in real life! She can only imagine Chat's teasing…and the puns… Oh dear God, the puns…

Oh, no, the time to come up with a fake name has long gone! Think, Mari, think! Say anything! "A—" she stammers. All she can think of is her History class earlier that day, where they had started learning about the French Revolution, and King Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette… "A-Antoine?" she tries.

Chat glares out at the city. "Antoine," he repeats flatly.

"Yeah…Antoine!" she continues, warming to the name. "I've liked him for…well, pretty much since the day I met him. But he barely knows I exist. I mean, he knows I exist, but he's never thought of me that way, you know?"

Her partner is still scowling at nothing in particular and doesn't respond.

"Will you help me?" she asks.

Her partner jolts out of his reverie and gives her a wan smile. "Naahh, I don't… I don't think I'm the right guy to help you with that kind of stuff."

"You're the only guy to help me with this stuff! Come on, please? I'll do anything…"

His ears perk up. "Anything?"

Ladybug groans and rolls her eyes. "Anything within reason!"

"Well then forget about it."

"Please, Chat? I trust you. You're one of my best friends!"

For some reason that doesn't seem to make him happy; just kind of pained.

"Please?" she tries for a third time, desperate. "You have no idea what it's like, wanting someone who's never looked at you twice. It's almost worse, having these feelings and knowing they're completely unrequited, than just getting rejected, because every day I end up wondering if maybe today's the day he finally sees me—not just sees me but sees me—and it never happens and it just…hurts."

Chat Noir just looks at her, his eyes dark and unfathomable.

"Fine," he says at last. "I'll help you. Or at least I'll try."

"That's all I ask!" says Marinette brightly. Chat might drive her crazy sometimes, but he's still the one she wants fighting by her side no matter what the challenge. Even challenges of the dear-God-why-is-my-classmate-so-attractive variety.

"I don't know, you could…wear something different," he says slowly. "Something to catch his eye, make him think of you in that way if he hasn't yet."

She frowns. "Just an outfit?"

"I don't know!" says Chat, exasperated. "An outfit's the easiest thing I could think of."

It's a good idea, she has to admit. Simple and easy, and it won't require her embarrassing herself and/or destroying her friendship with Adrien. "I'll definitely try it. But I'm going to need more than that. A back-up plan. No, a step-by-step guide! The Official Chat Noir Seduction Handbook!"

"How am I supposed to make you a step-by-step guide to winning over this dude?" says Chat, irritated. "I know nothing about him!"

"So I'll tell you about him," says Marinette.

"No way!" Chat growls, then seems to catch himself, "I mean, okay. I mean…. Ugh. I mean, yeah, we should do that. Tomorrow. Right now have to, uh. Go."

"Go?" Ladybug repeats, confused. Chat Noir gets to his feet and pulls out his staff. "Wait, there's still forty minutes left to patrol!"

"Sweet dreams, My Lady," Chat says, more subdued than usual, and then he's swinging off into the night.

"My life is over," Adrien mutters into his pillow.

"Okay, it's bad enough that the love of your life is chasing after somebody else," comes Plagg's voice from somewhere overhead, "but why did you agree to help her? Are you stupid?"

"I don't know! I thought maybe if I was involved in it, maybe I could control it. I panicked, what do you want from me?"

"You panicked."

"I don't know, okay? She was talking about…about loving someone and them never seeing you, and wondering what's wrong with you that they never even for a second seem to think of you that way and I just… I just wanted to protect her from that. I didn't want her to have to feel the things I feel. 'Cause they suck."

It's quiet for a long moment.

"You could give her terrible advice," Plagg suggests, breaking the silence. "You could give her such horrible advice that the guy ends up totally hating her guts!"

"Yeah, she definitely won't pick up on that at all," says Adrien sarcastically. "And it'll be a great opportunity to ask her out! 'Hey, I know I totally just sabotaged your chances with the guy you actually like… Care for a rebound with the guy you can vaguely tolerate?' Gee, I can't think of a single way that might go wrong!"

"Maybe we can figure out who this Antoine guy is and, yanno. Get rid of him. Quiet-like," says Plagg helpfully.

"Hm… That's actually not a bad…. Uh. I mean—no, we can't get rid of him! That would be wrong!"

"We don't have to kill him! We could just…maim him a little bit."

Adrien ignores that. "And now all she's gonna be talking about tomorrow is Antoine. What a butt-ugly name," he mutters peevishly. "Probably has an ugly face too, to go with his name. And he's probably stupid. He's definitely stupid if Ladybug's wanted him all this time and he hasn't even noticed her."

Plagg makes a noncommittal noise.

"Seriously, what kind of name is Antoine anyway?" Adrien rages. "I couldn't come up with a more pretentious name if I tried! He sounds like a jerk. He sounds like Jerky McJerkface. Hah. That would be a way better name for him."

"Sure," says Plagg.

There's a long moment of silence.

"Do you think he's hotter than me?" Adrien wonders, quieter now. "Or maybe he's more her type—more built, or darker hair, or…"

"Yeah, probably," says Plagg.

"What?!" He shoots up out of bed. "Plagg, you're supposed to say no!"

Plagg shakes his head and floats away. "I ain't gettin' involved, kid."

"I could work out more," he says thoughtfully to himself. "Or dye my hair…"

"Isn't your hair insured for ten thousand euros?" Plagg asks. "I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to dye it even if you wanted to."

"I have a wig around here somewhere."

"You have a problem is what you have."

Adrien pulls his pillow over his face and groans. "Stupid Antoine."

"I still say we just get rid of him."

"Don't tempt me, Plagg."