To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Adrien Agreste is the only person who can get away with sleeping straight through class. At his desk. In the first row.

It's not like Miss Bustier doesn't notice him. In fact, Kim makes a "generous" offer to wake him (holding up his brand new airhorn, of course, making everyone wince although though he hasn't even pressed it yet), and Miss Bustier immediately shoots the idea down.

"Let him sleep," she tells him sternly. "He maintains top grades in the class along with a very demanding full-time job." Which makes sense, kind of. But everyone knows it's really because Adrien looks like an angel when he's asleep.

Lucky bastard, Nino thinks, halfway between resentful and admiring, glaring at his best friend's adorably mussed hair, his soft, slow breaths, the long golden eyelashes curled against his cheek….

Suddenly he feels his pocket vibrating, and after a quick glance at Miss Bustier, pulls his phone out, keeping it under his desk.

It's from Alya. Grab me a pic, k? ;)

Nino grins, takes a quick picture of Adrien's sleeping face, and snapchats it to her. His friend dozes on peacefully.

It's only when the period has ended and most of the class – including Alya and Marinette – has left the room for their break that Adrien jolts up in his seat, looking around frantically.

"Wha – huh – where… Nino! What time is it?" he demands.

"It's 10:45, man," says Nino. "You slept right through second period."

Adrien flushes. "I have to apologize to Miss Bustier..." He sighs, rubs a hand over his face; mutters, "Didn't get much sleep last night."

Whatever lingering grumpiness Nino might have had about Adrien's unfair attractiveness fades into worry. "Are you okay?"

He offers him a weak smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just couldn't relax. My brain wouldn't shut up. I kept remembering all of our interactions, over and over again, and I just…" Adrien makes a frustrated noise and puts his head in his hands. "It was so obvious in retrospect!"

"What was?" Nino asks.

"I mean, I suspected that she thought the flirting was just a joke," his friend continues as if he hadn't spoken.

"Who did?"

"But then she apologized for kissing me, and I didn't realize it at the time, but the only reason she would feelbad about it is if she thought I actively didn't like her that way…"

"What way?"

"Which only leaves the one option, really. But still…" Adrien sigh, shakes his head, and finally looks at Nino, his eyes miserable. "You know what I mean?"

"Not even a little bit," says Nino understandingly.

"Thanks, Nino," says Adrien, obviously too distracted to actually process what he'd said. "You're a good friend."

"Anytime. Now, if you ever want to explain half of what you just—" aaaand it's too late. Adrien's eyes have gone distant again, staring off into nothing, lost to the world.

Of course, it's not like Nino's an idiot. He knows it's probably got something to do with Ladybug. Anytime his friend his confused or depressed it's inevitably his father or Ladybug, and although he might not have understood most of the nonsense coming out of Adrien's mouth, there was definitely kissing involved. So he just… really hopes, uh… Well, the point is, it's probably Ladybug in this case.

And, yes. He had promised – several times, actually, to several people – to stay far away from Adrien's love life, but dammit, it's hard to stay neutral when his best friend's crush keeps hurting him like this! Maybe she's too busy saving Paris to think about one civilian's feelings, but that's exactly why she makes for such awful crush material. Nothing like Marinette, who's fun and endlessly kind and would never lead him on this kind of cat-and-mouse game…

"Breaking news!" a voice crows behind him—Nino turns to see Alya looking positively triumphant, with Marinette by her side. Speak of the devil… "Guess who's not here today because of a family emergency!"

"You?" says Nino.

"Mufasa?" Adrien suggests.

Nino looks at him in disgust. "Too soon, man. Too soon."

"It's been twenty-two years."

"Still!" he insists.

Alya makes a buzzer noise. "Shockingly enough, you're both wrong. It's Ms. Mendeleiev! We get this whole period off, which means we've got an extra hour for lunch." She strikes a yes-you-may-worship-me pose. "You're welcome."

"Nice!" Nino cheers. He turns to his friend. "So where d'you want to go for lunch?"

Adrien shrugs. "I'm good with anything, you know me."

Out of the corner of his eye he notices Marinette open her mouth, start to say something, then close it again. She screws her eyes shut, takes a deep breath, opens her mouth… aaaand closes it again. Her shoulders slump in defeat.

And yes, Nino said he wouldn't get involved. Said over and over again that he wouldn't touch Adrien's love life with a ten-foot pole and meant it, but… But Marinette is so cute, and she's so much better than Ladybug, and before he really knows what he's doing, the words are tumbling out of their own accord.

"Marinette and Alya? Do you guys want to join us?" He looks pointedly at Marinette, urging her on.

"Um!" says Marinette, eyes lighting with excitement. "Yes! Absolutely! Yes! Is that okay?"

Adrien turns to her and smiles, and Nino can tell (even if his oblivious friend can't) that she's doing her best to not melt into a puddle of goo right there. "Of course."

His oblivious friend also misses Alya slapping Marinette five under the table.

"But I have to bring Gorilla," he adds, like he's just remembered that he's a world-famous model with the full gamut of passionate and potentially insane fans/admirers/stalkers. "If you guys don't mind."

"You really call your bodyguard Gorilla?" Alya asks.

"Well, that is his name," says Adrien, rubbing the back of his head. "Roustam Gorilla."

She blinks. "Oh."

"Anyone have any ideas where we should go?" says Nino.

This time Marinette speaks up without any encouragement, albeit shyly. "Well, there's this great restaurant around the block that my parents like—"

"Oh, Adrikins~!"

Ah, it's Nino's daily headache, right on cue.

"Of course you're coming to lunch with me, right, Adrikins?" she croons, latching on to his arm.

"Actually," says Adrien uncomfortably, and tries to remove Chloé's hands with as much tact as possible, "I already agreed to go lunch with Nino, Marinette, and Alya, so…"

"Hmph." She looks around at the rest of the disdainfully. "Well, I guess they can come too, if they must. Sabrina!"

She snaps her fingers twice and a moment later her personal slave appears at her side.

"Yes, Chloé?" says Sabrina, eager as only the handmaiden of the devil can be.

But before Chloé can inflict more of her evil agenda on the innocents of class 10B, Alex interrupts her. "Oh, Marinette! Are you going somewhere for lunch? We'd love to come!"

Marinette looks confused. "We?"

"Oh…" Alex glances around herself, apparently surprised. "Where did he…" Finally her gaze lands on Nathanael, who had been crouching behind one of the desks. "There'swhere you went! C'mon…"

She drags him to his feet and shoves him forward into Mari. "Yeah! We."

Nathanael's face goes nearly as red as his hair. "I," he stammers, unable to look at Marinette. "I… umm… I—"

"Well, you can join us if you want," says Nino, if only to put the poor boy out of his misery.

His only response is more blushing and stammering and staring at anything that isn't Marinette. See, she and Adrien are obviously perfect for each other, they're both dense as a pile of rocks!

"All right, so where's the class going for lunch?" Kim asks, bounding up on top of Marinette and Alya's desk so he can be closer to the action.

"Um," says Max. "Kim, I don't think we're invited…"

"What are you talking about, of course we're invited, we're always invited!"

Max looks very confused, or maybe pained. "That's, just… not…true…"

"Pizza," says Ivan, like that's the end of that.

"I like pizza," says Myléne shyly. Ivan beams.

"Well, I don't," says Rose. "We should go to that café we found last week that serves little sandwiches! It was…uh… what was it again, Juleka?"

"Le Petite Sandwich," says Juleka.

"Right! It was so cuuute! Let's go there."

Ivan frowns. "Myléne wants pizza!"

"It's okay, Ivan," says Myléne softly. "I don't really care."

His expression only gets more thunderous. "Now you've made her feel bad about asking for pizza!"

"Well, you all can go for pizza or sandwiches, Adrikins and I want to eat at my father's new restaurant!"

"Actually," says Alya, her hands on her hips, "Adrien is going to lunch with Marinette!" She pauses. "I mean, Marinette and Nino and me."

As if that some kind of cue, the classroom explodes into chaos.

"Pizza!" says Ivan.

"Ivan!" says Myléne, covering her eyes.

"Sandwiches!" says Rose.

"Um!" says Nathanael.

"Adrikiiiiins!" Chloé whines.

"I'm hungry!" says Kim.

"Everyone SHUT UP!"

Everyone shuts up and stares at Alya, who's breathing hard and looking this close to killing something. Which might explain how ridiculously hot she is right now.

Nino may have a problem.

"I have an idea," Adrien pipes up in the slightly-alarmed silence that follows Alya outburst. "It's not far from here, really nice and really cheap, and you can pretty much any food you want!"

"Adrien," says Alya, very slow and very patient. "This is a convenience store."

Adrien looks around the local Monoprix, with its two-euro hot dogs and packaged sandwiches and overpriced granola bars. For the very first time since they'd learned about their free period, the entire class is silent, staring around at the rubbery, mass-produced food around them. Chloé looks like she's gone catatonic.

"So?" he says, a little defensively. "It's clean. It's cheap. And the food is great! I eat here all the time…"

"Adrien," says Alya, her voice grave, "it's part of a gas station."

Adrien just looks back at her, confused. "So?"

"You're hopeless," she informs him matter-of-factly.

"And it's cheap!" Adrien adds, because some of his classmates have turned wide, uncomprehending, betrayedeyes on him. "Last time I bought pizza here it was less than half a francs!"

Apparently that's enough to bring Nino out of his convenience-store-induced daze. "There is no way it was that cheap."

Ah, he's finally starting to get through to them! "That's what I paid last time," he insists. "The employees were really friendly."

"Was the cashier young and female and looking at you like this?" Nino sighs dreamily and clasps his hands together in lovestruck admiration.

"Yeah!" says Adrien, excited. "Do you know her?"

Nino turns to Alya. "He's hopeless," he confirms.

"My shoes are sticky," Chloé whimpers.

"W-well I think it's really nice here," says Marinette shyly.

Adrien gives her a grateful smile. "Really?"

Is it just him or is she closer than she was a second ago? "Yeah," she says, looking up at him through her eyelashes. She looks somehow…familiar like that….

He stares at her for a moment, baffled by the sudden déjà vu, before he realizes that of course she looks familiar. She's his classmate! Hah! Silly him. She doesn't remind him of anyone. Except herself, of course. Haha… haaa….

Marinette, who had been touching his arm and blinking very quickly, suddenly freezes up.

"Are you okay?" Adrien asks, concerned. "You look like you've just smelled something bad." He thinks it isn't him. Or at least, he hopes so. He tries not to feed Plagg in the middle of the day but he still can't escape the cheese-stink entirely.

"I-I-I'm fine!" Marinette squeaks. "Carry on!" And suddenly she's bolted away and at the complete opposite end of the group of students, as far away from him as possible.

"My shoes are sticky," Chloé whimpers again.

"He laughed at you," Chat Noir repeats flatly.

They've just finished fighting down a relatively minor akuma (minor in that neither of them had to use their special abilities, so they could actually hang around afterwards, which is always nice), and Ladybug is avoiding the point.

"Look, it's a long story, okay?" she says, laughing nervously, maybe to make him think she's okay, or maybe because she's the current subject of his Glare of Death™, for lack of available Antoines. "You can't take that one part out of context! We kind of went for lunch – with other people, like you said, and I did what you told me, and, um…"

"And he laughed at you." Chat had never seriously thought before about how he'd murder someone, which is a shame, really, because he hates to do things without the proper preparation.

But he'll do it anyway. If he must.

"I think it was just a misunderstanding," says Ladybug, not looking at him.

"You're right," says Chat, his voice very soft and very pleasant, his head buzzing with a strange kind of homicidal calmness. "Why don't you give me his address and I'll go clear everything up for him?"

I could climb through the window, he muses through the warm, blood-red haze in his brain. There would be no fingerprints. Nothing at all to connect me to the crime—

"I don't need you to fight my battles for me," his partner reminds him. "But thanks."

—push him out the window, Chat thinks, not really hearing her. No, too messy, poison might be a better way to go—

"What would you even do with his address anyway?" she asks, pulling him back to the conversation at hand. "It not like you have anything to do with him."

"I would like to challenge him to a duel," Chat declares.

"The kind of duel where you slap each other with your gloves, demand satisfaction, and shoot each other at dawn, or the kind of duel where you believe in the heart of the cards and d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel?"

How about the kind of duel where I kill him and he dies?"Neither," he says instead, because he can't imagine that going over so well.

"I don't think he was trying to be dismissive, he was just distracted, you know? He's really busy..." She's babbling, as she always does when the topic of Antoine comes up, trying to assure him that she's fine, or maybe herself, but this time even she doesn't believe it. He can see the hope draining out of her a little bit each time she has to come up with explanations for his behavior. Which is... which is what he wanted to happen, which needs to happen, but it still hurts to watch. "He has a ton of friends, and he's great at school, and he's a model."

"He's a model?" Chat yells, and Ladybug's expression goes kind of panicked.

"No!" she says quickly. "Of course not! What are the chances that I'd know a model, I mean, come on… I – I meant to say that he's a model, uh…citizen! Yes! He's very busy with, um. Taking care of his honorable civic duties…"

But Adrien is already elsewhere, frantically flipping through his mental catalogue (or, more accurately, his cat-alogue. Heh. …Okay shut up, brain, think think think) of male teenaged models in the area. It isn't like he knowseveryone—after all, Paris is the fashion capital of the world, and by necessity there's a model for every outfit—but surely he'd remember if he met Antoine Pillsbury Doucheboy McJerkface….

"I just have to get him interested," she says, an edge of hopelessness to her voice, and that's it, that's enough to bring the burning, acrid fury back up into his chest.

As a model he knows all about making yourself into an object solely used to appeal to someone, to everyone, being nothing more than the mannequin, the frame for whatever they want to see. It's bad enough professionally; if that's who she becomes personally, it will tear her apart.

"That's insane!" he explodes. "You shouldn't have to advertise yourself for him to like you! All you have to be isyou."

And Ladybug doesn't respond, just stares up at him with wide blue eyes, and… and something that looks almost like a blush under her mask. (Chat wonders vaguely if she's cold.) A heavy silence descends between them.

Finally, after what feels like a very long time she looks away, and Adrien breathes and tries to will his rapidfire heartbeat down.

"Forget trying to win him over subtly," he says; forces himself to say, because this isn't his battle, not really. It's hers, and he promised to see her through to the end. "It's time to move to Step Three. Now that he's seen you, and hung out with you, it's time force him to make a decision."It's time to force you to see him for the self-obsessed bastard he really is.

"Force him to make a decision?" Ladybug says, alarmed. "But—"

"Ask him out on a date," says Chat.

"WHAT?!" she yells. "No way!"

"You have to do it. You've waited for him long enough, and it's time you got some closure on this, once and for all." If he needed yet another sign of his partner's desperation, her lack of protest is just that. She may not be ready for this step, but she can't take much more of this emotional torment either. "It's time he made his decision one way or another."

"But what if he…" she trails off, looking at him helplessly, unable to finish.

"You'll be okay," he assures her. "You'll be okay no matter what he chooses."

And so will I, he tells himself, his hands tightening on the ledge painfully despite his best efforts. I have to be.