[[A/N: This is a (SUPER BELATED SORRY) birthday present for RoseGardenTwilight! She asked for "jealous Adrien" who checks up on Marinette as Chat Noir to ask about her feelings about him...and Luka. After the events of Frightningale. And a partial Adrienette reveal. So...I may have loved these prompts so much, I...wrote a 5-chapter story. GO CHECK OUT HER TUMBLR SHE IS AWESOME! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROSE!]]

[[THANKS, NEBALIS-WRITES FOR BETA-ING AND BEING AWESOME! (GO CHECK OUT HIS TUMBLR TOO!)]]

[[So, in this story, Frightningale has happened, but the music video hasn't. Yet. And Adrien and Marinette are 17, Luka is 18, respectively. Enjoy!]]

A look of comprehension suddenly sparkled in Luka's eyes, followed immediately by a short rock riff and an amused smirk.

"So you're the guy," he drawled out, glancing up at Adrien for just a second before looking back to his fretboard.

"I'm what guy?" Adrien questioned absently. His well-trained fingers flitted across the small keyboard he tugged along for these "practices" at Luka's house. Really, it was just an excuse for the two unlikely friends to hang out.

"The guy." Luka shifted on his bed and strummed a few power chords, letting the reverb echo through the room before continuing. "I asked Juleka if Marinette was interested in me enough to go see a movie or something, and she said Marinette would probably say yes, but that she was still pretty hung up on some guy." He held his arms out and a bright grin spread across his usually muted features. "You're that guy!"

The C7 arpeggio Adrien was messing with turned to mush on the spot.

"What?" Adrien finally sputtered out. "You think she's still hung up on me? I mean, she used to have some type of crush or…something, but…we kind of…moved passed that?"

I crushed her crush, were the words he left unspoken. It wasn't a memory he liked to remember, even though it happened a few years prior. The idea that Marinette would still harbor feelings that weren't negative stirred something in Adrien. What could he have possibly done to make Marinette still want to attach herself to him? He wasn't complaining – Marinette was, as Luka liked to say, amazing, and any guy would be lucky to be with her. So, for her to feel something for him, the guy that, essentially, broke her heart at age 15, was extremely surprising. And…something else. Adrien couldn't figure out what it was.

"Why are you so excited about it?" Adrien asked finally. While Marinette still being too emotionally involved toward him that she might not even consider dating anyone else was a downright shock, Luka being blatantly excited about it was giving him the same feeling. Before Luka could answer, however, Adrien finally realized all the implications of what his guitarist friend had just told him.

"Wait…you're asking Marinette out?"

Luka snorted. When Adrien turned to look to him, Luka was looking down, pick in his mouth in favor of some fingerpicking.

"Well, yeah." Luka said behind his closed teeth. He reached up and pulled out the pick, dropping his hands in front of his guitar to actually talk uninhibited. "She's amazing." (Called it.) "Honestly, I've wanted to for a while." He blinked. "You weren't thinking about it, were you?"

Had Adrien been thinking about it?

Before this moment, no, not really.

After Luka mentioned that Marinette was still "hung up on him", and, now, that he – Luka – wanted to ask her out…?

…No?

So…maybe he had suddenly pictured what it would be like to take Marinette to the movies himself.

And maybe his mind had suddenly jumped – completely unbidden – to what it would be like to be at the movies with Marinette and…maybe not being 100% committed to being there, with her, and actually, er, watching the movie….

"Pffft, n-no!" Adrien responded quickly, hoping Luka didn't notice the squeak in his voice (or could see what he was thinking). "O-Of course not. She's just a ffff-" He cleared his throat, trying to rid himself of the choking feeling. "Friend. She and I are just friends."

The word felt like sandpaper on his tongue.

"Excellent!" Luka grinned, bending over to play a sweet run, fingers twitching so fast up the fretboard Adrien couldn't keep up with what he was playing. "I was kinda hoping 'the guy' was you, 'cause I was pretty sure you weren't into her. Like, you turned her down or something, right? Can't see why, though, man. That's not to say that, if you changed your mind, I wouldn't fight you for her…but I'd rather us stay friends." Luka reached out and punched Adrien in the arm, laughing, then went back to what he was doing…leaving Adrien to sink into this new pit of despair called "conflicted feelings".

This is just…just "Older-Brother-Friend" feelings, he tried to convince his brain, willing it to forget about that little scene he'd entertained with a black-haired girl in the back of a near-empty movie theater. I'm just feeling protective because…Luka is so much older! Yeah, that sounds good. Marinette needs to watch herself. And I've got her back! I'm always there for her.

I'm always there for her. Not…

"So…aren't you concerned that Marinette will still be too 'hung up on me' to even enjoy your date?"

Not that Adrien cared. He wasn't interested in Marinette like that. And if he wore a smug smile on his face at catching Luka off-guard with his comment in hopes to cause the guy to second-guess his decision to go after his friend, then…well, then Luka didn't deserve her after all, and Marinette would be safe, and free, and single –

Luka burst out laughing, dropping his arms from his guitar and leaning forward in an attempt to get the guffaws under control. Then he clasped Adrien's shoulder, making the – rather indignant, at the moment – model jump.

"Adrien," he started, a little breathless. "Everyone has crushes of all sorts. You can't tell me you don't?" Adrien pursed his lips in response, and Luka continued. "Exactly. But show a girl some true affection, dude, give her the attention she deserves, and, whether she forgets her crush or not, she'll be all yours."

"Yours!?" Adrien spluttered, as a friend. A protective friend.

F-R-I-E-N-D.

(Oh, how he was starting to hate that word.)

"What? Oh, dude, not in like a possessive way or anything. Like in a –" his arms moved in front of him like he was trying to pull the answer out of the air – "'I like kissing you, you like kissing me' sorta way, you know what I mean?"

"K-Kissing!?"

A hum of affirmation was the only response Adrien got. Luka was already leaning over his guitar once more, pausing intermittently to jot something down on his manuscript paper. When the minutes ticked on in deathly silence, Luka glanced back up…and snorted. Adrien remained in suspended animation; both hands hung limply over the keyboard, and his face…his face probably looked like he'd been slapped. At least, that's what it felt like to Adrien. Luka chuckled once more, sighed, then looked back down to finish writing the melody he'd been working on.

"You should go out and kiss a girl, mate."

[[Thanks for reading! hmu on Tumblr: CallMeAkumatized (Maki, xoxo)