I was cackling the entire time I was writing this. In which I am Alya. We are all Alya, I think.

Double entendre: A turn of phrase that transcends the french language. Literally, "double meaning."

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When Adrien's phone rang, Nino was on his laptop playing Pacman, whiling away the time before Adrien finished whatever skin rituals his modeling career required him to do in that fancyass shower of his. At the unfamiliar ringtone, Nino pulled his headphones off onto his shoulders and contemplated answering it. Adrien had gotten into the shower more than ten minutes ago, so he could potentially be out any minute. It was reasonable to think he could call them back when he got out.

Then again, it could be Nathalie, or someone like thatㅡAKA someone who might be irritated about the missed call. At the unwelcome thought of someone yelling at his delicate marshmallow of a friend, Nino slipped off the bed to to answer the phone and let whoever was calling know that they should call back in a few minutes. It had already been ringing for fifteen seconds, so he jogged over to Adrien's desk where the familiar black iphone sat by the keyboard. But when Nino picked it up, his face pulled into unattractive confusion.

The screen was dark. Yet even as he looked at the phone he heard it ring again...

...from underneath the desk?

Setting the idle iphone back down, Nino pulled out the computer chair to reveal Adrien's messenger bag on the ground below, wherein the telltale ring was coming from. Huh. That was really weird. Had Adrien gotten a second phone for work-related stuff or something? If so, it was probably even more urgent that it was answered. After some frantic digging, Nino finally uncovered the mystery phone at the bottom of an internal zipper pocketㅡit turned out to be a significantly cheaper-looking smartphoneㅡand answered it before it went to voicemail.

"Uhh… Hello?"

There was a moment of silence on the other line, during which Nino pulled the phone away from his face to take a look at the contact name. He did a comical double take and hit his head on the underside of the desk when he saw what Adrien had named the caller.

[Love of my life]

00:06…

00:07…

00:08…

The caller still hadn't spoken up. Nino shot a bewildered glance toward the bathroom, from which the sound of running water still leaked through the crack under the closed door. He cleared his throat. "Helloo?" he fished.

The caller made a choking sound before hissing at him. "Nino?"

No. No way. He would know that voice anywhereㅡbut it couldn't be. Could it? He shot another glance at the bathroom door, this time contemplating breaking the door down and murdering his best friend in cold blood. But he had to be sure first. "Alya?" he ventured angrily.

"Alya," she confirmed, her voice full of vitriol.

Which he did not understand. He was the one who should be pissed off right now! What the fuck! "What the hell are you doing calling this phone?" he spat, checking the contact name again, hoping he had simply misread it and that his girlfriend was not cheating on him with his best friend.

[Love of my life]

00:19…

Nope. Didn't imagine that.

"What am I doing?" Alya shrieked. "What are you doing answering this phone?!"

"Wait, what? What is that supposed to mean?"

Something was off. If he had really just caught Alya cheating (which, first off, was a situation he had never in a zillion years even contemplatedㅡespecially with Adrien, of all people, who he had met first and would never do that to Nino or anyone) then this was not how she would react. She would be defensive, right? Not accusative.

Alya seemed to grow confused at the same moment he did, because her quiet scream-breathing slowed and calmed. "Hang on," she breathed. "Let's talk about this for a second before we finish jumping to conclusions. Why don't you tell me what the hell you think is going on, before I kill you."

"Alright," Nino began. Calm, bro. Calm as a clam. "I spent the night at Adrien's last night and he's in the shower right now. I heard his phone ringing so I tried to answer it, but it wasn't his regular phone, it was some other secret burner phone or something? And I answered it and the contact name is love of my life and then it was you, so what the fuck am I supposed to think isㅡ"

"Oh my god."

"What?"

"Oh my god, Nino. Oh my god!"

"What!"

"Nino," she pressed, then devolved into manic giggles. All of his anger whooshed out. This was obviously not bad, if she was giggling like that. Something good must be happening.

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In Marinette's bedroom, Alya took a second to spin around in Marinette's desk chair and gloat at the last picture of Adrien that Marinette had never mustered the willpower to take down, right above her best friend's nightstand. "I spent the night at Marinette's last night," she explained over the phone. "She's downstairs with her parents right now eating breakfast, and I came back up to her room to look for the pre-calc notes I lent her yesterday. I was looking through her backpack when I found a secret phone."

"Oh my god."

"I know," Alya crowed. She pulled the unfamiliar flip phone away from her face again to admire it, and the sheer gall of the whole situation.

[him]

00:49…

"Nino, the number for the phone you just picked up was the only contact programmed in here."

"Are you serious? Hang on." He navigated to the settings menu to check Adrien's contacts, and found that the same was true for this phone too. Only one contact listed. Love of my life. "Holy shit, same here."

"You know what this means, right? Marinette and Adrien are secretly dating. Secretly. Dating. And they didn't even tell us! What the shit?!"

"Crap," Nino whispered. "The shower just shut off. Gotta go."

"Wait wait wait!" Alya hissed into the receiver. "Meet me at the park by the school in one hour. Bring your boy, and tell that sneaky bastard that I'm bringing my girl. The jig is so fucking up."

"Hell yeah!" Nino whispered. "Double date! Finally! See you there, hot stuff."

Alya snapped Marinette's secret flip phone shut, a slow devilish smile taking over her face. That adorable little runt was so freaking dead. "Oi!" she bellowed at the top of her lungs. "Marinette! Get up here!"

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Back in Adrien's room, the so-called sneaky bastard himself sauntered out of the bathroom in khakis and a soft crimson button-up, still drying his hair with a fluffy towel. "Okay," he announced, "bathroom's free, Nino. Have at it if you want."

"So, how long were you gonna keep it a secret?"

Adrien jumped violently at the word 'secret,' wheeling around to see that Nino had been leaning right up against the wall next to the bathroom door, waiting for him to emerge. And he had a dead serious look on his face. Oh no. Oh no. "Um… keep what a secret?" he offered weakly. Because really, he only had one secret, and if Nino had somehow uncovered it then he was royally screwed. Ladybug was going to throw him to the dogs!

"Don't bother playing dumb," Nino deadpanned, uncrossing his arms as he appraised him. "The love of your life called while you were in the shower. I found your secret phone." He pulled said phone out of his jean pocket as he spoke, completing Adrien's transcendence into the realm of eternal horror.

"Oh," was all he could manage as the color drained from his face. I swear I had that on silent.

But that was that. The secret was no more. Ladybug had called him and Nino had answered and spoken to her, so now he very obviously knew that Adrien was Chat Noir.

Enter: panic mode.

"You talked to her? What did you say? What did she say? Did you tell her whoㅡ"

"Hold up," Nino interrupted, his hardened face softening a bit. "I'm still on the secret part."

"I'm so sorry," Adrien gushed, on a roll now and unable to stop himself. "I would have told you if I could, Nino, but she said we should keep it a secret and I just, I trusted her judgement! I wanted to tell you, I did. But I trust her. Please don't be angry. She's so smart; you would understand if you knew her the way I do."

"Which is apparently really well," Nino scolded, holding up the phone again. "I mean, seriously. You sap. You hopeless cad. Love of my life? I literally cannot believe this."

Adrien snatched his Chat phone from Nino, the color returning to his face with a vengeance, heating it up to a thousand degrees celsius. "Shut up. It's not like that, okay?" It was one thing having Nino know he was Chat Noir. It was simply too much having Nino also think that Chat Noir and Ladybug were actually an item when they very much weren't. Much to his chagrin, Plagg had been right. Adrien never should have named her that in his contacts. But then again, when he bought the stupid phone he never thought anyone else would ever use it!

"Sure it isn't," Nino gloated, obviously not believing a word he was saying. "And Romeo and Juliet were just reeeally good friends."

Adrien's jaw flapped comically. "Nino!"

"Chop chop, Romeo, get your shoes on."

Adrien watched his best friend walk toward the exit, and realized for the first time that he had already put his sneakers on and finished getting dressed. "Why? Where are we going?"

"Duh," Nino drawled, one hand on the doorknob. "Alya and I have been waiting our whole stupid lives to go on a double date with you oblivious morons."

"Double date?" Adrien parroted, the words going in one ear and out the other. Nino could not possibly be suggesting what Adrien thought he was suggesting. "A date? With her? Nino, no, we are not doing that. I'm not doing that and she is definitely not doing that. You don't have any idea what you're talking about. She would never agree to that." The idea of going on a date with Ladybug on its own was enough of a blind fantasy that he knew it would never happen. Going on a double date with Ladybug and Nino and Alya? Talk about fever dreams. Maybe he was still asleep. That's it! I'm still sleeping!

"She already did."

"I'm sorry. What?"

Nino shrugged, baffled by Adrien's bafflement. "She already did." He held Adrien's converse out to him, obviously impatient to get the show on the road. "So let's go already!"

Numbly lacing up his shoes, Adrien tried to rationalize this situation the best he could. None of this made sense. "I'm blown away that you convinced her to do this. Are you a wizard? Did I slip in the shower and hit my head?"

"Okay, you got me," Nino laughed. "I didn't really convince her. Alya convinced her. Or uh, is probably still in the middle of convincing her right now. It doesn't matter, it's moot, the point is that this is happening whether the two of you like it or not."

"So we're just… going?" Adrien wondered meekly as he followed Nino helplessly through his labyrinth of a house. He grimaced as he imagined what sort of scathing remarks Plagg was saving up for later from inside his shirt. "Like this?" Or should he transform? Was he supposed to transform? Was Ladybug going to show up as Ladybug or as…?

"Yeah, just like this," Nino laughed. "For the love of god, Adrien, calm down. You look fine. This isn't as big a deal as you're making it into."

"Maybe not to you!"

Did Nino even realize that Chat and Ladybug had never once met each other outside costume before? That their identities were secret from each other? This was, as Nino would say, a hella big deal. The glare of the late morning sun assaulted their eyes as they snuck past Nathalie and stepped out of the house, but it didn't bother Adrien one bit. There was only one thing on his mind, scorching his skin from the inside out with the intensity of a supernova.

I'm about to meet Ladybug.

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"Oh no."

"Oh no is right," Alya seethed, holding the newly discovered phone aloft from her seat on the bed as Marinette closed the trap door behind her. "How could you keep this from me?"

"You… you talked to him," Marinette realized. This was bad. Not only did Alya find the phone, the most damning of all Ladybug evidence, but she had called the number in it and had spoken to Chat. Oh, she was going to kill that cat. She told him those phones were a bad idea from the start!

"Of course I did," Alya said. "How could you keep this a secret? Why, Marinette? And from me, of all people!"

Marinette could tell her best friend was really struggling between emotions. Excitement and giddiness fought against hurt and confusion for domination on Alya's face. Yes, it was clear she had definitely realized by now that Marinette was Ladybug. No point hoping for a miracle here. Alya knew.

"I'm so sorry, Al. I wanted to tell you. I did!"

"Uh huh. And why didn't you?"

"I… it's a dangerous secret, Alya. Think about what might happen to me if everyone knew! And you're not exactly the most subtle person ever." Honestly. Marinette really did feel bad, but Alya was kidding herself if she thought that there was no reason for Marinette to have kept Ladybug a secret from the person who literally ran the Ladyblog.

Alya tapped her chin for a moment, staring at Marinette contemplatively. "I guess you're right," she sighed after a long, tense moment. "You could potentially get a lot of negative attention if you went public. Still," she added sadly. "I would have kept it a secret for you. We're best friends, Marinette."

"Well," Marinette shrugged manically, "now you know…"

"Yep. Now I know!" Like a switch, weepy Alya was gone and demon Alya was back. "And I am taking so much advantage of that knowledge that you are gonna wish you never met me, my darling Mari."

The look on Alya's face was borderline terrifying. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means get your shoes on, bitch, cause we're going on a double date!"

"What?!"

Alya leapt down off Marinette's bed and threw her old black flats at her, hitting her square across the chest. "Double! Date!" she chanted. "You, me, my boy, and your super secret boy. Shoes! Now!"

"No way!" she blanched. "Me? And him? On a date? In real life? You're not serious?" She drank in Alya's unbridled glee and melted to the ground in a puddle of folded limbs. "You're serious. You already invited him, didn't you?"

"Damn right I already invited himㅡand the boy was thrilled so you better not flake out! Besides, if you do this for me, then I promise with my whole heart that I will take this secret to my grave."

Marinette groaned, clutching her flats to her chest. This could not be happening. "I can't meet him, Alya," she cried. This was too much too fast. She was scared. She was so scared she could barely breathe. "Not like this. I can't. I'm not ready."

"Girl, don't even try it." Marinette flinched, looking up from under her bangs to see that Alya was crouched in front of her, three inches from her face. "That is bullshit and you know it. You've been ready for this for years."

Marinette blinked at her, taken aback by the sheer unwavering force in Alya's voice. "Um…" A little voice in her heart sighed and gave way. "Okay."

"Say it."

"I said okay. Fine."

"Say it, Marinette."

"Ugh!" Marinette threw her hands up, knowing exactly what Alya wanted to hear. "It's a date!"

"Shoes!" Alya reminded her, then bolted downstairs.

Marinette slipped her shoes on as slowly as the laws of physics allowed, her ears ringing in the quiet left in the wake of Alya's departure.

"You don't have to do this," Tikki whispered from somewhere out of sight.

The crepes in Marinette's stomach were threatening to make a reappearance. "I think I do have to though?" she squeaked back without any real conviction.

It was true that she could just say no. Alya would never force her to do this if she didn't want to. Yet, Marinette also knew that Alya was not about to turn down the opportunity to meet Chat Noir; if Marinette refused to attend this impromptu date, she had every reason to think that Alya might go ahead and meet him without her. That was an outcome Marinette simply couldn't abide. There was no way in heaven or hell that anyone was going to meet the boy under Chat Noir's mask before Ladybug had a chance.

She wasn't happy about having her hand forced like this, but hey, life didn't always happen the way she expected it to. She'd never asked to be Ladybug, either, but where would she be now without Tikki? This would be okay. It would. It had to be, because no matter how she felt about the situation or about Alya's meddling, and no matter how unfair it was to be blind-sided this way, one thing was for certain.

I'm about to meet Chat Noir.

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"Do you need a paper bag?" Nino joked. "You look like you're gonna hurl any sec."

"I'm fine," Adrien lied.

They were sitting on a barely dry bench in the center of the park as they awaited the rendezvous with Alya and Ladybug (or rather, Alya and whoever was under Ladybug's spots). The sky was spattered with clouds stretched thin enough to let the dazzling blue through but thickly enough to cover to harshest of the sunrays. The grass at the park was still wet from the 3am rain, and the chilly April breeze was slowly giving way to midday warmth. It was a good day to meet the love of hisㅡoh, who was he kidding? He needed that paper bag.

Nino's phone buzzed and Adrien couldn't help that his eyes gravitated immediately toward the sound. "Alya says they're here." Nino looked up. "I don't see them though… Scratch that, I think that's them way down the path."

Adrien shot up from his seat, fists clenched at his sides when he spied Alya waving, bouncing up and down like a five year old about a hundred yards away. And there, next to her, was Ladybug. Maybe on any other day he wouldn't have known it was her right away, but because he was expecting her, everything about the distant girl just screamed Ladybug. She wore her hair in a top bun and a loose flowing sundress covered in daisies, and although there was nothing about her nervous gait that particularly harkened of his spotted partner, he knew anyway. It was her. Walking toward him at a steady pace, her lowered face partially hidden behind her bangs, was Ladybug.

"Breathe, dude," Nino mumbled under his breath, and Adrien realized he was not, in fact, breathing.

A ways away still, Alya stopped waving and gave Marinette a gentle shove. "Look up, Mari, they're right over there."

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut, her face still angled at the cobblestones. "Can't. Don't wanna." Oh my god, Chat is right in front of me and he's not wearing his mask.

"Please look up, Marinette." She asked a lot more gently this time. "The boy is looking at you like the sun itself is shining out of your every pore. You're gonna miss it."

Marinette snorted. She'd seen that look a thousand times before, so often that she could instantly picture the exact expression Alya was describing. But still, the idea of seeing that sparkly-eyed adoration on Chat's face, sans mask, was too tantalizing an offer to refuse. For once, Alya's goading worked.

Marinette looked up as they drew within ten feet of the boys, right into Adrien's shellshocked eyes.