Ah~

thank you carlos13 for this wonderful idea! I changed it up a teensy bit but I really liked what you mentioned in the review, so it's mostly the same, except for some of my own twists.

Let's go!

~Spoken stories of akumas don't match up and a mess becomes a bigger mess when the kids can't communicate~

"And…there," Alya said with finality as she finished updating her Ladyblog. Being the sole, trusted reporter for her very own Ladyblog, which also happened to be the best source for superhero news, was no easy task, but Alya prided herself with being the one person to uphold such a successful site. With no fail, she always captured every epic battle moment, as well as the aftermath. Ladybug and Chat Noir had just defeated an akuma half an hour ago, twenty-nine minutes ago they'd fistbumped and departed, and Alya was just finishing up the last edits on her video before posting.

In class.

Of course, when it came to the school system, students had one full hour to get back to their class after an akuma attack. This was due to the fact that sometimes kids got sent to the opposite end of the city in the midst of an outbreak, and one hour was more than enough to catch a bus or metro train back to wherever they needed to be if they couldn't walk. So, Alya was breaking no rules, but several students looked over at her seat curiously as she finished up her business on her phone. Francoise Dupont was always close to the akuma attacks (whether that was a blessing or a curse was up to each individual) and so the students were already seated in class, having nothing to do for a full half hour yet.

"I thought updating your blog gets hard when it's not on the computer," Nino remarked. Alya glanced up from her phone at him.

"Well, yeah. But I'm not an experienced blogger for nothing." Alya puffed with pride. "It's a cinch. Besides, I have enough time. I made a big update."

"Big update?" Adrien asked. "Like the Chatroom?" When Alya had first added that to her blog, Adrien had, inexplicably, found the name hilarious and stated that it was his favorite update ever. Her blog also picked up more followers, from a startlingly large number of Chat Noir fans, and the pun in the name was only pointed out more and more with raising levels of glee.

"No, not that big," Alya admitted, "that's probably my biggest update, like, ever." Adrien grinned and Marinette leaned over to look at her screen.

"Ah, I see," she said when she'd spotted the change. "You made an exclusive akumatized victims list?"

"Yup," Alya affirmed. "It's a full list, and I even added the places where the people got akumatized with a bar graph next to it."

Marinette rolled her eyes. "How'd you find places for every single person?"

"Investigation," Alya vaguely replied. "But most of the people came from this school- it' freakish how Hawkmoth attacks us almost exclusively."

"Talk about it," Nino muttered. He'd pulled out his phone and the Ladyblog was opened up there. "Geez, look at the bar graph! Our bar is, like, a mile above the rest."

"Tap on the bar for any place and you'll get the list of people akumatized there," Alya urged with a grin. "I think that feature is pretty awesome."

"You think right," Adrien agreed as he tapped on Nino's phone. The list opened up and Nino disinterestedly scrolled through, knowing all of the stories about his schoolmates and what had happened. He suddenly paused as he reached the bottom and blinked as he seemed to come to a realization.

"Dude," he said, making Adrien perk to attention, "you've never been akumatized?"

Adrien suddenly broke out in a cold sweat as Nino continued on, "I thought everyone in this class had…"

"Hey, now that I think about it, Marinette hasn't been akumatized either!" Alya said, turning to her friend who was suddenly in a similar state to Adrien. "Didn't Ladybug and Chat Noir say, like, a month ago that the reason they don't get akumatized is because of their miraculous protecting them?"

It was true. People had been questioning, and so they superhero duo had given an answer that seemed vague enough to be safe. In fact, it was exclusively on video on Alya's blog. Right now it was all Marinette and Adrien could do to not outwardly curse their foolish past selves.

"Um," Marinette squeaked. She could make an argument, of course, about how Hawkmoth couldn't akumatize everyone, but that was a weak argument because, well, he could. He'd probably akumatized his way through every student in the school, except for herself- because she was Ladybug- and Adrien… whose reason she didn't have the luxury to think about at the moment.

So then, she could make something up. That would work. Yes, that was what she would do.

Adrien apparently had reached the same conclusion as her in his own head, because he suddenly blurted out, "Ah, I have been akumatized!"

Alya did a double take. "WHAT?"

Adrien floundered, white as a sheet. "Um- that is- I became the… The Model," he said uncertainly, and then nodded along rapidly. "Yeah, The Model. I was gonna, well, attack my dad for giving me so many photoshoots and stuff. But Ladybug was on patrol and she purified my akuma really quick."

"SERIOUSLY?!" Alya cried out. "Why wasn't I told about this?"

"Um, because… I was embarrassed?" Adrien weakly ended. Immediately there was the hand of Nino at his back.

"No need, dude," he said easily and Adrien felt horrible for lying to such honest and caring friends. But he had to! "There's nothing to feel bad about, it's all Hawkmoth's fault. Besides, can't get worse than I did, right? Bubbler," he snorted, spitting the name out like a curse. Adrien laughed a little, feeling a small weight lift itself off of his chest.

That little weight suddenly returned in a crushing tenfold, though, when he noticed how Marinette was staring at him in obvious skepticism. Disbelief. Suspicion. He balked.

"Are you sure?" Marinette suddenly asked. "Ladybug was there and saved you?"

Well, he had to go all or go home. It wouldn't do to look like he didn't believe the lie himself when he had to convince others, especially Marinette who'd unexpectedly turned out to be very dubious.

"Yes," he firmly replied as if he was freshly recalling the memory in his own head. Marinette simply stared at him some more with a frown on her face and he felt like she was taking him apart piece by piece.

"…without Chat Noir?" Marinette finally asked. Adrien blinked stupidly.

Damn it! He knew he was forgetting something in his explanation!

"Um, well," Adrien laughed. It was just as forced as if he'd had to yank out his own tooth. "I was caught off my guard so she did it herself- or so she told me later," Adrien hastily added when he recalled that akumatized victims weren't supposed to remember anything from when they were possessed. He was glad to have caught that. He felt like he was at a court trial or something.

Marinette could make a very good judge. He felt inclined to tell the truth just by the look she was giving him- a look he still couldn't figure out!- and it was only the thought that he was lying out of good that kept his lips sealed.

"I see," Marinette finally replied.

She knew something was up.

Alya and Nino exchanged bewildered glances as the tension in the air between them suddenly spiked.

Adrien cleared his throat the best he could without seeming guilty (could you suspiciously clear your throat? Was clearing your throat suspicious?) and fished for anything that would turn the attention away from him. Luckily, he didn't have to fish long, because he remembered that apparently, Marinette hadn't been akumatized, either. Which was very curious for him, genuinely, because he had the excuse of being a superhero, but what did Marinette have? He'd like to know.

And so he asked, "What about you?"

Marinette's inquisitory look shattered on her face, leaving behind a fully dumbstruck expression. "Wha?"

"Alya said that you haven't been akumatized," Adrien gently probed albeit nearly buzzing with curiosity.

Marinette blinked. "OH! Um, well, that is to say- uh, just like you, I kept mines secret!"

"WHAT?!" Alya positively exploded. "MARINETTE?!"

Alya suddenly started as she realized the entirety of the bored room-in-waiting was staring at her. Without so much as a little blush, as Alya was brazen and simply had little shame, she sat back down as she'd stood up abruptly along with her exclamation.

"Why are these things being kept from me? I run the Ladyblog for heaven's sake!" Alya wailed albeit quieter than before.

Marinette felt bad. She tentatively put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "It's because my situation was similar to Adrien's," she explained, talking slowly so that she could think it through. To everyone else it seemed she was doing that to comfort Alya. "I got akumatized but Ladybug and Chat Noir took care of it really quick." She missed the look thrown her way by Adrien. "I barely knew what happened. If we had told you, then you would ask for details we wouldn't have, and probably post an incomplete post which would just ruin your aesthetic and you'd spend the rest of your days in misery, unable to delete it because then your blog would be incomplete but hating the fact that it was there."

It was so silent by the time she finished speaking that you could hear one of Chloe's pure gold pins drop.

"Wow," Nino finally said. The class, being used to the "peculiar four" as they labeled it (consisting of Marinette, Alya, Adrien and Nino) resumed to what they were doing before. "That's some epic storytelling skills you've got there."

"Not a story, Nino," Marinette solemnly shook her head, "a traumatizing cycle which, out of my love for Alya, I prevented…"

"Shut up," Alya said with a laugh as she shoved Marinette's shoulder, previous woes forgotten. She supposed that Adrien's and Marinette's stories made sense. It was far too confusing to delve deeper into, and besides, it didn't seem that out of the blue for Ladybug and Chat Noir to take care of an akuma so fast that nobody noticed. The heroes were awesome like that.

"So… Chat Noir saved you?" Adrien asked in a manner much like Marinette had questioned him earlier. She blinked and frowned, feeling like she was taking a multiple choice test: deceivingly easy, and no half-credit given.

"Yes," she replied much faster than she'd have liked. "I mean, yeah. Of course!"

Adrien squinted at Marinette who was suddenly an enigma. Why would she not tell the truth?

Of course, it wouldn't have been believable in the slightest if Marinette said that she was never targeted by Hawkmoth. Hawkmoth had gone after everyone in the school. He went after people for the pettiest of reasons. And everyone knew that Marinette, while she was notoriously kind and popular, had many reasons to be riled up, from being the one to deal with Chloe to not getting enough sleep because of her supposed "inspiration bursts". So there was no way she wouldn't be targeted by Hawkmoth.

Unless…

Adrien's eyes widened and he found an odd sensation biting at the back of his throat, making it hard to swallow or talk or even blink. He turned around and was thankful when class began, finally, as if on cue. He was saved from having to explain himself and instead the day ensued, passing by in a hazy blur. He wasn't sure what he said or did. He couldn't remember. Instead he suddenly found himself in his room, and with Plagg, to face the full brunt of his new discovery.

"Plagg…"

The kwami floated out of Adrien's bag slowly, critically eyeing his holder. This would be a huge turning point for Adrien in his life, if, of course, Adrien realized what Plagg thought he had realized…

"I THINK MARINETTE IS HAWKMOTH!"

Guess not.

haha time to make this a new story… three chapters, or four?