Rated K+ for minor cursing. Feel free to review; it's very appreciated and I can always use the advice! :)

"So do you like girls?"

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. Alya's head shoots up from her phone, and she gapes at Nino as his eyes widen in mortification at what he's just said.

"Uh... I... oh God," is all he can seem to come up with as an excuse. This is not how this was supposed to go. Theoretically, he would have held a perfectly normal conversation with Alya before nonchalantly asking her if she was at all interested in going on a date with him. If she said no, he'd mope about it, but he'd eventually move forward—if she said yes, then he could celebrate with ice cream and video games.

But that damn question is always running through his head; Alya is obsessed with Ladybug to a point where he questions his chances with her not just because of his tendency to bicker with her, but also because he may not be her preferred gender...

"Yeah, I do. Is there a problem with that?"

Her brow is furrowed and his glasses may as well be broken with the daggers her golden eyes are shooting at him. Nino finds himself deflating. He doesn't care one bit about people's sexualities or how they choose to express themselves, so he feels like such a moron for letting that come out of his mouth in such an accusatory way.

"No, there isn't! I, ah... I really didn't mean to ask that out loud, oh God. I—" Adrien—Adrien Agreste, his best friend who has been homeschooled for most of his life and is absolutely clueless about one of the cutest, sweetest girls in class basically flipping over her pigtails for his recognition of her—is facepalming and giving Nino the look. You blew it, bro. There's no going back now.

"—I didn't mean to offend you, Alya. I was just thinking about that because you were talking about your Ladyblog again and you seem really into Ladybug and what she does and sometimes I'm afraid that I have no chance with you because you're a really awesome chick and you help me with my mixes all the time but we argue a lot over stupid shit and I just wanted to ask you on a date and then that came to mind and I guess my brain wasn't working because it just came outta my mouth and—"

He stops when he finally hears Alya—and she's giggling. Not only that, she's doubled over and clutching her sides like she can't breathe. Her best friend, Marinette, is obviously trying to stifle her own laughter, and now he just feels offended. So his closest girl friends are making fun of his utter failure to ask one of them on a date? He glances at Adrien, who doesn't wear any emotion on his face other than pure confusion, and Nino realizes he is done for.

"I'm sorry, I just—" Alya takes a few deep breaths before continuing, "—that was funny, Nino. You're cute."

He feels humiliated and degraded and wait—she called him cute. Not that it helps his manly pride here or anything, but it's worse than her wanting to slice his throat. And "cute" is good in girl language, right?

Alya takes a few steps towards him and places her hand on his shoulder. "To answer your question more thoroughly, Nino, I do like girls—" his deflation wasn't stopping anytime soon— "but I also like guys. Really, I don't care at all about anyone's gender, just as long as I'm attracted to them and they're a good person."

Oh. So he does have a chance!

Maybe.

Possibly?

He's probably making his dumbass face again (as Adrien has kindly dubbed it,) because Alya just chuckles and moves his chin up to close his open mouth. "I know you didn't mean to offend me, Nino. In fact, you're a pretty cool guy yourself. So, how about I take you up on that 'date' offer?"

Nino finally blinks and has partially come back to his senses. "You mean you don't love Ladybug?"

Alya laughs again. "No, stupid. Yeah, she's hot and can beat bad guys to a pulp, but I don't know anything about her other than what I've asked in interviews. I'm just a crazed fan who knows where she stands," she says and winks at him. "Chat Noir's totally got a thing for her anyway. Wouldn't want to mess with that relationship."

"Oh." A grin finally finds its way back on Nino's face as he reaches to put an arm around Alya. "So, meet me at the park at six tonight?"

She grabs his arm before it can touch her and brings it back down to his side. "Not so fast, tiger," she teases. "It's a date—unless Ladybug and Chat Noir have to fight crime again. That's top priority footage for the blog, you know."

He smiles. "I expected nothing less."

He is dazed as she turns around and trots away with Marinette, who seems to be beaming at Alya as they celebrate something. Nino turns to Adrien, who pats him on the back. "I'd say good job, Nino, but even I know that was pure luck."

"Don't I know it," he agrees shamelessly. "Alya's so cool."

Adrien just gives him a small smile and leads him in the same direction as the girls so they can head home for lunch.

Nino and Alya don't realize that Adrien and Marinette both feel huge weights lifted from their shoulders—Marinette's because her best friend doesn't actually have a crush on her, and Adrien's because Alya isn't secretly out to steal his lady from him after all.

And none of the four friends know that the rest of the class is strangely quiet for the remainder of the hour because Alya is the first out of all of them to openly admit that she is anything other than straight.

I wanted to give Alya and Nino some love and also put in pan Alya. Thus, this little fic was born.

This ended on a different note from what I had planned originally, but I think I could go somewhere with it. Maybe write coming out stories about all of the characters in ML that I don't see as straight? None of the kids in the class seem like they're homophobic to me (even Chloe), so all of said stories would probably be pretty lighthearted overall, like this. Of course, if I end up doing that, keep in mind that I am a straight girl, so the accuracy of my representation of the lgbt+ community is limited to the input of my friends who happen to be gay and bi and so forth. Even so, that's only a few people.

I am drowning in this fandom and with the LadyNoir ships. I never knew I needed this show in my life so much, ugh. 3 I've thrown around many fanfiction ideas for ML and have only come out with this as a definite yes, but I may have planned a bittersweet story centered around Adrien and his apparent ability to play piano. (elaboration pls, Hawkdaddy?) I might also try to add some Ladrien to the works, as it seems to be the least popular sub-pairing in terms of stories. It all depends on my muse and how much leisure time I have in the future.

Thanks for reading this long ramble. ^^' And thank you for reading this story!