Once again Nino was steadily on route to the school, his headphones on and producing the tempo to which he walked. It was a slower jam then he was used to, a recommendation from Mari this time around, so it actually took him a little longer to get there. He was just one of those guys where walking out of beat with the music annoyed him, unless it was way too fast cause he wasn't going to run.

Man it sure was nice out. What with the like... birds. And people. And the sun.

The song was pretty good, he had never heard the band before. He would probably look them up when he got back home.

He was getting pretty close to the school. Where he would learn maybe and... be.

Holy crap he couldn't even act casual in his own thoughts this was going to be a disaster.

Nino pulled up short a block before the school, ducking into an alley way and throwing his headphones down onto his shoulders with a groan. This was going to be bad, literally the only thing he could think of was knowing something no one else did, something crazy and really cool. But he knew what the main issue was. His main problem was Adrien.

He as painfully transparent to his best friend, Adrien could read him like a book. To everyone else maybe he would just come off as a bit weird but Adrien would know something is up. Nino had literally no hope of fooling him, he was going to have to accept that. The only thing left now was to just make sure he didn't figure out what exactly it was. But then there was the problem of Adrien knowing he was deliberately hiding something. Would he be mad? They told each other everything... he didn't like the idea of Adrien thinking he was pulling away or something. He was sure to jump to that conclusion, Nino knew him way too well. Adrien was a lonely guy, he didn't have a lot of friends and hadn't ever been close with many people. He could probably count the people he had opened up to on one hand, so seeing his best friend keep secrets?

Nino sighed heavily, feeling something sort of... cold in his chest. He knew he couldn't say anything, and his reasons were incredibly compelling, but that didn't mean it felt good. To think that was probably what Marinette had to deal with for every person in her life... damn that was a rough deal.

Nino took a moment to breathe deeply, straightening his cap and replacing his headphones before heading out again towards the school. He wanted to be there waiting for Adrien, the simple morning routine feeling slightly more important now.

Nino switched the song to one of his usual ones to pick up the pace and managed to make it up to his usual spot without screaming "MARINETTE IS LADYBUG" so that was good. So far things were going pretty smoothly. Not that literally anything had happened yet that couldn't have gone smoothly.

Nino found himself totally blocking out the music, watching the street like a hawk as he obsessed over what he was going to say to Adrien. What did he usually say to Adrien? It had to stick to what he normally did or he would be given away. He probably said like... 'Yo'. That sounded like him. And good morning? No, that was off. How are you? He didn't usually ask that that bluntly did he? Maybe like a... 'hey man' or something... couldn't do 'Yo' AND 'hey man' that was weird. He should pick-

He jumped a little when he saw Adrien's car pull up, used to having a little more time but maybe he had just been panicking that much. He still hadn't picked his greeting when Adrien got out of the car, closing the door behind him and waving to the driver before heading straight towards him. Had he already seen him or was just expecting him to be there? Was he casual?

Adrien walked up the steps and met Nino's eye, freezing him to the spot as he smiled.

"Hey man," Adrien said warmly, looking dumb perfect like he always did. Nino was a little relieved he had used one of his two possible greetings, it made picking much easier.

"Yo," Nino replied, smiling back. Internally though he was panicking, already past his furthest point of planning.

"You look way better today," Adrien noted, Nino silently grateful to not be in charge of the conversation. "Did you actually get some sleep this time?"

"Yeah, uh I crashed as soon as I got home," Nino answered, turning with Adrien as they started to head inside. "I was exhausted. Sorry I didn't text you back but by the time I saw it it was already way too late and I didn't want to wake you up."

"No sweat, I'm glad you got some rest finally you were miserable yesterday. You studied though right?"

God why was Adrien such a good friend it made this so much harder.

"Yup! I'm gonna ace it for sure," Nino said with a grin and to his relief Adrien laughed.

"Well good, I really doubt you'll get lucky with another akuma attack to postpone the test again."

"To be fair that is what you said yesterday," Nino joked, fantastically witty and classically him to a tee. He was killing this why was he even worried.

"Oh so, about yesterday."

Oh god why.

Adrien looked over at him missing how tense Nino suddenly was, too focused on what he was hoping to learn. "What happened to you? Did you wait out the attack in the library?"

Nino focused partially on breathing and walking correctly and also partially on getting the conversation off him as soon as possible. "I managed to make it out of the school," he said, which was true. "But what about you? You're the one who ran into a war zone."

Adrien frowned slightly at that, obviously feeling a little guilty about worrying his friend, but also defensive. "I was checking on people but ducked into a classroom so I was alright."

There was a lull where neither of them spoke, navigating their way slowly towards their classroom.

Adrien spoke again, attempting to prompt conversation. "You wouldn't believe it but I actually met Cat Noir! He showed up looking for me and took me home."

Adrien expected some sort of response but got nothing, Nino looking ahead and casually/not-so casually looking around them. Adrien's brow furrowed slightly in confusion, not having anticipated getting Nino to gush about superheroes being so difficult.

"He said Ladybug sent him isn't that crazy?" he pried, "Why would Ladybug be looking for me?"

There was yet another space of silence where no one spoke, until after a great hesitation Nino said, "I sent Ladybug to look for you because I didn't know where you were. She must have asked Cat Noir to do it."

Adrien's lips quirked into an almost smile as he faked surprise, exclaiming, "Woah!! You got to meet Ladybug!? That's amazing! Dude did you like, get to talk to her? What's she like?"

At this point Adrien fully expected Nino to explode with enthusiasm, talking and even gloating non-stop about his interaction with the superhero, but to his absolute shock,

He lied.

"Uh no," Nino corrected a little tensely, "I only saw her for a couple seconds right at the start of the attack. I asked her to keep an eye out for you and she said she would, then she ran off. I didn't see her again after that."

For a second Adrien was incapable of responding, watching as his friend didn't so much as glance over to gauge his reaction, just staring dead ahead and looking like he was contemplating running for the hills.

"Oh," he managed after a moment, the two of them lapsing into silence and heading wordlessly towards their classroom, both on wildly different trains of thought.

Nino was more so obsessing over his word choice, looking for anything incriminating in his phrasing and panicking himself into seeing flaws that weren't there. Why was Adrien so dead set on talking about it? Did he know something? That was impossible right?

Adrien was looking away, barely acknowledging where he was going and instead thinking about the fact that Nino totally lied.

He hadn't seen that coming, he hadn't even considered that Nino would be doing anything other than telling anyone who would listen about going to the top of the Eifel tower with Ladybug. He had even been prepared to somehow back up his story so people wouldn't think he was a liar and he could look cool for a little while. But lie? Why?

The two boys entered their classroom with no more words exchanged, sitting down and looking in separate directions. They were still a little early for class and only one or two students were even there, but conversation between them seemed out of the question.

Had Ladybug asked Nino to lie? Maybe she had wanted to keep the details of their patrol spot a secret but Nino could have just omitted the part about it being their usual spot. Nino could have even just said 'I met Ladybug!' He was a massive fan, how he wasn't hyperventilating even still was beyond him. But like, even if Ladybug had asked Nino not to tell anyone, he would still tell him wouldn't he? Nino was freaking awful at keeping secrets! And he was so enthusiastic about the heroes of Paris like he had kind of expected a phone call in the middle of the night but he didn't mention it in his texts at all and had even seemed hesitant to admit to speaking with her.

He was actually down right deflective. He had immediately steered the conversation away from himself, not contributing and probably hoping it would be dropped. And right then as they sat in the classroom he was freaking tense. Adrien glanced over after a minute to confirm that yes, he was sweating bullets. Adrien knew Nino knew he knew something was up, if that convoluted line of reasoning made any sense at all. Because something was up. Because Adrien knew that Nino had met, spoken to, and hung out with Ladybug after the attack, he had seen them himself.

But the most frustrating thing was he couldn't pry because as Adrien he wasn't supposed to know that. So now he just knew that Nino was keeping something to himself and had literally no excuse to ask about it, and even if he managed to find one he was now sure Nino would clam up even more.

Why though? What about meeting Ladybug was anything but really exciting? Or was it just Adrien specifically he wasn't going to talk to? Not just talk to but lie to.

Adrien had a sudden thought, staring off into space as he considered something new.

Was Nino upset with him for running off and was keeping quiet as a result?

Adrien looked back over to his friend, finding that he had seemed to calm down somewhat. Nino was now setting himself up for class, looking through notes for that lesson.

Adrien felt a slight pang of guilt again as he watched Nino, looking away before he was caught. Had Nino seriously been that worried? It wasn't totally out of the question... that akuma had been pretty bad news and Nino didn't know he was a superhero. Seeing your totally regular friend run out into danger was probably pretty nerve-wracking. Maybe Nino was embarrassed about how worried he had been, after all Ladybug had felt the need to distract him, get his mind off his still missing friend. Nino must have been pretty freaked out for Ladybug to give that kind of special treatment... Maybe he wasn't gloating about it because he didn't want to explain what they had really been doing up there.

Ah man... now Adrien felt bad, Nino must have been really upset. He was probably actually mad at him. To Nino he must have looked like he was being blatantly reckless, but there was no way to explain that he had left because he needed to.

Adrien heard the bell ring through the building, some students having filtered in during his reverie but still more now flooding in.

Adrien put his head down on his arms, feeling all at once pretty crappy. He couldn't explain why he had done it just like he couldn't explain a thousand things to his best friend. He didn't have any right to be mad at Nino for keeping secrets, he lied to him on a daily basis, and in a big way.

Nino looked up as slyly as possible after the bell rang, checking Adrien's expression. To his surprise, Adrien looked... upset.

Nino felt that cold feeling burn in his chest again at how genuinely hurt Adrien looked, and he knew it was just like he had predicted. Adrien was convinced he was pulling away from him because he wasn't telling him something, but... there wasn't anything he could do! Nino couldn't tell him, but he- ugh... there wasn't any way he could make that clear.

This was already so damn convoluted.

"Hey dude want a cookie?"

Nino blinked once in surprise at hearing himself speak, the words tumbling out almost like a weirdly friendly reflex but he had to roll with it once it was out there, Adrien looking up in subdued curiosity.

"Cookie?" he asked blankly, tilting his head as Nino nodded and reached into his bag.

"Yeah I got chocolate chip, that's your favorite right? Here." Nino found his small bag of cookies for Tikki and took out two, one for himself and one for Adrien. He handed it over to the slightly confused model, his friend looking up at him curiously.

"Oh," Adrien replied, taking the sweet, "Thank you. Yeah it is."

Nino nodded and took a bite of his own cookie, watching Adrien's face as he ate his own. He still seemed subdued, but he also seemed better for it, like Nino being nice to him helped dissuade whatever negative tangent he had been on. Hopefully if he kept things normal Adrien wouldn't feel totally cut out, even if he still couldn't say what was on his mind.

Nino was about to strike up a random conversation when he heard a familiar laugh from the hallway, turning to see Marinette and Alya walking in and laughing together at some unheard joke.

Marinette was dressed as she always was, holding her bag like she always did and smiling as normally as she always had, putting Nino and his secret agent ways to shame almost instantly. She had a lot more experience keeping secrets then he did, but still he had to admit he was a little relieved when she jumped slightly at making eye contact with him. So he wasn't the only one feeling a tad out of place.

Alya had kept walking, not noticing that Marinette had paused next to Nino's desk, the designer looking first at him and then at the cookie that he was eating with an amused smile.

"Cookies this early?" she teased, succeeding in instantly making Nino feel a little more normal. He was sure they had their study hang out to thank for that.

"I had a few on me," he said evasively, shrugging his shoulders and smiling at her. "Want a few? Even if you don't eat them you could put them in your bag for later."

He swore you could almost see her eyes shine as she caught his meaning, smirking again as he passed her a generous handful.

"Thanks," she giggled, rolling her eyes at him and making him chuckle as she finally headed towards her desk, putting the cookies in her clutch.

Nino looked over his shoulder, smiling as he saw her stash the cookies and tracked her for another second as she sat down, still grinning to himself as he started to turn back around. However he didn't manage to complete his rotation to look forward before he found himself caught in Adrien's questioning gaze, one eyebrow raised.

"What?" Nino tried to ask innocently, taking another bite of his cookie as Adrien's eyebrow creeped even higher, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Huh," he said simply, looking Nino up and down once to make him sweat a little before leaning in and whispering, "Lingering eyes much?"

Adrien nearly split his lip from biting it so hard to keep from laughing, watching as Nino's eyes shot wide and he inhaled a lung full of cookie crumbs, chocking so hard and suddenly that his cap flew off and onto the desk.

Adrien snorted once, still biting his lip as Nino coughed and tried to talk before he couldn't take it anymore, laughing so hard he almost fell out of his seat.

The more Nino flailed and coughed trying to deny it the harder Adrien laughed, every student looking over curiously and kind of laughing too as Nino floundered.

Once his wits were a little more about him Adrien managed to pass his friend a water bottle from his bag, still snickering as Nino used his first real breath of air to lean in and whisper hoarsely, "I did not!"

Adrien couldn't even respond, reaching his hands up to his face to smother his laughter as the teacher walked in. Their red headed instructor quickly called the class to order, leaving Adrien to laugh silently into his hands as Nino still coughed a few crumbs loose from his throat. Adrien could tell Nino still wanted to defend himself but had lost the chance as class started.

Adrien looked forward, still smiling and trying not to chuckle aloud every time he felt Nino look over at him with a humiliated grimace.

Adrien didn't really blame his friend, Marinette was beautiful but he could make an attempt to be a little more subtle about it. He hadn't appeared to be like, checking her out, Adrien would have scolded him otherwise, but he had definitely watched her go in a lingering sort of way and his reaction just proved it. It didn't mean a lot but hell it had been really funny. Adrien was positive he was going to get a punch in the arm for it later, but surprisingly the idea sort of cheered him up. If he got scolded by an embarrassed Nino that would be way more normal than their morning had been.

Adrien's thoughts drifted back towards their confusing mostly one sided conversation, sobering him up slightly as the teacher started to write a series of notes on the board.

It had definitely been weird but dwelling on it wasn't going to do a lot. If Nino wanted to keep his interaction with Ladybug to himself for whatever reason than that was his business, it was just figuring out why that was kind of confusing. If it was because he had made Nino angry then well... Adrien sighed, flipping his pencil between his fingers and attempting to start copying down what was on the board.

He was Cat Noir, and being Cat Noir meant getting to the scene of the attack as soon as possible. In the future if he could avoid it he would get away from Nino in a slightly less 'oh my god my friend is going to die' sort of way, but guaranteeing that was pretty much impossible. He just genuinely hoped he wouldn't be cornered like that again, forcing him to leave an even angrier and more worried Nino behind in an attack zone.

Knowing his luck though?

Adrien frowned at the thought alone.