Someone Like You (Cat Noir)

Chapter 17 Don't poke the Bear

Nino stood across the court yard with admiration on his features. His gaze falling on a trio of girls sitting at the bottom of the stairs looking at a magazine. His eyes fixated on one girl in particular, Marinette. Adrien popped up behind his friend with a smirk plastered on his face.

"FYI, Marinette's never going to fall in love with a statue." He teased.

When Nino had confided in Adrien with his crush on Marinette Adrien couldn't help but be surprised. Marinette was a pretty girl who was very kind and Adrien did not blame his friend for catching feelings for her, but up until he mentioned it yesterday, Adrien would have never guessed. Now of course it seemed so obvious. Nino quickly grabbed Adrien and hid them both behind some tumbling mats that were leaned against the wall.

"Shhh! You know I'm no good with the ladies, especially this one all of a sudden. I mean, dude, do I go up to her and crack her a joke? Shoot her a compliment? Invite her to the zoo? Play it serious?" Nino asked frantically causing Adrien to laugh.

"Nino, you're way over-thinking this. "Invite her to the zoo", you serious?"

"Well, they have this really cool new exhibit there." Nino explained.

"Listen, just be yourself, man." Adrien said with an arm around his friend. Nino shot him a pointed look.

"That's easy for you to say, Mr. Front-of-the-cover-Teen-Model-weekly. I'm not that cool. Just because you have the ability to go up to your crush all confident doesn't mean I do."

Suddenly Adrien felt nervous. "I...my? What?"

Nino rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Dude save it. You think I didn't notice how ready you were to smooch with Lucy when we were shooting our movie a few weeks back? You're just luck she didn't."

Feeling his eye twitch, Adrien shook his head and proceeded to take the conversation off him.

"This isn't about me. You're cool too, dude, trust me," He said pointing his thumb at himself. "or you wouldn't be my best bud. Invite her to the zoo. She'll say "yes", I promise." He assured. Nino was great. How could Marinette not be interested?

Nino did his best to march on over to the girls but before he could reach them his nerves got the best of him and he quickly ran back to Adrien in panic. " What if I act like a moronosaurus, or she disses me or thinks I'm lame or—?"

Adrien smiles at his friend and lifts him up. "Okay, I got your back." He says, giving Nino a fist bump.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Lucy, Marinette and Alya head down the steps of their school together. Marinette sighed looking at her magazine some more and admired the photos of Adrien. Lucy couldn't blame her she supposed. The boy was easy on the eyes.

"Oh, he's such a- " Marinette began but Alya cut her off.

"Smartie, hottie, suavísimo, yummy-tastic spellbinder!" She clasped her hands together and brought them to her chin in a dreamy way.

"All of the above" Lucy added, lightly nudging Marinette with her elbow. The girls were brought to a halt as Marinette ran into Nino causing her to drop her magazine to the ground. Lucy raised an eyebrow as she watched him stand there with a weird look on his face. Adrien popped out from behind him which to Lucy only made the encounter weirder.

"Oh, so sorry about that, right Nino?" Adrien apologized while nudging his petrified looking friend. Nino seemed to be refusing to make eye contact with any of them for some reason as he apologized as well. Looking down, Marinette realized her magazine was open to the images of Adrien and quickly went to pick it up. Adrien also noticing she had dropped it went to pick it up at the same time, causing the two to bump heads before he could take note to the page. Marinette and Adrien quickly say sorry to one another as Marinette grabs the magazine from off the ground.