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Adrien stared at his classmates as his brain desperately tried to make sense of what it had just heard. He had to have misheard. There was no way anyone would have just said that.
Oddly no one else seemed as confused as he did, so he had to point out the obvious, and hope the world would go back to making sense when they heard it, “You can’t say that, she’s a villain.”
“Yeah, a hot villain.”
Adrien looked around desperately for support and fixed on the only other person who looked vaguely disturbed, “Marinette tell them they’re wrong.”
She startled, but managed to say, “um, Supervillains aren’t really my thing.”
Alya elbowed her and said, “yeah, Chat Noir's your thing.”
Marinette glared at her.
Adrien wondered just now much of his night-time rendezvous with Marinette she had told her friend about. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know or not. It was weird to think about them talking about him with absolutely no idea it was him they were talking about, and that made him wonder how Marinette would take it if she knew it was him under the mask.
Not that he could ever tell her of course. Ladybug would have his head if he did, and besides the absolute last thing he wanted to do was make Marinette a target for Hawkmoth. It was impressive how she’d never been akumatised but he was sure Hawkmoth could find other ways to endanger her to get to him if he wanted to.
“We’re not discussing Chat Noir,” Marinette said, breaking him out of his thoughts, “And no, I don’t like Mayura obviously but I guess purely from a design standpoint, she's got a pretty good aesthetic going.”
Adrien buried his face in his hands at this betrayal. She was supposed to be the sensible person in his class.
“I think Adrien's right.” Lila said sliding up to him, “I can’t see how anyone could look past what she and Hawkmoth have done.”
“Thanks.” Said Adrien, though he would have appreciated it more if she could have made her point it without basically pressing up against him, and tried to subtly pull away. “Anyway, it's weird you saying that about her. She’s an adult. It’s like you saying that my mom is hot, or Nathalie’s hot or something. It’s just wrong.”
The whole class seemed to be making a concerted attempt not to meet his eyes.
Eventually Nino sighed, “Dude, you know that people have celebrity crushes right?”
Images of his fanmail flashed in front of Adrien's eyes. He was very aware of that. It was flattering people liked him so much but it could be a bit much. He really didn’t want to know what was in the letters Nathalie didn’t let him read.
“Yeah, yeah I do.” He said flatly.
“Right, yeah of course you do.” Nino said, “Sorry I guess I wasn’t really thinking. I was just going to say it’s like finding a famous actress hot. It’s not that deep.”
As the son of a famous actress Adrien did not feel that reassured, and he now he just had to hope Nino hadn't chosen that example deliberately. That was not something he needed to know about any of his classmates, and it was actually kind of offensive to compare being a fan of her with being a fan of Mayura.
“I still don’t get it.” Adrien moaned at lunchtime. He’d thought lessons would have put the idea out of his head but he just kept remembering it. “What do people even see in her?”
Alya grimaced, “Based on the comments I get on the Ladyblogger a weirdly high amount of men seem to think they can,” She made air quotes “turn her back to the light side.”
“How do you know they’re men?” He asked.
“Trust me. They’re definitely men.” She said sounding tired.
“So people think she’s redeemable?” He said eager to exploit any possible avenue to defeating the villains. He’d never seen any sign that Mayura had any qualms about what she was doing himself. She seemed devoted to Hawkmoth and their cause. Though he guessed maybe the men on the internet did have a point. If she wasn’t devoted to Hawkmoth then maybe she wouldn’t involve herself in their fights.
It seems pretty unlikely to work as a strategy though. They had no idea who Mayura was, so it’s not like they could try to set her civilian identity up with someone, and even if they could find someone to volunteer to do it, he doubted they’d succeed, given she’d have no reason to waver from Hawkmoth. Besides they didn’t even know what sort of guy she’d like apart from apparently tall and evil.
Alya had a hundred yard stare on her face. “Some of them, others, well let’s just say I block a lot of comments on there. I know she’s evil but I don’t feel comfortable having that sort of thing up there.”
Adrien wasn’t really sure exactly what she was implying but he could tell it was bad from her tone, and his friend’s reactions.
Marinette frowned, “No I agree with you, that’s not right.”
Nino slung an arm around his girlfriend hugging her, “Is it getting that bad again?”
She sighed, “I have seen so much I never wanted to see.”
Marinette bit her lip in concern, “Um, people don’t say that sort of thing about Ladybug do they?”
Adrien hadn’t even considered that and he struggled to stop the sheer fury he felt from showing on his face. Apparently all that having to repress his emotions at home did count for something. He still wanted to go to the house of every single person who had ever dared to write something like that about Ladybug and cataclysm their computer.
Alya groaned, “I have a policy against any sort of sexual comments about Ladybug and Chat Noir, they’re not adults.”
He hadn’t ever thought about the fact his own alter-ego might get that treatment too, but he cared much less about that than he did about it happening to Ladybug. He did wonder if maybe he should be less flirty in public with her though. He didn’t want to put ideas in people’s heads.
Nathalie looked up when he popped his head in the Atelier door. “Did you need something Adrien?”
“The printer isn’t working, can I use your one?”
“Sure.”
As he walked past her computer to retrieve his homework he noticed the news website up on half of her screen, with a huge photo of Mayura and Hawkmoth emblazoned over the top, and the conversation in class earlier came back to him in all its horror.
There was a more pressing issue though. “There’s not an akuma attack is there?”
“What?” Nathalie looked between him and her screen only then seeming to realise what she was looking at. “No. Sorry I was just looking at this write up of their attacks to see if we should be overhauling the house’s security.”
“Right.” With the worry about missing an akuma attack gone his brain was now fully able to return to its awkward screaming.
Apparently this was fairly obvious.
“Is something wrong?” Nathalie asked.
“Sorry, just a weird conversation in class today.”
For some reason this caused his father to look up from his screen, “You wouldn’t have to deal with that if you went back to home-schooling.”
Adrien forced himself not to roll his eyes. The last thing he needed was a lecture about developing bad habits. “Going to school is worth the cost of having to deal with weird conversations about Mayura being hot.”
Nathalie choked on her coffee, and then started on a coughing fit so extreme Adrien was concerned she was going to run out of oxygen.
“Do you need a thump?” He offered weakly, unsure what to do. He’d offer her a tissue but she’d already taken one from the box on her desk.
She shook her head as much as she was able between coughs.
His father who had ran over once it was clear she wasn’t going to just stop looked equally as lost as Adrien for what to do, but he had started gently rubbing her back.
Finally Nathalie eased up and took a sip of water from the glass on her desk.
“Are you ok?”
“Fine. Coffee went down the wrong way.” She wheezed out.
Adrien was about to make his apologies and leave, not least because of how his father was glaring at him, as if he’d made Nathalie choke deliberately, when she managed to get out “You don’t do you?”
“What?” He said, lost for a moment before he grasped her meaning, “Oh, think Mayura’s hot? No way. I like Ladybug like a normal teenager.”
“Oh good. That’s good.” She said, though her voice still sounded strained from her coughing fit.
“Yes, Ladybug is much more age appropriate.” His father added though it sounded like he was forcing the words out through gritted teeth.
It made Adrien wonder, even though maybe it was just as simple as his father not liking the danger Adrien would be in if he dated Ladybug, “Wait, do you like Mayura?”
“That’s ridiculous.” He snapped, but blush staining across his cheekbones told a different story.
Nathalie’s face had gone carefully blank and he realised that this must be an awkward conversation for her to be stuck in the middle of. The last time he’d tried to bring up the idea of liking someone to dig around into what was happening between her and his father she’d said it wasn’t an appropriate topic for her to discuss with him.
Sometimes he still wondered about the two of them despite both their denials. Nathalie’s concern over his father certainly seemed more than just what she was paid to do sometimes, and if she did have feelings for him then hearing that he liked Mayura was probably the last thing she’d want out of her day.
He tried to downplay the issue, “Just saying, I don’t get it, she’s evil, and she’s pretty vicious, so I don’t get why anyone other than Hawkmoth would like her but apparently you’re in lots of company if you do.”
He was still thrown by everything Alya had said and he vaguely wondered if he should ask Nathalie if she knew any comment-moderation software he could recommend to her but he could tell this wasn’t the right time.
“I don’t know why you’re so shocked Adrien, Mayura’s an attractive women, and she has style, which is more than can said for the heroes, and you can’t say she’s not impressive. It’s not surprising she has admirers.”
How people kept missing the point that Mayura was evil he did not know. She should not have admirers, and how his father could watch one of their fights with her and have his takeaway be that she had style he could not, ok actually that did sound like something his father would do. Being more interested in someone’s outfit than in the person underneath wouldn’t be a new thing for him.
Stupidly though Adrien still pushed the issue, even though he knew he probably didn’t want to hear the answer. “But you’re not one of them?”
His father’s frown deepened. “I don’t know where you’ve got this recurrent idea that I’m planning to replace your mother, but you can forget it.”
Adrien wasn’t sure that was the denial his father thought it was. What he’d actually asked was just if he thought she was attractive, which his father hadn’t actually answered. Instead he’d brought up the idea of being in a relationship with her of his own accord which was frankly disturbing.
Instead of pointing this out he just shrugged and said, “Good. We don’t need to give Hawkmoth any more reasons to target us.”
Even if the idea of having someone seduce Mayura away from Hawkmoth wasn’t impossible he definitely wasn’t volunteering his father for it. Even if he guessed that he might be Mayura’s type physically given he wasn’t a dissimilar sort of build to Hawkmoth. It wasn’t going to happen though. He refused to consider the idea of having Mayura of all people for a stepmother. He wished he had been right in his suspicions about his father and Nathalie-that would have been a much safer place for his father to start showing interest in women again.
Anyway he was sure it was fine. There was no reason for his father to meet Mayura at all seeing as he barely left the house, and even if he did there was no reason she’d be interested in him. He loved his father but he wasn’t exactly an emotionally available person, so he’d hardly offer something to distract Mayura from Hawkmoth unless she was really into the idea of free clothes or something. Or money he guessed, but he figured that if Mayura was motivated by money she could have used her Miraculous to acquire some quite easily without trying to steal his and Ladybug’s.
Besides when he’d left the Atelier his father still hadn’t taken his hand off Nathalie’s back, so whatever he might claim Adrien wasn’t convinced there was nothing there after all.