Class went by fairly quickly to say the least.

It was mostly just revision and passing notes between Lucas.

Hey when you have an old childhood friend, you'd want to catch up with them right?

Downside, more than a few times Marinette had to stifle her giggles from the ridiculous things Lucas wrote to her ranging from hypothetical scenarios to just plain-bad jokes. What an absolute dork

Marinette also caught Adrien staring at her out of the corner of his eyes with an unreadable expression but quickly looked away once he saw her looking at him questioningly, leaving Marinette to wonder what that was all about.

I wonder if Adrien's feeling okay. Maybe I'll offer him some cookies at lunch.

As the lunch bell rang, Marinette absently started gathering her stuff and putting it in her bag, unaware of Chloe trying to get Lucas's attention while he just brushed her off and stood at the side of Marinette's desk, waiting patiently just like a gentleman. Chloe huffed indignantly and snapped for Sabrina to follow her as she always does, leaving the gang and the new student alone in the class.

Awkward silence was building up.

Of course Alya cracked first.

"So Lucas-" she started with a hidden emotion that may or may not have been mischief, leaving Marinette to subconsciously groan at her friend.

"-how exactly do you and dear Mari know each other?" Alya drawled. Nino looked as curious as Alya did while Adrien stayed abnormally silent but still attentive.

Marinette just sighed and nudged Lucas's shoulder, opting for him to explain the details. Lucas grinned widely and cleared his throat.

"Well Bon-Bon and I are childhood friends-" Alya shot Marinette a teasing smirk at the use of Lucas's nickname for Marinette, earning a sharp pinch on the shoulder.

"-we used to live next to each other so we got to see each all the time-"

Adrien gave an almost inaudible annoyed grunt but thankfully no one took notice.

"-but then my parents moved and we got separated when we were 7 and now here we are!" Lucas finished with a proud smirk. Marinette rolled her eyes at Lucas's goofiness and suggested to everyone that they go to the bakery for lunch. Once everyone agreed and packed up their stuff, they left the classroom.

Setting foot into the courtyard seemed to be the signal for guys to float over to her.

"Hey Marinette you look really pretty today." A pair of guys passed the group, both with dopey grins on their faces with their attention on Marinette. She gave them both a polite smile and 'thank you' opting for the group to continue walking.

No more than 5 seconds later, a larger group of boys that Marinette seemed more familiar with stopped them to ask Marinette some questions about an art project. With her attention divided, Alya and Nino conversed amongst theirselves, leaving Lucas and Adrien to awkwardly stand next to each other.

Adrien was mostly angsty because of the number of guys flocking towards Marinette because that's his princess goddam-

Stop it Adrien, you love Ladybug. The thing you feel for Marinette will blow over. Adrien scolded himself. He almost didn't notice Lucas offer a friendly wave at Adrien. Reluctantly, Adrien waved back with a weak smile.

A few more seconds passed before Adrien blurted out.

"Was it always like this?" Lucas looked at him confusingly before getting the message, smiling warmly at the direction of Marinette.

That irked Adrien but he chose to ignore that feeling.

"Yeah, Marinette's always been little Miss Popular. Never let that got to her head though but that just made her even more popular." Lucas chuckled at the fond memory and sighed. Adrien gave a non-committal grunt and focused back on Marinette...

Who had a guy right up in her face and was a little too close for comfort.

"-come on, I know that if you got to know me, we would make the perfect couple."

"No thank you. Please don't get in my personal-"

"No way bro, she's too cute for you. She'd be better off with me."

"I highly doubt that-"

"Look who's talking, you're both crazy."

Before anyone knew it, an argument broke out over who would be best fit for Marinette, said person sternly repeating that she wasn't interested in any of them but either they didn't hear her or chose to to ignore her.

Marinette was about this close to snapping a few necks.

Annoyance built up in Adrien's veins and the annoyance was clear in Alya and Nino's expressions as well. Before they could do anything though, Lucas swiftly took Marinette's wrist and dragged her away from the scene, gesturing for the rest to follow him.

Adrien certainly wasn't jealous that he didn't get to save his princ-

Marinette.

Didn't get to save Marinette from those children who couldn't take no for an answer.

Lucas let go of Marinette once they got out of the gates, Marinette glaring distastefully in the direction where indignant shouts could be heard from the courtyard, quickly being reprimanded by a more authorative figure. Serves them right. Marinette thought.

Adrien noticed her slight distress and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Marinette's snapped her head in the direction of Adrien so fast, she would've gotten whiplash.

"U-um, I'm fi-fine Adrien. No need to worry about me!" Marinette exclaimed and smiled nervously.

Adrien always wondered why she acted so skittish around him. She has been getting better but only just.

She certainly didn't have any problems communicating with Lucas.

Adrien decided to let the thought go and focused on Marinette's well being.

After all it's not everyday you get hounded by persistent people.

Actually Adrien would know.

"I'm glad. That was a pretty scary experience huh?"

To his surprise, Marinette huffed out in annoyance and wrinkled her nose cutely.

"Most of the time I'll just get compliments from random acquaintances-"

Wait most of the time? This has happened before?

"-but other times it'll end up just like it did with those guys and they'll try to fight over me.-"

Really? How could Adrien have not notice multiple of guys that he didn't know in competition for Marinette's hand? Lucas said that she was popular even when she was younger but he figured that it was just amongst little kids!

"-I'm used to it now actually."

Adrien frowned at this new information. A princess like Marinette should be able to get multiple of suitors but Marinette deserved guys that were true gentlemen.

Unfortunately Marinette took Adrien's frown as a sign that he thought she was vain to say that she was use to guys coming up to her all the time.

Oh god that last thing she wanted was for Adrien to hate her!

Now she'll never get her planned out future with Adrien of their three children, hamster and dog and that was all Marinette's fault just because she had to point out that she was use to a little attention.

"I-I'm so sorry! I didn't mean for you to think that I was vain or whatever. No-not that I think you're vain. I think you're really nice and-" Marinette bit her tongue to stop talking and looked down at her feet in red hot embarrassment. Coincidently that was also the state of her face.

Surprised at her outburst, her words were processed in his mind, quickly coming to the conclusion that he gave her the wrong impression.

"Oh no! I was just thinking that someone as nice as you shouldn't have to go through something like that!" Adrien quickly reassured. Smooth, Agreste. Real smooth.

Marinette snorted in an unladylike fashion.

"I could say the same for you." Marinette mumbled. Adrien didn't quite know how to respond so he left the conversation at that, falling into comfortable silence.

During their conversation, it seemed like Nino and Alya were trying to extract every little piece of information that they could get from Lucas.

It was amusing actually.

Alya and Nino continued to badger Lucas for details on his relationship with Marinette which led to a very interesting question.

"Dude why do you call Marinette Bon-Bon? Sounds like that nickname had a very sweet origin." That snapped Adrien out of his fuzz, long enough to fist bump Nino while Marinette groaned loudly and Lucas and Alya being indifferent to the use of puns.

"Well she used to make bon bons all the time when I came over and they became a personal favourite of mine. Especially since this little lady made them." Lucas further proved his point by ruffled Marinette's hair through her beanie, causing Nino to snort and snicker.

Adrien subtly glowered at Lucas.

Alya was recording their whole walk to the bakery, something about 'magestic memories that we need to treasure'. Marinette didn't know, she wasn't really paying attention.

And because she wasn't paying attention, she tripped over a crack on the sidewalk, regretting her life choices.

At least until a pair of strong arms wrapped around her torso, leaving Marinette to face Lucas nose-to-nose.

Marinette could already feel her face burning off.

At least Lucas had the decency to blush a little. It was smudged across his cheeks with an adorable pink. Thank god she wasn't the only one feeling embarassed.

"Bon-Bon you okay?"

Marinette blinked warily as she came across another memory.

"Lucky. I called you Lucky." Lucas smiled at her realisation and pulled her up to her feet again, allowing her to dust herself off.

Marinette looked at her other friends to see their reactions.

Of course Alya was still recording. Of course she had a shit-eating grin on her face.

Nino was poking at prodding at Adrien who seemed to revert back to his original mood from this morning which only confused Marinette further.

Nonetheless, the group managed to walk the rest of the way to the bakery without any other accidents.
————————————————
The shop seemed fairly busy since it was lunchtime so Marinette and the gang just excused theirselves into the apartment themselves.

Unfortunately Tom caught sight of Lucas and ruffled his hair as they walked pass resulting in white streaks in his hair from the leftover flour from Tom's hand.

Oddly, the white streaks somehow made him look cooler.

Once they settled themselves in the apartment, Marinette laughed a little at the state of Lucas, causing him to pout playfully.

Alya ruffled his hair as she laughed as well (she'll say that she did it to get the flour out of Lucas's hair but Marinette knew better. His hair looked really soft).

Nino plugged in his phone in a near speaker and chose one of his personal favourite playlist to play.

Adrien settled on the couch, lounging like a house cat.

Marinette looked around to everyone and asked.

"So what do you guys want?"

Everyone thought for a moment, their expressions scrutinised in concentrations before Nino gave a suggestion.

"How about everyone's favourite?"

Alya scoffed at Nino's ambiguity while Adrien rolled his eyes and replied.

"And what would that be Nino?" Adrien said deadpan.

Nino looked at Marinette triumphantly like he just discovered the secret of life.

"PANCAKES!"

Everyone groaned.

"Nino, pancakes are for breakfast." Marinette started. Nino shook his head stubbornly and persisted his suggestion.

"No you're so wrong! Pancakes are a magical food that needs to be worshipped at every hours of the day."

"No."

"Come on! Back me up guys!"

Alya and Adrien put their hands up like leave me out of this. Nino looked at both of them with incredulity, false betrayal etched on his face.

"Um guys-"

Lucas started, his hand adorable raising up. Everyone's attention was on him, wanting to know if his suggestions were better than Nino's

"-we could always compromise and make crepes."

Alya and Nino gave an ayyyyyy while Adrien's face melted into one of childlike wonder.

Marinette patted Lucas on the head for a job well done and started preparing the ingredients for the crepes before Lucas cut in again.

"Bon-Bon you need any help?"

Marinette smiled at Lucas and shook her head, causing more than a few strands of hair to go astray. Lucas absently moved the strands back into place but Marinette paid no mind to it.

A certain blonde caught it though.

"Bro you okay?" Nino asked once a small growl cut through the air. Everyone looked at Adrien while he became flustered and desperate for an excuse.

"I'm ju-just real-really hungry that's all! Heh heh..." Everyone shrugged and Adrien gave mental relieved sigh, relaxing further into the couch.

Marinette can be with anyone. She is single and pretty with a wonderful personality and she can do whatever she wants. Adrien thought to himself. However another part of his brain said otherwise.

But because Marinette so pretty and cute and adorably flushes whenever she's around me. Her personality is of a princess for goodness sake!

Shut up and say this with me; LAY-DEE-BUG

Say THIS with me; MAR-I-NETTE

A delightful giggle snapped Adrien's out of his thoughts to see Marinette with a smudge of batter on her nose and Lucas grinning down at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

To anyone, they would've thought that Lucas and Marinette had a relationship like a brother and sister.

But unfortunately, Adrien was not anyone so of course he jumped to conclusion and immediately thought something was going on.

He turned to Alya and Nino to try to back up his theory but those two were immersed in their conversation but occasionally did include Adrien in their conversation so he let his theory go for now and conversed friendly banter between Alya and Nino.

No more than a few minutes later, Marinette called out.

"Done! Come get them you pigs."

Everyone scrambled to get a chair, the legs of the chairs scraping on the floor while Marinette handed out plates. Adrien decided that he should help a little too (he totally didn't do it to compete with Lucas. Nope.)

Marinette uttered a shy thanks and placed a stack of crepes in the middle of the table with a variety of toppings and sauces so they could choose whether they wanted a savoury crepe or a sweet crepe.

As everyone started to select what they wanted, Alya suggested that they play '20 Questions' with Lucas to get to know him better.

Everyone agreed and Alya made a doing of victory, stuffing her face with a bite of her savoury crepe.

"Okay so first of all, do you have a girlfriend?"

[A.N: I kinda have this one idea where Mari and Lucas fake date to get other guys off her backs but I don't know. Could cause more Akumas though.]