Work Text:
you know, nowhere in this comic does it say either of them already knew the other’s identity. new identity reveal premise they have a shared breakdown in the kids toys aisle
alya and nino being completely nonplussed and trying to get them to calm down and it takes forever but finally they’re like “okay so now please explain what on earth that was about” and adrien and marinette share a panicked look because oh no what do we do and right as marinette is realizing “wait alya knows who i am though, i can just tell her, it’s fine,” adrien just. freezes
after a second marinette also freezes and they both just stare at each other with eyes the size of dinner plates for a minute and then with no warning they both apparently shake themselves out of whatever that was and turn to alya/nino and smile as cheerfully/look as carefree as they can manage and attempt to play it off like nothing happened
it’s so jarring and completely inexplicable alya and nino are both briefly concerned they just got hit by an akuma but nothing happens to them and no akuma actually shows up so ?
so it takes a couple minutes for marinette to get a chance to try to convey “ladybug thing, please stop asking questions i can’t answer in public” via eye contact alone which works for all of five seconds before alya draws the obvious and correct conclusion about adrien and reacts exactly the same way, leaving poor nino the only one out of the loop and very aware of it for however long it takes for them to all find a private spot where they can bring nino up to speed because at that point it’s just not fair not to
mostly i just really love the idea of adrien & marinette instantly falling into sync/being all but able to read each other’s mind even though both of them are like 90% focused on keeping it together and not completely losing their shit, and also marinette trying to get alya to stop asking questions and accidentally shoving her right into the realization she was trying to avoid
just imagining them staring at each other silently communicating and then trying to act like lol no big deal it’s all good when both of them were losing it in front of baby dolls
“haha yeah there was a thing, it’s a long story, not worth explaining, no big deal, basically just a joke” “you are literally crying again right now”
in my head she didn’t actually start crying again after The Realization but i thought of that exchange and it’s so much funnier