“Okay, you’re going to be like Ariel, okay? You have to leap out of the pool in a big splash and I’ll be on the shore looking for the beautiful voice I heard! But remember, you can’t talk.”
“But how am I going to tell the Princess Annie — ?”
“Erica!” Annie corrects. “I’m the Princess Erica, Finnick. It’s like the movie.”
“Oh yeah. Right,” the boy corrects. “But how am I going to tell the Princess Erica I love her?”
“You have to act!” Annie says, shoving her best friend towards the pool. “You can do it.”
Finnick cannonballs into the pool as Annie takes up her position as the beach-combing princess, and the young merman does manage to communicate to his lady love that he wants to walk on land with her by planting a chlorine water kiss on Annie’s cheek.
“How did we come to this idea?” Marinette asked, looking at a wickedly smirking Adrien.
“Because you said so yourself,” Adrien returned, not taking his eyes off the road as he drove. “You could walk into any designer brand store and walk out looking like a fashion disaster.”
“Yes,” Marinette agreed. “Some three weeks ago.”
If she thought about it long enough, she would realize that that meant she’d been dating Adrien for just over two weeks. Which… well, it floored her. She could care less about dating a model, particularly since she knew horror stories about models and dealing with them. But Adrien was so genuinely sweet and humble that she felt like she just scored in the boyfriend department.
And the fact he didn’t look half bad didn’t hurt, either.
“But it’s a really funny idea,” Adrien said, grin splitting his face.
“We could get kicked out,” she said. “I’m kinda on your dad’s hitlist. I know I’m on several other’s since the party, particularly of one Audrey Bourgeois.”
Adrien cringed. “Yeah, that article on you… not your most flattering.”
She snorted a laugh. “She called me an egotistical, arrogant, petty bitch. Nice to know that ends up in the ‘not flattering’ category instead of the ‘articles written to ruin you’ catrgory.”
He was slow to respond, his mouth open as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“I mean,” he said, fingers drumming the steering wheel, “hopefully none of your followers believed it.”
“Maybe a few,” she said. “But I didn’t recognize a hit in my numbers or anything.”
“I think your response to that article was what sealed it in for you,” Adrien said. “You didn’t respond in anger.”
“Oh, trust me, I was plenty angry,” she said. “But you have to learn to let things go.”
Adrien glanced over before reaching a hand over the console to grab hers. “I’m proud of you,” he said, giving it a squeeze.
Marinette had been handling situations like that long before Adrien came into her life again, but still, hearing him say that filled her with a warmth and security that she did the right thing. “Thank you, Adrien.”
And then those warm feelings faded when he parked in front of a Gabriel brand store.
“Your dad is going to kill us.”
“Yeah, but it will be fun while it lasts. Now come on, let’s go.”
…
“You’re sure we can film in here?” Marinette asked.
“Well,” Adrien returned with a grin. “I am the son of the owner. I do have rank here.”
Marinette sighed again while she pulled out her camera. “Your dad is going to kill us.”
Adrien smirked. “My dad will kill me for guest starring in one of your videos. Trust me, I’m in deep trouble no matter how you look at it.”
“Then why am I agreeing to this?”
“Because I’m twenty-four and my father can’t really ground me. So come on, let’s do this.”
This time, Marinette finally raised the camera, ready to start filming. “Hey everyone, Ladybug here. Now, as you can see I’m here with a rather special guest today, M Adrien Agreste!”
He gave a smile and a wave.
“Now, today, we’re gonna do something a little bit different than the usual. Actually, we’re gonna do the direct opposite. Today we are in Gabriel’s, which… Adrien, I’m pretty sure your face is all over the store, modeling half these clothes and looking rather put together doing it.”
“That is kinda the point of modeling,” Adrien said. “To look as nice as possible. But it gets overrated after a while, don’t you think?”
Ladybug giggled. “Well, just what do you propose we do about that?”
“Well,” he said, a wicked smirk growing across his face. “I’m thinking it would be fun to see just how big of a fashion disaster one can become in such a high-fashion store.”
Ladybug turned a wild grin on him, and he had to fight to keep standing. “I think that’s a fantastic idea.” She turned back to the camera. “So Ladybug-gers, stick around as we try to make the worst fashion style we can with clothes right here from Gabriel’s, and at the end, vote in the comments about who you think wore it worse.”
She then turned back to Adrien. “You ready to go?”
He grinned. “My lady, I was born ready.”
She giggled. “May the best style win.”
…
Marinette was going to be forever banned from stepping foot into another high-end fashion store. But even though the whole day was ridiculous, as well as nerve-wracking because the manager nearly kicked the two of them out before Adrien stepped in and said that they had a right to be there, she had a blast.
Now, she was sitting in her office with Adrien at her side while she finished the last bit of pre-posting work. “Are you ready for this?” she asked. “Because once this goes up, it’s never coming down.”
He grinned. “I’m ready for any consequences I face. It will all have been worth it for the opportunity to work together with you.”
She blushed bright red before turning back to her computer and hitting the “upload” button. Hopefully, this video wouldn’t get him in trouble because she really hoped she’d get to work with him again.
