y'all I know it's been WEEKS since Shanghai but I'm so hung up over the found family headcanons of Fei and Adrien. I cannot stoppp. Like, just. IMAGINE. Both of them bonding over the fact they're adopted Chengs.
Imagine Adrien post-Hawkmoth eventually tying the strings and realizing his father was the reason why Fei lost everything so now that he owns all his family's wealth he just. he aggressively throws money at the martial arts school that Fei's adoptive dad had so that she can rebuild it.
Then Fei gets annoyed that she CANNOT have a single facetime call with Marinette where she just like, casually mentions any malfunction in the school because Adrien 'Doesn't Know What Things Cost' Dupain-Cheng venmos her like, 2000 eur to buy a new doorknob and labels it 'reparations' with a friggin emoji cat next to it.
Based on this thread and the ideas of @bookdragonlibrary
Family
There was no reason to be nervous, Adrien told himself. It’s not like he didn’t know the Chengs and not like it was the first time he’d spend time with Marinette’s parents, either. But things were different now.
As of a couple days ago, Adrien was, officially, Marinette’s boyfriend.
The thought still made him blush, still made him stutter. He was still assimilating the surprise, the revelations that had ultimately led to Mari and him come together.
He knew Fei and Uncle Wang would be in the city, Marinette had invited him to say hi to them before it all happened. They were going to cook food together, play some games, and catch up with Marinette’s relatives. He knew them, there was no reason to be scared. Uncle Wang was one of the sweetest men he had ever met, and he always enjoyed spending time with Marinette’s parents. Mrs. Sabine liked playing video games with him and Mr. Tom always taught him new puns to add to his arsenal. Fei was also fun to spend time with, even if her favorite pastime was to try to fluster him in Mandarin, in front of Marinette.
It was going to be okay, there was nothing to be scared of. Except now he wasn’t just Marinette’s friend. He was more than that, and to the extent of his knowledge and resolution, he’d continue to be more than just her boyfriend in the future.
The thought made his stomach churn, realizing this was the root of his anxiety.
He was going to be part of this family, sooner or later. Or at least, he hoped to. He didn’t dare say that to Marinette though, not after exactly three days of dating. He was worried he might come off as too eager even if deep down, he knew Marinette would never judge him for wishing something like that. Then, there was the fact that his family had never been big. He did have his aunt and cousin in London, and to the extent of his knowledge, some relatives he had never known lived somewhere in Belgium. But the Agrestes had never been family gathering enthusiasts. Not to mention, holidays of any kind went by uncelebrated at his house. He didn’t know how to act in front of a family, especially not one where each individual member had more or less adopted him in their own way over the years and he had confectioned a particular brand of his personality for each of them. It made him infinitely anxious.
He sighed, gathering his courage one last time before heading to the backdoor of the bakery, following Marinette’s instructions to just go in because everyone would be there--again, wrecking his nerves because that’s not at all the way he was taught to enter a room. At his house, you always had to let the person know you were headed to where they were, and even then, you had to knock and wait.
He ended up knocking at the door, unable to bring himself to just pop in.
“Hello, Mari’s boyfriend that wasn’t her boyfriend but now is for real her boyfriend!” Fei said in energetic Mandarin as she opened the door.
He blushed and grinned, replying in Mandarin as well, “Hi Fei. It’s good to see you!”
She signaled him to come in and announced, without switching languages, “Marinette’s boyfriend is here!”
Adrien didn’t need to see his face to know just exactly how red it was. Mortified, he stepped into the bakery kitchen, immediately assaulted by the rich, homely aromas of the food that was being prepared. Everyone was doing something: Tom and Sabine were tending to the preparation of steamed buns while Uncle Wang was teaching Marinette how to prepare dumpling filling from scratch, while simultaneously monitoring the broth he was cooking. The room bubbled with conversation, laughter, and music playing in the background. Everyone stopped momentarily to acknowledge him.
“Hi, Adrien!”
Adrien had never known a combination of anxiety and being comforted by the sense of being home could ever coexist in a moment.
Marinette wiped her hands on her apron and hurried to greet Adrien with a big hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. Adrien’s first instinct was to tense up.
“It’s okay,” Marinette said in his ear, “My parents really don’t mind.”
Hearing this, he let go of a sigh and relaxed, hugging her as well.
“Come, I got you something,” Marinette said, with a devious smile as she pulled him to the large kitchen island at the center of the room, where Fei and she had previously been mincing ingredients. She opened a drawer and produced a black apron that had a print of a little cartoon cat wrapped in a tortilla, with the words ‘I’m a purrito’.
Uncontrolled laughter escaped Adrien, immediately diluting the quiet, polite front he was trying to summon.
“I knew you’d appreciate the lame pun,” Marinette said, sliding the loop of the apron over Adrien’s head.
“Cat puns are a superior form of art, excuse you,” Adrien said, chuckling.
“I agree!” Tom said from his corner in the kitchen.
“Don’t encourage him, dad,” Marinette said while Adrien smiled, anxiety slowly leaving him as he became acclimated to the mood.
“Hello Mr. Cheng!” said Adrien in Mandarin. “I’m happy to see you again, I hope your flight was alright.” He was self-aware of the fact he had unintentionally slipped into the rehearsed politeness he usually addressed adults with.
“It’s good to see you, too, Adrien!” said Wang. “And no need to be so formal! You can just call me Uncle Wang. You want to help me with the broth or you’re helping the girls?”
“I, uh... would you like me to help you?”
“If you want,” Wang said kindly. “Or you can help Sabine and Tom with the steamed buns, whatever you feel like doing.”
Adrien smiled sheepishly at Wang and looked around himself a little bit. “Um... I think I could help the girls if that’s okay.”
“Of course!”
Adrien walked over to the part of the isle where Fei was teaching Marinette the tone difference between yī qǐ, yì qi, and yí qì as they carefully confectioned dumplings.
“No, listen, yì qi. You’re saying yí qì,” Fei said.
“Yì qi, yí qì,” Adrien said, carefully intoning so that she would hear the difference. “Loyalty to your friends is one tone away from ‘abandoned’.”
“Is that what I’m saying?” Marinette said, surprised.
“Yì qi means personal loyalty,” said Adrien. “Yí qì is literally, ‘abandoned.’”
Marinette sighed. “I’ll never get the hang of it.”
“You can always practice with me,” Adrien offered, beaming at her.
“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” Sabine intervened. “See, I told you Adrien would be willing to help you.”
Marinette blushed as she sneaked a glance at Adrien.
“Besides,” Fei said. “It’ll come in useful if someone pickpockets you in Shanghai.”
Marinette and Fei smiled at each other, complicitly.
Fei and Adrien continued quizzing Marinette on her pronunciation as they slowly, but surely went through several batches of dumplings. Once the food had been prepared, they took everything upstairs to the apartment, cleaned up, and hung the aprons.
“Yours goes here, Adrien,” said Sabine, showing him the four hangers next to the door. It was apparent that the fourth one had been recently installed. Adrien found himself questioning why he felt so emotional about a wall hanger.
“Thank you...” he said, sounding more touched than he meant. Sabine simply smiled at him, seemingly unaware of his reaction.
One of the things Adrien loved about having dinner at Marinette’s was that they always put the different dishes at the center of the table. Adrien knew this was normal, of course, but he had grown up eating by himself and just one serving of one dish per meal. The idea of having several different plates you could choose from and the fact you had to share them with others gave him a bizarre satisfaction, a sense of belonging that he was sure was misplaced.
Then there was the fact that the room was never quiet. It was a stark contrast of what he had always known: Wang and Sabine were telling stories to Marinette about growing up in a village near Shanghai, what it was like when they moved. Tom told jokes to Fei, explaining to her the puns when she didn’t get them because of the language barrier. Adrien listened and watched both in wonder and with a certain melancholy, finally knowing the kind of warmth he had been missing all these years.
Noticing how he had grown quiet, Marinette reached for his hand under the table and squeezed it, then with her thumb gently caressed his ringed finger. She smiled at him, and he inevitably reciprocated, filled with overwhelming joy as he remembered they were now finally and officially, together.
After dinner, everyone gathered in the living room and played a few rounds of charades and Pictionary. Eventually, everyone voted to have Adrien and Marinette and Tom and Sabine in different teams because every time they were in the same one, there was no way for the opponents to win. They seemed to always know what the other was saying. In Marinette and Adrien’s case, her family attributed it to their talents at acting and drawing, but they knew it was because that level of synchronicity came with experience, with the bond they had inadvertently cultivated with their masks.
Eventually, the time for Adrien to go back to his house came, much to his disappointment. He was not even gone and he already missed the warmth of being around Marinette’s family. Before leaving Wang reminded him he was always welcome to visit him again at the restaurant whenever he was in Shanghai again, an invitation that had Adrien thankfully bowing to and accepting in a sudden bout of awkward Mandarin.
“I hope we get to see each other again before you leave,” said Adrien before Marinette walked him downstairs.
“We are,” said Fei. “Aren’t you coming tomorrow? Marinette said I’m meeting Alya and Nino. We’re going to do the touristy Paris things.”
“No, I have to work tomorrow,” Adrien admitted, evidently disappointed. He had lived in Paris all his life and he’d never done a walking tour or one of those hop-on-hop-off buses. It was really a shame.
“Ah, that’s too bad. But hey, Paris has a lot to see. I’m pretty sure we’ll be out for most of the day, right Mari?”
“Right,” she said, smiling at him. “You can join us when you’re done, Min-- Adrien.”
Adrien gave her a look, recognizing the slip of the tongue she evaded. Luckily, if Fei noticed, she didn’t mention it.
After saying his thanks and goodbyes, Marinette walked Adrien down and waited with him while his driver arrived.
“And?” Marinette asked. “What did you think?”
“I had a lot of fun, thanks for inviting me, Mari.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Marinette said. “I already told you, Chaton. You can come here whenever you want. Plus it was a family gathering, everyone hoped you’d be here.”
“Really?” he said.
“Of course! But you did enjoy yourself, right? You don’t have to come next time if you don’t want to. You seemed a little tense at the beginning.”
“I was a little nervous,” he confessed. “I had never been at a family gathering before.”
Marinette’s heart twisted painfully with Adrien’s confession. “Oh, Adrien,” she said, pulling him into a hug.
“To tell you the truth, I almost cried like, three times or something,” he said chuckling if only to hide how moved he actually was. “Your parents installed a hanger for my apron,” he said, burying his face on her shoulder. “Apart from all you’ve done, that’s literally the nicest thing anyone has done for me.”
“Well, now you’re going to make me cry.”
Adrien laughed, kissed her cheek, and pulled away from the hug. “No, Princess. Don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m really happy. I can’t wait for the next time we do this.”
“We do it every weekend,” Marinette said. “I mean, it’s only the three of us, but if you want you can--”
“I can come every weekend?” Adrien said, excited.
“Of course,” Marinette said. “I keep telling you, Adrien. You really can come here anytime you want. Even when I’m not here. Sometimes I find Alya literally just chilling with my mom or my dad, waiting for me to get here. I mean, you’ve met my parents and Uncle Wang, they know what it’s like... What it’s like to uh, you know...”
“You can say it, live with a horrible father.”
Marinette looked down as she chuckled. “Something like that. My dad has a complicated relationship with his own dad, too, you know? They had been fighting at least for the last twenty or so years, he had shut dad out until I intervened. And my mom, well you heard the story, she moved here young and had no one. They know what it’s like to miss your family, and they’re always happy to include others who are or were in similar situations. Especially if that person is my boyfriend.”
Adrien had to pull her into a hug again because this time she really had made him tear up and she didn’t want her to see it. “Are you doing this on purpose or what?” he said, sniffing. “You want to make me sob, milady?”
Marinette laughed, rubbing his back in circles. “No, Minou. I’m just trying to reassure you, I mean it. This is your family, too, Adrien... If--if you want it, I mean I don’t want to sound---oh wow that sounded so weird didn’t it? I--”
Adrien interrupted her by pulling her into a kiss. One that still carried the tints of surprise, realization, and excitement of the discovery of their identities, but that was also steadier, calmer, more conscious than the first few they had shared.
Adrien’s bodyguard pulled up in front of them shortly after they had broken apart. “I love you, Mari,” said Adrien, not knowing how else to convey all that he was feeling and leaning into one last, short kiss before boarding the car.
He sighed as the car drove away, head in the clouds and heart fuller and warmer than it had ever been as he thought about the Dupain-Chengs, but above else Marinette, his family.
