#flirting au

[auideas]

"Yeah, I guess you could say I'm fun-sized," they glared upward. "Depends on how much fun you wanna have."

The Never Book

[agrestenoir]

where adrien flirts

so adrien has a little problem: he likes marinette. like he really, honest-to-god likes her, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. his track record with girls isn’t so stellar. after he confessed his feelings to ladybug as chat noir, she calmly turned him down and admitted she liked someone else. so as nino would say, without a lady to tie him down, adrien agreste is single and ready to mingle. 

but he’s always been single?? and what does mingle even mean?? like, nino, what the hell, dude?? help a man out. 

so nino sits him down and explains how to get his crush. with his previous crush, nino tells him, adrien obviously didn’t do it right, and that’s why she turned him down (nino doesn’t know it was ladybug, and he just likes to think adrien was crushing on a supermodel who was totally out of even his league). 

nino: “you gotta flirt, man. the ladies love a dude who’s chill and cool and confident. you gotta rock it and own it. you got this.” adrien: “but how? every time I go to her, she looks at me, and I can’t... make my words work.” nino: “....you two are perfect for each other.” adrien: “what?” nino: “what?”

nino gives him an article with a few tips for flirting. this shouldn’t be too bad, and hey, it worked on alya, nino swears by it. so with 10 Flirting Techniques That Are Garunteed to Work on Women on his mind, adrien is determined to woo the ladies.

1. set the stage with the “soft stare”: so all he had to do was stare at marinette as deeply as possible whenever they had a conversation while maintaining a calm and relaxed expression. marinette likes to stutter and stammer her ways through her words, and he couldn’t blame her, because he lost control when he tried to talk to her as well, and usually her antics made him smile and laugh. but according to the tips, he wasn’t allowed to.

it’s all good for a week or so, until nino pulls him aside and asks why he looks like he’s plotting how to murder marinette in her sleep like some type of serial killer every time he talks to her. 

he stops talking to her after that. alya tracks him down a few days later and whacks him upside the head for making her best friend cry by ignoring her. adrien goes back to talking to marinette as normally as possible after that because it’s better to talk to her as friends than invoke his “killer smile” while trying to flirt.

2. be vague and leave her wanting more: adrien has this in the bag. he knows how to skirt around a topic, but that’s just because he has to make sure he kept his secret identity as a superhero of Paris a... secret. being vague is one of his best talents, it also helps with those stupid paparazzi who always follow him. the article offers some suggests: tell her you know a secret about her, tell her there’s something interesting about her and you can’t put your finger on it, tell her that’s she exactly your type but don’t tell her what you type actually is, etc. he spends most of the night plotting his exact words, and the next day, when he sees marinette, it just comes spilling out...

adrien: “i know your secret, marinette.” marinette: “...what?” well shit, adrien thought, the article didn’t tell him what happened after this. adrien: “...i know it. your secret... i knew there was something about you that i couldn’t put my finger on.” marinette: “...wait, so you know? ohmygodthiscan’tbehappening,ohmygod, how did you figure it out???”

adrien wasn’t sure what to do after this point, so like the article said, he leaves her wanting more and nopes the fuck outta there, cha-cha sliding out of the classroom and bolting down the hallway before she could catch him.

3. the sensual look: once a girl is comfortable around you, give her a mischievous look that makes her think. the article (and nino) never really explain what the girl will think about, but adrien totally supports girl empowerment and helping those smart cookies get the best grades and brilliance recognition they deserve. if a mischievous smile is all it takes, then he’s more than happy to help.

he flashes her a quirky smirk in Madame Bustier’s lecture, marinette notices and freezes up. he thinks he did it wrong when nino just leans closer and says, “you broke marinette.”

adrien apologizes after class and swears he’ll never break her again. marinette just mumbles, “you can break me anytime.”

adrien thinks it’s counterproductive. 

4. the surprise wink: whenever you pass her, just wink after you lock eyes, nino says, she won’t expect it and it’ll surprise her but give her the clear and distinct message that you are flirting with her. adrien wants marinette to know he likes her and wants to flirt with he rand wants to date her and just be with her, so he winks every time he gets. 

they see each other in class? wink he catches her eyes while they study for physics? wink they talk about madame bustier’s homework? wink she asks him for his opinion on her designs? wink 

at first, she giggles. after two weeks, she presents him with a bottle of over-the-counter artificial tears for his “eye twitch.” he stops winking after that and doesn’t talk to nino for the rest of the day.

5. the playful bump: playful actions, like bumping, will definitely make a girl smile. 

adrien: “but nino, i could hurt her.” nino: “no, my dude, she knows you’re teasing.” adrien: “i don’t care if she knows. what if i knock her over?” nino: “no, you don’t do it hard, you just--” adrien: “what if she falls over and breaks her nose? i don’t wanna break her nose, nino. she has a cute nose.” nino: “adrien, you’re not gonna break her--” adrien: “niNO”

6. the understatement: understate the compliments you give her, okay, okay, adrien can do this. it’s simple.

adrien: "marinette, your eyes are blue... like avatar's skin. just blue.. all over.. it's great. not the brightest blue, but not the darkest. just blue. you have blue eyes, marinette." marinette: *is speechless* nino: "...you nailed that, adrien." adrien: "oh thanks, nino."

7. the double negative, “i don’t think you’re not beautiful”:  adrien: “but i do think she’s beautiful.” nino: “i know, you’re telling her that.” adrien: “but you just said i don’t think she’s beautiful?” nino: “no, no, you said you don’t think she’s not beautiful, so ergo you think she is beautiful.” adrien: “...grammar hurts my head, nino.” nino: “i know, my dude, i understand.”

8. the sensual tease, tease her for liking you: okay, but adrien doesn’t know if marinette likes him like that? nino swears she does, and alya says so too, but it still makes him feel bad for teasing her. so he doesn’t tease her and just keeps doing stuff like he normally does, like walking her home from school and helping her study physics and giving her advice for her designs and keeping a stash of food for her on the mornings she runs late and he knows she didn’t have breakfast yet.

nino rolls his eyes, but adrien doesn’t care. his momma didn’t raise no hooligan. no, if he was going to flirt with marinette, at least he can be a gentleman about it.

9. the moniker: giving her a cute nickname will let her know how special she is. adrien spends a week thinking about it, and nino gives him a few suggestions, but he doesn’t listen. if he’s giving marinette a nickname, it has to be something he does because it’ll let her know she’s special to him.

a few days later, he slips up and calls her “princess” because she’s pretty, sweet, smart, likes pink, and is a natural born leader just like a royal. marinette freezes when he calls her that, but she smiles and laughs eventually. she seems to like it, and he keeps doing it. it’s fitting, he supposes, for someone like her. marinette, his princess.

does that mean he gets to be her knight?

nino calls him a nerd.

10. tell her how you feel: it’s the last step, and adrien agonizes over it for days. it can’t really be as simple as nino makes it out to be, but then again, his best friend has been dating a pretty sweet gal for months, so it obviously worked for him. adrien broods over it for a while, and alya warns him not to ignore marinette for days again, and he swears he isn’t. he’s just trying to find his courage. why oh why is it so much easier to face an akuma with certain death hanging over his head than tell a girl how he really feels?

marinette decides to take matters into her own hands, which he isn’t really surprised by because she usually is a head-strong, independent female. what he is surprised by is when ladybug swings into his bedroom window and transforms into marinette right before his very eyes.

marinette: “why are you ignoring me? did i do something wrong?” adrien: *adrien.exe has stopped working* marinette: “...adrien?” adrien: “...you’re... ladybug?!” marinette: “yeah, i know. you know. we’ve been over this--” adrien: “nononoNO, we most certainly haven’t.” marinette: *marinette.exe has stopped working* adrien: “...marinette?” marinette: “I... but you said you knew my secret.” adrien: “I WAS BEING VAGUE.” marinette: “WHY?!” adrien: “IVE BEEN FLIRTING WITH YOU.” marinette: “...you have?” adrien: “well, i was trying--”

plagg: *pops out of adrien’s pocket* “oh, are we trading secrets?” tikki: *pops out of marinette’s bag* “I think so?” plagg: *holds out paw to marinette* “fine. im plagg, i turn him into chat noir. nice to finally meet you. i’m glad you guys are finally telling each other, it’s been so tiring listening to him mooning over you. do you have any cheese?” marinette: “...you’re chat noir?” adrien: *dies*

so marinette and adrien are dating now, so in a way he thinks his plan worked? that doesn’t stop marinette from asking him how he thought he’d been flirting, so he tells her nino’s tips. she laughs for a week straight. that’s the last time he ever listens to nino.

an adrien version of this post. some people asked for an adrien version, it’s not directly a sequel, but still another au. just two nerds trying to flirt and failing spectacularly. 

[storiessomeoneshouldwrite]

Prompt 159

Person A tells Person B they don’t know how to flirt and asks B to teach them. Cute flirting ensues until B is a blushing mess.

[auideas]

Tutoring Services AU

It’s finals season and Character A is panicking because they’re not going to pass their class if they don’t make an A on the final exam. Character B is one of the smartest kids in the class, so Character A tries to buy their tutoring help with hot coffee and a little bit of flirting. 

[auideas]

Regular Customer AU

Every time Character A goes to the coffee shop near their house, they have the same drink and pastry order. By this point, the barista, Character B, knows Character A’s order by heart and they don’t need to order. 

One day, after Character A has sat down and Character B has brought over their coffee and pastry, Character A notices that there’s a phone number written on their napkin, along with a winky face. 

[auideas]

Sweet as Honey AU

Character A has recently started going to the farmer’s market more often, and they notice Character B, a beekeeper that’s selling their fresh honey. Character A starts up a casual conversation, and each week when they come back, Character B lets Character A take home samples of their honey. 

[auideas]

Palm Reading AU

Magical school AU where Character A is a divination student that has been crushing on Character B, an herbology student, but Character A hasn’t been sure of how to make a move on Character B. One day, Character A offers to read Character B’s palms, just to have the excuse to get close to them. 

[agrestenoir]

where marinette flirts

so alya told her to start flirting with adrien if she liked him so much, and the magazines give her step-by-step guides with 15 ~Chill~ Ways to Flirt With Your Crush Without Totally Embarrassing Yourself, so there’s no way this can go horribly wrong, right?

okay but marinette has to be realistic, when has anything ever gone right for her?

1. like their instagram and watch their snapchat: okay but marinette already does this, she follows all of adrien’s social media and collects his takes from photoshoots and knows his schedule, and honestly, there’s really nothing he does that she doesn’t know about it? the whole point of watching his snapchat and liking his instagram would be for him to notice her, but it’s not like she can tell him that she does this, because that would be creepy right? but for the most part she thinks she has this part down pat. 

2. make eye contact: and this one is damn near impossible. every time she looks at adrien, and he looks back, her heart turns into a puddle and she wants to melt. but okay, the magazine said to make eye contact, so that’s maintain eye contact, right? don’t look away as soon as he catches her looking. okay, she tells herself. i can do this.

adrien and marinette spend the rest of the week in multiple staring contests. alya and nino are extremely confused, but the game catches on, and soon the whole class spends Madame Bustier’s lectures in staring contests with the rest of their classmates. there’s a running scoreboard, and chloe and alya are surprisingly good at the game, which isn’t that surprisingly at all considering how many glare-showdowns they’ve had throughout the year. 

adrien just wants to beat marinette once, and how is it fair she’s so good at this??? marinette just wants to know why it’s not working; she hasn’t gone through dry eyes, blurry vision, and headaches for nothing. at this point, she’s read to pour Johnson’s No More Tears shampoo directly in her eyes to get them back to normal. 

3. let your emojis do the talking: 🍆😛:eggplant: :yum:

alya sent it from marinette’s phone, and marinette is too busy dying to say anything about it. adrien still buys her eggplants for a month because he thinks they’re her favorite.

4. wave and say “hi” when they walk by: marinette had to quit when her over-aggressive wave nailed nino in the nose and broke it. alya called him “raccoon eyes” for weeks. it didn’t matter though, adrien didn’t even wave back (though it might have been because his best friend was bleeding on the school steps). 

5. invite your crush to hang out as a group: seems easy enough, right? she invites alya, nino, and adrien over for a study group at her house, but alya and nino cancel at the last minute to give her “some alone time with adrien”. only it doesn’t work out that way because she’s forced to actually learn physics when adrien notices she had some troubles with it and tutors her for the rest of the night. 

6. say something simple, then keep the conversation going: marinette had trouble talking to adrien in the first place, so it was a miracle if she even got something simple out. adrien saves her the trouble anyway when he complicates her cat sweater, but it doesn’t go the way she imagined because it devolves into a heated argument over whether chat noir or ladybug was better, and oh my god, how could she be arguing with her crush over how much she sucked?

7. remember what they tell you, and bring it up later: so adrien refuses to speak to her since she said ladybug sucked, and marinette is panicking internally 24/7. she makes him a hat to apologize because it’s summer and it’s blue, and when he asks her how she knew blue was his favorite color, she just smiles and tells him she read it in a magazine article. 

adrien looks touched either way while marinette wishes she could sink through the floor because she’d gone nearly a whole year without adrien knowing she read magazine articles about him. 

8. give them a sincere compliment: 

adrien: “so what do we know about penguins already for this biology presentation?” marinette: “penguins are inefficient walkers…. they’re cute…. but not cuter than you.” adrien: “…thanks, marinette.”

adrien: “thanks, marinette. you’re so helpful.” marinette: “that’s me. i’m always helpful. i’ll always try to help you. you know, like… i’d totally hold a revolving door for you. i know that’s counterproductive, but you’re worth it.”

adrien: “god, they never get all the makeup off after a shoot.” marinette: “you know, i would really be okay with seeing you without makeup. that’s how much i like you.” adrien: “what?” marinette: “what?”

9. casually touch their arm when you’re talking: marinette casually strokes adrien’s arm during their next study session. adrien: “… why are you touching my arm?” marinette: “i’m checking the seam work.” adrien: “….that’s my skin though.” marinette: “shh, don’t disrupt a designer at work.”

10. offer them a fry: okay, but marinette doesn’t particularly like fries, so she figured she’d find another way to work this in. it happens one morning while she’s about to go to town on her croissant when she overhears adrien mentioning to nino that he’d forgot his breakfast, so she shoves the food in front of him and rushes away. alya can’t stop laughing at agreste’s startled expression when marinette shoved a croissant in his face without prompt. regardless, alya shares her own breakfast when marinette admits she didn’t have anything else to eat.

11. give them something thoughtful: marinette buys adrien a ladybug-spotted scarf because she knows he likes the superhero. he protests when she gives it to him, but she just shrugs and said she owed him one anyway after dissing his favorite superhero before. 

the next day he gives her a matching chat noir one.

12. tease them: she can barely keep a straight face when she teases adrien in front of nino and alya about always smelling like camembert. she even buys him three cheese wheels one day, but he only flushes darkly as he shoves them in his bag. she wants to apologize in case she hurt his feelings, but later that day, she notices that the cheese is gone. 

man, he must really like his cheese, she thinks in awe, and spends the rest of the day trying to figure out why adrien kept glaring at his bag during class. 

13. steal their hat and put it on your head: adrien doesn’t wear hats, so she stole nino’s instead. adrien spent the rest of the day trying to set her up with his best friend. 

14. ruffle their hair: marinette ruffles adrien’s hair when she walks into the classroom one morning. some strands end up tangled in her bracelet, and the two spend the remainder of class in the nurse’s office as she tries to cut them loose. 

15. sit in their lap: marinette is a little hesitant to try this one, but alya ends up taking matters into her own hands and pushes marinette into adrien’s lap one day while the three of them and nino were visiting a cafe for lunch. marinette is flustered and apologizes profusely, and she finally finds the courage to look into his eyes. but instead of angry!agreste, she seems wide, shocked green eyes as adrien begins to laugh uncontrollably. marinette starts to giggle and shakes her head and it’s not until she looks at him again that she realizes… this whole situation seems really familiar…

“…chat noir?” she asks suddenly.

“what?” adrien asks. 

“what?” alya asks.

“what?” nino asks.

“oh my god,” marinette says and dies.

Needless to say, flirting was not her forte. But hey, she still got the man in the end, right? …. alright, it’s a work and progress, but still.