seen from United States
seen from Switzerland
seen from Thailand
seen from Romania
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from Switzerland
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Morocco
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United States
Shows how funny I am (¬⤙¬ )
Yin and Yang - Ch 3: Adrien Leads Such An Interesting Life
Table of Contents: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Ao3 Link
Chapter 3: Adrien Leads Such An Interesting Life
Despite Adrien’s assurances, things did not get easier. And she wanted to blame the early wake up times, but as much as she still hated the way her brain woke up in a fog morning after morning, the wake up times were the least of her problems.
The biggest issue was that every moment was scheduled. It was school, basketball, Chinese, fencing, piano, solitary dinner, and then mandatory homework time. Rinse and repeat. And any time there was a gap in Adrien’s schedule it was inevitably filled up with a photoshoot, or a fitting, or with a random interview Gabriel said had to be done without delay.
There wasn’t a single moment to breathe. Not a single moment to live her life. Or to live Adrien’s life rather.
So she stayed up late. Way too late, but she needed a moment to just lay about each day. She tried to draw her designs as a way to remember herself, but she was so exhausted she didn’t have ideas, and ended up mindlessly tracing circles onto her paper.
Despite the bone dead fatigue, she felt restless. She made use of Adrien’s zip line and skateboard ramp, but it didn’t help for more than a moment.
She still felt trapped.
She had been in the middle of a fencing lesson gone wrong when an akuma alert went off, and everyone was directed to evacuate.
“Oh thank god!” Marinette exclaimed.
“Are you happy about an akuma?” Kagami had asked, her eyes narrowed in disapproval.
“Umm… no?” Marinette had squeaked. She totally was. “I gotta run!”
“What? Where?” Kagami called after her. “We’re supposed to evacuate!”
“See you later!”
Marinette ran through the halls and quickly found a place to transform. She took to the rooftops as Chat Noir, running and vaulting towards the screams. And she felt no anxiousness about the attack. It just felt so good to run, to be free.
She wasn’t being watched. She could do anything. She could be crazy, she realized, as she threw herself into a cartwheel for absolutely no reason other than she could.
It was like a revelation.
This was why Chat Noir cracked stupid jokes all the time. Why he loved being Chat Noir! Why he couldn’t sit still or be serious for five seconds even in the middle of an akuma battle. Why he coveted every moment in Ladybug’s company. Why he would transform in the middle of the night and just run.
When she saw Ladybug arrive on the scene, she ignored the akuma entirely and instead tackled him in a hug. “It’s so good to see you!” she exclaimed.
He caught her wild embrace, and laughed. “You too. But maybe we should handle the akuma first?”
“Right, of course,” she nodded, attempting to adopt a serious face, but she couldn’t kill the grin that had taken over her face.
She was actually disappointed when they managed to take care of the akuma in just a few minutes.
When there wasn't an akuma to rescue her from Adrien’s monotonous schedule, talking to him helped. Anytime he was there, she felt at ease, and almost normal despite being in the wrong body, that was quickly becoming more and more familiar.
She saw him during the day, and he often gave helpful hints in conversations with their mutual friends and she did the same for him. And they talked every night. Both to compare notes and to give each other more context and insight. But the second he hung up, the anxiety would begin to smother her all over again. She needed to get out of this room. She needed to be free.
“Are you okay?” Adrien had asked one evening after she had ranted about the daily frustrations over a video call.
And she wanted to cry at the question, but she didn’t want him to see her crying. Not over this. He lived this every day. She had only managed four weeks. She needed to be stronger and more resilient.
So she swallowed her tears and offered him a bright smile. Or, what she hoped was a bright smile.
“Yes. I’m just feeling restless and cooped up,” she said. And it was true even if it was only the tip of the iceberg.
“Transform and go for a run,” he told her. “I can meet you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. That sounded amazing.
“I can’t,” she told him, her eyes burning on the edges. She blinked back the tears. “If I’m going to keep you in school I need to study Chinese tonight.”
He smiled sadly at her. “I understand.”
Of course he did.
All of it was made worse by the fact that she was terrible at, like, every single one of Adrien’s extracurriculars.
She spoke only six words of Mandarin before the swap. And three of them were “I love you.” Adrien’s tutor was a stern impatient man who had chastised her for her lack of practice. He had delivered a poor performance review to Nathalie and her Chinese sessions had doubled in frequency.
Like that would help her when she was three years behind in lessons.
“Your father would like to hear your rendition of Desbussy’s Arabesque No. 1 on Friday,” Nathalie had informed her that morning at breakfast after listing out Adrien’s schedule.
Marinette’s heart fell into her gut in a panic. She had only had one real interaction with Gabriel since the swap. He had joined her for breakfast one Saturday. He had been stiff and quiet and Marinette hadn’t known how to fill the awkward silence with more than a “Good morning, Father.”
Which had been a mistake apparently because the second his attention was on her, he had proceeded to correct the way she was holding her fork, the way she was sitting in the chair, and chide her for the abysmal performance she demonstrated in fencing practice.
“If you are to remain in school, you need to maintain a certain standard of excellence in all of your activities. If you are unable to do so, it will be in your best interest to return to one on one instruction.”
Marinette’s hand fisted around her fork. Was he seriously threatening to take Adrien out of school? Over one fencing practice session?
“I’m sorry, Father.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he corrected coldly. “Be better.”
She swallowed an angry retort, and didn’t risk saying anything else. She wanted to argue and scream at the injustice of it all. But she knew that’s not what Adrien would do. But she had no idea what Adrien would do. So she did nothing.
But God, she was angry.
Luckily, Gabriel had wiped his mouth with an expensive cloth napkin and left her there without another word.
She had retreated to Adrien’s room after that.
“Is he always like that?” she had asked the second Plagg had flown from her overshirt.
Plagg laughed. “For Gabriel, that was positively sweet.”
Marinette’s gut twisted unpleasantly at that revelation.
And so she had not uttered a peep at Gabriel’s continued absence. She didn’t want to see him.
And she certainly didn’t want to fail at piano completely as he sat listening in judgment.
“It was one of your mother’s favorites,” Nathalie added.
Crap. She was so screwed.
“Plagg!” she whined. “What am I going to do?”
The kwami shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “You’re creative. You’ll come up with something!”
She had with Chinese. Adrien had given her the idea. She confessed to the tutor that she had been wanting to start over. He had looked at her suspiciously. “To focus on authentic pronunciation!” she rapidly explained. And then she told him the tale of being in Shanghai and no one there really being able to understand him with such a thick accent. And he had a hard time understanding native Mandarin speakers as well.
Whatever Adrien’s tutor thought of the matter, he had capitulated, and they were starting from the beginning. But man, he was cranky and impatient, and since she had said she wanted to learn the language without an accent, he had become an absolute asshole demanding perfection at all times.
But she was getting through the lessons, and even learning some Mandarin at the same time. Maybe she’d be able to use it when she was back in her own body to talk to her mother and uncle.
“I can fake a lot of things, Plagg! I can’t fake ten years of piano lessons and thousands of hours of practice!”
“Sure you can!” Plagg said, floating along lazily through the air. Marinette wanted to swat him!
“How?” she growled out.
“First, you don’t need to fake ten years. You just need to master one song.”
Her hands shot out in agitation. “Not just any song! A really advanced difficult song that apparently Adrien’s mother used to play!”
“Well, you could pretend that you’re going through a defiant phase. When he comes in, play him Mary had a little lamb or something!”
Her eyebrows arched. “And what am I being defiant about, exactly?”
“The man is cold and emotionally neglectful if not outright abusive. He dictates every moment of how Adrien spends his time minus the times we literally use superpowers to escape! Pick something!”
She wilted. Maybe Plagg had a point.
“Or you could injure your hand at fencing practice!” he brainstormed.
“Won’t they send a doctor who will say my hand is fine?”
“Not if you actually injure it,” Plagg sing-songed back.
“Plagg! I need my hands in working order to fight akumas! It’s hard enough to have a different body and a different power set! You want me to fight injured as well?”
He spun in a rapid circle, stopping right when he was facing her. “Or!” he exclaimed, like her had just thought of it. “We could stage a break in and destroy the piano!”
“Wasn’t that Adrien’s mother’s piano?”
Plagg shrugged. “Gabriel would probably have it replaced within two days anyway.”
“Do all your ideas involve destroying something?”
“You know who you’re talking to, right?”
But thankfully, Adrien’s phone chose that moment to ring, and she didn’t have to answer Plagg. It was Adrien. She answered the call immediately.
“Marinette!” he shrieked. Marinette didn’t know if he was excited or freaking out. It was harder to read him when he used her own voice. “Penny Rolling just called! She wants to know the status of a commission for Jagged Stone! What am I going to do?”
Marinette yanked at her hair. She didn’t have time for this!
“Nathalie just told me I have to play a recital for your father this Friday! What am I going to do?” she countered.
Adrien had been giving her piano lessons, and it was fun and he was patient, and she would have loved it under any other circumstances. But there was just this growing ball of unease every time they sat next to one another on his mother’s piano bench. He taught her chords on the left hand and scales on the right. She learned to read notes on the treble clef, and learned to decipher the strange script of key signatures far more quickly than she thought possible.
But playing actual songs?! She was nowhere near Adrien’s level. She understood whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes and could even play them. Eighth notes and sixteenths she understood in concept if not execution. But triplets?! Arabesque No. 1 was full of them! She could not play them with the proper temp.
And there was no way in hell she could play triplets and eighth notes at the same fucking time!
Adrien laughed, and pulled her hands back from the keyboard. “Don’t think about the notes for a second. Let’s just worry about the rhythm.”
She shivered, feeling his gentle hands brushing the back of hers. It was becoming less weird to look at her own face every day. Because it wasn’t hers anymore. It was his. And his smile, his eyes could bring her peace and comfort the way nothing else could.
“Okay, we’re going to tap eighth notes on your left, and triplets on your right.”
She nodded.
“We’re kind’ve cutting each beat into fours. Clap both hands onto your lap,” he directed. “Then it’s right, left, right. Then both again,” he explained, as he demonstrated clapping out the rhythm repeatedly on his lap. She was soon following suit.
After a month of practice, she could play the first ten measures of Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1. Insanely slowly.
“The speed doesn’t matter,” Adrien said. “Just get the timing between notes right and practice it. You’ll pick up on the tempo as you practice.”
And god she loved him more. For his patience and his optimism, but it was never going to be enough.
Because it didn’t sound like magical waterfalls cascading down when she played the notes, the way it did when Adrien played them. And that ignored the fact that the song had another 97 measures for her to learn.
She broke down crying.
His arms were around her immediately.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I feel like you’re not just playing my life. You’re playing it on hard mode.”
She scrubbed the tears from her face. “What do you mean?” she asked, not being able to look up at him.
“You have to meet all the expectations but you don’t have any of the preparation. Meanwhile, when I need help with a project, you can literally do it for me if you absolutely have to.”
“You’re assuming I have a spare moment to help you,” she whispered.
He brushed the tears from her cheeks with the pad of this thumb. “We’ll get through this,” he promised.
She nodded. She didn’t always believe that herself.
“Why do all your extracurriculars have to be performance based?” she had whined.
He barked a laugh. “I don’t know. I didn’t really pick most of them.”
“Do you at least enjoy them?” she asked.
He pressed his lips together, his eyebrows scrunched in thought. “I really like fencing,” he told her. “And piano has become really important to me as a way to remember my maman. It was always something she and I did together.”
Marinette smiled softly. Maybe his attempts at teaching her to play, might remind him of lessons with his mother. She hoped so.
“And I don’t mind the others,” he said, and then shrugged. “I just wish… I just wish there weren’t so many of them, you know?”
“Oh my god, I know!” she exclaimed.
And he laughed. She loved making him laugh.
Of all his extracurriculars, modeling was the easiest for Marinette to pull off. But she wasn’t great at it either. She was stiff and self conscious in front of a camera, and was constantly being told she needed to loosen up and be natural.
“You just need to get out of your head,” he had told her.
Yeah, Marinette was terrible at getting out of her head unless she was in crisis mode.
He had made flash cards for her to translate Vincent’s nonsense directions and she had printed out a bunch of his photos, and taped them to Adrien’s bathroom mirror, and she was practicing reproducing each expression.
Plagg had caught her in the middle of her first practice session and burst out laughing.
She hadn’t bothered to defend herself. It had been worth it. The next photoshoot was her smoothest yet.
But she had failed the piano recital.
“You’re clearly sabotaging on purpose,” Gabriel concluded coldly.
Marinette didn’t say anything, her gaze remaining locked on her fingers that rested on the black and white keys of this baby grand piano. Of course, it wasn’t actually on purpose, but that was as good an explanation as any.
“Why?” he demanded, his voice cold as ice.
She froze in panic. She needed to make a demand. But it needed to be big enough that he wouldn’t deliver, so she’d have a continued excuse to perform horribly.
Her eyes landed on the portrait on Adrien’s desk.
“Will you tell me what happened to maman?” she gambled, holding her breath the moment the words were out of her mouth.
He stared at her in silence. And then he walked out of the room.
She let out a breath, relieved he hadn’t said anything. How horrible would it have been if she had learned more about Adrien’s mother than he himself knew? Hopefully, Adrien wouldn’t be furious that she played that card.
Plagg came out whistling. “Bold move. I’m impressed.”
But she didn’t feel impressive. She felt completely inadequate. She pulled out Adrien’s phone, and swiped to her own contact and called him immediately.
“Hey Adrien! What’s up?” he answered. And that he was calling her Adrien meant he wasn’t alone.
“Can you come over?” she asked softly, not bothering to tell him he should at least make a show of stuttering when talking to “him”.
“Are you okay?"
She forced down the tears that wanted to burst forth. “Not really.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely, hanging up the phone.
Ladybug landed in a crouch not ten minutes later. He immediately took a seat on the piano bench beside her.
“Today was the recital?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’m sorry,” she told him, her chin trembling.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” he insisted, his red spotted gloves cradling either side of her face, pulling her gaze up.
“You’re amazing,” she told him, and was rewarded with an immediate blush blooming from under his Ladybug mask.
“So are you,” he said.
But she ignored him. “You don’t have a lot of choices, and everyone expects so much of you. You’re cooped up all the time. And you could be so angry, but you’re not. You’re patient and you work hard. And you’re just so so resilient. And I had no idea. I had no idea as Ladybug and I had no idea as Marinette. I feel like I’ve been such a bad friend.”
He pulled her into a hug. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” he countered.
“I want to be better,” she insisted, clutching him to her.
She would be better, she promised herself. Now that she understood that his life wasn’t all glamorous and fun. Now, that she understood the pressure he was always under, and how lonely his struggle often was. She loved him.
She loved him more. More than she had before. And more than she ever thought possible.
Yin and Yang: Ch 2 - Day One
Table of Contents: 1 | 2 | 3
Ao3 Link
Chapter 2: Day One
The soft knock on the door had barely been enough to raise Marinette’s consciousness. She was wrapped up in a cocoon of warmth and she quickly fell back asleep.
“Adrien!”
Marinette groaned.
“Adrien! Why aren’t you up?” “Five more minutes, please,” Marinette begged, burying her head with the luxurious down pillow. It was only when her voice came out much lower than normal, that she remembered things were different.
And she bolted into a sitting position.
“Adrien, are you sick?” Nathalie asked.
Marinette contemplated the potential lie, and thought better of it. She’d probably need to save it for a time when others were more suspicious.
She shook her head, “No, I just… uh… couldn’t sleep last night.”
“I woke you up almost an hour ago, and you’re missing your breakfast. You need to leave for a photo shoot in 24 minutes. Breakfast is downstairs, but you need a shower first. Do not bother with your hair. The stylists will take care of it.”
“Y-Yes, Nathalie. I’ll be right down.”
A photo shoot?! What was she going to do?
“Plagg! Why didn't you wake me?!” she demanded of the empty room.
“Because I am the embodiment of destruction and have better things to do than serve as your alarm clock,” he said.
“Ugh!” She missed Tikki already.
She ran into the bathroom only to be greeted with Adrien’s face in the mirror. And then, she smiled.
“Looking hot with Adrien Agreste’s face! How hard can it be?”
Super hard as it turned out.
The photographer - she thought his name was Vincent, but she wasn’t willing to risk saying it and being wrong - kept yelling at her. He said she wasn’t following his directions.
But his directions were rubbish. What the actual hell did “you’ve just been served a delicious plate of spaghetti” even mean?
“I’m sorry,” Marinette said in Adrien’s voice. “Can I take a five minute break?”
The photographer had sighed in exasperation and then waved her off.
She fled the shoot, and ducked into Adrien’s changing room, falling to the floor the second the door was closed.
Plagg whipped out of her jacket immediately.
“How am I ever going to pull this off, Plagg?” Marinette whined to the kwami, her fingers curled into her very short blonde hair.
Plagg shrugged. “The first few days are the worst. Then you’ll adjust and be fine! And everyone will just assume you had some off days,” he quipped back.
She groaned in frustration. “But how do I get through this shoot, today?!”
He shrugged. “Don’t look at me! I don’t have any experience being a pretty boy!”
“Ugh! You are no help at all.”
“Maybe I’d be more helpful if you gave me more cheese!”
She rolled her eyes. “Is this what Adrien has to put up with all the time? You’re impossible!”
“Adrien is lucky to have me around!” he retorted indignantly.
“Uh huh,” she agreed, sarcastically. She pulled out Adrien’s phone from her pocket.
“He is!” Plagg insisted.
“Whatever! Shut up! I need to make a call.”
Adrien picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” her own voice greeted her.
“Adrien!” she whisper-shouted into the phone. “You have to help me!”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m at a shoot! And your photographer keeps yelling at me for not following his directions. But he keeps talking about pasta!”
Adrien laughed. “Yeah, Vincent is weird like that.”
“Adrien!” she whined. “Don’t laugh! This is serious.”
He cleared his throat. “R-right. Sorry. So what did he say exactly?”
“Something about needing to devour every strand of spaghetti?”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” he said solemnly.
“Why? What does it mean?”
“So, uh… You need to think about something that turns you on,” Adrien explained in Marinette’s voice.
“W-what?” And Marinette’s stammer an octave too low was weird in her own ears. Really weird.
“Something that turns you on?” he repeated. “How about your crush? You’re in love with a boy, right?”
“Y-yeah…” She could feel the heat rising in her face. How long would it be before Adrien figured out who her crush was? Maybe she should have told him, but between Alya and her parents there’s no way it would take long. She really didn’t want to witness the embarrassing moment herself.
“So think about him, and just let the feelings show on your face.”
Her cheeks burned hotter. “Th-that might be kinda weird at the moment.”
“Marinette, please!” he begged, “if I screw this shoot up my father isn’t going to let me out of the house for two weeks!”
“You mean, if I screw this up, I will be grounded for two weeks!” she countered.
He was silent for a moment. “Sorry,” he finally mumbled.
She shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “No, it’s okay. I do better with pressure. So think of my crush, and let it show.”
“Exactly!” he encouraged brightly. “You can do this. You’re Ladybug.”
“I can totally do this! I’m Ladybug! Got it! Thanks A-adrien!”
“Any time, Mari,” he said softly, and she couldn’t help but swoon. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
...
Marinette ended the call, and Adrien stared at her pink phone forlornly. He really hoped she got through the photoshoot. He didn’t want her to experience being locked up in his room for weeks with only Plagg for company. That was always awful. Not because of Plagg, but because he felt trapped.
“Do you think she’ll be okay, Tikki?” he asked.
The bright red kwami smiled reassuringly. “Marinette panics easily, but as you know better than anyone, she is creative and resourceful and very good at solving problems.”
“You’re very supportive,” Adrien observed.
“Why thank you!” she squealed.
“It’s very different with Plagg.”
“I can imagine,” she replied, her voice suddenly woodenly neutral.
But before he could defend his kwami, Marinette’s phone rang in his hands a second time.
It was Alya. He answered without hesitation.
“Girl, where are you?! You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago!”
“Sorry Alya! I… Uh… Adrien needed my help with something,” he improvised on the spot.
Alya let out what could only be a resigned sigh. “Did you at least manage to confess to the love of your life?”
“Th-the love of my life?” Adrien stuttered back.
“Your words. Not mine. So did you manage to confess?”
“N-no,” he stuttered.
“It’s okay, Marinette,” Alya soothed. “Did you at least manage full sentences?”
This was why Marinette stumbled her way through every conversation with him?
Adrien shook himself loose. “I… think it went well!” he lied, now having full context for Marinette’s reaction to his advice.
He had told Marinette to think about her crush.
She was thinking about him!
His face had to be flaming red at this moment.
“That’s awesome, girl! I’m so proud of you! Maybe next time, you’ll be able to tell him how you feel. I’ll help you practice tomorrow during our sleepover!”
“Sleepover?” he whispered to Tikki. “What do I do at a sleepover? I’ve never been to a sleepover!”
“So are you coming or what?” Alya asked.
“Don’t stress about it, Adrien,” Tikki soothed. “I think you’ll actually have a lot of fun!”
“Helloooo! Marinette! You still there?”
“Yup!!” He exclaimed too loudly into the phone. “Marinette is totally here! And is definitely going to meet you in five minutes,” Adrien promised. “Umm… where am I meeting you again?”
“Girl! I swear! You are like ten times more scatterbrained than normal. I’ll text you the address. See you in five! ”
The call ended, and Adrien just stared at the phone.
“Tikki,” Adrien whispered. “Marinette loves me? I’m her crush? Ladybug thinks that I’m the love of her life?!!”
Tikki sighed. “I’m sure she would prefer to tell you herself. But yes.”
Adrien squealed. “Ohmygod!! This is the best day of my life!”
“I’m happy for you, Adrien. I am. But right now to protect both your identities, you need to be somewhere in four minutes!”
“Right! Of course! Let’s go!”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“You need to bring her purse!”
“Right. Purse. Okay.” He grabbed the accessory, Tikki zipped inside. And ran down the stairs, stopping to ask Sabine for permission to go.
She frowned at him. “Are you okay?”
“W-why wouldn’t I be?”
“Usually, you fly out of here with barely a shouted explanation about being late and half a wave.”
“Yup! I’m super late to meet Alya! Bye!”
“Be back by curfew!”
Note to self. Text Marinette to find out when curfew was.
He stepped out onto the street. There was no bodyguard or company car.
He felt strangely liberated.
…
It was only after the shoot was completed, that Marinette realized she was backstage at a Fashion design event. She had just participated in a shoot . A professional shoot with Gabriel no less!! The brand, Gabriel, not the person. Obviously. She was looking over the proofs, and couldn’t help admire the design work.
She was like a child in a candy shop.
She pointed to one of the proofs - a casual suit she had just modeled.
“Can you tell me your process for these embroidered lines? They are so subtle and yet add so much emphasis in all the right places!”
The designer - probably just an intern judging by their age - turned to her with a laugh.
“Finally showing an interest in design, Adrien?”
“Wh-What do you mean?” Marinette stammered.
“Just usually you care less what went into crafting these pieces, and today you’re just full of questions.”
“Umm… sorry. I don’t mean to be a bother. I just have this friend who showed me her sketches and when she was explaining them, I guess I caught a bit of her enthusiasm.”
“This wouldn’t happen to be the amazing Marinette, would it?” the man asked.
“Ummm… maybe?” Heat blazed across her cheeks. “I didn’t realize I talked about her that much.”
“Don’t worry. We all find it adorable.”
“Umm… thanks?”
“You should invite her to a shoot sometime.”
Marinette smiled, “Yeah, I’ll have to do that!”
Would Adrien even want to come to a shoot now that he was temporarily free of them? On the other hand, if he was willing, maybe he could coach her through them.
She could worry about that later. She dived back into looking at proofs. She was going to get so many ideas from this!
…
“Marinette! Over here!” Adrien turned toward the excited voice, but it wasn’t Alya that was calling him. It was Rose.
And then it was Rose, Juleka, Alix, Mylene, and Alya. They were all calling Marinette’s name together. He swallowed his nerves and trotted over to the five girls who were gathered under a tree sitting on a blanket.
“Marinette! So happy you could join us!” Mylene greeted throwing her arms around him in a quick hug.
Juleka mumbled a hello and waved. Rose and Alix were quick to offer hugs in greeting as well.
Alya was guiding him over to the blanket to sit in a circle with all the girls.
They were clearly very excited to see him. Well, to see Marinette.
He hoped he wouldn’t disappoint them.
“Tell us about your conversation with Adrien! We want to hear every detail!” Rose squealed. “I have my baby unicorn riding on this!”
“Wh-what?” Adrien stammered. Alya patted him on the shoulder, consolingly.
“You told her about the bet?” Alix demanded. “That’s cheating! You’re applying unfair pressure!”
“I didn’t tell her the date!” Rose objected. “And I was just trying to provide some external motivation! If it works, don’t you think it’s worth it?”
Alix grunted non-commitally.
Then they all turned to him. He had no idea what he was supposed to say.
“So??” Mylene eventually burst out.
“So…?” he echoed, his eyebrows furrowed together.
“So, what did you talk to Adrien about? How did he react?
Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. “Umm… he called me because he was…” he improvised, scrambling for an explanation. Come on, brain! Why would he normally call Marinette? Not for help with following Vincent’s directions. Obviously. “... asking for sewing tips. He had a tear in a seam and he didn’t know how to fix it.”
Alya frowned. “Wouldn’t there be people on set for that?”
Adrien panicked. “Uh.. yeah… he said that he didn’t want them to know he had ripped it,” he improvised on the spot.
“Do you think Adrien would really be able to sew a seam well enough from your phone explanation to get past the eyes of experienced designers?” Alya questioned.
Adrien didn’t have a response. Alya was most likely right, so he just shrugged. “It was definitely weird!” he conceded. They had no idea how weird.
Rose grabbed his forearm. “Marinette! Do you know what this means?!”
“Ummm… no?”
“It means that he was just looking for an excuse to call you! He totally likes you! I’m sure of it!”
And Adrien couldn’t help the small smile that bloomed across his face. Well, Rose was definitely right about one thing. Adrien definitely liked Marinette. And honestly, like, was far too mild a word for his feelings.
But how would Marinette respond to this conjecture?
“You think so?” he asked.
“Girl! We’ve been telling you forever that Adrien only has the softest eyes for you and gushes about how amazing you are constantly!”
He felt the heat rise in his face. Did he really do that?
“You should definitely go for it!” Rose encouraged.
“Thanks,” he said with a hand on the back of his neck. “Maybe I will.”
And he probably would have with all his newfound knowledge, but well, things were very mixed up right now. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about going on dates while staring at his own face.
Thankfully the conversation shifted away from him at that point. And instead they talked about Alix’s pranks on her older brother, Mylene’s upcoming environmental awareness day, Juleka was excited about some new sound system on her family’s boat, and Alya demoed a new feature she wanted to add to the Ladyblog.
He soaked in every word like a cactus soaked up water.
This was what it was like to just hang out with your friends. They may not have been his friends, or they at least weren’t as close to him as they were to Marinette, but it still seemed magical.
At some point the conversation broke into smaller groups when dessert came out.
Rose and Juleka popped down next to him, each with a slice of cake.
“Marinette, how are the costumes coming?”
“Costumes?” he echoed, having no idea what they were talking about.
“Yeah, for Kitty Section? You said they likely wouldn’t be ready for another week.”
“Oh! Right! Yeah, they’re coming along really well!” he improvised on the spot. He had no idea where the costumes even were in Marinette’s room, let alone what shape they were in. “I’ll send you some progress pics later today or tomorrow!” he promised.
Both girls face lit up. “That would be amazing, Marinette!” Rose squealed, and he couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm.
Marinette did make amazing things.
A bit later, Mylene approaches him asking for advice on a campaign flier she had designed for her chapter’s stall at the event.
“I think it looks great, Mylene!” He told her sincerely.
“Thank you!” she beamed. “Do you have any notes? You always give such good feedback that makes everything just pop!”
“Oh. Umm… can you send it to me? I’ll send you my thoughts later today.”
“Really?! That would be amazing! Thank you, Marinette.”
“Anytime.” Luckily Adrien had a lot of practice holding his smiles under any and all circumstances.
Because he had never been so overwhelmed.
He wished he could call Marinette. But it wasn’t like he could actually talk to her openly at the moment - not with all her friends surrounding him. She was probably knee deep in his shoot anyway.
“Hey, you okay, girl?” Alya asked softly from his shoulder.
“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Had he already given himself away?
“You’re just quiet. And usually after a talk with Adrien you’d be on cloud nine for hours, talking twelve hundred kilometers per minute!”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Just didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
“Girl! I told you not to stay up designing! What am I going to do with you?”
“Umm… I don’t know?” he squeaked. To his relief, Alya burst into laughter, and threw her arms around him.
He couldn’t be doing that bad a job at playing Marinette.
…
After another amazingly delicious dinner that Marinette ate completely alone, she trudged up the stairs to Adrien’s room, and let herself fall into his bed as the stress and exhaustion of the day caught up with her.
It had only been one day.
She wondered how Adrien was doing. How weird that she had missed a whole day in her own life.
She pulled out his phone, and unlocked it to discover several texts. There were a bunch of memes from Nino that Marinette honestly didn’t get. Maybe she’d forward them to Adrien later. He’d probably get a kick out of them.
There were also several texts from Adrien.
[10:32] Good luck with the shoot! You’ve got this.
[10:41] What time is curfew?
[13:12] Kitty section costume updates?
[13:29] Mylene wants feedback. I think it looks great, but she seemed to find my compliments lacking.
[18:02] Call me when you can. Not urgent.
Marinette read the text several times before she finally clicked over to her own profile. Adrien already had her number in his favorite contacts.
He answered immediately.
“Hey!” he greeted brightly.
“I missed you today,” she said. And it was absolutely insane how easy it was to admit that. And she couldn’t figure out how it had become so easy to talk to him.
Was it because he was her Chaton? Or because she had lived a day of his life? Maybe it was just that he was almost the only person she could talk to now.
The only person who knew who she was.
“I missed you, too,” he replied softly. “Today was… overwhelming.”
She laughed. “Tell me about it.”
And he did.
“How much of a big deal did the girls make about Adrien calling you?” She found herself asking, knowing there was no way they wouldn’t have said something.
“It was all they wanted to talk about for the first fifteen minutes I was there.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you myself,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry that I found out before you were ready to tell me.”
She sighed. “It’s okay. I guess we’re not allowed to have secrets anymore.”
“M’lady?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be okay. I know this is hard. But today was just the first day. I’m sure it’ll get easier.”
“Thank you, Chaton. If I have to do this, I’m so glad it’s with you.”
“Me too,” he said. “How did the shoot go?”
“I don’t know. Vincent seemed begrudgingly satisfied. But Adrien! I got to talk to the designers afterwards! And that was so cool!”
“That’s awesome, Marinette!” And she could hear the smile on his voice.
They stayed up comparing notes and trading backstories and explanations.
Maybe Marinette’s initial trepidation was unfounded. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. And even if it was, if it brought her closer to Adrien and her partner, it’d at least be worth it.
Chapter 3
