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Chapter Text

     Adrien Agreste sighed as the jet dropped below the cloud cover on its approach to Le Bourget, the barren brown fields to the east of Paris greeting him. He was happy to be home, he was. The sigh didn’t mean anything. A fluctuation in the oxygen concentration in the cabin, surely. 

     The trip had been nice, a well-earned break from the duties and expectations of home. The spring shoots were always pleasant, a getaway to someplace warm and sunny from the miserable Parisian winter. Gray skies, dirty snow, unforgiving winds. If only he didn’t have to come back, stay on the Agreste yacht until the weather at home was more hospitable. 

     He swallowed the last of his Scotch as the plane jounced, buffeted by those unforgiving winds, and watched boredly as the fields turned to industry, just as bland, and, finally, the busy private airport. 

     “It has been a pleasure, Monsieur Agreste,” said the head stewardess, she and the other two gathered by the front of the luxurious little plane. It was all black and white, and so was the staff— clothing and skin color. Palest of pale and darkest of dark. Every one of them was thin, long-legged, long-haired. Baseline beauties. Though it had never been confirmed, Adrien was pretty certain they were models that either hadn’t made it, or were still trying to. 

     “Merci,” he replied, adjusting a scarf over his messenger bag as he passed, not looking forward to the dash down the stairs to the waiting town car. The photographers, makeup artists, stylists, and assorted other staff for the shoot had flown back shortly after business had been concluded, and the other models… who cared? The only people on the jet had been he and Pascal, with the pieces that had been used down in the hold— no use risking those getting lost by an airline. 

     The wind was whistling passed the plane, nearly as strong as if they were still airborne. His chauffeur, down on the tarmac, struggled against it to pull open the car door, and nearly lost his hat in the process. 

     “How about we sync this up,” Adrien said as his assistant came up beside him. “Make a run for it at the same time.”

     Pascal’s eyes twinkled with their usual mischief. “Using me as a human shield?” He spoke in a posh British accent, and often changed languages several times during a sentence. Sometimes, Adrien was quite sure, he did so just to just to fuck with him. “I applaud the sentiment, but I’m shorter than you.”

     “It’ll just be like all the other times I lower myself to your level.”

     “Ha!”

     The assistant made the dash first, hopping over every other red-carpeted step, then leaping half the distance to the car. Pascal then threw himself into the backseat, still managing to greet in André with a tip of his hat on the way passed. Adrien’s journey was far less stylish but just as quick. 

     “Ah, God bless you for having the heat blasting.” He pulled off his hat and scarf, stretched his legs out and set the messenger bag beside them. 

     “Ouais, he earns his keep,” sighed Pascal, opening a bottle of water to thin out the blood alcohol level he had acquired during the flight.

     “When are you going to start doing that?”

     Pascal gave him a serious, even threatening look. “The number of times I’ve told women that you are, or are not you, should, itself, cover my wages for the next decade.”

     Adrien grinned. “And how do you decide which ones are told what?”

     “Well that’s easy, if I don’t fancy them, they’re all yours.”

     They had arrived during the thickest traffic; it seemed the drive to the heart of Paris would be a slow one. Pascal was snoring within ten minutes, Adrien taking the half-empty bottle from his hand before it spilled. 

     Sometimes he wasn’t sure which one of them was the assistant. 

     The warmth and the snoring, coupled with the slow rocking of the car threatened to put Adrien to sleep, as well. He had never been able to sleep on planes, and he was finding himself strangely tired. One would think there was nothing more relaxing than a week in the Seychelles, living the life of a supermodel. But it was just life, to him. 

     He jolted in response to an angry chorus of horns, and found that they were only a few blocks from the Agreste Manor. Merde, he had forgotten that he’d promised to stop by to report to his father on the shoot, as well as receive any criticism that might be due him. 

     Adrien gazed up at the house as the car crawled through the gate. The windows of his boyhood room were darkened, as they had been for seven years. 

     “Do I have anything this evening?”

     There was hardly a pause before Pascal replied, from behind the deep brown hands he was rubbing over his face. “Non. Nothing until lunch tomorrow.” 

     He grimaced. “Can we pretend I do?”

     His assistant smirked. “Come on, they missed you.”

     Adrien’s eyes rolled. Pascal knew he didn’t like the manor. Unless a party or some other function was being held, it was huge and empty and cold. Pointlessly so. 

     “A little debriefing, a delicious dinner, and some familial bonding, then you’ll be free.”

     A chuckle. “And I imagine I’ll find you in the kitchen, if I need you.”

     “Where else would I be? There’s hot food and a hot sous chef.”

     Adrien smirked as he replaced his fedora, pressing it down hard enough that the wind should not be able to snatch the fine hat away. Still, he held it in place as he made the run up the stairs to the gargantuan front doors. 

     “Bienvenue, Monsieur Adrien,” greeted Louis, holding the door open just long enough for Pascal to slip through before closing out the winter. 

     He thanked the old butler, dutifully handing over his outerwear. The manor’s chill— real or imagined— would have had him remaining bundled, if it wasn’t quite so flagrantly rude. 

     “I trust your trip was pleasant? Everyone has been looking forward to your return, of course. I believe you can find your father in the library.”

     “Thank you,” he said, already starting up the grand staircase. “Yes, it was a very nice break.”

     The butler continued about his duties, and Pascal looked to be heading in the expected direction. The only sound was his own footsteps on marble. Adrien hoped the fireplace in the library would be roaring. 

     He took a deep breath, making sure his clothing and hair were straight and presentable before pushing in the rich wooden door. He was immediately relieved to see that Gabriel Agreste was seated in one of the leather wingback chairs not far from the fire, whose warmth drew him in like a moth. The woman that had been standing beside his father looked up and smiled broadly, then strode across the room to greet him. “Adrien, I’m so glad you’re back.” She enfolded him into her arms. “Even if it was only a week, you were missed.”

     He closed his eyes, enjoying the embrace. As ever, it soothed him in a way that seemed more than purely physical. “I missed you as well, mother.”

Chapter Text

     “Girl, you need to calm the shit down.”

     To Marinette’s credit, she did realize that she was beginning to hyperventilate, she just didn’t find the situation serious enough— yet— to focus on. Too many other things to focus on. 

     “She’s going to love it all.” 

     “You do not know that. You cannot know that, because there are roughly three million variables at play.”

     Her flatmate’s brows rose. “Oh?”

     She finished smoothing the gown under the garment bag, her hands coming up like a quickdraw. “She might have had a bad breakfast and is in a bad mood, someone might have burnt her coffee and she’s in a bad mood. The lighting might be bad because there is construction going on outside her window, she might be in a bad mood because there’s construction outside her window. I might trip down the Metro stairs because of a toddler and destroy something. I might be forced into a bad spot on the Metro and things will get creased because of a woman with a toddler, whose breakfast was burned and is in a bad mood. The moon might—“

     Alya’s own hands came up, but as if to show that they were empty. “Okay! Merde, I surrender. Mon Dieu, Marinette, I shouldn’t have let you have coffee this morning.” 

     “There are a million different variables,” she stressed, fussing over her hair in the mirror by the door. 

     “Well, that’s an improvement from the three million, isn’t it?”

     Marinette scowled. 

     “How about I help you shlep these over there? And I’ll pay for a taxi, to take care of at least a hundred thousand of those variables.”

     She shook her head. “No. You’re not my assistant. And you have work!”

     “No, I’m your friend and I support you no matter what, because of that.” Alya placed her hands on her shoulders. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng, The woman knows what she likes, and can work with literally any designer in the world. She chose you. There are no variables in play.”

     Her eyes opened wide, panicked anew. “Oh God, you’re right! She really could work with any designer in the world! If even one stitch is out of place—“

     Alya grabbed her arms, keeping her hands away from the packaged pieces. This time, her expression was less supportive and much more stern. “My love, fucking stop it!”

     She huffed. 

     “Be calm, be confident. Even if you don’t feel it. Fake it ‘til you make it. And the fact that Emilie Agreste is commissioning you, by the way, means you already have.”

     Marinette turned away and went to brush her teeth for the second time. Just in case. 

     “Where is your assistant, anyway?”

     “Eee ot ii aahiiant.”

     Alya’s brows raised as she peaked around the corner. “Come again?”

     She spit out the froth and rinsed her mouth. “She’s not my assistant.” Marinette tweaked her hair, plaited over her right shoulder. And then tweaked the tweak. “She helps me out sometimes and I don’t let her do it for free.”

     “Sounds an awful lot like an assistant, Mare.”

     “She had the dentist, this morning. And I wouldn’t let her change her appointment. I can handle it.” She shut off the light and passed her friend as she checked her watch. It was time to get moving. If she was early she could always loiter somewhere. If she was late, that was it. And there were legions of toddlers and commuters and grumpy mothers between she and her destination, not to mention trains that could break down, wires that could spark, crosswalk signs whose timing was off; an endless field of danger for her to cross. 

     There were three gowns. She had only been commissioned for one, but that one had to be perfect. And, even after the groundwork of the design had been laid with the actress, ideas had spun around her head into more and more, like fractals, and some of them felt too good to ignore. So there had been a lot of early mornings, late nights, and all the hours in between spent doing three times the work in the same amount of time. 

     But it would be worth it. Absolutely. This was an unbelievable opportunity, and one she had to take full advantage of. 

     She was making all the various ends meet from her little shop, between the commissions she did from Jagged Stone and the costumes for Kitty Section and plenty of little pieces for the community, but having Emilie Agreste wear one of her gowns? It could change everything. 

     She could absolutely be in one of the major fashion houses, making a decent living while plugging away to raise the profile of others, but could not bring herself to. Standing over three offer letters spread out on the table after graduation, she realized she couldn’t. Even if she would have to struggle on her own. 

     Fortunately, her parents were business owners, and were able to shepherd her through the process of starting her own. Their extensive connections had even found a little storefront from which she could work, putting her name and whatever design could fit into the window in front of anyone who happened to walk passed. 

     One day, a month before, that was one of the most respected actresses in France. 

     She could work with anyone, and had worked with people whose names were on the fashion houses that had wanted to hire Marinette. Her own husband was Gabriel Agreste, a fantastically successful designer of menswear. Certainly, any piece his wife brought home would be thoroughly critiqued by his expert eyes. 

     Stars were beginning to sparkle at the edges of her vision. 

     Okay, maybe it was time to pay attention to her hyperventilating. 

     “Goodness,” she muttered, falling back onto the arm of the couch. 

     “Allllright,” Alya observed, snatching her phone from the island, beside which her purse, badge, and holstered gun rested. “Car is being ordered. And boss being texted.”

     “I’m not letting you do that.” Marinette swatted away the stars, taking a few slow, deep breaths to clear the remainders of them. 

     “Too late, done.” 

     She gave her best friend a dirty look, just below which an endlessly thankful one hid. Over the decade plus of their friendship, Alya’s tough love had absolutely been frustrating at times, but it had also kept Marinette moving when her anxiety very well could have turned her to stone. 

     “Allons-y, MDC.” The detective assembled her purse and then expertly hefted the garment bags. “Let’s go get your big break started.”

     “Ah! Bonjour, mon amour,” Emilie Agreste greeted her son with kisses to his cheeks— the only time he didn’t mind lipstick being left on his skin. “Adrien, such a wonderful surprise. What are you doing here?”

     He shrugged. “I have a lunch to attend in the area in a few hours and thought I would stop in.”

     She smiled, jade eyes twinkling the way they always did when she looked upon him, even if he occasionally doubted he deserved it. 

     Okay, more than just occasionally. 

     “I am so very glad you did.” She swept across her office to take a seat on the couch. His mother didn’t move like other people, she hadn’t for as long as he could remember. She swept. Her way of moving was not, in any obvious way, any different from anyone else’s; but the grace with which she did it… somehow, it relegated everyone else to clumsy toads, while she was the prima ballerina. “Seeing you yesterday was so nice. So rare, it seems.”

     The chill of the Agreste manor, though absolutely a legitimate physical thing, seemed to intensify when he and his father were in the same room. In the few months since Adrien had dared to say that he would like to stop modeling, it might as well have been winter inside, as well as out. His extra avoidance of his father, since, had also kept him away from his mother. It was nice to just be with her, to relax. 

     He should make more of an effort to see her, like this. 

     “Alors, ça va mamour? Have you met anyone?” 

     Adrien sank down beside her on the sky blue settee, and gave the same answer as always. “I meet a lot of people, maman.” 

     She smiled and touched his cheek. “Ma fleur bleue, someday she will find you.”

     He shrugged, let his gaze wander to fain disinterest. 

     Of course, he couldn’t fool her. She read him like no one else, she always had. He remembered her “translating” for him to his father, from the time he was very young up until… the night before. Adrien didn’t have to tell her that he was feeling more and more lonely, she already knew. 

     “You should accompany me to the OXFAM function next month, in London,” she offered. “There will certainly be a different crowd than your usual.” 

     “Peut-être.” Clearly, his mother had figured out that part of his wanting to get out of modeling was to change his scene. Away from the people who lived only to be beautiful, and focused on their outsides so much that their insides seemed to atrophy. He found it difficult to find friendship there, let alone any relationship. 

     “Madame,” the telephone said from the desk, “your ten o’clock is here.”

     She perked, returning to the desk to respond into the speaker. “Ah! I had completely forgotten. Yes, please send her in.” Emilie depressed the button to end the interaction and straightened. “I’ve commissioned a gown from a young designer who hasn’t really been seen yet. It is time to discover if my feelings about her were correct."

     The assistant opened the door from the outer office and in came… well… several garment bags, on two extended arms. The person the arms were attached to was petite, requiring her arms to be held high— Frankenstein style— to keep the ends from dragging. It looked ridiculous.

     Adrien jumped up to help. “Please, allow me.” He slid his arms under the bags to the outside of hers, easily lifting the burden. 

     “Ah, oh, thank you.” The hair that was revealed had a blue luster, which was then seen to match incredible blue eyes. Incredibly wide blue eyes. “Oh, mon Dieu!” She had something resembling a spasm, jerking away from their contact, and tumbled backwards as her feet tangled upon each other. 

     Adrien hung the bags on a garment rack there for the purpose, then quickly turned back to offer his hand to the young designer. Petite, blue-eyed and, well, probably quite fair to be able to blush that pink. “Are you alright?”

     She stared up at him, seemingly almost scared of his hand. Strange. Actually, he was getting a lot of strange from her. Had they met? It could explain her reaction, as well as this… weird… tingle? 

     “Simone, shame on you,” Emilie said, coming over to them both. “Allowing her to struggle like that.”

     “No, please, she did offer. I am stubborn, it seems,” the girl on the floor sighed. She looked back to Adrien, from his face to his hand, and finally reached out to take it. 

     And then they both yelped as a little arc of electricity jumped between their fingers. 

     Adrien chuckled, flexing his fingers. “Ouch! I was just trying to help.”

     The girl managed an embarrassed laugh, and this time didn’t hesitate before taking his hand. “Well, this has been a thoroughly embarrassing thirty seconds.” 

     His mother smiled warmly. “Please, no need to be embarrassed. I know from experience we tend to trip when we try to carry too much.” She placed her hands gently on the girl’s arms and proceeded to faire la bise. She seemed a bit starstruck. 

     Starstruck, that was it. She didn’t recognize him, she just recognized him. How could she not? His stupid face had been everywhere for decades. But that didn’t explain that tingle he was feeling. Although, perhaps it was just the static? No, that happened after it started. 

     “I do apologize, still.” The girl did her little embarrassed laugh once more, cheeks pinkening up again. “I’ve never been in any danger of being mistaken for a ballerina.”

     Adrien smirked. And yet, she was certainly not any toad. 

     “Well, let us relax, shall we? Simone, would you please bring some refreshments?”

     The assistant nodded and left the room as Emilie sat into her favorite chair. Adrien retook his place on the couch, but was ready to offer to leave if the designer seemed flustered by him. She did glance over before taking the other end, between the two, but did not seem any more than baseline flustered. 

     “Ah! Forgive my rudeness. Marinette, this is my son, Adrien. Darling, this is the designer I’ve been telling you about. Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

     He nodded respectfully. “Enchanté, Marinette.”

     That blush, again. He was, of course, quite accustomed to women blushing in his presence, but this seemed somehow different. It was very endearing. “It is my pleasure.”

     “Marinette, it seems you brought more than one gown.”

     She snapped back to business, the blush fading. “Yes, well, after we had our session and decided in a general direction I, well, I had some ideas for elements that wouldn’t exactly work together but seemed too well-suited to be able to discount. So, I chose to do them all, and will leave to you to decide what speaks to you the most.”

     His mother’s brows raised. “You’ve created three gowns in this time?”

     Marinette nodded. 

     “My goodness, that is impressive. It must have taken every waking moment.”

     She smiled. “Not quite.” 

     Adrien felt curiosity tugging at him. Why did she seemed so familiar? “Marinette, when did you begin designing?” 

     The blush. He really liked that blush. “Sort of… since I was old enough to hold a crayon.” She laughed, in a much more relaxed way than earlier. “But I am not sure those designs would be widely appreciated. I began making my own clothing and some little things for friends in middle school.”

     “She has designed for some significant names,” Emilie augmented. “Several musical acts. Jagged Stone, among them.”

     Marinette’s brows rose. “How did you know that?”

     “Oh, he raves about you.”

     “You know Jagged Stone?” He was surprised. The brash, uncouth man-child did not seem to be someone his mother would spend time with. 

     She grinned. “Well, I must insist that you both keep this secret, but we’ve known each other for years. He’s actually quite posh, in private. His father is a Lord.”

     He and Marinette looked at each other, seeming to be equally lost, and laughed. 

     “He hides it well,” Adrien chuckled. 

     His mother shrugged. “An act.”

     Simone reappeared with an ornate cart topped with tea, coffee, and an assortment of croissants. Adrien observed the girl as she gracefully accepted a cup of tea. Her hands were shaking, just the slightest bit. Was it nerves? Adrenaline? If she had worked with Jagged Stone— who seemed ungrounded at best— she couldn’t possibly be easily flustered. An act or not, he was a petulant diva. 

     “I was out for tea one day and happened to walk passed a tiny shop that had an absolutely fantastic gown in the window.” Emilie stood and went to the garment bags he had hung. “I was very happy to find the designer was present inside.” 

     Marinette’s eyes widened a bit, and she nearly spilled her tea moving to stand. 

     “Please, Marinette, relax. Simone and I are perfectly capable.”

     While the designer sat, she was hardly relaxed. Adrien watched her as she watched his mother and the assistant carefully unzip each garment bag. Every muscle in her body was tense, and he could see her pulse bounding at a spot in her neck just brushed by her plait. 

     The first gown was revealed, and his attention was drawn by his mother’s soft gasp. 

     The gown, though he could only see part of it, was immediately stunning. A deep, matte gray with a single shoulder neckline, on that shoulder appeared to perch a delicate purple and black butterfly. Smaller specimens scattered the bodice. As Adrien stood, a profoundly mysterious sensation sweeping over him, he saw that they gathered en masse farther down, completely covering the fabric of the otherwise simple A-line skirt. Their wings were prismatic, giving them the illusion of life. 

     “Oh goodness,” Emilie marveled. “This is astonishing.”

     Marinette smiled proudly. 

     Adrien… had to leave. “Ahhh, I need to be getting to my lunch.”

     “A bientôt, mon amour!” his mother called, holding the gown up in front of her. The butterflies seemed to flutter their wings at him. He tore his eyes away and to the designer, who had politely stood.

     “Marinette, it was a pleasure to meet you.”

     She nodded, that blush rising in her cheeks beneath the most delicate of freckles. “Yes, you as well.”

     He was stuck once more by her, big blue eyes with purple wings as their backdrop, and turned to swiftly leave. Why was his heart pounding so hard? His palm was vaguely sweaty as he pulled out his phone, if only to have something to focus on.

     He had only just entered the lift when a text from his mother appeared, an address whose link read MDC, Couture Design. 

Chapter Text

     Tess sighed from the desk, fiery ginger hair shaking. “Sounds as if someone has decided to torture a cat out front, again.”

     Marinette smirked around the pins held in her mouth. Just a few more stitches. She should have had this dress finished days before, but the pieces for Emilie Agreste had taken up all of her time. M. Dupont would be there any moment to pick it up, and the musical accompaniment that had begun outside was nice. “Rather kind of them to emulate Schumann as they do it,” she responded. 

     “If you need anything you’ll have to shout, I’m putting in my earbuds.”

     “For the musical wizardry of K pop?”

     “Sorry, can’t hear you!”

     She laughed, carefully slipping her needle through fabric, glittering golden thread trailing behind it. The violin imbued her stitches a sort of fluidity that she could not seem to find without it, no matter how many years of practice her fingers had. Her head swayed along a bit, getting lost in the notes. 

     The little dress was hung, checked once more, and then Marinette passed her assistant at the desk, where she was working on balancing costs with income. Thanks to Madame Agreste’s purchase of all three gowns, in addition to a “rush fee” that she absolutely insisted upon including, Tess’ job was much easier than it had ever been before. 

     “You’re going to scare away my customers,” she said with a smile, leaning out around the doorway of the shop. “Who would dare risk crossing such a mangy street creature just to look at dresses?”

     The violinist tossed his head back, long turquoise locks lifting to reveal matching, twinkling eyes. “Their loss.” 

     Marinette pulled a Euro coin from her pocket and tossed it into the open case at his feet. “There. Will you go, now?”

     Luka Couffaine lifted the bow from his violin and smiled. “Sure. Go… get us a table?”

     She smirked. 

     “No, I know, you’re working.” He gestured with the bow to the shop. “Which is why I’m willing to do one of two things. I’ll continue to serenade you, though I’ll cross the street if I must, until you finish. Or, I’ll happily go get a table and a bottle of your favorite wine, and wait patiently.”

     Marinette smiled pityingly, approaching to brush a bit of hair out of his eyes. “You know I have to focus, Luka.”

     “Well, you’re a bright gal, I have faith you can focus on more than one thing at a time.”

     “You think too much of me, I’m afraid,” she sighed, her hand falling back to her side.  

     “No more than you deserve.” His voice was smooth, his eyes deep and full of adoration. Like they always were. And it wasn’t that hers weren’t, it was just—

     “Marinette!” A little girl dashed across the street, the ribbons in her hair floating behind her. “Is my dress ready? Can I see it? Can I wear it? Please?”

     She laughed as the girl wrapped her arms around her waist. “Yes, it’s ready. Let’s have you try it on, shall we?” Marinette looked back up to the musician, apologizing as she always did. “Maybe some other time.”

     He nodded, though the dazzling smile had faded. “Yeah, I know.” Luka recovered, tossing his hair back once more. “Well, I’m out, might as well make a few more Euros. Rent is almost due.”

     “You have two gold records.”

     He shrugged. “Spent it all on nail polish.”

     She wished she had time for him. She had ever since they met years before, the older brother of a friend. But there had always been something nagging at her, insisting that she couldn’t afford the distraction. And she kept expecting him to stop randomly appearing, stop looking at her the way he did when she was involved with something for his band. But he didn’t. 

     “Come on, Marinette!” The girl tugged at her. 

     “Helene!” called her breathless father as he jogged around the corner from the direction she had appeared. 

     “It’s nice to see you, Luka,” Marinette said. Honestly. “I have to get back to work.”

     “Bonne soirée,” he offered, lowering his head in a sort of bow as she returned to the shop with her customers.

     “Is that it?” the girl squealed, spotting the dress. “It is, isn’t it? It’s so perfect!” 

     “I apologize,” offered Monsieur Dupont. “I hope we didn’t interrupt anything.”

     Marinette smiled. It was easier to convince Luka that she truly was too busy for a relationship if she was, obviously, busy. “Not at all. Let’s see how it looks on you, Helene!”

     Adrien blew out a long breath, steeling himself. 

     Frankly, it was stupid. He was a goddamned supermodel, an award-winning actor. He could, according to Pascal, drop panties within a hundred-meter radius. But something about the little shop across the street was making it a bit difficult to breathe. 

     He’d been more annoyed than not, when his mother had sent him the address of the young designer’s base of operations. But, the further he got from their meeting the more it stuck in his head. Adorable little blushes and that strange tingle…. 

     He’d managed to hold off the urge a day and a half, but it wouldn’t go away. An itch to scratch. And after dropping off Pascal, somewhere between his flat and his own, Adrien had realized that the address he kept finding himself staring at was nearby.  

     So here he was; his weight shifting back and forth restlessly as he attempted to construct something to say. 

     Laughter erupted from a cafe down the block. It was dinner time, those shops that hadn’t yet closed were in the process. If he was going to cross the street, he needed to do it, while the window with MDC painted in gold script was still lit. Else, bumping into her as she left could seem to be kismet, or could suggest that he had been loitering, creepily, waiting. 

     A lot like this. 

     The door opened as he was about to step off the curb, producing a short woman with bright, curly red hair. She was laughing as she exited, and turned back to say one thing more before closing the door behind her and walking off in the opposite direction. 

     Vas-y, vas-y, vas-y!

     The gown that had drawn his mother’s attention drew his, as well. It was matte ivory satin, a long sheath with a Sabrina collar whose silhouette reminded him of 1930s Hollywood; but this was only the canvas. The right shoulder sprouted eight ribbons in shades of pink, starched loops that just slightly overlayed each other, creating a sort of scaled effect. Like… what was the armor piece for a shoulder? A pauldron. They would rest gently on the upper arm of the wearer, like a cap-sleeve. Further, from the right shoulder to the left hip those ribbons were intricately woven throughout the gown to form a sort of sash. When they reached the hip they twisted into a waterfall of bows, one in each color, that ended in loose ribbons that just brushed the floor. It was simple and yet complex, entrancing and yet not overbearing. 

     You can do this. 

     His hand fell upon the door latch and rest there. It warmed against his skin, seemed to be alive. But, Adrien realized, it was only his own bounding pulse. 

     As he began to crack the door a wave of girlish laughter escaped. Delighted giggles. They forced a grin to his lips before he even saw their origin. 

     Inside the little front room a little girl was twirling wildly as the designer, on her knees, attempted to fuss over the dress she wore. It was a V-neck A-line, with rainbow ribbons following the neckline before beginning a tight basket-weave all around the bodice, with the ends hanging free over the sky blue skirt. With the girl’s spinning they were floating, a happy rainbow hurricane. 

     “Helene,” laughed a man sitting nearby, “hold still so Marinette can make sure it fits you!”

     “It fits it fits it fits it fits it fits!”

     The designer seemed to give up and simply watched with a smile. “Okay, I think I can count one more satisfied customer!”

     “It’s perrrrrfect!” the girl cried, spinning ever faster, and almost immediately tumbled sideways into Adrien’s legs. 

     “Whoa!” He reached down to steady her, his eyes catching Marinette’s as he did. Surprise rippled out from her pools of blue, rising a blush in her cheeks as it went. “Careful, you wouldn’t want to fall and smudge that lovely dress.”

     “It’s sooooo perrrrrfect!” The girl ran to her father, who seemed to agree. “Can I wear it home? Please?”

     “I think it’s best if you take it off, bugaboo. To keep it perfect for your party.” 

     “Noooooo!”

     The shop was small, but tidy. Gently lit, and, he noticed as he stood, perfumed with the soft scent of roses. It was comfortable; so different from so many couture shops, which seemed to pride themselves on feeling as sterile as possible. Adrien was drawn towards a rack of gowns as the designer and her customers concluded their business. 

     Her designs were generally simple, honoring traditional shapes while also using them as an unassuming background so that her unique details stood out. He touched the seams, slid his hand under a panel. They all fit together perfectly, with tiny stitches that might as well have been invisible. Then, his attention was stolen by a flash of purple. Farther back, a partially-assembled butterfly of the design that he had seen on his mother’s gown the morning before lay on a desk. He felt himself be drawn to it. 

     “Excuse me, that area is private.”

     Adrien looked up to find the designer standing not far away, with her arms crossed yet not an all-together unfriendly expression. “You made these from scratch?”

     The young woman smirked. “Did you think I would present Emilie Agreste with something I threw together with things from a store?”

     He examined the butterfly he held, the top two layers of one wing. It was embellished with strands of seed beads, prismatic flakes. All hand sewn. “This is incredible. Even one of them is incredible.”

     Her head bobbed in a sort of thanks, but her hand also extended to take the piece back from him. Adrien chuckled and acquiesced— and an arc of static jumped between their hands as he transferred the butterfly. 

     “Ouch!” He rubbed his hand. “What do you have against me?”

     Marinette laughed anxiously. “What do you have against me? This has never happened before!”

     Adrien conjured his most charming smile. “I suppose I find you quite electrifying.”

     Her brows raised over a pinched smirk. Adrien could practically hear Pascal’s delighted laughter as his line utterly failed. 

     “Ahh,” he chuckled, anxiously running a hand back through his hair. “I’m sorry. It’s my job to look pretty, not to be clever.”

     “So I see.”

     He wondered if she was commenting on his attractiveness or complete lack of wit as she carefully set the butterfly back onto her workstation. 

     “So, how may I help you? Or are you here to steal ideas for your father?”

     “My father designs menswear,” Adrien noted, returning to the front of the shop without having to be further swept along. 

     “Ah, yes. So, what are you doing here?”

     “Have to get my dresses somewhere.”

     Her brows raised once more, but the smirk was no longer so pinched. She leaned forwards on the little counter that separated the front from the back and looked him over. Her hair was pulled into a simple ponytail this time, but as her head moved a bit came free, a dark blue line floating down as if to underline her face. “You have unusual proportions for my customers.”

     Adrien looked down at his body. “I don’t imagine I’m so different from a five-year-old girl.”

     “Unless they airbrushed the heck out of your abs for the ad I saw in the Metro earlier, I’m quite certain you are.”

     Heat rose in his cheeks— not a completely foreign sensation, but a rare enough one. He brushed the thought away. “Oh, yeah. It’s all fake. The muscles, the tan. My eyes aren’t even green. I’m actually a fifty-year-old bald Czech.”

     An actual smile broke through. Not one of the anxious placeholders he had seen on her, so far. It was a really nice sight. “Well, in that case, you’re very much not my usual customer.”

     “Somehow I imagine you have the skills to handle me.”

     Her blush returned, and not so innocent. He realized how he had misspoken as the shop seemed to turn suddenly hot. 

     “Nom de Dieu,” he muttered into his hands, which he then held up in surrender. “I meant, you are a fantastic seamstress. I swear, I’m honestly not so crude.” 

     She was still smiling. And still blushing. And as she tucked the wayward strand of hair behind her ear she bit her lower lip a bit in a way that, somehow, made him feel exactly that crude. 

     He had been focusing on… work? No, not really, but that was his excuse. He had long before begun to get tired of the type of women that he was usually exposed to, and had, for all intents and purposes, focused on his work. Just so he wouldn’t even have to bother playing the game. So, maybe it had been a while since he’d really even paid attention to a woman.

     Still, though, he didn’t usually get thrown off like this. That strange sort of tingle she had come with the day before, the way that blush was effecting him. He wasn’t even exactly interested in her, he was just… why am I here, again?

     “So, why are you here, again?”

     Adrien laughed, and it sounded far more pained than it should have. “I was actually just trying to figure that out. Umm… was in the neighborhood?”

     “Yeah?”

     He nodded. “Yeah. And… wondered if… was afraid… that…” his eyes wandered the ceiling as he searched for an explanation. “I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t come off as rude when I left, yesterday.”

     Marinette seemed to be looking for things to do. She had moved to the area where a receptionist would sit and slid things around pointlessly for a moment, her eyes directed down at her task. “More rude than when I threw a few gowns at you and then fell over? No.”

     “I don’t remember you throwing them at me, exactly,” he chuckled. “Although I do recall the falling.”

     She was scowling as she nodded, apparently to a calculator on the desk. “Yes, of course. I guess I just wasn’t expecting… you.”

     “I wasn’t expecting you, either.”

     Adrien faked a lot of things; such is the life of a model and actor. He faked laughter, smiles, tears. He faked confidence, poise, interest. And as they stood there, sort of smiling at each other, he wondered if he hadn’t been faking even more than he realized; because being alone with this near-stranger felt more natural than with just about everyone he had ever met. 

     “Have you eaten?” he forced out. “Or… drink?”

     Marinette’s gaze fell again, her teeth bit her lip. The innocent, strange familiarity again slid into much more sordid territory. “I really need to focus on work,” she told the calculator. “I have a piece to deliver tomorrow that is hours from anything. As it is I don’t imagine I’m going to sleep any time soon.”

     He leaned onto the counter, just to be a little closer to her. Wondering if the feeling of comfort intensified, in her immediate area, or if he only needed to be in her general presence. Did she smell like roses, or only the store? Trial and error, like a child discovering something for the first time. “I wouldn’t mind not sleeping with you.”

     Her brows raised about two seconds quicker than his brain realized what he had said, again. His hands went back onto his face. 

     “That was intended to mean ‘would you like some company? I could get take away and bring it back and hang around.’”

     “Ah,” she noted. And even though Adrien was intensely focused on not misspeaking again, he was even more intensely focused on her freckles. Barely there, sprinkled beneath her eyes, across the bridge of her nose, giving her the look of a blue-eyed strawberry when she blushed. 

     “But I don’t appear to be much of a conversationist this evening,” Adrien allowed. “So maybe I should try again some other time.”

     The designer smiled. In those eyes were a lot of thoughts, a lot of words that didn’t quite surface. “I really need to focus on work,” she affirmed.

     He nodded and moved towards the entrance, at once hating to go, and hoping he could do it without any more embarrassments. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” His eyes slipped over the gown in the window as he reached the door. “It is amazing work, Marinette.”

     “Thank you. I’m… not always so busy.” She brushed back a strand of hair where there wasn’t one to brush. “I mean, I am, but, maybe, you know, I could be a little less busy.”

     A tiny spark ignited within him, quickly building into a warm glow. And the kindling was right there, in front of him. “I’d like… yeah… I’ll… um…. Have fun. I mean, good luck.” Bail, bail! “Have a good evening.”

     She nodded, closing the door behind him. As he heard the lock click he turned back, feigning offense. 

     “Am I really that scary?”

     Marinette smiled, flipping the sign in the door to fermé. Adrien, to his credit, was able to get around the corner before burying his face in his hands. “Merde, that was painful.”

     “Fuck yes it was!”

     He startled at the delighted voice, briefly wondering if Pascal had not somehow been riding around in his pocket. But no, it was only his phone. Adrien raised it to his ear and sighed. 

     “That was epic. Epic, mate! I haven’t heard anything that awkward since—“

     “How long have you been listening?” He dragged himself towards the Metro stop a block away, feeling suddenly exhausted. 

     “Since you butt-dialed me like half an hour ago,” said his friend through what sounded to be a full mouth. 

     He frowned and glanced at his watch. “I was only there like twenty minutes.”

     “Yeah, but I didn’t have anything better to do, anyway. Man, did my waiting pay off!”

     Adrien scowled through the phone. “You know, most people, when they realize they’ve been accidentally called—“

     “Do something incredibly lame,” Pascal finished. “So, who was that? Something about throwing dresses at you and not sleeping together?”

     Waiting to cross the street, Adrien pulled a beanie and a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket; the last thing he needed at the moment was to be recognized. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Or, actually, I won’t. Yeah, I won’t tell you. Ever. Anything.”

     His assistant cackled. “Alright, secret agent Pascal it is! This is going to be a lark!”

     “No, Pascal, don’t you dare—“ 

     The line was dead. Fantastic. Hopefully his best friend would manage to find some semblance of decorum in that empty whiskey bottle he called a brain. 

Chapter Text

     “Marinette. Marinette? Mar-in-ette.”

     “Mmmmmmmm.” Someone was stroking her hair. It felt really nice. As opposed to the rest of her body, which felt… sore, awkward. 

     “Marinette.” A hard poke on her shoulder awakened her. 

     She sat up, her back decrying the sudden movement, and looked around to find that she was sitting at the big, “seventies-tactic” kitchen island of their shared flat. Well, not so much sitting at as had been hunched over onto it, asleep, whilst still holding a currently-cold cup of coffee. Alya was setting her purse down close by.

     “Whoa, girl. You okay?”

     She moaned, rubbing her face. Certainly, half of it had been completely flattened by the yellow Formica surface in the... exactly how many hours had she asleep, there? If Alya was home, it was late. “I stopped here to take a shower and change before going back to the shop. And I decided to have a cup of coffee before I left….”

     Alya laughed. “Pro tip, you need to actually drink the coffee for it to have an effect.”

     Marinette scowled. “Thank you.”

     “You got the dress finished and delivered?”

     She nodded as her hands ran back over her hair, to judge exactly how wildly it had dried as she napped. “Yes. But took every minute up until my deadline. Same with Helene’s, last night.”

     Alya hung up her coat by the door, frowning. “You need a break, sweetheart.”

     “I just took one,” she said, stretching with a grimace. The right side of her back was aching. “Oww. May have to see when Alix has an emergent opening.”

     “Who would have thought that being hunched over a sewing machine night and day would lead to the desperate need of a massage?” 

     “Maybe she could just come by the studio,” Marinette muttered, typing a text. 

     Alya abruptly paused on the way to her room. “You are not going to the studio tonight.”

     “Of course I’m going to the studio. I should’ve been at the studio five hours ago. I just mixed up work and sleep a bit.” She pulled the fridge open to gather snacks to take along. A cup of yogurt, some prosciutto and herbs and cheese to make a sandwich, if the baguette from the day before wasn’t too stale…

     As she set about making dinner, Marinette forced the cobwebs from her brain. There weren't any commissions due for nearly a week, and those were already well begun. Of course, more were on the horizon, several more consultations scheduled, and there was always her work on an actual line to do. She had been taking whatever she could get and had been abundantly thankful, but now that Emilie Agreste would be wearing not just one, but three of her gowns, things would likely change. She needed to begin to think like a sought-after designer, as opposed to this toddler just learning how to stand on her own. 

     “Nope.” The package of prosciutto was lifted out of her hands just was she had been struggling to peel back the top, and the sandwich-in-progress was pulled away from the side. Alya, who had changed from her business casual detective wear to jeans and a hoodie, slid both into the fridge before turning to fix Marinette with a glare. “You are, at the very least, going to have real food.”

     “That was real food!”

     “I repeat: nope.” The stance made it clear that she was blocking the fridge. “Nino and I were talking about meeting somewhere for dinner, come on. Eat and relax and tell me all about how it went with Emilie Agreste and then, if you insist, I’ll let you go to the studio.”

     “You’ll let me?”

     She nodded. “I’ll let you.” Her elbow hooked through Marinette’s arm and pulled her towards the door. “On y va.”

     Marinette huffed, but retrieved her purse and coat. “Fine.”

     “Damn straight.”

     As they descended the stairs she sighed, but it was more because of the totality of life than the current situation. 

     “Come on, I haven’t seen you for any amount of time in at least a month,” Alya lamented. “And, other than ‘it went well’ you haven’t told me anything about how Emilie Agreste reacted! I was basically holding my breath and that’s all you gave me.”

     “Ah, yeah. It went really well.” 

     Alya glared, whilst holding open the front door for her. She had taken her hair out of its earlier plait, and the firey mane hung in great tsunami waves over her shoulders. 

     “I added ‘really’ this time,” Marinette observed with a grin. 

     “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

     She smiled, allowing the feeling of intense accomplishment to wash over her anew. Originally, Marinette had not allowed herself to linger for long in its afterglow, because there was so much more work to get to. But it did feel really good. “She wanted all three.”

     “What?” Alya grabbed her arm and began to jump. “You sold them all? That’s incredible! I mean, I am not at all surprised, because they were fucking amazing, but I am so proud of you!” Her arms went around her shoulders for a crushing hug. 

     Marinette laughed. “Okay, ow! Thank you.”

     “So, what else? What’s she like?”

     “Very, very kind.” Reflecting on the hour or so that she had spent in the actress’ office, a warm glow spread through her chest. The way Madame Agreste had put her at ease, even after those intensely awkward first minutes… it so easily could have gone so differently. “Even though, of course, I was an absolute klutz and embarrassed myself immediately.”

     Alya laughed. “That’s basically part of your brand, Mare.”

     She grimaced. 

     “Which makes all the details you execute so perfectly all the more impressive,” she amended. 

     “Hmph.” 

     “So, what else? Concluded your business and that’s it?” Alya scanned the cafes on three of the five corners, and seemed to end up making her decision based upon the current crosswalk situation. 

     Marinette bit her lip. She had considered several times whether or not she should mention the most unexpected… and... nice? portion of the meeting. 

     But Detective Césaire missed nothing, leaving her little choice. “What are you hiding?”

     “Soooooo.” Her hands fiddled as they waited to be noticed just inside the cafe. “Um… her son was there.”

     Alya’s brows went up. “Adrien Agreste? You met Adrien Agreste?” 

     “I… sort of fell over in front of, and then electrocuted him when he tried to help me up.”

     The entire restaurant went quiet, turning towards Alya as she folded over in raucous laughter. By the time she managed to right herself, Marinette was certain she was tomato-red. On the up-side, the staff now knew they were there. 

     “Oh, Marinette, I do love you.”

     “Thanks,” she muttered into the hug she was unhappily receiving. 

     “I imagine he thought you were adorable.” Alya lead the way to the table they had been motioned to, and pulled out a chair for Marinette once they arrived. 

     “Yes, adorable in so much as a clumsy, plebeian seamstress must be quite the novelty in the world of rich, refined, jet-setting supermodels.”

     “I do not doubt you are every bit as refined.” 

     She had never expected to see him again, and had especially not expected him to appear in her studio the following evening. What had he been doing there? He'd never really settled on an explanation, did he? 

     But, also, her mind seemed to go a little haywire around him. As had been so well illustrated by her jerking away so violently she fell down, upon their initial meeting. 

     Ugh.

     That had been strange. As frenetic as she was sometimes known to be, there hadn’t really been any good reason for her reaction. She wouldn’t be called a fan of his, because she didn’t idolize models— or anyone, really— that way. His mother had much more of an impact upon her, and Marinette had yet managed to be fully functional when surprised by her visit to the studio. Sure, it could have been surprising that such a rich, jet-setting super model would immediately offer to be of assistance to a plebeian seamstress, but it didn’t call for the caliber of reaction. Which, even for her, was elite. 

     Ugh!

     It had been intensely odd how familiar he felt. Not in the same way as his mother, or any of the other people she had met after seeing them larger than life. It must’ve had to do with their being similar ages, and his growing up very much in the spotlight. That made him fundamentally different, in her head, than Emilie Agreste or Jagged Stone, or any of the others. A sort of distant peer.   

     He had come to her studio, then offered to bring her food and… just… keep her company as she worked? Was she remembering it wrong? Her focus had been very much on the commission she had been sewing through the night, and then pure exhaustion took over. But… yes, he had. How did that make any sense? 

     “Earth to girl. Come in, Marinette! Hello? Alors, she’ll take your house white. I’ll have the red. Merci.”

     She had to be missing something. 

     He seemed nice. Surprisingly nice. Because who would expect a rich, jet-setting supermodel to also be such an immediately thoughtful gentleman? It could be assumed that he had been acting as such because of his mother’s presence, but that wouldn’t explain it at her shop. It wouldn’t explain him being at her shop, at all. 

     Maybe he was just checking her out? Making sure that she was legitimate, if she was going to be known as one of his mother’s designers. Nothing that could reflect badly upon the family. 

     That made sense. 

     Offering to bring her food…?

     “My gals!” 

     She was broken out of her thoughts by a sudden, rough kiss on the head as Alya’s boyfriend arrived. He apologized as he hit at least two surrounding tables while taking off his puffer jacket, then somewhat forcefully scooted Alya to an inner seat so that he could take the most accessible one. 

     “You’re taking ownership of Marinette, now?” his partner asked, after greeting each other with a quick kiss. 

     Nino laughed. He and Alya matched each other in a lot of ways, both with warm brown skin and warm dispositions. He had hardly changed in all the time she had known him: short hair forever covered by a cap, dark eyes still full of questionable boyish thoughts. “I mean, she’s basically my chick-in-law.”

     “Chick-in-law?” Alya looked at him doubtfully. 

     “Basically. And since she’s going to be single forever, ya know, I got her back.”

     “I’m not sure I like where this is headed.”

     “Neither am I,” Marinette muttered, scanning the menu. 

     “Anyway, she actually just met a guy.” Alya grinned, elbowing her beau.

     Nino’s gazed turned towards her, a wide grin accompanying it. “Whaaaaat?” 

     Her brows raised. Yes, she had met a guy. So….?

     Oh. 

     This is why I’m single. 

     Also, the determination not to be distracted. 

     Also, the working like eighteen hours a day. 

     Also, the hundreds of times she had thought about kissing Luka, she couldn’t quite figure out the… mechanics? 

     Marinette scowled at them both. “In the most literal sense, yes, I did meet a guy.”

     “Not just any guy!”

     As a glass of white wine she did not recall ordering was set in front of her, Marinette decided she would allow the two of them to have their conversation, eat, and then get back to work. It would be quicker if she didn't fight it.

     “It was Adrien Agreste.”

     Nino blinked. “Is that, like, someone I'm supposed to know?” 

     “Seriously?”

     He shrugged. 

     Alya stood up, then twisted and bobbed. Nino watched this with confusion; Marinette drank her wine. 

     “That,” she finally said, pointing outside, “is Adrien Agreste.”

     Nino did a similar dance— standing, bobbing, turning. Several other diners were staring (again); Marinette continued to drink her wine. She also considered that she had not eaten in a very long time and if the serveuse didn’t come and take their order soon, that wine was going to go straight to her head. Everything was beginning to smell really good. 

     “Oh… like… a model or something?”

     Alya’s eyes rolled, and she raised fingers while counting achievements. “Supermodel, amazing actor, fucking Olympic fencer, virtuoso pianist—“

     Marinette’s brows rose. Now, she sort of wished she had taken him up on that offer of not sleeping together. He would have to be absolutely fascinating.

     Also, there was…. 

     “How do you know so much about this dude?” Nino looked more than a bit suspicious. 

     “Um, everyone does! The guy has played with the London Symphony, he’s done charity stuff in China and Taiwan. He was like a worldwide story when he was in the Olympics because, duh, look at him.”

     Her boyfriend appeared unimpressed. 

     “Is he absolutely flawless, in person?” Alya asked, leaning across the table. Her eyes were as similar to those of a fluttering cartoon princess as any real person had ever gotten.

     “Um… I didn’t really notice. He was… just… a man.” 

     Alya seemed profoundly disappointed, though Nino did not. “See, my girl knows what’s up. Big deal that he’s pretty and a virtual pianist—“

     “Virtuoso pianist.”

     “Yeah, okay. Big deal.”

     Was that why she had been thrown so off balance by him? Metaphorically, although, of course, the literal falling…. 

     No, right? She had never been all that impacted by physical appearance. There was a big difference between being able to objectively acknowledge that a person was attractive and swooning. And yes, of course she knew who he was— everyone knew who he was— but, in that earliest second, Marinette was pretty sure that her thought had not been that he was beautiful or famous. So what had it been, that— literally, again— threw her off? 

     She wondered if she would see him again. As odd as it was that she had seen him at all, of course. He… he had to be an incredibly interesting person. So many outstanding and varied experiences! Truly, the opposite of herself. 

     Marinette basically grew up in a bakery, one that her parents owned just downstairs from their home. Other than that… well, she had already told him of her life: she began designing clothes as soon as she could draw, learned to sew, and decided it would be her career. In between those things… school, work in the bakery. Rare trips to visit family. A fantastically ordinary life. 

     And so, she thought, it might be nice to just listen to him speak, for a while. Hear about such an extremely different existence. She stayed so well in her bubble, just because it was the most efficient way of life, that she could only imagine that someone like that… he must be astonishing. 

     Is that what she had felt, from him? His uniqueness? 

     No. It wasn’t the sensation of a person so different from herself, but just the opposite. Someone impossibly familiar. 

     Like the embodiment of every déjà vu she had ever had. 

Chapter Text

     “Bonjour, Monsieur Adrien.”

     “Bonjour,” he sighed, turning over his jacket and hat to Louis. The manor was frigid, although neither the butler nor Pascal seemed to notice. The assistant followed towards Gabriel Agreste’s studio, as it was actual business they were there to attend to. 

     Which was quite possibly why the house felt so cold. 

     “Alors,” began Pascal, not for the first time, “how did you meet her?”

     He looked over at his friend, whose eyes were still red despite multiple applications of saline in the car. They’d been over it three times already. Or, actually, not over it. Pascal had attempted several approaches since he had been picked up, and an obvious hangover seemed not to be any object to pestering Adrien about the conversation he had overheard the evening before. Who is she, where were you, and why don’t you want to sleep with her, is she ugly? How ugly?

     “We aren’t talking about this,” Adrien reminded him. “Especially not here.”

     “I think here might be the perfect place to talk about it. Get your mind off it all.”

     Pascal had been his best friend since he began education outside the home, when he was thirteen. Adrien had been anxious, withdrawn, at a loss as to who to be. His mother had talked his father into allowing him to attend the best school in the city, one where only children of the most elite— or, at least, rich— families could attend. It would be safe enough, she said, for their precious son. The education would be as high as that he could receive with the best tutors, and he needed more socialization with his peers. He could find no bad influences in such an auspicious academy. 

     And he had found all those promised things. He had also found Pascal: a dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-humored boy whose hijinks were already well-known amongst the students and professors. For Adrien, whom had only been exposed to the most prim and proper for his entire life, the irreverent, raucous but brilliant Pascal was fascinating. 

     That brilliance was what kept him from catching too much punishment for his behavior and wit, for he was the best student by far. Adrien had been a keen learner, and taught by the best money could buy. He thought he was bright, until he met Pascal. The guy had a grasp of history— Adrien’s favorite subject— that was astonishing. He spoke all the languages Adrien did, and at least five more. There seemed to be no calculation time at all, even with the most complex equations. 

     He was also the most base, vile, disrespectful person he had ever met. He welcomed every indulgence. When the other children pampered themselves with fine chocolate and shopping trips with their parents’ cards, Pascal had no interest in such basic things. 

     The first time Adrien spent the night he found that his new friend’s parents were away on business. Nearly all the time, they were away on business. That is what gave the family their means, and Pascal his education, his experience, his worldview. 

     They were weapons barons. 

     “Arms runners,” Pascal had said, feet up on his father’s desk, a glass of his father’s Scotch in his hand, psychedelic mushrooms floating within it; the strange deep green eyes that seemed to break apart his shadowy image hazy with equal parts intoxication and disgust. “That’s the most charitable way to say it.”

     Adrien always declined the offer of drinks and drugs, but would talk with Pascal all night. They became more than just best friends, but a kind of team. Adrien tempered Pascal where he could, and Pascal gave Adrien the nudges he often needed. 

     “These lives are short, Adrien,” he would say, fingers playing with whatever morsel of entertainment he had chosen for the moment. “There’s no time to waste.”

     After graduation, around the time that Pascal had three lovers of vastly different ages and genders that had suddenly found out about each other, he had decided it was time to disappear from Paris for a while. He took family money to Mumbai, where he started (and eventually torpedoed) a successful business doing… well, he had never really said. Returning home after two years in literal rags with tail firmly between his legs, Pascal spent a month locked in his old bedroom without opening the curtains, without showering. Without speaking to anyone, until Adrien decided enough was enough and climbed through the second-story window to physically pull him out of depression. It was then that he decided to finally take his family’s advice and hire an assistant. 

     Gabriel Agreste had not approved of the choice. 

     Pascal always knew what he was thinking. And, when things got bad in there, he was always able to free Adrien, just the way Adrien had freed him. 

     They were a good team. 

     “Adrien,” his father intoned as the two of them entered his studio, “you’re late.” He never addressed Pascal unless it was absolutely unavoidable. 

     “My apologies, father. There was traffic, I should have left earlier.”

     “It will not happen again,” Gabriel ensured, still looking down at his desk. “Take off your layers.” 

     Adrien did as he was told. Pascal obediently took his shoes, sweater, slacks. His undershirt, his underwear. Completely exposed, as always. Unnecessarily. Simple measurements weren’t enough, for they wouldn’t tell the story of his body the way that was needed to fully take advantage of its attributes. Pascal’s eyes always turned angry, as he collected the clothing, but there was nothing to be said. He stood close by with a tablet as one of Gabriel’s assistants began to take his measurements. In case any information was needed, but also to support his friend. He knew how this made him feel.

     The measurements were read out, and after the first few, Gabriel Agreste finally looked up. He adjusted his glasses as he approached, then walked around his son with the world’s most demanding eye. Pascal stood his ground and pretended to be absorbed in the tablet, forcing the designer to step out of his line. 

     “You need to gain more muscle, I’ve told you. Your shoulders, your back.”

     Adrien said nothing. It was safer. 

     “I’ll be making this three centimeters larger, there, and I expect it to fit perfectly.”

     He took a deep breath, and held it. It held his silence. But, when his father completed his circuit and came face to face, Adrien looked into his eyes with a fierce determination. Gabriel’s narrowed. 

     “You have six weeks,” he stated. “Better get to work.”

     Adrien only blinked. 

     “You alright?” 

     He didn’t respond to Pascal’s quiet question as they pulled their jackets back on. He could do nothing but get the fuck out of that house as quickly as possible. 

     “Adrien?”

     Once shut in his car, he could breathe again. He could breathe but felt dizzy, as if he was yet holding his breath. 

     But he almost always felt that way. 

     “I fucking hate him,” he whispered as they rolled out of the gate. 

     “I know, mate. You’re not the only one.” Pascal’s hand fell onto his shoulder. “How about we go to mine, have a little recombobulation?”

     “No, thanks. I just… want to take a walk, I think. Benoit, let me out when we hit Rue de Rivoli, please.”

     Pascal looked at him with pity as he stepped out of the car. He hated his own parents, as well. A lot of the people they grew up with did. Riches, it seemed, didn’t come cheap. But this was different. 

     Embraced by the winter, he felt a little more free. But, he knew, it would take time to shake off all of those feelings of captivity his father left him with. It always did. 

     Adrien began to walk. Into the wind, because he needed to feel like he had power over something. Even if it was invisible. He followed that, would come to an intersection and turn in the direction it was strongest. A slow chase, gradually clearing his mind. Losing himself, as he lost track of where he was. 

     Until he looked up, and found himself in the most perfect place he could’ve ended up.

     The tinkle of the bell over the door made Adrien smile. Because it was such a small shop, where people actually worked, as opposed to sitting around staring blankly at their phones until a customer wandered in. 

     The front counter was deserted, as was the front of the shop. But that wasn’t the case for the entire studio, he heard soft humming and smelled something like chai. This place felt comfortable, comforting. Exactly the opposite of his father’s studio. Maybe that’s why he had been drawn there, searching out an antidote. 

     The designer was sitting at the workstation, headphones over her ears, head gently swaying beneath them as she embroidered what looked to be a jacket. Seeing her sent loose a cascade of endorphins through his blood, like fulfilling an addiction.

     “Bonjour,” he called out. 

     Her head continued to bob, her lips mouthing a few words. Her fingers were nimble, the needle held between them moving smoothly. Adrien found himself entranced by the movement; it seemed almost meditative. 

     She was beautiful. Really beautiful, not the end of an equation of measurements, ratios, tones. An authentic collection of eyes and lips and nose and hair. Small, unaugmented breasts on a slim figure. The sort of corporeal honesty that hardly seemed to exist anymore, in his circles. Everyone was holding themselves to some standard that was, at its base, not their own.

     She was incredibly talented, the proof was all around him. And though he suddenly realized they’d had two conversations, at best, he was certain she was bright. Fierce intelligence filled her eyes, when they spoke. 

     This didn’t happen to him. 

     It didn’t, which was why his mother knew him to be heartsick. Not desperately, of course, and he hid his loneliness well. He kept himself too busy to really feel that void. But it did still hit him, when out with certain friends. He did want that, but it hadn’t happened and he had sort of given up looking for it. 

     Was this what it felt like, to be struck? 

     I think it is. 

     “Marinette,” he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. The girl startled, saw him, and jerked the headphones off her ears as her cheeks flushed that anxious shade of pink. 

     “Oh mince!” The piece she had been working on was quickly set down and she rushed to the counter. “I apologize, I didn’t think the music was so loud? How long have you been here?”

     He smirked. “Not long. And I don’t mind.”

     Her embarrassment turned to smile. “So, you’re back.”

     “It appears so.”

     “Just in the neighborhood, again?”

     “Yes, exactly.” 

     It occurred to Adrien that, perhaps, he should have some legitimate reason for being there, instead of simply deciding he was welcome in her place of work whenever he felt the urge. And, abruptly, he had an idea that would address his two most pressing issues. 

     “Have you ever done a suit?”

     Her brows raised. “Um, well, yes. I’ve done several. But they aren’t my forte.” She disappeared, squatting behind the counter for something. There was the sound of things moving around. “Most of the work I’ve done for men has been for Jagged and Kitty Section.”

     “Kitty Section? That sounds familiar….”

     She popped back up, two hardbound books in her hands. “It’s a band. Alt-rock, I guess? They’re old friends of mine, I’ve done their costumes from the beginning. And some of their clothes, off-stage.”

     He winced as the name brought up an image, but fortunately Marinette was too busy flipping through one of the books to notice. “Ah, yeah, the guys in the wild costumes. Right.”

     She laughed. “They’re meant to be a spectacle, not fashionable.” Those beautiful eyes sparkled up at him. Eyes like bluebells. “I won’t be offended if you aren’t a fan.”

     “They are absolutely spectacles.”

     “Voilà.” Marinette spun the book around to face him. On one of the glossy pages was a photo of two girls and two guys, each probably about twenty. The shortest of them, a tiny blonde, was wearing an abomination of a Cinderella gown: it was fifty shades of pink and covered with bows and roses. Ostentatious would be charitable. The other young woman, tall and thin with long black-to-purple hair, cut a black, mermaid silhouette. But not just one black, several. Details were clear, while none of the colors could be called anything but black. Tulip sleeves capped her pale arms, the back of which draped into a capelet. One of the young men, his suit must’ve taken ten meters of fabric, easily. He was huge! His suit matched a horrible shock of golden hair sprouting from above his forehead, with gold spikes and studs serving as adornment. The last guy, though, his was nice. He was tall, with the proportions of a lean but muscled frame, and somehow familiar. His suit was also unique, but in a much more subdued way: dark turquoise, dark green, black trim. Asymmetrical in a way that evoked something serpentine. 

     On the facing page was a photo of the designer standing between the two males, she noticeably younger than currently. And her gown… it wasn’t form-fitting enough to be inappropriate, but hugged her little curves in a way that still made him forget his name for a moment. Her arm was hooked through the elbows of each of the guys, a laugh on her face. A laugh on the monstrous one, too. The other… he was looking over at her with an expression of adoration that anyone could see. 

     “You were cute,” he said. It slipped out without thought, and his mental gears immediately crashed together, his heart rate kicking up. “I mean, you are cute. I mean, that gown is great, it’s so difficult for a designer to fit themselves well.” His attempt at casual was the worst acting he had done since he was three.

     Her blush had returned, but a different version. The one that was less adorable and more… blush. “Thank you?” She flipped through pages. “Like I said, they’re meant to be outrageous. To be honest, I generally tone down what they originally come up with.” 

     Sketches of designs were included with the photos of finished products. And no matter how wild they were, it did look as if her menswear was just as well done as the gowns that had astonished his mother. 

     “This one,” her finger, its nail a shimmering pink, fell upon a photo of Jagged stone, on stage, wearing a one-piece outfit, “was a nightmare. The design, I mean. He wanted so much. It would’ve weighed ten kilos if I had—“ She looked up and flushed. “I’m sorry, you asked me a simple question and I assaulted you with this.” She closed the book, folding her hands on the cover. “Yes.”

     He grinned. “I don’t mind being assaulted by you.”

     “Why do you ask?”

     Adrien drew in a deep breath. He was about to take a very big, very scary step. “I need a suit for a red carpet, in about eight weeks.”

     Her eyes widened. “I don’t understand. You’re Agreste. Literally.”

     He bit the inside of his cheek, his gaze falling. “I’m tired of it. I’ve told him, several times now, that I want to quit. I’m finished with belonging to him.”

     Marinette said nothing. One of her fingers began to tap on the book. 

     “I just came from a measurement, for the one he’s designing. But, if you think you could do it in time….” Mustering his courage, he took in her expression. He understood exactly how much he was asking of her, and so did she.

     “Why?” The question was quiet, as if her very breath was hesitant. “You would be able to get any designer in the world to meet with you in hours.”

     He shrugged, feeling unusually timid. “I think you’re special. I don’t want to do this to give him the finger, exactly, and a direct competitor would be disrespectful. Also, I imagine, my mother will be wearing one of your pieces.” 

     A few more of her fingers had joined the tapping. She shifted, flipping through something on the desk behind the counter. An appointment book, he imagined. 

     “I don’t want to overwhelm you,” he offered, “but cost wouldn’t be an issue.” 

     She was biting her lower lip. “What are you thinking?”

     Adrien shrugged. “Full rein.”

     She shook her head. It kept shaking, a perpetual motion machine. “No. No, you cannot do that to me. Not on something like this. Couldn’t have any idea what would be appropriate. Two piece? Three piece? What sort of silhouette?”

     He crossed his arms, considering. “Well, let’s say three piece. And how about I’ll ask my mother what she’s planning to wear, and you can draw some inspiration from that?”

     The designer drew a long breath, her eyes moving across his body as if she was reading something he couldn’t see, and she began to nod. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll do my best.”

     A smile broke out on his face, a rush of relief he was surprised to feel. “Génial.” 

     “May I take some measurements?”

     “Of course.”

     She nodded towards the back of the shop, and preceded him. As Adrien followed, he felt more confident with each step. He was doing the right thing, and she was the right person. 

     “Okay,” Marinette began, her thoughts rushing. She remembered the shock when Emilie Agreste had come into her studio, and a strange giddiness when she asked about a commission. This, though… this was overwhelming. 

     Adrien Agreste, choosing her to clothe him for the first thing he’d ever wear that didn’t have his last name attached? The implications were huge. He was always a center of attention, but when he showed up in something other than his father’s… it wasn’t just a suit, it was a proclamation. Everyone would see it. Everyone would judge it. And it would be judged against an astronomically high bar. 

     Think. Think! This is no different than any other commission. It can’t be. Just do what you always do. 

     She twisted to speak and saw he had slipped out of his jacket, and was in the process of pulling the sweater up over his head, revealing a tight, white v-neck undershirt. High-quality, of course, but thin enough that a well-chiseled torso was quite clear. Marinette turned away to look for something, drawing a long, slow, quiet breath as she did. Her eyes trailed over her workstation, searching the things there for… what? What was she looking for? 

     Breathe breathe breathe. 

     It wasn’t as if she had never measured a man before. Jagged, Ivan, Luka. She had just measured Luka for his jacket. And, even knowing just how much he wanted to… it wasn’t a big deal. She could focus. 

     She could focus. 

     “Do you, um, need the shirt off as well?”

     “No!” 

     Oh God, did that sound as loud as it felt?

     “No,” she said, tacking a bit of a laugh onto it. “No, that looked to be thin enough there shouldn’t be any problem.”

     She catalogued the things she saw: pins, scissors, measuring tape, pencil and a notepad, a vial of the tiny prismatic blue/green beads that had been going onto Luka’s jacket, the—

     Measuring tape, pencil and notepad. That was all she needed. Marinette ordered her body to pick them up and was partially successful, grasping the tape and notebook, and knocking the pencil to the floor. 

     “Would you like me to take off—?”

     “No! Nope!” Marinette called from beneath the desk, her laughter sounding more and more desperate by the second. 

     Breathe. Focus! What the hell is wrong with you? 

     She closed her eyes and blew out a breath. And then wondered how long she had been under there. 

     Merde. 

     Marinette pushed herself back out and stood, barely avoiding hitting her head as she did. “Okay, so, I’m going to get all of the torso measurements and we’ll go from there, ouais?” She wrote down a number of body parts: chest, shoulders, neck, waist… 

     “I’ve done this a few times,” he chuckled. 

     “Ha, yeah, of course you have!” She looked down over the list she had made— longer than it needed to be. Because she was thorough. Not because she was stalling. 

     Yep, that was it. 

     “Okay!” She forced herself to put down the pencil and turn to him, and her mind stopped working. 

     It wasn’t because he was handsome. She had seen him more nude than this more times than she had ever seen anyone, thanks to Agreste’s extensive marketing. And so what that this time it was in person— she had never given any of his ads more than a passing glance. 

     It was that… familiarity. 

     “Okay,” she repeated, to herself as much as him. “Shoulders, first?”

     “Whatever you need.”

     “Uh huh.”

     Marinette unfurled the tightly coiled tape, tossing it from one hand to the other behind Adrien’s back. She eyeballed the spots on his shoulders where she would measure and moved to place it, almost as if they were slow dancing, and—

     “Ow!” 

     The tape fluttered to the ground as she jumped back with a yelp. 

     Adrien laughed. “What do you have against me that you keep doing that?”

     “I maintain that it’s you doing it to me,” she forced herself to laugh as she stooped to pick up the tape. 

     Breathe breathe breathe. 

     “Okay, let’s try this again.” She used a finger to touch his chest gently, to test whether or not they would shock each other once more, but it seemed whatever strange charge had been dissipated. 

     “And now you’re poking me?”

     “Just checking!”

     He chuckled. 

     It went quickly: shoulders, neck, arms, bicep, wrist. Able to focus on the job, because it’s only a job for a guy. She had to keep that disconnection, or her anxiety would render her useless. Her hands ran the tape around his back and tightened it over his nipple line. And then waited, but his chest didn’t move. 

     “Adrien,” she laughed, “you can breathe.” 

     “So can you, Marinette.”

     I’ve been breathing… right? 

     She looked up and found he was focused on her, as she had been focused on his chest. 

     Why haven’t I been breathing? 

     She had always thought that his eyes, in those ads, were enhanced. There was no possible way that they could be such a unique shade: like spring grass the morning after a freak ice storm, vibrant and yet strangely clear. And when she looked into them they seemed to cause the strangest tingling throughout her body. 

     They were real. And they were far more filled with thought than they ever were in those ads. 

     His chest finally moved, flexing a bit, and after a brief moment she realized why, as his fingertips brushed her cheek. 

     “I’m… um… just… I’m afraid my breath might be….” she managed, captivated in a way that told her that she had never before understood just what the word captivated meant. Her mouth was moving, saying whatever drivel her brain managed to feed it, but her thoughts… 

     …were wondering why being this close to him felt so right. 

     “I’m sure your breath is fine,” Adrien whispered. His thumb slid, following her cheekbone slowly beneath one of the eyes he was looking down into. “I can’t stop thinking about how you feel… feel like more than you should.”

     Marinette sighed out a breath it seemed she had been holding much longer than they had been standing there. For days. 

     He felt it, too. 

     “Neither can I.”

     His eyes flickered, then. Narrowing, then widening, so quickly it was only a flash of emotion. 

     The tape fell from her fingers, her hands fanning out around his ribs as he pressed his lips to hers. 

     They felt familiar. 

     But that thought was swept away, on a flood of surprise and excitement and arousal that spun her head in circles before they got to the second kiss. 

     She didn’t care what his name was. How many billboards carried his face. The only thing that mattered was how he felt. 

     His hands slid to cradle her face, then down her neck, shoulders, and arms. To her waist, and then around her. 

     It had become more than a curiosity, more than testing of an urge. No longer oddly familiar, but, instead, the most incredible exploration. Compelling, instantly addicting, desperate for more in a way that seemed to only be possible after years of desire. 

     “I like you,” he breathed. “I really like you, Marinette.”

     “I really like you, too.”

     Adrien laughed a little, his forehead resting against hers. “This is so strange. We’ve hardly spoken, really, but… I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

     It did cross her mind, then, that he was a rich, refined, jet-setting supermodel. And she caught his eye? It didn’t begin to make sense. None of it made sense. 

     So, for the first time in her life, she stopped thinking. 

     Something about the way they were kissing made it feel like so much more than simply that. It was a conversation with lips and breath, with fingertips and hands. His fingertips, running up the back of her neck into her hair, they and the hand on her lower back pressing her forward against him. She lifted up onto the toes of her flats, contributing a few extra centimeters towards his height. 

     The bell over the door rang, but neither seemed to register the sound until it was followed by a voice. “Marinette, I’m so sorry I couldn’t get here earlier— oh, goodness.”

     They separated, but not suddenly. Drawing apart, eyes lingering. His fingers slid through hers as she looked around him to her one and only employee, standing just inside the door with her scarf halfway off, eyes huge with surprise. 

     “My apologies, for interrupting.”

     “Tess! I, um, we have a commission to add to the schedule.” Marinette looked back to Adrien, her eyes slightly narrowed. “We do, right? Or was that just an excuse to get close?”

     “No! No, I’d never do something like that.” He blushed. “Though, I’m also pretty happy with the outcome.”

     She smirked. Her hand slipped from his as she directed herself to focus on business, moving to the schedule kept on Tess’ desk. “What date did you need it?”

     “Um, 29 April.”

     She nodded, picking up a pen to fill in the calendar. “I’ll finish by the twenty-fourth, then.” Writing down A Agreste into the rectangle, she felt Tess looking over her shoulder. 

     “That is Adrien Agreste,” she whispered. “You were just making out with Adrien Agreste.”

     “Shh. I’ll want to do a few fittings along the way. I imagine your schedule is quite filled, so I can work around whatever you need.”

     “You were making out with Adrien Agreste and he commissioned you?”

     “The twenty-fourth,” he was muttering as Marinette hushed her assistant once more. “Okay.”

     Tess had turned and was examining the client, hand on her hip. She was short, rather heavy, with what could only be called granny glasses, though she was something like thirty. Her hair was a cloud of tight red curls that were almost impossibly vibrant, even though she swore the hue was natural. 

     “We require a fifty-percent deposit,” the assistant announced.

     “Tess!”

     “Should you decide to cancel the commission, it will not be refunded.”

     Adrien didn’t flinch. “Of course.” He produced a wallet and, from it, a matte black credit card, which he approached to hand over. “Five thousand?”

     Marinette hoped that her gulp wasn’t audible. 

     “I suppose that’s sufficient,” allowed Tess as she took the card, then sat to process the deposit and write a receipt. Marinette gave Adrien a half shrug of apology for the somewhat gruff treatment he was receiving, though he only smiled. 

     And his eyes took her in, but gently. Appreciably. “Marinette, have we covered everything, or do you need more measurements?”

     She felt her cheeks warm, as did his. “We do need to have more of an exchange about the design.”

     He nodded. “Dans un café, peut-être?”

     Looking down at her watch as she absently bit her lower lip, Marinette considered. There were no appointments for the rest of the afternoon, and though she had the Viperion jacket to finish for Luka, it wasn’t due for a few days. 

     She nodded. “Sure.”

     Tess tore the receipt from the ledger and whipped it between the two of them at a speed that could’ve severed an artery, if they’d been within paper cut distance. 

     “Merci beaucoup.”

     Adrien motioned her towards the door with a nod, as she had motioned him away from it. 

     “I’m finished for the day, Tess.” 

     The assistant regarded her, looking somehow doubtful as Marinette pulled on her coat and beret. 

     “Thank you for coming in. Feel free to leave when you’d like.”

     Adrien held the door open for her and she was struck for a moment as the wind ran its fingers through his hair. It brought up the image of an old cologne advertisement, from at least a decade before. A beautiful boy bounding through the clouds. 

     Radient, carefree, dreamy. 

     She’d barely paid attention to it, just another voice in a cacophony of pleas to buy one thing or another. They promised everything from those three innocent words to violent sex appeal, and most people believed them. Marinette never had.

     “Where to?” he asked, breaking her minor trance. 

     Her current sketch pad was in her purse, along with an array of pencils. But the last thing she wanted to do was brainstorm, she found. She wanted to learn, rather than create. She hadn’t, for a long time, felt as if she had so much to learn. “Someplace quiet?”

     One corner of his lips twitched upwards and he nodded. “Good plan.”

     Adrien produced a beanie from his pocket and pulled it down over his hair, then raised a hoodie over that. He slipped on aviator sunglasses, and, with a sweet sort of smile, took her hand.  

Chapter Text

     Marinette shrieked, as she woke up. 

     She shrieked, because she opened her eyes to find her roommate looming over her, phone held centimeters from her face. Jamming eyes shut once more against the harsh illumination of the screen, Marinette swatted the object away. 

     “What the hell, Alya?”

     “You’re with Adrien Agreste!”

     She pulled down the sheet she had yanked up over her head half a second earlier. “What?”

     The phone was thrust towards her again, waving a bit side to side. Marinette squinted as she grabbed her friend’s wrist to still the screen. Twitter was open, and centered was a photo that had been taken in a little coffee house, of two people nestled together behind a table, the man’s hand on the woman’s cheek as they kissed. 

     She could feel the ghost of those lips on hers. 

     OMG, looks like @AdrienAgreste has a new girlfriend! was the text that accompanied the photo. 

     She had not noticed anyone taking a picture, but she also had been pretty intently focused; sort of lost to the world. And hadn’t really considered that it was a celebrity she had been lost, with. 

     He had kept his hat on, for a while, pulled down over his hair. The sunglasses, too. But they had both eventually come off, leaving the man beneath them exposed to anyone who happened to look in his direction. 

     Alya plopped down on the bed beside her, a massive grin on her face. “How? When? I need to know everything!”

     Mmmmmm… Adrien. 

     They had sat and chatted for hours. As if they were old friends, reunited after years apart. And, it wasn’t anything he said, or how he said it, but… she had felt somehow invested in everything that he told her. And he had seemed just the same, when she spoke. 

     “He’s… amazing.”

     Alya squealed, clapping in rapid fire as Marinette pushed herself up. “Come on, I’ll make you breakfast and you can tell me all about him.”

     She smirked. Though hardly one to generally gush, Alya would certainly not rest until her curiosity had been satiated. 

     Also, for once, she sort of felt like gushing. 

     Marinette stretched as she stood, feeling unusually rested. As if she had been cradled in the most fantastic dreams, every moment her eyes had been closed. 

     Alya was at the stove, making what appeared, by the scattering of ingredients, to be an omelette. She had left her phone sitting on the island and Marinette picked it up to look over exactly what had her friend so violently excited. Twitter was still open, and filled with comments and questions and speculation and more than just that one photo. Was it all part of a thread from the first? Or— 

     “Oh putain,” she muttered, as she noticed at the top of the screen that it was just a collection of anything that mentioned Adrien Agreste… who was at the top of the trending topics. 

     “That’s right, girl! You are officially the talk of the town! And the country, and the continent, I’m sure.”

     She had really never liked attention. 

     Although, those photos…. Two from inside the coffee house, one from outside as they waited for his driver, and one outside her apartment building as he said goodnight. Two with his arms around her, two with his lips against hers. Those were worth it. 

     “So,” Alya began, sliding a steaming plate across the island to her, “let’s start with how we went from he was just a guy to you two making out around the city, in like two days.”

     They had hardly made out around the city, but certainly Alya would argue that two locations was enough to count. They hadn’t exactly made out at all, it had been more like serial kissing. Making out was much more intense, with more contact in more places… not that she would really know. 

     Marinette decided not to contend any of those specific points with her roommate, in favor of much more pleasant thoughts. 

     “It’s very strange. He just feels… natural.”

     Alya grinned. “So you met at his mom’s office, and then?”

     “And then… he just showed up at my shop, the next night. And he was,” she laughed, “he was actually pretty awkward. He struggled to come up with a reason why he was there, he kept misspeaking.”

     “You two sound like a perfect match.”

     She smirked. “When I told him I was going to be there working all night he offered to pick up food and keep me company. It seemed so random! And then, yesterday, he showed up again. He wanted to know if I ever do suits. He actually commissioned me for one.”

     Alya’s brows rose. “Wait, what? 

     Marinette slid off the stool to make her usual morning tea, nodding. “Apparently he’s been telling his father he wants to quit modeling. He said he’s tired of belonging to him. He had just come from a measurement for a suit he’s going to make for something next month, but if I can finish one in time….”

     Though her back was to her, she could practically hear her friend’s jaw drop. “You mean you’re making the first non-Agreste thing he’s going to wear?”

     She shrugged as she clicked the kettle on. 

     “Okay, okay.” Alya ran her hands back through her hair. “We’ll circle back to that. On to the kissing.”

     Marinette felt her cheeks warm, along with the rest of her body. “So… I was measuring him and got to his chest and he wasn’t breathing and, apparently, neither was I… and he kissed me.”

     Alya’s hands were clasped in front of her, in a cliché that’s so adorable my heart is going to explode pose. “And what else?”

     She fidgeted with the metal tea infuser she had retrieved but not yet filled. Wrapping the chain around her fingers and letting it fall, then doing it again. Remembering the way his arms wrapped around her as he said goodnight. “He told me he really likes me. And I said it back.”

     As Alya continued her little celebrations, she thought of those words and how they felt. The vibrations of the air, the sensation of his breath on the fine hairs of her cheek, the way it seemed she had been waiting for them forever, even if they had only just met. 

     “We just talked, for hours. About a lot of nothing. And it was fantastic.”

     They hadn’t even broached those subjects that had originally made her so curious, she realized: playing piano with world-renowned symphonies, being an Olympian, how a brain even worked that spoke so many languages…. 

     He was so interesting, just being him. 

     “Wow,” Marinette whispered, pausing as she pinched a bit of her favorite tea to place in the infuser. Something about the way the dried leaves lay, flavored with bergamot and lavender, would be something she would always remember, because it was what she was looking at when she had the most astonishing revelation. “I’m in love.”

     Her roommate squealed and wrapped her in a tight embrace from behind, but Marinette just stood there, looking at the tea leaves. 

     I’m in love. I wasn’t sure it really existed. 

     “Alors, when do I get to meet him?”

     At that, Marinette was broken from her trance. She filled the tea ball and dropped it gently into hot water before fixing Alya with a scowl. 

     “Oh, come on!” She looked as if she’d just been told there was no Père Noël, all saggy and dejected.

     “Let me spend some more time with him first, okay?”

     Alya crossed her arms, looking, in all ways, cross. “Alright, but if this ends up just being a fling and I never get the chance I’ll be upset.”

     A fling. 

     Her eyes opened a little wider. 

     Oh God. 

     Alya’s brows rose. She stepped back, leaning against the island. “So, I never wanted to press, and I was pretty sure you’d tell me…. You haven’t lost it, have you?”

     Oh God!

     Marinette shook her head. 

     “Ahh, sweetheart.” Alya smiled sweetly, reaching out to brush a bit of unruly hair from Marinette’s forehead. “That’s not something you need to be embarrassed by, you know.”

     She turned back towards her steeping tea. The color was slowly changing from the clear of water over the old porcelain of the mug to a deep, rich amber, swirling lazily. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed, exactly. Because she had always been too focused to date, and maybe a bit too awkward to make a move or allow moves to be made on. Nothing had ever felt anything like the easy magnetism she had fallen into the day before.

     “You don’t get any bad vibes from him?”

     Marinette’s head shook. 

     A hand squeezed her shoulder. “Intuition is everything, Mare. It doesn’t change anything, then.”

     She gave her friend a sideways glare. “I’m pretty sure it will, to him.”

     Alya’s mouth opened, but whatever at least slightly crude retort she had ready did not actually appear. 

     “Do I…? What do I do?”

     The young woman who always had an opinion only shrugged. “Follow this where it leads you, Marinette.”

     “Bonjour, mon amour!”

     Adrien smiled as his mother stood from their usual table to greet him, her eyes twinkling. She had the most fantastically expressive eyes, it was likely a lot of the reason that she had become such a successful actress. He had inherited those, but did not yet have the control that she did. It made him too easy to read. 

     That morning, however, he had no problem telegraphing everything he was thinking and feeling. To say that he had smiled when she stood would not be incorrect, but he had already been smiling. It was just a different smile. 

     “You look very well, Adrien,” she observed as they sat. 

     “I feel very well.”

     She smiled. Surely she knew why, but waited for he to give voice to it. 

     “I met her, maman.”

     Her eyes filled with happiness. “I had a feeling.”

     Of course she did. She did before he did, which is why he had the address to Marinette’s shop at all. How was she so intuitive? 

     And how the fuck did she manage to love his father, with such strong empathy? 

     They had gone to a little coffee house, taken up a table in a back corner, and just talked. For hours. Hours that passed like nothing, like they were in their own little bubble that the world went on, around. There were benches running along the rear and side walls, and their table offered both. They had begun sitting apart, but he had scooted over to be beside her at some point, ending up with their sides pressed together, hands interwoven on her leg. Over multiple pots of tea their conversation had wandered to touch on nearly every facet of their lives, from topics so simple and non-threatening as books and music to the more hidden. Not everything, hardly everything. But it was still far more than he had ever told anyone other than Pascal. 

     It was strange, how he opened up to her. He had never felt so immediately comfortable. That, in itself, was intoxicating. Everything about her was intoxicating. And the best part was that she felt the same about him. She told him so, for one thing. For another, she was the one that started back up the kissing. 

     Adrien couldn’t stop grinning.

     Their breakfast table overlooked the Jardin de Tuileries, which extended from the Louvre to Place de la Concorde. The morning was bright, the wind calm. Unusually pleasant, even with the winter chill. Couples were strolling arm in arm, mothers pushed strollers, people jogged. 

     Adrien could’ve sworn the day was so beautiful because of how he had woken up feeling. 

     “She’s incredible.”

     “Tell me about her.”

     She had grown up in a bakery, which her parents owned. One he actually knew of, their macarons and bread were legendary. One he was sure he had been to. Had he seen her, just another nameless face across a counter? Her parents had started that bakery from nothing, before she was born. She had been taught, from her very beginning, that dedication and focus were the most basic elements of life: with those you could build anything. 

     She had always excelled, using that lesson. But she was also always busy, dedicated to everyone she knew and everything she did. She had always been the person people knew they could count on. And so, whether it was help with homework, organizing a picnic, making a costume, or any one of a hundred other things, Marinette was the one her friends, her teachers, everyone came to. 

     “So working through the night is nothing new to me,” she’d said with a little laugh, though her eyes showed that it had hardly been all fun.

     In a way, they had a lot in common. 

     She loved to read, loved movies. Had always wanted a hamster. Loved classical music, because her grandfather had it playing when they made bread together. Adrien was already planning to take her to the symphony. Take her a lot of places.

     He’d never before suddenly had so many things he wanted to do, so many places he wanted to see; just so he could show her. He was twenty four and felt as if he had just been born. 

     “Falling in love is the most incredible feeling,” mused his mother. “People always seem to be chasing the meaning of life, desperate to figure out the why of our existence, when it’s been in front of their faces all along: to fall in love.” Her eyes, perfectly jade, were swimming with that emotion. 

     He smiled.

     “It’s what I’ve always wished for you, more than anything in the world.” Her glow lessened as she watched his expression sag. “Qu’est-ce que c’est, mon amour?”

     Adrien’s toes tapped quietly beneath the table as he looked out over the gardens, and the people within them. “Was father very different, when you met?”

     Her eyes narrowed in question, ever so slightly. “Why do you ask that, Adrien? Say what’s on your mind.”

     He grimaced, chewed on the inside of his cheek. She didn’t press him, surely she knew he was just building up confidence to say what he wanted to say. “I don’t know how you can love him.”

     His mother nodded. It was her turn, now, to let her gaze wander. She sipped her tea, holding the china cup delicately, her little finger gracefully raised. “Your father, Adrien, his inner and outer selves are less similar than those of many.”

     “I don’t believe that,” he stated, nearly cutting her off. It wasn’t like him. 

     Her brows raised. 

     “He’s just as cold inside as he is outside.”

     She looked at him with a sort of pity, as if he was too young to understand. 

     “He is… complex. And, above all, he loves you, Adrien. Like nothing else.”

     Yet, that almost felt like an insult. “Then why won’t he let me do what will make me happy? I’m not a child anymore, I can choose my own path. And he refuses to allow me to do so.”

     Emilie Agreste frowned. Something about the way she breathed, while forming an answer, made him feel uneasy. “I think… he’s so afraid of change, Adrien. When you moved out it nearly destroyed him.”

     He hadn’t known that. His father, he didn’t show emotion. He was void of it, as frigid and empty as deep space. 

     “His family is his world, my love. He knows you’ve become a man, and you’re an incredible one. But he doesn’t want to lose you, and you’ve never been close enough that he’s sure he won’t, once he lets you go.”

     That… made him uncomfortable. Perhaps thinking his father to be utterly indifferent was easier. 

     “He doesn’t know how to talk to you, I know he doesn’t. And it’s entirely my fault that he was never forced to cultivate that. But he doesn’t see you as only a model, or whatever you may believe, dear. Just the opposite. Show him that he isn’t just a designer, to you.”

     He took a slow breath, attempting to slowly recalibrate this thoughts. 

     His mother smiled softly. “You may not know it, but your father would do anything for our family, Adrien.”

Chapter Text

     “Marinette, there’s something outside for you.”

     She looked up, pulling off the magnifying glasses she wore for her most intricate work. At the moment, it was still Luka’s jacket. She had known when she designed it that this project, which he had conceptualized as Viperion, would be one of the more demanding, and she knew it would be well worth it, but had reached the stage where she just wanted it to be finished. 

     It happened with all of her recent projects, the why do you always have to torture yourself like this moments. 

     And now, well, she didn’t want to work all night the same way she always had. 

     The something was standing beneath a black umbrella. Even with rain splattering against the glass of the door, she recognized him. She thought she might recognize him even the door had not been glass. A warm wave of tingles cascaded over her, as heavy as the rain.

     She saw his smile, too. 

     Marinette rushed to the door, chiding Tess as she went. “That something happens to be a client, you know.”

     “Among other things.”

     She scowled back before turning her gaze to a much more pleasant sight. “What are you doing standing out there?” She had to raise her voice over the deluge. At least, though, it wasn’t ice. 

     Adrien was just at the edge of the awning over the door, the water coming off it pouring off the sides and back of the umbrella, as he held it, creating a waterfall all around him. It could’ve been a cologne ad. “I don’t want to track the rain inside. Just wanted to ask if you were free tonight.”

     She smiled. “You could’ve called to ask that, you know.”

     “Was in the neighborhood.” He grinned. 

     Marinette giggled. Giggled. They already had inside jokes, she loved that. “I believe I am free, if the fabric allows me to leave it.”

     “Then, maybe, dinner? The cinema? The symphony? I mean, I have a jet, so….”

     She laughed. “Whatever you’d like. You know where to find me.”

     “Can’t wait.” He leaned forward, eyes more full of joy than they had ever been in a posed photo, and so did she. This time both hardly registered the little arc of static that leapt between them, and their lips met under the awning for a long, perfect moment. “I have to get back,” he muttered, his face still brushing hers. “Told Pascal I was going out for coffee.”

     Marinette’s hands slipped onto his cheeks and she held him there greedily for one more kiss. Or two. 

     “I’ll be back in a few hours?”

     “Yes, please.”

     It wasn’t easy to let him go, but she was pretty sure it was just as hard for him to leave, based upon the several looks back before he made it to the corner. 

     She would probably still be smiling, when he returned.  

     Tess’ eyes were narrowed behind her granny glasses, which just peeked over the counter from where she sat. Marinette’s arms crossed as her forehead creased. So much for the smiling. 

     “What?”

     Her assistant’s curls shook. She pressed the glasses farther up her nose and lowered her eyes to her work, but Marinette would not allow her to avoid the confrontation so easily. She marched to the counter, set her arms atop it, and glared down. 

     “You disapproved of a man who is so sweet he stands outside and plays violin for me, and now, apparently, of one who has physically built houses for tsunami victims.”

     “I have no opinions of anyone.” 

     Marinette grunted, deciding that getting back to work would be a better use of her time than would investigating Tess’ odd hang ups. 

     And it was odd, because she was, in general, Marinette’s most enthusiastic supporter. Even more so than Alya. Generally bouncing around the shop, as if simply being part of it was enough to bring her pure joy. 

     She sat down and slid the magnifiers back on, ordering her brain to not be preoccupied with Tess or with Adrien, only the jacket in front of her. And it actually worked, just not for very long. 

     “Can I help you?”

     Tess’ particular tone drew Marinette’s attention. It wasn’t Luka, he always announced himself with music. Still, though, someone had drawn a very similar reaction from her front desk. 

     “I believe the correct phrasing is may I help you.”

     She didn’t recognize the voice. British, young, male. Upper-crust, but with a bit of a burnt underside. 

     Tess sighed. “Are you worth helping?”

     Marinette’s brows rose, as the voice chuckled. She would’ve looked, if she hadn’t been in the middle of a very complex stitch. 

     “Is that any way to greet a potential customer, sugar cube?”

     “I don’t see you much as the gown type. Though, call me sugar cube again and you’ll have the gender for it.”

     Marinette bit her lip and hurried her current stitch, then slid the needle carefully in to hold place. As she jumped out of her seat the bell over the door rang once more, and with some urgency. 

     “You slimy bastard!”

     “Adrien, isn’t the bird sitting up front generally the receptionist? This one isn’t very receptive.” The man leaning against the counter was, she now realized, the infamous Pascal, of whom she had heard a number of stories the evening before. He was rather short, his skin and hair an unusual shade of dark, with muted green eyes giving him a contrast that certainly drew double-takes. 

     “I can’t blame her,” he said, shaking his umbrella excessively outside the door before propping it up just inside. “Madame, my apologies for this lowlife. He’s a lying, sneaky—“

     “Ah yes, Monsieur I’m just going to duck out to get a coffee,” Pascal laughed. “I warned you that my secret agent side was on duty.” It was at that moment that he noticed Marinette and his eyebrows rose. 

     “You’re fired, Pascal.”

     He shrugged, attention still on her. “Yeah, okay.”

     Adrien offered an embarrassed smile. “The idiot followed me, I’m sorry.”

     “Pfft.” Pascal rolled those strange eyes and knocked the hood of what looked to be a very expensive coat all the way back. “I’m your assistant. And who knows when you might have needed assisting. If you insist upon giving me grief for being wholeheartedly devoted to your wellbeing I’ve no choice but to accept it, being so very much devoted to—“

     Adrien brushed his friend aside and approached the now-grinning Marinette. “Well, at least I tried to warn you what a terrible person he is.”

     She nodded, doing her best to look solemn. “You didn’t go far enough, it seems.”

     He bit a lip, crossing his arms. “Yes, I’m afraid I may have become somewhat too accustomed to him. And even I think he’s disgusting.”

     “Yeah, still not leaving. Nice try, you two.”

     Adrien smirked and sighed. “Well? Maybe a little earlier than planned?”

     Her lips pursed, hips cocked a bit as she crossed her arms as well. “Depends, do we have to take Pascal?”

     “Oh, I like her!” He laughed, walking over. “But making such judgements, when we haven’t properly met.” He took one of her arms and bowed to kiss her hand. “I’m actually the catch, between the two of us. Enchanté.”

     Marinette wouldn’t allow him any satisfaction, only arching one eyebrow. 

     Pascal righted himself. “Okay, fine. Well, at least I’ve sussed out your little secret. I’ll take an early day.” He turned back to Tess. “What do you say, sugar cube?”

     She did not so much as pause her work. “Hard pass.”

     He shrugged. “Eh, been hit up by an old rockstar friend of mine anyway, so I’m sure I’ll find someone interesting to do.”

     Adrien smirked. “Which one is this? Inez?”

     “My favorite blueberry boy, Luka.”

     Marinette’s brows raised. 

     “Ah. A stimulating night of playing chess is in store, I imagine.”

     “Gentlemen don’t suck dick and tell, my boy.”

     “Ugh, thank you for that visual.”

     Her brows raised higher. 

     “Ah putain,” Pascal gasped, suddenly juking around her. He had spotted Luka’s jacket, laying across her workstation. “You’re the gal he’s told me about!”

     She blushed, hand going to her cheek as if it would hide the color.

     Pascal was admiring the design: a cobra that coiled around the left arm to the shoulder, then continued across the back. Its hood was splayed open, fangs bared. The color scheme was generally turquoise, from dark blue to dark green, and the way she embroidered and beaded the snake, it caught every change in lighting and took on a hint of life. 

     “This is bloody brilliant,” he muttered, stroking his stubbled chin as he leaned in close to the fangs. Giving a meaningful look her way as he stood, he added, “no wonder he talks about you so much.”

     Marinette’s heart sank. She had forever been too busy for a relationship with him, and now, surely, he would know that she had began one with someone else. 

     So she could have had one, if she really wanted to. And she thought she had wanted to. But… apparently not. 

     “Been my pleasure, Marinette.” Pascal made a sweeping bow, pretending to take off a hat as he did. “Ladies and gent, have a lovely evening.”

     Marinette rubbed her forehead as the door tinkled with his exit. “Oh, that was a little awkward,” she breathed. 

     “Yeah, so that was Pascal,” Adrien chuckled with unease. “I profusely apologize.”

     Her eyes were closed, but he had come close enough for his scent to reach Marinette’s nostrils, immediately changing her focus. His fingers brushed her forearm a brief moment later, sealing that change. 

     She felt herself melt a bit. 

     “No, it’s fine,” she laughed. “You described him well. Honestly, it was more that bit about Luka than anything else.”

     “Ah.” Adrien examined her as goosebumps raised beneath his fingers. “Sounds like you two are close.”

     “Yes. I mean, not really. Well, sort of. He’s always wanted to be—“ She sighed. “Never mind.” 

     He looked suddenly shy, even… unworthy? “So, do you still want to…? Do you need to be here?”

     Marinette took a long step forward, tipped up onto her toes, and kissed him. “That’s what I wanted to do.” 

     “Mmmmmmm. Great minds think alike.” His hands slid around her waist, arms following them to encircle her. “What else do you want to do?”

     Her cheeks warmed. “I liked all your thoughts a while ago.”

     Adrien’s nose brushed against hers. “So, we’re going to fly to… India?”

     Another giggle. She didn’t ever giggle. “Maybe we can start with some food? Or the cinema?”

     “Okay. India on the third date,” he muttered into the corner of her lips. 

     Her studio was one of the most familiar places in the world. The scent, the lighting, the feel. And yet, when Adrien was there, it felt different. He changed the feel of everything. “You are… unique.” She found herself already addicted to the smell of him. Nothing so obvious as any cologne, and certainly none of those he had been the face for. Something much more mysterious: a bit woody, a bit spicy, mixed with his skin. 

     “So are you.”

     Heat was rising from him, even through his jacket, and it was contagious. A lot of heat. A lot of heat in places where she had rarely felt it. 

     It nearly spilled out of her right there: I’m a virgin. But even she, queen of misspeaking, managed not to blurt it in front of Tess. 

     He sucked in a breath, pulling himself out of that intoxicating bubble. “Okay. So… there’s a cinema that serves food. Faire d’une pierre deux coups, peut-être?”

     Marinette nodded, pulling her coat and hat from where they had been placed only seven hours before, turned off the lights at her workstation, and said goodbye to Tess, before joining Adrien outside. He was waiting under his umbrella with that wonderfully familiar smile, and even as thunder boomed through the streets of Paris, she was so captured by him that nothing else could break through. “I messaged my driver. He should only be a few minutes.”

     “How far is it?”

     Adrien shrugged. “A kilometer.”

     “I don’t mind walking.”

     He grinned. “Even in the rain?”

     She slid her arm through his. Theoretically, she knew, it was chilly, but it being warm enough to rain and not snow made it feel sort of like spring. “The rain can be nice.”

     He nodded. “I agree.” His phone was produced, a call made, and they began to stroll in his chosen direction. Lingering at an intersection, Marinette caught a woman staring at them from across the street. 

     “My, um, roommate showed me some… um… photos that were on Twitter, this morning.”

     Adrien chuckled. “Yeah, Pascal let himself into my place while I was in the shower— quite possibly the first time he’s been awake that early in his life— and taped up about fifty printouts of them, then went back down and waited in the car. Where he had more hung up.”

     “Wow.”

     “And said nothing, may I add. Acted as if they weren’t there.”

     “So… you don’t mind?”

     “Pascal? I’m used to him.”

     She smirked. “No, I mean, the attention.”

     “I was literally made to be in the spotlight.” He shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever known. But, do I mind people knowing that I’ve met someone? Not at all.” He appraised her as the crosswalk signal changed. “Do you?”

     “No… no. It’s just… intense.” She laughed, a bit anxiously. “I’ve actually silenced my phone, today. I’m a little afraid to look at it.”

     He seemed contemplative as they continued on. “I hate to be any sort of burden to you, Marinette.”

     She stopped walking when they reached the opposite sidewalk, and looked up into his eyes with a strange determination. “You are the absolute opposite of that. I think it will be a strange thing to adjust to, but it’s worth it.”

     Adrien smiled, that incredible smile. And her morning revelation returned, like the thunder. 

     I’m in love. 

     She could feel eyes on them, as they kissed. But she didn’t care. No matter how many curious and shocked calls and texts would surely be building up on her phone if a photo was being taken, she couldn’t possibly care.

     “I love you,” he whispered into her lips, and her entire body was electrified, is if lightning had struck. Her heart began to race, blood surged through her body. 

     “I love you.”

     He drew back, with eyes that seemed to be sparkling. “You do?”

     Marinette bit her lip, blushing. “I… just… Alya was grilling me about you this morning, and… it sort of hit me.”

     His hand slipped around the back of her neck and he pulled her close, pressing his mouth to hers in the most desperate touch yet. The most confident. And she hadn’t noticed that the rain had mostly abated until the umbrella fell to the ground beside them, so that he could hold her tighter. That sensation of pure adoration, contrasted with that of light raindrops on her skin… it was one she knew immediately that she would never forget. 

     “I’m so happy to hear that.”

     She laughed. “Half the continent loves you.”

     His smile wavered a bit. “They love my face and my name. Those aren’t me.”

     Her palm stroked his cheek as her heart sank a little. “I don’t care about your name. And it isn’t your face that I’ve fallen for.”

     Adrien rubbed that face against hers, softly. “I love you.”

     They stood like that for a few moments, absorbed in each other, until a gust of wind broke through. And then they laughed at the ridiculousness of it as he picked the umbrella up again and wrapped his arm around her shoulders in a gesture of warmth. 

     Hurrying on, he chuckled. “Oooh, now it feels a little cold for a walk.”

     “I regret nothing.” 

     “Neither do I.”

     The cinema wasn’t much farther, through into the then-steady gusts, and they jogged the last half block before thankfully ducking into the lobby. It was dark, rich, evoking the atmosphere of a film noir. Two movies began within half an hour: an old American noir called Angel Face, and the most recent film Adrien had acted in, a period romance.

     He looked over at her with an embarrassed grin.

     “So, Angel Face.”

     Adrien laughed. “Oh, not a fan?”

     “I already have to watch you kiss someone else?” she challenged. “This is peak territorial time.” As if she had any idea about the flow of relationships. 

     He grimaced. “She was a horrible kisser.”

     “You’re just trying to placate me.”

     “I’m not! She bit my tongue!”

     Marinette laughed. 

     They chose one of the loveseats that was an option for seating, ordered drinks and brick-oven pizza to share, and waited for the film to begin. It was too early for most adults to be finished with work, and the genre was not one that would appeal to many teenagers out of school. There were only a few other couples in the theater, a couple of singles.

     Adrien draped his coat over her lap as she nestled against him, still slightly shivering, but sighing in contentment. 

     “Did you steal that from a movie?”

     “What?”

     “The dropping the umbrella to kiss me thing.”

     He laughed. “Why would you think that?”

     “It was too romantic to be real.”

     His arm slid around her as he kissed her head. “I couldn’t help it.”

     It felt amazing, to just be sitting together in a dark room. Watching what turned out to be a really good film, eating what turned out to be really good pizza, and drinking what turned out to be a really strong cocktail. She closed her eyes to commit everything to memory and found her rational mind using both arms and a leg to hold the tipsy side of her back from kissing his neck. 

     I’m a virgin and I’m afraid it’s going to freak you out. 

     He took a deep breath as she snuggled a little closer with him, rubbed her back in slow, long strokes. 

     I’m a virgin and you make me really want to not be one anymore. 

     She liked being tipsy. It was rare she had any more than a glass of wine with her roommate. She liked the feeling of endless possibility, a bolster of courage. Then again, it might have just been the company that caused that.

     Adrien stretched as the lights came up, though Marinette found herself wishing the movie was hours longer. “That was a good film. It’s been a while since I watched a noir.”

     Marinette smirked. “My roommate’s boyfriend loves them. Every so often he’ll randomly begin talking like a gumshoe and won’t stop until she threatens to leave him.”

     He laughed before his expression fell as he saw that the rain outside had turned to slush. “Oh là là, it might be a little cold for a romantic stroll right now.”

     “Agreed.”

     His cheeks flushed ever so slightly, and he suddenly seemed too bashful for a man of his stature. “I’d really like to not say goodnight, yet.”

     She regarded her watch. “I believe it’s literally too early to say goodnight.”

     He smirked. “That settles it, then. A cafe? Or, of course, well, my place is comfortable. And dry.”

     Her entire body warmed. Being alone with him, really alone, and free to lean up to kiss his neck…. 

     “And I make a decent cocktail.”

     “Sold.”

     He had already summoned his driver, and it was only a brief wait before a black Mercedes pulled up in front of the theater. As they rode together through slow traffic, Marinette dared check her phone to get her mind off of the thought of being alone alone with him. 

     ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? The most recent message was from Alya, with a screenshot of another tweet. This time, the two of them were on the street corner, the umbrella at their feet, pressed together. 

     Were the cameras really well hidden, or is @AdrienAgreste really that romantic?!

     Marinette smiled. 

     “I really am that romantic.”

     She looked up, smirking. “You’re spying!”

     “But it’s just me.”

     THERE IS A FUCKING RAINBOW, MARINETTE. A RAINBOW!

     She hadn’t noticed in the first glance, but there was. Visible over a lower building between two normal-sized ones. Just a touch of magic. 

     “I haven’t really had, you know, the opportunity to be much of a romantic,” Adrien was saying, now gazing out of the window. “I’ve dated, of course. More when I was younger, in school, in university. Since I’ve been out of all that I only seem to ever be surrounded by the more shallow types, no matter how I try.”

     Marinette’s hand covered his. Outside it was getting dark; the glow of taillights and break lights beyond the tinted window made him glow. 

     “So I’ve just… kept myself occupied. Tried to forget that something was missing from my life.”

     “I wonder now if that hadn’t been part of the reason I’ve always been so busy,” she admitted. “I didn’t think it was, but… I’ve known Luka for at least ten years, and I knew he liked me as soon as we met. And I liked him. We’ve always liked each other, but I never felt like I had enough time to explore it. He still reaches out, still reminds me he’s always there, if….” She thought of that sadness in his eyes, outside the shop. “But I still have had this little voice inside of me, saying I have to stay focused, I don’t have the time.” Looking up from somewhere beyond the leather stitching on the seat between them, she found Adrien examining her. “And then I met you and I forgot all that. I didn’t have the little voice. And, in a way, I feel guilty for that.”

     His hand squeezed hers. “I’ve never really gotten to know him. We’ve met, in passing, at events now and then. Seems like a nice guy.”

     “He is.” She rubbed her forehead. “And now I have a very strange mental image of him, thanks to Pascal.”

     He laughed. “Pascal is very gifted with those.”

     The driver opened her door, an umbrella held out to protect her from the slush that had started to change to snow. Adrien was just behind her with his own umbrella, and put his arm around her waist to keep her close on the short journey across the sidewalk to the stunning art nouveau door. 

     “Merci, Benoit. Bonne soirée!” he called back. 

     The building door was pulled open and she found the lobby continued the theme, with playful nude nymphs holding up sconces on the walls and graceful curved lines everywhere. Polished wood and brass and sea foam green, mother of pearl and crystal. Two men working behind a desk looked up as they entered, greeting them, and a pair of lifts, their doors inlaid with tall, graceful lilies, waited to convey them. Marinette did her best not to gawk, reminded by their surroundings that he was, most likely, incredibly rich. 

     The lift stopped, she was surprised, one level short of the penthouses. She was even more surprised by the size of his flat, in that it wasn’t gigantic. Still well larger than the one she shared with Alya, but by no means obscene. Cozy. 

     There was a baby grand piano in a space probably intended to be a dining room, which was surrounded by tall, glass-fronted bookshelves. Beautiful art on the walls, including a Matisse that was either a very good reproduction or original. The room smelled like lavender. Real lavender, not a grocery store candle’s version. 

     “Bienvenüe,” he offered with a touch of diffidence. “May I take your coat?”

     After further removing her shoes, Marinette was drawn towards the bookshelves. They were filled with texts and tomes, little sculptures and awards. A gold momento of his trip to the Olympics. 

     She didn’t mention that he won!

     One of the units was filled with Mandarin. Otherwise, it was a mixture of French and English, some Latin. Ancient and recent classics, poetry, nonfiction. 

     “I take a lot of long plane rides,” he said from beside her, “have a lot of time sitting around waiting for my scene or my shoot. And I like the feel and the smell of a book in my hands over a tablet.”

     Marinette smiled. “Me, too.”

     “Can I get you something to drink?”

     “Um, whatever is easy?”

     He smirked. “How about, what ever you’d like? Come on.”

     She followed him to a kitchen filled with red cabinets and elite-level appliances, set up in a way that said he loved to cook: bottles of olive oil and vinegars were half empty, as were the glass containers of fifty different spices, held in steel racks on the back on the counter. A table big enough for four sat between two of the tall, arched windows. 

     He opened two lower cabinet doors to reveal a wine chiller and a small refrigerator stocked with alcohol, then two above the counter with red wines and further liquors. 

     “Wow.”

     Adrien chuckled. “Pascal keeps teaching me these complex cocktails that call for two or three obscure ingredients, so I suppose I’ve become a collector. I assure you, I am by no means a lush.”

     “Well, then, I guess, surprise me.”

     “Hmmm.” He tapped his lips thoughtfully for a moment, then snapped and set about making a concoction that included vodka, blood orange juice that he actually juiced, Cointreau, fresh lime juice and a few other little touches. She watched, entertained by his level of focus, until he poured the result into two martini glasses before handing her one. “Santé.” 

     Their glasses gently clinked together and Marinette sipped to find the beverage was delicious. 

     “Acceptable?”

     “My complements.”

     Outside of the doorway to the kitchen there was a roughly three meter span between windows that was filled with framed photos, and she lingered there, looking over and appreciating each one. From his mother cradling a little red-faced newborn in a hospital bed to one of a boy, perhaps seven years old, in fencing kit and proudly holding a trophy, to adult Adrien playing basketball with a group of kids in what looked like a tropical war zone. She found plenty with he and Pascal: at graduation, jumping off the top level of a yacht into the sea, and a few less traditional. 

     “That,” Adrien said, pointing at a photo that was quite clearly taken via security camera, of Pascal standing on Adrien’s shoulders against a high brick wall, “is the first time he nearly got me arrested.”

     Marinette laughed— at the story, and at the fact that he had hung a picture of it on his wall. 

     “And this,“ a picture of Pascal walking backwards, being forcibly lead out of what looked to be the audience of a sports venue and still shouting, “was when he got kicked out of my gold metal match for screaming in quite explicit terms what I should do to my opponent.” 

     “Why are those framed?” 

     He shrugged, smiling. “Because they’re very Pascal, and Pascal is my best friend. He seems completely insane, sometimes, but has never meant any harm.”

     He lead her to the couch, instructed a fire to erupt in the fireplace nearby as they sat. The lights in the flat adjusted to a gentle blue. 

     “It’s not mood lighting,” he defended himself. “It’s soothing.”

     She smirked over the rim of her glass. “I don’t mind mood lighting.”

     “Then it’s totally mood lighting.”

     It was quiet for a few moments, before he requested a hidden sound system play an artist called Chaton. The music was entrancing and, for a while, they simply leaned against each other, listening, drinking, existing. 

     “So, I admit, I didn’t know all that much about you,” she said. “Then my roommate started listing off your achievements and I felt sort of stupid.”

     He chuckled. “What, that you hadn’t memorized some random celebrity‘s life? Yeah, what the hell?”

     “Well, yes, that’s pretty much where I’m coming from,” Marinette laughed. “But, after she told me, I really wished I had taken you up on the offer of keeping me company, that night I was working late. ‘I wouldn’t mind not sleeping with you’ I believe was exact phrase.”

     Adrien groaned, rubbing his forehead. “You won’t let me live that down, will you?”

     “Absolutely not. A story I will tell forever: Adrien Agreste once offered to not sleep with me.”

     “I can be incredibly not smooth for someone who is supposedly so good looking.”

     “Supposedly?”

     He shrugged. “We’re all our biggest critics, right? I’m hardly full of myself.”

     “No, you aren’t,” she agreed. “I suppose that could be surprising, with all the things you’ve done. I thought you would have to have a thousand fantastic stories, with all of that, and I’m sure you do. But, we’ve talked for hours and you’re incredible, without even touching on any of those.”

     He seemed a bit bashful, again. “This is all I’ve ever known, so what do I have to really be stuck up about? I live my life and try to make the best of it, isn’t that what we all do? As for being accomplished: piano and fencing and all that, well, my father wouldn’t allow me not to be.”

     She frowned, instinctively slipping closer. His arm squeezed her absently as he gazed off at nothing. 

     “Like I said, I didn’t start school outside the house until I was thirteen. Before that— and well, quite a bit after that— my days were filled with practice. Studies, and practice. They say it takes ten thousand hours to master something, and I had that on everything I did before I hit eighteen. I’m not special. My parents got me the best instructors and insured I was well drilled. I didn’t have a choice but to excel.”

     “That sounds… horrible.”

     Adrien shrugged. “All I’ve ever known. Do I wish that I could have, you know, played and wandered and had an unstructured childhood so that I could figure out myself? Sure. But it was certainly also a lot better than a lot of people get, so I have nothing to complain about.”

     “So, then, how did you find yourself?”

     His brows furrowed. Marinette watched him as he sipped, the way his pupils dilated and contracted a bit, even though there was no change in the lighting. As if he was seeing something so clearly in his mind that even his body believed it was real. “I guess… I’m not sure that I have.”

     She acted without thought: placing her glass down on the coffee table, going onto her knees as she turned to him, and bringing his lips to hers. It seemed to surprise him, so deep was he in his head. But then Adrien relaxed, reached out to find a surface for his own glass, and relaxed completely into the kiss.

     “Marinette,” he breathed. “I really do love you. I don’t just say that.”

     “I’ve never said that.” 

     Adrien pulled back a little, just far enough to look into her eyes with beautiful, shocked green. “Really?”

     She felt her cheeks warm. “That’s… not the only thing I’ve never done before.”

     His eyes narrowed briefly, then widened. “Really?”

     Marinette sat back. Her gaze wandered, too shy to hold his. “I know, I’m a freak of na—“

     “You’re perfect,” he told her, hand on her cheek. “All of you, you’re perfect. I’m surprised, absolutely. But not… not disappointed. How could I be?”

     She shrugged. “Maybe you think there must be something wrong with me, or I’m a prude, or… maybe it’s just a lot.”

     Adrien actually laughed, at which she looked to him, her mouth a bit pinched. “You’re perfect,” he repeated, pressing his lips against her annoyed ones.   

     Marinette felt herself loosen, immediately relieved. The older she became the more she had worried that her first prospective lover would be scared away in one way or another by her innocence. But, once she realized it would be Adrien, what had she had to worry about? 

     It would be Adrien. 

     “Please stay with me tonight,” he whispered. “We don’t have to do anything, I swear. I just want to be close to you.”

     “So do I.”

     Their faces nestled together, arms around each other. Lips toying. “I had breakfast with my mom this morning. She often asks me if I’ve met anyone— not pressing, just casual. She knows I’ve wished I would. I always say that I meet lots of people. This was the first time I’ve been able to say something different.”

     She wanted to do more than just be close to him. And she trusted him. It was just so fast. As he had teased earlier, it was only their second date. They barely knew each other. And yet, she felt she had known him for years. And like she would be with him for years. Like he was the alpha and omega of her life. 

Chapter Text

     “Claws out!” 

     A green glow enveloped Adrien as a tiny, black creature was sucked into a ring he wore. Ears sprouted from his hair, a mask formed across his eyes, and he became something very different. Something very powerful.    

     As soon as the transformation was complete he drew a staff from its holder on his lower back, and used it to propel him out of his childhood room, onto the rooftop across the street. Wonderfully familiar adrenaline coursed through his heart as he ran towards one end, then vaulted across the boulevard beyond. 

     Paris was beautiful. The City of Lights, at her best. In the distance the Eiffel Tower was flashing its hourly golden shimmer, and Adrien was in love with it all. 

     He spotted a corner flower shop, its worker moving her wares in for the evening. He dropped briefly to snatch up a bunch of red roses with a merci and a ten Euro note floating to the ground before going aloft once more, continuing to his destination.   

     Her silhouette was easy for him to see, on the Hôtel de Ville. Slim, proud, perfect. 

     “Bonsoir, Milady,” he greeted, bowing while offering roses to the most powerful superhero the world had ever known. 

     “Chat Noir,” sighed his partner, “what am I supposed to do with those, right now?”

     He straightened with a cheeky smile. “Stop and smell them?”

     Ladybug rolled her eyes, shaking her head. The skin-tight suit of red with black spots debilitated him, if he dared look at it. So, as (almost) always, he kept his gaze to her shoulders and above. “Thank you, kitty,” she said while accepting the roses. Her eyes slid shut as she held them close, taking a long, deep breath of their fragrance. They matched her mask, the ribbons in her dark blue hair. His love for her. 

     And then they fell to roof below as an echoing crash reached them from across the river, towards Napoleon’s tomb. Immediately, she was spinning up her yo-yo, and Chat Noir tried not to look down to the roses, forgotten. He lived for the hours he spent fighting beside her, defending Paris and France and the world, but it was the moments when they were just them that were his favorite. 

     It had been a week since the last battle, and he had spent every day after school bored beyond words: bouncing a ball against the wall, trying to read and failing, trying to study and failing, not even bothering to practice piano, because he knew he would fail at that. Fencing was too easy to hold his attention for any length of time. He’d spent it all hoping for an Akuma. 

     That had to be a sin. 

     Just to see his Lady again, and feel his life had a bit of meaning. His name was one of the best known in the country, but it was what he did when anonymous was the only thing that mattered. 

     And Ladybug, she never left his thoughts, anymore. From his dreams to his daydreams, he couldn’t stop. Sure, he’d known the day they met that he had fallen in love, but two years later— two years of her shooting him down— his thoughts of her had turned distinctly less… innocent. It was driving him insane. His heart had never cared that they couldn’t be, and now his body didn’t, either. 

     He blew out a long breath, following her across the center of Paris. This was absolutely not the time to fall down that particular thought well. 

     Halfway to Les Invalides a portion of the golden dome crumbled in, stopping their progress. The two exchanged looks from the top of one of the bell towers of Notre Dame. 

     “If a gigantic zombie Napoleon climbs out of there I officially quit.”

     The side of her lips twitched up into a smirk. “What happened to it’s us against the world?”

     “Yeah, the world. Big zombies of little generals is a whole different thing.” He gesticulated as much.  

     “Huh, already trying to loophole your way out of this?”

     Chat Noir propelled himself after her via his staff, that little smirk making him tingle in places he didn’t need to be tingling at the moment. “Alright, no loopholes,” he conceded as they continued on the Left Bank of the Seine. “But I’m not responsible for the expression of our guests when I work through attacks of Zombie Napoleon into my vows.”

     “Noted.” Her eyes almost certainly rolled. 

     They dropped in through the recent addition of a skylight to the big circular chamber where the emperor was interred, in a massive deep red sarcophagus. Standing atop that beautifully carved stone they found a lanky middle-aged man that appeared to be clad in a toga designed after the flag of France. The two landed on the marble ledge that ran around the sunken crypt, allowing visitors to stand and take in the significance and grandeur of it all. 

      “Did dude get Napoleon mixed up with Caesar?” he pondered aloud as the villain struck a dignified pose for the new arrivals. A wreath of gilded leaves sat upon the man’s head, what hair he had left clipped short beneath it. 

     “Napoleon wore a laurel crown,” Ladybug noted. 

     “Yes, young lady, I did,” complemented the villain. 

     Chat scowled. “I knew that! I was referring to the toga, obviously. Wait, ‘I?’”

     “Symbolism?”

     “Once again correct, young lady.”

     Ladybug grinned over Chat, and he somehow managed to be more annoyed than turned on. Just. 

     “So, you’re Napoleon, huh?” Chat inquired, boredly twirling his staff into position to lean on. “You’re taller than I expected. And, I very much appreciate, with less decomposition.” 

     Ladybug gave him a sideways glance that said she wasn’t entertained— though he was pretty certain she was laughing on the inside. 

     “The rigors of time have no power over such mighty an emperor as I!”

     “I don’t recall Napoleon wearing glasses.”

     The villain briefly broke character, self-consciously adjusting the wireframe spectacles that sat upon his nose. 

     “No, it’s a good look,” Chat reassured him. “Modern day, right? A guy of your stature deserves some upgrades. May I suggest a smart watch?”

     Ladybug’s arms were crossed, appearing nonplussed by the interaction. She was wearing that expression that said is there actually any reason for me to be here? But, of course, not for a good reason— like him cleaning up the baddies so effectively no one else was needed. Never for a good reason. 

     “That’s enough!” boomed from high overhead, filling the chamber like the voice of God. Immediately, both he and Ladybug fell into battle stance, their weapons at the ready. 

     It took him a moment to trace the voice back to the speaker, with the acoustics at play. And, when his eyes found him, Chat’s heart stopped. 

     Hawkmoth?

     For their great foe to make a physical appearance was rare. He didn’t need to, his power was fighting by proxy. Because of that, the sight of him rose a sort of primal terror in someone who had become strangely accustomed to facing nightmares. 

     He glanced to Ladybug, maybe five meters away. His immediate instinct was to leap to her side, to protect his Lady. But not only was she probably the stronger of the two of them, it would also piss her off. 

     Neo-polean seemed to have been focused by the voice of his master. He stood up straighter, struck a defiant pose. “I have returned to reclaim my empire. Tremble, foes, at the armies I shall raise!”

     Chat Noir would’ve laughed, if not for Hawkmoth’s presence. Tall, slim, an evil elder, he was gazing down with pure delight. Whether it would piss her off or not, Chat backed towards Ladybug, his staff held up across his chest. 

     His backing became more rapid when the villain reached his arms out, and from the marble around the crypt shapes began to appear. The floor and columns rose up or fell away, revealing the rudimentary shapes of warriors. Likewise, the carved busts that were displayed grew limbs out of the marble pillars beneath them. 

     Ladybug bounced into his back. She bounced into him. Through the abject terror taking over Chat Noir, he sort of smiled. 

     “From all the marble in Paris shall I carve my soldiers, and together we shall conquer the world!”

     Chat gulped. 

     There was a lot of marble in Paris. 

     He picked up the sound of sirens, somewhere outside. Were they getting backup? That would be a first. 

     “Bugaboo, I’m sorry,” he lamented as the soldiers began to advance. He heard the whirr of her yo-yo spinning up behind him. 

     “Sorry for what?”

     “I would’ve preferred zombies.”

     The soldiers attacked.

     Adrien jerked awake. Heart pounding, limbs tingling, ready for a fight. 

     And then, immediately, relaxing. His first thought became this is a beautiful sight. 

     His second thought: maybe I could use some therapy. 

     The first night sleeping beside Marinette, and he was already having some sort of subliminal fantasy about the two of them in ridiculous costumes, having superhero battles against his father. He could only imagine a therapist would have an absolute blast figuring that one out. 

     Still, it was a beautiful sight. A pale girl with dark hair, a walking contrast, laying next to him. A walking contrast in many ways: confident and yet shy, graceful and yet clumsy, accomplished and yet unsure. She made him feel things that he had never felt, and absolutely could not understand. 

     Sirens passed by, down on the street, and she stirred a little. Reached out, then nestled up against him, leg sliding over his. 

     Breathe. 

     They’d spent hours, again, talking, and he’d spent most of that time constantly reminding himself that he was not going to sleep with her that night. Not in the metaphorical way, at least. And when she began to nod off with her head on his shoulder, she asked if she could sleep against him.

      Adrien had given her a pair of pajama pants and changed into another pair, then excused himself to brush his teeth and sort of shamefully jerked off in an attempt to satiate his stupid body. Then he slipped beneath the covers with the already asleep Marinette and just looked at her for a long while. 

     He thought about that first glimpse, just arms beneath garment bags. The way those blue eyes had widened in shock as they’d connected with his, and the actual shock that came soon after. The shock that always came.

     It had only been a few days since they’d met, and already had this unbelievable, undeniable connection. What would it be like in a month? In a year? In ten? Would something that burned so bright be able to last so long? 

     He hoped so. 

     She shifted once more, stretching a bit. Leg moving, over his hips. 

     Oh God, breathe. 

     And then, lips on his neck. Too thoughtful to be asleep. Adrien sighed, stroked her hair. 

     “I like sleeping next to you,” she whispered. Her voice was soft, the usual shy tones replaced by a deeper, more velvety feel. 

     “So do I.”

     A hand appeared on his cheek, turning his face toward hers. His body followed, rolling, and her leg hooked around his waist, pulling their loins together. He gasped in her exhaled breath. 

     “Marinette—“

     “I want to touch you,” she muttered into his lips, one of her hands slipping under his shirt. Fingers dragged over his abdomen, upwards to his chest. They seemed to sweep the tee away as if by magic, and he watched her eyes travel across his bared chest. She bit her lip, but it didn’t hold back a mischievous smile. “So, no airbrushing.” 

     Adrien laughed. “Yeah, it’s a little weird to know you’ve already seen all this.”

     “Not all of it,” she breathed, lips against his as her body pressed against him. It was a wonderful feeling, her warmth against him, and he wanted so much more of it, but was keeping himself on a severe leash. Any other woman, in his bed, removing his clothes, he’d assume he had free rein and act accordingly. With Marinette, he wouldn’t move until she told him he could. The desire was overwhelming, but so was the need to not mess this up.

     He’d been with virgins before, it wasn’t about that. It was about her. 

     She moaned, palm sliding down over his chest, his abdomen. Farther. His cock was reaching up to meet her, and he sucked in a deep breath. 

     “Are you sure?”

     “I want to know what you feel like.” She gasped as her hand immediately found his swollen tip. Those eyes went wide, as did her lips. He let out a moan that went all the way to his bones, hips instinctively pressing him towards her grip. He fought the urge to close his eyes, so to watch her expression as her palm moved over his length. It curled around him, and she drew another gasp, more slowly. “Adrien… you’re….”

     His hand slipped into her hair, to keep it away from other places he desperately wanted to touch. “I’m not going to… I won’t….” He groaned as her other hand materialized around him, the two slowly mapping his form. Her gaze upon him was dreamy, fully engrossed. Even in the dim light, her cheeks were visibly flushed. He had never been so stunned in his life. She was a work of art, looking at him that way. 

     “You feel….” She let out a sigh, her grip tightening ever so slightly around him. It was incredible, it was torture. And every second he was becoming more and more desperate to be able to touch her, too. 

     “I want to know what you taste like,” he whispered. “Please.”

     Her eyes widened a bit, her teeth grazed her lower lip again.      

     “I’ll stop if you ask me to, I promise.” He closed his eyes, but it was so he couldn’t see her. Those eyes, that blush, that shy but eager glow… it was too much. 

     “I just… I don’t know… how….”

     Adrien chuckled. “All you do is enjoy it.”

     Her grip tightened a bit, then released. 

     Yes. 

     He rolled her onto her back, kissing her neck as they went. Her breathing turned ever heavier, those breaths touching his hair. The thought of her, untouched until him… he had never been more turned on, or more amazed. “Are you okay?” His lips toyed with her earlobe. 

     She nodded. “Yeah, yes. Yes.” His mouth was pulled to hers. “Yes.”

     He worked his way down her body, her neck to her clavicle, down the center of her chest before tugging the lace of her camisole and the bra beneath it slowly enough that she could protest if she chose to. When none was forthcoming he moved to her right breast and took it into his mouth. 

     Marinette gasped, her body jerking a little. Her chest began to heave with deep breaths, her hand raked into his hair, pressing him harder to her. The encouragement was all he needed to loosen his his restraint a bit, tonguing her nipple, sucking on the breast. He loved natural breasts. Models kept themselves so thin that they basically had none, actresses got implants. Marinette was real. A person, living to no one’s expectations but her own.

     He slid a hand up under the cami, fingertips drinking in the silky smooth skin beneath them. It fluttered, unused to touch. Her hips began to roll, searching for contact, and Adrien was unable to resist. 

     “Ah!” No one had ever responded so enthusiastically to the sensation of him simply beginning to drag down their panties. He could practically feel electricity in veins running deep beneath his lips. She was squirming. 

     Kissing his way to the edge of the trim patch of hair guarding her most valuable treasure, he listened to her breaths. The way they came faster or slower, deep and then a shallow gasp. He knew that hormones were crashing through her like never before. It was intoxicating. 

     He pressed his lips to the crook of her leg, found himself salivating at the scent. The underwear and borrowed pajamas were done away with without thought, and he realized that she was holding her breath, waiting for his touch. As they both had been just before he kissed her for the first time.

     His tongue dragged upwards over her, those lips parting as if he alone held their key. 

     Marinette’s head fell back into the pillow, all breath leaving her body in a heaving sort of sigh, and his eyes rolled back as he had his first taste of her body. 

     “Oh… Adrien….”

     She was sweet, her taste instantly addicting. He moaned louder than she did, his hips pressing down to rub himself against the sheets. Her legs spread farther, embracing him in her heat. His tongue plunged as deep as it could reach, then lapped upwards. Drinking her with more and more desperation. Her fingers grasped his hair, her body rewarded his work. 

     He wouldn’t penetrate her until she asked him to, but he curled his finger and ran his knuckles between those lips, teasing as much. Putting pressure there as his mouth serviced her clit. 

     “Ah… oh… you feel… so amazing!”

     His tongue twisted around that rigid mound of flesh, testing for her strongest reactions. He was aching to have her, but directed all of that want into pleasing her, first. 

     She was so wet. He gave into the urge to savor her taste once more and found her begging. “Please don’t stop. Adrien, please don’t stop!”

     He’d never gotten a woman off this way, not without using his fingers inside her as well. Never usually so restrained. But she sounded as if, maybe…. He sucked on her clit, teased her more firmly with his knuckles. “Adrien… oh… I’m… I think… ahh!”

     Her entire body tensed violently and then melted as she cried out. Back arched, beautiful breasts thrust up into the air, her legs trembled around him. He could feel the inside of her body quivering as she came, and would give up every cent of his fortune to feel it around him. 

     He drew out her orgasm as long as he could, then thankfully drank the sweet offering that spilled out as she went completely weak. 

     When Adrien held himself above her with a smile he found Marinette still gasping, her eyes wide and her face flushed. She looked up at him, aghast. 

     “I just… you just made me… I just….”

     He laughed. “Yes.”

     Her arms roped around his neck and she pulled him down, kissing him ravenously. Not at all dissuaded by the taste of herself on his lips. She rolled, putting him onto his back. “I want to make you feel like that,” she whispered, her hand once more curling around his erection. 

     Adrien let out a long sigh. “You don’t have to,” he offered. 

     “I want to make you feel good,” she repeated, mouth on his neck. “Tell me how to make you feel good.”

     His hand covered hers, guiding her strokes. Marinette moaned into his skin, pressed her lips to his stomach. He released her hand and instead dragged his fingers through her hair, over her neck, down her back. 

     It didn’t take him long at all, not when her mouth went around his tip-- and then a surprising amount farther. It had been a while, and simply getting her off had dumped a week’s worth of hormones into his blood. 

     He gasped, moaned her name, and begged. She didn’t need any guidance, she was already perfect. Maybe listening to his reactions, as he had listened to hers.

     A surge of rapture travelled through his body from where she touched him, and for a long moment it was almost as if he flickered out of existence as Marinette milked every drop out of his body and into her throat. 

     Then she was there, back beside him. Licking her lips with a mischievous gleam. 

     “Putain de merde,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around her. Her body pressed to his, head on his shoulder, and as she sighed contently Adrien felt his eyelids being dragged down. “You’re incredible.”

     She giggled. He loved that little giggle. “I owed you.”

     He laughed. Kissed her head. And wished they never had to leave that bed. 

     Marinette perked, foot lifting from the pedal of the sewing machine. The needle stilled, as did her hands on the fabric. 

     “Spots on?” asked a little voice from behind her. 

     “Spots on,” she affirmed, pushing back from the desk. The chair rolled and twisted, and the girl who hopped off of it was not the one who had been previously been sitting there. A mask had covered her eyes, a svelte suit of red and black covered her body. She leapt up onto her bed and emerged from the skylight into the night above. 

     She was filled with new energy, with a power that simple Marinette didn’t have. 

     Her yo-yo was pitched out, and she sailed behind it across the Seine, choosing the Hôtel de Ville as a good vantage point to wait for whatever would come. 

     She didn’t wait long. 

     “Bonsoir, Milady,” said the world’s most familiar voice from just behind her. Silent as a cat, but she had felt him there. 

     Ladybug turned to find him, that lithe shadow, making a graceful bow as he presented her with a simple bouquet of red roses. She sighed, equal parts charmed and annoyed— as ever. 

     “Chat Noir, what am I supposed to do with those right now?”

     “Stop and smell them?” he offered, verdant cat eyes twinkling over his smile. 

     She smirked and did as he suggested, accepting the flowers before closing her eyes and sinking her nose into them. Drawing a deep breath, their scent seemed to relax her. Reminding Ladybug that she was Marinette, underneath. Something that her partner was uniquely talented at, even if he didn’t know who she was. Keeping her human, when she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. 

     She should tell him how much she appreciated that, more often. 

     Or, well, ever. 

     A crash from across the city wrenched her out of her thoughts as well as her comfort, and the roses fell from her fingers as the yo-yo was spun up again. 

     They had work to do. 

Chapter Text

     A horn blasted behind them, sort of vaguely making an impression. 

     “We’re blocking someone,” Marinette muttered. 

     “They can go around.”

     She giggled. “There’s a delivery truck.”

     “Tragic.” Adrien’s hand pulled her hip towards him a bit, in case she tried to make an escape. 

     “I need to go to work!”

     “If I buy out the bakery, will you come back home with me?” he asked, lips brushing the skin just below her ear. 

     “Then I need to go to the studio.”

     He whined. 

     She pulled back, smiling. She wouldn’t tell him how much she wanted to go back home with him, because he would surely prey upon that weakness. “I have two fittings, a consultation, and commissions to work on. And a suit I haven’t even begun to sketch.”

     Adrien produced a pout that was half acting and half modeling. “Lunch, then? Brunch?”

     Her arms lingered around his neck, fingers lazily playing in his hair. “Dinner.” 

     “Mmmm and dessert.”

     She would have to pry his hands off her, his lips off her neck. And she really didn’t have the motivation to do so, until another angry honk sounded. “I love you,” she reminded him, reaching for the door handle only for it to be opened from the outside. 

     “Love you, Marinette.” The pout came back. She laughed, leaning into the car to press her lips to his quickly before forcing herself away from the car. Floating too high to notice the obscene gesture from the car that had been blocked. 

     She was supposed to arrive at the bakery before it opened, but the door was unlocked and there were already two customers inside. The sight of them snapped Marinette back to earth and she hurried inside, apologizing to her parents as she rushed into the back room to put away her things and don an apron. The most familiar scent of baking bread and sugar made her feel ageless, somewhere between a toddler and adult.

     “C'est n'est pas grave, mamour,” her mother assured her with a warm smile. She was a small woman, who wore her Chinese heritage proudly via traditional clothing, and the rice flour they secretly mixed into their bread to set it apart from that of every other bakery in Paris. Her father was the physical opposite: a gigantic teddy bear of a man. He greeted her with his usual doting gaze as he rang up a purchase. 

     She welcomed a new customer, and quickly fell into the familiar rhythm of work at the bakery, though her brain and body were a bit detached. 

     She could still feel him….

     They had already been awake when her alarm went off, arms and legs tangled together after she had awoken from a strange dream and he, so entwined with her, had woken with her movement. Pressed together, breathing each other’s breaths as they made plans for the following few minutes, things had been so close to starting when her phone played its alarm. As crestfallen as she was, Adrien had taken a shower with her, slipped one of his button-downs onto her afterwards, and insisted on giving her a ride to the bakery. All when he could’ve so easily fallen back to sleep in that perfectly warm and comfortable bed. 

     She smiled as she thought of it, turning her head a bit and tucking her chin down so that she could breathe the scent of him from the collar. Blue and white stripes, rolled up on her forearms, tied at her waist. 

     “Now you’ll have to come back,” he had said, buttoning it. Still shirtless, himself. A body she had never paid any attention to when on display, the most amazing sight when they were alone. 

     It was more than an hour before customers allowed any real break. Marinette made herself a coffee and leaned back against the counter, blowing to cool it off when she noticed her mother’s especially inquisitive smile as she approached.

     “I really am really sorry I was late,” she offered again, which her mother once more brushed off. 

     “How are you, darling? Very busy, I know.”

     Marinette nodded, though she was certain that her smile betrayed her. No matter how tired she technically was, she knew that smile would not fade any time soon. “Business is going very well.”

     “Is there anything else new?”

     She realized then, that her parents already knew about Adrien. Perhaps they didn’t spend more time than necessary for business on social media, but they were close enough with enough customers that would recognize her in the photos that were everywhere. 

     Yes, I spent the night with a supermodel who offered to buy the entire stock of the bakery just so he could get some more time in bed with me. 

     “Uh, yeah… I suppose I’m dating someone?”

     Sabine Cheng grinned, nodding. “I’ve heard. How did you meet?” 

     “Well, actually, his mother commissioned a gown from me. And we met when I delivered it.” That first glance, the first touch… only days before?

     Her brows raised. “That’s fantastic, congratulations! Any idea when she will be wearing it? That will certainly raise your profile.”

     “I’m not sure. She ended up taking three of them. Soon, though.”

     “Tom, Emilie Agreste owns three of our daughter’s gowns, isn’t that incredible?”

     Her father, passing with a sheet of pain au chocolat fresh from the oven, beamed. “The actress? I’m surprised it took her so long!”

     Marinette smirked. 

     The tinkling of the bell over the bakery’s door alerted them to a new customer, who turned out to be a very familiar one. “Bonjour, Alya,” called Tom, refilling the display. “It’s been a while!”

     “Bonjour,” she called, even while fixing Marinette with a very meaningful look. “I assure you, if Marinette didn’t keep bringing home your chouquettes to feed my habit I would be here much more frequently! May I briefly borrow your lovely daughter?”

     “Of course!”

     Alya was held up by greeting Sabine while Marinette proceeded her into the back room of the shop. There she waited, thinking up what she would respond to the coming questioning, and already blushing. 

     “Just making sure you’re still alive,” she said, eyes narrowed over a grin as she shut the door to the top. “Since you didn’t come home last night.”

     “Alive and well!”

     “So I see.” She was looking her over, certainly for any physical indications of what she had done the night before. Which, she was reasonably certain, were not there. “So, pray tell, where did you stay?”

     No matter how hard she resisted, Marinette’s smile won out. Alya’s brows raised and she came over to lean back against the big metal table in the middle of the kitchen beside her. 

     “Wow, you do not waste time when you know what you want, do you?”

     She smirked. “We didn’t… do everything. And not even until… we just wanted to stay close to each other. We slept for a while, then woke up….”

     “You told him about that thing you were anxious about?”

     Marinette nodded. “He was surprised. But, I think, not bothered. And very insistant that there was no pressure. What did happen, I started.”

     Alya was examining her, appearing to be exactly one half her best friend and one half the detective she was. 

     “What?”

     She smiled, whatever had been on her mind dissipating like smoke on a breeze. “Just taking it all in. It’s such a whirlwind, from outside. What does it feel like, to you?”

     Marinette crossed to the sink and washed her hands, just to have something to do. “Like a whirlwind, when I think about things factually. That we didn’t know each other, a week ago. But, when I don’t… like it’s always been like this.”

     In the little mirror over the sink, she caught Alya biting her lip, looking concerned. And the little pit of anxiety she always seemed to be carrying in the bottom of her stomach returned from its brief vacation, dark and heavy. Did she know something? Or was she just thinking something?

     “He brought me here,” she said, as if continuing one uninterrupted stream of thought while working suds through every crease in her fingers. “My alarm went off and I explained and he didn’t just roll over and go back to sleep, he took a shower with me and put this shirt on me and then came out in the cold, just to ride with me.”

     “That’s just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” Alya was smiling when Marinette turned. Her eyes took in the top with a different appreciation. “So, when do I get to meet him?”

     She laughed. “Oh, God.”

     Alya scowled, arms crossing. 

     “No! I mean, when you ask that it all falls back into rational territory, you know? Like, how soon is too soon to introduce him?”

     “Well, Nino’s got his usual gig on Saturday night.” Alya had spotted a sheet of chouquettes in the rack and shamelessly popped one into her mouth. “Would be chill? I could gather people, or not.”

     Marinette was chewing the inside of her cheek. If Adrien wasn’t Adrien, it sounded like a great idea. But a club was also very public, very free form. “I’ll mention it?”

     “No, I get it, you’re ashamed of us.” Alya was so distraught that she ate another chouquette. 

     She smirked. “I’m just thinking, we’ve been out a few times, but it’s been in pretty controlled situations, you know? A coffee shop and a cinema. Sort of semi-private. A club is… really not.”

     Alya laughed. “My darling Marinette, you two are everywhere. It is not a secret.”

     She bit her lip, feeling her cheeks warm. “Yeah, well, maybe that’s part of it? He’s used to attention and I’m really not.”

     “Better get used to it, babe.” Her friend fussed with her phone for a brief moment and then turned the screen towards her. On it was a livestream of one of the Parisian morning shows, on which three women and a man were chatting and laughing in front of a screen that was cycling through all the photos she had seen of the two of them, as well as several more. 

     Adrien est plus sur le marche! announced the text along the bottom of the screen. 

     “Oh God.” 

     She smirked. “Uh huh. Better work on some disguises, girl!”

     Marinette turned up the volume for a moment to hear speculation on the identity of la femme mystère. No one had recognized her yet, could she be an unknown actress from China? The daughter of a Russian diplomat? 

     “So, how much is it worth to you for me to not call in and spill?”

     She gave Alya a severe look, causing her to laugh. 

     “An appearance at Nino’s gig, perhaps?”

     Marinette gruffly handed the phone back. “That is making me want to crawl up in a hole for the next month.”

     “Ahh, little love nest?”

     “Marinette?” called her father, sticking his head in from the front and only intensifying her blush, “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we just got a tour bus full of customers!” 

     “Be right there!” 

     “Am I ever going to see you again, or have you found another place to sleep?”

     Her cheeks, impossibly, became a brighter pink. “Ha, ah, um….”

     Alya smirked. “Alors, la femme mystère, I’ll leave you be.” Squeezing her once, she strutted out into the front of the shop, kissed Tom on the cheek as she was handed a bag treats, and headed off to work. Marinette jumped in seamlessly with her parents, filling orders that her mother translated from rapid-fire Mandarin. It made her think of Adrien again— after the roughly forty-two seconds of distraction— and how much they would adore him. How much she adored him. And how much he adored her. 

     A small, elderly woman said something to Marinette as she handed over her order. Looking to her mother for translation, she found her to be smiling. 

     “She says you look love struck.” 

     For the first time Adrien could remember, his father was awaiting him in the grand foyer of the manor. Stiff, still, head slightly inclined— always looking downwards. The sight chilled him more than the house, itself, ever could. 

     “Father,” he uttered, unable to squelch his surprise— and then immediately regretting it. 

     “Who is this young woman?”

     Burning heat erupted in his core, immediately swallowing that chill. “Excuse me?”

     Pascal looked over at him, caught just as off guard as Adrien was by his defiant tone. 

     Gabriel Agreste’s eyes narrowed. “The young woman you’re being photographed with, these last few days. Who is she?”

     He drew a breath, using it to keep him standing tall. There were a thousand things he had bent to his father for, but he refused to flinch, on this. “Someone I care about. What is your concern?”

     “My concern is that you’re being very public about this little affair.”

     Adrien stepped forward. He and his father were basically the same height, though he had rarely felt it. His head was always kept down, literally and figuratively. But they were standing nearly toe to toe, and eye to eye. “If by that you mean living my life freely, then yes, I am.”

     Pascal was to his right, not quite as if he was refereeing the two. He could see the concern on his friend’s face, he was wearing it unusually clear. But Pascal would also stay out of things. Gabriel was one of the very few people in the world that he would not dare to cross. 

     “As long as you’re in my employ, your image is my property.”

     Adrien’s father rarely showed emotion, and this was no exception. His face was stoic, his voice stable, his eyes empty of any hints to his mood. Adrien had often thought, then, that was the way to show strength. With Gabriel, he remained restrained. 

     Usually. 

     “Then feel free to fire me.”

     There was a flash across his eyes. Surprise? Rage? Pride? 

     “I care about someone, and I’m not going to hide that.”

     Gabriel’s eyes fell, to review the screen of a tablet that had been slipped to him by an assistant. “Someone you met… six days ago.” 

     His brow furrowed. His father adjusted his glasses before scrolling down the screen.

     “Marinette Dupain-Cheng, a dressmaker with a small storefront and one part time employee. You visited her there briefly once, had coffee, then attended the cinema yesterday before taking her to your apartment for the night.”

     Adrien’s hands clenched. He had never been one to fight. Fencing was a discipline, not a method of combat. And he had never spoken back to his father. 

     But he was ready to punch him. 

     “Her parents own and run a successful bakery, however Marinette makes very little profit with her own business.” He looked back up to his son. “I imagine that will very quickly change, now. She is the most talked-about woman in the city today.”

     Adrien’s blood seemed to be boiling. He had never understood the saying before, but everything about him seemed to be on fire, and the steam was aching to escape through physical violence. “I’ve lost track, are you concerned about my image or that she’s using me?”

     “I am concerned about any number of things.”

     “And I’m an adult.”

     “Your image is my property,” Gabriel repeated. 

     “Then I quit.”

     “That is not acceptable.”

     “Neither is every single word you’ve said to me, here.”

     The dark form of Pascal shifted a bit in his periphery. He was either considering taking action, or concerned that Adrien was about to. So was Adrien. 

     Instead, he turned around. 

     “You have a fitting,” Gabriel said flatly from behind him. 

     “Not today, I don’t.”

     Pascal bolted down the stairs after him. Benoit had barely gotten the car properly parked in the courtyard and was visibly surprised by Adrien’s abrupt reappearance. He jumped out to open the back door just before he reached it. 

     “Holy fuck! Adrien, what the shit?” Pascal asked, climbing in the other side of the back seat. 

     His hands were still clenched, as was his jaw. He couldn’t respond. Couldn’t manage to relax the muscles of his body enough to do so, couldn’t make his brain work around the rage swimming inside it. 

     His shoulder was clapped from the side. “I can’t believe you did that! I thought you were going to fucking hit him!”

     “I nearly did.”

     Pascal laughed. “Putain! I’ve never been more proud of you, mate. I can’t believe you stood up to him like that!”

     Neither could Adrien. He never had, on his own behalf. 

     Was she making him… stronger? 

     “Where would you like to go, Monsieur?” inquired the driver. He had already begun driving, certainly sensing that he just wanted to get out of there. 

     “Pub!” 

     He wanted to see her, most of all. But that could wait. Cooling off, first, would probably be preferable. “Whatever the closest usual cafe is.”

     “Close enough,” Pascal shrugged. 

     Adrien was tired, perhaps that had contributed to his reaction. But also, sort of happily tired. He’d gone without hours of sleep just to enjoy his time being close to Marinette. 

     He hoped he would get much more. 

     Pascal, for his part, managed to hold back for roughly three minutes. 

     “So she spent the night, huh?”

     His emotions did a savage dance: joy at the memories, followed by a wash of rage as he thought of the level of detail that his father knew about what Adrien did. Just how closely he must be watched, even at his age. Had it always been this way? Was it true even when he was out of the country? 

     It wouldn’t be his drivers— they were his employees, and he trusted them. He had never thought he had any reason not to. Were staff at his building feeding his father information? 

     “Does he have me followed?”

     Pascal’s hint of mischief faded. “I’ve never noticed anything obvious, but I’ll start paying closer attention.”

     Adrien’s lips pursed. Maybe he wouldn’t have cared so much, before. It would’ve bothered him, certainly, but it took on another level when he thought of being with Marinette. Sure, people who spotted them took pictures, but it was generally in excitement; when it was being reported back to his father it felt nothing but sinister. Had someone been sitting outside his place, recording what time he turned off the lights, the night before? 

     His mind was beginning to spiral with paranoia. Was he not just followed, was his place bugged?

     “You know anyone I could get to watch my back for that sort of thing?”

     Brows raised. “I could find someone easily enough.” Pulling out his phone, it took very little time for his clicking and typing to cease. “Someone will get back to me shortly.” 

     He watched the city drift passed the window. “He really does think he owns me,” he muttered. 

     “You’re just now learning that?” Pascal scoffed. 

     Adrien shook his head. “No. But I never expected him to actually say it.” He glanced over. “Is there anything like that in my contract?”

     “Not as such. There is a penalty if you willfully engage in any behavior that a reasonable person could expect would do harm to public image.”

     He frowned. 

     “But I took that to mean, for instance, snorting coke off a stripper’s ass in the middle of the Louvre. Not, you know, dating someone.”

     “He never had an issue with it before,” Adrien grumbled. 

     Pascal shrugged, flicking at the screen of his phone. “Was never a real person before.”

     Adrien scowled at him. 

     “I mean,” he clarified, his dark hands rising in surrender, “they were socialites, or models, or whatever. If people didn’t know their names, they sure as fuck knew their parents. Marinette is a real person.”

     As the car slowed in front of one of his favorite cafes, he pondered that. Pascal wasn’t wrong, but Adrien had never taken pedigree into account for his relationships. He had just, generally, only been exposed long enough to be able to develop a crush on those types. 

     “Also,” Pascal added as he held open the cafe door, “your dad’s une raclure de bidet.” 

     Adrien did his best to laugh. 

     They were greeted, lead to a reasonably private table. It was one of the places he frequented, but he still got those looks. The double-takes, the widened eyes. Surprise at his existence. As he had told Marinette, this was all he had ever known. But what would it be like to be different? 

     That is, not be different? Just be someone, anyone. A person. No one special. No one expected to be special. Because those expectations that preceded him where ever he went, he followed in their wake, a disappointing anchor. He wasn't anyone special, just the victim of a lifetime full of advertising shouting the opposite. 

     When had he become the product? 

     He had been certain of his decision to step away from the brand when he had first brought it up, months before, but was becoming more so by the hour. In the past it was just what he did, his job. But Adrien was very quickly learning the depths of his naïvety. It was him, or meant to be. The older he got, the more entwined his existence and his profile were, and he hadn’t really had any reason to notice before then. 

     He had been staring down at the menu, not seeing anything, when Pascal ended a conversation that Adrien had not noticed him starting. 

     “D’accord, taken care of.”

     His brows raised. “What does that mean?”

     Pascal shrugged, picking up the drink menu. “Your spot is going to be swept, and we’ll go over to mine after this to have a chat with some gents about what they can do.”

     Adrien knew, due to Pascal’s family business, he would have quick access to people with specialities that he probably didn’t know existed, but he was still surprised. “That was fast.”

     Another shrug. “I have them on retainer.”

     “Why?” He was actually looking at the menu, trying to get himself in the mood to eat.

     “Was convinced for the longest time that someone would try to kill me. Well, sort of still am.”

     No, there would be no appetite. Adrien gawked across the table. “What?”

     “Eh, the family business, my business, my parents. You don’t actually think I happen to drop something half the time I get in the car, do you?”

     He was aware his jaw had fallen, but didn’t have the concentration to rectify that. Pascal was searching for bombs under his car? “You couldn’t have told me this before I decided to have you a meter away from me every day?”

     His friend smirked. “Paranoia can be healthy, Adrien. I sort of think I’m unkillable, anyway.”

     He was ready to go to back to the Seychelles. Like, forever. 

     Instead, he tried he push all of this insanity from his mind, and come up with something to order as a server stepped forward. 

     “Je vais prendre le camembert,” Pascal stated. “Et un doublé whiskey.” 

     All Adrien could seem to order was a second double whiskey, but managed to add a salad for appearance’s sake. 

     Pascal had folded his hands and was gazing across the restaurant and out of the panoramic windows. Seemingly unconcerned with anything that had just been said. 

     He sighed, giving up on that entire line of thought. “I told my mother the other day, again, that I want to quit. I was pissed over how controlling he was, even before this. She said he does it out of love. That he would do anything to protect our family.” 

     Pascal scoffed, his mossy-colored eyes rolling. “He does it out of love for an image he has in his head from when you were a baby, Adrien. He would do anything to protect that, when he had control of every aspect of everything. A perfect little baby that had no will of its own and a wife who was so in love with that baby and the man who shot it into her that she was focused on nothing but. He does it out of love for himself and something that hasn’t existed for a long time.” 

     Something about Pascal’s explanation rang too true. And, somehow, too frightening. 

Chapter Text

     Marinette was so intently focused, bent over the large table she only unfolded to cut fabric, that she hadn’t realized anyone had entered the shop until wonderfully familiar arms slid around her from behind, bringing with them a tiny jolt from each side. Adrien sort of hunched over with her, his chest against her back, his nose buried in her hair. 

     She laughed, carefully setting down her shears before twisting in his embrace. 

     “I’ve had the longest day,” he muttered into her lips, holding her tighter. 

     Her fingers dragged back through his hair, which she had been thinking about doing ever since shamefully buying a special Adrien Agreste edition! of a teen magazine that she’d spotted at a news seller on her walk to the studio. One of the hundreds of photos inside had been of him leaning back against the railing of a yacht— candid instead of posed— in a pair of trunks with the wind blowing through his especially shaggy hair, a drink in his hand and laughter on his calculatedly scruffy face. 

     She wasn’t sure whether to cheekily ask him to autograph it, or make sure he never saw it. 

     He nuzzled against her, searching for as much simple contact as was possible. 

     “You said you had brand stuff?” she asked absently, her fingers still twining through perfectly golden strands. 

     “Ah, yeah. And I know you said eight, but I just couldn’t hold it off any longer. I’ve been pacing out there.”

     Marinette glanced down at her watch: seven thirty-nine. “I suppose I’ll allow it.”

     He smiled, straightening. “How was your day? You must be exhausted.”

     She shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary, I used to work at the bakery nearly every morning. Now, it’s only a few days a week.” She felt herself blush, and she saw him notice. His eyes seemed to twinkle, anticipating what she would next say. “I kept thinking how much my parents would love you.”

     His smile widened. “Think so?”

     She laughed. “Beyond certain.” 

     Adrien hooked a hand behind her back and pulled her in again. “So when do I get to meet them?”

     “Um, still haven’t made it to date number three,” she reminded, arms slipping around his neck. “Seems a little early.”

     “Hey, you already met my mother.”

     “I met you through your mother!”

     “Still counts.”

     Marinette smirked. 

     “I know you’re still working,” Adrien said, nuzzling into her hair once more. “But I have a brilliant idea, one that will allow you to continue being productive and come over.” He gripped her waist a bit tighter, reigniting the desire she had done her best to put out of her mind during the day, lest she be completely unable to focus. 

     “What’s that?”

     “We need to work on the design for my suit, right? I sort of feel as if you didn’t finish your measurements.”

     Mmmmmmm the thought of their first kiss….

     “Business consultation.” His lips had traveled up to her ear, were toying with its arch. “Bring your measuring tape.”

     Marinette was unable to squelch a little giggle. “I have actually finished what needed to be done, and I have a nagging feeling that you have ulterior motives.”

     “That’s because I absolutely have ulterior motives. And so as much as I wouldn’t mind attracting more attention, maybe we should skip straight to private consultation.”

     She gripped the back of his hair, bringing his mouth to hers. Adrien let out a moan, lifting her back and onto the table. Her legs slid around him and he leaned into her, eager to offer the evidence of his desire. He breathed in her sigh. 

     “Please come home with me. I still won’t push you, I promise.” 

     She laughed. 

     Adrien chuckled. “I mean it! Come on, haven’t I proven I have restraint?” His arms spread wide as if to indicate his totality, which the obvious erection turned into a joke.

     Don’t focus on it don’t focus on it don’t focus on it! “But what if I don’t?”

     He grinned, arms falling around her. “That’s okay with me, too.”

     She pulled him in tighter with her legs as her body scooted closer to the edge, allowing their loins to meet. He was… so stiff.  

     It felt silly, now, to have been so anxious about revealing herself to someone. To him. If anything, the way he made her feel so comfortable made her even more certain that he was right. 

     “Your place feels very far, right now,” she murmured. 

     “Driver is right outside.” His hand tightened around her thigh before falling away. “But don’t forget your measuring tape. This is a very serious business meeting.” 

     Marinette laughed, blew out a breath, and slid back to her feet. “Did you know,” she asked as she went about closing the shop for the night, “that I’m la femme mystère?”

     He laughed. “You certainly are that.”

     In the back seat he immediately drew her onto his lap, not that she needed the coaxing. “Couldn’t stop thinking about you all day,” Adrien breathed into her neck. 

     “I absolutely refused to,” she laughed. “So I pretty much couldn’t stop, either.”

     She had managed to keep her thoughts reasonably tame, while she had been at the bakery. If only because it would be too embarrassing to think of the lascivious in the presence of her parents, and her cheeks had never been able to hide such things. 

     But, once she had made it to the studio and was alone with her thoughts…. 

     “La femme mystère,” Tess had said wryly, setting a container down in front of the completely glazed-over Marinette, around two. Tess was an incredible cook, and any time she blessed Marinette with a meal was a cause to rejoice— although this was moderated by her greeting. 

     She had swiveled to her, scowling, even as she thanked her the food. And Tess sighed, eyes falling. 

     “I’m sorry, Marinette.” She looked off into the ether. “Look, I don’t have anything against him. I really don’t. I just… I’ve always gotten vibes about random things. And I always had the feeling that Luka would lead you to a bad place. And, with Adrien, that feeling is even stronger.”

     She frowned. “Like what?”

     Her shoulders, padded with thick pastel flower print, shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just… there. Something dark. Like shadows.” 

     Completely absorbed in Adrien, trading heat and breath and brushes, Marinette could not even begin to imagine that he would lead anywhere dark. He was nothing but warmth and softness, wonderful words and sparkling eyes. 

     She barely registered the incredible design of his building, or even that they were passing through it, the destination and its approach completely filling her consciousness. Adrien laughed as she directed them towards the bedroom, pressing him backwards as they kissed. His keys fell from his fingers onto the floor somewhere along the way, as did his jacket, her jacket, and their pairs shoes came off with only minimal stumbling. Once they were in bare feet she was somehow surprised how much taller than she he was. He was always so gentle, so yielding, it seemed strange. 

     “Your skin has been the only thing on my mind for hours,” he admitted, finally simply picking her up. She giggled, her legs hooking again around his waist. He squeezed her bottom as he hoisted her, and then backed into the side of a doorway as they became a little too lost in each other. 

     He bent, laying her gently back onto the bed. His mouth remained engaged with hers, as his fingers slipped beneath her blouse to the skin of her abdomen. Marinette laughed and Adrien’s grin turned intensely mischievous.       

     “Ticklish, huh?”

     She bit her lip, blushing. “Perhaps you make me more sensitive?”

     “Mmmmm.” He kissed her neck. “I’ll take advantage of that.”

     She sighed as he slowly undressed her, lips following in the wake of his hands. Teasing her with possibility. “Every time I saw one of your ads, today… I started thinking….”

     He chuckled, nuzzling against her cheek, breathing against her skin. “Thinking of what?”

     Marinette blushed. 

     “Are you honestly too shy to tell me?”

     “I just thought, maybe showing you would be more fun.”

     She had wanted to touch him. All of him, with all of her. That photo of him in a casual linen suit, holding a glass of wine, laughing— like he was at some dinner party in Tuscany— it had given her the strongest craving to be held against that chest, to nuzzle into the neck half-hidden by the unbuttoned white collar. It felt like an urge that had been building for half her life.

      Memories of being in the shower with him that morning, of course, gave her entirely different cravings. The way he had felt, swollen and throbbing in her hands, and the way his eyes rolled back when she held him that way… the way his voice sounded when he moaned at her touch….

      “Ahhhhhh, m’amour,” he breathed as she slipped across his hips. He had removed all but her panties, and Adrien gazed with clear appreciation as her hands swept his fitted henley upwards, pressing firmly on his chest as she did. It went over his head and her mouth went to the skin that was revealed. He was hard, straining to be released from his khakis, and Marinette rubbed down instinctually, the most primal parts of her being knowing exactly what they each needed.

     She let out a moan as his one of his hands cupped her breast, slotting her nipple between his fingers, gripping her ass with the other to press her harder against him. “I’ve never wanted anyone like this,” he told her. “It’s so much more than I thought there was.” He shifted her body, bringing the other breast to his lips. “And I want to make you feel so much more….”

     Her eyes closed, all senses going to the feel of his skin and his mouth and his hands and the evidence of his desperation between her legs. He was… so solid, so swollen. And though she had no idea what it would be like… the only thing she had ever used on herself was not, in any way, comparable. But she wanted to know how that sort of fullness would feel, how he would feel, even if it might be a little… challenging. She rocked back, fully onto him, and the layers of fabric separating their bodies seemed like an insult. The way he pressed up assured her that he felt the same.

     Adrien’s mouth gaped as she raised herself just enough to unbuckle his belt, unbutton his pants. “I’m not going to get off before you,” he breathed. “I refuse.”

     Marinette grinned. He brought out a kind of mischievous side she didn’t know she had. “Challenges have always made me even more determined.”

     His head fell back into the pillow as he was released from the cloth that had been binding him, her hand sliding lightly over the skin stretched over his shaft. It was so smooth, it begged for her touch. She watched his face as her other hand joined the first, still only just touching him. “Ahhhhhh that’s… amazing….” His back arched, head tilted even farther back, hips pressing up. “Oh Marinette….”

     His tip was glistening, his body ready and willing for hers, no matter what sort of constraints he attempted to place. She dragged her tongue across it, savoring the taste as his breathing quickened, and tightened her grip, greedy for more.

     “No you don’t,” he panted. “Don’t even think about it!”

     She laughed and acquiesced, moving her lips to the crook of his leg. His cock fit easily between her modest breasts, but still felt really good there. She crawled up his body until their faces could nuzzle, acutely aware of the way he was pressing against the front of her panties.

     “I wasn’t only thinking of this, all day,” he chuckled, fingertips on her sides. “Although I did spend a lot of time thinking about ways to make you feel really good.”

     “I love anything you do.”

     His smile was incredible. The sort of smile that couldn’t be acted. She kissed him, but gently.

     “I’m ready,” she whispered.  

     “It’s so strange.” 

     Adrien had been laying on his back, gazing up at the slowly shifting shades of deep green on the ceiling. Her head was on his shoulder, his hands on her back. Perfectly comfortable, perfectly relaxed. 

     “I’ve been in this city all my life,” Marinette said softly. “And, most of that time, I’ve seen photos of you. Omnipresent. You’ve always been smiling down at me from billboards, from windows, in the Metro. Even a blimp, once? And I never really paid any attention. Just another ad.”

     “I’m deeply offended.”

     She laughed, kissed his chest, then gazed up at him from it. “How did I never sense? That there was something so special about you, to me?”

     “Why did you jerk away, when we met?”

     She seemed to consider for a long moment. “It was like I knew you. And it was strange.”

     He agreed. “Sort of like a déjà vu.”

     “Mmhmm.”

     He’d never had an experience like he had with her. The way they touched, desperate at first but then becoming infinitely more thoughtful… moving at her pace. It had been hours of build, hands and mouths and skin on skin, until her lips had left his, just barely enough to breathe I want you, Adrien. 

     He had watched her: her eyes, her mouth. Every flicker of discomfort or anxiety, and turned them to a blanket of pleasure that drifted down over her features in the most beautiful sight….

     Nothing was the same, with her. Nothing. The few days he had known Marinette had made him wonder how he’d felt anything at all, in the decades before. 

     Watching her eyes as she had accepted his body into hers for the first time had been one of the most wondrous moments of his life. He lived a life that some people would literally kill for, but he’d never before felt truly grateful. It was so much more than just sex, it was someone incredible choosing him. He’d always had anyone he had ever wanted. Of course he had, he was Adrien Agreste. But he had never wanted anyone like he wanted her.

     “It means everything that you trust me like this,” he told her quietly. “You won’t regret me, I promise.”

     “I could never regret this.”

     It was perfect, that moment. They were full of love for each other and endorphins gifted by each other, incredibly comfortable in his luxurious bed with beautiful music only loud enough to provide a background soundtrack to their burgeoning relationship. And, even if something horrible happened the next morning, Adrien was certain that he would never regret her. Not one second. Because flying back into town from the Seychelles he had looked down on the world and seen everything as dour and grey, and since being introduced to a flustered young woman the next day, he didn’t.

     It felt as if she had changed his vision, simply by existing. 

     “That one’s a cat.”

     Ladybug regarded the young man laying next to her on top of one of the bell towers of Notre Dame. On the other side of a blanket, fruit and croissants and lemonade between them. “That’s the eighth cat you’ve seen.”

     He grinned over at her. “We’re everywhere.”

     Her eyes rolled as she looked back to the sky. Absolutely none of the fluffy white clouds floating over the city in any way resembled cats, but she should’ve known that would be the only thing he would see. 

     The battles had been bad, lately. And he had seemed unusually stressed, beyond them. So when Chat had, in his regular pestering, suggested they go to the cinema, she suggested a picnic, instead. His excitement had been palpable, even though she reminded him there would be no date undertones. 

     Howabout overtones? 

     “I’ve been a little worried about you, lately,” she admitted. His expression was one she did not often see: true surprise. The surprise of the man beneath the costume. 

     It was always so strange to think of him as anyone other than Chat Noir. But, she knew, that was whom she was concerned for. 

     “You seem… different. You seem a little distant.”

     He looked to the clouds, expression noticeably less relaxed than it had been a moment before. “That one’s a platypus.”

     Her brows raised. 

     “Graduation is next week. Hard not to think about the rest of my life.”

     She turned her face towards the clouds off to the north, so that he wouldn’t be able to see her expression. 

     We’re in the same grade. 

     She had been thinking about the same, but it seemed to have effected him differently. Marinette had always known what she wanted to do and she was always going to stay in the city to do it, close to her parents. Her life had very few variables. 

     A sudden anxiety washed over her. What if he didn’t want to stay in Paris? 

     Without Chat Noir… she would barely be anything. 

     “Is this all I’m ever going to be?”

     Ladybug pushed herself up. She wanted him to know that she was listening. Really listening. “This is a lot more than most people could ever hope to be.”

     He shrugged, looking away. “There’s going to be an end to it, though. Someday. Even if it seems as if neither side is ever making any progress, the stalemate won’t last forever. What will I be, when it’s over?”

     She frowned. It wasn’t something she had ever been concerned about, she had plenty to fill her life outside of her suit. Didn’t he? 

     The solemn pensiveness on the face she only seemed to know as jovial made her ache inside. 

     “I can’t imagine you’re not every bit as extraordinary as you as you are when you’re Chat Noir.”

     One of his eyebrows raised. “I’m not exactly sure how to take that.”

     Ladybug scowled. Sliding the food out of the way, she crawled to his side, took the hand that had been fiddling with the pit of a peach he had eaten, then immediately regretted it for the stickiness. Still, she held on. “You’re as much of this as I am, chaton. I couldn’t do it without you. And that couldn’t be true if you weren’t a remarkable person, under there.” 

     He sat up and looked into her eyes, the vibrant green cat irises shining with emotion. “This would be a perfect moment to kiss.”

     She released his hand as her eyes narrowed. “This would be a perfect moment to throw you over the side of this thing.”

     His adorable little fangs were bared by a smile. 

     “Is it strange to eat with those things?”

     His tongue poked out to play with one. “Yeah, pretty weird. Hey, look,” he nodded up into the sky. “There’s a beetle kissing a feline.”

     Ladybug looked at the blobs over their heads. “Why wold a beetle be— hmph.” 

     Chat Noir kissed her cheek as she was distracted upwards. “I’m not going to leave you, bugaboo. Never. I’m just… just wondering who I’ll be, without… this. Because all I want to be is your partner.”

     She smiled a little, feeling her cheeks warm. And she leaned over, kissing one of his cheeks in return. “I hope, without this, we’ll still be us.”

     He grinned. “I don’t know how we couldn’t be.”

Chapter Text

     Alya looked over her shoulder when Marinette arrived home. Already set up on the couch, watching the morning show that Adrien was shortly to appear on. She purposefully patted the cushion beside her. “Perfect timing.”

     She slipped off her shoes and set some tea to boiling, doing her best to keep the smile at least one notch below idiotic. By the time she made it to the couch a host was promising Adrien Agreste, just after the break! 

     “I know I have a lot of questions!” 

     “The entire city has a lot of questions,” laughed another from the other end of their bright yellow couch on a set filled with violently cheery good morning colors. 

     Alya grinned over at her roommate. 

     “We were running a little late,” she explained. “Had to drop him off at the studio before bringing me home.”

     Her brows rose. “Oh, yes? And what could have distracted you?”

     Marinette smirked. 

     It’s supposed to be about an acting workshop that mom and I are going to do this summer for underprivileged kids, but somehow I doubt that’s what anyone will want to talk about. 

     It had been an attempt to focus them both on the fact that he had to be on the way to a television studio in half an hour, even as he had said it into her neck, in the shower. Roughly twenty-eight seconds before he’d lifted her up and she had hooked her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He’d been careful, focused on not allowing too much of her weight onto him for fear it would hurt her, even as they both focused on each other. 

     How’d we never meet until now? How could I never have felt you, somehow?

     “Hmmmm.” She was smiling, thinking of his eyes and all the things she saw in them. 

     Alya’s whistle broke through, hand waving in front of her face for emphasis. “Damn, girl, you are deep in la-la land.”

     “Hmmmm.”

     There was a laugh. “Oh, here we go. Man candy, alert!” Alya turned up the volume as Adrien walked onto the set to the sound of applause and cheers. He was in different clothes, ones he had said Pascal would be bringing directly from his father, when she was concerned she was going to cause too many wrinkles when he pulled her onto his lap in the car.

     “Hmmmm.”

     “Adrien, always an absolute pleasure to have you on.”

     “Thank you, it’s nice to be back.”

     “Hmmmm.”

     “Mari, I can’t hear over your lovestruck sighs.”

     The youngest, hippest of the hosts jumped immediately in. She had spiky, swept-aside blue hair, reminding Marinette a bit of her old friend, Alix. “Okay, well, we are not going to waste any time here, because everyone I know—“

     “Including me!” announced the only male on the panel. Look, it’s the gay best friend! Alya had once said, while pointing out that the cast was based on a simple formula when they passed a poster advertising the hunt for a new presenter. And she had been absolutely correct that the person they chose would be older and darker-colored than the rest. 

     “— Including Paul, are absolutely dying to finally get some details on what everyone is talking about.”

     The photo of the two of them, kissing on the corner beside the dropped umbrella, came up on the screen behind them to cheers and whistles from the audience.

     “So: tell us the name of the movie, because there is no way this is not a scene from a new romance.”

     Adrien smiled, his cheeks flushing a bit under the bright lights. “Well, it is a new romance, but no movie.”

     “Hmmmm.”

     Alya was taking photos of her expression, but Marinette was too focused on the screen to notice. 

     “She did accuse me, though, of stealing that from a movie,” he laughed, a hand running through his hair anxiously. “But I had to seize the moment.”

     One of the hosts was applauding, as was much of the audience. Another holding his hands to his chest in adoration, and the third was smiling brightly as the first kept momentum. “So tell us more! How did you meet? How long have you been hiding this?”

     Adrien chuckled. “Well, first, you’re very welcome for the ratings.” 

     Everyone laughed, clapped. Two of the hosts nodded candidly. 

     “But, to answer your question, I haven’t been hiding this. It’s only been a few days. But it feels like… it feels like I’ve always known her.”

     “Ohh la la! True love at first sight?”

     He smiled. “Let’s say lightning struck.”

     Marinette laughed, happy tears sneaking out of the corners of her eyes. 

     Alya looked over questioningly. “Huh?”

     “I fell over, remember? And when he tried to help me up we shocked each other with static.”

     “Well that is fucking adorable.”

     Adrien, sitting in the aggressively gleeful set on television, looked as happy as she felt even as he deflected. “No, sorry. She’s not someone who is very comfortable with the spotlight, and so I’d like to do my best to keep it off of her. As long as is possible, anyway.”

     “I have to say, Adrien,” confided the fourth, the newest of the host and that with the most supportive, kind personality, “you’ve grown up very much in the public eye, and so many of us feel as if we know you. I certainly do. We have seen ups and downs, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look quite like this.”

     He smiled, sort of nodded as the audience again cheered its agreement. “Well, it’s difficult not to. I feel like I’ve found the love of my life.”

     Alya’s jaw dropped open as Marinette felt more happy tears roll down her cheeks. Her roommate was pointing at the screen as she typed out an I love you. On that screen, Adrien glanced down at his watch and laughed, blushing. 

     “Ah, I guess she’s watching. I love you, too.”

     The audience and hosts seemed ready to melt. Alya was still pointing. “Girl, he just told the entire world that you’re the one!”

     “Hmmmm.”

     Pascal’s brows were raised when Adrien left the stage. There was a good chance they had been that way for the last ten minutes. And usually he was so careful about avoiding wrinkles. 

     “Yes?”

     His friend blinked. His brows went back to their normal altitude as his arms crossed. “Can’t say I approve of this, mate.”

     Adrien smirked. “Which part?”

     “Well, all of it,” he said, following as Adrien headed towards the exit. “But there is an unwritten rule that you do not talk about feelings after getting laid, and that has to go triple for television appearances.”

     He shot him a dirty look as Pascal jogged ahead to hold open the stage door. 

     “Ah hah!” Pascal’s finger came up in a quick-draw. “So you did get laid!”

     He knew he wouldn’t be able to hide it from Pascal. The guy could read him like a book. Like a… like a picture book. 

     As they got into the car, his friend stepped out of his usual role by becoming serious. “Your dad’s probably stroking out right about now.”

     His father was the last thing he had been thinking about, and he didn’t like to think about him, then. “Good,” he stated flatly. “Maybe he’ll fire me.”

     Pascal considered, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Doubt it, but not a bad way to go about getting out of things.” He opened a leather folio to several pages. “So, do you want the run down?”

     Adrien frowned. “How much of a run down is there?”

     He sighed as he handed the report over. “You always have one person on you. They hang back, which is why I’ve never noticed, but they’re armed. So, it’s probably for protection.”

     “Protection and spying.”

     “There was a camera on the door of your apartment. Inside, there were cameras and mics in the living room, by your piano, and in the kitchen.”

     Adrien’s teeth were grinding. “Bedroom?”

     Pascal’s head shook. “It appears there remained a fucking modicum of decorum.” He glanced down at his phone. “You’re being summoned.”

     “Good.”

     He read over the report as the car changed direction to head towards the manor. He didn’t understand most of it, specifications and whatnot, but he understood the locations, the view and audio that they provided. His father always knew everything. 

     “And we’re certain they’re all gone?”

     “Completely. And our tail now has a tail. Hopefully he doesn’t put a tail on the tail, because before long we’d have quite a parade going. If your dad’s guy gets too cozy, he’ll be given a warning.”

     “His boss is about to get a warning,” Adrien muttered. 

     Pascal was regarding him from the other side of the car. Not nearly as concerned as Adrien was with the surveillance information, there was curiosity in his gaze. “So, what was with that bombshell you dropped back there?”

     His brows raised, followed by his head. “Huh?”

     “Um, I feel like I’ve met the love of my life.”

     “Oh, yeah. What’s the question?”

     Pascal’s mouth dropped open, stayed that way for a moment, then closed. “I mean: did you mean it?”

     Adrien felt confusion in his expression. “Why would I say it if I didn’t?”

     He drew a deep breath, looking out of the window at the passing city. It was rare to see Pascal so contemplative— at least when he wasn’t looking at a drink menu or group of young women. Was it really that unthinkable? He and Marinette both certainly acknowledged that what they were experiencing was markedly different from anything that had come before, but, from outside their shared experience, did it seem completely insane?

     “What are you thinking right now?”

     Pascal shrugged. “Just… mulling it over, mate.”

     “What’s your concern?”

     His chin settled on his hand, which moved to gesticulate, then settled once more. He drew several starting breaths before he actually started. “Look, I’m not saying anything like your father, that she is after your means or your coattails. I know Luka has been enthralled with the girl since he met her, and he could, quite obviously, have anyone he wanted. She might be quiet, but she’s an elite sort of quiet, yeah?”

     He smiled, tempering the brief flare of territoriality that came with the mention of Luka.

     “Just looking out for your cœur. I’m all about whirlwinds but that’s not your style, and I don’t want this to burn up like a comet and leave you all mopey.”

     Adrien chuckled. “Comets burn for thousands of years, so I hope it does.”

     Pascal scowled. “Meteorite, then, don’t shite on my metaphors.”

     “My apologies.”

     “You should meet some friends, maybe. Or I should meet some friends. Get a roundabout feeling for her life.”

     “You’re pretty well acquainted with one of them, Pascal.”

     “Well, three’s a party!”

     The gate to the Agreste manor opened, and his mood plummeted as usual. Like they had to pass through a damn forcefield that his father kept erected around the place, wherein everything was his and only his domain. Would explain why he never left.

     “So what are your plans, for the immediate future?” Pascal inquired, looking at the manor with an equal sense of dread.

     “Telling my father va te faire foutre is the bulk of it,” he said, adjusting his jacket as the car came to a stop.

     “Adrien, don’t take this the wrong way, yeah? But: who the fuck are you, all of a sudden?”

     He managed a smirk. “Maybe who I should’ve been, all along.”

     “Hells yeah,” cheered his friend, exiting from the other side of the vehicle. “We’re going to have a proper celebration after this!”

     “I’m not getting hammered with you before ten in the morning, Pascal.”

     “Okay, we’ll have a coffee and then a proper celebration.”

     The door opened as they were halfway up the stairs, and Adrien’s blood ran cold as Gabriel Agreste appeared. Gabriel Agreste, himself. Standing in the doorway of his home. Breathing fresh air.

     Oh putain.

     His father was nothing, if not stoic. He had been as long as Adrien could remember. With him, anyway. With his mother, far less-so. But, at that moment, anyone could read him. Adrien stopped just onto the landing, eye to eye with the man. “You summoned me, father?”

     Gabriel stood, silently looking at his son. His eyes, boring into Adrien’s, attempting to read the deepest code of his soul but revealing nothing of his own. Adrien stared right back.

     “Monsieur Agreste,” Pascal said, looking dutifully, calmly, down at his tablet, “Adrien has a meeting in forty-five—“

     “I assume you wanted my attention, Adrien. Well, you have it.”

     His eyes narrowed, his hands wanted to clench but would not be allowed to do so. “Your attention? You think that is what this is about?” A sour feeling filled his stomach. “You truly do believe everything is about you.”

     He felt Pascal standing tall— well, as tall as was biologically capable— beside him. There to support, no matter what. He always had been. He’d helped Adrien deal with what had felt like endless years of captivity, of doubt. But he found was strong enough, on his own.

     “You’ve used me my entire life. Am I anyone other than your poster boy, to you?”

     Gabriel said nothing.

     “If I’d been born ugly, would you have paid any attention to me, at all?”

     The man did nothing but take a deep breath through the nose, his chest expanding with it, and Adrien felt more emotion threatening to flow out of him. And, for once, he let it. 

     “You don’t deserve my mother. And I didn’t deserve you. I care about Marinette with all of my heart. I care about you exactly as much as you’ve ever cared about me.”

     He turned, a gust of air ruffling his jacket and his hair as he did, and started back down the stairs. It filled his lungs with fresh air, air that felt, for the first time, sort of like spring. Like something wonderful, a return to a life that had been too long hidden. And Adrien smiled, his phone ringing in his ear, as Benoit opened the back door of the car for him.

     “Hey, how do you feel about a lunch date?”

     Marinette laughed. “A bit early for that.”

     “Brunch.”

     “It’s barely nine.”

     “Breakfast?”

     Pascal fell into the seat beside him, shaking his head, one of his less-mischievous grins on his face. “Fucking legend, mate,” he muttered.  

     “Coffee?”

     “Do we need an excuse to see each other?”

     Adrien looked over at his friend as the car began to move, setting his phone aside. The gate opened to release them into the street, but the cloud that had formerly settled over him had already lifted, he found. “That meeting you mentioned was bullshit, right?”

     “Of course. We’re going on a date with Marinette, then?”

     “One of us is.”

     Pascal affected a deeply wounded expression. “I’m nothing but an assistant to you, aren’t I?”

     “I’m not taking my best friend on a date with Marinette, either.”

     “The love of your life? Surely we need to become friends if you expect me to share you with her.”

     He grinned. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to live with having met her for the moment.”

     The woman who answered Marinette’s door was wearing pajama pants and a hoodie, her hair pulled back into two messy matching braids. She took a look at him, crossed her arms, and leaned against one side of the door. “Huh. I thought you’d be taller.”

     One of his eyebrows arched. “Taller than what?”

     She smirked. “No flowers?”

     He frowned. “Florists aren’t open this early.”

     Her eyes narrowed, likely gauging the truth of his statement. Finally one finger appeared, which she shook lazily at him. “I suppose I’ll accept that. This time. But I expect you to make it up.”

     “So you must be Alya.” He could see why, as Marinette had said, she was a freakishly good detective. Her hazel eyes held a fierce intelligence, and her mouth, surely, a fierce wit. Her head inclined with his statement.

     “Guilty.”

     Adrien’s perfect smile wavered a bit as she allowed silence to fall. “May I come in?”

     “Entrée.” Alya moved to the side to allow him to pass.

     The flat was small, and did not seem that it had been updated since being built decades before. It wasn’t one of the quintessentially Parisian buildings of the Haussmann style, but very much more square, very much less graceful. 70s, 80s? Somewhere in there. Sort of shitty, to be honest, and filled with second-hand or originally cheap furniture. Despite that, it felt warm. Photos of friends were everywhere. More friends than Adrien had ever had. He did a good job of pretending to be alive, but Marinette and Alya truly were. 

     “She’s just getting changed and whatnot,” Alya explained, taking a seat on one of the stools beside a small kitchen island, “but I imagine will be out shortly.” She looked him over, again. Not in a physically judgemental way, as he was used to, more like looking passed his outside.

     Adrien sort of smirked. “You want to grill me?”

     “I absolutely do, but I promised her I wouldn’t. This time, anyway.”

     He chuckled. “Well, you can feel free to do so anytime. I think you’ll find I’m surprisingly boring.”

     “I very much doubt that.”

     “Which is why it’s surprising.”

     Alya laughed. “Well, whatever you are, Mari’s quite stunningly effected by you. Positively. And I assume will stay that way.”

     He wondered if he was imagining the very slight narrowing of her eyes. Either way, it was becoming quite obvious that Marinette had a guard dog. No matter how jokingly Pascal spoke, Adrien was pretty certain that his friend was, or would be, the same for him.

     “I mean that in the very nicest, non-threatening manner, of course,” she followed in an abnormally friendly voice.

     “Either way, I absolutely hope to keep her that way.”

     The roommate smiled, quite genuinely.

     “She does the same for me.”

     There was the sound of a distant door opening, a moment before the door on the left side of the common area opened to produce Marinette. Even if it had only been a few hours, Adrien felt himself change a bit at the sight of her. Tension faded away, the future went from more turbulent than ever due to the complete bucking of his father to more wonderful than ever. He really did hope that they effected each other similarly; her smile gave him hope that they did, in addition to melting him completely.

     “Hi.”

     He was entranced as she came over to him, silent in bare feet, and pressed her lips to hers. A bit differently than ever before. It occurred to him that he had, as Pascal mentioned, dropped a bombshell in front of the world before telling the girl, herself.

     “I’m really happy I get to see you again so soon,” she said quietly, as her fingers wove through his.

     “Me, too.”

     In his periphery Adrien could see Alya, chin propped up on her hand, watching shamelessly. It seemed Marinette noticed as well, as she abruptly shot a dirty look in her roommate’s direction.

     “Want to… I don’t know, have a picnic?”

     Her attention returned to him with a laughing smile. “I’m not sure it’s quite warm enough for that.”

     He grinned. “I know a place.”

     Marinette’s brows raised. “I do need to do some work today,” she warned, “so no jets can be involved.”

     Adrien pretended to pout. “Alright, no jets.”

     He stepped out into the hallway to make a few phone calls while Marinette finished getting ready, and by the time she joined him, wearing a delicate vintage sweater over graceful high-waisted slacks, things were in motion.

     “Alors,” she began, pulling on a light grey wool coat that reached to her knees, “exactly where are we going to find a picnic in Paris in early March?”

     He smiled, taking her hand. “It’s a surprise.”

     She leaned against him on the tips of her boots as the doors to the little elevator slid shut. “So was what you said on television a little while ago.” Deep blue eyes sparkled up into his, her lips hovered centimeters from his own.

     “I’m sorry about that.”

     She laughed. “What are you sorry for?”

     Adrien ran his fingers through the hair tumbling down over her left shoulder. “I should’ve told you before I told everyone.”

     Marinette smiled; it seemed as if her entire face lit up. 

     “I feel like you’re the love of my life,” he whispered, bringing her lips to his with a hand on her cheek. She sighed happily, nuzzling him.

     “I feel like you are, too.”

     Surprise flooded his system, immediately chased by joy. Just… a week before? He was realizing he was losing all hope of ever finding the sort of love he had always hoped for. That world since had been turned on its side. His whole world had been turned on its side. And he had never been happier.

     A director who would’ve had Adrien star in each film he made, if possible, lived on the top floor of one of the more modern buildings in the center of the city. Half of the living space had been given up for an extensive garden, complete with gently rolling terrain, fruit trees, statues, and bushes and flowers chosen so that some things would always be in bloom. He was very proud of it. And, of course, a sort of greenhouse was erected over it all in the winter, to protect this unique treasure.

     Marinette watched him somewhat suspiciously as they entered the building and were lead by the most prim of butlers to the top floor. Adrien could hardly hold back his smile as he thought of how she would react in the following minutes. He had never imagined he could take so much joy from simply watching someone. “Where are we?” she finally asked as they passed through a quite insanely huge salon.

     “The home of a friend of mine,” he said, deciding to leave out the very recognizable name. “He happens to be in Los Angeles at the moment, but was happy to allow a visit.”

     One of her brows rose in question, and then they turned a corner and the second one joined it. Beyond a wall of glass doors spread what could have been mistaken for the Garden of Eden, six stories into the Parisian sky. Her eyes widened, the sun sparkling in their astonishment.

     A maid was just putting the finishing touches on a scene that had been created in a bit of grass surrounded by blooming lilac bushes and hyacinths. A blanket was laid out with several pillows and cushions, upon it a tray holding a pile of pastries, a pot of tea, and a pitcher of water filled with slices of lemon.

     “May I take your coat, madame?” The request of the butler seemed to break Marinette out of her state of mild shock. She slipped out of the coat and took everything in again as Adrien’s was also taken, then gave him a look filled with bewilderment.

     “You’ve turned my life into a romance film.”

     He laughed, and gestured for her to sit. Marinette removed her heeled boots, revealing her dainty feet with delicate little toes he had taken into his mouth the night before. Adrien couldn’t pull his eyes from the maroon socks she wore, doing his best to resist the urge to remove them. Instead, he sat beside her amongst the cushions and welcomed her into his arms.

     He took a deep breath as her body settled back against his, absorbing her presence. Even if it had only been a few hours. The scent of her was better than any flower in the world.

     “I’m having a hard time believing all this is real,” she laughed softly as he brushed her hair to the side so that he could nuzzle against her neck. Restraint, of course, but there was a limit.

     “It’s real,” Adrien reassured her. “Though I apologize that the pastries are not from your family’s bakery. A little too far for such short notice.”

     “I’ll forgive you, this time.” Her palms slipped over his arms, around her waist.

     “Perhaps I can make it up to you by taking you there, after this?”

     She grinned up at him. “Sneaky.”

     He gave her his most endearing of smiles.

     “My parents have made a standing offer of having us for lunch whenever I am brave enough to bring you over.”

     He laughed. “Brave enough?”

     Marinette nodded, sitting forward to select a croissant. “My mother I have no concerns about. My father… I worry he will be a bit intense.”

     Adrien took the opportunity to pour tea for them both. “Protective?”

     She smirked. “Excited.”

     As they snacked and talked, he couldn’t stop looking at her. As stunning as the surroundings were, they could not compare. The way the light hit her face while she gazed up at the sky made him wonder how he could have ever thought of any other woman as beautiful.

     “Did you ever look for things, in the clouds?”

     He looked up at the fair weather clouds floating over their heads, thinking of the dream he’d had the night before. Of course he had. He’d spent what felt like a million hours looking at the clouds, wishing he could feel that sort of freedom. When he couldn’t stand to look at other kids his age, running and laughing and playing as he was trapped in one sort of shoot or another, he would look to the sky and try to just exist.

     “I see a cat. What do you see?”

     Adrien left his sad memories behind, except to promise himself that he would never force their children into any such life. He nodded with his chin to one gliding towards the Eiffel Tower. “That one’s a platypus.”

     Marinette giggled. “Being brave, by the way… Alya would really like an opportunity to get to know you. She suggested… her boyfriend is DJ Wifi, he has regular gig at a club, tomorrow night. She said it would only be her but, to be honest, I would expect a few more of our friends. And I am more than happy to not go, but I promised I’d mention—“

     “Absolutely, let’s go.”

     She seemed a bit surprised. “Really? I mean, not even just Alya and her intensity and my friends, but, you know, you, at a club, might be… intense?”

     He laughed. “Nothing I’m not accustomed to, and I’d love to meet your friends and be as judged as they like. But I don’t want it to be too intense for you. We could invite them somewhere that I stick out less, if you’d like.”

     There was a bit of an anxious little laugh. “I’m sure I will survive. Any place you wouldn’t stick out is someplace I very much would.”

     Adrien smirked. “Not for long, I imagine.” He brushed a few strands of hair back from her face. The greenhouse was vented, of course, to allow a healthy circulation of air and the modulation of climate; it allowed a light, pleasant breeze that had been toying with her hair a bit, and Adrien could only wait so long to join. “I don’t want you to feel like you ever have to stay at my place, but, you know, maybe you could bring over some clothes and things, so that it’s easier for you to stay when you do?”

     Her cheeks flushed a bit but, he thought, it was a happy blush. “Um, yeah, maybe I will.”

     He had restrained himself from kissing her; it was too addictive for the moment. They were alone but really not, and in private but also really not. Still, he was just about to lean in to do so when Marinette frowned down at the screen of her phone.

     “Putain,” she muttered, before holding the phone up so that he could read it. The message was from Tess: You’ve been discovered and the shop is packed. “I need to go.” Marinette pulled on her boots. “And maybe you shouldn’t drop me off.”

     Adrien scowled. “I’ll drop you off. If you’d rather I hide in the car, though, I will.”

     She was sighing, her mood much changed as she pushed herself up. He sent a message to his new security guy, because that was something he had now, to inquire as to getting someone else covered. From real people, not his father. Although….

     “What’s wrong?”

     He looked up from the screen of his phone, realizing that his jaw was suddenly tense. The smile he covered with didn’t feel quite sincere, and, he was sure, didn’t look it. “Nothing.”

Chapter Text

     “Are you sure about this?”

     Adrien smiled. “As sure as I was the last seven times you asked me.”

     Marinette nodded, a few teeth biting the deep red of her bottom lip. It was just her anxiety, but hit him like a dare. His eyes lingered on that lip even as she was checking his expression for sincerity. “And you’re sure you’re sure?”

     He chuckled, and allowed the magnetism of her lips to pull him in. “I’m all levels of sure,” he muttered, just brushing her. The kiss, as light as it was, seemed to distract her well enough. She sighed, her hands stopped fidgeting. Adrien thought about asking her to kiss his neck, if only so he could leave the telltale smudge of lipstick there. A bit of staging, perhaps, for cameras and curious eyes: I really am hers.

     The car pulled up in front of the club at which her friend was DJing that evening. It was one he had never heard of, one people went to in order to dance, not simply to be seen dancing. No line outside, no rope for a bouncer to unsnap for them, just a single guy standing by the door smoking a cigarette, who didn’t pay enough attention to notice who it was walking inside.

     The music was relatively generic, or enough so for his ears: beats and balances to them, a catchy enough melody that repeated enough times to be drilled into the brain before finally changing. The DJ was standing on a stage no more than a meter off the ground, nodding along with big black headphones clamped over an orange cap.

     Something tingled at the edges of Adrien’s consciousness. The guy up there, medium brown skin, dark eyes— DJ WiFi— wasn’t only that, somehow. “Nino?”

     Marinette looked over, surprised. “You know him?”

     He dragged his gaze down to hers, and his head shook. “Uh, guess I read something, somewhere, sometime.”

     Her eyes were lined and smoked, the contrast against her milky skin pulling him in even more desperately than usual— but his mind was still twitching, a little.

     There was a whistle Marinette seemed to recognize and pinpoint, and she lead him to the right of the dance floor, which was full enough with people bobbing along to the beats. He trailed behind, hand in hers, still looking at the DJ with curiosity.

     “Can I get an autograph?”

     Adrien startled at the voice in his ear— the proximity, not the identity. Though it was the identity that caused annoyance to surge up over the surprise.

     “You mother fu—“

     Pascal grinned, quite obviously intoxicated— at least intoxicated— and clapped him on the shoulder. “Adrien triple A Agreste, quelle surprise! I had absolutely no idea what-so-ever that you would be gracing this humble establishment with your lofted presence this evening! My old acquaintance thought I might enjoy the digital compositions of his friend, and I said, well, I suppose my calendar—“

      Adrien’s eyes were narrowed. “I really hope I don’t ever have to say this out loud to anyone ever again, Pascal, but you’ve got a bit of semen in the corner of your mouth.”

     “Ah bullocks,” he muttered, breaking character and giving Adrien enough time to move at least temporarily away.

     Marinette had made it to a large, semi-circular table that still bore the réservé sign amongst half-finished drinks and smoldering cigarettes. He could see from her posture that she hasn’t happy— she had said it would only be Alya and, eventually, Alya’s boyfriend. So they did have one thing in common, at least: frustrating friends.

     The attention of those friends of hers was on Adrien as he joined her, placing his hand on her lower back. He didn’t often get anxious, not anymore. When he was younger, absolutely— the boy with the cool, friendly façade that stepped out into a spotlight had often been tortured with desperate doubt, in the shadows. But he had become much more comfortable in the years since— not with himself, but with his role. With the faces of eight men and women who knew and cared about Marinette, knowing her as a caring, authentic-as-they-come beauty, it felt a little as if he was debuting in his first acting role again, wondering if he would be able to live up to the person he was supposed to be.

     “So, yeah, this is Adrien,” Marinette was saying, her hand sliding back to move his around her waist. “Adrien, these way more than were supposed to be here people are Alya, Max, Marc and Nathaniel, Alix, her partner Helene, Mylène and Ivan.”

     They greeted him with reactions varying from starstruck to simple surprise. “Oh, and, um, Luka.” He felt her body stiffen a little as her cheeks flushed. “Hi, Luka.”

     Adrien looked over to the man who had just approached: tall, slim, and looking intensely uncomfortable. He had always known of him more than known him, the two of them having been at several functions together but never really speaking. And knowing, now, that he had feelings for Marinette. If there had been any doubt of that, the way his man’s strangely colored blue-green eyes seemed to be unable to look directly at Adrien would have done away with it.

     “Hey, Marinette.” His voice was quiet, barely audible over the music. “Didn’t know you’d— nice to see you.”

     Adrien was startled once more by realizing that someone was in close proximity to him, and jumped at little as the pink-haired girl— Alix?— leaned in close to the side of his face. She had been sitting in the middle of the booth, blocked by several people on each side; had she climbed over or under the table? “Um, bonsoir?” He managed, only leaning back slightly.

     She was studying him, intently. Facial features— skin, eyes, lips— and looking a bit suspicious about all of it. “Huh,” the young woman finally decided, “you are legit.”

     “Alix!” Marinette drew him back a half meter.

     “Hey,” she defended herself, “don’t get many opportunities to inspect a supermodel. Wondered how much of it was real.”

     “All of it!”

     “My eyesight is kind of shitty,” Adrien admitted, “so I wear contacts. But they aren’t colored. The brand didn’t like the idea of a nerdy poster boy, so was never allowed to have glasses.”

     Alix laughed. “Ha! I like you.”

     “Merci?”

     The hand of Marinette’s that was not on him was rubbing her forehead. “This was such a mistake,” she muttered.

     “I’m a big fan of yours, Adrien,” called Mylène, the more starstruck amongst the group, “me and Ivan are. You and your mom, you’re both such incredible actors.”

     “Thank you.”

     Marinette was bent over speaking quietly but somewhat forcefully with Alya, whose saccarine smile remained in place. Luka, Adrien noticed, was gone.

     “And I’m Adrien’s absolute best friend forever and ever,” announced Pascal, his elbow raised to lean on his other shoulder. “And I’m here to judge each and every one of you just as intensely as you are him. Energy matched, fucking checkmate, mates!”

     He sighed, just barely avoiding the urge to rub his forehead, as well.

     “Shouldn’t you be judging Marinette, and not her friends, if her friends are judging Adrien?” That was Max, Adrien was pretty sure, who was either a hardcore geek or putting a lot of effort into cosplaying as one.

     Pascal’s dilated— yep, super high— eyes narrowed and he pointed at the guy. “I am more than capable of doing both, my good sir. Also, I’ve already judged Marinette quite worthy, so it’s only you lot I got to judge right now.”

     Marinette paused in her dressing-down of Alya to cock an eyebrow at Pascal, who winked and blew her a kiss. She stood straight once more, turning to lean a bit against Adrien. “Can we leave yet?” she sighed.

     He chuckled. “At least we’re suffering together, bugaboo. We can always just ignore them all and have a good time.”

     Her body pressed against him a bit more purposefully. “We can always just leave and have a better time.”

     Adrien smirked. “You’re playing dirty and I absolutely applaud the effort, and the sentiment. But I do actually want to get to know your friends. And maybe protect them from Pascal.”

     She sighed again, her eyes wandering around slyly. Looking for the one that seemed to have left, he was pretty sure. He placed his other arm around her waist as well, holding her close. Looking to distract her from the guy she had never had a thing with. It wasn’t often that he felt jealously— especially such pointless jealously.

     “Come on, you look incredible right now. That outfit definitely deserves some tweets. And I’m a pretty good dancer.” 

     Marinette smiled at that. “Not exactly waltzing music,” she quipped.

     “Hey, I also know salsa.”

     Her lips nearly brushed against his cheek. “Or we could get drunk and grind against each other a little.”

     Adrien might have moaned. If her back hadn’t been directly to all of her closest friends, his hand absolutely would have drifted down to the hem of her miniskirt. “That sounds so unlike you,” he breathed, gripping her a bit tighter instead.

     “There are a lot of women looking at you right now.”

     He grinned. “You can be as territorial of me as you like, mamour.”

     She gripped him by the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to hers. She had been so careful, since applying her vibrant red lipstick, pressing him back several times in the car with an apologetic smile when he attempted to get too close to those lips. Immediately, he was hard. Petite, demure Marinette, was a fucking lioness.

     Adrien was sure he had a dreamy look in his eyes when she finally broke their contact. She wore a mischievous smile as she ran her thumb over his lips to remove the lipstick there, but he wouldn’t have minded if she left it. She could put her mark on him any way she wanted.

     “So this is the guy, huh? I guess he kinda looks like himself,” said the DJ from close by, his arm around Alya, who had stood to greet her beau.

     “I already checked,” Alix contributed.

     His mind was pulled violently from Marinette. Nino, it insisted.

     Where did he know him from? It was almost like that feeling he had gotten when meeting Marinette, an inexplainable familiarity.

     “This is the guy,” Adrien affirmed, extending his hand towards the DJ. “Nice to meet you. I was digging your music.”

     Nino shook his hand, looking him over not quite as intensely as Alix had, but with obvious intent. “Thanks. Nino.”

     Yeah, I know….

     The DJ nodded towards the bar. “Let me get you a beer.”

     Adrien kissed Marinette’s head and accompanied the DJ, if only to avoid being rude to one of her friends. He followed through the crowd, politely ignoring the looks of shock and awe of the people who suddenly realized he was in close proximity.

     “So,” Nino said, taking an open spot at the bar, “nice of you came out to meet people.”

     “I was glad to be invited.”

     Nino nodded, holding up two fingers to the closest bartender before looking over at Adrien with… suspicion? Distrust? Not approval, at any rate. His lips pursed, eyes narrowed behind heavy tortoiseshell frames. “Don’t take this the wrong way, bro, but Marinette is my girl, so I’m gonna be needing to make sure you’re legit. And I don’t give a fuck what your name is, I never even heard of you before last week.” 

     Adrien smiled in what he intended to be an easygoing way. “No offense taken, man. My name doesn’t matter, anyway.”

     “Fuck no it doesn’t.” Nino handed him one of two bottles of cheap American beer, then clinked his in toast. Adrien drank to whatever they were drinking to, and used all of his extensive acting training not to let show how much the beer gave him the urge to vomit.

     “How long have you been friends?” he inquired, only to focus on something other than the horrid taste in his mouth.

     “Since we were kids.” Nino gave him a meaningful look. “How long have you known her?”

     He sort of chuckled. “Yeah, point taken, it’s not been long. But everything has to start somewhere.”

     Nino sniffed at his assertion, took another long drink. Adrien’s stomach turned as he realized that he was going to actually have to finish his beer, lest he insult her friend’s tastes as too horribly plebeian to bear. Marinette had warned him, many times, about how intense her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend were, and he had assured her each time that they could not possibly be that bad.

     He might have been wrong.

     “So, what’s the main reason you don’t trust me?” Adrien inquired, looking to take some sort of control over the conversation, as well as getting usable information. “Because I’m rich and famous, because I just met her, or just because you don’t know me?”

     The young man smirked. He adjusted his glasses with the rim of his beer bottle and appraised Adrien anew. “All of it, bro. Was joking like a few days ago about how I gotta look out for her because she’s always going to be single and suddenly she’s head over heels for you. If she’s happy, I’m happy, but if she gets hurt bad things will happen, got me?”

     “I got you, Nino. But I fell head over heels for her, too.”

     Nino’s eyes focused just passed Adrien. “Why’s that dude staring at me like that?”

     Brief confusion flared, again, into annoyance. He didn’t bother turning to look. “Because I imagine it’s my asshole of a best friend who wasn’t supposed to know I was coming here tonight and yet managed to stick his fucking nose into the middle of my life, as usual.”

     “Hey, friends have each other’s backs, that’s the entire theme of the conversation.”

     Adrien drank.

     “Pascal,” he said, reaching around Adrien to shake Nino’s hand. “I’ve known him since his douchebag father allowed him to go to school. Want some background on this gentleman, I’m the guy to give it to you.”

     Nino seemed entertained. Adrien ordered a strong cocktail.   

     “You think fish know that they’re in water?”

     Adrien’s brows raised, his focus drawn away from Marinette’s legs. He looked across the little table to Nino and Pascal, each of whom’s eyes had turned droopy and red from their contributions to the cloud of marijuana smoke that was hanging over the booth. Generally he hated the smell of that shit, but hadn’t even noticed until then.

     “Of course.”

     Nino tilted his head towards Pascal, passing a spliff back. “Yeah?”

     “I mean, do they know what they’re in is called water? ‘Course not. But do they know that they live somewhere birds can’t? Sure. Things that are different always know they’re different, they just might not get the how of it all.” Pascal took what seemed like an impossibly long drag, then held it what seemed like impossibly long. It was impressive, in a disturbing way. Maybe Pascal was different in that he didn’t actually need to breathe, like people did. There had absolutely always been something off about him.

     Marinette was different. So different. So shy and so assured, so beautiful and so powerful and so, so sexy….

     “Nino, did you feel like you were hit by lightning, when you met Alya?”

     The DJ laughed. “Naw, bro. Not at all. I was actually into Marinette, way the fuck back then, was trying to get close to her. She and Alya have been best friends since Alya’s first day at our collège, so that meant hanging out with her a ton, too. Marinette flaked one day when the three of us had tickets to a thing and, like, just the two of us talking, me and her realized we had hella in common. Just got into each other, was sorta surprising.” He sucked in a deep draw of weed and violently coughed most of it out almost immediately. During his extended fit— perhaps around the time that Pascal plucked the joint away for his own safekeeping— Nino seemed to realize something and needed to tell Adrien so desperately that he coughed most of it out, grabbing his shoulder in urgency.

     Also, maybe, because he was sort of dying.

     “Merde! I mean, don’t think that’s, like, why I’m protective of Mari. Ah, putain! Bro, I had a crush for like ten minutes when I was fourteen. Not even close to being like that, bro.”

     Adrien grinned. “Didn’t think it was.”

     “Sick,” he coughed. Adrien wasn’t sure if that was a validation or an admission of his own current state.

     “I knew immediately,” Adrien was saying as he watched the dancing once more, “that there was something… something different about her. I’m just glad she felt the same way about me.”

     “So which one of you is the fish and wish one is the bird?” Nino smirked, finally having recovered with the help of his beer.

     “Marinette is quite literally the bird, mate.”

     “I don’t care who is what… just that we’re together.”

     He was fixated on her completely, again. The music changed and rose for her, and the lighting only happened to sweep over everyone else. Marinette was the goddess this temple had been built for. And she looked at him. She looked at him. An ant on the ground at her feet. Or a fish, or a bird, or whatever fucking metaphor was currently in play. She looked at him and she smiled and she broke her dancing to approach. Adrien felt as if he had been blessed, an angel floating from the clouds to extend her hand to his.

     “Mind accompanying me to the bathrooms?”

     “I’d follow you anywhere.”

     Marinette smiled, she twinkled, and lead him to a dark hallway in the back of the club, where she abruptly pressed him back against the wall, first with her hands and then with her body. Adrien sighed, wrapping his arms around her waist. He really liked this aggressive, territorial version that had come out of what was otherwise quite the mouse of a girl.

     “I’m really enjoying this,” he breathed.

     She giggled, hips rubbing against his. “Me too.”

     Adrien laughed. “I mean, all this. Your friends, you. This perfectly relaxed, perfectly casual night. It’s making me feel like a normal person.”

     Marinette looked up at him, her eyes a bit hazy with intoxication but still full of emotion, full of comprehension. “You are a normal person. And I was just looking over at you, one man out of hundreds, and thinking about how lucky I am that you were looking back at me.”

     He smiled. “You make me feel free, you know that?”

     Her hips pressed against his again. “You make me feel a lot of things.”  

     “Mmmmm.” One of his hands slid from her waist down, to the hem of her skirt, and then beneath it. He filled it with her flesh and her eyes widened. So did her grin. “You’re going to make it difficult to be restrained with you, tonight,” he growled softly.

     “Then don’t be restrained,” she whispered, tipping onto her toes so as to very nearly brush his ear with her lips. Her breath, however, touched his ear and his neck and caused his hand to grasp her ass tightly.

     “You’re… new to this,” Adrien defended himself, his eyes slipping closed in contentment. “And I’m….”

     Marinette’s voice was legitimately sultry. “You’re big,” she hissed. “And I love it.”

     He sighed, allowing one of his fingers to stray from the meat of her ass, slipping it beneath the crotch of her panties. She moaned into his neck as he let go of her completely, moving another one of his fingers to the hot, wet, silky space between her legs. He moaned, too.

     “You challenge me,” she breathed, neck craning back to invite his lips, which enthusiastically complied. “I like to be challenged.”

     “You challenge me, too.”

     She laughed. “How?”

     “Every way.”

     His hormones had never really gotten the better of him, at least not publicly. There were a couple girlfriends, in the relatively distant past, that were especially adept at winding him up, but he had always managed to control himself until they got, at the very least, into the car. Adrien Agreste was always proper, after all. But: fuck that. He was going to live every second he had with Marinette the way he wanted.

     A flash went off, somewhere nearby. With their mouths against each other, his hand pulling up the back of her skirt for better access, she gripping his arm with one hand and the back of his neck with the other. “Aaaaaaand tag,” Pascal’s distant voice said, “and wide share.”

     “It’s pretty challenging,” she said, hips cocking as if she knew exactly how he wished she would move so that he could touch her just that much better. “Not to suck your cock right here.”

     Adrien groaned. He rest his forehead against hers, panting from the combination of mental and physical stimulation. “Putain, Marinette.”

     Her laugh was downright evil. “I don’t think you would stop me, Adrien.”

     No, he probably wouldn’t. But he kissed her, sort of because he couldn’t not and sort of to keep her mouth from other locations. For the moment, anyway.

     “You going to interfere, or just enjoying the show?” inquired a female voice, somewhere in the hall. 

     “I’ll interfere if he looks in trouble.”

     “Sort of does. I honestly never had any idea she was such a man eater.”

     Pascal laughed. “Those types are my favorite. Nah, I think he can handle himself. And, if I’m wrong, not such a bad way to die.”

     “Bro,” Carapace said, sitting down beside Chat Noir as he longingly watched Ladybug swing off through the city, “you got it bad.”

     He smiled, still looking after her, though she had disappeared between and beyond buildings. “Guilty.”

     “But, like, you know, she’s pretty insistant that there’s not ever going to be anything between you two.”

     Chat shrugged. The evening breeze was ruffling the hair that fell around his cat ears, it felt fresh and freeing. His feet swung idly off the side of the roof they lingered on. “I’m keeping the faith.”

     The wearer of the Turtle Miraculous looked at him doubtfully. “Faith of what, an eternity of blue balls?” he laughed.

     “Faith that my heart knows something she doesn’t. Because there’s no way something this strong could be wrong.”

     Carapace took a deep breath and sighed, rubbing his shoulder. “You’re a real life romantic, aren’t you? Crazy shit.”

     “What are we talking about?” Rena Rouge inquired, sitting down on the other side of Carapace.

     “About how Ladybug’s main man is a hardcore romantic who will go to the grave alone because she’s never gonna give him the time of day.”    

     Chat scowled at him.

     “Aww, notre pauvre chaton,” she cooed. “Didn’t you see that photo on The Lady Blog? It’s possible.”

     He smiled. That photo, along with many others of the two of them in action, was hidden in his phone and was looked at multiple times a day. It was the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes each night. Chat had imagined, each time, what her lips had felt like against his, what had been said just before they had touched.

     It was possible. Not just possible, it had happened. And it would happen again someday, he knew it.

     “Yeah, but there was some Akuma fuckery in with that. You know they make people do weird shit.”

     “It wasn’t an Akuma,” pointed out the Fox. “It was Oblivio. Made them forget something.”

     Carapace’s head fell back and he looked up into the sky. The only stars ever visible above Paris were airplanes. C’est la vie when you live in the literal City of Lights. “Still an Akuma involved. And obviously she had to forget something to be into him.” He laughed. “Maybe how bad his jokes are.”

     His eyes narrowed. “But, obviously, I could get hit by them and still remember that I love her. Emotions remained. So, somewhere, she has the same feelings.”

     Rena Rouge smiled sweetly at him. “Keep the faith, kitty cat.”

     He nodded, sitting up straighter. “I will.”

Chapter Text

     Marinette sighed as she heard another conversation outside her window.

     Oh my God, this is really her place? Like, she’s in there right now? So he could be in there right now?

     She missed being able to look outside. She had placed her workstation in front of one of the side windows for a reason: she loved to people watch. While sewing, while doing hand stitching, her consciousness would always be partially outside with the world as it passed. She took inspiration with it, sometimes. But, as of a week before, she’d had to cover her window with curtains, or found herself the background of constant selfies and the target of shouted questions. Sometimes, shouted insults and threats, as well.

     The shop, itself, had drastically changed. The door remained locked, everything was appointment only. Tess had worked long hours on the website, creating listings for each finished piece. If someone was interested in one, they placed a deposit and made an appointment to come in for a fitting. It wasn’t how Marinette liked to do business at all, even though business had never been so good.

     “It’ll calm down,” Adrien had said, fingers tucking a strand of hair behind her ear a few nights before, across a little table in a small, dark, incredibly expensive restaurant. “It will. We won’t be an interesting story forever.” He had looked so vulnerable, knowing that he put her in a place she was uncomfortable, and being scared that she would not, in the end, find him worth that sacrifice. But she had put him into an unfamiliar place, too.

     It wasn’t something he had told her so much as she had learned from the same voracious media that had her shop flooded. Photos, video of him speaking to his father at the door of the Agreste manor, both men straight and stern, and Adrien shortly turning away and leaving his father visibly unhappy. Of course she had known that he and his father hadn’t been on the best of terms, with Adrien commissioning her for a suit to publicly wear, but she got the feeling that things were getting worse. This could only be because of her, and was she worth it?

     There were no regrets, for her. None. Even though it had been just weeks that she had known him, it seemed like years. The way they communicated, the way they had settled into something one might call a life, together. She didn’t live with him, but she also had not spent a night anywhere else, since the first.

     Marinette turned up the volume of the music that had been playing softly, covering the hidden conversation outside of her window, and focused on the fabric in front of her: the vest for Adrien’s suit. Deep, matte grey with metallic gunmetal thread and slick purple buttons she’d had delivered from Italy. They were dichroic glass, adding a hint of spark and matching the gown his mother would be wearing for the event— that with the butterflies.

     “Are you doing okay, love?”

     She looked over at Tess, who stood next to her with a steaming cup of chai that was set carefully down out of her way on the desk. Her assistant hadn’t made any more snide comments relating to Adrien or Marinette’s relationship with him, but she had also seemed rather withdrawn. She hoped it was just the abrupt increase in business that had her so quiet. 

     “Things are changing very quickly for you,” she observed, brushing some of the unruly red curls back from her glasses. “Are you doing alright?”

     Marinette lifted her hands from the fabric and sat back with a sigh. “I think I am.” She examined Tess, light blue eyes and granny glasses and another loud secretary blouse. “What do you think?”

     She retrieved her chair, rolling it over towards the work station. Taking a seat, Tess smoothed her skirt carefully and then examined her employer. “I think things are changing very quickly,” she repeated.

     Her brows raised, she wondered if she was meant to decode that on her own or if it would be elaborated upon. 

     Yes, things were changing quickly. Everything. Everything, professionally, and everything, personally. 

     “You want to say that I am getting myself in over my head.” The warmth of the cup in her hands was soothing. 

     Tess considered that, her full, vibrant red lips pursing. “That isn’t what I mean, no. I am concerned about you, of course. For anyone to adjust to such a swing would be challenging.” Her gaze wandered. “And I know that Adrien will do all he can to support you.”

     Marinette was surprised by that. While Tess hadn’t said anything more regarding Adrien, she certainly seemed to keep her head very much in her work when he was in the shop. 

     “Don’t be so surprised, Marinette. I’ve never thought him a bad person. Like I said, my concern is because of these… feelings that I get.”

     She frowned. 

     “Luka gave them off, as well, though not nearly as strong. With Adrien… I just know it is going to lead somewhere bad.”

     Marinette scowled. “How? How can you say that? You don’t know anything about him!”

     Tess’ shoulders slouched as her head shook. “It isn’t him, Marinette. It’s… something about him. Something connected to him. It scares me. It scares me a lot.”

     She sipped her chai to give her something to focus on, lest her frustration take hold. The scalding of her tongue very much preoccupied her, as it turned out. 

     “It’s just… I don’t know, I can’t explain it,” Tess sighed. “He does seem like an incredibly nice guy, and it’s obvious how completely enthralled he is with you, and you with him. There’s just an energy around him….”

     There was absolutely an energy about him, about them both. The fact that they couldn’t greet each other without static was proof of that. Despite Tess’ concern, she couldn’t help but smirk. 

     The assistant sensed that her mind was drifting, and stood. “You have three fittings tomorrow, I’ve pulled the gowns out. And that consultation, at ten.”

     Her brows raised. It was a lot. But every day was becoming that way. 

     “Have you thought any more about hiring someone else? Someone to at least handle some of the alterations?” Tess rolled her chair back to the front desk. 

     Marinette sighed. She didn’t like the thought of anyone but herself working on her designs; without making every single stitch with her own hands, how could she be certain they were of the required quality? At the same time, however, she realized she would not be able to handle this sort of workload much longer.

     The phone sitting on her workstation lit up with a picture of Adrien smiling at her from his pillow, hair still a little wild from his sleep. Marinette snatched it, warmed by the photo as well as the caller. 

     “Hey.”

     “I’m just around the corner. And I have bad news.”

     She frowned, setting the last of the chai aside to rush to the front door. “What’s wrong?”

     “I’ll tell you in a second.”

     She spotted Adrien, his stature made a bit strange by its current posture: a little hunched, head down, hands thrust into the pockets of his coat. Marinette unlocked the door just long enough for him to enter, then untied the ribbons holding up the balloon curtain she had made to cover the glass, freeing the gauzy fabric and allowing some privacy. 

     His arms slid around her and he sighed heavily as his cheek rest against her head. “Seeing you makes me feel so much better.”

     “What’s going on?”

     He stepped backwards, sighing again but with a different feeling behind it this time. “Change of plans, for dinner. Father is insisting we come to the manor.”

     She bit her lower lip. They had planned to have his mother over for dinner, Adrien had begun cooking before Marinette had even left that morning. And even those plans had kept her anxious enough all day. Sure, she had met with Emilie Agreste several times, she had been her client. And yet, spending time with her not as a designer but as her son’s lover was something else entirely. But Madame Agreste, of course, wanted to meet them as a couple. Was so happy for them, said Adrien, and wanted to get to know her better. 

     And they all seemed to want to do that without Gabriel Agreste. 

     “I’m sorry, Marinette.”

     She did her best to smile, caressing his cheek. “There’s nothing to apologize for. I should meet your father.”

     Adrian covered her hand with his, but still grumbled a bit. “Yeah, someday. On our terms. I don’t want to go there, and I don’t want to take you. I hate it there.”

     Marinette embraced him, pressing herself against his chest. The smell of the world was mixed with that of his, cold air over his warmth. “We can survive anything, for a few hours.”

     At that, Adrien chuckled. His body relaxed against hers. “Well, you don’t know my father.”

     “What time do we need to be there?”

     “An hour an a half.”

     She drew a long breath. There was still work to be done on his vest, to be where she needed to be to stay on track. But it wasn’t much time, to get back to his place, get ready, and then over to the Agreste Manor. “Merde,” she muttered.

     Adrien smirked. “I know, work. So I have a couple outfits in the car for you to chose from. We can go straight there from here.”

     It was difficult not to swoon for him. Always, but especially then. 

     “Yep, I’m perfect.” He shrugged. “Can’t help it.”

     Marinette tipped up to kiss his cheek, slipping her arms around his neck. “You really are.”

     “Just trying to be good enough for you.”

     Despite Adrien’s thoughtfulness, she wasn’t able to get much more work done. Her mind was far too preoccupied by the approaching meeting to focus. Even while he sat on the loveseat, making bad jokes and telling her about Pascal’s latest misadventures in an attempt to make her laugh, all Marinette could think about was the footage she had seen of Adrien and his father, staring each other down. And she was about to be thrust right between them. 

     “Is there anything I should say?” she asked, once they were on their way. “Or not say?” She kept enough makeup and other supplies at the shop, for when she worked through the night and needed to become presentable, that she was nearly as put together as she would have been from home, but still somehow felt unprepared. 

     “Maybe leave out that I’ve commissioned you,” he tried to laugh. “Otherwise, say whatever you’d like.” Adrien’s fingers were running up and down her arm, half in affection and half in nerves. “He’s a very flat person, Marinette. Some may say reserved, or introverted, but what it really is, is coldness. He’s cold. His expressions are unreadable. He doesn’t give complements. So please don’t think it’s you, or let it worry you. It’s how he always is.”

     She nodded, doing her best to hide the intensity of her anxiety. Adrien, though, could already read her perfectly. 

     He gently turned her gaze to him with his hand on her chin. “I love you, and my mother loves you. Even Pascal approves, and he is staunchly opposed to the very concept of monogamy— that’s basically miraculous. No, my father probably won’t love you, but big deal. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t love me, either.”

     Marinette frowned. She squeezed his hand, examining the minutia of his expression. Even if he was projecting that his relationship with his father didn’t bother him, she could see that it did. 

     They’d talked about their childhoods, a couple times. With his, the conversation was usually sparked by a memory about his mother or Pascal. Only when it was something negative was his father involved. Like when they went to the symphony a few evenings before, and a woman passed them wearing a feather fascinator, Adrian had stopped short. Merde, I hate feathers. Once, my father designed a suit coat and hat that were covered with raven feathers. He knows I’m allergic, but his vision…. I had to be so doped up so that I wouldn’t sneeze all the way down the runway….

     “My mother swears that he simply struggles to express emotion, but I disagree. He expresses plenty of it.”

     She leaned over and kissed the corner of his lips, and felt the tension that had been building in him dissipate. “Just wait until you meet my parents, they may suffocate you with their love.”

     He smiled. “I can’t wait.”

     The symphony had been fantastic, the experience as much as the music. Adrien, in a slim suit that might have been tailored to his form better than anything had ever been tailored to anyone, looking proud to have her on his arm. It was the first time they had been out in a formal atmosphere, and for the most part the other patrons were not the type to outwardly gawk. It allowed a normal night, being introduced to his acquaintances, being on a date without concern of being accosted. 

     Of course, there were still sightings of them, still photos on social media— though that, she didn’t mind so much. 

     Except for that one. Adrien had refused for days to speak to or engage with Pascal outside of strict business, after his friend posted a picture— to every social media ever invented— of the two of them looking to be roughly three seconds from coitus in the dark hallway of the club the weekend before. It had been everywhere. Not quite scandalous, but very, very close to it. Marinette hadn’t been able to look her parents in the face, ever since. 

     Each both had admitted to looking at it multiple times a day when they were apart, however. 

     Adrien had already picked up a bouquet of flowers for her to give his mother, for their visit. Since wine would be pointless, with their collection. There was no excuse to stall, no detour they could take. Marinette smoothed her skirt for the twentieth time, her anxiety over one of the world’s elite designers inspecting something she had made just one of many concerns floating around her head. 

     The car slowed, the gate of the Agreste manor opening in front of them. She and Adrien drew a deep breath at the same time and then immediately broke into laughter. He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Je t’aime, Marinette.”

     They made it halfway up the stairs to the front door when she picked up a conversation from beyond the gate: Oh my God, is that? And his? 

     Marinette smirked over at him. “Hey, did you hear the news? Sounds like I’m meeting your parents.”

     Adrien laughed. “Wow, that’s big!”

     One of the gigantic doors was pulled open, revealing the most cliché butler she could imagine: prim, passive, impeccably groomed. “Bonsoir, monsieur Adrien.”

     “Bonsoir, Thomas,” he replied with a smile.

     “Et mademoiselle, bienvenue,” said the butler with a slight bow of his head. 

     “Hi! Yeah! Um, thank you!”

     Adrien smirked, slipped his arm around her waist once their coats had been taken. “Relax,” he chided gently, “take a breath before you yell any replies, okay?”

     Her face squinched up in minor annoyance, which he immediately diffused with a kiss to the tip of her nose. 

     “Marinette, Adrien!” Emilie Agreste was sweeping down the grand staircase, a look of pure joy on her face. “Bienvenue!”

     Marinette became preoccupied by the way she moved, it was impossibly graceful. Almost as if she were underwater. Immediately, she regretted not making her gowns of a more free-flowing material. Well, she had, but she could have done better. Certainly, an oversight such as that is what would separate herself from the elite designers. 

     “I am so happy you’re here,” professed madame Agreste, setting her hands lightly upon Marinette’s shoulders before proceeding to faire la bise one, two, three times. “And you look so beautiful, darling.”

     “Thank you, madame—“

     She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “Emilie, I insist.” Turning to her son, her eyes seemed to twinkle. “Mamour, you are positively radient.”

     “I have good reason, maman.”

     “I know you do. I apologize for the sudden change in plans. Gabriel insisted.”

     “Of course,” Adrien stated. His change in affect, when he went from speaking to his mother to speaking about his father, was drastic. 

     “Come, Marinette.” Emilie slid her lithe arm through hers. “Let us prendre un apéritif in my salon. I believe your father is waiting in his studio for you, Adrien.”

     He briefly grimaced, though inclined his head. “Enjoy. I’ll see you soon.”

     She frowned back at him as she was lead up the stairs, and Adrien nodded with the best smile he could conjure. But it wasn’t herself she was nervous for, it was him. 

     Emilie Agreste, it seemed, had basically her own apartment within the manor. A large salon, an ample dressing room and, well, a closet nearly as large as the bakery. There was also an alcove with an area for coffee and tea, a wine chiller and fridge hidden in cabinets. 

     It was peaceful, there. So much different than what she had seen of the rest of the manor, all of which seemed sterile and cold. Here, it was full of color and comfort. Even without having met her husband, Marinette was able to see that Adrien had not exaggerated the dichotomy of his parents. 

     “What can I get for you, Marinette?” she inquired, gliding towards the drinks area. 

     She blinked, having suddenly forgotten every apéritif she had ever known.  “Uhhh,” she stuttered. “Kir Royale?”

     Emilie nodded and went about making the mixture of champagne and crème de cassis, while Marinette attempted to understand how she had come to a place in life where she was being served by the most respected actress in France. 

     She tried to remember anything of Emilie Agreste’s history: if she had come from a wealthy family, or had more humble beginnings. Perhaps, like Adrien, she had simply been raised well. 

     “À la tienne,” Emilie toasted, once they had settled into the seating area. “I must say, Marinette, since Adrien met you, he is so different. Like I said, radient.”

     Her cheeks warmed. “My parents have said the same about me. Even the customers, when I work in the bakery, comment.”

     Emilie’s smile was just as dazzling as her son’s. “Le coup de foudre. Adrien surprised me, when he visited the morning you came to my office. He rarely comes to see me there. It was meant to be. He was, I think, not terribly sad, before. But he knew there was something missing in his life, and feeling it more and more.”

     Marinette bowed her head a bit. “It was very similar, for me. But, always, I have thrown myself into my work. I was too focused for something, or so I told myself. I didn’t realize how much was missing.”

     She nodded. “I understand this, I was the same way before meeting Gabriel, but he put me under his spell.”

     She smiled politely, though was curious just how that was. Perhaps he was a different man than he projected to the public, with his wife. However, it did not seem so, with his son. 

     “Alors, what is your family’s bakery called? Adrien said it is renowned.”

     A brighter blush, this time. “Ah, he may be too kind. Maison Tomas et Sabine, just beside Place de Vosges.” 

     “Ah, I have heard of it! The bread and macarons are said to be unlike any other. I’ll have to visit.”

     “Oh, goodness. Well, I am sure my parents would be flattered.”

     “You work there, as well as your shop?” Her perfectly shaped brows rose. “I see how you have been so busy.”

     She shrugged, sipping her aperitif. The scent of lavender in the space, she was sure, was calming her and what certainly would have been her anxious over-the-top reactions. “Not so often, anymore. Perhaps one or two mornings a week I open, so that they can sleep later. Though interest in my designs has very much increased, as of late.”

     Emilie smiled. “It is well-deserved, no matter how it came to be. I will be wearing one of your gowns next Friday, so I hope that will further increase.”

     Marinette nearly said something about the suit she was creating to match the butterfly gown, but managed to hold her tongue just in time. 

     She wondered how Adrien was doing, with his father. 

     “Come, I want to show you something.” The actress stood, moving as if gravity had less of a hold on her than on the rest of the world, leaving her empty glass on a small gilded table. Marinette did the same— without nearly the same grace— and followed. Emilie lead her towards the Narnia-esque closet, when her feet simply stopped moving.

     Marinette drew a deep breath, a strange sort of energy suddenly crackling through her body as she caught sight of a dark, octagonal box on a dressing table. She felt herself pulled towards it, unable to resist the draw and unable to think as she approached. 

     The box was made of rich, deep wood, decorated with a golden emblem on the top. Fierce dragons curled around the sides, as if defending what was inside. 

     She knew this box.

     A shudder spilled down her spine. Those dreams, the ones she had every single night she spent with Adrien, this box had been in them. She was certain of it. 

     The dreams had been… silly, at first. That first night, she and he teaming up as superheroes to defeat his father. And… Napoleon? The second night, a different dream with a similar cast of characters, that had been funny in an odd sort of way. That they had continued, was, simply, insane. She and Adrien, having nightly battles against his father, who was determined to destroy them. 

     And this box, somewhere.

     “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Emilie had come along beside her, was gazing down with an altogether different type of awe. “I saw it in a market when we traveled to Nepal, once, and it drew me in.”

     “It’s… stunning,” she managed. 

     Emilie touched the top of the box and it opened, sides of the top sliding back and a number of compartments sprouting from the sides. In each one was an extraordinary piece of jewelry. “It held trinkets, when I bought it. Pieces of costume jewelry. I’ve used it to hold my favorite pieces, since.”

     “What happened to the things it came with?” she managed. 

     “Oh, I still have them, somewhere. They were sweet, all animal-themed somehow. I thought I could give them to my grandchildren, someday.” The warmth in her voice and her expression, towards Marinette, would have meant the world to her, if she had not been so preoccupied. 

     Animal-themed. Black cat, ladybug. There were others, too. Alya was a fox, Nino a turtle. 

     “I will look for them, later. They really were quite pretty. Very well-made.” 

     “Madame Agreste,” called a voice from the entry of the apartment, “dinner is ready to be served.”

     “Ah, merci! Well, after dinner, Marinette, I want to show you just how astonishingly your gowns are made. Of course, I have many haute couture pieces, and your craftsmanship is absolutely of the same quality.”

     She should have been flattered. She had never even had the opportunity to intimately examine pieces made by the most elite designers of the world, much less compare her own to them. But, still, part of her thoughts remained on the box that remained on the dressing table behind them.

     “Don’t be anxious,” Emilie told her gently, “Gabriel is sometimes intimating, I know, but Adrien adores you, as do I. You already belong here.”

     It was so kind; all of her words her so kind. And yet, they did not penetrate very deeply into the tower of trepidation that Marinette had when it came to interacting with monsieur Agreste. Adrien’s apparent relationship with his father was only the most recent part of this, as the designer had always projected a withdrawn and rather cold persona. When so many had such strong personalities and styles, Gabriel Agreste stood out as being anything but. 

     She hoped it was simply a façade he put on with the public, and perhaps Adrien thought too harshly of him due to history. Maybe her worrying would be all for nothing. 

     As soon as they entered the dining room, however, the chill that seemed to emanate directly from the man said she had not worried enough. 

     He stood at the head of the table, his posture unnaturally straight. His mouth, as well, a hard line on a perfectly passive face. His son stood a few meters away, his hands grasping the back of a chair with white knuckles. The tension filling his body made it seem foreign. 

     The table sat fourteen, with six seats on each side. Adrien had chosen the fourth, closer to his mother than his father. When Marinette moved to sit beside him, Gabriel’s voice stopped her immediately. 

     “It is not necessary to hide behind Adrien, Marinette.”

     She hesitated, her eyes flickering to his before she corrected her path to instead sit across from him. Adrien’s expression was a mixture of anger and apology. 

     “Sit,” he said. It was more of a command than an offer. 

     The table was too wide to be able to so much as brush Adrien’s foot for comfort.

     “So, Marinette,” Gabriel began as several servants filed into the room to place hors-d’œuvres in front of them each, “what is it, exactly, that you are drawn to, in my son?”

     Adrien’s jaw clenched as she struggled to keep her own expression as passive as possible, to not betray her horror. He was testing her, she was sure. He wanted to know if she was in the relationship solely for money or fame. It insulted her, her talent, as well as her family. Certainly, he would not ask this of someone of wealth. 

     “Monsieur Agreste,” she answered carefully, “Adrien is one of most kind, thoughtful, gentle people I have ever met. He is learned and wise, but still intensely curious. We have had very different life experiences, of course, and I think that we find each other equally fascinating.”

     “This is not so difficult, when two people have known each other such a short time.”

     “Absolutely true. However, the depth and complexity there, I believe, will not fade. People grow and change, and others, through them.”

     “Hmmm.” Gabriel didn’t so much examine her as he stared. Stared as if trying to see all of her inner workings. She pondered whether he was the sort of person who would be more offended or impressed, if she were to take a defiant stance. A very minor one, if any. 

     “You clearly raised your son to be spectacularly intelligent, worldly, talented. To be very honest, though I hope not to offend, I have never paid all that much attention to models. This is to say I would not be termed a fan, before we met. If I had been, actually, it would have been more difficult to see and appreciate him for the extraordinary person that he is.” 

     Adrien had been thawed by her words, and was gazing across the table with pure adoration. His father, however, betrayed nothing with his expression. Marinette was beginning to wonder if the man experienced any emotion, at all. 

Chapter Text

     “Mar-in-ette! Sup, girl?”

     She stopped one meter into the apartment, her brows raised. Adrien looked as if he had been caught doing something naughty, an embarrassed smile flickering over his lips before his attention was roughly pulled back to the television by Nino’s victorious cry. 

     “Hey, no!”

     “Oh, believe it bro!” 

     Adrien’s tongue stuck halfway out of the side of his mouth, his thumbs worked furiously on the controller in his hands, but neither seemed to do any good. Nino shot up from his seat on the couch, arms lifted triumphantly. 

     “Boom!” He dropped the controller, as if a mic. Marinette smirked at the scene as she hung up her coat.

     “Pffft.” Adrien sat back, covering his face with his hands. “My honor is destroyed.” He looked over at her with an ashamed expression that only an actor could pull off so well. “Marinette, are you finished with me, now?”

     Nino laughed. “You clearly haven’t played against my girl yet, or that woulda been long gone.”

     “Ah, ouais?” He grinned. “This is something I didn’t know.”

     “Champion of our collège.” 

     Adrien was clearly impressed. “And I thought I couldn’t become more attracted to her.”

     “I’m getting another beer. You want?”

     “No thanks, better keep my head about me if I have a chance against Marinette.”

     “You already lost, bro,” he proclaimed, disappearing into the kitchen.

     “His beer is fucking disgusting,” Adrien whispered as she sat down beside him. “I already choked down one to be polite.” 

     She laughed while he nuzzled her neck. “This is not what I expected to find when I got home.” 

     “Mmmmm I love that you just called this home.” His lips moved to hers.

     “Ewww, nasty!”

     Marinette gave the returning Nino a dirty look as he fell into a chair. 

     “Hey, no one wants to see their little sister making out,” he laughed, sort of toasting them with his bottle.

     “I didn’t realize you two had a date this evening.”

     Adrien gestured to his guest. “Nino happens to be a really cool guy. And we’re both low-grade dorks.”

     “I had no idea. About you. There’s nothing low-grade about Nino.”

     “Legit!”

     He smirked. 

     “Alright.” Nino chugged his beer. Adrien watched, clearly a little impressed and a little disgusted. “Well, that was my last beer, and I prefer to quit while I’m ahead. And out of beer. So I’ll leave you lovebirds to do lovebirdy stuff.”

     Marinette stood. “That’s very kind of you, Nino.”

     “I know.” He picked up his backpack from where it had been tossed and slung it over a shoulder. 

     “Does this mean he’s passed your test?” 

     “Ehhhh, I’m not sure we’re there, yet,” he said, wandering towards the door. “Going to need to be some more guy time to be certain.”

     Adrien chuckled behind her, hand settling on her back. “It would be my pleasure. But you have to let me buy the drinks, next time.”

     Nino sniffed. “I’ll allow it.” He pressed his cheeks to Marinette’s and then slipped out into the hallway. The door was barely shut before a belch seemed to rattle the entire building. 

     “Merde, Nino!” she cried. 

     “I waited until I left!” he yelled back. 

     Adrien’s arms slid around her from behind and he nosed into her hair. “That guy is something else.”

     She laughed. “Yes, he is.”

     “How was your day?”

     Marinette looked down with a smirk, watching his hands migrate up to her breasts. “Okay, let’s either save the chitchat until after the fondling, or the fondling for after the chitchat.”

     “I’m a multitasker.” He kissed her neck. “Anyway, it’s an important occasion.”

     “Mmmm.” Her head fell to the side a bit as she enjoyed his touch. “What’s that?”

     “Three weeks since we first kissed.”

     She smiled brightly and twisted in his embrace. Rising onto her toes, she hooked her arms around his neck. “That is an important occasion. Although it feels so much longer.”

     “Time flies when you’re having…” He pulled back from their kiss, scowling. “That doesn’t work here, does it?”

     “It does not,” she laughed. 

     “Does that mean we haven’t been having fun?”

     She nipped at his neck. “I’ve been having plenty of fun.”

     “Me too.” He held her more purposefully, beginning to draw her towards the piano. “I was playing the morning,” he muttered into her lips, “and kept having this vision of you laid back across it….”

     Marinette grinned. “But it’s so perfectly polished.”

     “Part of the beauty of the idea,” he said, moving backwards to the baby grand. 

     “And a beautiful idea it is,” she teased, “but my parents have invited us over for dinner, if you feel brave.”

     He pulled back, excitement written on his face. And then, indecision, as he bit his lip. He glanced down at his watch and nodded. “D’accord. Only a prelude, then.”

     She laughed as he picked her up. 

     His toes were tapping. They’d been tapping for the last kilometer, at least, but Marinette had the grace of not pointing that out. Their hands were woven together on her leg. 

     “I’ve never really met parents before. I don’t know how I’m supposed to… I really want them to like me.”

     She kissed his cheek, then cleaned the bit of lipgloss from his skin with her thumb. “They are going to love you. They already do.”

     “Pfft.” His cheeks puffed out. “They know a face and an ad campaign.”

     Nestling against his side, she gently covered his toes with hers, stopping the tapping. “They love what I have told them. They love that I love you.”

     His anxiety immediately dissipated, if only for a moment. Adrien smiled and kissed her head. “I love you.”

     “The only thing you need to be concerned about is being smothered by my father,” she laughed. 

     His brows rose. 

     “You’ll see.”

     They had to like him. Marinette was quite obviously incredibly close with her parents, and if they disapproved… Adrien knew that not much else would matter, in the long term. His mother adored her enough that she hadn’t seemed all that bothered by his father, a few nights before. Though, also, she had been well-warned. 

     He’d watched her closely throughout that night, determined to be attuned to her slightest expressions of discomfort or disgust. And, as certain he had been that she had felt both, she had hid them perfectly. She had sensed that his father was a shark: he could smell a single drop of blood in an ocean. 

     They had been allowed to retire to his mother’s quarters after dinner, and free of the choking influence of his father, they had both been able to relax and recover. He’d watched from the door of his mother’s closet as she examined the craftsmanship of the haute couture gowns contained within, and, being encouraged by the owner of them, seemed to actually come to believe that hers were of the same quality. 

     Having sensed the quiet imposter syndrome within her, it was beautiful. And it made him incredibly happy, seeing just how his mother was taken with Marinette. She knew it, just as much as he did— she had known before he did— that she had been meant for him. And he, her. 

     So, there was one more hurdle to be cleared. One more obvious one, anyway. He needed to be worthy of her in her parents’ eyes. And sure, he sounded impressive: supermodel, respected actor, accomplished pianist, gold-medal fencer, and a dozen other things. But those weren’t truly accomplishments, in his head. As he had told Marinette, he had never been allowed to not be successful. He just hoped he was a good person, too. 

     Adrien called up everything she had ever mentioned about her family, searching for topics he could bring up and complements he could give. He had been wanting to meet her parents for weeks, but now that it was about to happen he found himself terrified. 

     In a way, he liked that. Just one of the ways she made him feel normal.

     “Breathe,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to the side of his as the car pulled to a stop at Place de Vosges. “This is nothing.”

     “I’m breathing.”

     Marinette smirked. 

     He grabbed the bottle of wine he’d brought, the best one from his own stash, and did what he could to feel like the man he was, and not the awkward adolescent that seemed to have taken over. 

     Adrien had always gone along with what was expected of him, he followed the algorithms of the world. He had met parents of girlfriends, in the past, but it never felt anything like this. It was never so important, because they had never been so important. 

     They passed the darkened bakery, so quaint with its unique angles and golden script, and entered the building it was part of at the main entrance. It was nice— not luxurious, but solidly nice. As they climbed the stairs to the uppermost floor his heart was racing for every reason but the exercise. 

     “Slow down,” Marinette laughed. Apparently he wasn’t hiding his anxiety very well. “They’re the most relaxed, accepting people.”

     “Let me be scared to death,” he responded with a coy smile. “It’s an expression of my love for you.”

     “If you insist.” She tipped up to give him one more kiss before opening the door she had led him to. “Maman? Papa?”

     The home he followed her into was, he first noticed, small. Significantly smaller than his own flat, which he had thought was quite modest. Nicely furnished and kept, but small. A living room, dining area, and kitchen, all in a space smaller than his living room. And a… too steep to be called stairs, but not steep enough to be called a ladder, something rose from beside the breakfast bar to a hatch in the ceiling that must lead to Marinette’s room. There was an absolutely heavenly scent filling the place. 

     “Adrien, bienvenue!” A petite— petite even as compared to her daughter— Asian woman appeared from the kitchen as they slipped off their shoes, with the same rich, dark hair he loved so much on Marinette, and gray eyes every bit as lively and expressive as his own mother’s. She wore her heritage with traditional clothing, though spoke in perfect, unaccented French. She tipped up onto her toes to faire la bise, but he had to slouch significantly more than with Marinette to accept it. 

     “Thank you so much, Madame Cheng. I’m honored to be invited.”

     She laughed. “Sabine, please, and we are honored to have you.”

     He smiled, knowing, somehow, that it was because of who he was to her daughter and not simply who he was that was the reason she said so. 

     “Tom, come be social,” she called back towards the kitchen. 

     “Just a moment, I’m just getting the tarte into the oven. I apologize, you two!”

     “It’s fine, Papa.” 

     “Madame— Sabine, my apologies.” He winced at his own faux pas, his brain already ticking it down on a display in his head, and offered the bag with the bottle of wine inside. “I brought a little something for the house.”

     “Oh, that wasn’t at all necessary, Adrien, but thank you.”

     “Alors, all set!”

     He hoped that he did not visibly react to the sight of an absolute bear of a man appearing from around the corner of the kitchen; a bear with graying brown hair and mustache. Marinette’s father was huge! Every bit as big as Adrien’s childhood bodyguard, if not larger. And, at the same time, sort of the least threatening person he had ever met— even before getting as far as shaking hands, Adrien sensed an aura of true kindliness  from the man. 

     Still, he wondered as he took in the couple, with Marinette at his side, how did that even work?

     “Monsieur Dupain, I’m—“ His extended hand was ignored and Adrien found himself unexpectedly in a legitimately crushing embrace. He felt his eyes begin to bulge out of his head when they found Marinette, who seemed thoroughly entertained, wearing a clear I tried to warn you smirk. 

     “Tom, let go before you smother the poor boy!” 

     The hug released with a sort of apologetic chuckle.“Welcome to our home, Adrien. I’m so happy that Marinette finally agreed to bring you by.”

     “I wanted to enjoy some time with him before risking his death by smothering,” she laughed. 

     “Adrien brought us a lovely bottle of wine,” Sabine said, holding the revealed bottle out to her husband. His green eyes went wine. 

     “Oh, goodness! That’s very generous of you.”

     He had a moment of internal panic, wondering if his gesture had somehow, inadvertently, been inappropriate. A nice— but not exorbitant— bottle of wine for him was likely only for very, very special occasions, for them. Had he insinuated that they were poor? 

     “Ah,” he smiled, attempting to project a relaxed façade that he did not even sort of feel, “it’s a very nice vintage. I hope you enjoy it.”

     “I’m sure we will. What can I get you to drink? Shall I open this, now?”

     “Oh, no. No, thank you. Yes, sure, I’d love whatever you have.”

     Tom nodded. “Alright, I’ll see what I can find. Please, make yourself at home.”

     Marinette lead him to the small L-shaped couch, leaning over as they sat to whisper “take a deep breath before shouting any responses,” to goad him. It took everything he had to simply shoot her a well-deserved annoyed look and not, say, kiss her for several minutes straight. 

     The apartment was comfortable, as small as it was. He could see little touches of Marinette everywhere in the design: curtains he was sure she had embroidered with sweet little hearts and flowers, their color faded just enough to reveal that they were years old. He imagined her, younger, just as determined behind a sewing machine as she was now. There were several full bookcases around the room, the titles on their spines in Mandarin, as well as French and English. Would it be impressive or rude to begin to speak to Sabine in her language? 

     Adrien had been thinking for weeks, now, about how he would impress her parents, and it seemed that everything he’d come up with had completely vanished. He should’ve asked her more about them, as people, so that he could have something useful to say; instead of just sitting around trying not to embarrass himself, as it was. Should he assume they knew him, and be a humble star, or be, simply, a regular guy? 

     “Just be you,” Marinette said softly. Either she could read his mind or read his body language so flawlessly she might as well have been psychic. 

     He loved her so much. 

     Being him, though, that was difficult. His mother and Pascal were the only people he had ever felt truly comfortable around, free to simply be. They, and now Marinette. He could be himself with her, but with those whose opinion meant something to her, he had to be perfect. Nothing less. 

     “You are perfect.”

     He looked over at her, his brows raised. “How are you doing that?”

     Her smile, so beautiful. “I’m pretty sure I had the same monologue running when we were with your parents.”

     Adrien laughed. His arm went around her shoulders and he kissed her forehead, the absolute least he could stand to do. 

     No matter how absolutely humongous Tom was, he could plainly see that Sabine was more fierce of Marinette’s parents. Still, he realized, half an hour or so later, that even she had become completely unguarded. They were chatting and laughing as if he was already one of their own, and it felt incredible. 

     The oven sounded and Tom stood. “Alright, just a few more minutes then.”

     Marinette stood, as well. “I wanted to show Adrien the roof.”

     Sabine smiled. “You do that, then. Dinner will be ready when you’re done.”

     She nodded towards the laddery thing. “Think you can manage?”

     Her room was perfect… perfectly Marinette. Everything about it had her touch. Adrien was drawn to a huge collage of photos on the wall, feeling warmed by every one of Marinette in her youth. She seemed constantly surrounded by friends: Alya was ever-present, but he recognized everyone he had met, everywhere. And he recognized the expression on Luka’s face, where ever he appeared… that poor guy had been in love since they met. 

     “Come on, we’re not done climbing.”

     He laughed as he followed her in their increasingly awkward journey, one that had been perfect for adolescent Marinette, but was more than a little weird for adult Adrien. But, emerging through a skylight to a little rooftop garden with an incredible view of Notre Dame and Île de la Cité, it was more than worth it. 

     “Wow.” 

     She smiled as she turned on hundreds of fairy lights that had been strung around the space. There was a comfortable chair to lounge in, an umbrella that would shade from the sun. Painted rocks and potted plants that were still, somehow, thriving. It felt a little magical, and only became more so when she nestled against him. 

     “This is amazing.”

     “Mmmmm.” She nuzzled against his chest, at their most dramatic height difference without her shoes. “So are you. They adore you.”

     He had gotten a good feeling, but to hear her say that made his heart swell. “They feel like home,” he told her. “Not like my home, like home.”

     Marinette’s eyes twinkled, but it had nothing to do with the lights. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

     Adrien caressed her cheek, reflecting on the fact that, as old as he was, his life now had two very specific parts: before Marinette, and after. “I feel like I’m home, with you.”

     “So do I.” Her fingers were sliding over his sides, simple touch that made him melt. “I always sort of felt like I was waiting for something, all my life. And this is it.”

     The way she made him feel was… incomprehensible. Incredible. But that he made her feel the same was… it made him feel like the man he had always wanted to be, but never before reached.  

     Marinette sighed and her body seemed to settle more deeply into the lounger on her roof. She was searching the sky, counting the stars. Not so many, above Paris: the Big Dipper, the belt of Orion, a scattered few not part of any constellation she had learned. 

     Outside of the city, she knew, there were so many more. Leave this place, with all its noise and clutter, and the very sky changed above your head; literal universes that were hidden to her now were there, just waiting to be seen. 

     For the first time in her life, she wondered what they were; and what she was missing by not being able to see them. She wondered if she would ever be allowed to look at things a different way. 

     “Do you mind a little company?”

     She didn’t startle at the gentle touch of the voice behind her;  even if she hadn’t been consciously aware of his presence, it seemed she was always at ease with it. “Not at all.”

     Chat Noir came into her field of vision, beginning as nothing more than a shifting shadow in her periphery, becoming a man in front of her. He was looking up at the stars, too. “Have you ever seen the stars?” he asked. “Really seen them?”

     Can you read my mind? “No.”

     “I have.” He leaned forward against the balustrade. “Sometimes, I get out of the city for a little while, and it’s like the entire world changes, around me.”

     Marinette’s eyes trailed over him, the form relaxed beneath the suit he wore. Unaware that Ladybug was so close. “Do you ever wish that you could have that, more often?”

     He was silent, at first. Long enough that she pushed herself up out of the lounger and joined him at the edge of the patio, leaning against the railing a meter away. His face was pensive, far away. The sort of expression she never saw on him as Ladybug, no matter how comfortable he might be with her. 

     “Do you ever feel trapped?” Her voice was so quiet, this time, he might not have heard her. But he did.

     “I… I love what I do, as this. Being Chat Noir is the biggest honor I can imagine. But, when I’m just me….” 

     She watched him closely, the way his eyes focused and unfocused, the way the muscles of his face moved ever so slightly, as he considered. The superhero beside her had never feel quite so human, before. 

     “Me… yeah, I do.”

     Her heart broke a little. 

     “Life, maybe, when you’re a superhero… life as a person is just….” He trailed off, his head hanging for a minute before he looked to her. “Do you find me outrageously pompous, saying that?”

     Marinette’s head shook. “Not at all.”

     The smallest of smiles, really just the suggestion of the thought of a smile, passed over his features. “I really appreciate that.”

     “Responsibilities… even if they’re things you love… they’re not you. They’re something you have to do. Until, someday, you realize you have become them.”

     He was examining her, surely wondering how the responsibilities to a family bakery could compare with those of saving the city regularly. “Whatever those are, Marinette, you’re much more than that.” 

     Something inside of her broke a little bit. A crack in a dam.

     “You’ve always made me feel really comfortable,” Chat said quietly, his gaze fallen. “And I very rarely feel comfortable. I know that probably sounds like a strange complement, but I hope you’ll believe me that is. It’s… it means a lot, to me.”

     Chat suddenly stiffened, all the lines of his body going taut, turning him into a different person. Marinette struggled to not reveal that her own wanted to do the same. 

     “I’ve gotta go.” It sounded like an apology. Chat crossed to the other side of the roof, in the same direction she was being pulled. “It was nice to see you for a minute.”

     Marinette stepped towards him, but something stopped her from reaching out. “Chat… be safe?”

     The side of his lips twitched upwards. “I’m always safe.”

     She stood there, watching him shrink into the distance until he became one with the night, her thoughts an impossible jumble. And then, responsibility calling, transformed. 

Chapter Text

     Adrien… your father, he’s… he’s losing control….

     He burst through the front door of the manor, Pascal at his heels. There was no one to open the door, to take their coats. Servants were standing on and around the staircase, frozen, their eyes wide. 

     The yelling echoing through this giant marble tomb of a home was why. 

     They all startled at Adrien’s entrance, their heads bowed in embarrassment. Not that he noticed, as he took the stairs two at a time. 

     “She didn’t say what started it?” asked Pascal, breaths noticeably heavier than his own. 

     “It’s Marinette. It has to be.”

     His father’s raised voice was coming from his mother’s quarters, and Adrien bolted for it when they reached the second floor. They passed more of the staff, these generally devoted to Emilie Agreste, looking even more upset. 

     No, the voice was not simply raised; Gabriel was raging. 

     “I won’t allow it! The way she will tear my family apart!”

     His fists clenched. Adrien was ready for war. 

     His mother was sitting on the couch in her dressing area, her expression sort of vacant. When she saw her son her head hung a bit, her shoulders slouched with a shrug. His heart plummeted, seeing her that way. And realizing where his father was. And what the sound of ripping fabric in her closet meant. 

     Gabriel Agreste stood in the midst of a tempest of torn silk and satin. In his hands was a deep gray that, as it tore, seemed to release a flight of butterflies, purple wings shimmering around him as they fell. 

     “Stop!” Adrien rushed forward, grabbing his father’s arm. The man’s cold blue eyes seemed to blaze when they met his. 

     “Unhand me this instant!” 

     He held on, somehow. His father had always been distant at best, rarely outwardly supportive, but he had never yelled like that. There was mania in his eyes. It was terrifying. Adrien took a step and twisted, wrenching his father’s arm behind him. The man roared. 

     “You have no idea what I’ve done for this family, Adrien, and what I will do. I will not allow your youth and ignorance to get in the way!”

     Pascal was standing in the doorway of the massive closet, still panting, horrified. He looked to Adrien, sort of twitching with indecision.  

     Gabriel twirled, catching him off guard. He came free of the grip, fabric he still held tearing even farther in the process. 

     “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Adrien screamed; feeling heartbroken and helpless to see Marinette’s gowns— creations that she put so much passion into— laying in pieces on the floor. He scooped up one of the butterflies, a line of tiny beads cascading from it. “Do you have any idea how much work went into this? How dare you destroy what someone else made!”

     “How dare she destroy my family,” Gabriel hissed, throwing the last pieces he held to the floor. His perfectly white hair, always perfectly in place, was as wild as the man’s emotions. 

     “What the hell are you talking about? Do you want me to be alone forever, just so you don’t feel threatened? What kind of man are you, what kind of family are we, to be threatened by my caring about someone?”

     The father stepped forward, but his son would not shrink. “You know nothing, Adrien.”

     He only stood taller. “I know that you’re a heartless, selfish man that has always used the people who love him most to his benefit. I don’t believe you’re capable of love, and I refuse to let you direct my life any longer.”

     There was madness in the eyes of the man before him, and Adrien realized just how much time there had been when he would’ve been terrified by that. The sort of strength he felt now was something he had never imagined he would know. 

     “I’ll work for you for another ninety days, to finish out what’s already been scheduled. After that, I’m finished. There is no discussion of this. You don’t own me. I made my choice before I met Marinette; this is your fault, not hers. I don’t want anything to do with you anymore.”

     He left the closet, even though all of his senses were telling him not to turn his back on the monster there. His mother was in the same place she had been, but looked even more withered. 

     “Maman,” he whispered, kneeling at her side, “please, come stay with me.”

     She had a far away look in her eyes, something he had never seen before. “Non, mamour, I’m happy here.”

     His brows furrowed. “He’s losing his mind. Please, I don’t want you here with him like this.” 

     She smiled, caressing his cheek. “I love you, Adrien. But your father is only stressed. He hasn’t slept well, lately.”

     He pushed himself up, placing himself directly in her eye line. The scent of lavender in the space that he had always found so relaxing was mocking. “He just destroyed everything Marinette made you. You loved those, I saw the way you reacted to them. Why aren’t you upset? Why are you defending him? Maman, look at me!”

     She did, but… it felt off. “Your father’s a complex man, Adrien, but he loves you so much.”

     He scowled, considering pulling her out of the house with him. Something wasn’t right, he had never felt so strongly, so much wrong. 

     “Come on,” Pascal said quietly. “Adrien, we should go.”

     “Maman, if he tries to attack you in any way, get out of here. Please.”

     “I’m happy here, love.”

     His brows furrowed, but Pascal’s hand was on his shoulder, urging him to move. Standing felt like giving in, and it was a horrible feeling. But Pascal was right, doing anything else could only make things worse. 

     Gabriel Agreste was standing in the doorway to the closet with his unnaturally straight posture, eyes still full of rage and hands clenched. Adrien made eye contact and held it, no matter how much it made him squirm inside, as Pascal pulled him out of the room. 

     The staff was mostly pretending to be back at work, but several of his mother’s closest help lingered not far from the door, hands wringing and eyes full of worry. The gaze of one didn’t lower, when he came out. Tholia. 

     “I need you to stay as close as you can,” Adrien said quietly beside her. “If he touches her, or so much as threatens to do so, call me immediately.”

     She nodded. “Oui, monsieur.”

     Retreating back through the manor ached like defeat. This place, itself, had never felt like home to him— it was only his mother that managed that. She, and some of the staff. Sweet, kind, routine. Leaving only hurt because of who he was leaving.

     “Let’s go to Marinette’s shop, please,” he said as his driver returned to his seat. 

     He had been turning his mother’s words over and over in his head, tumbling them like rocks in the hope that something would become shiny enough to make some sense of. It all felt like a puzzle, those snippets of platitudes she had given him, excuses and reassurances. Your father is just stressed, he hasn’t slept well lately. Your father loves you so much, Adrien. I’m happy here. 

     His own sleep had been becoming more and more fraught, as well. Since the first night he had slept beside Marinette, he’d only had that one, now extended, dream: the adventures of Chat Noir and Ladybug, defending Paris and each other from his father. 

     So maybe he really needed that therapy. 

     It had grown greatly from that first night, when a younger Adrien was playing the part of Chat Noir, hopelessly in love with Ladybug. There were other characters, now, her friends: Alya, Nino, that strange Alix girl… and Pascal, as well, but he wasn’t a superhero with the rest of them. He was this little, strange, floating cat that talked about cheese the way Pascal talked about sex. He was what gave Chat Noir his power. 

     So, yet another mind fuck to unravel. And one he wouldn’t be sharing with Pascal any time soon. 

     There weren’t always battles, in his dreams. And even when there were, the villain his father played rarely made personal appearances. He was more of a theme, something that was always hanging heavy over their heads. 

     He couldn’t figure out the chicken-and-egg aspect of it all. He’d had the first dream long before his father even knew about Marinette, so how had his stupid brain spin it all up so well, seemingly predicting a clash between them?

     Or had he subconsciously been looking for one, because of those dreams? 

     There were plenty of dreams where it was just them, just Chat Noir and Ladybug, being friends and teammates, but nothing more. Even one where it had been Adrien and Ladybug. No matter who he was, though, the essence was the same: he was in love with Ladybug, and she wasn’t interested. 

     He didn’t like the subtext of that, so much. 

     None with Adrien and Marinette, though. And, no matter how obvious it was to the dreamer, the dreamed version of himself didn’t seem to have any clue of the identity behind Ladybug’s mask. Nor Ladybug, his. 

     Maybe he should mention them to her? They were solid, right? At least, they felt solidly in “serious relationship” territory. Maybe when they were having one of those random conversations he loved so much, lighthearted and laughing, intertwined somehow. Or after they’d both had a few drinks? Hey, love of my life, funny story… I’ve been obsessively having these dreams where we’re superheroes and my father wants to kill us and you don’t want anything to do with me. Hilarious, right? 

     “Sorry I froze up back there,” Pascal muttered. His head was bowed, hands clasped in his lap. Looking smaller than usual, as if there was some strange kind of forced perspective going on in the length of a car-width. “Guess I’m sort of useless, when it counts.”

     Adrien frowned. “What are you talking about?”

     He shrugged. “I mean, I talk plenty’a shit, but when it matters I just sorta froze, didn’t I?”

     He reached over, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You were there with me, though.”

     “Pfft. Big deal.”

     Adrien examined him, thinking about all the years they’d known each other. Exactly how much of a ball of doubt and anxiety he had been, back then, loosely formed into a boy. “Do you have any idea how big a part of my life you’ve been?”

     Those otherworldly green eyes looked over to him, strangely empty of the confidence he was so used to seeing there. 

     “When I started school I had no idea who I was. I hardly was anyone, at all. I didn’t have any idea who to even try to be. When that connard agreed to let me go to school at all, it was only if I went to the most auspicious, discriminating academy in the city, to be certain I would only be exposed to the best of influences.”

     Pascal laughed. 

     Adrien smiled. “I hate to think of who I would be, if you hadn’t blown his expectations all to hell. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, and the things I’ve learned from you I could never get from a book. How to enjoy life instead of just living it, how to be in the moment and not just waiting for the next one. How to be me instead of whom I’m supposed to be.”

     His friend, for quite possibly the first time ever, seemed speechless. His eyes were reddening, for a reason other than being high or hungover. 

     “And I sure as hell wouldn’t ever have been able to stand up against him the way I have.”

     Pascal smirked. “Yeah, well, you’ve done me quite a lot of good, too. So let’s just call it even, yeah?”

     “Come here,” Adrien beckoned. 

     “I’m not hugging you,” he laughed. 

     “Yeah you are.” He scooted across the seat towards Pascal, who pressed himself against the door in an attempt to avoid Adrien’s love. It didn’t work. 

     “I don’t like this new lovey dovey version of you,” Pascal said, tensed up and frozen in his embrace, like a cat who didn’t want to be petted. “Maybe your dad’s onto something.”

     “I love you, Pascal.”

     At that, he began to squirm. “Mate, I’m about’a take a header right out the side of his car!”

     Adrien chuckled, releasing him. Returning back to his side of the car, though, he felt his mood plummet again as he thought about what had happened. 

     “So, what are we going to do?” Pascal asked, clearly reading his thoughts. 

     “I have no idea,” he sighed. “Marinette is going to be crushed. She puts so much into her work. And, just, knowing my father is so violently opposed to us being together….”

     “Oh, who cares about that.” Pascal physically waved away his concern. “I meant, you’re still going to pay me, with you quitting the brand and all, right?”

     He smirked. “Well, this makes me a free agent. Pretty sure that means you’ll actually have to work for your money.”

     His friend seemed horrified. 

     “Did my mom seem… wrong to you?”

     Finally, his friend dropped the act, and the depths of his concern came through. “Yeah. She seemed... like she was drugged or something.” His head was shaking. “I didn’t want to leave her there any more than you, brother, but it felt like it was going to get awfully bad if we’d done anything more.”

     His mother had always been so independent. She had her own staff, she had an office outside of the manor… as far as he knew, she had always made her own decisions. His mother was strong. That was what made what he had just seen feel so much worse. What if his father wouldn’t let her leave? And not let Adrien in? Could he cut him off from his own mother? 

     Things were feeling more and more fatalistic, the more he thought. 

     His mother wasn’t in those dreams of his, he realized. Everyone with any real standing in his life was, but not her. Why was that? 

     His phone buzzed with a notification and he smiled at the photo message from Marinette. The vest of his suit was finished, but requires a thorough fitting. It made him happy, but all too briefly. He wouldn’t be matching his mother’s gown, anymore. 

     “Finally met her parents the other day,” he said as he typed a lighthearted response. 

     “Oh God, why?”

     Adrien smirked. “They were fantastic. Immediately, it felt as if I’d known them for years. They didn’t have any suspicions about my motivations or my qualifications. Marinette loves me, so that was good enough.”

     Pascal chuckled, idly scratching his chin scruff. He was lounging back against the door, now. “Bruh, they know your qualifications. And you don’t exactly have the need to dig for gold.”

     “They wouldn’t have, even if not. You can just tell, they’re not those kind of people. It was just an incredible atmosphere, with the three of them.” 

     “That’s lovely, mate. Heartwarming as all fuck. I had a threesome with two contortionists last night.”

     Adrien’s brows rose. “That’s… interesting.”

     “Oh it was so much more than that." The familiar mischievous twinkle returned to his eyes. "How’s wifey’s flexibility?”

     Adrien shook his head. 

     Pascal’s face contorted. “That bad, huh?”

     “I was shaking my head in regards to tell you anything, Pascal.”

     “That bad, huh?”

     His eyes narrowed. 

     “That bad, huh?”

     “There are no issues.” He grinned, figuring the jerk had earned a morsel. “And since she was a virgin, there are no bad habits to correct.”

     Pascal’s brows raised, likely more surprised that Adrien had shared the information than at the information, itself. The most mischievous of smiles painted his face. 

     “Alright, that’s enough.”

     He frowned.

     Adrien sighed, looking out of the window as he again thought of the scraps of fabric that had once been incredible gowns. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

     “I mean, I’d be happy to give my input. I’d have to get in there to fully understand the situation, though.”

     He gave Pascal a sideways glance. 

     His father… Adrien was being haunted by the look in his eyes. A madman. He had seen plenty of coldness there, in the past, but very rarely had true emotion seeped through… it made it so much more terrifying when he did. 

     “Do I have anything in the morning? I need to go to my mother’s office.” Adrien frowned at his phone after sending his response to Marinette, hoping for a call or text from his mom. An apology, an explanation, or simply a notification that she was alright. 

     He had often resented his father, but he had never been scared of him. Or scared of him, for his mother. And especially not concerned that reaching out to her could only enrage Gabriel. 

     “You’re wide open tomorrow. Want me to come?”

     He shook his head, sighing. “Marinette has protection,” he mused out loud. “Not that she knows it. Maybe she should have more, though.”

     Pascal’s brows rose. “You think he might…?” His lips pursed. “No, yeah, agreed.” 

     Adrien rubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t expect this. He’s never cared, before. And never been… threatened. I don’t understand.”

     “Well, Romeo, you’ve made the mistake of not being a complete and utter disappointment to your parents. Mine expect absolutely nothing of me.”

     “Yours probably don’t even remember your name.”

     “Exactly. It’s perfect.” 

     Romeo. He thought of those dreams, what had become his nightly life as Chat Noir, and how he had felt star-crossed as he forever pined for Ladybug. 

     They weren’t bad dreams, exactly, but he wouldn’t mind if they stopped. 

     The car slowed half a block from MDC, the narrow street ahead blocked by a garbage truck and a delivery truck, which seemed to be playing a game of chicken. 

     Adrien sighed, looking over at Pascal. “Do you feel like coming in?”

     “You want me to?”

     His hips pursed. “If you’re uncomfortable being part of this, it’s fine. But, maybe, a witness? I’m afraid I’m going to be shit at explaining all this to her.”

     Pascal nodded. “I’m with you, brother. Always.”

     He couldn’t help but smile. “Same.”

     Adrien was happy to see that there didn’t seem to be anyone hanging around the shop, hoping for a sighting of he or Marinette. Knocking on the door, he drew a deep breath and steadied himself. Her work was her life, she put a bit of her soul into everything she made. Her heart would certainly break for the destruction of those gowns, and his heart would break for her. 

     And, worse, he was afraid that she would decide that being with her was too stressful for he and his mother, and want to step away. 

     Tess opened the door with an actual greeting, surprising him a bit. A nice surprise. It seemed he had passed the test of this of Marinette’s assorted guardians. He and Pascal entered the shop, unsurprisingly finding its owner at her sewing machine. Her smile, when she looked up to see him… it was everything. 

     Adrien glanced over to see Tess and Pascal sort of appraising each other, as if meeting for the first time. He said a silent prayer that the latter of which wouldn’t launch into his usual personality, for once. 

     “Hey, sugarcube…”

     Internal groan.

     “What do you say to a hot beverage, my treat?”

     Tess’ deep red lips pursed. Followed by, inexplicably, a nod. “Sounds lovely.” She looked to her employer. “Marinette, do you mind?”

     Marinette seemed just as perplexed as Adrien felt as she slid her hands around his arm and leaned gently against his side. “Of course. And don’t feel you have to come back, if you like. You’ve been putting far too much work in not to have earned some time off.”

     She nodded, grabbed her coat and purse, and thanked Pascal as he held the door open for her. He gave Adrien a solemn nod just before leaving. 

     “Hmmmmm why the distraction?” Marinette purred, nuzzling her face into his neck. 

     He melted a bit, as ever. If only he had the intent she inferred. Adrien caressed the back of her neck, revealed by two long pigtails her hair was drawn into. He’d never seen her hair that way, it gave her an adorable girlish vibe that matched the life in her eyes. For the moment, anyway. “Can we sit down?”

     Emotion flashed across her face, confusion. “Is everything alright?”

     He lead her to the loveseat in the back of the shop, drew her into his arms once they had sat. “Just something with my father. And I really don’t want this to effect you and I, okay? Please?”

     Marinette looked up at him, a current of clear anxiety running through her. 

     “I don’t understand it, why he did it. But my father… he had this wild, horrible tantrum, today. It was as if he was possessed. I’ve never seen him that way, he had lost control. And… I’m so sorry, love, he destroyed the gowns you made.”

     Adrien was right, her heart broke. He watched it, through those beautiful deep blue eyes. Eyes like the sea, full of salt water. There was confusion, comprehension, anguish, and then… guilt. 

     He took her hands in his, said her name to bring her back to him. “This isn’t your fault, Marinette, and it means nothing. Nothing to me, and nothing to my mother. Whatever the hell is going on in his head, it’s not going to overflow to the rest of us. It has nothing to do with any of us, including you. Don’t let his mania hurt you.”

     Her eyes had glazed over, she was no longer seeing him. He squeezed her hands.

     “Marinette,” he whispered. Desperately wishing that he could insert himself into her thoughts, wrap himself around her pain, and insulate her from it. “Talk to me.”

     Her head shook, the smallest tremble, but even that displaced her tears. He watched them roll down over her skin like little diamonds. The fog that had fallen over her eyes was hiding her thoughts from him, and he hated it. Her hands were perfectly passive, in his. 

     She wasn’t part of this world, anymore. 

     “I don’t want to talk,” she whispered. “Can we just… go home? Can’t we just… just be? For a little while?”

     Adrien wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into her hair. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

     It had been a trap. 

     They’d thought they would have Hawkmoth surrounded, that he would be penned in by the entire team, and certainly overpowered.

     They had been wrong. 

     Their friends lay scattered around the floor of the old warehouse, each one staying just as they had fallen. Chat Noir didn’t know if they were knocked out, or….

     He couldn’t think like that. 

     He and Ladybug were the only two left, after even their most intuitive had become unable to keep pace with the attacks. Ladybug had screamed, even louder and more desperately than she had with the others, as the man in turquoise had been torn away by one of the shadows that had swarmed when they entered this horrible place. That color of his had gone, like the others’, as their Miraculous were taken. Just people. Just their friends, just their team, people they had let down. 

     They’d been preparing for a month. Their most tech-savvy had hacked a huge number of the city’s security cameras, and created a program that would monitor those feeds for the motions specific to butterflies, in hopes that they would be able to track Akumas back to their origins. It caught a lot of butterflies, but very few Akumas. 

     What it did catch, however, was Hawkmoth. And that caught them off guard. 

     Specifically, Hawkmoth entering an old warehouse in a sleepy, seedy area on the edge of the city. Several times, over a week. Two of those, it coincided with an Akuma. 

     Four of them had met up one night, to discuss. Chat and Ladybug, Rena and the team member that had made the discovery. He remembered Ladybug, best of all— as he always remembered her, best of all, in his life of the past decade— her body filled with an anxiety so palpable it rendered her nearly unrecognizable. Her hands were fiddling, boots tapping the rooftop below them. Chat had been ready to go, determined to take the bastard down at the first opportunity. His Lady, before she said a word, tempered that. 

     They had decided to continue to monitor, both digitally and via Rena Furtive. They began to train the team harder than ever, but it was another two weeks before they disclosed why, all while their foe’s routine remained the same. And in the end, it was the team’s decision. Ladybug put it to a vote. Still with her feet tapping and her hands wringing, she inclined her head at the result. “Alright,” she’d said, with a strange sort of finality in her voice. 

     She didn’t like being in a confined space, even though she was reminded that several of them had incredible destructive power, able to make any space un-confined in a blink. Ladybug reminded them that there were civilians in the area. She wouldn’t let Rena, even in her Furtive form, enter the building, as she fretted over their lack of information on the interior. They got the plans for the building, but she warned that it could’ve been changed completely. Hawkmoth would not choose a vulnerable location, so certainly there were defenses awaiting them. 

     There had been an Akuma created as they approached: they’d sensed it, but no one spotted it leave. It hadn’t been a surprise, they knew that the majority of times Hawkmoth entered the warehouse a villain was soon created. Chat hadn’t considered that this one might be different than any other. 

     What had happened, after… it was too disorienting to understand. Shadows swarmed, they were surrounded and separated and turned around so many times that sometimes it felt blinding. Vertigo took over, their comms were scrambled, their physical attacks were useless and their Kwami-powered attacks confused and wasted. 

     At first, it was sapping. Not only were they exhausted by the fight— or their attempts at a fight, anyway— but the shadows, with each brush, seemed to steal some of their essence. And then, when the team was weakened and the shadows energized, they’d begun to attack. 

     The dark that had been plaguing them since their entry into the horrible place turned bright, then. Unbearably bright. Bright, hot, blasting. They were again disoriented, blinded, but for the opposite reason of before. Constantly off balance, physically, mentally. And they had been whittled down, such a strong team that had been together so long, until it was only the two of them. Like it had been in the very beginning.

     The two were in their best defensive position, back to back, each one protecting the other. But the attacks kept coming, faster and stronger, more erratic. They were like balls of lightning, shooting from the shadows as crackling, arcing bolts that became something like cannonballs of pure energy on their targets. The air was filled with ozone, unimaginable heat.

     She was hit first, blasts came from too many extremes at once for her to cover. He felt the shudder in her body, heard her cry out. 

     “My Lady?”

     “I’m fine!”

     She wasn’t, though. He knew the tones of her voice better than anyone else’s, he had for years. They haunted his dreams. And the anguish in her words was from more than just distress at the situation. 

     They weren’t going to win, this time. He could feel it, doom gathering. The same kind as the day his mother—

     Ladybug was weakening. She was grunting more and more, her movements were becoming frantic. He stretched himself to cover her, and that’s when he was hit. 

     But he gritted his teeth, he wouldn’t let a sound out. He couldn’t let her know that he was failing, even as the burning that begun in his side spread throughout his body, a strange sort of tingling following in its wake. 

     “Give up, now! You cannot win!” Hawkmoth laughed. “Hand me your Miraculous, spare yourselves more pain!”

     “You’re never getting them!” Chat Noir screamed back, even as he felt his coordination begin to slip. “You’ll have to kill us first!”

     “As you wish.”

     The attacks, they got so much worse. Even when it seemed it wasn’t possible. Now, when one of the volleys of balled lightning was stopped, tentacles of electricity would continue on, reach out to graze them. Faster, stronger. All the while he became slower, weaker. 

     We’re going to lose. 

     We’re going to lose. 

     He’s going to get them. 

     Of course, Adrien had always known it was a possibility. Not only that Hawkmoth could one day take their Miraculous, but that he could face death because he was Chat Noir. He just… just wanted to be able to be beside her, when it happened. 

     Ladybug shrieked, and she was no longer behind him. Chat whirled, found her laid out a few meters away, curled up. His Lady, hurt. 

     He leapt over, planting one boot on either side of her body, and found a new reservoir of strength within him. He would fight, it seemed, longer and harder for her than even for their mission. 

     You’ll have to kill me first. 

     “Adorable,” chuckled their foe as he walked forwards out of the shadows, the blasts parting around him. “An alley cat on guard.”

     “Chat,” he heard her force out, “you need to save yourself.”

     “I’d never be myself without you, m’Lady.”

     He twisted, deflecting blows from all sides, for as long as he could keep it up. 

     It wasn’t as long as he wished. 

     He didn’t remember falling. Only opening his eyes to horrible pain. Horrible, searing pain, and Ladybug dragging her body over his. Protecting him. Red where it shouldn’t be, as if her suit were melting into her hair, across her face. 

     “Give up!”

     “You’ll have to kill us,” she hissed, her voice dry and cracked.

     Another chuckle. “Pointless, to the last.”

     The sky seemed to fall on them then, all at once. Explosions of light and agony. Chat pulled her down and they curled together, each with a hand over their heads and the other… gripping onto each other. Hands clasped.

     He could sense his suit failing. Even Plagg couldn’t hold this off forever. 

     “Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he croaked out. “I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for anything.”

     Tears flooded her eyes, mixed with the blood from her scalp and her nose. “I should’ve been so much better to you, Chat.”

     “We’ve both done our best.”

     Tikki went first. Ladybug cried out once more and the mask around her eyes suddenly blinked out of existence. Ladybug, disappearing right in front of him, as if a magic trick were hidden in the strobing light. Leaving….

     All this time? 

     Chat Noir couldn’t breathe. 

     “Marinette,” he whispered, his own tears rushing out over his skin. “It’s been you I’ve been in love with?”

     Bluebell eyes looked into his with confusion, even as she continued to wince. Though he, at least, was becoming numb to the attacks. Numb, or maybe it was just his body shutting down….

     He had felt Plagg struggling, expending all of his significant energy to protect his holder and, finally, he was beaten. 

     Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. 

     “Adrien?” Hawkmoth roared. “My own son?”

     “My own son.” 

     He’s my father.

     He’s always been my father.

     Pure rage seemed to ignite in his every cell, lacing Adrien with a different kind of fire. 

     “You’re the guy,” she whispered. Their foreheads were pressed together, now. She wasn’t protecting her head, anymore. Their hands weren’t just clasped, but fingers were interweaving. With one hand she held his, and with the other she touched his cheek. “When I told Chat I was already in love with someone… it’s you. It’s always been you.”

     The rage was extinguished, the burning inside him replaced with a much more wonderful warmth. He wouldn’t waste his last moments in anger. They’d always been right there. And his love did love him. They just never realized it. 

     “I fell in love with you the first day we met,” she cried. 

     Adrien remembered her, defiant Marinette, suddenly seeming to soften as he offered her his umbrella on the front steps of Françoise Dupont, so long ago. Ladybug, right there in front of him, so soon after she’d captured his heart. So close. “So did I, my Lady.”

     Their bodies huddled closer, holding each other, as her Miraculous was ripped from her ears, his from his finger— not by Hawkmoth, but by that horrible, crackling energy. Just as it had stolen from Rena Rouge and from Carapace, and the others. They had lost, there was nothing they could do.

     But, at least for a moment, they could be together in a world that would last far too little time. Adrien’s heart broke for all the years they had been so heartsick for each other, so ignorant.  

     “Whatever comes after all this, I’ll find you. My Lady, I promise I will!” 

     “We’ll find each other!”

     Wind was blowing, through they were inside. Sounds were building, wonderful and terrible at once. The tempest swirled so violently it dried the tears on their cheeks nearly as soon as they appeared. Her hair, freed from Ladybug’s ponytails that Marinette had not worn for so long, swirled. Two women he cared about in front of him, their faces overlapping, blending, as did his feelings for them both. 

     “I love you, Marinette.”

     “Adrien, Chat, I love you!”

     They stared into each other’s eyes, held fast, and as a glow turned into a burning sun, pressed their lips together. 

Die for You

by Valorant

Time slows down when it can get no worse

I can feel it running out on me

I don’t want these to be my last words

All forgotten ’cause that’s all they’ll be

Now there’s only one thing I can do

Fight until the end like I promised to

Wishing there was something left to lose

This could be the day I die for you

What do you see before it’s over?

Blinding flashes getting closer

Wish that I had something left to lose

This could be the day I die for you

This could be the day I die for you

Everything I know, everything I hold tight

When to let it go, when to make ’em all fight

When I’m in control, when I’m out of my mind

When I gotta live, when I gotta die

Feeling like there’s nothing I can do

This could be the end it’s mine to choose

It’s taken me my lifetime just to prove

This could be the day I die for you

Don’t let it be the day…

What do you see before it’s over?

Blinding flashes getting closer

Sacrificing everything I knew

This could be the day I die for you

     “Chat!”

     Adrien opened his eyes, wrenched out of the dream just as the world was about to end. 

     A dream that Marinette seemed to still be in. 

     Inhale, hold, exhale. 

     He hadn’t told her. He wanted to, but… he hadn’t. He’d been too scared. He hadn’t mentioned any part of it, even in the most joking, passing away. 

     So… how?

     It wasn’t possible, that name on her lips. There were two explanations and neither was possible. Either they were having the same dreams, or….

     No. It was too outrageous to even consider. 

     Adrien desperately wished he could know what images were flashing behind those closed eyes. 

     “Find each other,” she muttered, a tear slipping the corner of her eye. 

     He brushed the streak of water from the bridge of her nose, then slid his thumb over her cheek. “Marinette,” he whispered. 

     Her face did a dance of expressions, in varying degrees of distress or discomfort, before her eyes opened. They were red, around that fantastic blue. It made him think of a mask….

     “Hey.” Adrien swept a few unruly deep blue strands out of her face, tucking them back over her head. “Are you okay?”

     Marinette seemed to consider for a moment before replying. She shifted, rolling onto her side. “Just… strange dreams. Why?”

     His lips pursed. He loved her, there. Waking up to see her beside him, hair spilling over her pillow like an oil slick, perfectly natural lips and eyelashes, each doing their own smile when she awoke. He never wanted to wake up without her there, ever again. He wanted to be in love with someone who was in love with him, like any other person could. Why did that seem so implausible, all of a sudden?

     “Any chance you’re someone called Ladybug, in them?”

     Her face seemed to pale. 

     “And you’re with an incredibly dashing guy called Chat Noir?”

     There was no laughter, not even awkward laughter. Only… thought. 

     No, please no. 

     “How do you know that?” she asked, the words just barely passing her lips. 

     Adrien’s fingers slid down, over her shoulder to her arm, which he rubbed. Comforting himself, as much as her. “I’ve been having them, too. They started the first night we spent together.”

     She closed her eyes. Did her own slow, focused breathing. “I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

     He tried to laugh, but couldn’t quite make it sound right. “I’ve been figuring it’s some childhood trauma trying to resolve, turning my father into a supervillain I had to fight.”

     Her brow furrowed. “Hawkmoth?”

     His eyes began to water. He didn’t understand it. Any of it. 

     “What does this mean?”

     “I have no idea,” he sighed. 

     Marinette snuggled into his arms, and he welcomed her. “Tess… she’s this little flying thing called Tikki. She’s what would… um….” She couldn’t say it. Because it was insane. She’s what would turn me into a superhero.  

     “Pascal was mine. But I called him Plagg.” He thought of Marinette, in those first few moments. How she had felt. Unquantifiable. He thought of the little bursts of static between them, and the dream they had just both had. “You felt familiar, when we met.”

     “So did you.” Her face was rubbing against his chest. “I’m… I’m scared, Adrien.”

     He rubbed her back. Staring up at the ceiling but only seeing Marinette, bloodied, and how they’d grasped onto each other as what felt like the end of the world tried to tear them apart. “So am I.”

Chapter Text

     Marinette had gone home. 

     She stood just inside the door and soaked in the silence, at a loss as to what to do next. No longer feeling at home there, but unable to think of anywhere that would. Not even the studio. So, for the next four hours, she sat in a chair by the window, drinking tea and watching the world outside, frequently drifting so deeply that she became blind. 

     It felt as if her heart hadn’t slowed, since that dream. It had been so vivid, the light and the noise and the pain, as much as the frustration and regret and… surprise, and love. A realization that felt so real, so fundamental. How could that all be a dream?

     It couldn’t. 

     It couldn’t, because Adrien had dreamt the exact same thing. Adrien had been dreaming the exact same things. For weeks. 

     They’d held each other, breathing unsteadily, sometimes shaking, and talked softly about the things they’d woken up haunted by. They’d told each other details that they could not possibly have known. 

     What’s Nino?

     Carapace. It’s like a turtle. Alya?

     Rena Rouge. She’s able to create mirages. 

     What were you eating on the top of Notre Dame? 

     A peach. What about my mother?

     I don’t remember her being in any.

     Adrien had stroked her cheek as tears filled her eyes. It was too strange, too unfathomable. It was… what? A shared delusion? Some sort of storyline that had been somehow planted into their subconscious? The plot of a book or a show or a movie they had both seen, but couldn’t place? 

     It had to be something that could be explained. 

     She had left not long after they’d finally gotten out of bed, declining a shower and breakfast. She needed to be alone, needed to think. Needed to just not be there with that cloud that had settled over the two of them. Adrien had looked almost wounded when she’d said she was going. 

     The day she had been staring out into was sunny, pleasant. A reminder that winter was soon to end. Marinette couldn’t seem to feel any of it. 

     Eventually the door opened and Alya entered, carrying a bag of groceries she nearly dropped in surprise when she spotted her friend there, holding a mug of cold tea. 

     “Hey, girl! To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked as she set the slumping bag down on the counter. An orange rolled out, and it was only Alya’s quick reflexes that kept it from hitting the floor. 

     In all the time she had been sitting there, Marinette hadn’t planned what to say. She hadn’t planned much of anything. She just sat there, feeling as if this world suddenly weren’t her own. 

     “Mari? You okay? Is everything alright with you and Adrien?”

     Things were okay between them. Right? This wasn’t so much something between them so much as… surrounding them. 

     “Mari?” Alya was in front of her now, kneeling down, hand on her leg. 

     “Ah, yeah,” she said, shaking off the trance she had fallen into. “Yeah. Just some weird stuff in my head.”

     Alya frowned, obviously unconvinced. 

     “Just been having really strange dreams.”

     She pushed herself up, still looking suspicious. “How’s stuff with your man? How long until I get to see something of yours on an Agreste?”

     Marinette’s heart suddenly plummeted. With the dreams having taken over her thoughts, she had forgotten the day before: Gabriel Agreste had destroyed his wife’s gowns. “Oh, yeah,” she muttered. “Yeah, there’s going to be a delay on that.”

     Alya’s hands were on her hips. “What’s going on?”

     She looked up at her friend, seeing so vividly her other self: trim orange tail coat and bouffant ponytail, and it came out. “Does Rena Rouge mean anything to you?”

     Her friend’s chai-colored skin paled. 

     That’s it, Marinette thought. That’s it. It’s real. It’s not just us. 

     What did that mean? What did any of this mean? Why couldn’t she just enjoy this incredible thing she had literally stumbled into, this romance so astonishing that it seemed the entire world had sighed in awe? 

     Alya looked away, as if she heard something in the distance. 

     “Alya?”

     She shook her head, just a centimeter. “Some dreams I’ve been having. But how do you know?”

     “They’re the weird things in my head. And… in Adrien’s.”

     Her brow furrowed. 

     Marinette gasped into tears, wrapping her arms around herself in an embrace she needed then more than ever. “And I don’t know what it means and I’m scared, Alya.”

     A second set of arms went around her, pulling Marinette forward against her best friend. “Hey, everything about you two has been incredible, nonsensical, and a little scary. That doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

     It wasn’t just a little scary. She had watched him— and Alya, and Nino, Luka, Alix, Max— fight to something like death for her, against his father. The man who had just said that she would destroy everything. 

     They hadn’t slept, after awakening from the dream. Just that quiet talk, sometimes squirming with discomfort at the things in their heads. Then the other would pull them closer, hold them tighter, trying to fend off the distress the same way their other selves had held off Hawkmoth. 

     Until they didn’t. 

     “Gabriel Agreste— I mean, his father. His father, yesterday, he destroyed all the gowns I made for his mother.”

     “Merde,” Alya swore, looking up into her eyes with utter confusion. “Why?”

     She shrugged, because she didn’t have the strength to say anything more about the last eighteen hours. Eighteen hours that had changed her life. Just as disorienting as meeting Adrien had been, but in such a different way. 

     If she had ever managed to be Ladybug, she certainly wasn’t anymore. 

     She didn’t know how she ever could be. At that moment, she didn’t even know how she would be able to get off that chair. She didn’t know how she would be able to look at Adrien ever again. 

     Somehow, she had caused this. His father losing his mind, screaming at Emilie and Adrien. They’d done nothing but see something good in her. She didn’t understand how she was behind it all, only that it was the truth. How could she cause that sort of pain to those people? How could she allow herself to? 

     “How is Adrien?”

     Marinette winced, seeing him in her mind as she left the apartment. Looking so scared, so vulnerable. Just like he had in that dream. She just didn’t feel nearly as powerful as she had, then. Ladybug, she had given it all to protect Chat Noir, but Marinette couldn’t protect Adrien. 

     His mother looked up from her desk when he entered, her eyes lighting up as always to see her son. “Mamour, quelle belle surprise!” She stood, sweeping over to embrace him. Carefree, as if the day before hadn’t happened. 

     Adrien felt strangely stiff in her arms. 

     The confusion and panic and pain he’d felt the evening before, as his father had raged against Marinette, had been temporarily obscured by the night following, but it all came rushing back with the sight of his mother. 

     As she pulled him down onto the settee beside her, Adrien studied the woman who had always been his everything. She had been the first thing he’d seen, in life. She’d given him life, when he was born and every day since. 

     So why couldn’t he seem to recognize her? 

     “You look stressed, love, what’s wrong?” Emilie brushed back a bit of hair that had fallen onto his eyes. 

     His brow furrowed. “What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong’? Have you forgotten about yesterday? How father lost his entire goddamn mind and destroyed everything Marinette made you, all the while screaming about her destroying our— no, his— family?”

     She smiled, laughing the way one might laugh off an accidental bump in the street. “Oh, that.”

     “‘Oh, that’? Maman, he tore things apart! He threatened me and Marinette! How can you just ignore that? How can you, of all people, be alright with it? You’re the most peaceful person I know!”

     Her slim shoulders shrugged, beneath a delicate blouse. “Things aren’t always linear, darling. Sometimes it becomes necessary for us to suffer, a little, for the things we love.”

     He saw the waver in her smile, the hint of strange emotion in her eyes. He saw it, where others wouldn’t be able to, because he knew her face the way he knew nothing else. Just for a fraction of a second, just long enough to tell him that she knew this lesson better than any other. 

     “And you love her, my love. You know your lives are intertwined. And when lives are intertwined it means you laugh together, but you also cry together. Sometimes, you have to fight together.” 

     His eyes had fallen. To his hands, clasped in his lap. Thinking of a silver ring on one of them, and the way he had fought until the end of everything, for Marinette. 

     That was how he knew the dreams weren’t just dreams. 

     “Maman, do you ever dream about….” His voice tapered off, unable to continue. 

     But she didn’t seem to notice. She had laughed again. “You know, it’s funny, I haven’t dreamed for years.”

     His stomach clenched. 

     “Well, of course, I know I must dream. We all do, yes? But it has years since I have been able to remember them at all. What do you dream about?”

     He mapped out her face in his mind. Like he used to, when he was younger, when she would sit on the side of his bed and sing him to sleep. She would be the last thing he would see and hear, every night. It made him feel tranquil, counting her eyelashes in the glow of his nightlight. 

     It seemed as if she hadn’t changed, not at all. Perhaps the changes were too gradual for him to see, yet. Perhaps he hadn’t had the time to count her eyelashes, for too long. 

     “I dream of Marinette.”

     She smiled, covering his hands with her own. It was a different smile, this time, no longer a platitude. “Then keep dreaming of her, Adrien.”

Chapter Text

     Adrien had been playing piano for the last two hours.

     Or, sitting at the piano. Occasionally starting a piece, losing the tune or the timing somewhere in his thoughts, and quitting. Poking at keys randomly, no melody to be found. 

     He had texted Marinette earlier, asked how her day was going— like normal. Asked if she was going to spend the night— not like normal. She had said that she had a stacked day at the studio and would get back to him. Also not like normal. 

     The way they had parted that morning felt wrong. Everything about the day felt wrong. Everything about the day before, too. After floating so high for the past few weeks, it was a strange and horrible collapse. 

     She hadn’t looked at him, once they got out of bed. She wouldn’t meet his gaze as she declined breakfast or a shower, even a ride to where ever she was going. It was clear that she just wanted to find space, and while he could understand that, it still felt awful. 

     He had sat down at his piano at six. After doing his normal social engagement duties, after a hard workout, after failing at reading anything with any recall. He paced, he tried to play a video game but kept checking out and would tune back in to find his avatar walking blankly into a wall or a tree or something. He had paced some more, and then tried to focus on piano. All while looking the time and his lack of notifications roughly every two minutes. 

     When the phone finally did ring, it was pressed to his ear in a millisecond. 

     “I’m really drunk,” she muttered, her pattern of speech speaking as much to her state as her words. “Sorry. I’m really drunk.”

     “That’s okay.” He was up and pacing again, hand running anxiously back through his hair. “Are you okay, though? Where are you?”

     “Back at my… my old place. Just… just ended here. Old programming.”

     His heart sank. “Oh.” Even if she had called it her old place, his apartment clearly what her subconscious thought of as home if it had lead her elsewhere. The thought of his bed, without her in it….

     “You can come over, if you want,” she slurred. “Don’t think… I can’t go anywhere.”

     “I’ll be right there.”

     “Don’t have—“

     “I’ll be right there, love.”

     He pulled on his jacket on the way down the stairs, jogged to the nearest Metro station, and it wasn’t until the staring began that he realized he hadn’t gabbed his usual pseudo-disguise of glasses and a beanie loose enough to tuck all of his shaggy hair into. He had generally been accessible enough that it wasn’t a huge thing when he was in public, but individual people certainly still got excited. It was all he had ever known, but the older he got the more he found it ridiculous. He wasn’t worth any more than anyone else. 

     He did his best to project a pleasant but please don’t bother me right now aura, which seemed to work. 

     Adrien had spent the first half of the day preoccupied by his time with his mother, which had extended to lunch. Her seemingly unaffected air, and the hints of something else, beneath it. Her encouragement of his relationship, while saying nothing more of her gowns— he could only imagine that she would not dare cross his father by asking for them to be replaced. 

     Alya answered the door, but he was too focused on Marinette’s slumped form on the couch to appreciate her roommate’s concerned expression. He found her dozing, quietly snoring with her mouth slightly open, a bit of drool in the corner. He smiled sadly. 

     “Yeah, she’s a bit of a mess,” Alya stated the obvious. “Are you okay, Adrien?”

     He imagined she had been told the whole story and drew a deep breath, sort of wondering, himself. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m… maintaining.”

     “Well, of course, you’re welcome here. If you need anything, just yell for me.”

     “Thanks.”

     He cupped Marinette’s cheek as Alya’s presence faded, thumbed away the drool. “Mon cœur,” he whispered. 

     “Mmmmm.” She stirred, opening her eyes to his and seeming briefly confused, reconciling the location and his presence. “Adrien.”

     He took a seat beside her, and Marinette immediately nestled into his arms. 

     “Sorry I’m a mess,” she muttered into his neck.

     “It’s okay.” He kissed her head, trying to ignore the heavy odor of alcohol. “Do you want to go to bed?”

     “It’s smaller than yours.”

     Adrien chuckled. “I don’t mind.”

     He helped her to stand, gave her a moment to steady herself, groaning through the change in altitude, and then guided her to bed. Moved the extraneous pillows, and pulled aside the covers. She sat, wavering side to side a bit, like a cobra. Wilted like a flower. 

     “I’m going to go get you a really big glass of water.”

     She smirked. “Might be asleep by the time you get back.”

     Alya’s door opened at the sound of him searching the cupboards for something to put water in. “She going to survive?”

     “Prognosis is good. Also is the chance of a severe hangover.”

     She laughed. “Yeah, she’s not a heavy drinker.”

     “It’s been a rough little bit,” he allowed. 

     “Yeah.” She came to the doorway of the little kitchen, where she leaned with her arms crossed. “She told me.”

     He glanced up. “Yeah?” He wondered if it had been only the story of his father’s tantrum or… everything.

     Alya nodded. “She’s a sensitive person, Adrien. But also a tough one, someone who hates to feel like a burden on anyone. She might try to hide exactly how much she’s hurting, or feel guilty for leaning on you.”

     “I appreciate the advice,” he said honestly, shutting off the tap. “I’m going to try to get her hydrated.”

     “Good luck with that.”

     She was, indeed, asleep. Rolled onto her stomach, arms around and face pressed into a long, pink pillow shaped like a stretched out cat. He adored her room, for as small as it was, it was filled with her essence. It smelled like raspberries and the walls were covered with sketches and photos and posters. There were fairy lights wrapped around the head of her bed, a mobile of stars over her pillow. 

     “Marinette,” he said gently, “you’re laying across the whole bed.” 

     “Hmmm?”

     Adrien slid her legs, which had still been hanging partway off the side, into a position more in line with her head, making enough room for himself. 

     “Help me get undressed?” 

     “Of course.”

     She pushed herself up, maneuvered her body enough that he was able to remove her skirt and tights and blouse, the bra beneath it. Then she pressed her mouth to his. “Why are you stopping there?”

     “Because you’re probably spinning too much right now to do anything but sleep,” he cooed. “And you taste really gross.”

     She laughed. “Still want to, though. You don’t have to kiss me.”

     “Still want to, though,” Adrien echoed. “But first, you need to drink water. And it has nothing with your mouth being super, super gross.”

     Marinette took the offered glass, giving him a look that managed to be thankful and threatening at the same time. Her eyes were far more dim than usual, her proud shoulders bent under the weight of the last day and her current coping mechanism to it. 

     When she lay back once more, having actually managed to drink a decent portion of the glass, she wove her fingers through his and tugged gently. “Please?”

     He regarded her doubtfully. “You can’t even stay awake, love. You need sleep.”

     “I’m afraid to sleep,” she admitted quietly. 

     Adrien sighed. He undressed before pulling the covers over them both, then wrapping himself around her. “So am I.”

     Her hands slid over his arm. “Thank you for coming here.”

     “I’ll always come to you.” He nosed into her hair, breathing in the bit of her scent that hadn’t become saturated by wine and vodka. “Always.”

     “So will I.” She nestled against him. “I mean….”

     “When you’re not hammered,” he laughed. “That’s fair.”

     Marinette slid his hand down to her panties and he moaned into her skin, though as he felt well-conflicted about the premise. 

     “I’d hate to take advance of you,” he murmured, even as his fingers had begun to rub through the fabric. 

     “Please take advantage of me,” she breathed, repositioning his hand so that there was no barrier. “Let’s stay awake.”

     Adrien’s spirits were briefly tempered, but was more than happy to provide that distraction to them both. He drew off her panties and settled between her legs, immediately thrilled by the familiar way she ran her fingers through his hair, the taste he craved like no other. 

     “It’s so nice.” Her legs were slowly becoming restless, one of her feet slid over his back. “This is so nice. It’s so nice, being in love with you.”

     Yeah, it was. No matter what sort of challenges it seemed to stir, he wouldn’t give her up for anything. That death, or whatever he had experienced in the dream, he would face that a thousand times if she was at his side. Though, he had realized long before, both in the dreams and in the day, Marinette was no one who needed protecting. 

     All of these complications, if anything, made him just more certain that this was something meant to be. Sure, it was beginning to seem that there was some sort of force that didn’t want them to be together— but that only meant their being together was strong enough to take notice of. 

     His father being tangled up in it he didn’t understand. 

     There had been a time when they were close. Or, closer. He’d been more present when Adrien was young, even though his mother was always his world. It had been around the time he hit puberty— like twelve— that Gabriel’s disposition had changed. It was a disorienting swing, at the time. He had wondered if, as his body changed, the man he was a model for was unhappy with the changes. If there was something wrong with him, then. But it hadn’t seemed to impact his employment. 

     He had considered that this, again, might be, simply, job-related. That his being very firmly no-longer a bachelor might effect sales. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something he would put out of the realm of possibility, for his father. But, as he had told him even before meeting Marinette, he was going to be finished with Agreste. 

     And this, being close to the woman he loved, this was all he needed. 

     “Adrien… oh, come here. Please, I want you.”

     He kissed her as deeply as he ever had, gross booze breath and all. Completely absorbed by her body and her spirit and the spirit she had brought back to him. “This is all I need,” he promised, forehead against hers. “All I’ll ever need.”

     “Aren’t you simple,” she chided. 

     Adrien laughed. “I didn’t mean sex. But… ohhhh.”

     She pulled his mouth back to hers, gripped his ass to roughly encourage more dramatic thrusting. A sort of low growl rumbled in her throat. “This is a pretty amazing part of things. I’d love you even if it wasn’t but… ah… more! More, please!”

     There was nothing like watching her in these moments, the way her head kicked back, her fingers splayed out, her breasts thrust forward as her back arched and she drew a deep breath for a rapturous cry. Her ankles locked across his lower back, clasping him in place, and all he could do was gasp and shudder, too overwhelmed to make a sound. 

     He managed to collapse to the side of her, and stared at the ceiling as he caught his breath. “Mari… oh fuck, Marinette.”

     She laughed softly, a hand reaching out to slide slowly over his leg. “You did all the work.”

     “You were part of it, too.” 

     Adrien chuckled, rolling to his side to kiss her shoulder. “I love you.”

     Her eyes were closed, but she smiled. “Thank you for coming here. I’d hate to sleep without you. Ever.”

     His arm slid around her and he sighed contently. “Same.”

     Chat turned away, a heavy feeling in his stomach as his insides seemed to knot up. He balled his fists, hoping that some physical pain might distract from the emotional, but his suit was too stout for his claws to indent. 

     “Hey, I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Ladybug said, her voice light and unencumbered. 

     “No, not long.” He forced his hands to unclench, even though the position felt almost therapeutic. “I don’t know what’s going on yet, I haven’t seen anything.”

There was a strange sort of deep breath to his left, slightly behind him. He might not actually hear through the cat ears that his transformation produced, his hearing did greatly improve. Hearing, eyesight, balance, flexibility, strength. 

     He wished he felt a little stronger, right then. 

     “What’s going on, Chat?”

     “I told you, I don’t know yet.” He drew his staff from his back, it extending automatically as he stepped towards the edge of the roof. 

     “With you, I meant.” 

     Chat hesitated, feet almost stumbling. “Don’t know what you mean.”

     “Please don’t lie to me. We’re better than that.”

     It had been the way she landed, a twist she had done up over the side of the building that made her stretch enough that a small mark below her ear was drawn out of the neck of her suit. The ghost of someone’s lips, on his Lady’s neck. 

     Nothing had felt this bad since that horrible day.... Nothing punched him in the gut so hard. 

     But he was nearly twenty, she couldn’t be much younger. Common sense had told him for a long time that she would be seeing someone, at some point. He was seeing someone. But that was… that was just a placeholder. It could never be more than that, because Ladybug was the love of his life and sooner or later she would realize that he was hers, too. 

     Seeing that, though… the sort of horrible hopelessness that it hit him with, it felt fatal. 

     You’re just a stupid, sentimental child, Adrien, he told himself. She’s always told you it wouldn’t happen. 

     “Chat…?”

     “We’re not better than that,” he forced out. “We aren’t anything. And I just want to get this over with.” 

     He leapt over the side of the building, allowing himself to fall a moment longer than usual. Maybe his pain, or the idiotic, pointless thoughts that had caused it, wouldn’t be able to make the jerking change in momentum, and slam fatally into the street below, but it didn’t work. They followed him. 

Chapter Text

     “You two are fucking adorable.” 

     Adrien opened his heavy eyelids and smiled. Alya was standing at the other end of the couch, hands on her hips, looking at them with hearts in her eyes. 

     “I mean it, the most adorable of adorables I’ve ever seen.” 

     He couldn’t disagree, even though he was pretty sure that Marinette was drooling on him. He began to slip his fingers through her hair once more. The feeling of it comforted him.

     “She hung over?”

     He smirked. “Couldn’t even get her out the door for a recovery breakfast.”

     “So I see. Hope you weren’t too uncomfortable here last night.”

     “Perfectly comfortable.” 

     Despite Alya’s expression that said she figured he was just being polite, he really had been. Small rooms, small bed, a loud neighborhood, it didn’t matter when he was with Marinette. Even when she snored. A lot. 

     He’d delivered the paracetamol and water she desperately needed upon moaning into consciousness, got her to take a shower with him even though they barely fit, and had been this close to leaving for breakfast when she asked if they could just sit for a minute. That had ended with her asleep in his arms, stretched across the couch, re-runs of an American comedy on the little TV. 

     “I’d offer to make breakfast here, but I can’t feel my right arm at the moment.”

     Alya laughed. “That’s very kind of you, but I’ve been overdue on a grocery run, so there’s not much in the kitchen. Would you like some coffee?”

     “If you’re making some, please.”

     “Bien sûr.” 

     Marinette shifted a bit, sighing happily as she rubbed her face against his chest. 

     He hadn’t been uncomfortable overnight, but he also had slept for any length of time. Between Marinette’s bouts of snoring, passing sirens and what he was pretty sure was a football match on at a nearby cafe, he had barely dreamed. The only one he remembered was not long at all, but laced with horrible jealousy at the realization that Ladybug had a lover. 

     He rubbed her back, mind wandering. It had been a terrible feeling, in that dream. Disgust, hopelessness, anger and depression. Of being certain that he could make her so much happier than whomever had left the mark on her neck, a sense of betrayal that the woman who trusted him with her life wouldn’t even give him a chance. That was all it would take, a chance. A kiss. 

     Those feelings had gone all the way to his bones— to Chat Noir’s bones. He had felt the longing and the love in each and every dream he’d had. Unrequited love, but never-ending hope. 

     Chat had been forever dreaming of the life that Adrien had. And he’d been right, it was perfection. With her, it was perfection. 

     “So, how are things?” Alya asked, reappearing with two steaming cups of coffee. Adrien pushed himself as upright as he could manage without displacing Marinette too terribly, and took the offered mug with thanks. On the side of it was an anthropomorphic, and very much sexualized, fox. Foxy Lady! 

     Adrien looked at her curiously. 

     “Yeah, apparently that’s what passes for an anniversary gift. At least he remembered, I guess. We can trade, if you like.”

     He took in the mug she held, that one having the head of a penis dressed up like a DJ. “I’m fine, thanks.”

     She smirked, sitting in an old, gold easy chair. 

     “Is this when you grill me, while I’m trapped?”

     “I hadn’t thought of that, but sure.” She examined him with a pretend hyper-critical eye. At least, he hoped it was pretend. “So, why have you never had a big serious thing, before?”

     He shrugged, blowing on the coffee. “Never found anyone striking. The circles I’m placed in, there’s not a whole lot of depth.”

     “You do enough charity work with your mother, I’m sure you’re exposed to some real people there.”

     “Sure,” he allowed. “Still, never really been wowed by anyone. And I’m busy enough, with shoots and acting and everything that comes with that. Those projects with my mother. I sort of grew out of the dating in lust thing.”

     Alya nodded. “Very mature.”

     “How long have you and Nino been together?”

     She laughed. “Since we were fourteen.”

     “Wow. That’s impressive.”

     Alya sipped her coffee, watching her roommate sleep. “It’s as long as we’ve been best friends. The first day I started school here, I was assigned the seat next to hers. Marinette has always been this incredible person: on one hand she’s quiet and meek, on the other she’s this incredible crusader for good. If someone was ever wronged, at school, she would instantly transform into an absolute beast until things were straightened out. But she’s never really done the same, for herself.” Her eyes moved to his. “Sometimes someone else has to do that.”

     Adrien nodded. “You don’t have to worry.” 

     She smiled. “I know.” 

     They each drank their caffeine for a few minutes, Marinette’s soft breathing their accompaniment.

     “She said you’re quitting.”

     How odd that sounded. And how wonderful. “Working for my father, yes. I told him months ago, but he decided to ignore me. I’ve recently made a much more emphatic statement. A few more months, to finish out what’s been planned, and that’s it.”

     Her head cocked. 

     “I’ve been beholden to him my entire life. Even before I met Marinette, I decided I was finished with that. I want to live for me.”

     Alya was looking at him thoughtfully, still sipping. 

     “Are you thinking ‘poor little supermodel?’”

     She shook her head. “Not at all. I mean, Christ, it’s difficult enough to figure out who the hell you are, not to mention the basics of social interaction, without literally being the focus of extensive advertising campaigns proclaiming you to be perfection. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live like that.”

     Adrien felt sort of warm all over, knowing she got it. “It was hell. But Pascal, whom you had the dishonor of meeting at that club, was sort of the polar opposite of everything they thrust upon me. Without him, I shudder to think of what I’d be. Sure, mom has done her best to keep me grounded, but I really needed a bad influence.”

     She laughed. “He definitely seemed to be that. I liked him.”

     He smirked. “So do I.”

     Marinette interrupted their conversation with a great, snorting snore. Each laughed and Alya rose. “Well, I’ll leave you be. You’re always welcome here, Adrien.”

     “Thank you.”

     He stroked Marinette’s hair, trying not to laugh as her snoring tickled his neck. With another sudden snort, he was unsuccessful. She awakened, blinking groggily up to him. 

     “Hey, beautiful.”

     She scowled, pushing herself up. “I fell asleep.” She rubbed at her face. “I’m so sorry.”

     “It’s fine, I don’t have anywhere to be.” 

     Marinette stretched, brushed her hair back, and slumped. “I need to be at the studio,” she sighed, looking at him apologetically. 

     “I have a script I need to read before Monday,” he offered. “I’d be pretty happy to hang out with you to read it.”

     She smiled a little. “Are you offering to not sleep with me again?”

     Adrien laughed. “Yes, exactly.” He stood and offered his hands to her. Even looking slightly wilted, she was the most radient thing he had ever seen. 

     “Ohhh, but I think I need to eat something, first,” she moaned. 

     “I think so, too. Want to offer to treat Alya?”

     “I’m good, thanks!” came a call from the second bedroom. 

     Marinette’s eyes narrowed in the general direction of her eavesdropping friend as she pulled on the jacket left on the back of the couch the night before. “Sure you want to be seen with someone who looks like I do right now?”

     “What, stunning?”

     She laughed, then nearly fell over while attempting to pull her shoes on. “You’re a fantastic liar.”

    Adrien steadied her with a grin. “It’s easy when you’re not lying.” 

     The nap had helped, as did the bottle of water Alya pressed into her hand before leaving. Marinette leaned against him in the car, but it seemed to be more in affection than misery. His favorite cafe to take petit-déjeuner perked her further, however he was careful to point out that their pastries paled in comparison to those of Tomas et Sabine. 

     Tess rushed to unlock the door when she saw them approach, though thankfully there did not seem to be anyone lingering around the shop. 

     “You don’t look so well,” the assistant noted as they passed. 

     “She had a bit of a rough night.”

     “Well, a light day.” There was the click of the lock engaging once more. “One final fitting, one delivery, and one consult.” 

     Marinette sighed as he slipped off her jacket to hang. “And about fifty hours of work to get through.”

     “Just imagine how much less that could be with a staff,” Tess said, carefully enunciating from the front of the shop. 

     “You don’t have to stay, really,” she said, head resting against his neck for a moment. “This is not an exciting process.”

     Adrien’s fingers ran down the sides of her spine, then back again. “I need to read, it’s either here or at home. And I like it, here.”

     “With a staff,” repeated the assistant. 

     Her eyes rolled and Marinette turned her attention to her work, everyone and everything almost certainly fading out. 

     He imagined that Tess’ performance had been as much aimed at himself as her boss. Clearly she was overwhelmed, and clearly this little shop he appreciated so much would not serve a staff. As Alya had said, Marinette wasn’t one to look after herself the same way she did for others. Perhaps his first big test, having survived her parents, would be to convince her to allow her business to grow. He wasn’t able to save her gowns from the rage of his father, but if he could facilitate more of them… maybe it would almost even out. 

     “Did you have any dreams last night?”

     It had been silent in the studio for probably half an hour, but for the sound of the sewing machine and Tess’ keyboard and music quietly playing in the background. Marinette hadn’t moved, her body gave no indication she had spoken at all. Adrien pushed himself up from where he had been lounging on the loveseat, scrolling through the script. 

     “Not really. You?”

     “I don’t remember anything.”

     He rose, to touch her shoulder as she continued her work. “Is that why you got so hammered? You didn’t want to remember anything?”

     “That was part of it,” she admitted. 

     The rest, he was certain, had to do with his father. “I’m sorry.”

     The sewing machine stopped, her hand slipped over his. “Nothing’s your fault. Is your mother alright?” 

     “Yeah,” he said, doing his best to sound believable. “Distressed by it all, of course, but otherwise… his ire didn’t seem directed at her. And I left the staff very explicit instructions to immediately contact me if that changes.”

     Marinette’s shoulders slumped. “It’s just me.”

     Adrien sank down to his knees beside her. “It’s him,” he insisted. “And no one else.”

     She nodded, but clearly didn’t agree. 

     “Who cares what he thinks?” He rest his head against her shoulder. 

     “I care about how it effects you and your mom.”

     He frowned. “His actions are in no way your fault, and neither is how they effect us. I want you to be part of my life for as long as I have life. He can either accept that or he doesn’t need to be part of it, anymore.”

     Her eyes filled with affection as she looked up, even if he could still read subtitles of guilt there. Something else, too….

     And then, it was gone. A different Marinette stepped forward. “Alors, what’s the script about?” 

     Adrien wouldn’t ask what it was she had just decided to cover from him. Instead, he straightened and stretched as he went back to the loveseat. “I’m seventy pages in and I’m still not sure.”

     She laughed. “So is that a thumbs down?”

     “No, I sort of like it. And it would be completely different from anything I’ve ever done, which is very appealing.”

     “Soooooo that would make you, like, a rude, ugly, homeless junkie?”

     “More or less, yeah,” he chuckled. “I told Pascal to quietly get the word out that I wanted more challenging roles, needed to broaden my image, and this would definitely do that.”

     “Be difficult to make you ugly, though.”

     “Well, that’s why I said more or less.”

     As she laughed again, Adrien thought of how it would feel to have her at his side on a red carpet. Finally, someone worth having with him. He had never had a date for them before, opting to go alone, or letting Pascal toddle along for his ego’s sake, or his mother. He didn’t like people knowing what he was doing, who he was seeing. He didn’t owe anyone that part of his life. 

     Marinette was different. 

     She was humming along with the music, only the sound of her voice bringing his attention to the song. It was Kitty Section, the band Luka Couffaine was in. Adrien felt a small— idiotic— sting of jealousy as he looked at the jacket being created for the guitarist, hanging carefully on the shoulders of a dress form. A labor of love, surely.

     Everything she created was a labor of love, but….

     He wasn’t jealous, exactly. Because that was idiotic. The memory of the dream the night before twisted his gut into a painful facsimile of Chat Noir’s jealousy, though, as he wondered who had left that mark on her neck in a world where he and she weren’t together. 

     And he had a good guess. 

     You’re fucking kidding me, right? admonished his inner Pascal, a sort of devil on his shoulder that Adrien had constructed over the years, for when his friend wasn’t around and he felt himself getting a little too… Adrien. And he was spot on, as usual. 

     He might be cracking up, just a little. 

     Adrien watched her sew, even though he could see little more than the subtle way her shoulders shifted as she carefully fed fabric under the humming needle, and reflected once more on how drastically his life had changed in such little time. 

     Would he be having the dreams if they hadn’t met? Would she? Would the mysterious masked partners be just that, mysterious? 

     No. These dreams, or whatever they were, were happening because they were together. That static they had become so used to, jumping between their fingers, it was just a hint of the energy that seemed to swim between the two. 

     Did his father feel it? Was that why he had been knocked so off-kilter? 

     Did he sense Hawkmoth, somewhere inside himself? 

Chapter Text

     Marinette came awake gasping, to find the bed empty beside her. 

     She had been trapped on the bottom of the Seine, tangled in some old netting. Her weapon and tool, the yo-yo, had been knocked from her hand as she suffered a great blast at at the hands of an Akumatized electrician. The feeling of sickening, out of control weightlessness had been so real as she sailed over the rooftops, before plunging backwards into the water. 

     The Seine in Paris isn’t deep, but more than deep enough to drown a person. She had been stunned by the hit and the journey and the impact and the water, and first thought the reason her legs weren’t responding correctly was because she’d been grievously injured. Somehow, when realizing she was twisted up in something, the panic had become even worse. 

     The surface wasn’t far, maybe two meters. It was dusk, but enough light penetrated from the lamps lining the river to see that there was nothing within reach to help her, no old glass bottles or sharp rocks. The roping she was caught in was slick with moss, making it difficult to pull. It was tight around her shoulders, her chest, her legs were pinned together. 

     Air was so close. So tangible. One of the bateaux glided over her head, certainly filled with couples on a romantic dinner cruise, unaware of the struggle for life going on just below. 

     I’ve been through so much, and this is what will kill me. 

     There was the thought of her parents, her grandparents. Her friends. There was the thought of a boyfriend, a sort of amorphous lover. Her teammates. 

     Her breath had burst from her body when she hit the water, there wasn’t much time left. Lungs were burning, head ready to explode. 

     She thought of no one knowing where she had been shot off to, of a search of streets and rooftops as her body floated gently along with the current, down here. Sooner or later, a jogger or a child would spot the smudge of red beneath the water and the horror would be revealed. 

     It was just as the darkness was closing in that she heard the sound of something splashing into the river, felt water pressing down from above. There were green eyes, then, filling up all of her vision. A hand cupped the back of her head as something was pressed between her lips that would allow her to breathe again. That gasp had woken her up. 

     Her fingers went to the side of her neck, where she found her pulse bounding. And though she knew she should close her eyes, calm herself, and flush away the memories of the dream, Marinette pushed herself out of bed. She wanted to find those green eyes. 

     Adrien was sitting over Le Monde in the kitchen, the steam from a mug of coffee caressing his face. The sight relaxed her more than half an hour of trying to forget the dream would have. 

     “Hey,” he said, voice a bit gravelly, when she wrapped her arms around him from behind. His hands slid over her skin, he leaned back into her embrace. “Sorry, I woke up a while ago and couldn’t get back to sleep and was afraid I’d bother you.”

     She squeezed, rubbing her face against his neck. The warmth of his skin, the smell of his body, she had to absorb these things as completely and immediately as possible. It was the only way to break herself out of the hold of those horrible memories. 

     “You okay?” he asked gently.

     “Hmmm.”

     “What was it, this time?”

     “I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered, focusing on the way the odor of fresh coffee mixed with that of his hair. 

     “Were you underwater?”

     Marinette felt terror seize her, and it was as if she had been plunged once more into that dark river. Cold, scared, hopeless. Her body stiffened and it yanked her back, upright, away from him. Adrien realized, and by the time he turned around his tired eyes were full of apology. 

     “Shit, I’m sorry!” He pushed himself out of his chair with a sudden urgency to get his arms around her. “Marinette, I’m—“

     She shook her head, backing away. Out of the kitchen. Into the living room of a flat that was beginning to feel as much like her home as his. 

     Why couldn’t she just enjoy it?!

     She turned, her hands covering her face as if they would block out the ghost of the sight of Chat Noir’s eyes, and the fact that Adrien’s were a perfect facsimile of concern and determination, only without the feline shape. 

     “Marinette,” he whispered, embracing her. It felt so nice. His touch always felt so nice. 

     She desperately missed those days of runaway romance, with nothing to temper it but the hours in the day. 

     “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

     Her fingers gripped his sides, handfuls of shirt balled up in her fists. Was she shaking? If she wasn’t, it felt as if she should be. 

     Adrien was hushing her softly, like a child. Murmuring that things were okay into her temple. One hand was rubbing her back, the other was in her hair. And then it slipped up, to cup the back of her head, and the snippet of the dream it resurrected the horror all over again. She shuddered out of his arms, and walked quickly towards the bedroom. 

     What were these dreams? Why were they happening? It was another morning when she had barely awakened before feeling the urge to pull on her clothes and escape from that place, when so recently before she had never wanted to leave. 

     “No no no no no, please don’t go!” He wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her body back against his. His lips moved against her neck. “Please don’t go, Marinette. Please. I hate seeing you leave like this.”

     She sighed, slumping out of his arms to sit on the side of the bed, where he immediately joined her. “I hate these dreams,” she sobbed. “I hate this. I hate not just being us, anymore.”

     “We are us,” Adrien whispered. “We are, and always will be.”

     Marinette leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. “But who are we?”

     He slouched them both down onto the bed, and curled his body around hers. The sensation of it, of his chest rising and falling against her back, it felt so wonderful, so comforting. “What do you mean?”

     She drew a deep breath, considering her words. “Why is this happening? These horrible dreams, why us? It doesn’t make any sense!”

     “I know.” Adrien squeezed her. “I know. I don’t understand it, either.”

     “I want them to stop. I just want to be with you, again.”

     “So, just be with me,” he said gently, nuzzling her. “Ignore them, during the day. There’s no reason to let them take over our lives. They’ll stop, sooner or later.”

     “Will they?” Marinette sobbed. “I’ve had them every night we’ve spent together.” 

     He hushed her, holding her closer. “Let’s just be together for now.” 

     She sighed. Her hands covered his, and squeezed. 

     “I got you out,” he offered. “Maybe they’re meant to tell us we’d be there for each other, no matter what or when or where.”

     “I already know that I would be, though.”

     He nosed through her hair, finding her neck with her lips. “So would I.” 

     Her eyes closed. She focused on the comfort she found in his arms, stupid dreams or not. This was worth it. 

     Adrien was continuing to kiss her neck, his body was now pressing forward against hers. “We’ve spent a lot of time in this bed just sleeping,” he muttered, “I feel like our ratio needs some work.”

     Marinette laughed, reaching back to encourage his hips to push ever harder. “Are you just trying to distract me?”

     “Well, not just.” His hand ran up her side, beneath her camisole, over her breast. Her body responded, but she found she couldn’t roll over to kiss him; it would bring her gaze to his eyes. Those incredible eyes, of Chat Noir. 

     There was a bit of a commotion, as he walked her to the studio. Just fans, not media, but there were cries of excitement, photos. He saw her sort of huddle at the attention, even less comfortable with it than usual, and hurry to the safely of her little building. 

     “Yeah,” Tess said, from behind her desk, “there’s been some lingering out there this morning. Did you two do anything to make news?”

     “Not that I know of,” Marinette said, as Adrien helped to remove her jacket. 

     “Full day.” The assistant took the both of them in with her usual critical eye. 

     “I know.” 

     Adrien followed her into the back of the shop, admired her slim arms as she hung up the jacket, then took her into his own as she sighed. “I think maybe you should take Tess’ advise to get a bigger operation going. A generous benefactor could probably get that moving pretty quickly.”

     She laughed a bit. 

     “It’ll take some pressure off you, love.”

     “I’d find some way to replace it with more.”

     He smirked. “I don’t doubt that. But, still, consider it, okay? It’s not like Pascal really does all that much, I could put him to work looking for a bigger place.”

     “And I could find some super top-notch seamstresses!” Tess contributed from the front, betraying her eavesdropping.

     Marinette shook her head in annoyance, going to the three gowns hung up on the day’s rack. Two looked ready to deliver, the other was very much in-progress. 

     “It would give you more time to develop a line,” he offered. “To devote to what you’re passionate about.”

     “This is what I’m passionate about.” She fluffed the skirt of the middle dress, perhaps a little more aggressively than she otherwise would. “I like this place. I like that it’s small and comfortable and intimate.”

     He knew when to back off. “Okay, well… I’ll get out of your way, then.”

     She rose, frowning. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—“

     “You didn’t.” He kissed her forehead. “I love you. See you tonight?”

     Marinette snuggled against him for a long moment, quiet. Adrien rubbed her back as he took deep breaths of her hair. “I love you,” she finally said, pulling back to take a seat at her workstation. 

     “Bon journée,” he wished Tess on the way out the door, and into the immediate attention of half a dozen of his fans. Signing autographs, smiling in photos and being gracious as ever, Adrien was distracted by his thoughts. 

     He hated how troubled she had been that morning. Hated, every bit as much as she did, the dreams and the way they were dragging on their happiness. 

     Even if he did seem like quite the badass in them. 

     “Uhhhhh?”

     Adrien smirked. “Guess that answers my question as to whether you’re working hard as ever in my employ.”

     Pascal seemed to stretch, on the other end of the call. There was a great, long sound like an elephant giving birth, or something. “Of course I am.”

     He shook his head, returning to the back seat of his car. “Alright, well, I’ll go have lunch with my mom, then. Get your ass into the shower and I’ll see you at one.”

     “Do you really want to see me, though? I’m an ugly fuck.”

     “Mmmmm, no you aren’t baby,” muttered a female voice in the background. Sounded Russian. A new one, then. 

     “One, Pascal. I have some stuff for you to do.”

     “So does she, though.”

     “One.”

     Emilie Agreste was bright and unencumbered, when he reached her office. As they lunched and she spoke passionately about the plans she was making for their acting workshop that summer, Adrien couldn’t stop thinking about her absence from his dreams. 

     Everyone was in them. Even Nino, a guy he had just met, had a part to play. Why didn’t she?

     “How’s father been?” he asked suddenly, actually cutting her off. 

     She didn’t seem offended, though. Or surprised. “He’s doing better,” she assured. 

     No more explosions, then. Why would there be? He had destroyed everything Marinette had made, removed all physical traces of her from his home. And Adrien certainly wasn’t going to expose her to that place again. 

     “He hasn’t been sleeping well,” she said, not for the first time. “Bad dreams, I think, but he won’t speak of them.”

     Adrien’s eyes closed, his stomach dropping. 

     He’s having them, too. 

     Hawkmoth. He does know it. 

     Was that why he was so opposed to Marinette? He saw in her Ladybug, his downfall? 

     But they were just dreams, that was all. 

     He repeated it to himself, even though he had stopped believing. 

     “Maman,” he whispered, “please, you have to promise me, if he—“

     She smiled that way she did whenever he said such a thing to her, the you’re so young and innocent look. “My love—“

     “Don’t placate me, please. Don’t insult me that way. I know the insanity I saw in him, and the violence. There is no excuse for that sort of thing, especially so close to you.”

     Her head bowed slightly, appeasing him. 

     “Though I won’t be matching you anymore, as I had hoped, Marinette is making me a suit that I will be wearing for the red carpet in April.”

     Emilie’s brows rose. He tried to read her expression, but she gave little away of her thoughts as they turned. Finally, though, there was the smallest hint of a smile at the right corner of her mouth. “I will be wearing the same gown I wore at the premiere last month.”

     Adrien was just as surprised as he had ever been by her. Someone of her stature didn’t ever wear a gown twice, and wearing one twice in a row? It was going to cause more talk than any new one could have. He wondered if she would say anything about why, when asked. Even if she didn’t, it was a personal middle finger to his father. 

     If he bothered to notice. 

     “Would you come over, maybe tomorrow night? Have dinner with us?”

     Her head tilted, just a few degrees. “Has she moved in with you?”

     “Not officially. Not yet.”

     She smiled. “How long until you propose?”

     Adrien chuckled, his mood swung back into much more pleasant territory. “As long as I can stand to wait, which I doubt will be all that long.”

     “It makes me very happy to finally see you following your heart, Adrien,” she told him. “I know how much you’ve held yourself back, at times.”

     “I finally have a reason to do so.” 

     They finished déjeuner and Adrien lingered for a while, kindly giving Pascal a bit of extra time to get himself to his usual semi-presentable state. He wondered if he was driven to spend so much more time with his mother now because of his father’s insanity, or because Marinette was making him think so much more of family, or because of those fucking dreams. For whatever reason, he was glad he was. 

     Pascal’s neck was, basically, one gigantic hickey. Adrien didn’t even know anyone over the age of fifteen did those. 

     “You feeling alright, Pascal?” He asked as his friend fell into the other side of the car with the muscle tone of a dead fish. 

     “Russian dolls, mate,” he said, dragging his feet far enough in that the driver could close the door, “some angry, angry women and I love it.”

     Adrien sighed. 

     He put Pascal to work looking for places for an expanded studio— or, at least, someplace that Marinette could have a small staff working. Somewhere close to her current location, if possible. And he only had to wake the bastard up three times. 

     At six, he released his friend from the torture of work. He had been trying to get a hold of Marinette for an hour, to see about dinner, but with no response he treated Pascal to his favorite Italian place. Returning home afterwards, there was still no Marinette, and no messages from her. Adrien sat down and tried to read until eight, when he rose to physically retrieve her from her studio, only to get a call. 

     “I’m really drunk,” she muttered. 

Chapter Text

     “So what’s going on with you, mate?” Pascal slid into the seat across from him, after a jaunt to the restroom that had taken roughly quintuple the time due to a cute waitress in his path. “Adrien?” He whistled. “Hello?”

     He startled a bit, being reminded that his wandering thoughts were attached to a physical body. “Oh, sorry. What?”

     One of Pascal’s eyebrows arched over a pint of beer. “I was just asking what’s going on with you. There’s a whole lotta empty-eyed interludes happening, the last little bit.”

     “Oh.” He looked off to the left, through the windows to the day beyond. It was bright, beautiful. Cherry trees were beginning to blossom. 

     “Yeah, just like that,” Pascal noted. 

     Adrien scowled. Perhaps he should take comfort that his friend was concerned about him, but he was mostly annoyed by the news that he was so upset that he wasn’t able to hide it. 

     The last few weeks… the days, for the most part, were normal. He and Marinette, stealing bits of time together. She was becoming ever busier, and Adrien’s schedule was starting to become more filled. What used to be his break— after Paris Fashion Week in January and before London’s in June— wasn’t so much so, anymore. That wasn’t a bad thing, he enjoyed the projects he had taken up, be they little charitable events or stage acting. And now, even if he did have the time to randomly spend all day with Marinette, she absolutely did not. But he still stole her away for lunch, or brought it to the shop. He would surprise her with flowers and tea, and she would swoon the way she did in those first days. Their feet still slid against each other’s, beneath tables. 

     At night….

     “Nothing,” he muttered. 

     Pascal’s eyes rolled. “For being an actor, you’re incredibly bad at hiding things from me, Adrien.”

     He took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Nothing… just… it’s nothing.”

     The evenings, often, were fine. They’d make dinner together, or have a date to the ballet or the symphony. And then they’d go to bed, and she slept like the dead. She fell asleep in the middle of foreplay, once. He’d been confused and concerned, until he went to the bathroom and found an empty pack of sleeping pills in the bin. Be it alcohol or pills, she was trying not to dream. 

     He hadn’t had so much luck; the dreams kept coming. 

     They weren’t horrible, though. Chat Noir and Ladybug were a great team, and for the most part they kicked some ass and went back to their lives. They took patrols together, guarding Paris from anything that could mess up Paris’ day, and hung out above the city with an iced coffee or bubble tea, laughing and chatting. Sort of odd conversations, since they couldn’t stray too far into their lives. Sometimes whatever they were saying took a sudden 90 degree turn as one of them realized they were about to reveal something specific, like what club they went to with friends, or what park they went to to read and disconnect. But they were mostly nice things, these dreams. 

     Marinette was scared of them. Scared by them, not because of the content so much as the shared experience. And he sort of was, too, but there didn’t seem to be any stopping it. So Adrien tried to take them in stride, take them as a sign that the two of them were a force to be reckoned with, no matter what they faced. Especially with his father. 

     He still didn’t like that his mother wasn’t in them, though. 

     It had become even more strange, since one of his father’s assistants had shown up in a dream a few nights before. Why the fuck would Nathalie be included, but not his mother? She hadn’t been involved in Gabriel’s tantrums against the two of them. It made no sense. 

     Not that they did, at all. 

     “Something’s going on with you and the missus, yeah?” Pascal asked, before finishing off his pint. Had he chugged it, or was Adrien just checked out that long? 

     “It’s just… just the stuff with my father,” he lied. A little. “It’s weighing on her.”

     “I mean, fuck the man.” He lounged back in his chair. “He’s a wanker, well known. Not like you give a fuck what he thinks. Why let it screw with the lovey-doviness?”  

     “It’s grating. She’s a sweetheart who doesn’t like conflict.” 

     He chuckled. “Obviously, she needs to spend more time with me. I’m always happy to be a bad influence.” 

     Adrien managed a smirk. “Known and appreciated, but I can’t exactly picture it.”

     Although, he couldn’t help but think of Ladybug. Not aggressive, exactly, but driven. Unstoppable. A crusader for good. And woe be to anyone who got in her way. He adored every part of Marinette, but he also liked that vision of her as someone who would take no shit. 

     “That being said, though, you’re a big boy and she’s a big girl. If such bullshit with your daddy is threatening something you each so happily threw yourselves head-first into, you’re both pathetic losers who have no business being out of grade school, to say nothing of being in a relationship.”

     His eyes narrowed. 

     The waitress that had so distracted Pascal walked slowly passed the table and he took the bait, saying something in Russian that made her blush and giggle. 

     “You’ve never really explained to me how you’re fluent in so many languages,” Adrien mused, pushing salad around his plate. 

     He shrugged. “Just something you pick up eventually, isn’t it?”

     “Eventually, like with all that time you’ve spent in Russia?”

     Pascal’s expression sort of fluttered. “I have, but… I dunno, to be honest. Maybe I was a baby?” He looked up to the waitress as a new beer was set in front of him and flashed a winning smile. “Bolshoe spasibo, love.”  

     Wouldn’t be surprising, he supposed. With Pascal’s family business, he’d certainly been all over the less-peaceful parts of the world before he was out of diapers. 

     Maybe that’s why he was having these dreams, he was unconsciously jealous of his friend’s much more interesting life. Being born to be a model wasn’t exactly the height of adventure. 

     “Your parents ever say they want you to take over things in the future?”

     He let out an ahhh worthy of a beer advertisement. “Nah, I’ve very carefully crafted my level of disappointment to be too high to have things expected of me, too low to be booted from the family coffers.”

     Adrien grinned. “What are you going to do when you grow up, then? You can’t ride my coattails forever.”

     Pascal’s eyes widened. “Mais non?”

     His phone buzzed with a message, a picture. Marinette, half-hidden behind a substantial bouquet of lavender lilies. Stop being so sweet, my shop isn’t big enough for it! xoxo

     He smiled, very slightly relaxing back in his chair. “Don’t suppose you have any tips for how to emotionally support a girlfriend and yourself through a period of very high stress?”

     Pascal laughed into his beer, splashing the front of his own AMI Paris cardigan which was, thankfully, black. 

     “Ouais, point taken.” 

     “Stress is stupid,” he said, blotting at the virgin wool. “What’ll worrying about something improve? That’s right, fuck-all. It’s a baby-sized fight or flight intro that humans should’ve right grown out of by now. You need to take control of that shite before it takes control of you.”

     “By you, are you referring to me in particular, or the entire human race?” Adrien smirked. 

     Pascal gestured wildly, nearly striking a passing waiter. “All of you!”

     “May we all someday obtain your level of enlightenment, Pascal.” Adrien raised his drink. 

     “Feel like it’s sort of a losing game for humanity if you don’t.” Their glasses clinked. 

     He’d found several possibilities for a larger studio for Marinette, and Tess had found several possibilities for seamstresses of the caliber she would be comfortable with, but still she hadn’t approved the plan. 

     One option was a larger footprint roughly twice the space of her current location a few blocks away, closer to the heart of the Marais. Another was a first story space across the street and a few buildings away, which could serve as a back room of sorts— her new employees could work there, and it would allow more inventory. The current shop could stay as it was. The third was a mixture of the previous: a two story spot that could be showroom and work area in one, but still claim an intimate feel. 

     She said she liked where she was, that she could handle the work on her own. Adrien was pretty sure she didn’t think she could handle any more change, at the moment. 

     They spent more time with her parents, and with his mother— away from the manor, of course. There had been no more outburst from his father, and no more of Emilie’s nearly catatonic bouts. It was nice, all of it. They were a happy couple. 

     During the daytime, anyway. 

     He’d wanted to take her with him to an event in London, several days previous. A nice mini vacation, someplace they weren’t so incredibly visible. And, he had hoped, maybe they’d discover the dreams didn’t follow. Maybe it was his bed that was cursed or something. But Marinette insisted she couldn’t take even two days away from her sewing machine. 

     And he’d had the dreams, anyway. If she hadn’t, he was certain she would’ve mentioned it by then. 

     He could see her cracking inside, when she woke up with bloodshot eyes or insisted she had to get (back) to work. Tiny, tiny cracks, but cracks nonetheless. And he was to blame, one way or another, for everything hurting her. 

     It was a horrible feeling. 

     So he did what he could. Little gestures and surprises, something to keep her smiling, all the while feeling like something awful was lurking in the shadows. 

     “Alors,” he sighed, “what do I need to know?”

     Pascal straightened, setting his phone aside. “Contract for the film should be delivered today, I’ll have a read through and give you my thoughts tomorrow. Simone messaged to say that you and your mum are wanted for an episode of a series France TV is doing on intergenerational families of actors. I’m getting you on a panel about French language film at the Toronto Film Festival in September and they’ll want you to do a masterclass on whatever along with that. And Cannes is coming up fast.”

     Adrien nodded, digesting it all. He had mixed feelings on Cannes, always had. It was the premier film festival, an opportunity to get to know some astonishingly brilliant people. But at the same time it was the epitome of grandiosity, peacocking, and egotism. His mother had stopped going a decade before, unless she needed to be there for a film of her own, or of his. 

     “I don’t think I’ll go this year.”

     Pascal’s jaw nearly hit the floor. His posture melted immediately into that of a toddler. “No!”

     He smirked. “You can still go. It’s as far from Marinette’s comfort zone as it gets, and I’m not wildly interested in anything this time.”

     Arms crossed sternly with a huff. “As if she’d go, anyway. Come on, just a few days! No one would take a second look at me if I’m not with you, Adrien, unless it’s to make sure I’m not stuffing jewels into my pockets.”

     Adrien chuckled and crossed his arms as well, though in a much more thoughtful pose. Stroking his chin, he nodded. “I could honestly see you as an international jewel thief.”

     Pascal revealed a wicked smile. “Who says I’m not, already?”

     He sighed, shaking his head. “Absolutely not me.”

     The bell chimed, though she hadn’t heard anyone knock. Panic surged through Marinette, as she frantically searched her brain for an appointment she might have forgotten. Tess wouldn’t have allowed that, though— she had always been supremely detail-oriented, and become even more fastidious as her boss had come a bit unwound. 

     “Madame, it is an honor.”

     She finished her row of stitches and jumped up to find Emilie Agreste, her tall, lithe figure standing in the middle of the front room, with Tess’ substantially shorter, rounder figure eagerly bouncing from the door in her general direction. The woman, the epitome of elegance, was smiling and thanking her for her praise. 

     “Mada— Emilie,” she corrected herself awkwardly, “quelle surprise.” Marinette smiled, did her best to project calm and confidence. Why was she there? Had Adrien told her about… things? 

     Emilie Agreste greeted her warmly, they exchanged cheek kisses. “I hope you don’t mind my dropping in, Marinette. I’m sure you’re quite busy.”

     “You’re always welcome, of course. May I get you something to drink?”

     “Oh, no, thank you. I was hoping, perhaps, that you might have a finished gown in my size?”

     Her brows rose and confusion clouded her brain, already foggy from bad sleep and stress. “I don’t understand.”

     Emilie smiled conspiratorially and walked passed her to the back of the shop. There, she began to gently look through gowns that were half-finished or simply not special enough for the small display space up front. “I have a small event to go to. There’s no red carpet, so I am afraid it will not be the exposure I had hoped to get you, but also it’s less likely that Gabriel will take any note.” She looked over her shoulder with eyes that sparkled just as her son’s did when he was plotting something. “Even if it is only a gesture, gestures are important.”

     Marinette’s eyes flooded with unexpected tears, and immediately Emilie’s full attention turned. 

     “My dear,” she cooed, delicate hands going onto her shoulders. 

     “I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “It’s just… very touching.”

     Her smile was sad. “It shouldn’t be necessary at all. I cannot tell you how crushed I am that those incredible pieces were destroyed. While I’m sure it’s nothing compared to you, as the creator, the loss of such works of art is tragic.”

     Marinette couldn’t help but smirk. “I’m not sure I would go so far as to call them works of art.”

     “Oh, my love,” she said, touching Marinette’s cheek, “they might not have been the Mona Lisa, but do you not believe DaVinci’s earlier works would be mourned?”

     It was difficult not to be emotional, at such words and such kindness. Her son had become so much like her, and at that moment she felt the full weight of the last weeks upon her. Marinette had been trying to live the fairytale life that they had begun, while avoiding the nightmares it had brought. And they were nightmares, even if the subject matter wasn’t always objectively frightening. And they wouldn’t stop, even when Adrien was out of town, even when she was in her old bed. It was like an infection that she couldn’t defeat. 

     So she had coped in whatever way she could, trying to knock herself out deep enough that she wouldn’t dream. When it didn’t work she was left exhausted and haunted, and when it did she still awoke no more rested than when she got into bed. Adrien hadn’t addressed it directly, but it was clear he was distressed. 

     She should talk to him more. 

     “I don’t want you be… punished, because of me.”

     Emilie laughed as she gently slid gowns across a hanger. “I am much too old to be punished, Marinette. And even so, doing the right thing is always worth the risk.”

     She straightened her posture, turning into the proudest version of herself she could muster. “Most everything back here is in progress, but that would allow more leeway in design. The gowns up front are finished, however I could still add a number of embellishments.”

     Her brows raised. “You cannot possibly have any time for extra work.”

     “There’s always more time to be found for a worthy cause.”

     The actress smiled, and nodded.

     As Emilie took several gowns into the changing area, Marinette felt a strange sense of victory. Or, at least, accomplishment. The feeling of fighting back. 

     Her phone buzzed on the work station, and she found a message from Adrien: I have some free time. Anyone naked in your studio?

     She grinned. He’d threatened several times to make a special visit, and several times had nearly turned a normal visit into a special visit, but something always seemed to interrupt. Marinette, herself, several times. But….

     Your mother. 

     It took a few moments for him to reply, though it showed typing several times. 

     The answer was supposed to be “me.” Did Pascal steal Marinette’s phone?

     Marinette laughed. I mean, literally, your mother is currently trying things on. 

     Wow!!! Guess I’ll delay the visit a little while, then. 

     She wasn’t religious, never had been. She didn’t believe that a higher power could be inserting shared stories into their heads at night, like Jeanne d’Arc being directed towards victory. But, now, she couldn’t help but think of those dreams, and as much as they terrified her… fighting back.