Noblesse Oblige

by Yilena

After years of not talking, Marinette moves in with her childhood best friend. She discovers that although he looks different, he's still her favourite person, even if he didn't grow out of his jealous tendencies. AU.

AN: For thejumpingbean14. Hi, Bean! Thank you so much for requesting this, it was a lot of fun. I know I disappointed you from not knowing anything about space, but I hope this makes up for it. This is tagged as fantasy but it's honestly not a large part of the story? Most of it is these two dorks growing up and getting along together. Teasers for my upcoming stories can be found on my tumblr (xiueryn). A link to my ko-fi page to request a story can be found there, too.

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Chat Noir © Thomas Astruc

When Marinette was five, she moved with her family to the country her father was from. Wide-eyed and curious, she struggled with knowing two languages at first which meant that when she joined school, she couldn't stick to one without confusing her class-mates or teachers (the latter spoke to her slowly and patiently, giving her more attention than the other students at times which sparked jealousy).

It was because of that that her mother arranged for her to meet with one of her neighbours after school. Marinette had her dark-coloured hair tied into two buns as she turned up at the elegant porch from across the street—a house that she'd seen in passing when her mother lifted her up to see the window—her hand holding her mother's nervously as the doorbell rang.

Adrien was months older than her, already six, but he was within her year at another school. With bright blond-coloured hair that ran through his family and green eyes, he was a complete contrast to her. She'd gotten used to almost everyone having dark hair from where she was from before, knowing only a handful of people—including her father—that had lighter hair, so her first reaction to him was to gawk and wonder whether he was really a boy.

She didn't remember it well, but apparently, Adrien had taken to her immediately. Her mother often told her of how the little boy would run across the road to knock excitedly on their door, asking whether Marinette was free to play with him.

He didn't get annoyed at her for her limited speech, nor when she didn't know the games that he wanted to play. They became the best of friends despite not attending school together, the two of them always running over to each other's houses, enough so that they became acquainted with the other's parents easily.

With the two of them being inseparable through their early years, it meant they pulled faces across the road when they stepped out of their homes in different school uniforms, each equally displeased with the outfit. The first time she'd seen Adrien with his combed hair and a suit-like jacket buttoned up, she'd laughed and pointed at him while he scowled, hiding behind his mother's body as they walked to their car.

As they grew up, Adrien almost ten and starting to look awkward with his limbs despite how they were the same height, it became clear that their families were different. While Marinette's parents always asked whether she wanted a birthday party—to which she replied that she only wanted to spend the day with Adrien, rather than the annoying kids that she went to school with—he wasn't given the option to have a large one.

She turned up to his, of course, but there was never any other children. It was filled with family members with different shades of blond hair, older relatives that came along and crooned at how tall he was becoming and congratulating him on his grades, and every time Marinette saw the curve of his frown after another uncomfortable hug, she always held his hand and tried to sneak out. Sometimes they succeeded and made it to his large back garden, playing with the different equipment that was out there, while others they ran to his room and tried to barricade the door, smothering their laughter as they did so.

She made a childish promise to throw him the biggest party possible when he was sixteen; filled with friends, the cake he liked, and definitely no clowns like she'd seen at someone else's party.

When they both moved up a grade and started a new school, Adrien moped for the last week of their summer. Marinette was old enough to wear her own clothes instead of the awkward school uniform she'd worn before, but since his was a private school, he still had to wear one.

"I don't get why I can't just go to yours," he grumbled, resting his head on her shoulder as they watched a film in her home. They'd arranged bed sheets to hang over the top of them, a terrible-looking tent that fell down whenever they moved too fast. "I hate most of my class-mates."

She hummed. "Only most? I think I hate all of them from the stories you've told me."

Adrien made a non-committal noise.

She'd asked her parents about it once. It turned out that Adrien's parents were well-known enough that their pictures had been in the paper before, and due to that they'd decided to send Adrien to a school where there were other kids like him. Though, from what she heard from her friend, a lot of them were stuck up and expected others to do everything for them.

Adrien had his moments of being spoiled, sure, but he knew how to use a dishwasher. Marinette had been bewildered when she'd visited his home for dinner and seen the machine in action, then she'd bemoaned and dramatically washed the dishes when she was at home, all but begging her parents to get one (they'd given in once she'd used too much soap, but she'd gotten grounded for that stunt).

There was a clear difference between them for meals, too; when his parents hosted dinner parties, the meals were mostly about presentable, with too small portions at times, while when his family joined hers for dinner, it was filled with her favourite dishes and other ones that impressed due to their wonderful smell and taste.

She'd been a bit ignorant of the differences in their lives until he got his first cell phone. It was sleek, one of the most expensive designs that was out that year—it was definitely something that she wouldn't be trusted with.

When she'd asked why she couldn't have a cell phone—she was eleven, she thought she deserved it—her parents had to point out the place she frequented often was Adrien's house, and that she usually rejected the offers from her friends from school when they wanted to go out with her.

Grumpily explaining their reasoning to Adrien the next day, he asked her quietly, "Why don't you go out with them?"

Marinette pulled a face. "Why would I want to? You're so better than them."

"That doesn't mean you can't have other friends."

"Well, yes," she started, pulling her hair out of the tight ponytail that her mother had insisted she wear to school. Although she'd managed to escape school uniforms, tidy and tucked away hair was something she couldn't outgrow, apparently. "They're the kind of friends that I can see during classes. I want to spend all the time I can with you, you know?"

He made a frustrated noise, not quite meeting her eyes. "You might want to ditch me one day."

"What?" Marinette exclaimed, voice unnecessarily loud as she turned to face him, putting her hands on his shoulders with enough force to make him wince and glare at her. "I've been glued to your side for six years, why would we stop now?"

They were close enough that they did their homework together, even though their curriculum was different. Adrien's mother often helped them before they were allowed to go off and play, a sort of routine that they'd adapted to over the years. From being allowed to have sleepovers from the age of seven where they had to try not shove each other out of bed or hog the covers too much, to trying to catch each other's attention from waving madly from their windows across the street—all the things they'd done together was sacred, ones that she couldn't never imagine doing with anyone else.

Adrien with his dorky choice in television shows, the dimples on his cheeks that had made him cry when one of his class-mates mocked him for them, and his messy hair that his parents constantly made him stand still so they could brush it on the doorstep—all of it was things that she associated with her best friend, the one person that she trusted to take her side when she had a stupid argument with a class-mate or tripped over and needed comfort (and a plaster, he always had the nice ones that didn't fall off immediately).

"I—" Adrien cut himself off, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked down again. "It—it could happen. It's unhealthy to be so close with someone."

There had been teasing, of course. When art projects were assigned and she'd drawn a picture of the two of them together, readily telling anyone who asked that he was her best friend, she'd received taunts due to the playground teasing that was associated with friendships at school. Perhaps it was because they knew each other outside of it that their friendship was nothing like the ones she saw there; there was no shoving, no mean comments that the teacher made them apologise for, and definitely no exaggerated kissing noises when others spotted them together.

They didn't go to the local park together often. Adrien had more than enough play equipment in his garden, and when they grew bored of that, they could always switch over to her house and find something else to do there.

"Unhealthy?" she parroted, grip becoming tighter on his shoulders as she processed the words. "That's—that's bullshit!"

He gaped at her use of the curse. "You can't say that!"

"Why not?" Marinette shot back, stubbornly staring him down. "Someone had the guts to tell you that our friendship is unhealthy. I think I'm allowed to say that's bullshit."

"Stop!" Adrien insisted, going as far as to reach out and cover her mouth with his hands. "If my father hears—"

She licked his hand on purpose, causing him to pull back from disgust and wipe it on his clothing.

"Let him!" she shouted, aware that their neighbours could probably hear her. "Then I'll tell him that some dick," Marinette shouted, not even stopping when he made a wheezing noise and looked around to see if a parental figure was coming around the corner, "told you that you can't be friends with a girl!"

Running a hand through his hair, destroying the style it had been in, Adrien retorted, "It's not because you're a girl."

"Oh?" she said loudly, throwing her hands up in a dramatic way that she'd surely be embarrassed about later. "Is it because I'm not rich enough for your snobby class-mates?"

The answer he gave her was barely audible. Furrowing her eyebrows, she had to ask for him to repeat himself, only for her breath to catch as he whispered, "It wasn't—none of my class-mates said it. It was my father."

"Your—he said that?" she questioned in a hushed voice. "Really?"

Not directly to his face, but Adrien told her that she'd heard his parents talking about the two of them.

The two choices on how to react that came to mind were equally terrible; attempting to punch his father wouldn't work well, so she settled with moping instead, matching Adrien's reaction.

When Marinette walked home and sat down on the couch, her sullen mood was immediately picked up on, and it was only when she was halfway through dinner that her eyes prickled as she started to cry. Her parents gave her napkins and reassuring words as she kept quiet, the two of them trying to comfort her no matter what happened, and that kind of wonderful had her crying more.

Scrunching up one of her tissues, she croaked, "Is my friendship with Adrien unhealthy?"

She'd prepared herself for the worse, really, so when her father wrapped her into a hug and told her that it was completely fine, the tears started again.

At the weekend, both of their mothers took her and Adrien to a café, ordering them milkshakes and too much cakes as they told them that there was nothing wrong with being friends with each other. Marinette had grumpily asked if they were sure that Adrien's father thought the same thing—which meant she had to apologise to his mother for the comment—but the end result was that that night, after they'd parted ways and she waiting for dinner, Adrien's father was the one that came to the door to invite her over to spend the night at their house.

Her friends at school found it a bit weird that her closest friend didn't even go to the same school as them—sometimes they were even convinced that he wasn't real—but that changed when she turned twelve and was allowed her own cell phone. It wasn't as nice as Adrien's, but it was hers.

When she took a ridiculous amount of pictures of the two of them together with the intention of showing him off to her other friends, she hadn't expected the reactions she received.

Bewildered, she'd walked through the front door of his house, waving to his mother who didn't even bat an eyelash at her entrance, and settled down on Adrien's bed while she waited for him to return. It always took him a while longer to get home since his school was further away; Marinette was at the age where she could walk without parental supervision, while he couldn't do that due to the distance.

"Oh, no," was the first thing Adrien said as he walked into his bedroom, already undoing his tie after discarding his blazer. "I know that look. Did someone mess with you again?"

With a sigh, she fell back against his duvet. "I think there might be something wrong with me."

"It's perfectly normal not to be able to catch a ball, Marinette," he recited, the same script he always said when she failed to play anything sports-related with him. "You're not a terrible person because you're bad at playing stuff."

"That makes me feel so much better," she muttered sarcastically. "No, I—it's not about that, not really. I didn't even have to play anything today."

He huffed. "Well, lucky you. I had fencing and you know how much I hate that."

"You also hate playing the piano," she pointed out automatically, rolling onto her side so she could look at him. "Your lessons are so weird, Adrien. I can't imagine—wait, you're distracting me from my crisis."

The sight of seeing him taking off his shirt without being embarrassed by her presence just made it worse. Marinette rolled onto her other side, staring at his copious pillows as she waited for him to be done.

The bed moved when he sat down. "So, what's up? I thought today would be a good day since you finally got to show the non-believers that I exist."

"But that's just it," she muttered, not surprised when shuffled over and laid down beside her. "They—it was like they forgot everything I've ever said about you when they saw your picture."

His eyebrows furrowed. "I don't understand."

She grimaced at the thought of it. "I don't know how to say this, really. I—do you have have a crush on anyone?"

Adrien looked bewildered.

That was the best answer she was going to get from him, and she was going to take it as a negative. "Yeah, same. I'm—I'm not seeing anyone like that, you know? There's no one at school that's anywhere as nice as you, so why would I even want to hold their hand?" Marinette ranted, sounding increasingly frustrated as she continued. "But now everyone's insisting that you're my boyfriend and making up stupid rhymes about us because they think you're cute."

"Cute?" he repeated, reaching a hand up to touch his cheek that had started to thin out. "Isn't that usually reserved for girls?"

She flicked his forehead. "I can't see you as anything positive, sorry."

Adrien scowled and swatted her hand away lightly. "Your crisis is that you have a boyfriend?"

"I don't want a boyfriend!" she cried. "It's even worse that it's you. They're not going to listen to me, and it's not like you can just walk into my school and deny it."

"I think I might be missing something here," he quipped as she smothered her face into the duvet. "At my school, girls that have boyfriends are usually the popular ones. Isn't it the same at yours?"

Her voice was muffled as she said, "I don't know. I don't really pay attention to that sort of stuff."

"Ignore them, then," Adrien advised, sounding a lot more serious than before as he reached out and ruffled her hair. "We both know that we're not like that, so it's fine."

Following his advice, Marinette didn't try and defend herself when friends or class-mates asked her about Adrien. She didn't show them any more pictures, keeping them to herself, and although she went to their birthday parties—since they were considered big events—she continued to have hers as small, just her family and Adrien's, while his were still filled with family members that made him feel uncomfortable from the amount of insincere praises or bragging.

Their friendship didn't really change. Both of their parents treated them the same way, all supporting of their sleepovers and time together, and she was grateful for that. When she started to hear that her friend's parents were refusing to let them have sleepovers with someone of the opposite gender, or even meet outside of school, she was baffled at first.

The plus side of knowing Adrien from when he was six was that their neighbours didn't look at them and think they were up to nefarious deeds. Sure, they ran around in the street and tried to learn to skateboard together—which resulted in him sobbing when he'd cut his knees and one of their neighbours came out with patterned plasters to soothe his distress—but they were considered a package from where they lived.

It was commonplace for a neighbour to refer to them as one, or ask Marinette where Adrien had wandered off to when they stopped her in the street. He was never that far behind, and if he pedalled faster than her on bikes, he was kind enough to wait at the bottom of the road so she wouldn't get lost.

They knew each other well. Marinette knew of his fears, how he was quick to be jealous if she spoke about other friends with too much enthusiasm—he was protective of his position as her best friend—and he knew that she was stubborn and made snap judgements too fast; it was the little things that they wouldn't have known if they only went to school together.

Such as him hogging of the covers.

"Give me some," Marinette grumbled, putting her cold feet onto his bare shins. "You're being unfair."

Although their parents didn't make them stop having sleepovers when they'd become teenagers, they'd started to insist that one of them had to sleep on the floor on a make-shift mattress. They tried to stick to it until whoever's parents were asleep and then climbed into bed together, usually waking up in the morning to a parent rolling their eyes at their disregard of the rules.

The first time the new system was in place, Marinette had shoved Adrien out of her bed the next morning. He'd shouted from being startled, then the loud noise that followed woke her parents up far too early, but they'd both been too busy laughing to pay attention to them.

"They're mine," he muttered sleepily, no relinquishing his hold from where he had the duvet pulled over his shoulders and grasped tightly in his hands.

She tugged on it half-heartedly. "And I'm your best friend."

"Stop trying to steal my stuff, then," Adrien retorted, curling into it more.

Marinette sighed, rolling over so her back was to him. "Fine," she said, drawing out the word. "I guess I'll have to promote someone else to be my best friend—hey, I could even ask them to my birthday—"

The duvet was thrown over her face within seconds. She shook with silent laughter, trying not to make it too obvious that she found his possessive of the title amusing, but from the way he wasn't saying anything else, it was clear that he'd felt her shaking.

"Adrien," she called once she'd stopped, though there was still a smile on her lips. Rolling over to look at his back again, Marinette rested her head against his neck, keeping her hands to herself. "You know I'm not going to replace you, right?"

Adrien's father hadn't made any negative comments about their friendship since the day Adrien had heard him a few years ago, and she was sure that he'd tell her if anyone was teasing him for their relationship. From what she knew, most of his class-mates were scattered across the city, none within a reasonable walking distance that was considered safe by their parents.

"How could I?" she continued, not worried about his silence. "It took the local grannies almost nine years to think of us as inseparable. I'm not going to get that with anyone else."

He snorted. "You just like the free sweets they give us."

"It helps that they're convinced you're some sort of angel with your dimples," Marinette admitted with a laugh. "Besides, who else would build awful pillow forts with me? My friends are all convinced that that's too childish for us to do any more."

Turning over to face her, the room only slightly visible because he was too lazy to get up and close the curtains, Adrien asked, "Don't you think it's weird that we're friends?"

"No," she answered without missing a beat. "I've known you for forever. I can't imagine you not being in my life."

"That's not what I meant," he denied, pressing his face further into the pillow. "It's—isn't it weird how we've never gone to school together? That's where most friendships are formed."

She reached out and ruffled his hair in the way he hated when relatives did it to him. "You're being all brooding again. I don't need to see you outshine me in classes to know that you're my best friend—no one comes close to you, even if they let me copy their homework."

"I'd let you copy mine," he muttered. "All the time."

"That sounds like you're proposing to me," Marinette mused, holding back a laugh. "Do you have something to tell me?"

When he kicked her lightly, her noise of surprise was muffled so it wouldn't wake up his parents. He took his chance to tug back some more of the duvet to his side, though it wasn't enough that her body wasn't covered.

Adrien was glaring at her when she looked at his face. "You're just mad that my friends don't think you're my girlfriend."

She sniffed. "You clearly just don't talk about me enough."

"They literally don't ask me about my weekend because I just mention you."

The biggest change came when they were both fourteen. Marinette hadn't thought anything when she spotted Adrien from across the street before she set off to walk to school, meeting up with friends partway, and it didn't really click that he wasn't in his hated uniform until school began.

It was only when her first teacher ushered a new student into the classroom, asking for everyone's attention to introduce them. Adrien's smile was large and smug as his eyes landed on her, not-so-discreetly raising a hand to wave in her direction, and when her class-mates caught sight of her bewildered expression, they connected the dots between them.

Having Adrien at school—in all of her classes—made everything a lot more entertaining. His previous school's curriculum was more advanced so he was praised constantly by teachers, and when they were told off for talking during lessons or slacking due to being distracted, his charming smile came in handy, much like it did with their neighbours over the year.

They were just as inseparable as they usually were over the holidays. Adrien's father had to listen to the two of them beg and plead for Adrien to be allowed to walk to and from school, and it was only after a month of whining that he finally gave in.

There was no need to copy Adrien's homework since they were able to work on both of their assignments together. It had led to a bit of confusion at first, especially when they did their essays on similar subjects due to Adrien's mother owning books on the subject, and they were threatened with their parents almost being called in to make sure that one of them really wasn't cheating.

Although he was shy at first, Adrien charmed his way into friendships with most of their class-mates. She heard dreamy sighs at times when he was performing well in sports, catching when whispered comments about him were told to others, and all the time she looked at him in confusion, trying to see their point of view.

They were seeing an Adrien that was an inch taller than her; no chubby cheeks, awkward haircuts, or too long limbs that looked out of place. He was starting to look more proportionate, at least, but that didn't erase all the weird things he'd said to her over the years—when she looked at him, she was reminded of the embarrassing pyjamas he wore when he was nine, and the way he clutched onto his blanket and refused to let it go when one of his favourite cartoon characters died.

When her parents anniversary came up, she stayed the weekend at Adrien's home. When he was in the shower—where he'd started took too long, coming out with red cheeks and seeming to be embarrassed about it when he got out—she wandered over to her home, filling up one of the watering cans as she tended to the garden.

It had been her chore for years, a begrudging one that she'd whined over back when the watering can felt heavy to her, but there had been nothing significant about it. Marinette had just assumed that her parents hated tending to the flowers, that was all.

So, when she lazily reached her hand out to trail it through the different petals, she almost missed when something happened.

There was no insect darting out to bite her, not anything that could cause her harm, but when she looked down to see the petals of the nearest flower outstretched in her direction despite the gentle wind, her breath caught in her throat.

Moving her fingertips a few centimetres to the side confirmed it.

The flower followed slowly, the movement barely there, so much so that anyone would've missed it if they were watching. It was still against the wind, trying to reach her outstretched digits as though it was perfectly natural.

Touching it didn't cause anything to happen.

Perplexed, Marinette pulled her hand back, even taking a step away, and watched as it fell back into a more natural position, matching the rest of the blossoms around it. She stared down at her hand quizzically, not knowing what to think of the encounter.

The reaction she went with in the end was to push it aside and convince herself that it didn't happen. She went back over to Adrien's putting out of her mind and enjoying their time together inside, laughing until she had tears in her eyes when his father ended up with food over him from a faulty blender.

It was only when her own parents returned that she tested it again. She went to a different plant, one of the little vases that were by the kitchen windows, and made a strangled noise when the same thing happened there.

Naturally, she went to the first parental figure that came into view; her mother.

"It's fine," her mother soothed her, pulling her into a hug. "It's—it's nothing to be afraid of, okay? There's nothing wrong with you, Marinette."

Her mother sat her down and tried to understand exactly what was happening, even bringing in a plant from their patio to see a demonstration. Marinette was scared to look up and see her mother's expression when she moved a hand towards the flower, but when she finally gathered her courage to peek, her mother's face was filled with pure wonder, no fear there at all.

That caused her to cry even harder while her mother rubbed soothing patterns on her back, pulling her into a one-armed embrace.

Things changed after that. For a few nights, she heard her parents whispering to each other, listened in on one-sided phone calls with mentions of her name in her mother's first language—the one that Marinette used whenever it was just the three of them at home, as Adrien thought they were gossiping about him if he was present—and for a while, she wondered whether they were scared of her until she remembered her mother's reaction.

That didn't mean she'd worked up the courage to tell Adrien. He'd noticed that she was quiet for a few days, sending her meaningful glances while they were doing homework or sitting across from each other in the classroom, not quite coming out and asking since he knew she'd just clam up and not tell him anything.

Her mother sat her down in the middle of the week and told her that what was happening to her came from her family line. It had skipped a generation, to manifesting in her mother, but it was appearing in her.

It was because of that that she was being given the option to go to her grandma's to learn about it. They couldn't get books in the library, search for answers online, but there was a living breathing person—someone that Marinette hadn't seen since she was five—that had all the information that she needed.

It was a hard decision, but that fact that she'd been given a choice at all had made her choice all the more certain.

Telling Adrien was the hardest part. She'd put it off for the longest time possible, skirting around his concerned glances as she made the arrangements with her parents, making sure there would be a family member to pick her up in the airport, and packing away her belongings.

"Are we doing homework at my house tonight?" Adrien questioned as they reached the top of their road. "If your kitchen's still being redecorated."

It was a pitiful excuse, but the best one she could think of to avoid him seeing that her belongings were packed up. "I—yes," she stuttered, not quite looking him in the eyes. "That's probably a good idea."

They'd sat down in his living room, choosing to sit on the floor with their backs against the sofa as their belongings were spread over the coffee-table, when he gave in and asked, "What's going on with you?"

She jumped. "What—what do you mean?"

"Well, first of all you didn't even acknowledge one of my best jokes today," Adrien started with a half-hearted glare. "And you look like you're going to throw up—you have all day, actually."

Running a hand through her shoulder-length hair, Marinette took in a long breath. It—it couldn't be that hard to tell him she was leaving, could it? They hadn't been parted for more than two weeks, from his family went on holiday to an exotic location, since they were five; it was almost ten years of friendship that she was putting aside to try and understand the family trait that she inherited.

Adrien wouldn't believe her if she tried to show him the flowers moving. He'd assume it was the wind and not understand it, she knew that already.

"I—I'm leaving."

He sounded confused as he answered, "But we haven't even finished our homework?"

"Not your house." She blinked rapidly to combat the growing warmth to her eyes. "I'm—I'm going to live with my grandma."

"That's in China."

Marinette wiped at her eyes as she croaked, "Yeah."

When she finally got the courage to look up, he looked like something was stuck in his throat as he asked, "When?"

Trying hard not to cry any more—and failing miserably by how her vision blurred—her voice cracked when she admitted, "At the weekend. My flight's early in the morning."

"I—you—" Adrien cut himself off, visibly struggling for words as he furrowed his brow. "This is what you've been hiding, isn't it? I bet your kitchen's not really being redecorated. I know how much your parents like it as it is."

An absurd amount of tissues were passed over to her while he hovered awkwardly, not knowing whether to hug her or not. Marinette babbled on saying that she didn't know how long she'd be gone, or even if she could come back for holidays since she would be attending school over there and they were bound to have different dates. Adrien just sat beside her through it, passing over more and more tissues until she had a pile in her lap where only half of them were used, not speaking up as she rambled on between her voice breaking and hiccups from sniffing too forcefully.

"Well, if you can't come back for holidays," he started once she'd calmed down, no longer sobbing too much to be coherent. "I'll just have to go to you, right?"

She sniffed. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm serious!" he insisted, throwing one of her discarded tissues at her. "Father's been wanting me to go back to private school as it is. If I do go, I can at least pick a language to study that'll be helpful in the future."

"But you hated it there," Marinette pointed out. "And you hate trying to learn new languages."

He crossed his arms. "That was before my best friend decide to move to a foreign country."

When her face crumpled, he muttered a curse underneath his breath—something that he wouldn't have done months ago, public school had helped his vocabulary expand in the worst way—before pulling her into a hug.

"I only changed schools because I wanted to be with you," Adrien admitted, though they both already knew that. She was the only reason that he'd been able to transfer at all. "Now that you're going, it's either hiring a tutor and losing free time or going back to stuffy uniforms and hoping for the best."

"Don't do whatever your father wants," Marinette mumbled, resting her face on his shoulder. He'd grown almost two inches taller than her with no sign of her catching up yet. "You know your mother will side with you no matter what."

"Yes, ma'am." He laughed. "I'll be good enough to get long-distance calls so I can talk to you everyday."

She slumped against him. "I'll be in bed for the night by the time you've finished school—you'd probably only be able to call at the weekends due to the time difference."

"You've researched this."

She snorted. "I was a brat about the difference when I first moved here; I kept stealing naps whenever my parents weren't looking which kept messing up my sleeping schedule."

"I'll e-mail you when you're asleep," he announced, sounding determined. "It'll be slow, but it's better than nothing, right?"

"That's if my grandmother even has a computer," Marinette muttered, trying to remember if she did. The memories of her childhood were blurred and not reliable, and neither her or her parents had travelled back to visit their family members since she was little due to the cost. "If my phone doesn't work over there, I'll give you the house's number."

He ruined the moment by ruffling her hair with more force than necessary as he pulled away from their hug. "You better not abandon me now, Mari," Adrien said, dimples showing as she scowled at him. "I don't care how far away you are—you need to hear my complaints and bitch with me."

"Adrien Agreste!"

It wasn't either of them that said it.

His eyes widened as he looked up to see his mother standing there, arms crossed with an air of clear disapproval from his language.

"Sorry?" he weakly offered.

-x-

"Are you sure it's fine?" Marinette asked, fidgeting in the airport with her small backpack in her lap. "I mean, I could still find somewhere else—"

"Stop worrying so much," her mother scolded her, sounding so fond that it caused a lump to form in her throat. "You've already agreed and sent your money over, and Adrien's only gone for one more week. There's no reason for either of you to back out now."

She swallowed. "Okay."

As she'd feared, her grandmother didn't have a computer. She had to walk to the local library to use the internet to reply to Adrien's e-mail each morning, and it became her routine before walking to school. It was frustrating to deal with, but Marinette had been determined to make it work.

They'd stuck to it for close to half a year before their communication started to dwindle.

The long-distance calls lasted for half an hour at most, not long enough to talk about the important things other than awkwardly making small talk, so they went after a year, too. They grew apart naturally, too busy with their lives and growing up to talk all of the time, so she really hadn't expected for him to agree to move in with her when she travelled back.

When Marinette had called her parents and told them that she was thinking of moving back and opening her own shop to make a living, they'd been more than excited. She'd mentioned off-handedly that she might look for a room-mate to live with, and then they'd mused that Adrien was also looking for somewhere to live.

Surprisingly, he'd accepted the offer.

Once their apartment had been decided and paid for in advance, Marinette busied herself with finding a suitable space for her shop. She had enough money to splurge and not worry about the cost for a while, at least until she had the space and was able to sell her products again, and she only had to worry about the stock being possibly damaged during shipping.

By the time she'd landed back in the airport she'd left when she was fourteen, she'd already secured a shop which was only ten minutes away from her new home. Her parents greeted her at the exit, hugging her tightly and whispering words of praise and expressing how proud they were of her, and they insisted that they take her out for dinner after dropping off her things at her new home.

It was a pleasant evening. Her parents had visited twice over the eight years that she was gone, though they did make use of the internet to contact her once Marinette had saved up enough money to buy a laptop for herself (and convince her grandmother of the wonders of the internet—it paid off when they sold products online).

Adrien wasn't there to greet her, but he'd already moved into one of the bedrooms. She claimed the other, putting away her belongings then searching to see whether they had groceries or other necessities, and wasn't too surprised to see that they were missing a lot of things. Marinette spent the following days buying equipment for the kitchen—the pans and other things she needed for her shop, too—and hired professionals to decorate and make her store how she envisioned it to be.

Sometimes she stayed there during the day, handing them food and drinks to make sure they were okay, but she felt like she was a nuisance most of the time. A lot of the plants that she needed to move into the store were on her apartment's tiny balcony, taking up far too much space as she hoped that they'd make it through the poor living conditions. It helped that they were naturally healthier from her proximity, thankfully.

She was standing beside the stove with her hair piled into a messy bun while she stirred a strange-smelling concoction when the front door was unlocked. From her position, she was able to twist around to stare at the entrance, surprise clear on her expression as a figure stumbled through the doorway, suitcase wheeling through after them.

He'd grown a lot, she noticed. It was understandable—he was twenty-three—but her mind hadn't been able to connect the sweet-faced teenager to the pictures she'd seen occasionally throughout the years, yet she was seeing living proof before her; the wide shoulders that hadn't been there before, long limbs that showed he'd continued to shoot up and leave her behind, but it was nice to see that he was just as careless with his hair as he had been before.

Adrien yawned when he closed the door, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes afterwards, a clear sign that he'd barely had any sleep.

She cleared her throat to get his attention.

Jumping in surprise, clearly having not expected her, Adrien's head snapped up in her direction, looking just as surprised as she felt.

"I—hi," Marinette greeted awkwardly, even waving her hand before she snapped it back down, heat warming her cheeks from the moment of embarrassment. She'd always wondered what it would be like to see him again over the years, but she'd never expected for it to just be the two of them staring at each other. "Welcome home."

For a moment, he just stared at her some more before his eyes flickered away, focusing on his suitcase, and he sounded strangled as he forced out, "Thanks."

"I didn't touch any of your stuff, if you're worrying about that," she started, grasping onto the first words to come to mind to cover up the awkwardness between them. "I bought some things for the kitchen, too, since you only brought like one frying pan with you—unless you still have stuff to move in? Oh, I probably should've waited until you were here, actually."

Adrien ran a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead. "No," he started quietly, almost too far away for her to hear. "I've already moved all my belongings in here."

"Oh," she said dumbly.

"I'll just—" Adrien cut himself off with a frustrated noise, one so familiar that it made her wonder whether he'd grown out of his other habits. "I'll go put my stuff away."

There wasn't time to answer him, not really. Marinette busied herself with completing what she'd been doing, thankful that the fan wasn't causing the apartment to stink of the concoction, and it wasn't until a few hours later that he emerged from his room, dressed in loose casual clothing that he hadn't been wearing before. As Marinette finished bottling up her work, he was standing awkwardly on the other side of their island counters, beside the two stools that they had instead of a dining table.

"Hi," he greeted her again, trying to catch her attention when she'd used the last cork. "I'm sorry about earlier. I—I just wasn't expecting you to be here."

She raised her eyebrows. "Am I supposed to be hiding in my room?"

"I thought you weren't moving in until next week," he clarified, a hand reaching up to touch the nape of his neck in a nervous movement, another familiar sight that made her feel increasingly uncomfortable.

It was odd; even in the small amount of time they'd spent together she could see her childhood best friend in him—from the nervous ticks to the way he avoided confrontation when he was nervous, it just made her miss him more, reminding her of the way she'd sobbed into her pillows when she found it awkward to befriend strangers at her new school. They'd grown apart when she'd needed him most, but she couldn't fault him for that.

Her smile didn't reach her blue-coloured eyes as she admitted, "I've been here a week. I tied up my loose ends early to get here."

"Oh," was all she got as a response at first. "This—I don't know what to say to you."

At least he was being honest. "Yeah, same," Marinette said with a sigh, leaning her elbows on the countertop as she looked at him standing across from him, visibly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "The years have been kind to you, though. You shot up like a weed."

"Me?" Adrien repeated with a laugh. "I almost didn't recognise you."

Having looked back on old pictures, she could understand that. Although she hadn't changed much in her height, the rest of her body had grown with the years; with longer hair that she'd ever had and knowledge of how to actually dress herself well, there was a big difference to the her of that moment and the awkward teenager she'd once been.

She blinked. "I can't tell if that's a compliment of not."

"I guess you'll never know." His smile was sincere, though; it showed his dimples and caused his eyes to crinkle in the corner, a charming feature that hadn't been there prior to puberty. "It's nice to see you again, Marinette."

She fought the prickling of her eyes when she thought about the long-distance calls that had dwindled. "Yeah," she agreed, voice as soft as her smile. "You, too."

"Am I allowed to hug you?" he questioned, tilting his head quizzically. "Or is that too forward?"

As much as she wanted to be bitter that they'd both never held onto their immature promises, she nodded and walked around the counters, wrapping her arms around his chest as his were placed loosely around her waist, making her feel out of place and insecure all at once. They didn't say anything as they hugged, Marinette being the first to squeeze and try and convey her silent feelings that she was too shy to say, and when he returned the embrace, she rested her head against his chest.

The Adrien she'd left behind hadn't been more than a head taller than her.

-x-

Getting to know each other again was hard enough, but throwing in living together made it even more awkward. Marinette found herself rising with the sun, walking barefoot around the apartment as she tried to get a sufficient amount of products made while the store was being built precisely and inspected, sometimes forgetting about his existent until he walked into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed with his sock-clad feet audibly sliding across the door.

The hardest thing was trying to appear normal.

The explanation of all the plants was easy enough; they were needed for her work, and she couldn't transfer them over just yet. Adrien seemed to have no problem with them, even admiring the different blossoms and leaves when he sipped at his drinks when he was tired.

It was the other stuff that was harder to hide. She avoided touching the plants near him, thankful that the plucked leaves or any that were severed from the stems weren't receptive to her touch. The bottles filled with odd liquids got a few odd looks, Adrien looking disbelieving when she said they were actually requested items, though he did wrinkle his nose at the smell of some of the teabags that she made, labelling their packets carefully.

He left for work at a stable time in the morning, returning by the evening, and each time he looked at her in confusion as though he didn't believe that she'd left the apartment at all. Marinette made use of her time wisely; checking in at the store, making sure the workers were cared for for the time they were there before picking up anything they needed at home, already settling in and making herself comfortable by the time he was back.

It was after a week of making separate meals at different times that Marinette tentatively asked whether he'd like for her to make dinner—it made sense she was always home before him and had time to do it, while he opted out of breakfast and bought lunch during the day.

They spoke about casual things, not quite dipping into the emotional topics mentioning the things they'd missed with each other; as much as Marinette wanted to know about his first relationship, the education he chose to pursue, or even his first job, she held her tongue and went along with whatever he asked. It seemed like they were dancing around the subject at first, both too shy to actually approach the other, but they were perfectly happy to sit there on their couch and watch a television show without feeling too pressured.

The first change came when some of Adrien's friends came to the apartment, three weeks after he'd returned from his trip. Marinette closed the curtains to hide their balcony—trying to make the plants be out of sight and the getting rid of the temptation of anyone feeling brave while drunk—and hid any of her jars and bottles that couldn't fit in the cupboards in her room, trying to avoid unnecessary damage.

As she'd lived with her grandmother for the past eight years, she didn't know what to expect from a party. She didn't feel too overwhelmed as she was introduced to his friends, but she did opt to stand in the corner and sip from her glass instead of joining in, idly wondering whether the loud music would disturb their neighbours.

She recognised a few of them from pictures that she'd seen online briefly, but it was no one that she actually knew. Adrien was as friendly and happy to join in conversations as he had been before, easily jumping around the room and butting in without causing anyone offense.

She didn't know she had company until someone beside her said, "You look pitiful right now."

The newcomer had long blonde-coloured hair and blue eyes, the shade a tad lighter than her own.

"Chloé," was the introduction, and she raised her nicely shaped eyebrows when Marinette didn't reply instantly. "And you're the famous Marinette."

She blinked. "I wouldn't quite say I'm that well-known."

Chloé wrinkled her noise in displeasure. "I used to hear poetry about your punctuation; I think I know you quite well from that."

Marinette didn't know what to say to that, so she settled with mumbling out, "Oh."

As it turned out, when Adrien returned to private schooling, Chloé was the first one she befriended there; thus, the blonde-haired female seemed to be informed of their friendship of the past and then outright demanded for Marinette's phone, putting in her number and saying that they'd meet up in the future when they weren't surrounded by inebriated idiots.

She was charming, really.

Out of all the people she met, Chloé became her closest friend. The tall female—who was a centimetre smaller than Adrien without heels—insisted that their first outing together had be shopping, then she gave Marinette a detailed explanation of what was wrong with her wardrobe and what needed to be replaced.

From what she learned from Adrien, Chloé had spontaneously appeared in his life and demanded to be included after their first lesson together, and that seemed to be what had happened to her, too. With the addition of Chloé in her life, her cell phone wasn't left neglected—the only messages she had with Adrien was to remind each other of groceries to buy and asking the other to make sure they'd looked the door; domestic instead of filled with jokes like in the past.

She'd been in the country for three months when she was finally able to open her store, but within in that time she'd barely had an intimate conversation with Adrien. He'd tried to convince her to go out with his friends—insisting that they all liked her since she didn't technically have any of her own outside of him—but her answer had caught him visibly off-guard.

"I'd rather stay home with you," Marinette had admitted, looking anywhere but at him. "We could order in or something."

Yet, he agreed to it. Marinette was shocked when she'd received the message asking what she wanted to have for dinner, even more so when he walked through the doorway with a plastic bag hanging from his hands, the aroma of their dinner filling up the room quickly.

By the time he'd changed into comfortable clothing—not at all ashamed at the silly patterns on his pyjama bottoms—Marinette had put the different containers on their coffee-table, putting out two bowls and cutlery for them to use.

Adrien settled down beside her on the sofa, crossing his legs as he clumsily reached over and started serving himself. "You're opening it up tomorrow, right?"

It took her a moment to realise that he meant her shop. "Yes," she confirmed, nervously fiddling with her hands as her stomach seemed to twist in knots.

It wasn't all that different to what she'd done with her grandmother; the main change was that she was actually working in a shop instead of out of their living room, no longer delivering throughout the village with a steady client base. She'd be starting from anew, trying to wrangle in new customers with her strange-sounding products.

They'd settled for watching a cheap horror film that was on television before he spoke up again, bluntly asking, "What is it that you actually do?"

She almost choked on her mouthful. "I—what?"

"The shop, I mean," Adrien tried to clarify, busy pushing around his food but not eating it. "I've been trying to figure it out, but I have no idea. You seem to make something new every time I look, so that's pretty hard to put together for an answer."

It was—it was absolutely like him to stubborn stay quiet and try and figure it out for himself, so much so that she let out a startled laugh at how fond her thoughts were of him. "It's technically a shop for exotic spices and tea, but it's mostly dried flowers, herbs, and fancy-sounding teas—the kind of things people like to take pictures of, for some reason."

His brow furrowed as his gaze flickered up to meet hers. "That sounds sound very consistent at all."

"It's all to do with the uses of plants," Marinette patiently explained, tilting her head towards the curtain that the few plants on their balcony; the ones with uses had been transferred to the shop. "There's a lot of natural remedies that people don't even think of."

"Remedies," he repeated, voice a confused echo. "That's why you've made some liquid stuff in the glass bottles?"

She nodded. "They really work, I swear."

"Sure." Adrien didn't sound convinced at all, but she didn't blame him. "I'll think I'll just stick to my painkillers instead."

They were quiet for a bit, idly watching the quiet film that they were both hardly paying attention to between bites. Marinette purposely left some of the vegetables that she knew he liked in their shared dishes, too shy to point it out while she continued as though nothing had happened. His tastes hadn't changed much from when they were younger—the only difference was that they both actually had to fend for themselves rather than relying on their parents for dinners.

Their weekends weren't filled with pillow forts, sarcasm, or teasing remarks; Marinette barely knew what happened to him during the week, or even who his co-workers for, and it seemed the most information she got was when she was invited along to outings with his friends (which almost seemed like she was invited out of pity, but she wasn't going to announce that insecurity aloud).

It wasn't the twenty-something life she'd envisioned with him. They'd jokingly said they'd marry each other if they couldn't find the right person, even making silly demands of what they wanted in the vows, or even specifically named pets in the future—but none of that was even worth mentioning when they could barely hold a conversation without her comparing him to the younger version of himself.

Her voice was soft as she asked, "I missed a lot, didn't I?"

It was meant to be rhetorical, but he still answered, "You missed my sixteenth."

She remembered the childish promises they'd both agreed to.

She swallowed. "I missed more than that."

His silence didn't disagree with her. As Marinette shifted in her seat, stomach churning from mixture of nerves and not knowing how to approach him without upsetting him further—he wasn't looking at her again—she opted to keep her gaze on the television instead.

"Why did you come back?"

Startled, she'd jumped. "I—I never planned not to," Marinette confessed quietly. "It was just a matter of time."

There was no answer from him.

A lot of questions were nagging at her, but she decided to gather her courage to ask, "Why did you stop writing to me?"

They'd stopped before the calls did, but even they were sparse. Marinette remembered waiting by the phone on the weekends, wondering whether he'd try and contact her until her grandmother pulled her away with a new chore or delivery to run. The long-distance hadn't gone well for either of them, but he was the one that had stopped the e-mails first.

"I was jealous." Adrien leaned back against the sofa with a sigh. "You had a life without me."

That was one way of putting it. They'd been each other's lives since she was five; a bright duo that gathered compliments when they greeted their neighbours, attached to the hip when they could be. It made it even worse that she'd had to move when he'd finally gotten his parents to agree to him going to school with her.

"I woke up early for you every day for months," she chose to admit instead. "I wanted to make sure that you'd have a reply when you woke up—moving away didn't mean I cared about you any less."

Rather than replying immediately, he placed their bowls on the coffee-table before running a hand through his hair, still not looking at her. "That's not what it felt like, you know? I was happy to hear from you at first, but it slowly just—it made me sad to talk to you at all."

Bitterly, she muttered, "That didn't stop you talking about me to Chloé."

"Oh, I'm well aware of that." The laugh that escaped him didn't seem genuine at all. "It took me years to convince her that she's not a replacement for you."

Chloé had appeared pretty early after she'd left, then. She didn't know whether to feel flattered or nor that he'd tried to replace her absence in his life, but the worst thing was knowing that she hadn't had anyone like that for her—Marinette had been awkward and distant to her class-mates through the years, focusing more on learning from her grandmother than anything else.

There was only one way to attempt to salvage their friendship and move past the sourness, then.

"Right," Marinette said suddenly, jumping up onto her feet and offering her hand out to him. "Want to see why I had to move away?"

He snapped his head towards her. "What?"

"I'm not potentially losing my best friend this time." Her smile didn't reach her eyes as she wiggled her fingers, drawing attention towards her hand for him to pull himself up with. When he opted to stand up by himself, she didn't even flinch. "We're barely friends right now, aren't we? It's not like you're going to run away when you've got months left on the lease."

He crossed his arms. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You will, soon," she promised.

Marinette smoothed out her clothing before opening the balcony door and picking up one of the pots, the one with the largest flowers so her demonstration would potentially be easier to see. She placed it the countertop, gesturing for him to take a seat on one of their stools. The television was still on in the background, barely audible, but it was welcome noise to distract her as she took out a few vials and containers from her section of cupboards before selecting two pans as well.

"You're not going to try and convince me by cooking a flower, are you?" Adrien questioned, an uncertain laugh coming out towards the end.

She sniffed. "I wouldn't waste this just for that, no."

"Did I just offend you?"

Once she'd put a small amount of water in each pan, she turned to him and flatly requested, "Can you just hold off on being an ass for a few minutes? It'll make sense if you're open-minded."

"That sounds promising," he muttered.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "You've turned into a right brat, haven't you?"

He didn't dignify that with an answer. Marinette asked for him to reach his hand out for the flower, gently grazing the petals before leaning forward to inspect that it was real—that seemed to be an important part—before his expression grew bored from how random her request had been. She'd expected for that, of course; he wasn't going to have the almost panicked reaction that she had back in her garden all those years ago.

"So, nothing happened with you, right?" Marinette questioned, tucking her hair behind her ears. When he shook his head, not even bothering to reply verbally, she pursed her lips before outright demanding, "Just—watch this, okay?"

Not touching the petals, she kept her fingertips the maximum distance away, trying to highlight how it leaned towards her.

When she glanced up, it was clear that Adrien hadn't paid attention to the movement; he looked as bored as before, elbow on the counter as he rested his chin on his open palm, staring at the plant in disinterest.

Reaching out towards him, she clicked to get his attention. "I know I said it wouldn't be as bad since we barely know each other, but it wouldn't hurt you to pay attention."

Adrien made a frustrated noise.

She demonstrated again, purposely pulling her fingertips away so it fell back into the natural position before approaching again, her eyes mostly trained on him to see whether he was seeing what he needed to. When his eyebrows furrowed, she realised that he'd just noticed the movement.

"There's no string or anything for you to pull," he murmured, sounding just as confused as he felt. "I—what?"

Marinette swallowed her nerves as he gestured her him to stand up and come to the stove. The two pans had the same amount of ingredients in each of them, perfectly identical, and she handed over a similar wooden spoon to him as she turned on the heat, just saying for him to stir one while she did the other.

When he tried to bring up the last topic in an attempt for answers, she shook her head and gestured to the current task.

She wouldn't have been able to show that when she was fourteen; her grandmother hadn't even shown it to her until she was seventeen, saying that mixing concoctions was too dangerous when she didn't know what she was doing.

"Mine isn't thickening," Adrien announced, snapping her out of her trail of thought. As he'd said, the herbs weren't mixing, resulting in them just floating on top of the almost boiling water as he stirred. "Are you sure you put the same amount in?"

When hers was finished, she took over his, causing the mixture to behave the way it should've from the beginning in almost a minute. The end result was the same in the other pan—which she most definitely pointed out—and it was only as Adrien stood beside her with squinted eyes, as though he was trying to actually understand what she was trying to convey, that she felt inclined to talk about it.

Saying that he wouldn't be able to replicate the things she could make resulted in him letting out a laugh. "You knowing how to cook something isn't really that amazing, Marinette."

Her reaction had been much the same with her grandmother, so she wasn't in any position to criticise him. "Well," she started, opening one of the drawers to collect a knife. "I hope you realise that I required such a dramatic explanation in the beginning, too."

He eyed the knife doubtfully. "It's not going to fizzle when you put some petals in it, is it?"

"No." Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'm sorry about this in advance."

Pushing up one of her sleeves, Marinette pressed the blade to her skin, avoiding the veins and worst places to cut, putting down enough pressure to cause droplets of blood to appear as she hissed from the feeling. She put the knife away quickly as Adrien made a distressed noise, relieved that the cut wasn't deep enough to warrant immediate medical attention—she wasn't as dramatic as her grandmother—and tried to show him a reassuring smile.

It wasn't reassuring at all, apparently. "What are you doing?" Adrien exclaimed, reaching for a towel to press against the cut, smearing the blood that was already on her skin in the process. "You—you can't just cut yourself out of nowhere, what the fuck?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, a bit dazed that that had been the most emotion she'd seen from him for months. "It's—just put some of what we made on the cut, okay?"

The fabric was pressed harder against her arm. "Are you kidding me?"

Marinette really tried not to laugh, but one still came out as she replied, "No."

"It's not the time for your fucking remedies," he grouched, sounding as displeased as he looked; the curve of his lips and brow were a sure giveaway that he was close to walking off to be alone. "I think we've got a first-aid kit here somewhere? I know I had one—"

"Adrien," she insisted, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder.

She tried to ignore how he stiffened.

"Trust me, okay?" Marinette tried, smile not as sincere as it could've been as her eyes flickered to the pans. "Just smear it on until you can't see the cut."

He ran a hand through his hair. "You're—you're absolutely mad," he breathed, making sure she was holding onto the towel as he brought one of the pans over (she didn't know which it was, but the end result was the same, so there was no reason to worry). "If this gets infected, I'm within my rights to mock you for it."

She snorted. "Sure."

As she'd said to do, he dipped a finger into the paste that they'd made, pushing aside the towel to view the bleeding cut still. It was only a few centimetres in length, but still enough to warrant more than a plaster. Adrien stared at it dubiously before a droplet of blood started to trail down her skin, and then he visibly grimaced as he placed it over the cut.

"If you're uncomfortable, I can do it instead," she offered quietly.

Adrien pretended not to hear her, rubbing the paste in instead. The ingredients she'd put in had smoothed out, no rough bits within the paste that would irritate the wound, but she could still see why he was uncertain about using it.

When she caught him staring down at her arm, clearly not knowing whether to continue adding more or not, Marinette offered, "It's not instantaneous. Thank you, though. It'll be fine in a few minutes."

"Right." He sounded strangled, going straight for the sink to wash his hands.

While they waited, with her sat on the stool with the arm in plain sight to stop him fretting, Adrien hovered around nervously, attention divided between his phone and tiny wound, pacing from one side of their kitchen to the other, making her laugh as he did so. It wasn't the best circumstances, she was glad that they were at least spending more time together (even if he looked like he was going to start pulling his hair out at any moment).

The paste felt warm on her skin.

"It should be done," Marinette announced, carefully going towards the sink. "I'm going to wash it off now."

With his arms crossed over his chest and a dubious expression, Adrien leaned against the counter beside her, inspecting what she was doing. Trying to stop herself from smiling—she didn't want him to be offended by her amusement—she waited until the water coming out was warm to put her arm underneath it.

The paste peeled off easily, much smoother than the face masks that Chloé had made them both use, and revealed her skin where there was only a faded pink line where the cut had been.

Adrien held onto her wrist to pull her arm closer for him to inspect. "What the fuck?" he breathed, incredulous. "What—"

She wetted her lips.

"I can also permanently dye your hair blue without it fading," she started, trying not to let her nerves cause her voice to quiver. "Heal a few wounds, as long as they're not too deep or fatal, and a lot of others things with pastes like these. I won't be selling them to everyone, though; it would be terrible if someone tried to take advantage of them."

His eyes were wide as he kept staring at where her cut used to be. "I don't—"

"As you saw, you're not capable of making them," Marinette said bluntly. "You could stir that pot for hours and it wouldn't blend, not like it did for me. It's for the same reason that plants respond how they do to me."

Letting go of her, Adrien ran a hand through his hair. "You—you had to leave to learn this?"

"I did," she confirmed. "My grandmother's the only other person I know of that's capable of doing these things; she taught me everything I know."

He shifted his feet. "And she couldn't just come here?"

"Why would she?" Marinette countered without tact. "She has a stable life, and even people over there that purchase her products. If she came over here to teach me, I would've been too caught up with trying to see you to pay attention properly."

Adrien opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out as he furrowed his eyebrows, keeping his gaze away from hers. When he eventually spoke, he said, "This is a lot to take in."

Running her finger over the pink line in her skin, she replied softly, "Yeah, it is."

-x-

After opening up her shop, Marinette was still waking up at her regular time. She lounged around in the mornings, lazily flicking through books and browsing the internet, and seemed to always be on their couch sipping on a drink when Adrien stumbled out of his bedroom, sleepy-eyed and adjusting his clothes as went to work.

They were talking a lot more in the evenings and the time at the weekend that they had off. It was easier to joke and laugh, no longer looking at each other awkwardly as though they were trying to connect their appearances to their teenage selves, and Adrien had started to work up the courage to ask her random questions when they were eating dinner.

She'd almost choked when he'd asked if she was a witch.

"I guess?" Marinette answered when she'd stopped laughing, pink apparent on her cheeks. "I mean, it could be classed as that, if you want to have a label, but it's not really all that magic."

He pointed his fork at her. "You're able to make magic potions."

"When they're not balms or pastes, they are kind of liquid," she mused, not hiding her smile. "I can't do any cool witchcraft, though. A life of fighting crime isn't in the future for me—well, unless I throw dried herbs at criminals, but I might just get arrested for that."

With the knowledge that she wasn't capable of levitating anything—he'd been very insistent on that question—Adrien was relaxed around her. With the growing success of her shop, he trusted her when she passed over a steaming mug of tea, saying it was a special blend, and even tried to guess what the effects of it were.

She didn't try and hide her laughter as she replied, "It just tastes nice."

With him knowing that she had the ability to heal his bruises and minor cuts, Marinette wasn't surprised when he didn't seek her out when he tripped over or came home with a few bruises. When he got a papercut, he didn't even think of asking her for anything, and it seemed like he'd simply forgotten about her abilities at times.

It was only when he spilled hot water on his arm that he asked whether she could heal the irritated skin.

She smiled at his sceptical expression as she smeared the paste on his reddened skin. "I could just give you a jar of this, you know," Marinette murmured, focusing on her task rather than the way he was gnawing onto his lower lip. "There's also an alternative version that's like hand cream—so you don't have to wash it off—but it requires a few applications to work fully."

She could hear him exhale. "If you wouldn't mind."

"It's fine." Stepping back to go wash her hands, Marinette added on, "I gave my parents a few things, but other than that the stuff I can't sell at my store is just piling up. I'd be more than happy with you taking a few off of my hands."

Adrien leaned back against the sofa, head resting on the top as he looked at her across the room. "Why can't you sell them?"

"Oh." She'd thought he'd jump to the right conclusion beforehand. "It would be too hard to explain where I got them from, or even how they work, right? Especially if a company caught wind of it and wanted to try and recreate it—other than me, I only know of one other person that's capable of making them."

He made a noise of understanding. "It would be a lot of hassle, then."

"My grandmother might've scared me by mentioning kidnapping and workshops at times," she admitted with a laugh. "It's just—the gene doesn't pass down to everyone, so it's almost extinct. The townspeople that my grandmother sells her products to used to have someone gifted in their families, or at least have knowledge of their ancestors, but I don't have that here."

Adrien sat up, concern clear in his voice as he asked, "Do you think you'll be okay?"

She smiled. "I'll be fine."

Her shop was doing well, surprisingly. Although she didn't have anyone to buy the rare products that she kept out of sight, the normal ones that she had to offer were selling well. She'd been pleasantly surprised when Chloé insisted on coming over to spend their lunch breaks together in her break-room, the two of them getting along well despite the short time they'd known each other.

Chloé did confess to her that she knew that she was only a replacement in the beginning, but it wasn't like that any more. Adrien still spent time with his friends without pushing them aside for Marinette, the very thing that they'd done as children, and considering that the only person Marinette saw on a regular basis was Chloé, it seemed she was doing the same.

The biggest change to their living situation came when Adrien started to join her for breakfast. It was small at first; him stumbling out of his bedroom a few minutes earlier, consistently getting up earlier until he was there before she'd even made a drink for herself, causing her to ask him what he was doing.

"Do you have a project to work on or something?" she questioned, tucking her messy hair behind her ear. "You look like you're going to fall asleep at any minute."

His yawn was long. "No, I—I just want to see you for more than one meal most days."

To say she wasn't touched would've been a lie. Marinette started to make food for the two of them in the mornings, fondness growing as she saw him rubbing at his tired eyes as he sat down on as tool, almost falling asleep when he rested his head in his arms. On the weekends, he returned the favour by taking over their meals when they weren't going out to eat, making their routine within their home endearing domestic.

Then, one evening where he was passing over the ingredients she needed to add to the pan, Adrien asked, "You've only seen the city with Chloé, right?"

The answer was obvious enough; Chloé was her closest friend out of all of those that she'd met thus far. From the kind customers that came into her store or the newcomers that she met whenever she went with Adrien to join his friends—her friends, too, she kept having to remind herself despite how she didn't return their messages often—it was too much work for her to have more than a few close friends.

"Most the time I see high-end stores or low-fat restaurants, but yes," Marinette answered easily. "I don't really remember the places I went on school trips or where our mothers used to take us. It's kind of all a blur."

"Does that mean you don't remember your time with me?" he questioned, resting his chin on his palm. "I'm offended, Marinette."

She narrowed her eyes. "I wish I could forget some of the things I remember about you."

Dramatically, he placed a hand over his heart, eyes wide as he took in an exaggerated gasp. "That hurts."

"Look, you crying because someone said your hair was like a banana isn't a good memory—"

Adrien hastily interrupted her with, "Oh, like you having a breakdown because of your sexuality is?"

She blinked.

The spoon she'd been holding clattered onto the countertop. "I—what?" Marinette stuttered, abandoning the pot completely as she turned her whole body to face him. "My sexuality?"

Adrien looked at her as though she was the one that had said something strange. "Yes?"

Trying to recall what he was talking about turned out to be difficult considering that it was turning up blank. Marinette hadn't had a moment where she'd expressed concerns about her sexuality to Adrien when they were younger—she hadn't been interested in anyone further than holding their hand until she was out of her teenage years and had already grasped the subjects that her grandmother was teaching her.

Her brow furrowed as she replied, "I think you might be remembering that wrong."

"Really?" Adrien raised his eyebrows right back, causing them to disappear into his blond-coloured fringe. "I seem to recall you being close to crying because you didn't see why your class-mates were attracted to me."

It took a while, but when she realised what he was talking about, laughter was bursting from her lips. Marinette covered her face with her hands as her body shook, not trying to hold back the amusement that she was feeling, and when she was done, she had to wipe the moisture that had accumulated in her eyes.

"You—" Marinette took in a breath, smile widening when she caught sight of his confused expression. "You're actually adorable, did you know that?"

He didn't even miss a beat. "Of course."

It was a big difference to him protesting to being cute as a teenager, back when he'd thought his masculinity was fragile.

"It wasn't a crisis about my sexuality just because I didn't find you attractive," she clarified, smile feeling almost smug. "I'm sorry I have to break it to you this way."

"Past tense?" Adrien questioned, leaning forward. "Are you trying to tell me that you appreciate me now?"

She snorted. "You're okay, I guess. I'm not going to swoon whenever you walk into the room."

Turning his head sharply, causing his hair to move in a good imitation of the flip Chloé was famous for among their friends, Adrien announced, "I'll have you know that my face is my best feature."

With a laugh, Marinette reached across and pat his condescending on his head. "At least you're aware that you have a lot of shortcomings."

He lightly smacked her hand. "At least I grew."

"Hey!"

His grin reached his eyes as he pointed out, "Your potion's boiling over, by the way."

"It's not a fucking potion—oh, no—"

-x-

After a few weeks, she took Adrien up on his proposal to go out and see more of the city. Marinette allowed him to pick the best places, surprised when each of them had a story attached to them. He took her to a karaoke bar that he frequented when his exams were finished in university, the amusement park where he'd had his first kiss—in front of the rest of his class, sadly—and cafés where he swore had the best cakes and drinks that she'd ever taste.

It was nice, actually. They weren't as awkward around each other; when Adrien told her about his stories, she happily filled him in on what he'd missed with her, even saying about some of the mishaps she'd had with picking the wrong ingredients (which resulted in the wrong effects, and sometimes they were almost horrifying). She told him about her relationships, admitting that they'd split a few weeks before she was set to travel back due to how unappealing long-distance relationships seemed.

"You deserve more than phone sex," Adrien said a little too loudly as they were waiting in a queue together.

They earned a few looks for that.

With their parents still living in the homes that they'd grown up in, when Marinette went back to see her parents, she always asked whether he wanted to come see his. From the strained smile and shake of his head, she assumed that something had happened between them, but she wasn't going to butt in.

As it turned out, she didn't need to meddle. Adrien's mother came over to see her, pulling her into a tight hug while saying how beautiful she'd grown up to be, and it resulted in her spilling the major events of Adrien's life from her perspective.

Adrien's father had wanted him to join his business, but he'd refused. It had caused some strain for a few years—even threats of not supporting him through school—but it ended up with Adrien stubbornly refusing to talk to him for a few months, though they did have awkward conversations every now and then. His mother was still in full contact with him from the calls she'd overheard in their home.

When she got home and saw him on the couch, Marinette straightened out her expression as she approached and placed her hands on his shoulders.

Bewildered, he looked up at her questioningly.

"I'm sorry your father's still a dick," she said bluntly. "I'd offer to punch him, but I'm pretty sure he'd have me arrested for it."

A smile blossomed on his lips. "Don't be silly, he adores you far too much for that," Adrien said, reaching up to gently put his hands on top of hers. When he caught sight of her sceptical expression, he added on, "I'm serious. He used to ask me whether I'd spoked to you recently or not—even tried to get me to call you whenever we saw each other until I was twenty-one."

"That's..." Marinette cleared her throat, keeping her hands to herself as she struggled for words. "That's oddly flattering, actually. I never thought he liked me that much."

He snorted. "According to my mother, he shows love in mysterious ways."

Remembering how he used to fuss over Adrien and look flustered at times, she settled with saying, "I'm sure."

Settling down beside him and sitting close enough for their arms to brush, she raised her eyebrows at the screen of his laptop, surprised to see that it was an old animated film that they'd watched together before. Adrien only grinned, gesturing for her to get comfortable and watch it with him, and she didn't feel the need to protest. It wasn't as though she had plans for the rest of the day, and spending it lounging around with him didn't sound too bad.

When there was a quiet scene, Adrien asked, "Did you keep up on the films that came out while you were away?"

She blinked. "I was in China, not camping in the woods for years."

"You know what I mean," he retorted, a whine apparent in his voice. "You didn't have a computer, right?"

"Not until I bought a laptop, no," she confirmed, adjusting the cushion that she put in her lap to be comfortable. "There was still a local cinema and a store to rent them, so I didn't miss out on too many."

His grin showed his dimples. "But you missed some, right?"

"Are you expecting me to list off the ones I didn't get to see?" Marinette narrowed her eyes at him. "It's not like they'd change my life by seeing them."

He bumped his shoulder against hers lightly. "That's what you think now. I'm going to slowly educate you on the gems that you've missed out on—just tell me whether to cross the ones you've already seen off of my list."

"We don't need to—"

"Marinette," Adrien interrupted her with a stern look. "We're making up for your lacking childhood."

She stared. "I left the country when I already had breasts."

"Childhood doesn't end when you get your first bra, even if it was a weird one with strawberries on it—"

Marinette promptly shut him up by hitting him with a cushion. He laughed over the dialogue of the film for a full minute, not at all ashamed as she stubbornly crossed her arms and refused to talk to him.

To her surprise, he was serious about the list. When they were both working, he messaged her with a choice of two titles out of nowhere, not even greeting since the last time they'd used their phones with each other had been the previous week. Marinette had been surprised at first, but her lips curled into a fond grin when she replied that she'd already seen one of them.

When he returned home an hour later than her with food that he'd ordered along his way, she'd smiled until her cheeks hurt as he revealed that he'd downloaded both of the films beforehand (the rest were still pending, which was why he'd only said two).

After the first choice, it opened up the two of them messaging a lot more. Marinette scolded him at first, adamant that he'd get in trouble for it, but he shrugged it off with a bad joke or a reaction image that was added into their conversation. Whenever her customers were lacking, Marinette was tapping away on her cell phone, thankful for the annoying bell that she'd placed over the door to warn her that customers were approaching.

Sometimes she had to stifle her laughter when he sent her something particularly amusing while someone was browsing the aisles, then she sent him bad jokes back just to see whether he'd respond with more than multiple exclamation marks when they were borderline terrible.

He slipped back into calling her Mari.

They watched a few films throughout the week, and when they weren't spending time together, they usually sat on opposite sides of the room—or one on the armchair while the other was on the couch—on their laptops not making much conversation, but she still looked up every now and again to see him furrowing his eyebrows at whatever was on his screen. It was comfortable between them, thankfully, not the awkward atmosphere that she'd feared would last forever.

With him eating breakfast with her and willingly making an effort to spend time together, something which she couldn't quite find the right words to explain how warm it made her feel, it became normal for them to tease each other more.

They still had a few disagreements, of course; Marinette groaned whenever he left a teaspoon on the side after making himself a hot drink, frustrated beyond belief that he wouldn't put it in the dishwasher, and huffed in frustration whenever his music was too loud—it always ended up with her putting her own headphones on loudly—but it was never anything that caused her to want to move out.

Living with Adrien was amusing, for one. He'd stumble and curse loudly in the middle of the night at times, scrunch his nose up in an exaggerated fashion when he ate something that he disliked, and wasn't ashamed when he waltzed out of his room with his shirt on backwards or inside-out.

The main obstacle they had was the shared bathroom.

Adrien had decided after a month of living together that it seemed dumb to have two different toothpastes, so they'd ended up sharing one. The only time it became a problem was when he stayed over at a friend's house and had taken his toiletries with him, leaving her to walk to a nearby shop in the evening to buy some more.

The only lock they had for their apartment was for the front door. They set a rule that if the bathroom door was open, that meant that it was free to use. Sometimes, if they had the windows open it would cause for the door to close, and either of them would knock their knuckles on the wood, calling to see whether it was okay to go in.

Marinette had started to leave the door open when she was only brushing her teeth so he could walk inside and join her. The first time he did it, he'd smiled wide while brushing and caused for toothpaste to fall down onto his shirt, ruining his outfit for the day.

Laughing with a mouth full of toothpaste wasn't a good idea for her either.

They had a system for the two of them, one that worked, but the problem was that when they had guests over, they weren't aware of the rules. When they had more than a few—like the welcoming party for Marinette that had been a few weeks late—they opted to have a tie on the doorknob when it was occupied, but some had gotten the wrong idea there and laughed until they had tears.

Marinette trudged to the bathroom when she woke up, toothbrush in her mouth when she opened the door out of habit, brushing her hair from her face as she inspected her face with sleepy eyes.

Adrien had gone out with his friends the night before—he'd practically begged her to come along before she admitted that she wasn't feeling well, but then he'd almost insisted that he stay back to take care of her. She'd managed to kick him out of the door after promising to tell him if she got any worse.

The drunken messages she got after a few hours had made her laugh.

The person that came into the bathroom wasn't Adrien.

From the curly black hair, tanned skin, and countless bracelets on his wrist, there was no doubt of who it was. Nino was Adrien's closest male friend, one that he'd made in university and had stayed close to through the years. Marinette hadn't clicked with him too well, but she did have his number on his phone.

A startled yelp escaped him when he caught sight of her, stumbling back against the door with muttered apologies before he darted out of the room, footsteps audible across the apartment as he dashed back into Adrien's bedroom.

All she could think as he fled from the sight of her that that was something new. They hadn't had anyone else stay over yet, and she certainly hadn't heard Adrien return home the previous evening. Then again, she had taken something for the stomach pain that she'd been experiencing, one that made her more tired than usual.

Nino didn't stay for breakfast.

Marinette had retreated back to her room, checked her e-mails, and gotten dressed before she emerged into the kitchen to see Adrien resting his head on his arms on the counter, clumsily sat on the stool as though he was about to fall off.

Taking pity on him, Marinette went back to her room and opened one of her drawers to retrieve a small vial.

"Here," Marinette said quietly as she slid it over to him. "You hangover will be gone if you put that in a drink. You can also drink it straight—"

She winced as he took out the cork and took it all in one mouthful. From her experience, it was a thick consistency that was similar to honey, but the taste was absolutely awful.

Adrien coughed, covering his mouth with a hand. It was a relief that he was gagging, at least. "What was that?" he asked weakly, sounding like he needed to clear his throat. "It—"

"Tastes awful? I know, I was just about to warn you," Marinette interrupted, running a hand through her hair as she felt responsible. "Drinking it with something else kind of masks the taste a bit, but you're too impatient for that, aren't you?"

He went back to being slumped down on the counter, his face out of view. "How long until I don't feel like death any more?"

She snorted. "It'll kick in by the time I've made breakfast."

As she'd said, by the time she'd sat on the seat beside him and put their plates in front of them, he didn't look like he was going to vomit at any moment. Marinette slowly ate her food instead of striking up a conversation, knowing that it was a bit of a drastic change the first time the liquid was consumed.

After a few minutes, when she'd gotten up to use the kettle, she spoke up, "It works on headaches, too, but you only need a few drops or more depending on how bad it is."

"You're spoiling me," he mused, picking up their plates. "I'm not even going to blink an eye at some of the injuries I get in the future."

Marinette turned to him and raised her eyebrows. "I'm not a miracle worker. I can only heal some minor things; if you're dying, I can't help you."

"You how exactly how to make your way into my heart," Adrien announced, smile reaching his eyes. "I'm falling for you."

Not missing a beat, she retorted, "Please don't."

"Who cares about other injuries when you can heal my papercuts," he answered. "Anyone who says they're not the worst is lying."

She laughed. "I really am spoiling you if papercuts are a thing of the past for you."

"That and you just cured my poor decisions from last night," Adrien pointed out, dimples showing as he came to stand next to her. "Speaking of which, what were you wearing earlier?"

She blinked. "I'm sorry?"

To her surprise, redness appeared on the top of his cheeks as he ran a hand through his hair—a self-conscious tick that he'd never grown out of. "Not in a dirty way, okay? Nino was pretty panicked when he saw you earlier and said that he violated your right to wear less clothing at home before running out of the front door."

"Really?" She laughed, relieved to know the reason for his sudden departure. "It was just a nightie, you've seen me in it before. I left the door open in case you were home, so I'm the one to blame."

There'd been nothing too revealing about it; collarbones and thighs shown, but she had actual clothes that were worse off. She supposed it was because she hadn't seen Nino too often that he'd freaked out—well, that and that he'd been hungover, judging from the fact that he'd stayed over.

Adrien's voice was quiet as he asked, "He walked into the bathroom?"

"Yes," she confirmed easily. "I imagine being faced with my foaming mouth was too much for so early in the morning."

He bumped his shoulder lightly against hers. "It could've been your blinding skin—you really need to go to the beach."

"I'll blind you."

"Don't flash me now that we're legal!" he said with a laugh, holding his hands up in a sign of surrender. "But, really, do you want to go to the beach?"

Considering that the weather had been hot the past month or so, Marinette agreed.

-x-

It rained the day they were supposed to go.

"We should've known that it wouldn't work out in the end," she mused beside him on the sofa, staring out through their balcony window at the falling rain. "I even wasted money on a swimsuit for this."

Adrien stretched out his legs and placed them on his lap, and she had no energy to push him off. "We could always go to an indoor pool, but then we can't use our cool inflatable rings."

The cool inflatable rings, as he'd put it, were ordered the week before and had arrived the day before. He'd happily blew up one which had cat ears on it after dinner, being horribly out of breath afterwards despite her telling him to take it slow.

"Or we could just wait," she pointed out, reaching out to fiddle with his socks. They were thicker than hers, almost fluffy in texture. She was tempted to borrow a pair when the weather grew colder. "I'm sure it'll be fine next weekend."

The following weekend wasn't spent at the beach. Nino was throwing a party—a celebration for his promotion—and when his neighbours complained about the noise, they piled into cars and went to the nearest nightclub that looked inviting. Marinette was glad that she'd went with a thin dress by the time sweat was accumulating on her skin, the close contact with other bodies while dancing making it feel hotter than it had outside in the sun that afternoon.

Chloé had pulled her across the room to dance before her attention was occupied with someone close to her, which left Marinette to have a drink before she started dancing again. Any nervousness she had vanished when she saw a few of her friends dancing wildly, a tad exaggerated in an effort to get another to laugh, and she was completely fine to be with strangers as long as they didn't get too arrogant with their hands.

She'd been preparing to move away when she felt hands moving far too low on her body, but someone else beat her to reacting. Adrien cut the stranger off, rudely moving in front of Marinette so all she could see was his wide smile as interrupted, the loud and blaring music around them drowning out whatever he'd said.

With a muffled laugh, Marinette stood on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck comfortably in an embrace, saying in his ear, "Thanks for that."

"No problem," Adrien replied, barely audible. "I perfected that move from dancing with Chloé."

She kept her hands to herself after that, more amused than anything from the way Adrien seemed to think it was his job to interrupt whenever someone got too close to her. Every now and then she was pulled away by Chloé or someone else, not putting up a fight as they danced too close or draped their arms over her body, but it seemed that whenever someone new came and tried to strike up a conversation with her—even at the bar—Adrien came along.

She didn't know whether to be annoyed or not.

It was sweet in a way, but it wasn't as though she'd asked him to do anything. A few times she hadn't actually been uncomfortable, and she was more than capable of handling it by herself; she didn't need him butting in and trying to fix a problem before it had even become, no matter how much he thought he was being helpful.

So, when he'd slid into the seat beside her in the bar, calling her name so the person that she was talking to walked off, she shot him a displeased look before grabbing his wrist and pulling him outside the nightclub.

"What are you doing?"

He blinked. "Saving your innocence?"

"Innocence," Marinette repeated, staring at him blankly. When she became aware that she was still holding onto his wrist—warm skin touching her own—she took her hand away quickly. "It was nice at first but now you're kind of being a dick."

Running a hand through his hair, Adrien replied, "I—sorry? I was just trying to look out for you."

"I'm more than capable of taking care of myself," she retorted, regretting it when she saw the way he averted his eyes. "It's not—I'm not mad that you're looking out for me, okay? I feel like you're trying to baby me right now and it's honestly a bit annoying."

"Annoying, right," he muttered, a frown on his lips. "I'll just let you dance with strangers, then."

When he put his hands in his pockets, gaze averted as he looked at anywhere but at her, it took her a moment to place where she'd seen that body language before. A disbelieving laugh escaped her as she asked, "Are you jealous?"

The colour that appeared on his cheeks was the only answer she received.

It was silly, really, but that was how he'd reacted when she told him tales of the entertaining moments from school, way back when he'd been paranoid that anyone could come along with replace him. It had taken until he'd joined her school for him to get over that (it helped that he'd seen that she was more than willingly to ditch anyone when she caught sight of him in the hallway), but that had only lasted a few months before it was ruined.

To see him reacting like that again was a compliment in itself. It meant that he considered her important again, someone close to him that he didn't want to close, since his jealous tendencies didn't appear for just anyone.

"You're an idiot," Marinette remarked, taking a step forward until their shoes were almost touching as she wrapped her arms loosely around his waist. "I'm only having fun, Adrien. I have no plans to bring anyone home whatsoever."

He returned the hug hesitantly. "That's not what I'm worried about."

"I'm also not going to anyone's house," she tried to reassure him, her cheek pressed against his shirt. "Do you want to go back inside or go home? I think I have enough for a taxi."

His hand smoothed out her hair as he murmured, "I'd prefer to go home."

They ended up on the sofa, sipping at hot drinks while watching a film together. Marinette had shuffled along to sit beside him, resting her head against his shoulder for comfort at first, then Adrien had put his arm behind her head, causing her to almost slump against him as she tried to find a position that wouldn't be too annoying to stay in.

Finishing the rest of her drink, Marinette placed the mug on the coffee-table before curling up beside him, tucking her legs underneath her. He didn't make any complaints about the position, easily using his other hand to hold his own drink that he occasionally took a sip from. It seemed that making the drinks had been more for her than him, but it was sweet that he'd made them at all.

The mug was placed on the floor in front of them in the morning. Marinette's neck hurt when she woke up, a groan coming out as she tried to stretch and get rid of the ache, and it took her a while to realise that she hadn't gone to bed at all.

Adrien was still asleep beside her, head tilted back to lean against the top of the sofa. His arm had fallen down when she'd moved, no longer loosely wrapped around her for comfort. She eyed the tight trousers and shirt that he'd been wearing the night before, knowing that he was bound to complain about them when he woke up, but it wasn't as though she was much better.

She was sure she had marks on her skin from the tight material and even her brassiere digging into her.

By the time she'd showered, dressed in loose clothing, and padded back into the room, Adrien was rubbing at his eyes.

"You could've woken me up," Marinette said as her greeting reaching out and ruffling his hair. The product that he'd put it in last night had caused only the back of it to be flattened. "It seems like torture being my pillow for the night."

"It's fine," he croaked, clearing his throat afterwards. "Gotta make up for the sleepovers we missed over the years."

She snorted. "It doesn't count as a sleepover when we live together?"

"Not if we're in separate rooms, no," he replied before standing up and stretching, an appreciative noise leaving his lips when he lifted his arms. "It kind of loses the magic when there's walls between us."

Opening the door to their fridge to peer inside, Marinette quickly deadpanned, "You're just trying to get me into your bed."

Adrien's laughter had a breathy quality to it. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"You hog the covers, so yes."

She could hear him laughing when he disappeared into the bathroom.

They lazed around for most of the day, not entertaining the thought of going to the pool despite how the weather was clear. With the tradition they started, Adrien offered her two titles to choose from to watch, going as far as to entice her to either of them with random comments about what happened within them without context at all.

The funniest part of the comedy film was when the characters were in bed. It wasn't because of any dialogue on the screen, though; rather, Adrien leaned over and whispered in her ear, "That could be us."

It helped that one of the characters dramatically fell off.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you're trying to flirt with me badly," Marinette murmured once she'd stopped laughing, her voice high-pitched than normal due to her amusement. "Sadly, any attractive I could've felt for you was murdered when I saw your baby pictures."

"Flirting with you?" He bumped his shoulder against hers, but it had more force than usual which caused him to slump against her while her elbow was on the armrest for support. "You've woken up to your period in my bed, Marinette. I think we're far past flirting."

She huffed. "Don't think that I've forgotten about your lengthy showers—I was just too innocent to realise the reason."

"Oh?" Adrien laughed, and she was able to feel it from how he was draped across her, even wrapping his arms around her in a hug when he shifted. "Did you have a sudden epiphany to my nefarious deeds?"

Reaching out to flick his forehead, Marinette retorted, "I grew up."

He hummed in agreement. "You grew up well."

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Okay, you're being too nice. What do you want?"

With a sigh, he leaned his head fully against her shoulder. "A date."

They've been living together for seven months and the only person that had stayed over had been one of his closest friends. Marinette had toyed with asking him about his romantic life, but considering that he preferred to spend his time with her, she settled with saying, "I can't help you there. All the friends I know I've met through you."

"It was worth a try," he muttered.

-x-

She found someone that knew about her talent.

Well, it was more like they stumbled into her store, jumped at the sound of the bell before nervously approaching the counter where Marinette was seated behind, idly flipping through a book while she waited for Adrien to respond to her message.

A tall dark-haired female named Juleka introduced herself quietly. She was a dancer who's great-grandmother had the touch—one who'd recorded their findings in journals for their family members to find—and it was due to that that she'd searched through a few obscure stores in search of the special products.

It was only her approach that needed some work.

"Do you—do you have any of the special herbs?" was the first thing asked.

Marinette had barely restrained a groan, not even looking up from her book as she replied, "We don't sell drugs here, ma'am."

After a quiet conversation with nervous stuttering, she learned that Juleka only wanted to buy the items that would help her soreness after dance practice. Juleka claimed she knew the limitations due to her great-grandmother's journals, so she wouldn't slather it on in an attempt to heal a sprained ankle, and she didn't seem too intimidated when Marinette's expression visibly brightened up as she jumped to her feet from her enthusiasm.

When Juleka left, Marinette had managed to get her number and it was from how excited she was for having her first customer that Adrien noticed the happiness she was exuding when she returned home.

"Good day?" he asked, a curious lilt to his voice.

She didn't look up from her phone as she messaged Juleka. "The best."

They'd been talking since a few minutes after Juleka had left the store. Although it seemed at first that they didn't have too much in common—only due to their career choices—they liked similar music, and they'd been sending each other songs for the past few hours. The smile on her face was somewhat dopey, but she was proud that she'd met someone on her own that wanted to befriend her. Adrien's friends were kind, yes, but sometimes she felt like they were only talking to her because they felt obligated to (other than Chloé, of course).

Adrien noticed how she kept reaching for her phone every few minutes. He tried to sound uninterested as he questioned, "Who are you talking to?"

"Some girl I met today," she replied proudly, eyes flickering up to see how he was staring at his laptop. "She came into the shop and—"

Adrien interrupted her with, "Okay."

After that, she continued to message Juleka on a daily basis, even meeting up with her for coffee at the weekend with vials in her bag, only worrying a little that it could look like they were doing a make-shift drug deal in the middle of a café. Juleka was overjoyed that Marinette had the stock, and she showed her appreciation by giving her tickets to her upcoming show, even saying that she could meet her girlfriend there.

Chloé accepted the other ticket. She'd considered giving it to Adrien before remembering how disinterested he was in dance from all the plays he'd been taken to as a child, though she supposed it could've changed in the past years. Still, Chloé was her first choice to invite, since it seemed like something her blonde-haired friend would enjoy.

They did enjoy it. Chloé leaned over to whisper in her ear that she wasn't clapping loud enough partway through, which caused her to try and muffle her laughter with her hand. The production of the performance was beautiful—not to mention expensive—and when she'd researched online the actual price of the tickets online, she'd swallowed loudly.

She cheered loudly when Juleka bowed on stage at the end.

When she returned home after dropping Chloé off, she was surprised to see that Adrien was still up. It was a weekday and he usually went to bed early since he'd started joining her in the mornings; he was a pest when he didn't have a healthy amount of sleep. Yet, he was there on the sofa, a jacket draped over his legs as a make-shift blanket while he watched something on his laptop with a sleepy expression.

Her lips twisted into a smile when his head snapped up and looked at her arrival. "You didn't have to wait up for me."

He yawned. "Did you enjoy your date?"

"My date? Yes," Marinette said with a laugh, shrugging off her cardigan and folding it over her arm. "You're going to be so grumpy when you wake up tomorrow, you do know that, right?"

"I'll be fine," he grumbled, reaching out and closing his laptop without bothering to turn it off. "Are you going to see her again?"

Marinette busied herself with undoing her hairstyle. "If I could afford it, I would."

"Afford?" Adrien sounded slightly strangled.

She shot him an exasperated week. "Have you even been listening to me the past week? I went with Chloé to see Juleka's performance."

"You were with Chloé?" he asked quietly, running a hand through his hair. "I thought—"

She rolled her eyes. "I think you need to go to bed, Adrien. I'll tell you about it in the morning."

As he didn't make any protests to that—not even speaking up to reply—Marinette wasn't surprised when he didn't join her for breakfast in the morning. She was sipping out of a mug when he appeared with tired eyes, fixing his shirt as he went for the door.

He paused with his hand on the door handle, looking back over his shoulder to look at her as he said, "I'll see you later."

She blinked. "Bye?"

Although his responses were always somewhat slow while he was at work, it seemed worse that day. Maybe it was because he hadn't woken up in time and was trying to keep himself paying attention to the right things, but she didn't worry about it too much. She messaged Juleka again with a lot of exclamation marks while telling her how good her performance had been, fully understanding why she'd sought of her help in the first place. The amount of bruises she got from practices were something Marinette didn't want to think about.

Chloé came in with lunch for them both.

The sign on the front said she was out for lunch, and the two of them went into the other room to eat after she'd made two cups of tea.

Chloé had asked why she was so interested in spices and tea before, and Marinette had only shrugged and given a non-committal answer. There wasn't a way that she could describe her attraction well without someone fully knowing what she did; as much as she wanted to tell her, Chloé seemed to be doing fine without the knowledge.

It wasn't the same case as Adrien—she hadn't moved away due to it and caused a strained relationship.

"So, is there a particular reason why Adrien seems to think you're dating someone?" Chloé spoke up. "He's been harassing me all morning for answers."

"Dating," she parroted, bewildered. "I haven't even gone on a date since I moved back here."

Chloé raised her eyebrows. "I should hope so. If you went with someone without consulting me first, I'd be terribly offended."

"The only people I talk to daily are him, you, and Juleka," she muttered, playing with her food instead of eating another bite. "I don't—"

Chloé reached over and moved her hand away from her food. "I'm going to tell you something because you're too dumb to notice it yourself."

She pulled a face. "That's not very nice."

"You're an oblivious idiot," Chloé retorted, pulling her hand away to push her blonde hair behind her shoulder, a dramatic movement that caused her lips to twitch from trying not to laugh. "Adrien likes you."

She blinked. "I should hope so, we live together."

With a sigh, Chloé corrected herself, "He wants to hold your hand in a romantic way."

For a moment, she was glad that she wasn't eating at that moment. Marinette gaped at her friend, waiting for the follow up comment to say that she was joking, but Chloé only continued to stare smugly at her, even crossing her legs with an air of superiority as she did so.

"Romantically?" Marinette repeated, a questioning lilt to her voice.

Chloé nodded, not explaining further.

It—it was strange, to say the least. She hadn't toyed with the thought of their relationship being romantic in the slightest; they were as close as they had been as children, only a few boundaries added in due to maturing. Sure, they hadn't shared a bed since they were teenagers, but they cooked and had most meals with each other instead, the two of them in the habit of trading small parts of the food that one of them disliked.

Marinette was aware of a lot of his likes and dislikes, especially when they splurged and bought coffee from local cafés instead of their watered down instant coffee at home, and he knew about all the same things in return. She knew that he liked to move closer when they were watching something together, that he was most comfortable stretching an arm behind her so she could shuffle closer.

When she thought about how they interacted with each other—the hugs, brushing shoulders or touching the other's arm when they were talking—the strangest part about it was that she couldn't imagine how they'd changed if it was romantic. Marinette hadn't witnessed him in a relationship before; she didn't know whether he was as clingy as he was with her, or if he doted on them most of the time.

There was a weird feeling when she tried to imagine him doing the things he did with her to someone else. Even when she met up with his friends and witnessed how close he was to them, it didn't seem to compare to the way that they'd been the past few months.

Then again, he had let Nino sleep in his bed once. She was well aware that his relationship with Nino was platonic only, but they barely met up. Most of the time they messaged every now and then with the promise to see each other, and whenever it happened, there was usually others there, too.

Adrien wasn't the kid with one friend that he became overly attached to any more, and she was still coming to terms with that. But him seeing her romantically?

"I don't think so," she murmured, shaking her head. "He's—he's always been like that with me."

-x-

With the thought of him viewing her differently in mind, Marinette had caught herself staring at him a few times.

Adrien's behaviour hadn't changed, though. Missing breakfast one time had been a fluke—he walked into the bathroom when she was brushing her teeth the next morning, grinning stupidly so the toothpaste trailed down her chin as he rolled his eyes at her fondly.

Surely, he couldn't look at her romantically when she did things like that. Marinette had walked around the apartment in various states of undress before, not at all embarrassed once their friendship had been repaired. He didn't stare at her oddly or tell her to get dressed when she did things like that—not complaining when she got a drink after a shower when she was only in at towel—and she hadn't batted an eyelash when he'd done the same in return.

He was the boy that used to change in front of her when she was spouting her tales from school. The one that hadn't teased her when she started growing breasts, and had never thought it was gross to be friends with someone of the opposite sex.

His birthday had been when they weren't really close. She'd gone out to drink with his friends, offering him a few books as a present, and when it came time for her own birthday, she was more than happy to just spend the evening inside with him.

When she opened one of his presents, she stared down at it dumbly.

"Are you serious?" she muttered, a laugh escaping her the next moment as she picked up the gift.

It was clearly a hand-carved wand, there was no denying that. The handle had decorations around the top of it before it became slimmer for the rest, and the overall quality was a lot better than what was available in party shops. It was varnished, too, and clearly high-quality.

Adrien's smile reached his eyes when she looked up. "Every witch needs a wand, right?"

When she'd stopped laughing at how ridiculous it was, she asked, "Where did you even get this?"

"Oh, it's supposed to be some video game character's?" He shrugged. "I just wanted to find one that didn't look like it would snap any moment. It turns out the internet is a beautiful place."

Fiddling with it and running her fingers along the smooth wood, Marinette couldn't stop herself from saying, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it."

"Well, you can either put it on a shelf or walk around our apartment pretending to use spells," he replied, amusement clear in his voice. "I was originally going to get you a cat."

There was a problem with that that the both of them knew already. "We're not allowed pets here."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, waving a hand dismissively. "I found a way around that anyway."

It turned out that he'd gotten her stuffed cat that was as large as her pillow. How he'd managed to hide that from her—especially when he wrapped it—was beyond her. Marinette made a point of hugging it whenever they were sat down, cackling when he complained that it was getting in the way.

The wand didn't fit in any of the small boxes that she owned, so they'd settled for buying a small shelf and putting it in their living room. He'd laughed when she couldn't reach it without bringing a stool over from the kitchen, but he did help and put his hands on her waist to make sure she wouldn't fall off when it wobbled.

Her face might've felt a bit warm when she'd gotten down.

Adrien liking her had seemed like such a strange thought, but the weirdest one that she hadn't thought of was whether she felt that way about him. She'd brushed off Chloé's comments from before, determined not to look too much into it, but when she realised that she was more open with Adrien than she had been in any of her past relationships, it had caused her to still for a moment.

She might've stared at his back when he reached up to the highest shelves, noticed how he looked when he brushed his hair off of his face, and admired the blond on the end of his eyelashes when she was close enough to see it.

The next time she caught him walking across to his room after a shower, droplets of water falling on his shirt as he dried his hair clumsily with a towel, and realised that he wasn't wearing anything more than underwear on his legs, she found herself turning away to give him privacy.

"Why are you staring at the wall?" Adrien called out to her.

Aware of the warmth that was gathering on her cheeks, she responded, "I'm rethinking my life choices."

"I didn't use all of the hot water, if that's what you're worrying about," he quipped, amusement clear in his voice. And to make it even worse, she could hear his footsteps as he approached until he was standing behind her. "Do you want to go to the cinema today? There's a new film that I want to see."

"Sure." Her voice sounded small. "I showered last night, so we can go whenever."

Some water from his hair dripped onto her when he went back to using the towel. "Great," he agreed happily. "Are you still talking to that girl, by the way?"

"Juleka?" she questioned, leaning back against the sofa and tilting her head so she could see him. "I am, yeah. She's busy with her girlfriend most of the time."

His hands stopped. "Girlfriend."

"Yes?" Marinette let out a laugh. "Chloé I met her at Juleka's performance. I told you about her before, though, as I did with telling you that I was going with Chloé. You just chose to ignore it for some reason."

A grin appeared on his lips as he left the towel around his shoulders, visibly relaxed. "Sorry, I was pretty out of it because work was stressing me out," he easily explained, not looking away like he did when he usually lied. "Guess I have you all to myself now, right?"

"Well, we're the only ones that live here."

"Don't be a brat," he scolded, purposely ruffling her hair in the way he knew she hated. "You know I get jealous when you spend your time with other people."

That hadn't changed, then. "Even when you're there, apparently," she murmured.

"What was that?" he questioned, tilting his head to the side quizzically. "You better not be insulting me underneath your breath."

Even when her view of him was skewed because of their positions, it was hard to ignore that he looked attractive. She glanced at the way his shirt was clinging to his shoulders, slightly damp, before turning her face away to look at anywhere but at him.

Not sure whether to feel bitter or not, Marinette mused, "Your face really is your best feature, isn't it?"

"Oh?" Adrien sounded amused as he walked around the sofa until he took the seat beside her, knee touching hers. "Have you finally started to appreciate my charm?"

She snorted. "The only charming thing about you is how you're quiet when you're asleep."

"So, if I want to get a date with someone, I just need to show them how amazing I am when I'm asleep?" he questioned, trying not to laugh. "I want the romantic kind of love, not dates spent sleeping, Marinette. You need to help me out here."

Remembering how he'd asked to be set up with someone before, Marinette turned to face him with a smile as she asked, "You're quite desperate for a date lately, aren't you?"

"Or, hear me out here," he started, dimples showing as he bumped his shoulder against hers. "Maybe I just want to talk about love and stuff with you?"

She stifled a laugh and repeated, "Stuff."

"All the stuff," he confirmed, exhaling audibly in amusement. "Including my pathetic love life. Would you like to hear about it?"

Other than talking about their past relationships, they hadn't spoken about any potential current ones. As her thoughts flickered back to Chloé's comment and she became aware of how her pulse seemed to pick up, she deflected quickly with, "Maybe if you put some clothes on first."

However, rather than listening to her, Adrien stayed where he was, continuing to put an elbow on his knee and rest his chin in his palm as he looked at her smugly. "You've seen me in less than this before, Mari."

"Well, that was before you wanted to talk about your lack of sex life—"

His laugh was abrupt and loud. "I'd be happy just to hold someone's hand romantically."

Perhaps it was the phrasing, or the way she was avoiding his gaze as she was well aware of her heartbeat, that caused her to shyly ask, "What about holding mine, then?"

Avoiding looking at his face, she could hear him breathe out audibly before he questioned, "Yours?"

There was a slight panic, a worry that maybe she'd been reading the situation wrong, and she started to babble, "I—yes? If you want to? I won't be offended if you don't see me that way."

When she was met with silence, she chanced a look to the side to see his reaction.

It was better than she thought it would be. There was no displeased scrunching of his voice, or verbal rejection, and instead of that he seemed to be looking at her in some sort of wonder, openly staring with parted lips while making no sound. She found herself tentatively smiling at him, a nervous laugh escaping as she waited to see whether he'd do anything else.

"Marinette," he said slowly, voice so soft that she'd barely heard it at all. "Are you saying you like me?"

As it would be the best choice in the end, Marinette answered honestly, "I think so?"

"You think," he echoed, a disbelieving laugh escaping him as he ran a hand through his damp hair. "I—you're not saying this as a joke, are you?"

She shot him an unimpressed look. "You know I wouldn't do that."

"Right," Adrien agreed without missing a beat, hands on his bare thighs as his fingers nervously tapped against his skin. "This is very—it's sudden, right? I mean, I've been trying to ask you out for a few months but I thought you weren't interested."

Suddenly, admitting to Chloé that she was right didn't seem to be the worst thing. The normal behaviour that she'd associated with him had been so affectionate because that was how they always had been when they were close—yet, with the knowledge that he thought of her differently than the skinny kid that he'd grown up with, it felt more intimate than before.

"I didn't even realise," she whispered, grimacing.

His laugh didn't sound forced. "Oh, I'm well aware of that. I was starting to think that I'd have to be naked on your bed for you to realise."

Marinette groaned, leaning back against the cushions. "You really would've done that, wouldn't you?"

The smile he showed her was wide. "Yes? My plan was to try and woo you tonight first and see whether it was really necessary," Adrien said, not sounding the least bit embarrassed about his honesty.

"Tonight," she repeated, remembering that they'd agreed to go to the cinema. When she intentionally tried to think about how they'd be on a date together, it seemed impossible to imagine it in a way that was faithful to their personalities. She knew how he was with her, but not with someone that he was interested in—

But he was interested in her, he'd just admitted that without shying away.

She swallowed.

Adrien's voice interrupted her thoughts with, "Unless you don't want to go any more?"

There was no denying that she liked him; she'd never looked twice when he'd taken clothes off before, nor had caught herself staring at him at times. It had always been a case of seeing him differently than actually liking his personality—there was no doubt that she'd liked that part about him for close to two decades.

"I-I'd like to," Marinette stuttered, tucking stray hairs behind her ear. "A date's the best way to find out if we're compatible that way, isn't it?"

His smile was almost blinding.

-x-

She shouldn't have worried so much.

Sure, she'd been nervous at the beginning because she'd tried to predict how he'd act differently—and whether she'd like it or not—but things were almost the same as always. They shared drinks and food that they'd bought at the counter, juggling with them as they walked down the aisle to their seats. It wasn't too crowded, surprisingly, so Marinette was able to put her bag on the chair beside her inside of on the floor.

It was too dark for him to see her judging look when he took his shoes off and sat in a weird position beside her, not at all caring about sitting normally. Marinette rested her elbow on the armrest between them, head almost leaning against his shoulder as she did so.

Throughout the film, he made a few comments on the scenes that made her laugh loudly, sometimes choking on the food she was nibbling from how absurd the remarks were, and whenever she looked to the side, he looked entirely too pleased with himself afterwards.

He held her hand when they were walking back to his car.

The strangest part was that she didn't feel nervous about it; there was no clammy hands, stuttering pulse from the thought of him touching her, none of the insecurities that she'd had at the beginning of her other relationships. With Adrien she was more than comfortable to link her fingers through his and pull him along forcefully while exclaiming it was getting too cold to dawdle around for too long.

It felt like all the other times they went out together. They'd always taken turns to pay or split it between them, sharing food and drinks since they were little and after they'd made up while living together.

When they were walking back up to their floor, Marinette asked, "Did that feel like a date?"

Adrien almost tripped on the next step. Once he'd reached the top, he shot her a displeased look and crossed his arms while she climbed up to stand beside him. "A lot of the things we do together are date-like."

"I just—it didn't feel any different to usual?" she weakly tried to explain, running a hand through her hair before she realise that it was secured in braids, causing her to drop her hand lamely by her side. "I don't know what I was expecting."

"Oh," he said, drawing out the vowel. "I think I get it."

She blinked, fiddling with her skirt. "You do?"

"I think so," Adrien said with a smile. "I mean, we know practically everything about each other? I don't think our relationship will really change, other than the whole—the, well, actually romantic parts."

It made sense to her, so she found herself nodding.

Taking a step closer to her, he reached out with the hand that wasn't holding onto his keys to take her hand in his. "This is probably going to feel pretty platonic until we do something else," he mused, green-coloured eyes flickering up to meet hers. "Is this uncomfortable for you?"

"No."

He leaned closer, enough so that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. "Is this okay?"

She swallowed, eyes darting down to look at his lips briefly. "Fine."

Their noses brushed as the distance between them lessened, and it felt so intimate and hesitant that her lips curled into a shy smile to match his. He wasn't pushing her for anything else, though; Adrien was purposely moving slow to give her the chance to pull away if she wanted, making himself vulnerable and open for rejection just to tell whether his feelings were reciprocated.

As she much as wanted to say that she liked him—to get rid of the little bit of hesitance that was clear for the both of them—she could only stare as he asked, "Can I kiss you?"

She squeezed his hand. "Yes."

Her voice might've come out breathy.

His lips were soft and barely there at first, a chaste peck that seemed entirely too platonic, and she supposed that it had something to do with how awkwardly they were standing there. When Adrien pulled back to gauge her reaction, clearly thinking that that had been enough to determine it, she was only just able to hold back from laughing.

With her smile reaching her eyes, she stood on her toes and closed her eyes as she pressed their lips together, a lot more pressure than there had been before. She curled her free hand into his shirt, scrunching up the material, and she could feel his grin as he tentatively returned the movement. Adrien tilted his head down so she could stand normally without holding onto him for support quickly, catching onto her predicament from the awkward angle at the beginning.

It wasn't as awkward as she always thought kissing her best friend would be. It was a tad clumsy, reminiscent of her first kiss where she had clammy hands from nerves, but as their teeth accidentally grazed each other as their enthusiasm started to show, she knew that he wouldn't mind. There wasn't really the worry of making a fool of herself, no nagging insecurities that she wasn't performing well enough to live up to the anticipation.

Yet, somehow, kissing Adrien didn't feel wrong. It was comfortable, soft, and warm—many of the things she associated with him on a daily basis.

She didn't flinch when the keys he'd been holding fell to the floor, nor when he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer as their breaths were starting to turn into pants, a lot more heated than it had been before.

It still seemed pretty innocent, though. She was more than happy just to lazily kiss him without letting her hands wander, pleased with just the warmth of his breath and the soft touches of his lips instead of pursuing more.

When she pulled back and licked her lower lip, she took note of the colour that had appeared on his cheeks, the reddened lips, and the smug feeling of pride welling inside from knowing it was entirely her doing that he looked the way he did. From the blush that had appeared on the top of his ears to the way his lips curled into a lopsided smile, showing only one dimple, she was struck with the realisation that she definitely liked him.

Squeezing his hand as she shyly said, "That definitely didn't feel very platonic."

"Are you sure?" Adrien grinned. "We can try again to find out."

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't push your luck."

"But you love me," he sang, following up with laughter when she continued to glare at him. Adrien raised one hand in a sign of surrender, not pulling his other away from hers. "Does this mean you'll be my girlfriend instead of just my friend?"

Pausing to think for a moment, Marinette had to break the silence to ask, "Dating you doesn't mean my title of best friend gets revoked, does it?"

"That's a lifelong title," he confirmed, smile reaching his eyes. "I tried to learn a new language for you—it's yours."

She snorted, surprised that he was bringing it up at all. "Tried, eh?"

"I was a bit preoccupied with my teenage angst to learn how to insult you, sorry." He shrugged, not looking apologetic at all. "I lasted two years, but I failed the exam for it. It was horrible."

That was something he'd withheld from telling her for some time. Marinette had just assumed that he'd dropped the course after they'd stopped talking, having not expected that he'd be unsuccessful in it. She settled with saying softly, "It's still sweet that you tried at all."

Adrien's brightly exclaimed, "However, the good news is that I can say three words to your grandmother when you finally let me meet her."

"She can speak other languages, you know."

The grin didn't slip as he admitted, "If I don't impress her, I'm terrified that she's going to turn me into a frog for all those years ignoring you."

"That's a terrible stereotype and you know it," Marinette scolded him with a laugh, taking her hand back from his as she crossed her arms. "I'm the one that you should be worried about here, Adrien."

He waved a hand dismissively. "It'll count as domestic abuse if you poison me while we're dating."

"Poison seems a little too extreme," she mused, bending over to pick up his eyes and then fiddling with them as she avoided looking up. "Wouldn't it be more terrifying to unknowingly come into contact with something that's able to make you fall into a coma for a few days or cause your memory of the past few hours to become blurry?"

"...I thought you only made innocent things," Adrien murmured, reaching out to collect his keys from her slowly.

Her smile was a bit smug. "That doesn't mean I don't know how to make the other stuff."

"I think we should go back to kissing," he proposed. "You know, the non-platonic kind that we finally got to. Let's save the potential serial killer stuff for later, okay?"

When he started walking towards their door, she laughed. "Thank you for agreeing to plot murder with me, I guess."