I'm not abandoning my other stuff, but I feel like I've gotten into a bit of a writing funk and thought this could help me get out of it.

To try and keep up with posting every day I'm going to forego having my usual people help me edit so this might be a bit rougher than my other stuff.

I might change the title later, but I couldn't think of anything else for now and wanted to get this up by the deadline.

Marinette could do this! She'd practiced, she was wearing her lucky charm, and Tikki had cast a confidence spell (she was 70% that was just a placebo, but she wasn't going to question that now). She could do this. She could confess to Adrien Freakin' Agreste!

The lunch bell rang and she reached out to grab Adrien's arm before he could leave. "Um A-Adrien, would you like lunch have with me?"

He blinked for a minute as he unscrambled her words, but she dare not try again for fear of further mishap. He flashed that wide, genuine smile once he understood and her heart melted a little more. "I'd love to have lunch with you! Will Nino and Alya be joining us?"

Alya, bless her, jumped in before Nino could. "Nope, Nino promised he'd take me out on a date for lunch today, so I guess it's just you two kiddos."

Nino raised an eyebrow at his girlfriend. "I did? Ow! I mean, yeah, I did. Sorry dude, we can make it the four of us next time.

As a point to her confidence, Adrien didn't look any sadder at the prospect of it being just the two of them. He turned back to Marinette, still as sunshine-y as ever. "Looks like it's just the two of us then. Is that okay with you, Marinette?"

That had been her intended plan all along, but she wasn't about to tell him that. Instead, she just nodded, trying to save her coherent words for when she confessed later.

Alya distracted Chloe by asking if she had any interest in doing an interview on Queen Bee's relationship with Ladybug, leaving Marinette and Adrien to leave unharassed for the short journey across the street to her home.

Less lucky when they actually got to her home and her parents saw just who Marinette had brought home for lunch.

"Hello Maman. Hello Papa. This is Adrien, you met him before. We'll be upstairs for lunch, I know you're busy so don't bother coming up!"

Before either of her parents could say anything to potentially embarrass her, she grabbed Adrien by his school bag and hauled him in back and up the stairs. Adrien dawdled at the entryway, looking back downstairs.

"If your parents are busy, I can always come back another time."

She waved her hands, "No, no. It's fine. You're in no one's way. Lunch is already ready."

Adrien came forward and took a tentative seat at the dining room table, "Well if you're sure."

Marinette beamed, "Absolutely. It's nothing fancy though. I only made sandwiches."

"With bakers for parents, I'm sure anything you make must be delicious."

She laughed and went to the kitchen to pull out the tupperware containers, setting them on the table before taking the seat next to the love of her life. "I've got three options for you: peanut butter and strawberry jelly, banana and honey, or camembert and ham."

Adrien pulled a face. "Camembert?"

She nodded. I noticed that you usually keep some in your bag and figured you really liked it." Her smile faltered. "Was I wrong?"

Adrien's smile appeared tight and forced. "No, I love the stuff. Why else would I walk around with a bag full of stinky cheese?"

Marinette shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. An offering to the gods?"

Adrien's face went white as a sheet. "What? No tiny gods here. Certainly not. Definitely non of the destructive type especially."

Marinette laughed. "I should hope not. My god would cast them out."

Adrien's jaw dropped. "You can do that?"

She pointed to a small plaque hanging on the wall depicting a man and a woman drawn in classical Chinese style. "Meet Zoa Jun. The kitchen god. My maman is Tao and insisted we have one put up."

He leaned back in his chair and laughed weakly. "Nice to meet you Zao Jun. Please don't cast out any gods of mine, unlucky or otherwise."

While pleasant, this was not the way she had planned on this conversation going and if she was ever going to get to those three kids and a hamster, she would first have to become his girlfriend.

"I've got something to say," Marinette said while at the same time Adrien blurted, "I've got a question for you."

"What?" they said at the same time.

"You go," they said, in sync once more.

"No, you."

Adrien raised his hand. "I'll go, I think I know what you're about to say anyway."

Marinette blinked, owl-eyed. "You do?"

"Yeah, you were going to tell me that Nino put you up to this, weren't you?"

"Why would you think that?" Marinette asked, mystified despite her emotional sucker punch to the gut that Adrien would think she'd only hang out with him if forced.

Adrien's face turned a shade of red that would look stunning as an evening dress, but as a skin color, was rather alarming. "Nothing. Never mind. What were you going to say?"

Her instincts, now far more honed since becoming Ladybug, told her this was important. "What I have to say can wait. Why do you think Nino told me to ask you to lunch?"

"I- uh- might have briefly mentioned to him recently that I wished you and I could be better friends, since I thought you were just hanging out with me because our best friends are dating."

"You WHAT?! Why on earth would you think that?"

Adrien jumped at her outbreak and leaned back in his chair. "I just- well- it feels like most of the time we hang out that someone is setting us up and I thought Nino and Alya were trying to force you to get along with me to make it easier to hang out."

Marinette struggled to keep her face emotionless. "You thought Nino and Alya were forcing me to hang out with you?"

"Well, forced is the wrong word," Adrien said, backtracking immediately, "but I know you would do anything for Alya and if she mentioned it was something you wanted, you would probably do everything in your power to give it to her."

Marinette held up a hand. "Wait here."

She stood up and left the room, doing her very best not to scream in frustration the entire way. Halfway up the steps to her room Tikki popped up beside her shoulder. "Are you doing okay?"

She let out a frustrated sigh. "Yeah, I just realized that before I can be Adrien's girlfriend, I need to start with just being a better friend."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Marinette lifted her bedroom trapdoor and scrambled inside, heading directly for what she was looking for and picking it up. "I'm going to start by clearing up a misunderstanding."

Tikki eyed the object in her chosen's hands and nodded. "A wise choice." Then she flew back into the purse at Marinette's hip where she'd been hiding the whole time.

Marinette made her way back downstairs. Adrien was still sitting in the chair where she'd left him and she noted that in the time she'd been gone, he'd eaten all the camembert and ham sandwiches. When she entered he turned to her and eyed the object in her hands curiously.

"What is that?"

She approached and held it out for his inspection, making sure the A. A. inscription was clearly visible. "You don't recognize it?"

His eyes widened and he looked from her to it and back again. "My umbrella! But. . . why did you keep it?"

"Because," she said sternly, "It's an important memory of when I made a very dear friend." She set the umbrella down on the table and held out her now empty hand to him. "But now I realize that I haven't done a very good job of showing him just how important of a friend he is, so I'd like to start over starting right now. Can we try the friendship thing again and this time I try not to be a total ditz?"

Adrien stared speechlessly at her hand and she worried that she was too little too late, but then he grabbed her hand in both of his. "I'm sorry too. I should have talked to you when I thought something was up. Clean slate?"

"Clean slate," she agreed and they shook on it.

The rest of lunch went by casually as they talked about the ridiculous antics that their friends (mostly Alya) got up. When they were done, they walked back to school where Alya was waiting for her at the front door and promptly whisked her away for an interrogation.

"Give me the deets, girl! How'd it go?"

"A lot better than expected," Marinette admitted.

Alya's eyes blew wide, made double so by her glasses. "No way! You actually told him? Did my bff finally get herself a boyfriend?!"

She shook her head, "Nope. Just friends." She paused for a moment before adding, "but I think it's better this way. I need to be a better friend to Adrien before I can even think of being his girlfriend."

Alya pretended to wipe away a tear. "Look at my baby girl, all grown up. You wouldn't even know that just last week she snuck into the boy's locker room in a failed attempt to give Adrien a love letter."

Marinette groaned and thumped her head on Alya's shoulder. "Not my best plan. Please don't remind me."

Alya gave her a pat on the head as she laughed. "Still though, I'm not sure if that makes what I did a good thing or a bad thing."

Marinette's head popped up. "And just what did you do?"

Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think!