It was New Year's Eve in Paris and Alya was ready to enact her plan. Nino and her had been trying to find a way to get Adrien and Marinette together for the past 6 months. When Nino had suggested a New Year's Eve party the wheels started to turn and the plan had been set in motion. Alya had set up the party for her house. They invited Adrien and Marinette as well as a few other couples. Looking around her living room she determined that everything was in place. Now the people just needed to arrive.
Nino was the first to arrive. Followed shortly by Mylene, Ivan, Kim, Alix, Rose and Julika. Kim and Alix had hooked up a couple of weeks prior after Kim's relationship with Odine tanked. Marinette showed up with some sweets from her parent's shop.
They had to wait another hour for Adrien to show up since he had to sneak out. By the time he arrived there was only a couple of hours until midnight. "It's about time dude," Nino exclaimed as Alya let him in.
"Sorry Nino," Adrien said as they did their 'secret' handshake. "But you know how my dad is."
"Hi Adrien," everyone else called as he walked into the living room where they had gathered to play games until the ball dropped.
"Good thing you got here," Rose squealed as she clapped her hands together. "Otherwise we would have had an uneven number at the new year and that would have been bad luck!"
"I hadn't heard that before," Juleka whispered. Rose nodded as she got up and skipped over to grab another macaroon.
"Marinette brought another great batch of Macaroons," she sing-sang-ed as she danced back over to Adrien to offer him the treat.
Adrien grinned as he took the offered treat. "Her sweets are always the best," he said before popping the whole thing in his mouth. Rose giggled as looked at a blushing Marinette.
"Come on," Rose pulled Adrien towards the board game they had been playing. "You can sit next to Marinette and maybe you can get the secret to her yummy macaroons." Alya and Nino shared a conspiratorial grin when they realized Rose was trying to do the same thing as them. They had decided not to let anyone else in on their plan as too many people pushing them together might seem suspicious.
"Now that we have an even number of people how about we play charades?" Alya suggested. The other kids agreed and Kim and Alix ended up being captains and started choosing teams while needling the other on how they were going to destroy the other team.
Once the teams were chosen the went to their side of the room for the games to begin. Kim had chosen Adrien, Marinette, and Alya while Alix had got Rose, Juleka, and Nino.
Alya held her hand up. "Who's going first? I have a pad and pencil to keep score."
Alix grinned at her boyfriend. "I've got one so I'll go first." She turned and looked at her team, "Are you guys ready to kick butt?" At the cheers from her team the games began.
Before they knew it there was only 10 minutes until midnight. The game ended with Alix's team winning by one point but lots of laughs had been had and everyone was having a blast. With the last round of laughter died down everyone turned to watch the TV as they ran over some of the highlights for 2018. A lot of the news covered Ladybug and Cat Noir as they saved Paris from various akumatized victims as well as the great concerts from Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale. Jagged Stone was there to perform for the 4 minute countdown to the New Year. When the one minute mark hit the teens started counting down.
Right before they got to zero Nino pushed Adrien and Alya pushed Marinette together. At midnight everyone kissed. Marinette was a little embarrassed about what Alya and Nino had done but took advantage of the situation. With her heart about to thump out of her chest she grabbed the lapels of his shirt and pulled herself up to place her lips on his. She heard him gasp and started to pull back when his arms snaked around her back and pulled her closer. With a new burst of confidence she continued to kiss him and put her arms around his neck. He had one hand at the small of her back while the other had worked its way up to the base of her neck.
It was like the rest of the world fell away and it was just the two of them. Unfortunately, they had to come up for air at some point. When they did both were breathing harshly and the other's were standing there smirking at them. Horrified at what she had done Marinette quickly excused herself and fled to the bathroom to hide. Adrien watched her leave with this astonished look on his face. What just happened. He thought over what he had done and couldn't believe he could kiss Marinette like that when he was in love with Marinette. The better question, he pondered, was why did he want to do it again?