By the time Adrien got to class, Marinette was already there. She was speaking animatedly to Alya, gesticulating as if there were no tomorrow. He smiled to himself-it would be easy to pretend they were dating as long as she kept being adorable, right? He dropped his bag off at his seat and walked up the extra step to where she was sitting, just in time to hear the end of her conversation with Alya.
"-it was like something out of a dream! I wish I had ideas as bold as that. I keep coming up with the same things, shirts, dresses...every day wear. But nothing that would go on a runway and make people gasp," Marinette was saying, finishing with a heavy sigh.
Hesitating slightly, he came up behind her and threw his arms over her shoulders, placing his head next to hers. He couldn't see her face well, and for that he was glad, because he could only imagine the reactive grimace. True to form, she tensed, realized who it was, and tensed even worse before she remembered that they had agreed to this sort of behaviour.
"Hey...Princess," he said, after casting about for a bit for an appropriate pet name. "I hate to eavesdrop, but I think your designs are awe inspiring."
"Th-th-thank you, Adrien," she said, slowly disengaging with him to turn and face him.
He stepped back, hands proudly on hips, before he realized that the stance really only worked for him as Chat Noir. He crossed his arms instead, trying not to look completely nervous. He'd never had a girlfriend before, and he wasn't sure how to behave with a fake one.
"You're welcome," he said after a pause that was too long to be entirely natural, winking at her. "How did you sleep last night?"
Marinette looked nervously behind him, very likely checking for Chloe's attention. Adrien wanted to peek as well, to see if the ruse was working, but to do that would require a full 180 degree turn, and would look completely unnatural.
"I slept grood! I mean good! Great!" Marinette bumbled out, and her nervousness worked to actually soothe his nerves.
He leaned forward, and put a hand on her shoulder encouragingly, as he had done so many times in the past. "Relax," he said quietly. And then, louder, "People are gonna find out about us sooner or later anyway."
"Do you mean to tell me that you two are...what, dating?" came a familiar voice from behind him. He closed his eyes in satisfaction. Well, at least she'd noticed.
Adrien turned, effectively forming a shield between Chloe and Marinette. Chloe stood with arms crossed, a disgusted expression on her face, with Sabrina behind her, echoing the stance.
"Yeah, we are," he said calmly, and extended a hand toward Marinette without looking at her. She took the hand, and he felt his pulse increase. You're a real smooth operator, huh? he thought. Getting nervous from holding hands with a girl. Very slick . "Why do you ask, Chloe?"
"This is a joke, right?" Chloe asked, but her confidence was wearing thin as her blue eyes locked on Marinette and Adrien's intertwined fingers. "Some elaborate scheme to trick me, specifically. How long has this been going on?"
Adrien smiled, hoping he wouldn't give away exactly how accurate Chloe's assumption had been.
"We've been dating for a while now," Marinette interrupted. Both of them turned to look at her, and her face looked just as surprised as Chloe's. "W-we just wanted to keep it a secret because we knew his fans would be so upset…?" Her statement ended more as a question, and she looked to Adrien for approval.
"But I couldn't stand the secrecy," he corroborated. "She thought it would be better for my career if nobody knew about us...but I care about her too much to keep her in the shadows."
His hand tightened on hers, and she smiled up at him.
"I don't believe it," Chloe said, and stormed off to her seat.
"I should get to my seat too...Princess," Adrien said, winking as he detached his hand from Marinette's and moved to sit down.
As he sat, he felt that his palms were sweaty. His left hand, anyway, could be explained by holding Marinette's doubtlessly sweaty hand. But both hands were equally slick. He passed it off as nerves, having to lie directly to someone's face like that. He may have been a model and a superhero, but he was no actor. He was infinitely glad that Marinette had chipped in, her quick thinking likely having saved the day.
He felt compelled to turn and look at her, to see how she was dealing with the aftermath of their first confrontation. In a way, it was like a relationship milestone. He smiled to himself, amused at his own line of thought, but decided against turning toward her. Even if they were fictionally dating, he didn't want her to think he was too interested in her and get uncomfortable.
"Should I be checking your pulse right now? Do you need to see the nurse?" Alya whispered, poking at Marinette's side.
"I'm not sure," Marinette breathed. "Am I alive right now? Did I get hit by a car on the way to school?"
"If heaven is first period French Lit then I refuse to ever die," Alya said, chuckling to herself. "That was pretty slick. Since when do you know how to lie?"
Marinette paled, her eyes widening. "I don't!" she said.
"You could have fooled me," Alya teased. "Anyway, I think you really impressed him! Good going, girl!"
"You really think so? He wasn't weirded out?" she fretted quietly.
"Maybe weirded out by how amazing you are!" Alya replied quickly, but the conversation was cut short by their teacher entering the class.
At their next break between classes, Adrien turned around and put his elbow on her desk, startling her out of a reverie created by absolute mindless daydreams. Her eyes widened and her face turned pink, as though she were still startled by his very presence. Part of her knew that she would have to get over that eventually, but part of her felt like it would go on forever.
He smiled at her, his green eyes flashing like leaves in sunlight, and her heart nearly stopped in her chest. A nervous smile tugged its way across her face in response, and she had to fight the urge to giggle senselessly-he was looking at her, with eyes only for her, with that gentle smile. Three days ago this would have been unfathomable.
"You don't mind that I call you Princess, right?" he asked, ruffling the back of his hair.
"I don't mind at all!" she blurted out, louder and quicker than she'd intended, and immediately bit her tongue. "I mean, I think it's good. Uh, it's less...you know, bland than sweetie or something so it seems more...legitimate," she said, stammering over her words.
"Hey, Marinette, why don't you have a pet name for me?" he asked, putting his hand on hers. She saw the momentary hesitation of his movement, as though he was afraid to touch her, but he made up his mind quickly, and his warm hand was on hers before she had time to pull away.
"Wh-what would you like to be called?" she asked, eyes locked on his hand.
"I suppose Prince would be too obvious," he mused. "You're awfully clever, Marinette; do you have any ideas?"
Her face flushed even darker pink than it had been just moments before. While someday she might become accustomed to his presence, she doubted that she'd ever grow used to compliments from him. It was too much for her heart to deal with all at once.
"I-I'm sure one will come to me the longer we're 'together'," she managed, just barely.
"You two are so cute together," Alya remarked, saving Marinette from whatever hell she was trapped in.
Adrien turned to look at Alya with a satisfied expression, and Marinette wondered where the satisfaction was coming from. Was he under the impression that he'd tricked Alya? She didn't think of him as having an ego, so it couldn't be from getting called cute. She could only imagine the reaction from someone with a bigger ego-Chat Noir came to mind. Saying he was cute would just fan the flames of...his entire everything. A small smile came to her face at the thought of his antics. Perhaps she'd have to try complimenting him out of the blue sometime and see what flips he'd do in reaction.
She was stirred out of this thought by Adrien standing and leaning over her desk to put his face directly next to hers. He was so close that their cheeks were almost touching, with his lips adjacent to her ear. Her blush was automatic, and she just knew he would be able to feel the heat radiating from her face.
"I have a question about our arrangement," he said, his voice so low it sounded almost like a purr. Chills ran up her spine.
"Sh-should we be whispering like this?" she breathed, honestly shocked she was able to keep it together this well. "It'll look suspicious."
"I think it'll look intimate," he responded in kind. "Does Alya know about..this?"
She went to nod, and stopped as she realized that he would have to somehow sense her movement as his eyes were presumably locked on the far wall. "I told her. I-is that alright? I won't tell anyone else!"
Adrien chuckled, his laugh hot on her ear. She felt as though she may faint. "Nino knows too, so it's only fair. I just wanted to know how much pretending I had to do around her."
He withdrew with a wink, and returned to his seat.
Marinette was still frozen in place, the colour of a strawberry (or a ladybug) as Adrien returned to casual conversation with Nino. She was a strong girl, and she was brave, when the situation called for it, but dealing with Adrien touching her was...an extreme circumstance. The only people who casually touched her quite so often were Alya and Chat Noir.
She was stirred out of her reverie by the thought of her bragging to Chat Noir about how affectionate her 'boyfriend' was to her. Would he say that his girlfriend was just as lovey dovey? Would he try to prove that he was the most affectionate 'catfriend' of all? Without a doubt, he would cause a scene, and it was just the type of thing she knew she shouldn't encourage.
Adrien seemed content to ignore her for the rest of the class, apparently satisfied that this display would be enough to keep Chloe off his back, which allowed Marinette to actually make an attempt to focus on schoolwork. Ever since she'd been accused of stealing Chloe's bracelet, she'd become accustomed to Chloe's occasional glares, so it wasn't much of a distraction.
It wasn't until lunch that Chloe made a second display of...rejection, was it? Pure rage? Hard to say. Marinette was bent down, packing her things into her bag, and when she straightened, Chloe was there. She had one hand on her hip, the other clenched into a fist at her side, and her expression was undiluted disgust.
"If you keep making that face you'll get wrinkles, Chloe," Marinette said casually, pulling her bag into her lap.
"Don't be ridiculous," Chloe spat. "I use the best moisturizer money can buy. Honestly, it's probably worth more than your pathetic little bakery." Before Marinette could respond, Chloe slammed a hand on the desk in front of her. "Now what kind of blackmail do you have on Adrien that he's pretending to date you? If you tell me what secrets you've found out about him, transfer ownership of them to me, I'll won't have my father expel you."
"You can't do that!" Alya interjected, now standing as well.
Marinette would have loved to be out of this situation, but as it was, she was bookended by two tall girls who were both forces of nature unto themselves.
"Maybe I can't, but my father can!" Chloe snapped.
"It would be a gross misuse of power, and I would put it on my blog for everyone to see! Your father would never get elected again!"
Marinette stared straight ahead, trying to think happy thoughts, when Adrien stepped back in, presumably after something he'd forgotten. He took one look at the three girls, and paled. Some part of her had hoped he would interject, but Adrien was not the sort of trouble maker to butt his head into every fight he saw. In fact, usually when there was trouble, he was nowhere to be found. It was that kind of wise self preservation which had made her love him so.
After a moment's hesitation, he did approach. His expression changed from one of doubt to complete confidence, and he grinned wide at Marinette. He didn't so much as look at Chloe, despite having to tap her on the shoulder and move her out of the way to move toward his fake-girlfriend. He extended a hand toward Marinette.
"Come on, I thought you'd forgotten our lunch date," he said, winking. She swallowed hard and took his hand. He pulled her to her feet, and smiled at Alya, still utterly ignoring Chloe. "We'll see you around, Alya!"
The two left the classroom, and as soon as they were out of Chloe's sight, he dropped her hand. She leaned against the wall in the hallway, touching the sides of her face as she shook her head. She did not truly know if Chloe had the power to expel her, but it was more than distressing to think about.
"She thinks I'm blackmailing you," she said at long last, remembering that Adrien was there, looking on curiously.
He laughed, and she looked up at him sharply. How could he be so carefree about this? The one person they were meant to fool was also the only one who suspected that this was a ruse!
"I'm sorry, it's just...it's more like I'm blackmailing you. Or, maybe bribery is more accurate. Come on, that looked stressful," he said, beckoning her to follow. "I'll buy lunch."
"You really want to? I thought you were just saying that to get me out of there," Marinette stammered.
"Hey, this wouldn't be much of a bribery if I didn't spend any money, would it?" Adrien replied, grinning. "Where do you want to eat?"
Marinette followed him out of the building, shocked dumb by his generosity and then shocked numb by the fact that he expected her to climb into a limousine just for some lunch. Still, she complied, unsure of what else to do in this situation. Her parents had taught her many rules of etiquette and politeness, but none of them covered fake-dating a millionaire. Maybe there was a wikihow somewhere on the internet with step by step illustrated directions on how to handle it.
She settled in next to him, shrinking into herself under the studious but neutral gaze of the limo driver, and buckled in.
"We don't have to go anywhere expensive," she said, barely above a whisper.
"Hmm…" Adrien mused, thinking of places they could eat. "Marinette, would you rather eat Italian today or a matter baby?"
Without thinking, she responded, "What's a matter baby?"
He turned and pointed some finger guns at her with an over the top wink. "Nothing, sweetie, what's the matter with you?"
She began to laugh, and snorted, loudly. She covered her face in embarrassment, but now the giggles had gotten to her, and she just couldn't quite quit. Adrien's more than pleased expression didn't help-how could someone like him think a joke like that was genuinely funny? It was too absurd!
"You're a dork!" she replied at last, somewhat aghast at her own accusation.
"Ah, but this dork made you laugh! Relax, Marinette. Today's my treat."