Chapter 4: An Important Business Meeting
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In the very nice, lavish bathroom Marinette was having a small meltdown.
"Oh my god," she squealed as quietly as possible. She flapped her hands and wriggled all over the place and jumped up and down. "OH MY GOD!"
She had locked the bathroom door behind her so she didn't need to worry about being walked in on, but she still had to keep her voice down to a whisper.
Tikki, who had finally awoken from her very long rest after last night's akuma, was looking at Marinette with her eyes even bigger than usual. She was almost a little worried for her chosen. She'd missed out on everything that happened prior to waking up in Marinette's purse about twenty minutes ago. But she'd heard all of the lunch conversation and couldn't take it anymore.
"Marinette!" Tikki said sternly, bonking into the over-excited young woman's forehead to get her attention.
"Ow!" The dark haired girl stopped flapping her hands like a crazy person in favor of rubbing her abused face.
"Did I hear things right?" Tikki demanded. "Are you having lunch with Adrien Agreste?!"
Marinette nodded furiously, squealing. She hurriedly recounted the morning's class, blushing profusely when she explained that he was the model for the art class ("Aren't the models for figure drawing naked?" Tikki had interrupted, to more blushing and squealing from her charge) and he had asked her out to lunch to catch up, the trip back to her apartment to change and the walk here and all the conversation she'd already heard.
"Oh Tikki, this is almost too good to be true." Marinette sighed like a love sick fool. Tikki felt exasperated to see her revert five years to the way she was when she first had her crush on the handsome blonde boy in her class, but Marinette's delight was somewhat tempered by realism now. "He's still just so perfect. He even apologized for bringing up Nathanael."
"He's engaged to Chloe." Tikki remembered both Marinette's period of mourning and from this lunch conversation.
"Ugh, I know!" Marinette immediately wilted, then blew a quiet raspberry in disgust. She splashed a little cold water on her hands and patted her neck and cheeks to calm down a bit. "I just can't understand why."
Tikki frowned. It really didn't make much sense to her either… She knew Adrien was Chat Noir (though of course she was unable to tell Marinette that) and that Chat Noir was hopelessly and completely in love with Ladybug. Not all Ladybugs and Chats became lovers, but Tikki was certain she understood this Chat's feelings for his Lady, and that he would become her lover in a heartbeat if she ever gave him even half a chance. Why would he ever propose to that horrible, demanding, cruel brat when his heart was already lost to another? Again, though, she was unable to share her thoughts with Marinette. All she could say was, "You'll have to spend more time with Adrien to find out."
"More time?" the girl parroted.
"Yes. Adrien has told you he wants to catch up." She tried to be encouraging while helping Marinette keep a level head. "You even work at his family's company! Make sure you get his phone number and see him again sometime soon." Even if he was in a relationship with Chloe, there was no reason Adrien and Marinette couldn't be friends again. Maybe she could even discover what the hell he was going engaged to that wretched Bourgeois girl. She wanted to pull Plagg's tail for ever letting that happen.
"Get his phone number?" Marinette looked at her own phone, considering that. She had had it in middle school, but it had changed since then… She nodded. "Sure. After all, I did tell him I would find a way to pay him back for lunch today. And we are old friends. Friends should have each other's phone number."
"Exactly!" Tikki agreed.
Marinette gripped her phone, mustering her courage to return to the table and her erstwhile love. She noticed that her notification light was blinking, and unlocked the screen to find a message from Alya asking what she was up to today.
Feeling mischievous and a little confident thanks to her success not being a stuttering, bumbling fool in front of Adrien, Marinette replied to that message.
QuiteContrary: Not too much. Morning class, having lunch with Adrien, then heading off to work.
She sent that off giggling, and left the restroom to finish her salad.
She only made it half way back before her phone buzzed again. She checked Alya's reply.
LoisLaneGotNothinOnMe: Yeah, right, tell us another one. Really, what are you up to?
Marinette giggled as she approached the table. Adrien set his phone down on the table and made to stand up to greet her but she waived him back into his chair. "Would it be okay if I took a selfie of us together?"
"Sure!" He agreed immediately.
"Alya didn't believe me when I said we were having lunch." Marinette giggled again. She opened her camera and switched it to forward facing, then she moved over behind his chair and positioned her face near his shoulder so she and Adrien were in one half of the image and their table with their dishes was visible in the other half. "Smile!" She grinned and snapped the picture, showing it to Adrien who laughed approvingly, and then sending it off to Alya as proof.
She'd not even taken one bite of her salad before her phone started vibrating with texts one after the other. She and Adrien both laughed out loud and Marinette turned her phone over so the screen wasn't blinking at her while they finished eating. They kept the conversation light and general and at the end, Adrien insisted on getting a crème bruleé to share. Marinette was worried they were cutting it too close on time, but Adrien said he'd vouch for her and that they wouldn't argue with the son of the owner of the company.
"I don't want to take advantage of your friendship to get special perks on the job!" Marinette exclaimed. "That wouldn't be fair."
"Nonsense." Adrien insisted. He ordered the crème bruleé and a coffee for each of them, handing off his credit card at the same time to expedite their exit after dessert was done. "We are having a very important business meeting."
"We're old friends catching up over lunch, you said so yourself!" She exclaimed.
"We are also discussing fashion trends and career goals." He insisted playfully.
'Oh my god, is he flirting with me?' "We never discussed anything about car—"
He interrupted her. "Where do you see yourself in three months? In a year? Five years?" He grinned at her disbelieving shake of her head. "Tell me what your vision is for the MDC Brand."
"MDC?" she repeated, faintly.
"Your initials!" Obviously they were her initials; she knew that, they were hers. "A name for your brand. Do you not like it?"
On the contrary, it's exactly what she would label her clothes if she ever became successful enough to have her own brand in her own name. She'd been fantasizing about that for years. And limited addition pieces or pieces in the high-fashion category would simply bear her signature: Marinette.
She told him this. "Three months from now I'll be finishing my fifth semester of university and my internship will be ending. I'd like to land a permanent but flexible position within Agreste Fashions so I can continue working there alongside finishing up my degree. In one year, my degree will be complete and I'll have that permanent position. In five years I'll have my own office at my design studio where I'm in charge of my own brand label." She smiled at the vision of success and opened her eyes slowly, not having realized she'd closed them.
Adrien's face was a study. His smile was part pride, part wonder and part indulgence. He blinked as if returning from her vision too, and nodded encouragingly. "Let's see what we can do to make it all happen."
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After dessert and coffee were cleared away (she mentally punched her immature inner 15-year-old for squealing about sharing dessert and indirect kisses and other ridiculous childish fangirling) Marinette leaned back in her chair a little and sighed, unobtrusively resting a hand on her slightly too full stomach. "Oh boy, that was really good. I don't think I've eaten so much in months."
Adrien finished signing the check and pocketed his credit card, while smiling at her. "We'll have to do this again sometime soon."
"Oh, yeah!" Marinette picked up her phone and unlocked it, ignoring the backlog of texts and missed calls from Alya for now in favor of opening a new contact. She held her phone out toward Adrien. "Would you punch in your number, please?"
He looked surprised for a second, and Marinette hesitated, suddenly afraid she had misread all his intentions. "Unless of course you don't want to give me your personal phone number! That's fine, of course, I can always just send you an email at work to get in touch with you that way. You probably don't hand your personal phone number out to just anyone. I didn't mean to presume!" She started to pull her phone back in embarrassment.
He snatched the phone out of her hand and started typing into the contact. There was a little stain of pink high on his cheek bones as he typed. "Of course I will give you my number." He sounded a little exasperated. "How many times do I have to say 'old friends' before you relax? Feel free to call or text any time, we can get coffee or see a movie or just talk."
Thrilled, she couldn't help but smile at him. "I'm so glad you were the model today for class."
He glanced at her, his lips pursed into a small "o" of surprise.
Embarrassed, she waved her hands at him, trying to find the right words. "Ah! I mean, without that we might never have reconnected, y'know?" She tucked her hands into her lap and nervously clenched her fingers together, digging deep inside herself for the courage to continue speaking honestly. "Well… Drawing you today was also nice. I needed experience drawing a young male figure, so I could be better with my designs. And—" her voice dropped to a whisper despite her attempts to keep it even. "You do have a beautiful figure."
She couldn't even look at him. 'Why did I say that to him! AWKWARD! He's going to change his mind and delete the contact, and never speak to me again!' She buried her burning face in her hands. 'I'll be fired from the internship for sexual harassment and he'll set the army after me, and I'll have to leave the country and move to an arctic island and survive on nothing but lichen and fish for the rest of my life!'
"Thank you."
She peeked between her fingers. He was smiling and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, and he actually seemed flattered. 'Not creeped out, but flattered?' "It's kind of you to say so. I do work at it really hard, but it's still nice to get a compliment."
She moaned at her own awkwardness. "You're welcome." Her voice was tiny, and she dropped her hands snatching her phone back when he offered it to her and stuffing it in her back pocket. "Okay, quick. Let's go to work before I'm so late I get fired on the spot and before I say anything else that makes me wish the ground would open up and swallow me."
He laughed, but followed her out of the restaurant.
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Author's Note: Updated 7/14/2018
