Note: Yo waddup.

I have no particular excuse in mind as to why this came quite late. Although I had, like, exams and shit so maybe that will suffice? Also-and I'm gonna be honest here-I didn't feel like writing. Writer's block, honey, is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.

By the way, in the following month, expect even less updates from me because, in my delusion, I had joined NaNoWriMo. (For the folks at home who don't know, it's National Novel Writing Month, where you have to write a 50K word novel within thirty days.) It's like, eleven days from now and quite frankly I'm terrified. I will try to write for this as much as I possibly can, but no promises.

Also, I would like to say that this story has accumulated, so far, 38 follows and 20 favorites, which is mind-blowing to me. Thank you all for liking this enough to do that, I love you all.

This is the longest chapter I've written so far, holy shit. I wrote this in like, three hours so any mistakes are mine. But I have to confess that I quite like this chapter, gives Adrien a bit more character, and he's pretty irked here. I could have done better with Marinette's section though. Also, they meet in this part! For the first time officially! Although it's only for like two minutes! Tag yourselves I'm Adrien trying to write an essay. xx

Disclaimer: I do not own Miraculous Ladybug or any of the characters.

Reviews are a heavily flustered Adrien!


Chapter Four: Essays and Incidents

The sooner he could get this done, the better.

Adrien screwed up his face and looked at his laptop screen, at his blank word document. He looked at the fat history text sitting—open-faced and mocking—next to his maybe third or fourth cup of coffee. The essay was due in two days, they were given a week to get it done, and he hasn't written a word down.

Granted, he had an excuse; judging a music competition wasn't easy, in spite of what his history teacher might say. Maybe he'd even let Adrien slide. He had those free-passes, being the child of a world-renown musician after all. But that wasn't fair, was it? And Adrien, in spite of the lack of "raising" his father had contributed to the work force, was staunchly married to the idea of fair. (Which, he would also say, was pretty ironic coming from a child who'd been handed down everything—from his career to the silver laptop he'd been glaring at for the past hour—all his life.) (Whatever "raising" his father hadn't managed, his mother definitely had. At least Adrien's got morals. He could give himself that.)

He sighed, ran a distressed hand through his even more distressed hair, and gulped down the last of his coffee, opting to order a new one before he passed out from boredom.

Adrien wasn't a writer. He wasn't one of those people, who could spring up words from what it seemed was an endless supply, who could make something out of nothing and make it look and sound beautiful. He didn't have that kind of energy. He was a reader. Adrien could sit still and do absolutely nothing but breathe and read for hours.

He was more of an interpreter. A translator. But literary genius, alas, he was not.

It could be said in the same way with music, he guessed. Give him any piece and he could learn it within a day. Give him a black music sheet and he would shrivel up like a berry in the sun. Endless was his capacity for remodeling, it seemed. He was great at that. Building was a whole new different territory, on the other hand.

He lamented the blank screen he faced. He'd been here for hours, it was a miracle the barista hadn't pointedly cleared his table away to make it available for other customers. But Adrien reckoned it was another Being the Progeny of Someone Famous thing. He let it be, just this once, because he wouldn't leave until he had at least a decent first draft in his files.

"The bloody French Revolution," Adrien whispered more to himself (ignoring the slightly worried look the woman a table away from him threw in his direction). "What the fuck do I know about the French Revolution?"

A helluva a lot, considering the circumstances. He was French, after all. Not only that, he'd been force fed this malarkey ever since he started school, public or not. No, the trouble wasn't what he knew, he decided, it was how he was going to put it down.

He typed out a brief introduction. It was shaky, but it would get the ball rolling, and he could always come back to it later. One thing he did know about writing, is that words became cheaper the more you stack them up. So he stacked, leaving behind a trail of weirdly punctuated sentences and bad similes and all the waxing-poetic bullshit he knew his teacher wanted to hear. He, of course, remembered to include the actual revolution, unlike the report he made comparing the Meiji and the Militaristic period of Japan, which lacked the pretty important part of, you know, the war.

When he had a passable first attempt, he smiled indulgently to himself and got up to the counter to order. He'd get tea instead. As a reward.

He was paying when the door of the coffeehouse burst open, and a smudge of a figure blew in. Adrien wasn't the only one who stared. All eyes were set on the person, who turned out to be a girl, now red-faced and sheepishly brushing down her windswept clothes. Adrien was about look away from her, to give her back some lost dignity, when he noticed her hair, and how it was styled. Black, short, sectioned off into two pigtails. The girl looked up. Her eyes were wide, embarrassed, and bright blue.

Marinette Dupein-Cheng fixed the strap of her bag on her shoulder, and determinedly not making eye contact with anyone, strode to an empty table. Adrien looked away hastily when she turned to go to the counter. She was here.

A soft cough made him stop fumbling awkwardly with his wallet. The barista was holding his cup aloft, to him, with an expectant expression.

"Sorry," he mumbled, passing the appropriate amount of change and going back to sit. He turned to go back to his table, bumping square into someone.

"Oops there," Adrien said, nearly letting go of his cup in his rush to catch the person by their shoulders to keep them from falling over. "Sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going," He was in the process of apologetically smiling when he saw who it was.

"Shoot, I'm really sorry," Marinette said, her hands on his forearms. "I'm such a klutz sometimes," She let go of him, and he of her.

"Are you okay?" he asked rather lamely, looking her over to check. She waved him off.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I fall over all the time; I was just lucky that this time someone was there to catch me."

He nearly blushed. Nearly.

"Thank you though, for the concern, and, you know, not dropping me."

"It was nothing,"

She beamed at him, and after politely separating, Adrien went back to his table.

Dammit all to hell, he wasn't going to be able to write now.

He took a nervous sip of tea, not minding the scalding temperature, and ran his hands over his face. His nerves were completely shot. He'd been thinking about this girl for weeks, trying with all of his might to get her out of his head, because frankly it was getting unproductive. But now she was here, less than ten feet away, and he's seen her eyes up close. And he's heard her talk. Shit.

He gulped down the tea faster than he'd ever thought possible, blinking away the tears that collected near the corners of his eyes due to the burning in his throat. He made sure he left five times the regular tip. He even stacked up his cups.

Packing away his laptop, he quickly rushed out of the café, throwing a nod and a smile at Marinette before he went. He didn't want to be rude, especially to her. She smiled back.

The wind blew at his coat but he didn't notice it, replaying that one moment back.


Marinette wasn't having a good day.

She had been late to class, had grabbed the wrong coat this morning on her way out and now was forced to deal with a uselessly thin one to fend off the cold, and she'd been denied an accompanist for about the fifteenth time.

When lunch rolled around, she'd been the first to leave the classroom, getting out of campus as soon as she could. She needed some time to breathe, that was all she asked for. The weather was having a mind of its own, it seemed. This week there'd been sun and then rain and then gale-force winds and then more rain. Although Marinette admittedly liked the weather, her clothes suffered for it.

Sighing, she pulled down on her hat as the wind made another attempt to take it hostage, boots squelching wetly along the rain-soaked sidewalk. Her cheeks felt almost numb.

She liked taking walks like this, to help her think. She usually didn't have much time to do so, and with great reason. Marinette can get a bit dangerous when left alone for too long with her thoughts. That's when her big fat worries and insecurities would usually crop up and try to take her down with them. Walking, on the other hand, captured enough of her attention to help stave off the overthinking while leaving her with ample amounts of headspace to reflect. Occasionally, she would think about bigger things. A clear head was a good space to do that kind of stuff. Today, it was a bit on the smaller side.

Alya had texted her this morning, while she was still in class, one of the few bright spots her day has had.

Saw an ex of yours today. Only telling you because I burned him verbally. U r welcome, sister. Xx

She knew which ex, because of all her exes, this one was the worst. She didn't know why she kept thinking about it. She hadn't seen him in years, and would continue to not see him in the years to come, if Alya had anything to do about it.

Marinette wandered a bit more before rounding a corner into a street she knew well, finding what she wanted. The bookstore was a beacon in the dreary grey palate of the city, at least in her eyes. She didn't haunt it as frequently as she used to, now that she was busier.

She reasoned that she wasn't hungry enough to want lunch anyway, that she could go without some food for a while if it meant the peace and quiet a half-empty bookshop provided.

When she entered, Betty, the daughter of the owners, threw her a warm smile. She beamed back.

"We've been wondering where you went, Mari." Betty said, and Marinette went up to the register to give her a hug.

"I've been around. Busy." she said, pulling away and tugging her hat off.

"That's a terrible excuse,"

She laughed. "It's the only one I have,"

Within ten minutes, she was reclined in one of the easy chairs and reading. Sylvia Plath, it seemed, was the author of choice these past few weeks; Marinette had been poring over her whole body of work, poetry and prose. Words had a way of getting to her, in a way that was separate and wholly different from how music affected her. Music got under her skin, made her rise up and want to act. They summoned ghosts from her bones and made them corporeal. Words eased her, got her sedated into happiness.

She read and re-read every word until the growling in her stomach got too difficult to ignore. She bought the book, along with a few more, and left. There was a coffee shop nearby that she knew of. She'd only been there once or twice, but from what she could remember, the food wasn't bad.

The wind had picked up when she'd last been outside, and now it was strong enough to push her down the road. Marinette, being infuriatingly short, was pushed along easily like some cheap ragdoll. Quite frankly it was insulting.

She reached the café doors, now running, and in her momentum, could not stop. She burst spastically through the doors, and much to her embarrassment, caught the attention of everyone inside.

Fucking hell, why did she have to be so awkward?

She flamed up so quick she must've melted. She wanted to, to melt down into nothingness on the floor and be regressed into a puddle incapable of such silly human emotions like shame and humiliation. To her disappointment, she'd remained completely solid and completely capable of such silly human emotions like shame and humiliation. She felt them right now, as she dusted off invisible dirt from her clothes to try and divert the attention from her.

Once she couldn't pull off patting herself down any longer, she mustered up whatever was left of her self-esteem and walked to an empty table, all false confidence. She set her bags down and went off to order.

Marinette was famous for her two left feet and complete lack of hand-to-eye coordination, so her luck would have it that she would shove into someone on the way to something as mundane as ordering a meal. Of course.

She quickly grabbed hold of the person's forearms, and she felt hands go to her shoulders, and after a moment she was steady enough to stand on her two feet.

"Oops there," Marinette had been so busy making sure she wouldn't fall that she forgot that there was another person involved in this whole mess. She looked up. "Sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going," The one who had caught her was male, with the greenest eyes she'd ever seen and a smile that could kill, and he also happened to be Adrien Agreste.

She composed herself as quickly as possible. No fucking up in front of your idol's son, now. "Shoot, I'm really sorry." she said, slowly letting go of her grip on him. He must be so creeped out. Fuck. "I'm such a klutz sometimes," There was a short delay before he let go of her.

"Are you okay?" Adrien Agreste's eyes went over her for a moment, as if to check on her. Adrien Agreste was showing concern over her. Fuck, what is this?

"Yeah, I'm fine. I fall over all the time; I was just lucky that this time someone was there to catch me." Shit. Why'd she have to go on and say that?

"Thank you though, for the concern, and, you know, not dropping me." She meant it, although she could have said it less awkwardly, if she was being honest.

"It was nothing," he said, and he seemed genuine.

She couldn't help but smile at him. They exchanged a few more words before he went back to his table and she went to order. The barista eyed her with a weird look that she in turn ignored as she received her eggs benedict and toast. Carefully, she carried the tray to her table, mind still slightly fried from what had happened. She had just met Adrien Agreste, and not only was he hot, he was also really nice.

She was tucking into her meal when he started packing his things away, hastily throwing on his coat and walking out into the street. But before he left, he gave her a smile, small but terrifyingly pretty. She smiled back, nearly waving but catching herself.

He left with a flurry of wind, and Marinette found herself blushing once more, a stupid, stupid smile on her face.