Chapter 8: Sunday Funday
After breakfast, Marinette spent her Sunday morning catching up on her homework for the upcoming week. She was able to finish her physics homework, luckily, so she didn't have that to worry about for the rest of the week. The one physics session with Adrien really paid off. Once she was done with most of her homework around noon, she tried to start with some new designs in her closet of a work place. She was told last week, by her professor, there was an upcoming project that they would hear about Wednesday that she was very worried about. It apparently is a big part of her grade and has a prize or something to it. She was very nervous, so she tried to make every possible design she could think of, but it was so hard to concentrate in her poor ventilated, small space.
With the space clutter in mind, she decided it was time to check in on how things were planning to play out with her new "business room".
M: Heyyyyyyy, Adrien… :)
A: Heyyyyyyyy, Marinette. What's up? Couldn't get enough of my attention? ;)
M: Oh whatever, haha. Umm, well you see… I was actually curious when I could redeem the brownie points I have earned with all the bakery snacks I have given you.
A: Anytime you want. What prize would you like to redeem it for?
M: Well, there was an offer for a room with a view in a mansion. Is that still available?
A: Of course! When would you like to redeem that prize? I'm free whenever to help you set everything up.
M: Yay! I'm so happy. I have a project coming up soon, actually. I was hoping before Wednesday so I can get ready for it. If that works with you?
A: It does indeed. What are your plans for today?
M: Ummmm nothing, why?
A: I'm picking you up. Be ready in 20 minutes, we're going shopping!
M: Are you serious? I mean I can just use the stuff I already have, it's no trouble, Adrien.
A: You're going to put a dusty mannequin, and a chipped, broken down, wooden table with a wooden chair in a mansion…?
M: …. Alright, pick me up.
Marinette looked down at herself. "Crap, I have been in pajamas all day.", She went and picked out a new pair of clothes, folded them and set them on the bathroom counter while she took a shower. Once she got out of the shower, she blow-dried her hair and put it in her signature ponytails.
Once she was ready with clothes, make up, and hair done, she was miraculously within perfect timing. She got a call from Adrien saying he was outside. Tikki hid in her purse and Marinette rushed out of the door to meet him outside.
She then hopped into the very nice, expensive, spacious car excitedly.
"What's our first stop, Mr. Agreste?", she joked.
"We are going to get paint."
"Paint?"
"Yeah, we have to paint the room how you want, don't we?"
"We are going all out, aren't we?"
"Indeed, my lady."
That was weird. He has never called me that before. I wonder if he just got it from watching Chat Noir or something throughout the years. He probably says that to all his friends.
"Do you have any ideas of what colors you would like?"
"Well, I do really enjoy a pastel pink. It gives me a positive vibe. Maybe a type of flowery, spring color, what do you think?"
"I think that would look amazing, Marinette! Oh, by the way… You have to help me fix up the mansion. Nino and I decided it would be a great idea, but I thought I would tell you, since it involves you and all."
"That would be smart to tell me, haha. I'd love to do that, that sounds like so much fun! We can blast music through the mansion, and have so many different colors and styles for each room! This is going to be amusing!"
He smiled radiantly at her getting all giddy at the thought.
"We're not getting the paint for your whole mansion today, are we?", she asked overwhelmed thinking of how much work it would be.
"No, no", he reassured, "I'm guessing you would have to see my mansion first anyways before we just randomly pick colors to see what fits."
"Yeah, that would be a good idea."
Once they were finished with the paint shop and Marinette picked out her colors, their next stop was the furniture store. They had to get proper shelves, storage, a new sewing machine, a couple new mannequins, as well as fabric holders and small thread holders. This of course wouldn't all fit in his car, so he had the people ship it to his house.
Marinette was overwhelmed at all the new things she was getting, but was very eager for her fresh start.
"Adrien, I can't possibly let you buy all of this."
"Nonsense, you'll pay it off once you work with me ;)."
"Oh? And who says I'll be working with you?"
"Who says you won't be?"
"Alright, you got me there… Obviously your company is ONE of my choices, but that doesn't mean I have decided on it."
"I thought it was your dream to work for my company?"
"It is, but I don't want a job at your company just because you will give me one. I want to earn it."
"Marinette, I wouldn't just give you a job. I mean… I would… but that's because I know first handedly what youre capable of and what you can live up to. You're amazing!"
She blushed and smiled back at him, "Thank you, Adrien."
"What do you say we get back and throw some color on my place?"
"I think that's a great idea!"
Once they get to the mansion, Adrien gives Marinette a tour. He shows her the game rooms, the theater he has, the pool outside and inside. Lastly, he shows her the empty rooms available that she can pick from.
She ends up choosing Adrien's old room. Something about it just felt right for her. It had a lot of large windows for natural lighting, as well as enough space that she could use. It wasn't too large of a room to where it was overwhelming in size and she didn't know what to do with the space. It was just enough. She also wanted to make it have a positive outlet. She knew Adrien didn't just move rooms to move. It must bring him bad memories and she wanted to change that.
Once Marinette chose her room, they laid down a tarp so the paint wouldn't get on the fresh wood put in.
Although Marinette put a lot of thought into her outfit that day, they both thought it would be a good idea to changed so their clothes didn't get ruined. Adrien and Marinette changed into Adrien's old exercise clothes from high school. While the clothes may have fit Adrien perfectly, defining every muscle, the clothes were too big for Marinette. She had to roll her waist band on the gym shorts and tie her shirt with a hair tie to make them fit decently enough.
Adrien started up the mansion's speaker and played whatever music Marinette requested as they spent their time together jamming out and focused on their task.
The room was finally finished around 3 in the afternoon. Covered in different shades of light, pastel pinks, they laid on the tarp on the floor out of exhaustion.
"We should open a window it's kind of stuffy in here.", Marinette stated regretting not doing that from the start so they wouldn't have been suffocated from the smells the whole time.
She made her way over the huge glass wall of windows and struggled, "Okay, seriously?How do you open this sorcery?", she said pushing and pulling every way at the windows.
Adrien huffily got up from the floor and helped her. With a slight push, the window eased opened.
"You know, you're going to have to learn how to handle this room.", he said laughing at her.
She leaned out the now opened, fresh breezed window, "Yeah, well maybe you'll just have to teach me about the tricks of this room."
He sentimentally looked around the newly painted room that was once his. He had a lot of memories in that place. Mostly bad, but not all of them were. It was definitely nice to see the bright change.
Marinette sighed from fatigue, "That pool looks nice, it was a lot of work to paint every inch of this mansion of a room within a mansion."
"How long do you think it will be before the paint dries and the people can fully move stuff in?"
"Maybe an hour or two?", she said dreamily staring at the backyard and at her new view, which was quickly interrupted with her being thrown over Adrien's shoulder.
"ADRIEN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"We are going for a swim", he said nonchalantly walking down the stairs with the girl over his shoulder.
"Oh, no we aren't!"
"You said it looked nice, did you not?"
"Yeah. I did, but in my dreams! I don't even have a swim suit!"
"That's okay love, just please don't hate me."
With that sentence, they reached the pool and Marinette was quickly thrown off of his shoulder in to the pool with no hesitation from Adrien. A screech came with Marinette flying through the air into the pool. As she came up and gasped for air a, "Oh, Adrien! I'm going to hurt you!", came from the soaked girl.
"How could you hurt someone who has done nothing wrong to you?", he joked as he took his shirt off that left Marinette with a deep red face, as he then jumped over her head into the pool canon ball style that created a wave that crashed over her.
When he came up for air he noticed a soaked Marinette with wet hair that she was desperately trying to wipe out of her face. She then took her pigtails out, placed her hair bands on the side of the pool then glared at Adrien.
"AGRESTE!", she jokingly furiously said.
"Yes?", he said with a cheeky grin.
She then pounced and Put all her might on his head forcing him under quickly. He then grabbed her by the waste and Pulled her under too. They both came up for air choking and laughing on water.
They swam around for a while, playing and messing around, then settle down to just float peacefully next to each other as the sun beamed on their skin.
"How long do you think it has been?", Marinette asked lazily floating on her back in the water next to Adrien.
"uhhhhh, I dunno. Maybe an hour or so?"
"Do you think the paint is dry yet?"
"Probably not, Mari. haha be patient."
"Ughhh, I'm so starving though…"
"Want me to order something?"
"Adrien, you spend too much money. Do you have anything here?"
"I can have the kitchen staff make something for us if you would like?"
"Do you ever make your own food?"
"No…."
"Silly boy", she rolled her eyes and pulled herself out of the pool from the side, "let's go Mr."
"What where?", Adrien said swimming to the edge to pull himself out.
"Your kitchen silly. I am teaching you to cook."
"What really?", he chuckled in disbelief.
"Yes.", she said with determination.
As they arrived to the kitchen, the staff stood at attention waiting for orders. Adrien told them all to relax and that they would be needing the kitchen so they could all go on break. Without hesitation, the whole staff left happily.
"Okay miss baker's daughter, what's on the menu?"
"hmmm, aren't you madly in love with croissants?"
Adrien's mouth watered and replied with a heavy nod.
"Haha okay then, I have a feeling your modeling career is going to hate me for teaching you this."
"I have a feeling that's true, haha."
"Okay where are your cooking bowls?"
"uhhhh…."
"Are you serious? Have you even been in here at all, Adrien?", she laughed then rummaged around every kitchen cabinet until she found every supplies she needed, "I'm guessing I'm going to have to go on a scavenger hunt for the rest of the needed stuff too, huh?"
He gave her an embarrassed smile, then helped her look for things.
"Okay, where do we start?", Adrien said prepared for instructions.
The rest of the time Marinette barely helped him. She mostly just gave him orders, unless he was struggling to the max, then she would step in and show him how to do it.
Once they shoved the Adrien made croissants in the oven they sat on the kitchen counter and waited.
"Thank you, Marinette. Although I struggled more than I should have, I had a lot of fun!"
"I'm glad you did, I had a lot of fun bossing you around.", she nudged his shoulder with her elbow.
"Maybe you can show me how to cook more of your famous pastries sometime?"
"As much as I'd love to, I really don't think your modeling career would enjoy you having that knowledge", she joked poking his stomach that was rock hard.
'Geez, I don't think it would even make a dent', she thought.
"Anyways, most of them are family recipes."
"Whats wrong with sharing family recipes?", he gave her kitten eyes and a smile.
"It meaaannnss, you have to be in the family, silly.", she said as she pushed his face back.
He reddened at the thought of being apart of her family, her parents treated him more like family than his own father had ever.
*DING
"Looks like your masterpiece is done!", Marinette said pulling the tray of croissants out of the oven.
"I hope they don't taste as bad as they look…", Adrien said a little worried.
"I'm sure they'll be fine, they don't look too bad, Adrien."
They brought the stack of croissants to the dinner table and sat across from each other.
"You know, it's kind of nice having someone else eating at this table with me."
"Adrien, I wish you would have let us stay on your life for the year you were gone. We would have all supported you."
"I know, Marinette. It was something I needed to do. It was a lot to take in at the time. I do trust that you all wouldn't have gone against me, and I'm glad you guys didn't, I just had a lot of personal things I had to take care of."
"I understand."
When the two were done with food they washed their dishes then made their way back to the newly painted room to check on it.
"Wow, it is nice to see this room have a bright atmosphere.", Adrien said with a beam.
The room was completely finished. The paint must have completely dried when they were in the pool and the movers took the chance to do their thing. The top half of the room where Adrien use to have a huge bookshelf wall, now held all of her desired fabrics and her threads that she bought. It was encased in a glass cabinet where she could pull out what she wanted by section. Then on the bottom half of the room, was a couch and a coffee-table with a TV on the wall in case she needed a break or background sound. There were six new mannequins in the space along the wall, just in case she has more than one projects she plans on doing at a time. Adrien's old closet incased all of her old projects or ones that she had been working on and were held in there for storage. It was set up so she could store all her finished projects. Then she had a big desk for her sewing machine, more threads, needles, needle cushions and everything.
Marinette was speechless, "wow" she said breathlessly, "I have only seen things like this in my dreams…"
"It's all yours, Mari.", he said pulling her in for a side hug with his hand over her shoulder as they both take in the new room.
"Thank you so much Adrien, this is amazing! Look how much room I have to sew!", she said hugging him and then running to her new desk.
Adrien leaned on the back of the chair she was sitting at and took in the view of the desk, "hmm something seems off?"
"What do you mean? Everything is perfect!"
"I'll be right back."
"Okay…?"
Adrien left and Marinette excitedly messed with all of her new things. When Adrien came back he leaned over where Marinette was sitting and pinned something on the wall above her sewing machine.
"There" he said backing away.
Marinette's face burned red, "W-whats that for?"
"In high school, you told me how you liked my dad's work and my modeling. I figured I would make it feel a little at home for you by putting up a picture of me like you use to have", Adrien laughed to himself and Marinette buried her face in her hands.
"It's greaaaaattt, Adrien thanks. I'll get so much inspiration now!", she laughed.
"If you ever run out of inspiration from that picture you can always just have me come model for you. I know I'm a charm to look at." He jokingly striked a pose and they both burst into laughter.
Marinette spent a little more time in her new room, and then Adrien took her home.
As Adrien got back from dropping Marinette off and reached his room he heard a, "Camembert?", fly out from his shirt.
"Plagg, you have already raided the fridge. how much more could you fit in that small body?"
"Hey, being the god of destruction takes a lot out of you as much as your lovesick talks do."
"I bet. There is more in the cabinet over there."
"Speaking of lovesick,What are you going to do about Marinette?"
"Right now, she is just a friend. I think I need to have a talk with ladybug to straighten my head. As much as I want to move towards Marinette, I don't want to be forcing my feelings."
"What are you going to talk to ladybug about?", Plagg says inhaling camembert.
"I need her to tell me that I absolutely, definitely, do not, have any chance on earth with her so I can move on."
"Hasn't she already done that, kid?"
"She always replies with she has feelings for someone else, but that doesn't mean that she would never return my feelings. If her scenerio changes, would I have a chance? I want to move on, but my mind is stuck on that slim chance! I need her to fully confirm that she has no feelings what so ever for me so I can fully close my heart off from her.", Adrien says freeheartedly, pulling a pillow over his head as he lays down.
"Hmmm I think that's wise. Then you can fully stop talking about ladybug. 'Oh, ladybug, how my love shines bright for you.", Plagg recites to his cheese, mocking Adrien.
"You know that name is just going to change to Marinette, right?"
"Greeeaaaaaatttt."
Marinette was brought home at 6pm and looked in the now empty room.
"It feels good having that room cleaned out. Maybe now I can actually use it as a closet or storage."
"I'm happy for you, Marinette,", Tikki says, "I am overjoyed to see what you will be able to accomplish with your opportunity."
"I'm excited for this upcoming project! It will give me a reason to actually break in my new room and not just awkwardly show up at his mansion."
"I understand. Are you ready to face Chat Noir tonight?"
"You know, I think I am. Today with Adrien was fun! I wasn't an obsessed-caught in my feelings Marinette. It was more of a spending time together, friend-fun. I'm eager to show Alya!"
"I'm sure she will go crazy over it!"
With that Marinette tiredly went to her room, set an alarm and took a nap, from her lively day.
