Sooo my laptop died. Yesterday. Not sure if it's dead dead, or just playing dead to get attention. Thankfully most of my stuff is backed up and good news for you guys, the only things I lost don't have anything to do with this fanfiction. Still pretty miffed about what I did lose though. . .
My guest commentators:
LilliaGirl- Awww, when you can touch even the hearts of the undead and emo, you know you did something right with the feels :P
Ashkir- Yeah, once I realized Tikki as a human is incapable of being the beautiful perfection that she is as a goddess, this beautiful imperfect perfection basically wrote itself.
chatnoirispawsome- PM me. I'd be interested in talking more about that.
I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.
Lila stood when she saw Adrien walking towards her. She flashed him a million-watt smile. "I thought you'd gotten tired of waiting for me and left."
Tonight she had rid herself of the mini pencil skirt and tight blouse, in favor of a cream sweater interwoven with threads of gold which hung off one shoulder to show a beige bra strap against a canvas of perfectly smooth olive skin, with soft brown pants that hugged her long, curved legs. Completed with a pair of gold flats. She'd gone more for the innocent girl-next-door vide than the seductress secretary. When she leaned forward to hug him there was something achingly familiar about that scent that made him want to hold her closer until he could remember where it came from and why it made his heart ache.
Oh, she was good. This was not what Adrien had been suspecting and it threw him for a loop. He fiddled with his tie as he tried to collect his thoughts while they both sat down. "It- uh- It appears I've overdressed."
She laughed lightly. "Oh no. I'm underdressed. I lost track of time and decided it was better to come as I am than keep you waiting any longer. I'm sorry I'm such a mess."
To the unobserving eye, that would probably seem true, but Adrien was on high alert and he could tell from the immaculate ponytail without a hair out of place to the simple, sophisticated gold necklace that the entire thing had been carefully thought out. Two could play this game. "You're not a mess at all. Your warm smile outshines everyone here."
Lila laughed again and brought a hand to cover her cheek in false modesty. "You flatterer! With smooth moves like that I don't know how you got named the 'black cat' of thirty under thirty."
Adrien grimaced. "Just never had good luck picking I guess. I thought my luck had finally turned around lately, buuut. . ." he let his voice trail off as his features crumpled and he lowered his face to his plate. The pain wasn't even that hard to fake, his heart still felt raw after talking to Marinette and he hadn't even really had time to process all of those emotions. As long as he pretended that the person in front of him was a friend (Plagg perhaps? No, Nino. That felt better, he was less likely to be rude to Nino) and not the cause of all the pain, he could get through this night. He jus had to keep her talking until Tikki said it was time to move on the Phase 3. Phase 1 having been Adrien agreeing to the date, and Phase 2 being the date itself.
Lila reached out, as if to hold his hand, when the waiter appeared to take their order and Adrien pulled out of her reach. They placed their orders and an awkward silence fell between them. Adrien felt no need to break it and kept his eyes firmly glued to his plate while he watched her worry her napkin out of the corner of his eye.
She cleared her throat and he finally glanced up. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sad."
"It's not your fault," Adrien said, the lie tasting bitter in his mouth and a momentary desire to scream and rage at her for interfering in his life rose before he mentally forced it back down and into a box to toss aside for another day.
She laughed humorlessly. "Well I guess this is one way to get to our reason for meeting tonight. You said you wanted advice, want to tell me what's going on?"
Adrien sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. Nino. He was talking to Nino. A quiet voice in the back of his mind told him that there was a very good possibility that Marinette was listening to this as well and that made him choose his words carefully. "Everything was going fine in the beginning. More than fine really. I thought we were really going somewhere. It's been so long since I've had any kind of long term relationship and I was feeling hopeful about this one. I was-" his voice choked and he struggled for a moment to regain composure as he struggled to not cry in the restraint. . . again. "I was starting to think that she might be the one. I never told her, I didn't want to scare her off or make her feel like she had to commit to something she wasn't ready for, but it seems like it didn't matter."
He couldn't look at her. He was sure whatever look was on Lila's face would make him want to punch her, so he kept his eyes firmly glued on his hands as he worried the silver ring on his finger. "One night, out of the blue, she calls me up and wants to talk. I was completely blindsided. I thought everything was fine. I begged her to know what was going on, but she didn't want to talk. Just kept crying and saying she was sorry." He looked up at Lila then, her face blurred from the tears he refused to shed. "I still don't know what I did wrong. She's refused to talk to me since that night."
Lila made a sympathetic noise and reached across the table, not quite touching him. Hovering nearby and waiting for permission to move further. Adrien drew into himself and pulled his hands closer to his chest. "Oh Adrien, you poor thing. I can't believe she did something like that too you," she cooed, seeming unbothered by his withdrawal from her.
"I can't believe it either," Adrien said, his voice toneless, deciding that no emotion was the safer option to the anger that was once more brewing within him.
The waiter returned then, placing their orders in front of them and then practically running away from the heavy atmosphere between the two.
They both took a few bites of their food before Lila spoke up again. "You know it's not your fault right? You did nothing wrong."
"What other reason could there be?" The words slipped out of his mouth and he wince inside, hoping Marinette hadn't heard him speaking with so much bitterness.
"It's obviously her fault, not yours." She sounded confident, her words meant to be soothing, but only acting to enrage him further.
He shook his head firmly. "There was nothing wrong with her. If she would just tell me what was going through her head, I'm sure we could fix this."
"Adrien," Lila said gently, "aren't you putting too much stalk in one girl. You only dated a couple of months. How well could you have really known her?"
"Two people can get to know each other quite well in much less time than that if they're both open an honest with each other," Adrien said quietly.
"But she's not talking to you now and clearly she must have been keeping some kind of secret from you. Problems like this don't just happen overnight. Whatever is going on with her must have been building for some time and she just never told you."
"That. . . sounds logical," Adrien said slowly.
"Of course it does, because the truth is always logical," Lila said confidently.
He shoved a mouthful of pasta into his mouth to give himself time to think and stop himself from saying anything stupid. Tikki would murder him if he ruined everything now. He was saved the need to answer when his phone went off. He pulled it out of his pocket, shooting her an apologetic look, then frowned as he looked at the caller ID. It wasn't anyone he knew and he couldn't imagine who would call him at this late hour that couldn't talk to him through his earpiece.
"This might be work," Adrien muttered to Lila as an excuse before he swiped to answer his phone. "Hello?"
"Yes. Is this Mr. Adrien Agreste?"
"Yes, this is he." Adrien waited for the person on the other line (who he suspected was some kind of salesman) to start offering him "the deal of his life!".
His eyebrows shot up when instead he heard, "This is Officer Raincomprix from PPD. I'm here with several other officers responding to a break-in report to Agreste Industries. We need you to come down here and confirm for us wither or not anything was stolen."
Adrien shot out of his chair. "Absolutely, I'll be right there."
Lila looked up at him alarmed. "What's happening?" she asked, quietly but urgently, her voice coming out as a hiss.
A waiter appeared beside Adrien. "Sir, is everything alright?"
Adrien put his hand over the speaker. "I'm terribly sorry, but an emergency came up. Can you box our meals and bring me the check?"
The waiter frowned but left to do as he was asked. Lila was looking more alarmed by the moment as she waited for Adrien to tell her what was going on. The waiter came back and Adrien fished through his pocket to pull out his wallet and shove a fistful of bills of the waiter.
"Keep the change," he mouthed at the man who looked down at the bills in his hand and then back up at Adrien wide-eyed.
Adrien, for his part, didn't notice because he was too busy pushing his food into a to-go box while Lila hastily tried to follow his lead. "Alright, well I should be there shortly. Thank you for calling me officer."
Adrien hung up the phone and Lila didn't even wait for him to put away before she started questioning him. "Adrien, what on earth is going on?"
"That was the police. There was a break in at work."
"What?" Lila shrieked, gaining the attention of other patrons.
Adrien ignored her and started heading out. Lila was practically tripping over herself trying to follow him.
"You have to go now? Can't this wait until morning?"
Adrien shook his head. "They need me to come down and make sure nothing was taken."
"Again though, can't this wait until morning?"
Adrien wondered why she was so insistent that he not go. Was she worried about the lost opportunity of the date or what he would find if he went there. Was this Tikki's doing? When he voiced his concern of Lila trying to get her to take her home with him she has said not to worry because she had a plan, but he didn't see how she could orchestrate something like this. "I didn't ask that and it's a little too late to do so now. I'm sorry Lila, I'm sure you have a busy schedule and it wasn't easy for you to take time out of it to come meet with me tonight, but this needs to be taken care of now."
They were outside of the restraint now and Adrien was making a beeline for his car. Lila took hold of his hand and pulled him to a stop. "Adrien, calm down. You've got a scary look on your face."
It's about to get scarier if you don't let go of me, he thought, instead he said, "I'm sorry. Let me walk you to your car and then I'll head down. The police can wait that long."
Lila looked down, embarrassed. "I didn't bring my car. That's part of why I was late, I had to take a cab."
Adrien looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. He was supposed to keep this going as long as possible until they got the evidence that they needed so he knew what he was supposed to do. He just really didn't want to do it. Thank goodness he hadn't brought Bridgette, he really didn't want Lila touching her. He let the breath out slowly then motioned for Lila to follow him. "Come on. I'll take you with me and then I'll take you home."
She flashed him another brilliant smile. "Oh Adrien, thank you so much. You're such a gentleman."
So I didn't really get a whole lot of positive response to the idea (or much response at all), so I'm going to go a different route. For those who care, I'm working on a children's bedtime story series about classics fairytales but with endangered animals. . . and some other original stuff in the works. That was one of the things that I lost when my computer died, so now if I can't get it to turn back on I'll have to rewrite it. It's fine. I'm fine. I'm not bitter at all. :P
Anyway! We're nearing the end of this story! (so long as no random writing bug comes and bites me for another extension) I thank you all for joining me on this journey, it's been a fun one. See you all next week!