Chapter Twenty: Reindeer.
Marinette likes reindeer - when they're in terrible Christmas films that is.
Friday 20th December 2019. 09.30 a.m. Collège Françoise-Dupont.
Marinette glared up at the tiny flakes of snow falling gently from the sky. This was exactly what she didn't need today, and unlike yesterday's akuma she couldn't get rid of this snow with her Miraculous Cure. Nope. This was real snow.
All around her everyone was cooing at the delicate flakes, far too light and delicate to actually stick to the ground, but they had been falling somewhat steadily since last night. Marinette had woken up from her cold-induced nap yesterday to Alya screaming down the phone at her that it was actually snowing. While Alya had clearly been delighted Marinette wanted to strangle someone. There was no reason for her to have frozen yesterday if it was actually snowing in Paris. If White Christmas had only waited a little longer before getting angry enough to have been akumatised then this wouldn't have happened.
She glared at the sky again before waving Rose over to her.
"Everything is going great, Marinette!" she reported.
"I can see. We're on target for when École Ficelle arrives at 10 a.m., but-"
Rose reached out and placed a hand on Marinette's shoulder. "It's fine. We've got it covered. You should really be at home, you know."
Marinette tried not to snap at Rose but it was just so difficult not to. If she heard one more converend comment she was going to scream! Just because she had turned blue in the cold yesterday did not mean she was suddenly a fragile porcelain doll who didn't know her own limitations.
Yes, she was still tired and cold and cranky, but she was the class representative and she had a job to do here in school getting everything ready for their Christmas Grotto for the younger children of the arrondissement. Since the school had closed early thanks to White Christmas it was actually a much easier job, but there was still so much to organise. She and the other class reps had been working overtime for weeks to get this ready.
"I'm fine, really," she said, trying to give Rose her most reassuring smile. "But we need to make sure that the melting snow doesn't make too many slip hazards for when the children get here. It would be awful if École Ficelle had to send any more children to the hospital."
Rose gasped and nodded eagerly, horrified at the thought and successfully distracted from worrying about Marinette.
When getting the numbers of attendees from the school, Marinette had been surprised to learn that École Ficelle had also been the small school choir that she had stopped to listen to with her friends at the start of the month. One of their children was very ill in hospital and they had used their carol singing to raise money for a trip to the hospital to see him on Monday. It was the same hospital that collège françoise-dupont was also raising money for, so they really didn't need to send another child there as a patient.
Nathanaël and Mlle. Bustier walked over to them then, both of them giving Marinette concerned looks which she ignored. "Is Père Noël ready?"
Mlle. Bustier smiled. "M. Damocles is really getting into the festive spirit. Thank you again for your help with all of the costumes Marinette," she gestured to her own Elf outfit with a smile and Marinette nodded. She hadn't made them from scratch since she didn't have the time or resources this year, but she did pretty them up and tailor them for a better fit for all of the staff and students involved. In her unbiased opinion they had the best looking Père Noël and Elves in Paris.
Nathanaël smiled too, adjusting his Elf ears. He had asked to be an Elf early on in the planning stages because he wanted to help give the presents to the children. "All the other reps have their class in hand, and our class wouldn't dare step out of line today, so you can head home now."
Marinette forced her scowl away. They really were just trying to be nice to her. "I'll be fine for a few minutes more, Nath. You don't have to send me home just yet."
"Oh, I didn't mean us," he grinned then pointed over Marinette's shoulder. "I meant him."
Marinette turned and was completely unsurprised to see Adrien heading straight for her and ignoring everyone else in the school. She bit back a groan. Her kitty was way too overprotective sometimes. Maybe it would be better to admit defeat now. There was no way she was going to win this one with everyone working against her, and the school was pretty much ready for the children's arrival...
Adrien gave them all a charming smile when he reached them. "Excuse me for interrupting but I'm here for Marinette."
Marinette ignored Rose's giggle and Nathanaël's knowing look. She knew she was going to leave with him but she had to try once more. "I'll be going in a minute, I just needed to finalise some of the details."
"What you need is to go home and warm up."
He gave her outfit a very pointed look and she could feel herself blush. Save for Adrien, who had just walked in from the cold, Marinette was the only person in sight still bundled up in her coat, hat, and scarf. Yet, even with all of those layers she was still shivering. Damn her susceptibility to the cold.
Tikki had explained that it wasn't uncommon for her Ladybugs to feel the effects of a bad chill for days afterwards. Though the cure had helped her yesterday, it didn't change the fact that she had been stuck in a freezing room for nearly an hour yesterday morning. She would be stuck with a chill and the urge to sleep for a few more days, but thankfully, since she was human, she wouldn't actually hibernate like Tikki could if she got too cold. Marinette would only get drowsy and lethargic.
"Ten more minutes, tops."
She knew it was the wrong thing to say when Adrien smirked and shook his head. "Your maman and papa want me to bring you home now and so, excuse me…"
With a brief nod to their friends he surged forward and scooped her up into his arms before turning around and heading for the main entrance. She gave a squeak, more out of surprise than fright, and scrambled to get a decent grip on his shoulders. She trusted him but usually when he did this one or both of them was in their supersuits which decreased the chances of any accidents happening. Marinette was sure she could hear Rose and Nathanaël giggling behind them.
"Adrien!"
He just shook his head. "Nope, you're coming with me, my Princess." He glanced around before pitching his voice a little lower to avoid any eavesdropping. "We're going to your house to cuddle on the sofa with hot chocolate, purrs, and silly Christmas films."
Marinette wouldn't have argued against that even if she wanted to. She sighed and relaxed into his hold. "You know I can't say no to your purrs."
"Good. Come on Princess. A whole day of lounging around awaits us."
"A whole day?"
Adrien's answering smile was blindingly brilliant. "Père is away from Paris for a business trip right now. He left this morning with Nathalie, meaning that Gorilla is the one in charge. And since he likes you so much I get to spend as much time with you as I want!"
"Really?" Marinette gave a happy squeal and pulled him to her in a tight hug, overbalancing him just enough that he had to set her down just inside the main entrance. It was only then that Marinette realise he would have carried her the whole way home if necessary. Silly kitty. "Then let's get started!"
She grabbed his hand and ran back to the bakery with him, waving to her parents and Gorilla who was just leaving the bakery with a large box and a happy smile, and racing upstairs. Tom shouted up after them that he would send some snacks up soon and Gorilla added that he would be there whenever Adrien said he was ready to come home.
The blankets from yesterday were still folded on the sofa, just waiting to be used again and Adrien quickly set to work building a large nest for them to snuggle in. There was a tiny one set in there for Plagg and Tikki too, and he laughed as they immediately dove in and Plagg started purring. He could hear Marinette laughing in the kitchen as she made them some hot chocolate.
Sabine was the one who brought them up a plate of snacks from the bakery, piled high with croissants, pain au chocolat, macarons, and petit fours, and she lingered just long enough to give them both a hug before returning to help her husband downstairs.
Adrien had their blanket cocoon set up perfectly, and had already eaten three of the macarons, by the time Marinette wandered over with their hot chocolate. She had already shrugged her hat, coat, and scarf off, and kicked her shoes off, leaving her in just a jumper and a pair of pink jeans, and she immediately snuggled under Adrien's arm with a happy sigh.
"Let our Lazy Day of Doing Nothing begin!" she proclaimed.
Adrien snorted into his hot chocolate but even as he began purring he couldn't deny that this was exactly what he wanted.
None of the films of TV caught their attention until Marinette mentioned that one of them was truly awful to watch. Adrien immediately went for the remote and, after a mock battle, managed to win it from her and select the awful film.
It was telling the story of Christmas from the reindeer's point of view, but the dialogue, the animation, and the acting were all awful. It was the good kind of terrible though. They spent the whole film giggling and mocking it while demolishing their drinks and snacks as they cuddled into each other.
Marinette chose their second film, Santa Claus: The Movie, and she set her head on his shoulder as they watched it in silence. This was the first time Adrien had seen this film and he rather liked it. He didn't miss how drowsy Marinette seemed to be getting. He knew that she'd be sleepy for at least another day after her chill yesterday and so deliberately revved his purr up a little more.
She gave him a drowsy glare but didn't protest as he wrapped an arm around her.
She was almost asleep by the time that Tom stuck his head around the door with the news that Alya and Nino were here to visit - though he did say he could send them away if Marinette was too tired for visitors. That revived her enough to insist her friends be shown in. Tom nodded and left them alone and Adrien barely had time to stop his purr before they joined them in them in the living room.
Nino and Alya took the seats on the other side of the sofa and both gave Marinette concerned looks. "That was a terrible akuma yesterday," Nino began, stealing a spare blanket for Alya and himself. "How are you holding up, M?"
"M'fine," she mumbled into Adrien's shoulder, barely able to keep her eyes open.
Alya snorted. "Sure you are girl."
Adrien did his best to change the subject. Marinette would either fall asleep or wake up enough to talk to them on her own without any interference. "How's it going at school?" he asked. Both Nino and Alya had volunteered to help with the schools arriving in the afternoon.
Nino shook his head. "We are not going to talk shop in front of Marinette. She needs to take a break from the school."
"Besides, we have other things to talk about," Alya agreed with a manic grin. "Like yesterday's akuma battle. It was awesome! Ladybug and Chat Noir took that akuma down. Honestly, it was like they had a grudge against him."
"Especially Chat Noir," Nino agreed and Adrien winced internally. "That cat man was practically feral. Remind me never to get on his bad side."
"It can't have been that bad, surely?"
He hoped so anyway. Obviously he had been worried about Marinette, but feral? Surely that was a stretch? Although it had been a terrible akuma and a tiring fight, so maybe he had looked a little mad. Maybe.
Alya just waved it off. "It was no worse than any of the other times the Ladybug got hit," she said.
Adrien barely managed to hide his flinch. He was sure his heart had stopped when Ladybug had been hit with an icy blast in yesterday's fight and ended up with one arm frozen to the wall. He had brought his cataclysm down on the ice immediately before rushing at the akumas and, okay, yeah, he could sort of see how Nino would describe him as feral in that fight. The akuma had gone down less than a minute after hitting Ladybug.
Neither Nino nor Alya noticed his distraction though. In fact, Alya was bouncing in her seat in her excitement. "But on to the good news! Everyone had agreed to meet here tomorrow with their Secret Santa gifts so we can still exchange them! We'll meet up in the park outside, or in here if Marinette is okay- oh!" she smiled softly at Marinette and Adrien realised that she had fallen asleep again while they had been talking. "Poor girl. This was probably the worst akuma attack for her to get caught up in."
Alya didn't know how right she was. "She'll be fine with some rest."
"I know she will, I've seen her like this before." Alya's smiled morphed into a devious smirk as her eyes drifted from the sleeping Marinette towards him and Adrien felt the sudden urge to flee. That look did not bode well for him. But he was pinned down under a sleeping angel with no chance to escape… which of course is exactly why Alya chose now to attack. Nino was grinning next to Alya so he knew he wouldn't get any help there. Traitor. The only thing he could do was to bear it with grace and die with dignity. "But," Alya drew the word out thoughtfully. "That of course begs the question, how do you know? You got real close to my girl real quick and I want to know how and why."
That… that was actually good. She wasn't even hinting at something, she was just fishing for information. He could work with that. He had learned how to deal with interviewers from an early age, and Alya didn't have anywhere near the experience of some of the reporters he had dodged through the years.
Adrien smiled back at her. "Come on Alya, everyone knows that the cure sorts everything out. Of course she'll be fine. And you know I've always considered Marinette to be one of the people closest to me."
Her smirk dimmed a little. "Cute. That wasn't what I meant and you know it. You grabbed her before it got really cold. How did you know it was going to bother her like that?"
"Like Max said, the temperature was dropping too quickly. It was only going to get worse. Besides, I know how much Marinette feels the cold."
"Oh really?"
Adrien was a little hurt by her skepticism. "Yes? Remember last winter? Remember when you tried to set us up in front of the art shop?"
Alya blushed and Nino grimaced at the reminder of their well-meaning but pointless set-up that had spectacularly backfired on them. They had been trying to do something nice which was the only reason that Adrien and Marinette weren't holding a grudge over it. Nino looked at the clock then nudged Alya and Adrien knew that the questioning would be over soon enough.
Alya made one more valiant effort to get some information. "So the fact that you two went from friends to this," she gestured to Marinette sleeping comfortably in his arms, "practically overnight, means nothing?"
"It definitely means something to me, Alya."
She waited a moment for him to elaborate and then sighed when he stayed silent. "You're not going to say it, are you?"
"Say what?" he gave her his most innocent expression and only then did she realise he had been messing with her the whole time.
Alya actually growled at that. "Urgh, come on Nino!"
She dragged her boyfriend up off the sofa and out of the door. Adrien expected that the only reason she didn't slam it in frustration was because Marinette was sleeping. The vitriolic rant she was all but screaming on the other side of the door was proof enough. Adrien actually blushed at some of her comments.
"Babe, I think you're overreacting."
"I'm not making this up!" Alya hissed.
"I know you're not!" Nino's voice had taken on the calm tone that Adrien often heard him using when trying to get Alya to stop running into akumas battles. He prayed that this conversation went better than those. "I'm seeing what you're seeing. They're closer than ever before… but have you considered that it might not be some major conspiracy? Have you considered that it is probably just my boy not holding back anymore?"
That seemed to take all the fight out of Alya. "Holding back?" she said, sounding confused.
"You know how much of a dick his dad is. Adrien holds everything back until he's really comfortable with someone - and now he's just realised he's head over heels for our girl in there so of course he isn't holding back."
Alya sighed. "I really wanted there to be a juicy scoop."
"And there will be when they start dating. When, not if."
When their footsteps sounded on the stairs and gradually faded away, Adrien let out the breath he hadn't realised he was holding. Thank god for Nino. Alya's curiosity was really bad for their secret identities but that explanation should throw her off.
Plus when he finally did ask Marinette out, and he didn't have much longer to wait until he could go through with his perfect plan, Alya would be so happy she would forget all about their sudden change in dynamic. All he would have to worry about then would be getting the shovel talk from Alya. He faced down akumas all the time though, how bad could Alya Césaire be?
He winced at the thought and pulled out his phone to distract himself from visions of his creative demise at Alya's hands.
When Marinette drifted back to consciousness, she was dismayed but not surprised to see that Alya and Nino had already left. She couldn't help but feel drowsy in the winter, and it just got worse when she was cold for any length of time. It was annoying but she had grown to accept it as one of her Miraculous-induced tendencies. Tikki had spent most of her time since the battle asleep too.
Of course, having Adrien purr for her didn't help much either. Damn that knocked her out quickly. At least she knew it would be a great cure for insomnia in the colder months.
She was surprised to see his watching the strange quiz show they had pretended to watch yesterday. Marinette still couldn't figure out what the rules were supposed to be.
"Hey there Sleeping Beauty," he smiled down at her.
"Hey. Sorry I fell asleep on you."
"Don't be." Adrien shifted to pull her closer to him. "I dozed for a bit too. It's the purr-fect way to while the day away."
"Still, you came over to watch films with me."
"I came over to spend time with you, my Princess."
Damn her blush. "Why on earth are you watching this?"
He shrugged. "It isn't that bad. Besides, I didn't want to start another film without you."
"Well, I'm awake now. What do you want to watch?"
Marinette started to reach for the remote on the table in front of them but squeaked when she was pulled back to Adrien again. "Kitty!"
"I got cold when you moved," he pouted.
"You'll be fine, I just want to get-" Once again, she was prevented from grabbing the tv remote off the table, and turned a suspicious look onto her far-too-innocent looking cat. He was up to something. "Kitten?"
"What?"
"Why don't you want me to change the channel?"
He blinked. "Oh. Sorry, I didn't realise… I was cold."
Marinette glanced at the table and saw that her phone was lying next to the tv remote, and given that he had sounded surprised she wanted the remote she would bet that there was something on her phone he didn't want her to see.
She lunged for it but Adrien was right behind her, pulling her back by the waist, but she managed to wriggle out of his grasp and almost had her hand on her phone when he started tickling her. She shrieked and tries to twist away but his grip was too tight. He expertly blocked her kick even as she tried to pull the blankets away to get at his own ticklish spots. She didn't even realised she had dislodged their kwami from their scarf nest in the scuffle.
"Oh, for gruyère's sake, HERE!"
Plagg slapped her phone into her hand and, with a triumphant cry, she swiped her notifications open…
… and promptly screamed.
"There is a reindeer loose in the school?" Marinette yelped.
Alya had sent her the first photo of a ridiculously smug Kim stood next to the reindeer over half an hour ago, and the following photos made her blood run cold. The reindeer was patiently posing for photos with until Kim accidentally dropped the reins and it wandered off. Kim naturally gave chase and the reindeer bolted while Alix laughed, the visiting children cheered, and several teachers looked on in horror.
"How the hell did that happen?"
"Alix and Kim had another dare."
"You knew? You knew!" she turned on Adrien and began beating him up with a pillow. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"You needed the sleep and they can handle things."
"Alix and Kim cannot handle things!" she shrieked as he grabbed the pillow and threw it away. She settled for jabbing her finger into the ticklish spot on his ribs. "And don't you dare bring up Alya because she is just as bad as them!"
"I also called Gorilla!" he gasped between bouts of laughter and Marinette stopped tickling him so she could hear his explanation. "I called him in for back-up because I knew you would freak out, and I just want to stay here and cuddle you," he said, then gave her the biggest set of kitten eyes she had ever seen. "Is that so wrong?"
Marinette groaned. "One of these days that look will not work."
"But it is not this day!"
"Dork."
Author's notes. This chapter is dedicated to OnlyLonelyStars on this website for being my 200th reviewer here. They wanted Alya and Nino trying their best to figure out just what the heck is going on between Adrien and Marinette and where their sudden flawless teamwork and understanding came from. I hope this does it justice!
I chose the name Ficelle for the école in this chapter because it was the name of one of the friends/sidekicks of Françoise Dupont in the Fantômette stories. I figured I would stick with the tradition the writers of ML came up with (plus it was easy to research).
Also, from now on I will be posting a note in each chapter that reminds my readers that I STILL HAVE NOT SEEN ALL OF SEASON 2 AND NONE OF SEASON 3. Season 2 literally only just finished airing last week on the only kids TV channel I have access to and I have no idea if or when they are going to start showing season 3. I've seen a few of the earlier episodes but I don't have the time to watch the rest until after Christmas when both the hubby and I are off work. I have mentioned this multiple times in my recent stories, including right at the start of this one, and it says so in my author's profile too - along with a list of those episodes that I have seen. I'm more than happy to talk about the ones I have seen and I might include some of those details in my stories but I have been avoiding spoilers for just over 2 years so I would really appreciate it if you could stop putting spoilers in your comments to me. Please. I can't unsee them!