Chapter Forty Five – Raincoats and Umbrellas

Marinette and Sabine giggle to themselves at the barley muffled swear words drifting down from the kids' bedroom. It turns out that dismantling a chaise lounge and assembling a bed frame are quite fiddly things to do, and require quite a few swear words and vows to never buy another piece of furniture again, already assembled or otherwise.

"Should I check on them?" Marinette asks, after there's the sound of something heavy being dropped, and then a word that Tom definitely shouldn't be saying in front of his children.

Sabine giggles again, eyes sparkling with mirth. "I think it's best we leave the boys to do this themselves, we'll just get in their way."

Marinette's about to protest when she hears another thud, and then the distinct sound of Adrien saying a word that ordinarily would never be allowed. She snorts. "I think you're right."

The mother and daughter return to their previous activity – Ultimate Mecha Strike III – but continue to giggle to themselves. Half an hour later, and quite a few bruises from pieces of furniture falling on feet and fingers accidently being hammered, Adrien and Tom bring the dismantled chaise downstairs and store it by the front door, ready to drop down to the charity store later in the day.

"Have you finished?" Marinette asks excitedly, pausing the game (Sabine doesn't mind, she was going to lose).

Adrien grins excitedly and holds his hand out to her. "Yep! Come see!" Giggling, Marinette grabs his hand and they run up the stairs together.

Tom smiles at his wife as she gets up, and he wraps his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Aren't we lucky?" He murmurs.

Sabine smiles, leaning her head against her husband's chest, where his heart is. "The luckiest." She agrees, tilting her head up to look at Tom. His smile widens and he leans down to capture her lips with his.

. . .

"Yes!" Adrien cries, jumping to his feet and throwing his hands up in victory, his controller clutched tightly in his grip. "I win! I win! I win!" He chants happily, dancing around a giggling Marinette.

She squeaks in surprise when he lifts her out of her chair, swinging her around before setting her on the ground, his arms still wrapped tightly around her. Before she can say anything, he captures her lips with his. She responds immediately, reaches up to thread his fingers through her hair. He pulls away, grinning, earlier then she'd like.

"I win," He says, his tone sing–song.

She giggles. "You broke the rules." She says, matching his tone.

He scoffs and rolls his eyes in a fashion that is so similar to Chloé she could almost mistake the two. "Yes, and you are so disappointed." He says sarcastically, booping her nose with his.

She rolls her eyes and shoves him away from her good–naturedly. "Dork."

"Your dork!" He exclaims, pulling her back to him.

"You're overtired!" She says, but relaxes into him anyway. She breaths in his scent and smiles softly, recognising the smell of their laundry detergent in his pyjama shirt.

"Probably." He agrees, glancing at the time on the corner of her computer screen. He winces when he sees it's after midnight. "We should go to bed; we don't want to be too tired to continue our competition tomorrow."

She giggles softly and kisses his cheek, before pulling back from him. "Hopefully you don't fall out of you chair again."

"Hey!" She snorts at his affronted look. "That was one time!"

"Yep!" She kisses the corner of his lips before turning to her computer to shut it down. "And I'm going to remind you of it every day so you never forget."

He sticks his tongue out and she giggles again. "Just you wait, I'll get dirt on you soon enough!" He smirks at her, putting their controllers away.

"It won't be difficult," She says, grinning at him. "I'm madly clumsy, remember?"

He smiles softly and shrugs, tucking their chairs under the desk. He wraps his arms around her again and kisses her cheek, relaxing against her. "I love you anyway."

She smiles, running her hand up and down his back in soothing circles. "And despite your habit of telling really bad puns, and your dislike of cheese, and the unfortunate time you fell out of your chair because you were leaning to close to the computer in an attempt to win the game," He snorts and tightens his arms, nuzzling his nose against her hair, breathing in the smell of her shampoo and conditioner. She pulls back from him slightly to see his face, and she moves her hand from his hair to his cheek, stroking it with her thumb lovingly. "I love you anyway too."

He leans his forehead against hers and nuzzles her nose in an Eskimo kiss. "See, that right there is prime poetry."

. . .

Marinette beams at the sky, happier than a person should be capable of being over the fact that it's pouring down rain.

"Why are you so happy?" Adrien asks, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and watching her beam at the sky through her skylight from his bed. His bed!

"It's raining!"

"I can hear that." He climbs out of bed, tugging his pyjama pants up, and opens the blinds covering the window above the desk. He makes a face at the dark clouds blocking out majority of the sun. "Why are you happy? Don't get me wrong, rain is nice, but–"

"I've been waiting for this!" She squeals happily and almost jumps down the stairs, twirling in a circle with her arms spread out around her, grinning.

"Again, why?" He and Plagg share a look, completely confused.

The black cat kwami pokes Adrien's shoulder. "I'm hungry!"

"You're always hungry!" Tikki says, rolling her eyes.

"Like you aren't, sugar cube!"

"I told you not to call me that!"

"Please don't fight." Adrien says, rolling his eyes.

"Because of the raincoats!" Marinette exclaims, opening the closet doors.

"Oh!" Adrien says, finally getting what she's talking about. "Did you want to wear yours today?"

She smiles at him, pulling a green raincoat out of the closet. "Something like that." Her gaze flicks between him and the coat pointedly. He tilts his head, starting to get confused again.

Plagg rolls his eyes. "Lord, you're dense!"

"I'm not dense!" Adrien exclaims, pouting.

Marinette snorts. "This is yours!" She says, passing it to him. He stares at it wide eyed, having forgotten she had made him one. And that it was green. "I'm going to send a message to the gang and ask if they're free to come over for a couple of hours. I want to take some pictures of everyone in their raincoats."

"This is amazing!" Adrien says, putting it on over his pyjamas.

Plagg darts around it, investigating it, and he squeals in excitement when he discovers that the inside breast pocket for him has a fleece lining for extra comfort and warmth. "I can sleep!"

Marinette giggles and moves over to them. She pulls the other half of the coat open to reveal the other inside breast pocket. "This one's insulated for cheese."

"You're amazing!" Adrien says, leaning his forehead against hers.

"Thank you." She goes to kiss his cheek, but he turns his head quickly to capture her lips.

"Can you stop with the gross stuff, already? I'm starving, I need cheese!"

"Plagg! They're having a moment! Your cheese can wait!"

"No, it can't! I'm dying of starvation!"

. . .

Thankfully everyone is free, and Chloé and Kagami both jump at the chance to help their everyday Ladybug out (and get some amazing Marinette Original raincoats in the process), and Nino agrees to be the camera man. If Alya can come.

"I really want to help you," He says, biting his lip anxiously. He didn't want to ask Marinette over text, so he video called her. "But I did promise to hang out with Alya today."

"Alya can come if she wants to, that's perfectly fine. But you don't have to help out if you would prefer to spend time with just Alya." Marinette assures him, but he insists. Truthfully, Marinette misses Alya dreadfully, and she can't see herself not forgiving her.

This leads to Tom and Sabine going from having just two children to six children sitting in their lounge room, getting last minute alterations done on their raincoats.

"You look like a rainbow!" Alya exclaims, looking over her phone. With Marinette's raincoat being blue, Adrien's green, Chloé's yellow and Kagami's red, it makes the lounge room look very colourful.

"I suppose so." Marinette says, getting up from her knees from picking a thread around the hem of her own raincoat. "I hadn't really planned on that; the fabric only comes in solid colours, so if I wanted to do a print, I'd have to make it myself."

"You can do that?" Nino asks, taking Marinette's coat off gingerly, having put it on so she could move around it easily to see what needed fixing, without having to go upstairs to use her dressmaker's dummy.

"Yep." She smiles, shrugging her coat on. She does up the buttons and adjusts the belt around her waist so it sits comfortably. "There's some technology that goes into it though, so I won't be able to do it for a while, but it's a possibility for the future."

"That's cool." Kagami says, smoothing her hands over her coat for the hundredth time since putting it on.

Marinette makes a noise of agreement, before looping her arm through Chloé's and grinning. "If everyone's ready to go, we'd better head to the park now. It might stop raining soon."

"I'll bring the umbrella." Nino says, picking up the black umbrella Marinette brought down from her room, the one Adrien gave her.

It's a short walk to the park, and as if the gods are shining down on them, when they arrive the rain actually picks up a bit more. With some tips from Adrien, Nino and Alya direct their models on how they want them to stand, and which direction they want them to look. They take one of Chloé sitting on the edge of the fountain, holding the umbrella in one hand and trailing her other hand in the water, smiling to herself. Then they have Kagami walk through the trees with her hands in her pockets and her hood up. Everyone's favourite, however, is the one Alya insists on taking of Marinette and Adrien. The two of them huddle under the umbrella, their noses touching as if they're about to kiss, with love–sick grins on their faces. Adrien's free arm is wrapped around her waist, the other holding the umbrella.

The funniest part, however, is when Adrien accidentally pushes the button and it closes on their heads.

. . .

Kagami, Chloé, Nino and Alya end up staying for lunch, after which they start to play a game of Monopoly (Adrien gets stuck being the hat, and pouts for the first ten minutes of the game), stopping when Kagami has to go home. Alya then goes into interrogation mode and starts questioning Adrien on how he's doing since finding out Gabriel is Hawk Moth. Thankfully, Nino and Chloé are able to distract her with macaroons to allow Adrien to escape up to the balcony. Marinette follows him, putting her coat back on because it's still raining.

"Hey," She says, leaning on the railing next to him. Because they both have the hoods of their raincoats up, they have to actually look directly at each other to see each other's faces.

"Hey." He bumps his shoulder against hers, relishing in her warmth spreading to him even through the rain and their coats. "Do you think you and Alya are going to go back to being best friends?"

She smiles softly, watching the cars driving past them on the streets below, their headlights making the raindrops visible as they drive through them. "No."

"No?" He gapes at her before frowning, concerned. Is she still really hurt by everything? She hasn't really said anything since it all went down.

She turns her head to look at him, and the amount of love in her eyes fills him with warmth, and he feels the fire in his heart burn brighter than it ever has. "No, because you're my best friend, Adrien."

"I am?" He smiles, unable to take his eyes from hers.

She hums in agreement. "Do you know why?" He shakes his head, letting his forehead rest against hers. Her eyes flutter, and she tilts her head up until their noses touch. "Because I'm much more me when I'm with you."