"Alright, now tell me how you made Nathalie go along with this and where the hell you hid this car until now," Marinette said while in one of the very back seats of a seven-seater. Around her were backpacks, travel bags and other things that didn't fit into the trunk. Adrien beside her didn't fare any better with his own travel bag and backpack in this lap. Alya and Nino were in a similar situation in the seats in front of them and even Félix had to share his legroom in the front seat with a couple of bags. A seven-seat car always sounded like a cool thing, but it wasn't very good if you needed it to go on vacation. The trunk really wasn't made to fit the number of suitcases this warranted. Luckily Félix, Nino and Nathalie had packed light. The same couldn't be said for Adrien, Alya and her though. Marinette just hoped that Tikki had enough room in the extra extra bag.
"Oh, that was easy!" Adrien said. "She was in desperate need of a break and she had some vacation days left over. Félix and I just needed to give her an excuse to actually use them, so here we are."
Marinette smiled. "That's great. Now she can get away from all those nightmare schedules." If Adrien's and Félix's schedules were anything to go by, then Nathalie had to lead an excessively hectic life. If anyone deserved a vacation, then her.
"Well, she still has to keep an eye on us," Adrien said, a grin growing on his face. "And father legally isn't allowed to refuse her any vacation, so he can't do anything about it."
"You're suspiciously quiet about where you hid the car," Marinette remarked with a grin, wanting to stray from the topic of Gabriel Agreste.
Adrien chuckled. "In the underground garage like all our cars?"
"Dude, how many cars do you have?" Nino asked from in front of them. To their surprise, the answer came from the front.
"There are seven in total. Four city cars, one limo for red carpet events, one Ferrari and this car that is often used for when photoshoots are held outside of Paris," Nathalie said. Marinette had already noticed that the woman liked to rattle off facts and numbers, probably a habit from her job.
Adrien chuckled. "Yeah, what Nathalie said. We even once went to a photoshoot in the Camargue with this one!"
"I know," Marinette said. It had already been two years at this point, but she still remembered the small notes Adrien had written for her at the very beginning of their friendship. They had hung on her pinboard long enough to learn each of them by heart, and one of them had been about a photoshoot in the Camargue and about how beautiful it had been there. "I thought that was why we were going there?"
"No, that's a coincidence," Félix said.
"Didn't you say we were going to stay at the house of a family friend of yours?" Alya asked, looking back between Félix and Adrien.
"Yeah, Mel has a house there and she offered it to us! Nathalie has been there too with mum when they were still in school!" Adrien said and threw Marinette an excited grin.
"It's a quite peaceful area," Nathalie threw in. "Or at least it has been when I was there."
"Peaceful sounds good," Félix said and Marinette noticed the pointed look he threw back at Alya.
"Ugh, finally," Alya groaned as she slowly got out of the car and grimaced. Marinette could relate as she followed her friend and stretched her stiff limbs. The car ride had started turning into an exhausting affair from hour four onward when Félix had decided to be more grumpy than usual and forbade everyone to speak because he wanted to take a nap. Even Adrien had turned restless and grumpy eventually, forcing them to take several breaks in which he would run all around the respective gas stations.
In the end, the eight-hour journey ended up taking ten hours because of it and they were all exhausted. Especially Nathalie, since she had been driving the entire time.
"I'm going to see what's in the kitchen and then cook us dinner," Alya declared.
"That's nice and all, babe, but could you help us unpack first?" Nino said while trying to pull Alya's suitcase out of the trunk. It probably weighed a ton, judging by how much he was struggling with it. Marinette walked over to help him.
"Gee, Als, what did you pack?" She asked. That thing was easily as heavy as two sacks of flour.
"Only the essentials," Alya said and then fixed Marinette with a judgmental stare. "And don't pretend like you're not in the same boat Miss I-need-every-possible-outfit."
Marinette averted her eyes and felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment.
"Well…at least I'm hefting my own suitcase," she said and then turned around to the trunk. The almost empty trunk. "Where is it?"
"Oh, Adrien already pulled your stuff out of the trunk," Nino said and pointed to where said blond stood, surrounded by several suitcases, two out of three of them his. He looked at them contemplatively, as if he couldn't decide which one to take inside first. Or, more likely, he was looking for a way to get them all inside at once. Marinette decided to take pity on him.
"Thanks for almost breaking your back while getting my suitcase out. You know I could have done it myself though, right?" She asked with a smile.
"I know, but you're tired. And it wasn't that heavy," Adrien said with a grin of his own.
"You're tired too, Monsieur," she said with an eye-roll and took the handle of her suitcase. "At least you didn't try to lift Alya's."
"Hypocrite!" Alya threw in loudly from where she was half-hanging in the car in an attempt to get out her additional bags.
Marinette then started to pull her luggage towards the house where Nathalie and Félix had already disappeared into. Adrien followed her with his two suitcases and some effort. After struggling for half a minute, he probably realised that the small path was really only suitable for one suitcase at a time, so the other one was left behind to be picked up later.
When they entered the house, Marinette couldn't help but gasp. While it had already looked idyllic from the outside, the inside severely trumped that. It didn't look like a lived-in place and more like the setting for a photoshoot. Everything was in a neat condition, decorations carefully picked and placed to create an overall aesthetically pleasing atmosphere. And that was only the entrance hall.
"Our rooms are upstairs," Félix informed them from a doorway and pointed behind him. Marinette assumed that that was where the stairs would be.
"Nice!" Adrien said and rolled his suitcase past her. "Come on, Princess!" He called, a giddy grin on his face, ignorant of the fact that Marinette's heart almost leapt out of her chest at the sight. He was most beautiful when he was happy.
She remembered her resolve to finally confess to him and perhaps an opportunity would arise on this vacation.
Vacation.
It hadn't fully settled in yet that she could actually take one. After becoming Ladybug, she had slowly resigned herself to the reality of a chaotic life. Things like concrete plans and vacations had been banished to the back of her mind as a dream for after Hawkmoth was defeated. So, when Tikki had, after a thorough discussion, agreed that now would be the opportune time to spend a few days away from Paris, Marinette had been eager to take that chance.
The ones who had been the hardest to convince had been each of their parents. They were all still minors after all, so she could understand their concerns. Only the reassurance that Nathalie would accompany them and be with them at all times had calmed them down.
After a very lengthy discussion about what to have for dinner—during which Adrien managed to mortally offend Alya with the suggestion to just shove some frozen pizzas into the oven—they agreed on fish sticks with mashed potatoes.
"Man, I'm glad the fridge even has stuff in it. Was your family friend here recently?" Nino asked in between bites. The five of them sat at a table outside in the garden. Only Nathalie had insisted to eat at a proper table inside.
"Nah, but she probably asked someone to stock up when she suggested we could stay here. The neighbours probably," Adrien said with a shrug.
"Well, I'm glad they did," Alya said. Her plans of an extravagant meal had fallen short in favour of simplicity. It had taken quite a bit for her to admit that she was too tired to cook much more than scrambled eggs. "Because Mari and I will make lunch tomorrow."
"Why am I being dragged into this? Use Nino as an assistant for a change," Marinette said with a grin.
"And rob us of the chance to eat your dumplings? No way, girl!"
"What are we gonna do tomorrow? Just chill here?" Nino asked.
"We could go to the beach!" Adrien suggested.
"Or just take a walk," Félix said.
"We could do both. First, we go to the beach and afterwards we can take a walk if we're up for it," Marinette said, a suggestion that was met with approval.
"It's so beautiful!" Marinette said for probably the hundredth time already while taking another picture. At this point, she had probably taken more pictures and videos than Alya, which was an impressive feat since her friend seemed determined to document everything.
"I know, right? This is making me all nostalgic," Alya said with a sigh while pointing her phone at the landscape, taking another video.
"Why nostalgic?" Adrien asked. "I thought you were from Marseille?"
"Yeah," Alya agreed. "But we used to make tours to the Camargue since my parents love it here. We'd still do it, but as you noticed, Paris isn't all that close, while from Marseille it's only a two-hour trip."
"So, you know the area then?" Félix asked.
"Yes and no. I've never been to this part. We always drove to Arles and went from there. But don't worry, we'll find our way back eventually."
"Eventually?! That's not very reassuring," Nino said, which earned him a glare from his girlfriend.
"Don't worry, we have a map, don't we?" Marinette said.
"And we have Nathalie," Adrien said and pointed to where said woman was hanging back almost twenty metres from them.
His confident statement of her capability to find their way back stood in stark contrast to her uncharacteristically frazzled appearance. Nathalie threw frantic glances at landmarks and then the map in her hands. She had taken out her phone several times already only to almost immediately let it slide back into her pocket when she realised once again that there was no reception out in the wilds of the Camargue.
"Are you alright there, Mlle Sancoeur?" Nino asked loudly.
Nathalie quickly raised her head like a startled deer, but her composure settled back only a moment afterwards.
"Yes, I am quite alright. Thank you for your concern," she replied.
"She's very much out of her element," Félix said, quiet enough so that Nathalie wouldn't hear.
"Yeah, I figured as much. Maybe we shouldn't have dragged her into this hike. It's her vacation too, after all," Marinette said and bit her lip, suddenly feeling guilty.
"She really liked seeing the wild flamingos earlier, so it's worth it!" Adrien argued.
"If you say so, dude," Nino said and promptly ran into Alya who had suddenly stopped. Marinette followed her gaze and almost gasped in delight. There, just about one hundred metres in front of them, grazed a white horse. She had hoped to see one of the famous wild Camargue horses ever since they started the hike and now that moment had come. She unlocked her phone and immediately started taking pictures.
"It looks kinda thin, don't ya think?" Nino said concerned, but Alya waved it off.
"It's probably a court."
Marinette couldn't help but startle at the word that had been spoken of with such fear from both Chat Noir and Tikki. The "A what?" slipped out before she really thought of it.
"A yearling. The locals here call them court. It's a horse that's at least a year old but younger than two. They usually look like an odd mixture of a grown horse and a foal."
Alya's explanation drew a sigh of relief out of Marinette. This was probably just a coincidence. The same word used for two different things.
"Some Camargue horses are only half-feral," Alya whispered. "If we approach quietly, we might be able to get closer without it running away."
"Don't."
Only then did Marinette tear her eyes away from the wild horse and turned around. What she saw was an absolutely frozen Félix and an immensely worried Adrien beside him. Memories from their visit at the zoo last November flashed through her mind and she felt her own worry rise.
The "Don't" had come from Félix, but it had been spoken in the same weak and desperate tone that he had also had back then. It was unsettling.
"Fé, it's okay," Adrien tried, but his brother didn't even seem to hear him.
"Go back. Don't touch it."
Marinette couldn't make sense of what he was saying, but she knew that Félix was panicking.
"Fé, it's just a horse. A normal horse. It won't do anything," Adrien said, but then abruptly changed tactic. "Nathalie, don't move. I'll calm Fé down and then we'll come back."
While his voice still was clearly worried, there was also a viciousness and seriousness to it that she rarely heard from him. She could only remember a couple of occasions where he had used it, one of them being the day where Chloé had cut her hair and he had, for just a moment, sounded like he was ready to tear the blonde's head off.
"What…just happened?" Alya asked, though no one, not even Nathalie, could give her an answer.
One day passed and there seemed to be a silent agreement to not speak about what had happened at the hike. They all talked about the landscape and all the birds and other animals they saw. But no one mentioned the horse or Félix's reaction to it. Marinette could almost see Alya bursting with curiosity, but whenever it looked like she was going to broach the topic it was either Adrien or Marinette who started talking about something else.
When Félix excused himself to go read a book somewhere in peace while the four of them wanted to try out the swimming pool Mel's house came with, there was no stopping the questions anymore. Adrien seemed to notice Alya's curious glance before she could say anything because he sighed and sat down on a chair.
"I know you all want to know what happened but I really can't tell you. It's personal," Adrien said nervously.
"Come on, just a little bit?" Alya asked which earned her jabs from both Marinette and Nino.
"Okay, I'll tell you this much: Fé was triggered and had a flashback. Are you happy now?"
Marinette was taken aback by the glare he sent Alya, but his expression softened after another moment.
He sighed. "Sorry, it's just a very sore topic. Please don't bug him about it."
"I…I had no idea," Alya said meekly.
"As you can probably imagine, Fé doesn't want people to know. So please don't mention it around him at all."
They all nodded.
Marinette would have expected her attention to be on Adrien's exposed torso when they started a game of water polo, but that wasn't the case. She only absentmindedly hit the ball when it came her way, while her mind was far away.
"So, how's Félix doing?"
"He's…going through something right now."
"Is it something bad?"
"I don't know…He doesn't talk about it."
Bits and pieces from that conversation from long ago swirled through her head. About the time where Félix had disappeared. The time where something had happened. Something that had caused him to stop smiling and to bury himself in silence.
"I-I just wanted to see if you need anything. I could get some water or…"
"No water," Félix whimpered.
Marinette frowned. Was that the reason why he had excused himself instead of joining them at the pool? Maybe. Or he just needed a moment to himself, which was likely too.
"Fé, it's just a horse. A normal horse. It won't do anything."
So, Félix was apparently triggered by water and by horses. Marinette mentally made a note to do her best to help him avoid those things in the future.
"Alya, stop cheating!" Marinette said.
"It's 'spin the bottle'. How could I possibly cheat?" her supposed friend said with an air of complete innocence to her.
"By stopping the bottle mid-spin," Félix pointed out soberly.
"There was a mosquito," Alya said with an unapologetic shrug and a mischievous grin. "Besides, it's not like anything scandalous is going to happen with you wusses."
The latter comment referred to any activities that went further than a cheek kiss being majorly outvoted with Alya as the only one in favour of them. Besides, Adrien had argued that Nathalie would murder them if she found out that they even played this game. Their supervisor had gone to bed early with the strict instruction for them to not leave the house, not break anything and absolutely not to do anything inappropriate.
"Thank heavens for that," Félix muttered with an almost indistinguishable shudder.
"Could you still please stop targeting Adrien and me? It's starting to get old," Marinette said. She knew Alya only tried to help in the most obvious way she knew how to. Though there were only so many cheek kisses she was able to take without spontaneously combusting. Adrien wasn't any better off either, as he seemed to have taken on a permanent shade of red.
"Okay, okay. Let's change it to 'truth or dare' with the same limitations. Will you stop whining then?"
"Yes, that sounds better. At least we'll be able to choose our fate then," Adrien said while he seemed to purposefully avoid eye contact with her. Great, now Alya had gone and made it awkward. Another year would pass at this point until Marinette would be able to confess. Not that she was planning to confess during a game of truth or dare—and she very much hoped that Alya knew that—but she still hoped that she'd manage it before the vacation was over. The moment never seemed quite right though, as the two of them were never alone for long. And since Félix's flashback on the hike yesterday it also seemed like an inappropriate time to confess to Adrien. She just needed to be patient.
"You're as naïve as ever if you think that you'll have that luxury while Alya is involved," Félix pointed out, to which Alya just snickered evilly.
"Babe," Nino said warningly.
"No worries, I won't prod anything too personal," she said. One look around told Marinette that she wasn't the only one whose worries had just doubled.
Before anyone could react, Alya took the bottle and spun it. It landed on Adrien.
"Alright, Sunshine. Truth or dare?"
"Truth," Adrien said.
"What do you truly think about…" Alya made a pause for dramatic effect and Marinette sent her a warning look. "Ladybug?" Alya ended and a collective sigh of relief went through the rest of them. What was technically a harmless question was still a quite personal one for Marinette. She just hoped she could keep a good-enough poker face.
"I…I admire her. She's very clever and much braver than anyone I know. I mean…I guess you have to be to fight Akumas, but it's still very admirable." Adrien had gotten quieter with his last sentence and rubbed the back of his neck. He was embarrassed, though Marinette couldn't tell why. If anyone had reason to be embarrassed, it would be her. Just in case, she tried to subtly hide her face behind her hands to mask any blush that was possibly visible.
The game continued in a harmless fashion. Nino was dared by Adrien to walk through the room without his glasses and not trip over anything; Félix got asked by Nino what he'd bring on a deserted island with him—the Tardis; and Marinette was dared by Félix to steal Alya's phone without her noticing—she managed it after seven minutes when Alya reached over to the snacks on the side table.
Everything went well until Alya spun the bottle and it landed on Marinette. Truth and dare were equally dangerous in that instance, but seeing as she had already done a myriad of dares before, she picked truth.
"What do all the charms on your bracelet mean?"
Marinette looked down at said bracelet with its ten charms. All of them represented important moments of her friendship with Adrien and even though they were technically nothing bad, it still felt odd to talk about them. They were very personal and precious to her. She threw Adrien a look as if silently asking for permission and he gave her a smile and shrugged.
Okay, then.
"Well, the leaf is how we met," Marinette began. All of them already knew that story after all. "The Eiffel Tower stands for Paris because we made the most memories there. The moon with the stars is…" There, she paused for a moment. "It's from when we went on vacation and watched the stars at night."
Judging by Alya's grin, she interpreted it in a completely different way. The topic had never come up, which was why she had never told her friend about it. She'd no doubt get to hear something about it when going to bed later.
"The Chinese fan is a good luck charm because red is a lucky colour in China." That it was also linked to her heritage went without saying.
"The crown is linked to fashion," Marinette said, but kept the second meaning it had gained for her to herself.
Because I'm your Princess.
"The black cat is a running joke," she said and then moved to the three new additions she had gotten for her bracelet ever since.
"The scissors," she said, as she turned the bracelet so that the charm she had gotten for her birthday last year was on top, "are because we crafted that dollhouse for so damn long that it apparently needed a memento."
"Like I said, you already had a crown, otherwise I would have chosen that, Princess," Adrien said.
Stop killing me with that nickname, you idiot!
"The ladybug is because superheroes showing up apparently trumped finally getting into school," Marinette said. In truth, she had almost gotten a heart attack when Adrien had gifted her that charm for Christmas, thinking he had figured her out. But his explanation that she already had a black cat otherwise he would have gotten that for her as well had managed to erase that fear. She had ended up placing the ladybug charm directly next to the black cat.
"And the rose is because of the flowers on my balcony." At least that's what Adrien had said mere weeks ago on her birthday while blushing profusely.
"Right," Alya said, as she had witnessed said thing. "I'm sure that's the reason Sunshine gave you a red rose as a charm."
"She likes the red roses on her balcony the most," Adrien muttered almost inaudibly in a weak attempt to defend himself.
Alya, meanwhile, looked like she had just won the lottery. Before she could say anything else, Marinette took the bottle.
"Alright, my turn," she said, determined to end the awkwardness Adrien and her had been subjected to.
"I'm sorry that you still have to hide the whole time, even though we're on vacation," Marinette said while sitting on a rock by a marsh pond and working on a new design. Tikki meanwhile flitted around the area, obviously glad to finally be able to roam freely. It was the main reason why they had gone that far outside, but the landscape was inspiring enough to as well be a reason of its own.
"Don't worry about it. As long as I stay close enough, I can sneak out of your purse and explore on my own for a bit. Especially when you're busy playing in the pool or other things in or around the house. I only really had to hide on the hike."
"I still hope you can enjoy the vacation somehow. Have you been to the Camargue before?"
"Only once, but that was many centuries ago. Things have changed around here, though not as much as in the rest of the world."
Marinette nodded. "I can imagine. It must have been even wilder back when you were here last."
Tikki nodded. "Wilder and much more dangerous. People disappeared in the marshes all the time back then, much more than was common. Only the Ladybug and the Fox were active back then, so they were sent to investigate."
"The Fox?" Marinette asked and set her pencil down.
Tikki nodded again. "Yes, the fox Miraculous. It specialises in illusions and glamour, so it was often called in these kinds of situations to see what others couldn't see. My wielder back then was tutored by the Fox, which is why they came along on this mission."
"And? Did they find out why people kept disappearing?"
Tikki hesitated. "Yes, they did," she eventually said but didn't elaborate.
"What was it?"
The kwami shook her head. "Let's just say that I'm glad we got rid of the threat back then, otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to come here."
And there it was again, an ominous and mysterious reply instead of a straightforward answer. Marinette hated to be purposefully kept in the dark, especially since the only explanation as to why so far had been "it's dangerous". Fighting Akumas was also dangerous but neither Tikki nor Chat Noir seemed to have a problem with that. She just didn't get it.
"So, that's where you've been hiding these past few hours."
Marinette startled so bad that she almost fell off the rock.
"A-Adrien! What are you doing here?" She said and hectically looked around for Tikki. A tapping by her side told her that her kwami had already phased back into the purse.
"Looking for you so I can tell you that dinner will be ready in—" he looked at his phone. "—probably five minutes at this point. Wanna head back?"
"Sure," she said and closed her sketchbook. "So, what have you been doing while I was gone for apparently hours."
Adrien snorted. "Not apparently. It's seven."
"Already?!" Marinette quickly pulled out her phone to check. "But it was just three."
"You and sketching, seriously," he said fondly and shook his head. "Remember when we met at the Jardins du Trocadero and you were late to get home as well?"
"How could I forget? I almost ran over a supermodel and was so mortified I wanted the ground to swallow me whole," Marinette said with a grin.
"Well, I for one am glad that the universe doesn't seem to listen to your wishes. Or at least not the bad ones," Adrien said with a grin of his own.
"And the lovebirds decided to show up as well. Hallelujah," Alya said when Marinette and Adrien walked through the kitchen door.
"We didn't—"
"We're not—"
They both started at the same time but then decided to not feed the fire.
The dinner—Hungarian goulash—was one of Alya's mother's recipes and it was delicious. Unsurprisingly, Adrien even asked for seconds.
They sat at the table for what seemed like hours, just talking and joking. Only when it was dark enough for the solar lights to turn on in the garden all around them, did they tidy up the dinner table. Which meant that Alya, Nino, Félix and Nathalie carried the dishes and the leftovers inside while Marinette and Adrien were left behind. She couldn't help but notice how it seemed purposeful. Well, at least judging by the way Alya and Félix had torn their plates out of their hands.
Marinette decided to stand up from the wicker chair and walk around a little. Mel's garden really was pretty, especially now that the solar lights blinked from the sides of the path and the lower branches of the trees. Even the pool was lit, its water laying still.
She walked over, crouched in front of it and put her hand in the water. It was still warm, maybe thirty degrees and a small longing smile stretched on her face when she thought of how she'd miss it once she was back in Paris. A pool, as she had come to find out, really made an enormous difference between enduring the summer and enjoying the summer.
When she drew her hand back out it sent ripples through the entire pool and the small waves danced in a beautiful light show on the wall right next to it. It was so pretty; she could watch that for hours.
This time she heard it when Adrien came up behind her as the pebbles the garden path was made out of weren't exactly suitable for sneaky approaches.
"Dreaming again?" he asked and Marinette turned around to him with a smile.
"A little," she said. "The light is just very pretty."
He crouched down next to her and repeated her motions of splashing around the water with his hand to create waves.
"You're right, it is pretty," he said as he stood up again.
Suddenly her heart started beating faster. With how close he stood, their size difference of almost one head suddenly became very obvious.
"Very pretty," he added with a soft smile but only looked at her as he said it.
Was this it? Could this be her chance? It was just the two of them, he was looking at her with such fondness that she was close to fainting and the setting was beautiful.
Without even thinking about it, her hands found their place on his chest while she tried her best to ignore her internal panic. Forget butterflies in her stomach—she didn't trust butterflies to be anywhere near her body anyway—those were birds at least. Birds that desperately wanted to fly.
Their faces slowly moved closer and she closed her eyes, only the sound of her pounding heartbeat remaining.
"Hey dudes, is there anything left on the table?"
Marinette's eyes flew open and her body went to its usual reaction when startled: flailing. Unfortunately, that was a bad idea when her hands were on Adrien's chest and they stood at the very edge of the pool.
Instead of an answer to Nino's quite interruptive question, there was a loud splash and a horrified squeak, the latter from Marinette.
"Adrien! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?!" She was full-on panicking at this point, even when Adrien re-emerged and climbed out of the pool seconds later.
"It's okay, don't worry about it," Adrien said with an awkward smile. "But could someone get me a towel please?"
The latter question was regarded to the small crowd that had formed in the kitchen door that served as one entrance to the garden. Alya was glaring daggers at Nino, Félix was shaking his head in exasperation and Nathalie looked like she had just solved a big mystery.
"On it!" Nino volunteered immediately, probably to escape his girlfriend that was out for blood.
Marinette, meanwhile, seemed rooted to the spot. This was the second time she had almost kissed Adrien and the first time she had also really meant to kiss him. It was a terrifying but also exhilarating thought. She immediately thought about what could have happened if Nino hadn't interrupted them.
"Hey girl, you alright?" Alya asked and Marinette jumped. Where had she suddenly come from and where was Adrien?!
"W-what?" She stammered.
"You zoned out there for a bit," her friend informed her with a grin. "Finally, you're making a move on him," she then added in a quiet voice.
"Oh my god, that really happened, didn't it?" Marinette whispered back, reality catching up to her once more.
"Well, it almost did. I'll kill Nino for this."
Marinette chuckled and then looked to the lit windows in the house. She didn't feel like going inside yet. Instead, she needed some peace and quiet for a bit and especially some time to think.
Marinette sat outside on the veranda, surrounded by fairy lights and comfortably cuddled between various decorative pillows. She had to hand it to Mel: Interior and Outdoor design really were her forte! She herself had always strived to achieve such levels of comfort with her balcony, but now she saw that she was still miles away from that. It was like sitting within a dream, or having teleported into a Pinterest aesthetic mood board.
There she was, refining the designs that she had sketched during the day and letting her mind wander a bit. She was so immersed that she didn't notice Adrien until he sat down next to her.
"Will you make that one? It's beautiful," he said, effectively startling her. Luckily, she had been contemplating colour choices at that moment instead of directly drawing, otherwise there might have been a line over the entire page now.
"Sorry, should have realised you were in the zone," Adrien chuckled.
"It's okay, and I don't know yet. I don't have that much time lately, so I might just see what other designs I come up with on this trip before deciding on just one to make."
Yes, acting like they hadn't almost kissed earlier certainly seemed like a good idea. That way she could keep her cool.
"Aww, but I want to see all of them!" Adrien whined with his head on her shoulder.
And there went her cool demeanour.
"W-we'll see. You can help me decide which one to make later," she said and set the sketch book down on the coffee table. There was no chance she could keep concentrating on her designs when Adrien was almost cuddling with her.
"It's pretty out here," she eventually said, a sentence for which she had scratched together all her composure to not accidentally stutter. It also helped that she leaned back to look at the starry sky.
"Why do you think I fled the house?" Adrien said. She could hear the grin in his voice.
"Well, I thought it was because you didn't want to witness Nino's murder."
Adrien shrugged. "That's also part of the reason. But you know me: always seeking beauty."
Marinette raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Really now?"
"Yes, really! Beautiful landscapes, beautiful places," he made a sweeping gesture with his hand towards the entire veranda before looking back at her. "And beautiful company."
She was very sure she was blushing at this point. He couldn't just say those things in a setting like this! Therefore, Marinette did the only thing she could think of in that situation. She snorted and gave him a playful shove.
"Charmer."
"What? You're calling me a liar?"
"No, but you're still a model, Monsieur," she said and tousled his still damp hair in an attempt to make him look less…perfect. It didn't work.
"I don't see why that should influence my judgement of your beauty, Princess."
When he leaned in and kissed her hair, Marinette was close to death. She already saw the obituary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng, killed by her just-a-friend Adrien Agreste through having to deal with his oblivious cuteness.
Suddenly Adrien froze as his actions caught up to him, making him blush a bright red that could rival Mel's cherry-scented candles. Apparently, he wasn't that oblivious after all.
"I'm sorry! That…just…I…I don't know what's wrong with me today."
Well, whatever was wrong with him, he should please keep it up!
"Oh, so calling me beautiful is wrong now?"
Seeing him embarrassed gave her the strength she needed to form entire sentences and apparently it was even enough to tease him. Marinette was immensely proud of herself.
Adrien paled. "No! Of course not! You're the most beautiful person in the world!"
Marinette should have been worried about how fast Adrien could blush, pale and then blush again, but her brain had short-circuited. The only thing that filled her head were Adrien's words, set to repeat mode.
"You're the most beautiful person in the world."
"I-I just meant the k-k-kissing your hair thing. A-a-and that by the pool earlier. I don't know why I did that! It just happened!" Adrien rambled on.
Marinette's only reply was an inquisitive "mhmm" as the ability to form words had somehow eluded her for the moment.
"I really should have asked…or not done it at all! I'm so sorry! I'll never do it again!"
Right then her brain finished rebooting and processed just what Adrien was rambling about. Sorry? Never doing it again? God, no! To her own horror, her way of interrupting that nonsense was rather blunt.
"Adrien, shut up."
Even though the line was delivered with a smile, she could see that she had now succeeded in freaking him out even more.
"There's nothing to apologize for," she therefore hastily added.
Only then did she realise that this could be it! …Again! The setting was even more perfect than before at the pool and if she could loop the conversation back to the part where it hadn't been awkward yet, she could probably finally bring up the courage to confess. And maybe even to kiss him, if her soul hadn't left her body at that point. She swallowed as the birds started fluttering up a storm in her stomach again.
"I liked it actually," she shyly admitted before Adrien could open his mouth again. She mentally patted herself on the shoulder for not only having gotten that sentence out but for also not jumbling up the words. Now she just had to deal with the fallout of that sentence, but she had already gone too far to back out anyway.
"W-what?" Adrien seemed stumped, so Marinette gave him a sweet smile.
"Calling me beautiful and kissing my hair. It's nice, you know?"
She mentally thanked Tikki to heaven and back for letting her be Ladybug for the past year and build up her courage that way. Otherwise she wouldn't have dared to say that sentence, nor been able to deliver it so smoothly.
"N-nice?"
Marinette seemed to have reduced him to one-word answers. Considering that she was usually the stuttering mess, it was quite funny to have their roles reversed. She scraped together all the courage she had left and giggled.
"This reminds me of our beach vacation two years ago."
She gave a content sigh and looked beyond the fairy lights into the dark garden. The small lights that illuminated the path and those that hung in the trees were still pretty, but her view turned to the stars above.
"We were outside almost all night as you showed me all the constellations and planets. Then we fell asleep almost immediately on the car ride back the next day, remember?"
Adrien threw her a smile and took her left hand.
"Yeah, I remember," he said quietly as he turned her bracelet until the charm with the moon and the stars was on top. He carefully traced it with his thumb.
Marinette smiled. "I never told you this, but that night was when I realised that we've really become friends. It was such a smooth transition that I barely noticed it. You know how I noticed?"
Adrien's eyes were glimmering curiously. "How?"
"You let your guard down and so did I. I loved hearing you talk for hours about something you've so obviously been dying to share with someone." Marinette shifted closer to him. "And it just got better from there."
They were both quiet for a minute. Marinette's heart threatened to burst out of her chest while she attempted a running start to the words 'I love you'. It was absolutely terrifying since she didn't know for sure what the answer to it would be. All reassurances from Félix, Alya and Nino didn't help now, as her brain automatically jumped to worst-case scenarios of a rejection. And those thoughts locked her tongue in place.
When Marinette dared to look at him again, she almost had a heart attack. Because, there Adrien sat and looked at her so softly and lovingly that her worries were instantly forgotten. His expression changed to a slightly embarrassed smile a second later and a giggle slipped out of her before she could stop it.
Suddenly it seemed easy. Just a few words, right?
"It took me a while to realise yet another thing though," she said, continuing what she had started before.
"And that would be?" Adrien asked, his smile turning soft again as he leaned even closer to her.
"Do you remember the day when you dressed up as a girl and we were in the Ferris Wheel?"
His smiled deepened as he took her hand and placed a kiss on the back of it. Just like he had done back then. "How could I ever forget that, Princess?"
She smiled. "That's when I realised it. When you kissed my hand, I saw how happy that day made you. I wanted to make you smile like that again, to hear you laugh like that again, because that's what makes me happy."
Her heart almost burst with joy from how happy he already looked at that moment. The lights from all around them danced in his eyes, wrinkles all around them from how wide he was smiling.
"So," she said, "before I'm being selfish and admit something I should have told you a long time ago already, I gotta ask: What would make you the happiest right now?"
"If you'd stop calling yourself selfish," he said. "After all, I'm the selfish one here."
He had inched even closer to her so that their faces were only centimetres apart.
"Why would you be selfish?" She asked quietly, the smile refusing to leave her face.
"Because, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I'm in love with you."
For a moment she thought that she had hallucinated those words, but then Adrien tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She was, in fact, not hallucinating the entire thing. This was reality and not one of her hyper-realistic daydreams!
"I fail to see how that's selfish," she said, a smile in her voice.
"It's not, but asking you to be my girlfriend is."
Marinette hadn't known she was able to smile that widely.
Without even thinking about it, she wrapped her arms around Adrien's neck and pulled him even closer so that their noses touched. She could feel his breath on her lips, just one tiny nudge away from touching.
"Well, aren't you lucky?" She whispered. "Because I love you too."
And then their lips met.