Author's Notes
Adrien and Kagami's meticulously-arranged schedules have finally aligned to allow them the chance to spend time together with their girlfriend, a certain neophyte fashion designer with a heart of gold and the cutest case of foot-in-mouth disease that either of them have ever seen.
Marinette is finally going out on a date with her new boyfriend and girlfriend.
Wait. Did anyone tell her that?
I hope that you derive some enjoyment out of the first of two chapters, and I invite you to read the original work for some context.
I'm coming apart at the seams...
Oh, Lord, was that a sewing pun?
Chat Noir's … Chat Noir is contagious.
As a biracial girl, Marinette Dupain-Chang had suffered from occasional, minor conflicts of identity, and, likewise, the world – and Chloe – had inflicted upon her some slights and jibes as a result of her heritage. Likely the most severe issue that she or her mother had faced in that regard was her grandfather's longstanding feud with her papa over a "bread recipe" – as obtuse a metaphor as Marinette had ever heard given that, as a Dupain, she was "of bread," a "bun in the oven," as it were.
Chat Noir would love that turn of phrase too.
Today, her two heritages, which she had always found relatively easy to reconcile, believing "citizen of Paris" to be a sufficient gestalt identity, seemed to be at war, tearing her apart like a burst seam.
Her French blood, the same blood that ran through the veins of Sartre, burned with the existential question: "Why am I here?"
Her Chinese birthright sought to push such trite introspection aside with the more extreme: "Am I really here?"
Of course, in her case, these questions were of a more literal, and less metaphysical, bent.
The source of the former query was obvious: there was no reason for her to be here, seated on one of the benches in the spacious gymnasium of Monsieur Armand D'Argencour's fencing academy, watching, mouth perpetually ever-so-slightly agape, as Kagami and Adrien dueled once again. Both nimble teens were lost in an all-but incomprehensible dance of thrusts, parries, and ripostes, so well matched that it really should have hurt Marinette to watch.
Well, there was a reason she was here: her friends had invited her, but why?
Hence the second question: was this real life, or was it just delusional fantasy – a fever dream conjured by her mind to torture herself? Had Adrien's implicit rejection, tempered though it may have been by the ambiguous pleasure of their shared ice cream, caused her to go insane? Whatever lingering "magic" remained from the gentle exchange between the trio had surely given way to madness once they parted.
Really, with her kleptomania and catastrophizing, she had already been halfway there – not to mention the evidence provided by her bizarre applications of Tikki's "Lucky Charms." After all, what sane person used a spoon to fish for magic spandex/leather-clad cat-boys?
There could be no sound justification for being invited on a date between Kagami and Adrien, so it was entirely possible that she wasn't actually here.
That made sense, right?
And it was a date, clearly. However strange it might be, the two somewhat socially-awkward teens did likely consider a rather vigorous sparring match "a date."
The pair occupying Marinette's thoughts had parted for a final time, Adrien landing a stunning, unexpected touch to Kagami's mid-section as she over-committed in an opening lunge, having, it seemed, lost herself in a bout of impetuousness. A flourished salute was shared between them before the couple, almost in unison, tucked their foils away and slipped off their head-gear, approaching the bench on which Marinette had settled to watch the match ... which had become a best of three, then best of five, then best of nine tournament.
After that, they had simply lost count.
Exertion had left Adrien's unblemished skin glistening with sweat, his normally pristine locks dishevelled by his mask and matted to his forehead. His chest heaved as he gulped down heavy breaths.
Fumbling in his bag for a moment after setting aside his gauntlets and helmet, he let out a throaty huff, emerging with a perspiring bottle of water and cracking the seal before tossing the cap into a nearby bin (recycling, of course, because Adrien Agreste was too perfect to ever add unnecessarily to the nation's landfills, Marinette knew). Beads of sweat coalesced at his jawline and trailed across the smooth flesh of his throat as he tossed his head back, swallowing down half the bottle's contents in one long swig.
Oh, the lucky mouth of that bottle.
"So thirsty," Marinette mumbled under her breath, shaking her head at herself before releasing a muffled yelp as Adrien glanced in her direction.
"I-I mean you're so thirsty," she squeaked, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand, her next words coming out in a muffled mumble, "Because you've been working out."
Which was obvious; way to go, Marinette!
"You can have a swig, if you'd like, Marinette. There's no need to be shy." The soft smile, hearty and gentle, with which he favoured her stalled her self-deprecating spiral of negative cognition, and had her spinning her mental wheels, caught in an entirely different thought.
Kagami, who coughed to catch Marinette's attention, was, as Marinette realized when she turned to the source of the sound, in much the same state as Adrien. She rolled her shoulder, tossing her head to the side, frowning in the other girl's direction.
Had Kagami seen her staring? Was she upset – of course she was upset at having some interloping fan tag along so that she could drool over a boy who had already been taken.
A few minutes spent eating ice cream together on a park bench, and the liberties that Marinette had been granted with Kagami's ... boyfriend didn't change anything.
"Marinette," Kagami began, wiping her brow with a towel from her own bag, smoothing her hair back into place along her brow-line, "are you alright? You look slightly flushed."
"She's right, Marinette." A slowly-spreading look of what Marinette thought must have been queasiness seemed to darken Adrien's features as he lowered the bottle that he had proffered to her moments earlier. "If you're not feeling well, my driver can be here in a few minutes to take you home."
Before Marinette could think to reply, Kagami cut in once again. "I too could call for a car," she said with a furtive glance in Adrien's direction. "Neither of us would want you walking if you're under the weather."
And that was the answer to her existential question. Of course Adrien and Kagami alike were just trying to be sweet when they invited her to join them. It was the same reason that they asked her to share their ice cream: mingled pity and compassion. Adrien was too nice to say it, or to even be conscious of his desire for solitude with his girlfriend, but subconsciously he wanted her gone. Kagami, however harsh she might have been when she viewed Marinette as competition – and what a joke that was; as if she could ever compete with the far more beautiful, poised, and talented Japanese girl – Kagami was magnanimous in this victory out of concern for their burgeoning friendship.
It would only be polite for her to leave.
"What? Me? - Ha. No-" That... came out more as a half screech than the coolly confident deflection that Marinette had intended.
Worry lines creased the skin around the models' eyes – and yes, they were both gorgeous enough to be models – as they squinted at her, Adrien setting aside his water bottle and pausing for a moment before taking a step in her direction. Kagami, on the other hand, was far more decisive, surging towards her without a hint of hesitation to press a palm to the other girl's forehead.
Towel-dried fingers, still slightly clammy, tucked under Marinette's hairline, their pressure firm and constant for a moment. Her face descended to Marinette's level, and the bluenette could have sworn that she caught sight of some calculating gleam in the other girl's eyes. Her mouth was parted slightly, releasing puffs of breath as the winded fencer recovered.
Marinette could only just hold back a spastic shudder.
Oh, God. She does know. Of course she knows that I was staring because everyone but Adrien knows how I feel and that's only because I'm a lying coward who told him that I was only a fan who didn't have feelings for him and-
"You don't feel as if you're running a fever," Kagami mused as she pulled away with what Marinette would have thought, had she not known better, was an intentional, if light, ghosting of fingertips across the Chinese girl's temple and cheek.
The feathery touch left in its wake hyper-sensitive skin, tingling under the blush of embarrassment that ruddied Marinette's entire face.
"You're fine – I mean I'm fine," Marinette stuttered as she cast her arms apart and waggled her hands ... for some reason, leaping to her feat. "Adrien's fine too-" damn it, why! "We're all fine because why wouldn't we be?"
The heavenly chuckle that spilled forth from Adrien's mouth was almost enough to make Marinette's embarrassment worthwhile.
"I'm glad to hear that we're all fine, Marinette, though I am more than a little tired."
The blonde model strode towards both girls, a newly formed smile that was certainly, in no way, a downright swoon-worthy and utterly un-Adrien-Agreste smirk blooming across his features, but the smooth grace of his motions was undercut by a ... butt wiggle? A sashaying of the hips that must have been a combination of a trick of the light and awkward motions caused by chaffing from the bulky protective gear he wore while fencing.
"You are starting to look a bit better," Adrien observed, coming to stand next to Kagami as he reached out a hand to Marinette. "So are you ready for your turn with me?"
"My turn?" Marinette squeaked.
"Of course," Kagami supplied in an absent tone. "Why do you think that we invited you? We were going to fence."
A sense of deja vu overtook Marinette as a second hand, graceful and feminine, despite the slightly dusky callouses that dotted the proximal ridges just below each finger, was extended to her.
"But I don't know how and I don't have any equipment. I couldn't – I mean-" She could only stare at the two teens before her as she stumbled over her own thoughts.
"You needn't worry, Marinette." Kagami's tone and outstretched hand remained steady, cool, stable. "In case of emergencies, I keep another set of gear in my locker. You and I have similar body types, so we thought that you might want to use it."
"But I still don't know how," Marinette very nearly groused. It was all but unfathomable that they should be so persistent – so kind. How could Kagami be comfortable sharing her time with Adrien when it was so limited?
"Mari," -Adrien called her Mari; Marinette's heart almost stopped – "you know how well you did during your tryout. For a novice, you showed real potential, and besides, it's not about winning; it's about having fun with friends."
"Indeed, Marinette. I've softened him up for you. I'm quite certain that-" there was a half-second's pause as she cast her gaze towards Adrien before finishing her sentence, "we can handle him, between the two of us."
For some reason that escaped Marinette, Adrien seemed to choke on nothing, taking a single, stumbling step backwards in an uncharacteristic show of clumsiness. It was so utterly unlike him, occasional bouts of endearing dorkiness aside, that she could not fathom the reason. Hands fumbling about to find purchase, nearly tripping over the bench behind him, he cast his eyes, an even more vibrant and enticing green than usual now that they had blown abnormally wide, between Kagami and Marinette, jaw working as if he was trying to mouth a response.
Before she could mull over his reaction to the promise of a second fencing match, Marinette herself started upwards when her laser-eyed focus on the model was broken by the sensation of a hand closing around her own, tugging her away from the still apparently stunned Agreste heir, who was now starting blankly at the far wall, shifting in his seat as if he was sitting on a burr.
Though she had lost the most recent bout with Adrien, Kagami, for whatever reason, sported an expression that Marinette could only describe as "smug" as the fencing prodigy squeezed Marinette's fingers before dragging her away from Adrien.
Weird.
"Give Adrien a minute to calm down after our match. You can come with me to the women's locker room. I'll get changed and help you into my spare gear."
And, as she was dragged away by the insistent yet stoic fencer, Marinette resigned herself to the sweet torture that was to come: staring into Adrien's beatific face for an hour of fencing practice while knowing that he could never be anything more than he was at this moment – just a friend.
These three do not receive enough love, and I'm somewhat at a loss as to the relative popularity of Lukadrienette, not that I judge in any way.
Just - that ball-pit scene...
And, yes, Marinette's on the back foot here, with her anxiety at the forefront. She'll have her day in one of these one-offs.