start notes—

"You need to learn how not to take things so seariously," he jokes. "Just go with the flow."

my tellonym: milkisande

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rebellion

i move slow and steady,
but i feel like a waterfall.

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ALYA'S the one to pick her up from Ms. Mendeleiev's class, waiting outside the door so that Marinette can't actually escape from her friend.

She smiles as soon as Marinette exits, and the latter can't quite swallow down the grin that threatens to escape her lips as she sees her friend's hands crossed over her chest.

"So…," Alya starts, as they begin to walk down the hallway. "I skipped class an hour ago."

"Ah," the mermaid only says offhandedly, "you know, you shouldn't be skipping. That's not the kind of role model behavior you should have for your ward."

"Right," the girl only nods alongside her. "It's just that I was trying to help out a friend, so I rushed down to the quad with tons of towels in hand— looking absolutely insane, might I add… and imagine my surprise when she wasn't there!"

"Shocker!" Marinette only responds drily, eyes widening unrealistically in shock. "I mean, to her defense, she would've been late if she'd waited. At least one of us should've been a good student today."

Alya only narrows her eyes, before lightly bumping her companion to the side. "You know, I'm thirsty," she starts, slowly grabbing a bottle from the side of her backpack as she opens it.

Marinette takes a brief step back, and glares. "You wouldn't dare."

They have a brief staredown for a second, with Alya raising the bottle up… before simply taking a sip and immediately putting it away. She rolls her eyes as Marinette relaxes, laughing lightly as she hooks her arm around hers. "Come on, you didn't really expect me to do that to you, did you?"

"Wouldn't put it past your species," she only responds curtly.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. All us land mammals suck, huh?"

A brief pause, before Marinette nods.

(But not brief enough— as Alya's head flips towards her direction, an eyebrow raised and excitement almost bubbling out of her expression.)

"Hey," she starts slowly, as they come to a standstill in the middle of the hallway. Alya moves uncomfortably close to her face, scrutinizing her friend's expression. "What was that?"

Marinette doesn't answer, instead looking in the other direction. "What do you mean?"

"That pause."

She still refuses to look at her directly. "What pause?"

"When I said that you hated land mammals, you hesitated."

She scoffs. "I did not." Marinette struggles to get herself out of Alya's grasp. (She has absolutely no problem swimming against strong currents in the ocean, but was increasingly realizing that her human body was largely just a useless and inefficient lump of flesh.)

"Yes, you did," Alya protests back, eyes squinting as she tries to make out what her friend's expression means.

Marinette tries not to let anything show. Thinks about anything else. Not about the very cute TA, or the way he carried her, or the way his god-awful puns made her laugh like he'd just told the funniest joke in the world. Not about Adrien, and especially about the way he made her feel— ah, crap.

The red on her cheeks is subtle, but it doesn't go unnoticed.

(Damn Alya and her investigative skills.)

"You met someone," her friend finally deduces, voice slowly increasing in volume. "Do you have a crush on a human!?"

At that, Marinette manages to free herself (the power of embarrassment does wonders to the human body, she realizes), and pulls Alya to one of the empty classrooms. "Do humans always feel the need to speak so loudly? Mermaids are never this noisy."

"That's because you don't have lungs," Alya only responds, rolling her eyes— before grabbing her friend's hand, and using the other to point at the mermaid accusingly. "And don't you even try changing the subject; I need to know everything. Right now."

Marinette shakes off her arm, opting to lean upon one of the desks. "There's nothing to say! You're just making things up from thin water."

"Thin water?"

"Yeah. Like when you make something up without any basis? Do humans not have expressions like that here—"

"No, yeah, we do, but that's not…," Alya pauses, then exhaustedly rubs at her forehead. "Look, we'll get into human and mermaid language later. A lot more interesting is that a mermaid has fallen for one of us."

"I did not fall for him…!" Marinette stops in her tracks, realizing with her friend's smirk that she's fallen right into her trap.

"Ah, so there is a he to fall for?"

Marinette scoffs, tries to find an excuse or brush it off, before realizing that it'll ultimately be a fruitless effort. Running a frustrated hand down her still-damp hair, she sighs. "Fine!" She finally mutters, defeated. "Look, it's not a big deal. I just found him cute, that's all."

Alya raises an eyebrow. "Not a big deal?" She asks, shaking her head. "You've been here for a month, and I haven't even seen you be interested in talking to humans, much less making friends," she points out. "Actually talking to a guy without wanting to murder him, and finding him cute… now that's what we call progress." She grins, then leans forward.

Personal space, Marinette figures, is likely a concept that she isn't all too familiar with.

"What's his name?"

"I don't—."

"Marinette," she finally deadpans. "We both know that you're gonna end up telling me, or at the very least, I'll end up figuring it out with my amazing detective skills, so let's save the time on our part and just… tell me who he is."

(She wants to say she knows Alya's bluffing. But the determined look in her eye and tilt to a smile, and the fact that she knew how stubborn her best friend could be when it came to getting the "latest scoop", as it is— makes her know that the statement is nothing short of the truth.)

"Adrien," she finally breathes. "I don't know his last name, but—"

"Agreste?" Alya suddenly interrupts, eyes widened in slight surprise. "Adrien Agreste?"

"Look, I can't tell you if it is—"

"Blonde, green eyes, model figure, speaks only in corny puns but somehow endearing, and basically drop-dead gorgeous?"

"I—," Marinette pauses, trying to get her thoughts together. "How did you know that?"

To the former's surprise, Alya doesn't even respond. At least not with words.

Instead, she bursts into a fit of laughter. "Of course, it's him," Alya only cackles. "Of course it's Agreste, isn't it?" She pauses, then mutters to herself: "can't believe I didn't figure that out earlier on."

"What do you mean?" Marinette only insists, trying to stop herself from mentally drowning her best friend. "Do you know him?"

"Adrien?" She finally catches her breath, before cackling again. "I think the better question to ask, Marinette, is who doesn't?"

"Stop laughing!" Marinette huffs, evidently getting more irritated. "What? Is he popular or something?"

Noticing the mermaid's growing annoyance with the situation, Alya finally calms herself down, wiping a stray tear from her eye. "Adrien? He's not just popular. He's like the equivalent of an actual prince we have here in Francois-Dupont."

"A prince?"

"Ever heard of the Agrestes? His dad's on the board of directors here, and they're loaded. Piss off Adrien, and he could definitely have you expelled in a second," Alya states, before shaking her head. "Not that he would ever do it; Adrien's one of the kindest people here— there are rumors that he's actually an angel who'd come to visit us mortals."

"Now that's a little farfetched."

Alya pauses, then stares her down while gesturing at her feet. "Really? And a shapeshifting mermaid with supernatural powers is absolutely normal?"

Marinette looks at herself, then begrudgingly nods. "You have a point. But go on."

"Well, that's it, really," she only says. "Adrien Agreste's what you'd call your token golden boy. He even has a fanclub—"

"Really? There are a bunch of girls who set up a fanclub here?"

"Oh," Alya shakes her head. "Not just here. It's an international fanclub, and they have like, different branches or arms within and outside university. I'm honestly surprised he hasn't made it to mermaid media yet."

"Mermaids don't really care about the human world," she only mutters, head still reeling from the onslaught of new information. "All they really want is to be left alone, remember?"

"Right," Alya states, then suddenly looks at her in worry. "Are you okay?" She finally asks. "Don't worry about having a lot of competition," she points out. "He's nice, but he hasn't shown interest in any of them. You still have a chance."

"Look, I don't care about that," Marinette only mutters. "I just want to be friends."

Alya rolls her eyes. "Sure," she drawls, "just be friends, says the girl who's curiously asking about his life."

Marinette stares back at her, deadpan. "Yes, and also that same girl who's going through more than enough just by being the sole mermaid for miles." She shakes her head, willing the thoughts of the blonde boy to escape her mind. "I'm not fanning the waves by going after someone who I'm sure has relationship drama following wherever he goes."

"Okay," Alya starts, "we're going to circle back to 'fanning the flames' later, but come on! Shouldn't you chase after love regardless of the obstacles?"

Marinette can't quite hide the disgust in her eyes. "Who talks like that? Are all you humans so cheesy?" Alya looks unimpressed with the response, but simply shakes her head. "I'm thinking strategically. Adrien's cute, sure, but he's not worth starting a revolution for."

"A revolution? Aren't you being a little too dramatic?"

"Fine then," Marinette instead amends. "A rebellion." She walks over to the window, starkly aware of the amount of people who'd prefer she not be here at all. "There's already a manhunt over me, and I just want to finish the rest of this program in peace."

"But…!"

She finds her way back to Alya, taking the latter's hand and interlocking it. "See? You're more than enough for me."

"Initiating touch with a disgusting land mammal like me?" Alya dramatically puts a hand to her forehead, voice accentuated to sound like some stereotypical damsel-in-distress in early black-and-white movies. "Am I dreaming?"

Marinette cracks a small smile, then rolls her eyes. "All humans are so dramatic."

"Not all of us," a third voice suddenly chimes in, making the two pause in their tracks.

Leaning upon the door's entrance, the so-called golden boy enters the room, eyes bright with visible amusement. "You know, students aren't allowed to use the rooms without a permit." His eyes gloss over to land on one figure in particular. "Water you doing here?"

Oh, that's objectively terrible.

Yet she finds herself smiling anyway.

Damn it.

"I was— I mean, we were, uh…"

Alya looks at her companion in evident surprise (she'd never seen Marinette quite so… adorable, if she were being honest), then stifles a laugh.

Marinette makes a mental note to throw her in the swimming pool later.

"We were just looking for Madame Bustier!" Alya finally responds easily, "she told us to meet her after she finished class, but we must've been in the wrong classroom. Sorry about that."

Adrien looks at the two of them for a moment— perhaps looking at one not-person, really, then breathes a light chuckle. "She's having lunch right now, but you can visit her office later if you still need to schedule an appointment."

Busted.

"Thanks!" Alya only responds brightly, choosing to skip over how easily she was caught in her lie. "I guess we should take a head start, then." She pulls Marinette, who seems to be paralyzed in place. "Let's go, Marinette—!"

"Actually, if it's okay with you, I'd love to talk to her for a bit," Adrien says, cutting them off. They both pause, and after a mental conversation between them (more on with Marinette saying something along the lines of 'don't leave me with him', and Alya either not understanding or willingly ignoring the statement— she really bets it's the latter), giving an obnoxious thumbs up and nodding.

"Then I'll see you later, Mari!"

Marinette updates the mental note. Throw her into the ocean, then.

"I'm starting to think your hobby's eavesdropping on my conversations, huh," she finally says, hands folded over her chest in an admittedly feeble attempt to assert dominance. Then, in a slightly more meek (and panicked, really) volume: "what did you hear?"

"Just dew-ing my job," he grins back. She can't even comment on how awful the pun is. "Can't have you getting into more trouble." Then, a thoughtful pause. "And don't worry, I only got in when you called us disgusting land mammals."

"Wait but that wasn't me, that was Al—!"

She pauses, noticing the amused smile on his face. "And you're messing with me, huh?"

"You need to learn how not to take things so seariously," he jokes. "Just go with the flow."

Marinette huffs. "I can absolutely go with the flow…"

"Really?"

"Definitely."

The pun escapes her mouth before she can think about it, but it's more than enough to make Adrien grin like an absolute maniac. "Then prove it over dinner? Tomorrow?"

"I don't want to start a rebellion, though…"

They both pause.

Now why exactly did that come out?

He laughs. "I don't know what you mean, but what do you have against rebellions?" Adrien pauses for a moment, thoughtful. "You'll never get what you want or need by not doing anything about it."

"So you're telling me that…?"

"Well I don't want to incite a whole-out war, but I think there are some things worth fighting for." He turns to face her, eyes still beaming with a look that she can't describe as anything other than kind. "Don't you think?"

Marinette stops in her tracks, thinks, then carefully offers a hand.

"What time?"

"Hm?"

"The time," she repeats. "For dinner tomorrow, I can meet you there."

She hadn't known it to be possible, but the smile on his face widens. "Seaven," Adrien says brightly. "I can pick you up at the girls' apartment. You live there, right?"

Marinette nods.

"Fintastic," he responds, still grinning as he jokingly bows and tips an invisible hat in his direction. "Until then, Marinette." Adrien concludes, before walking away, a little bounce in his step, as she's left to her own devices.

Marinette knows she's going head over tails for him.

But she's surprised to find that she doesn't quite mind it.

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end notes—

rebellions shouldn't only be incited for the sake of getting into a relationship— that's how we have unnecessary wars and stories like helen of troy. but thinking of an idea for this prompt proved… difficult ;u;, so here we are ! hope you enjoyed it regardless: more adrinette content in the chapters to follow :D

also yes, i decided on pushing through with making this a mermari x adrien fic, so the title and description have been edited accordingly ! title is a play on "cloud nine", and basically stolen from "she's in love", a lovely song from the little mermaid musical

i'll still be following the adrinette april challenge (so posting each day while following the prompts), so please don't expect super long updates every single time ! but please look forward to it, hehe: