It was a day Adrien never thought would arrive. G, his bodyguard since birth and father figure was retiring, and someone else was coming to take his place as guardian of 23-year-old multi-millionaire Adrien Agreste. Nathalie's voice echoed throughout the Agreste mansion where Adrien was staying with his fiancée for the time being, and he swallowed the lump in his throat, pushing his bedroom door open. He gestured for his fiancée to go ahead of him and she obliged, giving him a peck on the cheek as she flounced out the door.
In the foyer stood G in all his glory, and Adrien had to restrain himself from running to hug the man he had mistakenly called "Dad" at least once or twice in the twenty-three years they had been acquainted. Instead he walked down and met G by the front doors where his luggage was neatly piled, accepting his old bodyguard's outstretched hand for a firm shake. Wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes as he gave Adrien the rarity of a smile, which the young man tearfully returned. No words were exchanged as G gathered his suitcases and walked out the door, never to return, hopped into a taxi, and sped away.
"Your new bodyguard should be arriving any minute now." Nathalie adjusted her glasses, blinking back what Adrien thought might have been tears in the corners of her eyes as she stared intently at the screen of her tablet.
"Maybe he'll be better than G," the woman clinging to Adrien's arm said, inspecting her nails as if they were anything less than perfectly polished.
Adrien raised an eyebrow. "What was wrong with G?"
"Not wrong, necessarily, just weird. I mean, he never talked, for one thing. I always wondered about that, didn't you, chéri?"
"Maybe he just didn't have anything to say." He started to change the subject, interrupted by the sound of a car engine as a taxi pulled through the gates of the mansion and parked. Adrien stiffened slightly and cleared his throat as the back door opened and a figure emerged, though the midday sunlight made it impossible to make out any features.
As the figure drew closer, though, he started to see some things, namely that the bodyguard was a woman with a short stature and petite build, hair tightly bound into a ponytail. She wore a deep red, long-sleeved blouse with symmetrically placed black spots and two loopy Ls decorating the breast pocket, plain black jeans, and red ballet flats.
She was also very attractive - objectively, of course, Adrien was engaged - and speaking of engagements, a certain fiancée had also noticed just how pretty she was.
"This is our new bodyguard?" She asked, incredulous tone suggesting that she, too, was expecting another big, burly, two meter tall bodyguard, but she didn't hear Adrien complaining.
"Yes," Nathalie spoke up, heels clicking on the floor as she walked over to greet the young woman standing in the doorway. "She is the youngest of a long line of women in her family who have been specially trained for assignments like these."
Adrien tore his eyes away from her to focus on his father's assistant. "What...what's her name?"
"I am Ladybug," the woman said in a silvery voice, bowing before Adrien, whose heart skipped a beat or two when she spoke, but he chalked it up to nerves. "You are Adrien Agreste, are you not?"
"Yes, that's me."
"If I may ask, what is your name?" She turned her gaze to the woman, still clutching Adrien's arm.
She flashed Ladybug a fake smile. "Lila soon-to-be-Agreste."
"I remember hearing that name during my training. It is a pleasure to meet the two of you in person."
Adrien extended his free hand to her. "The pleasure is mine, Ladybug." As she reached out to take his hand, the sleeve of her shirt slid up a bit, revealing a small tattoo of a quincunx contained within a circle, a pattern that matched her unique earrings.
Nathalie cleared her throat. "We'll go over the rest of the logistics tomorrow. For now, if you follow me, I'll show you to the guest room, Ladybug."
Adrien trailed after his fiancée who was dragging him back to his childhood bedroom, but his thoughts were occupied by Ladybug, and if they continued to be, he knew he would be screwed.
...
Ladybug was struggling. It was her first day on the job, and she was already failing miserably. So what if Adrien Agreste just happened to be super hot? She could keep it professional. Besides, he was engaged, and it didn't matter how plainly uncomfortable he was around his fiancée, she was going to hold her tongue and let him run his own life. She wasn't going to be the next in a long line of overprotective, sheltering people he had to put up with.
Still, there was a chance he could be shallow and self-absorbed. His sunny disposition and gorgeous smile could just be a façade, covering up how he truly was when the public wasn't looking at his picture on a magazine cover. Ladybug had known him for a few measly hours. She had no right to make judgments yet or ever, and she knew it.
Running on a couple restless hours of sleep and pure adrenaline, she focused the little attention she had on getting the seemingly happy couple to the park. Under strict instructions from Nathalie to stay until the end of the photo shoot, she allowed Adrien to introduce her to the photographer while Lila got ready.
"Ah! You're much more photogenic than the last one." Vincent held up his hands and closed one eye as if studying her through the lens of a camera. "Have you ever considered becoming a model?"
"Oh, I don't think I would be very good at that."
He leaned in conspiratorially. "Well, perhaps if things don't work out with Mlle. Lila." She felt a rush of blood heat her cheeks and struggled to come up with a suitable response, but fortunately (unfortunately?) for her, a certain model stepped in.
Adrien smiled at her and winked, engaging the cameraman in conversation and leading him away from her, and Ladybug let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding.
She briefly considered waiting in the car - or running away, which had also crossed her mind - instead of watching Lila hang all over Adrien as an overly charismatic photographer communicated using metaphors about Italian food, but she ultimately decided to stay. She was Adrien's bodyguard, after all, and if protecting him meant staying close by him at all times, that was a sacrifice she would have to make.
Ladybug found herself entranced by the way Adrien immediately understood the photographer's obscurities, the way he furrowed his brow when he was confused, how graceful his movements were. A small voice in the back of her head whispered what she was afraid of, that he could be as egotistical as the woman posing beside him, and once she got to know him she would see his true colors.
A cry pierced the air, snapping her out of her stupor, and her head instinctively turned to see what was happening. A little girl stood at the trunk of a tree, yelling to a woman - her mother, perhaps - who was blatantly ignoring her, and gesturing frantically to the tree. Ladybug squinted, barely able to make out what she thought might have been a cat. It was resting on a low branch, only a couple meters off the ground, but way too high for the young girl to reach. It was fine, though, someone would call the fire department and-
"Adrien! Where are you going?" Lila whined as she was forcefully pried off her fiancé, who had broken into a dead sprint towards the girl.
He arrived in seconds, squatting down as the girl tearfully explained the situation. Ladybug had half a mind to go after him and chastise him for running away, but she was admittedly curious.
"What are you waiting for?" Lila shrieked, arms folded across her chest. "Don't just stand there like an idiot. Do your job!"
Ladybug rolled her eyes internally and started walking towards Adrien, who stood on his toes and stretched one arm up, the other braced on the tree trunk as he cooed at the little kitten. It inched closer skeptically, batting a curious paw before crawling into his waiting hand. He lowered his arm, gently cradling the kitten to his chest and petting it, and Ladybug stopped dead in her tracks.
There was something so sweet and tender, almost domestic, about the scene before her that rendered her completely speechless. A rush of indescribable… something hit her like a freight train, and it was only when he looked back at her and she realized she had been staring at him that it clicked.
She was in love - with her client, no less, and to make matters worse, he was engaged. Maybe, the logical part of her whispered, maybe that's not what this is. Honestly, there's no way she could have fallen for someone after knowing them for all of a day. No matter what, keeping things strictly professional between them was the most important thing. She was there to do her job, and nothing else.
"Ladybug?" The sound of her cover name instantly derailed her train of thought. "Are you alright?"
"Ha, yeah," she assured, plastering a smile onto her face. "I guess I get in my head sometimes."
Adrien chuckled. "I can understand that. You looked a little out of it."
"My apologies, M. Agreste. I'm afraid I'm not much of a morning person."
"Well, we certainly have that in common. When my mother was around, she always told me I would get used to waking up early, and I never believed her."
Ladybug nodded, unsure what else to say. The short conversation came to a dead stop, and Ladybug focused on not staring at Adrien. It didn't matter that he may as well have been literally chiseled out of stone and extremely handsome in every sense of the word, she was still his bodyguard, and he was engaged. That was that.
The Agrestes were full of mysteries. It was something that intrigued her about the family, and one of the reasons she had volunteered so eagerly for the job, but especially the disappearance of Emilie Agreste, formerly Graham de Vanily. She had vanished under mysterious circumstances when Adrien was barely a teenager, and nothing but false leads were found in the ten years the case had been open.
And then there was perhaps the greatest mystery of all, why Adrien would ever marry Lila Rossi.
"Adrien!" A singsong voice called out from behind them. Ladybug inwardly cringed as a mane of hair and expensive perfume brushed by her, planting a loud kiss on Adrien's lips and snaking her arms around his neck. "It's time to go, chouchou."
"So soon?" He freed an arm from her grasp to check his phone. "It's only been a little over an hour."
"Philippe decided to end early today."
He raised an eyebrow. "Vincent, you mean?"
She waved a hand, dismissing his correction. "Whatever. At least we have some extra time to… do something fun before you have a piano lesson."
"Piano's tomorrow. I have fencing today."
"Of course. Silly me!" Lila giggled as if her blunder was the funniest mistake she ever made.
Ladybug cleared her throat. "I'll let Nathalie know we'll be arriving ahead of schedule, if that's alright with you."
Lila sneered at her and rolled her eyes. "I much prefer the one that didn't talk."
Determined not to let her words have too much meaning, Ladybug quickly put them out of her head, walking in short, quick strides back to the sedan. The drive home was silent and awkward, save for Lila's occasional critique of Ladybug's driving skills. Her first day on the job ended worse than it began, with a newfound love for the handsome Adrien Agreste, and a blossoming rivalry with his unbearable fiancée.