Chapter Three – Coffee
It's about a five minute walk to the café, and Marinette finds herself walking beside Adrien while Alya and Nino walk a couple of steps ahead of them, hand–in–hand. She chews on her lip nervously and fiddles with her handbag – a simple black bag, slightly bigger than her old purse so she can fit any kwami snacks inside should she need to bring another kwami with her (besides Wayzz, who, after being worn for so long, doesn't really want to go back inside the miracle box, so hangs out with her and Tikki while she goes to school) – doing her best to ignore his gaze on her.
"So, is Luka meeting us there?" Adrien asks eventually, just as they're entering the park.
"He couldn't make it; he has to work on a project for school."
They dissolve into silence again and she can almost hear the cogs turning in Adrien's brain, trying to come up with something to say. She's come to realise that he's kind of like Cat Noir; he has an insane desire to fix things for people, and if he can't, he tries to make them feel better. Thankfully with less puns and barrel rolls.
"What do you think you're going to order?" She shrugs slightly. Honestly, she's not even hungry. "I'm not really allowed a lot of carbs, but I figured if I just exercise enough it'll be fine."
She nods slightly in acknowledgment and her eyes flick over to him briefly. He notices and his smile widens. She offers him the best smile she can before letting her gaze drift back to Alya and Nino. She drops her gaze down to the footpath when Nino wraps an arm around Alya and presses a kiss to her cheek.
"But then I have to worry about the possibility of Nathalie looking at my credit card and figuring out what I ordered from that."
There's a slight pause, and she glances at him to see he's looking at her expectantly, hopefully, wanting her to respond. She sighs and mentally shakes herself. You can do this. Just be normal, play pretend, everything is fine.
"That's a little overkill."
He snorts. "Yeah, but I wouldn't put it past her." He grins at her happily and she lets out a more genuine smile, feeling a little happiness lift the fog surrounding her. She finds it weird that she still gets happy just from him being happy. "I'm pretty sure she gets the cleaners to check my rubbish bin in my room just to see what I'm throwing out." He rolls his eyes.
She nods in acknowledgment and lets her gaze drift back to the footpath. They're almost to the gate at the other side of the park now; another minute or so and they'll be at the café. He opens his mouth to say something else but Alya beats him to it.
"Could you two hurry up!" She calls, cupping her hands around her mouth to create a megaphone (which is totally unnecessary due to their still–close proximity to each other, but Marinette isn't surprised she's trying to break up the tension between their group of friends). "We're burning daylight!"
"We're three steps behind you!" Adrien exclaims, but he still grabs Marinette's hand and pulls her forward at a quicker pace.
Marinette jumps at the contact and is too shocked at the action and the feel of Adrien's hand in hers – a little cold, if she's being honest, but that could just be her hand – to pull it from his grasp right away. Instead she allows him to pull her to where Alya and Nino are waiting at the crossing, fully expecting him to let it go once they stop. He doesn't.
"Um . . . Adrien?" She says, deciding he needs a bit of prompting.
He looks down at her and smiles. "Hmm?" Her gaze goes to their hands pointedly and she gives hers a little tug, as if to pull it from his grasp, but she doesn't want to seem like she's uncomfortable enough around him that she doesn't want to touch him. "Oh! Sorry!" He releases her hand quickly and scratches the back of his neck. Oddly enough, his cheeks flush darkly.
"No problem." She fiddles with her handbag strap and chews on her lip, staring at the traffic lights in a vain attempt to pretend he didn't seem to mind holding her hand.
"If you give me your orders I'll order them while you save a table." Nino offers as they step through the café door. Alya immediately lists off the kind of sandwich she wants, adding an expresso to it. Adrien scrutinises the menu quickly, before settling on a café crème and a quiche with a side salad. "Mari?" Nino asks, smiling at her.
"I'll just get a plain coffee." Marinette says, and he raises an eyebrow at her.
"But you don't like plain coffee." He says.
She shrugs noncommittedly. "It's growing on me." She forces a smile. "I think I need it today."
"Definitely." Alya agrees jokingly, and Marinette's smile falters slightly at the apparent unacknowledgment of her implications, although she does realise she's basically speaking in code to them.
"What about food?" Adrien asks, glancing back at the menu. He doesn't actually know what she usually orders for lunch when they go to cafés. He never really payed much attention to what she was eating unless it was from her bakery. Now he can't help but notice.
"I'm not hungry." She says automatically, before tapping Alya's arm. "There's a table over there, we should grab it before it gets taken." Without waiting for a reply, she moves over to it and sits down, facing away from the door, in the seat closest to the wall.
Alya and Nino share a look and shrug. She kisses Nino's cheek before moving to follow Marinette. Adrien nods at Nino and moves to follow the Ladyblogger.
"Is she okay?" He whispers, touching her elbow briefly to stop her.
"Marinette?" Alya asks, raising an eyebrow. He nods. She bites her lip and seems to hesitate, an emotion he can't place flickering across her face before she shakes her head. "She's fine, just tired." She smiles at him stiffly and walks over to sit down across from her. He hesitates briefly before sitting next to Marinette, who's engrossed in something on her phone.
An awkward silence fills the table as both girls focus on their phones. Adrien pulls his own out, although there isn't actually a whole lot to do on his phone; he mostly just looks at his photos. He glances up as Nino sits across form him, and he opens his mouth to start a conversation, but Nino focuses on his own phone and starts tapping on it, so he assumes he's texting someone. Alya appears to be doing the same and he briefly wonders if they're texting each other, but he pushes the thought away. Why would they text each other when they're literally less than five centimetres apart?
He glances at Marinette again, but she's tilted her phone slightly so he can't see the screen. For a moment he wonders if perhaps the three of them have a group chat that he's not a part of, but he dismisses the thought immediately. His friends aren't like that, and besides, it looks more like Marinette is scrolling rather than texting. He debates leaning over and seeing what's on her screen, but decides that if she wanted him to see she'd show him. Or at least not angle the screen away from him.
"What time is Kagami coming?" Nino asks, drawing his attention away from Marinette. Alya's frowning at him, but he's not sure why. Perhaps they thought he was being rude only focusing on Marinette?
"I'm not sure."
"You should text her." Alya blurts out. Nino shoots her a look, but Adrien nods his head.
"I will." He goes into his contacts and presses Kagami's, sending a simple 'When do you think you'll get here?' He waits a moment but doesn't get a response, so he puts his phone down. Their coffees arrive a moment later.
"Oh, sweet deliciousness," Nino says, inhaling the smell of his coffee, the same as Adrien's, greedily. "Where have you been?"
"In the coffee beans?" Alya jokes. Nino scrunches his nose at her and she giggles, scooting her chair closer to his so their shoulders are pressed together.
"So, what's this project that's been keeping you up all night?" Alya asks, turning to look at Marinette.
She blinks at her owlishly, as if Alya just interrupted her from a daydream. "Pardon?"
Alya shakes her head fondly. "What design are you working on?" She smirks. "It better not be that Cat Noir underwear set you designed." Adrien chokes on his coffee and Marinette's cheeks flush darker than they've ever been. And they've been pretty dark before.
"They were swimmers," She mutters, glaring at her best friend's smirk. Nino hides his grin behind his coffee cup. "And I was never going to make them, I just wanted to design them."
Alya smiles smugly. "For when you want to wear them."
"I'll never want to wear them."
"Then why did you design them?" Adrien asks, unable to stop himself. Marinette gapes at him, as if she forgot he was there.
"I, uh . . . th–that's just what designers do." She mutters lamely, ducking her head to stare down at her untouched coffee. "You get an idea and you jot it down, even if you're never going to actually make it." She turns her mug around slowly by the handle.
"So what are you working on?" Alya reiterates, leaning her head down to try and catch Marinette's gaze.
"I was doing physics homework last night." She says, and Alya rolls her eyes.
"I know that, I meant your designing project." She smiles, leaning forward eagerly. "Come on, I want to know the deets of my favourite fashion designer." Something flickers through Marinette's eyes and Adrien frowns, concerned. It looks an awful lot like pain.
"I'm making my parents a quilt."
No you aren't! Adrien wants to scream out. He would know if she was making a quilt – that's kind of a hard thing to hide away, what with all of the fabric and tools that go into making it, and also, why would she hide that from him when he visits as Cat Noir? It's not like it's anything embarrassing, like the under–swimmers that she designed would be.
"Aww!" Alya squeals and grabs Marinette's hand. Adrien doesn't miss the way Marinette seems to flinch slightly at the contact. Maybe Alya's hands are cold? "That's so cute!"
"Yeah . . ." Marinette smiles noncommittedly and pulls her hand from Alya's grasp with the intentions of picking up her coffee mug. "I think they'll like it."