A Halloween to Remember
Written by: JuliaFC
Beta: Mystic_raven20, XfandomXtrashX, Ponti, Rescue Wolf
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, and Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
The beautiful art on the cover is courtesy of H.M. on Twitter and is published with the permission of the artist.
oOoOoOoOoOo
Part 1
oOoOoOoOoOo
"I'm a little worried about Adrien," Nathalie said, her cerulean blue gaze meeting Gabriel's frown.
The man raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, Nathalie? What's wrong with Adrien's behaviour?"
The woman sighed. "Per se, there's nothing wrong, but I entered his room earlier today and I must say that I was left baffled. It was a mess. Shopping bags were everywhere, boxes of finished food lying on the coffee table, and objects were spread everywhere with no real order. And he…looked no better. Sagged against the sofa and bobbed over himself while hitting distractedly at the same key on the joystick of a game, over and over again. He didn't even realise he'd kept the character hitting the wall for the last five minutes. Completely zoned out."
"Hm," Gabriel mused, his inquisitive gaze finally leaving the screen he was staring at and crossing Nathalie's worried one. "It does sound very unusual, but he's an Agreste, he'll bounce back."
Nathalie raised an eyebrow. "How long would it take him to? It's been quite some time since we last discussed Adrien's behaviour. I believe the last time was when he said he was too sick to go to school. And yes, he got better almost immediately but…there must be something more than what meets the eye because he still appears depressed."
Gabriel looked back at her with no real concern. "Should we give him some new extracurricular activity? Maybe by keeping him busy he'll feel better."
"No." Nathalie adjusted her glasses unnecessarily. Then, she reached out for a blue gift box wrapped with a pink ribbon that she was holding close to the side of her chest with her arm, and her lips curled up in a little reassured grin as her fingers touched the paper material of it. "I wanted to ask for your permission to try a solution. I have an idea."
As soon as she said that, Gabriel's gaze lost its sparkle; the man grabbed his digital pen again and returned to being engrossed in his work. "You're his tutor. You deal with him; you have carte blanche. I'm busy." After having said that, he waved at her dismissively and stopped paying attention to her.
Nathalie sighed as she walked out of the room. "As you wish, sir."
§§§
Marinette smiled warmly at the door of the boulangerie opening for the umpteenth time. She had spent a long time in the afternoon helping her mother and father—usually, they wouldn't ask her to help, but today it was Halloween and soon many kids would start to enter the shop in costumes asking for trick or treat; both Tom and Sabine were busy getting a large order ready in the back. However, the smile died on her lips when she saw Nathalie coming through, the sound of her robotic legs echoing after her as she moved closer.
"How can I help you?" she asked.
Nathalie sighed. She leaned a little against the counter and looked at the many people crowding the shop before looking Marinette straight in the eye. "Good afternoon, Mlle Dupain Cheng. I'm sorry to disturb you; could I have a word in private?"
Marinette's gaze darted around the room. "S-sorry Mlle Sancoeur but…I need to stay here." She paused briefly to serve a lady with a child.
"It's about Adrien." Nathalie adjusted her glasses unnecessarily, a small smirk popping on her lips when she heard Marinette sucking her breath in at the name. As soon as she mentioned Adrien's name, Nathalie saw a short Chinese lady with grey eyes come in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a little apron and putting a hand on Marinette's shoulder. "Go to the back with the lady, darling. I'll look after the customers; don't worry."
Marinette nodded and took off the apron she was wearing, immediately opening the small gate between the counter and the customers' area and motioning Nathalie to follow her. The woman took a deep breath and followed her toward the back.
§§§
A little while later, Marinette walked through the cold marble corridors of the Agreste mansion and stopped in front of Adrien's door standing just behind Nathalie, the buzz of the older woman's robotic legs echoing in the emptiness; Marinette's heart thumped madly in her chest. Why, oh why now that she decided she'd given up on Adrien things like this would happen?
There was no point in reminding herself that her feelings towards him could come in the way of her being Ladybug. Neither there was any point in reminding herself how much now her heart fluttered each time she looked at her partner and how she had realised that she had growing feelings towards Chat Noir. She just…was too weak to say no. She cared about Adrien too much.
—-Half an hour earlier—-
"I've come to you because you care about Adrien," said Nathalie at the back of the boulangerie.
"How do you know that I do? I m-mean, of course, I do, he's a friend. A good friend. He sits in front of me in school. That's it. Tooootally nothing else," Marinette rambled, but her words died in her throat when Nathalie took out a blue gift box, still wrapped with a pink ribbon after all that time. Marinette held her breath at the sight.
"You were the only one who thought of getting a present for him that day," said Nathalie, her fingers stroking tenderly the gift box, a frown furrowing her brows. She briefly looked at her from behind her glasses and adjusted them unnecessarily. "I'm sorry I told him it was from his father. I had completely forgotten to get him something and it just…didn't feel right that the only present he'd get that day was from you. I know I've done something I shouldn't have. It's one of my biggest regrets. A failing of me as a tutor—" Nathalie started to cough and Marinette found herself reaching out to her and patting gently her back.
"Don't worry about it," she lied. "It's in the past now and—" She sighed. "—At least he was happy. That's why I couldn't tell him the next day. He was so happy that his father had given him a different present and not the usual pen he had received three years in a row. I couldn't take it away from him."
Nathalie stopped coughing and winced at Marinette's mention of the pen she had gotten for Adrien's birthday, three years in a row, as Marinette had pointed out. She took a big breath. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. You care about him, that's why I'm here. I knew I was right about you." Her words caused Marinette's face to warm to such a degree that it would've been cooler had she put it inside her father's oven.
Nathalie explained to her the reasons for her concern, which surprised Marinette because Adrien had been at school the previous day and hadn't shown any sign of being different from any other day. She considered saying no. She really did. She looked down to her purse, where Tikki was staring at her with her round blue eyes, and…the word 'no' had been there, sitting right at the tip of her tongue. However. There was that feeling in her gut. That thing told her that something wasn't right. And then Nathalie said the magic words. Oh, well, not those magic words but…
"If you choose to help me, you'll have carte blanche. I won't complain; anything you decide to do. I don't know why he's feeling this way but he can't carry on being so down or he's going to fall into a depression. I know the signs, way too well."
Marinette's eyes widened. "Ca—carte blanche? Y-you mean I can do whatever I want, like asking you to cancel his activities for example, and you will…"
"Precisely." Nathalie coughed again for some time. Then she looked back at her almost with surprise. "Do you think cancelling his activities would help?"
Marinette looked up and hesitated for a moment before crossing again Nathalie's gaze, a determined frown on her face. "Right. I—I'll do it."
—-End of Flashback—-
WHY ON EARTH HAD SHE SAID THAT? As Marinette stood there, stiff and terrified, in front of Adrien's room, her mind was running at a thousand miles per hour, trying to find a good excuse to just back out. There had to be a good excuse. She was Ladybug, after all, she was the queen of resourceful plans! Why couldn't she find a way to get out of there?
But then, did she really want to? If Adrien was so bad that Nathalie had gotten concerned and had reached out to her of all people, what friend would she be if she ran away and missed the chance of making a real difference in his life?
Nathalie banged at the door but nobody said anything. Concerning. She knocked again, louder, but still, no sound came back.
"Adrien? I'm coming in," she stated and opened the door unceremoniously, marching inside.
Marinette popped her head timidly inside the room and looked around a little embarrassed before following the woman. When she went through the little ante-room and had a first glimpse of the room, the first thing that she noticed was the smell of rotten cheese hitting her nostrils. She gasped as she saw Nathalie walk to the window with a hand covering her nose and open it a crack, then wrinkle her nose and open it wider. Adrien was slouched over the sofa and hadn't even paid any attention to the fact someone had entered his room and was hitting the same button on his joystick, letting the character of his game crash against the wall repeatedly.
"Adrien. Will you sit down properly? That's not the way to greet a guest."
Marinette's gaze wandered around, her mouth wide open, taking in the stuff scattered all over the place; there was a takeaway pizza container laying on the coffee table with a couple of pizza slices still in it for God knows how long because the cheese on top of the pizza looked all hardened. Shopping bags at the side of the couch were left there with their content reversed on the sofa next to them—a Halloween costume by the look of it—and generally, the room looked like a bomb had just exploded in it. Marinette had seen Adrien's room quite a few times since she'd known him and never had she seen it in such a state. It was a real mess.
But when her growingly concerned gaze met Adrien's green eyes, the boy's reaction left her even more baffled. He jolted forward, gasped loudly, and sat up straight, dropping his joystick the second his eyes crossed hers, a deep blush dusting his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
"Ma-Marinette?"
Since when did Adrien Agreste stammer? That was her territory…
She couldn't help it, her gaze kept wandering around. "Adrien," she said back, noticing immediately how the boy's gaze followed hers and his blush deepened, his hand reaching for the nape of his neck before getting busy fiddling with the pizza container on the coffee table, trying to quickly dump the discarded pieces of food laying around inside of it. He grabbed the container and, holding it on his chest, jolted up from the couch, busying himself with picking the shopping bags up and taking them to the back of his room, shoving them inside what looked like a wardrobe. He dumped the pizza box in the bin next to the foosball table and ran to pick up some of the clothes lying on the back of the couch to hastily dump them inside the same wardrobe he had shoved the shopping bags in.
"W-what are you doing here?"
Marinette pursed her lips and shook her head. "Nathalie came to the boulangerie and asked me to come over. Are you okay?"
"Peachy!" he said with a stiff grin, raising both thumbs, in a failed attempt to mimic M. Banana's pose.
As he spoke, Adrien kept dashing around fixing his room up and just finished hiding into the wardrobe the last item lying on the floor. He was patting his hands clean and wiping them on his jeans. His hair also looked a little messy and Marinette couldn't believe her eyes as she had never seen Adrien's hair look any worse than perfect before. He ran his fingers through it, probably realising where she was looking and intending to fix it a little, but failing miserably and ending up getting it even messier.
Marinette's heart quickened in her chest as she held her breath at the sight. His hair had fallen into place a little differently than usual, parting more towards the centre of his forehead instead of at the side. Somehow, that made him look different—yet familiar. Why did that style of hair look familiar?
With difficulty, she tore her gaze from his face and darted it around again until she met Nathalie's cerulean blue eyes. The woman looked back, concern clearly visible in her frown. "I will leave you now. I'm going to cancel Adrien's Chinese lesson for today." She darted her gaze around. "He just doesn't look…ready for it."
That said, she walked out of the door leaving them alone.
NO! Where was she going? Why was she leaving her alone? With him! Nathalie! Come back!
Marinette's stomach dropped at the thought, but she clenched her hands into fists, digging her nails into her flesh to keep focus, and forced herself to look at Adrien again. The state of his hair did nothing to help her regain her sanity. She looked down and blushed.
"S—so…what are you doing today for Halloween, Adrien?" she eventually managed to ask.
He kept messing with his game controller looking at the screen blankly and not answering for a long time. Marinette looked at the screen and saw that he was again letting his character crash against the wall in front of it, making no effort whatsoever in getting somewhere with the game. "I don't know. Play games I suppose."
As he said that, he slouched again on the sofa (not as bad as before, but still not in the composed way that Marinette was used to seeing him sitting. And she had watched him sitting a lot lately…) and kept crashing the character against the wall.
Marinette looked at the screen pointedly for a moment, and then at his face, and again at the screen. Then, something clicked in her and her eyebrows furrowed into a determined frown. She made the gesture of pulling up her sleeves, even though her blazer was styled in a way that her sleeves couldn't be pulled up.
"Nope. I won't let you waste the day away, Adrien," she muttered.
Adrien widened his eyes and turned his face to her from the screen for the first time in a long time. "What do you mean?" he asked, a shiver probably running down his whole spine when Marinette smirked and rubbed her hands together, considering he visibly shuddered.
"You're coming trick or treating with me."
To be Continued…
Author's Note:
Hello there! Here's something funny: I didn't want to participate in any challenges, because I've found myself not really having much time recently, so I didn't want to take time from my MLBB story, but…this idea came out of my head so strongly that I had to write it. It had appeared in my head the first time when I watched Kuro Neko earlier this year, but the recent developments of the love square made its voice sound even louder and eventually, I caved in. Besides, who am I to not wish all of you a happy Halloween?
This story is already complete, but because of the length (around 10,000 words), I'm publishing it divided into three chapters, one each day for the next 3 days. Hope you will like it. It contains spoilers of season 5 episode until Determination (and some from Passion too, even if I hadn't still watched the episode when I wrote this, or my flashback sequence would be a little different, but never mind!
For those worried about my version of the Passion episode, my friend still hasn't read the last chapter so I couldn't publish it last weekend. I hope she reads it this week so I can publish the chapter next weekend!
As usual, if you read this and enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join my favourite Discord servers, Miraculous Fanworks (discord dot gg slash mlfanworks) and Miraculous Discordance (discord dot gg slash QwgKdUhJNJ). I will wait for you on one of these servers. I promise I don't bite. Join us!