There weren't many leaves on the ground. And the few leaves that were littered across the moss were starting to mush in with the wet ground. Marinette gave up trying to crunch them after a few minutes.

Plagg and Chloe, walking together about 20 feet in front of them, were two people Marinette never really expected to stand next to each other. Plagg, with his black clothes, black hair, and black book he leaned into with terrible posture, was several feet away from Chloe, who walked with her head held high, blonde ponytail swishing, and on guard. In contrast, she turned to the back, where Tikki and the other guard walked together, Tikki trying to engage him in conversation, but him only responding with a few words here and there. He seemed to remind her that he was not there for chitter chatter, as her face fell.

Adrien giggled.

"What?" she asked him.

Adrien was looking at her with a small smile.

"What's so funny?" she clarified. Marinette leaned in closer, her hands, already on his arm, squeezing slightly.

Adrien's face froze, but he continued, stammering for a moment. "I-I think Tikki may have a slight crush on Plagg."

Marinette balked. "Why in the world would you think that? They hate each other."

"Au contraire, mon ami," he said, pulling his hand up to stroke an imaginary mustache. She tried to not focus on the way his muscles contracted. He was lean, so she didn't realize he was rather strong. The imagine of kissing a blonde mustache entered her mind. She quickly erased it as he said, "Look at her."

"I was," she muttered, but as she not-so-subtly turned back towards Tikki, she saw a miserable stare at the back of Plagg's head. Her eyes flickered to Marinette, who grinned and whipped back around.

"See?" he stated quietly.

Marinette stuck up her nose. "She looks miserable." But she passed him a teasing wink.

"Miserable because she's not with him, more like," he said. Then, with a mischievous grin, he said, "What are your feelings on meddling in people's love loves? Not asking for any particular purpose, or course."

She felt an excited giggle bubble up within her. "Do you have a plan?"

He bobbed his head side to side, ear to shoulder. "More like a vague outline. I'm in it for the long hall."

They schemed together, making up imaginary scenarios and dialogue between the two adults. Well, the two real adults. Marinette was eighteen years old, and she felt more like a child than even a teenager sometimes. Tikki and Plagg, they were real adults, who knew what independence really meant. They could buy their own groceries, and Marinette... Any sort of independence Marinette started had left her grasp last year.

"Anyways, since we didn't really get to do an official get to know you activity, let's continue our unofficial one," Adrien continued after a lull in the silence.

"Hmmm, okay. What do you like to do in your free time? Besides video games, I mean."

Adrien took a few seconds to think it through. I'm fact, he took so many seconds that Marinette started to wonder if he even remembered the question.

"I don't think I have much free time. Or ever did, really, to know what I like."

Marinette thought back to before. Before it all. Her childhood was so simple, even though the whole world felt so big. She'd look up at the countertops and wondered if she'd ever be able to see over them. She climbed trees to see who could get up the fastest, her or Alya. She remembered stressing over exams and getting in trouble for dumb decisions and even pining after the same boy in front of her. She enjoyed all of it, because all good moments were good, and all bad moments were followed with good.

"What about when you were a kid?" she asked. She knew he was probably busy as a teen, but little kids always have time to cause chaos.

His eyes fluttered down. It was almost as if he saw thought the ground, down to the very center of the earth's core. When he spoke, it was very far away, and it contrasted so deeply with that emotionless way he was that first day, that Marinette felt like she'd been punched, though she didn't know why. "Sometimes, my mother and I would play board games. Well, one specific board game. We had many games in the house, though no one seemed to ever play anything. Not even in big gatherings or parties. I think they were just there for show, or to say that it was there. A way of showing off, maybe. But... I loved one game. In the game, you climb up some vines to win, but if you land on the wrong space, you fall down a slide. We played it any time we could." He chuckled. "Looking back, she probably was so tired of it. But she always played the game."

Even though Marinette has asked the question, she felt like she was intruding on someone else's sacred conversation with the way he revered his words. She remembered when the papers had announced Mrs. Agreste's death, but not as vividly as the day Adrien was in that explosion. She couldn't remember the details of his mother's death. But she knew what it felt like, to lose a mom.

That was a loss no one should have to go through. Sure, children were supposed to outlive their parents, but not before they stopped being children.

"She sounded lovely."

He jumped slightly by the sound of her voice. Then gave an empty laugh, the one that made her believe he was heartless at first. "She was," he said.

"By the way," he started as they crossed a small bridge. His voice was filled with hesitation, and Marinette wasn't sure if she was ready for his question. "Are you okay?"

She raised an eyebrow. Okay, not a bad question. "Yeah, I'm better. A week's work of rest was sufficient." A week's worth of rest was more than sufficient for an anxiety-driven vomit session, but she wasn't going to say that out loud.

His eyes flickered to her forehead. Ah, so he wasn't referring to that fiasco. He meant an entirely different fiasco. She knew the stitches weren't super visible, since her bangs covered most of it, but she guessed it didn't cover enough. She shuffled them so they covered her forehead completely.

"Don't worry," she continued, louder, "I'm not sick anymore... But I am sorry about your shoes."

Adrien let out a sigh. "They were just shoes. I don't care about them. But I do want to know what happened to your forehead?"

Straightforward. Marinette had spent time with people tiptoeing around her, except for Tikki and Plagg, for so long that she panicked for a second. But then, why would she need to? She'd already made up a lie for this exact reason.

"I fell," she said. "Hurt pretty bad, too."

"How did you fall?"

Her fingers tightened as she tripped over a rock. "I fell out of my bed. I mean, shower. I fell in the shower."

His eyebrows scrunched together. She imagined them turning into little caterpillars and climbing off his face.

He leaned in close. "Are you lying?"

"Why would you accuse me of that?"

"Did someone do it to you?"

For some reason, anger filled her head, and without thinking, and her hands flung off of his arm. He temporarily lost his balance, and he fell on his left side, trying to catch himself with his right hand but hitting his hip pretty hard. He cursed.

Tikki let out a strangled yelp, and the four other hikers rushed towards them. Marinette helped him up before they caught up, but she let go of his hand as if it burned her own. Crossing her arms, she watched as Tikki fussed over Adrien, Plagg told Tikki to calm down while also checking over Adrien, Adrien gently reassured them both that it was an accident, and both guards looming over Adrien.

"No, I'm okay, I promise." Adrien gave a reassuring smile as he finished brushing off the last of the mud, leaving a small amount on his black trousers.

Yet, the universe decided at that exact moment to have a little laugh. Because in the next second, Adrien was very much almost not fine, as an arrow - yes, an arrow, Marinette had to confirm to herself, since she'd never actually seen one outside of the two archery lessons she'd had - whizzed right by his head, and into the tree next to them.

There was a second or processing from Marinette before she even realized Chloe had jumped on top of her, pinning her to the ground as she yelled at the other guard to go after the assailant.

Marinette's face was planted in the ground, and there was too much dirt in her eyes and shouting voices around her that she couldn't figure out what was going on for a few seconds.

From the corner of her vision, she saw a dark figure run away from them, and suddenly she was being pulled to her feet, and then she was being forced into a sprint by Chloe's tight grip. She tried turning and calling out to the others, but then she realized they were sprinting next to her, with Tikki and Plagg on both sides of Adrien, a bit further back.

"Where's the guard? Was that an Akuma?" She stupidly asked, in shock.

No one answered. They arrived back at the cars in what felt like minutes. Marinette briefly realized they're hike was probably lead so that they wouldn't be too far away from the cars at all times, but it had felt so long. In seconds, she was being shoved into the car the guards had arrived in, Adrien jumping into the other side. Tikki jumped into the passenger's seat, while Chloe got into the driver's.

Before they sped away, her door was whipped open, and she cowered from the dark energy emanating from the man in front of her.

"How do you know about the Akumas?" Plagg growled, his looming form looking bigger than Marinette had ever seen it.

"I-I just-the paper-I"

"Bullshit," he snapped. "How. Did. You. Learn?"

Marinette frantically tried to think of a lie, but her mind was emptier than when she had to take a test under his scrutiny. This raw anger was much worse.

"We don't have time for this!" Chloe yelled at Plagg. "Are you getting in or not?"

Plagg glared at Marinette for a second before Chloe yelled, "I'm gonna drive!"

He growled, "I'm waiting for the other!" Before he slammed the door.

As they drove off, Marinette watched Plagg open up the other car's front door, and pull out what looked like a gun as he went back into the forest. She felt her stomach tighten with fear for him, for the other guard, and whoever had thrown that arrow.

"Well," Adrien said as they sped away in the new car, his voice a bit strangled, "I guess neither of us won the bet of who would drive."

With Tikki in the passenger's seat, Chloe stared seriously ahead. Tikki whispered something about needing to "have a private conversation", so they pushed a button to lift a shield between the front and back seat. Marinette stared at the back of the seat in front of her as they started the near-silent car and headed back to the main road.

She felt her throat knot with every passing second. If she never had to sit in the backseat of a car ever again, it would still be too soon.

Adrien spoke, sounding very small to her ears.

"I want you to know that I think you're strong, Marinette. You stand up for what you believe in. But I've seen your silence around them." He nodded towards Tikki, who chatted seriously with the guard. "I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, by asking about your stitches. I just want you to know I'm here if you want to talk. You know. About anything."

Marinette kept staring at the back of the seat.

He swallowed loudly and then gave out a nervous chuckle. "That's what friends do, right?"

Marinette couldn't speak. The knot was still too big in her throat, and if she even tried to open her mouth, she'd either cry, or scream, or jump out of the car. So instead, she slowly reached her left hand across the cold leather seats, and gently grabbed his hand. His breath caught, and she was glad he didn't reject it.

With her eyes closed the rest of the drive home, she focused on the warmth of his hand.