Summary: Adrien speaks to Marinette about his action figure collection. After all, he needs somewhere safe to work on his custom pieces. And there's nowhere safer than Marinette's room.
Unlike in the majority of his inopportune, extemporaneous confessions while in conflict with an akuma, or even the ostentatious if cliché rooftop-strewn-with-rose-petals proclamation, this time, Adrien plans.
It's restrained. Not that Marinette deserves less than Ladybug.
No.
This time, he wants it to be ... just him.
He doesn't have anything else to offer
Adrien has the forethought and planning skills necessary to ensure that Lila is otherwise occupied, relying on Chloe's fury, tenacity, and unassailable position within the social hierarchy to keep the Italian girl occupied.
He releases the Kraken, as it were.
A sneer that's downright villainously wicked, or, perhaps, that of a callous anti-heroine, lit his oldest friend's face like sunlight dappling a wasp's glistening carapace when he gave her leave, or even encouraged her, to let loose.
Would Chat Noir ever have thought to do evil so that good would come of it? Maybe not. Adrien does, though, and in the twilight of that moment, he's either just stumbled into a pit, or emerging from the other side. Was whatever she was going to do really worthwhile? Bickering and a screaming match and who knows what kind of property damage might erupt as a consequence of a head-on collision between the immovable object and unstoppable force of the class's two bullies, old and new.
With a deliberate conscientious air of spontaneity, he saunters towards Marinette on the front steps of College Francois Dupont. She's doodling sketches in her notepad, and doesn't seem to be aware of his presence as he mulls, just absorbing the image of her enraptured by her work, the fine details.
Someone might even get akumatized – Lila, most likely – and that would actually be his fault.
It's selfish, and he'll deal with the fallout. Take responsibility for it because he didn't go in blind.
"Hey, Marinette, do you think that I could talk with you for a minute?" he asks when her shoulders unfurl and she stretches out the tension. Like it's the most natural thing in the world, he settles in next to her. It kind of is the most natural thing in the world. It feels that way given that it has become so easy after all their patrols, though she has no idea that he's ... him.
Pencil lifting from the page right at the crux of an armpit in the chic suit jacket that's taking form in her sketchbook, she looks up at him and smiles. There's no artist in the world, no teacher or prodigy or experienced master who could hope to capture that smile. No imitation could ever make him feel the flooding warm inside his gut that moves like spilled paint, thick with rich pigment.
"Of course, Adrien." She nods and begins folding up her design book, which is somewhat disappointing because it's a window into her mind, her soul poured out in art and creation and beauty that he wants to bathe within. How is it that it's so alien from his father when they're embroiled in the same industry? "Is there anything that I can do for you?"
"Yeah, actually-" He rubs the back of his head, the old gesture, familiar and comforting and awkward like so many affectations. "Well, I mean, I don't want to make it seem like it's a favor to me, or have you put yourself out."
Her pencil taps against the cover of her notebook, a little nervous twitch. That's it. Nerves like him. He realizes that now that he knows how she feels, rather than being certain that she was bored or impatient or trying to spur him on just so that she could get away from him. That's what he used to think.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure that I'll be happy to help, if I can," she assures, putting a hand to his wrist to draw him gently away from from torturing the back of his neck. Only the release of his trapezius muscles informs him that he was really rather rough with himself.
"Well, I was just, uh-" His fingers twiddle towards her drawing for some reason. "Wondering if you were busy this Saturday night?"
She blinks, a little twitch spurring her hand to clamp down on his wrist. "Um, why do you ask?"
"You know that my- my bodyguard and Nino smuggled out my Ladybug and Chat Noir action figures, right?"
Wiping clear the little undertone of pink, her face darkens like he'd just spilled Abaddon Black into his palette, mixing with medium flesh tone and a smidgen of burnt umber.
"Yeah. The grape vine was pretty short." As she looks around the courtyard for a moment, eyes focused and tightly analytical in a way that reminds him of her gaze when she's sparring, breaking down his stance and teasing out weaknesses, she smiles. This time, it's not directed at him, and it's not a kind smile. "Nino didn't want Lila or Gabriel to know, but it got to me from Alya."
"Oh, good."
"I still can't believe that- that man-" She says the word like his father doesn't deserve the title, and he doesn't know how that makes him feel. He's destroyed Marinette's innocence, her faith in an idol - "tried to just destroy all of them." Even though she doesn't really seem to need her hands, she slips her pencil into a side holster of her sketchbook and then begins speaking with her fingers, gestures pointed, aggressive. "After all the work you put in to creating that ... that beautiful custom piece for me."
"Thanks, Marinette." The sky is a comforting and affirming blue, wisps of clouds half blotting out the sun so that it's still warm, but there's no glare to cause his eyes to sting. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."
"Your gift?" she asks, the motion of her hands stalling out as if they've frozen up.
"Sort of," he admits, reaching a hand out for her design book, which she hands over with a moments thought. Trimmed with thick black lines, everything kept in order, the pink surface is worn but clean. Scuff marks crisscross its surface because it's been well-used over the years, but well-cared for. A precious treasure is in his hands. "Custom figures."
"What about them?"
"Well, I can't really work on them at home anymore, and, uh, you're really talented with your hands – I mean, your own art when you're being creative." He waves a hand over her sketchbook, the cover a lustrous pink with white polka dots that's just so adorably her. "So I was just wondering if- if you might want to hang out some time and work on them?"
"With our friends?" she asks softly, tracing the heart-shaped black buckle on her sketchpad, just next to his hand.
Now is the moment, the last moment, that he can turn back, and a whole horde of butterflies bristling with fine hairs that tickle his ribs and throat have been set loose by that tone. There's an ethereality to the moment, to her, like she's otherworldly, out of reach, already knows how all of this is going to turn out, but maybe that's only fear and memory and projection.
"Uh, if you want," he begins, hating himself because he can't quite take that step and only prays as she shifts her hand down ward on the smooth surface of her sketchpad, fingertips butting up against his own, that she'll take it for him. "But I was thinking that it might be... just you and me."
The world warms up, fire spreading out and immolating all those butterflies as she smiles at him, knowing in a way that's beyond any artistry that he can fathom, and her hand moves the rest of the way. They're holding hands again.
"Like... a date?" she asks, blinking slowly, and he can see the minute perturbations of her cheeks, little mouse twitches, feel the breakneck pulse in her wrist, her fingers sweaty against his.
Nervous. She's nervous though there's no justification for it any more than there is for him and his fears for the simple reason that he's facing Marinette.
"A date," he assures, their fingers locked. "Not just like a date."
Sitting there in that innocent moment, just a boy and a girl without overbearing parents, bullies that twist up every truth and every lie to form nooses around their necks, they lean even further into each other's space until it's not his and hers; it's theirs together. His fingers still laced with hers, they're both clutching on as if that point of contact grounds them in a storm, the last threadbare connection that prevents them from being caught up and whisked away. Warm and moist mint-scented breath passes over his lips and the caresses the side of his face as the inches close, and he can't help but think that it's too quick and not the right moment because she deserves it to be special, perfect, ideal, set up with precise care so that she'll remember it forever, while something else screams that it's already been too long, that he shouldn't make her wait another instant because of his indecision. Something doesn't need to be planned and crafted to be perfect, and there is no longer any need for him to conceal himself behind lies and excuses.
And all that passes in a moment of indecision before fizzling out like a match-flame that's run out of cardboard.
Her lips are even softer than he remembers, and the moment ignites and burns once again, a cascade of sparks tingling through his cheeks and pouring down his throat so that he's shivering while her hand clutches tight, so tight that her fingers tremble.
And then it's done after what must have been nothing more than a half-second, both of them pulling back. Marinette's tongue swipes over her lips, and then she grins like he's just dropped the best pun ever conceived by man.
A bashful nod follows while they both transform into giggly disasters, Marinette dropping her rosy face right into the crook of his neck while letting loose his hand so that she can hug him, adorable snorting chuckles sending great huffs of air across the exposed flesh of his throat, just above the neckline of his shirt.
"I'd love to," she murmurs between flowing and harmonious chortles, enough to leave him grinning into her hair like an absolute love-struck dope, swimming in the sea of possibilities that had kicked up into a whirlpool inside his brain.
He just had his first real kiss, and he's grinning so hard that it hurts in ways that he'd never imagined. What an odd thing, for pain to be soothing. Maybe it's not.
A little rushed; a little put off; surprising and expected; climax and anti-climax all rolled into one, and somehow the duality of the moment is simply perfect.
And they're going to have a date.