Just because I feel like maybe I haven't been as clear as I needed to be for this to play out as amusingly for y'all as it was for me. Marinette doesn't recognize 'M. Agreste' as Adrien because Adrien is always wearing glasses. The only times he isn't, his eyes are closed, the room is dark because they're going to sleep, etc. She has never seen Adrien without his glasses, so the Clark Kent Effect is in full-force. It's goofy and silly, but has sincerely happened to me when I didn't recognize someone I genuinely considered to be a friend because she wasn't wearing her glasses.


As he planned, he sent the business card to Nathalie to set up a meeting with Marinette so that they could discuss the potential of working together. Marinette had barely mentioned going to the soccer match, but he didn't really mention it either so he couldn't blame her. Adrien had told Nathalie to prioritize the meeting with Marinette and she managed to schedule it for May 1, which was the soonest he'd had available.

Marinette didn't mention it to him at home, but he could tell she was clearly stressed about the meeting. He didn't want to bring up how easy the meeting would be for her if she didn't want to talk about it at home. He expected that she wanted to keep work at work and keep their personal lives at home, especially if she decided she did want to work with Agreste.

The day before her meeting, Adrien was at her apartment and she was more stressed than he had seen her before that point. She was pacing back and forth in her living room after they finished dinner that night. She turned toward him. "Can you help me choose what to wear to my meeting tomorrow?" He thought it was kind of an odd request because the meeting was with him, but he loved seeing her designs and he was happy to watch her show off.

"I'd love to, princess," he said with a bright smile on his face. Marinette went into her closet and pulled out a few pieces she had designed over the years. The first outfit that she came out in was a high collared white top that had small black polka dots with a black pencil skirt. She knew it was professional to wear heels, but she figured it would be more professional to not break her ankle because she tried to wear heels.

She came out and Adrien's breath was taken away. He had seen her in date night attire, pajamas, dressy casual, and her normal clothing, but he had never seen her dressed professionally before. It was a good thing he was getting a preview tonight because all he wanted to do was tell her how beautiful she looked and he really didn't think that would be appropriate for their official meeting tomorrow.

For now, though, he could tell his girlfriend how gorgeous she was as much as he wanted to and he would. "That looks amazing," he told her, awestruck, "you look gorgeous. It's one of your pieces, right? You should definitely wear your designs tomorrow, they're all so beautiful, and as amazing as your sketches are, they don't do your creations justice."

"Thank you," she said with a light blush, "yeah, I mostly make my own clothes nowadays. My shoes are usually bought, but that's because I have enough trouble walking as is, ignoring the fact that any shoes I make wouldn't be nearly as high quality as what I could get in a store." She went over to the mirror and looked at her reflection.

She smoothed out the lines of the top and she liked it, but she didn't know if she was completely sold on the outfit. She knew she had mentioned to M Agreste at the afterparty that Agreste should use more colors, and this outfit wasn't sending a good message about colors in a workplace environment.

"This isn't the right look," she landed on after a bit longer of consideration. She went back into her bedroom to grab the next outfit that she'd laid out on her bed. When she came back into the living room, her outfit was definitely more colorful than the last, for better or worse.

The second outfit was a black, short-sleeved dress with a scoop neck. It had short sleeves and she paired it with a light blue empire-waisted blazer. Once again, he was caught up in thinking about how beautiful she looked. "Wow," was essentially the only syllable he could get past his lips as he looked at her.

She did a little spin in front of him and that didn't help how taken away his breath was as he looked at her. She went back to the mirror and admired the look. It was definitely something she would want to wear if she started working at Agreste, but she didn't know if it was the impression she wanted to start off with. She said as much before disappearing into her room again.

A few minutes later, she came back into the living room in a loose, yellow button-down blouse paired with a pair of black pants with a very faint floral pattern. She loved the way that the look hugged her curves, but she didn't think that the combination was a winner. Adrien, on the other hand, was sitting on the couch, speechless. He felt like he barely had time to look at the outfit before she disappeared into the bedroom once again.

She came back into the living room a few minutes later and the first thing he noticed was the pair of bright red pants she was wearing. They were loud but didn't feel like they would be out of place in a fashion house. Her white shirt was covered in outlines of black rectangles, covering the lower half of her torso in lines that looked like they belonged.

"That's it," were the only two words he could manage to choke out for a minute as she did a little spin in front of him. He closed his eyes to focus his attention back on the matter at hand instead of just sitting there staring at the beautiful woman in front of him. "It does really well of showing appropriate use of color in a business setting and red conveys confidence that would help drive the point of the importance of color into the heads of anyone you'd see."

She looked at herself in the mirror again and agreed with his assessment. She looked darn good if she said so herself. She looked at the seams and made sure there were no frays or loose threads that would make her look worse. The more she looked at herself, the more she found herself thinking Adrien was right.

"Yeah," she said. "This is the one." Now that he knew what to expect in the morning, he was hopeful he would be able to emotionally prepare himself for the gorgeous woman who was scheduled to be in his office for a meeting in just over 15 hours from that point.

"I think you're right, Adrien," Marinette said with a smile as she finished confirming there weren't any stray seams or threads in her outfit. "Thank you so much for helping me tonight. I've been kind of freaking out about this interview since we scheduled it." She gave him a quick kiss on his cheek before she went off to change into pajamas.

The word interview stuck with him. He wasn't planning to interview her, not really. He needed to clarify the situation as soon as he could, but she didn't want to talk about it at home, so he was happy to not bring it up and stress her out more. She came back out a few minutes later in a tank top and long pajama pants. She collapsed onto the couch with her head in his lap and he couldn't help but smile at the girl.

They ordered dinner for delivery on Adrien's recommendation and Marinette wasn't willing to argue now that she was wearing pajamas. This did mean that Adrien was paying, which Marinette wasn't a big fan of, but she did her best to stay even in terms of paying for meals they ate in restaurants and getting groceries for them to use when they cooked.

Adrien spent the rest of the evening trying to keep Marinette relaxed before their meeting tomorrow. He almost wished he'd had Plagg along to purr for her, but she seemed satisfied by him playing with her hair while she laid across his lap. They both went to sleep in her bed that night, wrapped in each other's arms.

When she woke up the next morning, there was a vase filled with a bouquet of pink peonies in her vase on her counter. 'Peonies symbolize good luck, not that you'll need it. I'll see you later. Love you! -A ' Her heart fluttered without her permission.

'Thank you for the flowers, my knight. I love you too. Can't wait to see you! ' She checked the time and she still had a few hours before her interview at 10h00. She had a croissant she'd gotten at the bakery on Sunday morning and a cup of coffee as her breakfast before she went to start getting dressed for her interview.

In addition to the outfit, she put on a sangria lip stain and a simple eyeshadow look. She opted against the blush and left her apartment at 09h30 that morning. She put the address into her phone's map application and followed the directions, pleasantly surprised that the building was only a few minutes away. Is this what Adrien feels every day when he only has to walk a few minutes to get to his job? Marinette could definitely get used to this.

She approached the front desk and the attendant informed M. Agreste that she was there. A man in a striking black suit came out of the office a few minutes later with a bright, welcoming smile on his face. "M. Agreste," she greeted, extending a hand to shake. He shook her hand and directed her toward the primary conference room.

He sat on one side of the table, as much as he wanted to sit next to her, and gestured for her to take the seat across from him. "Before we begin, Mlle. Dupain-Cheng, I'm afraid there may have been a misunderstanding for the purpose of this meeting. I'm not interested in offering you a job at Agreste." She did her best to not let the smile fall from her face. "I'm looking for a collaboration between Agreste and MDC."

"A collaboration?" she asked, surprised at his request.

"Yes." He directed her attention toward the screen on the wall closest to them. From a small computer, he had begun casting a powerpoint presentation. "I admire your sense of style. Your clientele is not a match for Gabriel, but it is perfect for what I'm trying to make Agreste. You've struck an amazing balance between fun and functional that I haven't seen on the fashion scene in a long time, if ever."

Her jaw was slightly dropped as she looked between M. Agreste and the presentation. "The way that you use color to express within your designs is honestly one of the most unique design elements that I've seen in years. The colors you've been choosing for your clients for years have been excellent. Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, Nino Lahiffe, and his fiancée, Mlle. Césaire, just to name a few. I checked into the older Gabriel records and saw that you had won a few of our contests in your youth."

He moved on to the next slide that showed a single black and white pigeon-themed derby hat, then a few submissions she'd made into later contests that involved color as a focal point in her designs. "Personally, I'm a huge fan of example number three," he told her. She saw that example three was from a particular contest where she had designed a light grey raincoat. There was a slightly darker grey umbrella pattern covering the coat that was occasionally interrupted by a bright blue umbrella.

"If we can get a contract together, I would love for MDC to collaborate with Agreste on a business casual line that would add color to the workplace for people of all professions. It's easy for teachers of young students to incorporate colors into their wardrobes, but it's difficult to incorporate colors into the suit of your average CEO." He straightened his tie slightly and winked at her.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she became slightly overwhelmed by M. Agreste. He reminded her of Adrien, but he seemed to be flirting with her. "If you agree, you wouldn't be my employee," he clarified, "you'd be a business partner." She didn't necessarily know why he clarified that, but the part of her subconscious that was hoping he was flirting with her was glad that he did.

"Why me," she asked him. She knew she had skills and the references to back them up, but she was almost nervous that he was trying to hire her just because he thought that she was pretty and that wasn't something she would be willing to accept. "There are probably plenty of designers who would be able to include more colors into Agreste designs."

"None of them," he began, "are Marinette Dupain-Cheng, who left a conversation with Jagged Stone to help a stranger who was struggling with trying to get rid of a girl who was flirting with him. And none of the Agreste designers have ever had the nerve to tell me, or anyone else, what Gabriel's designs were missing. Even if they had known how much color could improve a design, they never had the nerve to tell me and that's something I can tell you have a lot of."

"It takes a brave person to show up to an interview in red pants, Mlle. Dupain-Cheng, and there is no one in this office, who would make a move as bold as that and have the confidence to have the decision work for them. You're a formidable person and as I mentioned, I've been admiring your work for a long time."

She considered for a moment, thinking through everything that he'd said. She couldn't help but just stare at him for a moment, awed by what he thought of her. She smiled brightly. "Would you like to see some of my designs, M. Agreste?" she offered, "we can start looking for pieces for us to collaborate on." She removed her sketchbook and it wasn't one he'd ever seen before.

He flipped to the first page and the first page was a blazer that was plain black, but the inner lining as well as the lining of the pickets was red and covered in black Ladybug spots. "I've also considered including the ladybug pattern on the outside of the pockets, or perhaps just small spots, in general, that could be more subtly incorporated into that design." He nodded understandingly.

He moved to the second page which included a tie with a small cat on the external side of the tip. If the tie were tied with a closed suit, the cat wouldn't show at all, but if the jacket were unbuttoned, there would be a small cat head stitched into the tie. He couldn't help but smile at the black cat head with green eyes that looked almost like Plagg.

The next piece was a dress that was a slightly muted yellow that would ombre into a red. He gulped at the fact that it felt reminiscent of the roses that he had given her on their first date and he had to hold back how much he wanted to kiss her, seeing that she had seemingly been inspired by their first date.

Another page led to another design, this time in a lilac purple color. He couldn't help but think of the lilac roses he'd given her for her birthday. The multiple ruffled layers of fabric around the 3/4 length sleeves gave the illusion of a blooming rose and the scoop neck of the blouse gave the design an appropriate amount of professionalism to the overall look.

The next page looked like it was drawn in a hurry and he could immediately tell why. It looked like the pink skirt on the page tried to copy the general shape of a peony flower, like the ones he had left her that morning. He wanted to cry because of all of the love that his heart held for this woman in front of him, but he was at work.

He was the CEO and crying was something he could do when he was alone in his office, or back at his apartment with Plagg that night. "They're gorgeous," he told her once he was able to compose himself once again. "I knew I was making a good decision to bring you in for this collaboration."

"Thank you, M. Agreste," she said with a soft look in her eyes. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she watched this stranger go through some of her most personal designs. She didn't even know why she handed him that sketchbook, but she didn't regret it. She was still incredibly nervous, however. Nothing could have prepared her for the fact that the CEO of Agreste just brought her into his building to rave about her designs.

She knew that Adrien raved about her designs whenever he saw them, but this was different. He was the CEO of a Fashion House who all but begged her to do a collaboration with his company. She didn't realize how much she wanted to agree until she saw him slow down to look at a few of the designs in her book.

If she were handed a contract for the collaboration, she was half convinced she wouldn't ever actually read it, she would just sign it to see the smile on his face brighten and that was probably not the correct way for her to be thinking about the man she was seated in front of. Even though, as he clarified, he wasn't her boss, there was probably nothing there.

"So, would you be interested in a collaboration between the brands?" he asked Marinette. She nodded.

"I would love to," she said in an almost whisper. She met his eyes and they were so green and so very familiar. She couldn't tell where she had seen them before, but the CEO used to be a model, right? She had probably seen a campaign when he was younger and that was where she'd recognized the eyes from.

She found her throat dry and licked her lip as she looked into his eyes. "We'll be in touch with a contract," he said quietly and her heart was pounding in her chest.

"That sounds wonderful. Thank you for this opportunity, M. Agreste." They both rose from their seats and shook hands once again. It was more intimate than it was before as they looked into each other's eyes. "I look forward to hearing from you again."

"As do I, princess," he responded quietly, not wanting to ruin the moment he thought they were having. Marinette couldn't help but think about how much he sounded like Adrien. She looked away first and smiled before she left the conference room.