Hey! Welcome to the first day of my Adrinette April fic, Platonic Ideal of Love! I'll be doing my best to post chapters at 2 PM EST/11 AM PT, but I'll be starting a new job soon, so if I need to change that I'll be sure to let y'all know as soon as possible! Chapter 1 is just background, explaining a bit more about the AU I'll be using for this fic. Hope you enjoy!
Marinette was excited to start her first year at Paris Sciences & Lettres, PSL, joined by her best friend Alya and Alya's boyfriend, Nino. Marinette's plan was to do the program that would earn her a fashion degree in two years, then she would join a fashion house or maybe make a name for herself and create a brand of her own.
She was extremely lucky that Alya was staying in Paris, especially after she had been accepted to a few schools internationally. Alya decided to go to PSL because she still wanted to run the Ladyblog, which would be difficult to do from somewhere else. The two girls found an apartment to rent together.
Marinette had offered to let Nino rent the apartment with them, but he officially refused to move in. He would usually spend the night at their apartment with Alya, but he was officially just living at home while he received a degree in business with a secondary degree in musical theory.
Marinette had been Ladybug for the last 5 years, almost to the day, considering that she got her Miraculous on the first day of school when she was in collège. She had been working alongside Chat Noir since he got his Miraculous on the same day as she did. She tried not to think too much about his civilian self.
Chat Noir's civilian self, however, was having the time of his life. Adrien Agreste, at the age of 18, managed to convince Nathalie to help him find an apartment near his campus so that he wouldn't have to commute from home every morning. She was convinced when he mentioned that the extra sleep he'd get from being close to campus meant less concealer at photoshoots.
He still needed to do occasional photoshoots for the Agreste brand. Getting his degree in business, though, meant that his father was starting to let him attend meetings so that he could learn about his eventual role as the future CEO of the company. Gabriel wasn't going to admit that he lost faith in Adrien's potential to be a great designer, but he did. He was just thankful for Adrien's genuine aptitude for business.
During their orientation week, Adrien went to as many events as he could. One of the first events he attended was a networking mixer for business majors. Most people who arrived were in suits or a pair of nice slacks and a button-up shirt. Adrien wore a pair of black slacks and a deep green collared shirt in hopes that wearing his hero colors would give him a little more of his Chat Noir confidence.
There was one guy who arrived in a pair of well-fitted slacks, a white button-down with the top two buttons undone, and a green tie of all things. The green tie had a pattern that seemed oddly reminiscent of Carapace's Shell-ter. He was curious about it because he had never seen subtle hero-themed pieces before.
Adrien went over and introduced himself to the boy in the interesting tie. He introduced himself as Nino and the two shook hands. Adrien made a mental note to try to help Nino improve his handshake if he decided he wanted to be friends with Adrien after the mixer was over. For the time being, though, the boys were happy to talk about superheroes.
Nino asked for Adrien's number, planning to reach out to him to get him introduced to Alya and Marinette and Adrien handed him a business card. Nino couldn't help but to stare surprised at the business card that was now in his hand. He mentioned that he had asked so that they could be friends.
Adrien's carefully stoic expression turned up into a bright smile that spread from ear to ear across his whole face. Adrien told Nino that he wasn't used to having friends and the two made a deal that Nino would help teach Adrien to act like a normal college student if Adrien helped teach Nino how to be more of a professional in an environment like that night.
Nino started inviting Adrien along to everything he could and Adrien tried his best to accept whenever he could. He had to miss a few parties because he had a solo patrol or a patrol with Ladybug, but he was still able to attend a few events with Nino, including a mixer when Ladybug had a solo patrol where Adrien got to meet Nino's girlfriend, Alya.
Apparently, Nino and Alya were also wanting to introduce Adrien to someone named Marinette who, Adrien was able to figure out from context, was a friend of theirs from before uni. It sounded like it was possible she even lived with Alya which made him more curious about why she wasn't at the mixer that night. Nino promised to introduce them later because he thought Adrien could use more friends.
Adrien wasn't one to argue with that assessment. After all, the closest friends he'd had growing up were Chloé Bourgeois and his cousin Félix. Anyone could tell you Chloé was a spoiled socialite from the age of 6 (no matter how much she mellowed out with age). Félix, on the other hand, lived in London and could only come to Paris a few days per year, if that.
When Adrien was 13, he met a few others who he liked to consider friends, even though he didn't know if they counted. Ladybug was the first he met, his superhero partner. A few months later, a few more heroes were brought on and he got to meet Carapace and Rena Rouge. He thought he'd get along well with all three of them if they met as civilians.
When he was 14, he was allowed to leave his home for longer periods of time to attend fencing practice at a local collège that he never got to learn the name of. He met a few people there, but his father never let him associate with them outside of practice and tournaments, except for Tsurugi Kagami.
Kagami was a nice girl, she kind of reminded him of Ladybug. They were both formidable when they set their minds to something and they had almost matching shades of ink-black hair. He tried dating Kagami for a few weeks, but it was mostly to keep up appearances for the Agreste and Tsurugi brands.
When he was 15, Adrien made his final friend until he went to university. Everyone was surprised when Zoé, Chloé's half-sister, moved to Paris from New York, but she seemed nice and he was happy to have another person that he could call a friend. They weren't close by any stretch of the imagination, but they were still friends enough for him.
Chat Noir, on the other hand, seemed to meet people at every turn. He never knew where Ladybug found all of these superheroes, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth when it meant he could practice relatively normal social interactions with Viperion, Purple Tigress, and Vesperia, in addition to all of the rest of the heroes.
That was the extent of his friendships until he'd met Nino and, by extension, Alya. He was thrilled to learn that Alya ran the Ladyblog, his favorite website to see what Parisians thought of him and his fellow heroes. Apparently, she had been the girl at Stoneheart's first attack when they fought in the arena.
He tried to get information about her opinion on the 'temporary' heroes. She talked on, and on, and on, about Carapace and Adrien suspected that she might have been the reason that Nino was wearing the Carapace tie the day that they met. For how much she talked about Carapace, Adrien was shocked that she seemed almost… disinterested in talking about Rena Rouge.
Adrien wondered silently if he should try to help Alya get an interview with Rena. Maybe Rena had been unwilling to meet with her before and that was why Alya wasn't as big of a fan of hers as she was of everyone else. After all, he had noticed that Rena was almost always the first of their team to leave when a battle was over.
About a week after they met, Adrien was invited to go to a party with Nino and Alya with a guarantee that they'd help him meet more people, including but not limited to the Marinette he'd heard so much about. He agreed to go early with Nino so they could set up his DJ stand and they were planning to meet the girls at the party.
21h00 that night rolled around and Adrien was standing with a Long Island Iced Tea in his hand. He was over to the side of Nino's DJ stand and was trying his best to socialize with people who were nearby, but it didn't seem like anyone particularly wanted to talk to him. He saw Alya talking to a girl across the room and couldn't help but to stare.
From the back, he could see she had the same ink-black hair as Ladybug and Kagami, but then again, so did about 10% of the girls at the party. He assumed it was probably Marinette, and he couldn't take his eyes off of the girls across the room. He was embarrassed when he saw Marinette look over at him and it was clear that he was looking at her.