"Adrien," Alya greeted excitedly as the blond boy approached their area. He wasn't there to talk, just to get something else to drink, but that didn't stop Alya from working some of her extrovert magic to get him into a conversation. "Are you having fun tonight?" Adrien placed his cup on the counter and Marinette admired his handwriting on the side of his plastic cup.

'Adrien' was written across one side, joined by a little doodle of a cat face. The black of the sharpie on the green of the cup gave the doodle a bit of a Chat Noir vibe and Marinette found herself wondering if that was on purpose or not, given what Alya had said about how he feels about the heroes.

"Yeah," he said with a bright smile on his face, "I'm so lucky I met Nino at orientation last week. I swear, I wouldn't have gone anywhere if he hadn't been dragging me along like a lost puppy all week." He laughed a little, then rubbed the back of his neck nervously. Marinette couldn't help but think that the habit looked familiar.

"I'm so glad you're having a nice time," Alya said with a smile. "I was just telling my roommate, Marinette, about you." Alya indicated toward Marinette who was sipping out of her cup to try to avoid actually meeting him. "Good things," she assured after a moment, "I mentioned that you're a fan of the heroes."

Marinette knew there was no more trying to deny meeting him. She finished the drink that she had in her hand, then extended a hand to introduce herself. "Hey," she greeted. "I'm Marinette." He stretched out his hand and shook hers.

"I'm Adrien," he introduced in response, "it's nice to meet you." Their voices were both slightly louder than normal as they did their best to be heard over the sound of Nino's mix. They let go of each other's hands and he tried to look for a topic of conversation. "Alya said you're a pretty big fan of the heroes?"

Marinette gestured vaguely at her vaguely Rena Rouge themed outfit and spoke again, "I guess you could say that." She smiled politely at him. "Do you have a favorite?" Her curiosity was genuine and carried more weight than he ever could have expected. There was a correct answer and she wanted to know what he had to say.

Adrien paused and it was clear to see he was in deep concentration, trying to come up with the perfect answer to her question. "Wow, just getting straight into the hard topics." He exhaled a brief sigh. "That's like asking me to choose my favorite child. I think that Viperion has one of the coolest powers. If I could go like… get a beer with one of them though, I think I would choose Carapace. He seems like he'd be cool to talk to and I need more of that in my life." Adrien shrugged slightly.

Marinette was a little taken aback by his answer. Usually when she asked, guys would say one of the female heroes that they thought was attractive. Even most girls would say Ladybug, but it always seemed like those answers came from a desire to give a safe answer rather than an honest answer.

"Who is your favorite?" Adrien added after a moment. They, along with Alya had managed to make their way over to the table of drinks and he started making himself another Long Island while Marinette filled her cup back up with the vodka and juice combination that she'd made before.

"I've always loved the power of the bee," she admitted, "even when Chloé Bourgeois was Queen Bee, I thought that the power itself was really cool, but I am a bigger fan of Vesperia as the bee hero. Ryuuko's transformation is amazing and I love all of the details of the outfit, plus I think it's fascinating that she kind of has three powers, you know?"

She was clearly bubbling with excitement as she spoke. "There's also Pigella's 'Gift' which I think is such a nice power… but I think I might need to stop there before I bore you with just telling you how great I think all of the heroes are." She blushed brightly, looking down into her cup and she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. "You may have been right about that favorite child comment," she admitted after another moment and he chuckled.

"Have you considered starting your own hero appreciation blog," he half joked in response to her rambling. She giggled at his suggestion and took a sip of her drink, feeling like she could loosen up instead of just being nervous about talking to someone new.

"I'm not much of a writer," she told him, "I show my appreciation for the heroes in different ways. I've been designing clothes based on the heroes pretty much since Ladybug and Chat Noir's debut." She motioned toward her outfit once again and he paid more attention to it now that he knew it was something she designed.

"You designed this?" He tried not to seem like he was just staring at her body, but as someone who grew up around fashion, he knew a thing or two about mistakes that could easily be made with a piece like this and he didn't see any loose seams, improperly dyed fabric, or any elements that looked too costumey.

Marinette was wearing a mostly orange skater skirt that had panels of black on the side. Her shirt was a pale orange, almost white cropped tank top. She had a jacket tied around her waist that looked like it was meant to resemble the tail on Rena Rouge's costume and she was wearing a bracelet that had a small fox face. She was wearing short booties that had about a 3 cm heel.

"I like it," he told her. "The Rena Rouge symbol on the cuff of the sweatshirt is a really nice touch. I feel like she would approve of the outfit if she ever saw it." Adrien didn't know how right he was, considering how much Alya loved the outfit. Marinette had been making her a matching outfit that she was planning to give her best friend for her birthday.

"Thank you," she said politely, smiling brightly at the boy. "I feel like people always give Ladybug too much of the credit when it's the whole team who stops the akumas. I always hope that a hero will see me in an outfit themed after them and feel just a little bit more appreciated, you know?"

"Definitely," he agreed, "if I were Rena Rouge, I would be flattered. Did you say that you have outfits for the other heroes too?" Marinette nodded. "Can I see them?" She pulled up her Instagram app and went to her page to start scrolling down to the Viperion look, which was one of the heroes he mentioned liking. She hadn't even thought about the fact that it was themed after her ex-boyfriend.