Practice
Afternoon classes have passed uneventfully. Adrien kept his eyes opened for Lila, he was ready to protect Marinette this time, he wanted to be her knight in shiny armour. And he also had to feed Plagg on the run as he had little time. He never noticed how Marinette sneaked up cookies to her purse during lunch.
Adrien had a fencing lesson and a duel with Kagami. She won. Again. And she complained that his mind was elsewhere and he was not a worthy opponent.
He knew he wasn't. His mind was occupied with what had happened with Marinette. He remembered his advice to her. He remembered how Lila got her expelled later and he felt guilty.
"What is wrong with you?" Kagami insisted when they met in the locker room.
"It is just, I am working with Marinette on this assignment for school. We are supposed to show how bullies behave and she wrote this sketch, well it was an actual event when one girl from our class, threatened her. And that same day I asked her to do nothing about her, not to expose her bully." Adrien sighed.
Kagami looked at him with disappointment in her eyes.
"You told her to do nothing?" Kagami raised her eyebrows.
"I didn't know." The boy whined.
"But you still gave her advice." She replied flatly.
"And she took my advice. Lila got her expelled." He looked to the side, too ashamed to look at Kagami.
"Of course she took you advice." Kagami waved her head. She knew why Marinette would probably take any advice from him. "How did she get back to school then?" She asked slowly.
"I told Lila to tell another lie and get her back to school." He replied in low voice while he kept staring at the same point on his side.
"Lila." Kagami repeated like a bad word. "In exchange for what?"
"Remember that photo shoot I had with her?" He was so ashamed of his actions.
"Yes?" She asked a bit louder than she intended.
"That was it. I just do not know how she persuaded my father, because I sure did not even try." Adrien waved his head.
Kagami looked away from him. There were no words needed to express her disappointment. Adrien knew, he felt what she was thinking about him, how it radiated from her. Well he was going to do something about that.
"I should go, I have to continue working on that assignment." Adrien took his bag and walked away with a greeting.
Kagami greeted back but did not look at him.
Marinette quickly checked her room, her screen saver, her background wallpaper on the screen, and everything had an appropriate or at least easily explainable amount of photos of Adrien. She ran down into the bakery to help as she often did after school. That reduced the crowd and allowed her parents to take short breaks during the rush hour as many students treated themselves to snacks between school and other activities. She was filling boxes and paper bags with orders while her mother handled the payments. She brought freshly baked pastries from the kitchen and arranged them into the display window. And that is how Adrien found her. She was busy stacking pain au chocolate onto a shelf.
"What would you like to have today?" Sabine asked the next person automatically as she was already tired.
Adrien turned to her with a smile.
"Oh, you want Marinette." Sabine giggled.
Marinette flipped her head towards her mother and crushed the pain au chocolate that she held.
"Maman" She whined while her face was rather pink.
"Well, if she is not too busy?" Adrien suppressed the urge to say anything inappropriate. He did not forget the topic of their assignment.
"Off you go." Sabine told her daughter. "And put that piece in the box." She motioned towards the crushed piece of pastry in her daughter's hand while she let Adrien pass behind the counter.
"Hi Marinette." Adrien greeted.
"Hi Adrien." She breathed out.
"Is that piece ugly now?" He pointed towards her hand.
She nodded.
"Can I save it?" He smiled.
"Sure" She offered him to take it.
Adrien took it with a grin. "I really like them."
"Papa, Adrien is here, we are going up." Marinette announced as she passed through the kitchen. But Tom had different plans.
"Hi son, here, take this with you, I am trying something new and I want your opinion." The huge man gave him a box with muffins. Adrien smiled and took them.
"You will also find other specimens in the box on the table if you do not like those." Tom added while the boy was at the door.
They were both in Marinette's room. Adrien enjoyed the muffins, about six of them, before he noticed Marinette stared at him.
"Sorry." He told her as he noticed the box was now empty.
"That is okay, you were obviously hungry." She replied while she wondered where the boy put all that food because there was no way it was all inside him. He was so slim.
"So what is the plan now, we should put this scripts to practice?" The boy asked tentatively.
"Um yes, we have to explain first that this is a bad example and then show the act and then explain what was wrong there." She was talking quickly and got to her feet.
"Okay, so we read the words first?" He asked and she nodded.
They went through the bully parts. Adrien took the role of the bully. He impersonated Chloe so well that Marinette proposed him to cut down his act.
"Nah, I want to do it the right way." he disregarded her concern.
They did it several times and decided not to change anything. Then Adrien moved to the Lila act. He could impersonate her sly moves and smile so well that Marinette stiffened at first. She was moving backwards and away from him on pure instinct, and he followed as he felt that was something that a bully would do.
"Was it good? Is that how it happened?" Adrien asked gently as he observed her with concern. It was obvious she was shaken. Marinette stared back at him, her eyes wide, her body stiff.
"We do not have to do it if it is too much for you." He breathed out.
"No, we are doing this, it is just, you are so good at it." She whispered back.
Then they moved to the script Adrien wrote, and that was a whole new problem.
"Okay, you know what Chloe does, now do it." Adrien smiled at her and just stood there.
"I … can't." Marinette looked to her feet. Her face was burning. This was something that hurt Adrien and she was about to repeat it. She couldn't do it. Her crush on the boy only contributed to the colour in her cheeks.
"Don't worry, I know why we are doing this, it is okay with me." He encouraged her.
Marinette took a deep breath. It was clear to her. This was needed to end his suffering. That was the point of the whole project. If she does this right, Adrien was about to be saved. And she was Ladybug for a reason.
"oh, Adriekins." She shrieked and threw herself on Adrien but she quickly bounced back before he even had a chance to push her away.
"Okay, you are too quick. You are supposed to cling onto me even when I push you away." He told her. Marinette nodded while she kept staring at the floor.
"Do you want to try again?" He asked with a warm smile.
Marinette clenched her fists and raised her head. It was now or never.
"Oh Adriekins." She screeched again and threw herself onto Adrien. She was hanging off from him but she did not try to kiss him.
Adrien decided that it might be too much to ask Marinette to try and kiss him and that what she did was sufficient. He held her hips and gently pushed her away, far gentler than he ever pushed Chloe, but Marinette practically jumped away.
"Okay, we can work on that." The boy smiled. "How about Lila now?"
"Okay" Marinette quickly grabbed the script to read what was she supposed to do.
"I um I ..." She flailed her hands all around her face as she always did when she was confused, particularly in front of Adrien.
"If it is too much for you, we can try tomorrow." Adrien smiled gently. "But I still have an hour before I have to go."
"How about a game?" Marinette quickly grabbed a console.
"Yes." Adrien exclaimed. The two of them played the game and joked until Adrien's phone rang to notify him that his driver was waiting for him.
Marinette waked down the stairs after him and waved him goodbye.
Adrien walked up and down his room as he read the notes about bullying and sexual harassment.
'If someone asks you to stop and you do not stop, it is wrong.' Then there was 'calling names' and 'unwanted nicknames'. And then there was more and more of things that he found familiar.
"Plagg" Adrien called on his kwami. "When Chat Noir flirts with Ladybug, is that sexual harassment?"
"I thought that was what you people do when you like somebody." Plagg retorted.
"She told me not to … more than once." Adrien sighed.
"She just rolls her eyes, she likes it." Plagg replied.
"But … what if she does not like that? She asked me to stop calling her Bugaboo so many times and I'm still doing that." The boy was devastated. Was he really hurting his lady?
"I prefer Camembert, it never tells me to stop." Plagg retorted.
"When I try to kiss her hand she takes it away." Adrien whispered.
"And then she flicks your nose, what is the difference?" The tiny god of destruction hovered away as if he was insulted.
Adrien stared at the papers with the notes that he got from Marinette.
"Does it say anything about Camembert in those notes?" Plagg asked as he hovered back and looked at the notes curiously.
"No" The boy was rather confused with the question.
"So, you see, Camembert is much better than the girls, you can tell it whatever you want and touch it as much as you like." And that was enough for the tiny black cat to hover away and hide in the mini fridge.
Adrien stared at the list, it was clear to him that he crossed the line, he thought about each time Ladybug pushed him away. Sometimes it was playful. Perhaps she did not want to hurt his feelings? Then, sometimes it was her who leaned into him. So she did not mind being close to him. She hugged him more than once.
"Ask first." Adrien pondered the instruction. "But there is no time to ask in the middle of the battle." He whined. He tried to remember every interaction the two of them had, and when she accepted and when she refused, pushed him away and told him to stop. It was not making much sense to the boy.
He decided to ask Marinette about it, once when he thought how to pose the question without giving away his identity.
He could transform, vault over to her rooftop and ask her opinion and advice.
He could visit her as Adrien and play videos from the Ladyblog, he was certain there were plenty of different examples available there, and then he could ask her.
Or, he might ask Ladybug directly, as Chat Noir. That would give him opportunity to apologize too.
He had no time to reach a conclusion. There was an akuma alert.