The next day, Paul was sitting at his desk grinning when Adrien plodded in, coffee from a little shop en route to the bus station (laced with sugar and cream, of course) in hand. Adrien paused, slightly unnerved, before continuing his trek to his favorite desk.

"Why good morning," Paul said before Adrien could ask him why he was grinning like that (seriously, it was creepy). "And how are you on this sunny day?"

"I'm...good?"

"Fantastic, fantastic." Paul grinned some more. "So, I learned something interesting yesterday."

"Oh? Let me guess, it was the principle we learned yesterday during lab? Hate to break it to you, but I was there for that."

"No, no. Not that at all." Paul bent over to dig something out of his bag. "My older sister is getting married, and so like the good brother I am, I was helping her looking through wedding magazines, when I found this." With a flourish, Paul pulled out a magazine where, in full color on a two-page spread, Adrien and Marinette were getting 'married'.

Oh.

Whoops.

"Of course, I was more than a little surprised to find one of my friends in a wedding ad," Paul said smugly as Adrien scrambled to find words. "And with the 'friend' that eats dinner with him every night, no less! So I was wondering..."

"Marinette's my friend from Paris," Adrien said quickly before that line of questioning could go any farther. "She works as a design intern at Rosalie's Boutique, and they were doing a photoshoot for their wedding line. I got roped in."

"They don't have their own models for the photoshoots?"

Adrien shrugged as casually as he could. "I think they wanted to have a more approachable photo. If all they ever showed were tall, skinny models, how are people supposed to know if the dress would look good on them as well?"

"So they had one tall, skinny supermodel and one slightly shorter, also pretty skinny intern star in the photoshoot?" Paul asked dryly, setting the magazine down on his desk. "Yay variety."

Adrien shrugged again, hiding his wince. That was just the way it happened. He and Marinette just so happened to both be on the fairly athletic side.

"My younger sister almost screamed her head off when she realized that I was friends with a supermodel," Paul said, putting the magazine away in his bag before anyone else in the class could see it. "And then she wanted to know if you were available."

Adrien blinked, somewhat taken aback. "...like, dating available?"

Paul made a face. "Exactly. I told her no, that I thought you were dating someone. I know you've never said anything about it," he added when Adrien gave him a puzzled look. "But, like- okay, I know you're a good person and you'd probably be a fairly decent boyfriend, but I also know you're older than me and she's younger than I am."

That meant there was at least a four-year gap. Adrien wasn't particularly interested in dating someone that much younger, especially at this point in his life. Technically, it wasn't a huge difference- his parents had been born nearly seven years apart- but the difference was that they had been in their late twenties/early thirties when they met, not one person already graduated from one university program (and in another) while the other person hadn't yet graduated lycée, or whatever the British called it. People matured a lot in university, Adrien had discovered- it sometimes made having classes with younger peers frustrating- and besides, he didn't date fans.

(He didn't date at all, technically, but he especially didn't date fans.)

"Also, I don't like the idea of her dating anyone," Paul added as he straightened his calculator on his desk. "She's too young."

Adrien's lips twitched in amusement at his tone. He wouldn't have called it before, but Paul was apparently the overprotective brother type. Granted, if his younger sister was the sort who asked her older brother if his even older friend was single, maybe Paul had reasons to not want her to date.

"I noticed you didn't dispute the supermodel thing," Paul added with a grin. "You can't even argue there, can you?"

Adrien let out a groan. He had been so focused on the wedding photos that he had completely missed the fact that Paul had apparently found out that he had been- well, technically still was- a model. "I don't know about the super part. I'm just a regular model. And I'm not really modelling right now." His father wasn't happy about that- he had wanted Adrien to return to Paris to do a couple quick photoshoots for a couple weekends, but Adrien hadn't wanted to take away from his studying time at all. It would just throw him out of his groove and he had no real desire to sit posing under hot lights for hours on end. Regular, non-rushed photoshoots were bad enough- hours of back-to-back fittings and photoshoots crammed together all weekend in an attempt to get everything done would be a nightmare. His father could find a couple other male models to fill in. It wasn't as though models were in short supply in Paris or anything. "And I'm planning on quitting for good once I get this degree."

"Aww, really? But you're so pretty!" Paul grinned when Adrien made a face at him. "I suppose you'll be glad to get out of the spotlight. Do you ever have to deal with tabloids reporting on you?"

"Making up stuff about me, you mean? Occasionally." For the most part he was left alone since he was a model, not an actor or musician or anything. Most models didn't have to deal with the same sort of attention that he did, though of course most of them hadn't been modelling since their preteens and didn't have a parent famous in the fashion industry. The models that did get as much attention as he (unfortunately) did were supermodels, and they were far more serious about their modelling than Adrien was. They had worked for it, instead of basically being handed a modelling contract like Adrien had.

"That sucks."

"I've learned to ignore it. They can say what they want, and as long as people I care about don't believe them then it doesn't affect me." Of course, so far there hadn't been any particularly outrageous articles about him and he hadn't had to search for jobs with employers that might have seen falsified articles about him, so maybe he would change his tune in the future.

Hopefully not. He wouldn't really want to work for an employer who would make hiring decisions based on stories in tabloid magazines anyway.

Paul looked a little dubious but dropped the subject anyway. "If you say so. Hey, so have you started looking stuff over for the tests? I'm thinking a study group this weekend would be good, just to get things started."

Adrien didn't even have to think about it. "Yeah! I'll be free. I started studying yesterday, and I've already marked a few things that I might need a bit more work on. Have you started on your Electronics project yet?"

"I've glanced at it. Took some notes." Paul shrugged. "Haven't put anything together yet, though. You?"

"I've gotten a couple pages put together. I want to get it done by next Monday, and then I can give it some time to rest before I review it." It was a strategy Adrien had picked up during his business program and italmost always resulted in much better papers. If he put things off until last minute, he couldn't get the necessary distance from his paper to actually look at it with a critical eye. "And then I want to clean up my magnets lab."

"And study," Paul added.

"And study." Adrien couldn't help but let out a sigh at that. There were still two full weeks until exams started, and he already couldn't wait until they were done with the tests and he could enjoy a relaxing week off before the second half of the semester started. Once he got his projects wrapped up and his labs organized and turned in things might get more relaxed, but he didn't want to count on that. He had once during his second year in business and let things slide, and he had ended up pulling more than one all-nighter to try to get his studying completed.

Never again. He'd rather get things done ridiculously early than have to deal with too much stuff at the last minute. It was stressful and led to bad grades, which was hugely frustrating when he knew he could do better.

"I get the feeling that I'll be really glad that I'm still living at home," Paul said as their professor came into the room and started setting things up in front. Adrien raised an eyebrow at that; previously, Paul had complained about living at home. He came from London originally and his family lived close enough to the university that there was no point in him renting an apartment of his own. He had been fine with that arrangement at first, but apparently he had made several other friends in his other classes who either had their own apartment or who were sharing with one or two (or three, Adrien wasn't quite sure) other students and they had some fabulous stories about the things they could get up to without their parents there. Adrien personally thought that Paul's other friends sounded a bit immature, but he really couldn't judge that much considering that he hadn't actually met any of them for more than a minute or two at a time.

"Why do you say that?"

Paul shrugged. "Timothy and Eric were talking the other day about how much work it is to clean their own place and cook all of their own meals and it was just something I've never thought of before. It seems like that could eat up a lot of study time."

Adrien shrugged. It hadn't been something he considered to be too much of a bother, but then again he was used to slotting study time in around photoshoots, fittings, and other assorted industry events. Now that he didn't have those to deal with anymore, simple tasks like cleaning and cooking didn't seem like such a big issue. "It can. I tend to clean during study breaks, and then it helps that both Mari and I are fairly clean people to start with. If we make a mess while cooking, we clean it up right away. It's more work if we just put it off."

Paul snorted. "Y'know, sometimes with the way you talk about Marinette, it really sounds like the two of you are living together. You cook together, you clean together..."

"We take turns cooking and we each clean our own apartments. It's just that we have similar ways of approaching it." Adrien had to admit that if he had to have a roommate, Marinette would be pretty much perfect. They were both mature and got along fabulously. On top of that, their near-identical approach to keeping the apartment clean would probably eliminate almost all of the cleaning-related nightmare problems Adrien had heard about from other uni students.

"Hey, I'm just saying."

"I know." Adrien paused for a moment, thinking. "What you were saying earlier, that you were glad you were still living at home..."

"Oh! Because my parents take care of the cooking and cleaning for me. I help out sometimes," Paul added hastily. "But when I have a lab report to complete and, like, the bathroom needs cleaning, I don't need to worry about it. Or if I don't have time to cook, I don't have to worry about that either. And maybe I'm just assuming, but I'm guessing that that might be a problem you have to deal with? Having to put studying aside to clean?"

Adrien shrugged. "Like I said before, I try to keep it clean as I go. I'll probably do a full cleaning as a study break before cramming time starts, and then it should be fine until after midterms are done. Besides, I can't study all the time."

"And I suppose Marinette will be cooking for you so you don't have to cook and cram at the same time?"

Adrien shook his head at that and then thought about it again and shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. She has Fashion Week to prepare for and it might fall at about the same time. We talked about how that might be a problem earlier in the semester, but we haven't actually compared our schedules at all recently. She'll probably be working late leading up to the runway, so she wouldn't have time to cook either."

Paul looked surprised. "Really? I thought that, y'know, when she gets home then she's done until she goes back to work the next day so she could take care of the cooking and everything."

Adrien shook his head. "Not really. I mean, kind of? She's not required to be working once she leaves for the day, but there's a bunch of extra last-minute stuff left to do once it gets close to runway week so she has to stay longer to get that done."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She just worked late yesterday, actually. We had to dip into our frozen leftovers supply because I lost track of time and forgot to start cooking." Adrien wanted to kick himself for that little blunder- cooking would have been a fantastic study break, and then they wouldn't have had to eat leftovers that they had been saving for when they were both busy. He also wanted to kick himself for not finding out when Fashion Week would be, because that was fairly important.

Best-case scenario, it would be before his midterms and so Marinette would be able to cook for both of them while he did his exams. Worst-case scenario, both would fall at the same time and they would end up being a huge pile of stress.

He could only hope for the best.

As it turned out, Fashion Week and Adrien's midterms didn't line up, but the run-up to Runway Week did fall right during Adrien's midterms and that was even more of problem than Fashion Week itself would have been. They went through their entire stockpile of frozen food plus several frozen pizzas during the frantic two weeks full of studying and sewing.

"I'll be glad when this is over," Marinette grumbled as she staggered into Adrien's apartment after a long day at work. A huge number of models had come in for fittings, and she had spent the entire day marking up little changes that had to be done. The following day would be spent joining the seamstresses to help with the alterations so that everything would be finished by the time the models came in for their final fitting. There had also been discussions on accessories, an argument about hair styling, and a frantic frenzy as they organized the shipment of shoes that had only just come in.

It had been a long day in an already long week, and it was still only Wednesday.

"Hey, Marinette!" Adrien called from the kitchen. The smell of baking pizza filled the apartment, making Marinette's stomach grumble despite how sick she was of pizza. They had it for dinner, they had it as leftovers for lunch, and she had even had a piece for a snack a few days prior. She and Adrien tried to mix the flavors up, but there was really only so much they could do.

"Did your exam today go well?" Marinette asked as she entered the dining room area. She couldn't remember which class the test had been for (something math-y, no doubt), but Adrien hadn't been particularly looking forward to it. Now that that test was over, he only had one test left before he got his weeklong break prior to the start of the second half of the semester. Mr. Agreste had called him up several times hoping that Adrien would come back to Paris for the break, but Adrien hadn't quite decided yet if he wanted to or not.

Or maybe he had decided and just hadn't bothered to tell anyone yet for one reason or another. She wasn't going to press too much.

"The test went all right. I don't think I could have handled studying for it for any longer." Adrien flashed an exhausted grin at Marinette. "At least my last test is for a class I actually like. I've been reviewing my notes, but I shouldn't have any problems."

"That's good." At least once one of them was done with their cram time they wouldn't both be on edge. It was hard to unwind when both of them were worried about something and neither had the time to cook.

"At least your finals don't line up with anything," Marinette said, leaning over the short dividing wall that separated the dining area from the kitchen. "I should be able to cook then."

Adrien laughed. "Is that a not-so-subtle way of asking if I can cook next week?"

"You caught me." Of course, it was possible that she would be staying at the Fashion Week buildings late enough that she would have to order out or snitch leftovers from Adrien...or, if he decided to go back to Paris, she would have to fend for herself. She foresaw lots of pasta in her future. "Have you decided what you're going to do during your break week? I can manage to feed myself if you're going to go back to Paris. After all, I'm only actually working on Monday, since that's when Madam Rosalie's show is. I'll just be watching other shows the rest of the week."

Adrien shrugged, looking sheepish. "I don't actually know. My father wants me to come back and visit him, but I kind of want to explore the city more while I'm here." He flashed her a smile, making Marinette's heart skip a beat. She might be more or less over Adrien- or at least that was what she tried to tell herself- but there were times when he was just too gorgeous for his own good. "Plus, I want to be here to see your first runway."

And then he said things like that, and Marinette wondered if she ever had a chance at getting over him. All signs pointed towards no.

"It might be hard getting in the building, but it would be nice to have you there," Marinette admitted. Her parents couldn't get away from the bakery, and both Nino and Alya were busy with their own jobs. She would have her colleagues, of course, but that wasn't the same. They had all seen the outfits a hundred times at this point, so they wouldn't have the same reactions to seeing the pieces as a fresh pair of eyes would have.

Adrien laughed at that. "Actually, Madam Rosalie already got me tickets. She said she normally gets some for my father, but he never uses them. She said it was as thanks for participating in the wedding photoshoot." He rolled his eyes and returned to assembling a salad. "I honestly can't figure out who owes who at this point. It's too confusing. But at least it's the 'no I owe you' mindset instead of both of us insisting the other owes us something," Adrien added. "This is much nicer."

"Fair enough." Marinette leaned over the divider, trying to catch a glimpse of the kitchen timer. Her stomach was growling, but there really wasn't a polite way of asking how soon they could eat. "Is there anything I can be helping with?" Now that she had (finally) left work, she was technically free. Adrien, on the other hand, still had studying to do, even if he was trying to avoid it.

"Oh, sure! I was hoping to have a fruit salad with the pizza. We can at least pretend that we're eating healthy." Adrien pointed to the mango sitting on the counter. He had been planning on cutting that up next, but if Marinette was offering, all the better. "You could get that ready, maybe. We should probably use it up before it gets too over-ripe and we have to throw it away."

"Will do."

A brief silence fell over the room as they worked. Adrien busied himself with chopping pineapple while Marinette peeled and cut up the mango. They got everything done and on the table before the timer went off for the pizza.

"When are you done tomorrow?" Marinette asked as Adrien pulled the pizza out of the oven and started cutting it. "Your test is midday, right?"

"Yeah, it starts at twelve-thirty. Thank goodness it's not on Friday, I don't know if I could actually keep studying much longer." Adrien passed Marinette a slice of pizza before serving up a piece for himself. "I'm looking forward to having a week to relax and get my head back on straight before diving back into classes."

"Is it a lot different than business school?"

Adrien thought about it as he took his first bite of pizza. "Yes and no? I mean, obviously it's different topics, and this time I'm at least actually interested in them. We have more labs now, too. But otherwise? The setup is kind of similar, and it's definitely helpful to have that prior experience of when I need to start studying so that I have plenty of time."

"Do a lot of other people struggle with that?"

"Some. I've heard several people talking about all-nighters they pulled to get a paper in on time." Even Paul, who Adrien had thought was smarter than that, had pulled an all-nighter already to get a paper done. Adrien hadn't been able to resist teasing his friend; after all, it wasn't often that he was more awake than Paul. Paul hadn't particularly appreciated the teasing, but he couldn't deny that he had deserved it. "How are the Fashion Week preparations going?"

Adrien couldn't deny that he was stalling, just a bit. He didn't particularly want to go back to studying, since that was all he had been doing all afternoon. A nap sounded far better, or a run over the rooftops, but he had to be responsible. Once he and Marinette finished up with dinner, he would have to go back to reviewing his notes and doing a few more practice problems from his book. Maybe he could persuade Marinette to let him help with the dishes, just to get a little bit more of a break.

Marinette shrugged. "So far, so good. I mean, we're working overtime to get fittings and photoshoots done, but almost everything is ready. I always got the impression that things were crazier because of, y'know, those TV shows..."

Adrien nodded.

"And I'm sure that the backstage area will be insane once Fashion Week starts, but we're hardly making stuff last minute," Marinette added hastily. "Pieces are finished, we're just polishing them up and getting everything in order. I wouldn't be surprised if we all finish early tonight just because we've been rushing to finish all week. I think there's some hand beading that maybe needs to be finished, and then getting things in boxes and carted over." Marinette shrugged, looking pleased. She polished off her pizza and got up to grab another piece.

Soon enough, dinner was over and cleaned up. Marinette excused herself so that Adrien could study in peace, much to his disappointment. Adrien had rather been hoping for a distraction.

"We're all out of Camembert!"

...a distraction that was not in the form of his kwami, that was.

"Don't we have other kinds of cheese?" Adrien asked tiredly as he flipped through a couple flashcards.

"Yes, but I want Camembert!"

Adrien sighed again. "I'll get you some tomorrow after my test. I'm not going to interrupt my studying again, Plagg. I just found something that I need to review more."

"Really? No more interruptions?" Plagg suddenly sounded decidedly impish. "Not even red-and-black interruptions?"

Adrien's head came up at that. "What?"

Plagg pointed to the window instead of answering. Adrien got up and rushed over, peering out into the darkness. Movement on the rooftops caught his eye and he squinted, trying to see more clearly. A moment later, the figure went past a streetlight and Adrien caught sight of a red suit dotted with black spots.

"Ladybug's out," Adrien breathed, twisting so he could watch his partner as she ran over the rooftops. His hand twitched towards Plagg, tempted to summon the kwami, transform, and run after Ladybug. He'd been studying for forever, surely he deserved a break-

A snicker from Plagg made Adrien snap out of his Ladybug-induced trance. He suddenly realized that that was exactly the response Plagg was hoping he would have. If Adrien showed any willingness to go join Ladybug, then Plagg would call him out on his excuse for not getting cheese because he was too busy studying. And of course Plagg would say that he would need his Camembert before Adrien could transform, so Adrien would have to go to the store first, buy the cheese, come back, and then transform, by which time Ladybug could very well already be done with her outing.

"Maybe tomorrow," Adrien said with the most dramatic sigh he could muster.

Plagg's mouth dropped open. "You aren't going out? B-but I thought-"

"I'm too busy. I have a test tomorrow, remember?" Adrien watched as Ladybug disappeared from view and then turned back to his books. As much as he wanted to join his partner, he couldn't. Besides, it wasn't as though he would be missing anything particularly important. He and Ladybug always did the same thing when they ran into each other on the rooftops of London. "I can't wait for it to be over. I think I spent too much time messing around with the study group. We didn't get much done." Adrien wasn't looking forward to telling Paul that if the other boy tried to put a group together for finals, but the others in the group just hadn't been focused enough and they had wasted hours chatting instead of studying. It might have been fun if it hadn't been so frustrating.

"Have you decided what you're doing next week?" Plagg asked, floating along behind Adrien. "You need to tell your father soon, you know. Same-day train tickets are expensive. So are same-day plane tickets."

"I'm not going back to Paris." Adrien had considered it, sure- he missed Nino and Alya, after all, and it would be nice to see his father and Nathalie and the Gorilla again- but Marinette would be tired from Fashion Week and it would be a shame to miss her first show. She would want to have a friendly face there, and she had already said that her parents wouldn't be able to make it. And then, once Madam Rosalie's part of the show wrapped up and Marinette had seen all of the other shows that she wanted to peek into, they could go explore more of London or maybe make plans to venture a little further on a long weekend excursion. He'd known his plans for a while now, actually, but he just didn't want to tell his father that. Adrien knew full well that if he told his father that his mind was made up and he was staying in London over the break, his father would flood his phone with messages about why it would be beneficial for Adrien to spend the week in Paris. The procrastinating on an answer wasn't preventing that entirely- Adrien was getting a dozen texts and a call per day- but he was waiting for his final test to be over before announcing his decision.

Plagg raised an eyebrow. "And you didn't tell your wife that...why?"

"She might tell Nino or Alya and then my father would interrogate them?" Adrien offered a bit weakly as he paged through his notebook. He didn't really have an answer for that, other than the fact that he had just gotten so used to not telling his father that it had just seemed natural to not tell his friend, either. It was stupid, reasoning, but so automatic at this point. "And she's not actually my wife, Plagg. We've been over this a million times or so."

"You keep saying that, and then you keep having dinner dates with her, and visiting her at lunch, and texting her all day," Plagg said, smirking. He settled on top of Adrien's computer and peered down at his Chosen. "And you're ditching visiting your father and your other friends to watch your wife's runway show."

"It's Madam Rosalie's runway show," Adrien corrected. "And she is certainly not my wife." He glanced down at his notebook and frowned suddenly. "And I really do need to study, Plagg. Just eat the cheddar or something. Seriously."

"Aww...."

A/N: ...so I discovered (several months after writing this chapter and the next) that unis in London apparently don't actually have a fall break (my fault for assuming; since the uni I went to in NZ had a fall break and I've definitely heard of other countries having one as well, I just sort of assumed that it was universal). I'm just claiming artistic license on that, since it's sort of impossible to edit that out (sinc eit's kind of important for the next two chapters).

Also, if the Miraculous universe can switch around when mayoral and class president elections are, then I can stick in a teensy-weensy break for plot purposes.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review, it really makes my day! :)