His life had settled into some kind of normal. They were working their way through his collection of Akuma and the empty jars were piling up. He had started telling her in his little stream on consciousness text messages what he was going to collect instead: shiny rocks or stamps (but only one per jar) or earrings or - her suggestion - plush mice.

Adrien's days fell into a rhythm around all the time he was spending as Chat Noir. He didn't sleep enough. He dragged his way through the math unit from hell only to have the next one be even harder and the project in his design class needed twice as much work as he had been planning for. The fall show had entered that strange period where everyone but the models were busy as bees and the models had nothing to do until the actual runway rehearsals started. But they were coming. Hours of rehearsals and makeup tests and slight reordering of who went first that threw everyone into a tailspin of bruised egos and debates on colour clashes.

While he had the time, Adrien threw everything into school, trying to get as much done as he could before he lost what little was left of his free time to the winter show.

"I still don't know how you do it," Nino said. They both had Tuesday afternoons off from classes and had started a tradition of meeting at a little restaurant between their campuses. They ate the kind of food the dietitians would have died to know that Adrien had even been in the same room as.

"I'm only taking half the full course load. It's going to take me four or five years to finish even with everything I take in the summer," Adrien said waving a fry in the air.

"Still, if I was filthy rich, I don't think I'd bother with classes. You could spend all day playing video games and dating hot women, instead Calculus. Who takes Calculus if they have any other choices?" Nino pointed at Adrien's pile of books. He had another class at four that afternoon.

"I'd like to someday live on something other than my father's legacy," Adrien said. "And we both know you'd get bored a week into doing nothing but playing video games. You suck at video games."

Nino had laughed at that and let the conversation go but it clung to Adrien sometimes. He could make his life easier if he let school go, even just for a few years and come back to it when he had more time. But a piece of him feared that he would never go back. If he stopped now, he'd never be anything but a model and then someday a former model. Only ever Gabriel's son.

His other lunch buddy never actually offered any advice on it but her very existence was a testament to not giving up. He didn't need to go into the office as many days as he did but if he got there at 12:30, he could be almost guaranteed to find Marinette in the lunchroom. If she wasn't in the lunchroom, she'd be up in one of the workrooms, figuring over some problem and forgetting she needed to eat.

All he wanted was out of fashion and all she wanted was into it.

"Alya tells me you're studying electrical engineering," Marinette said. She sat on the stool behind a design table and ate the yogurt he had brought her. She sat well back from the table so there wasn't any chance she could spill on the diagrams laid out there.

"I started in engineering but it wasn't really for me. All technical and nothing else. I'm in an architecture stream right now though it'll probably take a masters if I ever want to work as an architect," he said leaning against the table and eating a fruit salad. His dietitian was pleased with how many lunches he was eating on site, she thought he was taking his diet more seriously. He did not argue with her. He had a chocolate bar in his bag to eat as soon as he was sure no one would see him.

"So the design thing runs in the family?" Marinette asked.

"I guess so but buildings are different from clothes," he said.

"Not really," she said and then she set her yogurt aside and spun back to the work table and made him turn around so she could explain jacket construction to him. He understood her point but he listened less because he cared about the diagrams in front of her than because he liked how much she cared about it. She had a dream and the internship under Stefan and Elijah hadn't crushed it yet.

"Are you excited for the big event?" he asked after conceding the point that clothing construction and building design weren't so wildly different. He lingered to talk even though he was out of time and he was going to have to hop a bus or run as Chat Noir if he hoped to make it back to campus in time for class.

The Gala wasn't such a looming event when he had her coming with him. He'd been to enough events like that that they didn't stress him out anymore. Marinette turned to look directly at him before fiddling with the papers on the table. She gathered them and tapped them into a nice neat stack and then started laying them out again.

"I'm terrified and I'm going to trip and fall in the chocolate fountain," she said.

"You won't. You'll be incredible, charming and clever and everyone will love you," he said waving off her concerns. She gave him one of those strange looks that he could never quite interpret. Almost like he had embarrassed her but not quite. He waved that off too and asked, "Can I see how the dress is coming?"

"No," she said.

"Is this like a wedding day thing?" he asked with his best Chat Noir grin so she knew he was teasing. She narrowed her eyes at him. A little glare before she rolled her eyes.

"No! It's an it's not finished thing," she said, "I don't have any time. I didn't know when I signed up to be an intern that intern was a code word meaning human sewing machine. When the little signs on the programs at the winter show brag that everything is handmade in-house, they mean that I did it."

It started out as a complaint but she stopped and smiled down at the designs on the table and repeated it, "I did it. I made something that's going to be on one of the biggest Paris runways. I didn't design it but I made it. How many people can say that?"

"Not many. And it's going to be beautiful," Adrien told her. He was late and couldn't stay to watch her smile at her handiwork.

"I hope so," she said.

"It will. We're lucky to have you here," he said.

Before he left he gave her a one armed hug. She watched him go with that nearly embarrassed look on her face again. He waved from the door and tossed her his chocolate on the desk so she'd have something to eat when she forgot her next meal. That got him a smile to carry along with him while he rushed across the city.