Secrets
Marinette virtually slammed the door to the bathroom shut.
"You could have told me you were sending me on a date with Adrien Agreste!" she panicked, staring at her best friend with damp eyes.
Alya shrugged. "I knew you'd react like this and wouldn't go!"
"That's my decision to make, Alya. I'm freaking out here."
Alya folded her arms and leaned against the sink counters. "Girl, you look stunning and Adrien is going to love you. Sure, he's way famous and has people begging to go out with him but Nino says he's really down to Earth. Just be yourself."
Marinette closed her eyes and gripped the edges of the sink.
"I can't believe Nino's best friend is the same guy that starred in movies we've binge-watched," Marinette mumbled.
Alya chuckled. "I know, right? He never even felt the need to tell me until the other day."
"You've been together three years!"
"That's what I said to him!"
The pair laughed together, making Marinette's muscles relax.
She took a deep breath. "Okay, I can do this. Be totally normal. Okay."
"Welllll, maybe try to be less clumsy. Your phone's already smashed so let's not break any glasses or anything," Alya joked.
"Ha-Ha," Marinette deadpanned, rolling her eyes. "Right, let's get back out there."
Alya and Marinette exited the bathroom and walked across the restaurant's wooden floor on a clear path to the rectangular table close to the bar where Nino and Adrien sat side by side laughing with one another.
"-and that's how I got nicknamed 'The Bubbler'," Nino finished.
The men guffawed, clutching their stomachs and not even noticing the two women join them at the table.
"Not that story again," Alya pulled back the chair opposite her boyfriend and sat down.
"It never gets old," Nino wiped his eyes, the muscles in his face straining under the large smile.
Marinette took a seat to the side of her best friend, aware that she was directly opposite Adrien who watched her as she joined them at the table.
"I'm starving," Alya complained as she picked up one of the four leather-bound menus that had been placed in front of them.
Adrien picked up two menus and passed one to Marinette wordlessly before he browsed to find what took his interest.
Marinette bit her lip as she turned the pages to see the gold, cursive lettering on the crisp white pages. Her gaze automatically landed on the nearest price tag underneath one of the meals and her stomach churned. She had received her payment for the first week of work, but payday for the second wouldn't be until after the meal and this would definitely put a dent in her bank account.
Alya tapped a page on her own menu. "I think I'm going to order the Sole Meunière. The magazine's food correspondent did I review on this place- it's not been published yet- but he tried that and said it's amazing."
"I can't keep my eyes off the dessert menu," Nino admitted. "I could skip dinner and go straight to ordering an apple crumble."
Alya began to chuckle with her boyfriend as they discussed other options for his dinner that would be less sweet.
Adrien looked up from his menu to Marinette. "Have you seen anything you'd like?"
Marinette stared at him for a long second before avoiding his glittering eyes, returning back to the menu and scanning her finger down the page before stopping on a random dish. "Pot-au-feu?"
"I was going to pick the exact same thing," Adrien laughed. "What are you drinking? Red wine is always a good combination with that."
"I'll get… I'll get a…"
"May I take your orders?" a waiter asked, appearing suddenly at the table like a timer hurrying Marinette to decide.
Alya and Nino began stating their final decisions.
"We could get a bottle of cabernet franc between us if you'd like," Adrien suggested, noticing Marinette's alarmed eyes.
She exhaled and nodded her head, closing the menu in her hands and setting it on the table. The couple placed their order and the waiter disappeared through to the kitchen to pass it on to the chef.
"So," Alya began, straightening her posture and leaning forward to the group, "I'm working on a new movie article for the next magazine issue and I've spent the past week searching for the next best thing to write about, but get this…"
She paused for dramatic effect while the group all stared in anticipation.
"I heard a rumour going around that Kubdel is back and making a new film."
Marinette stiffened.
Nino grinned. "No way."
"I love his work," Adrien said, shuffling in his seat and smiling with interest. "What did you find out?"
"Unfortunately not much," she sighed in response. "I contacted his usual production company to see if I could get any insight but they wouldn't even let on that the rumour was true or not. So far all I've heard from the rumours online is that his car has been spotted going into the same film lot he used to work in every day for the past two weeks."
"What about anybody familiar going there as well?" Adrien wondered.
"The person who's been on the lookout has actually seen other people going there daily, so there are quite a few people they hinted could be involved."
Adrien sat further forward. "Including the stars? Do they know who could be in it?"
"There are plenty of movies made at that lot," Marinette defended, speaking up suddenly. "If the rumours are true, how could anyone guess the stars until they start marketing?"
All eyes turned to her.
"I mean, not that I'd really know. I've only been a couple of times. For the little film I'm working on."
"You didn't see Kubdel anywhere?" Alya questioned, resting her chin on her hand.
"I don't know what he looks like," Marinette shrugged, eyes gazing off around the restaurant where she saw the waiter approach with a tray of glasses. "Oh, the drinks are here."
The waiter passed the glasses around the table and began pouring the respective drinks into the correct glasses.
"You'd tell me if you saw anything though, right Marinette?"
Marinette flashed her friend a smile. "Of course."
She gulped some of the wine.
Nino swirled the glass of white wine he had, watching spirals appear in the alcohol. "What about you, Adrien, have you been working on anything lately?"
Adrien swallowed some wine then set the glass back to the table. "Uh, I'm actually just working on small productions for a while, to give me a break, you know? But what have you been doing?"
"Working the same club as always, man. I'd love to do more places but I can't complain, I enjoy it and the pay is good. It means I can treat Alya to meals like this a lot more often than I used to."
"Aww," Alya grinned.
"How did you two meet?" Adrien smiled at the couple.
"I was on an internship three years ago for the magazine I'm still at," Alya explained.
"And I was just starting out as a DJ in nightclubs." Nino linked his hand with Alya's, resting them across the table. "I'd only turned eighteen a few months before so hadn't been able to work in clubs before then."
"I had to interview him," Alya giggled with the memory. "We were basically thrown into a room together and left to talk. I had no idea who he was but had to find out everything about him for an article with no guidance."
"The rest is history," Nino beamed lovingly.
Marinette's eyes settled on their locked hands then drifted to her own cold and empty hands. She picked up the wine glass and drank some more.
Feeling her best friend's gaze on her, Marinette forced a smile.
The waiter reappeared beside the table. "Pot-au-feu?"
Marinette raised her hand slightly.
"That was fast," Nino said happily.
Not fast enough, Marinette thought to herself.
A cab arrived outside of the restaurant, lighting up the road with its headlights against the dark evening.
"Are you sure you don't want to jump in with us? We could take you home on the way," Alya said to Marinette, hands on the sides of her upper arms.
"That's okay, Alya, it'll already take you some time to get home. I don't live far and it's a nice evening so I can walk," Marinette assured her with a bright smile.
Alya wrapped her arms around her friend while Nino said goodbye to Adrien in the doorway of the restaurant.
"Text me when you're home, okay Marinette?"
"Will do."
Nino and Alya separated from their friends, leaving the restaurant and climbing into their cab, waving as it pulled away and disappeared down the street.
Adrien turned to Marinette. "Can… Can I walk you home?"
The actress brushed her hair behind her ear. "It's not far, you don't have to do that. Besides, what if you get recognised?"
"I never get noticed at night," he shrugged. "It's pretty dark out and there are plenty of guys with blond hair in the city so people think nothing of it. Sometimes I do actually take a walk around when it's dark so I can enjoy my home more."
Marinette hesitated. She had never put much thought into how trapped Adrien was as a famous actor, not even able to enjoy what Paris had to offer without having the media and the public trying to photograph him. She wondered if her life would be any similar once the news broke that she was Ladybug.
"Okay. I live ten minutes up the Seine."
Adrien smiled and held the restaurant door open for her, leading them both onto the breezy Parisian streets.
They crossed over the road to walk alongside the river, following its direction towards Marinette's bakery.
"Nino seems really happy with Alya," Adrien reflected, watching his feet as he walked with his hands in his pockets. "It's nice to see people fit together so perfectly like them."
Marinette agreed. Alya had been her best friend since forever and Marinette had witnessed break-ups throughout their teens with people not worthy of her time, so finally being able to see her settled with someone so in love made her heart fill with joy, but also made her aware of the thing she was missing.
"Have you ever been in love?" she asked, words falling from her mouth before she could stop them.
"I, uh, I sort of…" he brushed his hand against the back of his neck. "It's always been really complicated."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked like that," Marinette apologised, watching her steps along the concrete road.
"No, it's fine really. I've just grown up under the watchful gaze of Paris' entire public, you know, being Gabriel Agreste's son. When I moved on from modelling and started doing TV adverts, I thought I'd be getting away from that by carving my own path but I see now it made things a lot worse."
Marinette raised a brow. "Why's that?"
"There was a lot of reporting about it that I'd dropped out of modelling because of a bad relationship with my father, and that made me gain even more public interest because I was getting headlines in the newspapers and magazines daily with updates about my life, even though I was a kid."
"That's awful."
"I got used to it," he stated quietly. "All that attention made people recognise me more and in turn, people wanted to be in a relationship with me for the fame or the gossip. My agent and I decided it was just in my best interest to hold off from them while I was in the spotlight so much."
"Forgive me if I'm prying, but were you not in a relationship with Chloe Bourgeois?"
Adrien brushed a hand through his honey coloured hair.. "Again, that was complicated."
After a few steps more of silence, Marinette considered his words before speaking up. "You say that going into acting made the media gain more interest in you, but I'm not sure that's to blame. If you had stayed as a model and not done what you actually wanted to do, I think people would still want to know what was going on with your life, especially as you grew older, so it's got to be better that you did make your own path or you would be unhappy."
"Huh," Adrien blew out a single laugh of recognition. "I suppose you're right."
They walked in silence for a minute, a gap between them ensuring their distance.
The path along the Seine was almost devoid of people except for a few tourists that occupied benches and huddled together to fit into pictures on their cameras. A couple shared a kiss and photographed the moment.
"Have you?"
"Hm?"
"Have you ever been in love?" Adrien clarified, awaiting her reaction with big eyes.
"No," she looked down at her hands and played with the button on the purse she held. "I kind of just blend in so nobody ever noticed me."
"I find that hard to believe," Adrien replied.
She stayed silent.
"Alya didn't seem to know that we already knew one another," Adrien pointed out. "It may not seem like a big deal but thanks for not racing to tell her that we were talking. Most people would have already sold a story to the papers by now."
He gave a laugh that lacked all humour.
"I didn't really think it was something she needed to know. Plus I didn't want to have her knowing I'm at the film lot all of the time," Marinette smiled softly at him. "We all have our secrets, right?"
He stared at her for a long second, a smile growing on his face. "Yeah."
Marinette looked up at the bakery which stood before them. For a second she wondered how they had arrived so quickly and wished it had taken longer. "Well, this is my stop. Thank you for walking me home."
"No problem," he said, shifting his weight from his heels to his toes and swaying. "Will I see you again this week? At the café?"
Marinette nodded enthusiastically. "I'd love that."
"Okay," he smiled brighter. "Goodbye, Marinette."
"Goodbye, Adrien," she waved, pushing the door to the bakery open and slipping inside.
She closed the door behind herself and leaned against it, bringing a hand to her face to feel the warmth that she hoped he hadn't been able to see.
Her phone chimed.
To: Marinette
From: Adrien
Thank you for a lovely evening. Sleep well – Adrien x
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