Adrien was awakened at 6h30 by Nathalie the following morning. "You're meant to have breakfast with your father this morning," she'd announced curtly. "He expects you ready and at the dining table at 7h00 sharp."

Adrien internally groaned. If he'd looked at his schedule beforehand, maybe he wouldn't have stayed out so late with Marinette the night before. Maybe. He supposed he was only trying to kid himself by even pretending to believe that. He'd gotten less sleep for far, far worse reasons than hanging out with his good friend.

"Thank you, Nathalie," he responded politely before tossing off his blankets to get ready for the day ahead of him. He made his bed and opened his phone's calendar, wondering what else was on his agenda that he should be getting ready for.

The day was blank. There was nothing scheduled, shockingly. Not even the breakfast was officially scheduled, making him feel queasy. Anything involving himself and Gabriel was scheduled at least a week in advance, or it was all but guaranteed to be bad. If he hadn't been scheduled to have breakfast with his father, why would Nathalie tell him that was what they were doing?

His heart began to pound in his chest as he thought about why his father might want to talk to him. He swallowed deeply, and wondered if somehow, Gabriel had managed to figure out that Marinette had been spending time with 'Chat Noir' instead of Adrien. He knew it was unlikely, but so had been the chances of Gabriel being a supervillain. Adrien figured it was best not to rule anything out too quickly.

He figured that regardless, the best course of action was to act like it was any other breakfast with his father. He put on a pair of jeans and a relatively casual button down. He styled his hair, knowing that Gabriel didn't approve of the more natural, rugged look that Adrien had been sporting recently.

He arrived downstairs at 06h58 and took the full two minutes walking into the dining room to take his seat, knowing Gabriel well enough to be aware that 07h00 meant 07h00. "Good morning, father," he greeted as he sat, meeting his father's eyes from across the table.

"Good morning, Adrien." A few, brief moments after Gabriel greeted his son, their breakfast was brought in. Adrien placed his napkin in his lap and looked at the omelette on his plate. It was his favorite, not that he thought Gabriel knew that. He picked up his fork and took a small bite of the breakfast, weary of the motivations behind their breakfast.

The past few times that Adrien had been summoned to speak with his father, the two of them talked about his reign as Monarch. This time seemed different, though. It always seemed like Nathalie was the only one aside from himself who knew the secret identity of the supervillain.

"I asked you here to talk about your intentions with Mlle. Dupain-Cheng." Adrien caught the piece of omelette in his throat and coughed gently. He took a sip of his water, giving himself a moment to recover from the shock of choking on his breakfast.

"I have no intentions with Marinette," Adrien claimed, no matter how unbelievable it was. He picked up the napkin and used it to wipe away any remaining debris from his coughing fit. "She's just a friend of mine that I enjoy spending time with."

"It would do you well not to lie to me, son. You've been flirting with my intern during work hours. If that will impact either of your performances at work, it is something that needs to be discussed and dealt with before it can cause any problems."

"I haven't been flirting with her!" Adrien's claim was proven empty, however, when Gabriel signaled Nathalie. She held out her tablet and showed him a picture of himself holding a letter that had been addressed to 'Princess.' She swiped the photo gallery to the next image, showing Marinette reading the letter with a smile on her face.

He'd never seen her read one of his letters before. She seemed to always step away when she read his letters, which he'd appreciated. It meant that her correspondence with the once-hero remained as private as it could. Seeing her read the letter, though, it made his heart light up with joy.

The way she held it was like she was dealing with the most precious thing in the world. The smile on her face was the one she'd always made with their friends, when one of them told a particularly bad joke and she was doing her best not to react.

Her tongue was poking out slightly, like she had been biting it to keep quiet. He wondered, briefly, which letter of his had gotten that reaction out of her. "-eady?" He shook himself out of his stupor when he realized that his father was still talking to him. He blinked a few times before he looked back up toward the man at the other end of the table.

When Adrien didn't react to the question, Gabriel motioned for Nathalie to take the tablet back away, taking the distracting image away from his son. "How long have you two been going steady?" Gabriel repeated the question, something he despised doing.

Adrien swallowed the saliva in his mouth. "We aren't going steady ," he corrected, emphasizing the word choice that Gabriel used.

"Going steady, going on dates, whatever you kids are calling it nowadays. Do you think that I," Gabriel paused his sentence to adjust his cravat, a subtle nod to his second identity, "don't recognize a relationship when I see one? You've been on multiple hours long dates with her and you've exchanged countless of these 'love letters' since she started her internship."

This was the first time that Adrien was forced to think about his friendship with Marinette from the outside perspective. He knew he'd enjoyed the time he spend with her, how could he not? He knew he had to be careful what he said, because if this was something that Gabriel followed up about with Marinette, it would put both their identities at risk, and likely her safety, too.

"I," Adrien paused, still looking for the correct response to offer. "I haven't told her how I feel." He let out a sigh, trying to sell the story (whether he was trying to sell it to himself or Gabriel, he wasn't sure). The look on his father's face turned to astonishment with Adrien's answer.

"When we first met, she didn't like me very much," Adrien admitted to his father. "Since then, I've been trying to build myself back up in her eyes. It started as a 'secret admirer' thing, but then we started hanging out, so she could get to know me more. I still don't know how she feels about me."

"Very well," Gabriel finally said after stewing on the provided information for a short while. "When the two of you decide to go steady. We'll return to this conversation." Adrien nodded in agreement before focusing his attention back on his breakfast.