There had been some turbulence when coming into JFK International Airport, but things had mostly worked out okay for the rest of the plane ride, save for the seemingly unending panic attack that Marinette had been experiencing since Alya's revelation.
It won't work. There's no way it will work. The words kept repeating through her head, even as the girls made their way slowly forward to the customs counter. He's going to think I'm so boring. He's going to think I'm so lame. There's no chance that I won't do something stupid and embarrassing and lose the chance that we'll ever... be...
She reddened a bit. If Marinette was being totally honest with herself, she knew deep down that she would probably never find the confidence to ask out Adrien Agreste. She wasn't even sure at times that doing so was even her real end goal. He was sweet, he was considerate, he was handsome and worldly. He was truly all she'd ever wanted in a boyfriend, but what truly was she in comparison?
I don't even know what we'd talk about...
Marinette shook the thoughts out of her head. All she had to do was not screw up anything for two weeks or lose all chances for whatever she wanted with Adrien. Forever.
Great.
When she and Alya were beckoned forward, Marinette straightened herself up, forced thoughts of Adrien from her mind, and approached the counter.
"{Passports please,}" beckoned the border agent, to which Alya and Marinette complied immediately. Upon receiving two passports over the counter, the agent looked up, confused. "{This is supposed to be one at a time.}"
Alya nodded, pointing at Marinette, "{Her English is very bad.}"
"{HELLO TO YOU, SIR!}" was all Marinette had to add. She had known in advance that customs would be one of the only times where speaking English was absolutely unavoidable. She was very confident that she had this one down.
The border agent stared blankly for a second, before sighing and starting lazily to examine the passports. It had already been a very long day, and without even a single glance towards his subjects, or a single breath taken during the sentence, he said, "{Do you have anything to declare before entering the United States? Any food or drink that you're bringing from France?}"
Alya and Marinette stared, wide eyed. Alya leaned over to her friend, "Damn, I understood literally 'France'."
"{GOOD MORNING!}" was what Marinette had to add. "{I AM NOT CRIMINAL.}"
"Shit, uh," Alya turned back to the American, running a hand over her forehead. "{I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do we have... what?}"
"{Food. Drink.}"
"He's asking us if we want... something to eat? Is it like a traditional New York greeting?"
"{NO THANK YOU. NOT HUNGRY TODAY.}"
"Wow, I really have no idea what he's going on about." Alya looked around for help, "You'd think they would put someone who spoke French on the plane arriving from France."
"{Wait,}" said the border agent, also currently looking for aid, "{Hold on, we're understaffed today.}"
"What the hell is he saying now?" Marinette asked. This wasn't going exactly as smoothly as she had hoped.
"Honestly? Couldn't tell you."
Unbidden and unexpected by everyone, a fourth voice joined the conversation, one that had the shape and timber of all Marinette's dreams. "He was asking if you're bringing food. If you have any in your bags. It's illegal to bring in food."
Marinette couldn't quite stifle a gasp as Adrien stepped to the counter. "{I don't think they have anything, sir. This is just a school trip.}"
"{You can't answer for them. They must legally answer for themselves.}"
"{No! No food, we have no food or drinking.}" Alya said emphatically.
"{I AM fuh-f-FRANCE!}" Marinette shouted, trying desperately not to look at Adrien as she did so.
While languages are of course not universal, human emotions are. As Marinette stared down the TSA Officer, her face the color of a fire hydrant and sheer, unadulterated panic in her eyes, the officer decided that one of two logical conclusions could be drawn from her reactions:
1. This is deffo a terrorist.
2. This is deffo a teenaged girl, and she's had a crush on that boy who just stepped up for most of her high school career, and she knows that this class trip is going to be a make-it-or-break-it moment for them, and she's praying to whatever her god is that I don't prompt her to speak English again because wow he's so much better at it than she could ever hope to be.
For a moment, no one moved or spoke.
Officer Johnson stamped both of the girls' passports, and handed them back through the window.
"{Welcome to the United States, please enjoy your stay.}"
As the class regrouped, waiting for the bus that would cart them from the airport and into the city proper, Alya heaved a great sigh.
"Damn, looks like you're not the only one who needs to practice, Mari."
Marinette kicked at the ground, "Well, I mean, you did better than me. I think."
Alya smirked at her friend, "Yes, I'm sure you were the deciding factor in our admittance."
"Hey! I was trying, okay? They just talk so fast."
Alya nodded emphatically. That much was indisputable. She cracked her neck and started to look around, "Well, we all got through. Your Boy Wonder really saved a lot of people's bacon back there."
It was true. After Marinette and Alya's interaction, the officer had agreed to let Adrian stay near the window as de facto translator for the rest of his class. It was an action mostly designed to speed up the process, but unbeknownst to anyone but Officer Johnson himself, allow to Marinette to vacate the premises as stealthily as possible.
The last thing he needed today was someone fainting while he was on duty.
Back outside, Marinette gathered herself and took a moment to look around. "Wow."
"What's that?"
"I mean... we're here. We're really here," she giggled, excitement finally overriding her stress. "I can't believe the cars are really that big! It looks just like the movies!"
Alya nodded, taking her first breaths of air in the new land. To her, she thought it somehow smelled different. A little more polluted, perhaps, but there was a crispness to it. The idea that not everywhere on earth smelled the same was somehow novel to her. What did Peru smell like? Russia?
She smiled and slipped her arm around Marinette's shoulder. "You really did do it, Mari. We're here."
Marinette leaned onto her friend and smiled. Unbidden by anything else, a thought rose to the top of her mind.
What would Chat Noir say if he could see this right now?
"Hey, I got us some coffee," Adrien said.
Mari blinked, turning. Adrien stood in front of them, holding four Starbucks in one of those cardboard coffee holders. He smiled and handed her one of the drinks. "Thought you might be able to use some after the flight."
Marinette felt the butterflies rising up in her chest, and wrestled them down. She was going to be sharing a room with Adrien. It was going to be two weeks.
This was going to have to work. She was Ladybug, god damn it. She could do this!
It was time to put Nino's plan into action.
Marinette summoned her willpower, and forced herself to imagine that she was speaking with the spots on, and that she was just talking to Chat. This she could do. This was manageable.
She reached out her hand and took the drink. "Thanks, Adrien. T-that's really cool of you."
"You like iced coffee, right?"
"Mostly I like l-lattes, but iced is fine."
"Oh, jeez," Adrien said, looking genuinely disappointed. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay!" Marinette said quickly, "I... I actually kinda wanted iced right this second..."
Which wasn't exactly true, but for once she wasn't fucking this up and honestly she would have gladly drunk motor oil to finally finally finally stick the landing on a conversation with Chat Noir.
Adrien. She meant 'with Adrien'.
Beside her, Alya was agape. She paused a moment before reaching out to grab her own drink. "Thanks, Adrien!" she said. "Honestly, the plane was so long! I was dyin'."
Adrien chuckled to himself, "Yeah, transatlantic stuff is always a little rough."
"It's so boring!" Alya groused.
"Yeah, I know. I just watched movies the whole time. What about you guys?"
"I l-listened to music. English stuff," Marinette offered. "I was trying to get a little b-better before we landed."
Adrien lit up, and Marinette fought to keep another flutter out of her chest. Chat, Marinette's mind reminded her. Pretend it's just Chat. Think of him as Chat. She decided to drink the coffee before she said or did anything stupid.
"Oh, that's a great idea!" Adrien said, sipping from his own coffee. "When I was studying, it really helped cement things like pronunciation and cadence. In my experience, there's no faster way to learn a language than through music."
Marinette paused, the straw halfway to her mouth.
...what?
She looked up at him fully, a little taken aback. Adrien had already turned to give Nino the fourth cup of coffee, but his words bounced around in her head.
Wow, she thought, he's really making this pretend-he's-Chat thing easy for me.
Next to her, Alya bumped her with her shoulder. Whispering: "Girl, what the hell? That was so much better! Maybe New York really is gonna turn things around for you?"
Marinette giggled, lifting her cup finally to her lips. Maybe this could actually work?
The bus' blaring horn sounded off right behind her head, causing Marinette to spill the (mercifully) iced coffee on the ground in front of her, but also (mostly) down the front of her own pink shirt.
The bus ride was very wet, and Marinette spent it using international data rates to google if it was possible whatsoever to remove coffee stains from cotton.
New York City, with 8.5 million people, is the most populous city in the United States, beating out the sprawl of Los Angeles by a whopping five million people. It is the twenty-fifth largest city on earth, and the tenth highest city, by number of high-rise buildings.
Paris, with 2.2 million people, is less than one-third the population size. The tallest building is the Tour Montparnasse over at La Defense, standing at 210 meters. The Eiffel Tower only beats it out by 90, sitting at neat 300 meters, and absolutely dwarfing everything around it. Paris has height restrictions on buildings, you see, to preserve the historic beauty of the city. Most everything is only three or four stories high.
The One World Trade Center in Battery Park is 541 meters tall and has nintey-four stops on its elevator.
Marinette couldn't stop looking up.
She stood at 42nd street, jaw agape. It was just so huge. She'd seen New York countless times in movies before (Spider-Man in particular had long been somewhat of a weakness for Ladybug - she'd stolen some swinging techniques from her fictional counterpart), but to actually be there in Times Square really drove home the point that everything was so much taller than she was used to. She felt dwarfed; surrounded by lumbering metal giants. She had never tested the limits of her yo-yo's reach, but she sincerely doubted she would be able to reach the tops of the buildings with it.
Luckily, she probably wouldn't have to find out.
Adrien, for his part, could never get used to the overwhelming noise of the city. He had long suspected that after becoming Chat Noir, something odd had happened to his ears. He just heard things better. It wasn't superhuman hearing, per se, but just ever-so-slightly more acute and focused - something that wasn't super great when you were in a city that was constantly inundated with horn sirens and 8.5 million voices all talking to each other.
And sirens. Sirens and sirens and sirens. Every time he'd been here, he had found it hard to sleep over all the people in New York that needed help somewhere.
Having been the only one who had ever stepped foot in the city before, everyone else seemed understandably in awe. He saw Nino taking pictures of everything with his phone, Rose pulled excitedly at Juleka's arm, pointing at some billboard advertisements for Broadway shows, Max seemed similarly enamored with the adjacent billboard - adorned with some game that Adrien had heard about, but not yet had the chance to play...
Adrien glanced over at Marinette with a grin. He'd decided to stick a little closer to her since 'the coffee incident', because he couldn't help but feel that it was at least in part his fault. Marinette hadn't asked for a coffee, and she certainly hadn't asked to need to buy a new shirt anytime soon.
Besides, given her proximity to his best friend's girlfriend, Adrien had long wanted to get to know Marinette more. In class she was cool as hell! She stuck up for her friends, she was actually a talented designer, she excelled in school (for the most part)...
But for whatever reason she just never seemed to want to talk to him. Every time Adrien tried to engage, it was only a sentence or two before she totally shut down.
He had long since rationalized that it must have had something to do with her not enjoying his company, though he didn't know why she didn't just come out and say it. She never seemed to have that problem with Chloe.
This all being said, the last conversation they'd engaged in before the bus had nearly been... normal. It felt cool to finally talk to her for once! Maybe the girl didn't hate him so much after all?
"Pretty cool, huh?" he said to her. Marinette nodded absently, still caught up on the view. Adrien took out his phone, and turned to someone passing by.
"{Excuse me?}" he said, "{This is my friend's first time in the US. Would you mind taking a picture of us together?}"
This snapped Marinette out of her reverie.
"Huh?" she said to no one in particular, before feeling Adrien's arm slip around her shoulders.
What was happening? He was warm. God, he was so warm. How did we get here? Is this the first time Adrien's ever touched me ever? How did he smell so nice after a nine hour flight? Oh no what do I smell like right now? What's my name, again?
Marinette heard someone speaking English in front of her and refocused to see Adrien's phone trained on them. She her cheeks felt hot. Her heart couldn't stop pounding, but this was really happening and Adrien's arm was still around her shoulder.
"W-wait, what are you doing?! What are we doing?"
"Taking a picture!"
"What sh-should I do?!"
Adrien shrugged, and held up a peace sign as a suggestion. Marinette giggled slightly at the insanity of it all. As she held up two fingers, she kept herself reasonably calm by once again trying to think of it as Chat who had her pulled snugly to his side.
A smile burst out across her face at the thought, and the camera clicked. A moment later the anonymous stranger nodded in approval. It was a good one.
Adrien thanked him. Taking the phone back, he pulled up the picture to show Marinette.
"Aw, it's a great one!" he said, as Marinette beheld the first ever picture of her standing next to Adrien God Damn Agreste. This happened. This really just happened. "I'll send it to you, alright? So you can remember the first time you saw New York."
Marinette couldn't imagine a single force on heaven or earth that would ever cause her to forget this moment.
As Mme. Bustier finally started to corral the unruly French kids towards their hotel, Marinette felt like she was walking on air. She felt like if she reached up and spread her fingers, she could brush them across the surface of the moon.
Once his son was out and distracted and taken care of, Gabriel Agreste took a moment to gaze across the Manhattan skylike from his private suite.
With the capturing of the miraculouses being his main goal, it had always, of course, made the most sense to prey where the owners of the miraculouses actually were, but over and over again, his akumas had failed to do anything whatsoever to make any headway.
When one tries and fails, and tries and fails again, one must switch tactics: that's just good business.
When Adrien had asked about donations for his class trip, Gabriel had seen the perfect opportunity to take a little sojourn abroad, to newer hunting grounds.
He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was tired from the plane, tonight wouldn't be any good, but soon he would raise an akuma or two. He was sure that given time, Ladybug and Chat Noir would come running across the Atlantic, bringing their miraculouses with them to unfamiliar territory. And unfamiliar territory? Why, that might just be dangerous. Something could happen. Someone could make a mistake and finally let themselves be captured because of it.
Gabriel chuckled to himself. This could wait though. Maybe tomorrow, maybe a day or two after.
8.4 million people walked the streets of New York. With that many people crammed into a small little island, people got sad and angry every day.