Hmm. If only Marinette getting pissed off by one tiny thing and then holding a grudge for way too long was canon...
...OH WAIT.
"Mari, what's going on with you?" hissed Alya as soon as the door of the bathroom swung closed behind them.
Marinette, hoping she could avoid the worst of the cross-examining, headed straight to the sinks and poked critically at her hair.
"Hmm?" she said vaguely, wondering what the chances were that Adrien, model extraordinaire, hadn't noticed that a lock of her hair was sticking out at nearly a ninety degree angle.
"Marinette." Alya delivered this directly into her ear with such venom that Marinette jumped and knocked over the soap.
"What?"
"You're being weird."
"Did you actually need to pee or did you just drag me in here to interrogate me?" Marinette hedged.
Alya ignored the clearly rhetorical question.
"Giggling and blushing I expected to see – a certain amount of reverting back to your teenage years would be normal, given your history with Monsieur Agreste and how long it's been since you last saw him. But this…"
Marinette narrowed her eyes at her best friend and briefly considered dashing into a cubicle to escape her. Knowing Alya, she would have no compunction with beating the door down if it came between her and a source of information.
"…This is just bizarre."
"What's just bizarre?" Perhaps she could get away with it if she pretended she didn't know what Alya was talking about.
The taller girl arched an eyebrow that said oh, we're going to play it this way, are we? and began to list things off on her fingers. "You're not joining in the conversation. When Adrien asked you a question you were outright rude to him. You're now refusing to make eye contact with him or us and you've been clenching your fists so tightly I'm pretty sure you'll have the marks forever. Plus, even though you've pretty much been bright red since he got here, which I don't really blame you for because damn that boy is hot, you haven't responded once to any of his signals."
This got Marinette's attention. "Signals? What signals? What are you talking about?"
Alya gave her a suspicious look. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you haven't noticed."
"Noticed what?"
"That Adrien is clearly into you!"
"He WHAT?!" Marinette squeaked. Her entire face flamed crimson – a look that, now she could see it in the mirror, she was unsurprised to find looked most unattractive. "No he isn't!"
"Mari, you idiot, he's been staring at you ever since you got here!"
"Yeah, probably judging my terrible hairstyle…" Marinette tugged agitatedly at the offending lock of hair.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. I just don't understand what's happening here. Five years ago you would have died and gone to heaven if Adrien Agreste so much as winked at you, and now he's making eyes at you over the coffee table and you—"
"He is not making eyes—"
"—You're acting like he's not even there!"
"Don't you think he's the one acting weird?" blurted out Marinette. Alya stared at her.
"What do you mean?"
Unsure as to how she could express herself properly, Marinette sighed exasperatedly and leaned against the sinks.
"I don't know. He's just… different. He doesn't seem like the Adrien I used to know. He's all loud and it feels like he's kind of showing off to us and… he drives really recklessly…"
Alya raised her hands helplessly. "Urgh, Mari, you are a nightmare! I swear, if you mess things up this time round, I will kill both of you. Things might not have happened between you in collège and lycèe… no matter how much I bet Nino they would… but this time I am not letting you let any opportunities slip through your fingers. Now you go out there and you flirt with Adrien Agreste! That's an order!"
Stubbornly, still blushing, Marinette shook her head. "It just feels wrong. And no matter what you say, I don't think he's interested in me, either. I think we've just grown apart. Face it, Alya: me and Adrien are not happening." And before Alya could explode, she marched out of the toilets and back to the table where the boys were waiting.
They were clearly still talking about wedding stuff; Nino was listing off some potential venues, none of which were the potential venues Alya had mentioned to Marinette on the phone the night of the engagement. Marinette foresaw trouble, but decided it wasn't worth bringing up yet. They'd figure it out.
"This is all so exciting," said Adrien as she sat down and poked at the croissant crumbs on her plate. Alya joined them a second later, giving Marinette a pointed glare. "What about a date? I probably should have asked that first, come to think of it. Have you decided when it will be?"
Nino and Alya glanced at one another, and Marinette got the impression that they were both nervous about something.
"Um… yeah, that's the catch, I guess." Nino shifted uncomfortably. "Unfortunately, we can't afford to get married for quite a while yet. Our parents are helping out, but we want to pay for as much as we can, and so… it's looking like next summer. Maybe a year, maybe more."
Adrien frowned. "What's the catch, then?"
"We weren't sure if you'd be around then," explained Alya. "Of course we know it's hard to commit to something so far away, and we don't want you to feel obligated to be best man if you can't make the wedding."
"Oh." For just a fraction of a second, Marinette thought she glimpsed a mixture of hurt and guilt on Adrien's expressive face. Then it vanished, replaced by a carefully schooled look of unconcern. Somehow this frustrated her more. Why did he feel the need to hide his emotions? He had never done that before with them. "I see. I'm sorry to cause you anxiety."
"No, no, we understand that your schedule is far busier than ours," Alya said quickly. "So… how long are you planning to stay?"
"Well," drawled Adrien, leaning back in his chair and letting his eyes fall back on Marinette, who flushed in spite of herself, "I suppose that depends on what reasons I have to stay."
Alya kicked Marinette, hard, on the ankle. Marinette jumped slightly but did her best to ignore the thoughts she could practically feel burning a hole in her head. SEE? What did I tell you?!
"And, given that I've found plenty today… I think I'll be staying for quite a while. So count me in," finished Adrien. He didn't look away, even when Marinette refused to smile back at him. In fact, he raised an eyebrow at her again. How dare he act like this? Did he really think he could just turn on the charm and she'd forget all about his rudeness with the car? If so, he was going to be surprised. She deliberately turned her attention to Nino, who was grinning like an idiot.
"That's great, dude!" he enthused.
"Yeah, that's really good!" agreed Alya. Then, with another wicked grin, she added: "I'm sure you and Marinette are going to love spending time together, helping us plan it all."
Marinette was going to kill her.
"I'm sure we will," agreed Adrien. "I'd love to be as involved as possible. Make up for lost time." Even though she was refusing to look at him, Marinette could still feel the dazzling smile he was directing at her.
She was going to kill them both.
When she reached her flat, thankfully not having encountered any rude, drop-dead gorgeous BMW drivers on the way, Marinette stumbled into her bedroom in her heels and dropped onto her bed with a groan. She lay there, face buried in the soft duvet, arms flopping out to the side, and decided that she might actually stay there forever.
"Did you have a nice time?" asked Tikki cautiously. Marinette only groaned louder in response. Tikki flew to her shoulder and patted the back of her neck – whether it was in sympathy or encouragement to move, she couldn't tell.
"Why do these things happen to me?" she moaned, rolling over and staring up at the ceiling. "Why did it have to be Adrien in that car? Why did he have to stare at me so much? Why is he so damn pretty?"
"Maybe you're reading too much into things?" suggested Tikki. "Everyone has moments where they don't drive perfectly. Don't you remember that roundabout the other day—"
"Okay, point taken," said Marinette hastily. "But still, if someone asked me about that I'd apologise profusely. I wouldn't just act like it was no big deal and expect them to laugh about it." She sighed. "I just can't shake the feeling that Adrien isn't who he used to be. I miss the old him."
"People do change," Tikki pointed out. "You're not the same as you were five years ago either."
"Mmm." Tikki sort of had a point, but Marinette was too stubborn to admit that. The kwami, knowing this as well as if she could read the girl's mind, flew into the kitchen to snack on the stash of home-made cookies that Marinette kept well stocked for her, leaving Marinette to chew on the idea.
Her first action was to stretch across the bed to the iPod and speakers that she kept to hand and press play. Jagged Stone's latest single, one of her new favourites, blasted into the room and Marinette closed her eyes in bliss. She had had noise complaints from her neighbours before because of how loud she liked to play music – it helped her think when she was sewing or designing – but she maintained that Jagged sounded best at maximum volume.
People change… she thought. I guess they do. But that doesn't mean it's good change. I liked Adrien just the way he was.
She thought fondly of the days when they had been eighteen – when exams had been their biggest concern; that, and the universities they had applied to. Once the academic year was over, she, Adrien, Alya and Nino had taken to hanging out together at the park during the hot summer days, eating prodigious quantities of icecream and lazily arguing over whose turn it was to go and buy the next round. Even though nothing had happened between Marinette and Adrien, those days had been the happiest of her life. She had finally got past her crippling stutter and tendency to blush whenever he opened his mouth, and begun to forge an actual friendship with him. He had been quiet, kind, often surprisingly mature in his insights, and when the four of them were together, he had shown a goofy side to his character that Marinette hadn't imagined existed. It always made her laugh.
One of the things she had liked about him was how different he was to most of the other boys she knew. Though she was good friends with a lot of her male class members, most of whom were pretty nice boys themselves, she couldn't avoid encountering the kind of sex-obsessed, image-orientated, materialistic teenage douchebags that every generation tends to sprout here and there. She'd had the odd run-in with guys like this – someone at a club had forced a kiss on her and tried to persuade her to hook up with him in the toilets, only to walk away in disgust, calling her an 'ugly tease', when she had informed him she wasn't that kind of girl, and then there was that absolute dick of a boy Alya had briefly dated when she and Nino had had their one, temporary break-up in terminale. He had clearly been with her solely to get into her pants and had omitted to mention that he was seeing three other girls on the side.
But Adrien wasn't like that. He could have been – with a career as a model and looks that had every female within a thirty mile radius swooning over him, not to mention the seemingly endless pocket money with which his father endowed him in lieu of actual affection, he could have been spoilt, vain and affected. Instead, he was a genuinely nice person who actually cared about his friends. Marinette hated to think that this side of him was lost now, maybe for good. But was she just reading far too much into some admittedly brief interactions?
She sat up and reached for her phone.
Adrien's Facebook didn't reveal much. He was clearly one of those people that had it just to use Messenger, and had Timeline Review turned off – he hadn't been tagged in any photos since about four years ago, and his last status was a complaint about how hard the English exam had been. Boring, thought Marinette irritably, and then laughed, thinking of how Alya always complained when people didn't do anything worth stalking on social media.
His Instagram, on the other hand…
It had been years since she'd last looked at his account. Back in school she'd kept track – obsessively, one might say – of every new photo he'd been put up. In fact, if she scrolled back far enough, she might even find photos of her along with Alya and Nino. But when he'd left, the reminder had been far too painful, so most of this was new to her.
First off, he had the little blue tick by his name that meant he was a verified celebrity, or whatever. For some reason, this really threw Marinette. Of course she knew that Adrien was famous. Everyone knew that. But to actually have confirmation of it, that she had grown up with and indeed just had coffee with someone considered a celebrity, was somehow… strange. She shook her head and continued with her stalker mission.
He had 80.5k followers. Good grief. How was that even possible? His current profile picture was a black-and-white shot she thought she recognised from a campaign a couple of years ago, where he was staring moodily out a window, a baseball cap tilted forward over his forehead and his hand tucked under his chin. It highlighted the absolute perfection of his jawline and cheekbones, along with how long his eyelashes were. Marinette's heart thumped unevenly. Stop it, she thought fiercely.
His bio simply said: You know who I am.
"Twat," she muttered.
She scrolled through some of his recent posts, and her heart fluttered, this time for a different reason. A cold dread that she couldn't push away spread slowly through her chest. Aaand… there it is.
Parties. Alcohol. Swimming pools and hotel rooms. And girls.
Lots of girls. Skinny, tanned, long-haired, bikini-clad model girls. Pretty, artistic girls with immaculate makeup and cool, intricate hairstyles. Girls wearing skimpy dresses on a night out, posing beside Adrien at some exclusive club, and girls kissing him on the cheek, being given piggybacks by him, laughing round a table with him.
Of course, the photos were interspersed with both model shots and selfies, from which Marinette gathered that Adrien had apparently finally figured out that he was pretty. These bothered her less than the others. Everyone put selfies on Instagram, even if not everyone put pretentious captions like Adrien's most recent 'Tu dimmi se ormai qualcosa di noi c'è ancora dentro agli occhi tuoi', written under a close-up of his eyes in glorious colour. (Did he really have those little flecks of blue at the centre of his irises? How had she never noticed that before? Focus, dammit!) But all the girls, all the expensive possessions, the seemingly endless party lifestyle – it just confirmed all her impressions. Adrien had sold out. He was – well, a dick in a white BMW.
Marinette sighed and dropped her phone, trying to pretend that sickening disappointment wasn't punching her in the gut.
It looked like it was about time she moved on from Adrien Agreste.
I was just being a good author and doing my research meticulously and the next thing I know, my husband is looking over my shoulder and demanding to know why I'm looking at the Instagram account of some Australian male model. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, Adrien's pretentious Italian quote is from a Laura Pausini song and roughly translates to 'Tell me if there's anything left of us by now in those eyes of yours'. (I dunno, it's more romantic in the original language. Basically, 'tell me if there's any hope for us left'.) I have this headcanon that Adrien speaks flawless Italian and can be very pompous about this fact.
Next up: an old friend returns.