(A/N) Wow, it's been a while, and for that I'm REALLY sorry. Not a single night when by when I wasn't thinking about this story and the time it was taking. It was just that life got in the way with the end of the school year, exam revision, exam week, thinking about work experience, holidays starting and not to mention my internet going down for 4 and a 1/2 days. But the whole time I was trying to set aside time for this. Anyway thank you for sticking with this and the encouragement you have given me in the comments and a huge thank you to my editor TurboSloth for making this chapter a ton better than it originally was.

Chapter 2: New Clothes

Marceline rubbed her eyes. The sun streamed through the blinds and lit up the room. This was the first time Marceline had woken up in a bed that she could call her own, in a room that was actually a desperate room.
She wasn't sure if she was still dreaming. It was a lot to take in, especially early in the morning.
She sat in her bed for a minute and watched the world go by outside her window. Meanwhile Marshall Lee had gotten up and prepared their breakfast. He returned with two bowls of cereal.

"Breakfast. Oh, and Beemo said that we could eat in our rooms today and we should take things slow."
Marshall handed her a bowl of what looked like little puffy balls of chocolate that were slowly being drained of their colour, while the milk around them turned brown.

"Ah, cool, I guess. What time is it?"

"It's 10:45. Beemo said to eat up and get changed soon, Mr Bubblegum will be around shortly."

"Mmhhm." Marceline ate the chocolate cereal. She'd never eaten something as tasty as it before and was reminded of the flavorless, bland food she had been eating mere months ago. Marshall sat down on the bed and they both ate in silence slowly coming to terms with this violent upheaval in their lives.

Marshall was the first to get moving. He had always been a better mornings person. He left the room to get ready for their big day out and returned in his only pair of clothes. He'd had them for a long time, before their mother had died. Marceline grabbed her equally old clothes from her drawer and entered the bathroom. She undressed and entered the large shower. She stood there for a moment looking at the strange mess of pipes and noticed a lever hidden amongst it. She pulled it outwards and a blast of freezing cold water came out drenching her instantly. She stifled a scream and pushed the lever towards the red on the gauge. The temperature rapidly rose and Marceline relaxed in the new-found warmth. 'Good' she thought 'Red means hot, blue means cold. I can remember that.' She looked around. She saw a small oval pink block on a shelf in the shower. She picked it up, first sniffing it then, put it under the water. It smelled like strawberries and bubbled under the water. Doing what seemed like the funnest option she lathered it over herself and jumped back into the water entertained by the bubbles as they swirled down the pipe.

"Showers are the BEST! Baths are nowhere near as good as these! And now I smell like strawberries! This is awesome!"
She shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, quickly drying herself off with a conveniently placed towel. She wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at her reflection. She could see that a lot of the dirt that was on her before had washed away and she felt like it was a stranger looking back at her with its blueish complexion. She tried to flatten her hair but gave up after it resolutely kept popping back up in little clumps. Marceline put on her old clothes and went back into the living room of the house. It wasn't long before the doorbell rang.
Marceline opened it to find a slightly smaller pink girl in a pink dress in front of her.

"Hey Marcie!" she said giving her friend a hug and sweet smile. Marceline was still disoriented at this happy, bubbly thing that had appeared at the door and awkwardly returned the hug.

"Hi... Princess."
PB broke the hug but held her friends hand looking over her shoulder at the parked car with her dad and brother visible in the front.

"We need to get going. We need to get you some new clothes. Come on!" PB shouted enthusiastically pulling Marceline towards the car.
PB pulled open the back door and bundled herself in. Marceline got in herself and found herself looking at the pleasant visage of their driver, none other than Mr Bubblegum himself.

"Hiya Marceline how are you today?"

"I'm good Mr Bubblegum. The treehouse is amazing and its-its just so cool!" She said, stumbling over the words in her excitement.

"That's good to hear. So Marceline this here is my son, Prince Gumball. He's a few months older than you. Gumball, Marceline. Marceline, Gumball." He said, motioning towards a friendly but uptight looking guy sitting in the front of the car.

"Hello Marceline it's a pleasure to meet you. My sister wouldn't stop talking about how you two are going to be best friends-"

"Hey!" yelled PB before her brother could say more as he stifled a snicker.

"That's enough, Gumball" said Mr Bubblegum pointing a stern finger at Gumball. Marceline looked at PB, who had turned away and had a definite red hue to her pink skin, embarrassed and angry at her brother.

"Don't be embarrassed, I know how brothers are. I mean if you wanna be best friends, umm well, I'm okay with that, I mean you're my only friend so no competition right?" Marceline muttered shyly.
PB turned back to her smiling a 1000 watt smile.

"Thanks Marceline, I'd love to be best friends with you."
Marshall Lee finally entered the car and took his seat next to Marceline, who quickly broke eye contact with PB.

"Hey Marshall, this is my son, Gumball, who I was telling you about yesterday."

"Hey I'm Marshall."

"Nice to meet you, are you ready to get some cool new clothes?"

"Glob Yeah!"

"Punch it, dad!"

Mr Bubblegum started the car and rumbled towards the city. During the journey, the boys started to talk about the different types of cars they could see flying past the window and the girls talked about their interests in music.
It was a short trip into the city. Everywhere they could see the mad bustle of people going about their daily business. Marceline and Marshall were instantly awestruck at the gigantic buildings that loomed over them. Marceline stared out the window, mouth agape. She hurriedly closed it when a giggling PB waving a hand in front of her face.
They twisted and turned down narrow streets until , without warning, Mr Bubblegum sent the car into a deep dark cave. Marceline's eyes acclimatised to the sudden darkness, and saw the lurking shapes of line after line of parked cars. It turned out that this was the department stores underground parking lot. In Marceline's eyes it was just about the coolest thing ever, having a cave under your giant building just for cars. Let alone having a large see-through glass box take you up through the levels of the store. Whole floors were dedicated to women's clothes, men's clothes, baby clothes, toys and games. The pair looked with starstruck eyes at the mass of products arranged before them. The box slowed down and deposited them at the floor for children's clothes.

"Okay" said Mr Bubblegum turning to the children. "You can run off and find a few things you like and bring them back here, then we'll see which ones actually fit you. Sound good?" It was clear from his tone that Mr Bubblegum had often had to moderate children's spending spree's.
Everyone nodded.

"Great! Off you go."

The boys began walking towards their section and PB once again took Marceline's hand and pulled her towards the girls clothes.
The majority of the clothes were a shade of pink that could scorch retinas. It was a colour that Marceline kind ofliked, but she preferred the darker colours that resided in the women's and older girls section. It wasn't long before Marceline had gotten slightly bored of the slight variation between the dresses and shades of pink and found some of the darker t-shirts for older girls. She and Bubblegum flipped through them until one caught her eye. It was a plain black shirt with a design of a snake weaving it's way through two marshmallows impaled on sticks. She instantly adored it. She pulled it off the rack to see if it fit. It was clearly far too big for her and PB laughed when she saw it reach Marcelines knees. Flustered she tried to find a size that wouldn't make her look like a child wearing their dads shirt. Sadly it was the only one, but Marceline was determined to get it no matter what.

They returned with the shirt and Mr Bubblegum just smiled.

"Do you want this shirt Marceline? It's pretty big."

"I know it's a bit big but I really want it and it's the only size."

"Hmmm, okay. We can get it. But I'm going to come over there and help you pick out some clothes that won't trip you if you decide to walk while wearing it."

"Okay" Marceline agreed reluctantly.

Mr Bubblegum laughed and walked them back over to a secluded corner of the girls section, where he picked out a simple dark purple dress and another light blue one. Marceline wondered how she had missed all the great clothes that were here. They picked up some clothing essentials, and then went back to meet the boys. Marshall had picked out some typical black shorts and shirt couldn't have failed to make him look good.

"So you both happy with your new clothes?" They both nodded. "Good" Mr Bubblegum chuckled jovially and proceeded to pay for the clothes. He handed them back to the children telling them to change into their new clothes for the rest of the day.
The pair changed into them and looked at themselves with wonder. Out of their well worn rags and in their new clothes, they looked practically unrecognizable. Marceline twirled around, watching her new dress move bewitchingly in the light. She gripped her new T-shirt tightly in her hands. Out of the corner of her eye she saw PB stare at her. Marshall strutted past and got some well deserved compliments from Prince Gumball.

"Alright kids, come on, we've got lots of things to do today and not much time." Mr Bubblegum said, a happy twinkle in his eye. Obediently they traipsed back to the car and got in. "Alright, now for a tour" he announced, and put the car in gear and pulled back out into the light and onto the busy street.

(A/N) Hope you enjoyed this chapter its a 2 parter and the next chapter should be up really soon so hang tight. Thank you everyone for commenting and Doodle0505 for the one shot idea it may even happen. So if you have any suggestions for things you can contact me through the comments and PM's I read all of them and will always try to respond. You can also contact me through ways listed on my profile. So, thanks for reading and have a good relative time of day. (Man I'm bad at these)