The Birthday Trap
Written by: JuliaFC
Language Betas: Mystic_Raven20 and Katieykat513
Concept Betas: Mystic_Raven20, EtoileLeadSama and Rosehealer02
Written for Malauu_Ladynoir's birthday
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
THIS STORY IS RATED MATURE FOR GOOD REASONS. IF YOU'RE UNDER 18, PLEASE CLOSE THE TAB NOW AND COME BACK AFTER YOUR 18TH BIRTHDAY. THE CHARACTERS ARE BOTH AGED UP AND OVER 18. IT'S MARINETTE'S 18TH BIRTHDAY AND ADRIEN IS NEARLY 19.
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Chapter 1 — Happy Birthday!
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"Happy birthday, Marinette!" greeted Adrien when she opened the door.
Marinette looked at him with her eyes so wide that you'd think they would come out of their sockets.
"A-adrien? Is this a sort of joke from Alya? Because if it is, it's not funny…" she said.
Adrien cocked an eyebrow at her. "Alya told me that you were expecting her, but 'something had turned up' with Nino and the twins and she couldn't come, so she asked me to take her place."
"Take her place?" Marinette's cringe smile looked even stiffer than usual. "Adrien, Alya was meant to stay for a sleepover for my birthday."
Adrien's hand reached his nape as his cheeks coloured with pink. "I know. I've been given," he said with a polite cough, "clear instructions about what to do. It took me ages to convince Nathalie that you were a great friend who deserved a great birthday with all your friends there…"
Marinette darted a sceptical look around. "All my friends?"
The blush on Adrien's face darkened. "Uh. White lie."
Marinette's heart was going into overdrive. Typical Alya…she told Marinette just a few days ago that she was fed up with the way Marinette still hadn't done anything about telling Adrien about her feelings towards him. She had been adamant that if Marinette wouldn't do it soon, she would grow old and wrinkly before she managed to gather the courage. She had reiterated that there would never be the perfect time, or the perfect situation…that Marinette had to stop wanting to control everything.
Marinette knew that. She knew that very well. Her habit of wanting to control everything had cost dearly already to her superhero alter-ego. She had tried to let herself act more loose, but when it came to Adrien and her feelings towards him…nope. She just could not. And now—this. Thanks very much, Alya.
And what was worse, she had challenged Marinette. They were playing truth or dare the other night, and Alya had dared Marinette to invite her for this sleepover and to commit to whatever her plan for it was. Marinette had thought she was planning to invite strippers or something, since she'd sent her parents away. She had grudgingly accepted, especially when Alya had pushed her competitive buttons and told her that if she didn't agree to it she was chicken. She already expected something dodgy. Drinking games? Maybe. Strippers? Hard, but could still do. This? NO FUCKING WAY!
She would start clucking before spending the night with Adrien doing whatever Alya had in plan for them.
"Anyway," continued Adrien, clearing his throat again, "I have a little package here from Alya. She said that there's clear instructions and a note for you, regarding some dare."
He rummaged into his duffel bag, presented Marinette with a little box and kept staring at her with those gorgeous green eyes, looking the image of Manon on her best day, puppy eyes and all. "It's my first sleepover, I'm ecstatic!"
Marinette couldn't resist puppy eyes even on a child. And his first sleepover… as she looked into those pools of green, and her insides started melting, she realised that she was fucked. She couldn't do this to him, she couldn't tell him to go home.
Fuck's sake, Alya! Puppy eyes and Adrien were a bomb in the making. Her parents weren't in either, because Alya had organised for them to go to a spa resort in Nice. Her parents' quick acceptance had felt very suspicious to Marinette, and the girl had her doubts that even her parents were into this, but they'd been all so crafty. Marinette couldn't believe how easily they took her for a ride.
She sighed and moved to make space at the door. "Come in," she heard herself saying and Adrien's dashing smile lit up his whole face and made her knees feel like literal butter. She eyed the 'package' in her hands feeling butterflies storm free in her stomach and her heart rate increasing. Alya had worked so hard to organise this and Marinette didn't want to check the extent of the trap her best friend had laid for her.
Okay, maybe 'laid' wasn't the best word choice.
Anyway, she didn't have the time to feel her heart beating in her throat at the thought of what Alya was planning for her tonight, because Adrien had a little look around and then turned to her and looked at her expectantly.
"So, what's the plan?" he asked. "Did you read Alya's note?"
Marinette shook her head. "Have you?"
"Nope. It was for you," he said simply.
Marinette groaned. She had this nasty feeling that whatever Alya had said in the message (she had just unwrapped the package and had seen a post-it with a usb card cellophaned to it that said, 'watch this first') wasn't going to be of her liking. Slumping her head down as if walking the gallows, Marinette beckoned Adrien to follow her and went upstairs to her room.
Luckily she didn't have strange stuff, or Ladybug stuff, laying around waiting for Alya to come, because as she had already said, she thought Alya was going to bring strippers. So it was quite harmless to allow Adrien to follow her straight away. She let him in from the trap door and closed it behind them. Then, ditching the usb card from the paper it was held on, she took a big sigh and moved the cursor of her mouse, waking her laptop from hibernation. She popped the usb card in and saw a few videos neatly numbered. She clicked on number one, a cringe smile on her face, trying and failing to gather the courage to even glance at Adrien as Alya's smiling face appeared on the screen.
"Happy birthday, girl," said Alya with a wave.
Happy birthday my foot, thought Marinette.
"By now, since you're watching this, you will have found out the main reason why I played truth or dare with you the other day," continued Alya.
You bet I did. Great friend you are, thought Marinette, her lips curling down in an annoyed pout, her arms crossing over her chest.
"I'll let you thank me later," continued Alya on the screen, causing Marinette to muffle a groan. "In the meantime, there are a few rules that I must put in place. Rule n1 is: do not freak out." She moved her face closer to the screen and cocked her head in a way that one of her eyes was taking almost the whole visible surface. "Because I know you, Marinette. I know what you're thinking right now and…I urge you to stop."
Marinette's cringe smile widened, beads of sweat beading her forehead as she finally dared pop a glance at her unknowing companion. Who was staring at her…and smiled at her when she glanced at him. Marinette's heart took a somersault in her chest and the room started feeling a whole ten degrees hotter, so she took no bets on the current colour of her face.
"You see, I've known you for how many years now? Four? Nearly five? I've been your BFF ever since, so you've got no secrets from me, I know how your mind works. After having a long conversation with me, myself, and I about what gift we could present to you for your birthday, the best solution that came to mind was that we urged you to stop trying to control everything. Especially when it comes to a certain someone."
Alya moved out of the screen and sat on her heels, opening her hands wide in front of her. "So here you go, girl. Rule number 2 is: you have no control whatsoever tonight. As established in my dare with you, you do what I say. When I say it. No buts and…don't you even take into consideration the possibility not to do it. I have my ways to ensure that if you don't do what I say, I'll know all about it."
Marinette frowned.
"I know what you're thinking—no cameras, don't worry. I'm not that sick in my mind."
Marinette breathed.
"BUT! I have my own wee spy who's gonna tell me if you follow my instructions. You're not winning her over, Marinette, I've bribed her with a laaaarge amount of galettes."
Marinette couldn't help it. Her gaze shot to the small purse at her waist as her eyes became small slits on her face. So Tikki was part of this too… go figure! She felt the kwami moving a little in the purse and had to muffle another groan. Things couldn't be worse…
"Who's she talking about?" said Adrien's voice behind her. She turned to look at him; he was staring at the screen with his beautiful green eyes wide open.
Okay, things could go worse.
"N-nothing, just a joke between us," she said, slapping the top of her purse, because she had heard the tiny giggle that, surely, came out of Tikki's mouth.
But she couldn't elaborate on it, because Alya continued, "Now that we established these basic rules, I require that you look into the package that Adrien brought there and take out the bag with number 1 on it." She moved her face closer to the screen again. "I know it's Buttercup's very first sleepover, I want him to have some fun. Enjoy!"
As the video ended, Marinette took a big sigh and nearly missed the loud gasp that came out of Adrien's mouth.
"Uh…were you meant to have this sleepover with someone else? I…I'm sorry, I swear, Alya asked me to do it, I didn't know…"
Marinette turned towards him to find him a little flustered, his hands defensively up, a frown on his face.
"I can guarantee you, Adrien, Alya meant for you to be here 100%," muttered the girl shooting him an annoyed look.
Adrien flashed his eyebrows. "Alya was talking about some B-buttercup just now on the screen."
As annoyed and upset as she was, Marinette didn't take her time to consider how surprised and flustered Adrien sounded and the fact that his usually flawless diction had been tarnished with a stammer.
"Yeah. That's still you," she groaned.
For some reason, Adrien's eyes opened so wide that Marinette feared they would come out of their sockets. "W-what?"
"Uh…yeah, it was…one day we were giving…flowery codenames to people, a long time ago. F-for a silly game among girls. So we had Alix as a 'Violet', Mylène as a 'Sunflower', Juleka as a 'Rose' and Rose as a 'Tulip'."
"But her name is Rose?" wondered Adrien. "That's already a flower."
"Yeah, right for that reason it wouldn't have been a codename!" snapped Marinette. After Adrien 'ooooh'ed in agreement, she continued, "So Alya was 'Tigerlily' and I was 'Lotus'. You were 'Buttercup'." She saw him staring at her with a massive blush across the bridge of his nose, his eyes as big as saucers, looking as if a train had just passed right on top of him. "Don't look at me like that, you're blond, and we were 14."
"You m-mean that I've been Buttercup when we were 14?"
Why is it such a big matter, Marinette wondered, shooting him a cringe smile. "Yeah…"
"You mean that nobody else's ever been Buttercup?"
His eyebrows had joined in the most adorable frown she had ever seen on his face. A face that was getting redder as he spoke. What was going on, she'd never seen his face of that colour before. "Yeah…it's always been your codename. I-is that a problem? You d-don't like Buttercup flowers?" she muttered, holding her breath.
She remembered that, a few years back, Chat Noir had laughed his head off at it. Was there any offensive connotation in being compared with a Buttercup flower? Why didn't she research the codename more carefully before giving it to him? Why did Alya have to open her big fat mouth and spell it out to him? Why had she confirmed that it was him? Was he going to hate her because she called him Buttercup?
As all those catastrophising thoughts ran through Marinette's mind, Adrien looked into the nothing in front of him, sucked his breath in, his Adam's apple bobbed, and it took him a moment—a rather long one—before he finally crossed gaze with her again. But when he looked at her, his gaze was so intense that Marinette felt her knees buckle and her legs melt like jelly.
"No. That's not a problem." His Adam's apple bobbed up and down again. "I was just…surprised. That's all." Then he blinked and a small smile curled the corners of his mouth. "I love Buttercup flowers."
Marinette was getting lost in his gaze. He was looking at her with such magnetic eyes that she couldn't tear her own gaze from them and wished she could die right there, right then, and bring this memory to her grave. Her heart fluttered in her chest as her breath caught up. She didn't know why, but she didn't want that moment to end. If she could have, she would have stopped time.
But she couldn't, and eventually Adrien cleared his throat and diverted his glorious gaze from hers, got up and started rummaging in the packet he'd brought. Was it only her impression, or that blush on his cheeks hadn't completely gone away?
"Uh, well, then…since neither of us are allowed to make decisions here," he started.
Marinette blinked. "Neither? Alya meant just silly old me, Adrien. I lost a dare with her a couple of nights ago."
"I know," said Adrien, taking his hand out of the packet and running it to scratch the nape of his neck. "But I lost a bet with Nino."
Marinette stared at him in stunned silence and Adrien's scratching of his nape was renewed in its vigour. "We were spending some time together at lunch time the other day and he challenged me to guess the title of a number of songs by just the first few notes. Alya was going to pick the songs to make it fair, so I said yes. I didn't consider that you should never challenge a DJ around music, I thought I was knowledgeable enough. Turned out I wasn't." He chuckled.
"Wait. Do you mean that Nino made you come here today?" asked Marinette, her gaze now shooting daggers at the empty space in front of her face.
Adrien put his hands in front of him. "No, no, Marinette."
She invaded his personal space and stared straight into his eyes, which she seemed to be perfectly able to do when pissed off. "But you said that you lost a bet. Surely Nino forced you to be here. Agh, they will never learn!"
"Mari—" tried Adrien, but Marinette didn't hear him at all as she continued,
"Don't worry, Adrien, if you have something better to do, just go home, you don't have to stay here this is only a silly joke that Alya has org—"
She couldn't finish because Adrien cupped a hand on her mouth. That by itself was enough to make Marinette swoon. Gosh! His hand. His perfect hand. His hand was touching her lips! Then, he also leaned in and looked her straight in the eye. Marinette's heart was fluttering so much she thought she would soon need CPR.
No, wait, not CPR. Not with Adrien the only person there!
Relax Marinette. Count up to ten. One. Two. Three…
"I assure you, Marinette, I really wanted to be here today, that wasn't imposed on me at all. And right now? I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
Marinette's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Really. So please calm down." He took his hand off her mouth. "Nino just made me do a lot of…weird stuff…and after Alya asked me to take her place and I accepted, he told me that I had to agree to not question anything that was going to be asked of me and just…go with the flow."
Marinette was still staring at him, transfixed, so Adrien massaged his nape some more and looked up. "What were his words exactly? Ah yeah, to leave the reins at home." He looked the other way. "Uh, no, that was Alya. Nino just said something weird about me being a little bird flying out of its nest or something like that."
Marinette was still staring at him. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, since both of us can't really follow our own minds today, we may as well see what's in the first envelope, right?" As he said that, he'd found the envelope and he waved it triumphantly in front of her face. "There it is."
Finally, Marinette seemed to have come out of her stupor and blinked to focus on the envelope in his hand. She picked it up from him, a light blush dusting her cheeks as her fingers touched his.
"Yes. Let's envelope the open. I-I m-mean, open the envelope."
Adrien chuckled and shook his head, but kept quiet and watched her as she took the instructions out and read them. And read them again.
"That bad?" he inquired.
"Nope," said Marinette. "Not bad at all, actually. She just wants us to build a pillow fort and have a pillow fight in our pyjamas."
Adrien squealed. When Marinette looked at him, he wore the cutest pair of puppy eyes she had ever seen, his fists to his mouth, his lower lip trembling. "A real pillow fort? And a pillow fight? Really?"
Marinette's gaze softened. She grinned warmly at him, enjoying very much how genuinely happy he was. Getting excited for a pillow fort at eighteen and a half, nearly nineteen years of age—how could you not love him?
"Yes Monsieur," she ordered, feigning confidence as she took out the folding screen that she used to allow people to change privately in her room. "You put your pyjamas on. Since I'm already dressed to impress—" She pointed humourously at her pyjamas she was already wearing. "—I'll start getting the pillows and cushions out!" She didn't expect his beaming smile and she nearly tripped on her feet.
"Sounds amazing Marinette, thank you!" He grabbed his duffel bag and marched right behind the folding screen, by all means starting to take his clothes off based on the zipping and rummaging noises Marinette could hear.
Adrien. In her room. Taking his clothes off!
This was doing nothing good to her sanity! Why did she always have to overdo it and put herself in this kind of situation? They could've done the fort while he was in his clothes.
Except that Alya had said 'in their pyjamas'.
She didn't have to do everything that Alya said, right?
She nervously glanced at her purse as she thought aloud, and her gaze met Tikki's fixed stare from a crack on top of the purse.
"You've got to be kidding me," whispered Marinette, almost as a hiss, her eyes narrowed as she locked her gaze with her kwami's.
"I'm fed up, Marinette, and Alya's right," whispered back the little red and black ladybug.
Marinette groaned. "How many galettes did she promise you?"
Tikki giggled. "You have no idea."
Her kwami was still giggling when Adrien appeared again from behind the screen and Marinette shut the purse on Tikki's face. He was wearing a white tee with a black line featuring the G symbol of the Agreste brand and a pair of black shorts, but Marinette didn't even look at the shorts because what captured her gaze was the t-shirt. A white. Fitted. T-shirt. A Tight. Fitted. Delicious. T-shirt. A t-shirt that left very little to the imagination.
Way to get horny in ten seconds. GAH!
Marinette had to physically hurt herself (she had to dig her nails deep into the palms of her hands) to focus and stop gawking. But Adrien didn't seem to have noticed—or if he had, he was too gentleman to point it out, because he just stood there and looked around.
"Where's the pillows?" he asked.
"Uh!" Marinette wanted to die. "Sorry, I kind of forgot. But! Since we're making the fort together, it's better to pick the pillows together, don't you think?"
The excited smile he shot at her was like a gift. Marinette's palms were again seriously affected to help regain composure. She zoned out for a moment and when she managed to focus again, she saw that he was looking at her expectantly.
"Uh. Yes, the pillows. Follow me!"
Was that a cheeky grin on his lips or was she mistaken?
His lips.
His. Lips.
Marinette, stop thinking of his lips! She shook her head and took a big breath, trying to keep any unsafe thoughts out of her head.
Not easy with such a delicious piece of beef next to her.
Shush you!
Agh, R.I.P. her sanity, thanks very much, Alya!
Anyway, they spent a while building the pillow fort, which helped Marinette calm down. Except that a couple of times while she was fixing a pillow, she happened to put a hand on his torso and the contact had nearly burned her within.
The fact that she had caught a glimpse of another cheeky grin on his face didn't help at all.
"That's a true masterpiece, if you let me say so!" said Adrien proudly when they finished.
She smiled warmly at him. "It's your first, so I'll let you boast about it. It may not be perfect everywhere, but it's really good work!"
"Say cheese!" he said, grabbing hold of her arm to take a selfie in front of it, and Marinette's face looked like a ripe tomato in the first shot.
"You delete that first picture, you caught me by surprise!" she argued, trying to snatch his phone.
"No way, Mademoiselle!" he said. He was darting around her room, trying to prevent her from getting his phone. "It's a good picture, natural, well focused and I love your expression in it!" He highlighted the word 'love' in a way that made Marinette's heart tumble, and then, he grinned cheekily again when she stumbled over her feet and fell on top of the fort. "Oh, shoot, and now you broke it!" he said dramatically, closing his eyes and jerking his head on the side to highlight his fake chagrin.
But Marinette saw how he jumped out of his skin when something hit him on his back. He turned around to see her holding a pillow in her right hand, while another pillow rested on the floor next to his left foot.
"You wanted a pillow fight? You get a pillow fight, Monsieur." She threw another pillow that hit him right in the head, a determined frown plastered all over her face, an amused smirk curling the edges of her lips. "But I warn you: I'm a champion at it!"
He mirrored her smirk, causing her heart to jump straight into her throat and her pulse to quicken. That smirk looked familiar. Why did it look familiar? She was sure she'd never seen such a shit-eating smirk on Adrien Agreste's face. And yet, it felt so right, so natural, much more natural than most expressions she had seen on said beautiful face. She was thinking about this and didn't see his pillow hitting her; when she looked towards him again, he was nowhere to be found and Marinette's heart started racing, until something grabbed her ankles and caused her to fall face down on the pillows in front of her.
"Gotcha!" he said, and tried to grab more of her legs, but Marinette was fast and wiggled around a lot. They had a good fight, throwing pillows at each other and occasionally tumbling on the ground in a tangle of limbs (they never managed to be tangled much though, because Marinette jerked away each time as if she was getting a heart attack. Which, in all fairness, she probably was!).
Once, Adrien's head ended up between her boobs. AND he didn't seem to be intending to move. This increased her already growing libido (especially because Adrien's t-shirt was thin and tight and she could feel every gorgeously juicy piece of muscle he was so generously pressing on her body. God, why did she have to endure such delightful torture! Rhyme intended).
She did try to hide it by increasing her even more growing anxiety, but her acting must have been bad. When his head shot up at her wiggles, even the chastest and most oblivious part of Marinette couldn't deny that he was giving her a look of pure and utter lust. What was going on? Why was he looking at her like that? That look did things to her insides. Primarily, to the part in between her legs. Butterflies stormed inside her stomach too, and her heart took a new residence in her ears.
"I…think…uh…fight…long enough," she barely managed to say, and she mentally congratulated herself for not stammering once. Nevermind that the sentence had no grammatical sense. She needed to give herself grammatical levy while her body was still pressed under Adrien Agreste's, only the thin layer of his t-shirt and her pyjama's top separating their skin.
"Yeah. Okay." He was panting, and hesitated for quite some time; his hesitation left Marinette baffled. But eventually, he moved and released her from his hold. "It means that I won," he said smugly.
It took a second for the sentence to register in her brain (well, bear with her, the butterflies were still storming in her stomach…). Her eyes narrowed. "No way! I hit you more times!"
"But you ended up underneath me," he pointed out.
"That doesn't matter!" she snapped, her lips pursed in an outrageous grimace, her arms folded over her chest.
"It does! It must do!" he retorted, playing the puppy eyes card again.
Marinette sighed. That boy was going to be the death of her. "Ooooooh okay, let's say it's a draw," she eventually conceded. "Not that bad at all for being your first fight."
"Thanks!" He beamed, but then, he almost immediately stood up, stretched a hand to her to help her up (which she took while more butterflies took residence in her stomach. An entire kaleidoscope of the bloody insects!), and went to the computer. "Should we watch the next video?"
Marinette was still trying to stop her heart from jumping in her throat after being in close proximity with him for such a long time, so she just nodded. Adrien leaned towards the laptop and pressed play on video n2.
To be Continued…
Author's Note:
Hello there! Yes, this is the story I was talking about in the notes of the other stories for the last couple of weeks. Happy Birthday Malou! You're a great friend and you certainly deserve the world!
I hope you all liked this chapter. Malou of course had the privilege to read the whole story in full already; I couldn't leave her with cliffhangers for her birthday present, could I? ^^ So there's 8 chapters of this story and it's fully written, so from now on it won't interfere with my other stories' schedule. I'll post this story once a week on s Saturday. Get prepared for 8 weeks of heated, VERY heated stuff…and enjoy!
Please let me know what you thought of this chapter in a comment. I really hope you liked it! I'm always open to a dialogue, I don't mind ANY type of feedback! To all of you who will write a review or a comment for this story, thank you so much! You always make my day!
I'll update the Cheesy Situation next week (revising this one before Malauu's birthday took some time. Besides, it was my little one's 7th birthday during the week so…no real time to write, and today he has his birthday party so no time to write either. Chaotic week!), but I hope those of you who are over 18 will like this bonus :)
Oh also, if you're Harry Potter fans, I've found again my old stories from 2002, so I'm slowly revising the English of them and I've recently published one of the stories that I had more dear to my heart at the time, 'The Mists of Memory'. I'll carry on every fortnight with it, if you read the books, please do have a read. It won't stop me from writing about Miraculous, don't worry. But it's depressing when stories get no hits, no reviews, no fav/follows… Thanks so much to those of you who did see it in my updates and did drop a line!
As usual, if you read this and you're not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server, Miraculous Fanworks (for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks). Also, I recently joined another wonderful server! Even this one is friendly and there's a lot of wonderful people to discuss Miraculous and fanfictions with, so…now you get two invites :D Miraculous Discordance /QwgKdUhJNJ (discord dot gg slash QwgKdUhJNJ). I wait for you in one of these servers.
PS: also, if you enjoy this story but feel shy of posting a review for it, you can join the Emerald Library Discord server at /rjQhnJNh (for people on FFN or Wattpad, discord dot gg slash rjQhnJNh) and access my personal channel. I'm there all the time so if you pop around we can have a chat. I promise I won't bite ;)