Adrien's Competition Part 8
Marinette felt weird walking beside Adrien with the body guard hovering over them. She looked to Adrien to see if his expression betrayed any discomfort but he was just smiling his Adrien smile and looking adorable.
"Well well…" Alya spotted them first "look who's riding in with pretty boy." Alya fell into step beside Marinette.
"Yo!" Nino slipped in on Adrien's other side. "I hope it's cool with you man, but I'm gonna sit in Marinette's throne next to Alya today."
"That's fine," Adrien waves his friend's concern away "I was thinking Marinette should sit with me and my bodyguard anyway." Adrien turned to Marinette "if that's okay with you?"
"Of course." She squeaked "I mean yes, thank you, that would be great."
Adrien was used to Marinette getting flustered around him. He hoped he wasn't making anything worse when he offered her to sit next to him. I'll have to have Chat Noir ask her about it later… she's always so easy going with him.
Adrien pulled Marinette's chair out for her before taking his seat beside her. The gorilla stood by Adrien's desk and Nino sat in the throne made of heart lollipops. Marinette tried to ignore the display behind her and focus on class but it was becoming the weight dragging her down a little bit more each day.
"Marinette…" Adrien placed a hand on her shoulder. Marinette jumped, startled out of her thoughts.
"Sorry!" Adrien snatched his hand back.
"No…" Marinette shook herself "sorry, that was my fault, I totally spaced."
"I should have known better." Adrien offered his best reassuring smile. "with everything going on."
"It's okay." Marinette said "Really, I'm fine."
"Are you though?" Adrien asked. Marinette seemed to be missing something. She was usually so happy and light. Adrien hadn't even noticed it at first but she was getting more weighted down by the day.
Marinette didn't answer right away, suddenly the questions seemed heavier, his eyes weighing on her all concerned and beautiful and sincere. Marinette felt her chest squeeze you're a super hero she told herself trying to get the words out. You can save Paris from super villains… so you can deal with this.
"Marinette…" Adrien repeated when she went quiet. Her eyes turned glassy and she was chewing on her lip. Adrien had never seen her do that before.
"Marinette…" he whispered. Marinette's phone bleeped. She glanced down at it in her hand and saw Ethan's name.
"I have to go." Marinette pushed away from her desk and ran out of the classroom.
"Marinette, wait!" Adrien leapt over the desk and ran after her, the body guard followed. Alya ran after Marinette. Nino opened a lollipop and trailed after his friends just as Madame Bustier walked in.
"Where are you going, sir?" she demanded. Nino pointed down the hall where the gorilla and Adrien stood outside the girls' bathroom.
"Sorry ma'am, friend needs me." he walked passed her and Madame Bustier just shook her head and went in to tend to the rest of the class.
Mariette hid in the girls' bathroom, she looked at her red face and glassy eyes in the mirror, when did her heart start beating so fast? when did it get so hard to breath?
"Marinette." Adrien's voice was followed by a knock "please come out, talk to me."
"Adrien…" Alya's voice sounded next "let me, she's my friend too."
"But I…" Adrien reached for Alya. "I want to help."
Alya smiled and patted his shoulder. "trust me, Pretty boy, you're helping more than you know." Alya offered him a smile and pushed the door open. Marinette gasped, her eyes catching Adrien's before the door cut them off. Adrien sighed and leaned his back to the wall before sinking down to the floor.
"Bro." Nino joined him on the ground. "you okay?"
"No…" he sighed "this is all my fault and now I've made it worse."
"No way, bro." Nino wrapped his arm over his buddy's shoulders "you're doing everything you can for her."
"It's not enough, he's still texting her and Ethan just texted me a second ago." Adrien sighed "I shouldn't have let them meet to being with, I know how Ethan is, I shouldn't have asked to get icecream with them."
"Dude," Nino chuckled at his friend "this isn't your fault and besides, it's not like you're Chat Noir, it's not like it's your job to keep everyone safe." Nino couldn't know how bad that comment made Adrien feel.
Alya wrapped her arms around Marinette and squeezed her.
"I'm so stupid?" Marinette's voice was small as she hid in Alya's shoulder.
"No, you're not." Alya soothed smoothing her hair back.
"Adrien is being so nice and I-I-I don't know what happened!" Marinette held the tears back, she didn't want to cry, not about this, not when she had so many friends helping her through it.
"It's okay to feel stressed." Alya said "this guy is seriously crossing the line, crossing every line." Alya stroked her friend's hair trying to soothe her. Alya had taken too long to see the stress her friend didn't even know she was feeling. Marinette was so sweet and upbeat she probably had just kept pushing it down and finally this was it. It came out in Marinette's shaking hands and tear filled eyes.
"I just… it's not like I've gotten hurt, he's just being annoying." Marinette's voice squeaked. She hoped Adrien could hear her… he did,
Adrien tried to pretend that he didn't hear Marinette's voice squeak the way it does when she's nervous and he tried not to look at her phone buzzing on the floor beside him. She dropped it when she ran to the bathroom and he had grabbed it. He wasn't going to do anything with it but now that he got a taste of what Marinette's life had become, it was making him angrier. He opened her phone. Surprise surprise; sweet, trusting Marinette didn't even have a passcode on it.
"Dude what are you doing?" Nino asked him, gaping at his friend.
"Ethan needs to stop." Adrien tapped at the keys, he rolled his eyes at the 'hey babe' kissy face reply. This guy was going to ruin the kissy face emoji for Marinette and Chat Noir at this rate.
"I don't think you should bro." Nino tried to stop his bud but Adrien was already hitting send.
"okay, that's enough…" Nino trailed off as Adrien's fingers flew over the key board.
"He has to take a no." Adrien said "right?"
"What are you doing?" Marinette's fragile voice came from the doorway. She stood there with her hands curled into balls and squeezed in front of her chest.
"I…" Adrien looked at the phone "no… Marinette I'm sorry-this looks bad-I was trying to tell hi to leave you alone." Adrien held her phone back out to her. Alya took it for her when Marinette didn't make a move.
"Adrien…" Marinette trailed off unsure what to say.
"I'm sorry, I was just trying to help." Adrien wrapped his arm around himself and curled forward feeling ashamed that was so stupid of me he closed his eyes and waited for her to yell at him or burst into tears or run away from him.
"It's okay." Alya showed Marinette her phone. "he just told Ethan to quit bugging you."
Marinette glanced at the messages but she didn't want to see too many of them, the sheer volume of texts she got from him a day was enough to push her over the edge.
"He was just trying to help, Marinette." Nino placed a hand on Adrien's shoulders.
"I shouldn't have touched your phone, Marinette." Adrien would fess up at the very least "I just… he kept texting you and and…" Marinette reached out and touched Adrien's face
"I know." She offered a smile and glanced down at her phone "but it worked, for now at least," Marinette had never been so happy to not hear her phone go off "I think this is the longest I've gone without a text from him."
"I'm glad." Adrien sighed "but it was still wrong of me to touch your phone, I'm sorry, Marinette."
"It was the wrong thing done for the right reason." She said. Adrien smiled at her because Marinette may have been the sweetest person he'd ever met and she was unlucky enough to become a target of Ethan's
"We should get back to class." Marinette suggested.
"No." Adrien said, "I have a better idea."
Adrien called his father, to his surprise Gabriel Agreste actually answered, and even more to Adrien's shock, his father agreed to let him skip school with a girl and have a free day.
Marinette was soaring on the clouds by the time she got home… right up until the moment she found a giant teddy bear, a basket of chocolates and four huge bouquets of flowers sitting just inside the bakery doors. She looked to her parents, they didn't know the full extent of what was going but one look at their daughter and her reaction to the gifts and they knew something was wrong.
Marinette broke down and she balled in her parents arms out of sight of Adrien and her friends and the world. here she was not Ladybug, here she was Marinette Dupain-Cheng a fourteen-year-old girl who really needed her parents support.
Marinette told them everything.
Adrienette though... am I right?
who do you Ship the hardest? not gonna lie, I really like the MariChat dynamic, personally.
About time Marinette told her parents, right?
Poor stressed Marinette, though, she didn't even know she was stressed until Adrien asked her if she was really okay :'(
And Ethan... boy... STAWP!
Part 9 will be posted tomorrow some come visit me then to find out where this road is leading us.
I appreciate all the reviews you guys take the time to read, I can't even tell you how helpful they are when I'm writing the next part and figuring out what else should happen.