Ch. 2: Meet&Greet
'This is a surprise,' Adrien thought as he stared at the guy who not ten minutes ago saved him from being road pizza. Everyone else in the room began whispering amongst themselves about Adam, wondering various things about him but most just defaulted to wondering if he was even sane as he seemed more than ready to jump into danger, something Adrien was beginning to think himself. 'If that car had hit me and only me, I'd probably be put out of commission for only a little while. The miraculous probably would have saved me fine but… he wouldn't have known that...'
Marinette, behind him was more focused on the girl beside Adam. Amara seemed none too interested in the class but rather the boy next to him. 'If she stares at him any harder, he might catch fire,' Marinette mused before simply putting the thought away. She didn't know either of them yet so it's not like she can make judgements. It was making such judgements that led to her hating Adrien at first, something she still sometimes doesn't forgive herself over.
"Alright, class, settle down," the teacher proclaimed. "Now that they've introduced themselves, it's only fitting that the rest of us do the same. I'll start," she announced before turning towards the two new students, "My name is Miss Caline Bustier," she smiled before turning to the class, starting with Adrien.
"Adrian Agreste, a pleasure," Adrien said, voice calm and level.
"My name's Nino Lahiffe! I'm a professional DJ," Nino was less so as he added a bit more energy to his introduction.
"The word 'professional' should not be used in the same context as you, Nino," Alya said through the hand covering her face. She put it down before refocusing on Adam and Amara. " "Name's Alya Cesaire," Alya then motioned to the girl next to her who jumped a bit when she realized it was her turn. Her thoughts were a bit more preoccupied.
"My name's Marinette Dupain-Cheng. It's nice to meet you both," Marinette said as she rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. The class continued to introduce themselves and it went off smoothly as most of the class was friendly to the two.
The key word being "most".
The last person in the class was a blue-eyed blonde with her hair in a ponytail with makeup so heavy that even Adam could see it and he was about ten feet away. Her outfit was just as extravagant: White rimmed sunglasses sat on the top of her head, a dark gold sphere charm and chain around her neck, a white shirt covered by an expensive yellow jacket that seemed to scream 'Look at me!" from how bright it was. White jean capris with diamond shaped studs and white dress shoes completed the too bright look. Her expression also wasn't that induced good feelings. She seemed to have a look of disinterest and maybe even a bit of disgust as she looked at the two. There was an audible silence in the room before she finally spoke.
"I am Chloe Bourgeois," she said, voice haughty with pride which made the stomachs of half the room turn. Adam looked at the other students and could only chuckle at the number of classmates that had looks that could only be described as "seething exasperation". "Did I say something funny?" Chloe immediately responded to Adam's chuckle. Adam scratched the back of his head before turning to Chloe.
"Oh it's nothing. I found everyone else's reactions to your introduction funny, that's all."
"What do you mean? Everyone here loves me," Adam turned to everyone else and their faces told more than any words could. They all looked like they wanted desperately to groan from the amount of nonsense coming out of her mouth.
"You're pretty quick to defend then," Adam countered back with a calm tone, surprising most of the class. It was rare that anyone stood up to Chloe directly but Marinette and Alya seemed to be getting no small amount of enjoyment from the little skirmish. Though Miss Bustier did not.
"Alright, that's enough," Miss Bustier interrupted, preventing things from escalating. "We have class to get on with. Why don't you two take a seat?" Adam and Amara looked around for empty seats and found two. Adam walked up to an empty spot next to clearly the biggest guy in the room. His attire was mostly black with his t-shirt and slacks with the only exceptions being the white crossing bones on his shirt and his khaki-colored work boots. His hair was black with a little tuff in the front that was dyed blonde. He looked… mean.
"Ivan, right?" Adam asked the grouchy-looking teen who nodded. "May I?" He scooched over, trying to give as much room as he could without falling out of the seat, allowing Adam to sit down. 'Well at least he's not going to eat me though I doubt I'll be making friends with him today.'
Amara took the only remaining seat in the class next to a redheaded boy whose hair partially obscured his eyes. He was almost taken aback that she was sitting next to him and tried as much as he could not to make eye contact. Amara turned to look at the clearly nervous boy next to him but couldn't see all of him with him turned away like he was. He was wearing a gray dress jacket with purple pants and gray shoes. Amara thought of something to say to hopefully calm him down.
"It's alright, I'm not going to bite," Amara tried as hard as she could to make that seem friendly but he didn't respond or even look at her so it didn't seem to work.
"Now that everyone has been introduced and is situated, we will begin with a brief overview of what to expect this year," Miss Bustier explained with a smile as she produced a stack of papers from the desk.
The first half of the school day was uneventful. The class was basically given syllabus after syllabus explain how every class was going to be. How many exams, how the grades were measured, school policy being regurgitated every single time like they had short term memory loss or something. Naturally, everyone was about as interested in it as they were about what phase the moon was in. Waning crescent in case anyone did care. After half the day had gone by it was time for the most wonderful time of the day: Lunch.
"You sure you have to head back home for lunch, man?" Nino asked Adrien as the two headed out towards Adrien's family's limousine. "It be a good chance to get to meet the two new kids."
"I know but Dad said he had something important to discuss regarding my current modeling schedule. Why he didn't just send me a letter or something like normal is beyond me but there you go. Besides, it's not like lunch isn't going to happen tomorrow."
"For all we know, there might not be a tomorrow but I'll give you the dets later since you probably have to model today too." Nino waved bye as his friend went through the car door held open by a bodyguard that seemed like he'd be too big to even drive the freaking thing. Nino walked back inside where he saw a small crowd of fellow students around Adam with most of them trying to talk to him and him desperately trying to get them to tell them nicely to leave him be. They seemed particularly interested in the skates that he looked to be trying to repair if the tools around his broken skate were any indication.
"Look like we've got a new Mr. Popular," Nino heard to his left as he saw Alya and Marinette walking up to him.
"Yeah, I kinda feel bad for him as he clearly doesn't want the attention," Marinette spoke with concern as she saw the scene. Adam looked in distress if his face had anything to say about it.
"Not now anyway. Maybe we should help him?" Nino wondered aloud.
"That seems like it might be best," Alya agreed. She walked over and quickly made herself known. "Alright everyone, take a hike, you're crowding the new kid," Alya demanded because she's Alya dammit and why don't you tell her not to. The crowd quickly dispersed leaving Adam alone with Alya, Nino, and Marinette which he welcomed with a sigh.
"Thank you, but you really didn't have to do that," Adam said as he took a seat in front of his discarded shoe-skate.
"No but I wanted to since you looked like you needed help getting rid of the unwanted attention," Alya said as the three took seats at the table with him.
"Honestly, when I woke up this morning, this is not how I picture today going. I thought it was going to be a lot duller and then everything happened and now I thinking maybe I should head home for lunch," he pondered aloud as he picked up small magnifying glass to see inside the now empty bottom of his shoe.
"Well, don't you worry bout a thing, bro, you've got us with you now and you couldn't ask for better company," Nino said as he placed his arm around Adam's neck, surprising him at the sudden invasion of personal space which Nino quickly realized before backing off and just offering a handshake which Adam returned.
"Well, aren't you the most modest bro here," Adam replied sarcastically, winning a pair of giggles from Alya and Marinette. Marinette's attention was drawn to the shoes Adam was taking a look at. They were much bulkier than normal sneakers and having skates attached was something new. She heard of shoes with wheels on the heels but never across the whole bottom and built into the soles.
"If you don't mind me asking, what is up with those sneakers of yours," Marinette asked, as Adam sighed. 'Oh… maybe he's tired of having to answer that?' "You don't have to answer if you don't want to. You probably are getting tired of hearing it," Marinette added quickly.
"A little but I don't mind too much as no doubt everyone's a bit curious," He reached down and pulled off his other shoe before removing the cover of the wheels on the bottom and pulling them out. He then reached into the shoes and without warning, the wheels started moving on their own. "These are electric shoe-skates, patent pending and it's still in the 'what do we call this thing' phase."
"D-did you make those?" Marinette asked as she looked at the whirling wheels spin at a furious pace.
"I wish I was that good but I'm not sure Dad would approve of taking credit from him. No, these were made by him as a side-project in his spare time. He's a high ranking technician working for WTA Industries, a company famous for making strange… things that you never knew you wanted until it was already invented. They make normal stuff too but you don't get known and successful by being normal is what he says."
"So how fast are they?" Alya asked causing Adam to flinch slightly.
"Well... normally, we've had to limit it to about ten kilometers per hour. It's still in the testing phase and we needed to make sure it could handle the stress considering how many small pieces are in here. You can't get them on the market because it's not ready yet."
"Your dad uses you as a test dummy?" Nino inquired, confused why any parent would allow their own children to test what could be dangerous things.
"I get paid a hundred euro a day to be a test dummy," Adam replied back matter-of-factly.
"But 10 kilometers… you were going way faster than that! You wouldn't have made it in time to save Cat Noir," Marinette deduced.
"That's because I turned the limiters off this morning before I left home. I wanted to give it a real stress test. The top speed is actually about fifty kilometers an hour or about thirty miles per hour."
"Fifty kilometers?! That seems really dangerous on unproven equipment," Nino asked incredulously.
"Yeah but before I saved… Cat Noir was it?" Adam asked Nino who nodded, "I hadn't gotten far enough to build up the speed. I got to maybe twenty kilometers per hour at best and that was on an uncrowded sidewalk which at eight in the morning was kind of rare on a business day. The accelerator is also kinda underpowered for what Dad had in mind but it was the best he could do for a motor this small. He still working out the kinks on the other motors he wants to try. But like I said, this is just a side project so it's not likely to hit the production line for another year or two, especially with whatever it is he's got going on now here in France."
"I take it he's the reason you've moved here?" Marinette asked,
"Yeah but it's a bit more complicated than that. I'd go into it but I think you've guys probably don't need me overloading your brains with info after the shoe-skates. Why don't you guys tell me a bit about yourselves so we're not just talking about me?" Adam asked politely, seemingly trying to direct attention off of him. As the three began to give basic info about themselves, unbenounced to them, they were being watched closely from above. By Amara of all people.
"Don't worry. I'm sure he's perfect for the job. I mean, he jumped right in front of that car to save Cat Noir so it's clear he is going to be on our side."
"But you realize the risks involved, right. This is the last one I have left. If we lose it… we'd be fighting very long odds. Not to mention what it is I'd be asking of him. This isn't a job so much as a way of life."
"Yeah, but you know you're in no shape to do it yourself. You were going to have to pass it along someday and do you really think we can be indecisive now? We've already lost the other five and I can't do this by myself. We could always have Fu give him one of his."
"Not possible. He says he already has candidates for those," Amara sighed at that but took comfort in the knowledge that at least there would be more help. "..." Silence on the other line for a good minute or so. Amara had to check at one point to make sure he hadn't hung up. "I'll make the call."
"ありがとう、お父さん (Thank you, Father). I promise we'll make this work."
"For all our sakes, I hope you are right."
Meanwhile across town at the Agreste family mansion, Adrien was sitting down eating the remainder of his lunch while waiting for his father to show up. Just as he finished he heard a door to his left open, with a sharp dressed blonde man and a professional looking black-haired woman walking through.
"Hello, Adrien, I have some things I'd like to discuss with you," the man began as the woman took Adrien's empty plates, "Natalie, make sure we're not disturbed." Natalie nodded as she left the room.
"So what was it you needed to discuss with me, Father?" Adrien inquired, perplexed at the situation. 'Or what's so important that you couldn't just send me a note like always?' Adrien snarked in his own head.
"We're discussing your modeling schedule for the foreseeable future and it's now that I need to ask, what exactly are your plans for your future?"
'Oh… that's why.' Adrien thought as his skepticism turned to curiosity, "My plans?" Now all of Adrien's attention was on this. This was the question he never thought he'd hear. His father, who was insanely restricting about Adrien's life was now asking him what he wanted to do with it. Naturally, since he never thought he'd be asked the question, Adrien leaned back into the chair and stared at the table where his food used to be, not even looking at his father who hovered over his shoulder. "I… never really thought about it since you usually take care of that. I honestly didn't think I was ever going to be given a choice."
"I see," Adrien's father walked over to a nearby chair, fixing his red and white tie and white suit before taking a seat himself.
"Why are you asking, Father?"
"I was considering grooming you to take a place in the company." he responded, nearly knocking Adrien out of his chair.
"Wait, as what?"
"It all depends on you. You could stay a model like before, you could try and learn more behind-the-scenes elements like fashion designer, or contracted photographer for example. You could even work to get a spot in the corporate ladder if you wanted it,"
"And… If I didn't want any spot in the company?"
"That's your choice but you won't be able to act on it until you are eighteen and able to live your own life, provided you actually have a plan by then," Mr. Agreste finished, leaving Adrien without an immediate answer.
"I'll give you time to think about it. While you think about it, I'm having Natalie schedule less photo shoots as I wish to make sure your studies are your first priority. You won't have a shoot later today for instance." Adrien turned and looked at his father who quickly responded at the obvious question of "Why?" "Your grades last year were… below expectations and I believe that more time will help remedy that… hopefully. We just contracted a new model a week ago and he'll serve as a suitable substitute for a while. Enough for you to come up with your own ideas for the future," With that, Mr. Agreste stood up and left the room, leaving Adrien alone with his thoughts. Well, not truly alone.
"So, what's your plan?" Adrien heard from his coat pocket. Suddenly, flying out was a pitch black kwami with green cat eyes and ears.
"I… I don't know, Plagg. But he gave me the time to think about it so I'll cross that bridge later. Besides he's right in a way as much as I hate to admit it. I do need to think about life outside of Cat Noir instead of just having them plan that for me and coast through the rest.
"Well, whatever your plan is, just know I'm right with you, provided that there's plenty of camembert along the way," Plagg said as he rubbed his stomach.
"Do you think of anything other than your next meal?" Adrien asked, slightly annoyed by his companions constant hunger for smelly cheese.
"I was thinking of you twenty seconds ago so... yeah about one percent of the time I do think of something else.," Plagg responded, getting a smirk from Adrien as he opened his coat to let him back in and leave for school again.
After lunch, it was more of the same learning the rules of the year schtick that every other class had up to that point until finally the day of tedium even by school standards was over. Adrien stood at the top of the steps. He was told to call his bodyguard if he wished to go home right away if he didn't have anything going on. He stared at his phone wondering what to do with his day now that dear old dad took the only thing he actually had to do.
While knee deep in contemplation, a familiar arm wrapped it's way around his neck and pulled him close.
"Alright, what's bothering you?" Adrien turned to look at Nino who was now flanked by Adam to his left. "Oh yeah, you didn't really get to talk to him yet, right?" Nino asked as he pointed towards his new classmate.
"Nice to meet you, Adrien. Here's hoping you live up to the glowing praise I got from Nino and Marinette," Adam joked as he offered his hand which Adrien took.
"I'll hate to disappoint but I think Nino might be exaggerating a bit," Adrien replied with a smile. Though he had to wonder what Marinette said about him to. She was always a bit awkward around him.
"Anyway, you got to go to your photo shoot, don't you?"
"Not today actually. Dad's scheduled less photo shoots as he wanted me focus on school for now," Adrien answered, leaving out the more important details as he was still running those through his head.
"Really? Well, then this is perfect. Adam plays video games too so I figure we can go hang at his house for a while," Nino explained excitedly. "Me and you have been the coolest duo for a while and now with this cool cat over here," Nino said as he pulled in Adam as well, "we'll be the coolest trio in Paris!"
"I think I can get on board with that," Adrien agreed. It's not like he had anything better to do and the distraction would help him think about things later since he wouldn't be so worried about it.
"Although I'm not too sure about Nino tugging at my neck so much," Adam piped up, as Nino backed off the both of them.
"Sorry bout that. It's just my boy Adrien here needs more than like three friends."
"Well, they say it's better to have three great friends than twenty okay friends," Adam said as he rubbed the back of his neck. Nino didn't come up with an immediate rebuttal.
"Well he's got you there, Nino. Anyway, Adam, which way's your home?"
As the boys walked away towards Adam's house, Amara watched them carefully, especially Adam as he was the one she had recommended to her father. But before she could do anything…
"Hey girl!" Amara turned around to see Alya and Marinette walk up to her. "Checking out the boys? Be careful, Nino is my man and no one's going to have him but me!" Alya warned playfully. "Oh and Adrien wouldn't be a good idea either as you'd have to fight this girl for him," Alya whispered as she pointed to a now embarrassed Marinette.
"Alya! Don't go blabbing about that to every stranger!" Marinette fumed as her face turned red.
"Don't worry, I'm not interested in dating anyone. Alya and Marinette, right? Did you want something?"
"Well, only to know our newest student, of course!" Alya answered. "We didn't get a chance to meet earlier so I figured since we caught you now, we could just hang out."
"Well, I suppose that would be nice. Where exactly did you have in mind because my home isn't available. We're still painting the walls and it smells pretty bad," Amara explained as she made up the excuse on the spot but it seemed believable enough.
"Oh, Alya, I think I won't join you today. I'm just a bit exhausted and want to just head home," Marinette said as she begun to stretch.
"Well, we could always hang out your house. I'm sure your parents won't mind and it'd give Amara a taste of fresh french baked treats."
"Maybe another time. I'll see you both tomorrow!" Marinette barely gave Alya time to rebuttal before she took of.
"For exhausted, she sure runs fast," Alya sighed before looking at the unflappable Amara who just looked on in silence. "My house sound good?" Amara nodded as the two headed off to Alya's place to hang out.
Marinette continued to hurry home which thankfully for her was just across the street from school so it wasn't too bad. She opened the door to be greeted by the smell of fresh baked breads, pastries, and sweets and the smiling face of her mother. She had hair like Marinette's in color but had her's let down and slightly shorter. She wore a white cheongsam with gold, red, and black designs with periwinkle blue pants and white dress shoes.
"Oh hello, honey, how was your first day back?" she asked Marinette just sort of fell into a hug from her.
"Exhausting and boring if those two words can go together."
"Exhaustingly boring, you say? Well, it's only the first day so I'm sure things will pick up."
"Sabine, can you come help me, dear?" Marionette's dad called behind a nearby screen where they keep the ovens.
"Coming, Thomas! Marinette and I are in the middle of mother/daughter time!" Sabine shouted back.
"I really need the extra set of hands!" Tom yelled back, earning a sigh from Sabine.
"Duty calls. You just get the rest you need and worry about things later," Sabine said as she kissed her daughter's cheek before retreating into the kitchen to help her husband. Marinette decide to take the advice and climbed up to her room before letting out a groan.
"You okay, Marinette?" Marinette heard from her side as Tikki flew in front of her face. Marinette didn't answer right away as she sat in her chair in front of her computer. "It's about what happened to Cat, isn't it?" Marinette nodded before speaking.
"I think I've gotten rusty at being Ladybug. Hawkmoth hadn't made an akuma in months and then suddenly shows up again like nothing happened. What's worse, Cat almost got turned into roadkill if it wasn't for Adam being completely impulsive."
"I think that's the pot calling the kettle black, Marinette," Tikki remarked slyly, earning a glare from the struggling not to smile Marinette. "Besides, thanks to that Adam boy, everything worked out fine so we just need to get you back into fighting shape so it won't happen again!"
"You're right! I shouldn't be worrying about something that didn't happen. I just need to make sure I'm ready for the next one. If I'm just a bit rusty, I'm sure just a bit of practice is all I need," Marinette said as she climbed up to her bed and onto the roof. "Tikki, spots on!" After transforming into Ladybug, she quickly jumped outside and lassoed her yo-yo and swung away to do some practice to get back into proper Ladybug shape.
Meanwhile, back with boys, who were just coming up to Adam's place. A dark blue three story tall building with a store interior on the first floor and living quarters on the upper floors. But the really interesting part for Adrien was on the roof. They had a greenhouse as well and it seemed to take up most of the roof.
"So, are your parents opening up a store here?" Adrien asked, not quite clued in to anything about Adam beyond what Nino already knew.
"Not exactly. My mother is going to be using the bottom floor for her work when she comes to Paris… eventually," Adam sighed.
"What's your mom do?" Nino asked as she never came up before.
"She's a lawyer though she's finishing up prior obligations and cases in the states before she'll be coming here to learn french law and eventually open up a firm here as well. That's the plan anyway but things could change on a dime," Adam walked up to the door and tried to open it only to find it locked. "What the...?"
"WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!" Suddenly out of nowhere, a gold-yellow dog jumped up to the door window and started to violently bark and looked about ready to eat the boys alive, causing Nino and Adrien to jump back while Adam just looked slightly surprised.
"Geez, Victor, happy to see you too, you rabid animal," Adam snarked dryly before then slamming his hand against the door frame, causing the violent dog to calm down long enough to get a good look at his owner before immediately jumping down and sitting away from the door patiently with his tail wagging. "Meet Victor, a labrador-chow. Loyal and as he was quick to demonstrate, scary to those he doesn't recognize," Adam joked as he looked at his new friends who were holding each other in their arms like they were about to die before quickly breaking apart and clearing their throats, earning a chuckle from Adam. "Also when we get in, stay behind me until I've got a hold of him. He's calm whenever someone he knows is around so he'll be able to sniff you and get to know you as friendly."
Nino and Adrien nodded before they heard the speaker next to the door come to life.
"Password?" A masculine voice came from a speaker next to the door.
"Oh right 'password'," Adam responded with sarcastic air quotes on "password". "The password is "Let your son in before he calls Mom and has her scold you first for not telling him about the security system',"
"...Password accepted, Mr. Killjoy," A quiet beep could be heard from the door before Adam could open it. He turned to look at his new friends who just looked at him with looks of pity and humor.
"Your dad, I take it?" Nino asked up after stifling a chuckle.
"Yeah, he must have finished putting in the security system. Don't know why we need it. Victor seems like all the security we'd need with how he acts around people he doesn't know. Isn't that right, my faithful guard hound?" Adam explains as he vigorously pets Victor who seemed to be enjoying all the attention he was getting. Nino walked up and outstretched his hand for Victor to sniff and received a friendly lick from his spotted tongue. Adrien tried the same thing but Victor seemed a bit confused before looking away back at Adam, which seemed to confuse the boys in turn.
"Well, Victor won't stop everyone and besides we only have the basics put in right now," the voice from earlier spoke from inside the building. The trio turned to see a middle-aged man in a white lab coat that had a few oil spots on it "I still have to add the cameras and the traps and the laser cannons-"
"We are not having lasers!" Adam shouted, exasperated with his father who just smiled. "Mom doesn't want her law firm having lasers shooting at people looking for law support, not blindness!"
"Calm down, son, we don't need the neighbors sending noise complaints again," Adam's father said cheerfully as he walked up to Adrien and Nino. "I see you've already made friends. My name is Dr. Hubert Dunn, inventor of wondrous tech for everyday life and more!" His father said extravagantly as he offered the two boys his hands to shake.
"Nino Lahiffe,"
"Adrien Agreste," the two responded uneasily as they shook his hands.
"Anyway, I'd love to stay and chat about your first day but I have a few things I have to run off to do."
"Work called you in again?"
"Unfortunately," Hubert sighed as he scratched his head, "They seem to not be making any headway without me so I'm going to see what I can help with. I'll be out till late so just stick dinner in the fridge for me, would you?"
"I don't know why you're asking since that's what happens every night lately," Adam shrugged as his father left the three boys alone and drove away.
"He seems nice," Nino piped up after a moment of silence. Adam just sighed as his dad's own energy seemed to just tire him out.
"The guy just said he's planning on putting laser cannons in here and you call him 'nice'. What does 'mean' look like to you?"
"Chloe probably," Adrian answered for his friend.
"Dear lord, I don't even want to know what she's done if she qualifies. Anyway I might as well show you guys around though there's not much yet," Adam led the guys through most of the house but like he said, there was only the basics since they were still moving in. Piles of boxes littered the floor and the smell of freshly dried paint filled the house even with most of the windows open. When they walked into the living room, Nino's eyes instantly caught something he liked. Next to the TV was a guitar case. Nino ran over and picked it up before turning to Adam, who didn't look too happy about it.
"Crap, I left that out in the open? Oh, right; I wasn't planning on having guests today, was I?" Adam sighed as he walked over to Nino.
"You play?"
"Yeah but… I don't like to," Adam said as he took it from Nino and set it back down against the wall.
"Why not?" Adrien asked as he walked over from the doorway. He happened to notice a white and brown spotted cat lying on the couch. The collar around his neck read "Bobbers".
"Primarily since my mom made me learn how to since she wanted all her children to learn how to play an instrument though she didn't ask us if we even wanted to or what we wanted to play."
"You have siblings?" Adrien inquired as he was petting Bobbers.
"Two sisters but they're both about ten plus years older than me so I have seen them personally in a while," Adrien couldn't help but noticing the sadness in his voice when he said that.
"Sorry I brought it up," Adrien apologized though Adam didn't seem to want him to.
"Hey, don't feel bad about it," Adam said, quickly waving it off. "It's not like you would have known. Oh and rub Bobbers' ears. He loves that," Adrien acquiesced and sure enough, Bobbers' purring became louder as he leaned into the ear rub. Victor quickly ran over to get some love too which Nino gladly gave to the attention hungry hound.
Nino returned the subject back to why they came over: to have some fun. "So where are your games?"
"Should be in that box over there," Adam pointed to a box in the far corner marked "Adam's gaming crud". "But before that, I think I want to show you guys something else before we relax since I know once we sit down, none of us are really going to want to get back up again." Adam quickly took the duo up to his room on the third floor. Adrien didn't get time to take a look at the mostly empty dark green room as he was quickly herded through by Adam before he opened up a door to the roof. They were now inside the greenhouse that Adrien saw earlier and like most greenhouses, the humidity was pretty high even with panels on the ceiling open.
"Welcome to Dunn Right Gardening's greenhouse!" Adam enthusiastically introduced them to his greenhouse. The greenhouse was full of tables of pots filled with topsoil and little flags stuck in each pot showing what's growing in them. Adrien and Nino noticed the variety of plants being grown from ferns to herbs to flowers and vegetables.
"Oh, that's the logo written on the back of your jacket, right?" Adrien remembered from earlier back when he was Cat Noir. Adam quickly spun around to point at the logo.
"Yep! It's a business I started back in the states and brought it with me to France."
"You started your own gardening business?" Nino asked as he looked at a lot of the plants he had started on.
"I basically grow the plants to be sold if they flowers or non-edible plants but I'm also growing some vegetables here to so I can sell those as well and if they don't sell then it's something we can take off our grocery list so it's not a complete loss," Adam explained as he showed the two around. He pointed at a staircase as well that led to the bottom floor and was sealed off with a chain door and the same security pad from the front door as well as a chain lock.
"I take it this is much more interesting to you then the guitar then," Adrien remarked, remember Adam's contempt for the instrument earlier.
"Well, I actually picked to do this so, yeah, I find it a bit more enjoyable than something that starts to hurt my fingers if I play for more than half an hour. Anyway, I thought this would be cool to show you guys. Especially since I'm sure you'll both probably want flowers in the future for... reasons," Adam said with a wink, causing both of them to blush and chuckle nervously at the thought of giving flowers to Alya and Ladybug.
"Okay, enough talk about our love lives. Now we need to think about one thing: Who the best gamer among us is." Adrien said, getting his own competitive game face on.
"Now there's an important question and one that must be answered right now," Adam agreed as the trio hurried downstairs, all three of them failing to notice the small black box sitting on Adam's bed.
A/N: Yeah 6000 words seems good enough. I was initially going to have everyone introduced at the beginning but figured that it would be long and boring to see 15 descriptions all at once so I'll properly introduce them as they become relevant. Also adding grave accents (`) is so dumb. Alt key plus random number code is just the stupidest.
Hardest part to write for was the Agreste family meeting. It was hard deciding how to go about it. Took a week and a half just for that part alone because I couldn't write anything I was happy with.
Also as a gamer myself entering the biggest release period of the year, I imagine my attention span is going to be stretched to it's limit. Also I've seen the new episodes of season 2 and I think I already know where I'm going to cut off into an AU but it'll be more apparent later.
Fanfic-fan118: Thank you kindly and I will stride to not disappoint.
Kmbrun: I've already talked about this with you in PM since I didn't want this taking multiple chapters to explain but I might as well say it for everyone else: I think that in Marinette's world, her hair is black to everyone else. From what I know about character design, straight black is very rare. It's almost always tinted to give it more depth and to make it look more impressive. Blue and brown are the most common tints for black hair as they look the most natural. Sometime's it's just completely replaced instead of tinting (though this is more common in 2D animation as black hair looks like ass in 2D even with tinting). I think the main reason Marinette's hair is so blue to us is because she needs to stand out. She's the hero after all. I once saw an interview with a member of the staff working on Yugioh Arc V on how all of the character's hairstyles might seem bright and colorful to us, but in their world, they are visually the exact same color because WE the audience need to identify each character easily.
Now I just need to find a picture for the story. That'll be fuuuuuuuuuuuun... Till next time, Sal out!