Alya went to visit Zoe and Marinette at their apartment. She was on a child free weekend, Nino was visiting his folks with the twins. Alya loved her daughters to death but sometimes she just needed a break.

As she entered the studio apartment where the couple lived, she saw posters for Zoe's movies all over the walls. Minor roles were all Zoe had managed to land for now, but she had been a minor character who made it through the entire movie last month. Marinette was proud of every scene Zoe was in and had a special file with each part clipped together to watch when Zoe was away filming.

What really took up the space though was Marinette's busts and design equipment. When Zoe was away, Marinette would spend most of her time at home working on projects instead of actually resting. Thankfully, Zoe was home so that would be a problem today.

Alya found the couple in the kitchen, making spaghetti and meatballs. Zoe was stirring the sauce, which Alya could help notice she had small blot of on her forehead. Marinette was carefully preparing fresh breadsticks for the oven.

"Hello, my favorite couple." Alya called, setting her contribution, a bottle of wine and dessert from Marinette's parents, on the counter. "Wow, that sauce smells good. Marinette, did you finally get your Nana to hand over the recipe?"

Marinette giggled. "As if. Nana said if we wanted her sauce recipe, we would need to bury her first. She sent me the starter with directions on how to prepare it though."

Alya grabbed a washcloth and handed it to Zoe. "You got some sauce on your forehead."

Zoe reached up a finger and brought the sauce down to her lips instead. "Pretty sure it's a sin to waste real Italian Sauce."

Alya caught Marinette's eyes locked to Zoe's lips with an almost hunger. "Girl, you better get those breadsticks in the oven."

Marinette caught herself and quickly moved the breadsticks into the heat. "Sorry, I got districted."

Zoe giggled and winked at Alya. "She's pretty easily districted. Can you start the pasta, Alya?"

Alya grinned as she grab a pan and started to heat the water. Then, she took out the paste and made sure the other two were watching as she faked cracking the noodles.

"NO!" Both of them called in panic as Alya roared in laughter and dropped the unbroken pasta into the water.

"Got ya." She winked at the stunned couple.

Zoe laughed but Marinette crossed her arms, muttering darkly as she opened the oven to check on their breadsticks.

Zoenette*

The three of them sat down, plates heaped with paste, sauce, and huge meatballs as well as generous glasses of wine. Their kwami were off to the side at a much smaller table, enjoying smaller servings of the same dish. Alya winced as Tikki added sugar to her pasta.

"I'm glad we could do this." Marinette said with a grin. "I love the twins but it's much harder to have a fancy dinner with whatever food they will currently eat."

Alya groaned. "Which is only grilled cheese, at the moment. I swear, Plagg corrupted them. At least they don't seem to mind what cheese we use on them. If they demanded Camembert, we would go broke."

Zoe took a sip of her wine. "Well, we do enjoy helping out where we can. We want to have kids, just the lives of a fashion designer a rising movie star are a bit hectic enough already."

Alya bit into a breadstick. "Just being able to come here and recharge with two of my favorite people is help enough. I really needed this. Thanks girls. I'll have to give Nino a weekend with Adrien and Kagami soon."

Marinette ate a meatball. "I'm sure your parents would be willing to babysit one night, given they are local. We should plan a big Team Miraculous dinner party soon. It would be nice to see everyone again."

Alya smiled. "That sounds Miraculous."

They all laughed as they tucked back into their meal. Alya knew moments like this would be fleeting now they were adults and had real responsibilities in addition to being superheroes. That just made them even more precious in her eyes.