The rain poured down after Adrien's fencing and he sighed. His driver's car had gotten a flat, so Adrien had to walk home. Like his alter-ego, Adrien didn't want to walk home in the rain.
Though, Marinette's place was close by, wasn't it? Adrien smiled, texting his driver back. He would be late getting home, but it would be for a very good reason.
Rainwater rushed into the gutters, taking leaves with it, yet Adrien kept his sights on the warm bakery lights ahead.
"Hello?" he called out, opening and shutting the door quickly not to let the rain in. Marinette and her parents sat around a card table doing...arts and crafts? "Adrien!" Marinette sprang up, setting down her scissors as she went to give her best friend a hug. Adrien breathed her in, smelling like apples and spices. "How come your all wet?" she asked. "My driver got a flat after fencing, and if its all right, I'd like to hang here for awhile."
Sabine stood up, coming over. "Your always welcome here. Come, I think I have some old clothes that will fit you."
Adrien came back down after he changed and sat down next to Marinette. "So, what are you doing?" "Making autumn garlands for the bakery," she showed one she had finished earlier.
"It can be anything autumn related, sweetie," Sabine said as she worked on making a leaf. Adrien blushed, as he wasn't good at crafts, at least not compared to his Princess. But he was willing to give it a try.
Adrien hummed softly as he worked on cutting out a red mushroom, asking for help to cut out a shape of a dormouse. "Cute!" Marinette smiled.
"My mother had a story about a dormouse and a mushroom," Adrien told them quietly. "Would you like to hear it?"
Three heads nodded eagerly and Adrien begin to tell the story of an unfortunate dormouse, who, like him, had forgotten an umbrella while out scavenging for seeds.
Cold, alone and miserable, the mouse hobbled home with no seeds. Just then, her friend the frog hopped out of his toadstool mushroom. "Come in from the cold," he croaked, not wanting to leave his friend in the cold.
"But I have no seeds or umbrella…" the dormouse squeaked. "Come, I will give you all you need." For though the frog had plenty, he was a kind frog and always shared.
"Frog helped Dormouse gather seeds after the rain stopped," Adrien finished. "And the morale of the story is its better to give then to take."
"It reminds me when I met you that one rainy day," Marinette said, quietly. "When I forgot my own umbrella." "I don't remember you needing to gather seeds," Adrien chuckled, eyes softening. "But it was a beginning of a beautiful friendship."
"Anyone for cookies and hot chocolate?" Sabine came back to the front. Adrien sighed in contentment. And so, with warm cookies and drinks, they continued to make autumn garlands, happy, warm, and safe.