Work Text:
“Are you sure you’re going to be fine taking the bus home?”
Rose was standing on her tippy toes, pressing the backs of her hands to Nathanael’s cheeks and forehead, frowning at the heat that was burning her skin. He smiled weakly — wincing against his sore throat — and zipped his sweatshirt all the way up to his chin. “It’s only a fifteen minute ride. I don’t want maman to have to take time off work just to come get me.”
“You’re running a fever you silly!”
“It’s just a tiny one,” Nathanael assured her, even as he began to feel lightheaded the longer he stayed on his feet. “I’ll rest up for the rest of the day and be back at school tomorrow.”
Rose frowned and gently smacked his elbow. “I better not see you in school tomorrow, Nathanael. I’ll march you right home!”
“It’s already so hard to concentrate in class, I don’t want to miss even more by being absent.”
“Maybe if you put that sketchbook of yours down for more than two minutes at a time….”
Nathanael jutted out his bottom lip and stared at her pitifully while Rose rolled her eyes half-heartedly. “Come on, give me your hand.”
“What for?”
She pulled out a pink pen and scribbled some numbers on the back of his hand. “When is your mother going to be home?”
“Late probably,” Nathanael admitted. “Late shift tonight.”
“Alright. I want you to call me when school finishes and let me know if you need anything,” she explained. “I have soup, medicine, tea, and snacks at my house and I can run them over quick. You only live a few blocks from me so it’s no trouble.”
Nathanael smiled softly. “You don’t have to do that, Rose.”
“Oh, let me fret over you a little,” she grinned, tapping him on the nose with the end of her pen. “You were looking so faint in class just now, it puts my mind at ease to lend a hand.”
They walked to the entrance of the school and Rose reached up to pull Nathanael’s hood up so that his ears wouldn’t get cold. He checked his pockets to make sure he had enough for the bus and waved over his shoulder. “Thanks for walking me to the nurse. I appreciate it.”
“Just make sure you come back healthy, okay? Juleka and I will take notes for you!”
Nathanael tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweater and shivered against his fever as he made his way across the street to wait for the bus back home. Luckily his timing was good because he only had to wait a couple of minutes before the mostly empty bus rolled up to the stop and left him with a double seater that he could use to prop his legs up. Usually he liked to use the bus ride home to get some sketching done, but his nose was so stuffed and his body was so hot that he merely rested his bag on his lap and used it as a pillow as he rested the entire ride home.
Mme. Mendeleiev had already sent notes home to his mother about the fact that he was slipping behind in physics because of his lack of attention in class. Nathanael tried to explain that it was more than that — the lessons went by so quickly and it was hard for him to keep his attention on all of the equations and demonstrations without switching to his pencils and sketching across his notes. His mother understood, but he had promised her to bring his grades up and prove himself to his teachers soon. He couldn’t very well do that by missing school, but he supposed that sitting in class with a fever wasn’t going to do anyone good.
When the bus finally reached his stop, Nathanael had gotten up from his seat and felt the dizziness hit him all at once, finally convincing him that maybe he was more sick than he’d thought. It felt like ages before he got to his building, thankful that his apartment was on the first floor of the walk-up.
His mother was on a double shift at the café until dinner, which meant he was on his own as far as taking care of himself, but he hoped that sleeping off the fever would be enough. He walked straight to his room, replaced his jeans with sweatpants, and crawled into his bed, falling asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.
About four hours later, he woke up and felt like complete death. A headache, a worsened sore throat, a persistent fever, and violent chills made him think that maybe Rose was onto something when she mentioned him staying home tomorrow. He checked his cellphone and saw that school had let out about five minutes ago and figured that it might be a good idea to take Rose up on her offer. He didn’t think there was any medicine left in the kitchen and he wasn’t sure if he was up to making himself some warm soup anyway.
Bundling the blankets around him into a warm cocoon, Nathanael copied Rose’s number from his hand into his phone. Her writing was really loopy and hard to make out at spots — was that a 5 or a 6? A 4 or a 9? — but he did his best and got sent to her voicemail.
“Hey Rose,” Nathanael croaked, his voice coming out scratchy and pained. “It’s Nathanael. I think I might need some things after all. Not much! But, uh….if you could pick up some medicine for a fever, some tea, and maybe some soup, I’d really appreciate it. I’ll pay you back for all of it, but I really don’t feel up to getting out of bed at the moment. Take your time! No rush! Uh….thanks.”
Normally he wouldn’t dream of putting anyone out of their way like this, but Nathanael was desperate and alone in his house with a sickness he was convinced was going to keep him bed bound for at least the next twenty four hours, so he tried to reign in the guilty feeling as best he could.
Nathanael turned the television on in his room and watched through some old re-runs of a few cartoons and sitcoms that he liked watching until he heard the doorbell ring. Perfect. That must be Rose. Medicine and soup sounded absolutely heavenly right about now. He wrapped all his blankets around him until he was covered up to his nose, forced himself out of bed, and padded across the apartment to the front door.
Of course the very last person he expected to be standing on his welcome mat was Adrien Agreste.
Nathanael suddenly felt silly showing up to the door with all his blankets tied around him like this.
“A-Adrien?!” Nathanael asked in surprise. “Um….hi? What are you doing here?”
Adrien was standing there as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be visiting Nathanael as his home. He lowered the scarf away from his mouth and frowned at the sight of Nathanael. “Aw, buddy, you look awful! Do you have the flu or something?”
Nathanael blinked and looked down at his feet self-consciously. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Might just be a nasty cold, or strep throat. Sorry, uh….what are you doing here exactly?”
“Oh, right!” Adrien grinned. He picked up the two shopping bags that were sitting at his feet and thrust them forward. “You mentioned that you needed some things to help with your cold, so I went and picked them up for you!”
“Things?” Nathanael frowned. “Wait, I thought….Rose was going to get that stuff for me. I left her a message. Could she not make it?”
Adrien chuckled. “I think you might’ve typed in her number wrong. You called me.”
Nathanael’s eyes widened. He’d called the wrong number? “Are you sure?”
“I mean, I can play the voicemail for you if you want, but yeah I’m sure,” Adrien laughed.
“Oh, no,” Nathanael groaned, hiding his face in his blankets. “I’m such an idiot, I’m so sorry about that.”
“Don’t even worry about it,” Adrien waved off. “That sort of thing happens all the time. Mind if I come in, by the way? It’s a little chilly out here and I forgot my gloves at home.”
“Y-yeah sure!” Nathanael stumbled, moving aside the umbrella stand to give Adrien room to come inside. “Sorry about that. Maman isn’t home yet so make yourself comfortable I guess.”
Adrien respectfully toed off his shoes to leave by the door and made his way to the kitchen while Nathanael locked the door behind him. He sneezed into his blankets and climbed up on top of one of the chairs in the kitchen while Adrien busily unpacked his shopping bags and organized all of the contents on the table. He stared incredulously at all of the purchases and swallowed to soothe his throat. “What is all this?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure what was wrong with you, so I got a little bit of everything? I hope you don’t mind.” Adrien folded up the bags and left them on the countertop while he pointed at each thing left on the table. “So here’s some ibuprofen for your fever. I also grabbed some cold medicine — drowsy and non-drowsy because I wasn’t sure which one you liked best. I got you some ginger tea and honey too in case your throat is feeling a little bad. I went to the café near my house and picked up some chicken soup for you too. There’s two servings here so that you’ll have some leftover to heat up later.”
Nathanael felt himself gaping. “Wait just a min—”
“I grabbed some bananas and apples since maman always gave those to me when I was sick to snack on. But I know that’s boring so I also had Marinette pack me some chocolate croissants for you to eat when you get better. I also grabbed all of the books from your locker that you’d need for our homework — sorry I hope that wasn’t weird or anything — oh, and I also made copies of my notes in the library real quick so that you wouldn’t miss anything.” He stepped back from the table with a proud grin stretching the apples of his cheeks as high as they would go and clasped his hands behind his back. “Yeah! So, uh….hope that’s everything you needed.”
Nathanael twisted around the tins of tea that Adrien had bought him and gaped at the expensive brand written across the side. “You didn’t have to go and get all this!”
“I mean, I couldn’t find Rose after school, and you sounded so miserable over the phone when you left that message, I couldn’t just ignore it,” Adrien replied. “It was the least I could do, honest.”
“I don’t know how to pay you back for all of this though.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Adrien frowned. “Don’t even worry about that, paying for all of this stuff was nothing.” He blinked at the wording. “Er, sorry. That sounded a little elitist, didn’t it? I just meant that I was happy to help you out and get this stuff for you. You honestly don’t have to worry about paying me back.”
“But you went through all the trouble.”
“It wasn’t trouble in the least,” Adrien said. “I’m always eager to help a friend.”
Nathanael couldn’t tell if he coughed in surprise or whether he had to add cough to his list of symptoms. “Friend?”
“Of course. How could I just leave you suffering here like this?”
To be fair, when Adrien put it like that, it seemed like the only option was for him to come over with probably one of the biggest care packages Nathanael had ever received in his life. But he was sure that anyone else would’ve just called back and told him he had the wrong number so that he could figure out where he went wrong dialing Rose. To actually go out to stores, cafés, and bakeries for him — especially when Adrien and Nathanael didn’t really talk all that much — seemed so baffling and so touching that Nathanael didn’t quite know what he was supposed to do or say.
“I….thank you,” he finally said. “This is way more than I ever expected anyone to do for me. I really appreciate it.”
Adrien took off his scarf and jacket and hung it over the backs of one of the kitchen chairs. “Want me to make some tea and heat up the soup for you? My Chinese lessons don’t start for another half hour so I can hang around for a short bit.”
“Oh, you don’t have to….” Nathanael trailed off, because it seemed like Adrien didn’t mean for what he said to be posed as an actual question. He was already looking through the dishwasher for a clean kettle and filling it with water from the sink.
Figuring that there was no sense in arguing with Adrien at this point — he was already in his house and it was hard to stare at that sunny smile of his and dare to tell him no — Nathanael pulled his knees up to his chest and pointed out where the pots and mugs were.
It was almost endearing to see Adrien move around the kitchen. It didn’t seem like he spent much time in the kitchen himself — he struggled turning on the stovetop burners and he burned his finger on the handle of the pot when he went to stir the soup — but he was whistling while he moved around and kept asking Nathanael questions about the history project they had to turn in next week and what he got on their last visual arts assignment. They never really spent time talking much during class, but Adrien was a very simple, honest person. It didn’t take much effort to share a space with him. He brought up easy topics, and when Nathanael didn’t feel like talking he took the silence with ease. Nathanael had a smile on his face right up until Adrien brought his tea, soup, and medicine over on a tray.
“Do you like any sugar or milk in your tea?” Adrien asked.
“No just honey’s fine.”
Adrien carefully stirred in a spoonful of honey, slid the tray in front of Nathanael, and sat in the chair across from him. “Take the medicine first, you look like you’re about to pass out.”
Nathanael sighed and made a show of picking up the bottle of ibuprofen and shaking out two pills. “It’s probably one of those twenty four hour things. I’ll be fine for tomorrow.”
Adrien leaned his cheek against his hand. “Are you sure? I think you should stay home tomorrow. I’ll bring all your notes and homework again if you want.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, but thanks for the thought,” Nathanael smiled, and gosh he realized he’d been smiling ever since Adrien started boiling water for his tea. “I just hate missing school, you know?”
“Yeah, I understand,” Adrien laughed. “I came into school one day with a chest cold because I didn’t want to miss school and Nino all but pulled me by my ear to the nurse’s office halfway through our first class.”
“I remember that. He kept scolding you for the rest of the school day.”
“Yeah, that sounds a lot like Nino,” Adrien grumbled. “He gave me a lecture about not infecting the rest of the class with my sick. I didn’t think of that. But, I dunno, I guess when you’ve been homeschooled for most of your life you don’t want to miss out on actual school, you know? Where you get to walk to classes and have lockers and sit next to your friends and stuff.”
Nathanael didn’t much see what the big deal was about walking and lockers, and sitting next to friends wasn’t really why he prioritized coming into school everyday. But Marinette told him during visual arts one day about how Adrien pitched a fit to his father about getting the chance to go to public school after being homeschooled with very little friends before this. Someone as vibrant as Adrien didn’t really seem the type to thrive in a homeschooled setting anyway. Someone who splurged on soup for someone he didn’t really know well needed to be around people.
“I just don’t want to get marked down for any reason,” Nathanael mumbled in between sips of soup. “I already get in trouble for not paying attention in class. I don’t want to make it worse by not being there at all.”
“Do you not like the subjects?”
“It’s not that. It’s just really hard to concentrate sometimes. Especially in physics. Mme. Mendeleiev is always watching me to make sure I’m taking notes, and I try. But sometimes she just talks too quickly and it’s all gobbledygook to me. So I just draw and do other homework and try to catch up at home.”
Adrien pouted his bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know physics gave you such a hard time.”
Nathanael shrugged. “I try not to make a big deal about it. It’s my fault anyway.”
“It’s not your fault at all,” Adrien insisted, pointing to Nathanael’s mug of tea to make sure he was drinking it. “I imagine it’s frustrating to try and pay attention in a class when things don’t make sense.”
“I was never much of a math or science person,” Nathanael admitted. “It’s always been like that.”
Adrien’s shoulders were slumped and his face was pulled into a deep frown, making him look more like a kicked puppy to Nathanael than anything else. It was almost strange to think that Adrien would be so upset on his behalf. Even Nathanael didn’t think it was too much of an issue, just inconvenient more than anything else. But suddenly Adrien’s face lit up, and he smacked his hands on the table so hard that he almost made the tea in Nathanael’s mug spill over. “What if I helped you?”
“Huh?”
“I’m really good at physics!” Adrien said excitedly. “Well. I mean. I do well in it. I like it, I mean. Not to brag or anything, God no! Just that I….well, anyway. If you needed help with assignments or with the material I could totally give you a hand.”
Yup, a puppy was definitely a good descriptor for Adrien. Nathanael could almost picture drawing ears and a wagging tail on Adrien right now and being perfectly content with the results. “You don’t know what you’re signing up for,” Nathanael insisted. “Honest. I’m probably hopeless.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Adrien waved off. “Look, you don’t have to say anything now. Just think about it. You have my number now. Just text me if you ever need any help. I’ll try to explain it slower than Mme. Mendeleiev does.”
There was no way that Nathanael could brush off that kind of kindness — and Adrien really was pulling out all the stops without even realizing the weight of what it was he was doing — so he nodded and ducked his face down towards his soup. “Alright,” he decided. “I’ll think about it.”
Adrien was only able to stay with Nathanael for a few minutes before he had to leave for his Chinese lessons. It was mostly Adrien talking about something silly that happened with him, Marinette, Alya, and Nino during lunch that afternoon, but Nathanael was fine to just listen and watch Adrien gesticulate through the whole story. Nathanael was slurping the last of his soup and feeling the medicine improve his fever a little bit when Adrien pulled his jacket on again. He stared at Nathanael for a moment looking pensive and unsure, but he shrugged his shoulders and pulled Nathanael into a brief hug.
“For good luck!” Adrien said as he pulled back and helped wrap Nathanael’s blankets around him again. “Let me know if you need anything else okay? I know your mother is coming back soon but still. Just in case.”
“I will,” Nathanael promised. “And….thanks again for all of this. I’m starting to feel a lot better.”
Adrien waved goodbye with both hands as he let himself out and locked the door behind him. Now that the apartment was empty, Nathanael couldn’t help but burst out into laughter, the tight bundle of warmth sitting in his chest the entire time finally unravelling and making him feel a lot less like the sack of garbage he felt like before. He finished up his lunch, shoved everything in the sink, and crawled back into his bed to try and rest off the cold.
He hugged his pillow to his chest and smiled into it before he fell asleep.
Nathanael had been one of the people who’d been in the class the longest, but he was perfectly fine with feeling like he didn’t strongly fit in anywhere.
He and Marinette had been drawing partners since they were six, Nino had been his back row buddy for as long as he can remember, and Kim had always been the one chasing bullies across the park to steal back the colored pencils they’d taken from him. But those young friendships weren’t nearly as deep as some of the others he’d seen. Marinette and Alya were practically inseparable, Kim and Max had more inside jokes than Nathanael even thought was possible, and Nino and Adrien were always huddled together by their desks coming up with secret handshakes and sharing headphones before class.
It never interested him to try and insert himself into those dynamics, and even though Rose insisted that wanting to be friends with people who already had established friend groups wasn’t intrusive in the lease, Nathanael stood by his word. He enjoyed the time he spent keeping to himself, and genuine kindness from his classmates was all he ever asked of anyone.
Of course Adrien Agreste went and took that normal brand of genuine kindness, injected steroids into it, and handed it back to Nathanael in a show of sincerity that he still felt undeserving of.
Adrien was an enigma. Nathanael watched him on first day of school as he did most of their classmates who joined them for the first time. Chloe was hanging off of his arm, he seemed to struggle making friends, and he stumbled around for a bit as he tried to figure out how this public school thing worked. But by his third day, Nino and Adrien were laughing with each other like they’d known the other for years. Everyone came up to his desk in the mornings to say hi not because he was a famous model, but just because he had a kind word and a warm smile for anyone who passed him. He was brilliant, excelled in his classes, did so much after school, and still had time to prove to everyone that there was nothing intimidating or reserved about him.
It was a wonder how someone’s presence could be so assuming and light up a room so brilliantly that people couldn’t help but be attracted to it. Nathanael wanted to chalk it up to natural magnetism, but he was really good at seeing beautiful and precious things in unlikely places and transferring them to all of his sketchpads. Adrien was something special, and Nathanael never thought that he’d be able to see that kind of specialness up close and personal in a way that left Nathanael’s head feel like it was swirling.
But….it was a nice kind of swirling. Sort of like when you spun around in circles for too long and left yourself feeling dizzy at the end of it, but still marveled at the way all the colors around you melded together into something breathtaking. It was overwhelming, but Nathanael wouldn’t necessarily mind more of that kindness.
Which led to Nathanael sitting in his room, thumb hovering over Adrien’s phone number in his cellphone.
His fever was gone, but his sore throat was still bothering him and he still felt generally weak and tired. So he decided to follow Rose and Adrien’s advice and stay home another day, which worked wonders since it meant he had a long weekend ahead of him. But he was looking through the physics homework that Adrien had brought him yesterday, and he kind of wanted to cry.
Adrien had the highest physics scores in the class, and he already offered to help Nathanael study. It seemed silly to say no to the help.
Nathanael took a huge breath, opened his texts, and deleted his message seven times before he sent it.
nathanael: hey adrien, it’s nathanael! i hope school went well today. are you busy today? i was wondering if i could take you up on your offer to help me with physics? yesterdays homework isn’t making much sense.
He carded his fingers through his hair, got up from his chair, and practically canon balled into his bed, hiding his head under his pillow.
Why was he nervous ? It wasn’t like Adrien was difficult to talk to or too intimidating to even look at. That couldn’t be even further from the truth, and it was evidenced by the fact that everyone always seemed to be at ease just by being around him. So why did Nathanael feel like his heart was about to burst out of his chest just from asking him for some private study lessons? It didn’t make any sense, but it certainly didn’t stop Nathanael from peeking out from underneath his pillow and waiting for the phone on his desk to illuminate with a new text message.
The moment it vibrated, he leaped out of his bed and unlocked his phone
adrien: hey nath! are you feeling better? fencing practice was cancelled so i can come visit if you want.
Visit? Have him come here again? Two days in a row?
nathanael: oh gosh you really don’t have to if it’s too much trouble. im sure i can figure it out over text
adrien: lol it’s no trouble if im offering :P only if it’s ok with you ofc
nathanael: i mean i am feeling a lot better
nathanael: and i imagine this stuffs easier to explain in person?
adrien: haha so is that a yes? :D
nathanael: i guess so?
adrien: alright cool! i can come over in about an hour if you want. i just have to stop by my house and leave my fencing stuff. do you need notes and homework?
nathanael: actually that’d be amazing thanks
adrien: notes, homework, and your own personal study buddy coming right up! ;)
Nathanael laughed at the long string of thumbs up emojis that Adrien decided to tag onto the end of the message, and he was almost positive that he didn’t know a single person in the world who could possibly get this excited about sitting down for an entire afternoon just to go over a pile of physics homework. He wondered if it was similar to the way Nathanael wished he could just take French and visual arts classes all day and got excited whenever he saw a nice charcoal set in the store.
When Adrien finally knocked on his door, he was practically bouncing on his toes and holding two boxes of pastries from the Dupain-Cheng bakery with a blinding smile on his face. “Hey!” he greeted. “Wow, you’re looking so much better. It was the soup, wasn’t it? It works wonders, I tell you.” He gently shook the boxes he was holding. “I brought more snacks!”
Nathanael raised a brow. “That’s….a lot of snacks.”
“I said the same thing,” he frowned in thought. “Marinette sort of pushed them on me when she heard I was coming over. She was really adamant about it too.” Adrien cleared his throat and shook his head a little. “Uh, anyway! They’re palmiers and opera cakes. I hope that’s okay? They were on sale.”
“That’s fine,” Nathanael chuckled. Something about Adrien’s enthusiasm was exasperating in a really sweet way. Even though it was a lot, he was sure Adrien didn’t even realize he was doing it. “I’ll get us some water. We can study in my room if you want.”
Nathanael hung up Adrien’s jacket, grabbed some water bottles from the fridge, and led them into his room that he spent most of the morning cleaning. The moment they stepped inside, Adrien immediately dropped his bag on the floor by Nathanael’s bed and sprawled across his carpet, his limbs thrown about as if he were at a close friend’s house. He dug through his things and handed off a folder filled with papers and post-its. “Here’s all the notes and homework assignments for today. Let me know if you can’t read anything.”
“Thanks,” Nathanael said, accepting the folder and breathing a sigh of relief when he saw how little homework there was for this weekend. “So, brutally honest opinion, on a scale of one to ten. How impossible was the homework from yesterday?"
“A 3 max. Not that bad, I promise,” Adrien assured.
“Says the physics nerd.”
“Excuse me, I prefer the term physics connoisseur,” Adrien winked with a smile.
“I guess I’m lucky if I get to borrow your help for a bit.”
“Nah, don’t think of it like that. I think I’m pretty lucky to get to study with you. We don’t hang out much and I’ve always wanted to talk to you more.”
Nathanael’s back straightened up almost immediately and he couldn’t pretend that that didn’t make his heart flutter just a little bit. “Y-You’ve been wanting to talk to me?”
“Yeah,” Adrien said. “For a while actually. I just wasn’t sure how to go up to you and just….ask if you wanted to hang out. I didn’t want to be awkward about it.”
“You? Awkward about making friends?” Nathanael snorted. “You’re so popular! Everyone talks to you.”
“I’ve never really had to make friends before this,” Adrien admitted. “I mean, I was lucky where Nino was concerned. He reached out first, and he’s just the best. But everyone else I guess just came up to me and started being nice, and I only ever knew how to be nice back and just put on a smile, and making friends after that just sort of came naturally. It’s been working so far, but I’m still kinda bad at starting conversations.”
Nathanael furrowed his brows. “I don’t know if I believe that….”
“I’m serious!” Adrien insisted. “You for example! I’ve never known how to talk to you. You always seemed to want to be left alone and I never wanted to bother you.”
“I mean…I’m not really the best at socializing,” Nathanael said. “People sort of already know that so they tend to give me a lot of breathing room so to speak. But….it’s not like I don’t want people to bother me.”
Adrien reached out Nathanael’s hands. “I didn’t mean to offend you! It was just what was going through my head, I wasn’t trying to make assumptions.”
“It’s okay,” Nathanael laughed. “To be fair, I kinda thought you were really unattainable. Like you sort of give off all this positive energy and make it look so easy. I didn’t know how to talk to you .”
“Sounds like we’ve both been wasting a lot of time,” Adrien said. “I’ll admit, that’s kind of why I rushed over here yesterday.”
“Because you didn’t want to waste time?”
“No, because I thought it’d be the perfect chance to talk to you. I mean, it was mainly to help you because you looked miserable yesterday, but it was also just a great chance to get to talk with you. I-I hope that’s not weird or anything.”
Nathanael’s fingers were tangling themselves up in his lap. “No. That’s….actually really refreshing. I don’t think anyone’s ever told me they were that eager to talk to me. It’s not like I take up a lot of space.”
Adrien shrugged. “You don’t have to. I noticed you without you having to do that.”
Nathanael took a shaky breath in and was suddenly heavily aware of Adrien’s hands that were still gently braced around his wrists. He stared at him as if he hadn’t just admitted something that was making Nathanael think terribly indulgent but horribly silly thoughts that he was doing best to keep locked up tight in his head so as not to ruin the moment. Adrien had only been in their class for a few months and it was hard to believe that he’d been wondering how to talk to him of all people. But it was hard not to let his insides melt a little when Adrien smiled at him, and it was then that he realized that maybe this whole physics studying thing was a really bad idea.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and could literally feel the heat radiating off his face. “G-Good to know.”
Adrien must have realized that he was still holding onto him, because he moved back and rubbed his hands on the carpet underneath him. “Right! Yeah! So, physics! Uh….do you have the homework sheets.”
Adrien was a really patient teacher. He was good about letting them take breaks so that they could plan hangman and tic-tac-toe in the corners, and Adrien seemed to get a kick out of the fact that Nathanael was making silly comics of people running away in fear from his physics equations and interacting with all of the diagrams in the problems. It made focusing on the really complicated equations a lot easier, and Adrien was great at explaining everything in a way that was much more simple than what Mme. Mendeleiev liked to rattle off in class. It was the quickest he’d ever gone through his physics homework, and he even felt confident enough to try and do this weekend’s homework without any help. They managed to get through all of the problems together and rewarded themselves with pastries every time they got a problem right. It wasn’t often that Nathanael got to do homework with friends and he didn’t think that he’d ever find himself spread out across his carpet and laughing with Adrien while they stuffed themselves with sweets. It seemed like a strange dream that he didn’t quite know how he entered but wasn’t about to wake himself up from.
When they were finally finished with their physics homework, they were both laying on their backs next to each other, each with a box of pastries sitting on their stomachs, Nathanael allowed his giddiness to give him the courage to speak. “Can I ask you something? And you promise to answer honestly?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Why did you want to talk to me so bad?”
Adrien kept his eyes on the ceiling and spoke around a mouthful. “I….don’t really know. I had a feeling you were a really interesting person, and I was right. And you just caught my eye I guess.”
“Why though?” Nathanael asked.
Adrien smiled nervously and didn’t turn his head to look at Nathanael. “You’re going to laugh. And I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Is it bad?”
“No! Not bad!” Adrien promised. “Just….well. I was really excited when you called me by accident. More excited than I thought I’d be. I guess.”
Nathanael moved his box, propped himself up on his elbow, looked down at Adrien. “Why were you excited?”
“I’m serious, you’re going to laugh.”
Nathanael bit his lip. “Try me. I might not laugh.”
Adrien blinked and for the first time looked like he was perfectly planning what he was going to say in his head. “What do you mean you might not? You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I don’t,” Nathanael admitted. “I know what I’m hoping you’ll say.”
“What are you hoping I’ll say?”
“I asked first.”
Adrien’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Fair enough.” He sat up from the floor and turned around so that he was facing Nathanael. “Just….promise that if I don’t say what you’re hoping I’ll say we can just go back to making jokes and eating junk food.”
Nathanael really really hoped that wouldn’t be the case. “Promise.”
Adrien took a huge breath and raked his fingers through his head as if to psych himself up. “Well, during the first week or so of school, my driver had forgotten to get used to my schedule and remember that he had to pick me up after school. There was a time where I was just sitting out on the stoop waiting for him to come pick me up and I saw you listening to music, humming to yourself, and sketching in your binder. I don’t know if you remember that.”
Nathanael liked to stick around after school a lot to sketch when he wanted to enjoy the nice weather a bit before going home. “I tend to do that a lot. But keep going.”
“I knew that you were in my class and I sort of remembered your name, but I like I said, I didn’t really know how to go up and talk to you. Plus I didn’t want to bother you.” Adrien stared down in his lap and smiled. “I, uh….well the first thought that popped into my head was that you were really cute.”
Adrien squinted his eyes shut and turned his head away as if preparing himself for a blow, but all Nathanael could do was hope that all of the sudden joy that was rushing from his head all the way down to the tips of his toes wasn’t too obvious. “W-Wait. Do you mean….?”
“Aw, don’t make me say it, it’s embarrassing and I didn’t rehearse,” Adrien groaned.
“So you do mean that!”
“I-I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?”
Nathanael’s head dropped in relief as he shook his head. “No. No way. Quite the opposite, actually.”
“Wait, really?”
“I’m just as surprised as you are.”
Adrien still looked at Nathanael like he was starstruck. “Wait, there’s no way this is happening….”
“That makes two of us.”
Adrien licked his lips and scooted closer to Nathanael so that their knees were touching. “Can I try something?”
Nathanael nodded. “Uh. Sure. What is it?”
Adrien’s eyes darted down to Nathanael’s lips before dropping back down to his lap out of nerves, and suddenly Nathanael felt as if he were going to faint. Surely that’s not what he meant? This was just the over imaginative parts of Nathanael’s imagination getting away from him and making him anticipate things that weren’t actually coming his way. But Adrien finished surprising him that afternoon by buckling up all the courage inside of him and leaning forward to give Nathanael a sweet, short kiss on his lips, so short that Nathanael only had time to inhale sharply through his nose before it was over and Adrien was keeping his shoulders bunched up to his ears and keeping his eyes turned to the ceiling.
“Sorry,” he whispered out. “I panicked.”
“It’s okay,” Nathanael chuckled. “Do….do you want to try again?”
Adrien scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m so bad at this.”
Maybe it was because Nathanael thought it was so sweet to see someone as personable as Adrien suddenly look like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands or where to drop his gaze that Nathanael decided to take Adrien’s hands, lower them away from his face, and try to go something brave for once. He kept his hands around Adrien’s wrists as he leaned in and left a softer, slower kiss on Adrien’s lips, waiting patiently for Adrien to relax and gently open his mouth to kiss him back.
It wasn’t Nathanael’s first kiss, but it was his longest one — long enough for him to pick up little details about Adrien that he hadn’t noticed before. He had long eyelashes, his lips were a little chapped, and his bangs were long enough to tickle Nathanael’s temples when he tilted his head just slightly. He was also a really sweet kisser, one that made his toes curl in his socks and all his sighs come spilling into Adrien’s mouth. He wasn’t sure how long it had lasted, but he was practically counting the seconds that passed the moment Adrien ended the kiss and kept his lips just half an inch away from Nathanael’s, his breathes furling and mixing with his own.
“Man,” Adrien muttered. “Nino is never going to believe me.”
Nathanael couldn’t help it. He laughed with his whole body and felt like there was almost too much happiness running through his body. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to distract us.”
“Please. That was a great distraction.”
Nathanael tilted his head back towards their books. “Should we try and do the rest of it? Aside from the physics.”
Adrien winced. “Ehhh. I mean. It’s Friday. There’s no rush.”
Nathanael smirked. “And I’m guessing you don’t want to head home yet.”
“Kissing is more fun than homework.”
Nathanael blinked and cursed under his breath. “Aw, shoot. I might still be contagious. I’m sorry.”
Adrien shrugged. “Worth it. Besides, if I get sick, I can always leave you a message by accident so you can bring soup to my house.”
Nathanael rolled his eyes when Adrien cupped his cheeks and pulled him in for another kiss. He supposed that after all of this, taking care of Adrien tomorrow when he inevitably got sick would be fair turnabout anyway.