Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“How much has your friend had to drink?” Gabriel asked his son.

“As far as I know, nothing,” the eighteen year old answered with a frown, “Maybe Phillipe put something in her coke. He has been hanging around her rather creepily since she got here. I’ll go take care of it.”

“Take care of her,” his father amended, taking Adrien’s champagne flute from his hand, “I’ll make sure nothing reflects badly on her. And I’ll have security remove M. Moreau in case he causes a scene.”

Adrien moved to approach Marinette and as he did he could see the male fashion student being escorted quietly into a side-room. His father worked fast. He could also see Marinette’s drink was being discreetly swapped for another and it was moved into the adjoining room as well. He knew his father would have it tested and the police would be informed if necessary. Phillipe Moreau would be lucky to be allowed to clean toilets for a living after this.

“But it’s a traditional drink for this time of year,” one of the female guests was saying to Marinette as he approached.

“But it tastes gross,” she replied bluntly, swaying slightly in place and downing her fresh glass of soda, slamming the glass on the refreshment table beside her.

“Marinette?” Adrien interrupted quickly, “Can I borrow you for a moment?”

He swiftly guided her away from the woman and out of the gala, into one of the corridors, far enough away to avoid wandering eyes and ears.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, “Did Phillipe give you something to drink?”

“Oh, yeah. He tried to get me to drink something alcoholic but I didn’t want any so he got me a coke instead. It was extra fizzy.” She grinned. Adrien groaned.

“I don’t think it’s safe for you to talk to him. He’s bad news.” She giggled suddenly, confusing him.

“Like eggnog,” she said, “I hate it. That’s what I was saying out there. Bad news.” He raised an eyebrow in amusement, anger and worry momentarily abating.

“I happen to like it,” he said. Marinette pouted at his words.

“Eggnog sucks. Fight me,” she muttered and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’d rather not,” he said, “I’ve seen you angry. You’d knock my lights out. Bam! Right in the kisser.”

He mimed punching someone and continued to laugh for a moment as he thought of the old cartoons he had quoted. He stopped when he realised that Marinette was staring at him slack-jawed. He straightened back up and cleared his throat.

“Uh, Marinette?”

“Kisser…” she said staring hungrily at his mouth, before glancing up to lock eyes with him, “Want to kiss you.”

Adrien started at her words for a moment before realising that she probably wasn’t thinking very straight due to her spiked drink. He sighed, surprised to find he was actually disappointed.

“You’re drunk, high…whatever. You don’t know what you’re saying.” He placed a hand on her lower back to steer her towards the exit so he could take her home.

She pulled back, laughing. “I know ‘xactly what I’m saying,” she slurred, “I didn’t want to drink around you ‘cause I get way too honest. No filter.” She waved her hands out in a random gesture as she said the last part, leaving poor Adrien to process her unexpected revelation. He stared at her.

“You like me?” he asked, astonished.

Marinette hummed her agreement as she leaned in towards him suddenly and Adrien backed away, his back making contact with the wall behind him as Marinette swayed on her tip toes and pressed her mouth against his in a sloppy imitation of a kiss. His hands flew out to grab the wall he was pressed against as if looking for an escape from his confusion. Marinette pulled back just far enough to speak against his lips.

“Loved you for years,” she whispered before pressing her mouth to his again.

After a perplexing moment to get his thoughts in order, Adrien let his hands drop to the small of her back and kissed her back gently. When Marinette pulled back slightly again, this time to sate her need for air, he ducked out from between her and the wall before she could press back in. She moved towards him to continue almost instantly and he reluctantly moved out of her reach.

Instead he scooped her up into his arms bridal style as she whined in complaint.

“Whether you’re telling the truth or not, you’re not yourself right now,” he told her as her head leant against his shoulder and she began to drift off, her breath gusting across his collar bone.

“But we are definitely revisiting this once you’re sober.”

Chapter Text

Adrien made awkward eye contact with his driver in the rear view mirror while Marinette seemed to be attempting to fuse her lips to his neck as she part-dozed in the seat beside him. The man wasn't his usual driver and somehow he wasn't sure if that made the situation better or worse.

The Gorilla was more of the stoic type and so was unlikely to make fun of him over it, but it would have hung over his head in every future encounter between them. Considering that he was the driver and bodyguard his father preferred he use, that would have been a lot of encounters.

On the other hand, this driver had no idea what kind of relationship Marinette and he had and based on the slight smirk at the corner of the man's mouth, he was making up his own mind about what that was. And while Gabriel Agreste didn't make a habit of hiring gossips, there was always a first time. He really didn't want it getting back to his father that Marinette had tried to straddle him when they first got into the car.

He was extremely relived when he spotted the Dupain-Cheng pâtisserie as they rounded the corner and didn't even wait for the driver to open the door before he was out of the car and reaching inside to help Marinette out.

As it turned out, she was completely incapable of walking and he was resigned to crawling back into the car to half-carry, half-drag her across the seats until he could pick her up properly, the whole time trying to fight off her attempts to kiss him.

“So-” Adrien turned at the sound of his driver's voice, “-shall I leave you here Sir? Or...”

Adrien threw the man the dirtiest look he could conjure in an attempt to oppose that little smirk he wasn't even trying to hide.

“Wait,” he told him, “I'll be back soon.”

Adrien decided to make his way around to the main door for Marinette's house instead of trying the main entrance for the pâtisserie and after a lot of clumsy balancing, he managed to lean Marinette against him to free up one arm temporarily. He hastily rang the bell before replacing his hand on her back to support her but Marinette clearly had other ideas and let off a sweet sigh as she nuzzled into his neck again.

He spent the next few moments delicately trying to untangle her from him but only resulted in making Marinette more stubborn in her plans to hold onto him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and began stroking the hair at his nape as she began to doze on his shoulder again. He was sure that if he became any more embarrassed tonight he was going to pass out from the rush of blood to his face.

Finally he heard the sounds of someone making their way down the stairs and towards the door, grumbling to themselves. There was a crash as they presumably knocked something over in their half conscious state and Adrien grimaced at having woken up her parents.

“Marinette did you forget your key?” he heard a grumpy male voice say as the sounds of a key in a lock scraped on the other side of the door, “That's not like you. I hope-”

Tom Dupain cut off mid-sentence at the sight of his daughter being carried by the young man and his face creased in sudden panic.

“She's alright,” Adrien said quickly, desperate to assuage his concerns, “We think her drink got spiked so she's acting a little drunk, but my father is dealing with it. Um, I brought her home. Just in case. Because she's...not herself.”

Tom's panic ebbed back a little until he started to resemble someone with an upset stomach which was churning uncomfortably and he moved forward to take Marinette from Adrien's hold. His daughter however, had opposing intentions and clung to Adrien's neck as her father tried to pull her away from him.

She whined and placed a kiss against Adrien's cheek as he allowed her father to take her weight and reached back to unhook her hands from him. He felt his face heat up uncomfortably and glanced frighteningly at Tom's face. To his relief the large man appeared amused rather than angry with Adrien, one half of his lips lifting up as he repressed a smile at his daughter's antics.

“Not herself, huh?” Tom asked, “She seems a lot more like herself than usual to be honest.” He chuckled to himself as Marinette screwed up her face tight as she realised she'd been separated from the blond boy.

“Adrieeeeen...” she whined, “come baaaack. Warm. Miss you.”

The young man in question's eyes widened and his face flushed pink again. Not only had Marinette acted in a way he'd really rather she not in front of her father, but Tom seemed to be insinuating this was to be expected. The older man guffawed loudly at her outburst and looked at him with a knowing smile.

“Um, well, she's very...friendly when she's, um, like this,” Adrien said awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand and gesturing wildly with his free hand at the girl in Tom's arms.

“Yes, she's very honest when she's had too much to drink, isn't she?” smirked Tom and Adrien couldn't help but narrow his eyes at the older man.

“What are you trying to say?” he asked with a suspicious tone, almost one hundred percent certain he knew what Tom was getting at but still looking for confirmation from a sober source.

“Why don't you come back tomorrow to check on her? You can have a nice talk with her if she's not too hungover. It's better than standing in the doorway at one am in the middle of December.”

Adrien blanched. “Of course. Sorry.”

Adrien watched as Tom turned and carefully started to close the door behind him before he remembered something.

“Oh! Don't let her have any painkillers tomorrow,” he said, “She'll probably want them but she shouldn't have anything else in her system for at least twenty-four hours. We still don't know just what was in her drink tonight that might react with other stuff.”

Tom nodded at him in understanding before he finished closing the door and Adrien waited a moment in case the larger man came back to ask any further questions. After another five minutes to be completely sure, he finally headed back round the corner to his car...or where his car was supposed to be parked.

Adrien pulled out his phone to call the driver back, slamming his thumb into the screen to select the correct contact before jamming the handset against his ear. That man had a lot of nerve.

Chapter Text

When Marinette woke, she was assaulted by the roaring of her own thoughts. None of them made sense and they were all far too loud.

As she tried desperately to blink away the confusion, she caught sight of her hardwood floor and realised she was laying out on her chaise instead of in her bed. She tried to lift her head to look around for clues to her current situation but her head throbbed horribly so instead she decided to let it drop to the edge of the seat. Slumped there she spied her waste paper basket, which someone had thoughtfully put out for her in case she needed to throw up. Thankfully it was empty. Next to this was a glass of water and Marinette grabbed for it with minimal co-ordination, splashing liquid all over her floor and then herself when she found she still couldn't lift her head very high even to have a much needed drink. The water was cooling though, even where it splashed her and she became aware of the fact that she'd sweated through her pyjamas at some point during the night. She was suddenly very annoyed with the Marinette from last night, that she'd somehow forgotten to put out aspirin but had managed to remember the water and then taken the time to change into pyjamas.

Although, she didn't actually remember changing into her pyjamas. Or why she was sleeping on her chaise. She didn't really remember coming home last night at all. She recalled a car and people talking. She thought maybe her papa was one of them.

She threw her mind back as far as she could until she found a fragment which wasn't fuzzy. She'd been at the Agreste Christmas Gala Adrien had invited her to because he knew she'd love the opportunity to mingle with so many professional designers and design students from universities she was hoping to attend.

She'd worn that sparkly dress she was particularly proud of with the halter-neck and open back in those lovely blue and violet tones which brought out her eyes and she had been pleasantly surprised by just how much attention she had gotten for it.

So many people had complimented her and asked which fashion house she worked for that she'd blushed far too much to be healthy while stammering out that she was still barely eighteen and still a lycéenne for another six months.

But then she'd also gotten a lot of unwanted attention. A large crowd of first year design students and even one or two of the older men had gotten very comfortable following her around to flirt relentlessly. If it had just been flirting Marinette was sure she could have handled things much better, but the men had been intent on getting into her personal space and had even moved in closer when she backed away from them. She remembered one of them slipping his hand inside the opening at the back of her dress as he chatted nonchalantly to her. When she'd tried to pull away he'd discreetly trapped her between him and the buffet table, hand still inside her dress, while another of the men had leant forward to speak to her, too close to her face for comfort.

Since she was at a high society event she hadn't wanted to cause a scene and so had looked around to attract Adrien's attention for help but he'd been distracted by one of his father's associates and was making awkward small-talk with him, his back to her.

That had been when Phillipe had pushed into the crowd and told them all to give her space with quiet venom in his voice. He'd been fiery and the other men had seemed to melt at his glare. The man with his hand on her back had interjected that maybe Marinette liked the attention, at which point she'd pushed him away violently and told him that no, she did not care for this kind of attention, merci beaucoup.

They had all scattered into various sections of the large ballroom and Phillipe had made devastatingly severe eye contact with any who tried to move back in again. She'd breathed a huge sigh of relief and thanked him for his help.

She recollected smiling a little at his reassurances. He'd told her that he could tell she could look after herself but just hadn't wanted her to have to do so. She'd spent a good chunk of the next hour making friends with Phillipe as he asked her about herself and laughed with her, glaring down any potential suitors who might have made Marinette feel uncomfortable.

“Careful,” she'd told him with a laugh, “people will think you're trying to take me home yourself.”

He'd frozen for a moment before a soft smile had appeared on his face. “And would that be a bad thing for them to think?” he had asked her.

Marinette had felt her stomach drop and had hastily considered the best way to answer without possibly infuriating him. She'd still only known him for an hour after all.

“Well,” she started, draining the last of her coke to stall before continuing, “I have quite a few friends who know I'm not looking to date or hook up with anyone and they would have questions for me if it-when it got back to them.”

There, she had thought. She had tried to casually drop in that there were friends here with her and that she wasn't alone. He didn't need to know that Adrien was the only person there who had actually fit that criteria.

His smile had stretched wider and he had simply stared at her for a moment until he had suddenly broken the nervous tension with a small laugh.

“Fair enough,” he'd said, “Still not going to leave you to the lions though.”

She'd exhaled sharply in relief and smiled genuinely, glad that he hadn't harboured any hard feelings. He'd glanced down at the empty glass in her hand.

“Can I get you a refill?” he'd asked.

And that was where Marinette's clear memories started to taper off. She remembered drinking something so she must have gotten that refill, and then she remembered walking through the ballroom door. She didn't remember seeing Phillipe again but there had been someone walking with her. Had Phillipe accidentally given her alcohol despite her resolution not to drink last night? But could she really have gotten so drunk in such a short space of time? How long had it been though, if she couldn't remember? What had happened after she'd left the ballroom?

She screwed up her face as if she could will the memories back to her and her head pounded in protest. There was a hallway. And someone – a man, and...

Oh no.

She'd kissed someone. Scratch that, she'd tried to kiss someone. She remembered a lot of slobbering so it couldn't have even been a good kiss. Who the hell had she kissed? Phillipe? One of the creeps? Oh Dieu. They'd kissed back. At least, she thought they had.

She'd been so intent on staying sober for two reasons. One of them was simple. She simply spoke her mind while drinking and she'd not only wanted to avoid potentially embarrassing herself in front of people at the Gala, she'd been wary of what she might say to Adrien since it was his father's event and it'd be rude if she had hidden from him. Alya had taken her to a handful of parties where underage drinking had taken place since they'd started at lycée andshe'd spilled about her crush on the model to anyone who would listen. And considering the humorous way Marinette could poetically gush about him, many had actively encouraged her. She was just lucky that only a few people had actually know her from school and had promised not to say a word about it again. And all because whenever someone hit on drunk Marinette she found it necessary to announce to them that she was saving herself for Adrien.

That was the other reason of course. Despite being a complete coward when it came to telling Adrien anything about her feelings for him, she was determined that she didn't want anyone else. She had found people attractive of course, but she had never felt the same way about any of them and it didn't feel right to throw away any of her firsts on a fling. Until the day she found herself head over heels in love with another the way she felt about her classmate, she refused to act on any attraction.

Which didn't explain why she'd kissed someone? Had that someone been the one to take her home? Based on how close the memories between the kiss and the car seemed to be, she had to assume so. And now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered fixating on kissing someone's neck while in the car. She blushed heavily.

The blush seemed to make her head throb again and she was beginning to feel slightly nauseous now that she was more awake. Marinette rolled over and reached for the glass of water she had dumped back on the floor earlier and for the first time she noticed the scrap of notebook paper wedged beneath it. She grabbed at it and squinted in the harsh light, trying to make out the words.

She abruptly dropped the piece of paper as she finished reading and it fluttered softly to the ground by the water glass. She let out a mournful sound and sat up to drop her head in her hands.

The movement was too much and her stomach rolled as she grabbed at the waste paper basket quickly before she emptied her stomach into it viciously. As she finished heaving, she glanced again at the eight words scrawled in her mothers handwriting which inspired nothing but terror in her.

Remember to thank Adrien for bringing you home.

Chapter Text

“Marinette! I heard something. Are you okay?” Tikki shrieked as she phased through the trapdoor into Marinette's room. The little kwami paused upon seeing her young charge slumped over the waste-paper basket in her lap and sighed a little. 

“Oh, Marinette. Have you had any water?” she asked.

“Mmmhmm,” was the croaked response from the girl still hidden in the plastic and wicker basket in front of her.

Flying up to face height, Tikki gingerly took the edge of the bin in her little paws and with a tremendous amount of strain managed to lower it to the floor next to the chaise, a look of disgust on her face when she caught sight of the contents.

“Your dad has some broth downstairs for you. It's ready to heat up whenever and it's supposed to be really good for your stomach. I gave him a recipe for some tea as well. Some of my other holders used to use it for hangovers and it doesn't have any pharmaceuticals in it so it won't interfere with whatever else is in your system.”

“Why?” Marinette groaned as she lowered herself back to the chaise on her side, “What's in my system?”

Tikki gave her a very conflicted look as she came to rest by her face on the chaise.

“Tikki?”

“Phillipe...gave you something.”

“What!?”

“He put it in your drink,” Tikki said with an ashamed look, “I kept trying to warn you but he wouldn't leave you alone and then once you'd drank it, it was like you couldn't hear me or didn't want to.”

She reached out and placed her tiny paw on Marinette's cheek in a gesture of comfort.

“You broke the catch on your purse and I couldn't peek to see when it was safe to phase out without being seen. But then you were sort of...rescued and it was honestly a huge relief.”

Marinette groaned loudly and flung her hands over her face, startling the little kwami, who eyed her suspiciously.

“Yeah, but I was rescued by Adrien. And made a complete fool of myself.”

Tikki's eyes widened until they nearly eclipsed her entire face.

“So you...remember that then?”

“Vaguely,” Marinette said in a mumble.

“Ah,” said Tikki, “Why don't we start with the basics and get you that tea?”

It was about fifteen minutes later when Tikki returned with Sabine in tow, the latter of which was carrying a steaming mug. With a little help from her mother, Marinette managed to prop herself up and drink. The “tea” as Tikki called it looked murky and completely unappetising but it didn't actually taste too bad, which she was thankful for and it did help clear her head a lot. She couldn't really complain.

Sabine stayed for a while and tried to soothe her daughter's fears over her disastrous night. Gabriel Agreste had called this morning to inform them of the full situation. They'd been assured the young man in question was being dealt with and it would be completely up to Marinette if she wanted to press charges or not, which helped her feel a little better. There was no pressure on her this way, but she knew that if M. Agreste said he was dealing with an issue there was no way Phillipe was going to come out of this unscathed and she liked to imagine it wasn't wishful thinking if she assumed he'd be too terrified to ever try anything similar again.

Sabine also confirmed what Tikki had told her and what Marinette had already suspected – that it was Adrien who had brought her home. She instantly whined at the thought, mortified and remained conflicted on whether she actually wanted any details or not.

“It was your father who answered the door, not me,” Sabine told Marinette with a smirk, “But he says Adrien was very worried about you, you know.”

“Of course he was Mama,” she said, “I'm his good friend.”

Unfortunately, it was a phrase Adrien had used to describe her a lot. He obviously had no idea what it did to Marinette's heart each time he used it and she couldn't find it in her to hold it against him. The boy was eternally clueless.

“Maybe so,” her mother said, “but I'm sure good friends don't blush the way your father says he was.”

“Maybe he's not used to his good friend having no filter and practically attacking him in the back of his car,” she said cringing as she spotted the sly smile her mother adopted at her words.

“Attacking? Hmm,” she said, that same smile firmly planted on her face as she got up and moved towards the trapdoor, picking up the waste-paper basket on route, “You'll have to enlighten me about that later, dear. I need to get back downstairs, but your father will be up in a moment with some soup for you.”

As she waited, Marinette found that the tea diluted her hangover rather quickly so that by the time her father arrived with her soup she had upgraded her health from wishing for death, to simply feeling a little nauseous. The soup seemed to take care of that as a perfect accompaniment and thankfully her father only attempted to tease her once, at which point Tikki scolded him. He waited as she ate, glancing over at Tikki every once in a while, to see if she was still glaring at him or if he could push his chances and try teasing his daughter again.

Marinette finished the last of the broth at the bottom of the bowl and placed it on the floor next to her before turning back to look at her father.

“I'm feeling much better now,” she said, “Before I go take a shower Papa,you have to tell me everything I said and did in front of Adrien while you were there.”

Adrien woke to the sound of purring against his temple. Slowly blinking open his eyes, he glanced at the digital clock sitting by his bedside and groaned when he realised it was already 11:30am.

Last night had been...interesting and he'd found it difficult to get to sleep once his driver had finally returned and taken him home. Of course, it hadn't helped that he'd had to deal with a ridiculous amount of smirks from the man on the way home before being teased mercilessly by the old kwami who shared his room once he was out of sight.

The same kwami who appeared to be asleep on the side of his head at this exact moment.

Groaning again, Adrien rolled onto his back, dislodging the tiny God who yelped as he was flung to the pillow.

“Hey!” Plagg complained, “just because you were up most of the night thinking about your girlfriend, doesn't mean you can interrupt my sleep!”

“It's almost afternoon Plagg,” Adrien said, “and she's not my girlfriend.”

“Ooooh, but you were thinking about her?”

“Not this again. Drop it.”

“Not a chance,” the little cat said, “that girl couldn't keep her hands off you last night. I'm surprised you didn't spend all night m—”

“I'm begging you not to finish that sentence,” Adrien said uncomfortably. Instead Plagg only smirked at him as he sat upright in his bed.

“You better get yourself showered and dressed anyway.”

“Why?” Adrien asked, narrowing his eyes in obvious and open suspicion.

“Because,” his kwami smirked, “you said you'd go see how she's doing this morning.”

It hadn't quite turned twelve when Adrien emerged from his room, showered and dressed. Plagg had spent a ridiculous amount of time teasing him on his choice of clothes, as he'd decided to pair his jeans with a shirt Marinette had made for him on his last birthday. He'd simply rolled his eyes, refusing to let his Kwami dictate his clothing choices. It was his favourite shirt after all.

“Adrien.”

He stopped dead in the foyer at the sound of his father's voice and turned to face the man quickly leaving his office in order to meet him.

“Father,” Adrien replied with an awkward smile. Had that driver said anything to anyone? Was his father about to try out his own brand of teasing that he'd been developing over the last couple of years?

“I take it you're on your way to see your friend?” Gabriel asked and Adrien nodded in response. “I called her parents first thing this morning to make them aware of the situation. And I've paid the lab handsomely for a rush job on the results of what was in her drink. I'll have the results by dinner tonight, but I'm pretty sure I know what was in it already.”

“You do?” Adrien asked, surprised by the speed in which his father had managed to deal with everything.

“Of course. I simply interviewed Mr Moreau and asked him.”

Adrien quirked his eyebrows. “And...that worked?”

Gabriel chuckled and it wasn't entirely pleasant, sending a chill down his son's spine. “Adrien,” he said, “I can be extremely intimidating when I want to be -as you must remember. It also helped that I could tell exactly when he lied, was honest, or stretched the truth. I simply told him each time until it unsettled him and he began to talk.”

“You interrogated him...with empathy?” he asked, watching as the man in front of him smirked, “So, he confessed?”

“Yes. And his fashion career is over. He can finish his degree if he wants but I’m currently making sure it will be completely useless to him.” Gabriel scowled suddenly and Adrien felt his mind whiplash back to being barley sixteen, back to before his father had stopped being a villain and changed for the better. “You know what the worst thing is, Adrien?” he said, looking both angry and saddened, “He didn’t feel guilty the whole time I was there. Frightened he’d been caught - but not actually sorry for what he’d done, or what he'd planned to do to that girl. Even at my worst there were lines I would never have crossed.”

Adrien reached out and placed a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, a comforting gesture which would normally have seen their places reversed as father and son. “Then let’s be glad we stopped him,” he said, “And hope Marinette isn’t so upset she won’t speak to the police. I'd like to see him put away for this.”

“If not, I'll have him monitored. Every employer and friend of his will receive an anonymous tip about him,” Gabriel replied. He shook his head slightly, as if to remove the grim thoughts running through his mind before smiling -a slight curling of the edges of his lips- and looking at Adrien directly. “You would be best to hurry over to see Marinette,” he said, “surely there is something you need to discuss with her?”

Adrien's mind raced and he felt his stomach drop violently at the suggestive way his father smirked at him. “What...um, what do you mean?” he asked, pretending to be unaffected despite knowing it was useless given his father's abilities. Gabriel sighed at the thinly veiled attempt at nonchalance.

Nooroo appeared suddenly from his father’s jacket pocket, sending a warning frown at his holder. “Gabriel,” he said in a low tone, “be nice.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Nooroo. I’m simply talking to him.” The kwami didn’t appear to believe him, raising his brow on one side before glancing at Adrien with a sympathetic look. Before Adrien could think too much on it, he had disappeared back into his father jacket again. The dread in his chest rose significantly when he felt Plagg laughing against his chest from his own pocket.

Gabriel sighed for a moment before regaining his usual composure. “As we've just discussed, Adrien, I can sense emotions. But I’m sure that even people without empathic abilities can tell she likes you.” Adrien just continued to stare in panicked silence. “And given the cocktail of confusion, panic and elation you've been feeling since you first left the gala, I'm assuming that she finally said something.”

Adrien’s eyes widened as he processed the other man’s words. “You KNEW!?” he screeched.

Gabriel's smirk transformed into a genuine smile with an added eye roll and Adrien found himself feeling nauseous. “Since you were fourteen,” he said, “I believe she started out more infatuated than in love with you but I've kept tabs on her since it was apparent she was going to remain your friend all through school.”

“There goes my theory about her being too loopy to mean it.” He pushed his hand through his carefully styled hair until it reached the back of his neck and rubbed aggressively to ease his mind. She had meant it. What was he supposed to say to her now?

“I'm not entirely sure why you're so worried,” Gabriel said, his own face showing the tiniest signs of confusion in such subtle ways Adrien was only capable of pinpointing after years of studying his father’s expressions, “I was under the impression this was a good thing.”

A good thing? One of his closest friends was in love with him and he had no idea how to address it but his dad thought this was a good thing? “Why?” he asked.

Now Gabriel really was confused. Was Adrien really so unaware of himself? “Because,” he said slowly and carefully, “you have had romantic feelings for her, to some degree, for years now.”

“Wut,” Adrien said eloquently.

“Empath,” Gabriel stated, “You can lie to yourself, but not to me.”

Chapter Text

Adrien watched the scenery pass the car window in a stupor. His usual driver had returned to transport him today, and Adrien had been too stupefied to consider asking if the other man had been removed for his conduct last night or if he was just elsewhere. Instead, he had slumped in the back seat, the Gorilla staying his usual silent self as if he sensed the teenager needed some time with his thoughts.

Adrien’s mind reeled. According to his father…he had feelings for Marinette. His father could have been lying, but honestly Adrien wasn’t sure why he would do that. Gabriel rarely lied about anything important anymore –he knew how much it meant to his son that he be as open and honest as was possible since he’d renounced being a villain– and besides, there was no benefit for him to mislead Adrien on this. Which led him to believe he was telling the truth. And this wasn’t exactly a case of opinion as his father’s empathic powers didn’t leave a lot of room for personal interpretation.

But how could he have feelings for someone and not know about them?

Marinette had been his friend for years. She had always been fun to hang out with and despite some odd moments where she occasionally messed up her words, they had never had any issues talking or spending time together. She was pretty and smart and unbelievably talented at designing and other creative endeavours. She had taught him to cook when he had decided it was time he learned and kept him amused with her sharp wit whenever he had been confined to his room, forced to interact with his friends via Marinette’s facetime calls.

She was always there for him when he needed it – even when she didn’t understand what was wrong. He remembered when he had first discovered his father’s secret lair full of butterflies and taken the next logical step, realising his identity. He had been utterly devastated. Unable to bring himself to confront Gabriel –or even confide in Ladybug for fear of how she would react– he’d been completely alone with his grief. In a way, he’d thought he had lost his only remaining parent, and in some ways, it had hurt more than losing his mother. He’d acted horribly, lashing out at his friends and pulling away from them when they tried to help. Chloe, Nino and Alya had all pulled away from him as well, unsure what was wrong or how to fix it without getting hurt themselves in the process.

Only Marinette had made any real progress. She’d encouraged him to open up – even if he couldn’t tell her why he was acting the way he was, she’d told him it was okay to describe the way he was feeling so she could try to understand what he needed. He had talked about anger mostly. Anger and loss and…betrayal. He’d thought with no concrete information to work from she’d soon give up on him as well, but she’d surprised him.

At first when she had suggested working in the bakery would help him, he’d thought she was insane, but having the opportunity to beat the bread dough into submission had been very good for his aggression and he stopped lashing out as much as he had before. Of course, he’d still been awful to her a lot of the time, but she was not the kind of person to let him treat her badly. With a lot of compassion and several collected but passionate lectures from her (and even one hard slap to the face), he had started to realise he didn’t want to lose his friends any more than he wanted to lose Gabriel.

He’d apologised to everyone –even to Ladybug who hadn’t realised anything was wrong as he had worked so hard to hide his rash behaviours around her, playing it off as battle anger against new akumas. He’d told her everything; about finding out who Hawkmoth was, about struggling to accept that he knew the man. The only thing he hadn’t told her was his or his father’s identities. He had begged her to let him try and reason with him and promised he would take the Butterfly miraculous back regardless of the outcome.

She had been so mad at him. It hadn’t been pretty. But she’d agreed. And he now knew that despite the initial confrontation between Hawkmoth and Chat Noir being an ugly, twisted one, it had all worked out in the end.

All because of Marinette. The girl he…liked, apparently. The girl he was attracted to, certainly.

He sighed heavily as he remembered just how very tempted he had been by Marinette’s initial affection last night. She had been intoxicated and her confession had shocked him, but when she had kissed him, he had melted into it instantly. She was beautiful, she was wonderful, and she had told him she loved him. And had she been completely sober, he had no idea what might have happened beyond that. Though, he was sure his love for Ladybug would have dropped a ton of guilt on him at some point.

He resigned himself to the fact that he was very screwed up.

He still had no idea what to say to her either. There was always a chance she didn’t remember, and he could play it off as if nothing had happened. He’d heard enough about the kinds of drugs creeps used and how they worked during health classes that it was a distinct possibility. But…he was still somewhat curious if nothing else. Just how long had Marinette liked him? At what point had her “infatuation” as his father had put it turned to love? What the hell made her love him of all people? He had his family’s money and his good looks but those were things to want, not to love. So, what had drawn her to him?

His driver cleared his throat from his place in the front seat and Adrien came to realise that the car had stopped. Probably had done some time ago if the way his driver was raising his eyebrow was any indication.

“You can head back now. I’ll call when I need you,” he told the man with a surprisingly steady voice, considering that his heart had managed to lodge itself in his throat as he attempted to exit the vehicle. After a quick stumble onto the pavement, he closed his door and stood to watch as the car moved away and around the corner.

Here went nothing.

Finally, finally, she was feeling like herself again.

Marinette sighed in her seat and breathed in the clean smell of her sweatshirt, fresh from the dryer and mingling nicely with the fruity scent of her shampoo. She’d taken an extra long shower and let herself lose her worries in the soothing heat and the comfort of the simple task of bathing herself. Her anxieties would probably be back shortly but for the moment she was calm and relaxed and-

“Adrien just walked into the bakery,” Tikki said lazily from her spot on the windowsill.

“OhmyGod! Get Mama to tell him I’m still sick!” she yelped at her kwami as she launched herself from her desk chair without thinking to uncross her legs first, resulting in her landing in a heap on the hardwood. “Ow…I can’t face him Tikki! I can’t. Help!”

Tikki watched her frantic display with something akin to amused pity before her antennae stood to attention and she turned to look at the trapdoor as if listening for something. “I don’t think you have much of a choice,” she said before flitting away to hide in a corner somewhere.

“Marinette?” The sound of her name on his tongue, spoken through the trapdoor and gently –as if afraid he might wake a sleeping animal– was all it took to paralyse her voice. Instead, a sort of strained croak escaped for a moment before she snapped her mouth shut –mortified–to cut it off.

“Was that you?” he asked, the trapdoor slowly opening a little until his face appeared over floor level. His eyes were screwed shut tightly and he looked like he might be ready to bolt in terror at any moment.

Despite her own anxiety at his sudden appearance, she couldn’t help but snort out a laugh.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?”

She tried to pick herself up from the floor, succeeding only as far as sitting back on her legs, and tilted her head as she watched him. “Your eyes,” she said, “Why are they closed?”

“Oh,” he said, a strange pitch to his voice, “Your mom said you were just out of the shower. Are you decent?”

Marinette glanced down at herself. Although she was wearing shorts, they were well named as they were tiny, barely hugging her ass. Her large sweatshirt reached to mid-thigh, making it appear like she wasn’t wearing anything else underneath at all. Goosebumps formed along her long bare legs as she realised that with her hair damp and loose, and her casual attire, she probably looked a mess.

A clean mess, but still a mess.

“Um…I’m dressed if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh. So, I can open my eyes?” he asked, as he pushed the door up and blindly tried to navigate his way through, stumbling a little.

“Oh God, yes! Quickly, before you fall!”

His bright green stare pierced her as he finally took her in before a dark blush adorned his face and he turned to look around the room instead. She had never been gladder that she no longer kept pictures of only his modelling shots and had instead opted to put up candid photos amongst those of her other friends. The few magazine spreads of him she had left were easily explained away if he asked –since she now also kept pictures of other models, wearing designs she liked to use for inspiration.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Um…. How are you feeling?” he asked shyly.

She stood up from her place on the floor and tried not to betray how self-conscious she felt in her lounge-wear as she traipsed across the room to sit on the chaise. Pulling her hands into her sleeves she said, “Better than when I first woke up. My head was spinning and I puked-” Oh God, why was she telling him this? “-but mama and papa have been looking after me. I’ve eaten and had a shower so I’m as good as new now.” She forced a smile at first, in an attempt to ease his worry but soon found the awkwardness melt into something more genuine as he scratched at the back of his head. It was endearing.

He looked over to meet her eyes again and that tell-tale colour in his cheeks spread further, sneaking its way up to the tips of his ears. She watched as he gave a cough which sounded incredibly fake, dropping his hand from his head to cover his mouth as he did so. After a moment of apparent indecision passed across his features, he spoke.

“Wh-What do you remember about last night?”

Chapter Text

She stared. The panic had set in and she had absolutely no idea how to answer him. Should she admit she remembered? Should she claim ignorance? What if she said she remembered but played it off as a drunk kiss that didn’t mean anything? That drunk her just latched onto people or-

“Um,” she squeaked, her face burning.

“S-So you do remember then?” he said, his blush-stained face an otherwise completely blank mask which gave nothing away for her to decipher.

She flung her face forward, burying it in her sleeved hands as the rush of blood took over her face. “Argh, I’m so embarrassed!” she mumbled.

Adrien gave a stilted chuckle. Of course, she was embarrassed, he was positively dying of mortification and he hadn’t even said anything cringe worthy. Yet.

“Oh, join the club,” he said with a surprising amount of calm. He was still blushing, but somehow seeing Marinette’s reaction was calming. There was literally no way to make enough of a fool of himself to out-embarrass her right now.

He moved over to the chaise and slumped down in the space next to her as she glanced up through her fingers in shock at his relaxed appearance. “Do you remember everything, or…?” he trailed off - not wanting to give her any ideas, lest she use them as excuses to deny anything.

With a huge exhale, her hands swept up her face and back into her loose hair, gently dragging through and ruffling the damp locks as she tried to get a handle on herself. She’d unintentionally disrupted her parting in the process and Adrien restrained himself from reaching over and delicately lifting at the strands to correct it. Instead, he focused on her hands as they returned to her sleeves, disappearing inside the protection of the oversized sweatshirt.

“I…remember Phillipe got me a drink.” She bit her lip and refused to look at him. “After that it all gets a bit, uh, confusing.”

Frowning –partly because hearing that name pissed him off to a ridiculous degree, but mostly out of sheer frustration at Marinette’s evasiveness – he reached out and took one of her hidden hands in his. Tenderly, he slid the soft fabric up her arm slightly to reveal her hand, his own gently clasping her dainty wrist. He felt genuinely torn. He wanted to know what she remembered so he knew the right questions to ask to clarify his own confusion, but he also didn’t like the idea of Marinette feeling awkward and uneasy. He sighed.

“I won’t insist on the truth,” he said, putting her feelings before his own, “I’d rather you told me whatever makes you comfortable instead.”

He watched as her eyes bored a hole into the spot their skin met for a moment before shyly drifting up to meet his own gaze. She took a deep breath before she spoke, but she held that contact between them, even when her voice trembled slightly.

“That puts me in a tight spot. There’s nothing I can really say because the truth…well, you know. And lying makes me very uncomfortable.”

“Then please, just tell me what you remember,” he asked her, “Honestly.”

She trembled, but seemed to force herself to hold his gaze. “I know I left the ballroom after that. I spoke to someone, but I can’t actually remember who, or what I said. But I know I…”

When she trailed off, he gently ran his thumb across the underside of her wrist as a silent encouragement and she closed her eyes and swallowed audibly before continuing.

“I know I kissed them. Him. Time’s a little fuzzy so I don’t remember getting from that to being in the car. But I know I was in the car with him. He wouldn’t let me kiss him, but I was pretty persistent.” She gave a humourless laugh of sorts. “I don’t remember getting out of the car or anything after that.”

Adrien was shocked at just how badly his chest hurt at her admissions, his father’s earlier revelations about Marinette’s feelings seeming to fade into the back of his mind as his own pain and anxieties took precedence. She remembered enough about the night to have a general idea of what had happened, but she didn’t remember that it had been him with her the whole time. In a way, he felt like it made the whole thing worse. If she hadn’t recalled any of last night, then that was easily written off as the drug wiping her mental timeline clear. But for her to remember so much, but have him edited out of those memories? It almost felt like…like he wasn’t important enough?

“So, you don’t know who…”

“Just because I don’t remember doesn’t mean it’s not obvious who it was,” she said, her eyes opening once again and piercing him with an intensely vulnerable stare, “My parents told me you brought me home, Adrien. And I’m pretty sure…no, I know there’s only one person I would have tried to kiss.”

He was suffocating. He may as well have been at the bottom of the Marina Trench or out in the vast vacuum of space for all the oxygen he seemed to be able to capture once the words left her mouth, and it was painful, yes, but also exhilarating.

She was admitting that she knew she had kissed him, but she was also confessing that what she had said to him last night, and what his father had told him today were true.

She loved him. She loved him. She loved him.

And suddenly the air was rushing back into his lungs in much the same way the adrenaline in his body raced to make him speak, to act, to do...something.

Have you really been in love with me for years?” he breathed, afraid of his own voice in case the sound broke the spell they both seemed to be under as their eyes stayed fixed to one another.

She squeaked, but she didn’t pull away or take her eyes from him and he counted that as a victory.

“Did I tell you that?” she asked in the same soft tone, her free hand coming up to her face to cover her mouth.

He nodded, breaking into a smile as the atmosphere shifted into something significantly more comfortable than before. “Yeah, but I wasn’t sure if you meant it or if it was just what had happened messing you up. My dad was the one who had to convince me, actually.”

This time, Marinette did take back her hand, bringing it up to join its twin in pressing against her face as her eyes bulged in horror. “Your dad!?” she shrieked, “Your dad knows?”

He tried, he really did, but he couldn’t hold back the laughter that bubbled from his chest at her reaction and he howled all the louder when she looked adorably offended by it.

“Look,” he said once he had calmed down a little, “as much as my dad used to act like he didn’t have a clue that he was upsetting people, it turns out he’s ridiculously good at reading people. He says he’s known you liked me since we were fourteen.”

“Oh my God!” Her pitch was getting louder the more she spoke and given the increased range that came with being the Black Cat Miraculous user for so long, he suspected she might start to hurt his delicate ears soon if he didn’t distract her somehow.

“He…he brought some other stuff to my attention as well.” He scratched at the back of his neck nervously, his blush returning stronger than ever. “And, well, it totally threw me at first because I didn’t really believe him, you know? But…it makes a lot of sense now. And I guess when I think about how I’ve reacted to things in the past-”

“Adrien,” Marinette interrupted his ramblings, “Can I have a map to this conversation, please?”

He mock glared at her. “As if you’re one to talk. You used to stammer nonsense at me all the time when we were younger.”

“And now you understand my reasoning. What’s your excuse?” She finished by crossing her arms and facing him and sitting up straighter than before, a smug look on her face. Her gaze faltered as he suddenly seemed extremely interested in her ceiling light. Or her floor. Or really anywhere but her. “Adrien?” she asked hesitantly.

Gulping in more of that sweet air that had evaded him not so long ago and which threatened to do so again, Adrien looked at her once again, reaching out a tentative hand to take her own. He intertwined their fingers as Marinette watched, transfixed and used his other hand to cup her face. The contact made her flinch in surprise for a moment, but she quickly regained her senses and slid her own free hand into his hair as he closed the gap between them.

He was sure her lips had only barely brushed against his before she started to pull back abruptly –nerves and overthinking, he assumed– and he took the risk to chase after them, promising himself that he would only chase so far so as not to encroach on her own comfort. He was incredibly relieved when she stopped retreating, her whole body relaxing and melting into his touch.

The kiss wasn’t like they were often described in fiction, he found. Her lips didn’t taste of anything he recognised, and it didn’t feel like she was something he was physically missing, and that he needed to complete him. But it was sweet and gentle, and he was sure he’d never been more content than he was right now.

He pulled back enough to press his forehead to hers, his lids blinking open to see her own doing the same, a simple smile resting on her lips now. He found himself smiling in a way that echoed her own.

“I don’t know if I love you,” he told her honestly, “But I do know that I like you. A lot. Like, a whole lot.” He watched as her smile widened to a grin and she glanced down at their joined hands shyly. “But,” he added, “I love the way I get all warm inside when I think about you telling me how you feel about me. Even if you were out of it.”

Marinette gave a light chuckle, gently squeezing his hand in her much smaller one as she looked up at him again. Her eyes were full of that warmth and adoration he’d been overlooking all this time and his chest swelled with affection for her.

“Then I guess, now that I’m sober, I better tell you again,” she said with a smirk. She leant up and pressed a quick peck to his lips before she continued.

“I love you Adrien.”