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Three pink carnations. Three white roses dyed light green. A set of hydrangea in the middle.
Truthfully, the assortment looks obnoxious in the not good way, the pink and blue purple go together fine, but the artificial color of the roses looks off. The green has always made the roses look sickly in his opinion, and the vibrancy of the others just made it stick out like a sore thumb. Add in the neon orange bag that the buyer had requested the flowers be put in, and Adrien had to hide it all so he could keep his eyes.
Adrien enjoys working at the flower shop. Tending to all the plants can be hard work and the combinations his customers come up with can clash but, at the end of the day when it's just him and the plants, it's so much more relaxing than he'd have thought. Even now, when the store is open but no one else has come in yet, Adrien can't help but close his eyes and revel in the atmosphere.
As he's taking in everything, the bell attached to the front door rings. He opens his eyes and puts on his best welcoming smile. No one approaches his little counter for a minute or two, but then he can hear the voices approach. Two voices specifically, one a little higher than the other. One that he recognizes as Nino, his best friend and delivery man.
The mystery of who is with him doesn't really clear up when Adrien can see both of them. The girl is shorter than anyone else in the room, her blue black hair in twin buns on either side of her head. Her mouth is painted both in a light pink gloss and a shy smile at whatever Nino's talking about. But besides his immediate glance at her that unfortunately reminds him that he was trained in fashion and modeling and he can't escape that training, he still doesn't recognize her.
Maybe she's dating Nino?
Nino has been texting a lot recently, smiling at his phone but pretending he's not doing anything whenever Adrien asks him. Logically Adrien knows that it means his friend isn't ready to share the news yet. But on the other hand he wishes Nino could tell him already.
Nino and the mystery girl finally walk up to the counter, both smiling.
"Morning, bro. I placed an order before. Can you please pass it to Marinette?" Adrien can't question his friend's taste in colors or flowers with his possible girlfriend right there, so he just takes out the hideous assortment and places it in 'Marinette's hands. She blushes, a dusty pink spread out on her cheeks and nose, and turns to Nino.
"These are perfect! Especially the roses." She looks as if she's going to say something else, but a shrill alarm blares from a purse she has hanging on her side. Quickly digging out the offending item- her phone- and shutting it up, she offers an apologetic smile and a more aggressive blush. "I have to head to work."
She takes the flowers and runs out, two quick goodbyes exchanged. Adrien takes this chance to state what he thought of the flowers.
"Why the bouquet of those ? The green threw everything off." Nino just laughs. As if he knew exactly what Adrien was going to say.
After knowing each other for ten years, maybe he did.
"I just picked whatever seemed best. I mean, Marinette liked them, so that's all that matters." And here is where Nino starts puttering around the store, fixing barely crooked seed packets and lining up pots. It's a sure sign that he knows what's coming. Better not disappoint him, then.
"How'd you meet Marinette, anyway?"
"She was in my class at school, and she told one of the girls to fuck off when the girl was messing with me because of my glasses. We've kinda hung out ever since."
"She sounds nice." And not like what Adrien would have expected. That blush and the avoidance of eye contact must bely a more fighting nature.
"Mm-hmm. She's amazing. She works at two jobs, and one of them is designing stuff. You know Ladybug, the brand?" Adrien hums his assent, taking out his water pail. It's shaped like a cat licking it's paw; the water comes out from the tips of the licked paw. "Well she's the designer. Has been since school, apparently."
So not only does Adrien approve of Marinette, but his dad would too. Father has been trying to form opportunities to make a joint work with Ladybug for years. They keep turning him down, though, for whatever reason.
The day is spent mostly taking care of plants, with Nino doing one delivery a little after lunch and two walk-ins right before closing time. Both are quiet ordeals, nothing exciting. Adrien loves it, is ready to go make some tea and curl up with a book, but he's stopped by Nino.
"You wanna go grab a bite to eat? My treat!" Adrien agrees to go, though he tells Nino that he's paying. Nino argues back that, since Adrien pays Nino, it'll be like Adrien's paying. It's a familiar argument, a play with both of them knowing their lines. The outcome is different each time at least.
Nino takes Adrien to a bustling cafe. The sign outside reads, in pink cursive, "Dupain-Cheng Cafe". Inside, no such signs are to be found, but the smell of coffee and sweets fills the air and gives the place away. At the counter there are several people, wearing black and blue uniforms. One of the people looks vaguely familiar, the orange hair and frown standing out to him. If he imagines her with Chloe, he can remember being in school with her. She'd be.... Sabrina, if he remembers her correctly.
To save the embarrassment of having an old classmate work work form him, he stands in line with a boy he definitely doesn't know working. The boy's dark skinned, his black nose piercing almost invisible against his skin. The outfit suits him, hugging tight to his body, letting show a peek of a tattoo of stars that is mostly hidden under his shirt collar.
His name is Tyler, Adrien discovers when he and Nino make it to the front of the line. Adrien orders green tea and a salad, and Nino orders a cappuccino with some kind of add-in, a egg and cheese sandwich, and the "daring dessert". Adrien raises an eyebrow at that, but Nino doesn't say anything so he lets it slide.
They wait for their stuff at the counter, then sit at a booth once they get it. The booth chair is one that Adrien could see himself sinking into happily, and he breathes a sigh of content. Which only turns into a quick cough as he tries to breathe back in. Luck has never completely been on his side. His father has always said it's because of his fascination with black cats.
Nino's food smells great, overwhelming Adrien's by a long shot, but the warmth from the tea is soothing. Adrien is halfway done with his salad when Nino gets to his desert. It looks like a regular cheesecake. Well, no, it looks like a cheesecake that's making his mouth water in ways cheesecakes don't usually do. Is he that hungry?
"Wanna bite?"
Adrien says yes, of course, and Nino cuts him off a piece. His mouth waters for all of the five seconds it takes him to bite into the piece. Then, it's his eyes that are watering. The cake is spicy . Which is weird. And painful. The tea does nothing to help, either but it's all Adrien has. Nino laughs at his pain and eats the rest of the cake with minimal looks of disgust or suffering.
"What was that?" Nino laughs again.
"The daring dessert. It's changes every day and it can either be really good or pretty bad. This one wasn't too bad." At Adrien's look of disbelief, Nino adds, "Marinette one made cupcakes with broccoli and cheese frosting. It was gross. She laughed at my face for a solid hour."
Marinette again. Asking if she and Nino going out would be a little obnoxious. Though he wants to do otherwise, Adrien will save the questions for a different time. This day seemed to be all about her, anyway. It’d be okay to deviate it right.
Nino and Adrien split after they finish. Adrien goes home, showers, and sleeps. Pretty uneventful, he doesn't even bother reading his book.
The next day is a little more packed at the flower shop. He works as fast as he can, and puts on his best customer service smile when a man about his father's age yells at him for giving him the wrong flower even though he had clearly said petunias instead of daffodils. There's not really a way for Adrien to confuse the two, now is there?
Around three thirty a getting more familiar by the second face comes in. Marinette’s hair is in braids today, two thick ones that are connected in the back to form something like a hoop. It makes her face stand out more. She’s pretty. Nino really picked a good one.
She picks out a single rose, pays for it, and proceeds to hang out with Nino until he has to go deliver flowers. Then they’re both gone, and Adrien can’t even chide him for it.
Slowly, a routine is set. Marinette comes in sometime in the afternoon. She gets a single flower. She and Nino talk in the corner. They leave at the same time, no matter what.
Adrien does try to talk to her. He greets her whenever she walks into the shop. He says bye when she leaves. He even tries to ask her about her being good at video games, something he had heard when she and Nino had been leaving the other day. Nothing gets her to open up much. To the last bit, she just replied, not meeting him in the eyes, that she’s not “that good.”
Adrien asks Nino if it’s him, if he did something to offend her or if she just wanted him to leave er alone or something. Nino just laughs a conspiratorial laugh that says something much deeper is going on.
“Bro, trust me, she thinks you’re great. She’s just...shy.” Nowhere closer to befriending Marinette, Adrien has to let it go.
That doesn’t mean that he has to stop trying, though. The next time she comes in Nino’s just left for a couple deliveries. No one else is in the store, either; it’s just her and Adrien. It takes her only seconds to realize this, looking around for her boyfriend.
“Just missed him.” Marinette thanks him, and instead starts perusing the aisles for her flower of the day. So far it’s been pretty varied. Never the lilies, though, Adrien’s noticed. She avoids them like the plague. “Looking for anything in specific?”
“Um, n-not really.” She says it with a questioning lilt to her voice, so it comes out like she’s questioning herself. She starts looking around again, then stops and pulls out a sketchbook. She flips through it rapidly, colors blurring and pages tapping against each other before evening out when she finally stops on the page she was looking for. On it was a sketch of two girls holding hands, one kid-sized and the other older. The kid one is in a red dress, while the other is in a deep purple one. The entire outfits are drawn in the picture, from the way the hair is going to look all to the shoes. The only empty spots are in the girls’ hair, one on the right and the other on the left. “A-Actually, do you carry hibiscus?”
“Purple and red?” Adrien nods to the sketchbook, resisting the urge to compliment her work for all of two seconds. “Also, that’s really good. I can see why you’re a designer, you definitely know what you’re doing.”
Marinette thanks him. “Do you have them in purple, red, orange, white, and blue? It’s for an entire family, and those are their colors.”
Adrien leads her to the back, and, although she’s still as quiet as ever, it seems like she’s in business mode. The nervous aura usually surrounding her is gone, and she walks with her head a little higher, her back a little straighter.
She picks out her hibiscus flowers, delicately inspecting each one before selecting it. They make it all the way to the register before Adrien tries to talk to her again.
“So, a family? Do you usually design for an entire family?” She meets his eyes, a confidence in there that he’s never seen in her from the weeks she’s been coming by.
“Not really, but the model and I have known each other for a really long time. Have you heard of Chloe Bourgeois?” Adrien laughs, a little shocked. Has he heard of Chloe ?
“I’ve known her since I was born. I haven’t talked to her in a while, though. How is she?”
“Less Chloe-like, if you can believe it. She and Sabrina got married, and they have two kids, a baby boy and a little girl.” Adrien raises an eyebrow and points at the flowers. She listed five colors, and there’s five flowers in there, but two kids plus a happy couple equals only four. “They’re adopting the last girl, but shh . She doesn’t know. She thinks it’s just another party. That’s why everything has to be perfect. And these flowers will help a lot.” She gets quiet again, eyes dropping somewhere to the ground. He’s lost her. “T-Thanks for that.”
There’s a silence that drags out, Adrien thrown by the sudden change in her demeanor.
It’s a long shot, what he’s about to say to get the mood back up to casual, but he got enough silence at family dinners, thank you.
“No problem, bud .” It takes a moment for her to get it, but he gets to watch the life leave her eyes as soon as she does. The groan he leaves is barely audible. As is the facepalm she does. “I thought we’ve grown enough as friends that I could make these jokes.” Another groan. “What do you think?”
“I think I have to go back to work.” Marinette shakes her head, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. “Bye, Adrien.”
“Bye Marinette.”
She’s talking to him, now, when she comes in. He had gone to Chloe and Sabrina’s party, prompted by not keeping in touch with either one. They had all looked stunning, even the baby boy, Aileas. His flower fell off towards the end of the event, but hardly anyone had noticed because they were focused on the happy tears that kept coming from Juliette, the oldest daughter. She had very clearly not even had the slightest hint of being adopted that day, and it was hard for Adrien to resist shedding tears of his own at the display.
Adrien hadn’t seen Marinette at the party, show he made sure to compliment her on her work at her usual meeting. She had turned bright red at first, but she had said thank you.
The next day she had taken a drawing pad, a different one from the one with the dresses, and asked if she could sit and draw in the shop for a little bit. Of course he had said yes, and she had thanked him and disappeared, only coming back out hours later. He didn’t ask to see, and she didn’t offer to show him.
The day after she only came in for a bit, and then left to apparently go to work. He barely had time to greet her, but the day after that made up for it when she pointed out he had leaves in his hair and stood on tiptoes to pluck them out for him. She had gotten closer than she ever had before, and he had been able to see ladybug earrings in her ears that he’d never noticed before. He hadn’t even known her ears had been pierced.
She stepped away, leaving the smell of her perfume, and as Adrien smiled to say thank you he realized that his heart had started beating overtime in his chest. It started trying to leap out his throat when he grabbed the leaves and brushed her hand by accident.
Shit . He had a crush . On Nino’s girlfriend.
That should’ve been enough to make his heart calm down, but she was smiling back at him, a half-smile that gave her a single dimple. It was, dare he say it, cute, and Adrien needs to lay down for an hour or two just to get that smile out of his head.
For the next couple of weeks he’s hyperaware of everything she does or says. She laughs and he remembers each way the giggles sound. But, because he’s got a conscience, every time Nino and she talk he feels guilty. Guilty enough that he takes Nino out to eat, grabbing a bite at some fast food restaurant.
On the way back, Nino pulls him inside..a tattoo parlor? Inside is a nicely furnished room with a very bored looking girl with glasses. Her hair is two toned, and she has a mole on her face. Her entire body expression changes when she sees who walked in.
“Two visits in one day? Have pigs learned to fly?”
“No, I just wanted you to meet Adrien. Adrien, this is Alya, secretary extraordinaire.” Alya sticks her tongue out at Nino, then sticks a hand out in Adrien’s direction.
“So you’re the famous Adrien. I’ve heard so much about you.” Adrien shake her hand, and they let go before she continues. “I thought I’d have to fight Nino to let me see you. What kind of girlfriend’s never met her boyfriend’s best friend?” Alya shakes her head but Adrien’s gotten stuck on something: she just called Nino her boyfriend. Which means Nino’s dating her? Is he dating her and Marinette?
“ You’re dating Nino? I thought he was dating our friend Marinette.” Alya laughs at him. Like, full on laughs. She even snorts. Somehow Adrien can see why she and Nino are dating.
“Yeah, no. Marinette is dreadfully single.” That’s all they say on the matter, though the way Alya winks makes it seem as if there’s a second conversation they’re having without words. It feels strangely one-sided.
The next day, armed with the knowledge that Marinette’s single and that if he flirts with her she’s not going to turn him down because she has a boyfriend, Adrien steels himself to ask her out. The worst she can say is no, after all.
Marinette’s hair is down, today. It frames her face on one side and is pushed back behind her ear on the other. She’s also wearing a tank top for the first time since he’s met her, and it makes Adrien stop in his tracks. Then, she turns around when picking up something that had fallen, and Adrien’s breath gets caught in his throat.
She has a tattoo on her back of cherry blossoms falling from a tree. It looks detailed and reminds him that Alya and she are friends. Is that the only tattoo Marinette has? Does she want more? What prompted her to get it?
Adrien’s feet had brought him forward without his conscious decision, but he can’t bring himself to care as he takes in the closer proximity to Marinette. She smells different today, like she had borrowed someone’s perfume.
When Marinette stands up and realizes how close they are now, Adrien watches as she nearly backs up.
“Your tattoos look really pretty.”
“T-Thanks.” They’re so close now that Adrien can feel her breath. He wants to kiss her, wants to feel his lips moving against his, wants to hold her hand now that he know he can, that he can actually entertain these thoughts instead of immediately screaming NO at his brain. He wants to make her smile, and laugh, and blush. He wants to know if she feels the same.
Suddenly, he’s getting what he wants. It’s feather-light, but he can feel her mouth brushing against him before pulling away.
“I’m- That- Sorry!” Marinette starts spewing how he was looking at her lips and was close and she understands if he wants her to leave and actually she’ll leave now anyway to save him the trouble of telling her. She turns and actually tries to go, but Adrien grabs her hand and holds it.
“No, it was- That was great. I wanted to ask you out, actually.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. Would you go out with me sometime?”
“ Definitely .” She kisses him again, this time with a tad more force, but still gently. They break apart for air later, but they’re kissing so slowly, so softly, that it feels like they don’t need air because time has frozen.
They do go out, two days later, to the movies. They watch some animated movie that Adrien had actually wanted to see but cannot for the life of him remember what had happened since he was too busy watching Marinette watch the movie. And when she nervously holds his hand sometime during the halfway mark of the movie he can no longer think properly.
(Many months later he does find out that she has some more tattoos. They’re equally detailed and beautiful, but not quite as beautiful as the sight of Marinette, artist turned art, writhing on the bed after being marked up by his teeth and now being turned to mush by him tracing each intricate line and curve. He’s never heard some of the curse words she can produce, but it only make him smile at her. Or, it does, until she gets revenge with carefully placed kisses and teasing hands that promises things but don’t deliver.
Marinette still blushes quickly, but now so does Adrien, and he couldn’t be happier)