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Marinette was glad to see that Adrien had left his window open. He hadn’t thought that she was talking nonsense, after all! He was expecting her! Cheered, she swung herself to the windowsill, landing lightly, and rapped on the frame. Adrien immediately jumped up from his desk, quickly turning around and crossing over to her, an awed look on his face.
“Hi!” Marinette spoke quickly, before she got distracted by Adrien and his face and his looking at her like that. “Your friend told me that you wanted me to accompany you to an event this Sunday?”
Which wasn’t...exactly true. It was more like she had overheard Adrien talking to Nino at school about the event and saying something like “if only I could bring Ladybug as my plus-one”, at which Marinette had promptly slammed her palms to her desk and blurted “I can get you a date with Ladybug!” like an idiot. And she just couldn’t go back on her stupid, stupid words once Adrien had looked at her with such an amazed and hopeful expression. But she had a secret identity to protect, so hopefully no one would question too much how Marinette was able to “contact” Ladybug and get her to do a favor for her. She’d already spent the afternoon dodging questions from Alya about why Marinette would be willing to set up the love of her life with a superheroine (“It’s not like it can become a real thing, right? Superheroes can’t really date...besides, if he couldn’t find someone suitable to go with, he would have to go with Chloé!”), she didn’t need anyone – especially Alya – looking into it further.
“Yeah! Yeah...wow, she actually...I mean, not that I thought she was lying, Marinette wouldn’t do that, I knew she’d try her best to...but you’re not an easy person to reach, obviously, so I...”
“So I’m here now to work out the details,” Marinette interrupted before he could start asking questions that she couldn’t safely answer.
“You’ll do that? You’ll really come with me?” Adrien asked eagerly, looking at her with an even more intense expression of unbridled hope than he had earlier that day.
“Of course! I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” she said, giving him what she hoped was a friendly and not nervous smile.
“R...right,” Adrien said, suddenly rubbing his neck. “Uh...do you want to come in?” He gestured at his room. Pink dusted his cheeks, and Marinette’s heart quickened as she realized that she was the reason he was getting so adorably shy and blushy like that. Oh, it was so worth Alya’s questions and Tikki’s looks for that alone!
“Yes!” she said, far too eagerly. You are a superhero, she chastised herself, don’t make a fool of yourself now. “Yes, sure, I’ll come in,” she continued more calmly. She stepped off the windowsill into the room as Adrien stepped back to make room for her.
“Thank you for this, Ladybug. I’m sure you don’t make a habit of indulging the silly requests of random ordinary civilians, so I really appreciate you doing this for me,” Adrien said, his cheeks darkening further as he ducked his head. Marinette applauded herself for not squealing.
“Oh, but you’re not just a random ordinary civilian!” she said reassuringly.
Adrien went rigid.
Immediately, Marinette panicked, knowing that she had somehow said the wrong thing, and frantically she tried to think of something to fix it.
“What...what do you mean by that?” Adrien said, his eyes darting across the room, landing anywhere except on her. “Of course I’m an ordinary civilian. I’m very ordinary. Perfectly normal, that’s me. There’s definitely nothing out of the ordinary about me at all…”
“Oh, no, no no no I didn’t mean that you were...that you were weird or anything!” Marinette said hastily, her own face heating up. Oh, just why couldn’t she use words properly around him? Why did she always end up saying the wrong thing? “I just meant, I meant…that you’ve helped me out a lot, that’s all. Well, not all, of course you’re more than that, than helping me out, I mean, you’re amazing and cool and talented all on your own…oh, what am I saying? What I’m trying to say,” she took a breath, centering herself, “is that our paths have crossed before, and you’ve even assisted me with some villains – like Riposte, and your akumatized bodyguard – so you aren’t just a random civilian to me. And uh, I appreciated your help those times, so I just thought…I should return the favor?” she finished lamely, her cheeks surely bright red by now. But it seemed to work, the tension drained from Adrien’s shoulders, and he visibly relaxed.
“Oh. Okay. That’s what you…sorry, I should’ve realized…”
“No, no, it’s my fault for not being clear.”
“No, it’s not your fault, Ladybug, I just thought…I overreacted, I mean.”
Neither of them could look directly at the other for a few moments, faces turned away in deep blushes.
“So, uh…details!” Marinette said. “I...uh...your friend didn’t give me specifics on the event, so I don’t know when and where I need to meet you, if I need to wear anything over my suit, that sort of thing…”
Somehow, “talking about details” turned into “watching silly videos on the Internet” together. Marinette wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but she wasn’t exactly complaining. It was fun to spend time with Adrien this way, and at the moment, she couldn’t think of many things better than getting to softly gaze at the way his beautiful face lit up with laughter. She nearly forgot she was in costume more than once, but always caught herself just in time before she said something incriminating – it would’ve been bad if she’d made a comment about how the dumb stuff in the video they were watching looked like “something Kim and Alix would try” (even if it was true). As far as Adrien was concerned, Ladybug had no reason to know their classmates that well.
“I’ve always wanted to show you that one,” Adrien said, still laughing. “I have a whole playlist of videos that I’ve wanted to show you, actually.” He started clicking around to navigate to it.
“You do?” Marinette asked, surprised and more than a little flattered that he apparently thought of her that much. Adrien immediately got embarrassed and nervous again, as though he had only just registered what he said.
“Uh…yeah, yeah, I mean…they just seemed like something you’d appreciate? Not that I know you that well or what you’d find funny or anything like that, or that I thought I’d ever be able to show them to you…”
“I’m sure I’d love anything that made you think of me,” Marinette said, unable to suppress the heat rising again to her face, and smiling at the thought that he in fact, knew her a lot better than he thought he did. She glanced back at the screen, and noted the time with alarm. “Oh! But it’s really late…I’m sorry, I should leave.”
He pouted, and Marinette felt her heart melt. It was completely unfair for him to be that adorable. Completely unfair. And completely delicious. No! Bad Marinette! Stop thinking like that or you’ll never leave! she chastised herself.
“Put the videos on your phone,” she suggested. “We can watch them this Sunday when I see you again. You said that things would be ‘probably ridiculously boring’ so we might as well have something to entertain us, right?”
“It’s not very good etiquette to be on your phone at something like this,” Adrien said, “I’d definitely be reprimanded for that.”
“Nonsense,” Marinette said with a teasing tone, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll just tell them it’s important superhero business and they’ll leave us alone.”
“Important superhero business, huh?” Adrien said, smiling once again and shaking his head in mock shame. “Who could’ve imagined that the great Ladybug would abuse her position to let a civilian misbehave at a boring event?”
“For you? Anything,” Marinette said, a lot less jokingly than she’d intended. Adrien had blushed several times that night (Marinette regretted that she had not kept count), but this time, he went redder than she’d seen him yet. She felt her own face turn to match his as she realized that she’d just out and admitted that she’d do anything for him, and probably given him a good idea of the depths of that sentiment, too.
“Uh…Ishouldgo. See you tommo…Sunday! Sunday. Looking forward to it. Goodnight!” she said, turning and rushing towards the open window. She let herself briefly look back, to where Adrien was still staring after her dreamily.
Oh yeah. This was worth it. Absolutely, definitely worth it.