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Adrien closes the door behind him, finally letting out the sigh he has been holding during the entire conversation he just had.
“That’s the hardest part done,” he mumbles to himself as he pulls his phone out and ticks that particular chore off his to-do list, only to add another.
All things considered, the price he would be paying for this particular favor was well worth it.
A notification pops at the top of his screen, and Adrien feels himself start to smile as he sees who is messaging him. He types out a quick reply, confirming that he’s on his way, before taking the elevator to the basement garage and getting into his car.
As he drives to his next destination, he mentally goes over the plan for his university project. He only just started , but he’s already more excited for planning a fashion show than he ever thought he would be.
While modelling got quite boring for him after a while, Adrien discovered at a later age that the challenge of actually running a fashion company appealed to him much more, and while he will never have the artistic talent his father has, he does have an eye for fashion and business.
Now he will completely orchestrate a miniature fashion show, and he knows just who he wants to design the main pieces.
-
Marinette shivers just a little as she makes her way to the little café a block away from the fashion academy. She hates the winter, it makes her sleepy, so she ducks further into her scarf, feeling Tikki rub against her cheek.
It’s the first week of January, and Marinette is enjoying the last few days of Christmas holiday before her classes at ESMOD start again. Despite the cold weather, she’s in a good mood. She managed to get into her first choice school, is getting great marks there, and she’s meeting Adrien for coffee.
She freezes in the middle of the sidewalk when she realizes she is very nearly skipping at the thought of the last part.
“Bad Marinette,” she grumbles to herself, “it’s just coffee, no need to be all happy about it.”
She feels more than hears Tikki giggle in her scarf. “I’m glad you noticed it yourself before I had to remind you.”
Marinette suppresses a groan, “How am I supposed to get over him if I don’t even realize when I do shit like that? You’d think I’m still an fifteen year old with a crush.”
“I think, considering the fact that you got over the stuttering thing a long time ago, you will never be that girl again.”
Marinette grins at Tikki, “At least there’s that.”
As she pushes the door to the café open, Marinette scans the room for Adrien, finding him at a corner table, two steaming mugs in front of him already.
Marinette smiles at the fact that he’s ordered already, but Tikki pokes her cheek. “Remember, the codename for the mission is: getting over Adrien.”
She falters in her step for half a second before replying, “Right.”
He gives a wave when he notices Marinette, and she weaves her way to their table. She sits down across from him as he nudges one of the mugs in her direction slightly.
“You look like you’re freezing,” he says, grinning; his trademark greeting for when she refuses to take her coat off.
Marinette cocks an eyebrow at him. “I’m just more sane about dressing for the season than you are.”
“Thirteen degrees Celsius does not warrant mittens, a scarf, and a beanie.”
“Neither does it warrant no coat at all.” How Adrien is never shivering in this weather, Marinette will ever understand.
Adrien’s smirk just grows, probably detecting the indignation in Marinette’s voice, and Marinette finds herself thinking he shouldn’t be allowed to do that in public. At least it doesn’t reduce her to a drooling mess anymore. That’s one checkpoint in her mission reached.
Marinette sticks her tongue out at Adrien, and they fall into a comfortable silence. Marinette sips her drink, quietly noting Adrien had remembered that she likes the cinnamon latte’s here.
“How was London?” she asks him after a while, and they chat about their respective holidays a little. Adrien’s not so much being a holiday as a working trip. Marinette hides a smile behind her mug as he pretends to be bored from it all.
“… At least I got the green light for my project, so I can get started with that.” The sudden change in topic surprises Marinette, but she feels a grin spreading on her face instantly.
“You got the okay for that really big project you wanted to do?”
“Yep!” Adrien looks more enthusiastic than Marinette has seen him in a long time, and she finds herself being swept in his enthusiasm.
“So can you tell me the big, mysterious master plan now? Or won’t I get to see any of it?” Marinette tries hard to sound casual about it, like she isn’t dying inside for every second Adrien keeps her in the dark.
Adrien grins at her then. “I’ll do you one better, I was going to ask for your help with it.”
Marinette is halfway through mentally confirming when Tikki roughly pinches the skin behind her ear. “The plan,” she hisses.
Marinette freezes in place as she remembers step two of the mission was to learn to say no to Adrien, when necessary. Something she has always had trouble doing.
Adrien apparently takes her silence as an invitation to elaborate.
“You see, I’m going to organize a fashion show, to showcase the talent at ESMOD to high-end designers, and that’s not just the fashion itself. Venue rental, scheduling, finances. I need to build a team to do it all. I’ll probably need a theme to go with it.” Adrien is ranting at that point, but Marinette doesn’t have the heart to stop him. “And Clo agreed to be the model for the main pieces, which is great, since her schedule is more crazy than mine nowadays.”
Marinette’s grin falls off her face. Cloé is modeling in the show? She feels resentment take root over the fact that Adrien asked Cloé to model before he asked her to do whatever it is he wants Marinette to do. He rattles on for a while longer, not noticing how stiff she became, while Marinette berates herself for being jealous of Cloé.
“—so, I wanted to ask you; Can you design the main pieces for the show?”
Hold up, what?
“You want me,” Marinette points at herself for emphasis, “to design the main pieces for your fashion show?”
Adrien nods enthusiastically.
“The pieces that Cloé will be modelling?”
Another energetic nod. “She’ll be the star of the show, after all.”
Well… that makes saying no suddenly very easy.
“No.” She feels Tikki pat her neck as if to say; job well done.
--
“No.”
The word is pronounced in such a final way that Adrien doesn’t even think to argue with it, though he does feel himself deflate a little.
“Oh, okay.” He says, feeling a little lost at the rejection he hadn’t expected.
“Sorry…” Adrien has seen enough of Marinette’s expressions to know she is feeling worse about it than he is, and he scrambles to reassure her.
“No, don’t worry, about it. You’re probably busy right? You would never say no without a good reason.”
The next silence between them is not half as comfortable as the last, and Adrien soon feels the need to break it. But before he can, Marinette mumbles something about classes, thanks him for the coffee, and practically runs out of the establishment.
It’s only when Adrien hears Plagg snigger in his breast pocket, that he comes out of his shell-shocked state, realizing he’s in his car.
“I don’t see what’s so funny, Plagg.”
But Plagg is only barely coherent at that point.
“Sh-she… shot you down,” the wriggling in the pocket suggests that Plagg is, quite literally, rolling around laughing. “A-and you… you were so worried about Cloé saying no… that you bribed her. But in the end… it was Marinette that shot you down…”
“Ha-ha, right. It’s hilarious,” Adrien grumbles as he starts his car, “this gives me a big problem though. I don’t think anyone else in ESMOD can produce the quality that Marinette can.”
That makes Plagg sober up a little. “To be fair, she usually goes along with your plans pretty easily, I didn’t expect her to say no to you either.”
That makes Adrien think; he can’t remember the last time Marinette said no to him. In fact, “I don’t think she ever has.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t think Marinette has ever said no to me before if I asked her for something...”
“Seriously?” If Plagg had eyebrows, they’d be nearing his hairline… which he doesn’t possess either.
“Yeah…”
“Maybe you can still convince her to do it.”
“What? No! She said no, Plagg, I need to respect that.” Adrien can’t believe Plagg sometimes.
“Why? She would normally never pass up a chance to get her designs out there, the least she can do is explain why.”
Adrien hates to admit Plagg has a point, but can’t get around it.
--
As it turns out, saying no to Adrien Agreste is one thing. Saying no to him repeatedly, as he throws all sorts of outrageous compliments your way, is another altogether.
“But you’re the most dependable person I know.” The completely sincere tone Adrien uses as he says it isn’t helping at all.
“Doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to do it.” Marinette doesn’t slow her path through the hallways as she makes her way to her next class, Adrien having somehow intercepted her.
“It won’t be half the success it could be without you.”
“Riiiight.” Marinette pours as much sarcasm as she dares into that single word.
“I’m serious; I could send Clo out there naked and she wouldn’t be nearly as admired as she would be wearing your designs.”
“Not helping your case here, Adrien.”
When Marinette first shot Adrien’s offer down, she felt proud of herself for saying no, despite the great opportunity she made herself miss. Now, two weeks later, it’s becoming more of the principle of the matter, as Adrien keeps coming up with new ways to convince her to do it.
“I mean, if the star of the show heard me, I’d be out of my leading model as well, but then you’d probably suddenly be much more willing to help out.”
“If you tell Cloé that, she’ll slap you in the face and make your life miserable, not even you can get away with saying she’d look better in my designs than naked.” Marinette never knew Adrien had an annoying bone in his body, but boy is she finding them now. “And I still wouldn’t help you out.”
She still regrets admitting to Adrien she doesn’t want to design anything specifically for Cloé, no matter how much of a famous model she has become.
“You’re the best designer I know.”
This finally makes Marinette stop in her tracks, and she gives Adrien an incredulous look as she turns to him.
“You, the son of Gabriel Agreste, cannot say stuff like that while covered from head to toe in Gabriel clothes, and expect to be believed.”
“Would you believe it if I repeated it after taking it all off?”
For the first time in over a year, Marinette feels her face flush, but she pushes it down with pure force of will so she can deadpan at Adrien, who clears his throat, and breaks eye contact.
--
“It’s not working, Plagg, she doesn’t want to do it.” Adrien is pacing up and down his room, only the thorough drilling he received during childhood preventing him from pulling his hair out. “No matter what I say, she keeps saying no.”
“That never stopped you before.” Plagg says, lying on his back in an empty camembert container.
“What are you talking about, she’s never said no before, which, I admit, is a bit weird on its own.”
“Not to Adrien she hasn’t.”
Adrien stops pacing to stare at Plagg, who has decided that this is the perfect time to take a nap, and promptly falls asleep in the small silence. Adrien would be annoyed that Plagg dropped out of their conversation like that, but he doesn’t need Plagg to elaborate further.
No, he remembers the night Plagg is referring to all too well…
“Please?”
“No.”
“Pleaaase?”
“Chat…”
The slightly exasperated, but nowhere near annoyed tone that reached Chat’s ears rang a bell somewhere deep in his subconscious, but Chat was far too busy pleading with Marinette to hear it.
“Come on, princess, What’s the harm?”
“You’ll distract me.” The deadpan stare she gave him told him not to even try denying it, and Chat found himself wondering how his classmate was able to read his super hero persona so well, when they barely talked in school.
Even after sharing a classroom for over two years, Adrien still wasn’t sure whether Marinette thought of him as a friend, or just tolerated him because their best friends were in a relationship.
Still, Adrien was bored out of his mind, and so Chat decided to take a mid-night stroll. When he passed Marinette’s house, and noticed her sitting on her roof terrace, he originally just wanted to say hello, but her sketch pad had attracted his attention.
The same sketchpad she now wouldn’t let him look at, and she didn’t want him watching her draw either.
“Please, princess?”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” She wasn’t even looking at him at that point, packing her drawing supplies up. That just wouldn’t do.
“Because it suits you,” Chat said, sneaking closer.
“If you think flattery is going to let you watch me draw, you’re mistaken little kitty, so go home.”
At that point, Chat was close enough to lightly graze her arm with his nails, unconsciously drawing her gaze to him. He slightly tilted his head, eyes unblinking and his left cat ear twitched just a tiny bit.
“Please?” the request was much softer this time, and Chat really hadn’t expected for it to make much difference, so he was surprised when Marinette held his stare for three more seconds before heaving a big, defeated sigh, and looking away.
“Ugh, fine,” she grumbled, “but you’re coming inside then, it’s getting cold out here.”
Just the memory of finding out Marinette had been hesitant to show Chat the drawings was because she was trying to design lingerie for the first time makes Adrien smile.
He just might be able to work with this. That night was around three years ago anyway, no way would Marinette remember the way Chat had gotten her to say yes.
--
“Girl, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you glare at your phone if Adrien was the one messaging you, what did he do?”
Marinette schools her expression and carefully moderates her tone. “Why would you ask what he did? Maybe I’m scowling at the temperature forecast.”
She should know better than to bullshit Alya by now. “While that is a perfectly viable option, I know you. Either mission: getting over Adrien is way ahead of schedule, or he did something to piss you off.”
Marinette sighs, and is about to answer when she spots Adrien walking up to them behind Alya.
“Speak of the devil,” she grumbles, before raising he voice to address Adrien, “Whatever you’ve thought up this time, the answer is still no, Adrien.”
But Adrien is still not to be deterred, apparently.
“Mari, come on, please?”
“Some people would consider this harassment.” Marinette carefully studies her nails as she says it before making the mistake of looking Adrien in the eye.
Something about him seems off today. Marinette isn’t sure what it is, but it makes her want to scratch his ears, ridiculous as that sounds.
“Please? You’d be my favorite person in the world, Mari?”
And what is up with the nickname? Why would he come up with one after five years of knowing each other? Luckily for Marinette, Alya is on the same wavelength.
“What’s up with the petname?”
Okay, almost the same wavelength.
Adrien shrugs, and Marinette is sure he’s creeping closer every time she looks away. It makes her feel on guard, even if she can’t explain why.
“It’s cute, it suits her.” The words spark through Marinette’s mind, not quite lighting the dark corner of her mind screaming for attention, and she instinctively rushes away from it. Looking away from Adrien and making a point of not looking at him again.
“Well, it’s still not going to make me want to design an outfit, just for Cloé to wear, no matter how many times I am allowed to prick her with a needle.”
Alya looks at Marinette in shock then, about to ask for clarification when Marinette is distracted by the softest of touches on the elbow. In a reflex, she looks up to see Adrien looking down at her, eyes wide, head rotated.
“Please?” His voice is softer than Marinette has heard it in a long time, but that isn’t what makes her feel like someone dumped a bucket full of snow on her head.
No, what makes her feel like that is the combination of it all. The posture, the stare, the not-quite pout. The way his hand is still reached towards her, ready to reclaim her attention should he lose it. The way she can just imagine the way his cat ears would twitch in the effort, if he had them.
It’s so familiar. Marinette has seen it dozens of times before. Ever since Chat Noir discovered Ladybug is weak to this exact tactic he has been using it whenever she was cross with him over his shenanigans.
It is in that moment that Marinette has a series of revelations, all at once.
One; her kittycat is standing in front of her right now.
Two; he has finally discovered the power of his pleading also works when he isn’t Chat.
Three; he knows Marinette is just as weak to it as Ladybug is.
Four; there is no way Marinette will ever be able to deny him anything ever again.
“Fine.”
As Adrien beams a megawatt smile at her she grudgingly adds one more revelation to the list.
Five; mission: getting over Adrien is a bust.