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Parties were never meant to be fun, or at least, that’s how Adrien always thought of it.
Stuffy rooms filled with boring people, dressed up in a suit worth hundreds of euros while feeling in the low numbers, and always haunted by the fact an appearance had to be kept no matter what, were amongst some of the few things that never appealed to Adrien – of course, who could truly say that appealed to them?
Adrien had always pictured parties as an unbearable sense of reality, a role he was forced to take up in the name of etiquette. There was always the fear in a party, the sense of tension in his chest that for some reason never wavered, never released until he arrived home and the mask he had been forced to put on could be removed.
And then, his friends showed him the true meaning of a party.
It was the end-of-the-year get together, the last time they’d all be in the same room before a new year came and they’d be forced to move along with the months, with the passage of time that never seemed willing to stop. Adrien had snuck out easily after so long spent dashing out to akuma attacks and late-night patrols, and was now standing to the side of the room, taking it all in.
Alya, holding Nino’s hand as they walked out of the room, cheeks red as onlookers whooped their way. Rose and Juleka, taking pictures together and clinging onto each other with every second that passed. Luka, busy tinkering with the music now that Nino was gone and attempting to unplug his phone in favor of putting on his own playlist. Chloé was there too, but by the way she gazed at Kagami, Adrien suspected it was no use grabbing her attention.
No, Adrien didn’t want to grab anyone’s attention anyways. Someone had already grabbed his.
Marinette was laughing, teeth peeking out and cheeks raised as she fell for an awfully lame joke Kim had said. There was a crowd around her, an ever-present surrounding gaze, and Adrien couldn’t blame anyone who had their sights set on her, who watched her with adoration and held on to everything that escaped her mouth. She was Marinette after all, and who wouldn’t want to be drawn into the glory of all that she carried? Who would be a fool so as to not want to come closer, to dig their feet into the ground and feel the world fade away behind them? Who would be so off put by those around them that they couldn’t bear the thought of being close, of attaching themselves to someone who by all accounts seemed the worthiest of attention?
Adrien would, that’s who. He hadn’t begun to figure out why he wasn’t there, why he hadn’t joined in the festivities of the night after so long craving for a night like this. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t nailed the whole socializing bit yet, hadn’t mustered up the courage he so often had as Chat Noir that allowed him to express thoughts freely, without the fear of unwanted opinions his way. Maybe he was nervous, an onset of nerves that arose due to the sudden switch in environment.
Or, perchance, could it have anything to do with the nerves he felt whenever he looked at Marinette?
Adrien let out a sigh, frustrated with himself. He was simply nervous, and too in his head to get out of the slump the night suddenly brought. Surely there was nothing there when it came to Marinette, nothing that would severe the line they had drawn up, the line that so very clearly showcased that they were friends and could be nothing-
Suddenly, she locked eyes with him, stealing his breath away. Marinette looked his way for a second – a mere breath, if Adrien was right – and he could’ve sworn her gaze softened. That the laugh faltered, a mere sliver of what it had been only moments before. That she looked at him with a gaze unlike anything else he had seen before, new and unfamiliar and too much for his heart to take.
A gaze that seemed saved for solely him.
It was love, Adrien realizes in that moment. It was love that was there, love that was trapping him. Love, that he had gathered for Marinette and what was making him so hesitant in moving forward, in taking control of the
night.
A miraculous thing, if he had to describe it. And if Adrien had to describe it in another way, he would, the word already forming at his lips.
Marinette.