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How could she have failed to realize that this weird, heady day spent between Adrien and Kagami, both of them brilliant, caring friends, would end in pain? The temptation to surrender to the beautiful illusion the pair had helped her to create had simply been too much to resist, a siren song that seduced her down into the depths to drown in cloying happiness.
How could all that joy end with so ridiculous and innocent a question: "What ice cream flavors do you want?"
There really was no choice – not for the ice cream, of course. The real choice had been made all those weeks ago when she had resolved to play "wing-woman" to Adrien on his date with his perfectly-matched fencing partner, who was just as intelligent, beautiful, and poised as him. She deserved him, could empathize with him in a way that Marinette herself never could. Because she was everything that Marinette was not. Marinette was just a third wheel, desperate to cling on to the last vestiges of her childish crush, holding back the burgeoning couple. Even as the strange flavour combinations proposed by Andre rattled about in her head, she knew that this kind of selfishness did not befit a superhero.
For all her vaunted tactical genius, her ability to orchestrate the impossible with the most improbable of tools, she couldn't force any of the ice cream flavours to fit. Mint, and orange, and... she couldn't even remember any longer as the tastes blurred and mangled one another, even inside her mind. There really was no choice. In that moment of resolve, of determination to once again put Adrien's happiness ahead of her own desires, she was interrupted.
"Wait." Kagami's voice rang out. "What about..." Her gaze fell upon the lopsided, trusting smile on Adrien's face, honest, unlike the majority of his perfect, reserved grins that she knew so well, having practiced them in the mirror herself, trying to make them look natural. They graced his modelling shots, enthralling his fans, and never reached his eyes. Those damnable photo shoots. Magazine editors and their teams of photoshop experts always seemed to digitally alter his pictures to add an unnatural golden sheen to his... hair...
"-lemon," Kagami concluded. "Lemon drizzle." Andre responded with a somewhat dubious look before delving into his ice cream cart, shifting through its contents.
Much as she loved ice cream, and savoured it on those rare occasions that she was able to break her stringent diet, which consisted mostly of lean chicken breast, eggs, and broccoli when she was not allowed to partake of traditional Japanese cuisine, Kagami knew precious little about the exotic combinations offered by the supposedly mystical Andre. The stall sported several unidentifiable vials – why were there vials on an ice cream cart? - and bristled with tubs, unorthodox labels ranging from "Burnt Coconut" to "Pickled Mango" and ... "Foie Gras?!" Devilry. Disgusting, and disgustingly inhumane at that.
The generally genial Andre, brow pinched, the pudge around his cheeks and neck folding into a doughy mass that all but obliterated his bone structure, leaned slightly closer to her. "Do you really think that you can find flavours that work together? Too many, and they may start to clash. Simple and clean. That's the best for ice cream."
"He – he's right, guys," Marinette muttered, stepping forward and interposing herself between Andre's cart and her two friends as she waved them off almost frantically. "Who are we to tell Andre how to do his job? He's the ice cream expert."
"We, Marinette, are paying customers," Kagami began, the withering gaze she so often leveled at her fencing opponents - Adrien excluded - directed over the other girl's shoulder to fix on the lightly-smiling man behind her, "capable of making our own choices about what we like and what we want to eat."
"Yeah, Marinette," Adrien said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. Although Kagami herself had been well aware of the pair's shared affection, however stubbornly unrecognized the feelings went on Adrien's part, that moment of intimacy, the few seconds of warmth that they shared, felt... wholesome - inspiring a feeling that was nothing at all like the unreasoning rage that she experienced when Lila photographed herself alongside the model, posing as his girlfriend.
"You helped us get out here so that we could just-" he shrugged and sighed. "Today, we're not letting our parents tell us what we should do." Adrien continued, as Marinette appeared trapped in his eyes. Kagami empathized.
"Why should we let Andre-" with that, he winced, casting an apologetic glance towards the rotund, though still rather imposing man, who dwarfed the admittedly scrawny teen. If Andre had been offended, he gave no indication of his ire, responding the boy's furtive glance with an affirming nod. Adrien cleared his throat.
"If we're forgetting about our parents' expectations, why should we let Andre, or anyone else, tell us what combination of flavors works for us - what flavors we're allowed to have?"
Even had Adrien failed to intervene on her behalf, Kagami was not one to back down from a challenge. Still, as he squeezed Marinette's shoulder, she couldn't repress the swell of gratitude; it never hurt to have a partner at your back, or a cheering section.
Adrien Agreste in a cheerleader uniform. Either a good thought, a bad thought, or both at once.
Marinette, on the other hand, stood rigidly, evidently abashed as she stared up into the model's eyes, her face falling into a grim, tight-set frown as if she was still wavering on the edge of a resolution. It was such a terrible look on her; she was meant for upbeat laughter and playful teasing, the kind they shared only minutes ago when she had emerged from the ball pit, guiding Adrien and Kagami in their experience of a childish joy that neither had ever imagined, her hair disheveled and loose and shimmering in the afternoon sunlight, so black that it was nearly blue...
"- berries." Andre quirked his brow at her as Marinette seemed, once again, to lose her nerve. After coughing once, Kagami continued. "Blueberry ice cream."
When the larger man appeared disinclined to return to his cart, Adrien pulled away from Marinette to interject with a slightly timid, "Please."
A hand found the back of his neck.
"That is, if you wouldn't mind, sir."
The chuckle that rocked through Andre's form sent his doughy figure shuddering, the motion only quieting when he pressed his hands to the belly that jiggled long after he had stopped chortling. "And how could I turn down so polite a request, young man?"
Hands clasped, Adrien responded with a clipped half-bow of his neck and shoulders.
"Thank you, sir."
And what else? It was silly, really. Any three flavors would go well together. What did it matter?
A hand trailed through her hair, upsetting the functional if unflattering bowl cut that her mother favored for her, denying her control over even the most frivolous element of her appearance such as her hair- style...
"Black raspberry," Kagami affirmed. "The last flavor should be black raspberry."
"A fruit medley," Andre mused as he turned to his cart. A flourish of his ice cream scoop later, and he had produced a combination of blue and black orbs. "Sweet and sour, chilly and invigorating, comforting and familiar, all at once."
What a thoroughly odd man.
"So, black for her hair, a girl cool but comforting as a night's rest." Another deft motion of his ice cream scoop, followed by the incorporation of several slivers of wafer and edible tooth picks. "Blue for her pigtails, a taste of childhood and home; and lemon for his locks, fair like the sun, surprising in its warmth," he finished, squeezing a viscous yellow liquid over several of the ice cream scoops.
Very little of that made sense to Kagami, largely because the descriptors were horribly awry and the grammar was terrible, unless her mother had hired the worst tutors imaginable. Still, the ice cream itself, which Andre passed on to her as Adrien stepped up, gentleman that he was, to pay, seemed impressive enough. Andre merely waved him off.
"It's my treat," Andre assured him. "Making this particularly interesting ice cream was a reward in itself."
What exactly, Marinette was forced to ask herself, was going on here? The thin, drippy amalgam of ice cream and garnishes, some familiar from years spent in the Tom and Sabine boulangerie patisserie and others exotic, even to her, made a slow rotation in Kagami's hands. It was a melange of blue and rich purples, offset by the vibrant, warm yellow of what appeared to be a remarkably thin lemon curd sauce whose deep colour made the two flavors of ice cream almost indistinguishable in compare.
Kagami brought the intricate collection of sticks, wafers, and cream to her mouth, hesitating only a moment to watch as the lemon sauce congealed and froze in place as it dribbled over a partially melted orb of blueberry ice cream. No. Marinette realized – it was black raspberry. There was a hint of real fruit protruding from the cream sauce; otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to tell the two flavours apart.
Turning from Andre after again expressing a mingled apology and thanks, Adrien only watched as Kagami ran her tongue across the small scoop of black raspberry, taking in a huff of breath. Without swallowing, she moved to the next orb, pressing her teeth into it in a dainty bite. A guttural hum of pleasure reverberated in her throat as it undulated, the Japanese teen gulping down her mouthful before parting her lips in a smile that showed off her teeth.
Teeth that were decidedly not perfect, flecked with tiny particles of fruit, one of which had gotten caught up in her gum line. Marinette squirmed.
And then it was Adrien's turn, the young man making an eager grab for the treat, which Kagami denied to him for a moment, poking him in the chest with a rapier-like stab of her finger, before relenting. As he took the elaborate confection from Kagami's grasp, he offered her a small wink that set Marinette's heart aflutter still, and she had to hold off a swoon that would have been most unbecoming.
The model stared at the dessert in his hands before delving into it, enveloping an orb of blueberry ice cream with his mouth and suckling up the lemon sauce, some of the quickly melting purple cream oozing out around his lips. He parted from the treat with a light taste of the black raspberry, and broke off a small piece of wafer that he crunched on happily, holding the remainder of the ice cream in front of his chest.
A thin rivulet of lemon sauce leaked over the rim of a supporting layer of wafer, trailing down the edge of the young model's thumb. With a slight grunt of disapproval, he shifted the confection to his other hand. He scraped his thumb along the trail of sauce and brought it to pink lips, laving his tongue over the pad of his finger to lick up the tart cream ... in a strangely cat-like fashion. Then, he offered the treat to Marinette.
Her hand shuddered and heart palpitated, pulse throbbing inside her skull to the point that she was almost certain that she felt a migraine coming on, as she cast her eyes on Kagami, who, Marinette found, was already watching her – not with disdain or jealousy or anger, but ... she didn't know. She didn't know what that emotion was, but it was accompanied by a smile. That seemed enough.
Receiving the treat from Adrien's hands as if it was a precious gift, a token of affection - which no doubt made her appear to be an utter spaz Marinette almost thought that she could see the lingering glisten of Adrien and Kagame's saliva where they had tasted the ice cream. Lemon sauce refroze, frothed and melting into the various shades of purple, creating a slightly sickly-looking colour that Marinette found slightly unappetizing.
It was then that she realized that she had been staring for ... a long time, at least. How long? Likely far too long. Neither Kagami nor Adrien seemed to be judging her in the least, the blonde all perpetually kind smiles and honeyed looks.
Under their shared, steady gaze, Marinette brought the treat to her lips with decidedly unsteady hands, taking a pair of small bites from two of the slowly deforming orbs of ice cream while being certain to catch some of the lemon sauce.
The latter exploded over her tongue, tart enough to have her pursing her cheeks just for a moment before the blueberry, fresh and vibrant, caught up, battling back against the harsh flavour. Then, the black raspberry: fruity and mellow - less sugar content than red raspberry - and still slightly citrus, smoothing over the rough edges of the blueberry and lemon combination. It ... worked.
Of course it would. Marinette herself had sold dozens of Raspberry Lemon cakes with Blueberries, or lemon drizzle cake with blueberries and raspberries.
Of course it would work.
After swallowing down the remnants of her ice cream, Marinette cleared her throat, and, hand steady, thrust the artisanal dessert back to Kagami, who accepted it without comment.
"Should we get a seat?" Adrien asked, gesturing to the rows of benches that littered the nearby walkway.
"Let's," Kagami affirmed. With their ice cream in one hand, she slipped her arm under Adrien's and tugged him forward, relenting almost immediately when it became clear that the boy had planted his feet firmly.
"Are you coming Marinette?" he asked softly. His body twisted slightly, not out of Kagami's hold, but just enough to allow him to face the other girl.
"You should. You're ... a very dear friend, Marinette," Kagami insisted as she flicked the ice cream upwards in Marinette's direction. For some reason, her expression, and the hushed tone of her voice, called to mind the moment that the three had shared in the ball pit - the fencers' emphatic agreement that Marinette looked good with her hair down. "This day just wouldn't have been the same without you."
"She's right, Marinette," Adrien chimed in his agreement. His face was bright and ruddy, pink lips dark with the purple and blue dyes of the ice cream. "It wouldn't have been half as fun."
He extended his free arm to her with as much of a mock-bow as he could muster with Kagami at his other side, still holding firmly to him.
When Marinette used her "Ladybug Vision," it was as if time itself slowed to a standstill in an explosion of pure, creative possibility. At those moments, she could see all the pieces, understand the infinite potential of imagination and the myriad ways in which ordinary objects could be bound together to achieve extraordinary results - or, well, miraculous ones. Time stopped again, like that day in the rain, flooding her with the rush of the possible, but the pieces – the pieces were obscure, blurred. And that was always the problem with "Marinette," rather than Ladybug: the pieces never seemed to fit the way that she wanted; she couldn't force them to fit the way that she expected.
She took Adrien's arm.
It was a somewhat halting and mildly frustrating stroll over to the nearby benches. The difficulty inherent in keeping pace between three people with radically different strides, given that Adrien seemed to carry all of his extra height in his legs, had them fumbling on occasion, but they made it, just the same, settling on a bench that proved slightly "cozy" for a trio of teens. They really shouldn't have fit at all, and likely wouldn't if Adrien had already hit his growth spurt and transformed from sinewy teen to – Marinette swallowed thickly at the thought – powerfully-built man.
When she leaned into the model's shoulder a little more deeply than was strictly necessary to retrieve their shared treat from Kagami, who had taken a few experimental licks during their short trek to the bench, she felt the calloused fingers of the fencing prodigy trail over the back of her hand, and was struck by the sudden blossom of hot blood under her cheeks – Adrien's proximity, no doubt.
And due to the adorable whipped puppy-dog expression that crossed his face as he was passed over for his turn with the ice cream. Those bedeviling eyes and mock agonized quirk of the lips had her caught between pity and laughter as he turned the expression on her, and then Kagami, who responded by worrying her lower lip with her teeth for just a moment. Deciding to err on the side of pity, she raised her hand towards his mouth to allow him to – take a comically large bite out of the treat before she could wrest it away from him!
"Hey!" Marinette exclaimed, bringing the only-slightly-mangled dessert to her chest to cradle like a wounded infant. Beyond the teen model, Kagami doubled over in laughter, punctuated by an undignified snort that Marinette would never have thought her capable of.
The famous Agreste smile, which was likely trademarked by Gabriel's fashion house, pearly white teeth ever-so-slightly stained by a mingled black and yellow, flashed out at her. Heart palpitations would, no doubt, have recommenced, had he favored her with that look only ten minutes earlier, but, now, there was something just under the superficial veneer of boyish charm that made it utterly ridiculous, rather than dreamy, particularly when he dissolved into a light giggle that transformed his grin into something genuinely playful, even as his brow pinched together in mock offence.
"Well, I had to do something," he huffed, mock-indignation and regal haughtiness a strange parody of that which his father displayed eternally, Marinette realized. Was that what Alya meant by "resting bitch face?" "Between the two of you," Adrien continued, "there wasn't going to be anything left for me."
He may have said more, but for the fact that he released a sudden yelp as Kagami elbowed him stiffly in the side, jerking into Marinette before steadying himself by grabbing hold of the park bench just behind her head.
Which meant that he had his arm half around her shoulders. And then fully around her shoulders when he spread out and pressed his right hand to his ribs.
"That's going to bruise, you know," he groused towards Kagami.
"Don't whine, Adrien," Kagami intoned, her voice deep and monotonous. "It's unbecoming of a man of your breeding."
And, simultaneously, the three dissolved into yet another shared bout of giggles. Hand pressed to her mouth in a desperate attempt to hold herself back, Marinette watched, without, for the first time, any flair of pain or jealousy, as Kagami buried her face in Adrien's shoulder, muffling her laughter. Adrien, his arm tightening around the baker, making her squeak lightly, responded without a hint of the characteristic Agreste restraint and reserve, his joy clear and unrestrained.
Marinette had to admit, even if Kagami didn't believe in magic, maybe she was right: all they needed to believe in was ice cream.