Work Text:
After an hour of pottering about the kitchen, Marinette finally had all of the drinks prepared. She grabbed a baking tray (not ideal, but Adrien would be too feverish to care about the aesthetics) and carefully placed the three mugs and one glass onto it. Hoisting it into her arms, she turned around.
And collided with Adrien.
The tray upset onto his pyjama shirt, and, along with the drinks she had taken half an hour to prepare, crashed to the ground.
Glass and porcelain exploded across the lino floor. She had her hand raised already to push Adrien out of the way, when she saw, to her relief, he had his slippers on.
"I am so sorry," he said, shuffling back from the disaster.
"No, no, it's— Adrien, stop, you'll cut yourself." She crouched in front of him while he picked shards of glass off the floor. "How's your fever? Let me feel."
Obediently, he lifted his head and leaned it into her touch.
And despite the three broken mugs (one of them being her favourite, hand-painted pottery mug with pink flowers around the rim) and the farrago of four kinds of drink she'd have to get out the mop for, Marinette was overcome with a rush of affection.
Since Adrien had asked her out three weeks ago, Marinette worried that she may have been a few pages ahead of him. Though they were still in the early days of their relationship and didn't speak much about anything more in-depth than how cute they were together, she always carried around the knowledge of her year-long headstart in having feelings for him. She worried — worried painfully — that maybe he didn't see her as much more than a collège girlfriend he'd laugh about to his wife in ten years.
But then he would do something like press his forehead into her palm like it was the most natural thing in the world, and the entire concept of worry would seem so foreign, Marinette would wonder how on earth it could've existed in the first place.
"You're a bit warm," she said. She took back her hand, and began picking up some shards herself. His hair fell endearingly back into place. "Why are you out of bed?"
He opened his mouth, stopped, then coughed into the crook of his elbow. Marinette winced.
"I feel bad for lying around all day while you look after me," he said. "This was supposed to be our first sleepover together."
"It's still a sleepover! We're still with each other, right?"
"Yeah, but I sort of just came to your house and… made more work for you."
Marinette frowned. "Hey! This isn't work."
They both looked down at the shards scattered on the linoleum.
"Okay, this wasn't what I had planned, but—" She shook her head. Then, quietly: "I like being with you — whether you're sick or not. It's nice being able to look after you."
"It's… nice?"
Marinette shrugged. "I guess. I like looking after people — especially you."
They dwindled into silence. Adrien watched her, saying nothing.
"A-anyways." She reached out for the shards in his hand. "Give them here. I'll take care of it."
He handed her the pieces of porcelain he had picked up. She filled the biggest, concave shard with the smaller ones.
"What was all this?" he asked, still not standing up.
Marinette snorted. "Well, your menu was" —she pointed at the orange splatter sprinkled with broken glass— "orange juice," —the amber liquid amongst hand-painted pottery shards— "ginger tea," —the drink half-mixed with the ginger tea, a red mug collapsed into it— "honey lemon tea, and that mug" —she pointed at a blue mug split in three— "had herbal tea, but I can't tell whereabouts the actual tea is."
He blinked at the array of drinks on the floor.
She felt herself flush. Marinette turned her head back to the linoleum. "Uh, these are all remedies I found online. I didn't know which you'd like, so… I… prepared them all."
Because girlfriends did that for their boyfriends, right?
The orange juice bled into the ginger tea. Marinette watched, wordless, as the mixture clouded over.
"I love you."
Her hand slipped on the shards.
Marinette snapped her head up. She was vaguely aware of the small cut on her palm, but couldn't bring herself to look away from him.
A heavy silence passed over them.
Perhaps she was hearing things. Her temperature had felt a little high earlier that afternoon.
"Oh no, I— sorry, I didn't mean to catch you offguard." Adrien was bright red, as if his fever had worsened in the matter of a few seconds. "It's just— I mean, nobody's ever done that for me before, and— well, that's not the only reason why I love you, but— oh, wait, maybe I should stop saying I love you? Not that I don't, but if it's too soon, or it makes you uncomf—"
"Adrien." She placed her hand on his cheek. It burned terribly. In the back of her mind she reminded herself to look for the thermometer after she cleaned up. "I love you, too."
"You… you do?"
Marinette smiled.
They stayed crouched like that until Marinette's thighs ached. They held each other's gaze, smiling at one another, the glass and porcelain shards still scattered across the linoleum.
"I would kiss you but my mouth feels kinda gross," he said.
She laughed. "Okay, you go back upstairs, I'll make you some more tea, and we can think about kissing later."
He laughed, too, and stood up.
"Oh, by the way?" he said.
"Hm?"
"I like honey and lemon. So don't worry about preparing four different drinks again."
He slipped out of the kitchen. Marinette shook her head to herself, an unrelenting smile having taken hold of her, and cleaned up the shards.