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“Good for you for taking the high road, Marinette.”
Marinette let out a small gasp as she realized who had just sat down next to her. Adrien smiled, not noticing her confusion at all as he looked around the room. “Hey, it’s pretty cool back here!”
“Lila?” Ms. Bustier called, starting the roll call for today and receiving a distracted “here” from the girl in response.
Adrien. Adrien had sat down with Marinette. He’d abandoned his seat in the front, the seat he’d sat in since he first started going to school, to join her at her new seat in the back.
“Adrien?”
“Present!”
He still looked so eager to say that. Certainly not as eager as he had the very first time he’d said it-- back when Marinette had prematurely decided she’d hated him-- but it was still charming.
“Max?”
“Present.”
Marinette shook the memory out of her brain. Stay focused now, Marinette, she chided herself. Don’t get distracted.
“Marinette?” Ms. Bustier called.
“Oh! Uh-- present!” Marinette stammered out. Ms. Bustier nodded and continued while Marinette returned to her thoughts. Almost got distracted there. Don’t get distracted! Otherwise you’ll flunk school!
“Ivan?”
“Here.”
And then how are you and Adrien going to get that house?
“Rose?”
“Present!”
And have three kids?
“Sabrina?”
“Present.”
And the hamster named--
“Marinette,” Adrien whispered next to her all of a sudden. “You okay?”
Marinette halted mid-inner monologue, realizing with great embarrassment that her face had been betraying the flurry of emotions she’d begun to feel at the prospect of losing her chance at a blissful domestic future with Adrien. She was lucky that nobody else had witnessed it, what with her now in the back of the room, but the fact that Adrien himself of all people was the one to notice wasn’t much reassurance.
“Y-yeah, I’m fine!” Marinette said as Ms. Bustier continued calling attendance. “Just…hungry?”
If Adrien registered what a monumentally lame excuse that was, he didn’t show it. “Miss breakfast? That’s too bad. Don’t worry, lunch will come soon enough.”
“Yeah,” Marinette laughed shakily. “Though, depending on what they have at the cafeteria today, I may be better off without it.”
“Ha!” Adrien turned in his seat the slightest bit to face her better. “I’ve never had the cafeteria’s food, but the way you guys describe it sometimes, I don’t think I’m missing out on much. Though, it’d still be nice to eat with my friends instead of at my house.”
“Marinette, Adrien,” came their teacher’s sudden call from the front of the room, calling the two teens to attention. “Do I have to move you two to different seats already?”
“No, madame,” they said in unison, guiltily looking away from each other. And in the process of looking away from Adrien, Marinette caught Alya’s eye from the front of the room, giving her the slyest, most satisfied look she’d ever seen on her friend. Marinette prepared herself for the interrogative storm she already knew was coming later that day.
Roll call finished, and class began, Adrien at Marinette’s side.
oOo
Sitting behind Adrien in her old seat had allowed Marinette to memorize every detail of the back of his head. It wasn't an angle ever seen in his professional photos, so Marinette had savored the sight in the early days of her crush. Every soft spike in his hair, every shade of blond reflected in the classroom's fluorescent light, was embedded in her memory. More than once, she'd found herself sketching it in her notebook unconsciously, much to Alya's amusement. Even in classes she didn't share with him, her hand managed to map out the view on paper, as if testing itself on how well it had the sight ingrained in its muscle memory.
Now, though, in the back of the classroom? She was treated to an entirely different view. Their new seating arrangement let her study the right side of his face-- the curve of his cheek, the upturn of his nose, the length of his eyelashes. His hair looked completely different from the side than it did from the back, and she idly thought about how she'd have to get used to drawing it going in different angles. This view was one more often seen in magazines and on billboards, but seeing it up close-- in person, in 3D-- every day sparked a whole new flurry of butterflies in her stomach.
The blessing of getting to see this new side of him, however, was balanced with the curse of not being able to look for too long without him noticing, and not being able to put her thoughts of drawing him into practice without him definitely noticing. She wasn't sure if she'd even be able to properly reproduce what she was seeing onto paper, anyway-- there were too many details that were simply too human to appear in any drawing, like the focus in his eyes when he was paying close attention to Ms. Bustier's words and the way he bit his lip when writing down something of importance. So she restrained her drawing hand from wandering. Her pencil was used to take notes and to take notes only.
There was never much of a chance to converse during class, unfortunately (or very fortunately, if one took into account the likelihood of Marinette making a complete fool out of herself if left to talk to him with no time constraints), leaving the majority of their interactions to the beginning of each period. Each simple “hello” and “good morning” was music to Marinette’s ears-- music she struggled to play on her own with the way she stuttered every time she looked at his face. If he noticed, though-- if he minded, if he thought she was weird and didn't want to sit next to her anymore-- he didn’t show it. In fact, something she hadn’t fully realized during the days she'd sat behind him was just how shy Adrien was. He wasn’t at Nathanael’s or Juleka’s level by any means, but the way his eyes widened and his cheeks reddened ever so slightly any time she spoke to him without precedent (with lots of mental hyping each time) took her by surprise. She found herself remembering how he was his first day of school. Her recollection of their pre-umbrella interactions still had him unfairly pegged as an arrogant bully, but when she sifted through them and threw away all the unreliable memories, she realized he’d always been a bit soft-spoken. At least, in the months she’d known him. She wondered if he’d been any different in his homeschooling days.
Not that he had many people to be soft-spoken around, she thought bitterly. She may not have known as much about Adrien as she would have liked to, but she did know a little of how isolated he was before he came to Francois Dupont. It made her sad to think about, to imagine a bright light like Adrien being kept dim his whole life, to the point where even now he still seems apprehensive to let himself shine completely.
He looked especially dim one Thursday morning.
No akuma attacks and no time consuming projects for the past few days meant Marinette was well-rested enough to arrive at school relatively early. The class was about half full when she entered. Nino and Alya weren't there yet, and Marinette knew she'd have to prepare for their sarcastic surprise at her punctuality when they did show up. Chloé thankfully wasn't there either, nor Lila, meaning Adrien was by himself in his seat in the back.
Walking up the steps to her seat, Marinette saw Adrien sitting with his head hung low. His notebook lay on the desk in front of him, giving the impression that he was studiously reading some important information, but as Marinette got closer, she took note of how unfocused his eyes actually were.
"Good morning, Adrien," she said brightly as she reached the top step, shrugging her bag off her shoulders and onto the floor. She slid into the seat and her heart still fluttered at being next to him despite having been sitting there for the past few weeks.
The fluttering changed from excitement to concern, though, as he gave a barely perceptible nod and quietly mumbled "morning."
She immediately tensed, as if his feelings-- whatever they were-- were affecting her via just his proximity to her. "Are you alright?" she said before thinking. Then she stopped, cringing inwardly at her forwardness. Was it okay to ask if he was alright? Should she mind her own business and let him continue thinking about whatever it was he was thinking about?
Continuing to think about it was exactly what Adrien did. He gave no indication that he was annoyed at her asking, instead simply nodding again, staring down at his notebook without another word.
At this point, Marinette's fear of messing up an interaction with her crush was overtaken by the need to see if he actually was okay, and she had a growing feeling he wasn't. Her eyes trained on him, she sat down slowly, saying, "you don't seem alright."
This got his head to turn. His eyes, red and tired, glistened with confusion as if he was wondering how she'd noticed, or why she cared.
"I'm fine," he said, and he seemed just as surprised as she was at how hoarse his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm fine. Just had a rough morning."
"Oh," Marinette said. "What… what made it so rough?"
Adrien’s eyebrows rose at this, as if he was surprised she asked. Then he pursed his lips, looking like he was deciding how to answer the question, or whether he should answer the question at all. All the while, Marinette tried to ignore her rapid heartbeat, which was simultaneously reacting to the fear that Adrien was in some serious situation, and the simple act of talking to him.
Adrien sighed. "Nothing," he ended up saying, looking back down at his paper.
She was about to leave it be-- to concede with herself that she couldn't help him-- when Adrien's low voice spoke again. "Literally, nothing happened. That's what made it so rough."
Marinette furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"
A few more of their classmates began to file in, but thankfully none were the type to come and interrupt the conversation. When Adrien finally spoke, his voice was so quiet Marinette had to physically lean in to hear. "Today's my mom's birthday."
Marinette’s eyes widened. The gears in her head began to work double time, trying to figure out the best way to respond to this. Before she could, though-- and to her relief-- Adrien continued.
"I don't really know what I expected for today," he murmured, "or if I even should've expected anything. But it was just a regular morning. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, go over the day's schedule." He averted his eyes. "I didn't even see my dad. He didn't come down for breakfast. I mean, he never does anyway, but I thought maybe he would today."
He lazily pushed around the pencil that was sitting on the desk in front of him. "So, yeah," he finished. "Nothing happened this morning."
At this moment, a troubled realization crossed his face. He turned to Marinette. "Gosh, Marinette, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be unloading all this onto you."
"No, no! I don't care, Adrien," Marinette said, reaching to rest a hand on his arm and giving him a reassuring smile. Then she blanched. "Wait, no! Not that I don't care about your problems-- I do care, a lot! What I mean to say is, don't apologize for telling me this. I'm your friend-- I'm always happy to listen." Her satisfied smile lasted only a second before she shook her head vehemently. "Not that what you just said is making me happy! Definitely not! I just--"
"It's fine, Marinette," Adrien interrupted with a soft laugh. "I understand."
He returned his gaze to his empty notebook, a little softer this time.
Marinette sat in this silence for a few moments before deciding to take a risk. "What… what do you normally do for your mom's birthday?"
Adrien’s expression gave away his slight surprise again, from what little she could see of it from her angle. He sat up, facing forward to furrow his brow, then leaned back to think. "We…" He trailed off, seemingly trying to decide what to tell her, or how much to tell her. Or maybe he was trying to remember. It was recent, she reminded herself, he probably remembers just fine . And she hoped for his sake that he did.
"Well, my parents would normally throw this big gala thing,” Adrien started. “Something fancy-- servers with white wine going around, ladies in long dresses, that kind of thing. As a kid, it was kind of boring, to be honest." He chuckled at something. A memory, probably. "My parents would make me stay downstairs for a little just to make an appearance, but after a while I'd always just sneak back up to my room and play video games or shoot some hoops in my little suit and tie."
The smile on his face became more pensive as he continued. "At some points throughout the party, though, my mom would come up and check on me and we'd talk and play a little before she went back out. She was always so happy, having big parties like that, having all those people over. But she also seemed so happy when it was just the two of us. Or the three of us. You know, on the rare occasion my dad would put down his work to spend some time with us."
His smile was gone now, his face completely sober. "It's not like I expected my dad to throw a big party today. I just…wish he’d let her exist. Let me let her exist.”
The classroom was filling up with more of their classmates and their quiet, still sleepy morning chatter, but the silence between her and Adrien was the heaviest sound in Marinette’s mind. Adrien continued staring at the empty space on their shared desk. Marinette wondered if he was registering either their classmates’ muffled conversations or Marinette’s lack of any words.
“The day’s still young,” Marinette offered tentatively after contemplating a number of different things to say. “Maybe he’ll do something later today. After school.”
Adrien’s expression remained downcast. “You’re only saying that to make me feel better,” he muttered, not looking at her.
There was a sharp sting of d éjà vu at these words, and Marinette spent a subconscious second trying to remember when she’d heard Adrien’s voice say that before. When she came up dry, she turned her attention back to the present moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I-- I mean, it’s probably a dumb thing to say, you’ve probably heard it a hundred times, but I am. I wish you could let her exist too.”
He didn’t turn to her at first, and Marinette worried for a second that she’d said something wrong again, but then she noticed the slightest movement in his cheeks. He looked up at her and met her with a kind smile.
The moment ended abruptly with a rattling boom from what felt like somewhere in the school.
Why now?! Why NOW, Hawk Moth?!
Marinette’s reaction was immediate and instinctual. She shot up from her seat and shouted to Ms. Bustier, who had just poised herself to start class when the boom interrupted--
"I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!"
The panicked male voice to Marinette’s left saying the exact same thing as her at the exact same time was a surprise.
Ms. Bustier looked back and forth between Adrien and Marinette, who were both standing in some strange combination of boldness and nervousness, the bewilderment in her eyes almost comedic. “Both of you? Now?” she said. The rest of the class back at them with mirrored expressions.
To her left, Adrien was looking just as restless as Marinette felt-- a stark contrast from the despondency he’d just been exhibiting less than a minute ago-- but she didn’t have the time to wonder why as she nodded furiously, desperately trying to convince her teacher to let her leave. “Yup! Right now.”
“It’s an emergency,” Adrien added quickly, causing Marinette to nod harder.
“Emergency! Huge emergency!”
“I have to go immediately.”
“I’m gonna pee on the floor any second--”
“Okay!” Ms. Bustier waved her hands frantically in front of her, then closed her eyes and sighed, bringing her hand to her face to pinch the bridge of her nose. “You kids are lucky the bathrooms are so close. Just stay together while you’re walking there and back, please!”
“Thank you, Ms. Bustier!” the two shouted in unison as they bounded down the steps to the door, ignoring their classmates' confused expressions.
The sounds of the akuma rampaging through the school fell second to the sounds of Marinette and Adrien’s rapid footsteps echoing throughout the hallway in their run to the bathrooms. Upon making it to the doors, the two stopped to lean forward and catch their breath for a moment. With her breathing beginning to slow, Marinette pushed open the door to the girls’ restroom, looking to Adrien one more time before ducking inside. When she found herself making eye contact with him, she stiffened.
“I’ll, uh…” Marinette gestured to the inside of the girls’ room. “I’ll just be in here.”
“Cool!” Adrien responded, and Marinette barely noticed him cringe to himself afterwards. “And me-- I’ll be in here,” he said, pointing to the boys’ room door in front of him.
“Very cool!” Marinette said, but before she had time to facepalm at her own words, another boom from the akuma shook the ground.
The pair turned to the sound, then back to each other, eyes wide.
“Well, happy bathrooming!” Marinette said with a too-big smile.
A strange expression flashed on Adrien’s face. “Right,” he said, then opened the door and ran inside.
Smile still plastered on her face, Marinette robotically walked into the girls’ room and let the door close behind her. Tikki flew out of her purse. Instead of her transformation words, however, Marinette could only find herself saying--
“Happy bathrooming?!” Marinette clutched her pigtails. “Happy?! BATHROOMING?! Why did I say that?! What does that even MEAN?” She let out a long groan, covering her face with her hands and muffling the sound in the process. “And I was making such good progress!”
“Now’s not the time, Marinette!” Tikki reminded her, flitting frantically in front of her. “There’s an akuma!”
The room shook with another blast, and Marinette shook the embarrassment out of her head. “You’re right. No time to waste. Tikki, spots on!”
Ladybug emerged from the girls’ room a second later. Cat Noir was already there fighting the akuma, and he barely turned to her when she landed next to him.
“Morning, kittycat,” she said, making a conscious effort to shake off the leftover embarrassment in her voice from bidding farewell to Adrien. “I didn’t keep you waiting, did I?”
“Not at all, m’lady. I actually only got here a few seconds ago myself.”
Ladybug stopped and frowned upon hearing his voice. It wasn't completely withdrawn, but it definitely wasn't at its usual level of exuberance. Upon closer inspection of her partner, she noticed the cat ears on his head lying a little flat, and his posture a little hunched. To someone who wasn't as acquainted with all the nuances of his personality the way she was, these details wouldn't stand out in the slightest. But to Ladybug, they were a clear indication that something was up.
"You okay, kitty?" Ladybug asked. "You don't seem all there."
She caught the millisecond he took to mentally scold himself for being too obvious. Then he turned to her with an apologetic smile. "Don't worry about me, bug. I'm just not having a great day so far."
Some large, heavy object-- was that a bench? -- flew between them, crashing into the wall behind them and leaving quite the crater. The akuma that threw it let out a long, angry roar.
"It seems like neither is Hawk Moth," Ladybug said, taking out her yo-yo and beginning to spin it into a shield. "Is it just me, or is this akuma a little more aggressive than usual?"
"No kidding," Cat Noir responded. Before Ladybug could stop him, he waved his arms around at the akuma. "Yo, Hawk Moth!" he called. "What's got your panties in a twist?!"
He was met with a basketball backboard thrown above his head in response.
"Maybe we shouldn't rile him up," Ladybug reasoned, watching the akuma continue to demolish the courtyard.
"Yeah, good call," Cat Noir agreed. "The usual, then? Fight, lucky charm, cataclysm, no particular order?"
"Why fix what isn't broken?" Ladybug said with a confident smile.
They jumped into battle.
The ensuing fight was somewhat on the longer side, lasting until what would have been third period if classes had continued, but despite the akuma’s-- and Hawk Moth’s-- obvious anger, it wasn’t too difficult beyond the two heroes having to dodge a fair amount of projectiles. Hawk Moth’s telltale communicative pink butterfly seemed to appear on the akuma’s face more frequently than usual, but the akuma didn’t appear to be taking any specific orders from him. Or, perhaps, he wasn’t giving any specific orders outside of ‘get the miraculous.’ Maybe Ladybug was reading too much into things, but it didn’t seem like the villain was as focused as usual. More determined, maybe-- and to a dangerous extent-- but not as focused. And strangely enough, she noticed the same of her partner. Perhaps she was the one behaving oddly in this fight, if all parties except her were behaving in the same dark, distracted manner.
Before she knew it, the akuma was flying out of her yo-yo, now a bright white instead of a sinister purple. A second after, the healing light of her miraculous cure repaired all the damage done to the school. And when all was said and done, after the heroes bumped fists and posed for a few photos with students, they retreated up to the school's roof for a goodbye of their own.
"Until next time, m'lady," Cat Noir said, giving her a smirk and a small salute.
He planted his staff on the ground, ready to lift off, when Ladybug reached out for his arm.
"Cat Noir, wait," she said.
He turned around at her touch, eyebrows shooting up. She pulled back her hand quickly and stammered out the reason for her stopping him. "You know, if you're having a bad day… you can talk to me about it."
Some part of her expected him to wave off the concern, to swagger away without letting on any weakness, to act like he had no idea what she was talking about despite acknowledging his bad day before the fight. But instead, he smiled sadly and shook his head. "Not about this. Identity stuff, you know?"
"Oh…" Ladybug found her hands about to dejectedly fiddle with her yo-yo string and forced them back at her sides before they could give away her disappointment. She tried a smile. "Well, in that case, I hope there's someone in your civilian life you can talk to about it."
His hair bounced ever so slightly as he positioned his head to shake again, but he stopped in the middle of the action, seemingly considering something.
"Yeah," he said, a pensive smile on his face. "I think there is."
And with that, he gave her a last friendly smirk and vaulted away off to wherever it was in the city he went to school. Ladybug didn't let herself look before swinging away in the opposite direction, only to discreetly swing right back to François Dupont, to a secluded area where nobody could see her transform back into Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
The school was under lockdown throughout the attack, meaning her classmates hadn’t left Ms. Bustier’s room. Marinette reentered the room with a half-baked excuse about how the attack had caused a mountain of rubble to fall between the restrooms and the classroom, preventing her from coming back to class. Adrien walked in during this excuse and quickly jumped to back it up as soon as he heard what she was saying.
Marinette searched her memory of the battle to see if there actually was a mountain of rubble there, because she didn’t really remember one. Maybe she had been just as distracted as her partner and her nemesis after all.
oOo
Marinette was still lost in her thoughts about the events of that day-- her conversation with Adrien, the strange akuma attack, her partner’s mysterious personal life-- on Friday, meaning her brain wasn't there to remind her writing hand not to practice drawing its most beloved subject. The subject that was sitting right next to her as she drew.
"Woah, is that me?" Adrien's voice said, closer than usual as he leaned over to look at her notebook.
"GAH!" Marinette shrieked. Her pencil practically flew from her hand and onto the floor as she scrambled to cover her notebook.
"Sorry!" Adrien cried, scrambling to pick up her pencil. He placed it back on the desk and pushed it toward her, his cheeks red. "Sorry, I shouldn't have blurted that out like that. Actually, I shouldn't have even been looking at your notebook in the first place."
Marinette bit her lip. True, she never appreciated people looking over her shoulder to see what she was drawing, but she supposed that's what she got for drawing him while literally sitting right next to him. She suppressed a groan.
"It's fine," she said, hoping the blush on her face wasn’t as intense as it felt. "I should've been taking notes instead of drawing you."
"But it's really good!" Adrien insisted.
"Adrien, Marinette," Ms. Bustier's voice called from the front of the classroom. "I don’t need to separate you two, do I?"
"No, madame," the pair replied.
Alya turned around and flashed a smile that was somehow somewhere between giddy and accusatory.
"Uh…" Adrien said quietly as soon as Ms. Bustier and Alya turned back around. "Can I see it?"
Marinette blanched. See it? Surely he couldn't mean her drawing, right? "W-what?" she squeaked.
"Your drawing," Adrien specified. But then he shrunk in on himself, a blush of his own making its way to his face. "Ah-- I don't know, actually. You don't have to show me."
Marinette didn’t know if it was the genuine interest and admiration in his voice, the confession of his household’s loneliness he’d given her yesterday, or both, but by the time she picked her hand up off the notebook to uncover it, it was too late to figure it out. With averted eyes, she slid her notebook in front of him. She watched from the corner of her eye as he took it and looked at it closer. It wasn't anything special, really-- just a roughly crosshatched sketch of the right side of his face-- but the way his eyes brightened as they skimmed over the page would have told somebody it was something from the Louvre.
"You're really talented," he said. "I'm pretty sure most of my professional photos don't even come out this good."
Marinette let out a shaky laugh. "Please," she said. "It's just a sketch."
He raised a knowing eyebrow at her. "If this is just a sketch, I want to see what an actual drawing of yours looks like."
This wasn't something Marinette hadn't heard before, but coming from Adrien, from his entranced eyes and awed smile, the compliment felt more real than it ever had from her other classmates.
"Maybe one day I'll do an actual drawing of you, then," she said.
For a few more seconds, the two of them continued looking at her drawing. Then Adrien looked back up at Marinette. "Well, I look forward to modelling for that someday," he said with a smile.
Marinette’s face was caught in stupefaction for a second until she found it in herself to smile back.
She spent the rest of the period dutifully taking notes. And maybe doodling a few hearts in the margins.