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“I’m thankful for the love of my lice.” Adrien’s slurred words were hilarious to Marinette, as was the content of what he’d been saying. Clearly removing his wisdom teeth and pumping him full of sedation meds produced hysterical results.
Adrien’s eyes, wide and glassy, seemed to search out the “thankful for wall” intended for the child patients in the reception room of the dentist’s office. He pressed a hand that seemed heavy to an “Edward!” surrounded by hearts in bright pink marker. “I’m thankful for… for… Love. Love, love, love, love, love. Love isn’t a word, did you know that, Marinette? Love isn’t a… what’s the word… phrase.”
He’s adorable. Marinette, holding the handles of his wheelchair, kissed his temple. “Love is a word, my love.”
“No way.” Adrien sat up straight. “I wanna go home and kissh my wife.” Marinette’s cheeks burned; she’d thought she’d be used to Adrien’s need for physical touch, but did he have to make that declaration in public? The receptionist was right there. “With my teef. Did you know they took my teef out?”
Marinette laughed. “I did know that.”
Adrien gave her a dopey half-smile, endearing him to her further. “I can drive ush home, Marinette. Did you know I can drive? I’m totally fine to drive.”
He started pushing himself up off the wheelchair’s seat, but Marinette gently pushed him back down with a hand on his shoulder. Her heart swelled three sizes in her chest. Adrien was always trying to take care of her. He worked long hours as an occupational therapist so that she would want for nothing, and always spoke sweet nothings to her pregnant belly, telling her that he’d never leave her and Louis to fend for themselves.
“No,” Marienette said, squeezing his shoulder and smiling at the way he leaned into the touch. “You can’t drive right now. You’re on drugs. But you’ll be back to driving soon.”
“They drugged me?” Adrien sounded positively scandalized, which made Marinette’s anxiety spike slightly. Did he not remember giving them permission? Thankfully for her, he changed the subject as soon as his eyes wandered to the thankful for wall. “I’m thankful for… the foodsh my wife gives me. Which I eat so mussch of, I have a belly poosch. I love my belly poosch.”
Marinette laced her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. “I love your belly pooch, too. It’s cute.”
Adrien stared at their entwined hands with his blown gaze but then let go of hers, much to her disappointment. He struggled to remove something from his back pocket, but Marinette stepped in. “What are you trying to get?”
“My wallet.” Adrien sulked a little, removing his hand from the pocket so Marinette could retrieve the wallet. When she presented it to him, he lit up with a beaming smile. “Thank you!”
Curious, Marinette raised her brows, watching him rifle through it. “What do you need your wallet for?”
“I have a pischture. A pischture of the best woman to ever existh.” Seeming to find what he was looking for, Adrien bounced in his seat. “Here. The love of my lice.”
He turned the picture around, and Marinette saw a strip of photos taken at an arcade booth after she and Adrien had been playing Dance Dance Revolution for a couple of hours. They were sweaty but happy university students, wearing radiant smiles and nearly falling over each other to crowd the camera frame. The strip ended with a kiss on her temple.
Marinette loved that memory, and was touched that Adrien still carried those pictures around in his wallet after all those years. Unlike a “normal,” modern-day Frenchman who used his phone as a second brain and showed off photos from there, Adrien was charmingly old-fashioned. He even carried around printed ultrasounds of Louis rather than the USB stick Marinette had brought to the obstetrician’s to load the pictures on.
“She’sh great,” Adrien started, gesturing to the photo strip. “She’sh been my biggest… she’sh not big, but she’sh my besht friend.”
Awww. Marinette poked him in the side, which made him wriggle a bit. “And she was only a friend for a long time, right?”
She’d never let him live that down. But drugged Adrien wasn’t having it.
“I didn’t shtring her along, if that’sh what ya mean.” Adrien gazed lovingly down at the photo strip, stroking the picture Marinette’s face. “She’sh kind and couragheoush and alwaysh shtandsh up for what’s right.”
Heat bloomed in Marinette’s cheeks, trickling down to her chest, which was uncomfortably tight. He really did love her, and though he told her that practically every day, she knew not every husband would gush about their wife to a virtual stranger.
Even if the stranger was her.
“She helped me out of a depresshion,” Adrien continued, pressing a kiss to the photo that made Marinette’s eyes burn. That depression had been the worst she’d ever seen, including her own; the news that Adrien’s father was Hawkmoth rocked the boy to his core. Putting Gabriel in jail was the hardest thing Adrien had ever done. Dragging Adrien out of rock bottom and into the light was the hardest thing Marinette had ever done. “She made me grow tall and strongsh and proud. I can do anythingsh becaushe of her.”
“Adrien…” Marinette cupped his cheeks, reveling in the feel of his patchy, five o’clock shadow. “I love you, too, you big dork.”
Tears welled in Adrien’s grass-green eyes and started rolling down his cheeks, spilling over her fingers. “I jusht love her sho much.” He hiccuped and wiped his nose with the photo strip. Alarmed, Marinette plucked it out of his hand before he ruined it.
“And,” Adrien continued, his voice growing in volume and pitch, “did you know she’sh Ladybugsh?”
“Adrien!” Marinette ripped her gaze from him to check if the receptionist had heard him spill her secret. “You can’t just--”
“I mean, she’sh not Ladybugsh right now becaushe she’sh pregnant, but…” Adrien rambled, kissing Marinette’s fingers. “Oh! Did you know my wife is gonna have my baby? He’ll be a pretty baby.”
Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose. “We’re leaving. Right now.”
“Oh, hey,” Adrien said, tugging on her hands. “Look. Look.”
Marinette’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t deny her husband anything, and he seemed so insistent that she see what he wanted her to see--and the receptionist didn’t seem to be paying attention to them. As far as Marinette knew, her identity was safe.
“What is it, lovely?”
Adrien turned to her with such a boyish, warmhearted smile, her knees weakened. “It’s a thankful for wall. I’m thankful for...”