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There was a commotion on the train platform, and Adrien was doing his best to ignore it. He kept his eyes on his phone and his hood shrugged forward so people couldn’t see his face—it had been months since anyone had bothered him, but heading home to Paris made him feel vulnerable. Watched. That was part of the reason he hadn’t gone back in three years.
He flipped through his e-mails, tapping his foot anxiously along with the ambient Christmas music echoing through the station. The song was suddenly drowned out as the commotion escalated. He could pick out the raised voice of an English station worker and another voice that was arguing, Adrien suddenly realized, in rapid French. A voice that he recognized.
Adrien’s eyes snapped up from his phone and sure enough, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was there, in London, trying to board the same train as him. Unsuccessfully, if her pink cheeks and agitated hand gestures were any indication. Adrien shoved his phone in his pocket and jogged over to her, unable to stop the smile that overtook his face at the sight of her.
“Marinette?”
Marinette seemed to freeze mid-sentence. She turned to face him slowly and her cheeks colored impossibly redder. His heart gave a little lurch as he took in her bright blue eyes and the familiar spattering of her freckles. He has missed his very good friend.
“Adrien?”
“It’s so good to see you!”
“You… it’s good to too! Sorry, see you! To see you… too. Is good.”
Adrien grinned. Marinette had matured a bit in the years since he’d seen her last—her hair was longer, her face thinner, but it seemed like she still hadn’t grown out of that adorable little stutter she’d had back in school. It made him feel wistful somehow, almost nostalgic. He knew that she had trouble communicating when she was worked up, and he wondered if that had caused her current issues with the station workers. “What’s going on?” he asked, glancing at the sour-faced man beside her.
She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know! My English is terrible. They won’t take my ticket.”
Adrien frowned at the station worker and asked in careful English, “What is wrong with her ticket?”
The man held up the envelope in his hand. “No ticket in here. Just a bunch of random papers.” He tugged the folded papers from the envelope and handed them to Adrien. They appeared to be a letter of recommendation from a London fashion house.
“Oh no!” Marinette wailed when she saw it. “I must have switched the envelopes and sent the train ticket to my design school professor instead!” She pulled out her phone. “Maybe I can get it messengered over before—” she trailed off, staring at her phone screen.
“What’s wrong?”
“Alya texted. Apparently I sent her the train ticket.”
“So if Alya has your train ticket, and the ticketmaster has your letter, what did you send your professor?”
Marinette slumped. “A signed photograph of Harry Styles.”
“….how…?”
“Can you ask him if I can buy another ticket?”
The ticketmaster seemed to understand enough of her sentence and shook his head. “Whole train’s booked. Don’t ya know it’s Christmas Eve?”
Marinette’s face fell but she glanced at Adrien, hoping she’d misread the man’s response.
“He said the train is full, but…”
“But?”
“I might have an extra seat.”
Marinette blinked. “You might?”
Adrien grinned. He turned to the station worker. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. This woman is supposed to ride in my compartment. I have the tickets.” He pulled a paper from his wallet and handed it over.
The man frowned at the paper. “This ticket says one adult. Agreste.”
“A whole compartment for one person?”
“It says—”
“Sorry, it must have been the language barrier when I was booking. It should say two adults, Agreste. My… uh, wife and I need to get back to Paris tonight.” Adrien casually reached over and grabbed Marinette’s hand. She stiffened for a moment, so he squeezed her fingers through her puffy mittens in a silent plea for her to play along.
“Yes,” Marinette said in hesitant English. “…I am a train.”
The man frowned at the pair of them, and then just at Adrien. “Agreste. Don’ I know that name?”
Adrien sighed and nodded. “Yes.” My father was Paris’s most infamous supervillain and his arrest was international news for months. But that’s not the kind of important that gets you onto a train without a ticket. “I am a very rich and famous model.”
The man stared for another moment and shrugged. “Alright. Sorry ‘bout the mix-up, Mr. and Mrs. Agreste. You better board up.”
“Thank you, Sir. Come along, Honey.” Adrien tugged Marinette’s hand and grabbed her rolling suitcase with his other. “We have to board the train now.”
Marinette followed him across the platform, shooting a bemused look behind her at the ticketmaster. “Did he just call me Mrs. Agreste?”
“Just go with it.”
Marinette made a slightly strangled sound, and Adrien winced. He knew she had always hated liars, and she was probably uncomfortable feigning a relationship with someone she’d always seen as just a friend. He hoped she would understand that he was only doing what was necessary.
He also hoped she wouldn’t mind if he kept hold of her hand until they were boarded without incident. Just to be safe.
Adrien glanced at his ticket and led her back towards the private train compartment he’d had to book weeks in advance. He had been afraid that a train to Paris would be full of people who knew his face and everything he’d been through. Now, he thought as he watched his friend stow her bright-pink suitcase on the luggage rack, he was desperately glad not to be facing the return trip alone.
As the Startrain made its way across the channel, Marinette caught Adrien up on everything that had happened since he left Paris three years before.
Since he fled Paris, really. He’d left the country right after his father’s trial and hadn’t been back since. Marinette avoided any mention of that, instead telling him about design school and the fashion show she’d gone to London to attend this weekend. He told her about his engineering classes at Cambridge and the students he tutored in French.
It was just like old times, and yet it wasn’t.
Apparently, her crush on this boy was not something time or distance could dampen. Adrien was as handsome as ever and Marinette found that his smiles, though less ready, were still fully capable of breaking her heart. She would say something to make him laugh and he would hit her with the full force of it, a weapon he wielded to devastating effect despite the rust of disuse.
Then there were moments when the conversation strayed too close to dangerous subjects—the name of a designer that had worked with his father, or the mention of Mr. Ramier, funny enough—and she could see a flicker of pain behind his eyes. Perhaps, Marinette mused, the scars left on his psyche by his father were another thing that time just couldn’t overcome. She understood that all too well and was happy to give any mention of Hawkmoth or akumas a wide berth, quickly changing the subject to Alya and Nino’s new apartment and housewarming/Christmas party.
Adrien lit up at the mention of their friends. “That’s tonight, right? Aren’t you excited?”
Marinette nodded and picked at the subpar pastry in front of her. “Sort of. Alya is probably going to give me a hard time when I get there.”
“Because you’re going to be late?” Adrien’s brow furrowed in confusion. He figured that, as her best friend, Alya should be used to Marinette’s habitual tardiness by now. If that was still a thing with her.
He was happy that there might be one thing that hadn’t changed.
Marinette read the thought behind his eyes and laughed. “That’s part of it. The other thing… okay, this is embarrassing.”
Adrien leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand. “You don’t have to be embarrassed in front of me, Marinette.”
“I know!” Marinette waved a dismissive hand at him, which was a complete lie because she was actually more embarrassed to tell him than she would be anyone else. She trusted him, sure, but there were some things that were hard to admit to anyone, much less a crush.
He watched her patiently.
“It’s just that… okay, so Alya and Nino are super happy together and now Alya has it in her head that I need—well, it’s been a few years since I’ve been interested in… anyone… romantically?”
“Oh,” Adrien said. His cheeks turned a little pink and Marinette wondered if he was embarrassed by her pathetic confession. “So she is trying to find someone for you to date?”
Marinette sighed. “It’s worse than that. She already did.”
Adrien was quiet for a moment. His brow puckered into a frown and he tilted his head as though she’d said something he didn’t understand. “So you are. Dating someone, that is.” Adrien paused to clear his throat, and his expression seemed to clear as well. “That’s great, Marinette. I’ll bet they’re great. I mean, because you’re so, uh…”
“Great?”
“Yeah.” Adrien chuckled awkwardly.
Marinette giggled. “That’s not it, exactly. Alya has been trying to set me up for weeks now, and tonight… well, she mentioned that Nino’s ‘super funny’ friend Guillaume will be at the Christmas party, as well as their ‘totally adorable’ neighbor Adam, and Alya’s dermatologist Sacha who is ‘not classically handsome but has his own flat in the 6th Arrondissement’. She also may have mentioned, with no subtlety whatsoever, that they are all single.”
“That’s…”
“Great, I know.” Marinette buried her face in her hands. “That, paired with her demand that I show up on time and wear something cute…”
“So,” Adrien said lightly, “she won’t be happy if you’re late.”
“Or if I look like I’ve spent all day on a train.”
“You look beautiful.”
Marinette looked up at Adrien, her face hot and her poor heart stumbling all over itself. He gave her a soft smile and then reached for another croissant like he hadn’t just casually murdered her.
Adrien considered his friend’s dilemma. He'd never really been in a similar situation, but he understood the feeling of not being ready to date. His heart hadn’t been touched since… well, he tried not to think of his partner. She had probably moved on ages ago. Anyway, he thought Marinette should wait until she found someone good enough for her, and he doubted that there were many people who would qualify. He tried to think of a single person he could picture Marinette dating without getting a queasy nope nope nope feeling in his stomach, but he couldn’t. “Can you tell her you don’t want to date anyone right now?”
“I could try…” Marinette said. “She really means well. She wants me to be happy, but she thinks my happiness is supposed to look just like hers.”
Adrien nodded. “That makes sense. Maybe you could tell her that… you’re already seeing someone. Like maybe you like someone from design school?”
Marinette chewed on her lip, and Adrien found his eyes unconsciously drawn to the action. Marinette was really so cute when she was trying to puzzle something out. Her nose scrunched up in hyperfocus, almost like… but Adrien’s mind flinched away from thoughts of Ladybug again.
“That might actually work,” she said after a moment. “But she knows I’ve never been interested in anyone from my class, unless I suddenly… oh! Idea!” She whipped out her phone, and Adrien leaned over the tray between them to watch her type. “Call off the hunt,” she read as she typed. “I met someone in London. Send.”
“Will it go through while we’re in the channel?”
“There’s wifi now.”
“Nice.”
They watched as three little dots popped up on the screen.
Marinette’s hair smelled like flowers. It was nice.
Alya’s reply appeared within seconds.
WHAT?! DEETS
And then, almost instantly,
wait no way girl
i know you never left the fashion show
who are you going to meet there while you work like a crazy woman
Marinette groaned. “She’s good.” Her thumbs hovered over the keypad. “Um… oh!”
one of the models I fitted
we are doing long distance
so thanks but I am not available
for dating
“There. That way she can’t ask to meet him.”
Adrien sat back in his seat and grinned at her. “That should buy you some time.”
Marinette nodded sagely. “Until my relationship inevitably falls apart, as long distance relationships tend to do.”
“And then you’ll have a mourning period, which will buy you even more time.”
“My poor broken heart may never recover.”
Adrien leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “You’re so smart, Marinette. You’re amazing.” He watched as her cheeks turned pink. That happened a lot when he complimented her, he noticed, and he decided he should do it more often because the color suited her really well.
As long as it didn’t make her too uncomfortable. It was hard to tell sometimes.
She looked away from him and down at her phone, and her expression fell.
“What is it?”
She set her phone on the tray and slid it to him so he could read Alya’s latest text.
girl. marinette. bestest friend and love of my life. I have known you 1000 years and I KNOW even your hopeless romantic butt ouwld not fall so in love with some hot piece of stranger that you get in a long distance relationship after three days so nice try but you are getting back on the horse tonight
Despite their ruined plans, Adrien couldn’t help but be very impressed with Alya. He also wondered what, exactly, “getting back on the horse” entailed.
“You’re right. She’s good.” He slid the phone back to Marinette. “At least you tried?”
Marinette crossed her arms and her face twisted into a disgruntled pout. “I’m resigned to my fate,” she sighed. “I’d better see if there’s anything in my suitcase I can salvage for the party, since I probably won’t have time to go home and change before.”
“I’ll get it down for you.” Adrien stood to pull her case off the luggage rack, but then he paused. There was a thought floating on the edges of his mind and it felt like a good idea, a lucky charm idea… the kind that made objects flash red with black polkadots. Then the thought solidified and he realized…
It was actually a bad idea. But that didn’t stop him from opening his big fat mouth.
“What if it wasn’t a stranger?” he asked.
“Hmm?” Marinette hummed distractedly, staring out the window.
“What if it wasn’t a stranger? What if it wasn’t after only three days? Would Alya believe you then?”
Marinette turned to him, her big blue eyes blinking in confusion. “I don’t… I mean, I guess. But…”
“So maybe,” Adrien said, his ideas still coming faster than he could analyze their prudence, “you didn’t just meet a model in London. Maybe you met him again.”
Marinette stared at him blankly for a moment. He could tell the moment she understood him, because she yelped and started doing that thing she used to do where she waved her arms like she was trying to land an airplane. “Are you out of your mind?!”
Adrien shrugged one shoulder, a little hurt by her reaction, but he tried not to let it show. “Do you think that Alya would believe that? I mean, that you could ever be interested in someone like me?”
Marinette seemed to deflate with a long, slow squeak of air, until the final bit left her lungs in a big whoosh. She looked at him… well not at him exactly—she seemed to be focusing on a point slightly over his shoulder. Finally, after almost a minute of silence, she nodded tightly.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think she would believe that.”
Adrien ducked his head a little to meet her eyeline. “We don’t have to, if you think it’s a bad idea.”
“It’s not that,” she assured him with frantic shake of her head. “It’s just that, well… you don’t want to do that, do you? I mean, you’d have to pretend to be my… my boyfriend. You shouldn’t have to do that just to solve my silly problems.”
“Why not? I pretended to be your husband to get us on the train. It wasn’t that bad.”
“Was that what we were doing?!”
“And your problems aren’t silly. If it will make your life easier, then I’m happy to do it for a friend.”
“Adrien—”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
Marinette fell silent, her lips slightly parted like her next word had been stolen off her tongue.
Adrien looked down at his hands in his lap. “I left Paris because I couldn’t face everyone after what happened. I didn’t have any family left, and I couldn’t… be here. But it’s been three really lonely years. I’ve made a few friends at Cambridge, and I visited my Aunt on weekends sometimes, but it’s not like…” he swallowed around a lump in his throat.
Marinette looked like she didn’t know what to say, but she got up from her seat and came across to sit beside him. She hesitated, and then took his hand. It gave him the strength to continue.
“I’ve been trying to find a way back… home… for a while now. I was afraid of everyone asking why I chose to come back now and what am I going to do next. And coming back because I am lonely and I don’t know what to do with my life and seeing the pity and the horrified fascination in everyone’s eyes… But won’t this sound like a good reason? I came back to be with someone who loves me? People won’t ask a lot of questions about that. And I won’t be alone at Christmas.”
“Adrien.”
“And best of all,” he said brightly, “you get Alya off your back for as long as you want to keep up the ruse.”
Marinette watched him, and for a moment she had that look he feared—the pity look—but she wiped it away and gave him a determined nod.
“Alright, let’s do this.”
Adrien grinned. “Really?”
“Yeah. It might even be fun. You want to come as my date for the party tonight?”
“I would love that. I can keep Adam and the dermatologist and the other one—”
“Guillaume. He’s a food blogger.”
“Yikes. I can keep them away from you. I can act all jealous if you want.”
Marinette laughed and gave his shoulder a shove. “Maybe avoid fighting Nino’s friends. Let’s just start with some simple handholding and stuff.”
“And stuff?” Adrien asked. He almost added an eyebrow wiggle but thought that might be a bit much for his pink-cheeked friend to handle. It was like the closer they drew to Paris, the more he became Chat Noir. She determinedly ignored his question and started digging through her suitcase. “Should we give Alya and Nino an explanation before we arrive? I mentioned to Nino that I might come back around the holidays but I don’t want to upset him by showing up out of the blue after so long.”
“I’m sure Nino will be delighted to see you.” She looked up from the rumpled black slip dress she was considering. “But maybe we could send Alya a picture of the two of us and let her draw her own conclusions?”
“Good idea.”
Marinette got her phone out and waved him over. “Come here real quick.”
Adrien stood next to Marinette and she held the phone out for a selfie. He smiled at their faces on the screen, but Marinette frowned.
“Sorry, I’m having trouble getting a good angle because you’re so much taller.” She looked up at him, her scrunch-nosed planning-face in all its glory. “Maybe if we sit?”
Adrien nodded and the pair of them went to two empty seats. They sat side by side and Marinette leaned toward him again. “Dites 'ouistiti'!”
“Wait!” Adrien grabbed her hand and lowered the phone. “Do you remember the last time we were on the Startrain together?”
Her brows furrowed together for a second before she seemed to realize what he meant. “I fell asleep on your shoulder.”
Adrien nodded. “And Alya thought you looked so cute asleep that she took that picture of us and sent it to everyone in the class.”
“Yeah… that was the reason…”
“So?”
Marinette grinned and settled back in the seat. She set her head gently on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “You’ll have to take it,” she murmured. “If my eyes are closed. Make sure I look good.”
“You always look good,” Adrien said, angling the camera.
“Says Mr. Photogenic.”
Adrien smiled down at her for a minute. She looked peaceful, even in a fake sleep. He was glad she was a good actress, if they were going to pull off a convincing imaginary relationship.
He had a sudden thought, fleeting and ephemeral, that it might be nice to date Marinette for real. He waited for the accompanying queasy nope nope nope feeling in his stomach but… nothing.
Maybe… maybe there was one person out there he could see her dating after all.
His thumb pressed the button on the phone and it made a little chirp, capturing his realization in a picture that was worth a thousand words, and nine hundred ninety-eight of them were what?
The last two were but… maybe.
Marinette opened her eyes and leaned forward to study the image. She laughed. “Can you try to look happy and a little less… what is that, panic?”
“My thumb slipped on the button,” Adrien said, much more casually than he felt. “I was about to drop the phone when the picture took.”
“Oh. Well let’s go again.” She laid her head back on his shoulder.
Adrien took a deep breath, which filled his lungs with the floral scent of her shampoo and did not help his countenance at all.
It took them seven tries to get it right. She settled happily on a shot that Adrien worried about because he looked really, really in love with her, but he wasn’t sure…
he wasn’t sure that he could look another way.
Alya’s phone buzzed on the counter just as she put the finishing touch on her charcuterie board. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and glanced around, making sure everything was set for their guests’ arrival. The tree was trimmed, the halls were decked, the music was perfect for rocking around the Christmas tree.
And that text had better be Marinette saying she was on her way without any more nonsense.
Alya pressed in her passcode and checked the message. Her heart felt wistful when saw the picture Marinette had sent—it was the one of her and Adrien back on the train, back when they were all in collège together. She looked around for Nino so she could show him the nice memory—she knew he still missed his friend all the time. “Nino! Come see this.”
“Just a second Babe! Gotta get the ice broken up.”
Alya looked back down at the picture with a soft smile… and then that smile froze.
This was not the same picture. That was a longer-haired, more elegant Marinette. That was a broader-shouldered, slightly stubbly Adrien. And her eyes were closed but he was looking down at her with an absolutely smitten half-smile. It was his Good Friend Marinette™ smile, but also something more than that.
And this picture was taken today.
Alya scrolled up through her texts in a panic.
I met someone in London
wait no way girl
i know you never left the fashion show
who are you going to meet there while you work like a crazy woman
one of the models I fitted
Alya didn’t realize that she was screaming until Nino sprinted into the room.
“Alya! What happened?!” He grabbed her shoulders frantically and turned her to face him.
Alya was beyond words. She handed him the phone, and Nino gave a whoop of joy when he saw for himself:
The photo of their best friends cuddled up on the train, and if that wasn’t clear enough, the two word caption Marinette sent moments later.
I’m taken.