Chapter Text
Adrien hurried back to his room, half-blind, letting out a yelp as he stepped on something—probably one of Chloé’s stupid beads, from her stupid wanting-to-be-an-influencer phase that Kagami had stupidly encouraged. He paused long enough to pick the bead off of his foot and chuck it as hard as he could at the door to Kagami’s room. Unfortunately, it just bounced right back and hit him in the head. And it wasn’t like a tiny plastic bead hurt much, except that it struck him right in his already bruised ego, and Adrien. Was. Done. With. This.
He wrenched open the door to his room and slammed it behind him, the force causing the shelf he’d hung on the wall above his tiny desk to come crashing down. Which…whatever. What was one more thing going wrong at this point? He flopped back against his door and slowly sank to the floor, blinking hard, trying to ignore the stinging in the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry, that was stupid.
But maybe he was stupid, for thinking he’d actually be able to do this. For thinking there was any way that moving in with Chloé and Kagami wouldn’t have ended with one of them nearly setting a kitchen on fire. He could still hear them bickering, could still feel his heart racing from having been woken up to Chloé’s shrill, panicked screams, could still taste the stale traces of coffee on his breath and feel the crick in his neck after he’d fallen asleep at his desk at some point past four in the morning, trying to retype his final paper with a second-hand keyboard on which the ‘p’ key only worked half the time.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, squinting at his screen. All this chaos and he hadn’t even had a chance to put his contacts in yet that morning. He eventually managed to call her—the only person he knew who could always make things a little better.
She answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Marinette, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
It started, as did many terrible decisions, with a stupid comment from Kim.
Something about Adrien being effectively poor now that his father was in jail and the Gabriel brand was headed for bankruptcy. Adrien couldn’t remember the exact wording, since a second later he’d been distracted by trying to keep a very drunk Marinette from transforming and dangling Kim out the window with her yo-yo. How he’d ever missed that she was Ladybug with her spitfire drive to defend the people she loved, Adrien had no clue. But hindsight was twenty-twenty.
And, when your father turned out to be Hawk Moth, hindsight was also a bitch.
Kim’s words weren’t technically true. Between the trust fund his mother had left and the money Adrien would get from eventually selling the mansion, he was going to be quite comfortable. (“You did not just say comfortable,” Marinette had groaned when he’d first pointed that out to her. “Only people with too much money say that.”) Still, the comment struck a little too close to home.
Adrien might not be drowning in debt, but he was drowning. He didn’t have a clue what to do himself now that his every hour was no longer scheduled. The basics of keeping himself alive were overwhelming when he thought about them, so he mostly just…didn’t.
No need to think about selling the mansion if he never stepped foot in there. No need to think about learning how to feed himself when his friends were more than willing to take care of that for him. No need to worry about living alone when he spent every night either crashing at Nino’s (a repeatedly lost battle against a deflating air mattress) or in the Dupain-Chengs’ spare room (a repeatedly lost battle against keeping his heart rate steady whenever he crossed paths with Marinette).
In short, neither situation was sustainable, and Adrien knew he had to figure out this thing his friends not-so-affectionately referred to as “adulting”. But in his defense, he’d like to see Kim cook a meal without setting something on fire. Or see Nino fold his own laundry. Or see any of his friends try and juggle adulting with the emotional weight of realizing you’d been locked in a death match with your father for six years.
Not that Adrien was bitter or anything.
But he didn’t want to cause a scene, so he eyed Marinette carefully until she rolled her eyes and took another sip of her drink. Sighing in relief, Adrien fumbled for a way to change the conversation. Unfortunately, that was when Chloé walked up beside him.
“Adrikins is not poor,” Chloé shot back, and Adrien had to try not to wince at the way his childhood nickname apparently reappeared after he-didn’t-want-to-know-how-many martinis—because yes, to a house party with red solo cups, Chloé had brought her butler and a personal martini shaker. “He’s…he’s...”
“Comfortable,” supplied Kagami, who Adrien hadn’t noticed walk up on Marinette’s other side. Adrien pretended he couldn’t hear Marinette snort into her drink at the comment.
Kim swallowed a sip of beer and let out an obnoxious belch. “Sounds sus, bro.”
“Don’t call me bro,” Chloé snapped, at the same time as Kagami said, “I am not a bro.”
The two girls then glared at each other, because God forbid they agree on something and not make a huge deal out of it. Adrien wasn’t sure what their deal was, honestly. He didn’t really want to know. Ever since some gala a few months ago, the two girls seemed to have gone from casually disliking each other to actively loathing one another, but that wasn’t Adrien’s problem.
“Whatever,” Kim slurred. “Anyways, I don’t even know what comfortable is supposed to mean, but I don’t think it disagrees with my point—”
“Your point?” Alix interrupted. “When in your life have you ever had a point?”
“Shut up!”
“No, you shut up.”
“Both of you shut up!” Chloé said.
“I’m not drunk enough for this,” Alya mumbled as she walked by, and Adrien was inclined to agree.
“So, yeah...” Kim cleared his throat. “My point still stands. Adrien’s going to have to figure out how to live on his own. Without like…people spoon-feeding him his dinner, or tucking him in at night, or shining all of the diamonds he bathes in, or like—”
“Shut up, Kim.” This time Marinette was the one saying it, and Adrien had to grab her wrist and tug her back gently before she could smack the drink out of Kim’s hand. It would have been entertaining, sure. But by the end of the night, Juleka and Rose would still have to clean their place, and Adrien didn’t think defending his honour against his stupidly intoxicated friend was worth making a mess.
Marinette clearly disagreed, because she pouted at Adrien as he shook his head, willing her to drop it. But she wasn’t the only one who disagreed, apparently, because the next second Chloé was at it again.
“You’re being ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Adrien will be fine living on his own. He’s not an idiot—” a strangely touching sentiment, coming from Chloé “—unlike you, Kim.” Ah, there was her trademark snark.
“I’m just saying—” Kim was apparently insistent on pushing the bounds of everyone’s patience tonight “—Adrien’s a rich kid. You take a rich kid away from being rich? They stop functioning.”
Alix snickered. “Okay, I have to admit Kim kind of has a point there. I mean, imagine Chloé living a normal life. No butler on speed dial? No daddy to get her everything she wants at the drop of a hat? Or Hell, even Kagami without her self-driving car, or—”
“I resent that,” Kagami argued. “I’m perfectly sensible, I don’t need a ridiculous amount of money to get through the day.”
“Well, if she doesn’t need to be rich, then neither do I,” said Chloé, glaring daggers at Kagami.
“Right,” Alix said, sarcasm dripping from her voice, “but that’s sort of a moot point since we can’t just make you not rich.”
“Well, we could…”
“Kim, we are not breaking any laws.”
“I know that!” Kim threw his hands in the air, spilling beer which landed a few centimetres away from Kagami’s toes. She glared at him as he continued—apparently, this was now personal. “Just like…what if we did an experiment.” He turned to Alix, grinning. “You know, like a—”
“Like a bet!” Alix laughed. “Oh man, that’s actually brilliant. How should we do it? Do we just take away their credit cards, or—”
“Ha-ha,” said Adrien. “Very funny. Can pick another topic now?”
“Oh, you thought we were joking?” Kim laughed. “Nah, this is going to be fun. Let’s see…to issue a formal challenge…I bet you three” —he pointed to Adrien, Kagami, and Chloé in turn— “couldn’t last a week living a quote-unquote normal life. Living in a crappy apartment, cooking your own meals, living only off of an average middle-class Parisian salary.”
“Screw you, Kim,” said Marinette. “They could so do it. In fact, I think they could last an entire month.”
Kim’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, so you’re taking the bet then, are you?”
“No,” said Adrien. Then he turned to Marinette, whispering hurriedly in her ear. “Whose side are you on, exactly?”
“Yours,” she whispered back. “You can do this, and I’m not just going to sit by and let them slander you.”
“That’s sweet, but—”
“Yes,” Marinette said, “we’re taking the bet.”
“Um, excuse me?” said Chloé. “I didn’t agree to these terms.”
Kagami made a face. “As much as it pains me…I have to agree with Chloé. This is an absurd idea, and you haven’t even clearly outlined the parameters.”
Marinette glanced between Kagami and Chloé, and Adrien could practically see the gears whirling in her mind. Oh no. She had a plan. And normally, Adrien loved that about her. But right now he was very certain it was going to bite him in the ass.
She cleared her throat, grabbed Kagami by the wrist, and stared intensely across the circle at Chloé. “Can I talk to you both?”
Chloé scowled. “Ew, no. Why would I—” she broke off as she caught the look on Adrien’s face. “Ugh, fine. I’ll be nice. But I’m getting more alcohol for this.” She snapped her fingers, and her butler appeared out of nowhere, following her into the kitchen.
“Perfect,” Marinette said, then rose up on her tiptoes to kiss Adrien’s cheek before she and Kagami also disappeared.
Adrien was a little distracted after that, focusing on the tingle her lips left on his skin and the way it mingled with the pleasant buzz thrumming through his body. He took another sip of his drink, and almost managed to forget the disaster at hand. Almost.
But when the girls came back a few minutes later, each holding a martini and wearing three identically smug expressions, it all came rushing back.
“We’re in,” Kagami said simply. Then she chugged her drink, and Adrien swore he could somehow feel the burn of gin slide down his own throat as well.
He. Was. Doomed.
“Ow!” Chloé shrieked. She dropped the box she’d been carrying—the lightest one of the bunch, because God forbid she actually help them move in—and stopped short in the middle of the staircase.
Adrien halted behind her, a split second before he would have bowled her right over, although honestly if stopping hadn’t been instinctual then he might have just kept going. They weren’t even officially living together yet, and he’d already had more of Chloé than any sane person could handle.
He rolled his eyes, shifting the heavy box in his arms. “Chlo, come on. You’re blocking the way up the stairs.”
Chloé did not move out of the way, but she did whirl around and put her hands on her hips in a particularly obnoxious way. “I broke a nail, Adrien. You could be a little more sympathetic.”
From behind him, Marinette groaned. “Not our fault, Chlo. We told you not to get your nails done the day before moving.”
“So what,” Chloé scowled. “You want me to be poor and have nails fit for a peasant? You also told me I wouldn’t have the money to spend on nails after today, so really it is your fault. I was just prioritizing.”
“You don’t even know what ‘prioritizing’ means,” shouted Alya from a little further down the stairs. The words were accompanied by a thump as she presumably let her box fall to the ground. Adrien wished he could do the same, but he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to pick it up again after.
And this was only his first box.
“Shut up Césaire! I don’t understand why I have to be doing this anyways,” Chloé whined. But to Adrien’s relief, she finally bent down and picked up her box. As she started up the stairs again, Adrien tried his best to tune her out, but he’d forgotten how shrill she could get. “Weren’t we supposed to have more help?”
“And I wonder why they didn’t show up,” Marinette mumbled. “Couldn’t be because they’re avoiding your lovely company or anything.”
“I heard that, Dupain-Cheng,” Chloé said, reaching the top of the stairs.
“Good,” Marinette shot back.
As they entered the apartment, Adrien opened his mouth to say something to urge the girls to get along, but a second later he realized peace between them was a fruitless quest, and he’d best save his energy for the days to come. Why the hell had he agreed to this again?
The answer came in the form of an endearing little squeak as Marinette ran into him the second he stopped. Oh. Right. He hadn’t willfully agreed to this, he just couldn’t refuse her a single damn thing.
Kagami popped her head out of the bedroom as Adrien set down his box. Allegedly, she’d been on a business call, but Adrien wasn’t convinced that she hadn’t just been procrastinating moving in. Kagami had a great work ethic…when she wanted to. The way her pursed lips had regarded the mess of boxes crammed into the moving truck they’d rented did not indicate she wanted to.
“What took so long?” she asked.
Marinette set down her box and pointed towards Chloé, who was pouting at her thumb, her expression akin to that of a kid whose dog had gone missing. “There was an incident.”
“Of course,” Kagami mumbled. Her face morphed into a devious smirk as she walked up to Chloé. Oh no. “Hey, what did the blonde say when she broke a nail?”
“Fuck you,” Chloé said, taking a step forward until she was glowering down at Kagami. She was only a few inches taller, but she seemed to be stretching every last one to the fullest. It was no use, since Kagami didn't need height to be intimidating, but Adrien wouldn’t have entirely discounted Chloé if some sort of fight should break out.
“Wrong,” Kagami said coolly. “She didn’t say anything because she immediately passed out from the shock.”
“Okay, you know what? I’m not going to…”
Adrien groaned, wondering if he could pack Chloé and Kagami into boxes and shove them in the back of his closet for the next month. Probably not. Because that would be cruel, and, well, it wasn’t like they didn’t already have experience with coming out of the closet. But oh, Adrien was tempted to try.
This was going to be the longest month of his life.
After a day of hauling boxes, assembling furniture, and very slowly unpacking—something which mostly involved taking items out of boxes and sorting them into heaping piles in the living room—Adrien was exhausted. Judging by the way his friends all slumped on the floor around him, so were they. But at least there was a consolation prize…If only one of them could be bothered to answer the door.
Chloé shrugged, continuing to scroll on her phone. “Don’t look at me.”
“I don’t even like pizza,” Kagami said.
The rest of Adrien’s friends didn’t even bother to respond, but since they were only there out of the goodness of their hearts, he didn’t hold it against them as he forced his weary body up off the floor and retrieved their dinner. Plates weren’t one of the things they’d managed to unpack yet, so Adrien just grabbed a roll of paper towels and plopped it down beside the pizza boxes, It rolled across the floor until it bumped into Chloé’s knee, and the soundtrack that played as Adrien took his first bite was that of Chloé muttering about how poor people couldn’t even afford proper napkins.
When Marinette passed her a piece of pizza, Chloé took one look at the grease pooled on the paper towel beneath it, wrinkled her nose, and set it back down on the box. Kagami only made it a little further, taking a single bite before she made a face and set her meal down. Adrien on the other hand was convinced that this made the stress of moving worth it—never before had pizza tasted this good. He was in Heaven.
At least until Alya started snickering. “You’re staring at that pizza the way you used to stare at your Ladybug posters, Sunshine.”
Adrien carefully avoided Marinette’s gaze as she started laughing too.
“Shut up,” he mumbled, before cramming another bite of pizza into his mouth. He wasn’t about to let Alya ruin this cheesy bliss.
“Just saying,” Alya said, “you’d better not get used to this. You’re not going to be able to afford take-out every night.”
Adrien frowned. With everything else he’d been trying to coordinate for this move, he hadn’t stopped much to think about cooking. Oh God, they were going to starve. Because Chloé certainly wasn't going to help prepare food, lest she break another nail. And frankly, it didn't seem prudent to let Kagami have a knife when Chloé was nearby. That just left Adrien, who just last week had somehow managed to pour a cup of salt instead of sugar into a batch of muffins he’d been trying to make as a thank you to Marinette.
Marinette shrugged. “Cooking’s not that hard. There are YouTube tutorials for everything. They’ll figure it out.” Adrien appreciated the vote of confidence, but before he could joke that it probably wasn’t merited, Marinette continued. “You do bring up another good point though, Alya. The budget.”
Adrien hadn’t been particularly worried about the money, to be honest. He was good with numbers—he’d be insane to majoring in physics if he weren’t. But Marinette’s words were followed by a particularly ominous silence, broken by Chloé.
“Whatever. I don’t even care. I’m already trapped in this tiny apartment that smells like cabbage, you made me buy furniture from a glorified junkyard that has some weird obsession with meatballs, and—”
“Hey, don’t insult IKEA,” Nino said.
“A furniture store isn’t supposed to have a restaurant in it,” Chloé said. “I’m sitting on the floor picking at this sad excuse for food. Nothing you can possibly tell me could be any more ridiculous than my life already is right now.”
“Alright,” Marinette said, pulling something up on her phone before glancing back at the group. “So, we’ve decided to—”
“Wait,” Alya interrupted. “Let’s have them guess.”
Nino snorted. “Oh, this oughta be good.”
“Fine,” Marinette said, clearly biting back a smile as she glanced around the circle. “How much do you guys think we’re giving you?”
Adrien took a moment to consider his response. “Fifteen thousand euros?”
Years of studying Marinette’s expressions in battle allowed Adrien to see how carefully neutral she kept her face. “Fifteen thousand euros…for the month?”
“Of course not,” Chloé said. “It’s fifteen thousand a week. How else are we supposed to hire an assistant?”
Kagami shook her head. “We’re not going to have an assistant, Chloé. That’s kind of the whole point of this thing. To prove we can do this on our own.”
“That’s so not the point. I’m only here to—”
“Kagami!” Marinette interrupted. “What do you think?”
“Well, obviously Chloé’s answer was—in her own words—utterly ridiculous.” Kagami ignored Chloé’s sneer as she continued. “I’m fairly sure that Adrien was close, though. Perhaps…around ten thousand euros for the month.”
“Ten thousand a month then?” Marinette asked. “That’s your final answer?”
“I think so, yes. Ten thousand euros for each of us.”
“Each?” Judging by the way Marinette’s voice squeaked, that had not been the correct response. But Kagami didn’t seem to notice her reaction.
“Yes. Thirty thousand euros seems…adequate.”
“I hate you all,” Nino muttered darkly, as Alya burst out laughing.
“This is going to be great,” Alya said once she caught her breath. “Seriously, are you sure I can’t set up some cameras? Because—”
“Alya,” Marinette interrupted, finally finding her voice, “you’re not helping. And you three…”
Marinette glanced between them. First narrowing her eyes at Chloé, who was again pouting at her broken nail, then at Kagami, with a look that Adrien interpreted to mean something along the lines of, I really expected better from you. Finally, she turned an exasperated pair of eyes on Adrien. He smiled innocently. She facepalmed and mumbled something unintelligible into her fingers.
“You know what?” she said eventually, “I give up. Alya, you explain.”
“Gladly.” Alya took a long gulp from her water bottle, and Adrien was pretty sure she was just dragging this out, tormenting them all a little longer for the fun of it. “So. We decided to go with the average salary of a Parisian, which turned out to be around 2200€.”
Alya paused, grinning wildly as Chloé let out a whimper. “That’s not even three pairs of Louboutins.”
“So…6600€ for all of us,” Kagami said slowly. “That’s all we have to spend for the next month.”
“Oh, no,” Alya said. “That’s how much you had before we deducted what would have been fair to assume you paid in rent if Marinette’s nonna hadn’t been nice enough to lend us her apartment for this little experiment.” Alya paused, typing something out on her phone, then turning the screen around. “This is how much each one of you has leftover in spending money—which you should keep in mind, involves paying for food and a couple of other bills.”
Chloé screamed when she saw the amount, and Adrien wasn’t sure his ears would ever fully recover. When she finally composed herself enough to speak, she seemed to be on the verge of tears. “That’s not even enough for one pair of Louboutins.”
It also wasn’t nearly enough to pay for the therapy Adrien was going to need in order to recover from this experience.