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Adrien looked at the huge pile of letters on his bed. It was St. Valentine’s Day today and as usual he had gotten a lot of fan mail. Sometimes it was fun to read, other times the things the fans put in there made him feel gross, it was always a toss up. H grabbed the first letter his hand touched and pull a white letter out of a white envelope.
Dear Adriekins,
I’ve been trying for a rediculously long time now to tell you that you are just a friend to me. I’ve seen you making eyes at me and it’s rediculous, utterly rediculous that you think we could ever work out together. I suggest that you get those thoughts of romance with me out of your head and try looking at someone more like Chloe, who is more at your station. You two would work so well together. So leave me alone and I’ll let you know that I’m ready to give friendship a try when I can stop blabbering at you because I hate your guts.
Sincerly,
Marinet Dupan-Cheng
Adrien looked at the letter again in confusion. This couldn’t have been from Marinette. She’d never called him “Adriekins” before (thank goodness) and the spelling left something to be desired. Also with how many misspelled “rediculous” statements were in there it was too far to stretch the imagination that this came from Chloe. She really seemed to have it out for Marinette. She even spelt her name wrong-first and last. It was like she wasn’t even trying.
He sighed and tore the letter up, throwing the pieces in the trash can. He didn’t like that Chloe treated Marinette so meanly, and he really didn’t want to date Chloe. She would never love him, she was far too self absorbed and would expect him to be her arm candy, he was not about that.
He went through the pile grabbing the next letter out of the large stack that had come for him this Valentine's Day. This one was heavily perfumed and the scent made his head hurt. It was sealed with a lipstick kiss and he almost didn’t read it until he caught sight of the front of the letter;
To: Adrien Emile Grabriel Donatien Athanase Agrest
From: Marinette Dupain-Cheng
Well, maybe she was just trying to romance him. The thought made him feel a little giddy, wait, didn’t he love Ladybug? He did, but she wasn’t loving him back, she wanted him to let go, maybe he could give Marinette a try. She was amazing after all. He pushed past the scent of the letter and managed to avoid touching the lipstick mark and opened it,
This is the part to skip if you are sensitive to teen/mature content.
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My Darlingest Dearest most Desired Adrien,
I am so tired of waiting for you. Surely you know how I feel, I’ve expressed myself in a silly way, but you must know I ardently desire you. I desperately want you to kiss my lips, my cheek, I long for your lips to grace the curve of my neck and trace my collar bone. I want to moan your name in the night, and have you touch every inch of me. I NEED you to whisper my name and fill me with pleasure (I’m a screamer ;) and tell me how beautiful and sexy you think I am…
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Adrien’s face was in flames. He choked and put the letter down, hunting frantically for some water. The picture that she was painting in his mind sounded much more like a deranged love letter from a fan rather than from the shy sweet girl he knew in class. However, he felt it was his obligation to continue the letter, she wrote it to him after all. Maybe the next line would say she was joking! Yeah, she had to be joking, Marinette couldn’t possibly mean any of this. Oh man, she got him good!
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I can’t wait any longer Adrien, I want to have you fill me, I want to be with you, our bodies entwined together in the heat of passion. So man up Adrien, make a move, kiss me first thing tomorrow, make sure you’re passionate. I don’t want to be bord, because if you bore me I’ll have no choice but to move on,
Xoxoxoxo,
Mari
End of mature content
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Sooo, she wasn’t kidding. Adrien gasped a little. This letter didn’t sound like he knew Marinette to be either. He couldn’t just go up and kiss her, he was a gentleman, and gentleman always ALWAYS asked for permission before doing anything like that. The other things that she detailed, that she wanted to do with him, that she wanted him to do to her……yikes! And that part about him boring her, that didn’t sound much like Marinette at all. It was signed Mari? Why would she sign her name as husband? Now he was just confused.
To get Marinette and the confusing letter out of his head, Adrien reached over and grabbed a third letter. This one was beautiful, the envelope had his first name beautifully calligraphied on the front. He opened it up (it was sealed with a heart shaped sticker, which he thought was cute) and pulled out a scalloped light pink piece of paper with beautiful hearts decorating it.
Dearest Adrien,
When we first met, I misjudged you. I had thought you were just like Chloe because you claimed to be her friend and because I saw you touching the gum on my chair. However, you changed my opinion of you in a flash when you set the record straight and offered me your umbrella. I still have it by the way, and every time I see it it reminds me of you and how kind you were to me that day. I couldn’t believe that after I had acted so mean towards you that you would still reach out and try to be my friend. You touched my heart that day, in a monumental way. Adrien, that was the moment that I fell deeply in love with you. Your courage, your love, your warmth, and your kindness are immense and beautiful. I love those parts of you best of all. Maybe, if you’d like, we could get together to know one another a little bit better? There’s a movie in theaters that I think you’d like, maybe we could go see it together this saturday? I’ll buy the popcorn.
With hope,
-Marinette <3
P.S. We don’t have to do the movies if you don’t want to. We could go for ice cream or just talk at the park. Or we don’t even have to go on a date, we could just hang out, literally anywhere in Paris and I would love that. I’d just really like the opportunity to let you know me better and to get to see and know you better and listen to you. I would love to be your best friend <3
It took a few minutes for Adrien to catch his breath after reading the latest letter from Marinette Dupain-Cheng. It was so honest and so obviously her (she referenced something that had happened between just the two of them, this letter HAD to be from her) he hugged it close to his body. This letter was perhaps the best he had ever received. She had fallen in love with him at a time when he had felt so vulnerable and afraid. He had shown her his weakness and she had accepted and loved him for it.
Ladybug was still pretty great, but perhaps Kagami was right, he wasn’t reaching that target and here was a target right in front of him that loved him. It was a guaranteed bullseye and she was an amazing girl. Yes, he would go on a date with Marinette, and if she was buying the popcorn then he would buy the tickets. She had always treated him with so much kindness and understanding--listening when no one else would. Now it was his turn to listen back.
Should he write her a letter back? Maybe he could hand deliver a letter. But wait, there was the other letter that had been written by Marinette too… He looked over the handwriting and saw that there was a drastic difference between them. The second letter simply wasn’t from Marinette. It was definitely from someone who hated her. Of course! He smacked his forehead, it was from Lila. Only she would be so… crass. His body shivered violently just thinking about her writing that letter to embarrass Mariette. He was sure that he and Marinette together could craft something to “get at” Lila the next day.
He sat down and wrote out his letter and put the three letters into his bag before heading over to her house. He walked down the street and away from Chloe’s hotel because he did not want to walk in front of it today. She might think he was going to see her. He took a right at the corner and passed by the front of the school heading towards her family’s bakery. He wore a huge smile on his face as he opened the door and saw her parents.
“Hello, Mr Dupain, Mrs. Cheng, is Marinette here?”
“Hi Adrien, let me go check alright? Tom, please bag up some pasterties for Adrien here, make sure to include some of your passionfruit macarons.” She gave a playful wink in Adrien's way and he chucked and thanked them for the delicious confections. Any minute now he would get to see Marinette, he was practically floating on air.
Mrs. Cheng came down the stairs, he looked behind her but didn’t see Marinette. He felt a little funny in his stomach, like he had had a bite of Plagg’s ripest camembert.
“Don’t worry Adrien,” Mrs. Cheng laughed lightly, “she’ll be down in a minute. You know how she is.” He let out a relieved sigh and laughed a little.
“I hope I didn’t surprise her too much, I know she wasn’t expecting me but I just couldn’t stay at home after getting her letter.” He sighed dreamily, his features morphed into a dopey grin and fluttery eyes.
“I didn’t know she’d written you a letter, you she’d had a huge…”
“Maman!” Marinette’s voice came over her mother’s halting what he was sure was an interesting bit of information. “Please don’t tell stories on me to my friends, you know how it embarasses me!”
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Cheng chuckled, “I forgot myself. I promise to try to be better.” she kissed Marinette on her cheek and gestured toward Adrien and the door, “Go on and have fun love. Or you can take him up to your room for videogames?” her mother looked a little too mischievous for Adrien to feel comfortable with that at the moment.
“Maman, we’ll just be leaving, be back before dark!” She grabbed Adrien by his arm and practically shoved him out the door and hightailed it to the park. “So, what did you come to see me for?” She sat down on the park bench and looked everywhere but at his eyes.
“Well, you see, I got three letters today all signed in your name…” She looked up at him at that.
“Three?” she looked confused, “But I only sent you one.”
“Yes, I did manage to figure out which one you had sent, the other letters just didn’t sound like you. One was from Chloe,” she buried her face in her hands.
“Kill me now!” he chuckled at that. She looked up and asked “How could you tell?”
“Well, it used the words “ridiculous, utterly ridiculous” and there were a couple other clues as well.” he didn’t feel quite right telling her more about it, he didn’t want to embarrass Chloe, even though she had been trying to embarrass Marinette, it just didn’t feel right.
“Hahaha you think she’d try a little harder.”
“Yeah, ummm the second letter I got was, well,” he pulled it out of his bag, his face already a flame with the shame of what the letter detailed. “I didn’t think this one was from you either… it was a bit forward?” he didn’t know why he had brought the letter, maybe this had been a terrible idea. Now she’d want to read it and he’d already pulled the letter out of his bag, damn it.
“Can I see?” she looked VERY interested, probably because there was enough smoke coming off of his ears to alert the fire department.
“I guess…” he handed the letter over and she read through it, her own face growing red, first with embarrassment, and secondly with anger. “I knew it wasn’t you, nothing in that letter aligned with what I knew of you. So I thought about the people who aren’t your most ardent fans…”
“You can say hate me Cha-, I mean Adrien, I realize who probably wrote this too.”
“Lila,” they said in tandem.
“Yeah,” Adrien reached back and rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyways, we should circle back to that, but the real reason I wanted to come over today was to say: Yes. I would love to go on a date with you Marinette. I even wrote you a letter back,” he pulled out his note and handed it over to her, wishing he could be that paper for a moment just to touch her hand. “You’re the most incredible girl I know, I would like to buy the tickets for the movie, by the way. It’s only fair.” he looked at her but there were tears in her eyes, she was looking down at the paper in her lap. He wondered if she had heard him. Oh well, he had mostly just repeated what he had told her in his letter.
Marinette had opened his letter and began to read,
My Dear Marinette,
Your letter is one of the most precious gifts I have ever received. You can see into my heart like no one ever has before and for that I love you Marinette. Yes, I would love to go on a date with you and spend more time getting to know you. Your quiet strength, the way you help people, the way you are willing to do anything to defend those who can’t defend themselves; all of those things are reasons why I am falling in love with you Marinette. I spoke to you earlier of another girl I loved, but she didn’t love me back. So I have let go of those feelings, I am willing to commit to you 100% because you put 100% into everything you do.
With love,
Adrien
P.S. I’ll buy the tickets since you’re getting the popcorn. I’d love to go see a movie with you.
“You love me?” she was nearly sobbing, he raced to her side and held her in his arms as she sobbed on his shoulder.
“Are, are these happy tears Marinette, because it seems like the idea of me loving you is incredibly upsetting…”
She vigorously nodded and let out another sob. “It’s just that I’ve wanted to hear you say that to me for ages. I love you so much I didn’t realize how overwhelmed I would be.”
“Awww,“ he rubbed circles on her back, “It’s okay Marinette, I’m here and you can just lie here on my shoulder until you feel all butter.” He looked at her head, hoping that would get some kind of reaction out of her.
It worked.
“Butter? Is that, are you, are you making a joke?” she looked so confused, it was adorable.
“Yes Marinette, before you break down and rye again, I’m hoping to tell you I’ll loaf you, even when you’re kneady.” Now her eyes popped open a great deal more.
“You are terrible!” She laughed, it was working! He was making her feel better, even comfortable around him. He felt proud of himself.
“Hey now, I don’t want naan of that from you!” he faked a look of anger and wagged his finger in her face.
“Oh please, stop with the bread puns, my dad thinks he’s funny like that too! It’s torture!” she laughed a belly laugh, and Adrien broke into a huge smug smile and puffed out his chest.
“Come on now, Princess, you know you can’t resist my excellent bread puns. It’s not my fault that most bread puns are crumby,” he waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed even more. This was the best Valentine’s Day ever.