Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somehow, she found herself in the band room again during lunch. Wondering what it would’ve been like if she had stayed in percussion, if she had tried a little harder, pushed a little bit more to stay in the same top band as Adrien.

It’s not like she could blame herself too much, Dupont was an American high school known to harbor children of the utmost upper class: fashion designers, museum curators, world-renowned chefs. A list that only continued, yet didn’t include scholarship student Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

There was a time in freshman year when all she imagined was playing the snare drum as lead one day or opening the piece with bells. Then, sophomore year blasted through all her meticulous routines that she had built up: drinking Red Bull every morning, working after school, late night study sessions. At some point, she broke and confided in her band teacher.

She distinctly remembers the day she quit band. She was sitting in her office as Ms.Tikki reprimanded her for her lack of practice.

“Marinette, I don’t even know what to say. You truly are one of the best percussionists we have, but lately you’ve been making more mistakes than my freshmen.”

It was a harsh blow.

Regardless, she couldn’t defend herself. With a lump in her throat, she attempted to voice her feelings; inevitably, finding tears in her eyes before she could find the right words.

Ms. Tikki immediately got up from her seat and comforted her for the rest of the day. It remained unsaid, yet later that day when Marinette received an online notification for her withdrawal of band, she couldn’t say that she was surprised.

So here she was now. In an empty band room, reflecting on all the what if’s and could’ve been moments she might’ve experienced had she not stepped into that office a year ago holding her emotions on her sleeve.

For pure curiosity, she held the blue yarn mallets in her hand and began to play a few notes on the marimba. A few notes soon became a familiar melody two years ago from the last concert she performed in. She sighed, there was so much that band had given her.

Friends, fun high school memories, her first real crush on first chair percussionist Adrien Agreste. She breathed in the air of the room, all too aware that she was now a foreign presence inside it.

Slowly, she backed away from the marimba ready to sit on her old chair one last time before leaving and completing homework. Instead, she hit a hard chest as a pair of large hands held her shoulders.

“Marinette? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, nothing! Sorry I was just,” she placed the mallets back on the music stand before scrambling her hands around, “Messing around, don’t worry I’ll leave!”

She almost reached the doors to leave, before Adrien grabbed her wrist.

“Hold on, we haven’t seen each other in two years, that’s all you’re going to say?”

She fumbled a bit with her sleeves. She hadn’t really expected him to care about her dropping band. Her eyes shifted from the floor to his face, pained from her quick insistence to leave.

It’s not like she wanted to blank out her years spent in band, but it was a lot easier to leave than explain to each of her friends that band simply didn’t make the cut with her worries as a scholarship student.

She hesitated before speaking,

“I-”

Clearly the hesitation stung, as he interrupted her,

“It’s fine. We probably weren’t that close if you didn’t feel the need to say anything anyways.”

He coldly turned away from her to place the blue yarn mallets in the rack. In a second, all those days lending mechanical pencils and music sheets came to a definite halt as she watched the back of his blonde hair.

It wasn’t true, she wanted to say.

She had thought they were close. But how could she explain to him that pursuing band meant killing herself in the process? How it burned her time into the afternoons with rehearsals and how it cost her money to even afford the black formal concert dress.

And so, she left like she always seemed to be doing.

__________

Adrien watched her back retreat from the classroom. He ran his hands through his hair and groaned in the silence of the classroom. He emptily sat in a chair, failing to not think about the years when a certain raven-haired girl sat beside him and made his heart beat a little faster when she shifted her deep blue eyes into his.

He hadn’t seen her in two years, and of course Adrien’s former home-schooled self went feral with the one girl he had actually enjoyed the company of. He barely got the chance to talk to Marinette, without blowing it and now she was probably going to avoid him and the band room for eternity.

“God, I’m an idiot,”

He muttered before throwing the blue yarn mallets at the floor, rolling underneath the timpanis.

“Adrien, do you think I could impress Alya by playing the trumpet with my nose?”

“Nino, I think Alya would rather drown than watch you attempt that.”

Nino walked over to him, dead serious,

“It wouldn’t be an attempt. I can tell you that much.”

Adrien snorted at Nino’s bizarre attempt at making him laugh .

“So, what’s up?” Nino asked, taking note of Adrien’s dimmed smile.

“I saw Marinette.”

“Oh?”

“I might have snapped at her.”

“Yikes,”

Nino wrapped an arm over him in attempt to comfort him,

“Don’t feel too bad, to be fair, Marinette was the one who abandoned us in the middle of the year.”

Nino didn’t mention the very un-platonic feelings towards Marinette that Adrien seemed to harbor for a majority of their friendship.

Adrien nodded in resignation. Nino was right, but it was hard to not blame himself either when he began noticing Marinette’s bloodshot eyes and dark eyebags everyday besides him. He had suspected that something else was happening, yet he never took the initiative to ask in fear of making it worse. Unfortunately, the day he did attempt to talk to her, she had already dropped band.

Alya followed soon after Nino had entered the band room, ignoring Nino attempting to fit his trumpet mouthpiece in his nose.

“Adrien! Oh my god, is that a new shade of bleach?!”

Adrien raised his eyebrow at her; she quickly backed down from the hair compliments(?). Alya's attempt at complimenting him usually meant one of two things, option one, she wanted an interview or option two, she needed access to his connections, in other words, essentially option one. He never really minded, Alya’s enthusiasm for journalism and broadcasting was admirable.

“Whatever it is, sure.”

“Okay, so the plan is an interview with Clara Nightingale. She worked with your father for her recent music video’s costumes and you worked with her on set too, so it shouldn’t be that big of a problem, right?”

Adrien quickly agreed, before reverting back to his sullen mood as he remembered how much Marinette enjoyed listening to Clara Nightingale as well. One time, he printed out her music so that they could form a little duet on the snare drum and the xylophone—they never did find the time to play it.

“That’s the seventh sigh, I’ve heard today and I’ve been in the classroom for three minutes tops.” Alya paused, “Do you have asthma?”

“No, Adrien’s lungs are perfectly fine. He’s just sad ‘cause he yelled at Marinette.”

“Wow, you? Yelling? And at Marinette? She’s probably crying in a bathroom stall as we speak.”

Adrien's face somehow mutated to a stage four frown as Nino hit her shoulder.

“Dude, come on,” he pointed to the sheer tragedy on Adrien’s face.

“Honestly, it’s well deserved. We were all good friends. She was literally my best friend for almost a decade, and then she just leaves the face of the Earth-”

“Band,” Nino quipped.

“Yeah, same thing, and then she gets to be sad that we’re all mad about it without any possible explanation? She can’t be for real.”

To anyone else, one would think Alya was mad, but both Adrien and Nino knew that it was only an elaborate ruse to cover her sadness. Marinette had been her first friend when Alya moved to their middle school, so her distancing was more upsetting than angering. They watched her begrudgingly sit in the flute section as she distracted herself by planning her next interview.

Nino lingered near Adrien for a little bit, before mentioning

“Maybe you should try reaching out and apologizing. I’m sure Marinette will hear you out.”

Adrien wasn’t sure. Marinette could have changed, and he wouldn’t know or be able to know at this rate.

__________

Although he hadn’t planned out a proper apology, Adrien had spent every day during lunch hoping Marinette might walk inside the bandroom. He was pretty hopeful, but it was the end of the third week of waiting in the band room, and his hopes seemed futile. Also, Ms. Tikki had been glaring at him for eating lunch in the storage closet for a while, so he decided to end his hunger strike as he left the room.

It probably didn’t do much by waiting anyways, he scared her permanently, and now he would never see her again. At least, he’d get to eat lunch normally again, though Alya would likely interrogate him.

On the other hand, Nino had been rather supportive with his mission to apologize, mostly because of the extra hour of one-on-one time he had with Alya now.

Stepping out from the room, a quick raven blur flashed behind a white wall. He hesitated, it couldn’t be?

No way, and he pushed back on his path to the cafeteria, but there was this strange feeling in his gut that told him to go back. She could a thousand percent not be there, yet what if that was the one time she ever returned and he hadn’t been there.

It might not be, but what if?

Racing through the hallway, he ran to the band room, afraid that Marinette might’ve already left.

At last, he gripped the doorway of the band room, his uneven panting unable to deny the relief he felt at seeing Marinette’s back.

Never in Adrien’s life had he been so happy to hear the sharp noises of a snare drum in his life. Catching up his breath, he smiled at the sight of Marinette sight-reading the sheet music left on the stand for the upcoming spring concert.

She grunted at one of the parts as she stuck her tongue out in concentration.

His eyes softened immediately. Before he realized it, he was behind Marinette. She yelped, as his fingers naturally slipped over hers.

“That part is more like this,” Adrien softly whispered as he guided her hands to play the correct rhythm. She paused for a moment before deciding to let him take over.

After the final measure, he let go of his grip. Marinette slowly turned and looked up from the snare drum to Adrien, Marinette filling his senses entirely.

He gulped at the few inches of space between their faces.

Was she always this pretty?

He hadn’t been able to notice the light freckles on her face or her bangs which had grown from the last time he’d seen her.

Before he could get any more enraptured by Marinette, he took a few steps back and broke the silence,

“I know you don’t want to see me because of last time, but I truly am sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you without knowing anything.”

With his final word, he let out a breath and waited for her response. She shuffled her feet before responding,

“Adrien, you’re fine.” She shyly smiled at him and added “I would’ve been mad too, so it’s not completely unjustified.”

He paused for a second, debating to ask her about why she left band, left their friends, and more importantly, him.

“You know, if you miss playing, you can come here during lunch whenever you want. As long as I’m there too, Ms. Tikki wouldn’t mind.”

Marinette’s eyes widened,

“Are you sure?”

“Anything to make up for last time, in fact I could even catch you up on percussion through little lessons too.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind though? I don’t know what I could do to pay you back.”

He hummed, pretending to wonder what she could do for him to make their transaction balanced.

And with all the poise of a child actor slash model, he gasped,

“How about, if I teach you, you tell me why you left band.”

All the wonder left the room at once and tension swept in as she realized what was happening.

She wanted to decline his offer immediately and ignore him all over again, but something about his hopeful gaze told her that he didn’t just want to know about why she left.

And while it would hurt her pride to explain that band wasn’t an option if she wanted to maintain her scholarship, something about the quiet room and Adrien’s hand waiting in the air told her that it might pain her more if she continued to avoid band at all costs.

And so, for the first time since she quit band, she followed her heart instead of her head and shook Adrien’s hand.

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Marinette is a fairly smart student, hence the scholarship she received from Principal Damocles. She’s juggled numerous honors courses and APs, competed in speech tournaments, and led entire group projects with Kim, extra emphasis on Kim, which brought her to her current dilemma as she walked to the band room.

She is smart, theoretically, so why is she willingly walking to a room that ended things badly for her?

Taking in a few deep breaths before entering, she braced herself for the mixed emotions she consistently feels in a room that’s equal parts nostalgic and heart wrenching.

Opening the door, Adrien appeared before her and turned to her the second she stepped foot in the room.

Him.

She took back her thoughts on being smart. How was she so blind?

It was him, that was why she had moved to the band room with each step, despite sensing the demise of it all.

She had forgotten about that single most intrinsic component in this whole deal: her stupid crush on him.

It wasn’t a willing treat that she indulged in, but time and time again her mind would fall back to the deep gutters of blonde hair and green eyes. She’d rather not think about a boy while stressing about AP biology, but it was so difficult not to when Adrien was such a pleasant distraction.

She liked to think of him as warm to a certain extent. Not like the harsh lighting that flares your face but the lazy glow you feel when waking up to sunlight.

To make matters worse, he seemed to treat her special during these lessons as well.

Gently placing his hands on to hers, feathering touches between their fingertips when exchanging sheet music, and approaching a bit too close to her when she struggled with syncopation on the snare drum —it almost felt like he had a different, more intimate reason for holding these ‘lessons’ for her.

In fact, in one of their lessons, they sat in their former chair arrangements, him in first chair and her in second chair, and talked for an hour as he leaned his head on her shoulder, unaware of the color flushing into her cheeks.

Currently, she watched him search for music sheets in his music folder, that was tearing on the edges and clumsily repaired with tape.

He bit his lip in annoyance, while muttering,

“It’s somewhere in here.”

She walked over to him in an attempt to see what exactly he was searching so hurriedly for.

“I got it!” he yelled with music sheets in his fists as he raised his hands.

She mimicked him to humor his relentless enthusiasm over a couple sheets of concert music.

“Ha ha,” he dripped in sarcasm as he noticed her lack of excitement.

“Adrien, I promise you are the only one who cares that much about sheet music.”

In retaliation, he delicately pulled her wrists forward, faced her palms upwards, and handed her two sheets of music in each hand. With a smug look, he waited.

It took Marinette a few seconds to recognize the music sheets.

“You remembered?” was all she could say.

__________

A while ago, when she was still in band, she and Adrien would listen to music together in the band room during days when Ms. Tikki was absent.

Normally, they’d share a pair of Adrien’s fancy bluetooth earbuds and listen to his offline spotify playlist consisting of both his and her favorite artists.

One of those many days, she decided to finally make a real move on Adrien, a ‘move’ meaning she would ask him to play a song that she enjoyed in hopes they might find more common ground through music.

“Hey Adrien, do you ever listen to Clara Nightingale?”

“Like, the pop singer?” he asked while cleaning his glasses.

She leaned over to him and snatched his specs from him, “Yeah, that Clara, ever listen to her music?”

Adrien immediately started laughing ballistically, tears in his eyes and everything as if Marinette had cracked the world’s funniest joke in the world.

Hyperventilating, she sat confused in her seat, was there a punchline she miscommunicated?

“Marinette!” he exclaimed, “you’re too much sometimes!”

She wanted to crash her head in the bass drum and stay there as her corpse rotted in the middle of the classroom, unfortunately, that wasn’t possible, so she attempted to laugh too.

“I know right!” her voice coming out strained.

Marinette did not pull another ‘move’ for the rest of the school year. She even vented to Alya about it and slammed her head in the band’s locker room hoping a tuba would fall on her head.

“I really tried that time, Alya, it’s not fair!”

“We have similar music taste, so he was supposed to like her!” she complained as she watched her best friend clean her flute with a polishing cloth.

Alya laughed,

“We’re not in middle school anymore, your so-called moves aren’t going to actually do anything.”

She finished cleaning her flute and placed it inside its case,

“Anyways, you love Clara Nightingale. I don’t think you should have to hide that from him in the first place.”

She placed it inside her cubby, and pressed a hand on Marinette’s shoulder,

“And if he does hate you because you like her, then there is no way in hell I’m letting you date him.”

She really liked Alya, but there was so much more that she didn’t know about, that their entire friend group didn’t know about. Secrets in her tired hands and messy ponytails as she worked at the bakery right after school till closing or the two energy drinks stored in her backpack to chug in AP Literature.

Humming in agreement, she knew that this wouldn’t be the only thing that Adrien wouldn’t know about.

It didn’t actually matter if he knew whether she liked a specific singer or not in the grand scheme of things, yet a part of her still yearned for a semblance of truth in their relationship that it wasn’t exclusive to the moments they had in band but the more vulnerable ones too.

With that realization, she stormed out of the locker room and stood in front of both Nino and Adrien as she whispered,

“I like Clara Nightingale.”

__________

Nino looked at her, waiting for an explanation on the context of her statement, whereas Adrien worked on deciphering it until his face showed recognition.

Marinette, unable to stand the awkward silence, backed away and caught up to Alya as she left the classroom.

Adrien’s mouth opened and closed as he watched Marinette step into the hallway.

“Fuck,” he mumbled under his breath.

“There, there,” Nino patted his back, “It’s okay. Just because she likes girls, doesn’t mean she can’t like you either, you know? That’s like a thing, trust.”

Nino reassured him; poor guy, really, his first crush might not even be into boys, what a shame.

Adrien was quick to swat his hands off of him as he realized what an asshole he probably looked like when he laughed at her question earlier. Was this another social awareness thing that he didn’t know about?

He turned to Nino’s sympathetic face, “Nino, let’s say I’m a girl, and I ask you if I listen to a specific artist, does that mean anything?”

Nino raised his hands, “Look, I’m not really into that, but I do respect-”

Adrien would’ve slapped Nino if it weren’t for the surrounding students in the band room, “For the love of god, just answer the question.”

“Alright, theoretically if you asked me that, it’d probably just mean that you wanted to know if I too liked that artist you were into.”

Adrien let out a strangled whine into the room, earning a long stare from one of the freshmen in his section.

“And theoretically, you laugh at me for asking that question? Then what?”

“Theoretically, this is too many theories,” he finished before noticing Adrien’s pointed glare and then added, “but for your sake, I guess you might feel sad that I just laughed it off?”

Nino’s tone tilted near the end, unsure of what to make of Adrien’s peculiar response as he shoved his face into his music folder and screeched. The freshmen nearly jumped at the sight and dropped his mallets while Nino mouthed a ‘sorry’ for Adrien’s miscellaneous reactions to literally nothing and everything.

“I want to die.”

“I’m pretty confident someone else will if we stay here.”

Nino slowly pushed Adrien out the band room with him as he continued to mope about his short interaction with Marinette.

In fact, it mauled him so much so that in the middle of chemistry he stole the hallway pass and sprinted to the library to print the first couple of music sheets of Nightingale’s new title track.

Maybe, he can just lie and say he likes her and hopefully she’d believe him?

The next day, he found her standing by the xylophone and tapped her shoulder,

“Guess who?” Adrien covered his face with the music sheets.

“Nino?”

“Nope.”

“Nathaniel?”

“Not quite.”

“Luka? Oh my god, it’s Luka right?”

“No, no, and no. I have a feeling that you’re doing this on purpose.”

“What if I am?” She smirked as she removed the music sheets covering his face.

“What’s this? New music?” she frowned, “I thought we already got all our concert music.”

He shook his head, “Not concert music, just take a look at it.”

She paused, “This is Clara’s music… but I thought you didn’t like her?”

“Are you kidding me? I love her, she’s one of my favorite artists of all time!”

Her eyes gleamed in excitement, “I thought you hated her, oh my god, we have to play this-”

He did hate her. To the point that in eighth grade, he had found almost every music video of hers to only dislike it. Pop-music had never been his taste, especially hers due to her chirpy voice and estranged dance moves.

Though hating Clara Nightingale proved to be difficult when she noticed how much Marinette talked about her as she continued rambling on about her latest discography and how her album speaks to her.

Marinette was dangerous. They listened to her music for weeks following that incident and not once did he mention his immense distaste for her.

How would he reveal that in the first place?

‘Actually Marinette, I despise pop-music, but I do like you so that’s why I pretended to like her too’. No, Adrien was not going to look like an idiot in front of her. He’d already done that when he laughed at her question about Clara Nightingale.

It didn’t help that Marinette was so excited to tell him about another fun fact about her or that she felt more comfortable being in his space as they listened to music as well.

It was in the small things, like how her knees would touch his besides him when they shared headphones or how she leaned towards him as he played tetris on her laptop and urgently tapped his hands on the keyboard as he attempted to move past level three.

And so while he didn’t like lying to her, he didn’t want anything to change either.

__________

Adrien touched his nape,

“I mean, do you still like her music?”

Not even a little bit.

“Definitely, we did spend hours listening to her music at some point.” She laughed at his shyness.

That sheet music that Adrien found was over a year old and he still held it? Did he really like Clara Nightingale that much?

If that was the case, she couldn’t tell him that she wasn’t a fan of her music anymore, but to be fair a majority of her old habits and interests died with her ending band and focusing on academics.

There wasn’t any way for Adrien to have known about that.

“Do you want to start playing this piece tomorrow?”

Adrien laughed at her, “Mari” he teased, “we don’t have school tomorrow, it’s a four day weekend, remember?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

The conversation paused, Marinette’s mood quickly sullied as she realized she’d have to go four days without seeing Adrien. Even distracting herself with homework wouldn’t deny how much she’d want to see him over the weekend.

She stretched her hands out awkwardly waiting for Adrien to say something.

“We could go to my house, if you uh,” he hesitated, “wanted to continue the lessons?”

“I have a lot of percussion instruments at home, so it would be like the same thing. We don’t have to though, no pressure-”

“I’d love to.”

She grinned at him.

__________

However, she didn’t love her closet which seemed to lack anything appropriate for going to your crush’s home, which was also the home of famous designer Gabriel Agreste.

She looked over the mound of clothes scattered across her floor. This would’ve been the perfect time for her to call Alya Césaire, who’d miraculously find the perfect article of clothing for Marinette to wear.

She stared at the old friendship bracelets she had made near her lampshade. It was ironic how much she attempted to clean her room of any remnants of her, yet Césaire still managed to creep into her life, like their favorite shows, snacks, and the times they spent in their rooms.

She shook herself a little bit before looking through her closet again; nothing good would come out of reminiscing on the past, plus the future was nice like her lesson at Adrien’s in thirty minutes.

“Ah shit,” she mumbled to herself as she quickly scrammed through the clothes on her floor and found a black skirt and a baby pink fuzzy sweater to wear on top.

Running downstairs with her frilly socks in her hand, she yelled,

“Mom, I’m going out!”

She began to put her socks on and pulled her black mary-janes out of the shoe rack, then running down to the bakery floor of their apartment.

“Marinette, you never told me you were going out?”

Sabine Cheng backed away from the cash register and raised her tone with her daughter.

“You have to tell me these things, Marinette. I need you on the register, you know that.”

She had told her. Two days ago with added reminders everyday just in case of her mom pulling this exact remark of ‘Oh, but you never told me’ due to her short-term memory loss.

“For not telling me, I don’t think you should go out in the first place. That should be fine right?”

Marinette remained silent. No, it would not be fine; she had looked forward to this one event the entire weekend.

Fortunately her father walked in right before she attempted to come to compromise with her mom, which often proved to be impossible,

“Sabine, just let her go this one time, alright?”

She nodded reluctantly, before adding “Fine you can go, but I don’t want you to. You should stay home to study or at least work for our family business.”

Marinette ignored the guilt in her throat; it wasn’t fair of her to always put her in this position, if anything she was the most devoted to her family as she worked in the bakery after school most days anyways.

She looked over to her father, who shot her a small nod, and decided that she’d let herself have this and ran out the door.

__________

Adrien was pacing downstairs on the first floor of his home as his bodyguard watched him in amusement.

Maybe Marinette got lost? His house might be a bit far from hers. Or maybe she just ditched because she realized it was weird to go to a boy's house just for percussion lessons and also found said boy incredibly annoying? Another equally plausible solution was that she was into brunettes, so she decided to not go against Adrien and his sponge hair.

The doorbell rang and Adrien flew across the floor to reach the door in time, opening it to reveal Marinette.

She wasn’t in the school uniform he noticed.

It made sense of course, it wasn’t a school day.

Though he had not mentally prepared to see her wearing casual clothes, especially a black skirt revealing her bare legs or the knit pullover making her adorably cozy.

Marinette cleared her throat.

He was staring,

“Ah, sorry, it’s just I normally never see you out of uniform, so it’s nice.” he stuttered to speak as he gestured with his hands.

“Thanks,” she tucked in a strand of hair behind her ear before asking, “Should I come in or?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, please come in.” he motioned towards her.

Marinette looked around in awe as he walked in front of her.

The grand portrait of Adrien, his mother, and his father was held at the center of two stairwells. She stilled at the stairs while Adrien continued to move past her; she had always known that Emilie Agreste had passed away since it hit headlines as she was a globally renowned actress, but she’d never known much about it other than the headlines.

It was jarring to hear about one’s classmate through gossip networks and news channels, especially one that had been so close to her at some point. There were probably a million things that she didn’t know about him now, and if she hadn’t entered that band room, there might be a billion.

“Hey, you good?”

Adrien turned to her as he realized Marinette hadn’t been following him upstairs.

She hummed in response, hoping she didn’t seem too offput.

Unaware, Adrien grabbed her hand and continued to run upstairs, before reaching his room.

“This is your room?”

Adrien nodded, as he opened the door to his ‘room’ if it could even be called that. He glanced over to Marinette’s hand and quickly let go as he realized he’d been holding her hand all this time.

Marinette didn’t notice though as she walked slowly, realizing the scale of his bedroom, which was nearly twice as large as her small bedroom in her apartment.

There were two floors, the bottom filled with games, a foosball table, three gaming monitors, a basketball shooting area, while the upper half was a library filled with novels and records, and was that a climbing wall too?

“There is no way we are in the same tax bracket that’s for sure,” she spoke to herself as her hand touched the skateboard ramps.

“What was that?” Adrien looked over to her as he led her to the percussion instruments in his room.

“Nothing, nothing," she really needed to control what she was saying.

She followed him and found a xylophone and snare drum along with music stands already holding the sheet music.

Right, the sheet music of the artist that she had claimed to love.

Adrien walked over to the snare drum and paused, “You know, since you’re here, do you want snacks maybe we can like watch a movie and then play?”

“Yeah!” she exclaimed a bit too enthusiastically before dialing it back down, “Yes, that sounds good.”

“Okay great!”

Adrien quickly texted Nathalie and pulled her to sit beside him on the couch.

Her fingers tapped the white leather awkwardly as she waited for Adrien to pick a movie.

Hopefully he wouldn’t pick horror.

__________

Adrien picked a chick-flick movie and they had been over halfway into the movie as they ate apples with peanut butter due to his diet for his next photoshoot for the Gabriel brand.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Sure, it’s that door to the right.”

He lifted the remote to pause the movie.

This was fun, definitely better than playing music by Clara Nightingale.

It was also fun watching a movie with Marinette; she tended to make bizarre comments about the characters, making the movie a lot more comedic than it actually was.

Though they had yet to address the deal that they had made a couple weeks ago which had initiated all of these lessons, Adrien stared at the closed bathroom door. He wasn’t ever planning on pushing her into explaining why, but he wondered if there might be a lesson where she might end up telling him herself.

It might be awhile till she got that comfortable around him.

He didn’t mind waiting.

Marinette returned from the bathroom and sat beside him. She stared at the screen as he raised the remote to unpause it until Marinette interrupted him,

“I’m going to tell you why I dropped band.”

Adrien lowered his arm, and turned towards her to show her he was listening.

A minute passed as Marinette shifted with her hands. Like he said, he didn’t mind waiting, and told her,

“It’s okay Marinette, you don’t have to force yourself to.”

“No, no, I do,” she paused, “ I’ve just never had this conversation before.”

She played with the ends of her sweater and started,

“I’m a scholarship student." She waited to let him take in her first sentence and added, "You get it based on merit in your academics and an extracurricular of your choice.”

“There's about five per grade. Kim is one of them he got in for swim. Mine is fashion design, but I really loved band,” Marinette continued to keep her gaze at the screen.

“It’s just hard to love something that doesn’t love you back,” she glanced over at Adrien now tracing circles on the back of her hand, “I didn’t have time for anything but band, school, work, and eventually I didn’t even have time for band.”

Adrien intertwined their hands as she spoke. The squeezes felt reassuring though she wasn’t exactly sure who it was for.

“I could have tried harder to stay in the top band, but it felt so isolating. No one wanted me there,” her voice wavered, “Our band teacher had lost faith in me, my parents didn’t even want me to waste time in band, and every other student was doing perfectly fine.”

It was silent, the comfortable kind as Adrien continued to draw shapes on her hands and Marinette watched. He hadn't made any sign to unpause the movie, showing a clear contentment for the blacked out screen, the view of the window of his room, and Marinette herself as he smelled a whiff of vanilla and butter as she moved towards him on the sofa.

“Thank you for telling me,” he stared at her, growing only a bit conscious of their thighs touching underneath the shared blanket on the couch.

“I do want you to know that I did want you in band.”

She snorted at him, “You were probably the only one, Adrien.”

His features hardened as he replied, “I wasn’t, Nino and Alya, they both wanted you there too, not to mention our section sucked ass for a year because you weren’t there too.”

They didn’t suck ass, she knew that much.

She had continued to attend their seasonal concerts at school as an audience member; Dupont’s top band never had bad students, but she appreciated the sentiment.

“I would’ve told you earlier, but it hurt to think about band so I just distanced myself. I am sorry about that, even if my apology is a year late.”

Adrien’s eyes turned into crescents at her attempt at lightening the mood, Marinette blushed and turned away.

There was no logical reason to be so happy over a boy smiling at her, but another glance at him told her otherwise.

The rest of the afternoon was spent finishing the chick-flick as they caught up on the past years of their lives.

Marinette had to admit, she still didn’t know a lot about Adrien Agreste, though in time she was confident she might eventually. And if he never mentioned the sheet music on the stands and their intertwined hands, Marinette wouldn’t either.

Chapter Text

Marinette sat in AP Literature looking at the third journal prompt at the board: What’s more important between the two, perception or intention?

Normally, the 150 word journal entries came easily to her, not wasting a second to grab her blue gel pen to fill the page with her assorted thoughts for the day.

Writing came a lot easier when she didn’t have a personal attachment behind the words prompting her to write.

Intention, obviously, was the answer Marinette chose.

Though looking across the room at Alya and her group of friends, once her friends too, she could only imagine what they perceived of her when her absences began piling up and she started sitting on the opposite side of their former shared table.

Juleka, Rose, and Alya sat in a close knit trio as they left their notebooks empty, unable to concentrate as they watched a new episode of some anime that they started in class.

She looked back at her notebook.

It didn’t matter. She didn’t have that type of time to just toss around watching movies or shows in class even if she wanted to.

She quickly finished her journal entry and began placing her notebook inside her backpack when she heard Alya,

“Adrien is in love with this character, seriously, he’s-”

Marinette’s head shot towards Alya at record speed, catching her eyes as Alya’s brows slightly frowned at the sight of her.

She didn’t know about their lessons, did she?

Alya’s gaze remained on her for only a second, before continuing her conversation with the girls around her.

Adrien, huh?

He was almost too distracting, what, making her look up at random friends from the sole mention of his name.

She hadn’t heard about the show that they were watching.

It’s not like Adrien had told her all of his favorite animes.

She ignored her stomach feeling sick. It was probably because she drank coffee on an empty stomach.

After that long weekend she did know a lot about him, but there was so much that everyone already knew.

Alya surely did.

The bell rang, dismissing the class at once. Marinette hurriedly packed her things, grabbing her phone and pencil pouch and rushing to her next period.

“Shit,” she grumbled as her pencil pouch conveniently spilled its contents in the middle of the hallway.

Alya skipped ahead of her, meeting Nino and Adrien in the hallway.

Marinette was known to have bad timing, but this had to be a new record.

She looked over to Adrien as the three made their way down towards her.

Although she wasn’t friends with Nino and Alya, she did know Adrien.

She slightly waved her hand.

Adrien continued walking.

Did he not see her?

Suddenly, she felt all too pathetic in the hallway as she sat crouched on the floor chasing her mess of mechanical pencils and erasers.

Her throat constricted; they were close, right?

It wasn’t like she imagined all those days they spent in the band room together.

Sure, his friends didn’t know about their secret lessons, but he didn’t have to ignore her in the hallways, couldn’t he have smiled at her or helped her pick up her things?

She ignored the way her heart seemed to clench inwards and grabbed her materials and pushed on to her next period.

She would see him later during lunch and everything would be fine.

Perception was overrated, she thought to herself.

__________

She did not see him.

She was sitting in her second period when her phone buzzed reading a message,

“Adrien: can’t make it today, sorry! :(”

Was he embarrassed of her? Maybe he was done with the lessons as soon as he had found out about her secret as a scholarship student.

Bringing her to her current disorganized state of mind as she sat in the library during lunch with her composition notebook staring back at her as she pondered on what Adrien could possibly be doing to have missed their band lesson.

She stared into her notebook, the normal blue ink appeared red.

It felt wrong.

Agreeing with her 150 words of why intention was more important than perception didn’t come with the ease it normally did, especially when she could only perceive Adrien’s actions, rather than his intention.

It was bad timing. She knew that much.

The moment with Alya in her literature class and the unreturned wave in the hallway, those were mere coincidences. To any other student it would’ve been a normal day, but Marinette hadn’t had a normal social interaction in so long, overanalyzing every aspect of those moments was inevitable.

With Adrien returning to her world at school, she felt herself getting greedy. She felt the same excitement for school that she had when she was in band, looking forward to seeing familiar faces and participating in class.

He truly was sunshine, brightening her days with bad percussion puns or sheet music they could try playing.

She wasn’t used to something so bright. Even before when they were friends, there were specific limits, like never spending time with each other outside of school or making conversation outside band class.

And wasn’t that scary?

Marinette, who had spent an entire year alone, working in the shadows at school and finding solace at night, was now yearning for the morning to come sooner just to meet him.

She had never been a fan of change, but her school day had transformed into something frighteningly positive in just a month of stolen glances in the back of the band room.

She felt a tap at her shoulder and looked at the culprit: Luka Couffaine.

Juleka’s older brother, who she remarkably stayed friends with despite the chaos of her sophomore year, was one of the few constants in her life.

Not because of Marinette by any means, but as a result of his own willpower to fight for a spot in her life.

“I haven’t seen you in the library in awhile.”

Luka took a seat besides her at the white table in the corner of the library,

“Made new friends?”

She laughed at his claims, as if she would have time for that in the first place. He smiled at her response.

Luka knew about the entire situation regarding Marinette’s distance from his sister and their friend group, though he never changed how he treated her. He would still ask her to come over for movie nights and they’d spend time in his room, instead of Juleka’s, listening to him strumming the guitar while Marinette would type out her essays.

They never really mentioned how his behavior never changed with her. She wasn’t going to jinx what they had, initiating a realization that would push him farther away like everyone else.

However, she did have some idea as to why he treated her the way that he did.

__________

It was the fourth time or the fifth time that Marinette Dupain-Cheng found herself at the Couffaine’s home after the incident with Alya and the rest of them. It felt grating to be at a house that she had spent so many nights at, only to come for her friend’s brother.

Marinette wasn’t sure when ‘her friend’s brother’ had developed into her best friend.

They first met when she arrived a bit too early at the Couffaine’s and Juleka was taking one of her infamous, hour-long showers. It was her first time coming to her house and decided to sit in what she thought was Juleka’s room.

She stared at the collection of guitar picks on the wall, each encased in a glass display.

She didn’t take Juleka as a Jagged Stone fan.

She looked at the pick on the top left of the case.

Curiously, she gingerly took it out of its case, staring at it imploringly. It was signed on the back; it must have cost a fortune. She looked around the room with the pick held delicately between her fingers, there were posters of the singer at every angle of the room and a t-shirt from one of his tours hanging on the back of the door too.

“I wish I had this much merch,” she whispered as she returned the pick to the wall.

“You can have it, if you want it.”

A tall tan figure leaned on the doorway, his eyes barely visible underneath the turquoise ends of his dark hair. He walked towards her and reached for the pick, placing it back between her fingers.

“Oh no, no, that’s rare. I-”

“Seriously, you can. I have a lot of guitar picks.”

She hesitated before denying him again. Her mom would definitely look down upon her for taking something so precious from a stranger, but she did want it.

The pick was small, not to mention the fact that she did not play the guitar, so there was no use for it either.

It would be nice to have something futile for once.

“Alright, I’ll take it,” she smiled at the pick before adding, “Thank you.”

Luka moved over to his bed and patted the spot beside him, suggesting she sit next to him.

Marinette did.

Pulling his guitar out, he began to strum a few notes to fill the silence, waiting for Marinette’s shoulders to loosen up and sit more casually on his comforter.

They spent an hour sitting there. Marinette lengthened her legs on the comforter and Luka still played the guitar as he watched her in amusement as her eyes stared at the azure blue walls of his room.

It felt like a private oasis all for her.

She was more than upset when Juleka had finished showering and pouted at Luka as she was dragged out his room as the rest of the girls arrived as well.

Luka hid his laugh with his hands.

That moment began a series of hang-outs in which Marinette would arrive a tad earlier to hang out with Luka. He enjoyed her company too, often texting her that Juleka wasn’t home, implying that she could come over without any speculation.

Gratefully those days continued regardless of her relationship with his sister, and on one of those days, she had come over.

It was a normal day in Luka’s room, him playing music on his electric guitar, except this time she hadn’t taken her homework out of her backpack. Instead of sitting on his bed, she stood.

Luka let her be, waiting for her to say something, until he realized that Marinette had no plans to move as she remained standing near his display of picks. He walked over to her, unsure what to make of her frozen stature and asked,

“Are you okay?”

Marinette’s eyes stayed on the glass casing, though one glance at her up close and he could see her eyes becoming glassy.

It was one of those days.

When she’d focused all too much on her classes, talked a bit too much to her teachers after class, and worked too diligently on classwork in an attempt to distract the gaping hole in her schedule.

The type of day when someone asks “Are you okay?” and tears threatened to fall.

“Yeah,” her voice wavering as she attempted to ignore the aching lump in her throat.

Marinette never looked so weak, her short height emphasized as her shoulders sunk in.

Luka was quick to pull her into a hug, holding her tightly as if she would disappear if he loosened his grip.

It wasn’t cute.

Snot covered her upper lip and tears stained her face while she spoke waveringly, telling him everything, about her once closest friends were glaring at her in the hallways or how Ms. Tikki would sometimes come over to her, recommending her percussion lessons that she couldn’t afford to rejoin band.

She sat on his lap on his dark bedsheets with his arms wrapped around her in unsaid support as her chest heaved erratically in pain.

“It hurts so much,” she breathed out as her heart rate began to calm down.

“You’ve done a lot Marinette,” he played with her hair, pulling out the red hair tie in her flimsy ponytail, spilling her raven tresses.

“I know,” she whispered to him, “but it’s never enough.”

“It’s okay to give up sometimes,” he smoothed out her thick locks, “there isn’t a penalty for feeling tired of something you loved, no matter how much it hurts ‘Nette.”

She sniffled and nodded at him. Meanwhile, Luka grabbed his phone from his bedside table, finding a few gentle instrumental tracks to play for them as they stayed lying in bed.

“You,” she cleared her throat, “um, find the right words fast.”

He laughed before responding,

“Not usually. I’m just lucky to know how you feel.”

Marinette felt her ears grow with her interest,

“How?”

He glanced at the pothole window in his room,

“I was a scholarship student too, for about two school years.”

He shifted towards the open door of his room, looking into Juleka’s empty room as she had spent the night at Rose’s for a sleepover.

“At the time, my dad had left when I was young and my mom’s music career had been in shambles amidst making ends meet for me and Juleka.”

This time Marinette comforted him as she held his hand in sympathy, he smiled back at her.

“I didn’t need to maintain the scholarship by junior year because her music became popular the summer before, but the damage had already taken place.”

He recalled the unread texts from his friends as he worked at the pizza parlor two blocks down or how his stomach growled in fourth period after skipping lunch to finish his homework.

Marinette’s lips formed a circle in comprehension.

He placed a hand atop of hers, “That’s why I can’t hold it against you for whatever happened with Juleka, because I’ve been there too.”

The smooth violin played from the small speaker connected to his phone, alleviating the mood as she shifted closer to him.

Marinette stayed in that position for a while, finding beauty in their connected hands and Luka’s cologne as they found shelter in the ocean blue space.

__________

“You should come over today,” he glanced over at her journal entry, aware that his sister and Marinette shared literature together.

She closed the notebook, tired from the internal debate of perception versus intention, and agreed,

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

She stretched her arms out on the table, placing her face on the cold surface. They hadn’t hung out in awhile, she wanted some advice on the whole Adrien situation too.

Staring at Luka for a few seconds, she realized,

“You're a full-fledged brunette now.”

“Yeah, I’m glad you noticed.”

He smiled as Marinette reached her hand towards the tips of his once blue ends.

She wondered if Adrien would ever dye his hair. He didn’t need to of course, his hair was already gorgeous as it was.

“‘Nette?”

“Oh,” she removed her hand from his hair, “sorry about that!”

“It’s fine,” he smirked at her reaction and a specific blonde in the library.

Marinette’s neck felt hot.

__________

Concurrently, Adrien was eating his school lunch in the cafeteria with Nino and Alya seated in front of him as he poked at his fries.

“Not hungry today?” Nino asked.

“Not really,” he flung a fry carelessly into Alya’s applesauce.

“Watch it, sunshine.”

He ignored Alya and continued to pick at his food, wishing to be in the quiet band room than the obnoxious cafeteria as he saw Kim competitively eating a gross concoction of chicken sliders dunked in chocolate milk in his peripheral vision.

Kim was a scholarship student, he remembered from when they had spent the afternoon at his.

Adrien wondered where she had spent lunch today, likely not the band room.

“Adrien, Adrien, Adrien-” Alya began bugging him.

Could she be in class right now?

“Adrien!”

No, the hallways were normally closed off during lunch so she couldn’t stay there.

“The library!” he exclaimed.

“What-”

“Sorry guys, I have a book to uh,” he wondered what people did in the library, “return, so I’m going to leave first.”

He grabbed his black backpack and ran out the doors of the cafeteria.

“That boy is so out of it.” Alya sighed.

When did Adrien start reading? Nino thought to himself.

Was Adrien going through a late version of puberty? He’d make sure to ask Ms. Mendeleiv in anatomy later today.

__________

Running to the library, Adrien opened the doors loudly, earning him a shush from the librarian as he looked around for a familiar blue-eyed girl.

She wasn’t in the study cubicles or near the computers.

He walked further into the library, spotting her at the table behind the bookshelves.

He raised his hand to wave at her , before also spotting Luka Couffaine sitting beside her.

She seemed close with him. Her fingertips touched his hair, giggling at whatever bullshit he was spouting to her.

Marinette never caught him staring at her, though Luka did.

He stared back at him, then Marinette, and then back to him. Luka smiled with his canines, looking all too knowing.

Adrien felt out of place in the library, as if he stepped in on an intimate moment between the two that he wouldn’t be able to infiltrate on.

He always knew that Luka and Marinette were close, though after Marinette had distanced herself from him and most of their friends, he thought Luka would be included.

He thought those lessons in the band room were one of the few renewed relationships she had.

It stung to realize that her world wasn’t selective to those hours spent in the percussion section.

He turned away and made his way back to the lunchroom.

Luka was brunette, he noted.

__________

The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day.

Marinette walked outside her fifth period and to the front office to sit down on the couches. She closed her eyes as she waited for Luka to arrive. They had made plans to go to his house right after school.

She opened them back up when she realized she wouldn’t be getting an inkling of rest as she heard a group of students make their way down to the front office. She didn’t look to see who it was.

Their faces revealed themselves on the leather black couch in front of her: Nino, Alya, and Adrien.

He stared back at her in silence while his friends watched them awkwardly.

The same seating area where they had once spent hours laughing and giggling about their classes now felt unfamiliar to her.

Alya was quick to push the nostalgia out of the moment as she grabbed Adrien’s forearm,

“Did you finish that episode? We watched it in lit.”

Alya made a show of glancing at Marinette at the mention of their shared literature class.

Marinette looked away, ashamed for some reason.

Adrien took a few seconds to answer, “Oh yeah, I did.”

Alya jabbed his ribs,

“It was good.”

Exasperated with his sudden inability to speak, Alya ran her hands through her hair.

Adrien kept glancing towards Marinette, who refused to look him in the eyes as Nino attempted to catch his attention.

What was up with her?

Marinette seemed off as she fiddled with the ends of her black cardigan covering her uniform.

After a painful ten minutes of attempting eye contact, a tall brunette came over to Marinette. Desperate to leave, she shot up her seat while Luka grabbed her backpack on the floor and left the front office together.

Together. Adrien thought.

Alya gasped the second they left through the front doors,

“Do you think Juleka knows?”

Nino hummed, “Probably not?”

“I’ve got to tell her,” she pulled out her phone before Nino snatched it and shoved it in his pocket.

“What gives?” Alya asked harshly.

“I-just, Marinette’s not even friends with anyone, just let her be, okay? This doesn’t necessarily concern you.” He placated gently.

Alya stood up and yelled, “Juleka’s my friend, if anything, it’s my business the most!”

Nino sighed, “Sure, but you’re not actually doing it for Juleka, are you?”

Alya spluttered and marched out the front office.

“Guess it’s just you and me, wanna go to the arcade? It’s been a hot minute.”

Nino took a second glance at Adrien’s surprised face.

He didn’t know they were a thing.

Marinette never told him that.

Nino patted his shoulder and guided him out the front office. There was nothing Ultimate Mecha Strike IV couldn’t solve, though looking at the state of his friend, he wasn’t sure.

Due to Adrien being home-schooled for a majority of his life, Adrien rarely opened up when he started school.

It took Nino spamming him at the crack of dawn and inviting him numerous times to come over for Adrien to even begin feeling casual with him. With Marinette though, all of that had come with such ease so watching his crush leave with Luka likely hit a bit harder than it would have had it been anyone else.

Adrien’s phone buzzed,

“Marinette: hey, i dont really want to continue the lessons anymore, thanks for teaching me so far though :)”

All of a sudden, it felt like he was back to freshman year, and Marinette was falling further and further away from him.

He was willing to chase after her but he could feel her slipping beyond his reach.

What did he do wrong?

Chapter Text

Marinette looked over to her phone lying on Luka’s duvet, wondering if Adrien had seen it.

Would he respond to it?

It could be weird to respond to a text ending their lessons; there was barely anything to say at this point.

She liked Adrien. She always had. He was one of the closest beings to her that felt like a constant, but she had also liked her friends. They too were once constants in her life before the fiasco of her sophomore year. Suddenly, they all felt variables x, y, and z the moment she couldn’t make every hangout or when the groupchat went silent when she found the time to respond.

Regardless of the ‘pushing away’ she had attempted, her friends had been the ones to cut her off first.

She knew why, obviously. It didn’t mean that it hurt any less. Yet Adrien was different, he was with her when she tried to further herself from everyone. He sat with her in the lunchroom a few times in solidarity and studied with her in the library a few times before too. Though those days lessened one lunch afternoon at a time, and eventually, it became harder to ignore how much Adrien longed to be with his friends.

__________

“Look Adrien, this is the-”

Marinette was cut off by a loud laughter from the table a few feet down.

The table that Adrien normally sat at, spending his time with his friends. He wondered what was so funny that was causing even Alya to snort her applesauce.

He looked longingly over at his friends, and Marinette, ever so aware, noticed and told him,

“I actually forgot about my biology homework. Do you mind if I go to the library?”

Adrien nodded as he raised his barely touched lunch tray to walk with her. She paused and told him,

“Maybe you should finish your lunch?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. I’ll be there in a second.”

She smiled and left the canteen. She had finished her biology homework last night.

Marinette didn’t need to look back to know that he wasn’t going to come sit with her in the library. She didn't want to know if he smiled more with the rest of his friends either.

It’s not like she would know anyways, as that was one of the last days he sat with her.

__________

Luka tapped his guitar, drawing her attention towards him. He raised his eyebrow, prompting her to speak her mind,

“I think I should go.”

Marinette buried her head in her cold hands. Her plan was to talk it out with Luka, yet instead they remained silent for an hour, the latter waiting on the raven-haired girl to finally speak up. She grabbed her phone off his bed and her backpack lying on the fuzzy carpet and walked towards the door.

Luka set his guitar down and got up before she could leave,

“Why are you always running away Marinette?”

She stilled before rushing out the door.

__________

She was not running away.

Marinette sat in her first period literature class and took a second glance at her former friends, attempting to confirm that single fact.

When it came to her friends, okay, she might have run away from that, but when it came to Adrien, she paused, there could be a pattern, possibly.

In any scenario presenting her to fight or flight, she undoubtedly would pick flight. Though that begs the question, why wasn’t anyone else trying to fight for her? Ignoring this fight or flight nonsense, they only enabled her decision, so why would she fight for them?

She closed her notebook, the blue ink was green. She knew she was right.

Finding peace at last, she began to place her materials in her backpack when Rose accidentally bumped into her chair.

Marinette looked over to her. She was wearing a pink suede skirt with white tulips embroidered at the bottom; she had made that skirt for her.

Rose looked away and apologized,

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine.”

Marinette attempted to smile at her, but Rose had already found her way back to her group of girls.

There was a semblance of Marinette in each of them: a keychain on their backpack, a headband, or an article of clothing.

Adrien didn’t have as much of her infiltrated upon him, just particular moments sprinkled throughout the school. It would be easier to leave him if he didn’t hold as much of her with him. She checked her conversation with Adrien one last time until deleting the rest of their messages and setting her phone on do not disturb.

The blue light of the lamps in the classroom uniformly drenched every inch of the room in dread, and still, Marinette felt as though she was the only one bathing in it.

__________

Adrien sat at his lunch table, again, not touching his food much. He could only think of one thing:

Why did Marinette cancel the lessons?

He looked at his mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise on his plastic lunch tray, even Nino’s abnormal sauce combinations weren’t enough to help him ignore the emptiness from those bandroom lunch dates.

Alya and Nino glanced at each other and nodded.

The second she left the table, Nino patted his shoulder,

“You good?”

“Yeah.”

Adrien barely looked him in the eye as he responded.

“You haven’t been eating well, did something happen with your father?”

“No, I’m just not feeling that well.”

Nino hummed and let it go. From experience, Adrien would speak his mind when he felt like it, but Nino could still push for him to speak up a little bit. He decided to try again in anatomy later.

Adrien shoved the rest of his fries and pizza onto Nino’s plate,

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

Nino smiled and nodded at him as he left.

Adrien wasn’t planning on going to the bathroom, instead he walked to the courtyard and sat near the back of the bushes.

He and Marinette had shared a similar moment like this when she had come over that day.

__________

“Adrien?”

“Hm?”

“I always knew you were a trust fund baby, but this is next level old money type shit.”

Adrien’s eyes crinkled at Marinette. Marinette ignored his laughter and looked out the window in his bedroom, giving a clear sight of the rose garden in the back of his mansion.

Her pale hands touched the glass as she looked at the bloom of flowers all over the grass in awe.

He noticed her silence and followed her gaze,

“Oh,” Adrien thought.

He grabbed her hand once touching the window and led her downstairs,

“Wait where-”

He shushed her with his finger on her lips and walked out the door from the kitchen into the garden.

Marinette’s mouth opened in amazement at the stone statue as he continued to lead her to the ivory bench. They sat there together.

“It’s beautiful, Adrien.”

He remained silent for a few minutes, taking in the floral scent of the flowers near him and the patisserie scent emanating from Marinette only a few centimeters apart from him. He took a couple breathes in and out before speaking,

“It’s more painful than anything.”

“Huh?”

“This rose garden. It’s too perfect.”

His breath hitched for a few seconds and Marinette laid a hand over his.

“The statue and the daily maintenance of the roses. It was everything to me when I was younger. I’d play with my mother there,” he pointed at the patches of grass, “and my father would always push me into the water fountain.”

He smiled at the bits of nostalgia before adding, “But now that’s all this is, just a capsule of life three years ago when my mom hadn’t passed.”

Marinette recalled the portrait of his family near the staircase while he spoke. It slowly began to click.

“That stone statue, it just cements my father’s whole idea that we can’t move on. I miss her, but these roses and these benches, they all prevent him from leaving the past behind.”

His fists tightened as he glared at his surroundings. Marinette took him in, realizing she never truly got to see him angry ever since that first meeting in the band room. She wrapped her arms around him.

Adrien hesitated before letting her embrace him and placed his hands on her back and pulled her in closer.

Any other day the burdening scent of the roses enveloped him and him only, but with Marinette, a mix of musky cologne, vanilla, and warmth proved to be enough solace for the both of them.

__________

The wind of the courtyard chilled his skin and shifted his hair as he looked out the windows, students walking to their classes. Everyone seemed to be moving except for him with barely any students seated at the courtyard due to the unexpected cold weather.

A flash of raven colored hair speeding through the hallways caught his eye. Adrien shifted his whole body towards her, did she see him too?

It might’ve been due to that one day in the rose garden or the current scent of fuchsia roses from the courtyard, but something pushed him out the courtyard to follow her.

He ran, ignoring the teachers yelling at him to not enter that hallway during lunch hours. With each step, he caught up to Marinette’s strangely rapid pace,

“Marinette,” he panted, “wait,”

She looked around confused, her back still facing Adrien.

He smiled as he watched her bewildered state, and slowly walked towards her in amusement.

“I’m right here,” he crooned at her as he pulled the handle on her backpack, also pulling her closer to him. Marinette stumbled at the sudden force as Adrien’s arms grabbed her waist to prevent any accidents.

She turned over, her face finally near his. He froze for a few seconds, her silky hair had slightly touched his face from the momentum. He paused to think what it would be like to bring her just a little more closer as his eyes focused below her nose.

__________

Marinette coughed at the few breaths of space between them.

“Oh, sorry.”

Adrien’s arm reached his nape in embarrassment,

“Did you need something?”

She attempted to avoid his eyes. This moment in itself was already enough to make her regret starting those lessons, or if she was being honest, ending those lessons.

“No, no, I just wanted to see you. We haven’t really been able to meet up.”

Marinette raised her eyebrows in suspicion,

“Okay,” she drawled out, “well, I’m going to class.”

She liked him. She liked him too much, but Adrien wouldn't fight for her the way she could so she turned around and began walking to her class, not ready to get her hopes crushed again.

“Cool, I’ll come with.”

Her head turned again in whiplash. What. He was supposed to be running off to his friends or eat lunch or literally anything, why was he following her around? She looked over at him as he matched her pace and smiled back at her.

Huh.

“Wait-”

Adrien quickly cut her off, not letting her tell him to return to lunch,

“You know, I heard that Clara Nightingale is dating someone. I saw it in some celebrity gossip forum.” He rambled on and on about the singer, further confusing Marinette as she wondered where this tangent was coming from. Her confusion won over her dismay at the interaction and decided to let him follow her as she listened to him in amusement.

In her peripheral vision, she saw an arm move behind her. She began to move her head in question,

Adrien exclaimed, “No!”

“Adrien, what?” Her attention redirected back at his tangent.

“I, uh, just remembered that she actually broke up with him.”

“Clara Nightingale?” she asked weakly, unable to understand the direction of their conversation.

“Yup, what a shame right?”

Adrien awkwardly smiled in the silence.

“He’s so weird,” Marinette thought.

She laughed out loud. Perfect, rich, model Adrien was so weird. Adrien smiled at her, albeit in confusion, and laughed too.

Her backpack filled with textbooks and prep books for exams, suddenly felt a lot lighter than usual. She didn’t realize that only Adrien’s left hand was free as they made their way to her fourth period.

__________

Weirdly enough, that wasn’t the first moment in which Adrien would somehow find Marientte. Sometimes in the hallways, sometimes in the library, sometimes even in class, like today.

She had been sitting in her first period literature class, checking through her notebook for the journal check when a hand closed her notebook. She looked up, and lo and behold, Adrien had showed up to her literature class.

“Adrien!” A girl yelled across the classroom; she was pretty sure the voice belonged to Alya Césaire. Adrien simply ignored the call and pulled out a seat beside her.

“Watcha doing?” He flipped through her notebook.

Her eyes widened as she realized the copious amounts of Adrien-themed content that she had written about and snatched it away from him.

He gasped in fake scandal and placed a hand on his chest,

“Are you writing love letters about me? And in your lit composition notebook too?”

“You wish.” She rolled her eyes in fake annoyance.

“Anyways, I got you something.” Adrien held his hands behind his back.

Curiously, she tilted behind him as he attempted to hide the mystery object from her.

“Patience, my little one.”

“Patience my ass, class starts in ten minutes, what is it?”

“I can’t believe I don’t even get a thank you,” he quickly turned at Marinette’s second attempt to catch a glance at the object.

“Adrien!” This time, Marinette was sure that the call came from Alya’s voice, yet again, his ears seemed to fall deaf to her chants.

He laughed at Marinette’s failed attempts with his hands still behind his back as he neared the back of the wall. Her grabby hands embedded with interest as they accidentally reached for his forearms rather than the object.

“It’s ‘cause you’re too small, poor Marinette.” He patted her head in fake sympathy.

She puffed her cheeks in real irritation at this point and went back to her seat.

“Don’t be so upset,” he walked over back to the chair he had pulled out for himself, failing to notice the presence of a specific red-haired individual behind him.

“Ta-da!”

He held a vanilla cold-brew latte in one hand as he attempted jazzy hands with the other.

Her eyes widened,

“Is that for me?”

“Mhm,” he nodded proudly.

She took a large sip and placed her hands on his shoulders, looking a bit startled at her touch.

“You are the love of my life, Adrien Agreste.”

He placed one hand over her shoulder and dramatically paused to say,

“I know.”

She beamed at him. The blue light felt strangely bright today, something more outdoorsy and heated as he shed sunlight while sitting at her normally empty table.

“I’m sure he is, Marinette.”

The pair turned towards Alya whose eyes remained on Marinette.

She smiled her with canines, almost predator-like, and turned to Adrien

“You should’ve gotten me one too, Adrien.”

Marinette’s cheeks turned red in embarrassment for thinking that maybe the latte was something solely for her.

Adrien tilted his head,

“I don’t do that for you though?”

Marinette’s eyes doubled in size, was it really just for her?

Alya ran a hand through her hair exasperatedly, keeping her attention on Adrien now,

“Class starts in a few, you should leave.”

She smiled with a cautionary gleam as Adrien checked his watch and left. He turned back before leaving and messed up her hair before waving bye at Marinette.

“Bye!” she responded shyly.

The second he left, Alya’s hazel eyes turned sharp towards her before returning to her table. Marinette took a second to look back at that group, realizing that each girl had been staring at her since Adrien had entered the room.

What was that all about?

__________

Befuddled by the strange peak of Adrien in her life, she found herself back in the band room where things had started.

She hummed along to a few of the old pieces that they had learned together as her fingertips touched the shiny bells, each fingernail initiating a small ring into the empty room. There were quite a few memories made in this room regarding a certain blonde-headed boy.

She didn’t feel that mad about it though, rather she was scared for what it would be like for it all to end. Adrien was back to being the peak of her days, and frankly speaking, she wasn’t even sure how he’d been able to find her considering their lack of shared classes.

She didn’t want it to end.

A loud chime blasted as Adrien pressed a wooden mallet to the bells. His body right behind hers, almost like the first time they had met near the snare drums a couple feet away.

“Adrien!” she exclaimed as her hands grabbed her ears at the noise.

“What?” his breath wavered a bit.

He was panting, she noticed. Had he been looking for her?

He placed his elbow on her shoulder for support,

“Where have you been? I looked everywhere for you.”

He had been.

The corners of her lips tilted upwards, happy that she was right.

A few footsteps disturbed the moment, as Adrien moved in urgency. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her underneath the covers of the marimba. He crouched over her, as she sat between his legs.
The footsteps came to a crescendo as Marinette looked at him waiting for an answer. Adrien, clearly too frazzled to notice her, led to her finally asking,

“What’s going on?”

He placed a hand over her mouth to silence her and whispered,

“I may or may not have stopped asking Ms. Tikki for permission to use the band room during lunch.”

She removed his hand off from her mouth,

“Which one?” she asked urgently.

He scratched his head.

“Adrien! She’s a stickler for rules! You of all people should know that!”

He placed his hand back on her mouth, fearing the band director would hear them. He mouthed,

“I do know!”

She placed her hand on her head before Adrien pulled her in closer near him,

She let out a muffled noise from his large hands,

“Just in case, she sees us,” he whispered back at her, growing conscious of her back pressed into him and his hands touching her lips. The shifting made a slight noise, and the footsteps came to a still.

“Is someone in the band room?”

“No way, Tikki always keeps the room closed during lunch,” a female voice called out as their footsteps seemed to soften.

“What are we here for anyways?”

“My sheet music, duh, I left it on some stand when the sub came in the other day.”

The other voice groaned, “Alya! Couldn’t we have waited until lunch was over? We have band fourth period, you know that right?”

“Nino, no,” she moved around distractedly.

“That freshman beside me always steals copies of my music,” she finally spotted her music, “but not this time!”

Nino looked over to her hands, raising her sheets in victory, “You know you could just make more copies of it in the library?”

“It’s not the same. He should figure out how to organize his crap instead of stealing mine all the time. I’m tired of that bitch anyways.”

“Alya, one day you will end up killing him.”

“Nino, you don’t get it. I don’t have a nice Adrien Agreste in my section, instead I have annoying flutists trying to sabotage each other for the solo part for our next band concert.”

She shoved her music sheets into her folder and glanced back at Nino,

“Ready to go?”

Nino had paused at the marimba looking at the weird crinkle of its cover.

Alya walked beside him,

“You okay?” she softly asked.

“Yeah, I mean I’m fine. I’m just worried.”

“Oh?” she questioned before realizing, “oh.”

“Adrien, right?”

Nino only hummed in response before verbalizing his thoughts,

“I feel like something’s happened. I don’t even know if it’s good or bad though because he’s always running around the school like a maniac.”

Alya snorted,

“Well, it might be Marinette related.”

“What? Marinette, how’s she related to this?”

Alya recalled that morning in AP Literature,

“Well, he seems to surprise her a lot, it happened a few times in my lit class, maybe it happens more often than that.”

Nino froze in shock,

“Seriously?”

“I am as serious about this as I am with killing the freshmen in my section.”

Nino took off his cap in disbelief,

“I did not see that coming.”

“Eh,” Alya adjusted his hair before placing his cap back on him, “it’s not entirely unreasonable.”

Marinette stilled in the position with Adrien holding her tightly underneath the covers.

Her eyes closed in silent pleading. No, this would not happen in front of Adrien Agreste. No, it definitely would not.

“I mean,” Alya held off for a second before deciding to let Nino in on the secret, “Marinette’s kinda, y’know like towards Adrien.”

She raised her eyebrows, attempting to signal the message to Nino.

“Like what?”

Adrien shifted his ears towards their direction, failing to notice Marinette’s panicked eyes.

“Alya, I don’t do girl code, just say it.”

She sighed at his incompetence,

“She likes him, there I said it-”

Adrien quickly registered her words, feeling his body go numb. He smiled like an idiot underneath the covers; Marinette liked him? The Marinette that was in his arms, that Marinette liked him?

Within the one second of Adrien’s body loosening itself at the indirect confession. Marinette leapt out of his grasp and moved past the black covers and sped towards the doors of the band room to exit.

“Marinette! Wait!”

Adrien attempted to call for her as she left for the hallways.

Both Alya and Nino stood there, unsure what to make of the miraculous appearance of both Adrien and Marinette in the band room.

Nino quickly grabbed Adrien’s arm, preventing him from leaving,

“Adrien what is going on?”

“She- I,” he flailed Nino’s arm off of him and looked at the doors, “I don’t have time for this.”

Marinette had victoriously run away from him almost every chance she could, but this time, Adrien wasn’t planning on letting her win. He dropped his backpack on the floor of the band room and sprinted towards her direction.

There was absolutely no way in hell he’d let sophomore year repeat itself all over again.

Chapter Text

Realistically, Marinette never imagined that she would ever confess her affections to Adrien, especially since most of her nights consisted of her stuffy bedroom, textbooks, and unfinished pieces. However, it would be a lie to say that she never entertained the idea of possibly leaving a heart shaped note on his music stand in band or whispering something a bit promiscuous in his ears during lunch, yet none of those imaginary confessions ever amounted to reality.

Though now she was here, running in the hallways from a blonde boy who was most likely faster than her, and she could confidently say that she wished she had attempted one of those million imaginary confessions so she wouldn’t be on the run from her crush.

None of those romantic confessions ever involved him hearing about it from a third party, not to mention that the said third party was once her favorite person.

As her footsteps began to dim in pace, she turned her head as to where to go. She decided on the front office and restarted the crescendo in her steps.

Maybe she could just avoid the situation altogether. If she only attended classes, made sure to not stop anywhere between the five minute breaks between classes, and ate lunch in the bathroom, then she wouldn’t encounter any of those faces, Alya, Nino, Adrien.

In fact, after today, this could all be old news. Those secret lunch lessons and random hangouts would finally be over, and she could revert to her usual routine.

It didn’t sound as enticing as she thought it would be.

Finally taking the second to register her emotions, she reached the front office and firmly held the handle.

With the last bit of energy she had, she pushed the door, leaking a bit of light.

She sighed in relief, ready to take in a new environment that was, in short terms, not school.

And in a mere second, the light that seemed like her very last lifeline came to a close as a large hand gripped over hers on the handle, forcing the door shut.

Marinette froze.

The familiar cologne flooded her senses as she felt him on her back.

“Marinette,” his voice panted from their chase while his other hand pressed on the door, trapping her in.

She didn’t dare turn to face him.

What would she even say?

“Yes, I do like you, truthfully the word ‘like’ puts my feelings to shame, I can spot you in a crowd of two hundred people, my eyes are drawn to you wherever you are, and being with you feels like the weight of the world is off my shoulders.”

Though for all the moments when Adrien was truly the sun of her universe, she recalled all the strings pulled on her, education, ex-friends, money, anxiety of the future, and a million more. The most important string, of course, was that he didn’t like her in that way.

So instead, she decided with a soft whisper,

“Let me go.”

It was so quiet she wasn’t quite sure that he heard her until he spoke,
“Marinette, please-”

“I don’t want to do this right now.”

He grunted with his golden hair beginning to fall out of its place as his head continued to hang over hers.

__________

“When?”

Marinette finally turned around to face him.

“What?”

“If not now, then when will we?”

He was met with silence once again.

Her eyes still hadn’t met his, and Adrien was quickly finding himself annoyed.

The love of his life was standing in front of him, and finally when he knows he has a shot, she’s pleading for him to leave.

He ran a hand through his hair to remove the few front pieces sticking to his forehead. In doing so, he left her an opening.

She could run if she wanted to.

He waited.

She didn’t.

He took that moment to break the tension that had been building from not only the chase but the very moment they met.

He gently caressed her face to meet his eyes.

A deep blue set of irises finally laid upon him, staring at him imploringly as they grew more and more aware of the mere inches between their faces.

“Marinette,” he breathed her in before continuing, “I like you.”

Her bluebell eyes widened in size before she smacked his hand off her face.

He wasn’t sure what to make of her reaction. He never imagined her to be so, angry?

She pointed a finger at him in an accusing manner,

“No, you do not.”

He grabbed her pointer finger in response,

“Uh, yes, I do.”

She flicked his hand off and crossed her arms.

“No.”

“Yes!”

This time he ran both his hands through his hair, what was even happening at this point?

She tightened her arms,

“That’s just not possible. I would’ve known if you did, so no, you do not like me.”

She turned back around ready to leave the building, before Adrien grabbed her shoulders and pressed her back into the door.

The previous anger in her eyes molded into surprise.

“Marinette, I like you.”

The stunned Marinette reverted back to anger,

“Not this again,” she rolled her eyes.

“I do!”

He was yelling at this point, so Marinette did too.

“Prove it!”

He laughed at the absurdity of it all, only Marinette would want evidence that he liked her.

If that was what it would take, then he would gladly present his case to her.

He let go of her shoulders and tilted her chin upwards facing him, perhaps shock was the only way she’d listen to him.

“I like you. I have liked you since last year when we met in band. I like you so much I’ve built a seventh sense just for Marinette, the girl I’ve been crushing on for months.”

She opened her mouth in shock, and Adrien quickly shushed her by placing his thumb on her lips.

He whispered,

“I’m not done.”

She felt ablaze as he unpaused,

“I find myself listening to Clara Nightingale, a singer I hate so I can talk to you about your favorite artist. I roam around the halls hoping to find you, and I find new coffee drinks at cafes so I can surprise you with them.”

He moved his thumb from her lips to her cheek.

“Marinette, I like you so very much. You can’t not believe me.”

__________

She had never seen such love in that boy’s eyes, and to think that all that devotion was meant for her was an entirely different conversation.

Adrien. He liked her.

Her face bloomed red, she did believe him.

He lazily smiled at her as she slowly grasped every sentence he voiced, clinging on to the deeper intention behind each.

She fidgeted her left hand near her skirt, before Adrien noticed and held it in his own,

“Any other questions, concerns?”

He softly smiled at her, ready to answer every doubt she had if it meant she’d give him a chance.

She murmured something,

“Huh?”

“The lunchroom.”

“What about it?”

She moved her right hand in a flailing motion,

“It’s embarrassing-”

“No,” he grabbed her other hand too now, “it is not, just tell me. I won’t laugh I promise.”

“Fine,” she paused and stared back at Adrien, “well if you want to know so badly-”

“I do,” he grinned harder, “I’m glad you’re starting to understand.”

She didn’t attempt staring at him or else she’d forget what to say,

“Last year.”

“Yeah?”

“We used to eat lunch together, just me and you.”

He nodded in agreement.

“But you always looked at your friends at the other table and I know that you wanted to be there, not with me.”

For the first time, he was the stunned one.

“Actually this is probably stupid I’m-”

“No, it isn’t. I,” he exhaled, “just didn’t know how wrong you could be.”

She tilted her head sideways in confusion.

“I always looked there because I thought how nice it would be to see you with them. You were already going through so much and I knew that Alya was your world back then, so I thought you might have better support if you ate with them too.”

Marinette wasn’t sure how much more crimson she could get.

“If anything, I should be asking you about that. You never showed up after the first few days of eating lunch together. I waited for you at our table for weeks.”

Adrien held his tongue,

“Really, I’ve been waiting for you this entire year.”

He wasn’t sure if it’d fit the conversation.

They could finally be together though, that was for sure.

__________

Marinette looked at her hands, still intertwined in his. The fever of the moment was dying and all those strings rushed to push her backwards.

“Still, we can’t.”

“Why?”

She freed herself from his hands exasperatedly,

“Because we just can’t! Your friends hate me, I don’t have time, I’m always sprinting to study, work, or whatever. I’d be so terrible to you, don’t you get that?”

“I do, but we can find time and work on our friends. We can, Marinette.”

She simply shook her head in disbelief.

Adrien took a second to study her, her scrunched eyebrows, the way she pushed away from him ferociously,

“You like me, Marinette,” he stated, “why are you doing all of this?”

“You deserve someone to spend all their time with you, someone easy; I can’t be that person for you.”

“I don’t want easy, I want you, difficult or not.”

She could view Alya and Nino in her peripheral vision. They managed to find them amidst the length of their confession slash debate of a conversation. She didn’t focus on how Alya could’ve seemed angry or Nino might’ve been disappointed because aside from them, Adrien was here.

Adrien was easy even if she was difficult. He slipped into her life naturally, occupying every corner of her brain without fail. She found herself skeptical of everything and anything he spouted, but for some reason it didn’t matter.

Had it ever?

It was him, the boy of her dreams asking her out, so if he claimed they could cut every string pushing on her, then she would believe him.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay, let’s date or-”

Adrien immediately grabbed her waist, lifting her into a spin as her hands moved to his shoulders in surprise.

“Adrien! We’re still at school!”

He grinned like an idiot as his blonde hair flew and then delicately placed her back down.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long. You have no idea.”

“I have too.” She looked at him in wonder: he was all hers.

His blonde hair, his emerald eyes, his soft pink lips.

“Mine,” she thought.

His hands remained on her waist as he leaned in,

“Want more proof?”

She didn’t have time to respond, as his lips softly pressed hers. His hand held her cheek as he moved closer to her, while her hands settled back onto his shoulders. It was a faint warmth shared between the two, nothing intense, simply a reminder of the light they had shed in each other’s lives.

They opened their eyes and took a step back.

Adrien scratched his nape,

“We should do that again sometime.”

“Yeah,” Marinette replied dazedly.

“For proof?”

She hummed, still out of it from the chaos of a single day.

“Get a room!”

Nino yelled at the two.

She quickly snapped out of her stupor and looked over at Nino and, low and behold, Alya.

The day’s true catalyst.

Her prediction of Alya being angry was indeed correct, but there was also some regret and possibly even sadness?

She wasn’t sure of what the rest of the school year would be like but glancing back at Adrien who squeezed her hand tightly, she at least knew that she wouldn’t have to go through it alone again.

In her millions of imaginary confessions, she can confidently say it wasn’t meant to happen like this but with the sun at last on her axis, she didn’t need it to be. Whether he found out from her ex-best friend or had Marinette herself confess as they played the marimba with their blue yarn mallets, she would have wanted him either way.