Work Text:
Prompt: “Hey now, I never said we had to get married. I’d just like to spend my life with you.”
Marinette grinned at Adrien who had whipped cream on his cheek. Alya, the culprit on how exactly it had gotten there, was cackling with Nino, the provider of the weapon.
“This is not funny guys,” Adrien pouted, whipping off whipped cream. It splat on the floor which caused his lips to twitch up but he struggled to keep up his sad cat pout for sympathy.
“You’re right,” Marinette patted his shoulder as she walked by, “it’s hilarious.”
Adrien glared at her before they all dissolved into giggles.
“Ok ok back to work guys,” Alix said as they rolled their eyes, a smile tugging at their lips too.
“You got it boss!” Alya cheered, heading back to the cup stack and pulling one off for the next order.
“Psht, boss. Definitely not,” Alix rolled their eyes.
“I don’t know,” Marinette said thoughtfully, “I think you’d make a pretty great boss, actually.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Alix punched her companion's shoulder.
“And we already have a great boss in you, Mari!” Nino chirped.
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Marinette grinned, high fiving Nino as she made her way to the register.
Alya rolled her eyes from the back where she was making coffee, “hey that’s my boyfriend. Get your own.”
“She doesn’t have to,” Adrien grinned mischievously at her.
“Shut it you.”
“Ohhh did you get with the guy!?” Alix asked excitedly.
“ The guy?” Nino asked.
“The guy who comes in all the time,” Alya answered for them, “the one who has more bags than Walmart.”
“That doesn’t make sense Alya,” Adrien informed her.
“It totally does. Dude clearly doesn’t sleep.”
“That’s not what he meant,” Nino grinned, “But yeah I know who you’re talking about. You're dating him, Mari?”
“What’s it to you?” Marinette turned away from them, idly brushing invisible crumbs from the counter.
Gasps sounded across the room as everyone turned towards her.
“THAT’S NOT A DENIAL!” Alya squealed.
“Oh they’re totally dating, dudes!” Nino elbowed Adrien in the side who smiled widely.
“Are you?” Adrien directed the question towards Marinette.
“What’s going on here?”
Everyone turned toward the blonde who was removing her sunglasses, the previously unnoticed bell finishing its jingle as it slowly shut behind her.
“Did you know that Marinette's dating that one regular?” Alix called from where they’d boosted themselves up on the counter to sit on it.
Chloe blinked at the people cluttered behind the counter, everyone silent waiting for her reaction. She looked towards Marinette, disbelief colouring her face. The other girls' lips twitched up into a half smirk as she shrugged. Chloe turned her piercing blue eyes back on the others.
“You guys didn’t know?”
Everyone's mouths dropped.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
“YOU KNEW?”
“You didn’t?” She rolled her eyes and pushed the counter up, joining them in the back, hanging up her jacket that she had tossed over her shoulder.
“Gatekeeping much, Chloe?” Adrien glared.
She shrugged unapologetically, “Not my fault you haven’t been paying attention for the past two years.”
The cafe was suddenly dead still, no one moved, no one spoke, no one dared to even breathe.
Chloe noticed the shift in atmosphere and scanned the shocked faces of her coworkers, “What?”
“What the fuck do you mean two years? ” Alya broke the silence.
“We have not been dating for two years,” Marinette rolled her eyes, “you guys are so dramatic.”
“That’s a relief,” Nino sighed.
“They’ve just been living together for two years,” Chloe chipped in.
“Again, WHAT?!” Alya yelled.
“Seriously, Mari?” Adrien looked at her, betrayal shining in his sad wet cat eyes.
“I told you that I had a roommate?” Marinette quickly tried to backtrack.
“You didn’t say it was him though!”
“It didn’t seem important!”
“What do you mean!”
“We’ve been to your apartment, where has he been?” Nino pitched in before the chaos could rise to flames too high for him to try and put out.
“He doesn’t really live there, it’s just there for when he needs to get away.”
“So a safe house?”
“Kind of yeah,” Marinette picked at her nails as she shrugged.
Chloe rolled her eyes, “you all are soooo dramatic.”
“You’re only saying that because you knew!” Adrien accused.
“Are you actually dating then?” Alya asked.
The bell chimed again, drawing the attention to the door.
Oh yeah, they had work to do. Breakfast rush was a thing.
In came a man with a pale green hoodie and pants with holes in the knees, “Are you guys open?”
Marinette cleared her throat before anyone else could chim in, “Yes we are, come in.”
He nodded and it quickly trickled to a wave as in followed a ton of other people. The man went straight to a table rather than the counter to order, leaving the rest of the crowd to line up and the rush began. The prior argument was put to the back of their minds, temporarily- much to Marinette’s relief- as they busied themselves preparing coffee for the many customers that needed refreshments and a shot (or five) of caffeine before they started the grueling task of starting their own work day.
The rush seemed to take longer than it usually did, but by 10:30 it had slowed into a calm one that allowed them to relax a bit. Once all the occupants had already ordered and the line was finally empty, that’s when the man came up.
“Hey!”
Alya, who’d taken over for Marinette half an hour ago, glared at him, “What would you like?”
He faltered in his steps, smile dropping off his face as he narrowed his eyes, “What’s with the hostility?”
“I’ll take over from here,” Marinette shoved Alya away from the register and smiled, “your usual?”
“Yes please.”
“And while you're drinking your usual, why don’t you tell us about how you usually kiss Mari!” Alya grumbled, loudly enough for the blue eyed man to hear.
“What?”
“Alya you suck at this,” Adrien patted her back as he walked past.
“Don’t care,” She moped, “I just can’t believe that after all this time, you’d keep the fact that you’re dating Marinette from us!”
Tim Drake, regular at Cookies and Cheese Cafe, blinked at Alya in confusion.
Chloe snorted from the back where she was heating a croissant. Whether for a customer or herself, they weren’t sure nor did they particularly care.
“Alya… we weren’t subtle?” Tim spoke slowly.
“What?”
“He’s confused how you didn’t notice the lip locking across the counters and Marinette leaving her station to go sit with him and the fact that she takes off her lunch shift for a daily date with him where they share a banana nut muffin,” Chloe called.
Alya looked between her best friend and her apparent boyfriend whom she apparently had entirely missed every single sign that they were in fact dating, “really?”
“Yeah,” Tim gave her an easy grin, “We’ve been going out for about three months now, but we always were in plain sight so we weren’t exactly hiding from you guys. At least not intentionally.”
“Honest;y, we thought you guys had known and were waiting for you to bring it up. And on the off chance you didn’t, we wanted to see how long it would take you to realize,” Marinette smiled.
Adrien shook his head mockingly, “I can’t believe you tricked us.”
“Not directly.”
“Still counts.”
“We’re happy for you two though,” Nino grinned.
There was a murmur of agreement across their group as they said their congratulations to the new couple.
They then went back to work as the day was bound to progress, more customers shuffling in for their dose of drugs.
Soon it was Marinette’s break, and just as Chloe said, she went and sat with Tim with a banana nut muffin in hand and they looked disgustingly in love where they sat across from each other talking as if they didn’t have any other care nor responsibility in the world.
“Why don’t we do that sometime, Nino?” Alya asked her boyfriend.
“Should definitely take a page from their book,” Nino agreed without protest or jealousy.
“I’m going to give Marinette some coffee,” Adrien said as he passed them by, not waiting for comments, but he swore he could hear someone protest that he should leave the couple alone.
He wasn’t one for listening though.
“Hey now,” Tim’s voice was calm but firm with the ever present edge of caring still lacing it like honey sweetening tea, “I never said we should get married. I’d just like to spend my life with you.”
Adrien paused, the condensation on the cup of iced coffee- loaded with enough caramel to kill a God, exactly how Marinette liked it- making his hand a bit slippy as the droplets fell to the floor.
“Why don’t you move in full time then? You basically gave the apartment to me. We could…” Marinette trailed off, nerves drenching her voice causing it to trickle away.
Tim hummed gently, a hand reaching out to cover hers, prompting her to continue.
“We could make it ours ?”
Tim gave her a blinding smile and Adrien found his heart souring with joy for them, despite the smile not being for him nor this conversation being anything he should really be listening to. Adrien didn’t hold anything against Marinette for not telling them. The fact that she had been staying in Tim’s apartment for so long without a word to them did hit a bit hard but he understood why He really did. Marinette had initially been struggling to pay rent while also feeding herself and going to school. It was all a lot for her to handle, her job here with a cafe she owned herself on top of that made her overly stressed and left her with barely any time. No one one day her mood shifted dramatically. Adrien was ashamed to say that he just thought she finally got laid- and by Red Robin which he had caught her flirting with before no less.
He was really happy for her and that she found someone who was there for her and was willing to be that someone special.
But that did not mean that he wouldn’t make fun of her.
Tim pulled the muffin apart, crumbs spilling all over the napkin he had laid out beforehand so they didn’t get all over the table, offering the other half to Marinette who took it with a lovestruck grin that could light up the room better than even the sun.
He turned on his heel and walked back, opting to put the coffee in the fridge for her to drink later.
He’d save his mocking for later.