Chapter Text
Grey, angry-looking clouds engulfed the city, casting a shadow-like blanket of darkness over everything. The very sky itself seemed to be emanating the aura of a soon-to-be downpour, as if threatening the people below, daring them to take a step outside. Marinette turned away from the window, walking past the cozy-looking couch in the living room, and into the small entryway of her home. She opened the closet door and reached in for her raincoat, knowing that rain would be imminent.
She had woken up late this morning, feeling as though she hadn't slept a wink. An Akuma the night before had taken up a large chunk of her homework time, meaning she had to stay up longer than she would have liked to get it done. Her mother and father were in the bakery downstairs; she knew one of her parents would be up to check on her if she waited any longer to leave, and that she would be late for class.
Her hand stopped midway into the closet. She didn't see her raincoat.
Where is it? When was the last time she wore it again? It hasn't rained in a few weeks, actually, the weather has been great lately. This impending storm was very out of season for the area. Where would she have put it? Marinette hesitated as she stared into the closet. Worried and a bit overwhelmed with a decision, and unsure of what to do, she switched between reaching for a different coat, and drawing her hand away and looking behind her several times. Eventually, she steals herself; if she had gotten up on time she could have searched for her raincoat. But, she's already running late as it is; she needs to leave now or she'll miss homeroom.
Grabbing and pulling on a significantly less waterproof hoodie, a dark green one with a small black cat paw print embroidered on the top left that she had designed and sewn herself, and her backpack, Marinette quickly left through the front door and headed down the stairs. Speed walking through the bakery and out the front door, Marinette threw a hurried goodbye to her parents over her shoulder.
Stepping through the threshold of the entranceway, the door closing behind her, Marinette pulled the hoodie a little tighter to her body to fight off the strong wind. She hadn't noticed it was this windy when looking out the window, too distracted by how grey the clouds were. It was so dark out even though the sun should be fully out by now, making it feel more like dawn than the morning it was.
A grey filter covered her world like a badly colour-graded indie movie that forgot that even when life sucked, that didn't mean you suddenly lost the ability to see outside of muted shades of grey. Judging by the way everything looked now, she should probably re-evaluate all those movies she made fun of. Including the Batman movies; she'll have to apologize to Alya and Nino; maybe it was realistic for Gotham to look so grey that even a dog could see the movie as the director intended.
Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Marinette pulled her sleeves over her fingers to combat the wind, grabbed the straps of her backpack, and started speed-walking her way to school.
As if God himself had been told she had just started her trek to school, a loud and nearly ground-shaking bang of thunder rang off into the air.
Not half a second later the most intense rainstorm Marinette swears she has ever seen swept across her like a curtain, instantly soaking through her hoodie. The wind whipped more violently, and Marinette sped up her footsteps, running to the school in a full sprint that would put the track team to shame (if they had a track team, so, she guesses maybe it would just put Kim and Alix to shame).
Marinette can see the school ahead, kicking herself into an even faster sprint, motivated with her dry salvation in sight. Bursting through the front door, she quickly noticed that no one was around.
“'Shoot, it must be later than I thought, homeroom’s gonna start any second,” she mumbled to herself in a panicked huff.
She ran up the stairs, using every muscle she could think of to stop herself from slipping due to her less-than-ideal, soaked black flats.
She fails… almost instantly. Lurching forward, her left knee hits the corner of the next step, she shoots her arms out to stop from face-planting, and without giving herself even a moment to register how much that hurt, she crawled up the stairs like some sort of demon spider on all-fours. Making a sharp right turn at the top of the stairs, and nearly falling again, Marinette booked it full speed in the direction of her class. Stopping just short of the door, Marinette calmly pushes into the classroom with a sigh of relief. She made it before the bell…
Huh?
Someone was sitting in her seat?
Taking a second to catch her breath and rub the water out of her eyes, Marinette focused her attention on the chair next to Alya. Her Chair. Well, not 'officially' as the class had no assigned seats, but there was an unspoken understanding that everyone had their preferred seat. People always sat in the same place every day, only switching things up during group assignments. Or that one notable exception when Nathanial had a bad headache, and switched places with Mylene to be closer to the board. But even then, Nathaniel had asked Mylene to switch with him for the day; he didn't just sit in her spot on a whim.
Lila, the newest member of their class, was sitting in her seat and chatting pleasantly with Alya and Nino. In front of her sat her pen, pencil, and eraser; she had a water bottle placed out of the way on the corner of the desk; and her backpack was sitting open on the floor next to her feet.
It was easy to tell she wasn’t just sitting there until class started, she was fully unpacked and ready for the day.
Marinette made her way up to the desk and paused next to it. Alya noticed her and cut off whatever she was about to say to Lila, turning her full attention to her soaked friend.
"Morning Girl, jeez you're cutting it close this time, class is about to start,” Alya said by way of greeting.
"Yeah dude, and you're soaked!" Nino added on.
Marinette's answering sentence came out all in one, cumbersome burst.
"Ahh I know, I totally stayed up too late last night doing homework, so I ended up oversleeping this morning, and then I couldn't find my raincoat, and I had no time to go looking for it, and then, of course, it had to start raining harder than life out there!" Marinette took a breath, and dejectedly said, "It's been a disaster.” Alya and Nino nodded their heads in sympathy.
Turning to Lila, Marinette gave a small smile before addressing the Italian.
"Morning, do you think you could move to your seat? I think I beat world records with how fast I sprinted here, not even mentioning whatever happened back there on the stairs, and all I kinda want to do is sit down and collapse into a pitiful, wet, little miserable heap at my desk,” Marinette tried to request kindly.
Lila smiled brightly at Marinette.
"Good Morning Marinette, actually, since there aren't any assigned seats in class, I thought I might sit here today, and Alya, Nino and I were talking so I don't really want to leave before we can finish our conversation..." Lila trailed off at the end, looking up at Marinette expectantly.
She was right, there weren't any assigned seats, and Marinette couldn't put up a fuss or demand she move back to her own seat, no matter how much she might want to. She quickly looked around to gauge what everyone else was thinking, but no one else seemed to be paying attention to her conversation with Lila, sans Alya and Nino. Alya hesitated for a moment before glancing away from Lila and back to Marinette.
"It's just for today girl, we'll meet up at lunch"
Before Marinette could say anything, the bell rang, and Mme. Bustier walked into the classroom telling everyone to get into their seats and to quiet down for homeroom. Marinette quickly turned away from her friends and made her way to the back of the class. She pulled off her soaked hoodie and hung it on the back of her chair before sitting in the empty seat behind Nathaniel.
'This is fine, it's only for one day...'
Stifling a yawn with the back of her hand, Marinette glanced back longingly at her seat next to Alya. She knew it shouldn't be a big deal. Moving seats for one day wasn't going to suddenly ruin her friendship with Alya, but she couldn't help but feel a bit wronged. Lila had so casually disregarded the status quo, and no one else seemed to care or even notice. Maybe she was the weird one for letting this upset her... but she couldn’t help it; it had been such a shitty morning, and all she wanted to do was get some comfort from her friend and maybe complain about the weather a little bit. She felt she deserved to complain about the weather a little bit.
Marinette moved her gaze to Mme. Bustier, giving the morning announcements to the class. With a melancholy sigh, Marinette reached up for her hair. It really was soaked, and the wind had totally tangled and messed up her usually perfect pigtails; she could only imagine how bad it must look. Deciding it would be best to undo her hair and let it air dry, Marinette started to wring out her hair and take out the now tangled elastics.
Just as she was finger combing and fluffing out her hair to give it its best fighting chance, the classroom door burst open, effectively stilling Marinette's ministrations, and cutting off the teacher mid-announcement. Staring at green eyes, and similarly soaked, blond hair, Marinette finally realized that Adrien had not been in his seat when she had come in.
"Sorry I'm late Mme. Bustier, I overslept this morning, and then the rain made the traffic worse than usual" Adrien gave his excuse, scratching the back of his neck.
"That's fine Mr. Agrest, you're lucky you only missed morning announcements. Please, take your seat.” Mme. Bustier waved towards the desks, smiling at the boy.
Adrien turned towards where she motioned, ruffling his hair a bit to disperse the clinging water droplets, before taking a step towards his usual seat. Only to briefly pause when he noticed there was someone different sitting in the seat behind his. Quickly registering it as the newest student, Lila, who paused what she was saying to Alya to shoot him a smile, he looked around to see if he could spot his missing friend. Catching sight of her sitting in the back by herself, he briefly noticed that she was even more soaked than he was, and looking a little miserable. He made a split-second decision, and with a quick nod and smile to Nino, he headed for the empty seat next to Marinette..
Lila had a small disapproving frown on her face when Adrien walked by, not that anyone noticed.
"Morning Marinette, you get caught in the rain too?"
Marinette, having been distracted by Adrien's entrance, quickly pulled her fingers out of her hair and subtly tried to unstick her bangs from her forehead.
"Good morning Adrien, Ahh haha yeah, I also overslept this morning, I had homework last night, and ended up staying up too late... couldn't find a raincoat this morning and got caught in the rainstorm while making my way." Marinette was feeling pretty low energy by this point, and she was a bit too tired to put on a happier tone when answering Adrien.
Adrien gave his friend a sort of pitiful look, he couldn't help but feel bad for her. He could understand how she felt.
"Yeah me too with the homework. I was lucky, I only had to run in the rain between the car and the school, you really got soaked though, aren't you cold?"
"I'm okay, I'll put my sweater back on once it's dried" She gave a weak thumbs up and an even weaker smile.
Adrien glanced at the dark green sweater hanging on the back of her chair. "It might dry faster if you hang it closer to the heater.”
"Yeah, you're right, I didn't think of that.”
Marinette mustered up the effort needed to stand up again. Grabbing her hoodie, she made her way to the back of the classroom. There was a table sitting in the far right corner of the room, and right underneath it was the classroom heater. Pulling the table slightly away from the heater, Marinette placed her sweater on the edge of the table, letting it hang directly in front of the warm vent.
She turned to head back to her desk when she noticed Lila and Alya chatting among themselves. She was still a bit annoyed at the situation, but she felt better with Adrien having decided to sit with her. At least she wouldn’t be spending the day sitting by herself. She and Adrien had been getting closer lately, too. Marinette had decided that, yeah, she liked Adrien, but nothing would happen if she continued to be a stuttering mess around him. She wanted to be his friend, if not anything else.
She started treating him like any other friend and not like a boy she had a crush on. In return, he treated her like one of his friends, not like a friendly acquaintance as he had been doing before. The best part of that? Adrien was funny. Funnier than he had any right to be. Now that they could talk like normal people, now that Marinette had taken the pressure off herself and allowed herself to be his friend first and foremost, she realized she really hadn't known him all that well before.
Adrien was kind, sure, but he was so much more than that. He was witty and mischievous. He could poke fun at you, but you never felt insulted. He would banter with you like there was no tomorrow, always keeping you on your toes. Marinette was getting to know the real Adrien, and she was so thankful for it. He was her friend now, and she couldn't help but feel giddy at the thought. She was now genuinely enjoying his company past the superficial crush she had before, and she felt like he was genuinely enjoying her company now too.
So yeah, Marinette still had a crush on Adrien, but more than that, she was now friends with Adrien, and she was starting to suspect that she would be okay if that never changed. She treasured that more than she realized she would.
So with Adrien sitting next to her, she was a little bit happier and a little less annoyed with the day.
Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she moved back towards her chair.
Sitting back down, Marinette gave Adrien a genuine smile. He smiled back before turning away to dig through his backpack. With the chaos of the morning having finally caught up to her; Marinette crossed her arms on the desk before laying her head down on them, keeping her face turned towards Adrien. He was taking out supplies for the day and placing them on the desk in front. Stifling another small yawn, Marinette spoke again, grabbing Adrien’s attention.
"Thanks, it'll dry way faster now"
"What can I say, I'm full of great ideas" Adrien wiggled his eyebrows at Marinette as if daring her to disagree with him.
"You’re full of something, alright, just because your two working brain cells finally decided to start communicating with each other doesn't mean you should be praised as some sort of genius,” Marinette joked.
"Oof, ouch, my feelings," Adrien dramatically clutched his chest. "You’re so mean when you’re tired.”
He shot her an amused smile.
"I'm a ray of sunshine" Marinette deadpanned before sighing out, "If only I could do the same for my hair, to make it dry faster.”
At the mention of her hair, Adrien finally noticed it was out of its usual pigtails, instead sitting loosely, if not a bit wetly, against her shoulders and folded arms.
"I don't know, I think your hair looks good like this" Adrien reached out and picked up a small strand of wet hair before smacking it against her cheek, where the hair stuck to her face, before not so subtly trying to stifle his giggles.
Marinette blew out a small, amused breath through her nose.
Mme. Bustier clapped her hands together, gaining back the attention of all those in class who were distracted during morning announcements, including Adrien and Marinette.
"Alright everyone, that's the end of morning announcement, let's say we get into the lesson now.”
Marinette glanced at Adrien; maybe class wouldn't be so bad today.