Work Text:
Day One
"Smile for the camera, guys!"
Alya rolled her eyes. "Why are you filming our evil plan?" she asks with a smile playing on her lips, glancing around at their classmates. Everyone was there -- everyone except Chloe, Sabrina, and two people who could never, ever find out what was going on in this room.
Nino had told all their classmates, and all their classmates had agreed -- this had gone on long enough, and they had to take action! They had to do something, anything, to fix the tragedy that was happening, and they had to co-operate to finally stop this.
They were referring, of course, to the fact that Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng were still not dating.
"I'm filming, because at their wedding in eight years, I can show them this video and they'll say Nino, you genius, you're the reason we're together!" Alya cracked up, and so did the mass of people behind her -- Juleka and Rose, Ivan and Mylene, Kim, Max, even Nathanael (didn't he have a crush on Marinette?). Nino pointed the front camera of his phone back to himself. "It's May fourteenth, 2016, and we are going to get Operation: Adrinette on the road!"
"Yeah!" said Alix excitedly from behind them.
"Is that the best name you could think of?" Juleka snarked.
"Adrinette. Like Adrien plus Marinette. The other option was Madrien, but that sounds stupid," Nino answered. He stepped up to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and began to write "Our first way of action is to Adrien and Marinette alone together -- somehow."
"But Marinette doesn't talk when she's within a five kilometer radius of Adrien!" Mylene interjected, and Ivan nodded in agreement. "How are we going to get them to date from just having them in the same room?"
Nino frowned. He hadn't considered that. "I'll figure it out. Somehow."
Day Three
Adrien had only one thing on his mind -- nothing to do with an Akuma or saving Paris from evil or getting Plagg some cheese, just creeping onto Marinette's roof at the middle of the night after foiling another evil plan.
They figured out who the other was only a few weeks ago, and for the past few weeks they had been discovering just how much more difficult it was to have a secret relationship than it seemed in movies. But Marinette refused to be public about it -- I'd have to explain to Alya how we got together, and it'd be too dangerous for her to know that I'm, you know, Ladybug -- and Adrien agreed. Nino wouldn't interrogate him in the way he thought Alya would interrogate Marinette, but Adrien would never let Nino know who he was. It'd put him at risk, and Adrien wouldn't let that happen to anyone.
It even worried Adrien when Marinette was at risk, even though she was Ladybug. She knew what she was doing. She could take care of herself.
"I think Alya and Nino are trying to set us up," she said with a smile as she let him in, waiting for his Miraculous to wear off.
"What would make you think that?" Adrien asked, puzzled.
"Alya's been trying to force me into rooms with you, just oh, Marinette, Adrien looks a little lonely or oh, Marinette, look, it's Adrien having a coffee in your second favourite coffee shop! And when there's a scheme like this, Nino's usually got something to do with it." She beams at him as he sits down on the edge of her bed, now Adrien again.
"I wonder what they'd say if they knew we were already together," he mused.
"They'd freak. Especially Alya, oh my god..."
Adrien couldn't think of anywhere else he would rather spend his nights with than here, and when he finally leaves he's smiling so hard it hurts his face.
Day Six
Surprisingly enough, it's Mylene who takes some initiative in Operation: Adrinette. In the middle of class, she raised her hand and told the entire class her idea -- trying very hard, Alya noticed, to not stare at the side of the room where Adrien and Marinette were sitting.
"My friend says that her class has a jar where you put little notes in for people, you know, nice things? And it's spreading positivity, I suppose?" She sounds terrified, but the teacher nodded and smiled.
"That sounds great!" she said, turning to the class. "Do you have any objections, class?"
Chloe opened her mouth, but Alya butted in. "Yeah. All the notes need to be signed.
Day Seven
"Do it!"
"No!"
"Do it!"
"No!"
Alya spun around and held Marinette by the shoulders. "Girl, you have a golden opportunity to tell Adrien how you feel, and you're not going to do it?" she said, trying not to laugh. "I mean, you don't even need to speak! Although, if you end up dating you can't communicate through notes..." She trailed off as she realised that Marinette was walking ahead, and at twice her speed. "Seriously, girl, what's the worst that could happen? Rejection?" She frowned. "Okay, that is bad, but Marinette, take a risk!"
Marinette stopped. "He doesn't need to know."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Alya asked. "You're over him, or something?"
Just then, Adrien passed by, and waved. Marinette waved back, blushing furiously. Alya smirked. "Tell him how you feel!" she said.
Marinette sighed. "Fine. I'll write a note."
Alya beamed
Day Eight
Dear Adrien,
You're really great, and I'm glad we're friends!
Marinette
Day Nine
Dear Marinette,
I
lo Stay awesome. I'd trust you to save my life, over anyone else here.
Adrien
Day Ten
"Update on Operation: Adrinette!" Nino said excitedly, waving his phone around erratically. "They've both sent notes to each other in Mylene's brilliant Jar of Positivity --" The name had been chosen by Rose, and it had stuck "-- and while not as romantic as I'd hoped..."
"It's something," Alya completed, smiling brightly. "They'll be dating in no time, I'm sure of it!"
"Maybe we can write a song?" Ivan suggested.
Alya smiled. "No offence, Ivan, but last time someone wrote a song, they got Akumatized. We wouldn't want Marinette or Adrien to become a weird monster person," she said, and Ivan nodded.
"Isn't it weird that Marinette and Adrien are the only ones of us who hasn't ever been Akumatized?" Alix mused, stroking her imaginary beard. They were all quiet for a second, contemplating that.
"It's probably just a coincidence," Nino said after a few minutes of thought.
"Probably."
Night Ten
Adrien crept into Marinette's room after another long night of Akuma-fighting.
"Do you think they'll ever figure it out?" she asked, and he noticed the scrap of paper on her table. My note.
"Figure what out?"
"That we're together? That we're Ladybug and Chat Noir? I don't know, there's so many things Alya and the others just don't know." She sighed. "I'm worried that they'll find out about our secret identities. It'd put them in so much danger."
Adrien sighed as well. "I didn't come here to be worried, Mari," he said, playing it off as a joke.
She smiled. "Let's not worry about that now. They're safe for now."
For ever, Adrien thought. As long as they were happy and in homeroom every morning and concocting elaborate plans to get Adrien and Marinette toegther, they were safe, and Adrien's job was done.