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From the very minute that he sees her, Adrien wants to be her friend. Part of it might be out of a weird sense of obligation, since the small girl is being bullied by Chloe and he can’t really do anything to stop that, but…
She glares at him and Chloe and Chloe’s redheaded friend before she tries to get the gum off of her bench. She snarks about how they’re oh so funny without knowing that Adrien doesn’t think it’s funny in the least, she uses a napkin to deal with the problem when it ends up she can’t pick it off, and once she sits down she completely avoids looking at them any more than she has to.
Through all of that, Adrien sees the smallest spark. It’s a glint of defiance that doesn’t quite say that she can fight back yet, but that she won’t take this forever - that there will be a day when she’ll finally find her feet and stand and the world will have no choice but to be swept away by the force of her stormy blue eyes.
Adrien doesn’t even know the name of his classmate, this girl with black pigtails and a flickering glare, but he’s already mourning the loss of this chance to make a new friend.
(Though admittedly, being friends with Nino is it’s own blessing, too.)
oOoOo
Objectively speaking, Adrien has been through a lot in the 24 hours since his last meeting with Marinette. Between his own transformation into Chat Noir yet again, Chloe nearly face planting at terminal velocity, the ominous motive rant of a super villain threatening Paris, and Ladybug’s killer takedown of said super villain, the bad impression that one classmate has of him because of unfortunate timing really shouldn’t be much more than a drop in the bucket.
He can’t get it out of his head. Not when she returns his greeting with a glare and a jerk of her head, not when Nino says that he should just tell her the truth if he wants to be her friend, not when he’s sitting in class with his mind on blue fire eyes, realizing that for Marinette to be sitting behind him, she has to have somehow fanned the spark that let her stand up for herself against Chloe.
There’s a small part of him says that he should probably forget about Marinette and spare himself some disappointment, since even the change from yesterday hasn’t made a dent in her sharp (and hurt) glare. He gives that up as a lost cause when he finds himself admiring her strength, just as he admired Ladybug as she clapped sarcastically and refused to bow down to evil while everyone else was frozen in shock.
Adrien has climbed the Eiffel Tower and fought against massive stone golems, and yet it’s Marinette’s scowl that strikes him, her glare alone that can cut through the image of a girl of red-hot fire when he’s sitting at his desk in school.
Maybe that’s why he listens to Nino about speaking the truth, even if he knows he’s not going to be heard.
oOoOo
It’s raining, and when Adrien says hi to Marinette, she turns her face away again. She’s still mad at him because of the gum, and his heart falls as he realizes that she’s probably never going to want to talk to him. He can’t even get her to listen, so he sighs and trudges off to the car.
Except, for some reason, he’s even more afraid of losing this chance to talk with her than he’s afraid of being ignored again. She’s stubborn - he’s seen that much - and he knows better than most how futile it is to fight that kind of tenacity, but… when Adrien turns and opens his umbrella, instead of leaving, he stays.
Adrien stands with his back to Marinette, in rain that falls like a curtain around them, and it feels like they’re the only two people in the world.
That gives him the courage to speak about the gum, and about how he just wanted to get it off her seat.
(And, about how he doesn’t approve of Chloe’s actions, not her mockery nor her cruelty, because no one deserves that, let alone Marinette.)
Adrien’s original plan had been to stop at the surface without diving any further. He instead finds himself continuing to speak against all logic, with only a whisper of intuition that says to trust her and a whisper of hope that says she might trust him. He shares just a little bit more, lays bare just the tiniest piece of his heart when he admits that he’s never been to school before and that he’s never really had friends before, so this is all pretty new to him.
(And that maybe he’s just a little bit scared right now, because even with all of this she could still reject him, and more than anything right now he doesn’t want that.)
It’s uncomfortable for him to be revealing this much, enough that he has to physically shrug some of the awkwardness away. Still, he can’t bring himself to regret that in the slightest, not when he glances back at Marinette.
She’s all softness now, harsh glares and suspicions smoothed away into surprise and consideration. By the rain or by his words Adrien can’t tell, but whatever the case, the drastic shift of her glower to wide, curious eyes that are no less striking causes him to lose what little grip he has on his words.
It’s a good thing that he doesn’t need them anymore, then. Instead, all he does is turn to face Marinette, arm outstretched to hold his umbrella over her head.
He’ll be fine anyways, since he only needs to walk out to the car on the street, and…
Well, maybe this (whatever this is) will be enough.
Marinette glances down at his hand, then back up to him with a tiny gasp that shakes the world. She’s shyness and a wary heart in this moment that’s simply theirs, a girl who is strong and nervous and who, like him, is afraid to take a chance because she’s been hurt before.
And, ever so carefully, Marinette reaches out. The first feather-light touch of her fingers is more of a shock than a lightning bolt, causing her to twitch away. When she reaches out again, Adrien releases the umbrella, lets it slip into her hand with only the slightest brush of his fingers.
There’s a pure moment when the world falls still, when a strange kind of magic weaves itself into the silence between raindrops. That spell breaks when his umbrella snaps to a close, somehow over her, and startles him into laughter
Adrien can’t remember the last time he’s laughed so much, though it must have been when his mother was still around. It’s refreshing, how much the sensation tastes like freedom, and he might have soaked in it forever if he wasn’t startled by Marinette’s adorable giggle.
Opening his eyes, he can see that Marinette is peeking up at him with a wry smile, holding the umbrella away from her face by the canopy when it really should be doing that on its own. For some reason, that sight makes him shyer than anything, in a strange-but-not-unpleasant way that nevertheless has him coughing away the last of his chuckles before he excuses himself with a promise to see her tomorrow.
Adrien doesn’t make it more than a few steps before Plagg starts to tease him about having already found a girlfriend after only his second day of school. He can’t really find it in him to be annoyed, though, not after Marinette has become his friend.
He glances back for a last look at her before leaving, because even now he can’t quite believe it. Except that precious moment had to be real, because she’s still there with his umbrella, finally succeeding in the struggle to get it to stay open, and before he knows it, a happy sigh of friend slips through his lips.
The warmth from that single word spills from his heart, pushing his mouth into the curve of a smile.