Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Croissant?”

The voice is friendly and when she turns toward the sound her heart may or may not skip a beat. Her first impression is of green eyes and golden hair and the smell of downright heavenly pastry. She came alone and this is the first time anyone here has spoken to her to do anything not strictly administrative, like ask her if she’s on any medication, or explain the blood screening test they had to perform beforehand.

The sketchbook falls to one side. Neither of them take much notice of it.

“You look like you could use a snack,” the boy says, giving her a shy smile and holding out a literal picnic basket of arrayed baked goods, complete with red and white tablecloth to keep in the moisture and warmth. “Trust me, it helps with the dizziness.”

Realising how he’s read the situation, she flushes and looks askance. “Thanks, but um. Actually, I haven’t donated yet.”

His brow furrows. “You look kind of pale,” he observes, setting his offered refreshments aside on a nearby table. “Everything okay?”

They’re complete strangers and it’s almost ridiculous to her how concerned he sounds for her. “I don’t like needles,” she blurts out, then immediately cringes. Could she be any more uncool?

“Outside of sewing, I mean,” she adds desperately.

Yes. Yes, she can be more uncool.

But his laughter, when it comes, isn’t mean like she’s expecting. It’s fond, almost, as if she’s just done the most endearing rather than awkward thing.

“Well then, you’re very brave, Miss…?”

Her brain does a double take at his out of place formality, which is almost redolent of some knight of old. “It’s just Marinette,” she says.

Distantly she’s aware that the nurse from earlier is approaching her station, but as if on cue her companion leans forward, nabbing her attention. His tone grave, he looks her dead in the eye and says, “Hello, Itsjust. I’m Adrien.”

“Oh my god, you’re such a dork,” is the first thing that comes to mind to say.

That’s it, she thinks. He has to draw the line somewhere with her awkward little outbursts. Only, if anything, the boy looks even more bemused. He cocks his head at her, kind of like a confused kitten.

“Thanks, I don’t get told that very often,” he says.

Just then the nurse clears her throat behind them. “Ready?” she asks, giving Marinette a winning smile that almost distracts her entirely, until she feels a shock of cold from an antiseptic swab at her left elbow.

Marinette yanks her arm away.

“Sorry!” she says almost immediately, but can’t seem to will the appendage back into position. She takes a deep breath. “Give me a moment?” she pleads.

“Rose, I think there’s someone here to see you,” Adrien pipes up helpfully, and with a look indicates the doorway to the hall that has been requisitioned for the blood donation drive. Marinette turns to see a wraith-like girl with black hair tinted purple at the ends, waving at them and holding up a takeaway bag.

The volunteer nurse flushes. “My shift ends in fifteen minutes, she didn’t need to get lunch!” She looks apologetically at Marinette, clearly itching to go over.

Like a benevolent princess, Marinette waves her off. “Oh, I can wait,” she says, casual as anything while desperately trying to send telepathetic thanks to the girl in the doorway. 

Rose deliberates a moment. “I’ll start you off first, how about that? And Adrien can wait with you, it’ll be good training for him,” she suggests, moving around to retrieve a new needle and tearing open the seal on the packaging. She makes some sort of signal at her friend, who responds with a thumbs-up and wanders back outside.

Marinette despairs.

Silently, she watches Rose tap expertly at her inner elbow, and obliges her in making a fist and squeezing. Rose applies a tourniquet to constrict the blood flow and make the vessels more prominent. 

She has steady hands, so the needle doesn’t shake, but Marinette is full of twitchy energy, watching in consternation and reminding herself that blood donation benefits lots of people. She’s going to put up with the tiniest pinprick and save lives. She can do this.

The world promptly goes a bit tunnel vision.

Just as the needle is about to sink into her skin, she almost loses her nerve, wavering for a second. But at that precise instant there comes a sudden warmth around her right hand, and a voice mutters, “It’s okay, don’t look,” and she’s burying her face instinctually into soft t-shirt fabric, breathing in the comforting smell of lavender detergent. An indeterminate amount of time passes in that limbo state. She’s very comfortable, it’s hard to keep track. 

“All done, looking good,” Rose reports, utterly chipper as she secures the needle in place. “How’s that feel?”

Without moving, Marinette mumbles, “Didn’t even feel it, are you sure it’s over?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Rose answers laughingly, withdrawing. As she walks away, she calls back over her shoulder, “You can release Adrien anytime you like, by the way.”

Many things happen all at once. Marinette jerks violently away from her soft wall which turns out to be Adrien’s chest, oh no, broad and warm and possibly pretty muscled, if her cheek is any reliable sensor. At the same time, Adrien steadies her, cautioning, “Careful! Rose has expert skills but you look likely to bruise, especially if you move the needle accidentally.”

And lastly, very belatedly, she realises she’s holding his hand.

Well, not so much holding as clinging onto for dear life. She relents and comes to a sort of equilibrium position, still rather inappropriately close to him considering that they’re barely even acquainted, but no longer smushing her face up against him at least. Then she disciplines herself to relax her grip, restoring the boy’s circulation. He wiggles his fingers at her, grinning.

“I look likely to bruise?” she asks, almost defensively.

He raises an eyebrow at her like he can’t believe that’s what she’s chosen to zero in on, but also like he’s kind of delighted about it. “Are you ever going to say something that doesn’t surprise me?” 

“Well I don’t know. Why don’t you keep talking to me and find out?” 

Her eyes widen at her own line. Oh no. Oh no, is she… is she flirting with him? Not that she doesn’t mean it, if she is, it’s just — Alya told her once that she may have accidentally led Nathanael on a bit after their one and only pseudo-date. Amid her spluttering and protestations, her best friend gave her a stern lecture to the effect that her big blue eyes are actually really twinkly and enchanting when she smiles, and also apparently she has a look of utter sin that she gives unconsciously sometimes. Which is strange, because the rest of the time she’s the living embodiment of a shrinking violet. 

Before Adrien can recover from being briefly taken aback, she adds, in a more characteristically fumbling way, “I mean, seriously, keep talking to me, it makes for a great distraction.”

“You were smooth for like a full two seconds there, you know,” Adrien informs her, the corners of his lips threatening to lift into a grin. “But of course, if the Lady so desires, I shall endeavour to entertain.” 

There it is again, his courtly manner like they’re living in medieval times. Strangely enough it sends a flutter through her gut. But “Ugh, quit teasing me,” she says, shoving ineffectually at him. Ineffectually, because he seems to be — just slightly — refusing to let go of her hand. 

“Oh, I would never give you teas right after a blood donation. That’s a diuretic! However,” and this is where he levels that intense gaze upon her again, even as she groans at his pun, “my shift ends at lunchtime too, whereupon I would be glad to buy you a mockaccino.”

Marinette just about loses it. 

“You pun,” she says. “Oh, boy, just when I was thinking, ‘Wow, looks like my type is hot caring dorks with nice smelling shirts and croissants’ — you pun. Not gonna lie, that’s almost a deal-breaker.”

“Aww, is it?” Adrien fires back at once, really getting into the swing of things now. How did she ever think him shy and proper and chivalrous? “How about this to sweeten the deal — you get a beverage from me, and leverage over me?” 

She may or may not be doing the gaping fish-mouth thing. “Do you flirt this outrageously with all the girls who go swooning when they donate blood?” 

“Only if they’re swooning over me. Also, looks like you’re about done there, that was quick,” Adrien tells her, peering over the side at the blood bag. He looks actually serious for a moment, but then the mischief returns to his expression. “Did I get your heart racing?” 

“You’re about to get my blood boiling with all these lines,” she tells him, petering out as he pulls his hand out of hers and comes round to her left side. The sudden coolness of the air makes her miss his warmth instantly. 

She glances over at Rose in the distance, then down at her inner elbow. Suddenly her apprehension comes slamming back into her, full force. She hasn’t even noticed the needle in her arm all this time. Just as promised, he’s distracted her completely from the source of her nerves. 

“Ahh,” Marinette says articulately. “Ahh, could you take the needle out? Like now. Please?” 

“I’ll get Rose—” he’s startled into saying, but she repeats, “Now please.”

He flashes her a quick smile even as he gets to work, with efficient but controlled motions that set her a little more at ease in and of themselves. “Well, I am in training. Do you trust me?”

“You’re not Aladdin, this is not a Disney movie,” she moans, glancing down in dread at the needle and then immediately closing her eyes. She’s panicking, she knows this, otherwise he wouldn’t be stepping in like this when he’s not officially qualified yet.

“I’m going to take it as a good sign that you still have the presence of mind to get that reference,” Adrien says. “But in all seriousness, please don’t panic.” 

She opens her eyes to snark something back at him, but his look of total sincerity stops her. “Trust me,” he says, touching a hand briefly to her shoulder.

She feels just a little twinge this time, probably because she’s got nothing to distract and annoy her (and no hand to hold, but that’s besides the point, of course). Adrien is even gentler than Rose, and he holds a cotton ball to her arm while allowing her to pick a patterned strip bandage out of a little drawer.

“Ladybugs,” he notes once she makes her choice, and wraps it firmly around her arm. “With any luck you won’t bruise too badly.”

That reminds her — “Why am I likely to bruise?” 

Adrien fusses with her bandage, pressing his thumb firmly at the puncture site. “You’ve got some of the most delicate veins I’ve seen,” he answers absently. “Keep pressure on this.” 

He’s so caring and kind in that moment, totally absorbed, that she watches him for a few self-indulgent seconds before reaching over and decisively putting her hand over his. “Now that,” she tells him, “is how you get a girl to agree to a coffee.”

He gapes at her.

“Cheesy lines don’t work on you, puns don’t work on you, but I compliment your blood vessel structure and that settles it?”

“Yup,” she confirms, even though that’s not the point at all.

Adrien shakes his head at her. “You’re a wonder, you know that?”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she says playfully, nudging him.

“Me? I just spent the last ten minutes thinking in the back of my mind, ‘Oh god, is this banter? Are we bantering, we’re bantering. I think I might love this girl.’ in an incoherent mess.” 

“We can be incoherent messes together,” she suggests, and he starts, green eyes wide as they meet her blue ones. He feigns like he’s considering it. 

“I might take you up on that.”