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“Okay everyone, make sure you complete this week’s reading! There will be a test on it soon!” Mme. Bustier reminded the class, accompanied by a collective groan from the class. “Now, now, it won’t be that bad. Have a good day, enfants.”
Marinette began packing up her things, when Adrien spun around in his seat to face her.
“Hey, Marinette? Can we talk for a sec?” asked Adrien.
“Of course! What’s up?” replied Marinette. Ever since they had decided to reveal each other’s identities about a month ago, Marinette had begun feeling a lot more comfortable around the model. It helped to remember that underneath the beautiful exterior was a complete nerd with an unfortunate ability for punning.
“I overheard you talking about running a race while we were all packing up yesterday, and I…well...” Adrien sheepishly ran a hand through his hair, “I was wondering if you wanted to go running together sometime.”
Marinette was silent for a moment as her brain rebooted from the possibility of seeing Adrien running in front of her in the newest Agreste-brand shorts which cupped his assets quite well and…
“I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I figured that, you know, with the ‘extracurriculars’ we do, it might be nice to try and build up some stuff outside of-“
“I’d love to!” exclaimed Marinette, a little too loudly for her liking. Alya glanced over, raising an eyebrow at the situation. “Oops, sorry,” she lowered her voice back to reasonable levels, “anyway, that sounds great. When were you thinking?”
“How about after school sometime? I don’t have anything on Friday, and it’s supposed to be nice out with spring fast approaching!”
Alya jumped in. “Ooh, hey, weren’t you going to try out that new route this weekend?” she exclaimed, a little too eager that her best friend finally found the nerve to agree to do something alone with Adrien. She could finally cross Step 5 off her 35 Step Plan to Make Adrinette a Thing.
“Sounds perfect!” Adrien flashed the Agreste-brand grin that Marinette knew all too well from her wall shrine. “I can’t wait!”
“Me either,” Marinette agreed with a smirk, “though I have to warn you, I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a nice guy.”
“I’m sure I can handle whatever you can throw at me,” Adrien boasted. Alya and Marinette exchanged looks, and giggled to themselves.
“I’ll see you soon, then.” said Marinette, as she finished packing up and walked out with Alya.
Adrien looked to Nino, who was silently shaking his head, a bemused smile on his face.
“…What?” asked Adrien, confused at the apparent inside joke he had missed.
“Dude, she’s going to mop the floor with you. You know she runs races for fun, right? Like, multiple kilometer races.”
“Oh…” the knowledge of what he had just agreed to suddenly hit Adrien like a ton of bricks.
“Ask her to send me a picture of you after, okay? This’ll be beautiful…”
Friday came quite quickly, with no akuma in sight. Perhaps the brightening days had lifted Paris’ spirits. But for one blond-haired superhero, the apprehension was mounting. After realizing what he had done, Adrien had spent the last few days reading as much as he could online about how to run. He even made sure that he had the perfect running gear. But he had the bad feeling that Plagg’s bad luck would be rearing its annoying, antennaed head on this run.
After changing, he walked down the front steps to be greeted by one very bent-over Sporty Marinette. As she stood, he could see that instead of her usual pigtails, she had pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. She was sporting an ensemble of pinks and purples, which clung tightly to her petite figure. Adrien quickly averted his gaze as she turned around.
“Well, hello there, mon minou.” Marinette sang, an excited lilt in her voice.
“Okay, we’ll need to set some ground rules for this,” Adrien started.
“Agreed,” interrupted Marinette with a smirk. “Rule 1: No running puns. I’ll add an extra few minutes for each one.”
Adrien mentally filed away his prepared puns for another day.
“And rule two?” asked Adrien.
“Rule 2: Don’t fall behind too much,” Marinette laughed.
“Yeah, I don’t see that being too much of an issue. You know I have to stay in shape for the modeling stuff!” Adrien said with a huff, an adorable pout beginning to make its way onto his face.
“Ooh, those are fighting words, kitty,” Marinette replied, putting in her headphones. “Let’s get going then!”
And off they went, heading towards the Eiffel Tower and making a loop, following along the Seine. Marinette was setting the pace, and Adrien was feeling pretty good about himself. He was mostly keeping up, and he got the impression that whenever he started falling behind, Marinette would slow down a little to make sure he kept up.
But as the run kept going on, Adrien could feel the strain. He didn’t realize runs could last this long!
“Hey” puff “Mari?” huff “How much” puff “more are we” huff “running?”
“Feeling a little winded, kitty?” Marinette called behind her. “We’ve only been going for fifteen minutes!”
Adrien groaned, which only fueled Marinette’s competitive glee.
“Don’t worry, mon minou. Only fifteen more minutes to go. This is an easy day for me.”
Another fifteen minutes went by, and Adrien could feel his lungs attempting to strange him for his hubris. He almost cried as he saw the park with their statue in it, since it meant they were on the home stretch. They crossed the threshold into the park, Marinette in front with her arms outstretched in a victory pose. Adrien stumbled across after her, and promptly laid down in the grass.
“Are you okay, Adrien?” asked Marinette, kneeling down to him.
Adrien responded by mumbling something into the grass that Marinette couldn’t catch.
“If you don’t answer me, I’ll just have to find those ticklish spots again!”
Adrien rolled over and looked at her.
“Why does everything hurt right now?”
“Because, surprisingly enough, modeling muscles do not translate into running muscles,” laughed Marinette, the exasperated expression on Adrien’s face only adding more fuel to the fire. “Come on, if you don’t stretch, you aren’t going to want to move tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to move now,” retorted Adrien. “Just leave me here to burn in peace.”
“Nope,” said Marinette, popping the “p”, “we have to stretch out our muscles. I won’t have Natalie get mad at us for this.”
Groaning, Adrien sat up and followed Marinette through her stretching routine. As soon as they finished the last contortion, he plopped back down like a lazy cat on a hot morning.
“Minou, we should get back home.”
“Nooo,” groaned Adrien. “I still can’t move.”
“Then I’m just going to have to carry you, you big baby,” said Marinette, cracking her knuckles.
“I know you can run, but please don’t try to hurt yourself lifting me-“ started Adrien, promptly shutting his mouth once Marinette effortlessly lifted him in the air, bridal style.
“You were saying?” said Marinette with a very Chat-like smirk.
“…want to work out sometime?”