Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Okay dude. Torque problems. Are you ready for this?”

“I think the proper question would be are you ready for it. You slept through that entire lecture if I remember right. There are still drool stains on your notebook.”

“It’s just plugging things into equations right? Like….finding force.”

“This is a little more complicated than that.”

“How can it possibly be more — wait, what the hell is that pill looking symbol? What the hell is sin?”

“It’s sine. Not sin. And the pill looking thing is theta. You know, like when you need to find angles? Little bit of trig to spice up your afternoon. Hope you brought your calculator.”

“Screw you to Hell, dude. This isn’t funny. I forgot how to do this….”

“Wait, can you turn your head a little bit this way? I can’t quite get a good angle on your look of abject horror.”

Nino turned his head slowly and glared straight into the lens of Adrien’s camera, and Adrien couldn’t help but chortle as he he laid sprawled out on the grass and took three quick shots of his face. He peeked out from behind the camera and sent his friend a thumbs up. “Oh yeah. That’s perfect. But you gotta pout more. Really sell that glare for me. Make me feel it.”

“Oh my — will you just shut up and fiddle with your stupid apincture or whatever? I actually have to finish this problem set.”

“Excuse me, you misinformed child, the correct word is aperture. You videographers have no appreciation for the subtleties of capturing still images.”

Nino made an annoyed face even funnier than the last, and Adrien only just managed to get a shot of it before he rolled around in the grass laughing until his gut started hurting. Nino always made it a point to stop Adrien mid rant and tell him that “normal human beings” didn’t know what the hell an f-stop was and he was letting his dork show. But it didn’t help that Adrien liked to pretend to be annoying and pretentious about it until Nino looked about ready to throttle him for being such a pain. It led for some very satisfying photos that Adrien was going to have to put together into a collage or something and give Nino for his birthday. Something about the contrast between the soft, summer lighting of the park behind them and Nino’s expression looking dangerously close like he was going to throw himself into the Seine was too good not to share.

Adrien flipped onto his back and started taking upside down pictures of pigeons while Nino kept ripping pages out of his notebook, crumpling them up, and starting his problems over from scratch. Adrien was fiddling around with his aperture and shutter speed so that he could try and get a clear picture of the squirrels in motion while Nino laughed at Adrien’s antics. “Doing an expose on park animals that I should know about?”

“New camera,” Adrien winked. He looked down at the camera and started pointing at the display screen. “It’s a single lens reflex camera, so it’s got a ton of interchangeable lenses that I can use depending on what I’m shooting. Plus it’s got an auto-bracketing feature. So it takes the photo, then automatically takes two more with higher and lower exposures so that you can — ”

Nino laughed heartily and held up his hand again. “My man, you’re doing the babbling thing again. Goin’ over this poor guy’s head.”

Adrien lifted his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’m done. Sorry. First time trying out this new setting so I’m super excited.”

“Big deal, huh?” Nino smirked.

“Oh yeah,” Adrien sighed, turning the camera so that the lens was facing him. “It’s like I’ve never known what cameras really were until today.” He closed his eyes slowly and started making kissing faces at the camera until Nino threw a couple of balled up pieces of paper at Adrien in order to get him to stop.

“If you’re done coddling your new girlfriend,” Nino said with a fond eye roll, “feel like going somewhere so that we can work on this? I may actually need more help than I thought.”

Adrien was already brushing the grass off his jeans and scooping up his backpack. “Yeah. You sound like you need help with the pill symbol,” he said, sticking his tongue out in jest.

“Not everyone’s a physics genius like you are. Damn….”

Adrien laughed. “If you want, we can get something to eat and I’ll help you with it before we go home.”

“You’re paying?”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Sure, sure. Consider it payment for putting up with me.”

Nino was already rattling off possibilities for a quick pre-supper snack and packing up his notebooks while Adrien pulled out a cloth from the front pocket of his bag and started gently cleaning the lens of his camera. While money wasn’t exactly something that Adrien was short of, this new camera had still cost him a pretty penny and he wanted to make sure that he was taking proper care of it. After all, this was his camera now — not one he’d gotten off loan or as a gift. It was important that he took great care of it.

After a few days of Adrien constantly looking over his photographer Piero’s shoulder at photo shoots and asking him questions about his photography — “What does that button on the camera do?” “How are you going to set up the lighting for this shoot if it’s in the middle of the night?” “What does f/5.6 mean?” — Piero had finally decided to lend Adrien one of his cameras, walk him over to one of the mannequins at the corner of the set during their break, and show him the basics. His instructions were filled with a lot of pasta metaphors, most of which went over Adrien’s head, but he was a patient teacher and was always giving Adrien tips on the best settings on the camera to use, how to fix his first few clumsy, washed out photos, and the importance of lighting and composition when choosing subjects and poses.

At first, it was just a way to pass the time in between long, boring bouts of posing for the camera. But eventually, Adrien found himself carrying the camera around his neck on the way to school and taking photos of awnings, signs, apartment windows, flowers poking out of the cracks in the sidewalk, and sometimes the students relaxing on the steps leading up to school. Running to Piero during shoots to show him how he’d improved became almost ritual, and after a couple of months of tripping through his beginner clumsiness, he actually managed to get a hang of taking what Piero considered to be gorgeous pictures, especially for someone who’d only just started.

It was a strange sensation to finally have something that he honestly wanted to work hard at and get better at whenever he got the chance. He was begging for time to watch his editing team polish off his own photos so that he could learn how the photo editing software worked, he was always sneaking chances to speak to the other photographers who worked under Piero to learn how they set up lighting and how they picked good places for shoots. Adrien couldn’t leave the house without his camera without feeling like he was missing the familiar weight of it against his chest. Modelling wasn’t ever something he looked forward to like that. School work was something that he had to do, and the fact that he was so good at it was only a plus on the practical side of things. It was never something he wanted to do, something that he wanted to perfect.

Meanwhile, his head was already flitting with thoughts on what he’d do with his new photos during post-production, which one’s he think needed touching up and brightening, which ones he might want to use to experiment with a few effects he’d learned the other day, and which one’s he’d think would be good enough to eventually print out and add to his pile of really good pictures.

Adrien was all smiles and thrumming excitement by the time his camera was cleaned, and Nino couldn’t help but notice. He grinned at Adrien and teased him about the “hot date” he had with his tablet and editing software when he got home while they crossed the street away from the park and down the block in the opposite direction.

Nino was throwing his head back dramatically and complaining about his incapacitating hunger before he turned his head towards Adrien and groaned. “Wanna just stop by Marinette’s and get something from the bakery? We can sit there and do my homework and get something to eat. I can’t wait around for anything else.”

“You’re such a drama queen,” Adrien quipped. “You literally ate two hours ago.”

“But staring at those problems was exhausting dude. I don’t know how you do it.”

“That’s just your daily excuse,” Adrien reminded him. “Last time it was because walking the five minutes from school to my house on a rainy day tired you out.”

“All valid reasons, my man.”

The after school rush was long over, and the bakery was finally in the middle of a pleasant lull with only one or two customers actually sitting inside and with one waiting by the counter for an order. With the amount of times he, Nino, and Alya have come into the bakery for quick snacks and things to eat, Adrien had learned quite through habit and just by casual noticing that Marinette always took the register on Thursday afternoons, and her shift should’ve been just about wrapped up. Sure enough, when Nino backed into the door and entered the bakery, Marinette was draped in a bakery apron, packing a pastry box with a small order of mille-feuille for an older woman plucking euros out of her purse.

“Marinette!” Nino announced boisterously. “My pastry quota for the day is waiting to be filled!”

Her head shot up at the sight of Nino and Adrien and she smiled in exasperation at his antics. “Hey Nino.” She turned to Adrien and offered him a more subdued smile and a wave in return. “Hi Adrien. I’ll be with you two in a second.”

Adrien grinned. “Take your time. Nino hasn’t done his physics homework yet. We’ll be here for a while….”

“Oh, shut up dude.”

Adrien sent an exaggerated wink at Nino’s expense in Marinette’s direction, and he found himself doing a little sigh of relief when she flushed and laughed in his direction instead of freezing up and collapsing into a stuttering nervous mess like she might have done a year ago. She waved him off towards the tables by the windows and turned back to the customer, fishing out change from the register and tying off the box of pastries with colored string. Adrien grinned to himself and set his things down under the table and sat across from Nino.

Months of the four of them going on lunch dates, hanging out together on the weekends, cramming for projects and exams, and gossiping during class had done wonders for Marinette’s demeanor, and she’d gotten so much better around him. It was by no means perfect — there was still some lingering awkwardness that liked to crop up whenever he did things like wrap an arm around her shoulder, hug her in greeting, or spend extended amounts of time alone with her away from the buffer of their respective best friends — but Adrien wouldn’t dare be picky about such a thing when he could now properly consider her a close friend. Baby steps, he kept reminding himself. Baby steps.

By the time Marinette had come over with her apron still tied around her waist and smudges of flour and powdered sugar still across her cheeks, Nino was languishing over another torque question and gnawing on the edge of his pen in frustration. Marinette took his hand and moved it away from his mouth. “I offered to feed you and you’re eating pencils?”

Nino ignored the joke and whirled his body around to face her. “Have you seen this crap?”

She was fixing the bun that had fallen lopsided and blew her baby hairs out of her face. “Actually, I’ve already done half of it. I’m stuck on the last two, but it wasn’t totally awful.”

Adrien poked his shoulder. “I’m going to help you. Relax.”

Marinette turned to Adrien, folding her hands in front of her apron. “Is fudge okay? Papa made a fresh batch this morning. The sugar might help you both concentrate.”

“Can you make it a double order? He looks about ready to snap his pencil in half with his teeth.”

Marinette’s mother had come from the back to cover the register, and by then Marinette had already plopped two boxes filled generously with squares of fresh fudge in the middle of their table that the three of them immediately began digging into. Nino was furiously scribbling all of the equations and steps that Adrien was rattling off at him in order to help him with the problems. Marinette took one of Nino’s pencils and pieces of scrap paper and started sketching out skirts and sundresses in the margins of his notes while she offered small bits of advice in between Adrien’s tutoring. They’d managed to get Nino through three quarters of the problems and leave him to try and puzzle out the rest for himself when Marinette pointed her chin towards the camera on Adrien’s chest. “Taking more pictures today?”

Nino snorted through a large bite of fudge. “The dude got a new camera and was fangirling over the freaking thing. Wanted to test it out on me and every squirrel and pigeon in the park.”

“I wasn’t fangirling,” Adrien insisted. “I was gushing in controlled increments.”

“Any good ones?” Marinette giggled.

Adrien pulled his camera from around his neck and handed it off to Marinette while she wiped her hands clean on her apron. “Careful, it’s a new camera. Turn it on here, and swipe through the pictures like this. And if you ask me, Nino’s faces were the highlight of the afternoon.”

Marinette leaned her elbows against the table and he watched her as she leisurely went through all of his photos. It wasn’t the first time he’d shown them to his friends — the three of them were all very familiar with Adrien’s first haphazard attempts at photography, even the ones that looked like they’d been taken through water with how out of focus they were. That was back when he didn’t really know exactly what he was doing. But there was still that little jump of nerves that his chest did whenever he showed off work that he was proud of. Not to brag, but Adrien thought he was really getting better as the days went on, and he wanted to find opportunities to improve and push himself. Even if these were just photos taken on a lazy afternoon, he still hoped that they were of merit.

Marinette was smiling as she filtered through his pictures. “You’re getting a lot better,” she said softly. “Some of these look really professional.”

“Really?” Adrien asked with a grin. “Which ones?”

He scooted his chair closer to her as she leaned over the table to show the camera to him. He managed to catch a little bit of a flush across her cheeks, and she had to clear her throat before she could start talking, but she managed through her sentences clearly enough. “Well, uh….this one that you took of Rose sitting on the steps. It’s just great lighting, and it was a good call to make everything behind her so blurry. Makes it look like she’s in another world you know?”

“Oh yeah,” Adrien said excitedly, glad to finally talk about his work to someone who didn’t mind him going on and on about the more technical aspects. “I had never shot anything with such a narrow depth of field before. That’s what makes everything in the background so fuzzy. I was afraid it was too distracting.”

Marinette shook her head. “I don’t think so. But maybe if you take out some of the blurred scenery on the left and just have it focus on her….”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Adrien nodded. “That was one of the photos I was going to edit when I got home. I didn’t think to zoom in at the time so I might just have to fix it up on my tablet. Shouldn’t look too bad when I’m done.”

Marinette took a moment to swipe through a few of the photos to go up to the ones that he took today. “This one of Nino is also really nice. You’re good at picking nice lighting.”

Adrien was taking all of the notes and comments that Marinette was giving them and filing them away for reference when he looked up and saw Nino staring between the two of them with a wide smirk on his face. Adrien frowned at him and mouthed a big ‘what?’ at him, but Nino did nothing but laugh at his expense and shake his head. He did however take his cell phone out, make a point of showing the screen that was opened up to a chat with Alya, and started quickly typing a message out at her. Adrien’s brows furrowed, not sure about what Nino was trying to get at, but his friend kept staring at the two of them and laughing to himself like there was something amusing happening. He decided to ignore him in favor of trying to catch the beginning of Marinette’s sentence. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Oh, I said do you keep any of these?” Marinette asked. “The really good ones.”

Adrien shrugged. “I mean, I save everything on my computer at the end of the day. Sometimes I’ll print out one I really like and post them around my room.”

“I think she means something more official,” Nino interjected. “Like, do you keep the good ones as examples.”

“No,” Adrien frowned self consciously. “Er….should I?”

“I think so,” Marinette nodded supportively. “I mean, I don’t know anything about what you’re going to do in the future in terms of photography, but it’s always nice to have a few on hand that you can just pull out to show people how good you are A portfolio, basically.”

“Portfolio, huh?”

Nino piped in. “Remember that huge external hard drive that you were messing around with the other day when you were over at my house? That basically has all the film projects that I’ve done that are like, really good. Like Alix and Kim’s race a couple of months back. And my cousin’s wedding. Marinette, you definitely have to have one, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Marinette said immediately. “I’ve got a whole folder of sketches that I cleaned up and added lines to so that they look clean. Any designs or embroideries that I made that I think were really good, I keep them in a box separate from everything else. I have one or two full pieces in there too. Trying to get that up to at least ten, but it’s a work in progress.”

Adrien hummed to himself and took the camera back when Marinette held it out to him again. To be honest, he hadn’t really thought that far ahead in terms of his photos. All he knew at this point was that he enjoyed it more than any of his extracurriculars — heck, maybe almost just as much as he enjoyed being Chat Noir, now that he thought about it — and that he happened to be better at it than he thought he would be. Things like portfolios and thinking ahead to when he’d actually want to intentionally show off his talent hadn’t ever crossed his mind, though he saw the benefit of it. For some reason, it just felt so professional in a way that he didn’t think he’d achieved yet.

Adrien expressed that much to his friends. “I don’t know if I’m good enough for that yet,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Don’t really professional people have portfolios?”

“I’m hardly a professional, and I have one,” Nino explained. “It’s just to have, you know? Besides, stop being so humble, your pics are grade A.”

“Maybe it’d help if you thought of it this way,” Marinette started to explain. “It’s kind of like a map of your progress. Pick the really good ones now. And as you get better, you can start to add more to your collection, maybe even take the old ones out as you improve. Kinda like measuring yourself up to….well, yourself.”

Adrien nodded in understanding. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he responded. “To be honest, though, I don’t know the first thing about how to build one. Do I just pick the ones that look nice?”

Marinette pressed her lips together and winced. “Mm, sort of. It’s a little more involved than that though.”

Adrien was about to ask what she meant by that, but he was distracted by Nino’s face splitting grin that had suddenly broken out of nowhere. He glanced down quickly at his cellphone before he looked at Adrien and Marinette, back down, and back up again. It looked like a plan was formulating — Adrien could already tell when it was happening, he knew Nino that well — but he couldn’t figure out what he was getting at or ask him quick enough before he leaned forward on the table and pointed his pencil at Marinette. “You know, I can’t say I’m much of an expert on this stuff either. But Marinette’s been doing this longer than I have. Maybe she can give you some pointers.”

Marinette’s eyes immediately widened and she almost choked on the piece of fudge that she was eating. She coughed through the tears in her eyes and looked at Nino incredulously. “W-Wait, what?”

Nino grinned wickedly. “Just a suggestion. Makes sense, don’t you think? Adrien needs help.”

Marinette was already shaking her head vigorously and backpedaling. “O-Oh no no. I-I’m not actually all that good, I mean….I was just giving suggestions. I-I’m really not the best person to ask — ”

“I dunno,” Nino said sneakily. “Alya tells me you’ve got a pretty extensive portfolio. She’s seen it and told me herself. You kinda sound perfect for the job.”

Marinette scoffed at the idea as if it were the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “That’s….hah, that’s not true. Look, I don’t think it’s….I mean….”

Adrien smiled reassuringly. “It’s fine if it’s not perfect. But I don’t really know what one is supposed to look like. It’d be helpful if I can see yours.”

Marinette turned to him and suddenly lost all of the comfort that she was showing in front of him only just minutes ago, and he was almost sorry that he’d thrown her so off kilter. He honestly just meant to ask for help, he hadn’t even noticed if he was making her uncomfortable. But Marinette smoothed out the hair on the top of her head and tried to sit up a little straighter in her chair. She swallowed and visibly took a moment to get her words together. “I mean….only if you think it’d help.”

“Of course,” Adrien grinned. He looked tentatively behind her shoulder towards the stairs that he knew from being here before led up to the apartment. “Could I take a peek at it now?”

“Now?” Marinette gasped, looking a little frazzled. She looked to Nino. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of Nino’s studying….”

But Nino shut his notebook and started pushing it back into his bag. “Eh, actually I’m good. Alya’s done babysitting her sisters, so I might just go to her house and finish it up with her. You two do your artist thing, don’t mind me.” He stood up from the table and pointed at one of the remaining boxes of fudge. “You don’t mind if I take the rest with me to share with Alya, do you?”

Marinette shook her head slowly and was staring at Nino rather pointedly as he happily packaged up the rest of the pastries and tucked them under his arm. He waved goodbye to Sabine at the register and pointed to Marinette’s front pocket. “Make sure you text Alya. She’s very interested in hearing about your day.” He winked at her before ruffling Adrien’s hair. “Thanks for the help with physics, dude.”

Marinette mouthed something at Nino that Adrien couldn’t see, but it caused his friend to practically double over in laughter as he tried to go out the front door. He sent a few dorky finger guns in their direction before he laughed his way down the block and passed the front windows of the bakery.

Adrien raised a brow. “Did I miss something?”

“Nothing, Nino’s just being….well, you know.” Marinette sighed out heavily and started tangling her fingers together in her lap. “So….I mean, we’d have to go to my room if you still want to see them. My sketches I mean.”

She suddenly looked nervous and awkward, a far cry different than she’d been when the three of them were studying together, and he was suddenly reminded of that lingering tension that always cropped up between the two of them when they were alone. He wondered if it was because she was just nervous to show him her designs, or if it was because of something that he did or was doing. “You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to you know,” Adrien said. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“No no!” Marinette said a little too quickly and a little too loudly. “It’s not that at all! I want to help. Honest.” She smiled to reassure him and Adrien was at least relieved to see that it was entirely genuine. “Just, uh….let me tell Mama that we’re going upstairs. You’re not busy, are you?”

Adrien shook his head. “I’ve got a couple of hours, don’t worry.”

Sabine gave a smile that curved up a little bit too much at the edges when Marinette told her that they were heading upstairs to her room for a few minutes, but she happily waved them upstairs with a pleasant look on her face while Marinette hid her face in her hands as she passed. “Just be sure to leave the door open.”

She left Adrien in the kitchen with a glass of water that he didn’t ask for and quickly ran up the stairs and through the hatch of her bedroom saying that she had to check something before she let him up. Adrien probably figured that he’d caught her by surprise and she needed to tidy her room a little bit, and patiently waited in the kitchen while he listened to the sounds of paper fluttering and crinkling upstairs as Marinette rushed around. It took her around ten minutes before she finally let him upstairs and let him sit down on the chaise that was in the middle of her room while she rifled around her desk drawers.

He was staring at the couple of dress forms that Marinette had standing in the corners of her room, one of them draped in tape measures and strips of fabric while the other one already seemed to have a blouse with an incomplete collar that Marinette looked like she was still in the middle of sewing. Her room was completely pristine with the exception of the sketchbooks, papers, pencils, and pin cushions spread out all over her desk and around her computer.

Marinette was pulling a large portfolio folder from behind her desk and pulling out a clear plastic bin out from the corner of her room. “It’s not nearly done yet,” she called behind her back as she carried the box next to the chaise. She scurried back to her closet and started pushing hangers to the side and took out a large garment bag that she laid out next to Adrien. “It needs a lot of work, but this is what I’ve got so far. Sorry it’s a little all over the place. I need to start organizing all of this.”

“Not to worry, this is great,” Adrien assured. He pointed to the paper portfolio. “Could I look at your sketches?”

Marinette nodded and unraveled the tie on the front. “Just handle them carefully. Make sure you don’t smudge the pencil.”

Adrien peeked inside and saw around twelve large sheets of drawing paper carefully tucked away. He slowly pulled out the one on the very top by the corner and balanced it on his lap so that he could lean back and get a good, full look at it.

He’d only ever seen Marinette’s sketchbooks a couple of times, mainly because he just happened to be looking over her shoulder when he passed by her desk or passed by her sketching on the steps. She wasn’t necessarily private about it, but Marinette always gave off this sense that if she wanted you to see something, she’d show it to you. But from what he could tell, those sketches were always rough and filled with lots of arrows, notes, question marks, and cross outs. But what he was holding in his hands was far cleaner than anything of that sort — expensive paper, sketches cleaned up with lineart done in darker pencils, and careful coloring added. It was a drawing of an A-line dress with a black skirt and swirling, golden designs curling up the sides of the skirt that Marinette neatly noted on the margin would be hand embroidered. The embroideries swirled up the middle of the waist before they shot straight up the middle of the bust and ended in a lace collar.

Adrien tilted his head at the design and whistled in awe. “You’re an amazing artist,” he commented. “Looks a little like the Eiffel Tower.”

Marinette sighed out in relief in front of him. “Oh, good. I was afraid that wouldn’t be obvious. Yeah, it’s supposed to be an homage to the Eiffel Tower. You know, when it’s lit up at night.”

“Oh, cool!” he exclaimed, letting his eyes trace over the complicated designs. “And you’re going to embroider this?”

Marinette sat on the floor in front of him and started rifling through the plastic box she brought over. “Hopefully. I’m practicing the design. I didn’t get it quite right, but here’s a sample of it.” She handed over a swatch of black fabric with the beginnings of the design on the sketch. It was slightly uneven and some of the swirls were just a hair’s breadth thicker than the others, but it showed meticulousness and care and Adrien easily saw it. “That’s gonna be complicated,” he said.

“I guess. But it’ll look good if I can actually pull it off,” she reasoned. She was chewing on the thumb of her nail and shaking her foot nervously. “So….it’s good? You think?”

“Good? Marinette, this is gorgeous,” Adrien commented. “It looks really professional.”

Marinette’s shoulders seemed to drop at the sound of that and gave him a soft smile. “Oh, that’s….that’s good to hear!. Thanks.”

“Do you have any more?”

Marinette nibbled on her bottom lip and looked through her portfolio. “I can show you the sketches of one of the outfits that I have in the garment bags.” She pulled it out slowly and replaced it when the one Adrien took first as she handed it to him. “Tell me what you think of that one.”

The next one was a long maxi-skirt made with the lightest of baby blue fabrics. There were dark, thin lines crossing back and forth over the skirt making diamond and triangle shapes across the skirt and was finished with a white criss cross crop top. It was lighter and airier than the dress he’d seen before and he suddenly felt as if this would be something that Marinette would wear on a warm, breezy summer day.

“This one looks so different,” Adrien commented. “Were you inspired by something?”

“The Louvre, actually,” Marinette piped up. “The skirt looks better if you see it in person.” She crawled over and zipped open the garment bag and carefully pulled out two hangers. “But, I’d appreciate a second opinion.”

The crop top was simple — solid color and simply designed — but the black lines he’d seen on the sketch of the skirt were actually carefully stitched lines of black, shimmering thread that looked subtle if you stared at it far enough away. He suddenly understood the inspiration from the metal beams on the glass building. The color of the skirt made it seem very much like looking at the glass building during the day.

Adrien suddenly caught onto the obvious. “It’s amazing. I love the color you picked. You’re doing pieces inspired by monuments?”

“Well, um….sort of,” she said. “I’m trying to make summer, casual pieces inspired by Paris. For now, I have a lot of sketches inspired by buildings and places, but I don’t want it to be just that. Not totally sure what that means, but I guess it’s like….feelings, and smells, and just….the spirit of the city, you know?”

“That makes sense,” Adrien said. “Sometimes I don’t take pictures of things because I want to capture the actual subject I’m photographing, but sometimes certain things just give you feelings. Like look, let me show you this one.” He pulled his camera from around his neck, filtered for a about a minute through his old photos and pulled up one that he turned to show Marinette.

Marinette hummed at the sight of a photo. “It’s a stone wall.”

“True, but look at all the water from the Seine rolling off of it, and the sprouts and small plants poking out from in between,” he said, pointing at the screen. “It just seemed really pretty to me. Like….even in between dried, dead stones you can have living things come from it. Plus, the close up just worked well.”

“Not a picture of the wall, but a picture of….life, I guess,” Marinette offered.

“Yeah,” Adrien said. “Is….that kinda what you wanted to do?”

“A bit, yeah,” Marinette grinned. “Do you ever just look at simple, mundane things around the city and just get….really strong feelings? Like you love where you live, you love the people here, and it makes you warm and excited and happy? I want my clothes to make people feel that when they put them on. Like you’re putting on a piece of the city and getting those warm, nice feelings back. I just love Paris so much, so I thought that it’d be nice to do a few sketches about it. I’m thinking of turning it into a series if I can manage it.”

She was brushing all of the invisible particles off the skirt as she said that, and she was looking at her work fondly in a way that Adrien had never seen before. In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever seen her speak so comfortably and so clearly in front of him when they were just in the company of themselves. Adrien had always known that this was Marinette’s passion, something that she worked on whenever she had a free moment, something she was always happy to talk about, something that she thought about whenever she had the time, and Adrien understood that kind of enthusiasm. Marinette was so comfortable talking about designing and talking about her work, and Adrien very much wanted to see more of that kind of confidence and ease roll off of her. It was refreshing in a way that he hadn’t expected him to like.

“I don’t know if I can pick out things this nice from what I’ve taken,” Adrien sighed. “I’m not this good.”

“Well….I don’t think that’s true,” Marinette assuaged. “I mean, I know I haven’t seen many of them, but the photos I have seen are really nice. The ones you showed me downstairs and the one you showed me now. They’re all really good. You’re talented.” She smiled softly at him for a moment before suddenly catching what she’d said and looking into her lap. “I mean, you know, i-it’s just my opinion. I’m no expert, but….um….”

Adrien rubbed at the back of his neck and looked into his lap bashfully. “I appreciate it, thanks.” He was still peeking into the portfolio and flipping through all of the sketches that were left in the folder — shorts, blouses, skirts, pants, sun dresses, and pages of accessories were all neatly lined and colored and all with neat little notes and signatures neatly printed on the bottom. It all seemed so thoughtful and intentional — like each piece was a careful decision showing what Marinette did best. Embroideries. Colors. Cuts. He knew from his dabbling in the fashion industry that versatility and creativity was something that designers were valued highly for, and he could tell that Marinette was trying to show that.

“This is all really helpful,” he said again. “Really. I see what you mean about this being more complicated than just picking good pieces.”

Marinette pulled her knees to her chest. “You’re kinda creating a story about yourself and your talents. How you’ve improved. What you’re good at. What inspires you. Things like that. I had to do my own research and figure out how to do this, so don’t feel like it’s intuitive or anything. This took a really long time to put together. But, it’s fun. Doing things you like is always fun.”

Adrien could perfectly understand that. Getting grass stains on his shirts and taking silly pictures of his friend and of animals in the park was far preferable to being draped in designer clothing and being made to preen for the camera for hours on end. It’s alway why talking about his pictures made him feel so at ease, similar probably to the way that Marinette relaxed and spoke more easily when her designs came into the conversation. Something about getting to share that kind of fun with another person was oddly satisfying, more so because it meant that he and Marinette could actually have a long conversation with just the two of them without Marinette acting self conscious or nervous.

That would be amazing, he thought to himself. Finally, they’d be on even, comfortable footing.

He spoke without thinking through his request. “Do you want to come over tomorrow?”

Marinette blinked at him. “Um….come over? You mean like….?”

“To my house,” Adrien grinned. “My father doesn’t really like me having many friends over, so we might have to say it’s for a school project or something. But, if you’re interested, I’d like to show you some of my photos. Maybe get your help picking out some good ones? I’d love to have more of your opinions.”

Adrien did see the benefit of having a nice collection of photos to express his talents, but he really just wanted to see if he could replicate the day again — if he could get Marinette looking happy and animated again talking about their art, something that she knew best.

She was fiddling her fingers and suddenly looked like he’d shocked her into silence, but she eventually shook her head a little and started laughing through her nerves. “Y-Yeah, I’d love to. So long as it’s fine….like fine with your father. I wouldn’t want to be a bother. And it’s only if you, uh….want to.”

“Of course I want to,” Adrien grinned. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. Plus I think it’ll be fun, right?”

Marinette smiled and twirled her hair nervously. “Right. Fun.”

“I still have your number,” Adrien said. “I’ll text you when you can come over after classes. Is that okay?”

Marinette perked up. “Yes! Of course! Er, that’s beautiful — I mean, perfect! It’s….yeah, that works.”

“You sure?” Adrien prompted again.

“Yeah,” Marinette nodded again. “I’m always glad to help.”

Chapter Text

A - Are we still on after school today? :)

Marinette thought it was just Alya texting her in the middle of class to joke about how many people were dozing off in the middle of their History lecture. The girl spent the past half hour updating her blog and texting Nino, only occasionally looking up to make it look like she was paying attention. But when Marinette stopped her random doodling and saw Adrien’s name on her screen, she jumped and kicked the back partition of her desk, only barely swallowing the squeak of surprise that bloomed in her throat.

She covered her mouth and tried to pretend she was having a coughing fit in order to take her teacher’s eyes off of her, but Alya was kicking her feet and silently asking her what was wrong. When Marinette turned her phone to her under their desk, Alya merely chuckled and waved Marinette away while she turned back to her own phone.

It’s not like Marinette and Adrien never texted before, they’d had each other’s numbers for months. Thier four way group chat was completely non-threatening, and when they texted each other privately, they usually only reserved it for things like “What was our Physics homework?” or “Can you tell Alya/Nino I called?” or “What time were we all meeting for the movies again?” Nice, easy, mundane, and more importantly something that Marinette could handle without getting nervous or worrying about whether or not she was going to make herself seem ridiculous.

It was another thing entirely to start scheduling time to be alone with him.

Was there a normal way to go about this? Like a non-creepy way to say “Of course we’re still on, I’ve been thinking about this non-stop since yesterday, I’d be absolutely insane to say no”? There had to be. Not that Alya was going to be of any help at this point because she was smirking into her phone and pointedly ignoring Marinette. According to Alya, Marinette had no excuses anymore. Her argument was always something along the lines of, “If you can talk to him totally normally when we’re all together, there’s literally no reason why you can’t talk to him when the two of you are alone.” Marinette kept explaining why it wasn’t that simple, but it was hard to get Alya to budge on anything.

Marinette sighed and looked in front of her to see Adrien resting his phone on his thigh, waiting for her response. And on the floor by his desk was Adrien’s camera bag, right next to his foot, where it sat everyday like a limb he couldn’t do without, probably ready to be taken out once school let out so he could crouch in the hallway or perch on the steps and snap away. He was like clockwork nowadays, and it reminded Marinette of whenever she did whatever she could to get a spare moment to sketch.

Gosh, how could she possibly say no to helping him?

She discreetly unlocked her phone and sent him a quick response. M - Of course! Is your father okay with me coming over? :(

Marinette grinned behind her hand when she saw Adrien jump up when his phone vibrated and immediately started texting her back. A - I forgot he was leaving for New York today. We should be fine so long as I tell his assistant that we’re studying.

M - Then I guess we’re golden

A - Awesome! :D We can take the car over after school. Meet me at the steps?

M - Sounds great :)

He sent back a thumbs up and a long line of goofy smiley face emojis. Marinette had to dip her head and try to hide her amusement behind her bangs so that their teacher wouldn’t see, and she could just barely see Adrien’s shoulders shaking from laughter.

Alya wrapped her arms around Marinette’s waist from behind while they made their way to the entrance of the school after their last class let out. “So are we good?” she teased, leaning her chin on Marinette’s shoulder. “No freaking out?”

Marinette tilted her head. “Jury’s still out. But I promised I’d help him, and I will.”

“Not gonna have a conniption because you’re gonna be alone with him?”

“Gonna try my best, but honestly no promises,” Marinette muttered.

Alya snorted and squeezed Marinette’s shoulder. “Look, this is Adrien,” she explained. “You two geek out about Mecha Strike IV and argue about haute couture for fun. He still thinks memes from five years ago are cool! Just remember that. Non-threatening Adrien. You regularly kick his ass at video games. You’re badass. You’ve got this.”

Marinette swiped her fingers through her hair and had to admit that all that did make her feel just a little bit better. “Alright,” she nodded, saying it more to herself than anything else. “You’re right. Yeah.”

Alya smirked at her and poked her in the side. “...you’re gonna look into his eyes and forget how to speak, aren’t you?”

“Alya, you look into them and you think you’re in a fairytale!” Marinette exclaimed, arms outstretched. “It’s not fair. If anything, it’s cheating. How am I meant to deal with that?”

“I know, spending an entire afternoon with the handsome boy you’re crushing on after he invited you to his house? Who the hell dealt you a bad card in life?” Alya said sarcastically. Marinette frowned and tried to smack her shoulder, but Alya moved in front of her and started walking backwards. “I’m being serious, kiddo. This’ll be good for you. Plus, Nino was telling me last night how excited Adrien was when he was talking about your designs and the advice you gave him. I really do think he’s looking forward to this, and you’re really going to be helping him out.”

Marinette smiled. “He said that?”

“Is that really so surprising?” Alya said. “I’ve seen your stuff, girlie, it’s good. Like, really good. I’m sure any advice you gave him was just as good.”

Marinette shrugged. “I was just talking,” she explained. “He seemed like he had a lot of questions, so I just did my best.”

“Well, clearly your best proved to be very impressive,” Alya grinned. “You should keep up the track record. After all, you’ll only get anywhere with him if you decide to actually do something.”

“W-What!? W-Who said I’m trying to get anywhere with him?” Marinette argued. “This is just….helping! Just helping….”

Alya scoffed as she held opened the front entrance door and gestured for Marinette to go first. “Oh, sure, sweetie. Just helping. No lingering crushes to speak of. What on earth was I thinking?”

Marinette was about to nudge Alya and try to convince her that yes she was just trying to be a good friend to Adrien and no this wasn’t like any of her past gimmicks to try and get closer to Adrien and breathe the same air as him. But she was in the middle of her sentence before she saw Adrien smile and wave excitedly at her from the base of the steps and jog up part of the way to meet Marinette in the middle. “Marinette, hey! The car’s only a couple of minutes away, are you ready?”

He looked so darn earnest, and Marinette could literally feel the blood rushing to her face and probably making her look decidedly flushed. She could only hope she could blame it on the warm weather, but judging by the way her best friend was staring at her, Alya had already seen through it. She swallowed her nerves and nodded. “O-Of course. Can’t wait!”

Nino sidled up next to Alya and put a hand over his heart. “Oh, look Alya. Our children are all grown up. Going on secret play dates together, sharing their artsy fartsy hobbies. I might cry.”

“I tell you,” Alya said, shaking her head fondly. “One minute you’re trying to get them to just exchange numbers with each other, now they’re off into the big world by themselves. We’re good parents, my friend.”

“The best!” They both reached over their heads and high fived without looking, staring on at their two friends like proud mother hens.

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright. Do either of you need rides? We can drop you off before we go to my house.”

“Oh no, not today,” Alya insisted. “I’m gonna head to Nino’s so he can help me edit some videos for my blog. You two go do your thing and take as long as you want. Just get her home before curfew,” she winked.

“Alya!” Marinette hissed.

“Don’t worry,” Adrien chuckled. “We’ll be done before her carriage turns into a pumpkin, I promise.”

“You better,” Alya warned playfully. She hooked her arm around Nino’s elbow and started to pull him in the opposite direction just as Adrien’s driver pulled up to the curb in front of the school. “Have fun, you two! Marinette, I will eagerly be expecting details!”

“Don’t push it!” she said with a forced smile.

Gorilla was already stepping out of the driver’s seat and opening the door to the backseat while their friends kept waving goodbye to them and blowing kisses at them right up until they turned the corner. Adrien was laughing to himself while he nodded to Gorilla, thanked him, and told him that he could close the door behind the two of them. He held the door open himself and gestured for Marinette to go in first. “Exasperating, aren’t they?”

Marinette appreciated the neutral topic and agreed. “Alya’s a….powerful influence.” She ducked into the car and scooted over to the window seat while Adrien shut the door and told his driver to take them straight to his house.

“You underestimate Nino. He’s quieter, but he’s a schemer.” Adrien dropped his bag on the floor between them and leaned back into the leather seats. “I’m not keeping you, am I? I know Alya was kidding, but….I mean, this isn’t all that serious, if you have something else you should be doing.”

Marinette shook her head. “N-No! Not at all. She’s just being silly. I’ve got the whole afternoon free. B-Besides,” she stuttered, wringing her hands. “I….I’d really like to see more of your photos, so. Yeah.”

“Great!” Adrien grinned. “I can’t wait for you to see them.”

The Agreste mansion wasn’t terribly far from school, and it took less than five minutes before Gorilla was pulling up in front of the looming gates of the mansion and helping the two of them out of the car. Adrien was about to put in his own passcode for the security system before a voice spoke out of the intercom. “You have a guest today, Adrien?”

He pressed the talk button. “Yes Natalie. This is Marinette, the friend from school I told you about.”

“Your father expressly told me that you are not allowed to have any visitors while he’s away on his trip,” Natalie droned from the other end of the intercom. “You’ll have to ask her to leave.”

Marinette winced as Adrien hurriedly backtracked. “N-No, no. You’ve got it wrong. We’re not hanging out. We have a, uh….a project that’s due next week, on….”

Marinette quickly shuffled through her bag, pulled out the book they were reading for literature, and pointed to it. Adrien caught on and nodded. “On our literature reading! Yeah, it’s a long set of questions. And a presentation! Super involved, not enough time to do it at school. Just….just three hours Natalie I promise.”

They were both waiting anxiously for an answer while Adrien mouthed his apologies at Marinette for forgetting to breach the subject to Natalie sooner. But they heard a sigh on the other end of the intercom before the security lock beeped and clicked open, letting the gate swing inward. “Only three hours, Adrien,” Natalie told them through the intercom. “And you both need to check in with me right before she leaves so I can see her out.”

Adrien did a subtle fist pump as he jogged up the stairs and rushed Marinette inside the mansion, grinning like they were sneaking around his own house. “Quick, before she changes her mind.”

He lead them up the grand staircase in the foyer and to the left through more doors and hallways than Marinette could keep track of as they headed towards his bedroom. Once they arrived and Adrien has his hand on the knob, he drummed his fingers, turned around, and pressed his back against the door. “Okay. Before we go in….brutal honesty only. Please.”

“Of course,” she said. “Why would I offer anything else?”

“I dunno, it’s just,” Adrien began. “I’ve never shown anyone these. Even Nino hasn’t seen most of them because I’ve never brought him here before. I just don’t want you to be afraid of hurting my feelings or anything. I want to get better. I can take it.”

Marinette smirked. “Critique isn’t about hurting people’s feelings,” she replied. “It’s about being constructive. So if what you want is for me to be honest and constructive, then I’ll absolutely agree to that.”

Adrien smiled and nodded. “I guess that’s fair.”

“Besides, if they’re anything like the ones you’ve shown me, I know I won’t be disappointed,” she promised.

He ruffled his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. “I dunno about that….”

Marinette balanced on her toes and gestured to his room behind him. “Well, only one way to find out.”

Adrien chuckled to let loose some of his nerves and pushed the door to his room open. “They’re on the wall to the left of the windows.”

Marinette tried not to make it obvious that she’d been in Adrien’s room a handful of times already and knew exactly where to walk and where to look. Not that she was paying extremely close attention, but when she was swinging into his windows as Ladybug, she always remembered seeing a red fencing poster along the wall next to the windows and right underneath the staircase leading up to whatever was up on the second floor. But as he lead her around the couch and toward the windows, she could see that the poster was taken down and rolled up to lie against the stairs which left a huge amount of wall space left for all of his photos.

And boy, did he have a lot of them.

They were all printed on glossy photo paper, sitting comfortably in white cardboard photo mounts and hanging in neat rows and columns from two feet above Marinette’s head to two feet above the ground. She guessed there were around forty or so pictures hanging with around three quarters of the second wall still empty for more photos. Adrien picked a lovely spot for them because what was once such an empty and drab part of the room brightened only by the sunlight coming in from the windows was now an explosion of colors, buildings, scenery, faces, smiles, and activity that made Marinette breathe out in awe the moment she laid eyes on everything. Adrien was standing behind her, biting on his thumbnail as he watched her approach the wall and stare up at the photos.

There was something very different from seeing photos on the screen of his camera and seeing the photos edited, blown up, printed, and put up on the wall. Everything seemed more vivid, more personal, and more touching than they had before, and Marinette felt she couldn’t properly appreciate Adrien’s photos until now. There were so many different things on display — pictures of cafe signs at dusk, pictures of the Seine right at sunset with the city lights were turning on and the water was reflecting purples and pinks, pictures of autumn leaves shot from below and staring up at the canopy of leaves above, and so so so many pictures of people laughing, hugging, kissing, running, reading, writing, and singing, like Adrien was a bystander merely trying to take the more beautiful parts of the world he saw and turn them into something timeless. Whatever amateur attempts she remembered seeing those months ago when Adrien first started photographing seemed so far removed from everything here. Everything here was focused, bright, compelling, and interesting. Like he was an artist and not just a person capturing what he saw.

“Adrien,” Marinette breathed out. “These are beautiful.”

He pulled his nail from his mouth. “H-Huh?”

“I’m serious,” Marinette repeated. “These are all really breathtaking. Some of these compositions are so pretty, and the angles that you pick are really great. I would hang some of these in my house. You should be really proud of yourself.”

He didn’t say anything in response at first, and Marinette turned back to him to find him blushing all the way up to his ears and staring at her looking absolutely stunned — like something had just zipped past his nose and taken him completely by surprise. Adrien looked like he was trying to form his lips around words, to try and say something in response, but he ended up just beaming at her, the dimples on his cheeks showing prominently, and wringing his hands in front of him. “....thanks.”

Marinette didn’t think she’d ever seen Adrien blush so much in her life — he always seemed like the epitome of grace and control, the complete opposite of what she could manage. But there was something about seeing him standing there so stunned and so humbled that seemed rather charming. Like he really was incredibly nervous about showing off his photos and like he was truly worried about what Marinette might say. She was suddenly reminded of how he took her off guard when he called her designs gorgeous, and it made Marinette far more comfortable to know that he was just as anxious now as she was yesterday.

She turned back to look at one of the photos that caught her eye first — a shot that was taken eye level at a cafe table. There was a woman on the left cupping the side of her tea cup with one hand, and the woman across from her gently brushing her fingertips against the first woman’s knuckles. The entire shot was focused on the cup and on their hands, and the couple laughing in the background was out of focus, looking like a blur of the warm colors pouring in from the window behind them. It made Marinette smile and she pointed it out to him. “This is one of my favorites,” she told him. “When did you take it?”

“O-Oh, well,” Adrien began. “There’s this nice cafe across the street from the gym I go to for my basketball practices. Those two women go there a lot for dates in the afternoons. They always look really happy, and they’re always laughing about something, so I asked if I could take a picture of them. I have another version focusing on their faces, but for some reason I liked this shot with their hands better.”

“Me too,” Marinette told him. It seemed intimate and special — like there was an entire love story behind just that one photograph, and Marinette knew that you had to have a keen eye and real talent to be able to pull that off. “It should go in your ‘Really Good’ pile.”

“Portfolio worthy?”

“Definitely! A bunch of these are for sure. I think I saw one over here in the corner —”

Marinette dropped off in the middle of her sentence when her eyes lingered over a photo just above eye level that was all the way on the right side of the wall. The only reason she stopped was because she recognized the coat that the girl in the shot was wearing, and it was one of her coats — one that she’d painstakingly made by hand last fall for the winter months because she was frustrated with how plain and expensive the coats in the regular outlets were. Which meant that, yes, that was a picture of her — sitting on the wall alongside the steps on school, sketching in her designing notebook in the middle of a light snowfall, her hair dotted in white flakes. It looked like he was standing right at the base of the wall, because the shot was pointed upwards with the lattice of a bare tree sprawling out above her head like swirls against the white sky.

She looked deep in concentration, snowflakes stuck on her eyelashes, cheeks and lips flushed red from the cold, and so….different. She was used to seeing herself in pictures from selfies she took on her phone or pictures Alya posted of her on Facebook, but not in something like this.

“When did you take this one?” she asked him, brushing her fingers along the cardboard mount.

Adrien moved next to her to see which picture she was talking about and suddenly his words caught in his throat. “Oh!” he said a little too loudly. “That one! Um….I didn’t mean to be creepy or anything! I wasn’t even thinking when I took it, honest, it was just….you looked really nice sitting there, and well, it was a good shot so I — ” He broke off from his rambling and sighed. “I’m sorry, I can take it down if you want.”

Marinette shook her head slowly and hoped that she wasn’t flushing too much. “N-No, I’m not mad at all, it’s just….I look so different.”

Adrien frowned thoughtfully. “What do you mean? Good different I hope….”

She pouted her lips and tried to stare at the little details on her face that she hadn’t picked up on before — that her freckles weren’t as prominent during the winter, that her jaw was sharper than she thought it was, that her eyelashes looked longer in the pictures than before. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed those kinds of things before, and how the picture seemed to pick them all up like it was nothing. “I dunno. Prettier, I guess.”

Adrien chuckled and plucked the photo off from the hook that he’d mounted on the wall. He stared at it for a moment before shaking his head. “That’s a strange thing to say.”

“What do you mean?”

He removed the picture from the cardboard mount and handed it off to her. “I didn’t make you pretty. I can’t create anything that isn’t already there. All I did was take a little picture.

Marinette bit her lip and couldn’t help but smile against it. “I-I think you do more than that. If photographers just took exact copies of the things they see in real life, there would be no need to call them artists. If you’re taking it thoughtfully, you’re adding something.” She held the photo back to him. “You should set this one aside too. Not in a narcissistic kind of way, but….it’s really a good photo.”

Adrien shrugged. “Keep that one,” he told her. “I can always print another. You want a frame for it?”

She gently hugged the photo to her chest, being careful not to leave any smudges on the surface. “Sure.”

He went back to his desk to get her a black cardboard frame for her photo that was just big enough for her to put on her desk or hang on her wall if she felt like it. She was scrutinizing the picture that Adrien took of the Seine at sunset as he put the picture in a frame for her. “Any other good ones?”

Marinette nodded. “I think so. Do you mind if I take a bunch down? It’ll be easier to see the ones that are up higher that way.”

“Go ahead, take down as many as you want. Just be sure not to bend them, and try not to leave any fingerprints on them.”

Marinette pulled an entire row of photos down from the wall, sat down, and started to lay them out all around her to make them easier to see. “Here, take down a bunch and let’s go through them one by one, see which ones you can set aside.”

“Any specifications?” Adrien asked, taking the vertical row of photos closest to the window and carefully pulling them off of their hooks.

“Well, you want to have a diverse set of photos that shows a diverse skill set,” Marinette started to explain. “So we should see if we can split what you have into categories and then try to pick samples from each, if that makes sense. So over here….”

They spent the next hour slowly sifting through each of Adrien’s photos, huddling together shoulder to shoulder to discuss them, and plucking out the ones that they both felt were worthy of putting into a small portfolio album. They were splitting up all his still lifes, his portraits, his landscapes, and his action shots into separate piles before going through a very animated deliberation process about which ones really exceeded expectations. Marinette was trying to use as much information she knew about building good sample books to try and help him as much as possible — “Yes, they’re both good pictures of this building, but you shouldn’t include both if one is obviously better” — and Adrien was schooling her on aspects of photography that she wouldn’t have thought to consider when picking out good examples — “This was a color channel manipulation though, do you think it’s worth putting in to show off my editing a little?”

At some point, Adrien had turned on a Jagged Stone album to play in the background and had smuggled up a tray of croissants and baguette slices to snack on once they started to get hungry. Marinette was lying on her back, staring up at the two photos she was holding in either hand, and chewing thoughtfully on a mouthful of bread. “So,” she announced. “We’re down to the cobblestoned road and the violinist that you saw across the street from the bakery.”

Adrien ripped off a bite of bread and was absently singing along to the song playing in the background. “Mmmm...I dunno, what do you think?”

“I mean, they’re both black and white so I guess in terms of making sure you have at least one more in there, it doesn’t matter which one you pick.” She shook the photo in her left. “I like the cobblestone one more though. Looks otherworldly.”

“I agree.” Adrien started pointed to the photo in Marinette’s other hand. “But I think the violinist one just came out better. It’s sharper and I managed to get so many details on his face to show up in the final print even though he was in the middle of playing.”

Marinette peeked over at the small row of final photos they’d picked out that trumped all the rest. “I think you can afford throwing in another action shot. You only have one other in there, and this one might be cool to add.”

“True,” Adrien pouted, drawing out the vowels. He shrugged and took the violinist photo out of Marinette’s hand. “Alrighty. This one it is!”

Marinette stretched her arms over her head and let them fall boneless against the floor. “I think twelve photos is a pretty good start.”

“Really?” Adrien questioned. “I feel like it’s kinda small….”

“I don’t think bigger is necessarily better,” Marinette reasoned. “Besides, this is just a start, you know? Once you start to figure what kinds of pictures you really like taking, or what kinds of subjects you really like, you can focus on that and tweak what you include. That’s what I did.”

Adrien nodded, his forehead furrowed like he was seriously considering her words. “What pictures I really like taking, huh?”

Marinette rolled over on her stomach and pillowed her head in her arms. “Do you have a favorite thing to photograph?”

Adrien shrugged, looking unsure, and flipped the question back to her. “Do you have a favorite thing to design?”

“Probably skirts,” Marinette decided. “You can get way more creative with fabrics and designs with skirts. More surface area. Plus I just like how they move. That’s maybe the one time where you can use something like fabric to make a piece of clothing look really vibrant.”

He raised a brow. “...I didn’t think of that. That’s a good point.”

“Mmhm! I mostly make skirts and dresses I’ve noticed. I mean, I do other things too, but those are my favorites. If I had to specialize in anything, it’d probably be spring or summer wear just because of that.”

Adrien rolled his shoulders back and folded his hands behind his head. “Favorite thing to photograph….” he muttered to himself. “Well. I guess if I had to pick, I’d say people are the most fun for me.”

“Interesting. Any reason why?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Adrien said. “There’s just something really challenging about taking pictures of really animated, living, breathing things, turning that into just one image, and making that image tell a story. But, it’s a fun challenge. You sort of have to sit and wait and watch people for a bit, get to understand them even if it’s from afar. Then you have to pick just the right moment — the perfect moment to take a shot. Like you’re just waiting for something to click.”

Marinette was nibbling on the half of the croissant that she left on the tray. “Do you ever catch yourself by surprise? Like you capture something good, but something you didn’t mean to grab?”

“All the time,” Adrien agreed. “You know how you start off with one thing in mind, and then things morph into something different but easily as good? Photography is the same way. Your attention drifts to different things. So like that photo of the couple in the cafe you liked. I never meant to take pictures of their hands. But they caught my eye and knew that I wanted to make something beautiful with that.”

It was a much more thoughtful answer than Marinette expected, and she suddenly wondered what must have been going through Adrien’s head when he saw her sitting on that stoop sketching in the middle of winter, totally disconnected from everything around her and only focusing on the end of her pencil. She wondered what he saw that he liked, what about her seem so full of life that he felt like clipping it down into just one brief moment. What seemed to make him want to stop and make something beautiful out of a scene with her in it. Suddenly, it seemed like such a purposeful and intimate task to take on, and Marinette wasn’t sure if she was elated, mortified, or a healthy little dose of both.

She ignored the pleasant aching in her chest and smiled. “It makes sense. Most of the time, the photos you take are of people.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Between you and me, all those Paris inspired designs you showed me? Well, after I saw them and I was heading home, I was thinking of how cool it was and whether I could do something like that. Not to steal your idea or anything, but maybe doing a bunch of portraits of people that are connected in some way would be a cool project to do. I feel like that’d be a good challenge.”

Marinette perked up. “That’s not stealing my idea at all. That’s a great idea! Deciding to do a series or a project is hardly copying.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start though,” he bemoaned, rubbing his hand over his face. “That stuff you were doing looked like it took ages to plan out.”

“Not necessarily.” She got up on her elbows and crawled over to the sprawl of photos around them. “Come on. Grab all the pictures of people. Let me see something.”

Adrien pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Wait what?”

“Just trust me,” Marinette said, pulling a few photos closer to her.

About a third of the photos that Adrien had on his wall were all of people — portraits, group shots, and candids that were of strangers, friends from school, teachers in the hallways, store owners she recognized from the neighborhood, and performers on the street. Marinette added her photo to the front of the line and let Adrien help her start to line up all the photos. A few she recognized — there was one of Alya sitting in class, probably before it started, laughing and smiling at something on her phone, by the looks of it something she was editing on her blog. There was one of Nino fiddling with one of his video cameras in the park that he and Nino liked to hang out in a lot. There was a picture of the florist that was around two blocks down from Marinette’s apartment awake in the early morning, pruning the roses in front of the shop and wiping his tired brow as he did so. There was another one of Alix smiling and staring off into space, but with her dirty hands tangled up in the laces of her skates. One of a couple dancing in front of the Eiffel Tower. A writer sitting in front of the Louvre right in the middle of ripping pages out of her notebook and with a pen dangling in between her lips.

“Huh,” she said to herself. “It’s cool seeing them all laid out together like this.”

Adrien was leaning forward on his elbows and cradling his chin in both of his hands. “I never realized how intense they all look.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, intense in different ways but….you and your sketching, Alya on her blog, the musicians in the street, Alix and her skates, Nino with his camera, the florist in front….you all just look so absorbed in what you’re doing. I hadn’t noticed before. Just look at all the faces.”

Marinette leaned in close and turned one of the photos closer to her. “You did that by accident?”

“Not really. I take pictures of people when they look really dynamic, you know? There’s a lot going on in their faces or what they’re doing. Makes for interesting photos.”

Marinette drummed her fingers along the cardboard mount that was around the picture of Alya and tilted her head. She remembered telling Alya to quit blogging during class — to no avail — because whenever she was replaying really good footage or scrolling through the comments on her blog, her pride was written all over her face and her teachers were always catching her smile and laughing to herself. Marinette had seen it thousands of times, and all she was looking at now was perfect photo evidence of it. Dynamic was definitely a word for it, although Marinette liked to tease her and tell her that she looked way too hyper when she was on her Ladyblog binge. Then again, by the same token, Alya liked to tell her that Marinette looked like a woman on a mission when she was sketching, her face going stone cold serious and giving everyone within a ten foot radius of her the hint that she didn’t want to be disturbed. She looked at the picture of herself and wondered if that was what Alya was talking about all the time.

She stared a little harder at the picture of the writer ripping apart her words, and she suddenly had a thought come to her. “They’re doing what they love.”

Adrien turned to her. “Hm?”

“Everyone’s doing what they like doing,” Marinette repeated. “They look dynamic because they’re excited, or frustrated, or concentrating on something.”

Adrien grinned, looking as if an idea had literally just hit him and made him immediately perk up. “That’s actually not a bad idea!”

“Frustrated people?” Marinette joked.

“No,” he said, grinning and collecting all his portraits again. “Photos of people doing the things they love. Catching them right at that moment where they’re so absorbed in what they’re doing they’re just chock full of energy. That could be a series, right?”

“I don’t see why not,” she beamed. “You can go pretty crazy with an idea like that, go in a lot of directions. I’d love to see what you come up with.”

Adrien sat back on his knees. “Summer is coming up,” he said. “It’s not much, but I always do get a little bit more free time during then.”

“I was actually going to try and finish up my Paris outfits before the start of the new school year,” Marinette explained. “The summer is usually just long days of me not having anything else to do.”

“We can work on them both together!” Adrien suggested, bouncing on his ankles a little bit. “You finish all of your outfits and I’ll schedule shoots and make prints of all my photos. That’d be so much fun.”

“I would appreciate a second opinion on some of the designs I’m fixing,” Marinette offered. “Always good to have another eye on things.”

“Exactly! We can bounce ideas around. It’ll be great.”

Marinette couldn’t think back to too many things that she’d seen Adrien get truly excited about. There was one afternoon when they both freaked out over the Mecha Strike IV promotional posters that had gone up all over Paris seemingly overnight, and Adrien spent most of their lunch pause rattling on about all of the new booster packs and power ups and cheats that were going to come with the new game. Or that time that Alya, Nino, and Marinette all showed up at Adrien’s fencing match and saw him all the way to the finals where he broke a tense tie and beat his opponent. But this was different — Marinette could see the cogs in Adrien’s head working. This wasn’t just a reaction to a surprise or a victory. This was a chance to make something all his own, to work hard on something that you loved doing, and Marinette knew exactly just how eager that could make you feel. He looked like he had all these ideas that were literally vibrating inside of him.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and smiled behind them. She really wanted to be around to see that.

Adrien laced his fingers on the back of his neck, looking overwhelmed but determined. “You really helped me out today Marinette. Thanks. I mean it.”

Marinette fiddled with the hem of her sleeve. “I didn’t do all that much,” she said, looking away from him and towards the floor.

“Nah, you did plenty.” Adrien crawled closer to her, sat cross legged in front of her and gently nudged her knees. “I just hope I can return the favor for you one day. If you ever want to talk to me about one of your designs...I can’t say I know too much about the technical side of things, but I can always do the best I can.”

Marinette nodded enthusiastically, her cheeks starting to ache from all the smiling she was doing at the sight of his enthusiasm. “That’s more than enough.”

He offered her a glittering smile. “Perfect.” He was back to staring at his photos, rearranging them on the floor and staring at them as if he had found something new in them that he hadn’t seen before. “I can’t wait to get started.”

Chapter Text

“ Okay, so wait, what am I bringing?”

Adrien readjusted his shoulder to keep his cellphone pinched between his ear and his shoulder as he started packing up extra camera straps in his bag. “Okay, imagine that I just told you that you were DJing an end of the year party with tons of people and sick music. What would you bring?”

“ Dude, that’s so gonna depend on at least seven different factors…”

“Why seven?”

“ Well, I need to get a sense of the people. Then pick a mood. Then start pulling out playlists. Then picking which songs need remixes. Then deciding which songs I’m gonna make mash-ups. Then I gotta throw in random songs to keep the whole mix interesting, then — ”

“Okay,” Adrien interrupted. “Simplest conditions, nothing complicated, bare boned necessities.”

“ Uhh….laptop, headphones, chargers, speakers, outputs…maybe a Launchpad if I was feeling really intense. Why?”

Adrien zipped up his camera bag and double checked to make sure he had spare memory cards, just in case. “How annoying would it be to bring all that to school with you?”

“ I mean...not that annoying? I’d have to bring a second bag to school, but I don’t live that far away and I can just keep it in my locker. Wait, what’s going on? Are you planning a party or something?”

“Eh, sort of. You’re still free during lunch, right?”

“ Of course. ”

“Then all you have to do is show up. Let me handle everything else.”

“ Adrien, what the hell are you planning? ”

“Nothing bad I promise,” Adrien assured. “Just make sure you bring everything.”

Nino sighed in exasperation over the phone. “ Alright, man. Whatever you say.”

“See you in a bit.”

The last week had been particularly stressful and consisted mostly of everyone keeping late hours and studying for all of their end of the year exams with only the glistening hope of summer to motivate them. In all that time, Alya, Nino, Marinette, and he were pretty much camping out in libraries and going back and forth between studying at Marinette’s and Alya’s houses, so Adrien hadn’t had much of a chance to touch his camera at all. But their grades had already been handed back to them, and there were really only a handful of school days left over, which meant most of the hard work was over and Adrien could finally start thinking about his photography again.

He reached into the side pocket of his camera bag and pulled out a small notebook that Marinette told him to start carrying around so that he can stop writing random ideas on the backs of his hands and on the insides of his arms that would inevitably wash out later. Adrien leaned back in his desk chair and opened to a page with a list of names on the left and a foldout calendar that he’d taped on the right.

He looked down under today’s date and circled Nino’s name in bright red so that he’d remember to upload the photos from today when he got home. But Nino was easy — Adrien knew his schedule like the back of his hand. There were at least ten or so other people he’d have to remember to find and figure out the least awkward way to say “Hey, do you have time for me to photograph you?”

“Good grief, don’t tell me you’re writing love letters again.”

Adrien glared up at Plagg who was hovering over his head and squinting at pages of writing. “It’s not a love letter. And stop being nosy, we talked about this.”

Plagg patted his small hands against Adrien’s scalp. “You’re my pet human, and I have every right to scrutinize your weird human habits. Especially if it involves you being nauseating.”

“Gee, thanks,” Adrien snorted. “It’s just a list of people that I think will be good subjects for a project I’m thinking about. I figured it’d be a good time to start since there’s only a week left of school and my schedule will be way less hectic.”

Plagg groaned and rolled around in Adrien’s hair. “Oh, you’re gonna go on and on about your little photos, aren’t you?”

Adrien plucked Plagg out of his hair and set him down on his computer desk in front of a fresh plate of camembert. “Eat your breakfast, you whiner. And if it makes you feel any better, I have other people to bore with that stuff so you’re fine.”

Plagg hummed. “Right. Your girlfriend that you invited over the other day…”

“ Friend , not girlfriend,” he corrected.

“Whatever,” Plagg complained.

“I just wanted to get her advice on some things. Marinette’s always really helpful and I thought she’d have some good advice, that’s all.”

Plagg snorted rudely. “Friendly advice? That’s all?”

Adrien frowned. “What are you implying?”

“Gee, I don’t know, you’re the one who’s all fussy about labels,” he sighed, shoving a large chunk into his mouth.

Adrien frowned down at Plagg and shoved him and his plate of cheese down the other end of the desk with the end of his eraser. Plagg didn’t seem to mind and muttered something about sensitive teenagers before he started gobbling the rest of his meal in earnest with Adrien dutifully ignoring him.

Truth be told though, he’d be lying if he said his only motivation now was to try and get more of Marinette’s advice and approval. That alone was wonderful purely from an artistic perspective — it was nerve wracking to show his work to other people, and for some reason Marinette put him at ease since he knew her well enough.

But he still remembered the look on Marinette’s face when she was looking at his wall of photos, when she was laid out on his floor comfortably talking about how to organize his photos, how close they were sitting, and how completely at ease she seemed. It was always a secret challenge for Adrien to figure out how to make Marinette more comfortable around him whenever they happened to hang out alone, and for some reason he thought he may have found the answer to it. They both loved talking about their art, and whenever the two of them got going, it was like all the discomfort and awkwardness melted away as if nothing.

A huge part of him really wanted to try and see that again if he could.

Adrien tapped the side of Plagg’s plate. “Two more bites. I’m supposed to meet my father downstairs before I leave for school today.”

Plagg pouted. “Can’t I bring it with me?”

“You are not sticking that gooey, stinky cheese in my shirt pockets again. Chow down, and let’s go.”

Adrien slung his camera bag over one shoulder, his school bag over the other, and head down to his father’s study. Every four weeks or so, he’d go to his father to get his schedule for the next month. It usually had all of Adrien’s major photo shoots, the days he’d have to miss school, the days he’d have to go to tutoring to make up for the lost school, changes to his sports practices, and a whole other slew of activities that his father deemed fit for Adrien that even Adrien himself couldn’t bother remembering. All of the late Spring prep for the Gabriel Summer line was done, and prep for the Fall line wouldn’t start until later in the summer. Hopefully that meant Adrien would have lots of free time until then.

He walked up to the large doors, took a deep breath, straightened his back, and knocked on the hollow doors. His father called him in from the other side and Adrien moved to stand in the middle of the looming study, feet away from his father’s desk and hands respectfully clasped behind his back as usual.

Gabriel had only just come back from New York a couple of days ago and Adrien remembered Nathalie mentioning something about him traveling to London for a bit too. It was probably why his father looked so stressed and why his usually immaculate desk space looked particularly catastrophic today. Didn’t really look like the time to start negotiating free time, Adrien noted sadly.

Nathalie was already snagging a laminated piece of paper from Gabriel’s desk and walking it over to Adrien.

“Nathalie’s already constructed your schedule for the beginning of the summer,” Gabriel said without looking up from his work. “You’ll notice that your contracts have been significantly lessened, but don’t let that make you complacent. You’re getting close to the age where you’ll start to be scrutinized for more mature shoots soon, and I expect you to conduct yourself in a manner befitting this company.”

“Yes, father.”

“I’ve called in your tutors again for the summer and I expect high marks on your summer assignments as usual. I expect nothing less than excellence when you eventually come time to take the bac . They’ll be reporting to me regularly, so keep your work ethic where it needs to be.”

Adrien almost wanted to groan aloud at all of math and science sessions he was meant to do during the week, but he knew that it was better not to complain. His weekends still looked untouched for the most part, so he supposed he should at least be grateful for that. Maybe those would make good days for photo shoots. “Of course, father.”

“I don’t want to hear of any shirking of your responsibilities. I’ve instructed Nathalie to report to me if that becomes an issue. I do hope that I don’t need to emphasize that point further, is that understood?”

Adrien bit the inside of his cheek and breathed out harshly through his nose. “Yes.”

“Any objections?”

It was an empty question, Adrien had long figured out. The last time he tried to convince his father to lighten up his schedule just a little bit, he’d been shafted with an hour long lecture about how he needed to have better priorities that went past having silly fun with his friends. He had his career and his schooling and his reputation to think about and that was always more important. Looking at his schedule now, he realized this was as good as it was going to get. He pushed the schedule into his bag. “No, father.”

Gabriel waved his hand towards the door. “The car should be ready for you downstairs. You’re dismissed.”

Adrien nodded and started to follow Nathalie out of the room before Gabriel spoke up again behind him. “Wait.”

Adrien stopped and immediately turned around to face his father, this time actually taking a moment to look his son up and down for the first time that morning. He was eyeing Adrien’s camera bag and Adrien put a protective hand over it. Gabriel pointed the end of his pen towards it. “What’s that you’re carrying?”

The lie came out too easily. “Just pieces for a presentation I have to give today. I had to work on it at home and I’m taking it in now.”

“A bag that big?”

Adrien nodded and hoped his features were still schooled. “It’s a….hands on presentation. Lots of parts.”

Gabriel didn’t look entirely convinced, but it looked like his work demanded more attention, so he merely waved Adrien away again and buried himself in his tablet. “Very well. Off you go.”

Adrien didn’t let himself sigh out in relief until he was in the back of the car with the Gorilla and on the way to school. Plagg poked his head out of his pocket and whispered quietly to Adrien once the partition was raised up. “Since when do you go around lying to your father like that?”

“Since you came along,” Adrien whispered smartly back. “Besides, it’s better if he doesn’t know. Wouldn’t want him to think I’m wasting my time with foolishness.”

“Well, it is foolishness, I agree. Food should be everyone’s first priority,” Plagg commented. “But it’s important to you , at any rate.”

Adrien shrugged and tapped Plagg’s head to shove him back into his pocket. “It’s fine,” he promised. “It’s better this way.” The last thing he needed was his father to take away his camera or demand that he stop wasting his time with it. It was lucky that neither him nor Nathalie ever came into his room for anything, otherwise the photos on his walls would certainly raise some startling questions, ones that Adrien didn’t feel like answering. As long as he kept his schedule and didn’t shirk off his responsibilities, what his father didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

His mood perked up considerably when he finally arrived at school and found Nino leaning against the steps and waiting for Adrien like he did every morning. In addition to his regular school bag, Nino had another large black bag that looked like it was stuffed to capacity sitting by his feet while he looked through his phone. Adrien grinned widely, bounded up the steps, and threw an arm around Nino’s shoulders. “Nino, my best friend in the whole wide world since the beginning of time and space.”

“This better not be because you want me to do a mash-up of anime openings or something dorky like that. Because I will refuse.”

“A, not what I was going to ask you, and B, rude. That was an amazing idea I pitched to you.”

Nino rolled his eyes and picked up his extra bag as they moved into the courtyard and starting heading for their locker room. “Only you would come up with something like that. Personally, I’m sort of on the fence about encouraging your dorky habits.”

“You know what, I’m going to ignore that because I came up with a better idea this morning anyway, and I think you’re going to like it.”

Nino dumped his DJ equipment inside his locker and started switching out his books for the day. “Alright, I’ll bite. What’s your big idea?”

Adrien smirked. “How would you feel about running up to the music room during lunch and letting me photograph you?”

Nino turned to Adrien and looked at him a little strangely before he closed his locker. “Wait, run that by me again?”

“Exactly what I said,” Adrien shrugged. “Would you let me photograph you?”

Nino placed a hand on his chest and smirked. “What a proposition….”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“This is so risqué!” Nino cackled. He leaned against his locker, put a foot up on the door behind him, and lifted his hands above his head to try and look as enticing as possible. “Should I lay out on the piano like this?”

Adrien shoved Nino’s shoulder, and laughed as he watched him stumble and trip over his school bad still sitting on the floor. “If you do that, I’ll just throw the pictures up on the Internet.”

“Rude,” Nino said, sticking his tongue out. “But seriously, what’s this for? Just screwing around with the camera again?”

Adrien shook his head. “No...I’ve actually got an idea for a project that I want to do. I mean, I can explain more about it later, but I’m trying to do something a little more focused. Push the envelope a little.” 

Nino hummed and stroked his chin. “Ah. I see that afternoon you spent with Marinette last week was fruitful.”

“It was actually,” Adrien agreed. “She’s really good at giving advice and talking to about critiques. She suggested I try to do something a little bigger so I’ve been planning it throughout the week. I figured you might want to help me out with it a bit.” 

“I mean, hey, you know me. I’ll help you out with anything you need. Can’t promise you I’ll be able to pull off the whole broody, pouty, intense, model look that you do, but I can follow directions." 

Adrien frowned. “Okay, when have I ever done that?”

“Oh please, I could name like ten!”

The ease that had finally settled over their entire class was practically palpable the moment Nino and Adrien entered the classroom. Walking into class in the morning would always present Adrien with classmates snoozing on tables, frantically finishing assignments on the corners of their desks, arguing over textbooks, and frantically reading long outlines minutes before a test. But all of that was over and everyone was finally letting themselves kick back and enjoy the last bits of school before they finally let out for the summer. People were actually talking to each other about things besides their problem sets and essays, and everyone seemed fresh faced and ready to end the year on a good note.

Marinette and Alya were already gossiping at their desks, both with their feet up on the table and their ankles crossed. In between them was a large paper bag of four full baguettes that they were casually ripping pieces off of like they weren’t sitting in the middle of a classroom.

Marinette immediately waved Adrien over when she spotted him and held out the end of the baguette. “Want some?” she said. “Papa made too many this morning so I brought like four of them to school.”

Nino turned around in his seat so that he could steal a piece for himself. “Wow, school is going to be so chill for the rest of this week. Bread in class? Amazing…”

Alya shrugged. “I mean, it’s the end of the year. I doubt Madame Bustier will mind, but hurry up and eat it while it’s still warm.”

Adrien perked up and took a large chunk for himself as well. “Warm bread?”

“Mmhm,” Marinette smiled. “Fresh out the oven fifteen minutes ago.”

Adrien almost shivered with satisfaction when the steam came out of the bread as he ripped off a small piece and popped it in his mouth. “Okay,” he decided. “This is going to be a good day.”

“Just because of bread?” Marinette asked.

“Warm bread is a good omen,” Nino said sagely.

“Oh yeah?” Alya joked. “And who decided that?”

“I did. Just now.”

Alya shoved the back of his head and all four of them shared a laugh before Adrien elbowed Nino in the side. “You girls interested in seeing something entertaining during lunch?”

“If it involves Nino? Absolutely,” Alya teased.

Nino pointed at Alya’s nose. “Hey, you make jokes now, but I’m about to be famous.”

Marinette snorted and turned to Adrien. “What is he on about now?”

“Remember that thing I told you about?” Adrien told Marinette. “That project I wanted to start over the summer?”

Marinette nodded, and then suddenly realized what he meant because her eyes widened and she smiled brightly at him. “You’re staring with Nino? That’s fantastic!”

“Wait, you know what’s going on?” Nino asked in confusion. “What am I talking about, of course you do. Artsy Duo over here…”

Adrien rolled his eyes at him. “I’ll explain more about it during lunch. But it should be fun. He brought all of his DJ equipment to school today and you get to see him in action.”

Marinette nodded. “That should be a really good shoot. Oh, I can’t wait to see it!”

Alya shrugged. “Hey, I’m game. Not often I get to see either of you in action, to tell you the truth.”

“Well then look at that,” Nino smirked at her. “You get a private show. How lucky for you.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Madame Bustier who had silenced the class and started launching them straight into their literature discussion. She was attempting to squeeze in one last short text before the year ended, and Adrien only hoped that she could manage to reel in the class’s attention. His tutors had already had him read this book a couple of years ago when he was still being home schooled, so he found himself zoning out of the discussion and doodling ideas about poses and angles and lighting ideas that he could realistically pull off in the music room upstairs. It would be his first time trying to do a series of pictures that was so focused, and he wanted to make sure he did it right the first time.

His phone buzzed in his pocket a few minutes into the discussion and he peeked in his pocket to see Marinette’s contact flashing across his screen. He grinned and discreetly pulled his phone out to answer her.

M - Need any help setting up things upstairs when lunch rolls around? :)

Adrien smiled. They’d been texting back and forth every once in awhile and in between studying, bouncing around ideas with each other after the afternoon they spent in his room. Marinette kept sending him pictures she’d take with her cell phone of little views and buildings that she thought would be good inspiration for a blouse or a dress, and Adrien kept talking to her about all of the people that he thought would be interesting to photograph and had passions and talents that he thought would look great to play around with. He’d mentioned possibly convincing Nino to pose for him one day, but it was sort of a spur of the moment decision to try and do it today.

He quickly texted her back. A - I don’t think there’ll be much. Maybe help me clear the space and open some windows? For lighting and stuff

M - They’re gonna come out so well :D Nino looked excited

A - Well, here’s hoping anyway

He snorted when Marinette sent him back a long line of thumbs up emojis and lots of exclamation points. M - It’s going to go great! Marinette even looked over her shoulder and sent him a quick reassuring smile before turning back to her notes, and Adrien heavily appreciated the gesture.

Once their final class let out and their two hour pause started, Alya and Marinette offered to run over to the bakery and grab a few things to hold them over for lunch while they worked. Adrien and Nino went back to their lockers, grabbed their equipment, and started scouting out empty music rooms that wouldn’t be in use for the rest of their break. All the while, Adrien was slowly talking Nino through the idea that he had for his photos — trying to capture people’s passions, trying to see if he could catch expressions and emotions right at their peak and right when people were fully absorbed in what they loved doing the most. Nino was listening intently, nodding along and staying quiet while Adrien pushed into an empty music room and kept explaining more about all the sorts of angles and poses he wanted to try out today.

It sounded like a lot once Adrien actually said everything out loud, but Nino seemed rather impressed and taken with everything and seemed even more excited to try and get started. “That’s quite a lot to take on, though. What brought this along?”

Adrien shrugged and laid his camera bag out on top of the piano and started to attach one of the straps to the camera. “Not sure,” he admitted to himself. “I guess I didn’t think I was good enough for something like this before. Like...I wasn’t ready or didn’t have enough experience yet.”

“Everyone always thinks that,” Nino pointed out. “But I think this is one of those things where you won’t know you’re not good enough unless you try first.”

“Well, that’s the idea,” Adrien said, suddenly feeling his chest fill with nerves. “I dunno, I just want to make sure that this is something I can seriously do. Not just as something to kill time, but…”

Nino smirked. “A passion?”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Nino was sitting on the piano bench and kicking his feet back and forth. “Can I be honest for a second? I think you really need this. And I think you need to do it for yourself for once and not for anyone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, the modeling and the fencing and the basketball and the Chinese lessons...yeah you may not hate any of it, but you only really got into it because your dad told you to. But I feel like this is one of those things that your father shouldn’t touch. The kind of thing that you do and get better at because it’s just you putting work into it. I think this is the best thing you could possibly be doing to be honest.”

It wasn’t the first time that Nino had said something similar, something about all of Adrien’s days being painstakingly planned out by his father, right down to the last minute. Adrien used to take it for granted all the time and just accepted it as a part of his reality, and the first time he could think of where he ever actually rebelled against all that order was when he begged his father to let him go to public school and actually socialize amongst people that his father hadn’t pre-screened or pre-approved. It was freeing, and it made Adrien feel like he finally had control over things now, like he could decide what was right for him and just go after it without feeling like he needed other people’s approvals.

He thought back to his father this morning and wondered what his reaction to all of this would be. Adrien’s gut feeling was to assume that he’d find it foolish or a waste of time. It would take away from all the energy he could be putting into the things his father wanted to do, and that was unacceptable. It was why he hadn’t said anything to him — mostly out of fear of being reprimanded.

But Nino raised a good point — maybe this was like public school, something that he had to do for himself and not for anyone else. He almost felt like he needed to justify the things he wanted to do. He spent so much time before approaching his father talking to Chloe and looking online for reasons why public school was more enriching than home schooling. A part of him also wanted to justify his photography and make it seem less like a hobby and more like a livelihood for his father. But Adrien didn’t want to go to public school past wanting to make friends and feel normal for once, and Adrien wasn’t here skipping his lunch period past simply wanting to spread his limbs a little bit and challenge himself.

He thought back to Marinette staring up at his wall of photos, looking at them completely in awe and telling him that he should simply be proud of himself for what he’d created.

“So...make myself proud for once, and not my father?”

Nino nodded. “Foreign concept, I know. I mean, we’re getting to that point where we have to start thinking about what we’re doing after school ends. Don’t let anyone else dictate that for you.”

It was a lot more complicated than Nino made it out to seem — just throwing caution to the wind and doing what he wanted — but he figured that maybe this was something he could take in little steps. One small effort at a time.

The door to the music room was kicked open and Alya was brandishing a large paper bag of bread and sweet pastries. “Sabine Cheng is an absolute blessing from heaven above. Check out the haul we got!”

Marinette watched in amusement as Alya spread out all of the food on top of the piano. She turned to Adrien and held her arms out. “Well? Where should we start?”

Adrien sent Alya and Nino off so start drawing open the curtains and cracking the windows open. Marinette and Adrien started rearranging the chairs, pushing them to the sides of the room, and lining up two long tables to the part of the room with the best lighting to set up a mock work table for Nino to start setting up all his equipment on. Nino plugged in his laptop and his speakers into the outlet by the wall and started booting up his mixing program, pulling out some playlists that he’d made recently and plugging in his Launchpad to try and do something a little experimental for Adrien to try and take shots of. His headphones were already in position and he was bumping up the volume of his music while he held out a thumbs up for Adrien, letting him know that he was ready.

“Okay,” Adrien said, staring down at his camera and fiddling with the focus ring. “I’m only going to be taking test shots, so just mess around like I wasn’t here.”

Nino adjusted his headphones and gave Adrien a thumbs up. “You got it.”

Marinette and Alya were sitting on top of the piano, eating their lunch and asking for song requests as Nino warmed up while Adrien got down on one knee and started to take some pictures at an angle from below. A part of him really wanted to get a nice angle of Nino set up against the piles of wires and headphones and hard drives that he had next to him and start to move to the side to take a few pictures of that as well. He was adjusting his ISO and trying to find a good setting for the lighting they were in, and started messing around with his depth of field while he decided whether or not he wanted the instruments and music stands behind him emphasized to add ambiance, or blurred out to make it entirely about Nino.

Adrien took a few more pictures while standing up on a desk, standing by the piano, catching Nino’s profile, and taking shots straight on before he filtered through them all and decided on the ones he thought were good to retake. “Alright. Real stuff now.” He brought the camera up to his face. “Remember, act natural. Don’t try and pose.”

“And don’t blast anything dirty,” Alya joked. “Otherwise they’ll kick us out.”

It took a few tries to get Nino to drop his shoulders and move around like he wasn’t being watched and being photographed. But it was a good idea to let Alya come upstairs because she was really good about telling jokes and letting Nino relax a little more until he was moving like he was just doing a private show and putting his all into it. Probably some of the best shots that Adrien was getting were the ones where Nino was looking off to the side with a smile, like he was grinning out at his audience. Adrien knew that this was a good idea — Nino spent a lot of time doing video projects and looking at ways to get into movie production when he got older, but Adrien had seen him DJ plenty of times before and knew that Nino always went back to DJing as an engaging hobby that he liked to do for fun, not necessarily because he thought it would make him famous or bring him a lot of money. Adrien was glad that he started to see all that showing in his posture and in his attitude.

He was adjusting his camera settings again after doing a few profile shots when he felt Marinette slide up next to him and look over his shoulder. “He’s doing great up there. How are the pictures coming out?”

“So far so good actually. Better than I thought they would. I’m kind of just playing this by ear and see what I can keep later on, but the lighting in here was a great idea.”

Marinette smiled. “He looks like he’s having fun. I thought for sure you’d catch him making videos or something. Why pick DJing?”

Adrien grinned at his best friend who was currently in a rather heated debate with Alya about whether the remix or the original of a certain song was better. “Just a hunch. I know him pretty well by now, and I know how he gets with his music. Don’t get me wrong, he loves videography but he lets something of himself go when he gets involved with music. Seemed like the perfect pick.”

“You look like you’re having fun too,” Marinette commented. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so focused.”

“Really?”

Marinette shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to stop and watch you take pictures like that. You look good doing it.”

Adrien blinked at the compliment and felt his chest start to swell with warmth while he watched Marinette’s eyes widen and immediately backtrack on her words. “I-I mean! You look comfortable doing it! L-Like you look really professional. You know?”

It was the first slip-up she’d had all day, but Adrien found it more endearing than anything else. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” Nino and Alya looked like they had gotten distracted and were quibbling with each other over the food they brought, so Adrien took that as a perfect okay to take a break and remove his camera from around his neck. “I’m always a little worried that I look like I’m bumbling around.”

“Not at all,” Marinette insisted. “You’ve been practicing and improving a lot lately, and it shows. Don’t worry so much.”

“Yeah, I’ll try not to,” he promised.

Marinette bit her lip, darted her eyes back towards Alya for a moment, and sat down on one of the chairs behind her that they’d pushed aside earlier. “You mind if I ask you something?”

Adrien shrugged. “Sure, shoot.”

She pointed to his camera. “How does all of that work? I mean, I’m just used to holding up my camera phone and tapping the screen. I imagine it’s more complicated than that?”

Adrien chuckled and pulled out a chair next to her to sit down. “Yeah, just a little.” He tipped the camera towards her. “Want me to show you a couple of things?”

Her cheeks were looking a little bit more flushed than usual and for a moment he thought he’d scared or embarassed her, but she seemed to be holding her words together alright and nodded. “Only if you’re sure it won’t go over my head.”

“Nah, it’s actually not that complicated.” He shoved his chair closer to her and switched his display screen to the one that showed all the values he had set up for all of his camera settings. “So aside from the obvious stuff like making sure you’re getting everything in the frame and making sure the picture’s in focus, the more complicated part of everything is getting the exposure right.”

“Exposure,” Marinette nodded. “Is that like how washed out the photo is?”

“Kind of,” he explained. “It’s how much light per unit area that reaches the sensor in the camera. So yeah, it decides how light or dark your camera looks. So because you’re always going to be in different kinds of lighting you can fix your exposure by fiddling with three things: your ISO, your shutter speed, and your aperture.”

Marinette pursed her lips in concentration. “ISO, shutter speed, and….aperture. Got it.”

“Yup. So look.” He turned the camera to Marinette. “ISO measures light sensitivity, so the higher the sensitivity, the more light the camera picks up for you. We’re in pretty good lighting right now, so I’m not keeping it very high.”

“Do you always want to keep it low like that?”

“Ideally, you want to get the best shot with the lowest ISO possible. So yeah, it’s good that I can keep it this low. It means there’s enough natural lighting to do what I want.”

Marinette pointed to another number on the camera. “What’s that?”

“Aperture. It’s like the opening in the lens that lets light shine through when you take the photo. The number you see that measures aperture is the f-stop. Higher f-stop, lower aperture, less light comes through. Also not going crazy with this one because we’re in good lighting. But if it was really dark for some reason, I might make the f-stop lower.”

Marinette nodded. “Which lets in...more light?”

“Exactly,” Adrien smiled. “And shutter speed is just how quickly the shutter opens and closes for a shot. 1/500 is pretty standard, so I’m keeping it there. The slower the speed, the blurrier the shot, so you want to be careful with that.”

Marinette breathed out. “That’s a lot to keep track of.”

“Kind of,” Adrien admitted. “But you learn how to find a good balance between all of that stuff. Not to sound conceited, but it comes a little more naturally to me just because I’m so used to taking a bunch of pictures. I mean, I’m no expert. Sometimes things still come out a little weird, but you just learn how your camera works and work with that you’re given.”

“I think they call that being a natural,” Marinette pointed out.

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled. “Nah, I don’t think I’m that good. I just did a lot of research and listened to a lot of people.”

“I mean, so did I. But there’s also something to be said about natural talent,” Marinette said. “You really take to this well. I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m impressed you have such a good sense of your craft, that’s all.”

Adrien didn’t think he was ever going to get over Marinette’s compliments — something about her approval seemed to set him at ease, and it was just so refreshing to see her talking to him so candidly and so comfortably. He almost wished she would just let him go on and on about more camera settings, about different lenses, about post processing, just so that he could watch her and her face screwed up in absolute concentration and fascination. But he settled for chuckling nervously. “I mean...I’m sure you are too.”

“Me? No way,” Marinette laughed. “I was absolutely awful when I first started out.”

“Um!” Adrien stared at her with an accusatory smirk. “This coming from the girl who makes her own clothes, her own bags, her own hats, and her own bedding.”

“No, I’m telling you it took me close to a year before I got any good,” Marinette swore. “The first dress I made had one sleeve close to a foot shorter than the other. Don’t ask how I managed it.”

“Did you measure the fabric wrong?”

“Probably,” Marinette chuckled. “I mean, that was also back when I thought that designing was just a matter of sewing random things together. It’s a lot more complicated. Different fabrics do different things, different stitches are good for different things, embroidering is an absolute nightmare and it’s a lot harder than it seems at first. One Christmas I only asked for books and sewing kits so that I could learn more.”

“I’ll admit, the only things about designing I really know are from eavesdropping on designers on set and catching bits and pieces of my father’s sketches. How complicated does it get?”

Marinette leaned back into her chair and sighed out. “Oh, pretty complicated.” She tapped her hands on her knees for a few seconds, pouted her lips in thought, and lifted her shoulders up to her ears. “I mean...you don’t have to! I know you’re always busy, but…”

“What is it?”

“I mean, I was going to stop by the fabric store after school today to pick up some things I pre-ordered,” Marinette explained. “If you were really interested in hearing more, I guess I could explain a few things to you there. Besides, it’s always nice to have a little help, and I think Alya’s gotta babysit again today.”

“Wait, really?” Adrien said excitedly. “Is that ok?”

“Of course. I want to start actually making some of those sketches that I showed you. I’m going to have nothing but time this summer so it’s best to start now, you know?”

“Which sketch?” Adrien asked hopefully.

“How about this?” Marinette offered. “I’ll show you everything I’m buying and you can try and guess.”

Adrien nodded. “Alright, that sounds like a good deal. I guess I’ll see you after school again today.”

Marinette was twisting her fingers together in her lap with her cheeks looking flushed again. But she beamed at him and seemed excited. “Sounds like a plan.”

Suddenly, Alya was clearing her throat from the other side of the room and caught their attention as they both whipped their heads around to face her. She and Nino were leaning against the piano and giggling amongst each other while they stared at the two of them, their eyes filled with humor. Alya gestured a finger between the two of them and tilted her head. “Sorry, did I interrupt something there?”

“Nothing!” Marinette replied a little too quickly and a little too loudly. “We were just...talking. Taking a break.”

Alya looked completely unconvinced, and Nino was turning around and chortling into his arms to try and not make his amusement too obvious. “Mmhm,” she hummed suspiciously. “Well, Music Man over here is ready to get started again. You should go and do your thing, Adrien.”

Adrien smiled good naturedly and pulled his camera strap back around his neck again. “Alright, alright, I’m coming.”

He moved Nino back to where all his equipment was and started twisting his focus ring to make sure the picture was as crisp as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alya whisper something in Marinette’s ear, saw Marinette flush up all the way to her ears, and saw Alya hold her arms across her stomach and cackled loud enough to fill up the entire room.

Chapter Text

“So wait, just to review. Why is this not a date again?”

Marinette threw her head back and whined. “It’s not a date because it’s not a date!” she repeated. “I didn’t ask him out, I invited him to go shopping with me because he was asking me questions about designing. That’s it!”

“Yes, but you also have a crush on him and you invited him to do an activity with just the two of you. I dunno, babe, that sounds like a date to me.”

Marinette glared at her. “By that definition, you asking Nino to help you babysit your sisters today is also a date. Boom. Deflected. Leave me alone.”

Alya rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Um, no. Not deflected. Do not twist this on me, I asked you first.”

“And I answered already!” Marinette complained.

Alya crossed her arms and smirked. “Okay no. You’re over here like ‘oh I’m not trying to get with him, I’m just helping him out like a good friend.’ Meanwhile you conveniently had to pick up your fabric orders today and you conveniently needed Adrien’s help to do it. Which yeah, ok, like this isn’t you trying to spend more alone time with him. And then, let’s please acknowledge that this happened all because you were totally starstruck after your darling sunshine prince sat with you and started showing you his camera.”

“It wasn’t a lie! Sure I was going to pick it up tomorrow, but I really do have a fabric order there waiting for me!”

“You are whipped as hell, Marinette.”

“You’re making me sound like a total creep,” Marinette complained. “Look, I honestly sat next to him because I wanted to compliment him on the shoot and see how it was going. That was totally my intention from the start. Completely platonic and friendly support.”

“Ah yes,” Alya said, rubbing her hands. “But then the plot thickens!”

Marinette winced. “And I actually wanted to know about how his camera worked because it seemed interesting! I just wanted to learn more, you know?”

Alya nodded and stroked her chin. “Yes, yes. Getting closer to the source of all this mess.”

“But he looked so cute explaining everything Alya,” Marinette admitted. “Like totally adorable. He was so thrilled and then he started asking me about my designing, and then I remembered how impressed he was with me when I showed him my ideas, and fine I’m a glutton, I’ll admit it! I wanted to spend more time with him because it’s been fun hanging out with him and talking about his photography and my designing. So I invited him to shop with me today.” Marinette pointed a finger in Alya’s face. “As friends! No ulterior motives. Not a date.”

Alya scoffed. “Don’t you even try that, girl. You are full of unadulterated crap. You are totally trying to hit on this boy right now.”

“I am not!”

“Oh yes you are!” Alya teased. She threw her arm dramatically over her forehead. “You find out he’s just as big an art freak as you are, and all of a sudden you’re trying to lure him into your home so you can lay across your sewing machine and let him ravage you!”

“You are embarrassingly dramatic. Seriously. Also, can we not pick out verbs that make me sound like the heroine of a romance novel?”

Alya shrugged. “Make fun of me all you want, but you’re pining after him like crazy. And because I care about your happiness, I will support your impressively sneaky attempts to squeeze in time with him. As always, I demand a full report on my desk by tomorrow morning.”

Marinette rolled her eyes and decided to relent the point. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“Detailed!” she commanded. “No corners cut! Thorough, my dear. Absolutely thorough.”

“I’ll write you a dissertation if you want, don’t worry. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Perfect,” Alya grinned. “It’s important I keep track of my investments.”

Marinette raised a brow. “...yeah, I’m ignoring you.”

Alya danced behind Marinette and planted her hands firmly on her shoulders, marching her at a quicker pace to the front doors of the school. “I’m getting good vibes from this,” Alya explained. “Something tells me this is the beginning of something grand.” She looked past Marinette’s shoulder and jumped excitedly. “Ah, there he is! Ready and waiting for you!”

They were at the top of the stairs outside and Marinette could see Adrien leaning into the window of one of the cars that usually came to pick him up at the end of the day, talking to the driver in the front seat. Alya grinned and muttered in Marinette’s ear. “Nino told me he was spending all of last class texting his father’s assistant and convincing her to let him stay out longer after school. Just for you~!”

Marinette grabbed Alya’s hands and gently pried them off of her shoulders. “Will you stop hovering? Aren’t you supposed to be helping Nino with his DJ equipment? He’s probably upstairs waiting for you.”

“Trying to get rid of me, eh?” Alya laughed. “I get it, that’s cool. Don’t want me to kill your groove.” She kissed both of Marinette’s cheeks. “Knock him dead, cutie, okay?”

Marinette smiled and pushed Alya back inside the building. “Will you go!?” She stuck her tongue at Alya as she watched her skip back down the hallway, grabbing her stomach and cackling at her own antics. Marinette needed to remember to give Alya a hard time later tonight when she asked how babysitting with Nino went. As much as the two of them liked to tease her about Adrien, they sure didn’t realize just how downright chummy the two of them looked in comparison. She’d definitely have to get back at them later.

She took a deep breath, did a quick couple of hops in place to psych herself up, and skipped down the stairs just as Adrien was waving off his driver who’d pulled away from the school.

“Are you all set?” Marinette asked.

“Yup!” Adrien said. “Took a bit of wheedling with Nathalie to get away with it, but I am yours for the next hour.”

“Oh perfect,” Marinette smiled. “I promise I won’t be too long. It’s just picking up a couple of things and buying some stuff I’m running out of.”

“Ah don’t worry about it,” Adrien assured. “This should be fun! I just wear the clothes my father makes, so I don’t really know what happens behind the scenes so to speak. Besides, I wanna know what you’re going to be working on next.”

“You’ll figure it out quick,” she promised. “Feel up for a walk? I go to the shop about fifteen minutes away from here.”

“Of course, lead the way!”

Marinette’s parents financially supported her designing up to a point. It wasn’t too much trouble for her mother to pass down her old sewing machine, and back when clothing design only really consisted of remaking clothing she already had, buying basic sewing kits and small swatches of fabric from the crafts store was enough for Marinette to survive. But eventually, she wanted to make things from scratch. She needed to learn how to embroider. She needed dressforms for more complicated designs. She needed books for help and reference. And, most importantly, she needed three times the amount of fabric, thread, and supplies than she’d ever needed back when she was just adding decals to her skirts and shirts.

As encouraging as her parents were, Marinette understood that it was far too much to expect them to go out and buy whatever she needed. It wasn’t exactly feasible to sacrifice lease payments in favor of bolts of fabric because Marinette wanted to try her hand at button downs that weekend. So Marinette asked to start working on the registers at the bakery in exchange for a small allowance, and learned how to be smart about how to get everything she needed for as cheap as possible.

The shop that she always went to wasn’t exactly high-end, but it was certainly affordable considering how well-stocked they were in comparison. Marinette even figured out to take advantage of all of their online-only sales and ask for large orders in advance instead of shopping in the store real time. Plus Marinette shopped there so often that the owner always liked to shave off a few euros from her purchases in order to give her a break, especially when Marinette left the store with literal handfuls of supplies. It wasn’t the type of place where she could get huge bolts of expensive chiffon and silk, as riveting as the thought was. But for a girl on a budget, Marinette thought she pretty much hit the gold mine.

She was sort of afraid of what Adrien would think of such a place. After all, she was sure his father only ever needed to dial a number in order for him to get unlimited access to some of the highest quality fabrics in the world. A little storefront like this probably wasn’t much. But the moment they walked through the doors, Adrien’s eyes immediately started darting everywhere they could, soaking up whatever he saw. “Woah! I’ve never been inside a fabric shop before!”

“Never?” Marinette asked.

“No way!” Adrien exclaimed. He immediately started moving down one of the aisles and running his hands along the shelves filled with bolts of all sorts of colorful fabrics made of dozens of different material. He started to look through a small case filled with rolls of fabric and marvelled at the size of them. “Gosh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much fabric on one place.”

“Yeah, it’s got a lot to choose from,” she grinned. “It’s a bit pricy to buy them in bulk like this, but at least that means you’re pretty well stocked for a while before you have to start shopping again.”

Marinette couldn’t help but laugh when she saw how amazed he was at the entire wall devoted to yarn and wool. “Do you ever buy this stuff?” he asked.

“Occasionally,” she said. “Especially if I’m making things like scarves, hats, and leg warmers, it’s cheaper to just crochet it myself. I have to come back another time to get some knitting needles though. I just bought the books and I want to learn over the summer too.”

“God, how do you choose? There’s so much here, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Come in knowing exactly what you want,” Marinette smirked. “Trust me, I know from experience. You walk in here without a clue what you want, and you either don’t buy anything or want to buy everything.”

“Is it just fabric and yarn that they sell? What else is here?” Adrien asked.

She shrugged. “Well, the back has more of what you would find in a craft store. So buttons, zippers, embroidery hoops, needles, stabilizers, smaller swatches of fabric, ribbons….I’m pretty sure they have a small section where you can get beads.”

Adrien twisted around and started walking backwards, occasionally bending over to steal glances at the lower shelves. “My father used to tell me how much he loved going to shops like this when he started out designing. I mean, it was years ago, but they look just like he described. Just walls and walls of almost anything you could ever want. This is awesome!”

“Yeah, I was pretty shocked my first time in here too,” she agreed. “I mean, it’s obviously not an endless treasure trove, but it’s a pretty decent place if you only have a little to spend.”

Adrien was standing on his toes and reading the labels of the highest shelves he could reach, laughing at himself all the while. “I’m so sorry, I’m supposed to be helping you shop.”

Marinette shook her head. “Ah, don’t worry about it. Roam around all you want. I might even find a couple of things for myself that I might need.”

He peeked around the aisle and let out a small gasp. “Oh my god there are like ten more shelves of fabric back here! And they’re all patterns!”

Marinette reached into her pocket for her wallet. “Have fun! I’ll be at the register up front if you wanna help me carry some stuff.”

“I’ll be two minutes I swear.”

Marinette wound up getting 6 meters of a black cotton/poly blend, 5 meters of dark blue jersey knit, a meter’s worth of four different colors of cotton, and a bundle of golden lace. One of the cashiers who had personally handled plenty of Marinette’s orders in the past didn’t even bat a lash when she gave her a 15 euro discount, asking only for pictures of all the finished products in exchange. It all wound up cheaper than she thought it would be, and she started to eye the back of the store where all the craft supplies were. Adrien finally came back up to the counter and started to help the cashier put Marinette’s orders into bags.

“Huh,” Adrien hummed. “Not sure what this stuff is for, but didn’t you have a dress with lace on it that you showed me?”

“Mmhm,” Marinette nodded. “You’re getting warm. Oh, come. I wanna grab a couple of things real quick from the back.”

Adrien followed behind her and rubbed the black fabric in between his fingers. “Uhhhh….wait! Your Eiffel Tower dress is black, right?”

Marinette grinned and Adrien’s eyes widened in excitement. “You’re gonna try for that dress first?”

“That’s the plan,” she confirmed. “I’m dreading it a little bit because of all the embroidery work that has to go into it, but I figured I’d do the more complicated thing first.”

“What’s the rest of this stuff for?”

“The lace is for the collar of the dress. The jersey knit is for this other dress I’m making. Nothing crazy, just something for some of the cooler summer days. And the cotton is for headbands! I ordered the hard plastic bands online already, so now all I have to do is put the fabric over it. I had a couple of spare pattern swatches at home that I was going to use, but I figured a couple more colors wouldn’t hurt.”

“Wow,” Adrien breathed out. “Sounds like a lot to do.”

“You underestimate my ability to perform killer all nighters,” she joked.

“I thought Alya was kidding about that.”

“I pride myself on doing my best to get eight hours of sleep every night during the school year. But during breaks? All bets are off.”

Adrien frowned. “I’m telling her you said that.”

“I have things to get done!”

“You have to sleep Marinette!”

“Oh there’s plenty of time for that afterwards,” she insisted. Adrien didn’t look pleased, but she laughed at his expression anyway and set her schoolbag down by her feet when they turned into one of the aisles at the back of the shop. “For now, if I’m really going to crack down on this embroidery, I need to stock up on a couple of things.”

Adrien set down his own bag and all of Marinette’s purchases as he scanned the shelves. “What are we looking for?”

“A new embroidery hoop. Some stabilizers. Carbon paper. Thread. Temporary adhesive. And I think that’s it.”

Adrien blinked. “Uh….well, the thread I get. What’s the other stuff for?”

Marinette let her hand hover over one of the rows of items before she plucked out an embroidery hoop from the shelves are started to scrutinize the size. “All things I need to hand embroider the dress. The hoop I have at home is too small for this dress and I’m out of everything else I need. I have some extra money left over so I figured I’d stock up.”

He hummed as he stood on his toes and looked at the row of stabilizers above his head. “What does all this stuff do? Can you explain it to me?”

“I mean, I don’t mind, but it can get a little confusing.”

“I’m sure I can keep up if I try,” he grinned. “I don’t know any of this stuff, so it’s really interesting.” He pointed to the hoop in Marinette’s hands. “So what’s that for?”

“An embroidery hoop,” she explained. “So when you’re doing embroidery, you want to make sure you’re keeping the fabric taut so that your stitches won’t look scrunched up or over stretched. So you open up the frame, slip the fabric inside, tighten it, and them you can start sewing.”

Adrien frowned and took the hoop from her and turned it over in his hands. “Hm, makes sense. There was some of that stabilizer stuff on that top shelf up there? You need that, right?”

“Yup,” Marinette said. She was reaching upwards to try to read the labels on the row of stabilizers Adrien had been looking at earlier. “Oh, could you do me a favor and grab that pack over there? Should say medium-weight cutaway stabilizers. Can’t reach it.”

“Uhhh, how long?”

“Ten meters ought to be fine.”

Adrien had to prop his foot up on the bottom shelf to reach the roll before he carefully handed it back down to her. “So stabilizers are…?”

“Well, I want the fabric taut, but I also don’t want the fabric to be damaged by the stitching I’m doing. So the stabilizer will keep that from happening. Because this is knit, stretchy fabric, the stabilizer is also gonna give the design some extra support. You put it on the back of the surface you’re embroidering, fit it into your hoop, and start.”

“So hoop keeps it taut, and stabilizers keep it from becoming damaged and offer support. Right?”

“Exactly!” Marinette smiled. She crouched down on the bottom shelf and plucked up a can of adhesive spray. “This is just to adhere it to the fabric when you’re ready to embroider.”

“So what does cutaway mean?” Adrien asked. “Or I guess what’s the difference between that and the others? There was a tear away up there somewhere.”

“Just depends on the fabric you’re using,” she told him. “So tear aways are better for tightly woven fabrics like cotton. When you’re done with your design, you just tear away the stabilizer from the back and you’re left with your design. Easy. Cutaways are better for fabrics that stretch more, like the one I just bought. So instead of tearing away the whole thing, you cut off the excess and leave the stabilizer on the back of the design. Offers more stability.”

Adrien scratched the back of his head. “I think that makes sense. Are there any others?”

“There are wash aways. You use that for really delicate fabrics, and they dissolve in water. Heat aways exist too, but I’ve never used them.”

Adrien whistled. “That’s so much to keep track of. Now I get what you mean about all this being complicated….”

“It’s a lot of trial and error,” Marinette said. “And looking up on the Internet which things to use for what. Good thing is that sometimes you can find handy charts online that tell you what materials to use for which fabrics. As you get more used to it, you just sort of know.”

He watched her as she looked through the different types of embroidery thread and picked out a couple of golden ones. “I get what you mean. I was pretty much using Google and YouTube videos when I was still figuring out some of the weirder settings on my camera.”

Marinette giggled. “Yeah, tell me about it. You should see all of my browser bookmarks. Pretty sure it’s all references for designing, and I have dozens of them.” She bit on her lip and turned to the shelves behind them. “Do you see any carbon paper?”

“What’s that for?”

“Transfer outlines of the designs to the fabric. So that I know where to sew and can keep my stitches straight.”

Adrien pointed at one of the shelves to Marinette’s left. “Is it that weird black looking paper?”

Marinette nodded and took the first pack she saw. “Yup, that’s the one. Oh, and they’re so cheap! Perfect! I think I might actually be under budget.”

“With all of this stuff!?”

Marinette snorted. “Oh please, this is nothing. You should see the days where I come and pick up bolts of fabric and have to refill my sewing kits.”

“And I was over here complaining about buying photo paper the other day….”

She picked up her backpack from the floor and nudged him in the side. “Does buying photo paper not get complicated?”

“Printing photos does not involve stabilizers, carbon paper, and adhesive spray. Just a printer.”

“Oh come on, even I know you’re simplifying that. Aren’t there different types of photography paper you can use?”

“I mean, yeah, you can get paper to give you a glossy, matte, luster, or metallic finish, but that’s easy stuff.”

“ Easy stuff. ”

“You just stick the paper in the printer! At least I don’t have to set my photos on fire to get them to come out. Wait that’s what heat away stabilizers are, right?”

“Oh my God, no , that’s not what they are. You just iron them.”

“Heat implies fire.”

“No it doesn’t?”

“Well I didn’t know that! This stuff isn’t intuitive. You’re wicked smart so this all just comes naturally to you.”

“You’re impressed because my knowing not to set my clothes on fire comes naturally to me?”

“You know what I mean….”

They checked out all of Marinette’s purchases at the counter and started walking back to her house, delving into rather long and useless conversation about how stylish fireproof clothing could totally hit the markets with a splash and that Marinette could pioneer the movement — “Think about it,” Adrien joked. “No one will ever see it coming!” — which didn’t accomplish anything other than make Marinette forget to turn down the right block to their street and make her gut hurt from laughing so hard. For some reason, she really underestimated how distracting Adrien’s silliness could be. Though to be fair, it wasn’t as if she was a stranger to it — after starting to hang out with him more regularly over the past year, it was hard not to notice that Adrien got into pun competitions with himself when he was bored.

It wasn’t until she was dramatically retelling the story of the time she left her iron on the ironing board and caused a teeny tiny fire in her room that she realized they’d been walking and looping around random blocks for the past twenty minutes. Adrien was wiping tears from his eyes as Marinette looked around and noticed that her house was well behind them, but Marinette didn’t feel like pointing the fact out. If Adrien had already noticed, then it didn’t seem like he was in any rush to get her home. Marinette certainly didn’t mind spending the extra time with him, especially since he made it sound like he could afford to stay out longer.

She was trying not to think about the smug look Alya would give her once she told her all of this when Adrien asked out of the blue, “Can I ask you one more designing question? I just had a random thought….”

“If you bring up your fireworks rant one more time….”

“No, no, not that,” he assured. “Although, that was a pretty creative idea if I do say so myself.”

She smirked up at him as they walked. “Your question?”

“Right, so….I’ve walked through father’s company before. And one time I was taking a peek at where all the sample makers work, and I saw them embroidering with a sewing machine. So can’t you just embroider that way?”

“If they’re sample makers at Gabriel they probably have fancy machines that are specifically made for doing really complex embroideries. It’d be nice to have one of those, but I don’t have the money for it right now. I’m hoping to save up for it little by little as a graduation present to myself. Besides, it’s harder than it looks. You have to have a really steady hand.”

Adrien winced. “How much?”

“A few hundred euros,” Marinette sighed. “Can’t get one any time soon. But hey! Maybe I can get a summer job and save up paychecks to buy one for myself. It’s not like I need it or anything, but it’s a cool thing to aspire to.”

“Wow, you’re saving up for it yourself?” Adrien asked. “No help from parents?”

“Nah, I can’t expect them to drop money for something like that for me. They’re supportive of my designing and everything — they love seeing what I’m working on, Maman lets me use her old sewing machine, and Papa got me those dress forms on sale at a thrift store. But a fancy embroidery machine is different. If I decide to take my hobby seriously, I should bear the burden of funding it. But it’s alright! I’ll get there eventually.”

Adrien hummed and looked down at the bags pinching around his wrists. “You said you wanted to be a designer when you grow up. Are you going to….go to school for that and stuff?”

“That’s the plan,” she nodded. “Get a job, work in a company, maybe open my own line. It’s all a little unclear right now, but my parents always say it’s a matter of just doing what makes sense to me and feels right. I’ve got plenty of time to think about a career.”

“I sort of forget you can go to school for that stuff.”

Marinette frowned. “Didn’t your father start out as a designer?”

“Yeah, but he went to school for business,” Adrien explained. “The designing was just a hobby for him. He happened to be really good at it and combined the business and designing to make Gabriel. He takes pride in what he does as a designer, but he always says he’s a businessman first and a visionary second. He doesn’t just know what looks good. He knows how to make what looks good sell , and he knows how to create success. Hobbies don’t mean much to him unless you can benefit from it.” He laughed at himself, but it sounded strained against Marinette’s ears. “I didn’t even know that designing was a thing you could go to school for until a couple of years ago.”

Marinette bit her lip and tilted her head so she could peek underneath Adrien’s bowed head to see his face. “Photography is something you could go to school for. There are a lot of good art schools in Paris. Or you could even travel somewhere else. Maybe go to America. Whatever you wanted, really.”

Adrien snorted. “It really isn’t a matter of what I want.”

She wrinkled her forehead. “Your future should always be a matter of what you want. That’s why it’s yours.”

“I mean, that does make sense,” he said. “But I guess it’s just never felt that way.”

It was too bitter a statement to come from Adrien’s mouth, and the tone was discordant enough to make Marinette curl a hand into the crook of his elbow and stop their walking. “Is there something on your mind?”

He shook his head adamantly. “No! No, no, I’m sorry. I got a little off topic. It’s honestly nothing.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Adrien knocked the shopping bag against his shins and hesitated for a long moment before he answered. “I dunno, I guess….I guess I’ve been thinking about something Nino told me today.”

A young woman roughly clipped shoulders with Marinette and she realized with a jolt that they probably needed a different place to talk instead of the middle of the sidewalk. There was a small plaza with tables, chairs, and benches in front of a cafe that Marinette liked to sketch at on the weekends. She tugged on Adrien’s elbow until she followed him up the block and pulled out seats for them both. He looked a little reluctant to sit, almost anticipating the fact that Marinette would surely question him, so she tried to smile as reassuringly as she could to comfort him. It was very easy for Adrien to draw into himself when his father came up, and it didn’t feel right to just let the sentiment hang.

Adrien sat in the chair, nervously bobbing one of his legs while Marinette visibly struggled to find the point she wanted to make. “What do you want to do when you get older?”

Adrien blinked, not expecting the question. “Sorry?”

“I want to design when I get older,” Marinette explained. “So, what do you want to do? When you graduate and when you become an adult. What do you see yourself doing?”

He shrugged helplessly. “I never thought that far ahead,” he admitted. “I guess modelling? Or maybe helping father run the company.”

“That sounds a lot like what your father wants you to be doing.”

“Well,” he began. “Father always did want me to go into business like him. I always assumed that meant he wanted me to pick up his torch.”

“Forget what he thinks for a minute,” she instructed. “Forget what you’re supposed to be doing or what would make your father happiest. Is that what you want to do?”

His answer was almost immediate. “Not really. It’s always sounded rather dull the way he explained it to me.”

“So in a perfect world, what you want to keep doing?” she asked him. “The world’s open to you. You can do what makes you happy. You can do what excites you. You can do what you think will help you grow and learn as a person. What’s that thing?”

He smiled softly and stared at her through his bangs, as if he was already anticipating the answer she was trying to get him to give her. “I….I want to keep taking pictures.”

Marinette smiled brightly. “What else?”

He drummed his hands against his lap and stared off into space. “I dunno. I guess I just want more. I want to meet more photographers. I want to learn more about photography. I want to take more pictures. I want to do more with photography. I want….I want to make art . Nothing makes me happier than when I show people the things I can do and it affects the way they feel. It touches them, makes them pause, makes them walk away with something they didn’t have before. I can do that! And I want to keep doing that.”

“They call people like that artists, you know,” Marinette joked. “And you’re definitely an artist. You make magic with your hands. You create things that other people can’t immediately replicate. That’s art.”

“It seems so….intangible almost. Maybe that’s the wrong word,” he wondered. “I mean, I know there are artists in the world, but it never seemed like the sort of thing you could just do for the rest of your life.”

Marinette sighed. “I mean, your future’s a little more unclear. It’s not like being a doctor or a lawyer or a businessman. All those things lead you down a sure path. I don’t know what’ll happen to me or you five, ten years into the future. Being a creative person is messy, so it makes sense that your future will be a little messy too. But….I think it’s worth it! I want to give it a try and see where it can take me. What’s the fun in doing something if you know exactly where it’s going to lead you?”

Adrien winced. “I don’t know if my father would like that. He plans meticulously. Even my life, he planned. Everything I do has a purpose. Basketball and fencing to keep me fit. Chinese to keep me well-rounded. Tutoring to keep me ahead. Piano lessons to keep me cultured. He’s got all these building blocks and he knows exactly where they’re all supposed to go.”

“That’s great for him,” Marinette said, brushing off the comment. “And I’m sure it works for him. But what works for him doesn’t always work for you. You’re not supposed to be forcing yourself into a mold he makes for you. You’re your own person. He can’t dictate that for you forever.”

“Nino said the same thing.” He leaned his head against his knuckle, pressing a thumb into his temple. “And, don’t get me wrong, it makes sense. I agree. And I want to tell him, if only so that he could at least get excited about it and not call it a waste of time. But I don’t know how well that’ll go over with him. I don’t think he’d take it well.”

“Well, what does he have to say about it?”

Adrien nibbled on his bottom lip and traced the scratches on the metal tables. “I, uh….I don’t think he knows. About the photography.”

Her eyes widened. “You haven’t told him?”

“I don’t know how,” he replied helplessly. “He does what he does because he thinks it’s what’s best for me, and he’s really hesitant about me wasting my time with other things because he thinks it’s distracting. I just know that showing him a photo, showing him a new camera, or God forbid mentioning going to school for photography won’t just fall flat. It’ll go horribly. And….” He swallowed. “I don’t know how to deal with him being disappointed in me. I’ll always avoid it if I can.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“I’ve got a pretty good inkling.”

“Inklings are just that,” Marinette explained. “The only way you’ll know for sure is if you just say something.”

“It’s not that easy, Marinette….”

“Maybe, but how will you possibly know he’ll be disappointed in you if you don’t even give it a shot?”

The sentiment didn’t seem to cheer him up. His gaze was everywhere but on her, and she suddenly felt like she may have said something wrong. She didn’t know what it was like to have a parent who was unsupportive, or a parent who was absent in more ways than one. Adrien never really liked touching upon his family life much, and Marinette was harshly reminded why. It was jarring to think that Adrien could show so much reluctance in sharing part of himself with his own father. That kind of disconnect with her family wasn’t something she ever had to worry about. It made sense that just saying what was on her mind was something that she would do. But Adrien was clearly a different story.

It was frustrating because she wanted to help but wasn’t quite sure what he needed. It was times like these when Marinette realized how much her own nerves over her crush on him prevented her from learning more intimate things about him. They were supposed to be good friends. Surely she could think of something encouraging to tell him.

She felt horribly out of her element, but she didn’t want to let him stew in silence for too long. “If….” she muttered. “In a perfect world….what would need to happen? What would make you feel safe and supported?”

Adrien lifted his shoulders weakly. “What do you mean?”

Marinette huffed. She wasn’t saying this properly. “I mean….what has to happen to make you comfortable telling him? What would you need?”

He finally made eye contact with her, and she could see how the question made a small spark of vulnerability flash in his eyes, so quick she almost missed it. “I guess,” he said slowly. “Having someone in my corner. Father likes to think he’s right, or that he knows what’s best more than anyone else. More than me. It’s hard to get a word in edgewise to begin with. But for some reason where my future’s concerned, he’s especially adamant. It’d take more than just me to convince him.”

“Adamant about your future?”

Adrien looked up, desperately searching for the words. “He….he’s lost a lot.” The statement hung, and Marinette didn’t need him to elaborate to know exactly what he meant. “He’ll go through hell to make sure I’m safe and secured. Half of that is setting out a very specific path for me. I think me deviating from that….scares him? I don’t know.”

“You know,” she began quietly. “Your friends will go through hell to make sure you’re safe, too. We’ll also go through hell to make sure you’re happy.”

His smile slowly warmed his face, as if an entire slew of fond memories suddenly passed over him. “Yeah. I know.”

She gently knocked her knee against his. “I mean it. I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to deal with your father. I know that can be frustrating. But Alya, Nino, and I are always going to be here if you need help. And just speaking for myself, if you need someone in your corner to help get through to him, I’m just a phone call away.”

Marinette felt her heart whither when she saw him look genuinely surprised at what she’d said, as if that kind of sincerity still wasn’t something that he was used to. But it was quickly eclipsed when Adrien dropped all the bags to the floor, pushed his chair forward, and pulled Marinette into a fierce hug, letting his chin nestle comfortably against her shoulder. Her entire face was glowing, and she struggled with what to do with her hands for a long moment before she let them rest on his shoulders. “You’re a really great friend, Marinette. Thank you.”

Her nerves kicked in the moment her heart started racing. “I-It’s no big deal. Honest.”

Adrien leaned away from her and kept his hands on her shoulders. “It’s a big deal to me. I just wanted you to know that. I feel really lucky that you don’t mind spending all this time with me and helping me figure out what I want to do. No one’s ever really done this much for me before. I guess I’m just really grateful to you is all.”

She beamed at him so hard she could feel the ache in her cheeks. “I’m glad I could help.”

Their detour had to be cut short once Adrien looked at his phone and realized that he probably should start heading home before Nathalie or his father began to worry. Despite her assurances that the bags really weren’t a hassle, he insisted that he help her carry all of her supplies back to her house before he left. His phone was buzzing in his pocket periodically with phone calls and text messages, but he ignored it in favor of chatting with Marinette and giving her his full attention until they stopped in front of the bakery.

He passed off her things and helped her loop the straps around her wrists. “Got everything?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she assured. “Please answer your phone! They sound worried.”

“I will right now, I promise.” He stuffed both of his hands in his pocket. “S-So, uh….any plans coming up?”

“Not strict ones. Why?”

Adrien bunched his shoulders up by his ears. “Just, uh….you know if you wanted company this summer while you’re designing. Or if you wanted to come with me to some shoots, you can just. I dunno. Text me, or something. It’d be cool to hang out more.”

“Y-Yeah,” she replied. “A-Absolutely! Um….I’ll have a better idea of when I’m free once school finishes, so, yeah! I’ll, uh. I’ll text you. Or you text me! Whatever you want.”

He let his head dip when he chuckled, his bangs falling into his eyes. “Cool, cool. Well, I. I guess I’ll head home. It was fun shopping with you.”

“Thanks for helping me,” Marinette said. “It’s always nice to have company.”

Adrien didn’t immediately move from his spot, still keeping his hands in his pockets and his shoulders pulled up high. It seemed like something was still on his mind, and she was about to ask him what was wrong before he suddenly moved in close, laid a hand on her shoulder, and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

Marinette felt her entire body jump when his lips touched, and she was sure she let out a strange high-pitched noise to boot. It was such a short kiss, but when Adrien jerked back she could see his ears turning red. “A-Anyway,” he stuttered. “See you in class!”

He jogged down the block back to his house, leaving Marinette to stand in front of her house while her entire face grew hot. It felt like her entire brain had shut off and it took her a few seconds to come back to herself and force out a quick “Bye!” before he ran too far away. She waited until he was completely out of sight before she covered her face with both hands and let out a quiet scream.

Alya was never going to let her hear the end of this.