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Ever since Plagg called Marinette Adrien’s girlfriend, he couldn’t help but think about it.
At the time, he brushed it off- Marinette was his friend. Just his friend. But he thought about her a lot. And he thought about her in ways he didn’t with Nino, Alya, or Chloe. When he thought of Marinette, it was more similar to when he thought of Ladybug.
And he noticed, at some point through school, that he began to watch her. He didn’t watch his other friends, and while he would still argue that that’s all she was, he couldn’t stop watching.
By the end of the school year, Adrien found that he adored her smile. Every time he was graced by it, his heart skipped a beat. Every time it was turned on him or was for him, he nearly forgot how to breathe. Her laugh, on the other hand, gave him life. It made him laugh too, and he’d never felt so warm.
In their first year of lycée, he got worse. The summer had been long, and he hadn’t gotten to see her or his other friends much at all. One could say he had lacked her presence for too long, because where he greeted Alya and Nino with a fist bump and wave respectively, he greeted Marinette with a hug. He’d been pleasantly surprised when she returned it and nearly broke him in half.
That was another thing he loved about his classmate: her strength. Over the summer and through college, she had grown incredibly confident. He could see it in the way she carried herself, and the way she’d ceased stuttering around him awhile back. But still, he lived in denial. He claimed she was just a friend.
And while he claimed that, he had unknowingly placed Ladybug as a friend too. Best friend, of course, but nothing further. He wasn’t even aware he’d stopped thinking of her like she was his entire world. Seemingly without any notice or work, his world had expanded to include Marinette.
The two hung out together many times, whether it was for a study group, a game day, or just a day to relax. They remained friends, but no one could deny they looked like a couple. No one could deny that Adrien was in love with this girl- not even himself. He still tried, though.
In their second year of lycée, Plagg’s old words came back to him.
“It’s your first day of school and you already have a girlfriend!”
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. That’s what he wanted to call Marinette. Not just friend, not just best friend. He wanted her to be his girlfriend. And suddenly, he was filled with regret. He’d wasted so much time in denial, and he wasn’t even sure if Marinette liked him now.
Sure, she had a crush on him a few years back, but people and their feelings change overtime. His sure did. And now, all he could do was hope for the best when he asked her out- and he would ask her out. There wasn’t anymore time to waste. As soon as his class got out, he’d find her, and he would lay it all out in the open. If she said no, he would accept that. He’d be sad about it, heartbroken even, but it was her choice and he would accept it. And if she said yes, he wasn’t sure what he would do. As long as he didn’t spontaneously combust, he would be fine.
It felt like hours had passed by the time his class ended, when it had only been about twelve minutes. He shoveled all his belongings into his bag and ran out of the classroom, not pausing for anyone or anything. Thanks to his closeness to his group of friends, he had their schedules memorized as well as his, so he knew what class Marinette would be coming out of.
With each beat of his heart, with each step closer to his confession, his happiness soared. Whether it soared to let him fall or to lift him up was ultimately left to Marinette’s response, but he couldn’t keep it down if he wanted to- which he didn’t.
His feet carried him up two flights of stairs, through two hallways, and finally into the classroom where Marinette was still packing her things. His forward movement faltered a moment at seeing her, her genuine goodness and beauty hitting him like a slap to the face. But soon, he was in front of her, out of breathe for a reason that had nothing to do with the distance he covered in less than a minute.
At his arrival, Marinette looked up, eyes wide in shock. Usually it was her who met him before they met up with Nino and Alya, so the change in routine combined with his truly happy expression left her dumbfounded. She opened her mouth to speak a few times, but found she wasn’t sure what to say.
It took a minute, but finally Adrien regained his breath and could put his feelings out in the open. He set his bag down and reached out for her hands, which she gave to him with a question in her eyes. Squeezing her hands with his own- and getting a squeeze back- gave him the confidence he needed to say what he wanted to. Looking into her eyes, his heart beat rapidly, and he opened his mouth.
“Mari. I have something to say to you, and I wish I had said it much sooner, but I really hope I’m not too late. If I am, that’s fine, I totally understand, but I need to say it anyways because you deserve to know either way. I regret I denied it for so long, but I’ve stopped denying it now, and so I’m finally ready to tell you!” he said in a burst. He looked at her expectantly, awaiting a response.
She only stared at him for a moment before saying, “Adrien, are… are you going to tell me what it is? You kind of just said ‘I’m going to tell you’ without actually telling me.”
“O-oh,” he said, chuckling nervously. Had a hand of his been free, it would have been rubbing at the back of his head. But his hands weren’t free, and he knew he couldn’t escape her grasp until he told her how he felt. “I… I want to tell you that I’m… I’m in love with you, Marinette. I know it’s late, and it was stupid that it took me so long to realize what I felt, realize what you meant to me, but I finally did and I just- I just hope I haven’t missed my chance.”
They stood together in that classroom, in silence, for several minutes. A range of emotions flew across Marinette’s face, and while Adrien waited for her answer, he happily noted that he could name almost every emotion that ran over her features. What did make his gut twist a little was how often she looked conflicted. And what made his heart drop was every time he saw some flicker of self-doubt in her face. It hurt to think that maybe, just maybe, it was him bringing her self-doubt up from the recesses of her heart and mind.
Before he could spiral down into his own self-doubt, his attention was grabbed by her face settling on a smile. (One that he promised would cure anything wrong with the world just then.) She took her hands from his, and before disappointment could rise up in him, her arms had slid around his back and he was crushed against her smaller frame. He was quick to hug her back, and he could feel her smiling against him. He wondered if she could feel his smile, too, but his wandering thoughts were cut short when she spoke up.
“You haven’t missed your chance at all. You were just… fashionably late,” she told him, chuckling a bit at her pun. His body shook against hers in silent laughter, and she waited for that to subside before continuing, “I’ve always loved you, Adrien, and nothing can change that fact.”
“A-always? But I thought you, like… stopped. Because I wasn’t- didn’t notice you all that much.” She shrugged, and he could feel the way her shoulders lifted and dropped. Every moment he spent with her became the new greatest moment of his life.
“I just stopped being a fool about it. I knew you needed a friend, and I loved you so much I was willing to be just that- a friend. Even if it could hurt, even if you never felt the same way, I wanted to be there for you.”
He didn’t respond, letting her words sink in fully. When they did, he squeezed her to him a little harder than before. In a shaky breathe, he whispered, “I’m so glad I met you. So glad I realized how incredibly wonderful and stunning you are. Thank you, Marinette. Mari. Thank you.”
The two stood like that, locked in their embrace, so long that Alya and Nino had gone looking for them. When they finally came across the two, they shared a knowing smile and stepped back. They were impossibly happy for their friends, and would gladly sacrifice some group time so that the two could have their moment. They’d both waited long enough for it, after all.