Work Text:
Of all the couples to survive college and university, Marinette isn’t surprised that Rose and Juleka are the first to tie the knot. She’s actually surprised it took them this long. They’ve been solid since they first started dating, a relationship goal that the rest of them not so jokingly held. And because this is Rose and Juleka, that means an impromptu class reunion.
Marinette isn’t sure how they’ve kept contact with everyone over the years. With everyone having gone in different directions, it seems nearly impossible. Even with the internet. Sometimes it’s just hard to find the time to talk.
Alya’s actually the one to remind Marinette to RSVP. Alya is barely more put together than Marinette is sometimes, so despite Alya’s insistence that she just remembered, Marinette is pretty convinced that Nino was the one to bring it up.
Marinette is looking forward to it. She’s excited to see Rose and Juleka again, along with all their other classmates. It’s been, what, fourteen years since they graduated? She’s excited for the chance to catch up with everyone.
Alya drops his name not so subtly when they’re ‘dress shopping’ for fabric. Marinette almost drops the fabric she’s holding up to the light on her face.
Alya sighs and taps her fingernails against her phone. “Come on, Mari. It’s been…damn, it’s been ten years.”
“I-I know.” Marinette lowers the fabric and returns it to the shelf. “I was just… You surprised me, that’s all.”
“ Hm .”
Marinette rolls her eyes. “Alya, it’s fine. Like you said, it’s been ten years. That’s a whole decade. I’m over it. I’ve been over it.”
“Have you even seen him since then? I know you always find a way to wriggle your way out of meeting up with him.”
“I do not wriggle —”
Alya rolls her eyes. “Uh huh, sure you don’t.”
“I’ve been busy,” Marinette insists. “Come on, you know better than anyone that life can be make it or break it. I have to use rain checks all the time, not just when he’s around.”
Alya sighs. “ Fine , you might be right about that. But he’s around an awful lot. Considering he lives just outside the city .”
Marinette ignores her pointed look. “Even if he was still living in the city, it’s a big city. Did you know we have a population of over two million people?”
“Have you two eve—”
Marinette pulls out a purple chiffon. “What do you think of this?”
Alya gives in and moves on. “I think it’s a little dark. What about this one?”
“You know she’s going to be there, right?” Nino asks as he pulls at his suit jacket.
Adrien re-ties his tie. “And?”
“…man, Al was right. This is weird.”
Adrien shoots Nino a tired look. He did already go through this with Alya. Several times. Because Alya is Alya and this is a part of being her friend. “Really?”
“I mean it’s just…” Nino twists in the mirror. “I don’t know, dude. It’s been literally like ten years. Don’t you think you should’ve…at least talked?”
Adrien shrugs. “We never found the time.”
“We kept giving you the time!” Nino protests. “ You kept being ‘busy’.”
“I’m a teacher ,” Adrien says. “I’m always busy.”
“Not in the summer, when you’re not teaching .”
“I pick up other jobs in the summer, stop pretending like you don’t know this.”
“You’ve found time in your oh so busy schedule to hang with Chloé.” Nino crosses his arms. “Come on, man.”
Adrien ruffles his hair. “Chloé has been one of my closest friends since we were kids.” He frowns at his reflection. “Our schedules don’t clash like— It’s just easier.”
Nino sighs. “Please don’t make this awkward.”
“It won’t be awkward.”
This is awkward.
Marinette should’ve known Rose would pull something like this. But at the same time, it’s not like she can blame Rose. She’s Alya’s best friend. He’s Nino’s. Alya and Nino came as a couple. The four of them were all really close back in the day. It makes sense for them to be at the same table.
They’re…sort of still close now. In a weird way where three of them are close and then another three of them are close. But they don’t exactly fit like a complete set anymore.
At least she’s not sitting next to him.
She puts down her place card and glances around the room. People are mingling and enjoying themselves as they wait for everyone to arrive at the reception venue. Nino and Alya aren’t here yet, but they should arrive any minute now.
But not before she catches his eye as he enters the room.
She feels like she’s back in college, being handed an umbrella in the pouring rain.
He looks good. His hair is shorter now, styled away from his face. He’s wearing a gray suit and a light green tie that matches his eyes and she almost has trouble looking away.
But she does, because she’s not going to stare at him. She ducks her head and goes back to fiddling with her place card.
“Hey,” he says, walking up the table. His voice is a little different. Maybe a little lower, maybe a little smoother.
“Hi,” she says softly. She turns to smile at him as he sits down.
“Beautiful wedding.”
“Gorgeous. Both of them looked incredible.”
“So do you. You look good, Mari.” His smile is still genuine and bright, it still makes him light up like the sun.
She fiddles with her earrings. It feels weird to have him call her by her nickname after so long. It doesn’t sit well, like something that used to fit perfectly but is now slightly displaced. And at the same time, she wants to hear him say it again and again. “Thank you, you do too, Adrien.”
“Did you make it?” he asks.
“Yeah, I actually also made Alya’s dress. Although she picked out almost everything.” Marinette smooths her pastel pink skirt. “It was nothing.”
“They’re beautiful,” Adrien insists. His sincerity makes her heart soar.
She smiles and somehow finds herself rambling on about making the dresses and going out with Alya. He talks about Nino and their own adventures in suit shopping. And somehow, by the time Alya and Nino sit down with drinks in hand, everything fits perfectly again.
Adrien watches her out of the corner of his eye as she throws her head back and laughs. He’s not exactly sure how she got more beautiful.
In the dim lighting of the room, Marinette sparkles. She’s grown her hair longer, changed her formal makeup. The pink of her dress brings out the color in her cheeks and he doesn’t know how he spent ten years without her .
Nino drags Alya onto the dance floor when one of his favorite songs comes on, and there’s no longer anyone between Adrien and Marinette. No one to keep him from staring at her.
He scoots over to Alya’s abandoned seat. “Do you want to go outside?” he asks over the pounding music.
She smiles with shining eyes and follows him out into the cool night air. She stretches her arms out. “I feel like I can finally breathe!”
Adrien laughs and stuffs his hands in his pockets as they make their way down the path. The conversation ebbs and flows and he decides that yes, he’s missed this. Not just her, not just her personality, but he’s missed them. He’s missed their friendship and easy conversation, their banter and their inside jokes.
He doesn’t know what it says about them when it only takes them half an hour to land on the topic of them .
Marinette rests her elbows on the railing. They’ve found a bridge over a small creek, lights reflecting in the water. “I wish we’d worked,” she admits softly.
Adrien sighs and joins her against the railing. He stares down into their watery reflections. “Me too.”
He doesn’t really know what happened. Because it had been working. Adrien isn’t one to use the term lightly, but he’d been in love with her. They’d been in love. They’d been happy and in love and over time it just…stopped working. It got harder and harder to spend time together. They started drifting. They stopped talking so much. He stopped feeling the same. And he thinks she stopped feeling it too. They lost whatever had made them work.
He wishes they hadn’t.
Marinette laughs. It’s her nervous laugh, her anxious laugh. It’s shorter and higher than her genuine laugh. Adrien is surprised he still can identify it. “It took me almost two years to start dating again.” She twirls a curl around her finger. “I guess that’s what happens when you get out of your first serious relationship.”
“Aside from a few disastrous dates, it was almost three for me,” Adrien admits. “I was just…too busy. I didn’t really have time for anyone, not even Nino.”
Marinette smiles sadly. “I know the feeling.”
He tilts his head up to stare at the sky. It’s overcast, but he doesn’t think he’d be able to see the stars even if it were a clear night. “I can’t believe we didn’t talk for almost ten years,” he murmurs.
Marinette glances over at him. He’s staring up at the sky. “I guess life just…flies by sometimes.” She rests her chin on her hand. “I lost touch with a lot of people.”
Adrien starts to say something before cutting himself off. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Me too.”
Part of Marinette hates how after so long, after finally asking out the guy of her dreams, it didn’t work out. She hates how they were happy together and then they just weren’t. She hates how long they dated, how even after two years she still spent months comparing everyone she went on first dates with to him. She hates how long it took her to go on more than just first dates.
But she’s also glad. She’s glad they did date. She’s glad that it happened, she’s glad that she has those happy memories to remember, even if it wasn’t meant to last. She’s glad things ran their course. She’s glad they ended it before it got bad, before they could argue and yell and learn to hate each other.
She wishes that she’d been brave enough to pick up the phone. She wishes she hadn’t been too heartbroken to even send a text. She wishes the hours hadn’t turned to days. To weeks. To months. To years .
“I should’ve called,” Marinette blurts out. “I almost called. I almost…texted. I just kept…not?” She looks to him helplessly.
“I should’ve made time to come hang out with you, Nino, and Alya,” Adrien says. “At least once. I mean, I couldn’t have been that busy every time.”
“Me neither.” She looks down into the water again. The moving water makes it look like her and Adrien are shifting towards and away from each other. “We live and we learn.”
“A lot of learning,” Adrien mumbles.
“Mhm.” She’s not sure why she asks. No, she is sure. Because she wants to know. Because she’s too curious for her own good and because her best friend is a journalist. Because Adrien had said three years. “Three years to start dating again?”
Adrien raises his eyebrows at her. “And you said two.”
Marinette rolls her eyes. “I was going to ask if you just felt like it was finally time to start dating again or if you got dragged back in like I did.”
“Kind of both?” He shrugs and looks out over the water. “It… I mean, I went on a few first dates that didn’t work out. But after three years, one of my old modeling friends and I met up and I don’t know, it just…happened? We didn’t actually mean to start dating at first, but Nino nagged me about being interested but not going for it. It only lasted a few months, but it’s one of the longest relationships I’ve been in since… I’m not too great at this relationship thing, I guess. I really am too busy. I haven’t… found someone, you know?”
Marinette nods. “Yeah. I do.”
That had been one of their problems. They just got too busy . And as Adrien left the fashion world and she entered it, their lives started heading in different directions. They hadn’t had time for each other. Marinette wishes she had made more time for them.
“What about you?” Adrien asks. “How has the love life of Marinette Dupain-Cheng looked?” He tugs off his suit jacket and hangs it over his arm.
She scoffs. “It’s…boring.”
“And it’s really hot and crowded inside. I’m willing to listen to you read a dictionary if it means we can stay out here just a while longer.” He smiles at her and she caves.
“Ugh, fine . It really is boring though. Even when I started putting myself out there more it took a really long time to get past first dates. Like you said, it just didn’t work.”
“Anything long lasting?”
“A few,” she says with a shrug. “The further I got out of university, the more…solid my relationships got. If that makes any sense. But I was also dating a lot less in between relationships.” Marinette straightens and turns to lean her back against the railing. “But that’s enough of how much I generally suck at romance, it’s my turn to question you about your love life.”
Adrien turns around so they’re looking back at the lit up reception venue together. “Go ahead.”
Marinette takes a chance and asks the question that’s been on the tip of her tongue all night. “Anyone special in your life right now?”
A soft look crosses Adrien’s face. “Don’t tell Nino.”
“Don’t?”
“No one really… knows yet.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Secret relationship?”
“Not exactly secret, we just haven’t really announced it or anything yet,” Adrien corrects. “It’s new, we’re seeing how it goes.”
“What are they like?” Marinette doesn’t know how to feel about this part of her that’s demanding to know more. She doesn’t want to call it jealousy, it just feels weird.
“She’s one of my best friends.” He runs a hand through his hair. “She’s just… Kind of everything.” He laughs a little and smiles off into the distance. It hurts a little to remember that he used to look at her like that.
Marinette ignores the sudden jolt of sadness and snorts. “You sap.”
“Hey, you can be sappy too,” he says, shooting her a smile. “How about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
She bites her lip and tries not to smile. “Yeah, actually. I am. He’s…” she doesn’t know how to talk about him without gushing, “ nice . I really like him. Sort of in that way where you stop being able to explain why you like someone and you just…do.”
Adrien nods. “I know what you mean. It’s sort of like w—” He’s cut off by his phone starting to buzz. He pulls it out of his pocket and tilts the screen towards her. “And that’s Nino telling me that there’s cake.”
Marinette pushes off of the railing. “I’ll race you.”
“You’re in heels.”
“And you think that’ll stop me?” she teases.
Adrien finds himself on the dance floor with Marinette and Nino. Alya is the absolute worst and is videotaping them because Adrien still cannot dance . A slow song comes on and Nino pulls Alya over. Adrien and Marinette shrug and dance together because what else are they going to do? Adrien thinks to himself that they could probably sit down, but they’re in the middle of a crowded dance floor and he doesn’t feel like throwing any elbows.
“Thank god I can do awkward swaying back and forth,” he whispers to Marinette.
Marinette laughs. “Like you couldn’t do a full out waltz right now if you wanted to.”
“Do you want me to?” he teases, lifting one hand in the air and wiggling his fingers.
“I would trip all over your feet,” she protests.
Adrien takes her hand in his. “Good thing it’s just one , two, three, one , two, three…” Marinette laughs as he drags her through a shaky waltz. He’s missed her.
He’s… sad at the end of the night. Which is strange, because they don’t live far from each other. Their best friends are dating. They’ve had opportunities to see each other all the time. He doesn’t want to go back to never speaking to her. He’s afraid he will.
Marinette hugs him tight and slips a crumpled napkin into his hand. He finds her number written on it in pen. He wonders if this means she’s deleted him from her phone. He had never gotten around to it. He would write paragraphs and paragraphs to her and then delete it all before sending. He kept telling himself he’d get rid of her number, but he never did. He pockets the napkin anyway. “I’ll call,” he promises. And he’s going to stay good on that promise, because a few hours weren’t enough to make up for ten years. He spent every minute of tonight regretting those ten years.
“I’ll wait.” Marinette presses a kiss to his cheek. “Bye.” There’s something in her voice. Something like longing, something that Adrien can’t name but he feels the same anyway.
Adrien thinks about it all the way home. He thinks there might still be something there. If nothing there’s a friendship there that he’s neglected for an entire decade. He has a lot of what ifs. A lot of what if things worked out or what if they’d kept speaking to each other after they broke it off. Marinette used to be the one he dreamed about growing old with, he’d close his eyes and see her in his mind.
Adrien tosses his suit jacket on the bed and throws open the window. He pulls out the napkin and stares at the slightly smudged numbers. “Don’t let me forget, Plagg.”
“Sheesh, I won’t. If you forget though you owe me so much camembert.” Plagg lands on his shoulder. “You want to go or are we just going to dramatically stare out the window all night?”
Adrien rolls his eyes fondly. “Do you like window staring, Plagg?”
“I like sleeping.”
“Maybe in a little while. Plagg, claws out!”
Chat leaps out of the window and swings up to the roof. He makes his way into the city on his usual route, taking in the night air. It’s late, much later than he usually patrols, but it’s been days since he’s been out and he misses it. The rush of leaping from roof to roof, the feeling of the wind in his hair.
He spots her sitting on a roof in the center of Paris. He lands behind her silently, but he can tell from the way that she leans back on her hands that she heard him.
“What are you doing out so late, my Lady?” he asks as he walks over to her.
Ladybug tilts her head up to smile at him. “I had a late night and then I couldn’t sleep.”
Chat bends down and kisses her softly. She sighs and lifts a hand to his cheek, smiling into the kiss. She pulls away to tug at his bell. “Get down here, chaton.”
He sits down and leans against her. She rests her head on his shoulder and takes his hand in hers. “What about you? Why are you out so late?”
“Just needed some fresh air.” He turns his head to press a kiss to the top of her head. “I thought I’d missed you.”
“You missed me?” she teases.
“I’m always missing you when you’re not around,” he says honestly.
“You’re a sap,” she murmurs.
“I’m your sap.”
“Still.” She lifts her head to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “A sap .”
Chat leans forward, chasing her lips and kissing her firmly. “You love me though,” he whispers before kissing her again.
“Well you caught me there.”
“Would you say the cat’s got your tongue?”
Ladybug groans. “I’m breaking up with you.”
“Never,” Chat protests.
Ladybug presses a soft kiss to his cheek. “Okay. Never.”