23. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: I do not own Miraculous Ladybug.

Lucky Us

By: Princess Kitty1

Chapter 23

Monday afternoon, Adrien met Chloe for lunch at Le Grand Paris.

"Why aren't we doing our usual Wednesday breakfast this week?" she complained as she waited for Adrien to finish browsing the menu.

"Because," Adrien said, "Wednesday is Announcement Day."

All improperly formatted entries to the design competition had been weeded out. Marinette and Ladybug's fates now rested in the hands of Gabriel's chosen judges, and in two days, those judges' decisions would be broadcast to the entire fashion world. If Adrien hadn't given up nail biting years ago, he'd be down to nubs.

Chloe rolled her eyes and stuck her leg out to stop Adrien's from jiggling. "Cut it out. If Marinette and your Ladybug friend aren't good enough to make the finals, then they certainly aren't good enough for you."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Adrien said. He put his menu down and a waiter immediately appeared to take their order. He blinked. How the heck did they do that?

"I'm kind of surprised Marinette didn't kill you for your little birthday stunt," Chloe said once the waiter had vanished with their menus.

"She wanted to. I could tell; I saw the murder in her eyes." Adrien smiled, remembering the feeling of Marinette's arms around his neck, her body against his body, small and warm and soft and scented with perfume. "But I guess she decided I'm too cute to die."

"Ugh." Chloe rolled her eyes. "Hook up or shut up. You're nauseating me."

Adrien laughed. He turned his gaze to the restaurant window, watching cars pass on the street, people walk by on their way to or from work. "I talked to my father yesterday," he said.

"And let me guess: you want to get a tramp stamp now."

"Not exactly." He physically felt Chloe's eyes burning a hole into the side of his head. "We had a conversation. About life. And the competition. And… you know, stuff." He glanced at Chloe and saw that the perpetual annoyance had vanished from her face. He gave her the most reassuring look he could. "We decided to get help," he said. "Professional help. For me and for him. As a family."

Chloe pursed her glossed lips together. Adrien caught the unmistakable glisten of tears in her eyes before she tossed her head back and blinked rapidly. "It's about damn time," she said.

Adrien handed her his napkin. She took it and dabbed at her eyelids. She never would let any tears fall in public—not the genuine ones, anyway. "It'll be good for us, I think," Adrien said. "We have a lot of stuff to work through and I'm not sure we could manage it alone."

"Trying to manage it alone is what made you idiots this thickheaded in the first place," Chloe snapped. She reached across the table and took Adrien's hand. "But I'm happy for you."

Adrien stroked her fingers with his thumb. "You know what'd make me happy?" he asked. "If you got help, too."

Chloe heaved a sigh and pulled her hand back.

"I mean it, Chlo," he said. "Watching you self-destruct hasn't exactly been fun for me." He could sense her withdrawing, slamming the storm shutters down over her heart. "You think I like seeing you drunk and miserable? You think I like it when the tabloids call you stupid and spoiled and weak? When they turn you into the laughingstock of Paris?"

"Who cares what they think?" Chloe muttered.

"I do!" Adrien practically shouted, startling her. "I used to look up to you. My fake Twitter account pisses you off? Well guess what? Your victim complex pisses me off. And I'm tired of feeling like I'm not allowed to say anything because I'm not the one who almost died. Go see a therapist and get over it already!"

Chloe glared at him from across the table. Adrien glared back. He knew she could keep them there all day if she wanted to; Chloe Bourgeois had a knack for getting her way. But to his surprise, her lips pulled up into a smirk.

"Stealing Marinette away from some other guy, growing enough of a backbone to stand up to me… I like this new side of you, Adrikins," she said. "It almost makes me regret breaking up with you."

Adrien narrowed his eyes. "Don't be gross."

Chloe let out a sharp laugh and folded her arms over her chest. "I have been thinking about it lately," she admitted. "Not getting therapy, exactly, but shaking things up a little."

"Oh? You going to tell Nino you're in love with him?" Adrien asked.

Chloe stared out the window. "Please. I'm not that cruel."

Adrien smiled at that, though he couldn't help but think of what things would have been like if Chloe had allowed herself to be nice to Nino. He'd have been good to her, good for her. But Adrien knew the last thing she wanted was to make someone else endure what she'd put him through. "Well," he said, "whatever you decide to do, I'll support you. As long as it's not more self-destructive than alcoholism."

"Can it be less self-destructive than alcoholism?"

"Chloe."

"It was a joke, oh my God."

x.x.x

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: So I just realized I don't have your boyfriend's address.

Alya Cesaire: Oh yeah lol. Hold on a sec.

Alya Cesaire: Wait, he isn't… WE aren't…

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Uh-huh.

x.x.x

Adrien Agreste: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARINETTE!

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Thank you! :D

Adrien Agreste: How does it feel to be 27?

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Slightly more bewildering than being 26. But hey, we're the same age now!

Adrien Agreste: Noooo, we aren't.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Omg. Am I OLDER THAN YOU?!

Adrien Agreste: My birthday's in September, so yeah.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: O M G

x.x.x

Marinette pressed her phone against her heart and sighed as she made her way out of the bathroom. I'm older than him, she thought with a grin. She imagined Chat Noir's indignant response to learning that his Lady had him beaten by two months. It seemed like the kind of thing he'd have a complex about—or at least pretend to have a complex about. Curse her decision to pretend she was too busy to email him! Not being able to tease him made her days so much longer.

Adrien's text made her happy, but the time stamp on it made her even happier: midnight. He'd sent it to her right at the start of her birthday. He'd waited until midnight, stayed up when he could have been sleeping, just to send her a birthday text.

If she hadn't already been in love with him, that little detail might have pushed her over the edge.

Marinette climbed up to her bedroom and left her phone on her desk before turning to her wardrobe. Alya had sent her Nino's address, and since she didn't feel like sitting around at home waiting for her own birthday party to start, she figured she'd show up early. It wasn't like they planned on surprising her. She doubted anyone would object.

But now Marinette faced an old hurdle with a new twist: What did she wear to maximize her feminine charm around Adrien, also known as Chat Noir? She dropped her towel and stared at herself in her full-length mirror, twisting from side to side. She had plenty of good physical qualities: toned muscles, cute butt, a decent-sized bust. She could pick one asset to accentuate, or she could throw caution to the wind and accentuate all of them.

But it was her birthday, and she wanted to be festive, too.

She walked over to her wardrobe and grabbed a strapless blue dress with the fullest skirt she owned. She stuffed herself into it, tied some matching ribbon to a pair of heels and wrapped them up her calves, used the leftover ribbon to make a hairbow, then stepped back to admire her handiwork.

"Hmm. Something's missing," she murmured. She approached her desk and pulled open one of its drawers, moving magazine clippings and spare fabric aside until she found what she was looking for: a handmade and well-loved good luck charm she'd put together in middle school to get her through yo-yo competitions. She tied the colorful beads around her wrist and smiled. Perfect.

One quick makeup application later, she stepped out into the hazy summer day and set off in the direction of Nino's house. According to the address, he didn't live far: just a couple streets down from the bakery, which Marinette silently thanked him for. As used to heels as she was, she didn't feel like walking across Paris in them.

Her heart fluttered as she walked along, and she alternated between unstoppable smiles and nervous sighs.

Adrien was Chat Noir. She'd spent her entire Monday going back through their emails from the first to the last, looking for signs. The earliest ones were the most telling. Before Adrien had gone full blown Chat Noir on her, he'd been much more reserved. Friendly, but distant. He'd been the same way at the bakery the first couple of times he'd visited. Then once they'd fallen into the routine of emailing each other, he'd started joking around more, loosening up, until Marinette had the eyebrow-waggling tomcat delivering fresh professions of adoration to her inbox every morning.

She had to admit that she missed the professions of adoration, and not just because she was in love with him. To her, they indicated a happier, more relaxed Chat Noir, and if the recent tone of his emails were anything to go by, he hadn't been happy or relaxed in a while.

Marinette wanted him to feel better. She wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him how much she cared for and appreciated him. She wanted to give him a kiss for every time he'd made her smile.

Her phone chimed, indicating that she'd reached her destination. She looked up…

…and found herself staring at the front gate of an enormous mansion.

She checked her phone again. Hadn't Alya told her that Nino lived in an apartment building? With Marinette's history of mixing numbers up in email addresses, it was entirely possible that she'd gotten this one wrong, too.

"Marinette?"

Or, she thought as her heart jumped into her throat, it was entirely possible that she'd been set up.

She turned around. Adrien stood a few feet away, still in his work clothes. Marinette's eyes roamed over the suit, the tie, and the shoes, then skipped back up to his face. Chat Noir's face. Chat Noir's stupendously handsome, chiseled, supermodel face, complete with glowing sun hair, glittering green eyes, and utterly kissable mouth. She pointed at the gate. "Is this Nino's house?"

"No," Adrien said slowly, "it's mine."

Marinette looked back over her shoulder at the mansion, its wrought iron gate and imposing walls and numerous windows and close-up view of the Eiffel Tower. She smacked her forehead. "I'm going to kill Alya," she said.

"She sent you here instead of Nino's place?" Adrien guessed.

Marinette nodded, but then realized her best friend's attempts to hook her up with Adrien may have been too transparent, and backtracked. "She must be trying to keep me from showing up to the party early."

Adrien chuckled and darted an adorably nervous glance at the mansion. "Well, in that case, would you like to, uh, come in for a while?"

Marinette's eyes widened. "I-In there?" she asked, pointing at the mansion again.

"I'm just going to change my clothes. Unless you don't mind me showing up to your party in my birthday suit," Adrien said. He froze. His smile fell and the color in his cheeks rose simultaneously. "I mean the suit I'm wearing. Not naked. Why would I come to your birthday party naked?" He coughed. "You know what? That was a stupid joke. Would you like to wait inside while I change so that I can escort you to the proper party location?"

Marinette couldn't help herself: she burst out laughing. Adrien was Chat Noir. Adrien could not have been more Chat Noir if he tried. And the fact that his face had grown even redder just made her laugh harder.

"Okay, it wasn't that funny," he said, but she could tell he was trying not to laugh, too.

Marinette contained her giggles and wiped a tear from her eye. "Sorry. If the offer still stands, I'll wait inside. It's hot out here and I don't think my shoulders need any more freckles."

Adrien's gaze slid from her face downwards, then immediately shifted to the gate. "Right," he said. "I'll just…" He walked up beside her and punched a code into the keypad on the wall. The gate swung open noiselessly. He gestured towards the house. "After you."

Marinette pinched the sides of her skirt, dipped into a curtsy, then walked ahead of Adrien and through the front gate. She tried not to gawk at the paved walkway that led up to a small flight of stairs which in turn led to the front door. "Nice place you got here," she said.

Adrien, who'd caught up to her side, looked embarrassed. "It's alright."

"Makes me wonder why we're having the party at Nino's place when we could have had it in this gargantuan mansion with no less than fifty of my closest friends."

Now it was his turn to snort. "I would have offered, but my father isn't the type to host parties… or approve of parties being hosted in his home," he said. "And seeing as I'm trying to make nice with him, any arguments at this critical stage in our development could have set us back a decade." His smile turned playful. "Otherwise, I'd have been more than happy to throw you a party, fake ex-girlfriend."

Marinette barely held in a swoon. Curse that charm of his. "You are so sweet," she said.

They walked up the stairs and Marinette stood back as Adrien withdrew his housekey and unlocked one of the massive front doors. Once again, he motioned for her to go in ahead of him, and once again she slid past him and had to make a concentrated effort to keep her face from going slack.

The inside of the mansion was all black and white, marble and steel. An intricate black design decorated the floor of the foyer, and beyond that spanned a wide staircase beside which stood a waiting area—an actual waiting area. But what caught Marinette's eye was the portrait hanging above the staircase's first landing: a younger Adrien standing beside his father, both dressed in black, unsmiling.

Adrien took two steps forward before he noticed Marinette wasn't following him. He looked at her, then followed her gaze to the portrait. "Ignore that," he said, "we're getting rid of it."

"Okay," Marinette said, hoping she didn't sound as intimidated as she felt. Because it had suddenly dawned on her that she was not only in Adrien-slash-Chat Noir's house, but in Gabriel Agreste's house as well, and she'd been admiring Gabriel Agreste's work since the age of ten.

"My room is this way," Adrien narrated as he resumed walking and Marinette scampered after him. "That door on the left is Nathalie's office. She should be in there. The dining hall and kitchen are that way. The garage is that way. And I think we have a laundry room somewhere but I've never actually seen it."

Marinette stared at him. "Really?"

Adrien laughed. "No. Don't be so gullible, Marinette."

She shoved him. "You said it with such a straight face!" she cried. They walked up the staircase together and veered right at the landing. "Do you have a waiting area up here, too?" she asked, and had the pleasure of watching the tips of his ears turn red.

"Nope. Just my bedroom."

"Ah, just your… oh." Marinette felt her heart wedge itself in her throat. She had no doubt it would dive out of her mouth the next time she opened it, so she pressed her lips together and said nothing instead.

Adrien stood in front of a black door decorated with a silver sunburst. "I would like to preface this with a disclaimer. None of what you are about to see was my idea." He paused. "Except the foosball table."

"Where exactly are you taking me?" Marinette asked.

Adrien gave her a solemn look, then held the door open for her. She squinted against a ridiculous amount of sunlight as she walked into the room, blinked to clear her vision, then gasped.

The bedroom was two stories high, one wall comprised of nothing but windows. A bookcase towered before her, so tall that it had its own ladder. In the center of the room, a white couch faced a seventy-inch television, and beyond that was the foosball table Adrien had mentioned in his disclaimer. Marinette turned slowly, spotting a luxurious bed, a workspace with three identical computer monitors lined up beneath a larger fourth, a display case full of fencing and basketball trophies, a walk-in closet, and a spiral staircase that wound up to the second level of the room, which housed even more bookcases.

She looked at Adrien, who rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to be trying to see the room through her eyes. He cleared his throat. "If you think this is bad, you should have seen it when there was a skate ramp, a basketball hoop, a rock climbing wall, and a zip line in here."

Marinette didn't even try to close her mouth.

Adrien's hand dropped to his side. "I'll just… be over there. Getting dressed. Why don't you have a seat on the couch? Do you want anything? A drink? Fresh fruit? Complimentary gift basket?"

"I'm fine," Marinette said, a little too loudly. She fiddled with her purse. "This is a very nice room."

"Thanks." Adrien reached up to undo his tie. "Uh, make yourself at home. Plagg is around here somewhere, though he might be with my father, so…" He shrugged and walked off in the direction of the closet, leaving Marinette to stare unabashedly at the proud display of wealth surrounding her.

Without Adrien there to ease the tension—or make it worse—she wasn't sure what to do with herself. Did she sit on the couch? That sounded logical enough. If she sat at his desk he'd think she meant to pry into his business, and if she sat on his bed he'd think she meant to seduce him. Which she did. At some point. Eventually. Maybe? But right now the only thing that appealed to her was regaining her composure and not acting like she'd never been in a fancy house before.

Because she had been in fancy houses before. They just never belonged to anyone she knew personally.

Marinette ambled towards the couch, dress swishing around her thighs, her eyes still soaking in the bedroom and all its furnishings. Chat Noir lived here. These were Chat Noir's belongings: top of the line, cutting edge, pristine, tasteful.

She never would have put the two together.

In her mind, Chat Noir lived in a small apartment that he barely spent time in. He fell asleep on the couch sometimes with Plagg curled up on his chest. He left clothes on the floor and his bathroom mirror was splattered with toothpaste and shaving cream. He had a small stack of books piled on the coffee table, one of them a book of poems. Romantic and a little hopeless.

Marinette veered away from the couch and walked toward the towering bookcase instead. She plucked Chat Noir out of the dingy bachelor pad of her imagination and placed him in Adrien's room. She pictured the unsmiling boy in the portrait hanging in the mansion's foyer. Homeschooled. Isolated. Growing up in the public eye with a famous father. She scanned the books on the shelves and placed them in his hands: Chinese textbooks, literature, comics, business manuals. She lingered on one book titled Healing After Loss and adjusted the Chat Noir in her head further: a grieving teenager with no one to talk to, surrounded by everything he could ever want and nothing he truly needed.

Sending cat puns to a stranger on the internet suddenly made a lot more sense.

Marinette used her relationship with Chat Noir as an escape from rejection, pity, and the reality that her life had been thrown completely off course. But Adrien used his relationship with Ladybug to be somebody he couldn't be in public. Someone who could say exactly what he felt. Someone who was allowed to complain without being told he didn't have the right.

Marinette moved away from the bookcase, determined to stop prying. But before she could reach the couch, her gaze snagged on a spot of red in the otherwise black, white, and gray room. She listened for Adrien's footsteps. Nothing but the sound of running water—had he snuck into the shower while she'd had her back turned? She approached his bed, keeping enough distance from the mattress to ward off inappropriate fantasies that she could have had at home.

On the bedside table, next to a faded globe dotted with pushpins, was an envelope. The envelope. She picked it up, sweeping her thumb across the Chat Noir that she'd painstakingly written in her best calligraphy. The envelope showed no sign of tearing; Adrien had opened it with care. He'd left it somewhere he could see it the moment he woke up in the morning.

And it struck her, in a dizzying moment of clarity, that Adrien loved Ladybug. He loved her. The compliments and the showboating and the declarations weren't just parts of the online persona he'd crafted, they were his honest feelings.

You made me feel like my stupid parody of a life is worth living.

Marinette's eyes filled with tears.

I hate that I can't be anything for you other than a bunch of well-meaning words from some stranger on the internet.

She put the envelope back in its place and caught her tears before they smeared her mascara.

If I had to leave the country… I wouldn't step one foot into an airport if you weren't right there next to me.

She got a firm grip on her emotions and turned around.

A fluffy black cat stood by the door, staring at her with wide green eyes.

The grin that took over Marinette's face could have startled a serial killer. "Plagg!" she breathed.

Plagg inched his nose forward and smelled her from a safe distance, then opened his mouth and let out the whiniest meow she'd ever heard. No wonder Adrien always talked about him complaining.

Marinette took one cautious step towards Plagg. She knew how skittish most cats were, but he stood his ground and raised his tail like a mailbox flag. Marinette held her hand out for him to sniff. "Hi baby!" she whispered.

Plagg thoroughly examined her hand before pushing his head up into it. Marinette crouched down and rubbed behind his ears, then down his back, her heart swelling at the sound of his purr. "Oh my gosh, you are too cute," she cooed, and scratched his chin with her other hand. "I'm Adrien's friend, Ladybug," she whispered, "but you can't tell him that, okay?" Plagg's only response was to angle his head towards her for more petting. "Can I hold you?" Marinette asked, already sliding her hands under him. But Plagg squirmed out of her grasp before she could lift him off the ground, scampered a few feet away, and shook himself off. "Okay," Marinette said, "no holding. We're not at that level of friendship yet. Got it."

Plagg sat down and stared at her. Marinette, still crouched at his level, wrapped her arms around her knees and tilted her head. "For the record, I'm on your side. I've been trying to convince him to give you some cheese for months now. It's not my fault he's such a responsible parent."

The bathroom door opened and Plagg immediately ditched Marinette to go whine at Adrien, who'd changed into a more casual outfit of jeans and a dress shirt, yet still managed to look like he belonged on a yacht in the Mediterranean.

"What is it?" Adrien asked Plagg, who meowed and shook his tail in response. "Did you say hi to Marinette? I hope you aren't being mean to her." He stooped over, picked Plagg up, and tucked him under his arm before looking at Marinette. "Is he bullying you?"

She stood up. "Uh, no?"

Adrien nodded, satisfied, and carried Plagg over to her. "I like to pretend he gets upset when I don't tell him people are coming over, but his little peanut brain is probably just thinking of food." He kissed the top of Plagg's head. "We have to control his portions or he'll get fat, isn't that right, buddy?"

Marinette giggled and stroked Plagg behind the ears to distract herself from the fresh-out-the-shower supermodel standing within kissing range. The deliciously spicy cologne scent that came off him did not help. "How would you be able to tell he's fat under all that fur?" she asked.

Adrien's eyes met hers. "Well, if he's too heavy to tote around like this, he might be fat."

Marinette's breath caught in her throat. It really was unfair. He wasn't supposed to be prettier than her. He wasn't supposed to be a gorgeous man who lined the insides of his smile with sorrow and loved her so much that he kept her letters by his bedside and swore he wouldn't leave the country without her, even though he'd never seen her before.

She thought that meeting him in person would calm the tempest in her heart, but now that she had the whole picture, she loved him more. Impossibly more. She'd tried to fall in love with someone else and had ended up right back in his arms.

I'm Ladybug, she thought as they continued to stare at each other for two heartbeats too long. Look at me, chaton. I'm right here.

But Plagg apparently decided he'd had enough and began squirming to be put down. Adrien blinked, then leaned over and set him on the floor. "Sorry, buddy. I'll get you some food in a second," he said. He looked down at his fur-covered shirt. "Right after I find the lint roller."

"We should get going," Marinette said as Adrien rummaged in his desk drawer. "Alya and Nino are probably imagining all kinds of things happening between us."

Adrien swept a lint roller over his shirt with practiced efficiency. "Wouldn't want them getting the wrong idea." He winked at her. "It'll be more confusing for them when you start dating someone else, right?"

Marinette did her best not to flinch as his words cut into her chest. "Right."

She could tell him. It was the perfect time: the two of them in his room, alone together, their best friends already expecting them to show up late to the party. All she had to say was it's me, Chat Noir and watch the sun rise in his eyes…

Someone knocked on the door. A moment later, Gabriel Agreste walked into the room. "Adrien, are you—oh."

Marinette's mouth ran dry.

Caught in Adrien's bedroom by her number one fashion idol, who also happened to be his father. And the room smelled unmistakably humid from a recent shower. And she was dressed like a present.

It had been weeks since she'd last prayed to get struck by lightning, but now would have been an excellent time to die any of the quick deaths she'd envisioned for herself.

A blur of black fur streaked past her as Plagg ran over to greet Gabriel by wrapping himself around his legs. Gabriel acknowledged the cat with a glance before his eyes returned to Marinette, but by then, Adrien stood beside her again.

"I was just on my way out," he said. He placed a reassuring hand between Marinette's shoulder blades and guided her forward, which was kind of him, considering she couldn't have moved on her own if she tried. "Father, this is my friend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

"The baker," Gabriel said, but his gaze was fixed squarely on Marinette's outfit. He held his hand out to her. "My son has told me much about you."

Marinette recovered from her shock, channeled the spirit of the business owner, and gave Gabriel her firmest handshake. "It's an honor to meet you," she said. "I'm a huge fan of your work."

"Marinette's a designer," Adrien chimed in from somewhere over her shoulder.

"I see that," Gabriel said, his gaze returning to her ensemble and lingering on her good luck charm. "You have a keen eye, Ms. Dupain-Cheng, and skilled hands."

Marinette almost asked Adrien to pinch her to make sure she wasn't dreaming. "Thank you, Monsieur Agreste."

"We're heading over to Nino's for the afternoon. Did you need something from me?" Adrien asked his father.

"Colette called. She needs your signature on some paperwork, preferably before the end of the day. Ask Nathalie for it when you return. She'll fax it right over," Gabriel said. He nodded at Marinette. "It was nice meeting you."

He left the room with Plagg on his heels. Marinette turned around and grabbed Adrien's arm, trying to speak and only managing a cross between a whimper and a squeak.

"Do I need to carry you to Nino's?" he asked.

"N-No, I'll manage." Her legs may have felt like pudding, but if Adrien carried her anywhere the rest of her body would turn into mush as well. So she settled for holding onto his arm as they walked out of the room and down the stairs to the entryway. But she didn't let go of his arm once they were outside, and he didn't try to take it back from her. They stepped out into the hazy day together, looking for all the world like a happy couple.

x.x.x

While Nino did not live in a mansion, he did live in a gorgeous studio apartment with a loft, tall ceilings, and a state of the art sound system. Alya waved at Marinette from the couch, which was set up in front of a large entertainment console. "What took you guys so long?" she crowed.

Marinette blushed, but Adrien jumped in to provide an excuse. "It was my fault. I decided to walk to work today without checking the weather first and ended up sweating through my suit," he said. "Couldn't turn up at a party like that, could I?"

Marinette said hi to Nino and complimented his apartment, then walked over to the couch and sat beside Alya, smoothing down her dress skirt. Alya shot a glance towards the kitchen. "Did you tell him?" she whispered.

"No," Marinette whispered back. "His father interrupted us. But," Marinette said with a huge smile, "I got complimented by Gabriel Agreste, so it wasn't a total loss." She still hadn't come down from cloud nine about that. Her favorite designer thought she had a keen eye and skilled hands. Never mind that he also probably thought she'd slept with his son in broad daylight. "And Adrien has the letter I wrote Chat Noir last week, so he's definitely him."

"What are you guys whispering about over there?" Nino asked.

Marinette looked over her shoulder and smiled. "I was just telling Alya she ought to reapply her lipstick so it won't be totally obvious that you two were making out."

Adrien snorted and covered his mouth with his hand. Nino's cheeks darkened considerably. Alya wiped the bottom of her lip with her finger.

"Anyway," Nino said, "we gave a lot of thought to what sort of entertainment we could provide the birthday girl with. Alya told me you're a fan of terrible movies."

Marinette nodded. "I am a fan of terrible movies. Especially the ones with really bad special effects."

Nino picked up a small remote from the kitchen counter. "Then you are going to love my movie collection." He pressed a button and the entertainment console's cabinets slid open, revealing row upon row of classic horror films, black-and-white science fiction, and the entire collection of The Twilight Zone.

"Nino went through a filmmaking phase a few years ago," Adrien said as Marinette abandoned the couch to get up close and personal with the movies.

She didn't know where to begin. There were so many she'd seen, but just as many that she hadn't seen. She even found the one she'd forced Chat Noir to sit through: The Horrificator.

A devious idea struck Marinette. She plucked the movie off the shelf and held it over her head. "Can we watch this one?"

"No!" Adrien cried at the same time Alya and Nino said, "Sure."

"Is there something wrong with it?" Marinette asked innocently.

"Yeah," Adrien said, "that movie sucks."

"That's kind of the point, dude," Nino said, then gave him a look that even Marinette could interpret: You want to put aside your preferences and make the girl you like happy, don't you?

She turned back to the console with an impish grin. If Chat Noir couldn't let go of her love for The Horrificator, then she'd just have to make him watch it again. That ought to teach him a lesson.

While Nino and Adrien brought over the food, Marinette caught Alya up to speed on the movie situation. Alya laughed out loud. "You are evil, and I am so proud," she whispered.

"I learned from the best," Marinette said. "Which reminds me…" She pinched the skin of Alya's elbow. "You sent me to Adrien's house?" she hissed.

"I was doing you a favor!" Alya hissed back. "And I'm about to do you another one." Then, before Marinette could question her, she jumped up from the sofa and squeezed into a recliner with Nino right as Adrien sat on the couch beside Marinette. Marinette glared at her. Payback's a bitch, Alya mouthed.

"First a zombie movie and now this," Adrien said as the copyright warnings played on the television screen. "I'm starting to think you and I have vastly different tastes in films."

The innocence returned to Marinette's voice. "I like Disney movies, too."

"Everyone likes Disney movies," Adrien grumbled. "They're well-made, fun, and their monsters have backstories that make sense."

She giggled and grabbed a slice of homemade pizza. Forget the movie, watching him sulk through the whole thing would be far more entertaining than high school kids being encased in pink goo.

But as The Horrificator played on and Adrien only seemed exhausted by the terrible acting, the stilted dialogue, and the unimpressive monster, Marinette had a change of heart. She did love him, after all. He should have been having fun on her birthday, too. So she excused herself to the kitchen to grab a drink and, keeping her cell phone out of sight, she opened her email inbox.

x.x.x

LadybugRE: SummerJust now

CHAT NOOOOOOOOOOOOIR!

Hi. :-D

I missed you.

But I'm back now, so feel free to hit me with every pun you've come up with in my absence.

x.x.x

When Marinette returned from the kitchen with her drink, Adrien's sour expression had been replaced by a warm, barely concealed smile.

To Be Continued

A/N: I figured we needed a healthy dose of hilarity after the recent feels dumps, but then I ended up dumping feels anyway. Why do I do that? Why is this story like this? Why am I like this?

If you haven't been following me on Tumblr, then you haven't read the bonus drabbles for this fic which reveal things like Chloe being in love with Nino. I recommended that you doat least visit my Tumblr (geek-fashionista), because then you can also see the beautiful fan art pieces that have been done for this story!

That's all for this chapter and my spring break. The review box is now accepting questions, comments, and donations of tears for my eternal youth elixir!