4. The Mice Will Play

Every spreadsheet he was asked to look at increased Adrien’s desire to take a flying leap out his window into the Seine like a modern Javert. Even if he undershot, a quick splattering death against the concrete ten stories below would be a kinder fate than being asked to review the Japanese branch’s third-quarter profit report and prepare a statement for the afternoon’s board meeting. Even though he lacked any official position, his father’s untimely death left him the unfortunate owner of the majority of company stock.

Most people wouldn’t call this unfortunate; most people would have killed to be in Adrien’s shoes until they found out that most of his daily duties involved reading copious amounts of tedious financial reports. And while they weren’t particularly hard to understand, reading one was about as interesting as reading an annotated history of industrial strength window cleaner.

Half of him was tempted to tell Marcel he read the reports already but the man was like a failed clone of his own father and would probably quiz him on the effectiveness of their underwear marketing campaign on men aged 18-25. Which, according to his report, was less successful than originally projec-

Knock knock.

“Eugh?” Adrien yawned, leaning back in his chair as a soft knock came on his door. “It’s unlocked!”

He pretended to be hard at work as the door slid open, hoping to look like the picture of a young, put together junior executive so Marcel might not see him for the underqualified product of nepotism that he actually was.

“Just going over the Q3 from the…Marinette?” Adrien trailed off as he realized that the figure in the room with him wasn’t his father’s former vice president who had stolen into his office. Dressed in a red and black trench coat that fell down past her stocking covered knees, Marinette simply offered him a small, toothless smile as she shut the door behind her.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you until Saturday,” Adrien chuckled as Marinette made her way around the desk, heels clacking on the hardwood floor as she wordlessly made her way over to him. “I’d, uh, offer you a chair but I think I have to read up on this before-”

Without preamble, Marinette gently plucked the folder from Adrien’s hand, carelessly tossing it down on the desk in a flutter of spreadsheets as her hand pushed gently on his chest, walking him backwards until he flopped in his office chair with a small squeak.

“Can I, uh…do something for you?” Adrien asked, disconcerted by her smiling silence as she slowly tugged on the belt of her trench-coat.

“Maybe,” Marinette purred in a tone he had never heard come out of her mouth before. The lapels of her coat parted and Adrien’s throat went dry at the vision of pale skin and black lace that lay underneath. Of course Marinette’s lingerie game was on point, sporting a black garter and stocking set complete with matching bra and panties that left enough for Adrien’s imagination to run completely wild. He must’ve spaced out for quite some time because when he reached out his hand to touch her, he found both restrained to the arms of his chair by a pair of black lace strips.

“Ah ah ah; no touching,” Marinette scolded, undoing her bun and shaking her dark curls out. Before Adrien could squeak out what was no doubt a lust addled response, her thumbs hooked under the waistband of her panties, turning around and confirming that, yes, in fact she was wearing a thong. Adrien had exactly three seconds to appreciate the sight of Marinette’s butt in lace before she leaned forward, sliding the undergarment down her legs in a way that made Adrien’s hips unconsciously buck off his chair.

“W-Wait,” Adrien said as Marinette turned around, underwear dangling off her index finger. “S-Someone might see us or-mmph.”

Adrien’s half-hearted protest was soon smothered by black lace as Marinette unceremoniously shoved her skimpy underwear in his open mouth.

“So?” Marinette chuckled, finger tilting Adrien’s chin upwards to look at her. “I don’t care. Let that dumpy little pencil-pushing president walk in on us…”

Adrien shuddered as her hand slowly trailed down his stomach, fingers unlatching his belt and slowly tugging it through the loops of his pants.

“He thinks he owns you,” Marinette said, open palm pressing against his aching cock straining to get out of his pants. “I need to remind him that you don’t belong to anyone but me.”

Adrien tried to mutter out a response but even if his mouth wasn’t full of Marinette’s underwear, he would have had a hard time saying anything as her fingers popped the button off his pants. Her small, delicate finger hooked under the waistband of his boxers, tugging them out with a small, throaty chuckle.

“Is that for me?” Marinette said, tugging his boxer’s down as Adrien’s hips rose off the chair instinctively. “How thoughtful of you.”

Adrien let out a low, strangled moan as Marinette slowly slid onto his lap, hands tilting his face up to look at her as her hips rested on top of his.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Marinette said, hand reaching back to slowly guide Adrien inside her. “And you had better make it worth my while.”

With a light, airy laugh, she rocked her hips forward, lips pressing against his forehead as he-

 -woke sweating to the sound of his radio alarm blaring in his ear.

Adrien was legitimately surprised when he was able to raise his arms off his bed, spitting the corner of his soft, Egyptian cotton topsheet out of his mouth as he lay back, staring at the ceiling in mute shock.

“Huh…” Adrien said, glancing down as he caught sight of a rather sizable bump in the sheets; a souvenir of the hot, sweaty fantasy his alarm unceremoniously ripped him from.

“…huh,” Adrien repeated, lifting the sheet and cocking his head to one side as he looked down at himself. “Well this is new.”

He glanced the clock, doing some quick math in his head to figure out how much time he really needed to get dressed and ready for work.

“Screw it,” Adrien said, settling back against his pillows as he tucked the corner of his sheet into his mouth again. For a moment he could imagine the soft cotton between his teeth had recently slid off Marinette’s hips. For a moment, he thought of a much smaller hand sliding up and down his length with torturous persistence, moans smothered by the damp cloth in his mouth as her fingers threaded through his hair. He imagined his hips rocking up against her futilely as her teeth bit down on his earlobe, sucking on it as she teasingly ground against him, bringing him closer and closer to his breaking point with every practiced pass of her p-and we have liftoff.

The small, gasping moan was completely smothered by the sheet in Adrien’s mouth. He twitched, once, twice, three times, each spasm creating another surprisingly large wet spot on the thin white sheets that still covered him from the waist down. He sucked in air through his nose, mouth falling open and letting the soon to be laundered sheet fall out of his mouth. He slowly sank back against his pillows as a warm, tingly afterglow washed over him, licking his dry lips as weeks of undue stress seemed to melt off him like snow on a radiator.

…only for a tell-tale ringtone to freeze him up just as quickly.

Groaning to himself, Adrien reached over to his nightstand, scowling briefly at the caller ID before reluctantly pressing the talk button.

“Hello,” Adrien said groggily. “Morning, Marcel, I…yes…yeah I’ll…I’ll take a look at it when I get in…I don’t know; an hour from now probably…okay forty five minutes…okay I’ll…I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Adrien sighed, tossing the phone on his nightstand as he slowly hauled himself out of bed, trailing his sheets in bad need of washing.

Strange, boneriffic dreams involving one of his oldest friends notwithstanding, Adrien found himself relieved when six o’clock finally rolled around on Saturday. Even though he made it clear that he was only going to be in half of the day on Saturday, he wanted to be clear of the office before someone pulled him into an impromptu meeting that he found increasingly tiresome and pointless. Even when he did speak up, no one ever really listened to him and he beginning to wonder if his title of “junior executive strategy consultant” was some kind of code for “idiot kid who coincidentally has most of the board votes.” Needless to say, after almost six months of working there, Adrien was beginning to feel completely used and humiliated.

And not in the fun way. 

Every step he took away from the office his father used to work in seemed to improve his mood if the constant buzzing in his jacket pocket only served to remind him that he was running late. He didn’t even bother glancing at his phone because if he did he would either a) drown in texts from Nino urging him to develop super-speed or b) open up his IM client and waste even more time trying to decipher Marinette’s last message.

MissLadybug (14:55): i'm really looking forward to it~

MissLadybug (14:55): we have a lot of catching up to do, don't we?

He had checked at least once a day since Monday, considering hiring a cryptologist or French professor to help him figure out exactly what she was trying to say to him. Was she irritated that they hadn’t seen each other since February (we have a lot of catching up to do, don't we?), looking forward to hanging out some more (we have a lot of catching up to do, don't we?), or suggesting something that would probably involve them heading back to her place after the evening was over (we have a lot of catching up to do, don't we?)

Adrien shook his head as he nearly ran into a light post that flickered on as he passed. Just because he was having questionable dreams about Marinette in increasingly less clothing didn’t mean she suddenly wanted to take him to bed…as much as their internet conversations more often than not centered on all the interesting ways in which people took each other to bed. It was easier online to maintain a degree of detachment which Adrien found incredibly helpful. It was easy to keep his cool when MissLadybug was a faceless crawl of text on his computer screen but it was much harder to think straight when it was his pretty (and single) friend asking why it was there were so many different kinds of impact toys and what the difference was between them.

(To his everlasting shame, Adrien had signed out of that conversation, unbuttoned his pants, and spent a good twenty minutes imagining a much more personal lesson he could have given her.)

But if he was embarrassed of the occasional lustful thought of Marinette, the dream he had only a few days earlier made him turn scarlet just thinking about it. The knowledge that Marinette had, at one point, liked him was something that made him see her in an almost completely different light…despite the fact that he hadn’t actually seen her since February. Their conversations online were suddenly heavy with possibility as countless what-ifs refused to leave Adrien alone, no matter how much Adrien tried to suppress them. Whatever his newfound attraction to Marinette was doing to him, “I’m not interested in getting into a relationship” meant I’m not bloody interested in getting into a relationship. She was his friend…his pretty, funny, intelligent, kinky friend but his friend all the same. Adrien had precious few of those and he wasn’t about to jeopardize his relationship with Marinette because his libido had taken a fancy to her…

…of course, Adrien’s promise became infinitely harder to keep the moment he actually clapped eyes on her.

He approached the address Alya texted him through a thick crowd of people, fighting his way through tourists and locals out enjoying the Parisian waterfront on a crisp spring evening. He wasn’t surprised he didn’t find them immediately; they had probably gone inside one of the numerous cafes lining the waterfront to wait for him. Pulling out his phone, he rolled his eyes at another text from Marcel’s secretary. Tempted as he was to just get whatever Marcel wanted over with, Adrien scrolled past, suddenly irritated enough that he didn’t notice the person behind him until they lightly tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, you wouldn’t happen to be Adrien Agreste, would you?”

Even after so many years of modelling, Adrien never quite got used to dealing with his fans. The attention-starved side of him that appreciated the fact that so many people seemed to care about him warred with his private side that never really managed to get a good grip on dealing with the fans. Still, he went through the motions; smile, nod, sign whatever it was they wanted (provided it wasn’t a body part) and then make an excuse to leave as soon as possible.

Okay, here we go, Adrien said to himself. Turn around, smile, and-

...oh.

“I’m something of a fan,” Marinette with a toothy smile, hands shoved in the pockets of a cream colored trench coat whose very existence short circuited Adrien’s brain as it remembered the last time he saw her in a trench coat…or the last time he thought he saw her in a trench coat at any rate.

“H-Hey,” Adrien laughed, tucking his phone back in his pocket as he tried hard not to wonder too hard what she was wearing under that coat. “Long time no see, huh?”

“Been a while,” Marinette said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear as they lingered a foot or so apart, identical awkward smiles plastered on their faces. They had the same idea at the same time, going forward and nearly running into one another as they went for a hug at the exact same moment. Marinette’s nose lightly bumped into his chest, whatever dignity and poise she had rehearsed going clean out the window as she stumbled forward. Her heel caught on the sidewalk, the full weight of her body falling forward and taking them both down with a pair of identical grunts as Marinette, for lack of a better term, completely sacked Adrien into the ground in front of a crowd of onlookers.

Operation Be Cool And Flirt With Adrien: Failed.

“Ohmygod,” Marinette groaned, sitting up and looking down at Adrien with a hand pressed to her lips in horror. “Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry!”

“Ooph…are you okay?” Asked the man who had just been slide tackled to the ground by a woman half his weight.

“Are you?” Marinette moaned, cradling Adrien’s face as he looked into his eyes for any sign of concussion. “Can you sit up?”

Green eyes blinked up at her hazily, a small, nervous smile tugging at his lips as Adrien struggled to sit up only to realize three things at the exact same time;

1) He couldn’t actually sit up because Marinette’s weight was still pressing down on tip of him.2) Under the trench coat, Marinette was definitely wearing a skirt. He knew this because-3) –she was accidentally pressing her thinly covered lap into his as her legs straddled his hips.

“Ah-hem.”

Marinette’s attention pulled away from Adrien long enough to see that Alya and Nino had returned, glancing down at the pair of them with an identical pair of shit-eating smirks.

“You know if you two want to bail on us, we completely understand,” Alya chuckled as Marinette slowly looked down at herself to realize the position she was in, kneeling on top of Adrien and cradling his head like they were posing for the cover of a cheap grocery store romance novel.

“Just please get a room first,” Nino chimed in. “Unless you guys are like into the whole doing it in public kinda thing...no you know what, get a room anyway.”

Marinette almost wished she had concussed Adrien; if she had he might not have remembered that she all but gave him the most aggressive lap dance imaginable on the street in front of hundreds of onlookers.

So far her “flirt with Adrien” gameplan was off to a rocky start but if she expected things to be awkward between them during dinner, she was pleasantly surprised when they weren’t. Perhaps that was because she had Nino and Alya to fall back on to keep the conversation going as they sat on a terrace overlooking the river. Despite the hustle and bustle of the street outside, the small café was only reasonably crowded and the terrace was quiet enough for the four of them to catch up on the last seven years with minimal interruption.

But for Alya and Nino it was as if they had just seen each other the week before. Marinette had envied the easygoing, almost effortless way they fit together back in high school; the way they blurred the line between friends and lovers (as much as that word could apply to gangly, awkward teenagers). Even if they hadn’t swung back around to being involved again it seemed almost inevitable to Marinette given the fact that they kept shooting furtive glances and barely concealed smirks at one another when they thought Marinette wasn’t paying attention.

And speaking of furtive glances…

She and Adrien had shared their fair share of looks that had lingered a little longer than completely necessary. Even in the same pair of black slacks and white shirt every businessman in Paris wore, he managed to cut an impressive figure that try as she might she found it hard to keep her eyes off. And if his wandering eye was anything to go by, her decision to go with a sleeveless red turtleneck and black skirt was a wise one.

Every time he caught her eye, she forced herself to hold his gaze until he was the one to look away. If she demurred every time he looked at her, she would have spent the entire night staring at her pasta like a food blogger. As it was, she found out something very interesting.

Adrien was just a little bit shy.

How she had never noticed this despite having known him for her entire teenage life she would never know; maybe she had put Adrien on a pedestal where mortal flaws like shyness couldn’t reach him. But more often than not it was Adrien who backed down from their little staring matches first, diverting his attention to either Nino or Alya, only to steal another glance back after a moment. If nothing else, it only encouraged her to sit up a little straighter, lean a little closer, and hold his glittering green gaze whenever she spoke with him.

Unfortunately for Operation Be Cool And Flirt With Adrien, Marinette’s subtle assertiveness caused Adrien to remind her that there was a reason her feline dream dom spoke with his voice.

“I bet Tokyo would be a fun city to live in,” Marinette said as their conversation wound their way around to Adrien and Nino’s seven year trip across the globe.

“It’s not bad,” Adrien shrugged, this time not balking as Marinette glanced across the table at him. “Lots of fun stuff to do at least. Nino got way too into Japanese professional wrestling though.”

“And yet you took my spare Wrestle Kingdom XIV ticket when I invited you,” Nino reminded him, spearing a stray piece of chicken off Adrien’s plate. “And the Wrestle Kingdom XV ticket…and the New Beginnings in Osaka 2018 ticket…and the G1 Grand Prix-”

“Point taken,” Adrien shrugged.

“So you were just there for the athletic men in throwing each other around then?” Marinette teased.

“It was a plus,” Adrien said without missing a beat, meeting Marinette’s questioning glance with a small wink that made her mouth suddenly run dry. His twinkling gaze conjured images from her wildest fantasies and for the first time in their little exchange, her gaze drifted over his shoulder, covering a sudden flush with a sip of her drink.

…she couldn’t win them all, she supposed. But when the waiter arrived with four separate checks, Marinette decided to make another play.

“Ready to head ou-” Adrien idly reached for his leather-bound check envelope only for his fingers to close around empty air as Marinette plucked it from out in front of him.

“I got it,” Marinette said with a small smile, stacking her check on top of his as Adrien blinked at her owlishly. He looked confused more than anything else; it occurred to her that he probably had never been in a position where someone had offered to pay for his dinner before. Alya shared a small, triumphant glance with Nino who just rolled his eyes and shook his head as Adrien tried to formulate words.

“But…I…wh-what?” Adrien blinked reaching across the table for his check as Marinette held it just out of his reach. “Marinette, you don’t have to-”

“I slide tackled you to the pavement today,” Marinette said, standing up from the table before Adrien could say anything else.

“That was an accident,” Adrien chuckled.

“Well I accidentally grabbed your check too,” Marinette said as Alya unceremoniously slid her check across to Nino who picked it up without missing a beat.

“I’ll walk with you,” Nino said, opening the patio door for Marinette as Alya laid a hand on Adrien’s forearm and shook her head at the protest that stalled in his throat.

“Did you tackle Alya too?” Marinette snorted as she wound her way towards the rather sizable line leading up to the cashier.

“No, but I lost a bet,” Nino said, leaning against the dividing rail as he fixed her with a crooked grin. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Is this my fault?” Marinette asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yup,” Nino said, scratching the back of his neck. “We had a wager to see who would move first; you or Adrien-”

“I haven’t moved yet,” Marinette said evasively.

“Uh-huh,” Nino snorted. “You just Thesz Pressed his crotch on the sidewalk outside-”

“That was an accident!” Marinette hissed, tugging at her collar.

“-and then picked up his check like the suave fashonista you are,” Nino pointed out, lips twitching as Marinette’s face began to match her top.

“J-Just making up for an accident; that’s all,” Marinette said, cutting in line in front of Nino.

“Uh-huh,” Nino repeated, sliding along the divider rail as the line moved forward. “Well thanks at any rate; good to see him enjoying himself again. The chuckles have been kinda few and far between since…you know.”

“Oh…right,” Marinette said, glancing out the window to see Adrien and Alya chattering about something, a small smile on his face as he turned to look inside. He caught her catching him staring at her and pretended to be stretching his neck as Alya rolled her eyes behind Adrien’s back. “That wasn’t even a year ago, was it?”

“Believe me; no one was more surprised than I was,” Nino snorted a little bitterly. “Hell, I didn’t even know Gabe had a heart until it failed him.”

“He wasn’t exactly the fuzziest person, was he?” Marinette admitted.

“To put it mildly,” Nino said. “Let’s just say that Adrien is the only person sad to see him go and leave it at that. His own business partner—Adrien’s new boss by the way—didn’t even go to the god damn wake.”

“Well Marcel Dubois isn’t known in the fashion industry for his sunny personality,” Marinette said, prickling at the thought of Adrien working for a soulless toad-faced gremlin like Dubois. “What exactly does Adrien do anyway?”

“Act as a bargaining chip,” Nino said bitterly. “Gabriel left Adrien his controlling shares after he died so every board meeting is a battle to get Adrien to vote one way or another. His entire job is dealing with people asking him to vote with them on policy changes or fashion show choices or what kinds of soda to stock in the break room vending machines.”

“Fun,” Marinette said dryly.

“Not really,” Nino sighed. “Boy’s working too hard for people who don’t give a shit about him beyond his last name and his votes. He doesn’t talk about work anymore except to complain about it.”

“So why doesn’t he just…quit or something?” Marinette asked. “I mean not to get all Eat, Pray, Love but surely Adrien of all people has some screw-you-money saved up, right?”

“You’re preaching to the choir; I’ve been trying to get him to quit for months now,” Nino shrugged. “God knows I blew that company and went freelance at the earliest possible opportunity…then again my name isn’t on the front door.”

“I guess that’d be harder to walk away from,” Marinette admitted.

“I don’t know…maybe you’ll have better luck,” Nino said. “At the very least I’ll be able to triple team him between you, me, and Alya.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Marinette said, passing both checks across the counter to the cashier and fishing her wallet out of her purse.

“Much obliged,” Nino said. “And if Adrien asked, we didn’t have this conversation.”

“What conversation?” Marinette said with a puzzled smirk.

“Exactly,” Nino nodded, glancing at Alya’s bill with a small sigh. “God I forgot your friend wasn’t a cheap date…”

“You know you love her though,” Marinette chuckled as Nino stepped up to the counter.

“I do,” Nino said with a fond glance over his shoulder where Alya was waving at them over the rim of her drink.

“How…refreshingly candid,” Marinette said with a small smile.

“Well you get to an age where you’re tired of playing games, you know?” Nino shrugged, accepting his change and stowing it in his pocket. “Life’s too short to not take a chance on what you want, right?”

“Still trying to convince me to go for Adrien?” Marinette snorted.

“Hey, I didn’t say anything about Adrien,” Nino said, grinning at the flustered expression on Marinette’s face. “Good to know where your mind’s at though.”

Marinette opened her mouth to retort but wondered idly if there was even any point in denying her obvious attraction to Adrien…and the incredibly obvious way she was going about flirting with him. Alya led Adrien back in through the patio door so Marinette decided to just drop it for the time being as Adrien held her trench coat out for her.

“Forget something?” Adrien said.

“I was coming back for you,” Marinette said before thinking, sliding her arms in the coat as her expression purpled a little.

It! I meant to say-Marinette quickly choked out the part of her that wanted to correct herself, biting the inside of her mouth as Adrien slid her coat up onto her shoulders. “S-So this was fun!”

“Was?” Alya said, fixing Adrien and Marinette with an almost predatory smile.

"Y-yeah, good times," Adrien said, shifting a little as Alya wrapped her arms around Adrien and Marinette's shoulders.

“Oh, honey," Alya said. "What makes you think I’m done with you?”

 “…are you serious?” Marinette sighed.

“No we’re just screwing with you,” Nino said, rolling his eyes. “Of course we’re serious!”

“You said this was just going to be dinner,” Marinette murmured to Alya out of the corner of her mouth.

“When did I say that?” Alya snorted.

“I just assumed-”

“Well you know what the English say about assuming and asses,” Alya said, wrapping an arm around Marinette’s shoulder as the lights of the arcade blinked down on the four of them.

“I didn’t even know this place was still here,” Adrien mused. “It was like ten years old when we were still in school, wasn’t it?”

“Apparently it’s still got fans,” Marinette said, moving out of the way of a small crowd of high schoolers going inside.

“Are you surprised?” Nino said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation as Marinette wondered if Alya dragging them here was more for Nino’s benefit than anyone else’s. “What are the odds that my Galaga high score is still up there?”

“A-S-S?” Adrien snorted. “Yeah, I think it’s still there.”

“Not to put a damper on the evening,” Marinette said, glancing at her watch. “But I-”

“If you say you have to work tomorrow I am going to smack you,” Alya said sweetly.

“…okay,” Marinette said, casually stepping behind Adrien. “I don’t not have to work tomorrow and shouldn’t not be getting home now because if I don’t not go to bed soon, I won’t be tired in the morning for the job I’m not not going to.”

“It is nine-thirty,” Alya said flatly. “On a Saturday night. You are not seriously going to ditch your friends and go home to sleep like a sixty year old.”

“I said I was taking Saturday off and I am,” Marinette argued, moving around Adrien’s side as Alya moved towards her. “Never said anything about Sunday.”

“You can’t work on Sunday!” Alya protested. “It’s…it’s sacrilegious!”

“Since when have you been religious?” Marinette snorted.

“I’m very religious when it gets my friend out of the house for a little bit of fun,” Alya said vehemently, glancing at Adrien. “Right Adrien?”

“I…don’t want to get in the middle of things,” Adrien chuckled, despite the fact that as Alya tried to chase Marinette he was quite literally in the middle of things. “Besides…I’m not sure how much longer I can stay either. I have a-”

“Oh my god, Marcel does not want you to come in tomorrow, does he?” Nino groaned, turning around to look at Adrien. “Does he?”

“Uh…” Adrien fished his phone out and glanced at the calendar app. “…eleven thirty; ‘regional strategy meeting to promote cross-platform synergy amongst local person to person modes of vending’ apparently.”

“And it’s just essential that you be there?” Nino asked.

“You know what happened last time I skivved off one of these meetings,” Adrien sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “Don’t really have time for another “Gabriel Agreste was the backbone of this company” lecture.”

“I am going to superkick that dick next time I see him,” Nino seethed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Straight up Sweet Chin Music his froggy looking face.”

“…huh,” Adrien blinked. “I never really thought about it but I guess he does kinda look like a-”

“Oh my god,” Alya said, blinking at Adrien and Marinette. “You guys have become so lame!”

“What?!” Marinette and Adrien squeaked at the same time.

“We-we’re not lame!” Marinette argued.

“You two are going to ditch us to go to sleep so you can get up to work on Sunday!” Alya said, raising an accusing finger at them. “Lame!”

“We’re just being responsible!” Adrien said, scratching the back of his neck. “We…do fun stuff all the time, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Nino said, crossing his arms. “Like stay at home and chat with people on your freaky ass website?”

“Hey, say that louder, I don’t think the grandmas across the street heard you,” Adrien hissed, scarlet complexion only rivaled by Marinette’s top.

“What part of you’re going to have fun damnit was confusing to you?” Alya said.

“I-I had fun,” Marinette insisted.

“You had dinner,” Alya countered, gesturing back to the arcade. “This is fun. I know it’s been so long since you had it that you probably forgot what it looks like-“

“That’s what she said,” Nino supplied.

“-but if you have some soon I can’t be held responsible for what I do anymore,” Alya finished without missing a beat.

“That’s…also what she said?” Nino shrugged.

“You are turning into a literal spinster!” Alya insisted.

“Okay but that’s literally my job!” Marinette said. “A job that I enjoy thank you very much! A job I would very much like to be able to do well tomorrow!”

“And while my enthusiasm for my career can’t really match Marinette’s, I will get my hands slapped if I’m not on my game for tomorrow’s meeting,” Adrien said, tucking his hands in his pockets with an apologetic glance at Alya.

“Ugh…fine,” Alya grunted, turning and hooking her arm through Nino’s as she started to drag him away. “You two losers go home and wax philosophic about the sociopolitical significance of ballgags or whatever you nerds talk about in your spare time. Nino and I are going to go scream at video games like mature adults.”

“Deuces,” Nino said, turning around and disappearing into the darkened arcade, leaving Marinette and Adrien standing out front with identical petulant scowls on their faces.

“…we’re not lame,” Marinette snorted derisively.

“No we’re not,” Adrien mumbled.

“We’re cool.”

“Super cool.”

“We’re successful business people.”

“In control of our own lives.”

“And if we don’t want to go to an arcade, we don’t have to.”

“Of course not.”

“Doesn’t make us lame.”

“Right.”

“We have better things to do.”

“…like sleep.”

“Sleep that prepares us for our…uh…fulfilling careers.”

“Yours anyway.”

“But we’re not just going to cave to peer pressure.”

“No! No of course not.”

“We can make our own decisions.”

“Absolutely,” Adrien said, scratching the back of his neck. There was a brief moment of silence before they glanced at one another out of the corners of their eyes.

 “To clarify,” Marinette said, shifting her cup full of tokens into the cradle of her arm as Adrien passed her the rolled up wad of tickets the skee-ball machine dispensed for her. “We made this decision by ourselves.”

“Yep,” Adrien said, taking a sip of soda from his giant pink and green souvenir cup that glowed under the blacklights above them.

“We can spend a couple hours relaxing and still get to bed at a reasonable hour,” Marinette said, biting a licorice whip as they strolled down the aisles of blinking, flashing arcade games.

“Totally,” Adrien agreed.

“But we were not pressured into this by Alya’s suggestion that we were lame,” Marinette said, pointing the licorice whip at Adrien.

“Not at all,” Adrien said, slowing down as they passed a crane machine. “Completely our decision…hey, pass me a token?”

“You know those are rigged, right?” Marinette said, holding out her token cup as Adrien fished a brass token out.

“Nah,” Adrien said, maneuvering the joystick into position. “Just a matter of skill.”

“Mmhmm,” Marinette said, watching the claw wobble and jerk around as Adrien moved it into position. "Or luck."

“Luck's got nothing to do with it...just got to…apply the right touch…be patient with it…aaaaaaaand…” The metal claw jerked as it dropped, snatching something just to the left of what Adrien was aiming for. Marinette munched on her licorice as Adrien silently watched the crane raise his prize, lightly banging his head against the machine with a sigh as the claw dropped into the prize bin. There was a moment of pregnant silence as Marinette finished her candy, bent over and recovered Adrien’s prize from the bin, dangling it off one finger as Adrien poignantly refused to look at it.

“Is this where you usually get your equipment from?” Marinette asked, twirling the pink bedazzled pair of handcuffs around on her index finger as Adrien fought to keep a smirk off his face.

“Ha ha,” Adrien deadpanned, fishing another token out and trying again.

“Are you going for the jump rope this time?” Marinette asked, pressing her face against the glass as Adrien’s claw bounced off the bottom of the prize bin.

“Such a jokester,” Adrien said, reaching for another token.

“…oh, I should have guessed,” Marinette snorted as the claw bounced off a glassy green eye of a black cat plush towards the middle of the prize pile.

“What can I say; it’s my thing,” Adrien said with a small chuckle, grabbing another token. “Besides, my desk is kinda bland right now; figured I should bring something in to make it a little homier, you know?”

“Your name on the office door wasn’t enough?” Marinette asked, watching the cat slip through Adrien’s claw yet again.

“Not really,” Adrien snorted, popping another token into the machine. “It’s more my dad’s company than mine even since…well, he casts a pretty long shadow, you know?”

“I bet,” Marinette said, passing Adrien another token as the cat slipped through the claw’s grasp another time. “Must be rewarding at least though right? Working in the company your dad helped create, I mean.”

“You would think so,” Adrien said, tongue wedged between his teeth as the claw hung up on the corner of the cat’s paw before it slipped loose.

“Is it not?” Marinette asked.

“…eh,” Adrien said after a long moment, not quite looking her in the eye. “Some of the people in corporate are pretty nice but…you ever get the feeling that someone only likes you for what you can do for them?”

“…you know I work in fashion, right?” Marinette snorted.

“True,” Adrien laughed. “Sometimes I think I’d rather work in a retail store or something.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never worked in retail,” Marinette said. “If you ever wanted to trade, I think you’d find a mall full of twenty-somethings who would kill to switch jobs with you…if only for the paycheck.”

“God knows I don’t really need the money,” Adrien said with a small, bemused frown. “There’s really no way to say that without sounding like a total dick, is there?”

“I’m afraid not,” Marinette chuckled, watching the cat evade Adrien’s grip yet again. “So…let me get this straight. You’re working at a job you don't like for money you don’t need with people who don’t like you because…”

Marinette waited for Adrien to fill the silence with some kind of answer but his attention seemed to be focused more on the game in front of him rather than Marinette’s question.

“I…I guess dad would have wanted the company to stay in the family,” Adrien muttered. “Not that he was a big family man or anything but…I don’t know…feel kind of flaky just cashing out; not even giving it the old college try.”

She watched his brow knit in concentration, hands manipulating the joystick as any advice she could give him suddenly seemed to ring hollow. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t know how she would feel if her father suddenly died and willed the bakery to her and telling Adrien to just walk away would neglect the fact that his family had literally died trying to make it a success. Somehow “follow your dreams” seemed to be childish advice to give to the twenty-five year old man trying to win a cat toy from a children’s game.

“You know it would be cheaper to just buy one like it at this rate,” Marinette said after another failed attempt to get the cat plush into the bin.

“It’s the principle now,” Adrien said, biting his lip and fishing around for another coin.

“May I?” Marinette asked, nodding at the joystick. “Maybe I’ll do better?”

“That’s not hard,” Adrien snorted. “I have the worst luck in the universe.”

“I thought luck had nothing to do with it?” Marinette said with a wry smile over her shoulder as she turned her attention back to the claw machine. There was a mirror at the back of the machine that reflected the neon blacklight late-90’s hellscape behind them as Adrien reluctantly stepped aside to let her take control of the joystick. She glanced down at the cat toy for a moment, eyes trailing up to catch Adrien’s gaze in the mirror. For a moment she thought he was looking at the plush toy that lay just beneath them but after a moment she realized he wasn’t watching the machine…he was watching her.

A small thrill ran through her that she might have once confused for nervousness as she popped the token into the machine. The small smile tugging at his lips and the way his eyes glittered in the darkness behind her conjured carnal memories not suited for their current location. But part of her felt so savagely vindicated; after so many years, the boy she had liked ever since she started liking boys had his attention completely focused on her as she went about positioning the claw over the toy. Keep looking, she silently willed him. She liked it when he looked at her. Her eyes flicked up and caught him watching her in the reflection but if she expected him to look away, she was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t. He either didn’t know or he knew and wanted her to know that she had his undivided attention.

She swallowed heavily, thumb engaging the button on the tip of the joystick to drop it. She wasn’t even paying attention to the crane as she dragged it over towards the prize drop box; if she had, she might have realized that her luck was even more prodigious than she expected…

“Seriously?” Adrien laughed, breaking the spell as he reached down towards the prize bin. “First try too, I can’t be-oh you are kidding me…”

“What?” Marinette asked. “Did I not grab it?”

Adrien shook his head, turning around and holding up the cat plush by its paw to show that hooked around the cat’s tail was a red and black figure with cartoonishly large blue eyes. It took her a moment, squinting in the low light of the arcade but after a moment she realized exactly why Adrien was trying so hard not to laugh.

“You’re luckier than you think, ladybug,” Adrien snorted, waving the small ladybug plush in front of her as Marinette buried her face in her hands. “Looks like you got one too.”

“What do you mean one?” Marinette said, holding out her hand. “I won both of those, remember?”

“Lucky and mean,” Adrien sighed, holding both plushes out to Marinette. “I suppose fair is fair tho-”

Marinette reached out, fingers closing around the black cat and plucking it from Adrien’s grip, leaving Adrien holding the small, ladybug looking toy.

"You can have that one," Marinette said with a small smile.

“I thought ladybugs were your thing,” Adrien said as Marinette turned the black cat plush over in her hands.

“I have lots of ladybug stuff,” Marinette shrugged, picking up her cup of coins. “Besides-”

Marinette paused, turning around with her teeth caught in her lip and eyes shimmering in the low light.

“You’re not the only one who likes cats, you know,” He sent her a questioning look but Marinette just deposited the cat in her coin cup and started walking away from the claw machine, He watched her go a few paces, glancing down at the ladybug toy that seemed to almost wink at him when the light hit it just right…