fic idea from 2020 that the paris special unearthed from the archives of my brain:
So far, there wasn’t a single thing about this new reality that wasn’t terrible. She was grounded, for some reason, which she didn’t know about, and was therefore double grounded for breaking the rules of the grounding. Which she hadn’t known about!
To make matters worse, when she’d gone to text Alya to complain about the unfairness of it all, she realized she didn’t have Alya’s number. In fact, she didn’t have anyone’s number except her parents, Nadja Chamack, her grandmother, and someone called The Supreme.
She next turned to Tikki to vent, but when she checked her (admittedly cool) purse, she found her kwami wide-eyed, terrified, and most horrifiyingly, muzzled—which Marinette couldn’t figure out a way to undo.
So she was stuck in the bakery on a Saturday morning with angry parents and no one to talk to and no ideas on how to get out of the worst version of Paris possible.
Which is when Adrien Agreste’s bodyguard walked in. Brief hope flared in her heart before extinguishing just as quickly when she saw he was alone.
Which she should’ve expected. With how awful this world was, she wouldn’t be surprised if Adrien didn’t even exist here. She couldn’t imagine a world this awful with him in it.
She bagged up the Gorilla’s order with a heavy heart and sent him on his way before looking out the bakery display window with a sigh.
Only to spot Adrien Agreste himself, with an asymmetrical haircut and thick kohl around his eyes, staring back at her. He was different than her Adrien—and she couldn’t say she was a fan of the hair—but he was just as handsome, and his eyes even more striking with the eyeliner.
When he noticed her looking, his eyes widened and his cheeks started to turn pink.
Was he blushing?
Marinette could feel her own cheeks heating up as he stared. She ventured a small, embarrassed wave, and he—he!—
He lifted his own hand, brought it to his lips, and blew her a kiss.
Crash!
Marinette, along with about 300 macarons, toppled to the floor.
“Good morning, Marinette!” said Adrien Agreste, during a time that was decidedly morning but far too early to be described as ‘good.’
She scowled at him.
“Girl, you okay?” said Alya Césaire, who was—who was speaking to her.
Right.
Alya Césaire was speaking to her. Because Alya Césaire, Hesperia’s favorite lackey, was apparently Marinette’s best friend.
And Adrien Agreste was the boy Marinette was in love with.
She plastered a smile on her face. “I’m great, Alya! Super dee duper. Absolutely swell. What a beautiful morning with all the sunshine and the…. morning.”
Alya looked unconvinced.
“And the Adriens!” Marinette added hastily. “I mean, the Adrien. Because there’s only one Adrien and he sure is… here. Hello Adrien! Your face is looking very attractive this morning, because you are an attractive person. And that’s… something positive I can say about you.”
“Thanks, Marinette!” said Adrien with a dopey little smile. She wasn’t sure if he was mocking her or just deeply stupid. If her diary entries were to be believed, it was probably the latter. “Your face is looking attractive this morning as well. Did you do something new with your makeup?”
Marinette had done her makeup the same way she did every day, but she supposed his Marinette opted for a boring girl next door ‘no makeup makeup’ look.
Alya squealed next to her before giving her shoulder an excited squeeze.
Marinette took several deep breaths.
“Yes, I thought I’d try something new.”
Adrien smiled and nodded.
Alya shoved her forward.
Marinette barely managed to restrain herself from sending Alya a patented Toxinelle Death Glare. Instead, she smiled wider at Adrien.
Her cheeks hurt.
“Thank you soooooo much for noticing my makeup. That is a thing I am excited about. I love putting on makeup to impress cute boys, tee hee!”
Adrien’s face fell. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—I know you always dress for you, Marinette! That’s something I really admire about you.”
His eyes were so earnest, so sincere, and for a second, she almost—
Marinette cleared her throat. “That’s so nice! You can leave now.”
Adrien blinked.
“Bye!” She shooed him.
“Oh, um, bye Marinette,” he said with a sheepish wave, and then he left.
Nailed it.
“Girl, what the actual fuck?”
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oh, look now, there you go with hope again
Adrien Agreste was sitting alone in the cafeteria.
Again.
The sight made Marinette want to pull her own hair out. Hadn’t she publicly stated, as Ladybug, that Adrien Agreste was as much a victim of his father as anyone who had been akumatized? That in the end, he’d shown remorse and helped her? Hadn’t she urged the people of Paris to embrace him, to give him a second chance?
Sure, she hadn’t exactly practiced what she’d preached, but—she’d excused herself as the exception. After all, no one had been more hurt by Chat Noir than Ladybug herself. No one else had felt the sting of betrayal or the sharpness of his claws the way she had.
So she’d told herself it wasn’t her responsibility to extend an olive branch more than she already had. Surely, someone else—someone who didn’t have vivid memories of fighting against a boy meant to be her partner—would step up and be his hero. It wasn’t Marinette’s job.
Except, apparently, it was.
Because he was still eating alone.
If no one else was going to step up, then she had to.
The next day, she marched right up to his table in the cafeteria.
He looked up at her, wide-eyed and frightened.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know this table was taken. Please, let me move my things–just a few seconds, I promise.”
He’d already started packing up by the time Marinette processed what he’d said—and the hunted look in his eyes as he said it.
“Stop!”
Adrien froze, instantly, then raised both hands in the air: the universal sign for ‘I’m unarmed.’
Marinette felt a pang of guilt. Snapping at him like she was apprehending a criminal was not the approach she was going for. So she tried again.
“I mean,” she kept her voice as soft as she could, the way one would approach an injured stray on the street, “you don’t need to move. The table isn’t taken by anyone except you.”
Adrien nodded, his hands lowered slightly, but clearly still on guard for whatever she’d say next. She hated that, but she couldn’t blame him for expecting the worst when a girl he’d never spoken to before arrived at the table.
Still, the idea of him being scared of her—plain-clothed Marinette—felt wrong. He’d never even been scared of Ladybug, though she’d had her fair share of nightmares about him.
“Can I join you?” she asked.
He nodded again, but unlike the relief she expected at her question, his posture remained guarded and tense.
Did he not want company? Is that why he still ate alone?
She found that hard to believe. Chat Noir, even at his worst, had always been gregarious—often trying to make conversation with her even as he attacked her. There’s no way this same boy could be satisfied eating alone every day, with no one to talk to.
He must just not know what to do in this situation—it was common knowledge, after all, that he hadn’t been allowed to go to school before this, not even a fancy private school.
Luckily, Marinette had come prepared with the perfect icebreaker.
So after she took her seat next to him, she pulled it out of the bag: two croissants, baked fresh this morning, and better than any of the baked goods in the cafeteria menu. She put one on his tray.
Adrien eyed it warily.
“It’s for you,” Marinette explained.
“You want me to eat it?” he asked, which she thought was a bit rude, but she supposed Hawkmoth wouldn’t have taken much time to instill his son with proper manners, so she decided to let it slide.
“Yes, I brought it for you.”
He nodded, then picked up his knife and fork like he was preparing for battle. He closed his eyes, breathing in deep, as if he were bracing himself.
Marinette had a hard time pushing back her annoyance at that. Not thanking her was one thing, but acting like her parents’ baking was some kind of chore to eat?
“Just eat it!” She took a bite of her own, for emphasis. “It’s good.”
Adrien set his knife and fork down again, then gingerly picked up the croissant with his fingertips.
Irrationally, Marinette felt her heart racing as he slowly inched it towards his mouth, like it was a design contest and she was watching the judges circle her piece.
Which was stupid, because she wasn’t trying to impress him. She was just trying to be nice. It didn’t matter if he liked it or not.
But by the time his teeth sank into the croissant, she was on the edge of her seat.
He took a bite.
Chewed.
And swallowed.
Then looked at the croissant again, with wide-eyed wonder. Marinette couldn’t stop the smug, satisfied grin from spreading across her face.
Which quickly slid back down at his next words.
“It’s… just a croissant,” he said, and if he hadn’t said it with such awe and reverence, Marinette would’ve chewed him out.
Instead, she was just baffled.
“What else would it be?”
“Nothing,” he said, too quickly. “Of course it’s a croissant, I just—there’s nothing else in it.”
Marinette frowned. “Were you expecting pain au chocolat? It’s a whole different shape.”
“No, of course not, I—” He stopped, then, and looked away, as if he was scared to say more.
And really, this whole exchange had been weird, from the beginning.
“Adrien,” she said slowly, “why were you afraid to eat the croissant?”
Because that’s what it had been, hadn’t it? Not ingratitude. Not snobbishness.
Fear.
He mumbled something into his lap in response. She couldn’t quite make out the full sentence, but what she did hear was chilling: “...last croissant had…. in it…”
Just a croissant. Because he’d expected her to put something in it.
She’d known her classmates avoided him. But she hadn’t realized how bad it was.
When Marinette was 10, their class had gone on a field trip to the zoo—not the one nearby, but the big one, on the outskirts of the city. She’d been so excited that she’d packed her bag filled with everything she could possibly need—snacks, sunscreen, her favorite magazines for the bus ride.
And then she’d been stupid enough to leave her bag unattended for a few minutes.
The memory of squeezing her bottle of sunscreen in the heat of the day and having a dollop of mayonnaise fall into her hand instead had never left her. It hadn’t been the worst prank Chloe had ever pulled, but the scent of mayonnaise that’d been sitting in the sun—sour and rancid—never left her.
She still smelled every bottle she opened now, years later, even ones she knew no one else had touched.
She didn’t know what had been in the last croissant he had been given, but she knew exactly why he’d been wary—why he’d tried to go in with a fork and knife first.
What she didn’t understand was why he’d drop them and eat it with his hands anyway, if that’s what he expected.
“Why did you take a bite if you thought I’d put something in it?”
“Because you told me to,” he whispered.
Marinette blinked, disbelieving. He’d blindly taken a bite, expecting the worst, because she’d told him to? Even at the peak of her victimhood, before she’d learned to stand up and fight back, Marinette had done her best to avoid falling into any traps she could see coming.
“Why?!?” she all but shouted. “Why would you just let someone do that to you?”
His answering smile was brittle. “As long as I’m willing to play the victim, they don’t see me as a villain.”
Marinette’s stomach dropped in horror as he continued—as she realized the true extent of what she’d let Adrien Agreste go through for weeks, while she’d turned the other way and told herself it was someone else’s problem.
“When I first came to school, no one wanted me here. They didn’t feel safe, even though Ladybug assured everyone I was powerless now,” he was looking away, now, voice hollowed out like his insides had been scooped out, “For a while, I was scared they’d make me leave school. But then, they started playing pranks. And after they’d play one, they’d laugh at me, and it hurt at first—it still does, but—one day, I realized, when they laughed and taunted, they didn’t look scared of me anymore. So, I let them. If this is what it takes to stay, for them to feel safe and accept my presence here, I’ll eat whatever they serve me.”
Her insides churned at the thought of him—sitting on the ground, surrounded by the faceless peers laughing, and somehow deciding that was for the best.
“Why would you want to stay, when everyone treats you like that?”
Why would he want to stay, when no one had shown him even an ounce of kindness?
Adrien shrugged. “It’d be the same anywhere, probably. And…”
“And?” she prompted, reaching out to lay her hand on his white knuckles gripping the edge of the table.
He turned a wistful smile to her now. “I’ve always wanted to go to school. To be with other kids and make friends. My parents wouldn’t hear of it—they said it wasn’t safe, that the kids I’d meet at school weren’t worth knowing.”
Something in her heart—some wall that she’d built up after that second battle with Stoneheart—cracked.
“I can’t let him be right,” Adrien confessed, his own voice breaking with the weight of it.
She’d been wrong before, when she’d thought he’d sounded hollowed out. Maybe his father had hollowed him out before, to better fill Chat Noir with Gabriel Agreste’s own darkness, a croissant ruined by something unsavory shoved inside.
But this Adrien wasn’t hollowed out.
He was carved into. And he’d submitted to it, willingly, just for a chance to stay.
Luckily for Adrien, Marinette did two things better than anyone else in Paris: proving Adrien’s father wrong and rebuilding what has been destroyed.
She squeezed his hand, in promise.
“He wasn’t right. We won’t let him be.”
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