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quicksilversquared · 6 years

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How to Fake A Marriage Ch. 29

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(AO3) (FF.net)

Marinette was in the middle of puzzling over a kid's summer romper at work when she noticed her phone flashing with a new message next to her elbow. She set the design to the side for a moment to check it, and found a new email waiting in her inbox. Marinette clicked on it and found another commission request, this time from what was apparently a symphonic metal band.

Nibbling on her lip, Marinette considered the email for a few minutes before opening a new tab on her computer and emailing the band name to find out a little more about them. It didn't take long for Marinette to skim the first page and find out that they was a relatively well-known band in their genre, as far as she could tell. If she took the commission and did a good job with the outfits that they were asking her to create- a few stage outfits and some screen-printed t-shirts, and wow were those ever some interesting concepts, her imagination was already sparking- then maybe they could become a long-time client, or at the very least another strong point on her resume for when she was applying to things back in Paris again.

Maybe she could do it. If she set a long deadline, pointing out her normal job and vague other obligations (read: the commissions she had already committed to), then she could push to finish her other projects while getting the initial sketches done during her breaks at work and then approved. The cape they had asked for- well, there would be some screen printing on it, and bedazzling, but overall it wouldn't take long. The rest of the pieces would take a little more time, but nothing too bad.

Marinette really wanted to say yes. Sure, it would be a busy few weeks to catch up, but requests had been slowing down after that initial burst right after Jagged Stone's album dropped (and half of the requests had been dropped after people who wanted custom designer outfits but didn't want to pay custom designer price learned that yes, she did actually expect to be paid fairly, oddly enough). They would no doubt slow all the way to a stop soon, and then Marinette would be left with nothing to do in the evenings while Adrien studied.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She could do her own for-fun designs, and she did have some mending that she could do as well- her pajamas had a rip at the moment so she had stolen an old t-shirt of Adrien's to wear instead (and Adrien had looked a bit surprised when she told him that she was too busy to do the mending, but he definitely hadn't protested her wearing his clothes). But neither of those things would result in her getting paid extra money, which she needed right now if she wanted to build up any real savings by the time she and Adrien left London. Sure, next year they wouldn't have the expense of her apartment to pay, but that was still months away.

Giving herself a good shake to refocus, Marinette read over the email again and reminded herself to not get ahead of herself. She hadn't even given these people a quote yet and she didn't know if they would be willing to pay the right price. They might drop off when she emailed them back, just like so many others had.

Marinette made a mental note to get back to the band over her lunch break- she could use the general response email that she sent out to everyone requesting a commission and just tweak it a little bit to fit their request- and then set her phone aside to refocus on her design.

With that spark of inspiration still lingering from the band's aesthetic, it didn't take long for Marinette to make a few tweaks on the romper to make it unique. She cleaned up the drawing, and then got it uploaded into her team's shared folder so everyone else on her team could see it and give her some feedback. With that assignment done, Marinette turned her attention back to the pile of runway designs that she had to alter into streetwear looks.

"Nice design, Marinette!" Emily called from her cubicle thirty minutes later. Marinette glanced up from her work and grinned in Emily's direction, even though the junior designer wouldn't be able to see her.

"Thanks!"

"Dibs on making a dress for that line!" Sarah called. "I already have an idea for one to go along with the romper!"

"I'm making overalls!" Abbey chimed in. "And a sun hat. Whatever your inspiration was for that romper, Marinette, I approve."

Marinette ducked her head, grinning shyly as she did. She hadn't expected her piece to be the focal point for their summer kid's line, but it was a good feeling to be so appreciated.

By the time lunchtime had rolled around, Marinette had drafted up three potential runway-to-streetwear outfits. She headed to the break room and powered up her laptop while the leftovers she had brought heated up in the microwave. It didn't take long to alter her basic letter to fit the band's requests, and then it was ready to send.

Before she hit Send, Marinette paused one more time, wondering if she should really even be considering taking the commission. After all, she was already pretty busy, so much so that Tikki had even argued with her about Marinette insisting that she plan at least part of her and Adrien's Valentine's Day date. Tikki thought that she should leave all of it to Adrien, since he was clearly eager to do it, but Marinette hadn't been about to just sit back and not put in some effort for Adrien on their first Valentine's Day as a couple.

Besides, it had been nice to have an excuse to take a break from the designing and the commissions to bake a cake. It was really nice to have the near-instant gratification that came with starting a project and finishing it in only a little over an hour and a half.

"I can handle it," Marinette assured herself, hitting send. Most of the commission would be the screen-printing, and that wasn't hard at all. In fact, she rather enjoyed those kinds of commissions, because just like the cake, they were relatively quick to do and check off the list. Besides, she had already seen how the band's aesthetic inspired her. She wanted to work with them.

Right after her email sent, her phone lit up with another message. Marinette set her laptop aside and grabbed her phone, just as a second and third text came through in quick succession. They were from Alya, and Marinette grinned as she read the messages.

"What is it, Marinette?" Tikki whispered so that the sewing room workers who were taking a break wouldn't hear the voice coming from Marinette's pocket. "What did she say?"

"Alya was just told that she got past the first round of the competition," Marinette whispered back, grinning.

Tikki perked up. "Oh, that's amazing!"

Marinette shook her head, checking her phone again. "Not really. About half to three-quarters of the entrants make it past the first round. The first cut is just to make sure that there's enough research that they've done and recorded to justify needing a trip. Alya knew that she would make that first cut, but it's good to have that confirmation, at least." She texted Adrien with the news, just on the off chance that Alya hadn't let him know as well. "It'll be the next two cuts that we're more interested in."

"Working over lunch again?" Sarah asked, appearing at Marinette side with a sandwich and Marinette's food from the microwave. She slid the hot dish over to Marinette before sitting down to eat her own lunch. "You gotta take a break sometime."

"I was just responding to some email," Marinette defended herself, though she knew Sarah was right. Every other day of the week, she had had sketches to work on over their lunch break. "And I was responding to a text from my friend Alya back home- she's made it past the first cut in this research competition."

"Oh, cool!" Sarah said immediately. "What is she researching?"

By the time Marinette finished telling Sarah about the kinds of things Alya was researching, the rest of her team had arrived and most were listening.

"Oh, I remember hearing about the superheroes in Paris," Abbey said. "Only vaguely, though. Some of my classmates were super excited that there were real-life superheroes. But I bet you know all about them, since you were there and all."

Oh, the irony. "Yeah, they were at my school all the time," Marinette said, only years of practice allowing her to keep a straight face. "There were a lot of akuma fights in my neighborhood."

"Oh, I would hate that," Emily said, shivering. "That would be so scary, to have superhero fights nearby all the time!"

The rest of her team nodded. Marinette managed to just smile and nod, trying not to laugh at what her coworkers' reactions might be if they ever found out that she had been right in the middle of every single one of those fights.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as the entire team came together to toss ideas around for the summer lines and to discuss the upcoming spring/summer Runway week. They ended the day with a strong plan going forward, a good start on their summer kid's line, and a bunch of sketches for the runway-to-streetwear pieces.

(Marinette also ended the workday with a response from the band- they had already heard about her prices from one for the other bands Marinette was already working with and were fine with it, so now she had a whole slew of new outfits and screen-printing screens to design.)

"How's the husband?" Sarah asked, appearing at Marinette's side as she walked towards her apartment building. "I've seen him in passing, but we haven't be able to talk for long. Either he's trying to get somewhere or I am. Or both. Often both."

"One of these days, one of those annoying reporters is gonna overhear you calling Adrien that and they're going to take you seriously," Marinette said, rolling her eyes fondly. Plagg would get along well with Sarah, what with his insistence on calling Marinette Adrien's wife and Sarah's insistence on calling Adrien Marinette's husband. She had even gotten the rest of the team in on it from time to time.

Sarah shrugged. "Eh, who cares about them. I'm not going to say anything to them to get you in trouble, though," she added quickly. "And if they do overhear me, I can just explain that duh, I'm referring to the prank because I was there, don't they recognize me from the bridesmaids photo? I won't say anything about how ridiculously married you two are."

Marinette thought about protesting that and then decided against it, because Tikki had said that in the past, too. If it weren't for the fact that they apparently couldn't hide their "married-ness" from everyone else, acting married would be quite a good thing, really. To her, acting married meant that she and Adrien were comfortable with each other and worked well together, and that was a good thing.

"Have a good evening with your husband," Sarah told Marinette as they separated once they were in the building. She grinned at Marinette's groan. "Don't be too cute."

"Right, right, of course," Marinette grumbled, waving her friend off and trying not to grin as she did. She headed through the door to her floor's hallway and made an immediate beeline to Adrien's door. Her boyfriend would surely be working on homework- he had a lot of projects and papers to do this semester on top of his usual studying- but that didn't mean that he wouldn't welcome the interruption.

And just like she suspected, Adrien was hunched over in front of his computer at the dining room table, headphones plugged in as he worked. Marinette grinned, dumping her bag on the couch and heading over to greet him.

"Hey, kitty," Marinette sing-songed, sliding up behind Adrien and sliding the headphones off. She dipped down to press a kiss to his cheek, and he twisted in his chair to return the kiss. She didn't miss his wince of pain when he twisted and she frowned. Clearly he had been sitting and studying for too long. Again. "Where's your heat pad? You should be using that if you're going to be sitting for so long."

Adrien jabbed a finger over his shoulder. "I was using it when I was sitting on the couch, but Plagg claimed it when I got up to use the bathroom and threatened to bite me if I moved him off of it. I think he likes the heat, because he does this whenever I have the rice pad out."

Marinette huffed and turned to glare at Plagg. Sure enough, he was napping on top of Adrien's rice heat pack on the far end of the couch, looking deeply content even though the heat from the pack was sure to have mostly dissipated by now. She stomped over and grabbed the pack out from under Plagg, ignoring the kwami's squawks.

Tiny god or not, she was not letting him steal Adrien's heat pack, especially not when Adrien clearly needed it. And even worse, it sounded like the stealing the rice pack was a common occurrence.

"I was sleeping!" Plagg complained, floating after her. "And there was some lovely residual heat still, and-"

"This is Adrien's," Marinette scolded as she brought it back to the microwave. "And he needs it. Go sit in the sun or something."

"But I like the heat!"

"It's not yours!"

"But I'm-"

Tikki zipped up after Plagg and twisted his tail, making his squeak. "You can't steal from your Chosen, Plagg!" she snapped at him as Marinette set the timer on the microwave. "You can maybe perch on the pad if Adrien allows, but you can't claim it and not let Adrien use it. And your poor Chosen is in pain right now because he couldn't use his heated pad!"

Plagg scoffed. "No, he's in pain because he was hunched over like an old man all afternoon. If he ever got up and stretched for a bit then he wouldn't have this problem."

Tikki let out a wordless shriek in Plagg's direction.

"As much as I hate to admit it, Plagg is at least partly right," Marinette said as she removed the newly-heated bag out of the microwave. She swatted Plagg away when he started drifting closer, drawn by the heat. "Adrien has to stop sitting in place for so long without getting up and stretching and taking breaks. But having this available to him would have helped." She tugged her (ridiculous) boyfriend off of his chair and face first onto the couch. Once he was settled, she draped the heating pad over the small of Adrien's back and he let out a happy sigh, relaxing into the couch.

"You gotta take better care of yourself, Adrien," Marinette sighed, rubbing his shoulders. A quiet purr floated up into the air between them. "I know your classes have really stepped up this year, but you need to take breaks and stretch. You're all tense."

"I have an exam on Friday," Adrien explained, voice muffled by the couch. "I was studying for that, and then trying to work on my paper. I swear that once I get both of those done I'll be able to relax a bit more."

Marinette dug the heels of her hands into the knotted muscle in Adrien's shoulders, making him yelp. "You'll be able to study better if you aren't stiff as a board, you dweeb."

"Rude."

They fell into silence, broken only by Adrien's quiet purr as Marinette worked on his tense muscles. Plagg floated over and settled on top of the hot pad, burrowing around to make a little divot in the heated rice. After a few more minutes, Tikki joined him.

"Feeling better?" Marinette asked after several minutes. She ran her hand up Adrien's back and into his hair, mussing it further. She adjusted the heating pad so it wasn't in danger of slowly sliding off. "I'm starting to think that I should have made two of these things. Then you could have one on your upper back, too."

Adrien made a happy little noise and wriggled slightly.

"I want one, too!" Plagg announced, rolling over and staring up at Marinette with pleading green eyes. "One that I can carry around wherever I want!"

Marinette gave Plagg a Look. "Will you stop stealing Adrien's if I make you a heat pack of your own?"

"Yes!"

Marinette made a face and gave Adrien a few light scratches behind his ears. She didn't want to reward Plagg by giving him a gift when he was stealing from Adrien (and she didn't exactly have a ton of spare time to spend making a kwami-sized rice pack, especially with the newest addition to her list of commissions to do), but Adrien was apparently unwilling to cross Plagg and risk being bitten. If she gave Plagg a miniature heat pack of his own, then Adrien wouldn't have to deal with his spoiled kwami stealing his when he needed it.

Fine. She would make a mini heat pack for Plagg, then. Maybe Adrien could occasionally steal it for his neck or something, just because turnabout was fair.

"D'you wanna order takeout tonight?" Marinette asked after a few more minutes. "I don't think there's much in the fridge right now and I don't really feel like cooking." She really wanted to get a good chunk of work done on her commissions tonight, and cooking and cleaning up just took up time that she didn't really have at the moment. She reached for her phone, scrolling with one hand as the other rubbed up and down Adrien's back. "Sarah recommended this Greek place. I've actually been there before with the people from work. It's not too expensive and they deliver."

"Sure." Adrien reached his arms forward and stretched, arching and twisting back and forth. "Mmm. I think I'm gonna bring this thing to bed tonight. If I stay here much longer, I'm going to fall asleep."

Marinette giggled and ran a hand up Adrien's spine as he stretched again. "You can take a little cat-nap while our food comes. It might help you focus better once you wake up again."

Adrien laughed and started to wriggle his way upright. Marinette hopped off of his legs so he could sit back up. "It's a little too late in the day for a cat-nap, I think. I'd just end up tired."

"If you say so."

Marinette went to order their dinner while Adrien moved his study materials to the floor so he could lay down and finish some assigned problems for one of his classes while keeping the hot pad on his back. Once their order was in (maybe Marinette had ordered a little more than they would eat, but she liked leftovers for lunch and so did Adrien), Marinette grabbed her tablet and settled down on the floor next to Adrien so she could draw with one hand and rub his shoulders with the other hand.

It was comfortable. Adrien leaned his head to the side, resting it against Marinette's knees as he worked. Partway through their wait, Marinette got up to reheat the rice bag and then resettle it on Adrien's back.

"Thanks, bug," Adrien said as she settled the bag across his shoulders. He smiled over at her as she settled back down at his side and picked up her new tablet again. "My back is feeling a whole lot better now."

"Promise me you'll take better care of it this weekend, when you have your test and the paper out of the way?"

Adrien grinned. "Well, then I'll have another two papers to focus on and another test to start studying for... but I suppose I could manage to screw up my back less than normal once my test on Friday is done."

Marinette sighed. She supposed that that was as good as she was going to get. "It seems like you have a lot more tests than normal this semester." Normally he just had a cluster of exams around the middle of the semester and again at the end, but now he had exams and paper due dates sprinkled through the semester. Adrien always seemed to be studying, but that wasn't a huge problem.

After all, she certainly had enough commission work to keep her busy. More than enough, even.

So much for their be-done-with-classwork-and-projects-by-a-certain-time pact from the fall. It seemed that these days, they worked up to it or over regularly, but it really couldn't be avoided. At least they did try to spend a chunk of time together without commissions or studying distracting them several times a week, even if those times had been shortened somewhat. And of course they tended to try to go to bed around the same time, too, and early enough that they didn't have to go to sleep right away.

"Yeah, I seem to be having tests at the end of every large unit for one of my classes," Adrien agreed. "I think it's because the units are so different, it wouldn't make sense to stick them together. And there's some other classes with a strange exam schedule, or that just have papers instead of exams."

Marinette hummed in acknowledgement, and kept sketching. She was currently working on finishing up a set of preliminary drawings for an earlier commission, and she wanted to get them down and approved soon so she could go and get the fabric and other things she needed at the same time she was picking up the stuff she needed for yet another order over the weekend. Not getting feedback and approval in time would mean that she would have to waste time going on a separate trip to the fabric store, unless she wanted to put to put off getting supplies for that commissions off until she was getting the things for her latest commission.

Needless to say, she would rather not have to do more trips than strictly necessary. And sure, maybe she should be focusing on finishing up her in-progress commissions first, but it was nice to have options for when she got to the fiddly work on a piece and she was too tired to do anything but sew long straight seams for one evening.

She had just finished the basic sketch when the take-out arrived. Marinette grabbed her wallet and trotted downstairs, meeting the delivery guy at the front door. One exchange of food and money later, and Marinette was trotting upstairs with her prize.

"That's a lot of food, Marinette," Adrien said with a laugh after Marinette set everything out on their table. He rolled to his feet with a quiet grunt, snagging his rice bag before it could fall to the ground. "Are we expecting guests?"

"It's not that much." In her defense, she had kind of thought that the serving sizes would be a little smaller. She must have misremembered how large they were. Whoops. "I mean, we'll have enough for two meals, but that's not a bad thing."

They dug in eagerly. Adrien still wasn't looking completely comfortable in the chair- clearly his back was still bothering him at least a little bit- but the discomfort hadn't affected his appetite at all.

Maybe they wouldn't have enough for two full meals after all.

"I might go to bed early tonight," Adrien told her as he scraped his plate clean. "I think that with all of the work I've done this afternoon, I should be in good shape."

"Lots of homework?"

To her surprise, Adrien shook his head. "Well, some. It was mostly cleaning up a rough draft for one of my papers this semester and writing up a lab paper for another class. That stuff always takes forever."

Marinette could understand that. Writing in English tended to take an annoyingly long time as she puzzled over the right words (and the right tenses, and the right form of the word to use, in some cases), and while Adrien had Ben to help get things polished up, he didn't like to give his papers to his tutor in too rough of a shape. "When are your papers due?"

"Most of the rough drafts are due close to midterms, but the lab paper is due next Thursday," Adrien said, making her start in surprise. That was ages out- right? Or had more of the semester passed her by than she realized? "I just want to get the bulk of the work out of the way now, because I never know what will come up closer to the due date. Ben has said that sometimes things can get intense around midterms and that people who tend to put stuff off until closer to the due date end up pulling all sorts of all-nighters. I've been trying to avoid that."

Marinette was of the opinion that Adrien was going a little over the top with trying to be prepared, but maybe Ben was right. Since it took Adrien longer to research and write in his second language, maybe it was a good idea for him to get that as much out of the way as he could now.

"I'm going to stay up a little longer, I think," Marinette said, glancing over at where her sketchbook and tablet sat side-by-side on the small side table. "I have some stuff I want to finish up tonight for commissions."

Adrien pouted at her for a moment, then sighed. "Okay. Honestly, I'll probably just take that rice pack with me and end up falling asleep straight off anyway. And I'll take better care of myself tomorrow, I promise. Really. I don't like my back hurting, either. It make it harder to focus. And it makes me feel old besides."

Only half an hour after they finished dinner, Adrien started getting ready for bed. He wandered into the kitchen to get Plagg his evening cheese chunk and to heat up the rice bag, then paused to kiss Marinette good night before heading back to the bedroom. Marinette watched him go, then turned back to her tablet.

One last cleaned-up sketch, and then she could send the files to her client. It still wouldn't be that late by that time, as long as she didn't spectacularly mess up and, like, delete the file once she was most of the way through it. Saving her work periodically would keep her safe from that, and then she should have time to start on the album cover art that she had just gotten the details ironed out for earlier in the week.

Hopefully.

"I thought you were just telling Adrien about how he shouldn't be overworking himself," Tikki said disapprovingly once Marinette had sent her email with the six attachments and immediately started some quick outlines for the cover art, general sketches and lines to get an idea of where she wanted different elements to go. "And now you're working later than you two agreed on your commissions."

"I'm not overworking myself," Marinette protested. "I just have some things that I need to get done to even come close to staying on track with the number of commission requests that I've been getting. And this particular art needs to get done sooner rather than later, since the shirt designs depend on it."

Tikki did not look impressed.

"I just want to get my general ideas for this drawn out while I still have them in my head," Marinette added. "I'm not going to complete the whole thing tonight. It'll be two hours at most, and you know Adrien went to bed really early."

Tikki's expression didn't change. "One hour more, tops."

"One forty-five."

"One fifteen."

"An hour and a half, and that's all I'm willing to budge."

Marinette went back to her work, drawing and re-drawing lines as she tried to get a rough sketch done. Fifty-seven minutes in and Marinette's rough outline started taking on more detail- though not too much, because then it would get too difficult to replicate as a print on a shirt. Since the band had also commissioned her to do the screen-printing of their shirts for them, Marinette had to make sure that she delivered an interesting, unique cover while still keeping it clean enough that it wouldn't be a pain to print.

Needless to say, Marinette was very happy that the band had wanted the cover in only black and silver, because having to print multiple colors on one shirt was just a pain. It would be simple enough to print in silver-grey on a black shirt or black on a grey shirt, as long as she didn't give in to the temptation to add too much detail.

"I thought you said that you weren't going to design the whole thing tonight!" Tikki complained as Marinette cleaned up more of the sketch. Slowly but surely, it was starting to look less like a quick sketch and more like a proper album cover, though it wasn't anywhere close to completion yet.

"I still have five minutes to work on it!" Marinette protested. She carefully erased a section and redrew a line. "And I'm not going to finish it tonight, you don't have to keep mother-henning me about that. I've still probably got two hours of work left on this for another night, and more than that if the band requests any changes."

Tikki let out a little hmph and zipped off. Marinette checked the clock one more time- now she only had four minutes left to work- and then worked on evening out a line. She had just finished cleaning the upper corner up when her watched chimed, letting Marinette know that her time was up and she had to go to bed.

Trying not to grumble (if she didn't have work the next day, then she definitely would have tried to power through another hour or two of work), Marinette saved her work one last time and powered down the tablet. It got carefully tucked away in her bag, in the carefully padded pocket that she had made just for it, and then she headed back to the bedroom to wash up. It didn't take long, and then Marinette was slipping into bed next to a sleeping Adrien. He was sleeping on his stomach, which puzzled her for a moment until she remembered that he had mentioned going to sleep with his rice bag.

Sliding her hand over, Marinette felt for the bag. It was cold under the blankets, so Marinette carefully tugged it off of Adrien. After a moment's consideration, she headed back out to the kitchen to warm it back up again. Adrien didn't stir when she replaced the pack on his back, but he did let out a happy sigh that trailed off into a purr.

He was such a cat. Marinette couldn't deny that it was really, really cute.

It only took a few minutes more to set up her alarm for the next morning and get it arranged on the bedside table, and then she was sliding back between the sheets. Marinette could feel the heat from both Adrien and the heat pad as she curled up next to his side. His face was relaxed and angelic in sleep, finally free of stress and tension.

"Sleep well, chaton," Marinette murmured, leaning over to press a kiss to the part of his forehead that wasn't obscured by hair. "You need it."

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #How to Fake a Marriage #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #ahh meant to post this earlier but dinner took forever to make

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