Adrien has started to realize that he has more than a little crush on his "good friend" Marinette. He realizes this when he sees what he's been doodling in the margin of his notebook.

Adrien Agreste was sitting in his Chinese class waiting for the time when he could be back with his friends. He had most of his classes with Nino and a very few with Marinette and Alya, but Chinese was the only class where he didn't have at least one of his close friends with him. The only thing that made this class bearable was that lunch was right afterward, which meant an hour eating with them. That was usually his favorite part of the day when they were able to hangout together and eat good food. After lunch today would be his last class before the winter break started. Adrien was looking forward to the break for once. His father was going to be traveling to New York and he'd been given permission to stay with Nino. That automatically meant they'd be spending lots of time with Alya and Marinette. This Christmas was going to be awesome!

One of the things that made this class nearly unbearable is that he only took it to fill the foreign language requirement for the lycée. He'd had tutors in Chinese almost since he could speak, and this stuff was so basic that he practically did the class half aware and still passed with flying colors. He'd tried to test out of the class but, though the teacher complimented him on his command of the language, he was unable to get an exception to the requirement, so here he was in his first "year" of Chinese listening to students murder their pronunciation and trying not to laugh when their penmanship turned an innocuous looking character into something decidedly racier.

They had been assigned writing some basic sentences in their notebooks while the teacher walked around correcting penmanship and grammar. Adrien had finished the page in record time. He'd torn out the paper and had it waiting to be turned in at the end of class and then started writing some more complex sentences so that he wasn't just sitting there. Instead of merely writing, "I go to the park with my friends" as he had for the page to turn in, he wrote, "On sunny days, when the blue sky calls, my friends and I romp carefree through the jade colored grass." He was proud of this sentence. For one, it had taken him a full two minutes to remember the Chinese character for "romp" and for another it reminded him of the picnic in Nice he'd had just last summer with Marinette, Nino, and Alya.

He'd had a lot more of those kinds of times lately. Over the last three years, since being allowed to attend school, he'd had plenty of moments spent with this family of his heart. It seemed like Nathalie had been able to convince his father to give him more time for his studies and less time in front of the cameras. As long as Adrien's grades stayed up this translated to more time with his friends.

"After school I like to…" He'd answered the short sentences with "practice fencing" as there was no way he was going to say "save Paris from ridiculous, but highly destructive, monsters while wearing magic spandex." It just didn't translate well... and he didn't know the Chinese word for spandex. There was so much more to his after school life than just fencing though it did figure big into the picture. It was one of the few things he and his father had in common and another reason he'd been given more time. Monsieur D'Argencourt had doubled his training time as he had started winning more tournaments. Their hard work was showing great results. He thought back to his last fencing match.

"Are you ready for this?" Marinette asked as she walked into the arena with him. It was an overwhelming sight to see all of the best fencers from around France gathered in one place.

"Well, ready or not, the tournament is here and I'm not getting any more practice," he replied with a grin.

"You are going to be fantastic," Marinette told him. "And win or lose we'll still have the celebratory cake and ice cream waiting back at the house."

"Oh?" Adrien knew it was there. Her parents had insisted that they have such celebrations after his tourneys when they found out that his father had left town on the day of his first national competition. "What flavor of cake is it?"

"I'm not telling you," she said with a glint in her eye. "Last time I told you I'm sure you threw the competition just to get to the cake that much quicker."

"How many times do I have to have to say it?" Adrien asked the sky. "I did NOT throw my match against the 100th world ranked foil fencer just to get back to the triple chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate ganache!" He laughed at her scoff. "It just really helped lessen the sting of losing to someone else's lucky shot. That's all."

They had a short staring contest and then broke into giggles.

"I'm still not telling you," she sing songed. "You'll just have to find out later."

"It's a deal."

They scanned the crowd to see if anyone else from the school had been able to make it. Nino and Alya both had work so they wouldn't be there. It was a long shot that anyone else would be able to come, but sometimes they did show up. Marinette had made sure that everyone on the class chat page knew when all of his competitions were. It was a little embarrassing, but also kind of nice. Marinette almost never missed a match if she could help it. It was really nice to have her support at those events. He always felt better when she was there.

Adrien came back to his Chinese class when one of the other students asked him for help with their sentence. Adrien helped her out and then turned back to his own writing.

He'd written "My friend, Marinette" before he'd drifted off into his memories. How should he finish a sentence beginning like that?

"My friend, Marinette, likes to play video games in which she always beats the snot out of me"- Well it was true, but not the full picture of the girl in question.

Marinette played video games with a competitive zeal that bordered on obsession. She loved to play them anywhere, at home or the arcades, against anyone, friend or stranger, and played them with equal determination to win whether or not she was familiar with the game in question. Adrien loved to play against Marinette, but he really loved to watch her play. There was a fire in her eyes when she was competing and trying to figure out a game. Her celebratory dance was also one of the things he loved to watch, especially when she wasn't celebrating his downfall.

She had a passion and enthusiasm for life that was infectious.

He'd spent hours working on class projects with her, Nino, and Alya and was never surprised at the creativity and dedication she put into her school work. Their class presentations were often the high point of any semester. Between her creative ideas, Nino and Alya's technical expertise and his flair for the dramatic they almost always had a spectacular performance for their teachers. They were becoming the stuff of academic legend and lore.

Adrien thought of quieter times with Marinette. There were evenings where they had movie nights at his house. Nino would bring the movie, Alya would bring the "smuggled in" candies, and Marinette usually brought the popcorn. Sometimes there were cuddle piles at Alya's when the Ladyblogger was feeling depressed and overwhelmed. There were track "parties" at Nino's where it was mostly them sitting around listening to his music mixes and playing Truth or Truth (Alya's prefered version of the party game Truth or Dare). There were so many little moments spent together just laughing and smiling that Adrien couldn't count them.

There were times he'd visit her as Chat where they'd talk on her balcony about the day's events or her dreams for the future. Sometime they'd discuss how he was doing when he was not feeling particularly able to talk as Adrien. It was nice that she didn't know he was talking about a life he felt he didn't have the right to complain about, but that she freely encouraged him to share as much as he could. He felt a little guilty using his anonymity to talk to her that way, but it was nice to know that she treated him as a friend in any situation.

Sometimes he'd visit as his civilian self and get caught up in watching her as she sewed one of her designs. They often talked about her drawings and her dreams of becoming a great fashion designer. Other times she talked about how she worried that pursuing such a dream would turn her into someone like his father who would get too busy for her friends and family, which Adrien strongly denied could ever happen. She knew the statistics for those who tried to break into the profession and those that actually succeeded at it. She had backup plans, and backups for those backups in case they fell through, but still she felt uncertain about her choice of profession.

Adrien tried to share everything he knew from his own experiences with the industry in hopes it could help her. He'd even taken every opportunity to bring her to any fashion event where he was required to bring a +1. Adrien chuckled to himself. They had certainly increased in number ever since he started approaching his 18th birthday. Nathalie had stopped asking who he'd be bringing with him and just forwarded the invitations to Marinette telling her the dates and when to be ready. A lot of the paparazzi had labeled her his long time girlfriend, but he had always insisted that she was just his good friend. They had started placing the title in quotes in front of her name in most of the magazines where he appeared. He shook his head. Couldn't a guy just have a friend that was a girl?

Marinette was a great friend to everyone. There were so many mornings that she'd come racing into class, nearly late, but with treats for everyone including the teacher. There wasn't anyone in any of her classes that she wouldn't help if she saw they needed it. She would stand up to adults or bullies alike if she felt someone was being treated unfairly. Birthdays were special days as Marinette often presented the day's special celebrant with a thoughtful and handmade gift. Holidays were even better in Adrien's opinion as that usually meant Marinette would be spreading treats and presents to everyone. He was amazed that she found the time to do any of it.

Of course Adrien tried to be a good friend back to Marinette. One of his favorite things to do was to bring his friends warm drinks on a cold day. He was so proud of himself when he'd finally been able to get Marinette to say how she truly preferred her tea and then surprised her with it the next day. He'd made a special note of it so he could do it more often. There was also the time that he'd been at her place while she'd been working on a commission and looking at some sparkling notions to give it a particular flair, but had chosen not to get them as they were out of the range of what she considered reasonably priced. It had been his greatest delight to order them and have them overnighted to her. That particular stunt had gotten him both a hug and a kiss for his thoughtfulness. Adrien blushed in delight at the memory.

Of course there were ways that Marinette was a good friend to him personally. One of the things she often did was send him memes and pictures of cats while he was at a shoot. It was always so much easier to smile for the camera when she was on a meme sharing spree. It was a much harder challenge to keep a straight face at those times though. They often had texting chats in the evening as they'd go over homework or just catch up if he'd been gone. It always filled him with happiness to see her wishing him goodnight and sweet dreams at the end of those conversations. There were also all the times that Marinette invited him over to hang out at her house, knowing he didn't particularly want to go back to his empty home. Her parents would almost always insist he stay for dinner and they would ask him the same things as they asked Marinette. Her being willing to share her parents and her family was one of the things he was most grateful to her for.

Adrien rewrote the beginning of that last sentence. "My very good friend, Marinette, likes to spoil her friends at every opportunity in meaningful ways." It seemed like an inadequate summary of all that Marinette was, but he only had fifteen minutes left of class and there was no way he'd be able to sum up everything Marinette was in such a short amount of time.

At least he only had fifteen minutes left until he'd get to meet the others for lunch. They were supposed to be going to a new cafe that Alya had discovered, but chances were that she and Nino would ditch him and Marinette, only to show up five minutes before class was supposed to start in a state of slight disarray. He didn't mind the chance to have lunch with Mari, but sometimes he did tease Nino that if he and Alya kept it up that they would be having their "little dude" show up much earlier than the ten years that Alya insisted had to intervene before she was ready to have children.

"No worries my dude," Nino said one time, "Between Alya's pills and my capotes our Little Dude won't be making any early appearances."

Adrien had nodded his head, but couldn't help but think that he didn't want to wait that long before having kids. Of course, he'd have to find someone that wanted to date him first, not just be seen with him or wanted to be with him for the fame or the money his family had. This someone would have to be a person that his father could approve of and that could stand his father, or at least tolerate him during gala functions. Adrien was well aware that his father could be an intimidating and standoffish person, anyone that dated him would be facing the dragon daily. And they would need to be willing to have kids with him. Adrien knew he wouldn't ask them to put their career on hold while the kids were born and raised. He'd been working as a model since he was a baby and almost all of his income had been put in funds that would be his free and clear just about the right time for him start a family. He could stay home and his partner could work. If he needed to model, well it's not like he'd ever forget how to stand in front of a camera. But was there anybody that would even want to have a family with him?

His thoughts traveled forward in time trying to guess what they would all be doing in ten years' time. No doubt he would still be working for some branch of the Gabriel empire. Nino and Alya would undoubtedly be living together in a little flat somewhere. There would be Alya's breaking articles framed on the wall next to the pictures of the happy couple every where and Nino would have music playing since he couldn't stand to not have good music going. They would be inviting him and Marinette to spend every holiday with them. Knowing the girls they would both be too busy to do anything other than show up for dinner, but he and Nino would be able to hang out. Adrien sighed, Marinette would be out of university and probably just finished with an internship. She'd be the picture of a professional woman and probably have some model or other designer with her as her date. Adrien's mind balked at the image and he came back to class seeing his teacher standing over him.

The teacher was collecting everyone's work while excusing them and wishing them a happy holiday break. Adrien handed up his prepared paper and noticed that the woman seemed to be having difficulty keeping a straight face. It wasn't until he looked down at his notebook that he could see why.

At the top of the paper she'd given him a 6/7 for his more detailed sentences. At the bottom of the paper she'd put a smile next to the doodle he'd last been working on. Adrien finally took a good look at that part of the page. Without saying goodbye to his teacher or anyone else, he grabbed his things and raced from the room. He needed to find Marinette. He needed to find her now.

There was a smile working its way from the center of his bones to light his whole face when he thought about what was written on that paper. He'd drawn a spiral of ladybugs and cat faces around the words "Adrien Dupain-Cheng."