A/N: I can't post this motherhecker on tumblr since I've been locked out of my account, so I've been stalling on posting it anywhere, but here have it anyways!

Marinette's fingertips seemed to be determined to switch between stinging, being sore, and being completely numb all morning—but that sort of came with the territory of needle-pricked fingers, which sort of came with the territory of designing. She was used to it. Even if it made holding her fork while she'd been eating breakfast kind of a struggle. And now, her currently-sore fingers were distracting her as she anxiously fiddled with the strap of her schoolbag; something to keep her nervous hands busy while she followed Alya into their classroom.

Adrien was right there.

(You know, in the front of the room, at his and Nino's desk, exactly where he always sat. Not exactly an uncommon occurrence and definitely not a big deal, but dammit, she was making it a big deal. They'd danced a lot on Saturday. He'd given her his jacket.)

Alya peeled off to walk to the right side of their desk, her side, and Marinette moved towards the left, but she paused just beside Adrien's desk, trying not to be completely weird about this. He'd looked up as soon as she'd started to pass, offering a bright, friendly smile that had her holding her breath for a moment as she forgot that, oh, yeah, she was supposed to say something here.

"Uh—hey," she managed, voice perhaps slightly smaller than usual as she gave a tiny wave. "Good morning." Good. Great. Greeting achieved.

"Morning, Marinette," he replied, lifting his fingers from where they'd rested on his desk in something that more or less resembled a half-hearted wave, and he thankfully did not look weirded out in the slightest, so she was probably doing okay so far. Beside him, Nino shot her the kind of overly big, distinctly encouraging grin that had her narrowing her eyes slightly as she doubted once again that Alya hadn't given him any details on who her crush was.

It didn't matter how convincing Alya was when she insisted she'd kept that detail secret—Nino's acting was not good enough for the part.

"Um—your jacket," Marinette pressed on as she tore her suspicious gaze from Nino to continue giving Adrien a small smile. "I didn't bring it to school because I didn't want it to get wrinkled in your locker or anything, but—I figured—if you wanted, I live, like, right next to the school, so you could maybe stop by and pick it up after school gets out?"

Not a big deal, she chanted in her mind. Not a big deal, not a big deal. Adrien had totally been over to her house before, twice now, this was definitely not a big deal.

Except her stomach flipped around nervously, like this definitely was a big deal.

"Oh, sure!" Adrien replied with appreciative enthusiasm, shifting in his seat as he smiled up at her, and her eyes flicked from his bright eyes to his perfect smile to anything that wasn't his face because something as simple as a smile shouldn't make her so flustered but it definitely did and—

—and Nino was giving her a small thumbs up on Adrien's other side, and she was definitely going to have a talk with Alya as soon as class got out.

"Or," Adrien was talking, so her focus snapped back to him again immediately as she tried to quit freaking about him coming over, "I could come over during lunch, if that's okay? I could just swing by and pick it up on my way home to eat, unless—"

"No, that's okay, that works!" She almost winced at herself as she cut him off, her mouth leaping into action to assure him before she could have even thought about it. "Whatever's easier for you is easier for me. That's totally fine. That works for me." Oh, god, first she'd interrupted him, now she was rambling. "Um—so—I'll see you then?"

"Yeah, okay." He leaned back in his seat, and he was still smiling at her (she was pretty sure at this point that that was definitely illegal; his face was definitely some sort of heinous crime). It took her a moment of staring, rooted in place with her eyes fixed on that criminal smile, to realize this was the point in the conversation where she was supposed to move. With a small start, she hurried to climb the next step up to her desk and slip into her seat beside Alya, a silent scream ricocheting around in her head.

She'd just asked Adrien to come over to her house and he'd said yes. Okay. Okay, she could handle this.

Probably.

She didn't notice Nino nudging Adrien with a sly smirk at the desk in front of him, nor the exasperated glare Adrien shot back at him, but she did notice Alya beaming at her proudly, which was enough to remind her that Alya was in trouble. Narrowing her eyes at Alya slightly, Marinette jerked her head in Nino's direction, and her best friend's expression slipped into a sheepish, unconvincingly innocent mask.

'Oh, please,' Marinette mouthed, eyes still narrowed. 'You're not fooling anyone.'

Alya had the audacity to shrug, not sorry in the least.

Marinette couldn't stop fidgeting as she sat at the table, the lunch her mother had set in front of her still completely untouched. She'd already snatched up the suit jacket laid over the stool beside her a few times, checking her alterations to make sure they were as flawless as possible, because she was trying to do something nice, not ruin his jacket, and she wanted the changes to be unnoticeable to anyone who didn't know about them. She hadn't found fault with her work yet, but it would be just her luck to realize she'd screwed the whole thing up just when she was giving it back and it was too late to fix it.

"Marinette, dear." Her mother's voice shook her from her fifth examination of the jacket as she tapped the table just in front of Marinette's plate, insisting, "Lunch."

Marinette sighed as she put the jacket down, and then gave her mother a patient smile as she reached for her fork, because clearly she didn't get it. How could Marinette possibly try to eat when Adrien was going to be here any second?

Honestly, she'd have waited for him, or asked him to just walk home with her, because that made sense—except that he'd been busy talking to Nino and she hadn't wanted to seem strange, waiting around for him when they hadn't actually agreed to walk together, and she didn't even know if he wanted to, really, and honestly she didn't exactly have the kind of bravery required to ask Adrien to walk home with her. So she'd slipped out of the classroom after a few moments of hesitation, figuring she could at least get there a couple minutes before him and bring his jacket down from her room, so she'd be ready for him.

"Marinette," her mother chided again, a bemused smile on her face as she nodded once again to the girl's food, and with another sigh Marinette moved to actually take a bite.

The doorbell rang, and her fork instantly dropped to the plate—Marinette was out of her seat and halfway to the door, jacket in hand, in seconds.

"Igotit!" she announced, perhaps just a bit after that was already obvious. The jacket laid over her arm, Marinette scrambled to the apartment door fast enough that it was a miracle she didn't trip along the way, given her typical level of grace, and she fumbled with the doorknob a second or two before she swung the door wide to reveal Adrien on the other side.

"Hi," she breathed, stupid grin on her face.

"Hey." He smiled, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Uh, I wasn't sure if you'd already—"

"Yeah." Oh, no, not the interrupting again. "I mean, I didn't know if you wanted me to—wait, for you, or anything, so I just—here, um, I have—"

Words! a voice screamed in her head even as she held out the jacket, Marinette, you have to use actual words!

"Thanks." He gave another, grateful smile as he reached out to take the jacket from her, seemingly not finding this bizarrely half-spoken exchange strange at all. Well, Marinette supposed that as long as they understood what the other was saying through their half-complete communication, that was all that mattered. It was almost better, wasn't it, that they didn't even need words to understand each other? That was how she and Chat Noir worked through her plans half the time, at any rate, and it worked for them.

"Um," she hazarded, giving a shy smile. "The dangers of leaving your clothing with an overeager fashion designer…" Adrien glanced up from the jacket in his hands to meet her gaze, the green of his eyes overwhelming her for a moment before she remembered she had to continue that thought. "I, uh, may have made some alterations."

Biting her lip, she fought an urge to instantly panic and assume he'd hate her for it, which would be ridiculous. But that didn't stop her from thinking it. Brow furrowing, he looked back down to the jacket before holding it up, his eyes searching…

"Ah—the pockets," she supplied, reaching up to tug apprehensively at one of her pigtails. "The inside of them, I mean."

"Okay…" One of his hands shifted to one of the outer pockets of the suit, his finger slipping inside to pull the pocket open enough that he could see inside—revealing that the entire inside fabric of the pocket had been replaced with the same red and black-spotted fabric she'd used for her dress. He blinked, and then a surprised laugh escaped him. "Ladybug pockets!"

"Yeah!" she replied with a relieved laugh, her entire posture relaxing as she took in his reaction of delight instead of… well, anything else. "I wouldn't change—I mean, it was your jacket, and it fit perfectly, so it's not like I would ever have changed—the style, or anything big like that, but I was thinking about your tie and how you said it was funny, and I just thought—if you're ever wearing this suit again and you go to put something in your pockets, you'll remember this and you'll…" Think of me. "—have a reason to laugh. An inside joke. Literally, sort of."

He was still chuckling, and every cheerful burst of the sound from his lips set off a warm, pleasant thrumming in her chest. God, she loved his laugh. Her heart ached with how much she loved everything about him standing here in her doorstep, looking at her like she was something fantastic.

"Thank you," he said again, the gratitude in his voice bleeding through so much stronger this time, and then suddenly the arm that didn't have his jacket laid over it was reaching out for her, his hand landing on her shoulder to gently pull her in for a one-armed hug. "This is awesome, Marinette. This is officially my favorite suit now."

She opened her mouth to give him some sort of response, to tell him it was nothing, but the only sound that escaped was a tiny squeak of surprise. She couldn't focus on anything but the feeling of his chest just barely pressing against her own, the warm feeling of his arm laid across her shoulders, the feeling of his hair tickling the side of her face—with a barely-perceptible jolt, she realized this was going to be awkward if she didn't hug him back, and she quickly scrambled to reciprocate the gesture, trying not to cling too tightly or too desperately.

She was hugging Adrien Agreste.

She was hugging. Adrien. Agreste.

It took every ounce of her self-control not to do something drastic, like faint, or grab him tight and jump up and down in excitement, or scream with delight. She had no doubt that that would not go over well. Instead, she gently let her arms slip from where she'd wrapped them around him, taking the initiative to pull away and end the hug first, rather than, say, hold him prisoner in her arms forever, which she tried to convince herself wasn't tempting at all.

"Yeah, well, say the word and I'll make you a whole suit out of the material. An entire Ladybug tux, for your use only," she teased with a faint laugh, wringing her hands in front of her and trying to calm the furious blush still on her face.

"Don't tempt me," he said a bit too seriously, and then they were both laughing, and Marinette wasn't sure there had ever been a better feeling in the world. One of his feet edged back, like he was preparing to turn away, and his hand lifted from his side slightly and then dropped, like he'd been about to wave goodbye, and Marinette realized that now that he had his jacket, he didn't have a reason to be here anymore, and he was probably running out of excuses to linger on her doorstep.

Which was fair, really; he still had to get home and eat, and she still had to get back to her own lunch that she hadn't even started—but she found herself desperately searching for some reason, any reason to keep him here just a bit longer.

"Um, while we're doing this—returning things, thing," she started, stumbling over her words a little as she managed to summon them before she'd actually thought them through. Adrien tilted his head at her, the light from the hallway window catching his perfectly styled hair just right, so that it reflected off like some sort of ethereal halo around his head, and she caught a breath. She was going somewhere with this. Where was she going with this again? "Do you, um, still have my bracelet? The good luck charm?"

Oh, right, that's where.

"Oh!" Adrien's eyes widened, before his expression shifted to one that looked almost guilty. "Yeah, I didn't get a chance to give it back to you. Uh—I don't have it with me, it's on my desk at home, but I can bring it for you—"

"No!" This was a nightmare, it was like she was going for the world record of how many times you could interrupt your crush in one day. "Keep it! I was just—I've had it for a long time, I wanted to make sure it wasn't thrown away or lost or anything."

Once again, Marinette marveled at exactly how far ahead of her thoughts her mouth could get. She was telling him to keep it? She'd had that good luck charm for years, it had been a constant source of comfort and reassurance, and one guilty look from her crush had her just giving it away?

Then again, she remembered the look on his face just before she'd given it to him, when he'd called her amazing and said—absurdly—that he wasn't worth anything compared to her. He'd looked so unhappy, sadder than he should have been over just a simple video game skill level, and part of her wondered if he'd meant in more ways than that. If the charm helped him feel better at all…

And besides, she realized, she was Ladybug—she was a walking lucky charm, she could afford to not be greedy with this.

"Keep it?" He looked surprised, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline when she nodded. "You're sure?"

"Yeah," she said, her shoulders tugging into a shrug. "I mean, I've been hogging all its good luck for years, since I was a little kid—probably time to share a little bit of that luck with someone who I care about."

Holy crap, that was way too much, mayday, mayday, abort mission, she did not just tell Adrien she cared about him, that was way too much too fast, he was going to think she was totally weird and—

"…Really?" Adrien replied. Marinette sucked in a breath and held it, but he looked, genuinely… touched. "I mean, if you've had it so long—if you wanted to give it to someone—why me?"

Oh, well. Because.

Because I'm totally, hopelessly, stupidly in love with you? And because the thought of you holding onto something I made and treasured and giving it the same meaning and letting it make you feel better or smile—because the very thought of all that makes my knees a little weak and my stomach fill with butterflies? Because I want you to have as many reminders of me as possible and I want to be someone you think about when you think about funny pockets or lucky charms or anything that makes you happy, because there's no one I'd rather share my favorite things with, because you'd looked so sad and like something like this could really mean something to you, because, because, because—

Marinette realized she hadn't actually said a single word out loud. Which, actually, was a relief.

Shrugging again, she gave a small smile. "Benefits of being the first person I ever showed it to, I guess. But—keep it with you, it works better that way."

His eyebrows raising again, Adrien looked a little taken aback. "You'd never shown it to anyone before me?"

"Oh." She blinked, her cheeks burning slightly pink. "I mean—yeah, I just. I don't know, it's never really come up, I made it years ago with my mom and I haven't had a reason to—"

"You made it with your mom?" His eyes had widened slightly, and it took her a moment to remember why that was significant, as he quickly shook his head. "Marinette, I can't take that, if you worked hard making it with your mom then I shouldn't—"

"No! No, I insist." Marinette shook her head vehemently, giving him the biggest, most reassuring smile possible. She was determined. He could have this. "You remember how nice my mom is, she'd probably want you to have it, too. Really. I want you to have it. Please."

He hesitated, a conflicted expression crossing his face as he deliberated his response. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then repeated the process a couple times like every time he'd decided on an answer he immediately took it back. Finally, he hedged, "I just… are you sure I should take something that's so special to you and your mom?"

He looked kind of hopeful, though. Like he actually wanted the luck charm as much as she wanted him to have it.

"Positive. You deserve good luck as much as anyone, and, besides, now that I've shared the bracelet with you, it's special to you, too." She tried to ignore how much her cheeks burned at those words, opting to call attention away from it by teasing, "Besides, admit it, you kind of like the bracelet."

He seemed to relax, a soft smile crossing his face as he seemed to accept that, and then he replied, "Yeah, I do. It's cute."

Adrien Agreste thought her favorite lucky bracelet was cute, he liked it, and he wanted to keep it. Marinette's life was going the best she thought it possibly could, ever. She breathed a small laugh, beaming at him as if to prove that she really was happy he'd agreed to keep it, and just as she opened her mouth to say—something, anything else; did he really have to leave?—her mom's voice rang out behind her.

"Oh, Adrien! It's so nice to see you, dear."

His eyes shifted over Marinette's shoulder, a polite and genuine smile crossing his face as he waved. Turning, Marinette saw her mother peeking around the corner from the kitchen, looking absolutely delighted to see Adrien. Oh, no. Not that Marinette didn't agree, but her mom was totally gearing up to embarrass her, she was pretty sure.

"Hello, Mrs. Cheng," he said as Marinette stepped aside a little to give them a clear line of sight to each other. "I was just coming by to pick up my suit jacket—I let Marinette have it after Rose's party on Saturday."

"Yes, I know," Marinette's mother replied with a bright smile, sounding more than a little pleased. "That was very sweet of you! But you can call me Sabine, dear, you don't have to call me Mrs. Cheng. Would you like something to eat?"

"Oh, well…" He hesitated, his expression turning apologetic. "I kind of have to…" He didn't really seem like he actually wanted to complete that sentence, which was fine, because Marinette's mother didn't give him the chance.

"Just a quick snack! Marinette's lunch is already made, it would be easy to just whip you up something, just a fast little snack," she insisted, smiling encouragingly. "Marinette said you enjoyed our food last time you were here, please, we'd love to share."

"Well—" Adrien paused again, before looking askance at Marinette, almost like he was asking her permission. She tried not to look too desperately hopeful as she smiled at him. "I… guess I could come in for a couple moments. I just have to text my bodyguard to let him know."

"Wonderful! Come right in, dear, you can take a seat at the table, I'll have something for you right away!"

And just like that, she'd disappeared around the corner again, and Marinette could hear the sounds of her bustling around the small kitchen when she turned back to Adrien with slightly raised eyebrows. "Maman really likes you," she informed him of the obvious, smiling a little as she nodded her head in the direction of the kitchen, and he seemed more than a little pleased with that even as he let out a slightly sheepish chuckle.

"Well, I hope I don't do anything to change that, I like it at your house," he replied as they started walking back towards the kitchen, and she positively glowed she smiled so bright at the comment.

Adrien Agreste liked being in her house, maybe almost as much as everyone in her family liked having him there.

What even was her life anymore?

The two settled into the stools set at the kitchen table, Marinette struggling not to fidget in excitement (Adrien in her apartment, Adrien at her table, Adrien sitting right next to her—). She could be calm about this. He was only here for a snack. Tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, she hazarded, "Sorry, anyways—I mean, I know you said you like being here, but if you wanted to get going I'm sorry Maman held you up…"

Adrien was quick to shake his head, giving a disarming smile almost instantly. "Don't be, honestly, I do love your family's cooking. I should start coming by the bakery for snacks, honestly, I'm surprised I'm not already your most loyal customer after how much I loved everything last time I was here."

The thought of Adrien stopping by regularly made her heart give a giddy little leap. Almost immediately she found her mind drawn to what she knew about his schedule, mentally indexing when it would make the most sense for him to swing through, so she'd know to be home at those times. Which wasn't creepy. It was just… being prepared.

"Oh, Adrien, customers are strangers," Marinette's mother cut in, and Marinette couldn't help a smile at her mother's favorite, most-spoken saying. "Any of Marinette's friends are welcome here any time, and they never have to pay. Alya is here several times a week and we're always giving her fresh pastries and snacks, that sweet Mylene girl has been here before, as well as—"

"Maman, you're going to end up naming the whole class, most of them have been here at least once or twice over the years," Marinette interrupted, sounding amused, before turning to Adrien and using a hand to shield her mouth from her mother as she whispered to him with a wink, "My parents like to bribe people to be my friends with baked goods."

Something about the wink seemed to catch him off guard, his mouth falling slightly open, but he didn't get a chance to respond before Marinette's mother was talking again, seemingly having abandoned the snack she was throwing together for him. "We do not! They're your friends anyways, the food is just our way of showing our appreciation. Regardless—customers are strangers, Adrien dear, and you're no stranger. Any time you want a snack, stop in and we'll get you something free of charge. Marinette's friends don't pay."

It was no way to run a business, really, but it was how her family operated, and Marinette kind of loved it. She loved being known as the girl with the generous and giving parents, even if they used that generosity as an excuse to nose into all her conversations with all her friends.

"Oh, well—thank you Mrs.—ah, Sabine," Adrien had recovered enough to shift his attention back to her mother, and he smiled politely even as he grappled with the informal address she'd insisted on. "But I have the money, I can afford—"

"Oh, nonsense, dear, it's not about whether you can afford it. This is something we like to do. Stop by any time, for free." She waved a hand, and then continued as though it were all part of the same thought, "Are you sure you wouldn't like to just stay for lunch? It would be no trouble."

"Uh…" Adrien blinked, brow furrowing slightly while he thought that over. "Well, I'm sort of supposed to be home, and I wouldn't want to inconvenience—"

"It wouldn't be an inconvenience," Marinette's mother cut him off immediately, her tone firm. "We'd love to have you, I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem with your family if you just ate here today."

Marinette tried not to hold her breath as she looked over to see his response, and she was greeted with an all-too-familiar expression. Like Marinette's mother had said, a lot of Marinette's friends had been over before, and they all seemed to run into the same problem Adrien was having now—there was absolutely no one who had it in them to say no to Sabine Cheng. It was almost impressive, really, how thoroughly the small woman made it so that no one ever wanted to let her down. After a moment or two of deliberating, Adrien sighed, and then he smiled.

"Sure, I can stay. I just have to text my—uh, Nathalie, to let her know my personal chef doesn't have to make anything for me today."

Marinette barely contained a squeal of delight (Adrien eating lunch with her, Adrien eating her mom's food, Adrien sliding seamlessly into her family life for one lunch period—) and forced herself to take a bite of her own food then, rather than propping her head up on her elbow and simply grinning at Adrien because he was here, and he'd agreed to be, and he actually looked pretty content about it. Her mother looked as thrilled as she was, quickly turning to throw together a plate for him identical to Marinette's as he pulled out his phone and began to type up a text.

"Well, today's going well for you," Marinette commented after another bite of her lunch, determined that if he was going to be affectionately bullied into staying by her mother, she should at least make sure it wasn't an awkward lunch spent feeling out of place. And that meant talking to him, and that was something she was actually doing more or less okay with so far. "You thought you were just getting your jacket back and you ended up with Ladybug pockets, official ownership of a lucky bracelet, and lunch with a friend. Sorry again about Maman, she's impossible sometimes."

"Don't be," he shook his head, looking slightly amused—if a little baffled how he went from 'just visiting' to 'stepping in for a snack' to 'staying the whole lunch,' all in such a short span of time. "Like you said, I get lunch with a friend out of it, don't I?"

There were few feelings in the world that could possibly make her happier than hearing Adrien say he considered lunch with her a good thing. It probably showed, too, in the stupidly huge grin spreading across her face. "All the same, I'm sorry she bullied you into it."

"I did not bully him!" Her mother protested as she stepped over to place Adrien's lunch in front of him with a warm smile. "There you go, Adrien dear." Her gaze snapped to Marinette then, her expression turning chastising. "I invited him and he accepted."

"If you say so, Maman," Marinette replied, but she shot Adrien a skeptical, conspirators' look, a sort of 'you-and-I-both-know-she's-wrong-but-let's-let-her-have-this' expression as her mother bustled past the table and out to the living room, where she'd been folding laundry. Because it was nice, to share a look with him that had any sort of you-and-I implication. She liked the idea of she and Adrien being a you-and-I—if that even made sense.

"Thank you, M—Sabine," he replied, still seeming to struggle with his instinct to lean towards formality with adults, before he returned Marinette's look in a sort of silent, amused agreement, the small grin touching at his lips making her heartbeat stutter. She quickly ducked her head as her smile widened, turning her full attention to her lunch lest she blurt out something a little too true, like I love you so much when you smile like that.

After another bite of her lunch, Marinette found herself wincing and fumbling slightly with her fork again, the needle-pricks on her fingers protesting at having to hold anything. Noticing her wince, Adrien's brow furrowed as he pulled his attention from his own food. "Everything all right?"

"Oh." Straightening slightly, Marinette quickly slipped on an easy smile, shaking her head as if to dismiss rather than answer his question and setting her fork down to rub at her fingers. "I'm fine, nothing I don't deal with all the time, just—no matter how careful I am, I always seem to prick myself whenever I take on any sort of sewing project." She laughed a little at her own expense. "My fingers just sting a little, it's nothing."

Adrien didn't seem to be thinking on it when his concerned gaze shifted to her fingers and he reached out, Marinette's breath catching as his hand wrapped around her slender fingers. Like he didn't even notice, didn't even realize that this was hands-down one of the most important things that had absolutely ever, ever happened in Marinette's life, he gently pulled her hand closer so he could look over the needle marks in her fingers with his brows knit together. She couldn't do anything but gape, her cheeks burning furiously and her mouth fallen slightly open as she stared at her fingers encased in his own. She was going to scream. She was definitely going to scream, she could feel it building in her throat.

"You hurt your fingers working on my pockets?" he asked then, sounding almost guilty, and it was enough to scramble her thoughts back together into something slightly coherent.

"It's not a big deal," she rushed to assure him, her head shaking again. "Honestly, like I said, I do this all the time, it's fine, it's normal every time I sew." Was she talking too fast? She was talking too fast. "I mean, I was the one who decided to mess around with your suit jacket, I knew the consequences." She laughed, just a little too high pitched, but her hand was in his, how on earth was she supposed to function through that?

"You didn't have to do that for me." He sounded floored that she had, and his eyes lifted to meet hers then, and she was pretty sure her heart had stopped completely.

"I wanted to," she said quietly, and she meant it. He stared at her for a moment, and then he smiled.

"Thank you," he said yet again, and maybe he didn't even notice that he still held her hand in his own, but Marinette couldn't notice anything but that, except maybe how mesmerizing his eyes were, staring at her so openly like that, or how positive she was that she was about to faint. "Seriously, Marinette, thank you so much. You don't have to do things like change up my pockets for a joke, or give me your lucky bracelet, or spend a whole night keeping me company just because I don't want to dance with Chloe. You—" he paused, before raising his voice a little and turning his head slightly, as if to be sure her mother heard. "You and your family are some of the kindest people I've ever met. I mean it, thank you."

He dropped her hand then, smiling brightly at her before he turned back to his lunch as though nothing significant had even just happened, as though casually holding her hand had been the most normal thing in the world, and Marinette didn't even feel like she could breathe for a few moments as she stared, cheeks growing hotter by the moment. Oh, god, yeah, she was definitely going to faint.

It was like her brain had completely short-circuited; every time she felt like she'd nearly gathered her thoughts together into some kind of coherent, somewhat-organized pile, the feeling of his fingers wrapped around her own flashed through her mind again and it all crashed back into an unnavigable sea of nonsense. Marinette took a deep, somewhat shaky breath and counted back from ten, just so she could gather herself enough to turn back to her own food, blush still on her cheeks.

"Well—you never had to give me your umbrella." Her words were almost a mumble, but she was honestly barely composed enough to speak at all, so she figured that would have to be enough. "Or your jacket. You're—not so bad yourself, you know."

He shot her another smile, but his eyes were too bright, too kind, too beautiful; she felt like they seared right through her and she couldn't stand to meet his gaze with a weak smile of her own for more than a moment.

Lunch. Focus on lunch. You can do that.

And so, hands shaking slightly, she did.

Adrien Agreste was sitting right next to her and he'd held her hand and he thought she was one of the kindest people he'd ever met—if she survived the few minutes it was going to take all that to sink in, she was going to be on cloud nine. Or she was going to die. She really wasn't sure.

But she was feeling pretty optimistic about finding out.

A/N: Marinette: -winks at Adrien-
Adrien: wow why did that remind me so much of ladybug haha weird can't be any reason for that haha
Plagg: -stares at the camera like he's on the office-

This little mini-fic has been a fun adventure, thank you all so much for giving me so much support that I ended up continuing it! Please review if you liked it!