How to win a girl in 10 dates

Fireside Confessions

Adrien Agreste was a smart man. Adrien Agreste was a grown man. He had graduated with firsts and was about to start a doctorate, he had brains, and he thought he was mature. So why was Adrien Agreste acting like a teenage boy on a first date?

He couldn't seem to control his blushing or his comments as he spent more and more time with Marinette. Whatever filter he thought he had, had suddenly disappeared and things he'd never dream of saying to a woman were free flowing out of his mouth. Okay, tell a lie, he had flirted like this before. He used to do it all the time, but not as Adrien Agreste, as Chat Noir. The only other person to see him this way was Ladybug.

He drank some of the warm liquid of his hot chocolate as he waited for Marinette to meet him at the entrance to the Christmas Tree Maze. He turned to look at her, noticing she was glaring intensely at her phone. If she was staring any deeper he was quite sure she would make the phone explode from the lasers shooting out of her eyes. Even when she was intense she was cute, the thought rocking Adrien to the core. He wasn't getting involved with women, he had committed to helping Kagami and Chloè. They deserved it. Yet he couldn't stop thinking about Marinette falling into his arms. It felt good to hold her, she was warm and fit into his body perfectly. If only he'd met her a month ago, maybe, just maybe, things would be different.

"Are you okay?" She'd almost walked into him as her focus stayed on her screen. Her head shot up as she heard his voice and he noticed a red tint on her cheeks; one not from the harsh bitterness of the weather but something else.

"Um - yeah - sure, I'm fine." Her smile said anything but.

"Yeah, I don't believe that, Ms. Dupain-Cheng, hand it over." Adrien placed his hand palm up in between them, waiting for Marinette to place the phone in it.

"What? No! It's my phone!"

"Marinette?" He asked again.

"No. You have nothing to do with being my boyfriend - I mean - you're not my boyfriend." The blush on her face increased, trailing all the way up to her brow line and he couldn't help but smirk.

"Fine," he said, a plan formulating in his mind, "if you wont show me, I'll look for myself."

Reaching out he snatched her phone and began to run into the maze, laughing with a manic tone foreign to his body. That teenage mood came back, as a wave of immaturity hit him. He began to twist and turn through the maze, running at only half speed so he didn't spill his hot chocolate.

"Hey!"

He could hear Marinette shouting while laughing behind him as he continued his run with her phone. He knew he shouldn't have done it, he knew it was way past the point of familiarity, but he had no intent on looking at the phone, he just wanted to stir her up. See where her break point was. Maybe he even wanted to tease her, and enjoy getting her all riled up.

One thing he hadn't planned for when stealing her phone was that when she wanted to, the girl could run fast. Like super fast. Considering the 'foot muppets' she was wearing and her lack of usual stability, she was surprisingly nippy with her movements, catching him quickly and jumping on his back.

She had jumped on his back!

Marinette wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, leaning over his shoulder to try and grab her phone from his grasp as the weight tipped him off balance and plummeted towards the floor. A quick move with his hands unhooked her legs from around him, making sure he was the point of impact as they cascaded towards the floor.

"Ouch!" They both cried, as Adrien hit the snow covered ground and Marinette landed on his back.

Lifting his head, his eyes came face to face with her phone screen. There it was brightly in front of him, himself and Marinette being labelled a couple with the hashtag #whosthatgirl?