How to win a girl in 10 dates

Comfort and Hope

The two Miraculous holders stayed up for hours talking about everything and anything. What started as a simple discussion about love soon moved into a whole debate about Christmas movies, whether Jagged Stone should be allowed to keep Fang in his home and which akuma was dressed the best (both coming to agreeance it was 'Qilin', from what they'd seen on The Ladyblog ... of course.)

Adrien was fascinated that Marinette's best friend was the owner of the blog and he'd questioned if she'd ever contributed herself, after lying her way through the question like a pro, she asked if he'd come face to face with an akuma at all.

Adrien's retell of Gorzilla was followed by Marinette's tale of Evillustrator, where luckily Adrien's shrieked 'that was you' had fallen on deaf ears. Both heroes had stayed and talked until the last glowing embers of the log fire had died and they had no choice but to move somewhere warm. It was past midnight and both needed to be up and at the shoot by mid morning.

"Goodnight, Adrien, I had a lovely day today, I can't remember the last time I'd had so much fun." She kissed him delicately on the cheek before making her way into her bedroom. Without looking away from each other, Marinette shut the door, finally signalling Adrien to move himself. That was right. He needed to get some sleep too.

With both their holders journeying into dreamland it was time for Tikki and Plagg to rendezvous in the kitchen, filling up on fuel and gathering intel.

"They're both idiots!" Plagg stated matter of factly. He was still reeling from what he'd heard before they went to bed, that plus his conversation with Adrien pre-shower, almost tipped the God of Destruction off the edge.

"I told you she was stubborn." Tikki answered, finding her way to the cookie jar and choosing a desired treat.

"Come on then Sugarcube, what do we do next?"

"Lock them in a room together and make them stay in there until they agree to marry each other? Locking Alya and Nino together worked."

Plagg looked over at Tikki and winced. "You do realise with their team work they'd managed to break out in the matter of minutes. There's no way you could lock these two up."

"Then what's your plan, oh smart God!"

Plagg smiled at Tikki's 'insult'. How did she think calling him a 'smart God' would offend him? He thrived off the attention from the red kwami and a name like that only added fuel to the fire rather than knock him down a peg or two.

"They have a photoshoot tomorrow, correct?" Plagg said.

"Correct,"

"And then the Winter Solstice Ball?"

"Correct," Tikki responded again.

"And she looks ... ?"

"Oh don't worry, she's going to blow his mind."

And blew his mind she will.

The trip to the Gabriel store had been incredibly successful, with Gabriel himself having already selected a number of dresses suitable for Marinette's body type. Each dress was more impressive than the next, and her final decision was phenomenal. It was as though the dress was made solely for her. The fitting, the style, the colour ... beautiful.

Each dress chosen was a different shade of red, the final choice not too dissimilar to that of her Ladybug costume and suited her to a tee. To be fair all the colours did, and Gabriel must have had a Christmas theme in mind, as the reds chosen were perfect for the occasion. Plagg couldn't help but hope Adrien's dinner jacket was created to compliment Marinette's dress. It was an unusual colour, but suited his hair and eye colour perfectly. No one could deny how Adrien looked in red, even if it pained Plagg to think of his chosen as Mr Bug.