First Order of Business | Adrienette

A Chat

Marinette can't find a way to get out of her house without having to contact a helicopter to come get her from her roof. Maybe Alya knows someone. She paces around her room for a minute in mismatched slippers, trying to think of an escape plan until her mom pokes her head in again.
Her mom tells her, "I knew you were going to stall. Adrien Agreste seems like a very busy man, don't keep him waiting." Marinette lets out a quiet groan that makes her mom glare at her.
"Going," Marinette says in defeat and follows her mom down. Her mom's brisk pace beats Marinette to the bakery, and she follows behind slowly, wondering why Adrien thought it was a good idea to go to her home when she already sees him all week. He has a pleasant face, and she enjoys his company more than she'll let on, but isn't this weird? Especially after their extremely special conversation.
If her mom hadn't told her Adrien was there, she wouldn't have recognized him with his black Agreste Inc. cap and sunglasses. She sees him behind the cash register, laughing with her dad about something that is apparently really funny because both the men's laughs are bouncing off the walls. Alya is right, though. No man is that funny.  He has one of their pastry boxes in his hand, and he's smiles he sees her.
"Oh, Miss Dupain-Cheng," Adrien says like he didn't expect to find her in her own home in her family's bakery. She notes that he won't call her Marinette in front of her parents. "I didn't mean to bother you today."
Her mom starts pulling Marinette to the other side of the counter, telling him, "Nonsense. Not a bother at all. She wasn't doing anything anyways." Marinette knows what her mom is doing, and it's too late to even think about making something up to make a run for it. Her mom scurries to the back room, leaving Marinette with Adrien and her dad. She doesn't know why she feels nervous about him being there, but the anxiety is rising like a tower in her chest.
"I didn't know you knew where this was," Marinette tells him. It came off ruder than intended.
"Marinette, be kind," her dad seems to scold her. She clicks her tongue and starts pulling Adrien outside by the nook of his free arm, and she spots a small grin on his face. She can't handle her parents and Adrien in civilian clothes at the same time. "Bye, Adrien!" Her dad shouts as she opens the front door and starts pulling Adrien out like a common criminal.
"I'll see you later, Tom," Adrien smiles back. His friendliness was always charming but right now, Marinette found it unbearable. Or maybe him getting along so nicely with her parents so fast set off an alarm in her. She doesn't know if she likes how it sounds.
She takes him across the street for good measure, and they stop in front of a bench. When she looks down, she lets out a sigh. She forgot to get matching slippers before coming down.
Adrien asks, "Is this a fashion statement?" One of her slippers is a black cat head and the other a simple red house slipper. They've both seen better days.
"Trying something new." No makeup and hair barely brushed out. Loungewear. Mismatched shoes. She can't imagine ever showing up to work like this. She looks at him, and he looks silly with his anti-paparazzi getup. "People really don't recognize you with just a hat and glasses?" She is acting like she did.
"You'd be surprised at how many blond men there are in Paris," he says. She wonders if he knows she can see him staring at her through the lens of his sunglasses.
There is a brief pause before she asks, "What did you need?"
"Nothing." He says it very honestly. Somehow, it doesn't make her mad. If she was annoyed just slightly, the feeling disappears by just looking at his nervous smile. "I just asked if you were here and your mom went to go get you before I could tell her to let you rest. You already put up with me all week." She wants to agree with him, to play along, but she can't for some reason. "I'm sorry. I should go." Her silence is making him anxious, and he's looking around now. His car isn't that far away.
"No. It's fine, really. We can chat a little," she assures him. He seems to relax just a little, his shoulders not being held up so high anymore. You always try to make me feel better he once told her. It is hard to do otherwise. "Why did you decide to come today?"
He taps his fingers on the box he's holding and says, "Chloe sent me. She wanted a slice of cake similar to the one at her party so I came to get the real deal for extra points. Kim sent me the address."
"They filled that box up for you, didn't they?" Marinette smiles. A small laugh escapes his lips.
"Yeah," he scratches the back of his neck. Why does he seem so shy right now outside of the office? He's like a different person. She doesn't remember him being like this at Kim's party, either.
"What's wrong with you?" Okay. Marinette can admit to herself that that was too blunt, but she was cozy four minutes ago and now she's on the Parisian streets with her boss who is wearing some goofy undercover disguise before she's had coffee and breakfast.
Adrien seems slightly taken aback, but he doesn't get to say anything before her mom is coming out of the bakery, yelling their first names. Marinette is jealous of the leaf on the ground that's getting blown away by the air.
Her mom approaches them and says, "I brought you two coffee. Marinette is a little cranky without caffeine."
"Mom," Marinette whines under her breath and rubs her eye with the palm of her hand. Adrien is clearly amused with it all, and she feels like she's going to implode.
"Thank you," Adrien tells her and receives the coffee. They give free coffee to the regulars in special to-go cups that have an illustration of her parents smiling on the side.
"Yeah," Marinette tells her and takes the second one. "Thanks, mom." That seems to be all she wants because she says a quick goodbye and rushes back to the bakery, leaving them alone.
Marinette takes a sip from her paper cup when Adrien tells her, "I am alright." She raises an eyebrow. "To answer your question. I just didn't know if I was annoying you."
"You never annoy me." Maybe sometimes but not enough for her to tell him right now and inevitably hurt his feelings. "You walk out to talk to me every three minutes at work, and I've never sent you away." He forms a small smile she doesn't like the look of.
"Yeah, why is that?" She wants to stop on his foot. Is he serious right now?
"Are you serious?" His eyes become so focused on her face, she is absolutely sure he thinks his glasses are covering for him.
"You don't have to answer that." He looks away now, taking a long drink from the coffee. He is unbelievable sometimes, and she doesn't know if she wants to laugh or run away. She takes a seat on the bench instead, and she loudly pats on the empty space next to her. He would stand for the next twenty minutes if she didn't. "Thanks."
"I don't own the bench but you're welcome," she says. A mix of a laugh and a sigh comes out of him He sits and sets the box between them.
"You are cranky without coffee." She glares at him from the corner of her eye, and she's almost angry it doesn't shrink him back down. His confidence is so easy to build up. One positive sentence is all he needs to be at the top of the world. She envies that about him.
She asks, "Is this your second coffee today?" He smiles because she is right.
"I had one when I woke up." He adds, "Around 6AM."
"You're showing off," she tells him. Another chuckle escapes him, and it's almost nauseating to know why she makes him laugh so easily. It's also a nice feeling she's doing a terrible job at ignoring. Because really- why else would he be here, sitting with her on a Saturday morning, laughing at her jokes that are definitely not funny? She might have been very oblivious to things like this growing up, but he had confirmed it herself. She's just glad she never admitted to getting carried away, too.
He raises the cup of coffee in front of his eyes and says, "You're not on the logo."
"I didn't want to be," she tells him. The logo was fairly new, and she remembers the entire debate with her parents like if she watches it everyday during breakfast.
"Is it because you haven't worked there in a while?" She turns her torso to him and stares, and he seems puzzled by her reaction.
"What did my parents tell you?" she asks. Only Alya ever knew how tense things had gotten with her parents when she worked at the bakery on and off.
"Um," Adrien seems to be scanning his memories. "I asked if you had made anything, and your dad just said you haven't worked there in awhile." She hasn't baked in years. She wants to end the conversation she opened, but Adrien says, "He says he'll never beat your flan."
"Are you just saying that because you asked me for flan that one time?" she asks, tilting her head back and keeping her eyes on him. He tilts his head back in the same way, seeming to be mocking her lightly. 
"No he brought it up first," he grins. His hat falls off his head, and she can't help but laugh a little too loud. His hat hair is very disheveled, and she wonders if he even brushed it at all that morning. He sits up, but he doesn't make an effort to pick it up. "Man. That's what I get for lying."
"I knew my dad wouldn't say my flan is better."
"He really did say that," Adrien says. He hands out his coffee for her to hold, and she takes it from him. He reaches his arm out between the back part and seat of the bench to get a hold of his cap. "I asked about it first, though."
"You really want flan, don't you?" He smiles as he brings his hat up. He smacks away the dirt before putting it back on his head. The street is pretty empty, but he seems to be extra cautious for some reason.
"I do like it." Is she really going to go and bake something just to see him smile? He takes his coffee back and takes a drink from it, Marinette doing the same with hers.
"I didn't think this is how I'd spend my Saturday morning," she admits to him.
"Me either, but Chloe is very convincing." He points at the box between them. "She asked me if I wanted her baby to be born with a cake face. I don't know what that means, but I got scared so I came over." Marinette smiles because she can imagine his exact expression while hearing that.
"When is she coming back, again?" The question is really: When am I leaving?
"Beginning of July. Maybe August," he says. April is barely ending. He is staring at her face through his glasses again, and she wants to tell him but so much of this conversation is already seeming to be in the lines of pushing it. "Have you thought about what I said? About building a portfolio?" Marinette would be lying if she said she didn't. It keeps her up and almost scared to open her sketchbook again because it meant she'd have to give her dream a real shot.
"I did."
The following silence makes him ask, "And?"
"I think I might do it," she says. "Maybe." He's never been pushy about anything, and she wonders if this will be an exception.
He just nods and tells her with a small smile, "I'll be happy if you did." Not exactly pushy, but it's still something heavy to hear. She wants to tell him not to say things that pull on her heartstrings, but she knows it's unintentional. He has a tell when he's pulling a move from his little playboy notebook, like when he called her Marinette. There's a certain shift in his tone, a voice that's more playful, more free. Right now, he is being sincere with her like they've been friends for years.
"You haven't seen a lot of my designs," Marinette points out. "I can be horrible." He sucks in his bottom lip, contemplating something. She knows him. She reaches out to poke his chest. "What did you do?" That came out of instinct, but she's not going to focus on it. "What did you do, Adrien?" He folds immediately.
"You sketch on the sticky notes sometimes," he starts spilling to her, vaguely distressed. "And you leave them on your desk. Sometimes when you leave work before me, I go look at him." Marinette stares at him, quietly. She's learned that ignoring him and going silent for even just thirty seconds will drive him up a wall. He waits for her to say something, but she doesn't budge. "I'm sorry," he finally says with a frown.
"One of these days, I'm really going to pull on your ear," she tells him, making sure she doesn't sound angry. "Chloe gave me written permission to do so."
"I know. I saw the binder." His foot is dancing up and down now. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize. I saw it coming," she admits. "I figured you were being your nosy self when I saw my things moved around three centimeters here, two inches there."
"You notice things like that?" He looks impressed and maybe a little scared.
"I guess when you sew clothes, you focus on the tiniest little details." Like how he really can't stop tapping his feet, both his hands are gripped around the to-go cup like how he holds all his mugs, and he has a different cologne on that is not his usual scent for the office. This one is fresher, a mandarin mint breeze. It's more homey, maybe closer to Adrien and not Mr. Agreste. She's getting better at this spot the difference game.
He changes the topic, telling her, "I called Nathalie after work, and she said she was mad at my dad for not telling her which dresses would be there and nothing more. Not sure why, though." Marinette almost forgot how paranoid she felt observing her. What Adrien says doesn't make much sense to her, either.
"Are they," Marinette holds up her pointer finger and middle finger and joins them, "together." Adrien shakes his head no but still smiles. She thinks about how Nathalie leaned into Gabriel and quickly corrected herself, like there was a secret they had to keep from Adrien.
"Last time I asked, no." The last time he asked must've been years ago because they had the body language of people who are too close in that way. 
"Ask again," Marinette suggests. Adrien just laughs, but she doesn't.
"If I can get him to talk to me outside of work again, I will." Adrien stiffens- similar to when he called her beautiful. Something with a lot of weight has slipped out. It's strange to have grown up thinking Adrien Agreste had the perfect life and here she was, pitying him like she did the damage herself.
"I went a while without talking with my parents." An eye for an eye. Adrien doesn't look like he believes her. "I worked in the bakery when I finished secondary school. There wasn't anything traditional in a university I wanted to pursue, and I wanted to dream a little bit longer."
"Fashion." It's not a question.
"Yeah." Perhaps he knows her, too. "They seemed to be fine with it for a while and then I kept losing shots at internships, I wasn't getting apprenticeships, and I felt stuck and unfulfilled in the bakery. All of that losing made me really depressed because I seemed to be on the right track while I was a teenager and there I was. Failing as an adult."
"Eighteen is barely an adult." She can tell he's trying to comfort her. She offers what she can of a smile.
"I know that now. Back then, though. It was really rough. The bakery got hard to work at, and I had a really hard conversation with my parents that ended up with me quitting and moving out." His eyes haven't moved from her for a single second. She's not strong enough to tell herself she doesn't like it. "After that I got weird jobs here and there and the distance made me miss my parents so I went back to see them often. We made up and it was fine again. But two or three years later, I worked at the bakery again for a very brief interval. That sent us back to square one." She marks that as the worst year of her life.
"You don't bake anymore, do you?" She doesn't know how he got to that conclusion, but he's not wrong.
"No. I told them I had to leave somewhere early for an interview that day, and they didn't listen to me. They left me with two of the ovens on, and I didn't know so I left. The store didn't catch on fire, but we lost maybe five cakes due that afternoon and a good chunk of product. It smelled like burnt food for two months before they caved and replaced the ovens."
"Did they fire you?" She knows that look on his face, and she can't believe he's trying to make her laugh right now.
"Was that a pun?"
He looks so pleased with himself. "A tiny one." She lets herself smile.
"No, they didn't fire me. But I rage quit because I was so mad at them." She looks across the street at the bakery. To think she has to see it every day with those memories attached.
"You guys seem fine now." 
"We really are. There's still some careful distance between us, but I don't think it'll ever be that bad again, and I think it'll get even better as long as I don't work in the bakery again." He seems to consider what she's told him. Maybe he's thinking about his own parents.
"Is that why you don't bake? You're afraid it'll ruin what you've worked so hard to get back? Maybe you feel like it's a curse or jinx of some kind." Nobody has ever put it that way. It sounds kinder than a grudge and softer than aged rancor. He sees that she's never hated them and that she's just scared.
Marinette sighs out, "I wish you hadn't said that." His cheeks under his sunglasses turn red.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to say something like that." "It's fine. I can see why you'd ask." She knows why he said it though. He's trying to relate to her somewhere down the line. He also has something he is afraid of.
They sit quietly for over a minute before she asks, "What's your baking?" He looks a little confused. "What do you avoid because you're scared it's going to ruin whatever is left of the relationship with your father." She knows it's an intense thing to ask, but it's an intense conversation. Neither of them have to answer anything and here they are- exposing the wet wounds under their bandages.
"Modeling." Puzzle pieces move all across the board in her head. The picture she has of him is closer to being completed. "Although I'm starting to think that maybe he'll like me again if I go back to modeling." Like me again.
"Did you ever love modeling?"
"No. But it was my entire life to be in front of a camera. Like how you don't remember learning how to walk or talk, I don't remember learning how to model. It felt like a sixth sense sometimes, especially when I was with my mom who genuinely loved it. It let me spend time with her, so I put up with it. My dad was more about the commercials and ads, but my mom and I did what I guess can be called real modeling." Adrien gets a longing look to him when he talks about his mom. Somehow he seems closer to her even after death compared to his dad who is alive. Gabriel Agreste is such an enigma to her.
"What was your dad like before she passed?"
"The best." He didn't hesitate. "I remember him being funny. Not openly a comedian but the type of person who made subtle jokes. Very level headed and involved in my life and in Agreste Inc. as well. A very good husband. He stopped being my friend after she was gone. Just became my father which is why we started butting heads a lot especially after I came back from university. He sent me away not realizing I would be coming back one day. Like you said that one time. I had to defend the independence I developed while away." She wants to curl her fingers around his hands and hold them, to convince herself this conversation is very real. She has to be content by watching him take off his sunglasses, nothing between their eyes now.
He explains to her, "He liked it when I took up modeling again but that meant more media attention, and I wasn't exactly on my best behavior." He turns a little red when he says that. The sun is moving from out behind a cloud, the bright rays making their way to them. "I will admit, I wasn't making the best choices. I hated working for my dad and modeling for people I didn't like. Then I just." He hits a pause. Maybe he's contemplating if it's safe to tell her a secret. "I started getting really bad anxiety attacks on the days of modeling jobs." That comes out in a whisper. "It wasn't the same without my mom, my dad always had criticism to hand out, and I didn't like the clothes or aesthetics. I realized that while I was away I had gotten to be myself and now I was back to being a dress up doll. It was suffocating me, so I quit."
"What did your dad say?"
"Nothing. I got promoted at work after, and our relationship recovered a little more especially after Chloe came along to keep me in line. But after that it's always been this really annoying rollercoaster. It gets bad again and then good again. He stops talking to me again after we have a good conversation. It's never been to the point where I can call him my friend."
The shifting sun finally hits Marinette's eyes and before she can raise her hand to block it, a shadow does it for her. Adrien is raising his cap up in between the rays and her, continuing to talk as if he isn't standing between her and the sun.
"I still have this childish hope it's going to be fine again one day."
"I don't think it's childish. I don't think people ever grow out of wanting their parent's love. Or love in general." Love in general is a terrible subject to bring up between them when they're both giving each other longing looks. God they were terrible at this boundaries game.
Adrien's phone rings, and he puts his coffee down to pull it out of his pants pocket, not moving his hat. "Hello?" he answers. She can hear Chloe's loud voice as clear as day from the other line, Adrien pulling his phone away from his ear.
"Are you alive?" she asks him.
"Yes. I'm outside the bakery." He isn't lying.
"What pretty girl did you get caught up with?" That question makes both of them flinch, Adrien looking straight ahead as if his entire face isn't turning scarlet.
"Marinette," he answers quietly. "It's her family's bakery, remember." The hole they had dug kept getting deeper. All three are quiet for a moment.
"Because you went all the way over there for me, I'm going to pretend I don't have it in me to yell at you again," Chloe still yells. "Just behave and bring my cake over!"
"I think she can hear you but okay," Adrien is sort of smiling now. Still between all of that, he keeps blocking the sun for her.
"Stop putting me on speaker. Or warn me first."
"You're not on speaker. You're just very loud. I don't know what you want me to do about that."
"Bye," she tells him. There's a clicking noise, and he checks his phone screen to confirm the call has ended. It's extremely brief when he goes to his home screen before locking his phone, but Marinette sees that the photo they took at Kim's party is still his wallpaper. She grins, but she keeps the reason why to herself.
Adrien tells her with a thin smile, "I think I should get going now."
"Yeah," Marinette nods. He extends his arm with his hat to place it on her head.
She's about to protest when he says, "Don't worry. I don't have lice." That is the least of her worries after all of this. He stands up and stretches briefly before collecting his things. She adjusts the hat on her head, wondering how she was going to hide it from her parents on the way in. "Thank you for chatting with me for a bit," he tells her. He's quiet now. Once again, things between them have gotten more intense. It's a nicer feeling now, though. It's just one she shouldn't be enjoying.
"Yeah." She thinks about his phone wallpaper. "Drive safe."
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A/N: OMG I forgot to upload the chapter before this on Wattpad last week 🧎🏻‍♀️ Sorry about that but thanks for reading ♥️