Between Us

The First Date

Author's Note: And so it begins...

Ft. artwork by me x

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Marinette was mentally prepared for whatever devastating news Adrien would share with her once she had heard the first set of knocks at the door. That was until she saw his face.

His sweet, innocent, perfectly sculpted face that nearly half of Paris was in love with.

Adrien smiled cheerfully at the sight of Marinette as soon as she opened the door, letting him in. He seemed to be too good of a mood to work up the courage of stepping out of the deal they had somehow agreed to last night.

Disbelief still flooded her mind. There must have been something she was missing. Surely, this wasn't the peppy Adrien who was going to tell her that he regretted agreeing to Alya's egregious plan. Maybe he was planning on doing it later.

"Why, good morning, fake girlfriend," he greeted as he walked in, his hands casually stuffed in his jean pockets.

That certainly answered her unspoken questions. There was barely a response on Marinette's part. The last thing she expected from him was a very blunt reminder of the deal from last night. Did it even count? She could totally blame it on the influence of alcohol. Though, that would be hard to believe, considering she only had one drink.

"Uh. Good morning?" Marinette replied, shutting the front door closed.

"Your parents let me up if that's alright."

Her eyes followed him as he continued walking deeper into the apartment that stood above her parents' bakery. "Uh, yeah, of course, that's fine," she said as she followed him toward the living room. "Someone seems to be in a good mood."

"Of course I'm in a good mood," he said, taking a seat on her couch. "I spent most of my night thinking about how we are going to pull this off. That is if you still want to?"

Marinette was shocked, to say the least. It was him asking her if she still wanted to do this while she was over here, thinking Adrien was going to walk in to tell her this was a stupid plan and it would never work. "Y-yeah! I'm still game for... whatever this is."

"Great! Come sit," he said, patting down on the cushion next to him. However, Marinette was reluctant to start whatever this conversation was going to turn into.

Nonetheless, she followed along and walked over to take a seat. Granted, it was a cushion down further from where he had patted down, but she figured this way, it would give her less of an opportunity for a distraction.

He was very distracting to look at.

"So, what was there even to think about last night? I thought most of the faking would take place at the actual gala," she said, breaking the silence.

"Well, yeah. Most of it will. But we have to build up to it, you know? It'll be hard for my father or Anais to believe it if I just show up with you and claim we're together. After all, she knows you from when she and I dated. She's going to be the hardest to convince."

Clearly, Adrien did more thinking about this than Marinette had. And she thought she was the overthinker in the friend group. "Okay... so what were you thinking we do?"

Adrien leaned slightly forward on the couch, his hand fidgeting with that silver ring he always wore. "Well, I was wondering if you were free later this afternoon after my photoshoot?"

Other than this morning and adding to her portfolio for a class, Marinette had nothing else planned to do today. So, she nodded her head. "Why?"

"This is where we start building up the ruse," he started. "Fortunately, since I've been in the spotlight all my life, I know how to effectively start rumors."