"Faceless Future" Book 2 of "Secrets Unraveled" Trilogy |COMPLETED|

Chpt 36: Marinette's Mystery Date.

"It's too bad that your mother couldn't read the Miraculous book or she could have been warned about the dangers of the Peacock," said Marinette as they walked out of Master Fu's and headed down the stairs. They had left Master Fu and Wayzz arguing about what could be done to help Adrien's mother and Nathalie. Adrien didn't think it sounded like what he learned helped them that much.

"Do you think it would have made a difference to her? She was desperate for this child and even when she knew the toll it was taking on her, she kept doing it," said Adrien. "Was I not enough?" he said sadly.

Marinette felt herself on the verge of tears hearing the heartbreak in Adrien's voice. She so wanted to help him! But what to say? She stopped walking and took his hand to gently pull him down to sit next to her on the steps. "This has nothing to do with you. Your mother had created this whole perfect life in her mind and was obsessed with making it come true. As you and I know, the future isn't always how you expect it to be and sometimes you need to embrace what you have. I know I have," she said, giving him a hug.

Adrien hugged her back. "Ha- I see what you did there with your physical pun, by the way!"  Marinette smiled at him, but he had trouble returning the smile.

He shoved his hands through his hair in frustration. "I just keep coming back to how my mom is the reason all of this happened. If she hadn't traveled looking for a miracle she wouldn't have found the Miraculouses, she wouldn't have practically killed herself using the Peacock Miraculous, and my father wouldn't have had any reason to become Hawk Moth. My parents are at the root of everything bad that has happened to everyone in Paris.  I guess the only positive thing that came out of her obsession was our getting to be superheroes."

"What about our non-superhero relationship?" she asked him. "That came from all of this, too!"

"Nah. I'm certain we would have gotten together at some point, even without being superheroes or having interfering kwamis," he said, putting one arm around her shoulder and pulling her close.

"You know you love us!" said Plagg from inside Marinette's purse.  Adrien had to smile at that.

However, Marinette cringed a bit in response to Adrien's assertion. "It's nice that you believe that, but I don't know. I'd probably still be clumsy and making no sense around you. I tried and tried to talk to you like a normal person and tell you how I felt about you and set up ways for us to get together and nothing worked!"

"Actually, it was working," he said with a small laugh. "It's just I was one of those 'clueless boys' and really slow to understand what you were trying to tell me. Or not tell me. It didn't help that more than once you told me that you just saw me as a friend. And then you explained away your picture shrine of me on your walls as just professional interest, since you were an aspiring fashion designer. I got a lot of mixed signals from you, but the mystery of Marinette was very attractive and completely held my interest."

Marinette blushed. Who knew she could be an attractive mystery?  She would file that away for later, but now she was ready to change the subject away from her very embarrassing past. "Okay. Well, anyway. Are you ready to go? It's Saturday, you know," she said pointedly as she stood up.

Adrien's face lit up. Saturday! "Right! Anything special I should be changing into later just in case something interesting is going to happen?" He stood up and took her hand, leading her down the rest of the steps and out of the building.

Marinette pondered that. "A little dressy would probably be appropriate. Do you have something that has a pocket for Plagg this time?" she asked him, remembering his previous date outfit without a Plagg pocket that led to Plagg eating almost all of the cookies in the bag. "Though, he could stay with Tikki in my purse otherwise. I'm not planning to be separated from you at any time tonight!"