Divine Intervention

Chapter 1

Paris

It was Sunday night which meant Nino and Alya were round at their house and the four of them were huddled around the TV with pizza and wine a blankets round their shoulders as they battled each other to the death on one of Max's newest games. They had made an agreement with their old classmate to test any games he might have for improvements, of which they didn't have many, and in exchange they'd get fee copies of the games once they were ready for consumption. They had offered to do it free of any benefits other than a good time but Max had insisted that he didn't want to take the money of those who had helped him so much throughout his childhood and his career.

As Alya and Marinette took a quick wine break after winning a particularly hard teams game Nino dragged Adrien into the kitchen for 'more popcorn'. "Dude, spill." Nino urged.

Adrien grinned and then, after a quick backwards glance at the now fully closed door, he shoved his hand into his back pocket and took out a small round topped box. "I picked it up this morning." The piece inside was simple and elegant which was precisely what he'd wanted. "The stone was taken from my mother's engagement ring. I would've had the ring resized for Marinette but I know she wants a gold wedding ring not silver."

"Adrien, this is so cool, she's gonna love it so much that even if she doesn't want to marry you she'll say yes just so she gets to wear the ring." 

The blonde laughed, "Well I was hoping that she might actually want to spend the rest of her life with me, but now I understand what a stupid notion that was."

"Shut up and make the popcorn, dickhead."

Plagg phased through the wall floating on his back in front of the two men, "Adrien we ran out of cheese - I think you should cut some more whilst you're making popcorn."

"Plagg, I thought we agreed no more than two blocks today, I have a meeting tomorrow and I don't wanna show up smelling of Camembert."

Nino shook his head with easy going grin and intercepted the nearly argument, "Aww come on, little dude, I'll cut you some cheese. Adrien's just being grumpy."

"I knew there was a reason we kept you around."With a final triumphant smirk and a poke of his tongue at the un-transformed Chat Noir, Plagg whizzed through the door of the cheese cabinet and Nino dutifully opened it and began slicing, both of them ignoring Adrien's mutters of protest and disgust. 

Ladybug and Chat Noir had revealed their identities to each other about six months after Hawk Moth was defeated. The initial revelation of Hawk Moth's true identity caused Adrien to be guarded and watched for 24-hours until Gabriel Agreste was convicted and any suspicion around Adrien's involvement was cleared. That had taken a year or two making it almost impossible for him to leave to see his lady. His friend's had each practically moved into his house during that time, each of them ensuring that he was never alone for more than hour until another of them was with him throughout the day and they made sure to sleep over some nights to make sure he was actually sleeping. He didn't know how he would've gotten through during the time without them - especially Marinette. She seemed to have made it her own personal mission to ensure he wasn't falling into a deep dark pit from which crawling out of would've been near impossible. It was also how she eventually figured out who he truly was and confronted him about it rather nervously one night before he subsequently broke into sobs in her arms upon realisation that his closest friend and love were one and the same. Telling Alya and Nino came a few years later, once the press had calmed and Adrien wasn't still being folllowed home and didn't have to change his car tires once a week as a result of tire slashing from those who still believed he was somehow involved. It had been an eventful night and one Marinette had made sure to record so that Alya could play it back on the morning in order to remind herself it wan't an extremely realistic dream.