Gabenath Oneshots [Discontinued And Completed]

How Many Steps to Get a Girl?

Can you please do one of Gabriel slowly falling in love with Nathalie? However, he is doing a horrible job at expressing his feelings until he asks Marinette for help when she comes over to work on a project with Adrien. Maybe based on “How You Get The Girl”

Gabriel knew his assistant was considered pretty by most standards. He knew many would even consider her to be hot. She needed to be, she was representing his company and when she knew how to do the job well, it was a benefit of hiring Nathalie Sancoeur. What Gabriel didn’t know is when her beauty became eye-catching for him, he always thought he had a thing for blondes. 

People had always told him that one would fall in love the same way that one would realize they walked into a brick wall. He found this an odd metaphor and one he never understood. Love was slow for him and something he had struggled to express. 

As a teenager, he had crushes sure, but he didn’t understand how people could look at another and say they fancied them based on looks. He thought crushes should be just as thought out as a relationship should. Until he had really gotten to know a girl he didn’t like her in a way that any of his friends described liking their partners. 

Falling in love with Emilie was one of those things he felt as if he had no control over. Gabriel couldn’t have told anyone how long he had really known Emilie but they had been inseparable friends for a long time. He hadn’t been able to admit his feelings toward her at all. It was easy with Emilie because she knew what she wanted and so when she kissed him, it was easy enough to keep going. 

The vows were simple, for worse or for better. They had both promised, forever and ever. She had to go and use the broken miraculous. Emilie had to be the one who refused to stop even as her health declined. It didn’t matter what he had promised her now, she was gone.

Now, he looks at the teenage girl in front of him. A classmate of Adrien’s, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he didn’t necessarily care who it was, he just needed advice. Turns out that expressing his feelings was not Gabriel’s forte. 

“Maybe you should start with getting rid of these sorts of things,” Marinette suggests, picking up a framed picture of Emilie kissing Gabriel’s cheek.

Gabriel huffed, the girl was probably right. The only way he was going to prove to Nathalie that he liked her was if he started showing he didn’t love his late wife anymore.

He took his time doing this. Slowly but surely though, the portraits that contained Emilie faded from the house. The last place he touched was the portrait of her still beside their, no his, bed. He threw it to the ground and watched the glass shatter, he loved Nathalie though, he just didn’t imagine letting go of Emilie being so difficult.

Marinette had been over several times. Adrien and she were working together on a semester-long project. As he ordered someone to sweep up the broken frame from his room, he stopped the teen on her way out.

“That’s great,” she said after he had explained that he had gotten rid of all her pictures, “now try something small. Take her on a simple date, a walk through the park, give her flowers, write her a note, something small just to show you care.”

Gabriel gets rid of his ring first. He mails it back to Amelie as he wants nothing to do with it now. He realizes that the closet is still full of her clothes and that her toiletries still occupy space in the bathrooms throughout. They are thrown away, he can't bring himself to sort through them, even if her closet might be worth thousands of dollars, he has enough money.

Gabriel tries, he really thinks he can do it. It’s a slow morning and Nathalie yawns. Marinette’s words run through his mind once again. Something small, an idea forms in his head.