48 Hours To Make You Love Me

The First Hour

Prompt: Ice

Time can change everything. It can change how you look at someone, how you trust someone, how you love someone. Time is fragile; just like relationships. One day you can be best friends, considering your future and what the next event you want to experience together is. Then there's that day where you can say one wrong thing and the solid foundations you thought you had built begin to crack and crumble, causing a subsidence in something you thought was unmovable.

But wasn't love meant to be the strongest emotion? Wasn't it meant to be the underpinning of all other emotions? Strong, unbreakable, all consuming?

Or was it the one you needed to look after the most? One to nurture and treat with the utmost respect and care?

Love.

And to love in Paris, the self proclaimed city of love, was such a tremendous and heartwarming achievement.

Love.

Such a crazy thing. It can help us grow, make us be the best we can be; it can also break us down, making us fall hard and fast with nothing underneath to cushion the blow.

Marinette knew what she needed to do; she just needed the strength to open her mouth and say it. She could talk to him about anything now; anything apart from this — that was. But life was funny, and every now and then it liked to send you into a spin.

The gang had split after lycée, each going their separate ways to live their lives unrestricted and to the maximum — everyone except for herself and Adrien. The two heroes had no choice but to stick around in Paris, the constant appearance of villain after villain making it difficult for either of them to leave. Forget being the city of love; Paris seemed to be the official hub of the criminally insane and crazy.

The Miraculous gang checked in whenever they could, making time for each other during breaks from university and if they were in Paris. Each Christmas having a week set aside just for the gang to catch up and spend time together. It had been a strange turn of events losing everyone, but it didn't matter because he was still here. Still a present and strong force in her life, the absences of everyone else just pushed them even closer together. Closer than they already were.

Winter had set over Paris; transforming its concrete jungle into one layered in snow and ice, a combination treacherous to most, but deadly to the delicate footsteps of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

"Come on, Bug, we're going to be late." Adrien's amused voice did nothing for her balance, instead sending her slipping and sliding a metre in front of him; the boy laughing and chasing after her the way he always did.

Boy? The word didn't suit him anymore. At 19 years old, Adrien Agreste was a fully fledged man. He was tall, fair and handsome and a wonderful sight to behold. His personality was just another side to the dreamboat that he was and she got to see him in ways others only ever dreamed about. A day didn't pass when she didn't realise how lucky she was.

He took a hold of her arm, and, with it, led Marinette down the road and in the direction of their old collège — the meeting point for the minibus and the rest of the gang.

"Come on, M'Lady, we're going to be late if we don't hurry." Adrien couldn't stop himself from the small chuckle leaving his lips, Marinette clinging onto him like Bambi on ice.

"You try wearing heeled winter boots then say that," she huffed, her partner dragging her with him down the sidewalk and through the shopper crowded streets of France's Capital city.

Christmas in Paris was amazing, and she didn't just say that because she lived there. The ambience was perfect and set up the festive spirit better than anywhere else in the world, okay so she might have been a little biassed about that, but she did love the place; even more so when she was clinging onto Adrien like an unstable newborn koala.