48 Hours To Make You Love Me

The Second Hour

Prompt: Family

Adrien tightened his hold on Marinette once more, guiding her over the snow and ice, and towards the warmth of the bakery. He had no idea what possessed her to wear such silly shoes. Yes, she looked great in heels but she couldn't even walk properly. With Marinette's lack of stability, you'd have thought she'd want to be as rock solid as possible, not flash around something only suitable for the catwalk.

He was trying hard not to show it, but he was really disappointed they'd missed the minibus. He couldn't blame either of them, just the new supervillain set on claiming Paris as their own. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised by this current event.

Firstly, there'd been a massive uptake on akuma's recently, whomever this new butterfly holder was, was relentless, sending out akumas at the most unfortunate of times — it seemed unhappy Christmas shoppers were the perfect hosts for strong feeling akumas. Part of Adrien was almost believing their villain knew their identities too; the timing of some akumas were just too convenient.

But also, he was with Marinette. The girl he knew had only been on time once in her entire life, and that was when he was about to go into surgery a year ago to have his appendix removed. She was there a whole five minutes before they took him down for sedation. It's just a shame he missed three of those five minutes due to her tripping and head butting him so hard he lost consciousness. He'd managed to undergo the surgery without any added aids.

"I can't believe Kim went without us," Marinette whined, each step a well positioned placement as they crunched through the muddy snow and slushy ice. "I mean, it's not like it's even my fault for a change!"

"Well?" Adrien shrugged, nodding down to her boots, once again pulling their attention to the devils work.

"Leave them out of it, Agreste."

He laughed, leading Marinette to the crosswalk and pressing the button. They stood huddled together opposite the bakery, and Adrien noticed how busy her parents were. A constant flow of traffic moved through the door as Sabine and Tom flew about serving in the most perfect of routines. Very much like himself and Marinette in battle.

He never felt an outcast with the Dupain-Chengs, he always felt himself and unjudged; completely different to his life in the mansion with his father. He loved the warmth of the Dupain-Chengs and he knew they liked having him around too. Though, he wasn't entirely sure why?

The green man signalled them to move and once again Adrien was guiding Marinette cautiously across the road and onto the opposite side to the collège finally taking them both into the boulangerie.

They pushed through the door, past the constant throng of traffic grabbing delicacies and taking them to the counter, Sabine working quickly to ring up the items and send the customer on their way.

The smaller Cheng lady looked up at the duo, waved, then continued with the customer at the till, before realising who she was waving at and quickly called Tom to come and take over.

"What are you two doing here?" she asked, pushing them both into the back.

Adrien reached up to rub the back of his neck in his usual uncomfortable gesture. "We may have missed the minibus," he said, looking towards Marinette before looking back to Sabine.

"Oh, you two." The older woman sighed. "Was it anything to do with the boots?"

Adrien laughed as Marinette sternly stared at her mother. "Can we all leave my boots out of it please?"

Sabine's laughter joined Adrien's, only for the older woman to stop and curiously glance over at them. It was almost like she was looking for an answer to a question. Sabine was a polite and loving woman, and Adrien knew she would never say some of her thoughts out loud because she wasn't that type, but he was quite sure she was catching onto something.