No Way Out

A Young Lady, An Apron, and A Bouquet of Flour

Multimouse was a quick and eager learner. By the time the afternoon rolled around, she had mastered the use of her Miraculous.

With her lessons done for the day, and since Tom and Sabine would have the kids for the next few hours, Adrien made a suggestion once they all detransformed. "How about if we go to Annabelle's fencing class to watch her practice? You haven't had a chance to meet her yet."

"Annabelle?" Marinette repeated. "Who's that?"

"She's my sister."

That made her blink a few times. "You have a sister? How did I not know that?"

"I don't know," he laughed softly. "I guess we had too much else to tell you. Come on, it'll be fun."

"Okay, yeah we should do that."

"We'll join you," Emilie said, walking them to the foyer. "She's getting really good now. She came in third place at her last tournament."

Marinette was impressed. "Wow, that is really good."

"The poor thing has always been in Adrien's shadow though. He fenced when he was younger too, and he was so good that he would win every tournament."

"It wasn't every tournament," he argued, embarrassed.

"Sorry. He would win almost every tournament," Emilie continued to Marinette.

"After the class," Gabriel interjected. "Would you and the kids like to come back over for dinner tonight?"

Marinette looked at Adrien, who gave an approving nod, and then answered. "Yes, Mr Agreste. That would be lovely."

Going outside, the group split up to take two separate cars. Then they started driving to the College Françoise Dupont.

Adrien and Marinette's car ride was silent for the first minute until Marinette felt compelled to say something. "I'm sorry about my stupid joke earlier. I swear, I wasn't trying to upset you."

"Joke?" he repeated, confused.

"You know, when I asked you if you wanted to play a game of cat and mouse? I didn't mean anything bad by it."

Adrien put one hand to the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I know. I uh, wasn't upset by it."

"Then why did you leave?"

He took a moment before he responded. "Honestly, I had to leave because... I felt really attracted to you all of a sudden. And I thought it was best if I excused myself from the room before I did something you weren't ready for."

Now understanding, Marinette's face blushed. "I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry, Princess. You can't help being so beautiful. I've seen you transformed plenty of times but... I don't know, I guess it's been a while. I liked the joke though. I'm kind of a sucker for puns."

"Really? Puns?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah. Especially cat puns, as you can imagine. But I'm pretty good with cooking and baking puns too."

Marinette thought for a minute. "No wonder my dad likes you so much," she murmured.

Adrien smiled, and the rest of the car ride was silent again. After parking, they met up with Gabriel and Emilie and went to the courtyard of the school.

Within thirty seconds of them being there, a blonde girl ran up to Adrien. He gave her a hug before turning toward his wife. "Marinette, I'd like to introduce you to my sister, Annabelle."

"Hi Marinette!" she exclaimed.

Marinette was taken aback. After looking at the girl, she looked up at Adrien. "She's just a kid."