MariChat: Soul Link (SoulMates AU)

Returned To Reality

A few days had passed since Adrien had been able to turn Marinette back into her normal self. It had essentially become a challenge for Adrien as to what he was going to do next to convey just how much he cared for the amateur designer. He'd said it before, but he hadn't even come close to being able to share how he felt about her before she was ripped away from him by an unseen force. In that vein, he had really gone the extra mile to showing Marinette he cared.

One of the list of things he had done for her was taking her to see a movie. It wasn't a massively extravagant thing, but it didn't exactly have to be. It was a series of small things. He intended to ask her something a hell of a lot more ground-breaking a bit later on.

Small things like walking her to school whenever he could manage to slip away from Gorilla before he was forced into that limousine his father always insisted on. Walking her back, whenever he could get away with it, which he'd done his best to clear up with his father. He'd managed to secure the right to do that at least two times a week - It wasn't as much as he would have liked, but it was something.

He went that extra bit further by doing the smallest things no one would expect or ask of him. When the colder days started to come into the city, he kept a set of heat packs on him, offering her one if she seemed to be getting cold. He never used them himself, instead focusing on making sure that she was comfortable.

Their newfound closeness hadn't gone unnoticed by the people in their class, Alya being the first to immediately question what the heck was going on. After days of her downright disgust and distrust of Adrien, to now turn around and find out how close they were now, she was starting to suspect her friend of being seriously schizophrenic. Although this was another one of her normal over the top assumptions, the two of them could see where she was coming from on this one, and had done their best to calm her mind. It hadn't been an easy task to do, but they had managed it somehow. The beat they could come up with was it being a belated April's fool's joke. Either she was seriously a lot less intelligent than expected, (Very, very, very unlikely), or she was just deciding not to press them for answers, at least not just yet, but it seemed to work. And after that, Alya had been squealing so much she threatened to shatter all the glass windows. Nino had noticed next, and then it was like a set of dominoes as to who noticed next, though they all tried to keep it from Chloe... It hadn't worked so well on that front though. But when she started throwing her usual abuse at the blue haired girl, although she was more than capable of deflecting it herself, Adrien had defended her wholeheartedly.

It was starting to make Marinette feel guilty.

Especially after everything she had done to him.

She hadn't even gotten the chance to apologize yet. He'd told her time and time again that there wasn't a reason for her to, that he knew it wasn't her fault, but that didn't do anything to calm Marinette's conscious. She was Ladybug. She had to take responsibility when she messed up.

And boy, had she messed up.

The media had worked itself into an absolute frenzy following the fight Ladybug and Chat Noir had had. Headlines and stories had been coming out, days after the actual fight, with heavily over-exaggerated and wordy reports about the death of the city duo, willfully blind to the fact that they had been seen together again by various sources claiming they hadn't been trying to kill each other days later. It had sparked the birth of a nasty set of rumors surrounding them.

How couldn't Adrien blame her for this? It was seriously beyond her. How couldn't he blame her? It was her fault, after all.

"Hey, Marinette, you alright?" He asked, nudging her with his elbow lightly.

The two of them were taking the long way around to Marinette's house, crossing The Seine when Adrien asked her to snap out of her daydream.

"I - I'm Marinette!" She yelled out loud, suddenly snapping back into reality.