Love by Design - Adrienette

Photoshoot

"Come on Marinette, just leave it! You can't go back there now." Mari's best friend Alya was pulling her away by the arm, trying to get her out of sight.

"But..." Mari kept glancing back at her drawing pad, full of all her fashion designs. It was lying on the ground between two trailers parked at the edge of a grassy expanse in the park. Both trailers bore in thick lettering "Agreste", along with the unsmiling face of the company's owner, Gabriel.

"You were the one who wanted to sneak in and watch Adrien during the shoot," Alya chided her friend, now a safe distance away. "You brought that book, and you dropped it. Now you have to leave it behind." The brunette blogger smirked, "Unless you want to go and explain to Adrien that you were following him?"

Marinette seemed to be considering her friend's words - until the door to one of the trailers swung open. Gabriel Agreste exited, scowling as deeply as ever. Behind him trailed Adrien, his cheerful personality that he used at school deflated, simply trying to be a good son and please his father.

Marinette recoiled, her blue eyes wide, fingers curling almost claw-like in front of her mouth, and one foot nervously poised in the air. "No thank you!" she squeaked. With that, the friends scurried off and didn't witness what happened next.

Gabriel scowled around at his surroundings, his eyes coming to rest on the little pink book a few feet from him. "Huh?" he stooped down to pick up the booklet. "What is this?"

Adrien's features contorted into a variety of scowl too, but unlike his father's, his radiated confusion rather than hostility. 'Why is that thing familiar to me?' his face seemed to read.

Gabriel began flipping through the book, and his face was graced by a rare smile. "Excellent! Excellent! I must speak with the designer at once!" He climbed the steps of the other trailer and rapped his knuckles against the door.

"Yes?... Oh! Mr. Agreste! Come in! To what do I owe the honor?"

"I found this in the dirt outside. You should really take better care of it; these designs are phenomenal!"

"Huh? That isn't mine. My sketch book is here on the table, see?"

"So it is, so it is. Then who in the world drew these?"

"I don't know sir, may I see it? ... Ah! Here's a name: Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng? All right. Thank you. I'll see you." Gabriel stepped out of the trailer and came back to his waiting son. "Marinette Dupain-Cheng," he repeated under his breath.

"Huh? What about Marinette?" a puzzled Adrien asked his father. Gabriel looked at his son quizzically. He had asked not 'Who is Marinette?' but 'What about Marinette?'

"You know her?"

"Yes. She's in my class. You've met her too, Father. She's the one that designed that bowler hat I was allergic to. Her parents run the Dupain-Cheng bakery."

"Yes. Yes." He was starting to vaguely remember the girl. So the brilliance of that hat design was no fluke. "Chloe had good taste in copying that girl's design, it was genius. Too bad for your allergy or I would have definitely used it. Now run along and find that photographer I hired; he should be set up for the next set by now."

With Adrien reluctantly following his orders, Gabriel went off to find his assistant, Nathalie. When he found her - bustling about with a clipboard, looking busy, bossing his other employees - he proceeded to tell her his plans. "I saw the fashion designs of one of Adrien's classmates today. Quite impressive really. I imagine it would be excellent for business if only I could get a girl like that as my daughter-in-law."

'Really sir. Don't you think your son is a little young for that sort of commitment? Besides, that's not a decision you get to make for him!' "Yes sir. Very good sir."

A/N - Thank You so much for reading the first chapter of my Adrienette fan-fiction! I'm fairly new to the fandom, but I got quite into it quite fast. I'd really appreciate if you left a comment telling me what were your favorite and least favorite parts of the chapter, what else did it make you think of, anything please! Also, I have a reader input question for later in the story. I am personally neutral to the concept of shipping Nino with Alya, so I try to write them in a way where the reader can imagine them together if so desired, but doesn't have to otherwise. However, if I take this story into the characters' adulthood, it will become harder to keep them neutral, so I'm leaving it up to the readers. Do you want them to be together?