Marinette is thrilled. She's spending her afternoon at the museum with Adrien, and even Manon's unexpectedly tagging along with them can't tarnish her happiness.
After all, what can go wrong for two seventeen-year-olds watching over a seven-year...
Marinette Dupain-Cheng was grateful for many things.
She was grateful she had such loving and understanding folks, who trusted her to no end, therefore easing her double life in a way she never would have dared to hope.
She was grateful for the friends she had been able to gather around her through the years, for their unwavering support through whatever crazy project she put her mind to.
At seventeen, she was grateful for the future she had laid before her, for the leisure to actually choose her career path, a luxury that didn't grace all of her classmates.
And these days, she was grateful that her best friend Alya was dating Nino Lahiffe. Because, wherever Nino went, Adrien Agreste usually followed. And despite the two long years that had passed ever since they met, Marinette was still head over heels for the blond, that had only grown more kind and more handsome.
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At that precise moment, they were all seated at some quaint café, sipping on some fancy caffeinated drinks, cheerfully chatting about their days and their projects for the future. Somehow, Marinette seemed to be the only one to notice how unusually silent Adrien was on the matter, so she sensibly kept it to herself. But somewhere in the midst of hearing Alya gushing about the great journalism program she was about to enroll into and Nino ramble on just how much the music program in his first-choice-university was awesome, something within her snapped. She couldn't bear the kicked puppy look on her crush's face a single second longer, so she did the only logical thing and swerved the discussion on a brand new subject. "Have you guys seen the news? There's a new expo at the Louvre, about past heroes and how they served the country. Wanna check it out with me, Alya?"
Against all odds, the redhead merely shrugged, her eyes never leaving her phone. "Meh. I'm more interested in today's heroes. Like, did Chat Noir finally confess to Ladybug? It's been two years for God's sake! Surely she would have realized by now how much he loves her and is devoted to her heart and soul, wouldn't she?"
If anyone found odd the way both Marinette and Adrien choked on air at the very same time, they didn't feel the need to bring it up.
Whether it was solely to bring the subject back on track, or out of genuine interest, Marinette couldn't say, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to care when Adrien said in a somewhat subdued voice, "If you really want to see that exhibit, Marinette, we could go together. I was planning to anyway."
"Really?" Marinette heard herself answer in an unsure voice, mentally facepalming. How lame could she get, honestly? She would probably hear an earful from Alya later on, but she really couldn't help herself. Even if she didn't dissolve in a stuttery mess anymore around her blond friend, her nerves were still skyrocketing whenever their discussion would stretch a little bit too long for her hard-maintained composure or if she was unlucky enough (lucky?) for their skins to brush in any possible way.
