20. Chapter 20

So! In the last 4 (!) months since I last updated, I

-did a bunch of writing and editing on this and some other stuff

-got a job in Northern Canada for a month and a half

-followed a bear for at least 10 minutes while singing the Harry Potter and Star Wars theme songs because I blanked on how else to let it know I was there

-(on a related note, I think my parents are strongly considering not letting me go to Canada again since last year I followed bear tracks and this year I followed an actual bear. I maintain that considering I'm still alive, I must be doing SOMETHING right.)

-got a fall job in Michigan (yay! I like knowing what I'm doing ahead of time!)

-had a bear walk right by me while doing dishes and didn't notice until my boss started yelling (whoops)

-Got to handle probably close to a thousand birds (yippe!)

-aaand returned home, with my last flight getting delayed by nearly 3 hours.

I'm not sure yet what I'm doing for the summer (if I can get a field job vs working around the neighborhood at home), but I'll let y'all know if anything changes that would affect me having at least a semblance of a posting schedule.

Currently I have the second chunk (13 chapters) done and edited, and I'm working on the last bit (final year, which SHOULD be shorter than the first two chunks and is largely planned out). I'm going to try to work on pt. 3 enough that there won't be another gap, but again- it depends on if I can get a job in my field/how busy I'll be with that/internet access/etc.

And now- back to the story of two dorks being ridiculous!

Once Adrien and Marinette finally peeled themselves apart more than just a few minutes later, they had to have a bit of a talk about their relationship. Clearly they were both interested in dating each other, but Adrien's father hadn't budged on his position against Adrien dating while he was in London. Adrien was initially worried that Marinette might judge him for not wanting to blatantly defy his father's (ridiculous, completely stupid) wishes, but she understood that he wasn't exactly interested in losing his funding for his apartment and university. It would put a strain on Adrien and make their future finances less stable, since Adrien would have to dip into his savings from modeling.

Adrien had to hide his grin at that. Already they were talking pretty far out into the future, taking long-term effects of them dating publicly into consideration. If it were anyone but Marinette, Adrien probably would have gone running for the hills. It was pretty heavy stuff, talking about their future several years out and assuming that they would still be together and maybe even married by that point even though they had literally just started dating minutes before, but Adrien was reasonably certain that it wasn't a crazy assumption. He had known Marinette (and Ladybug) for forever, and they just clicked. They were fabulous as friends and, if the kisses and cuddling thus far were any indication, they would be fabulous as boyfriend and girlfriend.

(Adrien knew full well that quality of kissing wasn't exactly a reliable indicator of long-term relationship quality, but their friendship had practically been a relationship already what with the cooking each other dinner, helping each other with other housework, hanging out together all the time, and sharing a bed at night. He might have denied it for all he was worth before they started dating, but looking back there was no way to deny the fact that they had pretty much been dating already for most of the year.)

"I think dating in secret would be best," Marinette said, passing Adrien another fresh cookie. "We just have to make sure that Nathalie and your father don't find out until you've finished school."

Adrien couldn't help but pout just a bit, even though it wasn't a bad idea. He had always dreamed of dates with Ladybug where they would go wandering around the city while holding hands and seeing all of the sights before going to a movie or a play and kissing in the back of the theater. He was a romantic at heart, and not being able to treat his Lady like the princess she was crushing. But Marinette had a point. Being obvious about their dating would just get them press attention, which in turn would catch Nathalie's attention, and then she would tell Mr. Agreste and Adrien would get in trouble.

Sometime Adrien just really hated being even somewhat famous. It made his life much more difficult. Most people would simply have to not tell anyone at home if they were "dating secretly" while living in another country, but no, not him. He had to keep it completely out of public view.

Ugh.

"How secret do you think we have to be?" Marinette asked, dragging Adrien out of his mental bemoaning of the loss of romantic candlelight dates out with his Lady. "Like, just out of the journalists' eyes? Or should we be even more careful?"

Adrien let out a long sigh as he thought about it. He wanted to be able to only do the bare minimum to keep it secret, but that probably (unfortunately) wouldn't be sufficient, not when they would have to keep the secret for two long years. "Well, I think we should probably be careful around my classmates and your coworkers, since we don't know all of them terribly well. And- oh, gosh. If we told Alya and Nino they would probably get excited and post it online before we even finished talking, wouldn't they?"

They totally would, Adrien couldn't even lie to himself about it no matter how much he wanted to. Based on how hell-bent Alya and Nino had been to push the two of them together the previous year, they would totally post the news online just to gloat and then it would spread from there. Even if they thought they were being careful, the news would be bound to get to someone who wasn't so careful about who they told and then his father would hear and get mad and then there went his funding.

Marinette groaned. "Yeah, they would. And so would my parents, because they, uh." She turned a lovely shade of pink. "They've been hoping that we would get together since we were fourteen. And they haven't exactly ever been subtle about it, either. I wouldn't put it past them to gossip with Nino and Alya."

"Sooo... tell no one for a bit?" Adrien suggested. He wasn't thrilled about that, honestly. He had always known that Marinette and her parents were fairly close, so he would have thought that she would tell them almost everything. Not telling them about their new relationship seemed like a bit of a bad sign, even if he knew the reasoning behind it. "...and what do you mean, they weren't subtle? I never thought they were pushing us together. They always seemed perfectly friendly to me whenever I came over."

Marinette groaned, shaking her head. "Of course you didn't notice, kitty." She reached over to ruffle his hair. It had gotten into quite a mess since he got home, mostly from her running her hands through it while they were kissing, but Adrien wasn't about to care. "I love you and all, Adrien, but you sure can be oblivious sometimes."

He just stuck his tongue out at her.

"I just want to start out being cautious," Marinette added quietly after a moment, catching sight of Adrien's slightly downcast expression despite his attempts to hide it. "Normally I would run and tell Alya and my parents right away, but I don't want to cause trouble between you and your father. I'll just squeal about it with Tikki for the time being."

Adrien couldn't help but smile at that. "Squeal about it, hmm? What would your past self think if she heard that you were squealing over Chat Noir?"

Smiling, Marinette tapped Adrien's chin lightly. "No teasing, minou. You know perfectly well that you'll probably squeal about it too."

Adrien couldn't really argue about that, not that he wanted to. He had mostly just wanted to get reassurance from Marinette that she was actually as eager to date him as he was to date her.

"I just wish I could take you out on proper dates," Adrien sighed in lieu of actually responding. "I had ideas, you know. I mean, we're probably a little too old to really enjoy some of the ideas that I came up with in collège, but most of them would have been fun still."

Marinette narrowed her eyes at him playfully. "Too old? You say that like we're ancient, buddy."

"No, no, that's not what I meant!" Adrien protested, trying not to laugh at the look on Marinette's face. "I just mean that some of my ideas... well, it's obvious that a collège student came up with them. They're kind of cheesy, and not in a good way."

"Cheese? Where? I want cheese!"

"Oh no, we awoke the beast," Adrien muttered as Plagg, stirred by the mere mention of cheese, woke up and immediately came to investigate. He shared an exasperated look with Marinette, but even Plagg and his obsession with stinky cheese couldn't spoil his mood right now. "So...that's okay, then? If we keep the relationship secret for now?"

"Definitely," Marinette assured him, a smile of her own spreading over her face as she leaned forward to kiss him again. "That is definitely okay with me."

Being in a relationship with Adrien, Marinette soon found, really wasn't a whole lot different than just being friends- or, well, at least not a whole lot different than their version of being just friends with each other. There was a bit more cuddling, maybe, and a whole lot more kissing, obviously, and Marinette often slept over at Adrien's apartment now even when her next-door neighbor was completely quiet, but they had already been spending a ton of time together before and with the need for secrecy, they couldn't go out on proper dates.

And the other thing that didn't change was the teasing from Marinette's coworkers. They had teased her endlessly about her just a friend Adrien before the start of the summer, and of course they had no reason to stop now. Still, it never got to the point where she or Adrien were uncomfortable around them, which was nice.

Now in her second year at Rosalie Fashions, Marinette found herself settling into the work more. Most of the people who had been on her team the previous year were still there and they knew each other well, and she was good friends with most of them. It meant that they worked together more smoothly, and Marinette was more willing to just drop in on the others to collaborate on a piece or to ask for advice. She knew what Madam Rosalie would look for in a design, and what pitfalls she had to be sure to avoid. More and more of her designs were sent back with fewer changes suggested, and more went on to production and even runway.

"I'm glad you decided to stay for a second year," Abbey told Marinette as they ate lunch together several weeks into the summer. The older girl had been promoted from intern to junior designer after working for Madam Rosalie for two years, and Marinette agreed that it was a well-deserved promotion. She was just glad that her friend had stayed on her same design team even with her new title. "It's a good opportunity to learn more- but I gotta ask, did you decide to extend your time because you thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more and a good thing on your resume, or because a certain blond model is going to be here for two more years?"

Marinette did her best not to blush, but Abbey's smirk told her that she hadn't been entirely successful. "Well, I can't deny that having Adrien in the city made me consider the extension more seriously. I was sure that I was going to be too homesick with none of my friends in London to stay more than one year, but now Adrien is here and I have all of you guys as friends, too." Marinette shrugged, hoping that she wasn't too red. "So I don't have to worry about being homesick at all."

"Oh, are we bugging Marinette about her boyfriend again?" Emily asked as she entered the break room. "He's keeping her from being homesick, is that it?"

Abbey laughed while Marinette tried not to act any differently than she had in the face of the same teasing before the start of the summer. The other girls had teased her about Adrien pretty much since their wedding photoshoot and called him either her husband or her boyfriend ever since. She couldn't react any differently than she normally did or that would tip them off, so she just sighed and rolled her eyes.

The giggles trailed off soon enough as Emily sat down at the table with her lunch. Their discussion turned to different things, designs that they were working on and what they were doing over the weekend. Marinette relaxed (when the topic of conversation moved away from Adrien; just because it was normal didn't mean that she wasn't worried about messing up and saying something weird), joining in on the conversation without pause.

(That was another bonus to staying longer- now she knew more about her coworkers and could recognize names and places and stories, so she didn't have to just sit back and listen, completely lost on what was going on. Now, there was so much more of a sense of inclusion, and that feeling didn't just stop at the company doors.)

Abbey and Marinette finished up their lunches before Emily had gotten halfway through theirs. As they stood up to leave, Emily suddenly straightened. "Oh! Before you leave, I was meant to remind you- Sarah's birthday is this Thursday, so we're doing lunch out. And Mrs. Kelley is collecting for a present, if you want to give anything."

"Okay!" Marinette agreed immediately. She was pretty sure that she had some bills in her bag that she could put in to the team pot for a birthday present. "That sounds great."

"Tell Adrien he's welcome to come join us, too!" Emily added. "I haven't seen him for more than a few minutes in passing for ages. We should all get together again for dinner sometime before he has to go back to school and gets swallowed up by homework again."

Marinette grinned. Adrien would definitely appreciate the invitation. Even with all the teasing that they always had to endure from her coworkers about their "relationship", he enjoyed their company and had become at least casual friends with several of the members on her team. "I'll pass the invitation along."

Even with the need to keep their relationship a complete secret, Adrien was happy. He was dating the girl- or, rather, the woman- who he had been in love with for years, and they were completely and utterly comfortable with each other. The transition from best of friends to lovers had been nearly seamless. After being partners for so long, they could read each other like a book. It was easy enough for them to tell when the other person needed space, or needed hugs, or was just generally upset about something. Being together just came naturally to them.

Adrien was in heaven. Plagg was in mushy-flirty-grossness hell, at least according to him.

"Old married couple," Plagg grumbled every time Adrien swung by the grocery store to pick something up for Marinette on his way home from work, or when she mended his favorite jacket, or when he planned to cook her favorite meal in his apartment. Adrien thought Plagg's muttering was embarrassing, but Marinette just found it hilarious. Tikki figured that Plagg was just sore about losing his teasing material now that Adrien and Marinette were dating and unabashedly open with each other about their feelings. Now that Adrien really didn't mind (much) when Plagg called him a lovesick kitten in front of Marinette, Plagg had no easy way to rile him up.

Well, besides loudly and rudely interrupting any kissing. Tikki usually tried to keep him out of their way, but sometimes she just wasn't fast enough to catch Plagg. Adrien had quickly found that the best way to shut Plagg up was to threaten to not buy any of his favorite cheeses for a month, and the threat did work most of the time.

Adrien had thought that it would be hard to keep their dating a secret. Not kissing in public was, of course, an easy thing to avoid (most of the time, at least), as was going out on obvious dates, but the nicknames and affectionate touches that had become so automatic could be harder to avoid. He had thought that there might be some sort of obvious shift that would tip off any lingering journalists, but apparently he and Marinette had been acting as though they were dating for so long beforehand that nothing really changed there at all. Their banter was old news at this point, and while Marinette's colleagues might roll their eyes and laugh or joke about Adrien and Marinette practically being an old married couple at this point, they had been doing that ever since Adrien came to London. It wasn't anything to get worried about.

(Adrien did wonder, though, if Madam Rosalie might have noticed their slight shift in behavior towards each other. He had seen her eying him and Marinette speculatively the time he had popped in to join Marinette and the rest of her team for a birthday lunch. He had tried to keep his hands to himself, but, well. It was Marinette. He couldn't help it if his hands tended to migrate to either her shoulders or her waist when she was close by.)

Still, Adrien couldn't spend all of his time daydreaming about his relationship with Marinette. He had to respond from emails from Nathalie inquiring if he thought he could maybe make it back to Paris for one photoshoot or another for the fall line, track down the books for his fall semester courses, and stay on top of things at his job.

His job wasn't in Physics- as a first-year student, even one that was top in his class, it was a bit of a stretch to think that he might get one of the treasured internships available in the city- and it involved a lot of filing paperwork and doing spreadsheets, but the work environment tended to be nice enough, if perhaps rather boring most of the time. He didn't have the same kind of relationships with his coworkers as Marinette had with hers, but he hadn't exactly expected to, either.

At least it wasn't customer service. He had gotten all sorts of texts from Paul and a couple of his other university classmates complaining about awful customers that they had had to deal with at their jobs. With his job, the worst he had to deal with was the occasional coworker who hadn't filled out a form right who he then had to go track down to get the right information. It could be frustrating at times, sure, when the people he was trying to find didn't seem to understand what they were doing wrong on the form, but it was mostly smooth sailing.

Besides, it paid well enough, and Adrien kind of needed the money in his account so he could pay for Plagg's taste in cheeses in the future once his father was no longer supporting him. It would also be useful for gifts and dates (in the future, of course, once they actually got to have such things) with Marinette.

The main downside to the job was that Plagg never stayed put. He flew off every morning to zip around the office, leaving Adrien to do his best to ignore the sounds from the rest of the office, all the while praying that none of the crashes of papers or other things falling to the floor out in the main office were Plagg's fault.

(The scream of "Eeew! A mouse!" shortly after three one afternoon was definitely Plagg's fault, though. Adrien just buried his head in his paperwork and hoped that no one would see the "mouse" entering his office whenever it finally got hungry.)

"Are you ready to go yet?" Plagg whined later in that afternoon, popping up beside the computer monitor and startling Adrien. "I've been all through the building and it's boring."

"And you've been spotted," Adrien commented, not even sparing his kwami a glance. "And no, you know that I'm going to be here for another hour at least. I want to get this stack of papers done today."

Plagg scowled and sulked.

By the time Adrien was actually ready to go, Plagg was predictably nowhere to be found. He texted Marinette- maybe if she showed up, Tikki could drag Plagg out of whatever corner he had decided to hide in- and then dove into the next pile of papers. He could tell that the backlog was slowly getting smaller, and if Plagg was hiding and therefore also staying out of his way, then darn it Adrien was going to take advantage of the opportunity and get some more work done.

And then Marinette called.

"Hey," Adrien answered immediately, only barely swallowing back the 'love' he would normally attach to the greeting. There were still too many people in the office, and he didn't want to risk someone overhearing. Most of them didn't care about magazine gossip and wouldn't care, but it never hurt to be careful. "What's up, Mari?"

His only response was an excited shriek. Adrien tried not to laugh. "Marinette?"

The next set of squeaky excited noises contained a noise that sounded suspiciously like "Jagged Stone", and Adrien grinned. Aha. He had thought it was about time for Jagged to put out another album, and who else would he choose but Marinette? That was exciting news for her. It would be her fourth CD cover for him, and another bit of money to put away in her savings account on top of her wages.

"That's great news, Mari!" Adrien enthused, even though he still couldn't quite make out any proper words. "I can pick something up for dessert on my way home to celebrate. Just let me find Plagg and I'll be on my way."

"Great!"

Adrien let himself laugh after the line went dead. Marinette still got adorably excited sometimes, even though this was hardly her first CD cover for Jagged. He had to wonder if there was something besides the cover- had Jagged maybe asked her to design some outfits for him as well? That would be amazing- for her to get so excited.

Well, he was going to find out soon.

"If you don't show up in the next three minutes, I'm going home without you, Plagg," Adrien informed the room as he packed up. "And I won't bring any cheese tomorrow."

Unsurprisingly, there was a squeak from one corner of the room and a black blur dove into Adrien's bag moments later.

One stop at the local bakery later, and Adrien was headed back to their apartment building with a large, sweet-smelling bag in his hands. He trotted up the stairs and headed straight for Marinette's door. It opened right away, and Adrien stepped inside and immediately got an armful of excited girlfriend.

"Hello to you too, lovebug," Adrien teased, dipping his head to kiss her as he pushed the door closed behind himself. "A little excited about something, are you?"

"Just a little," Marinette said with a grin. Her eyes landed on the bag. "And- oh, did you get-?"

"I got those tarts we like so much," Adrien confirmed with a grin. "And some pain au chocolate, because they taste amazing and I figured I might as well pick some up while I was there."

Marinette grinned and took the bag from him to peer inside. "You're the best, Adrien."

"I'm impressed you could even figure out what she was saying," Tikki told him as they watched Marinette practically dance her way into the kitchen with the bag. "I was standing right next to her and I couldn't even tell, and I knew what she was excited about!"

"I heard her say something about Jagged and it was pretty easy figuring it out from there," Adrien admitted. "Was I right about it being another CD cover?"

"Yes, she got an e-mail about it." Tikki pointed to the laptop that had been left open on the table. "Marinette still needs to respond, of course, but Jagged is asking her for both a CD cover and a few more sunglasses designs to add to the line he's had. And now that she's graduated and accredited and everything, he'll be paying her more than the last time. Like, significantly more."

Adrien grinned. Marinette deserved it. She worked super-hard on everything she did, and the things she produced were absolutely amazing.

"Jagged wants some holiday-themed glasses to add to his line this time around," Marinette said as she returned from the kitchen. She was grinning, still bouncing on her toes. "And I have so many ideas for that! He wants a few more regular sunglasses too, but-"

Adrien snickered at that. "Regular?"

Marinette swatted his arm. "Non-holiday! And he and Penny had come up with some ideas there, so I do have a good starting point. I can't wait to get started!"

"She's already started," Tikki hissed in a stage whisper. "She has sketches finished already, because she started scribbling as soon as she finished reading the email."

Adrien laughed as Marinette turned pink. That sounded like Marinette, all right. Back when Marinette was in university, Adrien remembered times when their group had gotten together right after one of her classes got out, and she would be telling them about some assignment or other that she had just gotten that day, and she would already have sketches of ideas that she wanted to play with. Once she showed up with a fully sketched and colored design idea for an assignment she had only just gotten an hour earlier, complete with a list of fabric types and yardage in a neat list on the side of the paper.

"Jagged wants the holiday designs approved and in production by mid-November," Marinette told Adrien as he went over to peer at her sketches. In typical Marinette fashion, they were whimsical and fun. Next to a pair of snowmen sunglasses, Marinette had scribbled out glitter?.

Adrien was absolutely positive that Jagged would love every last one of Marinette's glasses designs.

"Once she sends confirmation, Penny will send her some of the demo tracks for Jagged's new album to inspire her for the cover," Tikki told Adrien. She sent Marinette a look. "Of course, she can't send anything if Marinette doesn't respond or forgets to tell Penny her new address!"

"I wanted to get my ideas for the sunglasses down while I was inspired!" Marinette protested. "I'll respond tonight, I promise!"

Adrien tried not to laugh as he made a metal note to make sure that Marinette actually sent her email. He wouldn't be surprised if she got so caught up in her designing that she completely forgot until it was too late at night for her to compose an email that made sense.

His laugh burst out of him when the kitchen timer went off loudly and Marinette let out a small curse as she dashed back towards the kitchen to pull a casserole out of the oven. It was a little darker than usual on top, and Adrien guessed that she might have intended to pull the dish out of the oven before the timer actually went off.

"No laughing," Marinette chided, depositing the dish on the stovetop and reaching over it to turn off the oven. "How was your day?"

"Less exciting than yours," Adrien shot back with a laugh. "I didn't have any famous rock stars contacting me. Plagg did decide to go exploring, though. And he got seen."

Tikki gasped and turned a glare on Plagg. Plagg, in turn, turned a glare on Adrien.

"You weren't even there! You can't prove anything!"

"We've never had any issued with rats or mice before," Adrien said pointedly. "Yet somehow, the minute you're out of my sight, someone just happens to spot one. Yeah, right."

Plagg pouted.

"Plagg," Marinette said reproachfully. "Really?"

"It's boring at his work!" Plagg complained as Adrien scooted around Marinette to wash his hands at the sink while Marinette dished up their dinner. "Nothing ever happens. All Adrien ever does is shuffle paper around and tap at the computer."

Adrien sighed. Marinette giggled at his displeased face.

"I don't see how school is any more interesting," Adrien pointed out. "Or me just hanging around at home, or photoshoots. It's not like what you can do actually changes that much."

"It does so! You go to more than one place at school, and I get to see what's going on and snoop in other people's bags. Your classmate Karen always had lovely cheese crackers in her bag last year. At the office, there's nothing interesting to see and no one brings any interesting snacks. You're all boring."

"He's impossible," Adrien grumbled as he and Marinette headed for the table. Marinette carefully set all of her papers to the side, shifting her laptop so she could sit down. "I just don't know what I can do to entertain him when I'm working. I know it would be more fun to be outside and whatnot, but that's impossible. My papers would blow away and I can't exactly bring the computer out. I wouldn't be able to see the screen."

"Marinette works outside sometimes," Tikki offered. "Sometimes Madam Rosalie has them go out and look at fashions on the street, or just try to get inspired by stuff outside. It's really nice!"

"It really helps us get new ideas," Marinette told Adrien. He didn't miss how a blank piece of paper and a pencil still rested by her right hand, ready in case she came up with any more ideas for Jagged Stone's glasses. "We see new stuff when we're out and about, and that can be inspiring. Not like sitting in an office is."

Dinner flew by, and then Adrien went out for a walk while Marinette sketched. He had asked if she wanted to join him- after all, it was a very nice day- but Marinette had insisted that she would be awful company until after she had gotten out all of her ideas for Jagged Stone's sunglasses line and that he should go out on his own.

"You aren't going to just sit there and watch her?" Plagg asked curiously as Adrien stepped outside. "I thought that was your guys' thing, just hanging all over each other all the time."

"We do not," Adrien protested. "We cuddle a lot, but we don't hang off each other. And Marinette needs her space to design so she can actually focus on having conversations later instead of spending the time trying to remember the designs she comes up with. I know how she works. We'll hang out later."

Adrien strolled for a little over an hour, then headed back to the apartment. Marinette had sketched out all of her sunglasses ideas, and now was cleaning up her favorites.

"Those are great, Mari," Adrien said as soon as he caught sight of the cleaned-up drawings. The sunglasses she had designed were completely outlandish, but Jagged Stone would love them, and so would his fans. "Definitely different than the last line you did, but it's obvious that you're the designer behind them."

"Thanks." Marinette sat back and surveyed her work, satisfied. "And I even emailed Penny back to say that I would love to do the sunglasses and CD cover, and I sent her my new address so she wouldn't mail the music demos to my parents by accident."

"I double-checked to make sure she actually sent the email and didn't just compose it and then forget to send," Tikki added with a giggle. "That's happened before."

Adrien laughed at that. "Really, Bug? You composed an email and never sent it?"

"I thought I had!" Marinette defended herself, pouting at him. "I just missed hitting the Send button and didn't realize it until later!"

"Are you cleaning all of your sketches up tonight?" Adrien asked. He really, really hoped not, but if Marinette wanted to blast through the designs, then he would understand. He would just pull out the book he was slowly working his way through and just lounge on the couch while Marinette worked.

Marinette shook her head. "No, I'm done designing for the night. Want to play some Mega Strike?"

"Sure!"

Even with Marinette's commission for Jagged Stone taking up a chunk of their evenings, Adrien thought that they were doing a good job of not letting it get between them. Marinette never let her designing take up the entire evening, and then once she finished for the night they would do something together.

"I'm glad we don't have downstairs neighbors," Adrien said with a laugh as he and Marinette tried to follow the directions on a dance video they had found one evening. "I think we would get complaints about thudding around all the time."

Marinette giggled. "You mean when you drop me?"

"That was once!"

Marinette was nearly done with the sunglasses designs by the time she received a thin manila envelope from Jagged Stone- or, more accurately, from Penny- in the mail. It contained a single CD with four demo tracks on it, and was completely unlabeled so that there would be less chance that someone would spot it, realize what it was, and run off with it to release it early to Jagged's rabid fans.

Even though the arrival of the CD meant that Marinette threw herself back into designing during their evenings, Adrien couldn't find it in himself to care. She let him flop across her lap and read while she sketched out her ideas, and then they could both listen to the demo songs from Jagged.

Yet another perk of dating Marinette, apparently. According to her, she had gotten either demo tracks or sneak previews of Jagged's new songs for every CD cover she did, with the exception of the very first one. She just hadn't told anyone when they were younger because she didn't want the information getting out; now, even though Alya and Nino had both matured enough to not go posting anything about the demos online, it was just habit to not mention that she had gotten the new songs before they were released.

Besides, the fact that Alya and Nino now knew better than to spread the music didn't mean that they wouldn't beg for sneak peeks.

"I'm just not sure about this design," Marinette sighed after another few minutes. "I really liked it at first, but it just doesn't fit the music like I thought it would. It needs to have more, I don't know, edge? I guess?"

"You'll get it," Adrien assured her. A buzz at his hip made him frown. "Mari, your phone is going off."

Marinette wriggled, pulling her phone out of her pocket. "It's Alya! Adrien, turn off the music, fast!"

Adrien lunged for the music player from his position draped across Marinette's lap. She let out a little oof at the movement, but the music turned off.

"Pretend you aren't here," Marinette hissed, and then she answered. "Hi, Alya!"

Adrien quietly wriggled back into position across her lap, and Marinette's free hand automatically drifted down to run through his hair. Adrien settled down happily and made an effort to not purr as Marinette and Alya chatted.

"Really? You did?" Marinette asked, and Adrien rolled onto his side to raise an eyebrow at her. She patted his head in way of answer. "That's great, Alya! I can't believe you found so many experts on potential historical Miraculous holders already!"

Aha. So that was what Alya was calling about. Adrien briefly considered sitting up to try to listen in to their conversation, then decided that it might be a better idea to just wait. If Alya heard anything on their end that made her think that Adrien was hanging out with Marinette, they would never hear the end of it.

"Sure, I can go get Adrien," Marinette said, making him perk up. "What? No, he's not over here right now, what makes you think that?"

Adrien hastily muffled a snicker. Marinette pinched his side and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Just give me a minute," Marinette continued, pushing Adrien off her lap and onto the floor. He snickered and flipped up onto his feet, following her as she headed back to the bathroom and knocked on that door loud enough for Alya to hear over the phone before returning to the living room. "Here he is, just let me put the phone on speaker."

"Hi, Alya!" Adrien said cheerfully as soon as Marinette held her phone out between them. "What's up?"

"Hey! So why weren't you and my girl hanging out?" Alya demanded. "Seriously? You were in different apartments?"

Marinette gave a long-suffering sigh. Adrien grinned at her and answered. "Yeah, so? She had stuff to do, and I was reading."

There was a grumble on the other end of the line.

"Alya was telling me that she's gotten some really good leads for her Miraculous research," Marinette told Adrien. "Several experts from around the world who know a lot about some of the historic figures that Alya suspects might be old Miraculous holders."

"And some of them even have artifacts for me to look at!" Alya told them excitedly. "And a couple have journal entries that they think might give something away. Like, obviously no Miraculous holder would write it down directly that that was what they were, but the details fit really well. So then if I win the contest, then I can go talk to them directly and get to look at the artifacts in person and get my own pictures of them!"

"That great, Alya!" Adrien told her, trying not to laugh. He was pretty certain that Marinette had mentioned several calls involving her diary (which did include clear mentions of her being Ladybug) and Alya or Chloe snooping. It was likely that past Miraculous holders simply edited their journals later on, once they were well known, to remove mentions of the Miraculous. "It sounds like your application is really coming along this year."

"Yeah, it's great! I've gotten a bunch of solid leads, and really good contacts, and, y'know, reasons to travel. I'm starting to get everything organized, so I know how much research I've done with each lead I have. There are some that I probably have enough on for now, and then there's leads that I haven't even looked at yet because I was spending so much time on the others. Like, there's other animal-themed superheroes that I've found signs of, and I want to look into that and see how many I can find mention of, and if they supposedly had any superhero-type powers. Mostly just myths of super-strength, or managing to survive things that they shouldn't have, because that's mostly what I've found with the old Ladybugs and Chat Noirs."

"They didn't use Lucky Charm or Cataclysm in the ancient days?" Adrien asked, feigning ignorance. Plagg and Tikki had mentioned to them that a lot of previous users had tried to keep use of their powers out of sight of others. There had been societies that weren't particularly accepting of magic- or magic users- and it was safer to stick with out-of-sight heroics. Things like Lucky Charm and Cataclysm were kept secret, and the Butterfly Miraculous was rendered practically useless since any heroes that could be made with the butterflies would then just be targeted for witchcraft or, apparently, devil possession or something similar.

"Some obviously did," Alya said, clearly eager to share her knowledge. "And more obvious use of powers correlates with cultures and time periods that were more accepting of magic. I can't believe how far-flung the Miraculous have been! They bounce back and forth between continents pretty fast, really. I'm trying to figure out how they traveled so fast, actually. Ladybug and Chat Noir were good at travelling pretty fast across the city, but Ladybug required buildings for her yo-yo-ing and Chat Noir's poling...well, it wouldn't get him across an ocean. So either they somehow had ships that didn't really make it into history, or they traveled somehow else. And I wanna figure that out."

Adrien made a mental note to ask Plagg later and, if Plagg didn't know, to ask Master Fu next time they were in Paris, because now that Alya mentioned the whole traveling issue, he was curious too.

"There's some movement that coincides with boat travel between those two countries, but not everything," Alya continued. "So they must have had some other form of transportation."

"Are you telling them about the Miraculous movement?" Nino's voice drifted faintly over the phone. "It's so weird!" he continued, voice much closer. "I've mapped out the time periods and locations that Ladybug and Chat Noir gave Alya, and some of them happen so close together time-wise and yet so far apart physically it's unbelievable. Alya hasn't confirmed all of them yet and that would be important for, like, scholars in the future, because right now she's just going off Ladybug and Chat Noir's word, but- it's just cool, that's all."

Adrien exchanged a smile with Marinette. Nino definitely sounded on board with the whole research thing again. That was good to hear, especially after how frustrated he had been after discovering the truth behind Alya's research.

"I'm hoping she can at least find some sort of confirmation for most of the historical superheroes," Nino added. "Just so there aren't those gaps, and so she has more of a confirmation than just 'oh a superhero told me this'."

"Two superheroes," Alya corrected.

"Maybe you'll find something with one of your sources," Marinette suggested. "Like, they'll have some idea about the travel, or maybe they've heard other stories that are hard to find online. I know you've talked before about having to have the perfect keywords to find what you wanted for this sort of research, and maybe they'll have some new ideas."

"Yeah, I'll ask! Maybe reach out to some historians in those areas and ask them about the time periods Ladybug and Chat Noir gave me and give them some hints of what to look for. That's a really good idea. They'll be more familiar with the history there!" Alya sounded even more excited than she had at the start of the conversation. "It doesn't hurt to check."

There was a snort from Nino. "Yeah, but maybe wait until you've caught up with your assignments at work again. You won't be able to enter the contest if you're on probation there."

"I'm not behind!" Alya protested. "...but okay, maybe I should stop doing research while I'm at work."

Adrien and Marinette just groaned in unison at her.

A/N: aaaah, what a lovely overreaction to having to keep a secret. I wonder how much of their paranoia regarding secret-keeping is influenced by how they had to keep their identities as Ladybug and Chat Noir secret from absolutely everyone?

(answer: all of it. They're being ridiculous and I love them for it. But they probably do have a point about Alya and Marinette's parents not being able to keep a secret.)

I'm just going to say now that personally, I'm not thrilled with my pacing (or lack thereof) for this second chunk, but hopefully that's just because I've been staring at it for so long. Either way, there's plenty of Marinette and Adrien being lovey-dovy dorks, which is what everyone came for, right?