24. Chapter 24

Adrien paused in front of the university's tutoring center, glancing in somewhat anxiously. There weren't a ton of people inside, but the sign above the door told him that he was in the right place. He stepped forward, then paused.

Logically, he knew that asking about getting some help at the tutoring center would be a good idea. It wasn't something to be ashamed of at all, especially considering that he was learning in his second language. But Adrien had never really needed any help at school before, and so he was a little reluctant to start. It didn't help that he would no doubt be matched with a tutor several years younger than him.

Still, if he could maybe make his time at school any easier, and if he could learn the material better, then it would be worth it. And the tutoring center was paid for in his tuition already, so it wasn't as though he would be wasting his money at all if it didn't work out. Straightening his shoulders, Adrien headed in.

"How can we help you?" the woman at the desk asked as Adrien approached.

"I was wondering about tutoring and also maybe proofreading essays," Adrien told her, still somewhat unreasonably nervous. "English isn't my first language, and I'm starting to have a little trouble with keeping up."

"What field of study and what year?"

"Physics, second year."

"Out of the three-year program?"

Adrien nodded. "Yeah."

She tapped at some keys on her keyboard and then glanced at the computer screen. "Okay, so we have several third-year and fourth-year students with our tutoring center program. If I could have your student ID, then I can pull up your classes and see which tutors your schedule lines up with best."

Adrien slid his student ID across the desk, and the lady took it to type in his ID number. "Is it a specific class you're having trouble with, or just in general?"

"Um, in general, I guess?" Some of the classes were still easy at this point in the semester, but Adrien didn't know if that would hold true forever. After all, the year had just started. "And I think I just miss details in class, and then it's hard to catch back up again."

The woman flashed him a warm smile. "Yeah, that's understandable. We actually have quite a few students from other countries come through here just needing a little boost. And that's quite smart to have a student from here proofread your essays. I'll keep that in mind when picking out a tutor, too. We have some tutors from other countries that are quite good at teaching others, but they might miss some grammatical errors in essays."

"Right, right."

There were a few more taps, and then the woman consulted her screen again, sliding his ID card back to him as he did. "Okay, Adrien. I have a short list of our tutors that I think would work well for you. I'll contact them to see which of them still have spots open for ongoing, regular tutoring and who is interested in also proofreading essays and get back to you in the next day or two to let you know that I've found a tutor, and then they'll reach out to you to get the first tutoring session set up. Okay?"

Adrien nodded, thanked the woman, and then headed back out.

"That wasn't so bad," Adrien told Plagg as they headed out of the building and into the chilly, damp air outside. He shivered, adjusting his too-thin-for-the-weather sweater as he headed down the steps. "Hopefully she finds someone that I'll really get along with. It would stink if I got stuck with a fan somehow."

Plagg sniggered, then looked somewhat more serious. "You could always ask for a change if the person doesn't work out. I mean, you might get a reputation in the tutoring center as a spoiled brat, but-"

"Oh, cut it out."

"Hey, Adrien!"

Adrien automatically turned towards the call, and almost immediately spotted Paul headed his way. He waited for his friend to catch up, stepping out of the way of a few other students headed for class.

"I thought you normally had headed back to your apartment by now," Paul said as soon as he had drawn near. "Did you have a meeting with a professor or something?"

"I dropped in at the tutoring center to see if they had anyone who could help me stay on top of classes this year," Adrien said, trying not to wince at the way Paul's eyebrows shot up in clear surprise. "Some of the technical terms aren't sticking right, and with the way some of the profs talk so quickly, I'm missing words because I can't translate that fast. So I thought it might help to have someone to explain things to me a little more slowly so I don't have to try to teach myself."

Paul's surprise had died away quickly. "Oh, that makes sense. Work smarter, not harder. I was just surprised for a minute, because you've never seemed like the kind of person to need tutoring, but yeah, trying to listen and understand and translate all at once? Oof."

"Yeah, it's not been a whole lot of fun. I don't think I'll need a ton of help, though." Adrien was pretty certain that he just needed things slowed down, and the sentences or concepts that he didn't fully understand explained again but more slowly. It wasn't that he was having trouble grasping the concepts, just that he wasn't getting all of the information he needed to understand them right away. "And the tutor I get paired with will read over my essays, too, so I don't have to do so many rounds of edits to try to catch any mistakes with my grammar. That was my biggest weak point last year, I think. There was always just one thing that I passed over and didn't fix."

"Oh, that's smart," Paul said immediately. "Yeah, I can't even imagine trying to take our classes in a language that wasn't my first one. And I would offer to proofread, but I didn't ever get the best marks ever in writing and grammar. You're probably better at it than I am."

Adrien just shrugged at that.

"So, are you off to your apartment now?" Paul asked as they headed down the sidewalk. Then he grinned and elbowed Adrien. "Or perhaps off to a certain fashion studio to visit a certain designer?"

Adrien just shook his head. "No, I'll be hanging around campus. I have a meeting with a professor later to discuss my paper topic for the semester, so I have to wait until her office hours start." He shivered again as a breeze blew across the campus. "I just have to find somewhere warm to settle down and study. I definitely didn't expect this kind of weather when I got dressed this morning."

Paul just cackled at him, completely unsympathetic. "Y'know, there's this thing called a weather report. I find them quite helpful for when I get dressed so I don't end up freezing all day."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Adrien made a face at him. "I just thought that since yesterday was so warm, today might be more of the same, and I thought the fog would burn off early on. And since I knew I would be on campus all day, I didn't want to have to carry around a heavy sweater all day."

"Dude."

"I know, I know. That backfired on me big time." Adrien picked up his pace, heading for the library before he froze. "It was a bad plan and I won't do it again."

"If you do do it again, can you at least do it on a day when we have classes together so I can laugh at you?" Paul asked, grinning at Adrien's eye-roll. "It's not as fun a day later when you're all bundled up."

Adrien sighed, shivering again as another wind gusted past. What he wouldn't give to have the lovely wooly scarf that Marinette had made for his most recent birthday with him. If nothing else, his neck would be warm. "Very funny. I think I'll be bringing sweaters with me from now on. And proper sweaters, not this kind."

They walked in silent for a few paces, then Paul spoke up again. "Hopefully we'll be in more of the same sections next semester. I swear I don't know most of the people in most of my classes, and that's no fun when there's group projects."

"We could try to coordinate class sections when we register for next semester," Adrien offered. "Other than that... I don't know how likely it'll be that we'll be in the same sections. I glanced at the courses for next semester, and it's a whole lot of smaller class sizes but a lot of sections."

Paul made a face. "Ugh, that's no fun. Yeah, maybe we can see if that'll work." He grinned. "How does all eight o'clock classes sound to you?"

Adrien just groaned.

Adrien shivered as he headed up the street towards his apartment building at the end of the day, after he had finished up his meeting with his professor. The chill that had hung in the air earlier in the day had only grown, and the fog wisping through the street had gotten thicker. His sweater had been woefully inadequate earlier, and it was practically useless now.

"Would you hurry it up already?" Plagg whined, sticking his head out of the little nest he had made in Adrien's sweater pocket. "I'm cold and wet and miserable. Paris was never this foggy!"

...he had also been stuck with a very whiny kwami all day. And between an early class and the late meeting with his professor, it had been a very long day indeed.

"We're almost home, Plagg," Adrien pointed out, tugging his sweater tighter against a gust of wind. It really didn't help much. "I can bake some Camembert for you to eat so you can warm up if you want, but only if you stay quiet until I get back to the apartment."

Oddly enough, his pocket fell utterly silent.

Grinning, Adrien's steps picked up again and he rounded the last corner to their apartment building. He was looking forward to a warm apartment and a warm meal to end the day, and then getting into a nice, warm bed with his girlfriend- assuming, of course, that Marinette wanted to stay the night. She tended to sleep over most nights now, but sometimes she would get a burst of inspiration and stay up late hammering out a design or doing a bit of sewing on a commission because she couldn't fall asleep, and then she slept in her own bed so that she wouldn't wake Adrien up.

Adrien's phone buzzed right before he reached his building, and he pulled it out. Marinette had texted him. Apparently her apartment had been chilly, so she was hanging out in his instead.

Even more reason to be cheerful. If her apartment was chilly, then she would definitely be staying over for the night. Marinette hated the cold and she loved snuggling up to him to warm up.

Trotting into the building and up the stairs didn't take long, and then Adrien was entering his apartment. The smell of stew simmering filled the room, and there on the couch sat Marinette, looking very cozy indeed dressed in one of his sweaters as she read a book.

Adrien couldn't help the way his heart skipped and something in his stomach grew warmer. Marinette hadn't ever snitched his things to wear before, and he definitely wasn't opposed to her doing it more often. She looked absolutely adorable in the overlarge sweater, and Adrien couldn't deny that he felt a bit possessive.

She had marked herself in his things. The cat in him purred.

"Looking good, Princess," Adrien greeted her, dropping his bag on the other end of the couch and immediately snuggling up to her side. She grinned up at him and leaned up to kiss him. They only broke apart when Plagg gagged loudly right behind Adrien's head. "I especially like the sweater."

Marinette laughed. "I thought you might."

"Is it nice and cozy?"

Grinning, Marinette nodded. "It is." She pulled the collar up to her nose and took a deep, dramatic breath in, letting her eyes flutter shut as she did. "And it smells amazing."

"Oh, you don't play fair." Laughing, Adrien tugged her into his lap. "And what makes it smell so good, hmm? I can't possibly think of what would make it smell good."

Marinette elbowed him lightly before laughing, resting her head against his shoulder. "Dork. You're just fishing for compliments. Don't think that I don't notice what you're doing."

Adrien just grinned and pressed another kiss to her head. What could he say; he liked compliments, especially when they were coming from his Lady.

Their snuggling hadn't gone on for long before Plagg interrupted them, complaining about wanting his promised baked Camembert. Adrien groaned and grudgingly got up to go stick a wheel of Camembert in the oven.

Sometimes he wondered what it would take to get Plagg to stay out of the way for long enough to actually have some proper time alone with Marinette. They had had a few more stay-in "dates" since their first one and normally Plagg was willing to stay out of the way for an hour or hour and a half at most. Then he would get bored and crash the date, and make rude noises if he deemed that the kissing had gotten too gross.

That really messed up the romantic vibe and kept them from going too far with each other. It was incredibly frustrating.

Tikki had tried to keep Plagg under control, but the little imp refused to stay out of the way. Adrien was kind of running out of ideas to keep him busy and elsewhere in the apartment. Food seemed to be the only surefire way to control Plagg, but the glutton could just absolutely inhale even a large plate of cheese.

"I hate the damp," Marinette said once Adrien got the cheese into the oven and headed back over to curl up with her again. "It just makes everything feel so much colder. It's fine if it's a decent temperature, I guess, but ugh."

"If it's cold, it means we can cuddle more," Adrien said, settling back down next to her. "Remember when it was too hot to during the summer?"

"Mmm-hmm. But I can't take my kitty heater with me to work," Marinette said. She cuddled into his side. "There were a lot of people going in and out today with deliveries and the building was cold. I should have brought more sweaters back from Paris. Most of the ones I have are more fashionable than functional. And I accidentally brought back and left the other sweaters I had last year when I went home in the spring."

Adrien grinned and tugged at the fabric at her elbow. "So that's why you're stealing my sweaters now?"

"It's cozy."

He could only laugh.

Soon enough, Adrien had to get off of the couch to go sit at the table and work on his homework instead. There had been more homework and more readings to do this year, and he wanted to stay on top of everything so that he would actually be able to go out and do stuff over the weekends. Sitting at the table wasn't as comfortable as curling up with Marinette on the couch, but he really wanted to get this particular problem set done before dinner.

Ten minutes in, Marinette set aside her book and headed into the kitchen to warm up some leftovers for them to eat. As she passed him, she pressed a light kiss to the top of his head.

Adrien couldn't help but smile.

Their dinner didn't take long to heat up and eat at all, and then Adrien settled back in with his homework while Marinette worked on sewing one of the commission pieces, with her sewing machine set up on the desk they had found at a rummage sale. The hum of the machine and the rustle of fabric or the snip of a scissors was (despite Marinette's concerns about it distracting him) a comfortable background noise as he worked. Sometimes Marinette would hum quietly as she sewed or cut, or mutter to herself when a seam didn't come out just right. It was comforting noise, enough to remind Adrien that he wasn't all alone but not so much that it was going to distract him.

(Unfortunately, he couldn't say the same thing about when she was pounding rivets into fabric. Even though it wasn't particularly loud and it didn't usually take more than one or two hard taps per rivet, it was distracting, in the same way that an endlessly tapping pencil was distracting and oh-so-annoying. She ended up going over to her own apartments to do those.)

"It's supposed to not be quite as damp this weekend," Marinette reported. Adrien glanced over and saw that she had abandoned the corset top she had been working on in favor of reading something on her phone. "Still cool, but sunny, at least. We should go for a walk or something."

"That sounds good," Adrien agreed. He punched a button on his calculator and scribbled down the answer under the neatly copied problem. "Where to? Just around the neighborhood again?"

Marinette shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe we can just take a bus somewhere and wander over there. We can always decide Saturday."

Adrien nodded and went back to his homework. A minute later, the sewing machine whirred back to life.

Saturday morning, Adrien discovered that he was short a book that he really, really needed for a paper that he really, really needed to get started on soon. He could check it out from the library on campus, but that meant that he would have to go over there first before he and Marinette could go on their walk.

"Or we could just walk over there," Marinette pointed out. "There's a couple wooded areas over on your campus, aren't there? And you've seen where I work, so can I see where you study? I've never gotten a proper tour of your campus."

"Oh, sure," Adrien said, surprised. He had never considered his uni campus to be an interesting enough place to go just for a walk, but he supposes that it makes sense that Marinette might be curious. "I've never really explored that neighborhood, either. I've only really been on campus. It could be interesting to go over there." He glanced at Marinette's overlarge t-shirt and shorts that she had been sleeping in. "Are you planning on going out like that?"

Marinette rolled her eyes at him and rolled up on her toes to kiss him. "Of course not, you dork. Give me fifteen minutes to get ready, okay?"

Adrien nodded, and Marinette had vanished back into his bedroom. It wasn't long before she emerged, dressed in warm leggings and Adrien's sweater. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and she looked absolutely adorable.

Adrien was going to have the absolute hardest time not hugging her when they were on their walk. More than anything, he wanted to curl up with her on the couch with a blanket and a movie. But he had to be responsible and get that book, and then they would have to act like just friends for an hour or two while they toured the campus and strolled around the neighborhood.

Well, when they got back, then Adrien was going to insist on a good old-fashioned cuddle session. Marinette was just too cute dressed like that.

Unaware of what kind of effect she was having on him, Marinette beamed up at him. "Ready to go? Do you have whatever you'll need to check out the book?"

"I'm ready," Adrien told her. He held up his bag with his school ID in it. "After you, My Lady."

Partway to campus, Adrien was starting to wonder if it maybe wasn't a great idea for Marinette to be out and about while wearing his sweater. No matter how adorable she looked in it and no matter how pleased he was about her wearing things out around town (the cat in him purred at the little sign to the world that she was his), it was obvious that the sweater was too large to be hers. It was clearly a man's sweater, and pictures of her wearing it could easily turn into tabloid fodder, and-

Adrien decided that today, he wasn't going to care. He didn't want to live his life in complete fear, worrying about every little action that could be picked apart by the press. His father would probably have an aneurysm if he saw any tabloid photos of the two of them, but Nathalie could deal with that.

It only took Adrien fifteen minutes to track down the book he wanted, and then he trotted downstairs to check it out at the front desk. Minutes later, he and Marinette were wandering across campus. He itched to reach out and link his arm through hers, or maybe drape his arm around her shoulder, but he couldn't.

Boo hiss.

As they wandered, Adrien pointed out which buildings he had classes in and which ones had food places in them or had good study areas. Marinette listened and nodded along, asking questions about the campus as they went. Adrien couldn't help but smile as he answered one of her questions about how he managed to get from one lecture to another when the classrooms were across campus from each other. After so many years of being in a home with people who didn't even bother to ask how his day had gone (or who asked but then didn't listen), it was absolutely amazing to be in a relationship with someone who cared so much about how him.

"I'm glad we came out," Marinette said as they slowly wandered off campus and into the surrounding neighborhood. "It's nice out, really. And it's not that chilly."

"Yeah, because you stole my sweater," Adrien teased. "Otherwise I suspect that a certain little bug would be complaining about the cold."

Marinette stuck her tongue out at him. Adrien smirked and leaned in.

"You know," he started with a purr. "If we were at home and you did that, a cat would have caught your tongue with his own."

"And since we're out in public?" Marinette teased. "Kitty can't catch my tongue now."

"I'll have to make up for it when we get home," Adrien promised, grinning. He wriggled his eyebrows at her, and Marinette giggled. He opened his mouth to say something else- after all, they were in public and Plagg couldn't interrupt his flirting- but then someone else entirely interrupted him.

"Hey, Adrien!"

Adrien turned around to see Paul hurrying towards them, a grin on his face and a younger girl following along behind him. The girl's eyes were wide as she stared at Adrien, and it didn't take a genius to realize that it was Paul's younger sister, the one who had once asked Paul if he could introduce the two of them and if Adrien was available to date.

Great.

"I wasn't expecting to run into you today," Paul told Adrien, grinning and clapping a hand on his shoulder. "And it's nice to see you too, Marinette. I thought that you two lived in a different neighborhood."

"We were going over to campus because I needed to pick up a book for the Thermodynamics paper," Adrien told him. "And then Marinette and I wanted to go on a walk, and we figured that over here was as good of a place as any other to do that."

Paul groaned. "Oh, don't remind me about the Thermodynamics paper," he grumbled. "I've been putting it off because I was focusing on the Professional Skills paper. Have you worked on that one yet?"

"I've gotten a bit of the research out of the way," Adrien told him. "I still have to get more research done and organize it and get stuff all typed up, but it's not too bad. And it's not due for ages anyway."

"Oh, you're a show-off," Paul grumbled. "He did this all of last year," he told his sister, who did not appear to be listening as she continued gaping at Adrien. "Started work on stuff the second it was assigned, and then when the rest of us were panicking and scrambling to try to get everything done, he was just sitting there, cool as a cucumber."

"Says the morning person who gloats at me whenever we have early classes."

"He just drapes himself in his chair like the model he is and watches as everyone else freaks out," Paul continued, ignoring Adrien's comment. "And mentions that 'oh, yeah, I just have the seventh round of editing left to do', like that's normal or something."

"I'm writing the papers in my second language," Adrien reminded him. "My second language out of three, by the way. There's a lot of mistakes the first couple times through. We literally just talked about this a couple days ago."

Paul sighed. "Oh, I suppose."

"I can't believe I finally get to meet you!" Paul's sister squealed, finally snapping out of her daze and pushing past her brother to stand in front of Adrien. He got the sudden urge to hide behind Marinette and hastily batted it back down as impolite. "I've heard about you from Paul and I've read all about you in the magazines and I have your modeling shots all around my room and you're even more handsome in person-"

Adrien took a cautious step back when she stepped closer, still prattling on. He sent an uncomfortable look at Marinette and then at Paul, hoping that Paul would pull his sister away.

Instead, Paul was smirking as he glanced back and forth between Adrien and Marinette. Adrien puzzled over that for a moment- it was hardly uncommon for Paul to see the two of them together, so why was he so smug?- and then it clicked.

Right. Marinette was dressed in his sweater- and Adrien had just worn that sweater to class on Thursday. It had been too warm in the building and he had taken it off partway through class, but apparently Paul recognized it and was amused about it.

Adrien suspected that he would be hearing about this in class on Monday.

"-and hold on, let me quick take a selfie with you, all of my friends will be so jealous, and- oh! I need an autograph- or two! Paul, do you have a pen? And let me take my sweater off so he can autograph my-"

Adrien pushed the phone the girl was wielding away from his face as gently as possible, stepping back a few more paces to put more space between himself and Paul's sister. Marinette stepped ever-so-slightly in front of him, and Paul pulled his sister back, tugging her sweater back down as he did so.

"Bella, cut that out," Paul hissed, now looking thoroughly embarrassed by his sister's behavior. "I'm telling Mom, I swear."

"Oh, come on!" Bella protested, twisting away from him. "Fine, so no autographs on my body, then! But at least let me-"

"No." Paul pulled her back again. "Stop harassing my friend and grow up. Sorry about her," he told Adrien and Marinette. "Run while you can. I'll see you on Monday?"

"Sounds good," Adrien told him, already backing up. "See you then! Bye, Paul!"

With that, Adrien and Marinette fled back down the sidewalk. They didn't stop until they were almost back to campus.

"I didn't expect Paul's sister to be such a complete fangirl," Adrien panted as they slowed down. A few stray students wandering across campus gave them a strange look, but they just ignored it. "I mean, from what he told me about her it seemed like maybe she wasn't the most level-headed person ever, but I didn't- I didn't expect her to-"

"To try to strip so she could get an autograph somewhere inappropriate?" Marinette suggested. Adrien nodded frantically.

"Yeah. That."

"Want to go home now before we accidentally run into them again?" Marinette suggested.

"Yes. Please."

"I am so sorry," was the first thing Paul said Monday morning as he slid onto the bench next to Adrien. "So sorry. If I had known Bella was going to act like that, I would have gone a different direction instead of going down that street to say hi. I told our mom about that, and Bella's been grounded for an entire month."

"I know you had said that she was a fan, but I wasn't expecting that," Adrien said with a small laugh. Now that he was no longer being lunged at by an overzealous fan, the whole thing seemed a bit funny. He paused, then added, "Uh, she has other celebrity crushes too, right? Please tell me that she isn't just hyperfixated on me."

Paul shrugged slightly as he pulled out his books. "I mean, kind of? She and her friends crush on a lot of celebs, but in her mind you're actually within reach. Ignoring the giant age difference and complete lack of interest on your part, of course."

"Of course."

"Speaking of interest..." Paul leaned forward, and his smirk was back. "I happened to notice that Marinette was wearing a sweater on Saturday that definitely wasn't hers. In fact, I seem to remember you wearing that particular sweater last week, after you finally figured out what the weather was like."

Adrien couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, she stole it from me because all of her sweaters are more for fashion than function and not particularly warm because she brought the heavy ones back to Paris last year. We've asked our friends in Paris if they could bring a few more of her sweaters with them when they come to visit next weekend."

"And she managed to steal it how?" Paul probed, still grinning. "Was she sleeping over or something?"

Marinette had been sleeping over, but that hadn't been when she snatched his sweater for the first time. Besides, Paul didn't need to know the exact details.

"Nah, she has a key to my apartment and hangs out there whenever her neighbor down the hall is playing music too loud," Adrien told him. It was true, mostly. The neighbor hadn't been blaring music on that particular occasion, but it was the reason why Marinette had gotten the key in the first place. "And she was cold, so she found my sweater and claimed it for her own use."

"And kept it."

"And kept it," Adrien agreed. He hadn't argued with Marinette about it, mostly because she looked adorable when drowning in the overly large sweater. "Well, actually I took it back for a day, and then she stole it again. I don't mind. I have other sweaters that I can wear."

Paul just let out an exasperated breath, shaking his head. "You two, really. No wonder the tabloids are tearing their hair out over you guys."

Adrien played stupid. "What do you mean?"

Paul just let out a long-suffering groan and didn't answer.

Friday afternoon found Adrien and Marinette standing in Adrien's apartment, staring around in horrified realization. After a full week of knowing that Alya and Nino were going to be visiting, it had only now, two hours before their friends were meant to come in and they were going to meet them at the train station, occurred to them that it looked like they were living together. Marinette's sewing station (complete with desk, sewing machine, basket of fabric, two borrowed mannequins, and scraps all over) sat in the living room, and several of her fashion magazines were scattered around the room. Adrien's room was a mix of her clothes and his, and if either of their prying friends happened to glance in the laundry hamper (or in the closet, or the dresser drawers), they would definitely notice that Marinette's clothes were in there, too.

"If it weren't for the fact that they would definitely let it leak on accident, I'd just say to screw it and tell them that we're dating," Adrien said, running a hand through his hair as he surveyed the room. "But I know that Alya can't keep a secret like that."

"Not when she's been trying to get us together for forever," Marinette agreed. She huffed out a breath and rested her head on Adrien's shoulder. "Well, I suppose one of us could stay back to keep cleaning while the other person gets Alya and Nino. We could say the other person was studying or sewing, depending on who stays back. And I suppose we should start moving stuff right now."

She had a point. Adrien grabbed the closest fashion magazine, gathering them up and sticking them in Marinette's sewing bag. Marinette unplugged her sewing machine and gathered it and all of the cords up. Tikki flew alongside her, popping doors open so Marinette could get the machine across the hall. After having Plagg check to make sure the coast was clear (after all, it wouldn't do to have the neighbors see and then ask why they had been moving things from Adrien's apartment to Marinette's while Alya and Nino were present), Adrien followed her with one of the mannequins that Madam Rosalie had loaned her. By the time he had gotten that set up across the hall, Marinette was busy folding and packing up all of the fabric that she had had sitting in a heap in the corner. Adrien picked up the second mannequin and moved it, and then they both worked together to pick up the desk and haul it across the hall.

Adrien was already sweaty and they hadn't even gotten the entire living room cleaned up yet.

"I can't believe we didn't remember this earlier," Marinette grumbled as she tried and failed to pick the entire stack of fabric plus several finished pieces up at once. "God, imagine what Alya and Nino would have said if they came in and things looked like this."

"It would have been cat out of the bag for sure," Adrien agreed, grinning and ducking when a pillow flew at his head. "Or maybe we could have said that we just hang out together over here a lot and that was why all of your sewing stuff was over here. After all, we did that before we started dating." Adrien grinned and wriggled his eyebrows at Marinette. "Or, rather, before we realized that we were basically dating already."

He ducked another pillow.

"It might have been hard to explain the stuff in the bedroom, though," Marinette said. Pile of fabric finally gathered up, she straightened. "And if my stuff is entirely over in my apartment, then it'll look like we don't spend all of our time together and Alya and Nino are less likely to be suspicious."

"Good point."

Fifteen minutes later, the living room looked like a hurricane had gone through it, but all of Marinette's things there had been moved. Adrien rushed around with their vacuum cleaner, trying to get up all of the fuzz that had come off of the fabric when Marinette cut out her patterns. Marinette carried her clothes from his room back across the hall to her own room, then dove into their laundry baskets to fish out her own things.

"Do you have any food in your kitchen?" Adrien asked, sticking his head around the corner. "They might be suspicious if you don't have anything over there."

Marinette groaned. Adrien hastily headed back to the kitchen to gather up the bare minimum of food Marinette would be expected to have. Nino and Alya already knew that they had dinner together most nights, so Marinette wouldn't need to have a ton of food over in her apartment, but she should have stuff for breakfast and lunch at the very least.

"It's time to go pick them up," Marinette said, startling Adrien as he tucked a loaf of bread away on her counter. "Do you want to do that, or should I?"

"I can," Adrien told her. He glanced around her apartment. "Your sewing area looks kind of rushed right now. Why don't you make sure everything over here looks natural while I get Alya and Nino?"

Marinette nodded and pressed a kiss to his cheek as he headed out. Adrien stopped to kiss her properly for a minute (after all, they wouldn't be able to get away with it once their friends arrived), then headed out to the bus stop. He couldn't help but worry about what they might have forgotten.

Marinette had gotten so integrated in his apartment. Even with the living room and bedroom sorted back out, what had they forgotten? What if there were things that were clearly Marinette's that had gotten under the couch or something? Really, they should have realized that they would have to separate their things out as soon as Nino texted Adrien asking about visiting that weekend.

"No Marinette?" Alya asked as soon as she spotted Adrien outside the station. "She's not sick, is she?"

"She was midway through a commission when I left," Adrien told her, accepting the bag she shoved into his arms. A glance down told Adrien that it was full of Marinette's sweaters, just as requested. "She wanted to get it finished and her space cleaned up before you guys arrived so there wouldn't be a giant mess."

Thankfully, his friends seemed to accept his excuse, and they dove into conversation about what they had been up to since seeing each other last. Nino had signed on to a new film, Alya had written a very popular article, and they had been considering moving to a different apartment, though they had agreed that it wouldn't make sense to move to a larger (and therefore more expensive) apartment right away.

"If there's a chance that Alya is going to be away for half a year, then I would be paying for that apartment by myself," Nino told Adrien. "And I wouldn't really need more space if I'd be the only one there. So we're waiting until February- or March, maybe, depending on how far Alya gets in the competition- to see if we should move."

"It would be nice to have an extra room or two for Nino to do his mixing and for me to do my research and editing," Alya told Adrien. "Right now, we just have my desk in the living room and Nino's set-up in our bedroom, which just makes everything really cramped."

Adrien couldn't disagree. It was hard to move around Alya and Nino's apartment sometimes. It was cozy and homey, but he could see where it would be difficult to live that way all the time.

"So we've been doing a little poking around, looking at apartments in the area we want and trying to get an idea of what the cost would be for different numbers of rooms," Alya continued. "Right now it looks like only a two-bedroom apartment would be in our price range, but I'm kind of hoping that we could maybe find one with, like, a walk-in closet big enough for a bit of an office. Either that, or a large enough living room/dining room area that it could have my office there without taking up all of the floor."

"So are you planning on continuing to do independent research once the contest is over, even if you get the trip?" Adrien asked. "I mean, I could understand it if you didn't get the trip, but if you do?"

"Then I gotta have space to write a book." Alya looked excited by the idea. "The newspaper articles the winner is supposed to write- there's a lot of travel articles, then little updates about the main project, and then there's a big article on the project at the end, but it's never long enough to present all of the stuff people learned. Most people write a more comprehensive book at the end. I wanna start out my book with a focus on the most recent Ladybug and Chat Noir, then go to the earliest ones and then work my way back up, I think."

Adrien nodded. That sounded interesting. It also sounded like a lot of work, but he was pretty certain that a lot of people in Paris, at least, would be interested in Alya's research once she finished it.

"And what about you?" Nino asked. "Anything new, or just the ol' study, study, study?"

"Actually, there is something new," Adrien told them, grinning as he remembered. "Remember when you guys told me I should try going to the tutoring center at school? Well, I did that, and I got paired up with someone a week ago. His name is Ben, and he's a year ahead of me." Ben was also only a year younger, since he had taken a gap year before starting university. That made Adrien a whole lot more comfortable with the whole tutoring thing, since his tutor wasn't ages younger and yet ahead of him in school.

(Did Adrien know that logically, that shouldn't be an issue? Yes. Did that particularly proud, stubborn part of his brain care? No.)

"Is he good?"

"He's fabulous, and we get along really well." Ben had a gift for teaching, at least in Adrien's eyes. "He just gets what points I'm getting hung up on and really slows down for them, and then adjusts if I'm catching on faster than the speed he's teaching at. We've only had a few hours together, but I swear he's shaved a good ten hours of on-my-own study time off already. And he's going to help with editing my essays, so I don't have to do as many read-throughs on them."

"Oh, that's great!" Alya exclaimed. "And he can give you study tips too, right? And tell you what to look out for in different classes?"

Adrien grinned and nodded. "Yeah, he- well, he said that he would, it's just that we haven't met that many times yet, and we've been focusing on making sure I'm on top of my current classes before we start talking about future classes at all. But it's on the agenda."

By the time they got back to the apartment, Marinette look much less flustered than she had before. They all piled into Adrien's apartment to cook dinner, and Adrien was just starting to relax. Neither Nino nor Alya had spotted anything out of place yet, so maybe they were in the clear.

And then halfway through the meal, Marinette suddenly looked panicked for a second before her expression smoothed out into something almost perfectly expressionless. Nino and Alya didn't appear to have noticed, but Adrien had looked up at just the right time. He frowned, wondering if he should say something, when Marinette excused herself to go to the bathroom.

Maybe she wasn't feeling well? He hoped that wasn't the case. He would want to be able to be with her if she was sick, but right now she was going to be sleeping across the hall. If she was sick and miserable, he wouldn't be able to take care of her.

Adrien was just telling Alya and Nino about their run-in with Paul's sister when he heard the click as Marinette left the bathroom. Oddly, though, it was a full minute more before she came back out, looking a bit frazzled, and then sat down to keep eating like normal. Adrien frowned briefly, utterly puzzled.

Okaaaay...so that was a little weird.

After dinner, Adrien passed around the tray of cookies he and Marinette (well, mostly Marinette) had made. Alya and Nino didn't seem to be in any hurry to get up, so Adrien was stuck across the table from his girlfriend, unable to ask her what had happened to freak her out earlier. He was doing his best not to fidget- after all, Marinette seemed fine now- but Adrien was curious. Not even Alya's latest leads with her research could fully pull his mind away from the curious incident, which was honestly a pity. Adrien had rather been looking forward to hearing about any Miraculous history Alya had been able to dig up.

It was a full two hours later before Adrien finally got his chance to check up on Marinette.

"What was up with you earlier?" Adrien asked quietly as he and Marinette got the inflatable bed filled. In the kitchen, Alya and Nino were doing the dishes. "You looked all panicked for a second and then ran away to the bathroom."

Marinette nudged him in the side. "I didn't run away."

"You made a rather hasty exit, at least."

She glanced towards the kitchen, making sure that Nino and Alya were still occupied, then turned back to Adrien. "I realized that I had forgotten to get my stuff out of your bathroom. So my toothbrush and toothpaste and towel and makeup and everything were still sitting out. We're lucky that they washed their hands in the kitchen before dinner and hadn't needed to use the bathroom at all. Somehow I don't think that claiming that my water had been out earlier today would have worked."

Adrien's eyes were wide. That would have given them away. How could they have forgotten about the bathroom? "So what did you do with everything?"

"My toothbrush, comb, and makeup all went in my purse," Marinette told him, pointing at the bag sitting in the hallway. "Everything else was too large. I wrapped up my shampoo and conditioner and everything in the towel and buried it in the hamper."

...well, that was one way to deal with it, Adrien supposed. Hopefully now they had everything of Marinette's out of the apartment or at least well hidden.

"I'll just have to not shower until they leave," Marinette continued. Her nose crinkled in annoyance. "Either that or open new bottles, if I have any. And I think I have an extra towel over in my apartment, though who knows who it belonged to originally. I might have accidentally stole it from you."

Adrien had to bite back his immediate purred response to that. It was far too flirty to risk their friends hearing.

"I wanna see the pieces Marinette's been working on," Alya announced once the dishes were done and put away. "I keep getting progress pics, but I wanna see the real things."

"Some of it already got sent off," Adrien told her, and Alya groaned in disappointment. "Marinette finished one person's order a week ago and we had a ton of fun trying to wrestle everything into a box for shipping. The people at the post office were side-eyeing the box a bit because it was bulging so much, but they let it pass."

"Please don't tell me you already shipped the studded jacket," Alya pleaded. Marinette made a face and shrugged apologetically.

"I already shipped the studded jacket. Sorry."

Alya groaned.

"She made a studded corset bodice recently," Adrien told Alya. "It took her something like two evenings to decorate, but it was definitely worth it. It looks amazing."

"Everything Marinette makes looks amazing," Alya said loyally. She tugged on her friend's arm. "Show me what you still have? I wanna see."

"Okay!"

"You're not going?" Adrien asked Nino when he didn't follow his girlfriend. Nino shook his head.

"Nah. I've seen the pictures. That was good enough." Nino shrugged. "It's cool, but I'm not really into the fashion stuff. Has she worked on any more album art?"

Adrien nodded, grinning. "Yeah. She's done three others besides Jagged's, and they all went really well. It helped that they were distinctly different sounds and Marinette hadn't ever made anything for them before, I think. She didn't have to worry about having reused ideas from previous albums, so she only needed one draft instead of a bunch. And they gave her more information about what they wanted, too, which Jagged Stone never does. That helped a lot." His phone let out a quiet ding, and Adrien checked it only to find that the battery was almost dead. Still talking, he headed back towards his bedroom to fetch his charger and Nino followed. "She's only had to do a small round of edits on that, and on the glasses and Jagged's cover. And she's almost done with this round of stage outfit commissions."

"She's gonna be famous before long," Nino said as he followed Adrien almost absentmindedly. "CD cover designer, the mind behind Jagged Stone's sunglasses line, the dresser for up-and-coming rock and metal bands... like, never mind joining some design company when she gets back to Paris. She could probably make it freelancing."

"I think she likes knowing that she'll have a steady paycheck," Adrien said as he stepped into his room. He started scanning the floor for his charger, fairly certain that it had gotten unplugged somehow yesterday, and then it had probably been knocked around a bit in the rush to get Marinette's things out of his room. "And she likes working with other designers. They're a creative bunch, and they're always tossing ideas back and forth. It keeps them from getting designer's block, I think."

A flash of color caught Adrien's eye, and he took a second look. A second later, he froze.

On the floor, mostly hidden by the blankets hanging off of his bed, was a bright pink bra.

Crud. How had they managed to miss that?

"I can understand wanting a steady paycheck," Nino admitted as Adrien tried to subtly shove the bra under his bed with his foot. "That's why I keep the DJ job, even though it can be exhausting to do both that and movie soundtracks sometimes. Like, there's gonna be times when I'm between movies, and I don't want to have to pick up just any random job to get us through."

"Do you think you'll keep DJing for a while, then?" Adrien asked. He could still see a sliver of pink sticking out from behind the blankets, so he tugged the blanket slightly further over so it would drape all the way to the floor before continuing his search for his charger. "Or do you think you might eventually do something else?"

Nino shrugged. "No clue. It depends on what jobs I get. If I'm ever lucky enough to get hired on to a bigger movie set, then maybe. Right now, I'm still working on building my resume up so I can get even slightly on the radar when I apply for the big projects."

Adrien nodded as he spotted his charger and dove partway under the bed to snag it. He tried to reach for the bra, too- maybe he could pull it further under the bed, or even pull it to his side and- what? Hide it under the covers on his side, maybe?- but it was too far away. Before Nino could ask what he was doing, Adrien straightened up and waved the charger at him as explanation before plugging it and his phone in and then leading the way back out to the living room.

"Isn't it hard to get away for the weekend with your DJing?" Adrien wanted to know as they stepped back into the main room. "Or do you not usually work weekends?"

Nino shook his head. "Nah, I'm usually during the week. The more experienced dude gets the weekends, unless he's traveling or sick or something. He's got seniority, so he gets first dibs on the schedule. I don't mind, though. It's nice to have the weekend off." He made a slight face. "Except then I have a ridiculously long day on Mondays, if I'm working on a film project. And especially if one of the crew members is sick or something and I get drafted to do their job instead of being able to work on my own thing."

Somehow, Adrien suspected that Nino was speaking from experience. The somewhat sour look on his face also made Adrien suspect that the crew member he had had to fill in for probably hadn't had the most exciting job in the world.

The girls came back a few minutes later, still talking about Marinette's designs animatedly. Still, Adrien could tell that Marinette was exhausted. Her blinks were taking longer and longer, eyes staying closed a fraction of a second longer than they would normally before opening again. As Alya turned to tell Nino about the outfits, Adrien caught Marinette trying to hide a yawn.

"Someone looks like she's about to tip over," Adrien teased quietly, stepping over next to Marinette. He rested a hand on her lower back, careful to try not to look too overly familiar with her. "Bedtime?"

Marinette yawned properly this time. "It's been a long day. But now my bed is gonna be cold and I don't have my kitty to snuggle with." She gave him a kitten-eyed look, and now Adrien could really tell that she was tired. "The bed is gonna be so empty."

"If you wanted your stuffed cat from Paris, all you had to do was ask," Adrien teased, guiding Marinette towards the door before she could flirt too much and say something that Alya and Nino would overhear. She stuck out her tongue at him and he snickered at her. "But I think it might be bedtime for you. See you tomorrow morning!"

Marinette nodded, yawning, and waved goodbye to them all before heading back across the hall. Adrien briefly wondered if she had remembered to take back her extra blanket- somehow, it had migrated across the hall with her at some point- but it was too late to do anything about it if she hadn't. Marinette might have been able to smuggle out some of her toiletries in her bag without attracting any attention, but their friends would definitely notice if Adrien headed across the hall with a blanket.

After making sure that Nino and Alya had everything they needed, Adrien headed back to his bedroom. As soon as the door was closed, he dashed over to his bed and retrieved the bra he had hidden earlier. He panicked for a moment- where to stick it?- before he hastily shoved it between the mattress and the box spring. No one would think to look there.

Adrien had just finished relaxing (that had to be the extent of Marinette's things around his apartment, surely) when he happened to glance down into the trash can tucked neatly under his bedside table and promptly blanched.

Crud. Oh, he had definitely been lucky that it had been Nino and not Alya who had been in his room earlier, because Nino didn't notice things like Alya did. And if Alya had noticed the contents of his trash, she would have been able to figure out in a heartbeat that he and Marinette were in a relationship.

Suddenly re-energized, Adrien yanked out the trash can, ready to tie it up and take it out now, when he suddenly remembered that there was a trash can in the bathroom, too. It was in the cabinet under the sink, but he had absolutely no clue what was in there. He tore out of his room in a flash, startling his friends (he could make out Nino's distinctive "What the hell, dude?" from the living room), and dashed into the bathroom to grab the trash.

Sure enough, there was an empty and very feminine deodorant stick sitting among the used tissues and makeup wipes, and there were a couple more clumps of long black hair and a broken ponytail holder. Adrien cringed and brought the trash can back to his room, emptying it into his own partially-full can before returning it to its rightful position. Then he was tying up the bag and dashing out the door past a puzzled Alya and Nino to throw the incriminating evidence away. It wasn't until the bag had slid down the chute and out of sight that Adrien let himself finally relax.

Surely that was the last of the things that could give him away. As long as Alya didn't go snooping in his drawers- and she probably wouldn't, they had just been overreacting earlier with moving Marinette's clothes back to her apartment- they should be in the clear.

And then Adrien turned around and saw two very puzzled faces peering out of his apartment.

"Uh, Adrien? What are you doing?"

Whoops.