32. Chapter 32

A/N: Sorry about the delay in posting! If you read my other story, A Musical Connection, I'm sure you already know that I had some computer problems (hardware issues that meant that I couldn't have it on without damaging the computer) and so I didn't have my computer fo s.

On a related note: I'll mention this again next chapter, but I have one more chapter of this plus one side story/outtake written, edited, and ready to be posted. I've been working on the last year of HTFAM as much as I can and HAD been hoping to keep the break between the outtake and Ch. 34 being posted down to a month, but not having my computer to work on really threw me off.

Saturday morning, Adrien groaned as he woke up to the sound of an alarm blaring. He lay there for a few moments- it was Marinette's alarm, and she always turned it off pretty quickly- but the lump at his side didn't even budge.

In the background, the alarm continued to beep.

Frowning, Adrien pushed himself up and reached over Marinette to turn the alarm off before bending down to check on his girlfriend. Within a second, it became obvious that Marinette was very much asleep. Her breathing was deep and even, and she hadn't even budged on the bed.

Okay, so she clearly needed more sleep. Adrien checked her phone to make sure that she didn't have any more alarms set (she didn't; clearly she had been planning on getting up with the first one) and then he rolled back over to fall asleep.

Maybe he should have tried to wake her up, but Adrien was worried. She had been pushing so hard to get things finished for weeks now, stressing out and worrying herself into the ground. Adrien knew that she had made a lot of progress on her commissions, too- of her twelve commissions, nine were finished, two were nearly done, and one, well...

The last one required some work still, but there would be plenty of time. They had all weekend and the week, and after that was Easter Break.

Adrien fell back asleep, one hand resting against Marinette's hair. He didn't wake up again until the bed shook and he heard a shriek of "What do you mean it's ten-thirty?"

It took Adrien a few seconds to remember that a) it was the weekend, so he didn't need to try to scramble to try to get ready as well and b) it was 100% his fault that they slept so late, so he should probably be working on keeping Marinette from panicking too much.

"It's still plenty early," Adrien said, reaching out to snag Marinette before she could shoot out of bed and end up tripping over her own feet and hurting herself in the scramble. "Bugaboo, slow down. There's plenty of time in the day still. And since you got enough sleep, maybe you'll be able to focus better."

Marinette blinked and turned to look at him. "Wait- did you turn the alarm off?"

"You were sleeping through it, so I figured that you could use the extra time." Adrien slid out of bed after Marinette. "And you're mostly caught up with commissions. It's not going to help anything if you end up making mistakes because you're exhausted or if you work so long that you make yourself sick."

"Oh, I suppose. I just want to get everything finished before break, though!" Marinette yanked a new shirt on and hopped across the room as she tugged on a pair of lounge pants. She snagged a comb and started yanking it through her hair. "And I'm so close! I want to get a lot done this weekend so I can maybe take it a little easier during the week."

Adrien nodded to thin air. Marinette was already in the bathroom, frantically brushing her teeth. With a sigh, Adrien decided to head out to the kitchen to get breakfast ready.

"That was nice of you to let her sleep," Tikki said, popping out of the hall closet. Plagg was close behind, probably because he wanted his morning cheese. "She's been yawning at work really often."

"Are you telling on me?" Marinette demanded incredulously from the bathroom. "Tikki!"

"We just want you to take care of yourself, love!" Adrien called over his shoulder. "If you aren't doing anything wrong, then Tikki wouldn't be able to tell on you!"

He got a rather rude noise as a response. Laughing, Adrien headed to the kitchen and got some toast going.

Twenty minutes later, Marinette had been fed and headed over to work in her apartment. Adrien cleaned up and tried to figure out how he could help her now. There was no hardware to attach to anything, no chains to cut, no more screen printed shirts to iron (because Adrien had spent all. week. long. chipping away at those to get them finished)... but there were several boxes to mail yet, sitting in a neat stack just inside Marinette's door. He could get those mailed off before the post office closed for the day, and then Marinette would be able to fully check those commissions off of her list.

(Adrien was pretty sure that by the time the last of the commissions got sent off, everyone at the post office was going to know him by name. Since he could only carry two boxes at most over at a time, he had been making a lot of trips.)

"I bet you'll be glad when this is all done," Plagg said as he rode along on Adrien's shoulder as Adrien struggled to carry the two large boxes. "Then you'll have your wife all to yourself again!"

"She'll still be taking commissions, just not so many so she won't be so stressed. Hopefully she'll only be working for an hour or two every night instead of four." Adrien paused to push one of the boxes against a railing to he could adjust his grip. "But yeah, I'm looking forward to this batch of commissions being over. She's planning on taking a bit of a break from the commissions to recalibrate a bit so she can do quality work again, so I'm looking forward to that." It looked like the start of her break was going to line up well with the start of his break. Adrien had a large rough draft paper project due plus two midterms that he really had to study for, so he would be busy for most of the week. Any study breaks he took would be spent helping Marinette finish up in any way he could.

It was going to be a busy week.

"Dude, I thought you normally started studying ages ahead of time," Paul commented when he saw Adrien studying before class on Wednesday. "What's going on?"

"I've been spending a lot of time helping Marinette with commissions." Adrien flipped the page and kept reading. "She's only catching up now, so I'm having to crunch all of my study time. It's not that bad, though. And part of the problem was that I had the Quantum Mechanics exam last week and I had to really focus on that then."

Paul winced and nodded. "Yeah, that exam was hard. But it looked like you sailed right through it!"

"Yeah, because I studied!" Adrien had been pleasantly surprised at how straightforward the exam had seemed, so much so that he had spent a fair amount of time reviewing all of the questions and his answers just to make sure he hadn't misunderstood anything. Part of him was still worried that he had forgotten or misunderstood something important, but they were meant to be getting the scores back during class today. "I just really want to know how I did. Like, I think I did well, but who knows."

"I already know what's going to happen," one of Paul's other friends joked from the next row back. "You're going to do better than most of us and you'll still wish that you had done better, because you'll have made, like, three 'stupid' mistakes."

Adrien shrugged. So he had high standards, so what. He didn't like losing points on things that he should have gotten right.

Adrien had to put the book away as the professor entered, stack of graded exams in her arms. Everyone sat up and watched as she handed the exams back. Some people looked thrilled when they got their papers back. Others shrugged and put their returned exams away- they must have gotten the grades that they were expecting- while others groaned, flipping through the pages to see where they had gone wrong. Paul made a bit of a face at his paper before flipping through. Adrien accepted his own paper from the professor and grinned at the near-perfect score.

Clearly even spending so much time helping Marinette hadn't affected his scores. Marinette would be pleased to hear that, since she had been so concerned about how her mistakes when it came to dealing with commissions were costing him study time, too.

Adrien practically hummed his way through the rest of the day. He returned home to his apartment, studied for a couple hours, then did a quick run to the post office to mail one more package of clothes. Marinette just had one more commission to finish now, and based on the state of the pieces around the sewing machine, she didn't have too much longer to go. They were more intricate than a lot of the other designs- apparently the band had some sort of owl theme and an owl's face had to be worked both into the design of the jacket and the top. It was a gorgeous design, one that would no doubt have the band coming back for more- but it was a lot of little fiddly pieces, a lot of piecing, a lot of short seams and odd joins.

Adrien was of the opinion that it was very good that this particular commission was the last one. Marinette could take her time working on it instead of feeling like she had to rush at all.

Once the package was in the mail, Adrien headed back to his apartment to study. He was busy writing up a summary sheet when Marinette arrived home, looking a little wilted.

"Photoshoot day," Marinette explained. She shoved her hair back out of her face. "Lots of hot lights that we had to run around in all day. I don't know how the models do it."

Adrien grinned at that. "Easy. We don't run around. We just sit and look pretty and try to keep out of the way of the people running around."

"I'm taking a shower," Marinette decided. "I feel half-dead right now, but I still want to work on my commission like normal tonight. If I keep working on it, I'll be done with it and have it sent off before my birthday!" She headed towards the bathroom, still talking as she went and completely missing the frozen look on Adrien's face. "That'll be nice, to just be able to kick back and relax then."

"Right, right, of course!"

Tikki gave him a somewhat unimpressed look as soon as the bathroom door shut and they heard the water start running. "You forgot, didn't you?"

"I knew it was coming up," Adrien defended himself. He checked the calendar on his phone. "And I know it's on Saturday. I just wasn't on top of, ah, remembering stuff." He scrambled for a second, trying to think of what he could do for Marinette's birthday. She had indicated interest in having a relaxing day, which meant nothing crazy. Maybe he could invite a few of Marinette's closest colleagues and friends for a dinner together and they could all eat out somewhere. He didn't know what he could get her as a gift, though. If he could buy relaxation...

Suddenly it hit him like a train. He and Marinette had talked about going to the Bath spa at some point, and they hadn't done that yet. They could both use some relaxation time in the warm waters and maybe even a massage. Adrien scrambled for his computer, pulling up the Bath Spa page. He scrolled through page after page, trying to figure out when they would want to go. It would be easiest to go Sunday, because Marinette wouldn't have work, but Sundays were busy and it sounded like the services would be more limited. Midweek was least busy, but Adrien wasn't sure how good of an idea interrupting Marinette's work week would be.

Monday would probably work best, then. It was definitely a good thing that Marinette wouldn't be returning to Paris until Thursday evening and that he hadn't gotten his train tickets yet (much to Nathalie's everlasting ire). Sure, he was meant to have fittings Tuesday, but if he got an early train back to Paris then maybe the fittings could be pushed to Tuesday afternoon and evening.

But what if there was something going on at Madam Rosalie's on Monday that Marinette wouldn't want to miss? He wouldn't want that to happen and make a day at the spa turn into a stress fest. Maybe he could ask Madam Rosalie, but then again, she might not know everything about what was going on in Marinette's design group at all times. It would be better to ask one of the members on Marinette's team.

"Is Sarah home, do you know?" Adrien asked Tikki. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"You aren't going to ask her about what to get Marinette, are you?"

"So little faith! No, I just want to ask her about timing for Marinette's present." Adrien headed for the door, figuring that since Marinette was home, Sarah probably was as well. "And I might ask about if people on Marinette's team might be interested in getting together on Saturday."

"Oh!" Tikki promptly cheered right back up. "Okay! In that case, Sarah is home."

Adrien checked to make sure he hadn't left his computer open to the Bath Spa page and then headed upstairs to Sarah's apartment. She answered within a couple seconds and raised an eyebrow when she saw him standing there. "Adrien! Does Marinette need more help on something? I think I'm too wiped to be much help today."

"She's good with the commissions right now," Adrien told her. "I just had a question- is there anything important going on at work on Monday? I wanted to get Marinette a trip to the spa up in Bath for her birthday, and from what I can tell it would be best to go on Monday instead of over the weekend so it's not so busy."

"It's her birthday soon?" Sarah sounded surprised. "Oh! Shoot, we totally forgot. She should have said something! We always go out for lunch or dinner when it's someone's birthday. I'll have to tell the rest of our team. What day is it?"

"Saturday."

"She should have said something," Sarah repeated. "I think most of us should be able to be here, though. How does dinner on Saturday sound? Do you know what her favorite restaurant is?"

"That Greek place down the road is a big favorite of hers," Adrien told her. "But about Monday-"

"It's just a normal day," Sarah assured him. "And I can talk to the head of our group to make sure Monday stays normal so Marinette can miss it. Do you know what you're doing at the spa? There's some really great massages and everything."

Adrien just grinned and shrugged. "I figured that I would leave the specifics up to Marinette to decide. I'm guessing that she'll probably go for some sort of massage , though, after all of the time she's spent bent over her sewing machine lately." At the rate they were going, both of them were going to have aching backs like a pair of elderly grandparents before they got back to London. He had seen her stretching and twisting like he did whenever his back got stiff, and more and more frequently. "Have you been? Any suggestions?"

"I like the traditional massage, but then again that's the only one I've ever done." Sarah grinned. "So maybe I'm not the best person to ask. And I've only done it twice, since that place is expensive. But it was great."

"Fabulous." Adrien couldn't help but smile as well. Hopefully Marinette would like her present. "So, what time do you think would work best on Saturday?"

The last piece of the commissions was finished Friday afternoon and mailed three minutes before the post office closed, and the last of the edits for the last album cover was sent off several hours later. Once it was sent off, Marinette collapsed in bed and just slept for a solid fifteen hours. Adrien did his best to not wake her up either when he went to bed or when he got up Saturday morning, though he did fetch his heated rice pack and arrange it on her back for her both times in hopes that it might help alleviate some of the pain that she was getting from being hunched over her sketchpad (or her tablet, or her sewing machine) for so long.

"Ah, she lives!" Adrien announced with a grin when Marinette stumbled into the kitchen mid-morning, yawning widely. "Happy birthday, Bug."

"Mm-hmm." Marinette yawned again and hugged him. Adrien tried not to laugh as she snuggled into his chest.

"Are you seriously still tired?"

"No making fun of the birthday girl," Marinette informed him. "'S not nice."

Tikki giggled. "But Marinette, you've been sleeping forever! Do you even know what day it is anymore?"

For a moment, Marinette looked truly alarmed. Then Tikki giggled, and Marinette pouted as she swatted at her kwami. "Don't joke like that! I thought I had slept for an entire day for a minute!"

"Technically, if it were Sunday, you would have slept for a day and a half," Adrien teased, dodging his own swat. "And I wouldn't have said anything about your birthday, either."

"Ooh, you're being terrible," Marinette grumbled, but she kissed him anyway. "So what are we doing today?"

"Besides sleeping, you mean- ah! I yield, I yield!" Adrien yelped, dancing away from a pouting Marinette. "Well, I was making mac 'n cheese for lunch, and then we can do your favorite Greek place for dinner? It sounds like some of your team members want to join us for that."

Marinette perked up. "Really? We did lunch last year, but I thought maybe we wouldn't this year since my birthday is on the weekend."

"So you didn't even mention it?" Adrien asked incredulously. "I said something to Sarah and she immediately started asking around to see if people could come. She said that someone named Lily wouldn't be able to make it because she was going home to see her parents, but the others could come."

The first part of the day went by fast enough (probably because Marinette had slept through most of it), and then they were heading down the sidewalk towards the restaurant. Adrien carried his present for Marinette (wrapped in festive paper) in the bag hanging at his side, just in case the opportunity came up to give it to her while they were at dinner. Sarah had texted them to say that she and several others were already at the restaurant, holding a table so that they wouldn't find themselves standing around waiting during the diner rush.

"I actually first ate here for Ellen's birthday last summer," Marinette told him as Adrien ushered her in the restaurant's door in front of him. At his slightly puzzled look- who was Ellen, again?- Marinette explained. "She was an intern last year, but now she's working at some fashion house up in Glasgow, I think. It was closer to where she grew up, so she could see her family more often."

"Aha."

"Oh, look, there they are!" Marinette exclaimed, pointing. Adrien glanced over and saw six people sitting around a series of tables pushed together in the middle of the room. He recognized most of them, either from other dinners together or from ducking into Marinette's workplace. Only two of them were guys, which surprised Adrien slightly. He had always gotten the impression from his father that there were a good number of aspiring male fashion designers as well, nearly as many as women designers, but Marinette's team was apparently skewed two guys to six women.

"There's a lot of women on your team, aren't there?" Adrien asked Marinette as they headed towards the table. "Is that typical?"

Marinette shrugged. "Yeah, at least at Madam Rosalie's place. Her aesthetic is just something that draws more women than men, I guess." She giggled. "We design practical stuff for women, that's probably a deciding factor. A lot of men don't tend to think about things like pockets and bra straps when they're designing tops and dresses, and that's fine in some companies. Not for Madam Rosalie's, though."

"Happy Birthday, Marinette!" the table chorused as they approached. Marinette turned a bit pink as all of the attention turned to her, and several people from other tables turned as well to glance over. She didn't waste any time in settling down in one of the chairs that had been left open in the middle of the table and waving shyly to everyone. Shannon laughed.

"Don't go turning so shy on us! Man, is it ever a good thing we hadn't gotten the chance to ask the servers if they ever sing to people on their birthdays."

"Oh, don't tease her like that," Mrs. Kelley scolded playfully. "And happy birthday, dear. I'm glad you chose this place. It's my favorite, too."

Even with as busy as the restaurant was, it didn't take long for them to order and for a couple appetizer plates to arrive. The eight of them laughed and talked as they waited for their meal to arrive, and Adrien learned more about everything that was going on at Madam Rosalie's. With the spring Fashion Week done and a number of photoshoots for late spring and early summer done, they were in a bit of a lull now, getting final polishes done on the spring lines and little details cleaned up before they could move on to proper summer designs. Pieces from photoshoots and runway had to be put away, and shoes and repeat accessories sold off. They had to communicate with the manufacturer how to make specific pieces so they would match what was shown in the catalogue, and then the fabric room had to be reorganized so that the heavier-weight fabrics and more wintery colors were put away until fall and the light cottons and silks and pale-colored fabrics more common in summer were brought forward for easier access.

"I kind of just want to go driving into the scraps and fabric ends bin and see what I could make out of some of that stuff," Emily admitted. "Like, just make something crazy, something I would wear but that might not sell really, really well. I've seen patchwork dresses before and I would love to make one. Or five, or ten, or-"

Shannon was laughing. "Okay, okay, we get it," she teased. "But honestly, I think it would be fun to just go bin-diving some time and then have some quality alone time with the fabric and a sewing machine, just to see what would come out. There's some crazy variety in the fabrics in there."

Adrien couldn't help grinning and shaking his head at the number of agreements from around the table. He would never stop being amazed by how creative designers could be, creating endless variations on dresses and shirts and skirts and jackets and everything, and on such a regular basis, too. If he saw a bin of leftover fabric, he would think quilt, or maybe...uh...

Yup, that was it. A quilt or maybe a pillowcase cover. Creative, he was not.

"I might be able to persuade Madam Rosalie to let you guys scavenge the bins," Mrs. Kelly offered. "I know she's mentioned before how full it's getting, and with the bit of a lull before we really have to dive into the summer stuff. We might have to put it aside at a moment's notice to do actual work, though."

There was a cheer around the table.

Dinner arrived shortly, and they all dug in. Adrien had to swat Marinette's fingers away she tried to swipe a slice of pita bread from his plate, and then the second his back was turned to talk to Justin, the pita bread piece mysteriously vanished.

Adrien sighed and stole a bite of her spinach-feta pie in retribution.

It didn't take long for them to finish their meal, even with all of the talking and laughter among the group. They ordered dessert, and while they were waiting Mrs. Kelly passed a colorful bag down the table to Marinette.

"We all pitched in to give you a little something for your birthday," she told Marinette. "And I might have done a small amount of digging in the ends bin, too."

Grinning, Marinette took the bag and pulled it down into her lap to peer into the large bag, The first thing she pulled out was a clear bag of what looked like fairly common sewing supplies- a set of white pens, rotary cutter blades, and three seam cutters, plus what was apparently a sharpening stone for her scissors. Adrien was puzzled- surely Marinette's coworkers knew that she already had stuff like that, and she had gotten some similar stuff from her parents at Christmas- but Marinette seemed thrilled.

"Oh, this is great!" she was exclaiming, digging through the bag. "My marking pens are all practically dry after all that leather from the commissions, and I swear every blade I own is pretty dull. And I can always use more seam rippers!"

"Yes, I know," Sarah told her dryly. "Considering that you told me that you own five and yet it still took you five minutes to track down any of them whenever we needed one."

...ooookay, so maybe he didn't have a great idea of what designers did and didn't need, despite being the son of one and dating another. Huh.

Maybe he should start taking notes.

The next thing to come out of the bag was a small iron and something rolled up in a tube. Marinette inspected the packaging and then grinned. "A travel iron and roll-up ironing mat! That's great!"

"We figured that a small iron would mean that you would be able to take it back to Paris once you're done in London," Abbey explained. "And it's useful for travel, too, if you need to iron something on the go but don't want to haul along a big iron. And that's a good brand, I have one just like it."

"Thank you!" Marinette exclaimed. "This is great. My old iron at home died right before I came over to London, so I'll definitely be using this all the time."

"And you'll be able to do your printed shirts whenever you want," Sarah pointed out. "Travel irons might be smaller than normal, but they don't lack anything in power."

Grinning, Marinette dug into the bag one last time, and pulled out several pieces of folded cloth. Adrien had been around designers for long enough to be able to tell that the pieces were probably no larger than half a meter (or a meter at most), but they were fun colors and clearly quality fabric. Adrien couldn't tell just by eyeballing the fabric if there would be enough for Marinette to make a shirt or skirt- he had no idea what kind of yardage was needed for anything, really- but judging by the gleam in Marinette's eyes, she probably already had plans.

"Oh, I loved working with this fabric!" Marinette exclaimed as she thumbed through the folded pieces. "This is great! Thanks, guys!"

There was a chorus of "You're welcome"s from around the table as Marinette packed her gifts back into her bag for easy carrying. While she was distracted, Adrien slid his present onto the table in front of her. It was a small box, not at all like the large bag that Marinette's coworkers had gotten her, but Adrien wouldn't let the difference in size bother him.

After all, great things could come in small packages, and he was sure that Marinette would love it.

Marinette blinked in surprise when she glanced back up and saw the package in front of her. It only took her a second to see the tag and glance over at Adrien with a questioning look before starting to unwrap it. The first thing she pulled out was a cute bird-shaped patchwork pincushion. Marinette groaned.

"Adrien!"

Adrien grinned as everyone around the table looked on in confusion. "What?"

"Still?"

"It was a good idea!"

"I'm lost," Abbey admitted. "What's wrong with it? That's a really cute pincushion."

"It's part of a joke," Marinette told the rest of the table, trying not to laugh. "It wouldn't make sense out of context, but he's been getting me something bird-themed for every holiday ever since Christmas."

Emily grinned at them. "So... just Christmas and now, or for Valentine's Day, too?"

Marinette froze, deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, and floundered. Adrien froze for a moment as well, then recovered and tried for some of that tried-and-true Chat Noir charm and smoothness. "Well, you know, it was an opportunity to give gifts, so I did."

"Well, it is pretty," Sarah told them, though she was grinning widely as well. "I don't know where you find stuff like that."

Adrien grinned at the opening that she had just handed him and Marinette groaned, burying her face in her arms. "Well, I had to do a bit of hunting, but I was happy with my catch in the end."

"I regret everything."

"You know it's funny."

"Is there something else in the box, Marinette?" Sarah asked, craning her neck to peer into the box. She glanced over at Adrien. "It looks like there's a brochure or something."

Marinette reached back into the box and pulled out the Bath spa brochure. Adrien had stuck a Post-it with the information for what day he had gotten the train tickets for and that he would pay for entry and whatever treatment she wanted. He had made sure to call ahead to check that there wouldn't be any groups taking up the spa and that there were treatment package spaces still available, so they wouldn't get to Bath and discover that they couldn't get in because something was reserved.

That would have stunk if that happened, especially since they had to have train tickets and Marinette would have to take a day off.

"I remembered that we had talked about going there last time we were in Bath," Adrien told Marinette. "And it would be a chance to relax after the last few weeks."

Marinette was grinning as she flipped through the brochure. "I love it!" Then she laughed. "I like the white-out over the prices. Very subtle."

Adrien grinned. "Yeah, I thought so too." He hadn't wanted Marinette obsessing over the prices and just trying to pick what might be cheapest over what she actually wanted to try. While yes, some of the spa packages were maybe a little expensive, it was hardly as though he couldn't afford it. He had years of modeling payments saved up, plus what he had earned the past summer with his job, and he only really had groceries as an expense at the moment thanks to his father paying for everything else. "So, does that work for you, going on Monday?"

"I already got it cleared with Madam Rosalie," Sarah piped up, grinning at Marinette's startled look. "She said to tell you to have fun."

"Well, I was already thinking about taking an extra day off next week to relax and get my head back on straight after all of those commissions and photoshoot week," Marinette admitted, a smile on her face as she flipped the brochure over again to look at one of the pictures. "So this is just, like, an upgrade of that day. Thanks, Adrien! I can't wait!"

It was mid-morning by the time Adrien and Marinette arrived at the train station on Monday, loaded down with bags packed with their swimming things and a light lunch. Marinette had left both her tablet and her sketchbook at their apartment after several minutes of consideration, admitting that if she brought either along, the idea that she should be looking for design inspiration would be in the back of her head the entire time.

"I feel like I've done nothing all weekend," Marinette admitted as they found their seats and settled in for the ride. "I haven't designed anything, the only reason I touched my sewing machine was to unplug it and get it covered so that it wouldn't get all dusty, and I haven't cleaned things up from my commissions at all. And I haven't responded to anyone on the wait list yet."

"Doing nothing is a good thing sometimes," Adrien reminded her, and he could see Tikki nodding in agreement just inside Marinette's bag. "You'll get creative burnout if you keep going at the rate you were going, and that's no good if you're in the middle of a commission. Add on to that the fact that it would affect you at work, too, and that wouldn't look good."

"No, it wouldn't," Marinette agreed. The train gave a small shudder as it started up, and then they were slowly starting to pull away from the station. "It helped- creatively, I mean- that what I was designing for commissions and what I design at Madam Rosalie's are so different in style, but there's only so many ideas I can come up with in a short amount of time."

The train picked up speed, and their conversation turned towards the upcoming holiday. Marinette was looking forward to going home, even if she would doubtless be spending at least a day working in the bakery. The stuff she helped with- the decorations, mostly- were apparently mindless work for her and were all but automatic after so many years and hundreds upon hundreds of similar treats decorated in just the same way. Adrien would be doing fittings, photoshoots, and commercials (what a surprise), leaving him with only odds and ends of time left to meet up with Alya and Nino.

Well, odds and ends and Thursday evening, when the newspaper contest people were hosting an awards dinner where the winners would be announced. They had learned the previous week that Alya had gotten past the semi-finalist pool and into the finalists, and she had invited them to join herself and Nino for the dinner since her parents weren't able to make it. Of course, both Adrien and Marinette had accepted. It would be a good time to be able to see their friends for an extended period of time, and if Alya won they would be able to celebrate with her.

And if she didn't win... well, they would be there to distract her, then. At least for a couple days.

"I think Ladybug and Chat Noir should make a short appearance if Alya wins," Adrien said as the train slowed for their stop. He scooped up their bags and pulled Marinette to her feet. "Not at the dinner itself, probably, since it'll be hard to excuse ourselves without it being obvious. But afterwards, once we've all gone home for the night."

Marinette grinned. "I think that would be a great idea! And it would be fun to go out for a run either way. It's been way too long."

It had been. Adrien's legs were itching to go out and run- he could tell that he had lost some muscle tone without his superhero activities and at some point, his photographer was going to notice as well.

Maybe he should look into getting a gym membership of some sort. It wouldn't be as much fun as going out as a superhero, but it would be better than not getting that energy out just because the moon was out or the weather was poor. It might also help him with his back problem if he spent more time moving and less sitting, since the problem seemed to be with him spending too much time sitting hunched over at a desk.

They headed down the sidewalk towards the spa, bags slung over their shoulders. They barely had to wait at all to pay for their passes. Marinette had picked out a couple's package that included a massage and a meal, a choice Adrien heartily approved of. He had once learned how to do a bit of a shoulder massage, but Marinette had gotten so tense over the past few weeks that having a professional work their magic would be much better. He had booked their treatment as soon as Marinette decided on it Saturday evening, and the massage would fall about halfway through their spa time.

"Oh, that's expensive," Marinette murmured immediately when the price came up. "Adrien-"

"Nope, you didn't see anything," Adrien teased her, sliding one hand over her eyes while he handed over his credit card to pay. "And honestly, it's not that much if you take everything into consideration. It's passes for four hours for two people, plus a meal for both of us, plus a massage for both of us. It would cost more if we got all of that separately."

"I don't need a massage-"

"But you wanted one and you're getting one, and it'll feel wonderful." Adrien signed the receipt and tucked his credit card back in his wallet and took the receipt and the bracelets the cashier handed him. He slid one on Marinette's wrist and the other on his own before urging her forward. He glanced at the receipt, checking the times on it. "We'll have some time in the pools first to unwind a bit, and then we'll have the massage. Now c'mon, let's go get changed."

"What about us?" Plagg wanted to know, peering out of Adrien's bag. "Do you expect us to stay in your bags for- what? Six hours, with the massage and the lunch and the pool time? That's forever."

Adrien sighed, poking Plagg back into the bag before anyone could see him. "No, you can go out as long as you don't get spotted and as long as you don't completely pig out in the kitchen. And if you aren't back by the time we leave, we'll hang around outside so we don't get charged for the extra time. Tikki, can you keep an eye on the clock once it's about time for us to leave?"

Tikki popped out, beaming up at him. "Don't worry, Adrien! I'll make sure we're back before your time runs out. And if we get too far from you, we'll know anyway."

Once again, Adrien couldn't be more thankful for Tikki. The little kwami could keep even Plagg in line so that Adrien wouldn't spend the whole time worrying about what trouble Plagg might be getting up to.

Once they had changed, the two of them wasted no time in heading down to the main pool area. Adrien hung back to let Marinette slid into the water first with a happy sigh (and no, he was not just doing that for the view), then followed.

Ahh. Oh, Adrien could see why people might come back here frequently. The warm water was heavenly, and the lazy tendrils of steam rising up from the water made the whole scene feel a bit surreal. There weren't a ton of other people in the pool, but the drifting steam obscured most of them from view, making it feel even more private.

Adrien just had to remember that it wasn't completely private and he couldn't kiss Marinette or flirt ridiculously. He could manage that. Probably.

"Oh, I like this." Marinette was already paddling around, flipping over to float on her back. "Best birthday gift ever."

"I hope you know that I'm doing my best to stop myself from splashing you," Adrien informed her with a grin. "But I figured that it wouldn't be very relaxing."

"Rude."

"Hey, I said I wouldn't do it!"

Marinette rolled back over onto her stomach to grin over at him. "Uh-huh. And I'm just supposed to trust you?"

Adrien pouted at her and reached through the water to snag her hand so he could press a kiss to her knuckles. "But of course, my lady! What do you think I am, a ratty alley cat?"

Marinette pasted on an overly thoughtful face, and Adrien laughed.

The two of them drifted between pools and even ventured over to try out one of the steam rooms. Adrien saw a couple people giving them lingering looks- apparently some people recognized him, and maybe Marinette as well- but the spa's ban on bringing phones or cameras into the pool area meant that no one was snapping pictures of him pulling faces at Marinette while she paddled in circles around him or both of them wandering around the spa together.

"I'm going to turn into a raisin by the time we leave, but I'll love every minute of it," Marinette told Adrien as they pulled themselves out of the pool to head over to where they were supposed to check in for their massage. "I'm so much more relaxed already."

"Hopefully this will relax you even more." Adrien guided Marinette around a corner with one hand on her back. "Your parents won't be happy with me if you go home with an aching back because you overworked yourself."

Marinette giggled. "What, did they tell you to keep me from overworking myself? They're so overprotective sometimes."

"They had me promise to try to keep you from overworking yourself when I got your sewing machine back in the fall," Adrien told her. "Which I failed to do, by the way, because someone didn't ever mention to me that she was absolutely buried in work. Which reminds me- I meant to ask Tikki why she didn't say anything, but I keep forgetting."

Marinette cringed. "Yes, well... I thought I had it under control, until I didn't. And I won't let it happen again. I'll only accept one commission at a time to work on, and I'll give myself really long deadlines. That way, I only need to do a little bit of work per night. I can be finished for the evening when you're done with your homework, or even before, and I can work on my own projects too if I want. And I'm going to take a break before I start anything else. I want designing to be fun again."

Adrien couldn't help but grin. He had hoped that Marinette would say that, but he hadn't been able to help worrying that Marinette would want to do two commissions at a time, or otherwise push herself to do as many commissions as possible without overwhelming herself just to get her resume and portfolio built up. He just hoped that she would keep the same attitude even months in the future, when the piles of commissions and late nights and her aching back were just distant memories.

"And promise me that you'll work on not sitting for so long that you hurt your back when you're doing schoolwork," Marinette said, looping her arm through Adrien's. "I wasn't the only one overworking myself in the past couple months."

"I promise," Adrien said immediately. "I just took Ben's advice too literally about the papers for classes this semester. He told me that too when he proofread everything before midterms, that I tried to shove three-quarters of a semester's work into a quarter of the time. He's making me suggested timelines again for next year's classes, since he's taking them now, and I've gotten strict instructions to stick to that schedule, or at least not get more than a week ahead." He made a face as a thought occurred to him. "But I'll have to find someone else to read through my essays for grammatical errors for me, since he'll be graduating. So I might try to be a couple weeks ahead of schedule- but nothing like what I did this semester, I swear!" he added quickly when Marinette gave him a displeased look. "It's just that since other people will be busy with their own projects at the same time I have stuff due, I'll need to have mine ready to proofread a little early. Or I'll try to find another proofreader from the tutoring center."

"And you'll remember to take breaks?"

"I'll take breaks to get up and stretch and walk around a bit," Adrien promised. "No more sitting for hours on end and only getting up if I want something to eat- or if Plagg wants to eat. I know the problem was that I was sitting for too long instead of getting up and moving around, because when I was younger I always had to do homework between akuma attacks and photoshoots and my other activities so I couldn't just be getting up and doing other stuff all the time. But enough about that- ready for our massage?"

It was two very relaxed and loose superheroes who left the spa several hours later, muscles freshly massaged and hair still damp from the pools. Plagg and Tikki had managed to return to their bags while Adrien and Marinette changed into their street clothes, so there was no need to wait around before they headed back towards the train station.

"I've never been so relaxed in my life," Marinette said happily, bumping up against Adrien's side as they walked. She stretched, bending backwards before continuing to walk. "It's hurt to bend like that for weeks, but now it's fine again."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it." They paused at a street corner to let a car pass before crossing. "I'm glad that you picked that package. We got plenty of time in the pools, plus the massage, plus the meal. Totally worth it."

Getting on the train and sitting in the less-than-comfortable seats there was a bit of a shock after the uber-comfortable spa chairs, but Adrien wasn't going to let it bother him. Next to him, Marinette nodded off ten minutes into the ride, her head pillowed on his shoulder.

All in all, it had been a wonderful day and a very successful birthday present. Adrien wished that he wouldn't have to head back to Paris so early the next day, so he could have more time to spend with Marinette now that they were both so relaxed and ache-free. But he supposed that Marinette would be at work for the next couple days, and he would be earning money to replace what he had just spent (and then some) with his modeling, even if it wasn't the most enjoyable work in the world for him.

Smiling, Adrien settled back into his seat and adjusted Marinette's head against his shoulder. Perhaps they wouldn't get to have quite as much time together post-spa as he would have wanted, but he wasn't going to let that tarnish the time that they did get to spend together before he had to go back to Paris.