40. Chapter 40

Nino was jittering almost nonstop. While Adrien couldn't blame him, it was starting to attract some stares.

"I just can't believe she's home," Nino told him as they waited for Alya in the Paris airport's baggage claim area. "I mean, I've known her schedule and when she was going to be coming home for months, but I've gotten so used to hearing from her when she's traveling and telling me where she's off to next for a week that to hear that she's coming home properly, and I can wake up next to her every morning..." Nino shook his head, grinning. "It was something I really took for granted before she left. I didn't think about how different it would be to start my day without Alya right next to me, even if we don't always talk much when we're getting ready for work. It's just- all these little things that I didn't notice after living together for two years that just really tripped me up when she wasn't there."

Adrien nodded. Although he couldn't admit it, he knew what Nino meant. Even if Marinette had gotten up before he had, he could still tell that she had been there. Waking up truly on his own when he was home was different, and it definitely wasn't something that he preferred.

Even if waking up with Marinette occasionally draped across his chest and making it hard to breath (or the inevitable cuddling, even in summer months) wasn't always sunshine and roses, he preferred it to his lonely bed.

"So I'm looking forward to all of the little things most, I think," Nino finished. He grinned. "And once Alya's rested up, I'm looking forward to splitting meal duty again. There's some things that she makes that I don't dare touch, and I've been rotating through the same menu ever since she left."

"That's the best part of splitting cooking duties." Adrien checked his phone. Marinette had said that she would be arriving soon- dress shopping with Mylène had run over and so she hadn't been able to hitch a ride with him to the airport- and he wanted to make sure that she would be able to find them. There were no messages yet, though, so maybe she was still on the bus to the airport. "That, and not having to eat the same thing for a week straight."

"Do you think you'll find an apartment to share with Marinette when you two move back, then?" Nino wanted to know. "So you two can keep cooking together?"

Of course, Adrien wanted to say. They wanted to stay together, and they certainly wouldn't be able to have their privacy if they stayed in his old room at his father's house and they wouldn't have enough space long-term for both of them plus Marinette's designing if they stayed in her old room. Besides, they wouldn't want to impose on her parents. But Nino didn't know that they were dating, so instead Adrien settled on a "Maybe. I'd have to ask her."

Nino shook his head, utterly exasperated. "You two might as well be married, really. You're glued at the hip anyway."

Adrien only grinned. If only Nino knew...

Adrien's phone buzzed then, and he hurried to pull it out. There was only a short message from Marinette.

At airport. Headed inside.

Shoving his phone back in his pocket, Adrien immediately looked up and started glancing around. After a minute, he spotted Marinette in the crowd nearest to the door and rolled up on his toes to wave to her. She spotted him and waved back, hurrying towards them.

Next to him, Nino craned his neck. "What? Did you see Alya?"

"No, Marinette. And Alya's plane isn't scheduled to land for another..." Adrien checked his watch. "Five minutes, if it's on time. And Alya said that she would text you when she landed, yeah?"

"Right, sorry. I got excited." Nino settled back down. "I gotta say thanks to you guys for coming to Paris for this. I would have been a mess waiting here by myself."

"Could Alya's family not made it at all?"

Nino shook his head. "The twins are busy with school, her mom had a huge catering event that she couldn't get out of, and her father was supposed to come but then the zoo's panther came down sick and he couldn't get away. He did lend me his car, though, so that we wouldn't have to wrestle with all of Alya's things on the bus." He winced. "It was just a whole slew of unfortunate timing, really. We'll swing past the zoo on our way home so that they can see each other for a bit, and then we'll go to the hotel to see her mom, and then we'll go to their place for dinner."

Adrien laughed as Marinette scooted up to his side. "Alya's going to be dead on her feet after all of that."

"You aren't just going to let Alya sleep when she gets home?" Marinette asked. She looked a bit harried, hair more ruffled than normal and clothes a bit rumpled. "Does she know that?"

Nino grinned. "Yeah, I told her last week, and she approved the plan. Of course, that was before she got on an 18-hour flight."

They all laughed.

"So how was your day?" Adrien asked Marinette. "You look a bit worse for wear."

"Gee, thanks." Marinette rolled her eyes at him. "It was all right. We did find Mylène's dress, though, so there's that."

Adrien grinned at the news and Nino looked over, finally distracted from Alya's impending arrival. "Oh, that's great! She was really hoping to find something today, wasn't she?"

Marinette nodded. "She really was. Mylène was completely burned out when we started since we hadn't had much success before, but then we looked back at some of the dresses that she had liked parts of and she found a skirt that she really liked and a top that was almost perfect, and they can be combined together for a nearly perfect dress."

One of Adrien's eyebrows quirked upwards. "You keep saying almost. What was wrong with it?"

"The top- it's this gorgeously cut halter top with a kind of low back, and Mylène has two moles on her back that she doesn't want showing," Marinette explained. "She doesn't like having her entire back exposed like that. So I came up with this idea of having an Eiffel Tower made of lace fill in that space a little bit. And then there can be some more of the lace in four flare panels on the skirt, which would tie the design in more. It would replace the existing lace, and then we asked- well, I recommended, and then Mylène asked- for the gold beading to be replaced with silver."

"Wait, so did you actually find a lace Eiffel Tower to fit in the area?" Nino asked, looking properly interested. "Or is this something that you would make?"

Marinette looked sheepish. Adrien sighed, but he couldn't help but smile fondly at her. "You really couldn't resist, could you?"

Nino laughed.

"It'll make the dress perfect!" Marinette protested. "And it's easy to make, too. I have the dimensions that I need to make sure that the thicker section for the first floor will be right where it needs to be to cover the moles. Mylène loved the idea, because then she gets to have a fairly open back that she's still comfortable with. So she has the new dress on order, and I'll make the lace sections as soon as I can." There was a pause. "Uh, but I might need to ask Madam Rosalie if I can use one of the company machines to do it. I'm sure she'll say yes, as long as they aren't needed."

"What are you going to do when you aren't at Madam Rosalie's anymore?" Adrien teased. "You won't have access to all of those lovely machines of hers."

Marinette stuck her tongue out at him. "I'll figure things out. And once I get into a new design house, then hopefully they would have the same kinds of machines. If not, well..." Marinette threw up her hands. "I'd be really tempted to buy ones of my own, but they're so expensive!"

"So will you be too burned out to help Alya find her dress?" Nino asked, grinning at Marinette. "I've heard that it's taken a couple outings."

"Oh, gosh." Marinette looked exhausted. "Yeah, Mylène had too many friends and cousins along for our first trip, so it was a complete bust. They all had ideas for shapes they wanted to see, and they were all wrong for her." She paused. "When is Alya going to go dress shopping?"

"Well-" Nino glanced around, then turned back to them. "We were thinking of telling you guys together, but as long as we're talking about it- Alya and I are going to get married this spring. So I'm guessing that she'll start looking at dresses pretty soon."

Marinette's eyes were huge, and Adrien was sure that his were the same. Sure, they had known that there was a possibility that Nino and Alya would go for the shorter turn-around, but they had thought it wouldn't be terribly likely. After all, Alya had stuff she had to get done for the newspaper, and there were a few final leads for her research that she wanted to follow up on before she forgot about them. The two of them had talked about moving to a new apartment shortly after Alya's return, too, or at least within a few months, and that was another big thing on their plate.

It would be a lot, even without the wedding planning.

"I just- wow, you guys must be superheroes to be able to balance all of that," Adrien told Nino. He smothered the grin that came with the words so that Nino wouldn't notice anything off.

Marinette noticed, though. Adrien heard her exasperated huff by his side and had to keep from grinning at that, too, especially when her fingers jabbed into his ribs.

"Well, we're going to be keeping it fairly simple. Church wedding so we can have both wedding and reception there instead of having to find some venue for both that actually has an opening when we want it, for one." Nino nodded like that was a big decision off of their backs. Adrien and Marinette waited for more...and got nothing.

"And...?" Marinette prompted. "Flowers, food, dress, suit, decorations...?"

"Tablecloths, napkins, style of silverware?" Adrien added, grinning wider when he got an elbow to the stomach from both Nino and Marinette.

"I think the church has a standard set of tablecloths and napkins and silverware that they use, thank-you-very-much," Nino sniffed. "But we can ask, I guess. It would be good to make sure. And we were planning on ordering the croquembouche tower from your parents' place, Marinette- we'll talk to them about that soon and figure out flavors, I guess. See, we have been planning."

Adrien applauded sarcastically. Nino elbowed him again.

"Look, Alya's flight just landed," Marinette cut in before Adrien could start listing off other details required for wedding planning, just for the express purpose of bugging Nino. "Nino, how big of a plane is it? How long should we expect it to take for Alya to get off?"

Nino groaned. "I don't know. It might be a while. I don't think she's near the back of the plane, though, so there's that." His phone buzzed and he pulled it out. "It's Alya. She said that it might take a good ten minutes before she can get off, and then there's the getting through the airport."

"So that's, what, a good fifteen to twenty minutes of time for us to quiz you about stationary for wedding invitations," Adrien said, grinning. "So, have you decided what kind of parchment you're going to use?"

By the time Alya arrived, Nino had a whole list of things for him and Alya to think about for their wedding written up and looked about ready to throttle Adrien, who was helpfully not helping matters by asking about matching pocket squares for the men and table centerpieces for the reception.

"Do I even want to know?" Alya asked in exasperation after she had given Nino a kiss. "Marinette? Do I even want to know what these two clowns have been getting up to?"

"Adrien's not being helpful," Nino said right away, before Marinette could say anything. "I regret inviting him along. Is it too late for me to find another Best Man?"

They all laughed as Adrien spluttered.

"No, we do have a lot to consider," Alya admitted as soon as she spotted the list Nino held and caught on to what was going on. "I knew that as soon as we decided not to wait a year. But at least next year should be calmer. And we already decided to put the honeymoon off for a bit, since I've already been traveling so much recently."

"We both did," Nino added. "Since I've taken several weeks off of work in the last few months to visit. So we might wait for next winter and go somewhere warm and sunny, or go on our first anniversary or something. We didn't discuss that part too much yet. We've been busy."

"And we're about to get busier, even if we'll be in the same place." Alya ran a hand through her hair. "But let us have a few days to relax first! I need to shower, and I need to sleep. When are you two taking off?"

"Tonight. We have work and school tomorrow!" Marinette added when Alya's expression dropped. "We already took today off, and we're going to be missing more, I'm assuming, with coming back to help you guys with wedding stuff."

"Of course, of course." Alya stepped over to give both of them a hug. "I'm so looking forward to when you two are back in Paris and we can just see you whenever. That's, what- five months yet?"

"Four and a half?" Adrien suggested, exchanging a look with Marinette. "Yeah, that sounds right."

"Four and a half," Alya repeated. "That's so long, unless you're talking four and a half months to plan a wedding. In that case, it's short."

"And you don't even have that," Adrien pointed out. "Good luck with that, really."

Alya waved an airy hand. "Oh, my mom and Nino's are working to put together a list of relatives to invite and we've got a list of our friends already. We're not doing super extended family or anything, so it shouldn't be too large of a crowd. We'll be fine."

"I'll take your word for it." Adrien grinned as Alya turned and they followed her to the luggage carousel. "And I'll be a listening ear for when you decide to panic because your candlestick holders are lopsided or something."

"Candlestick holders? Is that what you've been bugging Nino about? Marinette, control your boy."

Alya practically talked their ears off as Nino navigated their way out of the airport and back towards their section of the city. She wanted to know which of her vlogs they had watched (all of them, Alya), and then dove into a deeper detailing of some of the users that she had found most interesting.

"I've got so much material to go through for my articles for the paper, and then I gotta organize it for my book," Alya finally finished as they pulled in to a spot in the zoo's parking lot. "Like, I could go on for days. The vlogs I posted were just barely scratching the surface, really. And I got so much traffic on the Ladyblog for those. I'm still getting a lot of traffic, more than I've gotten for years. The ads I decided to put on the site are actually earning me a decent amount of money now."

"Are you going to keep doing the vlogs?" Adrien asked as they all piled out and headed for the zoo's employee entrance. "Like, just updates on what you're working on? I'm sure people would love to hear hints about your work and see more of those awesome drawings."

Alya laughed. "I gotta keep some stuff secret for my book! But maybe I could do little updates every two weeks or something, depending on how busy I am. I might only be able to manage once a month for the next few months," she added, glancing over at Nino. "Since I've got the wedding planning to do, too. But yeah, it would keep some interest in the Ladyblog going, and keep people interested in my book."

"It's a good way to keep the Ladyblog active while Ladybug and Chat Noir are out of the country, too," Nino chimed in. "For however long they'll be gone. And there hasn't been even the slightest whisper of where they might have gone. They've shown up during the holidays, and that's it. Oh, and Alya- your father said to meet him by the panther cage."

"Sweet!" Alya pulled a key out of her pocket and let them in the door, then led the way towards the panther enclosure. "And speaking of the superheroes- so you all saw the picture they submitted to the Ladyblog, right? Of them kissing at Christmas?" Alya let out a little squeal. "It was so cute! They're adorable together. I wonder how soon they'll be getting married."

Nino laughed. "Alya, they've only been together for, what? A year?"

"They've been confirmed for a year, but they could have been together for ages before that!" Alya was in full Ladynoir shipper mode, her face alight with enthusiasm. "They might have been together for years but have just been keeping it on the down-low. Either way, they're perfect for each other. Why wait?"

Marinette glanced towards Adrien and wasn't surprised to see him glancing back towards her, a small smile playing on his lips. She felt her cheeks flush and she glanced away for a second, suddenly feeling unreasonably shy.

"ALYA!"

The moment was broken when Alya's father spotted them. He was washing his hands and arms and wearing an apron. He shed it and quickly came towards them, scooping Alya up in a hug and swinging her around. Alya gave a delighted laugh, hugging her father back as he set her down. He gave her another hug, then released her to get a good look at the ring on her finger. Nino stepped closer with a grin and was given a hug as well. Marinette watched with a fond smile, pulling her coat tighter as a chilly wind blew across the zoo.

Adrien was at her side in an instant. "Are you cold?"

"Only when there's a wind." She stepped closer to his side, but not too close. They had gone for a year and a half without arousing too much suspicion from their friends in France, and now Marinette was determined to make it the rest of the way. "I'll be fine, kitty. I promise."

"If you say so."

Soon enough, Alya's father had to return to his work and they were on the way to the Grand Paris. Marinette noticed Adrien scanning Chloe's social media as they drew closer and raised an eyebrow at him in question.

"I just don't want to run into Chloe," Adrien admitted with a sheepish grin. "But it sounds like she's in the middle of a spa day right now, so we should be all right. From what I remember of her, when Chloe spends the day at the spa, she spends the entire day."

Nino laughed. "You'll have to deal with her occasionally when you come back to Paris."

"Yeah, but I can wait until then, believe me." Adrien pocketed his phone, zipping the pocket back up to keep it safe. "I think she's gotten worse over the years. I thought she would grow out of it."

Alya made a bit of a face at that, then shrugged. Her eyes caught on Adrien's coat then, and she gave it a proper look over. "Hey, that doesn't look like one of your father's designs. It looks nice, though."

Adrien grinned, and Marinette couldn't hide the pleased smile when he smoothed a hand down the front of the coat proudly. "Yeah! It's Marinette's design. I love it. I've brought all of my other coats back to Paris to leave here, since it's all I'm going to wear for the rest of the season."

"You don't say."

"Well, all of the coats that my dad picks out for me are boring," Adrien complained. "I mean, they look nice, but he's known for a fairly strict style most of the time. Strict and clean and classic. I like the imagination in Marinette's designs more."

They didn't stay at the Grand Paris for long, because Mrs. Cesare had to get back in the kitchen to help prep for a particularly large catering event. Their final stop was at Alya and Nino's apartment, which had only gotten more stuffed with things since the last time they had visited.

"I've been bringing back stuff that she bought back whenever I visit," Nino explained to Adrien and Marinette as they all piled in. "And she went to a lot of places, so..."

"He would come with a half-empty suitcase and leave with a bursting one, every time," Alya said with a laugh. "And there were a few things that I shipped. I'm not normally a huge shopper, but there's only so many times when I'll be able to travel like that."

"So you guys get to be buried under a pile of stuff until you find a new place," Adrien summed up. "And you get to plan a wedding like that. Uh, have you considered renting out a storage unit to use until you can actually move? Because add in wedding magazines and you trying to get your research in order to all of this- plus anything to look at apartment listings- and you'll be wasting half of your time trying to find stuff."

"That's not a bad idea, really. It would make moving easier, too if we don't have to pack up and move everything at the same time." Nino glanced around their living room area. "I'll look into that, actually. Right away. And then we can maybe invite Ivan and Mylène over to help move stuff and pick their brains about wedding planning."

Marinette laughed. "You know that they're giving themselves a full year to plan and order things. Mylène ordered her dress earlier today, and they aren't getting married until fall."

"Yeah, but they've done research. And they would actually be helpful with sharing it, unlike Mr. Candlestick Holder over here." Nino gave Adrien a stink eye. Adrien only snickered in response. "And they did say that we could call them up to brainstorm together, though they don't know what kind of schedule we're planning on and- wait, don't you remember that?" Nino asked when Alya looked puzzled. "It was when they were congratulating us. Maybe you just forgot about it because Ladybug and Chat Noir sent in their congratulations right after and you were too busy squeeing over that to pay attention to other stuff."

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a grin. They had posted a photo that they had taken while transformed of themselves holding up a card congratulating the Ladyblogger on her engagement after she made a short post on the Ladyblog sharing the news. They had both gotten excited texts from Alya over that, though the Ladyblogger was slightly disappointed that the photo, which had been taken in front of a plain white wall, hadn't given her any clues about where the superheroes were.

"The people I was working with then actually sent someone over to check and make sure that I was okay," Alya admitted, giggling a little at the memory. "They thought that I had injured myself somehow or something, and I had to explain what was going on. They responded so quickly, too!" Alya added. "Like, within a day. That means that they're paying attention to the Ladyblog and my research, and that's so cool!" She spun around in a circle, grinning widely. Nino grinned, amused by his fiancée's enthusiasm, and then edged past her to bring the first of her suitcases back towards their bedroom.

"So if you're done spinning, I have something for you and Nino to open before Adrien and I have to leave," Marinette said, glancing at the clock. Adrien had already pulled his phone out to summon the Gorilla to bring them to the train station. She handed Alya the large, lumpy package that she had carried up the stairs. "It's a joint Christmas gift."

"Cool!"

As soon as Nino returned, he and Alya pulled the wrapping paper off of their present, and Marinette grinned as she watched their jaws drop once the quilt came into view.

"This is- wow, Marinette," Alya finally managed. She unfolded the quilt partway, draping it over their knees. "This is so pretty! And it's huge, so it'll cover our bed easily. I love it!"

"Look, Alya- that's the date we got together," Nino pointed out, running his fingers over the stitched date. "And the cat face- so cute! And then- oh, this is our first date, with the ice cream."

"It's a- what did you call it, Marinette? A double ring wedding quilt?" Adrien asked, looking at Marinette for confirmation, and she nodded. "A traditional wedding gift."

"It's gorgeous. I absolutely love it," Alya told them. "And we'll definitely appreciate it, since our bedroom here is a little drafty."

Marinette was grinning, clearly thrilled with their reactions.

"There are more of our dates on here," Nino announced. He had been steadily working his way across the chains, apparently having caught on to the pattern of where Marinette had had her quilter sew. "The big things, like the night I had my first gig as a DJ and then we had a date afterwards, and that time we went on that hike and then shared a tent afterwards, and- oh! Here's our engagement day, in the second to last ring."

"I'll fill in the date for your wedding once you decide," Marinette told them. "I had my quilter do the rest, but it'll be easy enough to finish up that bit. She told me what kind and color of thread she used so that it'll match."

"Oh, cool!" Alya was inspecting the dates as well now. "I love it! It's really personalized for us. How on earth did you remember all of these?"

"I looked back at my diary for those years for most of them," Marinette told them, still beaming proudly. "I had a general idea of when it was for a lot of the dates, but I didn't know the exact date until I looked it up."

"I love it!" Alya exclaimed again. She jumped up to hug Marinette. "Seriously. Best gift ever."

As always, their visit had to be cut too short. Adrien had classes the next day and notes to catch up on, and Marinette had to be back at work. They had said their good-byes to their friends and made them promise to keep the two of them updated on the planning progress.

And then they were back on the Eurostar, headed for London.

"I can't believe they went for the get married in under a year option," Adrien said with a bit of a laugh once they were settled and the train was underway. "Absolutely insane. But at least it'll keep them busy in Paris, so we won't have to worry about them coming over and. Uh." He glanced around, suddenly realizing that maybe it wasn't a fantastic idea to blurt out anything about their living arrangements while out in public. He scrambled for a way to better finish his sentence. "And we'll have plenty of excuses to go back to Paris to help and to get our things back there."

"It's going to be a matter of balancing trips back with spending enough time in London," Marinette pointed out. "You have your studies and I have my commissions. And it would be expensive to travel back and forth every weekend to help."

"Not to mention tiring," Adrien agreed. "And they'll have their families to help, and other friends. Alya's dress shopping might be hard, though, if she wants your help."

Marinette sighed. "It will be. And she can't drag that out forever, even if she is going with the off-the-rack option. She'll need to get it fitted, and that takes time. So I might need her to send me pictures, or maybe we can video chat or something."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out." Adrien patted her arm, clearly restraining himself from wrapping his arm around her shoulders instead. "You said that you would tell her what kinds of shapes to look at, right? So she can use that to narrow her options down and then you can come in and help her make a final decision."

"Well, she'll be the one making the final decision. I'm mostly there to give feedback and steer her and her consultant in the right direction." Marinette flopped back in her seat. "Man, if they could have waited, I would have been able to go dress shopping with her in person, and we wouldn't have to worry about the whole scheduling thing."

Adrien just gave her shoulder another sympathetic pat.

It was dark by the time their train pulled in at the station, just in time to only just miss their bus.

"Great," Adrien groaned, rubbing his grumbling stomach. "Just great. Now we'll have to wait, what? Half an hour?"

Marinette was glancing around. The area near the train station was bustling, as was normal, but there weren't a ton of people out an about, since it was cold and damp and miserable. If they went even a street over, they might be able to duck into an alleyway unnoticed. From there, they could transform and just hope that people had their blinds closed and wouldn't look up when they were walking in the street.

And if they did...well, hopefully the Ladyblogger was too busy in Paris to hop a train over to London and investigate.

With Adrien still grumbling and looking around, Marinette snagged his arm and pulled him along the sidewalk. He yelped, then caught on to what she was thinking and immediately trotted after her, trying not to look like he had just thought that someone was attempting to abduct him. It didn't take long for them to find a suitable alleyway, and then Ladybug and Chat Noir were bounding over the rooftops, each lugging a suitcase in one hand.

"Uh, do you know the way?" Chat Noir asked after a few minutes of jumping over streets and scrambling to keep his balance on snow-slick rooftops. "I honestly have no clue where we're supposed to go."

Ladybug giggled. "I don't know either. I was just planning on going in this general direction for a bit and then checking my yo-yo to see how much I had to alter my course. Which-" She landed on a rooftop and paused, flipping open her yo-yo to see a map of their section of London. "We need to be headed a bit more to the left."

"And how much farther do we have to go?"

"At the speed we were going? Ten more minutes, tops." Ladybug picked up her suitcase and started running again. "Ugh, I wish the suitcases could have gotten sucked into our transformation. Running with them is a pain."

Chat Noir could only nod and wince as his suitcase twisted in his hand and whacked a chimney as they passed. They would be lucky if they weren't spotted- or, worse, reported to the police as suspected intruders. Normally they were a whole lot quieter and a lot more agile.

"I kind of feel like I've been hit by Reverser again," Ladybug said with a bit of a giggle as her suitcase knocked loudly against another rooftop. "I haven't felt this clumsy as Ladybug for ages."

"I wish we had brought backpacks or something. Or cord, to turn our suitcases into backpacks."

"Oh, that would be a fashion statement."

A wet snow started falling as the two superheroes made their way across London, making the roofs even slicker. Chat Noir had to reach out and grab Ladybug at one point when she started sliding on the shingles, nearly losing his grip on his suitcase in the process.

"Almost there," Ladybug managed, struggling to her feet. "I can see our building. I'd say if we can get a block closer, that's good enough. Then we can drop down and detransform and just walk."

"Sounds like a plan!"

Getting down from the rooftops didn't go much more smoothly than running and jumping across them. Ladybug slipped and fell most of the way before catching herself, bending a gutter rather badly in the process when her yo-yo snagged on it.

"I'll have to come back and fix that some other night," Marinette said with a sigh once they had detransformed. She peered up through the snow- sleet, practically- at the damaged gutter. "Hopefully I can just yank it back into shape."

"It's amazing that we didn't leave a trail of bent gutters and broken shingles behind us when we were fighting in Paris," Adrien commented, pulling up his hood against the weather. "Or broken statues and chimneys from your yo-yo."

"I think Lucky Charm fixed a lot of damage," Marinette pointed out. They stepped out into the street, pulling their suitcases along the slushy sidewalk. "Because my yo-yo definitely broke a lot of stuff. The Eiffel Tower, for one."

Adrien sniggered. "Out of context, that sounds absolutely ludicrous," he said, grinning. "A yo-yo, take down the Eiffel Tower? But it is crazy strong."

"Most of the akumas we fought sounded just as crazy." Now that they were history, Marinette could laugh thinking back on some of the designs. "There was the giant baby, Mr. Pigeon-"

"Oh, but he was terrifying. To my nose, at least."

"You are a terrible cat."

Adrien only laughed.

As they rolled into their building, one of the wheels on Adrien's suitcase, abused beyond what it could take, popped off and rolled into a corner. Adrien groaned and ditched his listing suitcase to go after it. When he held it up, Marinette had to laugh.

"I'm gonna have to get new wheels," Adrien grumbled, coming back with the dinged-up wheel in hand. A chunk of it was straight-up missing, presumably from a direct hit to a chimney. "I mean, they weren't in great shape before, but I think they aged twenty years in a single trip across London, and- oh, crud." Adrien had turned his suitcase over to try to replace the wheel and found the axle bent way out of whack. "Okay, can we take the elevator? This suitcase is a mess."

"Of course." Marinette led the way to the elevators, her own suitcase wobbling unevenly behind her. "C'mon, kitty. Let's get home and then we can fix everything up."

A/N: As always, reviews make my day!

My apologies for the wonky updates at the moment- I had been hoping to get back to my normal schedule, but between starting a new job, baking a ton of Christmas cookies, trying to apply for spring jobs, and being behind on editing thanks to NaNo, I'm not as on top of things as I wanted to be (and on top of that, there's a large chunk of an upcoming chapter that I kind of want to re-write completely, which is a pain.) Hopefully I can get settled back in to my schedule soon (though the holidays might throw it off again :/), but if not then I'll just update when I can.