44. Chapter 44

A/N: I did my best to represent French wedding customs instead of relying on American norms (the civil ceremony on top of the church weddding, the croquembouche tower instead of cake, witnesses instead of bridesmaids/groomsmen). My apologies if I messed up anything important, but I figured that individual couples might have some variation from the "norm". Also Google can only tell me so much.

(RIP my Google search history, honestly. I'm going to be getting ads about weddings for months.)

The next couple of weeks flew by, and then, almost before they knew it, Adrien and Marinette were packing to go back to Paris again for the second time in a month.

"It's going to be torture being next to you at a wedding and not being able to act all mushy," Adrien grumbled as they packed- or rather, as Marinette packed and Adrien alternated between halfhearted packing and studying. He occasionally threw in the occasional bid for Marinette's attention, just to shake things up. He flopped facedown onto their bed and let out a whine, playing up his distress to get a reaction. "It's bad enough not being able to cuddle in public."

Marinette giggled as she packed Adrien's tux into a garment bag and laid it out on the bed. Her dress for the wedding was already in Paris, waiting in her room above the bakery. "I'm sure you can manage."

Adrien jokingly head-butted her side. "But I wanna cuddle you now."

"Clingy kitty." Still, Marinette reached out to thread her fingers through Adrien's hair. "And we can cuddle now, we just can't cuddle at the wedding."

"At the wedding, where there will be all sorts of romantic vibes that I'm just supposed to ignore while my girlfriend and love of my life is wandering around without me?"

"I'll probably stick pretty close to your side. We're both witnesses, remember?"

"Fine. I'm supposed to ignore the romantic vibes of the wedding while my girlfriend and love of my life is right at my side and I can't even snuggle with her or make mushy eyes? That's even worse."

"Dork."

"Your dork."

Plagg made a retching sound in the background. He was ignored.

"You'll be fine," Marinette reassured Adrien again. "I'm sure people will expect us to be close, since we're living, uh, next door to each other-"

Adrien sniggered.

"-so we can probably, like, dance together and hang out a lot without people suspecting too much, but no kissing," Marinette finished. Adrien pretended to pout even more. "At least not in public."

Adrien brightened.

"What, did you really think that I could spend an entire weekend without kissing you when you're right there? Not likely, kitty," Marinette teased. "We'll have to find a corner or two to sneak off to."

"Or three or four or five," Adrien purred, popping back up off the bed and ducking down to press his lips to hers. "Or- mmmm- six or seven-"

Marinette giggled and pushed him back. "We're not going to be there that long and if we go missing all night, people will start wondering."

"Let them wonder. People have been wondering for two and a half years now anyway, no matter if we've given them proper reason to or not."

Marinette gave him a stern look. "It's Alya and Nino's special day. We're not going to distract them."

Adrien flopped back down on the bed, stretching as he rolled back over to where his textbook laid open on the bed. Marinette watched him study for a few moments, then went back to surveying the drawers, trying to figure out what they should bring back to Paris on this trip. They had gotten a good chunk of their things back on other trips, of course, but there was just still so much left to move back to Paris.

Mr. Agreste had sent new clothes back with Adrien almost every time he went home for holidays or photoshoots. Marinette had made new outfits for herself and brought over (or bought) more sewing supplies. They had given each other presents and accumulated mementos from their time in London.

All of that added up to a lot of stuff, and it had taken up a good deal of their suitcase space on their previous trips back. They would have to take more than ever on this trip back if they wanted to make their final trip home as painless as possible.

"We just need a handful of t-shirts and light long-sleeves at this time of the year, right?" Marinette asked. "And maybe just one or two dressy outfits?"

Adrien craned his neck to glance over at her. "Yeah, that sound about right. And maybe one sweater each for any cool days? Those take up a ton of space in our suitcases."

Marinette nodded and tugged out several items from the drawers. They were finally starting to look a little emptier, though not as much as Marinette wanted. Ideally, they would be down almost to the basics at this point.

They were not down to the basics. Not quite.

"Sarah said that I can borrow her giant suitcase this weekend," Marinette told Adrien as she folded a few pieces and tucked them into her suitcase. "I thought I might bring home the rest of my screen-printing stuff and then some of my sewing supplies, with things I have multiples of. That's a lot of bulk but not a lot of weight, which is perfect with everything else that we're carrying."

"At what point are you bringing your sewing machine home?" Adrien asked. His attention had strayed off of his studying again as he watched her. "That's not going to be a final trip sort of thing, is it?"

Marinette blanked. She actually didn't know. She hadn't remembered to take her sewing machine into account when planning what to take back. It would be best to bring it back to Paris during a trip when she wouldn't be carrying much, since it was fairly heavy, but the problem was that there wouldn't be any trips with not much to carry. She would have a full load this time- and boy was it ever going to look funny to go home with a bulging backpack, two large suitcases and a bag when she was only going to be there for a couple days- and the final trip from London to Paris was going to have to have all of the rest of her things.

Maybe there would be someone in the office who was heading to Paris soon who would be willing to carry an extra bag. Or maybe they would have to figure out some other way to get it back, either through very insured shipping or...something else.

Marinette hated moving. It was a pair in the rear.

"I'll have to look at my commissions, I guess," she finally admitted. "Ideally it wouldn't go back in our last trip, since we're going to be carrying a lot. But this is the last trip that we're going to make back before going home for good, isn't it? It's now or then."

"And I'm just guessing that it can't go back this weekend," Adrien finished. "We already had too much stuff to carry. We'll figure it out, don't worry about it too much."

"But you know I'm going to."

Adrien pushed his books to the side and snagged Marinette as she headed past him again, pulling her down on the bed next to him. He pressed a kiss to her neck as he nuzzled her hair. "We'll get it figured out. Even if it's not the most efficient way of getting everything home that we could ever think of, we will manage it."

Marinette smiled, relaxing into his side. "I'd be running around like a headless chicken without you here to keep me grounded, you know."

"And a gorgeous headless chicken you would be- wait, that didn't sound as suave as I thought it would be," Adrien interrupted himself, frowning. "Uh- give me a minute here, I'll come up with something-"

Marinette collapsed backwards on the bed, shaking with helpless laughter. "You can't turn everything into a flirt, kitty cat. It doesn't work that way."

"Oh, really? I can still try." Adrien propped his chin on the palm of his hand, his elbow resting on his knee as he puzzled over the problem. Marinette watched him, amusement dancing over her face as Adrien muttered things under his breath and then immediately shook his head, frowning.

"Okay, I'm coming up empty," Adrien admitted after a minute, straightening up. "There's no good way of turning headless chicken into a compliment. So, uh, are we packing or not?"

Marinette snorted. "Oh, very smooth change of topic there," she teased him, pushing herself back up. "Don't think that I don't see what you're doing there, buddy. And you were distracting me."

"Oh, I'm very good at distracting." Still, Adrien pushed himself up, offering Marinette a hand. "But you're right. I can take a study break, and we can get the packing out of the way."

There was barely a minute to spare when Adrien and Marinette arrived back in Paris. There were flowers to pick up and arrange in the church, croquembouche to fill and stack, suits to iron and dresses that needed final tiny tweaks.

And yet, the two of them managed to find the time to meet as superheroes, once all of the errands were done for the day.

"I've been put in charge of Nino and Alya's order," Ladybug told Chat Noir. "Which is fine, I've made plenty of croquembouche before and Maman and Papa have other orders to work on plus the normal work. But I've barely had a spare moment."

"I've been helping them make sure that everything goes smoothly," Chat Noir assured her. "It's involved a lot of driving around and picking stuff up. Or being driven around, I guess. I'm not allowed to drive my father's car, and there's too much to carry for me to take the bus."

"And everything is going well?"

"Yeah. It's just unfortunate that Alya's mom is the one doing the cooking, because she's busy getting everything prepped today. And then you're baking and not there. It's fortunate that Alya isn't a panicky bride." Chat Noir settled down against the roof, leaning back on his hands. The Eiffel Tower had a better view, but since it wasn't a holiday and the two of them didn't want to encourage sightings, they had opted for a nondescript rooftop to meet up on instead.

"I've been texting Alya when I'm between batches," Ladybug told him. "And while waiting for stuff to cool. She seems to have stuff organized pretty well, but I'm sure it helps to have runners."

"She keeps us busy, that's for sure." Chat Noir smiled at her. "And then things start early tomorrow, don't they? The legal stuff at City Hall, and then run over to the church to get all fancied up, and then the ceremony..."

"And we have to fit lunch in there somewhere, without getting anything on our clothes," Ladybug pointed out. "I don't know what Alya and Nino have planned, but I hope it's not remotely messy."

Adrien laughed. "We could use smocks while we eat. I've seen models do that before when their fittings go on forever or it's an avant-garde shoot and their styling takes hours. I can text Nathalie tonight and ask, and she'll probably pick a few up from headquarters on her way to work tomorrow."

"Nathalie is a godsend."

Ladybug leaned against him, resting her head against Chat Noir's shoulder. They watched the city in silence for a bit, just enjoying each other's company and relaxing after their frantic day.

It was nice. It was calm. They had both needed a moment to breathe, and they found that moment together.

"Tomorrow should be fun," Chat Noir said, breaking the silence. "After the craziness, after all the pomp and ceremony... it'll be fun getting to see so many of our school friends again during the reception."

"It will be," Ladybug agreed. "And I'm looking forward to it. We just have to survive until then first."

The morning of the wedding dawned for everyone in the wedding party. There were final touches to put on the croquembouche tower, flowers to be put into place, dresses and other supplies to be brought to the church, a lunch to prepare and pick up...

It was a lot.

"We intended to do the civil ceremony the day before, but we sort of forgot about that bit until pretty last-minute," Alya explained to Marinette with a sheepish grin as they waited for the civil authority to arrive. "My mom was the one who mentioned it, and we were all what? And of course that happened over the weekend, so we had to wait until Monday. And then Monday was some sort of government holiday, so we waited for Tuesday. And then the person we needed to talk to was out, so it wasn't until that Friday that we could talk to them about the civil ceremony. And since we needed to do it before the church ceremony, we only had, like, two choices- either today, or two weeks ago."

"And we thought it would be kind of stupid to have the civil thing so long before our actual wedding," Nino chimed in. "And we wanted an afternoon wedding so that we would have plenty of time to prep, so..." He shrugged. "We crammed everything on the same day."

"And the witnesses thank you for it, really," Adrien said dryly, and Marinette giggled. "As do your families, I'm sure."

Alya groaned. "Oh gosh. Let me tell you, they have let us know exactly what they thought of that. That conversation wasn't fun- oh, there's our guy!"

The civil ceremony took no time at all, and then they were all scrambling over to the church. Time flashed by in a rush of hairspray and bobby pins and lace and makeup and a very, very rushed lunch, and then they were in the church.

Adrien crossed his eyes at Marinette as Nino and Alya recited their vows. It was touching, sure, and very romantic...but it was going on forever, it seemed, especially since they had also attended the civil ceremony that morning. Their own "wedding" almost two years prior had been much shorter, mostly because they had chopped out the prayers and readings in the name of efficiency and not boring themselves to death for the sake of a prank.

Marinette smothered her giggles and gave Adrien as stern of a look as she could manage without catching anyone's attention. He straightened his eyes back out and gave her a tiny shrug, completely unrepentant.

Really, Plagg was a terrible influence on him. Hilarious, sometimes, but terrible.

The minister continued, unaware of their shenanigans. Nino and Alya only had eyes for each other, thankfully, and the audience was focused on them as well. Adrien forced himself to focus as he watched his two friends exchange rings. There was another short blessing, and then the two of them kissed.

(Adrien had to clear his throat loudly to remind them that yes, there were other people around and no, nobody was interested in watching the two of them play tonsil hockey.)

"That was nice," Marinette murmured as she and Adrien followed Alya and Nino back up the aisle towards the door. Their hands brushed each other briefly as they walked. "Nino and Alya did an excellent job of pulling that all together. I didn't know that it would be possible, since they only just got engaged a few months ago."

"We pulled off a fake wedding in less than twenty-four hours," Adrien pointed out as they left the sanctuary and followed Nino and Alya down the stairs to the reception hall. "It's possible. They had months."

"Correction: Madam Rosalie pulled off a fake wedding ceremony in less than a day," Marinette said with a laugh, bumping Adrien's shoulder with her own. "And it didn't have a reception, or guests, really, or... oh, I don't know, what else. The decorations were really limited to the front, too, so she didn't need to get a whole lot of flowers and ribbons and whatnot."

"And I guess that technically, she had been planning the photoshoot for months," Adrien added. "It was just a matter of moving it forward and re-fitting some of the dresses." He paused, then gave her a thoughtful look. "Does she still have those, by the way?"

Marinette blinked over at him, slightly puzzled. "I... yeah? We keep all original pieces in storage. It's good for inspiration, to be able to walk through the warehouse and pull out old pieces and inspect the fabrics and the sewing and the piecing. Some pieces get sold if someone is really interested in it, but I don't think any of the wedding photoshoot pieces got sold off. Why?"

"Because that dress was gorgeous on you," Adrien told her, grinning when Marinette blushed. "And... I wouldn't mind seeing it again."

The small intake of air from next to him told Adrien that Marinette hadn't missed his meaning. He glanced over and was pleased to see that Marinette didn't look opposed to the idea at all.

Now wasn't the time or the place to really discuss the idea further, especially since they could already see people rushing towards them, clearly eager to talk to them after years of only short, infrequent visits. But the topic was out there between them now, to be discussed later on.

Dinner was tasty, as was to be expected. Alya's mother had apparently played a big role in steering Alya and Nino's choices in selecting the reception menu, and she had gotten some of her normal staff to finish cooking it so that she could have the night off.

The only problem with it was that it was dragging on for far too long. Both Adrien and Marinette were starting to get restless, unused to being around each other for so long without being able to exchange at least a few little affectionate touches.

Under the table, Adrien's hand wrapped around Marinette's own, his thumb stroking hers. She unconsciously leaned towards him, enjoying his warmth against the cool evening air coming in from the open windows. She quickly moved back when her father glanced up towards the head table, but the look on his face made her think that she perhaps had not been as subtle as she had hoped to be.

Drat. They were so, so close to ending the day without raising any suspicion, but if she kept slipping up then her parents would be onto them and Nino and Alya wouldn't be far behind. Maybe Adrien's father wouldn't be able to do anything now about it, since the last tuition payment was in and they could easily cover the last two months of rent on their own, but now that they had made it this far without anyone (except for her co-workers) having their suspicions confirmed, they really wanted to keep it a secret until they came back for good.

(She hadn't thought that they would get this far with their secret still intact, honestly. But having secret-keeping experience from their time as Ladybug and Chat Noir plus a good deal of distance between them and Paris certainly had helped.)

(Marinette also had a sneaking suspicion that she knew the reason why Adrien was so gung-ho on keeping the secret until then. There was no way of knowing, though, and she wasn't going to ask and spoil the surprise.)

"I can't wait until we move back here and can finally let people know," Marinette murmured to Adrien a few minutes later once her parents' attention had gone elsewhere. She was just barely pouting. "I wish we could cuddle."

Adrien couldn't help but grin. "Funny, I remember someone saying something about how we could make it through one evening without cuddling." When Marinette's pout just got more pronounced, he tried to bite back the grin. "Wanna slip away for a few minutes?"

"Not during dinner," Marinette replied, her voice barely a whisper. "We'll be noticed. But maybe once the dances get going..."

Adrien grinned in anticipation.

Unfortunately, once the dances got going and everyone got up to move around, there were a ton of people that wanted to talk to them. Maybe they should have expected it- they hadn't seen a lot of their friends in person for more than a couple hours here and there for several years- but they couldn't help but be a little put out by the stream of people taking up their attention.

Could they maybe get a ten-minute break, where they could be together for a few moments?

"You have plenty of time to be together later on," Tikki scolded in Marinette's ear during a short break in socializing. "And you were just talking only a couple days ago how much you were looking forward to seeing your old school friends again. You just got so caught up in your idea of sneaking away together that you're letting it distract you and keep you from enjoying the moment."

"You're right, Tikki," Marinette admitted with a sigh, exchanging an abashed look with Adrien. "I have been letting it distract me. Let's go mix and mingle. We don't want our friends thinking that we aren't excited to see them."

The two of them split up, to better avoid temptation. Marinette headed over to chat with Ivan and Mylène, while Adrien wandered over to where Nino, Max, and Kim were laughing about something. Mylène lit up when she saw Marinette.

"Marinette! I texted you about my dress, right?"

"That you got to see the sample dress with the right skirt and the Eiffel Tower lace?" Marinette asked, grinning at the memory. She had seen Mylène's excited text and had been thrilled at how happy her friend seemed. "Did all of that get sent off to the dressmakers?"

"It did! But I don't think I sent you any of the pictures that I took." Mylène turned to Ivan, who pulled her phone out of one of his pockets and passed it over. Mylène wasted no time in unlocking it and pulling up one of the photos, with her glancing over her shoulder at the camera with the back of the dress on display.

The lace was thicker in all the right spots, covering the moles but leaving much of Mylène's back bare. There was no mistaking what it was, either. The delicate lace formed a perfect picture, looking light and delicate and airy and still somehow it was functional.

"Oh, that's perfect!" Marinette exclaimed. "Did it feel good?"

"I could barely feel it at all! But I knew it was there, and it made me feel a lot better about the dress. It's perfect now." Mylène clicked out of the pictures and turned her screen off before handing her phone back to Ivan. "I really love it."

"You look gorgeous in it," Marinette assured her. "And once it's on a dress that's fitted perfectly? That will be amazing."

"She won't show me the pictures," Ivan announced gloomily. "Even though it's not the exact dress that she'll be wearing on our wedding day."

Marinette patted his arm, trying not to laugh. "It'll make a bigger impact if you haven't seen any version of the dress."

Across the room, Adrien had been waylaid on his way over to the group of boys by an impish-looking Alix. He looked a bit trapped, and Marinette gave him a sympathetic look before returning her attention to Ivan and Mylène.

Adrien sighed and resigned himself to a round of energetic teasing. Once Alix had finally moved on, then he was snagged by Max, who had moved on from his conversation with Nino. Then Adrien caught up with Rose and Juleka, getting dragged into a couple dances with Rose before they let him go. He supervised a wine-chugging competition between Alix and Kim (a waste of perfectly good wine, but at least they were just seeing who could drink a glass faster and not seeing who could drink, say, an entire bottle faster or how much they could both drink), and then finally, finally managed to get over to Nino.

"You're popular," Nino told him with a laugh as Adrien approached. "Just as much as I am, and I'm the groom. I guess it makes sense, because no one has seen you for any longer than an hour here or there, if that."

"Yeah." Adrien glanced around, spotting a few of his former classmates among the crowd. He had to admit, it had been fun catching up with people properly, and he was definitely glad that Tikki had called him and Marinette out on their nonsense before too much of the evening had passed. They could fulfill their snuggling-at-weddings quota when Ivan and Mylène got married in the fall. "And there's a lot of people that I've only ever seen when I bumped into them on accident, or at the get-togethers before Alya left. At least I'll have plenty of time to see people on a more regular basis once I move back."

Nino nodded. "Yeah! Though I gotta ask- are we talking plenty of time like you'll be free outside of photoshoots and whatnot, or plenty of time like just normal time outside of typical work hours, only you'll be in Paris instead of London?"

"The latter, hopefully. I haven't heard back yet on the positions that I interviewed for in person yet, but I'm not meant to hear either way for another week, I think." Adrien couldn't deny that the delay was making him nervous, but apparently there were candidates with busy enough schedules that they hadn't been able to interview at the same time as the rest of the group and that was causing the holdup. "I'm hoping to get something sorted out soon, though. I won't have much time to find anything else if those positions fall through."

"Summer is coming up sooner and sooner and sooner," Nino agreed, grinning widely. "It's good that you've gotten interviews, though. Do you know what you're going to be doing for housing when you come back? Will you be living with your pops again?"

Adrien shuddered at the thought. Looking back, he had no idea how he had put up with his father for so long. It probably had something to do with him thinking that he had no choice in the matter. "Definitely not. He would just make a nuisance of himself if I did, trying to get me back into modeling and business. I'm moving out."

And moving in with Marinette, but Nino didn't need to know that. Not yet.

"Where are you looking?" Nino wanted to know. "If you're too far away, you'll get all isolated. It's easy to get cut off on your own. You got lucky in London, with Marinette as your neighbor."

"I really did," Adrien agreed happily. And then, just because he could, Adrien added, "Maybe I'll talk to her about splitting a two-bedroom apartment or something, so we can keep hanging out."

"Oh, god, and they were roommates," Nino muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. Adrien feigned confusion.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing." Nino fixed Adrien with a look that Adrien did his best to ignore. "Is Marinette planning on moving out of her parents' place as well?"

"She said something about how it would probably be hard to live with her parents again after being on her own for several years," Adrien said, which was true. As much as Marinette loved her parents, living at home again would chafe after being independent for several years. But their main hang-up now would be that the two of them wanted to live together, and they wouldn't have quite enough privacy if they were to stay in her old bedroom for an extended period of time. "So I think she wants to move out, too."

"You should definitely ask her," Nino told Adrien earnestly, and Adrien had to try not to laugh at his friend's obvious matchmaking efforts. "You would probably have a ton of fun living together."

Adrien nodded, still trying not to laugh. "Right. I'll ask, then."

"I think you would enjoy coming home to her every day."

Adrien just kept nodding. "Yeah! We would never run out of fresh bread. She's been teaching me how to make all different kinds! And we could play video games together when we get bored."

Nino looked like he would happily whack Adrien over the head.

"She's a really great friend," Adrien added, just for good measure. Much to his delight, Nino groaned.

"I give up with you, I really do. If Alya wants to try to talk some sense into you, she is welcome to it."

"Wait, what?" Adrien called as Nino headed off, doing his best to sound confused. "What do you mean?"

"Figure it out yourself!"

Adrien grinned as he walked away as well, looking around at the shrinking crowd. A number of the assorted relatives had already left, as well as some of their friends. Adrien could see Ivan and Mylène near the door, talking to Alya, and Marinette's parents were talking to Nino's mother over by the remains of the croquembouche tower. Adrien headed over in their direction, because even if he had had a good deal of pastry already, there was no such thing as too much Dupain-Cheng baking. Marinette caught up to him again as he piled a couple of the pastries onto a napkin.

"You're going to have to hit up the gym in London when we get back," Marinette teased, reaching over to break off a small chunk of pastry from his pile and pop it in her mouth. "Those are really rich."

"Rich and fabulous and definitely worth it."

Marinette just laughed, shaking her head fondly.

(She was definitely right and Adrien knew it, but he didn't have to admit that. Not right away, at least.)

"I know it's late, but do you want to go out later as Ladybug and Chat Noir?" Marinette asked quietly, leaning closer to him so that no one could possibly overhear. "Not for long, since we have to be up at a decent time tomorrow to go back to London, but just to be together for a bit?"

Adrien nodded eagerly. That sounded like a great plan. He was itching for some cuddle time with his Lady, even if they would be back in London and able to cuddle to their hearts' content in their apartment by the end of the next day. "Of course! Text me when you're ready."

It wasn't much longer before the rest of the guests started to filter out. The Dupain-Chengs helped Nino and Alya package up the leftover croquembouche, and Alya's mother did the same with what was left of the meal. Soon they were waving good-bye and going their separate ways. Adrien winked at Marinette as she left, just to see her small, pleased smile.

"Congrats, you two," Adrien told Nino and Alya after he had gotten the text telling him that the Gorilla had arrived to pick him up. "That was a really nice wedding. I bet it'll be nice to not have the planning for that hanging over your shoulders anymore."

"Yeah, now we can focus on finding a new apartment and moving, which shouldn't be stressful at all." Still, Nino grinned. "We'll figure it out. Good luck with your jobs search and moving and- oh, what am I saying? We text literally every day and here I am, talking like I won't hear from you at all for the next couple months."

Adrien had to laugh. "It's the exhaustion talking, I'm sure." He stepped forward to hug both Nino and Alya. "Good night, you guys."

"Bye, Adrien!"

The ride home took nearly no time at all, and then Adrien was bidding the Gorilla good-night before he headed up to his room. Adrien carefully hung his clothes back up in his closet, making sure that there weren't any wrinkles, changed into pajamas, and then settled down at his computer with his phone at his elbow to surf the Internet while waiting for Marinette to text.

It wasn't long at all before Adrien's phone vibrated with a returning text from Marinette. Her parents had gone to bed, and she was free to sneak out.

"I forgot how early they go to bed," Adrien told Plagg as his kwami finished up his snack. "And it's amazing that Marinette didn't turn out to be a morning person, considering both of her parents are."

"Your father is a morning person too," Plagg pointed out. "Was your mom?"

"Not nearly as much, but she didn't sleep in late like Mari and I like to." Adrien opened his window and waved his ring at Plagg. "Which, fair, but sleeping is fun. Plagg, transform me!"

Plagg zipped into the ring and in a flash of light, Chat Noir replaced Adrien. He shot out the window, bounding towards Marinette's house. He met Ladybug halfway, and they headed for an out-of-sight rooftop. As soon as they were there and settled, Chat Noir pulled Ladybug in for a long kiss.

"That was really nice," Ladybug said once they separated, and it took Chat Noir a moment to realize that she was talking about the wedding and not the kiss, which had also been really nice. "I was worried about what they would be able to accomplish in their time frame, especially since they both had a lot of stuff going on, but they must have been crazy organized. Add in all of the stuff Alya's been trying to get done at work and with her book..."

"Well, we knew that they were done with getting all of the orders for stuff set up two weeks ago," Chat Noir reminded her, thinking back to their group chat from Easter. Marinette had been eager to hang out, of course, but had been worried about an outing to the arcade taking up too much of Nino and Alya's time, since the wedding was so close. Alya had waved her friend's concerns off, informing them that all of the necessary arrangements were already made and she and Nino had plenty of free time, enough that Alya had even gotten started on putting together Marinette's commissions website.

Marinette had not been pleased to hear that her friend was pretty much using her website as an excuse to procrastinate on organizing her superhero research, which had apparently hit a bit of a snag.

"Still." Ladybug leaned against his side. "It's impressive. Alya admitted that some of the stuff they ordered was a bit more expensive because it was kind of a late order, but they still stayed in budget. It probably helped that my parents did the croquembouche tower and her mom's kitchen did the catering."

Chat Noir felt his brow furrow. "Wait, why would it be more expensive? It wasn't, like, the day before or anything"

"It just is. My parents normally do the same thing when someone puts in a big order like that, but they didn't this time because it's Nino and Alya, and then I was the one to do most of the work on the order anyway. I think it has something to do with advance ordering food or making up schedules so that all of the orders fit together nicely." Ladybug shrugged. "It's to encourage people to not wait until last minute, because it makes it harder on businesses if they don't know how busy they're going to be several months out."

That made sense. Chat Noir nodded.

The two of them fell into silence, relaxing as they watched the city around them. It wasn't nearly as good of a vantage point as the Eiffel Tower, but it meant that they could be out and about without having to dodge too many eyes. Chat Noir shifted so that Ladybug could pillow her head in his lap, looking relaxed and gorgeous as she settled down.

"How do you think people will react when we tell them about us?" Chat Noir asked after a few minutes of silence. "I mean, my father will be a grouch like always, but Nino and Alya? Your parents?"

"My parents will be confused but they'll be happy. They like you." Ladybug beamed up at him. "My mom was telling me about everything you guys were talking about when you came to the bakery after your interviews. They didn't pester you too much, did they? I know that they can get a bit overbearing sometimes without meaning to."

"No, no, it was adorable," Chat Noir assured her, and then he paused. "Well...mostly. Your dad nearly gave me a heart attack the first day when he came in and greeted me as his son-in-law. Apparently he had just been looking at the prank photos the previous night and decided to have a little fun with me."

Ladybug laughed, loud and clear and free. God, he loved her laugh. "Oh, gosh. What I would have given to see the look on your face. I bet it was precious."

"If you had been there, you would have been just as startled as I had been." Still, Chat Noir couldn't hold back his grin. Mr. Dupain had greeted him in much the same way the second time, and Adrien had just rolled with it, enough that several customers congratulated Mr. Dupain on his daughter's marriage before he could explain that it was a joke (well, for now, at least). "They have a good sense of humor, so they'll understand after a bit. Nino and Alya might take longer to forgive us."

"I think they'll respond kind of like Alix did. She wasn't upset." Ladybug grinned up at him. "I happened to notice that she had you cornered there for a bit."

"She had to get her bit of ribbing in, I think. Nothing too bad." Chat Noir threaded his fingers though Ladybug's hair, grinning at her pleased smile at the sensation. "They're never going to let us forget this, though."

"Of course not. I don't mind, though." Ladybug reached up, returning the gesture as she ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of Chat Noir's neck. "It is funny. And I don't mind what people say. I'm sure everyone we know will find it funny in the end."

"Except for my father, but he doesn't count," Chat Noir agreed. "I can't wait until we get back to Paris. It really can't come soon enough."