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chatonne-rousse · 4 years

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Three Kids and a Hamster

This was my contribution to the @adrienettezine. I joined the zine as a beta and ended up as a pinch hitter - this sweet little fluffy story was the result. I hope you enjoy it! I just love these two so much.

Read it on Ao3 here.

**********************

The same full moon that lit their way over rooftops and across the Seine an hour before shines through the hatch above the bed, illuminating their entwined legs in its gentle glow and casting shadows on the room below. Even if she weren't tucked beneath his arm with her cheek against his chest, this would be a place of perfect peace, awash in a sense of rightness and comfort and home. It makes his chest constrict all of a sudden, his next inhale a sharp shudder that rouses her immediately from near-sleep.

"You okay, Chaton?" she murmurs, eyes wide and worried.

He reassures her with a soft, genuine smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just...thinking."

Bending forward to press a kiss to her forehead, he pulls her back down to his chest and starts up a purr for her. The breathy giggle he gets in return is always worth the twinge of embarrassment and the weird tickle in his throat.

"About what?"

The purr dies down, replaced with a contented hum. "How much I love you, of course, Princess. What else?"

As expected, she swats him playfully and laughs, but a moment later he feels her hand stretch across his torso as she cuddles closer into his side.

"I mean it," she whispers into his shirt. "Your breathing got all weird. What's wrong?"

"Bugaboo, you know you take my breath away!"

"Adrien."

Her voice is all no-nonsense Ladybug, but it just makes him grin wider.

"I'm actually not kitten, Marinette."

She groans and lifts her head again but when she meets his gaze after an exaggerated eye roll, her features soften in response to his. She begins to duck her head shyly before changing course and pressing her lips to his instead, soft and sweet and warm. His eyes slip shut and he melts beneath her, his ever-romantic heart singing her name over and over in a three-beat cadence.

"I love you, too," she whispers against his lips, finally breaking away after a long, slow kiss that leaves them both breathless.

After a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth and another on his jaw, she settles back into the crook of his neck, her breath warm and tickly and perfect against his skin.

Logically, he knows he needs to transform and head home, but the stark difference between his bedroom prison and Marinette's warmth is enough to keep him here just a little longer, stretching time and tempting fate.

Wouldn't it be wonderful, he thinks, as the sleepy calm drifts over them once more, to stay here forever, just like this?

He imagines waking up this way, morning breath and snoring kwamis and a warm tangle of limbs illuminated by a new day's dawnlight instead of the quiet moon. Perhaps there would be a purring cat asleep on the bed with them. And one day, maybe, he'd wake to find a toddler who had crawled up onto the bed and wriggled between them in the night to be close to maman and papa. A family. His heart squeezes with emotion again, but he keeps his breathing steady and Marinette doesn't seem to notice this time.

Dreaming of what the future might hold seems like an extravagant luxury in a world where a supervillain regularly terrorizes Paris and threatens to rend the very fabric of the universe and its delicate balance. Then again, isn't that all the more reason to dream?

Even with the freedom being Chat Noir grants him, the responsibility of avoiding that fate is a heavy weight across his shoulders, and a far more cumbersome yoke on his Lady's. Imagining a day when they can transform for fun instead of necessity, cook dinner together, fall asleep just like this, and not have to wonder if an akuma alert will rouse them before the sun—well, that just makes him fight each battle harder and despise Hawkmoth that much more. After all, the fate of humanity includes the fate of Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng, too.

Her fingers glide feather-light at his wrist, so he knows she's still awake, and before he can think twice about it, he's murmuring a question into the dark.

"Hey, Bug?" He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Do you ever think about...the future?"

Her hand stops its gentle, soothing motion against his arm, and he misses the feeling immediately.

"After we defeat Hawkmoth, or...?" she trails off.

"That could happen tomorrow, so let's start with tomorrow and go from there."

She resumes her caress, though this time her hand trails higher, up and under his t-shirt sleeve to the warm skin of his bicep. He smiles against her hair and hugs his heat-seeking little bug tighter.

"Well, tomorrow we have a calculus test, then you have a piano lesson after school. I really didn't plan anything beyond that, but if we're going to squeeze in an epic final battle with Hawkmoth, I suppose I should work on my history project at lunch to get ahead."

"Cheeky bug!" He tickles her in retaliation, and she giggles into his chest. "I was being serious!"

"I know, Minou." She laughs for another moment but says nothing more.

He waits through one deep breath, then two, before he whispers her name, questioning, against her hair.

She cranes her neck to look up at him, her gaze shy but warm. "It's just...can I be weird?"

Ah, that explains her reticence. The delighted half-smile that crosses his face is pure Chat Noir, but he can't help it. He loves this.

"Of course, My Lady. Always."

Five months and four days ago (yes, he's counting—it was the greatest day of his life, so far), after more than three years of superhero partnership and civilian friendship, an unplanned reveal, and the awkward nine day aftermath (yes, he counted—it was awful), they'd finally made it official. Adrien and Marinette had, at least. Ladynoir was still under wraps for now to avoid suspicion, but he looked forward to the day when a real kiss they could both remember would grace the front page of the Ladyblog.

At the beginning, between blissful kisses and timid touches, they'd taken the time to really get to know each other—with no secrets between them, a whole, beautiful picture emerged. It was amazing and thrilling and freeing. It was also a bit embarrassing.

She'd seen him in his Ladybug pajamas one evening when she'd stopped by his bedroom for an unplanned visit. Another afternoon, he'd opened a drawer in her room looking for a pen and discovered approximately two dozen photos of himself looking back at him. Plagg had unceremoniously dropped Adrien's Ladybug and Chat Noir action figures onto Marinette's lap while they watched a movie and proceeded to tell her that Adrien sometimes played with his dolls and made them kiss. He'd never been so mortified in his life (and he once fought an akuma wearing a banana costume, so that was saying something), especially when Marinette had laughed until she cried.

He'd have sentenced the tiny magical agent of chaos to eating Velveeta for a week if Marinette hadn't caught her breath, removed his hands from his beet-red face, and kissed him silly.

Afterward, lovestruck, he'd asked, "So I'm not...weird?"

Cheeks still stained with the sweetest blush, eyes soft and bright and full of love, she'd responded, "Of course you are, kitty. I already knew that," and kissed him again for good measure. "It's a good thing your Lady is just as weird."

And just like that, it was okay. His pajamas, her photo collection, his action figures, her calendar.

Can I be weird? preceded his admission of being unable to sleep if his Marinette lucky charm wasn't beneath his pillow. It was asked before he learned she slept with her handmade Chat Noir plushie beside her every night.

The question is rhetorical, of course. Permission to be weird is simply indemnity from embarrassment, a solemn vow of understanding between them. It's been the lead-in to many shared secrets and it still gives him a little thrill every time, just knowing that he's about to learn another closely-held tidbit about his Lady.

Tonight, he's especially curious—the question he asked was about the future, after all.

"I used to think about it a lot," she begins quietly. "And I mean, a lot. I'm a planner, you know."

Oh, he knows. Thank goodness one of them is.

"You've seen my sketchbook. You saw my wedding dress designs and all your possible matching tuxes. Alya's dress and Nino's suit..."

"And they were beautiful, Bug. I loved them all."

He can feel her smile against his t-shirt collar.

"Thank you, Chaton. But...it's not just that. I, um...I chose the flowers for my bouquet, I planned the menu for the reception dinner—"

"And your parents will make the croquembouche," he whispers, suddenly entranced.

She nods, but goes silent once more. He wants to hear about everything—the venue she imagined for the service and reception, what they'll wear at the civil ceremony prior, whether their guests will throw rice or rose petals or wheat as they exit as newlyweds. It's all so beautiful, his heart is positively singing; how could she ever think this is weird?

"I named our children."

The song in his heart comes to an abrupt stop when the rhythm falters before restarting at hummingbird speed.

Dazed, he breathes, "Our..."

"I know!" she groans. She covers her eyes with one hand and buries her face in his shirt. Her voice is muffled, but he's hanging on every word. "I told you it was weird! I named them! I thought about who would be youngest, oldest, middle--"

"Three?" He chokes on air. Is he even breathing?

"I designed the little outfit we'd bring each of them home from the hospital in. Their nursery had a theme! Our hamster had a name! I imagined our house, our garden, the layout of the kitchen, the color of our master bathroom!"

"What color?" he asks weakly.

A pause.

"Blue."

"I love blue."

"I know."

Silence descends again, as he attempts to regulate his breathing and bring his swirling, scattered thoughts under control. She hasn't moved a muscle, and neither has he. Honestly, he's thankful to be moored to his steadfast port in the storm right now, so he can't float away or slip under.

"Adrien?"

He hums questioningly in response.

"I'm sorry." Her voice is small and tinged with sadness, slicing directly through his current bubble of overwhelmed euphoria in an instant.

Sitting up so quickly that she's dislodged from his side with a startled squeak, he pulls both of her hands between his and brings her close enough to really see her face in the shadowy moonlight.

"Why are you sorry?" he asks, baffled. "That was..." he trails off, shaking his head as he searches for the correct word, wanting to convey his feelings properly. Incredible doesn't seem like enough. Perfect, perhaps? A dream I didn't know I had until you said it, and now I want that exact thing more than I've ever wanted anything in my life?

"Crazy, I know. Selfish."

"What? No!" he exclaims, and her wide eyes snap to meet his. "Marinette, it sounds amazing!"

"Amazing?"

He lets go of her hands to gather her in a hug instead, happy to feel her arms wrap tightly around him in turn.

"Amazing," he murmurs against her hair, hoping she can hear the sincerity in his voice. "Why do you think it's selfish?"

"Because...because I never thought about what you'd want, not really. Maybe you don't want kids—"

"I want kids," he interrupts.

"Or maybe you don't like hamsters."

"Mari, I love hamsters."

She smiles against his skin. "I'm glad. I thought you'd want a cat."

"Oh, I do," he says, nodding.

"I knew it!" she laughs. "But I didn't know any of that back then. I just dreamed my own wild dreams and brought a fantasy of future you along for the ride. It wasn't fair to you." She leans back, settling her wrists over his shoulders and searching his gaze with her own. "You deserve to have a say in your own life, Adrien. For once."

A wave of stunned gratitude wells up within him and he swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. No one, not even his beloved mother, has ever extended him the courtesy of autonomy, much less apologized for not considering it in the first place. The way Marinette loves him, with a selfless, gentle kindness, is like nothing he's ever known, and it overwhelms him sometimes.

Oh, he loves her so much.

"Marinette," he says, when he's able to. "Do you want to live on a desert island with me and eat only fruit for the rest of our lives?"

She blinks, confused.

"Because that was one of my dreams," he continues. "You—well, Ladybug—me, our hamster, and a ton of fruit. Silly, right?" He shrugs. "I was a lovesick teenager. I have a feeling you know something about that, don't you, Bugaboo?" His cheeky wink and Chat Noir smirk are rewarded with the blush and giggle he'd hoped for. "My point is, I wasn't thinking about what you wanted when I daydreamed about that, and I never worried about it. You have nothing to be sorry for, Bug."

Her smile is bright even in the shadowy loft. "Thanks, Minou. Those were fun dreams."

"Were? You don't want the hamster and the blue bathroom anymore? I was just getting excited about our house and three kids."

"What do you dream about?" She asks, clearly dodging the question with one of her own.

He doesn't even have to think on it to know the answer.

"A family. Hugs. Eating dinner at a little table together. Going to the beach and seeing you in your bikini."

She snorts. "Tomcat."

"I'm only human, Mari."

"Adrien, you can purr."

"Touché."

They can only laugh. Their lives really are ridiculous.

"Princess?" He asks after they've settled into silence again. "What are their names?"

"Who?"

"Our kids."

She takes a deep, deep breath, and it feels like an eternity before she speaks. "Emma, Louis, and Hugo."

"I love them already," he breathes, imagination awhirl with scenes of bedtime stories and blanket forts and the myriad other childhood joys he only knows about from movies and tv. It's so beautiful, they're so beautiful, that he has to clench his teeth for a moment to keep from crying. "Have you drawn them?"

She nods, brow starting to furrow in concern at what must be one hell of an expression on his face.

"And their clothes? The nursery? Our kitchen?"

"Yes, I told you I was—"

"You're amazing, Marinette. I can't wait to see them. I can't wait to meet them."

Before he knows it, she's pulled him into her embrace, whispering her love against his shoulder. If a few tears escape into her hair, she doesn't say a word. They stay like that for a few long, sweet moments, until a thought pops into his mind.

"Mari? Why didn't Plagg find those drawings when he found your sketchbook of wedding ideas?"

She pulls away from him and giggles. "Because that sketchbook is hidden under the mattress."

"Along with how many of my photos?"

The mock-glare she levels at him would be terrifying if she weren't so adorable. He leans in and watches her stern expression slacken just before their lips connect and his eyes close, and her soft sigh tells him he's forgiven once more for teasing her.

They fall back against the cat pillow and soft pink sheets once more, rearranging their bodies to that perfect fit that reminds him every time how phenomenally lucky he is to have found his soul's other half as a teenager via ancient magic and fated proximity. The kiss deepens, his hands clutch at her back, and he thrills at the feel of her fingers in his hair. This is everything, everything—love and light and power and freedom, the chance for a future, a home, a family.

It's just another late autumn Tuesday night in Paris. Marinette will convince him to stay for another hour, he'll set an alarm. They'll go to school again tomorrow and, though it's certainly possible they'll defeat Hawkmoth before the day is over, it's more likely they'll simply fight and cleanse another akuma before returning to the library to work on that history project.

But it's suddenly different. He's always fought for Paris, for the safety of his friends and family, for his beloved partner. Now? A new and different feeling of protectiveness rises in his chest, even as her tongue brushes the seam of his lips and his purr rumbles gently between their bodies.

Hawkmoth will rue the day he tried to take Emma, Louis, and Hugo away before Adrien could meet them. He makes the promise right here and now, with his Lady in his arms and their kwamis sleeping on the desk below: Every akuma from now until he can punch Hawkmoth in the face and rip the misused miraculous from him, Chat Noir will fight for Paris, the world, and that shining dream of the future. He's one half of an unstoppable team. Together, they can, and will, do anything.

He and Marinette have three kids and a hamster to look forward to, after all. And it's going to be amazing.

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #ml fanfiction #adrienette zine #i’m unrepentant adrienette trash #tooth-rotting fluff #it's my jam

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chatonne-rousse · 4 years

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Through a Different Lens

This incredible work of art by @lilianmorganart crossed my dash last week and has lived rent-free in my head since then. I made it my phone's wallpaper and found myself getting emotional every time I picked up the phone to use it (If that doesn't confirm my stratospheric level of unrepentant Adrienette trash, I don't know what does).

I told @tsuki-chibi about it and we discussed how Adrien would totally swoon over it, too, if it was the lock screen on his phone. And that's how this fic was born.

I hope you enjoy this little relationship study through Alya's eyes as she and Nino share life and love alongside their best friends.

Read it on Ao3 here.

*****

"Last set of the night, dudes and dudettes. We're about to be upstaged big time." Nino points out the bank of windows toward the already-glittering Eiffel Tower before needle meets vinyl and the music starts, soft and undeniably romantic. "Let's wind it down by slowing it down."

A blue balloon flutters to the floor beside Nino's feet as he hops from the DJ platform and winds through a sea of his classmates to his waiting girlfriend. Alya wastes no time wrapping him in her arms and pressing a kiss to his lips, turning the greeting into dancing with the sway of her hips that he matches after a few beats.

"How many songs did you line up?" she murmurs when they finally part.

He smiles and winks at her. "Four. It's about fifteen minutes till fireworks."

"Mmm. Nice."

The back of his shirt is sweaty under Alya's hands, but she doesn't care. The lovely chignon Marinette had pulled her hair into before the party has come a bit undone and she can feel the damp curls at the back of her neck. That's July in Paris for you; even the air conditioning in Le Grand Paris doesn't make much of a difference. Thank goodness for the ceiling fans that make the white and blue and red streamers rustle above their heads.

She hears Nino snort softly near her ear. "Are they magical or something? How do they still look perfect?"

Alya doesn't need to turn to know he's talking about their best friends, but she twists anyway, pressing the opposite cheek to Nino's shoulder instead.

And of course he's right.

She's spent the evening drinking punch and giggling with Marinette, shimmying and whooping with her in a happy little clump with Nino and Adrien, making the rounds of friends and food and fun over the past few hours. Marinette and Adrien have, too, but somehow the only sign that it's the end of the evening is that Adrien has loosened his tie.

Marinette's hair falls across her shoulders in the same soft cascade Alya styled it into hours ago. Her gauzy white dress drapes better on her figure than it did on the mannequin in her bedroom. Even the corsage Adrien had presented to her when the girls descended the stairs into Marinette's living room, a stunning red rose in full bloom, sits perfectly on her slim wrist, not a petal out of place. Her best friend really does look like she's limned in magic.

But perhaps that's because of the strong hand splayed at Marinette's waist, pressing her ever closer to her dance partner, or Adrien's cheek at her temple, his blond halo a perfect contrast to her deep raven hair. Maybe it's whatever he's just whispered in her ear that makes her smile up at him, a wide grin of exasperated fondness lighting her face before gentling after a moment into an expression of softest serenity.

Alya's first thought is that it's like the bright and beautiful partnership of the full moon reflecting the sun. But that isn't quite right, because her best friend glows from within, providing her own light to meet Adrien's, radiant and returned in equal measure.

Just how they got to this point remains as baffling to Alya now as it was a year ago when her friends finally put themselves and everyone around them out of their misery and started dating. The blushes continued and the occasional shy stammers never quite disappeared, but she'd watched them blossom together like a spring garden before her eyes, though what she'd been sure would be daffodils had bloomed into beautiful irises instead.

Suddenly Mr. Sunshine had gleamed brighter than ever, his giddy joy nearly uncontainable. So many puns. So much laughter. The former would be unbearable were it not for the latter, which always seemed to brighten Nino's eyes as well, a welcome side effect.

And oh, her best friend had come alive. It was more than having someone to love and love her in return. Alya knew from the day they met that love was second nature to Marinette. It practically shone from her pores.

But this was different - a touch more boldness, a blaze of fierce protectiveness in her eyes, an ability to read and respond to Adrien's emotions in just the way he needed, just when he needed it. How did she know to do that? How had this easy familiarity grown between them so quickly, not a tender new sapling but already an unshakeable oak?

She knows the truth is deeper than what she's been able to wrangle from Marinette, but Alya learned long ago that her best friend held those cards too close to ever let her get a peek. But she sure had tried at the beginning.

"You can tell me, girl! I'm so happy for you, but I don't get it! What happened?"

Alya wheedled, needled, begged.

Marinette just smiled and finished watering her roses before leaning against the railing of her terrace.

"I did tell you! Adrien and I talked. We were honest with each other. That's it." She shrugged one shoulder before her smile turned sly and she bumped her hip into her best friend's. "You know, we can't all find love by getting trapped in a panther cage by a superhero. Not every relationship has an epic origin story."

"Damn right! Seriously, though, I can tell there's more to this. There are deets you're not sharing, and your bestie needs those deets!"

"I don't know what to tell you, Als. I just...saw him. All of him."

Alya just barely resisted the urge to make the obvious joke.

"Mari. My love. My best friend in the world. What could you possibly see now that you haven't seen in the past two years of crushing, staring, memorizing, obsessing, and finally just getting over your fears and becoming real, actual friends with him?" She ticked off each point on her fingers, ending with a grip on her pinky and an imploring look she hoped would coax a detail or two from her all-too-cagey best friend. "If you can't throw a bone to your BFF, think of me as the coordinator of Operation Secret Garden and its many, many, many side missions. At least tell me one thing about Sunshine that I don't know, something you didn't know before, either."

Silence fell over them like a blanket. Just when it started to feel stifling and itchy, Marinette spoke.

"He's the bravest person I know," she said quietly, gaze straying across the rooftop horizon.

Alya thought of the myriad times she'd watched Adrien run away in the direction of his house as she herself had run toward danger in the name of journalism and morbid curiosity. He was sweet and exceedingly kind, but she'd never considered him a bastion of courage. Though of course there had to be lots of things she didn't know, details of life at home beyond the isolated loneliness they were all aware of, things that hadn't occurred to her that her best friend now saw through a lens of love and not just friendly compassion. If the reason they were already so close was because Adrien was able to share the difficult parts of his life that he didn't even share with Nino? Well, Alya could understand and respect that.

She reached out and covered Marinette's hand in hers. "His dad is kind of the worst, isn't he?"

"Oh my gosh, you have no idea. The absolute worst. The other day..."

Listening to Marinette that day, Alya had decided that if her friends were happy, she'd be happy right along with them. The details would come in time.

They'd taken silly selfies in Marinette's mirror as they got ready earlier this evening. They'd posed for portraits in the Dupain-Chengs' doorway as though this was a gala event and not a Quatorze Juillet party that Chloé insisted was fancy dress, and snapped shots of their BFF squad together all evening. So without thinking, Alya reaches for her phone - her dress is a Marinette original, of course it has pockets - to document exactly how besotted their preternaturally beautiful best friends are. She grabs three photos in quick succession, thankful for her state-of-the-art camera as she smiles at how it captures the play of light and shadow across their matching white.

"Paparazzi," Nino fake coughs in her hair.

Alya grabs his butt with her free hand in retaliation, and they both laugh.

Marinette and Adrien sway together in a loose approximation of a dance, eyes closed, just barely turning in place, lost in each other. When Adrien reaches for Marinette's hand on his shoulder, Alya has to let go of her boyfriend completely to set her camera to burst mode, but laid-back, ever-patient Nino just huffs a laugh and holds her waist tighter. It's all worth it when she's able to capture the moment Adrien brings Marinette's hand to his lips and presses a series of slow, reverent kisses to her knuckles. She snaps one more photo after he's tucked their clasped hands beneath his chin and settled her against his shoulder.

Alya turns in the circle of Nino's arms and gleefully scrolls through the vast number of pictures she's just taken, pausing near the center of the burst shots and cooing with delight at the treasure she finds. "Oh my god, Nino, look." She shoves the phone under his nose and his eyes cross trying to focus on it.

"Damn. They're too pretty to be real."

She snorts. "Truth. Seriously, though. Have you ever seen two people more in love? I'd say it's gross, but I could also cry just looking at them."

Still smiling, Nino pulls their hips together again and sets them in a slow spin, punctuating the beat with his fingers at the small of her back. Alya pockets her phone and cuddles up to him, grinning into his chest when he speaks quietly for her ears only.

"You know I love you just as much, right? I'm not a model, and um, I'm not as...gooey. But—"

He's cut off when Alya presses her lips to his to stop him.

"You're just the right amount of gooey, mister, and I don't need a model when I've already snagged the hottest guy I've ever met." She delights in his blushing cheeks as she kisses him again. "And yes, I know you do...I love you, too. Thank god it's not a competition, or we'd be losing."

"Naaah," Nino drawls softly, hugging her close. "I've already won."

Alya just closes her eyes and hides her grin in his shoulder, letting him spin them again as the music swells.

*****

Packed on the balcony and ready for the fireworks to start, she and Marinette are giggling over the photos on her camera roll from the course of the evening.

"I don't want to think about how much you pay for cloud storage, Als. You know you have a problem, right?"

Nino can't help his surprised laugh, but has the good sense to bite his lip and look away. Alya nudges him in the side and rolls her eyes good-naturedly. Scrolling through toward the latest photos, she stops on one in particular and flips the screen toward her best friend.

"Bet you're glad I got this one, eh, Mademoiselle Judgy Pants?"

Alya knows she's scored a direct hit when Marinette's eyes widen and her cheeks pinken visibly even in the ambient light of the city. In the same moment, Adrien breathes an "ooooh" in reverent awe from over her shoulder as he stares at the glowing phone screen. Impossibly, the look on his face as he takes in the image is even more tender than it is in the photo itself.

Marinette turns to press her burning cheeks to his chest and he wraps her in his arms, props his chin on her head and mouths, "Send me that, please," to Alya, gesturing vaguely from her phone to his pocket.

Request received loud and clear, she grins and gives him a quick salute.

When fireworks finally fill the Parisian sky, Alya attempts a few action shots, though she's well aware that fireworks photos rarely turn out. Next, she grabs a great picture of Nino with the lights reflected in his glasses that immediately gets posted on Instagram.

And when Marinette stands on her tiptoes, wraps her arms around Adrien's shoulders, and kisses him breathless, well, Alya can't resist snapping one last photo of her friends. Adrien's hair positively gleams in the ephemeral glow of the bright red firework that bathes flushed cheeks and white fabric in a dreamy, perfect pink. This one is sent straight to her best friend; she looks forward to the keysmash text of embarrassed delight she'll receive from Marinette later.

Nino's hand slides around her waist to pull her close and she snuggles into his side, stowing her phone in her pocket and simply enjoying the moment.

*****

"Babe," Nino whispers under his breath, accompanied by a nudge of his knee against Alya's under the cafe table, "he's doing it again."

Sure enough, Adrien is gazing down at his phone. It's not even unlocked yet - he's just looking at his lock screen, waking it up each time it fades back to sleep.

"I know. That's why I'm looking up the movie time. We'd miss it completely if we left it to Sunshine."

"This is technically your fault. You do know that, right?"

Alya shrugs. "No regrets."

Marinette returns to the table, picking her purse off the back of her chair and lifting the strap over her head to settle in its perennial position across her torso. Instead of sitting down, she wraps her arms around Adrien's chest from behind and leans down to kiss his cheek. "Did you figure out if we can make it to the movie?"

The question is clearly directed at Adrien, who was supposed to be looking up the cinema schedule, but he's already pocketed his phone and turned his head to nuzzle into her hair.

Okay, Alya may have some regrets.

It's been months since she took the now-famous photo and sent it to him. To no one's surprise, it became his lock screen wallpaper immediately. It also became a distraction.

Because Adrien melts every time he looks at his phone.

No one can truly decide if it's exasperating or endearing, but there are classmates and friends in both camps.

Nino begged him to change it back to the picture of the two of them together, if only to shorten the time between sending his best friend a text and receiving one in return. Alya is nearly at her limit for heart eyes, but she's still the captain of Team Endearing. She did take the picture, after all.

Max programmed Markov to recognize each time Adrien reached for his phone and the time it took for him to unlock it and use it. Markov has perfected the algorithm over time and now has a saved log of each occurrence down to the millisecond. There's no real reason to track this data besides curiosity, but it does help Markov refine his processes, so Max has kept it up. It is vaguely fascinating, though he does feel that it's a terrible use of Adrien's limited free time.

Nathaniel illustrated a cartoon rendition of Adrien, phone in his hand and literal hearts in his eyes. Alya offered him €10 for it, but Adrien himself came in at €20 and now it sits on his desk at home.

Once, Adrien spent so much time gazing at the lock screen that he never did answer his ringing phone. Of course it was Nathalie calling, and of course his father grounded him when he got home.

(Neither Marinette nor Adrien seemed as bothered by those two weeks as everyone had anticipated. That mystery remains unsolved.)

When she thinks about it, Alya decides there are worse things than Adrien loving Marinette so much that he has an emotional reaction to seeing the evidence through a different lens.

Alya just slips her phone in her purse and corrals her boyfriend and their best friends. They have a movie to get to and they only have twenty-five minutes.

*****

In time, the picture has found a place on the wall in Marinette and Adrien's apartment - printed on premium photo paper, lovingly matted and framed. No one would have expected any less.

And it has always made Adrien smile, sometimes when nearly nothing else could.

*****

Several years, several revelations, and enough trauma to last a lifetime have led them all to this moment, on this day that shines with as much joy and light and love as they can muster. It's what a day like this deserves, after all.

With too much behind them to call it a beginning and too much hope for the future ahead to call it an ending, Alya decides she's just watched her best friends walk through a door they'd unlocked years ago and finally found the right time to step through together. The path hasn't changed, paved in hurt and heartache and the kind of helpless hope a person chooses when an abyss yawns below and there are no other ropes to grab. But it has always been lit by the glow of an almost unfathomable love, and that's where healing begins, grows, and flourishes.

So here they sit, surrounded by friends and family, in the same room where the four of them had danced all those years ago on a hot July evening. A towering croquembouche waits in the corner and a table full of photos and memories is on display along one wall; that heart-melting photo of the happy couple as lovestruck teenagers has pride of place in the center.

Clad again in radiant white, Marinette is the perfect picture of a blushing bride, and her groom has been unsurprisingly entranced all day. Alya isn't sure Adrien has stopped smiling since they first saw him this morning, and she and Nino are enjoying every moment of it.

Part of the brilliance shining in his grin is natural, springing from a heart so innately kind that it has countered evil and wielded destruction, yet still beats with compassion. But she and Nino know, better than anyone else, that the Adrien in front of them is a previously-shattered vase mended in gold, stronger and more beautiful in the broken places, and some of his gleam is reflected from those gilded seams.

When it's Alya's turn to toast, Nino helps her to her feet with a smile and hands her the mic before sitting back down beside her. She starts with a story only a best friend could get away with telling, bolstered by the laughter of the guests around her and the grins of the bride and groom. She has a toast carefully planned and memorized, but for all her preparedness, Alya also knows how to improvise. When her gaze sweeps across the picture gallery on the table and the faces of two of the people she loves most, she veers off course but finds her words with confidence.

"I've taken a lot of photos in my life - silly, scary, funny, serious, everything in between. Many of those photos have featured many of you here today. I know I caused my saint of a best friend here a lot of undeserved stress by taking a vast majority of my life's photos in places where I shouldn't have been."

She pauses when a laugh ripples through the room and Marinette shakes her head even as her watery eyes beam back at her. "But I was in just the right place when I took that one." She gestures toward the framed picture on the table, sparkling cider sloshing gently in her champagne flute. "Because the right place for both of us—" she reaches a hand back toward Nino blindly, finding and squeezing his shoulder, "has always been next to you, the most ludicrously attractive, kindest, bravest, best people we know."

Alya takes a deep breath that only shakes a little bit on the exhale. "I'm so—" she blinks and swallows around the lump in her throat. Damn hormones! "I'm so lucky to know you, to love you, and to have been part of your lives and your love story all these years. That's why I wish you nothing less than a lifetime of that kind of love," she inclines her head toward the photo on the table again, "that kind of tenderness and devotion. No one deserves it more than you two, and no one will be happier than Nino and I will to be right there beside you on the journey. So...cheers to the prettiest lovebirds I know, Marinette and Adrien!"

Champagne flutes clink amidst applause and hugs and sniffles.

Her best friends grin at her before turning the same soft gaze toward each other again, just like the picture she took all those years ago that turned Adrien to goo each time he looked at it.

Alya knows now, of course, what she didn't understand back then - that in the same way their wedding today was more than just a beginning, so were those early days of soft looks and fierce devotion that seemed to transcend the blush of new romance. Unbeknownst to their friends, they'd had an ironclad partnership and years of trust in place already. Open eyes and honesty allowed the confluence of several different kinds of love, and it only made sense that the resulting alloy stood stalwart and shone dazzling-bright.

Well, it didn't make sense then, but it certainly does now, even if the luster sparkles through a patina of nicks and dents. After all, even the strongest steel and the brightest gold are refined by fire.

Nino hands her a tissue and presses his palm to her back as she settles in her seat again.

When ever-romantic Adrien reaches for his bride's hand to press gentle kisses across the back of her fingers, Alya can't resist grabbing her phone from the table beside her bread plate. They're a little older but just as beautiful and even more in love, and the photo she snaps captures that perfectly. She smiles down at her phone, pleased, before locking the screen and twisting a little in her seat to place it back on the table, face down.

Alya gets comfortable, rests her head on her husband's shoulder, and simply enjoys the moment.

#adrienette through alya's eyes #alya loves her bff #dj wifi #adrienette #snapshot #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfiction #my writing #relationship study #this is so self indulgent #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste

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