Pack

Adrien felt tense as soon as he woke up the next morning.

For one, sneaking back into the house was a lot harder when two Alphas were around instead of just one. Coupled with his newly aromatic scent, Adrien thought he was a goner. It wasn’t until he was safely wrapped up in his comforter that Plagg, the little shit, deigned to tell him his suit would dampen his scent to everyone but other Miraculous holders, so his sneaking was unnecessary. Adrien wondered, briefly, how long a kwami could go without being fed.

Bridgette was the only resident of the house to sleep later than him. His father was already gone to work and Félix was nursing a cup of coffee and blinking to dispel the sleep from his eyes. Adrien slipped quietly into the kitchen to grab something light; he’d never much been one for breakfast so he usually just had some fruit or some toast before he went to school. Apple in hand, he carefully chose a seat at the breakfast bar, just close enough to encourage conversation but far enough away to not appear deliberate. He’d make Félix work for it.

It took his brother a few minutes to even notice he was awake, which struck Adrien as a little odd. Before he left for China, Félix had hardly ever even touched a cup of coffee. He wondered, just a bit sadly, what else had changed in those past four years. “Good morning, Adrien.”

“Good morning, Félix. Did you and Bridgette sleep well?”

“Yes. The beds here are much softer than the ones back ho—in Shanghai.”

Adrien heard the slip-up. “You can call it home. You won’t offend me.”

“But it will hurt you,” Félix pointed out.

Adrien couldn’t refute that. “You never used to be able to read others so well,” he said instead, bringing the shiny red apple up to his lips to take a bite.

“Bridgette taught me a lot about emotions.”

Their conversation ran out of steam, and Adrien sat in the awkward silence, chewing on the same bite of apple until it turned into a vaguely sweet mush in his mouth, until Félix stood to rinse his mug out, at which point he made a hasty retreat, mostly uneaten apple discarded on the counter.

Marinette didn’t fight the urge to stick a little closer to Adrien than usual when he arrived at school. Part of the urge was the innate attraction she held for him, but she also felt on edge. Master Fu had advised them to be careful for the next few days; Papillion had been oddly quiet lately, and he would probably strike soon. She could tell Alya felt the tension, too, because she didn’t complain or tease about her and Adrien’s proximity and opted to switch seats with Adrien so he could sit beside Marinette in class. When Nino tried to ask about the change, Alya glared him into quiet submission.

She tried to focus on morning classes. She really did. She had her phone powered off and in her bag, she had her side of the desk clear of everything except class material, and she resolutely stared straight ahead instead of glancing to her left to watch Adrien. But his closeness, the smell of lavender and orange rolling off him in waves, the sound of his breath…

Now that she knew she was his and he was hers, it was hard to ignore the almost painful want welling up in her chest.

Her usually tame fantasies veered towards a dangerous direction, so far so that she had to focus to rid her mind of them. The last thing she needed on Adrien’s first day back at school was to get an erection because she couldn’t control her hormones. She did, however, allow herself to wonder if Adrien had similar fantasies about her. Marinette-her, Ladybug-her, any-her. Did he dream about her at night like she did about him? Did he wonder what waking up next to her would feel like? What their children would look like?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a combination of the lunch bell ringing and Adrien’s hand landing softly on her shoulder. She barely avoided jumping a foot into the air in shock by using the orange-lavender-Adrien scent to ground her. “Hey,” he said, softly, affection warm in his eyes. “Do you wanna have lunch together?”

“Sure!” she replied, far too quickly and too eagerly, but she didn’t care. “I usually go home for lunch, but I’m sure Maman made enough for you. She always makes too much, you know, since it makes leftovers for dinner so she doesn’t have to stop working—” She paused to take a breath and realized that she’d been rambling. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I like hearing you talk.” He slid off the bench on his side to stand and Marinette mechanically followed suit, blushing furiously. “We’re walking, right? We should probably get going.”

Lunch was only slightly awkward. Marinette couldn’t blame her parents for not knowing how to talk to Adrien now. How would she feel if her child brought home a person they were planning on having sex with in a very specific time frame?

They did their best. Her mother fussed and shoved more and more food onto Adrien’s plate and her father asked him how he was enjoying the new Mecha Strike game. And if her elbow would brush against Adrien’s, or if their knees would bump together under the table, no one said anything.

“Lunch was delicious, Mme. Cheng,” Adrien said when the plates were cleared. “Thank you for having me on such short notice.”

“You two better get going,” her mother fussed.

“Actually,” Marinette said, “I wanted Adrien’s opinion on something before we leave.” Her eyes darted over to his, and the joy that crossed his face made her heart leap. “Can I take him up into my room real quick? I’ll leave the trap door open.”

Sabine looked conflicted, but ultimately nodded. “Don’t take too long!” she called as Marinette and Adrien raced up the ladder. “You don’t want to be late!”

Once they were safely in her room, Marinette let out a heavy sigh. She hadn’t anticipated Adrien coming to visit before she left for school, so her room was still a bit of a mess. Wayward scraps of fabric lay draped over furniture, needles were scattered across her desk, and her masculine and feminine mannequins looked more like clothes hangers than anything else at the moment. “Sorry for the mess,” she muttered.

“No, no, it’s fine! I invited myself over, after all.” The combination of his smile and his soothing scent put Marinette at ease in a second. “You said you wanted my opinion on something?”

“Oh, yeah!” Marinette scrambled over to her fabric basket near her desk and dug around until she fished out a bolt fabric, then held it up for Adrien to see. “I was thinking about the sweater I’m making you, and since you’ll be the one wearing it, I wanted your opinion. I managed to get my hands on some Merino wool a few weeks ago doing some work for Master Fu, but what color would you like?”

The long bolt of fabric Marinette was holding was still white, so Adrien took pause. He knew dyeing could be quite the process. “Do you know how to dye?”

Marinette nodded happily. “My grandma taught me! My dyeing pot is too big to keep in my room, so we keep it in the building’s basement. We have a space for storing extra bags of flour and sugar and the landlord lets me do my dyeing there, too.”

He hums. “I usually wear neutral colors like black and grey and white, but a little color might be nice…”

Marinette’s eyes light up suddenly, a flush of inspiration taking over her face. “Wait!” She carefully drapes the wool over her desk chair and dives back into her fabric basket. What she produces is a lovely piece of red silk, perfectly clean and uncut. “We can make the wool black and use this for some insulation! That way it’s not immediately obvious, but it will add color and keep you even warmer!” Then her face flushes even more and mutters something under her breath.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said I’d like to see you in red and black sometime…”

Adrien’s face flushed scarlet as well.

They walked back to school in companionable silence. Marinette found herself falling in place between Adrien and the busy streets, as if protecting him from the speeding cars of both locals and tourists. Every once in awhile, when Adrien had to move closer to her to allow others to pass on the other side of the sidewalk, their shoulders and arms would brush against each other and she could feel her heart pick up in pace. She wondered how he would react if she reached for his hand, entwined their fingers, ran her thumb over his knuckles. Would he pull away? Would he blush? Move closer?  When they were Ladybug and Chat Noir, high atop the city, she never wondered about his reactions. They were as familiar to her as her own thoughts. But this was Adrien, the civilian, not Chat Noir, the masked superhero, and she had no idea how their reactions would differ.

She was just working up the nerve to reach out when a scream cut through the air.

Instinct prompted Marinette to say, “I have to go!”, but Adrien was also saying, “I need to—” so they stopped and looked at each other before sharing a quirked smile. There was no need to lie anymore.

They ducked into a metro station bathroom to transform.

It was an odd experience, transforming in front of someone else. Marinette felt strangely self conscious, as if she was changing clothes instead of transforming, which was a bit silly. Adrien did the same thing every time he transformed, after all, so she really had nothing to worry about. Once they were both ready, Chat Noir gave her a cocky smile. “Ready to go, my lady?”

“Always, chaton.”

Maligne was already at the scene. The school, of course. “Are we the only schoolkids in Paris that get upset or something?” Maligne muttered darkly, eyeing the new akuma with distaste. “And what the hell are they upset about?”

This akuma reminded Marinette of the American movie Ghostbusters. It was tall and humanoid, like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but instead of marshmallows, it was made out of wheels of cheese. “This is Plagg in akuma form,” Chat said under his breath, and Ladybug let out a little giggle. She remembered meeting the cat kwami at Master Fu’s house, and his distinctive personality certainly left an impression on her. She was sure, though, that his antics were much funnier to her than they were to his holder, whom he had to live with.

“Any idea where the akuma is?” Ladybug asked Maligne, keeping an eye on the akuma as she spoke. It was moving rather slowly, but she never knew when that could change.

Maligne shook her head. “I’ve just been trying to get people away so they don’t get hurt. I don’t even know if it’s a student or faculty.”

“It’s probably based around the cafeteria food,” Ladybug mused. “I don’t eat there very often so I don’t know of any recent changes.”

“Neither do I,” Chat said.

When they looked to her hopefully, Maligne shook her head. “My mom’s a chef, remember? She cooks all my lunches.”

Ladybug let out a frustrated breath of air. “So it looks like we have some digging to do.”

“Uh, I think we have more immediate problems!” Maligne warned.

Ladybug looked up just in time to see the akuma, now more active, stomping towards them with its large feet, causing small tremors in the ground with each step. Though it was slow, it had a large step size and was quickly moving closer. With the approaching caravan of police cars on the other side of the school gate, and the high walls of the fence surrounding the courtyard, there was little room to maneuver. Maligne’s illusions would do nothing against this very physical threat, Chat’s baton wasn’t strong enough to support the kind of weight this akuma had, and Ladybug wasn’t sure she would be able to figure out how to use whatever object her Lucky Charm called in time.

She resolved herself to stand strong and try to dodge the oncoming foot, but at the last minute, a green shield enveloped her and her companions. The akuma stepped on the top of the hexagonal-patterned dome instead of their heads, and the unexpected obstacle upset it, sending it to the ground. The shield fell shortly after, its job done, and the three heroes looked to the roof of the school.

A figure stood there, and Ladybug knew from experience they were trying to look confident in their stance. Their bodysuit was green, with a shelled pattern reaching from their chest to just below their navel, and a hood concealed their hair. Ladybug could see green goggles over their eyes, and their left wrist was held up to their face, a holographic display coming out from their…

Miraculous.

“Need a hand?” they called in a masculine voice.

“Yes, please!” Maligne shouted back.

The new guy leapt from the roof to land in front of them, between them and the new akuma. From this close, Ladybug could make out more of his features. He was on the short side, with dark skin and a wide, flat nose. She knew she’d seen him before, but she couldn’t place where. This, she knew, was part of the Miraculous magic. That was why it was so difficult to figure out their identities. And he had no distinct smell, which made it even harder.

Ah, well. She’d learn it later. “What do we call you in uniform, new guy?” Chat asked.

He smiled. “You can call me Coquillage Vert!”