Oh, Nathalie..

Gabriel Agreste sighed as he stared at a picture of her. He regretted ever letting her go, but it had been for the best. If Nathalie didn’t want Adrien, then she wasn’t getting him either.

Shaking his head at the thought, he put the picture back inside his drawer. He then heard the front door opening and he knew his son was back. Standing up from his seat he walking out of his room to greet his son, but stopped sharply.

“Adrien… “he didn’t speak as he watched Adrien enter the mansion with a girl.

“I hope you don’t mind, Father,” Adrien spoke. “We have to do this art project, and we decided to do it here. “Adrien turned to Marinette with a small smile.

“Of course you can,” Gabriel didn’t have any problems with the ides, but something else bothered him. It’s been 17 years, Adrien had been doing so good.

“Why can’t I, Father?”

“Adrien, this is for your own good. You heard about how your mother left us. I don’t want you to suffer through the same heartbreak as I did, so it’s better to just not think about dating or getting close to any girls at all.”

“Alright, Father.”

Gabriel shook his head at the memory. It bothered him so much to see Adrien close to a girl, but he shook it off and headed to his room, wanting to sleep the rest of the day due to how tired he was.

“So, where should we work?” Marinette asked with a huge smile on her face. She was so glad that Adrien had agreed to work at his mansion instead of her house. She didn’t want Adrien meeting her so-called parents and having problems with them.

“My room if that’s with you.” Marinette quickly nodded at the reply without thinking. She gathered some of the materials and Adrien gathered the rest, then the both of them headed upstairs to where Adrien said his room was.

Placing the materials on the floor of the bedroom, Marinette heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Again I have to say thank you for letting us work here, Adrien.” She gave him a look of appreciation.

“It’s fine,” Adrien shrugged. “Anyway, Jérôme said to work on rough drafts first. Did you work on any drawings?”

“Glad you asked.” Marinette chuckled as she pulled out her sketchbook. “I did a bunch of drawings of Mr. Agreste. All we have to do now is pick the perfect one and paint it.”

“Don’t rush. We have two weeks,” Adrien took a seat on the floor. “Here, let me have a look at your drawings.”

Marinette leaned over and handed him the sketchbook, him taking it. He look over all the drawings, nodding his head at each and every one of them.

“They’re good that it’s almost impossible to choose one that’s better than the others,” He handed her the sketchbook back. “But I’ll go with the third drawing. I feel like you put way much efforts than you did with the others.”

“How did you notice?” Marinette giggled, surprising herself, as she took a seat on a floor across from Adrien.

Adrien didn’t answer. “If we finish the painting and show my father, he’s going to show 10 times more respect for you. Anyway, I forgot to tell you after school, but… My father is planning on making you his assistant for the next designing competition that he’s holding. He want you to talk to him once you get the chance.”

“M-me?” Her eyes widened. “T-thank you. I’m definitely in!” Marinette exclaimed. She had worked so hard and look where it brought her. Now even Gabriel Agreste wanted her to be his assistant.

“Just to tell you; my father may be a little strict, but… He’s not bad guy,” Adrien then let out his very first large smile ever since they got here. “You’re going to kill this, Marinette, just like you killed your performance that day.”

Marinette beamed at him. “Thank you, Adrien. I really hope I wow your father. I can’t believe I’m getting this chance.”

Adrien nodded. “Ever since she left, my father has never considered having an assistant, so I think you’ve already wowed him.”

Marinette was going to ask who she was, but she decided to forget it. After all by the looks of Adrien, it seemed that he didn’t want to talk about it. He just looked back down to the paint materials again.

“So… “ Adrien continued as picked up his pencil. “How was your day?”

“Goo-“ Marinette bit her lip. “Annoying.l

“Oh, why?” Adrien frowned at her.

Parents. “Chloe,” Marinette mumbled out instead. “Chloes been bugging us for a while now, and it doesn’t seem like she going to be stopping anytime soon.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Wish I could do something, but I don’t really…like to get myself in these types of problems,” Adrien shrugged. “I’ve been ignoring Chloe Bourgeois ever since I came to that school.”

“I wish I could, but the way she treats my friend makes me go up to her and snap at her,” Marinette sighed. “It was 10 years ago. We participated in the same singing competition, and I won it, leading her to 2nd place. Ever since then, she became mad at me.”

“We’ll then, it’s not your fault you’re better singer than her,” Adrien muttered, but Marinette heard him very clearly. “She shouldn’t be mad because of that.”

“I know, but I understand the reason why,” Marinette picked up an eraser as she erased a bit of her drawing. “I’m pretty sure that half of the reason why she’s so mad is because of her mother promised that she would show to support her daughter.”

“Well then, I guess it Audrey Bourgeois’ fault, though Chloe has no right to take her anger out on you.” Adrien did a bit of sketching, before he looked back up at Marinette.

Marinette chuckled as she faced the project again, muttering another thank you. For a while after that, none of them said a word, but instead worked quickly.

Adrien is quiet in school, he barely talks to anyone except for his friends, yet at home he seems to be a bit talkative, different from how he is at school.

2 hours later, Adrien looked up. “Oh, we ran out of black paint.” He stood up stretched. “I’ll be back with more.”

Marinette nodded and for a few seconds watched him exit inside another room. Then she stood up as she suddenly felt the need to use the bathroom, and she too exited out of the bedroom.

As she walked downstairs, Marinette bumped into Gabriel, who had been going to the kitchen for a glass of water. She quickly apologized, feeling a little embarrassed.

“It’s fine, Miss. Cheng, it’s alright,” Gabriel spoke. “Anyway, what project are you and Adrien working on?”

“Oh, it’s an art project for school,” Marinette replied.

Gabriel nodded. “Adrien hasn’t really talked much about you at home, so I’m assuming that you aren’t close.”

“No, not really,” Marinette shrugged. “I haven’t really bothered to talk to him at school but that might perhaps change now”

“You’re thinking of. . .making a move?” Gabriel suddenly asked. There was a bit of fright in his voice confused Marinette.

“What, no! I mean friends. I just want to be friends with him. He seems like a cool guy,” Marinette quickly exclaimed. Should she change the subject now? She could tell from Gabriel’s face that he felt somewhat uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been a little cautious of who Adrien hangs out with these day,” Gabriel looked down. “I don’t want him to get hurt just like I did.” He muttered the last part to himself but Marinette was still able to hear him.

“I’m sorry if anything or anyone hurt you in the past, Mr. Agreste, but but I promise you,” Marinette smiled. “I’m not those other girls who spend all their time daydreaming about Adrien, or sending him love letters. I’m actually. . .quite like Adrien myself. I don’t like any of those things.”

“Well then, now we’re got that out of our way, I just, just wanted to talk to you about the whole assistant thing. Did Adrien tell you?”

Marinette bobbed her head up and down.

“I know you might be busy now, so, I’ll talk to you about it some other day,” Gabriel smiled. “Now I’ll leave you to finish your work with Adrien. Ta-ta,” he waved her off and stared heading back to the kitchen.

Marinette started heading back to the bathroom, where she should have been a while ago. After doing her business, she flushed the toilet, washed and dried her hands, before exiting the bathroom.

When she returned back to Adrien’s bedroom, she realized he was nowhere in sight. Weird, is he sill getting the paint?

Shrugging it off, she took the time to look around. At the corner of the room, she could see a piano there. It suddenly reminded her of the competition Adrien had entered with his piano, winning 1st place. No wonder he was known as the 2nd place popular, after his father, and the best piano player.

She then opened a drawer, and without knowing that she was snooping around, she took out a photo album. She opened to the first page, seeing a picture of Adrien when he was a baby. Then she flipped to more pages of pictures of Adrien with his father.

Where’s his mother?

“Marinette?”

Marinette shrieked at the sudden voice. She quickly closed the album and put it back out of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, Adrien. I… i didn’t mean to snoop around you things.I just…”

“It’s fine,” Adrien placed the tray of snacks he had brought along with him on his desk. “Just… Don’t do it again. I don’t really like it when people look through my things.”

Marinette quickly nodded. “Sorry.”

“I just went to get some snacks. Figured you had be hungry,” Adrien pointed over at the snacks.

“T-thank you,” Marinette headed over to the snacks, then looked over at Adrien again. “Aren’t you going to have some?”

Adrien picked up his pencils again, continuing the sketch of Gabriel they were doing on the large canvas. “No, I’m not hungry. You can have them all.”

“A-Adrien, I…” Marinette didn’t know what to say, but instead she muttered another thanks and took one snack before she returned back to the sketch.

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                                                                         <Thursday>

“Do you need a ride?” Hannah Dubois asked as she looked over at  marinette. Marinette shook her head, grabbing one of the croissants she had made just yesterday after she returned from Adrien’s.

“I’m going to take my car instead,l she huffed and out the door, getting a scoff from Hannah. Marinette rolled her eyes, taking out her phone and dialing Alya’s number.

“Hello?”

“Alya, where are you? I’m just getting in my car to go to school. Are you there yet?”

“No, packing my lunch. I’m actually quite surprised that you kept your promise, Marinette, about coming to our school early.”

“Of course I would keep it,” Marinette chortled as she unlocked her car. “After all, it’s all Tiki and she needs us there. Hopefully we get there before Chloe!”

“Alright, I’ll see you there. Um, Tiki sent me a message earlier saying how her car broke down. Do you think you can drive over over and give her a ride to school?”

“Sure, no problem.”

After her conversation withAlya, Marinette stared her car, driving to Tiki’s. On the way, she saw Chloe’s white limo and past it. She arrived at Tiki’s house and parked, Tiki, who had been waiting at her porch walking up to her.

“Thanks again for the ride, Marinette,” Tiki sighed. “My car’s tires were suddenly flat. I swear they were fine just yesterday.”

“It a no problem.”

They arrived at school and got out after Marinette parked the car. Going inside the school, the girls met Adrien and Plagg on the way. Marinette could see how Tiki was always blushing everytime she too a look at Plagg.

No way. Was I right? Is Plagg really the one she likes? Marinette widened her eyes. She pretended to not notice though.

“Tiki, you might as well just tell me who this crush of yours is,” She chuckled as the boys parted way with them. “I’m beginning to think it’s Plagg due to the way you keep looking at him.”

“You noticed?” Tiki blushed as she turned away. “You’ve got good eyes.”

“I figured,” Marinette sighed. “Let’s talk about something else. How is this comic of yours going?”

“Yes, I shared it with Nathalie Kurtzberg and Marc Anciel, you know the two best male artists in school, and they loved it. We three are going to be working together on a new comic and sharing it with everyone,” Tiki sighed dreamily. “Maybe then Plagg will take notice of me!”

“Oh, I’m sure he will,” Marinette grinned. “Alright, it’s time we start, or should we wait for Alya to come?”

“We don’t have to wait long,” Tiki pointed at the door that had been opened and Alya walking inside the school. The girls waited until Alya reached them.

“Guys, guess what?!” Alya looked exited. She was about to speak again when suddenly a loud trumpet interrupted her.

The three of them looked behind them, only to see a large band of men and women with trumpets and drums. Four men were holding up a chair

And sitting on that chair was none other than Chloe Bourgeois herself.

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