Coup de Foudre

I’ve learned that if you so much as breathe the word MariChat at @buggachat she falls into hell with you, it’s great. These two make me very soft and I need more canon content of them Zag get on it.

Artwork ©: alazic02 | buy me a ko-fi

Which one’s your favorite? 😉🐞🐱🦊🐝

Heavy As A Secret

“Nothing weighs so heavily as a secret.” - Jean de La Fontaine

As Marin’s superhero partner becomes fast friends with his civilian self, his dynamic with Chat Noire as Ladybug becomes more strained. And between his budding feelings for her, his sudden closeness with his longtime crush, and the evil brewing beneath the surface of it all, the secrets they’ve been so desperately trying to hide might come tumbling out. (Warning: Genderbend!Marichat Garbage Ahead)

Finished it! I know I’m horribly late but this was for Valentine’s day. Add context I just wanted to make fluff.

I can make some! :D

1. “I picked Dare specifically so that you couldn’t ask me about my crush, but now you dared me to kiss the person I have a crush on, and I’m debating whether or not I should give in and kiss you.”

2. “You let out a major secret during Truth or Dare, and now, everyone is teasing you. I’m the older sibling of the host, who found you crying in the kitchen. Want to talk about it?”

3. “You picked Truth, and someone asked you who you had a crush on. I passed out before I could hear your answer, and now, i not only don’t know, I’m also mortified.”

4. “You and I always give each other the craziest dares, but this time, you picked Truth, and I have no idea what to ask you.”

5. “Someone dared me to kiss you, and just to spite them, I kissed you on the cheek. Only now, you’re teasing me, saying I’m too scared to give you a real kiss. Well, I’ll show you.”

6. “I dared you to do something really dangerous, because I thought I could make you back down and pick Truth for once, but now you’re actually going to DO it, and I’m terrified. Please don’t!”

So for about a month or so, Adrien has been asking his father for discarded textiles, just left overs or rejects in his fathers office after a design session.

He takes things like half used spools of thread, almost empty flasks of pearly buttons, a rejected roll of crocheted lace.

His father has no idea where Adrien is squirrelling them away to, but he’s actually okay with Adrien developing an interest in design and manufacture of clothing.

Gabe finds out from Nathalie that Adrien’s class is doing a project on manufacturing or something, and that parents are invited to look at the presentations. Gabe thinks ‘ah-ha!’ and has Nathalie open up his schedule this one time. 

This is when he attends he realises where all his rejected clothing supplies have gone. The young lady who won his bowler hat contest is doing a project on textile manufacture. From the scraps she assembled a blazer, the outside is carefully arranged crocheted lace, the lining is soft pink satin (off cuts from an evening gown if he remembers correctly). 

Her project covers how each type of fabric is manufactured, how they are coloured, stitched, knitted and pieced together to create a final product.

He understands, he thinks, his son has spent a month gathering treasures for this girl like a bower bird collecting blue bottle caps. So Gabe attempts to put a good word in for Adrien. So he tells Marinette about how Adrien has been putting a lot of effort into selecting the materials for her.

“Adrien did?” she asks, visibly surprised. “Is that true?” she cranes her neck at someone behind Gabe.

Gabe turns to find Adrien behind him, face pale, mouth gaping.

Oh… “Son, did you perhaps deliver those items anonymously?”

“Uh something like that…?”

Anyway here is part one of three for this reveal scenario prompt. 

PART 1: A STRANGE PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR

The whole thing had started innocently enough.

“Hey, um, are you going to use that?” Adrien asked hesitantly, pointing to the bolt of excess midnight blue chiffon propped against Nathalie’s desk.

“Pardon?” Gabriel ask, looking up from his sketchbook to where his son stood hovering in the doorway.

“The fabric,” Adrien replied, the same nervous tremor in his voice. “I know the mock ups are finished and I saw the extra…” he trailed off the tips of his ears flushing a tell tale red as he toed at the ground.

Gabriel could feel the beginnings of a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Be my guest,” he said, gesturing towards the left over material.

Adrien flashed a brilliant smile before bolting forward and snatching up his prize, muttering a hurried ‘Thank You’ as he dashed off again.

Gabriel stared out at the now empty doorway, wondering what exactly had just happened, and why his son was treating a few yards of scrapped cloth like it was some sort of priceless treasure.

He shook his head and turned back to his work. It was probably nothing.

By the end of the second week even Gabriel had to acknowledge that something was definitely going on. Adrien had been increasingly popping his head into the home and corporate office- even the company workroom which by the boy’s own admission he avoided like the plague, as more often than not it was filled with sobbing junior designers listening to Gabriel tear their work to pieces. Thus far Adrien had squirreled away three other fabric remnants, a small collection of leftover pearl buttons, a yard and a half of Florentine bridal lace, and an assortment of various trim excesses and half empty embroidery spools. And that was just the things Gabriel knew about personally.

He wasn’t particularly concerned, after all none of the things being carried off would ever be used. Even if that weren’t the case, Gabriel certainly wasn’t about the begrudge Adrien taking whatever he wanted, be it from the scrap heap or the supply house. If anything it was extremely gratifying to see him take any interest in the business.

The more concerning factor was the attempted secrecy. Attempted because it was difficult to hide one’s activities while consistently asking unnecessary permission. He would never talk about what he wanted or needed any of the supplies for, instead running off or locking himself in his room with his latest acquisitions before Gabriel could even begin to ask what was going on.

“Nathalie,” Gabriel asked midway through week three as he watched Adrien disappear with a half dozen sample bead strings that had been sent over for consideration for the commercial production of the latest charity evening gown, “Do you know why my son has taken a sudden liking to collecting design cast offs?”

Nathalie looked up and let out what might almost be called a slightly embarrassed cough. “Oh you noticed that?” She said in a tone that to anyone else might have seemed neutral.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, a heavy feeling of unease settling over him. “As shocking as it may seem, I do on occasion worry about the well being of my only child,” he stated flatly.

Part 2: a slight wrinkle

To the girl’s credit, her presentation on the current state of the global fashion industry and the complexity of textile and subsequent clothing manufacturing seemed to be on point. Sadly, Gabriel’s thoughts were a little bit too preoccupied to give anything she was saying more than a fragment of his attention.

How had he managed to completely miss the fact that Adrien had apparently falling head over heels for one of his classmates? Wasn’t that the sort of thing children couldn’t shut up about? The boy had literally been hoarding supplies for a month to give to this girl so the infatuation had to stem that far back at the barest minimum.  Was Adrien really so reserved that he had kept it a secret all this time? Or worse, was communication in the Agreste household really so atrocious that Gabriel had missed something this obvious.

He tried to focus on the girl again. Not the facts that she was listing off that he could probably recite in his sleep, but the actual person on whom Adrien had apparently devoted so much attention. She was a fairly attractive girl, if a bit on the short side, with an aura of cheerful optimism that would be well matched with Adrien’s more dramatic temperament. If Gabriel was remembering correctly she was also the only one of Adrien’s classmates not to have fallen victim to an akuma as a result of some teenaged tantrum, which spoke very well of her emotional stability. He studied her outfit and was pleased to note that the talent she had displayed in the bowler hat competition did not appear to be a one time fluke.

The girl finished her presentation to a round of thunderous applause, spearheaded by a tiny asian woman and a behemoth of a man seated in the front row whom Gabriel could only assume were the girl’s parents. She flashed the audience a brilliant smile and hurried off the stage as the teacher announced the final speaker for the evening- thank god.

Gabriel saw the loudmouthed bohemian his son insisted on calling his best friend came forward, and immediately proceeded to tune out everything the boy had to say.

He felt a small smile tug at his lips as he wondered if perhaps getting a girlfriend might improve his son’s taste in companions.