Chapter Text
Marinette was tired.
She got a sudden gust of inspiration last night and she just had to sketch out her dress idea in various versions before solidifying the final design, so it was already pretty late when she finally turned in for the night. But then, of course, there must have been someone, who got upset enough at four in the morning to get akumatized, and of course, Papillon couldn’t let this chance to torture the heroes of Paris go.
Sure, he got woken up by his neighbour slamming their door every single work day at four in the morning when leaving for whatever their job was, so Marinette could see where he was coming from. But she did not appreciate having to be woken up by an akuma at such an unseemly hour, blaring alarms all over Paris and having to be one of the two people who actually had to get up and fight said akuma. Destroying the giant alarm clocks thankfully wasn’t that hard, so Paris could easily go back to sleep, but unfortunately the rest of the fight didn’t go as well, so Marinette returned home just in time to get woken up by her own alarm just an hour later.
So yeah, she didn’t sleep much, once again, and was cursing Papillon as the bane of her existence that he was. Once again.
She sluggishly made herself a coffee in a tumbler, grimacing at the smell. Adding in a heap of cream and sugar, she was happy her mom was busy with the morning rush and couldn’t see her - she already got enough of “you’re too young to be drinking coffee” speeches combined with the “you’re a growing girl, you need your sleep” appeal. She understood where her mom was coming from, though, so she tried to at least limit her coffee intake to there-was-an-akuma-and-I-am-dead situations.
She grabbed the snack her mom prepared for her, put it in her bag, took a croissant on her way through the bakery, kissed her parents goodbye and set out to school.
“Damn, girl, you look exhausted,” said Alya instead of greeting.
“Yeah, I know.” Marinette took a sip of her coffee. “I have a mirror and all that.”
Alya snorted and slipped into her seat.
“The akuma?” she asked.
“Mhm. Couldn’t fall back asleep after that. Had a late night too,” Marinette murmured into her cup.
“Well, it seems like you’re not the only one. Buttercup over there looks pretty out of it, too.” She pointed her chin at a yawning Adrien sitting in front of them.
Marinette nodded slowly and took another sip. That’s when the bell rang and she could just sadly push her tumbler to the side as their teacher started the lesson. Leaning on her hand heavily, she took notes, hoping they won’t turn out to be illegible scribbles later. The recent increase of akuma attacks and especially the night ones had a bigger impact on her academic career than she liked.
Thankfully, the coffee helped her get through the first half of the day. When the final bell rang, she was more than happy to head to the cafeteria for lunch. She was settling down at the table her friends snatched when she overheard Alya talking to Nino about her history assignment.
She groaned loudly.
“That was for today?” she asked them, slapping her hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe I forgot to finish it.”
“Well, you still have the rest of lunch break to do it,” Nino offered.
“Yeah. Guess I do.”
Marinette whined again before quickly shovelling her lunch in, waving goodbye to her friends and rushing to the library.
It was thankfully pretty empty, much like the rest of the school, with most of the students and staff out for lunch either at home or in the cafeteria. Marinette sat at the study tables up in the front, knowing full well that if she tried to do her assignment sitting on one of the comfortable couches in the back she had no chance at keeping her heavy eye lids open. She pulled out her tablet and set to turning the last of her haphazard notes into neat paragraphs of well communicated information.
Some time later, with the papers freshly printed by the librarian safely put away in her bag, she dragged herself towards the sitting area at the back and flopped down on one of the couches. With how often she used them for naps she could be pretty much counted in as a part of the library inventory. Fussing a bit to get comfortable and curling up, it wasn’t long before her eyes shut and she fell asleep.
***
Adrien was tired.
Not only he had a lengthy photoshoot the day before, which drained him of all his energy, until his signature sunshine look was only made purely of a thick layer of make up and post production editing, but then he also had to do his homework. To top it off, after finally getting to bed, the shrill of the akumas alarms woke him up just a couple hours since falling asleep. He pushed through his morning classes by pure willpower, but now he was intensely ready for a powernap.
After lunch he asked his bodyguard to drop him right off to school again and went for the library. There were some couches at the back that were calling his name, once again. He was honestly thinking about donating some money for the library as a thanks for how many times their couches saved him from napping on his desk bench in the classroom. Well, him and someone else, apparently. Adrien chuckled slightly at the sight of his friend spawned all over a couch, limbs thrown in every direction and light snores escaping her open mouth. All of her responsibilities in school, at home and as a budding designer often left her tired, so he saw her often taking naps in the library, like he did. He was glad Marinette got to take a much needed nap herself - when he’d seen her in the morning she looked about as bad as he felt.
He shrugged off his bag and lay on a couch next to her, hoping she wouldn’t mind. They were friends and it was acceptable for friends to be found napping in the same general area of a public space, right? Even if he usually left for the other couch area if he found her sleeping here and she seemed to do the same if she was the one who came later. Though that didn’t happen very often, usually she was napping here long before he came back from lunch at home. Too tired for this train of thought, he rubbed his eye and didn’t bother suppressing a yawn as he wiggled into a more comfortable position, with his head on one of the library pillows, and easily fell asleep.
Unfortunately, his nap was interrupted far too early in his humble opinion. The school bell shrilled through the halls signifying the start of a new period and promptly startled him out of his dream of chasing ladybugs - the insects, not duplicates of a certain superheroine, sadly - with such a force he fell down from his couch and spilled right under the feet of one seriously drowsy Marinette.
“What the ... What?” She gave him a weird, partly confused look, which first got interrupted by a yawn and second by her realisation that she’s already supposed to be in a class by now.
“Oh, shoot!”
Adrien quickly got himself up, blushing hard with embarrassment, and grabbed his bag. Marinette did the same and as soon as she was ready he took her by hand and pulled her with him as they ran to their next class.
Their history teacher was not at all impressed when Adrien stuttered out an excuse of having been “caught up in the library studying” and “forgetting the time”. Especially since both of them already had a fairly questionable attendance record.
For some reason she didn’t actually scold them too much and her mouth was all crooked, as if she was fighting a smile, which really confused Adrien. He looked at the class for a clue, but most of them seemed to be having the same problem. So he turned to Marinette and it finally came to his attention that not only she was stiffly rooted to the spot and way redder in the face than their short run should induce, but he also belatedly noticed he was still holding her hand.
Feeling his own face growing hotter by the second, he quickly let go of Marinette’s hand and with his head hung low he mumbled one more sorry. To the teacher or to his friend, he wasn’t entirely sure.
“Go to your seats. We’re dissolving the Austro-Hungarian Empire today and we’ve already been held up enough.” The teacher sighed and shook her head. “And I’ll need your assignments.”
At those words Marinette unfroze and with an expression one could call triumphant produced two papers covered in text from her bag, handed it out and almost ran to get to her seat. Adrien followed her suit and did his best to pay full attention to the continuation of their lesson, while ignoring all of the elbow nudging and suggestive looks of his best friend
***
Marinette was not lucky enough to wake up before the bell rang. But that was okay with her, since instead she got to be lucky enough to wake up to Adrien Agreste, dishevelled from sleep, literally lying at her feet.
She agonized throughout all of her history lesson that she didn’t even get to properly enjoy that majestic moment of impossibly good luck, but then again, she also got to run hand in hand with him, so that counted for something too. She has never been so happy to have her sleeping schedule ruined by an akuma.
“Hey.”
Adrien’s soft greeting took her out of her daydreaming. She blinked a few times, getting her bearings and noticing she missed the end of the lesson. People were chatting among themselves, snacking, some out of the class. Both Alya and Nino were gone, though Marinette vaguely recollected them saying something about going to get a drink from the automat in the locker room, maybe? So it was mostly just her and Adrien, who was currently turned in his seat, his arms propped on the top of her desk.
“Hi.” She waved at him awkwardly, her face tainted pink.
“I’m glad you got to sleep over the lunch, you looked pretty tired in the morning. And, uh, I just wanted to say sorry for the, um-”
He gestured towards her hand.
“Oh, no, don’t apologize. I don’t mind at all, honestly. It just... surprised me? Yeah, that. But really, no big deal, you can hold my hand whenever you want. No, I mean! Not like that, but! If you’d want to, I... uh,” she rambled.
“Are you sure, though? You seemed quite uncomfortable and I-.” Adrien scratched the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t want to make you feel that way.”
“Not at all, no. No discomfort here.” Marinette hurried to assure him. “You’re my friend, Adrien. Of course I don’t mind. Like I said, it just surprised me.”
She smiled at him kindly and to prove her words, she reached out to take his hand and squeezed it. Her mind might have been all screaming and panic, but she tried her best not to let it show. She was not going to give Adrien a reason to avoid touching her.
In reward, she got a brilliant smile from him and a squeeze back. Marinette could have died right then and there and not notice.
“Alright. I’m glad.”
He was about to let go of her hand and turn back, when she caught it once more.
“And hey, I’m glad you got to sleep too, I wasn’t the only one needing a nap this morning.”
He smiled sheepishly.
“Yeah, you’re right.”