How long had she been standing here? It seemed like forever - like the entire planet had ceased moving and time itself had gone on an extended vacation while her arm hung there in the air, hand outstretched and quaking as it hovered ever-closer to the button. Her feet felt like they were weighted down with huge cement blocks, and her legs felt like gelatin that hadn't quite set yet. If she turned away and made a run for it, would anyone notice? Probably, but she could come up with a plausible excuse. 'My hamster was sick.' 'Sudden family emergency!' 'Have you heard about that new thing going around where you suddenly feel like you're going to vomit all over yourself and to stop it you have to ship yourself off to Ecuador for a year and live in hiding?' Okay, maybe not the last one - but she could come up with something.

"Marinette would you ring the doorbell already?"

She jumped, her little world of anxieties shattering around her as she remembered that her best friend Alya had been standing next to her for at least a solid minute, patiently waiting for her to get a grip on herself so that they could get on with their Saturday afternoon.

"Sorry, Alya, I just… what if he answers it?" She squeaked, staring at her own outstretched hand, "What if he opens the door for us?" Her voice was getting higher and higher as she started to psyched herself out of attending the study get-together once more.

"Well," her friend sighed, reaching out and ringing the doorbell herself, "I would hope that he'd at least be home since we're here to study with him for finals." She waited with a smile as a small camera popped out from behind a hidden panel, surveying the pair as they stood there. "Hi! We're here to study with Adrien! He said he already got permission for us t-"

"Come in," a woman's voice droned before the camera returned to its hiding spot and the front gates to the sizeable mansion in front of them shuddered, then creaked open.

Alya made a face at the now-hidden camera, "'Oh, yes, he's home, please come in - thank you for ringing the doorbell instead of just letting yourself onto the grounds.' Oh, no problem we didn't want to take it upon ourselves and be rude since we're guests. 'Oh how considerate of you Alya.' Really it's no big deal," Alya was still muttering to herself as she turned around, grabbed Marinette by the shoulders and began to shove her best friend through the gates and to the front door.

When they reached the small set of stairs to the door, one side swung open and Alya, not looking at the doors as she tried to get Marinette to remember how to use her legs so that they could climb the stairs, realized instantly who was there because the rigid lump of person she'd been jostling forward up until now became a solid granite statue of person that refused to budge in any direction. "You're hopeless," she muttered to her stock-still friend as she slid around in front of her. "Hey Adrien!"

"Hi Alya, hi Marinette - come on in," he swung the door wide, smiling at his friends as he waved them in. "I've got everything we need up in my room, and my chef is working on some snacks for us to have while we're working. If there's anything you're tasting, just let Nathalie know - she'll make sure it gets made for you."

Alya glanced back at Marinette, "That's so sweet of you, but could you give us just a second? We'll be right behind you."

"Uh, sure, I'll just…" he trailed off and moved to awkwardly shuffled to one side of the door. Unsure of what to do with himself while he waited, he absentmindedly leaned against the still-closed door and fiddled with his phone.

"Girl," Alya hissed, coming over to her and smacking her shoulder lightly, "Stop psyching yourself out in there-" she poker a finger into the center of Marinette's head for emphasis, "-and come inside. We're going to be studying in Adrien's bedroom, his bedroom, Marinette."

Without a word, Marinette robotically opened and closed her mouth as her face turned a light shade of pink. She shuffled the books in her arms and took one stiff-legged step forward, then another, her mouth still flapping open and closed like a fish. She finally made it to the top of the stairs and froze at the threshold, glancing back at Alya who now had her head firmly seated in the palm of her head, her wavy hair bouncing as she shook her head back and forth and sighed.

"Come on." She said, finally losing her patience and grabbing Marinette by the hand, dragging her through the door and into the large foyer. "Adrien?" she called once they had gotten halfway to the stairs.

"Sorry," his voice came from behind them and Marinette let out a small shriek as she wheeled around to face him, her eyes the size of dinner plates. "Uh," he scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably and looked away, "And sorry again," he glanced back at Marinette, meeting her eyes and giving her a small smile, "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"I-I-" Marinette gulped, feeling her heart still slamming against her ribs as she stared at him. She gripped the books in her arms tightly and tried to muffle what she was sure was the impossibly loud sound of her heartbeat as she shook her head. "Sust jartled- I mean just startled," she smiled shyly at him.

Adrien laughed a little, walking forward and patting her on the shoulder gently, "Well, come on upstairs and get settled in, I'll have Nathalie bring us some tea to help you calm down." He slid past the pair and started up the stairs to his room, Alya following immediately with Marinette, recovering from her encounter seconds later, bringing up the rear.

"I'll apologize in advance for the mess," Adrien said as he grabbed the doorknob, "Since we set this up kind of last minute I didn't really have time to get cleaned up, but the area that's set up for us to study in is free of any clutter so we can relax while we go over everything." With that he pushed the door open to reveal his sprawling bedroom.

Marinette remembered the layout from the couple of times she'd been in the room previously, as Ladybug of course - this was her first time in his room as plain old Marinette, and she could tell that some things had been rearranged. For one thing, the couch and coffee table that normally sat facing his television had been moved off to one side, the coffee table pushed up against the end of his bed while the couch was now perpendicular to the tv, opening up the floor space that stretched from there to the opposite wall so that someone - she assumed Adrien in collaboration with the Gorilla - could place a large, comfortable-looking blanket and several brightly-colored beanbag chairs in the open space. It looked like the kind of study space you'd see in a cheesy teen tv show or a schoolgirl anime - laid out for the sole purpose of having multiple people all lounging around to study and hang out together at once.

"This looks awesome, Adrien!" Alya crowed, immediately rushing over and plopping down into one of the massive beanbags. "Ahhh," she sighed, closing her eyes, "Maybe I'll just nap here instead of studying. It's so soft and comfortable…"

Marinette snorted, strolling in behind Adrien and maneuvering over to a bright red beanbag chair and sinking into it, "You're the one who was so adamant about us getting some extra study time in this weekend, you can't sleep now!"

The girls got into some friendly banter, exchanging soft smacks to the legs and the occasional thrown pencil or was of paper from the supplies they'd brought and broke into a fit of laughter when it was all over and done with. They settled into a comfortable quiet as Adrien plopped down into a bright green beanbag that was situated against the couch, forming a nearly equilateral triangle between their chosen seats, and cracked open a textbook.

"Alright, where should we begin?"

XXX

A few hours had passed, and the trio had shifted from position to position, sometimes sitting upright, sometimes stretching out across more than one chair, a couple of times Alya and Marinette would end up laying on their backs on the floor while Adrien would quiz them on something they covered - the position kept them from cheating and afforded them a brief respite to relax their shoulders and necks after cleaning over books for so long. They had gone through Physical Science, French History and World History, had a brief lunch provided by Adrien's personal chef, briefly reviewed Literature, and they were in the middle of being quizzed on some basic vocabulary when Alya's phone suddenly rang.

"Sorry, give me just a second." She snatched her phone out of her bag and booted to the other side of the room, talking in a hushed-yell, as Marinette had come to refer to it, as she argued with whoever was on the other line. After a moment, however, Marinette sat up and saw her glance back at her and Adrien in turn, then smirk, before taking her discussion down to a near-whisper before she hung up. She had that mischievous glint in her eye that sent a chill up Marinette's spine.

"Sorry guys, Nora needs me to come and take over babysitting duty for her. She forgot some important stuff at the gym and needs to go get it, and then she's going out for drinks with some friends, so I have to go." She spoke while simultaneously gathering up all of her things and slinging her bag over her shoulder. "Marinette, could you take some extra notes on anything that Adrien thinks is important that wasn't covered well in math? Might help me out." She smirked again, "Just make sure you pay close attention to what he goes over with you - I don't want to miss anything major, have him show you if you have to. It really would be such a huge favor for me."

"Wait Alya I-"

"Sorry, I really have to go. Bye you two, see you at school on Monday!" And with that she bolted out the door, leaving the two of them completely alone.

Marinette was silent, staring at the door as it closed and continuing to sit rigid for quite some time once Alya had left before she flopped back down onto the blanket and stared at the ceiling, trying her hardest not to glance at Adrien out of the corner of her eye in case he was looking at her. She felt her heartbeat pick up the pace as the awareness that they were completely alone spread through her.

"-or move on?"

"What?" She squeaked, sitting up again, her face dusted with a light blush.

"I said we were only half-done with this section, did you want to continue the quiz or move on to math?" Adrien cocked an eyebrow at her, pointing at the section of vocabulary questions he'd been going through in the literature textbook. "Or we can take a break if you want. We have been going at this pretty hard for the last couple of hours, maybe we could relax with some Ultimate Mecha Strike III before we start reviewing math."

Marinette forced a smile onto her face and nodded as she swallowed her nerves - she could get through a couple of rounds of Ultimate Mecha Strike III without incident, she was good at the game and could pretend she was just playing against Alya or Max or one of her other friends and not make a total fool out of herself just because she was playing with Adrien. She'd done it before, she could do it again.

Adrien dragged his beanbag chair over so that he was positioned closer to her, parallel to the tv, and turned the game on before sinking down into his chair beside her. He held out one controller in his hand as Marinette got up from the floor and moved back to her own seat. She misjudged the distance and felt her heart drop into her stomach as she crashed down backwards into the chair, then scrambled to correct her position. In her flailing to reposition herself, she managed to smack the controller out of his hand, sending it to the floor just at their feet.

"I'm sorry!" she said with more than a fair share of nervous panic in her voice as she leaned forward and reached for it.

"It's fine," he said with a smile as he, too, leaned forward from his chair to grab it.

With a hard smack as their heads collided, both of them jumped back, clutching the respective sides of their heads that had impacted. Marinette looked away shyly, her bangs falling over her face as she turned back to him, glancing up at him under her eyelashes.

Adrien rubbed the side of his head with a sour expression on his face, then glanced over at Marinette and broke into laughter, a grin stretching across his features, "We should probably stop reaching for things at the same time if this is going to keep happening every time," he said as he picked up the controller and held it out to her.

Marinette laughed softly, smiling back at him and taking the controller. She shifted, pulling her legs up under her and sitting cross-legged - or as close to it as she could be in a beanbag chair - and turned nodded, "Probably," she said softly. Her head still hurt from the bump, but the rest of her body was floating on a cloud from the contact.

After a couple of rounds the score stood at five to four, in favor of Marinette. Adrien had gotten the jump on her for the first few rounds while she was still distracted, but she'd quickly made up the distance once she got a grip on herself. They'd agreed on calling it quits after a best of ten match, and Marinette wanted to win. She was trying her hardest not to look at him during their final match - if she wanted to succeed then she couldn't afford the distraction of acknowledging his presence.

She didn't realize she was mumbling her combos out loud to herself until she tried her ultimate move, the quarter circle kick and flying hyper-storm. Before she could finish the combo, Adrien completed his own combo, shattering her LB-03 mech to pieces. The screen flashed up the results screen with Adrien's NAD03 showing the 'Winner' banner beneath it.

Adrien turned, flashing Marinette a smile, "Best of eleven?"

Marinette pouted, crossing her arms across her chest and scrunching up her nose as she turned to look at him, "That was all luck and you know it," she said with a little hmph as she turned her head away. As soon as the words left her mouth her brain caught up and reminded her who she was talking to, "I-I mean-" she turned back to him in a panic but he was smiling, holding out his open palm to her.

"Of course it was," he said, "Thanks to my lucky charm."

Her breath hitched. How long had he been holding that? She hadn't noticed him grab it before the game started, did that mean it had been in his pocket this whole time? He'd told her once before that he always carried it with him, but she didn't think he'd meant it literally.

She stared at the charm with wide eyes for several moments, eventually trailing her eyes up to his as she smiled sweetly, "Well," she said softly before clearing her throat. He sweet smile quickly morphed to a more competitive one as her eyebrows knitted together, "I hope it keeps working for you then." She turned her attention back to the tv and selected her character once more. "Best of eleven."

XXX

"Marinette wins!" the bluenette cheered as she launched herself out of her chair and spun around, flailing her arms in the air. She was laughing as she rejoiced, her eyes clamped shut and her victory grin spreading from ear to ear, "Take that, Adri-" she froze as the name hit her lips, the sudden stop causing her to trip over her own feet with a panicked screech as she tumbled over.

She expected a hard impact as she fell, but instead she hit something soft - or relatively soft anyways - while she was still in mid-air, then felt the fall continue until there was a second impact, followed with a ragged exhale. She stiffened, cringing as she tentatively pried one eye open and looked up.

Adrien was wincing as he looked down at her. She'd fallen straight into his lap - almost literally - one arm wrapped up around her shoulders, the other wrapping around her front just across her hips. She was laying half in his lap, pressed lightly against his stomach, half off the edge of the beanbag chair, her knees up and feet planted firmly in the soft blanket. Nervously, she curled her toes into the blanket and gulped, opening her other eye and smiling shyly up at him.

"Hi," Adrien half-wheezed, smiling through the obvious pain on his face.

"H-Hi," she managed to squeak back after a moment.

"Now that you're-" he paused, shifting uncomfortably, "-okay, could you, uh, move your arm."

Marinette glanced down a little and noticed that her right elbow was planted firmly against his stomach, having been outstretched when she flailed during her fall. She let out a soft shriek as she jerked her entire body away from him all at once and scrambled back to her seat, curling her knees up to her chin and hugging her arms around her legs as she held the controller in both hands, her face burning with a deep blush. "S-Sorry," she mumbled into her capris, avoiding eye contact with him.

"It's fine," he shifted, rubbing a hand against the sore spot just under his ribs, "No permanent damage. Congratulations on your win." He beamed at her, leaning forward enough so that she could see him no matter where she looked. "You truly are amazing, Marinette."

She shook her head, unwinding herself from her little ball of awkwardness personified as she fished around in her pocket. She withdrew her hand slowly, then held it out, dangling a charm that Adrien was all-too familiar with from one finger, "That one was... all luck." She glanced at him under her eyelashes, smiling.

XXX

Another hour or so passed, they'd finished the vocabulary, the sun was mostly set, and they were halfway through math. Marinette's shoulders and neck had started to ache, so she was laying on the blanket, facing away from Adrien and slightly spacing out as she stared out the wide wall of windows across from her. The Paris sky looked so beautiful, yet so lonely from her position. The last rays of light were trying their hardest to peek through a gathering storm that had begun to loom over the city, threatening to drop buckets of rain on the streets below at any moment. It gave her a very melancholy feeling as she rested her chin on her wrists, her arms crossed beneath her head.

"-down for Alya."

Marinette blinked, sitting up a little, "What?"

"The equation I just explained to you? You should write that down for Alya, it's a difficult concept. I'm sure she's got a grasp on it, but it might be good to note it down in case she forgets something later on."

"Uh," Marinette glanced down at her completely blank notebook. She'd forgotten to write down a single thing for herself or Alya so far. She wasn't even sure if her book was currently turned to the same page as Adrien - everything on the page screamed 'new information' to her, probably because she'd missed class on the day it was all explained, so she wasn't even sure which equation she should be looking at. "I…"

"Were you spacing out?" Adrien teased, tapping his foot against her leg lightly.

She glanced back at him and shrugged a little, a guilty smile creeping onto her face, "Maybe?"

He shook his head, laughing under his breath as he folded his textbook closed and got up, then surprised her by sliding down onto the blanket beside her. He scooched close to her, their bodies pressed lightly together, and opened his textbook while glancing over at her own. "You've been spaced out for awhile I see," he said, gesturing at the nearly five page difference between them. "We'll start from where you're at and get you caught back up, and then we'll go over the equation again."

Words didn't exist anymore. Adrien was laying down beside her, their bodies were touching and this time it wasn't because she fell on him, and he was leaning so close to her as he studied her page numbers that she could smell the light fragrance of his shampoo. Marinette could only manage to nod numbly as he began explaining the information on the page to her, but not a single word was sinking in as she watched his lips, less than a foot from her own, moving in almost slow motion.

XXX

It was dark. At some point Adrien must have fallen asleep, although he'd swear he had only blinked, because when he next opened his eyes his room was pitch black. Thunder rumbled gently outside the window as rain pattered against the glass. His neck felt a bit stiff, probably because he had apparently been sleeping on the floor for however long since he'd dozed off. He shifted, intending to stretch, when he felt a gently tug on his right sleeve and realized that one side of his body was awfully warm. For a moment he thought it might be Plagg, but Plagg wasn't exactly into cuddling, nor was he human-sized. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and let them adjust to the darkness before taking a glance down.

Marinette was cuddled up against him, laying on her side, her head resting on her elbow, one arm outstretched above her, the other nestled against her chest, her fingers curled into the fabric of his sleeve. She was breathing lightly, her lips slightly parted, one of her pigtails partially undone and leaving strands of hair messily falling across her face.

With the pouring rain outside, and the late hour, it wouldn't be right to wake Marinette up and send her home - even if he woke the Gorilla up to have him drive her home, he wouldn't be allowed to see her off and make sure she got there safe, so he conceded to have her stay the night and he could catch flak from her, her parents, and his father about it another time. He slid his free arm down to his pocket and fished out his cellphone, quickly typing a text to Alya. With any hope she'd still be awake and be able to let Marinette's parents know about the impromptu sleepover so that they didn't worry about her.

For a brief moment, Adrien considered getting up and moving to her to the couch so that she'd be more comfortable, but even with the pricetag that had once been associated with it, how comfortable could that couch be? Hours of sitting on it alone told him 'not very,' so when a new idea came to him, he decided to go with it. Gently, Adrien shifted and pried Marinette's fingers off of his sleeve and stood up once he was free. He slid one arm under her neck and shoulders, supporting her head, and the other under her knees, then lifted her until she was pressed comfortably against his chest.

Maneuvering carefully around the room, trying his hardest not to jostle Marinette and accidentally wake her, Adrien cradled her in his arms, then gently lowered himself into the bed. He kept her held against him with one arm, using the other to pull back the covers. When he had finished, he reached up and carefully undid what was left of her pigtails, allowing her hair to fall freely in a sleep-mussed mane around her head, then slowly shifted so that he could more easily slide her under the covers.

As he moved to place her onto the mattress, he heard her groan softly and froze, hoping she'd remain asleep. He didn't want her to wake up in a dark room with someone that she wouldn't be able to immediately recognize just… holding her. That could go very wrong very fast, and the best outcome would not be the one where she flings herself out of his arms straight into the cold, hard floor out of sheer fear.

He stroked his fingers gently through her hair, making soft shushing noises, but she shifted and lifted her head, her eyes half-opening in a groggy stare. She knitted her eyebrows together blinking sleepily up at him.

"Adrien?" she shifted again, yawning.

"Uh- th-this is all a dream, go back to sleeeep Marinette…" he whispered, leaning his head down a little closer to her as he then continued moving to put her in the bed.

She cocked her head and wrinkled her nose - Adrien couldn't help but think about how cute the action was - and then she laughed, a sleepy drunk-sounding laugh, "If I'm dreaming why would I need to go back to sleep?"

"Uh because-" Shoot. Sleepy Marinette used logic and it was super effective. "Because… Because you were actually in a, uh, different dream. A better one. And you woke up into this dream. But if you go to sleep in this dream you'll, uh, wake back up… in the better one?" His voice cracked on the question and he hoped she wouldn't notice.

She closed her eyes, seeming to consider this as he finally got her under the covers. She pursed her lips, nodding a little, then opened her eyes again. She was definitely still half-asleep when she next moved, flinging her arms around his neck and hugging herself to him, nuzzling her head against his chest. She sighed contentedly, then yawned again, "Okay…"

They sat like that for a moment, Marinette breathing softly against his chest and Adrien internally panicking as he gently rubbed her back to soothe her back to sleep. He didn't realize how quite much he was blushing, but he could feel his ears burning as she continued to nuzzle him, wondering why sleepy Marinette would be so happy as to just… cuddle with him like this.

"Hmm…" she shifted again, sitting up a little more and resting her head in the crook of his neck, her nose lightly pressed to his skin. He could feel her warm breath as it grazed across his flesh. The room felt like it was getting hotter by the second, and Adrien could hear his own heart skip multiple beats each time she exhaled against him.

He moved, leaning down to place her against the pillows, and wiggled away from her to try and free himself from her linked fingers behind his neck. If he wasn't already fully awake a moment ago, he definitely was now as she groaned, trying to pull herself closer to him, but he could feel her breaths starting to even out and knew it was more of a reflex than her waking up again.

He was proved right when, moments later, she relaxed and her arms slipped free of him as she turned and snuggled into one of his large pillows.

Seeing his chance, he quickly covered her up with the blankets and scooted away to the edge of the bed, taking a moment to steady his own breathing which had become quite ragged at some point during the exchange.

"Hn… Adrien?"

He flinched, turning to look over his shoulder at her. "Yes, Marinette?" He whispered in return.

"I like this dream too…" she hadn't reopened her eyes, but she was smiling enough to wrinkle the corners of them. "Goodnight… I love you."

Acting on almost pure instinct, he leaned over, kissing her forehead lightly and ticked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as he did, "Goodnight, Marinette, I love you too. Sleep tight."

A moment later, when Marinette had definitely fallen back into a deep slumber, Adrien got up from the bed, stole one of the pillows away from one side of it, and fetched a spare blanket from within his closet. He moved to the couch and settled in there, yawning as he too snuggled into the inviting plush of his pillow, and began to drift back to sleep.

Nearly ten minutes passed and there was an almost audible click in Adrien's mind as he processed the previous interaction. He went from horizontal to vertical in a half second flat and stared at his sleeping friend with wide eyes.

"Wait, what?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

About three sentences into writing this it took on a mind of its own. I had more fluffy bits planned and when it came time to put them in, the story just kept morphing away from them. Ah well.

Thanks for reading my little dribble-drabble one-shot!