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quicksilversquared · 5 years

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How to Fake a Marriage: Chapter 48

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Adrien grinned as he glanced around the garden, all set up with chairs and flowers and other decorations. It had taken a little bit of searching to find a suitable garden in Paris that hosted private weddings and that had an opening on the date that they wanted, but he had to say that it had been well worth the effort. Chairs were set up neatly in rows to hold all of their guests, and evenly spaced poles pushed into the ground held up elegantly draped fabric and ribbons. There were a few flower arrangements here and there just for the extra pop, but for the most part the flowers already in the garden were enough.

"Quite the setup here," Chris said cheerfully from beside Adrien. The English pastor had been eager enough to come officiate for the when they asked, after Adrien remembered the pastor's joke about actually officiating Adrien and Marinette's wedding when they had had the prank photoshoot. Thankfully he did know French- that had been their main concern- and he had been planning on being in the area anyway for a pastor conference of some sort, so he had refused to let them pay for his plane tickets to and from Paris. "I take it you had a little more time to plan this time around?"

"Just a little," Adrien confirmed with a laugh. "Over a year instead of just a couple hours. Much more reasonable of a timetable."

On his other side, Nino rolled his eyes, unamused. Next to Nino, Ben was grinning in amusement. While he had been surprised by the news of Adrien's engagement to the woman that Adrien had sworn up and down that he wasn't dating, he had found the whole thing far funnier than Nino did.

(Or, rather, Ben found it funnier than Nino pretended to find it, because Nino was still pretending to be exasperated by the whole thing. Adrien knew full well that he was amused, but Nino was just trying to hide it and pretend that he was actually disapproving.)

Paul, who had been even more amused by the whole fiasco, hadn't been able to make it to the wedding at all. He had had to use up his vacation time off for a family emergency back in February and it was still early enough in the year that he wasn't comfortable using up any of his remaining sick days in order to be able to make it to Paris. He had jokingly offered to have his sister come in his stead, but Adrien had declined the offer.

He really wasn't interested in dealing with Paul's sister again, not until she learned some serious boundaries.

Paul wasn't the only one of Adrien's friends not to make it to the wedding. Adrien and Marinette had agreed early on that it would be a better idea to not invite Chloe, even though she had been Adrien's oldest friend. They hadn't really been friends for years and in fact, Adrien had actually been avoiding her ever since his return. The one time he had spotted her, shortly after returning to Paris, she had tried to drape herself all over him and press a messy kiss to his cheek. He had told her off for it, because it was really uncomfortable and she was attracting stares, but she had simply waved his scolding off and latched onto his arm, tugging on it and trying to insist that they go on a date 'like old times'. Adrien had responded to that with a raised eyebrow and somewhat briskly informed Chloe that they had never dated and besides, he was engaged now.

(He supposed that he couldn't entirely blame her for not knowing yet; after all, news hadn't actually gotten out about Adrien and Marinette even though they had already gone out on several highly visible dates since their return. Part of it was that Paris' tabloids really didn't care about him, the other part was probably the fact that Adrien and Marinette really didn't do PDA and therefore people weren't as likely to pay attention to him. Still, Chloe should have known better than to invade his personal space like that.)

Chloe had had a meltdown at the news. They had been lucky that they were near the Grand Paris and Chloe's father could drag her off before she attracted too much attention from passerbys. Adrien had dashed off as Mr. Bourgeois and a handful of hotel staff restrained the screeching Chloe, and he had had to unfriend and block Chloe online (and after a stream of ticked-off texts had flooded his phone, he blocked her there, too. Marinette had done the same).

Mr. Bourgeois had offered Adrien his congratulations later (though he looked a little strained; Adrien suspected that he still had to hear Chloe complaining about how unfair it all was every day) and then had shuffled Chloe off on a cruise that would run over Adrien and Marinette's wedding date, partly to distract her and partly so she wouldn't try to interrupt the wedding. Chloe had apparently resisted a bit, until she was told that there would be all sorts of young, rich, single actors and businesspeople on the cruise. Then she had been thrilled to go.

Adrien suspected that she was going to try to send him all sorts of selfies of herself with the assorted men she met, in an attempt to try to make him jealous. He still hadn't unblocked her number, though, and he wasn't sure how long it would take for her to catch on to that.

"Adrien, the guests are going to be arriving soon," Nathalie informed him, appearing suddenly at his side. "It's time to get back to the prep room. Everything is ready out here."

With one last glance around, Adrien followed her, with Chris and Nino and Ben close behind him. He spotted Mr. Dupain chatting with one of the garden workers near the building where Marinette was currently getting ready and where Adrien was meant to be freshening up in a separate room. His own father also stood nearby, looking somewhat irritated.

Adrien suspected that it was probably because he had run off to check on how the set-up in the garden was doing. He knew that he should have trusted the staff and the decorators to do their job, but, well...

He wanted everything to be perfect for his Lady, so sue him.

The exasperated look that Mr. Agreste sent his son confirmed Adrien's suspicions, and Adrien gave his father an only slightly sheepish shrug before following Chris and his friends back into their assigned room. The three of them sat down, but Adrien couldn't keep still. He fidgeted and fiddled with his Miraculous as he tried not to pace.

(He knew that it was ridiculous to be anxious- it wasn't as though Marinette was suddenly going to change her mind about marrying him and that was the most important part of the whole thing, and being married was really more of a legal thing than an all-altering day in their relationship (and they had already done the civil ceremony two days prior), but still. Try telling that to his nerves. He was still worried that something would go wrong- that fangirls would crash the wedding, that clouds would appear out of nowhere and rain out the wedding, that Alya or Nathalie would try to kill him at the reception since Alix was going to play a compilation of the recordings that she had made them take of the reactions to their engagement announcement.

Adrien was especially worried about that last bit. Alix had promised to behave and Marinette had sworn that she would listen to it before it was played so that nothing offensive slipped in, but still.)

As he finally gave in and started pacing, Adrien thought back over the year since he and Marinette had returned to Paris. He had settled into his job at the lab quickly enough, and boy was it ever nice to be able to do Physics in French again. Marinette had continued looking for designer positions, but there hadn't been any openings at any of the studios she was interested in. Instead of applying to a company temporarily until she could find a better fit, she had focused full-time on commissions for a couple months until Nino had recommended her for a position as costume designer for a movie that he was doing the soundtrack for. She had enjoyed it, and once again her amazing creativity had shown through as she produced absolutely spectacular pieces. She was still trying to get a normal designer position, though, because it would be more constant work and a regular paycheck.

Adrien didn't blame her. Still, watching the costumes come to life in the second bedroom (turned into Marinette's design space and sewing room) in their apartment had been amazing. Each outfit had taken several entire days to make, a couple taking over a week, and the level of detail was breathtaking.

"The guests are arriving," Nino reported from where he was standing by the window. "Oh, those people must be from London. I don't recognize them."

Adrien glanced over, pulled out of his own thoughts. "I thought you met the London crew last night at dinner?"

"That was just Marinette's witnesses- and you, of course," Nino added to Ben and Chris. "And Madam Rosalie, too. Were there any others you invited?"

Adrien had to think about it for a second, and then it clicked. "Oh, right! There were a few more of Marinette's coworkers, and then a couple past coworkers as well. That was it."

"Did you invite the entire company?"

Adrien had to laugh. "No, mostly just Marinette's team, for the most part. And then there were a couple people that she worked with outside of her team that she invited, but I don't think they could make it. But we were there for three years, you know. We made a lot of connections."

The look Nino gave him told Adrien that yes, Nino remembered that very well. Adrien grinned.

"So, has this dweeb here remembered to tell you guys anything about the city?" Nino asked, turning to Ben and Chris. "Have you been here before?"

"I visited back when there was a supervillain problem," Ben volunteered. "That was pretty scary, but pretty cool at the same time. My parents wanted to go somewhere else in France, since we still wanted to visit but they thought it would be dangerous. But we finally decided to just pop into Paris for a couple days, to hit up the tourist spots and then move on."

As Ben tried to describe the akumas he had seen to Nino and a puzzled Chris, Adrien had to grin as he thought back to the reaction Alya had had when she realized that Ladybug and Chat Noir were back in Paris. They hadn't gone out at first, of course- they had waited nearly a month after returning for good before venturing out and doing a very visible run around the city. Their runs had been almost daily for a bit as they relished in the feeling of being able to flip and fly and be visible again, then had settled down to every other day.

(The superhero exercise had made it very easy for him and Marinette to get right back into shape again, which was lovely. Adrien hadn't even known that he had missed the lean muscles he had developed as a superhero until they started reappearing again.)

Alya had been thrilled. She had "managed" to wave them down (not very difficult, really, once Adrien and Marinette heard about her efforts from Nino and shifted their "patrol" route to go right past Nino and Alya's apartment several times in a row) and tell them a bit more about what she had learned on her trip.

Adrien was pretty sure that they had made her day by telling her that yes, they had watched every one of her vlogs. They had made her day even more when, several months later, they decided to announce their engagement as superheroes via a photo submitted through the Ladyblog.

(They had used a ring that Adrien had "borrowed" during one of his last photoshoots so that no one would recognize it as Marinette's, just to be safe.)

Adrien grinned to himself as he thought about what Alya's reaction would be to knowing that she was in Ladybug's wedding. It had been the talk of the city ever since their engagement announcement, and Alya had even brought the topic up during slow periods in their wedding planning. She wondered if there would be any nods to them being Ladybug and Chat Noir in their wedding, as a kind of inside joke for them and any of their family and friends who might know their secret.

(Adrien and Marinette had decided on some very vague references in their vows and decided to keep it at that. There was no point in being too obvious and risking letting Alya in on the secret mid-ceremony. She hadn't killed them for keeping their dating and engagement a secret, but it was very, very likely that she would make an attempt on their lives if she figured out their secret identities.)

"There's actually a decent number of guests," Nino said with some measure of surprise, pulling Adrien out of his thoughts. "I would have thought that people wouldn't trust you enough to come, after the stunts you pulled."

Adrien couldn't help the snort that escaped. Nino really wasn't far off with the whole trust thing- a solid third of the RSVPs that he and Marinette had gotten back had had variations of "this better not be a joke this time you jerks" scribbled on them, and they had spent a fair bit of time right after their engagement and after invites went out responding to calls and messages from their friends, wanting to know if it was real this time.

It was pretty funny, really, and was a good bit of comic relief when Adrien had still been trying to persuade his father that yes, he was done with the modeling now and when he and Marinette had been spending all of their free time trying to turn their new apartment into a proper home.

"So what are you guys doing after the wedding?" Ben asked, curious. "I mean, does anything really change? I'm just wondering, because you're the first people I know that are my age to get married and you already live together and whatnot."

"More bling on the fingers," Nino offered. "And they're actually having their honeymoon right away, so there's that."

Adrien laughed at that. "Honestly? Not much. But once we get back from their honeymoon, we'll be going right to an animal shelter near us to pick up a cat that we've had our eyes on. They agreed to hold her for us, because we didn't want to pick her up and get her settled at home only to have to find someone to cat-sit while we're gone." They had planned to get a cat as soon as they were settled into their new apartment, but then there had been too much going on for them to spend the time house-training a cat or making their apartment cat-safe. Marinette had teased him about wanting a dog instead, until Adrien and Plagg's combined kitten eyes made her give up, giggling all the while.

(She didn't really want a dog, he knew. But Marinette rarely let an opportunity to tease him go to waste.)

"They're going to turn into the weird cat people," Nino told Ben with a long-suffering sigh. "Alya and I had to talk them down from starting out with two cats. Neither of them have ever had a pet before."

Chris laughed. "Oh, boy. Two kittens at once? You'd be buried."

"We're planning on adopting one younger cat and one older one," Adrien explained. "We figured it would make sense to stagger them, so we don't have old cat vet bills for two cats at once. And we're going to have the one cat for a month or two before going to pick out a second one."

"So he does have some sense." Nino clapped him on his shoulder. "I was starting to think that you were just going a bit crazy with the freedom from your father and somehow dragged Marinette down with you."

"The staggered ages thing was her idea," Adrien grudgingly admitted. "I would have been fine with two tiny kittens using me as a climbing pole."

"It's time for you guys to head out, Adrien!" Nathalie called, and Adrien turned to see her standing there, one eye on her watch. "Marinette will be out shortly."

Adrien was out the door in a flash, leaving Ben and Nino chuckling behind him. Adrien tried to slow his walk up the aisle down a little so that he wasn't speedwalking, but he wasn't sure that he had actually succeeded.

So maybe he was a little eager. But Adrien had a gorgeous woman waiting for him, and honestly? He didn't want to wait another minute.

The music started, and Adrien took a moment to reflect on how similar yet different this wedding was to their fake one. The gardens were very similar (though perhaps a botanist would disagree), but this time there were rows of chairs filled with their family and friends. Their wedding party was wearing similar outfits, though this time it was their friends wearing them, not people who were pretty much strangers to Adrien. Pastor Chris and Sarah and Abbey (and Madam Rosalie) were there again, but this time they had their Paris friends present as well.

And Marinette might have been styled practically the same as the first time around, Adrien noted as she appeared at the back of the garden, but this time, she was practically glowing as she floated up the aisle in her gorgeous blue dress towards him with her father escorting her. Tom handed her off to Adrien with a grin, and Adrien grinned back before turning to Marinette with a softer smile.

He was so, so in love with this woman, and it didn't matter if some people thought that he was being too obvious about it. As long as Marinette knew, that was what mattered.

Marinette squeezed his hand and Adrien grinned at her, and then they turned as one to Pastor Chris. He beamed at them, and then started the ceremony.

And this time around, it was undeniably different. Adrien wasn't a frustrated just-barely-an-adult trying to pull a prank on his father and so, so nervous that it would backfire on him. Marinette wasn't just a really good friend that had agreed to go along with his prank. The photographs that were being taken were candid, rather than carefully crafted to make things look realistic. He could see Tikki peeking out of Marinette's bouquet, beaming as they recited their vows, and Adrien knew that Plagg was alert in his own suit, watching proudly even if he tried to deny it. Most importantly of all, there was a distinct energy running through the air that hadn't been there during the prank, hard to describe but weighty, making the whole event feel more important and significant.

And of course, when Adrien dipped Marinette for their first kiss as husband and wife- well, this time, he gave into the temptation to introduce a little tongue.

Fin.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #How to Fake a Marriage #it's done!!!!!

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