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It was the idea of sharing a little bit of cheerfulness and spring, that did it for her. And, well, the fact that they were very cute and also getting her creativity in overdrive. There were just so many ideas of what she could give her friends.
A couple of hours of looking through already existing models, a couple more of coming up with individual designs for all her classmates, and a long shopping trip later, she found herself looking at a desk full of red strings, white strings, and… a lot of other stuff she was only now thinking might be unnecessary. Because first she’d seen the beads. And. Well. She came with five other possible designs on the spot. And then she’d gotten to the charms section and choosing just a few simply hurt her. Then… then she’d remembered you could use simple brooches, too, and her trip… her trip became even longer than she’d anticipated.
She was pretty lucky to have found that post so in advance. She had just enough time to go absolutely overboard with it.
She also hoped she’d learn how to pronounce the name too. Though she also had a faint idea that her enthusiastic “mahtsishor” was the closest she’d get.
The first of March came too quickly and not quickly enough at the same time. She couldn’t wait to give everyone what she’d made for them. But, at the same time, she barely managed to finish everything in time.
She’d decided on a special kind of bracelets for the girls. She used more than one charm for each of them, but made it so one especially could be easily detached and pinned to their shirts if they wanted. And she did make sure to have little red and white bows on her for that eventuality.
As for the charms themselves, she’d put a lot of thought into picking them and a lot of hard work into making those she couldn’t find. Everyone had something different, and she hoped she’d managed to make something that spoke to each of them in some way or another.
And the same went for the boys, even if she went with the classic idea instead of bracelets for them.
She was quite proud of how everything turned out. And she was so enthusiastic she didn’t even oversleep. She got to school bright, early and prepared.
“It’s been this long and I’m still surprised when I see you early,” Alya chuckled as she saw her coming towards their desk. Nino turned around from where he was leaning on his arms talking to Alya, and gave Marinette a quick salute, his own smile betraying his amusement.
“Harhar, I’m not giving you your presents if you’re mean to me,” Marinette pouted, playing along. She saw Alya’s eyes dart to her shirt and smiled, waiting for the inevitable question to come, but then she processed what Marinette'd just said and her face brightened instantly, lips stretching into a smile and eyes glinting with barely contained excitement.
“You have a present for me?” she drawled out, already leaning towards Marinette, who’d just taken her seat.
“Not anymore. Because you’re mean. But Nino can have his,” she smirked at Alya.
“The betrayal!” she gasped, then shot Nino a serious look, “You can’t have whatever she’s gonna give you!”
“Why not?!” he asked, taken aback, and Marinette snorted, fiddling with the contents of her bag without letting any of them see what was inside.
“Solidarity! And all that.”
But Marinette chose that moment to get out a box of macarons and by the gleam in Nino’s eyes the only solidarity Alya’d see out of him would be towards the Dupain-Cheng Bakery.
“Ooo, you have my favourites,” Alya hummed appreciatively peeking at the rows of colorful sweets when Marinette lifted the lid.
“I do, but I’ll make an effort and eat them myself,” she sighed mockingly.
“You’ll start your spring with a stomach ache.”
“Puh-lease, I live in a bakery, I have enough practice under my belt to eat more than this in one go,” she said smugly and waved her hand, but quickly decided to abandon the game and get to the good part. “But these are not actually my presents for you,” she smirked and took great delight in watching both Nino and Alya quirk an eyebrow in her direction.
“You have presents?” came in Adrien’s curious voice as he took his own seat and promptly turned towards the girls desk himself. Marinette didn’t miss the quick look he threw at the macarons and, taking pity on all of them, pushed the box towards the middle. Picking one of her own favourites, she gestured for everyone to dig in.
“Yup. You came at the perfect moment, Adrien,” she confirmed and put a gentle hand on the bag still near her, drawing their attention towards it.
“A couple of days ago I saw this post about a Romanian tradition where people give everyone ‘mărțișoare’ on the first of March and then wear one for the whole month,” she started, gesturing to the small, pink and white paper flower pinned to her chest along with a thin, red and white bow. “It’s really cute and wholesome, everyone gives them to everyone and most of them are symbols of good luck and stuff like that, but they come in so many shapes! They can be pretty much anything as long as it has something red and white to it. And I really wanted to do something like this, so here you go,” she finished with a bright smile and a faint blush, grabbing three specific pieces from her bag and presenting them to the three, one at the time.
She’d worked the most on them. They were her best friends, of course she wanted them to have the most beautiful and well-thought-out ones. Alya’s lips rounded into a surprised “O” shape as she took in her bracelet and Nino grinned at his own little pinnable charm. Adrien on the other hand, was looking at her. She’d seen his eyes widen as he looked at the pin when she gave it to him, but then he trained his gaze on her instead, and she was pretty sure that there was actual awe in his voice as he said, “You made these for us!”
She nodded sheepishly, but pleased to see they liked them.
“I couldn’t not give you a ladybug,” she said to Alya, who was fiddling with all four charms on her bracelet. “The camera and the Wi-Fi symbol are pretty obvious, and the fox made me think of when you mentioned Rena would be your favourite hero if Ladybug wasn’t in the picture,” she laughed, and hoped what she said made for a good enough explanation to not give herself away. “But the ladybug one is special,” she added. “You can unclip it from there and pin it to your shirt, like how I pinned mine.”
“So that’s what it was!” Alya smiled excitedly, and immediately got Marinette to pin the ladybug to her shirt, a pretty red and white bow behind it.
“It felt weird to give you, guys, bracelets,so I went with the pins, but you don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to,” she assured them as she changed her focus from Alya to Nino and Adrien. It didn’t seem needed, though. Both of them seemed pretty excited to pin them to their shirts.
“Where did you even find a bubble charm?” asked Nino, stretching his shirt so he could look more at the bubble pinned there.
“Oh, I didn’t. I actually made an air-dry clay shape and then painted over it so it would look like a bubble,” she laughed, and finally focused on Adrien. He was struggling to pin the paw print he received to his shirt by himself, but it wasn’t quite working out for him.
“Here, let me help,” she offered, and took care of the problem in a matter of seconds. “Yours is the same,” she then added. “Took a bit of clay, shaped it, let it dry, and then painted over it. I was a bit nervous it wouldn’t dry properly, but it turned out ok.”
Of course they demanded then to see what else she made, and going through everything took enough time she had to wait until the next break to start giving them out to her friends. The wait was worth it though.
Rose loved the idea of spring in a lucky charm and she eagerly took the snowdrop from her flower themed bracelet and pinned it to her shirt. Juleka, on the other hand, kept hers on the bracelet, with the others, but Marinette saw her admiring the gothic and victorian charms she’d put on it. Alix especially loved the pocket watch charm Marinette’d made, and Kim grinned at the monkey he pinned to his chest like he knew something Marinette didn’t. Marinette just threw him a smile and went on.
Chloe took hers with a very pleased hum and even Lila accepted hers without much talk - But of course she had to mention she already knew about that specific tradition.
The whole ordeal felt like quite the success, in the end. Everyone seemed to be pretty excited about the idea, and to like whatever it was that they’d received. And Marinette felt quite nice knowing she brought a little bit of joy to each of them. Though that didn’t make her any less excited for the last one she had to give.
Chat Noir’s pin was waiting for her on her desk when she got home from school. A bit of clay shaped into a cat, painted completely in red and spotted with black. It was cute. And also pretty tale-telling. Plus, it was just the right amount of silly that’d make him love it.
A few hours later, she was bouncing on her toes, looking at the sun setting over the city’s rooftops. It didn’t take long for her to hear his familiar steps somewhere behind her. It wasn’t that he was late, it was just that she’d come early. Her lips stretched into an excited smile as she turned around and greeted him.
“I didn’t expect you to be so excited to see me, m’lady,” he smiled right back, a teasing grin on his lips.
“I have a surprise for you, Chaton” she started, unable to contain her excitement.
“Oh, let me guess, let me guess!” he said before she could show him what it was. “Is it... a kiss?” he tried, wiggling his eyebrows with the same hopeful playfulness that really grew on her over the time. She might not have done anything about it yet, but, for a while, there had certainly been feelings that went beyond mere friendship between them as far as she was concerned. She was still waiting for a… good moment to finally say something, but a perfect one never came. And she was kind of starting to get tired of waiting. Especially when he hit her with those genuine smiles and sparkling eyes.
So this time, like any other, she fought down a blush and rolled her eyes. But she smiled nonetheless. “Two more tries,” she added, chuckling at his pout.
“Is it… Oh, is it something sweet?” he asked, somehow even more hopeful than he’d been for the kiss. She wished she’d thought to bring something from the bakery the same way she did in the morning, but since it was too late for that at the moment, she made a mental note to make up for it with the first occasion.
“Nope, but I’m bringing some pain au chocolat tomorrow, what do you say?”
His grin widened. “Amazing idea, Bugaboo,” he nodded, but then his brow furrowed and his nose scrunched in concentration. “Ok, I’m confused now, what did you bring?”
“Giving up already?” she teased and he squinted his eyes at her, accepting the challenge.
“It can’t be something too big. I guess you brought it in your yo-yo, right?” She nodded and he continued his train of thought. “Ok, so… something small. What’s today? Is today some special occasion? Did I forget one of our anniversaries, m’lady,” he gasped and threw a hand over his heart, faking shock, but then some idea made his ears perk up with enthusiasm.
“Oh, today is March first. You know about those pins too?”
Ladybug was sure he took great satisfaction in seeing her dumbfounded expression.
“I did not expect you to figure it out,” she admitted, and then, genuinely curious, she asked, “How did you know?”
“A friend brought some for us today. It was really cute. And she made them herself!” he gushed. And then giggled. “It was actually funny, too. She gave me a black paw print. Fitting, wouldn’t you say?”
And, well, it couldn’t get more obvious than that.
Marinette waited. Looked at him, looked at his hair, his eyes, his mask. And… yeah… it really was there, the resemblance. And it hit her with such force she was pretty amazed it took her so long to see it. Alya had even shown her and she hadn’t seen it.
Even full of glee as he was at having figured it out, he noticed there was clearly more to her reaction than simply surprise at his guessing right.
“M’lady? You okay?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it back again. Looked at him. Repeated the process. How did you even tell your partner you figured out his identity because of a tradition that wasn’t even yours?
Probably… just like that.
“Actually it is funny,” she snorted, finally producing words. She took her yo-yo and opened it to reveal the spotted red cat. “Now you have the cat too, not only the paw print,” she smiled and held it to him.
He seemed, just, so happy at having received something so simple from her, both as Marinette and as Ladybug. It made her want to grab his cheeks and kiss him silly.
“Look, I added this,” she said, showing him a little piece of metal he could clasp and unclasp, mostly hidden on the backside of the cat. “I didn’t know if you’d want to wear it, and I thought you might want to use it for a keychain instead. It wouldn’t be hard to attach it to one.” She felt his ‘thank you’ on the tip of his tongue, so she spoke before he got the chance to.
“I kind of wish I did that for all the other boys too, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier,” she mused, waiting to see if he’d caught on yet.
“Oh, you gave some to your friends, too?” he asked, still so happily oblivious it made her want to somehow kiss him smarter instead of silly. Then again, she really hadn’t given him enough clues to connect all those dots, had she?
“I mean, yes, but if I’d known, I would’ve given you something other than that paw print. Now this one is just redundant,” she sighed, so dramatically it would’ve been clue enough if her words hadn’t already done their job.
She might’ve broken him a little.
It didn’t last for long, though. It was really something else to see his whole being perk up and vibe giddiness. It was also very, very, encouraging for her increasingly nuanced plans of kissing him.
“Princess?” he asked, so softly she could have melted right then and there. But… there was still the possibility of kisses in her very near futures so… maybe refraining from any kind of melting for a little longer was a good idea.
She couldn’t help beaming at him, though. And that seemed to be answer enough for him.
Sure enough, a lot of kisses ensued.
Marinette could’ve bet anything that neither Alya nor Nino expected Adrien and her to come to school together the next day, holding hands and giggling at one another’s increasingly comedic flirtatious lines.
Alya, however, was not one to waste time.
“I mean,” she started, still more than a little confused, “I’m not complaining, but what did I miss?”
Marinette felt Adrien squeeze her hand a little and she kenw to brace herself for something corny. She found herself snorting before he even delivered his line.
“I found my soulmate,” he said, completely serious. And if Marinette hadn’t listened to him give her a thirty minutes long lecture on soulmate AUs and red strings of fate that led to the very reasoning he was already pulling on Alya, she might’ve gotten flustered. Instead, she just shook her head with a fond smile on her face and squeezed his hand herself before letting go and going to take her seat.
“What fics have you been reading, Agreste?” Alya asked, amused, clearly more familiar with the whole idea than Marinette had been.
“Soulmate AUs, duh,” Marinette answered for him, and he shot her a blinding smile. That, that had all the potential to get her flustered.
“And my red string of fate was also white and came tied in a bow,” he continued, sighing, so completely in love, she thought that was also a good moment to actually melt too.
But. Again. Kisses. In her very near future.
Nathalie saw Adrien wearing the same pin with the same bow five days in a row. She could only go so long without finding out what it was and why he was wearing it.
One question was all it took for Adrien to spend twenty minutes eagerly explaining a tradition she’d never heard, but later, she could admit to herself that the whole idea was quite interesting. He even gave her a red and white string tied into a neat bow and told her she could put it on a brooch, and have her own little special pin to greet the spring.
She could also admit to herself that Gabriel’s look upon seeing her with said bow attached to the peacock miraculous later that week made her idea quite amusing too.