Archive of Our Own

1. The Candidate

It’s not like Marinette thought about kissing people all the time. It was just a quiet buzz - not quite there but not quite not there either. Like the broken heater in her old New York dorm. Not that big of a deal but annoying nonetheless.

After her first semester at school she stopped telling people she’d never had a real kiss. Like, sure, she’d given Adrien a few pecks during akuma attacks to save their lives or whatever, and she’d just nearly managed to snag a snog with Luka before their unfortunate break up, but a real kiss? No dice. And everyone was always so weird about it. Oh, come look at the pretty French girl who’s never been kissed! How sad and ironic and fascinating! And then they’d try to set her up at parties which was terrifying and terrible in so many ways. As if Marinette wanted her first make out sesh with an American boy who smelled like cheap beer and cheaper cologne. She had standards.

Being set up with girls was a different kind of frustrating. They would plan cute little dates and spend hours together talking and flirting lightly and Marinette would always think during the hours that maybe this is it, maybe this time she tucks my hair behind my ear she’ll lean in or I will and it’ll be it. And then Marinette would go home wondering if what just happened was a date or just, like, a really comfortable and fun hang out with a pal. The other girl wouldn’t seem to know either, and they’d spend a week or so flirting in Instagram comments on each other’s posts and stories and then get too busy to hang out again. No kisses for Marinette.

And Marinette was a busy sort of girl! She went to school and she had an internship and she had friends and she had to fly over to Paris periodically to be their superhero face for little (thankfully non-akuma - that’s long over) squabbles or big events. So she wasn’t thinking about kissing all the time, but when she did have free time, she would spend a decent amount of it mourning the fact that she was too busy to put in the work to get a good, solid kiss.

So: summer vacation between sophomore and junior year at university. Her internship was giving her a break, too, and so all she’d have to worry about in Paris was helping out her parents, hanging out with friends, being a superhero, and kissing. And being a superhero hadn’t required fighting a supervillain for several years now, so the workload for the summer was honestly significantly lighter than it seemed. 

She made a to-do list.

“Okay,” Marinette said to her audience of three, two days after settling back into her childhood bedroom and relaxing into her summer break, “first and foremost on The Official Summer Buster Kiss List: I have to find someone to kiss.”

Adrien, Alya, and Nino, who were all by now quite caught up on the whole ordeal, looked at her very seriously from their positions on her desk chair, bed, and floor respectively as she paced around the room. Nino raised his hand. Marinette pointed to him.

“I want to start off by saying: great name, dude,” he said, and Adrien and Alya nodded appreciatively. Marinette shot some self-satisfied finger guns at them. “And second of all, I would also like to point out that you have kissed Adrien a few times, so he should be the first candidate.”

Adrien promptly threw a mechanical pencil from Marinette’s desk at Nino, and Marinette kicked Adrien’s shin to get him to quit messing around as she thought. She chewed on the inside of her cheek and then turned to the wheely whiteboard they’d conveniently bought when they had all been coming up with a plan to defeat Hawkmoth, popping the lid off her dry-erase marker and writing Adrien’s name down next to the number one. Alya whistled.

“It’s good logic!” she defended with a shrug. “I didn’t get to say before Nino’s suggestion, but I wanted the candidate to be someone easy to contact, work with, and potentially embarrass myself around. Adrien and I have been partners since we were hardly teenagers, he’s literally the first person on my speed dial, and sometimes when we’re hanging out I forget I’m hanging out with another person who is not me or the kwamis.”

A beat of silence descended on the room. Alya and Nino both turned their heads to look at Adrien, who was determinedly staring at the ceiling in thought, eyebrows furrowed. When he realized everyone was looking at him, his face cracked open in a smile, and he let out a little laugh. “I mean, it makes sense.”

Marinette left Adrien’s name on the board.

Over the course of their very productive session, interrupted briefly by a lunch of chicken salad sandwiches on buttery fresh croissants paired with lemonade and a platter of fruits and vegetables, a few other names were added to the board. These names included Alya and Nino, of course (with the unfortunate disclaimer that they were dating each other and were unlikely to be true candidates but deserved to be considered for the sake of propriety and fairness added on the board in parenthesis), and a few other mutual friends from school. It was a good starting point, and Marinette dismissed the crew feeling satisfied and ready to tackle the monster of kissing in no time.

2. The Persuasion

In the next few days, she set about working her way through the list, calling friends up and getting a read on their general availability and vibe since the last time she spoke with them. Luka was on tour with Kitty Section and sympathized with her crisis, readily suggesting Adrien for the job. Fei was generally touch-averse in the romance and attraction department, and she was in Shanghai besides, but it was still nice to catch up and she wished her luck in her endeavor, also suggesting Adrien as a candidate. Zoé was actually spending her summer in America with her father, but she did wish she could help Marinette out and instead suggested Adrien to act as candidate instead. Nathaniel appreciated the offer for both or either himself or Marc, but they were spending the summer at a Hollywood comic festival and were adamant that Adrien would be a better candidate than either of them.

Marinette hung up on the last person and leaned back in her desk chair, staring at her whiteboard with its crossed-off names and four-point plan. And then she called Adrien up and asked to hang out.

He was on her roof in a heartbeat, holding two plastic cups with iced Refreshers from Starbucks, and he leaned on her rail, detransformed, handed her one of the cups, and took a sip from his own cup in the same easy motion. “We should go see that new movie in theaters. I hear Jagged Stone has a ridiculous cameo in it,” he said as Plagg bee-lined to the plate of camembert Marinette had prepared for him.

‘Yeah, we should,” Marinette said with a little nod, taking a sip of her drink. “Also, I want you to kiss me.”

Adrien choked on his drink so violently he doubled over in a coughing fit. Marinette bit back the gut-reaction laugh she wanted to let out and instead patted Adrien’s back soothingly while Plagg laughed for her. Tikki hit Plagg’s arm to quiet him, but only after she’d suppressed her own laugh and Adrien had looked up long enough to shoot Plagg a glare.

“Are you good?” Marinette asked as Adrien finally righted himself, blinking watering eyes and wiping his face with his hand. 

“Yeah, just swallowed wrong, no big deal,” he replied, squinting up at the hot sun as he took a large gulp of his Refresher - swallowed correctly this time. When he finally looked at her again he was fully recovered. “I’m assuming this is for your” - he waved his hand illustratively - “Summer Buster Kiss List?”

“Exactly,” she replied, and then she nodded her head for him to follow her. They went down into her room, taking their Refreshers and Plagg’s empty plate down with them, and Marinette showed him the whiteboard, walking him through all the people on the list and why, for whatever reason, they couldn’t be her final candidate. She didn’t mention, however, every candidate’s alternate suggestion, which was always Adrien. That was embarrassing somehow, and she didn’t really want to dig into why.

Immediately after Marinette finished explaining, Adrien was quiet, and then he looked at Marinette with his eyebrows raised just the smallest amount, his head tilted to the side. 

“You’d really be alright with kissing me?” he asked, and Marinette popped the cap of her dry-erase marker on and off.

“I mean, yeah,” she said, and they stared at each other for a moment. “Of course,” she hurried on, “you’d have to be alright with being my candidate. Teacher. Guide. Whatever.” She made a few empty gestures with the marker, and the loose cap flew off the end, bouncing off the wall and rolling off her desk. 

Adrien caught it before it could fall to the floor, handing it back to her. “I am,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I’ll do it.”

3. The Demonstration

If Adrien thought about it (which he was deciding he didn’t actually want to do), it was all very funny. The girl he’s been in love with for who knows how long asking him to be her certified teacher in the kissing department. It was a dream come true. It was a nightmare. So he just stopped thinking about it and kneaded bread next to Marinette as if he didn’t want to explode.

“I’m imagining a very scientific approach,” she said, pausing in her filling of the eclairs to twist the piping bag tighter. “Like, systematically going through all the kinds until I feel a mastery of a sort.”

Adrien raised his eyebrows, sinking his fingertips into the dough. “Kinds?” he asked, reaching for more flour from the bag.

“Yeah,” she said easily with a shrug, putting an eclair onto the finished pile. “Without tongue, with tongue, biting, hickeys, all that.”

Somehow, the flour bag ended up on its side. Adrien squeezed his eyes shut, shoveling the excess flour back into the bag. “Sure, sure,” he said, his voice two pitches higher than normal. He was starting to think about it now, and it wasn’t going great for his composure.

Kissing Marinette. Dream come true, nightmare, cause of death, cause of ascension. Whatever, no big deal.

He left the dough in a covered bowl to proof, Marinette finished the eclairs, and they went up to her room. Adrien resisted the urge to run, white knuckling the rail on the stairs to keep his hands from shaking. Everything was perfectly fine.

“I think my parents are bringing dinner back after they’re finished with the event they’re catering right now, and I already told them to bring something back for you, so you’re staying for dinner,” Marinette informed him as they sat down on her plush carpet. Adrien figured that was the case; he’d already told his mom he wouldn’t be home for dinner hours ago. 

Marinette folded her legs neatly and looked expectantly at him. Adrien looked at her back and tried not to scream.

“Walk me through it,” Marinette finally said when it was clear Adrien was not going to be the one to begin this particular conversation. “Verbally first and then the demonstration.

Adrien swallowed. Demonstration. This was scientific, nothing more, no big deal. “Verbally?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Yeah, like, explain it to me. What should happen, what it should feel like, all that. What to do,” she said, and Adrien squinted his eyes at her. She squinted her eyes at him back. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

“You don’t normally explain kissing,” he said, and she made an elaborate sound with her throat, gesturing her arms to follow the sound in a way that said quite clearly well, that’s the whole point of this. “No, no, I know,” he said, batting away her arms, “but even if this” - he gestured between them - “is scientific, kissing isn’t. You’re supposed to.” He stopped. Cleared his throat. Felt the blood creep up his neck. “Um. Feel it.”

Marinette stared at him.

Adrien covered his face with his hands, trying to figure out a way to think about this without thinking about it. “Like,” he finally said, wiping his hands down his face, “the movies I was in. With all the costars I had that I kissed, we couldn’t just, you know, kiss for the sake of the cameras. We had to really feel the emotion of the characters or else it wouldn’t feel or look real. Kissing is an action, but it’s an action about emotion,” he said, repeating the words of his acting coach from a few years ago. He did not repeat what he’d said about pretending Adrien’s costars were that girl he was so obviously in love with and that was how he’d survived his stint as a b-list actor. 

When he looked at Marinette, he could see the gears turning in her head. He was honestly surprised she wasn’t taking notes - that’s how seriously she seemed to be taking this. And then her eyes returned to him, and she nodded slowly. “I think I get it, maybe. I’m gonna play a character who is in love with you, and so the action will be about the emotion, which will produce better results.”

Adrien nearly choked on his spit. “Sure,” he said finally. “If that’s what helps you.”

She leaned in, grinning. “Are you gonna play a character who is in love with me?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows at him.

“Marinette,” Adrien said, rolling his eyes, and she laughed.

“Come on, Mr. Professional Kisser. Show me how it’s done,” she said, and Adrien was decidedly not thinking anything.

“I’ve only kissed, like, five people,” he said, shifting how he was sitting for easier access, which he wasn’t thinking about.

“That’s four more than me,” she said with a shrug, and Adrien wasn’t thinking about that either.

“Ready?” he asked, leaning in, and she nodded, her eyes moving back and forth between his.

“Do I close my eyes?” she asked, voice soft.

“Do what makes you comfortable,” he said, just as soft, and he watched her look at him for a moment before her eyes fluttered closed. He closed his eyes, too, taking a deep breath, and then he pressed his lips to hers.

It was nothing, just a soft press. She was wearing lipgloss (pink and soft and glittery - he’d stared at it earlier), and he felt it slide against the skin of his lips.

When he pulled away, her eyes fluttered open, and she laughed. She reached a thumb up and wiped at the lipgloss on his mouth. “Sorry,” she said, wiping the excess on the skin of her calf.

“It’s alright,” he said, trying not to sound like he was drowning. They were still very close to each other.

“How was I?” she asked.

“Perfect,” Adrien said immediately and then closed his eyes, trying to reign himself back into control. “Great,” he said, “you’ve done that before.”

“You’re right,” she said, nodding her head and tapping her fingers against her knee. “That’s the one thing I have done, and it was with you, so it makes sense it would be fine. And it’s not that complicated, so I feel confident doing that.”

“Awesome,” Adrien said, throat dry, and Marinette nodded decisively.

“Okay,” she said. “Next.”

“Next?” he asked.

“Tongue,” she said.

She was going to kill him. He was going to die, and she was going to kill him.

4. The Profit Emotion

But he wasn’t thinking about it, so it was fine.

“Ready?” he asked.

“I don’t know what to do with my hands,” she said, holding them up so he could see she didn’t know what to do with them. He bit back a laugh and the surge of affection bursting up from his chest, taking her hands in his.

“Whatever you want,” he said, and she frowned.

“You’re terrible at explaining,” she said, and he snorted.

“Marinette, I don’t know how to tell you this, but explaining kissing out loud is not one of my fortes,” he said, squeezing her hands. She thought for a moment.

“Could you write it down?” she asked, and Adrien laced his fingers with hers.

“No,” he said, and he laughed when her frown deepened. “How about this - we try it, and you tell me if you still can’t figure out what to do with your hands,” he said, and she let out a little sigh.

“Fine. Kiss me,” she said, closing her eyes. Adrien’s stomach leaped down into his toes and then back up to his chest.

He kissed her. He kept his fingers laced with hers, and it was the same as before - just a gentle press of their lips. And then he detangled one of his hands from hers, reaching up and brushing her hair behind her ear as he pulled away just the slightest to shift the angle of his face. He kept his thumb and forefinger bracketing her ear, and he stroked his thumb over her cheekbone once more before opening his mouth against hers.

She let out a little puff of air - not quite a gasp or a sigh - and then opened her mouth, too.

And, it’s not like Adrien noticed very much, or anything, but her lips tasted like sugar and strawberries. And her tongue was - well, it was a tongue. That’s for sure. 

He tried to go deeper, try to get her to relax, but her movements were stiff. When he opened his eyes, he saw her eyebrows were furrowed in quiet frustration. He could practically see her trying to think through every micromovement, every breath in and out of her lungs.

When he pulled away from her mouth, she opened her eyes, staring at him with that same frustrated look. He smiled, tugging on a lock of her hair and squeezing her hand. “My lady, stop thinking so much,” he said, his voice hardly louder than a whisper, and then he closed his eyes and touched his lips to hers.

He felt the moment everything seemed to click into place for her. She used her free hand to sink her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer. When he dropped his hand down from her face and held it against the side of her neck, fingers brushing against her hairline at the base of her head, she let out a soft noise in the back of her throat, pulling him somehow closer and squeezing his hand, their fingers still tangled together.

So. Maybe Adrien was thinking about it.

And maybe he was thinking about how this was the best moment of his life. And maybe he was also thinking about her soft skin, her strawberry glitter lipgloss, her blue sky eyes, her silk hair, her bright smile, her beautiful laugh, her looks and her movements and her words and her thoughts. And maybe he was thinking about how much he loved her.

Her fingers curled hard in his hair, her teeth catching on his bottom lip and biting. Adrien gasped, and she pulled away, breathless, eyes watching his.

“Good,” he said with a shaky nod as soon as he realized what she was waiting for. “Perfect,” he tried to say, but her lips were already on him again, and she had rightfully taken his words as permission to do whatever she wanted.

And, it seemed, whatever she wanted included the riveting activities of kissing him very hard, biting his lip, pulling his hair, and matching his gasps with little sighs of her own. Adrien felt like he was slowly dying very fast. 

The bell for the bakery chimed, Marinette’s parents calling their names, and they tore away from each other. Adrien realized, in their scuffle apart, that Marinette had gone up to her knees and his hand had somehow found itself splayed along her spine, pushing her nearly into his lap, but then they were on opposite sides of her room and staring at each other, breathing hard.

Marinette looked half-wild, her hair a mess, and Adrien was sure he probably looked similar. Her sparkly lipgloss was smeared, glitter catching light by her cheek.

Adrien wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and when he pulled away, he saw glitter smeared across his skin. He looked back at Marinette. She was looking at him with her eyes wide, body frozen against her bed frame.

Marinette’s parents called their names again, and a tension snapped in the air.

Adrien laughed. Just a snort, and breath of air against the ridiculousness, pushing his thoughts back. And then Marinette laughed, too, and they were alright.

5. The Profit Panic

“Yo, where’s Adrien?” Nino asked as he and Alya slid across from Marinette in the booth.

“He’s getting a mani-pedi with his mom,” Marinette replied, steepling her fingers and resting her pointer fingers against her bottom lip.

“Oh, cool, does she know about family dinner on Friday?” he asked, and Marinette waved her hand.

“I told her about it last week, and she already has it on her Google Calendar,” she said. Nino opened his mouth. “Your dad has it on his, Alya’s parents have it written on their physical calendar, and my parents have it both online and on a physical calendar,” she said, and he closed his mouth. “So, I bet you’re wondering why I have summoned you both here,” she said, and Alya suppressed a smile and leaned back against the booth, crossing her arms.

“Because of course it can’t just be a regular lunch,” she said.

“Dude, I don’t think we’ve had a normal lunch since we were, like, twelve,” Nino said, and the three of them all nodded in agreement.

“So why exactly is it that we have been summoned here, Marinette? And without Adrien, at that?” Alya asked, eyes gleaming.

Marinette closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at them, fingers still steepled. “I have encountered a problem.” She forced herself to continue. “As I’m sure you remember, I used to have a notable crush on Adrien in grade school.”

“I’m pretty sure the whole city remembers,” Alya said, and Marinette kicked her shin under the table.

“Oh, my God,” Nino said, leaning forward. “Is this going where I think it’s going?”

“The Official Summer Buster Kiss List may be compromised,” Marinette said, and Nino and Alya high-fived. Marinette’s eye twitched. “I’m sure this is a result that no one could have predicted, but I don’t believe my feelings for Adrien are as gone as I thought.”

“You owe me,” Nino said, and Alya pulled a bill out of her wallet, slapping it into his hand. He pocketed it with a grin.

“This was an unpredictable occurrence,” Marinette said forcefully. “No one could have suspected this would happen.”

“Keep telling yourself that, babe,” Alya said, and Marinette threw her hands up, dropping her serious act.

“I just can’t believe this is happening,” she said, dragging her hands down her face. 

“Why are you so surprised?” Alya asked with a scoff. “You two saved the world together. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”

“Friends can save the world together!” Marinette defended.

“I honestly knew it the moment you two had more than one little practice session,” Nino said, giving her some illustrative air quotes. Marinette’s cheeks heated.

“Friends can just kiss,” she said weakly.

“Sure,” Alya said with a shrug. “But not you two. You two can’t just do anything.” She paused as Marinette dropped her head in her hands. “You want to know why?” she asked, and Marinette shook her head.

“I really don’t,” Marinette said.

“Because you two are in love with each other, and you always have been,” Alya said anyway, and Marinette groaned.

“I mean, how do I know it’s not just because I’m so new to kissing! What if I’m just getting caught up in” - she gestured wildly - “the whole thing? It could be that since I’m so inexperienced!”

“And exactly how inexperienced at kissing are you now?” Alya asked. Flashes of Adrien’s hands in her hair, tongue on her throat, teeth on her mouth came into her mind unbidden. She flushed.

“Still,” she said stubbornly, pressing her cold hands to her hot cheeks. “There’s no reason to believe Adrien feels anything at all.”

Alya and Nino exchanged looks. 

“Marinette,” Nino said, very gently. 

“Please use your brain,” Alya finished, just as gently.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked helplessly.

“Ask,” they said in unison, and Marinette flopped back in the booth, defeated.

6. The Profit

Adrien dropped down into Marinette’s room from her balcony, detransforming as his feet touched the floor. He looked up to see her pacing in front of the white board with her dry-erase marker tapping against her chin. He sat down at her desk chair, looking over The Official Summer Buster Kiss List still written on the board with some added annotations in Marinette’s neat scrawl. 

“You thinking of adding something to the to-do list?” he asked. “Because as far as I’m concerned, we have cycled through all my knowledge twice over, so…” He trailed off. He didn’t want to stop kissing her, but he also didn’t want to think about any words he would have to say next.

Thankfully, she didn’t even seem to register that he’d said anything. “You know the four-point plan,” she said, tapping the dry-erase marker against the list. Adrien nodded dutifully. “Point one being finding the candidate, point two being persuading the candidate, point three being the demonstration, point four being profiting off the experience,” she said anyway, counting out each step as written on the list with the plastic of the dry-erase marker. Point one had Adrien’s name written beside it.

“I do know the four-point plan,” Adrien said, and Marinette took a deep breath, raising the dry-erase marker to her chin and tapping once, twice, three times.

“So,” she said, clapping her hands together. “As you know, technically we are now breaching into point four territory.”

“Is this an official The Official Summer Buster Kiss List Meeting?” Adrien asked slowly, looking around at the empty room as if there were suddenly anyone else but them two in the room and the kwamis hanging out in the Miracle Box. “Because I can call Alya and Nino. Or are they on their way?”

“What? No- no, I’m not. It’s just. I’m-” She waved her arms elaborately, a series of almost-words sticking in the back of her throat. “I’m trying to discuss the profit of the experience with you,” she finally said rather weakly, her cheeks flushing.

Adrien swallowed. “You mean you’ve found someone to, um, hypothetically, share profit with?” he asked, and Marinette stared at him a little helplessly. 

“Maybe?” she said, and Adrien tipped his head back on her desk chair. He fixed a smile on his face, but found it couldn’t quite hold. “Adrien,” she said, her voice in that same tone of helplessness, and Adrien looked back down at her.

They stared at each other.

She waved her arms between them, obviously trying to communicate something. Adrien squinted his eyes at her.

“I know we can be scarily accurate sometimes,” he said slowly, “but we can’t actually read each other’s minds.”

“I know that,” Marinette said, throwing her hands up. “It’s just, I’m trying- you know, I’m trying to let you. I mean, what I’m saying is-” She cut herself off, slapping her hands over her face and letting out a loud groan. She peeked at him through her fingers. “How do you feel? About-” she gestured to the Official Summer Buster Kiss List. 

Adrien stared at her. “I feel… normal. About it,” he said, normally.

“I’m in love with you!” she burst out, quite unexpectedly, quite loudly, and quite passionately. Adrien blinked at her. “I thought I wasn’t anymore, but I am. I always have been,” she said, and the last sentence was significantly quieter than the others, shyer. A little admission, a dream come true, probably a nightmare to say out loud.

“Yes,” Adrien said, his brain still quite firmly turned off from a decent amount of time forcibly not thinking. And then he launched himself to his feet, as if that might be more clear. “I mean,” he said, and he felt his cheeks grow hot, “yes, me too. I am in love with you… too.” The words were stilted and slow, the last word a wonder, and she stared at him, watching his mouth move, watching the way he clenched and unclenched his fists.

They stared at each other.

And then the corners of Adrien’s mouth quirked up, and the tension in the room snapped.

Marinette laughed, startling and loud, and Adrien joined her, reaching out and taking her hand. She tugged him closer to her, still laughing, and she got up on her tip-toes, tilting her face up at him. He met her in the middle, and they kissed.

And, yeah, Adrien thought about it. And, no, it was not normal or fine, or anything close to either of those things. It was extraordinary and perfect, just like it had been before but more. And Adrien thought about that - the extraordinary, the perfect, and the more. And he thought about more, more, more until they were both breathless, and when he pulled away and looked into her eyes, all he could see was more. And she was thinking about it - he knew, he could see - and he was thinking about it, too.