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Marinette's got a sixth sense about yarn stores. She can tell from the front windows whether it's a good store, whether it's welcoming and friendly to everyone or aimed at a very particular group of people that never includes her, or whether it's dusty, or too crowded for anyone to actually go through the aisles.
She looked up this store online after she and Alya moved to a new apartment in Montparnasse and she didn't want to make the trek all the way back to the shop by her parents' bakery every time she needed yarn. She hoists her bag higher on her shoulder, looking at the shop's windows with a little smile. She likes the look of it; the windows are big and wide and clean, holding baskets overflowing with soft, tempting balls of yarn in rich colors, and stacks of books, and a couple of sweaters that Marinette would really love to get her hands on to see how they're made.
She opens the front door to a the sound of a small, cheerful bell ringing over her head and walks into heaven.
The loud sounds of cars in the street and people talking and laughing as they pass go dim and quiet as Marinette lets the door fall closed behind her. It feels like a little oasis of calm in the middle of a huge and loud and often overwhelming city; it's so nice that Marinette closes her eyes and takes a long breath through her nose to luxuriate in the feeling, soft against her skin, and oddly relaxing, too.
There are only a few people in the store with her, and Marinette finds them easy to avoid as she wanders through the aisles. She's not looking for anything in particular right now. She always has a thousand projects she wants to make, but money is in short supply, as usual, and she has to think about her university assignments first and fun stuff later.
It's okay. Marinette's happy enough getting to wander through the store and touch as much yarn as she wants.
She goes through the bookcases, too, smiling brightly when she finds several books for people who want to learn how to knit. That's a good sign; she went to one store that didn't have any time or patience for new people and only wanted to cater to people who already knew how to knit. That annoyed her, a lot, and she never set foot inside again.
Of course, then Marinette realizes that there's a display of mini-skeins on the other side of the bookcases, and before she knows it, she has four or five of them clenched in her hands with friendship bracelets on her mind. Maybe she could get Alya to sit down long enough to make some with her? Marinette backtracks to the bookcase and picks out a book for beginners for Alya, and makes sure to grab a set of needles on her way to the counter.
This is the problem with yarn stores. Everything is way, way too tempting.
Marinette is in line behind one other woman who doesn't seem to have a lot of yarn in her hands, so it shouldn't take her too long to check out. She peers around the woman to look at the cashier, who's a blonde guy about her age, smiling brightly as he welcomes the next customer in line.
He's kind of cute.
Actually... he's really cute.
Oh, shit.
Marinette ducks back behind the woman and turns away as she closes her eyes and summons her mental Alya.
Just because the guy is cute doesn't mean you're automatically going to turn into an embarrassment, Alya says in her head, complete with a comforting arm thrown around Marinette's shoulder. Just give him your number, if you're interested, or admire the scenery if you're not.
Everything sounds so easy when Alya lays it out like that. Marinette doesn't know how she does it.
"Oh, no," the woman in front of Marinette says. She sounds so embarrassed and mournful that Marinette opens her eyes again to figure out what's wrong.
She's got a big pile of yarn on the counter in front of her and the cashier is waiting patiently while she counts a thin sheaf of bills once, then twice... Marinette winces in sympathy as she realizes what's wrong.
"I don't have enough," the woman says reluctantly. She groans. "I'm so sorry. I'm like, five Euros short. Can you put it to the side while I run home and get my card?"
Five Euros short? Marinette bites her lip, looking down at the stuff in her hands. She doesn't really need the book for Alya, honestly. Marinette can teach Alya how to knit just as well as any book, or there's Youtube videos, which are probably more Alya's speed anyway.
Marinette digs into her wallet and pulls out a five Euro note. She leans forward and taps the woman on the shoulder. "Here," she says, offering the money when the woman and the cashier both look at her in surprise. "Take it."
"Are you sure?" the woman asks. "That's really so nice of you, but you don't have to do that – I can just run home – "
"Hey," the cashier says, interrupting them both, but he's laughing. The tag on his shirt says Adrien :). "That's really nice of you," he says to Marinette. His warm eyes are the most astonishing color of green that Marinette's ever seen, and her fingers are itching to run home and pull out her embroidery thread to see if she has something that matches. "But there's no need for any of that. I work here, so I get an employee discount, which, if I'm doing my math right, would cover you with room to spare."
The woman looks between both of them, smiling wide. "I don't know what to say."
"Say yes!" Marinette urges her with a laugh. "Unless you want this instead." She offers the Euro note again, but the woman shakes her head.
"You two are both too nice to be real. Thank you so much," she says, looking from Marinette to Adrien, including both of them in that statement. She looks like she might be about to cry, actually. She needs distracting.
Marinette takes the opportunity to ask her what she's making, and the woman has so much to say that it distracts them both from Adrien ringing her up and bagging her yarn. The woman waves to them both as she leaves with a bounce in her step. That gives Marinette a little glow of happiness inside that puts a grin on her face. She likes to help people. It always makes her day.
"Is this everything for you?"
She turns back to Adrien and finds him smiling at her with a warm look in his eyes, as though he's pleased with both of them. As though they're sharing the credit, when he's the one who actually made it all work out.
It's not enough that he's cute, he has to be nice, too?
"Um." Marinette pushes her hair behind her ear, feeling very awkward all of a sudden. "Yeah, I – Yes? I think? Um – "
Her tongue is trying to tie itself into knots. Her stomach is suddenly missing, or gone entirely, and Marinette feels so off balance that she's not sure whether her feet exist anymore.
Why is she acting like this? Why is she stammering?
She dares a look at Adrien, and finds that he's still smiling that soft smile, waiting patiently for her to finish her thought.
He's so nice, Marinette wails to her inner Alya, who sighs and pats her on the head.
"Do you need help finding something else?" Adrien asks cheerfully. He's so enthusiastic that it almost sounds like he's hoping Marinette needs more stuff, just so that he can show her where it is. He must love his job, Marinette thinks with a mental sigh of dazzled delight. That's so inspiring!
Unfortunately, the answer to his question is no, because this is probably more than she should be spending in the first place. Her crafting budget will take the hit – barely – but it'll be a few weeks before she can think about beads for that dress she was thinking of.
Oh, well. Spending time with Alya is worth delaying that dress. But at the same time, Marinette is desperately sad that she can't think of anything else that she needs, or an excuse to keep those green eyes focused on her, seeing her, for just a few more minutes...
She bites her lip, looking for the inner strength to be a normal person for the next forty-five seconds of her life. "No," she says, celebrating inwardly when it comes out the right way. "I think this is everything?"
"Ah," Adrien says, his smile dimming just a little. Marinette feels like she's done something wrong, something to upset him, and she's opening her mouth to apologize – though for what, she's not quite sure – when he picks up the book and checks the title. "Teaching yourself how to knit?" he asks, looking up at Marinette and raising his eyebrow as he scans the book without even looking at it. "You know, we have classes on the weekend."
He jerks a thumb at the wall behind him, and once Marinette tears her eyes away from his face, she realizes that it's liberally plastered with flyers and posters and even a huge laminated calendar with stickers all over it. Every Saturday, there's a little sticker with a ball of yarn with a smiling face on it, and on Sunday there's one with a crochet needle sticking out of the yarn. The stickers are so tiny and adorable that Marinette kind of wants to steal them for herself.
Marinette smiles, despite her nerves. "That's really cool!" she says, lighting up.
"Ah, thanks," Adrien says, ducking his head so that his hair falls over his eyes. She thinks he might be blushing, which is so cute that she has to bite her tongue to keep the squeal on the inside, where it belongs. "They're free and everything. All you have to do is show up and someone will teach you how to knit." He's scanning her yarn now, his hands moving a lot slower than they did with the other woman. He looks up at her through his eyelashes. "Do you... Do you think you might be interested?"
Marinette's mouth is on auto-pilot, which is a terrible idea and everyone knows it. It gets as far as saying, "Oh, I don't thin – " before her conscious mind kicks in and calls a halt to the proceedings.
Adrien's shoulders are slumping in front of her eyes, and though the smile on his face is still there, it seems less, somehow. Not as bright.
She's making him sad. That's illegal!
WHAT ARE YOU DOING, inner Alya is screaming.
Marinette coughs in the fakest way possible and changes course. "I don't think I could turn down an offer like that," she says in a determined voice. She's rewarded by the sight of Adrien's eyes brightening, the pleased glint they'd had earlier roaring back to life, and possibly that drives her insane, because then she asks, "So when do you teach the class?"
Adrien freezes in the act of dropping the last tiny skein of yarn into her bag. "When – when do I?" he repeats, his eyes wide.
Marinette tilts her head curiously. "Yeah, when do you teach it? You – " She curls her arms around her stomach, shrugging defensively. "You're nice," she says, unable to keep the shy note out of her voice. "You won't make fun of me when I mess up. And I'm really good at messing up."
Adrien's still staring at her like she's got a second head. After a few moments of this, he shakes his head and seems to come back to life, though he doesn't seem to know what to say. It was a simple question, wasn't it?
"Saturday at two?" he says hesitantly.
Marinette glances away as she thinks about her schedule. She works at the bakery on Saturdays, but she's done at one o'clock, after the rush of people looking for bread for their dinners. She can definitely make it across the city for a two o'clock class.
"Yeah, I can do that," she says, smiling widely at Adrien. His eyes go wide again, and her last skein of yarn slides out of his hand and misses the top of her bag. Instantly, Adrien curses and stoops down to pick it up off the floor.
It makes Marinette giggle. Adrien is red all over when he gets up with her yarn in his hand. "Sorry," he says, wincing. "Can I get you a clean one?"
Marinette doesn't actually care, but she seizes on the opportunity to spend another minute in Adrien's company and lets him usher her over to the display of mini-skeins. Adrien makes a silly show of going through all of the skeins to make sure she gets the best one. Marinette's cheeks are tight from laughing so much when she finally makes it out of the shop, her heart so full that Marinette feels like she's overflowing, like she's a balloon who could float away into the stratosphere at any moment.
Marinette hugs her bag to her chest and squeezes it as she calls Alya. She can't wait until she gets back to the apartment. She has to talk about this, now. "You're not going to believe what I just did," Marinette squeals the instant Alya picks up.
———
Adrien stares at the door as it closes behind her, his breathing shaky, his heart somehow pounding hard and squirming at the same time. Oh god, he'd embarrassed himself to an insane degree, but somehow that matters less to him than it should in the face of those big blue eyes – her sweet smile, the pleasure that brightened her face when they'd been able to help that woman.
How was he supposed to think clearly? She's beautiful. This must happen to her all the time. That thought makes him feel a little less pathetic. Just enough for Adrien to start to function again. He lunges for the store phone and dials the only number that he knows by heart, waiting impatiently as it rings twice before Nino picks up.
"Yeah?" Nino grumbles. Adrien glances at the store clock and realizes that Nino's just woken up. Too bad.
Adrien drops his forehead on the counter and whines pathetically without even trying to make words in any language Nino might understand.
"Dude," Nino says, completely unimpressed by Adrien's misery. "Words. We've talked about this."
"I am an idiot," Adrien says to the counter.
Nino groans and then there's a lot of weird, random scratching and shuffling that sounds like he's getting out of bed. "Come on, dude, say it with me: e-nun-ci-ate. What's wrong?"
Adrien lifts his head just long enough to say, "I told a cute girl that I'd teach her how to knit."
His best friend in the world, his ride-or-die, half owner in his business and his roommate, bursts into laughter so long and loud that he sounds like a staticky hyena cackling over the phone.
Which is about what he deserves. Adrien lets his head drop back down. Harder this time.
"Oh," Nino says a few minutes later when he's finally calming down. "What did I do to deserve this? It's like Christmas. And my birthday. Goddamn, dude, you don't do anything by halves, do you? What are you going to do?"
"Learn to knit in the next two days?" Adrien offers weakly.
Nino audibly winces. "Yeah, but after what happened last time?"
"You can barely see the scar," Adrien protests.
The silence which is his only answer speaks volumes.
Adrien already knew that he was doomed. He just wanted Nino to really rub it in, so his friend is performing Best Friend service and making sure that he feels every millimeter of the shame he deserves to feel.
"I'll start pulling up the Youtube videos," Nino says with amusement in his voice. "You're done at three, right?"
"Yep," Adrien confirms with a heavy sigh. "Thanks, Nino."
"Don't worry. I'll make popcorn, too."
Without looking up, Adrien flops his hand up onto the counter and rolls it over the entire phone keypad. There's a lot of beeping and some automated voice starts playing before he finally finds the end call button and hangs up on Nino's laughter.
The counter is cool against his forehead, which tells Adrien that he's still blushing. This has never happened to him before. He didn't think he was the kind to fall in love at first sight. He doesn't think he did, really; she was pretty, and while she was in line, he'd stolen more than one look at her eyes, the curve of her lower lip, her shining hair – but it was her happiness at being able to help that woman that made Adrien's heart sit up and take notice.
He's so stupid. He should have just asked for her number, or – or her name, fuck –
But at least she said she's coming for the class. She's coming back. Adrien's got another chance.
He's not going to waste it.
———
Marinette manages to talk her mother into letting her go half an hour early so she can run over to the apartment and take a shower before she goes back to the yarn store. She nearly loses all of her extra time as she tries to decide between three outfits laid out on her bed before Alya takes over and bullies her into wearing something completely different.
Clad in a white tank top with blue-grey trim that plays up her eyes and jean shorts that make the most of her short but curvy legs, Marinette puts up her hair, looks in the mirror and groans, and takes it down again. Then she looks at the time and makes a high-pitched squealing sound that causes Alya to burst into laughter.
"I'm going to be late!" Marinette cries, snatching up the first needles and yarn she can find and stuffing them in her bag as she races out the door.
How does this always happen to her?
She makes it to the yarn store within five minutes of being on time, which is closer than Marinette expected, and she pushes open the door, only a little out of breath from her mad sprinting. Adrien is at the front counter. He looks up and sees her, and the huge smile that forms on his face makes Marinette's brain blank out entirely.
"Hi! I didn't catch your name last time."
Marinette waves shyly, biting her lip. "I'm Marinette," she says, hooking her cloth bag more securely over her shoulder. Is it weird that she brought her own yarn to a yarn store lesson? But she can't really afford more yarn so soon after her last purchase –
"Come on," Adrien says, beckoning to her. He takes her through a narrow door behind the counter, which opens up into a small office with a desk and two chairs; one of the chairs has obviously been borrowed from somewhere else, because the first chair and the desk match, and the second one definitely doesn't.
Marinette looks around, frowning. The back room of her old yarn store didn't look anything like this. There isn't room for more than one other person in here, and even then, they'd be so crowded they'd be bumping elbows if they tried to knit.
"Am I the only person in the class?" she asks.
Adrien coughs. "Uh, yeah," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. His ears are red. "Not many people this week, I guess. If you want to wait for other people, if you're uncomfortable, that's fine."
"No!" Marinette exclaims, waving her hands anxiously. "I'm not uncomfortable, I was just surprised? I guess? And this isn't what I expected. But I'm here, and I want to learn."
Adrien gives her a nervous smile, which she returns, before he gestures to the chairs and they get themselves settled at the desk. Together. Right next to each other. They're bumping elbows, but that's more than fine with Marinette, and Adrien doesn't seem to mind her being in his space, either, so she squashes the terrified urge to flail and concentrates on the needles in front of her.
He demonstrates how to cast on, moving slowly, with big, exaggerated gestures so that Marinette can follow along. He's using a very basic cast-on, which makes sense, but it's one Marinette has long since perfected, so it's hard to follow behind Adrien instead of blazing through the stitches the way she wants to. She distracts herself with watching Adrien concentrate out of the corner of her eye; his eyes are so green and so intent on his knitting that the sight makes her sigh dreamily. What would it be like for him to look at her that way?
Adrien glances at her – his eyes widen – and his needle slips right out of his hand and rolls onto the floor, dropping half of the stitches he just cast on. Marinette gasps and bends down to grab it; she meets Adrien doing the same thing on the way down, and their heads bump together just hard enough for it to be painful.
"Sorry!"
He winces, his hand hovering over her shoulder. "I'm the one who's sorry, I shouldn't have dropped it. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" Marinette reassures him with a huge smile. "Do you want to show me how to pick up stitches?"
Adrien casts a panicked glance at the needle lying on his desk. "Uh... I should probably just start over, I think," he says, laughing uneasily. "Good, um. Good grasp of the lingo! You must have done some reading since I saw you last." He pulls the rest of the stitches off and unravels them before starting the same laborious cast-on all over again, counting each stitch as he makes it.
Marinette frowns. She would be blazing through this at high speeds if she wanted to show someone what to do next, exactly like she'd wanted to earlier. Why isn't he?
She keeps thinking about it the whole time she's watching him do the tiny stitches, and this time, without the distraction of her own knitting in her hands, Marinette realizes how tight Adrien is holding his yarn, and the few times that he fumbles making the stitch and doesn't know how to rescue it; instead he starts over both times, which doesn't make sense. Anyone should know how to fix that. Why isn't he?
He finally gets to the end of the cast-on and sighs, his shoulders relaxing. "There we go," he says happily. "Sorry about that. So now, we turn to the – the other side." He turns the knitting over front-to-back.
The wrong side, Marinette supplies in her mind, her eyebrows coming together. It's the wrong side, as opposed to the right side –
"And then you knit the first stitch," Adrien says, staring down at his knitting like it's something he needs to defeat. He presses his lips together and puts the needle in the first stitch, looping the yarn carefully over the needle, and pulls the whole thing back out. When he's done, he sighs very faintly in relief and looks over at Marinette with a tiny, lopsided smile.
She stares at him, her eyebrows raised, until the smile fades from Adrien's face and he swallows nervously. "Marinette? Is something wrong?"
"Do that again, please," Marinette says flatly.
Adrien licks his lips, and Marinette tilts her head, watching him, wondering what he's going to say – but instead of speaking, Adrien bends his head and looks down at his knitting. He slides the needle into the working stitch and loops the yarn over the tip –
"Stop," Marinette says.
Adrien freezes; not just his needles, or his hands, but his entire body goes still like he's terrified of the snake in the grass.
She leans forward and touches the needle in Adrien's right hand. "If you put the needle into the working stitch in this direction, you're making a stitch called knit through the back loop," she says quietly, not without some embarrassment. "This is a really common mistake for people who are just learning knitting. It's a twisted stitch. It's pretty, actually, if they're all lined up; you can make patterns with it. But it's not a regular knit stitch, and you should know that before this one gets set in your muscle memory."
Adrien drags in a hissing breath through his teeth. Marinette can't quite look at him; this is so stupid. Of both of them. She's torn between getting up and leaving and making Adrien explain exactly what the hell he was thinking.
Of course, then Marinette would have to explain what she was thinking, which was mostly white noise and static and pretty boy. She's about seventy-five percent of the way to talking herself into grabbing her things and leaving when Adrien speaks up.
"So... how do I make a regular knit stitch?"
His voice wavers a bit at first, but by the end he sounds more or less normal. Marinette dares a look at him and finds him looking at her, but he doesn't seem to feel as stupid as she does. Instead there's a gentle humor in his eyes, though he is biting his lip as he waits for her to say something.
Marinette swallows, looking for anything that makes her think he's making fun of her or blaming her, but there's nothing. He's just waiting for her with that kindness that was the thing that made her look twice at him in the first place.
She lays her hand over his and shows him how to insert the needle the correct way. "Like that," she says, feeling a little faint at the softness of his skin against hers. She pulls her hand back and keeps it carefully in her lap. "Try it?"
Adrien laboriously wraps the yarn and pulls it back through, frowning. "It's harder to do it this way."
"I know," Marinette says, shrugging. "You'll get used to it. Trust me."
Adrien laughs, shaking his head. He lays the knitting down and turns to look at her, his eyes looking at her thoughtfully. "So I'm guessing you know a little more about this than you let on."
"And you a little less," Marinette retorts.
He shrugs. "Yeah, but I already know why I did it. I want to know about you."
Marinette narrows her eyes at Adrien, crossing her arms over her chest to make it clear that she's not going first. If anything, she's the one with leverage. She can get up and leave anytime – Adrien has to finish his shift.
He sighs outrageously, drawing out the sound until it's clearly meant to be a joke. "Fine," Adrien grumbles, giving her a smile to let her know he doesn't really mean it. "I just... I wanted you to come back. I didn't get your name. Or your number. And I wanted both," he admits, rubbing his neck. "Sorry. Is that creepy?"
Marinette laughs, a little sheepish. "If it is, I guess we both count," she admits. "I would have come back anyway, because this is the closest yarn shop to my apartment, but the cute cashier really sealed the deal."
Adrien lights up when she says it, which makes the slight humiliation worth it. "Cute, huh?" he asks, a smirk growing.
"Don't push it," Marinette says, giving him a look.
He raises his hands in surrender, though the light growing in his green eyes makes Marinette think that she's in for a ton of teasing later, when they know each other better. Honestly, she can't wait. "Hey, I did this because of a cute girl who was also really sweet and kind to someone who needed help, so we're kind of in the same boat, I think. And I'm not the cashier. I'm the owner."
"What?" Marinette says, totally shocked. She looks around the tiny office again with new eyes, though it's not like she's going to gain any insight about him from books of ledgers and his computer. "Really? This is yours? But you're my age."
"It's a long story," Adrien admits, rubbing his neck again. That seems to be some kind of nervous gesture for him, Marinette realizes. "I could tell it to you. Over lunch? Maybe? If you wanted?"
He looks at her with big, appealing green eyes, the tips of his ears beginning to go pink.
Oh god, he's actually asking her out.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING, her inner Alya cries; Marinette realizes then that she's just staring at Adrien with huge eyes and a wide open mouth, the picture of shock.
"Yes," she says instantly. "Gah. Yes, please, I – Help, I'm not good with words – "
Adrien laughs, taking her hand. "It's okay," he says gently. "That's a yes?"
Marinette nods furiously, biting her lip against a huge smile. She's pretty sure that he can see it anyway. She's just afraid that her head will fall off if she smiles as widely as she wants to.
"Then it's a date," Adrien says, grinning down at her.
"This is my favorite yarn store ever," Marinette tells him with fervor in her voice, which makes Adrien laugh, which makes her laugh...
(It's true, though. Where else could Marinette get pretty yarn and a fantastic date?)