Chapter Text
The private jet groaned as it hit a pocket of turbulence, the only sound in the cabin besides the relentless hum of the engines. Adrien pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to massage away the dull throb that had taken up residence behind his temples three days ago.
It had been two weeks of back-to-back acquisitions across three cities. Frankfurt, Milan, and finally London. He was drained, his suit jacket balled up on the leather seat beside him and his tie pulled away from his collar, but the restlessness of the last few days had finally begun to ebb. He was heading back to Paris. His own bed, his own space, his own time.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen too bright in the dim cabin. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He didn't want to deal with Nathalie’s inevitable updates on the morning schedule, and he certainly didn't want to explain his late arrival to the household staff.
He just wanted a car waiting for him at the tarmac so he could vanish into the city as quickly as possible.
He navigated to the thread for the luxury transport service he used, his thumb sluggish and heavy.
ADRIEN: I’ve landed. Have the black sedan waiting at the private hangar. Don’t be late.
He hit send and tossed the phone onto the cushion. He didn't even watch it light up. He was already drifting, the exhaustion pulling at his eyelids, when a sharp, melodic ping cut through the silence.
He frowned, picking it up.
UNKNOWN: Bad news. You’ve reached someone with neither the qualifications nor the authority to handle this situation.
UNKNOWN: I’m also currently in my pajamas and have zero interest in driving a black sedan.
Adrien blinked at the screen. He read it once, then again. A corner of his mouth twitched, then pulled upward. He let out a short laugh. It felt strange to laugh. He couldn't remember the last time he’d found something funny, rather than simply amusing.
He typed back before he could stop himself.
ADRIEN: I apologize.
ADRIEN: I was under the impression I was contacting someone with at least a passing interest in my itinerary.
UNKNOWN: You assumed wrong. You also interrupted a very important date with a bowl of cereal.
ADRIEN: My apologies again.
ADRIEN: To both you and the cereal.
UNKNOWN: Accepted.
Adrien watched the cursor blink. He found himself waiting, his thumb ghosting over the glass.
ADRIEN: How is the cereal?
UNKNOWN: What?
ADRIEN: I feel responsible now. I interrupted dinner. The least I can do is inquire about the quality of the meal.
UNKNOWN: Cheerios
ADRIEN: My god. I’m texting a man with no standards.
UNKNOWN: Excuse me?
UNKNOWN: I spend my entire adult life escaping being called “a man” and a random person puts me right back where I started.
Adrien blinked at the screen. He read the line twice. A woman.
ADRIEN: I stand corrected. It seems I’ve been insulting a lady, not a man.
UNKNOWN: Much better.
ADRIEN: Does this change my standing with the Cheerios, or am I still persona non grata?
UNKNOWN: You’re still a wrong number who needs to find his driver. But at least you’re a slightly more polite wrong number.
ADRIEN: I’ll take it.
UNKNOWN: Go find your driver, Mr. Wrong Number.
Adrien stared at the screen for a full minute. He then shook his head. It was late, he was delirious from lack of sleep, and his standards for entertainment had clearly hit rock bottom if he found a stranger eating cereal in her pajamas to be this stimulating. It was an anomaly—a byproduct of exhaustion. Nothing more.
He tossed the phone onto the empty seat beside him.
The absurdity of the interaction faded as quickly as the backlight of the screen. He leaned back, pressing his palms into his eye sockets. He had a reputation to maintain, a company to run, and a life that didn't allow for lingering thoughts about anonymous women with questionable taste in midnight snacks.
He reached over and grabbed the phone again. He needed to be functional, not amused.
He swiped away the thread with Unknown without a second glance. He navigated to his contacts, typed "Driver" into the search bar, and tapped the correct number.
“I’ve landed,” he typed. “Have the black sedan at the hangar. Do not be late.”
He locked the phone and set it face down on the armrest. He closed his eyes, his mind already drifting to the work waiting for him tomorrow morning on his desk, his conversation with the stranger already buried under real life.
Marinette woke to the insistent vibration of her phone against the nightstand. She groaned, rolling over and burying her face deeper into the pillow, but the buzzing didn’t stop.
She grabbed her phone and squinted at the screen, her eyes struggling to focus in the bright morning light. Alya. Her work group chat. Three separate, increasingly panicked notifications from her mother asking if she was awake, despite the fact that Marinette was, demonstrably, not awake.
She began working through them.
Good morning!
Heart.
Will do.
On my way.
No. I was not awake, Mom.
Then she reached the final thread.
Unknown Number.
She froze. The sleepiness vanished. She opened the thread, and the entire conversation laid itself out before her. The pajamas. The cereal. The Cheerios. The humiliating realization that she’d spent twenty minutes arguing with a complete stranger instead of simply ending the conversation like a normal, functioning human being.
Marinette buried her face in her pillow, muffling a sound of mortification.
What is wrong with me?
Sleep deprivation, apparently. Nighttime Marinette had been a significantly more confrontational, prickly version of herself. Daytime Marinette was sweet, polite, and certainly didn’t debate the nutritional value of Cheerios with total strangers. She reread the final exchange.
Go find your driver, Mr. Wrong Number.
He hadn't responded after that. Which was normal. Expected, even. The conversation had ended. The social contract of a wrong-number text had been fulfilled and discarded. So why was she still staring at the screen? Why was her thumb hovering?
She frowned, chewing on her lower lip. It felt rude to just leave it there. It was morning, and he’d been stranded at midnight.
Before she could talk herself out of the insanity, she tapped the screen.
MARINETTE: So did you make it home safely, Mr. Wrong Number?
The moment the message sent, the reality of it hit her. She stared at the blue bubble, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
"Oh my God," she whispered to the empty room.
It was too late. The Delivered status blinked up at her, mocking. She threw her phone onto the duvet as if it were burning, rolling back into the mattress and wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Why had she done that? She didn't know him. He was a random man who didn’t even know her name, and now she was essentially inviting him back into her morning.
She lay there for ten seconds, then twenty, counting the heartbeats in her ears.
Ping.
Her phone lit up. Her pulse did something erratic. She didn't look. She stared at the ceiling, wondering if she could just pretend she’d been hacked.
Ping.
She couldn't help it. She snatched the phone back up
She snatched the phone back up, her thumbs flying to the screen. The flutter in her stomach died the second she saw the notifications.
WORK GROUP CHAT
HARPER: Adrien Agreste is coming to the office. Please be on time, Marinette.
HARPER: For once.
SEBASTIAN: He’s coming in 40 minutes.
Marinette groaned as she let her head drop back.
Right. Today.
Adrien Agreste.
Her work with the Agreste brand had begun precisely while he was away, bouncing between international office. She had spent the last two weeks hearing his name echoed in conference rooms and whispered in the hallways, a looming presence she had yet to actually encounter.
Until today.
A younger version of herself would have been losing her mind.
Actually, that was putting it mildly. A younger version of herself had been catastrophically, spectacularly, mortifyingly obsessed with Adrien Agreste.
It wasn't a normal celebrity-crush.
It was the hide-magazine-clippings-under-your-mattress-because-your-friends-would-never-let-you-live-it-down kind of obsession.
It was the spend-three-months-convincing-yourself-that-seeing-yourself-in-the-background-of-one-interview-clip-was-a-sign-from-the-universe kind of fate.
It was the write-"Marinette Agreste"-in-the-margins-of-your-school-notebooks-exactly-once-before-immediately-scribbling-it-out-and-wanting-to-throw-yourself-into-the-Seine kind of mortification.
She had been fourteen.
Fourteen-year-olds, in her defense, were idiots.
Back then, Adrien Agreste had been untouchable. He was the son of Gabriel Agreste, a model, a fixture of the magazines she devoured, and practically fashion royalty. But then Gabriel had stepped away from the helm years ago. Adrien had taken over, and somehow, the pedestal he stood on had grown even higher.
Magazine covers had transformed into Forbes business spreads. Runway photos had turned into dense, jargon-filled interviews about global acquisitions and international expansion. Under his leadership, the brand had evolved from a legacy house into a titan of industry.
Now, at thirty-two, Adrien Agreste wasn't just a face on a billboard. He was one of the most recognizable, powerful men in fashion.
And Marinette?
Marinette was a twenty-three-year-old designer who had exchanged exactly zero words with him in her entire life.
She tossed the covers aside, the cool air of her apartment doing little to chill the heat rising in her cheeks. As she climbed out of bed, her gaze flicked briefly toward the phone sitting on the nightstand, the screen dark and silent.
Still no response.
She paused, one foot hovering over the hardwood floor. She had expected him to ignore her—it was the rational thing to do—yet the absence of a reply disappointed her more than the prospect of meeting Adrien Agreste concerned her.
One was a career-defining moment and the other was a midnight mistake. And yet, her mind was fixated on the silence of the Unknown thread.
Which felt like a problem for future Marinette.
She shook her head, forcing the thought away, and scrambled to get ready. She pulled on the first professional thing she could find and threw her hair into a bun that looked more frantic than chic.
She grabbed her bag, her phone sliding inside to clatter against her tablet.
Just get through the meeting, she told herself, the mantra repeating like a nervous tick.
She burst out of her apartment building and onto the street, the morning sun already glaring off the glass-fronted buildings of the fashion district. The city was moving, the gears of the industry turning in perfect, efficient synchronization.
She checked her watch. Twenty-five minutes until the meeting.
If she ran, she could make it.