Adrien is reserved, they can see that much. He’s quiet and respectful, but timid. He always goes quiet when they walk into the room, always takes a step away from Marinette like they’re about to snap, like they don’t see the way her daughter glows when she’s with him, like they don’t trust him to be good to her. He’s the first one on his feet when he stays for dinner, helping to clear the table and wash dishes. Once Adrien and Marinette made it official and he started frequenting their flat more, he even takes to throwing on an apron and helping out in the bakery. Mostly behind the register because he’s too skittish about ruining any of their pastries.
But Adrien also melts whenever Sabine wraps him into a hug. He always gets so excited to speak Mandarin with her, so eager to practice and learn. And Tom takes it upon himself to teach the boy how to cook, because no self-respecting Dupain-Cheng doesn’t know how to feed themself (and five of their friends). (The Dupain-Chengs don’t mess around with food; they always over cook, and they always send their guests home with leftovers.) And while he doesn’t have much confidence, the boy is a quick study, and he’s good at improvisation in the way Marinette isn’t. She excels at memorizing and following recipes, going through the motions in Sabine’s shadow, but Adrien can throw things together with a little deliberation, and it turns into something delicious.
Adrien is always respectful with Tom and Sabine, but it’s only when he and Marinette are alone that he really starts to open up at first. That’s why they don’t mind giving the couple their space, in the beginning. Tom and Sabine trust them, but more than that, they want Adrien comfortable in their home. And soon Marinette and Adrien spending time in her room turns into them working on their homework at the kitchen table, or reading on the couch, or playing some new video game on the floor. Soon Adrien stops stiffening whenever Tom or Sabine addresses him, soon he starts to crack a smile at Tom’s puns and pile on with Sabine in teasing Marinette. Soon enough, Adrien finally relents and starts to call Tom and Sabine “Papa” and “Maman” like they’ve been insisting since the beginning.
They aren’t surprised when, one rainy morning years later, Adrien shows up on their doorstep absolutely soaked to the bone, grinning sheepishly despite the gloom outside. He’s finally found the perfect ring, he tells them as they dry him off, and he’s not asking for permission to marry their daughter, but he wants to be a part of their family. He goes quiet and shy then, takes the offered towel and dries his hair, and explains how Tom and Sabine showed him what a family should be like, how he is so immeasurably grateful for their presence in his life, for raising such a miraculous daughter, for creating a home so full of warmth and life and joy and inviting him into it. Sabine takes him into her arms and, with every ounce of conviction, tells him that they would be honored to make him part of their family. Tom claps him on the back and reminds him that he’s always been family, now it’s just going to be official.
There are three pictures on the bookshelf in the Dupain-Cheng’s living room now: the first, an old picture of collège-aged Marinette and her parents, smiling for the camera; the second, a candid shot of Marinette and Adrien sometime during lycée, sprawled across the living room couch, tangled together and fast asleep; and the third, a clipping from a magazine article about the bakery, a picture of Marinette hanging off Adrien’s shoulder, her face alight with giggles as he hands over a tray of eclairs to a grinning Sabine to put into the oven, while Tom at the workbench had thrown his head back in uproarious laughter, and a caption that reads, “The Tom and Sabine boulangerie-patisserie is a family operation. ‘We believe the first thing thing to good food is people to share it with,’ says Tom Dupain. ‘Our family is the reason we do what we do, and the reason we love it so much.’”
