The first time Adrien comes in, it's an accident.
He's wandering around the streets of Paris in a vaguely familiar district and Plagg is no help and all noise, composed of insistent mutterings on how unbelievably hungry he is instead. For such a tiny creature, Plagg has an appalling appetite that puts the amount any growing teenage boy can pack down to shame. Whether Plagg's grousing is truly necessary or more for dramatics, Adrien still isn't entirely sure; likely, for Plagg, it's both. Adrien knows him to be ridiculously contrary that way.
The black kwami is a relentless hum of noise in Adrien's shirt pocket, a source of both comfort and growing exasperation. The street signs point them both nowhere, and Adrien walks in circles along crowds of people.
He wishes he could transform into Chat and leap up onto the rooftops to gain his bearings. That is the part of Paris he knows by heart after many patrols and a number of battles. That is the part of Paris he's seen and felt with the pounding of his own two feet and twirl of his staff.
"Adrien, if I don't get some cheese soon, I may die." A tiny voice floats up to him, accompanied by the smallest poke against his chest. Adrien resists the urge to poke the lump in his shirt pocket back in retaliation. Plagg would only bite him.
"I highly doubt that since there's several new wheels of Camembert for you back home," Adrien hisses.
"And home is how far off?"
As if that isn't the question Adrien's been trying to answer for the better part of his afternoon. When he gave the Gorilla the slip just after lunch, he expected to end up at the movies, sharing a bag of the cheesiest popcorn he could get with Plagg. He hadn't expected to end up hopelessly lost instead in a part of his city that he should know; but doesn't.
He never could slip away from the Gorilla long enough to get anywhere exciting, and he never really wanted to either until Plagg came into his life. Becoming Chat didn't just give him power. It gave him freedom of movement; and most importantly, it gave him a friend.
(Plagg would moan about the sentimentality of that statement but his theatrics don't hide the fact that he is rather fond of his chosen. Adrien, appropriately, is not above cheesiness.)
It also apparently revealed a terrible sense of direction. No wonder his baton came with a map.
Plagg's plaintive question goes unanswered and Adrien's just about to give in and sheepishly call the Gorilla for a pick-up when the most incredible smell wafts under his nose and wraps around his head.
He stops dead in the street, but it doesn't appear to be an uncommon reaction. Several passerby similarly lift their noses in the air to deeply inhale the warm aroma of baking bread and sugary fragrance of frosted pastries.
Whatever growl his own stomach might've made is quickly drowned out by Plagg's hungry hum. Adrien follows his nose down the street and around the corner to an unfamiliar boulangerie-pâtisserie, but to a very familiar name. Dupain-Cheng glitters at him in gold against black and he walks in the open door with no further prompting.
The place is empty of people but not of food, and Adrien actively swallows again and again as his eyes feast upon displays and rows and trays of quiches, tarts, éclairs, macarons, croissants, and so many more delectable treats that he doesn't know by name but very much wants to know by taste.
Laughter rings loud and clear from the back where Adrien can't see, and it's as heartwarming as the mouthwatering aroma around him. The back door swings open, and familiar black hair pulled into neat pigtails is the first thing he sees as Marinette backs out the door, laughter still falling from her lips.
She twists around and nearly drops the tray in her hands at the sight of him, her laughter caught in her throat and her blue eyes growing wide.
"A-Adrien! Hi! Hi, sorry, were you long waiting? Waiting long? Were you waiting for a while?" She trips, both over her words and over her feet as she hurries to the front cashier to help him. Her tray almost slams down on the counter, nearly upsetting the neat rows of fruit tarts before Adrien's hands shoots out to steady her.
"You ok?" he asks in concern, and his hands don't leave her arms until she feels steady again.
"Fine! Very! Very fine." She huffs, almost to herself, and straightens up to properly address him. A wide, welcoming beam grows on her face and Adrien smiles kindly back. "Were you looking for something? To eat, that is?"
A very small but sharp poke on his chest reminds him exactly of who he has to feed. He nods absently, his gaze sliding around the space and taking in the many treats that make his own mouth water.
"You have anything cheesy, by any chance?" he asks hopefully, even as he eyes a large cream puff he knows his nutritionist would have a conniption over if she caught him eating one.
Marinette nods vigourously. "Maman just finished a fresh batch of gougère actually! If you don't mind waiting a few minutes, I can get some for you." Her cheeks become progressively redder as she talks but her voice is steady, even as her fingers fiddle with the tarts on the tray.
"I'm not in a rush." A lie, probably, but his phone hasn't gone off with any calls and Adrien wants to linger in the company of warm food and a familiar, welcome friend. "Can I help you with anything in the meantime?"
"Oh, no, don't worry about it!" His polite offer seems to jumpstart her into motion and she pulls the tray over to an empty display on the side. Her fingers are nimble as she transfers the tarts, carefully arranging them on the silver plate, and the familiarity of her actions reflect in her unconscious grace.
"You know, I don't think I've seen fruit tarts like those before," Adrien comments as he watches her. He's genuinely curious about the small tarts filled with creamy custard and topped with thin slices of glistening fruits; but more, he wants to keep talking to Marinette, in this place where she seems a little more at ease with him. Or, at least, understandably coherent.
Her blue eyes dart over to read his expression, and whatever she finds prompts a small grin that lights her up. She picks the next small fruit tart off the tray and offers it to him instead of placing it on the display tray.
"They're not French," Marinette admits, and her proud smile holds a secret tucked in its edges. "We make them off a recipe from Maman's side of the family."
Adrien hesitates then takes the tart, his long fingers brushing against hers for a moment. Her cheeks flare a rosy hue but he's got the treat before she can drop it.
He almost groans as he sinks his teeth into the first bite and he wonders why Plagg can't eat these in abundance instead.
"This is incredible!"
"They're, uh, usually made with cantaloupe slices, kiwis, and mangos but we use apples, pears and oranges instead. The sugar glaze we use works well on all fruits though, and the hardest part is not making a mess of the chocolate shell beneath the custard." She points to the other tarts on the tray and though she sounds like she's on the verge of rambling, Adrien is thoroughly invested as he takes small, neat bites of the palm-sized tart in his hands.
"Your parents ok with you giving away trade secrets like this?" he jokes.
"I'm not afraid of the competition," she retorts, and the sparkle in her eyes dips her response into a tease rather than a bite.
The cadence of her voice and the easy play in her words feel faintly familiar, but he swallows the thought the same time he polishes off his treat.
"I could be the most amazing baker and you'd never know."
Something in his lighthearted tease has Marinette visibly backtracking, and she flushes as she waves her hands madly in the air. "No! I mean, I'm sure you're great in the kitchen. At baking. I'm sure you're great- perfect, really, at everything you try."
The compliment is both flattering and unsettling, and Adrien wonders if this is why she always seems so flustered around him. He's not sure if he wants to laugh or bury his head in his arms because he is the furthest thing from perfect. The very thought is, at best, a dismal joke, even by his standards.
"I'm really not," he attempts a smile, then remembers exactly how he wound up at the boulangerie-pâtisserie in the first place. His smile settles more naturally as he runs with the train of thought. "I… actually, uh, got away from my ride and was doing some exploring but got pretty lost. I don't suppose you guys sell maps too?"
Marinette blinks owlishly at him, still red around the edges, and then giggles. "We don't but- really, you're lost?"
"Bad case of luck. Unfortunately."
She hums in thought before abandoning the mostly empty tray in front of her to rummage under the counter. A few palette knives, some loose change, and a paintbrush spill beside the tray as she unearths whatever is down there. After a moment, she comes back up, her cupped hands filled with thick white powder. The tray is nudged carefully aside before she dusts the countertop in a neat, even layer.
"Icing sugar," she explains to his curious expression as she rubs her hands to brush off the excess powder clinging to her skin. "We keep some nearby if a few pastries need touching up."
The tip of her pointer finger drags through the blank canvas of the countertop, drawing a clean line through. She marks down streets and landmarks in quick succession and with unerring precision, and the end result is as beautiful as it is practical. Her hand swipes against her cheek before wiping against her apron in an unconscious move clearly born from long habit.
"So here's where we are…"
She takes him through each part of her improvised map, only stumbling when she points out where she drew his house. After a moment, an idea lights her blue eyes up and she whips down behind the counter to grab a small container of chocolate chips. The row of carefully placed tiny dots march through the powdery streets, leading the way home.
The world rights itself up as Adrien studies the map and listens to Marinette, and he feels sure of where he needs to go. Just in case though, he snaps a quick photo with his phone and he smiles to himself as he reviews the image.
The map is not particularly extraordinary, but she made it for him complete with little quirks and flourishes; and for that he finds it special.
"Thanks, Marinette." He can hear the smile in his voice as he tucks his phone away. When he looks up, she's smiling too, with a streak of white marking the pink of her cheeks. "You've got some frosting on you, right there."
He taps the spot on his own cheek and she groans before rubbing her face with the backs of her hands. The powder smears across her cheeks even more instead and Adrien shakes his head as his amusement bubbles up in a chuckle.
"It's not coming off, is it," Marinette sighs good-naturedly, turning the question into resigned acknowledgement.
"Not really," Adrien grins. "Though you could say it's just the icing on the cake."
His joke is met with a gaping mouth and a look that wars between incredulous and sputtering. Adrien turns the pun over in his mind. It hadn't been that bad. Maybe it was even a little offensive? He did just call her a cake and though he only meant the best by it, perhaps it had not been the most polite thing to say to her.
"I'm." The croak emerging from Marinette's mouth is more sound than actual word. "I'm, uh, going to check if the gougère is ready."
Her rush to the back door almost upsets the neglected tray of fruit tarts but Adrien catches a corner and draws it towards him. His contrite gaze lingers where Marinette disappeared and a faint rolling of unease and confusion undulates at the bottom of his stomach.
Not one to stand idle, he picks up the remaining fruit tarts one by one and sets them on the display. Each one is handled carefully by his long fingers and he takes his time in admiring the presentation of each prepared tart. Clearly artistry runs strong in the Dupain-Cheng family, and he needn't look further for proof than the creations that surrounded him.
The map on the counter catches his eye once more and he chuckles to himself as he sets the last tart down. He steals a chocolate chip from the path Marinette marked down and tucks it into his mouth, savouring the dot of bittersweetness on his tongue.
The back door opens again and a much calmer Marinette walks out, her pink cheeks clean of icing sugar, and a brown paper bag with the most deliciously warm and cheesy smell wafting from it held in her hands. Adrien can almost hear the hungry whine Plagg is holding back.
"A-all set then?" she asks, her words tripping slightly as she sets the bag by the cashier. Like a cloud blotting the sky, her flustered expression reminds him of how easy it had been between them for a moment. But he takes heart that she doesn't seem put off by his earlier joke and holds that thought to keep as he nods before taking his wallet out to pay.
His total rings up and when the bag of small cheesy puffballs rests in his hands, he fights the urge to scarf it all down at once. He doesn't know how Marinette can work in the bakery and not eat everything; if he was her, he'd be snacking all the time like a glutton. Like Plagg.
As if prompted, a sharp poke to Adrien's chest reminds him who is impatiently waiting to be fed.
He's just about to thank Marinette and head out when she abruptly asks him to wait a moment. She pulls a small, flat piece of cardboard from under the cashier and quickly shapes it into a container along the prefolded lines before darting over to the display of fruit tarts and settling four in the box.
The lid's taped down shut and presented to Adrien before he can ask what she's doing.
"These make good study snacks. And maybe you could give one to your driver as a peace offering? I made these, so it's ok if I give them to you. I mean, not that they're rejects. Just. Um, they're for you. Not specifically made for you, but I made them, and I'm giving them to you now-"
His hand covers one of hers, stilling her rambling steamroller of an explanation and Adrien can't believe how much her gesture warms him from the inside out. He wonders if her sweetness is a product of growing up surrounded by delicious breads and pastries, or if perhaps she's learned how to bake and decorate her own charm into everything else.
"Thank you, Marinette," he says quietly, the low volume of his voice giving weight to the gratitude in his eyes and smile. "For the map and the tarts."
She only nods, and Adrien secures the box gently from her hands, taking care in ensuring he doesn't accidentally crush the tarts.
"I'll see you around, then." He gives her a last smile and turns to walk out the door and into the open street- a street he now knows how to navigate thanks to Marinette. A quick glance back shows Marinette waving goodbye to him, a wide, if somewhat dazed smile stretched across her face.
Adrien lifts the bag back at her in acknowledgement before pointing himself in the right direction to walk on. He places the bag of gougère on top of the box of tarts, freeing one of his hands up to pass a cheese puff to an eagerly waiting Plagg.
"Finally," the black kwami sighs dramatically as he bites into the pastry nearly the size of his head. "Mmm, this is good!"
"Better than Camembert?" Adrien asks, half teasingly, half hopefully.
"Don't even joke about such a thing," Plagg sniffs before devouring the rest of his treat. "This is a fair alternative though."
"High praise!"
Another cheese puff is dropped down into the front pocket of Adrien's shirt and met with a delighted hum.
Adrien pulls out his phone to consult the map when he reaches a cross-section he's unfamiliar with, and the sight of icing sugar draws a smile from him once more. He steps on, remembering Marinette's expressive voice as she pointed out the streets that would lead him home.
Boy and kwami share the bag of pastries between them. The gougère isn't popcorn, but Adrien prefers how it sits warm and sweet on his tongue like a promise.
AN: HUGE thank you to paperskirts, ghostbananas, and gabzilla-z for so patiently listening to me as I fretted incessantly about this. Wrote this during a particularly horrid week where I needed a distraction and something cheerful to focus on.
After I wrote this, I found the most handy map where everyone is located. If you're familiar with said map, I just ask that you conveniently forget about it for this fic; although, in fairness, I can speak from first hand experience that it is possible to get lost within your own neighbourhood even after living there for over a decade. Also, this was all written before Origins aired so tiny details are no longer canon compliant.
This is told in four parts, and for anyone who's been with my since my Naruto days, you know multi-chapter stories and I are not friends. That being said, I actually wrote everything out already so there's no three month long waiting period for the next installment :)