Vasudha: I knoooooow I should be working on The Paths That Cross but I've been captured by the Miraculous Ladybug fandom! I just can't help it!

Anywhos, here's a post for Day 1 of Miraculous Ladybug Staff Appreciation Week: Affection! Thanks for reading!

It had started out as normal as possible, the only difference being the most abnormal thing to happen to Adrien since he had become Chat Noir. Alya was joining Marinette for lunch, since Marinette's parents owned a bakery, and the girls had extended an invitation to Nino and Adrien, since they had been talking about the homework together. Apparently this was a normal thing, from the way they were acting, but it wasn't something he'd ever done before, it was a novelty to him.

After a quick "okay" from his patient driver, who had gotten the okay from Adrien's father, the group of four headed towards the bakery, picking up where they had left off on the homework. "Oy vey," Alya groaned. "What were they talking about in Math when they were trying to explain how to get an area of a trapezoid?" She asked, glancing between Marinette, Nino, and Adrien as if this were the answer to life, the universe, and everything, and one of them had better have it.

"Oh, I understood that," Marinette replied, capturing Alya's attention instantly. "I'll show you my notes while we eat. I don't mind getting flour all over my notes."

Adrien blinked, confused. "Flour?" He asked, wondering why Marinette would be getting flour on her notes, even if her parents owned a bakery. Weren't they going to be eating away from where the bread wold be baked?

Marinette looked a little embarrassed, but Nino quickly explained. "Oh, you haven't been to Marinette's before, that's right! Well, what we do is when we eat over there, we 'pay' by helping make some of the pastries. The bread, Marinette's papa takes care of himself. But Marinette's mama lets us help with the pastries to help things go a little faster and easier. Plus sometimes we get to taste test."

Nino grinned at that last one, and Alya and Marinette smiled, the group of them sliding back into that easy friendship they'd had even before Adrien had entered the picture. It felt comfortable, to be surrounded by such easy friends, and Adrien felt glad to be someone the counted a good friend.

"Tada! We're here!" Marinette exclaimed, drawing his attention to the shop on the corner. Adrien looked up at the gold on black lettering proclaiming to all the city that this place was a bakery, and as they entered, his mouth watered at the sight of the delicious pastries inside, not to mention the smell. It was pure heaven, that smell.

The whole lunch break was pretty interesting. They ate and explained the homework to each other in between bites for the first part, rushing as fast as they could. Each agreed to take as detailed notes as they could on the subjects they understood best, so that they could share it with the group, then Adrien and Nino headed back downstairs from Marinette's house to her parent's bakery, to help her mother with some of the pastry baking.

"Alright, Mama, we're back!" Marinette exclaimed, bursting through the doors of the bakery with aprons in hand, Alya and she already having put theirs on. Alya's was a personalized one that Adrien guessed was made by Marinette herself saying 'The news waits for nothing! … Except sweets!" while Marinette wore one saying "Grand assistant apprentice-in-training new to the craft maybe working on the learning curve chef!" Each in a similar swirling embroidered script. Marinette handed the plainer aprons to Nino and Adrien, and they each put on the aprons—with some guessing and help required on Adrien's part—before they headed over to the different stations that Marinette's mama, Sabine, had set up for them. Adrien was at the mixing, along with Alya, and Marinette went by her mama's side to help put together the mixed dough and other ingredients put together by Alya and Adrien into more pastry-looking creations, while Nino helped get the ingredients and tools to everyone. The kitchen was a busy mess, but somehow joyful and full of laughter and conversation.

And that's sort of when it happened.

"Hey, Alya, watch it!" Marinette teased as Alya whisked her mixture a little too vigorously. "You're getting it all over the place, and I don't want to go back to school smelling like a pastry!"

Alya slowed down, but grinned. "What, afraid that everyone's stomach will start growling after you walk into the room?"

And then Adrien's doom occurred. Marinette giggled, a hand reaching up towards her mouth as if to cover it, but never quite reaching it. The adorable sound stopped his stirring dead in his tracks, and if it weren't for Nino's tap on his shoulder, his dropped jaw would have been obvious to everyone.

Flushing furiously, Adrien went back to stirring, thinking over what had just happened, the nervous butterflies he so often got around Ladybug popping up here and now, inside a warm bakery, with not a hint of Ladybug. What did that mean? Did that mean that he was falling in love with someone other than Ladybug? Or did he confuse Marinette with Ladybug for a minute? Their laughs were similar... but they were pretty different! Ladybug was pretty where Marinette was adorable... and Marinette had slightly different blue eyes... and while they both had their hair in pigtails, Ladybug's had more of a blue tone to it... Adrien muffled a sigh as he handed off his bowl to Nino, and looked around to see that his work was done for now. Was he just trying to justify that he wasn't starting to crush on Marinette?

"Dude, if you're really that concerned about whether or not you're falling in love with her, try making her laugh again." Nino whispered the suggestion in his ear, before dashing off to grab another tool for Sabine.

That... could work. And he had plenty of practice coming up with puns from when he was Chat Noir. Surely one of them would work! Adrien grinned, and headed over towards Marinette and Sabine, before releasing a loud and heavy sigh. Marinette and her mama both glanced over at him, but Sabine spoke first. "What's your trouble, kiddo?"

Here goes nothing. "I have such self-esteem issues I've turned into bread," Adrien bemoaned. "Although, I guess I'm just self-loaving."

Alya and Marinette groaned in unison, while Sabine grinned, and Nino did a thumbs up of encouragement, while seeming to stifle his own giggles. No good that time, eh? Well, I'll just have to think of another. "I bread your pardon, Marinette, but I knead you for a second." Marinette rolled her eyes, but a smile was playing at her lips, encouraging Adrien.

"Sorry, but not for now," She replied, seeming to stop herself before she added something to the end of the sentence. It seemed a bit odd, but Adrien was on a roll—har har—and couldn't be stopped now.

"Maybe it's time for you to go to bread," Nino commented, prompting a grin from Adrien.

"I doughnut want to," He complained, earning more groans from the crowd.

"Rye won't you?"

"You'll just have to wheat and see!"

"Augh, why won't you guys just stop with the bread puns?" Alya groaned, shooting a glare towards Adrien. He sheepishly grinned in her direction, and she stopped to make sure she finished whisking her mixture properly. He waited until she'd handed the bowl over to Sabine before firing off his next shot.

"Woah Alya, don't be so sourdough."

Nino snorted, and silence filled the kitchen as Alya glared at him, before heading over towards the other end of the kitchen to get out of the way of Marinette and Sabine as they finished the last of the pastries.

Adrien, however, wasn't about to let this chance slip through his fingers. "I guess it's a good thing we don't use bread as a weapon. Otherwise we'd be toast."

Nino picked up the thread easily. "Bread? You butter be joking!"

"Hmm, maybe. I suppose using bread as a weapon just isn't rye-t."

The two snickered, at their own jokes, when Adrien heard spluttering, and then a peal of laughter from behind him. He turned back around to face Marinette and her mother, and saw Marinette's shoulders shaking as her mama smiled at her, taking the last of the pastries to set them aside before putting them in the oven later.

Marinette laughed a little bit more, then turned to him, a smile on her face, and said the one thing that probably one his heart as surely as anything Ladybug had ever done.

"Sorry Adrien, but I think that for now, your puns are a little half-baked." She stated, straight faced. Adrien's grin turned into a dropped jaw, which quickly transformed into a grin again as she finished what she was saying. "Besides, we knead to be serious right now."

For a moment, everyone was quiet, before Nino, Marinette, and Adrien burst into laughter, Alya looking over at them and shaking her head as they did so. They laughed until their stomachs were sick, when Alya walked over to them.

"If you make another bread joke..." She threatened, glaring at all of them menacingly.

"... You're all going to be toast."