Stuck In A Bakery (With You), Chapter 6
"Take a deep breath, Marinette."
Tikki hovered directly in front of Marinette, who was curled up on her bed, just short of completely hiding beneath her covers.
"It's only for a few more minutes. It's not only very easy for you to resist any temptation right now, it's important that you do," Tikki lectured her. "You understand that, right?"
"Yes," Marinette said, very quietly. "This is a situation that I created by extending an invitation. It's nothing that we both don't do every day. It's no big deal."
"Good. So..." Tikki continued, patiently.
"It's no big deal that, right now, Adrien Agreste is naked in my shower." She stole a tiny glance at the bathroom door, then made her head turn away. "Right over there."
"It would be rather strange if he was otherwise in your shower," suggested Tikki. "Don't you think so?"
"Yes, it would..." managed Marinette.
"And he's not doing that to be alluring or to tempt you in any way. He's just freshening up, and in a minute your bathroom door will be open and he'll be mostly dressed. You saw him bring his change of clothes in with him."
"Yes. Yes, he did. I am being completely silly about this," breathed Marinette, a little bit giggly. "I am going to be mature."
"Mature does not mean cracking the door open right now and asking 'Do you need anything?'" Tikki grinned. "No matter how sure you may be that he could use an extra washcloth."
"I'm all stocked up on towels and washcloths. Everything's good," Marinette told herself. "Just a routine day."
"And then you can go in and take your shower next, and you two can head down for breakfast."
"Uh-huh! I will..."
Tikki watched Marinette's eyes glaze over as she processed And then _I_ will be naked mere meters away from Adrien Agreste.
"Let me start again," sighed Tikki.
Having weathered the storm of temptation and not been found wanting, and after a short but lovely breakfast with her mother and Adrien, Marinette headed downstairs to the family bakery with Adrien right behind her.
"Hello, Papa," called Marinette as they exited the stairs. "We're here to help you with whatever you need, so you can go up and relax for a little while."
"That sounds good," smiled Tom. "Marinette, I think I'll have you help customers until your mother comes down, all right? You know the products and their prices well enough."
"Makes sense to me," replied Marinette, assuming the position.
"Adrien, would you come back in the kitchen with me?" he asked. "There are aprons by the door; grab one and put it on, so that you don't get your clothes messy."
"Sure thing," Adrien said. He watched as Marinette mouthed You've got this silently at him, then turned and followed the big man into the back room.
"All right," Tom began, once Adrien was suitably attired and attentive. "I figure that this will be the best place for you for now; there are a handful of things that you can help me with, and that way you can tell your father that I'm keeping you away from any potentially-infected customers. Not that I am expecting any of the rest of us will be at risk, either," he added quickly, "but it's the principle of the thing. Is that okay with you?"
"Certainly," replied Adrien. "I'll help you out however I can."
"Good!" beamed Tom, then shifted to a more serious appearance. "Now, first off... I seem to recall visiting your classroom and teaching everyone there how to make macarons. You did take thorough notes that day, right?"
"Um..."
Adrien watched as the burly baker towered over him, a frown beginning to form on his face, and cringed.
"Then it is a good thing that I've already made all of my macarons for the day," grinned Tom, abruptly. His smile widened as he watched Adrien's visible relief. "I'm just testing your sense of humor, young man. It's very nice of you to even want to help us like this, so do relax and I hope that you'll enjoy yourself."
"I don't want to say that I'm bad in a kitchen... but it's probably true," conceded Adrien. "With the chefs that my father keeps on staff, I don't get a lot of opportunities to practice."
"We all start someplace simple," declared Tom. "And in your case... I think some basic cookie dough will be a good starting point." He strode over to a filing cabinet, rummaged through a pile and emerged with a battle-worn sheet of paper, covered in plastic. "My grandmother's recipe," explained Tom. "I memorized it decades ago, but you're not me."
Adrien took it from his outstretched hand and looked it over. "It looks pretty straightforward..." he noted.
"It is. Mixing it isn't difficult at all; it's simply a matter of the right ingredients in the right proportions. Now, follow me," Tom beckoned, "and I'll show you where we keep everything."
Not too long after Tom went upstairs for some nourishment, Sabine came down to join Marinette. "How's it going?" she asked. "Anything unusual?"
"Not really," Marinette answered. "Maybe fewer customers than normal... but some of them bought a LOT of things, so it kind of balanced out."
"About what I expected so far," noted Sabine. "Good; I'm glad you had an easy time of it. Thank you for helping, by the way."
"Oh, no problem," smiled Marinette. "I'm an old hand at this."
"How's our new hand doing?" Sabine asked, nodding her head towards the kitchen.
"Not too bad! I snuck back and checked on him once when the store was empty, and he was doing fine. Dad has him making big batches of cookie dough."
Sabine pondered that for a moment. "Hmmm," she said, "For that big order we had for Wednesday, I'm guessing. I don't know that they're going to come and pick it up."
Marinette looked puzzled... then grasped what her mother meant. "Who needs a ton of cookies for a big event that's going to be cancelled, if it hasn't been already?" she agreed. "Yeah, that's a problem."
"I'm pretty sure that we'll use it all up anyway... with your frosting designs on them, cookies tend to fly out of here," smiled Sabine. "And we'll have you two down here today to get creative with them. I'll take over the counter here in a few minutes, and you can go back and..."
A loud SP-SPLORT! sound was heard from the kitchen, followed by a "Gaaah!"
"Or... maybe I'll let you go check on him now," Sabine declared, sending Marinette running.
Marinette burst into the kitchen, ready to help, and only barely managed to suppress a loud hoot of laughter. Adrien was standing next to a mixer with two long, thin strands of goo on the front of his apron... and a third splayed across his forehead and right cheek.
"I, um... may have made a small mistake," Adrien declared.
"Stay right there! I'll help you," giggled Marinette, grabbing a nearby dish towel. When she reached him, she ordered "Hold still!" and began dabbing it gently onto his splattered face. "What happened?" she asked him, once most of it had been cleared away.
"Oh, I mixed something up. Literally," explained Adrien, sheepishly. "The first four batches of the dough are in the refrigerator over there. This one, I messed up the proportions on the ingredients, and it was a little too runny... so I added a little more flour and turned up the mixer, hoping it would thicken it up some, and..."
"...And you ended up wearing some of it when the beaters splashed it up," Marinette finished the thought for him. "Don't worry about that, I've done it myself more than once. Far from the worst mess we've made." Her eyes twinkled as she continued, "When I was little, you should have seen me the day I bumped the counter and a three-level cake started to fall... and I tried to catch it."
"Oh, wow," marveled Adrien, some of his dignity returning slowly. "I can only imagine. Vanilla frosting?"
"Pink, strawberry," replied Marinette. "Three baths later and I think I still had a bit of it in my hair."
Once the laughter from that mental image had passed, Marinette gave him a warm and sympathetic smile. "Don't worry about it. We would be washing that apron up tonight anyway, and you're not hurt or anything?"
"Just my pride," Adrien said.
"That's good. Now, let's see what we can do about this batch of dough."
Marinette ran a spoon through it and held it up, examining the consistency as bits of it dripped down. When Adrien reached a gloved finger out towards it, she whapped his hand with her free hand, lightly. "Please tell me you haven't been doing that!" she worried.
"No, no, I haven't!" Adrien backpedaled. "I've been keeping everything as sanitary as I can... that was just on reflex."
"In better times, I get to lick the spoon once in a while," she confessed, "after the dough itself is put away. But right now, especially, we need to be super-careful about what touches what. If Papa saw a drop of dough hit your finger and splash into the bowl, he'd throw the whole thing out and put you on garbage duty, gloves or not!"
"Understood. I'm so sorry, Marinette," he apologized in a low voice. "It won't happen again."
Watching Adrien's face fall... Marinette crumbled on the spot. "Hey! Hey, it's okay," she soothed him, his reaction hitting her harder than his lapse of judgment.
Wow... he took that SO much harder than I meant it! she worried. Like he's used to even little mistakes being pounced on at home!
"You are absolutely forgiven," she half-whispered, leaning close to him. "That was such a minor thing, and you're new at this. And I don't think I would even know how to be mad at you, okay?"
"Okay," Adrien replied, a smile returning.
"And your instincts weren't far off here," declared Marinette, looking back at the bowl of cookie dough. "Can you pass me the sifter and a little more flour?"
