Stuck In A Bakery (With You), Chapter 19
The Dupain-Chengs' dinner table that evening seemed oddly quiet to its youngest member. Full of smiles from her parents... suspiciously knowing smiles, Marinette thought to herself... but not a lot of discussion going on as to why.
"Mrs. Cheng..." Adrien offered, "I'm glad that Nathalie decided to apologize to you today... but I feel like I ought to apologize again. My family seems to delight in turning just about everything into theatrics these days, and I wasn't expecting a sudden showdown in the middle of the sidewalk."
"Let alone one with your father present," Sabine noted. "You're fine, Adrien, and you don't need to apologize for that. I'm just glad that things ended peaceably."
"I was not expecting your father to be there," Marinette added. "That was insane!"
"Me, neither!" agreed Adrien, enthusiastically. "He barely left the house before this crisis. So now he's taking a ride in the middle of it?"
"Perhaps you mean more to him than he's comfortable expressing much of the time," Tom interjected. "Some people just don't have that knack. His apology... could have been worded better, perhaps... but you are the one thing on Earth that could've brought him out in the open right now to speak it."
"I know," said Adrien. "Father is... a very complicated man. I try not to judge him too harshly... and I'm relieved that you don't seem to, either."
"It's not really our place to judge how someone else acts as a parent..." replied Sabine, in a quiet tone.
"Nathalie sure did," muttered Marinette, leaving unspoken whose orders Nathalie had been carrying out.
"And I like to think that we are better than that behavior, Marinette. And they did apologize," Sabine chided her. "And they were not entirely wrong! I worry about what some customer might bring into our shop, too. We can wipe everything down all day long, but if we interact with the wrong person at the wrong time..."
"I like to think that most people are smart enough to minimize risks," Adrien declared. "There will always be a certain type who think that they're invincible, or that just don't care until something happens to them or to someone they know. But in a crisis, most people tend to pull together, not push others away. To do what benefits others, not just themselves."
He gestured at himself, then at the dinner table and his dining companions. "Case in point. I am sitting here right now because of your continued kindness," he smiled.
"You are where you need to be right now. And I couldn't be much happier about that," Marinette beamed. She reached out towards him, and his hand met hers for a quick squeeze...
"...What?" Marinette asked, watching the big grins reappearing on her parents' faces.
"Oh, nothing," Sabine remarked. "Just wondering if there was any good news that anyone felt like sharing with us."
Marinette and Adrien looked at each other with visible surprise... and then both straight at Sabine.
"How did you know?" wondered Marinette.
"We didn't just fall off a turnip truck, Marinette," her father grinned. "So, what's the good word?"
"Um..." Marinette hesitated... "It's a little complicated to explain..."
Marinette gave them a quick summary of what they'd talked about and where she and Adrien now stood, relationship-wise.
Please tell me that I'm not crazy, she thought several times during her story. Please tell me that what I'm doing makes sense to you...
"That is a remarkably mature way for the two of you to handle this, Marinette, Adrien. I must admit, I am very impressed," Tom remarked, once Marinette had finished. "I have no idea if I could have done things that way at your age... or stuck to it for very long."
"We're... certainly hoping that we can," smiled Adrien... but his eyes told Tom a different story. They cried out She's hoping that we can stick to it... and part of ME wants to stay strong and work this out, too. But part of me needs to kiss your daughter, long and slow and over and over, with all my heart.
And I know that you could twist my head off like a soda-bottle cap if you chose to, Mr. Dupain... but I can't apologize for wanting that.
He couldn't tell how much of that Tom was picking up on... but Tom's continued smile was a good sign.
"I put myself into Kagami's shoes," Marinette explained. "If Adrien was my boyfriend, he was marooned at Kagami's house, and I lost him to her that way? I would be devastated, and I'd hate her so much even if I understood why it happened. And I can't let that happen the other way around."
"And I can't let... what I would like to happen... make what she just said happen," Adrien admitted. "It wouldn't be fair, and it wouldn't be right."
"But in the meantime," he continued, giving Marinette soft eyes, "I am overwhelmed by what I know now. And by just how lucky I am."
"I can understand that. And it's very good that you know the truth about each other now," smiled Sabine. "You were so connected before this... I can only imagine that this is the beginning of something amazing between you two."
"Definitely," Marinette beamed. "Adrien... come do the dishes with me?"
"No, don't worry about that; we've got those tonight," insisted Tom. "It's no big deal. Go and do whatever you had planned for tonight."
"We hadn't really thought that out yet... actually, we've barely been able to think straight, period," Adrien chuckled. "For some strange reason."
"How about this?" offered Marinette. "I want to touch base with Alya for a few minutes... meet me up in my room in twenty or thirty, and then maybe some more Scepter Quest?"
"That's a good start," agreed Adrien. "Dinner was delicious, Mrs. Cheng. Thank you both, as always, for both the dinner and the advice."
The pair headed up the stairs, once they were absolutely sure that there was nothing dinner-related that they could help with. Tom helped Sabine collect the tableware and carry it all over to the sink.
"You know," Tom ventured, "I could just pick the two of them up by the necks, one in each hand, and go like this..." He mimed pushing two faces together gently, making a loud kissing sound with his lips.
"Tom!" hissed Sabine, knowing that he was kidding but still shocked. "You wouldn't dare. She'd be in therapy for months."
"I know, I know," he smiled. "Let things take their course naturally. At least they're acting like they're a couple now."
"Think he'll make it out of here before they really are one?" wondered Sabine, wryly.
"I have no idea," chuckled Tom. "But I imagine that it'll be fun to watch."
Marinette flopped down into her computer chair, spinning it around a full rotation from her momentum.
"Okay..." she told herself, "be subtle. Be cool. Don't give her too much all at once. You and Adrien have a plan about what to say."
Her fingers flashed on her virtual keyboard...
[Marinette] Hey. You around?
A response came about a minute later:
[Alya] Hi! How's it going over there?
[Marinette] Things are getting very interesting...
[Alya] Oh, REALLY! Details, girl! I'm dying to hear it!
[Marinette] Well, for one thing, I'll bet you can't imagine who came by our bakery this morning...
Marinette led with the phone fireworks between Sabine and Nathalie, Adrien's spirited defense of the Dupain-Chengs, and the morning's confrontation. This, she had no hesitation about sharing in full.
[Marinette] I think that by the time he was done defending my mother, he came this close to being formally adopted.
[Alya] Which would be a definite problem for your long-term plans with him.
[Marinette] Ohhh... the other day, I thought he was going to call me 'the sister he never had' and my whole life flashed before my eyes.
[Alya] Oh, dear. So things aren't going well on that front?
[Marinette] I wouldn't say that...
[Marinette] He said I was "someone he'd been looking for for a very long time. The kind of person he'd always hoped he'd get to meet someday."
There was a pause...
[Alya] SQUEEEEEEE!
[Alya] Oh my gosh this is HAPPENING TO YOU, Marinette!
[Alya] Have you had any... big _moments_ with him yet?
[Alya] The mushy kind?
[Marinette] A couple? Kind of? Almost?
[Marinette] And... I finally did it.
[Alya] O_O
[Alya] Did WHAT?
[Marinette] I told Adrien how I feel last night. How I've felt about him for a long time.
[Marinette] That I love him.
[Alya] OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
[Alya] Marinette... I am COMING OVER THERE NOW! Quarantine or no quarantine!
[Alya] I am SO SORRY! You need the biggest hug ever.
[Marinette] Wait, what? No! Stay inside, stay safe! Stop!
[Marinette] And... WHY are you so sorry?
[Alya] Because if he'd fallen for you, too, I would have heard your screams of joy all the way over here.
[Alya] And we wouldn't have just spent fifteen minutes talking about his #*&^% father!
Marinette pondered how to respond to that.
[Marinette] What I can tell you for now is this...
[Marinette] I liked his reaction very, very much. He is the sweetest boy.
[Marinette] And I feel like, now that it's out in the open, we're closer than we've ever been before.
[Alya] All of which is good but it still isn't what you wanted!
[Alya] Not by a long shot. Oh, honey!
[Alya] You're SURE that you're even a little bit okay? Is there anything I can do?
[Marinette] I promise, Alya. We're doing just fine.
A knock at her door caught her attention, and she called out, "Come on in."
Adrien walked over to her, giving her a light welcome squeeze when he got close enough.
"You don't have to do that every time, you know," Marinette grinned. "But that's not a complaint at all."
"I just love that I can do that now," he grinned back. "Still talking with Alya?"
"Yep. I just dropped a little bomb on her; I told her that I told you how I feel about you," said Marinette. "Her reaction was... interesting."
"Good-interesting, or bad-interesting?" asked Adrien.
"Worried-about-me interesting. Like, she was ready to come running over here to comfort me," she replied.
"Huh... You let her think that I'd shot you down?" Adrien wondered, looking perplexed.
"I didn't say that!" protested Marinette. "But I did say what we'd talked about telling them for now... I held off from the whole we're-in-love thing for now. She figured that if you had said 'I love you' back, she would've seen me cartwheeling across the evening sky."
"Ah," replied Adrien, looking a little nervous.
"Adrien?" wondered Marinette. "You're... giving me a funny look right now. What is it?"
At that exact moment, her phone rang... with an incoming video call from Alya.
Marinette clicked the button to accept the call... at which point a roar emanating from it made her hold it at arm's length.
"MARINETTE DUPAIN-CHENG!" Alya howled. "You have been HOLDING OUT ON ME!"
"I... don't know what you mean," she smiled, trying to put on a face that simulated some degree of innocence.
"Adrien was talking with Nino just now. He told Nino that you'd confessed... and what he said to YOU! And Nino just texted me. Holy MOTHER OF CRAP, Marinette! Adrien LOVES YOU and I'm just now hearing about it?!"
Marinette looked over at Adrien, with something of a smirk on her face. "Care to comment on any of that?" she asked him.
On the other end of the phone, Alya saw the phone turn, and a sheepish-looking Adrien come into view slowly.
"Um... hi," he waved to her. "Would this be a good time for us all to call it a night and pick this up tomorrow?"
