Stuck In A Bakery (With You), Chapter 29


Hurriedly, Marinette flew up the stairs and into her room, closing the door behind her. She laid her shoes down by her desk, climbed up to her bed, planted her face in her pillow and let out a shrill-but-mercifully-muffled scream.

She received some small company a moment later. Her scream might've been far louder if she'd known that she and Adrien had not been as alone as they thought downstairs... even now that she was aware that her parents had seen them.

A few hours earlier...


Tikki sat motionless in her hideaway on Marinette's dresser.

Her eyes were closed, her body was still - Kwamis didn't really need to breathe, after all - and her mind was drifting aimlessly, contemplating assorted mysteries of the universe. She was as one with the cosmos, attuning herself to mystical ley lines... one of which ran mere meters from the Dupain-Cheng home, though they would have had no way of knowing that... and feeling utterly relaxed.

Time stood still for her. It might have been ten minutes... an hour... a year. Those units were mere human constructs after all, were they not?

A small voice intruded upon her peaceful meditation.

"Hey! Sugarcube! Get a load of THIS!"

If I pay it no mind, perhaps it will go away, thought Tikki. Surely he can see that I am anchored in another plane of existence right n-

"C'mon! Wake up, already!"

The paws of Plagg shook her, knocking her spiritual awareness well out of her immediate reach.

"If this is about the contents of their refrigerator again, Plagg... you are not going to like what happens next," Tikki warned him. "It might be psychological warfare. It might involve fire."

"This might be worth it," Plagg grinned back at her. "And it kind of involves you. Come on downstairs with me!"

Opening her eyes, then rolling them in frustration, Tikki floated off the ground and followed Plagg down through the floorboards of Marinette's room.


"Well!"

From a safe distance, Tikki admired the sleep-cuddle-in-progress on the loveseat. "This is progressing even faster than I'd predicted," she smiled. "I knew that they'd started kissing..."

"Looks to me like they already passed the intro-level lessons, and jumped right into more advanced studies," chuckled Plagg, quietly. "At least they're still dressed."

"Oh, come on, now. You know them both better than that," chided Tikki. "Just this kind of physical contact is so new to them, I can't imagine anything beyond that for ages. Adrien hasn't been hinting at that with you, has he?"

"Nope. He's crazy-happy about all of this. Still wrapping his head around that it's actually happening," he replied. "The last thing he'd want to do is risk it by being pushy. I can vouch that he and Kagami were much the same way, when they were necking."

"That's good. Marinette is thrilled, too. She... hang on a second."

Plagg watched, amused, as Tikki flew over to the coffee table and picked a tissue out of a box, then went over and dabbed at Marinette's chin area with it. She dropped it in a small trash can before she returned.

"...Tiny bit of sleep-drool," Tikki explained. "She wouldn't want to get caught with that."

"I doubt that she'd want to get caught, period," noted Plagg. "Should we wake them up so they can get upstairs before someone comes down?"

"That is a thought," mused Tikki. "Her father does get up very early in the morning... not that they'd be in trouble for this, I don't think. I'd have to be careful, though. All I'd need would be to nudge Marinette and have Adrien wake up while I'm there, too."

"Hah! 'Oh, hi there! Nothing to see here, you're dreaming, go back to sleep,'" laughed Plagg, picturing that.

"Probably not worth risking it," she decided, studying the sleeping couple with a smile. "Marinette has waited such a long time for this," she smiled. "I am so glad that it's turning out smoothly."

"How long do you think that their secrets will stay hidden?" wondered Plagg. "Intentionally or not."

"Well, I hope not intentionally!" replied Tikki. "If Marinette starts wondering aloud to me about telling him, I know that I'll discourage it. I am still a little worried about how to handle an Akuma, but it seems like Hawkmoth's on lockdown, too."

"Which makes sense. We know that he's in Paris with us somewhere, and who knows what a butterfly might come back carrying?" reasoned Plagg. "We can figure that out when it happens. This building's got, what, three main exits?"

"Yes. Front bakery door, family back door, Marinette's balcony. There's an emergency door at the back of the bakery kitchen, but I think that's got an alarm on it. More of a fire exit," counted Tikki. "The biggest trick would be separating them if an emergency hits. I know that they'd want to get away and transform... but they'd also be super-protective of each other! A real juggling act."

A series of thumps caught their attention, sounding like footsteps on the stairs that were trying to be muffled by someone not built for that kind of thing.

"Ah, crap!" Plagg muttered. "Here comes her father. Welp... good luck, kids!"

"Yeah," Tikki laughed. "We haven't heard the last of this one."

The pair zipped up and away to their respective rooms before Tom emerged.


In the present time, Tikki approached Marinette slowly, trying not to laugh. "Is everything okay, Marinette?" she asked. "Was that a happy scream or the other kind?"

"A little bit of each," Marinette replied, slightly muffled by the pillow. She rolled over to face her loyal Kwami, somewhat red-faced. "I just woke up in the most wonderful place in the world... in Adrien's arms. That's the good news. The bad news is that we got caught!"

"Caught doing what, exactly?" wondered Tikki, looking very curious.

"Sleeping! What did you think that we - never mind that!" gasped Marinette, appearing shocked by the mere insinuation.

"Well, that's good. You two were just cuddling and snoring a little bit when I found you," Tikki smiled.

"You caught us, too?" groaned Marinette. "For four in the morning, there was an awful lot of foot traffic in there today."

"I wasn't foot traffic. I was floating, of course," giggled Tikki.

"Uggggh!" Marinette face-planted on the pillow once more. "I am so embarrassed!"

"And why is that? As far as I could tell, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Except maybe the snoring."

Marinette stared at Tikki. "Wait. Who was snoring - me or him?"

"I didn't get close enough to tell," said Tikki, delicately. It could have been either one of you, she thought, because you don't do it very often... but when you do snore, it sounds like a congested racehorse is sleeping up there!

"Tikki... I didn't even have a kind-of-a-sort-of-an-almost boyfriend for one whole day before I got caught in a compromising position with him!" moaned Marinette. "I'm never going to hear the end of this, I'm sure."

"Let me walk you through this, Marinette. You're new at this, and you could use a little advice right now..."


Tikki settled down on the pillow next to Marinette's head, figuring that this might take a little while.

"All right, look. You and Adrien have been killing yourselves all week trying to figure out how not to go too far. Your parents know that. They've watched you being all dewy-eyed at each other. Your mother knew you were alone in his room at night, and she didn't even flinch."

Tikki smiled, sympathetically. "I think they trust you two, just a little bit. Don't you think so?"

"Y-yeah... but..." stammered Marinette.

"And now you've finally got... well, maybe permission isn't the right word. The ability to test those waters without feeling like Adrien's cheating on Kagami, right?" Tikki continued. "You two are young, attractive, and think the world of each other. I have to believe that your parents are expecting more than a little affection between you."

"I know that. And I'll be more than happy to give it to him," Marinette smiled. "But I'd rather do that in private...!"

"Privacy that they gave you. They didn't have to go upstairs when they did," giggled Tikki. "And you didn't disappoint them. All you did was fall asleep... and in such an adorable position, at that!"

"Well... yeah," conceded Marinette. "I kind of wish that I could have seen us, somehow. And waking up like that... Tikki, it was like heaven on Earth!"

"When your father found you, he didn't raise a ruckus or lecture you. He went 'Awwww...', then put a quilt over you and called your mother down to see you, too. And she melted, too," Tikki noted. "Heck, even I had to come down and see, once I... um... realized you were still downstairs."

"So I should expect that you'll be... checking in on me whenever I'm alone with Adrien?" asked Marinette, raising an eyebrow.

"Goodness, no. That's between you and him," backpedaled Tikki. "I need to stay kind of nearby, of course, in case you need to transform for some reason... but I don't need to know every detail of what happens. I've been watching humans interact for millennia, Marinette... somehow I don't think that you two will invent anything new."

"The basics are just fine for now, yes," she replied. "And even then, we'd need to work up to... where we'd be comfortable going further."

"The we're-there kiss that'd make his hair stand on end," Tikki grinned.

"And that would make my knees buckle," Marinette grinned back. "Oh, you heard that!"

"Like I said... I kind of need to stay close." Tikki hovered once more, sensing that Marinette was in a better mental place now. "Just do what you're doing, okay? Make that boy melt, which is already happening, but keep going slow and gentle. Adrien is responding so well to that. And the two of you are positively inspirational!"

"...What do you mean by that last part?" asked Marinette.

"Well... judging from what I overheard earlier, in your parents' room after your mother came up..." Tikki giggled. "They were trying very hard to keep it quiet, but Kwamis have very sensitive hearing."

Marinette stuffed her head under her pillow. "La, la, LAAAA! I am so not listening to you right now!" she yelped.