"Adrien," Sabine called from the back of the bakery. He was holding a tray of pastries when she called out to him so he put them down next to the display he was going to restock and went into the back to speak with the owners of the bakery he'd been working at for the last few months.
"What do you need, Sabine?" he asked with a bright smile on his face. He went over to the counter in the back where she and Tom were standing over a few mounds of dough.
"Tom and I are planning to go to a baking conference next week," she began explaining, "usually, we would close the bakery so we could attend, but if you'd be comfortable with it, the two of us were wondering if you'd want to run the bakery instead. It will only be a few days and the two of us won't be too far away if anything comes up."
Adrien's heart was pounding in his chest. His own father never trusted him with that much responsibility, he thought he could cry at how touched he was by the offer. "It would be my pleasure to take over the bakery for a few days," he responded, emotion welling in his voice, "thank you for trusting me with this."
He considered for a moment before he spoke again. "Are you sure, though? Summer break for the schools nearby just started and I don't know if I'll be able to handle that many customers in the bakery at once." Sabine nodded, understanding his concern.
"We'll bring in someone to help you, son," Tom assured, giving his wife a big smile. "We know the perfect sous chef for you and I'm sure she'll be delighted to work with you next week." Adrien nodded and the smile on his face brightened drastically.
"Thank you, Sir," Adrien responded, feeling a little bit more at ease already. He knew that he would probably need to teach the incoming employee a little bit about the job, but he could easily handle baking as long as the other person was able to deal with customers and ring up purchases.
The rest of the week went on just like any other, Adrien learned a little bit more from Tom and Sabine, but neither of them gave him any more information about who would be helping him in the bakery the following week. Their conference began on Thursday and would be running until Saturday, so on Wednesday, they made sure he had the key so he could open the shop.
He made sure every time he lifted his keys on Wednesday that he could see the key to Tom and Sabine's. He was desperately hoping not to mess anything up the first time he was trusted with something as serious as opening up someone's store.
On Thursday morning, he woke up bright and early, at 04h15, planning to arrive at the bakery at 4h45. He got dressed in a white button-down and a pair of black slacks in addition to the comfortable, yet dressy shoes that Tom recommended when he first started.
He arrived at the bakery at 04h40 and reached into his pocket for the keys. When he inserted the key into the hole, he was surprised to find that the door was already unlocked. "Damn it," he muttered to himself, "I haven't even been in charge for 12 hours and I already managed to mess up enough to have left the door unlocked overnight."
He winced and opened the door fully, prepared for whatever damage may have been done overnight if someone had come inside. There was nothing wrong in the main area of the shop and he felt his heart rate settle back to a normal speed until he heard a loud clatter coming from the back where the food was prepared.
He practically ran through the bakery to the back room where he saw a girl, already covered in flour, who had barely been able to catch a rolling pin and some measuring cups before they could completely fall to the floor. How she had managed to knock over those while reaching for an apron, he didn't know.
"Hey," she greeted, blowing a piece of fringe out of her face.
"Hi," he greeted in response. He walked over to her and helped her with the rolling pin and measuring cups before she could drop anything else. He handed her the apron she seemed to be struggling to reach. "You must be the new hire, I'm Adrien." He stuck out his hand for her to shake.
He could tell that she was surprised, but after years of working as a model, he was used to people being surprised by him now working in a bakery. "I'm Marinette," she responded, shaking his hand. "I told my parents that I would text them when I got here," she added, "do you mind if I do that real quick, then we can get started."
Her smile was bright and friendly, despite it being not even 05h00 and he was thrilled to be working with someone as cheerful as she seemed to be. He was sure she would do well with the customers, even if he wasn't sure about her baking abilities.
"Go ahead," he responded, "but I'm going to suggest that you have your phone away while baking. It can be easy to miss a step or two if you're not completely focused." Not that Adrien would know that from experience. Of course not, just something he'd heard from someone else who didn't beat their egg whites correctly for macarons when they were learning to bake.
'Did you tell Adrien I'm a new hire?' Marinette immediately sent the text to her papa. 'He thinks I'm new to the bakery.' She immediately followed up with another text. 'He's gonna teach me how to bake. This is adorable.'
'That's hilarious!' Tom responded. Adrien had been his unofficial son for months, it was about time that they welcomed him into the Dupain-Cheng family tradition of mild pranking. 'Good luck with training, dear. Let us know if you need anything. We love you.'
'Love you, too!' Marinette turned off the screen of her phone and put it into her pocket, giving Adrien all of her attention. "What's first?" she asked, smiling at Adrien.
"Put on your apron and wash your hands," he told her, "then I'll take you on a little tour to show you where all the ingredients and materials are. Oh, also, your hair needs to be pulled back out of your face. Can't let it get caught in the stand mixer or anything." She nodded and pulled her hair into two pigtails.
She put on her apron and went over to the sink to wash her hands. When she finished washing up, she went over to Adrien who was washing his hands at the sink on the other side of the kitchen. "Ready?" he asked and she nodded. He brought her over to the pantry first to show her where to find flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and any other room-temperature ingredients they'd need.
He took her over to the fridge to show her where to find eggs and the freezer, where they kept the butter that was specifically used to laminate croissants. She nodded, easily following all of his explanations. "The first thing that we're going to do is make baguettes," he began explaining once their small tour finished.
He picked up the recipe book. "This was the first recipe that Tom and Sabine taught me to make, so it seems like a good place to start. Do you have previous experience with baking?" Marinette nodded, suppressing the giggle that wanted to bubble out in response to the question.
"I have some experience," she told him, "I used to help my maman bake when I was younger, but I haven't gotten to seriously bake anything in a few months because my courseload was keeping me too busy at uni."
He understood where she was coming from, before he got out from under Gabriel's thumb, Adrien didn't have time for anything beyond classes and extracurriculars that he had been forced into. "Well, we're happy to have you joining our little family at the bakery." He immediately wanted to cringe at his own comment.
Marinette, on the other hand, was having the time of her life as this guy in front of her just welcomed her into her own family. Making baguettes was the same process that Marinette remembered from when she was younger, so she didn't pay too much attention to Adrien's instructions.
She did think he was doing a great job at explaining and if she had been a new hire, she was certain she would be able to learn well from what he was saying. She probably would've learned more from her parents, but that was comparing a couple who had been baking together for over 30 years to someone who had been working in the bakery for a few months.
"Wow," he said, surprised when Marinette finished shaping her baguettes. "You're a natural at this." She blushed a little bit, making a mental note that if she wanted to keep up the pretense of being a new hire, she would need to probably slow down how quickly she was 'learning' to bake.
"Thank you," she said with a smile on her face. She was happy he wasn't suspicious of how well she was doing with the baking. The next thing that he taught her to make was shells for the macarons. He taught her by making one batch while she mirrored his process from across the big metal worktable in the kitchen.
The process was very specific, which left them a decent amount of time just waiting for things to get to the correct temperature. "So," he began while they waited, "how do you feel about puns?" Marinette couldn't help but giggle at the sudden question.
"Puns?" she asked, just to make sure she heard him correctly. He nodded and she considered for a second. "They're fine," she landed on. "I can live with or without them." He seemed to accept her answer.
"Cool," he responded, "I wouldn't have wanted to macaron choice in sous chef." Marinette rolled her eyes, but the pun got a laugh out of her, a laugh that was much more genuine than her papa's puns usually got. She wondered if Adrien came up with that one on his own, or if he had heard it from Tom.
The two spent a while talking while they worked on getting things ready for the opening of the bakery at 07h00. Marinette offered to cover the front counter so that Adrien could do the baking because he had been working at the bakery far longer than she had.
While he was kneading some dough in the back, he was able to hear a few conversations in the front of the store and he was surprised to hear how many people seemed to immediately know Marinette's name when they walked in. Once the last of the macarons were in the oven and he had a timer set, he went into the now empty shop.
"Do you just know everyone?" he teased as he began wiping down the glass of one of the displays.
"More or less," she responded with a giggle. "I went to school at the collège just across the street. A lot of the customers here are actually friends with my parents." She physically bit her tongue to keep from giggling at her own silly joke. "What about you, I know you used to be a model, but what else is there to know about you, Adrien?"
"Not a lot. I'm a pretty open book, though, so if there's something you want to know about me, you're definitely welcome to ask." He shrugged slightly as he cleaned. Marinette cleaned the crumbs off the counter and thought about what she should ask him.
"Who would you want to play you in a movie?" she asked after a while more of thinking. He was clearly taken aback by the question. After he'd been forced into voice acting when he was younger, he didn't even think about himself in relation to a movie again. He had a clearly pensive look on his face.
"Jake Gyllenhal," he landed on. "He's attractive enough, but I feel like he would be able to pull off my particular level of 'weird' without it getting distracting. You know?" She didn't know Adrien well enough to know how good of a choice that was, but she was willing to accept his answer, she could see it. "What about you?"
"Ellen Wong," Marinette responded with a bright smile. "She was Knives Chau in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It was one of my favorite movies and I personally think she does a great job of being a combination of being both cute and vaguely threatening. Exactly what I aspire for every day." She added a small giggle to the end of her sentence.
"Wasn't she like 17 in that movie? How old are you?" He raised an eyebrow at her, kind of terrified of the idea of being shown up at this job by someone who was that much younger than him.
"Oh, I'm 24," she responded. "I was thinking her aged up a couple of years from that movie, that's just her best-known role." Marinette added a shrug. "How old are you?"
"I'll be 28 in October," he told her. They finished cleaning up the front of the shop and there was a lull in customers, so they went back to prepare some more pastries. Adrien taught Marinette how to make croissants by hand and she had a fun time learning from him. When they finished, she used the bench scraper to scrape the remains from the benchtop into the trash can.
"Oh, hey," he said, "you clean up the same way that I do. That's cool." Marinette couldn't help but smile at the knowledge that they cleaned in the same way because they probably learned to clean up in the bakery from the same people. They talked more while they prepared scones across the table from each other.
"Okay, so, Jake Gyllenhal?" she began.
"Jake Gyllenhal," he responded excitedly. "He was in this one movie recently where he was a 911 operator and he did a really good job in it." Marinette giggled a little bit.
"While I'm all for listening to movie reviews," she began, "I was actually going to ask which iteration of Jake Gyllenhal you would want to play you in the movie. Like me, I want Scott Pilgrim Ellen Wong, but aged up a little bit." He nodded in understanding and blushed at the fact that he hadn't let her finish her original question.
"Oh, I think I would want him from Night Crawler," Adrien responded excitedly, "it's this superheroish movie where he goes out to find criminals specifically so that he can sell stories about them. It came out in like… the 2010s, I think? Maybe the late 2000s?" She nodded in understanding.
"Makes sense," she agreed, "I was thinking that it would be like… Have you ever seen The Day After Tomorrow?"
"That was Jake Gyllenhal, wasn't it?" Adrien sounded genuinely shocked by the reminder of the main actor in the movie. "And Dennis Quaid played his dad, right?"
"That was Dennis Quaid," Marinette responded excitedly. "I can't believe that I forgot that his dad was played by Dennis Quaid." Neither of them had noticed how long they had been working on kneading the dough for the scones because they were distracted by talking about movies.
"Okay," Adrien said as he came around to her side of the table to grab one of the baking trays and a piece of parchment paper. "This could be a dealbreaker." He turned to her with a smile to show he was mostly kidding. "Are you a movie talker?" He placed both trays onto the table for them to place the dough onto.
"This might be even more of a dealbreaker," she began, "I'm not really a movie watcher. I'm not usually going to go out of my way to watch a movie. Usually, though, I'll only make sassy commentary during a movie if I know my roommate has seen it so many times or if we're watching a movie with the intention of making commentary."
"That's fine. I just don't understand people who will sit and ask questions during a new movie like 'who is that?' or 'what's happening?' when it's my first time watching the movie too because I'll just never have answers. My roommate will do that all the time and I swear, at this point, he's just doing it to make fun of me because he knows it bugs me."
"That's rough buddy," Marinette responded with a smile. He smiled in response, catching her reference. After he had mentioned being a Nickelodeon kid growing up, Marinette couldn't help but reference Avatar: The Last Airbender. They put the scones into the oven and Adrien's phone immediately started ringing.
He washed his hands quickly before he picked up his phone and answered the call from Tom. "Hello, Sir," Adrien said in greeting. Marinette could hear her papa's voice on the other side of the call, but she couldn't hear any specific words that he was saying. "She's doing great," Adrien assured. "Marinette is picking up everything so quickly. Thank you for sending her to help me."
"Yeah, we just finished making scones," Adrien confirmed. "I don't mind lending her my phone for a minute if you need to talk to her." Marinette nodded in agreement and Adrien handed her his phone while he began cleaning up everything else in the kitchen.
"How's it going, mon chou?" Tom asked, making sure to keep his voice down a little bit so that Adrien wouldn't be able to hear what he was saying to Marinette.
"Wonderful," Marinette responded with a bright smile. "Adrien's been a great teacher. Thank you for bringing me in so I could work with him."
"When are you going to tell him you're our daughter?"
"Saturday sounds great to me," she confirmed like she was agreeing to a schedule to not sound suspicious to Adrien. "I look forward to seeing you both when you get back to town this weekend. We'll be sure to keep the bakery safe and sound for you two." She said bye and her dad said he loves her.
She wanted to say that she loves him too, but her dad seemed to like the idea of the prank, so she couldn't let on that she was closer to them than Adrien already thought. She made a mental note to call them after she was done in the bakery that evening.
She handed Adrien's phone back to him when she finished the call and helped him clean up. The rest of that day was uneventful, Marinette helped more customers and Adrien did more baking in the back of the shop. Marinette joined him for the baking when she didn't have customers, but the afternoon rush caused those instances to be few and far between.
Adrien taught Marinette how to wash the floors at the end of the day and they worked together to do all the dishes. Mostly, Adrien washed them while Marinette dried them, but it was still nice to work together, talking to each other about small things. Marinette learned that Adrien had a cat named Plagg and she told him about her and her roommate's dogs, Tikki and Trixx.
Adrien walked Marinette out, locking the door behind her. She couldn't let him know she was planning to just spend the night in the apartment upstairs without it being suspicious, so he gave her a ride to the apartment she shared with Alya.
She knew it would mean waking up earlier the next morning, but she was already waking up before dawn so an extra 20 minutes wasn't really going to make anything worse. Alya gave her a bowl of pasta and asked Marinette about her day. Marinette was happy to share about Adrien and about him training her.
Marinette called her parents when she finished talking to Alya and they were just as excited to hear about her first day back in the bakery after a year-long break for school. Sabine laughed at the prank when Marinette explained it and she approved wholeheartedly as long as Marinette wasn't malicious to Adrien in any way.
Marinette promised her maman that she wouldn't be mean or hurtful and they asked about her day. Marinette was happy to tell them about training and they talked about the baking conference for a while before Marinette started yawning. She told her parents she loves them and they said the same before Marinette hung up.
At 04h00 the next day, Marinette woke up and got ready for work. She put on a blush pink button-down blouse and a pair of black pants before she left to go to the bakery. She decided to walk to the bakery that morning and was surprised by the fact that Adrien arrived at the building at the same time as her.
"Good morning," he greeted, more cheerfully than Marinette thought someone could be that early. She gave him a smile in response, not ready to say actual words that early. He unlocked the door and opened it for her. She, without thinking, turned on the light and went over to the rack of aprons just like she'd become used to over the years growing up.
She went to the pantry and heaved a bag of flour that would be used to make the baguettes. Adrien was impressed by the fact that she was getting straight to work so readily after her first day the day before. "Morning," she finally greeted when she saw him moving past to get an apron of his own. "Sorry, I don't think I said that."
He chuckled a little bit as he tied the apron behind his back. "Not much of a morning person?" he offered as an explanation. She yawned and nodded in agreement.
"Never really have been," she responded, "in my real life, I'm a designer and working on my own schedule is a lot better for me than these early mornings. I'm happy to help out the owners this time, but… they've known me for practically my whole life, they know that I'm not interested in early mornings more than necessary." He understood her explanation and went to join her in separating out mounds of dough at the worktable.
Marinette was portioning out dough into 250 gram portions. Each ball she portioned out, she put over to the side to be formed into the correct shape later. "You're good at that," he told her when she got 250 grams on the dot for the third time in a row. She had been working on autopilot, but his voice was enough to remind her of her surroundings.
"Huh?" She looked at the food scale next to her. "Oh, thanks. My roommate and I weigh out food for a lot of the recipes we make at home, so I have a pretty good idea of what 250 grams is supposed to feel like." It was only about half a lie, she and Alya did measure ingredients sometimes, but she had a background knowledge of how big the ball of dough should be from when she was growing up.
"I'm surprised that Tom and Sabine brought me on as an apprentice when they had you in their back pocket the entire time," he admitted, which caused Marinette to blush.
"I'm not," Marinette told him, "they want someone who wants to be a baker and while I probably could be, that's not something I've ever wanted for myself. I've heard them talk about you. They like your willingness to learn and the fact that you're passionate about baking. Apparently, Tom had never had a potential apprentice who was as eager to get to work as you are."
It was Adrien's turn to blush under Marinette's compliments. He knew that Tom told him that he was a good apprentice, but the fact that Tom had been telling Marinette, this girl who seemed to have no real relation to the bakery, about him. That was honestly more than Gabriel ever recognized him as part of the design empire when he was growing up.
Adrien bit his lip softly, not sure what to say to Marinette in response to her compliments. The two of them rolled balls of dough in silence and put them onto the baking sheets. While Marientte put them into the oven, Adrien started getting out the ingredients for the croissants. He started mixing the dough and Marinette grabbed out two slabs of butter from the freezer.
She and Adrien were working together in almost perfect harmony. They didn't have to look at each other in order to predict each other's actions. Marinette held out a slab of butter to him and he held out a mound of croissant dough to her. Just like her parents had taught them both, they rolled the dough out into a square.
Adrien folded in his square of butter before putting his will-be croissants into the freezer to stay firm. Marinette, still on autopilot, persevered and immediately started folding the butter into the dough like she'd been originally taught when she was about 4 years old and allowed to be in the bakery during prep in the mornings.
"Wow, you're handling that like a pro," he told her with a bright smile on his face. It was clear in his tone that he was extremely impressed by the fact that she'd been able to laminate the dough as well as she had been doing.
"Yeah," she responded, "I've always been told I'm good at buttering up to people." She immediately cringed at the joke she'd been making to Tom for years. She wasn't prepared for Adrien to burst out into genuine laughter, especially when it wasn't even 06h00 yet.
"Good at baking and you share Tom's sense of humor," he added, "I can't believe they waited until now to introduce us." Marinette giggled and smiled at the fact that the dumb joke she made was as well-received as it was.
"I've been busy with school," she excused, "plus, you saw where I live when you dropped me off yesterday. I can't exactly come by every day to work in the bakery. For the last few years, they've only brought me in as an occasional taste-tester. I did, however, design the shop's logo when I was younger. The store and the owners have always been a huge inspiration to me."
It had been a few minutes since Adrien put the dough away, so he grabbed it back out of the freezer to continue the lamination process. The two of them worked in a generally comfortable silence as they made croissants for the customers.
"What is your biggest irrational fear?" Marinette asked suddenly. Adrien seemed surprised by the question, evidenced by his rolling pin slipping off of his dough. "Sorry. It was a question I thought of on my walk to work, but that's probably a much more serious conversation topic than day 2 coworkers probably deserves."
"No, it's fine," he assured, "I'm just not sure. What do you consider to be irrational?" Marinette didn't immediately know how to respond. It was never something she'd thought of and she figured it made sense why he wouldn't be sure how to respond either.
"I guess something that you don't have a reason to be afraid of," she explained, "you're afraid of it even though there isn't any rhyme, reason, or logic to it. You know? Like, I'm irrationally afraid of zombies. I thought of the question because I saw someone with a t-shirt with a picture of one on it while I was walking here this morning. It's totally fine if you don't want to answer, though."
"No, it's fine," he told her, "I just don't have anything off the top of my head. I'm going to need some time to think of an answer for you. Good question, though." Marinette smiled and got back to work while Adrien did the same.
They returned to their comfortable silence until the timer went off to take the baguettes out of the oven. Marinette took them out and Adrien put the croissants into the oven while she took the baguettes to the cooling rack. "When I was a kid, I used to have this nightmare," he admitted once the croissants were in the oven.
"I don't talk about it a lot, but it was a recurring nightmare that I used to have a couple times a week when I was like 10 or 11 or something. Basically, I used some sort of magic, I guess? To destroy the city of Paris. I don't remember a lot of details, but I've been afraid of something like that ever since. Like, if I'm afraid that somehow, I'll destroy everything and be left all alone."
Marinette wasn't expecting such a serious answer in response to the question that she asked and she couldn't help but feel her heart break for the man in front of her. She'd only been working with him for a few days, but he seemed great so far. He didn't deserve to be as worried about something like that happening.
"I'm so sorry," she responded, "I… didn't mean to make you relive that part of your childhood. It was meant to just be a little 'getting to know you' question." Adrien barely knew why he was as honest and vulnerable with Marinette as he had been, but she seemed nice, she didn't seem like she would judge his fear, even though it was a magical thing that probably made no sense.
"It's fine now," he told her shyly, "it hasn't happened in years, but it was something that really stuck with me. You know?" She nodded, trying to show the understanding she wasn't entirely sure that she really felt. "Hey, you should probably get up front and open the shop," he added, "it's almost 06h30."
Marinette did as Adrien suggested and went out to the front of the shop. She put the prepared pastries into the display and unlocked the front door. By the time she stepped back behind the counter, there was already a line of customers ready to buy a baguette to go with their meals for the day.
Just like the day before, Adrien could hear Marinette seeming to make conversation with everyone who came through. Several of them told Marinette to say hi to her parents while others told her to say hi to Tom and Sabine. She agreed to every request and called every customer that came through by their name.
Adrien stepped into the front to restock the display after the original morning rush when a young man in a red baseball cap sauntered in, looking down at his phone as he entered the shop. "Nino," Marinette and Adrien greeted in unison, both excited to see him. Nino had been expecting to hear the voice of Tom, Sabine, or Adrien. He hadn't been expecting Marinette.
"Nettie," he greeted, "what are you doing here? Where are maman and papa?" He started looking around, trying to see into the kitchen in the back to see if the owners were just baking in the back. "Are they okay?"
"Baking conference," Marinette explained, coming around the counter to give a hug to the boy who had been like a brother to her when they were younger. He met her in a hug and during the embrace, Marinette managed an almost silent whisper, "Adrien doesn't know they're my parents."
Nino, from years of careful listening during his music mixes, was able to barely make out what Marinette had said. When they let go of the hug, Nino knew he had to decide whether to go along with Marinette or let Adrien know the truth. "So, why did they decide to bring you in? I didn't think you liked baking."
Marinette shrugged a little, thankful that Nino didn't seem to be questioning it. "They needed an extra set of hands while they're at the conference so they offered to have Adrien train me so I could help him out with manning the front. What can we get for you?" Nino started looking at the display and considered every option.
"Pain aux amandes, pain au chocolat, two salted caramel macarons, and two lime macarons," Nino responded, just like Adrien knew he ordered every week for him and his girlfriend, Alya. "And tell maman and papa I say 'hi' when they get back from their conference." Marinette agreed with a nod while she bagged up the pastries for him.
"Are you going to be working here long?" Nino asked when Marinette returned to her spot behind the cash register. She didn't have a good answer for him, she didn't plan to, but she was having a really nice time just hanging out with Adrien.
"I'm not sure yet," she landed on saying, "I might try to stay around for the summer. I'm pretty fond of the company I get to keep here." Nino watched a small blush develop across Adrien's cheeks and he couldn't help but smile at the effect that Marinette was having on the guy behind her.
Nino paid for the pastries, with a 15% family discount before he left. "Is he related to Tom and Sabine?" Adrien asked Marinette after Nino left. "He never mentioned anything before."
"No. Not as far as I know, at least," Marinette responded, "he went to the school across the street with me when we were younger. Our class ended up spending so much time here that most of us just refer to the owners as maman and papa. It usually will just slip out if we're around each other." She added a shrug to the end of her sentence before she started wiping down the counters.
Adrien kind of understood what she meant. He never felt close enough to an adult to refer to them by such a casual name, but he also knew that if there were any adults to call maman and papa, it was definitely Mme. and M. Dupain-Cheng.
"How do you usually refer to the two of them?" Marinette was caught strangely off guard by his question. If it were yesterday, she probably would've had to come up with a fake answer, but now Nino handed her an alibi on a silver platter of why she would refer to her parents as her parents.
"Maman and papa, usually. Sometimes, I'll use Tom and Sabine, but honestly, I usually just try to never need to refer to them. It's kind of weird, but I just don't usually like to talk about people, so it almost never comes up where I'll need to talk about them as maman and papa or anything else."
Adrien silently wondered if he could get away with calling them maman and papa once they were back from their conference, depending on if Marinette stuck around or not. If she did, he figured it would be easier to start referring to them as such. If she didn't, though, he didn't think it would be an easy habit for him to fall into.
Mostly, he found himself hoping that Marinette would choose to stick around after the conference ended. He was having fun getting to know her and she did say she was fond of his company. He didn't think that his hopes were too high, but he didn't know how to go about asking her if she wanted to stick around.
While he was distracted by that, Marinette was cleaning up in the back as well. The day in the bakery wasn't too eventful, mostly just the same customers as usual coming through to get the same pastries as usual. During lulls, Marinette would go into the back to help him with baking and during rushes, he would help package orders while she worked the cash register.
Between the comments that she'd made about buttering up to people and being fond of the company at the job, she had sounded like she had been flirting with him. He'd been keeping an eye out, trying to figure out if it was possible that she was interested in him. He gave her part of a cookie that had broken when he tried to move it to the cooling rack.
"It's almost as sweet as you," she commented when she finished eating a small piece of it. He was pretty sure that she was flirting with him after that.
"You've been doing great today," he told her during the lull just after 14h00, "and I have a challenge for you if you think you'd be up for it." Marinette's face brightened and she nodded immediately.
"What's the challenge?"
"Tomorrow, when we come in, you're going to train me," he suggested. "If you can't, you have to keep coming back to work until you can train me properly, even after Tom and Sabine come back from their conference." She was confident in her ability to train him, even though it was only going to be her 'third day.'
"And what about if I complete your challenge?" Marinette asked with a teasing lilt to her voice. He didn't have an answer for that. He wasn't expecting her to win, but he was probably willing to go along with whatever suggestion she had.
"What would you want if you win?" Adrien asked. Marinette stepped a bit closer to him and pointed her finger up toward him.
"When I win," she began confidently, "you have to take me to dinner." If he had known she would be so willing to accept getting dinner with him, he would have suggested that in the first place, but now wasn't the time to have regrets. Either he got to spend more time with her at the bakery, then take her to dinner, or he just got to take her to dinner. Truly a win-win.
"Deal," he agreed, reaching out a hand for her to shake. She did so with a pleased smile on her face. Marinette was confident that Adrien was going to be taking her to dinner and she didn't think she could be any happier about that than she was at that moment. He, on the other hand, was just excited to just spend more time with her in general.
The two of them spent the rest of the day working near each other. At the end of the day, Adrien explained to Marinette that it was one of the days when they washed the aprons and any rags that were used in the bakery, so he walked her up the stairs to her childhood home. It was strange to feel like she was meant to be a guest in the apartment when it was still what she considered to be 'home.'
They did the necessary laundry and Adrien offered to drive Marinette home again. She rejected the offer by saying that she and her roommate were going to be having dinner on this side of town, but really, she just didn't want to have to wake up extra early again when she planned to tell him the truth about who she was the next day anyway.
They exchanged les bisous before Adrien went home and Marinette found herself a little surprised by just how natural the action felt to her. She didn't consider herself to be a very 'touchy' person, but she enjoyed the little exchange with him, especially coupled with the fact that he agreed to go to dinner with her after tomorrow.
Marinette texted Alya that she was spending the night at the bakery and after Adrien left, she went back upstairs to her childhood bedroom, looking through what clothing she still had there that she would be able to wear the next day. She made herself some dinner from the little bit that was in her parents' fridge.
Marinette spent a short while on her balcony that evening, sipping tea and looking over the city. She loved the apartment that she shared with Alya, but she missed the feeling of ease and comfort that came along with being at the bakery and at her parents' house. She made sure her alarm was set for the next day and went to sleep, hopeful that Adrien wouldn't be upset by the revelation that was coming in the morning.
Marinette couldn't help how much energy she had when she woke up the following morning. She was ready to see Adrien for training. She had already decided what she was going to wear the night before when she was looking through her closet. At 04h35, Marinette went downstairs to open up the bakery. She turned on the lights and unlocked the door.
Adrien walked over to the building at 04h40 and was surprised that the lights were already on. He was reminded of the fact that when he arrived on Thursday morning, the door was already open and Marinette was already inside. He made a mental note to ask Marinette why she'd had a key to the building later.
However, once he entered the back room of the bakery, all possible questions left his brain. Marinette was standing in the kitchen, wearing a white pastry chef's jacket with gold-colored piping. Her full name was embroidered in red just over her heart. Her hair was pulled back into a taut bun and she had a bright smile on her face.
"Hey," she greeted, walking over to him as he stood there, stunned and in a state of stupefaction. "You must be Adrien, the new hire." She walked over toward him, extending a hand toward him in introduction. "I'm Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Sorry that my maman and papa couldn't be here to train you, but I have a feeling that you and I will get along well enough without them."
He managed to shake himself out of his stupor and smiled at Marinette. He reached out and shook her hand. "Of course, it's nice to meet you, Marinette. Before we get started, though, I have a quick question that I'm hoping you would be able to answer for me."
"Definitely," she responded with a bright smile on her face. "What's the question?"
"I was wondering about the bakery's views on dating in the workplace. I was really hoping to go on a date with the girl I was working with yesterday, but I don't want either of us to get in trouble with the owners." A blush bloomed across Marinette's face when Adrien said the word 'date.'
"Well," she said with a smile, "it just so happens that the owners are plenty happy about the idea of workplace dating. In fact, the two of them met at work when they were young. I happen to know that they've always been hoping for their bakery to be home to a meet-cute. I also heard that the girl you were working with is busy having dinner with her parents tonight, but should be free for dinner tomorrow after you finish work."
"Dinner tomorrow sounds perfect," Adrien responded. "For now, though, we should get started on opening the bakery."