Got a request for a baking chapter and I'm happy to oblige!
I was actually at a convention the other day and Ladybug and Cat Noir's Voice's were there, I was waiting in the line next to Bryce Papenbrook's and I couldn't unhear Adrien no matter what voice he did.
Marinette hardly ever got sick. She had to stay healthy to fight evil. But even she had to come down with the flu, eventually. It just so happened to be on the day she would be needed most by her parents. The ill girl groaned when her mother took her temperature. "I'm not sick! It's just sinuses!" Marinette's voice was stuffy and tired.
"Even if it were just a cough, we wouldn't let you help today." Sabine removed the thermometer, which indeed proved that her daughter had a fever. "I know you want to help your father and I with the catering order, but you should never handle food when you're unwell."
Her parents received a massive catering order, one that would require an extra set of hands to help complete on time. Without Marinette, they'd maybe just barely finish before the deadline. "It's so much for you two to handle!" the sick girl reminded her mother. "And is the hazmat suit really necessary?"
Yep, her mother was dressed in a full body hazmat suit. "I can't risk getting sick, too. But we won't be short on help. A few of your friends volunteered to help with the baking!"
That was a relief. Tikki must have called for help on the Miracusquad group chat. "Really? That's so-wait…" Marinette's relief vanished. "Which friends?"
"What up Mr. Dupain-Cheng!" Nino saluted the man at the front door.
"We heard you needed some extra help." Mylene piped up beside him.
"So we're here to do what we can!" Zoe joined in as well.
Frankly, it wasn't the worst group that could have covered. That would have been Kim, Alix, Rose and Kagami. Kwami knows how much chaos ensued when they were in charge of making lemonade for the school picnic. "Fantastic!" Tom clapped his hands together. "Now, how much experience to you all have with baking?"
The teens' answers overlapped each other. "Zero." "None at all." "I've made toast."
A beat of silence followed their responses. Tom's grateful smile crooked nervously "... Ok then!"
OXOXOXOX
"We'll start you all off doing something simple." Tom addressed the trio of secretly superpowered teenagers. Each wore an apron as they listened intently. They figured that combined they could have the same level of efficiency as their leader, they could cover each other's shortcomings like they did in battle. Right?
The three were presented with a massive pile of dough, along with several baking sheets and chocolate chips. "We need you to prepare fifty chocolate chip cookies each. The dough is already prepared. It just needs the chocolate chips and to be molded into regular cookie sizes." Tom explained, "Think you can handle it?"
"Absolutely!" Zoe enthusiastically affirmed. Even little kids could make cookies. This would be easy!
The actual baker left them on their own to join his wife in preparing the more difficult desserts, and the three got to work. Nino took a handful of dough and squashed it flat, putting it on the tray before sprinkling chocolate chips on top. "Uh, Nino-" The boy looked up at the concerned mouse heroine "I don't think that's right."
"What do you mean?! Cookies are flat and round!" Nino argued.
"Yeah, but they expand when they bake." Mylene tried to explain, "You have to roll them into balls of dough, like this." she held out a smooth orb of dough.
Nino scoffed, "I think I've eaten enough cookies in my life to know what I'm doing." he continued his same process for his entire batch, which held fewer cookies than the other two trays.
Mylene had rolled all of her dough into little balls but nearly forgot the chips. She hastily sprinkled them over the top and hoped they'd stick. Zoe mixed in her chips as she rolled the dough, though none of her cookies came out round. She tried her best to replicate what Mylene was doing, but somehow all of her dough became perfect cubes.
The three put their trays in the oven and waited until it was time to take them out and reveal the results. "Aw man…" Nino couldn't hide his embarrassment or his cookie when he took his tray out. Yes, cookie, singular. His large flat cookies melted together into a giant, thin cookie that took up almost the whole tray with a few holes here and there. He didn't even know if they could remove it without washing the cookie off with a hose.
As much as Mylene wanted to say 'I told you so' she couldn't, her own cookies didn't come out right either. The cookies themselves looked fine, but the chocolate chips had rolled off her super smooth dough and if the cookie was lucky, it had a single chip in it while the remainder coated the bottom of the tray. "Oof. How'd your cubes turn out, Zoe?"
Zoe, in utter astonishment, pulled out a tray of perfect cookies. No cube shaped mishaps whatsoever. "I have no idea how this happened." The bee heroine admitted.
Moving at the speed of plot, Nino and Mylene quickly replicated Zoe's cube cookies and baked their own shares. Their kwami's helped themselves to as much of Nino's cookie as they could scrape off, with little Pollen breaking off another piece to take up to the kwami living upstairs. She'd appreciate the snack after dealing with her holder…
OXOXOXOX
"Stay down Marinette!" The tiny primordial being tried to shove her human partner back into bed.
"No! What if the kitchen is already destroyed?! What if the kwami's get discovered?! MY PARENTS WOULD FREAK IF THEY FOUND MULLO OF ALL KWAMIS!" Marinette struggled to leave her loft, what with Tikki swinging a pillow around to block her exit.
OXOXOXOX
Tom inspected the trio's work. "Some of the cookies are a little small, but overall, good job!" The teens relaxed, their first task accomplished. "This next one will be a little more difficult. We need macarons in lots of different flavors. You guys will be in charge of the chocolate, lemon and raspberry batches."
"Dibs on chocolate!" Zoe picked first, with her friends dismayed to lose out on the flavor. Nino took on the lemon and Mylene took the raspberry, each grabbing a recipe card from Tom that explained how to make their batches while he and Sabine worked on the remaining flavors.
There was much more work to do compared to the cookies. They had to start these from scratch and make the batter themselves. Sabine kept her eye on the three while working on her own. "I really think we should show them how to make these."
"Sabine, we can't afford to slow down. These are Marinette's friends. We can trust them." Her husband attempted to assure her.
"I trust them. But they've never made macarons and Nino is already over mixing it." His wife pointed out, gesturing to the boy whisking the egg mix like he wanted to kill it. Heavy metal music could somehow be heard when someone looked at him, really. Tom looked and turned away a few times and the music came and went.
"... Yeah, I'll pass around some pointers." Tom saw what she meant.
Upstairs, Marinette was trying to sleep. Then her eyes opened as the faint hum of heavy metal hit her ear. "SOMEONE IS OVER MIXING THE BATTER!"
"Marinette, if you try to leave again, I won't hesitate to use force." her kwami fluffed a pillow threateningly.
Downstairs again; Tom yanked the bowl away from Nino. "You can't mix that hard. Macarons are soft and delicate and they need to be made as such." He explained.
Nino was guided to see how the girls were mixing and realized his error. "Huh, look at that. Thanks dude-Ugh-I mean Mr. Dudepan!" He didn't cringe afterwards, leading Tom to realize he had intended to say the second name.
Mylene and Zoe moved ahead while Nino redid his batter. Mylene studied the food coloring paste she was about to use, peeking at the recipe card quickly. She did as it supposedly said and added half of the coloring to the mix. "This seems like a lot… Mr. Dupain?" The baker came over to the girl that called him. "This seems like a lot of coloring? Is this healthy?"
"No! That's way too much!" Tom hurriedly put on a glove and scooped out as much coloring as he was able to. "It should only be half a teaspoon!" He took the recipe card and saw the error. "Ok, this one's on me. The coloring should only be half a teaspoon, not half of the whole container."
The mistake resolved, Tom relaxed and went over to rejoin his wife. He saw Zoe was already at the piping stage and instinctively rushed over. "Wait! You need to-" There was no need to correct anything. Zoe had piped her share in perfect circles. "... You've never baked before?" he asked incredulously.
The bee heroine shrugged, "Not once."
Tom put a hand on her shoulder. "You have a gift."
OXOXOXOX
The smell of macarons reached the top of the building, where Tikki sat on a ledge. She'd finally gotten Marinette to agree that she was too ill to help bake and to rest until she was better. All that was left was to sit back and enjoy the beautiful day.
That's when Mr. Pigeon flew overhead with his army of birds.
"Oh no."
"TIKKI SPOTS (hack-cough) ON!"
OXOXOXOX
Towers of different colored macarons covered an entire table. The trio of volunteers stood proudly by the stacks they produced. About two batches had been lumpy or cracked, but they came out great on the second try.
"We've got a few smaller pastry batches left to do-" Sabine told the teens "As well as get everything packed up to deliver tonight. You kids could help load it up, or you could help with one more pastry." She gave them a choice.
"What kind of pastry is it?" Mylene raised her hand.
Sabine held out a recipe card for them to see. "It's something brand new, a honey-filled tart."
Nino and Mylene simultaneously turned to Zoe, who seemed puzzled by the expectant looks they all gave her. Even Marinette's parents were watching her. "... why is everyone staring at me?"
"Your kind of a natural at this," Mylene pointed out.
"And it's got honey, which is Polle-" Nino caught himself before outing her kwami "-nated by bees. Which you love, right?" Nino nervously laughed "Don't-don't you love bees… and honey…"
Zoe took the recipe card and looked over it. "... yeah! I can do this!"
"Fantastic!" Tom clapped "I'll bring over what you'll need, while you two-" he pointed to Nino and Mylene "Help get everything packed and into the Catering Car" He revealed a very merchandisable car, perfect for producing as a toy playset for Miraculous themed toys. (Coming never to a store near no one!)
Her friends started packing up while Zoe got everything set up with Tom. Soon, the ingredients and tools were all laid out on the table in front of her. The heroine took a deep breath and prepared to bake "Here I go."
Bright words raised on screen (if this was visual) and a disembodied, deep voice called out "FINAL ROUND. READY… BAKE!" and the mechanics of some sort of high difficulty rhythm game played with epic music to… Zoe calmly stirring the flour mixture for the crust "WICKED!"
The rhythm graphics sped up while Zoe gently pressed the dough into disks and wrapped them to refrigerate for a half hour. "AWESMAZING!" They sped up even more while she patiently waited for 30 minutes to be over. "TOTALLY TUBULAR!"
Zoe rolled the dough and distributed it evenly between the pans "EPIC!" She slowly whisked the custard base over a stove while the crust was baking "HOLY SHMOWZOW!" The buttons of the screen caught fire and lightning shot everywhere when Zoe carefully filled the crust with the honey filling. "ULTIMATE DEATH COMBO WOMBO!"
When the tarts were done, the score screen exploded and removed any trace of the video gameplay imagery. "These look nice." Zoe wiped her brow, admiring her work. Pollen, who was hidden under the table, had been given a drop of the honey custard filling by her partner. The kwami's eyes sparkled when the taste reached her tongue. It was the (wait for it…) Bee's knees.
"Those smell amazing!" Mylene complimented, she and Nino returning to the kitchen.
"Bet they taste even better." Nino tried reaching out to snag a tart, only to have his hand whacked away by Mylene. "But I wouldn't know that since these are for the customer." He awkwardly chuckled.
Sabine and Tom approached and gave the tarts the final pass. "Amazing job, Zoe! Are you sure you don't want to be a baker?" Mr. Dupain asked.
Tempting as it was, Zoe had to decline. "Sorry, but I really want to be an actress. However, I wouldn't mind helping out from time to time."
The tarts got packed up into the merchandise-tie-in vehicle and they were only twelve minutes behind schedule. "Thank you, kids, for all your help today." Sabine thanked her daughter's friends. "Now Marinette can rest easy knowing the order has been finished."
OXOXOXOX
Ladybug finished purifying the akuma and returned to her room. Barely able to open the door before de-transforming and face planting straight down into her bed from the rooftop. Tikki went flying out of the earrings and toppled down the ladder to the bottom of her chosen's room. "Three hours. That battle lasted three hours." the exhausted kwami groaned. All of her hard work getting her partner to rest was for naught.
Tikki sighed. She was too tired to give a punchline to this subplot. So how about we end this with a happy moral? If at first you don't succeed, the resulting mishap will be much funnier.