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The accident wasn’t her fault.
Still, it was her clothes caked in flour, her hair sticky with slops of wet dough.
He at least had the decency to look sheepish as he stood there, still holding his now empty mixing bowl, vacated of the bread he had been learning how to make.
A tiny giggle rose up from a covered basket of sweets and cheese breads set on the counter. She gave it an exasperated look, and the cloth cover fluttered as a pair of tiny heads dove back underneath, giggling intensified. She rolled her eyes at their kwami, but she couldn’t bring herself to be mad. The whole situation was pretty ridiculous.
“Adrien, just put down the bowl.”
Adrien quickly complied, setting it down gently on the countertop. Not that it made much difference; everything was already covered in wet flour. He grabbed one of the few clean towels.
“I’m sorry, Marinette,” He apologized for the umpteenth time as he tried to gingerly rub her head clean with the towel, but it didn’t do much good. The dough stubbornly refused to release her hair, and Marinette shivered as the now-cooled water oozed down the back of her neck. Adrien hastily wiped that up too, still apologizing all the while.
“It’s—no, kitty, it’s fine.” Marinette finally pushed his hands away. “I’ll deal with that later. Don’t worry.”
Adrien held the towel in both hands, looking a bit lost. “I knew baking was hard, but…” He hesitated, twisting the towel absentmindedly. “I didn’t know it was this… messy.”
Marinette had to fight the urge to laugh at his expression. At all of this, really. She tugged the towel out of his grip, and started to scrub the bits of dough off the wall. “It’s not usually this messy,” she admitted. “Then again, I don’t usually fling an entire bowl of wet dough at my baking partner.”
Adrien’s face burned a bright red. “I didn’t mean to!”
Marinette paused in her cleaning, actually thinking about it. “How did you manage that, exactly? You were mixing it just fine, and I left for a minute to pick some herbs.”
“I, um—”
“Then I come back and you just assault me?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t—”
“You know, if you didn’t want to bake today, you could have just said—”
“I did want to!” Adrien finally cut through her teasing. He was starting to look irritated, and Marinette felt a twinge of guilt for her ribbing. “I was having fun, and then you came back and I was really excited to show you the progress I’d made with the dough, and I just… turned around too fast.”
And everything in that bowl had come flying out to paint the kitchen in a layer of nasty. Marinette could understand. They were slightly too strong for some things in their civilian life—a side effect of being superheroes. Sometimes, that just meant that you ended up covered in flour and regret and there was nothing to do but move on with your life.
“Sorry, kitty.” It was Marinette’s turn to apologize. “That was a little harsh. It’s not your fault.” She offered him a friendly smile, and he returned it, the relief evident in his eyes. He stepped towards her and, before she could react, scooped her up in a full hug.
Marinette shrieked with surprise and delight as she was lifted slightly off the ground. “You’re getting dirty,” she admonished as Adrien buried his face in her shirt.
“Now we’re even,” he laughed, his voice muffled. Too soon, then, he set her back on her feet, grinning behind a mask of crumbling beige. It was stuck in his own hair, now, and without thinking Marinette reached up to pick out a particularly gnarly clump.
They stood silently, then, each trying to dust off the other’s clothes and face, futile as it was. Finally, Adrien spoke up.
“Do you think I could try again?”
Marinette smiled, softly. “Of course,” she said. “We can try bread again, or cookies, or…”
“Bread,” Adrien affirmed quickly. “I want to do that one first, and then if we haven’t destroyed your parent’s kitchen, I want to try cookies, and macaroons, and everything else you’re willing to teach me.”
“I’ll teach you everything! I was surprised when you’d agreed to bake with me today,” she admitted, “but I’m glad you did. I didn’t know you had an interest in this kind of thing.”
“Maybe I just want to spend more time with you, princess.”
“Flirt,” Marinette covered her mouth to keep from giggling. “It’s a shame you can’t stay longer, then.”
He shrugged, and snaked his arm around her shoulder, tugging her close. “I guess I’ll just have to come over more often,” he purred.
That wasn’t fair, with those eyes, and that smile. Marinette wanted to make some quip about her skylight always being open, but it wouldn’t come. It was unfairly like her crush before she found Chat Noir’s identity. Once the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, Marinette made the decision to keep her feelings quiet despite Adrien’s confessions, from two parts embarrassment, one part professionalism, a sprinkling of fear of losing her partner, and shaken thoroughly until she deeply regretted every choice she’d ever made.
Now, as if he knew exactly what he was doing, he planted the seed of doubt in her mind. Maybe she could reevaluate the whole swearing off romance thing. Just in theory, of course. For now.
Until then, though, they had work to do.
“We’d better get started on that bread before it gets late,” she warned, and Adrien’s face lit up. He let go of her shoulders and hurried himself along to where they’d stashed the ingredients, mumbling to himself as he grabbed things at random and brought them to his section of countertop.
“I need this, and—ah, I think this was…no, I need…there’s some—"
Marinette watched her partner fondly as he stumbled his way through her parent’s recipe, offering advice and intervening when needed. His food didn't always turn out perfectly, but he was definitely improving, and she was proud of him for trying. They baked together for the whole of that afternoon, into late evening and the beginnings of night.
Long after dark, Marinette’s parents came home to find the pair snoozing on the floor, propped up against terribly floured kitchen cabinets and each other. Marinette’s head was practically in Adrien’s lap, and he held her close as they snored, surrounded by misshapen loaves of bread, lovingly charred cookies, and the remains of a lopsided but beautifully decorated cake. The mess was impressive, but unwilling to wake their kids, Tom and Sabine mutually agreed that cleanup could wait until morning.
It didn't hurt to take a quick picture, for the kids to blush and stutter over later. That, too, though, had to wait until morning.