"It's the best ice cream place in town," Alya promised when she cornered Adrien and Nino. Nino had needed no persuading when she initially extended the invitation; since he had lived in Paris for nearly his entire life, Nino was more than familiar with the ice cream parlor that Alya had mentioned. Adrien, on the other hand, had never gone out for ice cream before.

He had been allowed it on occasion, of course, he had assured Alya and Nino when they looked absolutely horrified by this admission. It wasn't healthy, so it wasn't part of his regular diet, but he occasionally had a scoop of ice cream for dessert at dinner during the summer. He had just never gone out and bought ice cream elsewhere.

"They have so. many. flavors," Alya continued, waving her arms a bit wildly. "Hundreds. They don't have everything out for cones every day, of course, but they have the really popular flavors out every day and then the stranger ones rotate so that they're out once a week. And then they have everything out for sale in containers- y'know, like the ones you would buy at the store."

Adrien did not know. He hadn't ever been to the grocery store, either.

"You need to come, bro," Nino pleaded, shaking Adrien's arm. "It'll be fun. And the flavors are overwhelming at first, sure, but it's so cool to look at what people have come up with."

"Nino is attempting to try every flavor at least once," Marinette chimed in, joining them. "Are you coming, Adrien?"

"That's what we're trying to persuade him to do," Alya told her friend. She turned back to Adrien. "Please? I know you want to, I can see it in your eyes-"

"I'll try," Adrien promised. It did sound interesting, after all. He hadn't ever had any particularly fancy kind of ice cream before, so even if he wasn't going to try to try everything like Nino (he was a bit of a picky eater sometimes, after all), it would be fun to try something a little more exotic than mint. "I don't know if I can get Nathalie to let me come, but I'll try."

It hadn't actually been that hard to persuade Nathalie to let him go out for ice cream after all. As soon as Adrien mentioned the name of the ice cream parlor that they were going to be visiting, Nathalie's eyes had lit up. She had granted Adrien permission to go without even consulting his father, on the condition that he get a single scoop of ice cream and not their gut-buster cone, and she had even sent along a little cooler half-filled with ice and money for Adrien to buy her a container of her favorite ice cream flavor.

"I didn't even know that Nathalie had a sweet tooth," Nino had said in amusement as soon as Adrien had told him the story. "That's crazy! She's cooler than I thought."

Adrien could only grin. "She's done a lot for me in the past," he had admitted freely. "She was the one who persuaded my father to let me go to public school. If I really need to talk to father about something, she'll make space in his schedule even if it makes things a bit inconvenient for her. She's not bad at all, really."

"We're almost there!" Alya called as she and Marinette led the way towards the ice cream parlor. "It'll be a little chilly inside, just fair warning. And there might be a bit of a line."

"That's not a problem, we'll just wait in the line while Adrien picks up his container of ice cream for Nathalie," Nino responded quickly. "And it's not super-hot outside yet, so the line won't be that bad. There have been times when the line goes out the door and down the block," he told Adrien. "They have a lot of workers, so things always move pretty quickly, but there's also just a lot of people who want ice cream from them."

Adrien grinned. He couldn't wait.

Soon enough, Alya was pushing open a glass door with blue and green decorations covering it. The group entered, and then Adrien stopped dead.

Glass-doored freezers covered two and a half of the walls and were filled to the brim with containers of ice cream. Labels on the doors identified the many kinds of ice cream inside. The other walls had boards with what flavors were served on what days and prices for various sized cones. Adrien caught sight of two men with what had to be the gut-buster cone Nathalie had told him about. They were impressive in size, but he felt a little ill at the idea of eating so much ice cream at once.

"Are these organized in any real way?" Adrien asked, gesturing at the walls of freezers. "I'll be here all day looking for Nathalie's ice cream if not."

"Really popular stuff is in the first case, and then it's alphabetical," Marinette said helpfully. She pointed. "See, there's signs above each freezer. So what was it that Nathalie wanted?"

"Caramel something...ah-ha! Caramel Balsamic Swirl.," Adrien said as soon as he found the little slip of paper in his pocket. He glanced over at the freezers. "Okay, so it'll probably be in the B-C freezer?"

"Probably." Nino glanced over at the oversized flavors signs on the opposite wall, probably trying to decide what flavor to try next, then he looked back at Adrien quickly. "Do you want me to help you find it?"

Adrien waved him off. "No, I'm sure I'll be fine. You figure out what flavor you're gonna try today." Before Nino could protest (or Alya could try to shove Marinette after him; why the reporter insisted on doing that on a regular basis Adrien wasn't certain, but Marinette didn't ever seem particularly comfortable with it), Adrien trotted off to grab a basket. He didn't want Nathalie's ice cream to start melting before he could get it in the cooler, and he knew full well that if he tried carrying it under his arm like he could see someone else in line doing, the ice cream would do just that. From there it didn't take long for him to locate the ice cream Nathalie wanted. Like all of the flavors, it came in two sizes- one with three and a half servings and the other with six. Adrien consulted Nathalie's slip of paper again before grabbing the larger of the two containers and tucking it into his basket. Even if Nathalie had intended for him to buy the smaller one for her (which he doubted, since she had sent along just enough money for the larger container), getting too much was always better than getting not enough. Besides, she worked for his father. She definitely deserved a whole boatload of ice cream.

Adrien was about to close the freezer when he saw it. Camembert Ice Cream.

"Camembert ice cream?" he murmured, making a face. That definitely sounded...gross, honestly. "Who would eat tha-"

"I want some!" Plagg said immediately, popping his head out of Adrien's book bag to peer around him at the container he held. The kwami hadn't been too enthused about the outing when he first heard about it, but his attitude had definitely done a 180 now. "That sounds delicious! Please, please, please-"

Okay, he had definitely walked straight into that one.

"Nino's gonna think that I'm crazy," Adrien grumbled, but he added the ice cream to his basket without two much arguing, partly because he didn't want people thinking that he was talking to himself and partly because Plagg was going to win the argument eventually anyway. He picked the smaller container, just in case Plagg ended up not liking it. There was no way that he was going to eat the leftovers if that ended up being the case. "I hope you know that."

"Nino has poor taste, then," Plagg said loftily, eyes narrowed in contentment as he watched Adrien close the freezer and head back to join his friends with both Nathalie's ice cream and Plagg's in his shopping basket. "I can't wait. I could kiss whoever came up with that ice cream."

"Please refrain from kissing any of the employees here," Adrien sighed as he got closer to the line. He couldn't even imagine the chaos that that would cause. He poked Plagg back into his bag without even glancing over his shoulder.

"I'm making no promises," Plagg's muffled voice said from inside of the bag. Adrien tried not to look too exasperated.

"Did you find it?" Alya asked as Adrien joined them in line. She glanced down at Adrien's basket and immediately recoiled. "Camembert ice cream?"

"It's, uh. I have a model friend who loves the stuff," Adrien lied quickly. "I thought they might find it interesting."

"You need friends with better taste, dude," Nino said with a laugh, turning back to face forward in line again. It wasn't a moment too soon- seconds after Nino turned around, Plagg came flying out of Adrien's bag like a tiny vengeful comet, tiny paws balled into fists as though he was planning on duking it out with Nino. Adrien only just managed to catch Plagg's tail in time before he could bowl into Nino.

"Lemme at him!" Plagg squeaked, struggling against Adrien's hold. "He dares insult my one true love-"

"Plagg, shut up and get back in the bag," Adrien hissed, struggling to pull the tiny god back. For such a small creature, he sure could be hard to pull around.

"-I'll flatten his sorry rear-"

Nino glanced over his shoulder and Adrien only just managed to yank Plagg out of sigh. "Did you guys hear something just now?"

"-make him regret ever saying anything-"

"Yeah, I hear it too," Alya said with a frown turning towards Adrien. "Did you hear it too, Adrien?"

Adrien was going to murder the little monster when he got home. But he couldn't do that now, not with all three of his friends watching him. Instead, he scrambled for an excuse.

"Oh! Y-yeah, I must have bumped my phone or something and, uh, this thing I had up on YouTube started playing again-"

"-I'll avenge my love's honor-"

"Is that seriously some sort of soap opera thing?" Alya asked, her eyebrows rising almost dangerously high on her forehead. "Really, Adrien?"

"Heh, yeah, I guess," Adrien lied through his teeth after a moment of thought provided no better excuse. "And now I'll quick deal with my phone! Don't mind me, just go ahead with whatever you were talking about before, heh heh..."

Before any of his friends could question his odd behavior, Adrien set his basket of ice cream and the cooler around and half-turned to try to give himself a little privacy. Thankfully no one had gotten in line behind them yet. He shoved Plagg into his bag and gave him as icy of a glare as he could manage.

"-I'll-"

"I will put that ice cream back if you don't cut it out right now," Adrien hissed as quietly as he could. Plagg immediately shut up, stopped struggling, and twisted around in Adrien's hand to glare back at him. "I'm not kidding."

"But-"

"Unless you want to expose my identity to everyone in this shop, you need to stay in my bag," Adrien reminded Plagg through gritted teeth. "Okay?"

Plagg scowled and floated down to the bottom of Adrien's bag. "Fine."

"I can't believe you watch soap operas, Agreste," Alya teased as Adrien straightened up again, trying his best to keep an innocent expression on his face. "Those things are terrible. I could recommend some actual quality things you could watch instead if you were interested."

Great. Now his friends all thought that he actually watched soap operas. Thanks a bunch, Plagg. "Uh, I think I'll pass, thanks. It's mostly for, uh, background noise. For when I'm doing homework and, uh, the house is too quiet."

"I'm questioning your taste level," Alya decided, shaking her head in exasperation. "The anime I could understand. Same with comics. Superhero stuff is cool, so of course I understand that, but soap operas? Weird."

Adrien would normally be inclined to agree, of course, but he couldn't say anything. Thanks a lot, Plagg. Instead, he had to force something resembling an embarrassed grin (not an expression that he often had to make during photoshoots- in fact, he could probably safely say that he had never had to practice faking that particular expression before) and give an awkward little laugh. "Y-yeah, I guess they aren't, uh, for everybody?"

"Maybe we just don't know about the good ones," Marinette suggested a bit timidly as their group moved forward in line. She glanced over at him, and if Adrien hadn't been so desperate for the topic to drop because he was totally lying and he was not a good liar, he would have appreciated the support. "Are there any shows in particular that you like...?"

"Oh, no, they're all awf- I mean, it's mostly just for background noise, I don't really listen to them properly," Adrien said hastily. He hadn't ever watched a soap opera in his life; there was no way he would be able to come up with the names of a few halfway decent ones (that was, if such a thing even existed) on the fly. "I- yeah. Don't listen to them really."

"There's some hope for your taste levels yet," Alya drawled sarcastically. Then she narrowed her eyes at him. "Unless you're lying and you do actually listen and you're just trying to hide your tracks."

Adrien tried not to react at that. If he played dead, would his friends all drop the soap opera thing and move on? Thankfully, he didn't have to test that. The line moved forward again and the signs with the flavors being served that day came fully into sight. Nino's attention immediately shot to the list, and Alya was thankfully distracted a moment later as her boyfriend exclaimed, "Hey, is that a new flavor?"

As Alya and Nino debated whether or not the flavor in question was really new or if it was just a more obscure one that he hadn't noticed before, Adrien let himself scan the list. Even though only a fraction of the flavors were offered each day, there was still an intimidating list to choose from. Since Nino had threatened to disown him if he went with vanilla (or chocolate, or strawberry, or mint, or any other of the more common flavors), he had to actually scan fairly far down the list. Camembert wasn't listed (thank goodness, or Plagg might have tried to pull something), but there were definitely some other flavors that sounded interesting (and some that sounded like an actual nightmare).

"Do you know what you're getting?" Adrien asked Marinette, who was watching the other two bicker with a vaguely interested expression.

"I was thinking of doing salted caramel," Marinette said, pointing the flavor out on the list. "It's one of my favorites."

"Salt in ice cream is good?" Adrien hadn't been expecting that. It just sounded like a weird combination of flavors.

"When it's done right, yeah." Marinette glanced up at the list, then back at him. He must have still had a disbelieving expression (or maybe just a slightly overwhelmed expression) still on his face, because she added, "They do give samples if you ask. You can't taste everything in one go, but if you have a few things that you can't decide between..."

Adrien glanced up at the flavors sign again and this time, he spotted the note at the bottom. Ask us for samples! No more than six free samples/customer/trip. Additional samples 10c each.

"Nino does samples of things that he knows he isn't going to like so that he can say he's had them," Marinette added after a moment of silence. "And things that he's not sure about before he orders them. I wouldn't be surprised if he asks for a couple samples today even if he's already decided on what he's going to have."

Adrien grinned. That definitely sounded like his friend.

"I think I have a couple things I should sample, then," Adrien said, glancing back at a few flavors that he had previously discarded as especially weird, but if Marinette said that the salty-sounding flavors were good, then he wouldn't be so quick to ignore them, especially since his only hang-ups about those flavors were that he wasn't sure how they would translate into ice cream. "Have you ever had the white chocolate pretzel flavor?"

Marinette glanced up at the board, finding the flavor he had mentioned. "I don't think so. Are you going to try that?"

"I'll sample, at least. It sounds like it might be interesting." He hadn't actually ever had any white chocolate-covered pretzels, but it sounded like it might be a good flavor.

It was a fantastic flavor, as he discovered several minutes later. The salted caramel that Marinette had mentioned was also fairly tasty, but the white chocolate pretzel?

He was going to have to come back more often just to have that. If this was how Camembert tasted to Plagg, he couldn't even blame the kwami for his obsession.

Speaking of the kwami...

The little pest hadn't waited long at all after they got home before he ended up perched on the edge of a glass dessert bowl, stuffing pawfuls of the Camembert ice cream in his mouth. Adrien had somehow managed to smuggle the extra container of ice cream in without Nathalie noticing, and Plagg hadn't wasted any time before demanding that Adrien serve up some of his treat.

"This stuff is amazing," Plagg said, tossing the last bit in his mouth and then zipping around the bowl to lip up the leftovers. "Can I have the rest now?"

Adrien scoffed as he tucked the container into the minifridge/freezer in his room. "Not right now, you can't. I shouldn't have given you any, to be honest. Bad kwamis shouldn't get any ice cream."

Predictably, Plagg scoffed. "Me, a bad kwami? What did I do?"

Adrien briefly wondered if Plagg had already forgotten about the incident with Nino, if he hadn't seen that he was doing anything wrong, or if he was just pretending that he was innocent. It was hard to tell with Plagg sometimes. "You nearly exposed me to my friends! And now they think that I watch soap operas, of all things!"

"You need to get better at coming up with excuses," Plagg said with a yawn, showing off his tiny fangs as he reclined in the now-empty glass bowl. "If you didn't want your friends to think that you watch soap operas, then you should have said something different."

"What should I have said, then?" Adrien demanded, indignant. "And I wouldn't have had to say anything if you hadn't tried to fight Nino!"

"If Nino hadn't insulted Camembert, then I wouldn't have had to fight him," Plagg drawled lazily. "So blame him if you want to try to blame something other than your lousy excuse skills."

Adrien could only sigh.

a/n: As with most of my stories, this is a one-shot and is therefore complete

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