Take a Bite Out of Evil

Day 5 – A Day Off

Takes place Post-Reveal, but Pre-Hawkmoth defeat. Marinette and Adrien are currently dating.

In the dark morning, two lone figures stared up at the bakery sign, the bright light within spilling onto the street pavement. One rubbed his eyes sleepily while the other merely studied the exterior with doubt. He turned to the other, who now stifled a yawn.

"Adrien, you're grounded."

The sleepy boy snapped his jaw closed. "What? Why?"

"For coercing me into this entire mess," the other replied.

Adrien rolled his eyes. "It's not like I forced you into anything, Father, you're the one who agreed to the wager," he grumbled, then shot a cheeky grin to him. "And lost."

The taller man glowered at his son. "You could have warned me to what I was agreeing to."

Adrien chuckled. "You've made countless deals in your lifetime. You expect me to believe that you wouldn't know a bad deal when you see it?"

Gabriel was cut off from replying when the door opened and a dark-haired girl peeked out, her eyes half-lidded with sleep. "I thought I saw you two lingering out there. Come on inside. We have a lot of work to do before we open in an hour." She beckoned them in. Adrien entered first, followed by Gabriel, and Marinette locked the door behind her, stifling her own yawn. "Good morning," she said, politely yet tiredly, "my parents are in the back. They're baking the breads, but we have to prepare the pastries, too."

Her hair was still disheveled and she looked like she wanted to curl up on the floor and go back to sleep right then. Gabriel idly wondered if she was only awake because Adrien and he were there. He glanced to his son and found him watching his friend with a mischievous smirk. How could she look so energetic during her internship when she clearly wasn't a morning person?

She led them through to the kitchen, where two people were busy rolling dough with flour-covered hands. They looked up at the arrival.

"These are the helpers I was telling you two about," Marinette said. "Mr. Agreste and Adrien."

Her parents exchanged a quick look. "Ah, Marinette, I didn't realize Adrien's father would be helping," Tom said. "I thought it would be Nino and Alya. Mr. Agreste, whatever my daughter has told you, you really don't need to help."

"I insist," he said. "Please call me Gabriel. Your daughter and I had an agreement and I will uphold my end of it. It's my day off today."

Sabine frowned. "Does this have something to do with all those outfits you designed last week after your dinner with Adrien?" she asked her daughter.

Marinette nodded with a proud smile. "Yep. I was told it would be 'impossible' to create five outfits in a week that would pass Mr. Agreste's standards."

"And she presented five impeccable outfits, much to my astonishment. My senior designers would have difficulty with such demands, let alone a student."

Tom chuckled. "We've learned not to underestimate Marinette when she puts her mind to something."

Marinette walked over to the cabinet and rummaged around for a moment before withdrawing a few aprons, which she handed to Adrien and Gabriel. "These will keep you clean."

Adrien immediately put his on with a giant grin, Gabriel hesitated a moment to remove his jacket and roll up his sleeves. Marinette tucked his jacket away in the closet so it wouldn't get dirty.

"What are we going to do?" Adrien asked, bouncing on his toes in excitement.

Her parents consulted a small list for a moment. "How about decorating the cookies?" Sabine suggested. "Tom and I can get the pastries baked and ready for the opening, but the cookies really should be iced and decorated. Marinette can mix the dye and prepare your stations."

"Great!" Adrien exclaimed.

Gabriel merely nodded. He could handle decorating. "Any particular theme?" he asked.

The two shook their heads. "Just have some fun with it," Tom said with a chuckle, never once pausing in his firm kneading of the dough in front of him.

Within minutes, Marinette had several bowls of dyed icing in front of the three of them and a dozen plain cookies next to each person. She dipped each cookie into the icing, scraped off the excess with the edge of a dull knife, and set it aside. She had three finished before she looked up at the other two, watching her.

"Do you guys need help?" she asked.

That jarred them both into action.

"Can I make mine black?" Adrien asked.

She paused and tilted her head at him. "Black?"

Adrien leaned forward with a conspiratorial wink. "Chat Noir needs some love."

Marinette giggled and pushed him back with the tip of her finger. "Chat Noir does just fine on his own," she replied. But she mixed some cocoa powder into the icing and a big dollup of black gel and after a small taste for palatability, she pushed the bowl over to Adrien with a smile. "Keep some of that for me, kitty," she said with a wink.

"Oh?" Adrien spread some of the chocolate icing onto his cookie. "Do my cookies have a fan?"

Marinette dumped some red gel into her bowl. "Chat Noir needs his partner," she replied with a coy smile, spreading her own red icing and setting it aside. Adrien beamed at her. "But now I have all these cookies with white icing on them," she lamented.

"I could eat them," Adrien suggested, the picture of innocence.

"I'll use them," Gabriel said. "No eating the profits yet, Adrien," he admonished lightly. He reached over and grabbed Marinette's cookies and slid the equivalent amount of un-iced ones over to her.

Adrien pouted for a moment, then focused on his task at hand. The two teens worked in companionable silence, save for the occasional joking remark tossed between them. Adrien seemed convinced that his chocolate cookies would be more popular than Marinette's Ladybug ones. She merely scoffed.

Gabriel ignored both, tuning out their lighthearted banter and focused on his own cookies. He alternated between a chocolate and vanilla base for the icing. He asked Tom and Sabine occasionally if they needed assistance, but they churned out the food with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine. With a laugh, they gently declined his assistance each time. Gabriel wondered if they were worried he would clog up their perfect rhythm. Truthfully, he was a bit worried he might as well.

Eventually, the black, white, and red bases were dry and the three of them began to add their respective toppings. A green paw print for Adrien, chocolate dots for Marinette and pink icing for Gabriel. He declined to take a side in their miniature war and remained silent on his own design.

That was until Adrien looked over with a gasp.

"You can't do that, Father!" he exclaimed.

Which prompted Marinette to look over at his dozen or so finished cookies. Hawkmoth's akuma mask shone on them, drawn by an expert hand (he was a professional designer, after all).

"Why not?" Gabriel asked, finishing up another cookie and setting it aside. "My lines are straight and uniform," he cast a sidelong look over at Adrien's cookies, "and actually resemble my intended design." Adrien's cat prints looked more like blobs than the distinctive cat print of Chat Noir. Gabriel grabbed a clean toothpick. He leaned over Adrien's cookies and flicked the toothpick through the tips of the dots. When he finished, the amorphous blobs looked a bit more like claws.

"That's Hawkmoth's akuma! We can't sell those," Adrien said.

Gabriel rolled his eyes and lifted his hands, squinting as if imagining a banner. "Take a bite out of evil," he intoned, spreading his hands apart as he spoke. "Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Tom chuckled. "That's an interesting idea," he called from the other table.

"Dad!" Marinette protested.

"Fathers have to stick together," Tom replied with a wink at Gabriel.

"Thank you, Mr. Dupain."

"Oh, please, we're well beyond that. Call us Tom and Sabine."

"Okay, then, Tom. May I propose another wager?" Gabriel asked. "We'll create our cookies and see whose end up being the most successful. Okay?"

The two teens looked uncertain, but Sabine spoke up. "That's fine with me, Gabriel," she said.

"Then it's settled. Better hurry up," he said, motioning to their own cookies. "They'll still need time to dry."

Twenty minutes later, they each had three dozen cookies decorated and ready for sale. Marinette placed a dozen of each kind onto platters and carried them into the bakery while Adrien and Gabriel cleaned up. Afterward, Adrien was sent to help measure ingredients while Gabriel and Marinette created placards for the special cookies.

In addition to his "take a bite out of evil" line, Gabriel also added "chomp down on your frustrations" and "eat your anger and sadness instead of letting it eat you" to his descriptors.

Marinette looked at him oddly. "Well, now I know where Adrien gets his sense of humor from," she had remarked before gathering up the cards and heading back into the bakery, leaving him staring after her in confusion. What did that mean?

Before he had time to ponder it further, Sabine walked up to him. "We open shortly. Would you like to help out Tom back here or ring customers up in the shop?"

Gabriel glanced over to see Adrien measuring out cups of flour with a look of intense concentration on his face. Sabine chuckled as she followed his stare. "Adrien already volunteered to take the first shift in the kitchen helping with the baking," she said.

"In that case, I suppose I'll head out front." Gabriel lifted off his apron and swapped it out for a clean one. Sabine led him out front. He arranged his cookies on the tray in the glass counter display, noting that Marinette had added two cards to the other cookies that read "Cookie Charm" and "Chococlism". And she had the nerve to scoff about his sense of humor. Afterward, Sabine showed him the basics of the register.

And then it was time to open.

For the first half hour, Gabriel and Sabine worked in a nice steady tandem – he rang up the customers while she grabbed the pastries and chatted with them. When the initial opening rush died away, she patted his shoulder and said "I'm going to check in the back and let them know what we need to replace out here. You're doing great," she complimented.

He nodded and she left.

And then all hell broke loose.

It was as if the customers could sense he was new. They attacked, a frenzy of tired, hungry sharks devouring weakened prey. Fresh blood.

While Sabine was here, the customers lined up neatly and orderly and politely pointed to their desired treats. Her absence also took away all civility. People hounded the counter, fighting, pushing, screaming.

"I want three croissants. No wait, two croissants and a fruit scone. Oh, and a cinnamon twist. And a slice of banana nut bread."

"I want a half-dozen chocolate chip cookies."

"Hey, I was here first!"

"Uhm... how much is the orange scone? Hmm, how about the cherry danish? Oh, can you split between cash and a card?"

Gabriel's head spun with dizziness at the insanity that exploded. He darted around behind the counter, snatching pastries, ringing up orders, voiding other orders, desperately trying to maintain some sort of structure to his work flow.

"Enough!" he finally bellowed. The shop quieted instantly. He leveled a glare at them. "Stop acting like insolent children or I will treat you like insolent children!" He paused for a moment to take a deep breath and smooth the ruffled strands of hair that had gotten loose in his frenzied dash around the counter. The customers froze, staring at him with open mouths of astonishment. He straightened his back, shooting his towering form high above most of the customers. He narrowed his eyes and mustered up his deadliest "corporate board meeting" glare. "You will form an orderly line," he commanded, his voice deep and firm yet never above a normal conversational level. "You will have your order ready to be placed when you arrive at the counter. You will be polite and courteous to your fellow customers. Anyone, and I repeat anyone who disobeys these rules will be sent to the back of the line. No exceptions."

It was not for nothing that he was able to bring roomfuls of employees and colleagues cowering to their knees when displeased. The customers blinked at him for a long moment, wondering if perhaps he was joking – and after all, how could he, a lowly employee, order them around? They were paying customers!

The ones up front grumbled and attempted to jostle their way to the front of the line again. Gabriel glowered at the group, exuding authority even while wearing a lacy apron. They shrunk back a few steps and reconsidered their stance.

At last, one stepped forward with a sheepish apology and a polite inquiry. "May I please have two chocolate danishes and one of those akuma cookies?"

"Certainly" Gabriel replied, heading to collect the required pastries. He rang up the customer and the man departed with a shy thanks and a handful of baked goods. Gabriel looked up. "Next."

Two stepped forward simultaneously. They glared at each other.

"I was here first," one woman declared.

"No, I was," the second exclaimed.

"Back of the line, both of you," Gabriel ordered, raising his hand to halt their talking. "I do not have time to hear your bickering. You could have spent this time ordering."

"But-"

"Back of the line."

He pointed and the two froze for a moment before huffing and mumbling about complaining to the owner about this. Gabriel ignored them. He was only here for a day. After that, Sabine and Tom could deal with this headache. He looked at the next customer.

"I would like a plain scone and one of those akuma cookies."

And so, the next half-hour flew by as Gabriel maintained order and efficiency in the bakery with an iron-clad grip. Word quickly spread down the long line about the "mean new guy" and his "rules" but Gabriel also received several compliments about how quickly the line moved. He made swift work of the customers and even the ones sent back to the end of the line were served and out of the bakery within five minutes. He carefully noted the pastries that began to run low on a tiny notepad, and wondered if he should risk stepping away for a moment to inform the kitchen when Adrien peeked his head out. His eyes widened at the large crowd of people gathered there.

"They sent me up here to see if you needed a break or wanted to change shifts."

Gabriel frowned. These people would dissolve back into their frenetic craze the moment he left. They would eat Adrien alive and the poor child wouldn't have a clue what happened. "No, I'm good. But I am running low on these items," he said, tearing off the paper and handing it to Adrien, never once pausing in his ringing up of the current customer. "Can you bring some more?"

Adrien looked over the paper and nodded. "I'll be right back."

He vanished in the back and Gabriel looked to the next customer. "What can I get for you?" he asked.

A few customers later, Marinette and Adrien stepped back into the shop, carrying platters of fresh pastries. The smell wafted through the bakery and several people turned their eyes towards the two children, both of whom were oblivious to the reactions of their entrance.

"Ah, uhm," the current customer darted his eyes nervously from Gabriel to the pastries, "those smell delicious. Would you be able to add one of the apple tarts to my order? Ah, if it's too much trouble, don't bother."

Gabriel nodded, hit the button and went over to grab the desired pastry from the tray. The customer sagged in relief, grabbed his order and change, and hurried away.

"So, Father," Adrien spoke up from the side where they had been restocking the cookies. Gabriel didn't pause in his button tapping.

"Yes, Adrien?"

"How are the cookies selling?" There was a hint of mischief in his eyes.

"Wonderfully, thanks for asking," Gabriel replied. "Since you're in that cabinet, can you grab me six akuma cookies and three each of the Ladybug and Chat Noir ones? You might also want to add another batch of the akuma cookies to the replenishment sheet."

Marinette and Adrien both stopped and stared up at him. "The akuma cookies are selling?" Adrien asked at last, mouth open in astonishment.

The customer he was currently helping, who ordered the dozen cookies, laughed with delight. "They're amazing," she praised. "Who would have thought of such a brilliant idea? I know my coworkers are going to enjoy taking their own 'bite out of evil'."

It took all of Gabriel's acting skills to keep his face an impassive mask of neutrality and not send a giant satisfied smirk at the two teenagers. He continued ringing up the customer and handed over the bag of requested cookies.

Adrien and Marinette quickly finished up their jobs and darted into the back to assist with the baking.

This went on for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. The crowd slowed after the lunch period until finally Sabine emerged from the back. Gabriel wondered if she had forgotten about him.

"You're a lifesaver, Gabriel," she praised. "Tom received a phone call for an unusually large order that had to be completed today. Thankfully, he and Marinette were able to fulfill it while Adrien assisted me with the rest of today's baking. If there was ever a day that we needed you and your son, we were certainly very lucky to have you both today."

She reached over and tapped a few buttons on the register. Her eyes bulged out. "Gabriel!" she gasped, "You sold all of that and didn't call for help?"

He shrugged. "I didn't really need it. I had things under control. Although," he admitted, his voice abruptly taking on a slight sheepish tone, "you might get one or two complaints about me."

"But it was so quiet out here," Sabine said, still in shock over the excessive volume he had brought in. "When Adrien and Marinette came out to restock and reported that it was busy but you looked like you had everything under control, Tom and I assumed that it was a fluke rush."

"Sabine," he said in a low, steady voice, "I was fine. I had everything under control. Once I exerted a bit of courtesy rules and strictly enforced them, your customers – though unhappy – obliged to my whims and things ran excessively smooth."

She turned to him with a beaming smile. "Thank you, Gabriel. Head into the back now, I'll finish closing up shop for the day."

He acquiesced and headed to the back kitchen as Sabine began to tally up the day's sales and take note of the remaining limited inventory.

Adrien looked up as he entered. In the few hours he had been out front, his son managed to somehow find himself completely covered in flour and streaks of multi-colored frosting. The boy looked like someone attempted to tie-dye a snowman.

Next to him, without a speck of flour or smudge of frosting on her, stood Marinette, calmly washing out frosting tips as Adrien uncapped them from the bags while wearing brightly colored gloves.

"How..." he looked back and forth between the two of them. "Do I even want to know why Adrien is covered in flour and Marinette is perfectly clean?"

The two kids exchanged embarrassed glances.

"Well," Marinette began, rubbing the back of her neck. Both teens blushed furiously. Gabriel noticed Tom in the background, grinning madly. "I'm pretty clumsy," she began.

He refrained from rolling his eyes. He had experienced her special kind of clumsiness during her visits with Adrien at his house.

"And well," she continued, "I kind of tripped and was going to land in the middle of that flour bag."

Uh-oh. He could see where this was going.

"And I couldn't let her do that," Adrien stepped in, "so I managed to grab her and swing myself around. I ended up falling into the flour bag." He beamed at Marinette, who flushed a dark red. "At least she ended up unhurt!"

"And the frosting streaks?" Gabriel questioned.

Now it was Adrien's turn to flush dark red as he held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. "Did you know that frosting dye uh... stains?"

Oh dear, those were not gloves on his son's hands. Gabriel closed his eyes. His photographer was going to have a field day with this. He took a deep breath before opening his eyes, dreading the answer to the next question he forced out. "And how did said frosting get on your face and arms?"

Adrien reached back and scratched the back of his neck before catching himself. He grimaced. Gabriel immediately understood, despite Adrien verifying it with a sheepish, "Uh, I forgot?"

Tom must have noticed Gabriel's pale face because he spoke up. "Don't worry, Gabriel, we know several tricks to get even the most stubborn food dye off skin. Baking soda, white vinegar, toothpaste, even oil-based makeup remover. We've used all of this before. Adrien will be good as new for his upcoming photoshoots."

Adrien grinned at him. Gabriel just shook his head and headed over to Tom, who seemed to be struggling with something.

"Do you require assistance?" he asked.

The baker stopped his struggles for a moment. "Nah, just setting the ovens to self-clean."

Feeling a bit out of place as he had nothing to do, and he hated sitting around idly, he grabbed a washcloth and began to wipe down the counters, stacking up the dirty bowls into a neat pile off to one side. They worked in quiet tandem, with Tom cleaning up the more complex equipment, Gabriel wiping down the working surfaces, and Adrien and Marinette washing the dishes (interspersed with the occasional flicking of water into each others' face).

Eventually, Sabine came back, carrying the bag of money and the remaining pastries all boxed up. "Wow, there wasn't much left today," she exclaimed.

Immediately, Adrien and Marinette looked over in unison. "How did the cookies sell?" Marinette asked.

"Wonderfully," Sabine remarked. "We only had a few leftover."

Both of the teens looked to him, then back to Sabine. "How many of each?" Adrien inquired.

"Hmm, I think two Chat Noirs and four Ladybugs?" She held out the box to them. Adrien eagerly snatched it and opened it up, staring at the contents.

"Where are the akuma cookies?" he asked, poking around the box. Marinette peered in beside him.

"Oh, those sold out," Sabine answered, waving her hand in feigned nonchalance that fooled no one.

Gabriel finally allowed that smug smirk that had lingered on his lips the entire day drop in full force as the two turned to him in shocked disbelief. He rolled his shoulders into a shrug. "What? I know marketing strategies. I do run a successful company."

Author's Note: Another fun, humorous prompt :D I started this with the intention of keeping it in the same universe as my "Revealing Week" stories, with Gabriel getting into the spirit of making (and losing) bets to the Dupain-Chengs. But I kinda abandoned it partway through for other ideas, and then picked this back up for this week. I had to adjust a lot of the dialogue to make it more formal again, as in this story Marinette is just Adrien's girlfriend.

Special thanks to PerditaAlottachocolate for pointing out LOTS of mistakes and inconsistencies in this story. Again, it was a bit tricky to change the imagined background of the story midway through writing it, but she certainly kept it in line.

Check out her works, they're a brilliant addition to Gabriel Appreciation Week!

Additionally, the cover image was designed and created by her! She also created another image for Ladybug and Chat Noir's cookies, but I can't link them here, sadly :(