"So what do you think?" Marinette said in a shy voice that radiated falsehood.
Damian winced with every chew he made. That was as good an answer as any as Alya tried to suppress the chirps erupting from her throat.
The boy nodded his head slowly before hesitating to swallow the baked monstrosity he regretted accepted.
"Yep," he mumbled through the crumbs. "It's good," he said as he raised his thumb to the girls.
"Oh, well I'm glad you like it. Here, have some more," Marinette grinned as she held out the tray for him.
Before the boy could rapidly decline the offer, Marinette had already grabbed Alya out of the kitchen and into the living room area of their less than humble family bakery.
"I can't believe he ate it!" The brown skinned girl burst out as she held onto her knees.
"Me too!"
The pair peeked their heads in back in the kitchen to see the black haired teen grimacing at the tray of salty delicacies that was ungraciously shoved in his hands.
"Geez, he's kind of just standing there. I'm starting to feel bad at this Alya."
"Aw, come on girl! The worse that could happen is him getting the runs and suing your family bakery over it."
"What?!"
Marinette's eyes would have rolled out of her head if it wasn't for the sockets connected to them.
"Alya, you know we can't do that! My Dad can't lose this place and Mom's planning on renovating! It could ruin us."
Her best friend pinched her nose to reset her thoughts.
"Relax Mari. He wouldn't do that. Probably."
Marinette was close to bucking her knees before Alya squished her cheeks.
"That's besides the point right now. He ate the cream puff and he played along. Damian's a real teamplayer, Mari. He would totally go along with our plan."
The blue head scrunched her nose in thought. Alya needed a better criterion of choosing prospectus partners-in-crime. The fact that he smiled in the face of saltiness was admirable, Marinette herself won't dare sacrifice herself for the sake of pleasantries but she did feel like she would someday need to return the favour.
As the shameless Alya rumbled nonstop about being unable to capture a photo of his face mid-chew, Marinette spotted Tikki floating around in the corner of room with a very displeased look on her face. Knowing that full well that the creature was growing impatient at her inaction, she secretly flashed her a nervous smile, one that she swiftly crossed her arms to be for disappearing into the ceiling.
Dupain-Cheng needed solid proof fast, before Tikki stopped communicating with her entirely.
"Okay girl it's time to get out there," Alya sang as she dragged her friend into the kitchen.
The moment their heads whipped around, Wayne was gone.
"Did he just bail out on us?" Alya said in a confused tone.
"Of course he did!" Marinette said as she grabbed her pigtails.
In retrospect, inviting the new kid in school to your house and offering tampered food is textbook bullying and bullying was a very Chloè think to do! Even if it was just a 'harmless' totally made-up initiation ritual into a knock off Sherlock Homes documentary.
Marinette couldn't turn into Mean Girl 2.0 because she couldn't afford the impending lawsuit!
"I'm too young to be in debt Alya! If mom finds out she'll bake me into a dumpling," Marinette shrieked.
"Well, at least you might be able to pick what flavour you want to be," Alya chuckled nervously as she pointed Marinette's head towards her mother, who stood across the kitchen with a rolling pin in hand.
Marinette could feel the fright of her life creeping up on her as her mother mouthed 'Pork with red bean paste, boiled', before gripping the corner of her daughter's cheek in reprimand.
"You didn't mention anything about a house guest," her mother said in Mandarin. "And you've already mistreated him. What if he wanted to court you?"
"Mom!"
Marinette's cheeks flushed at her mother's obscene thoughts. This is why she was afraid of being any of her male friends around, every whisper she would have about them ended up in marriage. Having a very ethnic mother wasn't in the plan.
"If he's not here for marriage then don't bring him. If you want him to stick around then go up stairs, apologize and treat him like the First Emperor!"
Marinette unwillingly mumbled a quiet yes as her mother let go of her cheek and planted a kiss on it. As Mari wiped the kiss off, Alya bowed as she gave Mrs Dupain-Cheng a formal greeting.
"And stop bringing this one around! Her mother tells me that she's been misbehaving lately."
The blue head nodded in agreement before dragging her friend up the spiral staircase leading up to her bedroom.
"Let's go apologize for the mess you caused Alya," Mari groaned as Alya gave a small wave to her friend's mother.
As the door to her pink polka dotted room swung open, Marinette's stomach hung low. Having a boy in her room, especially when that boy was Damian felt so sickly.
Thankfully, he didn't seem to have subdued to any food poisoning as he sat on her rotating chair with his legs cross. He looked so out of place in his all black outfit amongst a room filled in baby pink wallpaper. It was a bit unsettling.
"Sorry about the delay Damian, had to deal with a small disturbance," Marinette said as she elbowed Alya in the gut forcing her yelp out a half baked apology of her own.
"So I guess this means I've passed your test?" He enquired with an eyebrow raised.
"Righty-roo Mr. Wayne and now we move onto the planning phase."
Marinette sighed and sat squarely in the middle of her bed as Alya struggled to push out a whiteboard from her closet. Throughout the huffing and puffing she happened to shift her eyes towards the billionaire boy who had his eyes dead set on her.
That icky feeling caught up to her again. Was there something on her face? Those emerald eyes were making her flustered as she turned her head to the full body mirror that stood in the corner the room. Her face was turning pink by a tad bit. Just a tad.
The spectacled girl cleared her throat and clapped her hands together.
"Alrighty, the goal is to snoop around for Hiro's key card to gain access into his hotel suite, now-"
"Hold on, you said we were going to an interview," Damian interjected. "So, aren't we supposed to be helping you form questions?"
Alya shrugged her shoulders dismissively. "I could that part on my own. I'm the journalist and you two are going to be my investigators. I've done my research, Hiro's a genius when it comes to toys but has the attention span of a hamster on the world’s slowest trend mile. I'm about to experience the most mentally draining interview a news report can ever face, a boring scientist."
"So much for excitement," Marinette said as she crossed her arms.
Damian pinched the bridge of his nose. " So how do we get into his suite?"
"Have you ever committed a crime Mr Wayne?" Alya said in a sinister tone.
"It's quite easy," Marinette said without a hint of hesitation. "Everyone knows that the high ranking guests get the presidential suite on the top floor, the only problem is getting your hands in the key card."
"Yep and there's only two copies of that card available, the one given to the guest and the one held by the Major of Paris, Mr Bourgeois himself. We can't do the usual ,'I lost my card!' scenario. He already knows our faces."
"But not Damian's."
"So what you are saying is that you two have broken into the presidential suite of the best guarded hotel in Paris?" Damian asked as a half smirk spread across her face.
"Almost. Hawkmoth decided to use one of his goons to trap everyone out of the hotel that day. We were so close to figuring out where Jagged Stone's hid last year's VVIP tickets to the Midsummer Festival, " Alya groaned as she began scribbling onto the board. "Okay people we need solutions!"
Marinette stood from her bed and took the marker from her hand and drew a cute little music box in the centre of the board.
"Operation Pyjamas?" Alya said with a familiarity that frankly concerned Damian a bit further. "We haven't pulled off that trick since middle school."
"Well, we never know unless we try, right?"
Damian let out a small cough as he let out a wearily smile. "What exactly does Operation Pyjamas entail?"
"Turkey sandwiches and mom's secret fever juice."
"Do I even want to know what that entails?" Damian pondered as Alya brought up her phone to his face and showed her countless pictures of herself passed out on top of Mari's pink quilt with some sort of purple liquid at the corners of her mouth.
"Oh this stuff works baby. God knows what Mrs Dupain-Cheng brewed and fermented into at 20 year old glass jar downstairs but it sure does give me the best nap I need to sleep off the fever."
Marinette recalled her mother telling her never to drink her mystery healing brine if she wasn't sick but curiosity had gone the better of her one day. Naturally she had told Alya and the two decided to do a test run one afternoon. The effects were so immediate to the point that the pair fed it to Chloè to see if she would fall asleep during classes. It was safe to say that the blonde saw detention at the end of the week and her appetite for turkey sandwiches diminished.
"Marinette even has a few of her own," she giggled as she scrolled past dozen of photos of Marinette's body fighting off the induced sleep causing the boy to smirk in amusement.
Some pictures came out with more drool than Marinette liked causing the blue head to snatch her phone from Alya's hands to save her from embarrassing herself before their esteemed guest. She didn't even remember taking a drop of the liquid.
"Let's not take photos without anyone's permission anymore and just focus on the plan," she said as her cheeks failed to calm down.
Before Damian could get a word in, Mrs Dupain-Cheng's voice rang out the phrase "Dinner's almost ready!" A sign that signalled it was time for the "unwanted" guests to leave.
"Okay, one take! I'll bring refreshments, Hiro eats the sandwich, we wait for him to fall asleep and offer to take him to his suite. Damian, you'll ask the Major for the key card. I'll be on lookout outside the room and Alya looks around for whatever the prize is. Does that sound good?"
Alya raised her thumb in enthusiasm while Damian gives off what seems to be a half-hearted nod.
"Great!" she said clapping her hands together. "Now leave."
Marinette grabbed Alya by the shoulders and soldiered her out of the room.
"I'll text you the details for tomorrow girl. See you at school," she said as her voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs.
The teen let out a sigh of relief before turning around and receiving the fright of her life when she saw Damian Wayne was still seated on her rotating chair.
"Oh, yeah," she called out nervously.
"I don't need to guess that you don't want me here either," he said as he stood up and headed straight for the door.
Stopping by the opening, the black-haired teen takes one look around before his eyes finally land on a poster on the wall that showcased a blond model.
"I guess even you have distasteful infatuations," he said before looking at her. "You know how to hide your spandex well, I'll give you that. But next time, maybe decorate your bedroom with just solid colours. It would look better without the spots."
As the boy descending down the spiral staircase, she felt reality crashing down around her. She really needed to talk to Chat.