Miraculous Ladybug Choose Your Own Reveal: If You Feed A Stray...

[soc_puppet]

Cat Noir and Ladybug are hiding behind a car. Cat is fairly certain that Ladybug would call it "Strategic retreat for tactical reassessment" or something, but he calls it like he sees it. They're pressed up pretty close to each other and peering over the side of the car at the akuma when a rumble sounds between them, coming from Cat Noir. Cat's ears droop and his cheeks go dark. "Cat Noir, this is not the ti—" Ladybug starts, then cuts herself off when the rumble that could have been mistaken for a purr turns into a gurgle that cannot be mistaken for anything but the growling of Cat Noir's stomach.

Cat looks away. "I hate mealtime akuma attacks," he says. "I get why they happen, people are always easier to upset when they're hungry, but it usually means I end up missing a meal myself, and I'm hungry pretty much all the time anyway." He risks a glance at his Lady. "I know teenage boys are notorious for how much we eat, but my nutritionist still doesn't know where I'm putting all of it, and I can't exactly come out and say I'm burning all those extra calories during my part-time gig as one of Paris' superheroes."

Ladybug looks at him with concern, but their collective attention is drawn back to the fight as flaming debris flies over their heads.

Later, once the supervillain is beaten, the akuma cleansed, and the customary fistbump observed, Ladybug instructs Cat to meet her in ten minutes on a near-by rooftop, no excuses. Perplexed, Cat Noir follows her instructions, and goes to the roof she indicated for a quick detransform-recharge-retransform and to wait.

A short while later, Ladybug shows up with an armload of bread and pastries from... somewhere. "These are for you," she tells him, "no arguing."

He wants to, wants to ask her why, how she got all of this, wants to at least try and shove some money at her to repay whatever she spent on this, but he knows that expression; she won't accept any of it. So instead he smiles gratefully at her and takes the bread. (It's from Tom and Sabine's Bakery and Patisserie, by the scent, he thinks (and, later, the taste). He wonders if Ladybug got it from Marinette.)

Once he's finished half a baguette, Ladybug informs him in no uncertain terms that she's going to make sure he's fed properly from now on.

Option One: Ladybug arranges to meet him on that same rooftop once a day and will feed him the hell up.
-- Option One A: Her identity is eventually revealed when she makes too much of something and takes the leftovers in to school to share with Nino, Alya, and Adrien. Adrien recognizes the meal immediately.
-- Option One B (courtesy of alexseanchai): Her identity is eventually revealed when she makes him something with coriander, unaware that he Cannot with coriander, and [click here for more...]

Option Two: Ladybug arranges to leave him a meal at a pre-arranged location for him to pick up at a pre-arranged time. She leaves the food in a very cunning lunchbox, reminiscent of Marinette's diary trap, which only she and Cat Noir have the keys to. Adrien starts leaving her effusive thank-you notes after every meal, with lots and lots of puns.
-- Option Two A: They run into each other on the way to either drop off or eat food
-- Option Two B: One of them finds the other with a note or notes written by Cat Noir
-- Option Two C: Marinette recognizes a pun in one of Cat Noir's notes as one that Adrien was researching recently

Option Three: Ladybug starts taking Cat Noir on what she emphatically insists are not dates after every akuma attack and patrol, No Matter What. Both of them try really hard to pay for their food, but absolutely everyone else insists that the superheroes of Paris eat for free. Not sure how the reveal goes here, possibly via Andre the ice cream guy?

Option Four (Courtesy of dinoblob): Absolutely convinced the pastries are from Tom & Sabine's, Chat Noir insists on thanking Marinette personally which results in a series of almost-reveals including but not limited to: [click here for A, B, and C]

Options Five: (Courtesy of silveradept): Ladybug accidentally gives him personalized items
-- Option Five A: Bread made in a "signature" style or literally signed by Marinette, but not sold at Tom and Sabine's
-- Option Five B: Passionfruit macarons that were imperfect rejects from Marinette's latest "I make one for Adrien every week!" batch, a flavor not offered at Tom and Sabine's

Options N+1: IDK, you write these ones. (Anon is open, but please sign your comment and/or include a handle somewhere!)

(Note: Current plan is to write at least the outlines for these in comments, and then link to them in the main post.)

Comments

[alexseanchai]

😻😻😻

(also: still confident the general assumption is—and Adrien wants it to remain—that Adrien is eating all that Camembert himself)

[soc_puppet]

(This seems quite likely, yes, though I dunno if I'll touch on it at all.)

[alexseanchai]

option one except it's not that she made too much that time, it's that it's a new recipe and there's coriander and she was unaware that he cannot with coriander

later in class: "you know I love you, but I still can't eat coriander"

(who melts down fastest upon processing that, though, Marinette, Adrien, Alya, or Lila?)

(I'm gonna go with Alya or Lila because Marinette and Adrien—who are possibly too tired bc last night's akuma to be thinking clearly, but possibly they do not in fact have that excuse—legit do not notice they are not, in fact, currently Ladybug and Chat Noir alone somewhere until someone else gets their attention strongly enough for them to register the current context)

[soc_puppet]

😁😂🤣

[alexseanchai]

should clarify 1B has in common with 1A that Marinette brings the uneaten food to class to share

[dinoblob]

Option 4: Absolutely convinced the pastries are from Tom & Sabine's, Chat Noir insists on thanking Marinette personally which results in a series of almost-reveals including but not limited to,

A: Tom and Sabine mentioning Marinette hasn't been around baking tonight and Ladybug acting all "H A HA, so weird, wow we better go find her, I'll start first--"

B: Chat Trying to go to Boulangerie Patisserie first to one-up Ladybug by picking out her favorites first, nearly catching Marinette retransform

C: Adrien starting to miss certain treats during school and trying to cozy up to Marinette for even more pastries--they both come dangerously close to blabbing their identities, "Do you think you could bring some of those peach macarons to lunch tomorrow?" "Oh... well, they're going to be out of season soon and I'm saving them for a friend." "*dying inside* I know Chat will appreciate them" "what" "what"

etc etc, until finally a baking mishap occurs due to Marinette's sleep deprivation: an engagement-style mini round birthday cake with a small plastic gatcha-like container inside with a love note professing Marinette's love for Adrien, addressed to Adrien--except Ladybug and Chat Noir are dining out on the rooftop. Chat finds the gatcha ball and is dodging Ladybug chasing him as she realizes she grabbed the wrong cake, he can't READ THAT but Chat is a child and wants to see the prize inside the cake LOL

because it's addressed to Adrien and Ladybug SPECIFICALLY brought this cake for their notdate, when Chat reaches the end of the note, he figures that Ladybug found out his secret identity a long time ago, and professes his also undying love back to her, much to her confusion until he detransforms for an embrace and Ladybug screams to death.

[soc_puppet]

This is very, very adorable, and I wholeheartedly approve.

[silveradept]

Option n+1: Marinette signs her bread in a similar way to how she signs her designs, and while she was trying to make sure she only ever grabbed things Tom and Sabine made, she slips up. Cue hilarity as Adrien tries to buy Marinette loaves, only to find Tom and Sabine don't sell their daughter's work yet.

[soc_puppet]

Professional baker lost some time trying to figure out how this would work. Options include:

* A specially made/altered pan with her signature molded into the bottom to stamp the bread
* A specially made cooling rack with a special design/her signature worked into the wiring (something I've contemplated before)
* Probably most likely, a special food-only stamp that she use with food coloring to mark the bread (something we've done with some cookies where I work)
* Baguettes or other bread shaped in a special, unique way that Marinette came up with for something (possibly a project?) (something I did in class)

Related option (so... n+1A?): She accidentally grabs a bunch of passionfruit macarons (see: Animaestro, and this is about the only time I will say that) that she originally made for Adrien/were the not-quite-perfect rejects from her weekly "I make one for Adrien every week!" batch. "Hey, my favorite!" says CN. "Oh, what a coincidence!" says LB. CN recognizes the quality and goes looking for them at Tom and Sabine's, only to find out that they don't offer passionfruit macarons...

[alexseanchai]

silveradept, like this? (ish? when they come out of the oven, Marinette is standing by stripes and Roland by grain, but Chat's description says stripes is traditional and grain has a more delicate flavor, and I can't actually see which Roland is surprised by the taste of)



soc_puppet, how do that?

[soc_puppet]

Oh, right! That'll generally be done by scoring (that is, cutting slashes in the "skin" of the bread so it develops controlled cracks rather than uncontrolled ones). The lighter color on the outside is likely from rolling or dusting the loaves/boulles in flour before proofing (= letting rise) and scoring them. The "stripey" way has major advantages, in that it helps control the growth more evenly, and is generally something to aim for especially in rounded loaves. Basically, with round loaves, symmetrical is your best bet.

Marinette scoring her initials into a loaf has definite potential, but a lot of detail can be lost in proofing and baking.

Brushing something on in egg wash would also be an option, especially if she sprinkled some sort of accent/garnish on top of it, such as sesame seeds or turbinado or pearled sugar, which would probably hold up better in shapes.

Another option might be a really flat, thin extra piece of bread stuck on the top that she treated like cutout sugar cookie dough; again, there's still the danger of losing shape in proofing and/or baking.

To best control the way the shape comes out, using some sort of pan or brand while baking would probably be the most efficient, but I'm not sure Marinette has the skills to make anything like that or the contacts who would make one for her—yet.

[alexseanchai]

*learns things*

[soc_puppet]

Come to think of it, there's also edible rice paper transfers that you can make with edible ink; it'll probably either be that or the stamp method I mentioned that are how Marinette got the Tom and Sabine logo on the macarons in Origins. If she made her own stamp or logo, that could fit the bill here. Not sure how well it'd do on bread, but it absolutely works on at least buttercream-type icings; if that's how she did it with macarons, it'd probably work okay on breads at least, especially with lighter-colored crust. (Lighter colored bread is less common in Europe than the US, from what I'm aware; they like longer baked/more color on their bread across the pond, and my old teacher agrees with them. "Color = flavor!" says he.)