Marinette’s tail lashed back and forth. <Bad idea Bridgette, bad idea> she mewed desperately.
<Come on, join me!> Bridgette insisted, jumping up to an even higher shelf, shoving the flour on it slightly to the side.
It wouldn’t hurt, right? And being up high sounded so nice-
Marinette shook her head vigorously. Bad Marinette, bad! Just because you look like a cat, doesn’t mean you are one. Have some self-control! <There’s not much room up there, you’re going to->
Bridgette knocked into a bag of flour. It teetered precariously for a second, then-
*WHUMPOOF*
It fell over, knocking Bridgette off along the way. Flour scattered everywhere in a grand explosion of powder.
Marinette coughed a lot, keeping her eyes tightly closed and rubbing them as best she could with her paws to get the flour off her eyelids. After it’d had a moment to settle, she cautiously blinked her eyes open.
The flour bag lay in front of her, flour coating EVERYTHING in a white explosion.
The flour bag appeared to have acquired a new occupant, as its previous tenants were spread all across the kitchen.
<HELP!> Bridgette wailed from inside the upside-down bag, running around blindly and sneezing repeatedly. It looked like the bag had gained sentience and acquired legs, which… Eh, screw it, wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she’d seen in the past week.
<I told you not to do it> Marinette scolded. <Now hold still!> She grabbed the edge of the bag with her teeth and jerked her head, knocking the bag on its side and freeing the smaller kitten.
Bridgette blinked her eyes open, rubbing them with her paws. Not that it helped much with how completely drenched in flour she was. Her black fur now appeared lighter than Marinette’s own gray coloring.
Footsteps pounded on the floor, Sabine rushing in a moment later. She blinked, taking in the sight of the two flour-coated kittens, along with the powder strewn everywhere. She let out a deep sigh. “What am I going to do with the two of you?” she asked, exasperated.
Bridgette looked down, ashamed.
Sabine just shook her head. “You two need baths!” she declared.
Marinette froze.
NO NO NO NO NO NO.
WATER BAD. BAD WATER.
(Read on AO3)
Desperately she started licking herself, hoping her grooming would convince her mother that a bath was unnecessary.
Her mom raced over, stopping her before she could get more than a few licks in. “You know how dangerous eating raw flour is,” she told her daughter. “Or… well, I guess right now you probably don’t remember. But I can’t let you get yourself sick with salmonella.”
Oh. Right. That was a thing.
She squirmed half-heartedly as her mother picked her up. Dammit Mom was right, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it!
“Don’t think you’re off the hook either!” she told Bridgette. “Whoever your owner is, I’m sure they’d be devastated if their kitten got sick.”
Bridgette backed away from Sabine’s hand, racing over to the corner instead, where she’d stashed her amok while climbing. Delicately she placed a paw on it, and-
*POOF*
Flour flew everywhere, sending Marinette and her mom coughing. Marinette rubbed her paws across her eyes again, blinking rapidly. The flour gradually settled down, allowing the two of them to see Bridgette clearly.
Or… not Bridgette?
Marinette blinked again, this time in confusion. A young girl wearing a simple short black dress, looking remarkably like a ten-year-old Marinette, looked back at her. Most unfairly, she didn’t have a single speck of flour on her.
Her mom recovered first. “Marinette?”
Huh. Okay, yeah, that was a fair assumption.
Bridgette shook her head. “No, Bridgette,” she pointed at Marinette. “THAT’S Marinette.” She frowned, looking down at her arm, then at the rest of her body. “Huh. Things look different…”
“You’re not in Ladybug’s suit anymore,” Sabine observed. “And there seem to be a few other… alterations.”
“Were you always this tall?” Bridgette wondered, looking up at her.
Sabine chuckled. “I wish. No, you just shrunk. You look remarkably like Marinette when she was younger, you know. She was usually the shortest in her year, but she got a growth spurt two years ago and sprouted up like a bean. Now she’s just one of the shorter kids.”
Marinette groaned. <Moooooom…> Unfortunately, it just sounded like mewing, which didn’t help Marinette’s mood.
“You said she was Marinette?” Sabine asked, looking over at the grey kitten.
Bridgette nodded. “I was holding my amok, wishing I could understand her, and then… suddenly I was a kitten, and could understand her perfectly.”
Sabine let out a breath, giving Bridgette a relieved smile. “Tom and I thought so, but if we’d been wrong, especially if she’d been hurt or kidnapped… I’m not sure we could’ve lived with ourselves. Thank you.” She looked back at her daughter, still cuddling her in her arms. “Now you, my little baguette, still need a bath.”
Marinette meowed piteously. Sabine didn’t falter as she whisked her away to the bathroom, Bridgette following behind her.
-----
“We’re back!” Tom called, re-entering the bakery with Adrien.
Adrien sat down at a chair heavily, his head on his arms. Tom put his hand on his arm, giving him a small smile. “I know things are bad, but they can get better,” he said softly. “I know what it’s like to be estranged from your father - not to the extent that you are, but… I didn’t see my father for over twenty years.”
He looked up, wiping at his eyes. “Does it stop hurting?”
Tom wrapped an arm around him. “No. But gradually, over time, you think about it less and less. Life doesn’t stop happening. You gain a new support system, people who will stay by your side. Maybe, late at night, you still think about him. But you’ve got so much of your life outside of him, that the hurt is lessened. And hey, maybe one day, he’ll change. My father did. But even if he doesn’t… just know that we all care for you, are here for you. You’re not alone.”
Adrien looked up, and rushed into him, giving him a full hug. Which he immediately regretted when Tom returned it, lifting him off the ground with his bone-breaking embrace. “Ok, ok, that’s enough of that!” he squeaked out. Tom stopped, embarrassed, releasing him.
“I’ll make some croissants, those always cheered Marinette up!” Tom declared.
Adrien nodded eagerly. “With a passionfruit filling?!”
Tom blinked, rubbing his chin. He shrugged. “Why not? Could be an interesting experiment.” He clapped a hand on Adrien’s back. “We’ll make a baker out of you yet!”
Footsteps sounded down the steps. “Did you say something about passionfruit?” a familiar voice asked excitedly.
Adrien bolted upright. “Marinette?!”
A girl walked into the kitchen. Tom and Adrien looked at her in confusion. She looked like Marinette, if she’d shrunk in the wash.
Sabine followed behind her, carrying an annoyed-looking fluffy grey kitten. “Not exactly.” She gestured to the girl. “Tom, Adrien, this is Bridgette. Apparently she can shapeshift.”
Bridgette waved shyly.
Adrien waved back. Mostly because he didn’t know what else to do. How were you supposed to react when the sentimonster/daughter you created who looked identical to your crush suddenly deaged a few years? This wasn’t exactly something he’d been taught in school!
Hm… he should talk to Kagami. There had to be some manga or anime that covered the subject out there. Or maybe a light novel. Those could get pretty weird.
“I was planning to take Bridgette out shopping,” Sabine explained. “Since Marinette’s clothes won’t fit her now.”
“We don’t have any of her old clothes just laying around?” Tom asked. Sabine shook her head. “It’s not like I was saving hand-me-downs for anyone, and Marinette took any old clothes she outgrew and used them for her sewing experiments.”
Marinette chose that moment to meow loudly, wiggling in Sabine’s arms. She let her down.
Immediately Marinette shot like a bullet towards Adrien, jumping into his arms and purring happily. Sabine chuckled. “She’s not that excited for anyone else, you know.”
He laughed, cuddling and stroking Marinette as she rubbed her face on his hands.
His father may have been a supervillain - may no longer be a part of Adrien’s life - but he still had people. Had a family.
Huh. Why did Marinette feel kind of damp?
“Has she been grooming herself a lot?” he asked Sabine. He immediately regretted it when Marinette gave out an indignant “Mrrow!”
She chortled. “Let’s just say she and Bridgette got into some mischief. It started when I heard caterwauling upstairs…”
-----
Two days passed. Tom and Sabine petitioned for Adrien to stay home from school, citing “extraordinary circumstances”. The school administration agreed, letting him have a week off.
Adrien himself had mixed feelings about it. Part of him was itching to go back to normal, to see his friends, to pretend nothing had changed.
But everything HAD changed. There was no avoiding it. Anytime customers came in, they were chatting about Hawkmoth’s arrest, about how they could hardly believe that the supervillain that’d been terrorizing the city was in fact, one of its most well-known and respected (if mysterious) residents. Whenever they started wondering what’d happened to Gabriel’s son, he left the kitchen and headed upstairs. No one seemed to blame him for his father’s actions, but hearing himself talked about like that… it still felt strange.
He sighed, petting Marinette. She didn’t leave his side if she could avoid it. “I know I’ll have to face them eventually. But I just… I don’t know how.”
Marinette laid a paw on him. “Adrien…”
He blinked.
She blinked. “I… spoke?” she said, disbelievingly.
A slow smile spread across Adrien’s face. “Milady?”
“Kitty?” she said.
He chuckled. “I think that’s a more appropriate nickname for you right now.
She pouted. Well, as best as a kitten could pout.
“Master Fu… he said it would take three days for the potion to work,” he recalled. “So…”
Marinette froze, her fur standing on end, making her look like a grey puffball.
*POOF*
Adrien would’ve said that he was happy to see Ladybug back in her human form. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see anything, as her butt had landed on his face. “MMMPPH!” he mumbled.
“AAAGH!” she shot off of him. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!”
He laughed. “I’m still the one falling for you, milady.” To his surprise, she blushed.
Huh. Guess being a cat gave her a newfound appreciation for his humor.
She glanced down at her red-and-black suit. “Oh! Catlady’s other victims!” Quickly, she called out “Lucky Charm!”.
A cat-ear headband landed in her hands. She raised an eyebrow. “Really, Tikki? Really?”
Adrien scratched his head. “Does that even mean anything? I mean, Catlady’s already been defeated…”
She shrugged. “No idea, never summoned a Lucky Charm after defeating the villain before. Maybe the magic’s just confused since I was turned into a cat? I dunno.” She threw it in the air, calling out her trademark “Miraculous Ladybug!”
Moments later, an alert sounded on Adrien’s phone and Ladybug’s yo-yo. “Ladybug’s Miraculous swarms sighted in the city. All cats turned back into people,” Adrien read out.
Ladybug breathed a sigh of relief. “Spots off!”
An exhausted Tikki fell into Marinette’s hands. She quickly reached into her purse, drawing out a macaron. “Sorry it took so long, Tikki,” she apologized.
The little bug kwami gave her a tired smile. “It’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re okay.” She flew up, nuzzling Marinette’s cheek.
“Marinette?”
She looked over at Adrien, looking at her, wide-eyed. She looked away. “You- you probably don’t have feelings for me anymore, knowing that I’m Marinette, huh?” she asked quietly. It’d been eating at her on-and-off the past few days, ever since he’d connected the dots together (Something she was still amazed by. She wouldn’t have believed Chat Noir was Adrien if she hadn’t seen him with Plagg while she was a cat).
“No!” He rushed to her, looking deeply into her eyes. “Knowing that two of the people I admire and care for most, are one and the same… it just made me love you even more.”
She blushed. What had she done to deserve this boy?
Something brushed against her. She frowned, glancing down.
A grey cat tail whisked back and forth.
“AAAAH!” She jumped, knocking Adrien to the ground for the second time in five minutes.
Adrien reached out, brushing against something on the top of her head. Something that twitched. “That wasn’t there before,” he commented, stroking one of her cat ears.
A deep rumbling started up inside her. Abruptly she silenced it.
“I… think Fu’s potion may have had some side effects,” Adrien commented. She gave him a Look, as if to say ‘You think?’
She closed her eyes, wishing that the cat characteristics would go away, at least for now.
“Huh,” she heard Adrien say.
“What is it now?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“They’ve vanished.”
“Really?!” Racing, she turned on her phone, using the front camera to look at herself. Sure enough, her cat ears were gone. Brushing against her pants, she didn’t find any tail either.
She let out a relieved sigh, before looking back at Adrien. “Bridgette’s gonna have a field day with this.”
He laughed. “Considering how often she’s been giving herself cat ears and a tail? Yeah, you’re doomed.”
She smiled, chuckling. This was certainly an… unusual development, but since when was anything in her life normal? “Feeling left out?” she teased.
He hummed, putting an arm around her. “Oh don’t worry, milady, I’m purrfectly happy as a part-time catboy.” He winked at her.
She looked away, trying not to blush.
That was going to be the thing she missed most about being a full cat, she decided: the lack of blushing.
Adrien’s phone beeped. Fumbling, he looked at the text message. “Nathalie’s conscious, and she wants to see me!” he said numbly.
She put an arm around him. “What’re we waiting for? Let’s get my parents and head to the hospital!”
As they raced downstairs to tell her parents the news (and surprise them with her miraculous recovery), she smiled. Who knew what kittenhood would have lead to?
-----
(A/N)
Decided to finally finish this off, before it stretched into 2022.
So Tom and Sabine ended up raising Bridgette for the most part, since Adrien's only 14, but he tries to be parental when he can. I figured that it would make more sense for her to look younger, since while her mind is developed at a 14 year old level, she has very little life experience. Making her 10 years old (once she could alter her appearance) made sense to me, as that's around the age when most kids can operate on the same level as adults, for some things at least.
As for Marinette manifesting cat ears and a tail... yeah I read a lot of Tokyo Mew Mew growing up.
Ladycat jumped off of her partner’s shoulders, enjoying the feeling of the grass beneath her paws. She’d felt it as an akuma, of course, but…
She shuddered. That had not been a pleasant experience. One half of her trapped in that dark, gooey place, barely able to affect the outside world, mostly condemned to watching helplessly, while the other half was trapped under Hawkmoth’s sway.
Rena Rouge and Carapace ran up to greet her, relieved smiles on their faces, along with-
Reflexively, she arched her back and narrowed her eyes, barely stopping herself from hissing outright. It was that- that- that Replacement.
“Woah, it’s fine, it’s fine!” Chat said hastily, putting himself between her and the impostor. “She’s on our side.”
Slowly, reluctantly, she forced her fur to flatten. She shot Chat a pointed look, letting out an inquisitive meow. At least she HOPED it sounded inquisitive. Dammit, why did being a cat have to come with such inconveniences as ‘not being able to speak’?
“Rena found the Peacock Miraculous, and well… I figured we could use all the help we could get,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “I tried to make one who could fill in the hole in our team, could help bring you back. She was the result.”
She approached the sentimonster version of herself slowly, giving a few cautious sniffs. The sentimonster sat down, bringing herself closer to Ladycat’s own diminutive height. “My creator cares about you a lot, you know,” she said softly. “I saw it, felt it, when he was bringing me into existence.”
…Wait. The sentimonster could TALK?! Of her own accord?!
She looked at Chat again, hoping that her wildly lashing tail and overall jitteriness somehow conveyed the question she wanted to ask.
“Yeah, that was my reaction too,” he said, chagrinned. “Turns out that the Peacock Miraculous is a lot more powerful than I, or even Fu, understood. It doesn’t just create remote control creatures, or even monsters with animal-level intelligence. It can create actual people as well. As soon as I realized that, I gave her her amok, so no one else could control or influence her. I- I don’t want to be that kind of person, or that sort of- sort of- father.” He nearly stumbled over that last word, still barely believing that it could apply to himself.
WHAT?!
That- Adrien was a- and SENTIMONSTERS were-
Okay, between getting turned into a cat, finding out Chat Noir was the love of her life, that his father’s Hawkmoth, getting turned into an akuma, Hawkmoth being defeated, and now THIS?!
CONGRATS UNIVERSE, YOU WON. DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WON, BUT YOU SURE AS HELL WON IT.
She flopped over on the ground, closing her eyes. She was done, this day was OVER, good night!
Something poked her. She steadfastly ignored it.
“Uh, is she okay?” Chat asked.
“I’ll take her back to the Guardian,” Rena said, bundling Ladycat up in her arms. “She’s had a long day.”
Chat extended his stick. “I’ll come with-”
She shook her head. “Someone’s going to need to talk to the press, explain what happened, and Ladybug’s not exactly in a fit state to do that right now.”
He sighed, shrinking his stick back down and tucking into his belt. “Alright. I’ll drop by later, after I get this sorted out.”
Rena Rouge nodded, giving him a supportive smile as she headed back to Nino’s place, Carapace just behind her.
Looking down at the hole and the sea of reporters that had started congregating nearby, he muttered, “Whenever that is, anyway.”
Beckoning Sentibug - his daughter - over, he started making statements to the press.
(Read the rest on AO3)
-------
Adrien sat in a chair at the police station, staring at his feet. After Rena and Carapace had left with LadyCat, he’d had to spend the next couple hours at an impromptu press conference, going over everything that’d happened, explaining that Sentibug was NOT Ladybug and no, she couldn’t turn everyone Catwoman had turned into felines, back into people (after the kind of day he’d had, he was ashamed to admit he’d actually forgotten about that) but that Ladybug would be back soon.
And then the police had started investigating the mansion and trying to locate everyone who might have been involved. Including Adrien. Which meant he’d had to go back to the mansion and pretend to be totally ignorant of everything that’d happened, all while leaving Sentibug behind for the police to process.
He’d rather have been back at the press conference, explaining for the fifth time that NO, Ladybug had had no involvement in Sentibug’s creation process, and YES she was a real living person and needed to be granted full legal rights, as per the recently signed international treaty on “The Rights of Artificially Created Persons”.
Hm. Note to self: try to get into contact with Majestia. She’d been the treaty’s biggest champion. With her being Uncanny Valley’s mother, she’d probably have a better idea than anyone else on how to navigate the legal system.
By the time the cops had finished interrogating him, night had fallen. No one really knew what to do with him. They seemed satisfied that he hadn’t been helping his father, but that didn’t help with finding him a place to stay. Amelie wasn’t answering her phone (and it’d take her several hours to retrieve him anyway), Nathalie was in a coma, and Gorilla… actually he had no idea where his bodyguard went when he wasn’t looking after him. Did he even HAVE a home of his own?
Roger walked in, looking up from his clipboard. “Adrien? Someone’s here to see you.”
He blinked, thinking through the possibilities. Rena Rouge? She could make herself look like anyone she wanted, if she wanted to get him out of here, she could. Or Master Fu? Maybe he could claim to be Adrien’s godfather.
“Adrien? Oh you poor dear! You- wait, Tom, don’t crush him!”
Tom loosened his hug, setting Adrien down gently. “Oh- uh- whoops?” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
Adrien just gaped at them. Which was only partly because he needed to regain his breath after having it crushed out of his lungs by Marinette’s dad (seriously, the man could give Gorilla a run for his money in the strength department). “What are you doing here?”
Don’t get him wrong, he loved talking to Marinette’s parents, they were really cool and awesome and made him feel warm and happy just by being around them (not unlike Marinette herself), but why would they be here now?
A familiar face peeked around the corner.
“Sentibug?” he asked. Okay, this was just getting more confusing.
“Um… could you call me Bridgette?” she asked shyly, twirling one of her hair ribbons nervously. “I got to talking to them,” she gestured at Tom and Sabine, “and I- I think that’s what I’d like to be called.”
He smiled at her, though inside he felt a small pang. He hadn’t even thought about her name, with everything going on. “Sentibug” was just the shorthand he’d made up in his head. “Of course! Bridgette sounds great,” he assured her.
Bridgette shot him a relieved smile. It took him a minute to realize he was smiling back.
She- she valued his approval. A lot. Of course she did, he was her father. He’d valued his own father’s opinion a lot as well.
His stomach clenched. He used to value it, at least. After finding out the truth, he-
He still cared. But he was trying not to. His father wasn’t worth it.
“Tom and I were at another part of the station, filing a ‘Missing Person’ report,” Sabine said. “Marinette went out to the park this morning during Catwoman’s rampage and never came back. We’re hoping she just got hit by one of the akuma’s beams, but…”
“But you’re not sure,” he said, his heart dropping. Three days. It’d be three days until they could say for sure that Marinette was okay. And that was assuming nothing bad happened to the cat-people in the meantime! What if one of them escaped, like Ladycat had? Granted, none of the rest SHOULD have superpowers, but cats were tricky! Who knew what they would get up to?
“We ran into Bridgette here just sitting around, waiting for the police to decide what to do with her,” Sabine explained. “No one knew where she should go - it’s not like they know how to get in touch with Chat Noir, and even if they did, can he take her in? He’s just a boy himself.”
“I- I’m sure he’d figure something out,” he said. He couldn’t convince himself. He was 14, he couldn’t even access most of the money in his bank account without a Guardian’s permission, how could he take care of someone else?
“So we volunteered,” Sabine continued. “It’s better than just sitting home worrying. If we can do something to help another kid in need- how could we not? Roger mentioned that they weren’t sure where to place you either, so we thought we’d swing by and ask if you’d like to stay with us? It’s fine if you don’t want to or have some other idea of where to go-”
“No, I- I’d like that,” he told her breathlessly, hardly believing his own ears. “I’d like that a lot.”
She held out her hand. “Welcome to our household, Adrien- for now, I mean. Until things are sorted out.”
He nodded, taking her hand. Maybe things would be okay.
-----
Marinette blinked her eyes open.
She quickly shut them again. Ugh, why’d morning have to be so BRIGHT? Attempting to shut out the light that was streaming through her eyelids, she covered her face with one of her hands.
Only to feel something small and furry whack her face.
Small… furry…
AUGH A MOUSE HAD DROPPED ON HER FACE DURING THE NIGHT GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!
Huh, actually that sounded kind of tasty…
WHAT. WHAT WAS SHE THINKING. WHY.
She bolted upright, letting out a noise that barely even sounded human.
Marinette took stock of her surroundings. Small room, bed in an indent, Ladybug and Chat Noir figures holding hands-
She looked away, glad that cats couldn’t blush. (Catboys could though. She’d made Chat blush many, many times.)
Oh nice, Alya’d left up a word processor for her!
Carefully, doing her best not to hit multiple keys (and failing, but not so often as to make it illegible), she typed ‘Where Adrien? What happened Hawkmoth?’ then sat back, exhausted from the amount of effort and concentration even just typing THAT took.
“Gabriel’s in jail, awaiting trial,” Alya told her. “Investigators are still combing through everything, but from what little we know, it looks like he’s going away for life. Adrien’s staying at your house. He texted Nino about it last night.”
WHAT.
NO.
THIS WAS A DISASTER.
HE’D LOOK AT HER ROOM AND SEE HER WALL OF ADRIEN PHOTOS AND FIND HER DIARY AND THE CHEST OF PRESENTS SHE’D MADE FOR HIM AND THINK SHE WAS A CREEP. SHE’D HAVE TO MOVE AWAY TO ICELAND AND CHANGE HER NAME TO “BECKY HAUSTINGER” AND PRETEND SHE SPOKE NOTHING BUT ICELANDIC. SHE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW ICELANDIC HOW WOULD SHE ORDER THE FABRIC FOR HER FASHION DESIGNS?!
A voice cut through her panic. “Breathe, Marinette. In, and out. In, and out.”
Slowly her fur flattened, her breaths growing slower and more controlled.
“It’ll be fine,” Alya said reassuringly. “He already saw those photos, remember? Adrien was fine with it. I doubt he’ll be poking around in your room much anyway, that’d be weird. And we’re talking about Adrien - your PARTNER, Chat Noir. Do you really think he’d freak out about anything he found in there?
Oh, right. He wasn’t just Adrien, was he? He was Chat as well. And Chat- Chat, she couldn’t see doing more than maybe, possibly laughing at her more absurd eccentricities, and even then, not in a mean way. He wouldn’t hold it against her.
“That sentimonster version of you’s staying with them as well,” Alya continued. “Her name’s Bridgette, by the way. No one else knew what to do with her, so your parents decided to take her in as well.”
She didn’t know what to think of that. She still had trouble wrapping her brain around the idea that she had a twin, sort of. Who was Adrien’s daughter.
Okay, time to stop thinking about that before she freaked out again. That could be dealt with later. How putting off thinking about it would help, she didn’t know, but DAMMIT she wasn’t ready to deal with that right now.
“You want to visit?” Alya asked, giving her a knowing look.
She gave an affirmative meow. All of this had been hard for her to take in, but… how much worse was it for Adrien? He’d just lost his only remaining parent and his home, on top of everything else. She wanted to check in on him, make sure he was doing… maybe not okay, but at least not worse.
Padding over to the balcony, she gently pawed at the door. Alya opened it, grinning. With a leap, she bounded off towards the bakery, sending dozens of Parisians scrambling for their phones to record “Super Nyan Kitty” in her wake.
-----
It only took her a few minutes to bounce her way home. She’d gotten good at moving around the city fast, though her main method of locomotion was usually swinging via yo-yo, rather than jumping around like she was on the moon. Even if she hadn’t known the way, it wouldn’t have been hard to find the bakery. The divine smell of baking bread spread for miles.
She stopped bouncing as she approached the front, not wanting to be too obvious. Peeking in, she could see her parents manning the bakery as usual, with her father baking and her mother at the register. She meowed loudly, pawing at the front door, but being careful not to scratch it. No sense messing up its paint job, she didn’t want to give her parents extra work.
Mom looked over, frowning. She blinked. “Oh my.” Slowly she opened the door, giving Marinette plenty of time to get out of the way so she wouldn’t be knocked over. Of course, Marinette used the opportunity to dash inside, as she’d planned.
Her mom reached out a hand for her to sniff. She did so cautiously, mostly for appearances’ sake, then pressed her head against her mom’s hand, purring all the while. She hadn’t realized how much she missed her mom until she’d gone a day without her.
“Do- do you think-?” Her papa said hopefully.
Sabine nodded, tears in her eyes. “I- I hope so. I think Marinette has returned to us!”
Marinette gave out the loudest purrs she could manage, her little body vibrating so hard she could barely walk. She couldn’t let them know just how intelligent she really was - most of the people-cats had only above-average intelligence, not human-level intelligence. She didn’t want to give away that something was different about her if she could help it, at least not as Marinette. Too easy for people to connect the dots between her and Ladybug that way.
But she could still give comfort to them as best she could, and show she recognized them and the bakery. Give them what comfort and reassurance that she could.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Marinette’s ears pricked up.
“Adrien! Bridgette!” Mom called out. “Look who’s here!”
Adrien’s eyes widened, staring at her. “L- uh- who do you mean?” he asked hastily.
“We think this is Marinette,” Papa said, picking her up and stroking her. She became a liquid in his arms. “She made quite a racket at the door. I don’t know how she got out of the cat camp, but it doesn’t surprise me. She’s a clever girl, even as a feline.”
Adrien’s eyes widened for a moment, before softening, as he looked at her with the most adoring, lovestruck expression she’d ever seen on his face. She looked away, glad she couldn’t blush. The increased volume of her purrs betrayed her feelings anyway.
“You have no idea,” Adrien muttered quietly, the corners of his mouth twitching as he suppressed a smile.
Gently, her papa put her back on the floor. As soon as her paws touched the tile she shot towards Adrien, meowing excitedly.
Her papa chuckled. “That’s Marinette, alright.” She glared at him. He put up his hands.
Adrien bent down. “You okay with being picked up?” She nodded frantically.
He brought her close to his chest. She rubbed her face against it, purring contentedly, listening to his heartbeat. Her partner was here. Even after everything, he was still here.
Another hand stroked her. She looked up inquisitively.
Bridgette looked back at her, blinking curiously.
She narrowed her eyes. She still didn’t know what to make of this girl.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Bridgette told her quietly. “He really cares about you, you know. I- I felt it, I was created from it.”
Marinette looked down, kneading Adrien’s arm subconsciously. He winced, but didn’t try to dislodge her. Bridgette was just created to help. It wasn’t fair to take out her anxieties on her. It still felt strange having a copy of herself running around, but… well, twins existed, and none of this was Bridgette’s fault at all.
She got up, balancing on Adrien’s arm, and leaped onto Bridgette’s shoulders. It startled the girl for a moment, but she quickly regained her balance. As Marinette purred and rubbed up against her ears and face, Bridgette quickly started giggling, Adrien following suit.
Marinette beamed. This- this is what they’d been fighting for this past year. To laugh and have fun, no threats overhead. To just be kids.
-----
Three hours later, Adrien and Tom left to visit Nathalie. She was still out cold from Hawkmoth’s magic, unfortunately, but they were allowing visitors at least.
Bridgette and Ladycat stayed behind. Ladycat may be well-behaved, but the hospital still wasn’t going to allow kittens into the hospital.
Which left the two of them staring awkwardly at each other.
Ladycat meowed at her.
Bridgette meowed back.
Ladycat face-pawed.
Bridgette flushed, looking away. It’d seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
She admired the kitten - the girl - she was modeled after, who so many people loved so, so much. But she didn’t really know her all that well, beyond the glimpses she’d gotten of Adrien’s memories. With the little time she’d spent with her, she could tell that Marinette was affectionate and cared for Adrien and her parents, but not much beyond that. There was only so much she could glean about the girl, with her being stuck as a little kitten, barely able to communicate.
Instinctively she rubbed the Lucky Charm that held her amok, a nervous habit she’d picked up yesterday while waiting at the police station. If only she could understand what Marinette was saying, put herself in her paws, get to know her better. She could almost feel the tile floor under her furry little paws, her tail flick, her-
Wait.
She could actually feel those things.
Blinking, she looked around. Everything was suddenly ten times bigger than it used to be.
She looked up. Ladycat looked back at her, eyes wide. <What- how- WHAT?!> Ladycat sputtered out in a series of meows - yet Bridgette could still understand what she was saying.
<Turning into a cat’s that easy?> Bridgette said wondrously. <Why doesn’t everyone do this?>
<Most people can’t just turn themselves into cats> Ladycat said flatly. <I’m still not sure how YOU could>
<I- I was just thinking about wanting to get to know you better, to understand what you were saying, and then suddenly here I was> Bridgette confessed.
Ladycat put her paw up to her chin. As a kitten it looked less ponderous and more like she was posing for a tiny fashion shoot. <You were holding something at the time> she said, giving Bridgette a questioning look.
She nodded, answering Ladycat’s unspoken question <Yeah, it’s your Lucky Charm. It’s- it’s my amok.>
Ladycat blinked slowly, trying to process that. She nodded thoughtfully. <An amok can be used to control a sentimonster - what if it can do more than just that? What if it can be used to shape one as well? And if the sentimonster in question possesses their own amok->
<Then I could change myself at will!> Bridgette meowed excitedly.
The door opened. “Marinette, are you okay?” Sabine asked worriedly. “I heard all the meowing and I feared-” She blinked. “Marinette, who’s your friend?”
Marinette meowed, brushing against her side. Bridgette leaned into the contact, enjoying the way Marinette’s fur felt against her own.
Huh, come to think of it, she hadn’t paid attention to what her own fur looked like.
She gave herself a quick once-over. She’d expected to be a copy of Marinette, looking like a little grey kitten, but instead…
<Huh. I’m black?> she meowed questioningly.
Marinette nodded. <It surprised me too> she admitted. <Maybe because Chat Noir’s your father?>
She considered that, and shrugged. It felt weird while quadrapedal. She could move her front legs freely the same way she could use her arms as a human, so it mostly consisted of dipping her head and hoping it looked different from nodding. Turning around, she circled near Marinette again, comparing herself to the other kitten. <I’m smaller than you> she concluded, surprised. <I only come up to your shoulder!>
<Yeah, that seemed weird to me> Marinette admitted. <You look a lot younger too>
“I’m sure this is a fascinating conversation,” Sabine said dryly, “but could you take it down a bit? We can hear your meowing down in the bakery.”
The two kittens blinked, then gave short, affirmative meows. Sabine blinked in surprise, but smiled. “I’ll come back with some treats for the two of you once we’re done with the lunch rush,” she said. “You two have fun!”
Marinette and Bridgette looked at each other. <Want to see some cool climbing spots I found?> Marinette meowed.
Bridgette grinned, flicking her tail. <I might have a few ideas myself…>
