Kat is weak. It is something she always knew ever since she was little. It wasn't even something she conciously decided, it was just a fact of life that she didn't even know how she learned.
As a child, she knew it. She knew she would eat the next cookie and the next and the next. Because she wasn't strong enough to beat the temptation.
She knew she wouldn't become friends with Adrien. Not anytime soon. No matter how hard she tries. She wasn't strong enough to hold onto her wits when his pretty green eyes stared into hers.
And now she knew that she was weak in another way. As she curled up in her bed and rubbed the tears away. Why was she so weak?
Marinette risked her life on a daily basis as Ladybug. Her closest friend in the world, Felix risked his life on a daily basis as Chat Blanc. But, they were given gifts. They were chosen because they were worthy of power. Nobody ever chose Kat.
Nobody did choose Kat, did they? Felix knew Kat because she was a rich girl and their parents wanted them to spend time together. Marinette spent time with Kat because Kat spent time in her bakery and bought her snacks.
Rose and Juleka hung out with her sometimes. But Kat just felt like she was bothering the two of them when she spoke to them.
"Well, no more." Kat mumbled to herself, taking a deep breath and calming herself. She was determined that no Akuma-butterfly would ever get near enough to Akumatize her, and she had learned to school her emotions into a mask of indifference.
She went back to her lab table and studied Ladybugs "ribbons"? It was something Ladybugs Kwami told her was clothing from Ladybugs presecessor. She allowed Kat to use it so she could try and see what she could do with it.
Kat's smile widened as she learned all of its properties and decided to begin to tinker. She was already agile enough as she was a gymnast. (She had to do SOMETHING to keep from getting to heavy. She did eat almost constantly.) What she wasn't, was strong. And maybe, just maybe, this could make her that way.
She called Marinette with her plan, reverse engineering this clothing (while adding her own improvements) and her best friend helping her put the costume together sounded so perfect to her.
The Cheshire Chat. A superhero. Someone that wasn't rich. Nobody NEEDED to befriend her now. Nobody would pity her. They would admire her. They would wish they were as strong as her.
But…is this scrap of fabric really all she had to work with? She pondered this as she heard the phone dial.
When she heard the soft tones of Marinette on the other end Kat calmly asked one thing of her. "Mari…send me one of them. Chat Noir…or Chat Blanc…I'm not picky."
She would've preferred it be Chat Noir. She didn't want Felix to give her that look he had whenever she did something he considered foolish. She WASN'T foolish. It was just, she was a visionary. And ONLY visionaries can see that distinction.
When Chat Noir finally came, Kat was in her lab, a bunch of crumpled plans and half-baked ideas littering the floor with wadded up papers. There was so many variables! What would help fight Akuma most? What kind of Akuma? You don't know. What powers? Unknowable. She just needed to be prepared for ALL circumstances.
She yawned and looked up at the kitty. She had been up a couple nights in a row as she tried to figure this out, so she wasn't really paying attention as she spoke. "Oh, Hello, Chat Noir. It's nice to meet you. I'm gonna need you to do me a favor and take off your clothes for me." It took a few moments for the words she just said to permeate her own thick head, and when she heard them she visibly cringed.
Chat Noir's eyes widened. Of all the possible things he imagined coming out of Kat's mouth, that was certainly not it.
Adrien knew one thing from "observing" her. (It wasn't stalking he didn't stalk.) Kat was unpredictable. You could barely figure out what she would do next. Felix seemed to know her so well, but Adrien had no idea about it. He chalks that down to Kat never SPEAKING to him. She clearly disliked him, she would never talk when he was looking at her and whenever she did talk to him, she was clearly unhappy about it.
He wondered if this would be a good chance to crack that code. He was also pretty curious, Kat never striked him as the type to say something like that. She was a loudmouth and a brat and cursed like a sailor, but she was always a good girl, so he had no idea why she'd want something like that.
Even though he knew that she, no matter how similar to Felix she was, wasn't secretly dating Felix. It was weird, he intellectually knew that, but then he would catch the two of them hanging out and they would be doing something unexpectedly intimate and the lines would blur even further.
He questioned her about wanting to see him naked, in a teasing and flirtatious manner. He could get away with it now, he was Chat Noir's now.
Kat began to chortle at that, giving a few unladylike snorts of amusement. "you think I want to see you naked. Paw-lease. You are not EVEN pretty fly for a white guy."
Chat Noir gave her an offended look. "Oh? And why else would mew want me to remove my purrfect suit. I need to know be-fur I get naked." He questioned, pretending he didn't really care all that much.
Kat gave him an excited grin. She could actually show someone her work! She knew that Felix said Chat Noir wasn't AS smart as him, but she didn't believe he was dumb.
"Okay, first of all. I have no plan to look." She replied. It was the truth, she was too innocent for that. And that would just be bad form, to ogle someone who didn't want to be ogled WHILE they do you a favor? She was raised better than that.
"Look here." She pulled him over and showed him what she was doing, gesturing with her hands. She was ALWAYS gesturing wildly with her hands so that didn't really add anything to what Chat Noir knew about her. "This is a piece of Ladybugs predecessors clothes. Her kwami allowed me to borrow it. I've been working on it, and fascinatingly enough…"
She excitedly continued, explaining all the mechanics of it and how much she would be able to do and her ideas for the Cheshire Chat. She finally FINALLY pointed out how Chat could help.
Adrien was looking at Kat with brand new eyes. No wonder everyone was so awed by Kat. She was so beautiful when she was excited, but she was also so smart he could barely keep up with anything she said. Her eyes seemed to sparkle and her hair bounced as her entire body seemed to move while she explained herself.
She looked up at Chat and he was just staring down at her, with this expression she couldn't classify at all. It was actually pretty awkward. Did she scare him or confuse him or something? That wasn't her intention. She actually had a bit of a crush on the feline hero. Not nearly as big as her crush on Adrien, but still noticable. "Uhhm. So…what do you think? … uh … could you say something? You're making me rather uncomfortable."
Chat Noir got embarrassed that she noticed his staring so he quickly just agreed to it. She borrowed his belt-tail for a bit and he stayed in the room. Not because he didn't trust Kat to return it. He was just fascinated by her process.
Kat nearly puffed out her chest in pride. She finally figured out he was amazed by her awesomeness and she really did thrive on other people's awe. She finished the fabric, returned his belt and went to Marinette's home.
She knew Mari would be able to use the fabric to make something amazing. She always made amazing things.
Once her outfit was done, Kat had another mystery to figure out. What kind of weapon should she use? She knew Chat Noir and Chat Blanc had magical staff's and Ladybug had a magical yo-yo. She scratched her chin as she tried to figure out what weapon would best suit her needs.
She did this, while trying to figure out how to get the suit to come onto her body and get removed from her body at will. "At will..at will…I GOT IT!"
She ran to her desk and began to sketch plans, using references to what it can be. Maybe someone would be joining the pink lantern core sometime soon? Heh, as if she didn't KNOW.
She had to stop about 6 hours in, because Felix walked into her room, gave her a large cup of her favorite coffee (cotton candy Frappuccino. The sweet tooth never changes.) And dragged her to her room to get changed. More picked her up than dragged her. She was so tiny, it wasn't even hard for him.
"Really, Kat. It's Monday. And you are not permitted to skip school. You want to leave ME ALONE there?" He declared, depositing her on her bed. He had his large mug that could fit over a dozen shots of expresso and it was already half done. No wonder he was so awake before even the sun came up.
Kat pouted and stomped into her closet to find something to wear. "Shut UP Felix. I am a scientist!" She huffed angrily.
"You also got the maturity and size of a 4 year old." He drawled in response. "Besides, literally everything you work on is on that tablet you bring everywhere. You could just do it in class." He didn't really care what she was working on this time. At least, not this early in the morning. She was always tinkering with something and inventing new things. She'd tell him later. She always told him later.
Kat was barely paying attention today in class. They were only doing notes all day and Kat took them without really thinking. She was focused mostly on her sketches and plans for her Pink Lantern Ring. It was rudimentary but for now it would work. It would need to be used a lot to work out the kinks.
She hid her tablet whenever someone mentioned it and Kat was of the opinion that it was best that ONLY the other superheros knew it was her.
She does have a reputation to uphold after all. She couldn't imagine how people would react. Kat Tudor, the only child of Dr. and Dr. Tudor, going out and galivanting with people she doesn't even know, dressed in a childish pink and purple catsuit as she fights! She would never embarrass her father in such a way. And so a secret it shall become, and so a lie it would remain.
Marinette was more interested in whatever Adrien and Felix were talking about. It was so weird. They always spoke in half-sentences and teasing lies and she could never really get what they were talking about.
Felix DID ask him about chasing around "A certain little doe-eyed kitten". He seemed incredibly amused by that declaration. Even more so when Adrien's cheeks flushed and he threatened to 'declaw' him.
During lunch Kat left the school. She stopped to get a burger and some fries, but she ended up back in her lab. She worked on her new idea. Nanobots. She would have to find a cheap way to mass produce them and have them all fit inside her backpack but that is no more difficult than figuring out how to get the suit to bond to her molecular code and grow on her and disappear at will. And she ALREADY figured out how to do that.
She ended up skipping the rest of school. She sent a hologram to replace her and an IOU to Felix to cover for her.
At the end of the day, during patrols a striped cat, with a dimly glowing pink ring met up with the other three.
Chat Blanc figured it out immediately, while Chat Noir and Ladybug already knew who she was.
Nobody but Kat could have that completely self satisfied look look on her face while wiping the smudges from her thick black spectacles.
Kat smiled widely at them all as she began to walk around as they patrolled Paris together.
Funnily enough, it was one of Chat Noir's horrible puns that made everyone calm down. And Kat's reply which caused everyone to snicker and Marinette to roll her eyes.
"How purr-fect. It seems there is a new bug-iful lady to join us on patrol!"
"How mew-velous! Now I'm surrounded by a purr-incess and two purr-ecious kitties."