Twenty-One: Cold Night

Author's Note: Epcot97 here. I had no idea that ChubbyUnicornMama would fall for the catnip cookie trick, but since she's now sleeping off the effects, that leaves me to write the entry for May 21's entry for #MariChatMay2019. Marinette is helping her parents cater a huge event at Le Grande Hotel Paris and, being Marinette, accidentally lands herself in a truckload of trouble. Fortunately, Chat is on the job, too.

CM: Catnip doesn't work quite the same way on humans. Trust me, I researched it for that last prank. You just make terrible cookies, so I left!

The longer I was Chat Noir, the more I started to feel like the enhanced abilities I enjoyed while transformed were bleeding into my civilian, non-transformed self. I'd asked Plagg about the possibilities in that regard, and he'd been characteristically cryptic, but not without adding that the bonus time I'd been spending as Chat Noir in order to hang out with Marinette might be a cause for concern.

I'd laughed at him – he'd long ago confirmed that I could remain transformed indefinitely so long as I didn't use Cataclysm – but later that same day, I'd started to worry a bit. For it was the first time I found that I could detect Marinette's signature scent (vanilla, sugar, exotic spices) halfway across the schoolyard… as Adrien.

And then, the following day, I was finding myself able to eavesdrop on what my classmates were saying. In the back row. As the day wore on, I started to use my Chat techniques to stay focused on the teacher, slightly scared about what seemed to be happening to me. But not quite scared enough to ask Ladybug about it; Chat Noir had a reputation for self confidence that would take a bit of a battering if I had to admit I was struggling a bit with my powers.

Against this backdrop, I found myself dutifully attending a conference that weekend as one of several representatives for House of Gabriel. My sole role was to be Adrien Agreste, smiling and allowing photos to be taken of whatever I was told to wear; to be honest, I had no idea what the point of the meeting was other than they all seemed to be fabulously wealthy and loved to eat.

During a break in the proceedings, I escaped from the dais where I'd been stationed and followed my enhanced feline sense of smell to what I knew I would find in the kitchen: Belgian Chocolate filled croissants, and Tom and Sabine Dupain-Cheng, who had landed the catering contract for the event. Adrien was a familiar face at the Bakery, although not nearly as familiar as Chat Noir, who was a nearly nightly presence. They greeted me warmly.

"Adrien!" Sabine hugged me, at least, as best as she could without smearing flour on my rather expensive sportscoat. "Marinette said you'd be here." She winked at me. "How are you holding up?"

"Not well," I admitted. "This is one of my least favorite activities as a model." My eyes fell on the platter of carefully arranged croissants.

I must have looked desperate for Sabine laughed and handed me one on a small hors d'oeuvre plate. "Eat up, young man," she smiled. "You're way too thin as it is."

I shrugged and said around a mouthful, "It's part of the gig." Although, to be honest, my metabolism had become cranked after taking on the Cat Miraculous. "Thanks, Madame." I scanned the kitchen. "Is Marinette with you?"

"Yes," she said, then spun slowly. "At least, she's here somewhere."

"She went for supplies," we heard Tom say. He was in the cold room.

"I'll stop back," I said, knowing I had to get back to my post. "Let her know I was looking for her?"

"Of course, dear," Sabine said, returning to her task.

The afternoon dragged on, and by seventeen-hundred, I was bored out of my mind and still had six hours to go. It would have been easier if I'd been allowed my phone, but that had been deemed unseemly and taken from me when I'd arrived. As we broke to change into our dinner attire, I caught Nathalie and asked for it back.

Coldly glaring at me, she fished it out of her briefcase and handed it to me. "You'll give this back before dinner," she said.

"Of course, Nathalie," I replied, plastering my Adrien smile on my face while wishing she would develop a run in her stockings and have to leave for the night.

I turned my phone on and my eyes immediately shot wide open. I had twenty-one missed calls from Marinette. A queasy feeling hit my gut, and I started a purposeful walk toward the kitchen while flipping to my voicemail. She hadn't left any; I tried to redial her, but it went straight to her voicemail.

Growing concerned, I burst into the kitchen on the run. Sabine was still there, putting the finishing touches on a massive three-layer cake. "Marinette!" I called, hurriedly working my way around the prep counters. "Are you here? Marinette?"

"What's wrong, dear?" Sabine said, icing bag in one hand and quizzical expression on her face.

"I've got a gadzillion missed calls from her," I said. "Where is she?"

Sabine dropped her bag. "Oh my God," she said. "I've not seen her since lunch. I thought she was with Tom." She started for the rear of the kitchen. "Tom! Is Marinette with you?"

Tom backed out of a closet. "No, dear," he said. "I sent her to you."

"When?" I asked, that queasy feeling going to full-on ulcer.

"Lunch?" Tom said, helplessly looking to his wife. "I lost track of her…"

"Where was she last?" I pressed, channeling a bit of Chat.

Tom pointed to a counter behind me. I turned, and saw her pink polka-dotted purse carefully situated next to a now-melting container of ice cream. Several small dishes of melted ice cream were on one side; a dozen empty ones on the other. "What was she supposed to be doing?"

"Getting dessert ready for the lunch buffet," Sabine said. "I think she ran out of whipped cream and had gone to get more."

"From the refrigerator?" I started toward the massive steel door, horrific visions of a chilled Marinette dancing in my mind.

"No," Tom said. "We had those supplies delivered just for the event."

My feline sense of smell told me Marinette was no longer on site. But I couldn't very well run around sniffing for her as Adrien. "Let me see if I can locate her," I said to her parents, trying to sound like it was not as worrisome as I thought it was. "I'll find her!"

Without waiting for a response, I left the kitchen at a trot and redirected to the first unlocked closet I could find. Barring myself inside, Plagg floated up. "Should I be worried?" I asked.

"Don't ask me," he said. "But it if you did, I'd tell you Chat Noir would have a better chance at making sure nothing bad has happened."

"Plagg – claws out!"

The green transformation wave had barely washed over me before I was bursting out of the closet and bounding down the hallway on all fours toward the kitchen, crashing through the double doors with a bit more speed than might have been necessary. Sabine looked quasi surprised, and then raised an eyebrow; not only had I appeared as Chat within a few moments of Adrien's departure, I'd re-entered from the same door he'd left. It might have been prudent to have arrived from another angle – any other angle, for that matter – but my worry over Marinette's disappearance was overriding other concerns; I couldn't worry about that now.

"Madame," I said, as I sniffed the air legitimately this time. I followed the traces of Marinette out to the loading dock, where they ended in the empty space. "Merde," I said beneath my breath.

Tom had joined me. "What was the last delivery?" I asked in the fading light of the early evening.

"Chilled goods from our dairy vendor, Cold Night," he said. "Around noon." He looked at me, concern written in lines on his face.

Five hours. She's been gone fur five hours.

That ulcer had turned into a full stomach-churning ache, and I had a reasonably good sense of what might have happened to her. I pulled out my baton and clicked into phone mode. Marinette was on speed dial and I tried her number; it went straight to voicemail again. I turned to Tom, who'd raised an eyebrow when he'd seen my contact list on the baton. I ignored it. "Where would the delivery truck have gone after the hotel?"

He pulled out his phone. "I don't know, but I know who to ask," he said, dialing his vendor. Tom waited expectantly and then frowned. "They've already closed for the day!"

I turned and looked out into the service alley again. If they were closed, there's a reasonable chance that the trucks all went back to the distribution center. And since Marinette hasn't turned up, it's a better than average chance this truck went straight back.

"Where is the warehouse?" I asked Tom.

"Uh…" he punched up something on his phone. "We changed last month to a new one, they are just barely in the city. New guy, low prices on base goods we use," he muttered, adding, "but I'm gonna change back to Jacques after this." He scrolled, then turned his phone to me. "Here's the address!"

My masked eyes widened – he wasn't kitten. The warehouse was on the outer fringes of Paris, a good forty minute drive by car from where I stood. City rooftops were only going to get me so far.

"I'm going for her," I said, snapping the baton shut and extended it for helicopter mode. "I'll call when I find her."

I didn't wait for a response before leaping into the air and helicoptering to the first roof. Faster than I thought possible, I crossed rooftops, bounded alleys and vaulted over late weekend evening Parisian traffic. All I could think about was getting to Marinette, my original horrific vision of her stuck in the fridge replaced by a now-popsicle version of her, huddled in a darkened delivery truck. Alone.

Catching my breath on the final rooftop before crossing into a more industrial area of the city, I popped the baton into phone mode again. Marinette was still not answering. I snapped it shut and shoved it into the small of my back, launched myself from the roof and landed in a tuck-and-roll on the wide pavement of an empty accessway, rolled out and started pounding the pavement as fast as my feline form would move. If the address was accurate, I still had about ten kilometers before I was in the ballpark of where the warehouse was located.

Fortunately, the my Miraculous blessed me with the ability to run as fast as fast as my namesake for as long as I needed to; I was nowhere near a world record pace, though, as I kept having to slow down in order to take my bearings. Close to 2000, I trotted to stop in front of a standard industrial fence not unlike what I'd been passing for the last several kilometers. This one happened to have the logo of the distributer I was seeking – Cold Night – and I wasted no time vaulting up and over the fence, landing in a three-point crouch.

My heart dropped at what was in front of me.

Rows and rows of delivery trucks were lined up along both sides of the warehouse; I could see close to sixty from where I was crouched, and realized there were likely more on the far side of the building, too. Tom hadn't meowtioned they were also one of the largest dairy distributers in Paris. I needed a plan.

I cat-leapt my way across the wide paved lot and stopped at the bumper of the first vehicle, searching for any way to make sense of how the trucks had been arranged. Ladybug Luck was on my side: based on the directional signs on the closed doors, I could clearly see this side of the warehouse was for retail. I'd need commercial or restaurant.

I took a guess and leapt forward about halfway along the dock; it was still retail, so I leapt again and found general food service was next. I assumed that would be similar to schools and hospitals and continued around the horseshoe; by the seventh landing, I'd located commercial. Pulling out my baton, I started banging on the trucks as I passed them, straining my feline ears for anything. "Princess! Princess! Can you hear me?!" I yelled as loud as I could. "I'm here!"

It was fully dark now, and the green-yellow night vision I had made the space seem eerie. So much so that I nearly jumped out of my fur when I finally heard a response on the thirteenth truck I tried.

"Chat?" I heard. It was so faint, I'd nearly tried to squeeze my feline ear through the metal rolltop door in an effort to hear her.

"I'm here, Princess!" I yelled. "I'm going to get you out of there."

I stood back. There was a handle at the bumper that twisted upward to open the door, but it had been secured with a padlock. I tried to pry it off with my claws, then attempted the brute force maneuver, but I couldn't remove it. Punching the metal only dented it; ripping the door from its hinges didn't get me very far, either. This thing was built like a tank. Clearly they didn't want their dairy being stolen.

I tried to ignore the irony of a cat breaking into the modern equivalent of a milk truck, and focused on my final option.

"Cataclysm!" I cried, raising my ring hand. The power of destruction flowed into my fingertips, and I just went for it, dragging them across the entire back half of the truck. I watched as the panel turned brown and crumpled into a pile of ashen dust. A puff of cold air accompanied it, blowing back my feline ears.

I leapt onto the truck, my night vision quickly scanning the space and finding a tiny figure curled up beside crates of whipped cream. She was shaking hard, and frost was gracing her smooth skin.

I hurled crates out my way, creating an impromptu aisle and dropped to my knees beside her. Marinette's lips were blue, and her skin was cold to the touch. "Mon Cherie," I whispered as I wrapped my body around hers. "I've got you now. I've got you."

She was shivering so badly from the cold that she inadvertently drove her head into my chin; but I didn't care. I'd found her. "Come on, let's get you out of here."

I scooped her up and leapt from the back of the truck to the pavement outside, the warm air pressing itself against me as I gently landed. Instead of releasing her, though, I held her tighter, trying desperately to warm her up. My ring chirped the five-minute warning, and I ignored it, gently rocking her.

I adjusted my grasp slightly and retrieved my baton, snapped it open to phone mode one handed and dialed the emergency number. When the dispatcher picked up, I was to the point: "This is Chat Noir. I need medical assistance for a teenage female, showing signs of hypothermia." I gave them the address and assured them I would make Marinette comfortable while we waited.

"Need… need to… transform…?" Marinette tried to ask between chattering teeth when the three-minute chirp hit.

"I've got a few minutes," I said, unsure if I'd ever discussed the finer points of being a Miraculous holder with her during one of my nocturnal visits.

"Go…"

"I'm not leaving you, Princess."

She started to struggle out of my embrace. "Not… not… the right time…" she was saying. "I'll wait here…"

"Then close your eyes," I said simply. "I'll recharge as quickly as I can. But I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"Ch—ch—Chat!" she shivered.

"Hush," I said, burying my head in her hair, "and close your eyes."

She did just as my ring chirped its final warning. The green de-transformation wave washed over me and Plagg silently floated up. I caught his eye and fished two pieces of Camembert out of the sportscoat I was wearing. He ate them faster than I've ever seen him do before and then nodded.

"Plagg – claws out," I said as quietly as I could.

The wave receded a second time in as many minutes and I was again holding Marinette in my black-cladded arms. "Okay," I said. "You can open them again…" I started before realizing she was gently snoring in my embrace.

I held her close and listened to the approaching sirens.

I sat, cat style, on the hard plastic chair in the hospital room and waited patiently for Marinette to awaken. Her parents had already stopped in, and were down in the cafeteria getting something to eat. I'd refused to leave her side, even growling at one point when the paramedics had tried to keep me out of the ambulance.

I was deathly tired, both physically and emotionally, but had managed to fend off Morpheus with a near constant cup of coffee in a paw, provided by a compassionate nurse who'd taken one look at my determined expression and decided it would be wiser to humor me than to run me out of the room.

As the sun started to peek through the window, Marinette's eyes fluttered open. I launched out of the chair, sending it clattering, and was immediately by her side, holding her hand as she tried to sit up. "Easy, Princess," I said.

"Chat?" She looked sleepy. "How long…?"

"Six or seven hours," I said. "Your parents are here – they're out in the lounge. I'll get them."

I started to turn and she caught me by the bicep.

"Princess?"

"How did you know where to look?"

I moved closer. "Once I realized what had happened to you, it was just a matter of getting to you." I waited a beat, searching her deep blue eyes. "How did you exactly come to be trapped in the back of a dairy truck?"

She squeezed my paw and pulled me in closer. "It was stupid, you know," she said, burying her head in my chest.

"Ladybug could probably tell you a thousand times that I'd looked before leaping," I laughed, running my claw through her hair, "so fear not: no judging from this cat."

I felt her chuckle against my chest. "I'm sure," she said. "I'd gone out to the dock to get the last crate of whipped cream for the dessert trays, and the driver wasn't there. I was impatient—"

"You, Purrincess? I find that hard to believe."

"You said no judging!"

"Sorry."

"—so I went into the truck myself. I'd just located the crate when the driver came back and closed the door on me."

"Didn't he hear you? You must have banged on the door or something?"

"I did, but clearly he didn't. I felt the truck moving and just assumed I'd get out at his next delivery point – except he didn't stop anywhere else."

"Yeah," I said. "I figured that out too."

"I tried to call my friend, Adrien, but my phone kept dropping the signal; the cold sapped my battery anyway."

"Why didn't you call your parents?"

"They leave their phones at home when they're on the job."

"Ah," I said, flashing on Nathalie and understanding that completely. "Well, it's a good thing you called Adrien. He was worried enough to, uh, manage to get a message to me."

I felt her head twist up at me. "He did?"

"Yeah."

"How on Earth—"

"Hush," I said, not wanting to delve too much further into how Chat had appeared on the scene. I was already going to have a hard enough time explaining to Nathalie where I'd disappeared to. I hopped up onto the bed and wriggled my way behind her, letting her lean against me. "It's over now. Rest. We can talk more once we get you home."

She started to argue with me, but thought better of it and snuggled in; soon, I felt her breathing become slow and regular as she drifted off to sleep.

Tom and Sabine poked their heads back in and saw Marinette had drifted back off to sleep.. "I'd like to stay until she wakes up," I asked, "if you don't mind?"

"Of course," Tom said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Stay as long as you like."

"And thank you, Chat," Sabine said, placing a kiss between my feline ears. "You've done good."

"I wish I'd done better," I frowned. "If only—"

"You did what you could as soon as you could," Tom said. "Don't go down the 'what if' road."

"Thanks," I said, although I was still beating up myself for not realizing Marinette was in trouble sooner.

They smiled again at me and left, and I hugged Marinette just a little bit more, aware of how close I'd come to loosing someone very precious to me. I had no intention of leaving her alone anytime soon.

I settled in to keep watch over my Princess.