Part 17: Well That Happened.

"What if we use metal bars?" Marinette asked. She and Kat were hunched over a large paper covered in sketches of gloves. It had taken a few ideas for Kat to settle on fingerless ones, and now they were trying to figure out how to reinforce them.

"I don't know about that. If the metal's put under enough force it might bend and break my fingers."

"Right. Um...what about…" Marinette sighed. "I don't know."

"Maybe we could just pad them. Like boxer gloves." She pantomimed a boxer and winced. Her hand had, indeed been hurt. A hairline fracture across the middle bone in her hand and she had sprained her wrist, too. (Please note that I have never had worse than a scraped knee, so any portrayal of injury that I may or may not try to write about will not really be completely accurate.)

"That's a great idea!" Marinette paused and looked at Kat's wrist, which was swelling up and purple. "You should get someone to look at your hand."

"I'll be fine."

"Kat, it's purple."

"Ya got me there."

"Are you scared of the hospital or something?"

"Nah, I'm just used to toughing it out. Granted, I've never been hurt quite this bad, but if I don't move it—"

"Come on. I'm taking you to the hospital."

"Fine," Kat sighed, "just let me whip up some tears."

"What? Why?"

"You'll see."

Kat got onto the fifth step up to Mari's bed, forced herself to cry, then jumped down and landed on her feet. The landing created a huge thump.

"Just roll with it," Kat cried. Marinette looked at her in confusion, but decided to roll with it. The two hurried down to the bakery.

"Girls? What was that sound?" Mrs. Dupain-Cheng asked, already at the bottom of the stairs.

"I just tripped and fell on my wrist," Kat sobbed, squeezing her arm a little so that pain leaked into her voice.

"Oh dear! Let's get you to the hospital." Mrs. Dupain-Cheng told her husband that she'd be back, and they left. An hour later, Kat had a cast, Marinette had finished planning Kat's gloves in her head, and Mrs. Dupain-Cheng was having a very, very hard time with the paperwork.

"Kat, have you ever had...here read that...have you ever had that?"

"Nope. I've never even heard of that. I don't think I can even pronounce it."

"What's muscular dystrophy?"

"That's where your muscles like disappear. I think it's mostly in boys," Kat added, "so no, I don't have it."

This went on for a while, and when they got to the family questions (does x disease run in your family?) they just gave up. Kat had a very large family (on her mom's side) and had absolutely no idea on any of it. They took the papers up to the receptionist.

"I'm sorry, I can't accept those," the receptionist said. "You need to fill out everything."

"We don't know everything, ma'am," Mrs. Dupain-Chen's replied.

"Why not?"

"Kat fell out of a…" she looked at Kat.

"A portal, I think," Kat said. The receptionist rolled her eyes.

"That didn't happen. Just fill it out."

"It did happen. One minute I was in my bed, the next I was in a classroom."

"That's not possible," the lady laughed.

"Paris gets attacked by an akumatized villain every other day. I don't think me falling out of a portal is too hard to believe."

The receptionist opened her mouth to reply, but Kat's icy stare made her close it. She took the papers without another word.

——In Mari's Room——

Kat waited patiently for Adrien to pick up on the FaceTime call. When he did, Kat smiled and made sure Marinette and Tikki were both still gone. (They went to deliver a cake to a little girl's birthday party.)

"Hi, ."

"Hey, Cinnabon. Whatcha doing?"

"Not much. It's always boring over here without you."

"Yeah. It's not very boring around here." Kat held up her arm. The neon cast covered from her palm to about halfway down her arm.

"What happened?" Adrien gasped.

"You know when I brought Switchblade in so she'd switch you back?"

"Yeah. You knocked her out."

"And in doing so I sprained my wrist and got a hairline fracture in my hand."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not really. They numbed it up pretty good."

"Pretty well, you mean?"

"I suppose," Kat laughed. "Sometimes I don't grammar good, huh?"

Adrien snickered. A knock came from the phone's little speakers. "Adrien?"

It was Mr. Agreste.

"Hello, Father."

"May I speak with you a minute?"

Adrien gave a small gasp. "You...you're asking if you can speak with me?"

Kat raised an eyebrow. As you know, dear reader, this occurrence was quite out of the ordinary. Adrien glanced at his phone, then placed it in his pocket, making sure he didn't turn it off. Kat's breath hitched. She waited for more talking, butterflies doing an angry dance in her stomach. What would Mr. Agreste do? Was he angry? Apologetic about something he'd done? Happy? Kat dug some chips out of her bag and shoved a bunch in her mouth. She didn't usually stress eat, but she needed something to keep from clenching her teeth.

"How would you like to go to a Jagged Stone concert?"

Kat choked on her chips. "What?"

"I...Yes?" Adrian laughed softly, the sound full of relief.

"Would you like Kat to come?" Mr. Agreste asked. It sounded like he was a tad hopeful. Kat narrowed her eyes, suspicion snaking its way through her mind. What was he thinking? Mr. Agreste continued, "We could bring some of your other friends, too, if you'd like."

"That would be great," Adrien said slowly. Then, a little more enthusiastically, "How many friends?"

"Two, perhaps? Not counting Kat."

"That sounds awesome," Adrien said. Kat couldn't see anything, but she thought she could hear Mr. Agreste's receding footsteps. A second later, Adrien took his phone out of his pocket. "Did you hear that, Kat?"

"Every word," Kat breathed, still trying to take it all in.

"Who should I bring?"

Kat didn't hesitate to answer, "Marinette, of course. Oh, and Nino, cuz he's your best friend."

Kat must have sounded a little sad, because Adrien said, "Aside from you, Kat."

"Aw, you're so sweet," Kat cooed. "And you can have more than one best friend. I have three best friends. Well, at my other home, anyway."

"You must miss them," Adrien smiled sadly.

"Sometimes. But I have you and Nathaniel and Marinette. And I'm writing down everything that happens so I can tell them. I might even make it into fanfiction."

"Fanfiction? What?"

"Yeah. See, all of this is a cartoon...back in my world…" Kat trailed off, not sure if she should continue.

"Wait, so did you know who I was when you got here?"

Kat took a deep breath and admitted, "Yeah. Yeah, I knew. I know a lot more about this world than you or anyone else thinks. I was pretty much obsessed with it. Not only this show, though. I also like Gravity Falls, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and quite an assortment of others."

"Do you know who Ladybug is?" Adrien asked, his eyes widening in eagerness.

"Yes. But I can't tell you." A small sound alerted Kat to the presence of someone in the room. "I gotta go, Cinnabon, talk to you later."

Kat hung up and turned around to see a slack jawed Marinette and Tikki.