Thank you all for your nice reviews! I love you all so much! This chapter is a very medical chapter, and I know next to nothing about that kind of stuff, so please forgive me in the future!
"What did you say?" Mackenzie asked. Cat Noir's gaze shot towards her and he realized he had said that sentence out loud. "Uh, nothing. Just—talking to myself." He replied. Mackenzie wasn't so sure about this, but decided to ignore it for now.
"So...I'm just gonna—" Cat Noir started as he slowly lifted himself up. "No." Mackenzie said, pushing him back down using surprisingly little effort. This actually scared Mackenzie. She didn't even have to put her whole hand on his chest to lay him down.
A groaned filled the air as Cat Noir was slowly pushed down onto his back again. Mackenzie waited for a little while until the groans started to end, then she slowly lifted herself over Cat Noir and looked at his face. He was asleep again. Mackenzie gestured for Ladybug to come over to her, she hesitated, but Ladybug decided she should go over if it had something to do with her partner.
Mackenzie brought her finger up to her mouth and gestured a 'shh' to Ladybug. Ladybug nodded to show she knew what Mackenzie meant. "Look at the way he's laying. He's avoiding his back. That must mean something's wrong." Mackenzie whisper-shouted. "Even if there is something wrong, how would we know?" Ladybug asked.
"We wait for him to wake up and I'll give him a 'checkup'" Mackenzie said, using her fingers as quotation marks. Ladybug really tried not to protest against this, but her protective instincts kicked in. "No, you might be the daughter of a nurse but he is my partner." Ladybug said, standing her ground.
Mackenzie just breathed in and looked down at the ground. She knew Ladybug would be protective, but she thought Ladybug would be protective about herself, not Cat Noir. But she understood. "Don't worry. I'm only going to make sure the wound isn't infected then I'll just re-wrap it." Mackenzie said, really trying not to show that she. Was. Lying…
To her surprise, Ladybug bought it, after a while Mackenzie helped Ladybug up to the mattress and let her get comfortable. She waited until Ladybug was asleep then waited a couple more minutes afterwards just in case.
When Mackenzie was 100% sure Ladybug was asleep, she crept over to the sleeping Cat Noir and got down on her knees. Mackenzie knew Cat Noir might wake up if she tried to turn him on his stomach, so she had planned ahead.
She had bought some supplies she could use to make a homemade knock-out liquid that she could pour onto a cloth and let Cat Noir breath it in so he wouldn't wake up so easily. She really didn't want to, but she had watched enough patients scream in pain to know that she didn't want Cat Noir to wake up while she was still working on him.
Earlier in the day, she had noticed that Cat Noir's wound was getting worse. His gash was a lot worse than Mackenzie was letting on…She really hated lying, her mother had raised her well, but she had to lie so that they wouldn't freak out. Because she knew if she told them the cold, hard truth, they would freak out.
Mackenzie got to work. She grabbed her acetone and gallon of bleach...then started to mix them. It didn't take long to create the liquid. She knew it was ready by the clear, water like look to it. She took out some more cloth she had bought and poured a little of the clear liquid onto the cloth. Next, she held the soaked cloth up to Cat Noir's nose and waited.
She counted for seven seconds then took the cloth away. She knew having too much of this stuff could be bad for you, so she only counted to seven so he wouldn't breath in too much of it. Once she was sure Cat Noir and Ladybug wouldn't wake up, she started to turn Cat Noir onto his stomach off his back. She only froze a couple of times when he let out a tired groan.
When Mackenzie told Ladybug she would only be checking the wound for infection, she wasn't totally lying. Mackenzie slowly lifted the sleeping cat up about a foot and started to unwrap the bandages from his chest. She was afraid of what she might see, but when she unwrapped the last strip of gauze...she was relieved.
It was starting to heal over, but not by much. And it was still bleeding pretty heavily, but it probably could've been worse. Mackenzie was worried if the wound didn't heal a little more by the next day, she might have to keep Cat Noir from moving all together for at least a couple of weeks...and she knew that would be torture for the both of them.
She forced herself to ignore that thought for a little while and only focus on what was happening in the moment. Mackenzie took the disinfectant she had bought and used another cloth to gently and gingerly pat the gash in the kitty's back. She had also bought a stitching needle and thread, telling the curious clerk that she was a nurse in training. That seemed to get the woman off her back, and it was technically true, too.
Mackenzie hadn't really stuck around for the stitching lessons. Needles made her nervous. But she knew that Cat Noir's health was much more important than any fear she might have, so she set the thread and told herself it was no big deal. 'Just stick it in his skin, coil around then do it again.' Mackenzie thought to herself. The needle got closer and Mackenzie got more nervous.
She was only improvising at this point and wasn't sure if she should even be doing this in the first place. But before she knew it, she was already at the third stitch. After a couple minutes of freaking out, she started to calm down. Focusing hard, she tried to work quickly but as her mom always told her, "You need to be patient with your patients"
'Mom' 'Mom' Why did that word have such an impact. Maybe it's because she was always the one there for you, she always kissed your boo-boos and snuggled with you on the couch. Then Mackenzie looked down at the cat she was working on. That vision she had seen a couple of days ago. The boy and the woman. They looked similar to each other.
Could that woman have been the boys mom? Could that boy have been the super hero she was now caring for? All these thoughts and more were now racing through Mackenzie's mind. She recalled the first time she had asked the cat if he had a mother. A pained look came onto his face, like the word 'mother' had hurt him somehow. Maybe this cat themed superhero was connected to the vision she had. Could that little boy be the cat sleeping in front of her? She forced herself to stop thinking about that stuff until she was done stitching his wound.
It took a while for her to stitch the wound entirely because it kept bleeding and she had to put her supplies down to get more cloth. Mackenzie looked down at the cat's face and smiled at how relaxed it was. Then a thought crept into her head.
'Maybe I could just take longer on purpose and see if he de-transforms, then I could see if he is the boy.' Mackenzie thought. She decided she would wait at least two minutes before re-wrapping his chest. The stitching would hold until she did re-wrap it, but it wouldn't hold for a full day, unless he didn't move.
Mackenzie waited by Cat Noir's side, half of her wanting to know the identity of the boy she was taking care of and the other half of her really didn't. The homemade knock out liquid she had made to keep Cat Noir asleep would not last for long, she knew that. So she just wrapped the gauze around his chest and walked towards Ladybug.
Mackenzie thought about waking Ladybug up, then decided against it. There wasn't much to do since both superheros were asleep. She could tell Ladybug would wake up first, due to what she had to do to keep Cat Noir asleep.
It wasn't an ideal time, but eventually Ladybug woke up and started to freak out when Mackenzie told her what she did. "You told me you would just check for infection then re-wrap it!" Ladybug yelled, clearly upset. "I know what I said and I'm sorry! It was getting worse and I couldn't just do nothing!" Mackenzie yelled back.
Ladybug didn't say anything in return, trying to give Mackenzie the silent treatment. She scooted over to her sleeping partner and lifted his head onto her legs and stroked his hair. He reminded her of Adrien so much, but she knew that was impossible. Ladybug stroked Cat Noir's hair for what seemed like forever, never wanting to leave his side until she saw those ivy green eyes.
Mackenzie almost felt bad, but she didn't let herself feel those emotions. One, because she knew Hawk Moth loved negative emotions and two, she was only helping Cat Noir. Not trying to hurt him even more, surly Ladybug knew that.
"Uh, it should only be a couple of minutes until he wakes up again." Mackenzie said, almost awkwardly. Ladybug still didn't answer, but she did nod in acknowledgment, still looking down at her partner. Ladybug really wished that Mackenzie had told her the truth in the first place, but understood why she didn't.
"So, is he even going be able to move?" Ladybug asked. "Whoa, she talks!" Mackenzie joked. Ladybug rolled her eyes at this. "Well, he shouldn't-" Mackenzie started. "-The stitches aren't state of the art and I'm not sure if he will want to move by choice anyway." Mackenzie answered. Ladybug nodded in agreement.
Just then Mackenzie started to giggle. "What?" Ladybug asked. "The stuff I used to keep him asleep acted as a laughing gas, or drug if you will. He will be totally out of it when he wakes up." Mackenzie said, starting to giggle again. This made Ladybug smile and giggle on the inside. The thought of Cat Noir being goofy was normal, but being goofy unintentionally was a different story.
"I just can't stand seeing my partner when he's in pain." Ladybug said, fighting off the giggles. "And I'm sure he can't stand it when you're in pain." Mackenzie reassured. Ladybug smiled for a couple seconds, then looked back down at the blonde boy in her lap. Ladybug looked like she was thinking hard about something, and Mackenzie was all too curious.
"You look like you're thinking hard." Mackenzie said. "Oh, yeah. I was just...thinking-" Ladybug started, then snickered at herself. "-How do you think Cat Noir will wine this time?" Ladybug asked, never taking her gaze away from the cat. Mackenzie giggled at Ladybug's question. "I don't know, you're his partner." Mackenzie started. "But if I could guess, I would say he'll wine about how much it will hurt, and about how he can't move and you can." Mackenzie said, smiling.
Ladybug didn't really want to keep talking from that point on, so there was an awkward silence. Ladybug didn't really know what else to do, so she just kept staring down at her partner and kept stroking his hair. After about 7 minutes of complete silence, there came a noise near Ladybug.
The two girls looked around themselves, trying to find the source of the strange noise. That's when Ladybug started to laugh hysterically. "What? What is it?" Mackenzie asked. Ladybug was laughing hard, trying to keep quite. Like a student who can't stop laughing in the library. She only looked at Mackenzie and pointed down at Cat Noir. When Ladybug pointed to Cat Noir, Mackenzie understood and started to laugh her head off, too.
Cat Noir was purring! He was purring like a real cat, all because Ladybug was stroking his hair. It was a low rumbling sound that bubbled in his chest up to his throat, and it cracked the two girls up! "This-this is good." Mackenzie said, still giggling a bit. "What? Why?" Ladybug asked in between a couple of short gasps. "The most common theory about cats is that they can only purr when they are in light sleep, but once they reach deep sleep, the purring stops." Mackenzie pointed out.
"So Cat Noir is awake?" Ladybug asked, a glimpse of hope sparkled in her eyes. "Well, sort of. He is in a light sleep. He's not asleep asleep but he's not awake either, if that makes sense." Mackenzie answered. "Yeah, that makes purr-fect sense." Ladybug said, smiling at herself. This only made Mackenzie laugh out loud again.
After the waves of laughter stopped, it was only a couple of minutes until they heard another noise. It was Cat Noir again! But this time it wasn't a sound he made, it was a voice! "M'lady, I've never been purr-ouder."
Thank you all for reading! It means the world to me! I had to search up a ton of nursing stuff for this chapter, but it was all worth it! I just had to make Ladybug say a cat pun, then Cat Noir hearing it and being proud of her! My own little touch! Anyway, hope you guys liked it. I will be posting chapter 8 soon!