Content warnings:
This chapter: unsafe animal care, mentions of dead birds and mice, and unsanitary conditions.
Later chapters: Discussions of emotional child abuse and neglect. Chapter 7 will contain undescribed, off-screen character deaths, and one non-graphic but very emotional on-screen minor character death. Who is dying, you ask? Abusive parents, and a few other terrible people.
Pretty much any an all characters that I like will be trans in this fic because I'm trans and I say so :) if you have a problem with that, just admit you're a transphobe and leave now :) Because if you decide to leave transphobic comments, you will be reported and then blocked :)
Adrien adopts a feral cat, believing that he knows exactly how to take care of one because of his position as the holder of the Black Cat Miraculous. And perhaps his family even owned a cat in the past, which the staff normally took care of. It's easy, right? Adrien just has to feed and water it, and let it outside to do its business!
No. It's really not.
Strays and shelter cats aren't the same as hand-raised, pedigree kittens, and Adrien isn't prepared to deal with even one of those. And to make things worse, Adrien hasn't even adopted a stray cat.
It's a feral cat. And the only reason he was able to catch it in the first place was because it had a limp on one of its front legs, and wasn't as quick as the black cat Adrien had actually been aiming for at diving away to safety. This one isn't't as cool as a black cat, but it's still cool, because it's Adrien's cat! That automatically makes it cool. He still wishes he could have caught the black one though.
This cat is skinny, with long fur that's mostly white, with some scattered patches of black and orange across its back and sides, an orange patch on one ear, and yellow eyes.
It would have been cooler if it had green eyes like him and Plagg, but he'll take what he can get.
He names it Sidekick.
If he'd caught the black cat, he would have named it Chat Jr. But beggars can't be choosers, and he hasn't seen that black cat since, so there's no chance of switching them out.
Sidekick (who he at least remembers to put a collar on) keeps returning from the grounds when he lets it outside with dead birds and mice, sometimes even presenting it to Adrien on his bed! One time he even started putting his shoes on only to discover it had dropped a mouse head in his shoe!
And things keep getting worse. For some reason, the cat can't seem to groom itself properly, and its fur is matted together in large clumps along its back and sides, which means it's not even fun to pet it, because the rest of its fur is soft, but the mats are weird and gross. And what fur isn't hopelessly matted together sheds all over his clothes and his bed.
Adrien doesn't know how, and doesn't want to clean a litterbox for it, so he ordered one of the self-cleaning ones online. It's huge, and expensive, and looks nice and futuristic and streamlined, and unfortunately for Sidekick and Adrien…the cat is terrified of it. It was all going so well until the thing turned on while the cat was still inside, and the loud noises and sudden movement scared it half to death. And now Sidekick won't go anywhere near it.
And since Adrien only bought one litterbox despite his bedroom being as large as a house, because he didn't bother to do any research before deciding he wanted a cat, that leaves plenty more spaces for the cat to pick from as a bathroom. No one told Adrien that you're supposed to have multiple litter boxes per cat, because he didn't ask anyone.
One of the corners of his library quickly becomes inaccessible and disgusting, because Sidekick has decided that the corner between two bookshelves and the wall is now a bathroom. All the books and games and DVDs on the lowest shelves are now ruined, and have to be thrown in the trash. And the same goes for by his window, and on the balcony, and at the base of his rock-climbing wall.
And Adrien has to clean it all up himself, because no one can know he has the cat. He orders everything online himself, and has them air-dropped directly through his window with delivery drones. His father never bothers to keep track of Adrien's credit cards, and never goes near a window long enough to even look up, let alone have a chance to spot a delivery drone with a package.
Thankfully, his father also never comes into his room, and neither does Nathalie if she doesn't have to. The cleaning staff have successfully been bribed not to tell his father about the cat, but they refuse, point-blank, to clean up after it unless he pays them even more. And he has to draw the line somewhere. He can't go letting them think they have enough power to order him around and demand fair payment from him, now can he? So he refuses to increase their pay to include cleaning up after the cat, and they get on with their usual duties, dusting, mopping, washing his clothes and the windows and everything else. Except for the corners where the cat is using as a bathroom.
Thankfully, Adrien's large windows all open, so it's easy to let in fresh air so that the room doesn't reek too terribly, and he has access to the best air freshener's money can buy. The smell of cat waste is easy to cover up, and after arguing with the cleaning staff, he at least accepts the responsibility of taking the trashbags of paper towels and destroyed clothes down to the front patio.
He just wishes Sidekick would just use the litterbox, it would make all this so much easier.
At least it doesn't do all its business in his room, there's a few patches in the garden where it's been going, digging through the grass and annoying the garden keepers.
At one point, Sidekick decides that the best place to pee is nowhere else than Adrien's bed. And it reeks to high heaven, even more so than it ever did on the floor! And it was the most ridiculous thing he's ever seen, it didn't even squat down or anything to give him warning! It just jumped up, stood on the edge of the bed, lifted up its tail, and sprayed pee backwards out across his blankets and pillows!
Because unfortunately for Adrien, and the cat, Adrien didn't realize that cats that aren't neutered spray to mark their territories. He thought it would just be like a dog, where it would just mark its territory outside while it was going to the bathroom anyways. But no, that's not how cats work.
So now he has to throw away all his blankets and pillows, and the mattress beneath. Because there's no way he's ever using them again, even if they're washed. The smell is so horrifically strong there can't be any way to wash that out again! It has to be impossible!
At least the delivery drones have no problem bringing him his new mattress and bed sets, and the cleaning staff don't argue about making his new bed for him.
This cat is so much more effort than he thought it would be.
The only good thing is that Sidekick doesn't seem to mind the automatic food dispenser he bought for it, or the water fountain. The problem with the water fountain is that it likes to play in it, and splashed water all across the floor before he bought a waterproof mat to put it on.
It also enjoys the massive cat tree he bought, that towers twenty feet in the air, with bridges and beds and toys on springs, and plenty of scratching posts for it to use. Half the time he can't find Sidekick, it's because it's napping at the very top of the tree where he can't reach it unless he transforms.
Well, no, there are other plus sides. Sidekick is cute, when it's not peeing on his bed or the bookshelves or the rock climbing wall. He bought it bells and toys to play with, and watching it run around the room with a toy mouse is almost worth getting real dead mice dropped at his feet. Almost. But not quite. It would be even cuter if it weren't limping with every step, but that doesn't slow it down by much.
But despite its cuteness when it's playing, the cat doesn't seem to love Adrien! Sidekick spends most of its time hiding or asleep, and it took almost two week after he got it for him to even get the chance to see it playing! Before that, it darted away to hide whenever it saw him!
Even with all he does for it, Sidekick always squirms or runs away from his attempts to cuddle with it, and the one time he tried to play with it, it leapt away and hissed at him with all its fur standing on end, and then hid for almost the rest of the day! It only came out again when the automatic food dispenser chimed for its supper!
Sidekick is not the cuddly, fawning companion he thought it would be, it's a responsibility that, even worse, has its own thoughts and ideas and motivations. And there's nothing Adrien hates more than responsibility.
More and more, Adrien tries and fails to push responsibility of this cat onto the cleaning staff, but they have their own jobs, and refuse to add another one without being paid for it, and⏤they remind him⏤he wanted this responsibility! He's the one who wanted to get a cat in secret, without permission. They're keeping his secret, and if he wants them to do more work, he has to pay them for it. They were hired to dust and wash his clothes, not petsit for him like he isn't fully capable of it.
Nevermind that what he really wanted was a cute cat that couldn't talk back to him and make him smell like stinky cheese, that he could cuddle whenever he wanted to, but he's starting to find that there's a worse smell than Camembert, and that's cat urine.
To add insult to injury, Plagg and the cat get along great. They get along the way Adrien thought he and the cat would. Plagg keeps trying to tell him that he needs to be more gentle and quiet and try to gain its trust because it's afraid of him because he's a big and scary predator as far as the cat is concerned, and Plagg keeps telling him not to keep letting it outside, but what does Plagg know?
Plagg is willing to take some matters into his own hands, mainly grooming the cat. He brushes its fur every day until the matted clumps are gone, and then keeps brushing it to make sure they don't come back, and actually succeeds in playfully wrestling with it, despite the differences in their sizes. After the second month, Plagg finally convinces Adrien to buy some normal litterboxes, insisting that he will scoop it himself if Adrien refuses to.
Then Plagg cleans the areas where the cat had been going to the bathroom, and puts the litterboxes there, and suddenly Adrien doesn't have to clean up after the cat everyday, because now it's using the litterbox, and Plagg keeps his promise and scoops them every day. The only thing Adrien has to do is carry the trash down to the front patio for the staff to take out to the curb.
Plagg also convinces him to get the cat checked out by a vet for the limp on its paw, and fortunately for Adrien, he's able to find one online that's a fan of Chat Noir, and convinces them to help out "one of Chat Noir's best friends, Adrien Agreste". They'll be getting paid, of course. The Agrestes have plenty of money. All Adrien had to do was hop over to the vet's house, and carry them in through his window, with their equipment stored away in his baton.
Unfortunately for the cat, there's nothing the vet can do about its limp without extensive surgery that can't be performed in a bedroom. It's an old injury that healed wrong, though thankfully it doesn't seem to be causing the cat much pain anymore. But it will never regain full use of its front paw, and can't even extend its leg out the whole way, which Adrien notices every time its stretching after a nap.
The vet gives it its vaccines, and then informs Adrien that it's a girl cat, and that it's pregnant.
Adrien is shocked speechless. How can that be possible?
The vet asks if he has other cats, but he doesn't. The vet asks if he ever lets her outside unaccompanied, and he replies that of course he does, all the time. Cats need freedom, don't they?
And then the vet has to explain to Adrien that cats aren't meant to be outside, that it's better for them to stay indoors all the time unless they're on a leash or in an enclosure, and that there's absolutely nothing stopping this cat from leaving his mansion's grounds, or another cat from getting in. Cats can get pregnant at any time of the year, and letting her outside without supervision is why she's pregnant now. Adrien should make sure in the future to either keep her indoors, or walk her only on a harness, or in an enclosed patio.
The vet tells him that the cat can be fixed, and the pregnancy aborted, but the cat would have to come back to the actual vet clinic in order for that to happen, and he would have to pay for it too, because it would be using up more of the clinic's supplies.
If Adrien agrees to it, the cat can be neutered and brought back within a day. It might seem sad or cruel, but it is what is best for the cat, and the unborn kittens. There are already too many unwanted cats in Paris, the shelters are completely overwhelmed, and unless Adrien would be willing to keep or foster all the kittens, there's no way to adopt them out right now.
Getting the cat fixed is one of the best things he can do for it, because cats aren't like people, they aren't able to think and plan pregnancies. Being pregnant puts a lot of stress on the body, and it's unnecessary for the cat to be put through that for no reason, especially where there's no homes waiting for the kittens after they're born.
Adrien agrees after some very emphatic but silent urging from Plagg to say yes from behind the vet's shoulder, though the matter is delayed for a few minutes when the vet realizes Adrien doesn't own a cat carrier, and explains that, no, they cannot just hold the cat while Chat Noir carries both of them. That would be dangerous beyond reconciliation even if the cat were willing to be held, which it's not.
Adrien of course had to explain to the vet how he got Sidekick, that it was rescued off the street, to explain the injury to its leg. The vet was gratified to hear what he'd done, but had some serious suggestions to improve what he'd already been doing.
He'd done well by taking Sidekick in, and he'd clearly been feeding it properly (it had gained a lot of weight since he'd caught it, and was no longer as skinny as a stick) and cleaning up after it (at this point, the stains and marks from the first disastrous litterbox incidents have been cleaned away perfectly, thanks to the unlimited amount of money Adrien has to throw at his problems) and taking care of its grooming, (thanks to Plagg) and he was right to call in a vet to check on its leg. (Also thanks to Plagg.)
But there was more Adrien should do if he wanted to care for this animal properly, and that started with getting Sidekick fixed, and included no longer letting it outside unaccompanied, or even at all. Adrien's bedroom was bigger than the vet's whole house, there was enough room to comfortably house several cats, let alone just one. There was no reason at all to let it outside where it was put in danger and allowed to kill birds and mice, which is harmful for the environment, and worse, can give the cat parasites that can make it sick or even kill it. And that's even before you get into all the poisons that are in the world for a cat to stumble into.
The delay from the lack of a carrier is fortunately easily solved by a five-minute delivery drone, and twenty minutes later, Adrien heads back to his mansion as Chat Noir, now temporarily minus one cat (Now renamed Purrincess, now that he knows it's a girl), having promised the very insistent vet that he would take their suggestions into serious consideration.
No more letting the cat outside unless he's walking it on a leash, or can get an enclosed patio. Which isn't an option, because his father might notice. So the cat just has to stay in his bedroom all the time, which the vet said would be no problem at all because of how massive it was. If he wanted to give it some more "enrichment", he could put a set of shelves or ledges right under the windows, so the cat could sit and look outside, or put for-cat videos on one of his TVs that showed birds and squirrels for the cat to watch. He had a good amount and variety of toys that the cat clearly enjoyed playing with, and aside from being predictably skittish from growing up outside, it seemed happy and healthy.
Adrien was told that he was lucky that there were so many people in Paris, because that meant that Sidekick had had more opportunities to observe people before it was caught. If it had grown up with less contact with people than it already had, it would be a lot harder for him to socialize it.
That was a word Adrien had never heard before. So the vet explained that kittens who were raised with people were socialized by being around people, being played with, and getting attention. They learned from the moment they were born that humans were nice and friendly caregivers.
Cats who grew up outside didn't get that treatment, which was why they were usually afraid of people to begin with. But you can't un-domesticate an animal, and cats had been bred for thousands of years to be companions. If he kept up the good work, the cat would learn to trust people, and would probably be almost as happy and trusting as any hand-raised kitten. All it took was patience and understanding, and he already had a fairly brave cat to start with, which made it even easier. It would be no time before it had warmed up to him and learned to trust him enough that it could enjoy his company.
So maybe he should have listened to Plagg after all. This was what Plagg had been trying to tell him, this was why Plagg was able to pet and cuddle with the cat but Adrien wasn't. Adrien was too impatient, and wanted its affection now. But that wasn't how animals worked.
If he wanted its trust, he had to earn it. He had to prove that he wasn't dangerous or scary, he had to prove to the cat that it could trust him and would be safe with him.
The vet gave him some tips: don't run around loudly, because that would scare the cat. Don't pester or follow the cat around trying to pet it, encourage it instead to come closer by offering treats and special food. Start slowly, and only go as fast as the cat was comfortable with. Let it get used to being around you first, then you can offer pets. Each cat is different, so he would have to figure out how and where the cat wanted to be touched. Some really liked having their heads or chins rubbed, others hated it. He would have to take it slowly and figure out what Sidekick wanted.
He could start by playing with Sidekick with toys, and offering it treats as positive reinforcement. Offering to let it sniff his hand, letting it get used to being close by near hm before he tried to pet it at all.
It would take time, but there was no reason Adrien wouldn't be able to gain the cat's trust and affection. All he had to do was prove that he was trustworthy and safe, and be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day, and you couldn't overcome a lifetime of fear in just a few months. He had to look at it from the cat's perspective ⏤ how would he feel if a giant kept trying to grab him without warning?
No one ever told Adrien having a cat would be this much effort. He thought he could just pick it up off the street and get straight to the cuddling, purring happiness. But that's not how it works when it comes to feral cats.
Well, now he knows, and with Plagg and the vet's urging, he's going to do better.