"Curse you." When helping her parents in the bakery, Marinette would occasionally trip and drop a customer's pastry on the floor. She would apologize and get a new one, and the customer would usually be quite nice about it, but not this time. The moment the pastry hit the floor, Marinette was given no chance to make it right. The moment those words were uttered, she could feel herself shrinking away, becoming low to the floor.
From her place over by the cash register, Sabine heard the exchange. She looked over in time to see her daughter becoming smaller and morphing shape into a cat, with black fur so sleek it shone a dark blue. The clothes Marinette had been wearing, including a pair of black earrings, lay in a pile around her paws. "Marinette!" Sabine came running over "what did you do to her?"
"I'm teaching her a lesson in responsiblity. Before you say anything, I know the girl
didn't do it on purpose, but she was careless. This will teach her to be more careful in the future."
"And what exactly is she supposed to be careful of now that she's a cat?"
"She could be careful of all the feral males who would love to mate with her, but it might be in her best interest if she doesn't. My goal is to teach her a lesson, I left a way for her to become human again. If she delivers a litter of kittens the spell will be broken as soon as the last of the afterbirth is out, but she might be reluctant to return. Her children won't be able to go with her after all, not if their father is a cat."
Marinette slunk off to the side of the room, scared and confused. She could hear fear and some anger in her mother's voice, but she couldn't understand her words. The language she knew she should know made strange noises in her feline ears.
At some point Tom came out of the kitchen to see what was going on and repeatedly scratched his head while talking to his wife, but must have ultimately believed her, because he bent down before the cat and asked a one word question that must have been how her cat ears picked up "Marinette?"
She meowed, corroborating her mother's story as best she could. Her father kept talking to her in a soothing tone while her mother made a phone call. Soon the police showed up, but by that time the "witch" as Marinette decided to think of her, was already gone. The police looked at the cat and shook their heads. They weren't buying her parents' story. After the police left, Tom went back to the kitchen, while Sabine petted Marinette and cried.
Marinette meowed and rubbed her head on Sabine's hand, as concerned for her mother as she was for herself. If her mother were to become an akuma now, there would be nothing she could do to help her.
Chat Noir followed the sound of the screams toward the source of the Akuma. It seemed to be pretty near his school. He'd had a hard time getting away from home unnoticed, so he expected Ladybug to already be there, but she wasn't. Instead it was Rena Rouge and Carapace who came running to him over the rooftops. "Chat! There you are! Ladybug has been compromised, her kwami brought us our miraculouses."
"Tikki?" Chat asked, "remembering the time he and his lady had gotten their kwamies mixed up.
Tikki answered for herself. "Yes, I'm here. There's no time to worry about Ladybug, you need to defeat the akuma. I'm no good in the fight, but I can purify the akuma. Just bring me the item and break it in front of me."
"I managed to talk to the akuma victim briefly before Hawkmoth took complete control of her," Rena explained. "Her name is Sabine Cheng, she's upset because someone cursed her daughter and turned her into a cat, and the police wouldn't believe it happened."
"I've always wondered if Marinette was a cat person," Chat mused.
After returning Sabine to her pre-akumatized state. Chat released his transformation in an alley near the bakery. "It's curious," he told Plagg. The first time I met Tikki it was right after I'd been hanging out ar Marinette's house, and as soon as Marinette is turned into a cat Ladybug doesn't show up? I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but there seems to be a connection between Marinette and Tikki."
As soon as Adrien stepped out of the alleyway onto the main street, he was nearly bowled over by Alya. "Adrien, there you are! I knew you would show up when you heard Marinette was in danger. Since the police aren't doing it, you're going to help Nino and me find out what happened to Marinette. With her skillset, the woman who did this probably makes her living as some kind of mystic, so I've made a list of self proclaimed fortune tellers, psychics, and various types of magic users in the area. Here's list of the ones I want you to investigate. If they don't match the description Marinette's parents gave, go ahead and ask if they know anyone who does. If you find someone who you think might be the one, text me and we'll figure out what to do next." With that, Alya stormed off to get started on her own list, without asking if Adrien had any questions."
"Okay... sure."
Marinette hadn't been out of the house in days. The world was scary through the eyes of a cat, or at least for a cat who was used to being human. Her parents seemed to be concerned by the dangers as well. She could tell because they'd bought her a collar. The collar sometimes made her neck itch, but she understood the precaution. She didn't know how long she was going to remain a cat, and she might for some reason need to go outside. If she did, and couldn't find her way back home, then she would have no way to ask for directions. In that event, it would be useful to have her home address and phone number written on the tag around her neck.
She heard someone open the door, that would be Alya. Alya had been visiting her every day after school sometimes with Nino and/or Adrien. It was nice to know her friends still cared about her, even in the state she was in. This time there was only one set of footsteps, so she expected Alya to be alone. She wasn't, in her arms she carried a golden yellow cat with green eyes.
Marinette was a little nervous, but curious too. She hadn't had a good experience with other neighborhood cats since she'd become one herself. She'd thought that just maybe, since she'd lost the ability to talk to humans, that she might be able to talk to other cats. She quickly learned, however, that there was a language barrier between them. Listening to humans speak was like listening to a radio tuned to the wrong frequency. Most of it was unintelligible garbling, but when she could make out a word, she knew people were speaking her language. The cats' tongue was completely different. When she'd first tried to introduce herself, she could only assume she'd been catcalled. One of the males had said something to her and began walking in her direction. He'd seemed friendly enough at first and she'd allowed him to sniff her, then he'd tried to mount her. Marinette had whirled around and bitten him before her mind had even processed what whas happening. The tomcat had backed off a little, a confused look on his face, like he couldn't understand why the female he'd just met wouldn't allow him to mate with her. Marinette hadn't waited to see if he was going to make another attempt on her, and had run back inside as fast as she could.
Now Marinette was under the impression that any tomcat, even the genuinely friendly ones, expected to be allowed to mate with whomever they wanted whenever they pleased. Because of that, Marinette was wary of her visitor, but also hoped he would be better behaved since he had been hand picked by Alya. She trusted her best friend wouldn't allow her to be raped in her own home.
The golden tomcat stalked over to her and sniffed her. That made her tense, that was the same way the other cat had started, but still, she refrained from clawing him. Next he licked the top of her head, and to her surprise, it felt quite nice. She'd been learning to bathe herself as a cat, but none of the places her tongue couldn't reach ever seemed to quite get clean. She closed her eyes as he lay down beside her and made a thorough job of washing her ears, maybe he wasn't so bad. Eventually he quit licking her and rested his head on his paws. Marinette thought it would be the polite thing to do if she returned the favor and washed his ears as well. He seemed to quite enjoy it, and purred heartily as she ran her tongue over his ears. It was he who finally decided she'd washed his ears enough and nuzzled his head into her neck before getting up. She wasn't concerned about what he was doing until she felt his breath on the base of her tail. He was sniffing her vent. That could be a friendly gesture among dogs, but she didn't think cats did it unless - far more tentatively than the first male she'd dealt with, he nonetheless tried to mount her.
Marinette freed herself from under him and turned to face him. She'd claw him, but this time she was a little worried that maybe she'd been the one to unintentionally send mixed messages. She didn't know cat culture, maybe grooming each other was part of a mating ritual and she'd just agreed to have kittens with him before backing out last minute when he tried to seal the deal. Maybe she could still trust him, but she had to clear up their little misunderstanding. She hissed and thrashed her tail in warning.
The tomcat wasn't taking no for an answer. He apparently believed the tongue bath was more than enough to romance her, and he believed that she owed him the opportunity to mate. Feeling hurt and betrayed, Marinette looked to Alya for help. Where was she in all of this? Alya was barely watching them at all, most of her attention was on her phone.
The tomcat lunged and Marinette ran, she didn't know how it had come to this, male cats aparenly thought queens were good for breeding and nothing else. She ran blindly out the door and into the streets, they weren't as scary anymore, not when her own house wasn't safe. Her parents came out of the bakery to see what was the matter, but she couldn't stop, not when she was being pursued. She ran until she hit a dead end, and in the time it took her to decide if she should go left or right, someone pounced on her. At first she thought he must have caught up to must have caught up to her, but then she saw swirls of gray and brown out of the corner of her eye. There were two of them, both from the group she'd run into on her balcony. The gray one was on top of her now, while the brown one, the first tomcat to ever try to mount her, looked like he was about to try swatting the gray cat off of her. She hoped he would before the gray tomcat did anything irresistible, try as she might, she couldn't get him off of her. Was her first sexual partner really going to be a feral cat?
Suddenly, there was a furious yowl and the gold cat from earlier ripped the gray one off of her back. The brown one tried to take that as an opportunity to take his place, but Marinette wasn't pinned down any longer, she could fight! She scratched and bit, and recieved in turn, but eventually he decided it wasn't worth it and ran away right around the time the golden tomcat also sent the gray one running away. Marinette was exhausted and she was bleeding, at some point her opponent's focus had shifted away from breeding and onto getting revenge for the wounds he had recieved, and thought Marinette had won the fight, he had certainly accomplished that second goal.
The golden tomcat padded over to her and lapped gently at one of her wounds. Marinette flinched, she'd forgotten he was still there. She had no energy left to resist him if he tried anything, but she thought that maybe this cat was enough of a gentleman not to put the moves on a queen when she was injured. She was wrong, slowly, careful not to put any pressure on her wounds, he mounted her. Marinette wondered how she had gotten into such a pitiful situation that she had no choice but to lie there and take it when a cat was having sex with her. Even with his apparent efforts to be gentle, he finished quickly and slipped out of her, moving to lay next to her and snuggle against her, purring. She was somewhat surprised he didn't run off after he'd got what he wanted. If she chose to ignore the undesirable forwardness he seemed to share with all males of his species, he really was a sweet guy. His green eyes, she realized, even sort of reminded her of Adrien. If she were truly a cat at heart, she'd probably have a pretty bad crush on him. She didn't even know if cats as a general rule had cruses, but she knew she would. Exhausted, she fell asleep.
No real surprise, Marinette found out she was expecting. No tests were available to her, but she had an instinct about it even before she could feel grape-sized lumps when washing her abdomen. That day she'd been woken up from her sleep when she'd been picked up by animal services. They'd taken her back to what looked like a vet's office where they wrapped up her wounds, as well as the wounds of the golden tomcat, whom she'd actually been glad to see was still with her, but that was the last time she'd seen him. The people in the vet's office took one look at her collar, and called her parents to pick her up. She was relieved to be home, but she couldn't stop thinking about him, especially since she found out she was pregnant with his kittens. The shelter had only let her go so easily because she had a collar, she worried what his fate could have been. Hopefully he'd been adopted and not put down, or maybe it was one of those neuter and release programs that she'd heard about. She definitely wished that on the two who had tried raping her in the alleyway, but when it came to the golden tomcat she was confused, she didn't know what she wished his fate to be. Then, after about a month, he showed up, meowing at the door. 'Typical cat,' she thought 'leaving for weeks and then wanting to be welcomed back like nothing has happened.' Then she noticed a scar running along beneath his vent where is testicles had been. It looked like she was probably right about the neuter and release program. She didn't know how long they'd held him after the operation, or for that matter, before it. It was possible he'd come back as soon as he was able. Maybe this was for the better, if his drive to breed had been taken along with his equipment, maybe he'd settle down and help her raise the kittens he'd already sired.
He seemed intent on doing just that. He followed her everywhere around the house, protecting and pampering her at every chance he got. Her parents were allowed to touch her without him complaining, but any time a customer came in to buy bread, he would place himself between her and them with a hiss. He groomed her obsessively, and paid special attention to her abdomen, as though he wanted to try washing the kittens through her belly. The only time he disappeared for more than ten minutes he returned with a fresh dead mouse. When she refused to eat his offering, he ate it himself and didn't leave her side that long again.
She hardly ever went up to her old bedroom anymore. Not only was it becoming increasingly difficult to climb the stairs with her sagging belly, but he would always follow her up there and meow at her pictures of Adrien until she felt she might go insane. Did he sense the feelings she had held for the boy? Was he jealous? There was no reason for him to be. She would always hold a special place in her heart for Adrien, but she'd given up on ever pursuing those feelings. She doubted if she would ever be human again, and even if she did, nothing would be the same after she had been pregnant by another, even if another was a cat. Besides, Adrien had apparently abandoned her, he'd come to see her a few times, so she knew he knew, but now she hadn't seen him since before the golden tomcat showed up. No, this cat was very good to her and she'd come to accept this cat as her mate, and the only way to keep her mate from whining was to stay out of her bedroom. But she was homesick for the room where she had so many good memories from her human days, so heavy with kittens, at almost two months along, she struggled up the stairs once again. Her mate leaned against her shoulder, supporting her weight, and doing his best to help her ascend the steps. This time, when he saw the pictures, he did something different. He jumped up onto her sewing table and from there stood on his hind legs to pull one of the photos off of the corkboard. He jumped down and placed the picture on the ground, then sat behind it. He looked from her, to the picture, and back again. He was trying to tell her something. She took a closer look. It wasn't just his eyes that reminded her of Adrien, it was his everything. He was truly Adrien if Adrien were a cat. Could it be? Was Adrien a cat now? If the feline in front of her was truly another human turned cat, maybe they would be able to talk to each other and understand. "Adrien?" she tried to say, but only meowed.
Maybe it was just her imagination, but she thought he looked pleased with her for finally putting it all together. Then she remembered, it was Alya who had brought this cat, she should know where he came from. Marinette had to find a way to ask Alya if her suspicions were true.
Alya still visited whenever she could, which wasn't every day, but was most days. When Marinette saw her again, she brought the picture to Alya, then looked back at her mate and back at Alya. Alya looked pleased as well. She grinned, nodded, and pointed at the picture, then pointed to the golden tomcat and gave a thumbs up. It had been said in enough ways that Marinette could be sure she was understanding correctly, the golden tomcat was Adrien. Her heart fluttered with rekindled emotion she'd been trying to forget. He had fought tooth and nail for the right to be with her, she never realized she was that important to him. She couldn't be sure, but she wondered, had he even gotten himself turned into a cat on purpose just to be with her? He'd put himself into harm's way, and even allowed himself getting neutered just to protect her. In that moment she felt overwhelmingly proud to be carrying his litter, now the only children he would ever be able to have. She'd thought she didn't even want him at first, but now she felt like she owed him, and could never pay him back.
Marinette crept into the living room, wincing in pain. She knew she was in labor, and the residual human parts of her brain thought she should go get help, but her cat instincts told her she needed to go through this alone. She compromised with herself, deciding she would call for help if it felt like something was wrong. Her cat instincts told her confidently that at the moment there were in fact no complications, and the pain she felt was at an appropriate level for giving birth. She lay down in the middle of the floor and gently lapped at her private parts. She thought she could see the head of a black kitten somewhere deep down her birth canal.
Adrien missed the warm furry body sleeping beside him, sensing her absence even in his sleep, he woke up soon after Marinette left. She was two months and one week pregnant now, for a cat, that meant she should give birth any day. He knew this must be time. He wanted to go look for her, but he didn't think her parents would want to miss this either. He scampered off to their bedroom to wake them.
"Marinette!" By the time the light was flipped on in the living room, the head of the first kitten was almost out. Moments later, Marinette dug her claws into the carpet, and with a final push, her first baby was out. Adrien picked up the kitten gently in his jaws, and was about to move him to his mate's belly to suckle, when the kitten began to rapidly grow and change shape. Adrien hurriedly set the infant on a clean towel that had been laid out in preparation, and watched in open mouthed amazement as his firstborn took the shape of a human. With the first out, it didn't take near as long for Marinette to give birth to the remaining two, who like their brother, shifted into human form as soon as they were out. It was a litter of three; the firstborn and runt were boys, the middle one a girl. Adrien shifted shape as soon as the last kitten was out, and as witch had promised, Marinette did at last, after dispelling all three placentas. Tom and Sabine worked together to wrap each of the babies in a towel, and Adrien took two larger ones to cover Marinette and to try to keep some modesty himself in front of her parents.
"Adrien," she whispered, pleased and almost shocked that her voice worked again. "Did you know this would happen?"
"Yes. That woman told your mother that the spell would be broken if you gave birth. When Alya found out, she hounded me to go after you. She said you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if the kittens were anyone's but mine. We found the woman pretty easily, but I had to antagonize her quite a bit before I got her to curse me. She must have been in a pretty bad mood if she cursed you just for dropping a pastry. She said the kittens wouldn't be able to become human if their father was a cat, but we were hoping she meant if the father was a true cat and not a turned human. Looks like that assumption was correct."
"It's a good thing it was a somewhat small litter," Marinette decided. "We're going to have our hands full with just three. I can't imagine if a larger litter had turned into septuplets! Though, if that had happened, our classmates would be more likely to believe we were turned into cats for awhile. Triplets are unusual, but not unheard of, everyone's going to think I was already six or seven months pregnant when I disappeared."
"Let them," Adrien shrugged, "I wouldn't deny it if you don't. There's no denying we'll have our hands full with three babies, but I think this is the perfect number. It is possible for a cat to have just one or two, especially if it's her first time, but I'm glad you didn't, since I'm no longer able to... uh..."
"Oh, Adrien, I'm so sorry about that!" Marinette exclaimed. "If I hadn't run away from you, you wouldn't have been caught, and - "
"Don't worry about it, you didn't know the terms of breaking the spell, or that it was me. Of course you would run. It wasn't part of the plan, and I admit I was very pissed when it first happened, but after I got back her and found out you were already pregnant, I quit caring almost completely. I'm not the sort of guy who needs his ball sack just to feel good about himself, and I've already got three beautiful children. I don't need them anymore. And if you were feeling sorry for yourself and not for me," Adrien winked, "I'm pretty sure I can still go through at least some of the motions."
"Adrien!"