Part of Marichat May; Day 9 - Bell Collar

It could get worse, and he's not going to pretend like Murphy's Law doesn't hold shackles to his wrists. He told Adrien. Plagg told him he's sick, he needed to be healed, and what does Adrien do? Gets ear of LB and floors it.

So when he transformed into Chat Noir and leapt off for the roofs, you can imagine his surprise when his efforts sent him maybe five feet off the ground before he careened down, only to land perfectly on his feet.

He lifted his hands - raven clad fur paws - and turned his head in time for a new tail to flick his nose.

"No way!" He exclaimed— yowled a meow into the school.

"Ew!" Chloé sneered, lifting her hands up and away as she pointed. "Sabrina! Get this filthy stray out of my sight!"

"Chloé!" He meowed.

Sabrina took off her bag and swung. It connected with his side, and he didn't need any more of an incentive to scat.

Sabrina screamed as he dashed by her. A pitch that grated painfully against his senses. The moment he could, Chat hid under a bench, peering wide-eyed at the giants stomping above. His heart raced, he needed to calm down. The sounds, the sounds. Too much. He closed his eyes, and after two awkward attempts, cupped his ears. Calm down. Calm down.

Ladybug, the name flew by and his eyes snapped open. Alya gestured excitedly with her phone to Nino as they passed. "That was incredible! And I got grade A footage. Ladybug's at the top of her game," she cheered, "smashed Laughter Lines in seconds! Views on the Ladyblog are up! "

"What kind of villain sends victims into a laughing fit? Not cool." Nino grumbled.

Alya patted Nino's shoulder with a mock-pout. "Still sulking?"

He shrugged her off. "My side still aches, ugh, I need to lie-down."

She laughed. "If you say so."

Chat slumped onto his paws. Ladybug's fine, thank goodness. He slowly rose to his feet, amazed by the sense of balance, and shook himself off. The bell at his neck surprised him, he pawed at it, noticing a light collar attached to it. Okay... at least he looks owned. Does that make this any better? ...anyway.

First he tried to simply release the transformation, dead-end. Then he searched for some form of Miraculous to remove, but found nothing.

He extended his paw and claws, shouting, "Cataclysm!" (a mew echoed through the trees in an empty park) He admired his new little weapons, but nothing more.

Chat growled. He scratched the ground, pouncing around, shredding grass till he collapsed from exhaustion. He flopped onto his back and called, "Ladybuuuug!" Chat pouted, murmuring, "your precious kitty's an idiot." He got up to go begrudgingly back home, and started at a giggle.

"Never seen that before."

"Marinette!" He shouted.

"Eek!" She fell from a crouch to her bum. "N-nice kitty."

His ears folded despite himself. "Sorry," he mewed. He sat and waited, trying to seem as innocuous as possible.

She tilted her head. He lied down onto his paws, and mewed.

Suddenly Marinette cupped her cheeks. "Aww!" She glanced back and forth before taking out a sandwich and plucking off a bit of cheese from the contents.

"Marinette," squeaked a small voice, Chat's ears flicked to it. "I'm starving, and you're wasting your lunch break with a kitten." A red being slumped out her purse, and he stopped breathing. "Typical."

Marinette rolled her eyes. "Tikki, Chat Noir didn't even show up." She haughtily raised her nose. "Your argument is based on flawed logic."

"Marineeeeette!" she groaned. "This Caaaat!"

"Hush, eat my sandwich if you're so desperate."

The red being—Tikki sprang into her bag with delight, earning a fond smile out of Marinette. Then she looked at him, still holding the cheese. Marinette lowered it invitingly. "Here kitty, hungry too?"

Chat dumbly took the morsel, green eyes locked with blue, he chewed mindlessly as she beamed. He's sure his tiny kitten heart couldn't handle this, legs jello, he would have fallen had he not already been down. Her hand went from a small daze-inducing scratch at his cheek, to an electrifying caress from his head to back. Muscles involuntarily reacted, and suddenly they were magnets. His back arched into her, but his legs refused shortly after, and he flopped back onto his chin.

She laughed behind her hand, a gentle melody to his sensitive ears. Eyes lidded, he gazed at her in a stupor.

Then a bell rang, and it scared him to see the color drain from her face.

She tugged her pigtails. "I'm late!"

"Marinette!" he cried after her. "Wait!"

"Bye kitty!" she shouted over her shoulder.

"No!" He got to his feet and dashed. "I'm Chat Noir— Adrien, Ladybug!" Ladybug. His heart skip a beat in the midst of a samba. She crossed a street with cars and thunder-herds of footsteps and he leapt back, curling away as he cried. "Ladybug! Help me, I've turned into a cat!" She turned out of sight. "Marinette!" He panted. His mind whirring around the double meaning. She's real. Ladybug is real, he can touch her, and she's sat behind him from the start! And she can help him, she has to be able to, she can do anything!

Given a moment he knew school had to end eventually, and she would come waltzing home. He admired the Boulangerie Patisserie before him and sighed, contented. She lives next to the school, she sits behind him. So close, so real, so touchable, and he's not getting over it anytime soon.

With the coast cleared, he trotted to her home doorstep and sat adamantly at the entrance.

Thunder cracked.

His ears folded down, the first droplet hit him, and it rained...

But that's okay. She'll show up, fix him - and really - being wet is the least of his worries.

It's when the sun began setting did he realize she probably wasn't coming back. The rain only worsened, he sneezed, shivered, and regretted not searching for her instead. Chat had long since curled into himself. But this is okay. No one's expecting him anyway. Gorilla isn't picking him up today, nothing scheduled, all that is expected is that he'll walk home, and do the same tomorrow.

Easy.

No worries.

Ladybug will fix it.

Chat startled awake at a shove. His sense of balance betrayed him and he twisted to lie on his paws, a swift movement that jump started every new ache in his body. He groaned before blinking up at— Marinette!

"Kitty!" Marinette harshly whispered, drenched and panting. Her pigtails drooped from the rain, she crouched over him, and he suddenly felt very awake upon spotting a cut at her cheek.

"What happened?" Chat chirruped.

She lifted him onto her lap, warmth, and he almost drifted back to sleep. Safe.

"You're soaked," she breathed.

"Hypocrite."

When she jittered and struggled to stand, he felt a zap to wake and try to look her over. The angle proved that effort fruitless, so he impatiently waited as she entered her home.

"Marinette," her mother called from a room over. Marinette planted herself against a wall, hidden, except for her face around the corner. "I heated up some dinner after you said you'd be home soon. It's in your room. How was that project you had to stay after for?"

Marinette said a bit too cheerfully. "Fine! We - uh - got a lot of research done on our particle physics paper."

Even in his sleep riddled state, that sounded far from right. They went over particle physics weeks ago. Still. Ladybug's a good liar. That's something to keep in mind.

"Okay, good," her mother said, a smile in her voice.

When her footsteps faded, Marinette tip-toed down the hall, and wrapped Chat into a cozy towel ball before creeping to her room.

When she set him down, he protested out a meow, but obediently stayed as she ruffled his fur dry. It enveloped his being, and only bits of light cracked into his cocoon before she left him settled in a pile. He peeked out to catch her slumping over an open drawer, her clothes dripping, making a puddle on the wood floor. His heart withered at the sight. Chat needed to help her, but was too tired himself. Helpless, he watched her. A longing pushing down his chest as he cursed his new body.

"Is it still bad?" Tikki asked, circling Marinette.

"Yeah," she rasped.

"You shouldn't have forgotten the Lucky Charm."

He blinked. An Akuma? But she handled Laughter Lines fine, Alya said.

Marinette pulled things from her drawers in quick succession. "It's fine. No one else got hurt." She groaned. "Except the tinsy little power outage over three fourths of the city."

"Marinette..."

"It wasn't fair. The Inductor shocked my yo-yo."

Inductor? A second akuma?

"Where was Chat Noir?"

Chat huddled away into the towel.

"MIA," Marinette puffed, pushing from her knees to her feet, holding a set of pj's. "I hope he's okay."

What?

"Why do you say that?" Tikki questioned.

"That cat loves being a superhero." She smirked. "More so than me. I don't think he'd disappear for no reason." Marinette glanced at Chat. And he clung to some far gone hope that she recognized him, but found no glimmer of familiarity. "He's not moving, but keep an eye on him, Tikki?"

Tikki nodded and Marinette disappeared down the trapdoor.

"I think the kitten's upset." Tikki announced as Marinette stepped in, a towel hung over her shoulders. She gritted her teeth with each step, reaching the top to look at the kitten; the picture of despair. Ears folded, he stared at the floor in a daze, a sad black puddle on her chaste. She wondered briefly if pets could be akumatized.

"Oh no, I forgot! He got drenched too!" Marinette put a hand to his body. "Is he sick— geez, he's freezing! I'm such a ditz, Tikki, what do I do?!" Her body protested wildly, but Marinette lifted the limp kitten to her chest. "He's gonna die!"

The kitten mewed indignantly, but it came out cracked.

"Relax, Marinette," Tikki soothed. "Give him a warm bath too, maybe that will help."

Marinette didn't respond. She flew down the stairs and shut them behind the washroom door. Only pausing when she had grabbed the doorknob, and it sent an electric jolt from her head to soles. She turned the shower dials with a wince to the temperature she used earlier, before lowering the kitten in.

"Please be okay," Marinette begged his half hooded gaze. She propped his head onto a dry sponge momentarily before rolling her sleeves. Using a cup, she doused him in warm water. Only daring to breath when a pur reverberated around the tub walls. Given a few minutes the kitten padded to the deep end of her slanted tub and plopped down. Keeping his head above water, he mewed through a pur and pawed in her direction.

She giggled, relief evident.

In his playful efforted, the bell at his neck jingled.

"A collar." Marinette turned the bell in her hand, quirking a brow at the design she knows she's seen elsewhere. "But no name." She dropped it. "It's a fancy bell. You have to belong to someone..."

And his tail sparked. Panic seized her heart like her ribs discovered how to give it a hug, when the current of electricity traveled across his body. Limbs awkwardly thrown about the tub, Chat Noir took its place, smiling up at her.

Marinette sucked in a deep breath - and inherently knowing - Chat Noir whipped the towel from around her neck and pressed it to her lips before she screamed her lungs into raisins.

Her hands came to his, yanking the towel away to hiss, "you're a cat?" She flailed her hands. "An actual cat?!"

"If m- my lady purrfers it."

She spun the towel into a whip.

"No! N- no wait!" His hands drew between them. He watched his arms move like watching a movie in slow motion. Lethargy kicking in from the cold. "My kwami, P-Plagg, he was s- sick. I transformed, and I shouldn't have, because what a transformation. I'm sorry, this- this isn't how I wanted to find out either..." He growled at the inelegance of it all. "Agh, I'm an idiot. But... um," his hands fell to his lap, splashing slightly, and she didn't know those leather ears could droop. "I kn- know you're not happy, but I'm glad to ha- have found you, Ladybug."

She huffed, hands pushed onto her knees as she looked away. She's trying to be upset, but he's shivering, and being sincere. That added to her exhaustion brought a sigh. Best to deal with this later.

New objective in mind, she cupped his cheek, heart flopping like a land bound fish when he nuzzled his nose into her touch. "Well... if anyone were to find out, I'm glad it's you too." Marinette praised herself for not pulling away, and instead went to his neck. What she thought was a safer area to check for fever, until his hair stood on end, and he looked at her like—

"You- you're still freezing," she told him before her tongue got any dryer. "I know the suit's waterproof, warm up through the shower."

He waited.

"Well?"

"Oh," he toyed with the knobs. "Privacy?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're fully clothed, Chaton. Besides, I leave, and my parents ask why I left the water running."

He shrugged, drawing the shower curtain to a close. "No peeking!"