Surprise lol

Just like much of their relationship, Adrien and Marinette's discovery that they were going to have a baby was, well, a bit unconventional.

To be fair, there had been a couple months of madness leading up to the discovery, which meant that they were more distracted than they might normally be. Marinette's workplace was trying to get a couple new lines launched in a fairly short time frame, which meant working more overtime than normal. Adrien's lab had made some big discoveries, and he had gotten a promotion. They had repainted several rooms in their apartment, and then their older cat, Masha, had gotten sick and needed several emergency vet visits before she finally started recovering. So Marinette hadn't really thought much of it when she was getting tired more easily than normal, because of course she was tired and in need of a break. The weight gain was so minimal as to hardly be noticed at all, and when she had caught on it had been written off as being from stress eating at work. The slightly sore back- well, she was on her feet a lot at work. It made sense.

It wasn't until she had felt ill at the smell of croissants- croissants!- that Marinette started thinking that something might be up. And even after that, it had taken Adrien pointing out that they had gone off birth control several months prior after deciding that they were ready for kids and it was entirely possible that she was pregnant for her to even think of it. A home test ended up positive, and the next week they were headed in to the doctor to confirm it and find out how far along Marinette was.

She had suspected that she was probably two months along, maybe three. It would have been easy enough to miss the signs for a month or two, what with how insane her life had been.

"Actually, it looks like you're a bit over four and a half months along."

Marinette was pretty certain that her jaw had hit the floor. "Four- four and a half?"

"How- but wouldn't she be showing?" Adrien asked, looking just as flabbergasted as Marinette felt. "Or- I don't know that much about pregnancy, but…"

Their OBGYN smiled at that. "Many people would be, yes. Marinette appears to have very strong stomach muscles, so those are holding your baby back and keeping it from pushing out as far. You'll likely be pretty small throughout your pregnancy."

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a look as the doctor adjusted the wand over her belly. She mouthed "Ladybug" and he nodded in agreement.

They had known that running, swinging, and leaping around the city put them in fantastic shape, and they had made sure that they were going out for at least a short run at least three times a week to make their rounds of the city, no matter how busy they got. They definitely hadn't suspected that Marinette would have such strong abs that it would hide a pregnancy.

"Your baby isn't in the right position at the moment, so I can't tell if you're going to have a boy or a girl quite yet," the doctor continued. "And we have to cover a whole slew of tests and information yet, so that's just going to have to wait for the next appointment."

"That's fine!" Marinette said quickly, beaming. "Yeah, we probably have several appointments' worth of testing and info to catch up on, don't we?"

The rest of their appointment went by in a rush, and then they were setting up a second appointment and on their way back out the door, a packet of information and a list of books to read tucked under Adrien's arm as they took the bus back to their appointment.

"So the pregnancy is halfway over already," Adrien commented as they flopped down on their couch after getting home from the appointment. He reached out and gave Masha a fond pat as she jumped up next to them. She purred and pushed her head into his hand. "Four and a half months. Wow."

"The easy months, yeah." Marinette ran a hand through her hair. "I just- I don't understand how I missed the signs for so long. One month? Definitely easy to miss. Two? Fine. But four? Almost five, even?"

Tikki flew down to perch on Marinette's shoulder. "Well, you were busy, Marinette," the kwami reminded her. "And you've been running around as Ladybug again a lot and you're super in shape from that, so it wasn't like you were ever regular. Not noticing that you weren't getting your period isn't that weird if you really think about everything else that's been going on."

Marinette frowned. "Yeah, that's actually something that I've been wondering about. I know that I've been running around as Ladybug, but I haven't been doing it anywhere near as often as I did when we were fighting Hawkmoth and yet somehow I just snapped back into shape, after three years of slacking in London. Not that I'm complaining, of course, but..."

"Yeah! That's a side effect of the Miraculous!" Tikki said cheerfully. "Because in the past, people defeated an evil, had a year or a couple years off, and then something else would pop up! Having the Miraculous accelerate your getting back into fighting shape was a real advantage then. And the healing properties associated with being a user- you're going to recover faster than most people after you give birth."

"So I have my crimefighting abs back without doing the crimefighting work," Marinette mused. "Well, okay, I can't complain about that. And no wonder the baby bump hasn't popped out- that's a lot of muscle to push against." She paused and frowned. "Uh- should I maybe not be going out as Ladybug until I've given birth, then? Is it dangerous?"

"The Miraculous magic will protect your baby, just as it has been!" Tikki assured her. "You can keep exercising, it's not an issue at all! I've had Ladybugs transforming up through their last month with no problem. And it'll keep your tummy muscles working, so you'll stay small!"

"Think about it this way- we can really mess with people again, without even trying at all," Adrien pointed out with a grin. "We tell them you're pregnant, they ask when the baby is due, and you say oh, four months."

Marinette laughed at that. "And they'll be expecting six or seven months out at the very least. That is going to be fun. My parents are going to be so excited! You know they've been hoping for grandbabies."

"We gotta do the bun in the oven joke," Adrien said suddenly, sitting straight up. "We gotta. When we tell your parents, at least. Tom won't ever forgive us if we don't."

"And if they don't catch that, maybe a cake or something?" Marinette offered. She grinned sheepishly. "That may or may not just be an excuse to have cake, honestly."

"Oh, no, the pregnancy cravings are starting already!" Adrien joked, grinning as he pulled Marinette close and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Though I can't say I don't approve. I love your cake."

"Promise me that when I actually start getting proper cravings, you'll keep me from eating anything too gross," Marinette told Adrien, voice suddenly deadly serious. "Promise me."

Adrien just grinned. He had heard about pregnancy cravings, and, well… "Can I just say yes now and then not enforce that at all? Like, whatever Pregnant Mari wants, Pregnant Mari will get. You're too terrifying for me to deny you anything."

"Promise me!" Marinette insisted. "I'm not saying deny me things like that amazing white chocolate pretzel frozen yogurt if I want it, but if I'm craving, like, Marmite and sardines on toast, tell me no."

Adrien paused mid-mental note to stock up on Marinette's favorite frozen yogurt to make a face at the idea of Marmite and sardines on toast. It sounded gross, and if the thought of eating something like that made his soul want to flee his body and his tongue stage a revolt.

"That's what I mean when I say nothing too gross," Marinette told him. "Seriously. Direct me to something else. If I want something salty, chips will be plenty. Or- ooh! Know what sounds good? Hash browns."

Adrien hastily made another mental note to ask Alya's mom how to make her famous hash browns. Maybe there were some steps that could be done in advance so if Marinette did have hash brown cravings, he could get them ready quickly.

"I can do that much," Adrien assured her. Then he paused. "Uh, I've heard things about pickles and ice cream? Is that…?"

"Gross."

"That would be salty and sweet," Tikki pointed out. "So maybe find something else like that! Pretzels and ice cream, maybe, or chips and chocolate."

"Oh, that sounds good."

…..Adrien was starting to think that maybe he should start writing all this down.

As the grandparents-to-be who would definitely be the most fun to tell, Tom and Sabine were the first on Adrien and Marinette's list of people to share the news with. It wasn't long before an opportunity to share the news presented itself in the form of their weekly Saturday night dinner with the elder Dupain-Chengs. It was Adrien and Marinette's turn to host, too, which was perfect.

The cake was made the night before, baked and then assembled, with the center carved out and filled with a little surprise that would spill out as soon as the first slice was removed, and the grandparents-to-be would surely notice. If they started suspected something after Adrien's bun in the oven joke, the cake would confirm it.

"Hello, you two," Tom said cheerfully as Adrien ushered his mother- and father-in-law into the apartment. "Have you had a good week?"

"It was- well, busy," Marinette admitted with a bit of a laugh. "More stuff happening than we expected, but it was good. And yours?"

As Tom started to tell his daughter about a particularly insane order that he and Sabine had had to deal with, Adrien headed back into the kitchen to get dinner finished up. He loved these weekend dinners, and it was great that they were able to do them so often, considering that Marinette's parents generally ate early thanks to their baker's hours and he and Marinette usually had dinner later on, after they got home from their respective jobs. But on Saturdays Adrien and Marinette didn't have work, and Tom and Sabine didn't need to be up early the next morning as the bakery was closed on Sundays. They didn't need to rush through their time together, which was lovely.

On the (fairly rare) occasion when they actually managed to have dinner with his father- they tried for once a month, normally, and about half the time the dinners didn't actually end up happening- his father was always distracted, clearly trying to get through the dinner so he could go back to whatever it was that he had been doing. There was a perfunctory exchange of questions about what the other party had been up to, and then awkward silence as they ate. It was the complete opposite of the Dupain-Cheng dinners, where they happily chatted about anything and everything until they had to leave.

In the kitchen, the soup was bubbling away on the stove merrily and it smelled fantastic. Adrien gave it one good stir, then caught the timer for the oven right before it was about to go off. Once glance in the oven told him that the buns were probably done, so he carefully pulled the tray out, very deliberately pulling one of the buns off and tossing it back in the oven before making the sheet clatter enough to make it sound like he had bumped the tray on the way out.

After all, they couldn't make things too easy for Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng to figure out. They just wanted to get Marinette's parents wondering for the time being.

"Everything all right?" Sabine called.

"Yeah, just bumped the bun tray as I was taking it out of the oven," Adrien called back, settling the tray down on the counter. He winked at Marinette as she came into the kitchen. "No big problem."

Marinette bent down and re-opened the oven, grabbing an oven mitt as she did. "Adrien, there's a bun in the oven still."

"A bun in the oven? Whoops!" Adrien exclaimed, holding the tray out for Marinette to put the (poor, abused, but very useful) bun on. "Sorry, I must have knocked it off accidentally."

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Sabine and Tom exchanging a look. Tom mouthed "A bun in the oven?" and Sabine shrugged, glancing towards Marinette.

Marinette, who really didn't look pregnant at all, who the doctor had said was so in shape and had such strong stomach muscles that the bump was a lot smaller than usual (aka nonexistent) and would probably stay small for a while yet. Tikki had said the same thing- that a lot of her Ladybugs didn't really start showing until their third trimester if at all, since they had insanely strong core muscles from swinging around all the time.

The grandparents-to-be exchanged a puzzled look and a shrug, though Adrien couldn't help but notice that they were paying a lot closer attention to Marinette than before.

It didn't take long for dinner to come together, and then Marinette started dishing up the soup. Adrien stepped around her to grab the cat food out of the cupboard and started refilling Masha and Sasha's dishes. Masha came over at once, hopping down from the large cat tree that Adrien and Marinette had made and making a beeline for her dish. Adrien shook the container of dry cat food loudly, and seconds later Sasha's mews came around the corner. The little black-and-white kitten wound in and out of Adrien's ankles once, then pounced on her food eagerly, chomping loudly as she devoured her meal.

"Sasha is growing so quickly!" Sabine exclaimed, peering around the corner to watch the cats eat. "I remember when you brought her home. She was just a little fuzzball. And now she's practically full-grown."

"She has so much energy," Adrien said with a laugh, crouching down to give Sasha a fond scratch behind the ears. She arched into the touch, purring loudly. "But at least Masha calms her down. And having Sasha around gives Masha more energy, it seems."

"Masha seems to be recovering," Tom said as he accepted bowl of soup from Marinette. "For a while there, I was worried that you were going to lose her already."

Adrien nodded, glancing down at Masha. There had been several weeks where he and Marinette had been worried that their older cat would die on them, after only having had her for a couple years. The vet had managed to figure out what the problem was, though, and now Masha was a happy, healthy cat once again.

...well, at least they had gotten that resolved before they discovered Marinette's pregnancy. If they hadn't, that would have been even more unnecessary stress.

"Are you two going to up and adopt another cat on us?" Tom asked jokingly as they headed to the table. "See if you can do three at once?" He grinned. "Maybe you can just happen to find another cat whose name rhymes with Masha and Sasha. Natasha, maybe?"

Adrien thought about what it would be like to have three cats running around the apartment with a new baby in the picture and shuddered. "Maybe in the future. Not now." He laughed. "And we didn't name them. Those were just the names they came with from the shelter and we decided not to change them because they were cute."

"Right, and Sasha's name didn't play into your decision to pick her, not at all."

Adrien laughed. "Actually, it had more to do with the fact that Sasha climbed right into my lap when we were looking for a young cat at the shelter. She claimed me and refused to leave.

Then she climbed up on my shoulder and tried making a nest in my hair, and we knew we had to take her."

"And it was then that they finally told us her name," Marinette chimed in. "And I don't think we would consider trying to find a Natasha, at least not until we get a bigger place." She grinned, placing her bowl down on the table and heading back to the kitchen for the basket of buns. "And once we get the cats to stop sleeping on our bed. They take up half of it, I swear. Ready to eat?"

"Definitely!"

They all dug in. Adrien tore into a bun, dipping it into his soup before enjoying a big bite of it. Their conversation bounced from topic to topic, from Adrien's job to Marinette's and then to how the bakery was doing. Marinette's Nonna Gina was going to be dropping by Paris again, and her great-uncle from China was going to visit in two months. There was a huge order for a wedding coming up in the next week, and all of Tom and Sabine's workers were going to be on hand to make sure it got done. Partway through the meal, Sasha hopped up onto Tom's lap and started begging for food.

"Ignore her," Marinette said with a laugh. "She's fed plenty."

"But she's so cute!" Tom beamed down at the kitten, giving her a little pat. "Aren't you, you little thief?"

"Please don't encourage her, papa."

"And yet I don't see you shooing Masha off of your lap, Marinette." Sabine nodded towards the older cat, who had curled up on Marinette's lap, pressed up against her stomach. "Though I suppose she isn't trying to beg."

Marinette giggled as she gave Masha a fond pat. "Masha is a little angel. She just likes being around us."

Adrien nodded in agreement. Masha had gotten really, really cozy with them following her illness, favoring Marinette more than Adrien but always wanting to be near them. Several times, they had woken up to find Masha curled up next to Marinette's side instead of just on the foot of the bed. One she had crawled between Adrien and Marinette to curl up next to Marinette's stomach.

Suddenly, a light went on in Adrien's head. Masha had started acting like that after she was sick, sure, but that would have been maybe a month after Marinette got pregnant. And she was favoring Marinette far more than Adrien. Like, way more.

Could cats sense pregnancy? Had Masha known about Marinette's pregnancy before they suspected anything?

If so, that was cool. Cool, and very, very sweet. Masha was probably looking after Marinette in her own way, keeping her stomach warm and protecting her.

"So are you guys thinking of moving?" Tom asked as they finished up dinner. "I know you said something about not thinking about getting another cat until you get a bigger place earlier- is that something you're actually considering, then?"

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a look. They hadn't had a chance to discuss that, actually. They had previously said that they would want to get a bigger place before having kids, but that probably wasn't going to happen, considering that their lease ran until only a month before Marinette was due and they really wouldn't want to move then.

That was probably something they should have decided before getting pregnant, but oh well.

"Maybe?" Marinette said, sounding a little uncertain. "Possibly within the next year or two."

Adrien nodded. They would probably talk about it after Tom and Sabine left, figuring out where their Emma or Hugo would be, considering that their second bedroom was currently Marinette's sewing room. She wasn't using it quite as much as when they first got back to Paris since she had a job in a design house now, but Marinette still liked sewing some of her own designs for herself and Adrien to wear. Ideally they would have a separate room for sewing and for the baby, but they might have to have a dual-use room for a little bit.

"For a place with more rooms?" Sabine asked, looking interested. Adrien didn't miss her second glance down at Marinette's stomach. Oh, she was on to them. "Might there be some with three bedrooms in this building? It's such a nice place."

Marinette perked up. "Oh, we should ask! That would be nice to just be able to move within the same building. Or if the landlady has another building nearby, even. I've really liked the terms of our lease, and she's so easy to deal with if we have any problems."

"It would be really nice if we didn't have to go out looking again," Adrien agreed. He glanced towards the kitchen, then back at Marinette. "Should I get the dessert?"

"Could you? I've been trapped, I think." Marinette gave Masha a fond pat and then passed her plate to Adrien to bring out. "Dessert plates and forks, and then the cake cutter."

Adrien nodded, hopping up and clearing the table as quickly as possible. He could tell that Marinette was excited to share their news, so he didn't want to make her wait. The dishes got rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher, and then Adrien hurried to get clean dessert plates and forks out and on the table. The lovely pastel purple cake came out next, and Adrien set it down in front of Sabine to cut.

"Tom, put the cat down," Sabine said as she accepted the cake cutter from Adrien and started slicing into the cake. "Sasha won't want any of this anyway, and you don't want cat hair in your food."

"You want me to put my lovely grand-kitten on the floor?" Tom nuzzled Sasha one more time, then bent over to set her down. She scampered off to the cat tree, clambering into one of the cat hammocks that was suspended among the platforms. "All right, all right, I'm ready for cake. This looks delicious."

"Marinette was responsible for all of the decorations, as usual," Adrien said with a grin, sitting back down next to his wife. "I was the quality control."

"You're getting better," Marinette assured him, gently tipping Masha off of her lap and sending her after Sasha. "You just have a, uh, different style."

Adrien's grin grew wider. "She means that it looks like something a ten-year-old might do."

Sabine laughed as she made the second cut and turned the cake cutter to pull the piece out. "You'll get there." She pulled the piece out, setting it down on a plate. Several candies detached from the frosting and clattered onto the plate. "It takes time, and- oh!"

"Is that a rattle?" Tom asked eagerly, sitting up and leaning forward to see the candies that were sticking to the slice of cake that Sabine had pulled out. He reached out and pulled one off, inspecting it with delight. "It is!"

"Rattles and little chocolate baby onesies!" Sabine exclaimed, delighted. Excitement was written all over her face. She looked up at Adrien and Marinette. "Are you…?"

"I'm pregnant," Marinette confirmed, beaming. "You're going to be grandparents!"

"Grandparents!" Tom exclaimed, beaming. "I'm going to be a grandpa! Oh, I can't wait!"

"Oh, that's so exciting!" Sabine had abandoned the cake cutter to pull Marinette up into a hug. She pulled Adrien in a second later. "I hoped that you were hinting at that with the bun in the oven jokes, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too early. But a baby! Our first grandchild! Not that we don't adore the kitties, of course," she added with a laugh. "But oh, they're going to be so cute. I can't wait!"

Adrien and Marinette grinned at each other as Marinette's parents continued exclaiming over the news. As expected, they were absolutely over the moon. Tom was already moaning about how he couldn't wait seven or eight months to meet his first grandchild, and Sabine seemed to already be designing the baby arrival cake in her head.

"I need to know where you got those sprinkles," she told Marinette. "They're so cute!"

Marinette laughed at that. "I made them, actually," she admitted. "I bought a mold and used melting chocolate. Adrien dipped them in colored chocolate to decorate them."

"Taste tester and sprinkle dipper," Adrien joked. "Marinette did all of the hard work, though."

"And will continue to do so," Sabine told him. "Growing a baby is natural, but it's hard work! And very, very exhausting. Pregnancy affects everyone differently, so it's hard to tell early on how hard it will be on the body, but I was footsore and tired pretty much every day going in to my last trimester. And I got tired easily before that." She glanced down at Marinette's stomach again. "You must be early on, right? You're not showing at all."

Adrien tried not to laugh as Marinette shook her head, a wide grin on her face. This was the part of the reveal that he was really looking forward to. "I'm actually four and a half months along. It's probably more like four and three quarters now," she added to Adrien. "Since the doctor said just over four and a half on Monday, and it's Saturday now."

Tom and Sabine's jaws had dropped. Adrien grinned.

"Four and three quarters- that's nearly five! I started showing at three!" Sabine exclaimed, looking gobsmacked. "I know that you're a bit taller than me and short people tend to show earlier, but that's so late!"

"Our doctor said that the baby is perfectly healthy and growing well, though," Adrien assured them. "Mari is just going to have a tiny belly." He couldn't explain to Tom and Sabine why Marinette was so in shape that her stomach muscles could hold the baby back so much, but hopefully they were too excited to ask about it too much. So Adrien just grinned at Tom instead. "So you're only going to have to wait- what? Four months? Just over that?"

Tom perked up. "Oh, that is true!"

"Did you just find out?" Sabine asked Marinette, sounding puzzled. Marinette nodded sheepishly.

"We've been busy," Adrien pointed out quickly. "Things have been insane, so we really didn't notice anything was up until- what? Two weeks ago? A week and a half ago?"

Tom laughed at that. "That must have come as a surprise. Well, at least there's less of a wait for you, and for us." He rubbed his hands together eagerly. "A baby in four months! I can't wait!"

"It'll absolutely fly by," Sabine assured them. "But you two will be great parents. Maybe you'll have less time to prepare than most parents, but you'll be fine."

"This calls for a nice slice of cake to celebrate!" Tom said, ushering them back towards the table. "And I definitely need some rattles with my slice. Those are adorable."

As the other grandparent, Mr. Agreste probably should have been the next person to find out about Marinette's pregnancy. But Mr. Agreste was too busy to meet up with them, apparently, so Nino and Alya got to be next.

They had decided to not-so-subtly drop some hints by having Marinette working on making baby clothes when Nino and Alya were visiting and seeing how long it took for them to catch on. Marinette already had some ideas for baby clothes- unisex, of course, since their little catbug hadn't been cooperative at the scan- and she couldn't wait to get started.

They only had four months, after all, and their catbug would grow quickly. That meant that their baby would probably outgrow a lot of stuff within a couple months.

...well, unless Marinette could figure out how to make expanding baby clothes. She had already started making a folder on her computer of ideas on how she might be able to make adjustable baby clothing that would take their baby longer to outgrow.

As far as she could tell, extra snaps was probably the way to go. Snaps and elastic and Velcro.

"Nino and Alya are here!"

Marinette looked up from where she was working on a sleeveless baby jumpsuit, pinning black piping to the ladybug-spotted outfit. "Sweet! I'm excited to tell them," she added. "They've been talking about having kids too, haven't they?"

"Yeah, I think so!"

Adrien pressed the button to let Nino and Alya in the downstairs door, and Marinette went back to work. Once she got the outfit done, she wanted to do one in Chat Noir's colors, with a cute kitty face on the front. Adrien had suggested that she do one that looked like Masha's face, since the older cat seemed so attached to her ever since she got pregnant.

There was probably going to be a shirt that said "I'm Kitty's Favorite" at some point, if Masha had the same attitude once their catbug was born.

It didn't take long for Nino and Alya to get upstairs. Alya was first through the door, grinning widely.

"I smell cookies!" she sang. "And boy oh boy, could I go for a cookie!"

"Well, I made plenty," Marinette said with a laugh, pinning the last bit of piping in place and turning to greet her friends. "Your favorites, too."

"Oh, goodie!"

"We do come over for more than the treats," Nino assured them as he came in the door. "I swear. Alya's just really enthusiastic about sugar at the moment- wait, is that a baby outfit that you're making?"

….well. That hadn't taken long at all. Marinette hadn't thought that Nino was that observant about those sorts of things, but he did surprise her sometimes.

"Wait, how did you kn-? I don't already look pregnant, do I?" Alya asked, sounding startled, and Marinette blinked in surprise as she looked over at her friend. "Nino, you said that I wasn't showing yet!"

"What?"

Alya looked even more confused by Marinette's confusion. "Wait, what?" Then she gasped. "Oh my god-"

"YOU'RE PREGNANT, TOO?" both women shrieked excitedly.

The next second, they were hugging each other, squealing in excitement for several minutes. Behind her, Marinette was vaguely aware of Adrien and Nino exchanging congratulations..

"How far along are you?" Alya wanted to know as soon as they separated. "I'm at two months, about. You've got to be the same, right?"

Marinette giggled. Oh, the look on Alya's face would be precious. "That's what my mom guessed, too! But no, I'm almost at five months," she told her friend. "It was a huge surprise."

Alya gaped. Next to Adrien, Nino's jaw had dropped, too. He shot a questioning look at Adrien, but Adrien just grinned and nodded in confirmation.

"You have got to be joking! Really?"

"Really," Marinette confirmed. "It's crazy, isn't it? I thought I could only be two or three months at most, but apparently not."

"Do you know if you're getting a boy or a girl?" Alya wanted to know. "You have to know, right? Your baby is definitely old enough for it."

Adrien laughed. "Baby didn't want to cooperate. We're going to have to wait for the next scan to see if they've moved to a better position."

"How did you miss that?" Nino wanted to know. "Alya knew after- what, babe, a month and a half? We've just been holding out on telling people since it's so early."

"There was a combination of factors, honestly," Marinette admitted. "Really, it just boiled down to us being crazy busy and not having the time to notice that anything was off. Masha noticed before we did."

They all looked down at Masha, who had already wound herself around Marinette's ankles. Sasha, on the other hand, seemed entranced by Nino's shoelaces.

"Cats are smart," Nino said, nodding sagely. He tried to move his shoes out of way of Sasha's claws and sighed when she followed him. "Well. Some of them."

"Sasha is smart in different ways," Adrien said with a laugh, bending down to pick Sasha up. She let out a mrow of protest as she was removed from her new toy, but she promptly dropped the protest when Adrien picked up one of her toys and gave it to her. "She'd be a lovely hunter, but we decided to spare the local bird population and keep her inside."

"The birds thank you, I'm sure."

"Your parents must be over the moon," Alya told Marinette, pulling the conversation back on track. "You've told them, right? You're the first people to know about us, since I'm pretty early along."

Nino snorted. "Oh, they know all right. I stopped in the bakery two days ago, and Mr. Dupain was practically dancing around. He wouldn't say why, though, so I just figured that he was having a really good day."

"Papa is super excited," Marinette said with a laugh. "I went over there yesterday and Maman told me that he's drafted six designs for baby-themed cakes already. There'll probably be one for when we tell my Nonna, one for when Great-Uncle Cheng visits and we tell him, one when the baby is born, first birthday…"

Adrien groaned. "So much cake."

"It'll be spread out. And at least one of those will probably be a croquembouche tower."

"And what about your father?" Alya asked Adrien. "Does he know- no?"

Adrien was shaking his head. "Gabriel is releasing a new line soon and he's been too busy to meet with us in person so we can tell him. And he keeps telling us that if we have any big news, we need to tell him in person." Which was ridiculous if he wasn't going to be available to them at all. Adrien was pretty sure the requirement was in response to Mr. Agreste finding out that Marinette had gotten a job in a different fashion house via tabloid headlines, five months after she and Adrien had gotten married. Apparently there was a segment of the population that considered it a huge scandal that Marinette hadn't gone to work at Gabriel, considering that she had married its founder's son, and his father was part of that population. Even now, Gabriel was still holding out hope that Marinette would join his company. "So I guess we're waiting to tell him. Which could be pretty funny, honestly, if we don't get to tell him for another month or so."

"And if you're so slow to show a bump, you could 100% get away with it," Alya added. She shook her head as she looked at Marinette's stomach again. "Oh, gosh. I know I'm not going to be that lucky with my baby bump. My mom showed early, even with Nora."

"Everyone really is different, I guess," Marinette said with a laugh. "It'll be interesting to see how we each grow. Who knows, maybe I'll just pop all of a sudden."

"Or no one will believe that you're even pregnant until the day before you give birth," Nino added in. "Either way- exciting! Our kids are going to be so close in age, it's going to be great."

a/n: So this was meant to be an outtake, and then after it hit 10k I had to break it up into chapters and into its own story. It was largely written when I posted the last chapter of HTFAM, but I decided to keep it a secret :D

This was partially inspired by a story that I read in the newspaper once about a servicewoman who gave birth and hadn't even known that she was pregnant, because she was so incredibly in shape/had so little fat that she wasn't getting periods, and then the stomach muscles were strong enough to hide it. I decided to look it up, and there are a number of stories about people who have gone months or even full-term with a baby and just. like. didn't realize it.

So naturally, I decided to play with that idea. And it turned into six chapters.