A Cat Problem

"Exactly what do you need me for here?"

"In case he spots me, I need to look like I was just walking by. If you're here, it looks more convincing, Alya."

"Girl, I really think you're getting crazier. You might want to look into this whole stalking thing."

"This - This isn't stalking! This is... Watching from afar!"

"No, that's what they call it in movies. In real life, we call that stalking."

Marinette and Alya had been waiting outside the school building for over an hour at this point, simply waiting for Adrien to finish with his regular Chinese lessons. Alya had absolutely no idea why Marinette wanted to do this. She'd known him for well over a year now, and not once had she insisted on basically following him back home. That was fairly creepy to Alya, ever for Marinette at this point. She knew, of course, her friend wasn't planning anything weird. She knew her well enough to know Marinette wasn't like that, but when you get a text on a Sunday evening asking you to stay behind with your bestie to follow and basically spy on her crush the next day... That was certain to raise an eyebrow.

"Remind me again, why are we following him back to his house?" The tanned skinned girl asked her friend, who was peeking around the corner of the wall they were hidden behind.

"It - It's a gut feeling, okay? I get the feeling something bad will happen." Marinette knew that that was a poor lie, but she couldn't think of anything else if she tried. Saying she just wanted to watch him sounded weird, and saying she got a message from a magical device would sound absolutely insane.

She was fully aware of Tikki's warning, that this may turn out to be nothing... But on the very slim chance, as Tikki put it, that it was real... Marinette would never, ever forgive herself if something happened to the blond model, while she had had information about it. She had to make sure that he would be okay. And it wasn't even anything to do with her crush on him. It was that part of her that was Ladybug, that part of her brain that told her this was part of her duty as a hero... The fact is was Adrien was just an added bonus.

Yeah... An added bonus.

"So we're out here, based on your intuition?" Alya questioned with her usual smile and raised eyebrow.

"Yeah." It wasn't the best excuse, but it was all Marinette had. She felt lucky that because she was looking away from Alya, her friend was unable to see the crimson blood blush on her otherwise pale face.

"Wonderful. Second question... Why are we hiding from him exactly?"

Thankfully, the bluenette didn't have to come up with an answer to that question. She saw the doors to the school open, and shot herself behind the wall again, to hide from whoever it was leaving. At this time, it only could be Adrien. When she sneaked a confirming look, she saw she was right.

There he was, waiting as usual, for his ride to show up.

"Okay, so he's here." Whispered Alya to her friend. "What do we do now?"

"We just... Make sure he gets home okay, I guess."

"...I'm not gonna lie girl, this is weird. Are you okay?"

"Hello?" Adrien asked. Marinette froze, fearing she had been caught before she'd even started. She held her breath and felt her heart stop. "Father?" And then it started again. She took in a deep intake of air, and peeked around the corner at the blond, trying to expose as little of herself as possible. She saw that his head was hung somewhat low, with his phone against his hear, indicating he was on a phone call. Occasionally, he would nod. "Uh huh... Okay. I understand, father. Yes, I'll be fine." He then hung up, and placed his phone into his jean pockets, and began to walk down the street, in the total opposite direction.

Adrien walking back home was something that Marinette hadn't seen much of. He usually was given a lift by his family's limousine. In fact, that seemed to be his main method of transport. He arrived at school in it, he usually left in it, and went basically anywhere with it.

Marinette glanced at Alya and nodded. While this wasn't exactly what she had thought she would be doing today, she had promised herself she would make sure Adrien was safe, even at the risk of her looking like a total idiot. She carefully sneaked out of her hiding space, and followed Adrien, leaving about twenty meters between them at a bare minimum. If he saw her, she could either duck behind something, or look like she was walking with Alya, and just happened to have wound up behind their classmate.

Against her better judgement, Alya followed her friend. With another smirk, she jokingly commented, "Seriously Marinette. Stalking. You should go see someone."

Having followed the blond teenager for roughly fifteen minutes, Marinette really did begin to feel more and more ridiculous as time went on. the good part of that was that nothing seemed to be placing Adrien in immediate danger. He was just making his way home, and seemed to be enjoying himself. He seemed to be rather upbeat about this, for whatever reason. A few times he had turned around, but he hadn't seen either Alya or Marinette, but it was obvious he also had the feeling he was being watched.

While Marinette was certainly glad that he seemed to be okay, she was silently worrying that Alya was going to think she was absolutely insane, but she would just have to make up some sort of excuse later on. She didn't know at this point. the main concern was Adrien's safety.

"Okay girl, we've been following him for a while now. I'm pretty sure your gut feeling was off." Alya commented, a thin layer of sarcasm and mild irritation coating her voice.

Marinette would have agreed in that assessment, had she not kept her eyes on Adrien at that exact moment.

Adrien seemed to come to a sudden halt when passing an alley way, before taking a couple of steps backwards, and peering into it closely. staring deeply into the alleyway, like he was being beckoned to it, he walked down the alley, reemerging a few seconds later, having dragged out what looked to be a large cardboard box out onto the main street.

"What the heck is he doing?" Alya asked, watching just behind Marinette.

The miraculous holder herself had absolutely no idea what he was doing either. She kept her eyes on him firmly, watching each move her made carefully.

Pushing the box to the side carefully, so as not to crush it, Adrien then knelt down next to his recently acquired cardboard. the top of the box was missing, and whatever was inside it seemed to interest Adrien. Her seemed to stare at whatever was in that box for a short while, rather intensely, before he actually reached into the box, scooping up whatever was inside.

A cat.

More specifically, a kitten. A small, grey kitten, that couldn't have been more than a few months old. It was incredibly tiny, maybe about the size of a outstretched palm in length. It was a very malnourished kitten also, very thin compared to other cats. It seemed to be rather aggressive towards the teenager that had just picked it up, and attempted to scratch him, but to no avail. Apparently, it had been de-clawed before it had been abandoned here. It managed to bite one of Adrien's fingers, but it didn't seem to bother him too much.

Marinette could practically hear her brain smashing itself against her skull. Was the miraculous seriously talking about a freaking cat?! A cat?! Why did her miraculous even her about this?! What was even dangerous about a cat, especially a de-clawed one? She wasn't sure if her miraculous had just intentionally humiliated her or not. She felt both embarrassment and anger.