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Marinette always had the suspicion that Tikki was doing it. Sure, the red and black kwami loved cookies, but she had never eaten a whole big jar full in one sitting. And Marinette also doubted that it was Tikki who had left cookie crumbs in Emma’s bed. But the kwami insisted it was her, and her alone. “They were very good Marinette,” she said. “Did you try something new this time?” And Marinette couldn’t argue — she had tried a new brand of chocolate chips.
And she knew that it had been the work of Tikki that had cleaned the marker off of the walls before she had seen it — she may not have seen it, but she definitely heard their whispers and giggles that night.
Adrien, of course, was oblivious to it all. All of his “kittens” were angels in his eyes. And even when they did misbehave he’d say “they’re kids Marinette! They’re meant to make mistakes!” But there was a difference between making mistakes and causing chaos.
Plagg, as Marinette found, was an unexpected enemy. The black cat kwami was all meow and no bite, as she had come to learn. That kwami may complain about how messy children were but he was the first to jump up and defend them when things went wrong around the house... “I was taking a cat nap and just woke up and yeah, must have cataclysmed it in my sleep...”
“Cataclysm... in your sleep...”
“Yep. You’d be surprised how often that happens.”
“Uh-huh, so you chose cataclysm over destroying it with your claws? Because those are very obvious slashes there Plagg. Are you sure you didn’t just happen to grab out my scissors in your sleep too?”
Plagg was also a bad influence on the children. Not only did he try to protect them after they caused mayhem, but he also convinced them to cause such mayhem to begin with (see also: using the walls to draw instead of our many colouring books). And no matter how many times Marinette had threatened to stick him in a gumboot, Plagg never changed his ways.
It was worse, somehow, when the two kwamis worked together. They would do something reckless and potentially dangerous (dangerous in a sense that Marinette would yell at them for), and then have Tikki magically make the thing disappear like it had never existed, the only evidence of it ever occurring where the whispers and giggles Marinette could hear after the children were “asleep”. She supposed this was how Candace felt each time Phineas and Ferb got one up on her.
But, in the end, Marinette supposed it didn’t matter. She had three beautiful children, and she wouldn’t change anything about them (although, it would be nice if Hugo didn’t leave his legos out). Despite all of the trouble the six of them got up to (because let’s be realistic here, Adrien and the two kwamis could act like children at times too), at the end of the day Emma, Hugo and Louis were some of the most well-mannered children in Paris — even if they were little shits behind closed doors.
Louis once, his cute little 5-year-old self told Marinette that he was allowed to misbehave at home because he knew he wouldn’t get in too much trouble because his maman and papa loved him so.
And it was true, Marinette and Adrien would do anything for their children. They wouldn’t let them get away with murder, instead, they would help them hide the body if they needed.
And if Marinette was honest, that was all she had ever wanted for herself. A family exactly like the one she had.