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Marinette woke up at Emma’s first wail, while Adrien was still struggling into his pajama bottoms. Half-asleep, she patted the blankets frantically, searching for her baby.
“Shh.” The bedsprings creaked as Adrien sat beside his wife. He rubbed rhythmic circles into her back. “She’s in the nursery, love. Everything’s fine, I promise. I’m just going in to give her her late-night feed.”
Marinette relaxed against him. “This whole sleep deprivation thing is getting old fast,” she mumbled drowsily.
“You’re telling me,” Adrien agreed, planting a parting kiss on her forehead. “Go back to sleep. I’ve got her.”
In the kitchen, Adrien pulled a bag of breast milk out of the fridge and dunked it into a cup of warm water. He yawned so widely that his jaw cracked.
“Wish you could feed her for me,” he told Plagg.
Plagg rubbed his eyes. “As if I’m not pulling my weight,” he said grumpily. “I’m great with babies, and you know it.”
“I do,” Adrien admitted, checking the temperature of the milk. “You’ve been a purrfect uncle, Plagg.”
Plagg made a face. “Not your most creative pun.”
Adrien shrugged. “Give me a thirty hour nap. I’d be a pun meowstro after that.”
Plagg shrugged. He always made an effort to keep Adrien’s spirits up when they had to wake with Emma in the middle of the night, but Adrien knew the lack of sleep was weighing on his kwami too. With the bottle ready to go, Adrien scooped up his daughter and the nursing pillow and took a seat in the rocking chair by the nursery window.
“Stop your mewling, little one,” he said, resting Emma’s head on his chest. “Papa’s here.”
Double checking that the nipple was completely filled with milk, Adrien let Emma latch on and begin to suck.
“There,” he said. “Look at you! You’re the brightest star in the Milky Way.”
Plagg, perched on the arm of the rocking chair, let out a groan.
Adrien raised his eyebrows. “Can you do better?”
“Please. I can pun circles around you, kid.” Plagg’s face softened as he studied Emma. “She’s… spec-cat-ular. Like spectacular?”
Adrien chuckled, tilting the bottle back to give Emma a break. “We both need way more sleep than we’re getting. But when I look at Emma, I always feline like it’s all worthwhile.”
“Boo,” said Plagg flatly. “Hiss. I can tell you’re a father now, because your jokes are terrible.” He screwed up his face, thinking hard. “Emma is… it’ll come to me. Emma is… stop laughing! Emma is a clawfully good eater. Best in show!”
Adrien tilted the bottle forward again, and Emma happily resumed sucking. “She is, isn’t she?” He grinned at his daughter. “Sleep deprivation jokes aside, thank you for being such an easy kid.”
“Anything for you, Papa!” said Plagg in a grating falsetto.
“That’s not what she sounds like.”
Plagg stuck out his tongue. “And how exactly do you know? Maybe kwamis speak baby.”
“Nah. You’d have bragged about that ages ago.”
With Emma fed, burped, and settled back into her crib, Adrien crept back into the bedroom, doing his best not to disturb Marinette. He had just gotten comfortable when something occurred to him and his eyes widened.
“Plagg,” he hissed.
“What?”
“I think I left the fridge open. I’ll buy you a truckload of Camembert if you’ll close it for me so I don’t have to get up.”
Adrien could hear the regret in Plagg’s voice. “No can do,” he said. “It’s too heavy for me, and Tikki’s getting her first full night of sleep in a month.”
Adrien groaned. He peeled himself out of his warm bed and away from his warm, soft, sleeping wife. He staggered into the kitchen, only to find that the refrigerator was closed after all.
“Fuck.” Adrien leaned against the sink, splashing cold water on his face. “This is a new low.”
Since he was there, he started the coffee machine. When Marinette got up to give Emma her early-morning feed, fresh coffee would be a welcome surprise. Adrien found a stub of pencil behind the blender and used it to write a love note on the back of an old shopping list. It was the little things, after all, that kept their marriage healthy in spite of their brand new mountain of parenting stress.
Satisfied that he had done his part, Adrien crawled back into bed beside Marinette and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Adrien awoke to a beam of warm sunlight slanting across the bed, Plagg snoring in the crook of his arm, and Marinette and Tikki laughing in the kitchen. Gently transferring his kwami to the pillow, Adrien stretched, popped his neck, and went to investigate.
“Good morning,” said Marinette, brushing a gentle kiss against his cheek. “Thanks for feeding Emma last night, my prince.” She and Tikki exchanged looks. “Did you get enough sleep?”
This was enough to send Tikki into a fresh gale of laughter.
“I did,” said Adrien, confused. “Why…?”
Marinette handed him the love note he’d written for her last night. The corners of her mouth were twitching.
Adrien poured himself a cup of coffee and began to read.
Dear Marinette,
You are the sun in my purring sky. You make me furry feline bright. I can’t purrmagine what my life would be like without you in it. Sad.
Yours Sincerely,
Adrien Agreste
Adrien cleared his throat. “Okay, so it’s a little incoherent.”
Marinette cackled. “A little! But it’s clearly very heartfelt. I was so moved that I had to let you sleep in.”
Behind her, Tikki nodded vigorously. “Maybe you should be a poet, Adrien,” she suggested. “Some of my past holders were poets, and I’ve never seen someone come up with something like ‘furry feline bright’ before.” She collapsed onto the counter, giggling.
“What can I say?” Adrien smiled at his wife. Even with the dark circles under her eyes, she was dazzlingly beautiful with the morning sunlight shining in her hair. “Marinette’s my muse.”