Butterfly Delivery - Adrinette

Tidings From Afar

Thirteen days after Cigogne

"Hello?" Gina's face appeared on the screen of a tablet, propped up in front of her grown son's baking space. "Tom?"

"Finally you pick up, Mamma!" the baker exclaimed. "I've been trying to call you for the past several days, but I can only guess you were out of service. Where have you been?"

"You know, off the beaten path," Gina chuckled. "Even my GPS wasn't sure for a little while. You don't usually call me in the middle of the week; what's going on?"

"It's Marinette," Tom began. "She..." he punched the dough with a violence his mother was unaccustomed to seeing in him.

"My little fairy! Is she all right?"

"I suppose she's going to be fine, but the doctors have never seen anything like it before. First her entire class was out sick with horrible stomach cramps - then, as the cramps let up, they one by one started finding lumps in their bellies. At that point it was traced back to an akuma attack that had involved everyone having symptoms. The doctors' first guess was cancer, and even though we now know that isn't the case... I'm so worried for my little girl..." Tom quit talking and started to sniffle.

"Chin up, Tom, you could get akumatized." Gina warned him. "I'm so glad it's not cancer, but what did happen to her?"

Tom set his rolling pin where it couldn't act according to its name and met his mother's eyes through the screen. Together with his troubled expression, there was a hint of something that gleamed. "She's going to have a baby! I admit it - I've looked forward to the day practically since Sabine and I had her. Of course, I expected she would find herself a nice husband, and they would get around to having kids sometime in their twenties... but there's no reason that can't still happen. Any baby is a blessing, right?"

Tom couldn't know that the rapid updraft in his spirits stopped a purple butterfly in its flight just outside his window; discouraged, it returned to its master.

"Akuma are making girls pregnant now?!" Gina gaped. "Where do their powers end?"

"Not there! Marinette's male classmates are expecting as well. It's been classed as an ectopic pregnancy taking place in the intestines. Luckily, the children seem to be sized accordingly, so they're not taking too much of a toll on their parents' health. Though that does make me wonder... if she has a teeny tiny baby, how big will it be as an adult? You can look up news stories on the 'Butterfly Children', but be warned, the media is making them seem a lot more harmful than they've proven to be."

--

"So you're finally healthy enough to come to school, hooray." Ms. Mendeleiev said dryly. "Now, I hope you enjoyed your days off, because you're getting double homework for a week to make up for it."

The class groaned, but no one was in pain - at least not physically. They knew their teacher had a point, even if she could have put it in a far more kindly manner.

"There is one good thing in all of this," the teacher pointed out. "You're lucky enough to experience scientific history in the making, so I expect you all to keep detailed notes on the development of your children. If you impress me with your observations, I'll be lenient on your grades for any more class you miss because of the butterfly children."

"Extra credit, and we didn't even have to ask?" someone whispered to a friend. "What got into her?"

"If she's passionate about one thing it's science. I wouldn't worry about it too much - if she gets questioned she might take back the offer."

--

"That reporter yesterday did have a good point," Alya commented to Marinette. "Other than the fact that we were injected by Cigogne, we don't know how these things got inside of us. We don't know what DNA they have! Are we even sure they have DNA at all?"

The girls had just finished school for the day and were on their way to some place quiet to tackle their mountain of homework. Naturally, all they wanted to talk about was what had their entire class abuzz.

"I know," Marinette agreed. "It freaks me out just thinking about what it could be. I've already adapted to thinking of it as my child, and I don't know how I'll react if it isn't - in a biological sense, I mean."

"It's a good thing Miss Bustier got those samples sent in to the lab. A surprise blood test isn't any more pleasant than any other surprise test we get at school, but I know why it was done. I'll feel a lot better if -"

"Sorry," Marinette interrupted her friend, digging her ringing phone out of her purse. "I have to get that."

"Who is it?"

Marinette checked the caller ID on her phone before picking up. "It's my Nonna!"

Curious to see how it would play out, Alya stayed and listened in on Marinette's half of the conversation. "Hi Nonna! ... ... ... So Papa told you? ... ... ... Well, I didn't quite plan it that way... ... ... No! It's fine, I already love the little thing... ... ... Actually, I'm not sure. I might give it up for adoption... ... ... But ... Yes, I did say that, but what if I can't give it the life it deserves? ... ... I didn't say I'm not keeping it! I just don't know yet... ... ... ... Oh, yes, the first boy who found his thought he had a hernia... ... ... With an ultrasound... ... ... I can show you mine. Do you have access to a computer where you are now? I could scan them in and email them to you... ... Enlarged, it looks like any ultrasound I ever saw in biology class... .... okay... I love you... bye, Nonna."

"She just found out?"

"She seems a little too excited if you ask me. I wonder what exactly Papa told her?"

"I've been getting calls from relatives in Martinique all week." Alya told Marinette. "They're amazingly cool with it, especially after they got so worked up the first few times they heard about an akuma attacking Paris. I guess they've just come to think that anything can happen here, and that if we've survived this long, we'll keep surviving. After all, we have great superheroes to defend us."

"Like Rena Rouge?" Marinette asked.

Alya looked surprised, then shrugged. "She does her part. Yes, like Rena Rouge, and the rest of them."