The pandas weren't at all overstaying their welcome; considering they've been staying hidden for so long, they didn't really get to explore the outside world that much. So, it felt like a waste to travel together all the way to the Valley of Peace just for a lesson on chi. As a thank you to Po for teaching them kung fu, the panda villagers aided the villagers of the Valley in rebuilding, and everything was soon back in working order. After about a week or so of work, the pandas took a well deserved vacation and decided to explore. They scattered all over town and took in all that their lost brother has been enjoying for the past 20 years.

Well, all for one little panda child.

Clutching the handmade Tigress "action figure" to her chest for dear life, Lei Lei sprinted all around the Hall of Heroes with a delighted giggle. "Stripey Baby lives here! Stripey Baby lives here!" she chanted. Now that the Jade Palace was repaired and back to it's former glory, Lei Lei had no interest in exploring town; she was far more invested in spending as much time as possible with her idol.

Tigress admired this tiny child, truly she did, but she doesn't exactly consider herself a babysitter as well as a warrior. She followed Lei Lei around the glorious museum of master artifacts so the small black and white child wouldn't hurt herself. "You're still not interested in seeing the town?" Tigress asked.

Lei Lei paused her gleeful skipping and faced the tiger, still beaming. "Stripey Baby! Tell me about Stripey Baby!" she replied as she ran towards her.

Tigress gave her a small smile as she got down on one knee so the young panda could climb onto her shoulders. "You want to hear about me, do you?" she asked as she stood back up and headed out of the hall. The response was a very excited "Yeah!"

-

Settled in Tigress' bedroom within the barracks, Lei Lei sat on the floor bouncing in place while Tigress collected memorabilia from around the space. She took a seat next the the child and began handing her items from her childhood. "When I was about your age, maybe a little older," the tiger began, "I was very sad because the other kids didn't think I was normal."

Lei Lei had gently put down the Tigress doll to hold the broken wood squares in her paws. "Stripey Baby is normal to me," she mumbled.

"In that case, you could've been my friend if you met Little Me," Tigress replied. Lei Lei gave her a big smile.

"Yeah, yeah! Friends with Stripey Baby!"

Tigress then handed her the wooden squares that were still intact. "One day, Grumpy Ears visited my orphanage and told me that I was a normal little girl, just like you."

A small gasp. "Grumpy Ears?"

"Mmhmm, Grumpy Ears."

"Wow..." Lei Lei looked down at the wooden square in wonder. "What'd Grumpy Ears do next?"

"Then...Grumpy Ears brought me here." Tigress stretched her arms out to gesture to the entire room. "Grumpy Ears taught me to be tough. But Master Oogway was the one who taught me to be myself."

"Oog..way?" Lei Lei tilted her head in confusion.

"Remember the large statue you saw on the side of the palace? The turtle with the staff?"

"Oh! Rocky!"

Tigress let out a laugh. "Yeah...Rocky."

The next item Tigress placed in Lei Lei's paws was a scroll. Lei Lei opened the scroll and saw the words "cleaner", "dancer", "doctor", and "comedian". Lei Lei tilted her head again in confusion.

"How I learned to be myself was also how I met some of my friends," Tigress told Lei Lei. "I was supposed to find tough warriors like me, but I somehow ended up with the wrong list."

Lei Lei gasped. "Oh no!"

"Oh yes. But Oo- Rocky believed in this little thing called 'destiny', and Rocky told me that getting this scroll was no accident."

"Whoa..."

"Can you guess which of my friends is on that list?

Lei Lei looked over the titles on the scroll once more. "Dancer...dancer...Snakey Wakey?" she asked.

"You got it!"

"Yay!"

Lei Lei stared intensely at the scroll with a small hum. "Is Teeny Greeny Baby a doctor?"

"You are absolutely right."

"Greeny Baby makes good tea!"

"Yes he does."

"But Monkey Man is funny, so Monkey Man's the comedian!"

"You're really good at guessing games!"

Lei Lei fell into a fit of giggles from Tigress' praise. "Oh, and Beaky cleans?"

"Well, not as much as he used to, but yes."

Lei Lei stood up and jumped around, waving the scroll in the air. "I win! I win!" she yelled excitedly. Suddenly, the doors to Tigress' room open. Po pops his head through the doorway.

"Who won what? Somebody playin' a game and forgot to count me in?" he said, looking around.

"Cuddles!" Lei Lei shrieked as she dropped the scroll and ran towards the giant panda. Po let out a loud laugh as he leaned down so he could pick her up. "Hey kiddo! What have you been up to?" he asked her. Lei Lei leaned up and hugged his face. "I played a game with Stripey Baby!" she happily told the Dragon Warrior. "Stripey Baby told a story about Grumpy Ears, and how Stripey Baby met Greeny Baby and Monkey Man and-"

"Whoa there, sounds like you've had quite a day!" Po laughed as he brought her back down to the ground. "Why don't you go find Grandma and get some lunch? The pandas are back in the palace.

"I'm hungry!" Lei Lei said as she patted her belly.

"I'm sure you are. Go on ahead, it's Cuddles' turn to hang out with Tigress."

"Okay!"

Before Lei Lei head out, she ran back over to Tigress, stood on her tiptoes and kissed her on the cheek. "Be back, Stripey Baby!" she said as she grabbed her beloved Tigress doll and ran out the room. Tigress placed a paw on her cheek in slight bewilderment as she watched Lei Lei run out into the hallway, the child's giggles echoing throughout. That young one was just full of surprises.

Po chuckled as he closed the bedroom doors. "That kid's somethin' else, isn't she? She's like a baby me, I swear."

"I wouldn't go as far to say that, she's actually a lot better at following directions than you," Tigress said.

"Ha! And here I thought Monkey was supposed to be the comedian," Po replied as he sat down beside her. He picked up the scroll that Lei Lei had dropped and opened it back up. "Did you get to tell her how you ended up with the wrong list?" he asked.

"I was just about to tell her about my good friend Cuddles until you walked in," she replied as she took the scroll from his paws. "It was meant to be another lesson about destiny." Po drew out a long "ah" as she closed the scroll and placed in on the ground. "I take it your day with your fathers went well?" she asked.

"Oh man, it was great! The town folk was so excited to see my birth dad Li back at the restaurant, only this time to see him and my other dad actually getting along," he went on. "Dad whipped us up some breakfast and soon we were sharing all these embarrassing stories about each other. The other pandas met up with us later on and we decided to head back here for a bit."

"It sounds like a lovely time."

"My dad, uh, Li was wondering about you, though. He starting asking me a bunch of questions about us, and I really didn't wanna say anything to embarrass you," Po said with a nervous laugh. Tigress raised a brow.

"I know your father means well, but I hope he's not expecting us to drop everything right away and leave the Valley to live by him or something," she said. "We still have our responsibilities."

"Yeah, I know, that's what I was saying! I guess he's still worried about losing me, even though I keep telling him I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon." The panda let out a sigh as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Though, it did get me thinking about the future."

The future was something Tigress put in the back of her mind; Master Oogway was all about focusing on the Now, and said that what people did in the present would lead them to whatever destiny had in store for them in the future. She doesn't plan on giving up kung fu anytime at all, but now that Po was in her life, there were...a couple of new things to consider.

Po didn't want to sweat the details either, but the fact that his birth father was alive had shown him another door in his life that he's still unsure whether or not to open.

"Now, I think you and I can both agree that kung fu isn't going away anytime at all, so I'll never stop being the Dragon Warrior no matter what. I'll be teaching bunnies 'til I'm older than Shifu," he told her. "But..."

"But what?"

"Well, I've been thinkin' about you and me. About what we're gonna do down the road. Oogway chose me as his successor, but I'm not gonna sit here and pretend you haven't been helping me along the way."

"It's okay, Po. If it will make you more comfortable, I'll take over as teacher on some days so you don't overwork yourself," Tigress said. Po merely shook his head.

"Nah, it's not that, I think I'm now really getting the hang of the whole teaching thing. It's more like, I don't want us to just be warriors and teachers and all that."

Oh. So that's what he's getting at.

"Po, we're already more than just warriors. We became acquaintances, then we were friends, and now we're...well, beyond friendship, but...I don't see that changing for the worse anytime soon."

Po placed his paws onto hers. "And I don't wanna lose you either. Which is why I thought, 'let's totally adopt a kid someday!'"

"What?"

"Okay, okay, here me out, this could totally work! I already know we'd make amazing parents, and our kid could hang around the palace and learn kung fu, and if we had to go far away, they could stay with my dad at the restaurant, and, oh this would be cool too, we could bring them to the panda village and hang out with my other dad and learn about how cool pandas are, and not to mention they'd always eat the best food ever-"

Tigress lifted a paw to stop Po in his tracks. "Hold on, I need a moment to think about all of this."

Po started to feel nervous. "Was that a bad idea? That was too much, wasn't it, I should've-" Po stopped speaking again after Tigress shot him a glare. "Please, a moment."

He gave her a quick nod and she took the time to process what he'd blurted out to her. "Have you told either of your dads about this?" she asked. "Nope, I thought all about this as I was coming home cuz I wanted to tell you about it first," Po replied. "This is all about the both of us, after all."

Tigress crossed her arms as she pondered once more. She then found herself smiling.

"I think it's too early to take on the roles as parents, but...I think it's definitely something worth considering."

Po gave her a wide grin as he brought their paws back together. "Trust me, when the times comes, we're gonna be the coolest parents ever!" He said happily. "I don't doubt it for a moment," Tigress replied.

Overflowing with many positive emotions, the two found themselves slowly closing the space between them. They both closed their eyes as they-

"I got some dumplings if Cuddles wants o- ah!"

Po and Tigress quickly tore away from one another to turn their attention to the doorway. They were so distracted by one another that they didn't hear Lei Lei open the door and let herself in. The young panda stared back at them with the same level of shock, but her surprised expression turned into a big smile. She put the bowl of dumplings on the ground so she could run over to the pair.

"Stri-pey Ba-by!" she sang as she hugged Tigress' arm. "Stripey Baby did'n tell me about Cuddles!"

"No...I guess I didn't," Tigress replied.

"Actually, how's about Cuddles tells you all about that?" Po asked Lei Lei with a big smile. Lei Lei let go of Tigress to clap excitedly. "Cuddles gonna tell a story! Oh, food first!"

Lei Lei ran and grabbed the bowl back up and brought it to Po as she sat down between him and Tigress. "Ready!" she said joyfully.

"You suuuure?" Po teased. "I dunno Tigress, you think she's ready for this super mega awesome story about how we met?"

"Hmm...I wanna say she is," Tigress replied while giving Lei Lei a loving pat on the head.

"Come on, tell me! Tell me!"

"Haha, okay, okay. So, a long time ago..."

Starting a family would have to wait, but they both knew they were well prepared for what lied ahead in the future. Their time with Lei Lei was proof of that.