AN: Wish was Tomas Astruc but I'm not the owner of Miraculous.

All credit for the cover picture: Kim1509_edits (instagram)

"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory."

-Franklin P. Adams

It was a bright, warm day in september, and the clocks were striking 8:10am, classes started again today and birds flew as if dancing.

It was a horrible day.

As usual, Ladybug and Chat Noir were fighting some creepy old dude with non-spoken issues, which was a problem because, he didn't know this, but she was supposed to be arriving to school in 20 minutes.

"Chat, the rooftop!" she yelled, throwing her yoyo in the right direction, he followed.

Once they were up there, she used her lucky charm and received a weird looking toothbrush.

"What the…" she looked everywhere without any luck. "Oh I don't have time for this!"

"What's the matter, bugaboo? Running late to school this beautiful meowrning?"

He was doing it again, the cat puns, she could not believe it.

"Chat, focus. And STOP trying to make me give you information about myself!" She finally saw a lamp post and a car handle that together could be useful.

"I'm really not even trying that hard." he responded as he used his stick to divert some weird, mockingbird-looking projectile from the akumatized man, god this dude had issues.

"Would be fun ya'know? I mean, we already know who Reena Rouge and the rest of them are, don't we? They seem like pretty cool people." Another projectile, this one cut his arm.

"Yeah, and that…" she started running towards the end of the building and Chat followed her. "…is the reason they can no longer be here, helping us to do…" they got to the edge and saw in full length the man creating birds out of thin air and caging humans and cars as they walked by.

"This." Finished him. "May I do the honors, My Lady?"

She nodded with a smirk and moved so he could have space to run to the edge. "You may."

And with that he ran towards the edge of the building. "Hey weirdo, looking for something?" And he jumped. "Cataclysm!"

Adrien entered through his window exactly at 8:22, transformed back and took his backpack while running to wash his face.

"Well done Plagg", he threw some cheese in his directions without looking back.

"Could have been faster with the help of the turtle guy."

"You mean Carapace? Yeah, you heard Ladybug, we won't be seeing that much of him now that Hawkmoth knows his identity, and everyone else's for that matter." He said with a frown.

"Not as Carapace at least, who could have thought that the hero was my best friend all this time?". He was deep in thought, watching himself in the mirror. "Plagg, do you think we know her?"

"Well," answered Plagg paying all his attention on the cheese he was eating. "She did say she choose him cuz' he was trying to protect the Reena Rouge girl at the time."

Adrien saw his watch and ran outside his bedroom and down the stairs of his house.

"Adrien," said Nathalie when she saw him. "Your father won't want any complaining from the school saying you're late on the first day."

"Sorry Nathalie," he said without stopping from running, "bad hair day." And with his nervous smile got inside the car.

8:24am, just in time.

Marinette arrived at her rooftop at 8:21am, transformed back because of time limit, and ran to her bedroom.

"Another akuma right before school Tikki! I can't believe it." She complained.

Tikki took a pink macaroon from her owner's bag. "Marinette, relax. You'll go back and meet your friends again, today is a good day!"

"And all that insistence from Chat Noir, I can't believe him. I'm so mad."

"He's just playing like every time."

Marinette took her backpack and stuck inside everything in her table not even paying attention to what it was. She wanted to have everything prepared before that day but since the beginning of summer everything have been so crazy. First Hawkmoth tried to use all of her friends and miraculous holders to defeat them, revealing their identities and putting her at risk of Chat Noir discovering who she was. For God's sake all the holders were from the same freaking high school!

Of course, Chloe was a mistake, she justified Alya with knowing her from the ladyblog and trusting her, also she put the blame of Nino into Alya. Kim had been Master Fu's decision, and he had been there when they give the horse miraculous to Max, so except for Kagami and Luka, she was pretty much in the clear. And for some reason, he didn't question this two too much. "I know he's playing Tikki, but we can no longer get help from any of them and I'm so stressed about that and I'm also about to see Adrien in a long time because his father did not let him see us that much during break and…"

"Marinette…"

"…the fact that Chat won't stop with the puns and making fun of everything…"

"Marinette…"

"…just makes me think he's not that serious about our mission and now I'm also the guardian!"

"MARINETTE!"

"WHAT?"

"School…?"

"RIGHT!", and this time, she ran. She didn't saw the clock, but it marked 8:26, not enough time. She also didn't saw the text book she left in her bed.

Adrien arrived at the classroom at 8:32, he didn't saw the teacher so he took his seat and was greeted by Nino, who was in deep conversation with Alya.

"Hey dude! Come here, we haven't seen you in ages"

"Nino, Alya, hi!" He looked at the empty space across Alya's desk, "no Marinette yet?"

She tried to hide it but he saw how Alya was holding a laugh, and with a smirk she replied, "oh you know my girl, she could be late to meeting the queen of England." They both laughed, "so how was vacations?" Nino asked him, fighting akumas without your help, been reprimanded by Ladybug all day long. Stressed out about the effort Hawkmoth has been doing and still in love with a girl I don't know. "Same as always, some photoshoots and…Miss Bustier"

"Miss Bustier?", taken aback Nino raised his head to see the teacher entering the classroom, they all seated straight to pay attention to Miss Bustier, Adrien took a last glance at Marinette's empty spot, wondering if she was caught in the middle of the akuma attack.

"I'm sorry class, I was going back to my place for this binder I forgotten when I was caged by the akumatized man, luckily Ladybug and Chat Noir were there to fix everything, they're always just in time…", a big noise and some books flying out of a backpack interrupted the just starting class. "right Marinette?" In that moment she was trying to enter unnoticed when she stumbled with her own foot and fallen.

"Sorry Miss Bustier," she said getting up, "I was…", she planned on saying she was caged on the akuma attack, but entering she listened at Miss Bustier's story and it wouldn't make sense that she had time to go back to her place for her binder after been freed and Marinette were even later then her. "I was caught up in the street by some Reena Rouge admirers." Sorry Alya.

She said this feeling ashamed, it was not entirely a lie taking in consideration that there had been times during the break were her day had been affected by Reena Rouge and Carapace's fans, now that everybody knew who they were, there had been some harassment to them and their closest friend.

All the classroom fell silent, Alya looked taken aback and ashamed and tried to make herself smaller. SMOOTH. "Right, please take your seat Marinette, we are staring today's lesson with…" started Miss Bustier trying to make the situation less awkward, luckily she ignored Marinette's tardiness after this.

While going to her seat, Adrien smiled at her, she smiled back and stumbled again, only this time she did not fell. REALLY SMOOTH.

"…and that's why we will be working in couples for this project so if you please open your text books you'll find in the first chapter…"

Crap.

"Miss Bustier…I don't have my textbook with me," she really couldn't interrupt this class even more.

"Well, I'm guessing you're working with Alya right? Just work with hers and tomorrow…"

Marinette heard a gasp at her left and looked at Alya.

"Umm…Miss Bustier, I'm sorry, I don't got mine either." Her teacher looked so tired at this, she inhaled deeply and maintained herself calm.

"Well then you'll have to work with someone else in this project, everyone, pair up so we can start with the theme selection, we're already behind and we just started school 20 minutes ago."

"I can work with Alya Miss Bustier". Said Nino, who was already turning back with his text book at hand.

The teacher smiled at that small signal of order. "Then I guess I'll work with Marinette." Said Adrien smiling.

"That's perfect!" Screamed Alya before she even processed what was happening. "We should change seats if we're going to be sharing textbooks then." She was already taking her things and walking towards Adrien's spot at the front of the class.

"Hi Marinette, missed you during the break."

After hour and a half of sweating uncomfortably next to Adrien and laughing at nothing, class was finally over, that one and many other, and now Alya, Nino, Kim, Juleka, Rose, Adrien and Marinette were sitting in the cafeteria.

"yeah it was crazy, once everybody knew I was the King Monkey hell went loose. My mother almost got a heart attack, and the people, they follow everywhere it's insane."

"My parents were so proud when they knew, it was so weird". Alya was still looking ashamed because of what Marinette had said when she arrived at class. "I really am sorry for this morning Marinette, I don't mean for people to do that, not to you."

"Don't worry about it, eventually I had to get used to the fact that my best friend is a superhero." Everyone smiled and give Alya and Nino pats on their backs.

"Was. Was a superhero." Said Alya remembering the last conversation she had with Ladybug after the big fight.

"I'm sorry, I can't give you back your miraculous now that Hawkmoth knows your identity, it's too dangerous."

"Why's that?" Asked Rose, Adrien was sad about this, but he was not supposed to know, so he pretended interest in what she was going to answer.

"Once someone knows your secret identity you can no longer hold a miraculous." She took one sip from her juice. "It's like some weird anti-dying Ladybug rule, not even Chat Noir knew who we were."

This took by surprise Juleka and Rose, and just-pretending-Marinette.

"what?", "no way", "that's crazy".

Marinette though of that time she was Mini Mouse, and she transformed back in front of Chat Noir to destroy any suspicion that she could be Ladybug. She tough of talking about this in that moment, but decided it was not the smarter move.

Also, everybody was so excited talking about their own adventures with the heroes Ladybug and Chat Noir, she wondered why Adrien had never mentioned that time he was Aspik, and with "that time" she meant that hole months he was trying to save her. Maybe it was a horrible memory for him, she never gave it a second though until now.

"Marinette, you spaced out again." Said Rose with a laugh.

"What? Sorry, I was just thinking, I, I'm going home before the next period starts, I think my textbook is not the only thing important I left."

She said her goodbyes and was out in the school court in no time.

"Hey, Marinette! Wait up." She recognized that voice anywhere, or at least she tough that because she obviously didn't.

"Adrien! What…Hi, not hi. I just saw you, there, taking, words." Smoooooooth.

"I was gonna ask you if you want to go to the library tomorrow, for the project, since is like 50% of our grade."

"50%...what?"

"Well I mean if we're working on it until November, I guess it makes sense, right?"

"November? You mean, the month?". Now she was freaking out.

"Well I guess I'll see you. Take care, I'm really glad I'm working with you on this you know."

AN: New on this, please leave a review so I can know what i'm doing right and wrong. All critisism it's accepted :)