About three days after they all got back from Shanghai, Bloom walks into the school to find…everyone has a wrapped present. It's Nathaniel's gift, though - Miss Bustier painted as a superhero - that tips her off as to what exactly she's missing. Today's their favorite teacher's birthday. And she didn't know, so she doesn't have a gift. Even Marinette has one, something the dark-haired girl sends her a sheepish smile for - the only other person that doesn't have one in-hand, in fact, is Chloe.

Mylene got her a braided hair, inspired by her breathing class; Rose made her a scrapbook, inspiration taken from the exercise she has everyone do before they start class where they all give each other a compliment. And Marinette made her a cosmetics bag, with one of her favorite quotes stitched onto the front.

At everyone's questioning looks, Bloom makes a strangled sound in the back of her throat, and says she didn't know it was Miss Bustier's birthday but she'll have something ready by her class.

Nathan says "I'll help, Bloom. We can work on it in the art room. Marinette, you want to help?"

Before Marinette can respond, Bloom says "We'll need her help to distract Miss Bustier for…maybe ten minutes while I get things set up once it's time for her class."

And then Adrien asks Chloe what she got, and everyone realizes she didn't get her something. Marinette deadpans "Nothing, same as every year since kindergarten."

Sabrina promptly defends Chloe, saying it's not her fault that she forgets everyone's birthdays just like her mother - Chloe promptly says "Yeah, well, you don't need to tell them my entire life's story either, Sabrina." Even still, hr cheeks are turning red and she refuses to look out of her locker as she digs around in it.

Bloom just raises an eyebrow - again, with Chloe's elusive, 'exceptional' mother who isn't even around - and asks "Is that right, Sabrina? Seeing as the elusive Audrey Bourgeois isn't even here…" She trails off, but the implication is clear - Audrey Bourgeois isn't a valid excuse, she isn't here to influence Chloe's behavior. She isn't even here to forget Chloe's birthday.

Marinette and Bloom hole up in the art room during lunch, with Nathan offering to keep watch at the door since it's supposed to be a surprise - and sneaking peeks at the way paper, paint, brushes, and scissors are literally flying through the air when Marinette isn't looking at the door. Nathan glances in again, seeing construction paper folding itself midair, and shakes his head as he turns around back to the hallway - Bloom's incredible, and so far past his league it's not even funny.

And the revelation that Marinette is Ladybug isn't helping matters either - because who else would Bloom so casually, or frantically in this case, do magic in front of?

Next thing you know, Cat Noir will turn out to be someone in our class.

Their Everyday Ladybug actually being Ladybug making him want to burst out laughing and cry at the same time - at least it explains why Marinette is so late sometimes. He doesn't even want to guess at Cat Noir's identity, he doesn't - because, chances are it'll be someone from their class.

And then Juleka and Luka walk up the steps, with Juleka asking "Erm…can you…move please? I need to get inside…"

Nathan blinks, shifting a bit to cover the window better, and says "It's…kind of a mess in there? Bloom and Marinette are making a surprise for Miss Bustier, you see." And boy will it be a surprise if they walk in and see things floating midair and Bloom with glowing orange hands.

Bloom's just flattening out a banner to paint the words 'Happy birthday, Miss Bustier!' on the floor when Marinette squeaks in utter shock. Bloom looks over at once, asking "Mari? What is it?"

Marinette whisper-yells "Take a look at the flowers!" Bloom was magically folding roses out of red, pink, white, and green construction paper, inside a glass jar…except the flowers smell like flowers. And, when Marinette took a closer look - thinking maybe Rose had been in the room earlier and what she's smelling was just her perfume - the paper flowers weren't paper flowers.

They were real flowers. Paper turned to petals and stems.

Bloom makes a sound of distress in the back of her throat, and mutters "That never happened before…"

Marinette asks "What were you thinking of? Or trying to do?"

"I was trying to…make them as lifelike as possible…" Bloom promptly facepalms, smearing paint all over her face in the process as her palm is full of it. And then she says "I'll finish up the banner, you get some water for those!"

Nathan knocks on the door, calling in "Hey, Marinette? Bloom? Juleka and Luka need to grab something in there."

Bloom hastily waves her hand, and all the paint cans drop to the floor with the brushes hitting the banner where they were painting. Nathan, Juleka, and Luka stare at the scene in varying degrees of shock when Marinette opens the door, and Luka asks "What happened?!"

Bloom shrugs, hoping to hell and back neither twin saw anything floating midair, and nervously says "Oh, you know, the usual. Didn't know it was our teacher's birthday, so I didn't show up with a gift, so now I'm scrambling to finish a banner for her before lunch ends! What about you?"

Juleka mumbles something under her breath, holding a notebook to her chest, and Luka says "Came to pick up a book Juleka left by accident." He's not going to tell them, not even Bloom and Marinette, about Juleka's secret hobby of writing poetry. She's shy enough on a regular basis, it's why she writes it in secret at home. And it's her secret to tell.

Marinette chuckles nervously, and says "Well, you found it, so…" Bloom's still quite literally running hot with her magic, and all it'll take or someone to notice something's off is bumping into her. Or startling her, something could all-too-easily catch fire if she gets startled for some reason.

Luka nods, then says "Well, it looks like it's coming along well. Need any help?"

Marinette shakes her head at once, frantically saying "Nononono, we're good, Luka! Really, thanks for the offer!"

Bloom nods, saying "We can handle it, Luka. But it's nice of you to ask."

Luka and Juleka shrug, Luka trying to make sense of Bloom's absolutely frantic melody - with a note he knows he's heard from somewhere before but he can't figure out where, especially so prominently, Marinette's birthday party, perhaps? - and Luka tries to placate Bloom saying "Alright, well, good luck on the banner. Hope to see it before we leave for the day." And then he turns to leave, accidentally brushing his elbow with Bloom's arm, and promptly freezes in place - because Bloom is burning hot. Like there's an actual fire under her skin. Is she sick? Maybe he should take her home. Or to the nurse, if nothing else-

And then he's promptly dragged to the door by a too-hot hand on his wrist, a panicked, forced smile on Bloom's face as she says "See you in class, Juleka, bye!" The door suddenly swings shut, leaving the twins staring at it blankly for a moment.

Luka rubs the back of his head in worry, asking "What's up with that?" Because her melody went into a full-blown frenzy at his touch, picking up speed at triple-tempo even as he could swear a few new instruments were added in.

Juleka shrugs, and says "Not sure, honestly. C'mon, let's get back to the others."

When everyone gets into Miss Bustier's class once Marinette lets them in, they see a banner that Juleka definitely remembers hanging from the white-board and a jar of vibrant flowers on the desk. And Bloom sitting at her desk already, having sped out of their last class for the art room. Alix whistles in appreciation, asking "Wow, you put this together during lunch? Where'd you get the flowers anyway?"

Rose practically squeals "They're gorgeous, Bloom!"

Everyone else, bar Chloe, agrees, and Miss Bustier smiles hugely upon seeing the banner and flowers. And then even more as everyone else places their gifts on the desk next to Bloom's flowers. When she opens up Marinette's gift, though…the quote Marinette stitched onto the bag is blocked out with black sharpie. Marinette gasps, but before she can get so supremely outraged…Bloom does it for her. "Chloe, you absolute brat! You just couldn't handle the detail that Marinette called you out for not having a gift, you decided to deface hers?!"

Miss Bustier calms the class down, even as they all start getting angry, and takes Bloom outside to talk. Thankfully, Bloom's not in trouble - Miss Bustier asks her to set a good example for the class as Vice Representative, saying that maybe Chloe just needs a good example to learn from.

Bloom internally snorts, because Chloe Bourgeois needs a lot of things, the first being a wake-up call. That would be when Miss Bustier notices the Akuma, and starts waving it off with her cosmetics bag. She throws the bag at it, and the evil little butterfly gets absorbed by the lip balm that was in it.

Bloom gasps in horror as Miss Bustier gets a butterfly symbol over her face, and yells "No, get out of her head, Hawk-Butt!"

Several heads poke out the doorway at that, followed by other doors opening as well, to see what the commotion is about…and Alya gets her phone out as quickly as possible.

Bloom yells "No, you can't have her, you damn coward!" She then runs towards the lip balm, and smashes her foot down on it. Thinking quickly, as the Akuma seems to be heavily disoriented, Bloom runs into the classroom, dumps her flowers onto the desk with the water, and runs back out.

By that point, Hawk Moth has recovered from the shock of the mental connection being suddenly broken and sees Bloom coming with the jar. "Fly," he says, all thoughts of Akumatizing someone going out the window, "fly away, little Akuma." He's mentally chanting 'fly away, fly away, fly away…' because it couldn't possibly hurt. He's really starting to hate that girl.

Bloom sees the Akuma take off, and yells "No you don't!" She takes a running start, leaps up onto the railing, slides down it, and catches the Akuma in the glass jar before it can vanish - making a lid in the palm of her hand, hidden by her body during the landing, and twisting it on before the Akuma can fly away.

And then she looks up, and sees she's drawn a crowd yet again. And Alya's filming, yet again.

Deciding to give the crowd what they want, Bloom holds up the jar and yells up "GOT IT!" The resulting cheer could probably be heard all the way to the Eiffel Tower, even as people rush down the stairs and pick her up to hoist her on their shoulders.

Adrien, meanwhile, gives her a glare - he'd thought she'd maybe stabbed herself on that jar when she didn't immediately roll over! They are so going to be talking about why, exactly she felt she had to catch the Akuma. He gets it, really…but a stunt like that, while not in uniform, is pushing it just a little.

Alya mutters "Awesome! That girl is awesome!" Honestly, her blog is getting more hits now than even when Lila gave her that interview! Bloom rules!

AN: Hey, everyone! Next chapter is up! Hope you like it! I'd honestly considered having Bloom swipe the lip balm after Ms. Bustier gets Akumatized and everything gets fixed on the bus...but then I thought, what the heck, have her catch the butterfly instead.

On an unrelated note, I've got a bit of a problem...and it's the power-ups. More specifically, the aquatic one. I had the idea to make them sort force Bloom into a new transformation, based off the upgrades to Believix, but then I hit a stumbling block with the water-based power-up. Any suggestions there? 'Cause, I'm kinda stuck for ideas on this particular problem. Heck, maybe I should just wait a bit on giving Bloom, specifically, a power-up since she doesn't have Believix yet - and, yes, I promise I have an idea for that.

It just involves New York.

Enjoy! More updates coming soon!