Author's Note: Tales of Misfortune and Fame is a fic that builds off of where Season 3 ended, exploring how the show could reasonably get where it is and working it into a continuity that can be developed as the story progresses. Each episode-style chapter is followed by a short-style chapter in the Meet the Miraculouses series. This series is optional reading that exposits a lot of lore about the kwamis and their powers. While the shorts do discuss events in the chapters and provide some development for Marinette, instances where those are important will be recapped in the main story with reference to the kwami.

I welcome all feedback! It doesn't have to be positive, as long as it's constructive.

Season 1 Upcoming Episode Listing:

1.9 Mightyllustrator

1.10 Cheng Kui

1.11 Lord Geis

1.12 Megascorpion (Discoverers' Convention, Part 1)

1.13 Black Scorpion (Discoverers' Convention, Part 2) - Season Finale

Only the steady thrumming of a sewing machine accompanied the sounds of crickets at the Dupain-Cheng bakery in the dead of night. Marinette was hard at work, fabrics strewn about her room along with a half-completed outfit on a mannequin while she focused intensely on the item she was currently threading. Floating at her shoulder was her red-and-black magical companion, who looked very concerned.

"Marinette, it's officially 1 o'clock. You should really get to bed so you can be rested for tomorrow! You're starting a new unit in mathematics, which I know you struggle in. And the last thing you'd want is for Ladybug to be exhausted when an akuma strikes!"

"Sorry Tikki, but the design bug has bit tonight! I've got a real good feeling about this one, and only my best work will be acceptable when I submit these to Mr. Agreste to critique for Fashion Week next year!"

"Mr. Agreste's deadline isn't for another five months, though! Your dedication is admirable, but you need to have balance. If you run yourself ragged trying to juggle so many hats, you're eventually going to drop one, and the rest will come tumbling afterward."

Marinette sat back from the machine and sighed. "I know that, Tikki, but this is the path I chose for myself. I turned down Audrey Bourgeois' offer because I didn't want to take the easy route to recognition. I want to earn it, and earning it means putting in the hard work and long nights."

"Yes, but you're also only fourteen. I'm sure Mr. Agreste would understand that you have other responsibilities and priorities than working on pieces for him, unpaid I might add, even if he doesn't know that you're Ladybug."

"I don't know about that Tikki, he sure doesn't seem to treat Adrien that way…"

That comment garnered a frown from the kwami. "You know you can't compare his personal and professional lives like that, Marinette."

"I know, but it just… makes me mad. How little his dad lets him get away from all the responsibilities he set up for him. How he has to sneak out just to spend time with his friends sometimes. How miserable he is about it and how his dad doesn't seem to care."

"I think there's a lot we don't understand about their situation, since we haven't experienced it ourselves. No one is perfect, and you have to remember that Gabriel Agreste is dealing with the loss of his wife and partner in raising Adrien. I doubt he knows all the right answers, even for himself."

Marinette sighed, for the second time in too short of a time period. "You're right, Tikki. I wish I could understand it better, but I doubt Adrien would want to talk about it. Assuming I could even get the question out to him to begin with…" She pouted and rested her head in her hands on her desk.

"You'll get there eventually. The fact that you're concerned about the difficulties in his life shows that you genuinely care about him, as much as you like to fawn over his posters."

"Tikki!" the girl blurted, blushing and placing her hands on the table a little too forcefully. "Did you forget that I'm dating Luka to try and get over my crush on him – I mean, and trying to get over it? I'm not dating Luka just for my own selfish means, that would be wrong. Nuh-uh, Tikki. Gaaaah, I'm such a messsss."

"You're not a mess, Marinette! Everyone goes through rough patches in life, and sometimes the answer isn't clean or easy. If your experience with the Lucky Charm has taught you anything, it's that you always find a way! It may take some time, but that's okay. I know you'll figure it out."

"I appreciate the words of confidence, Tikki…"

"But?"

"Wh-what makes you think there's a but?"

Tikki gave her a look, one that reminded her that the several-thousand-year-old had a lot of experience with humans and with her in particular.

"Fine, okay. I appreciate it, but that doesn't make this any less taxing for me. It feels like this whole thing with Luka is one big lie. Like, I need his support right now, and he's happy to give it, but I don't really want him, because you're right, I'm totally not over Adrien, and I don't know that I'll be able to be there for Luka because relationships are a commitment and the reason I need him is because I'm already so overwhelmed…"

"And you think that wouldn't be a problem if you were dating Adrien?"

"What?" the teenager said, hesitating.

"A relationship with Adrien would also require commitment. We were just talking about how he has a lot of baggage, and from what I understand from the time you've spent together, Luka doesn't have much of that. Maybe what you need right now is something that's not so pressuring, where you're not constantly stressing about everything being perfect and doubting if you're good enough for it when mistakes inevitably happen. Luka likes you just the way you are and doesn't ask anything more of you. You don't necessarily have to get over Adrien, but maybe now just isn't a good time to try anything with him when you have so much else to worry about."

"But Tikki… what if he never becomes available again? What if he decides that Kagami is really his soulmate, or some other girl he hasn't met yet?"

"Then he'll be happy, won't he? Isn't that what you want for him?"

"Yes, but… will I be happy? And what about our hamster!"

"Only time will tell, Marinette. You could just as easily find yourself happy with Luka, or some other boy you haven't met yet. Or even… Chat Noir," she said with a giggle.

"Let's not talk about Chat Noir…" The girl let out a third, much larger sigh. "I guess you're right. I should take things one step at a time. I have much bigger concerns than boy troubles right now."

"Like how it's almost 1:30?"

"Huh?! Well… all this relationship talk made the design bug fly away anyway," she said, proceeding to yawn as she began to clean up her textiles.

Meanwhile, Adrien himself lay awake in bed, unable to sleep as many thoughts swam through his head.

"Hey, Plagg, you awake?"

"No."

"Okay, sorry to distu-" he started automatically, "hey, wait a second!"

The blond-haired boy sat up, scooching to place his back against the headrest. He picked up his kwami by his head from the tiny pillow on the bed next to him, who proceeded to squirm comically against his grip as if he couldn't just phase through it.

"Do you mind?" the black being whined. "I need my beauty sleep!"

"Plagg, it's kinda serious."

"Oh."

Ever since he had sneaked out and inadvertently left Adrien to face his worst nightmare alone during the Sandboy attack, Plagg had been trying to make some sort of effort to be a more attentive partner to his wielder. He would never tell Adrien that this was the case, but the boy wasn't stupid and it didn't take long for him to catch on.

"Well, go on, then," the kwami said after an awkward moment of silence.

Adrien let go and clasped his hands together nervously. "Have you ever… felt used, by someone who wielded you?"

"I mean, whenever my wielder says, 'Claws out', I get sucked into the ring, sometimes against my will, to be used for whatever purposes they desire. Do you mean like that?"

"Are you saying that you feel used by me?"

"No, it's… okay, not like that, then. You mean really used."

"Like a tool, Plagg."

"Well, first you must understand that someone willing to abuse a miraculous like that would never be considered worthy of holding it by a Guardian. Poor Nooroo and Duusu are the first time in at least several hundred years that a kwami has suffered such a fate. What's more, my miraculous, above all others, requires the strongest awareness of the consequences of using its power. Destruction on-command is never something you can take lightly."

"Really? You almost never keep tabs on whether I'm being responsible as Chat Noir. You don't even like to transform that much."

"Hey, there can't be any destruction if you're not transformed. It would certainly make my life easier! But really, it's because you don't need me catsitting you. You're very conscious of when and how to make proper use of your Cataclysm, which makes you one of the best wielders of my ring. Not every Black Cat wielder is like that: they may all fight for noble causes, but some are willing to sacrifice much more than others to get there. Some are the type that hunt alone in the darkness, keeping themselves safe by distancing from all connections… including to me, their own kwami. Some are the type who use the miraculous to forcefully remove any obstacles in their way, regardless of reason. With those people, yes, I would say that I felt used."

Adrien didn't respond to that immediately. He mulled over Plagg's unusually thoughtful words in relation to what he wanted to say next.

"I've been thinking a lot recently, and I might have finally found the words to say how I feel about… a lot of my life. What you described only confirms this even more. That I'm being used by most of the people close to me."

"Hold up, you're only fourteen, I don't think that's comparable to a kwami who has been on this planet for almost four thousand."

"It's not a competition, I just wanted some perspective on… healthy relationships. I don't think this is out of malice on anyone else's part, even if it feels pretty rotten for me. My father cares for me, I've no doubt about that, but he just doesn't see things the way I do. The things he expects from me – learning the piano, Chinese, fencing, modeling for his company – are all things that adults find valuable, and that make him look good to big wigs like Audrey Bourgeois to be teaching his kid. And don't get me wrong, I want him to be happy, but I don't get much of a choice in the matter. He doesn't understand the importance of letting me be a kid and decide for myself what makes me happy and what I want to do with my life.

"Speaking of Bourgeois, there's Chloé…" he sighed. "Yeah, no surprise there. I really wish I could understand what goes through that girl's head. Gosh, I'm still reeling over how she became Miracle Queen. But I don't want to get sidetracked. I know I mean a lot to her, but it's only ever about what I can do for her. How I make her feel, rather than her caring about my own feelings. I know it's how she's been raised, but that still doesn't do anything for my happiness, you know? On that line of thinking, don't even get me started on Lila."

He sat there for a little bit with a look that he had something more to say.

"Well, this seems like a good time for a quick cheese break!" Plagg exclaimed. He phased into one of the several cupboards and grabbed two slices of his favorite camembert before returning. "Here, I got one for you too!"

"You know I don't eat that stuff."

"Yeah, I do!" he agreed, inhaling the first slice and starting on the second immediately.

"Anyway, I think this is what confuses me so much about Marinette, too."

"Wow, you must be crazier than I thought if you think Marinette is using you."

"What? No! I didn't mean it like that. Marinette is great. She's always there for her friends when they need her, myself included, and she always finds a way to make things work and do what's right. I meant every word when I said all those things about her being our everyday Ladybug. You know I would never say something like that as a joke; it would be an insult to M'Lady."

"So what's the big deal, then?"

"Her crush on me. I'd appreciate if you stopped laughing at me for not figuring it out sooner, by the way. She didn't make it easy with how she tends to avoid me, can never form complete sentences around me, and how often she contradicts herself or denies it whenever the subject comes up. That's the problem, really: I don't know what she wants. Does she have a crush on Adrien, the sheltered rich boy who doesn't know how to make friends, or Adrien, teen model extraordinaire? Because one is me and the other is a trophy."

"You could always ask her yourself."

"That's not a good idea. She's dating Luka and I'm dating Kagami and I don't want anyone getting the wrong impression. And honestly, it… scares me. I don't want to risk finding out that she just idolizes me like every other teenage girl in the city. Her friendship means too much to me to let it be ruined like that."

"Maybe it's for the better that you're both spoken for, then. Although it's going to be a heck of a show watching you and Kagami figure out romance!"

"Plagg!" Adrien rose his voice, blushing, and started trying to whack the kwami with his pillow to no success. Plagg started cackling as he dodged the swings.

"Just saying, if you're as easily tricked with her as you were with me tonight, your next product line's not going to be fragrance, it'll be doormats!"

"You think you're so funny, huh?"

"I'm laughing, aren't I? Chat Noir's sense of humor isn't a solo effort, you know!"

Suddenly, there was a noise downstairs, and both of them shut up really quickly. Neither of them knew whether someone was actually wake, or if it was because of them, but it wasn't worth finding out. "Guess your playtime's over. When did it get to be 1:30? We should probably be trying to get back to sleep anyway."

"Eh, gives me time to digest my cheese."

Both of them settled back into laying positions and tried to relax.

"And Plagg? Thanks for listening tonight."

"Yeah, yeah, I just couldn't stand the thought of you moping around all day tomorrow."

"Sure thing, Plagg," Adrien echoed, knowing it wasn't actually true. Although he was facing away from his smaller partner, he smiled, and then closed his eyes.

The next day saw two tired teenagers as the last to enter their first-period mathematics class, to the surprise of none of their classmates. Adrien had a busy life, after all, and Marinette couldn't keep track of the time of day even if a clock was taped to the back of Adrien's head, given how much she liked to stare at it.

"Question for the class," began Mr. Plusseau from his place at the smartboard at the front of the room. This caught everyone's attention, most of which was quickly diverted to his physical features, namely his lack of height and his grizzled brown sideburns that attached to a bushy beard on his neck, leaving a prominent exposed chin. He was a new instructor this year, and the novelty of his face had yet to get old for most of the class.

He shortly turned and began writing on the board with a stylus. "If we have the equation 15 – 4x = 3, what is the value of X?"

"Oh, that's easy," Alya responded instantly, taking out her phone and typing very quickly into it. "3."

"Ah, if it's so easy, then you can come up to the board and show us how you solved it," Plusseau said grumpily, picking up a stylus from the board and offering it forward.

Alya shook her head and held her phone out for everyone to see. "I used a free online equation solver. Pretty simple, really."

"And do you know how your equation solver did that?"

"Do we really need to?" Chloé commented. "It's not like we're ever going to be without our phones to do it ourselves."

Plusseau grew tense. Although the class looked somewhat uneasy, he could tell that they didn't really disagree with that spoiled brat.

"Alright, Ms. Césaire, if I have 15 boysenberries and there are 4 guests at my house, how many berries should I give each one so that no two, including myself, have the same amount?"

"Erm… well…"

"I figured. All the technology in the world can't help you if you don't know what you need to tell it. Now, let's dissect what a variable is and how we go about solving one."

Light began pooling into a dark observatory as a lens opened its cover blocking a large window. It was a display that always pleased the one inhabitant of the room, as it heralded the time to reap what misery the chaotic elements of life had thrown in some poor fool's path.

"Technology advances so quickly, for better or for worse," Hawk Moth announced only to his audience of white butterflies. "We become capable of so much more than our own means, and yet, some only choose to indulge in convenience and squander their potential. It all adds up to a perfect equation for my akumas!"

One butterfly flew into the palm of his hand, which he clasped with his other and imbued with a dark power that blackened the butterfly to a deep purple. His empowered minion knew its task, and with a wave of Hawk Moth's cane, instinctively flew out of the gap in the center of the view to the streets of Paris.

"Fly away my little akuma, and evilize this old-fashioned professor!"

The ringing bell indicated that class was over, and Plusseau leered as almost every student immediately withdrew their mobile phones and engrossed themselves in them. Spoiled kids… all so reliant on technology. They'll never amount to anything if they can't think for themselves…

As the last of them left the room, a black butterfly flew in through the window and embedded itself in the same stylus that he was still gripping tightly. The purple outline of a butterfly appeared over the blushed region around his angry eyes.

"Mathemagician, I am Hawk Moth. I can grant you the power to show these despicable children how to use their brains rather than relying on those of technology. Of course, Ladybug and Chat Noir are going to try and stop you. What I ask is that when you eliminate them from your equation, you deliver their miraculouses to me. Is this agreeable to you?"

"Yes, Hawk Moth. Together, we shall be greater than the sum of our parts!"

With that, the math teacher's body became coated in the same dark substance of the akuma.

Marinette's walking continued to be dreary on her way towards Ms. Mendeleiev's class. Along with the lack of sleep, she was having a hard time swallowing Tikki's advice from last night. Not that she didn't believe her kwami, but her emotions were more stubborn than that. Nothing could stop the burning passion that arose in her every time she looked at that beautiful golden hair, or heard those sweet and caring words, or–

"Girl, what's got you so down today?" Beside and slightly to the front of her was Alya, who was trying to urge her to move along.

"I was just up late last night working on some fashion stuff, nothing to worry about."

"You say that a lot, Marinette, and you should know that I know you well enough to know when you're hiding something. There's no fooling this reporter's eyes, Dupain-Cheng."

"Darn, you sure have me down pat," minus the massive secret identity that I've steered you far far away from, "but it's nothing you don't already know."

"Still feeling guilty about Luka and regretting over Adrien, huh? Maybe you should look into therapy, if it's affecting your ability to function so much."

If only it were that simple and the complications didn't take away all the time I might have for that, she thought. "Maybe, but that would require accepting that I'm so out-of-control of myself that I actually need to see a professional before I'm even in lycée where they're usually available. How sad is that?"

"Not sad at all, that's what they're there for. If no one else was the same as you, they'd be out of a job, yeah?"

At this point, they had reached the door to the classroom. Since Alya was in front, she opened the door to usher Marinette through; however, the smaller girl declined.

"I'm going to use the bathroom. I didn't really have time before school today."

She could see a look of concern appear on the brunette's face, and she guessed that Alya knew that she didn't actually need to use the bathroom. Nonetheless, the other girl nodded and proceeded inside.

Fate had other plans in store, though, as Marinette had only gotten halfway across the courtyard before the sounds of screaming and blasting could be heard upstairs. She hurried to her destination, hiding in a stall and opening her purse for her favorite companion to join her at eye-level.

"Others like me? Do you really think there can be anyone else as clumsy and awkward all the time as me?"

"Of course! Humans come in all shapes and sizes, and not everyone will turn out so coordinated or smooth-tongued as they might like. All it means is that they may need more support than others to be the best they can be, and that's fine! Besides, there are very few who are as crafty or determined as you can be, and none of them can do what you do, Marinette!"

"Right! And it sounds like it's time for me to do what I do best! Tikki, spots on! Yeah!"

As her signature black-spotted red costume spread over her arms, body, and legs, Marinette immediately felt refreshed. She may be clumsy as Marinette, but everything changed now that Ladybug was on the scene.

She ran out and used her yo-yo to pull herself onto the second floor where the commotion occurred. There was no sign of the villain, but many of the doors looked like they had been opened forcefully. Her first thought was to go back downstairs to the classroom she was supposed to be in as Marinette to check on her friends.

Inside, she saw that almost everyone was on the floor, unmoving. Only Ms. Mendeleiev, Sabrina, and Max were still standing, albeit all leaned over. The science teacher was making a phone call, presumably to the authorities, while the students were huddled over their closest friends: Chloé and Kim, respectively.

"Max, what's going on here? Is everyone alright?" she asked, since he was closest to the door.

"Ladybug! A wizard-looking man is shooting magic at people that makes us solve a math problem! It was simple for me, but it appears that those who cannot solve them are placed into eternal slumber until they do."

"That must be Mr.– Math Teacher Guy," she said ineloquently, remembering that Ladybug isn't supposed to know what a student would about the college.

"Minot Plusseau," Mendeleiev corrected unenthusiastically.

"There is no Minot Plusseau in this scenario. There is only the Mathemagician," an unusual voice boomed from outside. A man adorned in indigo robes appeared in the doorway shortly afterward. The man's mutton chops-beard combo had grown extensively, almost all the way to the floor, but retained their brown color, and his chin remained exposed although it was unusually pale. The upper half of his face was shaded by his large wizard hat, though it appeared to be supernaturally dark so that nothing except his glowing brown eyes were visible. In his hand, he held a long, white stick that resembled a pen… or a stylus.

That must be where the akuma is! Ladybug noticed while she brought out her yo-yo, swinging it in its shield-forming circle to protect the students behind her while they went to hide behind the teacher's desk.

"Doesn't magic defy science and math? A contradiction like that ought to poof out of existence!" she quipped. Not her best work, but maybe on some errant hope it would actually come true and they could all go back to their normal days.

"I hope your skills are greater than your logic, Ladybug."

"Nah, that was just her attempt at a joke!" a voice that Ladybug instantly recognized said from behind the villain. Mathemagician moved to the side of the door and turned to see that Chat Noir was leaning casually against the railing, swinging the loose end of his belt with a cocky grin on his face. "She should really leave the humor to me. Trust me, you'll know when she's using that logical head of hers when you're on the floor without your akuma."

That angered the wizard, who shot a purple blast of magic wreathed in brown numbers and math symbols at the black-clad superhero. He dodged to the side, and Ladybug seized the opportunity to go on the offensive, swinging her yo-yo at Mathemagician's staff. The counterattack was also dodged, and in the same motion he took aim at his attacker and fired another blast.

The superheroine rolled out of the way and weaved between or blocked the further blasts that came her way, while the attacker backstepped to a place where he could see Chat Noir through the window next to the door. Only, he wasn't there, and Mathemagician nearly fell backwards leaning to avoid the staff that popped up from beneath the sill and telescoped through the window right at him. Without losing a beat, and contrary to what Ladybug was expecting from an old wizard, he placed his free hand on the ground and flipped backwards, kicking Chat's staff out of his way and landing on his feet ready to fire back.

Chat was the one that had to duck then, before pulling himself onto the sill with both hands into a catlike crouch. This was unwise, at it left him open to a follow-up blast that knocked him down and out onto the floor.

"Chat!" Ladybug exclaimed. She cleared the distance to the windowsill in a single jump, deploying her yo-yo shield again to block a shot Mathemagician took while she was airborne. However, the cat hero was already waking up when she glanced out at him. "Oh, looks like someone's a smart kitty."

"Well of course! My claws aren't the only thing sharp about me."

Mathemagician didn't care for their banter, and with a pound of his staff, his magic lifted him into the air, where he fired more blasts at Ladybug while trying to get a good angle.

"Your wit, sure, but I never would've guessed your brain. It should be telling you to get in here and help with the supervillain right about now."

"Right," he agreed, but said supervillain flew out of the door as he was headed towards it, hovering up the center of the courtyard on the second floor. That's smart, using his flight to gain area control.

Chat Noir dodged more blasts while performing acrobatics to jump up the stairs and then onto and over the railing to the balcony, giving Ladybug the opportunity to leave the classroom and launch herself with her yo-yo up to him. She ran left while Chat ran right, forcing Mathemagician to divide his attention and move backwards towards the far side to see them. They also took out their magic earbud communicators.

"So, logic bug, what's our plan?"

"Well, humor monkey, the akuma's in his staff. You're going to have to Cataclysm it, but it'll be hard to get away from him when that's also his weapon. I think it's time for my…

"Lucky Charm!" she shouted, throwing her yo-yo into the air to exude a multitude of hearts. The hearts then formed together into a long stick, curved near the end, that was red with black spots, which then fell into Ladybug's hands.

"A hockey stick? What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Can you cast spells with it like he can with that stylus?" Chat suggested.

"No, but…" she pondered, looking around. Aha! The dirt courtyard… Chat Noir… Mathemagician's staff… her hockey stick…

"Alright, kitty, time to play in the sand. I need you to…" she lowered her voice so that their enemy wouldn't hear. "I'll distract Mathemagician. Got it?"

"Great plan as always, M'Lady."

Ladybug stowed the hockey stick onto her back, where it stuck magically, and swung out over the courtyard while Chat dropped below. She sailed back and forth through the air, jumped off of the pillars, and ran along the upper hallway to avoid magic blasts, all the while goading the akumatized villain with her yo-yo and by spewing certain "profanities".

"Two to the third power is six! One plus one is eleven! Zero divided by zero is just the percentage sign!"

"Grah, your technology has truly dulled your mind to all mathematical meaning!"

While the black-spotted heroine danced around her enraged foe, the supercat had his staff out and was running it through the dirt in planned lines and curves.

The glowing outline of a butterfly appeared over the darkness surrounding Mathemagician, but somehow didn't light up any of his face. "Don't allow Ladybug to taunt you into irrational thought!" Hawk Moth spoke through the connection. "Stay focused on your victory and bring me those miraculouses!"

Having snapped back to reality, Mathemagician dropped down onto the second floor with Ladybug and changed his fighting style. While he was still firing blasts at her, he was mixing it with martial arts using his staff as a physical weapon and as a fulcrum for him to swing on to accelerate attacks from his limbs. She was forced onto the defensive, having to keep her yo-yo as a shield with no opening to attack.

Fortunately, Chat Noir had finished his job and vaulted up to join them with his staff. He landed on the railing next to Mathemagician on all fours, causing a jerk reaction from him to swing his staff towards the hero and power up a magic blast. However, Chat was swift and dropped to hang off the rail by one hand, feet on the walkway, and used his free hand to point down at the courtyard.

Drawn in massive lines in the dirt was the equation "Solve: x – x = x / x". The math teacher only needed to pay attention to it for a moment, because in that instant, Ladybug grabbed her hockey stick, hooked it in the crevice in-between his hand and the staff away from his body, and yanked back. Mathemagician's arm was folded back and his wrist rotated, the staff hitting him solidly on the shoulder with its magic still active. He fell to the floor, asleep from his own power, with an equation that been designed to be unsolvable.

"What?!" Hawk Moth cursed from his chamber. "Wake up! Why aren't you immune to your own power?!"

Chat Noir hurdled the railing like a pro athlete, called out "Cataclysm!" to form and catch the black ball of destruction, and then touched the stylus staff to crumble it and cause the akuma to fly free.

"No more evildoing for you, little akuma," Ladybug said, opening her yo-yo like a ladybug opens its wings to the glowing white compartment within and swinging it to charge up.

"Time to de-evilize!"

The yo-yo caught the akuma in one swoop, closing up to perform its magic purification.

"Gotcha!"

She opened the compartment again, and a regular white butterfly flew up and away. "Bye-bye, little butterfly!"

Next, she grabbed the hockey stick and threw it in the air as well.

"Miraculous Ladybug!"

It burst into a swarm of ladybugs, which spread out in groups to restore all the damage. One cleaned up the courtyard, and the rest flew around to the classrooms. The one that flew through Mendeleiev's window fixed it, and then it washed over all the students, who all slowly woke up.

A dark substance covered Mathemagician and dissolved into the ground, leaving an awoken Mr. Plusseau on the ground. "Wha… why am I out here?"

"Pound it!" both miraculous holders cheered as they bumped fists.

Hawk Moth stood tensely in his chamber. "You may have solved this problem today, Ladybug and Chat Noir, but eventually, I'll find an akuma that you won't have an answer to!" He clenched his hand, and the lens lighting up his observatory closed, leaving him in the darkness of defeat.

At the start of the following school day, Marinette looked solemnly at her homework as she entered Plusseau's classroom. The whole page was filled with her scribbling as she attempted to solve the problems completely by hand, but quantity was not quality and much of it was her failing to figure out the right answers.

Naturally, she was the last one to arrive, again, so hers was the last one on the pile. Chloé, sitting in the front, tried to sneak a peak at it, but Plusseau was at his desk and swiftly grabbed the pile to look at himself. His eyes widened in surprise at the amount of work on the bluenette's paper, as well as on many of the others beneath it.

"Excuse me, Ms. Dupain-Cheng, but you did all of your calculations by hand?"

"Ah, yeah, you said to solve it without a calculator, and I'm not good at mental math so I had to write down everything. I hope it's not a problem…"

The short man with sideburns let out a chuckle before facing straight forward to address the whole class. "Well, it seems I didn't make my intentions clear. When I say not to use a calculator, I'm referring to having a computer solve the equation for you. There is no problem with performing simple operations on a device in order to speed up your work. In fact, it is quite beneficial to be able to focus on the harder aspects of the problem and not worry about making simple arithmetical errors that could de-rail your entire solution."

As Marinette took her seat, Adrien waved from his spot in front of hers to get her attention. "Hey, Marinette. Math is actually my worst subject as well, so if you want, maybe we could study together sometime?"

Pink immediately made its way to her face, and she froze for a full second before her brain booted up to try and speak to him.

"Uhhh, I'd love you– I mean, I love too! Um, not the number two, my favorite number is actually seven, but I'm not saying that two is bad, if you like two. Two is a good number too, ha ha– Aah!"

Once again, Alya had elbowed her to get her head on straight. "What she means is, she'd love to come over and study with you. But would your dad allow it?"

Adrien leaned a little closer, proportionally increasing the amount of blushing in the girl he had addressed. "He was okay with Lila entering my room when she lied about me needing her help with mathematics. I might be able to convince him, but make sure Lila doesn't find out about it."

Just the mention of that two-faced snake caused Marinette to sober up. Of course she would… "That sounds great, then," if for no other reason than to make sure Lila doesn't get another opportunity to do it.

"Awesome! I'll let you know what he says."

It took a moment for Marinette to realize what she had just agreed too. Studying, in Adrien's room, just the two of us! She felt the heat rising into her face again, which accelerated when Alya nudged her again and winked. Why did I say yes, there's no way I'm learning any mathematics if I'm alone with him! And what's Luka going to think…?

She moaned and rested her forehead on the desk in front of her, already tuning out the math lesson that just started as her feelings swam in turmoil.

Chapter Trivia:

-For those who want to do the math, yes, this equation actually has no solution. x-x = 0 for any x; this means x/x has to be 0 as well, and the only time that's true is if the numerator is 0. That also makes the denominator 0, and division by 0 is undefined, so no x can solve the equation. While "no solution" is a valid final answer on your homework, it's probably outside the expectations of Mr. Plusseau on his students, and that's who he's trying to blast. Also, this is a kids' show, akuma logic doesn't have to make perfect sense.