Adrien shuffled into the auditorium, thankful he'd inherited his father's height. Ladybug might be in the room with him. Maybe he could see her above from his vantage point and tell who she was from a distance, just by her raven hair. What if she was watching him look for her right now?

He ducked down, not wanting to look like an awkward giraffe.

Backpacks brushed against his arms. Students pushed against each other, eager for the break in their classes.

"Nino, I see some seats up there!" Alya pulled her boyfriend toward the front of the room, elbowing past classmates.

"Wait!" Marinette called. Adrien hadn't realized she was right behind him.

"Sorry! Only two seats over there. Fend for yourself!" And she disappeared into the crowd, Nino and his cap slipping along behind her.

More bodies pressed in behind them, squeezing Marinette up against him until she nearly tripped over his feet.

"Sorry, sorry," she said, trying to stand her ground and give him space.

"Let's find a place to sit." He would probably stand a better chance of seeing Ladybug if he wasn't worried about needing to catch Marinette if she fell.

Would her hair be the same? What if it was different and he couldn't recognize her? He sat in the middle of the row, only to stand up again for a better vantage point.

"You seem distracted," Marinette said.

No one in the row behind him was Ladybug, he was sure of that. He checked them all twice.

"You looking for someone?" she asked.

People were still filing in through the doors, calling to their friends, waving and jumping and obstructing his view.

Marinette huffed and crossed her arms.

Adrien looked down at her. "What's wrong?"

She slumped farther down in her seat, face turned away, a pencil clutched in one fist. "Nothing's wrong. Why would something be wrong?"

"You were biting your pencil," he said, noticing the marks. "You only do that when you're mad."

Marinette turned enough to peek at him from the corner of her eye. "I didn't think you noticed stuff like that. Thanks."

"Um. You're welcome?" Not knowing what else to say, he went back to scanning the crowd. Marinette seemed fine, and he didn't want to waste too much time talking to her. The lights dimmed and went out, and the conversations around them followed the same pattern, and Adrien had to admit defeat. He slumped back into his seat.

The guest speaker welcomed them and then started talking about study skills. Or maybe the brevet. Or the bac. University was mentioned too, at some point. Adrien was more focused on his phone, and all the texts that Ladybug wasn't sending him. After an hour and over a dozen messages sent to her, he still hadn't heard anything back. Maybe she wasn't in the assembly. Maybe she was taking a test? Would it be possible to find a list of all the classes that had tests today?

At the front of the room, whispers started to grow louder, grabbing the attention of the speaker, who stopped pointing at her projector screen and squinted into the crowd. Adrien started scanning the room, looking to where the speaker was looking, toward the end of the front row, and then quickly around the rest of the room. A man stood in the alcove around the emergency exit. Was he a teacher? His sunglasses and the tall pole he held suggested he wasn't. In the center of the front row, a girl stood up and screamed, pointing at the seat next to her.

Someone was getting to their feet from the seat. Or trying to. They were moving slowly, like molasses being poured. Adrien stood up to get a better view. The other students in the row were leaning away, hands coming up to cover their yells of terror, but their hands were moving too slowly.

Everyone in the room knew what this meant. They'd been through it too many times before to not know. Akuma.

"Move," Marinette said, rising and pushing him into the knees of the students still sitting next to them. "Move!"

She squeezed past him over three sets of legs until she reached the end of the row, then headed toward the front, toward the danger. Adrien stumbled after her, knocking one kid back into his seat and stepping on someone else's foot. He didn't see whose.

When he reached the end of the aisle, it was too late. Marinette had disappeared into the sea of students flooding out of the room. He pushed upstream, catching elbows and deflecting yells and curses from his frightened classmates. He had to catch up with her, and maybe find Nino and Alya.

Marinette appeared in front of him. "What are you doing? Go get help!"

"But–"

She didn't listen to his argument, instead dragging him ahead, toward the danger, until the crowd thinned. Only a few students remained, ones who were running at one-tenth speed behind everyone else, trying to get away from an akuma who already had them trapped. Marinette ducked behind the front row, crouching out of sight, crawling to the edge of the room.

Adrien followed her, peeking up only once to see what he was dealing with. The pole caught his attention more than the man spinning it. A camera sat on the top. He held it high above his head. A light flashed, brighter than the spotlight pointing to the stage, and the shutter gave a loud click. Another scream from the back of the room. Adrien didn't need to look to see more students had been hit, their progression through time slowed.

Someone flicked the room's main light on, and Adrien finally got a look at the man's familiar face. One he'd seen that morning—one he should have seen ten minutes before he had. "Vincent?"

Marinette whipped around, yanking him down until his chin hit an armrest. "Stay out of sight! We're almost there!"

Rubbing his chin, he looked past her and saw her target. The emergency exit door. If he could just get her through there, he could turn his entire focus back to the fight.

Vincent was yelling something as they reached the end of the row. It wasn't very far to the door, but they would have no cover when they ran for it. Marinette edged her way onto the carpeted aisle. The lights on made it even more dangerous. They had no shadows to hide behind. Nowhere to duck for cover if the akuma saw them.

"Now," Marinette whispered, dragging him by the arm and popping up from her crouch. Their feet slammed against the floor. Adrien cracked his knee on one of the seats as he rounded the corner. Marinette slammed against the door, pulling him through behind her without looking at the akuma and where he was. Adrien stumbled, losing his balance as they went through the wide-flung door and into the empty hallway.

"Go get help!" she yelled at him again as she caught the door as it closed and launched herself back through, leaving him alone.

"Wait!" He clutched at the air where she had been, panic grabbing at him. He had to help her!

But she'd given him the perfect opportunity without even knowing it. No one had gone toward the akuma to get away, and a scan of his surroundings confirmed that it was just him in the hallway. Chat Noir could help her a lot more than Adrien could.

And he didn't have any more time to make a decision. With three words, he transformed and blasted through the door at high speed. Marinette was holding her own, weaving around the frozen students, drawing Vincent's fire. His movements were fluid and languid, yet he always knew where to point his camera, nearly catching Marinette when she would peek around someone else's head or stop to catch her breath. She rolled out of the way while Chat Noir ran, yelling, to draw the fire.

"Over here!" He extended his baton, using it like a pole vault to leap over two kids in his grade whose names he swore he knew, then landing in front of the akuma and smacking the fist holding the camera pole above his head.

"Marinette, run!"

Behind him, she took one ragged, gasping breath, then her shoes squeaked on the floor as she turned to run. Good. Now he could finally focus.

"What happened? I heard you were in a bad mood when you got to work this morning."

Vincent rubbed his knuckles, grip still tight on the camera pole despite Chat Noir's hit. "Traffic was not my fault! I should not have been fired for one tardy after years of dedicated work! The lack of understanding and human compassion in that man is astounding!"

Well, he agreed on that point.

"I think this can be worked out without all the villain craziness, don't you? You're well respected in the fashion world. The best! That's why you were hired by Gabriel. I bet an even better offer–"

Vincent swung his camera around. The click and the flash of light he expected, and he dodged out of the way, but the flying tackle he didn't expect. It forced him backward, and he landed with a thud on his side, legs splayed out, Ladybug sideways on top of him. The beam of light sailed harmlessly above them.

Ladybug grabbed his face in her hands, squishing his cheeks together. "You are so stupid." Then she pecked his lips.

If he could have stayed there and basked in the knowledge that Ladybug had willingly put her mouth on his, he would have, but Vincent was gliding toward them, camera staff held out like a javelin. Chat Noir grabbed her and rolled them both out of the way, behind a folding table that had been knocked over. The projector lay cracked on its side, shards of glass from the lens glinting.

"What did I do?" he asked, letting her up.

She shook her head and peeked over the edge of the table. "He's coming."

The students around them were slowly barreling up the aisle to the back of the auditorium. Far enough out of the way that he hoped they would stay safe.

"We need to move," he said. "If we get hit, it's going to be very hard to defeat this one."

"Already working on some ideas," she replied. "I'm calling Lucky Charm!"

Chat Noir kicked the table toward the akuma, who yelled in alarm. At the same time, Ladybug reached up, throwing her yoyo and catching a pan full of oil.

"Thank you!" she yelled, as he ran forward to continue his distraction. "I have an idea!"

"Already?" he called over his shoulder. Vincent swung the camera pole at him like a clumsy swordsman. His arc was much too wide to control. All the force in his arm was spent trying to keep the thing moving in the right direction, and none to the strength of the strike itself. It was easy for Chat Noir to parry and step in close to use the other end of his staff to swipe at Vincent's knees. The man tripped backward.

"You're going to hate it. It's going to mess up your pretty hair," she yelled back. "Now! Let yourself get hit!"

"What!"

After the akuma attack, Adrien had gone home and showered three times using every soap he owned, then had taken a bubble bath for good measure. He wasn't sure if it was all in his head, but he still felt like he was covered in oil. Ladybug had been right. He'd hated the plan, using the oil to speed themselves up again. The confusion on Vincent's face was fun, but not enough to counter the vulnerability of being slowed and feeling at the mercy of an enemy.

Marinette was nowhere to be found after the attack. The assembly had been at the end of the day, and she lived so close that she'd probably just run home as soon as it had started. He could have texted her to ask if she was okay, but he ultimately decided to see her in person. She'd been so brave, and had helped him get out quickly to transform, though that one was just by chance. He thought either deserved a visit from a superhero. And he wanted to hang out with someone after the unsettling day.

She was leaning against her railing as he approached, running her hands through her wet hair, and he reflexively copied the movement. Some of the students had gotten hit by the oil. He'd been so certain she hadn't been one of them. It must have been a coincidence.

"Hey, Princess," he called as he hopped across the street and soared above her onto her roof. She craned her neck to track his arc directly overhead.

Her smile could have lit up the whole street. It certainly made everything around her seem brighter to him. "You're here! I can't believe it! Come down here!"

"Of course I'm here. Got to check on all the crazy civilians who try to stop akumas. Lucky for me you were the only one today."

He climbed down from the rooftop to her balcony. Marinette's smile was weaker, like she was propping it up with tape. "You're just here to check up on me? That's it?"

"Uh, yes? Well, to say thank you for your help and warn you not to do it again, I guess." Had she been expecting something else? He'd seen her a few times while he was suited up, and she'd never acted like his presence was unwelcome on its own. Like he wasn't enough.

"Oh," she said, shoulders falling and taped-on smile completely disappearing. "Then you're welcome, I guess."

"Cool. Good." He still stood in the middle of her balcony. At the center of all her plants. "I'll just go then."

"Wait," Marinette said before he could extend his baton for a quick escape. "I need to give you something." And she grabbed him in a hug.

Chat Noir stood completely frozen for the first half of the hug, before finally reaching an arm up and patting her awkwardly on the elbow. "Did you need anything else?" he asked. She would probably let him fix whatever mistake he'd made if she was willing to hug him.

"Yes, but I don't think it'll happen today." She let him go and stepped back, clasping her hands behind her.

"What is it?"

She sighed and shook her head. "Maybe tomorrow. You should go." She was still shaking her head at him as he slunk back in the direction of his room.