Marinette wasn't in class when school started the following day. After the conversation with her the night before, Adrien was a little nervous seeing that she wasn't there. Hopefully everything was okay. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her tip-toe into Miss Bustier's classroom about twenty minutes after the bell rang.

She had almost made it to her seat when Miss Bustier noticed her. "Thank you so much for joining us today Marinette," she said. "I see that this year will be a continuation of last year in regards to your punctuality."

"Sorry Miss Bustier," she mumbled, taking her seat.

The redhead next to her leaned over and whispered. "I see the old Marinette showed up to school today. I was beginning to miss her."

Marinette glared at her but then turned her attention to the front of the classroom. She was quickly distracted, however, when the boy in front of her twisted around and smiled at her.

This was unexpected. She had assumed that Adrien would be avoiding her like the plague after her confession yesterday. It was reassuring to know that he wasn't weirded out too much. She wanted them to still be friends and feel comfortable around each other.

She gave him a small smile in return before he turned back.

Today was going to be a good day.

And it was a good day, right up until lunchtime, when Marinette got an alert on her phone. There was another akuma attack at City Hall, where Mayor Bourgeois was akumatized into Malediktator again. She made up some lame excuse to Alya and found an empty classroom.

"Tikki, we need to go. Hopefully we'll be able to wrap this up quickly so I'm not late for my next class."

"Say the magic words," the kwami said.

"Tikki, spots on!" Marinette called, transforming into Ladybug.

************************************

"No more evil-doing for you, little akuma. It's time to de-evilize!" Ladybug said, capturing the purple and black butterfly with her yo-yo. "Gotcha! Bye bye little butterfly," she said, watching it flutter away into the sky.

"Miraculous Ladybug!" she exclaimed, throwing the red and black spotted encyclopedia into the air, causing the magical ladybugs to disperse over the city. They quickly cleaned up the mess left behind from the battle with Malediktator.

"Pound it," Ladybug and Chat Noir said in unison, bumping their fists together.

"Great job Kitty," she said.

"Thanks, I'm so glad that I was actually able to help out this time," Chat Noir said, putting his hand to the back of his neck.

"Me too. Although, I do have to admit that I missed seeing you run around on all fours as a cat again," she said, smirking at him.

"You are absolutely hissterical today Ladybug," he replied.

She playfully rolled her eyes at the pun and was about to say something else until she heard his ring beep.

"I guess that's my cue to go," he said, giving his signature two-finger salute and leaving with his baton.

Ladybug watched him go and then went over to the Mayor, who was embracing his wife Audrey. "Are you alright?" she asked him as they broke apart.

"Oh Ladybug, I can't tell you how grateful I am for your assistance today. The city of Paris can never repay you and Chat Noir for all the good works you do," Mayor Bourgeois said, shaking her hand.

"It's our pleasure. We'll be here whenever Paris needs us."

"Thank you Ladybug. Please let me know if there's anything I can ever do," the Mayor said.

"Yes," Audrey agreed. "Whatever you two darlings need."

"That's very kind of you, Mr. and Mrs. Bourgeois," she said as her earrings started beeping. "I'm sorry, but I have to go." She turned around to leave but stopped. "Actually," she said, facing the couple again, "there is one thing that I've been looking for. And I believe that you might be the perfect people to help me find it."

************************************

Marinette arrived back to school just in time for her chemistry class, which was fortunate because the teacher Mrs. Mandeleiev wasn't as forgiving as Miss Bustier when it came to tardiness.

She took her seat next to Alya as the lesson started.

"So how was the 'emergency cookie frosting' that your parents needed help with?" Alya whispered to her.

"Oh, it was fine," Marinette whispered back.

Alya tried to contain her laugher. "Girl, you don't have to lie to me. Just say that you'd rather not be around Adrien next time. He wasn't even eating with us today anyway."

"It's not that Alya, I really don't mind being around him."

"Uh huh," the redhead replied, completely unconvinced. "It's okay to admit it. No one can blame you after everything that you said to him yesterday. Which I still can't believe happened, by the way. I would have been impressed if I wasn't so shocked at the moment..."

Mrs. Mandeleiev slammed her hand down on her desk. "Miss Cesaire, Miss Dupain-Cheng, is there a reason that you two are talking during my lesson?" she demanded.

"No ma'am," the girls replied sheepishly.

Marinette glanced over and saw Adrien looking at them. Did he know that they were talking about him?

"Make sure it doesn't happen again," the teacher bellowed before continuing her lesson.