I am diving headfirst into the Miraculous Ladybug fandom because the show is just too goddamn cute. This fic is based on the following tumblr post found on otpprompts:

"Your OTP is in the same Chemistry class together, and they each have a horrible lab partner. One day, their respective lab partners are absent, so they're partnered up together. They do really well on the lab, so much that their teacher is surprised. Whenever anyone asks about it, Person A just casually says, "It's because there's so much great chemistry going on between us." Bonus points if they aren't in a relationship yet."

Anything with puns immediately makes me think of my adorable cat son.

Disclaimer: I don't own ML.

"Alright, class," the chemistry teacher stated. Marinette looked over at Alya's empty seat again, wishing she'd show up, even though Marinette knew she was home sick. "Everyone, partner up so we can begin our lab."

"Excuse me, Madame?" Adrien raised his hand before Marinette could. "My lab partner is absent." Marinette looked over and noticed that Nino was gone as well. She wondered if he and Alya had the same bug.

"You can partner with Marinette," the teacher declared. Marinette covered her mouth to keep from screaming. "Marinette, is there a problem?"

"No!" Marinette squeaked. "No. I- No. I'm fine. No problem!"

"Alright." The teacher didn't look particularly convinced. Marinette tried to smile, but was fairly certain it wasn't as reassuring as she'd intended. She was partnering with Adrien oh my god she was going to die.

"Are you ready to start?" Adrien asked, turning around in his seat to face Marinette. She made a faint squeaking sound and nodded. Adrien, to his credit, didn't look at her like she was the strangest human to ever walk the earth, so it could have gone worse.

Somehow.

"Should we get the supplies?" Adrien asked. Marinette nodded so hard she was practically bouncing.

"I can materials the get!" she squeaked. "I mean, I can get the materials. I can get them. I'll do it." Adrien gave Marinette a slightly strange look as she half-sprinted away.

Why, why was it that whenever she got the chance to talk to her crush, she always ruined it by not being able to control what came out of her mouth? Why was Marinette cursed in this way? Ladybug was supposed to have good luck.

If she really did have good luck, perhaps there would be an akuma attack before she had to return to the lab bench. Or maybe the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

A girl could hope.

Adrien didn't know what to do.

His conversation with Marinette was hemorrhaging fast. Every time he tried to speak to her, she answered with as few words as possible. She was uncomfortable for some reason, and Adrien had no idea why. Girls normally weren't uncomfortable with him, but Marinette always was. Normally, Alya or Nino was there as damage control, but now it was just Adrien and Marinette. Alone.

Adrien had hoped to avoid this, but he had no choice but to resort to his final option to keep himself (and potentially Marinette) from dying of embarrassment.

He asked himself one question: What would Chat do?

"Looks like Chloé is having some trouble over there," Adrien blurted out. Marinette turned to see Chloé's experiment, which was bubbling madly. "I think her chemicals are overreacting."

Marinette just squeaked. Apparently, that hadn't worked. Adrien had to admit, it was a fairly weak pun. Perhaps puns weren't the right way to go about this. What else would Chat do?

The only girl Chat regularly spent time with was Ladybug, so probably flirt. Adrien thought that was probably a bad idea. Perhaps, if he got really desperate…

"Oh!" Marinette gasped as she dropped a vial. Adrien managed to grab it just in time. "I… I don't science well," Marinette explained. Immediately, she looked as if she were mentally kicking herself.

"It's okay," Adrien replied, trying to lighten the mood. "You're more of an artist. You probably have designer genes." That pun was even worse. Adrien wasn't even sure if that qualified as a pun. It was not easy to act like Chat while he wasn't in costume.

"Should we work in silence?" Adrien asked in a rush. Marinette looked up at him with wide eyes. "To concentrate better," he added wildly. "So we do the experiment properly."

"O-okay," Marinette squeaked. Adrien pulled his goggles on and carefully measured out the chemicals, pouring them in. As long as they stuck to talking about nothing but the experiment, things couldn't go that badly.

And, shockingly, they didn't. While Chloé's beaker exploded, Adrien and Marinette's fizzed just the right amount and reacted perfectly. "Well done!" the teacher stated when she came over and saw their beaker. "Perhaps you should work together more often."

Adrien had one last opportunity to make things less awkward. "It's just because there's so much great chemistry going on between us," he replied with a winning smile.

Oh, no. That had been taking it way too far.

It was instinct, okay. An instinct born of night after night of Chat making absolutely horrible puns. The second Adrien made his chemistry pun, Marinette smacked him lightly. "That was horrible," she informed him seriously.

Then she realized that this was Adrien, not Chat, and she was Marinette, not Ladybug, and also she was about to die.

Adrien's eyes were wide. Marinette was sure hers were too. "Bathroom!" she squeaked, sprinting out of the classroom. The second she got to the bathroom, she covered her mouth with both hands and let out the quietest scream she could.

"Marinette?" Tikki asked, flying out of Marinette's purse. "What's wrong?"

"You heard it!" Marinette hissed in a strangled voice. "I smacked Adrien. I insulted his pun! I embarrassed myself forever! I'm going to die alone!"

"Marinette, calm down," Tikki informed her firmly. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad!"

"I should just die right now," Marinette moaned. "Why can't I be normal around Adrien?"

"It's okay," Tikki comforted. "You should go back out there. You're almost done with school, then you can go home."

"And plan to transfer to another school so I never need to embarrass myself in front of Adrien again," Marinette added.

"It'll be okay, Marinette!" Tikki assured her. "Maybe he thought it was cute!" Marinette replied with a long groan. She held her purse open to let Tikki fly in, stared at her reflection, cursed herself for being so horribly awkward, and left the bathroom.

Luckily, the class finished a few minutes later, because Marinette thought she might explode if she stayed with Adrien any longer.

Alya was never allowed to be absent again ever.

"Why did I make the pun?" Adrien groaned to Plagg after falling face-first onto his bed. "It was way too much. I made her uncomfortable. There's a reason I don't tell puns when I'm not Chat!"

"People are complicated," Plagg replied, not sounding anywhere close to concerned enough about the situation. "That's why I prefer cheese. Do you have cheese for me?"

"Why did I do it?" Adrien repeated, ignoring Plagg completely. "Marinette is uncomfortable enough around me without me making a mess of things." Adrien rolled over to face Plagg. "She seems like a nice girl. Alya likes her. Nino says she's cool. But she's always so weird around me! What should I do?"

"You should get me some cheese," Plagg suggested. "Camembert is preferred."

"You're useless," Adrien groaned, but he went over to his fridge and pulled out a slice of camembert. Plagg devoured it happily.

"Should I apologize?" Adrien wondered aloud. "I don't want things to be weird."

"Things look pretty weird out there," Plagg remarked, looking out the window. Adrien looked out to see an akumatized villain who could, apparently, turn things into flowers.

"I AM THE FLORIST!" Adrien heard from the street. He turned to Plagg.

"Plagg, claws out!" he cried. Plagg devoured the rest of his camembert before flying into Adrien's ring, turning him into Chat Noir. Chat leapt out the window, leaping down to the street. Ladybug swung in a moment later.

"Hawk-Moth's increasing the frequency of the akumas," she remarked. "There was one yesterday too."

"Looks like he really rose to the occasion," Chat punned. Ladybug smacked his arm lightly.

"That was horrible," she told him. Chat blinked. That was exactly what Marinette had said to him. To his surprise, Ladybug's cheeks flamed red.

"Let's get the akuma," she declared. Chat nodded.

"Yeah," he replied. "Do you have a plan, my Lady? Or are we going to wing it?" Ladybug rolled her eyes at the bug pun.

"I do have a plan," she replied. Chat grinned.

Apparently, talking with a girl in his class was too much for him, but fighting akumas with Ladybug? This, he understood.