No one knew for certain why the house stood abandoned. It was certainly an oddity in metropolitan Paris, where space was valued and used so conservatively to fit in the most people possible. The city owned the house now, since the previous owner was so long gone that no one quite knew who they had been or what had happened to them, and while there had been more than a few efforts made to sell off the house either to private buyers or companies that would either renovate the house or raze it to the ground in favor of building apartments, or maybe a store or townhouse, every single one of the efforts had fallen through. Sometimes it was because the prospective owner suddenly went bankrupt or got a job offer elsewhere; sometimes the paperwork just got misplaced and forgotten. After a while, the city just straight-up forgot about the house and stopped actively trying to sell it off.

Either way, it was enough to give the house a bit of a reputation. There were whispers about the house being haunted- why else would an otherwise nice house stand empty and unused for so long?- even though there were no reports of anything strange happening there. There were no weird noises, no flickering lights, no ghostly figures wandering the halls or standing in the windows, but a sense of mystery clung to the place like spiderwebs.

"It looks haunted," Alix commented as the class stood in front of the building. Not everyone was there, of course- Chloe and Sabrina had managed to get a different project to work on, since neither of them had any interest in doing any filming in an old house that was no doubt buried in dust and cobwebs, and Mylene and Rose had both decided to contribute to the project by bringing over snacks mid-day and assisting Nathaniel with his set-painting in his family's apartment, far from the creepy building. Much to everyone's surprise, Adrien had been allowed to come and had eagerly bounded up to the set of their next class project film dressed in old clothes. Everyone suspected that his father probably didn't know where he was. "Why are we here again?"

"Scared already, Alix?" Kim taunted, though he had just been giving the house a few uneasy glances of his own. "I'm not surprised. A ghost could come pick you up and carry you off without a problem, you're so small. See, I actually have muscles to fight off any ghosts."

"I'm not so sure that muscles would do anything against a ghost," Adrien murmured in a low voice to Marinette, Nino, and Alya. "If ghosts were even real."

"Careful, you're gonna tick off some ghost enthusiast and make a ghost-raising akuma," Nino joked. "And believe me, this house does not need any help looking creepy."

"We're here to shoot our film," Marinette reminded everyone before the conversation could devolve too much into a discussion of how creepy the place looked. "It's a much better location than shooting at school and trying to pretend that we were in an abandoned house. It was..." Here she grimaced, knowing full well that she was- well, not lying, but exaggerating slightly. "It was very kind of the mayor to offer to let us use this house for our project."

Alix snorted. "Yeah, it was kind of him all right. Are we already forgetting that part of the deal was that we have to do a bit of cleaning once we're done? He's taking advantage of our free labor to try to fix up this mess so that he can sell it and the city can stop having to pay for taking care of it."

"We don't need to do a super-deep cleaning. It won't be that bad," Alya pointed out. The reporter had been looking forward to getting in the house ever since Marinette had presented the opportunity to the class. "And think about it! Maybe we can figure out why this place has such a reputation. I know I want to take a ton of photos for my blog."

Kim frowned at her, looking puzzled. "The Ladyblog? Why would you want pictures of a haunted house on the Ladyblog?"

Alix elbowed him and rolled her eyes. "She meant her personal blog, idiot. Not the Ladyblog."

"But speaking of the Ladyblog, does anyone have Ladybug and Chat Noir on speed dial in case something weird happens?" Nino asked, half-joking, half-serious. "Because, like, I don't want for our scary film to actually turn into a horror film or something. We'll get disqualified for the film being 'not believable enough' again."

"It'll be fine," Alya said confidently, pulling the keys out of her pocket and striding forward. "After all, how creepy can one house possibly be?"

The answer was, in fact, very creepy.

While there had been someone coming in monthly to do cleanups when the house initially was on the market, they hadn't visited in quite a while. Cobwebs stretched across the ceilings and doors, and dust covered every surface. Adding to the creepy factor was the fact that all of the furniture that had been brought in for staging had been left behind, some pieces covered with once-white dust sheets.

The class stuck very close together as they cautiously explored the house.

"Ooh, the roof definitely has a leak," Alya said in disgust as soon as they reached the second floor and peered into one of the bedrooms. The ceiling had a large, dark stain and the room smelled decidedly musty. "We should probably tell the mayor about that. They won't be able to sell the house if it's got a ton of water damage."

"I think the water damage is the least of their worries," Nino said darkly as he inspected the room. "This is creepy."

"It's rad," Juleka said happily as she floated around the room. "...oh, I think there's some mice in here."

"Okay, we are not using this room," Alix said with a disgusted shudder. "And dibs on not being the person who has to clean this room once we're done filming."

Kim perked up and smirked at her. "What, are you scared, Kubdel? Scared of a couple miceies?"

"It's not exactly very hygienic," Marinette said before Alix could respond and slow them all down with another argument. She stepped into the room and gently steered Juleka away from the squeaking cushion on the couch. "So it's probably better if we don't use this room very much. I'll text the mayor- well, his secretary, at least- and see if we can get a professional out here to take care of the mice. But then let's get started filming, okay?"

Much like the city's attempts to sell the house, their film project seemed cursed.

Camera batteries died. Pages of the script went missing. Doors slammed on their own and filming had to pause while everyone went to investigate. The water faucet started dripping on its own, despite the fact that water to the house had been turned off for ages. The light from the sun randomly faded and came back throughout the day, even though there were no clouds outside. The battery-powered lights they had brought in for filming flickered. Props went misplaced and showed up in strange places.

"I can't wait to get out of here," Ivan said as soon as they finally finished a scene. "This place is weird."

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation," Marinette insisted, though she hadn't let Tikki wander from her jacket pocket at all. She told herself that it was so Tikki would be available in case there was an akuma attack, but in reality the kwami provided at least a little sense of security. She was doing the best she could to keep everyone calm so that filming wouldn't be delayed even more than it already had been. "Maybe we're just being more jumpy than usual because this place looks creepy. A placebo effect, you know?"

Ivan didn't look convinced. Neither did anyone else. Kim and Alix had taken to glancing around the room nervously every few seconds.

"At this rate, we're going to have to come back for two more days to complete filming the house scenes, and then several more for cleaning," Max announced from the folding chair that he had brought back after he ran home to print off several more copies of the script. He insisted that it was just because he didn't want to sit in a chair that was possibly moldy or infested with mice or bugs, but more than a few others suspected that he didn't want to sit in something that was possibly cursed. "And then we still have the outdoor scenes to do, and we haven't even explored the backyard to see if it is suitable for out outdoor scene yet."

"We also haven't looked in the basement," Marinette added, flipping through the script. She hadn't let go of it since Max handed it to her since the previous time she had set a script down, she picked it back up to find that the back half of the pages were missing. "That's the set for another scene."

Alya froze. "Nuh-uh. Nope, no way, we are not going into this place's basement. You can't make me."

"Adrien, do you think we could borrow your bodyguard for a day or two?" Alix asked. She didn't look like she was kidding. "Because there is no way I am going in that basement. Nope, nuh-uh, not happening."

"I'll ask." Adrien looked just as unnerved as the others. "I'm sure he'd be willing to come. He's not really doing much anything when I'm at school or over here."

"But for now, let's get back to filming," Alya announced. She pointed to Adrien and Ivan. "Back on set, you two. You'll be coming out of the kitchen door. Marinette, adjust the curtains. And Alix, are you ready with the sound effects?"

"Speakers are plugged in and ready to go!" Alix announced. "Ready when you are!"

"All right! Take one, the agents take shelter. Three, two, one, go!"

There was a pause, and then the kitchen door opened and Ivan and Adrien came in, both in raincoats that Juleka had just spritzed with water. Adrien carried a similarly wet umbrella.

"This place looks like it should be a good shelter!" Adrien announced, setting his umbrella down. He glanced around, like he was seeing the place for the first time. "It looks like it's been abandoned-"

"CUT!" Nino called. "Guys, I can see the kitchen from here. It's obvious that you haven't just come in from outdoors, so I need to move to a different angle. And Alix, I just changed my mind on when you need to start playing the rain sounds. It would make more sense to have them going from the start of the scene, since Adrien and Ivan are already wet when they come in."

"You got it, boss," Alix said cheerfully.

"Back in position for take two!" Nino instructed. He had to wait for Juleka to do her spritzing again. "All right, take two. Three, two, one-"

CRASH!

Everyone jumped at the sound of the thunder rumbling out through the speakers on full volume. The lights flickered, then steadied as the thunder tapered off and was replaced by deafening rain. Alix scrambled to turn the volume down to a more reasonable level.

"I thought that was just a rain track," Nino said a bit weakly from the chair he had fallen back into. A cloud of dust had poofed up and surrounded him the second he had sat. He coughed a few times to get the dust out of his throat. "And I thought we had done a volume check earlier. Holy cow."

"I do like the thunder, though," Marinette chimed in as another rumble echoed out from the speakers. "It adds atmosphere. And if we could get a flash of light, too, like lightning..."

Adrien nodded in agreement, then grinned. "We could use that big flashlight Kim brought for the flash! Where did you leave it, Kim?"

Kim looked up from where he had been inspecting the microphone he had been holding, making sure he hadn't damaged it when he startled at the thunder. "Oh, the flashlight? It's behind that couch, I think."

"All right then, scene from the top again," Nino said as Marinette went and got the flashlight. "Alix, rewind to the start of the recording. And Adrien, Ivan- wait until the thunder goes for several seconds before you come in, okay?"

Both boys nodded and left the living room again. Nino checked his angle, then counted them down again. Thunder boomed, flashlight-powered lightning flashed, and two soaked agents entered the room and started discussing the case they were investigating. This time the take went perfectly, though the thunder and "lightning" flashes were sometimes a little off, since Marinette wasn't entirely positive when the thunder was going to roll. No one would notice, though. Probably.

"That's a wrap for this scene!" Nino called, grinning. "And it's almost dinnertime, so let's pack up and get out of here. Can we meet back here at the same time tomorrow?"

Everyone nodded as they rushed around, collecting the things they had left sitting on the covered couches and tables. More than a few people looked relieved as they filed out the front door into the sun.

"That was super-strange," Marinette said as she and Alya locked up the house and headed for the Dupain-Cheng bakery. "I could have sworn the rain track Alix had was just rain sounds earlier."

"I think you were right earlier, about the atmosphere of the house making us overthink everything," Alya said with a laugh, but she didn't look entirely convinced. "But I do hope Adrien's bodyguard is there tomorrow for the basement scenes. He'd probably counteract all of the creepy vibes the house is giving off."

"If he doesn't tell Mr. Agreste and get Adrien banned from doing the project," Marinette pointed out. "Hopefully he wouldn't, though. He seems nice enough."

"Yeah." The two of them fell into silence for a few minutes as they strolled down the sidewalk. It was nice being out on the bustling street after hours of being in the creepy, closed-off house. "You know, I know we were all disappointed that Mylene didn't want to be lead actress again, but it's probably for the better. She would have been too spooked to film."

Marinette shuddered thinking about it. If filming Agent Smith and Agent Jones had taken forever just because of Ivan's monster costume, their current film probably would have taken at least three times as long. Alya was right; it was probably better for Mylene to help out with the film by assisting Rose with snack delivery.

"Tomorrow will probably be loads better now that we've gotten used to filming again and have new batteries and whatnot in everything," Marinette said, trying to sound more reassuring than she felt. She had been positive that Max and Kim had said that they had gotten all of the equipment ready before they started filming anything. "It will be fine."

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"It's just water damage," Marinette insisted through clenched teeth as the rest of the class stared nervously at the dark stain on the basement wall. Adrien's bodyguard stood at the back of the group, looking as unconcerned as ever. Unless he was worried, she refused to freak out. "Look, the window has a huge crack in it. I bet the water just got in through there."

"Marinette is right. I can see some mold on the wood." Adrien had been the only person brave enough to venture closer to the stain, but even he wouldn't touch it. Instead, he took several careful steps back, turned around, and flashed a slightly forced smile at the rest of the group. "So, are we going to set up?"

"I brought extras of everything today," Max announced, pointing at his overlarge backpack that had clearly been stuffed near bursting. "We should be good for batteries today, but just in case..."

Everyone nodded. It was best to be overprepared today, so they wouldn't have to stop filming to go run home and grab more supplies. That had been a huge time drain the day before, and they were already going to be spending their entire three-day weekend at the creepy house. They didn't want to have to come over after school as well to get the project done on time.

"Alix, you set up your speakers while Alya and I get the other props in place," Marinette instructed as she started unpacking her own bag. "And remember that the rain would be quieter from downstairs."

"On it." Alix was already digging through her own bag, though she kept glancing back up at the stain on the wall and she made sure to set up as far away from it as she could without getting in the way of where they would be filming. Kim and Max set up next to her, assembling the sound equipment and getting the camera tripods unpacked.

"Juleka, can you make sure that Adrien and Ivan are all ready?" Marinette called as she moved a small table into place. "We'll be ready to start in a few minutes." She glanced over at Alya, who was arranging a small braided rug on the floor. "So far, so good!"

"Shh! You'll jinx it!" Alya hissed, reaching out to knock on the table leg. She glanced over to where the Gorilla was watching the proceedings with something resembling interest. "It definitely helps that he's here, though. It's nice to have another set of eyes."

It didn't take long before the cameras were rolling again. Adrien and Kim had apparently both memorized quite a few of their lines the previous night, which meant that they didn't need to pause as often to check on what they were meant to be saying. Everyone relaxed as the filming went smoothly, which meant that no one was ready for the huge BANG! from the stairwell, followed by their lights flickering and almost going out.

"No one move," the Gorilla ordered over the sounds of their screams, and then he was jogging up the staircase to investigate. He didn't have to go far, though, before he found the source of the noise: a shutter that had come loose and was waving in the breeze. It had apparently banged shut rather hard. They all waited for several tense, nervous minutes as the Gorilla headed outside to fasten the shutter again.

"I'm gonna have a heart attack before this is all over," Alya whispered to Marinette as they waited. Then she frowned. "Isn't it kinda odd that the shutter would come loose now? No one has been to this place for ages, which means that it's been latched for months without a problem, and it's not even that windy outside."

Marinette frowned as well. That was odd. Her hand went to her purse, just to make sure Tikki was still there. "Maybe it has come loose before and the neighbors have come over to shut it. They probably don't want to listen to it banging around all the time."

Alya didn't look convinced. Marinette didn't blame her. She wasn't entirely convinced herself.

"Do we need to restart the scene, Nino?" Adrien asked, looking simultaneously tired and nervous. Ivan had grabbed onto his arm when they heard the crash and he had apparently forgotten to let go. "Or can we salvage some of it?"

Nino frowned and rewound his camera so he could watch what he had. After a few seconds, though, the frown cleared off of his face. "Actually...I like this. I'll just erase the screaming right after the bang. You two, ad-lib a little bit and then get back on the script. I'll change the camera angle so you can't tell that you guys moved at all."

Alya laughed. "You're just rolling with the punches, aren't you?"

Nino shrugged. "Say what you will about how creepy this house and all the weird things that happen in it are, but it sure does add more atmosphere to our movie." He checked the cameras to make sure they were set up right. "...but I won't lie, I will be super-glad when we finish up here."

"As long as we keep going, we should be able to finish up all of the indoors scenes today, and then we can move outside tomorrow," Marinette said, consulting her script. She had been checking off the scenes as they were recorded, so they wouldn't miss anything. "And it's supposed to be a bit rainy tomorrow, which is perfect. We'll just need to remember umbrellas for the equipment."

"And hopefully we can persuade some of the others to come join us for that one," Alya added. "I think Rose said that she'd be fine with coming as long as she didn't have to go inside."

"Same for Mylene," Ivan added.

"So that's decided! We'll be outside tomorrow if it's rainy, regardless of whether or not we finish up in here," Marinette said, making a note to text Rose, Mylene, and Nathaniel to let them know. "Are we almost rea-"

She was cut off by the sound of loud, thumping footsteps from overhead. Everyone froze and their eyes turned to the stairs as the heavy steps drew closer, closer, closer-

-and then the Gorilla appeared, looking very, very puzzled about why they were all staring at him.

Everyone burst into laughter. They were too wound up if they had all forgotten that the Gorilla was in the house. There was no reason to be paranoid.

"I am so glad that we're done filming inside," Alya sighed as she and Marinette rounded the old house. True to prediction, it was raining lightly and the rain was predicted to continue for the rest of the day. They wouldn't need the entire day for filming, thankfully- there were only two scenes that they needed to do, and then their film would be complete- but in case anything weird happened...

Marinette shivered.

The second day of filming had gone better than the first, for sure- they averaged only two retakes per scene- but weird stuff still happened. Lights went out all at once, leaving them in the pitch dark until Kim yanked out his flashlight and went to work replacing batteries. Alix's speakers cut out several times. They all swore up and down that the floorboards upstairs were creaking, even though all of them were in the same spot. They all freaked out as one when the man that the mayor had sent to take care of the mice arrived and knocked on the front door. The strung-out, nervous expressions that Adrien and Ivan wore as they acted were only partially faked. If it hadn't been for the presence of the Gorilla, Marinette doubted that people would have stuck around to finish filming.

She could only hope that the Gorilla would be able to come next weekend, when they had to clean.

"Hey, everyone's already here," Alya commented as they rounded the corner. Sure enough, set-up had already started, though it was slower than usual since things had to be covered by an umbrella and couldn't be set down on the grass. Mylene and Rose were each holding a giant umbrella as Kim, Max, and Nino got tripods set up and the sound equipment adjusted.

"Ooh, poor Nathaniel's backdrop is going to get ruined," Marinette said mournfully as she watched Adrien and Nathaniel attach the painted sheets to the fence. The sheets all depicted a rainy countryside, with farmhouses dotted off in the distance. They all would have preferred shooting in the actual countryside, of course, but it would have been too much work to get all of them out there and find a good location to shoot. The slightly cramped backyard of the maybe-possibly-haunted house would have to do.

"Well, he knew that we were going to be filming in the rain," Alya said with a shrug. "That's why he used the old bedsheets. They'll dry out."

"Yeah, but..." Marinette watched as the boys nailed the last sheet on and then started working on attaching the sides and bottom so that the sheets wouldn't flap around too much. "There's just so many of them. I don't think his family's apartment is big enough to dry everything at once."

"Problems for another time," Alya said cheerfully, and then they joined Juleka, who was making sure that the long black raincoats that Adrien and Ivan would wear were in good shape and ready to be switched out for the boys' normal raincoats.

"This movie is gonna be rad," Juleka said cheerfully as she stepped away from the coats. They looked a little wrinkly, just like what one would expect secret agents' coats to look like after they had been on the run for several days. Whether or not that was intentional or a happy accident wasn't entirely clear.

Alix nodded in agreement. "Yeah. But I don't wanna come back to this house again after this is all over." Her eyes flicked up to the house, which looked even more imposing and haunted than usual in the gloom. "Too much weird stuff happening. I'm surprised that Adrien is still able to come, what with everything that's been happening."

Marinette was surprised, too. The Gorilla had looked rather relieved to leave the previous day, which she had seen as a bad sign. But maybe he had figured that things would be more normal outside, or maybe he would just feel bad about pulling Adrien out of the project that late in filming.

Marinette briefly wondered what they would have done if Adrien hadn't been allowed to come for that last day of filming. They wouldn't reshoot all of the scenes, of course- they would have to be completely desperate to do that- but maybe they would have Juleka or Nino fill in as a body double and just hide their face with the collar of the rain jacket and a brimmed hat, and then record Adrien's voice and add his lines in later. It would have been hard, probably, and it probably would have taken a ton of takes to make sure that they didn't accidentally have any of Adrien's body double's features showing.

Yeah, it was definitely a good thing that Adrien's bodyguard apparently hadn't told Mr. Agreste about any of the strangeness that was going on.

"I had to get new recordings to play for today," Alix announced, waving her ipod at them. "Less of the rain itself, since we already have that, and more thunder and some wind."

"Great! I wouldn't have thought about that, Alix. Good job." Marinette glanced up at the sky. The rain was steady but not heavy, which made filming more pleasant. She frowned as she realized that the rain was making a loud pitter-pattering noise against the fabric of the umbrellas. The microphones would definitely pick that up, and it was just a bit too loud to pass off as rain against tree leaves. Still, they didn't want to get their equipment wet. They would just have to deal with the slightly out-of-place noise.

"Okay, I think we're ready to start once Adrien and Ivan get their coats!" Nino called, getting everyone's attention. "Places, everyone, and make sure that everything is under an umbrella!"

As it turned out, filming outside was much harder than filming inside. It wasn't the rain that was the problem, though none of them were particularly happy about standing out in the damp cold. No, the problem was with the amount of outside noise that they were getting. It was less than what they might get on a normal day- people were staying inside more than usual because of the rain, of course- but sometimes they would get partway through a shot only for a dog to bark loudly, or for a woman to loudly call a greeting to a friend on the sidewalk in front, or for a car to go zipping past with the radio blaring. Each time, Nino would roll his eyes with exasperation and call for a cut.

"Professional movie makers don't have to deal with this nonsense," Nino muttered grouchily as they set up take fifteen. "These are ridiculous working conditions."

"Professional movie makers also don't work out of random abandoned houses' backyards," Marinette pointed out as she headed over to help Nathaniel re-attach one of his background sheets. They were coming loose at a ridiculous rate, probably because the wood of the fence was so rotted. "They cordon off areas so that they can have closed sets."

"I don't even want to know how much cleaning we would have to do if we wanted to ask the mayor to do something like that," Kim said, grimacing. "I already don't want to do any of it, but I guess we promised and all."

"Yeah, we definitely couldn't afford it." Nino adjusted his camera carefully and then ducked over to the other camera to make sure it was still running. The storage cards were getting worryingly full, but he had brought his last set of backups just in case.

He was going to have to do one hell of a lot of picking through video and editing when all of this was done. Nino didn't normally consider himself superstitious, but he hadn't wanted to bring along the half-filled cards that he had used the other days, just in case.

"From the top again!" Nino called, stepping back from the camera. Really, he was starting to think that they should just piece together several takes of the scene and get on with it, but it wouldn't have the same effect and he would have to jump between cameras crazy often.

This time, the run went perfectly. Nino breathed a sigh of relief as he signaled the end of the take. Alix paused her ipod and set it aside, looking relieved. Finishing that scene meant that they were halfway done for the day.

"I could use a bit of help with the backdrops!" Nathaniel called as he wrestled another set of sheets forward. In seconds, Kim and Max were by his side, trying to hold the sheets in place. Adrien looked like he was considering helping for a few moments, but then Ivan pulled him towards the relative dryness of the umbrellas.

"You look like a drowned rat, dude," Nino informed his friend with a laugh as Adrien towel-dried his hair. Really, it was a good thing that the hat Adrien was wearing hid his hair from the camera so well, because otherwise it would look strange if Adrien's character had hair plastered to his scalp in the first scenes and then it magically dried and re-styled itself as soon as he set foot indoors.

"Thank you, I do my best," Adrien said dryly. He shoved his bangs back out of his face. "So, how much longer-"

CRASH!

Everyone jumped and spun around in time to see a dead branch from the tree in the backyard sliding off of the roof and onto the ground, dragging a handful of shingles in its wake. It wasn't large, thankfully, and the roof didn't look too damaged, at least from where they stood. Kim and Max had had to move quickly to keep from getting hit by the branch as it tumbled to the ground.

"Wow," Juleka breathed, approaching it cautiously. "Cool!"

"Thank goodness all of our interruptions today are just normal stuff," Nino said with a somewhat shaky laugh. "I don't kno-"

CLANG! Chk-chk-chk-

There were several muffled screams as the sound of rattling chains filled the air, and everyone swiveled around to try to pinpoint the source of the sound. Adrien jumped a foot into the air and ended up clinging to Marinette as his eyes scanned the yard. Alya backed up quickly and nearly ran into Nathaniel, who was holding out his hammer in defense as he swiveled back and forth nervously. Mylene had completely frozen up under the umbrella she was holding.

Chk-chk-chk-chk-CHK-

"Is that- is that the speakers?" Marinette asked from the safety of Adrien's arms. She had turned more than a little pink from the contact but had otherwise managed to remain (somewhat) calm. "Alix?"

"No, it's not-" Alix started defensively, and then she inched a little closer and frowned. "Oh. Wait. Yes, it is, but I don't have anything like that on my ipod and I paused it earlier, I swear!" She knelt down by the speakers and cautiously reached a hand out to grab her ipod. She paused it, and the spooky sounds came to an abrupt stop. As everyone untangled themselves (Adrien startled slightly when he realized that he still had his arms wrapped around Marinette and he backed off promptly, apologizing nonstop while Marinette turned an even darker shade of red), she glanced at her ipod screen and then frowned. "Hang on- I don't remember ever uploading this! I don't have anything in my iTunes library that is called 'chains'."

There was dead silence for a few moments, only broken up by the sound of the rain falling heavier now, almost at a downpour.

"Let's just...keep filming," Nino said, looking slightly freaked out. "Last scene, and then we can get the hell out of here."

Saying that no one wanted to go back to the house the next weekend was the understatement of the century.

"Can we just pay the mayor for the use of the house and be done with it?" Kim asked as the group stood in front of the building. He and Alix had long since come to a mutual (and silent) agreement that neither of them was to tease the other about the house making them nervous. "Seriously. I will put my entire allowance for the month towards something like that."

"I think the going rate for house rentals is perhaps a bit more than any of us can afford," Max said, though he didn't look happy about it. "And so would the rate for hiring professional cleaners."

They all fell silent again for a bit, staring at the house (did a curtain just move, or did they just imagine it?) until Adrien broke the silence with a sigh.

"How about we all just work in pairs?" he suggested. "And then have several pairs per room. Then no one is working by themselves or has the chance to accidentally sneak up on anyone else. Cleaning is more fun with a friend, anyway."

"Groups didn't exactly stop the creepy before," Alix grumbled, and more than a few people exchanged glances. But there was no real argument, and so people started to pair off and ever. so. slowly. head for the door.

And thus began one long day of work.

It didn't help that everyone was jumpy. Squeaky floorboards would make people freeze, thumps as people occasionally dropped things resulted in muffled screeches, and the windows rattling as the wind blew against them made people sit up and stare. The groups of two more often than not became groups of four as they forged on, gathering dust covers to shake clean outside and sweeping dirt and dust alike into piles and then scattering it again accidentally when a creaking door made the sweeper jump. Brooms and mops propped up against the wall toppled over for no apparent reason, and windows blew open after being locked shut for years.

"Okay, seriously, who's the one messing around with the windows?" Marinette called once it happened for the fifth time. "I can appreciate the fresh air and all, but it's blowing our dust piles around and we're gonna have to remember to close everything once we're done."

Silence.

"The practical side of me says that someone's just playing a prank and doesn't want to admit it," Adrien said, reaching around Marinette to pull the window shut again. He checked the latch twice before stepping back. "There's no other reasonable explanation. But I don't think anyone in our class is that good at acting. Unfortunately."

Marinette frowned. "You don't really think the house is haunted, do you?"

Adrien looked a little uncomfortable. "I'm a firm believer in science...but it can't explain everything. Ladybug and Chat Noir exist, so why not ghosts? Or some sort of imp or something. You know, like a leprechaun, but not," he tried to explain when Marinette only looked puzzled. "Something playing tricks on us. Nothing that's happened really had a threatening feel to it, more just...impish." He had had to check more than a few times to make sure that Plagg hadn't left his jacket to run amok through the house. His kwami had owed up to messing with the batteries for the lights once, but he had claimed that anything else would have been too much work. Adrien believed him; after all, Plagg had been safely napping in his coat pocket during most of the other oddness that had happened. Plagg had also refused to say what had been causing the strange noises, though he had a distinctly mischievous look to his face while he reused to talk. That alone made Adrien suspect that there was probably something magical at work, though not at all dangerous. Plagg would have said something if it were.

Or at least Adrien hoped so. Plagg enjoyed watching situations get messy, but only when they weren't inherently dangerous. Watching Adrien embarrass himself seemed to be one of Plagg's favorite hobbies (besides eating cheese, of course). Watching Adrien get hurt...well, Plagg didn't like that so much. He always scolded Adrien for stupid blunders during fights that could have gotten him badly injured if it weren't for the powers of the Miraculous protecting him. Surely he would say something if there was a malevolent spirit flitting around the house.

Marinette chewed on her lip and, for some reason, glanced down at the purse that hung at her hip before nodding in agreement. "Yeah, maybe you're right. That doesn't make it any less weird, though," she added as she reached for a broom that had toppled over even though the handle had been firmly wedged between the wall and the ancient fridge. Somehow it had fallen straight outwards into the rest of the room. "I'm glad that we're almost done. It's not the greatest cleaning job ever, but it'll do. Especially since I doubt the mayor will remember about this place for more than five minutes after I give the key back to him."

Adrien smothered a snort. That sounded very like the mayor. It was very likely that the longest the mayor had spent thinking about the old house was when Chloe was throwing a fit about not wanting to go into the house because it was gross and spooky. From what he had heard, Mr. Bourgeois had gone into the principal's office to wrangle a separate project for Chloe (and Sabrina, because Chloe can't work alone that would be punishing her for her sensibilities and allergies to dust and mold-!) and had ended up coming back to Chloe with the "great news" that she and Sabrina would simply get to do their "very own film project!"

Chloe hadn't been thrilled by that- neither she nor Sabrina were particularly good with coming up with a good storyline, acting, or doing basically anything else that making a film would require- but she either had to do it or accept a zero on an assignment. Adrien had gotten more than a few furious texts from her complaining about problems that had popped up with her own project. He hadn't told her anything in return about the creepy stuff happening to the rest of the class.

"Hey, d'you want to hear about some of the texts I got from Chloe?" Adrien offered as Nino and Alya entered the room again, empty dustpans in hand. It would make the time go faster and maybe take their minds off of the increasingly weird house for the few hours they had left to work. "She's freaking out about having to do the project with just herself and Sabrina."

Nino snorted. "Of course she is. She didn't want to do any work at all." Then he paused. "Aw, heck, I won't even try to pretend that I don't want to hear about how much trouble she's having. Let's hear it."

The tales of Chloe's misery got them through the last two hours of banging doors, creaking floorboards, windows flying open, buckets mysteriously overturning, and even the light from the sun outside mysteriously flickering and getting darker, even without clouds in the sky overhead. They snickered at the truly terrible plot Chloe (or, more likely, Sabrina) had come up with as thunder rumbled through a sunny, cloudless sky and muffled giggles at a tale of editing failure while several doors slammed throughout the house. They were still giggling when a very disgruntled Alix (flanked by a very on-edge Kim and Max) came in to inform them that green goo had started dripping out of the kitchen sink down below.

"If our class president and vice-president have any suggestions, let us know," Alix finished through gritted teeth. "Because I am not cleaning up creepy green goop."

"Uh, just ignore it for now, maybe?" Marinette suggested after sharing a frantic glance with Alya. When Miss Bustier had told her what she was expected to do as class president, dealing with a potentially haunted house was not on the list. "Uh, how much is left to do?"

"Are we doing the basement?"

"No," Marinette decided. That room creeped people out the most, and it wasn't that bad anyway. There was no furniture in there to collect dust and there was nothing they could feasibly do about the water stain. "That and the room with mice in it we aren't doing."

"Then we're almost done," Alix reported. "We just have the counters left to wipe down- but I'm not gonna go anywhere near the green stuff."

"Just leave the green stuff be," Marinette said with a sigh. She couldn't even begin to guess what kind of gunk the house was churning out now, and she really didn't want to know. "I'll go check on the other groups."

Alix grumbled something that might have been assent before she thundered back down the stairs, Kim and Max on her heels. Marinette sighed and set her broom aside. Their group had honestly been cleaning the same section for ages, which really wasn't a good example to be setting, but they had all gotten a little distracted. "I'm going to go check on the other groups. Alya, want to join me?"

"I'll send Adrien with you instead," Alya said with a grin, ignoring the surprised look Adrien sent her way. "We need to finish up here and I don't trust him around the cleaning supplies."

"I resent that-" Adrien started, only to be cut off by Alya's laugh.

"Adrien, you didn't know how to sweep correctly when you got here," she pointed out, hands planted on her hips. "You got dust everywhere. And you didn't know how to wash windows, and you just admitted ten minutes ago that you've never done laundry before. So excuse me if I don't trust you and Nino to not make a mess of this room if we leave you unsupervised for ten minutes." She pointed towards the door. "Go help Marinette check on the other groups. Shoo."

They shooed.

A quick ten-minute run through the house found that all of the groups were cleaning up, and most of them had done a relatively good job cleaning.

Well. Kind of.

"We're not going near that corner," Ivan told Marinette as Juleka nodded her agreement from behind the larger boy. "Whenever we do, the floorboards scream. And then the light from the windows flickers. It can stay dirty."

"I'm still not going near the sink," Alix told Adrien several minutes later as another glob of green goo dripped from the faucet. "I don't care if it's just algae or something that's suddenly decided now is a great time to spurt from the sink. It's weird."

"The chains rattle," Rose told them as they checked on the progress of the group cleaning the front porch and weeding the yard. "On the swing, I mean. And there's no wind. It just swings on its own and makes weird noises. None of us want to sweep that part of the porch. The swing might decide to try to hit us or something."

"That's fine, Rose," Marinette told her, patting her shoulder to try to calm the wide-eyed girl down. "It's probably not all that dusty out here, since there's the wind anyway. You guys can start cleaning up."

"Oh thank god," Nathaniel said fervently, and Mylene nodded in agreement. "I thought we were going to be stuck here all day."

"It has been pretty much all day," Adrien pointed out as he and Marinette turned to head back into the house. "It's nearly four-thirty, and by the time everyone cleans up, it'll be nearly-"

He stopped dead. There, in the front room, everyone was waiting. Buckets had been emptied and piled up and then stuffed into the large box to carry. Brooms were lined up along the front wall, ready to be carried back to their normal houses. Rags had been wrung out and stuffed into a bucket. Soaps were stuffed into another bucket, all ready to be carried away. Trash bags were tied tightly and piled near the front door.

"-time to go," Adrien finished weakly.

"Never underestimate the power of a creepy house to make people move quickly," Marinette muttered back, equally taken aback. She had thought that it would be another fifteen minutes at least before people were ready to go, but apparently not. Fear really was a great motivator. Her eyes swept over the group and yep, everyone was all there and accounted for, minus the group still finishing up outdoors.

A clattering interrupted her thoughts, and Marinette turned around to see the trio that had been outdoors all standing on the porch, all packed up and ready to go.

"Okay then," Marinette managed, blinking at them in bemusement for a moment before shaking herself out of it. "Right. That's everyone, then. Ready to get out of here?"

Kim let out a short whoop, a grin finally spreading across his face as he led the charge for the door. "Finally. I was starting to think you would never say that. C'mon everyone, let's go!"

As the group left the house for the last time, no one noticed a small orange head poke out of a bag and peer around. The mischievous kwami glanced back at the house she had caused so much havoc in, unable to help the smirk that slid across her face. It had been too much fun to mess around with the group by making funny noises and messing with their equipment. After being asleep in her Miraculous for so long, it was just too much to resist.

Ah, pranks. They really were the best thing since the invention of chocolate-covered strawberries. Trixx could already tell that she was going to have so much fun this time around.

Ladybug and Chat Noir could wait a few more weeks to meet their new teammate, Trixx decided as she sunk back into the depths of her Chosen's bag. They were doing well enough on their own right now, and she still had a good few pranks she wanted to pull on her new Chosen before she revealed herself properly.

She could barely wait.

As with most of my stories, this is a one-shot and is therefore complete.

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