For galahadwilder, whose idea post on Tumblr would not let me sleep.

Although I will shortly and dream of more of the the antics that will follow.

Caline Bustier was an unrepentant romantic. Living in Paris all her life, it was hard not to be.

She'd fallen in love with the romantic outfits, dressing each day as light and breezy as the relatively lax faculty dress code would allow. Her red hair was so often pulled back into a professional coif, but she couldn't fight the temptation to add just a touch of curl to the end. She'd fallen in love with the written word, happy enough in her job to impress that same affection onto her young students. On her weekends, she loved nothing more that settling into the nearest bookshop or park, with a lovely book to keep her hopes alive.

Even her latest paramour had the sweetest romantic bend. He'd worked at one of those same bookshops, bringing her just as many flowers as he did books as often as they both could get away in the evening for a date night.

But not matter how much she tried to surround herself with the air of romance, there would always be the cynics - like Madame Mendeleiev- who trusted in science and the chemistry of romance. The elder woman was just not inclined to believe that the two were actually quite the same thing, despite some rather long and drawn out conversations to the contrary. She loved nothing more than the try to punch holes into her more romantic notions, given the slightest opportunity.

Since her first year of teaching at Collège Françoise Dupont, Madame Mendeleiev had consistently dismissed her as the young, idealistic girl who life hadn't drained the romance from yet.

Even after these few years of trying, Caline hadn't quite given up on convincing her fellow teacher that romance was anything but dead. She just needed an example.

She usually loved to see hints of it on the streets of Paris. From the tourists, from the couples of all ages she ran into in her daily walk to the Collège.

To her surprise, one perfectly good-perfectly convenient-example, fell right into her classroom.

She wasn't really sure how it had happened at first.

In spite of her brief absence from the room prior to the first day's lesson, Caline quickly grew aware of the power struggle that had come to a head and suddenly dissipated on those first tense few days of school when all this messy Akuma business had begun. Rightfully, she had been far more focused on Ivan's conflict with Kim, but Chloé's antics had not escaped her notice.

She had heard enough in the staff room to avoid Chloé to the fullest extent possible and was relieved when the tension had broken almost as quickly as it started.

By the end of the first week, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, a quiet girl by all accounts, had gone from spit-fire who took on the girl that all the teachers were afraid to touch to endearingly awkward teen when a certain blonde-haired boy was involved.

Sometimes it was such a struggle to watch her fellow romantics slowly, but inevitably fall. And fail hard. Over and over again.

But of course, poor Adrien was clearly oblivious to the poor girl's feelings, even as the rest of the class slowly caught on to the situation.

Frowning, Caline nibbled as her lip as she prepared to enter the classes grades into the electronic system at the close of the fall semester.

It was frankly amazing that either Adrien or Marinette had managed to keep their grades up between the near constant stream of excused absences from class.

But often enough they weren't gone much longer than their peers, as Akuma attacks usually caused early dismissal to get the students and all the faculty safely away from the attack zone so Ladybug and Chat Noir could do their clean up work.

Collège Françoise Dupont was so often in the near radius of the attacks, if not the very site of an Akuma being formed, that such instances were treated with the utmost seriousness, thanks in very large part to Principal Damocles having to interact with several of the first few Akumatized students himself.

It was such a commonplace occurrence that she had noted each absence in her daily journal to help compile the final grades. But for some odd reason, it really didn't stick out in her mind until now.

She shook her head, trying to shake off this crazy idea that had started to form in her brain.

Stories had taught her often enough that coincidence was often anything but. Madame Mendeleiev would be very quick to inform her that just came from reading too much fiction.

Lips settling into a thin line, she logged out of the system and settled in to reassure herself it was entirely impossible that she was teaching Paris's heroes. Luckily, Alya Césaire's intrepid reporting had done most of the research grunt work for her.

Her records of the days and times of the Akuma attacks and her records of their shared absences aligned with alarming regularity.

Not all of the attacks had started during her class, and as she wasn't certain just what to do with this thread of information just yet, she couldn't very well act or mention her suspicions without more cause.

No one knew just who the protectors of Paris truly were. Clearly there was some reason their identities were such a closely guarded secret.

So resolved, she'd decided to watch the pair of them far more closely in the spring semester. If nothing else, she just intended to confirm that her wild theory actually had some merit.

Caline tugged at the sleeves of her jacket, smoothing out the wrinkles as the class settled into to their tests. There had only been a few attacks in that first week back and of those, only today's attack had been during school thus far while they attended Madame Mendeleiev's physics class.

She pressed on a smile, crossing her arms over her chest as she prepared to square off with the violet haired dragoness. "Did Adrien leave for his photo shoot on time?"

Madame Mendeleiev's blue eyes rolled at the notion. "Yes, he couldn't get out of class fast enough. Neither could Miss Dupain-Cheng." Her fists fell at her hips, as she shook her head in irritation. "I swear I've told that girl often enough that she needs to go to the doctor's office. It just isn't healthy to have to run to the restroom that often."

"Oh," Caline lips curved upwards, almost successfully stifling a choked laugh. Poor Marinette. That had to be a rather awkward conversation. "Ahem. Unfortunately, the secretary misdirected Adrien's absence request for this afternoon to me."

"Well." Madame Mendeleiev's brows raised haughtily. "Make sure to send any of those notices my way earlier in the day next time."

"Oh, I will." She waved over her shoulder as she exited the dragon's den, shaking her head as her eyes lifted skyward.

Clearly, someone needed to watch over those two kids. It had been pure luck that they hadn't been caught out in their lies before and, unless she stepped in, it was only a matter of time before it all fell apart.