this is technically a sequel to blinding leaps of faith; you don't have to read that first, but it may make more sense if you do.

a huge thank you to shinobicyrus for beta'ing!

(first posted on ao3 under GuardianKarenTerrier; still me!)

Caline Bustier has not seen a single one of her students come through the classroom door in a week and a half.

That's not how she would phrase it, if anyone asked. That makes it sound much darker than what's actually happening. She already thinks if Mendeliev spends any more time tearing her hair out over potential akumatizations the woman is going to start going bald. As it is, she knows her coworker has flattened more than one butterfly before it could quite reach her.

(Caline has never seen that particular trick with the flyswatter work for anyone else. At this point, she's too afraid to ask. She'd almost be worried that her fellow teacher could be Hawkmoth herself, except that as far as she knows Mendeliev has never in her life evinced enough creativity to come up with some of the akuma they've seen).

"Sorry I'm late, Mme. Bustier, it's raining so everything's slippery," Alya calls, diving through the window at the last second and coming back up to her feet in a neat roll. She turns to grin at Caline, but then blinks as she realises how few people are actually in the classroom.

There would likely be more students on time if they weren't all coming in through the windows or, in Juleka's case, technically through the doorway- as much as going hand over hand along the ceiling counts. Caline's not even sure how she's doing that.

Caline sighs and waves Alya to her seat. Beside her, Nino turns with a grin. "You know the drainpipe's under an overhang, right? It's easier to get a good grip on."

Lounging at her desk, feet propped up where Sabrina would normally sit, Chloe scoffs. "As if some of us would be caught dead scaling drainpipes. You can use the frescoes on the side, it's as easy as walking through the door."

"You could perhaps all return to using the actual door," Caline suggests, but half-heartedly at best.

She's not even sure who to blame for this anymore.

Alix, possibly, or Kim, or Ivan. They're the ones who started what they call the Akuma Challenges- physical challenges that test the class' ability to outrun or even, in a few somehow even more unsafe suggestions, outfight akuma.

She should have put a stop to that right away.

Those initial sprints had seemed so harmless. Even the strange, impressively compact obstacle course Kim and Juleka and Nathaniel had constructed in the art room had seemed, at most, entertaining.

The sudden upswing in pick-up dodgeball games had seemed admittedly less harmless, but her students had been having fun. And, well- the students having fun together does seem to ward off akuma all by itself. She could hardly ask them to stop then.

Then they'd started playing dodgeball in the school hallways.

Not always with dodgeballs.

She's a little alarmed to know how many of her students are apparently both willing and able to throw desks, chairs, and in one case an entire locker.

(That it had been Marinette who'd thrown it is still more alarming. Caline still can't figure out how on earth she'd done that).

At that point, Caline had finally gone to see Mr. Damocles about it, but-

"Good training," he'd said, from his perch outside his office window as Caline stared at him in dismay. He'd been wearing his full Knight Owl costume. Outside. On the ledge outside his own window. In the middle of the day. "Helps the reflexes. Strengthens the mind- Ah ha!"

Someone had thrown a paper airplane at him from outside and he'd tripped and fallen back in through the window, picking himself up and dusting himself off a moment later as though it had been entirely his own idea.

More paper airplanes had followed, with frankly unnerving accuracy. The students had been practicing. She's not sure if she should feel pride in that or not.

"Good training," Damocles had repeated. "I, for one, am proud of our students for taking such- hey!- such initiative."

At least someone (Caline suspects it was either Adrien or Rose, though she's not willing to rule out other candidates) had eventually gotten them to switch over to paper airplanes rather than just throwing whatever first came to hand.

"They do maneuver a little more like akuma, I guess," she overhears Marinette telling Alya reluctantly one day.

Caline glances up, just in time to see several different students launch their own paper airplanes at Marinette.

Caline blinks when Marinette- Marinette, who is infamously clumsy, even if she has been noticeably improving recently- dodges all but two of them.

And of those two, Nino catches one out of the air and Adrien blocks the other with his shoulder. None of them touch Marinette.

"That was amazing," Alya says, obviously gleeful, her eyes glinting as she props her head on one hand. "Like. From all of you, that was fantastic, holy shit."

At this point it's probably not worth chastising anyone for language, frankly, so Caline doesn't even try.

It's honestly a relief when Max gets involved in the next round of Akuma Challenges, because Max immediately suggests that they try outthinking the akuma, as well. Caline breathes a deep sigh at that because Max at least isn't likely to push the physical challenges.

She thinks.

The sudden interest in chess is fine. The sudden interest in shogi is a little more odd, but she's perfectly all right with that, as well. The same goes for the Magic: the Gathering and Ultimate Mecha Strike IV tournaments.

She's honestly rather jealous of the sudden enthusiastic games of Dungeons and Dragons that start to crop up after about a week, because two of the most admirable things about this particular class are both their creativity and how much enthusiasm they throw into things.

The Dungeons and Dragons games very quickly become a homebrewed, superhero themed mess, and it is truly difficult to tell if Chloe is wearing a homemade Queen Bee costume to them or if she's showing up actually transformed, and Caline has to stop on her way home one night because she is suddenly very certain she's just seen Chat Noir and Ladybug swing in through one of the upper windows of the school.

She tells herself that's perfectly fine. That's- that's probably a good thing. Really. The students can't be safer than that, and the heroes could certainly use the stress relief.

It's a little more concerning that it is well after school hours, but it's not as though the students don't clean up after themselves, and she can hardly chastise them for spending more time at school.

She's never sure exactly when they make the switch into live action roleplaying but she certainly notices when her students occasionally forget that they've come to class in costume.

Their principal has long since started coming to school in costume, so there's really nothing she can do by that point.

The next problem that arises is that Principal Damocles is visible when he's edging out of his office window, especially in his much too eye-catching outfit, and her students begin to take that as permission to climb the building as well. Caline's rather too quickly rather too used to students climbing or swinging through the windows.

Or, on a few notable occasions, being bodily thrown through the windows.

(At least once that's due to an actual akuma attack so she's not sure if she can disapprove or not).

The only one she doesn't see making their way in via window regularly is Adrien, and she's not wholly certain that counts, because she hasn't actually seen him arrive in class in over a month by then. She'll look away for a second and he'll suddenly be in his seat. He's not the only one who does that, Chloe and Marinette both prove capable of it and after a few days Nino and Alya seem to pick up the same trick, but he is the only one who does it every day. It's getting to be increasingly disconcerting.

The thing is...

The thing is, all of it is working.

True, nearly all of the class has already been akumatized, herself included, but Chloe and Lila are proof that Hawkmoth can do it twice.

(Lila has, oddly, been sulking about recent developments. Caline's not entirely certain what's going on there, but she thinks perhaps the girl's health issues are preventing her from joining her in as much as she'd like. She knows Lila doesn't take part in any of the after-school games or activities.

Though her health issues don't seem to be preventing her coming through the windows with everyone else, even if she tends to enlist help more frequently than most of the others).

No one has been akumatized again since they started these Akuma Challenges.

Not a single student.

Caline asks around, in the staff room, and finds that it's the same across the school- out of all the different classes, the only students who still seem to be at risk are the ones not participating. She's not quite certain if that's due to the actual benefits of the challenges or if it's because those students were already higher risk, but she's not the only staff member who finds herself reluctantly beginning to encourage the new behaviour.

Hardly anyone appears to notice the day she gives up entirely and climbs in through the window herself.

Marinette and Juleka both do, though, if the way both girl's eyes go wide at the sight are any indication. Caline puts one finger to her lips and creeps over to her desk as Mylene catches on, too, and begins giggling.

Once again, she does not see Adrien when she first enters the room. Once again, she looks up for roll call and he's in his seat as though he's been there all along. This time Nino's managed to pull the same trick.

Caline seriously considers asking for a raise.

Mr. Damocles has been having enough fun with the challenges himself that he might just be in a good enough mood to go for it. Also, Chloe hasn't been her usual bratty self in weeks, which has made both the principal and everyone around him far more relaxed than they have been in years.

By now she's learned to give the students a few minutes to settle in and to finish whatever acrobatics or trickery they're still involved in, so she leans against the board and listens in to some of the student's conversations.

"-you were totally safe," Alya is insisting to Marinette, smugly. "Seriously, everyone assumed you were safe, I don't think you needed to do any of this."

"Uh huh, and why exactly did you think that at all?" Marinette asks, clearly amused. "You've seen me freak out before, Alya, I don't know how you of all people can possibly have believed that."

It doesn't seem to occur to the girl that the rest of her classmates can hear her perfectly well, too, until Nino leans over and says seriously, "Marinette, we all assumed Hawkdude was too scared to akumatize you."

Marinette chokes, her face going flaming red as Adrien giggles and turns towards the rest of their little group.

Nathaniel leans on his desk, grinning at her, and Ivan snorts outright.

"Yeah, Mari, we all kind of figured you'd just decide to go kick Hawkface's butt," Alix chimes in, exchanging a high-five with Kim over it. "So he can't go after you."

Marinette squeaks and makes what Caline assumes is a noise of protest.

Caline thinks about the akuma she did see go for her student, the one that had ended up taking her instead. Even now she's not completely sure how necessary her intervention ultimately was- the butterfly had seemed to lose interest in Marinette entirely the moment Marinette thought that someone else might be in danger.

And the only other person in the room Caline hasn't seen akumatized is Adrien, who has such strong protective instincts that he blocks his friends from dodgeballs and paper airplanes even though he knows that they're harmless and that most of his friends can block or dodge just fine on their own.

Suddenly it actually does seem plausible that Hawkmoth is making an active effort not to akumatize those two students in particular. There's evidence that his akumatized victims don't have to listen to him- Nathaniel had gone off on his own, after all, and according to Max's recounting Markov had actually told off the supervillain. It's possible tha tMarinette or Adrien might actually be more than Hawkmoth could handle.

Not that Hawkmoth even could send an akuma after Adrien or Marinette by now. Not that any of her students seem vulnerable, now, except for possibly Lila, and that is not her classmates' fault- Caline has heard them extend invitations and offers to play to Lila, has heard the girl give every excuse in the book and some that she's quite sure Lila has invented to keep herself distant from the others. Caline can only wish that she understood why.

At least the other tensions seem to be settling down. Even Chloe and Marinette have stopped sniping at each other, and although they do both occasionally say something sharp to Lila whenever that starts up Adrien, Nino, or Alya are always quick to divert them from it.

In fact, it's a little unnerving, how immediately they intervene. Sometimes they seem to know something's about to happen before it does.

Uneasily, Caline chalks that up to their odd combination of lifelong friendships, previous social isolation, and instant connection and tries to ignore it. If it indicates anything else, especially combined with her class' sudden improved abilities against akuma, she does not want to know.

Gradually, though, it starts becoming much harder to ignore.

It's not really surprising that it's the relationship between Chloe and Marinette that changes first- those two always have been volatile. Something was always going to give, one way or another.

The way it changes, though, that's odd.

Suddenly the two girls can't look at each other for more than a few seconds without blushing and stammering and looking awkwardly away. Caline watches that with amusement, acutely reminded of the way Marinette was with Adrien right up until she wasn't, and wonders what brought it on. Maybe there's a crush involved there too, although if Chloe has ever experienced real romantic feelings towards anyone but Ladybug and possibly Adrien then Caline had not seen it happen.

There's thankfully no accompanying change in Nino and Alya. It hadn't been pleasant to watch them both drift away from their best friends, and once those four had made up and had somehow, against all odds, continued to include Chloe, Caline had watched with relief as all of their schoolwork began to markedly improve again. She's never quite worked out how to make most of her student's parents understand exactly what kind of effect their children's social situation has on the quality of their work.

It isn't long after the newest change in Chloe that something very strange happens between Marinette and Adrien.

Caline had also been relieved when Marinette had finally started to act more like herself around Adrien, especially after the boy had been so obviously delighted about it. Far be it from her to cast aspersions on the Agreste's parenting methods, but Adrien is so transparently starved for friends that it had been painful to watch. She'd been worried when he'd stopped spending so much time with Nino, then happy to see him start spending so much time with Marinette.

(It's possible Caline needs to find some good daytime soap operas to invest herself in instead of her student's social lives, but she can't imagine she would care quite the same way).

What she does not expect to see is a sudden and total reversal of the dynamics between Marinette and Adrien. Overnight, it's Adrien who blushes at everything his classmate says, and Marinette who seems completely unaware that he's being sincere, and Caline watches that with all the reluctant fascination she would give a particular charismatic akumatized Parisian.

This is not how she expected either of them to react at all.

Nino and Alya offer up no clues, seeming even more confused than she is herself, and Chloe has started sulking again- although, interestingly, she still doesn't snipe at Marinette.

She does start sniping more at Lila, but as Lila has recently taken to loudly denigrating Queen Bee as the worst of Paris' heroes Caline has to admit she's not reprimanding Chloe for it as much as she probably should. She hesitates to say that Lila deserves it, as she truly believes no one deserves to be insulted or talked down to, but Lila is far too obviously baiting the other girl into it.

Caline tries to keep it fair, because Chloe doesn't deserve it either, and to her surprise it's not just Adrien who comes to Chloe's defense- Marinette does as well, and some of the others are quick to follow her example.

Some of the others seem to be very disillusioned with Lila, now that she's proven oddly dismissive of their games.

"Well it's not my fault, I was possessed at the time," Lila sniffs loudly one day when several of her classmate's purses have been obviously rummaged through either during or after an attack.

Alix snorts from behind her, dropping her head to her desk and waving dismissively. "So? So was I. So was everyone. My dad was possessed last Tuesday, Lila, you're not special."

Juleka and Ivan both snicker as Lila crosses her arms with a huff and Caline catches a delighted smile spreading across Marinette's face.

Caline swings down through the window herself shortly after lunch one day. She hates to admit it but it's become a point of pride that she can do that at all, and it's surprisingly fun besides. If any more students have ever noticed her they have yet to say anything.

She finds Nino, Alya, and Chloe all gathered around Adrien and Marinette's desk, conversing in hissed whispers.

Caline glances around, but in a small miracle no one else has re-entered the classroom yet.

"-you seriously didn't know," Chloe demands, voice low and upset, sweeping her hand out across the desk like a cat knocking things over to demand attention. Adrien flinches back ever so slightly and Chloe goes still, even before Nino and Marinette shoot her dark looks.

"No, we didn't," Marinette says steadily, one hand resting firmly on Adrien's shoulder. "It was really important to some of us that we not go announcing who we are on live television, Chloe."

Caline quietly makes her way over to the window to close and lock it. It isn't as though it's mattered whether anyone was late in months now; a few minutes to find a way through a locked window aren't going to make a difference.

After a moment's thought she creeps back over to lock the door, too, just in case someone miraculously remembers that it exists.

Chloe huffs and throws her hair over her shoulder, but there's an uneasy light in her eyes and she doesn't look directly at Marinette when she says, "You can't possibly tell me that none of you wanted to."

"Well," Alya starts, predictably, but she subsides at another look from Marinette.

Marinette's quickly distracted, though, at the way Adrien shifts under her hand.

Her expression softens as she glances down at him. "I know you wanted to tell me, kitty. I'm sorry."

Caline's suspected that for a long time now, but she still stops breathing for a moment. She forces herself to start again before any of her students can notice.

I know you wanted to tell me, kitty. That along with Marinette's comment to Chloe drops too many puzzle pieces into place. Even now, Marinette doesn't use nicknames with Adrien-

-but kitty is something Ladybug calls Chat Noir, all the time. That's well-known, especially among her class, who have nearly all found themselves fighting side-by-side with the heroes at some point (and that has never ceased to be extremely worrying).

And Marinette and Adrien never have been akumatized.

Marinette hasn't even been hit by anything thrown during the (by now schoolwide) Akuma Challenges, because on the vanishingly rare occasions she hasn't swatted things out of the air or dodged herself Adrien has defended her, or more rarely Alya or Nino has. (On one memorable occasion, Chloe had gotten between Marinette and an origami butterfly, but no one is willing to talk about that because no one wants to deal with Chloe in that kind of mood).

There's a puzzle snapping itself into place before her whether she wants it to or not.

Her students. Hers.

No wonder they'd all taken so easily to the new games and strategies. Caline realises, now, that they'd been able to take advantage of that smokescreen in more ways than one- it's become so impossible to keep track of who was late or early or on time that she's long since given up trying.

It had made it possible to mask the easy way Marinette had more than once lifted things she shouldn't have been able to lift at all, the unnerving way Adrien had taken to simply appearing at his desk, even the suspicious way Chloe and Marinette's years-old dislike had cooled and faded.

Caline has even thought herself about the way Chloe's obvious crush on Ladybug has finally seemed to be calming down- oh. Oh, no, of course that's why she hadn't been able to look Marinette in the eye- that's not something Chloe has ever been subtle about, after all.

The idea that Chat Noir has been chasing Ladybug, who has to be Marinette, who has been chasing Adrien, who has to be Chat Noir, takes a lot longer to percolate its way through her stunned mind. That is- that is absolutely, painfully ridiculous. Caline has never been much of a Ladynoir shipper, because the work the two heroes do saving Paris is so much more important, but she's suddenly very exasperated with them both. They could have been happily dating months ago instead of making moon eyes at each other across their desks and across the roofs of Paris.

Nino is the only one who looks around and sees her, and she sighs as his eyes go wide.

Marinette looks up sharply at his inhale and gasps herself, flushing deeply.

Adrien shrinks back in his seat again but Alya and Chloe both turn deeply protective glares towards her instead.

(Caline is certain that both girls would be horrified to know how similar they look).

Caline raises both hands in front of herself, palms up. She meets each of her student's eyes in turn, and says, much more calmly than she actually feels, "You've all certainly gotten very into the school's roleplaying game, haven't you?"

Marinette seizes on the excuse first, but her friends aren't far behind her. Nino is nodding frantically as Marinette says, "Oh, uh, yes! Yes, the game, we're- we've really been having fun, haven't we guys, we thought that, maybe, if we, uh-"

Now Marinette is beginning to falter.

Caline tries very hard to keep her expression open and pleasant and nothing else.

Nino steps in quickly, literally stepping in front of his friends and throwing a worried glance back at them over his shoulder. "Um, we thought if we tried havin' some conversations in character, that might, like, help us out in... in game?" His voice starts wavering towards the end, pitching up into a question.

Caline does a very fast internal recalibration at that. Ladybug and Chat Noir have been fighting together for over a year, and while she's seen the signs of stress in them- in them as both superheroes and as her students, she realises now- she's never seen them quite as agitated as they are now. Nino, Alya and Chloe are all doing a bit better, but then they've been keeping their secrets for far less time (and not at all in Chloe's case), and Hawkmoth hasn't been shouting demands for their Miraculous into the heads of everyone he can sink his claws into.

"You know, the chess team outgrew their old room," she says, carefully, watching Marinette's reaction more than the others. Marinette seems more worried about Adrien than anything else, though, and he's noticeably not meeting her eyes.

For the first time Caline wonders exactly what happened that they all found each other out, but as much as she'd like to know it really isn't any of her business.

Making certain that her students are as safe as she can reasonably manage is one of her responsibilities.

"Did they?" Nino says, a bit nervously, as he shifts again to put himself even more in front of the others. Now that she knows what to look for Caline is not wholly certain how she never saw Nino in Carapace, as he moves to defend his friends automatically, as his hand moves like it's clenching on an invisible shield.

"Yes, so no one's using it." Caline sees Marinette and Adrien exchange a complicated look at that, one that she's sure conveys more information than she can pick up on without knowing them much better than she does. "If the five of you wanted a more private place for a smaller campaign, I'm sure there'd be no problem with you using it. I can check for you right after class, but-" She sighs. "Honestly, I'm sure you can just go ahead and use it, Principal Damocles hasn't turned down anyone's requests in months." She wishes he would turn down some of them. The art club has dropped most of their other projects to see just how much of an obstacle course they can get away with trying to build.

(Marinette is in the art club. Maybe they should just let them go ahead).

"That would be amazing, Mme. Bustier," Marinette says, steadily, and Caline risks another glance at her and Adrien (and tries very hard to keep from staring at his ring and her earrings). "Can we use it after class today?"

"I don't see why not." Caline gestures broadly at the window, where Kim and Alix are now visibly shoving each other out of the way as they try to find a way to unlatch it from the outside. "But for right now, I think we should let everyone else in and concentrate on class."

There's no missing the sudden narrowing of Marinette's eyes as she realises the window is locked for the first time in months, as her gaze darts over to the door and finds it locked, too. (No one has actually tried to use it, even now). There's no avoiding the suspicion there, but Caline only meets Marinette's carefully-concealed alarm with a serene expression of her own.

"Thank you, Mme. Bustier," Marinette says at last, waving off her friends until they scatter to their own desks. Marinette and Adrien have been at their desk the whole time, but Caline doesn't think she's imagining the much-diminished distance between the two of them, and she thinks they might be holding hands under the desk now. "You're right, we should let the others back in."

She is definitely not imagining the amusement in Marinette's voice at that.

They do have to let the others in and continue class, but if five of her students are less attentive than usual Caline doesn't pay any attention to it. Instead she waits long enough after class to point them in the direction of the unused club room and then goes to pay a visit to Principal Damocles.

The man would probably give his blessings for his students building an actual Ninja Warrior course in the courtyard by now (and by now she lives in fear of the day that occurs to one of the students, and by 'one of the students' she means 'almost certainly Kim'), so Caline isn't surprised when Principal Damocles gives her blanket permission to let any of her students use the vacant club room.

When she leaves his office, she finds she's already cataloguing things to stock the room with. First aid kits, certainly- Miraculous Ladybug may have always set things to rights so far, but there's no way of guaranteeing that will be true every time, and if these kids are going to go running on rooftops and taking tumbles from various heights and fighting supervillains then first aid is something they should know.

Actually, Caline decides that's something she should really just add into her lesson plan. It won't hurt for all of her class to know it, and it's far less suspicious than teaching just these five would be.

She does still fully intend to stock their new strategy room with its own first aid kits, though.

She finds herself mentally cataloguing the books she has both in her classroom and at home. There are a few on strategy mixed in with her personal books that are about to find a new home. Ladybug may be a skilled strategist- but she's also a teenager. More knowledge is never going to hurt.

Caline stops where she is in the middle of the hall for a moment, rubbing tiredly at her forehead. Ladybug and Chat Noir are teenagers. All of the heroes are teenagers, and all of them are in part her responsibility. She knows better than to ask them to stop what they're doing. She knows that they can't, and she knows that she can't and shouldn't ask them to give up their Miraculous, not when they've been using them to protect the city for so long, and certainly not when that's what Hawkmoth demands of them. She can't tell their parents, either, as much as she would like to- Gabriel Agreste is the most immediately obvious problem, but she doubts the rest of their parents would be thrilled to learn about their children's more exciting extracurricular activities.

(Well, Marinette's father might be. It's very obvious which parent Marinette tends to take after just that little bit more).

But Caline knows her students, too. She knows teenagers.

She sacrifices her PlayStation to the cause, quietly setting it up in a corner of the room and leaving Final Fantasy Tactics and Eternal Eyes both very prominently in view beside it. She leaves other games there, mostly other RPGs (although she suspects most of the five are more than familiar with them), but she thinks the strategy games will be the most helpful. After a moment's thought she also leaves several puzzle games. Strategic thinking may be Ladybug's specialty, but it won't hurt if her whole team improves at it.

By the end of the next school day, Caline surveys the room she's tried her best to designate for her five students and decides it's really the best she can do. She knows, too, that she'll be a lot easier on them when they're late or absent now, that she'll be lenient with missed or late assignments, that any group projects are likely to be easier on them if she keeps them together.

And, quite possibly, she enjoys watching the shifting dynamics between them. She's only observed them for a single class period since they all found each other out and subsequently revealed themselves to her, but there are definitely aspects of their hero selves that show through. Adrien's happier and beginning to show signs of getting past his need to please everyone at once, Marinette and Chloe are both calmer and seem to have settled on a solid truce and possibly even the beginnings of a real friendship, Alya and Nino are far more confident than they were at the beginning of the school year- as dangerous as it is, as nerve-wracking as knowing that it's children she teaches that are out there fighting Hawkmoth, it's obvious that in many ways their Miraculous are good for them.

She's still going to have words with them if she ever works out exactly who thought asking children to go into battle against a supervillain was a good idea.

But if it had to be someone her student's age- well, these five have proven themselves many times over. Ladybug and Chat Noir, especially, have earned their reputation as protectors of Paris.

And now that she knows, Caline will do everything in her power to support them.

If they've been chosen to be responsible for Paris, then Caline will do her best to be responsible for them.