This is my attempt at writing a 'typical' Miraculous Ladybug episode. There are five chapters in total. Enjoy!

The day that the entire grade went to the butterfly gardens started out fairly normal. Students were assigned partners from their homeroom classes before they left, just to make sure any temper tantrums from a certain blue-eyed blond were kept at school and not out in public.

The bus came on time, much to the relief of the teachers who were already having trouble containing a couple particularly unruly students. They piled on in a rush, students pushing as they tried to get to the seats in the back of the bus. Others waited for the pushing to stop before boarding.

Marinette, paired with Adrien, sat in front of the bus. Chloe, glaring jealously at Marinette, sat across the aisle. She had not been happy about getting paired with Ivan, who was one of the few people in the class who wouldn't let her get away with doing no work. Nino, paired with Rose, and Alya, paired with Mylene, both sat midway up the bus.

"It's nice to have a bit of a break from the normal schoolwork," Adrien commented as the bus started up. He grinned at Marinette. "I mean, I don't mind schoolwork that much, but the novelty is wearing off a bit, you know?"

Marinette laughed at that, earning another glare from Chloe. Adrien found himself glad that his friend had gotten more comfortable around him after their Megastrike 3 training and hanging out while her uncle cooked. She was a lot of fun to be around, even when her stuttering made a comeback. "The novelty of school wore off for me quite a while ago so no, I don't really know." She grinned again. "I think you're the only one who still gets excited about getting homework."

Adrien could only shrug sheepishly.

"And it's not like we're not going to do anything today," Marinette added. Opening her backpack, she tugged out the packet that Miss Bustier had given them. "We have this entire thing to fill out and then I think we might be getting some other activity to do in the afternoon."

"Still, at least it isn't calculus or Social Science or French Literature," Adrien said with a grin. "New information is interesting. Besides, I've never been to the butterfly gardens before. Have you ever been?"

"Once, when I was really little. Dad has a picture of me with a butterfly on my nose." Marinette grinned. "Of course, he caught me when I was about to sneeze, so my face was all screwed up under the butterfly."

Adrien had to laugh at that, fighting down the urge to ask if he could come over after school to see the picture. He was willing to bet that little Marinette was absolutely adorable.

The bus ride went fast, helped along by Adrien's excitement. It seemed like he couldn't sit still in his seat, resulting in him bumping into Marinette more than a couple times as he squirmed and peered out of the windows of the bus. It soon became very, very obvious that he had chosen their spot just so he would be able to see out the front of the bus and then be the first one out once they got to the butterfly gardens.

"Do you like butterflies?" Marinette asked as Adrien knocked knees with her again as he craned his neck to look out the front of the bus again.

Adrien jumped, startled, then winced as his elbow and the window frame collided. He straightened back up with as much dignity as he could manage. "Not really, but I want to see what it's like. I also just don't like bus rides that much, I guess. The seats are less comfortable than I thought they would be."

Marinette giggled. "Not as nice as the ones in your family car?"

Adrien's cheeks flushed. "I wasn't expecting them to be that good. I just wasn't expecting them to be less comfortable than our desks."

Their conversation was cut short by Miss Bustier rising from her seat, turning around, and loudly announcing that they were only a kilometer away from the butterfly gardens. They could use the bathrooms once they got off the bus, but other than that they were expected to stay with their groups. Adrien listened attentively, despite the fact that they had all heard the exact same instructions before the busses left as well as on the previous day. Marinette, who had heard a million such spiels before on previous trips, slid back down in her seat and texted Alya. Just as Miss Bustier finished talking, the bus driver turned off the main road, heading down a short driveway before pulling to a stop in front of the main building. Immediately the bus filled with the sound of people chatting and feet scraping as everyone jostled to get in the aisle and off the bus. Marinette managed to shove her way out first, followed by an enthusiastic Adrien. She had to pull him forward so that he wouldn't get trampled by the river of students pouring out of the bus while he gazed as the imposing wood house in front of them.

"Are the butterflies in there?" Adrien wanted to know, craning his neck to get a better view. "That's not what I was expecting."

Marinette shook her head. "That's just the research and education center. The greenhouses are behind it. There's an admissions price, so they set it up like this to make sure people pay before they go in."

It took a few minutes before the groups had reconvened again. Madam Mendeleiev led her group in first, followed by Miss Bustier.

They each split off into a different classroom, since the groups had each been assigned to a different biologist from the gardens so that the groups wouldn't get too large and so all questions could be answered. The biologist for their class was tall, thin as a rail, and had mousy brown hair. Overall, he didn't look particularly impressive.

"Mr. Johnson is a visiting biologist from the western United States," Miss Bustier announced as they all settled in the chairs that had been set up. "He'll be doing our presentation today as well as leading our tour of the greenhouses. Don't forget to listen, because you do have that packet to fill in."

From behind Marinette, Alix snorted quietly. "As if we could forget," she scoffed to Kim. "She's only reminded us a million times."

Miss Bustier either didn't hear or didn't bother to respond. "You'll have two hours to work on your worksheet with your partner and explore the greenhouses and the exhibits by yourself once the tour is done, and then we'll have lunch and listen to a presentation given by all of the scientists here before heading back to school. Remember that both people in a group must work on the worksheet. If your partner doesn't pull their weight, report them to me and they'll lose credit."

Chloe scowled. Ivan looked unbothered.

Miss Bustier beamed at the class. "And if there are no objections, let's start our presentation!"

Thankfully Mr. Johnson spoke fantastic French, though he did have a bit of an accent. He definitely knew a lot about butterflies and was clearly reigning himself in so he wouldn't confuse people by going too in-depth. Adrien suspected that his clipboard might have a vocab list for some of the butterfly parts and other words that weren't exactly basic French. The first part of the presentation was definitely interesting, with Mr. Johnson's stories about his adventures in studying butterflies. It wasn't something that Adrien ever would have expected to be a particularly interesting job, but apparently the fieldwork could be quite unpredictable.

And then came the section on butterfly identification. They started with the most distinctive butterfly species of the area, which was easy enough, but now they had wandered into looking into some of the less distinctive, more easily confused butterflies. Supposedly they were just doing a light overview of some characteristics to look for.

Adrien was already very much lost, even though they were looking at slides of still butterflies. He could only imagine how difficult it would be to identify live butterflies.

Still, Adrien paid as much attention as he could, even as his classmates' eyes started to glaze over.

"In contrast to the Pyrgus cacaliae, the Pyrgus carthami has markings on the abdomen." Mr. Johnson pointed to the difference on the slides. Adrien squinted. The markings were there, but only faintly visible. Chancing a glance at Marinette, he could tell that she didn't look much less confused, though she was dutifully taking notes as she listened. Mr. Johnson glanced down at his clipboard again before continuing, clicking on to the next slide. "Now, both Pyrgus cacaliae and Pyrgus carthami are lighter in color than several other species in the genus. Pyrgus cirsii, for example-"

Yeah, he was lost.

Once the section on butterfly identification dragged to a merciful end, they all lined up for a tour of the greenhouses. Adrien was probably more excited than the rest of the class put together, even going so far as to bounce on the balls of his feet as they waited for Mr. Johnson to lead them out.

Marinette had to tug Adrien along once they reached the greenhouses. He twisted his head back and forth as they walked, trying to catch sight of the butterflies that fluttered in between the plants that filled the greenhouses. This was the part of the tour that he had been looking forward to. The greenhouses were a tad on the warm and humid side for his taste, but the plants and butterflies fluttering around more than made up for the slight discomfort.

"How did you like the presentation?" Marinette asked Adrien as they waited for Mr. Johnson to start talking again. The scientist seemed to be busy rearranging his clipboard, looking for his notes for the next part of his talk. "I liked the first part the best."

"Same." Adrien glanced over at the scientist before lowering his voice and ducking his head so that they wouldn't get overheard. "I got really confused with the ID stuff. All of the scientific names? I don't get it."

Marinette could only shrug. "Scientists like scientific names, I guess. They're universal across languages." She grinned. "But I still like common names better. They're much easier to remember."

Nodding, Adrien opened his mouth to agree when Mr. Johnson finally found the page he was looking for and started to more or less read off of the paper. There was a lot of information about why they kept the greenhouses at the temperature and humidity that they did and the plants that were there. Adrien jotted quick notes to himself, unable to keep his entire focus on the scientist when there was so much new stuff to look at. A orange and black butterfly fluttered by, resting briefly on Marinette's arm before fluttering off again.

"Excuse me, sir? What kind butterfly was that?" Juleka asked, raising her hand as she cut across what Mr. Johnson was saying. "The orange and black one."

Mr. Johnson looked a little startled as he was jolted out of the flow of his talk. "Oh. I... I'm not sure, really-"

Chloe scoffed as she rolled her eyes disdainfully. "You're a butterfly scientist and you don't know what kind of butterfly something is? It wasn't even one of those boring ones you were talking about earlier."

Mr. Johnson looked affronted. "Miss, I am a butterfly scientist from the Yellowstone region of the United States. The species of butterflies that you have here are quite different than the ones I see and study back home."

"So? Learn them then." Chloe shrugged, inspecting her nails. "What's the point of you being here otherwise?"

"Chloe..." Miss Bustier started, looking alarmed as she looked between the bored Chloe and offended scientist. She was cut off by Mr. Johnson.

"I can here to study the similarities and differences between the butterflies here and those in my home state. I have primarily been dealing with their diets. I have not had the time to learn the names of all of the butterflies here, especially since I've only been at this garden for just over two weeks."

Chloe only let out a snort.

"All right, I think it's time for you to have a bit of free time to explore the greenhouses and to fill out your worksheets!" Miss Bustier announced loudly before the situation could escalate any further. "If you have any questions, you can ask me or Mr. Johnson or any of the other scientists here."

With a tight smile the students were waved off. Some shot off like they had been shot from a cannon, while others wandered off more slowly. Adrien tugged Marinette off behind him, weaving through narrow paths with overhanging plants. A few more butterflies flew back above them, taking off as they brushed past the flowers they had been resting on.

"In a hurry?" Marinette asked as Adrien found a table among the plants. Flowers surrounded the small alcove.

"Yes- well, no- well, I want to get the worksheet done so that I can explore." Adrien grinned at her sheepishly. "I also wanted to get out of there before Chloe ticked off anyone else."

Marinette let out a sigh of agreement. "I wish Chloe would stop aggravating everyone she meets." Sitting down, she opened her bag and pulled out the worksheets they were supposed to fill out, along with two pencils. "What I would give for just one day of peace..."

Adrien nodded as he snatched the worksheet and flipped through the it, glancing at the questions. There were several he could answer without even looking at his notes. "I hope Miss Bustier explained to Mr. Johnson about how Chloe is. He looked pretty upset."

"I'd be upset too if someone questioned my ability to do my job." Marinette tugged the papers back from Adrien. "Are the questions awful?"

Adrien shook his head. "A lot of these look pretty easy. I was worried that Miss Bustier was going to ask really detailed questions, but she didn't at all."

Marinette shrugged. "She probably only wrote questions that she knew we would be able to answer. They might not cover all of the information during every walk, so she only asked about things that she knew were going to be covered no matter what." She flipped the page over, skimming over the last few questions before she winced. "There's a butterfly identification section. We're supposed to find five butterflies, take a picture of them, and figure out what species they are using the pamphlet we got at the start."

"We might have trouble with the question two from the end," Adrien said as Marinette scribbled in an answer. "It covers the information that Mr. Johnson had been covering when Juleka asked about the butterfly. I don't think we actually finished the presentation."

Marinette groaned as she filled in another answer. Adrien grinned at the frustrated noise and the ridiculous face she made before pulling out his phone and texting Nino. Since several students from the other class hadn't been able to come and the class sizes were uneven, Nino and Rose had been pulled from Miss Bustier's group into Madam Mendeleiev's group. Hopefully his friend had gotten the whole presentation and hadn't been distracted. Seconds after he sent his text, Adrien got a reply.

Nino: Bro, you were supposed to listen to the presentation

Adrien: I DID, but our presentation cut off early because Chloe was being Chloe

Adrien: I just need some help with that one question I swear

There was no response to that one, so Adrien just shrugged and went back to his questions. It was fully possible- no, incredibly probable- that Rose had asked Nino to focus. Adrien would get his response soon enough, hopefully.

"I think the thing about how they mark butterflies was cool," Marinette said as she finished a question, dotting a period with her pencil before glancing over at Adrien. "I never would have thought of using apple-sticker adhesive to put a sticker on a butterfly."

"That was cool." Adrien peered over her shoulder. "Isn't there some question where we get to write down the most interesting thing we learned? I vote we write that down."

It didn't take long for the two of them to plow through most of the questions. Nothing was that hard to answer, though they did have to leave the second to last question blank since Nino hadn't responded yet.

"Time for identification," Adrien sighed as they tucked the paper into Marinette's bag. "My favorite."

"Think we can get away with common names?" Marinette joked as they stood up, ready to start their butterfly search. "Or do we need to copy the scientific name down as well?"

Adrien opened his mouth to reply. Before he could say anything, a scream echoed throughout the greenhouse.