Chapter Text
Marinette slept through her alarm that morning, and her mother’s countless attempts to wake her. She ate her breakfast in under three minutes like usual before running out the door and across the street. Little did she know today was going to be the most miserable day of her life, or at least that’s what she would call it when she wrote it in her diary later that night. School started at eight a.m. exactly and luckily for Marinette she strolled into her classroom at seven fifty nine. Walking through the doors she passed by Nino and Adrien’s table.
“Morning Marinette.” Nino said, his head laying on his desk.
“Good morning Nino.” She replied.
“Good morning Marinette!” Adrien said, with a smile on his face. He did this every morning. Every morning Marinette walked through the door late, and Adrien told her good morning like they were all chummy together, and every single morning she ignored him. Though this didn’t stop him, if anything it only fueled his attempt to get on her good side. He was certain she had one, her and Alya were like sisters and Nino says they’ve been friends for years. He couldn’t quite figure out why she didn’t like him, someone as nice as her, it didn’t seem to make sense that she would dislike him for no reason. Someone who was friends with almost the entire class, except for him Chloe and Sabrina.
She slid into her seat next to Alya and threw her backpack onto her desk. “Are you ever going to speak to him?” Alya asked.
“Not if I can help it.” She muttered, taking her text book out of her bag.
Alya shook her head, “I’ve never seen someone hate another human being as much as you hate him. I would go as far as to say you hate him as much if not more than you hate Chloe.”
“It’s a close tie.” She replied.
Ms. Bustier entered the classroom, just as the bell began to ring. “Good morning class, I trust you all had a pleasant weekend.” She announced before sitting at her desk. She opened her lesson planner and took a stack of papers out, “I have a new a assignment for you all to work on this week, it’s a literature project. You’ll each be assigned a partner for a book report on Shakespearean works.”
A loud sigh swept across the class. Group projects are the bane of every student's existence, they cause arguments, no one can agree on anything, and nine times out of ten one person ends up doing the majority of the work. “And since allowing students to choose their own partners always ends in disaster, I’ve taken the liberty of assigning everyone’s partner myself. You will also choose your stories randomly for the same reason, I've got little slips of paper with all the different stories written on them in this bowl. I'll go around and you’ll each pick one for you and your partner, there will be, and I cannot stress this enough, no trading partners and no trading stories. We don’t need a repeat of last time.”
Last time the entire class got into an argument because someone would have to work with Chloe and Sabrina. Adrien of course had already promised Nino he would work with him or else he would have volunteered.
“God I hope we get to work together.” Marinette said to Alya.
“Relax,” Alya said, trying to comfort her, “I’m sure Ms. Bustier will have partnered us up!”
Marinette kept her fingers crossed just to be safe. Ms. Bustier flipped through her lesson planner to her list of names and called them allowed, “Ivan you’ll be working with Kim, Juleka You’ll be working with Alix…”
At this moment it occurred to Marinette that if these partners were assigned randomly she could get stuck working with Chloe, again.
Ms. Bustier continued, “Nino with Sabrina, Rose with Alya, Adrien With Marinette, Mylene with Max…”
Her stomach sank. This was like something out of a nightmare. She knew she had been hoping not to get stuck with Chloe, but this isn’t exactly what she meant.
“Tough luck,” Alya said to Marinette who was now gap mouthed staring at her desk in front of her.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Marinette cried and dropped her head.
She half expected Adrien to turn around in his seat smiling like a dope to say something annoying, like ‘Aww Marinette, we get to work together. How awesome is that?’
Though he didn’t move or say anything.
“Alright everyone please switch seats so you can sit with your partner, and I’ll go around the class and let you pick your stories.” Ms. Bustier announced.
“Please don’t make me move next to him.” Marinette pleaded from under her jacket sleeve.
“I’ll move.” Alya said, standing up. She placed her hand on Marinette’s arm, and whispered, “Good luck.”
“Thanks, I’m gonna need it.” She replied. She tried to stay calm, cool and collected on the outside, because internally she was fuming.
Adrien sat his books on her desk, where Alya had been sitting, then sat down beside her. All without saying a word. She really thought he would say something. He’s always cracking jokes and trying to get her to talk to him, he should be jumping at this opportunity to annoy the hell out of her? She didn’t speak a word to him. Once everyone had sat down again Ms. Bustier made her way around the classroom with a bowl filled with folded up slips of paper. Starting at the front of the class she held the bowl out in front of Nino and Sabrina. Sabrina stuck her hand into the jar and pulled out a piece of paper, she unfolded it and called out, “Hamlet.” Ms. Bustier walked past their table to Marinette. Holding the jar out in front her, reluctantly Marinette stuck her hand in the bowl and pulled out a piece of paper, unfolding it, she looked at the story name written across it and begged to try again.
“Ms. Bustier, please don’t make me do this story. Can I please try again?”
Ms. Bustier shifted the bowl away from her and apologized, “I’m sorry Marinette, not everyone is going to get a story they like.” She read the slip of paper on her desk and told her, “I’ll pass out the stories in a minute, if it helps you’ll each have your own copy.”
“What’d you get?” Adrien asked, reaching across the desk for the slip of paper. He looked at what was written across it, it read, ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Out of everyone in this entire class she had to get partnered with Adrien, and out of all the pairs of students and all the stories they could choose from, they had to get stuck reading Romeo and Juliet. Adrien tried not to laugh, but he ended up smiling a little bit, the irony was hysterical in his eyes.
“It’s not funny.” She snipped.
“It’s a little funny.” He countered.
Ms. Bustier soon came around and passed out each group’s copy of their stories. “Most of these stories are under fifty thousand words, I expect you to be able to finish them before tomorrow. You’ll each be expected to write a five hundred word report on your story which you will read aloud to the class. In addition to your oral report, you’ll also be working on a project. You can choose between making a diorama, drawing your favorite scene, or recreate your favorite scene, acting it out in front of the class. That I will let you choose on your own.”
‘There’s no way in hell I’m recreating a scene from Romeo and Juliet with him. ’ Marinette thought.
Ms. Bustier handed her two copies of Romeo and Juliet and she slid one to Adrien.
“That actually sounds kinda fun.” Adrien said, grabbing his book, “Getting to act out a scene from the play.”
Of course the exact thing she didn’t want to do seemed fun to him. It was bad enough she had to write a report with him, there was no way in hell she was going to pretend to be in love with him in front of her entire class. The only thing even remotely appealing about that was that it might annoy Chloe. And that still didn’t make it enticing enough.
“I guess let me know when you’re finished reading.” Adrien said. All Marinette said in response was, “Mhm.” She found it awfully presumptuous that he thought he would finish reading before her. But she didn’t comment on it.
A few hours later the class was still rather silent, most students were still reading their stories. Only a handful were talking with their partners quietly. Marinette finished reading her story and closed the book. She looked over to see how close Adrien was to finishing his, and found that he had already closed his book and had been doodling on scratch paper while she read. “You’re already finished?” She said, surprised.
“Hmm? Oh I finished reading mine like twenty minutes ago. Are you done with yours?” He asked. Marinette had planned on finishing her story first to prove a point. It was slightly embarrassing that she took longer to read than he did. She tried not to let that show.
“Yeah, I’m done.” She answered.
Adrien turned around to face her. “Okay I’m thinking we should just discuss the story and make a list of the most important information that we should include. What did you think of it?” He asked.
She hated to have this discussion, but she didn’t have a choice, she had to swallow her pride and do it anyway or else she’d end up having to explain a huge F to her parents.
“That was one of the dumbest things I have ever read in my entire life.” She said, placing her hand on her temple.
“I have to agree with you on that, I think Romeo is a tad bit dramatic if you ask me.”
Marinette interjected, “I don’t see how anyone could ever possibly think of this story as something romantic? I mean Juliet is thirteen and Romeo is god knows how old. And they both kill themselves in the end? What sane person reads that and thinks it’s some kind of beautiful love story? It’s so stupid!”
“I was actually gonna say that should be what our report is about,” Adrien suggested, “since everyone always talks about the beauty of love and death when they talk about Romeo and Juliet, we could do something different and talk about how stupid it really is.”
She wasn’t sure if that would even be allowed. “So what, write five hundred words on how ridiculous Romeo and Juliet is?” She asked.
“I don’t mean literally call it stupid, I meant instead of glamorizing it, we could write about it from the point of view of it being a tragedy and a tale of caution.”
That didn’t sound like a bad idea, it would be way easier than pretending she liked the story, she just couldn’t believe she actually liked his idea.
“I guess that works.”
The bell for second period rang just as they were both getting out their notebooks. She was relieved she didn’t have to work with him any longer, and quickly started packing her bag.
Ms. Bustier stood up and addressed the class, “Reminder, you will be expected to work on your reports and projects outside of school hours, as tomorrow we will be returning to regular assignments.”
‘Oh great’, she thought, ‘not only am I stuck working with Adrien, I have to spend my afternoon with him too.’ Adrien was probably going to ask her whether they should go to his house or hers, but she wanted to put off that discussion for as long she could. She shot out of her homeroom as quickly as possible, she was eager to get to her next class where there would be no discussion of Shakespeare or his strange depiction of teenage love.