Switched

Imagine

Marinette straightened her shoulders and squared her stance before walking into her school. She passed a group of students from the grade below her.

"Hello," she said, using a deeper register than her normal voice.

A couple of the students blinked at her, mumbled 'hello,' and then began whispering among themselves.

Marinette felt a bead of sweat form on her forehead. "Hi! Hello!" she continued greeting fellow students.

"What are you doing?" Plagg hissed from her purse.

"Pretending to be Adrien."

"The miraculous is already doing that. By doing that weird thing with your voice, you're making Adrien sound like he's had a cold that made his voice super sexy!"

"You think Adrien's voice is sexy?" she asked.

"That is not the point!" Plagg exclaimed. "You're drawing unnecessary attention to yourself. Just act natural."

"Adrien's natural or my natural?"

"Your natural!"

At that moment, Marinette slipped on a banana peel that someone had failed to properly throw in the trash can. She grabbed the rim of the bin, struggling to keep her feet under her instead of falling flat on her butt.

"Okay, not that natural, Marinette," Plagg laughed.

"Ha. Ha." Marinette pulled herself up. She picked up the banana peel and threw it away. "All I have to do is make everyone think I'm Adrien while avoiding him so he doesn't find out my identity. I can do this."

"He already knows your identity. He was in your house this morning," Plagg pointed out. "Besides you two have to work together to fix this."

Right. Marinette felt defeated. She really didn't want to see Cat because she didn't know how to fix their fight. And she definitely didn't want to see Adrien after he'd woken in a room covered in hundreds of pictures of him.

"Dude, are you okay?"

Marinette looked up into the bewildered face of Nino, Adrien's best friend. It was then that Marinette realized she was still crouched behind the trash can.

"Yeah, everything's fine." Marinette stood and brushed herself off.

"Are you sick?" Nino asked. "Your voice seems weird."

Right. She needed to stop talking so low. "Yeah, I'm fine." Marinette only heard her own voice and hoped Plagg was right about the miraculous making her sound like Adrien.

"We should probably go then." Nino gestured to the stairs. "Before the bell rings?"

"Yeah," Marinette said. "It's just I don't feel good today. That's why I'm by the trash can."

Nino wrinkled his nose. "Not cool dude. Maybe you should've stayed home."

But Nino grabbed her by the shoulder anyway and dragged her up the stairs. "We could always keep a trash can by your desk in case you feel the need to puke."

"That's ok," Marinette assured him. "I can just run to the bathroom if I need to."

With the way her stomach was flopping at the thought of seeing Adrien, Marinette thought she might actually throw up.

"It must be all the fancy food you eat at modeling events. It's funny," Nino laughed. "You and Marinette must be tied for most bathrooms break per school year."

They walked through the classroom door. Out of habit, Marinette headed to her normal seat next to Alya.

"Dude, what are you doing?"

Halfway up the aisle, Marinette realized her mistake. "I just needed to talk to Alya."

Alya lifted a perfectly manicured eyebrow at her. "What's up, Adrien?"

"Have you seen me—Marinette?"

"Not today."

"Right. It's just I need to talk about me—to me—I mean, I need to talk to her." She looked over her shoulder to see Nino face palm.

"Why?"

Marinette had forgotten how nosy her best friend was.

"Uh proup groject. I mean group project," she mumbled.

"I don't remember any group projects." Alya's face wrinkled in confusion. "Nino, did we miss a project?"

"No, no!" Marinette assured her. "It's a, a personal thing. Me helping—Marinette's helping me with some modeling stuff."

"Oh cool." Alya was obviously still surprised. "I'll let her know you were looking for her."

"Smooth," Plagg laughed as Marinette headed back down the aisle.

"What was that?" Nino asked as they slid into their seats.

"I just feel off today."

At that moment, Adrien walked in. It was Adrien. Marinette was so relieved that she didn't have to look at a copy of herself.

Adrien looked at his normal seat and then started up to the desk Marinette shared with Alya. He gave her a hesitant wave before sliding into his seat next to the red-haired girl.

He seemed to be handling this a lot better than she was.

"Girl, you are not gonna believe what happened before you got here!"

Marinette strained to hear what Alya said next to Adrien, but Ms. Bustier interrupted her.

"Class, please begin by turning to page seventy-two in your Algebra textbooks."

Morning classes went by surprisingly short. It was all much too fast for Marinette, whose forehead and lip were coated with sweat by lunchtime.

She couldn't talk to Adrien!

When the bell rang to dismiss them, she quickly slid out of her seat.

"Adrien!" The blonde called after her, bounding down the aisle steps. "Hold up!"

It was weird to see Adrien calling himself.

It was weird to BE Adrien.

Behind him, Alya's eyes grew wide with excitement. She leaned over her desk to whisper in Nino's ear, but Marinette still heard her.

"Is she really doing this?" Alya asked.

"I need to talk to you." Adrien grabbed Marinette's hand.

"My girl's got game!" Alya said to Nino.

Marinette flushed with embarrassment. What was Adrien doing?

She allowed him to pull her out of class, just so she could escape the stares of her classmates.

"Come on. We don't have a lot of time," he said.