Miracle Box - an MLB rewrite

News Flash

"Oh, happy birthday Adrien," Mrs. Bustier said as she was taking attendance. It was the 19th of October, roughly three months into school and only a week since the encounters with Theo Barbot.

"Wait, it's your birthday dude?" Nino said in surprise. He'd recently warmed up to Adrien a little more and they were finally getting along. However, since it was Ms. Bustier's classroom, Alya was the one sitting next to Nino, as her wheelchair couldn't quite allow her up the slant of the oddly built classroom. This meant, Adrien was next to Marinette, and Nino was cranking his neck around to see him.

"Oh um- yeah."

"Sweet! You're an official adult now!" Nino gave Adrien a fist bump. "Are you gonna do anything fun?"

"Probably not."

"Aw, why not?" Nino frowned.

"I dunno, I usually don't do anything for my birthday," Adrien said casually as if this were normal.

"But dude, you're eighteen! That's a big deal! Don't you wanna have a birthday party?!"

"Um... well I don't think my father would want it, so I don't really want one either."

"Haven't you had a birthday party before?" Nino asked.

"When I was a kid. I've grown out of it now."

"Grown out of it? Nah bro that's insane. Let's do something fun!"

"You mean... you want to hang out with me?" Adrien asked in disbelief.

"Of course dude! You're my friend now!"

"I'll see if my dad will allow it."

Mrs. Bustier called for everyone's attention. "Tomorrow we will be gaining a student. He was supposed to be here at the beginning of the year but due to complications, he hasn't been able to come until now. You don't need to draw attention to that, or ask him questions he doesn't want to answer. I expect all of you to treat him with your utmost respect. Is that understood?"

The class made murmurs of agreement but it was clear that, as any curious teenager would, these promises were simply built to be broken. Perhaps it was a similar situation that Adrien faced to get into school that caused the complications.

"Happy birthday Adrien," Marinette whispered as Mrs. Bustier started their lesson.

"Thanks," Adrien whispered back.

"I can't believe you don't have birthday parties. That's like... the one thing I look forward to every year besides Christmas."

"Why?" Adrien asked.

"Free stuff."

"Oh, my dad usually just gets me a new video game for my birthday... and Christmas..."

"Surely he gets you other things. I mean, you're rich."

"Eh, not really. Well, one time he also got me a violin but then violin lessons got in the way of everything so we got rid of it so I could focus strictly on piano."

"Aw, that's too bad." Marinette frowned. "Every year I get a bunch of clothes and sketchbooks because no one else knows what to give me." Marinette chuckled.

"That's sweet though. People don't really... give me gifts besides like... Chloe and stuff."

"Well, then I suppose I just have to get you a gift then, huh?"

"Only if you want to."

They started a focus on medieval vocabulary which Mrs. Bustier was currently teaching about. It was only five minutes left until the period was over when out of nowhere Lila flipped out.