Chapter Text
“Why did you come back?”
Marinette blinked, eyebrows slowly furrowing. Pumpkin meowed loudly from their spot on Marinette’s belly, annoyed at the human for pausing on her stroking. She resumed petting the cat’s back, who promptly reignited their purring apparatus.
“What do you mean?” Marinette asked, shuffling on the propped pillows to better gaze at Félix. He was sitting at the bed’s edge, eyes glazed over as he filed through a stack of papers.
“To Paris,” he murmured. “You said you’d leave and never come back if you could.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“Oh.”
Félix’s memory was leagues better than Marinette’s, so she believed him. Besides, it did sound an awful lot like something her pre-teen self would shout to the void only for it to swallow it without a care. Except for Félix, who would absorb it and care a whole lot, if his posture at the mere memory of it was anything to go by.
“Truth be told, I wanted to come back the moment I left.” Marinette turned her gaze back to Pumpkin as she slowly scratched their fur from their nape to the start of their tailbone. “From the moment Maman told me to pack my things, actually. It was like–” She flopped back on the pillows with a tiny huff. “–when I said it, it was a meaningless threat, it isn’t like it would actually happen, y’know?” She chuckled, a hollow attempt to alleviate something that resumed eating at her now that she recounted it. “When Maman said it… it was suddenly too real to process.”
Weren’t for Pumpkin’s blissful purrs and the gentle sway of their tail, the room would be in a crushing silence. But instead, it was simply the soft pre-verse as Marinette took some time to strung together a coherent thought.
“I don’t think it matters where I am.” She sighed, shoulders sagging.
It didn’t. She realized. It was obvious since forever, how did it just occur to her now?
“I’m not neurotypical, or white, or cis,” the words were choked out. Her fingers were scratching more forcefully through Pumpkin’s fur, who now had stopped purring to turn their big eyes at Marinette.
Now even the kitty knew there was something off.
“Anywhere I go, I feel outcasted.”
She wanted to bury her face on their fur, but that would mean pouring her problems on the poor kitty, and they didn’t need that, so she glanced at Félix. Which was a mistake, cause he also had big worried cat eyes.
Marinette shook her head slightly, forcing out a giggle. “But hey.” She scooped Pumpkin up and moved closer to Félix so she could bump the back of his shoulder with hers. “I’m fortunate enough to have you with me.” She rested her forehead on his shoulder, cradling Pumpkin between her chest and his back and said in a broken whisper, “So we can be outcasts together.”
It was almost desperate, the way she begged him to agree. To assure that it wasn’t all lost for her— her pragmatic mind knew it wasn’t. She was fine. She had a great career opportunity at her fingerprints; she was with her best friend, now also her boyfriend; they had a cat. She was so fucking lucky in several ways, but for some fucking reason, she needed the reassurance.
Sighing softly, Félix moved to wrap his arms around Marinette, holding her tightly as he uttered, “Yeah.”