Chapter Text
It was quite sunny, the day on which they met.
It was lunchtime for her, her free hour from work (she worked in a small café near the Eiffel Tower) and, since she wasn’t hungry, she climbed the tower to get some fresh air.
He hadn’t come to the capital for quite a while, so he decided to have a small tour of the most famous places, and since at that hour of the day there weren’t many people, he decided to climb the tower.
You already know where this is leading, right?
They looked at each other from afar. She was annoyed. He was interested. She hid from him, he kept chasing her.
“My name is Jean, Jean Luc Lartigue” she preferred not to answer, “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” “I need to get back to work, have a nice day, Jean”.
At the moment she said this, the pendant she always wore started emitting red light, as if indicating a danger was near, and a lady with bright red hair, dressed quite nicely, along with two men in smart attire stopped them from leaving.
“I had been looking for you for so long, my darling” was what she said, the girl with the blue hair felt threatened and decided to run away, with great rage from the redhead lady and her two companions, who started to run for her.
He lost all in the crowd, a bit disappointed and defeated, he found shelter in a café close to the tower, despite everything, Luck was smiling at him that day.
While ordering, he glanced a moment behind the counter, and he saw her “Hey you! We met at the Tour Eiffel!” he said, excitedly. She looked at him, smirked for a second, then turned back to her annoyed self, telling him gently to stay away from her (“Fuck you, leave me alone!” were her exact words).
Disappointment washed over him again, until, when his order arrived, there was a small piece of paper along with it.
XXX-XXX-XXX
Call me
-Nadia
The young boy in question did not have time to call her at all, as when he started sipping on his cappuccino the three friends they met earlier decided to barge into the café, armed with one gun each “Hands up, everyone, give us the girl at the counter and no one will get hurt”. All the people who were enjoying their afternoon were immediately filled with panic at hearing those words and started screaming in horror; Jean did not feel afraid even one bit and decided to take matters into his own hands.
Before any of their captors could react, he jumped on the counter and grabbed his new friend by her arm, dragging her with him towards the back, where they escaped. They ran for a bit before their legs gave up and the threatening trio was lost for good. “Hey- aahh- are you good?” was what Jean asked, panting and sweaty “I’m good, thank you by the way” was the answer he received from the girl.
In that moment of silence, they studied each other a bit.
She was still wearing her work uniform, a cream-coloured polo with crimson details and her name tag was somehow still pinned to it, with the name “Nadia” written on it. Her hair was a mess of blue and purple a pair of hoop earrings was dangling from her ears. He hadn’t noticed before, but despite being dark-skinned, Nadia’s eyes were a shockingly deep blue colour, like the night sky or the depths of the ocean, he was mesmerized by them and realized quickly he would fall for those eyes of hers.
Nadia was not impressed by Jean, his hair was the same colour as a carrot and he was far too pale, he was still holding her arm and the contrast was shocking, what she noticed after a minute was the constellation of freckles that adorned his skin, a sandy brown over creamy white, and the little arm hair he had was the same carrot colour as his hair. Moving up, she looked in his face and for a second a bright flash of azure behind thick glasses caught her, his eyes were scrutinizing her, looking for any kind of pain or discomfort, and when he was sure he saw none, he let go of her arm and started looking around.
“Hey Nadia, I think they’re gone, I believe you should go home now, would you want me to take you there?” she felt quite comforted by his boyish voice, but that quickly turned into a rage “HEY YOU how do you know my name?? Did those three terrorists tell you???” Jean laughed at her questions “Oh no, don’t worry, I just read it on your nametag, chill” she felt her face grow red when she realized and changed the subject “oh well, yes ok, my house isn’t too far but if you insist…” was what she practically shouted, holding his hand (she was still anxious for before, you dummy!!) and venturing through the small streets of Paris.
After she arrived home and they all said their goodbyes, Jean went to the train station to get back home, in the outskirts of Le Havre, when he got on his usual public transportation, he started thinking about the day that just passed, so many weird things happened, and he had no idea that many more were going to happen to both him and Nadia.
He suddenly remembered that Nadia had given him her number and decided to call her immediately, after a couple of rings she picked up.
“Who is it?”
“Hey, Nadia! It’s me Jean, how are you feeling now?”
“Good, how about you?” there was a hint of a smile on her face
“I’m good too, hey, do you want to go out one of these days?” he tried his best at hiding his nervousness, he really liked this girl and did not want to screw up
“Like a date?”
“If you want it to be…”
“Yeah sure” it was her turn now to be nervous, it was her first date in a while and had no idea if this would work out
“Are you free tomorrow?”
“Uhm…” she looked at the calendar on her bedside table “Yeah I’m free all day”
“That would be great! 11 AM works for you? I have classes until 10”
“Yeah sure, where do you want to meet?”
He was smirking now “Under the Eiffel Tower?”
They were both smirking “Yes that would be perfect, see you tomorrow, Jean”
“See you tomorrow, Nadia”
And with this, they ended the call, red in the face and smiling. They felt as if they already knew each other from somewhere but could not pinpoint where from, maybe just from passing each other on the street, they both hypothesised, but there was more, deeper than what they ever could have thought, into their fated meeting on the Eiffel Tower.