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Walking out of the school’s gym—now filled with decorations, music, age-appropriate drinks, and somewhat-better-dressed teens—and to the brisk night air of the roof was like getting to the shower after a long summer day.
Marinette stretched her arms, breathing in the open air as she made her way to the person sitting by the fenced edge.
“Got tired of the party too?” she asked in lieu of greeting, stopping a bit away from Félix to stretch her legs and arms some more—she was dancing (aka, jumping around in a sort of rhythmic manner) a lot, her limbs were numb, OK?
He nodded, uhuming. He had glanced at Marinette when she came onto the roof, but was now turned to the wired fence, looking out to the scenery.
Once done with her post-dancing stretching, Marinette dropped herself on the ledge, sitting a good few feet away from Félix’s back, with a huff. “Does it bother you?”
At Félix’s questioning hum, she elaborated:
“How quickly we get tired of these things?” She gestured vaguely in the party’s direction, where whispers of the music and laughter reached them. “Like– I was having fun! Dancing with Alina, seeing how much age-appropriate punch Flora and Alix could down before running for the bathroom, making fun of Amber and Sabrina behind their backs…” As she recounted, images of her friends and the fun they had surfaced, leaving a smile on her face. “But then,” she pouted as she continued, “my body gets heavy, my head starts spinning, and I have no choice but to get out before the meltdown catches up to me.”
“Not really.” Félix turned around to be facing the inside of the rooftop so he could look at her better, one leg propped on the ledge and his arms loosely wrapped around it. “These events are never fun for me, so–” He shrugged, resting his cheek on his raised knee. “–nothing to mourn. Too much sensory hell obfuscating any fun I might’ve had.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear it.”
“It’s fine, really.” He leaned back against the wired fence with a shink. “I’m used to it.”
Marinette knew she shouldn’t be pitying Félix, it just wasn’t the kinda fun he had! There were lots of other things he had fun doing—Marinette and their other friends made sure of it—but still. He went through the trouble of putting on some fancy(ier) clothes, helped Marinette pick out hers, indulged in all of their friends’ excited chatter on the way here, only for him to have to go away three minutes in to avoid sensory overload?
He might not mind it, but Marinette did. He deserved something fun to remember tonight by too.
She whipped her head to him with a grin, an idea popping into her head. “You like dancing, right?”
Félix coughed into his palm, putting both his feet on the roof floor as he turned to face away. “I thought we agreed not to mention this again,” came his muffled reply.
Marinette rolled her eyes, scooching closer to bump her shoulder on his. “We agreed not to mention this to anyone else, buuuuuuuut–” She leaned against his side. “–there’s not anyone else here, is there?”
Félix shoved her back with an elbow to her side, causing Marinette to giggle. “Where’re you getting at?”
She hopped to her feet, a hand held out with her palm up to Félix. “Dance with me?”
Félix stared at her hand for a moment, then snorted. “It’s not even the right song,” he mumbled even as he accepted her hand and let her pull him to his feet.
“Oh, how hard can it be?” Marinette put a hand on his shoulder, holding out their joined hands like she often saw in movies. First spin in, and she already had the sole of her low boots on Félix’s dress shoe. “Oops.”
“You were saying?” Félix raised his eyebrow at her, fitting his hand better on her side—was it impression, or were his cheeks pinker?
“It’s your prosthetic foot, it doesn’t count!”
Marinette resumed spinning them around, stumbling to another stop when she caught Félix’s other foot.
“You were saying,” Félix let out in-between snickers.
“Shut up!”
They kept swaying and whirling around and stepping on each other’s feet as the music downstairs went on. Félix’s smile became brighter and his movements more loose and animated as they kept doing a poor imitation of a waltz. He even pulled away from her to do one of those musical choreographies he knew before returning to her!
It happened roughly a week ago. The junkyard was a common hanging spot for Marinette and her friends, and she liked to go there from time to time to see what scraps she could find. In one of those times, she heard music. Following the sound, she found herself watching as Félix moved energetically and more swiftly than she ever thought was possible to an upbeat song.
(She knew he was athletic, but WOW. Watching him dance to a pop beat was another thing entirely.)
She couldn’t help herself and clapped and cheered by the end of his performance. Which caused Félix to startle and stumble on his feet and fall back on the tires behind him. It was through a lot of flustered rambling, but eventually, Félix admitted he liked doing the choreographies from the musicals he liked and got quite good at some of them—which Marinette thought was very cool, but agreed to not mention to anyone else as per Félix’s request.
Right here, though, with just the two of them, Félix let out that side of himself Marinette just caught a glimpse of once again.
“This is getting tiring,” Félix said when he and Marinette were just spinning and swaying again, and Marinette thought he was done with dancing, but instead, he just took away the hand they were holding up to rest on Marinette’s waist. “Here.”
He looked away as he did so, but from this distance, Marinette was sure of the pink on his cheeks.
She rested her other hand on his shoulder too—and yeah, this was a lot better than holding them up—and at a sudden spike of boldness, stepped closer to wrap her arms around his neck fully, resting her cheek against his upper chest.
Félix started slightly—and she heard the faint squeak that almost escaped his throat—but also wrapped his arms around her. His heartbeats were just as wild as hers, hammering out of sync against their ribcages.
But as they kept swaying, breathing, and relishing in each other’s presence, their hearts calmed down to a more rhythmic pattern.
“I think the music down there stopped,” Félix said after a while, voice soft against her temple.
Indeed, it had.
Marinette didn’t want to stop, but they’d have to regroup with their friends eventually, so she pulled away from Félix—only slightly—and stopped moving.
They were both still holding each other as they gazed at the roof entrance.
“You’ll have to teach me some of your musical dances so that I can accompany you next time,” Marinette said, smirking at him.
Félix let out a surprised laughter—mute, and only visible through the glee in his face—looking at Marinette like she just brought out the sun.
“Really? You want to do this again?”
“Of course!” She bounced on her toes, stopping on the tip of her toes, their faces now closer together. “We had a lot of fun, didn’t we? And, well–” Her shoulders hunched slightly as she looked at where her hands gripped his shoulders, and where his hands still rested around her waist, but she didn’t shy away. “–I like being with you like this.”
She didn’t think it possible, but Félix’s face was brighter than ever as he held her even closer, his forehead skimming against hers. “Me too.”
She wasn’t sure how, when, or who, but their lips touched. One time she was looking at his murky blue eyes, gleaming with such joy, she wanted to bottle and treasure them forever; the next, her eyes had fluttered shut as her lips connected to something warm, soft, and slightly chapped.
It was a simple touch. No more than a chaste kiss. Then Félix’s eyes—now wide and lightly glazed over—were in her field of view again.
“Uhm.” He was stepping away from her, hand moving to cover his mouth as his face reached new levels of redness.
Before he could, though, Marinette gripped him by the collar of his button-up and rose to her tiptoes to bring their lips back together.
Last time Marinette kissed someone, it had been overbearing and a bit too wet for her taste. Félix was a lot more gentle, if a bit hesitant. Only moving when she did, and only getting closer when she pulled him in.
It bothered her a bit, how frightened he seemed to be of crossing her boundaries, but that was fine. She’d assure him he could cross them as much as he wanted later.
Wait–
Marinette pulled away, breathing heavily as she dazedly looked up at Félix. He blinked his eyes open, just as out of breath, looking down at her with equal parts awe and dumbfoundedness. He was flustered, his hair was a mess—when did her hand get tangled in there?—and Marinette thought he looked more beautiful than ever.
“Uhhmmm,” it was Marinette’s turn to say as she pulled away from Félix, her shaking hands held up as she fumbled back to where she hoped the roof door was. “This was fun, but I gotta go. Kiss you later. BYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE!”
She rushed back inside—only having hit the door frame twice before managing to get through—going through the fizzled-out party and to the school entrance in record time. She hastily said goodbye to her friends—who, thankfully, were too deep into the party high to notice the state she was in—and marathoned back home, where she could properly process what the heck just happened.
It was only when she reached her bedroom door that it hit her:
“DID I REALLY SAY ‘KISS YOU LATER’ INSTEAD OF ‘SEE YOU LATER’?”
~•~
Marinette had—somewhat—calmed down by the time she changed into her pajamas and bundled herself in her blankies. Her phone lit up where it rested on her windowsill, and upon seeing Félix’s handle, she immediately grabbed it.
He had sent her a screenshot of some kind of poster of a very shiny pineapple with big lettering reading out, SpongeBob the Musical on top of it.
Before she could process the fact that there was a SpongeBob Musical, she read Félix’s next message:
‘I have the official recording of it. Wanna watch it together so that we can practice the dances?’
A squeal had already started at the back of her throat as she kicked her feet.
‘sure!! my home?’
‘Yeah. How about tomorrow at 4?’
‘it’s a date!!!’
She threw her phone to the other side of the room before she could see his response to the last message, then buried her face in her pillow and proceeded to squeal and kick her feet till dawn.