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“May I have this dance?”
Marinette releases a breath, instant relief on her cheeks to be taking his hand in hers, happy to spin between his feet as Adrien leads her to the dance floor.
She hasn’t yet mastered the art of keeping her heart rate down to manageable levels around him, but, hey, she broke into an exclusive millionaire dance party for him! That had to count for something, right?
It had to. Because if it didn’t, she’d surely have the meat of her bones picked clean by vultures worth more than her and her parent’s lives combined. She picks, and picks, and incessantly rearranges herself, sweating and tasting her lunch from earlier that day. When dizzy eyes flit from mask to mask, Adrien directs her caution back onto him.
“You’re nervous,” he says, and that smile might be more charming than before, a surefire antidote to her fever. “Did you think I wouldn’t want to dance with you?”
“No, no—well, if you didn’t that’d be fine too, totally, of course, I just—“ Marinette shakes her head and laughs. Then again, if he were to spin her around, that gardenia-white dress may stick out, stained with her non-belonging, with flour and powdered sugar rather than crushed diamonds. “It’s just that…everyone here is looking at me like I’m a monster.”
Something in him hardens. Not like raw-cut diamonds, no. Something a lot less exquisite. A snap, a sinkhole, a squall sailors hit at sea, the type that cracks and splits boats down the middle. Something that very well could be monstrous, the snake tongue of his father hisses.
The orchestra washes that voice out in a riptide of stringed melodies when Félix takes her palm and smooths his thumb along the lines of it, remembering some old wives tale about reading fortunes, how every hand tells a story. He holds it up and spins her, dress swaying, all smiles and the princess pink of her flowers. She’s so much warmer than he is, he notices. Is this really all it took? Félix always thought it was harder than that.
Her grin stretches as far as her fingers, nestling in his hair, in the crease of his palm. Pillowy-soft strength.
Marinette has hands that work. Hands that create. For a girl like her to compare herself to people like that?
There were many more monstrous things in this world than Marinette Dupain-Cheng. He should know.
“Take a closer look, Marinette.” He braces her back and presses her closer to him, a trap, a shield, lips hot on her ear with his cautionary tale. “Who do you think the real monsters are?”
She doesn’t have to look.
She sees.
An embrace that’s as constraining as it is complimenting, the twist to his smile that quirks to the left—not the right. Not right. Not him.
“Félix?”
He grins.
“Lovely to see you again, Marinette. I didn’t realize you’d be attending tonight’s ball.”
To be fair, she probably didn’t realize he’d be there, either.
Eyes wide, she tightens, ears and rage ringing with alarm, perked up as if he’d just snapped a twig beneath his predator's paw. Siding a foot out, an escape route writes itself into her eyes. A map he can’t pin. So Marinette jolts, but Félix parries with another spin to the music, this time towards the crowd’s center, away from the exit.
Her face gnarls. “What did you do to Adrien?!”
“Don’t worry. I put him somewhere safe.”
“What does that mean?! He’s not some doll you can drag around, you piece of—“
Lights click, falling low for the spotlight to cast puppet shows with their snarling smirks, much to Gabriel Agreste’s dismay. Still calling security, he stands gnashing his teeth at the girl who’s as incessant as Ladybug, yet makes no move to stop her himself. Telling, really.
“Not a doll, you say?”
It’s perfect and precise the way Félix has her surrounded, even though none of these people were a part of his pack. Through the masks, he plainly sees, and easily puts them to work; used without even knowing it.
Their boat sways, bleached sharks circling the mast, swimming, snapping, dancing their own watery waltz and waiting for the first chunk to be bitten off. That’s all it took; one drop, one stain, and they’d all swarm in. Couldn’t make a scene now. Not if they wanted to be shredded to ribbons between smartphone flashes and veneer-white teeth.
But Marinette can make threats, too. The hand coiling through the hair at his nape tells him that much. One yank, one quick swipe of her legs underneath his feet and he’d hit the floor. Maybe. If she were fast enough.
“I swear to God, if you did anything to hurt him, I’ll—“
Another side step, Félix drags her with him. A meaning to his end, all Marinette could do was look on.
“You’ll what?” Scoffing and prideful, his supporting actress trips over his feet, less than amused. “Maybe you’ve got nothing to worry about and he’s safe and sound, sleeping peacefully in a broom closet.” He shrugs as if that were any better. “Or, maybe, he’s being strung from the Eiffel Tower with minutes before the rope snaps.”
The way he leans in, the dramatics of it, feels as though he’s telling a ghost story around a campfire rather than an empty threat. To her, that danger overflows.
She shoves him away, he tugs her back. Breaths pick up and sweat clings, the air thickening like tar, yet the way he spins her has her steps stumbling right back into line. Into him.
“Could you imagine that? What a shame. Adrien Agreste, died as he lived; in someone else’s hands.”
“You’re sick.”
Another spin. Another spiral of dizzying clover eyes cataloging every step, every blink. An actor is only as good as the reactions he gets, right?
“I’m not, actually. What I am is joking.”
“You suck at jokes then.”
“Come on. Do you really think I have the capacity to be such a monster?”
“Considering everything? You are a monster.” Marinette spits words like hot coals, fast crackling sparks, the mouth of a hearth. “You think this is funny? Joking about Adrien’s well-being? What the hell is wrong with you?”
His eye twitches. Or maybe it’s a trick of the light, another card in Félix’s deck, a play of the hand.
She continues, “If you think you’re going to get anything out of this—out of me—you can piss right off, Fathom. So whatever smart little plan or scheme you think you have; you can drop it.”
“What evil schemes do you think I’m planning, Marinette? And, actually,” Félix bares his teeth in a mechanical smile. It’s no wonder he and Adrien are twins. “I was thinking of changing it to just Graham De Vanily. ”
Marinette raises a brow. “Oh, just?”
“My cousin did say you were funny. But I have to say, you’re cheekier than you look.”
Félix’s smile blisters when the lights focus, trading his hands’ holster at her hips for a spot at her waist. He lands on the pink bow that ties her bodice together, because, of course, Marinette had to stain his uncle’s sense of purity—of divinity.
He likes that about her. Where there is the untouchable, Marinette will find a place for her hands.
“I wish I could say you’re more pretentious than you look, but you’ve got that down pretty well.”
He yanks her in faster than she changes her mind.
“A bit harsh. I’ll take that as a compliment, though.” He studies her again, and again, the way she whirls around and the way she hates. “Deep down, you know I’m not that cruel, don’t you? I wouldn’t hurt a hair on my cousin’s head. He’s very dear to me.”
Another chassé.
“When it comes to you, I wouldn’t put the thought far behind.”
Another grapevine.
“So you’ve made up your mind about me?”
“Oh, I’ve made up a lot of things about you, Félix.”
“And how so?” He grins. “You don’t like the way I dance?”
Marinette grips the tie around his neck in her fist; expensive fabrics, easy to strangle him with. “It’s not so much the dancing as it is the lying. You seem to be well versed in the subject.”
The harder she pulls, the closer they get, face to face, the mint of her gum, a Chinese finger trap. So he dips her, and he knows the music is coming to an end, heels stomping, diamonds spitting diatribes. Félix can put off the finale for another few jabs, can’t he?
Of course, he can. This is his show.
“I could drop you right now.” He says, threatening Marinette with another inch closer to the ground. “Is that a lie?”
She drives her heel into his foot and he grunts, sharp and aching, throbbing to the beat as Marinette slips through the sweat of his grip with a yelp. Félix doesn’t let her hit the ground, though. A last-minute decision or an impulse, his other hand flies up to snag hers—the one with his ring, and maybe it’s another light show that leaves him dazed, the snakepit’s shadow casting subliminal messages onto her face, but it’s wholly her that renders him frozen.
And what good is a stationary dance partner?
Marinette hoists herself back up and takes the lead, spinning them back into place on the chessboard like a queen and king should be.
A denounced king and a sorry excuse for royalty, they seemed more like. A peacock and a pheasant.
“That wasn’t very nice.” He strains, making sure his feet stay far, far away from hers.
“Oh, really? You wanna know what’s not nice? What’s not nice is making me dance with you.” She hisses, and by the tone, he knows she’d rather be screaming it at him. “What’s not nice is not telling me whether or not Adrien is okay! What’s not nice— “
“Fine,” He releases her, raising his defenses. “If you want to go, then you’re free to leave.”
He expects her to pull away. He expects her to hit the ground running and slip through the crowd until she’s free. He expects her to slide into his side and whirl them towards the—wait, what?
Félix has a lot of expectations for people in general, he knows, judgment for the monsters that think themself God. But people like her keep ruffling the feathers he had been spending a lot of time carefully preening! It was quite rude, honestly.
Because Marinette presses herself to him instead, chest to chest… hiding. From Chloé, from the crowd, from two very large, very angry security guards that looked as if they could make a fine wine out of her skull, grape-like in comparison to their hands. Did Gabriel hire men or bulls?
They dance on anyway. The orchestra players seem to pick up on Marinette’s impending doom as well, because that pricking music does little to help.
“Don’t go thinking this means anything,” she sighs, the face of her heart and the face of her enemy smiling back. “But I don’t feel like being at Gabriel Agreste’s mercy.”
“More so than mine?”
She laughs, sweet wine turned to vinegar.
“No. What I want from you is answers.”
Félix grabs her waist and lifts her, spinning Marinette to another square. She thrashes and whines, but reluctantly calms when it is obvious the skirt of her dress wasn’t the only thing chasing her. Another security guard had come up behind, swatting and missing, thanks to him (her grit jaw could cut through jewels at that, he thinks). Because, if anything, Félix was still Adrien to them. Precious, off limits, untouchable.
“And not my superb dancing skills?”
In light of Adrien and Kagami, Marinette and Félix were little more than stand-ins. Extras at best and props at worst. Even the lights clung to their skin differently, in neon blues and Tiffany turquoise, staining their dresses and suits, tainting this diamond society. Melting the liquid gold from their designer wings and soiling it rotten.
“Haha.” It’s anything but a laugh. “You know what I dislike most about you? You act like this is a game! Someone’s life could be at stake and you think you’re so much better than it all, don’t you?” Marinette’s brows narrow, twirling beneath his finger. “What was it? England’s youngest graduate in history? Top student in martial arts, equestrian medalist, polyglot—“
“All information easily found online,” he says, as if correcting her, and that alone makes Marinette singe, point proven. Angry, hot enough it’d become easy weaving in and out of the multi-million dollar heirs caging them in, spitting and cackling like white crows, dumbly flapping their wings to any new animal they can watch be whipped. “Don’t forget my many other talents. I’m a jack-of-all-trades, you know.”
“Master of none.” She rolls her eyes. “I think ‘glorified magician’ suits you best.” It sounds too silly to be an insult, and Félix is too utterly delighted with how hard she tries just to fail. “All those hobbies are impressive, I’ll give you that, but with an attitude like yours I doubt you have any friends to share them with.”
“Who needs friends when I have you? I mean, I’m flattered you find me interesting enough to research, truly, but even a dog knows that pathetic trivia.”
“You like dogs, don’t you?” It could be the way the lights hit her back, the shadows slithering onto her face when she dips him this time, cuffing his wrist tight enough to bear her threat. But he thinks she must be other-worldly when the neon glow halos around her like that. It's almost an enticing enough distraction from her animal’s grin, her teeth and her claws. “I wonder if anyone knows about your affinity for butterflies. Or, no, wasn’t it moths?”
It’s dizzying, their moves. The way they duel; stitch and thread, parry and riposte, falling beside the other in such easy steps one would think they’d been dance partners for years. They begin to blur, hypnotic like the feathers of a peacock; the art of being faceless in a reflection, of being seen in the dark.
This could hardly be called dancing. This was something other, something so uniquely Félix it kept her stumbling after him, blinded yet seeing, looking through his eyes, a magic mirror.
In the other, there was a certain sameness that frightened far more than it comforted. Or, maybe, that sickening comfort was the very thing turning in their guts.
Félix brushes a strand of hair from Marinette’s face, making her nose crinkle. “Don't be so catty, Marinette. There was a bug on you.” Liar. Picking a petal off the flower at her collarbone, he lets it fall, sending it sweetly to its death. “Speaking of bugs; ladybugs are a longtime favorite of mine. More so than moths.”
Marinette cocks her head like a gun, and shoots.
“…w-why’s that, exactly?”
Hunger, how he looks at her, tilting her jaw to the side just for her to snap it back into place, half-girl, half-animal.
“I’ve always admired your taste in jewelry, Marinette.” Félix watches the lump in her throat go down with a hard swallow.
“I—” She hesitates, but something crooked in her surges at his presence. He can taste it. The anger that’s long since rooted under her skin, the guilt of indulgence that spills and sullies anything it touches like the thickness of oil. She’s kept it so well contained till now. Till him. “I can’t say the same for your taste in brooches. Feathers are so tacky.”
Something breaches the surface.
It’s a flurry of skin and hands after that, too quick to think through. His fingers—on her earrings—poised and ready to pull. Hers, at his brooch, perched and ready to pluck.
“One move and I’ll—”
“What, Félix?” It’s come full circle, now. “Take my earrings and I’ll take your brooch back right now, and then we’ll both lose.”
“Except I won’t. I’ll be that much closer to getting my wish.”
“If your wish was more important than this,” she flicks his brooch, the metal of feathers weaving through her fingers for less than a heartbeat before he releases one earring to grab her wrist. “Then you would've taken my earrings that day. You wouldn't have taken everything from me instead.”
“True,” he admits, because he gets to choose what information she does or doesn’t receive, because he’s in control, not her. Not the way she looks at him. Not the shame.
She fists his shirt, right over the jewel. “Why do you even want them so bad?”
“It's not a matter of mere want,” he bares his teeth. “I need this.”
The metal studs ice under his thumbs, the backs pricking into his forefingers like spindles, and Félix had enough looming fairy tales of sleeping beauties hanging over his heart.
It would’ve been so easy just to rip them out of her ears. To take. But with her own grip, Marinette probably would’ve ripped a hole in his chest where the peacock lay, where his vicious heart mechanically pumped. Gain something just to lose another, and Félix couldn’t lose the tight line of his life again, couldn’t watch his father spin the thread—the threat—over his head and tease it with scissors. He refused to.
He would never let someone else hold his life in their hands ever again.
Except, she let go.
Something hard collided with his chest (how did such a tiny girl pack such a punch?) and he stumbled, near falling, looking up only to find security guards surrounding them, a crowd of ten or twelve. Félix couldn’t help but scowl. All this over one girl?
The threat of hands at each other’s necks vanished with a new peril, and Marinette hauled him along with her, around and under, each guard creating an impenetrable wall to keep them contained like bad dogs.
Maybe ‘Adrien’ would be fine, but Marinette? These people could ruin her life with one tweet, one call to Daddy, one suitcase stuffed with cash. And she feels that chilling sweat slither down her spine when Félix yanks her back against his chest by the collar of her dress, away from grabbing hands.
“I’m not getting out of here alive, am I?” She asks, laughing hopelessly, coming here to profess her admiration for Adrien just to tango with Félix instead the sweetest irony of all. Fool me twice.
“I bet I could help you out.”
“I don't want anything from you.”
“But you need it.” Félix grins, and the ruffling of feathers, thousands of them like waves, like cliff sides crumbling into the earth, crash onto the dance floor with cracked wires and faulty spotlights bursting from all sides. The ceiling had cracked open. Marinette shields her face, her ears, and part of her shrivels at the red, the blood, blood, is that blood?
She knows it's not blood when he—well, not he, maybe, as the Félix she knew had turned a shade of wisteria purple, fitted with the brilliant greens and blues only a vain peacock would have. When he, Argos, plucks Marinette from her feet and whisks her away, she knows it isn't blood. It was never blood.
Ladybug needed to be called upon, they knew. It couldn't be helped, though, their view from above. The Diamond’s Dance almost looked pretty bathed in the red of Argos’ moon, and Marinette had always hated white, anyway.