Chapter Text
i can’t take myself when i step up on the scene, and all these haters joking cos’ they know my swag be mean - bet you can’t do it like me; dlow
For all of her supposed stamina from dancing six hours a day, sprinting all the way from the academy to the skate park leaves Marinette panting hard and probably very red in the face. She leaps over bushes and dog leashes as she speeds along footpaths and through parks in an effort to make it in time. Well. In better time than she would make if she weren’t running an Olympic 2000m.
Her bag bounces maniacally on her back, as if egging her on. The skate park bursts into view as she turns the final corner and she pushes herself for the last few metres, hoping against hope she isn’t too late. She slips and stumbles three times over bags before she finally skids to a stop in front of Nino.
“I’m here!” she wheezes, bending to rest her hands on her knees in an effort to gulp air back into her burning chest. “I’m here.”
He doesn’t look up from his laptop. “You sound like you’re dying. What was it this time?”
Her withering look doesn’t have quite the same effect as she tries to resuscitate her lungs but he winces satisfactorily. She slides her bag down her arms and reaches for her water bottle.
“Chloé,” she hisses, through heavy pants. She gulps down some water. “And her new playboy buddy.”
“I didn’t think she had any friends.”
Marinette snorts into her bottle. “Mm. He’s new. Almost as nasty as her, too. He stuck gum to my dance shoes. And when I called him out on it, all he could do was stutter and try to deny it.” She breaks for another gulp of water. “I was watching him stick it to my shoe. If he thinks he can get away with it because he’s new he’s got another thing coming. He’s one of those ‘I have a rich daddy so I can do anything I want’ types.”
“I think I heard about someone new arriving at the academy.” Nino frowns. “What’s his name?”
“Pretentious Douchebag.”
Nino laughs. “You didn’t say that to his face did you? His rich daddy would have a scholarship student like you thrown out by the end of the day.”
“No,” Marinette scowls. “I wish I had. It’s just my luck that I have both him and Chloé in my class this year. Can’t I just go with you to your music class instead?”
“Sorry, bro. Musical prodigies only.”
Marinette sighs. “This sucks. I was already running late too because Mme Mendeliev is having a bad week and taking it out on us in class—I’ve done enough technique to last me a lifetime—but then I had to try and find shoes from the lost and found so I could get here.” She wiggles her toes in the bright red high-tops. “Turns out they fit perfectly.”
Nino smiles at her sympathetically. “Well the upside to all of this is that now you have new shoes.”
“I have to give them back,” she says, shaking her head. “Someone could be looking for them.”
He rolls his eyes at her and turns his attention back to his laptop.
“So did I miss it?” she asks, dropping down in front of the low wall he’s sitting on. She leans her back on the cool concrete and waits for her heart to slow down.
“Nope.” He pops the ‘p’. “Alix won’t be here for another ten minutes according to Alya. Something about her dad and the museum blah blah. I stopped listening. I still can’t believe she challenged Kim to a battle. There’s no way she’ll win.”
“Whatever you say.”
The afternoon sun beats down hot and hard on Marinette’s skin, uncomfortable after her sprint. She watches the buzzing activity in the park. Teenagers skate up and down the giant ramps on the far side, while right in front of them, a game of soccer is well under way on the gravel basketball court. Music blares from a speaker somewhere and a few guys practice their floorwork to the heavy beat. She scooches on her bum until she’s almost under Nino’s legs, trying to find some shade.
“Dude,” he sighs, but there’s no irritation in his voice. “We talked about this.”
“I’m too hot.”
Alya’s voice comes from behind them. “Hot damn.”
Marinette hears her high-five Nino.
“Alya,” she says, bending her head back against the wall to look at her. “Hey.”
“Hey girl.” Alya sits down on the wall just above Marinette’s head, draping her legs on either side. Marinette whines at the additional heat and pushes her legs away. “You should really put some clothes on. It’s distracting.”
Marinette frowns, tugging at her leotard and tights. “I just came from class. It was too hot for shorts today. I’m wearing a crop top. That counts.”
Alya raises an eyebrow at her. Marinette sighs and pushes herself wearily off the ground to grab her pair of shorts from her bag.
“You know, Alya,” Nino says, finally looking up from his laptop, “when you say things like that, it doesn’t sound very straight.”
Alya flips her hair with a smirk. “It’s not supposed to.”
“Don’t worry, Nino,” Marinette says, grinning at her friends and slipping on the shorts. “Alya still likes you back.”
Nino’s eyes bulge and Alya throws her cap at Marinette. Marinette laughs at them, batting the cap out of the air. She would be embarrassed, but the two of them have been not-so-subtly making eyes at each other for months and Marinette is getting impatient. She’s all for love blossoming in its own time, but there’s only so much of Nino’s ogling and Alya’s incessant—and really rather dirty now—flirting she can take before she locks the two of them in a room together until they admit it to each other. And maybe makeout a little. She can’t count the times she’s almost vomited due to heightened sexual tension. So she has resorted to gentle nudges.
Before Nino starts sputtering excuses about how he does not , in fact, like Alya; that they’re just good friends, and romance is the last thing he thinks of when he’s around her, whooping and yells rising from the edges of the park call for their attention. They look up to see Alix strutting up to the centre of the basketball court. She slips the ball from one of the players and kicks it on target straight into the back of the net to the cheers of the surrounding spectators.
“What a show off,” Nino says.
Alya shoves him. “You’re just mad because she’s good. Kim is going down.”
They watch as Kim and his crew of dancers cross the court to Alix. She crosses her arms casually, a dangerous challenge in her smile. Kim steps into the centre of the loose ring that has formed around them, standing almost flush against her.
“This is going to be good,” Marinette breathes, picking the cap up and stepping back to the wall to sit down.
Alya crosses her arms. “They are so going to bang later.”
Marinette slaps her shoulder with the cap.
“Hey Nino!” Kim waves at them from the court. “Turn it up!”
Nino grins and slips on his headphones. “Oh this one was made for these two. Hold up.”
A heavy brass beat pumps loud and alive through the air accompanied by an angry voice. Cheers erupt from the entire park at the familiar song, and Alya rolls her eyes. Marinette rolls up against Alya with the beat, criss-crossing her legs and laughing. She gives Nino a fist bump.
Everyone turns to the battle. Even the skaters have stopped to watch. Kim and Alix swing their arms back and forth in front them. He steps back and gestures for her to go first.
She starts strong, already jumping into more difficult moves, her toprock flowing nicely. Her entire routine is clean, finishing with a solid freeze. Cheers and gibes bounce back and forth in the air as she steps back to let Kim do his bit.
“He’s all power moves,” Marinette says as they watch him dance, “Alix has style, she has her own flavour. There’s no way he can win just by flipping around the place.”
Alya nods. “He’s all over the place, he doesn’t care about the rhythm as much as he does the moves. You’re going down, Nino. Get ready to pay up.”
Marinette looks at Alya. “You guys are betting?”
She shrugs and Marinette smiles.
“Guys,” Nino says, slinging his headphones back around his neck. “Who’s that?”
The two girls look over to the outer edge of the ring and see a dark figure lurking, hooded and unidentifiable. He has his hands stuffed into his pockets and he’s hunching, but Marinette can tell he’s tall. There’s a slim build under the baggy black clothes his wearing. For all his effort to hide in the shadows and remain unnoticed, the neon green high-tops he’s wearing are eyecatching. He’s nodding to the beat, feet moving almost unconsciously. A dancer.
“I’ve never seen him before,” Marinette says. “Alya?”
Alya, who has lived her entire life in this skate park, who knows it and everyone in it more than Marinette knows her own street, shakes her head. “No. But I want to find out.”
She drags Marinette by the upper arm towards the circle. Marinette stumbles and her feet skid on the gravel as she tries to keep up with Alya’s quick pace. The cap falls out of her hands even as she tries to save it.
“Alya wait—Alya—”
They arrive just as Kim finishes, the circle erupting in another round of cheers and taunts. Alya lets go of Marinette’s arm and pushes her way into the middle of the ring, cheering a little but flapping her hands to get them to settle down. Marinette lingers behind at the edge of the ring to watch from between bodies, rubbing her arm where Alya left a red mark.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Alya calls, the twist of a grin on her lips. “I know we all want to know who won the battle.” She pauses for a few cheers. “But who wants to inflate Kim’s ego, let’s be real. Besides, everyone knows that every new dancer has to prove themselves worthy for this park.”
She said ‘this’ but everyone heard ‘my’.
“And it seems you’re a dancer,” she continues, turning to the stranger.
The crowd turns to look at him. Kim knows better than complain about not being able to claim his win, joining in the murmured jeers running around the ring. Marinette leans forward to see the stranger walk into the circle. He turns his head from side to side, watching the crowd, gauging their reactions. He stops in front of Alya and nods.
She reaches up to flick something on his hood and Marinette sees they’re little black ears. “Un petit chat noir. What are you good for?”
Marinette can’t see most of his face but there’s a bright white flash when he matches her grin. It’s something wild, something feral, that grin.
Alya jerks her head in Nino’s direction. “Hey DJ. Let’s see what this chat noir can do.”
“On it,” Nino calls back.
The music thrums out from the speakers and the dancer slides back and forth a little on his feet, loosening up his limbs before they start. When he does, it’s different to anything Marinette’s ever seen before.
He plays with the notes in his fingers, tossing them back and forth from hand to foot, foot to hand. The music travels on and around him as he moves, as much a part of him as his body is. He moves with an uninhibited freedom, flowing from one move to another, from standing to floorwork as naturally as he breathes. His spins are almost flawless, cleaner than Alix’s.
Marinette sees that same danger in his grin in his dancing. There’s a graceful sort of destructive power in him as he lands his jumps and his legs slice through the air in blades of green. That feral grin seems to grow the faster and longer he dances. She feels a thrill in her chest as she watches him, her hips moving in time to his dance.
She pushes in between people until she’s almost at the inner rim of the ring. The chorus of the song rises and the crowd chants ‘Hey!’ along with the singer. There is strange new electricity in the crowd as they watch the dancer perform with unbelievable agility and precision. It pulses in her veins and she feels herself smiling.
Alya catches her eye and raises an eyebrow. He’s good.
Marinette laughs and gives her a thumbs up.
The dancer finishes the dance to the cheers of his audience and Marinette sees his alarmingly green eyes in the depths of his hood rove over them as he spins around to his applause. His smile changes to something giddy, almost child-like. His hands tighten into fists and flex, still full of energy.
“Well, Chat Noir,” Alya says, cocking her head. “You can really move.”
“Thanks,” he says, panting heavily. “I try.”
“Try harder and maybe you’ll make it into the crew.”
Surprised murmurs race around the circle. Alya doesn’t accept just anyone into the crew. She doesn’t dance anymore, but she’s the honorary captain and what she says means something here.
“Are you serious?” That giddy smile widens.
Alya regards him before nodding, waving her hand offhandedly like it’s nothing. “Auditions this weekend. Bring your all or you’re out.”
“Oh I will.”
“You’d better. I don’t like being wrong.”
Marinette snorts at her and his eyes flicker over to her for just a moment before they’re back on Alya. She walks into the circle rolling her eyes and starts to drag Alya out before they test each other any more.
“Well done,” she says to the dancer. “Earning her respect is no small feat. She’s very impressed.”
He steps forward to fully face Marinette. “What about you?”
He smirks with a touch of arrogance, of daring. Marinette raises her chin, pretending to appraise him properly. His smugness sparks faint irritation in her. She’s not going to inflate his head any more.
“Not yet, Chat Noir.”
His grin matches the mischievous glint in his eye. “‘Yet’ is just a promise for tomorrow, princess.”
Marinette raises her eyebrow at him, remembering the cursive lettering on her crop top that spells out ‘princess’. It’s not an invitation for nicknames.
She opens her mouth to point that out when Alya laughs and salutes to Chat Noir, pulling Marinette out of the ring with her. She knocks her hip against Marinette’s and throws her arm over her shoulder.
“He’s going to be annoying,” Marinette says, glancing at the dancer who’s watching them retreat back to Nino. His grin widens when he catches her eye.
“I think he’ll be great,” Alya states. “We can use a dancer like that for the next jam.”
“I agree,” Nino says. “He’ll definitely help us up our game.”
Alya looks pointedly at Marinette as she takes a seat on the wall. “Unlike some incredible dancers who don’t want to help us.”
“Alya,” Marinette huffs. “Scholarship student. Career suicide. If I enter competitions the academy doesn’t register me in I get expelled. Ringing any bells? They’d never let me apply to compete in a b-boying competition.”
Alya shrugs. “Fine whatever. Wasted potential is all I’m saying. You’d wipe the floor with all those b-boys.”
“Even your new Chat Noir?” Marinette rolls her eyes, picking up Alya’s abandoned cap and putting it on.
“Please, Marinette.” Alya leans back on her hands, letting her head fall back in an effort to soak up the sun. She closes her eyes and Marinette tries to ignore how Nino looks quickly at her chest; Alya is doing it on purpose. “You’re the best of them all. Even better than—” she yells the next part “—Alix who totally won!”
Marinette turns around to watch Kim’s face fall and she laughs. Complaints of injustice and shouts of contradiction rise up from the basketball court. Scuffles break out between Alix’s crew and Kim’s before someone intervenes.
“You weren’t even the judge!” Nino complains, slapping a crisp ten euro note into Alya’s expectant hand.
“Of course I was,” Alya says, stretching her legs lazily out in front of her.
Marinette settles cross-legged on the ground opposite them, flicking a small pebble at Alya. “That’s not very fair of you, Alya.”
“Yes it was. You’re both nerds. Shut up.”
Nino and Marinette exchange a fond smile. “Whatever you say, boss,” she says.
Alya smirks. “Damn right.”
Marinette looks back at the court again to see Chat Noir waving cheekily at her from the far side of it before he ducks out of sight. She narrows her eyes at the space he leaves, wondering if he’ll turn up to the auditions on the weekend. If he dances anything like he did today, there’s no way the crew can refuse him.
He’s a game-changer, that one.