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Felix sat quietly atop the slatted rooftop of the cathedral, knees drawn up to his chest, stiller than the gargoyles that lined the architecture. Now transformed, his eyes could pick up a million and one other details in the darkness of the night, and he curiously watched the late night stragglers idle on the pavement below.
Thinking back to what Bridgette had said about him earlier made his stomach squirm in happy sort of way, like a jar of wriggly caterpillars anticipating their butterfly wings. He’d made a promise to himself back then in that library aisle, that he was going to tell Bridgette exactly how he felt, and his resolve was tougher than steel. But now, sat high up enough that the cold Parisian air bit at his cheeks, Felix couldn’t help the sense of nervousness creeping under his skin.
What if Bridgette decided it was too much? Or that she’d made a mistake?
He’d always thought it odd that she would harbour any sort of affection for him, considering he was a storm cloud in comparison to the ray of sunshine that was Bridgette Cheng. But then again, as Allegra would say, “opposites attract”.
Well, actually, Allegra would say, “I can’t believe you’re dating the Phantom of the Opera, but whatever. If you like a little cinnamon on your cocoa then go right ahead and be his Christine.”
And in a way, Felix agreed with her. Him and Bridgette were two sides of the same coin, complimentary colours on a forever spinning wheel, always in tandem. They were Ladybug and Chat Noir.
The corner of Felix’s mouth twitched as he heard a tell tale swish cut through the air like a bamboo staff, and he stood up in time to see Bridgette landing a perfect somersault about ten feet away from him, her hand reaching out to pluck a bag out of the air. Her grace was captivating, the lines of her body elongated even more by the long twin tails and ribbons flowing down her back, and Felix found himself wondering for the thousandth time how she managed to be so elegant and yet so clumsy as a civilian. Not that he minded. It gave him an excuse to wrap his arms around her when she tripped. The moon glinted off her hair, making it seem as if she had strands of pure silver threaded through her locks, and when she smiled, her whole face glowed.
“Good evening, My Lady,” Felix said in his usual greeting.
“My dear Chat Noir,” Bridgette responded with a quirk of her eyebrow.
Stepping up to meet him at the edge of the roof, she fished a cup of coffee out of the bag and handed it to him.
“Café au lait with an extra shot and four sugars,” she cited.
“I don’t like coffee,” Felix responded automatically.
“Yeah, yeah. Just take the damn drink, Fe.”
Bridgette ended her sentence by giving the cup a firm press into his leather-clad chest, and Felix’s hand jumped up to clasp it before she could drop it on him.
“Did you spill any with all those meretricious acrobatics of yours?” he asked, raising his cup to inspect it in the moonlight.
Bridgette gave him an indignant look.
“What am I? New?”
Plonking herself down on the rooftop, she let her legs swing over the empty air below, fishing into the bag again to pluck out a pain au chocolat. Felix joined her, pulling one out for himself as well.
“Are these from your aunt and uncles bakery?”
“Mm hm!”
Bridgette nodded around a mouth full of flaky pastry. Deeming them acceptable, Felix bit into one, the buttery sweet flavour melting around his tongue like ambrosia, and he involuntarily let out a small groan. Bridgette snickered.
“They aren’t that good, jeez. Keep it in your pants, Cassanova.”
Felix shot her a withering look.
“They are when pastries are banned from your house.”
“Mansion,” Bridgette corrected.
“Besides,” Felix continued, ignoring her quip. “My pants are none of your business.”
Bridgette actually scoffed at that one.
“Tell that to last week’s Chat Noir. ‘Oh, My Lady! Oh, Bridgette! I need-‘“
She was cut off sharply by Felix poking her viciously in the ribs, a startled squeal escaping her mouth as she toppled sideways. Catching herself at the last second, Bridgette shot Felix a downright offended glare, not missing the way her smirked at her.
“Ass,” she hissed.
“Hm? What was that about my ass?”
Felix’s smirk got wider, and he would have continued to grin smugly at her, had Bridgette not swooped in and kissed him on the nose. Felix blinked in surprise, and Bridgette pulled away triumphant.
“You’re early tonight,” she remarked.
“Mm,” Felix grunted. “I helped my brother finish his homework so I got to leave a little earlier.”
Bridgette’s face lit up.
“Oooh, how is he? And news on the school front?”
Felix’s lips pressed into a hard line with the kind of dissatisfaction that comes from being powerless.
“He’s frustrated at his limited freedom. I’m frustrated for him,” he said shortly.
Bridgette knew the situation the Agreste sons had at home, and she knew it was not an issue to push if Felix didn’t want to talk about it. But in a way, that’s why Felix felt that he could open up about things with her, because he knew she’d be there to listen no matter how much he had to say.
When it became apparent that Felix wasn’t going to elaborate, Bridgette placed her coffee on the rooftop next to her and reached out to take one of his hands.
“It’ll get easier for him,” she said quietly.
Felix could hear the promise in her words. He knew she was right, after all, he’d been allowed into public school after a certain age, there was no reason his brother wouldn’t be as well.
“How’s your cousin?” Felix asked, eager to change topics.
“She’s good,” Bridgette sighed. “Excited to start school again.”
She turned to face out towards the city, the many lights twinkling in her blue eyes, making them look like an ocean on a sunny day.
“Maybe she’ll be in the same class as my brother,” Felix wondered aloud.
Something seemed to dawn on Bridgette, and a wide smile climbed her face, the corners of her mouth desperate to reach her eyes.
“Oh my God!” she gasped, turning to him. “FELIX!”
Felix just blinked at her patiently.
“What?”
“Do you think they’ll get together?!”
The stare Felix gave her in response was equal parts impassive and incredulous, a dangerous cocktail for the contemplative mind.
“They haven’t even met each other yet and you’re already planning their wedding?” he spluttered.
Bridgette clapped her hands on to his shoulder, giving him a vigorous shake that swung his body side to side with the strength of her excitement.
“They’d be so cuuuute! She’d absolutely adore him, I just know it!”
Felix continued to stare blankly as Bridgette’s mouth dropped open.
“Oh my GOSH! What if they inherit our roles??”
Felix frowned.
“Inherit our roles?” he quizzed. “What do you mean?”
The confusion in his voice served to quell Bridgette’s enthusiasm, and she let her hands drop from his shoulders to nervously play with the ribbons in her hair.
“Well… I mean, we’re not going to be doing this forever. Being superheroes, I mean.”
She looked down sheepishly at her hands fidgeting in her hair, shoulders rising ever so slightly with apprehension.
“I know,” Felix replied shortly.
Bridgette’s eyes found his, and she frowned at him.
“What do you mean, ‘you know’?”
“I mean, I know we’re not going to be superheroes forever,” Felix responded patiently.
Bridgette’s fingers were in danger of twisting her dark locks into frayed string.
“And you’re okay with that?” she asked quietly.
Felix watched her, the nervousness in her voice, the trepidation in her eyes and body language. She was afraid.
“It’s an inevitability,” he said matter-of-fact. “I just assumed we’d eventually be replaced as soon as I got my miraculous.”
Bridgette regarded him levelly, finally dropping the now knotted hair from her agitated hands.
“It’s not something I really thought of until recently,” she admitted. “Actually, it was thinking about you that made me realise that some day we’d have to give all this-“
She gestured to the litany of rooftops that surrounded them.
“-up to someone else.”
Bridgette sounded so melancholy that it broke Felix’s heart, and he moved up to wrap his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her reassuringly.
“What was it you were thinking about me?”
Bridgette peeked up at him through her lashes, her eyes blue and bright. A fire through the forest of her dark lashes.
“I was thinking about the future, and you and me. Us.”
Warmth tingled in Felix’s chest at the words, and he held Bridgette a little tighter, bringing his other arm up to envelope her in his embrace.
“Is that something you want?” he asked softly.
“YES!”
Felix was so close that his ears rang a little from Bridgette’s shout, and she blushed furiously at her own outburst.
“I just mean that… When I picture my future, you’re in it. You’re a part of it.”
Felix thought his heart was going to burst with happiness.
Now! A little voice in the back of his head yelled. Tell her NOW!
Felix inhaled deeply, steeling himself for the words that were about to come.
“I-“
And just like that, his throat tightened, his body froze. All of his bravado and confidence, and overwhelming affection squashed together in his throat, unable to get out at the same time. And so he choked on his words.
‘I… Picture you in my future, too.”
Coward, the voice hissed at him, and Felix winced.
What was wrong with him? It was three little words! He knew how Bridgette felt about him, and he needed- He needed- to make sure she knew he felt the same.
“How much longer do you think we’ll be doing this?” Bridgette sighed wistfully.
There was a sad sort of smile on her face, one that Felix could relate to, whilst also provoking his need to wipe away the cause of her misery.
“Oh, Bridette,” he murmured, a smile in his voice. “I think we’ll be doing this for a very long time.”
Turning his head, he pressed a soft kiss at her temple, loving the way Bridgette turned into him with a small noise of contentment. They sat like that for a few minutes, Bridgette wrapped in Felix’s arms as they watched the bustling city from their position at its peak. Eventually, Bridgette’s arm wound out to swipe her rapidly cooling coffee of the edge of the roof, and she chugged the last of it before placing the empty cup back in the bag.
“I’m sorry I didn’t bring more pastries,” she said, standing.
“It’s okay,” Felix replied. “They’re a small luxury I’ve come to cherish.”
“Just like me,” Bridgette quipped with a wink.
Felix’s face turned a violent shade of red. Did she just??? Say the words for him???
RUDE!
“I’ll be sure to bring you some early tomorrow morning though. I love sneaking over to yours, it makes me feel like a spy.”
Bridgette waggled her eyebrows comically at that last part, and Felix snorted.
“You’re a superhero. That’s pretty cool already.”
“Whatever, Batman. Give me a trench coat and a magnifying glass any day.”
“That should be Catman, at least,” Felix sounded offended. “And I think you’re describing a detective?”
“Shh!” Bridgette shushed him sharply with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Do not ruin my fantasy! I’m gonna be cutting eyeholes out of newspapers and EVERYTHING, and I can’t do that without your unwavering support.”
Felix grinned at her silliness. She always brought a smile to his face, and he had half a mind to question if she put something in his coffee. His own personal joy-infused sugar syrup.
“You will always have my unwavering support, My Lady,” he said with a theatrical bow.
Bridgette giggled.
“I know. And that’s why I-“
“I love you.”
Felix blurted the words out with as much grace as a knocking over a paint can, and now the colour of his true feelings were spilling across the carpet of the night. Bridgette’s eyes got impossibly wide, the glow of moonlight glinting off them like pennies. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, and she seemed to be struggling to breathe.
“Wha- What did you just sa-“
“I love you,” Felix repeated.
Now that the words were out of his mouth, he had no trouble repeating them. Bridgette’s face flushed darker than he’d ever seen it, and her whole body twitched as if she were fighting the impulse to bolt, hands curling and uncurling at her sides.
Suddenly, she flew forward, throwing her arms around Felix’s neck with a giddy laugh as she crushed his lips with a bruising his. Bridgette kissed him hard, smiling against his mouth, pulling him tightly against her as his arms wrapped around her tiny waist. She drew back to freckle kisses over every inch of skin she could see, and Felix couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Say it again,” she breathed excitedly between kisses.
“I-I love you,” Felix managed to get out from where she was attacking his lips with hers.
“Again,” she demanded.
Felix drew back a little to calm her assault, resting his forehead against hers to very deliberately look into her eyes.
“Bridgette Cheng,” he said clearly.
Bridgette’s breathing hitched, and she bit her lip in anticipation. Felix gave her his fullest smile.
“I. Love. You.”
Bridgette’s smile threatened to split her face in two, and she tilted her chin up as she stood on tiptoes to give Felix a long slow kiss. Finally pulling away, she let out a delighted bubble of laughter that warmed feelings from his core to the very tips of his toes.
“I love you, too, you idiot!”
Felix decided in that moment, that he could never get any happier, and the beautiful colour staining Bridgette’s flushed cheeks cements his heart to hers with a snap. Leaning down to brush his lips feather light over hers, Felix whispers a truth he knows in his soul.
“Red is definitely your colour.”