"Mari, how dare you!" Adrien exclaimed, outraged, as Marinette's cart drove past his, which had just been assaulted by a red shell.
"Protect your butt next time," Marinette shot back with a smirk as she kept driving with ease.
"I'm in seventh place now because of you! Even Nino is ahead of me!"
"Oi, leave me out of your quarrel! I'm just trying not to be last," Nino said.
"I'm winning~," Marinette said in a sing-song voice.
"Please someone throw a blue shell," Adrien muttered as an answer.
"Don't you dare jinx that!"
"Oh, you can shell it out but you can't take it? Blue Shell! Blue Shell! Blue Sh—Ow!"
Adrien's chanting was interrupted by a solid kick to his right shin by a still smug Marinette.
Félix sighed, having long since given up reading his book. With all the noise the other three were making there was no chance of getting any peace. And since Plagg apparently preferred to nap in his shirt pocket today, he also couldn't go far away from Adrien in case of an emergency. Which was really a shame.
After the seemingly catastrophic encounter his brother had with the goddess of creation, Félix had grown incredibly curious. It would be interesting to sneak into Marinette's room to have a small talk with the kwami himself, but he knew he shouldn't risk it.
The four of them were sitting on the sofa in the living room of the Dupain-Cheng's while they waited for Alya's inevitable arrival. They had talked most of the things through already and now just had to kill time. Ten more minutes to be precise.
Félix kept an extra-close eye on his brother who, despite his concentration on the game, displayed signs of irritation. With the glamour in place, there were no obvious things like a lashing tail or twitching ears, but a clenched jaw and a tense posture were dead giveaways too. He wasn't sure if Adrien was jealous of Alya's sudden closeness to Marinette, if he was protective of his best friend and crush, or if he was still fearing Tikki's wrath. Each of the options were equally likely.
"Yes!" Marinette suddenly exclaimed. She did a little victory dance while her character on screen was celebrating a first place finish. Adrien silently growled when he crossed the finish line and the screen announced his fourth place finish.
"Rematch!" Adrien demanded almost instantly.
"Sure! I don't mind winning three times in a row," Marinette countered with a grin, which earned her a shove.
"Can't we do the balloon thing instead?" Nino suggested, which received immediate approval. They were halfway through the tournament when the doorbell rang. Félix almost got hit in the head with Marinette's controller when she threw it over to him.
"Take over for me for a sec!" She called as she dashed towards the door. Knowing her wrath would be upon him if he performed badly, he really did his utmost best to avoid Adrien, Nino and all the NPCs, but by the time he heard Marinette and Alya chatting while walking up the stairs, he had already lost four out of his five balloons.
"May I remind you that your revenge is aimed at Marinette and that you therefore shouldn't focus on me?" Félix tried to argue in vain as Adrien stubbornly persecuted him. It was sweet irony that the person who ended up saving him from a loss was Alya.
"And? Where is he?" she squeed happily as they entered the door, which made Adrien fall off the sofa and cover on the floor. If he was trying to hide, then he was doing a terrible job.
"He's consumed by shame," Félix replied in Marinette's stead as he paused the game and turned around to the two girls. Alya visibly froze while Marinette gave him a flat look.
"Can you two stop being dramatic for a second?"
Félix shrugged. "I'm not the one hiding behind a sofa."
"Wait, what's going on here? Why are they here?" Alya asked and narrowed her eyes on Félix and the sofa—he supposed that the latter glare was meant for Adrien.
"Alya, let's just all go up to my room while my mum makes dinner and then we'll explain, okay?" Marinette said and her voice sounded like she was afraid Alya would attack the two of them any second.
The bespectacled girl still sent suspicious glares their way, but she nodded and then followed Marinette up to her room. Nino followed suit and Félix had to mostly drag a very unwilling Adrien towards the stairs. His brother hated confrontations, especially when they were of a hostile nature. Félix liked to avoid them himself, but he was willing to put his comfort aside in favour of solving a frustrating conflict.
When they had all assembled in Marinette's room and taken a seat, a moment of tense silence passed. Adrien studied the carpet like it was the most interesting thing in the world while Félix eventually threw Alya a prompting gaze with a raised eyebrow. He did not appreciate her scrutiny at all.
"So, Alya, these are the friends I've been talking about," Marinette said to break the silence, though she wore a nervous grin.
"But you've only known them for like four days now!" Alya argued and angrily pointed at Adrien. Félix couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"No. That was just your assumption," he responded, which earned him a look of confusion.
"I've known Adrien and Félix for more than a year now. We met by chance and then started hanging out," Marinette supplied.
Alya still seemed confused. "Then why did you act like you didn't know each other?"
"Because of Chloé," Nino said. It was the first thing he had said since they have entered the room.
Adrien took that moment to timidly speak up as well.
"Félix and I have known Chloé since we were little and she really hates Marinette for some reason. If she'd know that we were friends with her for over a year, then she'd probably do something horrible in retaliation. We don't want to risk that."
Alya huffed. "She's just some spoiled rich kid. What can she even do?"
Everyone suddenly grew very quiet. Félix watched how Adrien's look fixed on the ground once more while Marinette absentmindedly twirled a strand of hair around her finger.
"Much more horrible things than you can even begin to imagine," Félix eventually said in an effort to break the tense silence. "Just trust us on that point. We've got experience with Chloé's cruelties."
Silence spread again and everyone watched Alya, who seemed to be contemplating what she was going to say.
"Alright, I promise to not say anything. But you'll have to run this friendship thing by me again." She turned to Marinette. "How did you just happen to meet a rich model, girl?"
Marinette threw her a smile. "Through a stupid misunderstanding."
Adrien sighed. "Here we go again. Do you want a dramatic re-enactment of it, Alya?"
The girl smirked. "Absolutely!"
"This is the best thing I have ever eaten!" Adrien said, like he always did, while he shovelled spoonfuls of the frankly delicious rice dish into his mouth.
Sabine chuckled. "Eat as much as you want, dear. I certainly made enough for everyone."
Adrien made a happy noise, prompting Marinette to lean to Alya and whisper in a volume that was easy for everyone to hear: "He eats enough for all of us combined."
Unsurprisingly, that earned her a jab in the side and a teasing grin. It didn't take long until a poking war had broken loose between the two of them.
Félix watched the whole spectacle with only mild interest, as this was a common occurrence when they ate dinner at the Dupain-Cheng's house.
"And here we go again," Nino sighed, who was used to the sight as well. Only Alya threw them odd glances.
"Are they always like that?" She eventually asked Tom, who sat next to her. Marinette's father chuckled.
"Most of the time, yes. Adrien and Félix eat dinner with us at least once a week."
Alya suddenly looked conflicted, though Félix had no idea as to why that was.
They had spent about an hour or so looking at pictures from the past year and retelling stories. Nino had even shown Alya the video he had made of the day Adrien spent disguised as a girl. It was no doubt a glorious video and it had made all of them laugh again, most of all Adrien himself. Alya had asked about twenty times how Adrien had managed to let his voice sound as girly as it had after initially accusing Nino of having auto-tuned it. Luckily, Adrien had been able to convince her that he just had a talent for voice acting and the inquisitive girl had left it at that.
"I'm sorry, Adrien," Alya suddenly said out of nowhere, making Adrien and Marinette pause their play-fighting to blink at her. "I never really apologized for being so rude to you this week and for jumping to conclusions."
Adrien threw her a small smile. "It's alright. You only wanted to look out for Marinette and I appreciate that."
Félix didn't resent Alya for not apologizing to him as well. Just the previous day he had overheard a conversation between her and Marinette where Alya had claimed him to be the silent but deadly type. Apparently, she feared that he would strike when people least suspected it.
"What do you think he's gonna do? Throw a book at me?" Marinette had said.
Then again, Alya didn't know that he had overheard that conversation and she had never said anything of the sort to him directly, so in her eyes there was probably nothing to apologize for. Even though her suspicion had been the only truth she had uncovered in her paranoia to protect Marinette. A truth nobody but himself knew.
The corner of his mouth twitched when the rest of the table laughed about a joke Adrien had told, but it was just an act. Both of them were acting, like always. Being human was complicated when they actually weren't, and one year was not enough time to learn all the necessary mannerisms. In addition, there were the things they just straight up couldn't do. A lack of real empathy and the inability to cry were just two of those things.
From the moment they had entered the house till now, they had been walking on eggshells. Before, it had been easy banter and a liberating friendship, but now they had the eyes of none other than Danu on them. And she was undoubtedly watching them very closely. It was like dancing a dance they were familiar with, but performing it in front of an audience for the first time. An unnerving feeling had long since settled inside Félix's stomach, but he was determined not to fail here. Especially not since his brother had so far ignored one very important factor: Plagg didn't trust them either.
The god of destruction might hate them less, but that didn't mean affection either. Félix knew that he was wary of them, which was understandable. Working together with the fair folk was risky and the power Plagg offered was enormous. The Camembert that they offered him was no bribe. It was a small price to pay for this power, but a price nonetheless.
It was a dangerous but necessary game to play if they wanted their loved ones to be safe.
When Félix looked around the table, full of the people he treasured—minus Alya, he didn't know what to think of her yet—he couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Acting like he was like them felt like betrayal. He didn't belong in a place of warmth, love and affection, which ironically made his own cold home ideal for his fae nature. He didn't have to act there, didn't have to betray anyone that mattered to him. Playing make-believe hurt sometimes and he was sure that his brother was feeling the same way about it.
At least his honest regret wasn't an act. The gods would probably appreciate that.
He used a conversation he wasn't involved in as an opportunity to concentrate on the magic in the air. Their own barriers and charms were laughable now that there was Tikki's power as a comparison. Despite it being a Friday—the day of the week where the fair folk was strongest—Félix couldn't even begin to decipher the spell matrixes of the goddess' wards. They were truly stunning works of spellcraft and he was glad that Marinette would be under such strong protection now. He only wished that the price for it wouldn't be for her to fight cursed people who threatened to destroy the city.
It still worried him that it was Marinette who swung around in polka-dot spandex and beat up villains. It just did not fit into the image of the quiet and peaceful designer, but maybe this was a good thing. This way no-one would suspect her. And he knew without a doubt that Adrien would rather die than put her in any danger, so she would most certainly be very well protected. But while Adrien protected Marinette, who would protect Adrien?
He looked around the table and frowned as the others laughed and joked, blissfully unaware of the forces at work around them.