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Chapter Text

The classroom door swung open and an excited blond man in a formal suit, very reminiscent of Adrien Agreste, ran into the room.

While the entire class, including Adrien himself, were doing a double take on him, the blond rushed to the second desk, from which the class rep had already risen, her eyes shining with surprise and joy.

“There was still a whole hour left,” she protested, nevertheless allowing the blond to envelop her in his arms, “You didn’t have to come here,” she insisted as her arms wrapped around his neck, confidently settling there as if she wasn’t planning on letting him go, clearly contradicting her own words.

“I know, I know,” he muttered, still trying to calm his breathing, “But I couldn’t wait.”

“Me neither,” she admitted, her happy smile growing wider. “Thank you,” the last words were barely audible and almost lost somewhere between her lips and his, as the blond pulled the girl into a long, tender kiss in front of her confused classmates and the equally confused teacher.

*

Marinette came to her senses only when Felix was already kissing her.

It was probably a bit of atypical behavior on her part, especially considering that she completely forgot that she was in the middle of the lesson, and probably Miss Bustier would think God knows what about her now. On the other hand, her teacher could use a little reality check to stop hanging her responsibilities on the class rep, and her first kiss with Felix was definitely worth Miss Bustier’s good opinion of her…

That would be nice, to get rid of her teacher’s excessive respect, for which Marinette honestly didn’t have enough free time, she thought, finally tearing herself away from the lips she had wanted to kiss for what seemed like an eternity. She sent Miss Bustier a sheepish smile and, trying not to meet the eyes of her classmates, and especially her best friend’s, dragged Felix into the hallway under the hum of noisy voices.

Of course yesterday, that is, another yesterday—oh, she was completely confused with these repeating days and dates—she wanted to kiss him so much, there were no words to describe it! But Felix shouldn't have burst into the classroom and kissed her in front of everyone, probably. Now Marinette had a long explanation with her best friend, at the very least.

Maybe she could convince everyone that this was just a minor teenage rebellion, and nothing special had happened to her? People grow up, their character deteriorates and so on...

“You should have waited for me in the park!” She whisper-shouted when the classroom door closed behind her and she and Felix found themselves in the abandoned hallway. “How am I supposed to explain this to all those people now?!”

“I don’t care what I should or shouldn’t have done,” Felix retorted, clearly convinced of his rightness. And yes, it was Felix Fathom she was talking to, so Marinette shouldn't even hope that he would admit that anything he did was wrong. “I wasn't gonna wait all day for that bloody Akuma to decide to show up so that you would finally come to me!”

Marinette looked around in panic, now actually worried. “Are you crazy!” She hissed, “Are you trying to burn my identity?! What if someone hears us!”

Felix waved his hand dismissively, the face as imperturbable as it was most of the time, “Tomorrow they'll forget about it anyway,” he reminded her.

Marinette had actually completely forgotten about that possibility, maybe because they'd never met at her school before, right in the middle of a bunch of her friends. “What if I put everything back the way it was? What if I'll finally catch that Akuma and purify it? Then they'll remember everything that happened, and I'll have to explain to everyone what's going on…”

“That's only if we finally catch this Akuma,” Felix countered, “But you can always just skip a day, so that we could-”

Adrien ran out of the classroom, cutting his cousin off mid-sentence. “What are you doing in Paris, Fe?!” He demanded in an unusually brash tone, Marinette didn't remember hearing her friend speak so harshly to anyone. “And why are you bothering my friend?!” He added, barely glancing at that very friend.

Felix moved closer to Marinette, his eyes narrowed, as if expecting physical danger for himself or the girl from his cousin. “Back off, Adrien,” he muttered rather rudely, even for his usual stern manner, and Marinette even opened her mouth to reprimand him for it, but didn’t have time, because Felix was already speaking again. “You're so useless… How can a person live under the same roof with Shadow Moth and not even know about it?!”

“What?!” Marinette exclaimed, but it seemed that Adrien made the same sound at the same time, which would explain the volume and timbre of the exclamation she heard.

Felix looked from his cousin to her and back, finally stopping his gaze on the girl. “What ‘what’?” He asked slowly as if nothing major had just happened. “His father is Shadow Moth, that much is obvious to any sane person,” Felix explained in a mock-nonchalant tone. “But you are allowed to keep thinking with your heart, my dear,” he purred, pulling Marinette closer, “You have me to think rationally.”

Marinette decided to put aside for later both how impudently Felix behaved and how nicely her chest had warmed from this small gesture and the promise of something long and serious between them that his words implied. Seems that she would still have more than enough time to melt in the arms of this cheeky brat when she figured out what the hell was going on…

“We weeded him out of the list of suspects,” she muttered, frowning, “He was akumatized, and then…” she trailed off, feeling that even as she was saying it, the feeling of unfinished business that she had from the day of Gabriel Agreste’s first akumatization was rising inside her.

It usually happens when you convince yourself of something with your mind, all the way feeling somewhere in your subconscious that you are making a mistake, and this feeling then catches up with you again and again, reminding you of unfinished work.

Felix raised his eyebrows with interest. “Who are the ‘we’?” He asked in the voice of a man who already perfectly understood everything on his own. “You and your useless partner?”

“Chat is not useless!” Marinette protested out of habit, used to defending her partner again and again in front of the press. Although even while she was arguing with him, she still didn’t particularly want to distance herself from Felix. “He is brave, and he is my friend!” She grumbled, expressing how offended she was on behalf of Chat Noir.

“Friend my ass…” Felix muttered, pulling her a little closer—a gesture that showed all his perfect understanding of the essence of her partner’s feelings for her. And for some reason she didn’t mind this small act of his possessive behavior.

Over these days, Marinette seemed to have stopped really understanding Chat Noir, despite all her warm attitude towards him.

Felix certainly did some questionable things during his previous visit, she couldn’t disagree with that, but every day her partner behaved more and more aggressively towards him, without allowing for the slightest possibility of any other interpretation of his behavior than pure evil. And considering the fact that Chat was living this day for the first time every time and his irritation shouldn’t have accumulated, it felt weird.

Her partner became especially harsh after Ladybug and Felix realized that they were both living that day over and over again, preserving their memories while everyone else was losing them. From that day on, Marinette decided not to explain all the details to Chat every new repeating day, because he forgot them anyway. And it clearly made much more sense to work on catching the Akuma with Felix, who was also tired of repetitions and was very serious. Well, later he was…

Of course, her partner's growing intolerance could be explained by her growing closer to Felix, which probably seemed even more wrong to Chat the more comfortable Ladybug was with her new, ahem, friend. To someone who hadn't seen it in progress, it must have seemed unexpected and inexplicable every time he saw them, but Marinette couldn't magically include Chat in the time loop to keep him posted…

This unfortunate Akuma hit her and Felix both in a park near the train station where it appeared and went wild on the very first day of the loop—or maybe it was the original Friday that kept repeating itself afterwards—when Felix actually arrived in Paris.

It was his unexpected appearance there that made her pay more attention to the blond, although maybe, if Marinette was honest with herself, she still remembered his impudence from that long-ago day on the roof, when the cheeky brat tried to give Ladybug a little courage...

In any case, Marinette found it strange that he was, apparently, in Paris, and when the loop repeated itself for the second time—yesterday's Akuma still on the loose—she was no longer surprised to meet him in the same park near the train station, thoughtfully strolling, as if he was in no hurry to see any Parisian relatives.

On that second (or first time repeated) Friday he was muttering something about prophetic dreams, and at first she didn’t attach much importance to it. The only downside was that they were both distracted, Felix—by his thoughts, Ladybug—by him, and the Akuma hit them both again. Although by that point it hardly changed anything, seeing the time loop had already been firmly established, as Marinette was convinced the next day, once again waking up on Friday.

The third Friday in a row turned out to be much more unexpected, really. Especially considering the fact that when you live the same day for the third time in a row, you no longer expect to encounter anything particularly unexpected.

Having seen Felix at the same park, Ladybug was more attentive, and didn’t even let the Akuma hit her this time. She was about to find Chat Noir again, tell him everything about the Akuma, and the loop, and begin another thorough search of the city to understand where the Akuma was hiding after the park. But getting ready to leave, she froze with a yoyo already in her hands, because Felix dodged the Akuma.

With all his dexterity, which she had already had the opportunity to see before, this was clearly not about his well-trained reflexes, because he turned to the approaching Akuma very certainly and in perfect time to dodge, just as if he knew that it should appear there.

It was the first day of the loop when Marinette realized that she might not be alone in this repeating trap.

A naive soul that she probably was, Ladybug rushed towards Felix, scaring the Akuma away. “This is the third time you've lived this day, isn’t it?!” She declared to the blond, who blinked at her in surprise.

That's what he meant by the prophetic dreams on that second day of the loop, Marinette realized. He thought he'd just dreamed the first day, she guessed, genuinely glad that she'd have a companion on this quest. Besides, Felix Fathom was very smart, and if anyone could help her figure out the logic of this Akuma, it was him.

“You have to help me catch the Akuma!” She stated in full confidence that he had no other option left. “Otherwise we'll continue to live in this stupid cycle again and again!”

Admittedly, Marinette should have formulated her offer of cooperation in a more constructive manner, given how their previous meeting ended and knowing his stubborn nature, but Felix didn't really have to throw her unprofessionalism in her face, did he? He didn’t have to get angry and leave in response to her tirade about his past sins and his duty to make amends either. Probably…

Not only was the Akuma not caught that day, but Marinette had no desire to make another useless attempt to follow them. She was so upset that her only possible ally didn’t want to play by her rules that on that third day she completely gave up. Temporarily, that is.

Of course Felix wasn't exactly her ally, at least not at the time, but after just a few days of constant repetition, she was exhausted from searching for the Akuma and failing. So that night she told Tikki not to answer Chat's calls and went to bed early.

The next day, which was another Friday, obviously, Ladybug showed up at the park near the train station at the first Akuma alarm, despite her reluctance. It warmed her somehow to know that Felix would be there too, no matter what, although he probably could have just not gone to the park this time, or not even gone to Paris that morning, knowing what awaited him.

He was in the park.

They dodged the akuma's shots together, and despite him teasing her about the Akuma still being out there and Fridays still repeating, she still felt like he was there for her. Maybe not for her sake as such, of course, but for the sake of talking to her about possibly finding a solution together. After all, by this time they both already knew exactly where the Akuma would appear and could both either avoid it or come to the right place at the right time, with all the ensuing consequences.

“If you think you can catch this Akuma better than me, be my guest!” Ladybug snorted in response to his mockery, pulling the blond out from under another shot from the Akuma.

“You just lack strategic thinking,” Felix stated confidently, tugging at her hand to also pull Ladybug away from the trajectory of the shining projectile flying at her. “We need to understand their motives, anticipate their actions, and…”

And the Akuma had just vanished into thin air, as they usually did at this hour, only to appear somewhere on the other side of town and terrorize the townspeople there—in the previous days, Ladybug had both futilely rushed around with Chat Noir, chasing the Akuma, and tried to figure out the logic of their movements, but nothing had been successful, until the Akuma just stopped appearing closer to night.

“Well?” Ladybug prompted the arrogant blond that trailed off and was absentmindedly staring into the space of the park. “You were saying?”

Felix crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine!” He snorted reluctantly, “I'm ready to strategize with you. But only because I'm tired of hanging around this pointless park. And spend Friday nights with my pathetic Parisian family…” He muttered under his breath.

Chapter Text

She should have known that she couldn't work closely with Felix Fathom and keep her identity a secret for too long.

It hadn’t been more than a few days of studying the akuma’s patterns and tracking their movements around the city together (first involving Chat Noir, then, seeing his ill will toward Felix, without him), before the London guest had figured out who Ladybug was.

Marinette had no idea how exactly she gave herself away. It seemed they’d only briefly mentioned Adrien—the most likely link between them—and only in the context of Felix staying at his uncle’s house, or rather, it was every repeating Friday night that he stayed there. And once they’d stopped by her parents’ bakery for a bite to eat—Ladybug had been completely detached, with no indication that it was her parents that had sold them the baked goods.

And yet, when they met in the park by the station the next day, Felix simply called her by her actual name.

“You won’t dare to reveal my identity to anyone!” Ladybug threatened, pushing Felix to the nearest tree to crowd him to the trunk and appear more menacing.

“Why would I share my own advantages with someone else?” The blond drawled in response to her when Ladybug rested her hand on the tree behind his head for added persuasiveness.

Felix followed her gesture expressively.

“Okay,” he murmured, “Let’s say you just returned the favor of invading my personal space without permission,” he purred, glancing at her up and down to emphasize the near-absence of distance between them. “But if you keep getting closer, I’ll assume that you haven’t forgotten about my offer to give you some courage, and decided to take advantage of it.”

Marinette felt her cheeks flush from the timbre of his voice and his hints, only now realizing how she had unintentionally mirrored their position from that rooftop. Though something told her that Felix wouldn't punch her in the nose if she really did try to kiss him...

This thought made her even more embarrassed, and Ladybug immediately jumped away from him, not sure what to worry about more—about the fact that her body got very interested in potentially kissing him, or the fact that Felix now knew her name.

At least she still had this loop, during which she needed to make sure that he wouldn't reveal her identity later, when it would really matter.

Curiously enough, since the day he found out who she was, Felix had changed his attitude towards her dramatically, or at least that was the way it felt. He spoke to her more gently, listened carefully to her when they discussed their latest attempt to catch the Akuma, and—most inexplicable, and somehow very, very pleasant—every now and then he would casually touch her.

There was nothing indecent or out of line about these touches. He would simply stroke her shoulder in support when they missed the Akuma again, or squeeze her hand briefly when Chat Noir once again got offended and left (yes, that happened a lot, starting from the day Ladybug first gave Felix the Dog Miraculous to increase their chances of catching the Akuma), or he would casually brush her hair off her forehead, without even drawing attention to it.

Felix liked her, Marinette realized on one of those days, it was when Chat Noir didn't even want to hear about Felix joining their team and even reproached Ladybug for deciding to replace him as her partner. That time Chat got extremely upset and left again, saying that it would be better for him to patrol alone than in such dangerous company.

Looking after her partner, Felix only shrugged, took the Miraculous from her hands and transformed, then gave her his hand. Marinette placed her hand in his, feeling how comfortable it was to hold onto him, even though it was completely unnecessary.

That time she realized especially clearly that he had been holding her hand quite often ever since he figured out her identity, and it seemed so natural that she hadn’t even noticed it.

His gentle attitude towards Marinette, no matter how radical it was supposed to feel after how rude and arrogant he was with Ladybug, also seemed very natural. As if she knew for sure that it was his real attitude, and everything before was feigned rudeness, and had its own special reasons.

He liked her back, Marinette corrected herself mentally, blossoming from his soft smile when Felix caught her eyeing him.

It also meant that at some point among those dozens of Fridays that they spent together chasing the time-loop-Akuma, she had actually started to like this impudent brat. Although maybe she should have dug into her memory and found the day when he really hooked her with his daring approach for the first time...

There were many more days after that, when everything between them seemed to become more and more well-coordinated and perfectly functioning. It was nice. And it wasn’t at all the nice that Marinette usually felt when working with Chat Noir—his place was only his, and she hadn’t found a new working-partner for herself, no matter how many times Chat threw it in her face when he met her chasing the Akuma with Felix around the city.

With Felix, she felt a completely different harmony, much more sensual, so that it could hardly be called a work process. And although at the first blush it could be easily attributed to the repetitive day, where they already knew the course of events, how to act and what role to play in relation to the task at hand, Marinette always felt that it was their personal role for each other that was actually becoming more and more clear.

Casual touches became the language she also spoke to him in now, wondering whether it was worth going further, and whether she would scare Felix away if she actually demanded that promised courage. And sometimes, when it seemed that her days passed more like long and extremely exciting dates than Ladybug's usual work, at the end of the day, when they were saying goodbye, she especially missed that long-proposed kiss.

And then there was a day when they never parted. Yesterday, to be more precise, which of course was just another Friday in their endless stream.

Luckily, Felix’s knowledge of her identity meant that they could come to the bakery together, in civilian clothes, and even announce to her parents that they were having an unscheduled movie night, and retreat to her room, stocked with snacks for the evening, accompanied by slightly surprised, albeit knowing, glances from her parents.

“If we don’t catch that Akuma tomorrow, we’ll go a different way,” Felix muttered as the credits of another movie flashed on the screen.

It was already close to midnight, and Marinette was almost falling asleep. She lazily turned her head towards him, finding herself lying on his chest, and very comfortably with that, so that she had to tilt her head back a little to look at his face.

“A different way?” She muttered sleepily, wondering what he meant.

Although, to tell the truth, she was willing to accept any fresh option, because going to school every day on Friday mornings only to transform a couple of hours later at the signal of the Akuma alarm and head to the same park near the train station was getting on her nerves. Even if it recently felt more like a long-awaited date than the fulfillment of her duties…

“You’ll see,” Felix promised, a mysterious smile playing on his lips. “You know, when I first saw you on that stupid video you sent to my cousin, I knew for sure that sooner or later you would end up in my arms.”

Marinette woke up abruptly and turned completely to face him, finding herself on all fours above Felix, who was sitting with his back to the back of the lounge chair.

He didn’t mean to say that…

“Yep,” Felix confirmed her half-formed thought. “That day I flirted with Ladybug only to spite Adrien, of course. But I wonder if my subconscious didn't push me to do it on purpose, feeling you behind that mask.”

“You…” He couldn’t have meant that he liked Marinette, the girl in the video he deleted. “You can’t…”

“In fact,” Felix continued, his gaze completely serious and attentive, his eyes biting into hers, “I came to Paris this morning, many days ago, to finally find you. I was walking through that park, wondering how I could get Adrien to tell me where you live without him suspecting anything. Just showing up at your school seemed overly dramatic. Besides, I wanted to win your heart before Adrien came to his senses and noticed the girl he had in front of his eyes this whole time.”

Marinette could just stare at him, her eyes wide and amazed, slowly understanding his unexpected arrival, the change in his behavior towards her since he figured out Ladybug’s identity, all those touches, and even why she intuitively felt that it was completely safe for him to know Ladybug's real name.

It turned out that he started to like her not during the process of their joint running after the Akuma, but much earlier, and it was she who this impudent blond had unobtrusively captivated during the loop with his softness and warmth, which she had expected to meet in anyone but him.

“You’re such a tricky brat!” She gasped half-accusingly, half-amazed. “You found me behind the mask and then made me relax and lose my guard!”

She was smiling though. As broadly as if he told her that he knew exactly where to find that damn Akuma and that they could go and finish this time loop right away, which, although it had brought them closer, had completely exhausted her with the eternal need to wait to meet him. It would have been much more convincing to meet early in the morning, as soon as she woke up, and not wait for the train from London and the Akuma in the park.

And it would be even better not to part at all...

Marinette moved closer to him, Felix’s cheeks turning red for the first time she could recall, his eyes fixed on her mouth, his tongue nervously licking his dry lips.

“So,” she purred, “Now that you have confessed to me all your sins, I see no other option than to give you a little courage. Let's call it your reward...”

She closed her eyes and seemed to almost feel the touch of her lips with his, when in front of her suddenly-opened-again eyes appeared her bright morning room instead of the romantic semi-darkness of their movie night.

Marinette lay in bed, another Friday on her calendar, not believing that in order to get her long-awaited kiss she would have to wait several whole hours, and the Akuma alarm, and drag herself to the park, where she and Felix wouldn’t even immediately be able to stay alone. She couldn't have foreseen that this handsome impudent brat would burst into her class right in the middle of the lesson...

“You’re Ladybug!” Adrien gasped, waking Marinette up from the memories she'd accidentally fallen into, as she found herself in Felix's arms in the hallway outside her classroom, her friend piercing her with an accusing look.

“Damn it, Felix!” She snapped, turning to the blond, from whose embrace she had no intention of getting out even while arguing with him. “See what you've done?! Soon the whole school will know my identity, and then the whole city!”

Felix just rolled his eyes, the softness she'd gotten used to lately while talking to him one on one instantly hiding from prying eyes, which this time turned out to be his cousin's. “What difference does it make,” he only grumbled. “They'll forget about it all tomorrow.”

“And what if they don't?!” She insisted, sniffling indignantly, but still wrapping herself in his arms, from which he also seemed to have no intention of letting her go.

“Let’s just forget about the Akuma for tonight,” Felix suggested a little more gently. “We’ll have another movie night and then start over tomorrow, hmm?” He offered, puppy-eyes-she-definitely-didn’t-expect-from-him shining through his stern facade.

“Are you really Ladybug?” Adrien muttered much more quietly, frowning, reminding Marinette of himself right when she was ready to leave everything and run away with his cousin.

“Adrien, listen,” she said with a sigh, “It would be better if you get back to class. There’s an Akuma coming soon, and we need to…”

“How do you know?!” The model demanded sternly, again, not the way Adrien usually spoke. “Why are you keeping secrets with my cousin?! How does he know your identity before I do?!”

Marinette and Felix exchanged glances and he raised his eyebrows slightly, which meant ‘I’ll let you deal with him yourself if you want,’ Marinette guessed, having somehow learned to read his facial expressions well by this point.

“Adrien,” she said as gently as she could, giving the circumstances, “We’re friends, of course, but it’s a secret that…”

“Friends my ass!” Adrien protested, proving to be as rude as his cousin when the situation called for it. “You revealed your identity to your ‘best friend’, and now even to my cousin! But not to me!”

“How do you know about…”

“Claws out!”

Marinette stared at Chat Noir materializing in front of her, slightly surprised. “Well, that explains things, I suppose…” she muttered, thinking about her partner’s growing dislike for Felix during the loop.

“He’s even more useless than I thought…” Felix grumbled with a sigh. “Even superpowers aren’t a panacea for catching your own father, apparently, or even understanding that he’s your enemy…”

Marinette couldn’t really argue with that, although the usual desire to protect Chat Noir still arose in her. “How can you be so sure?” She asked Felix, frowning.

“You’re wrong!” Chat Noir chimed in, taking an aggressive step toward them, and now Felix's protective embrace didn’t seem like an exaggeration anymore.

Meanwhile, Felix himself completely ignored her partner, as if the revelation of his secret identity made everything very clear about Adrien and Felix no longer saw him as dangerous. “Because I have a brain and eyes, my dear,” he answered Marinette, speaking pointedly only to her. “And it does you credit that you suspected him. But you should have trusted your intuition—sometimes it works much better than what we consider logical.”

He hugged her tighter, and Marinette thought he wasn’t talking about Gabriel, but about the way he’d intuitively chosen her based on a short video alone, and now that he’d actually found her, it only confirmed his confidence in that choice.

Marinette sighed, resigned to the fact that Felix was right—there was too much of a resonance within her that screamed that he was, not to mention he wouldn’t make empty statements when it came to such a serious issue. “We can’t attack him today,” she reminded him, “Or else my identity will be exposed and the whole class will remember that I… that you… um… about us finishing yesterday’s movie night back in class.”

Felix loosened his hold on her just enough to take Marinette’s hand. “I don't see any problem with that,” he promised, tugging her away from the classroom door along the hallway, eyes shining with mischief. “I can repeat that kiss especially for them tomorrow, and the day after.”

“Hey, where are you dragging her?” Chat Noir exclaimed indignantly. “Leave her alone!”

“Stay out, Adrien!” Felix and Marinette commanded in unison, not taking their eyes off each other.

“Another movie night, then?” Marinette purred, allowing herself to be led towards the school exit.

“Regardless of the time of day,” Felix confirmed. “We can start by going to the cinema, and then move on to the bakery…”

Marinette smiled, pleased with the way he was thinking.

Even if her partner did something stupid today, only Ladybug could stop the Akuma and remove all the consequences of their influence, so no matter how upset Chat was today, tomorrow she will fix everything. In fact, tomorrow they will probably go straight to Gabriel to play this game with the one who used to run it.

After all, to win this game they only had to play it one more time.