#finding closure

Marinette doesn’t forgive him, necessarily. He’s too far gone for that, and he doesn’t expect anything more than… well, he had expected her to burn the pillow at first sight but clearly that didn’t happen. Felix finds himself absurdly, ridiculously grateful for every smile she sends his way. It’s not often, and usually in passing, but he’s finally getting to see more than the tips of her hair as she rushes around a corner and disappears. He missed this. Felix hadn’t realized how much. 

He also finds himself going back to the library, missing his kids (his kids? when did that happen?) and wondering how they’d been all summer. He’s surprised when most of them even remember him, ask about where he’s been and beg for their favorite stories to be read first. 

A little girl with black hair all tied up in pigtails pushes a book at him. Felix has never read it before, and, ignoring the guilt that comes with choosing a book out of simple curiosity, picks it up. Savvy, he reads, by Ingrid Law. The children settle down, and he starts reading. 

There’s something relaxing about beanbag chairs and bookshelves, and the warmth of a child like a cat on his lap. There’s something relaxing about reading children’s books, too: they reach to the deepest parts of his childhood Felix has yet to shed and call to him, pull him apart into all the pieces he’s broken into and find the spaces where the glass doesn’t fit and smoothes it over, burns him in the light of being seen and heals him in the same breath. There’s no judgement in reading it to the children. They’re a free pass to exploring the themes he skipped over as a child. Felix holds onto it with both hands. 

In the book, Mibs climbs onto a bus and hitchhikes her way to her Poppa, injured in the hospital. On the way there, she learns how to work her savvy, and learns that her strongest power is the one she’s had all along. Felix’s heart aches to have a power like that, to be able to touch someone and know what they feel, what they need. He wishes he knew how to be the person that the people around him need. 

“Mister Felix, you are what we need.” The little girl in his lap snuggles into his stomach and sighs, half asleep. Most of the other kids have wandered off or nodded off, holding their parents’ hands or clutching at their collar. He hadn’t meant to whisper it out loud. He’s sort of glad he did. 

“Where are your parents, noodle?” Her name is Maggie, but Felix calls her anything but. Her favorite is noodle, and he’s inclined to use it when she’s all soft spoken and sweet like this, wiggly and melted in his lap. 

“I dunno, I lost ‘em.” She makes no move to get up. Felix shrugs off his jacket and tucks it in around her, and starts in on the second book in the series. Her parents come to pick her up two books later, just as he’s wrapping up the last one, and he lets her take his jacket with her. She wears it gleefully, sleeves hanging past her fingertips and one shoulder sliding off. Her arms wave just to flap the sleeves and her eyes light up when her mama spins her around. He doesn’t expect to get it back. 

Marinette shows up with it two weeks later at camp with a note and a messily stitched cat, grinning. 

“You have a secret admirer.” The cat is stitched in with the same gap-toothed stitching that shows in the uncontainable joy of Maggie’s smile. On the back, in that messy careful writing, she’s scrawled “You are your own savvy!” Felix’s heart bursts. She’s too young to be so clever. She’s just young enough. 

“Very secret, mhm. Definitely.” And then he manages a wink, and that turns into a full blown smirk when Marinette turns pink. She hands him the jacket and Felix doesn’t jump when their fingers brush. It’s been washed out and has that lingering little kid smell, overlaid with something that smells like bakery and flowers. That night is Felix’s turn to fall asleep tucked into a jacket that feels like it fits just right. 

Marinette doesn’t avoid him that summer, but she doesn’t seek him out either. It’s a strange truce to be in, to go on hikes on paths they used to walk together, to see his messy stitches propped up against her neat ones in the project storage of the arts and crafts room. Felix makes an effort to wave, to nod at Nino and ask about his new music, to talk to the younger years when they get lost or lonely. Felix finds he has so many stories memorized from how often he read them at the library. He does voices, and the youngest campers are enthralled. The older ones are, too, but they skulk around at the edges, keep themselves busy with something else and act like they aren’t paying attention. Felix leans in, winks at them, and catches a little boy around the waist, throws him up in the air. The older campers laugh at the shock on his face, and when Felix gets overrun with kids demanding attention, he waves over the rest and slips out once everyone is laughing. 

He runs into Marinette leaning against a wall outside, waving Nino off so he can catch up with Luka. Felix can see the blush even on Nino’s dark skin, and tries something new. A nod, a wave, something encouraging and bright instead of sneering or snide. 

“I was waiting for you.” Her voice is teasing and light and makes Felix blush. He doesn’t respond. “You’re pretty cute with those kids, y’know. Allan is especially fond of you, he won’t stop talking about the voices you do.” 

“...you know them?” 

She snorts and pushes herself up, starts walking away. “I’ve been teaching them arts and crafts for years, so… yeah. I do.” There’s something sharp in her tone, chiding and playful all at once, and Felix’s heart races. He watches her back, her ponytail swinging, and worries. She pauses. “Aren’t you coming? You’re going to get caught in the rain again if you don’t hurry.” Then she winks, and takes off at a jog. 

Felix laughs in delight, shakes off the first raindrops on his skin and chases after her, a few steps behind but getting closer. 

By the time they’ve sat down with their lunch, the rain is coming down heavily. Marinette waves and splits off to find Nino, and Felix wanders over to an empty table. He can still see her, animated, waving and gesturing wildly, and Nino laughs with her. She glances over at Luka and Nino pulls a face, but he slides down into his seat too. When Marinette laughs, Felix does too. 

By 3PM, not a lot of people are left laughing. The rain is coming down hard, and with everyone stuck in the great hall with nowhere to go, counselors are rapidly losing any ability to keep everyone entertained. By 5, everyone’s irritated and scared, itching to be back in their own cabins or outside or anywhere else. There’s general discontent growing across the room. Felix slips away from his table to make space for the growing group of upset children huddling together in support and slinks into a corner. Cabin fever is setting in, which makes Felix almost smile. They aren’t in their cabins, and the irony would make him laugh if he wasn’t so listless-lost-lonely in this crowded hall. Thunder rumbles. Felix’s spine shivers in time with the skies. 

He’s still watching Marinette. He doesn’t know what that says about him. 

She hasn't looked back at him, but the lightning strikes and she makes her way away from the seat she’s curled up in for the last five hours. Nino sticks his tongue out behind her and she does the same back to him before turning around to look at Felix. There’s lightning again, sure, but it’s in her thundercloud-blue eyes. 

It’s shockingly beautiful. 

She slides down the wall, her shoulder barely brushing his. Electricity shoots across his skin and he shudders. Half an hour passes like that, each second tapped out with the beat of his pounding heart. 

Her voice is quiet when she finally speaks. 

“...why did you do it?” She’s not looking at him, but he can hear the strength it takes her to ask the question out loud. Felix draws circles in the dust on the floor with his finger. 

“I… wish I could tell you. I don’t know, Marinette. I’m sorry.” 

“I know. I just want to know why.” She pauses. “I… Nino says I shouldn’t care or I should ask you and get it over with, and I’ve never been one to not take my own advice.” Marinette doesn’t explain that statement and Felix doesn’t ask her to; in the time that Marinette’s been here, Nino has been edging his way towards Luka. 

“My… mother. I just… I spent so much time around people who just…” Words slip away from Felix and frustration roils in his gut. It’s bitter and biting and hurts, and he screws his face up, clenches his fists. Marinette looks away and leans into his space, and he feels seen and safely hidden all at once. “…this is going to sound so dumb, but I didn’t… I didn’t know what happiness looked like. I thought… I just… that’s what people did, okay? Growing up, everyone who smiled at me wanted something, and usually something I couldn’t afford to give. So instead it was torn out of me and after a while… you start seeing smiles with all their bloody teeth when all they’re used for is taking a bite out of you.” 

She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t speak. It feels like the walls are closing in, squeezing at his heart. The fever spikes. Felix thinks he might be sick; he gropes blindly for water and gulps it down. 

“I really did want to be your friend. I don’t know what it looks like but it’s damn hard making friends. Chloe spent the first whole decade of my life tearing down any scrap of self esteem I had. By the time I even figured out how to stand on my own two feet, everyone else had managed to make friend groups and build social skills and I was years behind. I worked hard to catch up. I made my way here and I refuse to be called manipulative for being kind.” Words come pouring out of her, like she spent the last half hour building them up behind a dam just to let them all burst now. They wash over Felix like waves, cool on his burning skin. 

“I think I’m… starting to get that, yeah.” He tries for a joke: “As it happens, I happen to be pretty behind too.” It makes her laugh, and pride wells in his smug grin. She bumps into his shoulder. 

“You’re not too bad, y’know. I’ve seen you with them.” She nods at the kids and then weighs her words on the scales of her tongue, decides to speak. “Thank you, Felix. I forgive you.” 

“Thank you, Marinette. You’re… not too bad yourself.” 

Counselors start bringing out dinner and the children rouse. By dessert, Marinette is singing and the kids come gather around her to listen, to sing along in their warbling voices. She nods at Felix and he joins in too; then someone demands stories and between the two of them, they manage to get through three Disney movies. She doesn’t move from beside him the whole time. 

She falls asleep first, still stuck in the great hall while the clouds pour down, tilts onto his shoulder. Felix doesn’t do anything but slide down until she’s comfortable, and keeps telling stories until his voice gives out and the campers are passed out around them. 

Poor Danny has been through so much, he needs some sisterly love!