#marxdee

First up - some Marx x Bandanna Dee! Premise is they're partway through one of the snowy boards in Star Allies, and taking shelter to flirt rest uwu

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The wind howled keenly outside the hastily-dug shelter, snow blowing both from above and below as the wind whipped and snapped through the snow drifts outside. Bandanna Dee eyed the entrance of their shelter, half evaluation and half wariness, before giving a satisfied nod.

"We should have enough cover from the elements here. It's cold, but we don't have to worry about the wind at least," they turned back to their chilled compatriot with a pleased expression. Marx returned their look with a dour expression, wings theatrically folded over themselves for effect.

"Great, but is there any way we can heat the place up a little, mx. Survival guide?" He groused, drawing his wings in tighter as an involuntary shudder ran up his body. Bandanna Dee raised an eyebrow at him, noting that the scales on his wings were shimmering only orange and red.

"Didn't Kirby give you a fire power-up before this, so we could make it to shelter safely?"

Marx's frown deepened.

"Curse your excellent, royal-grade memory," he huffed, summoning up a flame-coated beach ball and setting it in front of his feet. Bandanna Dee snickered.

"Not entirely sure what royal-grade memory would even be… but even if I didn't, you might want to blame your wings- those color-coordinated hexagons might be considered what some would call a 'dead giveaway," they pointed out. Marx glanced down at the offending wings still somewhat encircling him protectively, giving out an exaggeratedly scandalized gasp.

"What's this? My own flesh and blood... ratting me out like this?? How dare you!" He began staging a wrestling scene with himself, pretending that his wings were fighting back against him as he tumbled around in the cold dirt of the cave, kicking and biting them all the while. Bandanna Dee began chortling, enjoying the jester's slapstick antics quite wholeheartedly. Eventually, Marx appeared satisfied with the shenanigans, pulling himself up from the dirt as if coming back from a huge fight.

"You, uh... You have something on your face there," Bandanna Dee said with a poorly restrained snicker, gesturing to a cheek. Marx roughly rubbed at the smeared dirt on his face with a claw, giving the waddle dee a mischievous grin.

"You think this looks bad, you should have seen the other guy!" He replied in a mock gruff voice, spitting to the side for effect. Bandanna Dee busted into another fit of laughter, tears beading at their eyes.

"What in Popstar does that even mean, what did I walk into?" They giggled, wiping at their eyes with a paw. Marx snickered as he watched Bandanna Dee laugh, feeling unusually warm inside. No, it wasn't from anything about the way the waddle dee sounded when they laughed. Certainly not. It was purely from him standing nearly on top of the flaming beach ball. That's all. 

Instead, he flopped back down on a nearby rock, letting the heels of his feet warm up by the fire.

"Hey, you know, I took you for something of an uptight royal lackey, but you've got an alright sense of humor!" He smirked. Bandanna Dee sighed, finally catching their breath.

"Well yeah, of course, that was funny! Weird, but funny!"

Marx's heart did not skip a beat upon being complimented. Just because people rarely called him funny as a compliment didn't mean he was going to be flustered by that. Nope. No way.

He flexed his wings, stretching them out at either side behind him.

"Well of course! There's little that The Great Marx can't do, after all!" He replied smugly, puffing out his bowtie. Bandanna Dee raised an eyebrow at him for a moment.

"Like having wings that don't flash in embarrassment?" They pointed out. Marx's eyes bugged slightly as he realized that they were, indeed, shifting and changing color more rapidly than usual.

"What? Psht, as if. These are my nerd-detector wings to tell me when there's a nerd around," he sneered, jabbing a talon towards Bandanna Dee. The waddle dee rolled their eyes as they scooched closer to the fire, paws held out to soak in the warmth. There was a beat of silence, as Marx realized Bandanna Dee was refraining from dignifying that with an answer, and he started folding his wings back in on himself, watching the embers quietly, before Bandanna Dee spoke up again.

"You know, I've always thought your wings looked very interesting... May I take a closer look?"

Marx gawked at them, stunned uncharacteristically silent by the request. If it were almost anyone else, he would crack a joke to laugh it off, but for some reason the waddle dee's sincere tone made it hard for him to feel that great about the concept of doing so.

"Uh, er.. Yeah I guess so? Can't imagine it looks that much different than it does from further away though," he replied haltingly, turning his back towards the Dee so they could examine the wings better. Bandanna Dee clapped their paws once in delight, beaming.

"Thank you, I appreciate it!"

Marx mumbled something incoherent under his breath, something possibly along the lines of 'yeah sure whatever' but any intelligibility was lost before it even left his mouth.

Bandanna Dee did not seem to pick up on this, approaching his wings cautiously, almost reverently, taking a paw and delicately tracing against the edges of his golden wingframe. Marx twitched a little at the initial touch, but was somewhat relieved to find it tickled less than he expected. The only other person he let near the things before now was Kirby, and the kid never tried to treat them so carefully. He had not been looking forward to the concept of being ticklish there of all places.

Bandanna Dee ran their paw up and down the frame, admiring the shimmer to the golden tone, pondering the material it was made of.

"I know you said they wouldn't look different up close, but I never realized how scratched up they were," they murmured, tracing some particularly deep divets in the thick skin. Marx's expression tightened, and he was thankful Bandanna Dee couldn't see it.

"Are these all from your fight with Kirby?"

No.

"Oh, uh... Yeah, some of them, probably, but most of them are more recent than that I think," Marx replied with a jovial tone in his voice that he hoped didn't sound as forced as it was. Bandanna Dee hummed thoughtfully, running their eyes over the numerous lines and pockmarks.

"That does make sense, you're something of a reckless fighter from what I've heard," they replied with a bit of a laugh in their voice. It died in their throat though, as they noticed a particular set of scars. They carefully rubbed them, relatively deep gouges in sets of two almost directly mirrored on both wings, noting that Marx had tensed up upon their discovery of them, and that the wing's scales were beginning to shift colors rapidly. Bandanna Dee almost didn't even need to eye the talons on his wings to compare the angle and length to double check themselves. They debated on whether to press on the matter or not, before deciding against it. It wasn't their business, and Marx was already clearly uncomfortable.

Instead, they chose to gently pet over the scores, turning their attention to the scales on his wings. They tapped at a scale, surprised at the way it responded to the touch, the color changing and pulsing outward across the neighboring scales, like a ripple in a pond.

"As pretty as these are, their very nature has always baffled me. Do you even feel these?" Bandanna Dee asked, rhythmically tapping a couple more, unable to stop themselves from letting out muted oohs and ahhs at the way the resulting color ripples overlapped. Marx shook a wing lightly in response to this, but it was very clearly half-hearted.

"Hey, c'mon, I said you could look at them, not play them like bongos. Anyways yeah, I can feel you poking and prodding at them kinda, but it's less like you touching me and more like... tugging on my bowtie, almost? Like I feel the push and pull but I'm not actually feeling your paw against them or anything. I can tell if someone tries to yank ‘em out of the formation though... just ask Kirby," Marx replied with a roll of his eyes. Bandanna Dee snickered at the mental image of the puffball trying to sneak off with a colorful scale and failing to avoid an irate jester's notice.

It's their birthday I had to do ship art, do you understand who I am