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Marinette was about to leave the bakery to the school when the front door opened of its own accord and a blond boy of about six stood in the aisle, staring at her with huge blue eyes. Something like recognition flickered across his face and he straightened up, as if trying to appear taller.
“Ma… Marinette…!” He squealed gleefully. “Let’s get out of here quickly, before my grandparents see me!” He added, cautiously looking behind her back.
Marinette stopped and looked at him intently: his face seemed familiar, though she wasn’t sure she had met him before. Maybe he was the son of one of the bakery’s customers?
She turned back and looked at the line at the cash register, where the youth mostly stood to buy fresh morning croissants, – there was no one who could fall under the title of “grandparents” among them. Even her mother, who was billing the next client at the moment and who didn’t have grandchildren yet, of course, would be probably too young for this title.
“Are you hiding from your grandparents?” She asked carefully, turning back to the boy. “How do you know my name? Do they buy croissants for you from our bakery?” She guessed.
“Something like that…” The boy muttered, and decisively grabbing Marinette by the hand, pulled her outside. “You’re going to school now, right?”
“Uhh… Yeah…” The girl allowed herself to be led down the street, frantically wondering how the boy knew her so well and why he was taking her to school.
She usually got along well with children and even occasionally babysat Manon, but this boy acted like he’d known her for years when Marinette was seeing him for the first time.
“Maybe you need help finding your mom? If you don’t want to go to your grandparents…” She suggested in confusion. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Daniel!” The boy replied readily. “Yes, in fact, I’m here because of my mother! And I’m sure I’ll find her in your school!” He said with a sly expression that also seemed oddly familiar. “So we can walk there together!”
Marinette sighed but gently squeezed the boy’s hand in return and walked towards the school. After all, it was her last year, and lately she’d been showing up for class early, so she still had some time to spare and could help this boy find his mom and get to her classes on time.
“So, do you want to tell me how you got lost?” She offered to keep up the conversation, although the boy was walking beside her happily without it and even had a very important look, as if he was proud of himself.
“I traveled with Christian and then we decided to split up.” He said in such a tone, as if it explained everything in his naive childish logic. “But soon we’ll meet again.”
“And Christian is…” Marinette hinted as they approached the stairs in front of the main entrance, and she saw a familiar car drive up to the school, from which Felix – her classmate, and, secretly, a new object of her dreams – got out.
Growing up and maturing in recent years, Marinette became more and more aware that her crush on Adrien was a romantic fantasy, which, however, would probably continue to overshadow her consciousness even further if his cousin, who had suddenly arrived from London over a year ago, hadn’t transferred to their school.
The cardinal differences in their characters were even more striking, given the almost identical appearance. Aside from looks, the only thing they had in common was, perhaps, how private they both were. But while Adrien was hiding even how closed he was, portraying an affable guy and being nice to everyone, even to people like Lila, and playing the role that was expected of him, Felix, in turn, drew a clear line between those who was of any importance to him and with whom he was ready to interact, and everyone else, who received a cold but honest rejection and didn’t matter to him.
To most of the people around him, such an approach seemed extremely rude, but Marinette became more and more convinced that it was more sincere than Adrien’s behavior, which personally for her turned out to be cruel. Because after all, it created only the illusion of good companionship, but in fact Adrien never let a person really deeply, – not even Nino, who was his best friend – and didn’t share what really happened under his model smile.
Maybe it wasn’t his fault, but the result of his father’s pressure, but Marinette couldn’t help the fact that her feelings seemed to her betrayed, not even the romantic ones, but her honest friendly affection.
In addition, unintentionally, Marinette somehow fell into the number of extremely few people who seemed to have any meaning to Felix. And even though it was as his eternal opponent in disputes, their verbal skirmishes were always elegant and frank, so that during the last year while he was in the same class with her, she got the impression that she knew Felix much better than she knew his cousin, with whom she had previously been in love for several years...
Felix got out of the car and, as if forgetting to slam the door behind him, stopped in his tracks, looking in her direction, and Marinette suddenly realized that she, too, had stopped, deep in her thoughts and didn’t even notice if the boy (Daniel?) responded to her.
But glancing into Felix’s face, the girl realized that he wasn’t at all looking at her, but at the boy, whom she held by the hand.
For a second, Marinette looked at Daniel in surprise, wondering what made Felix look at him with such a stunned face. The boy looked back at Felix, a smug smirk playing on his lips, which could perhaps argue with the usual Felix’s smirk itself, and following her companion’s gaze back to the car, Marinette also froze with her mouth open, because next to Felix, getting out of the car after him, there was exactly the same blond-haired blue-eyed boy...
While the two classmates stood staring at the children opposite them, Daniel let go of Marinette’s hand and walked towards Felix’s car, from which a second boy was already walking towards him.
They met in the middle and stood side by side, looking between Marinette and Felix with satisfied faces.
Felix came to his senses first.
Nodding to the driver to leave, he took a step towards the boys (twins?) and once again carefully examined them both, as if trying to make sure that what was happening was real and not just imagined by him.
“Are you two brothers?” He asked cautiously, narrowing his eyes at them.
“No!” Daniel exclaimed.
“Yes!” Reported the second boy (who must have been Christian) at the same time.
Daniel looked at the other boy with an expressive look, and now that they were standing side by side, Marinette paid more attention to how they were dressed. Daniel had dark jeans, a white shirt and a blue vest, while Christian (as Marinette guessed) was dressed in the same jeans, blue shirt and white vest.
Christian in turn elbowed Daniel in the shoulder, then turned to Felix and looked at him with a confident stern gaze, as if he weren’t six, but much older than that. “Don’t you know that you can’t ask stuff about the future?!” He demanded.
“About the future?” Marinette frowned, involuntarily coming a little closer to Felix, because it seemed to her that there was some kind of invisible confrontation between the boys and the two of them, and that in this war she somehow had to be on Felix’s side, if only because there were two of their – albeit small-sized – opponents...
“You didn’t tell her?” Christian asked his brother-or-not-brother in surprise.
“We didn’t agree on that part!” Daniel replied indignantly, making an independent sullen grimace, very similar to the one that Felix did when Marinette started to beat him in an argument… “My opinion was that it was threatening trouble.”
“Isn’t the fact that you’ve gone back in time already a threat by itself?” Felix asked, echoing the seriousness with which the boys spoke, but much more gently than Marinette would’ve expected him to interact with children.
The boy who came with Felix rolled his eyes. “In our days, time travel is a whole science-based system,” He explained in the authoritative tone of a six-year-old expert. “And your primitive knowledge of it doesn’t correspond to reality.”
“This one could be yours…” Escaped Marinette’s lips involuntarily, because by this moment she could tell with certainty that all the facial expressions and intonations of this child were extremely similar to Felix’s, and if these children were from the future and one or both of them were his sons, then this one could definitely be one.
Besides, it would explain why he came with Felix, – maybe he went in search of his future father. Another question was, why did the second boy come to her, and who was his mother, whom he was going to find in their school?..
From the thought that by helping him find his mother, Marinette apparently might get to know who would become Felix’s wife, for some reason a lump came to her throat, but her mind could no longer stop the process of analysis that buzzed in her head anyway.
Both boys had Felix’s blond hair, which means that if they were brothers, they probably got blue eyes from their mother. Then the only person who would fit could be Chloe, because at least Felix communicated with her somehow, – mostly caustically and with mockery, but he generally ignored others, and if it had to be someone from their school...
Marinette already started to feel slightly nauseous from her own thoughts when Daniel spoke up.
“Time is an integral dynamic system that doesn’t tolerate mistakes, and our very presence here suggests that we must be present here, because we actually are, which means this fact is already part of the system in the integral plane.” He stated with no less authority than Christian did, and though Marinette really had a hard time grasping the essence of his statement, she realized that it sounded logical and that he seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.
“Or they could both be yours…” She muttered in confusion, looking from one boy to another, then back to Daniel. “But didn’t you say you wanted to meet your mother?..” She asked, blushing involuntarily, feeling like she was invading some personal situation that seemed to involve Felix.
“You don’t have to believe everything six-year-old time travelers tell you.’ Christian answered her instead.
“As for our relationship, we can be both brothers and cousins.” Daniel explained to Felix. “This wouldn’t be the first time in our family.” He added with a smirk.
Could they be Adrien’s? – Marinette thought hopefully. – Or at least Daniel, who was looking for his mother, who could still be Chloe?.. – And although she didn’t want to “give away” Daniel at all, in this version of her logic there was a chance that at least one of them could be Felix’s and...
Glancing briefly at Felix, she noticed a slight blush on his cheeks. “So how did you get here?” He asked in the same serious, but not very strict tone as before, ignoring the embarrassment that was obvious to her – probably after the hint to his family and his resemblance to his cousin all kinds of reasoning on this matter also swarmed in his head.
“We stole Fluff!” Christian confessed.
“We got hit by an akuma!” Daniel yelled at the same time with him.
And while Marinette opened her eyes wide in shock after hearing the name of the kwami
of time from Felix’s would-be children, the boys continued quarreling among themselves.
“Hey, we agreed about it!” Daniel was outraged. “They were all obsessed with Akumas back then!” He explained.
“I forgot…” Christian frowned. “You should’ve reminded me, or not rush with the portals so fast!”
Marinette finally came to her senses enough to speak. “Did you steal Fluff?!” She asked in an incredulous voice, then realized that she wasn’t supposed to know anything about kwamis… “So… uh… What’s Fluff?” She tried to cover it up.
Felix gave her a suspicious narrowed look, then turned his eyes back to the boys. “So?” He spoke, clearly waiting for an explanation.
“Fluff is…” Daniel started, but Christian elbowed him in the shoulder.
“She knows…” He whispered in a conspiratorial voice, however, well audible to both teenagers.
“I know that!..” Daniel whispered back to him in the same conspiratorial tone. “I just played along. Can’t you see she’s pretending in front of daddy?!.”
They stopped whispering and finally turned to the teenagers watching them, who now both stood with stunned faces.
Felix was probably surprised that he would actually become a father one day, despite his coldness and strict attitude towards everyone around him, including women, – or something like that. – Marinette thought, only briefly though, because she was going through her own life drama at that moment.
It was one thing to assume that the guy you started to respect during your acquaintance, – for his ability to defend his position, persistence and confidence, – and on whom you might have been slightly crushing, – although you didn’t want to admit it to yourself, so as not to pine after him as you did after his cousin, because he obviously didn’t have any tender feelings for you… So it was one thing – to assume that he would someday marry someone and have a family and children, and it was a completely another thing – to see these children right in front of you before you even had time to accept this fact and come to terms with it…
“Oops…” One of the boys whispered, but Marinette stared into the void in front of her and didn’t even notice which of them.
Felix woke up from his temporary stupor and swallowed. “Are you... my children?” He clarified as if it wasn’t already so obvious.
Christian looked at Daniel and took a deep breath, just like Felix usually did when an argument reached a dead end. “Fine.” The boy said. “We are brothers. But we won’t say anything more.” And cast a frown expressive look at his brother again.
Marinette finally recovered from her experiences – a sense of responsibility has always been able to sober her up well and bring her out of her personal feelings. “Bunnix must be very worried right now.” She said sternly, narrowing her eyes at the boys. “Don’t you think so?”
They had already ratted her out anyway (And how could they know about her involvement?! And how could they even steal Fluff from Alix?!), so she needed to fix the problem before thinking about what she could lie to Felix regarding her connection to the miraculous…
“Who is…” Felix began, but Marinette cut him off as she took a step towards the little thieves.
“How would you feel if something valuable was stolen from you?” She asked as she took another step.
Both boys took off and immediately hid behind Felix’s back.
But this was their mistake, because Marinette, unlike most of her classmates, was never afraid of him, so she came close to him, trying to look behind Felix’s back. “Which of you has the miraculous?!” She demanded.
“Hey!” Felix exclaimed protectively, putting his hands behind his back, as if separating her from the boys. “Don’t attack my children!”
“How do you know they are yours?!” She protested with her usual defiance.
“They confessed it themselves!” He exclaimed, continuing to protect the boys from her.
“Exactly!” Marinette said as she left her pursuit and crossed her arms over her chest, made a step back and looked at him expectantly.
In a moment Felix’s face lit up in realization and he took a step towards Marinette and stood next to her, turning to face the children. “So, little travelers, is any of what you said true?” He demanded.
The boys looked at each other.
“Yes.” Daniel stated.
“No.” Christian spoke at the same time with him.
Marinette chuckled involuntarily, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Felix couldn’t help but smile too.
“At the moment it seems to me that we haven’t traveled anywhere at all…” Christian grumbled.
“Yeah,” His brother agreed. “Only they are a little younger and mommy’s breasts haven’t yet grown...”
Marinette felt her face heat up even before the meaning of his words caught on, and somehow she was certain that Felix’s face was now as red as hers, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
Could it be true?..
Could such a serious, strict, strong person like Felix notice her one day?
Really notice her?..
Of course, Marinette knew she was almost the only one Felix interacted with in their class. Even with Adrien, he almost never spoke, and with Chloe he only occasionally exchanged sarcastic remarks. He didn’t notice the rest of his classmates at all, and only with Marinette he regularly started long discussions and frank arguments, both during the classes and between them.
But that didn’t mean that he...
That he…
Or did it?
“It’s very indecent to talk about your mother like that.” Felix said finally in a stern voice after clearing his throat, knocking Marinette out of her thoughts.
Christian looked at him offendedly. “You always protect her.” He grumbled.
And while Marinette was going through another shock from both “always” and “protec her”, – because this was exactly what Felix had just done, if you leave out the fact that he spoke about these boys’ mother, – Daniel dropped a new bomb.
“That’s ‘cause he’s in LOVE, silly.” He explained, grimacing.
Marinette felt like her chest was scalded from the inside, and her heart seemed to stop for a second, because even if these words were spoken by Felix himself, they wouldn’t feel as realistic as the same words spoken by his child – his and her child – with the fullness of his knowledge of it and the fact that he was a living proof of their truth.
“Yeah... I don’t get it.” Christian sighed. “How can a person let their feelings dictate their actions?!” He spoke indignantly.
And the very phrase and the tone with which he said it was so in Felix’s style that Marinette involuntarily turned her head to him.
Felix continued to look at the boys, his expression astounded for a moment, his ears red. “Feelings…” He said at last. “...are what ALWAYS dictate a person’s actions. No matter how well they hide it.” He explained to his future children, and his eyes slid down towards Marinette, where their hands were very close.
Marinette felt his fingers barely touch the backs of hers and it was as if an electric current ran through her whole body and her lips parted involuntarily to suck in a sharp breath. Felix’s little finger hooked on hers and Marinette returned the gesture, feeling her heart beating wildly as energy seemed to flow through this small touch and her body vibrated from the fact that they touched each other.
She closed her eyes for a moment, merging with her emotions about her feelings being mutual, and that Felix so easily accepted their common future, and that he held her hand (!!!) for the first time... but she had to immediately open them wide, because one of the boys sighed loudly.
She saw Christian pock Daniel, who must have sighed, on the shoulder with his elbow, and both boys started giggling.
Only now, when their faces were relaxed and expressed pure pleasure, Marinette could see in them her own features and expressions, which were previously hidden behind severity and couldn’t belong to anyone else but her.
Without leaving her hand, Felix cleared his throat again.
“Now that we know that some members of our future family aren’t good at keeping secrets, but are well versed in quantum sciences, let’s decide how to return you to your parents. I’m sure they want you back as soon as possible.”