Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Who said that every wish

Would be heard and answered

When wished on the morning star?”

- “Rainbow Connection”

/*****/

“I want to quit. I don’t want to be a soldier anymore.”

Carapace looked stunned for a moment, then angry. "The city needs you. The team needs you. You can't just leave."

"I can't keep doing this anymore," Chat Noir said, shoulders hunching forward, a contrast to his usual confident, exaggerated posture. "The battles keep getting worse, the choices we make are too hard."

"That just means you're needed even more."

Chat shook his head. "It means I shouldn't be the one making the decisions."

"That's so selfish, dude," Carapace said, crossing his arms. Chat flinched as if the words stung. "I can't believe you. So what, you just quit?"

"Yeah." Chat Noir's voice was getting quieter with every word until Carapace was forced to lip read. "You guys'll be better off without me."

/*****/

The Previous Tuesday

"Nice of you to show up," Chat Noir said, dodging a cantaloupe.

"Nice to see you too, Kitty," Ladybug said. "It would be nicer if I had gotten to eat lunch before rushing out here, but looks like fruit salad might be an option."

"If you eat melons thrown by an akuma supervillain and then restore everything with Miraculous Cure, will the digesting melons disappear from your stomach?" Chat asked. He looked around them and spotted something. He made eye contact with Ladybug and grinned. She rolled her eyes as he parkour-ed up into a tree.

"’Sneaky cat in a tree’ is not a real move, Chat. And I… don't know about the melons. And now I don't want to find out." She swung herself onto the roof of a nearby house.

"Punny Chat would have eaten the melons without thinking about it. Would you have preferred that to me pointing it out?" Chat Noir said. He peeked out of the branches at the melon-throwing enemy. "I think the akuma's in his apron, but I haven’t gotten close enough to be sure."

"Don't be grumpy, Grumpy Chat," Ladybug said, yoyo spinning like a shield. "You didn't stop being my favorite just because I'm dating your twin."

"I miss the old days, back when you weren't dating my brother and the world didn't know there are two Chat Noirs."

Ladybug rolled her eyes. "I take full responsibility for the dating part, but you're the one that decided that one Chat dating meant telling the world there’s two of you." She took a run at the akuma before retreating in a shower of melons. They tried a combined attack, Chat shielding Ladybug, but they still couldn't get close enough.

Chat flipped open his baton with a growl, looking at the map of Paris. "Where is-"

"Sorry, sorry!" Carapace flipped off his flying hoverboard shell and landed next to his partners. "I couldn't get away, and then-"

"I don't care," Chat said. "Use your shield, get us close enough to take this guy's apron."

"S-sorry." Carapace tried to will himself not to blush. "Hey, Grumpy."

"You don't know if I'm Grumpy Chat. I could be Punny Chat." He didn't spare Carapace a glance as he deflected more melons.

“You know I can tell you two apart, right?”

"Can we get on with the fight?" Ladybug asked, gesturing towards the akumatized man cackling and yelling about declining melon sales. "Some of us have stuff to do."

"Right." Carapace called up his power, surrounding the three of them in a shield. They ran as one towards the the akuma victim, who had the intelligence to run from them. He didn't get far. As they reached him, Carapace dropped his shield, Chat knocked the man's feet out from under him, and Ladybug yanked the apron from his chest.

"Bye bye little butterfly!" she called. They didn't even wait for the cleansed butterfly to flap off into the sky before fist bumping.

"I'm late for class," Chat Noir said. He bowed to Ladybug. "Always a pleasure, Buggy." He straightened up and nodded at Carapace. "I didn’t mean ‘I don’t care.’ That was a poor choice of words, and I’m sorry. It sounded like you were about to reveal a bit too much of your identity, and I wanted to keep you safe. Be more carefully, Shelly. We need you out there. Good work today." He turned and planted his baton, shooting himself into the air before leaning forward to land on a roof. He ran from there, disappearing into the skyline.

"Was that a good thing? A bad thing? Does he like me?" Carapace asked, staring in the direction Chat had gone.

"He's… That's just how he is. It doesn't mean anything when he acts like that," Ladybug said, using her yoyo as an actual yoyo.

"So… he nothings me?"

Ladybug winced at how far Carapace's face fell. "No! He likes having you on the team! You two work together really well."

"But I still don't have a shot with him, right?"

Ladybug clapped him on the shoulder. "Who knows? I never expected to fall for his brother."

Carapace nodded. "I guess. How's that go-" His miraculous beeped, cutting him off.

"I'll tell you later. Head to class," Ladybug said. "I'll get this guy back to his fruit stand."

Carapace hopped on his shell and flew towards school. He needed to grab lunch before returning to school. Thankfully there was a place down the block he liked. He wondered idly about the fact that Chat had been heading in this direction, but dismissed the idea that they went to school together pretty quickly. He could spot the object of his affections without a mask, right?

/*****/

Felix walked into class like he owned the concept of mathematics. The teacher rolled his eyes but didn't comment. Felix sank into the last row with Nathaniel with a sense of relief he didn't dare show.

"I can't believe you made me take this class," Felix growled, pulling his notebook from his bag.

"More math won't hurt you," Nathaniel said. "I saved you something to eat." He placed a paper bag on Felix's desk. "Now take notes so I can finish this commission."

Felix took notes on autopilot, letting his mind wander to the book in his bag. With Carapace's help, battles were on average shorter in the past year. That meant more reading time for Felix. And more ballet time. And daydreaming time. Daydreaming time was starting to bleed into note taking time when Nath leaned over.

"I notice someone's not in class. So where is he?"

Felix hadn't realized his eyes were roaming around the classroom until Nathaniel spoke.

"Who?"

"Don't play that game with me," Nath whispered back. He hunched down towards his sketchbook a little further, hair brushing the desk. "I don't ask 'who' when you make comments about my crush."

"You really should, with taste that bad," Felix said. The conversation paused while Felix raised his hand to answer the question on the board.

"Chloe's your friend," Nath hissed, almost laying his torso flat against the desk.

Felix choked on his response. Nath glanced up to see what had caused the reaction and started chuckling.

"Shut up, Tomato Boy."

Nino apologized for being late and slid into his seat between Alya and Adrien.

"I do have to say," Nath said, ignoring the nickname/insult, "no one else in class has had a crush as long as you have. Marinette moved on from Adrien, Kim got over Chloe, even Mylene and Ivan broke up for a few months a few years ago. Maybe your dedication would mean something to him. I still say you should try to-"

"Nath, I will follow through on my threat to tell Chloe about your drawings of her as all the miraculous heroes."

Nathaniel quieted down for the rest of class, but Felix knew it was only a matter of time. The longer Nathaniel had known about Felix's crush, the more Nathaniel pushed Felix to do something about it.

In the hall after class, Felix pulled Nathaniel aside.

"I know you mean well, but please just let me be with the whole…" Felix hated that he felt his face heating, "Nino thing."

Nathaniel nodded. "Okay. I think you have a shot, but okay."

Felix shook his head. "He's liked someone for a while now, according to Adrien. Just let it go."

Adrien and Nino watched Felix and Nathaniel from across the hall.

"What's up with them?" Nino asked, flipping through his phone for the perfect playlist for study hall.

"Felix won't admit to anything," Adrien said, leaning close, "but I think… maybe they're… dating?"

Nino snorted. "I doubt that." He lifted one headphone to his ear, confirming that he had the song he wanted queued up.

"Why do you say that?" Adrien asked.

Nino froze, eyes darting to Felix and back to Adrien. "Uh, no… no reason. Let's get to the library."

Adrien started in on another monologue about the wonder that was Ladybug, and Nino let himself release a small sigh of relief. Felix liked him. He had known for a couple years, and still wasn't sure what to do about it. Nino opened his texts and scrolled to "In Case of Emergency.”

Nino: this is your daily reminder that felix, for reasons unknown, is crushing on me. and i still think you should tell me wtf to do about that

In Case of Emergency: I still cannot make that decision for you. He's a good person, if prickly. Treat him well. Do whatever you know to be right.

Nino: dude you are no help

"Who are you texting?" Adrien asked. They claimed a table and pulled out their textbooks.

"A friend." He put his phone in his pocket. "Did you understand that lesson this morning?"

/*****/

Felix knocked on his father's office door that afternoon. He knew Nathalie was at her weekly book club or Krav Maga class, whichever was on Tuesdays, but he was surprised his father didn't answer, if only to tell him to go away.

"Father?" Felix opened the heavy door and stepped inside. No one was there. He walked around to see that the design program was still up and running on his father's computer. He should be back soon then, wherever he was. Felix checked the table next to his father's standing desk for his permission slip for his ballet lessons. He sifted through designs he didn't care about, budget reports he really didn't care about, but stopped when he got to a handful of blurry, dark photographs. Out of curiosity, he picked up a few and flipped through them. They were of an animal in a dark alley, a person standing on a roof, a- wait. Wait a minute. That was-

"Felix? What are you doing?"

Felix froze. He could all but feel the cat ears he currently didn't have perking to attention. He forced himself to turn slowly to face his father, holding up the pictures for him to see.

"I was looking for my permission slip. What are these?"

"I believe those are Chat Noir," Gabriel said, taking the pictures from Felix. "It looks like him, doesn't it?"

"Sort of," Felix said, squinting at the picture that had triggered his realization. "Smaller though, maybe?"

"Younger," Gabriel said. He replaced the pictures and pulled Felix's permission slip from the mess of paper. "Did you know, some people think they saw Chat Noir up to a year before Stoneheart?"

More than a year, Felix thought. I started about five months before Mom went missing. "Interesting. I always assumed he and Ladybug were a pair. I certainly hadn't heard of either of them before Stoneheart."

"Yes, that seems to be the consensus," Gabriel said. He started rearranging things on his computer screen as he talked. "But if Chat Noir was here first… that does narrow down who he could be." He shook his head. "Both of them, I mean. That was quite the press conference last month. Two individuals splitting the burden of Chat Noir's mantle? I certainly never guessed."

Felix hummed in response, looking over the permission slip as if there was anything to look at other than the signature at the bottom.

"If you're going upstairs, please tell Adrien that his departure time tomorrow is earlier than we originally thought. Nathalie has the details."

It wasn't until Felix was doing homework that night that it occurred to him that normal people generally had no reason to research Chat Noir so thoroughly. There were identity theorists, sure, but that sounded nothing like Gabriel Agreste. What was his father up to?

/*****/

Carapace paced the ridge of the roof, muttering to himself. "Hey, Chat! No, that sounds too generic. Hello, Chat Noir. Too formal. Sup, Cat Man?"

"Would you like me to circle the block, let you decide on which greeting to use?"

Carapace jumped and almost fell off the roof, scrambling for a foothold.

"Dude! Don't sneak up on me like that! We should make you wear a-"

"A bell?" Chat reached under his chin to ding the accessory. "Did you know that when house cats wear bells on their collars, they become even more deadly as hunters because they're forced to learn to work around it?"

"Uh, that's kinda- I mean, you're totally a deadly hunter already! Uh, wait, no, not deadly. And you don't hunt. You do the opposite, and keep everyone safe! So, really, you're a terrible hunter."

Chat laughed. "Relax, Shelly." He stretched for a moment, eyes closed and arms extended over his head. It did nothing for Carapace’s composure. “Let’s go.”

They started running their patrol route. Carapace ran instead of flying. It was a different feeling, and an enjoyable one, but that's not why he did it.

"So, how was your… book? You like books. You told me that. I don't know what book I'm talking about because you won't tell me that, but-"

"Would you seriously chill?" Chat Noir leapt from one building to the next and did a shoulder roll. "It's a Tuesday night. Not a high-crime night for this side of town, so let's just enjoy the run."

Carapace would never admit it, but he was glad for the excuse to not talk. When he talked, he could feel every word putting more distance between them. When they ran, jumped, fought… it was nice. Running was also a good excuse to watch Chat without worrying about being accused of staring or being weird. The effortless grace Chat Noir exuded in all he did was entrancing. Carapace had always noticed this, from the first battles. He had been one of the few people in the city to suspect there were two people acting as Chat Noir. He had spent so much time watching the way Chat moved those first few months, that when Punny Chat had joined the team, he had noticed pretty quickly. Punny Chat was excellent as Chat Noir, but it wasn't the same. They moved differently. Becoming part of the team himself had confirmed it. Getting to know Grumpy Chat had been the best thing to ever happen to him.

"Do you remember those first few weeks after you joined?" Chat asked when they paused on a roof to look at the city lights.

"I was just thinking about it, actually," Carapace said, spinning the rounded side of his shield on his palm. "Why?"

"I was thinking of how mad Buggy got when you said something like, 'We'll get Hawkmoth. I'll do whatever I can to make sure of it.'"

Carapace made a snorting, giggling sound that would land in the top 20 of his list of "Embarrassing Things I've Done in Front Of Chat Noir". "She took that so wrong. Like I meant you guys hadn't been trying hard or couldn't do it without me."

Chat Noir lowered himself to sit with his legs dangling off the roof. "She told me she was worried that because you had the miraculous of the current Guardian, you would see yourself as the leader and try to boss her around."

Carapace sat with him, shaking his head. "Anyone who would want to tell Ladybug how to do her job isn't worthy of a miraculous in the first place."

Chat Noir hummed in agreement, pulling one foot up to rest on the ledge of the roof. His chin plopped on his knee and his hands circled his leg. Carapace watched him try to twist the ring on his finger, watched it pull at the glove, not rotating beyond where his skin would stretch.

"Any more news from your kwami?" Carapace asked, nodding to the ring.

"The ring is still stuck. He still doesn't know why. Still doesn't know if I'll ever be free of this stupid thing."

Carapace watched the twisting grow faster, harsher.

"You don't seem to mind being Cat Man most of the time," he said, reaching out to pull on Chat's wrist until his hands fell away from each other to grip the edge of the roof.

"Most of the time, compared to the rest of my life, it feels freeing." He tipped his head back, staring at the dark, cloudy sky. "That first year really did feel like freedom. Just me, in the shadows. Helping. Fixing. Harnessing pure destruction to make changes. Even after Hawkmoth showed up…" He glanced at Carapace out of the corner of his eye. "Did you ever hear why we split my miraculous?"

"You said you were under a lot of stress," Carapace said. He didn't know why tonight was one of the rare nights that Chat was talkative, but he would take what he could get.

"Stressed is an understatement," Chat said. "There was a lot of family stuff going on. Punny needed some support in changing things and all of a sudden our time was filled, nearly every moment. Then there was trying to sneak away from adults, teachers, and Punny all the time to fight akumas. I sometimes… When I'm stressed, I sometimes don't eat enough. It doesn't occur to me to eat, and when it does, I have no appetite. I didn't realize it was a problem until I passed out in gym class. My kwami hadn't noticed it happening. When he figured it out, he was livid. He made me quit some after school activities, and when that didn't do enough, he decided I needed to share the miraculous. He decided without me, really. He flew out of my pocket when my brother was in the room and introduced himself. After the screaming stopped, and he explained himself…” Chat looked at Carapace without really seeing him. “I love being Chat Noir, but I don’t love it like he does.”

Chat turned back to face the growing darkness of the city.

“You okay?” Carapace asked. He started and stopped a new question a few times before giving up and repeating, “You okay?”

Chat shrugged. “Something on my mind, that’s all.”

“Anything I can do?” Carapace asked. He reached up to fiddle with his goggles, inspecting Chat’s every move.

“Probably not,” Chat shrugged. “It’s probably fine.” A moment later he whispered to himself, “It’s probably not him.”

/*****/

"Who's there?" Adrien called, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he squinted at the figure in is doorway.

"Sorry to wake you," Felix whispered, crawling in the other side of Adrien's bed. “But I just couldn’t sleep.”

"How was patrol?" Adrien asked, rolling to face Felix.

"Carapace let me ramble like an idiot," Felix said, pulling the pillow on his side into his chest.

Adrien's tone turned teasing. "I think he likes you."

"Ugh," Felix replied, rolling onto his back. "Father said something about your schedule to leave for Milan changing. I was supposed to pass along the message."

"Nathalie told me, thanks." Felix tried to tell Adrien about the pictures their father had. He tried to make the words form. Instead he said, "Do you think I'll ever be able to stop being Chat Noir?"

"Plagg says something can reverse it, even if he doesn't know what," Adrien said. His words were starting to slow with sleep. "I don't know if I ever want to stop, though. If you quit, do I have to? I want to stay with Ladybug."

"Go to sleep," Felix said. Maybe Adrien should have been Chat Noir to start with. That was something to think about.

Chapter Text

"Alya and Adrien, Marinette and Sabrina, Felix and Nino…"

Felix cringed. Working in pairs on the in-class worksheet was bad enough. Working with Nino? At least Nathaniel was in another class section and wouldn't have to know and tease him.

"I hope you remember dates, because I don't," Nino said, sliding into the seat next to him.

"It's history class," Felix said with an unimpressed stare. "The dates are kind of important."

"I'm good at the names," Nino said. "Not a fan of dates though."

Felix willed his brain to stop thinking about Nino saying the word "date" so many times. Nino leaned close to point to the third question. "Here, this, I read that last night and-"

"Would you back off?" Felix asked, jerking away from him.

“Dude," Nino said, "we have to work on the worksheet. You have the worksheet. Now, here, this guy was-"

"I know who that guy was," Felix said. "I read the assignment, too."

Nino closed his eyes for a moment, sending up a silent prayer for patience. "Okay. Why don't you decide which questions we each take, and then we can just-"

"I'll just do it," Felix said, turning away to flip through his textbook.

"That's not how group work works, dude."

"You just said you don't do dates," Felix said, writing in the first answer. "I've got this."

The squabbling continued for the rest of class. Nino eventually gave up and took pictures of the worksheet with his phone, so he could review the questions on his own and left Felix to work. The second the bell rang for the end of the school day, Nino left. After turning in the worksheet, Felix left as well.

/*****/

"Eat enough while I'm gone," Adrien said, hugging Felix in the entryway. "And sleep. Basically, please perform all basic life functions as required?"

"Smile pretty for the cameras."

"I can't believe I have to go all the way to Milan just for a few photoshoots."

"At least it's not New York," Nathalie said.

"You're just saying that because you hate planes," Adrien said.

"It's not planes I hate, it's flying," Nathalie said. "Adrien, let's go."

The Gorilla carried their bags to the car and Felix waved from the doorway. A slushy, almost-snow rain had started. Felix closed the door the second the car was out the gate. He grabbed his things for the ballet studio and texted his father as he walked out the door.

Felix: Father, at dance studio. Will call for ride home.

Felix did not go to the ballet studio. He needed nothing more than to talk to his best friend.

/*****/

"You could be nicer."

"I hate myself."

Ladybug and Chat Noir were hiding on the roof of Notre Dame with pastries and a blanket to share. Where “share” meant “bundle Ladybug in the blanket because she said she thought she was getting a cold and Chat Noir insisted.”

"Seriously, you like this boy?" Ladybug asked, shifting Chat Noir's head on her shoulder.

"It's the same guy I've been telling you about since we met," Chat said. He poked a claw through the croissant balanced on his knee.

"So if you like him, stop picking fights. You're better than this, Kitty."

"I'm not better than this," Chat said with a sigh. "And that's why he'll never like me."

"I really can't handle this pity party," Ladybug said. "Where's my snarky, electrifying partner? That guy is better than this."

"You're a kind person, Bug," Chat said. "To completely change the topic in hopes of forgetting my disastrous afternoon, how are things going with you and Puns?"

"I think he feels guilty that the media's focus is on you two being two people instead of one, but he's really happy to be able to openly date without everyone asking, 'wait, I thought Chat Noir told everyone he was gay in an interview two years ago?' I never expected my first date to involve masks and hiding from the paparazzi on rooftops, but it's…good. It's so good." She gave a happy little sigh and rested her head on top of Chat Noir’s.

"I'm glad it's working out," Chat said. "He's loved you for so long."

"I wish it hadn't taken me so long," she said. "But I think it's better that I'm sure."

"Absolutely."

They lapsed into silence, poking through the pastry box for their favorites.

"What do you remember about the Collector?"

Ladybug's forehead creased. "This was years ago. You didn't hear about it from Punny?"

"I did. And you told me about it a few days later. I was across town when it happened." He looked down at the cookie he had taken from the box. He put it back, dusting the crumbs from his fingers.

"Okay, so you know what happened," Ladybug said. "What are you asking then? And why now?"

Chat shrugged. "We haven't had a lot of leads since then. I'm just curious."

"You and your catlike traits," she teased, bumping her shoulder into his.

"If anything kills me, it'll probably be curiosity."

Or Hawkmoth, he thought.

/*****/

The next day after school, Felix made sure his father was in his office and Plagg was asleep in his pocket before sneaking upstairs to his father's room. It was tidy, for the most part. Everything was in its place with very few exceptions. His father's slippers looked like they had been kicked off and had landed against the wall before falling upside down next to each other. A few papers littered the desk in the corner. When Felix looked at the two dressers side by side, he knew the one with nothing atop it was his father's. The one with perfume bottles, jewelry, a potted plant, and a single sock on it was his mother's. It hadn't been touched since she disappeared. Felix ran a finger over the stones of a diamond and sapphire necklace. He picked up a perfume bottle and didn't have to spray it to be able to smell the floral scent. He put it back, not sure if he was glad for the reminder of times past.

He turned to the center of the room, eyes sweeping for obvious hiding places. He looked in both bedside tables, under the bed, in the closet, around the baseboards, behind pictures, in drawers. It was as an afterthought that Felix looked on the desk. Most of the papers were bills or other mail, but a sticky note caught his eye.

"Melon motivation fine. Power limited. Should have been all fruit"

Felix dropped the paper. The melon throwing akuma. He couldn’t handle this. Not yet. He hastily replaced the sticky note where it had been and left the room. In the hall, he pulled out his phone.

"Nath," he said when the other line picked up, "up for a ballet lesson?"

"Literally anything to get away from this homework.”

/*****/

"Extend your leg," Felix said, holding the pose Nathaniel was copying.

"Remind me why I thought learning ballet would help me understand anatomy?" Nath made a face in the mirror.

"Because ballet takes that anatomy and moves it around more than most things. Lean forward a bit more."

Nath wobbled for a moment, but eventually felt the pose "click" in his mind, everything balancing out.

Felix saw Nath's face light up and his shoulders relax, so Felix dropped the pose himself to turn and look at Nath's form.

"Good."

"Ha! I got a 'good' from you," Nath said, dropping the pose immediately. "I get to sit."

"Since when is that the rule?"

"Since I'm tired."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Felix asked.

Nath settled down next to his bag and pulled out his sketchbook. "Dance while I draw you, like old times."

Felix shrugged and went to plug his phone into the speakers. He brought up the song for his solo at the next recital. He took barely a second to listen to the intro before launching into what little choreography he already had mapped out. When that ended, he kept going. He couldn't have stood still for his life at that moment. The song was on repeat, and he went again and again. His mind was filled only with the sensations from his body, the sound of the song, the sight of his movements in the mirror, the smell of the old studio room. When his muscles started to protest another loop through the song, he ignored it. It took Nath pausing the song for Felix to crash back to reality.

"Why did you do that?" Felix asked. He was breathing hard, he noticed for the first time.

"What's going on with you?" Nath asked, sitting next to his sketchbook again. He held Felix's water bottle out to him.

"What do you mean?" Felix took the water and paced around the room as he sipped at it.

"You seem… focused, but in a bad way? Too focused. You were extra intense teaching me today, and extra intense dancing just now. Do you know how many times you just ran through that song?"

"No idea," Felix said. "But that's not a fair judgement. I never keep track of stuff like that."

"We're friends," Nath said. "Can't you just take my word that you're acting weird?"

Felix came to a stop at the end of his next loop across the room, sitting next to Nath.

"Just some drama with my father," Felix said.

Nath waited to see if Felix would say more. When he didn't, Nath stood and held out his hand to help Felix up.

"Did you have dinner yet?"

"I'm not hungry."

"That wasn't the question."

If Felix needed a distraction, Nath could do that. Dinner turned into working on calculus until the library closed. By the time Felix had the Gorilla pick them up and drop Nathaniel off, he had almost forgotten why he didn't want to go home.

"Geez, kid," Plagg said when Felix reached his room. "Your heart rate climbed high enough on the car ride home to wake me from my nap. It was lovely, I was dreaming of camembert."

"Then go back to sleep," Felix said. "I'll feed you when I'm out of the shower."

"Not so fast!" Plagg zipped in front of Felix's face. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." He stepped around Plagg to the bathroom.

"Nice try," Plagg said. "Is this about your dad having those pictures of you from before Ladybug?"

"I thought you were with Adrien then," Felix said.

"Nope, I was in your bag. You had more cheese in there than Adrien had in his."

"Just go to sleep, Plagg. Dream of camembert and stinky socks and napping in the sun."

Felix closed the door with a solid thump.

/*****/

"Kid, what are we doing?" Plagg asked as Felix peeked around the corner of the hallway to the back entrance of the house the following afternoon.

"I'll tell you in a minute."

Felix made sure his father was busy with the fabric shipment before walking to the office door. It was unlocked, as Felix suspected. Inside, he began by poking around Nathalie's desk. When he moved to look through the papers on his father's table, Plagg made himself known again.  

"Felix. What are you doing?"

"I became suspicious of him with the pictures of me from before Ladybug and Stoneheart. You're right about that," Felix said. The pictures were gone, and the table contained nothing else of note. He headed to the wall of modeling pictures, peeking behind them. "Then I checked his bedroom while you were asleep yesterday. There was… It wasn't definitive evidence, but…"

"Evidence of what?" Plagg asked, looking behind the pictures with Felix.

"He might be Hawkmoth. Maybe."

"Didn't we already do this?" Plagg asked. "Adrien stole a book. You two almost lost your school privileges. People were akumatized. Theories were disproved."

"Could Hawkmoth create an akuma for himself? Is it theoretically possible?" Felix asked. He stopped investigating to stare Plagg in the eye.

"I mean… I guess?"

"Has it happened before?"

"…Once."

Felix nodded. "Show me how to open the safe that Adrien found."

Plagg flew to the painting of Emilie and waited for Felix to pull it to the side. Felix stopped and inspected the frame for a moment.

"Uh, it's over here," Plagg said, pointing to the safe.

"This is an unnecessarily thick frame," Felix said. "I remember when it was installed. The painting isn't that thick. Nowhere near it."

"So?"

"So…" Felix looked around for confirmation of his theory, finding it in a few wires near the hinges. "This does something."

"What?"

"Knowing my father's level of drama? It opens a trap door. I all but guarantee it."

"Well, let's look in here first," Plagg said.

The moment Felix set eyes on the Peacock Miraculous, he knew there was no more hope.

He had fulfilled part of the team's mission. He had found Hawkmoth.

He had to find as much evidence as possible. Leave everything untouched other than taking the Peacock Miraculous.

Run.

Chapter Text

“I want to quit. I don’t want to be a soldier anymore.”

Carapace looked stunned for a moment, then angry. "The city needs you. The team needs you. You can't just leave."

"I can't keep doing this anymore," Chat Noir said, shoulders hunching forward, a contrast to his usual confident, exaggerated posture. "The battles keep getting worse, the choices we make are too hard."

"That just means you're needed even more."

Chat shook his head. "It means I shouldn't be the one making the decisions."

"That's so selfish, dude," Carapace said, crossing his arms. Chat flinched as if the words stung. "I can't believe you. So what, you just quit?"

"Yeah.” Chat Noir’s voice was getting quieter with every word until Carapace was forced to lip read. "You guys'll be better off without me."

Carapace opened his mouth to snap at him, but seeing his partner flinch again made him pause. He took a good look at Chat Noir. Usually his partner stood tall, grinned wide enough that his teeth glinted in the moonlight, nearly bounced with restless energy when forced to stand still for too long. The Chat Noir in front of him was still. He had his arms wrapped around his middle, curling in on himself as if to look smaller. There was no grin, or smirk, or even sneer. What little he could see of his face around his mask looked pale, drawn, exhausted.

"You're not okay, are you?" Carapace asked, letting his arms drop to his sides.

"I'm not okay," Chat agreed, letting his eyes close and a tear drip down his mask.

Strong arms pulled Chat Noir into the shadow of Carapace’s shell and hood, gentle pressure keeping him there and providing the first feeling of safety he'd had in days.

"I trust you," Carapace said. "Whatever you say you need right now, I trust you. You need to quit, you do it. You need a vacation, go for it. You need to punch me for what I just said a minute ago, I'll take the shell off so you don't hurt your hand. So, Cat Man, what do you need?"

Chat Noir freed his arms from where they were trapped between them to get an awkward hold on Carapace's neck, bumping his hands into the top of the shell before settling.

"I can't go home, and I don't want to be alone," he said. "Can I go home with you?"

“Yeah. Yeah, I can make that work.” He hesitated, running a hand up and down Chat’s back. “You know that means at least my identity needs to be revealed, right? And I don't know how long you could hide yours. I don't know if your kwami can keep up your transformation all night.”

“I'll reveal when we get there,” Chat said, pulling away and running his hand over his face, clearing away the tears he couldn't stop. “I'll explain when we get there, too. I just… I need to be somewhere safe for a bit.”

Carapace squeezed Chat’s shoulder and nodded. “Are you willing to travel by shell, or do we have to take the long way?”

“I hate that thing.”

“I won't let you fall.” He took off his shell and set it on the ground. He stepped on it and held out his hand.

“Just take me home,” Chat whispered. He took Carapace's hand and stood on the shell behind him. Carapace turned to face forward, latched Chat's hands around his waist, and felt Chat bury his face into the back of his suit. Carapace loved the feeling of flying through the city on his own personal hoverboard. This flight, however, he was more focused on the fact that he could feel every tremble from Chat Noir.

They landed on the roof of an apartment building. Chat didn't move until Carapace pulled his arms apart and stepped to the ground.

“I usually detransform before going inside,” Carapace said, nodding towards the roof access door. “I'm really nervous. The idea of revealing to another hero is so… like, built up in my mind.”

“It's okay,” Chat said. “The other Chat is the only one who knows who I am. Though I won't be surprised if, when he and Ladybug reveal to each other, she figures out who I am.”

“We're stalling, aren't we?” Carapace said, shaking his head with a smile. “I'll go first, if that will help?”

Chat Noir nodded, his arms crossing over himself again. Light flashed.

Nino. Nino Lahiffe stood in front of him.

Nino hated him. Nino had every right to hate him. He shouldn't burden this good, kind person with what he knew, with having to keep him safe. In Felix’s mind, where Nino wasn’t Carapace, Carapace had signed on for the hero thing. Nino Lahiffe had not.

“I can't do this,” he whispered, backing towards the edge of the roof. He would go home, pretend he was fine, find another way.

“Woah, wait, stop.” Nino's hand clamped down on Chat Noir’s wrist. “You don't have to, it's fine. I can hide you here even if you don't reveal. We can figure this out.”

Chat Noir froze. Nino looked down at his shoes before glancing at Chat over his glasses.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to. You know I have, like, an embarrassing, puppy dog crush on you, right?”

He did know. And, as usual, he ignored it. “I can’t risk it. I can’t risk your family. Your mom checks on you all the time. Your older sister is probably home from her job and looking to watch a movie. Your little brother is probably waiting to beg you for more music your mom doesn't want him listening to. And none of you deserve to be stuck with me.”

Nino tugged on his wrist and Chat found himself not resisting in the slightest, leaning in when Nino brought him into a tight hug.

“So we know each other.” A statement, not a question. “And that worries you?”

Chat Noir nodded. “You won't want me here once you know who I am.”

He could feel the moment Nino figured it out. The catch in his breath followed by the tightening of his hug.

“Even if you were Chloe, I would still do anything for you. You're my Cat Man, even without the mask. And I'd do anything for Cat Man.”

Chat laughed, his hold just as tight on Nino. “Even if I'm Chloe?”

“I mean, I'd have to change your name to Cat Lady or Cat Woman.”

Chat Noir laughed again, surprised that he was capable of feeling humor.

“You coming inside now, Felix?”

They stood on the edge of the roof, one superhero and one boy dressed in cat ears and a tail. When Chat pulled back from Nino and turned to face away, neither was sure if he was about to run or detransform until they saw the light flash.

The silence made Felix feel like each bone in his body had turned to lead. He couldn't turn around.

“I promise that I have popcorn and hot chocolate inside.” A warm hand slid into Felix's.

“What about coffee?” He turned to see a smile he didn't deserve.

“Yeah, you're literally shaking, dude. No coffee.”

“You're such a mom friend.” He was shaking, yes, but also grinning ear to ear.

“Speaking of moms, dude,” Nino said. “I can hide you from my family if we really need to, but maybe you should let them know you're here? You said... you said you don't want to go home, but it seems like... maybe you're scared?"

Felix's eyes slammed shut. "I'm terrified. I can't go home."

"You're almost eighteen. Maybe... you can just stay with us? My mom would know better with her social work… thing."

"Not... not yet." Felix said, pulling his hand back. Nino found it even more heart wrenching when Felix wrapped his arms around himself than when he saw Chat Noir the superhero do so.

"Okay. Like I said, whatever you need."

Felix's stomach growled.

"That popcorn sounds nice," Felix said with a chuckle.

"Yeah, you said you don't eat enough when you're stressed. Come on."

Nino led Felix into the apartment. They didn't pass anyone in the hallway and Nino all but shoved Felix into one of the bedrooms.

"Stay here, I'll be right back," he whispered.

In the hallway, Nino called loudly, "Mom, I'm home."

Felix listened through the door as Mrs. Lahiffe worried over her son. You stay out too late, you should eat something more nutritious than popcorn, how was school, when do I get to meet that boy you have a crush on. It made his heart clench and guilt bubble up. He was putting this sweet family in danger. Mrs. Lahiffe, single mother powerhouse. Nino's older sister, Melanie; part time student, part time barista. Chris, Nino's younger brother who was in his first year of high school. And Nino.

Nino returned with popcorn and a large mug of hot chocolate.

“I couldn't get two mugs without alerting my eagle eyed mom to your presence,” Nino said, handing the mug to Felix. Felix set the cup down and started pacing across the room.

“I shouldn't be here,” he said. “I don't want your family getting into trouble for taking in the runaway Agreste boy, or in danger because Chat Noir is here.”

“Dude, they already have one superhero under their roof. What's a second one?”

Felix continued to pace. Nino watched him from his desk chair for a moment. Felix had nothing with him. No school things, no overnight bag, not even a winter jacket.

“Felix?” He stopped pacing and faced Nino. “What’s going on? Is Adrien okay?”

Felix sighed. “He's safe, for now. He's in Milan with Nathalie for the week.”

“Would you sit?” Nino said, shoving the hot chocolate into Felix's hands again. Felix slumped to the floor and leaned back against the side of the bed. His eyes slid closed and he pulled his knees up to rest his chin on one. The Felix that Nino knew from class would never let himself look so vulnerable in front of anyone. Chat might, if a battle was going poorly and he was scared for one of his teammates. This would take some getting used to. Merging two people in his mind was not what he had expected to happen from a reveal. He had assumed, Paris being a big city, that he didn't know any of his team in real life. Now he knew two of the three other main players.

“At least drink the hot chocolate and get some sugar in your system,” Nino said.

Felix took an obedient sip, but didn't really taste it.

“You're an ill-prepared runaway,” Nino said.

“Yeah. Sorry. I left in a hurry.”

Nino waited to see if Felix would volunteer any information, any clue as to what this was about. He just sat there, sipping his drink with his eyes closed.

“So here's what I know, dude,” Nino said, taking a handful of popcorn before setting the bowl next to Felix. “You're Chat Noir. You don't want to be Chat Noir anymore. You said you can't go home. You're obviously scared of something. I've got some wild and terrible theories, but I'd really just like the actual answers at some point. If you're not ready, that's fine. You're kind of a disaster right now, I get that. But you're not alone. I'm here to help.”

Felix sighed, opened his eyes, and set down the mug.

“Nino, my father is Hawkmoth.”

That was not one of my theories, was Nino's first reaction.

Chapter Text

“Nino, my father is Hawkmoth.”

That was not one of my theories, was Nino's first reaction.

“I confirmed it today. I found his secret safe with a book of information on the miraculous, notes on all his Akuma attempts and whatnot. Then I found his lair. I was expecting to find Mom frozen in carbonite down there, or something, but it was just butterflies and an excessive defense system.”

“You expected to find your mom?”

“His notes were about how he doesn't know where she is.” Felix stared at his mug. “I also found this.”

Felix reached into his pocket and withdrew a colorful brooch.

“Is that-?” Nino leaned closer.

“The Peacock Miraculous, according to Plagg and the book I found. Where is Plagg?”

“Over here,” Plagg called from the fishtank across the room. “Haven't seen Wayzz in a while. You two do your human stuff while we catch up.”

“But the Peacock Miraculous isn't what Hawkmoth uses,” Nino said.

“No, it's not.”

“Shit,” Nino said, reaching up to fiddle with his headphones.

“Please don't swear, Master,” Wayzz said.

“Please don't call me Master,” Nino said.

“So, I can't go home,” Felix said. “Father will review the security tapes and find that I opened his safe and entered his lair. But at least he's down a Miraculous.”

“And he doesn't know that you're Chat Noir. He might just think you found all that and got mad and left.”

“Plagg opened the safe. He might guess that a kwami did it when he sees the door open without me touching it.”

“Hon, you talking to your turtle again?” Mrs. Lahiffe called through the door with a small knock.

“Yeah, that okay?” He looked at Felix, glad his mom hadn't guessed that someone was in the room with him.

“Of course. Just make sure you get some sleep, okay?”

“It's Friday.”

“That doesn't mean you shouldn't sleep. I'm heading to bed myself. Goodnight.”

They waited a few minutes until the world beyond the bedroom door was quiet again.

"So... we have to stop him, don't we?" Nino asked. "But he's your dad. But he's Hawkmoth."

"That's why I quit," Felix said, looking down. "I can't do it. He's a bastard, but I can't do it."

”You shouldn't have to.”

“Can we… not talk about that side of it? I know what has to happen. I know it can only go one of two ways. But I just can't handle thinking about it right now.”

Nino nodded. He slid to the floor and sat next to Felix, leaning his head back on the bed until his hat fell off. Felix took the hat and slid it on his own head.

“Give it back,” Nino whispered, eyes wide.

“Or what?” Felix asked with a smirk, pulling the brim low.

“Or you'll find out my thoughts on Chat Noir wearing my hat.”

Nino watched the smirk slide off Felix's face, quickly replaced by a flushing over his cheekbones. Felix took the hat off, but fidgeted with the seams instead of returning it.

“So, until the final showdown,” Felix said, hoping the topic change would distract him from the look Nino had just given him, “I need to hide. I didn’t take anything with me, to make it look like I hadn’t left. I won’t go to school. I don’t have to stay here, either. I shouldn’t have asked to come here. I just… really needed to see you.” He paused, looking at the hat in his hands. “Carapace you.”

“Yeah… why me?” Nino asked. “Half the time I feel like a burden to you out there. I’d have guessed you’d go to Ladybug. She’s the one really in charge here. She's your best friend.”

“I don’t know why you. And… you’re never a burden. Keep in mind how many years of experience I have on you. I was just like you once. If anything, you’re picking this up quicker than any of us.”

“I give Wayzz credit for that,” Nino said. “He knows so much stuff. I'm just trying to keep up."

They fell quiet. Nino grabbed the popcorn and placed it on Felix's lap. With a chuckle, Felix ate a few kernels.

"I wasn't kidding earlier, I have a huge crush on you," Nino blurted.

Felix choked on his popcorn.

"Sorry, dude," Nino said, doing the only thing he could think of to help and handing him the hot chocolate again. Felix took a sip and slowly regained full use of his airways.

"But now you know I'm Felix," he said.

"And what, that should cancel out me liking you?"

"Bluntly? Yes, I'd expect it to."

"I mean, I've only known for half an hour, but... I'm not complaining."

Felix cleared his throat again, setting the popcorn bowl in front of him to pick the hat back up.

"And according to Nath, you don't seem to mind me as much as you let on," Nino said with a teasing smirk.

"That little... I keep his secrets," Felix muttered, feeling his face warm again.

"He didn't tell me," Nino said, holding back laughter. "He drew you watching me and put song lyrics on it and he didn't know I saw it."

Felix sighed. "It’s been a few years, and sometimes I still can’t believe he’s friends with me." Felix gripped the hat a little tighter and stared at it. He felt himself hunch away from Nino, expecting Nino’s reaction to what he had to say to hurt, but he made himself say it anyway. "I've liked you for a long time. Since middle school, really. But I've acted horribly towards you. I couldn't ever let myself think you'd like me back."

"Seriously?" Nino's eyebrows rose. "That uh..."

"I'm so sorry," Felix whispered. "I'm not good. I'm not kind. I use Chat Noir as a way to make up for being someone that other people just have to put up with. Adrien's tried to teach me but I just... I’m not good enough." He looked up at Nino and watched his face go from concern and a bit of confusion to something else. Before Felix could see that something else turn into the anger or hate he expected, he looked down again. "And that's okay. I'm used to it. It's who I am."

Nino couldn't speak. How could Felix think that? In front of him was a talented young man, dedicated to everything he put his mind to. One who never got enough sleep, was grouchy and sullen but usually held himself back from unleashing his worst. He was quiet and thoughtful and observant. His dry sense of humor and deadpan delivery could make even Chloe laugh. And under all of that... Felix didn't even know.

Nino didn't even realize he had moved until the shock of dark green eyes, wide with surprise, were inches from his own.

"Felix. I never, never want to hear you say that about yourself again." His hands were holding Felix's upper arms, forcing him to turn towards him.

Felix's brow knit in confusion. "I didn't say anything untrue."

"I know you're used to being right," Nino said, squeezing thin, strong shoulders. "But you'll have to get over it, because you're wrong. You're good. And you're good enough."

Felix felt his heart rate pick up. He had never been told that before. It probably wasn't even true. But his heart rate picked up, and something inside him wanted to believe such a ridiculous thing. He felt himself pulling back, but Nino was expecting that, apparently, and held him still.

"You don't need to say that. I'm not... deeply self-loathing or anything." Felix gave another tug of his arm. Nino's fingers tightened even more.

"Felix. You're good enough. And until you believe that, I need you to stop saying otherwise. Can you do that?"

"Let me go."

"Say you'll stop."

"What does it matter?"

"It matters. Say you'll stop."

Felix stared at him, watching for some explanation of Nino's actions. He found nothing but the iron will of Carapace.

"Okay."

Nino watched his face a moment more before letting go and sitting back down. He took a handful of popcorn, grabbed Felix's wrist, and dumped it in his open palm.

"So, you need to hide until whatever's going down goes down," Nino said. A stubborn look came over his face. "Stay here. I assume you have no money with you, and no clothes, nothing to make yourself look less like Felix Agreste. And there aren't many people who would take you in without telling your old man. I have a room with a door that locks, the house is empty during the day, and there's always enough food to feed six more of us than actually live here. And I can catch you up on what happens in class so you won't be behind when you go back. I'll grab you a toothbrush and a towel." Nino's confidence wavered for a moment. "Please stay?"

Felix felt his eyes tear up again. The relief he felt at having somewhere (someone) stable in all of this was quickly overtaken by anger at himself for crying again. In front of Nino. Again.

"Ugh, I'm a mess. What is wrong with me?" He swiped at his eyes before the tears could fall.

"Dude. Nothing is wrong with you." Nino grabbed a box of tissues and set it on the bed behind them. "I'd be more concerned if you weren't upset."

"That's not..." Felix grabbed a tissue and pressed it over his eyes with both hands. "I can't believe I feel safe here. It's been so long since I felt safe."

Nino pulled Felix into his arms again and held him until his silent sobs fell into even breathing.

"You asleep?" Nino whispered, not daring to move.

"Not quite," Felix said, pulling away. "Sorry."

"Don't be. None of this is your fault. I'm glad to be here, to be able to do something."

"Thank you."

"Here, get in bed," Nino said, clearing away the random things that had accumulated on top of the comforter during the day.

"I'm not taking your bed, Nino."

"Yeah, you are. Get some sleep. We'll make a better plan tomorrow."

Nino dug a pair of pajama pants and an old t-shirt from his dresser and tossed them to Felix. He took the mug and bowl to the kitchen, so Felix could change. Plagg flew over and curled up on Nino's pillow, watching Felix change and then fold his clothes with precision, setting them in a stack against the wall, out of the way. With a sigh, Felix crawled under the covers, reaching out a finger to tap Plagg's outstretched paw. Plagg gave a sleepy smile before closing his eyes.

Nino returned and shut off the light. He stumbled to his desk and grabbed his tablet for school work, settling in his desk chair again.

"You're not going to sleep?" Felix asked, feeling self conscious.

"I'm going to get homework out of the way, so I don't have to worry about it tomorrow. Get some sleep, dude. I'll grab a pillow from the hall closet and crash on the floor when I'm tired."

Felix curled into the bed, relaxing more than he expected to, but unable to sleep. He tried staying still, meditating, mentally reviewing the choreography for his upcoming dance recital, and even counting sheep, but no luck.

"You're still not asleep?" Nino asked quietly, turning from his desk when he heard Felix rolling over again.

"It's not unusual for me," Felix said, throwing his arm across his eyes. "If you want to turn the lights back on, that's fine. They won't make a difference to me."

"Is it because Adrien isn't here?" Nino asked, remembering what Adrien had said once about Felix and sleep.

"He's been gone since Wednesday," Felix said.

"Yeah, but you two go to each other when you can't sleep."

Felix stopped breathing for a moment. Did no one keep his secrets anymore? "Yeah, but it's not a big deal. It's not like I have anything to do tomorrow, I can nap during the day if I need to."

"Do you want to call him? We can use my phone... though then we'd have to explain why you're here."

”I had Max disable the GPS capabilities of my phone about a month ago. My phone is safe to use. But Adrien's busy, he needs sleep, and it's kind of late.”

Nino sighed and set down his work. He shut down his computer and sat on the edge of the bed. Felix moved his arm and looked up when he felt the mattress dip.

"Scoot over," Nino said, pushing on Felix's knees through the blanket.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm not Adrien, but... just scoot."

Feeling his face heat up, Felix did as he was told, lying flat on his back on the edge of the twin bed, staring at the ceiling. Plagg grumbled at being forced to move and flitted to the foot of the bed. Still wearing his jeans, t-shirt, and hoodie, Nino pulled the blankets up to slide right next to Felix on his side. If he was tired a minute before, Felix was wide awake now. Nino slid an arm under the pillow, the other settling after some awkward fluttering along his leg over the blankets.

"So, what are you doing?" Felix whispered, engaged in an intense staring match with the ceiling.

"Adrien said when he can’t sleep, he sleeps in your bed. Something about being twins. I figured the same applies to you. And maybe for now, someone being there will be enough, even if it's not your brother."

Felix nodded, though he didn't know what he was agreeing to. After a few minutes, they both started to relax a little. Felix rolled on his side, facing Nino. He had so many questions rattling around in his head. Maybe talking about something unrelated would help.

"What happened when you received your miraculous?"

"I found a box in my room, Wayzz popped out, and then I got to fly," Nino said with a grin. "I never saw myself as the hero type. More the guy the heroes leave at home base to coordinate stuff. But the first time I got to fly..." Nino shook his head.

"It was the same with me and running. Plagg spent days convincing me to put on the ring. When he'd finally destroyed enough things in my room, I did. Once I was out there, I never wanted to go back."

Nino's hand came up to fiddle with the top of the blanket. "I'm glad it's you."

Felix blinked in surprise, then his eyes darkened and moved away. "You're just saying that."

"Grumpy Chat being you... it makes you more real. You're not some distant superhero. You're... real."

"I never wanted to be seen like that," Felix said, running his hand through his hair. "I am real. I'm not good or-"

Nino shoved Felix's shoulder. "Stop that."

Felix rolled his eyes. "And you're not some Lois Lane type, running around behind the heroes. You were never meant to be 'that guy at home base'. Carapace has cut our injury rate by forty percent." He met Nino's eyes. "You keep everyone safe."

Maybe he was overtired. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was hormones and the fact that Felix's crush might be a little less unrequited than he thought. Felix leaned forward into the tiny bit of space between them, keeping his eyes on Nino's. He hesitated, not daring to breathe.

And then Nino kissed him. It was slow, the lightest press of lips, and Nino's glasses bumped into his face. A feeling swept over Felix, something warm and aching, and the kiss was over all too soon. It took a moment for either to remember how to breathe. When they did, Felix reached out to take Nino's glasses, sliding them off and folding them before turning to the nightstand behind him. The irrational feeling that any sound too loud could break this moment took him over. He put the glasses down as noiselessly as he could. He turned back and Nino pulled him in, a hand on the back of his neck. Nino was warm and strong, and Felix could feel him smile between kisses. When Felix started to push Nino on his back with the hand that had somehow ended up on his hip (how long had his thumb been rubbing the sliver of skin exposed by his shirt riding up?), Nino's hand moved from his neck to his chest, stopping him immediately.

"Sorry," Felix whispered, closing his eyes and pulling back as far as he could without risking falling to the floor.

"Don't be," Nino said, not fighting very hard to hide his grin. Felix opened his eyes. "Please, please don't be. But I feel like now is so not the time, y'know? Two identities revealed, this whole mutual crush on at least one of the other's identity thing, you running away, Hawkmoth... I guess that's three identity reveals... plus Adrien as Punny Chat..." Nino stared over Felix's shoulder for a moment, eyes wide. He shook his head and focused on Felix again. Felix, whose hair was messy and whose breathing was still a little quick. "And all that's a lot. And I like kissing you, don't get me wrong-"

Felix kissed him again, quick and hard and pulled back. "Go on," he said, eyebrows raised with a ghost of a smirk on his lips.

Nino let out a sigh that turned into an annoyed growl, but still with a smile he couldn’t stop. "I'm saying later. Kissing later. If... if you're still into it later."

"You're right," Felix said. He took a deep breath and settled into the bed a little more. "You're right, but... please stay?"

Nino pulled Felix into a hug, and as awkward as it was laying on their sides, it was still nice. He could get used to having Chat Noir- Felix- in his arms. He could get used to it quickly. "Would it be too cheesy to say that I would do anything you asked of me?"

"Yes."

"Good to know."

Felix was asleep within minutes. Nino extracted himself from the bed with slow, careful movements. Standing beside the bed, he looked down at him. For the first time since they'd met, Nino saw what Felix looked like without anxiety marring his face.

"He looks so small," Nino whispered to Wayzz, who had landed on his shoulder. "He's thin, and I've gained a couple inches on him and... I can't let him worry about this anymore. He thinks this weight is his alone to bear. He says he wants to quit, but I know him. He'll feel like it's his responsibility, as the first of us, as that bastard's son, as Chat, the self-sacrificing hero trope. I can't let that happen. I can't let him tear himself apart carrying this alone."

"What do you plan to do?"

Nino slid his phone in his pocket and hat on his head.

"We carry it for him."

It wasn't until he was on the roof that Nino realized he had forgotten his glasses. Good thing he didn't need them when transformed.

"Wayzz, shell on."

"Hey!"

Carapace turned around, ready to fight or explain away why he was on this particular roof. He saw Plagg.

Carapace winced. "Does Felix know I left?"

"No, he's still out cold." The kwami crossed his arms. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I can't let Felix do this."

"Who do you think you are, to butt into this? Those boys deserve to face him."

"They'll get to face him, I'm not going to kill him!"

"Oh, but you think it's your job to capture him?"

"If it spares them from having to do it, yeah!"

"So not for the glory, to be known as the hero who captured the madman terrorist?"

"No. I need to keep him safe. Them. Hell, him."

Plagg flew closer, the anger receding from his features. "You might not survive this, you know. Even if you manage to keep him from transforming, he probably has other magic."

"I know."

"Call Ladybug?"

"She's sick. That's why I was patrolling alone tonight."

"Call her anyway."

"I will." They stared at each other for a moment. "Take care of him."

"Come back and take care of him yourself."

Plagg flew back into the building.

As Carapace made the trek to the Agreste mansion, he called Ladybug. No answer. He didn't feel great leaving what he knew on a message, so he just asked her to call him as soon as possible.

Carapace stood in the street in front of the gates, just outside of the range of the cameras. He remembered standing here before the fight that got him akumatized.

He stepped on his shell and flew high over the mansion, looking for lights on in the windows to tell him where Mr Agreste could be. With this new angle, he noticed the giant purple circular window to the basement. The one with the butterfly pattern.

How had they all missed that?

The only light on was from the office. Carapace landed in some bushes to watch through the glass. Gabriel Agreste was standing at his desk, reviewing something on his screen. He was alone, as expected.

Carapace tried to call Ladybug one more time. No answer. Then he called another number, labelled “In Case of Emergency”.

“Hello?”

“Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth. Felix has the Peacock. Keep them safe.”

“Thank you.”

They both hung up without another word.

"No point in waiting," Carapace muttered to himself.

Chapter Text

Carapace flew straight through the window of Gabriel's office, his super-durable super suit, hood, and goggles sparing him from the glass. He didn't say a word. He flew straight at Mr. Agreste and went to grab him in a fireman's carry to drag him to the police. That was Carapace’s entire plan. What he managed was to knock the wind out of Gabriel and get him half on his shoulder before Gabriel rolled sideways and got in a kick to Carapace's side.

"Took you long enough," Gabriel said when he recovered his breath. "I'm disappointed that my own son went straight to you little heroes instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt, instead of trusting that I know what's best for my family. I had hoped Felix would depend on his rational side, though. Just as well. Dark wings rise!"

No, no, no! He wasn't ready to fight Hawkmoth! Don't let him transform; that had been the goal! Gabriel Agreste was a dick, but he was human. Now super-strong supervillain Hawkmoth was running at Carapace, cane held like a sword but the blade still sheathed.

"Where are the others?" Hawkmoth asked, cane crashing on shield over and over with precision and fury. "I was expecting a fight. This is practically nothing. You're the weak link, you know."

He knew. But he kept his mouth shut. At this point his plan was still to drag Gabriel outside, even if he couldn't get him all the way to the police. Maybe cause enough of a racket that Ladybug became aware of the battle. Survive, if possible.

"So, what did my son say to you, hmm?" Hawkmoth managed to knock Carapace into his assistant's desk. Carapace rolled backwards over it and kicked the entire thing forward, but Hawkmoth threw it to the side. Cane on shell. Cane on shell over and over. He tried pushing back, shifting the weight of the fight. He tried making a sweep for Hawkmoth's feet to knock him down and missed. He tried leading him towards the windows. He tried leading him towards the door. Hawkmoth simply changed the angle of his attack each time, forcing Carapace to change his course.

"Where is my son?" Hawkmoth screamed. "Where is he? Is he your hostage? Is he safe? Where is he?"

Carapace stayed silent. If he didn't, he would say so many things. Things like how amazing both his sons were. How much Gabriel had missed that he could never get back. How he had damaged those young men, and how hard they were working to overcome that. How they were amazing, but could have also been happy, confident, at peace. How they could have felt loved. How they deserved to feel loved. How, if Carapace survived the next few minutes, he would do everything in his power to make sure that Felix and Adrien knew he loved them.

But he couldn't say any of that.

The battle was not going in the hero’s direction. Hawkmoth was stronger, faster, better trained, and angry. Carapace was full of righteous anger, terror, and love for his two favorite people.

But sometimes love isn't enough.

As he became tired, Carapace made mistakes. He slipped a little and took a hit to the upper arm. His shield wasn't held quite high enough and another blow landed on his cheek, dangerously close to his eye, only deflected by the goggles. He was losing, fast. Another hit to his exposed arm. He tripped over something that had fallen off the flipped desk and landed hard. He tried to kick out, but Hawkmoth had already circled to his side where he could reach down to wrench the shield away, wrenching his arm hard. Hawkmoth dropped his cane, and they fought hand to hand. It almost felt like Hawkmoth was toying with him. When Hawkmoth started screaming questions again, alternating between trying to get information on the team and asking about Felix, it made sense why he wasn't fighting all out. An unconscious hero couldn’t answer questions. There had to be a way to escape, because fighting back wasn't working. Carapace dove for the window he had broken.

“You’re not getting off so easy,” the cold voice said, grabbing Carapace by the hood and slamming him into the ground. His ears were ringing from the force as he rolled away. Something about trying to escape had set the supervillain off. He didn't grab his cane again, but the force and frequency of his hits increased. Carapace realized Hawkmoth had definitely been toying with him before. Soon enough, Carapace found himself simply curling in on himself to minimize the damage. He needed space, just for a second, if he was going to-

Oh. Well, that was stupid.

“Shell-ter!” he yelled, calling up his one-use power.

The forcefield expanded and shoved Hawkmoth away. Carapace took only enough time to breathe before he crawled to his shell and managed to get his torso across it and arms around it. He couldn't stand, so flying was his only option. He went out the window, too focused on the pain and staying conscious to care that Hawkmoth was undefeated, knew his identity wasn't a secret, and was angry enough to kill. Something had to be done about that, but not now.

He found himself near his old middle school when he passed out the first time. He fell from his shell, and if his ankle wasn't broken before, it definitely was now. His shell fell next to him, and he knew he didn't have long to find help. His miraculous beeped from his wrist, and he didn't know which beep it was. He looked around for some idea of what to do. School, park, bakery- Marinette! She could be trusted. He had known her since preschool. She was as loyal as they came. Not a great liar to help him explain how this happened to Nino Lahiffe, ordinary guy, but bleeding, broken beggars can't be choosers.

The landing on Marinette's balcony wasn't graceful, but he didn't break any potted plants or otherwise make too much noise. He dropped his transformation and was conscious of Wayzz’s panicked voice before the increased pain without his magic suit knocked him out again.

/*****/

Marinette hated this cold with a vengeance. She was curled up on her bed by six pm before remembering she had patrol with Shelly at nine. She transformed and left him a message that she was on strict orders from her kwami to rest. She did just that.

“Marinette. Marinette, you have to wake up.”

“You told me to sleep, Tikki. I left you cookies.”

“Marinette, there's no time. Wake up!”

It was Tikki’s tone of voice more than her words that snapped Marinette's eyes open. She was greeted by the sight of Tikki and Wayzz.

“How are you here?” She asked Wayzz. “I haven't seen you since Fu passed on his miraculous. Did something go wrong on patrol? Where's Shelly?”

“Wayzz isn't allowed to reveal his holder's secrets,” Tikki said. “But he needs your help. He's on your balcony. You need to prepare yourself, Marinette. He's in bad shape. And you know him.”

Marinette was overcome by a wave of dizziness as she crawled through the skylight to the balcony. She was glad Tikki had tried to prepare her when she saw him. Nino was Carapace. Carapace was hurt. Nino was hurt. She had to try three times to force herself to check for a pulse. It was there and strong and fast when she did. She gave him a quick once over and turned to the window to call for the kwamis only to find them hovering next to her.

“Wayzz, call 911, let the hospital know we're coming. Tikki, spots on!”

Ladybug placed her cellphone and Wayzz on Nino's chest before picking him up. The swelling on his face was disturbing enough, but something looked off.

“His glasses! Wayzz, where are they?”

She looked around the balcony for a moment before Wayzz said, “I think he took them off before leaving. They aren't important right now. Please, Ladybug.”

She made her way over the roofs, through the glowing lights of the city to the nearest hospital. She didn't let herself think about what could have happened. She didn’t let herself think. She was too good at feeding her spiraling thoughts. Better to keep them from starting in the first place.

The uproar Ladybug caused bringing in a hurt civilian was not unexpected. She snatched up Wayzz and her phone and cradled them to her chest before either could be spotted.

“I have to go, I'm sorry,” Ladybug said. “Please, please help him. I'll be back as soon as I can. If I can. I'll send someone to stay with him soon. I'm sorry.”

She squeezed Nino's hand and left, ignoring the camera flashes. Once outside and on a nearby roof, she ran and jumped sans yoyo to make a call. She had to decide who to call first.

Adrien is out of town. Alya is at a journalism conference. I have to go home and be Marinette before I can go back. Maybe Felix…

She opened her yoyo to find a message and multiple missed calls waiting for her.

“LB, it's Shelly. I found something out. Call me back immediately.”

“Wayzz, are you allowed to tell me what happened?”

“I am not. I'm sorry, Ladybug.” He was all but asleep in her hand.

“Do you need to eat?” she asked. He nodded. “Okay. I'm going to send... Felix, I guess, to the hospital and then get home, feed you, and go back.”

He closed his eyes again.

She heard four rings before it sounded like someone answered and then dropped the phone with a curse.

Chapter Text

“Hello?” Felix's sleepy voice was muffled, his face half smashed into the pillow. “I don't recognize this number. Father?”

“Uh, this is Ladybug.”

“Ladybug?” He bolted upright, reaching for the bedside lamp. Nino's glasses were still there so Nino must not be far. Felix's heart rate slowed a bit, knowing Nino didn't do anything stupid.

Then Ladybug spoke.

“You Agreste twins are friends with Nino Lahiffe, right? I can't get ahold of anyone else. Something's happened.”

Ladybug stumbled her way through an explanation that was obviously a lie. He only caught the name of the hospital as his eyes scanned Nino’s room. It was empty. Felix didn't have to check the hall.

“Do you know?” Felix asked. “What’s really going on?”

“Do you?”

"We'll put it this way," Felix said, reaching for the bedside table again. "I'm holding his glasses."

"Do you know what he did?"

"I can guess."

Ladybug paused, and he heard some rustling and thumping on the other end and a quiet murmur away from the phone that sounded like "Sorry, Wayzz."

"Wayzz is with you?"

"Uh... he really shouldn't have told you about this."

Felix rolled his eyes. "Oh for- It's me, Buggy." Only Grumpy Chat called her Buggy.

"...Wow. Okay. Should I reveal back? I'm going to reveal back. I'll call you from my civilian phone in a minute. Wayzz needs food and I'm a little worried I'm going to pass out when I detransform."

"Then reveal before you pass out, please." There was a feeling of surreality seeping into Felix as he turned Nino's glasses over and over in his hands. Nino was somewhere in a hospital. He was hurt. Ladybug had found him somehow. Everything was wrong.

"Fine, here goes..." She didn't say anything. Then, "I don't want to."

"I'll tell you who Hawkmoth is," Felix said.

Her voice became shill, and he knew who she was before her name crossed the phone lines to him. "How do you kn- Ugh. Fine. I'm Marinette. Lemme call you back."

Felix heard a strange sound as Ladybug hung up. He looked around the room for the source of the sound. It was him. He was laughing. Marinette Dupain-Cheng was his best friend?

"Hey. Hey, Kid, it's gonna be alright," Plagg said, flying up in front of Felix. He looked blurry. Oh. He was laughing and crying.

"Nino went to fight him, didn't he?" Felix asked. Accused, really.

Plagg crossed his arms. "I told him it was dangerous."

"You knew? You should have told me! I could have stopped him! I could have gone with him! He has no offensive powers. This is why we needed a plan!"

"I thought you didn't want to be used as a weapon anymore?" Plagg said.

"I don't! But I also don't want the people I love in danger."

Felix got up and changed back into his clothes. He hooked one of the arms of Nino's glasses over the V of his vest. A glance out the window showed it was cold and windy. Felix grabbed a jacket that smelled like Nino and shrugged it on. He grabbed Nino's headphones and threw them around his neck. That was about all he could do for a disguise right now. (That was an excuse. He needed to feel close to Nino to have any hope that things would be alright.)

Knowing that he would have no way back in once he left (he didn't see Nino's keys anywhere. Besides, sneaking back into Nino's room without Nino would feel weird), Felix stopped in the kitchen to grab cheese from the fridge and stick it in a snack bag. He left the apartment and called Marinette from the hallway.

"You picked up, meaning you're not passed out," Felix said. "That's good."

"I'm worried this cold is actually the flu," Marinette said, sounding stuffy, weak, and miserable. "Did you know Wayzz only eats kale? He settled for spinach, though."

"I'm walking to your house," Felix said. "Give me the real story, please."

Marinette explained from the moment Tikki woke her until the hospital. “I didn't even try to explain to the doctors." She paused, and Felix could almost see her puzzling through something. Now that he thought about it, Ladybug's face when she figured out how to use her Lucky Charm and Marinette's face when she worked on a new design were similar. "Where are you?"

"About a block away. Are you telling your parents you're going to the hospital?"

"Yeah. I'll let you in through the bakery. If you're here, they'll agree faster." Another pause. "How did you know about Nino? Why do you have his glasses?"

"I'll explain later."

"Are you just saying that hoping I'll forget?"

"No. It's part of the Hawkmoth explanation."

"I don't believe you, but fine."

"I'm downstairs."

"Just a sec."

Marinette looked awful. She was literally swaying on her feet.

"Okay. You need to convince your parents that if you go to the hospital, you won't collapse on the way," Felix whispered as they climbed to the third floor. The living room and kitchen were dark, but better lit than the street.

"What are you wearing?" Marinette asked.

"Literally the only things I own. And Nino's hoodie so I won’t be recognized." He saw her start to ask and he raised his hand. "I'll explain. I will. But I need to see Nino. I need to. So get changed and do whatever you have to do to look less like you need the hospital yourself and let's go."

"Come with me," she said, pulling Felix up to her room.

"Why?"

"You need a disguise?" She asked. He nodded. "I just finished a commission for Chat Noir. Who I'm dating. Who is your twin. It won't be a perfect fit. You're leaner and a little shorter, but that vest is pretty distinctive. And those shoes, but there’s nothing I can do about that."

Marinette bent over to retrieve the clothes for Felix and her legs suddenly stopped supporting her. She tumbled forward in a heap. Felix rushed over and pulled her upright. She waved him off, but he was now close enough to know that she was sweating and shivering.

"You should stay here," Felix said.

"No. I'll be too worried. If you're there, at least I'll have someone I trust to help me out."

Felix saw a half empty glass of water on the desk. He set Marinette on the floor leaning against her chaise and went to retrieve it.

"Drink this. I'll change."

Felix didn’t go into the bathroom to change. He went behind the other side of the chaise, so he could keep an eye on Marinette. The day started with him worrying about himself, Adrien, and his father. Now he could add the rest of the hero team, who happened to be two of his friends. He glanced at the clock. It was after midnight, so technically it was a new day of worrying.

Felix found Adrien's jeans slightly long and just big enough that he noticed they didn't fit as he was used to. The black "I love Ladybug" t-shirt (she hand made this? He needed to commission her himself soon) fit well. He slid Nino's headphones around his neck, glasses hanging from his collar, and hoodie back around him. He slid the Peacock Miraculous into a pocket of the hoodie and his phone into the pocket of the jeans. Marinette had finished the glass of water by the time he was dressed, despite complaining the whole time about how much even water hurt her throat.

"Okay, where are your clothes? Felix asked.

Marinette pointed to her dresser. "Just literally anything, please."

He found her yoga pants, a t-shirt and a hoodie. "Good?"

"Um, I need, uh..." She looked away. He quirked an eyebrow. "A bra. I need a bra."

"Oh, of course." Felix found a plain t-shirt bra (he had grown up around fashion and models. Sometimes he surprised himself with his knowledge) and held it up. She nodded, face red.

"Here, We'll sit you on the chaise, and I'll help," Felix said, setting the clothes down at the end of the couch.

"You don't have to," Marinette said.

"Are you going to be able to do this yourself?" Felix asked. She shrugged. "Does it help if I remind you that I'm gay?"

"You are?" She blinked in confusion. "Right. You’re my best friend, Chat Noir. Who is gay. Okay. You still have to turn around while I do my bra, though."

"Whatever makes you comfortable, Buggy."

He helped her dress and she pestered him.

"What do you know?"

"I'll explain it all at once after I see Nino."

"Why do you have his glasses?"

"After I see Nino."

"Do you know where he was? Who hurt him?"

"I can guess."

"Then where? Who? Was it Hawkmoth? Why would he go after Hawkmoth alone?"

"After."

"Felix, you are the most infuriating person I've ever worked with."

"No, that's Grumpy Chat."

"You are Grumpy Chat!"

"What if I'm Punny Chat?"

"You aren't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I've made out with Punny Chat. A lot. He's definitely not gay."

"Oh. Right. That's fair."

The change of clothes seemed to temporarily revive Marinette. She took a deep breath and stood slowly from the chaise without wavering.

"So many cozy pockets to choose from between the two of you," Tikki said, settling into Marinette's hoodie. Wayzz took one of Felix's pockets, and Plagg went in his hood.

"Ready to face my parents?"

"We've faced worse."

The original pair of heroes made their way quietly down the stairs then down the hall. Marinette knocked lightly and got no response. A harder knock and Tom Dupain came to the door.

"Marinette? Adrien?"

"Felix, sir."

"Sabine, get up," Tom called over his shoulder. "What's going on?"

"Nino's in the hospital. We have to go see him, please,” Marinette said, hands clasped in front of her, ready to beg.

"It’s the middle of the night, and you're sick," Sabine said, pulling a fuzzy robe closed over her pajamas.

"He's all alone," Marinette said. "Ladybug dropped him off and then called the two of us. Adrien's out of town, and Alya was at that thing, and he needs us!"

"Does his mother know?" Tom asked.

"I don't know," Marinette lied with a cringe. "We can call them on the way, just to be sure."

"I'll go with you," Sabine said.

"We're ready now," Felix said. "And there's no reason for all of us to lose sleep."

"You could come check on us in the morning?" Marinette said.

"If you're not coming back before I'm getting up to start baking, call," Tom said.

"Let me know how his mom is," Sabine said. "I can bring anything you two or the Lahiffes need, don't hesitate."

"Thank you," Marinette said, trying to control the rasp to her voice. She stepped back to leave, and Felix followed her.

"And Marinette?" Tom called. "No letting boys in the house at this hour."

"I already said I’m not Adrien," Felix said. Without giving them time to react, he turned and walked to the door.

The second Marinette locked the bakery's door she turned to Felix and demanded, "Spill, Kitty."

"Promise not to pass out and make me carry you to the hospital?"

"Ugh don't joke about that," Marinette said. "I just did that. It sucked. I'm going to have nightmares for weeks."

"Sorry."

Marinette laced her fingers between his. He gripped her hand hard.

"What happened, Kitty?"

"My father is Hawkmoth." Saying it more didn't make it easier. "I went to Carapace to try and quit. Not that this stupid ring will come off." He unconsciously squeezed Marinette's hand tighter for a second, pressing the ring into her hand. "I also ran away from home. Which sounds stupid but is the best description I have. I went looking for Shelly. He asked..." Felix felt tears again. For fuck’s sake, Felix thought. I have to stop crying. He took a moment to calm down and erect his false walls against feelings. They didn't do much, having never been real in the first place. "He asked what I needed. I said I couldn't go back to the mansion, and he agreed to... to take me home. I told him how I found out Gabriel is Hawkmoth. Oh, and I stole the Peacock Miraculous from a safe in the mansion."

"You what?" Marinette pulled him to a stop by their connected hands.

Felix pulled the miraculous from his pocket and held it out. She took it and examined the brooch before handing it back.

“He had that?” She asked as they continued walking. “But he never…”

“Never used it that I knew of.”

“We have to slow down,” Marinette said before a coughing fit overtook her. Felix stopped and waited for her to catch her breath.

“You shouldn't transform like this,” Tikki said from her pocket.

“Once we check in on Nino, I need to go tell his family.”

“I can do that,” Felix said.

“Didn't you quit?” Plagg asked from his pocket.

“I’ll quit when Nino is back on his feet. I'm still not going to be the one to take down Hawkmoth, though.”

“We can deal with all that later,” Marinette said. She was leaning on Felix a little as they walked and he could hear the wheeze in her breathing.

“We need a cover story for how Nino got hurt,” Felix said.

Before they could brainstorm, Marinette's phone rang.

“Papa? No, he… I mean, technically he ran away. Look, he's in trouble. Well, that's not fair. What if it's not-” she sighed and covered the mouthpiece to turn to Felix. “You're on the news. You've been kidnapped, apparently. My parents want to call your father and tell him where you are.”

“Give me the phone,” Felix said.

Marinette hesitated, but when he stared her down (easier as Felix and Marinette than as Chat Noir and Ladybug) she said to her dad, “Felix wants to talk to you.” She handed him the phone.

“Sir,” Felix greeted.

“Felix, your father is worried sick.”

“Sir, he might be, but he's the reason I left. I didn't feel safe there anymore.”

“Are you safe now?” Tom asked. “Do you have somewhere to stay? Should I be accompanying you to the police?”

“The police will just make me go home. They are controlled by the mayor who is controlled by money, which my father has.”

“Still, I don't feel right leaving you on your own and letting a parent worry that his child is missing without knowing why.”

“So tell my father you saw me and that I'm not kidnapped. Tell him I left before you knew I was unaccounted for and you don't know where I am now. I'm two months from eighteen, sir. I just need tonight to check on Nino. I won't leave Marinette's side. I'll agree to any terms you want so long as you don't make me go home and let me see Nino. Just please… please, sir.”

There was a long silence from Tom. Felix and Marinette had stopped walking, and she was fully leaning against him. She was shivering, so he pulled an arm around her and tucked her into his side.

“You come back here as soon as you leave the hospital,” Tom said. “You and I will have a talk about why you left, and what to do next after you get some sleep. And I will let your father know that you aren't kidnapped, without telling him where you are. Okay?”

“Thank you, sir.” Felix consciously loosened his death grip on Marinette's phone. “Thank you. I'll explain tomorrow.”

Tom asked to speak to his daughter and Felix returned the phone. He didn't listen to her side of the conversation because the hospital was within sight.

“Ladybug brought in a guy,” Marinette said to the man behind the desk. “She called us. We're his friends.”

“Do you know his name? His emergency contact? We didn't find a wallet on him, and we can't get into his phone.”

“Nino Lahiffe,” Marinette supplied. “Ladybug said his family will be contacted.”

“Can we see him?” Felix asked. He had been trying to blend in and stay unnoticed, but he was starting to develop a physical ache in his chest from the need to see Nino.

“Let me check.” She tapped some keys on her computer, and after a moment said, “He's about to be taken to pre-op. One of you can go just for a minute and answer some questions about his medical history before they move him.”

“Go,” Marinette said.

A tech was instructed on where to take Felix, and Marinette was directed to the OR waiting room. Felix found himself fiddling with Nino's glasses as they went through the labyrinthine halls. Before long, Felix was standing in front of a curtain that hid a stretcher from view.

“Be quick, they're taking him back soon.”

Felix slipped behind the curtain. Nino lay still with tubes and wires everywhere. There was bruising and swelling over too much of his exposed skin. Felix's heart broke in that moment. He checked the privacy of the curtain and pulled Wayzz out of his pocket.

“Thank you,” Wayzz said. He flew to his holder and settled on his chest. He seemed to be listening to something, closing his eyes to focus. After a moment he turned to look at Felix.

“He's not in good shape,” Wayzz said. “This is why it's so horrifying when a miraculous falls into the hands of someone who would use it for evil. Few things can harm a hero when transformed. One of those things is other miraculous holders.”

“Will he… be okay? Will he wake up?”

“I hope so. But I can't know.”

Felix stood by Nino's shoulder, hand hovering over the mass of wires and tubes and tape. He was scared to mess up any of the medical instruments or cause him pain.

“He can sense you,” Wayzz said. “He might draw strength from your touch.”

“It wouldn't hurt him?”

Wayzz shook his head. Felix reached out and ran a hand over his hair with the lightest touch he could manage with hands that seemed to never stop shaking.

“Tonight was my first kiss, you know,” he whispered. “So don't make it our last.”

For a mad second he expected a response.

“You stupid, stupid turtle,” Felix said. His rage took him by surprise at first, but made a sick sort of sense when he looked again at the damage done to Nino. “Never mind that you just single-handedly destroyed your own decrease to the team's injury percentage. Never mind that you knew I didn't want you to do this. Never mind that the whole point of a team is to have backup and not do stupid things alone. How dare you put yourself in his path? How dare you leave me alone again? How dare you?” This time he couldn't care less how much he cried or who saw.

Chapter Text

Wayzz was keeping watch while Felix broke down. Just as Felix lowered his forehead to Nino's, Wayzz spotted a pair of people in scrubs heading their way. He ducked back into Felix's pocket. Felix patted the pocket and straightened up, wiping his eyes as the curtain was whipped back.

“Are you family?” one of the scrubs wearers asked.

“No, but they're on their way,” he lied. He still had to go face them.

They asked Felix about Nino’s past surgeries (appendix, years ago), allergies (seasonal allergies and one class of antibiotics), and other relevant medical history and Felix was surprised he knew the answers. Did he really pay that much attention to Nino?

“We’re taking him to surgery now. Let me find someone to take you to the waiting room.”

Felix expected to meet Marinette in the waiting room but found only an older gentleman napping with a book open in his lap. Felix sat and texted Marinette to try and find where she'd wandered off to. While waiting for her response, he bought a few bottles of water from the vending machine. He had been crying all day, and Marinette was sick. If ever there has been a time for hydration, it was now.

Felix waited half an hour before breaking down and calling Marinette. She didn't pick up.

“Where is she? How is she late meeting me here when she left first?” He still had to go to the Lahiffe family. He wanted to make sure Marinette was okay and sitting still before leaving.

“She's transformed right now,” Wayzz said from his pocket. “I can sense when a miraculous is active.”

“What is she doing?”

“Probably telling the Turtle's family that they need to get down here,” Plagg said.

“Of course she is,” Felix muttered.

Felix alternated between pacing and sitting, fiddling with Nino's glasses. Marinette turned up a few minutes later, sniffling and coughing and leaning on the wall as she walked down the hall at a pace that made Felix twitch with how slow it was. He got up and met her before she even entered the room.

"Well, that was one of the worst things I've ever had to do," Marinette said in a voice that told him she had been coughing too much again.

"You didn't have to do that. I could have gone."

He all but dragged Marinette to a chair and shoved one of the bottles of water in her hands. She sipped at it and laid her head back against the wall behind her. Her eyes were open though, and watching Felix. He fiddled with the glasses in his hands. Despite his best efforts, the lenses were covered in his fingerprints. Some part of him liked that he had left a mark of himself on something so integral to Nino.

"So. You went home with Nino."

Felix froze, squeezing his eyes shut. He had been hoping against hope that Marinette would forget to ask about the rest of the story.

"I did. We exchanged identities. He force-fed me popcorn and hot chocolate. I fell asleep. And apparently, he left and tried to bring Gabriel to justice, getting himself beaten within an inch of his life by the man who has been controlling Adrien's and my lives. The man who raised us." Felix turned to face Marinette. "This wasn't a battle gone wrong. If it was, Shelly would have left long before this level of injury. Hawkmoth attacked him. Hawkmoth was trying to kill him."

Marinette muffled a cough in her sleeve but didn't break eye contact. She wasn't sure if she should be surprised or not that Felix was his usual cold, detached self as he said all this.

"We're still children," Felix said, eyebrows furrowing as confusion pierced his detachment. "I know some people just don't see that, that they look at us and assume we're older. But there's no way our enemy doesn't have an accurate view of us. He targeted middle school age people when we were in middle school, and switched to high school age shortly after we started high school. Trying to kill us from a distance with his champions is one thing. Usually, he's not even trying to kill us. He's trying to incapacitate us long enough to get our miraculous. But this... this was personal. And I don't know how to deal with how that makes me feel."

"Oh, Kitten," Marinette said, taking his hand again. "For now, let's concentrate all our energy on hoping that Nino comes through this okay. We can figure out how to feel and what to do about it after."

Felix nodded and let his head drop to Marinette's shoulder. She reached up to pet at his hair, and he leaned into the touch a little. She laughed. Or, made a sound that approximated laughing that caused her to cough a few times.

"What's so funny?" Felix asked, using a finger to trace the frames of the glasses on his knee.

"Who would have thought Felix Agreste becomes a cuddly kitten in times of stress?"

"He's surprisingly cuddly all the time," Plagg said, peeking out of Felix's hood. "He just doesn't trust most people enough to let them touch him. The list seems to be Adrien, Nino, you, and sometimes Nathalie and Nathaniel."

"I hate you," Felix muttered. Marinette had not stopped playing with his hair and he found himself relaxing. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad an idea to drift off to sleep.

"We need a cover story," Marinette said.

Felix groaned and pulled his head off her shoulder. "How about Felix ran away, called Nino, Nino came to bring Felix home and got mugged before he could meet Felix?"

"And Ladybug happened upon him, called you, and you called Marinette?"

They called it good enough and Felix dropped his head to her shoulder again. He was asleep before he knew it.

"You should be the one sleeping," Felix said when an announcement over the PA startled him awake.

"I can't breathe well enough to sleep," Marinette said. Her wheeze was getting more pronounced. He felt around and grabbed another water bottle to press into her hands. "So, what else are you leaving out from your story?"

"What do you mean?" Felix asked, going back to tracing the frames of Nino's glasses.

"Are you forgetting that Ladybug can read Chat Noir like a book?" She smirked at him. "You told me the facts, the outline. Tell me the details. How did you guys react to each other's identities? How do you feel about the fact that Nino's had a crush on you since forever? Or that the crush you’ve had since forever is Shelly? What did you guys talk about? How in the world did you convince him to sneak you into his room? What were you guys planning to do before he decided to run off on his own?"

"I did forget," Felix said, not looking at her. "Because Marinette generally can't notice anything past Adrien and fashion. He's going to be thrilled when you reveal to him, you know."

"Don't try to distract me," Marinette said, suppressing a cough. "I’m missing some juicy piece of gossip right now and you're going to give it to me."

"I should go buy you some hot soup or something," Felix said, looking around for signs to direct him to the cafeteria. "And coffee for me."

"Do you have anyone else to talk to about this stuff?" Marinette asked. "Adrien isn't here, and I know you won't call him. Talk to me."

"I kissed him," Felix blurted after barely a second of hesitation. "Or, he kissed me. Both, probably?" He glanced at Marinette to see her smiling. "He was going to hide me in his room, catch me up on school work, sneak me food. I hadn't felt safe since I started suspecting Gabriel earlier in the week. Longer, probably. Since mom... Until Carapace hugged me, I wasn't sure that I ever would again. And then... he goes and does something this stupid." Felix turned to Marinette suddenly. "Did he even try to call Ladybug?"

She nodded. "He left a message basically saying, 'call me, I have news'. I was asleep. I'm so sorry." Her eyes started to water. "I need to tell him how sorry I am."

"No one blames you, Buggy. I don't even blame Nino. Much. If anything, it was my fault for telling him." He sighed. "We all know who to blame. It just... hurts."

"We have to tell Adrien." She laid her head on his shoulder this time. He moved his arm around to pull her into his side. She hadn't gotten any taller since middle school. Normally he'd tease her about how tiny she was, but right now with how sick she was, it just made his worry about her worse.

"I don't know how to," Felix said. "He loves Father. He tries so hard to be whatever he wants."

"At least text him and tell him you're not kidnapped," Marinette said. She nodded towards the small TV in the corner playing the news on mute. Nadja Chamack was reporting next to a picture of Felix. The banner at the bottom of the screen read ‘Son of designer Gabriel Agreste missing/kidnapped.’ "You know the news will get to him eventually. Assuming Gabriel hasn't called Nathalie already."

"Shit, I forgot about Nathalie," Felix said, pulling his phone out. He texted Adrien that he was okay and would explain later.

"Yes, that message will definitely not cause chaos in a classic Agreste Male Drama fashion," Marinette said as she peeked at the message over his shoulder. "I expect absolutely no panic over that at all."

Before Felix could object to the very concept of "Agreste Male Drama", another scrub-wearing person led Mrs. Lahiffe and Melanie into the waiting room. Mrs. Lahiffe looked confused and scared, but determined. Melanie was crying, using her sleeve to wipe her face occasionally. Not for the first time that night, Felix wished he had thought to grab the box of tissues he saw in Marinette's room before they left.

"Mrs. Lahiffe!" Marinette tried to get out of her chair to hug her friend's mom, but Felix put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"She's sick, she's not to get up," Felix said, getting up to put a hand on Mrs. Lahiffe's arm. "I'm so sorry. How are you?"

"What happened? He was in his room when I went to bed. I know he's snuck out a few times, but I let it slide. I figured he was meeting his crush or something."

"Come sit," Felix said, removing the last water bottle from the chair on the other side of his from Marinette. Melanie followed them but didn't sit, standing and fidgeting instead. Felix went through their lie about Nino coming to find him after running away.

"I'm sorry. It's my fault he was out so late. I never meant to cause you these problems."

Mrs. Lahiffe looked confused for a few moments. Eventually, she gave Felix's whole outfit a look. It dawned on her when she saw the shoes. "You're not Adrien, you're Felix." He nodded. "Sorry, I'm sure you two get sick of that."

"We actually don't get mistaken for each other often, but I'm wearing Adrien's clothes right now."

"Why are you wearing- never mind." She shook her head. "Did Ladybug give you any other information? She just told us he had been hurt, that she brought him here."

Felix and Marinette shook their heads.

"Do you have any more information from the doctors?" Marinette asked.

"Bruises everywhere, broken ankle, fractured arm, a few broken ribs, a partially collapsed lung, some internal bleeding from a shattered kidney. Surprisingly little damage to his head, just a small concussion. Whoever this was, they were vicious. Why anyone would just attack my little boy like this..."

Something about hearing it all listed out like that hit Felix hard. This was all his fault. Nino was hurt. He couldn't get enough air in. But he didn't want to disturb the three women so he sat as quietly as he could, trying to not let his increased breathing be loud. Nino was hurt and it was his fault. He wanted to get up and leave, but he couldn't move. Nino. His father hurt Nino. He couldn't hear the conversation around him anymore. He focused on the glasses in his hand, but they didn’t feel real. How could he let Nino get hurt like this? Something was wrong with him. He wondered what his father would tell people if he died of whatever this was while Paris thought he was kidnapped. Nino was hurt. He wondered who would stop his father if he was gone.

Suddenly a hand was on his back and Felix flinched away from it. Marinette's concerned face leaned in close and he couldn't meet her eyes, couldn't focus on her at all. He closed his eyes, to block her out or regain his focus he wasn't sure, but his lungs burned.

Another hand touched him, his knee this time. He opened his eyes to see Mrs. Lahiffe kneeling in front of him. She asked him a question he couldn't process. Why couldn’t he breathe? When he didn't answer, she took his hand and put it on her stomach, breathing slowly and deeply. He tried to copy her, guessing at her motives. It took a minute of focused concentration, but he managed it. When she was confident Felix could keep his breathing in check, Mrs. Lahiffe slid back in her chair and held his hand. Marinette's hand returned to his back, rubbing circles, gentle and slow.

When Felix finally felt the weight on his chest and buzzing panic in his head recede, the shame of breaking down in front of people hit almost as hard.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he whispered, putting his face in his hands.

"Don't be embarrassed," Mrs. Lahiffe said. "Have you had panic attacks before?"

He turned to stare at her. "That's what that was?" he asked. Mrs. Lahiffe and Marinette nodded. "Then yes, apparently."

"It's you, isn't it?" Melanie asked, speaking for the first time since she had arrived. "You're the mystery boy Nino likes."

"I didn't know until tonight, but yes," Felix said. He clenched his hands to keep them from shaking. "This is all my fault."

“Stop that," Marinette said.

"He said the same thing to me tonight," Felix said with a sad smile. "He's very insistent that I'm too hard on myself."

"I raised him right," Mrs. Lahiffe said. She hesitated a moment, then put a hand on Felix's shoulder. "Will you tell me why you ran away?" He shook his head. "Do you have somewhere to go? You said you were coming to stay with us? That Nino was coming to get you?"

"My parents said they would take him in for now, until something gets sorted out,” Marinette said.

"And Adrien is still out of town?" Melanie asked.

"I'm right here."

Chapter Text

"I'm right here."

The voice came from around the corner and had Felix out of his chair and all but tackling his brother in an instant. Nathalie was right behind him, tapping away on her tablet as she walked. They both had carry-on bags over their shoulders.

"How did you know where I was? Why are you in the country?" Felix clung to Adrien.

"Nathalie woke me up and handed me a bag she'd packed for me, saying we had to leave immediately."

“Let’s step into the hall for a moment,” Nathalie said, guiding the twins in that direction. “Mrs. Lahiffe, I’m so sorry to hear about Nino. Please think about what you need at this time. I will do whatever I can to take care of anything you need.”

Mrs. Lahiffe smiled sadly and nodded. “Thank you.”

Nathalie nodded back and followed Felix and Adrien into the hall.

"Your father called and said you were missing. We came immediately," Nathalie said, tucking her tablet into her bag.

"I left on purpose. Ran away. Don't tell him where I am," Felix said. He tried to stare her down. Generally, the two of them were evenly matched for these contests of will, but he was tired and emotionally wrung out and still a little disconnected from the world after his panic attack. Nathalie had this one in the bag.

Instead, she stepped forward and put her arms around Felix. For a moment, he didn't know what she was doing. Then he realized he was being hugged. It took a moment after that for him to remember that the correct response to a hug was to lift his arms and place them around her, and another moment after that to do so. She stepped back a few seconds after that, holding Felix by the shoulders at arm's length.

"I will always keep you safe," she said.

"Thank you," Adrien said when he saw that Felix didn't know what to say.

"How did you know to come here?" Felix asked, stepping back to lean against the wall.

"Mrs. Lahiffe texted Nathalie that Nino was here. We didn't know you were, too, that was just luck. By the way, Nathalie forgot my phone when she packed for me," Adrien said, glancing in the waiting room at the others with a worried crease to his forehead. Felix realized Adrien was moments away from finding out that his girlfriend was his classmate. It was exciting, but the thought also exhausted him further.

"I need to attend to some things," Nathalie said. "I will tell your father that you are safe and that he is to call off the media hunt for you, Felix. I will arrange for somewhere more permanent for you both to stay for now. Felix, I'd like to know what you know-"

"I won't tell you," Felix cut in.

"I was saying, I would like to know what you know, but just the fact that you felt the need to flee your home tells me enough. He won't know where you are."

"You promise?" Felix asked. This was Nathalie, after all. She wasn't much better than his father when it came to promises and lies.

"I'm quitting as soon as I know you two are safe. I promise."

"Does this mean I'm running away too?" Adrien asked, confused.

"Yes," Felix said.

"You two talk," Nathalie said. "My phone is on, don't hesitate to call for anything." She turned to leave, then turned back. "And do let me know how Nino is as soon as you know." She exited the wing and the twins were alone in the hall.

"What's going on?" Adrien asked. “She agreed to that way too easily.”

"Just a second." Felix ducked back into the waiting room. "Will you all be okay if Adrien and I get something to eat?" Felix asked the Lahiffes and Marinette. "Can I grab you anything?"

"I wouldn't object to that soup you offered earlier," Marinette said. She had curled up on her chair and looked like she might finally fall asleep soon.

"We're fine, thank you, Felix," Mrs. Lahiffe said.

Once they were out of sight and out of earshot, Felix leaned against the wall of a random hallway and slid to the floor.

"Felix, this is a hospital, and hospitals are gross. Can we sit once we get to the cafeteria?"

"Father is Hawkmoth. Nino is Carapace. Marinette is Ladybug. Nino fought Father after I ran away and fell asleep at his house. He snuck me to his room. His family knows only a cover story. I had a panic attack minutes before you got here."

Adrien paled as Felix talked, then slid down the wall next to him. "Hawkmoth."

"Yes."

"Carapace, who is Nino, tried to fight him."

"Yes."

"You had a panic attack?" Adrien took a good look at his brother. "That's why you look like you just ran a marathon? Are you okay now?"

"I'm actually a little relieved that I have a name for that thing that happens to me." He leaned his head on Adrien’s shoulder.

"I didn't know that's what they were." Adrien could think of more than a few times that he had needed to calm his brother down without knowing from what he was calming him down.

Felix shifted to lean his head against the wall, inspecting the speckled ceiling tiles. "Having a name for it means I might be able to do something about it. I didn't even know how much that was weighing on me."

"Marinette is Ladybug."

"Yes."

Adrien was quiet for a second, then jumped to his feet. "Ladybug is Marinette." He ran back to the waiting room.

"What is it?" Mrs. Lahiffe and Melanie asked at the same time.

"Is there news?" Marinette asked, sitting up a little, blinking awake from her short nap.

"I love you," Adrien said, leaning down to kiss Marinette.

She jerked back from his lips as soon as she registered what was going on. "Stop that, you'll get sick too."

"Don't care," he said, pecking little kisses all over her face.

Marinette shoved Adrien away, making a face. "Stop that, you mangy alley cat."

Adrien laughed, kissed the top of her head, and bounded out of the room.

"What the hell was that?" Melanie asked.

"Felix blabbed that I like him," Marinette said, curling into a more comfortable position again. It was close enough to the truth.

"I do not miss being your age," Melanie said.

The twins returned with soup, coffee, water bottles, crackers, a box of cereal, a salad Adrien declared his and his alone, seven apples, chocolate milk that immediately found its way into Melanie's hands, and a box of tissues for Marinette.

When everyone had eaten something, Marinette fell asleep with her head on Adrien's lap. Melanie had decided to walk around and call to check on Chris, who was waiting at home. With just the two of them awake in the waiting room, Mrs. Lahiffe turned to Felix.

"Felix, can I ask you some questions that aren't so nice?"

"Of course. I feel life goes better when you don't avoid saying things other people don't want to hear."

"You're not off to a good start here, Felix," Mrs. Lahiffe said with a quirk of her eyebrow. "To start, weren't you awful to Nino? I remember some angry rants when he got home from school a few years ago involving your name."

"Oh, this kind of conversation," Felix said. "You think Nino deserves better than me. I agree."

"It's not that," Mrs. Lahiffe said. "Or, not entirely. I just want to know how he went from 'this kid is a jerk' to 'Mom, I think I'm in love'. I don't know you very well, so maybe you've changed. I'm sure you can understand that I'm worried about my son, and right now, interrogating you is all I can do to try and protect him."

"I think he saw me in a different light recently," Felix said. ‘In a different light’ might mean ‘as a superhero’ but she didn’t need to know that. "I've changed since middle school, but not that much."

"And how do you feel about him?"

"I honestly have no idea," Felix said. "There's too many layers. Right now I'm too angry with him to give a good answer."

He hadn't even realized how mad he was until he had seen Nino lying motionless a few hours ago. Mad and scared.

"Why are you mad at him?"

"I told him not to-" Felix stopped, trying to remember their lie and still find a way to answer the question. "I told him not to come find me. I told him I'd find somewhere else to go, that he shouldn't put himself at risk at night crossing a bad neighborhood to find me." Felix sighed and pressed his fingers into the headache spreading across his forehead. "That sounds stupid."

"Are you mad he put himself at risk? Or are you mad that he put himself at risk for you?"

Felix leaned his head against the wall behind him, trying to figure out how much worse this headache could get and still leave him functional. "I don't know."

Mrs. Lahiffe watched Felix for a moment. She dug some painkillers from her purse and offered them to him.

"If you're the boy he's been telling me about, you're probably going to have to get used to him doing things like this," she said. "Not on this scale, I seriously hope. But he's not as laid back as he pretends to be."

"When he cares about something, nothing gets in his way," Felix said. He found a water bottle that he hoped was his and not Marinette's and swallowed the painkillers.

Mrs. Lahiffe smiled. "When he loves something, nothing gets in his way."

/*****/

At some point during the night, Alya showed up in pajama pants and a hoodie. She gave everyone a hug and settled in next to Marinette and Adrien. She noticed how cuddly they looked, but the reporter in her didn't seem up for grilling her friend.

Kim showed up a few minutes after Alya. Juleka and Nathaniel walked in at the same time. Nathaniel hugged Felix for a long minute before sitting nearby, giving Felix the space he needed. Sabrina showed up with a carafe of coffee and paper cups. Alix called and asked if there was anything she could do, anything she could bring to them. Texts poured in to Mrs. Lahiffe, Melanie, and Marinette. The sun was rising.

"Mrs. Lahiffe?"

The doctor led her away from the crowd. When the doctor left to return to her patients, Mrs. Lahiffe sat in her chair and finally let herself cry.

"Mom?" Melanie's voice had gone shrill.

"Sorry," she said, reaching out and grabbing Melanie's hand. "He's got a long road ahead of him, but he's going to be okay."

The reactions in the room- the strength and variety of them- overwhelmed Felix. He wasn't sure what he felt yet, beyond relief. Partly because Felix's own feelings were being drowned out by those around him, and in part because there were just too many damn feelings inside him. Felix slipped into the hall to get a bit of space.

"Hey."

Marinette and Adrien had found Felix a minute later. He had his eyes closed and was leaning against the wall, just being for a moment.

"Mrs. Lahiffe is sending everyone home," Marinette said. "No one can see Nino except his family for the next few hours anyway. We were thinking of going to my house and sleeping a bit before coming back. Are you coming with us?"

Felix sighed and nodded. They walked back to the bakery at Marinette's pace, her coughing sounding no better than it had on the way there.

"So, the main team's down to Chat Noir right now," Adrien said during one of Marinette's coughing fits, hand rubbing up and down her back.

"Half a Chat Noir," Marinette managed to gasp. "Felix sort of quit."

"I un-quit," Felix said. "You're not facing him."

"I will if I want to," Adrien said. "He's lied to us for so long. Caused chaos and possessed people and made us clean up his messes. I will if I want to."

"More-" Marinette broke off coughing but had caught the twins' attention and derailed their fight for the moment. "More importantly, we need backup. We'll go to Fu for the Bee and Fox after we sleep. Okay? Sleep."

Sabine Cheng must have seen the kids approaching through the window because she met them at the door with hugs and pastries.

"Melanie texted, I'm so glad he'll be okay. Adrien, good to see you. We'll make room for you to sleep, too. When did you get back?"

She kept up the chatter, alternating between the teens with her attention and mothering. Marinette was given a mug of tea and sent straight to bed. Adrien was assigned the couch, and after much deliberation, Felix was given a sleeping bag in Marinette's room. He was asleep before Mrs. Cheng had shut the trap door on her way out of the room.

Marinette's coughing was the first thing Felix became aware of when he woke up. The second thing, and the actual cause of his waking, was Adrien's foot poking into his ribs.

"Get up, both of you."

Chapter Text

“Get up, both of you,” Adrien said.

"Is it Nino?" Felix asked, fighting his way out of the sleeping bag.

"No. I turned on the TV. Come on."

Marinette dragged herself out of bed and Felix followed her, worried she'd trip down the stairs. She was clumsy enough when she wasn’t distracted by feeling awful. Adrien was pacing the small living room, watching the television when he faced it. It took Felix a moment to make sense of the screen. Flashing police lights, crowds of people, a familiar figure in handcuffs, an unfamiliar figure silhouetted on top of a building just for a moment. Marinette figured it out first, gasping and almost collapsing on the edge of the couch. Felix finally read the banner at the bottom of the news channel. "Hawkmoth revealed as Gabriel Agreste. Where is Ladybug?"

"Who?" was all Felix managed to ask. He sat on the floor and leaned back against Marinette's shins.

Adrien shrugged. "There's a clip of someone, some hero, escaping across the roofs. It doesn't look like Queen Bee or Rena Rouge, and I don't think either of them could have taken down Father on their own."

The door banged open and Tom Dupain was crying. “It’s over. Adrien, Felix… I’m so sorry.” He hugged Adrien, who hugged him back hard before pulling away and returning to his pacing. Tom reached out to hug Felix, but stopped and only put a hand on his shoulder when he saw Felix flinch.

Sabine came up and said she'd closed the bakery for the rest of the day. The adults worried to each other about how none of the heroes had been seen since the night before and only the mystery hero had been glimpsed anywhere near Gabriel Agreste's house. Where were the regular heroes? Were they hurt while fighting Hawkmoth?

"Felix," Tom said suddenly, turning to where Felix hadn't moved from his spot on the floor. "Was this why you ran away? Did you know something?"

He nodded numbly and kept watching the news, though there wasn't much more information. Gabriel was in police custody at an undisclosed location for his own safety. His miraculous had not been recovered at the time of arrest, but multiple police officers had witnessed Hawkmoth detransforming into Gabriel. Felix and Adrien were safe with a guardian. There were reports that Gabriel had been incapacitated by a new hero when the police arrived. There were reports that Gabriel had confessed. There were reports that neither of those things were true. Felix both didn't care, and couldn't stop watching.

“Felix,” Marinette said, nudging him with one of the legs he had trapped, “your phone has been going off.”

Felix pulled out his phone to find too many texts and missed calls. He dismissed all the calls and started sifting through the texts. Most were asking if he and Adrien were okay, a few offers of places to stay, lots of sympathy, a few angry texts, and Nathaniel. Nathaniel alone was a third of the calls and a quarter of the texts. Felix responded to Nathaniel’s most recent message with, “We’re fine. When things calm down, I’ll get in contact.” He turned his phone off and readjusted against the floor and Marinette. He had an odd moment of thinking how nice it will be to be able to text Ladybug whenever he wants now.

The Dupain-Chengs and Agrestes didn't move for almost an hour, besides Adrien's pacing. The house phone rang, but no one moved to get it. When it rang again, Sabine answered, had a brief conversation, and sat back down.

"Nathalie is coming here to speak to you, boys."

The knock on the door came soon after. Nathalie had a quiet conversation with Sabine in the hall before entering and greeting the rest of the family. The boys found themselves being ushered to Marinette's room with Nathalie. Once they were alone and the trap door had been closed, Nathalie finally put her tablet in her bag and looked at them.

"How did you know where we were?" Adrien asked.

Nathalie merely lifted an eyebrow at him.

"I assume you've seen the news," she said.

They nodded.

"Your father has been arrested. I sent his lawyers to meet him. I also confirmed with the lawyers that I am your legal guardian for the foreseeable future. I will do everything in my power to keep the two of you out of the interrogation room and out of the media, but you will have to give brief statements to the police. This will leave me little time to be a guardian to you in most other ways. And I think we all know that I'm emotionally unequipped to help you actually deal with this situation. So, I will be looking for suitable families to take you in until your eighteenth birthday, at which point I will help you find your own living space. It looks like the mansion will be a crime scene for quite a while, but we can go in the next few days and get your clothes and necessities."

Nathalie's tablet buzzed, and while she didn't fish it out of her bag, Adrien and Felix could see how aware she was of it. Part of her brain would be focused on it for the rest of the conversation.

"Do either of you have any questions?"

"Do we have to stay with strangers?" Adrien asked.

"No. If one of your friend's families would like to take you in, that could be arranged. While I'm not sure Mrs. Lahiffe needs the extra stress, perhaps another friend of yours, Adrien?" He nodded. "What about you, Felix? That Kurtzberg boy, I've met his parents, they're quite nice."

"Can we go see Nino?" Felix asked.

Nathalie blinked at him. Her "why can't you answer the question that was asked just once" blink.

"I didn't know you two were that close. I would also like to know where you were before the hospital last night."

"Another time. I'm heading back to the hospital." Felix turned and headed down to the living room. Adrien and Nathalie followed.

"You barely got a couple hours of sleep, Felix." Adrien looked conflicted.

"I’m fine. You know how little sleep I get usually. I’m going," he said, turning towards the door.

"Felix, dear," Sabine said, not getting up from the couch. "Shower and eat something first."

Felix stopped, hand on the doorknob. That... was actually a really good idea.

"A quick shower," Felix bargained.

"Let me fix something for you," Tom said, rising from the couch to take up most of the kitchen.

"Dibs on first shower," Adrien said, slipping past his brother.

"Quickly, Adrien," Felix said. Marinette heard him mutter something about models as he sat on the couch next to her.

Sabine managed to talk Nathalie into sitting with her at the kitchen table. When she asked about what would happen to the boys, Nathalie tried to offer the Dupain-Chengs money to keep the boys a couple more nights. This resulted in Nathalie facing Tom standing over her, holding the knife he was using to cut vegetables, telling her they would keep the boys as long as needed and that money was not necessary, nor wanted.

"But you don't have room to keep them long term," Nathalie said. "I was hoping, if the school can cooperate in keeping the media out, to have the boys return to school. Organizing two extra teenagers will be a bit much, I'm sure."

The argument went on a while. Marinette dozed on Felix's shoulder while Felix fiddled with Nino’s glasses and stared at the looped footage of his father being led in handcuffs to a police car while a dark figure lept to the roof and then away.

Something about that clip nagged at Felix. He didn't notice it at first because it wasn't an easy clip to watch in the first place. With each repetition, however, his focus shifted from his father's form and the defeated slump of his shoulders to the figure on the roof. It was something about that new hero that bugged him. He rolled the feeling over in his mind as he rolled the glasses over in his hands.

When Adrien got out of the shower he came to stand behind the couch, running a hand over Marinette's hair. He watched the loop of footage for a moment, then leaned forward so only Felix could hear him.

"That hero has a tail, but it doesn't look like Rena's. It's more... swoopy."

Felix shot up from the couch, reaching into his pockets. Wayzz wiggled around, and Plagg must have crawled in the same pocket as Wayzz because Felix felt the not-unfamiliar feeling of Plagg’s teeth sinking into his hand. He patted his jeans pockets too.

The Peacock Miraculous was gone.

Marinette, who had fallen sideways when her Felix-pillow had moved, reached out a hand to whack the side of Felix's leg.

"What was that? I was asleep," she said, her raspy voice still able to clearly convey her annoyance.

"I lost..." he paused, remembering the adults as he felt the weight of their eyes on his back. "Something. Maybe it's upstairs."

Felix bolted up the stairs. He fully unzipped his sleeping bag. When he didn't see the miraculous, he picked up the sleeping bag and shook it to check that it wasn't caught in some hidden fold. He searched the rest of the room, knowing he hadn't been anywhere else in there since he had shown the miraculous to Marinette on the way to the hospital the night before. Was that really the last time he'd noticed it? Where could it have gone between the hospital and the Dupain-Cheng house?

"Felix?" Adrien and Marinette came in the room to see Felix crawling around under Marinette's desk on his hands and knees.

"I lost the Peacock Miraculous," Felix said, narrowly avoiding smashing his head on the desk as he turned to face them.

"Since when did you even have it?" Adrien asked, looking bewildered.

"Gabr- father had it. I took it."

Marinette filled Adrien in on what else she knew about Felix finding out Gabriel was Hawkmoth. Felix just sat there flipping Nino's glasses over and over in his hands. He would check at the hospital. That was the only other place it could be. But he knew he wouldn't find it. Obviously, the Peacock had taken down the Butterfly. So the real question was, who was the Peacock, and how were they so powerful with a new miraculous and no training?

"Boys, Nathalie is leaving, come say goodbye,” Sabine called.

Adrien and Felix exchanged a look. They weren't used to having an active parent in their lives, much less one who cared enough to say things like 'come say goodbye."

Nathalie left, and Felix gave up on his search for the miraculous. He showered faster than he had ever showered and tried to eat some of whatever it was Tom had prepared for them to eat. Sabine tutted over his lack of appetite and packed some pastries and rolls in a bag for him to bring along. She hugged the boys as they headed to the door.

"You know you can talk to me or Tom about anything," she said, a hand on each boy's arm. "This is a lot to deal with. We want you to know that we're here to listen."

They said their goodbyes and both begged Mrs. Cheng to get Marinette to actually rest while they were gone. She waved them away and closed the door.

"Marinette?" Sabine said, looking at the lump of blankets that marked the spot her daughter had claimed on the couch. "What's going on with you and Adrien?"

"We barely spoke to each other all day!" Marinette said, trying to fight her way out from the blankets.

"Yes, but I saw the way he looked at you."

"What does that even mean?"

Chapter Text

"So, okay, the adults all know the lie that Nino was taking you to his house," Adrien said on the way to the hospital. "Tell me what really happened?"

Felix filled him in, leaving out as much as he could to spare his brother's feelings about their father (like how long he had suspected), and skimming over why it was Carapace he sought out, and what happened once he was at the Lahiffe home.

"You fell asleep at Nino's?"

Somehow that was the part with which Adrien was struggling.

"Yes? Why?"

"You don't fall asleep easily when you're upset. I mean, you did when we got to the Dupain-Cheng's, but I figure you're exhausted. You really fell asleep at Nino's?"

"Yes. That's how he managed to leave without me knowing where he was going."

"You must have felt comfortable with him." Adrien gave Felix a suspicious look. "Which would be weird, because you usually avoid him."

"You know how awkward I am when I have a crush. Of course I avoid him usually."

Adrien stopped dead on the sidewalk. Felix, used to his dramatics, grabbed his sleeve and pulled him along.

"Since when do you have a crush on my best friend?" Adrien asked.

This time Felix stopped dead.

"What do you mean, 'since when'?"

"How long have you had a crush on him?"

"Since middle school?"

"What do you mean, 'since middle school'?" Adrien's eyes widened. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed them, then lowered his voice and repeated, "Since middle school?"

"Why are you acting surprised? You knew I liked him," Felix said, dragging Adrien forward once more. They were nearing the hospital parking lot.

"I definitely did not."

"You do know I'm gay, right?"

"Of course I know you're gay." Adrien rolled his eyes.

"But when your gay brother said 'I like Nino. What the hell do I do? How did this happen to me?' you thought...?"

"I thought you find Nino annoying and liking him as a friend was not something you expected."

"Your advice was to take him to see a movie and have dinner together!"

"Yes, that's a great way to be better friends!"

"I don’t even like going to the movies!" Felix rubbed at his growing headache with the heel of his hand.

"Oh... that's true."

"How did you miss this?"

"To be fair... I thought you were lying about not dating Nath?" Adrien scratched the back of his neck.

"Why would I lie to you about that?"

He never got an answer because Adrien had turned his model charm on the receptionist to find out where Nino was. They made their way to his room with a detour to the waiting room from the night before. The Peacock Miraculous was nowhere to be found.

"Hey, boys," Mrs. Lahiffe said when they knocked on the open door frame. "He hasn't woken up yet, but the doctor said any time now. You can wait with us. I'm sure he'd like to see you both."

"Where's Mel?" Adrien asked.

"Switching places with Chris. He'll be here soon, and Mel will get some sleep when the phone isn't ringing."

They settled in to wait. Adrien chatted with Mrs. Lahiffe and then with Chris when he showed up. Felix was happy to sit by himself and fiddle with Nino's glasses. He tried to make himself look at Nino, but seeing him so still and quiet was hard. Bandages were scattered across his visible skin and IV lines fed into his arm. But with all of that, the thing that looked most wrong to Felix was the lack of glasses, hat, and headphones. Those things were just so a part of Nino's essence that their lack made Felix too sure that this couldn't be a dream. A dream version of Nino would always have those things. Not that Felix dreamed of him (often).

An idea occurred to Felix after another nurse popped in and out. He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his music.

"Adrien, what's that song?" he asked as he skimmed song titles.

"What song?"

"That one. The one Nino and I talked about."

"You think I keep track of your conversations?"

"You were part of the conversation. The three of us don't talk often. What's that one song?"

"Oh, that one!"

After a minute or two of figuring out if the song was really called what they thought, music came from Felix's phone. He set it down on the bed and went back to folding and unfolding the arms of the glasses.

"He does love this song," Chris said with a chuckle. "I'm so sick of it."

"He got irrationally angry when he found out that Felix likes pop," Adrien said. "Nino says it ruins Felix's entire aesthetic. I say it makes more sense than anything else about him."

"You keep talking about me like I'm not here," Nino said.

The flurry of activity once again overwhelmed Felix. He tried to step into the hallway if only to get some distance from all the tears and motherly affection, but Adrien stared him down. Felix stayed close to the door but didn't leave.

"Am I seeing double, or did Adrien get back early?" Nino asked. He blinked slowly, eyes on one twin, then the other for a few seconds, eyebrows furrowing. "Actually, you both look like Adrien, and that's confusing."

"I heard you were going to meet Felix to bring him home and got mugged and Ladybug brought you here," Adrien said, coming over to stand by the head of Nino's bed as the doctor did some kind of exam. Felix was glad Adrien thought to fill Nino in on the lie instead of leaving him to come up with his own.

"I don't remember." Nino's eyes were falling closed again. "Can I kick you guys out? I love you all, but I just want to sleep for a year."

Everyone moved towards the door except the doctor and Mrs. Lahiffe.

"Wait, Adrien," Nino called, struggling to open his eyes again. "You're here, not in Milan?"

"Yeah, there was a whole thing with Felix being missing. Nathalie dragged me back late last night."

"Okay, good." His eyes dropped closed again. “Nathalie and Adrien are back.”

In the hallway, Chris went to call Melanie. Felix pulled Wayzz from his pocket and huddled against the wall with Adrien to shield the kwami from anyone passing.

"Wayzz, do you want to stay with Nino now? We'll bring you kale each time we visit." Wayzz nodded and zipped into the room, finding a hiding place under Nino's pillow when the doctor and Mrs. Lahiffe looked away.

"So... what do we do now?" Adrien asked as they wandered the halls.

"I think it's time Chat Noir looked for that new hero," Felix said. "Whoever this is- and I suspect it's the Peacock- they just did what we've been trying to do for years. We need to know who this is, and if they're a threat. If they're on our side, they should try to contact us. If they're against us and they were just getting the competition of Hawkmoth out of the way, we have bigger problems. And when and how, exactly, did they take the miraculous from me?"

"Does this mean you'll be the one going?" Plagg asked, poking his head out of his pocket. "Adrien's ring is too tiring, and I've had so little cheese since you ran away." He sighed dramatically.

"Adrien's better at meet and greet," Felix said.

"Hawkmoth is gone," Plagg said. "You were quitting because your dad's Hawkmoth. And now there's no more Hawkmoth. Suit up, kid."

"I can do it," Adrien said.

"Felix is better at city wide searches," Plagg argued.

"This wouldn't be a search," Felix said. "This would be running around the city so the news picks up that one of the heroes has been spotted and waiting for them to come to us."

"Do you think he or she has the Butterfly Miraculous?" Adrien asked.

"I hope so," Plagg said. "Nooroo is annoying. He'll be more annoying the longer he's not with the rest of us, so we better find him soon."

"Will you stay here?" Adrien asked Felix. "I'll go make myself seen, pose on the roof of the mansion and a couple landmarks, stuff like that, but will you stay here? I don't want it to be awkward with your crush or whatever, but I want another miraculous holder here, even if you can't transform."

"Is it still a crush if they both like each other and have already kissed?" Plagg asked.

"Wait, what?" Adrien shot a look not at Felix, but at Plagg. "Are you just making things up?"

"If I remove my finger will the ring no longer belong to me?" Felix asked, shoving Plagg's head into his pocket. "Because we're in a hospital, this would be the best place to try."

"There was kissing?" Adrien's eyes lit up. "Are you and Nino dating? You two kissed? And I missed it? You two make the cutest couple. I'm so happy for you." He threw his arms around Felix.

"We kissed, yes, but that's it," Felix said, relaxing a bit with Adrien's arms around him. "There was no talk of dating or coupledom."

"Felix," Adrien stopped walking, yanking Felix to a stop as well. "Was that your first kiss?"

"That I'm not answering," he said, turning his face away and reaching up to disconnect Adrien's arms.

"It was, he said so," Plagg said from the pocket.

"Please transform so he can't keep talking," Felix begged Adrien.

"C'mon, Plagg," Adrien said, holding open the side of his shirt. "We'll be back soon. I still don't have a phone, so I'll meet you here or at Marinette's."

Felix found Chris in a nearby waiting room, playing a game on his phone.

"Adrien or Felix?" Chris asked. He asked this at school too, despite how different the twins dressed from each other. Felix was starting to suspect Chris could tell them apart and only asked to annoy them.

"Felix." He sat next to Chris and started fiddling with the glasses.

"Are those- are those Nino's?" Chris asked, looking surprised.

"Oh. Yes."

"How did you get them?"

"Ladybug," he lied.

"Why do you still have them?"

"...I don't know." Felix tried to make himself hand them to Chris, but his fingers instead ran over the frames in their familiar lines.

"Did you finally say something to him?" Chris asked.

"What do you mean?" Felix asked, looking up.

"All I know is, one twin spends every second with my brother and the other one spends every second looking at my brother."

Felix chuckled. "I didn't think that many people noticed. Adrien didn't even notice."

"Adrien didn't notice Marinette either," Chris said. "And everyone notices Marinette."

“She flails about too much not to,” Felix said. He flipped the arms of the glasses open and closed.

“Why don’t you hold on to those until he needs them?” Chris asked.

Felix nodded and let his attention focus on the hinge. Chris went back to his game. The hall was quiet, and they waited together, expecting nothing from the other and glad not to need to give for a few moments.

/*****/

Chat Noir was enjoying his run across Paris. He hadn't minded taking time off for the trip to Milan. It had been a nice break in routine, but hearing Felix was missing, then that Nino was hurt, then that his father was Hawkmoth, and feeling like there was nothing he could do about any of it had been difficult. Being Chat Noir always made him feel like he was making progress on anything bothering him. Even now, with each step Adrien felt like he was doing something to help Nino, doing something to solve more of the Hawkmoth puzzle, letting Paris know its guardians and heroes were here.

And maybe, just maybe, being Chat Noir would help Adrien make sense of the man he now knew his father was.

It was getting dark out when Adrien started thinking of going back to the Dupain-Cheng's. He decided to run through his usual patrol route one more time before heading back. He was halfway through when he realized he had someone following him. Whoever they were, they stayed in the shadows enough to keep Adrien from knowing if this was the same person who took down his father, but close enough to the light to let him know they were there. He trained his cat hearing on the figure, slowing just a bit, and heard one spine-chilling phrase.

"Hello, Adrien."

Chapter Text

"Felix, you stayed," Mrs. Lahiffe said with a smile as she came out of Nino's room a few hours later. She reached out a hand to his shoulder and watched him freeze under her touch. She patted his shoulder once and pulled away to sit on the other side of Chris, who was playing a different game on his phone, now with headphones.

"Is that okay?" Felix asked.

"Nino just woke up again and asked who was still here. If you want to talk to him for a few minutes, I'm sure he'd appreciate someone other than his mother fussing over him."

Felix stood and nodded. "Thank you."

"Be nice, Felix," Mrs. Lahiffe said with a smile a little too soft to be a smirk.

Felix nodded again and walked into the room.

"Hi," Felix said.

"Hi," Nino said, shifting to face Felix better, but not moving much beyond that. "So, uh, I get that you're probably really mad at me, but I have a couple questions that are really important."

"I'm indescribably mad at you," Felix said, standing close enough to reach out and touch the splinted arm next to him. But he didn't.

"I know. So the first question is, what happened to Hawkmoth?"

"You could turn on the news to learn that," Felix said, glancing away.

"Mom won't let me. She'll go into one of her crazy mom rages. No screens until the concussion is healed."

"Hawkmoth has been arrested."

Nino blinked at him for a few seconds. "Seriously?"

Felix nodded, taking another half step closer to the head of the bed.

"Okay, that makes my second question even more important. Where's Nathalie?"

/*****/

Chat Noir turned and ran at the other hero, backing her into a corner quickly. She didn't look particularly worried.

"How do you know who I am?"

"Lucky guess. I was pretty sure you weren't Felix tonight, but it's harder to tell from farther away. We should go somewhere and talk."

"Why would I go anywhere with you?"

"Because we'll attract a crowd here."

The Peacock was right. Already two or three people had found them and were watching from a distance. No cameras were aimed at them yet though.

"Come with me," she said, leaping to a nearby roof. Chat Noir followed automatically like he'd been taking her orders his whole life.

"What do I call you?" Chat Noir asked, running beside her up the side of an office building.

"Paon."

Chat nodded and dropped cross-legged on the roof, staring out over the city.

"You are so much like your mother," Paon said, sitting next to Chat Noir. "She had a similar fighting style to yours when she started. You have so much potential."

"What do you mean? My mother had a fighting style? You knew my mother?"

"Of course. Haven't you figured out who I am yet?"

/*****/

"What?" Felix asked. "Why Nathalie?"

"I broke the rules," Nino said, looking over at Wayzz. "One person does know I'm Carapace. Nathalie's been training me. That's why I picked up on all this hero stuff so fast. Though, Wayzz has been super helpful, too." He held up a fist a few inches from the bed and Wayzz flew over to fist bump him.

"What does Nathalie know about training a superhero?"

"Normally I wouldn't tell you, but we need her to make sure your father's miraculous doesn't end up in the wrong hands." Nino took a deep breath but it made him wince and put his good hand to his ribs. Felix felt helpless in the face of Nino's pain, but Nino waved a hand at the worried look on his face. "Nathalie was Paon. She worked with a Turtle Miraculous holder when they were our age. If anyone can get his miraculous away from him before he breaks out of custody and hurts innocent police officers along the way, it'd be her. She has years of experience on us. She can beat me in a fight even though she has no miraculous now. I called her yesterday before I went to face your father. I told her you had her miraculous. She'll need it."

Felix sat down in the chair set up next to Nino and stared at the control buttons on the side of the hospital bed, letting his mind spin. Nino tried to ask him a question, but he put a hand up to stop him.

"Nathalie, who gets bent out of shape when I want to schedule extra time at the ballet studio last minute, used to be a superhero?"

"Yeah, I didn't believe it at first either," Nino said. He was starting to look tired again.

"How did she even find out that you're Carapace?"

"I told her. Within a week of getting my miraculous, actually."

"What? Why?"

"She and I, ah, kinda talk a lot? Don't look at me like that, dude," Nino said. Felix wasn't sure what his reaction was, but he tried to make his expression more neutral. "It started after I was akumatized. She wanted to make sure I stayed friends with Adrien. We kinda... look out for him together. Then she wanted me to help look out for you, too, and I guess that's why I finally started being patient with you, trying to get why you act the way you do, instead of just getting mad. So, uh, I wanted her to know I had a new way to look out for you two. And then she's telling me she used to be Paon and offering to train me. You've had a former miraculous hero next to you this whole time. I wonder if she knew you were Chat Noir?"

/*****/

"I knew the moment Plagg showed up in Felix's room,” Paon said. “I knew when you decided to help carry that burden. I didn't know about your father, but looking back on it now, I can't believe I missed it. I was expecting someone younger, with less to live for than children and a successful company he loved. Maybe I didn't want to believe it."

"Nathalie?" Chat asked, eyes widening.

She nodded.

"But... you work with father every day! How could you not know?"

"His behavior became so erratic after your mother disappeared. I looked through my work logs and notes from the months before and after Hawkmoth appeared and I still can't see a change in pattern from before he had the miraculous to after. He was always disappearing at odd hours and returning annoyed. I looked over some dates that I knew there were akumas and dates I knew there weren't, and I still can't tell. He must have known who I was-" she looked down at her costume and shook her head, "-who I am, and covered his tracks appropriately. Felix took my miraculous from him, right?"

"Yeah, he said he found it in Father's safe."

"I should have known. At the time my miraculous was lost, I assumed he didn’t know who Paon was. Of course, your mother must have told him."

"How did mom know?"

"She was the previous Turtle Miraculous holder."

/*****/

"Nino, she took the miraculous," Felix said. "It must have been her. She hugged me last night, and I lost it sometime between showing it to Mari on the way here last night and when Adrien woke us up with the news of Hawkmoth’s capture."

"Since when are you and Marinette close enough that you call her Mari?"

"She's Ladybug."

Nino managed to stop himself from laughing outright, chuckling a little and trying not to move. "Of course. So, wow, Alya's gonna be happy to see Marinette and Adrien together. And your best friend was in your class all along."

Felix nodded, but his mind was back on the bigger picture. "So, if Nathalie was the mystery hero who took down Gabriel, she must have the Butterfly Miraculous already, right?"

/*****/

"Adrien, I need to give this to Ladybug," Paon said, holding out the winged purple jewel. "I would give it to you, but I can't be sure you wouldn't give it to your father out of some misplaced sense of family loyalty. Don't take that personally," she said quickly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I wouldn't give it to Felix either if he was the one here."

"Ladybug is sick. Do you want to just take it to the Guardian?"

"Marinette then," Paon said. "I suspected it was her."

"I... that was sloppy of me."

"It was. But I can train you." Paon stood and held a hand out to Chat Noir. "Take me to the Guardian."

/*****/

"I got a text from Master Fu,” Felix said. "He wants me to stop by."

"Go ahead," Nino said. "I was about to kick you out to fall asleep again."

Felix nodded but stayed where he was.

"Generally, to get to Master Fu's and let me sleep, you'd have to leave, dude,” Nino said.

Felix stood and leaned over the side of the bed just a bit. "I'm still mad at you," Felix said, "but if I don't kiss you before I go, I might lose my mind."

Nino grinned. "C'mere," he said. Felix obliged, meeting him in a quick kiss.

"Thank you for not making last night our last kiss," Felix whispered, touching his forehead to Nino's.

Nino nodded, blinking heavy eyelids. "See you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow."

/*****/

Felix arrived at Master Fu's at the same time as Adrien and Nathalie.

"Nathalie. Or should I say, Paon? Did Master Fu text you as well?"

"I have the Butterfly," Nathalie said. "Adrien and I met a few minutes ago and came here. I feel it's necessary to warn you both that Master Fu probably doesn't want to see me. There was a... misunderstanding with my miraculous a while ago. I took the blame. So, I apologize if this meeting does not go well."

"I don't know why he wants to see me," Felix said.

"Let's find out," Adrien said. He stepped forward and knocked on the door.

"Come in," Master Fu said when he opened the door. "I have tea."

The four humans and two kwamis settled in for tea. Adrien kept sending anxious glances at everyone else, one at a time. Felix focused on watching Plagg and Duusu catch up. Nathalie and Master Fu had their own calm masks in place, but every now and then their gaze would flick to the other and then away quickly.

Adrien finally cracked. He turned to Master Fu. "So... did you know our father was Hawkmoth?"

"I did not," he said. “The Butterfly has the strongest magic protecting the identity of the holder. Nathalie has decades of experience with the difficulties of hiding the use of a miraculous, and she was closest to your father. Had she suspected him, I'm sure she would have somehow found me and stormed my door, demanding a miraculous to take him on."

"Most likely," Nathalie said.

"What I would like to know," Master Fu said. "Is where the Peacock was all this time?"

"I found it in Gabriel's safe," Felix said.

"Gabriel must have taken it from Emilie," Nathalie said.

“Emilie?” Felix asked, looking around at the unsurprised faces around him. “Mom?” Adrien nodded and gave Felix an ‘I’ll tell you after this’ look.

"I was asking Duusu," Master Fu said, not even looking at Nathalie. Felix wasn’t used to this colder side of him.

"They're right," Duusu said. "Nathalie and I parted ways when she said we did. I saw Emilie once, and a while after that, I sensed that I was locked in a metal box until Felix found me."

Master Fu sighed. "I owe you an apology, Nathalie. I'm sorry that I didn't believe you. Giving you the Peacock Miraculous was not a mistake. I hope that, if you want, you continue to use it. This generation of heroes is overdue for a mentor, and that's not something I can provide them."

"What do you think?" Nathalie asked Duusu.

"I wanted to stay longer when you gave me up the first time," she said, fluttering over to nuzzle Nathalie's cheek. Nathalie gave a little smile, and Felix wondered when the last time he'd seen her smile was.

"So, that is settled." Master Fu nodded and poured everyone more tea. "Now, as for the Black Cat."

"I know you never wanted me to have it," Adrien said. "You chose Felix. But we were able to do so much more together than either of us could have done alone."

"I was going to say, I'm sorry I didn't think of splitting the miraculous in the first place," Master Fu said. "Perhaps if I had done so before handing it off, Felix wouldn't have felt trapped for so long. I doubt there is anything I can do for it now, but may I see both Black Cat Miraculouses?"

Adrien slipped his ring off and set it on the table. Felix put his hand flat on the table. Master Fu put on his glasses and picked up first the silver ring, then Felix's hand, subjecting them to his critical eye.

"As I suspected, there is nothing I can do. But I have a feeling you won't be trapped for long, Felix."

"You don't happen to want to be more specific than that for Felix? Felix, who has worked faithfully and with no guidance for years from you. Felix, who didn't even know you until recently. You wouldn't happen to want to do that for him, would you?" Nathalie asked, her facade taking on an edge of ice.

"Felix will see shortly. There is nothing I can say that will change the outcome." Master Fu sipped his tea and smiled a little too politely.

"I see. Adrien, Felix, let's go. Good seeing you, Master Fu."

Nathalie shuffled them out the door and once they were in the car with the Gorilla (who somehow knew they were there) she let out a small sigh of irritation.

"I told you that he and I do not get along. I apologize for that."

"We have very different definitions of upsetting or inappropriate behavior, Nathalie," Adrien said with a small, teasing smile aimed out the window.

Chapter Text

The next morning when Adrien arrived at the hospital, Nino was asleep. He made as little noise as possible as he made his way to the side of the bed. Being careful of the monitor lines and IV lines, Adrien crawled onto the bed and cuddled his friend. Nino woke up when Adrien started purring.

"What the hell, Adrien?" he asked, not opening his eyes.

"You could tell it was me?" Adrien asked, purring pausing. "Huh. I can't purr while I talk."

"Well, you definitely aren't Felix."

"Why do you say that?" Adrien asked, purring whenever he wasn't speaking.

"He's mad. I lied to him. I did exactly what he didn't want me to do. I betrayed his trust. I made decisions for him. You name it, I screwed it up."

"I think what he's mad about is mostly that you got yourself hurt," Adrien said. "He's not happy about those other things, but he was terrified for you. Marinette told me that she and your mom had to help him through a panic attack when he heard what the doctor had said about how badly you'd been hurt. I totally missed it, but he's been crazy about you for a long time."

"How did you miss that?" Nino asked. "I've known for a year. Nathaniel has known, obviously, for forever. I think Chloe knows. Your brother is not a subtle guy when he pines."

"And you were just ignoring it?" Adrien asked, sitting up a little to glare at Nino.

"No. I was trying to keep my distance and be polite but make sure I wasn't leading him on. I thought it would be cruel to tell him I knew and couldn't feel the same because I had my eye on a certain superhero who couldn't give me the time of day."

"He was so mad the first time you flirted with him," Adrien said with a chuckle, leaning with care against Nino again. "He said you were as bad as I was with Ladybug."

"Dude, this is so weird. We've discussed this before, as Puns and Shelly," Nino said. "Not the Felix-being-mad part. Us both being hopeless."

"I can't believe you had a crush on Felix and he had a crush on you and you both ignored each other for each other."

"You're one to talk," Nino said, starting to lose the fight against sleep. He was getting bored of sleeping. "You ignored Marinette for Ladybug. She ignored Punny for you."

"Yes, but at least Ladybug and I started dating before the reveal," Adrien said. "That means of all four of us, I won."

"Hey, Grumpy Chat came to me when he ran away," Nino said, forcing his eyes open after a very long blink. "I'd call that pretty close."

"Go to sleep. I heard the frequency of cat's purrs is good for healing. Go to sleep." Adrien said, resuming purring loudly. Nino didn't even try to respond to that.

/*****/

"Oh, come on Felix!" Nino said. He was waiting to be taken for more tests, but apparently, tests were slow on Sunday afternoons. "Adrien says purring is good for healing. So you should come over here and help with that."

"I'm staying over here," Felix said, continuing to pretend to read his book.

"Okay, answer me this," Nino said. "You're going to forgive me eventually, right?"

"What's to say I haven't forgiven you already?" It was a good thing Felix had read this book already because he wasn't picking up a single sentence.

"The fact that you're over there and I'm over here."

Felix hummed noncommittally.

"I want to date you," Nino said. "I want to take you out to dinner and introduce you to people as 'my boyfriend' and make Nathalie crazy by being over at your place all the time."

Felix turned the page of his book.

"Do you still like me?" Nino asked, crossing his arms as best he could with the awkward cast on his right arm and scowling.

"Is that relevant to me forgiving you?"

"Answer the question, dude."

"I'm in love with you," Felix said. He kept his eyes on his book because that was safest. "But you almost got yourself killed. The only thing more painful than going back to avoiding you and pretending I don't know what kissing you feels like is having you and losing you."

"But you-" Nino started to protest before the connection between Felix's last two sentences made itself apparent. "You’re not scared we'll get together and break up," Nino said, finally getting it. "You're scared I'll die or disappear or-"

"Or be a psychopath torturing children over magical power," Felix said. "Not so much that one. But you get what I mean. I have a history of losing too much."

"I really don't know how to convince you that I'm going to stick around," Nino said, frowning. "But I will. We can figure it out. I just don't know how yet."

"You don't have to do that," Felix said, turning another page he hadn't read. "It really is okay if you go on with your life and forget about me. You shouldn't have to work this hard. I'm not-" Worth it, Felix thought. But he couldn't voice it, because he couldn't hear Nino refute it.

"You are infuriating," Nino said, leaning back against the raised part of the bed and staring at the ceiling.

"Then that should help you forget Grumpy Chat," Felix said.

"No, you dummy," Nino said, not looking away from the ceiling. "That's why I liked Grumpy in the first place."

Unable to think of a single response to that, Felix redoubled his efforts to actually read. He had finally comprehended three consecutive sentences when Nino spoke again.

"If you really meant any of that, about wanting me to forget about you and being okay with me moving on," Nino sat up and looked at Felix. "Then why are you still in here with me?"

Nino realized his mistake even before Felix fully processed the question. Felix stood and picked up his bag, crossing to the table next to Nino’s bed. He placed Nino's glasses on the table and left without a word. Nino only sighed. He should have known that pointing it out was the fastest way to make it stop.

What Nino didn't see was the tears falling from Felix's chin as he walked down the hallway, away from him.

/*****/

"Felix! You're just in time for-"

"No, thank you," Felix said, barely above a whisper, pushing past Mr. Dupain to reach the stairs to Marinette's room.

"Felix, we found the inflatable mattress so you don't have to sleep on the floor any-"

"No thank you," Felix said again, closing the trap door on Mrs. Cheng.

"Felix?" Marinette sat up from her blanket cocoon to blink owlishly at Felix throwing everything he had gathered from the mansion the day before into suitcases.

"You need sleep. Rest up so you'll get better," Felix said, taking Nino’s hoodie back out of his bag and folding it on the chaise.

"Why are you packing?"

"I'm staying with Nathalie."

"Since when?"

"I can't do this, Buggy." He sat on the chaise and started zipping a suitcase.

"Do what?" Marinette pulled a blanket around her shoulders and stumbled down to sit next to him. She could see he had been crying.

"Your parents and all the talking and you asking me questions." He lurched to his feet and grabbed his bags, trying to figure out the best way to wrestle everything through the trap door.

"What happened?" Marinette asked, reaching out for his bag to hand to him once he was down a few stairs.

"Nothing. I'm staying with Nathalie because I'll be more comfortable there. And it'll be easier on everyone else, too."

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the Dupain-Cheng family had a silent, eye-contact conversation.

"You going somewhere?" Tom asked Felix.

"I'll stay with Nathalie. I've imposed on your hospitality enough. Thank you for your time and support."

Tom and Sabine exchanged another look.

"You don't have to go," Sabine said.

"I would like to."

"Okay. I'll drive you," Sabine said.

"Thank you."

On the way, Sabine asked, "What does Adrien say about you leaving?"

Adrien was running around as Chat Noir to burn off energy. "I haven't told him."

"Then are you sure? You seem upset. Maybe talking it out with him would help."

Felix said nothing. He didn't want to talk it out. He wanted to be alone, and the closest he was going to get until he could get this ring off his finger and get out of town was staying with Nathalie.

Sabine helped Felix get his bags out of the car. Felix found Nathalie's apartment number and hoped she was home.

"Yes?" Nathalie said over the intercom.

"May I stay with you?"

"Felix?"

There were a few minutes where Felix tuned out. Nathalie came to open the door and help with his bags. Sabine explained the situation to Nathalie in hushed tones. Felix closed himself in the guest room and fell asleep before he had his winter jacket off.

/*****/

"Felix?"

Felix rolled out of bed into a crouch, sensing something was wrong. He started cataloging facts. It was early evening. That was Nathalie's voice. This was not his room.

"I didn't mean to startle you," Nathalie said, flipping the bedroom light on. "I was worried that if I let you sleep much longer, you wouldn't sleep at all tonight."

He was at Nathalie's. Right.

"It's fine," Felix said, straightening up. "I didn't mean to fall asleep in the first place."

"I ordered dinner. It's from that pizza place you like."

Felix and Nathalie settled down on her couch with pizza and salads to watch the news while they ate.

"Why did you come here?" Nathalie asked.

"It's quieter here. I won't be in the way as much. I don't know."

Nathalie noted Felix had finished half of the food she had hoped he would.

"Adrien and Nino texted me," she said.

"I don't want to talk about this." Felix set his plate on the coffee table.

"They're worried about you. Sounds like a fight with Nino and then-"

"I don't want to talk about this," Felix said. "Are you going to make me?"

She wanted to. She couldn't help if she didn't understand. But something about the look in Felix's eye, something familiar there, made her pause.

"No, I won't. Please help me wrap up what's left here."

Felix didn't speak the rest of the night. He curled up in the living room, bouncing his attention from the news to a book until it was an acceptable hour to go back to bed.

"Emilie," Nathalie whispered to Duusu in the otherwise silent living room. "He's just like Emilie."

"I would have loved to see her with them," Duusu said.

"The twins were why I came back," Nathalie said. "Because she asked, and she had two little boys who were more important than my lingering hurt feelings."

"That's a good reason."

Nathalie stared at her tablet, not absorbing the legal documents before her in the slightest. Her mind was back with her Turtle partner many years ago.

/*****/

"Shouldn't you not be using your phone?" Mel asked, sitting at the foot of Nino's hospital bed.

"It's this or I go absolutely crazy, dude." He texted as quickly as he could one-handed.

"Is that Felix?"

"No, he's not talking to me."

"Why? What did he do?" Mel's frown and narrowed eyes made Nino smile.

"It's not him. Well, it's not not him." He reached for his hat only to remember it wasn't there.

"I kinda always saw him as a jerk," Mel said. "But he really cares about you. I didn't know he was capable of caring about anyone else. And he's surprisingly good at making sure everyone else is okay during a crisis."

"Yeah?" Nino had to resist explaining at length why he fell in love with Cat Man. Those stories involved a lot of supervillains, jumping off buildings, and near-death experiences, and wouldn't make sense when Mel thought he was talking about his shy but prickly classmate.

"He spent the whole night taking care of Marinette and her cold or flu or whatever she probably infected us all with. I'm hesitant to say it, but he might just be able to keep up with you and keep you from running yourself into the ground again." She considered for a moment. "If you can keep him from running himself into the ground."

Nino chuckled. "Yeah, that's the real issue here."

"That's why you were fighting?" She shifted around to lean against Nino's good shoulder.

"Kinda. I'm still not sure exactly what went wrong, but part of it was definitely how mad he got that I got myself hurt."

"You walked into a bad neighborhood. You didn't choose to get beat up. You act like you walked up to some shady dudes and insulted their mothers or something."

These were the moments Nino felt alone. He couldn't tell Mel that it was like he did that. The conversation couldn't go farther because she couldn't know he fought Hawkmoth. He didn't want to talk to Marinette because he really didn't want to share private conversations he'd had with Felix with her. He might be able to talk to Adrien, but Adrien was dealing with all the stuff with his dad. Also, it would be talking to Adrien about his brother, which was a little weird.

"Hey, you zoning out on me?" Mel asked. "Mom said you haven't been sleeping well."

"It's fine," Nino said.

"It's okay if it's not fine," Mel said. "I'm still pretty freaked out that you're in here."

"I'm okay," Nino said. "I should probably nap though."

"Okay," Mel said, pulling the blanket up over Nino and pulling her phone out. "You sleep. I'll be right here in case you need anything."

When Nino woke three hours later to someone taking his blood pressure, Mel still next to him, he realized just how badly he had been sleeping until then. He whispered his thanks to her and fell back asleep before the blood pressure cuff was off his arm.

/*****/

"Felix, let's go for a walk," Marinette said. She was standing in Nathalie’s doorway, looking better than she had in days.

“You’re wearing makeup to make me think you’re feeling better,” Felix said, ushering her into the apartment. “Let’s sit and stare awkwardly across the room instead.”

“I’m Ladybug, you know,” Marinette said, sitting down with a slight pout. “I know my limits.”

“I’m sure you do,” Felix said. “Let’s not push them today anyway.”

They sat on the couch and stared awkwardly across the room.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"Why did you leave?"

"Marinette-"

"Because I had both of you, right there," she said, turning to face him. "I know where Punny will be every night, I know he's close enough that if something goes wrong, I can get to him. And I thought I could say the same about you, my best friend, but now you're gone. You're only a few blocks away, but you're not… there."

"We have enough superheroes to go around," Felix said. "And the threat is gone. Everything's fine. You don't need us right there."

"I know, but…" She stared at a decorative vase across the room. "Don't you want to be near us?"

Felix didn't really know how to respond to that.

"We're your family, me and Adrien."

Adrien. Felix grasped at the chance to get the focus off himself, even as shame at his tactics slid up the back of his neck.

"Shouldn't he be the one you're really concerned about?" Felix asked. "At least I saw some of this coming by suspecting Gabriel. Adrien just found out his father is his worst enemy, lost his home, and came back to his best friend hospitalized. And, not quite as bad, his father's assistant used to be a superhero but didn't know about Gabriel being Hawkmoth. And, less negative, but still overwhelming, he also found out his girlfriend is his classmate. The very same classmate who asked him out and he turned down."

"He…" Her eyes widened. He could see the wheels spinning in her mind.

"I'm fine," Felix lied, "but you probably should see how Adrien is doing."

Marinette bolted up. Felix helped her into her jacket while ignoring the running stream of anxiety she was shouting at him. She was gone a moment later.

Duusu flew from the living room to Nathalie's bedroom.

"He didn't answer her, either." Duusu settled on Nathalie's outstretched palm.

"Nino said they fought, and we know Felix was with him before Nino tried to fight Hawkmoth," Nathalie said. "I expected them to get together quickly and happily after they revealed."

Duusu laughed. "They aren't you and Emilie, Sweetie."

Nathalie smiled. "They aren't, but they are. I suspect Felix is about as aware of his own feelings right now as I was of my own at his age."

"Give him time. Let him rest," Duusu said, fluttering up to kiss Nathalie's forehead. "You figured it out. He can, too."

/*****/

"Mom, where's Adrien?" Marinette asked as she barreled into the bakery.

"I think he's in your room," Sabine said. "Leave your door open when you're both-"

"-both in my room, I know, Mom."

The lights were off when Marinette got up to her room. At first, she assumed her mother was wrong and Adrien was somewhere else. Then she heard the sniffling.

"Adrien?"

"Oh, sorry, Marinette," Adrien said, sitting up from where he was slouched in front of her computer.

"Are you okay?"

Adrien gave a bitter, very un-Adrien laugh. "I don't even have a baseline to figure out where 'okay' is."

"Oh, Adrien." She coughed into her sleeve and came to lean against the desk facing him.

"Do you remember when we played video games and hung out and just… had fun?" he asked, reaching for her hand.

"It was nice," she said. "I was in love with you for so long. And then I fell in love with… you."

A quiet moment passed, holding hands and letting the memories bubble up, new context making them all the more precious.

"How about I make us some tea, and you can just talk for a while?" Marinette suggested.

"How about you go change into your pajamas and put on a movie we won't really watch, and I'll make tea and some snacks, and we can both talk?"

Marinette tried to kiss Adrien's cheek, but he moved at the last second and caught her lips with his.

"Sounds good."

Chapter Text

Felix had taken to sleeping in, at least compared to the time he got up before running away. Before everything changed. This gave Nathalie just enough time in the morning to stop by and see Nino before Felix woke up and noticed she was gone.

"It's not even seven," Nino said when Nathalie knocked on his door.

"May I come in?"

"Sure," he said. She sat in the chair and took in that he had a book in his hands. He was having trouble sleeping, she deduced. She couldn’t blame him.

"So, what brings you here super early?" Nino asked.

"If I had known you would do something as stupid as to try and take on Hawkmoth on your own, I would have told Master Fu to take your miraculous from you then and there. I never would have trained you."

"I know," Nino said. "I know you would have." He tried to read her expression, but when Nathalie had her mask up, there was no telling what she was thinking, and she seemed to be using very little energy to keep it up today. "Are you here to tell me Fu will be taking it back soon?"

"I'm here to tell you that you are to rest up, follow all instructions given to you by medical staff, and work hard to recover fully."

"Um, thank you?"

"Because when you are recovered and back in the mask, I'm training the stupid out of you before you go back in the field."

"That's... fair," Nino said. "A little lenient, even. Thank you."

"What in the world made you think that anything but the current situation was a possible outcome?"

"I couldn't risk letting Felix do it," Nino said. "I didn't think I had much of a shot, but I had to try if it meant Chat Noir never faced Hawkmoth."

"Stupid," she repeated. "I'll beat it out of you. You'll be spouting tactics and team dynamics information in your sleep. You'll also learn how to never take a beating like that again."

"Duusu, is she always this scary?" Nino asked.

Duusu flew from Nathalie's purse to land on her shoulder.

"Yeah, pretty much. She's not speaking metaphorically about 'beating the stupid out of you' just so you know. She loved Emilie and never went easy on her."

"Great. Thanks. Looking forward to it."

"You shouldn't," Nathalie and Duusu said in unison.

"Is it gonna help me keep them safe?"

Nathalie narrowed her eyes at him.

"Then I'm looking forward to it."

"You're a Turtle alright," Nathalie said. She rose and patted Nino's shoulder. "They're lucky to have you."

/*****/

Felix spent his days ignoring people trying to contact him. He cleaned Nathalie's apartment one day. Went grocery shopping for her (in disguise) another. He spent a couple days reorganizing her pantry, fridge, bookshelves, and bathroom cupboards. When he wasn't keeping himself busy with things he didn't need to do, homework Nathaniel delivered, and watching the news, he read. Nathalie and Duusu continued to debate if Felix's behavior was healthy or not behind closed doors. He continued to ignore that sometimes he heard his name in the muffled conversations he couldn't (and didn't try to) make out through Nathalie's bedroom door. Nathalie informed him every time the rest of the miraculous heroes were planning to meet up but never made him go with her.

Adrien visited as often as Felix would let him. They were as likely to sit in companionable silence as scream at each other these days. Neither really knew what they or the other needed. But what Felix definitely didn't need was Chat Noir showing up on Nathalie's balcony instead of Adrien showing up at her door.

"You can't just tell me to leave!" Adrien shouted in the middle of another argument. "I can be here, too!"

"Fine, but use the door like a civilized person!” Felix was curled into the corner of the couch, knees up in front of him, but gesturing just as wildly as Adrien.

“Just admit you miss it!” Adrien stopped and held up his fist, ring out. “You miss being Chat Noir, and you get jealous when you see me suited up."

"You couldn't be more wrong! It reminds me I'll never escape! We've won, and I'm still always going to be Chat Noir. All the darkness in the city will always be my responsibility, no matter how much I need to get away from it."

Felix copied Adrien's gesture, holding out the fist with his miraculous. The skin around the ring was raw and red.

"Again?" Adrien asked, taking Felix's wrist in one gentle hand and straightening his fingers with the other. The broken skin went around his finger above and below the solid black ring, looking worst around the cat face on the front. Felix only unconsciously damaged the area around the ring when he was deeply upset; some of their worst finals weeks, after the akumas with darker themes, the time Gabriel had threatened to send Felix to a Russian ballet school.

"I can’t be darkness and destruction anymore," Felix said, his arm limp in Adrien's grasp. "I feel like it’s taking over some days. And I’m stuck. You all get a choice now. Even if you choose to keep your miraculous, you get a choice."

"Come on," Adrien said, dragging Felix off the couch. Adrien pulled out the first aid kit from the newly reorganized cupboard and bandaged Felix's hand. Felix closed his eyes and leaned against the counter, letting Adrien move his hand and fingers into whatever shape he needed.

Adrien led Felix back to the couch. "I'll talk to Fu again tomorrow. There has to be something he can do."

"It really doesn't matter."

"If it's upsetting you this much-"

"It doesn't matter."

Adrien sighed.

"Hello, Adrien," Nathalie said, emerging from her room with Duusu lounging on her head. "Felix, have you seen the press conference yet?"

"Press conference?" He blinked at her and fidgeted with the bandage on his hand.

"I told you about this," she said, turning the television on. "Just watch."

Ladybug, Chat Noir, Paon, and the mayor stood before a crowd. Ladybug and Chat gave excuses for why they were unavailable during Hawkmoth's takedown, another excuse for why Carapace wasn't onstage with them, then ceded the microphone to Paon. She introduced herself and admitted to being the one to take Hawkmoth's miraculous and return it to where it belonged. She then informed the crowd that she was the same Paon from years ago. The rest of the conference was questions for the three heroes.

“Good work,” Felix said when it was over. “That should be enough to keep them busy. I'm surprised you admitted to being the same Paon, Nathalie, but knowing there's an experienced hero on the team will probably boost confidence. And I see you didn’t mention Grumpy Chat. That was wise.”

“You wouldn’t talk to us, and we didn’t want to speak without your input,” Adrien said, turning away a little.

"It was a good press conference," Felix repeated.

"It should have been you there," Adrien said, putting a hand on Felix's shoulder. "You were there from the beginning. I can't help but feel like you should have been there at the end of this chapter."

"More importantly," Plagg said, rolling out of the couch cushions, "you should have been there because being in Adrien's ring is so tiring."

"I don't care," Felix growled. "You got this ring stuck so I couldn't just hand it to Adrien full time."

"It'll come off eventually," Plagg said. "You used to like running around and jumping over things and destroying things."

"I used to."

Nathalie and Duusu exchanged a look. Both glanced at Felix, then exchanged another look. "Plagg, why don't you come with Duusu and me and see what we have in the fridge?"

"Camembert?"

"Maybe," Duusu said, leading Plagg by the paw to the kitchen.

Adrien waited until they were out of earshot. "When was the last time you transformed, Felix?"

"That night." He tugged at his bandages again. At least they covered the ring, mostly.

"Do you think you're just avoiding it?"

"No one seems to be taking me seriously that I need to be done," Felix said. "I'm not the Black Cat anymore."

"Is it because of Father?" Adrien glanced at the kitchen to make sure Nathalie couldn't hear.

"Partly," Felix said, frowning and sliding his hands under his legs to keep from dislodging the bandage. "I don't want to become him. If he could abuse the Miraculous of Generosity, think what I could do with Destruction."

"Felix." Adrien pulled his brother into a hug. "You're nothing like him."

The twins relaxed on the couch with a movie the rest of the night.

"You really don't see how similar he and I are?" Felix asked, dunking his cookie into his hot chocolate.

"Maybe in the good ways," Adrien said. "You're focused, decisive. You protect the people you love. You both feel too deeply."

Felix made a sound that could be taken as agreement and pretended to focus on the movie again. Some superhero anime thing Adrien had found in Nathalie’s Netflix queue. He would have to make fun of her about that later. Right now, his brother saying, 'You both feel too deeply' was playing over and over in Felix's head. Maybe he wasn't the Black Cat anymore. But was he really not a miraculous hero anymore?

/*****/

A few nights later, Nathalie was at the Gabriel head office (soon to be renamed, she said) doing what she could to salvage the company, leaving the apartment to Felix again. He was enjoying the quiet. Not that Nathalie made much... any noise when she was there, but there's a certain kind of quiet when you're alone. He found himself half dozing on the floor of the living room with a book next to him, closed but for his finger marking his page. It was probably past midnight, but he was comfortable enough where he was, and now that Nathalie knew he was Chat Noir (or, now that he knew that she knew), he didn't have to cover his weird cat tendencies like the desire to nap exactly where one would need to walk to cross the room for any reason. (Or maybe Felix had always been this way. It's not like he had a parent left to ask). It was definitely the softest part of the carpet. He let his mind run over the chapter he'd just read, the characters and plot and where he figured it would go. The best part about reading was playing the story over in his head, wondering "what if" and knowing that the author had probably thought something similar at one point. It was a special kind of bond over things that weren't real until someone thought of them.

Felix was just crossing the point where thoughts were mixing with the beginning of dreams when he heard someone trying to enter the apartment. Figuring it was Nathalie, he didn't do much beyond consider moving his legs out of the way a little. He drifted a little closer to sleep before hearing the screen door of the balcony rattle.

Why would Nathalie be entering her third-floor apartment by the balcony? And it wasn’t Adrien. The Dupain-Chengs were having a video game tournament and he had texted minutes ago that he was in second place. So who was left that could reach the balcony?

With a growl of annoyance, Felix rolled onto his stomach and looked around for a legitimate bookmark. He found nothing, so he noted his page number and placed the book quietly on the table. The chances were higher that this was Adrien or Marinette than that this was a burglar, murderer, or another unwelcome person, but a book was not Felix's first choice weapon. That might hurt the book. He picked up a paperweight decoration and held it in his left hand, right hand in a tight fist. Peeking over the top of the couch blocking his view of most of the door to the balcony, Felix saw the intruder and let out a strangled yell.

"What are you doing here?" Felix asked, slamming the paperweight down on the table and jumping to his feet.

"How are you just so damn graceful all the time?" Carapace asked, fumbling to close the screen door behind him.

"Why are you walking around on a broken ankle? Why are you closing the door with a broken arm? What are you doing here?" Felix rounded the couch, staring up at the hero. He had forgotten that Carapace had an extra inch on barefooted Felix. He had not forgotten how Carapace always smelled like the ocean.

"Don't worry, I asked Wayzz if this was okay before trying it," Carapace said, waving a hand to dismiss Felix's worry. He looked around the living room. "Where's Nathalie?"

"What are you doing here?"

"What are you wearing?"

Felix glanced down at his outfit. He was wearing the "I love Ladybug" t-shirt that Marinette made for Punny Chat that Felix had worn to the hospital with black pajama pants covered in colorful music notes.

"I grabbed a weird jumble of stuff when I went to the mansion," Felix said, crossing his arms. "This happens to be the most comfortable."

"It's cute," Carapace said, giving the outfit (or boy in the outfit) another sweep with his gaze before he froze and his eyes widened. "I mean! It looks comfortable. And hot. I mean! Warm!" He sighed, facepalming.

Felix turned away and headed to the kitchen, hoping Carapace hadn't seen the blush he felt spreading. "Would you like something to drink? Or perhaps to tell me why you're here and not in the medical facility treating your multiple, life-threatening injuries?"

"You told me that you're in love with me. Then I said something stupid and you left."

Felix tried not to drop the cup he had pulled from the cupboard. So Nino had noticed what he had said.

"Yes, that sounds like me," Felix said with a detachment he didn't feel.

"I love you," Nino said, leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen, transformation dropped. He couldn't go far without crutches, but he needed to say this as himself.

"You can't just say that," Felix said, putting the glass down and facing Nino.

"Why not?" Nino asked. He wished he could walk those last few feet between them. But it was Felix's turn to come to him again.

"Because you can't," Felix said, getting angry. "It's not right. You do whatever you want and think that you get to make choices all on your own and go about your life as if that's normal! Nino, you can't say that because what does that even mean?"

"It means I love you, dude?" Nino said, scratching the side of his head. That was not something he expected to need to define.

"You can't just say that," Felix said again, shaking his head. "You're stubborn and don't listen and throw yourself into the worst situations you can find. You can't just say that."

"Do you not believe me?" Nino asked, wishing he'd taken a seat in a chair before detransforming instead of leaning against the door jam. He wasn't entirely sure what Felix's rant meant, beyond his abandonment issues making him think that Nino's recklessness would make him leave. He wanted to let Felix rant himself out, but Nino wasn't sure he would necessarily last that long.

"I don't know!" Felix said, throwing his arms in the air. "Does it matter?"

"Did you mean it? When you said it?"

"Of course I did." Felix seethed, his eyes going cold. "How could you ask me that?"

"You basically just said it doesn't matter," Nino said, almost trying to take a step forward before remembering how bad an idea that would be. "What do I do here, Felix? What do you want?"

"Nothing."

Nino rolled his eyes. "Okay, right, dude. Let's try that again. What do you want from me?"

"I want nothing from you."

"After all this time? After patrols and study sessions and you coming to me- out of everyone, me- with what you found out about your old man? You really want me to just disappear from your life?"

"Exactly," Felix said. He wasn't meeting Nino's eyes now.

"So, you want me gone." Nino was hurt, but there were too many missing pieces for him to feel it fully yet. Something about the statement seemed contradictory, and not because it felt wrong on a personal level.

"That's what I said."

Nino shook his head. He shouldn't be standing here untransformed. He shouldn't be here at all, but he'd needed to see Felix. "Okay. I'll... I guess I'll go." He called, "Wayzz, Shell On," and headed for the balcony. "I'll see you around, Felix."

The wind was strong, but Carapace had trained on how to fly in all sorts of conditions. Nathalie had made him practice as high in the air as he could manage without passing out from lack of oxygen. She’d had him train in every storm. He was almost to the roof of the hospital when it hit him what felt off about Felix wanting nothing to do with him. He turned around and raced back towards Nathalie's. He would have gotten there, too, if it wasn't for Chat Noir's unextended baton hitting him in the side of the head.

"What the hell, Chat?" He turned to look for Adrien, dropping to a first-floor level height to get a better look around. There, on that roof, looking for his baton was... Grumpy Chat?

"What the hell?" Carapace asked before he'd even stepped off his shell.

"It's not you," Chat said, still looking around for his baton. "I didn't want you leaving thinking I didn't want you around because of who you are." He glanced up for a second before returning to his search. “I’d have been here sooner, but I had to call Adrien and have him send Plagg flying across the neighborhood to me.”

"You listed every fault of mine you could think of and then said you wanted me out of your life. How, exactly, should I take that?" Chat Noir turned to answer but Carapace cut him off. "You know what, never mind. I have to ask. Which is it? You love me, but you want nothing to do with me? How does that work?"

"I just said, it's not you."

"That lame breakup excuse is not valid here." Carapace crossed his arms. "Try again, dude."

Chat growled a little, jumping to the next roof to keep looking for his missing baton. "I love you. And if you keep hanging around me, you'll just get hurt again. It's not that complicated, Shelly."

Carapace sighed and jumped to a different roof, joining the hunt for the baton. "First you're mad at me for going to fight Hawkmoth. Now you're mad I'm not understanding your insane reasoning that is anything but reasonable. You know you sound insane, right?”

"No!" Chat abandoned the search, jumping to the same roof as his partner. "No. No, you don't get it. I can't get you hurt again. I can't. You betrayed me by going to fight him, that's true. But you were put in that position by me. It's my fault you were hurt. It's my fault the other Chat is now technically homeless. It's my fault Paon had to come back. I can't do this anymore. I can’t destroy things anymore. I can't be a soldier anymore. That's the first thing I told you, and it's still true."

“Chat…” Carapace took a step forward, watching to see if it would increase the skittishness in him. He hadn't lost the "I'm about to run away from you and everything I know" look he'd had since the conversation that started this all, but he didn't flinch, take a step back, or flee, so that was a good (or, less bad) sign.

"I know you lack the self-preservation instincts attributed to most humans, so let me just tell you what you haven't realized yet." Chat crossed his arms and looked away. "I'm the reason you got hurt. Me. I claim to love you, but a part of me knew when you dropped your transformation for me that first time, when I told you who our enemy was-" he stopped, gasping for breath. "I know you. I knew you'd put the team, the city, above your safety. It's what you always do. I thought maybe I'd be able to delay you until we had a plan, but I knew you'd risk yourself, and I told you anyway."

"Fe- argh, Chat!" Carapace ran a hand down his face at his near-slip of Felix's name. "I signed up for this! I knew exactly what I was getting into. From the very first day, I knew I was risking myself. From the second the box opened and Wayzz popped up, I chose this. So the sooner you get it through your head that you didn't make me do anything, and couldn't if you tried, the sooner we can move on." He took another step closer. Chat Noir flitted his eyes around looking for an escape, but he didn't move. "Now, I told you what I wanted the other day. Date me. Be my boyfriend. Continue this shouting match in my hospital room where my mom can come yell at us both but at least I get pain meds." Another step, and another, and another until Carapace was inches from Chat, looking down at the green cat eyes that were too wide. "Your turn."

"I don't want to let myself want this. It scares me."

The vulnerability and honesty were heartbreaking. It made Nino want to reach out and comfort him, reassure him that there was nothing to be scared of, that everything would work out and nothing would ever go wrong. To wrap him in his arms and keep him safe no matter what. But that wasn't the life they led and wasn't what Felix needed.

"Good,” Carapace said. “Because it should be scary. This is important. But Cat Man is the bravest dude I know. Stupid and full of himself and definitely convinced he has more control over the world than reality would have a sane man believe, but brave. I love you, Cat Man. And you love me. You said so. So when you finally remember that you're brave and we love each other, come find-"

Chat Noir pulled Carapace into a kiss that was awkward and needy, arms tight around his neck, one hand trying to pull the hood down before realizing it wouldn't and giving up. Carapace gave in to the desire to hold the guy he loved, to make him feel safe. One hand ran up and down the smooth suit over Chat's back. The other wrapped around his waist, pulling him close.

"Are you going to freak out and run away in the next forty-eight hours?" Carapace asked when they broke their kiss.

Chat bumped his forehead into Carapace's. "Are you going to run away and try to get yourself killed in the next forty-eight hours?"

"Hey, I'm serious here," Carapace said, a hand coming up to cradle the back of Chat's head. "If you run on me, I won't be able to take it. I can't do the whole repeated breakups thing. So are you going to stay? Are you in this?"

"I'll always blame myself," Chat said, closing his eyes. "But keep saying things like that and maybe I'll learn to live with it a little better."

"I can do that." He kissed Chat's forehead and pulled him into a hug, feeling the thin, solid body, warm and safe in his arms.

They might have stayed that way all night had Carapace's miraculous not beeped.

"Did you use your power?" Chat asked, pulling back to glance at Carapace's bracelet.

"No, Wayzz said he would only be able to keep the transformation up for a little while with all my injuries. I should get back."

A sudden bashfulness came over Carapace at the same time the black cat charisma came over Chat. They spoke at the same time.

"If-if you want, you could always come b-back with me?"

"Would you mind a little company tonight?"

Carapace let out a short giggle and angled himself away from the nearby streetlight so his hood would shadow the blush he felt rising. "Uh, no, I wouldn't mind." he stepped onto his shell again. "Hop on?"

"Yes, well, I'm not flying. Call my baton so it rings and I can find it, please."

They located the baton and the two raced towards the hospital.

Chapter Text

On the roof of the hospital, Carapace's transformation fell. He waited for Chat, leaning on the roof access door.

"You didn't have to wait," Felix said, detransforming.

"Ah, actually I did," Nino said. "Someone took the crutches I left out here to get me to the wheelchair I left at the bottom of the stairs. Also, if my physical therapist asks, I did none of this and never even looked at a set of stairs without her knowledge and permission."

The two boys found an awkward but fairly stable way to get Nino to his wheelchair and then they made their way back to Nino's room.

"Just so you know, mom's pissed you went missing," Melanie said to her brother, sans greeting, when she saw him in the hall. "Hey, Felix."

"It's like two in the morning," Nino said. "Why are you all here?"

"A nurse checked on you and you were gone and he called mom." Melanie glanced between Nino and Felix for a moment. "I told her it was probably something like this. Go, make your bullshit excuses," she gestured towards Nino's room. "I'll take Chris home so you can be yelled at in privacy."

A few yards from the room, Nino held up a hand to stop Felix.

“What?” Felix asked, glancing at the door and then at Nino.

“What if I told her?”

“Told who what?” Felix asked. There were too many secrets to choose from.

“Y'know,” Nino said, glancing around the deserted hall. He held up his left wrist and miraculous.

“Oh… have you talked to Buggy about it?”

“That's kinda what those team meetings you wouldn't go to were about,” Nino said. “The rest of us think it's time we came out to our loved ones. At least, the ones we think can handle it, like our parents and maybe Mel and Nath, if you want. Even Nathalie's on board, we were just waiting for you. Adrien wanted all of us to present the idea to you together, but oh well. What do you think?"

"Overall, I think it’s time. But she's your mother, so that’s your decision," Felix said. "Do you want me to go with you?"

"I want you here whenever I can have you," Nino said, much too serious for the late hour.

Felix ducked his head, annoyed that he felt bashful. Nino gestured towards the door and he resumed pushing the chair to the room.

"Nino," Mrs. Lahiffe said on a sigh. "I spend all day working with runaways, I don't want to come home to them."

"I didn't run away," Nino said.

"I did," Felix said. Mrs. Lahiffe and Nino both glared at him. The tech who had been helping with the search for Nino helped him from the chair to the bed and left.

"Felix, I need to have a conversation with my son," Mrs. Lahiffe said. "It's also the middle of the night and you should be at home. Why are you out and about in your pajamas?"

"He's staying. Mom, sit," Nino said, patting the side of his bed. Felix came to stand on the other side of the bed, not sure if he was supposed to (allowed to?) hold Nino's hand. Nino solved this by grabbing blindly for Felix until their hands met.

"If this is about you two dating, can it wait until morning?" Mrs. Lahiffe asked.

"It's not about that. I'm just gonna say it, okay?" Nino glanced at Felix for strength, then turned back to his mother. "I'm Carapace, mom. That's how I got hurt."

Mrs. Lahiffe sighed, frustrated. "Felix, maybe you should go so I can explain to my son the difference between appropriate and inappropriate jokes."

"He's serious," Felix said. "I'm Chat Noir. You already know Gabr- my father was Hawkmoth. I told Nino when I found out Hawkmoth’s identity and he went and tried to take him down himself."

"I wasn't going to phrase it like that," Nino muttered.

Mrs. Lahiffe shook her head. "Nino, do you... actually this explains a lot."

"Like what?" Nino asked.

"Why you sneak out. Your secret crush that I always suspected was Chat Noir. That you keep disappearing during akuma battles even though I know you're not with Alya filming them like you claim. And you're exactly the kind of person who would try to fight Hawkmoth alone."

"You suspected my crush was Chat Noir and still insisted I invite him over all the time?"

"Absolutely. I could tell that boy had troubles at home. I was hoping a few home cooked meals and the sight of a healthy family dynamic might give him some stability in his life." She paused, eyes flicking to Felix for a moment before returning to Nino. "My second guess was Felix, with the same hope."

"Both Chat Noirs need it," Nino said.

"Right, there's two of you. Are there secretly two of all of you? Who's the other Chat Noir?"

"Adrien shares with Felix, the rest of us are just us."

She muttered "of course" under her breath.

"So, that's my news," Nino said. "I say we all get a good night's sleep and regroup tomorrow."

"Nice try," Mrs. Lahiffe said, raising an eyebrow. "Where were you tonight, why is Felix in his pajamas, what happened the night Felix 'ran away', and who else knows about all this superhero stuff?"

The boys exchanged a look.

"She's your mother," Felix said. "I'm just here."

"Fine, but that means I'm telling it my way," Nino warned. Felix rolled his eyes but didn't voice any objections. "I went to get Felix back tonight," Nino said. "I'm aware you think that's a stupid thing to do, but when I'm transformed, the suit makes up for any injuries, although it does take a toll on my kwami. So, I flew to-"

"Kwami?"

"Oh, yeah!" Nino said, looking around the room. "Wayzz, come meet my mom, officially."

Wayzz popped up with a deep nod in Mrs. Lahiffe's direction. "Nice to meet you. I am Wayzz, the Turtle Kwami."

"Your turtle talks... and flies," Mrs. Lahiffe whispered, her eyes following Wayzz as the kwami lowered himself to Nino's shoulder.

"Master, if I could have some kale?" Wayzz asked.

"Right," Nino said, looking around the room. "Felix, you mind? The lunch box over there."

There was a pink lunch box with "Marinette Dupain-Cheng" written in wobbly permanent marker on the handle. It contained a couple ice packs, kale, cheese, and cookies. Felix readied a paper towel as a makeshift plate and brought it to Wayzz while Nino took his mom through "Miraculous Magic 101".

"Anyway, Felix was being ridiculous and was sulking so I went to try and get him to forgive me for the whole 'attacking Hawkmoth single-handedly and almost dying' thing. It turned into a fight, which turned into another fight a few minutes later, and then we came back here."

Felix cleared his throat. "That's not how I would-"

"You agreed to let me tell it," Nino said, turning a challenging eye on him. "Unless you have significant parts of the story to add, I'm telling it."

Felix had never loved him more than in that moment.

"Let's see, what else..." Nino muttered. "Oh, yeah, so, Felix running away. He figured out his old man was his sworn enemy because our lives are some weird Shakespearean drama, and found Carapace- me- on his patrol route. He was kinda falling apart and asked to come home with me, and since my mother raised me to take in strays, we went home and revealed our identities. I got the story out of him, fed him hot chocolate and popcorn, and when he fell asleep, I snuck out, tried to fight Hawkmoth, and landed on Marinette's balcony. Thankfully, she's Ladybug and was able to get me to the hospital."

Mrs. Lahiffe sighed. "You snuck your crush into the house, revealed your superhero identity without any planning or forethought, and then, as the newest member of Team Superhero, went by yourself to fight a supervillain that has been around since you were in middle school."

"Am I, like, perma-grounded?"

"I have no idea," Mrs. Lahiffe said, rubbing the heel of her hand into her forehead. "I did, in fact, teach you to take in strays. And I didn't notice that you were sneaking out frequently enough to be a superhero so that one's definitely on me. And facing Hawkmoth alone was idiotic, but brave." She put a hand on the side of his face. "I'm mad, and none of those were the right choice or the wise choice, but they were still good choices. It's something we can work on together."

Felix was starting to feel bits of his brain falling asleep while he stood there. He was following the conversation as best he could, but not everything was processing. As important as he knew this moment was, he really just needed sleep.

"What about the others? Who knows about this stuff? What's going on with the un-retired Paon that took down Hawkmoth?"

Nino explained about Marinette and Nathalie and Fu while Felix concentrated on not falling asleep standing up.

A hand suddenly brushed Felix's arm. "You doing okay?" Mrs. Lahiffe asked.

"Fine," he said, blinking a few times. Had he actually fallen asleep for a second there?

"Nino, scootch over so Felix can sleep while we talk," she said, shifting to a chair so they would have room.

"No, I'm fine," Felix said, taking a step away. Nino tugged on his hand.

"Plagg's not going to let you transform and try to get to Nathalie's at this hour, dude. Stop being weird and get over here."

"Don't argue, we Lahiffes are stubborn," Mrs. Lahiffe said.

Felix considered arguing anyway, but the second he took to consider this was long enough for him to close his eyes again, and this time he jerked awake.

"You don't mind?" he asked Mrs. Lahiffe as he slowly lowered himself to sit on the very edge of the bed.

"I'd mind more if you fell asleep, fell down, and injured yourself."

"Just go to sleep," Nino said, yanking Felix towards himself.

Felix yelped and pulled back. "I'll hurt you."

"No, you won't. Go to sleep."

Despite his protests, Felix fell asleep within seconds of his head hitting Nino's shoulder.

"You really care about him," Mrs. Lahiffe said, smiling at the soft expression on her son's face.

"He loves me," Nino said, grinning at his mother.

"It took me a while to see it, but he does, and I'm glad," she said.

"I think he's a little scared of you," Nino said, looking over as Felix shifted in his sleep.

"Fear is probably all he knows right now," Mrs. Lahiffe said. "We'll fix that."

"Except Mel," Nino said.

"Except Mel," she agreed. "She likes to be feared."

Chapter Text

Felix woke when Nino tried to slip out of the bed a few hours later.

"Sorry, I can go," Felix said, sitting up and looking for some indication of what time it was.

"Don’t," Nino said. "I just want to get some water." He fixed Felix with a stern look. "If you're not here when I get back, I'm gonna be pissed."

Nino didn't have to worry. Felix was asleep again by the time Nino returned.

A few hours after that, a tech came in to take Nino's vitals.

"This is not exactly what we meant when we said someone could stay the night with you," the tech said with a chuckle as Felix jerked awake and turned bright red. "We have guest cots."

"Yeah, but when was the last time I was asleep when you came to take my vitals in the morning?" Nino asked. "He worked better than a sleeping pill, and no groggy sleeping pill brain fog right now."

Felix was frozen, trying to decide between escaping to the bathroom and dying of embarrassment.

"Try and get a couple more hours sleep before PT," the tech said, waving on his way out.

"You heard the man," Nino said, suppressing a smile as he wrapped his good arm around Felix. "Sleep."

"I've slept more tonight than any night the past two weeks," Felix said, pulling away as gently as he could. "If I sleep more, my brain might get used to it."

"That doesn't sound like a bad thing," Nino said. He reached up to brush the hair from Felix's face. "You have Chat Noir hair."

"I should go, let you sleep," Felix said.

"What about not running away?" Nino asked.

"I want a shower and real clothes. I don't even have real shoes," Felix said. He slid a slipper on one foot and held it up for Nino to see. "I'll come back."

"I wasn't kidding, I sleep better with you here," Nino said. "You're sure you're not running?"

Instead of responding, Felix leaned in and kissed him. Gentle, delicate, full of intention. Just like Felix. Then as he pulled away Felix nipped at his lip. Also just like Felix.

"Come back and witness the abuse I suffer in PT," Nino said. "Maybe if I have a witness who isn't my mother she'll go easier on me."

"I'll do that."

Felix kissed Nino's forehead and hunted Plagg down. They found their way to the roof and Felix transformed and returned to Nathalie's through the balcony door.

"That was different," Plagg said. "Something was definitely different."

"What, me in a healthy relationship?" Felix asked.

"No, with the transformation."

"It didn't feel different to me."

"Trust me, it was different."

"Bad different?"

"I don't know yet. Did Nathalie get more camembert?"

"I did," Nathalie said, exiting her bedroom in a robe over flannel pajamas, her hair in a braid. She had her glasses on, which was a comfort to Felix because seeing her without them while staying with her had been unsettling.

"Sorry if we made too much noise, we didn't mean to wake you," Felix said.

"You didn't make much noise. I didn't sleep very deeply because the adolescent living in my house disappeared at some point after midnight and didn't answer his phone all night. Then I found out that his friend had also disappeared from his hospital room. Then that boy's mother finally called around three in the morning to tell me she had the both of you. I know you're used to sneaking out, but with me, that's not an option. The only way this works is plain and simple honesty. Tell me when you're patrolling. Leave a note if you need to stop a sea monster. Call before heading to the hospital." She paused for a moment when Duusu fluttered into the room and gave her the side-eye as she passed. "Call me if you need to stop a sea monster, don't leave a note," she amended.

"Is that sea monster specific, or are you elevating the need to leave for immediate superheroism from note to phone call?"

"Sea monster specific."

"We've handled sea monsters before," Felix said. He was starting to wonder how Nathalie chastising him for leaving without permission had turned into defending his superhero abilities.

"I know. They're my favorite. That's why you should call if there's a sea monster."

"You... you like fighting sea monsters?"

"It's my favorite pastime. If you can call it that. So if there's ever a sea monster, you will call me and fake a very urgent need for me to drop whatever I'm working on to help civilian-you immediately."

"Okay," Felix said, wondering if he was still asleep and dreaming this surreal conversation. Better than his occasional nightmares, but still not great.

"This is a good thing, Felix," she said. "You don't have to hide anymore. Someone wants to know where you are, to know you're safe."

"I hadn't thought about that," Felix said. "I figured... you said you knew when I became Chat Noir. You spent all that time letting me get away with sneaking off. I just assumed that would be how things were now."

"Things had to be that way before because of your father, and because I wasn’t supposed to know. Now you live with someone who did the same thing years ago. Moving in with your mother in college was the most freeing thing. Someone knew when I was missing, and knew why. No making excuses. No hurt feelings over missing important events. No faking illness. That's what you have now. No more hiding."

Felix nodded. It did sound nice. But so did a shower and breakfast. "We can go over formal ground rules for my staying with you later if you like."

"We will. But sit down, we're not done."

Felix sighed but sat on the couch. Plagg immediately curled up on his knee. Nathalie sat in the overstuffed chair across from him.

"Will this take long? I promised Nino I'd return for his physical therapy."

"It's about Nino."

Felix's eyes widened and he must have moved or jerked somehow because Plagg opened an eye to glare. "Is he alright?"

"You saw him not fifteen minutes ago," Nathalie said. "You would know better than I would. Take a breath."

Nathalie waited until Felix's breathing slowed to a normal rate and his hand unclenched from the couch cushion.

"We can discuss your anxiety and panic attacks at another time," she said.

"Nathalie, please just get to the point, whatever point you made me sit down for, or my anxiety will be the main topic of conversation."

"What is the nature of your relationship with Nino?"

"I- what?"

"Are you dating?"

That was where this was going?

"Please don't tell me that when I came out to you, you missed it," Felix said. "How did I manage that? I didn't think I was that ineffective at communicating. I told Adrien over two years ago that I like Nino and somehow he misconstrued that as 'I don't hate Nino' that whole time."

"No, you were quite clear on the subject of your sexuality and I've observed you long enough to know how long you've been attracted to Nino. I just want to be clear on your current relationship status. There are certain steps, as your guardian, that I need to take if your relationship is no longer platonic."

Felix could guess at those "certain steps" and felt his face heating, much to his annoyance. "We haven't said those exact words, but I believe that's the direction we're headed."

Nathalie nodded. She then proceeded to thoroughly embarrass the both of them with a brief lecture on safe sex, the fact that there were condoms in the guest bathroom, the importance of trust and consent, and a list of sexual education and health resources available to him.

“I changed my mind, I want to go back to sleeping on Marinette's floor," Felix grumbled, face in his hands, when Nathalie finally finished her (well rehearsed, blessedly concise) lecture.

"The Dupain-Chengs were the ones who reminded me that this was part of being your guardian. They're speaking to Marinette today and Mrs. Lahiffe had this conversation with Nino when he came out to her. Adrien gets the straight version of this lecture from me next. I'm especially remiss because I knew when he started dating Ladybug but didn't say anything. I was hoping their kwamis were still insisting on their identities staying hidden. There's only so far those suits let you go."

"Knowing that you know that is actually worse than everything else you've said." Felix bent nearly in half, face above his knees and hands over his ears. "Oh for- and your partner was my mother, Nathalie!"

Plagg cackled at the pale, wide-eyed expression on Nathalie's face.

"So, if you have any questions, Mrs. Lahiffe is your best bet," Nathalie said. She stood and returned to her room, closing the door.

"Why?" Felix whispered into his knees.

"You have no idea how many times I've witnessed the sex talk ending like this, with the kid realizing their parent knows the exact limits of the suits," Plagg said.

"Please stop talking," Felix said.

/*****/

One shower and very quick breakfast later and Felix was telling Nathalie (without looking at her) that he was heading to the hospital.

"Try not to be around during lunch. That's when I'm talking to Adrien," Nathalie said. "And don't warn him. I'll know if you do."

At the hospital, Felix found he must be running late because Nino's room was empty. He got directions to the PT area from a nurse. Outside the door, holding a coffee for each of them, Felix found himself unable to make himself open the door. What if Nino didn't really want him there, seeing him vulnerable and hurt and struggling?

"Just because you think that you would hate him being there for something like this for you doesn't mean you should disregard him directly asking you to be there for him," Plagg said from his blazer pocket.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Felix lied, glaring at the door.

"And for the record, you would say you wouldn't want him there, but if he were to show up anyway, you'd appreciate it, so even that argument is moot."

Felix sighed, hating that Plagg was right. He opened the door and slipped in as quietly as he could.

"Felix, thank goodness," Nino said before Felix was even fully in the room. "They're torturing me, dude. Bear witness to my untimely death by physical therapy."

"He's being dramatic," a woman supporting Nino on a small set of fake stairs said. "Untimely death doesn't happen for another two or three sessions."

"Karen, this is my boyfriend, Felix. Felix, this is my torturer, Karen."

Oh. He was wrong, they were saying the exact words. He decided not to update Nathalie.

Karen turned out to be the kind of person who would rope people into things. Specifically, rope Felix into helping with Nino's exercises. By the end of the session, she had gotten Felix to agree to come back next time and bring coffee for all three of them.

Felix also agreed to wheel Nino back to his room so Karen could set up for her next appointment. As they walked back, Nino was quiet.

"Do you want me to run out and pick something up for lunch?" Felix asked when Nino crawled into his bed looking for all the world like he might fall asleep instantly.

"I actually slept last night, so all my body wants is more sleep now that it's had a proper taste of it," Nino said. He smashed his pillow into a more comfortable shape and stared up at Felix, wondering if it would be too much to ask Felix to take a nap with him.

"I can read while you sleep," Felix said. He pulled a book out of his bag and moved towards the chair beside Nino’s bed before Nino's hand shot out and pulled Felix over.

“Please?” Nino asked.

"I'm still worried I'll hurt you," Felix said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I figure everything's going to hurt for a while. Might as well have the company of my favorite cat anyway."

Felix ignored the warm glow that had taken over the center of his chest in favor of opening his book and adjusting so Nino could rest his head on his shoulder. He was half a chapter in when something occurred to him. He was pretty sure Nino was reading over his shoulder, not sleeping, but he spoke at a whisper just in case.

"You've been having trouble sleeping?"

"Yeah, nothing major," Nino said. "Hospitals are loud and noisy and bright. I've been sort of sleeping whenever I feel like it, napping a lot during the day, but at night it's tough because of the loud and bright thing. And they don’t happen a lot, but I guess the occasional nightmare hasn't helped."

Felix turned to Nino. "Hawkmoth?"

"Some of it, yeah," Nino said, reaching for Felix's hand. Instead of holding it, he fidgeted with it, running his fingers up and down his palm, tracing the outline of his fingers with one of his own. "The superhero thing has always caused bad dreams for me. Even before Wayzz, just watching you and LB run around and get beat up and almost die was a lot to handle. Everything on your shoulders, and even then I figured there was a normal person with a life to live under the mask." He laughed, reaching out to trace Felix's miraculous with a fingertip. "I was worrying about you before-"

"Stop," Felix said. At least, he was pretty sure he said it because Nino's finger froze. Felix tried to get out the words trapped in his throat, to ask the question that now consumed him, but he was too scared that the answer would be that he had imagined it.

"What's wrong?' Nino asked, moving his hand to Felix's arm. "Dude, you have to say something, I'm getting worried."

"Do that again," Felix whispered.

"What, say that I worry about you?" Nino's expression was half smirk, half furrowed brow. "I told you that Nathalie and I had a secret Agreste Protection society going on, Cat Man. It doesn't get-"

"The ring," Felix managed to choke out.

"What, this?" Nino slid his finger over the top of the ring, nudging the face of the cat towards Felix's pinkie.

It slid smoothly.

"Take it off," Felix said, begged. He turned to Nino, tears already filling his eyes. "Take it off, please?"

Nino got an awkward grip on Felix's ring and slowly pulled and twisted it from his finger. Nino held the black cat in his palm. It looked smaller off Felix’s hand.

"Oh my g-" Felix's sob cut him off and he turned into Nino, shaking. Nino managed to get his arm around Felix, ring clutched in his fist. It finally dawned on him what had just happened.

"It came off. Your miraculous, it's not stuck. Felix, you're-"

Felix sat up and looked him in the eye, tears running down his cheeks and the deepest look of relief on his face.

"I'm free."

Chapter Text

Nathalie tried again. Thankfully, Duusu was more than willing to keep transforming her.

Nothing. Darkness. Silence. No smell or taste or touch. Nathalie went the full five minutes in this sensory deprivation, trying to feel anything. The jolt of sensations returning when her transformation dropped was just as overwhelming the nineteenth time as it had been the previous eighteen.

"Take a minute," Duusu said, her little kwami paw on Nathalie's hand where it covered her eyes. The lights were off, the blackout curtains were drawn, the apartment was quiet because Felix was at the hospital (not that he made much... any noise). Still, even the feeling of the carpet fibers beneath her feet was too much after the total lack of everything from using the Peacock's powers.

"Anything?" Duusu asked.

"Nothing," Nathalie said. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees and head in her hands. "An eternal five minutes of nothing again. You're sure that doesn't mean that she's dead?"

"If she was dead, you wouldn't be able to connect. If she was unconscious, you would still be able to hear and maybe feel. If she was asleep, you'd see her dreams and feel wherever she was laying down."

"I should try someone else again, to see if the power itself is still working."

"We tried that," Duusu said, gently tugging Nathalie's hand from her face. "You said you never wanted to know that much about the mayor."

"This power really isn't meant to be used outside of a battle or search and rescue setting," Nathalie said, holding out a few raspberries to Duusu, who landed in her hand to eat.

"Some mysteries cannot be solved," Duusu said.

"I had to try though," Nathalie said. "And, as long as you're with me, I'll have to keep trying from time to time."

"You may want to ask the Guardian about what you're seeing. It's my power, but it's their magic."

"Maybe," Nathalie said, reaching for her tablet. She winced when the screen lit up too bright, but kept it up long enough to compose an email to Fu.

"You should also tell the boys that you've been trying," Duusu said, settling in the nest she had made herself on top of Nathalie's dresser. "They would want to know."

"I don’t want to give them false hope."

"Gabriel should know, too."

"I'm not so sure about that," she said. "He had the miraculous. I'm sure he must have tried himself."

"Sweetie, I'm the Peacock kwami. I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that he never once used my powers. Never even tried me on."

"What do you remember after you and I said goodbye? Obviously, Emilie never returned you. Did she ever activate your miraculous?" Nathalie asked.

"Not much happened. Emilie brought me back out shortly after she got home that night. We talked for a little while. Then, a few years later, she checked on you once. That's it."

"Do you know when that was?" Nathalie asked, trying not to show how hopeful this information made her. If Emilie had used the brooch right before she went missing...

"It was while you were overseas," Duusu said with a pitying look. Nathalie had forgotten how well her kwami read her. "You were making coffee, humming to yourself. You can't sing, Sweetie. Paired with a bird and can't carry a tune. There was someone else there, but I didn't recognize them."

"I was here when she went missing," Nathalie said, more to herself than to Duusu. "Thank you. It's nice to know she thought of me while I was gone."

"I think she kept me because I was a way to check up on you," Duusu said. "She gave Fu the Turtle back before then, from what Wayzz told me."

Nathalie allowed herself a small smile. "Thank you," she said again.

"Get some sleep, Sweetie," Duusu said. "And you probably should consider telling the boys."

/*****/

Because Adrien still wore his ring, Plagg didn't disappear when Felix’s ring came off. Plagg had Nino hand him the miraculous so he could study it uninterrupted in a cupboard where none of the doctors, nurses, or techs would see him.

"Oh my gosh, Nino, you'll never believe what Nathalie just- woah, what's going on?"

Felix, who was half asleep and whose head was on Nino's chest, simply lifted his right hand in the air. Nino, who was fully asleep, must have felt Felix move because his unbroken arm wrapped tighter around him. Both looked emotionally wrung out. There was also the fact that Felix was there at all, much less cuddled up to Nino, seeing as the day before he had refused to show up at the hospital for a Miraculous Team Meeting.

"Hi to you too?" Adrien said, responding to what he thought was a weird half wave.

Felix waved his hand around in a way that seemed more significant and specific than a greeting but definitely not clear enough to actually convey his meaning.

"When did you two make up?"

"Around one or two?" Felix managed to turn a little towards Adrien without waking Nino.

"In the morning?" Adrien asked as he pulled the chair around to see Felix better.

“The ring is off," Felix said. He held his hand up again.

Adrien grabbed his hand, checking the finger for signs of damage. There was scarring and healing scratches that ended abruptly in a patch of clear skin where the ring had been.

"When? Why? How? Where is Plagg? Can he still transform me? Should I wear both rings? Are you quitting for real now? Or do you want to reverse the thing that made my ring and be the only Chat Noir again? What does-"

"Adrien," Felix said. "I don't know. Plagg's around here somewhere. But all the hero stuff? I don't know."

"What does Nino the Guardian in training say about it?"

"Nothing, so far," Felix said. "I think he was too freaked out by how hard I was crying."

"I swear, so far your relationship has been mostly you crying," Adrien said.

"He tells you too much," Felix said, scowling.

"Speaking of being told too much," Adrien said, scowling himself. "I take it Nathalie gave you a similar lecture to the one I just got?"

"Did you know she likes fighting sea monsters?" Felix asked. He didn't want to think about what Nathalie had said at all.

"No, I didn't know that. I hate sea monsters. Mostly the 'sea' part."

"I feel the same. We'll let the Turtle and the Bird handle it next time."

"You two are such cats," Nino said. His voice was gravelly from sleep and he was squinting without his glasses. Felix detangled himself to stand by the bed and stretch.

"We're aware," Felix said. "But we were that way before the miraculous, I think. Will you be offended if I do some stretches while we talk? I haven't gotten to the ballet studio in a while."

"Offended? No," Nino said, the fake innocent look on his face giving away where he was going with this. "Significantly distracted from the conversation? Absolutely."

"I can leave," Adrien offered.

"Never mind," Felix said. He picked up his book and sat at the foot of the bed, pretending that Adrien and Nino couldn't see how red he was turning.

"So!” Adrien said. “Why did the ring come off now of all times? Was it Hawkmoth's defeat?"

"No, it was more recent than that," Felix said, still staring at his book. "I caught the ring on my shirt yesterday and it tugged the skin like it always does. Did."

"True love's kiss," Plagg's muffled voice called from within his cupboard.

"Yes, because we're cartoon characters and fairy tale logic applies here," Felix said, rolling his eyes.

Plagg emerged from the cupboard clutching camembert in one paw and the ring in his other. "True love's kiss from Ladybug worked on Punny Chat when Dislocoeur hit him with an arrow. It worked for Adrien. Why would you assume it wouldn't work for you, too?" Plagg asked.

"Oh, you're serious?" Felix asked. "That has a lot of implications that I... am going to not focus on right now." He glanced at Nino to see the same baffled expression on his face that he felt on his own. "I assume you mean Nino kissing me?" Plagg nodded. "We kissed the night I ran away. Is it a delayed reaction magic kiss effect?" He sighed. “I can’t express how angry it makes me that I just said those words in that combination.”

"That was Nino and Felix. Last night, did Carapace kiss Chat Noir?"

They looked at each other, then both nodded at Plagg.

"There you go. The combination of miraculous magic being active and true love's kiss fixed your miraculous. It's safe now to put on and take off whenever you want. You're free to quit now that Hawkmoth's defeated, but if you put it back on, you're not stuck anymore. You have the freedom to choose whatever you want."

"I am absolutely not putting that back on," Felix spat. "You can't know it's fixed for sure."

"It's literally linked to my life force," Plagg said. "I know for sure. And I was the one to warn you that there was something wrong before you put it on, remember?"

"Oh, I remember," Felix said. He took the ring from Plagg, pinching it between two fingers, and held it out to Adrien. "Take it. Wear both, combine them, don't, it's up to you. I meant what I said. I'm done being Chat Noir."

Adrien started to protest, but Nino held a hand out. "Okay. I told you, whatever you need. That's fine. Right, Adrien?"

Adrien nodded and wondered how he could have ever missed the way Felix looked at Nino. No one made Felix look that happy and at peace.

/*****/

"What if, after graduation, I traveled for a while?" Felix asked the next day during physical therapy. "I know things are new with us, and I would miss you, but... I'm free. I'm free from my father, I'm free from... work..." It was a flimsy cover, but when talking in front of Karen they had talked about Felix "quitting his job" instead of "being freed from his broken miraculous."

"I'm not gonna lie, I'd miss you a lot,” Nino said, fighting with his crutch. "But that sounds like exactly what you need."

"You could come with me," he said. "Or Adrien. Or Marinette. Or Nathaniel. Or I could go alone. But being able to get up and leave just because I want to... I've read so much about so many places. I'd like to see some of them."

"Yeah, I'd like that," Nino said. "Depends on when you leave and how long you'll be gone though. It'll be a while before I can do long tourist type walking, and then there’s university in the fall."

"We'll figure out something," Felix said.

"That is a very un-Felix approach and I like it," Nino said.

The door to the physical therapy room creaked open. The boys ignored it since they were in the middle of an exercise, but Karen addressed the visitor.

"Can I help you? This is a private session."

"I apologize, I was looking for Felix."

"Nathalie!" Nino called. "That is not your happy face. Here I was hoping you came looking for us for a good reason this time."

"Unfortunately, no. Felix, I'm sorry to take you away from assisting Nino, but I need your help."

Felix turned to apologize to Nino (or ask him to beg him to stay because that was definitely not Nathalie's happy face, so whatever she wanted couldn’t be good). Before he could get out a word though, Nino gave him a quick, accepting smile and said, "Text me what happens."

"I'll probably be back later," Felix said. Nino patted his shoulder and Felix followed Nathalie out.

"What is it?" He asked in the hall.

“It’s your father.”

Chapter Text

Nathalie sighed. "Your father. I still don't want you to see him, but he's being childish. He found a loophole with his lawyer to compel you to visit. Childish.”

"Just me?"

"No, Adrien's in the car. I'm sorry, I wasn’t given the time to fight this. I will be with you the whole time, and the meeting will not last more than thirty minutes. Fewer if he upsets either of you. Or me."

"Maybe this is good," Felix said as he slid into the back seat with Adrien. "Maybe confronting Gabriel will be good."

"I just want to know why," Adrien said. He was shrinking in on himself, arms crossed and shoulders hunched as he stared out the window. "There has to be a reason."

"I wouldn't look for one," Plagg said. (It had come out in the past few days that the Gorilla had known all along that the twins were Chat Noir, so Plagg had no reservations about talking in front of him.) "Even if he has a reason, that doesn't make up for what he did just to the two of you, much less the rest of the city. You shouldn't look for something to justify what he did, because you won't find it. You're too good, Adrien, to understand him."

"I don't think I am," he said in a quiet voice.

The rest of the ride was quiet. Felix zoned out for the check in to the prison and before he knew it, he, Adrien, and Nathalie were on one side of a table, and Gabriel Agreste was on the other. He looked a decade older.

“Hello, Adrien. Hello, Felix.”

Felix tried to harden his heart further, put up yet another wall around himself. This was the monster who destroyed things, possessed people, caused chaos and panic for an entire city, all for more power. This was the person responsible for trapping Felix in the role of child soldier, fighting victim-enemies with even less choice in joining the fight than he had. This wasn't his father anymore. This wasn't the man who raised him, the man who had lost so much, the man who used to read to him, record his dance recitals, wipe his tears. This wasn't the father everyone said Felix resembled in manner and disposition. This was Hawkmoth. Hawkmoth who hurt Nino.

Nino.

Nino who had had to help him pull down his walls, brick by brick.

Felix couldn't sit here and build another, only to have to tear it down again.

Nino deserved a break on that front.

"Father," Felix greeted with a nod.

"Say your piece, Gabriel, so the boys can leave," Nathalie said. "You know my conditions."

Gabriel took a deep breath, looked Adrien and then Felix in the eye, and said, "I'm sorry. I won't ask for your forgiveness, because it's clear even to me that I don't deserve it. But you deserve an apology, and it wouldn't mean as much over the phone."

"I wouldn't have let you call them, either," Nathalie muttered.

"Why did you do it?" Adrien asked. He ignored Natalie's small sigh and Felix putting a hand on his arm. "I want to know what justification you could possibly have for what you did."

"I thought I could combine the miraculous to reset time and keep your mother from disappearing. Nothing I did to accomplish my goal would matter because it wouldn't happen."

"I was Chat Noir," Felix said. Mostly to derail Adrien, but if anything could make it obvious to his father that what he did mattered even in the face of time travel, this would be it. His voice shook, his heart beat too quickly, and everything felt too hot, but he said it.

Gabriel's hand rose to cover his mouth, shaking. His eyes closed for a moment before he forced them back open.

"I became Chat Noir before Hawkmoth arrived, you were right about that," Felix said.

“No,” Gabriel said, shaking his head, clenching his fists.

"You should know that Ladybug is a dear friend of mine. And all of the heroes. What you did to us was unforgivable. But I can't stay mad at you because all that will do is eat me alive."

"No, Felix- no." Fear and anger warred on Gabriel's face. Adrien could feel Nathalie shift on one side of him, preparing to end the meeting. He could feel Felix take a breath on the other.

"How many times did you almost lose me? Even if I was a stranger, what would Mom think about this?" Felix rubbed at his temple, trying to ignore the headache growing. Without his walls, his body was trying desperately to protect his heart for him. "I know you've thought of what Mom would want. And I'm sure that your remorse now is mostly because you have no chance of 'fixing' everything with the miraculouses. So don't try to explain anymore, please. Don't justify. You were wrong."

Gabriel tried to speak. He reached across the table to Felix, stopping short of touching him. Felix took his hand for just a moment before pulling away.

"I'll work on forgiving you. Give me some time." He looked at Adrien, then back at his father. "Is there anything else?"

Adrien shook his head. "I don't think I can forgive you," he said. "Don't expect me to be at the trial."

Adrien stood up and left. Nathalie looked torn.

"I'm almost done, then we can go," Felix said. She nodded. “Does he know you're-” Felix pointed to his shirt where he knew Nathalie kept her miraculous hidden on her own.

Nathalie nodded. “I may have informed him of who ensured his power was taken away.”

Felix turned to his father once more. "You should thank Nathalie for taking you down when she did. I know I will never stop thanking her for saving me from that confrontation." Felix paused here, trying to decide just how far he could put his anger aside at the moment. He gave a determined nod and said, "I'm seeing someone. Nino Lahiffe, Adrien's friend."

Gabriel's eyebrows rose. "I didn't know- I always expected you and the Kurtzberg boy. Or Ms. Bourgeois. Thank you. Thank you for telling me. I hope he makes you happy."

Felix gave a nod again and stood. Nathalie rose with him, waiting on his move.

"I'll be busy during school, and traveling for a while after graduation, but I'll try to visit some when I've returned."

They were to the door when Gabriel called, "Felix?"

He turned around, starting to get what Marinette meant by "Agreste Male Drama" with his father’s timing. "Yes?"

"You have more of your mother in you than you realize."

/*****/

"You saw your father?" Nino said the moment Felix stepped through the door to his room. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you text me? You said nothing! Are you okay?"

"I didn't want to text about it," Felix said, setting down a pile of boxes on the rolling table that extended over Nino's bed. "I don't want to talk about it, either. I'm processing it, I'm taking my time. I'm sure you'll get more than your fair share of helping Adrien and me through our family drama. And quite frankly, I'm sick of crying on your shoulder. Now, how does a game of Battleship sound? Or Checkers? Everyone thinks I'm the type to like Chess, but I actually hate it, so I didn't bring it. I also did not bring Twister, because Adrien cataclysm'd the spinner after the last time I won seven games in a row. Plus you have broken bones and casts and generally shouldn’t move that much."

The pair played board games and card games for as long as Nino could keep his eyes open. Felix was surprisingly good at Battleship and surprisingly bad at Checkers. They were both horrible at Go Fish. Adrien showed up for the last couple hands of Go Fish and marveled that two people could be so bad at such a simple game.

"You staying?" Nino asked Felix while burrowing into his blanket.

"Not tonight. I'll be back in the morning."

"Okay. Take care of each other," Nino said with a lazy wave as his eyes stopped fluttering open.

"Think the Dupain-Chengs will take me for the night?" Felix asked, letting Adrien put an arm around his shoulders as they walked.

"Someone needs to temper Marinette's angry-levels," Adrien said. "She's even madder that we saw Father than I am. I ended up having to talk her down, which didn't do much for how mad I still am."

"We'll send her out for a patrol," Felix said. "A quick run around the city, beat up a few muggers or bicycle thieves, she'll calm down and realize she's not helping."

"I don't know how you did it," Adrien said as they walked the now-familiar path back to the bakery. "How did you just... you saw Father through Hawkmoth. I can't do that. I just see Hawkmoth, and the man who betrayed us."

"I don't know. Probably Nino's influence. He shouldn't have to force me to deal with this, so I'll force myself to. Does that make sense?"

"The part where Nino's the reason, sure," Adrien said.

Felix suppressed a smirk and an eye roll. "Let's just kick your girlfriend out of her own house and take advantage of Tom's cooking."

"Nathalie not much of a cook?" Adrien asked as they climbed the stairs behind the bakery.

"She has the phone number and menu of six separate takeout places memorized."

/*****/

"All right, Nino," Karen said at the end of a PT session. "You're heading home tomorrow. I'm signing the paperwork now."

"Good, because the twins already started back at school and I can only do so much to keep up with classes when I'm here."

"I noticed the lack of Felix the past couple days. But you aren't going straight back to school. You'll spend a week or two doing outpatient PT and getting used to getting around on your own before you start up school. Hopefully, you'll have more time for catching up on those lessons you missed though."

"Good enough. I miss my bed. I miss my computer. I miss my shower." He got himself into his wheelchair and pointed towards the door. "We good? I'm free to go? Last in-patient PT session over?"

"Yeah," Karen said with a smile. "I'll leave your outpatient PT schedule with your discharge papers. Tell Felix hi for me."

Nino had to wait until he was back in his room to text the team that he was getting out in the morning because texting and wheelchairing was not the smartest plan.

"You hear that, Wayzz? We're going home."

"That will be nice. I enjoy my aquarium tank. And now I don't have to pretend to be a turtle all the time. Does Chris know?"

"No, but Mel does. I want to wait a little longer with Chris. One major life event at a time, y'know?"

The next morning Felix skipped school to help Mrs. Lahiffe get Nino home. He wasn't strictly needed, but Mrs. Lahiffe had invited him, and as scary as Nino's family was to him still, he wanted to show he was making an effort. He carried the box of Nino's things that had ended up at the hospital with him and trailed behind the nurse wheeling him to the car without a word.

"It'll be a while before I'm allowed back at school, so maybe you should come to tutor me," Nino said. He was very carefully not looking at Felix and fidgeting with the headphones that were around his neck again.

"Of course," Felix said.

"And I'll be bored with only my family for company, so maybe you should visit even when there's no school related things to work on."

"If you like," Felix said, feeling a ghost of a smile on his face.

"And you've started up dance lessons again, so you need to keep your strength up, and I'm betting we make better food than whatever Nathalie manages to order each night, so you should stay for dinner as often as you can."

"I don't think I'd ever complain about a home-cooked meal. I'd love to learn how to cook, too, so maybe I can also help in the kitchen."

"Just ask him on a proper date and put us all out of our misery," Mrs. Lahiffe said. "My own son, dancing around the point. Thought I raised you better than this..."

Nino rolled his eyes. They had arrived at the car. They got Nino into his seat, then Felix climbed in behind him with the box.

"Hey, Felix?"

"Yes, Nino?"

"Wanna get dinner and get lost in a bookstore some time?" Nino worried he would break his headphones from how hard he was gripping them.

Felix reached over and took Nino’s hat, placing it on his own head. "Sounds like a perfect date.”

Mrs. Lahiffe was talking to the nurse outside the car, very obviously giving them a minute before she joined them.

"How are you doing?" Felix asked, reaching out to touch the cast on Nino's arm. "Need anything?"

"I'm good. Just take me home. That's all I need."

/*****/

“Who said that every wish

Would be heard and answered

When wished on the morning star?

Somebody thought of that

And someone believed it

And look what it's done so far.”

- “Rainbow Connection”