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Paris was different from Cambridge, the skyline packed with buildings and lights in a way that made the city seem to stretch further than the horizon it touched. While the view from Félix’s university dorm had featured a spread of countryside, thatched roofs and sheets of fog, the view from his new office in Gabriel’s headquarters displayed grey skies and clustered neighborhoods, the Eiffel Tower watching him straight ahead.
He turned away from the glass, pressing the remote to bring the shades down and casting his office in shadow. It was hard to concentrate when the eye of Paris was boring straight through his wall-length window.
“Buzzkill,” said Duusu, flitting up to Félix’s side. “Some of us actually want to see the sights, you know.”
“Yeah?” Félix said, stepping around his desk to turn off his monitor. There were still spreadsheets and documents that needed review before the committee presentation tomorrow, but his eyes were aching from staring at his screen all day, his neck stiff from sitting hunched in the office chair. “What’s stopping you?”
Duusu gave him a look that suggested Félix should know the answer, and Félix was saved by the electronic tone of the landline on his desk.
“Yes?” he asked his secretary—a middle-aged woman he’d inherited from the office’s predecessor.
“Your car is here, monsieur,” she said, her tone professional but slightly annoyed. “Shall I tell them to pull to the front?”
He wondered what he’d feel from her if he was transformed. He suspected it would be something like resentment. Félix had, after all, replaced her former seasoned supervisor straight out of business school. And out of everyone on the board, he was the first to take his leave today.
“Please do,” he replied, leaning forward to pick up his briefcase. “Thank you, Marie.”
She hung up with a resounding click.
Félix locked his office quietly behind him as he left, then turned to survey the floor. The employees kept their gazes down, fixed on their computers or notepads as he walked past. The heavy silence was the same that wrapped around Gabriel whenever he made one of his rare appearances below the top level. Félix had yet to decide whether it was to his own advantage.
“So serious,” said Duusu, once they stepped outside. “Don’t worry, Félix. They’ll learn not to respect you soon enough.”
He scowled down at the kwami now tucked into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “I’m a twenty-one year-old executive, come out of nowhere. That’s the last thing I need.”
“Oh?” Duusu said, feathers ruffling along his head and neck. “I thought you didn’t care about this job. That you only came back because—”
A metallic zip made Félix look around, and he barely had time to flinch as a red disc came spinning toward him. Then his arms were pinned against his sides, a wire pulling tight across his chest and stomach. Before he could open his mouth to shout, he was being jerked in reverse, the world blurring as his head snapped back and pain flaring as he collided against something hard.
He looked up, the brick walls of an alley towering overhead and the heroine of Paris glaring daggers down at him.
“I told you,” Ladybug said, retracting her yo-yo, “not to come back.”
Félix checked his breath, his pulse, making sure both were steady before he pushed himself to his feet. Adrien had warned Félix to expect her, and to expect the worst. But her hands had been tied four years ago when they’d first betrayed her, and nothing had really changed since.
“I didn’t realize you were the mayor of Paris,” he said, brushing off his suit.
Ladybug’s hand twitched, but she clutched her yo-yo tightly, her mouth twisting into an ugly snarl.
“Where’s Papillon?” she demanded, stepping toward him. “Are you still working for him?”
The look on her face was similar to the last Félix had seen on her, back in his lycée dorm room when his theft was still fresh. Chat Noir had been there to temper her, luckily. But after all this time without her partner, it seemed Ladybug had nothing holding her back.
Deciding not to tell Adrien about this, Félix stood his ground.
“I’ve never worked for him, Ladybug,” he said, meeting her gaze as she glared up at him. “I told you, we struck a deal.”
“And what happened?” she pressed, her voice sharpening with her features. “Why did he disappear?”
“Do you think I know?” Félix said. “Do you think I’d tell you if I did?”
Her eyes flashed dangerously as she closed the distance between them, fisting his shirt and pushing him roughly against the side of the building with brute strength. It was all he could do not to call for his transformation as she rammed her forearm against his collarbone, holding him in place.
“Enough games, Félix,” she said hoarsely. “Tell me where he is.”
He could not feel pity for her, no matter how raw the expression on her face or how close she didn’t know she was to Adrien, who was probably being chauffeured around the city as they spoke.
“Why don’t you just forget it, Gardienne? ” Félix said. With a quick, practiced flourish, he twisted out of her hold. Ladybug wheeled around, red-faced, and he took a cautious step back out of reach. “Papillon hasn’t been a problem for you for years.”
“Not a problem for me?” she said, her voice rising. “Not a problem?! ”
Félix backed away as she advanced, gauging the distance between where he stood and the mouth of the alley. There was no outrunning her, that was certain, but maybe if they were out in the open, surrounded by civilians, she’d limit the damage she intended to cause.
“He’s a murderer, Félix!” she yelled, her voice reverberating across the brick walls. “He’s had the Black Cat Miraculous to himself for four years, and you don’t think that’s a problem?”
“I would’ve thought you’d appreciate the silence,” Félix said. One step back, and then another. The sounds of the street beyond the alley grew louder. “No more miraculous, no more attacks, no more Papillon. It seems to me like you should be a little more grateful.”
Ladybug went rigid, and the brooch on Félix’s chest singed with a shock of rage.
“Grateful?” she yelled, her face flushing and her eyes flashing. “Grateful?! ”
Her fist collided with his face before he could block it, pain blossoming over his cheekbone and temple. He staggered back, stars bursting before his eyes, and landed hard on the pavement just outside the alley.
“I’ll be grateful,” Ladybug bellowed, standing over him with clenched fists, dozens of shocked bystanders frozen in place around them, “when I see you behind bars for life.”
She threw her arm forward again, and Félix raised his hand to shield his stinging face. But at the zip of her yo-yo and the slap of air over his head, he risked a glance and watched her swing away over the rooftops.
* * *
Bonus:
“What happened to your eye?” Adrien asked, frowning at Félix.
Slumping against the Agrestes’s kitchen counter, Félix adjusted the ice pack against his face. “Oh, you know,” he muttered, scrolling through the revised salary contract he’d insisted be sent by the end of the day, like an idiot. “Said the wrong things. Pissed off a girl.”
Adrien grinned, then said to Duusu, “Did he deserve it?”
“Absolutely,” Duusu replied.
“I’ve told you before, Félix,” Adrien said, putting on an awful imitation of an English accent. “If you want to talk to women properly, you need to stop acting like such a wanker.”
“Oh, shove it,” Félix said, and threw the ice pack at his twin.