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“There’s something you should know before we move in together,” Nathaniel said to Marc on their walk to the bus stop.
“Sure,” said Marc, squeezing his hand. “What’s up?”
He expected to hear that Nathaniel liked to sleep naked, that he listened to loud music when he was drawing, or that he was bad at keeping up with laundry folding. Some normal, but forgivable flaw for a new roommate to have. Marc expected growing pains as their relationship settled into its new status quo. Growing pains were part of loving someone forever, and that didn’t scare him. He wanted to go into every decision he and Nathaniel made about their future with his eyes wide open.
Marc didn’t expect Nathaniel to stop walking, look into his eyes, and say, “Sometimes, I have unpleasant company. I’m not telling her where the apartment is, but she’ll find out. She always does.”
Marc’s forehead wrinkled. “What kind of unpleasant company?” he asked.
Nathaniel sighed. “It started when I was fourteen. Every few months, she shows up with questions or a problem, and she expects me to answer.”
“Who?”
Nathaniel raised his shoulders. “I can’t tell you yet,” he said. “It’s… one of the rules. I understand if you don’t want to sign a lease with me, under the circumstances.”
“Of course I do,” said Marc.
And he did, more than anything. When he looked at Nathaniel, Marc saw the rest of their lives stretching out ahead of them like a glowing line. It didn’t feel like the honeymoon phase anymore. It felt like a plan. It felt like life.
They signed the lease that day, and arranged to begin the moving-in process later that month. The place was small, rent was steep, and the kitchen counter was practically microscopic, but Marc loved the new life they were building.
Every morning, he woke up next to Nathaniel, a determined night owl, and had plenty of time to brew two cups of tea before his boyfriend dragged himself into the living room. Every evening, he went to sleep to the sound of Nathaniel’s pencil scratching away as his boyfriend drew late into the night. Living with Nathaniel was exactly as wonderful as Marc had dreamed it would be.
Nathaniel’s unpleasant company showed up in the third week. She arrived in the evening, by the balcony rather than the front door. Marc, who had just gotten out of the shower, stared, towel-wrapped, as Nathaniel opened the sliding balcony door and let Goldenrod inside.
“Sit down, if you must,” said Nathaniel, scowling. “Tea?”
“No thank you,” said Goldenrod, frowning back. “Why would I want to drink cheap tea?”
Marc, a religious watcher of superhero news footage, had never seen her frown before. He cleared his throat. “I’ll just… go and put on pants.”
“Do that,” said Goldenrod without turning around. “It’s rude to dress like that in front of a lady.”
As Marc closed the bedroom door behind him, he heard Nathaniel say, “It is his house. What do you need? Make it quick. It’s date night, and we have museum tickets.”
By the time Marc exited the bedroom, fully dressed in his nicest outfit, Goldenrod was gone.
Nathaniel smiled one of his quickest, most furtive smiles, looking like a man with a lot to lose. “I’m sorry about her,” he said quietly. “She’s always like that, but she’s sort of a friend. We don’t like each other. We just work together.”
Marc retrieved the museum tickets from the table by the front door. “You aren’t King Monkey, are you?”
“No!” Nathaniel looked almost offended. “I’ve never met him, either.”
“And there’s no way you’re Chat Noir.” Marc paused. “Do you know Ladybug?”
“No.” They were in the hallway outside the apartment now. Nathaniel lowered his voice as he locked the door. “She doesn’t like Goldenrod and King Monkey.”
This was new information. It was hard to tell someone who had watched as much Ladybug footage as Marc anything new about her. “Why not?”
Nathaniel shrugged. “They keep their identities secret, and she didn’t give them their miraculouses. It always makes Goldenrod mad, because it’s not like Ladybug knows who Chat Noir is, either.”
“She doesn’t? But they’re so…”
“I know,” said Nathaniel wearily. “Apparently it’s all pining. I don’t get it.”
Marc had to laugh. He took Nathaniel’s hand. “Right, because you only pined for me for what? Two years?”
“And then I asked you out!” Nathaniel said defensively. “It’s not a crime to take your time.”
With one thing and another, Marc had nearly forgotten about Goldenrod by the time she showed up again.
It was the day before Nathaniel’s birthday, and he wasn’t set to come home from work for hours. As such, Marc had decided it was the perfect time to bake and frost a birthday cake. He had just turned out the second layer—with no breakage, thanks to a greased and floured cake pan—when Goldenrod fell, rather than landed, on the balcony. She was carrying someone, and with all the blood on his costume it took Marc a moment to recognize King Monkey.
Marc was still uncertain about Goldenrod, but blood was very certain. Abandoning the cake, he rushed to slide open the balcony doors. “Put him on the couch,” he said to Goldenrod, who nodded grimly. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
Now Marc understood why Nathaniel’s first aid kit was larger and better-stocked than his box of art supplies. Goldenrod and King Monkey worked separately from Ladybug and Chat Noir except in the event of a citywide catastrophe. That meant no magic ladybugs to heal wounds.
The flash of King Monkey’s detransformation lit up the living room just as Marc returned. He and Goldenrod gasped. King Monkey was Kim, a boy Marc vaguely knew from collège. He was bleeding heavily from a deep set of claw marks across his chest. The couch underneath him looked like it belonged in a war zone, but Marc tried to ignore that. It had come from a thrift shop anyway. They’d buy another.
Dimly, he was aware that he was having an anxiety attack. Dissociation, that’s what this out-of-body feeling was. But Marc was in his body, and if the look on Goldenrod’s face was any indication, he was the only one there who knew how to help.
“Direct pressure,” he said, handing Goldenrod a large pad of gauze. “We need to keep the blood in him or he’s fucked. You press, hard as you can without breaking his ribs. I’ll clean and bandage.”
Goldenrod did as she was told. She still hadn’t said a word, and Kim still hadn’t opened his eyes.
Marc cleaned the top two gashes, which were shallower, slathered them in ointment, and secured more gauze pads over them with medical tape. With Goldenrod’s help, he lifted Kim up enough that he could wrap a bandage around his torso to further anchor the tape.
The last gash, which Goldenrod was still pressing with her blood-soaked gauze pad, needed stitches. Nathaniel’s first aid kit had the right materials. He knew how to sterilize the needle with a lighter, but Marc’s hands shook as he tried to thread it. Shock was setting in.
“Allow me,” said a small, floating monkey, taking the needle and thread from Marc. “I have done this before.”
Kim began to stir as the monkey sewed up the gash.
“I apologize for the lack of anesthetic,” said the monkey, who seemed to be real and not a stress hallucination. Goldenrod behaved as if she could see him, at any rate. “Hold Kim still, Goldenrod. I am almost finished.” To Marc, he added, “Get another pad ready, please.”
Shaking himself, Marc unwrapped a new gauze pad.
Goldenrod took hold of Kim’s shoulders. “Hold still,” she ordered. “And stay awake, asshole. You aren’t allowed to take a hit like that and die on me before I can—” She sniffed. “Just stay awake.”
Kim’s eyes opened just as Marc and the floating monkey finished securing the final bandage. “Ow,” he said.
“If you weren’t so hurt, I’d slap you,” Goldenrod told him. “Chivalry is dead, and I can take hits for myself!”
“You could,” said Kim. “But I’d hate to see that fantastic chest all torn up.”
Now Goldenrod did slap him. She immediately followed it with a kiss so tender that Marc felt compelled to look away.
“That’s been building up for years,” the floating monkey told him knowingly. “I’m Xuppu, by the way. You might fetch my chosen some willow bark tea, or whatever is usual for pain relief in this day and age.”
“Painkillers,” said Marc. “Right.” He dug a bottle out of Nathaniel’s first aid kit, measured out two pills, and interrupted the kiss to offer them to Kim with a glass of water.
“We wasted so much time,” said Goldenrod. “All those nights on patrol…”
Kim’s face hardened. For just a moment, Marc could see King Monkey there. “I thought you were going to kiss me the night I pulled you out of that house fire.”
Goldenrod shrugged. “If I was, it was the smoke inhalation’s fault.”
“And now?”
Goldenrod traced Kim’s jaw with her hand. “Now I know that I don’t want to lose you. I can’t. It would be like going back into the darkness after a lifetime of fireworks.”
She looked from Marc to Xuppu, seeming to make a decision.
“Buzz off,” said Goldenrod, and in a flash of light her blood-drenched uniform was replaced by pristine designer fashion.
Goldenrod, who had made headlines when Marc was fourteen by claiming to have stolen the Bee Miraculous from disgraced hero Chloé Bourgeois, was Chloé Bourgeois. Suddenly her arrangement with Nathaniel made perfect sense. Who better to teach a vain little rich girl to be a beloved superhero than a comics nerd with a better grasp of morality than anyone Marc had ever met?
“You’ll get blood on your clothes,” said Kim as Chloé leaned in to kiss him again.
“I’ll buy new ones,” she told him.
Just as Marc was thinking that his cake was probably cool enough to frost by now, keys rattled in the lock. He sighed, taking in the bloodied couch, the superhero makeout session, and the scattered first aid kit. This was his life now. Why run from it?
“Stop kissing for a second,” he said to Chloé and Kim. “When my boyfriend comes through the door, I want all of you to shout ‘Happy birthday.’ Got it?”
Kim, Chloé, the floating monkey, and the freshly appeared floating bee nodded.
“Perfect,” said Marc, and, in its own way, it was.