Work Text:
"Sir, the returns are… disappointing."
"How much am I out this time, Gabriel?"
The android paused for but a moment, likely connecting to the 'sphere to pluck out relevant data. "Two hundred and fifty million would be my estimate, sir. Viewership has dropped yet again."
Felix let out a long sigh. He was weary, not physically, never physically. He was soul weary. He'd seen the film, he knew it was bad. He'd just hoped… "It doesn't matter. We'll begin pre-production on the next one immediately."
Gabriel frowned. The builders had managed to capture so much detail, so much of the man long gone. It had been a conceit to have his personal servant made in the image of his diabolical uncle. Now and then though, Felix wondered if the joke wasn't on himself. "Sir, if trends persist you will only increase your losses on the next film."
Felix slammed his fist down on the oversized desk. "To hell with the losses! That's not the point!"
Gabriel's frown faded into an expression Felix would have thought impossible. His voice was soft. "No one will see it."
The pronouncement struck Felix harder than a blow from one of Gabriel's titanium cored fists. He sat back in his chair, dazed. "Get out."
"Sir?"
"Get out, damn you!" Felix spun his chair, and immediately lowered his gaze.
"Yes, sir."
Felix listened to him go. At the door Gabriel added one last thing.
"Madame Tsurugi will be here shortly."
The click of the door left Felix truly alone. Not that Gabriel counted for much company. Felix had thought he got a model devoid of emotional programming, just like the man it was to emulate. It may need to be wiped.
Felix raised his eyes slowly to the painting that hung behind his desk. Golden upon black velvet. It loomed over anyone who set foot in his study, himself included. He could never forget, why should they?
Felix studied the lines more familiar than his own face. The painting was old, sixty years old. At one point he had paid artists to update it, to simulate the changes that would never come, to keep the image within alive . Yet, all their efforts did was to achieve the opposite. A copy, and a copy of a copy, down the years each one more removed from reality than the last. Even the most talented artists in the world could not capture what they had not seen. So the original had come back, and Felix had suffered the pain of its absence in sudden memories piling inside of him.
It was history, but he would not let it be.
A chime sounded from his desk. The dragon was here.
Kagami Tsurugi was already half dressed in her gear by the time Felix stepped into the ground floor gymnasium. He offered no apologies for being late, and she made no inquiries. Felix shrugged out of his work vest and began unbuttoning his shirt as he approached his own neatly laid out fencing equipment.
He was agitated, he knew it. Gabriel's words had shaken him. He was raw in a way he had not been since…
Felix glanced over at Kagami. Does she know? He asked himself. Does she wonder why her hair is still lustrous black, and my own is brilliant light while those around us all fade and gray?
Felix shed his button down. Does she know why her eyes are bright, her back straight, and her arm still strong?
She caught him staring. Others might blush under his stare. Others had, and in doing so earned contempt. She wouldn't though; she and one other. Instead she narrowed her eyes and returned his scrutiny.
She spoke first, but it wasn't in defeat, it was an opening thrust. "Your latest film is in theaters now, Felix."
Felix froze, the blow hit home. “It is.” he growled in warning.
“I walked through your gallery on my way to the gymnasium again.” she continued, undeterred.
“Yes.” he answered even more coldly.
There was just the slightest hint of warmth in her voice, a crack in her perpetual armor. That only made it worse. “There is a word for such things. In English I believe it is: obsession.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about.” Felix snapped. He picked up his fencing Jacket, then threw it back down in disgust, at what he couldn’t say.
“Felix, my accountants tell me these relentless projects bleed you of vast sums of money.”
Felix snatched up his helm. The urge to throw it the length of the gymnasium was overwhelming. Could he put it through the window from here? Of course he could. “What do you know of money? You’re an artist, Tsurugi, living eternally off the bones of your mother’s company. Why don’t you leave money to me and stick to your paints?”
Touché . Kagami snatched up her fencing saber and held it level, aimed between his eyes. “You dare?!”
Felix grinned. Does she know? Does she know… I need this?
He jumped back, donning his helmet while still shirtless, his own saber in hand. “Come artist , paint me in red. If you can.”
Helmless, her jacket about her waist, Kagami Tsurugi charged. Felix met her with the desperate joy found in temporary oblivion.
Artist . He called her.
Their blades clashed and separated. Parry. Riposte. Counter. Feint. Strike. Beat. Lunge. Again. Again.
Ha! She was an entire life lived by and for the blade. Felix could stand before her skill by virtue of his own overwhelming drive. Does she feel it? The way others slow? Does she feel the difference? Strength with age, flowing, growing, lifting above all others. Does she stand too upon the cliff that rises beneath her feet, leaving everyone and everything behind?
Back and forth they move, lanes laughably forgotten. Helmless, the dragon’s snarling focus is a physical presence. Those burning vermillion eyes weren’t just fighting him. They were fighting… She knows!
They were fighting the truth. They were fighting time itself. They were fighting every Olympic match. From her first in 2016, all the way up to her ninth straight gold medal. Matches that grew easier over time instead of harder. All the way up to the ignoble end of being asked to retire simply to give others a chance. This was why she bothered with Felix at all. There was no one else left worth taking up her sword for.
She needs this as much as I do.
Not for the same reasons, though. Felix needed to fight, he needed to lose to Kagami. He needed the reminders that the exercise brought. The double-touché, the overextended thrust, Striving for what you wanted so badly you lost everything you had. As she battered him back and he barely held his own, he needed to see the person behind the blade. Metal is hard, but flesh is strong. A lesson dismissed and learned too late.
Can she feel it? Of course she can. No cameras, blacked out windows, they fought in complete isolation. Two septuagenarians defying all reason as they wove webs of steel in the air. It was always intense, but tonight was different. Her blunted tip sought his ribs with strikes that would go clean through. A counter slash sheared through the equipment table. He dipped the tip of his blade for a low thrust and gouged an 5cm deep line in the floorboards. Back and forth they destroyed the gymnasium as hours sped into history.
As his lungs began to burn and his body to tremble Felix rejoiced. He needed this. He needed to feel weak. He needed to force his body to admit what his soul knew. He was weak. Weak, and failing at the one thing that mattered. All of his strength, all of his skill, and he couldn’t find a way to keep his word.
Felix brought his saber down across Kagami’s and both blades snapped. Snapped . The word held a special meaning. Did she know that ?
Her answer was to thrust at him with her nub of a blade, driving him back. Felix swung and stumbled, retreating before an attack no other person on earth could make threatening. His back hit the wall. Cold wood on skin.
*WHAM*
He saw stars within the cage of his helmet, but he also felt the prick of steel against his nose. He needed this too. Kagami’s truncated blade, lodged in his helmet. A chance weakness in the protection that could have been the end. An even more arbitrary chance that had left the broken blade too short to finish the job.
Kagami yanked her blade free and dropped it. She staggered back, panting and hunched, but eyes still full of fire.
Cool air spilled in through the hole. Felix sucked it up like water in the desert, his own chest heaving from exertion. He eyed her through the hole before pulling his helmet off. “Looks like today is not the day.”
Kagami let out a feral snarl then turned away sharply. “Fetch me another blade, or improve and do me the courtesy.”
She was glorious in her rage, though whether it was the woman or the anger itself that was more beautiful to him, Felix could not say. She was a sculpted beauty unique among the world, and he knew the depths of the craft required for her to simply stand before him. If he were the type to feel, he would feel many things for Kagami Tsurugi. However Felix had only ever felt for anyone other than his mother once, and that a belated impotent emotion repressed until it could avail him nothing. The experience had soured him on trying again, and all the intervening years had done nothing to alter his conviction.
Felix rubbed at the thin cut along the side of his nose. “Since when have I given you satisfaction in anything, Tsurugi?”
Her shoulders rose and fell. Felix could both hear and feel the cleansing breath the dragon took, sucking all energy from the air in the room and blowing back out her emotions into the ether. She was serene once more as she spoke. “They buried Marinette yesterday.”
Felix balked. Why hadn’t he been told? Ha, he knew plenty of reasons for that. And I am being told, now. “Really?” he kept his voice light. “I always thought she would outlive my cousin.”
Kagami rounded again, stalking up to him. “Is that all you have to say on the matter?”
No, not by any means, but you wouldn’t like the rest anymore than this sampling. “What would you have me say?”
Kagami hissed, “Something. Anything! She was your cousin’s wife. She was Ladybug. You owe her more than most. For once in your miserable existence Felix Graham de Vanily, at least pretend to be human. Who knows, you might get a taste for it.”
Pretend . Felix felt the brief reprieve that fencing had wrought drain out of him. Cold fury was once more his to hold in place of healthy anger. “I pretended once. I didn’t care for it one bit. However, I will admit her passing does mean a great deal to me. I shall call my cousin after you leave.”
Kagami pulled apart his words with her eyes. “You are hiding something.”
It was Felix’s turn. This match was one he was the champion in. “Yes.”
He turned as he spoke, heading to his discarded shirt and vest. As he walked he brushed his thumb over a place he had once worn a simple silver ring. That ring was buried too, nearly sixty years ago.
Felix felt Kagami following him. She would not beg, indeed, a cold thrill ran up his spine. She would intimidate with her presence, and he was not immune; not immune, but not subject either. Felix shrugged into his button up, still facing away from her. He carefully tucked his shirttails in and buttoned each button with deliberate care, feeling her eyes on his back throughout the entire process. Felix reached into his breast pocket and took out the brooch kept there. He pinned it onto his chest before turning around, his eyes daring.
Her eyes went right to the broach. She was not so skilled as to be able to hide her reaction from him. A widening of the pupils, a flare of her nostrils, they spoke volumes. Her offhand remark, “A rather gaudy trinket, Felix.” was too forced. She followed it up with another, “Something smaller, and in silver seems more your style.”
Does she know? A small part of him wanted to ask, wanted to know, wanted to risk that oblivion. He had only done it once before, and it had brought him here in life. He was not ready to do that again, he might never be.
Felix ran a hand back through his long blond hair, flicking his bangs, “Silver’s not my color.” he spoke in pantomime.
Kagami played the game. “It does not suit you. I can think of others who might wear it better.”
Felix returned, “I am rather partial. I don’t expect I’ll ever let it go.”
Something passed behind Kagami’s eyes; a shadow of time. “Will you do me the courtesy then?”
“Never.” Felix answered with the purest of conviction.
Kagami’s expression shifted to introspective. She turned away, but all the game had gone out of her voice. “I will see you next week, Felix. Prepare yourself.”
Felix called after her, “Fifty years and waiting.”
“Cousin? Is it really you?”
Adrien’s face floated above Felix’s desk in all its natural glory. These days most people used avatars, especially as they aged. The only ones who didn’t were those who spent a fortune on rejuvenation treatments and wanted the world to see, Felix himself, and Kagami.
Felix mentally added his cousin to the list, but unlike all the others, Adrien went without when he clearly had something to hide. Age had hit him square in the face, and the death of his wife could not have helped things. Adrien wore each of his seventy five years plainly, with mileage to match. Once bright green eyes were clouded, and flowing blond hair had first gone white, then simply gone. Felix despised Adrien’s casual mortality, and envied him for it.
“Yes, Adrien, it is me. Are your eyes that bad already?”
The face hovering above his desk frowned, and the clouds cleared just a bit. “They’re clear enough to see you, and what’s behind you. What is your reason for calling now of all times?”
Felix smiled. “Come now, no need to be that way. I’ve called to offer my condolences. Even I know how much your wife meant to you. She was… a woman of many talents.”
Even bringing Marinette up seemed to sap the strength from Adrien. Good . Felix drank it in, and relished watching his cousin expend the energy to push past the recent pain and extend an olive branch. “Thank you, Felix. Marinette would have liked that her passing might bring us closer together again. She always felt bad about… what happened.”
Not enough, never enough. Felix shook his head and waved a hand dismissively. “Water under the bridge. She always did what she thought was best. She had so many Miraculous to look after, it could have been any that slipped away. She was a good woman, Adrien. The second best I knew.”
Adrien’s eyes looked past Felix as he tried to weave through Felix’s open trail of breadcrumbs. Adrien’s desperate niceness won out. “I hope you’ll forgive me for my bias, but I would switch first and second place.”
Never.
“Of course of course. So tell me cousin, has anyone taken up the mask now?”
Adrien shifted from open to guarded. “Felix, you know even if I had an answer I could never tell you. The masks protect us.”
Protect YOU maybe. Not all masks were magical though. Determination and a mask might let even the shallowest person attempt something bold beyond reason. A creature of little worth and less hope might go against Gods used to fighting other Gods.
Do you remember, cousin? Of course you do. Your soft heart couldn’t forget. Even if you never found a trace, even if you never knew who your magic-blackened hand had grasped, or what the outcome was. You would carry that with you all these years. Let me help ease your burden.
Felix nodded in feigned sympathy. “Yes, yes. Your vaunted secrecy. Yet, wasn’t it your own Ladybug who decided eventually the time for secrets has passed?”
“For us, Felix. So we could–”
As Adrien spoke Felix took up the peacock Miraculous from where it had lay on his leg and pinned it over his heart. He fussed with getting it level then glanced up, pretending to just notice Adrien had stopped speaking. “Could what, cousin?”
Felix would remember the look on Adrien’s face… quite possibly forever. Realization of the highest order. Felix, the brooch, the painting behind him, two shadows that had snuck in by the darkness that night so long ago to steal a trinket, a struggle and a magical accident, a missing person Felix had no obvious connection with at the time, and now all of it coming back with no Ladybug to comfort and guide him.
Adrien swallowed, his Adam's apple bouncing and lips parting in dry shock. “Felix-”
“Goodnight, cousin. Loss is best digested alone.”
“Felix wait!”
The image winked out. Felix sat back and took in what he chose to call the joy of the moment. It was petty, it was small, it was half a century and more too late, but it was finally done. If the truth hastened his cousin on to his wife, well that was practically a kindness now, wasn’t it?
The satisfaction wore off quickly. Felix was still faced with his own failing. He stood, tapping the brooch as he did, and as the blue spirit within circled up into the air to follow, Felix headed for the gallery.
Felix rarely visited the gallery these days. On this visit he left the lights off and let the moon cast its shadows through windows, obscuring much of the art, protecting Felix. These paintings were copies, memories, things that had never happened but perhaps— just perhaps —could have. The oldest ones were the best. The newer were devoid of the proper feeling. Yet each one that he chose to keep held at least some small aspect that brought memories to the fore. Memories of a person, of a time.
Felix reached up, drawing his hand across a painting as if he might lift the veil of shadow from its face. “Duusu, what am I doing wrong?”
The little peacock kwami zipped in close to Felix’s head. “Do you mean total, or specific?”
Felix chuckled at his own expense. It was a fair point. Felix let his fingertips touch the oil based curve of a jawline. “What am I missing? I hire the best writers. I give them access to all the materials that still exist. Yet their work is flaccid and uninspiring. They can’t seem to capture even one tenth of the truth.”
“You want happiness?”
Felix rounded on the little bird, “I want the truth!” He looked back, stepping from one painting to another, “Happiness never really had a chance.”
Duusu floated after him, small hands clasped in thought. “The truest emotions come from experience. Second, third, and fourth hand memories will only grow weaker over time. That’s the nature of emotions. They wax and wane. They grow, die, molder, and new emotions are born from the fertile soil. It’s an ever changing cycle.”
Felix adjusted the picture’s frame. Someone had straightened it, but before that it had hung askew so long that the proper angle now felt wrong. “Not this time. There will be no more death. One has had their fill, and the other must abstain.”
Duusu fidgeted. “But that’s not heal-”
The Kwami cut himself off at a sharp gesture from Felix. “That is entirely beside the point. I need people to come back to my films. How do I make them?”
Duusu floated a little ways away from Felix to a corner with deeper shadows than most. He stared up at a painting of what never happened. “Give them your truth. Real emotions evoke real emotions in others. People remember what makes them feel. You do remember what it means to feel, right Felix?”
Felix sat down on a bench in the middle of the hall. He held his head in his hands as dozens of deep blue eyes stared at him by his own request. “I did, once.”
Duusu flew back and wriggled his way between Felix’s face and his hands, sitting on his cupped palms. “Then, you can again. Once you do, you’ll be in a better place to make others feel.”
It was ridiculous. Ut– Felix clamped down on that thought. It was another fanciful idea without reason or sense to back it up. She would have liked it.
Felix felt something cracking inside of him. “It could take a while.” He thought of Kagami.
Duusu tilted his head. “Then it does; eventually is not never.”
Felix sat up, still holding the little Kwami in one palm. “I don’t have time. I must not let minds turn away.”
Duusu lifted into the air, fidgeting worriedly again. “If you absolutely can’t wait then you’ll have to look to the past instead of the future. You said you felt once, right?”
Once. I’m surrounded by monuments to feeling. Surrounded by, but immune to it. It’s like a song half recalled. The creature I have become could never do it justice. The answer struck him, dragged up from where it had been locked away in self defense so long ago. He couldn’t… I must. The pain… my promise. They weren't for others to see… to be seen was the raison dêtre.
Felix stood, conviction driving him, terror clawing him. He strode back to his office. He stopped in front of the third file cabinet, one only differing from the others in that its drawers would not open. There were no locks to pick, no outward tricks to open. Who needed those things when you had something better?
“Duusu.” Felix gestured.
Duusu zipped through the side of the cabinet. From inside a very faint series of clicks and thunks could be heard. Duusu flew back out and Felix opened the top drawer. He drew out a folder yellowed with age. The ink on the papers within had started to fade and the sight caused Felix’s heart to seize.
He dashed to his desk, grabbed a pen, any pen, and began to re-draw the letters more clearly as if afraid they would completely vanish before his eyes. His pen traced out long sealed dreams, stolen by fate before they were ever penned into being. They told the tale, like all of his movies, of a spoilt protagonist. One whose worth the audience could only find through the course of the narrative, even if it had been there the entire time. This particular one told the tale of the protagonist finding companionship from the most unlikely of cold and wounded men. Water fell on the paper, smudging the fresh ink.
Felix wiped it away in desperation and began retracing the words again, whispering to the person trapped within, “I won’t let you disappear.”