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Was this a good idea? Was it even a good time? Surely he wasn’t busy, but oh that’s the problem! Felix is not busy because his father was recently taken down by Chat Noir and herself, and Chat had been radio silent after suddenly leaving the swarms of cameras surrounding them that warm summer night. He was oddly… distraught, when he saw Richard in their arch nemesis’ place, but Ladybug didn’t bother prying for any sort of explanation…
Now, in the thicket of mid November winds and warm toned nights filled regrets with words left unsaid, here she was. Failing to make yet another decision on whether or not Ladybug should go into his new residence at almost 11 pm with a bag of cocoa powder and a carton of milk…
She tucked the bag under her arm, unbalanced due to the weight of the milk on top of the cocoa, before knocking on the door to his apartment and sighing. Keep it cool, bug…
“Felix? It’s Ladybug. May I, uh… may I come in?” Her unsteady request was met with a wordless reply, a click from inside as the door slid inwards with Ladybug’s next push.
It was dark, the only light in the small living room space coming from an artificial candle and a tablet, lighting up a bunched up blanket on the couch. She heard a quiet thump, followed by shuffling as the blanket moved. Underneath it was the definition of a mess…
“Hey…” her voice was soft, too soft for him to truly appreciate.
Felix mumbled out a “Mmh…” before resuming what had ate up the whole of his days for the past few weeks…
Scrolling through article after article burning the Sphinx name to the ground with words, public outrage swarming like fire ants and lashing his memories with pain that seemed to sear deeper and deeper with every media outlet grazing his attention…
“Do you mind…?” Ladybug spoke again, and he pulled his shelter away for only a moment to see her holding out the bag. “I uh… thought it’d be a nice comfort drink, given… well, everything…”
She sounded uneasy, and he couldn’t blame her. This was a touchy subject, especially since the wounds were still fresh and Felix was no good at actually practicing self care by ignoring the mountain of slander published by those tabloids…
“Measuring cups in the drawer to the left of the fridge…” he mumbled, defeated in heart and morale despite the spotted heroine’s appearance at his home…
Swaddled in a shell of his own loneliness, Felix attempted to block out the world as he scrolled mindlessly, the fire scorched battlefield photos lined up and captioned by any and all news outlets. Felix sighed, placing the device screen down on his small coffee table as he heaved out a half sob-half cough, the scent of warm, milky chocolate wafting from his kitchen…
“Do you have any cookies?” Ladybug called, looking through some of the cabinets until she produced two green and pink mugs.
“Sugar…” Felix replied, still wrapped in the throes of despair. “In the pantry next to the coffee machine… plastic box…”
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been waiting, but soon he felt the space next to his legs sink. He willed his body to sit up, letting the blanket fall to his shoulders to expose his scruffy golden mess of a hairdo and the bags under his cerulean eyes… he had to wonder why. Why? Why was Ladybug even here…? He didn’t deserve her company after all, he was a Sphinx — a name synonymous with the vilest, cruelest evil ever imaginable… So why would anyone ever think about being good to him…?
“Do you.. want to talk?… I-I won’t force you, but just know I’m here…” the sensation of her slowly rubbing his back took longer to register, and Felix let out a sharp sob as he tensed then relaxed at her touch…
He palmed his mug, watching steam twist into spirals as he blew on his drink. “I… I don’t understand, Ladybug…”
“Hm?”
“Why…are you here?” A tear slipped from his eye, tainting the warm chocolate with bitterness and salt, despite it not being tastable in the mix of sugars. He ran his thumb across the clover pattern painted on the mug, his expression locked in permanent despondency.
“How could I not be after all that’s happened? I wanted to check up on you…”
“I’m doing just fine, thank you…” Felix replied into the chocolate, clearly not even close to fine. His eyes opened a bit further from their previous half closed, drained look. The sweetness hit his mouth and cradled him in a nostalgia he couldn’t place a time to, or even a clear memory for that matter. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember much of anything of note from his childhood…
“You know you don’t have to lie to me, Fe. I promise, whatever you tell me won’t leave this room.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, her face saddening even further when she felt his muscles tense and buckle at just the notion of touch, then shake once it connected… this poor boy— man. Poor man… that’s right, they were in their twenties now…
He’d been so starved for touch that even the tiniest gestures put him on high alert…
“They won’t… stop talking about it…” he mumbled into the blanket. “My father… how outrageous it was that I didn’t do or say anything about it.”
“You couldn’t have known that… He was an extremely intelligent man and kept everything so well hidden. How can they expect you to know what he was really like?”
Felix’s body tensed as he sat his cup down, hugging himself tight with distress. His last line of defense as he bit back his anger and hate still boiling at a betrayal he should’ve seen coming with how clear of a monster Richard was, and how he had to share blood with him. “I could’ve looked! I could’ve asked questions about it, but I… I never did. I’m not sure why…” he began to tear up again. “But I… I want to know. Why was I like this for so long… I’d get this close to questioning him about something, then I’d stop.”
Ladybug eyes fell to the cracked picture frame on his coffee table, looking deliberately beaten up with the cracks landing over his child self’s eyes, a face of bruised yet barely breathing innocence which he grew to hate over the years.
The sight of such a small child possessing such dull and broken eyes similarly broke Ladybug’s heart. It was only then she noticed the bandages wrapped around Felix’s right hand, crimson stains still lingering around his knuckles…
“Do you… remember anything from your childhood that could’ve caused it?”
“What…?” He looked at her, his eyes mirroring the same look as that poor boy in the broken frame.
“A while ago, someone important to me said that sometimes a traumatic experience can be so intense… you block it out of your memory, but it still affects you in little ways without you necessarily realizing why… until you remember it again. So… is there anything you can remember?”
“I—…” Felix looked down at his hands, trembling and frailty and pins and needles wracking his body as he tried digging deep into the catacombs of his mind to find something. To grab onto anything that could get him to some tiny semblance of closure…
Then something came to him.
“I remember… something had made him upset, I was the cause of it and crying as he was yelling at me, he wouldn’t stop… then he said something I didn’t understand, and then I felt…” the tears streaming down his face now came down a look of horror, as if he realized something. “I-I-I f-felt…”
Ladybug didn’t say anything, growing more concerned.
“Nothing.”
“You felt…” Ladybug swallowed, a lump of familiarity rising in her chest as the image of the unsettlingly bright one eyed god Null flashed into her memories. “Nothing?”
“I-I stopped making noise. I stopped actively ‘trying’ to cry, if that’s even possible. I stood up… and my father ordered me to leave him alone, sit in my room, and not even think about bothering him again. I obeyed without question…” he ran his fingers through his hair, wincing as the bandages reignited a twinge of pain. “I… don’t remember what happened next, like I was… asleep? Like I had blacked out? I’m not sure… but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember a thing yet I somehow knew my father wouldn’t have time for me. So I never approached him again.”
“That… that sounds like…” Ladybug froze mid sentence, gasped, setting her cup down almost too quickly and pulling Felix into a hug as she spoke quietly. “Nullified…”
“Wha—?”
“You were nullified as a child, Felix… emotionally suppressed and forced into obedience by Null’s powers.”
Felix was hesitant to move, shaken to his core in a way that he’d never thought would come to him. The sick, twisted memories of obeying his father’s rules turned the chocolate sweetness on his tongue into a bitterness he’d thought he’d abandoned long ago, when he cracked open his shell and poked his head out into the bright wonders of… actually becoming friends with people who seemed to at least tolerate his company.
He returned the embrace, shaking in time with the sobbing he just couldn’t hold back anymore. He’d been a fool from the start, hadn’t he…
His eyes were clenched shut, but as their hug extended into what he thought was a minute longer than he’d allowed all his life, Felix felt the gesture grow in warmth as a pink glow passed his vision… had… had she—?
“I don’t know what to say except I’m so… so sorry, Felix…” a voice greeted his cries, so soft that the blanket still clinging to his back no longer warmed him.
“M…Marinette?” He sniffled, cracking his eyes open and meeting the familiar sight of her pink and black jacket. It really was her…
“I-I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to detransform, but you seemed like you really needed some company. I know Ladybug and you aren’t as close as you used to be, but…” she let go of him lightly, gazing at him with eyes that shared his fatigue and emotional exhaustion. “You and I are possibly the closest in our entire friend group… A-at least to me.”
Felix stared at the blanket draped around his waist, shuffling and fidgeting with his ring underneath it. Should he do it? Should he tell her…?
The weight on his chest began to lighten its load as Felix flung the blanket off himself, glancing over to the fridge before tapping his ring and stage whispering “Come on out, bud. It’s okay now.”
Marinette looked at him in confusion, slipping Tikki a marshmallow she’d grabbed when prepping the hot chocolate, then her jaw slowly fell to the floor as the broken, once crying mess that was Felix transformed into the suave Chat Noir right in front of her.
“Guess this kinda explains why I went silent on you, eh Spots?” Chat said, his grin evidently still holding back a dam of pain from bursting again. “I mean, how else was I supposed to deal with that revelation that my father was my arch enemy? Just- grin and bear with it while the news hounded me for interviews?!”
“That’s why you left…” Marinette repeated, her voice somehow getting even softer than before, like a fireplace crackling after you’d gotten home from a blizzard. “ That’s why you looked so upset when he was unmasked…Oh, Chat, I—!” Marinette collapsed into a half sensible sobbing apology.
Chat sighed and grabbed his mug, downing the last of sweet relief from his sorrows before wrapping the blanket around them both and putting his arm over her shoulder as Marinette shook from the realizations hitting her next, one after the other. Like some kind of twisted puzzle piece falling into line. “If I couldn’t have known, neither could you. If anybody is to blame for this, you’re not even close to being on the radar. Please, Spots… don’t try to apologize for things out of your control…”
“You didn’t deserve this…” she sniffed, burrowing her face into his collar.
“No. We didn’t deserve this… but it’s all over now. He’s where he belongs, and until I…” he swallowed in an attempt to compose himself, then continued. “U-Until I can make a statement publicly without having an anxiety attack while being questioned, I think… I think for now, our healing journey might just be getting started…and we’ll be alright.”
“Our…?”
Chat’s face almost instantly turned red. “I-I uh… even if there’s no more of him to fight, I still want to be with you…” he paused, not quite sure that sounded okay. “A-and not just because now I know you’re Ladybug! F-far from it actually… I want to stay with you because you’re you, Marinette…”
“What, are you proposing to me right now?” She teased, calming herself down the more she heard him speak.
“Too early?” His heart did somersaults thinking she actually wanted that, but he backtracked. Too soon. Not yet, but she didn’t need to know that. “Haha…I joke, but seriously, I enjoy your company too much to give up being Chat Noir. The mask has… kind of been the most vital part of how I even became friends with you, Alina, Alix… I don’t want to give that up since the city’s at peace.”
“Then don’t!”
“Huh?”
“If you don’t want to give that up, then I won’t force you, silly!!”
“You won’t…?”
“Duh!!” Marinette patted Chat’s shoulder. “You were chosen as Plagg’s wishmaker, so if you want to stay, go for it!!”
Chat’s ears fell at the connotation, unintentional or not, that had just been made. “Are… you going to stay?”
“Of course I am!! Why wouldn’t I…?”
“I don’t want you to stay if this isn’t what you want. If you’re staying just because I am…”
“I want to stay with you too, you goober!!” Marinette chuckled, getting up to rinse out their cups as Chat slipped free of his comfort shell.
“Pfft. Shall I expect you as a roommate, then? This place is kinda small for two, especially with just one bedroom.”
“You’re like if a string bean were human, I’m sure we’d both fit in one bed.”
Chat’s composure was a switch and Marinette just flipped it back to a flustered mess with a single sentence. Oh, how she set his heart on fire…
“Ehh, I mean don’t you think it’d be kinda weird? The two of us, staying here together… overnight?” Chat rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish and crumbling under the insecurity that it sounded childish.
“No…?” Marinette replied with a slight laugh to her tone. “It’s like a sleepover!”
“Oh…uh, a sleepover huh?”
“Have you… never had company this long?”
“Uhh…”
Marinette gasped, almost comically so and turned around to face him. “Felix. Am I hearing that you’re almost twenty three years old and you’ve never had a sleepover?!”
“Father always shooed them out before dinner, so…”
“That’s it, get comfy again, Chat. I’m giving you the best sleepover experience ever!!”
By the time they'd braided each other's hair (at Marinette insistence) and had a pillow fight, Felix was ready for something less energetic, so they built a pillow fort and made themselves comfortable there.
“A staple of sleepovers is games, Fe! For your first one I suggest truth or dare!”
“Isn’t that just… having a conversation but with extra steps? I try to be as honest as I can with you, you know. I don’t—” Marinette shushed him, snickering.
“Don’t let Richard’s anti-fun policies get you down! It’s just us here. Nobody’s going to ruin it.” She took a breath and smiled. “So, Felix. Truth or dare?”
“Mmm…” he hesitated. “Truth.”
“What have you always wanted to do but couldn't because your father didn't permit it?”
Felix took a moment, then an answer came to him. “Well, I’ve always wanted to try cooking my own meals. My father wasn’t bad at it… but the meals he was making were literally so bland!!”
“Did he even season anything?!” Marinette gasped.
“Very minimally. A light sprinkle of both salt and pepper at best. That’s why I knew one of the things I simply had to do after I became Chat Noir was have dinner that wasn’t made by him.”
“That’s why you’d come over to my place at night sometimes!!”
“His cooking was just so flavorless…” he took a moment to groan internally at the memory. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth!” Marinette replied, smiling brightly as she saw him participating.
“Do you feel any differently when you go around Paris as Ladybug?”
Marinette blinked, a bit shocked at the question coming up. “Yes and no? I mean, I’m not as clever as you, Mister jumps around in thigh highs.”
“Pfft. Me, clever, please. Dumb luck.”
“Those boots were a choice and you know it!!”
“They looked good though, didn’t they?” He winked. “ Felix wouldn’t be caught dead in those, sooo I figured why not?”
“A-anyway!” Marinette interjected, waving her hands to try and get back on track. “Being Ladybug out in public is… strange, I guess. I don’t have as drastic of a persona with the mask like you do, but it does get kinda frustrating when I’m surrounded by the media and I so badly wanted to tell them all to leave me the hell alone…”
“Politeness is a self-inflicted curse, indeed…” he sighed.
“I wanted to yell at them so much that day, y’know… when you ran off.”
“Oh… I never knew…”
“It only made not seeing you for the past few months even more difficult…”
They took a moment to let the emotions settle, then when the tides were calm once more, the game continued.
“You're up again, Felix. Truth or dare.”
“Truth.”
“When you told Ladybug you loved her… do you still feel the same way, now that you know it’s me?”
Felix tensed, trying and failing to bite back an answer that seeped into his blood and carved an ache of loneliness for god knows how long. “Yes. Of course it does!! I was just so in denial of how I really felt about Marinette at the time because Ladybug was almost always on my mind, but now that I know…” he smiled at the ground before redirecting the warmth to her. “I think it only made me fall harder for you..”
She nodded to herself, then Felix asked the same question. “Truth or dare?”
She hesitated, reaching out for him before pulling her hand back. “Truth…”
“Will this… change the relationship between us?”
“Yes…”
Felix’s blood froze, his mind once calmed turning back into a tornado of thoughts he couldn’t stop, an endless loop of anxiety dragging him back like the black hole it was.
But he would never drag her down that path with him. His worries were his to bear, and if he did find the right time to talk about it, he would.. but right now it wasn't that time. Not yet.
“Okay…” Felix sighed, tired from the emotions and tears and breakdowns pricking at his eyes. “Your turn…”
“Truth or dare. Please, please pick dare this time!”
“Dare…?” He sounded confused at the sudden change of tone. She really brushed that off so quickly, didn’t she…
“I dare you to kiss me.”
“Wh…what?”
He didn’t mean for that to come out of his mouth, he didn’t mean for her or anyone to hear it… but, regardless of what happened in the past, in all the rejection and heartache he swallowed in acceptance of simple friendships, Felix leaned in and angled Marinette’s chin up slightly, his lips mere centimeters away from kissing her… then he stopped, denial and doubt and worries about consent and the truthfulness of if this would be genuine or not completely fogged his mind…
Without saying a single word, Marinette reached up to touch his face, pulled in the last few centimeters to close their distance and dive into something he’d never thought he’d ever deserve after finding out his father’s identity… love.
Love that he’d never got to know his entire life, bursting and bubbling and melting into sweetness like the taste of their drinks still lingering in their affection now made manifest. This warm flickering in his chest was so new to him he would’ve teared up again had he not dried them out which had felt like an eternity ago…
And when they broke apart, the emotions stayed, shared between gazes into one another’s eyes and slowly reddening cheeks at the intensity of it all catching up to the present.
“S-so… uh…” Felix regretted speaking first the moment he heard how flustered he was. “That was…”
“Terrible? Too much?” Marinette interrupted, looking everywhere but at him.
“No, it was amazing!”
“It… it was?”
“Yeah… so, another round?” Felix asked, finally feeling his body relax and let out all the constriction of what had held him back.
Marinette smiled and fell backwards onto the couch. “Nah… I’m too tired…”
“Okay, so, should I just…head off to bed then or—” he shuffled a bit to move past her, but Marinette grabbed his wrist.
“No! You’re not going anywhere!” She said, puffing up her face in a mock pout. “Stay here with me.”
He blinked, then relented, positioning himself close to her and so close to her face that they could kiss again if they wanted… but both didn’t act, yet they didn’t mind the closeness.
“This is…” Felix swallowed, sleep overcoming his eyes. “This is scary for me… I don’t want to accidentally hurt you…”
“It’s a good first step though, isn’t it?”
“Huh…?” Perhaps he was too tired to process what she meant, but Felix couldn’t discern why.
“Our road to healing has to start somewhere, right? This is our first step, and it’s a good one...” Marinette also sounded tired the longer she talked, he could almost hear her swallowing yawns if they came up.
They laid there, unmoving and drifting off despite what they thought had been minutes, until Felix scrambled to hold onto Marinette when he nearly fell off.
“Mar, we both can’t fit here… I might fall off. We need to move.”
“I’m too comfy… I don’t wanna…”
“C’mon, Mar. Please get up… we’d have more room in bed...”
“Mmm…”
Felix sighed, shuffling out of the pillow fort and took it apart, careful to not disturb her. Then, when it was all put back, he bent down and gently picked her up like the princess she was, and carried her to bed.
Once he laid her down, Felix turned to go back to the couch, the memory of that kiss still lingering like the taste of chocolate in his mouth.
What a roller coaster of a night…
Something made him stop in the door frame dimly lit by his still-on desk lamp in the corner of his room.
He couldn’t leave her. Not after a moment like that… not after a night so soft and sweet and full of feelings and relief…
As much as his heart ached at the past and how scared he was of all the new things ahead of him, all the old things that he wasn’t sure would stop tormenting him, Felix wanted this.
He craved attention and contact and love and happiness all his life, but Felix’s heart collapsed into limbo under his own perceptions of selfishness and being undeserving of it… but this woman. Oh , this woman…
He didn’t want all of that from just anyone, he wanted it from her, more than anybody he ever knew. He fell for Spots back then, he’d fallen for Marinette now, and when he learned they were one in the same this whole time…? There was no more doubt in his mind…
He wanted her in his life… for more than just friends, just partners under the mask.
But it wasn’t time. Not yet. He wasn’t sure when it would be…
The most he could do was slip into bed next to her, gently putting his hand over hers and listening to her breathe quietly, before sleep finally claimed him too…
The room was silent, the tears from an evening of hot chocolate, revelations and comfort all but faded from their minds…
Soon enough, Felix had fallen asleep… and what stuck out to his tired mind before he began to dream was that he was far happier than when he’d woken up just the night before.