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There is some comfort, Félix thinks, in the unrequited. He may love Paris, but Paris does not love him back.
What they do love is the face he wears. The hair he styles ever so carefully. The way he smiles at their admiration. The beautiful one. The approachable one. Representing everything good in the world.
London is the opposite. There, he is still not Félix, but instead the Fathom boy. Rich, stuck up, not worth anything more than what they say he is. If they can manage any emotion to drop into his cupped hands, it is pity. Half an orphan, the son of a dead father. Poor little rich boy. Must have been so hard for him to see his father sick for so long. Look at his hand. How sweet, that he wears his father's ring. That he keeps his memory alive.
Adrien Agreste does not need pity. Why would he? Isn't it remarkable, how he could have anything he wanted and still goes to school just like everyone else? That he stops to say hello to his fans? He's almost like a regular human being.
Almost, but not quite.
More than his family already, though. He is not the Agreste boy; he is Adrien. The opposite of his recluse of a father. Any adoration he receives is given straight to him, not filtered and strained until there's nothing but a drop left. Surely, he won't miss a sip or two.
It isn't as though Félix meant to dress like Adrien, really. Is it his fault that no one can tell the difference? They claim to love his cousin, but can't see through the face he shows them. So, Félix shakes their hands and smiles for their pictures. He signs the photos they thrust at him. And when the akuma attack starts—as they always do in Paris—he helps them get to safety.
Or he would, if Ladybug didn’t intervene.
She lands softly; he wouldn’t have even noticed her had heads not turned her way, accompanied by gasps, reverent whispers of her name. So adept at sneaking up on people. His eyes linger on the yoyo at her hip.
“Hi,” she says. Looking at him. “May I borrow you for a moment?”
The crowd around them disperses quickly—a command from Ladybug, adored even more than Adrien, is not one to be taken lightly—and then it is Félix and Ladybug. Alone. No one to overhear. To see.
So much he could tell her: a painting, a code, a feather, a Peacock. A name. Instead, he waits. Resists the urge to stiffen as she considers him.
Even now, after Félix knows about the Miraculous, about the magic they contain—knows the fact that Ladybug can’t be anything other than human under those earrings of hers—he cannot help but be impressed. Something about her: the way she holds herself, the set of her jaw. The blueness of her eyes, the softness of her skin.
Cousins, twins as they are, he and Adrien share more similarities than they do differences. The way emotions look on them. Anger. Grief. Love. Adrien’s bleeding into him, now.
There is no comfort in the unrequited.
As though she has heard his thoughts, something in Ladybug sags the slightest bit. A puppet with its strings cut.
“Ladybug,” Félix says carefully, “are you… all right?”
She plasters a smile over her face, as though whatever she felt before never existed. As though Félix doesn’t know a lie when he sees one.
“Sure I am!” says Ladybug. “But, you know, things could be better. That’s actually why I’m here. For you.“
For Adrien, she means. How many times can one person make the same mistake?
She steps closer, leaning in. From here, centimeters apart, he can see the smooth curve of her lashes, the pink of her lips. Once, when he was young, he and Adrien had snuck into Tante Emilie’s makeup room. Félix doesn’t remember that so much as what came after—when they were discovered. But what he does recall is how hard it was to paint his face with everything he’d found. The small mascara wand. The delicate lipstick. Most of all, he remembers what was needed to achieve the perfection that his aunt so often boasted.
A steady hand.
One that now holds a familiar collar out to him.
Félix stares at it for a moment, mouth dry. “Not going to ask this time?”
“Normally, I would,” says Ladybug with a laugh. As though he’s said something funny. “But, well… “ Her smile fades. “I can’t get ahold of Chat Noir, and I really can’t afford to waste any more time. I can do it alone, though, if you—“
“No,” he says, “I’ll do it.”
Félix reaches out, fingers brushing against Ladybug’s as he takes the collar. It’s strange, he thinks as he hooks it around his neck. It should be choking. It’s tight, a hand around his throat, but it doesn’t squeeze. Maybe it could, if it wanted to. Instead, it rests on his skin, close enough that he can feel his pulse thrum against it. As though it’s checking whether or not he’s alive.
The transformation words are savory-sweet on his tongue—raw meat, roasted carrots. When he opens his eyes, Ladybug is watching him. Closely. An unfamiliar look in her eye.
She knows him. She must. Too close, and now she’s peering into his eyes, hearing the taste of his words, his transformation, maybe, the hair or the face or him—
“Well!” says Ladybug, clapping her hands together. The sound echoes like a whistle. “Looks like nothing’s changed. You’re a natural, just like last time. You ready?”
What would she do, he wonders, if he said no? Rip the collar off his neck, watch his transformation fall? Head off in search of someone who is ready? Or would she take her chances with him: the bottom of the barrel, the slimmest pickings she has?
“Lead the way, Ladybug,” Flairmidable says.
There is, he is pleased to find, no Sentibeing accompanying the akuma today. Nothing for him to partake in the destruction of; his uncle is being kind today. No destruction at all, in the absence of Chat Noir. Just a butterfly to be purified.
Again, as they leap toward the site of the akuma, Flairmidable’s eyes drift to Ladybug’s yoyo. Purification. She makes it look so easy. A second, a blink of the eye, and it’s done. The cousin of Senticreation. Or maybe its twin.
Could he fit in that yoyo of hers? Would she let him in? Who would he be when she finished with him? Whose face would he wear then?
“—dable? Flairmidable?”
Slowly, he blinks. Shifts his gaze to the girl attached to the yoyo. “What’s the plan?”
“Distract the akuma,” says Ladybug. “Keep him facing away from me so I can get behind him.”
Simple, it turns out. Super strength, speed, agility. Enough to fight against anyone—dead or alive. But in the end, what Flairmidable does is what he was made to do: follow orders. And it may not be his ring on her finger, but it is her collar around his neck.
He doesn’t know what the akuma does—Ladybug is reticent with information, when she wants to be. Or maybe she just hasn’t noticed that she didn’t tell him. So used to her adoring fans bowing before her. Begging her for information, hoping and praying that she deems them worthy enough to bestow it upon them.
Flairmidable has no reason to beg, not when they both know what her answer will be.
Instead, he faces the akuma, who looks at him hungrily. A man, under all that power. Angry, certainly, to catch Monarch’s attention. At who? The world, maybe, for not giving him all that he feels entitled to. His wife. His son. Flairmidable, now, for daring to stand before him.
Distractions. Flairmidable’s good at that. Hold your cards close to your chest. Make them see only what you want them to; nothing more, nothing less. Smoke and mirrors and whatever else it takes for them to see you. You and only you. The you that you want them to. The longer they look up, the longer it takes them to remember the ring around their finger.
“I’ve always wondered,” says Flairmidable, pretending to study his claws. “Did you get to pick your own name? Or did Monarch have one all ready to go for you?”
“Shut up!” the akuma spits. “As if someone like you would ever understand. You heroes don’t know what it’s like.”
“Don’t we? What don’t I understand?”
Everything, apparently. Not just Flairmidable, no one in the world understands this man and his struggles. People talk about him behind his back. People insult him. Berate him. No one understands the true him.
Of course someone like Flairmidable could never understand. That doesn’t matter, though. Because what the akuma doesn’t know is that understanding has never been his job. Not when he has orders to follow. Someone to listen to.
And that someone is creeping up behind the akuma. Light on her feet. Like she’s used to sneaking around, not attracting attention. Avoiding a creaking step. Tiptoeing around the monster still asleep upstairs.
A hand swipes at him; Félix leaps back just in time.
“I’ll be damned if I let someone like you ignore me, too,” the akuma shrieks. “Look at me, you fucking brat!”
“Or what?” Flairmidable taunts.
Look at yourself, boy. You never know when to quit, do you? Need someone to teach you a lesson.
Time stops. The akuma raises his hand. Curls his fingers into a fist. Flairmidable’s seen this story—lived through it—enough times to know how it ends. Another scar on his heart, another reminder of what he is. What he’s worth. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t need any more reminders. As though he could ever forget.
A small part of him—the only part left, really—urges him to move. Isn’t this what he’s always wanted, to have the strength to save himself? Dog that you are, growl. Bite the hand that feeds you. That made you. That will kill you now, if you don’t move. Need someone to teach you a lesson. Yes, that’s it. He is always needing someone. Now is no exception. Teach him what it means to be hurt, killed, teach him when to quit—
Look at yourself. A command, so he does. His arms are up in front of his face, protecting him from a pain that does not come. Because Ladybug is there to teach him a lesson. Teach him what it means to be safe, alive, teach him to never quit.
Her yoyo is wrapped around the akuma’s hand, holding it back. Away from Flairmidable. She yanks, pulls the akuma back, snatches his glasses off his face. In one smooth motion, she snaps them over her thigh; at that, Flairmidable looks away, mouth dry.
He’s still looking away when she purifies the akuma and wishes it goodbye. He may not have been witness to this routine many times before, but he still knows it like the back of his hand. There is some comfort in routines, he thinks. They allow you to know when to look away. When to hide. On what days to wish for death.
Next, she’ll toss that Lucky Charm of hers up into the air, call for her Miracle Cure, and everything will be as it was. All mistakes—hers, Monarch’s, the akumatized man’s—vanish, and in time, everyone will forget. It will be as though they were never made at all.
Flairmidable isn’t looking at her, so he isn’t prepared when Ladybug deviates from her routine. When she steps closer to take his hands in hers.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “I’m sorry, I should have been faster.”
Monarch’s victim lies on the ground at their feet. His carnage still stains the city, waiting to be cured. And yet, it’s only Flairmidable who holds Ladybug’s attention. Only him she chooses to bestow it upon.
Slowly, he meets her eyes. Relaxes the hands embraced in hers. “He didn’t get me.”
“Still.” Now it’s she who looks away, jaw tight. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
She should be careful, or else he’ll start to think she actually cares about him. No, cares about Adrien, he reminds himself—as he has been doing so often lately.
“Then why did you?” Flairmidable asks before he can stop himself.
In answer, she disentangles herself from him—his hands are so cold now—and reaches for her yoyo. Every Miraculous, all the power in the world at her fingertips, and what she pulls out is a ball. Small, round, spotted. She holds it tenderly, as though it means something to her.
“This was my Lucky Charm,” Ladybug tells him. “When Chat Noir didn’t show up, I was going to take on the akuma alone. But then, well… I went looking for you.”
For Adrien. Flairmidable stares at the Lucky Charm, and he wonders. The magic must know his true identity, certainly. Then was it asking for him? Félix him? It was Ladybug who made the mistake—but was it a mistake at all? They beat the akuma. They won. Everything is fine.
Would Adrien have been the luckier option? Not for the akuma, but for Ladybug? The way she’s looking at him now, the imprint of her hands on his, all for Adrien.
Flairmidable drags his eyes away. “I should be going soon,” he says. “So, if you could…”
“Oh! Uh, yeah, of course,” says Ladybug, before tossing the ball into the air and calling upon her Cure. The ladybugs swoop by, wings brushing against Flairmidable’s cheeks as they pass. The softest of kisses.
He pulls the corners of his mouth up into a polite smile. “Thank you for thinking of me, Ladybug. It was great to work with you again.” He reaches up, then, to take off his collar—but before he can, her hands are there. Undoing the clasp, fingers brushing against his bare skin.
“Of course I thought of you!” says Ladybug, looking up at him. He’s never noticed how small she is. Huntable. Rabbitlike. “You did great, just like last time. Good boy!”
It’s as though she’s sunk her fingertips into his chest. Swung all his veins around like her yoyo. Look at yourself, Félix. Dog that you are. That she’s made you. She’s holding her fist out to you. You know what to do.
Good boy that he is, Félix touches his fist to hers.
It’s easier than it should be to take a page out of Ladybug’s book. To break from his routine, to start a new one. With the lights off, head under the covers, and his phone balancing on his chest, Félix presses play for the seventeenth time.
The Ladyblog footage is shaky at first, but quickly stabilizes. Zooms in until the scene is clear and the stage is set: Ladybug, front and center; both her supporting men off to the side. The video has no sound, which is the only reason Félix manages to hear the knocking. He drops the phone, pushing himself up and out from under the covers just as the door opens.
“Félix?” his cousin asks, poking his head in the room. “Are you awake?”
Félix blinks at him with his best you just woke me up look. “What do you want, Adrien?”
“Can I sleep here tonight? With you?”
He hasn’t done this in a while. The part of Félix’s brain reserved for all things Adrien runs through the events of the day. Makes a list of everyone who could have hurt him enough to have him coming to Félix, of all people, for comfort.
“Come here,” Félix says finally, patting the empty half of the bed. Adrien bounds over, not wasting a second.
It’s perfectly avoidable, what happens next. Or would be, if Félix were in his right mind. Weren’t so distracted. Hadn’t left his phone out for Adrien to find, to turn over, to press play on the video.
Technically, there’s nothing strange about it. Everyone in the city—and even those beyond—watch the Ladyblog’s videos, desperate as they are to catch even a glimpse of Ladybug. It isn’t unusual for Félix to be one of them. And yet. It’s as though Adrien is laying eyes upon his heart, bloody thing that it is.
“Is this from today?” Adrien asks.
He isn’t even looking at Félix, instead enraptured by the video. Félix cannot blame him.
In the silence, the video plays again. Again. Eighteen. Twenty-three. Twenty-seven. Félix has seen it enough times; as it plays, he watches Adrien. So close, heads pressed together, the light from the phone—Ladybug—illuminating them. Even before he looks, he knows what he’ll find on his cousin’s face: admiration, longing, plain as day. It’s never been a secret how Adrien feels about Ladybug.
But again, a deviation from routine. Adrien’s lips are pressed together, brows dipping to form an indent on his forehead. It’s an expression Félix has seen often on his own face before. Interest. Calculation. The feeling of being faced with a complex puzzle and knowing you’ve solved it.
“Looks like Chat Noir wasn’t there today,” Adrien says quietly. “It’s a good thing someone else was.”
Félix’s gaze slides to the video. To that someone else, back facing the camera. Freezing up the second the akuma turns to him.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Ladybug did all the work, didn’t she? It could have been anyone with her.”
Any other dog at his mistress’s side. All the world’s a stage, and Ladybug is the leading lady. The only constant.
Adrien’s turn, now, to study Félix. “Really? I don’t think so.”
“And what makes you say that?” demands Félix. Harsh. Defensive.
“Didn’t you see her face?” Adrien fiddles with the phone for a moment; replaying, fast-forwarding, pausing. “There, see? Look!”
Félix looks. He sees a dog. Neither wild nor domesticated. A mouth full of teeth he’s never learned to use. A neck, collared. And he sees a girl. Bothering, haunting, plaguing. Hounding.
“I don’t see what—“
“She looks happy,” says Adrien, “doesn’t she?”
The girl, holding his hands. Beaming. At him. Something fond in her gaze as she speaks to him. Good boy.
“I think her partner means more to her than you think,” says Adrien. “I don’t think he could have been just anyone.”
Distractions. Smoke and mirrors. Him, with his windswept hair and polite smile; fool that he was, he’d thought it was enough.
Out of the two of them, he knows now, it’s Ladybug who’s the better actor.
There is no feeling in the world quite like the reopening of a wound. Chewing on the furniture, pulling on the leash; all dogs have bad habits, and Félix is no different.
He tells himself he doesn’t care. He’s done being leashed. Done listening to other people’s opinions about his worth. What does it matter whether he’s good or bad? He’s not a boy at all.
There are more important things he should be doing. Jewelry he should be getting his hands on. And yet, whenever news of an akuma attack reaches his ears, he cannot help but mess up his hair, change his clothes. Casually wander around the vicinity of the akuma until a certain superhero runs into him.
This time, he thinks, she won’t see him. This time, she won’t give him the Dog. This time, she’ll see through him, that he isn’t the help, the partner, she believes him to be. This time, she won’t hold his hand, won’t brush her fingers against his neck. Won’t call him a good boy.
He has never been wrong so many times before.
An experiment of sorts, that’s all it is. But what conclusion is to be drawn if Félix is wrong every single time? If the wound never heals? At some point, Ladybug—her smile, her touch, her voice, her her her—must get tired of him, if not him of her. Out of the system, so to speak. On more than a few occasions, he’s eyed the ring on his finger, his and not his. Just a few words is all it would take; a slip of the tongue, really.
But then, what would he have left?
No. Enough is enough. He won’t be a slave to anyone, let alone himself. When the next akuma attack rolls around, Félix stays home. Locks himself in his room, resolutely stays off of any news sites. It’s fine. There are thousands of boys in Paris. Half of them are in love with Ladybug and the other half are liars. She can find some other fool to collar. To smile at and fawn over. Maybe that one will even deserve it.
When the knock comes on his window, Félix doesn’t turn around. It sounds again, more insistent. A figment of his imagination, or perhaps the wind. Certainly not worth any action—
“What are you—“ Félix whips his head around. “Did you just open my window?”
Ladybug’s pet cat pauses in the process of hoisting himself through Félix’s bedroom window with a sheepish smile. “Sorry,” he says, before clearing his throat. “I mean, uh, hello there, civilian! How are you today?”
While not as much of one as Ladybug, Chat Noir, too, is a mystery. Never so much as protesting when his partner collars a civilian. Always watching. Unsmiling, a stark contrast to his usual self—or at least, the self he pretends to be.
“Breaking and entering is a crime, you know,” says Félix, making no moves to invite him in. “Besides, shouldn’t you be fighting the akuma?”
Despite that, Chat Noir clambers inside and leaps on Félix’s bed as though it’s his own. Everything they say about cats, it seems, is true.
Chat Noir waves a hand dismissively. “Ladybug’s got it covered for a bit. Besides, I’m here for you.”
“For me? Why?”
In answer, he holds out his other hand. Something he carries in it, familiar in the way it makes Félix’s blood run cold.
Dog that he is, Félix bares his teeth at the collar. Retreats until his back is against the wall. “What are you doing with that?”
The smile vanishes from Chat Noir’s face, leaving behind an expression that looks uncomfortably like he knows exactly what Félix is thinking.
“She asked for you,” he says.
They say a cornered cat is more likely to strike, but it’s the cornered dog, Félix thinks, that people should fear.
“And you’re here to do her dirty work? Should have figured she’d have you under her thumb like this,” Félix sneers, eyeing the bell around Chat Noir’s throat with no small amount of distaste.
Chat Noir makes a sound low in his throat; a hiss, a growl. Good. Take that collar back to your mistress like a good little pet. Let Félix rot here in peace.
“I’ll have you know,” he says in a hard voice, “I belled myself. But I don’t need to tell you that—you collar yourself, don’t you?”
Under her thumb. Wrapped around her finger. Sitting at her feet. All the same, really. He could have said no, if he wanted to. And therein lies the problem.
Félix sighs, all the wildness leaving him. Nothing in him now but centuries of breeding. Training. Domestication. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I’m not the one she asked for.”
Chat Noir raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”
“Adrien’s not home right now.”
Slowly, Chat Noir rises from the bed, crosses the room—in the opposite direction from the window. Instead, toward Félix. He holds the collar out like it’s a bone. Like it’s a choice.
“She asked for you,” he repeats.
He presses the collar into Félix’s hand—or maybe Félix takes it from him, body moving before mind. Either way: the choice has been made. The collar comes to rest around Félix’s neck. Transformation. Purification.
“Come on,” says cat, “she’s waiting for us.” And dog follows at his heels.
It ends much like how it started: an akuma, whose name Flairmidable doesn’t know. Who could be anyone. But not him. He’s invited, wanted. Asked for. The magical ladybugs kiss his cheeks. Two fists touch his.
And then Chat Noir is gone and then it is Flairmidable and Ladybug. Alone. No one to overhear. To see.
“So,” she says quietly, “maybe we should talk.”
Talk. Flairmidable is good at talking. Or he would be, if the words didn’t stick in his throat. If Ladybug weren’t standing so close to him. He doesn’t know what he must look like—sad, pathetic, wet dog—but it’s enough to have her take pity on him. As she has done so many times before.
“Your costume looks different,” says Ladybug. “I like it.” She lifts a hand—hesitates, or maybe just wishful thinking—and reaches up to tug at one of his ears. Another favor she does for him: the feeling jolts him out of his stupor.
“Chat Noir said… you asked for me.”
“I did,” she confirms. Easily. As though she isn’t leaving claw marks in him with every word she speaks.
“So you—“ Flairmidable steps back, closes his eyes, pretends he didn’t see the flash of hurt on her face. “You knew it was me. The whole time. How?”
Ladybug doesn’t come closer. He doesn’t know if he wants her to.
“I ran into Adrien a while ago,” she admits. “But even if I didn’t… I don’t know. I could tell, I think.”
Tell them apart, she means. Pick her dog out of a pack. Recognize the fact that he’s marked her in turn. The dog chooses the owner, the owner chooses the dog. Which comes first? Which matters more?
“You knew it was me,” Flairmidable repeats. “You knew and you still… what’s wrong with you?”
She goes silent, then, and his blood thrums, impatient. Can she hear it? Feel it? The way she smiles at him is thin. Humorless.
“If only I knew,” she says, before taking one step toward him, and then another. “Do you know one of the most important things about being a leader?”
Flairmidable scoffs. “You’re asking me?” He gestures to it all: the collar, the ears, the unseen ring on his finger. Follower through and through.
Her cheeks pink. Still, she persists. “You have to know the strengths of your team. How best to apply them. Do you know why I asked for you, Félix?”
His name on her lips. His turn, now, for his cheeks to burn. He doesn’t nod, doesn’t shake his head. Couldn’t move even if he wanted to.
Had she ever called him by name before? Was it always him, changing his hair and his clothes, playing a game he didn’t know he’d already lost?
Ladybug pokes his chest gently. So close to him now, too close. She knows him. She must. “It’s because you listen.”
Harder to breathe, now. She steals his air like she steals his peace, the way she says his name as though it’s her own, asks for him as though he’s already hers.
“Any idiot could do that,” Félix gasps. “Any dog could do that.”
A hand at his neck. Trying to loosen his collar. Body moves before mind, and it’s him, now, grabbing her hand. Stopping her. Chat Noir was right: Félix collared himself. Only right that he decides when to take it off.
“I don’t think so,” says Ladybug. It would be so easy for her to wrap her hands around his throat. Squeeze. Brand him. “Not many people do what you do.”
“And what’s that?” Lie. Fail. Monster—
“You trust me enough to listen.” In his hands, hers trembles ever so slightly. “Chat Noir told me once that people need a leader. But I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s the other way around: a leader needs their followers. People who trust them enough to follow.”
Collared, but not leashed. Nothing keeping him but his own desire to stay. Nothing but trust in his mistress.
“If you thought I trusted you,” says Félix, scrambling for control, “then why the compliments? Why did you call me a…”
Good boy.
Her fingers are on his throat. Can she feel him swallow? Feel his pulse thrum? Panting, drooling, tail wagging.
“Huh?” In her confusion, she makes to pull away. He tightens his grip. Just enough pressure to keep her where she is. A choice. “Why wouldn’t I—“
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You were there. Isn’t that enough?” And then, softer, “A good leader knows what her people need to hear.”
Her people, her pack. A cat, already. A dog, now.
Ladybug’s other hand comes up—careful, cautious—and rests against the side of his face. Touch light, like she’s not sure he’ll let her stay. Asking for permission. Offering a choice.
Good boy that he is, Félix leans into her touch.