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When Argos drops in through the skylight, Marinette doesn’t even have the energy to be surprised.
A dream, she thinks, for how all of her dreams lately have been this vivid: fever-directed movies that she has a front row seat to, indistinguishable from real life. Watching herself fight akumas. Telling Adrien the truth. And now, Argos, standing over her bed.
“What are you doing here?” she murmurs. The words scrape against her sore throat, making her wince.
“Rena sent me,” he says. “For the earrings.”
There are a number of things Marinette could say in response to that. I could have sent them with Tikki. Why would Rena send you of all people? But when she opens her mouth, all that comes out is a cacophony of coughing. Violent, raw—something wet and heavy in her chest that grows louder and more painful with each palpitation until she’s nearly doubled over in bed. When it finally subsides, Argos is so much closer than he was before. Reaching for her, concern bleeding through. Under her eyes, he schools his expression into something more neutral. Too slow, Argos, Marinette thinks. You're losing your touch.
But you, Marinette, are one to talk. Taking your earrings off. Losing your touch in another way; because with no earrings, you are not Ladybug. Right now, you're hardly even Marinette. All you are is too sick to function.
"Tikki," she rasps, and immediately the kwami is at her side. Fussing over Marinette nonstop the past few days, and only agreeing to take a break if Marinette had promised to call for her when she needed something.
I have really good hearing! she'd assured. Never mind the fact that Marinette didn't know just how helpful Tikki would have been if she actually did need something—Tikki, who is, at best, half the size of the water glass that sits on Marinette's nightstand.
"You okay, Marinette? What's—" Tikki freezes when she sees Argos. Words dying in her throat, her holder's sickness passed to her. Some kind of silent argument takes place between them, one that the kwami ends up on the losing side of.
Argos flips his hand upside down; still outstretched, but palm now facing upward. Awaiting an offering. Under two pairs of watchful eyes, Marinette drops the earrings in his hand. No refusal. No hesitation. Slowly, his fingers close—enough time for her to snatch them back. She watches them disappear silently. Swallowed up by the purple of his suit.
"It won't be for long, Marinette," Tikki says gently. "Just until you're all better!"
She looks at Argos, daring him to disagree, but he doesn't seem to notice, all his attention still on his hand. The hesitation that Marinette hadn't felt shows itself on him: his brows, his shoulders, the set of his jaw. As though he wants to take the whole thing back. Throw the earrings her way. Leap out of the skylight the way he'd come. Hope, maybe, that she'd write the whole thing off as just another fever dream.
And maybe she would, if it weren't for Tikki as her witness.
"... She's right," Argos says finally. "It won't be for long."
A promise Marinette doesn't need, but appreciates all the same.
Job done now, she snuggles down further into her mountain of blankets, entirely ready to sleep for the next five to seven business days. But then, through the haze, he speaks.
"Duusu, fall my feathers," he says, and it's Félix, now, in her room, revealing the face she knows so well, even if it belongs to someone else. One of his hands reaches up to scratch at Duusu’s chin; the other hides the earrings away in his pocket.
"Tikki," he continues, "would you mind taking Duusu to get something to eat?"
Always loyal, kwami looks to holder for permission—though whether that's to follow the command given to her or to kick Félix out of the room, Marinette can't say. Either way, she nods. Tikki waits for a second longer before relenting. Without another word, she zips off downstairs, Duusu only centimeters behind.
And then, it is just Marinette and Félix.
She frowns. "What are you—"
"Your parents aren't home," Félix says, stepping closer. "And we both know Rena would kill me if I left you alone like this."
"I'm not alone, though. I have Tikki." For loyalty goes both ways, even if neither her words nor the way she says them has quite as much strength as she means for them to.
"Right. She'll forgive me, though, I'm sure, if I don't have the most faith in her caretaking abilities."
He leans in, then, to put his hand on her forehead. It's cool, pleasantly so; he, on the other hand, hisses.
"Are you— why are you so hot?"
The words spill from her mouth. "Are you flirting with me, Fathom?"
His hand practically flies off of her skin, too fast for her to chase the touch. Silence for a moment, before he says, "I was referring to the temperature of your forehead." Words careful, clipped, as though he'd purposefully chosen them so they would be impossible to misinterpret.
"Yes," Marinette says, matching his tone. "That's what happens when you have a fever."
The impression, then, that she's said something wrong; one that comes so often when she's speaking to him. Sometimes, she wonders if he's always just waiting for her to mess up. Step out of line. To admit who—or what—she thinks of him as.
"I wouldn't know," he says after a moment. "I've never had one."
"...Oh," says Marinette.
Because I'm not human, Marinette, his eyes seem to add. Despite the way that you try so hard to see me as one. Liar.
But if she were trying, then shouldn't it be harder to do so?
Something she's never thought about before. And now, she tries to think back to all those days she'd looked longingly down at Adrien's empty desk. A photoshoot, he'd always said the next day. Or, A clothes fitting. A rehearsal. Never sick. She's never so much as seen him cough. Except—
"But what about Adrien?" she says without thinking. "Doesn't he have allergies?"
It takes a moment for her brain to catch up with her mouth.
Feathers.
"Oh," she says again.
Oblivious to her embarrassment—or, in a rare moment of pity, choosing to ignore it—Félix pulls out his phone.
"Have you eaten anything?"
She has, hasn't she? A vague memory of choking down a stale croissant, thinking it would help settle her stomach. She was wrong, but it was an attempt, at least. Marinette nods.
"Recently?" he presses.
She should be annoyed at him getting on her back like this, she knows—and she would have, if this wasn't what she was so used to. Her parents are out of town for the next few days, and she hasn't told them she's sick because she knew that they would have made a fuss, insisted on coming back home immediately. A war within her now: part of her wants to tell him to leave and that she can handle all of this on her own, but the other part of her, the rational part, knows that to do so would be far too hypocritical of her. She, who so often tells him that he's part of the team. That a team means relying on one another. That her role as leader doesn't mean she's any less human than the rest of them—even him, the first to argue that he isn't a human at all.
A shiver wracks its way through Marinette's body. Félix pulls his eyes off his phone, resting them on her.
"You should be tucked in more," he says, almost chastising.
"How would you know?" she grumbles.
In response, he turns his phone screen her way. It's just a second, and she can hardly focus—it's taking all of her energy to be present here for this conversation right now—but she catches a glimpse of the headline. Seven Things to Do When a Loved One is Sick.
She didn't see anything.
Marinette fiddles with the covers, feeling a bit like a fish flopping around on land. She's too tangled up to make any sort of effort in moving the blankets, but it's good enough, she supposes. Apparently, though, her new nurse disagrees. He clicks his tongue in disapproval, before reaching out to straighten the blankets. Smoothing them out so that they cover her from head to toe. Tucking the edge closest to her underneath her chin. His fingers graze her throat.
The first article he'd clicked on, probably. Things he would have done for anyone.
Another coughing fit wracks her body; when it's over, she's hunched over, half sitting up. Nose running, voice hoarse. Hair sweaty. Still in her pajamas.
"Bet you're glad you've never gotten a fever before," she mutters.
"I am, actually," Félix says without missing a beat. "You look awful."
Ridiculous, that she'd thought he was flirting with her before. She doesn't want him to, she reminds herself. That should go without saying. Without thinking. It’s the fever, that’s all. This isn’t her.
“Stay here,” he tells her. “I’ll be right back.”
Marinette lets her eyes flutter closed, listening to the sound of his receding footsteps as he leaves the room. Her room. Her house. Her Miraculous was nothing, but it’s him here, taking care of her, that’s too much for her to handle. Because, as she cannot help but think of constantly, there is no alternative. She’s never been to his house, his room. Never stood over his bed, wondering how best to take care of him. Loved one. Everything about him, it seems, always comes back to the play he’d put on for her. Is this how he’d felt then? Or the other way around, maybe—was the play to him like the Miraculous to her? Something he’d trusted her with, no second thoughts?
She wonders what it means when you can trust someone with the big life-changing—life-ending—things, but find it hard to do so with the small things. Wonders what it means about the two of them, their relationship. Wonders what it means that she thinks of that specific word when it comes to Félix.
When he returns, it’s with his arms full: balancing plates, cups, whatever get-well-soon care package he’d managed to scrounge up. Never once losing his grip even as he comes through the trapdoor. Which skill of his, Marinette wonders, awards him that much dexterity? The kung fu, the horse riding, the chess. The presence of a loved one.
“Don’t get up,” Félix says, anticipating her next actions, the offer of help that’s already halfway out of her mouth. And, with it, more questions: the desire to ask him exactly what made him think he could poke around her house without permission. But the strength of his voice and the look on his face is just another kind of ring around a finger, because Marinette does as told.
A single breath’s time before he sits gingerly on the edge of her bed. As though waiting for her to tell him off. Odd, she thinks, that this is where he chooses to show his hesitation.
He holds a thermometer between his fingers. Raises it to meet her lips. She wraps her fingers around his wrist—in the process of stopping him, one thing she can manage to do herself—but in the end, she doesn’t. Odd, she thinks, that this is where she chooses to not show her hesitation.
Marinette’s never liked getting her temperature taken. Her mom would always tell her to sit still, to be patient, to not cross her eyes and try to look down at the number slowly creeping up on the little screen. But now, she doesn’t move. Watching Félix watch her. Hearing him breathe when she does. She parts her lips. He pushes forward.
“They say this has to go under your tongue,” he murmurs. “Is that true?”
She nods. His hand follows the movement, taking care not to jostle the thermometer. Her fingers hold him in place.
“Does it hurt?”
Her imagination, maybe, the way he seems to push it in just a bit further. Pressure underneath her tongue. Sharp. This time, Marinette shakes her head. The sound of breathing, his and hers, echoing in her ears. Watching Félix watch her. His eyes darting down to her lips. When the thermometer beeps, they flinch in unison. She’s still touching him; she drops his wrist as though he’s burned her. Why are you so hot? Félix slides the thermometer out of her mouth and frowns at the number on it like it’s a particularly difficult puzzle he’s trying to solve. Familiar. The same way he so often looks at her.
Marinette clears her throat, a motion that makes her feel like there's a knife scraping at her skin. Or maybe just the tip of that thermometer again, him pushing it so deep into her skin that it pierces through. “What does it say?”
“Does it matter?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “How do you feel?”
“Not good,” she admits.
“Then there's your answer.” Setting the thermometer aside, he jerks his chin at the teacup that he’d set on her nightstand. “Drink that.”
It's good—hot and sweet and soothes her aching throat. Practiced. Instinctive, the image that comes to mind: Félix, making this same tea for his mother, another loved one to take care of. As though to prove her point, he reaches out to push her bangs back from her forehead. Tender. With two parents, two opposing paths to follow, it’s only more evidence of which one he’d chosen to follow.
That’s all it is. All it means. Nothing more, the fact that he’s being so soft with her.
Gently, he pushes her head back until it's leaning against the headboard, and he places a cool cloth on her forehead. Arranges it until it sits just right.
“Drink,” he says again.
Her eyes are closed—when had she… ? Damn you, Fathom. Only because she’s sick that she’s been so swept up in everything he’s doing, in him. Marinette opens her eyes, not hesitating to fix him with a look that clearly says Are you serious.
Félix blinks at her. Do you have a problem?
Holding his gaze, she leans forward just enough to sip her tea. Resists the urge to smirk when the carefully arranged cloth slips off her forehead almost immediately.
“Oh,” he says, and his face takes on a pinkish tinge.
Marinette’s turn, now, to take pity on him. Without a word, she adjusts herself so that she’s set up the way he wanted her, perfectly poised to reap the benefits of everything he brought her. The look on Félix’s face as he watches her, it’s as though he’s mentally taking notes, seeing what she does and committing it to memory. As though he’ll need this information again.
The last of his offerings is simple, but no less useful: a slice of toast, covered generously with jam and butter. Easy to eat. Prison warden that he is, he watches her until she takes a bite. Another, and another. Until she’s chewing on the last bite, washing it down with the final dregs of tea. He’s still sitting so close to her. The heat from her skin—if there wasn’t a blanket between them, would he be able to feel it?
Would he want to?
“You don't have to stay, you know,” Marinette says. “I’m sure you're... busy.”
He doesn't look impressed. “If you're trying to get rid of me, there are better ways to do so.”
“That’s not it! I’m just—”
“You might as well say you don’t want to get me sick,” Félix continues, and now there’s a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
If she had to boil him down to one word, she’d always thought it would be unpredictable. But. How simple it is to pick these emotions out of him, intensity and annoyance and amusement. And something else, something she’s uncomfortably close to being able to recognize, as he’s handing her a glass of water and two little pills. Small as earrings as he drops them into her cupped palm. As he stares her throat, watching her swallow.
Are they thinking the same thing? The way he'd pushed the thermometer down her throat. Almost like it was his fingers. The way she can still feel the ghost, the imprint of them. His touch on her forehead. When the earrings return to her, she wonders, will they miss him? Knowing now what his skin feels like, would they miss how safe they'd felt in his pocket?
“If you need anything,” Félix says, voice rough, “call me.”
“I don't have your number,” says Marinette quietly. Exhaustion rears its head, a wave that threatens to drag her under at any moment. Already, she’s overexerted herself. Because of him. With him.
He holds out his hand, expectant. Awaiting another offering. “May I?”
It takes her a moment to find it; she’d tossed it somewhere in her mountain of blankets after texting Alya back. When she does, she unlocks it blearily before handing it to him. Too quick—he stares at something on the screen for a beat too long. A ripple of anxiety loops around her neck, but no, she’s sure that the last thing she’d had open was her texts with Alya. So many precautions she’s taken to keep all her secrets: saved under a different name, all communication regarding the Miraculouses hidden away from the rest of her life. No connections between Rena and Alya. Nothing to worry about.
Félix must agree, for eventually, he starts to tap on the screen. When he places her phone back on her nightstand—careful, so careful with it—he gathers up the empty dishes and heads for the trapdoor. Everything squared away, no sign that he was ever even here.
“Félix,” says Marinette, “wait.”
Félix waits.
“Thank you. For… for taking care of me. I know you would have done it for anyone, but I appreciate it.”
The words taste more sour than they should. It’s all right, Marinette. You’re giving him an out. It’s what you should do. What he wants you to do.
He turns, just enough that she can see the set of his mouth, his jaw. Hard. Almost like she’s said something wrong. She wonders if the words had gotten addled somewhere in her fever-ridden brain, if she’d meant to thank him but actually said something like, Get out of my room. Or something else. The opposite.
“Get well soon, Marinette,” he finally says.
And then, he’s gone. Everything as it was, except his number in her phone. If she needs anything, he’s just a call away. What does anything consist of?
Marinette reaches for her phone. Unlocks it. Finds what he was looking at. She was right: her texts with Alya, contact name successfully obscured.
Want me to stop by and pick up the earrings? Alya had asked earlier. I can help take care of you, too!
Don’t worry, Marinette replied. I know you’re super busy. I’ll just send them over with Tikki tonight.
She’d sent it and fallen asleep without waiting for a reply. But one had appeared about an hour ago. Moments before Félix had dropped in, quite literally.
Girl, actually, Argos is coming over. I know, I know, I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted. He seemed really worried about you.