It turns out that the Butterfly wore no mask; Chat Noir found himself wishing that he did. If he wore a mask, then using his powers on him would be so easy. The man who had terrorized the city from a giant blimp certainly deserved it.
But the man who had picked Felix up when he was small with scraped knees, who had helped him with his homework? He couldn't deserve it. He couldn't deserve getting rust in his veins, having his skin rot away from crumbling bone and boiling organs.
"Foolish child," the Butterfly said, grabbing Chat Noir's hand from where it hung in the air after the older man had revealed his identity.
"You have the profile of a prince, and yet you relegate yourself to a common knight." His fingers grabbed the ring. Well, at least he couldn't pull it off. He didn't have Ladybug's miraculous. The two of them had gotten separated, and he had been the first to show up.
"You have no business with power like this."
The ring came off with a simple tug.
"Don't look so shocked," Gabriel said as the costume flaked off of his son's skin, leaving a scared child beneath. Exhausted, he dropped to his knees, shaking and shuddering in all the ways he tried so desperately not to.
"You already knew the key to releasing your miraculous was love, didn't you?"
Plagg certainly had an odd way of putting it. Despite himself, Felix hoped the kwami would be okay.
"And, Felix," his father continued.
"Noir? Noir, where are you?" Ladybug called out as footsteps seemed to echo from the hall.
"As your father, I love you more than anything else in this world."
Ladybug entered the doorway ready to strike when she saw her partner kneeling at their enemy's feet. All that was left of Chat Noir was the long hair and cat ears, and even those were flaking away. But they were enough for so many truths and lies to be revealed to her.
The ears were enough to hear her breath a simple "No" before they, too disappeared, leaving behind a boy who had traded a supernatural curse to one made of knowledge he wished he had never known.