It's been almost a year since the last chapter. Updates will resume at least once a month or so. If it isn't working on another fic taking my time it's real world stuff and trying to make progress on my life and hopefully get into the work field I'm aiming for.
I have also decided that the story will finish at chapter 30, so I gotta make the remaining chapters really stupid and worth it.
Season 6 came out since the last chapter, but since this is an AU the status quo is staying the same. Though there is a latecomer who wants to move the nonexistent plot along...
Felix tapped his foot impatiently, constantly checking his watch (It's a Rolex!) every thirty seconds. "Where in the world are you, cousin?"
"Felix!"
The boy finally heard his name being called and looked over to see his near-identical cousin running towards him. While Adrien was all sunshine and smiles, radiating the energy of an animated princess, Felix might as well have a perpetual cloud of gloom and frowns hanging over his head. "Hey Felix, sorry I'm a little late." Adrien apologized.
"A little-YOU ARE FOUR HOURS LATE!" Felix swore time moved so slowly that it felt like he'd been waiting 352 days.
Adrien blinked in surprise. He took out his phone and checked the time. "Huh… look at that." He WAS four hours late. "Yeah, that's my bad. I got sidetracked with hiding the Miracle Box. I've got custody of it for the next week." Being co-guardians with Marinette meant they took turns keeping the box at their houses. The box was empty, of course, but a big ladybug-shaped thing would definitely raise suspicions if his dad or Nathalie ever found it lying in his room.
Pinching the bridge between his eyes, Felix had to give Adrien some leeway for getting caught up in official Miraculous business. "That is an acceptable reason at the very least." It also gave him an opening to talk with Adrien about something important. While he was contractually bound to not give away Hawkmoth or Mayura's identities, there was one vital piece of information he needed to share… and if it accidentally outs his uncle as a jewelry-obsessed lunatic, then it's a bonus. "Adrien, I need to-"
"Hey, sorry I'm a minute late." A female voice interrupted Felix. To his surprise, Marinette Dupain-Cheng came running up to meet her boyfriend. "I hit just about every stoplight from my house to here." The girl was only slightly out of breath, superheroing really improved her stamina.
"It's fine, Marinette. I only got here like a minute ago." Adrien addressed his girlfriend, unaware of how his cousin was staring at them.
"What are you doing here?!" Felix demanded. His cousin confusedly pointed a finger at himself, silently asking if he was talking about him. "No, not you! Marinette!"
The bluenette was unfazed by Felix's outburst. "We were supposed to have a date last night, but I had to call it off to help my parents. Adrien invited me to come and join him this afternoon for a… what did you call it?"
Adrien grinned. "A friend-plus-girlfriend-not-quite-a-date-but-more-than-a-normal-hangout." Catchy title.
"And you didn't think to tell me?!" Felix resisted the urge to strangle his kin.
"I sent you a text." Adrien showed the text chain on his messages to Felix, and noticed a small error. "... I forgot to hit send. Yep, this one's on me again." He was not having a good day with checking his phone.
Felix smacked his hand onto his face. "Look, it's sweet that you two are a couple, but I really wanted this to be just me and him today." She might be Ladybug, but he couldn't be sure if she could be trusted with the big reveal he had to tell Adrien.
As it turns out, the lack of trust went both ways. "Felix, whatever ulterior motive you have, you can say in front of both of us. After all, we're teammates, unless this is something you can't share with everybody…?" His trial aside, Marinette still had her suspicions about the new peacock antihero. If he was still keeping secrets, then she had to look out for the group's safety.
Of course, this information was not something Felix could share with 'the peanut gallery' he'd gotten roped into. He had to back down for now, and wait for an opportunity. "It's already bad enough I've been dragged into whatever ludicrous team this is, but can you lighten up on the suspicion already? I'm stuck with you all against my will and my sanity can only take so much. Last week you thought I wasn't 'participating' enough, so you made me do errands with Nino!"
CUTAWAY TO
Argos and Carapace carried recyclable grocery bags with them across the rooftops. After a trip in their civilian forms to the hardware store and a supermarket with a sale on cantaloupe, they arrived at their destination, the sight of which caused Argos to drop his bags in disbelief.
"Isn't she a beaut?" Carapace fondly caressed his 'carapult', a creation of his own mind colored a blinding shade of green and covered in random stickers. "Come on, we gotta get this recalibrated and test launch some produce!"
BACK TO NOW
"Where does he even store that monstrosity?!" Felix hadn't even been on the Miracusquad a whole month, and already he felt his life expectancy had been drastically reduced. He previously had the refuge of living in London full-time to escape the idiocy, but a certain someone (Nathalie) convinced his mom to rent a condo in Paris to be closer to her nephew and help her son make new friends. He was trapped.
Rather than answer his questions about the carapult, Adrien tried a new tactic to get his cousin to loosen up. "Look, I know you really wanted to spend time with me-" At least he HOPED that was why Felix had been upset. "And I also know that you and Marinette don't see eye to eye yet."
"I met him while he was impersonating you!" Marinette reminded her boyfriend.
"But I think if we all spend some time together, we'll all become closer!" Adrien's cheesy power of friendship ploy failed to get anything more than a glare out of Felix. "... And if you do this, I'll give you Kagami's phone number."
… Darn, Felix was hooked by his bait. "Fine. What are we doing, anyway?"
OXOXOXOX
A bike ride through the park sounded nice, and there were tandem bicycles you could rent for the day. However, tandem bicycles only had two seats, which led to-
"How am I LITERALLY your third wheel?!" Felix never thought those unicycle lessons would pay off, and here he was riding a unicycle that had been crudely attached to the back of the tandem bike the couple was riding. He didn't even want to ask where they got the rope and duct tape to connect their cycles at a moment's notice.
Adrien pedaled in the front seat, while Marinette sat behind him and in front of Felix. The bluenette barely turned her head around while she addressed the blonde in the back, (not out of any personal feelings regarding him but because she had to keep her eyes forward to prevent a crash.) "You said you could ride a unicycle, that gives it to you by default."
While one blonde boy pouted, the other beamed. "I think it's really cool that you know how to ride one of those! And this way we can all pedal!" Adrien's initial plan was to tie a wagon to the back and have one of them ride in it, but he liked this much better. "Feel that wonderful breeze blow through your hair and the wind whip at your face!"
Marinette raised an eyebrow. "I would feel that if we were moving faster than a snail." Despite the triple-wheeled mode of transport they were driving, their speed was laughable. Three wheels meant everyone had to coordinate to move, and Felix's inclusion interrupted the couple's usual synchronization. If they were going uphill, this would be a normal pace. But they were on flat ground. Maybe even dipping downward a tiny bit.
Pedaling this three-wheeled makeshift ride was exhausting. All three of them were getting worn out and they only barely crossed a mile. Marinette couldn't take it, there had to be a way to speed them up. Her eyes darted towards a handful of different objects and obstacles, her mind illuminating them with her own 'Marinette vision' patterns. "Hmm, that could work…" For her first step, she reached one hand under her seat and untied the rope keeping Felix tethered to the bike.
"Hey-"
"Don't whine, this will only take a few seconds." No one stopped pedaling while Marinette leaned over the side to get a better look at where she needed to re-tie the rope. "Tikki?" The tiny kwami flew from her pouch. "Would you please tie this in a knot around that chain?"
Tikki grabbed the rope and giggled. "Sure!" She quickly completed her task and got the rope tied back to the bike, though it was hooked between the bar and the bike chain.
"Thanks Tikki, now this may get bumpy for a moment." Marinette warned the boys while she adjusted her back to sit up straight. They passed underneath a low hanging tree, where Marinette held up her hand and snatched a loose branch from above. It was firm in spite of how easy it was to grab, and Marinette stuffed the flimsier end into her sleeve and leaned back down, a little more than before, so she was closer to the ground. She managed to reach the stronger end of the branch against the ground and pushed against it every couple of seconds.
It was like paddling a canoe; Their speed soon reached an acceptable level. Even Felix felt a little fun now that they were picking up the pace. Alas, as when all great ideas seemed to be working without consequence… then came the consequence. Marinette realized she couldn't really stop using the branch to push them along. It reached down on automatic and pulled her arm along for the ride. The Ladybug heroine had to yank her arm back to get it to stop. Doing so caused the bike to make an unintended stop.
Felix and Marinette braced themselves for the sudden jerking of the bike. Adrien did not. The force sent Adrien flying over the handlebars, and he soared several feet until he hit a bush and tumbled into the dirt. His cousin and girlfriend ran over to check on him, worried that he could have gotten hurt by that. "Adrien! Adrien, are you hurt?! Did you break a bone?! DO I NEED TO CALL AN AMBULANCE?!" Marinette freaked out.
Adrien did not verbally respond, further causing them to worry. Then he shifted his body onto his side and moved one arm over his back and bent one of his legs over the other. Felix realized what he was doing and shook his head in disbelief. "Are you posing yourself into that meme?!"
"Someone take a picture." Adrien requested, with a pained tone of voice. His present company concluded he was fine and his kwami fulfilled his photo request.
OXOXOXOX
After a thorough discussion on why Adrien's dad should never see that photo, the trio got hungry. Luckily, Marinette had received a picnic basket packed up with goodies from her parents. Felix wasn't a fan of sitting on a blanket over the grass and eating food without a proper plate or silverware… but he couldn't resist the smell of pastries.
"I packed some extra snacks for our kwamis apart from the basket. Duusu likes almonds, right?" Marinette double-checked with the tiny blue creature poking out of Felix's vest. She'd only barely got to know the peacock kwami, who's Miraculous had recently rejoined with almost every other in the Chinese Miracle Box. Like a good guardian (or a team mom), she kept notes on what each kwami's preferred choice of food was.
"I do love almonds!" Duusu flew out of her hiding spot and sat with Tikki and Plagg as they enjoyed a makeshift charcuterie board. The peacock kwami eagerly scarfed down some salted almonds. "You're the best co-guardian ever!"
Adrien almost agreed. "While she is amazing, don't forget which co-guardian turned his bathtub into a kwami water park for a day." That had been a big hit with the little gods. The only one who hadn't enjoyed the water park was his own kwami, Plagg. It was too wet and too many kwami's were in his space!
Marinette opened up the picnic basket to start feeding the human beings at this picnic, but the moment she opened it up and saw the contents, she turned almost as red as her superhero suit. "Oh boy." She muttered to herself, then addressed the boys. "I told my parents this was just a date with Adrien because he didn't tell me about Felix until I was getting ready, and the food was already packed so…"
"Is there not enough?" Adrien worried. As much as he loved pastries, he'd give his share to his cousin. For Felix had been deprived of baked goods for far longer than he had… he assumed. Unaware that Felix's mom held no restrictions on what he could or couldn't eat.
The ladybug wielder grinned awkwardly. "There's plenty but, er… see for yourself." She unpacked the basket and, with the first heart-shaped quiche with 'Marinette + Adrien 4EVER' spelled out with strands of Parmesan crusts, it was clear that this had been made as a romantic lunch for two.
The whole spread of pastries could rival a valentine's display. Everything was heart-shaped, or had their likeness baked into it. It was way too over the top for a regular picnic and downright bizarre for the unintended third person joining them. Felix held a croissant that had his cousin and his girlfriend's faces drawn in chocolate icing, and WAY too realistic. "Adrien, do you mind if I eat your face?"
"Go right ahead." Adrien already bit into a cookie shaped like himself. Marinette would have objected, but she had no room to argue since she was eating a Marinette-shaped cookie.
Felix was a polite eater, but he took a big bite to eat the Adrien picture in one chomp. The aghast reaction from Marinette was worth the lapse in manners. "You taste soft and flaky." It was pretty good. Adrien was a top-tier croissant. Still, it felt very out of place for him to be eating a romantic picnic alongside the intended couple. Despite how he felt, Felix was not one to bow out and leave. He wasn't only doing this for Kagami's phone number (though it was a huge bonus), if Marinette left the cousins alone for enough time, he could talk to Adrien about what he wanted to tell him. Fortunately, an opportunity presented itself.
"AGH!" Marinette ducked to avoid a pigeon and accidentally splashed her drink on her outfit. "Oh no, I need to clean this up before it stains."
Adrien helpfully pointed out the nearest bathrooms. "There should be napkins and cold water to get that out."
Marinette thanked her boyfriend and hurried off to save her outfit. It would take Marinette a couple of minutes to clean up, leaving Felix and Adrien by themselves. The perfect time to talk to him about the truth of their births. "Adrien? Can I speak to you for a moment?" Felix got the attention of his cousin, who'd finished eating a slice of the quiche.
"You already are." Adrien pointed out.
"Not like-I mean an actual conversation!" Felix wouldn't let himself get annoyed. He had to tell him. "There's something big that you need to-"
"NO FAIR SUGARCUBE!" The cat kwami loudly whined. "Why do you get four cookies and I only get three slices of cheese?!"
Felix mentally cursed himself, he'd forgotten the kwamis were still there.
"It doesn't matter how many individual pieces there are. All our snacks are a handful," Tikki reasoned. "Are you going to get mad at Duusu for having like ten almonds?"
Duusu gasped and clutched the last almond close to her. "Leave my almonds out of this!"
"Adrien!" Plagg desperately looked up to his partner. "You understand why I'm upset, right? Fewer pieces mean I finish faster, so they're still eating when I'm done, and I have to watch them savor their snacks!"
"Plagg, you eat so fast you always finish first." Adrien reminded his kwami. Felix knew he'd lost his chance to speak with his cousin, he'd been sucked into the kwami drama. A resolution could rarely be found in a timely manner. And even if they did get back on track, Tikki was here. While Ladybug was the authority of the Miracusquad, he wasn't ready to let her in on this just yet. Partly because Felix had yet to determine how she'd take the news that the two of them were senti-
"I EAT SO FAST BECAUSE CHEESE IS TOO GOOD! I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF-it might actually be a serious problem." Plagg continued to whine, interrupting Felix's train of thought.
Once Marinette returned, she was treated to the sight of an impromptu cheese intervention for Plagg. Tikki was telling him that the first step to improvement is recognizing and admitting that there is a problem, while Plagg sobbed into Adrien's pants leg. Duusu hoarded her last almond and hid in Felix's sleeve, and her partner gave up trying and ended up losing track of the conversation and ate another heart-shaped pastry. Dang, Marinette's family made good bread.
OXOXOXOX
Today would absolutely have been a truly romantic date, if it was actually a date and not a friend-plus-girlfriend-not-quite-a-date-but-more-than-a-normal-hangout. Bike-riding in the park, a picnic intended for two but ended up being three. All that was left was a beautiful scenic view and a loving atmosphere to make it perfectly romantic… as romantic as it can be with a couple and one other guy.
"Adrien, dear cousin. Do you really think this is necessary?"
"Everyone loves the ferris wheel, Felix! … Unless you're afraid of heights… are you?"
"No, but I am mildly concerned by people staring at me-the sole single person in line."
In a winding line filled with couples, the group of three stood out. Marinette and Adrien were linking arms, making it obvious who the tagalong was. The peacock anti-hero complained some more. "And haven't we had enough wheels for today? We already crashed a bike."
"We didn't crash-" Marinette corrected him. "We made an emergency stop and Adrien was… accidentally launched." She'd apologized, but her boyfriend was more amused by the incident. She chalked it up to cat's having nine lives.
Adrien added. "And the odds of me getting launched from this wheel are very low."
"... But not zero." Felix assumed he or one of the other heroes had been launched from a ferris wheel at least once. It was dumb and dangerous, which meant it was inevitable that it had happened… Miss Hound and Viperion would later confirm they'd been sent flying off this particular ferris wheel.
The trio reached the front of the line where the ride attendant was waiting to collect their tickets. "Welcome to our 'sunset sweethearts special' on the Roue de Paris-" The attendant noticed the odd number of passengers for the next gondola. "Oh uh, is this…?"
Felix gestured to the other two. "They are the couple. I'm being dragged along with bribery." He shoved his ticket into the attendant's hand and boarded the ride, followed by Marinette and Adrien, who sat on the opposite gondola.
The doors closed, and the ride went into motion. Their kwami's came out of hiding to admire the view out the window. The blue one's eyes shimmered. "Paris is such a beautiful city. I've been here for a while and have barely seen any of it."
Marinette, keeping an arm around Adrien, gently addressed the kwami. "I know you can't tell us who Mayura was, but did she at the very least treat you nicely?"
Duusu nodded, not troubled at remembering her former holder. "She did. N-" Bubbles came out of her mouth when she unintentionally tried to say Mayura's real name. "Mayura really has a loving heart. She only worked for Hawkmoth because she really cared about him… until things went south."
Across the city, Nathalie sneezed. She had the strangest feeling someone was talking about her. Hopefully it was all good things, unlike her present company-
"Nathalie, why can't I log into my [NonBrandNameSocialMedia]?!" She heard her boss call out from behind the closed door next to her desk.
"You've been suspended for violating terms and conditions due to your last post threatening to blow up Cat Noir's house for calling you an old man on international television." Nathalie answered matter-of-factly.
"WHAT?! You are my secretary. Why did you not notify me!?"
"I am only the secretary to 'Gabriel Agreste'. Word has it that Hawkmoth's 'assistant' quit." She took pleasure in the annoyed grunt her passive-aggressive comment got out of her boss. Mayura 'divorcing' Hawkmoth was one of the best choices she'd ever made.
Back in the actual plot, Marinette was glad to hear Duusu hadn't been treated badly. "That's a relief… but what about Nooroo?" He was the one kwami from the Miracle Box she and Adrien hadn't met. And his situation as Hawkmoth's kwami was distressing.
Duusu lost her smile. "Nooroo is stuck with a horrible man. He's crazy, power-hungry, and a threat to the safety of the whole world."
Back in the Agreste mansion, Gabriel was stuck emailing tech support. "Suspend me if you dare, but DO NOT BLOCK MY RAP VIDEO!"
In the Ferris wheel gondola, Adrien cringed. "He sounds horrible. I feel so sorry that you had to live with him." Felix kept quiet, fully aware of the irony.
The peacock kwami regained her smile. "I know we'll free Nooroo someday. You'll take down Hawkmoth and keep the butterfly miraculous from being used for evil again." She flew away from the window and snuggled onto Felix's shoulder. "And we're on the team now! We get to fight against evil and no more sentimonster's will be made to hurt people!"
"Come to think of it-" Adrien realized something odd after that sentence. "You haven't made ANY sentimonster's, Felix. In battle, you only use your fan. Why don't you ever use your power?"
Of all the subjects to be asked about, this was the one that really ruffled Felix's feathers. "Sentibeing's are living creatures! I can't bear the thought of creating life and then taking it away after a battle! They are just as real as any human being-and they have every right to live their life without someone controlling everything they do-" Felix stopped, taking in the shocked stares from the rest of the gondola's occupants. Duusu gave him a pat on the cheek, fully understanding the significance of the subject her partner valued so strongly.
With a huff, Felix turned his head away. He didn't want to see their judging reactions and have them tell him. "You are absolutely right." Wait, hold up… did Marinette just say that he was right. Felix turned his head so fast he almost got whiplash.
The holder of the ladybug miraculous spoke sincerely. "It doesn't matter how they are born, sentibeings are alive and deserve the same rights that we all have. To be honest, I was worried about how you would use your powers in battle. Once I realized you weren't creating sentibeings to fight for you, I was relieved… though I still have reasons to suspect you."
After a moment, Felix smirked. "I am also relieved… that the co-guardians aren't so naive as to automatically trust a newcomer such as myself." He spoke out loud. Inside, Felix was really relieved that Marinette respected sentibeings and did not view them as tools. That was one less hurdle he had to be concerned about.
Adrien, as much as he cared for his own family member, had also been wary of having him as a teammate. "Given your track record, and how you came to wield your miraculous, we really needed to keep a close eye on you. Though we already know if you did go rogue, we could totally kick your butt." Heck, most of the Miracusquad already kicked his butt two chapters ago.
"You don't have to remind me." Felix grumbled.
"Yeah, but that's why I want you to spend more time with us. So we can learn to trust each other, and so you can show us your good points." Adrien knew his cousin could be good, or pleasant to be around at the bare minimum. He'd be friends with everyone if he could just open himself up more. Sure, Felix had said almost everyone was a lunatic, and he was forced to cooperate with a legion of untamed teenagers that were kept together by a single brain cell of common sense named Marinette, but that was just because he hadn't gotten to know them! Felix would one day see that they were a ragtag super-powered team of friends who let small incidents spiral way out of their control and their tiny gods who would run off in a trenchcoat or cheat at arcade games to win a box of candy… you know this description isn't much better.
Rather than comment that he'd barely seen anyone else's good points, Felix paused to ponder his possibilities. He'd planned to only share the truth with Adrien, not because of any familial love or trust, but because he was directly involved. However, new details were coming to light. Both of the co-guardians had proved to be… one of the co-guardians had proven to be a leader trying to keep a bunch of teens coordinated, and the other built a water park in his bathtub for kwamis. Marinette bore the burden of sanity and Adrien was willing to help him earn the trust he did not deserve. Perhaps attempting to only share his knowledge with Adrien had been where he'd gone wrong, if Marinette shared his views on sentibeings and truly loved his cousin, then she could accept them for what they really are. It was settled, he'd tell them both.
"I still don't have any desire to befriend anyone else in the group-other than Kagami-however I will allow myself to put some faith in the two of you." Felix's declaration earned a little gasp from Duusu, who gave him an encouraging look.
The couple blinked in surprise. Marinette honestly thought he'd continue being hostile for a while. "Uh… thank you?" She leaned onto her boyfriend's shoulder and whispered. "This isn't a trap, right?"
"I have no idea." Adrien whispered back, fearfully. He wasn't sure what scared him more, Felix lulling them into a false sense of security before springing a trap on them, or Felix being completely sincere with no strings attached.
Felix, who could hear what they were whispering, held back his annoyance. "Which is why-" That came out angrier than he intended. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Which is why I need to tell you that I-"
The gondola suddenly jerked and came to a full stop. The door opened, and the trio realized the ride had ended. "We hope you enjoyed your ride today!" The attendant cheerfully bid the teens farewell as they exited the vehicle.
That was rotten timing, but Felix could continue speaking once they were away from prying ears. Once he deemed them a suitable distance from civilians, Felix tried to go from where he left off. "Right, as I was trying to say, I-"
HONK
Countless car horns blasted from the nearby street, drowning out Felix's voice. All three covered their ears and tried to see the source of the honking. Plagg flew out and above to see what the commotion was, snickering once he found the cause. "Guys, it's (snicker) it's a traffic jam!"
Mr. Banana's latest merchandising deal with fruit farms across the region had hit a speed bump. Or at least the truck driving several dozen boxes of fresh fruit hit a speed bump. Splattered blackberries, pomegranates, even a few guavas littered the street after being ejected from the loose truck door. The sludgy mess of produce stopped traffic in the middle of a four-way intersection. Strangely enough, there were no bananas.
Felix's eye twitched. Why in the world did THAT happen?! Something that strange had to be staged. Because unless an akuma showed up, there was no sensible explanation for such a bizarre, random and pun-derful occurrence. "I'm going to try and ignore that-because I need to say that-" The sky above them suddenly went dark, and a mildly ominous cooing came from above. "Oh what now?!"
A flock of pigeons was blocking the remaining sunlight, and a single man stood as their leader. "ROO-ROO! It is I-Mr. Pigeon-back once again to protect the lovely pigeons of Paris from people standing in their way as they fly at low altitudes!" The akumatized villain laughed evilly.
Below him, Felix gaped in disbelief. "Please tell me this is a joke…"
Unlike their newest teammate, Marinette and Adrien were totally unfazed by the supervillain and calmly dragged Felix under a tree before a pigeon pooped on one of them. The bluenette sighed. "You really are a member of the team now, you got the obligatory fight with Mr. Pigeon." With no enthusiasm she transformed. "Tikki, spots on."
"Wait… this guy has been akumatized before?!" Felix hated his uncle, but would he really akumatize a pigeon man more than once?
"Plagg, claws out." Adrien similarly transformed with a lack of urgency. "He actually holds the world record for most akumatizations. I think this time makes eighty-six?"
"Eighty-seven actually." Ladybug corrected her partner.
"EIGHTY-SEVEN AKUMATIZATIONS FOR THAT!?" The peacock hero shouted, enraged by the very notion that this… this… thing would return more than once! "Duusu, spread my feathers!" Felix became Argos in a flash of blue light.
Mr. Pigeon took notice of the other avian-themed super running out to confront him. "Oh look at this! Another fowl foe for us to finish! One who lacks an army of birds under his reign!"
Argos had it. "There is a limit to how much nonsensical crap I can deal with. The very concept of you is an atrocity and YOU CONTINUE TO EXIST IN SPITE OF THAT!? THIS IS THE BEST HAWKMOTH COULD COME UP WITH?! A GROWN MAN COMMANDING STUPID PIGEONS?!"
"(Shocked gasp) My pigeons are not stupid! Observe-" Mr. Pigeon stood on one leg and flapped his arms like a bird. "ROO COOOOOOO!" His pigeon army shifted from a basic flock formation, into a perfect recreation of a missile. "No other type of bird can be trained to fly together to form a missile! We will ride the air current and launch the pigeon missile into the heart of the city, then we shall lay waste to the surface-bound populace and make this a city for the birds!"
He'd done it, Mr. Pigeon single-handedly (except for the dozens of pigeons) pushed the boundaries of disbelief so far that Argos instantly moved him to the number two slot on his most hated people list. "... I'm going to kill him." The anti-hero charged at the abomination to all sensibility, leaving his teammates behind to watch the fight.
Ladybug raised an eyebrow. "Should we stop him from actually killing Mr. Pigeon?"
Cat Noir shrugged. "If it looks like he is seriously going to commit murder." They watched as Argos ran right into a wall of pigeons and madly swatted them away. "And I doubt he'll make it that far."
The scuffle of birds blew feathers from both the pigeons and Argos in the co-guardian's direction. A pigeon feather blew past Cat Noir's face and caused a short sneezing fit. Ladybug pushed it away, though a peacock feather from Felix's fan took its place. "Are these real feathers? They don't make you sneeze." Ladybug noticed.
"Huh." Cat Noir checked, testing the feather by rubbing it on his face. "The feather is real but no allergic reaction."
"Strange, I wonder why?"
"Maybe it means I'm a sentibeing?" Cat Noir joked.
"Get real, that's as likely as Hawkmoth living in your attic."
If only Argos hadn't been too fixated on Mr. Pigeon to hear that exchange…
