Pack

Félix remained stone-faced as the door of his father’s study closed behind him with an ominous click. He had to make sure his composure didn’t break. He knew what he was here for.

Or, rather, he knew what he had been here for. Now that Adrien presented as an Omega and some weird Alpha chick was hanging around, Félix was beginning to rethink how long this trip was going to last.

Instead of taking the seat Marinette had occupied earlier like his father obviously expected, Félix leaned against the wall of windows and crossed his arms. “You’re really letting some random chick court Adrien?”

His father sent him a pointed glare. “Mlle. Dupain-Cheng has demonstrated a remarkable amount of self-restraint on multiple occasions. She has been the class president for three consecutive years. She maintains a respectable grade in most of her classes. She babysits the daughter of a well-known newscaster and works in her parents’ bakery. Her teachers give her glowing reviews. While young, she is a talented designer, and I believe she will be an asset to the Agreste brand. What more do you need to approve of her?” His final question was a sneer, like, Not that she needs your approval, anyway.

But something caught Félix’s attention. “An asset to the Agreste brand? You’re going to hire her?”

“If the courtship is successful, she and Adrien will inherit the company.”

“And you don’t think she might be using the courtship to get the company?” Félix demanded, fire flooding his veins. “You said she’s a designer, right? She could be using Adrien to get a leg up in the industry!”

Gabriel scowled. “Nathalie has done some inquiring for me, and several of their classmates and teachers can all attest that the girl is head over heels for him. She’s talented enough to get hired as she is right now, so she doesn’t need to use Adrien.”

“Why not hire her now, then? You need an intern, right? You always do.”

“Because I want her to succeed.” His father stood, slowly, and folded his hands behind his back. He began slowly pacing in front of the portrait of his wife, like he always used to when he found himself on a particularly interesting train of thought. “I see a lot of myself in Mlle. Dupain-Cheng. She has the talent and the passion. But she needs competition. She needs to have to work for something against people on her level instead of her artistically inept classmates. I’ll recommend her to any fashion school of her choice, but after that it’s up to her to make it.”

“She still feels off to me,” Félix complained. Then, a new thought dawned on him. “Why are they set to inherit the company instead of me? I’m the oldest.”

Gabriel halted in his pacing and did a slow about-face to settle his eyes on Félix. “I was under the impression you wanted nothing to do with my name when you ran off to China and didn’t answer any of my or Adrien’s calls, so I wrote you out of my will.”

Félix took a long, long moment to think. Then, he said, “What would it take to get be back in your will, then?”

After Félix was called into M. Agreste’s office and Adrien wandered back off to his room to rest (with a plate piled high with, strangely, camembert cheese), Bridgette found her way back to the room she and Félix shared the previous night and opened up a Skype call with her fathers. It would be around eight in the evening in Shanghai, and she wanted to catch them before they went to bed.

Her Omega father, her bàba, answered the call. She took in his comforting face, smeared with what appeared to be leftover flour from making dinner, and his heavy-set frame. “Hello, Huiqing,” he said in Mandarin. “How is France?”

She sighed, letting herself lean back against the pillows. “Fé’s house is very big. His childhood bedroom is bigger than our living room! And his father is very intimidating. Not even Fùqīn is as intimidating as M. Agreste!”

“I heard my name!” her Alpha father, her fùqīn, called just a fraction of a second before his handsome face filled the screen. “Do I need to fly to Paris and growl at Félix’s father so he’ll leave you alone?”

Bridgette let herself laugh. “I think you’d end up in jail and sued within an inch of your life before you could make a sound, Fùqīn. M. Agreste is a very influential man.” Then she added, “Besides, I would rather my relationship with my future father-in-law is a positive one.”

“Whatever you say,” her fùqīn said obligingly.

“Oh! I ran into Jing! She’s courting Fé’s little brother. Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

Her bàba levelled a gaze at her. “The two of you spent half her trip to Shanghai talking about your similar taste in men. It’s not that big of a surprise.”

She stuck her tongue out at him playfully.

“Forget all that,” her fùqīn interrupted. “When are you and Félix coming home? I know you’re being careful, but I’d rather you be married before you pop out any kids.”

Bridgette felt her face heat up and she knew, from experience, that her flush extended up to the tips of her ears and down to her chest. “Fùqīn!”

“He’s right, Huiqing,” her bàba said. “The sooner you come home, the sooner you can get married. You waited years for Félix to bond with you; I thought you’d want to get married right away.”

She sighed. “I know Félix isn’t very open with his emotions, but you should have seen him with his younger brother today. It’s obvious how much he missed him. I’ll stay however long it takes for Félix to reconcile with his family.” She let a soft smile cross her face. “Félix doesn’t do things by halves. We’re going to have the rest of our lives together, so I don’t mind waiting a while longer for him to be ready.”

Bridgette knew it was a risky thing to say to them. They’d been frustrated with her pining for years until Félix finally decided to court her. For that reason, when the phrase “You’ll spend your life waiting on that boy,” came out of her bàba’s mouth, the cadence of the words were familiar to her.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” she answered easily.

A quick, quiet rap on the door made her whip her head around on instinct to stare at the white wood. “Gotta go,” she said to her fathers, smiling at them through the laptop camera. “I love you. Talk to you soon!” She barely let them say their own goodbyes before she x-ed out of the call and shut the laptop. “Come in!” she called to whoever was on the other side of the door.

To her relief, it was Félix. His expression was thunderous when he first opened the door, but it softened when their gazes met. He made his way over to their bed and let himself fall on it, bouncing her slightly off and making her giggle. “I’m guessing the conversation with your father didn’t go well.”

He groaned and shifted his body until his head was in her lap. “No offense, Bri, but I don’t really like your cousin.”

Undeterred, she let her fingers card through his pale hair. “Care to explain why?”

“She jumped down my throat for nothing, for one thing.”

“Jing - sorry, Marinette, her French name is Marinette - has always overcompensated when she felt threatened. I’m not excusing her behavior, of course, but explaining it.”

“Did you know she was in love with Adrien?” he asked accusingly.

She shrugged, pausing her hand motions a little to switch to scratching his scalp. “I knew she liked boys with light hair and eyes. We would fawn over the same magazines when we got to visit with each other. I never knew it was your brother’s influence, though.”

“Apparently she’s been in love with him for years, and their entire year knows about it.”

“Yes, Félix, I heard,” she said mildly. “I was in the room with you earlier, remember?”

“Did you know she wants to be a designer?”

She scoffed. “Of course I knew. She spent half her first trip to Shanghai dragging me around the shopping district so she could sketch the different styles of clothes she saw. From what I’ve seen, she’s pretty good at it.”

“My father says that if the courtship is successful, she’ll inherit the company.”

Bridgette arched an eyebrow at the bitter tone in his voice. “I thought you didn’t want the company. You’ve never been interested in fashion, Félix. You want to be a journalist.”

“I know,” he growled, and while the sound was intimidating, Bridgette refused to flinch. She knew Félix wasn’t angry with her, so she saw no reason to be afraid. She resumed playing with his hair until he continued, “I’m just worried she’s using Adrien’s presentation to get the company and a trophy Omega. My father already seems to adore her, and I’ve never seen Adrien so excited to see anyone in his life, and even the Gorilla smiled at her; it’s like she has them under some sort of spell.”

“Or,” Bridgette interjected, “my cousin has my overwhelmingly charming genes passed down to us through our dear grandmother and was nice to them.”

Félix shuddered. “Your grandmother is the most intimidating woman I’ve ever met.”

“But you like her regardless, right?”

He gave no response.

“Anyway, Félix, it sounds to me like you’re just being a protective older brother, like any older brother should be. It’s natural to want the best for your brother, especially now that he’s entered a very vulnerable stage of life. Besides,” she added, “if she was really just going to use Adrien, she could have forced the Bond as soon as he went into heat.”

It was a sad truth of their world. Since Omegas had so few rights compared to Alphas and Betas, they were very vulnerable to rapes and forced Bonds, which would, more often than not, be seen as perfectly legal in the eyes of the law. A Bond was nigh irreversible, except for in extreme cases, such as death or medical intervention, which was still in the experimental stages and highly dangerous to the Omega.

Félix grunted, and Bridgette took that as a point for her. “I still just don’t like her.”

“Like I said, that’s probably natural,” she said warmly. “Give her time. I’m sure she’ll grow on you.”

“What makes you say that?” he grumbled.

“Because I managed to make you fall in love with me,” she replied lightly, leaning down to press a soft kiss to his lips.

Maligne stared, dumbfounded by the scene in front of her. Her best-friend-turned-idol was pointing a polka-dotted finger at Paris’s leather clad cat boy heartthrob and calling him “Adrien” and she had no idea what to do with this new information.

Judging by the way Chat Noir froze  up and went pale, Ladybug’s proclamation was true. Chat Noir was Adrien Agreste.

A grin slid across Maligne’s face. Oh, how delicious! As soon as she found out a way to keep running the LadyBlog while running around with Ladybug, she’d convince them to do an interview for it pronouncing Paris’s OTP was canon.

And as soon as they got their shit together, of course.

Trying her best to sound casual, Maligne cocked a hip and said, “It looks like you two could use some alone time. I’ll get a head start on patrol.” Then, without waiting for a response, she leapt from the tower to a nearby rooftop, giddy at the strength the suit gave her legs, and dashed off.

Now the trouble was focusing on her patrol instead of the possible make-out session taking place between Ladybug and Chat Noir.

...Well, now that she knew that Ladybug was Marinette and Chat Noir was Adrien, it kind of grossed her out, but she still couldn’t help but focus on it. She’d been rooting for both LadyNoir (as it was officially called in all the LadyBlog forums) and Adrinette (as she teased Marinette with on lazy days on her balcony) for going on four years now, and the idea that both of them were going to actually be a thing soon was both exciting and a little daunting. Deep down, she’d always been worried about how the relationship dynamics would change as a result of the newly budding romance.

If she was being honest with herself, that was part of why she’d been keeping Nino on his toes. She didn’t want too much to change. She liked the way their little foursome operated already, and she was afraid romance and/or sex would only complicate things, and she was scared.

She slowed to a halt on one of the many rooftops when her ears picked up on a noise. A masculine grunt and groan, the sound of flesh hitting flesh. Normal, mundane, violent crime. She could handle this. Maybe it would help get her mind away from scary thoughts of change.

She let herself fall into the alley below her, making sure her body spun just enough so she could worm her way between the attacker and the victim. It was a trick Ladybug had taught her during a mugging, and she found she quite liked the acrobatics of the move. Maybe she would have to take up an actual sport as a civilian so she could do more things like that outside of the suit. A quick gut punch and groin kick later, the attacker was scampering off, tail between his legs, and she was about to go after him when she heard a familiar voice go, “Holy shit.”

Maligne whipped around and came face to face with a bruised Nino. His glasses were askew and his clothes were rumpled, but he didn’t seem to have any major injuries, so there was no need to get him to a hospital. Instead of looking scared of her, like many other civilians had, Nino had a look of awe on his face, and it sent butterflies through her stomach.

She knew she had to say something. She opened her mouth to say something.

Instead, she fucking screamed.

When the sound finally ceased, Maligne clamped her mouth shut, felt her face heat up, and jumped right back up onto the roof to get away. As soon as she had put a good distance between herself and the alleyway, she ducked behind a chimney and released her transformation to glare at Trixx. Sure, Marinette said that their kwami’s animal traits would bleed into their real life, but she didn’t think something like this would happen. “What was that?”

For her part, Trixx looked absolutely jubilant. “That was beautiful!” she replied. “That’s the most beautiful scream I’ve heard in awhile! I’m sure your feelings got through to him.”

“What?” Alya asked again.

Trixx cocked her head. “If you don’t scream, how do humans proclaim their love for their mates?”

Alya’s face heated up again, so much so that she was sure it could have lit the way for Santa’s sleigh. She tried to respond to Trixx’s question, but she couldn’t make her mouth work. For the first time since she found out her best friend was Ladybug, Alya was speechless.

She heard Trixx laugh, a small, bell-like sound, and Alya decided to feed her stale fruit for the next week instead of the fresh stuff. Payback’s a bitch.