Things Fall Apart
It was a dreary day, as one imagines a London day in January to be—devoid of colour and either raining or threatening it. As luck would have it, rain was beating down on the windows of the old school building, rattling the intricate panes.
The school was old and sophisticated, which was probably a deciding factor for most of its pupils and their pretentious families. Its exterior maintained the appearance of an old castle, and the interior continued that theme, complete with an abundance of plants in the cafeteria, in an attempt to bring the outdoors indoors to make the wet winters more bearable. Made of stone, it did little to keep the cold out, but the students in their uniforms complete with thick suit jackets rarely complained. All the furnishings were made of dark oak, all the books in their library jacketed in muted tones with gold script. It was a traditional environment, and expected its inhabitants to behave as such. The best thing to be in Meliora International Academy was rich. The second-best thing was smart. The worst thing you could be, in the eyes of the staff, was unruly. Unruliness was simply not tolerated at Meliora. And that was fine by Felix. He was rich and smart.
Felix Graham de Vanily was seated at his usual table in his usual spot in the cafeteria as per usual, eating his usual lunch that consisted of one espresso and beef Wellington, seated right next to the window and right beneath a banner bearing the school’s crest and motto: disce quasi semper victurus vive quasi cras moriturus. Most unusually, however, he wasn’t currently reading a book and imagining himself in new worlds. He had every reason to want to live in the present; good looks, a hefty trust fund, intellect to rival, yet as all boys with intellect, he concerned himself with all that he could not see, and he could usually be found immersing himself in classic literature. But not today.
Lunch was the furthest thing from his mind. It always was.
Felix drummed his slender fingers, the sort that had never so much as suffered a splinter, against the table, going over the recent turn of events in his head.
His uncle was dead. As was his aunt, although he’d known that. His uncle’s creepy assistant, Nathalie, had been arrested on multiple counts of conspiracy to commit murder as well as multiple terrorist charges. She was being held without bond until her trial. Felix was confident they’d never be hearing from her again. His cousin, Adrien, was the sole benefactor of Uncle Gabe’s will, something Felix wasn’t planning on contesting. The will hadn’t even appointed Adrien by name, it had been drawn up before his birth.
‘Any surviving offspring’. Yeah, Felix could only imagine that being another punch to his cousin’s gut.
As the will stated, Adrien was made head of the Agreste brand, but he wasted no time in passing off control to his father’s second-in-command. While he remained set to receive an obscene fifteen percent of the company’s profits annually, it had been clear from the get-go that Adrien neither wanted to nor had the ability to run a multi-billion dollar company. However, he did keep his legal status as one of the company’s heads, allowing him to veto or add any ideas he saw fit. Felix imagined his choice had something to do with his girlfriend, Marinette, and her penchant for fashion. He also maintained his majority shares, despite the fact that their worth was currently taking a nosedive. That was to be expected. Felix was sure the company would recover, hence why he hadn’t instructed his financial advisor to sell his own shares.
And of course, there was the other situation. Adrien Agreste was now Adrien Agreste-Parker. Adrien wasn’t actually calling himself that, but after a series of posts to his instagram account of him with Peter, Peter’s aunt, and Tony Stark captioned ‘the Parker family’, Felix had begun to think of him that way. The adoption had come as a surprise to Felix, who had always expected that Adrien would come live with him were anything to happen to Uncle Gabe, but Felix was quick to see the merit. Had Adrien become a part of his family, Felix would’ve forced him to move to London, something that definitely would not have boded well with his cousin. It seemed as though Peter had fallen in love with the French city just as much as Adrien had, and the two would be spending the school year in Paris and travelling back to New York for holidays.
Deep, deep down, Felix was actually happy for his cousin. Finally, Adrien was getting the complete family he deserved. From what Felix had heard, briefly, from Peter was that Adrien was planning on putting a couple million towards renovating the Agreste mansion into something more livable and something that would “suit all their needs”. Peter had said this with a wink, although Felix hadn’t been sure what he’d been winking about.
Nevertheless, after the funeral, Adrien and Peter had flown out to New York to finalize the adoption there and they weren’t due back for at least another week. And so, Felix was dead bored and stuck in London.
“Felix?” A soft voice reached his ears and pulled him back to the present. A girl with long, dark hair and eyes so blue they were almost black stared at him, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
Felix pursed his lips, frown deepening. Bridgette was the thorn in his side, the everlasting headache, but she was also the hitch in his throat and the pang of his heart. Not that Felix would ever tell anyone that. In truth, he didn’t even realize it himself. Almost all his emotions were mistaken for annoyance by his own conscious.
“What?” He snapped, eyes roaming around the cafeteria. The cafeteria had once been a dining hall, made to entertain hundreds of guests, so Felix had plenty to look at. Anything besides Bridgette as she opened her juice box. Why was she drinking a juice box anyways? They weren’t children. Felix wanted a juice box.
“Are you thinking about work again?” It was the excuse he always gave her. When he was upset, it was because of work. When he was too busy to hang out, it was because of work. When he was avoiding her because of the way she made his heart flutter, it was because of work. Work, work, work, work.
When, in reality, it was never because of work.
His job was laughably easy. Spiderman, although never easy to boss around, complied pretty well with whatever press conferences Felix set up, although he’d claimed to be taking a ‘little vacation’ after his fight with the Papillon (aka Uncle Gabe), where he’d fought alongside Ladybug and Chat Noir. Felix hadn’t heard from him since, and it had been three weeks.
In fact, none of the heroes had been seen since the press conference to assure the civilians that the threat of the Papillon would no longer loom over Paris. Chat Noir hadn’t even attended it. But other than that, they’d been rather vague about what had gone down inside the Agreste mansion that had led to the Papillon’s death.
“Yes, just work.” Felix took a deep breath and forced himself to look at Bridgette again. She was still smiling at him, her eyes still holding their ever-present sparkle. How annoyingly consistent she was with her emotions.
“Do you want to go get tea or something after school? I found the cutest little café bookstore and I think you’ll love it!” Her eyelashes fluttered slightly, and Felix felt a sudden heat rise up his neck. Was his collar always this tight? Maybe his tie was restricting his airway. Bridgette was really getting on his nerves today.
“No,” he said simply, pulling out his phone, ignoring the way her face fell.
“‘No’ as in you don’t want to, or ‘no’ as in you hate café bookstores?”
Felix took a slow, restrained, sip of expresso as he opened his contacts app. “I have to go make a call.”
It was a short walk from the cafeteria to the courtyard as Felix pressed the ‘call’ button under Spiderman’s contact, back hugging the side of the building so that the roof’s overhang protected him from the downpour. As it had the past hundred or so times Felix had tried to call him in the past week, the call went straight to an overly cheerful voicemail, far too jolly given the circumstances.
“Hey it’s Spidey! I’m just taking a quick little break from saving the neighbourhood! Gotta personal life too, so I’m just catching up with that. Leave a message after the tone if you’re Ladybug and I’ll get right back to you! If you’re Felix, take a break, man. Sleep some, maybe, it might do you some good. Catch you later!” An effervescent melody followed, and Felix gritted his teeth.
“It’s Felix,” he said, feeling rather stupid. “I’ve taken enough of a break; I need to know when you’re planning on coming back into the field. People are starting to wonder what went down in the Agreste mansion, and the only ones who can set the story straight are you and your band of merry men. Call me back, or I’m going to start bugging Peter Parker, and that’s a threat. Bye.”
Classes were boring and tedious, as they usually were, and Felix worked his way through an English essay on a book they’d read in class of which Felix held little regard for. His teachers appeared to have an exceptional talent at figuring out the precise stories he did not want to read and assigning it to him. Anything that had an overarching theme of true love or anything of the sort was off the table. Love was to him as a gnat was to a dog, which is to say bothersome but not necessarily worth a shred of mind.
Only once classes ended and Felix was permitted to leave did his day begin to improve. He got into his privately chauffeured car as his classmates hailed down cabs, and he pretended not to see their grins as they met up with friends, undoubtedly preparing to go off on some new adventure.
It was a short drive to Felix’s house, yet it took them right out of London and to the outskirts of the city. After news of their uncle’s arrest had reached his mother’s ears, Ms. Graham de Vanily had insisted on moving, lest the press begin to hound them. And so they’d moved out of their rich neighbourhood and relocated in a large house on a sprawling property with an orchard filled with every fruit one could grow in that environment.
The house itself was older, Victorian style, and came complete with an added-on conservatory and solarium, which was where Felix endeavoured to spend as much time as possible. He wasn’t an outdoorsman by any means, but he was content to sit inside and look out at the world and wonder how he’d ever managed to fall in love with the land and sky in such little time.
Windows let in plenty of spare light, dark oak and muted tones alluding to the fact that the house had been well renovated in the recent past, giving it more of a dark academia style that Felix lived for. Ivy grew up a lattice along one side of the house, adding to the effect of the sort of house kids would avoid on Halloween. Needless to say, he’d had no qualms about leaving his rich neighbourhood to live in a house where his nearest neighbour was a five-minute drive away.
The solarium room was the newest addition to the house and was attached to his bedroom, expanding outwards from where a bay window had once been, where he’d set up two couches and numerous plants, not that he ever intended sharing the special place with anyone. It was his and his alone, and besides, he had no one to share it with. But in the few weeks since they’d moved, Felix had spent many a night sleeping on the couch just to fall asleep under the stars.
As soon as he’d maneuvered his way through the foyer filled with moving boxes that had yet to be unpacked, he made his way to his room, taking a seat on his couch, relishing the rainy scene laid out before him before he retrieved his laptop from the coffee table and got to work.
Before his disappearance, Spiderman had – rather sarcastically – sent Felix a link to the Avengers Internal Affairs and Management directory, along with a list of introductory videos to watch. Felix had yet to set foot in any sort of Avengers building (not counting the approximately three minutes he’d spent in the headquarters when he’d visited New York), and most of his training was supposed to be unofficially based on whatever he retained from the videos. Or so Spiderman told him.
Besides consistently depositing a hefty sum into Felix’s bank account every week, Spiderman didn’t seem to do much else despite the fact he was technically Felix’s boss. Sure, Felix was the manager, but Spiderman decided what counted as managerial duties. And so far, he had yet to make a single demand of Felix.
“So, you’re looking to market your new superhero brand,” Captain America’s face filled the screen and Felix sighed. Captain Steve Rogers narrated every video, minus the odd few where different Avengers stepped in to speak on areas that were their expertise, but all had the same amount of detached enthusiasm when they spoke. Rolling his eyes, Felix stood up, stretching, before flinging himself into a rolling chair that was part of his actual bedroom, letting it glide over the hardwood floor over to his closet.
Everything was meticulously colour-coded, even though there was not much colour to begin with. Felix untied his tie and shedded his vest and collared shirt before selecting the sole contributor to the yellow category. He pulled on the golden yellow ‘City Boy’ shirt he’d acquired while in New York. The cheap fabric was no luxury by any means, but it was so casual, so…normal that sometimes Felix liked to put it on when no one was around to see him. Now dressed like a sloppy American, he felt prepared to continue working his way through more sloppy American media.
“First of all, congratulations are in order. You’ve been selected to be a part of the marketing team for your brand-new superhero! This is a big job, and first you want to make a list of all the things that make your hero special. Can they shoot lasers from a third eye in their forehead? Can they turn into a dragon at a moment’s notice? All of those are excellent places to start.”
Felix resisted the urge to smash his head into his desk, and not for the first time that day. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This was child’s play, which was probably the reason Spiderman was forcing him to watch it. He had no idea what Spiderman did and watching all the videos the infernal Ladyblog stocked of him did little to help Felix narrow down anything remotely pertaining to Spider-Man’s abilities.
His phone rang and Felix gladly paused the video, answering a call from his mother. She was in the house, but she obviously didn’t want to walk all the way up the stairs to tell him whatever it was. It was a nice habit that Felix enjoyed. The less human contact he had on a day-to-day basis, the better.
“Yes?” He answered primly, daintily lifting his discarded attire with the toe of his Oxford shoe and depositing it into his laundry basket.
“You have a visitor, I sent them on up.” His mother hung up with that short sentence, but Felix sat up straight, closing his closet door. He had a visitor? He didn’t dare hope it was Spiderman, but he didn’t know who else would come calling at his house. Who else even knew where he lived?
All hope was lost when Bridgette entered his room, clutching coffee in one hand and a book in the other.
“I brought you coffee since you couldn’t go to the bookstore today!” She said brightly, holding them out to him.
“I never said I couldn’t go to the bookstore,” Felix said frigidly, although he did accept the coffee. He never missed out on a chance to add more caffeine to his bloodstream.
“I just assumed. You’re always working so hard, and I figured today wouldn’t be any different.” She glanced at his computer. “Seems I was right.”
Felix shut the laptop, glowering at Captain America’s face as it disappeared. Superheroes were always supposed to come at the right time. Where was a superhero that took away annoying girls when he needed one?
“Nice shirt!” Bridgette braved another chance at conversation. Felix glanced down at his t-shirt and almost flushed with embarrassment. He’d forgotten he was wearing the horrid thing and now he felt like he’d been caught naked, exposed.
“All my other clothes are being dry cleaned.” Felix smoothed out the front of the cotton-polyester blend. “This is a souvenir from the time I was Tony Stark’s thanksgiving dinner guest.”
That was one thing that could be said about Felix. He would never miss an opportunity to brag. Almost all his sentences were either a brag or a dig at the other person. Conversations were a competition for him, and Felix was always determined to come out on top.
“That’s cool!” But of course, Bridgette didn’t participate in his verbal wars. She just smiled at him, positively beaming. “Your room is so pretty.”
Felix retreated to the solarium, and she took it as an invitation to follow, settling down on one of his couches. He, however, gazed out at the sprawling acreage.
“How did you know where I lived?” He observed her in her reflection in the glass, watching her blush and pick at the hem of her uniform’s pleated skirt.
“I found it in the…I looked it up in the…uh, phone book?”
“I just moved, plus addresses aren’t in the phone book.” Felix turned away from the window, fixing her with a blank stare, relishing the way she squirmed uncomfortably beneath his gaze. “Were you stalking me, Bridgette?”
“N-no!” She waved her hands through the air. “It was a coincidence I swear I was just-”
Felix let her flounder, but he was no longer listening, nor did he particularly care. Bridgette wouldn’t bring the press to his front doorstep and was therefore not a threat. “What book did you get?” He waved at the book in her hands with a rather noncommittal gesture, stoppering her stumbling excuses.
“What book did I... oh!” She glanced down at the book, shaking her head slightly. “Of Human Bondage. Have you read it?” Bridgette displayed the title for him to see. Felix had, in fact, read it. He’d read it the week before during one lunch period, sitting on his favourite bench under his favourite tree in his favourite condition: silence. The weather had been nicer, so he’d dared take a seat outside, coupled with the fact that some sort of noisy event had been occurring in the cafeteria, disrupting his usual perpetually silent corner. He’d noticed Bridgette lurking around while he’d been reading, but he hadn’t thought much of it.
“Of course I’ve read it. It’s ranked number sixty-six on the list of the top one hundred English novels of the twentieth century.”
“So… it’s good, then?”
“Well, you have to do a little more than just read it and look at the message beneath it, but yes, I rather enjoyed it.” Felix glanced at his own rather large collection of books that sat upon a set of ebony bookcases that spanned across one wall of his room. And that was nothing compared to the library downstairs. “The sense that to exercise reason is to be equated with human liberty whereas the notion that submission to passion is the opposite was quite riveting. If you read it properly, the specific themes surrounding the idea of an individual’s freedoms and their limitations will become quite apparent to you, and it almost changes the way you look at yourself and others. You begin to question whether you yourself can live without ideals and whether your pursuit of such ideals is in turn hindering them.” He gave her a rare smile, although it was not one of affection but more of the joy he always felt when explaining things. His own knowledge was the foundation on which he built his personality.
Felix took a sip of coffee, watching Bridgette over the rim of the lid. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.
“That’s not what I thought it was about when I saw you read--I mean, when I picked it up,” Brigette stuttered.
“What on earth did you think it was about?” He frowned slightly, lowering the cup. “Does this have sugar in it?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. No sugar next time?”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“Okay!” Bridgette said, tugging on one of her braids while she continued to stare at him. She still hadn’t answered his question.
“No really, what did you think that book was about?”
“You’re going to laugh at me.”
“I don’t laugh. I will, however, silently judge you. Perhaps verbally, depending on how badly you screwed up.”
Bridgette looked like she was considering her options when a little black fuzzball interrupted her thoughts with a soft ‘mrow?’.
“Felix! You have a cat?” She reached down to scoop up the fluffy black cat, snuggling it to her face as it let out contented purrs. Felix shot the cat a look. Traitor.
“That’s Acheron,” Felix said, setting his coffee down and taking his cat back. He couldn’t help the smile that invaded his features at his furry companion’s presence. People were obnoxious. Cats, however, were perfect.
“Acheron? That’s an interesting name.”
“It’s the river of sorrow in the Greek underworld,” Felix said shortly, scratching under Acheron’s chin. “Calanthe is around here somewhere.”
As if on cue, a soot-grey kitty ran through the door, leaping over Felix’s desk chair and landing on the couch next to Acheron. One simply couldn’t pay attention to Acheron without acknowledging Calanthe as well, otherwise he would get most affronted.
“What’s Calanthe mean?”
“Beautiful flower,” Felix crooned, stroking his favourite beings in the whole world. The two cats settled down, loving the attention.
“I never would have thought you were an animal person,” Bridgette mused.
“I’m certainly not a people person,” Felix said, straightening up and away from his cats. “Cats are perfect. They’re relatively independent and they’re not needy.”
“And they’re fuzzy!”
“Yes. They have fur. Fuzziness is one of the accompanying qualities of such a condition. Now did you need something, or was this merely a social call? Because I should let you know I don’t do social calls.”
“I did need something,” Bridgette said. “You know how you sit alone at lunch all the time?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to…,” she rocked back on her heels, taking a deep breath before continuing, “…sit with me? At lunch? I mean, I feel bad since you’re always by yourself.”
“Has it occurred to you,” Felix said, making his way to the door. “That I like sitting alone?” He exited his room, letting her scramble to follow him out. “In fact, it is the one time during the day when I get to be by myself and avoid harassment from those like yourself. So, the answer, Bridgette, would have to be no and good day.”
He’d lead her right to the front door, which he now opened, holding a falsely polite hand out for her to leave.
“I’ll see you at school tomorrow?” She attempted once again.
“Not if I see you first,” Felix said with a flat tone, closing the door before she’d even turned around on the top step.
“Felix, was that a friend of yours?” His mother blew into the foyer, dressed in a dark blazer overtop a red dress.
“Going somewhere?” Felix asked, dodging the question with practiced ease.
“I’m going out to dinner with some friends. You’ll be alright here, won’t you?”
“Of course, mother,” he responded swiftly, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “Have fun.”
He strode back up the wooden staircase, taking two steps at a time. Truth be told, he was happy his mother was going out. He didn’t think it would do her good to hang around the house all the time, drinking from his father’s old whisky collection, a habit she’d picked up after her sister’s funeral.
The two cats had fallen asleep together, curled up on his usual couch, so Felix had to take the other, selecting a book off the shelf to read. Already he was regretting the smallest crack in his armour he’d had around Bridgette when introducing her to his cats. To show affection was a sign of weakness, and the only thing worth demonstrating, in Felix’s opinion, was strength. However, it was hard to keep up his usual mien of impassivity when his pride and joy were right there.
He’d rescued both Acheron and Calanthe from a shelter when they were little, brought them home and raised them himself. They were civilized cats who obeyed the house’s rules, such as no scratching the furniture, and every time Felix looked at them, he felt a swell of pride. Who needed such foolish things like friends when he had his cats, anyways? People were always a letdown, leaving when you needed them most, or betraying your trust. Cats wouldn’t do that to Felix. They couldn’t.
And when he settled down on his couch once more, deciding to make it his bed for the night so that he could stargaze once more, the cats joined him, curling up along his side, their purring bodies rocking him into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
It was another few weeks before Felix heard anything, save the fact that Adrien and Peter were back in town. Spiderman made no effort to reach out, except for an email sent at three-forty in the morning one night, with a subject line of ‘I’ll keep you posted’ and no body text. It had taken immense effort on Felix’s part not to grind his teeth.
And so, he found himself sitting back at his usual spot, engaged in a book, with Bridgette having taken up post at the end of the long bench. She wasn’t bothering him today at least, so he allowed her to stay, frankly unconcerned about any possible reasoning she might have to want to stick to him like a fly to honey.
“Message for you,” one of his classmates said, placing a sealed envelope on the table in front of Felix. One of the principal’s errand boys, undoubtedly serving out a detention sentence.
“What is it?” Felix replied flatly, staring at the offending envelope that was interrupting his silence.
“You’ll have to read it. You can do that, can’t you?” His classmate snarked before marching off with a dramatic adjustment of their jacket.
He sighed, rolling his eyes before reaching for the note, sliding a practiced finger under the flap, popping open the intricate wax seal.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said a lot louder than he intended to.
“Why?” Bridgette perked up at once, apparently taking his outburst as invitation to slide down the bench and join him.
Felix was too annoyed to particularly care. “They’re subpoenaing me for Nathalie Sancoeur’s trial.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re forcing me to testify,” Felix continued, eyes skimming down the page. “As a judge of character to provide credibility for Spiderman. I can’t wait until Peter Parker hears about this.”
“I know,” Peter said the second he picked up. “I got one too and I guess this is the safest procedure for superheroes whose civilian identities are unknown.”
“Hell, I don’t even know the guy!” Felix stormed through the courtyard, gesturing wildly, phone mashed to his ear. “I’ve never had a single proper conversation with him. And now they’re expecting me to be a credible judge of character?”
“I know, Felix. Adrien has to testify too, and it’s not going to be easy for any of us.”
“Is Spiderman even testifying?”
“Yes, day before we go to sing his praises.” Felix could hear him rustling papers in the background. “I’ll send some legal aid over later, and they’ll coach you on what to do. I’ll also get in touch with Spiderman and let him know what’s going on with the court.”
“What about Ladybug and Chat Noir? Can’t they take the witness stand too?”
“They can’t issue a subpoena for people who can’t be found. As Ladybug and Chat Noir’s identities are unknown and they have no way of getting in contact with them, it’s like they don’t exist. It’s up to either prosecution or defence to track them down and I don’t intend on helping them. Listen, I’ll get the legal aid over as soon as possible, but as soon as prosecution gets you in on their agenda, I can’t let you outsource any longer.”
“Peter this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t need legal aid to sit there and talk about Spiderman. What I need is an audience with Spiderman.”
“Good call. My legal aid was a person who’s only been in law school for about five weeks anyhow. You think you could manage to spew some bullshit about the moral duty of helping people for like twenty minutes on the stand?”
“I can definitely do that,” Felix paced up and down the stone path, free hand clenched around his book. “But get me a meeting with Spiderman.”
“Done,” Peter said. “You two can get together tomorrow and discuss. If I’m correct in my assumptions, the prosecutors are going to come after me first.”
“Come…after you?”
“They need to have a good idea of what you’re going to say, obviously. I’ll let you know what they ask me. Now I’ve got to go talk to Spiderman. He’s not going to be happy.”
Felix hung up, feeling more unprepared than ever.