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The roses see her coming before he does.
Her approach has their petals, feather-soft, shivering with anticipation. The hairs on the back of Félix's neck follow suit. When she lands in the garden softly, they bow their heads in deference. Félix does not follow suit.
"Hello, Ladybug," he says without turning around.
"Félix," she returns quietly. No doubts as to which cousin he is, not anymore.
What is it, he wonders, that gave him away this time? The rolled-up sleeves, the dirt on his fingers. The freshly-sharpened shears in his hand. She steps closer, coming to stand at his side. Fingers reaching out to caress a newborn bud.
"These are lovely flowers."
"My aunt's."
Félix glances at the other side of the garden to meet his aunt's eyes. Statue overseeing his treatment of her beloved flowers. Not quite as adroit as the gardener was, perhaps, but he's here. Not letting himself be chased off like the rest. Surely, that must count for something.
"I've always liked roses," she continues.
"Ladybugs often do," he agrees. "Adrien isn't here, by the way."
He lifts his shears. Beheads another flower. It falls at her feet, an offering, a farewell. Go on, Ladybug. Take to the skies again. Leave him here with his fellow brothers—alive but not human. Triplets, quadruplets, and more. Following suit in his own way. She who has purified so many of his siblings, pursing her lips and blowing, letting their feathers fly away in the wind. They must prefer that. Prefer her over him—although there isn't much of a debate there. Wouldn't anyone rather fly than fall to the ground? Feel her give them the push they need, rather than rot in the dirt by Félix's feet?
"I... I know," says Ladybug. "Actually, I'm here to see you."
If only, Félix thinks, he could ask the roses how long she'd been watching them. How long she must have watched him. Making sure that Adrien wasn't home, that the boy in the garden was the wrong one—or right, in this case. The first time. Momentous occasion. Another flower falls in celebration. Her, atop a roof, or high up in a tree. Gathering her courage to set foot on Agreste property.
He holds the shears by the blade, closed, offers the handle out to her. Resists the urge to squeeze. Proof, almost, that he isn't what she surely must think of him as, not just one amongst many in the garden. His blood is redder than petals.
"Here," he says. "I need to water the flowers."
Ladybug watches him for a moment, as though wondering whether or not he's serious. Wondering if that courage of hers will come in handy if he decides to turn these shears her way. Or the other way around—talking herself out of using them. Stopping herself from seeing Félix as what he truly is: just another thing to prune. The roses would have told her the truth. Faithful soldiers that they are, they would have ripped off Monarch's mask with their thorns.
After what happened to Tante Emilie, they must be aching for another to bow before.
"I don't know how," says Ladybug. Loudly. There is no shame in admitting she does not know this, not before him. Is that because she's comfortable with him, he who knows her identity? Or because she doesn't care? The truth they both know: who is he to judge her? The Savior of Paris has no reason to be concerned with a mere rose's opinion.
"I'll teach you," says Félix.
The time it takes for her to reach out and meet him halfway feels like a lifetime, but eventually, her fingers wrap around the handle. A firm grip, a steady hand. Félix leans down to pick up the watering can on his other side, and tries not to think about how much the motion feels like a bow. I'm here to see you, Félix Fathom. You, you, you.
The process of deadheading, as he explains to Ladybug, is a simple one. His own mother had roses when he was young—one of the few things she was allowed to have. Nothing like her sister's garden, of course. Small, humble, a patch of dirt that she could call her own. On the days he was confined to his room, unable to move, to do anything that wasn't blinking or breathing, he would sneak glances out through the gap in the window shades. Just enough light to see her bent over her flowers, shears in hand. Hers were small, of course. Cheap. All she was allowed. She would cut through stems so viciously he would swear he could hear the sound up in his room. Surely, imagining another in place of the roses. Beheading. Pruning. The same thing, in this case.
"The first set of five-leaflet leaves," Ladybug repeats after him. She studies the flowers, leaning so far down that a petal brushes against her nose. "Okay, I think I found one."
"A forty-five-degree angle," says Félix, "away from the leaf."
"Like this?"
The last of her courage disappearing like water seeping into dirt: her hands are shaking.
Carefully, Félix steps behind her. Strands of her hair tickling his cheeks. Won't be that bad, he tells himself. She's covered by her suit. No touching her bare skin. If he's lucky, he won't even feel it. But, like always, ladybug luck evades him—knowing, of course, that he does not deserve it. His hands come to join hers on the handle of the shears, fingers overlapping. As if there's nothing between them. Skin on skin. She is so warm. Can she feel his heartbeat against her back, all the way through the tips of his fingers?
Her placement is perfect. One-fourth of an inch above the leaf, at just the right angle. All she needs to do is close the blades.
"Ladybug," he murmurs in her ear. "Do you... shall I..."
"Yes," she whispers, "please."
Together, they cut through the stem. The flower falls. Félix lets go. It takes seven breaths for her to stop shaking.
"It feels cruel, doesn't it?" she says eventually, a ribbon of sadness looping around her words.
"What?"
"To kill them like this."
Her voice catches on that word. Kill. Petals in her throat that she speaks around, at odds with how adept she is with the weapon in her hands.
"You aren't killing them," says Félix. No petals in his throat; he's been a murderer for far longer than she has, after all. "You're helping them. That's how you encourage new flowers."
“And what about the old ones?" She swivels her head around to meet his eyes. A drop of water slips down her cheek—from the watering can, perhaps. Félix watches the way it slides down, traces a path across her skin, before it falls into the dirt. Sowing salt into the field.
But salt can preserve, if you know how to use it.
Félix huffs out a laugh, humorless. "You could always press them between the pages of a book. Dry them. Keep them forever. Maybe even build them a statue."
And there it is. No shears in his hand, but he's deadheaded her without hesitation. A gamble, sometimes, if you don't know how to properly do it. Encouraging new growth, of course, but there's always an alternative: overpruning. Starving the plant of energy, weakening its structure. Leaving it vulnerable.
Ladybug sighs heavily, setting the shears down. Her on her knees now, as he stands, towering above her. Still, somehow, it feels like equal ground; both of them sinking into the dirt. There was no body found after the world was recreated. There could be bones under this soil, keeping the roses fertile.
Gabriel Agreste, finally useful for once.
"Well," she says, "there's no toeing around it anymore, I suppose. The reason I came here today... I wanted to ask you something."
Slowly, Félix kneels to join her, to give her his full attention. He's seen ladybugs in the garden once or twice, and they're always easy to startle. She breathes in, holds it, releases; unconsciously, he follows the motion.
"Can you tell me about him?"
He blinks. "What?"
"Gabriel Agreste. Monarch."
"You know who he was—"
"Not—not like that." Ladybug's teeth dig into her bottom lip; Félix's fingers twitch against the need to tug it free. "As a man, I mean. As a person. A husband. A... a father. An uncle."
Understanding slices through Félix's neck at a forty-five-degree angle. "Marinette," he says quietly, "I don't think—"
"Please," she says. More salt in the dirt, now. "Please. I need to hear it. I never knew him, not really. I never will. And Adrien, he won't... I need someone unbiased. Someone like you."
I need you, Félix Fathom.
"All right," he tells her. Acquiescing, as though he ever could have, would have refused her.
Unbiased, she'd called him, as though Félix has the ability to be anything like that. Not when his entire existence has always revolved around the biases of his ring bearers. But now, with his ring snug on his own finger, he thinks he can try.
"He was a cruel man. Cold, harsh, strict. Determined, certainly. Stubborn." Félix hesitates. "He wasn't a good man, Marinette."
She hangs her head, everything about her drooping. This time, he cannot stop himself, even if he wanted to; he reaches out to take her face in his hands. Her tears washing away the dirt on his ungloved fingers. Cleansing each other.
"A good husband, maybe," he continues. "But not a father, not where it mattered. Not an uncle, either. And certainly not a hero."
"That doesn't mean he deserved to die," Ladybug whispers.
Deserve. What a word, what a concept. Who decides? Who, in this world, truly is given what they deserve? His own father, bones in the dirt for years now—he deserved far worse than the death he was given.
"Maybe not," Félix says. "But there's something else he doesn't deserve."
"What?"
"You, crying over him." His own skin, now, soaking up the salt of her. "Cry for Adrien. Cry for yourself. Don't cry for him—he's not worth it. He wasn't worth it."
Ladybug leans into his touch, swaying like a blossom in the wind. "And what about you?"
Félix realizes, suddenly, how the roses must feel when the shears are held to their throats. Unable to feel pain, but still, distress. And below that, anticipation of new growth. The only question is whether or not they let themselves be cut.
"What about me?" he breathes.
Holding his gaze, Ladybug prunes. Deadheads. "Are you worth my tears, Félix? Can I cry for you?"
"I'm not as unbiased as you think I am, Ladybug," he replies.
"No," she says, "maybe not. But... maybe that's what I needed."
"And what's that?"
"Someone honest."
He would laugh if he could; make any sound, really, over the feathers that rise up in his throat. He could choke on them. Suffocate before her eyes, fall forward until his head meets her lap. Honest, she says, as if he hasn't lied to her time and time again. Kneeling here in the dirt with his hands on her—her, showing her own biases.
"No," says Félix. New growth. "I'm not worth your tears, Ladybug."
In response, Ladybug lifts her own hands to his face. Presses him between the pages of a book. Salts him, dries him. Keeper, carer, gardener. A single droplet falls from his eye, watering can that he is. Slides down, traces a path across his skin, before it falls downward into the dirt. At her feet.
Along with his rose brothers, Félix follows suit.