Chapter Text
In what used to be Paris, France, the Seine's placid waters have overtaken the city's lower levels, long ago engulfing the stone-paved banks of the canals and riverwalks. City lights dance over the shifting water, advertisements for entertainment, clubs, bars, and the world's most infamous brands now shine in the water more than moonlight--or what remains of it, when it shows itself from the dark clouds that mar the sky. Paris's once beautiful bridges are 20 feet deep and make a home for freshwater life; what has been built to connect buildings since the Cataclysm is of rough metal and steel, with water-pump electric lights that push along the sides of the bridges, flickering but still holding firm and bright.
Humans skitter, run or stumble along these bridges and skyways, arguing and loving in equal measure, just as many paying no mind to the laughter and chatter pealing into the cage of clouds above. High fashion dripping with gaudiness mixes with utilitarian marked with wear and tear, many wearing coats too tattered to replace and too necessary to abandon. And always, no matter where Félix walks, trash floats in the river while filth is kicked beneath hundreds of feet.
There is clapping; buskers asking him (or whoever will listen) to come inside for a drink or to see the wares of the still great Paris. See how beautiful the streetlights glitter off the posters on the storefronts? How bright the world is, reflected in the goods sitting behind the glass with bars protecting the windows?
Each street is the same. Each is filled with fur-lined collars or booted feet, clean-shaven men with greasy smiles, or poorer men with quick fingers that find their way into suit pockets. It is a city of excess, of delight and daring, home to those who refused to leave and those who drift like the waste that collects and dams along the sides of buildings. All the streets leading to the city direct inward like a funnel, and at the center of this gravity well is Paris's grand jewel: The Liberty.
Floating above the remnants of the Louvre she sits and waits, her mouth opened fly-trap wide in all its chaotic, brightly colored dressings, lights and paints of all colors and luminosity calling the tourists, refugees, and regulars home. There are no advertisements for this ship. She needs no introduction. She is the self-proclaimed Pirate Queen's home, boasting the best night's entertainment in all the city, which these days may as well make her the capital. The grand mast shooting through the sky has become more iconic of the street life she surrounds than what is left of the Eiffel Tower.
Whether the rumors are true or not holds no significance--not to Félix. He's been called here the same as the rest, albeit for different reasons.
The Liberty's music rattles the chains that keep the monstrous ship in place, shakes the bridges that lead into its hull. Even the water splashes against the steel boat to the time of electric guitar and deep, impossible to escape drum beats. When The Liberty breathes, the very city breathes with it.
Félix slips past the crowd that has the street dammed, ignoring the cries of indignation while a hot-headed, drunken brawl brews. The lights spill off the ship and dance like they're searching for fugitives, so bright they exude a dry heat. Motes of dust and mist spin in the glow, making the rusted, paint-chipped hull shimmer with fake fairy dust.
When he finally reaches the end of the steel bridge that leads to the grand entryway, Félix is sure the inside of the leviathan will be just as grimy as the outside.
It isn't.
Chaotic. Loud. Painful to the senses—all of these things, yes, but grimy? Not even Félix can call it that.
The entire floor is buzzing with people, all moving and swaying to a beat that the city is too unstable to ignore. It isn't just The Liberty that all the bridges in Paris seem to point to—it is the stage inside, lit by cool blues and violets and brilliant pink. The stars that abandoned the sky are painted on the roof, electricity pumped into each warped point, dazzling in their sockets. Walkways like sunbeams separate mismatched bar tables and are swarmed by staff and guests--not that Félix can tell the difference between the two. He could quite easily if he just turned his eye to it, but at the center of this city of water is the only thing he cares to pay attention to.
There is a snake on the stage, feet moving so effortlessly that he appears fluid, and he glides across the boards like he is not just as chained to it as the ship is to her anchor. His guitar's old-sky blue is masked in stickers, but the white accents force those black-painted fingers to stand out more.
Nothing else holds Félix's attention. Not the lanky, brooding woman on the bass, whose panjas bracelet gives her the power to snap men in half, nor the hulking strength wrapped in human skin pounding out the beat on the drums with a body that could withstand the whole of the ship's weight on him. Félix already knows them, and he dismisses them along with the siren in pink at the front.
"Which one are you after?" A voice shouts the question over the din.
Not the voice of his partner (who ought to already be on the ship if things went to plan), and thus easily ignorable, if not for the bright red hair that distracts Félix's eye. The woman leans against the table he's rooted at, a devilish light in her blue eyes and a grin that curls like a tightening noose. Piercings glint, tattoos blare on pale skin, and the air around her blurs and shifts in his mind like a déjà vu moment he can't put a finger to--even the beer bottle she holds, with the brand's eerie, overtly-cheery patriarch plastered on the label, seems out of place.
"Most of 'em are taken, 'cept for that one," she says, gesturing over to the stage with a bottle--the man's teeth on the label flash, the knowing smile on his mouth stained neon red as the mood lights change for a new band.
"I'm sure he appreciates you pointing it out," Félix replies dryly.
Félix doesn't need to further clarify which one she's referencing. Of course it's him, the one dressed in a black leather jacket accented with dark scales, the snake bravely emblazoned on the back (the cherry on top of what had given Luka away). Cerulean eyes hiding behind dark azure hair scan the crowd as he leaves the stage, inspecting everything and seeing nothing. He's in a world of his own.
Luka Couffaine, son of the Pirate Queen and the most trusted of her secret band of criminals, is the one person with a Miraculous that might stop Félix from getting what he wants. None of the rest are as clever, as vexing, as the man disappearing out of sight. The music that replaces him is thick and heavy. It has none of his fluidness.
The woman chuckles, taking a large swill of her beer before rolling her head on her shoulders. "He's a friend. He's used to it."
A cork pops from a table away, followed by shouts and cheers.
She leans a cheek against her hand, slurring her words slightly as she stares at the ceiling. "Funny world we live in these days," she half sighs. "There are hundreds of things we coulda done different, might've done, if we knew. But we didn't. Or if we did try, we couldn't say it. Who'd believe it?"
His interest in her had been keen earlier when she called him a friend, but it withers and dies as she speaks. She sees it. Smiles. Rubs the hare printed on the base of her neck.
"Yeah. S'alright. Just take a word of advice--the stars might not show for us anymore…" she whispers, then takes the time to point one finger up to the ceiling, raising an eyebrow. "Doesn't mean you can't make your own map."
"Not all of us are lost," Félix says irritably, pushing away from the table. He doesn't understand her and doesn't care to, but he isn't lost and takes the time to say it. Instead, his eyes scan for the query that escaped in the crowd, with no knowledge that is the very action that proves her right.
No, Félix has a reason for action; there is one trinket he desires more than all the rest, far more than the collar necklace that peeks out from the button-up he wears. The Dog Miraculous won several months ago is a boon but had been far more challenging to procure when the Pirate Queen's sights had been set on it. Or, more accurately, when Luka had been the opponent across the chess board.
The woman hums, the sound disappearing beneath the din of the bar. Luka finally reappears from a side room, and this time when his eyes scan the crowd, they find Félix instantly--or, more aptly, they find the person next to Félix. Evidently he doesn't recognize him, a win in his column, as it makes it easier to find Luka's weaknesses before he is found out.
"Ah, here he comes," she states uselessly, rubbing her temple with the lip of the beer bottle.
Luka heads for their table possessed, his eyebrows drawn slightly down, his typical carefree expression turned to determination. If the red-haired woman wasn't smiling crookedly, Félix might assume she had been lying about being his "friend."
"You know him well?" Félix asks. People stop Luka on his way with pats to the shoulder and cheers that he brushes off with a humble word and a kind but distracted smile, his body still facing the direction of their table as if it were true north.
She rests further on the table, her chest pushing up in her low-cut shirt as she leans against the metal. "Well as anyone can," she says. "Luka's lived under the stars of the queen's ship his whole life. Her fingers are more a cage than anything."
"Have you ever spoken plainly in your life?"
"I used to." Even though she's smiling, her eyes are sharp as flint, ready to strike and call forth fire. "Sometimes the legacy you're born into is the exact opposite of what you wanted to be. You'll find out soon enough--both of you will."
A woman's shout pulls Félix's attention away.
The outer reaches of the ship still talk, party, and drink--but the rot of silence in the center of the room begins to spread outward. The disturbance takes the form of some big, brutish man having gotten too handsy. His hand is still invading the woman's pink dress when another shout rings out, and then there's hardly any sound, not even from the band. There is nothing but footsteps.
"That's him," voices whisper with awe, "He'll take care of it. The Pirate Queen's son."
There's so much confidence in those whispers the room shifts from discomfort to a sick excitement. Félix isn't immune. He leans forward, his green cat's eyes bright and anticipatory. This could yield exactly the kind of intel he came for.
The sea of people parts for Luka, leading him directly toward the man with clubs for fists and blond straw for hair--his opponent is likely more alcohol than blood, judging from how he slurs and slouches against the woman he has captive. When Luka finally closes the distance, it's painfully apparent how much the other man dwarfs him. Luka is lean muscle and intimidatingly tall, but Félix wonders what good he will do against a human brick.
"Hey," Luka calls out, loud and self-assured, more bite than bark. "She told you to stop."
The sleazeball digs his grave deeper by further entrenching his hand down the woman's dress, his lips snarling. "And what are you going to do about it?"
Félix rolls his eyes at the entirely uninspired response, then slumps his cheek into his palm. Unless the man has some hidden ace up his sleeve, he doubts this will be as interesting as the masses believe it will be. Perhaps a spot of blood and then it will be over. Hardly the challenge he hoped for.
Luka apparently believes the same. The snake bearing its fangs with a sprawling cobra's hood now leans back on his heels, an innocent smile on his face. "Kicking you out, for starters."
Félix's finger starts tapping on the table restlessly. They exchange a few more barbs typical of a drunken stooge facing off a good Samaritan, his mood souring while everyone else's soars sky-high at the thought of low-brow entertainment. If he'd known it would be this predictable, he would've picked the fight himself.
Finally the walking brick takes a swing. Luka sidesteps it so smoothly the man could have been in slow motion. He swings again. And again. And again. Each is evaded effortlessly; Luka's dyed blue hair shifting around the nape of his neck is the only traceable movement afterwards.
"S'all your good fer jus'…" the man waves his hand with noticeable effort, huffing and puffing like a struggling engine, "Dodgin'?"
Luka's easy shrug entices him forward with clumsy footing, only to be thwarted by Luka sweeping his legs out from under him. Luka squats down to make eye contact with his opponent, and Félix reads his lips while the crowd cheers at the blood erupting from the man's chin.
"I recommend leaving now," Luka says, danger lingering around a smile so confident it's almost pitying. The crowd begins to bubble back to normalcy when he turns his back, swiveling around to find Félix and the mystery woman--and while his eyes re-hone in on the bright green spray-painted table, Félix is watching the beaten down man stand, a bottle in his hand.
Luka can sense the shift in the air and goes to turn--but before anyone can move, the lights flicker erratically, like a monster is grabbing the thick electric lines that keep the ship powered and yanking it with both hands until they finally snap.
"Oh, bloody--" Félix doesn't bother to finish his curse, too busy hooking a stool with his foot and standing on it to try and see above the writhing mass in the dark.
The chorus of screams that erupts from the crowd is promptly silenced with a whip snap and a blinding flash of blue. When the lights sparkle back on a moment later, the cleared circle on the floor is graced by a second challenger--Félix's other problem.
Anarka Couffaine.
She adjusts the glasses on her nose, giving the gobsmacked crowd a sweeping bow as she spins to the band. "Give us a lively one, lads!" She shouts, raising a hand. The highly-impressionable mob shifts under her conductor's hand, obeying the unspoken demand to return to revelry.
A few eyes turn to the ground where the primary disturbance had once been standing--whoever he was, he is gone without a trace. They must know better not to ask how.
Anarka's signature coat spins around her feet as she turns to her son, putting a hand on his back and dipping her face down low to his ear. The only value Félix receives from the entire incident is the air of disappointment that hovers around Luka like a cloud while his mother gives him a solid, reassuring clap on the back. She takes an offered drink from a bystander and melts into the crowd with a booming voice, and finally Luka's eyes truly meet his own.
Félix may as well have stuck a fork in an outlet the way the jolt runs through him. A glass pane has separated Luka from everyone--everything--he looks at, but when the blue eyes find him, there is no barrier. Luka sees him entirely, with such clarity that Félix is sure Luka does recognize him after all. The gaze is inescapable, and Félix is trapped in it with each step Luka takes.
"Sorry to bother you," Luka says when he's in earshot. The determined glare shifts, his eyes filling with air and distance, and he smiles like an awkward teen asking for a dance partner.
Félix realizes with a brief sense of displacement that he's still standing on the blasted stool, his hair slightly sticky on the back of his neck and forehead from the cramped heat. For some reason, he had been holding his breath. He rips away whatever obscured blend of emotions he's experiencing and smiles just as he's practiced, stepping off the stool to sit on it, smoothly crossing one leg over the other.
"Not at all. Apologies for staring," he tacks on.
Luka laughs a little, reaching wide for another table's stool and dragging it over to sit. "You were with Alix, right?"
Félix turns to his right. The red-haired woman with the rabbit tattoo is gone, not that he noticed when she left. "Briefly, though I've no clue who she was. She mentioned she was a friend of yours," he says.
A serving person with dark hair and several face piercings slides a tray of appetizers in front of Luka. Luka turns back to the crowd in his mother's direction before humming a sigh--a soft thing, holding all of the tamped-down disappointment Félix had sensed earlier.
"She is, I think," Luka says, shoving the hard ceramic plate more toward the center of the table. He douses the fries in pepper and salt, then pops one into his mouth. "She only comes around at odd times. Never says much."
Félix huffs. "She says plenty; it just hardly makes sense." He takes a fry at Luka's wordless insistence. Begrudgingly, he has to admit it tastes good, although it's more likely to give him breakouts than provide any kind of nutrients.
Luka smiles and twists a fry in half. "I think she tries. It seems to irritate her more than anyone else--I can hear it."
Whether he agrees or not doesn't matter; the mystery woman isn't exactly his priority. Though, he hadn't expected to be talking with the person he was here to get reconnaissance on, either. Things had admittedly not gone to plan.
"You're from out of town," Luka says, resting a hand on his cheek.
"Mm, a tourist of sorts. Escorting a friend of mine to ensure she doesn't get in any trouble."
Luka's grin widens silently, amusement lifting the corners while he takes an exaggerated look at the table that's only serving the two of them.
"I haven't done a great job, as you can tell." Not like it was his fault. He told Zoé exactly where he would be in this monster of a ship earlier. If she hasn't found him yet, he can only hope there's a good reason for it.
"I'm sure you'll make it up to her. Any plans while you're here? I always say if you haven't seen the big pufferfish statue along the Circle Way, you haven't seen Paris."
He vaguely remembers seeing the gargantuan statue gaudily lit up and suspended above the doorway to a restaurant, and he doesn't have the greatest desire to see it again. "No plans in particular, so I suppose the giant fish it will have to be," he lies.
Luka nods to himself. "Good. It's a crowd pleaser." He stands and stretches, the white shirt he's wearing bathed in the neon lights riding up slightly, but not past the belt he wears. Félix wonders if there's any muscle to back the speed Luka seems to boast-- evidently thinking on it a bit too hard--that smile that's so confident it's almost pitying appears again, this time levelled at him.
Luka breaks his stretch and leans across the table, fingers tapping on it playfully. "You and your friend can feel free to come around whenever you're bored. I'm sure we'll see each other again," Luka says. Whatever distance he slips between himself and the rest of the world disappears again, forcing Félix to stare into deep oceanic eyes that threaten to draw him in and drown him. In a blink, Luka slides away again, stealing a few more fries and waving with the tips of his fingers.
Félix frowns and stares at the table, rubbing his temple, mind entirely blank without a single thought between his ears. It's such a rare occurrence that it's novel. Even the fries look mesmerizing in this state.
"How'd it go?"
Félix's hand flies out and nearly bats Zoé in the nose. "Where in God's name have you…" his words drop off as he spins to her in his chair.
Her blond hair is messily hanging from its bun, strands falling onto her neck. Félix tugs on the collar of her white pirate shirt and loose jacket, exposing a red mark blooming beneath the cord holding the Fox Miraculous's pendant. He snorts and lets her go, shaking his head.
"I was getting intel," she says defensively, tucking a pink strand of bangs behind her ear before digging into the plate of appetizers and sides. "She thinks Americans are hot--in a messy way. I can work with that."
Félix watches her shove an onion ring the size of her head into her mouth in one bite. "Yes. Messy. Wonderful intel, telling me what I already know. I'm surprised you even heard that much."
Zoé points a fry at him and spins it menacingly. "Hey. You're half-sies just like me.
She does so love to point out his mother's choice of husband. Or, more accurately, what country he hailed from. Most likely because Félix would rather forget it entirely.
Félix pretends to be unbothered, grabbing the fry from her fingers. "Mm, yes, but while you were snogging in a back closet, I was out here, doing what we came for."
The lights shift through the colors of the rainbow before settling on blue, and the crowd cheers as Luka follows the bubblegum pink woman onto the stage with the rest of his band.
Félix learned a little, at least. Alix might have been a babbling pile of confusion, but she was correct in one regard--the Pirate Queen's reach is so infallible it allows for nothing to grow past it, for better or worse. Luka is hiding behind that confident grin; he has something to prove--and those with something to prove can easily be led if one knows how to do so properly.
Félix can beat Anarka Couffaine's knight, with some practice. And once he's sure he knows every weakness Luka has, finding and stealing away the Miraculi hidden in the treasure trove of The Liberty will be child's play.