Falling for a Villain (Miraculous Ladybug)

A bit Suspicious

Felix

~~~

The evening after Marinette and Felix formed their unusual alliance, Felix returned to the Agreste Mansion to research. He sat down at his desk, completely ignoring the desktop available to him in the guest room as he sat his laptop on the table.

Felix couldn't risk the almost certain possibility of Gabriel Agreste or Nathalie monitoring the desktop's activity. No doubt they were keeping an eye on him at all times, he'd be surprised if Gabriel wasn't monitoring Adrien 24/7 too.

Felix set up a private account and connected to his phone's personal hotspot. Some would say Felix could be paranoid... but he preferred the term 'cautious'.

Marinette seemed to know a lot about who had been akumatized, and with one search to the Ladyblog, he could see why. The Ladyblog had a plethora of information despite it looking like an amateur website. The blog went into some detail about every villain, even the author's own akumatizations, the author being Alya. There were hundreds of entries and villains to look through. Tonight would be a long night.

~~~

After thorough research, Felix found that Marinette was indeed correct. Adrien hasn't been akumatized a single time. What's even more interesting is that Marinette hasn't been akumatized at all either. A bit suspicious to say the least.

Marinette herself couldn't be Hawkmoth, right? Surely not, Hawkmoth was an older adult with abilities that were somewhat more powerful due to that fact. From the documents, Felix received from Nathalie containing information about the miraculous, the older the holder, the more powerful the ability of their miraculous. Sort of like the miraculous matured with the holder. Thanks to this, Hawkmoth was allowed to remain transformed for a longer period of time than Ladybug and Chat Noir who had to flee five minutes after using their abilities to recharge the gems.

Felix shook his head. Marinette couldn't be Hawkmoth... she was too... Marinette. The poor girl hardly knew how to play the game of deception and wore her emotions on her face as if they had a mind of their own. Perhaps she was just lucky that she didn't get akumatized all this time.

Felix turned back to the documents... perhaps they could provide more insight as to who Hawkmoth is. Nearly everyone in Paris has been akumatized, which would normally narrow the search down... except that there were only three people not reported to be akumatized on the Ladyblog-- Adrien, Marinette, and... Nathalie.

(A/N: Yes, the episodes where Nathalie was akumatized into Catalyst did happen, however, no one saw Nathalie get akumatized or deakumatized so it is reasonable to assume that Catalyst would not be on Alya's Ladyblog. And even if she was, no one would know it was Nathalie.)

Felix's eyes widened, his uncle's assistant, Nathalie had never been akumatized. Could Nathalie be Hawkmoth? Hawkmoth was a grown man, but the miraculous can change one's appearance drastically to better hide their identity. Could a miraculous change that much about a person? It's magic, there really isn't much rhyme or reason to go on. Felix figured that Ladybug could look exactly like her Parisian citizen alter-ego and no one would know thanks to the magic surrounding their identities.

He groaned in frustration. Logic was Felix's strong suit. Manipulation, etiquette, maths, science, physics, and even the flat-earth theory had some semblance of logic, no matter how ridiculous -- magic was a whole new playing field.

Felix would keep Nathalie on his list of suspects, just in case, but there was no way it was as easy as this, right? Everyone else in Paris has been akumatized at least once, which means... could Hawkmoth akumatize himself? That would be quite the revelation, and the miraculous are magical, surely magic played by different rules.

It was hard to know if such a thing were possible. From what he's seen of Chat Noir and Ladybug's powers, they only used them while transformed and didn't dare risk their identity. Besides, Hawkmoth could have different abilities due to the age difference. Felix could only figure this out if he, himself had a miraculous to test it. Yet another roadblock.

If Hawkmoth was able to akumatize himself, that would change the game. He could still be anyone.

Felix ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it slightly. He looked at the clock and noticed it was nearly 3 am. He sighs, of course, just his luck.

Felix made a quick note to confer with Marinette tomorrow. He wouldn't give away too much but a second opinion always helped him sort through his thoughts.

Seems he would be paying Miss Dupain-Cheng a visit sooner than he expected.

~~~