Bridgette groaned as she hit the ground. This akuma was taking everything out of her and Chat Noir. It’s powers were like something out of a comic book, perhaps something that one of the Gotham Rogues would have out of the DC comic books.
Bridgette - Ladybug - looked at her partner. “We can’t do this without a bit of luck, can we?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “We definitely can’t do this without a lucky charm. I’m betting on a knife this time, M’Lady, you’ve had a spoon and a fork after all.”
“Haha,” she laughed sarcastically. “Very funny. LUCKY CHARM!”
A swirling portal of red and black opened up above them, forming from the miraculous ladybugs.
“Huh? That’s weird. I don’t think anything like that has happened before." Chat Noir said right before two figures, two people , fell to the ground in front of them.
Jason and Marinette were on patrol for the night - or rather Red Hood and Ladybird, two of Gotham's many vigilantes were. It wasn’t odd for them to be patrolling together, in fact they almost always patrolled together. The only times they didn’t was when one of them was either injured or needed elsewhere for the night. When they’d first started dating patrolling together it had been a bit weird, but now Gotham was used to seeing their resident ex-crime lord and one of Gotham’s rare Batman accepted metas patrolling together.
They’d just finished stopping a robbery when a red and black swirling circle opened up beneath them. A portal maybe?
They fell through it, falling onto a sidewalk a moment later.
This clearly wasn’t Gotham. The sun was out for starters. Marinette looked around as she stood up to see if there was anything recognisable in the nearby area. Was that the Eiffel Tower? And who were those strange people dressed up like animals?
“What the fuck was that?” Jason asked rather pointedly.
Marinette stared at CatBoy and SpotsGirl, “And who the fuck are they? Paris doesn’t have superheroes.”
CatBoy huffed, “Well obviously Paris does have superheroes. We’re right here. Ladybug and Chat Noir at your service.”
Jason ignored the young ‘supers’, “Are we sure this is actually Paris? It’s too bright, even for the City of Light, and it feels more cartoonish than usual.”
“I noticed that too. The whole place feels off.” Marinette confirmed for her boyfriend partner. “Want me to take a quick fly around to get a better idea of this not-Paris place?”
Marinette shot up into the air to survey the area, leaving Jason alone to entertain the kids.
CatBoy - Chat Noir - spoke up, “Who are you? Who’s that?”
“Red Hood. She’s Ladybird.” He said gruffly.
SpotsGirl, he refused to call her Ladybug, snorted, “What? Like the characters from the comics?”
What comics, he mentally asked himself. “No. Like the ex-crime lord and Superman’s daughter.”
“Yeah, as I said,” SpotsGirl laughed, “like the DC comics. Jason Todd and Marinette Kent right?”
“Don’t worry,” said SpotsGirl with a reassuring tone to her voice. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of by naming your hero personas after some fictional superheroes. After all, RedBird is like my OTP.”
Marinette floated down from above after finishing her assessment of the city. “Kid, neither me or Hood over there are fictional. We’re real life vigilantes from Gotham.” She spoke gently, taking time to take care of the young girl’s thoughts and feelings.
SpotsGirl shook her head furiously, “Gotham isn’t real. It’s a fictional city in the DCEU. I can prove it, let me google it.”
When the young girl showed the results to the couple they couldn’t believe their eyes. “What the actual fuck?” Jason muttered. “Is this some sort of alternative universe?”
Marinette shrugged, “That would explain a lot of what I saw. This version of Paris still gives off major cartoon vibes.”
Jason groaned, “Just our luck. We go to a universe where our home doesn’t exist.”
“We don’t exist here,” Marinette blanked as the realisation came to her. “We’re fictional here. Ain’t that right kiddo?”
When they got no response they turned to look for the young superheroes. “Where are they?” Jason muttered, “The little shits tell us we aren’t real here only to disappear?”
Marinette shrugged in return, “Well apparently they are the local superheroes around here, maybe they had a villain to fight.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” he replied.
“Want me to fly us to them?”
“Seriously Hood?” She lamented, “We got sent to a different universe, I’m not injured.”
And that was that. It didn’t take them long to find the kids.
As Marinette touched down on the floor Jason couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Turns out they did have to go off to fight a villain.”
“Yeah,” she said, “but WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” Marinette gestured to the villain of the day. “And why do they look like a mix between Ivy and the Joker?”
SpotsGirl, who must have noticed the yelling, had made her way over to the Gotham duo. “That’s cause the villain is based on Ivy, Hawky really isn’t the most creative. He’s used one of the same akumas over one hundred times now.”
Jason shrugged, “To be fair to this Hawky, most of the villains in Gotham don’t change their shit up much either.”
“That still doesn’t explain why it kinda looks like the Joker,” Marinette stated.
“Oh, right,” SpotsGirl nodded. “Hawky is either colorblind or makes every akuma ugly in the hopes that it’ll damage our eyes enough that he can steal our miraculous.”
“Honestly, valid. One time when Ladybird was insulting Riddler he just admitted that the green was an attempt to blind us.”
Marinette frowned. It couldn’t be. Could it? “Hey Hood, aren’t the miraculous the names of the weird Green Lantern rings like jewellery in the show Dick watches with Mar’i?”
Jason blinked at her for a few seconds, “Huh. I think you’re right.”
“So we’re fictional here? But in our world SpotsGirl and CatBoy are the fictional ones? You gotta be shitting me.”
“Could you stop calling us that?” SpotsGirl Ladybug asked politely as she fought off one of Joker!Ivy’s plants.
Marinette winced, “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“It’s fine,” Ladybug waved them off. “But some help with the akuma would be nice, if possible.”
“So let me get this straight-” Marinette started before she was cut off.
Jason snorted, “You can’t do anything straight.”
“Well neither can you,” she stuck her tongue out at him. “You’d just broken up with Roy when we met.”
“Yeah, well you had a crush on Cass when we met.”
“Yet I still ended up with you,” she retorted. “Anyway, let me run this bi you, this dude has the butterfly miraculous and he uses it to turn ordinary civilians who are feeling negative emotions into mind controlled supervillains?”
Chat Noir nodded, “Yep, unfortunately. It’s very annoying. The whole city has been held as emotional hostages for years.”
“Years?” Ladybug nodded at Red Hood’s words. “Damn. That’s gonna seriously damage people’s development.”
“It already has,” Ladybug informed the vigilantes, “that’s why we were hoping you could help us for however long you’re trapped here. As we saw earlier you clearly won’t go back with a miraculous cure like all other lucky charms do.”
Marinette and Jason shared a quick glance before agreeing. “Maybe the magic will send us home after he’s been defeated.”
“Hopefully,” Jason agreed with his girlfriend. “But what can you tell us about akumas?”
“We haven’t watched many episodes of your show. Mar’i prefers watching them with Dick.” Marinette states casually.
Ladybug nods, “There’s been many types of akumas in the past. It'd be impossible to name them all, but the Ladyblog should have videos from nearly all of them on.”
It may take all night, maybe more, but Ladybug and Chat Noir start their run down on akumas.
“What do you mean a mime sliced the Eiffel Tower in half?” Marinette demanded, “That's fucking crazy."
“Some pigeon guy was akumatized how many times?” Jason asked.
Chat Noir shrugged, “Honestly, I’m not too sure. I gave up counting after one hundred.”
“You gotta be shitting me.”
“Santa? Was a villain? Now that just sounds like some sort of crazy cartoon bullshit to me.”
“Well according to you this is a cartoon,” Ladybug huffed.
“I refuse to acknowledge that someone here also weaponized nightmares,” Jason muttered under his breath.
“Also?” Chat Noir inquired.
Marinette nodded sadly, “Scarecrow is a bitch.”
“He definitely was in the comics,” agreed Ladybug, in a cheeky attempt to get back at them for the cartoon comment from earlier.
Marinette and Jason had been in Paris for a couple months. Unless there was a major akuma attack they mainly worked behind the scenes in order to figure out how Hawkmoth was. It was helpful to have Marinette fly after the de-evilized butterflies. What that meant was that they were pretty close to having definitely proof on Hawkmoth’s identity.
Which was why it was rather concerning when Bridgette got sick. How were they meant to defeat the supervillain, who they were pretty damn sure was Gabriel Agreste, without their Ladybug?
Adrien was at school when the akuma alert went off which meant he had to find some sort of excuse to get away. But Marinette and Jason had been taking care of a sick Bridgette who was in no state to fight.
“Take them,” Bridgette pulled the earrings from her ears and handed them to Marinette. “You look enough like me to pass as me. Hawky won’t know a thing.”
Marinette gasped, “But they’re yours. I can’t just use them.”
“Yes you can,” the sick girl insisted. “There has to be a Ladybug in order to reverse the damage, and I can’t fight like this. Please Marinette. You have to.”
Marinette groaned, “Just until you’re better. Okay?”
When she transformed, Marinette’s first course of action was to head towards the akuma attack, because she totally hadn’t missed being in a fight since she’d come to this weird, cartoonish world.
As she ran along rooftops she used her yoyo to message Chat Noir. She figured just sending hi it's ladybird today would be enough. He’d get the message and no one would be able to figure out what it meant.
When Ladybird dropped down, in a suit identical to Ladybug’s, she couldn’t help but grimace at the akuma. “What the FUCK is that color scheme?” She yelled at Reflekta.
The pink clad supervillain stared at the fill in superhero. “Who are you and what have you done with Ladybug?”
Ladybird smirked, “I’m Hawkmoth’s downfall. Who are you?”
Reflekta looked down at Ladybird, “I’m-”
“Well I’m cunning, ultra charming Chat Noir.”
Ladybird snorted, “Sure, kitty, keep telling yourself that.”
“Hey,” he squealed. “I’m charming.”
“Sure.” She nodded over towards Reflekta, “Come on. We have an akuma to defeat.”
By the time Bridgette was better they’d got definite proof of Hawkmoth’s identify.
“Sorry Adrien,” Marinette cringed as they met on the Eiffel Tower. “It’s definitely him.”
The boy sighed, “We already knew it was. Now we can stop him.”
“Together?” Bridgette asked tentatively.
“Together,” they all echoed.
Ladybird crashed through Hawkmoth’s window, Red Hood in her arms with his guns out. While Ladybug and Chat Noir were fighting against Mr. Pigeon again they were weakening the actual enemy.
“Hi Hawky,” she grinned. “Or should I call you Gabe if that’s easier for you?”
“Who are you?” The supervillain demanded, withdrawing the sword from his cane as he spoke.
“I’m the person who replaced Ladybug the day your akuma asked about Ladybug being replaced, and this is Red Ho-” Marinette glanced down at his sword, “What the fuck, that’s hilarious. That’s like one of those pathetic fencing swords.”
Hawkmoth frowned, “It’s a noble sport.”
Jason laughed as he took a few warming shots, each getting closer to the villain’s head. “Sure it is.” None of the shots before had been intended to hit - when Jason aimed towards the villain’s left leg, he gracefully moved out the way just in time and brought his surprisingly sharp baby sword down on Jason’s arm with a carve to his arch. Blood dripped from Jason’s arm to the floor.
It was all Marinette and her super hearing could hear. Drip, drip, drip. Drip, drip. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Drip. Drip, drip, drip. Although she theoretically knew that Jason had endured much worse, hell he’d even died, that didn't stop her from worrying about him.
Ladybird's eyes glowed red as she glared at him. She desperately wanted to ‘accidentally’ burn some of his face as she delayed for time to give the final duo of their group of four a chance to arrive. “Give me one good reason as to why I shouldn’t burn your face off right now,” she demanded.
“Because if you kill me all the bombs I have set up in here will go off killing you too,” he informed them with a look of great pride in his face.
Jason snorted, “Been there, done that. Minus ten out of ten, would not recommend dying.”
Marinette ignored her boyfriend’s terrible sense of humour and smirked, “We got Adrien to disable those ages ago. He was more than happy to comply.”
“He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t betray me like that.”
“Actually,” Chat Noir started as he and Ladybug descended from the elevator, “I would definitely betray you.”
“You? What?” Hawkmoth asked, clearly rather confused and frozen in shock. “Adrien?”
“That’s me,” the cat dressed superhero replied as he landed right in front of his father. “I’ll be taking those, thank you very much,” he said as he snatched the remaining miraculous from the man in front.
“For something I’ve been waiting for the past couple of years, that was rather anticlimactic,” Ladybug stated with a hint of laughter, enriching her voice.
“Speak for yourself,” Jason huffed with a slight grin on his face. “But a little healing cure would be rather nice around now. Don’t you think?”
“Course,” Bridgette replied unsteadily as she threw her lucky charm into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!”
Five months. It had been five months since Hawkmoth had been defeated and sent to jail. It had been five months since villains had stopped terrorising Paris on a near daily basis. It had been five months since Bridgette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Lahiffe (formerly Agreste) had said goodbye as their friends flowed red and were transported back to their own dimension.
Although Adrien hadn’t formerly been allowed to read comics, he and his girlfriend Bridgette had been binge reading all the DC comics together. The Red Hood or Ladybird issues were their favourites. But it wasn’t until the latest Ladybird comic came out that they had spotted a small Easter Egg in the background. At the end of the issue Red Hood and Ladybird had clearly retired to their apartment after stopping one of the Joker’s more nefarious plots and they were watching TV.
Or more specifically, they were watching a TV show about Bridgette and Adrien (more Ladybug and Chat Noir but who cares). As they saw themselves in the image, the couple couldn’t help but smile. Their friends remembered them.
