Damian POV: Tuesday, February 21st, 2024
"Eiffel Tower." Ladybug said before she swung off.
"You heard her. Let's go." Father said, using his grappling hook to swing him up onto the roof of the building. The rest followed suit, but not me. I waited a couple of seconds, making sure everyone was out of range enough to not have time to stop me from following the bug and cat.
I used my grappling hook to get onto the roof that Ladybug swung from, following their shadows as they moved quickly along the rooftops. They finally slowed down close to the Eiffel Tower.
Ladybug spoke up first, talking about revealing their identities. Strange, they didn't already know each other's civilian forms? They worked so well together; some may say they are a couple inside and outside of the suit. For some reason that thought caused a strange feeling to flare in me. I did not like it one bit.
Whiskers seemed overly excited. It was clear he loved her, which again brought back that strange feeling, but he didn't know her, he only knew a part of her.
They continued speaking, Whiskers referring to us with idiotic descriptions, Ladybug mentioned our encounter and us knowing who she really is. I expected her to rat out our identities as well, but she stayed quit. Whiskers was ranting now, about me. He appeared jealous, odd.
They finally decided to reveal themselves, which was perfect. Now I would know both of Paris' hero's identities.
"Okay, we'll close our eyes and open on a count of three." A beaming light of green and pink shines before Dupain-Cheng and an oddly familiar blonde boy are left standing on the rooftop, facing each other. The blond boy is the boy from the Seine River, he was sitting with Dupain-Cheng. The one who has feelings for her.
My fists tighten on their own accord. What is going on with me? I never acted like this, not even whenever I liked Raven. Wait, no. Do not compare whatever this is to Raven. She and I courted, Dupain-Cheng is just a hero, fashion designing, strong willed, kind, annoyingly stubborn, Parisian girl. I shake my head of the thoughts and once again focus on the scene in front of me.
"One." Dupain-Cheng says her voice wobbling.
"Two." He says his voice barely above a whisper.
"Three." They say at the same time.
"Marinette!"
"Adrian!?"
Agreste? The model boy is Whiskers? That is certainly unexpected.
"Marinette I am so happy it's you! I wanted it to be you! I was always in love with Ladybug, but then I started falling for you!" He rushed to hug her, but she didn't return it. It appears that Dupain-Cheng does not reciprocate his feelings. For some reason that makes me smile.
"A-Adrain. I didn't expect Chat Noir to be, well, uh- to be you." She nudges him away, slightly to look into his eyes, "I'm happy it is you though. You are one of my closest friends. Which is all we will be, from now on." She offers him a sad smile. He doesn't return it, instead he appears taken aback.
"What do you mean? We started dating in our civilian forms! We are dating in our civilian forms! Did your feelings change because I'm Chat Noir? If that's it then-" I was about to jump out and put my katana to this cat's throat. I did not like hurting animals, but I would make an exception for this cat.
"No!" Dupain-Cheng shouts, "It has nothing to do with you being Chat Noir and everything to do with why our suits changed! Something big happened, okay? Don't you realize where my suit is from? Who wore it before me?" She gestured to herself aggressively. Her cheeks were slightly red, her anger seeping into a blush.
"Yeah, it looks just like Shadybug's from that other universe." Multiple universes? Father would love to hear this.
"Exactly. Why would I change my suit to match hers? I didn't. It changed on its own. Just like your hair did." They have the ability to change their suits whenever they want. Useful, especially when you want to go unnoticed for a bit.
"What do you mean? My hair didn't change." He tugged on his blond strands. But it did. Throughout the videos that we watched on the Ladyblog, his hair used to be fully blond, now whenever he was transformed it had green tints here and there.
"Yes, it did. It's gone now, but it's there whenever you are Chat Noir. There are traces of light green throughout it. It's barely noticeable, but it's there." She says softly, rubbing her arms anxiously, "My hair changed too, obviously." She tugs on one of her blue and pink strands. It suited her, at least that was what Todd said at some point.
"You said you just spontaneously dyed it with Alya the other night during your sleepover." He accuses. Is he really this dull minded? She couldn't tell him especially if it had something to do with her being Ladybug.
"Yeah, I uh- couldn't exactly tell you the truth. And I can't right now either. We need to go meet with the bats." I moved out from the shadows and crossed mt arms.
"They can wait."
Agreste jumps at my voice, but Dupain-Cheng simply turns to look at me, "This discussion didn't include you, Robin." She crosses her arms, matching my stance.
"Seeing that I now know both of your identities, I'm pretty sure it does include me, Dupain-Cheng."
She sighs and droops her shoulders, "Fine, but I don't want to have to explain this more than once. Let's just go meet up with the rest of your group. Spots on." She transforms into her suit.
"Woah, woah woah, Bugaboo! You're just going to let him go like that? He knows both of our identities!" Agreste shouts gesturing to me.
"And I know his, along with the rest of his team's. Let's go." She swings off to the Eiffel Tower, leaving me and Agreste alone.
I glare at Agreste, "You disgust me." I state simply.
"What did I do? You're the one hanging all around my girlfriend!" He points at me. I grab his finger and snap it back, breaking it instantly. He screams in pain and backs away from me, "What is wrong with you?! Are you crazy or something!?"
"I am not crazy; some would call me blood thirsty. I like to refer to it as problem solving. You see, you are a problem for me. I intend to dispose of you; therefore my problem is solved. I may leave you alone on one condition." A slide my sword out of its sheath and twirl it around.
"And what would that be?" He asks, clutching his broken finger.
"Break up with Marinette." With that I shoot my grappling hook and leap from the building.
To be honest, I have no idea why I did what I just did. The finger was just because he pointed at me, he's lucky I didn't cut his hand off. What I said was unexpected, especially to me. Did I wish to court Marinette? Did I just refer to her by her first name? What is going on with me? I have barely known this girl for a day, but I cannot seem to get her out of my head. It has to do with whatever she is going to tell us on the Eiffel Tower. At least, that better explain why.
I reach the Eiffel Tower, landing in a space in the middle where everyone is waiting. Whiskers got here before me his finger no longer broken. Lucky super Bastard.
"Care to explain where you were?" Grayson gives his disappointed dad look. I roll my eyes, that look barely works on Mar'i, why would it work on me?
"I was observing."
"Observing what?"
"How many fucks I give. You're not my father Grayson."
"Yeah, little D, but I am your brother-"
"Not by blood. I am the blood son. The only blood son."
"You are still my brother. Our brother." he gestures to Red Hood and Red Robin.
"We already know where you were." Red Robin states.
"And who you were observing." Red Hood says.
"And we-" Nightwing started but is interrupted by Ladybug.
"Can we just get this meeting over with? We have school tomorrow, and it's already 11:00."
"Wait. He," Whiskers nods his head in my direction, "is going to school with us?"
"Yes, I am." I smirk. Messing with him will be one of the two highlights of having to be in a class full of hormone driven teenagers.
"Anyways," Ladybug gives us a pointed look, "I originally wanted to ease you guys into what Hoaxer was like, but I'm sure you saw what happened with Pigeon Saver. So, we can just get straight to the point. Hoaxer is my former classmate, Cerise Bianca formerly known as Lila Rossi. She is an expert at manipulation and lies to anyone and everyone. Once Monarch was defeated, we were all at peace for once in two years, that sadly didn't last long thanks to Hoaxer. She has access to all the miraculous, which are the special jewelry that allow Chat Noir and I to be our hero selves, except for four of them. Mine, the power of creation, Chat Noirs, the power of destruction, Bunnix's, the power of time, and Argos' the power of amukization, which basically is like Monarchs but instead of attaching itself to a person or an object it can be morphed into anything."
She walks over to the railing lining the areas and leans against it, look out towards Paris, "Even without those four she still has the rest which are all very strong. She mostly uses the butterfly miraculous and Hoaxes people, like Monarch did. Only she makes them twice as evil as he ever did. The victims that she takes over never remember what they did, thankfully. None of the people in Paris or even the tourists remember. Whenever I use the miraculous cure, I make sure that their memory is wiped of the recent events. They shouldn't have to remember what they did, who they harmed." Her voice goes a little raspy at the end, and she lifts her hand to wipe something away from her face.
She clears her throat before continuing, "I am normally the only one who remembers everything. Unless someone catches it on camera, they should have no recollection about the events that happen, and yes that sometimes includes you Kitty. Tonight's Hoax was bad, but not the worst. Which is why I allowed you all to remember. As you read in my e-mail, we need help. You guys weren't the only ones I contacted though. I also contacted the Titans, the Justice League, and Young Justice." She turns around to look at us and I note her red rimmed eyes and slightly red nose.
"The Justice League is off planet dealing with the aftereffects of Darkseid." Father says.
"Young Justice is dealing with the Meta Human issues we have going on in Metropolis." Nightwing pipes in.
"The Titans are regrouping." I answer vaguely.
"Looks like you're stuck with us, Pixie." Red Hood walks over to the railing and stands beside her.
"Yeah, it appears so." She smiles slightly, then drops it entirely, "There's more. I'll finish up with Hoaxer before I get into the rest. Cerise is still in Paris, otherwise she wouldn't be able to control her Hoax, we just don't know where. That was the one reason I contacted you guys outside of the justice league. You are a group filled with the best detectives to ever live, with your help we can finally track her down and stop her terrorism."
She was cute whenever she was serious. Where did that come from? She better be getting to that other part soon. And it absolutely must explain why I feel like this.
"Now onto the next part, which is equally as big. I don't think I can explain this part as well as Tikki can. Spots off." She de-transforms and a giant bug mouse is floating in the air in front of her.
"Its a bug!" Nighwing shouts, jumping onto Father who stands in place, unmoving.
"It's a mouse!" Red Hood shouts, jumping onto Father.
"It's a bug-mouse!" Red Robin shouts, attempting to jump onto me. I step away, leaving him to fall to the ground.
"I'm a Kwami. I'm the one who makes Marinette into Ladybug." The creature smiles. It had an odd appearance. It looked like a ladybug, only with a bigger head and big blue eyes.
"Can you please explain to them about the 'big bang'?" Mari-Dupain-Cheng asks the Kwami.
"Of course, you see many years ago when Plagg, Chat Noir's Kwami, and I were given to our first holders there was something that people refer to as 'The Big Bang'. Everyone thought that this started the world when in reality it brought two worlds together which caused a collision. The Big bang was two universes colliding together in order to make a brand new one. The people that existed in both universes were combined into one person. Thus, making slight changes in appearance and personality." The Kwami looks over at Dupain-Cheng, "Only this time, it wasn't two universes that collided."
"What do you mean?" Whiskers asks.
"When did this happen?" Father asks.
"Can we even trust this thing." Red Hood asked, which seemed to aggravate Dupain-Cheng.
"Tikki has been on this earth and many more since the begging of time, she has been with me for nearly three years. If I say you can trust her then you can. If you don't then that's on you and you can leave. But I will tell you right now, there is only one way down from here and I don't think you want to die again, Jason Todd." How did she know about Jason's death? Only the heroes and villains of Gotham knew about that. "Please continue Tikki, I'm sorry for the interruptions."
"It's no problem. As I was saying, this time three universes collided. The DC universe, the Miraculous universe, and the Quantic universe. The DC universe never existed in our universe, so nothing changed about your lives, well minus there being crime in Paris. In our universe, you guys just popped up. We didn't know Gotham existed a week ago."
I contemplated this, if our universes collided with theirs and almost nothing changed in ours, then what about the Quantic universe? They contained most of the same people in Dupain-Cheng's universe. At least I assume so. She did not list any differences about it.
"What about the third universe? What happened to them if you were all the same people?"
"We were combined, as Tikki said earlier. For me, my suit changed, and my hair was dyed pink. My emotions were altered. All of our heroes in New York were suddenly normal civilians who didn't recall ever being a hero. Same thing with their villains. Chat Noir wasn't as severely affected, only getting partially dyed hair when transformed. Everyone else stayed mostly the same. Thankfully."
"So that's it? We all just combined universes and sang kumbaya? What else is to it?" Red Hood walks up to the Kwami.
"There is nothing else to it. Everything was put into balance." The Kwami says excitedly.
Dupain-Cheng yawns, breaking the unnerving silence that had fallen over us. She looked far too exhausted for it to be normal, almost looking like Drake whenever he does his usual all-nighters. Maybe she can't sleep because of the memories of her previous battles with Hoaxer?
"Well, I think it's time for me to get to sleep." She swayed on her feet, and I rushed over to catch her. What is wrong with me? If it were anyone else, I would have let them fall.
"I can take her home." Whiskers pops up next to me, holding his arms out so I can give her to him.
"I can get myself home! Ready? Tikki! Spots..." She trails off as she slumps in my arms.
"She didn't sleep last night. Not after dealing with Quiet Place and finding Alya..." The Kwami says, patting Dupain-Cheng's cheek.
"What battle?" Whiskers asks.
I ignore is question and fix Dupain-Cheng to be better situated in my arms, "I will take her home."
"You don't even know where she lives!"
"Yes, I do." I swing off the tower, holding onto Dupain-Cheng tightly.
0000
We reach her house in twenty minutes. I land softly onto the top of her parents building, where a small area that I am assuming belongs to Dupain-Cheng is furnished and decorated. I search for the small door I noticed earlier while I was in her room. I find it easily and quietly open it, and slide down the latter onto her small landing. From there I gently set her on her bed and cover her up.
"Thank you, Robin." The Kwami says from beside me.
"Do not mention it to anybody. Ever." With that I leave her house and head back to the hotel.
I instantly regret coming back to the hotel.
"Sooo, Demon Spawn, did you give her a goodnight kiss?" Todd asks, puckering his lips. I punch him in the face, breaking his nose.
"Awww, is baby bird all defensive about his crush on the hero of Paris?" Drake teases, earning himself a black eye.
"Guys, stop teasing Little D about his future wife." Grayson chuckles. I throw a mini dagger at him, hitting his middle finger, then flip him off.
"I am going to sleep, do not disturb me or wake me with your moronic tendencies." With that I shove them out of my room, lock my door, and go to bed.
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I present to you Damian being fabulous: