Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“The patient is secured. Proceed with the transfer.”

The van rolled away from the airport and headed towards one of the most infamous mental institution in the world. Arkham Asylum. Mainly known for treating various Rouges of Gotham who had been ‘admitted’ there by the Batman and his flock of birds. A few of them rehabilitated and were doing less crimes, like Poison Ivy or Harley Quinn. Others like the Joker were kept because they were a threat to Gotham. Only time will tell which category the newest patient will fall into.

“ The universe is definitely laughing at me, ” the patient currently in the van thought. Why else would it go through all the efforts to make her be the butt of the biggest joke in existence?

She had followed all the rules, did all the things expected of her and yet, it was never enough. She had stayed in that mold, the sweet, kind and caring girl, first shaped by the people she once believed to be her parents. Then, the ‘nice’ teacher who claimed to be on her side and never stepped in between her and the mean blonde girl, not even once. The people she once thought she could finally called friends before they all tossed her to the curb for the next shiny thing.

The responsibility, that was thrust onto her shoulders because of one man with shitty coping mechanism and terrible critical thinking skills. The beings she swore to protect who were ripped away because a group of people with twisted morals and believed themselves to be the higher power deemed her unfit.

Anyone who listened to her life story can tell that it was shit but no one ever bothered to listen to the full story.

And the story at least had a happy beginning.

A happy couple decided to adopt a sweet baby into their family. The baby grew up to a pretty young girl who remain friendless despite all of her efforts, due to the influence of a spoiled, rich brat and an enabling teacher. She faced all of these hardships on with a smile.

Then, it happened. We all know this part by now.

A man who was filled with grief over losing his wife and willing to destroy an entire city to get her back.

A pair of earrings and a ring were given out. 

The stone monster who was the first victim in a long line of victims of the magical terrorist, Hawkmoth, who will plague Paris for years to come. 

Two heroes, one red and one black. 

Dark butterflies and a promise of protection. 

The boy with green eyes and a ring holding out an umbrella.

The girl had gained the earrings with a great responsibility, a best friend and a crush.

She was ready to face everything with a bright smile.

Everything appeared great until it wasn’t.

It had been a year and they weren’t any closer to defeating the villain. Trouble soon walked into her civilian life in the form of green eyes and silver tongue.

False promises and tall-tales were fed to eager ears.

The girl had made another enemy and for the boy she devoted her heart to, she kept her promise and remained silent of the liar’s lies.

The girl thought that she can handle anything that came her way and continued to smile, not knowing how wrong she was.

The spoiled brat, unhappy with not being given great power she thought was destined for her. So she betrayed them all. A hard battle was fought and the side of the heroes suffer losses. Their allies were revealed and put in danger from the madman. The box, filled with magic, was passed onto the girl, a new burden that made her shoulders heavier than ever.

As a hero, the villain had became stronger with the knowledge that fell into his hand. Her partner was becoming more and more unreliable in battles and began to aggressively pursued her.

As a civilian, the green-eyed fox was slowly but surely making good on her promise, tearing apart her friendship with the class. The spoilt brat made her life even harder than before. Her parents were starting to lose their patience with her and punished her for every offence her classmates claimed that she did.

The girl held back her tears and put on a fake smile to convinced the world that everything was fine and she can handle whatever it throws at her. However, the world appears to be cracking and it was getting harder to believe that there is good in the world.

The beginning of the end of her life in Paris started with the end of Hawkmoth.

She had taken the ring from the boy whom she had once loved and cried for days afterwards. To make up for the lack of a partner, she gave the dragon and the snake to the only two people outside the class who she still trusted. A fencer who was her former rival and now closest friend and a musician who stuck by her side through her highs and lows.

Her friendship with the class was now destroyed and the position of class president stripped from her. It hurt but she now has the time to pursue the copy of the girmoire and hone her abilities with the knowledge of magic hidden inside.

The three faced Hawkmoth in a final battle in the Agreste Mansion. After they had gotten the brooch of Gabriel Agreste and upon learning about the faith of his wife, she offered to wake the woman up in exchange for the peacock Miraculous and the girmoire.

The burden was lifted and peace settled on the city once more.

While the trio were great heroes and friends she could fully trust and rely on, they had their own budding careers that require them to leave Paris. With a sorrowful heart, she bid both of them goodbye with a necklace and a bracelet in her purse.

One day, while filled with loneliness and seeking a place where she doesn’t have to see the disappointment from her family, she came across a magician in trouble so she used her miraculous magic to save him. When the magician realised that the girl who had saved him was the former heroine Ladybug and still very much a child, he offered to teach the girl everything he know in magic to better protect herself and the Miraculous.

His name was Giovanni Zatara.

Months passed, the girl was thriving from the magic lessons from the one positive adult figure in her life. She looked forward to it and Zatara never had a more enthusiastic student. It made her life much more bearable. However, when the world fell into crisis for the upteemth, Zatara had to take his leave from Paris to answer the call of duty but promised to return.

It was something for her to hold onto as her classmates hurled daggers of hurtful words at her.

Honestly, the days before the incident that caused her to end up in Gotham was a blur. But she clearly remembered the day she lost her closest companions. She had returned to her now barren room and there were a few robed people thrashing it.

She recognised the symbol of the Order and demanded to know why they were there. A few who had remained hidden, ambushed from behind and held her in place as they finally found the Miracle Box. They branded her as thief and demanded her to hand over the Miracle Box. She pleaded with them that she wasn’t a thief and she had the title of Guardian given by Wang Fu.

Upon hearing the name, they told her that Fu was not an actual Guardian and that he had played her. He had stolen the Miraclue Box and created Feast to cover it up. The moment he realised the temple was back, he had given it up and pretended to have lost his memories so she will be his scapegoat. Some of the monks felt pity when they saw the girl’s horrified expression. They stopped their comrades from giving out the original punishment of death, pointing out that the girl didn’t know about Fu’s deception and her reaction was too genuine to be faked.

The kwamis at that point managed to get out of the box and they explained to the Order about Hawkmoth and how the girl had basically carried out their job and protected them.

So as a small mercy, they simply erased her memories. Her parents found her passed out when she didn’t come down from dinner. She woke up in the hosipital with amnesia and no recollection of the past few years. Doctors thinks that the emotional trauma from the entire Hawkmoth thing caused her brain to repress those memories. A few remarked that it was a blessing. (Many were bitter that she was able to easily forgot the hardships they all had endured under Hawkmoth.)

She vaguely remember her classmates for the first time in months asking her politely to bring around some pastries to a party they were throwing. She should have seen that as a sign but she was caught up in her successful haul that got her a rare magic book that was the real deal the other day.

(She lost the passion she once had for designing after Gabriel Agreste turned out to be Hawkmoth. Now, she prowled antique shops and flea markets for magic artifacts instead of fabrics and old clothing. She was making many connections with the magic community in Paris who all know that she used to be Ladybug.)

She had showed up at the party with their order, not intending to stick around. But they insisted for her to stay. Alarm bells rang in her head. Her magical instincts were telling her to get the hell out before something bad happened.

Before she knew it, arms held her in place as her classmates beat her up and hurled insults at her. Adrien simply watched as Lila clinged onto his arm with a lowered head. 

None of them saw her grin with malicious glee.

Marinette cried for help.

But she didn’t know that Chloe had used her power to clear the park so no one would 

witness the beat down.

As she laid on the ground, bloody and aching all over, Lila opened her mouth. Marinette didn’t know what the other girl said but through her magic, she finally with a sense of horror, realised how Lila was able to influence her classmates so easily. A sinister orange aura surrounds the brunette and strings, many of them, were tightly wrapped around each and everyone of them. The Miraculous had protected her and Adrien but after she took away Adrien’s ring, he had also fallen in line easily. The only reason she was still unaffected was because of her protection charms.

Her friends seemed to nod along to whatever Lila suggested and Marinette’s world went black.

When she opened her eyes, her ears were filled with the sound of sirens and she found herself in the back of a police cruiser.

The days after were filled with many people asking her for the truth of that ‘day’. But the truth was buried underneath her classmates’ various testimonies which all, of course, contradicts her. The only people she trusted to give the true description of her as a character witness were all out of the country or unreachable.

When Chloe visited her in her cell to gloat and demean her, wrapped in Lila’s sickenly orange strings, she knew that the entire court, from judge to jury would rule against her as they all would be in the Mayor’s pocket. Her parents also came by, orange strings around their necks, to tell her that they won’t even hire lawyers for her trial on her behalf and to her heartbreak, gave her the truth of her birth.

She was not their biological daughter. She was adopted simply because she looked like their actual daughter who had died a few months before they came across her.

Someone had decided to run her DNA against the criminal database and it showed that she was related to Jack Napier aka the Joker. They did a ‘psych evaluation’

(The psychiatrist who was supposed to evaluate her reeked of alcohol and was grinning like a loon. It was simple to hynotise him and find out that he was bribed to write her down as insane despite how the actual evaluation went.)

She could have used magic to get out of it but she was tired. She was tired of everything. She was tired of the glares and insults. She was tired of overthinking everything so nothing can be used against her. She was tired of looking over her shoulder everyday and being wary of when her classmates would descend on her like a pack of dogs, thinking themselves as righteous angels of justice. She was tired of the many secrets she held.

As she looked at the happy Agreste family, she was tired of her dreams to achieve that perfectly normal life. Because she was never born normal to start with.

The trial concluded with her sentence to be deported out of Paris to Arkham Asylum in Gotham.

Paris, the city she once loved and protected, hated her.

Good, because she hated it too.

As the van rolled up the hill to her new home, Marinette Dupain-Cheng died as a new girl took her place, ready to be re-shaped by Gotham City.

Chapter Text

Marinette woke up, confused and disoriented in her bedroom. Vivid images of her dreams playing back in her head. People turning into monsters, purple butterflies, her playing hero with a yo-yo of all things and a boy in black who made her chest ache but also filled with anger.

She walked down to the kitchen to get some water, careful not to wake up her parents. It has been a few days since she woke up in a hospital with no memories of the past 3 years or so she had been told.

Marinette put back the cup she used and sat down on the cold floor of the kitchen. The chill felt through her pyjama bottoms, kept her grounded in the world she had found herself in.

Everything felt wrong. Her parents felt distant and there was a sense of uneasiness in the city. The harsh whispers when people thought she wasn’t looking, didn’t help her at all. Something big had happened in the past three years and she had forgotten about it. 

Her room felt empty and lonely. It looked the same with a few minor changes but there was something still missing. Several somethings. If only she had a clue on what it is.

Wait.

Marinette stood up as she remembered her diary. Her past self would have written down what had gone down during the years she can’t remember. She dashed back up as quietly as she could to her diary’s hiding place.

It was not there.

The box was a decoy.

Marinette sighed. Someone, probably Chloe, might have tried to get her diary. Honestly, she can’t blame her past self for trying every way to avoid being Chloe’s punching bag to the point of being so paranoid.

Of course, she wouldn’t have thought that she might lose her memories and forget where the diary is hidden, wherever it is.

She looked inside the box again in hopes of the diary magically appearing when she noticed the inner lining that wasn’t there before.

Why would she put a padded velvet lining in a box that was supposed to be a decoy? Upon a closer look, it wasn’t glued on properly. Marinette had done something like this before for some of her friends’ gifts and she knew she wouldn't make such an amateur mistake. She took out the lining and found a key underneath. There was some writing on the back of the white cardboard which was used as a support for the lining.

‘ Under the chaise ’

It said in her own handwriting.

Marinette looked under it and felt for something. Only to find nothing. She upturned the lounge chair, careful not to make a loud noise and wake her family up, to get a better look of the underside.

There was a box with a lock on it and the key was a perfect fit. Inside was her diary and a strange dark blue glass orb.

There were a few ripped pages in the diary. Many of the pages were scribbled out and hard to read. The ones that weren’t ripped or fully scribbled over had words written backwards or in another language she didn’t know. There were many sketches of cute chibi like animals that brought a smile to her face like they were old friends she can’t remember. Then, she found a page that was different from the rest.

Firstly, it was the first one she found that was written neither backwards or in a different language. Written in big bold letters, it read:

‘ Break the glass ’

Marinette picked up the glass orb, finding it heavier than she thought it would be. As she inspected the glass orb curiously and confused about everything, she wondered. Why did she, the past her, go to such lengths to hide it but leave clues for someone to find?

Nothing made sense and her only answer was to break the glass like the note said. 

Marinette went up to the balcony and once she was there, she threw the orb as hard as she could onto the floor.

It shattered easily. Then, strange blue wisps escaped from it and went into her. Marinette fell onto her knees as memories of the past 3 years- her time as Ladybug and Guardian- crashed through her mind like a tsunami.

Once it was done, tears were streaming down her face as Marinette grieved over the loss of her beloved kwamis. Her only source of companionship in the hell that was Paris was no longer there. She was truly alone.

The girl woke up in her cell, her pillow wet with tears. She sat up, wiped her cheeks and hugged her knees.

Maybe if she had taken up Kagami’s or Luka’s offer to go with them, she wouldn’t be here. It would have made it harder for the Order to track her down and maybe she could have-

The girl shook her head.

No.

It would have only dragged her only friends into the mess that was somehow her life. She wondered if she could pinpoint where it all started going wrong. Was it when Lila appeared? Or was it Hawkmoth? She could not say for sure. It could have been before that when she was placed in the same class as Chloe with Caline Bustier as her teacher. Maybe it was when the once kind Dupain-Cheng couple picked up a starving little girl off the streets who looked too similar to their daughter who had died in an accident and named her Marinette.

It was no use thinking about it. She had already decided to leave the past in the past. But the future was still so bleak. While she could get out using magic, based on what she knew about superheroes from Alya’s ramblings ( it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to when she thinks of the name. It feels more like the name of a stranger now ). Batman operated Gotham, her new home, and he will probably drag her back if she ever escapes.

There was a chance she would be released earlier if she played nice but honestly, what use would it be if she ever gets out of Arkham.

She would be an ex-convict with a criminal record so there would still be the same hate and contempt she faced back in Paris if she ever got out.

The girl went back to sleep since worrying about it was no use but something tells her that tomorrow would be a good day.

The dark-haired girl sat alone, eating her lunch. So far, that’s the only thing that wasn’t different from her life in Paris.

For starters, Arkham was way nicer than she thought it would be after spending a few weeks here. Clean and neat environment, good food being served daily, mostly friendly staff members and decent cellmates.

Maybe the last one was questionable, considering some of their reputations which she had heard about from the guards' gossip and reading newspaper. However, they all avoided her. Mostly. There were some eyes on her since she was the youngest inmate currently in Arkham but she was used to it. Plus there was no hatred and hostility in those eyes which made it easier to breathe.

It was different from her imagination of dirty cells with rusty bars, having questionable grey mush for meals and the other inmates picking on her. How sad was her life that this was a huge improvement compared to being Marinette Dupain-Cheng?

“Hello, sugar. Aren’t ya a little bit young to be here?” A voice suddenly came from in front of her.

The girl looked up in surprise to see two ladies staring at her. The one who called her was a blonde woman with dyed tips, one side blue and the other red, and she had a slight vibe that screamed unhinged. The red-headed woman, next to her, seemed more calm but she had an unusually green tint to her skin. She blinked, unsure if they were friendly or not or if she should answer. After a moment, the girl settled for a wave.

“Ives, look how cute she is. What’s your name?” The blonde exclaimed, “Mine is Harley. Harley Quinn. And this lovely flower next to me is my girlfriend, Pamela. I just call her Red.”

“Hello.” Pamela gave her a small smile to reassure her.

Ever since they saw the girl, Harley and Ivy had to know how someone as young as her landed in Arkham Asylum of all places.

After a bit of bribery, knocking out people and breaking and entering, they managed to get their hands on the girl’s files. They expected some type of mental illness that makes it dangerous for her to be around people but trying to kill 14 people in broad daylight was … shocking to say the least. They were also surprised to learn that she was originally from Paris and the only reason she had been sent here was because DNA tests revealed her to be a daughter of the Joker.

Harley and Pamela decided to first observe her and since she was still young, try to prevent her going down the insane clown path as much as possible with their guidance.

For the first few days, they noticed that the girl was very quiet and afraid of making a fuss. Everything about her just screamed depressed and sad.

“You know, Red. I think I figured out the 14 attempted murder charges,” Harley said one day, after observing stalking the girl.

Batman had pulled some strings so they ended up in cells opposite each other under a few conditions. (Such conditions include no more killing people, peacefully surrendering to the authorities and try to get better)

“What about her screams psycho serial murderer like her dad?” Pamela asked, looking over one of her plants, “Honestly, she’s more like a wilted plant that didn’t have sunlight for days.”

“She’s been bullied, Red. The signs are all there. I’m beginning to feel like something fishy is going on.”

Harley began pacing around her cell, “She’s very wary of authority figures so the teachers might have been in on it. She might have been isolated. Parental figures might also have abused or neglected her.”

“You are saying she snapped hard one day and decided to murder her bullies.”

“Like a wounded animal lashing out. But it’s odd. She’s like an empty shell. Like she had given up and resigned to her fate. There's just no rage. No revenge plans. No drive to do anything.”

“I agree that is kinda strange. Or she’s just biding her time and plotting how to finish the job.”

“Normally, I would agree with you but…”

“But what?”

“Her eyes, Red. They look so empty. Ya know that old saying. Eyes are the window to the soul. It looked like everything had been drained out of her.”

“You don’t think she’s going to…”

“Not yet. Maybe sometimes later down the road. It’s hard to tell.”

“Harley, you want to help her, don’t you?”

“You know me so well, Red. She got a rough start so early but she should at least get a bit of joy in her life.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Whatever plan you got cooked up, I will help you.”

“Have I ever told ya that you are the best girlfriend ever?” Harley squealed.

“Um..hello to you too,” the girl replied warily and asked, “Can I help you?”

Harley and Pamela looked at each other before they sat down in front of her.

“Well, nothing really. We just wanted to talk to you, Marinette.”

The girl flinched and then glared at them, “I don’t think I ever told anyone my name.”

“Oh. You are quick, sugar,” Harley exclaimed, “We will be honest with you, Marinette.”

The girl flinched again, causing Harley to pause and make a mental note not to use the name before continuing, “For as long as I have been here, I have never met someone as young as you before. Plus you got that mysterious past vibe going on so I had to find out. A little bit of breaking and entering never hurt anyone. Your file is quite in-ter-res-ting.”

“Then you know that I killed 14 people,” the girl smirked as she brought her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her interlaced fingers.

“Tried and failed to kill 14 people in broad daylight,” Harley corrected and the smirk disappeared, “That’s pretty bold of you. But that’s not the problem here. Why are you here?”

“I think you already know.”

“I get it. 14 people. Nearly killed them. Blah, blah, blah. What I trying to say is murdering 14 people in a very public park where there can be witnesses in broad daylight. Not likely. No one is stupid enough to do that. And I know that you aren’t. I bet that it was in self-defense more than anything. At worst, you should be charged with assault, not attempted murder.  Even then, you should be in a jail cell in Paris. Not here in Gotham.”

The girl blinked, not expecting that.

“Not only that. Even if your father is that bastard ,” Harley spat out the word with contempt, “and you were declared legally insane, there are other places that they could have sent you. So why were you, no offence but a girl with no powers, sent to one of the most dangerous places in the world?”

No one had backed her up in the trial. She knew it was Lila’s influence but the fact that people she knew all her life didn’t take her side hurt. Now, in front of her was a stranger who only knew her from a file and was listing out reasons she shouldn’t have ended up where she was. It was comforting to have someone look at the facts for once and not take things as they seem.

The girl laughed, surprising the two women, “I think it’s pretty obvious. I was framed. Fourteen against one. Never stood a chance.”

“What shit are teenagers up to that they are framing each other for murder?” Pamela asked in horror.

“Some of my ‘victims’ were pretty famous with lots of money in their pockets. One supermodel, a daughter of a Mayor and one who ‘claimed’ to be daughter of the Italian Ambassador. I suppose that’s why my sentence was pretty unfair. I guess even judging by Gotham’s standards.”

The two sorta knew that from researching about Marinette by illegally using the internet. With the help of a VPN and google translate to go through the news articles about Marinette’s case, they managed to piece together what had gone down. The emphasis around the so called daughter of the Italian Ambassador also didn't go unnoticed. Most likely to be the ringleader of the entire thing.

“Gotham may be corrupt but this shit is just outrageous. Weren’t they your classmates?” Harley asked.

“They used to be nice. And then,” she paused and a dark look passed her face, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

It was clear that it was the end of the conversation. The girl went back to her meal. Harley looked at Pamela and they did that couple thing where they communicate without words in the span of a few seconds and know about what the other is thinking.

“Hey, kid. Wanna go out with us?” Harley asked, grinning excitedly.

“Huh?” The girl looked at her warily at the question.

“You’ll see in a few days what I am talking about.”

The girl screamed, hanging on for dear life, as Harley drove them out of Arkham Asylum in a stolen van. Unfortunately, Harley's driving skills left much to be desired.

“ARE YOU INSANE? We are going to get caught!” The girl shrieked, wondering if it was too late to back out.

“No worries, sugar.” Harley replied calmly, “Me and Red are pre-ty good at breaking out. Besides, today is the Fourth of July so Bats and his nests of birdies got their hands full with whateva Calendar Man got planned out.”

The girl’s head spun from Harley’s reckless driving and trying to decipher what she said through her accent, “I think I’m going to puke.”

Pamela gave her a look of sympathy and handed her a bucket from who knows where. The girl gratefully accepted and hurled her measly lunch into it. After puking her guts out, the girl profusely thanked the redhead for telling her to have a light meal that day.

After a while, Harley pulled over somewhere outside of Gotham City’s borders and the girl fell to her knees on the ground, “Thank kwamis, it’s over.” She proceeded to hug the dirt.

“Don’t be relieved yet, hun. It’s not over. The fun part is just getting started.” Harley exclaimed, pumped up on adrenaline.

“Huh?” The girl would have tried to run if her legs weren't jelly at the moment.

“This way is out of the city to throw off the Bat brats a bit. We are going back into the City another way.” Harley explained as she pointed out the direction they were going to go.

“Then, can you let Pam drive? Or me. I know how to and you can tell me which direction to take.” The girl wondered if she should make a portal to get out of enduring more of Harley’s driving.

“We are not borrowing another car. We are going to be taking,” Harley dramatically paused “,the Ivy Express.”

“The what?” the girl asked, baffled.

“Show her, Red.” Harley snapped her fingers towards Pamela.

“Alright,” Pamela said before focusing her powers on the nearby trees.

The branches nearest to them picked them up and flung them. They landed onto another tree where the same thing repeated. 

At first, the girl was terrified over the unexpected method of transport but it was similar enough to her time as Ladybug swinging across Paris that she relaxed a bit and was soon whooping along with Harley.

Where the trees ended and the city started to meet, they stole another car but this time, thankfully, Ivy drove to their hideout which is just an abandoned warehouse the couple had renovated to live in when they were out of Arkham.

Harley opened the doors and exclaimed, “Home Sweet Home.”

“Oh. Wow.” The girl looked around in awe.

The place was a perfect mix of Harley’s brand of crazy and Pamela’s love of plants. Green covered every surface they could, vines wrapping around the support columns and there was a skylight that allowed the light of dawn to filter through. Hammers and baseball bats were hung on a wall and the walls were decorated in graffiti. In the middle of the room was a giant TV and a circular sofa with a few bean bags. There was a fully-furnished kitchen in a corner. Trophies, gold bars and other sort of junk piled up in another. There was a stairway for a raised platform which acts as a second floor and bedroom.

Suddenly, two brown furry things attacked Harley.

“My babies. Did Selina take good care of you?” Harley cooed as her hyenas licked her. 

“She did a decent job,” Pamela said, inspecting her plants.

“Down, boys. Now, let me introduce you to our newest addition. Sugar, this one here is Bud and the other one is Lou. Bud, Lou, this is…” Harley trailed off, unsure if she should say the name or not.

“Marinette’s fine,” the girl said. She had that name for most of her life. It’s just that for the past year when her name is called, nothing good ever happens. It’s the terror of being found when she doesn’t want to be and when someone tries to find her, it is usually time to ‘punish’ her for something she never did.

“But you don’t like it.”

“Just bad memories. I will get over it.” The girl tried to hide the shakiness in her voice by acting nonchalant and with a smile. It didn’t pass the two women's notice.

“How about you choose a new one?” Pamela suggested, “Like a code name. People called me Poison Ivy and it feels less personal. The only one who calls me my actual name is Batman because he’s Batman and it humanizes me or so he says.”

“Besides, now that you are one of us, you need a gimmick,” Harley chimed in, swinging her arm around her girlfriend.

“What?”

“You see, Red got her thing with plants so that’s why people call her ‘Poison Ivy’. I mentioned Calendar Man earlier. His name is actually Julian and his thing is to celebrate holidays in illegal but wildest ways possible. And you know Edward, right? The bald one who we let out before we drove off with you. He does riddles and puzzles stuff as the Riddler. Point is Gotham is crazy, sugar. You need a thing so we can show you the best time of your life while you are here and you ain’t going to get that in that padded room.”

Pamela pushed Harley’s arms off and reassured the girl, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I am sure we can pull some strings so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life in Arkham and without associating with us like that. No strings attached. Promise. Harley gets ahead of herself sometimes. I suggested picking out another name because you seem uncomfortable with the one you have.”

“Sorry about that, sugar. And Red’s right. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to agree.”

“Why?” The girl asked in a soft voice.

“Why are we willing to do all of that for you?”

She nodded.

“Well,” Harley tapped her own lips, “for starters, you are just a kid. And no kids like you deserve to spend their life locked up. Reason 2 is the entire city is corrupt to the core and you need someone to show you the ropes if you are going to stay. Number 3 is because of the Joker. Once he hears about you, I know that bastard well enough that he will want to get his hands on you. Me and Red would be able to give you some protection as long as we are around.”

The girl was quiet as she thought about what they had told her. She doesn’t know much about Gotham and the two ladies were willing to help her. They even gave her an out.

“The offer about staying out of Arkham and not doing any crime. What exactly does it entail?” she asked.

“We have a friend who will hear us out about your case. He might be able to change your identity or something and get you adopted or into the foster system.”

“NO!” she cried. The girl tried to recover from her outburst by clearing her throat and replied more calmly albeit a tad shakily, “No. No. I don’t want that.”

“I am sure there are some nice people that would take you in. They don’t have to be from Gotham.” Pamela reasoned.

“What if they start to hate me? What if they find out that I am Joker’s daughter and treat me like I am some sort of freak? Then, I will be sent to Arkham again. And- And- ” The girl started to have a panic attack and talking in French instead.

Eventually, she calmed down and found herself on the couch being hugged by Harley and Pamela on each side.

“I am guessing that panic attack has to do something with the scums you called parents, huh?” Harley asked.

“They are nice people. It’s just,” the girl bit her lip as she realised that no matter how crazy Gotham was, no one was going to believe her about Lila using mind-control magic (they would but she doesn't know that yet), “they were manipulated into hating me.”

Harley pursed her lips in worry and questioned, “Do you mind sharing with the rest of us?”

The girl took in a deep breath, “You know how my classmates were more or less bullying me right? They told my parents that I was bullying this one girl and they believed my classmates even though I told them I wasn’t doing that. I guess they were disappointed about how I wasn’t the girl they had thought they had raised and dropped the bomb that I was a stand-in for their dead daughter when they visited me for my trial.”

The plants around the warehouse started to shake in response to Pamela's anger while Harley tried to not blow up as she hugged the girl tighter.

“That was pretty shitty of them. You didn’t deserve that. I only knew you for a few days and you are the sweetest, nicest kid I ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

Pamela pulled them closer to her, “I agree with Harley. If I could, I would go over to Paris right now and strangle them with my vines and use their corpses for fertilisers. Human blood is great plant food.”

“Yeah and, Bud and Lou would also love having human flesh for dinner.” Harley chimed in.

The girl rubbed her eyes at the oddly sweet violent offers and said, “Thanks, guys. But I don’t think my conscience can handle people dying on my behalf.”

“Shame. I suppose my more carnivorous children can live with steak.” Pamela commented dryly.

The girl giggled and they all fell into silence. The silence only lasted for a moment before Harley jumped up and headed to the kitchen area, “Okay, this is a good enough stopping point after unloading some emotional baggage. Red, load up some films, will ya? While I will make some popcorn. It’s time for girls’ movie night. Perfect end after an Arkham breakout.”

“Do you have any preferences?” Pamela asked the girl who shook her head.

“I don’t mind anything,” she replied but after a moment added, “Except for superheroes.”

“Good news. You are hanging out with two partially-reformed supervillains. We tolerate the heroes but we still hate their guts.”

It got a snort out of the girl. Pamela smiled as she began browsing through the options.

“Um..Miss Isley,” she shyly asked.

“You can call me Pam.”

“Oh. Pam, can you tell me who the other heroes are? In Gotham I mean. I only know about Batman.”

Pamela replied, “First off, they prefer to be called vigilantes. Most of Gotham just refer to any one of them as the Bats. Second, I can’t tell you exactly how many there are because there has been a lot of name changing and Batman has like a new sidekick every other month. This is the basics. In the beginning, Batman had one and he was named Robin. Then they were joined by Batgirl. Robin grew up and flew out of the nest and created a new identity which is Nightwing. He now mostly stays in Bludhaven and comes back to visit Gotham once in a while. Then, Batman got another Robin who we will call Robin number two. Unfortunately, Robin number two died because of the Joker…”

Pamela continued to spill tea about the Bat family drama. Harley returned with the popcorn and added details which Pamlea missed. The girl was more invested about the stories of the Gotham vigilantes than whatever movie was serving as white noise.

“Okay, okay. So there is Batman,” The girl held up one finger, “Nightwing who is the first sidekick.” She added another finger, “There was a second one who died. We are on the third one right now but there was a fourth one while the third was gone for a while and came back. The fourth one is a girl Robin who used to and also currently goes by Spoiler. Batgirl also got replaced by a scarier version. And there is a Batwoman. Who is also not the old Batgirl?”

“You got them all more or less.”

The girl turned her attention to the movie while Harley and Pamela’s commentary of it was a nice background noise as she organised her thoughts. She didn’t really pay attention to what they were talking about as her mind drifted.

Chances are if she kept spending more time around Harley and Pamela, she was going to run into the Bats at one point and they would not see her as someone on the side of ‘good’. But was that even a bad thing?

The painful truth was that the girl was tired of defending herself. Back when everyone called her the ‘Everyday Ladybug’, it was exhausting. Sure she was nice and kind but that was just what the class needed to drop everything onto her. She was happy to do stuff for her ‘friends’ or did she just do it because the adults told her to?

She tried to be the bigger person and stand on the moral high ground when it comes to Chloe. That only gave her the worst time in school. She followed all the rules and did her best to help the people around her. And all of that didn’t even matter.

Her status as the ‘Everyday Ladybug’ went down the moment Lila whispered a few sweet lies into their ears with what she now knew was thanks to magic that they believed her.

What would even be the point of trying to show that she was a good person to someone who won’t even listen? 

Well, fine if the Universe wanted her to be the bad guy. She would play the part with all she had. Her new name should properly reflect that.

Someone who breaks all the rules. Someone who defies the people in charge. A Rebel.

“Harley, Pam.” The two looked at her with curiosity.

“I know what my name is going to be,” she announced.

Harley jumped up and clapped her hands in excitement, “That’s fantastic, sugar. So what is it? Oh, is it Raven? But I think that is already taken by a demon chick. How about Night-crawler? But that's kinda edging into the Bats territory. I am sure they won't mind.”

“Harley, calm down. Give the girl some time to tell us.” Pamela chided her girlfriend.

“Sorry.” Harley sat back down but visibly shaking with anticipation.

“I was thinking of going by Rebel.”

“That is so badass. Any particular reasons why that you can share with us, Rebel .”

Rebel smiled, “I guess if I am going to do this Rouge thing. I am going to do this right. Breaking all the rules and flipping off the system. Plus I can be the Joker’s rebellious teenage daughter.”

Harley cackled, "I love it.”

“Do you guys have a sketchbook lying around?” Rebel sheepishly asked, “Because I got some great costume ideas I want to sketch out.”

“You can draw?” Pamela inquired while Harley went looking around to fulfil Rebel’s request.

Rebel replied, “Only clothes. I can do decent art if I try. Fashion is still my passion. It’s one of things from my old life that I don’t hate completely.”

“Sorry, Reb.” Harley came back with a red leather jacket and a domino mask, “No wait. That sounds too close to Red.” She shrugged, “I will think of something. But we don’t have any sketchbooks in the house or paper. Or pencils.”

“It’s fine. What’s with that?” Rebel asked, pointing her chin at the items in Harley’s arms.

“Oh, this.” Harley held up the jacket and tossed it towards her, “This is for your first official debut. I think you are about my size. With the bats focused on Calendar Man, they won’t be paying attention to some stationary store theft. A bit lacklustre for a crime. But baby steps.”

Rebel stared at the mask and jacket. Was she actually going to do this? Step out of the light and into the dark side.

Pamela noticed her hesitation, “You don’t have to do this. You can back out if you are not ready.”

Rebel shook her head and put the jacket on, “Let’s do this.”

“Atta girl.” Harley then looked over Rebel’s clothes which were the same as hers, standard Arkham-issued bright orange jumpsuits, “How about we change clothes first?”

Rebel looked over herself, “I think that’s a great idea.”

A few hours later, Harley and Poison Ivy were seen robbing in the shopping district with a new partner by the name Rebel.

Chapter Text

It was a peaceful day in Gotham City.

That should have been a sign that something bad was about to happen.

Sure enough, down at the Gotham Docks, one of the buildings exploded.

“AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” was heard coming from inside of it..

Out of the smoke emerged one soot covered Harley Quinn with her trusty hammer slung over one of her shoulders and a gleeful grin on her face. Poison Ivy rode out on her vines with a satisfied smile on her face. A second later, another figure came out of the smoke, coughing.

They wore a grey shirt, black ripped jeans and for a final touch, a hot pink leather jacket with the words ‘Rebel’ in big bold gothic font on the back. 

"Harley, a little more warning -cough- next time before throwing out -cough- a grenade?" Rebel said through her coughing.

"Sorry, Rebel." Harley apologised. “I will do that next time.”

"Are you okay though?" Pamela asked with concern when Rebel's coughing fit continued for a while.

"I'm fine." Rebel replied as her coughing finally subsided, "I think I am going to have to invest in a gas mask though."

"Sure, we can grab one at Walmart on the way." Harley said as she hopped on the black motorcycle parked nearby for their getaway and Pamela got on behind her.

"There are gas masks at Walmart?" Rebel asked as she got on her own bike which was also black but had painted on red flames. "Is this an American thing or a Gotham thing?"

Police sirens blared from the distance, approaching their location.

They all looked at each other.

"Split up?" Rebel suggested before putting on her helmet. (They may be criminals but safety first.)

"Okay, Rebel but remember to come back to the safe house once you are in the clear or check in when you get somewhere safe." Pamela said with concern in her voice and put on her own helmet.

Rebel simply nodded in response before speeding off and Harley did the same, speeding off in a different direction.

"Sir, we looked everywhere. It's been hours. She must have left this area by now."

"Damn it. How about the other team?"

"They were found tied up with vines and we lost sight of the criminals."

"God fucking dammit! Okay, we will go and check out all the possible places they may have gone. Men, move out."

Rebel sighed in relief as the police finally finished their search of the abandoned shopping mall and left. Then, she let go of her concealment spell.

She was careful to not let anyone know about her magic. It was her most carefully hidden secret. Not even Harley or Pamela knew about it. She had only vaguely told them about her time as Ladybug and they never pushed for more. Which was nice.

Rebel took out her phone and texted Harley that she was safe for now and in hiding until the police gave up searching for her.

Knowing the GCPD, once it turns to night, they would hand over the case to Batman and Robin and give up on searching for her. That is when it would be safest to return to Harley and Pamela's house.

Batman and Robin were only two people after all. Two very busy people.

Between Black Mask and Penguin stirring up trouble in the meanwhile, they would not pay much attention and just keep an eye out for her during their patrol. She should probably move places as a precaution in case the Bats would still try to track her down. 

Harley replied with a thumbs up and Rebel turned off her phone and removed the battery.

Marinette wandered around the abandoned place.

Standing in front of one of the windows of an abandoned shop, she admired her outfit.

Her leather jacket was one of the many that she made. She made a few in a range of colours with each and everyone of them personalised on the back with words to represent whatever she was feeling that day. 

Pink with Rebel across the back was her usual choice and her absolute favourite.

Black was when she felt a little bit more meaner than usual. ‘Villain’ was sitched on the back.

Red was for when she felt angry at everything and had ‘Rage’ on the back.

Dark Green had ‘Mischief’, which is pretty self-explanatory and neon-yellow for ‘Joy’. She was also thinking of more to add to her collection.

Soon, Rebel heard loud voices coming from the direction of the entrance.

She quickly ducked behind the nearest column to hide, in case it was the police coming back for another search.

She cursed silently because she still felt drained from her first spell to cast another one. Concealment spells were hard to maintain, especially for someone like Rebel who’s an amateur magic user and doesn't have years of practising magic under her belt.

She slowly peeked out.

Luckily for her, it just was the one of the local gang instead of the law enforcement. 

As the gang chatter on about their plans to rob a bank, Rebel decided to wait quietly until they all went away. She amused herself with the obvious flaws in their plan and thought about how she would have done it and improved on it.

If the worst came down to it, she could fight her way out.

Unfortunately, the Universe hates her as her nose starts to itch from the dust from her surroundings. She tried holding her breath to stop the oncoming sneeze.

The itch soon went away and Rebel let out a sigh of relief.

Because the Universe hates her, she lets out the loudest sneeze ever the next second.

'Did they notice?' Rebel thought.

[Universe: lol nope]

The one Rebel mentally nicknamed 'Scar' due to the one on his forehead called out, "Who's there? Come out or else."

'Scar' appeared to be the one organizing this little heist.

Rebel stayed quiet. Then, her nose started itching again.

Fuck it, she was getting a mask to wear after this.

Rebel lets out another sneeze.

She was seriously going to have to add a mask to her costume so she has proper filtered air to breathe in and not get into situations like this.

"Hey! I said come out."

Rebel mentally sighed as she slowly got up and came out of the store. The extendable staff was a comforting weight in her pocket. It also appeared that her sneezing fit had calmed down for now.

Steeling her nerves, Rebel put on the fakest customer service smile which made a few of them warily take a step back.

Good.

(She tried not to think too much about why people get scared when she smiles like that.)

"Hi. The name's Rebel." She introduced herself because introductions are needed to make new 'friends'. "And before you all start shit, I was here first."

"So what is someone like you hiding in a sketchy place like this?" Scar asked, voice filled with suspicion.

"Oh. Hiding from the cops." Rebel replied as she leaned casually on the column. "And don't worry, they already pass through this place. I am just laying low until the coast is clear."

She waved her hand and said, "So continue whatever you are doing and don't mind me. And would you look at the time? I have to skedaddle. Ciao, boys."

Rebel walked away as she mentally chanted in her head. "Please let me go. Please let me go."

[The Universe, if it had a face, smirked.]

"Girlie. You stop right there."

Rebel sighed and stopped. 

Of course, she has to fight her way out. Why can't she have nice things?!

She pasted on her 'creepy' smile and turned back around.

Some of them flinched at the sight of it. 

The retractable staff was held tight in her hand, out of sight and ready to be activitated at the first sign of trouble.

"Or what?" Rebel asked, a tad bit more smug and taunting than she should have.

She was on edge from the entire situation and wanted the fight to start so she can get it over with and get home to sketch out her design ideas for her new mask.

She could take them all on. Probably.

"Well, someone got to teach you a lesson on trespassing." Scar sneered.

"I already told you. I was hiding out in here to avoid the cops. I was planning to leave after you left. That's it. Now let me go."

"Likely story. Get her, boys!" Scar ordered.

Hah, predictable as hell.

Rebel pressed the button that would extend the staff and got into a battle stance.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

People laid on the ground around Rebel, knocked out or groaning in pain.

"You know. I did try to warn you." Rebel said as she dialed 911 on her phone. "Hello. Yes. I would like some ambulances at the abandoned shopping mall near Cathethral Square. And send the cops. A gang tried to jump me. Name? I'm Batman."

Rebel ended the call and then turned around to hit the thief who was playing dead and waiting for the right moment to attack from behind.

"Nice try. And the other one is still hiding. Come out or just stay hidden. As long as you don't attack me, we will be fine."

The last one came out of their hiding spot with their hands up.

"Nah. You took out Derrick. I won't stand a chance." They said as they came close enough for Rebel to see them more clearly.

The last thief was a girl, probably a few years older than Rebel. She wore a letterman varsity jacket and a cap so it was hard to properly see her face. Rebel noticed that she was one of the quiet ones during the planning session.

"Hi, I am Lay." She said, holding out her hand.

"Rebel. Sorry that I won't shake your hand. I have a phobia of handshakes."

"Ah. Right, Joker for a dad."

"It's not daddy issues. I just have trust issues." Rebel explained, seeming exasperated.

"Okay...? Why do you feel a need to specify that?" Lay asked, confused.

"Because having a terrible parent is not a good enough justification for wrecking shit.  I wreck shit because the entire world screwed me over and not just one person. And besides, I have only ever met the guy once." Rebel explained. She retracted the staff, exchanged it for her phone to look for the nearest McDonalds.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving. Goodbye, Lay. Hope we never meet again."

Rebel nodded towards her and walked away. 

Footsteps followed her.

"Why are you following me?" Rebel asked.

Lay sped up a bit to match Rebel's pace.

"Because I think you're awesome," she answered, "And I wanted to know where you got your jacket. I want one." Lay continued, pointing at it.

"Sorry to disappoint you but I made it myself. But if you want, we can switch our jackets. I can always make another one."

"Really?"

Rebel shrugged her jacket off and held it out to her.

Lay excitedly took hers off and they swapped.

The other girl twirled excitedly in her new jacket while Rebel stole the cap off her head and put it on.

"Why does it smell like smoke?" Lay asked as she sniffed the weird smell coming from the jacket.

"Harley may have... threw a smoke bomb when I was hanging out with her this morning.

"Just hanging out?"

"Well, I am not going to confess to a crime."

"Ah. Gotcha." Lay winked at her.

"So what were you doing with those henchmen?" Rebel asked curious.

Lay rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. "Money."

"Ah." Rebel said in understanding.

"Yeah. My brother wanted me to be part of this group so he can get an extra share of the loot."

"Was he...?"

"Nah. He isn't here today. Although it would be funny to see him get his ass kicked by a 'girl'. And Chandler's plan sucked ass. It was never going to work."

"I know, right! First off, the Bank has a new updated system that made his security guard disguise plan obsolete. There was a whole freaking article boasting about it."

"That article. Dude, that was so fucking stupid of them. Telling people how advanced and high-tech your security system is. That is like- that is just inviting professional criminals to come and rob them."

"They are just talking big. It's not that hard to get past it."

Lay gave her an appreciative look. "Did you...?"

"How else am I going to pay for stuff in this economy?"

Lay laughed. "Holy shit, girl. Tell me how you did it."

Rebel stepped back from where Lay had gotten a little too close.

Lay realised and stepped back.

"Not a big fan of personal space, huh?" Lay said.

"Related to the trust issues."

"I get it."

They kept walking and Lay attempted to change the subject.

"I was wondering. Where is your accent from? You sound like a foreign spy."

"I was deported from another country."

"Which one?"

"la France."

"Woah. What did you do murder people?" Lay joked.

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Rebel replied with a slightly terrifying smile.

Lay nervously laughed at her reply.

"Ha.. ha. haa.. I see."

Rebel then said, "Since you asked a personal question, it's my turn."

"Okay. Can I not answer if I don't want to?"

"You can."

Lay looked slightly relieved.

"Why don't you try to get a legal job?"

Lay snorted. "With my family. Hell no. My pa was a criminal. My ma ran away with another man. Now she is married to some rich guy last I heard. It was just me and my brother, Liam, growing up. Liam was in and out of jail during puberty and I always had to do whatever I could to get money to bail him out. Liam was always pulling me into shit like the thing with Chandler so even if I was on the straight and narrow, I can't completely get out unless I cut ties with Liam."

"Why don't you?"

"He's my brother and he has better connections than me so he can track me down and demand shit from me. He also has friends in high places."

Rebel sighed. "I am going to regret this."

"Yes?"

"You can... I don't know. Maybe use my name as protection. It's not much but it would scare some of those men who work under Penguin and Scarcrow."

"Aw.. Thank you, Rebel."

"Don't thank me. Think of it as an apology present."

"What?"

The shrill sound of a whistle pierced through the night.

Lay turned around to see the police pointing at her. She turned back to see Rebel was gone.

Lay ran but to no avail as she found herself in the back of the police cruiser.

She felt something in the pockets of her jacket which had caught the police's attention in the first place and mistook her for the villain.

She took it out to see that it was a note.

'Sorry' it read.

"Well played, Rebel." Lay smiled. "Well played."

A few months later, Rebel kicked open the door to the hideout of the new gang called the Rebellion which she supposedly runs and didn't know she was running.

"Okay, who the fuck is impersonating me?" Rebel demanded.

All of the occupants turned their heads towards the figure sporting a leather jacket smiliar to hers.

The girl turned around, revealing a familiar face.

"Nice to see you again, Rebel. Thank you for your little gift." Lay said.

Rebel chuckled as things fell into place.

"Okay, I deserve this. But since you are using my name to lead this little gang of yours. I would like to lay down some rules. You follow them and you have me as your guardian angel."

Lay considered it for a moment and held out her hand.

"Deal."

Rebel took her hand.

"Deal."

Chapter Text

Rebel hummed to the tune of Jagged Stone’s newest single as she spray-painted her newest masterpiece on the wall of some office building. The full moon shone bright enough for her to see without the need for a flashlight.

Then a dark shadow loomed over her.

Rebel ignored the glare Batman was giving her, focusing on the shading of her mural.

“Rebel.” came his one-worded demand.

She didn’t look at him and took a step back to admire her nearly finished handiwork instead.

“I feel like something is missing here.” she said, slightly tilting her head and tapping her lips in thought. Or the approximate location where her lips would be since the lower half of her face was covered by a sleek red mask. She was dressed in a similar style to Harley but with more coverage and punk-rock in aesthetic. Her leather jacket had 'Reborn as Rebel' etched on the back.

Batman kept staring at her. Perfectly still but his impatience was still obvious from his body language.

“Oh.” She clapped her hands as inspiration struck her. “What if I added some thorny vines here?” she said. She motioned with her hand where the vines would spread out from her portrait of Poison Ivy.

“Add a subtle threat, don’t you think so, Monsieur Bat?” She turned around to face him, finally acknowledging his presence.

“Rebel.” He narrowed his eye lenses to show that he was giving her the ‘tired dad glaring at her’ face.

“It’s not like I am doing anything bad.” She shrugged her shoulders and rummaged through her duffel bag for her green paint can.

“You are vandalising the property.”

“So do you on a regular basis.”

“Hn.” He grunted, not able to refute that statement.

A snort came from behind her, “Hah. She got you there, B.”

Rebel jumped, startled.

“Damn it, Robin. You know I hate it when you bat-people sneak up on me like that.”

Robin just smirked at her.

“This is completely unfair, you know. Ganging up on me like this.” Rebel complained as she uncapped her green spray paint can and shook it.

“What do you know about the Red Hood?”

Oh no. Rebel hated that voice of Batman. If she was on less friendlier terms with Batman, like the Penguin, she probably would have been thrown to the wall. She would have to get an arm cast, just like the Penguin had on for the past month.

Rebel paused in what she was doing.

“Why are you asking me about that?” She asked, genuinely confused about why Batman had asked her of all people about the newest vigilante/maybe villain in Gotham.
“Like you aren’t the head of the Rebellion, the biggest gang in all of Gotham.” Robin said, with a wide grin. “And best information network on all things criminal.”

“Don’t call me that.” Rebel groaned. 

People seemed to think the ‘Rebellion’ worked for her no matter how much she corrected them on the misunderstanding and she was getting tired of correcting them.

“I am not leading the gang. I am just their consultant. For commiting crimes. A Consulting Criminal if you will. They were shit at planning so all I did was come up with the plans. They get great results and a good rep. I get paid. Mutually beneficial arrangement. Just because they named themselves after me, doesn’t mean I lead them.”

“Riiight.” Robin didn’t sound convinced. “Anyway, you gotta have heard something.”

Rebel sighed.

“Red Hood. Red Hood.” 

She tried to remember what Lay, her main contact with the gang and the actual leader of the Rebellion, said at their last regular meet-up at Bat-burger.

“Oh, the decapitated-heads guy.”

Batman’s face became frownier. Rebel took that as a sign to continue.

“Yeah, the guy showed up at the last meeting of every top group in Gotham. The big players, you know. Which was only held in the first place to discuss what they were going to do about him.”

Rebel chuckled at the slight irony of it. She had turned back from Batman to continue on her mural.

“Ten minutes in. He showed up with a duffel bag filled with the heads of every lieutenant. Said that he accomplished the act within two hours. Doesn’t seem to be a lie. Lay said that she last saw Erwin’s head on his neck an hour ago before the meeting.”

The sounds of spraying paint stops. She grabbed a new can and shook it.

“He threatened them to give him a cut of our profits each month and laid down a few strict rules. Lay said it was all already what we are doing. Don’t involve kids. Don’t sell drugs to kids. Main point, don’t get kids involved in the drug trafficking shit. And also human trafficking.”

“Anything else?”

“She thinks the Red Hood dude is trying to be some enforcer type guardian angel of Crime Alley. Described him as a big guy. Built like a fucking tank and wears leather. No face because he has a red helmet even though he called himself Red Hood. The name sounds like that old gang Harley told me, used to run around with Joker.”

“Joker did once have a crew that called themselves the Red Hood.” Batman mused. “He also called himself that too.”

“Thank you for your help. Let’s go, Robin.”

“Bye, Rebel. I will come see your painting when you are done.”

Rebel absentmindedly sent them a wave. Too focused on her mural.

-

A moment later, a dark shadow blocked her light again.

Rebel sighed. “What more do you want from me?”
She turned to give a glare to Batman. 

Only to see that it wasn’t Batman.

Rebel squinted.

“You are the new big bad in town that everyone’s gossiping about, right? Decapitating heads and taking over the drug market scene.”

“So you heard of me.” Red Hood stepped closer towards her. She remained unfazed.

“I try to keep up with the latest gossip in the city.” Rebel shrugged. She tilted her head, “Any reasons why you came to see me? I hope it’s not to kill me.”

She said as if being killed was just a mild inconvenience. But that’s just how most Gothamite lived their lives

“Rebel. Relatively new to the Rogues Gallery. Mainly works with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. And… Daughter of the Joker. Following in your father’s footsteps, are you?”

Rebel’s face became dark.

“I do not like associating myself with him . I am more of… the occasional chaos maker than whatever insane and mad thing he usually does.”

“Is that Daddy issue I hear?”

“Are you sure you aren’t just projecting?” She was definitely smirking under that mask.

“Fuck no.”

Rebel laughed as she stepped closer to Red Hood, unafraid. His stature meant that he completely dwarfed her petite figure but he still subconsciously took a step back.

Whether or not Rebel didn’t like to be related to him. They sounded the same, especially when they laughed.

“Because I am pretty sure you are the one with Daddy Issues. After all, it comes with the territory of being a Robin. Having the Big Bat for a father. ” 

How did she-

Red Hood whipped out his pistol. The nozzle was a few inches away from blowing Rebel’s head off.

“How do you know?” He growled out.

“Like, it’s hard?” Rebel moved the gun away from her head. “Besides, the writer won’t be happy if I spoil a story which everyone already knows.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Rebel hummed instead of answering like the little shit the rumors claimed to be and said, “How many Jokers can be found in a pack of cards?”

“For someone who claims not to be like her sperm donor, you sure do have that same vague philosophy thing going on.”

Rebel frowned. Jason thought he finally hit a nerve on the teenager.

“Two Jokers.” She calmly continued instead of getting angry like he thought she would. “In countries like Germany, you can find three in a deck. In video games, you often get three lives. Unless you have a cheat code. Or get very lucky. Or you don’t die, ever because you are in creative mode.”

“What are you trying to say?” Red Hood demanded, done with Rebel’s riddle-talk.

“What I am trying to say is , Bucket-head. You do have to wonder, despite all the wrong he has caused, why no one has managed to off him yet.”

“My name is Red Hood.”

Rebel walked to the edge of the roof, stepping up onto the parapet wall.

“Whatever you say. Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Bucket-head.” Rebel said, turning to face Red Hood. A few inches was the only thing that kept her from falling to death.

Red Hood tensed, realizing what Rebel was going to do as she leaned backwards.

“NO!”

Rebel took a step back.

The former Robin leaped and tried to catch her. He failed, missing her fingers by a few centimeters. 

After what felt like an eternity, he stared unseeing at the corpse decorating the sidewalk below and twisted at an awkward angle. The sickening splat when her body hit rang in his ears. The streetlight nearby illuminated it like it was some grotesque artwork.

What the fuck just happened?

Jason’s thoughts were jumbled as he tried to make sense of it.

The girl just stepped off a roof. She didn’t even use a grappling hook, no secret trampoline on the ground or even a rope. Just stepped off and Bam! 

She was lying dead on the ground.

Was she insane? Given her father, it would make sense but why jump off a roof without a back-up plan?

Red Hood sat there for a while in shock and tried to collect himself. A girl, he was talking to, killed herself for no reason. That was fine. It wasn’t important. He shouldn’t care. She was the clown’s daughter. All the more reason he shouldn’t care that she just died in front of him.

But he did care. Despite the fact that he had only talked to her for a few minutes.  He had killed people without mercy but the fact that he couldn’t save the daughter of his murderer made him feel… like a failure.

The clank of metal broke him out of his reverie. He looked up to see a very much breathing, walking and very much alive Rebel who had a deer-in-headlights look as she was caught slowly putting her paint cans back into her duffel bag.

“What?” He gasped out, his voice coming a tad hysterical. He slowly looked over the edge of the roof. The bloodstain was still there but the body was gone. Like Rebel’s corpse had gotten up on its own, walked away, gotten up to the roof via the fire escape and currently, standing in front of him.

Jason closed his eyes and opened them again. Nope, the bloodstain from her fall was still there on her jacket.

“How- how did you- ” Jason swallowed before asking the obvious.

“How am I alive?” Rebel shrugged. “I just am. I am alive so I am.”

“And you are fine.”

He looked at her leg which he had last seen being bent at an unnatural angle moments earlier.

“No one could survive that fall.” He said.

“Eh. I did.”

“That’s cause…” Jason got struck by a horrible realization, “The Joker is an immortal motherfucker, isn’t he?”

“In a way. Yes.”

“What do you mean ‘in a way’?”

Rebel opened her mouth.

Then thunder boomed and lightning struck the nearest lamppost. Making it dark for a moment before the lights came back on. No rain fell from the sky.

“Alright! I will keep my mouth shut. Happy?” Rebel screamed at the sky. Then, she gave Red Hood an apologetic look.

“Sorry, looks like I am not allowed to tell you.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Someone would be angry if I revealed too much of its secrets.”

“Who? The universe?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t tell if you are genuinely insane or your life is actually that crazy.”

“I would like to think that it is both. But you got the message, right?”

“The Joker can’t die by any means. He will just come back to life.”

“Eh. Close enough.”

Jason was quiet for a moment.

“Does that mean he can still feel pain?”

“When I fell off the roof, I felt my bones break so I am going to say yes.” Rebel replied as she finished packing up her things.

“How the fuck is he even an immortal anyways?”

Rebel looked around, looking for a sign that she won’t be hit by divine punishment if she told Red Hood the answer. When there was no thunder.

She answered, “This sounds the most hippie shit ever but the closest analogy I can think of. Imagine that the Universe is a writer and our lives are the stories it writes. It loves a good story. The story of Batman and Joker is one of them. Because it is such a good story. It never wants it to end and it has the choice to not write an ending. So the Joker is written to be the most evil, the silliest, the most dangerous, the luckiest, the smartest and the most insane man to ever walk the planet so he can be Batman’s enemy in a war forever locked in a stalemate. Until the Universe gets tired of the story.”

“And then, what?”

“I wouldn’t know. I have never heard of a story that ended.”

Jason stared at his hand and closed it into a fist. “Is that why I am alive? Why you are still alive?”

Rebel shrugged as she picked up her duffel bag. “Probably. Then again,” She walked to the edge of the roof, stepping onto the parapet wall.

Jason got hit with intense deja vu.

“I might have made the entire thing up just to mess with you.” Rebel said as she stepped back for the second time that day.

Instinct made him try to grab her again. This time, however, he watched her hands glow and a portal appeared under her. She disappeared through it and the portal closed.

Red Hood stood there on the rooftop, blankly staring at Rebel’s half-finished mural when he heard a familiar thud behind him. That’s when he finally saw her plan and realized he played right into her hand.

He laughed and then turned to face Batman. Right on cue, thunder boomed and rain fell.

Chapter Text

Gotham Academy is the most prestigious school the city has to offer. With a rich history since its founding in 1863, it has seen many students pass through its halls.

Currently, school break has ended and students return back to their education. They chattered about their holidays and excitement filled the air over seeing their friends again.

They didn’t know about the storm that was going to disrupt their peace.

The doors slammed wide open. Illuminating the girl wearing a pink hoodie that was definitely against the school dress code.

No one paid her any mind.

When the bell rang, students reluctantly headed to their classrooms.

Mr. Myers was a perfectly ordinary English teacher who had the lovely opportunity to teach at Gotham’s most prestigious education institution.

Currently, he was taking attendance for homeroom.

“Rei Yukimura.”

“Here.”

“Rebel Without-a-Cause.” The teacher paused and looked again at the last name written down on his list.

“Rebel Without-a-Cause” he repeated with a tinge of confusion and settling fear.

“Here.” Came from a voice in the back. Looking every bit of the picture of a delinquent student with combat boots both propped up on the desk and customised school uniform that goes against every school dress code was Rebel. The teenage maniac killer from France who is also the daughter of Joker and Gotham’s newest problem.

Everyone in the class turned to look at her. Upon meeting her gaze, they looked away for fear of drawing attention to themselves.

Mr. Myers, a born and raised Gothamite with nerves of steel, said, “I wasn’t aware that I was getting a new student.”

Rebel hummed before answering, “Well, the paperwork wasn't finalised until this morning.”

She dared him to challenge her.

Mr. Myers, a born and raised Gothamite with self-preservation instinct, didn’t take the bait.

“Well then, let’s begin the class, shall we? We won’t have trouble here, right, miss Rebel?”

“No. No. I’m just here to learn. Psych ward is not a good learning environment.”

“Very well then. Let’s start homeroom.”

Mr. Myers turned back to the whiteboard.

Batman and Commissioner Gordon met on the roof of Gotham Police Station.

“The strangest thing happened today.” Gordon began and turned to face Batman. “Rebel went to Gotham Academy.”

“Hn.” Batman grunted. This was news to him and caught his interest. Tim had dropped out of the place years ago and Damian refused to mingle among the ‘low-minded morons’ in ‘prison for children’.

“Apparently, she had enrolled herself there. Caused a bit of panic among parents when they found out. But she has done nothing bad as of yet.”

“How is she enrolled?” Batman asked, “Wouldn’t the school board deny her entry?”

Gordon sighed, “According to some ‘anonymous’ tips, Rebel had threatened most of them with blackmail. She sent proof of the incriminating evidence she had on them that none of them want being leaked to the press.”

“Hn.”

“It’s a headache. We have tried to arrest her but she pulled out some bullshit loophole law from years ago that she found that basically says that we can’t arrest her while she is on Gotham Academy grounds during school hours. That law is still in place to this day so our hands are tied unless the city council gets on changing it and you know how long the process takes.”

“Hn.”

“In addition to that, she has signed a contract that says that she promises to not cause any physical harm to the teachers and students. Or else she would be expelled. That contract has incredibly detailed circumstances where she would not be to blame if there were some injuries on a student or staff member in an incident involving her. In addition to that, she could continue her schooling online if she happens to be in Arkham. The frustrating bit is that all those conditions she set out were all reasonable. She had Harvey Dent, wearing a mask to cover his uglier side, come in as her lawyer when she signed the contract.”

“Two-Face had his lawyer licence revoked.” Batman said.

“Again, due to some technicality, it is Two-Face who doesn’t have the right to practise law. Harvey Dent still can. And it was Harvey Dent who was in the meeting. Or so Rebel claimed.”

“Hn.”

“The law bends to exactly fit Rebel's wishes and we have no clue why she wishes to go to school.”

“I have an idea.”

Gordon waited.

Batman stood there silent.

“Well, what is it?” Gordon asked, annoyed by his silence.

Batman pointed behind Gordon. The Commissioner turned around to see a pink dot in the distance, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

Gordon turned back around to see that the vigilante had disappeared. Probably chasing down Rebel.

Rebel walked out from the fast food joint, humming with her goods in one hand. She expertly parkoured one-handed onto the rooftop. She set down the bags of food and reached for her backpack.

A few minutes later, a blanket is laid out with paper plates and soft drink cans nearly arranged on it.

There was a thud signaling the arrival… of who she wasn’t expecting.

Rebel turned around and her forehead creased into a frown.

“Mister Bat?”

“Rebel. How was your first day in school?”

“Fun.” She replied. “Are you going to stop me?”

“Hn.”

A non-answer.

“Relax. I am not going to kill any of them-”

Rebel realised why Batman was worried about her going to school. Her track record of murdering classmates.

“I suppose my past history does make people nervous about me attending school. I promise that I am in a healthier state of mind now. You can check with Dr. Fenton.”

Rebel tried to reassure the vigilante. Everyone she knew had asked her for the reason behind her latest decision to go back to school. The paranoid Bat was probably the same as everyone else. Wondering if she would cause another school massacre.

“I am not worried about that.” Batman said, cutting off her babbling.

“Huh?” Rebel gave him a look of surprise.

“You wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble of making an air-tight contract with many conditions that would backfire on you if you ever make the slightest misstep.”

“What if it is all just a ruse? What if I am just biding my time? What then?” Rebel challenged.

“Then, I will personally drag you back to Arkham into the cell with maximum security.”

“Do it then.”

“Not until you give me a reason to. I believe some people need second chances.”

“You have given my biological father many chances and he has never changed. What if I am not that much different from him?”

“You are not your father. You are someone independent of him. You make your own choices.”

“Still a criminal though.”

“But not a murderer.”

Rebel lets out a dark laugh, “What makes you so sure that I have never killed before?”

“I have kept an eye on you since you set foot in this city. When you get angry, you lash out and take it out on empty places. You ease your boredom with pranks and heists. In all of your plans, you had considered the civilians and they were all left unscathed. And I know that you are not fully set on what you want to do.”

“Maybe I just don’t like getting blood on my clothes.”

“Emily Campbell.” Batman said. The name didn’t ring any bells.

“Who?”

“She was the girl you saved from an explosion which you caused.” Batman explained.

“Oh, the Tik-Tok girl. She was a stupid girl standing there to record a video for five minutes of fame. I am not a monster who is going to let someone die by their stupidity.” Rebel remembered that she was a villain not a hero anymore.

“Besides, it’s more fun to see themselves being humiliated by the audience they were trying to impress.” Rebel finished.

“Most villains wouldn’t care enough to save her but you did. And you rescued her.” Batman pointed out. “You convinced yourself that you are some evil person because that’s what people told you that you are.”

“Stop psychoanalysing me!” Rebel said angrily.

Batman was stubborn in letting her know that she was wrong.

“Even if they die, you visit their graves with flowers. You carry around a gun filled with blanks because you can’t handle the thought of killing someone. You wear a mask to distance yourself from your true nature because you hate…” Batman trailed off, realising his mistake a bit too late.

“Myself.” Rebel finished calmly. The calm before the storm.

“I hate myself. But self-loathing is a very common thing in our lifestyle. Along with the guilt with each person you cannot save. Another person you failed. Another name to remember and etched into your heart. It’s worse if you knew them. It’s devastating if you care about them very deeply .”

Rebel had another thing in common with her father. She knew just how to get under Batman’s skin.

“Enough.”

He would not admit that his voice was slightly shaky when he said it.

“No. You fucking started it and it’s my turn to psychoanalyse you.”

Rebel was a vengeful angel on a warpath. Intend on leaving the earth scorching with her wrath. She was out for his blood.

“You break every promise you made because you convinced yourself that it’s for the greater good. That only made all the relationships you have so strained and you feel alone. Once you realise that you are alone, you decided that it was the best outcome and continued on carrying the weight of everything like you are Atlas. Like you are the titan that can hold up the sky. When the reality is that you are not a god, you are just a human who is too paranoid to trust anyone and pushed everyone who remotely cared about you away for your stupid self-assigned mission!”

Batman knew all of this. He had spent many nights thinking about it. He was self-aware enough to admit to himself that Rebel was right and on point for everything she said. But he didn’t say anything to refute it.

Because Batman knew that Rebel was not talking about him and that was the worrying part.

Rebel didn’t speak for a while and just waited for him to argue back.

When he didn’t, she scowled and rubbed her eyes.

“It’s the dust.” Rebel said, louder than needed.

Batman continued to say nothing and reached into his utility belt for a packet of tissue and held it out to her. An olive branch and an apology.

She took it and faced away from him. He politely looked away.

Her phone beeped and she took it out to read the message.

“Looks like Lay’s not going to be coming. Some trouble came up.” Rebel reported when there was no need for her to do so.

Batman thought about what to say but he had already pushed her too much for today.

“For what my opinion is worth, I believe that you will do the right thing when it comes down to it.” was what he ended up going with.

Rebel scoffed. Although she looked thoughtful about his words.

As Batman was about to grapple off the roof, she said the one word he was hoping for.

“Wait.”

Batman stopped, the arm with the grappling gun still raised.

Rebel fidgeted in her spot, hesitation written all over her.

“I… I thought about it. Whether I should tell you or not. Even before you chased me here.” Rebel started. “And you were right. I don’t want to go through with it.”

Batman put his grapple gun away.

Rebel gave him a look that was a bit difficult to decipher. 

“Here’s the deal. You do this one thing for me and I will call it off.”

“What’s the catch?”

“I need you to keep an open-mind and try to believe that I am not making things up. This is the context of what I was going to do.”

Batman would admit that he had been slightly curious about her past. He does the typical background check on her like he did with all of his Rogues but not as in-depth. There was always something off about what he had gleamed.

He was expecting neglectful parents or being outcasted for being strange.

What he got was completely different.

Evil butterflies. Teenage superheroes who were given a responsibility too big and way over their heads. Magic jewelries that could grant wishes. The city being attacked on a regular basis because someone had a bad day. The world nearly ending a few times. Said magical jewelries given out to other teenagers, one of whom was Rebel.

That last confession had confirmed his theories about who had taught her to fight.

“I have never heard about it.” Batman said. He was not trying to point out that she was making this up but it was bad if this had never appeared onto the Justice League’s radar.

“I assume it’s because the threat was mainly contained in Paris and the akuma battles rarely lasted for more than a day. Most people don’t know an attack happened until way later. I was there with Ladybug and the rest of the team when Hawkmoth got defeated.”

“What happened to him?”

“Ladybug dealt with him.” She answered. “And… I was in contact with Ladybug’s civilian identity afterwards. A few months later, she told me that she met Giovanni Zatara.”

“Zatara? I’ll have to ask Zatanna to confirm.”

“Yeah.” Rebel appeared nervous for some reason. “Can you not… look for Ladybug? I have caused her enough trouble.”

“Why wasn’t she there at your trial?”

Rebel’s shoulder slumped. “The Miraculouses used to be protected by this super secret society and a few months before my trial, they took the Miraculouses away and wiped Ladybug’s memories. As for the rest of the team. They were out of the country, pursuing their careers so they didn’t know this was happening and it all went down fast.”

He felt sympathy for the girl in front of him. He was mostly convinced that the story is true. His only worry was that she might be lying about how involved she actually was.

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

Rebel sighed. “I don’t agree with what Ladybug did for Hawkmoth.”

Batman waited for her to elaborate.

“I- she let him get away mostly scot free.” Rebel confessed. “Back then, I thought it was the right thing. The most peaceful resolution. We get the Miraculous back and he gets his wife back. The whole reason he wanted a wish was to bring her back. Happily ever after, right?” She sounded choked up.

Batman stepped forward and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I know I sound a bit selfish, wishing for him to suffer when he is happy with his life and I am not doing well with my life.” Rebel continued.

She looked up with determination. “I want you to arrest Hawkmoth. That is the deal. You catch him and I will stop what I am going to do. But if some of the others want to continue regardless, I can’t do anything about it. I can only give you my notes so you can counter them.”

“I assume Hawkmoth had caused you some hurt. If you are going against Ladybug’s decision like this.”

“He was part of the reason I had a falling out with my old classmates. I couldn’t give a concrete reason why I was skipping out on our hangouts for akumas. It was so easy for that two-faced lying bitch to get into their heads and-”

Rebel stopped and tried to calm down from her rant.

Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out. In. Out.

She steeled herself and continued.

“The thing is I saw him on the news the other day. Celebrating his wife’s birthday. It’s fucking selfish of me. He didn’t get to suffer the consequences of his actions. I am here in Gotham as a known criminal while he is acting like he is god’s gift to people with his appealing bland designs. It’s kinda late but I want him to get the consequences he deserves.”

Rebel looked at him. “Is it pathetic of me to ask this of you?”

Batman mulled over the issue. “Why are you asking me to do this?”

“Hawkmoth’s secret identity was connected to my murder trial even though he didn’t know that I was one of the superheroes that interfered in his plans as Hawkmoth. I don’t want it to be seen as me trying to get back at my victims .”

“He’s one of the parents.”

Rebel nodded.

“Yes. You are a smart guy. You would be able to figure out who he is. Given that you believe that I am not making the entire thing up.”

“You rarely lie, Rebel.”

“I lie all the time.”

“You are not a very good one. So it is easy to tell when you are not.”

“Fuck.”

“I will verify what you said first.” Batman said. “I will come back later. Hold your plans off for at least a week.”

“I am not that good of a person you think I am, Mister Bat. The only reason I haven’t done him in is because I don’t ever want to step back in Paris if I can help it.”

“I have one more question for you.”

“What is it?”

“Why did you go back to school?”

“My personal reason why?”

Batman gave a slight nod.

“I suppose you can call it a desperate attempt at living a ‘normal’ life.” Rebel answered.

“I see.”

“Be good.” Those were Batman’s final words before he grappled off the roof.

“Remember who you are talking to, Batman.” Rebel mumbled into the night as she popped open a soda can.

Chapter Text

“B, what’s all this?” Dick asked during one of his visits to Gotham. He was here for Alfred’s cooking.

Upon seeing the eye bags on Bruce, Dick was understandably worried. “Have you slept at all, Bruce?”

“A few days ago, Rebel brought something serious to my attention.”

Bruce had spent days working on the case Rebel had dropped into his lap. He felt that she had summarised the situation too simply. Or she was unaware of what the full extent of the situation was due to her lack of experience and knowledge.

John Constantine was unhelpful in getting more information on the Miraculous but did confirm their presence in Paris in the same period Rebel had given. Rebel had given more information than him.

Zatanna said that she would sort through her father’s journals to give him a definite answer but told him that it was likely Rebel was telling the truth about Paris. There were surges of the magical equivalent of earthquakes from Paris which her father had gone to check out a few years ago.

Diana had overheard their conversation and talked about how her mother used to wield the Ladybug Miraculous. She promised to talk to her mother for more information. Bruce decided to ask Doctor Fate later if his research wasn’t enough.

However, the thing that had Bruce tearing apart his training dummies like they were paper was the good-for-nothing, sham of a man that Paris had for a mayor.

Mayor André Bourgeois had blocked all news about the akuma from getting out of the city. He didn’t report about it to the Justice League European branch and blocked all attempts to prevent others from reporting it. His reasoning was that the child heroes were enough. That was just the political side of things.

To further make things worse, the heroes who were stationed in France all claimed to have been told to be relocated to other cities by the Justice League Headquarters. They did as they were told under the assumption that someone else would be filling in for them. Just before Hawkmoth struck.

Bruce investigated that lead and it appears that someone had sent out that order but Bruce hadn’t figured out who it was yet or whether it really was sent by one of the Justice League. Either they had a mole or the JL Headquarters needed a new update to their systems.

Then, one of Zatanna’s contacts in Paris had informed her that magic helped in preventing news of akuma reaching outside of Paris.

By the time Dick came to the Manor, Bruce was hours deep into the many footage he had spent the most of the day collecting from the internet. He started with the first akuma where Ladybug and Chat Noir were practically strangers shoved together and forced to rely on each other. He didn’t like that the Parisians were forcing the love narrative between the two of them. Ladybug had the sense to focus on her job and remain professional while Chat Noir tried to enforce the love story. He was not pleased with that interview.

The Ladyblog that was run by a very dedicated teenager was very helpful in getting raw footage of most fights, albeit a bit shaky and blurry. He was currently watching the blog owner’s interview with Ladybug. How she got an interview with the very elusive heroine Batman doesn’t know. There was something about the heroine that caught his attention. It felt like he had met Ladybug before.

Dick skimmed over the notes Batman had taken. He whistled. “This is pretty crazy.”

“Why are you doing all of this research?” Dick asked.

“Hawkmoth. I am trying to track him down.”

“Wait, you are telling me that there is a powerful supervillain in Paris and these kids are heroes? They look like babies. They don’t even know how to properly fight.”

“We are already too late. Hawkmoth has been defeated and stripped of his powers.”

“So what’s the problem? Is he coming back?”

Bruce sighed heavily and showed off his days of research to Dick.

“Rebel had been planning something for months. Something big. I asked the reason behind it all. She asked me to bring him to justice and she would call it all off. Apparently, the leader of the hero team, Ladybug, gave Hawkmoth the equivalent of the slap on the wrist and Rebel doesn’t agree with him being off the hook that easily. He got his wife in exchange for giving back the Miraculous under his possession and didn’t face consequences for his little foray into villainy.”

“How does she know what happened to Hawkmoth?” Dick asked, “It just says that no akumas was seen for a month and then, Ladybug announced that Hawkmoth was defeated before disappearing forever.”

“According to her, Rebel used to be one of the heroes going against Hawkmoth.” Bruce told him.

Dick nearly fumbled the file in his hand due to the surprise.

“Oh. Um. That- That explained a few things. The experience in fighting. Those acrobatic stunts. Former hero, huh.”

It left a bitter taste in his mouth. The thought of somebody who was once a hero turning to the dark side.

Dick changed the subject. “Any luck finding him?”

“I have one suspect. He’s the one that fits the profile.”

Bruce handed Dick a file.

“Gabriel Agreste.”

Dick looked through it. “He’s a fashion designer. That doesn’t exactly scream evil to me.”

“Even without Rebel’s hints. He’s still suspicious.” Bruce said. “I am meeting him in a month to get a feel for him.”

Dick closed the file. “Even if he is Hawkmoth, it’s been a few years since his defeat. We can’t just take him in.”

Bruce suddenly looked very tired.

Tim popped up from where the pile of blankets besides the Batcomputer that Dick hadn’t noticed. Dick’s and Bruce’s voices have woken him up.

Dick definitely did not scream.

“Tim! How long were you there?” Dick asked, putting his escrima sticks away.

“A few hours I think.” Tim replied and yawned.

“Anyhoo,” Tim started, “Rebel had already taken care of that part. She had been using different accounts to sow seeds of conspiracy theories and rumours for people online to find Hawkmoth’s true identity. No mention of Gabriel being Hawkmoth or it won’t be taken seriously if the truth comes out. I think she is trying to spread the idea that Hawkmoth must be taken in to face the legal system.”

“Why is she going that far?”

Bruce was silent for a moment. “Hawkmoth was part of the reason she was framed for murder.”

“Framed? Why do you think that she was framed? Her father is the Joker. The Joker. The one who killed Jason.”

Bruce stiffened. Jason had left Gotham after their last showdown. Last Bruce heard of him, Jason had teamed up with Roy Harper to form his own mercenary team.

“I know. But children are not their parents.”

Bruce handed Dick another file.

“Her case file and the transcript of her trial. Read it and draw your own conclusions.” Bruce instructed.

Dick took it.

“You are not going to like it, Dick.” Tim said.

A day later, Dick came back, storming into the Batcave.

He slammed the file in front of Bruce.

“What the fuck is wrong with people? How did something like this get past you?” Dick demanded furiously.

There was the last thing that was cherry on the icing of the cake that was this whole situation.

-

Rebel was not supposed to be in Arkham Asylum. She was not supposed to get a life sentence. She was not supposed to have fourteen charges of first-degree homicide to her name.

Dick read the trial proceeding.

It was way over exaggerated and very dramatised. He thought that he was reading the script for a courtroom soap opera drama. Dick even went as far as to hack into the French government to get the untranslated copy of the files and it was just as bad but in French. It didn’t take him long to find the blatant amount of bribes that were tossed around. The very obvious abuse of power. Every odds was stacked against Rebel. The unnecessary DNA test that unfortunately brought her to Gotham.

No wonder Marinette Dupain-Cheng turned to a life of crime. Everyone was dead set on labelling her the bad guy.

Then, he read Gabriel Agreste’s involvement in the case. His son was part of Rebel’s old class. Their classmates spoke about Rebel’s stalker tendencies towards him. But Dick kept an open mind, knowing how exaggerated everything was. Gabriel had blacklisted Rebel from every company in the fashion industry he had connections with. That move confused Dick until he found out that Rebel was trying to be an aspiring designer. It was essentially salt in her wounds.

Dick simply couldn’t understand the witch hunt against Rebel. 

“Bruce, we have to do something about this.” Dick said.

“The only thing we can do right now is bring Hawkmoth in before Rebel takes it into her own hands.”

“What do you mean by that?” Dick asked.

Tim injected. “You already know that Rebel had been acting suspicious for the past few months. She had been meeting up with several different villains and secret projects we couldn’t figure out until now.”

“We found a warehouse in Washington connected to her that contained these strange stone statues.”

Bruce pulled up a picture of the stone statues in the warehouse.

“Now look at the clip of the first akuma attack.”

Bruce played a clip of Stoneheart attack. The monster looked similar to the stone statues in the photo.

“Going through the akuma fights and her movements in the past few months. It is obvious what she is trying to plan.”

Picture of Rebel talking to many different ice villains with a powerpoint presentation and a clip of the Glaciator attack.

Picture of a machine that could create floods that the Teen Titan had managed to shut down a few years back and picture of Paris being flooded.

Picture of Weather Wizard, next to a picture of Stormy Weather.

“She’s trying to recreate akuma fights.” Dick concluded. “And making it seem like Hawkmoth was back.”

Bruce nodded gravely. “I wouldn’t have figured it out if Rebel didn’t deliberately let me in on her plans. She exposed a great problem we had missed. She is giving us, the League, a chance to rectify our mistake.”

Rebel was not counting on the legal justice system to bring Hawkmoth to justice. She was counting on him as Batman to make sure that Hawkmoth ended up with the same fate as her. His reputation torn apart and dragged through mud. Behind bars for the rest of his life with the supervillain mark following him everywhere.

Or she will forcefully do it by bringing the whole world down to force the Justice League in carrying it out.

“Without Ladybug’s miraculous power, it would be disastrous for us and we would have a lot of civilian casualties.”

“I don’t think she would do that, Bruce.” Tim argued.

“Then, lock her up.” Dick suggested.

“Arkham is currently in no position to take her in.” Bruce said. He looked resigned.

Dick looked at Tim for an explanation which he helpfully provided. “It was being renovated a few months ago to put in a new security system. In the chaos, her records were wiped out from the system and her physical reports went missing. Every copy was gone. So even if we arrest her now, we have to find a pretty good justification to keep her there legally. We only have these copies because Bruce regularly back-ups the Arkham database onto the Batcomputer and the Bat-net.”

Dick cursed. While they could just put it back, it wasn’t worth the headache if it was erased again.

“What about the police? Won’t they have her records?”

“Same thing. We think she did it when Clayface attacked the police a while back.”

“How about her original case that sent her to Arkham?”

“It was erased too. We need to get to Paris in order to access their database or if she erased her case, then we need to get the physical copy and we would have to go through so much legal bullshit to get it. That will take months.”

“She covered everything.” Dick said, amazed.

“She thought of all the possibilities and covered all of her bases. She had been staying under the radar and not getting caught.” Bruce said.

“He means that he got caught in her traps if we try to catch her.” Tim said with a shit eating grin on his face.

Bruce grumbled.

“You? How did you even get caught?” Dick asked.

“Rube Goldberg machines.” Tim answered.

“Rube what?”

“Here.” Tim opened up Youtube and showed Dick a video of a marble rolling down a pipe and then knocking down a row of dominoes in a spiral which continued to set off a chain of reactions that ended with a ball going neatly through a hoop and triggering a banner that said ‘WOW!’ to pop up.

“So that’s what it is called.” Dick commented. “Aren’t these like super complicated to do? She couldn’t have set them up that quick …unless she had them set up beforehand.”

“According to my research, she has at least 50 of these set up in different locations around Gotham. There are videos of people setting these off on purpose. Rebel is always making more. They usually have victims stuck in a net or a hole. Or have water, paint or liquids splashed onto them.”

“She did that? That picture you sent me where Bruce had yellow pain all over him?”

Bruce glared at Tim.

A derisive snort came from the entrance of the Bat cave.

They all turned to look at the newest addition to the house.

Damian Al Ghul. Well, Damian Al Ghul Wayne now.

“I find it hard to believe that this one petty criminal got the better of all of you.” He said mockingly.

“Damian.” Bruce said. “Even if she is just a petty criminal, she cannot be underestimated. You must never underestimate your opponent, no matter how deceiving they look.”

“Perhaps Father, you and Drake aren’t good at doing your jobs.”

“Like you would be any better catching her.” Tim said under his breath.

“If it was up to me, she would be killed on sight.” Damian continued.

“Damian, we do not kill here. People deserve another chance to redeem themselves.” Bruce explained like he had a thousand times before.

Damian scowled. “I don’t need to kill. I have brought in targets alive before.”

The way he said it implied that those targets were in a state where their hearts were the only things that could still move.

“Do you really believe that you can catch Rebel?” Tim asked.

“I don’t have to believe. I know I can.” Damian answered, disdain in his voice that Tim dared to doubt his skills.

“I bet you can’t.” Tim taunted.

Damian lunged but was stopped by Dick who grabbed his shoulder.

“Boys!” Bruce shouted. “Tim, stop antagonising him. Damian, you know you aren’t allowed to go out on patrol.”

“No!” Damian demanded. “Drake has issued me a challenge. I will not back down. I will prove to him and you that I can catch that petty criminal that goes by Rebel.”

His declaration was filled with the determination and stubbornness that all eleven year olds seemed to possess.

Bruce rubbed his head at the oncoming headache.

He knew that despite whatever he gave, Damian would go behind his back and against his orders to fulfil his self-assigned mission of capturing Rebel.

“Tim, this is all your fault. I am blaming you for this. You will be washing the Batmobile for a month.” Bruce said after some thinking.

“Bruce!” Tim complained. “What did I do?”

“You started it. And Damian, I will let you go after Rebel.”

Damian gave Tim a smug grin.

“However,” Bruce continued. “There will be a few conditions.”

Damian stood up straighter and paid attention.
“One, Nightwing will be with you.”

“What? Why, Bruce?” It was Dick.

“I am busy with the Hawkmoth case. Tim and Damian shouldn’t be together. Cass and Steph are busy with their own things. I don’t think Jason wants anything to do with me and he’s out of town. Babara has no desire to watch Damian.”

“Thank you, Bruce.” Oracle’s voice came from the Batcomputer.

“Tch. Grayson is an acceptable choice.” Damian said with a sniff.

“Fine. I can stay for a week or two. Give me a few hours to sort some things out.” Dick threw up his hands in defeat.

“However, he will not be helping you. He is going to be monitoring your every move and he will intervene if it was a life and death situation.” Bruce added.

“Fine.” Damian replied.

“Two, when you bring Rebel in, she should not have sustained any life-threatening and fatal injuries. She should also possess all of her limbs intact.”

Damian scowled harder. “I know my limits. Anything else?”

“Three, do not kill anyone to achieve your goals.”

“Got it.”

“Your deadline to bring her in is in three months. You will report to me on your progress every morning. That’s all. Any questions?”

“No. I will not fail you, Father.” Damian said seriously.

“Does anyone else find this funny?” said Dick. “Son of Batman hunting down daughter of Joker. Children of two arch-enemies repeating history.”

“That only means that I am destined to bring her in.” Damian further solidified his mission.

Forty-eight hours later, found Damian, currently going by Redbird, tied up, covered in green paint and dangled upside-down over a vat of something that smelled utterly foul.

Rebel landed near Nightwing and asked, “So what’s the deal with the new kid?”

Nightwing extended a hand dramatically towards Damian, “That’s Batman’s blood son.”

Rebel frowned. “Is this going to be a thing now? Child of Batman versus child of Joker. Because I really don’t want to hurt the kid that much.”

“I AM NOT A CHILD.” Redbird yelled as he struggled against his restraint. “Nightwing, help me get untied and catch the villain!”

“Would a dip in that kill him?” Nightwing asked, pointing at the vat of whatever that was. He wanted to stay more than 20 feet away due to the smell alone.

Rebel shrugged.

“Probably not. It’s just water from the Gotham River with the contents of the nearest dumpster emptied into it.”

Nightwing shivered. He had taken a dip in the icy cold waters of Gotham River before. It was not pleasant. And the amount of showers he had to take to finally get rid of the smell .

“Good news, Redbird.” Nightwing shouted back. “You won’t die if you fall.”

Redbird threw some words in Arabic that sounded a lot like swears.

“So… I ask again. What’s up with the kid?”

“He thinks that Batman would accept him as the one true heir of the Batman title if he catches you.” Nightwing explained. “It has nothing to do with the blood rivalry thing. He’s trying to prove Batman wrong by trying to succeed in catching you when Batman and Robin - especially Robin - couldn’t catch you.”

“It’s there like a deadline for this? Because I really don’t want to play cats and dogs forever with the gremlin.”

“Oh yeah. There is.”

Rebel smirked. “That means I just have to up my game then. Thanks for the heads up, Bluey.”

Nightwing’s smile faded as he realised his slip-up. “Damn it. Baby Bat is going to kill me.”

“Hey, can I use that nickname?”

“Does it matter if I say no?” Nightwing said.

“Nope.” Rebel said with a laugh as she slipped away into the shadows. 

A Bat signal shone in the night sky. Calling Batman to action.

However, it was not Commissioner Gordon who met Batman on the rooftop that night.

“Commissioner-”  Batman immediately went on guard as a petite figure of Rebel greeted him instead of the broad shoulders of the Commissioner.

“What did you do to him, Rebel?” Batman growled out.

“Chill, Mister Bat, he’s dealing with an anonymous tip off for his latest case at the other side of the city. I just flipped the switch to your nightlight to get your attention. Less messy than other methods, don’t you agree?” Rebel explained as she switched the Bat-signal light off.

He glared at her. “What do you want?”

“A week is up. So what are you going to do?”

Batman gave a tired sigh. To be honest, he had forgotten about the deadline. There were so many things he had to take care of. Starting with the possible Justice League breach. An entire city being under attack and no one noticing until the problem was gone. The investigation into who Hawkmoth was. Finally, dealing with a testy Damian who didn’t take his loss against Rebel well.

“My conclusions showed me that you were telling the truth about akumas. I would like to apologise on the behalf of the Justice League for our massive oversight. You were a child that had to fight a war without support.”

“I won that damn war. Without your help.” Rebel said defensively.

“Yes. You did. I am not criticising your achievement, Rebel. I am just pointing out that you were a child fighting those monsters everyday and some of those monsters had been a family or a friend. You shouldn’t have to carry a burden like that on your shoulders. Even Nightwing had me to look after him until he could step out of my shadow to fly on his own.”

“We weren’t alone.”

“You weren’t. You had other people who were as clueless as you about what to do. No one taught you the basics. You had to learn how to fight all on your own. You had to learn to do it right on the first try because a mistake would cause you everything. I am sorry that we weren’t there to provide that guidance.”

“Why are you apologising for that? You didn’t know.”

Batman’s frown became deeper. “That is exactly the problem. Something this big slipped under our radar.”

He went on to explain about how the oversight occurred. If anything, Rebel looked surprised by the news.

“So you're telling me that I could have had help. I wouldn't have to do it all on my own if it wasn’t for a lot of people meddling.”

She sounded angry. The comment about her doing it all on her own confirmed a theory Batman entertained. There was a little evidence that pointed out otherwise but with magic there was no telling if the evidence wasn’t faked.

“We never realised until now. We have failed you.” Batman apologised.

“Kwami. All this time. I thought you were too busy with your own world-saving to pay attention to Paris. Fucking Mayor Bourgeois. Fuck Magic. Fuck whoever mess with your systems. Fuck Hawkmoth.” Rebel screamed. “What else? What else do I have to know that I didn’t know?”

“That’s mostly it. I am here to get your account of what exactly happened during those years.” Batman paused ( Dramatic bitch ) “I also need you to confirm the identity of Hawkmoth.”

“Well…” Rebel inclined her head for him to continue.

“Gabriel Agreste.”

Rebel smiled from under her mask. “Bingo. As expected of the World’s Greatest Detective.”

She pulled out a flash drive from her pocket and handed it to Batman. “Here’s everything I wrote down from what I remembered.”

“How did you know I would ask for it?” Batman asked as he took it and put it away in his utility belt.

“I didn’t. I was going to send that to every news station when I start my Armengeddon plans.”

Batman stared at Rebel, waiting for her to hand over her Armengeddon plans she had given the other villains.

Rebel stared back at him defiantly.

“Hand them over.” Batman demanded.

“I already gave you what you needed.” Rebel said with a raised eyebrow, pretending to be oblivious about what Batman wanted.

“What about your Armengeddon plans?”

“Oh. Those plans. Yeah. Gimme a minute.” Rebel reached into her jacket inner pocket and took out a slim notebook. She tossed it to Batman who expertly caught it.

He flipped through it and noticed the jagged edges of pages torn out. He also noticed that none of the plans that involved other villains were in the book.

“Where are the missing plans?” Batman asked harshly.

“You thought it was going to be easy?” Rebel said amused. “I want definite proof that you are working on taking him in.”

“How long do I have to get you proof?” Batman asked cautiously.

“When is the deadline for your son to catch me?”

Batman knew that tone. He had heard that tone from the clown before Joker pulled out the punchline.

“In three months.”  He answered.

“That’s around when the plan is supposed to start anyways. Then, if you don’t have it by the time Redbird catches me, you won’t get the plans. However, if he doesn’t catch me by the three month deadline, you will get the plans and I will tell the others that everything is called off.”

Batman had a feeling that if Rebel wasn’t wearing her mask, there would be a smile on her face identical to the one Joker would usually wear for his maniacal plans.

Children aren’t always their parents. But they sometimes inherit their parent's worst traits.

“Deal.”

What other options did he have but to play along with her games.

After Rebel was gone, Redbird came out of the shadows.

“Father, what is the meaning of this?” He demanded. Redbird had been hiding to unleash a surprise attack when Rebel proposed that inane condition to Batman.

Batman sighed. “We will talk more back at the Cave.”

“I want an explanation now.”

“Just hold off trying to catch her for at least a week, Redbird. I am not going to stop you from your task. Maybe use that time to observe her instead.”

Redbird huffed but nonetheless accepted the compromise.

“Fine. It gives me more time to make more well thought out plans.”

“Since she would mostly be at school, you won’t have to do much.”

Batman grappled off the roof and Redbird followed.

When they reached the Batmobile, Redbird turned to his father and said.

“Father, I have been thinking. Perhaps I should infiltrate her school in order to get closer and gain more information on her movements.”

Bruce looked at him in surprise, remembering the first time he suggested Damian going to school and being told that he was never going to step foot into a subpar teaching environment.

“Are you sure, Damian?”

“I am sure.” Damian said firmly.

“I will call the principal in the morning and arrange everything.” 

Three Months Later....

“Come back here, you-” The insult was lost as Redbird comically stepped on the rake. The handle hit his face like those old cartoon gags.

A slew of Arabic curses were unleashed.

"Tick-tock, birdy." Rebel taunted as Redbird held his broken nose. "It's nearly midnight and I am not still not in chains or behind bars."

"I should have your tongue cut out for your insolence." 

"That threat lost its charm about two months ago." Rebel replied in a bored tone.

"Be more creative. Like ‘ I will slowly take a small piece of your tongue a day, roast it and force feed it to you ’." Rebel declared with an imitation of Redbird’s voice but slightly higher pitch than it actually was.

“I will gladly do so.” The threat probably would have sounded more intimidating if Redbird wasn’t still holding his broken nose and didn’t sound like he had a very bad nasal problem.

Rebel covered her mask with her hand as if trying to hide a smirk.

“Well, little bird, if you are done with your threats, I will be off- WHAT THE FUCK!”

Rebel didn’t look where she was going and had fallen down the hole in the roof that was hidden with a tarp..

Redbird grinned as he peered over the hole where Rebel had fallen into a cage he had set up to work like a bear trap.

“You aren’t the only one skilled with traps in this city.” He boasted.

Nightwing landed, giving Redbird an appreciative whistle and applause.

“Good job, baby Bat.”

“Call the police, Nightwing. Tell them I have the fiend, Rebel, in custody.” Redbird said.

“Sure thing.”

Redbird turned to give Rebel a smug look at his sure victory. It immediately got wiped out as he saw Rebel dangling her legs over the hole she fell down a few minutes ago.

She gave him a cheeky wave.

“HOW?” Damian exploded. “HOW DID YOU ESCAPE MY FOOLPROOF TRAP?!”

“It’s not foolproof if a fool like me could get out of it that easily. Nice setup though. Gave me a few ideas for my next project.”

Redbird growled and launched himself at her. Rebel rolled out of his way.

Landing nimbly, Redbird charged at her and threw a few attacks. Rebel effortlessly dodged every one of them.

Nightwing watched with a bored look on his face as Redbird chased Rebel around the rooftop.

“ Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk. I'm a woman's man, no time to talk .... ”

Rebel took out her phone and turned off her alarm as she ducked a birdarang.

“It’s midnight! And you know what that means. You just failed your mission.” Rebel announced cheerfully.

Redbird yelled in anger and charged at her.

Nightwing stepped in between the two to restrain Redbird.

“Chill, baby bat. You need to calm down. She won, fair and square.”

“And just as promised, I will send over the plans I made for the other villain to the Big Guy.” Rebel continued as she walked backwards to the edge of the rooftop.

“See ya around, Birdies.” She said as she jumped back off the roof while giving them a finger salute.

Nightwing hurriedly let go of Damian and ran to look over the parapet wall. Rebel appeared to be perfectly fine after a five-storey drop and was calmly putting her helmet on. She got on her bike and drove off.

“Um… guys.” Oracle’s voice came over the comms. “There is actually fifteen minutes left until midnight. She lied.”

The two vigilantes looked at each other and cursed. They grappled off, trying their best to catch the cunning villain.

“I am sorry that I failed you, Father.” Damian reported.

Three months should have been more than sufficient for him to complete his assigned task successfully. He even had subjected himself to the establishment called a school in order to catch Rebel.

Each time, he thought that he was close to capturing the most slippery villain in all of Gotham. Something would interfere in his plans and Rebel continued to walk free.

Head down ashamed as he kneeled on the cold floor of the Batcave to receive his punishment. Damnit, why was his vision getting blurry?

The shadow from his father’s cape moved closer and blocked out the light. Damian braced for the pain.

Damian was confused when he felt his Father placed his hand on his head. It felt… odd and comforting.

“It’s alright. You did your best. Even with the restriction I placed on you.” Bruce said.

Damian’s confusion increased.

“But… I failed.”

It did hurt to admit his failure but he was more confused by his father’s actions. Grandfather would have given out some sort of punishment by now. Like going against some of the League’s Finest on his own.

The hand moved from his head to his shoulder.

“Look at me, Damian.”

Damian obeyed and met his father’s blue eyes. The colour reminded him of the flowers his mother would sometimes wear in her hair when Grandfather was out of Nanda Parbat.

“Even if you had failed in your task, you still had helped me.”

Damian was flabbergasted.

“How?”

“In order to capture her, you monitored her every move. Because of you and your reports , I knew her every move. Avoiding your attempts kept Rebel so busy that she wasn’t able to work on her plans as much. Which gives me more time to work on how to bring Hawkmoth in.”

“I still failed.”

“And I am telling you that you still did a good job. You can learn from this experience and learn how to do better.” Bruce said.

“Aren’t you going to punish me?”

“No. I am not going to punish you for this.”

The answer seemed to have shifted Damian’s worldview. It broke Bruce’s heart to know how Damian had been treated. Being punished for failure which made Damian scared to fail.

“How.. how can you…”

Damian didn’t seem to comprehend that there would be no punishments for failing.

“Damian.” Bruce said gently. “I know that this is hard for you to comprehend but we do things differently here. We do not kill. And we do not punish people for simply failing.”

“But Drake… Batmobile.”

Oh right, grounding.

“I will reiterate. I will not physically hurt you as punishment for failing your mission. I do not like raising my hand to people I call family. Yes, you are part of it now, Damian, no matter how unexpected your arrival was. I prefer giving you chores to do instead. Like washing the Batmobile. Giving Ace a bath. Organising the case files. Helping Alfred around the Manor. Even then, it’s only if you misbehave and go against the rules of the Manor. And you may see them as pointless but they were put in place to keep you safe. I don’t want to see any of you hurt. Yes, including you, Damian.”

Bruce hoped that he got through Damian. Made him see that things were different now but they were a good kind of different. Maybe now Damian would let him in and be the better person Bruce knew he could be.

Bruce thought all of this as he hugged the slightly shaking boy in his arms who hid his face with Bruce’s chest. 

Chapter Text

Clark Kent, a mild mannered reporter, was drinking his coffee. Just like any other average Joe while editing Lois Lane’s latest scoop so there were no spelling mistakes and grammar errors.

Then, his super hearing picked up Lois’s heartbeat speedup. There was an ear-piercing scream that had him jumping out of his seat.

“Woah, Kent, what’s wrong?” A concerned colleague asked.

“Indigestion. Bathroom. Real quick.” Clark threw out the first excuse that came to mind before speeding down to the nearest bathroom. Being careful to keep it to human speed.

He had just finished changing into Superman when his phone rang, the caller ID showing Lois’s name.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Superman demanded.

“Name’s Rebel. And don’t worry your darling, I need her alive to do something for me.”

The voice sounded young and female. Superman went through his mental list of supervillains, trying to figure out who took Lois.

“Rebel…” Superman repeated, trying to put a face to the name. Then, he remembered Batman grumbling about Robin sending a picture of him covered in neon green paint and feathers to the Young Justice unofficial group chat who all were happy to show their mentors. It took everything for Superman not to burst out laughing when Kon had shown him the picture. The one responsible for Batman’s misfortune had been no other than Rebel.

“Aren’t you supposed to be Gotham, Rebel?” Superman asked. Meanwhile, he was flying towards Lois, using her heartbeat as a tracker.

“Ah. So the great Captain America has heard of me.”

Superman stopped in mid-air, purely due to confusion because Rebel didn't sound like she was mocking him with the wrong name. In fact, she sounded so confident about it. The French accent didn’t really help but make Clark think of those terrible Hollywood bad guys.

“Excuse me what?”

“You are excused. As I was saying, Captain, your beloved love is fine. I just need her to do this one little thing for me. Then, she’ll be free to go.”

“What do you want from me?” Superman asked again.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Captain America, the world does not revolve around you. You aren’t the high and mighty god everyone thinks you are. I just need Mrs. Lane’s help in releasing a certain truth to the world.”

“You will let her go right now!” Superman said.

He was narrowing onto his wife’s location.

“I just told you that I will do that after I am done.” Rebel replied.

Superman arrived at the location but..

“This can’t be right.”

Rebel giggled over the phone. “Plot twist! Gotta love them.”

Superman was currently floating above Stryker's Island Penitentiary where the worst offenders of Metropolis were kept.

He scanned the buildings with his x-ray vision but couldn’t locate Lois.

“What did you do to her?”

“Chill, Captain. She’s fine. I just did something so you went after a fake heartbeat while I hid Lois.”

The fact that she tricked him using a complicated method that feels like something Bruce would come up with had Superman raising his guard up. She was not an opponent to be underestimated.

“I am not going to repeat myself. What did you do to her ?”

“Urgh. Can’t you overlook this little thing just this once?” Rebel complained, not concerned about the fact that she was provoking a man who could bend metal like it was rubber. “I am just stealing her for a few hours and then you can have her back. I even swear that she will be in the condition you last saw her in.”

“No. Give Lois back. Now .”

Rebel huffed. “You aren’t going to make this easy, huh? Then… beep.”

Clark want to know how Bruce deals with Rebel. She literally just made the beep sound with her mouth. A part of his mind didn't know if he should take her seriously.

Then, an explosion rocked the island below Superman. Instantly, the place was swarming with freed prisoners and guards trying to put them back.

“That should keep you busy. After all, the people of Metropolis need to be kept safe from the vicious criminals. Lois and I would probably be done with our girls’ day out by the time you are done. Au revoir.”

The phone hung up.

Trapped between the decision to save his wife and Metropolis, Superman flew to save the day.

“Man, your husband was a pain to deal with.” Rebel said after she hung up on Superman.

She turned back to Lois who was sitting unbound on a sofa with her recorder, notepad and pencil out. In front of her was a delicious spread of cakes, pastries and cookies with a mouth-watering scent which Lois tried her best to ignore.

“You kidnapped me and blew up a prison. I don’t think he would be happy to see you.” Lois pointed out.
“This isn’t about him.” Rebel dismissed. “This is about you, helping me expose one of the biggest cover ups in history.”

“What makes you think I would help you?”

“What if I told you that four years ago. There was a supervillain in Paris that used negative emotions to turn people into monsters and the mayor had made sure news of it never got out.”

Lois snorted. “I don’t write fantasy, kid. I only write the truth.”

Rebel slapped down a bunch of newspapers dated from four years ago to the most recent one and a lot of documents.

“Here’s evidence. I promise that they aren’t faked. You can even use your phone to search all of this up if you still don’t believe me. And please don't be stupid and try to text someone for help. I made sure that you won't able to do outside communication.”

Lois grabbed the one that was oldest and the front page talked about some stone golems wrecking the city. She read through it. Then, she looked at another paper dated a week later and read the front page talking about evil butterflies.

Fifteen minutes later and some google searches, Lois put down her phone and the newspapers.

She gave Rebel a professional smile. “Now… about that scoop you were going to give me.”

She watched Rebel’s eyes lit up.

Hours later…

Superman landed on the roof of the Daily Planet where Lois stood safe and sound. He scanned her with his x-ray vision and felt relieved to see that she was fine.

“Lois, are you okay?” Clark asked with worry as he hugged her.

“I’m fine. Honestly, it was the best kidnapping I've ever been in.” Lois replied, hugging back.

“Thanks for the compliment, Ms. Lane.” The unwanted spectator to their reunion said.

Superman glared at Rebel who cheerfully waved from where she was on her bike.

“I am going to-” he growled.

“That’s my cue to leave.” Rebel cut off his threat as she took out a small lead box. “Really lucky I stole this off the Big Bat the other day.”

Superman immediately backed away when the box's lid was opened, revealing a glowing green rock.

“Bye, Captain America.”

Rebel tossed it onto the ground and sped off on her bike.

It took a moment for Superman to remember that they were on a roof and that Rebel was insane.

He watched Rebel drop down as gravity took hold. Superman immediately flew after her, only to find that she had disappeared in between the seconds his eyes were off her.

His brain finally caught up and Superman realized that he wasn’t feeling any effect of Kryptonite.

He turned around to see that the box was still open. Cautiously, Lois picked it up and closed it.

“You okay, Clark?” She asked.

“Can you give me the box, Lois?”

She nodded with confusion and handed it over.

Clark slowly opened the lead box and laughed in disbelief. Inside was just some clear plastic crystals with a glowing green light underneath.

“Batman.”

“Superman.” Batman nodded in acknowledgement. “Why are you here?”

“I need you to run some tests on Lois’s blood. She had a run in with one of your Rogues. She said that she feels fine. But I want to be sure.” Superman answered. He handed Batman the vial of blood. He accepted it and put it in his pocket.

“I will do that as soon as I get back to the Cave. Who was it that she encountered?”

“Rebel.”

Batman stiffened at the mention of her name. “I see. What did she do to Lois?”

“Gave an interview I suppose. Lois was immediately on research binge about something that happened in France afterwards. She also had a few of the food Rebel laid out because she was hungry and I quote ‘they were the most delicious pastries ever’. She insisted that she was fine but I wanted to be sure.”

Batman’s frown deepened at that answer.

“Is something wrong?” Superman asked anxiously. This was the mother of his child and the love of his life that was in danger here.

“Lois is most probably fine but I will still run the test to ease your mind. I know Rebel won’t do something to the food unless it was for a prank. Even then, it’s nothing toxic or lethal.” Batman answered.

The answer didn’t reassure Superman.

“She blew up Stryker's Island, Batman.”

He couldn’t understand why Batman seemed so unbothered that such a dangerous villain was running around freely and causing chaos wherever she went.

“She regularly does it to Arkham.”

“Bruce. She lured me into a trap with a fake heartbeat of Lois. She fooled me into thinking she had kryptonite. She rode off the roof of the Daily Planet on her bike and disappeared into thin air. And Rao knows why she keeps calling me Captain America!” Superman ranted.

He took a deep breath to calm down before asking his question. “Rebel is clearly dangerous so why aren’t you taking her as a serious threat?”

Batman stared at him. Clark knew that this was his decision making face.

“You said that Lois was looking into something that happened in France.”

Superman nodded. “Yeah. Is Rebel related to it?”

Batman sighed. It was filled with regret and shame.

Superman knew that this was not good news.

“I was going to bring this up at the next League meeting but Rebel appeared to be getting impatient.” Batman started.

“What happened in France?”

“We, as the League, had made a huge oversight. There was a major problem in Paris for many years. A villain who could turn people into monsters had the city hostage. Rebel intends on making sure that we rectify our mistake.” Batman started.

He told Superman everything. About how Rebel brought the issue to his attention. What her plans were. Her past.

“Bruce, are you sure? She could be lying.” Superman said.

“I did my research. It’s all true. There is too much evidence to be faked. Some parts are still being investigated but it is largely the truth.”

Superman looked solemn. He couldn’t understand how something like this never fell on his radar. Batman had to rely on reports and technology to get his information. He was just a man after all. It would be easy for something like this to slip past his radar, especially how tightly controlled the information was.

Clark had super-hearing and this news about Paris had completely blindsided him.

“How could we have missed something so big for so long?” He muttered.

“Too many factors prevented news about it from reaching us. The past is done. What we can do is prepare so nothing like won’t ever happen again.” Batman said firmly.

Superman agreed. They had to do better.

“First, we have to catch a moth.”

It wasn’t the threat of Rebel unleashing her plans on the world that had him motivated to capture Hawkmoth. It was the determination to atone for his ignorance while a city suffered hell on a daily basis.

October 30th, Halloween Eve…

Spoiler looked through the binoculars to spy on the group of men moving a crate gently into a warehouse. Plastered in stickers that said ‘Fragile’, the crate was an object of interest for the vigilantes. 

“I got eyes on the target, O.” Spoiler reported. “They are moving it into warehouse number 32. East side of the Gotham Docks.”

“Hear that, Robin?” Oracle asked.

“Got it.” Robin replied as he ran towards the location.

“Oh. I see you, Robin.” Spoiler said.

“Eyes on the target, Spoiler.” Oracle admonished her.

“Sorry, O.”

“Hey. Can you tell me what you Bats are doing here?” A mechanical voice came from Spoiler’s left. 

It was lucky that Spoiler didn’t immediately scream and instead tried to punch the new arrival. He caught her attack easily with his one hand.

“Red Hood.” Spoiler greeted once she recognised who it was.

“I am asking again. What are you Bats doing here?”

“Spoiler, you okay?” Robin’s worried voice came over the comms.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just Red Hood.” Spoiler replied.

Looking back at Red Hood, she said, “I will tell you if you tell me what you are doing here.”

“I think we are both after the same thing.” Red Hood said, tilting his head in the direction of the warehouse.

“Black Mask’s mysterious package.” Spoiler nodded.

“It’s actually Rebel’s.” Red Hood explained. “Black Mask’s men intercepted the delivery and she asked for my help to get it back.”

“Do you know what’s inside?”

“She said it was supposed to be a fun Halloween surprise.”

“So it’s harmless.”

Red Hood shrugged. “All I know is that I should not be within a mile of it when the clock strikes midnight tonight.”

“We have five hours then.” Oracle’s voice came through Spoiler’s comms and inside Red Hood’s helmet.

“Jesus, don’t just hack into people’s helmets.” Jason complained.

“Well, we don’t have extra comms on hand.” she retorted.

“Hood, did Rebel tell you anything else about the package?” Robin asked.

“Just that it’s set to be unleashed the minute it is Halloween. Oh and don’t open it. I think it’s some kind of special bomb.”

“You didn’t ask?”
“It’s Rebel. What harm can she do? It’s probably some kind of high quality glitter bomb.” Red Hood replied casually.

“You have no idea how destructive she has gotten lately.” Oracle said. “Last month, she blew up Stryker's Island. That was after she had kidnapped Lois.”

“Is she trying to go after Superman?”

“She wanted Lois to spread her ‘take down Hawkmoth’ agenda.”

“Hawkmoth? Never heard of him. Who the hell is that?” Red Hood asked.

“Rebel’s personal vendetta.” Spoiler answered.

“Sorry to cut this short, guys but Black Mask is coming.” Robin said. “We can fill you in on what happened later”

“Truce?” Red Hood offered. “I still owe Roman a beating.”

“No killing, Hood.” Oracle set as her condition.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Red Hood loaded his guns and jumped into the fray with Spoiler in her purple glory following.

—

“Crap.”

Robin spotted Black Mask running into the warehouse. He slammed the goon he was fighting against the ground as hard as he could. 

“Somebody go and stop Black Mask! He’s going into the warehouse.” Robin said to everyone before he picked up his dropped staff and went back to fighting.

They were outnumbered and a few of the goons were trained from what Robin could tell.

“Oracle, what’s the ETA on back up?”

“Hang in there, Robin. Batman and Batgirl’s ETA is under one minute.”

“Good. Let’s hope that someone can stop Black Mask before we find out what Rebel’s Pandora box holds.”

Red Hood ran towards the warehouse as soon as he heard the report from Robin.

He had a score to settle with the other crime lord.

“Sionis, where are you?” Red Hood bellowed into the warehouse.

His helmet picked up the sound of someone running and Red Hood sprinted in the direction of the sound.

It became a chase and a gunfight with the two crime lords exchanging gunfire and one trying to lose the other in the maze that was the warehouse. Black Mask used every trick he had to throw Red Hood off his track.

However, it was fruitless as Red Hood continued to chase him like a bloodhound.

As desperation seized him, Black Mask picked up a crowbar that was lying around and ran towards the box he had stolen from that upstart Rebel.

Rumour has it that it is a weapon she had made for the Bats. Intended to drive them mad.

Red Hood rounded around the corner, just in time to see Black Mask pry the box open.

“NO!”

The lid was off. 

Chapter Text

Last Month in Metropolis. A day before Lois’s kidnapping…

A young woman sauntered through the hallways of Stryker's Island Penitentiary. Then, she stopped in front of the cell she was looking for.

“Hello, Toyman.”

“Rebel.” Toyman greeted back. “What a pleasure to see you again.”

“I would like to contract you to make a few things for me.” Rebel went straight to the point.

Toyman gave her an interested look. “What would be in it for me?”

“Would getting you out of this place give me a discount?” Rebel asked.

Toyman smiled. “I suppose that might be possible. I’m a generous man after all. But that still doesn’t answer what you want me to make.”

Rebel chuckled. “It’s September. It’s practically nearly Halloween. And I really really want to make it a memorable one. Especially for the heroes in my city. I would like to commission a few toys. Here’s a list.”

She handed it to him.

Toyman hummed as he read it over. This could be a good deal. He would get his freedom and just make a few dolls with a bit of profit.

“How many would you like to make?”

“As much as you can before the deadline which is a few days before Halloween. Say the twenty-eight? Would that be possible? I would pay a set price for each one you can finish.” Rebel said.

“Can you back it up? I am not saying that you are not trustworthy but...” Toyman didn’t manage to finish before Rebel took out a wad of cash, all in hundred dollar bills.

She took half of it and handed it to Toyman through the bars.

“This is for the materials. Once I get you out of here, we are going to make a legal contract to discuss the finer details.”

“It is going to be an honour to work with you.” Toyman said.

Rebel grinned under her mask. “It’s nice doing business with you, Toyman.”

“So when do I get started?”

“Tomorrow afternoon-ish. That’s when something would happen and you escape in the chaos.” 

“How would I know it happened?”

“You will know. And try not to get caught by the guy who wears the ‘S’. A second breakout might not be easy to plan.”

After she left, Toyman felt giddy at the taste of freedom and to make so many new toys.

“WHAT?!”

Black Mask reached into the box and took its content out.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” Black Mask said in angry disbelief as he held a doll in his hands.

Red Hood took that opportunity to tackle the man and handcuff him.

In his curiosity, Red Hood glanced into the box and saw that the box just contained dolls.

There was your typical Raggedy Ann, clowns, ventriloquist dummies, string puppets, those collector’s dolls with the pretty frilled dresses, a few Barbie dolls and some plushies that resembled some of the Bat vigilantes.

“Hood. Come in, Hood.” Batman’s voice came from his comms.

“Cool your jets, Batman. I got Black Mask. He managed to open the box but it’s just dolls inside. Rebel probably tried to scare us into not opening the box because they’re for a prank and it would ruin the surprise.”

“Good to hear.” Batman said with a hint of relief.

Tim curiously picked up the Robin plushie and inspected it.

The Bats had taken the box of dolls with them to the Batcave to later give back to Rebel.

“The quality is so good. The details are amazing and so accurate. Wonder who made it.” Tim wondered curiously before he discovered initials stitched in the inner lining of the cape of the toy.

“W.S.J” Tim read out as he traced the letters. There was a niggling thought at the back of his head that he should look into who the mysterious toymaker was.

Meanwhile, Steph was tentatively holding the Raggedy Ann doll and telling Jason about the true story behind the Annabelle movies.

“Did you know that the real Annabelle doesn’t actually look like the doll in the movies?” Steph said as she held up the Raggedy Ann to Jason, “It was actually a Raggedy Ann doll that looked just like this one.”

Jason frowned as he gave the doll a slightly wary look. “It doesn’t look creepy at all.”

“That’s what makes it so unsettling. Something innocent hiding its sinister nature.” Steph explained.

Damain frowned as he picked up one of the collector’s dolls. “I don’t see what is creepy about some toys.”

“It’s the terror of something that should be lifeless moving around. Something that should be harmless becomes something dangerous.” Jason mused.

“But why dolls? I don’t think a piece of porcelain dressed in lace could scare anyone. I would be sc…alarmed if Father’s dinosaur came to life but not these.” Damian said as he held up one of the dolls.

“You should try watching some horror movies.” Jason told Damian.

Cass picked up a ballerina string puppet she had found and showed it to Bruce with a questioning look.

“It’s a string puppet. Have you seen Pinocchio yet?”

“No.” Cass replied as she shook her head.

“Remind me at our next movie night. So the strings make the puppet move. Here look.” Bruce took the puppet from Cass and expertly manipulated the strings so the ballerina waved and walked a bit before breaking out a few ballet moves. Cass clapped with wonder at the end of his performance.

“Teach me?” Cass asked.

“Sure.” Bruce promised.

Next, Cass took out the ventriloquist dummy and inspected it.

“Scarface?” She asked.

“Yes. It’s a ventriloquist dummy just like Scarface. How it works is that the ventriloquist holds the dummy and throws his voice so it looks like it is the dummy that’s talking instead of the ventriloquist.”

“Show me.”

Bruce obliged as he slipped his hand into the dummy and the dummy started to move its mouth.

“Hello, Cass, nice to meet you.” said the Dummy as it held out its hand.

Cass shook its hand. “Hello.”

She asked Bruce, “Can I try?”

“Of course.” Bruce said as he gave her back the dummy.

Cass breathed in and out a few times and then raised the dummy up.

“Hello. Nice to meet you.” Cass’s voice came from the dummy this time.

Bruce smiled as he ruffled her hair. “You’re good at this.”

“Thank you.” said the Dummy.

“If you are all done playing, it’s time you all went to bed.” Alfred said as he brought in his famous after patrol snacks; cucumber sandwiches. “After a shower.”

Jason put the Raggedy Ann doll back into the box.

“Well, it’s late and I need to get back home.” Jason said as he walked towards his bike.

“You can stay the night, Master Jason.” Alfred said. “I have taken the liberty of cleaning your room.”

“Thank you, Alfred but…” Jason trailed off, not knowing how to convey that he didn’t want to stay in the Manor despite his truce tonight with Bruce but also not wanting to offend the butler/grandfather-figure.

“I understand, Master Jason. Perhaps another time.” Alfred said in his wise way.

“Thank you, Alfred.” This time, there was a look of gratitude in Jason’s eyes.

The morning after was a busy and bustling day but there was something not right in the Wayne Manor.

Tim woke up from having fallen asleep while working on trying to find the maker of the dolls. His laptop had turned itself off sometime during the night. He stretched and yawned.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he spied the Robin plushie sitting on his bed.

“That’s strange. I could have sworn that I left you in the box last night.” Tim said, scratching his head. He picked the plushie up and examined it again in the morning light.

It was more accurate than Tim had initially found. In fact, it was like it was an exact likeness of him. Which was a very scary thought.
He wondered how Toyman knew that he had a mole on his arm near his elbow and the birthmark on the side of his hips. Tim theorised that Rebel must be a very good stalker.

He put the plushie back on bed and headed down for breakfast. Tim didn’t see the plushie morphed its uniform into the outfit that Tim was wearing.

Tim walked down to the kitchen and sat down.

He thanked Alfred who set down a delicious plate of pancakes in front of him.

“Morning, Steph.” Tim said to the blonde who was dressed in a purple cowgirl outfit and a white Stetson hat.

“Morning, Tim.”

“Who are you supposed to be anyways?” He asked.

“Barbie but with the Stephanie twist.” She replied.

“Ah. Gotcha.” Tim said after he finished his mouthful of pancake. “You look so realistic by the way.”

Bruce entered the kitchen and sat down with a groan, his hand massaging his neck.

“You okay, B?”
“Just feeling a bit stiff. I’m not as young as I used to be.” Bruce replied with a grimace.

Slowly, the other occupants of the house trickled in and the kitchen was filled with the Waynes and Steph dug into their breakfast.

Dick came all the way from Bludhaven to help out on what is annually one of the worst nights of the year in Gotham. At least one Rouge would have plans for Halloween.

To break this peaceful moment would be one Jason Tood who angrily stomped into the kitchen, clutching a Raggedy Ann doll.

“Didn’t we agree on leaving me alone? That includes not finding out where my safehouses are.” Jason said.

He held up the doll and asked, “Which one of you left this at my place this morning as a prank?”

Several confused faces stared back at him.

“Was it you?” Jason pointed at Steph and demanded.

She put her hands up in surrender. “It wasn’t me. I was busy studying for the test I have today. Ask Bruce. He can tell you that he helped me with flashcards.”

“Then, was it you, Tim?”

Tim blinked at Jason. His mind took a few seconds to answer because Tim was not a morning person.

He shook his head.

“No. I was looking into who made these dolls.” Tim answered.

“Why?”

“The dolls all have the initial W.S.J. and they were all incredibly detailed. I also wanted to know why Rebel would need them. The maker turned out to be no one other than…” Tim dramatically paused: “Toyman.”

“Suddenly, I feel like we should have burned that box when we could.” Steph said to break the silence.

They should have.

“So how bad is it?” Dick asked Zatanna, anxious about what curse had befallen his family.

They had gone down to the Batcave to get rid of the box. Only to find it empty. It led to hours of searching for them. Except Tim never came back from his room to retrieve the Robin plushie.

Dick went to check on Tim only to find that he had turned into the plushie.

Imagine finding your brother missing and suddenly the mini plushie replica of your brother started moving and talking. It immediately went onto the top ten weirdest and scariest list of things Dick had experienced.

Then, the next to go was Steph who slowly became plastic. Her face was stuck in a smile while her skin hardened into shiny plastic. She was in class when it happened and they had to go pick her up.

Cass found the dummy but it got attached to her hand and started to speak on its own in Cass’s voice. Cass herself was unable to utter a word.

The stiffness that Bruce had complained about was the fact that he was slowly turning into wood and almost invisible strings controlling his every move.

The final terror was the Raggedy Ann doll that suddenly gained life and proceeded to hunt Jason down for sport. No matter how far Jason managed to get away from the doll and Dick’s best efforts to keep the doll contained, it still managed to escape to go after Jason.

Somehow, Dick, Alfred and Damian were the only ones unaffected by the ‘curse’. They managed to figure out why when Babara told them that Black Mask and his men were attacked by the missing dolls and some of them were experiencing the same things as the Bats and about Jason’s warning from Rebel before everything went down.

Desperate, Dick asked Superman to track down Toyman and asked him how to reverse the effect only to find out that he only made the dolls. The curse was someone else's doing. 

Which was why they had called Zatanna to see if she could reverse it.

“Well, there’s the good news and the bad news.” she announced. “Good news is that it is reversible and the curse only lasts for a day. I recommend to just wait it out because the reversing would take longer than the deadline. The curse is too complicated to simply undo.”

“So that’s the bad news?”
“No. The bad news is that I recognised a bit of the spellwork. It is a bit similar to how my father would do it so chances are that whoever did this is a student of my father. The thing is I know most of my father’s students and what is bad is that I don’t recognise the magical signature of who put this curse on the dolls.”

Puppet Bruce jerked his head at the information that Zatanna had given them. Dick noticed.

“B?”

“Paris.” Bruce managed to get past with his wooden lips.

“Paris? Are you talking about the Miraculous?”

“Hero.”

“Wait, you think one of the Miraculous heroes is involved in this?”

Zatanna gasped. “I remember Batman telling me that Ladybug was a student of my father. I looked into his old journals and he mentioned a student named Marinette during his stay in Paris.”

“Marinette. Marinette. Why does it sound so familiar?” Dick tried to recall where he had heard that name before.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” Damian answered for him. “It’s Rebel’s legal name.”

Just like that, pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

“Rebel used to be Ladybug.”

The revelation felt bitter on Dick’s tongue. He had seen the videos of Ladybug in action. He would say that she was inexperienced but she was compassionate and willing to lend a hand to anyone in need. He thought that it was nice of her to forgive her enemy instead of causing pain on the man who had caused her so much grief.

He couldn’t believe he saw the similarities between the two girls sooner.

Rebel was cunning and sharp enough to always stay a step ahead of them. Her planning and paranoia on par with the Batman himself. Useful skills to have as a hero.

Then again, Rebel couldn’t be more different from Ladybug. She was more cynical and petty. Rebel caused chaos wherever she goes instead of cleaning up the mess. She saw everything as a game and never took anything seriously. 

Dick wondered what it was that pushed Rebel over the edge. The line drawn between heroism and villainy. Then he remembered how Rebel was sent to Gotham in the first place.

“Damn. Rebel has really good valid reason to fuck that Hawkmoth guy up.” Jason said. “In fact, I am surprised she hasn’t razed Paris to ashes yet.”

“Can you imagine?” Zatanna said, having been briefed a bit on the Paris situation and had heard about Rebel’s kidnapping of Lois, “The city you gave so much to save, branding you as a criminal and sending you to one of the worst places on Earth.”

“People have turned to crime for less.” Damian pointed out.

“But Rebel used to be a hero. One of us essentially. It’s just sad that we had to meet her as people on opposite sides.” Dick said.

“It only shows her lack of will.” Damian said.

“I think Rebel had reached her breaking point and honestly, I might too if I face it all alone like she did.”

The Cave was in a sombre silence for the hero that once was Ladybug. Dick remembered something Bruce once said about Two-Face and Harvey Dent.

‘You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.’

The next day, just as Zatanna said, the spell wore off and everyone was human again and able to freely talk again. Other than some nightmares about the experience for a month or so, they were fine.

The Batfamily had a meeting about the new revelation that they had discovered last night.

“Bruce, tell us the truth. Did you know from the beginning?” Tim asked.
“I only had suspicions but Zatanna confirmed them with her father’s journal.” Bruce answered. “This changes nothing.”

“It does, Bruce. You failed another young hero.” Jason said, his tone sharp and accusing. “Not even one of the ‘sidekicks’. You turned your back on the One Main Hero who had been there since the beginning and saw through it to the end. She didn’t get the happy ending she deserved. Instead, she was rewarded for her sacrifices by being sent to fucking Arkam Asylum in one of the most dangerous city in the world.”

“Todd, stop projecting. The way I see it, Rebel had seen the errors of her way and intended to fix her mistake regarding Hawkmoth. She should have locked him up when she had her chance.” Damian shot back.

“Boys, settle down. The fact of the matter is that whether Rebel used to be Ladybug or not, Hawkmoth needs to be arrested before Rebel does something more sinister than what she did yesterday.”

“Wasn’t it an accident?” Steph asked.

“According to Toyman, we had always been the intended recipients of that particular gift.” Dick answered. “It was dumb luck that Black Mask opened it while most of you were in the area.”

“After this latest incident, the League and I have decided that Rebel must be contained.” Bruce announced.

Jason jumped out of his seat. “Bruce, she’s just a kid!”

“But she’s a formidable threat. Who knows what else she might do if she is left unchecked and she doesn’t like the progress on the Hawkmoth investigation.”

Jason growled and then left.

Bruce told everyone that they should catch Rebel if they saw her before he ended the meeting.

Rebel stood in front of a half-finished mural, a spray can in hand.

“So we finally met, my dear daughter.” The voice belonged to the man who starred in Gotham’s nightmare.

Rebel didn’t bother to turn around and simply looked at him from over her shoulder.

“Which one are you?” She asked.

“I’m sorry?”

Rebel went back to spray-painting as she explained, “I know that there are at least three of you running around Gotham. I want to know which one you are.”

Joker laughed. A genuine laugh instead of the mad one he usually makes.

“You really do live up to your reputation, Rebel. I can tell that you are a real wildcard.” Joker said excitedly.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Very well then. I am the Joker. The original one. Not the copycats I made because I was bored. And Rebel, I am your father.”

Chapter Text

“Rebel, I am your father.”

“I know that.” Rebel said, cutting him off in the middle of his glorious speech about reuniting their Joker family. “We met before. Remember?”

“We did?” Joker said, confused.

“ Yeah. I was still locked up in Arkham.”

Rebel hummed in her cell as she doodled. Her therapist was kind enough to allow her a sketchbook and a pencil when she found out about her artistic background. Dr. Fenton was already a step-up from her last one who thought he could harass her and she had kicked him where the sun doesn’t shine in retaliation. Alarms sounded and red lights filled the room, making her lose concentration and accidentally ruin her drawing of the Gotham skyline. Rebel cursed in a mix of French and English because now security was going to be tighter now and she had been planning to break out that week.

A feeling of unease filled Rebel and her gut instinct was urging her to find a way out. She ran towards the door and yelled for someone to tell her what was going on. There were no answers.

“Then you came to my cell.”

Under the blaring sirens, she faintly heard the sound of manic laughter. Her heart raced, as the uneasy feeling increased tenfold.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The door shook under whatever was trying to get through its feeble resistance. Rebel slowly backed away and tried to look around her cell for something she could use to defend herself. It was bare except for her sketchbook and pencils. The bars were too narrow for her to use. While she could use magic, teleportation was still outside of her skillset. She should have learned that one before she left Paris. Maybe if she could just-

The door fell down and a grinning face, one which she desperately wished to never see, grinned down on her before pulling back.

A slim figure dressed in a purple suit stepped through the doorway. A wide grin on his face.

“Hello, my dear child.”

“You kidnapped me and tied me up. To try and convince me to do your bidding.”

“Come on, Darling daughter of mine, smile. Give your Daddy a big smile.”

“No.” Rebel replied vehemently.

“I guess, I have to make you them.” He snapped his fingers and some Joker goons appeared and lifted her throne.

Joker stepped away and gave Rebel a good view of the vat of green glowing chemicals, bubbling away.

She struggled to get out of her bonds, panicking at what was going to happen. She heard horror stories of the infamous Joker toxin which made her father into what he is. Turned Harley from Harleen Quinzel into a psychotic clown sidekick.

A moment before she was tossed in, Joker said, “Well, sweetheart, you excited for your makeover?”

“Go burn in hell.” Rebel snarled.

The goons tossed the heavy throne over the railings with a short scream from Rebel. A giant splash was heard and when they looked over, the top of the throne could be seen, slowly sinking into the vat.

“A few minutes soak and a new Joker will be born.”

Then, he pointed at one of the goons, “You there, jump in there and get her out. Tying her to a heavy throne was not a good idea in hindsight. We don’t want my heir to drown.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you and hurry up. Or else,” Joker pulled a gun out of his jacket and waved it in the goon’s general direction, “Bang!”

“It didn’t quite work.”

The man walked to the edge and looked down into the vat. He hesitated, looking to and from the gun and the vat of chemicals. As he looked over, preparing for a dive, he saw something dangling from underneath the catwalk.

“What is that-” The Joker goon didn’t get to finish his sentence before Rebel kicked his face in, knocking him out.

She had managed to get free from her restraints with magic and grab hold of the chains which were connected to the bottom of the catwalk the Joker was on.

Rebel used enough momentum from swinging the chain to jump back onto the catwalk and coincidentally, kicked the Joker goon .

She lifted the heavy crown which the Joker had put on her head and threw it. The crown spun in motion and hit its mark on Joker’s face, knocking the Clown Prince of Gotham out.

When he was down, she kicked the nearest goon in the crotch. Upon seeing the others draw their guns, she grabbed the one dropped by the Joker goon and shot at them.

“In the end, I kicked your ass and got away.”

“I don’t recall any of that ever happening.” Joker said, still confused. This was the first time that they had met. He wondered if the madness was hereditary. Or if it was something else.

“Oh. Wait. That was a different timeline.” Rebel exclaimed.

“So we have never met before today. I keep forgetting.” she muttered.

“So you know the truth of this world.” Joker stated instead of asking. He looked unusually serious that Rebel was a bit caught off guard.

“The fact that we are nothing more than people’s fantasy written down in ink on paper.” Rebel remarked dryly.

“Sometimes, just words on a screen.” Joker added.

He laughed his head off like he just told the funniest joke in the world.

“So you know. That we are not real. Nothing is real. So nothing matters except for me and Batman.” 

“I know. You told me before in the timeline that never happened.” Rebel drawled out.

“So you agree with me? Will you join me by my side?” Joker loomed over her with a pleased smile.

“Not really. I just see it differently. If you hadn’t noticed, I am an anomaly. I am not really your actual canon kid.” Rebel pointed out. “Just someone else’s idea of that reality.”

“Not in this world and time. You are my child. Even if you aren’t in other universes and timelines.” Joker dismissed.

“This world is our playground and you are the clown princess of this entire place. Even if you want to deny it. Right here and right now, I am your father and you are my daughter. This is a fact that currently holds true.”

Rebel huffed. “That doesn’t mean that I share the same ideology as you on your views of this world. So no, I don’t think I will be joining you in your eternal war against a guy in a fursuit.”

Joker frowned. “Then, you won’t matter. They won’t know about you. They won’t care about what happens to you. Unless you matter, they will just kill you off and put you into the void.”

Rebel couldn’t take the way that Joker was looking like he was borderline concerned for her existence. In his own twisted way, Joker was trying to look out for her.

Rebel took off her mask and gave him a smile. “I don’t care either way. I used to matter to the world once upon a time. I suffered because I was the important main character. If my time in this world is now limited because I am no longer one of the main ones, then I will make sure that I was memorable enough in my current run so I can have another go.”

“There’s a chance that you won’t be able to make it back. Not dead in the way that you won’t be brought back to life later on. A permanent death. Forgotten. Never existing. Forever lost in the limbo.”

“Oh. Please. This isn’t my first rodeo. I am here, aren’t I?” Rebel replied nonchalantly.

The meaning behind her words clicked for Joker.

He roared with laughter.

“Bravo.” He said with a hint of fatherly pride. “You brought yourself back from the limbo, didn’t you?”

Rebel tried not to grin too much at the praise.

These moments of lucid madness, where her father was sane enough to comprehend the truth of their world but still insane to not care about it, were rare. Coincidentally, these moments are when Joker acted the most fatherly.

Was it wrong of her to engineer these moments to feel fatherly affection?

Probably. But she had a feeling Joker would approve of the manipulation if he knew.

“Besides, I know you won’t let me stay dead.” Rebel said.

“Do not take that chance, Rebel.” Joker warned her. “I did not fully remember the previous times until you mentioned it. I didn’t know that you were my daughter until I saw the paper about your little crew.”

“Crew? What crew? I don’t have a crew.”

“The Rebellion, of course. Aren’t you the one in charge?”

“Nope. The leader of the Rebellion and I are just friends. She stole my jacket and masqueraded as me for a bit. Now, everyone thinks I lead them.”

Joker chuckled. Not laughing that the manic laughter that everyone was used to. Instead it was the light-hearted chuckle from hearing a good unexpected joke.

He came near Rebel and ruffled her hair.

She swatted his hand away because it took an hour for her to style it that way.

Joker gave another delighted chuckle.

“Now. Now. My rebellious spawn, I heard that you pulled the wool over that Big Blue Boy Scout in Sunny Metropolis. I want you to tell me about how you pulled it off.” Joker said, hugging her sideways.

Rebel tried not to seem too eager. She knew that she would have this version of her father for at least a few more hours before his more Joker-ish traits would set in again. Until then, she was going to enjoy being a daughter to a somewhat loving dad.

Rebel gasped for air as she sat up. Her arms immediately wrapped around herself. She was solid and alive and breathing. Rebel grabbed onto those facts like a lifeline.

Even until now, she felt like every move she made was being watched and in the back of her head, she heard the ominous click-clack of the computer that controlled her life.

She was real. She had to be. She can’t be-

“- a figment of someone else’s imagination.” A voice came from her right.

Rebel instinctively looked in that direction.

She tried to scramble away upon seeing the purple suit and green hair.

“Hello, my rebellious spawn. Quite the fitting name you have chosen for yourself.”

“What did you do to me?” Rebel asked. If she sounded freaked out, who could blame her when she just came out of a death experience and found herself in the same room with a psychopath.

“I didn’t do anything.” Joker paused, “Well, it’s slightly my fault as your progenitor. But other than that, I have to assume what you saw was the true reality of our world.”

Rebel tried to calmly assess her situation. She needed to get the hell out of here. Joker was spouting nonsense as usual. Who knows when he would snap and kill her. Judging by the place, she was in the morgue(?).

“What the fuck?”

She looked down and saw that she was wearing nothing. The only reason she hadn’t accidentally flashed her ‘father’ was because she had a white sheet covering her. 

“Am I some kind of fucking zombie?” Rebel said.

“No, my offspring. As I was trying to kindly explain, this is our Joker birds and bees talk.” Joker revealed.

Rebel glared at him. “I am not fucking doing the sex talk while I am naked. The French thing about being okay with nudity is not true.”

Rebel didn’t know what possessed her to follow the Joker. He tossed her usual outfit of t-shirt, leather jacket and ripped jeans but they were eggplant purple and green to match his suit. At least she wasn’t naked anymore.

She summoned one of her emergency masks out of her magic dimensional space pocket. It was a simple dark purple instead of her usual red to match her outfit.

She didn’t have to follow him like he asked but curiosity about what she saw made her ignore her instinct, screaming at her to not trust him. Joker had her answers and her gut told her that he would be forthcoming about it.

“Ah… this is perfect.” Joker said as he stopped.

Rebel looked up from her musing. They had stopped in front of an abandoned apartment building. Against her better judgement, she followed Joker into the building.

Joker seated himself comfortably in the armchair that the one of the past owners must have left behind while Rebel remained standing up.

She glared at him.

“So talk.” Rebel demanded.

Joker tapped his chin, “Where do I start?”

“Let me help. How am I alive if I died? I didn’t have enough in me to cast a spell for a shield.”

“Tough question right off the bat.” Joker giggled at his little pun before continuing. “Because you are still needed for the story. You aren’t the only exception. No one important can die. That means both heroes, villains and everyone in between can’t die. Even if they die, there is always the chance you can come back. Look at the Red Hood for example. The child was supposed to be dead but he was brought back to the land of the living for the sake of the story.”

“How am I important? I have been nothing but a nuisance. The fucking Universe doesn’t care about me. I have you for a father for fucks’ sake.”

“If you haven’t noticed, every hero or villain has some type of tragic backstory. Batman has his parents’ death. His current Robin had been neglected by his parents. Harley had been fucked up by me. I can go on and on. But there are some exceptions. You however are not.”

“Gee. Thanks, I didn't notice.” Rebel said with heavy sarcasm.

“Another reason you aren’t dead right now is because we are slightly immortal.”
“What do you mean ‘slightly immortal’?” The finger-quotes were obvious in her statement.

“Slightly immortal as in we are more durable than your average human, spawn. It is also something that has to do with your mother.”

“My mother?”

“She is not human, that's for sure.” Joker said. “I don’t know exactly what or who she is. Even the creators didn’t give her a proper name. She was delightful company though. She was intrigued by the fact that I also knew the truth about this world and she was the one who explained it all to me.”

“Then the two of you had a fun one night stand that ended up with me?”
“We fooled around a bit, had some laughs and caused some trouble for Batsy.” For a moment, Rebel thought that the Joker looked like a forlorn man who regretted letting go of a lost love.

“There was this one time that I miscalculated a plot and thought that I was going to die. Then, I woke up perfectly fine. She told me that she had given me a gift. Not true immortality. Even she can’t give me that. But I will not die by things that would kill other humans.”

“But doesn’t that mean you are the only one who would have that invincibility?”

“I thought so too but then, you survived an explosion head-on.”

Rebel remembered those last moments. Her taking her jacket off and covering the bomb in hopes to somehow dampen the explosion.

“You are crazy. Crazier than me even.” Joker remarked.

“I should be dead.”

“But you are not, which means you are one lucky girl. My theory is that your mother gave you the same gift she had given me or you inherited it from me.”

“You don’t know?”

“Rebel, my dear, I didn’t know that you existed until one of my Joker goonies showed me the newspaper headlining you. After another fun heist, your mother disappeared and I never heard from her again. I only assumed that she got bored of me.”

“How are you so sure that that being was my mother? Even if you are my dad, how can you be sure that my mother is not someone else you had your fun with.”

“You have her eyes.”

“Blue is the second most common eye colour.” Rebel shot back.
“Her eyes weren’t blue. No, your eyes have that same calculating glint where you look at random objects and be able to make it work.

Rebel sat there, processing the information that she had been given.

“So now what?”

Joker gave her a confused look. “I don’t know either. Currently, the creators are giving me a break so I have nothing going on.”

“No invitation to join you? No threats to throw me into a boiling vat of what made you ‘you’?”

“I realised that you were never going to join considering what you chose for your name. You are crazy enough even without the chemical.”

“The Joker being calm and reasonable? Never thought that I would see the day.”

“I can be calm and reasonable. Can’t be crazy all the time.” He said, shrugging.

Rebel felt like her whole world had been slightly turned upside down. She

“You know what. Let’s go bowling.” Rebel suddenly suggested. The day is crazy enough as it is, might as well make the most of it.

“Bowling? That’s a strange request.” Joker said, cocking his head to one side.

Rebel shrugged. “We have nothing better to do. Let’s do something fun.”

Joker stood up and straightened his jacket. “Then, let’s go, my dear rebellious spawn. Onwards we go!”

Extra scene:

After Rebel scored three strikes in a row, Joker turned an accusing look to her and said, “YOU ARE CHEATING!”
“I’M NOT!” Rebel denied. “I’m just better at this than you.”

The not-enough-to-deal-with-it bowling alley employee gave them a bored look before going back onto their phone.

A lady with a death wish approached the bickering pair from behind, dragging her son along.

“Hi, excuse me. I saw you and your daughter playing together and I was wondering if she would like to join us. We are having a birthday party for my son, Jerry. Wouldn’t she be happier playing with kids her own age?” The lady said with a bright smile on her face.

Joker and Rebel stopped their bickering, and gave each other the same look of disbelief.

Suddenly, the same thought struck them and grins of mischief replaced the earlier disbelief.

Joker laughed, causing goosebumps to run up their arms.

Rebel joined in, giggling. Making the civilians realised that they may have made a mistake in approaching the pair both dressed in green. The mother and son tried to subtly take a step back.

Immediately, Joker and Rebel turned around on their heels in sync.

Blood drained from their faces at the sight of the famous faces.

“You… you are…” The mother hyperventilated.

Joker leaned forward, his face barely inches from her pale frightened face.

“The Joker. Very kind of you to offer.” Joker laughed and then wrapped an arm around Rebel’s shoulder. “But I think my daughter prefers my company over some floozy.”

“Floozy? I am not a floozy.” The woman screeched with indignity.

Rebel stepped in front and pushed her father back.

“Lady, if you value your life, fucking leave us to our game and mind your own damn business.” Rebel warned. “Or else…”

The woman thought it might have been her imagination when she saw Rebel’s eyes flashed red.

The son, who had more self-preservation than his mother, covered her mouth to prevent her from digging her grave further and dragged her away.

Joker laughed.

“Did you see their faces? I don’t know how you did it but you scared them good. They looked like they would have shit their pants.”

Rebel simply rolled her eyes and said, “Come on, let’s see how ridiculously we can throw these bowling balls until they kick us out.”

“Harley?” The voice said. A voice she never thought that she would ever hear again.

“Stitches?” Harley turned around and exclaimed with disbelieving hope.

Standing there in the doorway, in her green mischief leather jacket was Rebel. Without a scratch or scars to tell the tale of her death.

Rebel removed her mask and gave her an impish grin. The sight was familiar to Harley. A memory from a different lifetime rose to her mind.

Harley ignored those thoughts for now and rushed forward to hug her ward/child.

“Stitches! You are alright!”

“I am back.” Rebel said.

“Oh, we gotta tell Red.” Harley said. “She’d been mopin’ in the house since we foun’ out about the incident.”

Harley tried to drag Rebel along but was confused when the girl refused to move.

“Stitches?” she asked, concerned at the look on Rebel’s face.

“Aren’t you going to ask how I am perfectly fine? When I am supposed to be dead?” Rebel quietly asked.

Harley gently cupped the two sides of Rebel’s face. “Rebel, sweetie, I used to work for your father. If there is anyone who knows most of his secrets, other than the big Bat, it’s me. I have seen him die in a hundred different ways and always go back runnin’ without a scratch. I’m glad that you got this part of his genes from him. The world without you seems a bit darker.”

Harley gently knocked her forehead with Rebel’s own.

“Any other problems that we need to address?” Harley asked with a smile.

“Other than my traumatic experience of my death and then finding out the truth behind our reality?” Rebel said as sarcastically as possible so Harley would think that she was telling a joke.

“So you met the people behind the voices.”

“You know about it?”

“I asked the Joker once. If the voices were normal. He tried to explain it to me but my mind kept forgettin' for some reason and he gave up. All I know is that I can hear the truth but I can’t know what it is. How do ya know what it is?” Harley asked.

“Joker told me about it.” Rebel confessed.

“Kid, are you okay?” Harley asked in worry. Any encounter with that monster is never pleasant.

“I am fine. He’s different this time.” Rebel said. “It’s like he feels more real than how he usually acts.”

Harley gave her a sad smile. “I know what you are talking about. It’s not real, Stitches. It’s just another mask he wears to make him believe in him.”

Rebel didn’t say anything. Because Harley was neither right or wrong. The Joker from last time and the Joker she just met were the same man after all. They were both real. Or not real since they are aspects that the people outside their reality perceive Joker to have.

Rebel stopped that line of thought there. She had enough of an existential crisis for one day.

Rebel just smiled at Harley and said, “Let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

Red Hood turned on the lights to his apartment.

“Jesus Christ!” He swore as he drew his gun towards the intruder.

Jason recognised who the intruder was and lowered the gun.

“Rebel, can you not give me a heart attack?” He grumbled at the girl who was sitting cross-legged on top of his kitchen counter..

“Sorry, Hoodie. But you really should get better security for your safehouse.”

Jason didn’t bother retorting that he had the best security he could get his hands on and he was not Batman who had cash to burn for that kind of stuff. Besides, Rebel was like an octopus with a small opening. Being able to get through the toughest security systems with ease.

And he knew it drove Bruce up the walls trying to upgrade his security each time Rebel broke into the Batcave. It won’t be a bad thing to encourage that little habit of hers.

“Why are you here?” Jason asked as he began taking his boots off.

“I was craving some cookies. So I took the liberty of commandeering your oven. They will be ready in-” She looked up from the book to face the clock “-about 10 minutes.”

So that was what the delicious smell was. Rebel’s baked goods were to die for.

“Good. Because they are the only reason I am not kicking you out right now.”

“I made two batches.”

Jason saw the offer for what it was. A bribe to let her stay in his safehouse for a while.

“Fine. You can stay for the rest of the night.” Jason said and took off his bloody jacket to hang on the coat holder. He was going to clean it up later.

She gave him a bright grin. Or what he assumed is a grin due to the medical mask covering her face instead of her usual one.

He never asked her why she keeps her face covered all the time.

She never asked him anything about his grudge on Batman or other stupid personal questions people were dead set on asking him so he kept his mouth shut.

But with the recent revelation of her being a kid hero, Jason was feeling curious.

“So, squirt, how've you been?” Jason asked as he sat down on his sofa and started prepping to clean his guns.

He looked up when he didn’t hear her reply.

He knew that Rebel was just a few years younger than him. But it was not easy to remember that when she outsmarts Batman and the rest of them on an almost daily basis, and she could keep up with the Bat-trained vigilante in a fight.

Right now, she looked so young and nervous.

“Are you in trouble?”

“No. Well, not yet. But there is something I need to do and I can’t do it yet.”

Rebel looked at him. There was hesitation in her eyes as she internally debated with herself if she should share whatever was bothering her with him. “I need your help.”

“What can I do to help?” Jason asked.

The timer went off with the most unfortunate timing.

“Just in time. We don’t want the cookies to burn, yeah?”

Rebel got down from the counter to get the cookies out of the oven and put them on the cooling rack.

Jason decided that the kitchen table was a better place to clean his guns.

As they sat around waiting for the cookies to cool, Jason and Rebel talked. Mainly about what they had done while Jason was out of Gotham. Their conversation steered into a bit of Jason’s childhood growing up in the back alleys of Gotham.

“Wow. That’s depressing.” Rebel said after Jason told how he had to struggle to find food and keep warm during the winter.

“That’s why I was so happy when Bruce adopted me. Being Robin was one of my happiest moments. Or it used to be.”

“Wait, who’s Bruce?”
“Bruce Wayne? Richest man on the planet and Batman.”

“I’m sorry. I think you just implied that Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy philanthropist , is the Batman , a furry vigilante that punches people’s lights out as a nighttime hobby.”

“You didn’t know???” Jason said in disbelief. “You who figured out that Penguin was going on vacation because he bought sunscreen? And figured out Superman’s secret identity?”

“First off, if he bought sunscreen, then he must be preparing to go somewhere where there is sun and we live in Gotham. And Superwho?”

“Superman. The big blue guy with a S on his chest?”
“Oh shit really? I have been calling him Captain America in my head. Wrong Universe, go figure.” Rebel muttered before adding, “I only figured it out because I was stalking his wife.”
“Somehow, you didn’t know that Bruce Wayne is Batman.” Jason deadpanned.
Rebel shrugged, “Like, it’s not worth the energy to figure it out. I have a life.”

“What was it like?” She then asked. “Living with Batman and being Robin.”

Jason was silent as he thought about his complicated history with the man who he regarded as a father and yet caused him so much pain.

He shook his head because he didn’t want to think about it right now.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Right now, Rebel had her guard down so it was the perfect time to strike.

“What about you? What’s your tragic backstory, Ladybug ?” Jason asked.

Rebel froze.

Shit.

Somehow, he knew.

She could lie but she was and still is a terrible liar. Hood would know in an instant.

Rebel looked anywhere but at him. Her eyes landed on the cooling rack with the cookies.

She reminisced about the days she would carry a bunch of them around to feed Tikki. The part of Rebel that was still stubbornly Marinette missed the tiny gods that made her days less lonely in the aftermath.

Rebel sighed as she steeled herself. This was what she was going to do anyway. It just happened a little earlier than she wanted.

“So you figured out my deep dark secret.” She said, confirming the truth.

“If that dark secret was that you used to moonlight as a superhero in polka dots, then yes.”

“Ha. Ha. Like you didn’t used to wear traffic light colours.” Rebel shot back and then asked, “How did you know?”

“You aren’t supposed to know but the Bats figured you out and I was there when they did.”

“Didn’t think that it would take him this long.” Rebel shrugged like her secret identity being exposed was no big deal.

“You wanted Batman to know?” Jason asked curiously.

“Yes. If I had told him in the beginning, he wouldn’t believe me anyways. It’s not like I have solid proof other than my own words and I don’t have the earrings that turn me into Ladybug anymore.”

“You didn’t make it easy for them to find out either.” Jason pointed out.

“I figured he would dig deeper into the whole problem if it looked like I had something to hide. And because it sorta turned out that way. I really didn’t want to tell Batman that I fucked up and let Hawkmoth go so now I need him to clean up my mess.”

Rebel wrapped her arms around herself to steady herself and then looked up at Jason in the eye.

“So you are probably wondering what the heck I was thinking and did something crazy like that. First, let me tell you about a cat named Chat Noir.”

Thus, she told a tale of a flirtatious black cat hero with a charming smile. Who under the mask was just a boy puppeted according to his father’s whims.

And how the father was the monster that hid in the shadows and plagued the city with monsters. She talked about the day the cat went too far so she had to strip him of his powers. His only chance at freedom from his father’s watchful eyes.

The guilt she felt at condemning him to his fate.

She told Jason about the hero who felt pity for the cat that once was her closest friend so she allowed the father to walk away from his crimes with little consequences.

“I don’t believe that you were ever too good-hearted for that. But then again, you are too smart to let someone like that to simply walk free.” Jason said.

Rebel groaned. “I know that it was a stupid decision. I was trying to be kind. All my life, I was told to be kind and give forgiveness to my enemy. I was never taught that I had to draw a line somewhere. I was taught to just stand there and take the people’s shit. Even that sounds like a shit excuse for what I did.”

Jason blinked. “Oh.”

“I was the fucking greatest pushover ever and I just thought that because I had the moral high ground, I was doing the right thing to let him go.” Rebel said, frustration and anger raising her voice. “And I couldn’t stand the thought of taking someone important away from someone I still cared about.”

“ Guess fucking what? That kindness backfired on me. He didn’t know it was me but he still watched as I lost everything I ever cared about. I know that fucking Lila had him mind-controlled but still even when he was not under her influence, he still did nothing and let her ruin my life for the sake of avoiding conflict. ” Her voice cracked in the middle as she tried to reign in her emotions.

Rebel unhooked one side of her mask and bit into a cookie almost angrily.

Rebel offered another cookie from the tray to Jason. “Want some?”

“Oh no. You don’t get to change the fucking subject so easily. There was a lot there to unpack.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Rebel retorted, her mouth still full of cookies.

“Too bad. Because that’s what I want to talk about.”

Jason folded his arms and stared her down.

Rebel ignored it as she continued to eat her cookies.

The silence stretched on, only broken by the crunching of cookies being eaten.

Jason broke first.

“Rebel, at least tell me about the mind control thing.” Jason said.

Rebel swallowed and then said, “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Why not?”

“Other people didn’t. Except for Harley and Pam but that’s because they are biased towards me. If you hadn’t noticed, I also like to lie a lot about my intentions.”

Jason snorted. “Kid, no offence but you are one terrible liar and we can tell. You usually lie by omission. Even then, your own habit of rambling rat you out.”

“I am not that bad.” Rebel said, looking away. It was really easy to see her red face when her mask was still off. Maybe it was a tactical decision. Her face was so expressive that it was like an open book.

“See, terrible liar.” Jason teased. “But seriously, why do you think that I won’t believe you?”

“I guess I am just used to people taking the side against me.” Rebel replied.

“I promise that I will try to keep an open mind and not judge you.” Jason promised.

“Her name is Lila Rossi and she was a transfer student…” Rebel started.

By the time that story had ended, Jason was gobsmacked.

“You are telling me that a girl brainwashed your class to hate you so much that they were willing to frame you for murder? And it was all because you called her out on one of her lies? And over a boy?” Jason said with each sentence sounding more and more incredulous.

“See, it sounds stupid.” Rebel said, resigned.

“Kid, I didn’t say that.” Jason was quick to reassure her. “I know it sounds improbable but stranger things have happened.”

“I guess. I thought that Paris was crazy but since I came to Gotham, my life just became crazier.”

“So what now?” Jason asked.

“Hmmm?” Rebel didn’t know what Jason was asking about.

“Are you going to do something about that Lila girl?” Jason clarified.

Rebel stopped, cookie midway to her mouth. She put it back down.

A very familiar grin spread on her face.

Jason had wondered from time to time how Rebel could be related to the Joker with how she looked nothing like him but in that moment, he saw the resemblance.

“I can’t do anything to her. Not yet anyways. But one day-” She laughed and the resemblance has never been clearer. “She will face the consequences for her actions.”

“Sorry about that.” Rebel apologised.

“It’s fine.” Jason replied. “I like a good revenge plan. Willing to share more about that?”

“Just lots and lots of planning. Some concrete and some are just vague ideas. It’s just I don’t want to spend lots of time and energy on her. She’s not worth it. But if she ever crosses my path again and I have a feeling she will, I’ll make sure she pays for what she did.”

Jason hummed, not saying anything as he ate the cookies.

Once the rest of the cookies were stored away and everything had been cleaned up, Jason and Rebel were sitting in front of the TV, watching a period drama.

Jason was explaining the regency-speak to Rebel since some of it went over Rebel’s head. The woes of not being a historic literature nerd.

In return, Rebel went into an in-depth explanation of the costumes the actors wore.

During a lull, Jason remembered that Rebel wanted to ask him for something before he ambushed her with the Ladybug stuff.

“By the way, what was it you needed my help with?” Jason asked.

“I kinda thought that you would say no. Given how last time turned out.”

Right, the Halloween Doll thing.

Jason shrugged

“Honestly, I blame Black Mask more than I blame you. Besides, no one died and the Annabelle doll was more annoying than lethal.”

Rebel winced.

“Spoiler and Black Bat hasn’t forgiven me about that yet.”

“I’m sure your winning personality will win them over.”

“Or your cookies.” Jason added.

They were getting off track.

“What were you going to ask me to help with anyways?”

“I need you to help Ladybug.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, the misery~ Everybody wants to be my enemy!”

Rebel side stepped to dodge Robin’s sword.

She missed the older Robin but he went away to do some Young Justice stuff apparently. He was much more fun to talk to.

This Robin is just focused on capturing her. No quick witty one-liner or jokes. No banter or even a pun. He’s so uptight and boring. Hell, even Batman would strike back with a fun one-liner from time to time.

“ Spare the sympathy~ ” Rebel continued to sing as she jumped onto a crate and back-flipped off it. Robin No.5 appeared to be frustrated to have his target keep dodging his strikes and singing while doing it.

“ Everybody wants to be- “ Rebel let him get close and she whipped out the batarang she had stolen to block the next strike. “ My Enemy! ”

She grinned under her mask.

Rebel kicked him in the stomach and jumped back to put some distance back between the two of them.

“ Me~ Me~ Me~ M - ”

“Will you shut up?!” Robin growled, interrupting Rebel’s vocalising.

“But I’M ReAdY!” Nightwing horribly sang off key from where he was currently trying to get out of the hold of Poison Ivy’s vines.

Pamela commanded one of her vines to wrap around his mouth. Nightwing glared at her and continued to valiantly hack at the vines.

“ Your words up on the wall as you're praying for my fall~ ”

Another skip and a dodge. Rebel tried to punch Robin but he dodged and attempted another strike.

“ And the laughter in the halls and the names that I've been called~ ”

Block. Block. Kick. Punch. Kick. Kick. Jump back for some distance and catch her breath.

“Stop singing and start fighting me!” Robin demanded.

“ I stack it in my mind and I'm waiting for the time~ ”

Speaking of time, Rebel was running on a tight schedule. She had to meet up with Batman, get an update on Hawkmoth before meeting Red Hood.

So she better finish this fast.

Rebel reached into the pocket dimension inside her inner jacket pocket and pulled out the new toy that she had been waiting to use.

A Kusarigama.

Rebel’s sickle had a red handle with a black steel blade and chain that connected it to an iron weight.

“ When I show you what it's like to be words spit in a mic~ ”

Robin hesitated when he saw the weapon.

“ Tell you~ ” Rebel spun the metal weight around, the motion almost nostalgic. “ You're the greatest~ ”

“ But once you turn, they hate us~ ” Rebel threw the metal weight in Robin’s direction to incapacitated him.

It was now Robin’s turn to avoid Rebel’s attacks. He knew that he was at a disadvantage with his sword and Rebel knew it too. Taking every opportunity she could for attacks.

Robin wondered when she got training to use one. And be a master at it too.

“ Oh, the misery~ Everybody want to be- ”

Rebel threw her metal weight again and this time, Robin’s sword got caught. Rebel pulled it away, disarming her opponent. She went in close for an attack, sickle ready to strike- 

“ Your enemy. ” Nightwing said, blocking the sickle with his escrima sticks.

Rebel retreated and searched for Poison Ivy. She was unconscious and out of commission.

While she was on even skills when it came to fighting Robin and Nightwing individually, Rebel loathed to admit that she was no match for the two of them together.

“Heads up, Stitches!” Harley called out.

Harley Quinn, forever Rebel’s saviour.

A smoke bomb dropped between the Bats and Rebel. She gave the coughing Bat boys a two-finger salute and ran away.

She tapped one of the buttons on her mask which expanded to give her a visor to protect her eyes from the smoke.

She helped Harley with Pamela and with a bit of luck manipulation from Rebel, they managed to get out of the warehouse.

“Stitches, I hate to say it but we’re trapped.” Harley said with a grim face.

Their getaway had gone perfectly but karma struck back as Batman blocked their route to their vehicles. The Universe just love inconveniencing Rebel somehow.

“Harley, you take Pam while I stall the Bat.” Rebel said, handing Poison Ivy over to her.

“Stitches, what did we say about self-sacrificing?” Harley said with a frown.

“This isn’t self-sacrificing. It’s the best plan we have at the moment and you know it.” Rebel argued.

Harley sighed because Rebel was right.

“Besides, I have something to talk to Batman about anyways.” Rebel added.

Batman was getting closer now.

“Is it about that hundred step plan that took up most of the wall in your room?” Harley asked.

“A bit of that one and a bit of something else." She answered cryptically as usual.

As much as Harley wanted to stop Rebel from whatever stupid thing she was going to do, she knew Rebel. That girl might be slightly insane but she would not do anything without some kind of contingency in place.

“‘Kay. Don’t get caught. Ya hear me.” Harley warned before running off with Pam in a bridal carry.

"Loud and clear."

Batman reached out to catch them but Rebel intercepted him with a kick which he blocked. She nimbly moved into a flip and landed. 

“Can’t let you do that. And Batsy, I needed that update on Hawkmoth ages ago.” She smoothly went into a battle stance.

“I am not inclined to help someone who has just committed a theft.” Batman grumbled.

“Hey! That guy is an asshole. He deserves it.” Rebel looked around her surroundings to see what she could use against Batman.

It doesn’t really matter anyway.

He knew that she was stalling to buy her ‘moms’ to escape. 

She knew that he knew what she was doing.

He knew that she knew that he knew about the stalling.

This sort of thing happens often when two geniuses face off each other in a fight.

They both also knew that there was never going to be a chance of Batman being able to evade Rebel in time for him to catch up to Harley and Pamela.

Luck shifted to Batman’s side via the Universe because Nightwing and Robin caught up to them.

Rebel cursed the Universe out. If the Universe had hands, it would be flipping her off.

“Go stop Quinn and Ivy.” Batman ordered them.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Rebel said as she took something out of her pocket, flipped over Nightwing and sprayed whatever she was holding in his face when she was overhead.

“MY EYES!” he screamed when he was not quick enough to dodge.

Batman tried to take advantage to subdue her but then, Robin sped past him to try and punch her instead of chasing after Harley and Ivy.

She intercepted the fist and swiftly dislocated Robin’s shoulder with a pop sound.

Robin barely made a sound.

While he tried to recover from the pain, Rebel stuck a needle into his neck.

Then, Rebel tossed Robin in Batman’s direction and he caught him.

“What did you do?!” he growled. In a slightly panicked Batman manner.

Rebel smiled from under her mask.

“A mild paralytic.” She replied. “Now, it’s just you and me.”

Before she could do more than step forward, Rebel began to glow.

Batman readied for an attack.

He was taken by surprise when Rebel started swearing.

“Fuck, I forgot about the time zones.”

“Rebel-”

“Call Hood. Tell him Polka Dots is-” was the last thing Rebel said before the glow overtook her and in her place was a girl about Damain’s age, wearing a red and black polka dotted suit.
—

Marinette woke up in some sort of cave. The last thing she remembered was… the Akuma!

She sat up. However, the cave started spinning.

“Kid, lie back down. You got some bruised ribs and probably a concussion.” Someone said to her in English as they gently pushed her back down.

“ The akuma. ” She tried to sit back up.

“ Lie back down. ” The person repeated in French.

She glared at the man as she struggled against him.

“ I need to go back .”

“ No. You are staying here until you recover from your injuries. Besides, you are not in Paris anymore. ”

“ What? Where am I? ” Marinette said, panicked.

“Gotham City, New Jersey. USA.”A deep gravelly voice replied, drawing Marinette’s attention to its owner.

Marinette stared at him with a hint of awe. “Mon Dieu, you are Batman.”

“I am.” Batman confirmed with a nod. The man beside her snorted.

“Please. I have to get back.” Marinette pleaded. “Paris needs me.”

“Chill, Ladybug. Your future self is probably taking care of it for you.” The man who had been taking care of her said.

“My future self?”

“She told me about the akuma that switches people with their future selves in five years. So you can figure out what happened by now. She asked me to keep an eye on you until she fixes things.” He explained.

“Oh. Thank you for taking care of me.” Marinette said with a smile.

“No problem, kiddo.” He said and ruffled her hair which she hated. (Jason thought that she looked adorable when she pouted.)

“Ladybug, I am so glad you are awake.” A familiar high-pitched voice said.

Marinette searched for Tikki and found her holding a chocolate chip cookie. There was a tray of it held by an elderly gentleman wearing a mask.

Marinette was relieved to know that her kwami friend was okay.

Then, she realised what Tikki being out in the open meant. “Tikki? Oh no no no no. The transformation wore off.”

“Don’t worry, kid. We gave you one of ours when the transformation wore off.” The man next to her explained as he pointed to his own mask. Marinette took noticed that there was a stiffness on her face that was probably the mask.

She reached up to touch it, curious about the material.

“Rebel doesn’t like showing her face a lot.” He continued to kindly explain. “So we figured you would be the same. I am the only one who saw because I know what you look like without it. At least your future version’s.”

Marinette looked at the man beside her and asked him, since he looked like he was willing to give her answers. “Rebel?”

“That’s the name your future self goes by.”

“Ladybug, if you don’t mind, we have some questions we want to ask you.” Batman cuts in.

The man glared at him. “Don’t interrogate her. She’s not Rebel. Not yet. She isn’t used to Gotham weirdness.”

Marinette didn’t know what that meant but she was thankful that someone was looking out for her.

Fuck, this was too weird for Jason.

He watched as Re- Ladybug talked with Batman in detail about Hawkmoth. Because what better resource for getting information on what happened in the past than someone who was from the past.

Rebel was not nice. She doesn’t use please and thank yous. She swaggered all over the place, like she owned the place and an asshole in general.

Ladybug was nothing like Rebel. She was all smiles with pure goodness with none of the smugness he was used to. She was so straightforward and honest where Rebel was cryptic as hell.

In fact, it reminded him of the time when he was Robin. A kid who believed that goodness exists in the world.

“So who trained you?” Batman asked.

“I am not allowed to say.”

Ladybug was pretty open about most things but this is the first time she didn’t outright answer.

“Why not?” Nightwing asked, curious.

“Because then Hawkmoth might find out who he is and use him against me.” Ladybug explained. They all share a look. It was suspicious that this supposed mentor of hers didn’t want to be found.

“Kid, you’re in the future where Hawkmoth is gone.” Jason pointed out.

Ladybug lit up. “You are right, Monsieur… um, I’m sorry. I never got your name.”

“Red Hood.” Jason said.

Ladybug nodded. “Oui, Monsieur Red Hood.”

Then, she proceeded to talk about this Guardian of the Miraculous who had passed on the title to her. This ‘Guardian’ sounded sketchy as hell. He just gave two teenagers overpowered jewellery, the same ones that Hawkmoth was after, with no other instructions and they had to figure it out on the job.

No training, no anything.

Nothing.

Other than some power upgrades so they could stay ahead of the villain, he did basically nothing.

It made him so angry.

Jason thought that he had known Rebel’s entire backstory but damn was he wrong. It was a shitshow from the beginning.

Even Robins got some training before being thrown headfirst into the crime infested water of Gotham.

Judging by the way Bruce was frowning, he was also thinking the same.

And the way that Ladybug just told them all of that, bugged Jason.

Rebel might be the chatty type but she wouldn’t spill important information like that without some kind of incentive behind it.

Ladybug didn’t look like the type to pull off that kind of deception. The fact that she was too willing and eager to easily trust people worried him.

Hm... Maybe that’s how Rebel came by her trust issues.

It wasn’t until they were talking about how Ladybug’s powers worked that they realised there was a problem.

“So wait, you’re telling me that the Ladybug Miraculous is the only one that can purify the butterfly and fix things?” Jason asked to confirm.

“Oui.”

Nightwing hissed in sympathy as he realised what the problem was. Bruce also caught on.

“What? Is something wrong?” Ladybug asked, starting to look worried.

“To our knowledge, you no longer have the Miraculous in our time.” Batman explained. 

Ladybug appeared upset at that news.

“I lost Tikki?” She said, her voice a little panicky.

“We don’t know for sure. We assume so since we have never seen you use the Miraculous. That’s why it took a while to figure out the fact that Rebel used to be… you.”

“That doesn’t mean you lost me, Marinette. After all, it looks like Rebel remembers about me.” Tikki reassured her.

“Yeah. Probably not.” Ladybug said, cheered up.

“Hold up.” Nightwing said. “What do you mean by remember you?”

Ladybug launched into an explanation of how she is the Guardian and as a precaution to protect the Miraculous and its secrets, they get their memories wiped of anything related to the Miraculous if they ever lose their position as Guardian.

“How did you become Guardian?” Nightwing continued to ask, knowing that he was not going to like the answer.

He did not.

The past of Rebel became more horrifying.

Allies being brainwashed to fight the hero duo. The betrayal of a former hero. How the villain manipulated her to reveal the previous Guardian, the only one who has any semblance of being a mentor figure to the heroes.

This wasn’t something a normal thirteen year old should deal with. Not all on her own.

 Ladybug had started crying when she was telling them about how her mistake caused Hawkmoth to find out who the Guardian was.

“That’s-”

“I know. I am the worst Ladybug ever. I nearly lost all of the Miraculous and let him win.” Ladybug cried.

This must have been very recent and apparently had been bothering her for a while. Tikki hugged Ladybug’s face, wiping her tears with her flipper-hands.

“No.” Batman said, causing her to look at him. “You’re not a bad hero.”

He knelt down next to Ladybug and handed her a handkerchief (patterned with bats, of course).

She looked up at him with glassy eyes.

Batman slowly patted her shoulder and continued softly:

“You did what you could and with what you had. It is not pleasant to fight the people you consider your friends. Despite the odds stacked against you, you beat Hawkmoth. Every battle has its cost but remember that each victory is worth celebrating. In the end, you didn’t let him get the Ladybug Miraculous. That is what counts. You can learn from old battles to know what you can improve. And one day, you will beat him. You already did it from our point of view.”

His logical tone was somewhat comforting to Ladybug.

“He’s right, Ladybug.” Tikki confirmed. “You are one of my best bugs. Never forget that.”

“Thank you, Tikki. And you too, Monsieur Batman.”

Batman stood up and extended his hand.

“How would you like some training while you are here? I have seen some videos of your battle. But there are some areas you can improve.”

"I would love to."

Chapter Text

Damian snorted derisively as Ladybug failed to dodge another light tap from Nightwing.

“With poor skills like that, it’s a wonder that Paris is still standing.”

Jason knocked the brat’s head. “Hey, not anyone came out of the womb knowing how to fight.”

Bruce grunted in agreement. “From what I observe, the Miraculous grants some physical enhancements to their users in addition to their unique powers. The only reason Paris held out for so long is because she’s quick to adapt plans with what she has on the fly. Given what we know of Rebel, we can assume there was some kind of long term plan she used to bring Hawkmoth down in the end.”

The Bats observed the sparring match in silence for a while. Nightwing was giving out advice to Ladybug while backflipping. Ladybug was a quick learner and adjusted accordingly. She was doing pretty well for someone with no solid foundation in martial arts. It also meant there were plenty of mistakes in her form.

They were using what limited time they had with Ladybug to work them out.

“She’s different.” Damian pointed out. “She’s hesitant about hurting Nightwing even if she knows he can take the hit. The Rebel I know would have ruthlessly taken advantage. Allies or not.”

“She’s not Rebel yet .” Jason folded his arm, uncomfortably reminded of a younger naive Jason Todd when he looked at Ladybug. “She hasn’t experienced or done the things that Rebel had experienced and done that would make her become the person we know her as today.”

“What’s to stop us from making sure that Rebel never exists?” Damian’s grip on his katana tightened. “Like you said, she’s not Rebel yet.”

Bruce lightly tapped the katana’s handle with a disapproving expression before he explained, “Because right now, she’s Ladybug. And Ladybug needs to take down Hawkmoth first.”

Damian grumbled but conceded.

“What’s all this?” Marinette asked, looking at the giant board filled with pictures of past akumas, miraculous heroes and red strings.

“That’s our theory board for finding out who Hawkmoth is. Your future self was rather adamant that we had to figure out who he is ourselves.” Nightwing explained.

Marinette smiled sheepishly, “Miraculous magic is finicky like that. In order to protect the identity of the holder, we can’t reveal the names of the holder to someone who doesn’t know unless the holder allows it. It keeps our identity safe but it is also hard to find out who he is.”

“That’s stupid. Because you clearly told us that Hawkmoth is-” The name can’t seem to leave Red Robin’s mouth.

“Hawkmoth is-” He tried again. “Ga-”

“Let me try. Ga-” The first syllable barely left Nightwing’s mouth before his mouth locked up, refusing to complete the sentence.

“What?” He said, baffled. “I can’t say Ga-”

Marinette nodded empathetically. “Yeah, that happens.”

“Fucking magic.” Red Hood swore.

Batman turned to Marinette. “Do you know of any way to get around it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Tikki?”

“It’s not impossible. There are a few ways that people have gotten around the name restriction. It relies on intent mostly.” The ladybug kwami answered.

“So we can’t say his name directly? But can we drop hints about who he is?” Red Robin asked.

Tikki nodded.

“So that’s why she did it.”

Everyone turned to Batman who sat in front of the Batcomputer with his hand steepled.

“B?” Nightwing asked, wanting the man to elaborate further on what he just said.

“Rebel knew that she couldn’t tell us the identity of Hawkmoth. That’s why she made us find out who he is on our own. She couldn’t say it.”

“That… that actually made a lot of sense about her motives. Now that I think about it.” Red Robin said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “She didn’t outright tell us who it was. She just confirmed his identity.”

Robin sneered. “Tch. I don’t see why she couldn’t just tell us that Hawkmoth is a tall white male in his late-forties with white hair. Wear glasses. A fashion designer with a fondness for white. Runs a business named after himself. Has a son who is a supermodel. Instead of making us go on a wild goose chase to solve her cryptic clues.”

Marinette’s eyes widened. Her brain already making the connection.

“Hawkmoth is Ga-”

A portal opened up in the Batcave.

“Sorry, I was late. I had a lot of things to take care of.” Rebel said, stepping through and dressed in a white costume that they had never seen before. “So what did I miss?”

Marinette rushed up to her future counterpart. “Tell me that it isn’t true.”

Rebel looked down at her past self. Eyes strangely blank and unseeing.

The Bats were on edge because they had never seen Rebel like this.

“Tell me that Hawkmoth isn’t who they said it is. Tell me that Adrien’s father isn’t… Oh, kwami, Adrien… he’s going to be so devastated.” Marinette was beginning to find it hard to breathe.

All of a sudden, there was a stinging pain on her left cheek.

Marinette looked at her older counterpart in shock, cupping her left cheek.

“What?”

“Do you know why he isn’t in jail for what he did? Or facing any consequences?” Rebel hissed.

Marinette stepped away, trying to process what just happened.

“ Your pathetic little crush on that boy was the reason that he got away with everything .” Bitterness and anger laced Rebel’s every word.

Was this her future? Marinette thought hysterically. This twisted, mad version of herself that she barely recognized.

At that moment, Marinette realized why the Bat vigilantes were acting so shifty around her. She wasn’t a fellow hero working alongside them. She was a villain.

A strong back blocked her view of Rebel.

“Rebel. I get that you are mad but you shouldn’t take it out on her.” Red Hood said firmly.

Rebel let out a harsh laugh.

“I’m not mad.” She said in a manic voice, barely stopping from erupting into crazed laughter, “I’m just showing her what reality is like. ”

“She’s just a good kid doing her best with what she had and knew.” Red Hood defended. “You were that kid once.”

Rebel slumped. All the fight leaving her.

Tikki peeked out from her position in Marinette’s hair. She flew to her holder’s future self. “Marinette, what happened to you?”

Rebel didn’t answer the question. She ignored Tikki’s curious gaze.

Instead, she said: “Fluff, counter-clockwise.”

White light surrounded Rebel, changing her back to her normal outfit.

She held out the Rabbit Miraculous to Tikki. “You and her better go back. Paris needs Ladybug.”

“You’re Ladybug.” Tikki said.

Rebel gave her a sad smile. “Not anymore. Not for a long time.”

Marinette said her goodbyes to the Batfamily, giving them all thanks for helping her. Rebel brooded in a corner with Nightwing keeping close. In case she tried to attack Ladybug. Not that was going to happen.

Being back in Paris and then being confronted by her past self, Rebel might have slightly lost control of her emotions… and a little bit of her sanity. But she was okay. Well as okay as someone who was a former superhero turned Gotham Villain could be.

After a quick snack, Fluff was ready and Marinette was transformed into Bunnybug.

Bunnybug stared at Rebel, with a determined stance and defiance in her eyes. “I am never going to be you.”

Rebel’s expression remained blank as it had been since her outburst.

“May the Universe cater to your whims.” was her cryptic reply.

Marinette blinked, taken aback by the lack of hostility from earlier.

“You should hurry, Ladybug. Or Hawkmoth is going to be more impatient.” Rebel said, before Marinette could question her further.

Bunnybug nodded. And with a ‘Burrow’, she stepped through the portal and she was gone.

“Well, it’s been a fun day, guys. But I gotta run. Plants to water, Hyenas to walk, Banks to rob, ya know.”

Rebel tried to leave but Nightwing stepped in front, blocking her way.

“So Ladybug.” He said with a charming smile.

The shadow of Batman loomed over her.

“We have a lot to talk about.” The Bat said.

Rebel gave a put out sight. “There’s no getting out of this, is there?”

Bunnybug was confused. She had definitely found the correct portal that would lead her back home.

Instead of Paris, she had ended up in whatever this place is. She should recharge Fluff and try to Burrow again-

Not the right time. The voice's whisper echoed around her.

Marinette looked around.

“Hello. Is anyone there?”

“[-----], you shouldn't be here yet.” came the unexpected reply from behind her.

Marinette startled and tried to punch whoever it was.

An invisible force stopped Marinette's fist from hitting a beautiful woman's face. It was hard to tell what the woman actually looked like because her features keep changing. Her hair lengthened and shortened. Colours changed from blond to pink to black with red streaks. But no matter what, she just screamed out perfection from every pore of her body.

“Is that anyway to greet your mother?” the woman said.

“You aren't my mother.” Marinette replied. 

“Ah. Rebel didn’t tell you of your fate yet. Can’t blame her. She had been through a lot of things.” She looked sad.

Marinette paused, studying the woman. 

“Are you the reason why she- I ended up like that?”

The woman shook her head. “No. The culprit is over there.”

She turned her head and Bunnybug saw a computer. Keyboards clacking away as invisible hands typed away. Often, backspacing.

No. No. No. That wouldn’t work. She heard the voice’s mutter echoed around.

“What’s that?” She found herself asking. 

“That. Is the loom of fate.” The woman replied.

Marinette’s face was the picture of disbelief.

“A Loom?”

“Surely, you heard the myth. Three old grannies on their loom and deciding everyone’s fate.” The woman explained, “It used to be a loom because that was the preferred medium but times changed and the loom of Fate was upgraded into something more... modern over the years.”

“Are you one of them? Deciding people’s fate?”

The woman laughed like it was the greatest joke she ever heard. “I wish. I am one of their favourite pawns to use because of my nature you see.” She said, pointed at her changing face.

“What’s your name?” Marinette asked curiously.

“I go by many. But most people call me Mary Sue.”

Marinette thought that made a lot of sense.

Ah ha. I got it. The voice said triumphantly. I know how to get Ladybug to forget who Hawkmoth is. 

“What?! No, I can’t forget.” Bunnybug said, panicked. “I have to stop Gabriel Agreste.”

“You already did. And you already have.” The woman answered mysteriously. “I saw the spoilers.”

None of that made sense to Marinette. It was like dealing with Bunnix.

“Was that what happened to Rebel? She forgot?”

“You are forgetting this now. Because that’s how the story can stay the status-quo a little longer. Not a moment before. Not a moment after. But I promise you one day you will remember.”
“I don’t understand.”

The woman just gave a sad smile and pulled her into a hug. “We don’t have much time but I’m proud of you, [-----].”

She cradled Marinette’s face in her hands. “I know you will break the chains.”

Tears welled up in Marinette’s eyes. She didn’t know why she was crying.

What everyone remembered of that battle was Bunnybug coming out of a time portal, calling a lucky charm and defeating the akuma with a quip on her lips about being lost in the time stream.

What Marinette remembered was saying goodbye to the Bats and waking up in her bed with no idea how she got there. And she had the strangest feeling that she had forgotten something.

Chapter Text

Fucking Time Zones.

Rebel had made several contingencies in place for when she would be switched with Ladybug but she had forgotten to account for the difference in time zones.

Kwami, that was embarrassing.

Hopefully, Batman, with his big heart, would be willing to host a preteen hero who is going to be a future criminal. Or Red Hood would swoop in and rescue her.

No point in thinking about it. She had done her best to make sure someone would keep an eye on Ladybug.

Rebel watched with a blank face from her perch on top of the Eiffel Tower as the akuma wreaked havoc below.

Bitterness filled her at the sight of the city she was raised in for nearly her whole life. Chat Noir was there, making quips with the akuma and dodging the attacks. He was buying time until Ladybug would arrive to make a plan.

If she was Ladybug, she would not be hiding in the shadows and watching her former partner fight. She would have stepped in and helped out.

But Ladybug was no longer here and Rebel felt no obligation to defend the city that had turned its back on her.

Was it petty?

Maybe.

The city was in no real danger. People were just displaced out of their own time.

Rebel had to wonder what Hawkmoth was thinking when he made this particular akuma.

There was a magic shop, owned by some descendant of a trickster god or spirit. Half of it was real while the other half was fake.

One could only come upon it only on accident. Which was easy enough for her get around the spell. Her heart panged at the memory of M. Giovanni showing her this place and how to get to it.

She went in, and bought a crystal ball and a box for the price of foreknowledge and some American dollars she had on hand. An unexpectedly good deal.

In the distance, Chat Noir got thrown into another building while the akuma demanded for Ladybug to show up.

"Baby Shark~ doo doo doo doo doo doo. Baby Shark~ doo doo doo doo doo doo. Baby Shark!" Rebel sang, causing people to look at her weirdly.

She had a lot of things to do and she didn’t want to be in Paris for a second longer than necessary.

Lila did her best to not smile too widely as she waved at the poor sucker she managed to con into giving her all of the money in their wallet.

Once they were out of sight, Lila ducked into an alley and started counting how much she managed to get.

It was so much fun to see how far she can push her tragic story so people will believe her.

Up ahead, she saw another target.

Lila bumped into the woman, tears streaming down her face. She felt the target’s hand fall on her shoulder to steady her.

“ I’m s- sorry. ” Lila stammered out. “ I didn’t know where I was going. Please don’t hurt me. ”

“Oh, sweetie. Who made you cry?” The woman said in English. An American accent, Lila observed. An even better target. Tourists carry plenty of cash around.

“Please…. Help… me” Lila said in broken English.

“Don’t worry. I will help you.” The woman said slowly like she was some dumb little girl who couldn’t understand basic things. “How about something to eat to calm you down? Like that cafe over there.” 

Lila nodded. That place was expensive but they did serve really good food.

The woman ushered her into the cafe and told the hostess to get a table for two. Lila found herself impressed when the woman didn’t even flinch when she saw the pricing on the menu. It was pretty high, even for tourists.

“Do you want anything from here?” The woman asked, handing her the menu.

“I.. can.. order for us.” Lila offered, in a shy voice.

“That’s mighty sweet of you, honey. Order as much as you want but get me something with chocolate.”

Lila proceeded to order the most expensive things on the menu and also ordered a chocolate cake for the woman.

“So tell me, what made you cry? I won’t judge.” The woman said after the server took their order.

Lila told her story. The woman hummed and nodded in sympathy.

“You poor girl.” The woman said. “I can’t believe-”

Then her phone started ringing.

“Oh dear. This is important. Will you be okay on your own?” The woman asked sweetly.

“I will be fine.” Lila replied.

The woman smiled and got up, hurrying outside to take the call.

Soon, the order arrived and Lila eagerly dug in. The woman appeared to be busy with her call and not hanging up anytime soon.

Lila held up the plate of chocolate cake to the woman when she checked in on Lila through the window. The woman just waved at her to eat it.

Well, since she insisted…

Lila also ate the chocolate cake.

Once she was done, she waited for the woman to finish her call and come back in.

Lila went onto her phone and started scrolling through social media.

And she waited.

And waited.

When she looked up to see what was taking so long, the woman was gone.

She waved down a server. “Excuse me, do you know where the woman who came in with me went?”

“Who? You came in alone, miss.”
“What? No, I came in with someone.”

“No, you didn’t, Miss. There was no one else at this table except for you.” The server said.

Rebel smiled when Lila started screaming at the manager that she was not going to pay the bill.

She must be panicking that her ‘act’ wasn't working. It was thanks to the magic seal Rebel left under the table that blocked any magic power within a certain radius.

There was never any call. Just a perfectly timed alarm to set off a ringtone.

The wait staff at the cafe were hypnotised to forget that they ever saw Rebel once she was out of sight. Handy trick for when she wants to sneak in and out of places.

Rebel chuckled to herself as she turned away and headed towards the Dupain-Cheng Bakery.

“Marinette?”

Rebel froze. Right, this was still back before Lila had trapped them into her web. Back when they were still ‘friends’.

“Marinette. What are you doing? We are going to be late for class.” Alya grabbed her.

Memories of hands roughing her up came back. Rebel flinched and Alya noticed.

“Marinette? Are you alright, girl?” She asked with concern.

This nearly broke the former Ladybug. It was so much easier to hate them if she pretended that they were never friends.

“I-... I am not Marinette.” Rebel found herself saying and turned around. “More like I’m not your Marinette. I’m from the future.”

“Really?” Alya took a second look. “Wow, girl, you grew up hot.”

Rebel took it back. She couldn't do this. The wound inside her was bleeding again, like the band-aid that was badly applied got ripped off.

“Thanks. So um.. It would be great if you could just run along and tell the teacher that I’m not coming to class, that would be great, Alya.”

“What? No. Come on! I want to get the details. Am I a journalist? Am I married to Nino?” Then, she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Are you and Adrien… you know..?”

She hooked her index fingers together with a knowing smile.

It was hard for Rebel to remember that Alya used to be kind. That she wasn’t always mean and vindictive. Maybe she always had been like that and Marinette had been a friend instead of her enemy so she never saw that side until she wasn’t a friend anymore.

So she lied. For the girl she used to be. And for the girl that used to be her best friend. The last thing she would ever do for Alya.

“Well, you are doing well in your career. You and Nino are still together. As for me and Adrien,” Rebel gave a sad smile because she couldn’t lie about this, “Things happened. It didn’t work out.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Alya moved to hug her. Rebel instinctively moved away.

“It’s alright. I’m over it. It’s been a while since I have been in Paris for over a day so I was thinking of looking around. You know. For old times’ sake.” Rebel said quickly, hoping Alya didn’t notice her panic.

“Damn, girl, are you an international designer now?”

“Something like that.”

It took a while for Rebel to convince Alya to leave.

Once that was over, however…

Staring at her ‘parents’ working inside the bakery, Rebel realized that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face them. Alya’s betrayal was hard but her parents’. The people who raised her for most of her life and supposed to love her. And they left her for dead. She couldn’t deal with them right now.

So she took the coward’s route and entered her bedroom through the roof.

Like Harley said, Self care was important. This was her taking care of her mental health by avoiding people that hurt her.

Rebel made sure to be as quiet as possible while sweeping through her room to plant the things needed for Marinette post-memory wipe to recover her memories.

As for her way home…

Thankfully, the Miracle Box still recognized her as the Guardian. So she can use the Rabbit to head to her proper timeline.

“Oh, not you.” Rebel said, glaring at adult Bunnix.

“Marinette…” Bunnix whispered.

“Fuck off, I don’t have time for this.” Rebel walked past the Rabbit hero to find the right portal home.

“Marinette! Wait. I have to ask you something.” Bunnix pleaded.

“Don’t call me that name. You killed that girl yourself.” Rebel snarled, as she furiously walked around, hunting for the correct timeline.

“I’m sorry. We were wrong about that. We shouldn’t have done that.” Bunnix apologized. “But I have to ask you: Why did you do it?”

Rebel blinked. “Why did I do what?” She asked, with slight confusion.

“Shit, it’s still too early for you.” Bunnix muttered, rubbing her head. “You haven’t gone fully insane yet.”

“Technically, I am declared officially insane.” Rebel helpfully added.

“Oh my kwami, can’t you get over that?” Bunnix complained. “I’m sorry I helped send you to an asylum, okay?”

“So sometime in the future, I assume I did something crazy that you didn’t want me to do yet. A long term plan that has been in the works that the me of right now has no idea about yet.” Rebel said thoughtfully out loud. “And you still have no idea why I would do something like that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a familiar red-and-black suit in a familiar bat-themed cave. 

“I mean… we know that Lila was lying about you hurting her now. But we were just kids. Dumb kids doing dumb stuff.” Bunnix tried to justify her actions.

The audacity.

Rebel was so taken back by it that she could only laughed. And she kept laughing. And laughing.

She was laughing so hard that she was walking backwards from the force of it, clutching her stomach.

“ What? ” Bunnix asked flustered. “What’s so funny?”

Rebel immediately stopped and gave Bunnix a smirk. “I just got a great idea. A very great idea. Probably going to a long time to make sure it comes true.”

Then, Rebel immediately jumped into the portal she saw earlier. The horrified look on Bunnix was the best thing out of this time mishap.

Upon hearing the dreaded but yet familiar tap-tap-tap of keyboard keys, Rebel sighed.

“Hello, my darling.” said a voice behind her.

“Hi, Mom. Have you been doing well?” Rebel turned and greeted her mother.

The entity smiled. “You know just the same old, same old. For my last job, I was a space captain and everyone loved me. So cliche. Am I right?”

“Any idea why I am here?” Rebel asked. “Because last I checked, I didn’t die this time and my run was still ongoing.”

Her mother had a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“There was a mistake. Ladybug was supposed to end up in the future but you weren’t supposed to be in the past.”

Rebel gave a mean grin.

“So they are trying to erase what I did to their precious Lila then.”

“The others found it funny. But you-know-who was furious.” The entity answered as she moved closer and petted her hair.

“When isn’t it?” Rebel replied. “What are they going to do to me this time?”

“Well, thanks to your clever thinking to erase a plot hole, they can’t erase everything you did. So you got away with it this time.” Her mother explained.

The Screen showed up next to them. The last line being:

A portal opened… and Rebel stepped through

A portal opened next to them.

“Well, I guess until next time, Mom.” Rebel said, hugging her mother.

“Bye, Honey.” The entity waved as Rebel stepped through the portal. "I don't want to see you back here soon."

After the shit disaster that was her meeting her past self, all Rebel wanted to do was get a hot shower and nap for a week. Emotional breakdowns were exhausting. But of course, Batman wouldn't let that happen.

“There’s no getting out of this, is there?”

Batman got straight to the point. “You used to be Ladybug.”

“Yes. I think you already knew that, Monsieur Batman.”

“You were supposed to forget being Ladybug according to Ladybug. And yet, you remember.”

Rebel smirked. “Look, I wasn’t Ladybug just for show. You know how I operate.”

“Yes.”

“My plans have layers. Layers upon layers. Like an onion.” She cheerfully continued. “So I put in a contingency in case I lost my memories. That’s how I remember what happened.”

Batman’s face remained neutral as he asked, “So what’s your plan?”
“Huh?” Rebel gave an innocent look. “What do you mean? My plan is to get you guys to do all the work of capturing Hawkmoth while I sit back and have fun.”

Batman stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. Rebel unerringly maintained eye-contact.

To the surprise of everyone, Batman was the first to break from the battle of wills.

“You may get your wish. You can sit back and relax while we do the job of capturing Hawkmoth. At this point we have enough evidence to take him in.”

Rebel whooped. “Yay! Go Batman.”

Batman smirked. “However, you will be relaxing in Arkham.”

Before Rebel could speak a spell, Red Robin and Nightwing grabbed her and knocked her out.

“You bastards.” She spat out before passing out.