Chapter Text
The amount of time that Lila spent staring off into space was a bit disconcerting, her mother often said so.
“You need to get your head out of the clouds one of these days.” She had said one day, stirring the pot of chilli that was supposed to be for dinner. Lila wasn’t the biggest fan of chilli though. It was thick and chunky, and often had the cheap canned beans from the superstore that were nearing its expiration date, hence the hefty price of 60 cents per can. Her mom was always talking about saving money, which Lila could understand but what she didn't understand was why the same sentiment wasn't saved for the new phone that her mom bought the other day.
“Are you even listening to me?” Her mom asked, her tone beginning to dip into the area of the classic ‘if you continue ignoring me then I’m going to get mad,’ as she began to cut thin slices of onion. Her mom always threw in sliced onions in the chilli too, even though she knew that Lila hated onions.
Lila grimaced, staring out the window and watched as the birds nuzzled into the bird nest that rested on the tree branch. She wished she were the birds for that second. Birds don’t need to eat onions.
“Lila.” A warning came from her mom.
“Mom.” A response came from Lila.
Lila broke her gaze from the bird's nest to stare at her mom, her mom who had already turned towards her. They stared at each other, silence befalling the kitchen. The only thing that could be heard was the soft bubbling of the chilli in the pot.
“Lila, please.” Finally, a break in the moment. Her mom turned back to her cutting board, back to cutting onions. “Outside of work and Maeve, you spend all your time daydreaming. One day, you’re going to get yourself killed!” Her mom’s tight expression softened. “I’m just worried for you.”
“You worry too much,” Lila said, returning her gaze towards the bird’s nest. “Besides, you’re exaggerating. It’s not that bad.”
It was that bad.
Lila’s head lay in a puddle of her own blood on her own dashboard, lying in a ditch on one of the dead roads of her hometown. She hadn’t looked both ways when she had started to turn off into the road, and she knew she was wrong for that but she genuinely thought she’d be okay. That road was dead 24/7, no one came by there at all. She had done it a million times and she was okay, she thought this would be no different.
She turned swiftly, having done it so many times, when she had heard a honk so loud it might as well have burst her eardrums. One glance gave her one last sight, a bright light surrounded by the darkness of the night coming full speed at her, the tires of the vehicle skidded but with its weight and the added rain on the road, there was no way that it would have stopped in time.
It was a tow truck. Just her luck.
Lila wheezed, trying to lift her head off the dashboard but it was simply too heavy for her to carry. Her ears were ringing, the only thing could really hear was the distant pounding of rain and the voice of a man. She couldn’t really decipher anything he was saying but one bleary glance at his direction revealed the man on a phone with a singular hand frozen hand out, as though he was trying to comfort her but never really reaching her.
She closed her eyes.
Her mom was going to kill her.
Lila’s eyes flew open, gasping for air as though all oxygen were sucked out of her lungs. She panted, her breaths heavy, as her right hand reached out, trying to grasp onto something- anything to steady her. Only a cold grimy metal wall met her clammy hands.
The first thing she notices is that she’s incredibly sweaty and covered in blood, she notes absentmindedly as she looks at the red staining her hand. She gripped the part of her shirt that rests above her heart, her heart was pounding against her chest and in her ears, and noted how it was wet and stuck to her hand when she pulled her hand away. Glancing down, Lila could see a deep red bloomed from her chest but looking down her shirt, everything was perfectly fine. The skin is clear of any blemishes or cuts, rather a curious scar laid atop her heart. She definitely never had that before.
That’s when she realized her uncomfortable position from where she was sitting. Caging her body was a large metal container that contained lumpy, black plastic bags that cushioned (she used that word very liberally) her back, and in the corner was something furry and reflective eyes. A second realization hit Lila as she pushed herself off her back: she was laying in a dumpster next to a cat for whatever reason.
That revelation got her heart racing again. One look out of the container greeted her with the sight of an alley. It was shrouded in darkness, the shadows threatening to consume anything that entered. The only source of light was the flickering bulbs of the street lamps further down the alley. The stench of rot, piss, and something metallic overtook her nose.
Where the hell was she? Lila wondered. And more pressingly, why was she in a dumpster?
The last thing she remembered was the loud crash of the tow truck connecting with her own car. The screeching of tires against pavement in a last ditch effort to avoid hitting her, the bright light against the dark, imposing silhouette of the tow truck—Lila didn’t want to think about it. Her shoulders slumped, she turned to the cat huddled in the corner. The cat made it so its fur was fluffed in an attempt to itself bigger than it actually was, but with all its matted fur and skinny stature, it didn’t make an intimidating figure. Not that she would ever be afraid of a cat.
Resting her gaze on the cat, she slowly reached out towards it, hands mostly cloaked in her coat for feeble protection, and stopped a couple inches before she could actually touch the cat. Lila waited for the cat to make a move, not wanting to scare the poor feline any more than she already had, but the cat doesn’t budge.
Sighing, Lila dropped her hand and returned to staring out the container. A whole lot of questions that needed unpacking raced through her head, but she mostly focussed on how worried her mom probably was.
Lila paused.
Oh god, her mom was going to kill her.
She fumbled through her pockets in search of her phone but once she finally took hold of her phone, a couple things struck unusual for Lila.
Despite her last memories being struck in her car on a road close to her home thus meaning she was in the outer part of the city, she somehow woke up in a dumpster in the city. She doesn’t know how she got here or if it was even the same day. One check to the calendar app confirmed that there was a time gap from then and now. An entire month. If that was the case then why didn’t her mom or Maeve message her once? They’ve spam called her numerous times for splitting off from them for a couple minutes, and yet her call history showed nothing except for a couple numbers she didn’t recognize.
Lila hurriedly looked through her contact list. A majority of her contacts had been erased from her phone, even her mom for whatever reason with the only numbers found on the phone being work related. No amount of scrolling showed a singular familiar name.
Is it possible that her phone somehow got swapped with someone else? But then why did her password work? Coincidence?
Dread crept up Lila’s stomach as she felt her hands get clammier.
She quickly dials her mom, having memorized her number from heart.
Ring! Ring! Ring! Ri- the call went to voicemail.
She tries again.
Ring! Ri- it cut off quicker than last time.
Third time's a charm.
Ring! Ring! Ring! Click. It connected.
A glimmer of hope welled up in Lila’s chest. Tears welled up in her eyes as she opened her mouth to call out for her mom, looking for any sort of reassurance in the sea of confusion and fear that came with her unusual circumstances.
All words of hope and relief died on her tongue when a loud angry shout came from the other end. Shouting was what Lila was expecting, her mom must have been really worried and scared, but she wasn’t expecting the entirely different voice coming from the other end.
It was gruff and low. Not at all like her mom’s typical smooth and mellow tone. This wasn’t her mom.
Lila didn’t listen to what the person’s angry shouts and curses and immediately hung up. She stared in shock at her phone.
The number was now messaging her, cursing her out for spamming them, and by the time that Lila decided to respond back, the pop up that she was blocked shone in her eyes.
Maybe she got the wrong number. Lila tried to convince herself. But how could that be? It’s the same contact that her mom always used. Unless she somehow changed her contact in the month she was out for whatever reason. It would be unreasonable, she had just gotten a new phone.
Lila texted the only other number that she had memorized, her best friend: Maeve. Like her mom, Maeve had a good track record of responding quickly.
‘Hey.’ She texted, after rewriting a number of messages of what she would say. After all, how do you tell someone that you almost died and now you were laying in a dumpster? It was a little hard to say the least.
Lila stared at the bright screen, staring, waiting for the dots that indicated someone typing.
What if this wasn’t Maeve either? The thought made her stomach churn at the idea.
‘It’s Lila,’ she quickly added.
Lila sat staring at her phone in the dumpster for a bit, listening to the cat gnawing on something in the corner, waiting. Anxiety was shooting through her nerves as theories on what happened flooded her mind, that was until a quiet buzz in her hand took her attention. Sitting straight up, Lila felt her heart beat faster in anticipation but it quickly shrivelled into disappointment.
‘Sorry, I think you have the wrong number (●´⌓`●) !!’
There was a brief moment of relief when she zeroed in on the stupid text emoticon that Maeve always used, however, she would never joke about not knowing her.
She collapsed back into the dumpster, not caring of the smell or the uncomfortable way that her back rested anymore. Every bit of hope of something familiar was crushed before she could even latch onto it properly.
Lila stared up at the sky, hoping to find something. What could she even find in the sky? The night sky in the cities refused to show her anything but darkness. Stupid light pollution.
Tears welled up in her eyes once more, her breath quickening despite her attempts to take deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. But with the confusion and fear of finding herself somewhere unknown and no one to turn to, it was easy to cry. So, she let the tears fall, but as quietly as she could. She didn’t want to bother the cat beside her.
Trying to ignore the loud smacking of lips that the cat had no shame to hide, trying to ignore the large, bright yellow spotlight in the sky that displayed a bat. Wait what?
She squints through bleary eyes at the bright light in the sky.
The hell? Which rich asshole made a replica of the Batman signal?
Lila shifted her body up to lift herself out of the dumpster, head tilted slightly up to look up at the symbol.
Stupid as it is, there was comfort at the sight of something familiar. Even if it was as small as a comic book reference.
Whoever made it must have really liked Batman a whole lot to make something like that.
“Geh,” Lila shook her head. Imagining how a stranger felt, someone she didn’t have an inkling about was not something she wanted to spiral into.
She heaved herself up with great effort, straining her muscles a great deal and pulled herself out the bin before landing on the cold, concrete ground with an oomph.
Listen, she had just been in a car crash.
Speaking of which, now that she thought about it, that car crash should have rendered her unmoving, at least that’s what she thought. Not entirely 100% sure but when she was laying at her wheel any effort to move her limbs was all for nought.
Lila flexed her arms a little, testing her muscles’ mobility, which while a bit sore, was fully able to move to its usual flexibility. Same with her legs.
It was as though all the wounds that she had obtained from the crash were magically healed. The only indication of harm was displayed by the blotch of red on her shirt. It was strange though, it didn’t match with any wound she got in the crash.
She tugged at the area, mourning the loss of her shirt. God, blood is so hard to get out. Her mom was going to kill her. If she could even find her, that is.
Lila haggardly walked towards the main street. Every step made her legs falter beneath her but she continued towards the dimly lit street ahead. With each step she took, light slowly began to filter into view.
Lila thought about all the things she would do when she made it home. She would hug her mom and tell her about everything that had made this day a nightmare, take a bubble bath, eat a hot meal, and sleep in her bed. Warmth surrounding her as she let sleep overtake her.
Before Lila could reach the warm, dying glow of the streetlights, a scuff of a shoe against concrete warns her of someone behind her. Incredibly close behind her.
Without thinking, Lila swung around and blindly threw a punch at the air behind her. The sting in her knuckles let her know that her punch connected.
The stranger, which she now knew was a man, stumbled back grasping his nose, but the sight of the man made her swing again.
He had long greasy hair slicked back, a long boney face that was a ghostly white which extended to every part of exposed skin. Bright red lipstick outlined his mouth that was stretched in a wide smile that looked more so a grimace in that moment. A cleanly tailored suit coloured in purple and green.
Like any person that had consumed any crumb of pop culture, Lila recognized this man as the Joker, and any man that stalked women silently while dressed like the Joker was a creep in Lila’s eyes.
The second swing brought the man to the ground. Any moment of peace could be detrimental in survival situations. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as a thousand scenarios of what could happen to her flashed through her head. Lila couldn’t let him think lest he try to fight back.
A hard kick to the balls was enough to render any guy with family jewels in pain. A howl came from the man below her but Lila kept going. When you get a predator down, you make sure that it stays down.
Kick after kick, Lila made sure that this man will never have children.
There was an idea that this might have just been a cosplayer minding his own business that crossed Lila’s mind but fear of being hurt consumed that thought. She’d rather go to jail than wound up dead because of some Joker obsessed incel.
When she finally stopped, it wasn’t willingly. Someone had grabbed her, to which she tried to throw a punch in their direction but it was caught by a firm hand.
She finally took one look at the person before her and decided that she lost it. She had to. Either that or some sort of convention was going on. Which was definitely a lot more likely than her going crazy now that she thought about it.
Towering above her was a man cloaked in black with the only bit of skin exposed being his lower jaw, atop his head were two pointed horns. The only pop of colour to the outfit was the grey that allowed the bat symbol on his chest to stand out more. Batman. And who was Batman without his Robin? Beside him was a boy, substantially shorter than the other, dawning the bright greens and reds of Robin proudly with a black cape with a sleek yellow material lining the inside to top it off.
“That’s enough.” ‘Batman’ said, his voice was gravelly and deep in the way that a young boy would do in an attempt to sound older. “I’ll take it from here.”