Chapter Text
One moment Betty was bawling her eyes out and being cradled in her boss’ arms, the next she was regurgitating the road trip snacks Yasmin shared with her on the bus back from MOMA.
‘Is disintegrating a side effect of periods?’ she wondered. Her insides burned and twisted like a particularly painful period cramp and her hands were covered in cold sweat. Like waking from a nap, she was disorientated and unaware of whether the gravel digging into her skin was truly real and if her heart was still beating with the cadence of life.
More of the half-digested specialty snacks splattered onto the gravel path as Betty tried to cough. There was a horribly dry, sandy sensation in her mouth and throat like she’d face planted into a desert.
She groaned and rolled to her side, letting the bits of gravel fall out of the cuts on her cheek and arms. Besides the pain, all Betty knew about her current predicament was that aliens were involved and her mother was right: Betty should’ve just gone straight home from the field trip, job be damned.
At the thought, Betty instinctively scrambled for her phone to call for her parents. They’d know what to do. They’ve been prepping for this day since the invasion in 2012. But the phone slid from her graph. Her still tingly fingers spasmed as another jolt of pain struck her and the last of her lunch left her stomach.
Betty’s mind too was still floaty, like when the team answered the final question of a comp that secured their win. That liminal space where time doesn't make itself known for fear of disrupting the outcome. It was a bated breath, a head rapidly running recall and calculations.
Then it all inevitably comes crashing down. A quantum wave collapsing under a measurement or the team pulling into a hug and patting each other on the back cheering victory. Now though, it’s the too chilly draft rustling the leaves around where Betty lay on the gravel path. It’s the daylight hitting her skin, not filtered by an office window.
What was happening to her and the rest of New York? Why was her vision like looking through a Twilight filter? Why did her limbs refuse to cooperate and her stomach trying to convince her to go on a hunger strike? Where was her mom and dad?
“I don't know what to do.” The meek thought escaped Betty’s mouth as she reigned in her panic. “Spider-Man isn’t here, he was on the ship. And everyone else is…”
“No, no! What the hell is happening!”
“Rob, stay with me buddy. C’mon just stay, don’t—”
The memories burst her dam and the panic swelled in her chest and up her throat until the oxygen was pushed out and she couldn't breathe.
“I can,” Betty tried to gaslight herself between laboured heaves, “I can breathe. Breathe. Don’t panic. Panic doesn’t help. Just breathe.”
Tears spilled down her face. Betty scrambled to put her back against something solid, to stay upright while her legs failed to hold her weight. She bumped into a tree and ran her fingers through the soft grass below her, trying desperately to stave off the panic.
The drumming in her ears dies down to reveal murmuring. Looking up she’s greeted to a crowd staring at her like a passing driver does a car crash. There’s a lack of concern in their faces, just morbid curiosity. A woman shields her son from the view, pushing the young child to walk away from them. Another just shakes their head like somehow Betty was the one in the wrong, ruining their peace in this park.
A figure comes out of the crowd. She trod on the pads of her feet, carefully, like a cat and dropped down in front of her.
“Are you ok?” The strangers asked. She looked uncannily like her teammate Cindy Moon at a comp; her eyes were focused only on what was in front of her yet aware of everything.
Betty tried to answer, but as with her phone, the words tumbled out incoherently. Her throat spasmed until she was unsuccessfully choking down a sob. Then she noticed the blood. She should have expected it considering the pain but the blood on her scraped knees brought a fresh wave of panic.
“Stephanie!”
Another person joined them on the grass. Unlike her companion, dressed in all black, Stephanie had long blonde hair and wore various shades of purple.
“Hey, look, you’ll be ok. We can help you clean it up,” Stephanie offered. Despite her brash colour choice, her voice was gentle and compassionate.
“Bench?” The other stranger seemed to ask, pointing to the nearby park bench.
Betty nodded dazedly, tears still flowing unbidden. As vulnerable as she was right now, Betty could get all the help she could get. It wasn’t likely these strangers, both roughly her age or slightly older, would do anything to her in broad daylight. Even if they did, she’d whip out the taser her dad got her for her sweet 16th.
The two strangers helped her to the bench, letting her lean on them as her legs continued to wobble. The crowd dispersed then, seeing the situation dealt with and no longer a novelty in their day. Stephanie pulled out a mini first aid kit and set to clean her wounds while talking her ear off about her day.
“Could I ask, what happened? Did someone attack you?” Stephanie asked once her story was finished and Betty was sufficiently calmed down enough.
“I don’t know,” Betty whispered. “I can’t remember how I got here. Only that people were… dying.”
She didn’t even know if that was the right word. After all she also presumably turned to dust yet here she was bleeding and breathing.
Stephanie and—as she learned from Stephanie’s story—Cass shared a look over her head that was probably warranted. Betty fiddled with the button of her shirt.
“Do you guys know what’s going on?” She asked. It was unlikely only the Bugle’s office was impacted by this. “Did the Avengers come back?”
“Avengers?” Cass asked with a frown.
“Yeah, the Avengers, you haven’t heard of them?” Betty blurted, doing a double-take. She whipped her head between the two of them, bewildered. Neither had any morsel of recognition and looked more than anything uneasy.
How could anyone in New York not know the Avengers after 2012. Unless this wasn’t New York or this wasn’t 2012. Looking up, she now saw the buildings jutting from beyond the treeline. None of it looked familiar. They were much older than New York’s infrastructure, archaic even. The trees were a different shade of green than those in Central Park, and the weather was much colder than before her ‘death’.
Betty remembered her father’s warnings. As crazy as it sounded at the time, she was grateful for it now. Assess the situation: this wasn’t the New York she woke up to this morning, the last thing she remembered was going dusty, the Avengers went off to fight new aliens. They lost.
In her silence, Stephanie and Cass grew more worried. Stephanie slung an arm around Betty, bringing her into a half hug to break her out of her trance.
“Why don’t you tell us more about the Avengers over lunch? Cass and I were just about to grab something from Batburger and you look like you need some fuel. After,” she nodded towards Betty’s puked up guts.
Cass, though, shook her head. “Hospital,” she ordered sternly. “No memory. Can be a concussion.”
“No it’s ok, I’ll be fine. I’m sure I just didn’t sleep enough or something,” Betty quickly denied. She was not about to follow some strangers to a hospital in a place where the public didn’t even know of the Avengers. Like who on Earth didn’t know the Avengers? They were recognised by governments and the UN! That is… maybe this wasn’t Earth.
The problem was aliens, so what if this was an alien planet that made similar human advancements and had a similar biological makeup? She wasn’t about to follow potential aliens into a hospital! Who knew what kind of tests they’d do to her when they realise.
Quickly running through her parents’ doomsday scenarios, her options were: time travel, teleportation to an unknown city, teleportation to an alien planet, teleportation to a different universe.
The aliens(?) concern only grew as Betty stood up abruptly, backing away.
“My parents are probably worried by now anyway.” She pocketed her phone that the two graciously picked up when they moved her.
“We could take you home?” Stephanie offered in that still cheerful tone.
“No, no, really it’s ok. I’ve bothered you guys enough. Thanks for patching me up, I’m just gonna,” she pointed backwards awkwardly with her thumbs.
Steph gave a warm smile and went to leave in the opposite direction, pulling Cass along, but Cass didn’t follow. She pulled out a well-loved notepad, scribbled an address and a name.
“A safe place.” Cass handed her the paper then followed Steph who called over her shoulder, “The offer for lunch still stands!”
Betty smiled gratefully. She was lucky to land on a kind planet with some kind aliens/humans. If anything, if this really was an alien she’d actually be kind of excited. This would be great for her blog and Jameson would definitely want an article on this.
She pulled out her phone again now that her fingers were working. Maybe her parents came too. Maybe she was still on Earth and this was just the wrong city (despite her being on AcaDec and not recognising such a unique skyline).
After the tenth call that didn’t go through, Betty figured the alien theory was holding up the strongest. She couldn’t just stay in the park. If home was out of reach, she’d need food, shelter, and currency. Her father always said if she couldn’t get to a safehouse, a place of knowledge was the second best option.
Luckily, Cass’ gift was the address of a public library and a name: Barbara Gordon. Go figure the city with gothic architecture was named Gotham.