“Do you see my other sock?”

“I think it might’ve gone down that storm drain?”

“Damn it! I really liked that pair, too.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Um… I’ll buy you new ones.”

“That’s not the point!”

“I know, I know! I’m sorry!”

“God, you’re a real jerk!”

“I said I was sorry!”

Suddenly, the wind around the two of you picks up, causing an eerie howl to echo down the length of the alleyway. Shreds of paper, discarded candy wrappers and other kinds of junk get picked up by the moving air and start flying around at high speed. An empty soda can bounces against your shin.

“What’s going on?!” you call out, trying desperately to be heard over the sudden tempest.

Batgirl stares at you, eyes wide, and points at her ear. You scream even louder, but she only shrugs in response and the two of you drag yourselves over to the corner of a nearby building, trying to shelter yourselves from the wind.

A flash of intense blue light nearly blinds you, and you see spots, but doggedly plaster yourself against the wall you’re using for cover.

Your vision clears, the wind starts to die down, and in the middle of the clearing, pretty much the exact same place where you came in, is a shimmering blue portal, just like the one you remember walking through in the first place. You peer intently at it, catching glimpses through its sparkling surface of what looks to be your bedroom.

“The hell is that?” Batgirl whispers under her breath.

“Er… I think that’s my ride.”

“Wait, what?”

You shrug. “I don’t think I have time to explain. I should probably jump through that before it closes. Um… this was fun?”

“Whoa, hold on just a second there, bub!”

You’re already moving before she’s even finished speaking the words. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you feel a little guilty for tickling her half to death and then just running off with only a half-hearted apology to make up for it, but the other option – getting stranded in a fictional comic book city with an annoyed vigilante crimefighter thirsting for sweet, sweet revenge – probably wouldn’t be such a great idea.

She’s too stunned to react right away, and she never did find her other sock, so she’s still kind of hopping around on one foot which is kind of making it difficult for her to catch you. You cross the distance to the portal without interference and are about to step through when you decide to take one last look back just in case.

Probably not the smartest idea.

You see her reaching for a Batarang to whip at your face.

“OH CRAP!” You dive backwards, spill through the portal and end up landing ass-first on the shag little throw-rug right next to your bed. It cushions your fall just enough that you feel you won’t have to go to the hospital for a devastating butt-injury. You look up and catch a glimpse through the open portal of a furious-looking Batgirl hopping on one leg towards you, but before she can get close enough to strangle the life out of you, the portal blinks out of existence with an audible *Pop!*

You sigh in relief, pick yourself up off the floor, (taking care to favor your wounded, wounded ass,) and survey the damage. You knocked over a couple of your Transformers when you dived through that portal, but after a quick check, Optimus Prime proves to be as awesome as ever. Starscream has a giant dent in the side of his head, and some missing paint, but ever since Megatron banished him to the inside of the microwave when you were a kid, he’d always looked that way. So nothing new.

The real surprise is your computer monitor. It’s trashed. Trashed and sparking electrical sparky things.

“CRAP!”

But there’s good news. Taking a closer look, you see just what caused the sudden and catastrophic malfunction.

“Ooooooooooh. Batarang. Sweeeeeeeeeet.”

Ignoring all the basic tenets of common sense (because you’re a badass like that) you reach in past all the sparking wires and dig the Batarang out from your monitor’s innards. And suddenly, you feel about 20% cooler. Maybe even more.

“This is just the awesomest thing ever.”

And then it explodes in your hands.

A sudden explosive blast of sticky green goop flings you into your desk chair, sends the chair skittering backwards into the wall, and leaves you flattened against it like a fly stuck on a gluestrip. You thrash but that just seems to make it worse. You sigh.

“Uh… help? Someone? … Anyone? ... Hello?"