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The gun cocks and Tim’s world goes a little sideways.
The mugger growls something at him, but he can’t make out any words through his ringing ears.
He shakily raises his hand, but then he blinks and he’s up on a roof, camera up to his eye, Robin swinging past the building with a determined set to his jaw. Tim snaps the picture.
When the shutter opens, he’s on a bus. It pulls away from the curb with a hiss and a squeak, and he slumps toward the window. The bus goes over a pothole. His head bumps the glass and he shuts his eyes at a distant pain. And the next thing he knows he’s in his kitchen.
His head is full of noise and buzzing with static and it’s empty enough that his foggy thoughts echo and his breath is too loud and time is stretching like gum, and all he can do is watch as he takes the smallest knife from the block and turns on the stove. The clicks of the lighter sound like gunshots. He heats the knife in a daze. He pushes back his sleeve.
Tim presses the tip of the knife to his wrist and instantly jerks awake, pulling heated metal from his flesh with a little gasp. He shakily sets the knife on the counter and watches as his pale wrist turns bright red. A little triangle of burned flesh. Nothing that’ll scar, nothing that’ll show, but enough to bring him fully back into his body.
He’s finally calm.
“So that’s why people do this,” he murmurs to himself. There’s no one else around to hear his voice.
He blinks wearily. Yawns. And he turns to go to bed.