Don't own any of this so don't sue. Joss owns Buffy like you should already know and Batman and respective characters are owned by D.C comics.

On with the Tale!

Dawn was back in the middle of the room talking to the various people, though there was still a few people on the edges that refused to socialize with the group she was forming. She had noticed one of the half-breeds tossing a knife from hand to hand, and had recognized it as a descendant of the Miquot clan. The knife and the spikes that stuck out of his head like a Mohawk were such a give away. Buffy had fought them a time or two on the hellmouth, and they had actually gotten into an all out fight in Harlem New York with the idiots. The police had thought it was a bunch of punks vs. another rival gang. Amazing what people were willing to ignore sometimes. They hadn't lost any lives in the fight fortunately, but a lot of slayers had been benched after it had happened. On the good side though, the demons and vamps had lost some major ground when it came to Harlem.

"He's not someone to take lightly." Tim said, from beside her.

"How so?" She asked, surprised that he could tell that from here. Every time she thought she had figured Tim out he would pull out another wild card that didn't fit with what she thought that she knew about him. Of course he would then withdraw the wild card and return to acting like she thought he should, so it was confusing trying to figure out which was the real Tim Drake.

"See the way he handles that knife of his? The way it is being twirled? Sure it's showing off a bit, but it also allows his to throw it at a moments notice. Then there's the fact that he's standing kind of in a corner where he can all of the obvious ins and outs of the place. He's also standing in spot where no one can get at him as well though."

"And you know all this because?" Dawn hoped this might help her figure things out.

"Hey you survive No Man's Land you pick up a few things." He said grimly, as he recalled some of the things that he had done. Several of the other kids nodded in agreement, having seen other survivors pull the same trick before. There was actually a handful of them that were survivors, and were more than ready to fight again for their lives if need be.

"Yeah, Drake was kind of the poster kid for getting the city back open." One kid said. "His old man made a real big noise about him being here."

"And here I thought you were just some cute looking brainy type." Dawn teased him. "Maybe there's more to you than is obvious." She remembered her own NML from Sunneydale.

"Maybe." Tim said shrugging. He hadn't mentioned the fact that the guy had something on his head, or the fact that he watched the guy pulled the blade out of his arm, and not the jacket sleeve he was wearing. He had pieced together from the various electronics a small two-way radio, but he would need to make sure no one was watching him use it, and right now he was currently the center of attention with Dawn sitting beside him.

He looked around for an excuse to get away to try the radio he had cobbled together; Dawn looked at him and grinned. "You really hate these crowds don't you?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Is it that obvious?"

"Not as obvious as the do-hickey you got there." She whispered, she was toying with the beads in her hair unconsciously it seemed. One of the beads actually still had a bit of dry blood on it.

"How did you?"

"Please." She drawled quietly. "I know that you've been itching for a way to get out of here as badly as I have. That gizmo is the only thing you've come up with though so far though."

"Not exactly a whole lot of tools around to work with." Tim said. "If I had known that I was getting into this, I would have brought a miniaturized blow torch and a other tools that would have been useful." Tim knew he had described some of the things he actually did have on him, but he couldn't use anything other than the tracker that was there. He had tried to radio Oracle, but his com was for some reason down All of his hidden bat styled toys that were electronic weren't working except the ones with the most basic of functions, and he had thought that they could withstand sustained EMP shots. (Electro Magnetic Pulse)

"Look, I'm gonna go to the restroom. Be nice to the others." She said, Tim nodded his eyes looking like they were a million miles away. Sighing Dawn grinned, what was it Buffy and Faith had said was the best way to get a guy's attention? Oh yeah! She smirked, as she kissed him on the lips for a moment, before releasing him. Tim was looking at her in wide-eyed shock. "Play nice." She repeated with a sultry grin, before she walked off.

Tim swallowed, as he watched her walk off. "That Drake, is what happens when you don't pay attention to a girl." A guy said, Tim looked in confusion at the guy. He smirked at the dazed Tim. "It's a classic tactic for the gals to do to us Drake. Something distracts us, so they pull a hit and run. Leaving us totally confused. You know what I mean?" He asked the other guys around him. Tim nodded along with the others, and grinned ruefully. How many times had that happened to him with other dates? Whether it had been Spoiler or Arrowete, he always had that happen to him. It usually happened a few weeks before they broke up with him. Or as a parting shot, so they could leave a distracted Boy Wonder on the roof.

"You keep that chika hombre." Another boy added with admiration. "She one to stand with."

Tim nodded again, as he considered everything that had happened. He needed to either get out, or get a message out to the others. But with the dampeners in the area, there was little he could do in this room. He needed to get out. The only question would be would Dawn hate him if he ran off without her? Of course the way she acted, she might be mad that she didn't get to save everyone else as well. The door had an energy source though, and if he could tap into it, he should theoretically be enough to boost whatever signal he could send, even if it was a few seconds burst that would allow Oracle to track him back from that.

"So is there any way to get out of this room?" Tim asked, "who knows, Dawn and I might like a moment or two alone?" He hoped no one but these guys were actually listening, or he was going to have to do some really quick explaining to Dawn.

At this some of the boys grinned. "Wished there was, but unless you can get out of here I'm afraid not."

"Does anybody get out of here before their families pay up?"

"Only if you're a trouble maker, then they take you talk to one of the head honchos."

"Who is he?"

"No one knows that wants to talk about it, but he scares the crap out of most people and they won't talk about whatever it is that they see."

"I see." Tim said, his eyes narrowing. 'What was it that could scare some of these kids? Kids whose families dealt with lowlifes like the Riddler and Poison Ivey?'

"And these guards they're freaky strong man. I think they're a bunch of stinking metas or some other crap like that." Another boy added. "I saw one actually bend the gun he was holding. I mean its bad enough when you got to worry about the Bat on the outside, now we got to worry about metas taking us prisoner. When are they just going to take all of the freaks and costumes off the streets you know?"

Tim kept his mouth shut at this. Dawn had told him to play nice so he would, even if he disagreed with the viewpoints. Dawn soon came back saving him from having to say anything, she was also rolling her eyes. "Let me guess." Tim said, "you got into another fight with my friend?"

"Now why would you think that?" Dawn drawled mischievously.

"The combination of annoyance and smugness you got going there." Another kid answered.

Tim smiled weakly at her. "You realize, they'll probably going to want to have a talk with you if you keep fighting right?"

"Is that supposed to worry me?" She asked.

"Well, according to the others, whoever they see leaves an impression. And I don't want you to get hurt." He added blushing.

"Tell you what, I'll insist that you come with, all right?"

"Ok, I just hope we don't regret this if it happens." Tim looked unconvinced that that would work, but he knew that he didn't have a lot of say in it either.

"So, what do we talk about now? Cause I'm all out of good gossip to talk about after a few hours."

"We could always try and convince the guards to lets us out again."

"Nah, I really hate it when someone tries and backhands me." Dawn said.

"Summers!" A guard said coming up to her.

"And speaking of our favorite people." She added dryly. "Though why it had to be snot for brains I'll never know."

"The boss wants to talk to you kid." The guard growled.

"And why would that be?" The guard glared at her; on one hand the guards were impressed by her lack of fear, on the other it made intimidating the others a lot harder for them.

"Probably the fact that you got into another scuffle in the restrooms." Shrugging Dawn got up Tim followed after her, till the guard waved a gun at him. "Sorry whiz kid, but the boss don't want to talk to you, just your girl. Don't worry though ain't a thing gonna physically go wrong with your girl."

Tim growled angrily, as he got between the men and Dawn. "Tim, you realize that you won't win right?" Dawn asked worriedly from behind him.

"Yeah, but since your behind me trying to convince me to be the smart person I normally am you can lift my radio out from behind my jacket. Just find a steel beam to place it on, then all you'll have to do is turn it on." He muttered to her.

"Sounds simple enough." She whispered back, as she took the odd radio device, and slipped it into her own pocket. "You realize your going to get into trouble for this right?"

"Hey for a pretty girl, and a chance for getting out what's not worth the risk?"

The brunette blushed at this. "Stop channeling Spike and Angel already will you?" She whispered back. "Its getting hard to resist that kind of charm, besides I like you, not hero you. And part of that means a boy that is whole, as in two hands feet."

"And a heart beat?"

"Well that would be a nice thing to have."

"Someone's watched Tarzan one time to many." Someone muttered, causing the surrounding kids to give weak grins.

"Fine." Tim said, as he felt her give him one more hug, before he backed off, letting the guards take her. He watched darkly, as they left and let his mind ponder what the others had said about the people involved in this. Sure they hadn't said names, but they had described personalities traits, and part of his training was that he had to analyze the psychological traits of a number of criminals. All he had to do was think which person this best represented although he should probably deal with figuring who Dawn was going to see. The Scarecrow was at the top of that particular list, along with a few telepaths that he knew of who had similar profiles. The telepaths might have been higher on the list except for one thing this was Gotham, so the Scarecrow got the number one spot as a suspect. And he had just let someone he actually liked go into a room that possibly held that crazy. What was he thinking? She wasn't in the hero business, she didn't have any kind of defense against that kind of attack. At least as Robin he had the mental training to fight those sorts of things off. But no, he had to go and be heartless and let them take Dawn.

"Take it easy man." One guy said. "It ain't gonna help her if your to messed up to help her when she gets back. She might need ya. So get your head screwed on straight." Tim nodded reluctantly, as he sat down to wait for his date to come back. He talked occasionally to the kids here and there, he also made sure to ignore the rich snobs that had been grinning like Cheshire cats when Dawn had been taken away.

Dawn jerked her arm free of the half-breed's grip, and continued walking after the other one. She grinned as she heard the guy grumble about independent American girls, in what sounded like a German accent. She thought about responding to the guy that looked like a cross between road kill, and a person that had the tar beat out of them. She waited patiently, as they escorted her to whatever wonderful little playhouse of torture that they had planned for her. She wondered if the big bad here would just want to spell her, or if there was going to be something else, cause she didn't have any of the super healing that a ball of green energy really ought to have when you considered the fact it was her blood that opened the portals. Unfortunately, the monks had decided not to add that little feature into her when they made her. They probably figured that if she had been cut open, she was dead already or would be soon. Stupid monks.

She looked around for some kind of I beam or something to leave the thingamabob that Tim had pieced together. The pleasure of having a former construction worker and current architecture major living with you is that you knew al of the fancy terms. So far there wasn't anything that looked right though. She could always try the whole hitting someone with her beads as well though, that should get Buffy to get a sense where she was.

Dawn found herself entering the big room that was like a chamber. She looked around, and found that it was your typical bad guy base. Huge theatrical chair for the head big bad to sit on, while the guy who did all the dirty work and was usually the one who came up with the really devious plans had to deal with a small cramped office. "Ah, welcome my dear." A voice said, as a figure stepped out of the shadows. Dawn looked at the person in surprise, but didn't say anything. Even she had heard of this person, and knew some of what they could do. 'Crap.' She thought, as they stepped into the light.

"To cliff hang or not to cliff hang, that is the question." Ponders a moment. "Hang!"