Notes and disclaimer in part one.

Author's Notes: Okay, no one is gonna like where this ends, I understand that. However, the next part needs some re-work and I don't have the time (or energy really) for that right now with my travel stuff. So, you get another smaller post (sorry!) before I head to Bean Town. Then I'll be back (Sunday) and edit and add etc to the next part of the story and begin posting that section. Thanks for the reviews guys- they all mean more than I can say.

Masquerade

Part Seven

After what felt like an eternity, Tim finally made his way across the room and leaned heavily on the bedroom door. Sheen of sweat coated his face and arms, and with each hobbling step the young man's leg shook dangerously, but he had finally reached the entrance to the main living room. Placing his ear to the door, he listened carefully almost fell over with joy when he heard no noise from the other side. Placing his hand on the knob he turned it and peaked his head around the corner. Tim surveyed the room and was beyond happy to see it empty. Moving out of the accursed bedroom, the young man looked down and found the black cable leading into the only other room in the cabin. Steeling himself for another arduous walk, Tim took a breath and moved forward.

It was, indeed, another long journey to the adjacent room but Tim made it. The teenager swung the door open and released a sigh of relief. There, sitting in the corner, was a Macintosh computer. Never had Tim been happier to see that particular modern marvel.

Moving quicker than he had since getting up from the bed, Tim sat in front of the computer. The haze of pain from his leg was far from his mind, as he opened the Internet. It was a long shot, but Tim opened his Hotmail account.

Oh, please be neurotic about e-mail, Barbara, he thought as he sent the brief e-mail to Oracle's slightly lesser known, and less secure, address at He knew it was risky, that Babs might not check that e-mail account, but it was the best he could do without having any sense of the security on the computer. The last thing he needed was for these goons to be able to find a way into the secure addresses of the Batfamily. Better safe than sorry, Tim thought as he hit send.

Opening another e-mail Tim types out the same brief message he'd sent to Babs, this time to a rgraysonbludpd.gov. Like Barbara, the e-mail wouldn't be marked as top priority, but it was the best Tim could do.

It was just as Tim got ready to hit the send button that the front door to the cabin was opened and Tim's two bodyguards entered. The young man jerked his head towards the door which, from his place in the room, he could see perfectly. As could Mic and Hal. All three stared at each other in shock. Tim was the first to re-gain his composer and he pushed himself away from the computer. He rose, shakily, to his one leg and stared at the open door that separated him from these two men. He had to get that shut to stand a chance.

However, the two men also broke out of their surprised stupor.

"What the hell are you doing?" Hal yelled as he ran towards Tim. The young man continued to move at the door, but the cabin was small and Hal covered the ground to the room faster than Tim did. Hal reached Tim just as the teenager reached the door. The larger man grabbed the young man by his shirt and pulled him from the room. Tim felt a wave of dizziness pass through him as he was literally ripped off his feet and flung into the main room of the cabin. Unable to stop the forward momentum, Tim hit the ground, his right shoulder first. He attempted to keep his legs from connecting with the ground, but it was futile attempt and soon the teenager's injured leg hit the hardwood surface. The jarring caused Tim to lose orientation and his head spun dangerously once again. By the time the young man remembered the two other men it was too late.

Mic got to the teenager first and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Tim was hustled to his feet by the bigger man and, in his rather pain-laden state of mind, there wasn't much the young man could do. Tim hung weakly in the grip, tired and battered, but then suddenly noticed that he was being dragged into the bedroom.

The teenager began to twist against the hold Mic had although his fight was more of a uncontrolled; blind attack that the bigger man could easily avoid. Before Tim could process it, he found himself restrained on the bed by Mic and Hal's arms, even though he hadn't ceased his struggling. Mic took things into his own hands and, with one quick movement, grabbed tightly onto Tim's shattered knee. Whatever ability Tim had before to ignore the pain left him and his struggling stopped as he bit into his lip at the agony.

Hal and Mic, satisfied that the teenager's fight had left him, released Tim and stood back. They had been given the order by Mike to finish Drake's kid and now was the time.

"Grab the piece and let's finish this."

Tim watched as Hal left the room and found himself knowing the end was here. He was going to die at sixteen in some half rundown cabin outside of Gotham. For years, he had thought he would die in costume- in battle- and as Robin. Tim Drake wasn't suppose to die. Not now and not like this.

The young man kicked outwards towards Mic with his good leg. The hit, completely unexpected, caused the larger man to stumble away. Tim sat up in the bed and moved to his good leg. He didn't allow Mic a moment to recover and threw his patented left hook at the man's face. It solidly connected and the man fell to the ground dazed. Tim gave the man one more hit and Mic fell unconscious.

The adrenaline now coursing, Tim moved towards the main room. He wasn't sure what his plan was, but that didn't stop him. He would not allow himself to be a victim to these men anymore. The knee injury meant nothing to him now and was only a memory. Just as Tim moved into the main room, Hal returned from outside with a gun in hand. The young man watched carefully as Hal raised the gun and aimed it at him. The trigger was pulled and Tim instinctively ducked and felt the bullet graze past his shoulder.

"Why can't you just die!" Hal yelled as he watched Tim move away from the bullet. This kid just wouldn't give up! Enough, though, was enough. Hal raised the gun and pulled the trigger just as the young man looked back at him. In a spilt second, Tim did the only thing he could do to avoid the bullet that was to dive behind the small sofa.

…….

Barbara Gordon was as neurotic as they came. Since becoming Oracle the neuroses only seemed to increase. Having the largest mainframe of anyone in the world made Barbara a bit obsessive about a little thing called e-mail. She hardly ever (regularly that was) used the Oracle system for her own leisure save for one thing. There was a small program that checked her e-mail accounts every five minutes regardless of what address they were at. It gave her some joy to know that anything someone sent her would be seen within five minutes of being sent. Little did she know that it would come in so handy.

Barbara was taking a break from the searching for Tim to prepare a cup of hot chocolate when the beep alerted her to a new mail. Smiling as she always did when she got a new mail, Babs rolled over to her computer. Opening up the Hotmail program she could barely believe what she was seeing.

"Five miles outside Gotham. Off of I-98. Cabin with green door."

The address was Tim's and clearly the message was important. Not wasting a second, Barbara contacted Bruce.

"I think I've found Tim. He sent an e-mail to me through Hotmail. I'm forwarding the message to you and Dick now."

Bruce, who was sitting in the Bat Cave, waited for the message to pop on his screen. From the time that the e-mail was sent, to Batman and Nightwing's departure towards the address, less then five minutes had passed. It would take the duo another five minutes at breakneck speeds to reach the cabin. Ten minutes was all the Tim had to survive before help came to him. The young man's survival had become a race against time; mere minutes dictating life and death.

…….

Hal watched Tim's disappear behind the couch. Lowering the gun slightly, the large man moved and peered around the couch. He was content to see the kid laying face down with his hand clenched in a fist. Obviously, the immense strength Tim had possessed was gone and left him utterly drained. Hal moved close and nudged the toe of his boot into Tim's side and none-too-gently pushed to flip Tim over. Although the teenager appear physically out of fight, his eyes still told the older man that, if possible, he would already have pummeled him to the ground. There was something about this Drake kid that screamed strength and it wasn't only his ability to somehow withstand unimaginable pain. It was something within his aura. This kid was different.

But, none of that mattered now. He was also dead. Hal re-raised the gun.

…….

Tim knew he had nothing left. The dodge had cost him all the strength he possessed and all he could do was laying gasping on the ground as the larger man came around to put a bullet in his brain. In the end, though, the young man knew that he had given it all that he could; he had fought and that, well, hopefully that would make his dad and even Bruce proud. Hal, after kicking the lad over, stepped back and stood over Tim. The teenager looked up into the larger man's eyes without a trace of fear. Even if Tim couldn't move, he could still let his captor know how badly he wanted to fight. Tim stared up at Hal and, for the first time in a long while, he felt like Robin.

As he watched the gun level between his eyes, only one thought passed through Tim's mind:

I never can tell my father that I'm sorry.

The shot echoed in the same cabin.

TBC…

Ouch, I know. Sorry! I'll be back in only a few days. Take that to heart, okay :-) Goooood.