August 18, 0315 When Dr. Joseph Bengali had been offered a position at STAR Labs, it had been the culmination of a carefully tailored life plan. He had gone to all the best schools, maintaining his standing at the top of every class all the way through medical school. He had set his sights on the world's premier research facility, and he had made it. He had been assigned to the committee on alien physiology, which is how he ended up with ties to the JLA and the Titans. In three years, he had established himself as one of the core physicians to whom the superheroes of the world turned in an emergency. He was a skilled surgeon and a man of unfailing integrity, and he carried his well-earned reputation with pride. He had still been surprised two nights ago, however, when he had been dragged from his sleep to assist in a desperate attempt to save a man's life. Had anyone asked Dr. Bengali's opinion, he would have said it was a hopeless case. He had seen superheroes recover from quite astounding injuries more than once, but those had been meta-humans. One thing that was instantly clear to Dr. Bengali when he arrived in the makeshift operating theatre (in a warehouse of all places!) was that their patient was not a meta-human. He was just a man in a costume. Now, two nights later, this young "Nightwing" still lived, and Dr. Bengali was slated to take the transporter down to some secret coordinates to check in on him. He frowned as he glanced over the chart, updated hours previously by Dr. Thompkins and faxed in via some circuitous route. Infection. High fever. Seizures, which when finally controlled had required reclosing of the man's wounds. Possible onset of pneumonia. Dr. Bengali glanced from the chart to the desk attendant, an older woman who wore an air of having seen it all - twice. "Has there been any report since this was faxed in?" he asked. "Every hour on the hour," the woman - Doris, her nametag read - replied. Dr. Bengali shook his head in amazement. "And?" Doris gave him a hard look, seeming to know what he was getting at. "He's still alive, Doctor, and he's going to stay alive." "You seem mighty confident in that assessment, Doris." "Dr. Bengali, when you've been around as long as I have, you get a sense for these things. And I know that boy. He's got Bat in him." Bat. Dr. Bengali resisted the urge to shudder. The Batman had appeared at STAR Labs all of twice in the young doctor's experience, and both times he had left the young Doctor with a cold feeling in his stomach. The Bat would explain the secrecy, though. "Well, I suppose I better get going then," he said. Doris did not comment, turning her attention back to her active computer monitor. Dr. Bengali sighed and headed for the transporter room. * He did not end up back in the warehouse, but rather in a - basement? They had stabilized him enough to move him and they brought him here? Dr. Bengali knew it was not his place to question, but he could not fathom the decision making in this case. His patient lay in a surprisingly fully equipped medical bay in the midst of some of the largest computer arrays Dr. Bengali had ever seen. Beside the hospital bed, a red haired woman sat in a wheelchair, a small boy in her arms. Wife and son, Bengali decided, although he found himself idly wondering how a superhero had become saddled with a crippled wife. Surely the young man he had operated on could have had his pick of women, and he had chosen this one. Interesting. The woman looked up as Dr. Bengali appeared, her expression indicating that she had been expecting him. He crossed to her with outstretched hand. "I'm Dr. Bengali. I was one of the surgeons attending your - husband? -" She nodded in confirmation. "-when he was first brought in." The woman in the chair did not extend her hand to him, looking apologetically to the youngster in her lap. Dr. Bengali realized the boy was not asleep, as he had assumed, but was staring fixedly in the direction of his father. Suddenly embarrassed, the doctor let his hand fall to his side. "Has Dr. Thompkins talked to you about Mr. - uh - Nightwing's condition?" "*Leslie* told me you would be coming, Doctor. She was concerned that his lungs are not clearing as she hoped. There has been no perceptible change in his condition in the past five hours." The message was clear. The wife was not a lightweight, and she outranked him with the lead physician on this case. Resisting a sigh, Dr. Bengali set about checking Nightwing's vitals, listening to his lungs, inspecting his injuries and changing their dressings. He grunted to himself as he made notes on the chart. He could see why Dr. Thompkins was concerned about pneumonia. And the young man was still running a low-grade fever. When he drew a small amount of blood to run white cell counts back at the lab, he saw the wife lean down as if to listen to a whisper from the still wide-eyed boy. She murmured something in reply and kissed the top of the boy's head, rubbing a hand gently along his back. "Mrs. Nightwing?" Dr. Bengali ventured. "Yes?" she replied with an air of vague distraction. "Have you considered checking your husband into a proper hospital? There is-" He stopped as the woman's eyes snapped to his face and the boy in her lap perceptibly stiffened. "Why, Doctor? Has his condition deteriorated?" Dr. Bengali winced. "No, no. It's just that a hospital could -" "Could what, Dr. Bengali?" Her tone was cold. "Could badger us endlessly about how this injury happened? Could demand to know his real name? Could keep him in a cold, sterile room, restricting who could see him and when? Is our set up here so lacking?" "No, no. I've never seen a finer private facility, in fact. I just thought -" "You didn't think, Dr. Bengali." Her eyes were fiery, impaling him with unvoiced accusations. Dr. Bengali glanced at Nightwing to free himself from that condemning gaze. Whatever brought these two together, he realized, it could not be the pity of the hero for the cripple in the chair. Those blazing green eyes did not belong to someone who allowed herself to be pitied. "Now, Dr. Bengali, will you be kind enough to give me an update on my husband's condition - *without* editorializing?" Dr. Bengali licked his lips nervously. Why was this woman making him feel like an intern again? "The congestion in his lungs still hasn't cleared, but it doesn't seem to have gotten worse, either. His left lung still isn't filling as fully as I would like, but given the tissue damage he sustained, that's not entirely surprising. I've drawn some blood to check the status of the earlier infection. He's still running a temperature of 100.3 and the injury to his abdomen shows some discoloration, although that may be due to the resuturing. The cut to the arm shows signs of healing and I believe he may have avoided any serious nerve damage based on involuntary responses. Beyond that, there's not much I can say." The woman closed her eyes for a moment. "So basically no change. Thank you, Doctor. But before you go-" She fixed him with one of the coldest stares he'd ever felt. "Your questioning of my judgment regarding my husband's treatment is unacceptable. Your casual disregard of what is clearly a difficult situation for me and my family is a sorry indictment of your bedside manner, and I do not appreciate the fact that you have caused my son undue fear. I will thank you to run your tests and report your results to Dr. Thompkins, but you are not welcome in our home again." Dr. Bengali stepped back, stung. He had only been trying to help! But the woman in the wheelchair was no longer looking at him, was focused instead on shifting the child in her lap. What had Doris said about the Bat? It seemed that it was in more than the husband in this case. A ping sounded, and the woman glanced over at one of the computers. "Go ahead, STAR Labs. Take him back." Within seconds, Dr. Bengali was back in the transporter room, and the reproachful look on the face of the technician who ran the transporter spoke volumes. With a sigh, he headed to the laboratory with his blood sample, wondering how far he had set back his career.