Nightwing went back up to the main living quarters his gut clenched with a new worry. Nobody had seen Mockingbird, he knew she wasn't feeling well, that's why she didn't go on patrol, but the distress beacon should have woken her up. He walked by the bathroom closest to her room and heard her vomiting and sighed. That explained a lot, he returned to the kitchen and got a reusable water bottle from the cabinet and filled it with filtered water.

"I wonder how long Mockingbird has been throwing up." Nightwing sighed.

"I don't know, get her down to med-bay and I'll check her out… she started feeling bad after she went to her sister's house… I think she picked something up there." Cyborg said looking over at where Supergirl and Starfire sat keeping each other entertained. Clearly Supergirl hadn't been so engrossed in the conversation to forget she had a plate of food in her lap as one of the sandwiches and over half the bag of chips were gone clearly indicating she had been eating while Starfire spoke.

Nightwing returned to the bathroom as Mockingbird exited wiping her mouth with a paper towel.

"Here…" he handed her the water, and she took a few sips.

"Let's go…"

"I just want to go to bed, Nightwing." She groaned miserably.

"You can… in the med-bay" he countered grasping her upper arm firmly then starting towards the elevator..

She glared at him but followed without protest. Truth be told, she wasn't physically strong enough, even when she didn't feel like crap, to fight the acrobat's pull on her arm so she would have had to go either way willingly or not, so she just gave up without fighting.

"Nightwing, I don't get it I can heal any injury you can think of, but this stomach bug is kicking my ass…"

"Doesn't make sense to me either." Nightwing replied "That's a question for Raven when she regains consciousness."

"Regains… what the fu…"

"Language…" Nightwing snapped, cut her off in a warning tone. She glowered at Nightwing, he and Cyborg sometimes got annoying when they started acting like her older brothers, or worse, like now, her father.

"What did I miss?" she asked as they stepped into the elevator.

"She was attacked by Blackfire…" he said "We don't know why but Blackfire tried to kill her by what appears to be manual strangulation…"

"Why strangulation? Couldn't she do something more… I don't know, more efficient?"

"Yes, but Mandy, you don't know Blackfire, she is a sadist at heart, she is the type that would enjoy the feeling of Raven struggling and fighting a battle she could never win." He sighed not telling the younger girl that Blackfire would likely find immense pleasure and satisfaction in feeling the life leave Raven's body.

"How is she?"

"Supergirl saved her and she's in med-bay… when I left she was still deep in her healing trance." He explained.

"Okay… so she's healing herself… I'm glad… the way I feel I don't think I could heal her."

Nightwing got Amanda on one of the other beds and Beast Boy looked up as Nightwing handed her a basin to throw up in, but this time she didn't have much left to bring up.

"Ouch… that sucks" he muttered as she spent the next minute or two painfully dry heaving into the basin.

"You have no idea…" she replied sounding miserable.

"I can't get your vitals if you don't lie back and relax" Cyborg told her.

"Sorry, still trying to puke my guts up." She responded. She laid back and waited as the machines took stock of her vital signs.

"What's the verdict?" she asked.

"Well for one you're extremely dehydrated…" he sighed "don't know what's got your stomach in knots though."

"It hurts, Cy…" she said curling up holding her stomach.

"I know, kiddo… we'll figure it out." He assured her gently brushing her hair out of her face.

Nightwing put in an IV catheter then drew some blood before attaching a saline drip.

"Try to get some rest, we should know what's going on soon." He said then went to run tests.

Amanda whimpered quietly as Cyborg and Nightwing walked over to the main med-bay computer.

"Poor kid, she's miserable." Cyborg observed quietly as he stood and walked over to the console to wait for something to happen.

"She is." Nightwing replied "what was the final report on Raven's injuries?"

"You don't want to know… that list took up almost two pages with a ton of damage done to her throat… if it weren't for her healing ability having already kicked in when you got there…"

Nightwing looked at the scan.

"Damn… I would have had to… no I don't want to think about it."

"What Nightwing…"

"I know how to do it, but I've never done it… no… I… I don't want to think about it, Cyborg." Nightwing closed his eyes and for that one second both men were counting their blessings Raven had the ability to heal herself so rapidly.

Cyborg shook his head, he knew what Nightwing was talking about, a Tracheotomy, cutting a small hole in her neck to her trachea to provide some form of an artificial airway for her bypassing all of the damage Blackfire had done to the fragile structures of her throat.

Nightwing then walked away to get more supplies for Mockingbird. He figured he could add this moment to the laundry list of things that kept him awake at night. The idea of having to perform a tracheotomy on his surrogate younger sister or risk losing her forever.

Beast Boy looked at Raven who was still in her trance.

"Damn…" he whispered as he overheard what was said.

"Blackfire did a number on her…" Cyborg observed.

"It's been half an hour!" Beast Boy growled.

"Yeah… when Adonis got her she was in the trans for like twenty minutes…" Cyborg sighed "But this is like a hundred times worse… we seriously almost lost her today."

"Don't remind me of that." Beast Boy groaned.

To Be Continued...