Adult-FanFiction.org : Marvel 'Verse

A Spotty Record	By : keithcompany Category: Marvel Verse Comics > Crossovers Views: 1777 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or setting of the Marvel Universe. I make no profit from this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
Stark threw a party for the Foundation every year, on the anniversary of opening the doors. It was just for us, no superheroes (or villains), no Dream awardees. Volunteers and staff, both current and former, were invited, there were a few speeches, a lot of pictures in a slide-show, and everyone got a scrap-book for the year. Pics for my Dreams were limited. Mostly they showed the headlines about the kids. Or a quarter-ton bedside bear-piloted waldo.
Lots of fun, more than a few inside jokes were presented in the 'highlight reel.' A big container full of cookies, for example. Marcia on a witness stand.   A shit-ton of nachos in Captain America's shield. An archery butt with three arrows and a stick of licorice in the bullseye. A kindergarten class holding potted plants, each one being watered by a teeny tiny storm cloud. A bleary-eyed Rodney sitting in my apartment, trying to tie his shoes.
Any joke you didn't get, there was always someone tickled pink to share the full background.
I was explaining, yet again, how Miguel's parents lit up on meeting Rodney, when Stark started to hover near my table. I didn't rush the story for the boss' sake, but I did eventually wrap it up. My listeners left, Stark dropped into one of the chairs.
"I didn't get you a Christmas Gift last year," he started.
"You gave everyone a Christmas bonus. I remember, because you waited until 23 HOURS before payday, and I stayed up late doing all the paperwork." God damn I hate bosses who make whim decisions at the last minute. Or, knowing Stark, who make the decision on Halloween, and don't get around to it until Hanukah.
"That's a bonus, not a gift," he said. He leaned across the table to talk more softly. "The Avengers just saved the Governor's bacon last week."
"I didn't hear anything about it," I said.
"That very lack of publicity is part of his bacon, and part of saving it," he said with a wink. "But he was in a really grateful mood. And I thought of you."
Governor? Me? What could the Governor have-? "Don't threaten me with a pardon," I said.
Stark was stunned. "Why wouldn't you want a pardon? What's wrong with a pardon?"
"Legally, a pardon is saying, 'you did bad, and we know it, but we have decided we don't want to punish you for it.' Accepting a pardon is admitting that you're guilty. I was not guilty."
"You'd have a clean record," he suggested.
"I have a wonderful job already, despite the conviction. I don't need my record cleaned." I looked at him for a moment. "You went to MIT, right? You just avoided classes that didn't lead to playing with lasers, huh?"
"Actually," he said, "those are the only classes I DID go to. All the science stuff, I either knew more than the professors, or I argued them to death. And I had better labs at the company than anything MIT could provide. So mostly I handed in inventions as my term papers, they took partial credit, everyone was happy." He sipped his soda. "You've put me in a really, really bad position now, Ray."
"With the Governor?" I asked.
"With my wife. Pepper bet me quite a few breakfasts in bed that you wouldn't want a pardon."
"She always was smarter than you," I nodded. He agreed with a nod and a roll of his eyes. "You going to invent a breakfast-in-bed machine?"
"Nope," he said, with the sigh of a long-suffering man. "The terms of the bet. Breakfast has to be from scratch."
"So you get up every morning and build a different BIB machine from scratch," I suggested.
His eyes lit up. "I can stay within the boundaries AND totally subvert the intent! That's the perfect Stark solution!" He thanked me and got up to go salt his bedroom with components. I hoped he didn't give me credit for this idea. I was still twitchy after my one confrontation with Pepper, and she hadn't found any problems!
I watched the party for a bit longer. Then Marcia came up to my table and dropped heavily into one of the chairs. "Raymond, I am more drunk than I was at the wake. Will you make sure I get home?"
"Of course," I said. "Won't be easy, but I'll persevere."
"It'll be easy," she insisted. "Right now, there's two of you." She pointed to just off my right shoulder and just off my left.
"Nope," said, standing. "Still only one of me."
"Then skip it," she said, trying to push back onto her feet. "I'll call a Gruber." She made it all the way to the next chair and flopped back down again. She bounced her butt on the seat a few times, then looked at me. "The upholstery in this car SUCKS."
"It's old," I said. "Come on, we'll move to my Uber." I lifted her up. She's a small woman, but it was still a stretch and a half balancing her and the leg. Where was Bombshell when I needed her? Meh. Probably carrying off someone else's bank vault.
----------
That was the year Dara finally talked us all into a Secret Santa exchange. And the year I found out Wilma is a horrible liar.
The day after we drew names, she came to me and offered to buy me lunch. Her reason? She had drawn Marcia for the exchange and wanted to pick my brain for gift ideas. But it never occurred to her that _I_ might have actually drawn Marcia's name. Clearly, she wanted to try to figure out what I wanted, thinking she was subtle. And by horrible, I mean she was incompetent at lying, not that she had a proclivity.
We left the building and turned towards the falafel place. Just as we crossed the street, a parked car exploded. Wilma's not native to New York, either, so she screamed. I moved her against the building and stood between her and the street. "Looked like an energy blast," I said. "Eliminates those that throw force around. No lightning. Who do you know that-"
Another car exploded. I saw a piece of the hood spinning towards us, then I was hit. I think. One minute I was admiring the light off the late-model paint job, then I was laying on my back. All I could see was a bent piece of metal, same sky-blue paint job. And my belly was starting to realize it hurt. It hurt a lot.
Wilma was somewhere, crying, and someone was picking my pocket. Oh. Wait, it was Wilma going through my pockets. I thought she was looking for my insurance card. Gonna need that in a minute. Another car exploded, somewhere.
Wilma started screaming for 911. No, no, she was screaming TO 911. Or trying to. I realized she grabbed my villain-phone. That wasn't going to work for her. But I couldn't make any noise to tell her that. She didn't notice. Her brain had decided on the action inventory. She'd found a phone, she'd dialed 911, now she was reporting, "RAYMOND MALONE CUT IN HALF ON 41^st AVE! SEND AMBULANCE!" She just kept repeating herself, waiting for someone to acknowledge her. I figured if I was cut in half, I wouldn't have felt her picking my pockets.
Then there was a new voice out there, somewhere. Somewhere close. "Did you say Malone? Did I just kill the Dream guy? Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan, they are going to KILL me!"
"He's not dead yet," a squeaky voice sounded. And I saw the first new thing since I got hit. A woman hovered over my face, under the metal wreckage, the Wasp. "He's breathing." Not well, I thought, gasping through what was probably blood. "Not well," she added.
"Not THAT goddamned phone!" Ah. Marcia was here. She'd sort it out. Which was good, because I decided I needed to just concentrate on passing out.
I woke in the hospital. In a bed, flat on my back. I couldn't feel anything below my neck. And what I could feel was warm and cozy. Yeah, back on the wonder-drugs. At least Stark provided a much better insurance package than the state penal system.
I eased a hand up, trying to figure out how extensive the stitching was, but I couldn't feel the hand, either. I lifted it to my face to try to see it. It had a needle stuck into it. I lowered it as gently as I could.
Marcia leaned over into view. "Back again?" she asked gently.
"Hi," I wheezed. "Was anyone else hurt?"
"Wilma is fucking traumatized," she said. Her voice rose, just the tiniest bit. "What kind of a suicidal IDIOT carries around a phone NO ONE ELSE can call an ambulance with?"
"Quiet," I urged. "Hospital."
"It's OKAY!" she shouted. "You're on the STUPID ward! Everyone here knows how STUPID you are, trying to stop a flying CAR with your belt buckle!"
"I wasn't…" But she wouldn't let me interrupt. She lifted a cup of icewater to my side and put a straw in my mouth. She just didn't stop yelling at me while she did.
"Other people may ask, what kind of an idiot does that? On THIS floor, they just mark your chart: THAT KIND OF IDIOT! God, if the staff here didn't all see you as the ANGEL OF GOD-DAMNED HOPE, they'd have let you die, because obviously, you were TRYING to kill yourself."
"That's enough," a voice said, a more conversational tone. A new face appeared. I remembered her.
"Nurse," I said. "Chameleon. The kid… reconstructive surgery."
"That's me," she nodded.
I nodded towards the silent Marcia. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me, I didn't shut her up." She touched my face, my throat, and glanced at a screen as she talked. "She just has to pace herself, save her voice. There's a lot of stupid to deal with."
"I didn't… blow up… car."
"Fucking New Yorkers," she said to Marcia. "You see an explosion, sane people run away. New Yorkers prove how blasé they are to superhuman violence. They don't run, they don't cower, they inventory the powers used to deduce the participants."
"Case in point," Marcia said, indicating me. "Wilma told us what were ALMOST his dying words."
The nurse nodded, turned back to me. "Everyone on THIS floor is an innocent bystander who STUPIDLY stood by! It is literally named The Stupid Ward in the directory, in all the phone books." She pushed some buttons on a machine attached to me in some confusing manner. "He should remember your conversation, this time. But seriously, go easy on your throat."
"Maybe," Marcia allowed. Then we were alone again.
"This conversation?" I asked.
"You've been here a while," she said. "Talked a few times. Always the same questions. Always deny responsibility. Always ask-"
"Egghead," I said. It seemed obvious, somehow, that he was the villain. Maybe she'd told me before.
"Fucking New Yorkers," my New Yorker boss swore.
She caught me up on the gossip. Told me how many flowers had been delivered, listed the cards that had actual names. Related how Stark had said 'Fuck it,' and was designing a leg for me.   "With a force field, a holster for your phone, a hot spot, a mini-fridge… Oh, I don't know what all else."
"I may have to accept this one," I muttered. My voice was coming back from disuse. "What about the Dreams?"
"Oh. Prowler offered to act as a go-between. Meet someone from the Foundation, put the word out, guarantee the safe-conduct."
"Great," I said. I relaxed at that. I hadn't realized how worried I was that I'd let the kids down. I noticed Marcia was staring at me. "What?"
"You…trust the Prowler?" she asked.
"With my life," I said frankly. "He's proven it a time or two."
She nodded. Then, "He?" she asked.
"Um, yeah? I mean, I haven't seen under that armor, but, he sounds like a he. He wants to be a he, he's welcome to it. No skin off my…" I tried to glance down, but couldn't lift my head. "Whatever I have skin left on."
She suddenly started fiddling with the remote control to the television. "You, uh, you remember any conversations we've had since you got hurt? I mean, before today?"
"No. Why?"
"You, uh, you called me… You called me the Prowler. Twice."
"Oh. The drugs," I assured her.
"You think you were hallucinating?"
"No," I said. "I figured it out, a while ago. But I'd never reveal your secret if I wasn't stoned to the fucking gills on painkillers."
"How did you…?"
"Timing, mostly. When you leave and when Prowler bumps into me outside. And the way you react to surprises. You point your forearm like it was weaponized, same way you pointed it at Punisher."
"I'll have to work on that," she said.
I shrugged. I think. I meant to, anyway. "Probably not a lot of people get a chance to observe you at both of your jobs."
"Probably," she agreed. Then she yawned. It was a prodigious one. She couldn't force her mouth closed. She covered it, of course, but it just kept going on and on. "I should probably go home, get a nap."
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
She waved that off, not a concern. "Just had to find out about calling me Prowler. Couldn't leave that for your next visitor." She picked up a coat from somewhere I couldn’t see. "So, you rest up, I'll go shower and eat and sleep for a day or two, then I'll see you again." She gave me a peck on one cheek.
"Thanks," I said. "Oh, hey. I'm going to need help."
"I'll call the nurse," she said.
"No, no. I need… I drew you in the Secret Santa. I need…. I need your help getting you something." Not the swiftest plan, but it seemed logical. At that moment, at least. Again, I blame the drugs.
Marcia stared at me for a moment, then she leaned down, inches above my face. "You're breathing," she said. "I'll take that as a gift." She kissed me once more. Not on the cheek. Something beside the bed started beeping furiously. Heart, probably. I couldn't see. She lifted up way from me. "Whoops," she said, not sounding a bit apologetic.   The noise subsided.
"Great," I muttered. "Now I have a reason to live." She smiled, stroked my cheek, and walked out.
I lay there, waiting for… well, whatever happened next. Looked like I now had a girlfriend. One who could take care of herself. And me. And definitely okay with my felony record. And it cleared up a lot about her antagonism towards prosecutors.
I'd just have to remember not to duck behind her next time violence broke out. There were probably four basic rules of dating a supervillain. Not exposing her alter ego was an obvious one. I settled back and tried to think of three more.
- 9
- 10
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Spotty Record