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A Spotty Record	By : keithcompany Category: Marvel Verse Comics > Crossovers Views: 1772 -:- 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
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One night at Sammy's, about a week after I posted a 3x5, someone slipped a coupon for a food truck into my pocket, along with a Postit note. Nightshade wanted a face-to-face meeting, and didn't trust the phone. It took a bit to track down D'Angelo's Roving Ristorante, but I found it parked at the plaza in front of Rand Corporation's head office. I got a chicken parm sandwich and ate it at the side of the fountain.
I was about finished when a woman who'd been eating her own meal on a bench nearby got up, tossed her plate in the trash, and came to stand near me. She was dressed as a lab worker, sporting a Rand badge on her lab coat. She tossed a coin in the fountain and softly asked, "Who in the hell wants to meet Deadly Doctor Nightshade?"
"As the card said, an eight-year-old girl, a cancer patient at New York Presbyterian."
"Why her?"
"Why her cancer? Ask God."
"Why does the kid want to meet NIGHTSHADE?" she hissed.
"We don't ask," I said. I wiped my face, folded my napkin inside my plate. "We don't really care. She insisted on Nightshade and made our coordinator 'double-thumb swear' to get her and no one else." I shrugged. "Dara made me double-thumb, too. And I'm on parole, so I can't risk breaking that."
She didn't smile. Maybe villains have no sense of humor? She did ask, "Is there any money? For the visit?"
"It's a charity gig," I said.
She shook her head. "I'm smarter than most of this kid's doctors, but I'm self-taught. No sheepskin. Can't get a job anywhere CLOSE to my actual abilities." She flicked her badge. "So, I clean test tubes and write down blood counts."
She sat down next to me on the fountain's lip. "And this shitty job is the BEST I can get with what I have. A GED and the ability to pronounce all the big words. I can't really afford to show up at bedside and get recognized. I'll lose even this."
"Not going to start a fee for fulfilling a Dream," I said. "But maybe I can come up with a 'finder's fee' for anyone that helps me contact Nightshade." No 'maybe' about it. I'd reduced a lot of the Foundation's overhead. Gone with businesses that hired ex-cons, charged less. There was a pile of money set aside for a future emergency. I'd just have to tell Stark it existed, and I had an emergency.
"I can't get tied to that identity!" she said, the loudest she'd been since coming over. "How hard is the math, the black woman who knows where to find the black villain?"
"It'll be cash, then," I assured her. "And you don't have to show up in costume and pose for pictures. Kids that want Captain America want the spectacle. Kids that ask for villains are more interested in results. And maybe some explosions."
"Explosions ARE results," she said. She didn't smile at that, either. I wasn't sure if she was joking… "You'll come with me, of course."
"Oh, no," I said. "I'm getting too famous as the 'criminal whistler.' You don't want me escorting you to a sick kid. Alarms WILL go off."
She put a hand in the pocket of her lab coat. I heard something snap. And then she repeated, "You'll come with me, of course."
"That's the best idea I've heard all DAY!" I replied. "Can we go now?"
"This weekend," she said, and it made perfect sense to me. "We'll go after she gets dinner on Saturday night."
"Sure," I nodded. "I can spend the day losing any tail, meet you in the lobby."
"Nurse's station," she said. She trailed one finger across my cheek. It burned for a second where she touched me, then a warm, cozy feeling spread through me. "Don't tell anyone."
"Of course not. But…"
"You can arrange the finder's fee," she allowed. "But don't tell your bosses WHO is being found."
"The Enchantress," I suggested. That Nordic blonde was so far from this dark beauty, no one would connect the dots. She purred and went back to work.
I went to tell Stark about my accounting practices, and lie about my intentions. Seemed perfectly rational at the time. I realized later that she was taking steps to protect herself, using her pheromones to control me. I shrugged at the realization. She hadn't harmed me, and I'd done worse to protect others.
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I couldn't walk without the cane, so I was going to cut a rather distinctive feature at the hospital, no matter my disguise. Then I had a thought. I wrapped my wooden leg in an inflatable cast and got a pair of crutches. Bought a set of coveralls and a baseball cap at an Army-Navy store and limped into the hospital. No one seemed to recognize me. The security guard in the lobby even pushed the elevator button for me.
On Tamika's floor, Nightshade was dressed as a doctor, reviewing Tamika's chart. Everyone cooperated just as I had, and probably for the same reason. When I appeared, she returned the chart and walked me down the hall.
Tamika was a tiny little thing. Heart-breakingly thin, several tubes leading in and out, and her head was covered by a bandana decorated with wolves. A stuffed wolf was at her side. A poster with wolf characters from a recent cartoon movie was on the wall. Nightshade said, 'Ah ha,' and we went in. She posted me by the door to block anyone entering. Then she opened her lab coat. I got a glimpse of her leather costume. Tamika saw it much better and her eyes bugged out like lanterns.
"You're Nightshade!" she whispered. "You're here! You're really here!"
"Yes, I am, Tamika." She sat in the chair. "What did you want to talk about?"
"You can make werewolves," Tamika said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes. I did make some people into werewolves," she admitted.
"I know everything about werewolves!" the kid told her. She started listing their abilities. Nightshade nodded along.
"You like werewolves?" she asked as the kid finally slowed down to a stop. She looked over her shoulder at me. "I thought we were gonna talk about feminine empowerment or Black Lives Matter. This is GREAT!" She turned back to Tamika.
"I want you to make me a werewolf."
"I'm sorry?" Nightshade asked. Tamika repeated herself. The doc stared for a minute, as if trying to translate the words into something rational. "Oh, honey, no!" she finally protested.
"If I was a werewolf, cancer wouldn't kill me," Tamika said.
"No, but… But…" She looked over her shoulder at me again. There was panic in her eyes. Then told the kid, "You'd be a monster!" Nightshade leaned forward, looking earnestly at the patient. "You'd hurt people. Lots of people. I made werewolves to hurt lots of people. You'd hurt… You'd hurt your family. You'd attack your mommy and daddy!"
"Mommy died of the same thing I've got," was the quiet reply.
Nightshade lost her shit about then. She came up out of the chair so fast it slid back to the wall. "But, but, no! NO! No, I mean, I've gone straight. I don't, I don't do that anymore. Any of it." Her eyes flit around the room. "Certainly not to YOU! Not a little…. I was never… You can't WANT to be a monster. I won't make you a monster." She backed away from the bed.
"Then I'll die," Tamika said. Nightshade moaned and ran for the door. I had no instructions so I stood there for a bit.
"What's your wolf's name?" I finally asked.
"Kumbukumbu," she said. "It means 'memory' in Swahili." She hugged Kumbukumbu tightly. "My mommy gave her to me."
"That's sweet," I said. "Sorry Doctor Nightshade couldn't help you."
"It's okay," she said. "I didn't really want to end up fighting Black Panther or Luke Cage as a werewolf. But… I dunno, maybe I could be a were-poodle? Something that won't die, but any hero can just say, 'SIT!' or 'DOWN!' really loud and I'd behave?"
"I'll ask her about that," I said. I eased out.
I tried to get in touch with Nightshade, but she was busy.
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A week after the visit, Rand Corp published promising results in their pharmacology research. I caught the interview with Danny Rand. "I didn't know we were working on a cure for cancer," he said. Then smiled. "Turns out we weren't. But a research project for a new type of aspirin actually cured cancer in one of our lab rats. We even found a test subject who seems tailor-made for the cure." They showed a picture of Tamika in her bed at the hospital. "It's little miracles like this, dovetailing together, that give me hope," he concluded.
I waited outside RandCorp every lunch hour for another week. Finally, a lab worker sat at the end of the bench I was on. "Just thought you should know, she forgave you even before you cured her cancer."
Nightshade, or her alter ego, anyway, looked straight at me, pointed up at the Rand building. "She's on the fifteenth floor. I see her every eight hours." Her smile was bright, as bright as Tamika's and her dad's in all the news articles. "Never play dominos with her, she's a gods-be-damned domino shark!"
"I'll remember that," I promised.
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"Guess you failed." I looked up to see Stark coming into the Dream room.
"Sir?" I asked.
"Nightshade. Girl asks to meet a supervillain, you don't find her in time, a miracle occurs, the 'Dream' is surplus to needs. Your first failure."
I nodded, conceding the point. "Yes, well, no one expected me to succeed at all. My batting average is still pretty good." I wasn't going to correct him. Too many secrets too close to the surface for that. He stared at me for a long, silent moment.
"I hereby vow never to play poker against you," he said. "I've got facial recognition software that can look at a god-damned werewolf and tell you what he looked like before he turned. I know more than you think I do." He stuck out his hand for a shake. "But I have absolutely no complaints about what you've accomplished, here." We shook. He turned to go. Over his back he tossed out, "You're still going to explain all our finances to Pepper. Monday, nine o'clock."
"Yes, sir," I nodded. "Just enough time to cook the books." The instant he stepped out the door, his wife, Pepper Potts, stepped in. "Or not," I said. She smiled and dragged a chair over to my desk.
"So," she said with a carnivorous smile. "Show me the money."
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A Spotty Record