Drabble 9-The Deadliest Flower

T'Challa had always taken great pride in knowing his flora. His father had taught him, on top of fighting, in case he ever needed to make a quick medicine or if he was lost and in need of food. But he hadn't ever realized that, what he grew up calling the Black Stems, because it was the only flower he had ever heard of that had a black stem.

Ever since he met the ghost child he had been learning a lot. Like now. Daniel was lying on the ground in the thick forest right outside Wakanda, writhing as the glowing, green rock was extracted from his stomach. Ectoranium, he had called it. Deadly to ghosts.

T'Challa was already forming his plan, knowing exactly what to get and where to find it to help the boy heal faster. He quickly ran around, finding all of the necessary herbs to make a sort of healing paste to apply over the wound before the bandages he had ready. Thankfully, with his speed and Danny's healing ability, he was able to find them before the boy bled out. Thankfully the other Avengers were on there way. They would be here soon. Hopefully Danny's attackers would have no such luck.

Danny was laying there, sweating in a large pool of his own green-red blood that seeped through his fingers. T'Challa quickly mashed his ingredients and applied a large glob onto Danny's wound.

Danny's back arched as he gave an unnerving cry of pain that chilled T'Challa to the bone. This was not at all supposed to be painful in any way. It was supposed to stop the bleeding and numb the wound so the victim didn't feel as much pain. However, with Danny the agony just seemed to grow. If the screaming didn't stop, they would be caught, and while T'Challa was perfectly capable of handling himself, he was outnumbered and outgunned-especially when he also had to protect Danny.

T'Challa pulled out more of the Black Stems, watching as Danny's eyes widened with fear. Despite the pain he must have been feeling he tried to scoot away from T'Challa. The Panther's eyes narrowed a he held the flower closer to Danny. He tried backing away again, but instead collapsed, shaking and sweating, looking a lot more paler than usual. Looking more...ghostly. It was scary.

T'Challa quickly realized his mistake and thrust the Black Stem away before peeling the pase off of Danny and throwing that way too. The writhing calmed down, and his screaming had gone down to groans and the occasional whimper.

"Hey, who brought the blood blossoms?"

It was the all too familiar metallic voice of Tony Stark, all suited up and trampling over the Black Stems. Behind him was Falcon and his new ward, Spider-Man.

"Danny!"

Falcon was the first to respond, practically shoving T'Challa out of the way. He quickly cleaned up the wound with the materials from his suit, clearing away both the Ectoranium and black stem residue. Spider-Man held up one of the deadly flowers. Iron Man smacked it out of his hand and blew it up with a small blast from his palm.

"Those are blood blossoms, kid. Deadly to ghosts," he explained as he snuffed out the small flame with his large boot. T'Challa looked over at Danny. Color was already returning to his face.

"I'm sorry," he said. His voice ached from the sincerity and he hated himself for being so ignorant. "I wasn't aware of the effects they would have."

"Ah, Dan-Dan will be fine," Tony said, waving the other man off. "Isn't that right, Wilson?"

Falcon nodded as he stood up, gently carrying Danny bridal-style. He weakly gave them a thumbs-up before falling asleep, mumbling something under his breath as he became dead weight. Probably a bad pun or something. Falcon rolled his eyes, but didn't comment.

"See? And on top of that we took care of the bad guys; sent them off to Clockwork. Vampire dude and his pet birds won't be coming back for a while. Now come on," he held out a hand for T'Challa to take. "Let's go see that awesome kingdom of yours."

Behind him, Spider-Man coughed.

"Wow, worst tourists ever."