Chapter 2
Penny’s eyes shot open to… nothing. Blackness. She blinked a few times, making sure she was actually opening her eyes before beginning to worry. It was hard to breathe, she realized as she tried to inhale but got nothing more than a strained breath of dust and debris. Something heavy was pushing down on her. Like an elephant. Or a Hulk. Or a parking garage, she realized with a jolt of sobering panic. She had been in a Hydra compound, deep underground. There had been an explosion.
She started to squirm, quickly realizing most of her movement was limited. She swept her right wrist as far as she could, feeling nothing more than warped concrete and metal. Her other arm was pinned across her chest, the only thing keeping a slab of concrete from crushing her abdomen. She tried her leg. One was pinned on something, the other was…
A scream ripped through her as she tried to move her left leg and was met with nothing but blinding white pain. She was trapped. She was trapped.
“No, no, not again,” she whimpered to herself, her breathing coming out in awkward bursts and the pain in her leg starting to bring tears to her eyes. But this wasn’t like last time. She wasn’t alone.
“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark?” She practically yelled into the comms, but nothing but static returned her message.
“Ms. Romanoff? Mr. Rogers?” She tried again, again only static there to meet her. Shit, she cursed silently, a few stray tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Bucky?” She screamed into the darkness.
“Bucky!” She called again, her cry echoing off the rubble in haunting ways. A sob shuddered out of her and she tried to get control of her breathing.
“Kid? Spider-Girl?” A voice called out from the darkness. Bucky. A half sob, half laugh of relief jumped out of her.
“Bucky, I’m here!” She replied, her voice shaky.
“Are you okay?” He asked, his voice strained and Penny heard the sound of rubble shifting to the left of her.
“I don’t know, I think so. But my leg, it’s stuck. I can’t move, I’m stuck,” Penny rambled, her anxiety gripping her body as she was forced to remind herself of the last time she was stuck under a building.
“Okay, okay. It’s gonna be fine.” Bucky’s steady tone filled the space, cutting through Penny’s spiral.
“What about you, can you move? Are you okay?” Penny asked, quickly, kicking herself she hadn’t asked already. But all she could think about was getting out from under this rubble. Moving her limbs and breathing fresh air.
“Fine. I would be able to get out, but my arm is pinned. The metal one.” He practically groaned the last bit, his irritation at his bad luck clear. But that was good. Bucky wasn’t hurt. That was good. Penny’s mind was already racing, searching for a way out of there.
“We need to get out of here. We need to get out, now.” She hated how scared she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. She fought against the piece of concrete settled on her chest but was met only with a sharp pain.
“Stop moving, you could disrupt the rubble,” Bucky chided, the sound of him feeling around the space echoing off the debris.
“I need to get out,” Penny panted out, frantically pushing against immovable stone, fighting even as every muscle strained and pain flared up and down her body. But it wasn’t enough and she dropped the concrete with a grunt, crying out in pain when it resettled against her chest.
“I said, stop moving. Just wait a second.” Bucky scolded, huffing out a sigh of frustration. And although normally, Penny would have waved it off with a roll of her eyes and a snide comment of her own, she felt Bucky’s indignation burrow into her heart, stinging as it dug.
She took the closest thing to a deep breath she could and swallowed her unshed tears, forcing her body to stay still even though it was itching to fight against the building holding her down.
“Sorry,” she whispered, taking care to stop her voice from cracking. She was Spider-Girl, goddamnit, she was a certified superhero. She fought alongside Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow… she held ferries together with nothing but a few webs and her pure strength. Spider-Girl didn’t break down in tears when she got pushed down. Especially not in front of Mr. Stark’s colleagues.
But she couldn’t stop the erratic breathing, the clammy sweat that clung to every inch of her, no matter how hard she tried. Everything dredged up residual feelings from that night. The way the dust clung to her nostrils, filled her lungs, the way the cold metal piping dug into her back, the rough stone bricks making her feel like the weakest creature in the world as they pinned her down at odd angles. Like a spider pinned to a scientist’s setting board.
“Can you reach your comms?” Bucky called out, breaking her out of her anxiety flashback once again.
“They’re busted.” Her voice was pitched high with fear.
“Of course. Hold on a second.” Penny listened to the sound of her sporadic breath and Bucky fumbling around in the darkness for his comms. Every second felt like a death sentence. Suddenly, crackling static filled the space.
“Stark? Anybody?” Bucky called into the static, waiting for a reply with bated breath.
“Barnes?” Tony’s frantic voice crackled through the static, and despite herself, Penny felt the tears she had been fighting begin to roll down her cheeks at the sound of Tony’s voice.
“Yeah, Tony, can you hear me?” Even Bucky sounded relieved to hear Tony’s voice, which just proved how royally fucked they both were.
“Yeah, I can hear you. What happened? Is Spider-Girl with you? Is she hurt?” Tony sounded impatient, already furious his previous question hadn’t been answered as soon as he was moving on to the new one. His voice was punctuated by explosions and grunts and Penny knew the mission had gone wrong. Whatever alarm system Bucky had triggered hadn’t just disarmed the two of them.
“They blew the building. Me and the Spider Kid are trapped underneath.” Bucky reported, trying and failing again to move his pinned arm.
“Shit. They found us about two miles from the compound, we’re still dealing with them.” Stark cut himself off abruptly, and Penny heard the familiar sound of his repulsers firing.
“Put the kid on,” he instructed once the explosions had subsided.
“She can hear you,” Bucky answered, and Penny heard rustling as the comms was slowly pushed towards her, its blinking blue light like a beacon in the darkness of the destroyed cavern.
“Kid? You there?” Penny swallowed hard, pushing the tears down into her chest, letting them burrow a hole there instead of revealing her to Tony.
“I’m here.” She forced out, tightly.
“You okay? Talk to me.” Tony kept his voice hard but Penny could detect it under the ‘I’m the leader of the Avengers’ authority: a gentle concern. Penny squeezed her eyes shut, painfully fighting against a sob and the constant tremors shooting through her. She wanted to burst into tears and beg Tony to come get her, not let him hang up the phone until he was lifting the rubble off of her and hauling her out of the wreckage.
But Tony had a team to take care of, not just her. And he had a fight to win against a slew of pissed-off Hydra agents. They all did.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. But I’m stuck, I can’t move.” She tried not to let the fear into her voice as she said those words. Even just hearing them out loud sent a bolt of terror running through her.
“Are you hurt?” He questioned, something like worry in his voice. Was she hurt? She thought about her leg, the pain she felt when she moved it. But it didn’t hurt anymore. In fact, it didn’t really feel like much of anything.
And they had a mission to complete.
“No, no, I’m not hurt.” She decided.
“Think you can wait it out until we finish up here?” Penny stifled another sob. Some part of her knew the question was looming the entire conversation but hearing it still filled her with an instinct to claw her way to the comms and scream at Tony, command him to come here immediately, and get her out of this. But instead, she nodded silently, tears streaming down her cheeks, until she found enough control to speak.
“Okay, yeah, that’s okay. I can wait,” she squeaked out, fighting to keep her voice from breaking into a million pieces. Bucky and Tony finished devising plans and the comms went silent again.
So they waited. And waited. And of course, it was in silence because when did Bucky ever like to talk? So Penny spiraled and spiraled and spiraled. She wished she was stuck down here with someone more talkative… Sam, maybe. Well, maybe not Sam. He would probably use it as an excuse to therapize her. Leave it to her to get placed on a mission with all the serious Avengers and a therapist. And Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark, as much as she wished he was here, she found she didn’t want to be trapped down here with him, per se. It was too… complicated. For reasons Tony didn’t even understand, which was worse. She had never told Tony about what happened on Homecoming night, not really. He knew about the plane, but that was about it. Having him here for whatever was happening to her now would have been… messy.
Because now, she felt like she could barely breathe, like her entire body was closing in on her, her chest concaving and her stomach doing flips. She managed to keep her tears silent, letting out quiet, short gasps of air. Karen had gone down when the building had and the darkness was even darker through the shattered lenses of her mask. She wished she could rip it off. Really, she wished she could pull the entire suit off. She hadn’t had her suit when the building collapsed on her. The darkness made it hard for her to remember where she was. God, her suit felt like it was getting tighter every second. She let out a shuddering breath, squeezing more tears out of the corners of her eyes.
Fuck it. She was done honoring Bucky’s sacred silence. She was too far gone for all that. She needed to put a lid on it, now.
“So we tried not talking, can we try talking now?” She called out in a high, anxious voice. She thought she may have heard Bucky groan.
“We’re stuck under a building. Stark is coming to get us, eventually. The mission failed. What’s there to talk about?” Bucky deadpanned from the darkness. His tone sent a flash of irritation through Penny and despite the darkness, she rolled her eyes. But she didn’t care. Irritation was better than crippling fear.
“Well, for starters, don’t think we failed the mission. Whatever was behind that door has definitely been dealt with.” Her words were juttering and stilted by uneven breaths and shakes but she found it slightly easier to breathe. She still had on her mask. She was still Spider-Girl. And Spider-Girl was an overbrimming pot of unhelpful commentary and misplaced confidence. Spider-Girl could handle this.
“But we can talk about anything. Favorite food, favorite movies, or I guess books in your case…” Penny trailed off. She definitely heard a groan this time.
“Or we could talk about your super fun brooding act instead,” Penny deadpanned. Bucky was silent again. The air was stifling again.
“Please? Can you just stop being a silent misunderstood tragic figure or whatever it is you’re doing for one second?” Penny’s voice peaked in a frantic cry and she shut her eyes hard, squeezing out more unending tears. A moment passed and she immediately regretted her outburst; perfectly fine not disturbing the Winter Soldier any longer and handling her mounting anxiety attack in silence.
“You know, maybe you are Tony’s kid.” The randomness, the pure absurdity of it, stopped Penny’s brain completely in its tracks. She let out a confused laugh, despite herself.
“What?” She asked, incredulous.
“But Sam said… oh, goddamnit.” Penny let out a small giggle and the pain in her chest started to recede a bit.
“How was I supposed to know? No one tells me anything. And Tony slept around in the 90s, everybody knows that,” He grumbled half to himself, half to Penny.
“So you automatically assumed I was a bastard child of a 90s Tony Stark love affair?” Penny forced out between laughs.
“Whatever. Drop it.” Bucky commanded, sheepishly. Abruptly putting an end to that discussion. Although talking was helping, Penny still felt anxious and disoriented, her mind still mixing the past and the present together in blips. One moment, she heard Bucky next to her, the next it was the taunting threats of the Vulture. And for some reason, she felt cold. She felt dizzy.
“Have you ever been crushed by a building before?” She wasn’t sure why she asked it. She just couldn’t stand the silence and the spinning and it was all she could think about: being crushed by a building again.
Bucky let out a short, surprised laugh.
“A couple of times. Not an experience I enjoy.” Penny ‘hmm’ed in agreement, eyes closed, trying to control the spinning in her head.
“Have you?” Bucky returned the question after a moment and Penny bit back a bitter smile as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Yeah, actually. A few months ago. A parking garage, eight stories.” She shuddered as flashes of the building appeared behind her eyelids. She could feel Bucky’s shock, even in the darkness. He hadn’t been expecting that.
“What happened?” Penny’s eyes shot open, even though it made her head swim. Bucky had never, not once in the time they’d known each other, ever asked her a follow-up question—much less one about herself.
“Oh, uh, there was this guy--the dad of my date to homecoming, actually--that was using Chiatri tech left over from after New York to make weapons. He had a whole organized thing going on, very impressive, honestly. And he built himself this insane wingsuit…” She was rambling and she knew it. She was pretty sure Bucky knew it, too. She took a breath and tried to steady herself.
“Well, I had been trying to take him down for a while,” Penny grimaced when she heard Bucky chuckle as she said ‘take him down’, “And I found out that he was planning to hijack the plane transporting Mr. Stark’s tech from the Stark tower during the move, so I went after him.” Her eyes slipped closed again, doing nothing to stop the spinning. God, she felt like she was drunk. And she couldn’t stop shivering but she couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or cold.
“How does that equal you getting crushed by a parking garage?” Bucky questioned.
“I tracked him to a parking garage all the way out in Jersey. I thought I had him, but he tricked me. Took out the building supports while I was busy dodging missiles that weren’t even meant for me.” Her mind was starting to get hazy. Her panic was melting away, but it didn’t feel like a good thing when a cold clamminess took its place. Maybe there had been something wrong with her. Maybe she was hurt.
“How did you get out?” This question was slightly softer, gentler. As if he knew that was the worst part to think about. Because it was. Those moments before Penny had forced her way out of the rubble had been the most terrifying of her life. She had sobbed, called for help, called for anyone--even Mr. Stark--and no one had come. She had been engulfed in the realization that she was completely on her own… her life was in her hands, and her hands alone.
“I lifted it off of me.” It was just loud enough for Bucky to hear. A faint smile played on Penny’s lips, even as the residual terror of that moment bounced around inside of her. It was no small feat, lifting an eight-story parking garage off of herself. Bucky knew it, too.
“Jesus, kid.” Bucky breathed out, a dry shocked laugh following shortly after.
“I’ve never told anyone that before.” She mused to the darkness, numbly thinking she should tell Bucky something was wrong. But her heart had finally stopped racing, and the weight on her body had disappeared, leaving a strange numbness in its absence.
“Is Mr. Stark coming soon? I’m cold.” Penny remarked, almost sounding like she was realizing it for the first time. Her voice sounded different, a lost quality to it. Bucky’s eyes narrowed in the darkness, suddenly sensing something bad in the space between them.
“Penny? What do you--what’s wrong?” Bucky kept his voice level but he couldn’t deny the slight edge that crept in. If only he could see her…
“I think… I think I’m hurt. My leg, it hurt when I first woke up but the the pain went away. I thought--but now I’m cold. I can’t stop shivering. And I’m tired. I’m really tired, Bucky.” A stifled sob escaped Penny’s lips as fear seeped into her words and she realized how badly she didn’t want to die buried under Hydra rubble.
As soon as she said those words, it was like the air in their buried cavern became charged with frenzied energy but Penny could do nothing but lay there, pinned beneath a building, a strange terrifying apathy restricting her from being a part of anything anymore.
“Shit, okay. Okay, it’s okay. Just stay awake. Stay awake,” Bucky instructed, his voice instantly laced with trepidation.
“Stark? Stark, I need you to answer, come on…” Bucky fought with the static radiating from the comms as Penny’s breathing got shallower and shallower. Until finally, Bucky’s calls were returned.
“Hello? Barnes? Bucky?” Tony’s tired voice came through the comms.
“Yes, yes, it’s me, can you hear me?” Bucky’s words were rushed, none of the formal professionalism Penny had heard before.
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. We’re almost done here, I promise. These Hydra assholes are persistent, I’ll give them that.” Tony grunted and something exploded in the distance. Penny drifted in and out of the conversation, her mind flittering between places in time. Seeing Ben, Mr. Stark, and Toomes all at once.
“Stark you need to come get us, now. Something’s wrong with the kid.” Bucky quickly cut off Tony’s chauvinism, a chill running through the radio waves.
“What.” It wasn’t a question, it was a threat. It reminded Penny of when he had taken her suit. When had he taken her suit, again?
“She said something about her leg, that she was cold and tired--something is wrong, Stark.” Bucky struggled to explain the urgency as he pulled against the concrete trapping his metal arm. If he could just get to her, maybe that would be something.
“She told me she was fine. You told me she was fine.” Penny shriveled at the anger in his voice. Was he angry at her again? Was he going to take the suit away? It was because she had failed. She was still trapped under this building while the Vulture was running loose in the skyline of New York City. Tears ran tracks down her cheeks as she listened to Bucky plead with Tony.
“Just stop talking. I don’t want to hear from you anymore.” Bucky’s mouth snapped closed with a click. The only sound was Penny’s wheezing breaths bouncing off the rubble.
“Penny? Kid, you there?” Tony’s voice transformed from furious to gentle in a second and Penny found that only made her cry more. It hurt her heart in a different place, being talked to like that.
“Mr. Stark?” She slurred out, finding it impossible to keep her eyes open when she could hardly tell the difference between open and closed anymore.
“Yeah, kiddo. Where’s it hurt?” He was trying to keep his voice light but Penny could hear something beneath it. What, she wasn’t sure. Something sad.
“Can’t feel anything… I’m just cold.” It was all she could manage, her energy was completely sapped, suddenly. Her eyes slid shut, or maybe they had been shut already. She heard Mr. Stark curse angrily on the comms as Friday informed him Karen was down.
“I know. But I need you to stay awake until I get there, can you do that?” Someone yelled in the distance. The sound of Tony’s repulsers flooded the comms. And Penny was starting to float away to somewhere else. She was many places at once.
“No one’s coming,” she whispered to herself, a remnant of her memories breaking free. She had repeated the same phrase over and over under that parking garage until she believed it enough to help herself.
“Pen?” Tony questioned, something like fear in his voice.
“No one came, last time.” She corrected herself, mildly proud she had been able to distinguish the difference between the buildings that had landed on top of her.
“What?” Tony spit out, a million emotions trapped behind the word. But Penny couldn’t care to think about that now. She was floating away, everything becoming distant and fuzzy on a delusional horizon.
“I’m sorry.” She remembered at the last second that Mr. Stark had asked her to stay awake, but it was too difficult this time. She couldn’t fight against exhaustion any longer. She drifted away completely to the sounds of Tony’s cries.