Chapter 4
“No, no, let me go, please…” Penny whimpered as Tony entered the room. She was squirming against the frantic touches of the surgeons, her pupils blown out and expression wild.
“I need my mask, where’s my mask…” she mumbled, her half-lidded eyes scanning the room, desperately. Until they landed on Tony, frozen in scrubs, a terrified look on his face.
“Mr. Stark?” She asked, confused. Instantly, he was at her side. Helen was already back in the mix, barking orders at the team of scurrying surgeons. Tony tried not to look at her leg as he crossed the room to her, grateful for the curtain they had hung to block Penny’s vision.
“I’m here, kiddo. I’m here.” The words were nothing more than reflexes. His brain was nothing but a dense fog of guilt and terror and loathing. He felt like he was in a dream as he looked down at Penny’s wide watery eyes.
“You’re okay, you’re safe. These are my guys, you don’t have to worry.” Slowly Tony was returning to himself, recognizing the necessity of pulling himself together. Penny’s expression just remained hazy and confused, her eyebrows furrowing like she was struggling to put the pieces together.
“No this isn’t right, you’re not supposed to be here,” Penny muttered to herself and slumped back against the bed. Her gaze drifted from Tony’s to the ceiling, trying to put all the mixed up memories together. She had been alone, she had pulled herself out of that building on her own, hadn’t she?
“Toomes, where’s Toomes?” She questioned, a slight edge of panic in her voice. Tony felt his chest tighten. He struggled to come up with an answer.
“Kid, he’s in jail, it’s okay. You were with Buck and me, remember? The Hydra compound?” Tony gently prodded, pulling up a chair to save himself from the aching in his knees.
“Hydra compound…” she repeated, quietly, as if she was trying to make it sound true to her.
“Bucky was there?” A memory of him clawing his way to her flashed in her mind. He had held her hand.
“Yeah, kiddo. He was there. The building collapsed, but we got you out. You’re okay, now.” He brushed back the sweaty curls from her flushed face. It was a paternal gesture, one that surprised them both. Tony wasn’t sure why he had done it, it just felt natural.
“No, this isn’t right. This didn’t--Toomes is going after your plane--” Penny began to ramble, a sweat breaking out on her forehead as she tried to push herself up off the table. Tony guided her back down with a gentle hand, guilt weighing heavy on his body. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to this kid? He had just given her a fancy suit and ignored her, only to rip it away the second shit got tough. He was just like his father. It was getting harder to breathe all of a sudden. His father had done the exact same thing: thrown money at him, all the while lording it over his head, just waiting for a reason to take it all away. He wanted to vomit.
“Penny, look at me kid, please.” Tony began, choking down the self-loathing that had already begun swallowing him up. Slowly, she turned her head to him.
“Toomes is gone, okay? I promise. You saved my plane, you captured Toomes, and not a single person was hurt. And you did it all on your own, without the suit, and I’m--it shouldn’t have gone down like that.” Tony wasn’t sure Penny understood him. But it was eating him alive, his place in all this. His negligence.
“I tried to save him. I told him to listen to me, his suit was going to explode.” She was back to talking to the ceiling, back to a time before Tony existed.
“You did save him. You did good, kid.” Penny seemed somewhat relieved by that, relaxing slightly. Tony placed a hand on her shoulder, the sound of beeping machines and clinking surgical tools filled the room. Penny blinked a few times before her face seemed to crumpled and--to Tony’s dismay--big tears began to well in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, Mr. Stark. I know people could have been hurt on the ferry, I just thought I could save everyone and you might…” She trailed off, the tears now falling down her cheeks. Tony felt his heart snapping apart as she spoke. It didn’t matter that she didn’t finish, he knew what she was going to say, anyway. She thought he might notice her. Pay more attention to her, take her seriously. Instead of giving her a suit, dropping her in Berlin, and then never speaking to her again.
“Don’t think about that right now, okay? It’s all fine, kid, I promise. You don’t need to say sorry.” He just wished she would stop crying.
“Does this mean I get the suit back?” He hated how small and scared her voice was. Is this what it would have been like if he had been there that night? Was this what she had been like during that time without her suit? Just timid and unsure of herself?
“Of course, Pen. It’s yours. Whatever you want.” He couldn’t get the words out fast enough. She just nodded and shut her eyes, squeezing out tears.
“Thank you,” she said, quietly. Her lower lip trembled and she kept her eyes shut.
“No need to thank me. You earned it.” It was becoming hard for Tony to fight back the mass of self-loathing and guilt lodged in his throat. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together when Penny looked how she did and was saying what she was, and he felt like the biggest piece of shit in the world, he felt like he was his father.
“What’s happening? Why can’t I feel anything?” Tony was grateful for the subject change, even if it wasn’t exactly reassuring. He cleared his throat and blinked back tears before answering.
“A Hydra base fell on you and Buck. You hurt your leg, but we’re fixing you up, kid, I promise.” She seemed like she remembered what he was talking about and Tony took it as a good sign. But her breaths were starting to come out in little short gasps and one of her hands had slowly crept reflexively towards her chest.
“It was crushing me…” She gasped out, almost as if she just realized it.
“What, kid?” Tony jumped out of the chair, hovering over Penny, her wild eyes meeting his.
“It’s crushing me, I can’t get out. I can’t get out.” Tony saw the moment she slipped away from him, back into whatever delusion had taken hold. It was like a film lowered over her eyes, some sense of the present gone from her irises.
“Pen, you’re safe, look at me, you’re safe,” Tony tried, to no avail. Her hand was weakly clawing at her chest, her eyes bugging out of her head.
“Talk to me, kiddo, c’mon…” Tony’s hands hovered above her frail frame, locked in paralysis by panic and uncertainty. Penny’s crazed eyes locked onto Tony’s, full of terror.
“I can’t breathe…” she wheezed out and suddenly Tony realized the frantic noises of the surgeons had become a lot more frantic. Helen was yelling, he had never seen her do that. Tony returned Penny’s words with a stricken look and wheeled around to face the team of surgeons with bloody scrubs hidden behind a curtain.
“Helen, she says she can’t breathe,” Tony all but screamed out, his choked-up throat making his words come out tense and clipped. But before he could slam his fist down on the table and demand someone listen to him, Helen was firmly sitting him down in a chair and wrapping a rubber tube around his upper arm.
“She’s going into Hypovolaemic shock. We need to give blood immediately and our records state that you’re a universal blood donor, correct?” Helen had already set up the blood bag and found the vein while she was speaking, the needle poised and ready over his arm.
“Mr. Stark, Miss Parker needs a blood transfusion. Now. Are you a universal donor and do you consent to giving blood?” Helen had her patient voice on, Tony knew it. She was speaking to him like a teacher, firm and articulate. He could only imagine what he looked like, eyes wide and face pale, shaking like a leaf.
“Y-yes. Yes to both. Do it.” Helen didn’t waste time answering him. Instead, she swiftly inserted the needle and a chill ran down Tony’s spine as he felt the blood slowly seep out of him.
“Make her take deep breaths. We need to circulate as much oxygen as we can until we can perform the transfusion,” Helen tossed over her shoulder before rejoining her team behind the curtain. Tony just stared at her numbly, wide-eyed and shell-shocked, before his vision reoriented on the girl gasping in front of him.
“I can’t… It’s crushing me…” Penny squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out of the corners creating two wet spots on the sheets beneath her. Tony bit back whatever emotion welled within him but still found he wasn’t able to speak. Instead, he placed his hand on her chest softly, the sensation causing Penny’s eyes to shoot open.
“See, nothing is crushing you, Pen. I promise. It’s just my hand.” Tony’s voice was so soft, he was scared she wouldn’t hear him over the sounds of monitors and instruments. But the slight release in her shoulders signaled she had heard.
“Can’t… breathe…” She wheezed out, fear still shining in her eyes despite Tony’s reassurance.
“I know, kid. You just gotta hold on a little longer. Just take deep breaths for me, okay?” He took some of his own, prodding Penny to mirror them until she was able to take a few shaky breaths, each one accompanied by a rattling sound from deep within her chest that made Tony want to vomit.
“It… hurts…” Penny whispered, almost ashamed to admit it.
“I know. I know. But, hey, we’re gonna get some blood in you, and you’ll be good as new, huh?” Tony flashed a less-than-par grin and wished Penny would smile back instead of looking at him with that vacant, scared expression.
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice was so small and afraid.
“Not lying. You’re gonna be fine, kiddo.” He clenched and unclenched his fist, as if that could make the blood flow from his arm faster. Penny just closed her eyes slowly, her chin trembling as she fought against the tears running down her cheeks. Tony had never seen the kid cry before and, fuck, did he hate it. It made her look years younger, wide doe eyes filled to the brim with tears, her shoulders shaking against the strength of the shudders running through her body. Her face was puffy and pale, a thin layer of sweat coating it.
“Just breathe, Pen. C’mon, breathe…” he coaxed, shocked he was still able to speak now that he was devoting practically all of his energy to fighting the mounting panic attack brewing. But he would fight it down. Of course, he would. He would do anything for the girl in a wild mess on the operating table.
So he flexed his fist a few more times, pushed Penny’s sweaty curls from her face, and told her everything was going to be fine. He told her to take deep breaths and wiped the tears from her cheeks. He did this until Helen removed the needle from his arm and placed one in Penny’s. He sat by her in a state of paralyzed fear through the rest of the four-hour operation, holding her hand and telling her stupid jokes she never laughed at. He stayed through it all until Helen was walking him out of the operating room and the surgeons were wheeling Penny in the opposite direction and he jolted to a halt, a bewildered expression on his face. But Helen just calmly reassured him that she was resting, she was fine, the operation was successful, and he could see her when she woke up. He nodded numbly through all of it, letting Helen remove his scrubs and send him off in the direction of his room.
He glanced at his watch. Three in the morning. He stumbled to his room in a daze, stripping the clothes caked in Penny’s dried blood off and leaving them in a trail leading to his closet. He quickly donned a clean shirt and pants, making a stop in the bathroom to wash the blood off his hands. He caught a glance of himself in the bathroom mirror and almost didn’t recognize himself. He looked older than he imagined he could look. Blood streaked through his face and hair. Dark circles bore holes under his eyes, his face was pale and clammy, his hair thin.
He waited until the water ran clear and turned off the sink. He didn’t go to bed. Instead, he went to his garage, dropping into his desk chair with a heavy sigh.
“Friday? Can you tell me if any parking garages collapsed in Jersey around October?” His voice was a shell.
“Certainly, sir. I have found reports of three parking garages collapsing in October.” Friday’s chipper voice replied.
“Look through the footage. Is Penny in any of it?” He already knew what the answer was. He wasn’t even sure why he was seeking it out, he already knew it was true. Part of him thought it was to punish himself. To rub his nose in his failure, remind him he was nothing more than a xerox of his shitty father.
“It appears Miss Parker was involved in one of the collapses.” Tony sighed.
“Send me the footage.” It was like a death sentence.
Tony sat still in the darkness, his anguish illuminated only by the grainy CCTV footage of Penny and the parking garage captured by a traffic camera. He watched her sprint into view in her ill-fitting, DIY suit, and something in his chest snapped. She looked like a kid playing dress-up. Something got lodged in his throat when she paused in front of the entrance and took a few deep breaths, clearly pumping herself up to go inside. And then she did. And Tony watched the still footage of the garage for fifteen minutes before, suddenly, the supports exploded and the building fell, but not before Toomes flew off into the night. And then the rubble filled his screen for eleven minutes before Penny fought free, rising from the destruction with a concrete beam raised over her head, her mouth open in a yell and her face contorted in pain. He was grateful there wasn’t sound. He didn’t want to hear her screams. Had she called for him? Her suit was in tatters. She was bent at an awkward angle, hobbling a few steps before breaking into a limping jog and slinging a web, sending her shooting into the sky.
Tony felt like he could throw up. He wanted a drink and he wanted a cigarette and he wanted a tall building to throw himself off of. He allowed himself the drink from a secret stash in his desk and split the difference on the building by asking Friday for more footage of that night, from the beach, from his plane, anything he could get his hands on. He pieced together what she went through, what she had done for him, and all it did was expand the black pit of guilt and shame roiling in his gut. If he had just let her keep the suit, she could have called him. He would have been there in a second, he would have told her to go home while he handled the rest. She never should have had to lift a building off herself. Or fight a winged maniac hundreds of feet in the air. By the end of the night, she had been reduced to a bloody, bruised pulp and he could only imagine what sort of medical care she was giving herself.
He continued to refill his glass as he poured through each moment of the night, finally landing on the security camera footage from the Coney Island Boardwalk. He was drunk now, full of nothing but pathetic self-loathing and strangling anguish. The world blurred around the edges as he watched that man pick his kid off the ground and slam her back into it, hauling her limp body in the air like it was a trophy. He could kill Toomes, watching him stand over Penny’s hunched frame, his wings spread menacingly across the horizon. His body flooded with drunken rage, already crafting ways to get access to his prisoner files and organize something under the table. But then he watched Penny leap into fire to go after him when his wingsuit exploded. He watched her haul his body to safety, battling against her own countless injuries and shaking legs, eventually webbing him to his cargo and quickly scrawling a note. She didn’t use the web slingers to leave. She didn’t have the strength, he realized. She just limped slowly out of frame.
Meanwhile, Tony had been at a tech conference upstate, schmoozing and boozing with other rich assholes without a care in the world. The next morning, he woke up to a text from Happy: a picture of Toomes webbed to his cargo with a note text to him that read ‘FOUND: Flying Vulture Guy. P.S. Sorry about your plane’. He smiled and told himself he would call Penny later, let her know she did good. Instead, he sent her back the suit and kept his distance.
Yeah, not like his old man at all.