This was her moment, Penny could feel it. The air around her felt zapped with electricity as she swung through the towering trees of the Rockies. Mister Stark had called her out of the blue, asking her to sub in on a mission with the Avengers. The Avengers! Some months had passed since she turned down Tony’s offer and, while she still saw him at least once a week in his lab, their meetings had begun to dwindle. And Penny couldn’t stop the thought creeping into her mind that maybe turning him down had been a bad decision. Maybe, Tony wouldn’t give her another chance to join. The self doubt that used to plague her before she transformed into Spider-Girl, came back in full force and she couldn’t help the feeling that she had disappointed Tony somehow. That, maybe… no he wouldn’t… but maybe he didn’t want her around anymore.
But then, he had asked her to sub in on this mission, this very important mission, and Penny saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. She had a chance to prove herself to, not only Mister Stark, but all the Avengers. And she was on fire. She had already taken down three HYDRA vehicles effortlessly, awarding her a ‘good job kid’ from Mister Stark, making her cheeks burn.
“Underoos, on your left.” Tony’s voice cut through her happy daydream and she quickly darted to the left, turned to face a HYDRA convoy armed with a dozen men and guns. The bullets started before she had a chance to make a plan of attack. Luckily, her spidey-senses sprung into action, and she was quickly darting between bullets and tree limbs shooting out webs and flinging agents off the armored van. Before long, the last man had been flung from the vehicle, and it went careening into a tree, wrapping its headlights around it. Penny grinned to herself and perched on a tree limb, peering down at the damage.
“We should be good for the next thirty meters.” Clint’s soft voice crackled through the comms. Penny watched as the Avengers gathered beneath her, waiting until she saw Tony pull back his faceplate and give her a soft smile. Only then, did she quietly climb down from her perch, dropping soundlessly in the soft snow beneath her.
The rest of the team stood around, discussing battle formations and plans but Penny wasn’t paying attention. The only thing she could focus on was Tony’s hand on her shoulder, wordlessly telling her she was doing good. She felt like she was glowing. Then the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and her blood ran cold. Tony noticed the shift, the way all her muscles tensed at once and the eyes on her mask narrowed, as if she was looking for something.
“Spidey? Everything o-” But before he could finish, Penny was shoving him to the ground and sending webs out to the rest of the team: Steve, Clint, and Nat. Something soared over their heads and an explosion sounded behind them, blowing a cloud of debris over them all. By the time the rest of the team was on their feet, Penny was already swinging above them, slinging debris and webs at the small army beginning to surround them.
“Kid!” Tony managed to cry out, all the warnings he could manage while trying to take stock of the events around him.
“Don’t worry, I got it, Mister Stark!” Penny’s strained voice flooded Tony’s ears as his HUD whirred to life and he shot up above the treeline to warn the others what they were about to face. Already, their small team was taking heavy fire from a small team of HYDRA agents, but about forty yards back, a small army was beginning to surround them outfitted with heavy artillery they had no match against.
“They know we’re here. We have to abort, we can’t take what’s about to hit us.” Tony rushed back down to the fight, bringing a few agents with him. Their numbers seemed to multiply as the battle raged on and despite the fact the Avengers were holding their own, their strength was starting to dwindle.
“We just need to last a little longer, just long enough for Banner to provide air support and get us out of here. Just a bit longer, copy?” The confident voice of Captain America was followed by a chorus of unenthusiastic agreements. Penny’s glow was starting to wane. Some of the HYDRA agents had managed to get in a few good shots and spots of her suit were burned through and smoldering. She was covered in a thin sheet of blood and grime and her muscles were burning with the effort of staying above the ground. But she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop moving. She had to keep up with the others. She swung across the small clearing the team had been confined to, sending a few webs into the faces of agents as she did, and grabbed hold of another tree, wincing as an explosion went off behind her. Her head whipped to the sky as Iron Man whizzed by her ear, a HYDRA van following behind on the ground.
Her body knew what was happening before her mind did. Her eyes followed the line between the HYDRA van’s gun and Tony and she gathered every bit of strength she had left and lept outwards from her perch, flinging her arm out to Tony. His back was to her, he was ignorant of the events unfolding behind him. Penny shot a web from her outstretched arm, reaching until it found the back of Tony’s armor and then she yanked hard, simultaneously pulling Tony back and launching herself forward. Before Tony could process what was going on, could stop it and pull her into him, the world behind them exploded with light and Penny’s world launched into darkness.
***
Penny’s web launched Tony to the ground, pinning him against the trunk of a pine tree. He looked around frantically, at his teammates, his friends, fighting relentlessly against HYDRA forces. No one was looking at them. No one had seen. The world seemed to slow to half speed then. He looked up again, at Penny’s body launching defiantly through the air and, much like she had done moments earlier he followed the line between the gun and Penny and it clicked.
“Get down!” His cry rang through the comms as he threw himself behind the tree. Each Avenger hit the ground without thinking, covering their heads and hoping for the best. Tony felt like he could barely breathe. His brain was pounding with a resounding Penny, Penny, Penny. He peered his head around the tree in time to see whatever HYDRA had fired at Penny explode, sending shrapnel hurtling into the air. A scream was ripped from his throat as he watched a chunk crack against Penny’s head and her body stiffened. Her limbs went slack as she reached the arc of her leap and her body began to fall, plummeting back down to Earth.
Tony felt the air rip from his lungs and his heart clenched painfully. Before he had time to think about it, he launched himself from the ground in a sharp arc towards Penny’s careening body. Bodies were strewn beneath him and he quietly hoped his friends weren’t among them. The blast had been large enough, and violent enough, to wipe them all out; a final attempt to wipe the Avengers off the map for good, no matter the cost. All this swam in Tony’s head, but for now, all he could focus on was catching his kid before she hit the ground. The trees were getting more dense around him, the ground closer, but so was she. Finally, he reached his arms out and grabbed her, gathering her close, before launching off into the sky again and landing a few yards away, outside the perimeter of agents.
“Report. Report. Who’s okay?” Tony’s voice was shaky, he didn’t quite recognize it as it left his mouth. He hadn’t let himself look at the girl in his arms yet. She hadn’t moved since he grabbed her, hadn’t made a sound. Neither had the comms. Then,
“I’m here. I’ve got Nat. We’re… we’re okay.” Tony didn’t like that pause, but he didn’t have a choice but to trust Steve’s voice.
“Clint?” Tony knew Hawkeye had a mysterious way of evading death and he hoped it would work its magic a final time.
“Yep. Here. What the fuck just happened?” He sounded as annoyed as ever, despite just surviving a massive explosion.
“Some kind of… super weapon. Spider-Girl is down. I’m with her about thirty yards from you guys.” Tony finally let himself look down. Penny’s suit was charred and burned away in places, revealing blood and ash-sooted skin beneath. Half her mask had been ripped away and what Tony could see of her face was almost completely coated in thick crimson blood. He swallowed hard as he felt the blood drain from his face.
“We’ll meet you there. That blast did a number on their own forces. In a strange way, we got lucky.” Steve grunted and muffled static rang through the comms, ending the conversation. But Tony felt like he was going to be sick. Lucky? Leave it to Steve to put a positive spin on any situation.
“You’re right, Cap. I’m feeling real lucky. You feeling lucky, Nat?” Tony’s voice rose with panic as his adrenaline began to fade. A pained, “very” rang out in response.
“And where the fuck is our extraction?” Tony threw his hands to the sky, his voice an angry strangled cry.
“Five minutes.” Clint’s voice was cold and calculated, like always. Tony took that as a natural end to the conversation and pulled his faceplate back, finally kneeling in front of Penny. He began to slip his fingers beneath what was left of her mask, pulling it slowly up her battered face, when her eyes popped open. While Tony was flooded with relief that she was alive--she was alive--he could instantly tell she had a head injury. Her eyes were wild and unfocused, her irises scurrying back and forth across Tony’s face.
“What? No… wait…” Jumbled retaliations were lobbed at Tony with admirable strength as Penny fought against an attacker she couldn’t place.
“It’s me. It’s me. It’s just me, kid.” Tony gently deflected her limbs, placing them back down by her side. Her face scrunched up in confusion and for a moment her eyes cleared.
“Mister Stark?” her words were slightly slurred and Tony grimaced. Her head was scrambled, for sure.
“Yeah, kid. You know where you are? What you’re doing?” Tony’s worried gaze danced over her, taking stock of the injuries he could see riddling her body. So far, it didn’t look like anything she couldn’t heal from, they just needed to deal with her head. Her eyes were perpetually open wide, like a deer in headlights. And although she was looking at him, Tony felt as though she was looking through him, instead.
“Yeah, I’m on a special mission. It was going to be my chance to get Mister Stark to invite me back. You think he saw me?” Penny’s words had a thick quality about them, like she was having trouble spitting them out. Tony’s heart clenched tightly and it felt like his throat followed suit. Not only was her head injury worse than he thought, but this was how she felt? That he was someone she needed to earn something from? That he had left her in the dust? But those were questions for a later time. For now, he needed to focus on the problem at hand.
“I’m Mister--I’m Tony, remember?” he tried to keep his voice gentle and steady, treating her like a startled animal.
“Oh, right.” Her voice was quiet. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on. She was finding it hard to hold anything in her mind It kept slipping out like a bowl of water placed on a shaky pedestal. All she could cling to was a memory of hope. A hope to please Tony Stark, to make him proud of her. Now, all she could figure was she was laying on her back in the snow, staring at trees. She was cold and she was confused.
“Let me take a look at that nasty head wound.” She found herself nodding but she hadn’t really understood what he had said. An acute pain was starting to radiate from the side of her head in crippling waves throughout her body. Gentle hands moved her head and a face appeared above her. She knew that face, it was Mister Stark. But he looked upset, angry even. Had she done something wrong? Messed up the mission?
“I’m sorry… Did I? Is it all ruined because of me?” She wasn’t sure what she was talking about but she knew these were questions that needed answering. This was the question that ate away at her late at night. Tony reeled back a bit as if he had been struck.
“Nothing’s ruined. You couldn’t ruin anything.” He had found a shard of shrapnel embedded in Penny’s head that, thank God, FRIDAY had told him missed anything important. Their situation had just gone from dangerous to dire. Where was that evac? He threw a glance behind his shoulder, peering into the tree line for the rest of his team. Nothing. He turned back to Penny, to her injury, to her blood.
She had begun to cry. Not sobs, or cries of pain, just the soft endless tears of a child, accompanied by occasional moans and whimpers. Tony had taken to comforting her, pressing his lips close to her ear and whispering sweet nothings into her hair. He let her crush his hand, riding out the waves of pain that echoed throughout her.
Minutes passed and she only got worse.
“I just wanted to make him proud. I don’t know what to do” Penny’s pleas were broken up by sobs. Tony went still, the blood draining from his face.
“What? Penny, I’m not--what do you mean?” He stammered the words out through tense lips. Penny had her eyes closed tight, her expression contorted in pain. It was getting harder to think while fighting the agony in her body and she couldn’t remember where she was, or who she was talking to. All Penny knew was that the hands holding her close were gentle and caring and the last time she had been held like that had been her Uncle Ben.
“Mister Stark, Ben. You’ll like him. He’s… he’s funny. And nice… deep down.” Penny’s teeth were starting to chatter. Why was she cold? Was it snowing? Still, she forced the words out. It had been so long since she had seen her Uncle and she wanted to talk to him.
Tony, however, felt like a brick had been dropped on his head. She thought he was her uncle. And she was talking about him… like this. It made his heart pound and his stomach flip. The monster birthed from guilt and shame that lay within him threatened to destroy him from the inside out. He should have paid more attention to her. He should have let her in completely, mentored her after she had declined the Avengers. He just hadn’t wanted to let her get close, let her get hurt by him. Ruined by him like he had ruined so many other people.
“Uncle Ben? Are you there?” Her voice got small then. Tinged with a childlike terror. Tony took a shaky breath and swallowed hard, trying to keep whatever emotion was crawling up his throat at bay.
“Yeah. Yeah, Penny, I’m here.” His voice was strained with emotion and the two short sentences were all he could manage. He heard Cap in his ear, telling him to hold on another minute, they got caught up with a rogue HYDRA squad but to him, it might as well have been the wind.
“Oh, good. I get scared people are going to leave, sometimes.” She paused for a moment, tightening her grip on Tony’s hand, hard, A pained groan escaped her lips and Tony brought her closer into him, shielding her from the wind.
“My mom and dad left. Liz left. I haven’t seen you in… in so long, Ben I missed you, a lot.” She started to cry harder as she spoke, her body shaking spasmodically between her sobs and her shivers. The emotion welled up in Tony and all he could do was hold her close to him and gape helplessly at the girl he had neglected.
And now because of me, Mister Stark is going to leave too.” And there it was. The final twist of the knife in Tony’s heart. How do you explain to a doe-eyed kid who’s excited by the world around them that you spent your childhood as a neglected afterthought? That the only attention you received was in the form of a slap? How do you explain that you made up for that childhood with an adulthood of heavy drinking and endless, endless, mistakes? He had seen himself make enough mistakes to know he owed it to Penny Parker to stay as far away as possible. But of course, Penny knew nothing of that. Of course, wonderful Penny only saw him as the reformed childhood hero she wanted him to be. So of course, Penny thought he was abandoning her.
“No, kid, no. I would never--I’m sure Tony would never leave you.” This time he couldn’t hold back the tears and he spit the words out through clenched teeth with wet cheeks. But Penny fought against him. She tried to shake her head ‘no’ but it sent radiating waves of pain out that forced a cry from between her lips. Tony tried to soothe her, to tell her he understood, but each movement felt impossible, monumentous.
“No, I think I ruined it. I think I did something to mess up the mission.” She had stopped shaking and her lips had turned an icy shade of blue. Penny needed warmth and blood soon or she wasn’t going to survive. Tony threw a glance behind him again, hoping to see boots breaking through the tree line, but again, nothing.
“Mess it up? No, honey, no. You didn’t mess it up, you did great. Better than great, you were amazing.” You saved me. You saved my life. He couldn’t get the rest of it out, he thought he might shatter.
“Really?” Ben was starting to fade, the world was starting to get dark for Penny. She could feel the darkness flitting at the edges of her vision but she didn’t want to go yet, although sleep sounded so enticing. She wanted to keep talking to Ben, she didn’t know when she would see him again. She wanted to scream out, cling to him, refuse to let him go, but her limbs felt like concrete by her sides. She couldn’t do anything more than ignore the panicked cries from above her and finally let her eyelids slide shut.
The next time she was awake, she was in the med bay of the Avengers compound in upstate New York. Her body felt like she had been hit by a train and her head felt like it had been filled with cotton. The steady beeping of her machines mingled with Tony’s steady breathing as the only sounds Penny could hear. She opened her eyes completely and tried to turn her head towards Tony, only to be met with acute and intense pain. She let out a surprised ‘oh’ that led to a pained groan.
“Kid? Penny? You okay?” Tony shook himself awake and was half standing, half sitting over Penny, his face a mask of concern.
“Yeah, yeah, just my head… What…” She was about to ask him what had happened, when it all seemed to rush back to her. She couldn’t really remember anything after the explosion but she felt the remnants of a deep feeling she had done something wrong. Ruined something in some way. She felt the blood drain from her face and spared a quick glance at Tony, gauging his expression. Was it concern she was reading on his face, or was it disappointment?
“That makes sense. You took a pretty intense knock to the noggin. How are you feeling?” He leaned forward, searching her face for any shred of the girl he had seen the night before, the girl who had sobbed into the arms of her uncle.
“Fine, fine. Honestly, Mister Stark, you didn’t need to take me here, I would have been fine. I can go ahead and go, I’m sure Aunt May’s worried.” Penny’s words came out in quick rambling fashion. She had decided it was disappointment she saw in his tired eyes and wringing hands. Why else would she feel so deeply she had done something wrong? She just wanted to go home to May who would hug her and tell her everything was fine and wrap her in her love.
“What? Kid--”
“No, Mister Stark, I’m sorry for interrupting you but I just, I need to go home. And I’m--” she stopped herself, feeling the shame and embarrassment welled up behind her chest and eyes, but she forced herself to continue. She owed him an apology. “I’m sorry I messed everything up. I know this mission was important, and I know you trusted me by asking me to come. I didn’t mean to make things harder, I just… I just wanted to help, to show you I can be helpful.” She kept her eyes down at the sheets covering her lap. She didn’t want Tony to see the thin sheen of tears over eyes, or the way her chin was trembling as she spoke.
“Penny.” He said her name with so much grief behind it, she almost looked up at him. He sounded so much older, more human, than she had heard before. It was as if he had dropped the curtain.
“Pen, please, look at me.” Before he could think better of it, he was reaching a hand beneath her chin and guiding her gaze until his clouded eyes were locked with her doe ones. They were ringed with red, unshed tears and he couldn’t stop himself from projecting the image of her a night before into his mind.
“You don’t need to be helpful to have a place here. You don’t need to prove your worth. There will always be a place for you here on this team, whenever you want it. And if you never want it? I’ll still be here correcting your equations and giving you new tech. I promise.” Tony stopped when the tears Penny had been holding back started to overflow. Her shoulders shook silently up and down as she took in Tony’s promise. She hadn’t truly realized, and she still didn’t, how deeply her fear of abandonment had rooted itself. She hadn’t realized how deeply she had longed to hear those words from him, what she was looking for in him. He gave her a watery, half smile and wiped some stray tears from her cheek. She reddened and chuckled anxiously, hastily wiping the rest away, leaving her face a red swollen mess.
“I didn’t know,” she choked out, “I thought maybe, because I said no to the Avengers…” she couldn’t find it in her to finish, it sounded so stupid to her now. By just the look on Tony’s face after she said it, she could tell all her worries had been in vain. He looked like he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
“Kid, I couldn’t care less whether you want to hang around with my middle-aged work friends, okay? If anything, I thought you were bored of one old man in particular.” He flashed her a smile but she waved her hands through the air like she could wave away his words.
“No, Mister Stark, never. I just, I thought it was a test. Like some sort of mental, morality test?” Her voice shrank as she said it, and again, hearing her thoughts out loud, she realized how dumb she had been. This comment earned her a true laugh from Tony, however. Despite herself, Penny let a smile creep through her tear-stained face.
“But seriously, kid. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you on the back burner. I made a bad call. I thought… Well, I don’t know, I thought I’d eventually end up hurting you. Thought it might be better if you kept a safe distance from me. I ended up hurting you anyway, kid, I see that. I want to be there for you. I want to be someone you can turn to when you need it. Who can… guide you. Help you.” Penny bit back a secret smile as she watched Tony turn a bit sheepish, unsure of his words for the first time Penny had ever seen. She could understand keeping people at a distance. There had always existed a part of her that was scared that death clung close to her. That she was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen.
“Mister Stark, I… Are you sure?” She didn’t know what else to say. It was the only thing she could think of. He drew his eyebrows back and kind of scoffed at the air in response.
“Penny, am I sure? Yes. Yes, I am sure. Don’t ask me a question like that again, kid, please. I want you here, okay? Now get some rest.” He stood then, readying himself to leave the room. Penny laid her head back down, heeding Tony’s command. As he left the room, she felt her eyes drift close, heavy with the promise of sleep.
She would never fully rid herself of the part of her that wanted to pull everyone close to her, keep them safe and make it so they can never leave, but for now it fell silent. She was safe in the warm embrace of Tony’s promises and for now, that was enough. For now, she could sleep soundly knowing tomorrow she would wake and he would be there, too.