if i could take you up in paradise up above
Ever since Penny Parker was small, she had always admired the soulmate system.
She loved hearing stories about people finding their own true love, their other half. She couldn't wait until she got her own soulmate mark, or their name on her wrist, or their empathy link, or whatever was supposed to indicate her significant other.
First it was her parents. Up until the age of six, every single night without a fault, her parents would tuck her in gently, kiss her forehead and tell her the tale of how they met.
Her parents weren't able to see colours. Until they met, that is. She loved listening to them talk about how her father had walked into the diner, looking at the cute waitress before ordering the blue milkshake. She loved listening to the part where his dad's brain shut down because wait, blue milkshake? She loved hearing about how they went on countless dates after that, their first kiss under the cliched sunset at the beach, their college days together.
She heard it every night, yet she never got tired of hearing it.
Until they got cruelly snatched away from her in that plane crash. She never heard the story again.
Although she was still happy, because she had her aunt May and uncle Ben to look after her.
They wouldn't ever replace her parents, but they still held a special place in their hearts. She started asking about their story.
She loved hearing their story, too. They were able to see each other's auras. They always started about how a grieving aunt May had been out for the first time since her best friend's death. How she had walked into that concert, as beautiful as ever. How she had danced and sung at the top of her lungs with her friends, letting go of her grief and sadness and guilt for one night. How uncle Ben had caught sight of her powerful bright red aura, and faceplanted on the dirty concrete floor trying to get to her. How that ungraceful faceplant had attracted her aunt's attention, and how she had turned her head to see a handsome young lad (as she liked to say) surrounded by a blinding blue aura. She loved hearing about the dates that followed, the kisses, the cuddles, the movie nights, everything.
She listened to it every night. It never, ever got tiring.
Later, two months and five days after her fourteenth birthday, she had gotten bitten by that spider. The spider that would unknowingly change her life, turn it upside down.
When she had learned about her powers, she had been ecstatic. Because, come on, it would be every teenager's dream to be able to stick to walls, hear things that happened in another country, using her inhumane strength to move trucks with her bare hands. The first few weeks, she had gone crazy.
But then, tragedy struck, like it always did.
She had yelled at her uncle, who frankly didn't deserve it. She had stormed out of the house in a blind rage, red obscuring her vision. It had been her fault her uncle had come after her, her fault he got shot. Even with her powers, she couldn't save him. She let the mugger get away, she saw him die in her arms, blood seeping through his clothes. She begged him not to go even though she knew it was too late. She saw the paramedics take him away through her now tear-stained vision.
Later, she had taken off, blind hatred overpowering her common sense, to find the man who did this to her. He hadn't gotten far. She punched and kicked and punched and kicked and punch kick punch kick punch kick before she had realised what she was doing was wrong. She came back to her senses and gave the bloody, barely alive figure on the ground one last disdainful look before webbing him up and swinging away.
When she had gotten home, the police officer was already there. He had just told May about the incident. Together, they sobbed and clung to each other to find what little comfort they had left.
During the days following the incident, she had stopped talking completely. Her best friends, Ned, Harry and MJ were starting to worry increasingly more. Flash had gotten worse. He would shove her against the lockers, and punch her, kick her, calling her a worthless orphan, a waste of space.
Penny never tried to stop it because she knew she deserved it all. She started believing Flash.
Until one day, when her world stopped turning. The day she had come home to see her aunt, her beautiful, strong willed aunt, hanging by a fucking rope.
She didn't know what to do. She broke down sobbing, crying, screaming, trying to get away from it all because this was all her fault. She had called the police, informing them about the cold lifeless body, her aunt's cold, lifeless body, that was currently hanging from a rope in the living room.
She ran away. She went to live in an abandoned warehouse somewhere close by. She had stopped attending her school. She started hurting herself, emotionally and physically. She had gotten a part time job at a local supermarket, where she worked 6 hours a day, and then spent the rest of her day being Spider-Woman. She was dirty, her hair was greasy, er eyes were bloodshot, her wrists were bloody.
That's how Tony Stark found her, on her fifteenth birthday. He had been looking for Spider-Woman, not Spider-Girl. When he had first seen her, he couldn't believe his eyes. He was expecting lots of things, but a starving, hurting fifteen year-old was not one of them.
She had taken one step towards him before collapsing of exhaustion, hunger and pain.
One and a half weeks later, she had woken up in Stark Tower's med bay.
___
One year later, she was finally happy.
Tony and Pepper Stark had adopted her. She had gone back to Midtown, where she was now loved by everyone (save Flash) because of her bubbly, easy-going personality. She was a part of the Avenger's crazy family, going on missions and taking part in every movie night, training with Nat, baking with Bucky and pranking the team with Clint.
She had rediscovered her love for soulmates when her mom and dad had told her about their love story.
Tony Stark and Pepper Potts had soulmate tattoos, the most common soulmate indicator out there. She giggled every time about how they were working together for almost two years before realising they were each other's soulmates, which also happened by accident.
There was still a huge crevice in her heart where her parents, aunt and uncle used to be. Slowly but surely, that too was healing.
Penny was only missing one thing, and that was her soulmate
She didn't know how she would recognise them. She could see colours, she had no tattoo, she never felt any emotions that weren't hers.
So you could imagine her surprise when she woke up one morning with some kind of drawing on her hand.
It was as if someone was drawing something on it. She jumped up from her bed and ran to alert her parents and the team. They were all happy for her, congratulating her.
She had done her research. Apparently, what she had was pretty uncommon. Once their soulmate turned seventeen, they were able to draw something on their skin which would appear on their soulmate's skin.
Penny, who was currently two weeks away from her seventeenth birthday, was euphoric. She had a soulmate!!!
She only wished her soulmate would stop drawing dicks on their body, though.