Chapter Text
Penny tossed and turned in her bed, trying to wake up from the nightmare she was stuck in. Her mind refused to realize that what was happening was just a dream.
“Aunt May! Uncle Ben! No! Please! Please don’t leave me! I don’t have anyone else! You can’t leave me alone! Please!!” Penny cried, hands covered in blood, covered in her aunt may och uncle Ben’s blood. Trying to stop the bleeding had been of no use. They were already gone by the time the ambulance had pulled up at the street near the grocery store. They’d been at the store, doing their weekly grocery shopping when a burglar had tried robbing the store, Ben, being the hero he was, had tried to stop him, but got shot in the process. And May, she had screamed and ran up to Ben, but the robber had aimed the gun and fired against May, who only tried to get to Ben. And in less than minutes, both May and Ben were gone.
Penny screamed in agony, as the paramedics practically pulled her away from the last two people she had, and now they were gone.
“Please! Let me go! Let me go! May! Ben! No!!”
Penny sat up abruptly, drenched in sweat and her breathing heavy, heart pounding in her chest. Slowly but surely she finally calmed down, heartbeat slowly going back to normal and realizing it was just another nightmare. Except, it really wasn’t. Because if it was, May and Ben would still be here.
Penny grabbed her old cracked phone on the nightstand.
7:45 am
“Shit!” Penny yelled out, stumbling out of bed, almost tripping over a few books in the process. School starts at 8:00 am and it took her at least 20 minutes to get there. She was not up for another detention this week. She quickly grabbed a science pun t-shirt and a pair of oversized high waisted blue jeans, before throwing on a grey sweater and her green military jacket. She grabbed her black beanie and put her headphones over it before putting on her converse. She grabbed her phone and her skateboard that leaned against the desk in her room and headed out.
She stepped out on the street and the cold fall breeze made her shiver. She set the skateboard down and skated away as quickly as she could. Heading for the subway station about 5 minutes away from where she currently lived. Not that she’d stay here for long, she was sure that she’d be kicked out in a couple of months or so. That’s usually how it went. She never really stayed in a place for long, usually because the household was abusive, or because they got tired of her. Either way, there was never really a place she’d been able to call home. Not since May and Ben. It’s been almost a year, but it still felt like yesterday. The pain was still there, and she knew it would never go away.
Penny ran down the stairs and looked at the screen, the subway would be here in 1 minute. She quickly swiped her metro card at the gates before before rushing through and running to the platform, just in time to catch the subway.
Penny slumped down in one of the seats and sighed. Stupid phone, it was 5 years old and it was starting to act up, having all kinds of problems. One of them was her alarm, somehow it just wouldn’t go off. She had tried to fix it, and it had worked for a while, but then it started glitching again. But there was no way she’d be able to get a new phone. There was just no money for it. The closest thing she’d get to a new phone was a cheap flip phone that the system offered. But that was it. So for now, she would rather just stay with the one she had, even if it sometimes started glitching.
“Next stop, Forest Hills 71 avenue.”
Penny stood up and quickly stepped off the tube, running up the stairs and stepping on her skateboard to skate the last 5 minutes it took to get to midtown high. Penny looked at her phone, 7:59, shit, she wasn’t going to make it. Before she realized it she ran a red light, everything happened so quickly that she had no time to react. Usually her spider sense would warn her of incoming danger, but the stress of being to late for school had outweighed that. The only thing she saw before she blacked out was a black car right in front of her before it collided with her and she was thrown off her skateboard, landing with a loud thud on the concrete.
She must only have blacked out for a few seconds before she gained consciousness, hearing a car door open and a familiar voice. She couldn’t quite identify it, but she was sure she’d heard it before, on TV maybe?
“Shit! Happy, what did you do?!” The male voice spoke. She could hear hurried steps making its way over to where she laid on the ground.
“She came straight out of nowhere and ran a red light!” The man who she presumed was Happy, responded. Penny opened her eyes, everything blurry as she looked up, black dots clouding her vision. A figure kneeled down beside her and she blinked a few times before her vision slowly went back to normal.
“Hey kid! Are you alright?” The man who was kneeling in front of her asked.
“Ow.” Penny mumbled her hand going up to her head. She was pretty sure she had gotten a serious concussion with the way her head was pounding.
As she looked at the man kneeling over, she instantly recognized the signature goatee and the iconic pair of slightly transparent glasses. Pennys eyes widened, wondering if this was some weird hallucination from hitting her head. What the hell was a man like Tony Stark doing in queens.
“Kid, are you okay?” He asked again, placing a hand on Penny's shoulder. Penny flinched slightly, at the touch, and Tony must’ve noticed and quickly removed his hand. Penny sat up groaning and shot him a glare, before blurting out a stupid comment which she immediately regretted as quickly as the words left her mouth.
“What do you think? I just got hit by a fucking car.” Penny grumbled, panic set in when she realized she’d back talked to the one and only Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Someone who she admired a whole lot, she always had, ever since she was a kid. She even aspired to be as successful as him one day.
The stress of getting to school on time had gotten to her and she quickly apologized.
“Sorry…” she quickly mumbled, not daring to meet the man’s gaze.
“Don’t sweat it kid, but maybe next time, don’t run a red light.” Mr Stark said and Penny nodded. That’s when she heard the sirens and an ambulance pulled up to the scene. Penny immediately panicked as she saw the paramedics stepping out of the ambulance.
“Shit! I-I gotta go. I can’t-“ Penny pants, trying to stand up. She couldn’t go to the hospital, for so many reasons. The last time she’d been in an ambulance was when May and Ben had died. And back then she hadn’t gotten bitten by a radioactive spider, now she had, and if she went to the hospital and they took blood tests they would notice that she was enhanced and that would lead to people figuring out who she was, and that couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t.
“Kid, kid where are you going, hey, you need to be checked out by the paramedics. You could have internal injuries.” Mr Stark says, grabbing the young girl’s arm to stop her from running away. He couldn’t in good conscience let her run away and end up passing out somewhere because she didn’t get the medical attention that she might need.
“No! Let me go! I’m not going to the hospital! I’m not-I’m not-“ Penny cries, trying to get away. She couldn’t go back there, she couldn’t.
Penny’s breathing was getting heavier and she could feel a panic attack coming. And before she realized it, she’d used her spider strength to pull away from Mr Stark, and started sprinting down the street, as fast as her legs could carry her. She ran back to where she lived, sprinting up the stairs and unlocking the door, stepping inside the rundown apartment and closing the door behind her. Leaning against it, breathing heavily. Thank god her foster father was at work right now, she knew she’d be getting some sort of punishment, whether it was mental or physical, well that depended on what kind of day he was having.
She felt her legs give out and she slid down to the floor, tears starting to fall.