Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I have been working on this story for SO LONG and I'm really excited to start posting.  I hope you guys enjoy!  I'll try to keep my update schedule of posting every Sunday, along with some bonus chapters when I can :) 

Part 1: The Cave

"People live under the earth in a cavelike dwelling. Stretching a long way up toward the daylight is its entrance, toward which the entire cave is gathered. The people have been in this dwelling since childhood, shackled by the legs and neck...Thus they stay in the same place so that there is only one thing for them to look at: whatever they encounter in front of their faces." -Plato, Allegory of the Cave

Tony Stark drummed his fingers on the top of the bar, draining the last of his bourbon and gesturing for the bartender to bring him another. Richard was late, and if Richard was going to be late, then Tony was going to drink. Checking his watch, he smothered a yawn and glanced around the packed bar. No one paid him any mind, even though he had only revealed his identity as Iron Man a few months ago. Here in the city, in a bar he'd been coming to for years, he supposed people didn't care too much about superheroes. Or celebrity sightings.

"I'm so sorry!" Tony turned, jumping at the familiar voice, and found Richard Parker hurrying through the busy room, apologizing when he nearly bumped into someone's table, then took a seat beside Tony at the bar. It wasn't his disheveled appearance or the battered briefcase in his hand that caught Tony's attention, though. It was the toddler on his hip, head resting on his shoulder.

"Is that…" Tony started, amused despite himself, and Richard cut him off with a sheepish smile.

"My one-year-old daughter? In a bar? Yeah. I'm so sorry...Mary's sick and I had to pick Penny up from my brother's...she's probably going to fall asleep soon. I'm really sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Tony waved him off, regretting his third drink. He wasn't drunk, exactly, but he was more buzzed than he'd like to be in the presence of a toddler. He'd been thinking about giving up drinking, especially after Afghanistan, considering his new profession, but not tonight, he had told himself. Maybe Monday.

The little girl in Richard's arms gripped her father's shirt in her fist, watching him with wide, brown eyes. "Tony, this is Penny. Penny, this is daddy's boss, Tony." The man introduced, gesturing to Tony with his free hand.

"Hi." Feeling like an idiot, Tony lifted his hand and bent his fingers in what he hoped was a child-friendly wave.

Lifting her own hand, the little girl mimicked him, bending her fingers right back at him. "Hi." She murmured, and Tony was surprised when his own turned up into a smile. Since becoming Iron Man, more and more kids had been sending him fan mail and drawings of him in the suit. It was cute. Really. He just hadn't really met any of them yet. He had thought about reviving his father's expo and having some child-friendly displays, but that was an idea for another time. For the moment, he just turned to his friend and employee.

"What are you having? It's on me."

"Um...just water. I've got to stop at the drugstore and get something for Mary, and then I have to get Penny home…" He adjusted the girl in his arms, and she continued to watch Tony with her rapidly-closing eyes.

Tony had known Richard for at least five years, although he wouldn't actually call them friends. Richard Parker had started as an intern right out of grad school, but had quickly risen through the ranks to someone Tony would take notice of, the two of them even working together on one or two projects in the labs. He knew that the man's wife worked for the government and was possibly a spy, and he'd met her a few times at various SI events. This was his first time meeting their daughter, though. He supposed she was cute...he didn't give a ton of thought to kids in general. His father had certainly done a shitty job of raising him, and he'd never thought he'd be able to do much better. Better not to try.

"So, what did you want to talk about?"

Richard had been the one to call this meeting, going to Tony's private lab and requesting entrance, then asking him to meet the day after at a local bar they'd been to once or twice to get drinks after work. Tony had been a little surprised but had agreed, wondering if the man was angling for a promotion, or if he just needed help with a project. Either way, Tony liked Richard enough to spend time with him after work. He didn't think the man was struggling financially. Tony paid well and Richard was only a promotion or two away from a supervisory position, which paid even better and came with more benefits, like his own lab. He also didn't think Richard was the kind of guy to try and suck up for a promotion. Or a loan.

The other man glanced around as if making sure no one was too close to hear their conversation. "Could we maybe move this to a booth?"

"Um...sure." Tony agreed just as the bartender placed a glass of water in front of Richard. Grabbing his own drink, he followed the man over to a secluded booth in the corner of the bar. The man placed his daughter on the seat next to him, and she leaned her head against her father, eyes closing. It was nearly eight, and Tony wondered what time toddlers went to bed.  And what exactly Richard was so worried about.  

Tony waited as Richard opened his briefcase, pulling out a manilla folder, then placed it on the sticky table, resting his hand on top of it. "I…" Richard glanced down at his daughter, placing a hand on her hair that someone had pulled back into a braid, then folding his hands on the table. "Tony, I didn't know who else to turn to." He all but whispered, leaning in, and Tony followed suit.

"Okay, look, whatever you need…" Tony started, a little worried, but Richard shook his head.

"Don't...don't promise anything. Not yet. Just let me explain first."

"Okay." Tony gestured for him to go on, and finally, after draining half of his water, he did.

"I was contacted by someone from Oscorp. An old friend. He and I have known each other since high school, and he...he sent me this."

"Should I be worried about you defecting?" Tony tried to lighten the mood, but Richard only gave a weak smile.

"Hardly. Even if your labs weren't better…" Richard ran a hand over his face, looking suddenly exhausted. "My friend...he wouldn't lie about this. None of it. He wouldn't make this up. I don't know what he wanted me to do with this but…I have to do something."

"Okay…"

Richard opened his mouth to speak again, but he seemed to give up, and instead pushed the folder over to Tony. In the seat beside him, Penny stirred, yawning and whining a little. "I know, baby." He murmured, turning to the girl. "We'll go home soon, I promise."

Tony stared at the manilla folder, then opened the front cover, heart dropping and bile rising in his throat as soon as he saw the top picture. It was a boy, maybe ten, laying in a bathtub full of ice, hands cuffed to a pipe above his head. The boy's lips were blue, one eye surrounded by a purple bruise. On the bottom of the picture was the number 093.

He flipped to the second picture. It was a girl, younger...probably six or seven, strapped to a table. The picture was taken from above, and beyond the table, he could see a white counter and the edge of a white coat. She was covered in bruises, eyes wide and glassy, blood trailing from her open mouth, an IV tube running from her inner elbow to an IV pole at her side. 081 was the number at the bottom of the picture.

The third picture was another boy, probably a young teenager, with singe marks covering his head. Blood ran from his nose, and his eyes stared at nothing. He lay on the same table as the second girl. 075.

There were five more pictures, and Tony looked at every one, trying to take in the numbers and not the children. But there was no helping it. They were all children, the oldest no older than sixteen, the youngest maybe four. That boy was the hardest to look at...Tony tried to look only at his number. Tried to search the rest of the picture for clues, but all he could see was the white counter and part of a white coat. "Oscorp is experimenting on children." Tony's voice was flat and Richard nodded.

"That's what I think. I took it to Mary, and she tried to speak to her supervisor but he won't…" Richard shook his head. "I don't know. He won't even look into it. It's almost like…". He closed his eyes, jaw clenching for a moment, then he lowered his voice. "She made it sound like they...like they already knew. Like they know and they don't care."

Tony narrowed his eyes, forcing his gaze away from the little boy in the photo and back to Richard, then closing the folder. He couldn't bear to look at it anymore.

"She's going to try again...she'll take the photos to someone higher up and try to get someone to listen. But...just in case, she said I should tell someone else. And since you've recently come out of the closet as a superhero..."

"Just in case?" Tony repeated, ignoring the joke, but Richard shook his head, giving him a little smile.

"She's paranoid. I guess it comes with the line of work she's in. Still…I thought maybe you might have some pull. Somewhere."

Tony nodded, placing both hands on the folder. "I'll see what I can do." He would. Or...he would mean to. And then he'd find out that his arc reactor was killing him. His inquiries would be ignored and he'd have JARVIS scour the internet and he would set up an alert for any children that went missing under suspicious circumstances, and an alert for anything involving Osborn.  Nothing would come of it.

And then, a month later, while Richard and Mary were on a trip to London for a family vacation, their plane would go down, and although their bodies would be found in the wreckage, the body of Penelope Parker would never be found. Tony would send divers and submarines and expert after expert. He would go himself in the suit despite the fact that it was killing him. But her body would never be recovered in the ocean. There would be evidence that their plane had been shot down, and a year later, after pushing too hard for answers, Richard's brother Ben and his wife May would be found dead in the remains of their apartment after a fire that would take out their entire building.

For the moment, though, Tony meant his promise and Richard believed him. "Do you mind watching her for just a second? I'm gonna…" Richard gestured to the bathroom and Tony nodded.

"Oh...uh, yeah. Sure."

Richard stood, and after a moment's hesitation, Tony moved over to the other side of the booth, sitting down beside the girl that watched her father disappear into the crowd of people. "So, uh...hi."

"Da." She responded, repeating it when he only stared at her.

"Oh. Right. Uh, your dad will be right back. He's just gotta take a…" Tony censored himself at the last moment, then felt like an idiot when his brain landed on appropriate words. "Um...go potty."

The girl tilted her head, then reached out and grabbed his shirt. It was the middle of October, and she wore a little sweater with sleeves that covered her hands despite her constant struggle to pull them back up. "Up." She ordered, tugging again, and he sighed, giving in.

"Fine, you little tyrant." He hoisted the girl up from under her arms and placed her on his lap. She didn't want to sit, though. Instead, she stood up facing him, feet braced on his thighs and tried to balance. "Penny, right? Here. Let me fix this." He grabbed her sleeve and folded it up to her wrist, well aware that he was the only person with a child in this room full of alcohol and the occasional waft of cigarette smoke. Once he was done with her sleeves, she graced him with a smile, her bright, chocolate-colored eyes meeting his, and for a moment, he felt like his heart stopped. He'd never been so close to a child, or...he hadn't in years. Not since he'd been little himself. She reached out, patting his face and giggling when she ran her fingers over his goatee, then brought a hand to her own face as if to check for hair there.

"Yeah, yeah, just don't…" He started, then flinched when she got a hold of his beard at the bottom of his chin and tugged, tears coming to his eyes. "Ouch!"

Penny let go immediately, eyes wide and frightened, and he rubbed a hand over his chin. "Oww." She repeated hesitantly, lips trembling, and some instinct made him tuck some of her hair behind her ear and touch her nose with his finger, just managing at the last moment to refrain from saying 'boop.'

"It's okay. Don't pull. I need that beard. It's part of my image."

"No." She repeated solemnly. "No pull." Then she reached out again, touching his face, but gently this time, like one would teach a child to pet a cat.

"Yeah, there you go." he snorted. Her answering smile was worth the pain, and for just a second, he got it. He got why people had kids and why they found them cute and why they'd do anything for them. This little girl on his lap trusted him and looked up at him simply because she was little and he was big and she had no idea what the world would someday do to her...that the world wasn't always a kind place. And Tony could see why some people would give their lives to protect their children.

Richard came back then, wiping his hands on his pants, and he smiled when he saw Penny standing on Tony's lap. "Thanks."

"Sure. She's a cute kid."

The man smiled, reaching his arms out for his daughter who practically jumped into them, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Yeah, you ought to see her when you tell her she can't have another j-u-i-c-e p-o-p."

"Juice!" Penny cried, turning to her father with wide eyes and patting his shoulder. The man laughed.

"See? And she already knows how to spell."

"She's smart." Tony agreed. And he wasn't just saying that. She seemed like a smart kid. A sweet kid. Maybe he'd been wrong about children. It was a thought he dismissed immediately, reminding himself that this was no time to get distracted. He needed to focus...to focus on his friend and then on figuring out what exactly Norman was up to.

"Maybe in twenty years, she'll come to you for a job."

Tony held out a hand, smiling warmly at both the man and his daughter. He was still feeling light and just a little buzzed, but the pictures and the conversation had done plenty to sober him up. So his next words were totally sincere. "If she's half as smart as her father, she's got a future at Stark Industries for sure."

Richard shook Tony's hand, his own smile bright and loving as he squeezed his daughter in a hug. "She's going to be way smarter than her dad, aren't you Pen?"

"Juice!" She cried, and the man rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, your majesty. Thanks again, Tony. I'll see you at work tomorrow?"

It was assumed that they wouldn't speak about this at work. Tony didn't know it, but they'd never get the chance to speak about it again."Bright and early." Tony agreed. "Bye, Penny."

"Bye!" She called, voice too soft to carry far in the room packed with People, but Tony heard her. He lifted a hand, bending his fingers in a wave once more, and with a beaming smile, she returned it.

He wouldn't see her again for twelve years.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

"Did you hear?"

Penny put her fists up, leaning back on her heels, then forward to her toes, eyes darting over to the two women in lab-coats who stood at the side of the boxing ring. It was ridiculous, the question. Of course Penny hadn't heard anything. This was the only time she had gotten to socialize so far that day, and it wasn't exactly socializing when they were expected to fight. Penny ducked, easily avoiding a punch thrown her way. At least she wasn't blindfolded. She hated it when they blindfolded her...hated it almost as much as the other stuff they did. Still, she didn't answer Susie. Surely she must know that Penny hadn't heard. It was Sunday. They always took her to the White Room on Sundays. They would take Susie the next day. Monday. It was the only way he knew how to keep track of the days. Everyone kept track of that question: how many days until the White Room?

Penny threw a punch that Susie leaned away from, then a roundhouse kick she dodged. The other girl tried to hook a foot around the back of Penny's knees, but Penny grabbed her by the shoulders, slamming her head into the other teenager's, and they both backed up, staggering a little. On the side of the boxing ring, the women murmured to one another, writing something down in their notepads. "They caught one," Susie whispered, careful not to make eye contact. They weren't allowed to talk. Not until later, when the ones in lab coats were done watching them and didn't care what they did anymore. Still, that got Penny's attention. "One of the ones that want to take us."

"The Avengers?" Penny asked, going in for another kick, this time grazing the other girl's shoulder. Susie nodded, making a show of wiping her forehead. They had been taught about the Avengers...about the group of villains that wanted to steal them away. Who didn't realize how valuable they were...or maybe they did. Either way, anyone that was caught by the Avengers would be locked away in a cage forever. Penny felt like she spent enough time in a cage. But they would let her go when she turned eighteen...that was always the promise. In five years, she would be free. It was something she dreaded and longed for...outside. Freedom. Whatever that meant. Everyone left on their eighteenth birthday, and they never came back.

Susie managed to land a punch and Penny's heart sank. Nothing was broken, but she shouldn't have allowed that punch...shouldn't have let her brain wander. She ducked the next one, then threw a couple of her own, finally getting Susie in the nose with a satisfying snap. She liked Suisie...she even thought that they might be friends. Penny had read about friends. Knew that sometimes girls her age had them, and she liked to think that Susie might be hers. But one of them had to lose, and Penny was sore enough from that morning. She couldn't stand the thought of a loss right now. "Which one?" Penny risked asking, then jumped, one knee hooking around Susie's neck, her whole body twisting around as she and the girl went down, the two of them slamming into the mat.

"The one in the metal suit," Susie whispered, trying to get out of Penny's grip. Penny stuck her hands to the floor, gripping Susie's head with her thighs. One of the women with the clipboards nodded, lips in a slight smile.

The one in the metal suit. The one they called 'Iron Man.'

"024, good job. Take a shower then go on to class. 019, with us." Susie climbed to her feet, jaw clenched, and Penny jumped up as well.

"I dare you," Susie whispered, trying for a smile. Penny shook her head.

"No way," She hissed back, then hurried to take a shower as directed before they caught her talking and dawdling.

When she stripped in the cold, metal room, removing the gray jumpsuit she always wore, her number in red fabric on the front and back, she glanced down at the bruises on her ribs, bringing a tentative hand up to press against them. Not broken. Not this time. But they still hurt. She looked away, ignoring the places the needles had left on her wrists, then climbed into the water, turning it up as hot as it got...which wasn't very hot. She was freezing...always. For as long as she could remember, she had been cold. Sometimes she wondered what warm felt like.

Dressing in the new jumpsuit left for her by someone with a clipboard, she hurried down the hall, past the other training rooms and past the hall where all of the bedrooms were, then into the room that served as the classroom for all seven of them. The teacher didn't even look up from his clipboard when Penny took her seat in the back between two of the three boys. The four soldiers who sat around a table in the corner, guns strapped to their backs, watched her but she didn't give them a reason to get up. Neither of the boys on either side of her looked up...one was engrossed in a novel while the other was reading a history book with several thick black lines covering the stuff they weren't allowed to know. Penny raised her hand, waiting patiently until the man, Mr. Green, looked up. Putting his clipboard down, he walked over, passing the empty seat in front of her that belonged to Susie, and the one in front of her that had belonged to Milos before he'd turned eighteen. Before they'd set him free. Given him back to his family.

"Science or math today?" He wondered, not sounding particularly invested in the answer. He hated her, she knew that much. Their teachers barely looked at them if they had the choice, and never touched them.

"Science."

There was only one science textbook...someone from the class before hers had apparently destroyed the other one. She waited in her seat, perfectly still, until the teacher sat the book down in front of her. Advanced chemistry. It hadn't been too hard for her to figure out most of it. Still, there were parts she didn't understand, so she worked at it, alternating between the science textbook and the physics one, occasionally going back to their four math textbooks. She wanted to build things...robots, like she saw in the books, and mix chemicals. Make new stuff. So she pulled out her notebook from the bag that stayed by her desk and wrote down the things she didn't understand, trying to find them elsewhere in the books.

It was this way for the first hour they spent in the classroom, starting after lunch which they ate alone in their rooms. They could do whatever they wanted. Mr. Green, who had a green badge with his picture on it over his blue jumpsuit, never told them his real name, and never spoke to them unless he had to. It was the same for Ms. Green, who also never spoke to them, but who handed out worksheets full of word problems that they were to solve as quickly as they could. Penny didn't mind that class so much...it lasted for two hours, during which they did worksheets and waited for the teacher to grade them, writing everything down on her clipboard. Then two hours of class with Ms. Blue, who was Penny's favorite.

Her badge had a pretty picture of her with her black hair pulled into a ponytail, teeth showing as she smiled. She actually spoke to them. Asked them questions that she didn't read from a clipboard. Sometimes she helped Penny with math that she wasn't able to figure out, or slipped her research papers with the author's names blacked out. Her favorites were the ones on gamma radiation...she would look up the words in the dictionary, writing their definitions in her notebook, then rereading the paper over and over until she understood. Her other favorites, the ones about something called an 'arc reactor' were harder to understand, but equally fascinating.

Ms. Green had been in the room for almost twenty minutes according to the clock when Susie took her seat, hands still shaking as she sat down, immediately turning to her worksheet and getting started. But when Ms. Green's back was turned, Susie whispered, voice so low that only Penny and the others would hear. None of the others would tell on them, though, so Penny wasn't worried about that. "I dare you."

"No." Penny had gotten in trouble already that week for trying to sneak an extra biscuit for dinner. It wasn't her fault that she was always hungry. Still, her hands had shaken for hours, and she didn't want to risk it again.

"Ms. Blue might help."

Susie was probably right. Ms. Blue snuck her papers and had kept her out of trouble once. One time, when no one had been around and it was a Saturday and everything had hurt too much to move, Ms. Blue had wrapped her arms around Penny, her cheek on Penny's head, and it had been the most wonderful thing in the world. So if anyone would help her in this stupid dare, it would be Ms. Blue.

But Penny didn't want to. Wouldn't dare risk actually asking the teacher for help.

"You're the only one who can," Susie whispered, voice almost a whine. That was true...and she could carry Susie on her back if she wanted to come too.

"If we get caught…". Her senses warned her a second too late to really be of use when the metal ruler Ms. Green used slammed onto her metal desk, the noise so loud that it hurt her ears. The woman didn't have to say anything...Penny knew that if she were caught talking again, the ruler would be coming down on her hands. So she and Susie went quiet then until it was time for the teachers to change again.

Ms. Blue was lovely. Short and slim with pale skin and long black hair, small, slanted eyes like Kimmy, and when she read to them or talked to them, she always seemed just a little sad. But she talked to them more than any other teacher and, more importantly, she let them talk. So as soon as she entered the room, relieving Ms. Green, Susie turned around, and the boys shifted their chairs to talk to one another. Still, they all kept their voices to the barest whisper, not wanting to give the soldiers any reason to get up.

"Tonight. After dinner. We have time before lights out!" The other girl whispered.

"Barely."

"You don't even have to go in! You'll look from the vent."

Penny didn't want to admit that she was tempted, or that she'd do almost anything Susie asked. So she just pulled out one of the papers that Ms. Blue had given her to keep in her bag by a person whose name had been blacked out, trying to figure out how an Arc Reactor would work, or what it would look like. With a huff, Susie went back to her own work until Penny finally spoke. "Why don't you do it?"

"You first," Susie, who famously loved spy novels better than any of the others, suggested. "Recon mission."

Dinner came too quickly. They filed into the room down the hall where they always ate bowls of stew with chunks of meat and vegetables and biscuits on the side. Stew every night, oatmeal every morning, shakes during the day. In the books they read, she sometimes found descriptions of other food...so many things she'd never tried and couldn't imagine, and she wondered what chicken tasted like. Or sushi. Turkish delight.

After they ate, they were released into the 'yard,' a huge room with a basketball hoop on one side that one of the boys liked to jump up and climb on, chairs off to one side where some of them would sit and talk, and, around the perimeter, a running track where some of them ran laps. They were also allowed to go through the back doors into a room that had a couple of metal folding chairs and some approved books. Most importantly, it had a vent that led through the building, into a room down the hall where they sometimes kept people who tried to hurt them. Like Iron Man. Or other students who'd misbehaved really badly.

They weren't as closely watched during the last three hours of the day. While the mornings were devoted to fighting and training and testing and the afternoons spent in school, the three hours after dinner until 10 were basically free time. The people with the clipboards disappeared and only one soldier stayed to watch them just in case of fights, which only happened occasionally. Still, they were careful not to be openly friendly with one another...at least, not when the guards were looking.

When Penny had been younger, the guards had been much stricter, and there had been one guard for each of them at all times, following them around and keeping them from talking much. But over the last year or so, the guards seemed less enthusiastic, and she'd caught them going into their own room and starting at their little boxes, poking them and putting something in their ears. Sometimes she thought she heard something from the ear things, but one of them would always give her a hard look before she could get too close.

Penny and Susie walked into the back room as soon as they were let into the yard, the boys and one girl playing basketball instead, and Kimmy, who was only nine, pulling out a piece of paper from her bag and drawing with a stub of a pencil.

The vent cover was easy to remove. Susie could move things just by looking at them, although, like the rest of them, she wasn't allowed to use her ability in their fights. Apparently the people in white coats thought it would give her an unfair advantage. They were all strong, though. Stronger than normal people, or so they were told. Faster, too. Penny's wall climbing was also strictly forbidden, technically.

Susie stared hard at the cover of the vent that slowly separated itself from the top of the wall by the ceiling and floated down to the ground. "Are you coming?" Penny asked, both of them keeping their voices low. They'd piled blankets over in one corner with a stack of books, making it look as though they were under the blankets just in case the soldier checked on them, hoping that would give them a little more time.

Susie shook her head. "There's only room for one of us in the vents."

"Then why don't you go? I'll carry you up there."

"Next time." Penny wondered what made her think there would be a next time...but that's how Susie was sometimes...brave until it came time to actually break the rules. She thought sometimes that her friend thought of herself as the director from her spy novels, calling all the shots but staying safe while her spies did the actual work. She didn't mind though. Penny liked doing the actual work, no matter what she told the other girl.

Penny placed her hands on the wall, giving the door one last look, then began to climb. Glancing down once she was halfway to the vent, she saw Susie sit down on their nest of blankets, picking up a book but not reading it. Instead, she watched Penny and gave her a thumbs up that Penny returned before making her way up to the vent that was barely big enough for her.

She knew where they would keep Iron Man if he really was there. The same room where they held other prisoners that the children whispered about, although they were usually teachers or people in white coats who had broken a rule. Once, it had been another of the kids, and that was the first and only time Penny had gone into the vents to take a peek at the room with the cage. She couldn't help the thrill of fear...Iron man was a killer. A man that would happily shoot her with one of his lasers if given the chance. But...she was curious. She had always been a curious person, even if it got her in trouble more times than not.

It wasn't a long way to the room where they held bad people, and she rested her nose against the inside of the vent cover, peering down into the room. Penny couldn't see anything much...just the cage, open on top, and surrounded by bars. There was a door on one side of the room, the one she was on, and a man lay on a cot inside the cage, back to her, apparently asleep. Iron Man slept? Just like her?

He was asleep...and she couldn't see him very well from her spot in the vents, so she carefully eased the vent cover off, pushing and then turning it so that it sat beside her in the tight space, flinching when it made a tiny scraping sound. The man didn't stir though, so she eased herself out next, gripping the wall and climbing down, turning away from him for just a second to focus on the wall, then touching down silently on the ground. There were apparently no cameras...although she'd never been in the room itself. Had never dared leave the vents. But Iron Man was right there!

When she turned, she had to stifle the instinct to scream, which, she thought, really should have been beaten out of her by that point. The man was sitting up and staring at her, eyes narrow and confused, like when she'd asked Mr. Green to help her with a math problem one year...like he couldn't quite figure out why Penny was there or speaking to him. Penny's heart pounding in her ears. Iron Man. This was Iron Man. Susie would never believe her if she talked to him. But this was the man that wanted to kill her! Also...wasn't Iron Man a robot? Or...a suit? They hadn't ever been super clear on that.

"Hello?" The man spoke hesitantly, leaning forward on his bed, hands clasped. Penny swallowed hard, glancing back up at the vent, and he followed her gaze. Penny could run. She didn't have to risk this.

'I dare you.' That's what her almost-friend has said. Penny never backed down from a dare. Almost never.

"Hello." She murmured the word, remembering when she'd been introduced to Ms. Blue a few months ago...when the woman had taught her how to politely introduce herself. None of the other teachers had bothered introducing themselves when she'd arrived...not that she remembered. She had been so young when her parents had sent her here. "Are you Iron Man?" Penny asked, knowing that this wasn't the polite way to talk to someone...but also not caring. You didn't have to be polite to people who wanted to kill you. Then again, this man didn't really look like he wanted to kill her. He just looked confused.

The man gave a brief smile, nodding. She hadn't thought that Iron Man would ever smile. "Sometimes." Iron Man told her, whatever that meant.

"You're a man."

"Yes." He seemed even more confused than before.

"I thought Iron Man was a robot." He gave another faint smile but didn't move from where he was sitting, and Penny didn't move from where she was pressed against the wall, ready to escape should the need arise.

"It's a suit." He explained, voice soft and patient like Ms. Blue. "I put it on when I want to be Iron Man."

"Why would you want to be Iron Man?" She cocked her head, risking another question as her mouth got away from her as it was wont to do. "Why do you want to hurt us?"

Iron Man's eyes narrowed, and his lips turned down a little. "I don't want to hurt you." He started to stand and Penny grabbed the wall, ready to hurry back to the vent. "Hey, hey...easy. I'm not going to hurt you." He held his hands up, staying where he was, and Penny stared at the man's empty palms. "My name's Tony. Tony Stark." He offered, then leaned in again. "What's your name?" She hesitated, then decided it wouldn't matter if he knew.

"024."

Tony frowned. "Zero two four?"

"My number." Penny clarified, gesturing to the numbers on her clothing. Didn't all kids have numbers? That was all any of the adults wanted to know. Her number. Only the other kids used her name, and only in whispers. A few years ago, the teachers had stopped using them, apparently deciding that it was better to refer to them by their number, or not at all. Sometimes at night, she whispered her name to herself, worried that she might someday forget it.

For some reason, her answer made the man flinch. "Your number." He repeated, voice flat. "Are you the only kid here?" She shook her head.

"No. There are seven of us. There were eight, but we leave when we turn eighteen."

Tony nodded, his lips in a tight line. "Right." He muttered. "Okay. How long have you been here?"

She glanced at the door, nervous. Penny didn't hear anyone, and she could usually hear almost everything nearby...but that didn't mean she couldn't get caught. She'd been in the room for what felt like a long time. Were they looking for her?

"Do you have a real name?" Tony asked when she was silent, leaning in close and lowering his voice. She glanced at the door once more. They weren't supposed to say it. But...who was he going to tell?

"Penny." She murmured.

The man's lips pressed tightly together until they were in a thin, straight line under his beard, his face losing all color. "Penny what?" He asked, sounding...hopeful? Afraid.

"I should go," Penny told him abruptly. This was dangerous. She could get into so much trouble for this…more than she'd ever been in.

"Wait!" The man stood up and Penny jumped, grabbing the wall and crouching a little, feet pressed against the wall. Obviously taken aback, the man stared at her, wide-eyed before speaking. "How are you doing that?" He asked.

"I have to go." She insisted, not sure why she didn't just do it. Why she waited for his permission.

"Please…" Tony kept his hands up. "I can't get to you, even if I wanted to hurt you, which I don't. I won't hurt you. I promise. I don't hurt kids."

"They said you hated us because we were mutants."

"Is that how you're sticking to the wall?"

"They'll punish me if they find me in here." She whispered, glancing again at the door. He didn't seem like a mean person. But Penny was afraid...afraid of being punished on the same day as the White Room. "They'll hurt me."

Tony clenched his jaw, eyes growing impossibly sad. "Okay...okay, kiddo. Just...you can go. It's okay." She nodded, not sure why she'd needed the man's permission. She was afraid of Iron Man and she was afraid of being punished and she was afraid that Tony wasn't lying...which would mean her teachers were. Either way, she needed to go. Turning, Penny crawled up the wall, slipping into the vent, then turning to replace the cover. Tony was watching her, hand resting on the bars.

"I'll come back," Penny promised at the last second, and the man nodded, waiting there until she'd replaced the vent cover. With one last look at him, she crawled away, back to her friend to break the news that Iron Man wasn't a robot after all.

Susie would never believe her.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

Thank you so much to everyone who has been so supportive of this story! I hope you guys enjoy the early chapter. I have to get my laptop fixed tomorrow so I didn't know if I'd be able to post on Sunday :)

Shivering in her bed that night, Penny tried to make sense of the conversation she'd had with Tony. Iron Man. He hadn't seemed like a mean person...like someone who would hurt her. He'd seemed nice. Nice like Ms. Blue. And he'd wanted to talk to her. Had promised not to hurt her. She turned over on her side, shivering and curling up into a ball under her threadbare blanket. He'd asked her name. None of the people in white coats or teachers had ever asked her name...then again, they probably knew it already. They had always seemed to know everything about her from the very beginning.

When she'd reached the back room, leaping off the wall to land lightly on her toes, Susie had been waiting, arms wrapped around her knees, pretending to read a book. When she'd looked up at Penny, there had been something like awe in her friend's voice. "You did it." She'd hissed, glancing at the door and scooting over so that Penny could join her, picking up her own book and leaning back against the wall.

"Yeah." She'd muttered, shrugging, pretending the thing was smaller than it was.

"And?"

Penny had decided to go with the truth. "He seemed nice?"

"Nice?" Susie had scoffed. "He's a murderer. He wants to kill us."

"He didn't seem like a murderer."

"Okay...then, what did he look like? Did he shoot at you with his robot hand?" She'd asked, holding up a hand and mimicking his stance from the one photo of the Avengers they'd all seen.

"No...he was just a man. He wore weird clothes, though. And he had a little beard." Penny had brought her fingers up to cover her upper lip, then brought her other hand up to cup just her chin, making Susie giggle.

"Are you sure that was Iron Man?"

"He said his name was Tony, but that he was Iron Man sometimes."

Susie had opened her mouth to ask another question, but they'd heard footsteps then, and Penny had jumped up, moving to the other side of the room and, grabbing a book, she'd sat in a metal folding chair, pretending to read. The soldiers had given the room a quick once over, eyes raking over the two of them but not lingering. She knew they weren't real people to those men, although she wasn't sure if she could ever articulate why.

"Thirty minutes." One had barked, and then they'd been gone.

Susie and Penny weren't allowed to be friends, Penny knew that much. But they were the only two of their group of friends who had powers. Susie who could move things with her mind and Penny who could climb walls...they had gravitated toward one another a few years ago and, since they both had better hearing than the others, whispered under their breath and made faces behind the soldiers' backs and, when they were alone, tested out the powers they were rarely allowed to use.

They were all strong, though. Stronger, Penny suspected, than the soldiers. But the soldiers had guns, and they'd all seen what they could do with them. Had studied how guns worked and knew that even they, with their powers and their strength, were no match for on. So Penny had waited until the soldiers had been gone for at least ten minutes to get up and rejoin Susie who kept staring at her own book as if they were still being watched.

"Did he look angry?" She had asked under her breath, eyes darting to the door.

Penny had shaken her head. "He looked sad."

And, deciding not to press their luck, they'd read in companionable silence until it was time for lights out.

Penny pulled the blanket up to her neck, watching the blank wall in front of her face. All three of her walls were blank, except for the one with a thick metal door. There was no window in the door...just a solid slab of metal with a doorknob. She'd had this room ever since she'd moved to this side of the building. Four blank walls. A bed. A blanket. A toilet and sink in the corner. Lights out at 10:30. Up at 7:00. Breakfast in her room. Training. Fighting. People in lab coats watching them. Then lunch in her room before more fighting. Susie would be in the White Room all morning. She had always been the first to try every new round of experiments, Penny the last. More training. Then class. Dinner all together. Free time...in the yard. Next to the room with the vent that led to Tony Stark who she had promised to visit again.

She had meant what she'd said.

She would visit him. Maybe talk to him...actually talk to him this time. Not like a scared kid...like the kids who were new and small and didn't know where they were or how to talk. The ones none of them were allowed to speak to, but who Susie would always smile at. Would pass them notes promising that everything would be okay. But like the almost-adult she was. She was thirteen. She talked to the teachers and the people in white coats and sometimes, when she was brave, the soldiers with guns. So she could talk to Iron Man. Tony. Whichever. Maybe he could tell her what it was like outside. Maybe he'd tell her things...things that they weren't allowed to know. She just had to make sure she wasn't caught.

She barely slept that night. Instead, she tried to pick out questions she would ask Tony. She couldn't decide...would he get angry if she asked him too many? Her teachers didn't like it if she asked too many questions. No one here did. No one ever had. She would usually get a sharp look or a warning, but once or twice her reprimand had come in the form of one of those guns whacked against the back of her head. They'd all learned the rules early, even before they'd turned twelve and joined this group on the other side of the building. The ones that fought more and trained more and went into the White Room once a week.

No questions. Keep quiet. Don't make friends. You're different.

Finally, she nodded off, dreaming about a robot holding out its hand and leading her through the doors...out into the actual outside. She'd read about it, but she couldn't remember seeing it. But she knew that the sky was blue. The grass was green. Those things were always the same, right? And sometimes it rained, water falling from the sky. What must that be like? And at night, there were stars. She couldn't even imagine.

She woke when the lights came on overhead, and then a loud buzzing alarm went off, letting her know that she needed to sit up on the bed and wait for breakfast. It wasn't five minutes later that the door opened and one of the people in white coats opened the door, bringing in a tray. For as long as she'd been there, it seemed like one of them would have spoken to her...given her their names. But they never did. Neither did her teachers or the soldiers. She wondered sometimes if they had numbers too. If they'd grown up here. Did everyone grow up here, then come back to work when they were old? Would she? But all of those questions, the ones that buzzed unanswered in her mind, didn't matter so much. Not today. Today, things were different.

For the first time since coming to this side of the building to join Group 2, her routine had changed. Sure, she'd snuck around, doing things she shouldn't before. There had been new students every few years, little children aging from Group 1 to Group 2, one every few years or so, and others aging out entirely. There were new people in white coats that held clipboards every few months...she didn't know where they went. Didn't know where new ones came from. She knew so little about the world...but now there was something new. Really new. A man...a prisoner from the outside who was Iron Man sometimes and maybe a murderer. Who maybe wanted to kill her and maybe just wanted to talk. And she wanted to know more.

Training was easy most days...men and women with clipboards stood around, watching them pair off, watching them hit punching bags and climb things and run obstacle courses as directed. Sometimes they fought each other. Other times they just did what the people in white coats asked, directions called out with no eye contact. For what, Penny didn't know, and none of them dared ask. Ever. Even Susie wasn't brave enough.

This day, she ran obstacle courses as fast as she could, then they had lunch, then they paired off. She was with one of the boys...Jo...and, thankfully, she won. He wasn't as calm as Susie about losing...he screamed, fighting against the people in white suits until one of them stuck a syringe in his neck and pressed down on the plunger, and he went limp. They'd all acted like that one or twice, especially after finding out what happened when you lost, but most learned better more quickly than 013 had. Jo. She thought his full name was Joseph but had never asked.

Her full name was Penelope. She mouthed it as she showered in the barely-warm water. Penny. Someone had called her that before. Her parents, maybe? Surely her parents had used her name. They'd given it to her. Penny and the others knew all about biology and where they'd come from. They knew about women and men and babies, but from there, it got a little fuzzy. A woman and a man had a baby, and then...they gave it to the school? Or, her parents had. They'd sent her to school for eighteen years and she wondered some days if they would pick her up when she could leave.

At night, when she couldn't fall asleep and was bored of reciting the periodic table and trying to remember the entirety of the papers she'd read in class, she let herself think about her parents. She let herself imagine them waiting for her when she stepped into the outside for the first time. She imagined her mother opening her arms and hugging her, something only one or two people had ever done. She imagined her father kissing her forehead, something she'd read about in a storybook once. And then, Penny would think about their house. Would they all live together in a house? Would they have a pet cat and grass outside and would water really fall from the sky?

Penny shook the thoughts off and dried herself with the towel before pulling her clothes on, a finger ghosting over her number. 024. She had to be 024 for just over four more years before she could be Penelope.

When she reached the classroom, all the others were trickling in, all sitting at their usual desks. Jo had his hands on his head and was staring at his desk, swaying a little and blinking too fast but she thought he'd be okay in a little while. Losing your match always hurt, and she wanted to place a hand on his shoulder as she passed, but she didn't dare. Not in front of Mr. Green who barely glanced up at them, but who would call the soldiers in to take any of them away the moment they broke a rule. He was scared of them, she thought, but never said it out loud.

Susie was pale and quiet, hands shaking as she rested her head on her desk, but she'd just gotten out of the White Room, so that wasn't exactly out of the ordinary. Penny took her seat, eyes downcast, until Mr. Green approached and asked her which textbook she wanted. Deciding to mix it up, she went for Physics.

Once Mr. Green had gone back to the front of the room, writing on his clipboard and playing with a little box that lit up, she finally dared to whisper. "I'm going to see him again today. I promised." Susie made no sign of hearing her, just kept her head on her desk and, unsurprisingly, Mr. Green didn't even seem to notice that she was sick. Then again, the teachers never did. Either that or they didn't care. Still, Penny cared. Susie was her friend, and it had been her idea to find Iron Man in the first place. "Do you want to come? I can introduce you."

The girl shook her head, and Penny swallowed her worry.

The day seemed to drag by as she waited...waited for it to pass. She'd never been anxious for a day to pass before. Never had anything to look forward to at the end of it except her room and lights out. This was new.

Susie went straight to the corner where they usually read after dinner, curling up with a threadbare blanket and closing her eyes, whole body shaking. Penny hesitated at her side, but Susie didn't even look at her.

"Are you okay?" Usually, the effects of the White Room had passed by the time dinner was over, but Susie only looked worse. Her friend didn't answer. Figuring the other girl just needed some sleep, Penny tucked the blanket around her, then went over to the wall, climbing up to the vent and removing the cover herself. The White Room had been bad before, she told herself as she crawled forward through the vent. Once, they had all been sick for over a week after, and there had been the time, one of Penny's first, when everything had hurt so badly that she'd just laid in her bed for...well, she didn't remember. Either way, Susie would be fine. They were always fine.

The little room was exactly the same as before, empty, except for Tony in his cage. This time he was laying on his back, staring at the ceiling, one leg hanging off the bed and swinging back and forth. She had to wonder why they kept him here. Did he try to break in? Did he do something bad? Who was keeping him there?

Penny hesitated for just a second before placing her hands on the inside of the vent cover, easing it forward, then turning it so that it fit beside her. Then she turned, sticking her hands and feet to the wall and crawling down. Despite how friendly he'd seemed, she was uncomfortable with having her back turned to Iron Man, so she hurried.

When she reached the ground, she turned and found Tony had sad up and was watching her, hands clasped, elbows on his knees. "Hello, Penny." The man greeted softly. Like Ms. Blue always did. She was the only one that talked to them like they were people. Did everyone outside talk to children like that?

"Hello, Tony." Penny parroted, just like she did with Ms. Blue. Was she supposed to call the man Mr. Stark? Like she did Mr. Green? He hadn't corrected her yet so she guessed not.

The man's eyes narrowed and he leaned a little closer as if trying to get a better look at her. "What happened? Did they catch you?" He asked, and she tilted her head in confusion. "Your face." He clarified.

There was only one place that Penny knew to find a mirror...a small, square one in the bathroom. So she had no idea what he was talking about. It was possible that one of the hits she'd taken in training had left a mark. She knew the others often walked around with bruises on their face, busted lips, black eyes...all of them healed in a day or two.

"No...they didn't." She told him. He continued to stare at her, and she at him until he finally spoke.

"How long have you been here?"

Penny was surprised. No one before him had ever asked her questions about herself. This man was strange. "Almost always. It's school." She told him with a shrug. He should know that. She knew from books that all children went to school.

"School? You go to school here?"

"We have class after lunch." She didn't mention training, although she wasn't sure why she kept that information back. Still, he seemed confused, so she continued. "We do word problems and I read papers about science. Ms. Blue gives them to me…". She hesitated, not sure if she was supposed to say that, and the next words popped out without her meaning to say them. "Please don't tell."

"That you read papers?"

"I don't think I'm supposed to. She sneaks them to me."

He nodded, apparently understanding that. "Okay. I won't tell."

Penny studied his eyes, but he didn't seem to be lying. She relaxed her hold on the wall, dropping lightly onto her toes, and let out a breath. He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't want to get her in trouble. He just wanted to talk.

"What are the papers about?" The man sat back a little and crossed his arms, tilting his head a little as if to show he was listening.

Did he know science too? "Science, physics, chemistry...there are some on gamma radiation. And one on something called an arc reactor." Tony's eyes widened at that and Penny wondered if he'd heard of it. "I don't understand all of them, but I'm trying."

"How old are you?"

"I'll be fourteen next month." She remembered Ms. Blue teaching them about manners then and realized it might be rude to just talk about herself. "How old are you?"

His lips twitched a little but he kept a straight face. "Forty-six."

She tilted her head, not sure how old he was in relation to the other people she knew. "Is that old?"

He did smile then, snorting a little. "Depends on who you ask." When she didn't answer, his smile softened. "Some people don't like being asked about their age." He told her, not unkindly. "It's usually not done."

"You asked how old I was." She pointed out, wondering if she was being rude again.

He nodded. "It's okay to ask children. Sometimes adults don't like it. I don't mind, though." Penny nodded, but then he was asking her another question. "Where are your parents?"

She frowned, hands coming to clasp in front of her. She knew she had parents. Hoped they were waiting for her. Hoped they were missing her. She didn't remember them exactly, but she told him what she had been told. "They sent me here. To learn. It's school." Penny repeated. She thought that this would clear everything up for him, but he didn't seem to understand. Or maybe he did and didn't like schools. "Didn't you go to school?"

"Yes…" He spoke carefully. "It wasn't like this."

"There are different kinds of schools?"

"There are." He didn't seem to be saying everything he was thinking, but Penny was used to that from adults, so she didn't press him. "Could you always climb walls?"

That question took her by surprise. She didn't want to answer. Didn't want to remember what they'd done to her. Didn't want to talk about herself anymore. Maybe she shouldn't have been telling him anything at all. Maybe he did want to hurt her. He was Iron Man, and she'd been talking to him like he was any other person but he wasn't, and she wasn't, and no adult had ever wanted to know so much about her. She backed up, pressing against the wall again, but he put his hands up.

"Hey...it's okay, kid. I can't get to you, remember. I wouldn't hurt you." He spoke seriously, eyes earnest. "I'm sorry. You don't have to talk about that if you don't want."

"Do you know Ms. Blue?" She wondered, the question blurted out when she couldn't hold it in anymore. He reminded her of Ms. Blue sometimes, in the way he spoke and looked at her. Like he wanted to help. No one else looked at her like that. He furrowed his brow, as if in thought.

"Ms. Blue?" He repeated, then shook his head. "No...who is she?"

"My teacher. She gives me the papers." Then something seemed to click.

"Ms. Blue...does she call herself that?"

Penny shook her head. "They don't tell us their names. It's the color on her badge."

He nodded then. "Ah. Um...I think I might have seen her around." There was a long pause and Penny glanced back up at the vent. "Do you need to go?"

She shook her head, turning to him once more. "No. No one's coming...I haven't been here very long."

"How can you tell that no one's coming?"

"I can hear them." He seemed to want to ask a question but closed his mouth, not pushing. "If you don't want to hurt us, what are you doing here?" She wondered, letting her own question slip out.

He stared at her for a moment, thinking. "Someone told me that they were taking children away from their families. That they were hurting them here. I came to see if it was true."

"You're in a cage," Penny reminded him as if he'd forgotten, and for a moment she worried again that she was being rude, but he only smiled tiredly.

"Yeah. Everything didn't exactly go to plan. But it's going to be okay." He shrugged carelessly.

"No one took us. Our parents sent us here," She informed him, parroting what the teachers and soldiers had told them. "It's school."

"Several children have been reported as missing," He told her almost gently, even though she wasn't sure what that meant. Missing? From where? How many people were missing? How many people were there? What did the world look like? What was a city? A town? Where was he from? The questions flew through her mind, but she didn't know how to voice them. "Some people think that the people at this...school...are killing people and taking their children."

"My parents sent me here." She told him again, voice forceful and almost afraid. Of course, her parents had sent her here. They would see her again when she turned eighteen! That was how it always worked.

He gave her a long look, eyes sad. He always looked so sad. "Have they ever visited? Written you?"

"Why would they?" She asked, cheeks getting hot. "I'm right here! They know where I am!" She was getting louder. Upset. She was almost never angry like this...wasn't allowed. But now she felt the anger rising in her chest, feet clenching. How dare he say her parents were dead! "They love me and they're waiting for me! I get to see them when I'm eighteen!" He stood from his cot, hands up, eyes so sad, but how dare he be sad for her!?

"Okay. Okay. I'm sure they're fine." He was lying...telling her something just to calm her down, and she spun, jumping and grabbing the wall, pulling herself up and climbing back into the vent. "Penny, wait!" He called. Eyes filling, she refused, leaving him alone in his cell and crawling back to the other room.  She checked for the soldiers before climbing back down, making sure to replace the vent cover, all the while ignoring her burning eyes and the urge to wipe the tears away.

Susie was laying on one of the blankets, face pale and drawn as she seemed to struggle to breathe. "Susie?" Penny asked, crawling over to sit beside her. The girl opened her eyes, and Penny flinched at the pain in them. She knew that pain. "I'm sorry. It'll be over soon." She promised, reaching out and taking the girl's hand. They weren't really supposed to do that...to comfort one another. They weren't even supposed to get close...to be friends. Friends were things she read about in books. People you did things with and went out with. But not here...not in school. She'd never read a book about a school, or what it was supposed to be like. She just knew that everyone went, and then all the parts beyond that were blacked out.

"Tony said that they killed our parents," She whispered, getting her face as close to Susie's as she could. "That they stole us from our families." Finally, a tear fell, and she hurried to wipe it away.  They didn't cry.  Ever.  Except maybe in the White Room when they couldn't help it.

"Mom and Dad sent me here," Susie rasped, lips turning down, eyes barely open. "I remember...they brought me...I was little but…" She trailed off, coughing. This was worse than Penny had gotten...worse than anyone Penny had seen before.

"I don't remember." Penny confided. "I was too little." She had no memories of parents. All she remembered was being in her room at school in the part of the building where younger kids lived. There had been fifteen of them. Then fourteen. Then ten. Then eleven. Then nine. The number fluctuated, and when one child would disappear before they were eighteen, the teachers told the remaining kids that they had been taken home by their parents.

"My dad cried," Susie whispered. They had never talked about this before. It wasn't allowed. But what Tony had said, it didn't make sense! Why would a school steal children? "He hugged me for a long time, and I didn't want to let go. Then they made him leave."

Penny closed her eyes, bringing up her earliest memories. Learning to punch. Fighting a little boy who had tried to take a toy from her. Sitting in a room and talking to people in lab coats who ignored her. The White Room...needles. Pain.  Getting so sick that she'd been too weak to even open her eyes. Climbing the walls for the first time. But none of her parents.

No...if she thought back further, they must be there! They had to be!

Kimmy was taken to the White Room the next day. Tuesday was always her day. She didn't come out. The others whispered in class, one boy earning a smack on his desk and a warning look from the soldiers. Ms. Blue looked sad, and she didn't teach them anything, just looked through papers at her desk and let them read. Penny half looked through the arc reactor paper, but instead of reading it, she found herself focusing on the black bar at the top. That was where the author's name was supposed to be. Why wasn't she allowed to know that?

Susie kept her head down all through class, and none of the teachers spoke to her, although when she entered, Ms. Blue put a gentle hand on her back. The woman lingered there for just a moment, and Penny felt a thrill of jealousy that she knew wasn't good. It was cruel of her to begrudge her friend the same confit she wanted so badly. And Susie wasn't getting better. But they always got better. She had to get better!

Ms. Blue gave Penny a sad look, trying and failing to smile, then moved to the front of the room.

That night, Susie wasn't at dinner, and Penny played basketball with the only other girl, Willa, Kimmy's best friend despite the fact that they weren't allowed to have friends.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

A huge thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing! I hope you like the new chapter :)

3. To See Anything Besides the Shadows

Penny knelt in the vent, fingers on the cover, but she didn't move it. It was Wednesday.

Instead, she watched Tony down below, apparently unaware that anyone was watching. Why did they even have him locked up here? What did they want with him? Were they going to kill him? Surely they wouldn't...right? But...if they thought he was dangerous, would they let him go? Was he dangerous? Everything she knew pointed to no...he wasn't dangerous. He was quiet and sad, and apparently kind of friendly. But he didn't seem dangerous. Then again, he was in a cage. And he didn't have his robot suit. Surely with that, he would be more dangerous.

He was pacing in his cell, muttering things to himself she didn't understand. Words put together in ways she'd never heard. She wanted to ask what they were...what he knew...what the world was like. But she only had one question in mind. One she'd thought about all day yesterday and all morning during training. She'd just barely won her match with Mark. Luckily, she'd managed to take him down at the last second with a well placed kick to his chest. He'd gotten a few good punches in, though. In the end, they had led him away, him walking between two soldiers.

Penny had thought about not coming. About staying in the gym and playing basketball, or reading a book, or just worrying about Susie. And Kimmy. And Jo. Wednesday was Jo's day. Next would be Mark. Then Andre. Then Willa

Then her.

The order had always been the same, although the days had been different at one time, depending on how many of them there were. Now there were seven. Seven kids, seven days. Nice and neat.

What if Tony was lying? That was her biggest question. What if he was messing with her? What if this was school and what if this was normal and what if she was going to die here like all the others? But, she thought as she watched him pace, well aware that she was running out of time, why would he have lied about it? Why be kind to her when he didn't have to? Why tell her about a whole world he'd made up when she'd never even get to see it? What was the point of any of it?

Penny placed her fingers on the vent cover and closed her eyes. There was only one way to find out. Removing the cover, she placed it as quietly as she could next to her, then turned, climbing down the wall, back to Tony. He couldn't get her, she reminded herself. Couldn't hurt her. So she carefully made her way down, then hopped off the wall, landing silently on her toes before turning around and finding that he had stopped pacing. Instead, he stood in the middle of his cage, watching her.

"Hello, Tony."

"Hello, Penny."

She hesitated, looking down at her feet, then at the vent behind her. The door on the far wall. The room was empty other than those things. In the cage were the remains of what looked like food on a tray. She wondered if he ate what she ate. She wondered if he knew what chicken tasted like. She wondered if he was angry with her, and if she was still angry with him, or if it had ever been him that she'd been angry with.

"How are you?"

She blinked at him. It was a question Ms. Blue had asked the class on her first day, and all she'd received in turn had been blank stares. That had been their first lesson on manners. Sometimes, you were just supposed to say that you were well and ask the same question back. That was when the other person probably didn't care how you were. Penny had wondered why the person would ask if they didn't care, but hadn't asked. Hadn't dared. Not yet. Not until she knew what kind of teacher Mr. Blue was. Later, she would learn that it was safe to ask her questions.

So the real question here was, did Tony care?

"I don't know." She finally answered, still pressed against the wall. It was the truth, and he seemed to accept it as such, giving a sad nod. Why was he always so sad? Was it because he was in a cage? "How are you?"

"I don't really know either, kiddo."

She swallowed hard, arms crossed over her chest, trying to figure out how to ask.

"Penny?" She looked up. "Whatever it is you're thinking about asking, it's okay. You can ask."

"What did you mean?" She finally blurted. "About people going missing. How do people go missing?" He seemed to think about the question for a moment, seriously considering it.

"Their families tell the police that they're missing...that they haven't seen them in a while." He finally told her. "Or they don't show up to work. Then the police look for them. If they can't find them, and too many people go missing, the government calls people like me."

"Iron Man?"

He nodded. "Yeah. The Avengers."

She hesitated to speak again...she was never allowed as many questions as she wanted. But he was waiting. "Who are the police?"

"Um...they're people whose jobs it is to make sure people are safe."

"Who is the government?"

"Basically the same thing, but...bigger." It didn't make sense, but she didn't seem to be bothering him. He apparently took her silence for the confusion it was, because he went on. "Every city has a government...people that make rules. And cities are in countries that have a bigger government. They all try to work together to keep people safe. Sometimes. Sometimes they just make a lot of rules." He gave her a wry smile, and she tried to return it before asking her next question.

She'd never been allowed to ask so many questions.

"Do you work for the government?" She wondered, trying to piece it together in her mind. "The Avengers."

"Um...sometimes." He shrugged. "Sometimes we just try to help people.

"Are my parents dead?" The last question slipped out...she hadn't meant to ask. Hadn't meant for her voice to break.

He didn't drop his gaze, even though he looked so sad. Still, he met her eyes, serious. Calm. "I don't know." He admitted. "I can try to find out. I will."

"How do I know that you're not lying?"

He sighed, palms up. "You've got to decide that for yourself, kid. I don't exactly have a way to prove it to you in here."

"I don't remember them." Penny confided, eyes downcast. "At all. I don't remember coming here. I just...I remember school and the rules and reading and the White Room and fighting but I don't remember coming here." Her voice had gotten weaker and weaker until it broke off all together.

"The White Room?" He asked, voice gentle.

"We're not allowed to talk about it." Penny whispered, refusing to meet his eyes.

"You're also not allowed to be in here." He reminded her.

She didn't answer, arms crossed tightly across her chest as she stared at the floor. Her hands shook, and her eyes shot over to the door, then back to the floor. She couldn't tell him. Couldn't let herself talk about it. After a moment, he spoke again, his voice a near-whisper.

"Okay, kid. I won't ask anymore." He leaned against the bars of the cell. When had he moved forward? When had she moved toward the center is the room? Inch by inch, she'd moved away from the wall as she'd asked him questions. "You can ask me more questions if you want. I don't mind."

"Where are you from?"

"New York."

"What's that?"

He smiled, almost laughing a little. "It's a city." He explained. "Lots of buildings. Lots of people."

"Is it close to here?"

Tony pressed his lips together, then nodded his head. "Yeah. Not too far."

"What's it like?"

"New York? Loud. Busy…"

"No." She dropped her eyes, glancing at the door before taking a step forward. This wasn't allowed. They would punish her if they heard her asking things like this. "Outside." She whispered.

"You've...you've never been outside?"

She shook her head. "I mean...they let us read some books. Our teachers, and the people in the lab coats don't care. We read about outside, and I know the sky is blue and the grass is green and...does water really fall from the sky?"

He gave a weak smile. "Yeah, kid. It does. Outside of here is...it's big. It's everything."

"When I'm eighteen, do you think I can go to New York?"

"Why don't you come before that?" He asked. "I've got a big house. A whole skyscraper to myself...well, me and the rest of the Avengers. Plenty of guest rooms. You can stay with me." She didn't know why he'd say that...why would he offer to let her stay with him? Unless…

"You think my parents are dead."

There was a long silence, and Tony tapped his fingers against the bars, shaking his head. "I don't know, Penny. I really don't. I'll try to find out. I'll see if I can find them."

"Are they going to let you go?"

"Don't worry about me, kid. I'm going to get out of here." He promised, running a hand over his eyes. "I'll get you out too. All of you. It's what the Avengers do. We help people."

"They told us that you kill people. That you'd kill us because we were mutants."

"You know, Captain America is enhanced. Bruce Banner, the Hulk. A mutant. Scarlet Witch...all mutants." Tony smiled a little. "None of us would hurt you. We don't hurt kids. Or anyone else for that matter, unless they're trying to hurt someone else. We're superheroes."

She didn't know what that meant...didn't know what to say. Her mind wandered back to Susie...to the White Room where she would be going back in a few days and the seemingly endless stretch of days until she turned eighteen...until she could leave.

Unless Tony Stark was telling the truth. Unless her parents were dead and this place was…

What?

"Why did you come here?" She asked softly, moving a little closer so that she was nearly standing right in front of the bars. Nearly within reaching distance. He frowned, face confused. He'd already answered that. But she wanted more. "You think they're taking us...killing our parents. So what are you going to do?"

"Don't worry about that, kid. We're going to take care of it." We. As if the Avengers were here with him. She didn't understand...but she was starting to realize that she understood almost nothing and it terrified her. Tony reached a hand through the bars toward her and it took every ounce of willpower she had not to jump backwards. Instead, she locked in place, her entire body stiffening. But he was just holding out a hand, palm facing sideways. She stared at it, then back up at his face.

He was smiling, sad again. Was Iron Man always sad? "A handshake, Penny. Don't you ever shake hands?"

"We're not supposed to touch."

"Why?"

"They don't want us to be friends." She told him with a shrug. It was true. They were never supposed to touch or talk or be together.

He scoffed, stretching out the hand a little further, and, after a long hesitation, she took a step forward, then another. She reached out her own hand, meeting his eyes as she took his hand. He could hurt her...he could do something to her. She didn't know what. But when she clasped his hand in hers, she was surprised at how...human he felt. Not like her. He, too, seemed surprised at her grip, and she was careful not to squeeze too tight.

"You're strong." He observed, squeezing her hand a little, then moved it up and down. She let him. "This is a handshake, kid."

"Why?"

"It's...it's a way of saying that you mean something. Really mean it. I'm going to get you out of here. I mean that."

"But this is my school. I'm supposed to stay here."

He kept her hand in his for a minute, then let go. She felt cold, suddenly. Cold and alone on the other side of those bars.

"This isn't a school, kiddo. This is a prison. Schools don't lock kids up. Keep them away from other people. They teach them and let them have friends, and when the school day is over, the kids go home to their families."

Home. Family. What did those words even mean? She let her hand fall to her side, shivering, then wrapping her arms around herself. "I should go." She whispered. "They'll look if I'm gone too long."

"Alright kid. Be careful." He urged. She nodded, turning back to the wall which had gotten so far away. She crossed that distance alone, shivering as she climbed the wall. The vent was cold, and she was cold as she replaced the vent cover, made her way to the other room, then crawled onto the blanket in the corner, missing Susie beside her. Susie would want to know all of this. She always wanted to know everything. She would want to know that Tony Stark wanted to help them get out of this place that was feeling colder and more lonely every second.

That night, Penny got into bed, listening to the lock click behind her. Laying on her cot, pulling the thin blanket up to her neck and curling up into a ball, she stared at the wall and tried not to think of Susie who she hadn't seen in days. Of Kimmy who hadn't come to class. Of Jo, who had been too sick to keep his head up and who she doubted would be in class the next day. Of Mark who was next. Of herself, and what would happen in the White Room on Sunday.

She dreamed of Tony that night. Dreamed that she was in the White Room and he was there...needle in hand. She was begging him. Crying. She'd thought he was...her friend? Maybe? Could they be friends? She didn't know. But he was approaching with a needle, pushing it into her arm and she was crying...crying because Susie was so sick and so was Kimmy and Jo and it would be her eventually...and what if she didn't make it? What if her parents didn't come and get her? What if they had killed her parents and what if they...they were going to...she couldn't finish that thought, even in her dream as Tony pushed down the plunger. "Please. Tony, please?"

His face changed then, going to that familiar sad look he gave her so often.

"It's dangerous." She whispered up at him. Whatever they were giving them in the White Room...it was dangerous.

Tony nodded, reaching out and taking her hand. "So are you."

Penny jerked awake in the middle of the night. And she couldn't get back to sleep.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

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To Talk It Over

That morning when they brought her breakfast, Penny was already awake. She drank her breakfast shake in a daze, leaning back against the wall behind her bed. When it was time to leave her room, head down, not daring to make eye contact with the soldiers, she trained in a daze. And when it came time to fight after lunch, this time with Willa, she lost. She hadn't lost in weeks...she did her best to never lose. One session a week with the scientists was more than enough. But that day, she lost. Willa got her in the face with a roundhouse kick, knocking her down to the mat and busting her nose, and she had to blink back stars as she started to pick herself up. "Number 009, go to class. 024, come with us."

Willa was small...the smallest of all of them. And although she spent most of her free time with Kimmy, she and Penny had whispered a few times over the last few years, and before that, they'd played in the same room. Not together...they weren't supposed to play together. But she had comforted Willa when she'd worried about her friend, and they played basketball on the same team against the boys sometimes.

When Penny sat up on the mat, rubbing blood off of her face, Willa refused to look at her, staring straight ahead as the people in white coats wrote something down. Penny didn't blame her...she was always the same. Bad enough you were sending someone to be experimented on. It would be worse to watch as they were led away.

Penny went with the soldiers, not fighting, but the words from her dream came back to her as she walked between the two men, huge guns strapped to their backs. She was dangerous. She was strong. She had trained all her life...trained to fight. And these soldiers...they were just people. Men. Like Mr. Stark. She had felt his hand in hers, something she'd never felt before. Never had any of the people in white coats or her teachers taken her hand or let her really touch them...not before Ms. Blue. Then Tony. And now she knew how weak they really were. She didn't do anything about it, but it was a good feeling.

There was a bed in the room. Not the White Room...another room down the hall where the walls were gray and the bed was gray and the machine behind it was black with cords that wound around it like she had read snakes did. She wondered what a snake looked like as she was instructed to lay down, focusing on that instead of the gnawing fear in her stomach. This was why she always won. Why she always made sure to train as hard as she could.

Once it had been a tub, with ice and freezing water. It felt like she'd never quite gotten warm after that. Another time it had been needles...so many times it had been needles. Every time they'd come up with something new, she'd think that she hated it the most. Then they'd do something new and over and over she'd swear that she'd never lose again.

But she couldn't win every time.

The leather cuffs held her to the bed by her wrists and ankles. Penny knew that she could get out of them. She knew that she could break them. But the room was full of soldiers, all of them with guns. She couldn't beat all of them, not when they had guns and she had nothing. Little disks were pressed to her head, and as the people in white coats worked, she tested her hands against the straps. They had guns, she reminded herself again. Guns that would rip holes in her. A leather headband was placed over her forehead. She could break that too. She was dangerous.

Tony had offered to bring her home with him. Try to find her family.

Home. Family. What did those things really mean?

'I dare you.'

Would she be thinking about this had Susie not said those words? Where was Susie? Was she better yet? Why was this one so hard to recover from?

They put a block into her mouth. It was soft and hard at the same time, and it stretched her jaw, making her wince. Not the worst pain she'd ever had, not by a longshot.

Sometimes they did other things...sometimes they made her run. Made her go through obstacle courses. Locked her in a cold room alone for an hour. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. But this had been the punishment last time too. The people in white coats stared at their monitors, clipboards in hand, as something was pressed to her head. And then it started.

Behind her the machine hummed, and her whole body locked, rigid. She felt her head pressing against the leather strap, straining but not breaking it. The machine hummed louder and she couldn't think anymore. She was convulsing, not able to stop her muscles from locking then shaking. Pain...not like the pain of getting hit during training. Pain like...like...nothing else. Like bugs moving under her skin and biting her and like strings yanking on her body, making her move without meaning to. Her eyes focused on the ceiling without her choosing to, and then, after what felt like too long, during which she screamed into the bite block, she didn't know anything else.

When she woke, she had been uncuffed, the leather strap removed from her forehead, but the metal disks were still on her head. She didn't know how long it had been, but she couldn't make her brain focus. Couldn't figure out what she was supposed to do. So she stayed on the table, sore and weak, head pounding, until one of the men in a long coat came over and pulled the electrodes off of her head. "024, go to dinner."

Dinner. They'd kept her all through class. Not wanting to risk disobedience, she stumbled off to the cafeteria, holding onto the wall and shaking the whole way, her legs threatening to buckle with every step. She'd been asleep for so long...or unconscious. She didn't know which. None of the people in white coats looked up as she passed. They didn't see her when they weren't studying her. Her whole body ached and her head pounded and her mouth tasted like blood...had she somehow bitten her tongue?

Somehow she made it to the cafeteria, dropping down onto the bench and waiting for them to place the food in front of her. They had to wait...sit and wait. Always. If they got up, the soldiers pointed guns at them. If they looked for too long at the soldiers, they pointed guns at them. If they talked back or if they talked to each other...it was all the same.

Kimmy wasn't at dinner. Neither was Susie. Or Jo. Mark had his head down on the table, ignoring his meal. His usually dark skin was several shades lighter, and occasionally he would cough, staining his jumpsuit red. Penny picked at her own plate, trying not to look. Trying not to think about Susie or Kimmy or Jo...or what would happen to her on Sunday.

Then it was time to go to the yard. No one offered to help Mark stand up. The others just walked by him. She glanced at the soldiers, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. She was going to get in trouble. She knew that. She knew that this wouldn't end well. But she couldn't just leave him there. So Penny moved over to his side, kneeling a little and putting a hand on his shoulder. Immediately, there were guns pointed at her.

"024, go to the yard," one of the soldiers ordered. She'd never hated that number before. Never hated the soldiers or the people in lab coats. Because how else would adults be? But then she'd met Ms. Blue...and Tony. And now she hated them.

"He's sick...he needs help!" She snapped, whirling around and glaring at them.

One of them pulled back the gun to hit her and she jumped back just in time, feeling her lips pull back in a snarl.

"024!" A woman in a lab coat approached, face set in a scowl. But she was afraid. "024, go to the yard right now." She murmured, pointing, and Penny felt a thrill of fury.

"He's sick!"

"And we're going to help him." She gestured for two more people in lab coats who came over and lifted Mark by his arms. "Now go." The soldiers all watched her as she stood there, mind reeling, hands shaking. She felt like she was going to fall but she couldn't. Couldn't let herself. Everything hurt...her whole body hurt and she was shaking and they weren't going to help him. They never helped them.

There were only three of them left now. Willa sat in one corner of the gymnasium, knees to her chest as she sat under the basketball goal. Andre was in the opposite corner, staring at the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. Mark was his friend. Of course he was. And Kimmy was Willa's. Jo had been friends with both of them. With all of them. Of course they were friends, Penny thought with eyes that filled with tears. How could they not be? They'd grown up together and they were all each other had and even if it wasn't allowed, how could they have avoided it? Stumbling past them, she made her way over to the soldier who was looking down at his little box. As soon as he saw her, he grabbed his gun, apparently more than happy to shoot. But was he really?

Why did they train them if they were just going to let them go? Or kill them? Why go through the trouble of training them? And teaching them? Would he really shoot her? Was she willing to risk it?

"Where's 019?" She asked, knowing she wasn't supposed to be asking questions, but also knowing that she had to know. It had been three days. Where was Susie?

"Back up, 024." He snapped. Willa looked up, lips in a tight line. She was scared. So was Andre. So was Penny. They so rarely showed how afraid they were...Penny didn't know why. She was suddenly so afraid...she wanted Susie and she wanted Ms. Blue and she wanted Tony Stark who she had only met a few days ago but who she already liked just as much as Ms. Blue and who she might trust to save her.

"Please," she whispered. "She was sick. Do you know where she is?"

He rolled his eyes, barely able to keep the malace out of his voice. "Her parents came to pick her up. Now go." He barked, pointing a finger at the room where the others all sat in silence.

Penny barely remembered stumbling into the back room, or climbing up the wall. She barely remembered crawling through the vent and then half falling to the floor in the room with Tony's cage when her hands shook too badly to hold onto the wall.

"Penny!"

She remembered Tony calling for her...remembered, dragging herself to her feet and half-crawling over to the cage.

"Penny, what happened? Are you hurt?" He cried, gripping the bars.

She was crying, she realized. She never cried. Never. Especially not in front of other people. If she had to cry, she did so in her room at night, or in the shower. She leaned against the bars, hands shaking as she sank to the floor, and he crouched in front of her, reaching out and touching her shoulder through the bars. They had never been this close to one another. But he wasn't the one she had to be scared of.

"Come on, honey, talk to me. What happened?"

Honey? He'd called her that before. What was honey? What did that mean?

"They killed her...they killed my friend," she whimpered, letting herself say the word out loud for the first time. "She's the...the one that dared me to come in here and...and she was my...my friend and I've never had a friend...except for her and they took her into the White Room and now she's dead!" She choked on her words but made herself keep going, barely able to see through her tears. "They said her parents came to get her but they're lying. And they're going to kill me too...they're killing all of us. They killed our parents and they're hurting us and…" She broke off, sobbing too hard to speak, arms reaching through the bars like she had reached for her teachers when she was little...they had never held her. Neither had the people in the white coats.

But Iron Man, the one that she had always been told would kill her if he got the chance, reached through the bars and hugged her as best he could. "I'm sorry." He whispered. "I'm so, so sorry, honey."

That was the last thing she knew before she slumped against the bars.

And then hands were touching her...no one ever touched her. At least, not so openly. Sometimes Susie would hold her hand when the White Room was really bad. And Ms. Blue had hugged her that one time. But...hadn't she been in the room with Tony? Who was touching her?

"Why is she shaking?" A voice she knew asked.

The answering voice was almost frantic. "I don't know...I don't know. She might be cold...she's always cold. It's the spider DNA. They keep it cold here...they want them uncomfortable." That was Ms. Blue. Right? What was Ms. Blue doing? Where was she? "She lost the sparring match today. They pair them up in the afternoons. Make them fight and run tests on the losers." Tony said a word she didn't know...it was hard to catch it. Everything was hard to catch. "I don't know what they did to her...she never came to class." She felt someone touch her head, pushing her short hair back, and then there was a soft hiss.

"What the hell?"

"They've been experimenting with electroshock...especially with Penny and Susie. Inducing seizures with electricity and studying their brain activity compared to that of non enhanced humans."

"They electrocuted her." It was a flat statement, but she felt like the voice was upset as fingers trailed through her hair.

Penny groaned when one of the fingers brushed against a sore spot on her head, but someone touched her shoulders, keeping her from trying to sit up.

"Hold on. Stay still, Penny. It's okay."

She shook her head, trying to push them away. Was it Ms. Blue, or was it one of the people in white coats? Were they going to kill her next? Was it already time for the White Room?

"No...no, please, don't…" She whimpered, turning her face away, but no one pricked her with any needles. No one put anything on her head or did anything to hurt her.

"The burns are already healing...they kept the paddles on for too long, but her body is fighting it off. She'll be okay." That was Ms. Blue. She wanted Ms. Blue...but why was she in the room with Tony?

"Miss…". She muttered, not able to get the words out.

"Yes. I'm here, Penny. Take a second. You're okay. They used a higher voltage." That last part was said to someone else. "Had she not been enhanced, she would be dead."

"She said her friend was dead." There was silence...Ms. Blue must have made some kind of gesture. "Fuck." Tony muttered.

"Three of the children are already classified as deceased. They're testing this virus…I don't know why. They still don't tell me everything. They suspect I'm still working for you. I haven't seen any bodies but...they'll inject Penny on Sunday. The boy they injected today isn't doing well. How long until they get here?"

"They're coming tomorrow." Tony's voice was soft. Afraid.

"Andre is next. Then the youngest, Willa. Penny is the strongest, so they save her for last."

Penny opened her eyes, feeling her hands shake and tears build in her eyes. Susie was dead. Her friend was dead. But someone was coming? "Can they be here tonight?"

"I haven't exactly been able to keep in touch. Why are they keeping me in here? No interrogation. No crazy experiments...I'd think they'd forgotten about me if they weren't still feeding me" Tony spoke softly, and Ms. Blue scoffed.

"They don't know what to do with you. They're trying to keep this low-key...they already moved all of the younger children to another facility in another state, but they know that if you're here, the Avengers are watching them. That's why they sped up the testing. They don't have any interest in you."

"Hello, Tony." Penny finally muttered, forcing her eyes open. She was laying on the floor, a hand on her forehead...Ms. Blue. Tony was sitting at the edge of his cage, a hand reaching through the bars to stroke her hair.

"Hello, Penny." He gave a weak smile, finger running through her hair.

"Tony?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"What's 'fuck'?"

Ms. Blue pressed her hand to her mouth, turning slightly away from Penny who looked between the two in confusion. Her teacher's shoulders were shaking a little, and Penny hoped she hadn't upset her.

Tony cleared his throat, looking torn between uncomfortable and amused. "It's...uh...it means...that something is bad." He stammered, moving his hand and squeezing her shoulder. "But it's, um...not really a word you should say."

"Oh." She muttered, sitting up, and they let her, Ms. Blue placing a hand behind her back to help her. "What happened?"

"Your body needed rest to heal." Her teacher told her.

Penny didn't have to ask from what. She knew...she remembered. She ran a hand over her face, glad that the shaking was almost gone, but her head still throbbed.

"I have to go back…what time is it?"

"I spoke to Jos….to one of the soldiers. I told him I needed to speak to you in private. I'll take you to bed in a few minutes. Just take a moment.

"Oh," She murmured, looking over at Tony. "You said the Avengers are coming?" Just the thought scared her, even though she'd been wrong about Tony. Would the others be nice too? Or was it all a ploy? Would they come and kill all of them? Just like the people in the white coats were killing them? How were they supposed to survive this?

He nodded. "Yeah, kid, they are."

"Can they save us?" It was such a childish question...something she would have asked years ago when she was small and hoping she would get to go home one day...not that she had ever known what that meant. Still, he didn't seem to think it was a babyish question.

"Yeah, Penny. They're going to save us."

She nodded...he sounded like he meant it. So there was no reason for her to be so afraid. But she was.

"Penny, do you remember what happened?"

"Yeah." Penny whispered, wishing she hadn't.

"What did they tell you about Susie?"

"They said...they said her parents came for her. But...they're lying. They...have they always been lying?" She asked, blood draining from her face as she thought of all the children she had known that had been 'picked up by their parents and 'taken home.' Mr. Stark looked so sad...sadder than normal. But it was Ms. Blue that answered.

"Yes. I think they have." Penny bit down hard on her lip, hiding her face in her hands as she felt the pain radiate out from her chest like pressure. Too much. She felt like she was going to burst with it. Ms. Blue scooted forward on the floor, wrapping her arms around Penny, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. She curled up into a ball, resting her head on the woman's shoulder, and she felt Tony pat her back as best he could.

"It's okay. I know, sweetheart...I know this hurts. But it's almost over. We're going to get you out of here. I promise. The Avengers are coming and they're going to help. Okay?"

"They won't hurt us?" She asked, voice breaking.

"No...no they won't hurt you. They'll protect you. And I'll be with you the whole time, okay?"

"You know the Avengers?" Penny asked in a whisper. She felt Ms. Blue nod against her shoulder.

"I do. I'm their doctor." Penny pulled away, eyes going large in surprise. Their doctor? What did she mean? "I came here because we were afraid that they were hurting children. Now we're going to get you kids out and help you find your families."

"What if my family is dead?"

"Then you can stay with me," Tony told her, still pressed against the bars as close to her as he could get, a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about that, kiddo."

Penny looked into his eyes, trying to see if he was serious. She didn't know what he meant...not really. He lived in New York but that didn't mean anything to her. He apparently lived with the Avengers. So...she would live with the Avengers too?

He squeezed her shoulder, his shoulder pressed hard against the bars. "I know you don't understand right now, kiddo. Just...don't be afraid. Okay?" She nodded, her dream coming back to her. This was dangerous...but so was she.

"Okay, Penny. I think we need to get you back to bed now." Ms. Blue whispered, pulling away just a little and placing her palm against Penny's cheek. "But it's going to be okay. I promise."

Penny gave a weak nod, looking over at Tony who held out his hand. She took it, careful not to squeeze.

"I'll see you tomorrow, okay, kiddo?"

"Okay." Penny whispered. She trusted him. He would save her. He would get her out of here. Ms. Blue wrapped an arm around her, helping her to her feet, and Penny tried to give Tony one last smile before she and her teacher headed for the door.

Ms. Blue was reaching out for the doorknob when it turned, and before either of them could react, the door swung open and a man she had never seen before stepped inside, flanked by soldiers.

"So. You are still working with Stark." The man sighed, looking from her to Ms. Blue to Tony. "I'm not surprised, really. Disappointed, but not surprised. 024, come with us. There's been a change in plans."

Penny moved without thinking, knowing that she had to obey, but Ms. Blue grabbed her arm, yanking her back.

"You've already lost, Osborne. The Avengers are coming. They know where you are and they're on their way. I've been sending them all of my data."

The man stared her down for a moment, icy blue eyes cold and furious. Then he smiled, turning to the soldier on his left.

"How is subject 021?"

"He is not expected to survive the night, sir."

"Go ahead and terminate. Take 024 and the remaining subjects to the lab and inject them, then get them ready for transport. Lock Ms. Cho here up with Stark. We'll leave them for the Avengers to find."

Penny felt her heart threaten to stop when the soldiers stepped forward...but she couldn't let them hurt Ms. Blue...Ms. Cho? Whoever she was, she couldn't let them lock her up. So she moved as quickly as she could, grabbing one of the guns and squeezing, feeling it crumple between her fingers with a satisfying crunch. Then she grabbed the soldier who'd been holding it, shoving him hard into the man behind him and knocking them both backwards. Osborne said something into a box and Penny ducked when the second soldier swung his gun at her, moving easily out of his way.

He was dangerous.

So was she.

They weren't really willing to shoot her. She was too valuable.

Penny turned back toward the cage that held Tony, grabbing the bars and pulling. They began to come apart with almost no effort...until a sense went off in her neck, shooting down her spine...and then everything was fuzzy.

"No!" Ms. Blue screamed, but when Penny looked up, she was being held back by a soldier, and Tony was reaching for her but she was stumbling back, bringing up a hand to touch her neck. There was something in there...a little tube that must have poked her. A needle. "You'll kill her! The virus will kill her! You…" Ms. Blue was cut off, and Penny glanced over to find her on the ground. One of the soldiers...there were more now, dragged her over to the door of the cage by an arm, throwing her into the cage, then slamming the door shut, all while the other soldiers kept their guns trained on Tony who stood frozen by the bars.

"Tony…" She murmured, knees buckling.

"It's okay, kid. Don't worry. We're going to get you out of here. You're going to be okay!" He called as one soldier grabbed her by the hair, yanking her backwards. "Get the fuck away from her! She's a child!"

"Give it up, Stark." Osborne sounded bored, and the soldier threw her over his shoulder, her groaning when her stomach pressed into his shoulder. "It's not even a real human. You can't let yourself get attached."

As the soldier carried her out of the room, Penny let her eyes shut, unable to keep them open any longer. This was bad. And now she knew a word for when something was bad.

"Fuck."

Thank you for reading! 

Chapter Text

Part 2: Liberation

"Whenever any of them was unchained and was forced to stand up suddenly, to turn around, to walk, and to look up toward the light, in each case the person would be able to do this only with pain and because of the flickering brightness would be unable to look at those things whose shadows he previously saw." -Socrates, Allegory of the Cave

Unchained

When Penny opened her eyes again, she was on a familiar table.

Cold. She was so cold. Clenching her teeth and glaring at the ceiling, she tried to take stock...to remember. She had been talking to Tony and Ms. Blue who was Ms. Cho and then they had come in and taken her. How had they known? Or had they always known? Had they just used her to prove that Ms. Blue was still working with Tony?

Her ankles and wrists were cuffed to the table, and if she could get her limbs to work, she knew she was strong enough to break the leather straps. She had always been strong enough, she realized. This whole time, they had been stronger than the people who had locked them away. But with the drugs coursing through her system, she could barely move. It was a familiar feeling...they'd drugged her so many times she'd lost count. No...not lost count. She'd never thought to count. Had never thought that this was anything out of the ordinary. But Tony said it was. Tony said that this wasn't a school. That it was a prison.

She was in the White Room. Stark white walls and stainless steel filled her vision. The first time she'd come in here, she had been so small...so cold. So afraid. They had made her sick, and for a full day she had curled up in a ball in her room, screaming and waiting for the pain to stop. She'd been hot then cold, vision coming and going, until she'd woken up. She'd opened her eyes then...and everything had changed.

Penny had climbed walls nonstop until the people in white coats had threatened to tie her down. Then she'd mostly stopped. Now she tried to strain against the leather, but her arms wouldn't move. She looked around, trying to spot one of the others, but all she could see were people in white coats murmuring to one another, clipboards in hand. "Please," she slurred, but they were ignoring her. They had always ignored her.

"Okay, test subject 024...shows the most promise for resisting the virus...go ahead and inject, then prep for transport. Boss said we have to get out of here by morning," one of them said behind their face masks. A woman holding a clipboard wrote something down, and another woman approached with a silver tray, placing it carefully on the table beside Penny's head.

"No…" Penny never begged them...she'd always known that it was pointless. But, staring at the woman that didn't even glance at her, she begged anyway. "Please don't…" She mumbled. They never listened to her. Never spoke to her. Tony had told her that this wasn't a school. This wasn't what schools were supposed to be like! She tugged weakly with one hand, trying to focus all of her energy...waiting for someone to come through those doors...waiting for Tony to help her. No one had ever saved her...maybe he would. Surely he would...he'd promised!

The woman flicked the needle, then swabbed the inside of Penny's elbow with a cold cotton ball. "Test subject 024, injected with…" The needle slipped into her skin and she whimpered. "Trial 398-B at twenty one hundred hours."

It burned...the liquid in her veins burned so cold and so...sharp. She felt it moving through her body and she whimpered again. It was too late...too late for anyone to save her. It had killed all the others and now it would kill her! She sobbed, head dropping back on the metal table as the trembling started. Her whole body shook and she felt tears drip down her cheeks, cold against her hot skin. She was hot. Her whole body was hot. She was boiling...but she was so cold. She shuddered, wishing she could curl up into a ball, but the straps kept her pinned to the table. "Subject is showing similar symptoms to other subjects," one of them murmured. She wanted to scream, wanted to break the straps and kill the people that had hurt her for so long! But she couldn't even move.

They kept talking...kept murmuring. Clipboards in hand, they stared at the monitors they had her hooked up to and stared at whatever they were writing and stared at her, but never really looked at her. She closed her eyes after a while, coughing and tasting blood. She'd tasted blood so many times, but there was more this time. She choked out a sob, straining and moaning at the pain in her chest as she breathed...tried to breathe. She was choking. Turning her head to the side, she felt blood trickle out of her open mouth and onto the table.

Why? Why were they doing this? Why train them only to kill them?

Time passed, slower than it ever had before. Even on other nights after a bad morning in the White Room, when it had been so bad that she hadn't been able to eat or train or go to the yard, time hadn't passed so slowly. She stared up at the ceiling as, all around here, there was movement. They put things in boxes and she heard screaming...screaming and sobbing, and she stared up at the ceiling, tears pouring down her cheeks and shaking from the cold, and then the table she was on moved. "Load 024 into the van...we need to be…"

And then there was a noise like she'd never heard before. A 'boom' as if something huge had fallen. Penny's table came to an abrupt halt, and she was shaking too hard to speak or think...something was happening. There were gunshots, and the sound of something hitting metal...bullets. Bullets were hitting metal and the soldiers were shouting. And then...a noise like nothing she'd heard before. A whine...a long, high pitched whine like Susie had made one time when a soldier had punched her in the stomach for talking back to him, and then...a...crash. More screaming...and then a face was looking down at her.

No...not a face. A mask. With yellow slits for eyes that stared lifelessly down at her, and her heartbeat faltered, lips trembling as she closed her eyes. "Hello, Penny." The robotic voice was soft and almost familiar. She opened her eyes again and found the mask still staring down at her. Iron Man. This was Iron Man. Tony was Iron Man sometimes.

"Hello, Tony," she rasped, able to taste the blood trailing from the corner of her mouth. The mask flipped up, and she found Tony staring down at her, face drawn and worried. So sad. He was always so sad.

"I came as fast as I could, Penny. We're getting you out of here."

"Tony?" Someone called, and she shuddered from the cold. So cold. She was so, unbearably cold. "What are...oh…" The voice came to a faltering halt as the person came closer, but she kept her eyes shut, not wanting to see. Not wanting to know. All she wanted was sleep. Sleep would make her feel better.

"Help me out, Cap. Untie her," Tony ordered.

Immediately, fingers were working at the straps and untying them, leaving her hands free. She tugged weakly, managing to move them closer to her sides.

Tony spoke again, voice almost frantic. "Penny, you with me? We're getting you out."

"Avengers," she whispered, coughing and turning her head to the side to let the blood drain.

"That's right, kiddo. I brought the Avengers. Told you we're the good guys." He slipped a metal arm under her back, another under her legs. "Okay. I'm going to carry you out of here...take you back to my place on the jet. Helen is going to look at you...Ms. Blue. We're going to fix this. Natasha?" She could hear the hiss of something...and then a voice she didn't know.

"I'm copying all of their records. Give me twenty minutes." The voice that answered him was full of static and far away, but she didn't know what that meant.

"The others?" she asked, shuddering at the cold. She needed to know.

"I'm sorry, honey." Tony murmured, pulling her a little closer. She felt more tears spring to her eyes, and she dropped her head on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. They were injected...the soldiers shot them when they saw us coming. They were trying to get you out...but they're all gone now. The scientists...they're all gone. You just worry about staying awake, okay?"

The soldiers had shot them. She'd thought they were too valuable. Why train them if they were disposable? Why experiment on them if they could be killed at any moment? She tried not to think of Andre and Willa...of the two people who hadn't been her friends but who she'd grown up with. Who should have been her friends. Who had been more than her friends.

"Holy shit...is that one of the kids?" another man asked, and the one Tony had called Cap muttered something she couldn't catch. Her hearing was usually so good but she could barely get her breathing to even out and so many people were moving around her.

"Here," someone else spoke, draping something over her...fabric. She opened her eyes then to look down at the brown material, then up at the man who'd placed it over her. He was tall, with short hair and pale blue eyes that were full of...something. Sadness and worry. We're all of the Avengers sad? "How many kids?"

"There were seven. There were only three left in the building. The other two are dead" Tony told him, his voice flat and exhausted. Was he okay?

"Were they all...enhanced?"

"I...I think so. I'm not sure." Tony sighed, and then they were walking.

"Mutants." Penny breathed, and the man looked down at her. She should have been scared...never had so many people looked at her like that...like Ms. Blue always did. And never men. But she didn't have the energy to be scared. Besides, Tony was here. He was protecting her. "They made us...something. Susie...she moved things without touching...only us…" Penny tried to explain, but her voice broke off into a cough that filled her mouth with blood.

"Hey, take it easy, honey. It's okay. We're getting you somewhere safe. Just rest, okay? Don't try to talk," Tony urged, rubbing her back with a cold, metal hand. "Let's get her to the jet."

All around them were bodies. The woman in Tony's mask said something else about files or computers, whatever that meant, and Cap said...something. Cold. She was cold.

"She's burning up." The one who'd draped something over her that Tony called 'Cap' said, a hand pressing against her forehead. "What did they give her?"

"398-B." She choked out, eyes fluttering. She remembered that, at least.

"You got that, Nat?" Tony asked. "Get me everything you can on 398-B. Hurry. We've got to get her to Bruce. Now." And then they were moving faster, Tony moving smoothly as he carried her through familiar hallways. "You have anything you want us to grab for you, kiddo?" He asked, voice barely steady. He sounded afraid. She wasn't sure why.

"Grab?"

"Yeah, Penny. Like...clothes? Books?"

"Not...mine." She whispered, shaking so hard it hurt. "They don't give us…"

"Okay. Alright." He muttered, squeezing her a little, and then they were going through doors that she'd never seen...and everything changed.

Penny gasped, the noise startling Tony who paused. "Kid?" He asked, but she didn't look at him. Instead, she stared up. No ceiling. No walls. Just...black. And yellow dots in the distance, so many...more than any number she had ever heard of. So much. Space. Space between her and what felt like void and..stars. There were stars in the night sky. She had read about them. Giant balls of fire millions of miles away...light years. They were called light years. But...she could never have imagined. Her brain never could have fathomed this.

"Stars," she whispered, lips trembling as she found herself crying. "Tony...the...the sky…"

"That's right, Penny," Tony murmured, moving forward once again. The sky barely changed. So far away...the stars. So beautiful and...and she knew what constellations were. Knew that she could find shapes. But everything was so beautiful and blurry as a whole, she couldn't imagine trying to piece any shapes together as a hot tear dropped down her cheek. "Cool, huh?" He asked, a sad smile in his voice.

"Big...so big…" She dropped her head on the metal chest of the robot suit and then they were walking upward and into something, back into darkness.

"Yeah, it's big. I'll show you more when you're feeling better." He murmured, placing her on a soft surface...softer than anything she'd ever felt. It was as though she were melting into the surface of...whatever it was. As soon as they entered the room, lights flickered on, and she wanted to look around but her head hurt and her whole body hurt and if she closed her eyes, she could picture the stars again. "You're okay...shit...fuck."

"Something bad?" She asked, and he laughed, but he didn't sound amused.

"Yeah...yeah, something bad. But you're going to be okay. I've got you, kid. Remember?"

Penny opened her eyes to look at him, leaving the stars for Tony who would keep her safe. He knelt at her side, no longer in his robot suit. He was only Iron Man sometimes, she reminded herself. Only when he was saving people. He'd saved her.

Then Ms. Blue was there, kneeling beside her and pushing her hair back. "Alright, Penny. Out of everyone, you have the strongest healing factor. You're going to be okay. If anyone can beat this, it's you. We're going to take care of you. There's another doctor, Doctor Banner...he's going to help you."

She knew that name. "Bruce Banner? Hulk?"

"Yes. He's a doctor. He and I are going to work together and we're going to fix this. You just hang on. How are you feeling?"

"I'm cold," she whimpered, and then she was covered by something else. A blanket. But not like the threadbare, grey blankets they'd used at school. This was thick and warm and soft...so, so soft. She felt like she was melting into the blanket, sighing in relief as she finally felt almost warm again.

"Her fever is rising...way too fast. We need to go."

"Okay…" There was a hiss again...like when the soldiers spoke into their radios. "Team, we need to go now. Anyone not on this jet in two minutes is swimming home."

The world was fuzzy around the edges as people seemed to flood into the small space. So many people, all of whom seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Just like the people in white coats and the soldiers. But also not like them. Every one of these new people looked at her. Really looked at her. And they all looked sad. Afraid. Why were the Avengers all so sad?

"How old is she, Tony?" The one in a dark blue suit with a mask covering his eyes asked, pulling the mask off. Cap. Tony had called him Cap. What a strange name.

"Thirteen," Tony told the man. "Almost fourteen." His hand was holding hers. She didn't dare move, just in case he let go. She didn't want him to let go. Then there was a woman...she had long, red hair and soft eyes, fingers covered in a red mist touching Penny's head.

And then Penny felt her body lose all tension, sighing as the stress left her.

"She doesn't want you to let go," the woman said, her voice strange...Penny had never heard anyone talk like that. Tony squeezed her hand a little tighter.

"I'm not going to, honey. I won't let go."

"She doesn't know what that word means."

How did this woman know that?

The worry and confusion was washed gently away as soon as it had come, though, and then the woman spoke again. "Hello, Penny. I'm enhanced, just like you. A mutant. Don't worry. I'm just helping you rest." Penny nodded, flinching when her chest gave a stab of pain that she couldn't really worry about anymore. That was kind of nice. "He's calling you that because he cares for you. He is worried because you are very sick."

"Help him...not worry?" She asked. The woman could probably do that, but she shook her head as Penny stared up into her soft red eyes. Tony was the one who spoke, though.

"I'm not going to stop worrying about you, kid. Not until you're feeling better."

She didn't understand...didn't understand why Tony Stark cared so much about her. She was a child...a test subject. 024. They had only known each other for a few days. Why did he care so much? Or maybe this was how the Avengers were. Maybe they cared about people. She had cared about Susie. And the others...even if she was never allowed to show it. Getting too close to one another...touching, spending too much time together...that was an easy way to end up in isolation for a couple of days. So they had learned to whisper. To communicate with glances. To hide any affection. Over the years Penny and Susie had gotten good at it...so had the others who had, in subtle ways, paired off. Become friends.

They had been her friends. Those people had killed her friends. The pain that came with that thought only lasted a moment before it was washed away in a sea of red mist.

Then the thing they were in moved, and Penny gasped, looking around wildly. "It's okay...this is a jet. It flies." Tony told her, thumb rubbing over the back of her hand.

Of course...she'd read about jets. Knew that planes could fly and the theory behind it and, if pressed, could probably draw a picture of a plane engine. But this was different...feeling it was different. Her stomach flipped and she gripped Tony's hand, maybe a little too hard. He winced, pulling away a little, and she immediately eased up. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and guilt would have flooded her had she been capable of any other emotions under the warm, red mist.

"Don't worry. Nothing's broken." He said it with a slight smile. Joking. He was joking. She felt her lips curve up a little, grateful that Wanda was sitting there. Grateful that she was keeping the worry at bay. "What's our ETA, Clint?" Tony asked, calling to someone Penny didn't know.

"Fifteen minutes, give or take."

"How long since they injected her?" Tony asked Ms. Blue who sat on Penny's other side. No, Ms. Cho. The woman had been reading something in a folder...Penny couldn't see what it was. Then again, she'd never been allowed to read what the adults in her life had been reading, so she didn't really try.

"About seven hours...her temperature is rising...she was coughing up blood but it's slowed…" Helen muttered. "There was a lot more." Her voice was barely there...as if talking to herself, she went on. "Subjects typically exhibited symptoms mimicking pneumonia...coughing, shortness of breath, and high fever. The fever continued to rise until…" She broke off, glancing over at Penny, then she lowered her voice. "Brain death."

"Can you fix it?" Tony barked.

"I think so...I've got everything on the virus...a fever reducer should help. Her body is fighting the toxin but...I'm worried about her fever. If it keeps rising, she won't be able to take it."

"Okay...okay." Tony murmured, a hand on Penny's forehead. "Bruce is going to help. Go ahead and send him everything. Let him get started." Ms. Blue nodded, pulling out a box that folded up, a bright screen hurting Penny's eyes. She flinched, turning her head away and towards Tony who brushed some hair back. "Okay. You hear that, kid? We've got the best and brightest looking out for you. Don't worry."

She wasn't worried...but it was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. So she let them close, only to have him shake her shoulder. "Not yet. Not yet, Penny. Stay awake." He squeezed her hand. "We're going through your file...we'll try to find your parents, okay? Here." He pushed something against her mouth and she opened her eyes again to find a straw being held to her lips. "It's water. Drink some."

She did, used to doing whatever she was told, and swallowing the water in gulps, the metallic taste of blood leaving her mouth after a moment. No water had ever tasted so good.

Apart from Ms. Blue, Tony, and the woman touching her head, she could see Cap sitting over in another corner, hand over his mouth as he watched them, and a woman with darker red hair and a sharp, intense gaze sat across from him. She had learned some about the Avengers... she'd only ever seen one picture, but she knew that they were a dangerous group that wanted to kill her...only...they didn't. They all looked worried, glancing from her to one another.

"How long has she been there?" Cap asked, not removing his hand from in front of his mouth.

"The first experiment is listed on July 12th...twelve years ago...she had just turned 2." Ms. Blue told him. Penny wasn't sure why he wanted to know...wasn't sure of anything, except that she was glad Tony was holding her hand and that this woman was sitting with her. She didn't want to be afraid. Not again. "Two years later, they injected her with venom from a spider that had been exposed to radioactivity. The reaction was...violent. She was sick for four days."

Four days...Penny didn't remember that...just remembered going to sleep sick and then waking up. She remembered climbing on walls until they'd warned her to stop. She remembered the skin of her hands and feet being peeled back and burned and healing every time.

"They were going to terminate, but she woke up. She was the strongest of the children. Showed…" The woman trailed off, swallowing hard. "Subject 024 shows a remarkable resilience to extreme temperatures, long periods of isolation, and…an ability to heal from broken bones, various abrasions and stab wounds, infection, and many toxins as long as she is given adequate nutrition."

The toxins were always the worst. The most painful. The other stuff had been awful, but when they'd injected her with poison...it had been the worst. She didn't want to think about it, and the painful thoughts were washed away on another warm wave. "It's okay...that's over." The woman at her head murmured, and everything took on a red mist. A wonderful, warm, red mist.

Penny loved the mist and she loved this woman. Then she wondered what her name was.

"My name is Wanda," the woman told her softly, and Penny felt herself smile. Wanda sounded nice.

"Hello, Wanda."

"Hello, Penny." Comfort, like a hug, except in her mind, put her at ease once more, and she blinked tiredly at Cap in the corner. Cap...that was a new name..not that she'd heard many. There were so many people in the world. She'd read about them. "Cap is short for Captain America. It's like...a nickname. His real name is Steve. The woman with him is Natasha."

Penny knew Captain America...well, knew of him. He killed people...killed mutant children. He would tear her apart.

"No, he won't." Steve looked up at Wanda's words, but despite all she'd been told, Penny couldn't feel any fear at the moment. "Steve won't hurt you. He never hurts children. That was a lie they told you."

"That's right, Penny." Tony spoke up. "Remember? They lied to you about us. The Avengers don't hurt people."

"Oh." She muttered, nodding. She remembered that. She remembered Tony in the cage and finding him and what he'd told her. How the Avengers were good. How her school was a prison. How she'd been taken from her family and how they might be dead, just like all her friends.

When she took a breath, she was surprised to hear the wheeze in her voice. It was hurting...she wasn't afraid, but it hurt. Just as she was coming to terms with that, the jet stopped...it shook a little first, and Tony gripped her hand a little more tightly...and then they were still.

The bed she was laying on started to move, but she wasn't cuffed...she could move if she wanted to, a thought that brought as much relief as Wanda had. Tony wrapped the blanket more firmly around her, walking quickly beside the bed Ms. Blue...no, Ms. Cho pushed, his hand still in hers. Then there was another man...he had short hair and glasses, and he looked down at her like one of the people in white coats. Wanda ran a thumb over her shoulder.

"No. He's not like them. This is Bruce. He's a doctor and he's going to help. Bruce, this is Penny," Wanda introduced them as they moved, and Bruce managed a small, worried smile. The ones in white coats never smiled at her. The ones in the white coats were never worried about her.

"Hi, Penny. I'm going to help you get better, okay?" He asked, and she nodded, flinching when something was placed over her mouth. "Start her on an IV...she's dehydrated. I need the fever reducers we synthesized for Steve and Bucky. Wanda, keep her calm." Something poked her in the arm and she was afraid for a second before Wanda took care of that.

"It's medicine...to help you feel better. No one is going to hurt you here." It wasn't like the White Room...even though the walls were white in the room they finally stopped in. This room was larger, with more beds and curtains and tables...it wasn't scary. Or maybe Wanda wouldn't let it be scary.

"Her fever is at 104...it's still rising." Bruce muttered as something filled her veins. But this didn't hurt. Didn't burn. Her head felt lighter and her eyelids were so heavy. "Go ahead and rest, Penny. We're going to fix this, okay? You're okay."

She turned to Tony, not willing to let go until he gave her permission Tony smiled at her, that same sad smile. "Sleep, kiddo. I'll see you when you wake up."

So, figuring that he'd protect her, she closed her eyes and slept.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

Sorry this one is a bit late.  I've been feeling a bit sick today.  I hope you enjoy!  Thank you so much to everyone who have been reading and reviewing!!!

To Stand Up Suddenly

Time passed. Penny was asleep, or it felt like she was asleep. She was dreaming...dreaming that she sat in her room curled up on her tiny cot that she'd slept in for years, but instead of the ceiling, it was the night sky above her, full of distant yellow lights. Stars. Giant balls of gas and fire so many light years away. So beautiful. And if she focused, she could make them turn into pictures. She had read about the pictures of stars and now she could see them and look at the pictures. Penny thought that she could have stayed there forever. Her tiny room in her not school...as long as she had the stars.

Then someone was sitting beside her. She stiffened, waiting for a soldier or a person in a white coat to drag her away. They always led her out of her cell and always hurt her or made her fight...then one day, they would kill her. She was someone they did experiments on...and eventually they would kill her. But why? Why kill her? Why train her and then kill her?

There had to be something she was missing.

The person next to her didn't want to hurt her, though. He didn't drag her away. When she looked at him, it was Tony, and Tony smiled at her, scruffy beard covering most of his face. His hair was fluffy and curly, just like his last day in that cage. But then he'd gotten her out...he'd gotten her out and he'd promised that she would be okay. So she looked back up, pointing at the stars with a hand that felt too heavy. "The stars," she whispered. "I've never seen them before." He lifted his eyebrows, then nodded. "Do I ever have to go back?" she asked.

Immediately, he shook his head. "No. Never. You're safe now, Penny." His voice was clear and calm, a hand coming to rest over hers when she shivered. "Are you cold?"

"Yeah,." she murmured, trying to find the stars again. "Always cold"

He must have wrapped a blanket around her, because she suddenly wasn't so cold anymore. "How's that, kid?"

"Thank you." She held it close, eyes on the stars. They were so, so beautiful. Her head hurt and her body felt weak and sometimes it was hard to breathe, but the stars were more than she could have ever imagined.

Another time, it was the other man...Cap...Steve. He joined her in her cage, and she was surprised to find him there. Steve had never been in her cage. Cage? She looked around, frowning at the bars. "Cage?" she asked. They hadn't kept her in a cage. Had they? No, they'd kept Tony in a cage. She had been in her room. With the stars. No...no there hadn't been stars. Stars had been after, when Tony had carried her out of the not-school.

"What?" Cap...no, Steve, asked, moving a little closer. "What's wrong, Penny?"

"Cage?" She asked again, trying to speak a little louder. It was hard, and it hurt her throat. "I'm...in a cage?"

"No...no, you aren't in a cage. You're In bed," he told her. Hadn't Tony told her that Steve wouldn't hurt her? Or...that's what Wanda had said. She looked around, heart beating faster at the sight of the bars.

"Let me out," she whimpered, even though no one listened when she begged.

"Hey, hey...you aren't in a cage. You're in bed. Helen and Bruce are working to make you feel better," he assured her, and suddenly, he was right. She wasn't in her room or a cage...she was sitting. Outside. On...the ground. With the stars. You couldn't see them in the day. Only the sun. And the sky was blue. Would she get to see the blue sky?

"I've never been outside." She didn't know what made her say it. She hadn't spoken to Cap before. But he was there with her so she thought it might be rude to just ignore him.

There was a long pause. Then he spoke again, still next to her. "Never?"

"They wouldn't let us. I thought it was school. Tony said it wasn't." The words were hard to say, and they came out strangely slurred, but he still seemed to understand.

"You aren't there anymore," he said, a hand resting lightly on hers. She was laying down...had she been laying down before? And she was so tired. So she stared up at the stars until she was asleep again, sleeping and sleeping until there was a red haze. She was cold, and she wondered if it was because she was outside. Was outside cold? She didn't know. Her hands were shaking and her head felt strange and she couldn't think. But the red haze was soft and comfortable, like when Ms. Blue had hugged her. She stared up at the stars and felt the red haze envelop her.

"She's still with us...she's dreaming."

"Her fever is 106...we can't get it down…" Tony...that was Tony. He sounded scared. Why was he scared? She fought...fought to open her eyes. Were they open? She was staring at the stars.

"She's cold...it must be the fever. She's dreaming about the stars...and she's glad you're here." A hand clasped hers, a thumb rubbing over the back of her knuckles.

"I'm here. I haven't left, Penny. We're going to get you better." She saw him beside her...reaching out, she clutched his shirt, moving herself closer until she was right against his side, but it didn't feel real. Not really.

"She wants to be held." Wanda's voice was a lot softer, and then someone was closer, their body against her side, like when Susie had laid beside her on the floor...the two of them reading or whispering. The person was...Tony. It was Tony. He was warm and comfortable, and she rested her head against him.

"I'm here, Penny. It's Tony. I've got you."

And then she was wet. Gasping, she shivered and tried to get up, tried to open her eyes, but someone held her down, a hand resting under the back of her neck. "No...please. Please," she cried out, knowing that they wouldn't listen to her...the people in white coats never listened to her. Usually she didn't beg but...but this was awful. Her skin hurt and the water hurt and she screamed. "Please! Please, I don't want to! Not again!"

"Hey...hey, kiddo. I'm here. I'm right here. It's me. It's Tony." Suddenly she was able to open her eyes...open them for real, and she found him sitting right beside her in a room with white walls that she'd never seen. "Hey. Hi. Same side, remember? I'm here." Cap...Steve, was holding her down in the tub, a hand under her neck keeping her from drowning. She was dressed in strange clothes...a long, loose top that stuck to her body and a pair of loose pants. She'd never seen clothes like these. Then again, she'd never seen clothes like what they wore either.

"Please...it's cold. Please let me go," she rasped, her lungs feeling heavy. She knew better than to beg. But they weren't ignoring her. Steve was staring into her eyes, crouching beside the bed and keeping his hand on the back of her neck.

"I'm sorry," Steve told her quietly, and he seemed to mean it . "It's to lower your temperature. It's going to be okay. We'll get your fever down, and then we'll get you back in bed." Her eyes darted from Tony to Steve, then found Ms. Blue.

"Penny? Can you hear me?" Penny nodded, blinking tiredly. "I know you're having trouble breathing. We're working...Bruce and I are working to help you. We have to get this virus out of your system. We're close. You just rest. Okay?" She shivered, but, realizing it was useless to fight, she stared up at the ceiling, sighing and slumping back against his hand, remembering every time they'd done this to her. Trying not to remember how it felt to sit in an ice bath for an hour, two hours, three, until she lost all feeling in her body. Until she stopped shaking and lost consciousness.

"It's not like that." When had Wanda returned? Or had she left. "Penny, it's not like that. They were doing those things to hurt you." The woman urged, a hand on her wet shoulder. Had she been reading her mind? Penny wasn't sure how she felt about that now that she could actually remember it. "I know...I'm sorry. It's just so we know how to help you."

"What? What's going on?" Tony demanded.

"She is thinking about the scientists in the facility...how they experimented on her. How they found out that she was especially susceptible to cold temperatures. But we aren't experimenting on you. We're trying to help. You have a fever and we're trying to cool you off."

"Fever?" she rasped, and a glass of water was held to her mouth. She drank greedily, nearly choking herself in the process, and the person moved the glass away, wiping a thumb over her cheek. It was Tony...her eyes had closed and she tried to open them again. He'd wiped her face then, wiping away tears...she had been crying. She hadn't realized.

"Yeah. That's what this virus they injected you with is causing. But it's going to be okay. We're going to get you better." She closed her eyes, nodding.

"Okay." He hadn't let her down yet. So she let herself sleep.

She woke briefly when someone...Ms. Blue, removed her wet clothes, wrapping her in a thick towel and drying her hair, then she was dressed in a new set of clothes. And then she slept again, resting comfortably in the bed. It was warm...she couldn't remember the last time she'd been so warm. As she slept, she dreamed of the stars...and Tony. She dreamed that she sat on the floor of his cage with him, but there was no ceiling...just the stars. And they could leave whenever they wanted.

Penny's eyes flew open, and she found herself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, head resting on the softest pillow she'd ever felt in her life. There was a blanket wrapped around her, and she flexed her hands, burying her fingers into it. It was so soft. So warm. She didn't know where she was, but she knew that she was warm and it had been so long...had she ever actually been warm? The memory of Tony carrying her out of her school was hazy, but it had been real. Because she'd seen the stars. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that.

She stared at the ceiling for a while, not inclined to move. Her head didn't hurt anymore, and she could breathe again. Tony had saved her so surely she was safe. If she closed her eyes, she could hear footsteps and breathing, but it all felt far away. So she let her eyes close and tried to take it all in. There were voices, but she couldn't make out the words, making her think this was a big place. Hadn't there been a woman? With red hair?

The tap on her door startled her, and Penny's eyes flew open as she stared at it. Had she dozed off? There was no way to know...no guards to tell her how much time she had or where she needed to be. Just this bed and a blanket wrapped around her. Penny sat up a little, glancing down to find that she was dressed in a loose shirt and pants as the blanket pooled around her waist.

The tapping came again, then Tony's voice. "Penny? FRIDAY said you were awake."

"Yeah...I'm awake," she answered hesitantly, running her fingers over the soft blanket.

"Can I come in?"

"Um...yes?" This was strange. Never had anyone asked if they could come into a room.

When Mr. Stark opened her door, he looked...different. He was in a shirt with words she wasn't sure she understood on the front and dark blue pants, his beard trimmed into straight, sharp lines. When he saw her sitting up, though, he smiled, and she thought he didn't look so different after all. "Hey, kiddo."

"Hi, Tony."

"It's rude to go into someone's room without knocking." He told her, answering her silent question. She just stared, glancing at the door and the walls and feeling nervous all of a sudden. There was too much...too much she didn't know. "Hey." He walked over, sitting down on the bed beside her, hands in his lap. "It's okay. I know it's a lot. We're going to help you get it all figured out. How are you feeling?"

"I'm...I'm okay." She sat up a little more, gripping the blanket in her lap. She was okay. She'd have to be. He'd gotten her out of that place and now...now she would have to be okay. "Where are we?"

"We're in New York. My house. Well...my tower. Really big building. I own a company, and the people who work for me work here. I live on the top floors." That almost made sense. She nodded. Trying. Doing her best to keep up. They weren't at school. They were in his tower. His home. Tony Stark's home. "I'll show you around, okay?" She nodded again. "Any more questions?"

She had so many. Thousands. What was New York? Where were they really? What had happened to her school? Where were the other Avengers? Was she safe? Where was her family? Were they really gone? What about her friends? But she decided to ask the most pressing question.

"How did I survive?"

Tony nodded, as if he'd expected that question. "Helen and Bruce were able to keep your fever down and make an antidote to...whatever the hell they had in your system."

"Helen?"

"Ms. Blue," he clarified. "Her name is Helen Cho. She was working undercover in that facility because we suspected them of experimenting on children. Like I told you before...she was in contact with us. The plan was to get the kids out but…" He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "As far as we know, none of the other kids in the facility made it." His voice was gentle and she nodded, lips in a tight line as she stared away from him at the wall. "I'm sorry, Penny."

"I barely knew them." It was a lie, of course. They had been her only friends. Her family.

He scooted closer, sitting beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her upright so that she would be leaning her head against him. She had never been so close to him, she thought...only when he'd carried her out of the school. It only took a couple of seconds for her to break, and he wrapped both arms around her, his nose in her hair. "It's okay, honey. It's alright. I know," he assured her, a hand running through her hair, another rubbing her back.

And then she cried. She cried because she didn't know what was going to happen to her and because Tony had saved her but she didn't understand where they were or what was going to happen next. She cried because the only friends she'd ever had were dead, and because she wasn't.

When she finally managed to stop, he didn't pull away. Instead, he patted her back, pulling out a piece of cloth for her to wipe her face. She did, resting her head on his shoulder and not wanting to move. He would keep her safe. No matter what else happened, Tony would keep her safe. Hadn't he proven that? He'd saved her. He wouldn't just abandon her now.

Tony's voice was hesitant when he finally spoke, sitting up just enough to look at her. "Bruce wants to check up on you. We're in a room off the medbay. The medbay is where my doctors work. This room is a little more private. Helen had you moved here after your fever started to come down."

"Oh." Feeling spent, she felt like the word was all she was really capable of.

"You mind if I call him in?"

She hadn't really met him...hadn't really spoken to him before. But he'd helped her. He'd helped Ms. Blue save her life. So she nodded. "Okay."

Turning his face up to the ceiling, he spoke a little louder. "Alright. Friday?"

She cocked her head. "It's Friday?" Penny wasn't sure what day it had been when he'd saved her...couldn't remember.

Tony's lip twitched, and he shook his head. "No. Friday, this is Penny."

"It's nice to meet you, Penny." The voice seemed to come from the walls and Penny jumped, looking wildly around. But Tony's arm was still around her and he didn't seem scared, so she thought it might be okay.

"Um...nice to meet you?"

"Friday is my AI. It's an artificial intelligence. She runs my tower, helps me out...she's like my assistant," Tony informed her with a smile that didn't look quite so sad anymore.

"Your AI? So she's a robot?"

"Kind of. Yeah." He nodded. "Friday, can you ask Bruce to come in?"

"Of course, sir."

The knock came after about a minute, during which Tony had stood, moving to sit in a chair at Penny's side. "Come on in." He called, and then Doctor Bruce Banner was in the room, smiling softly at her.

Penny had seen the picture of the Avengers a few times, and knew that Bruce Banner was the Hulk, but she'd never seen a picture of him when he wasn't the Hulk. He looked like a regular man, with short brown hair and a friendly smile.

"Good morning, Penny. "

"Hello." She murmured, not able to help how she shrank back a little when he held out a hand.

"I'm Bruce."

"The Hulk." She muttered, and he nodded.

"That's right. I'm also a doctor." He clasped his hands in front of him. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just wanted to take a blood sample and see how you were doing."

"Okay." She didn't feel like she had much of a choice...when had she ever? But Bruce was smiling right at her, waiting for her to relax a little before moving close.

He stood by her bed, turning to the table and grabbing a black bag. "I'd like to check your lungs if that's okay." He held up a stethoscope.

She nodded, keeping still as he put a stethoscope into his ears, then placed the little disk on her chest. She breathed normally, keeping her eyes down. Bruce took her arm next, fingers pressed against the inside of her wrist, and he nodded to himself after a moment.

"Sounds pretty good. Your heart rate is a little fast, but that might be normal for you. You run cold too...something to do with your spider DNA I think. Are you usually cold?" Penny nodded. "Your file said you were susceptible to cold. We'll have to be careful about that." Then she let him take her wrist again, sticking a needle into the skin there and drawing her blood. She'd been stuck by what felt like millions of needles over her lifetime, but this one barely hurt.

When he was done, he handed her a smoothie like what she would normally drink for lunch, and she drank the whole thing in less than a minute, surprised at how hungry she was. "You've had mostly the same food for most of your life, so we'll have to be careful about introducing new foods." He seemed to mostly be talking to Tony who nodded.

"Alright. Is it safe for her to be out of bed?"

"It seems like it would be safe...she's not having trouble breathing and her levels all seem to be normal. I'm going to run some tests on her blood sample to make sure."

And with that, Bruce Banner left her alone with Tony once more, shutting the door behind him. The man smiled, leaning in. "Okay. How about it, kiddo? Want to take a tour?"

She didn't know. Didn't know what she wanted and didn't know how to make that decision or even if she was supposed to be making a decision. Should she just go along with whatever Tony said? That seemed like the best choice. So she just nodded her head, taking the hand he offered and climbing out of the bed. As soon as she was out from under the blanket, she was a little cold, but he handed her a thick robe that she put on, tying a belt at the waist.

Once they'd left the little room with a bed and a window whose curtains were closed, they headed down a hallway toward a set of double doors. Before they'd even reached them, the doors slid open, and Tony led her through them. She balked for a moment, staring at him in the tiny room with only enough room for a few people to stand, then forced her feet to follow. He wanted her to come with him. So she had to go with him. And, she reminded herself, she trusted Tony, so no matter where they were going, it wouldn't hurt. She'd be fine.

As soon as she was inside, the doors closed and she stared down at her feet, forcing her face to remain as blank as she possibly could. "The tower has 93 stories, and the top 10 are living spaces. We're on the 83rd floor, which is the medbay...it's like a hospital. The elevator takes us between floors so we don't have to take the stairs." Tony spoke casually, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

"Oh."

Tony kept glancing at her, but he didn't move any closer, or make any move to touch her. The questions bounced around her head, but she didn't ask them. Didn't dare. Tony had been so kind to her and he'd told her that she could ask questions but that had been when he'd been in a cage and now he wasn't and part of her, a tiny, hidden part of her, remembered what she'd learned about Iron Man and was scared.

When the little box above the door said '93' the room stopped moving and the doors slid open, revealing a room, at the end of which was a huge, clear wall. For a moment, Penny forgot about Tony. She forgot about her questions and she forgot about the gnawing hunger in her stomach and she even forgot about the stars. Because, as she approached the wall of glass, she could clearly see what she knew was outside.

Penny stared, mouth open, as she stood barely an inch from the glass, lifting a hand that hovered, but didn't quite touch the glass. There were buildings. Huge buildings. She'd never seen a building from the outside but these stretched up to the bright blue sky. And the sky! It was blue but not a blue she'd ever seen. White clouds filled it, but not the perfectly shaped little clouds she'd seen in her picture books. These were wispy and light, making shapes her brain couldn't make sense of. If she looked down, she could see streets and cars and people, but none of them were what she'd ever imagined. There were so many of them. So much of it. This was the world. This was everything she'd never seen before.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she managed to tear her eyes away from the world for just long enough to glance at Tony, but it didn't last. She couldn't stop staring. Not even when a tear she didn't understand spilled down her cheek, followed by another and another until she was crying. She was crying in front of someone else which she wasn't supposed to do but she couldn't stop. Mr. Stark squeezed her shoulder, and despite not looking at him, she knew he was smiling when he spoke.

"Welcome to New York, kiddo."

Thank you for reading!  

Chapter Text

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing!  I hope you enjoy the new chapter :)

To Look Up Toward The Light

Penny stared at New York for what felt like too long. Never before had she been allowed to just exist like this. To spend as much time as she wanted standing at a window and just watching the world. Because that's what it felt like. The whole world moved outside her window, and she pressed her hand to the glass and squinted at the bright sunlight which she'd read about but had never felt on her skin before. She watched the people down below, little tiny people, as they walked and the cars as they drove. She was standing in the sky and the world was laid out beneath her.

The hand on her shoulder squeezed a little after a while, but Tony didn't rush her. Didn't tell her she had to go do something else. Didn't complain about being here with her. Did he care? Would he get upset? Would she be in danger? For once in her life, she felt safe. It's was strange...this absence of the ever-present background fear that had been with her forever. Fear of the White Room and fear of the people in white coats and fear of the soldiers. But now, it was different. Tony had saved her...had protected her. And now she was safe.

"How many cities are there?" She asked then, her voice soft and as awed as she felt.

He gave a short laugh. "I don't know, kid. Thousands? Millions? They're all over the world."

"Are they all as big as this one?"

"No. Some are smaller. Others are bigger."

"Can I see?" She asked, glancing away from the city just long enough to look at him and his eyes softened.

"Yeah. I'll show you some more cities soon."

She turned back to New York, nose practically touching the glass. "Can we go...outside?" Penny asked, voice just barely above a whisper.

"We can." He nodded. "Maybe not right this moment. I'd like to show you around the penthouse first. It's where you'll be staying...". He trailed off, looking unsure, and Penny forced her eyes away from New York and the outside.

"I'm staying here?" She repeated, tilting her head. "I...I thought I would live with my…". She swallowed hard. "With my parents."

Tony dropped his eyes and she knew. Shaking her head, Penny pulled away from him, his hand dropping from her shoulder. Her parents were never going to pick her up. It had been a lie. Every last bit of it. A lie. Her parents were gone. They were gone and she was alone and what had he said happened to children who were alone?

"Penny." His voice was soft and he took a step closer, hand outstretched. "Why don't you come sit down?"

"They're gone?"

"Come here for a sec. We can sit…."

Everyone was gone. Her friends. The family she'd never even gotten the chance to know. Anyone that would have wanted her. Penny pressed a hand to her mouth, desperate to hide somewhere...to get out of this room and away from the man talking to her and when his hand landed on her shoulder once more, she didn't think before shoving him away. Didn't stop to consider what she was doing as she watched him fly back and hit the wall, flinching and sliding downward for a second before catching himself.

One of the other kids, she didn't remember her number, had done that once. Had lost control and attacked one of the people in white coats and Susies had told Penny that the soldiers had shot her. Penny felt her whole body go cold as she watched Mr. Stark blink, bringing a hand gingerly to his head. She wanted to run but she couldn't. Her legs were frozen in place and her blood had turned to ice water and she had hurt him. She had attacked him. Those people had made her dangerous and it wasn't safe for her to be here.

"I'm sorry." Tony's voice was soft, hands lifted as if in surrender as he stayed by the wall. "I shouldn't have touched you. I'm sorry. That's on me. You're okay."

"I didn't mean to…" Her voice caught and she felt the urge to cough to clear her throat but she didn't dare. She didn't even breathe as he straightened.

"I know. It was an accident. I knew you were upset and I touched you anyway. That's my fault, not yours."

She stared at his hands, wondering if he had a gun like the soldiers. She knew he had the robot suit, and that the suit had weapons. But did he have guns too? Penny felt lost. She needed to know the rules. What wasn't she allowed to do? What was okay? What was going to get her shot? These rules had governed her whole life up until now and she didn't know what to do without them.

"I knew your dad." Tony spoke quietly into the silence, a tiny smile turning up his lips. "We worked together. He was a nice guy. Smart. Really smart. And your mom...I met her once or twice too. She worked for the government. She was a...like a secret agent."

"A spy?"

"Yeah. Like that. And she found out that Osborn, the man that ran the...the school you were in, that he was taking children. She was trying to get the people she was working for to look into it but they wouldn't. I still don't know why. We...you and I, we've actually met once."

Penny tilted her head to the side, then shook it. "I don't remember."

"You were too little," Tony told her with a smile. "I think you were about a year old and you dad and I met to talk about this. About the school that was stealing children. That's when he told me about it. And he brought you."

She had a million more questions then, bouncing around the inside of her head and she had no idea which question to pick...what to ask first. He just waited, hands clasped.

"I know that this is a lot. Why don't I show you around, and then you can see your room."

"My room?"

"Yeah, kiddo. Your room. You have a room on my floor. It was a guest room so it's not much, but...you're welcome to stay there for a while. As long as you want." The man moved past that pretty quickly, turning and gesturing to the room they were standing in. "This is the living room." He told her softly, a smile in his voice. "It's where we watch TV, read...sometimes we eat in here too. You can come in here any time."

She picked the first question that came to mind. "TV?"

"Yeah." He gestured to a large black box on the wall. "TV is..um...I think I'll just show you. Friday, turn on the TV." It lit up, and she jumped when people appeared, talking to one another. "We can watch the news on the TV. That tells us what's happening in the world. Or we can watch movies for fun." She just nodded, eyes darting between him and the TV on the wall. "Turn it off, Fri." He ordered, and the TV shut off.

Next was the kitchen, where, as he told her, they made their own food. "You don't have someone to make it for you?"

"Nope. Just us." He gave her a quick smile, opening a large box. "The refrigerator."

"Keeps food cold."

Tony nodded. "Yep. We've got bottled water and soda...you're always welcome to grab something if you're thirsty. Or hungry."

Most of the things in the refrigerator, which she'd read about and looked at schematics of but never seen as they weren't allowed in the kitchens, looked strange and she didn't think she'd have any idea what to do with them. Tony closed the door, to keep the cold air in, she knew, and showed her the room dedicated to eating, a bathroom, and then a closed door that he pushed open. "This is my room. Sometimes my girlfriend Pepper stays here too." He hesitated, and Penny wondered for a terrible moment if he was going to explain sex to her. Thankfully, he just went on. "If you need me, you can ask Friday, or just knock."

The bedroom was like no room she'd ever seen before, with a huge bed in the center covered in thick, warm looking blankets and at least five pillows. There was a sofa in the corner next to a bookshelf and a large window, and a dresser across from the bed. Despite all that, there was so much room to walk around, and she wondered why one or two people would need so much room.

He pulled the door shut, gesturing for her to follow him down the hall. The next door was shut, just like all the others, and when he pulled it open, it revealed another bedroom. There was a bed against one wall with blankets and pillows arranged on top, and a dresser. A desk with a chair and a lamp. A bookshelf full of books. A chair and a tall lamp beside the bookshelf. But when drew her eyes immediately were the double doors that seemed to lead outside. Taking a hesitant step forward, she paused, glancing back at Tony.

"Go ahead." He offered, holding out a hand. She walked over to the doors and placed her hand on one of the knobs, hesitated again, then pulled it open. They were glass, and she could see the whole city through them, but if she opened them, she could step out onto the balcony. Outside. She could be outside. If this was her room...could she really go outside any time she wanted?

Penny stepped onto the balcony, taking a deep breath of air that felt different, somehow. Lighter. Warmer. The sun was shining down on her, and when it hit her skin it made her warm. Below her, she could see the city and the people moving around. She gripped the railing and leaned over it, looking straight down. She didn't think she'd ever been so high. It made her heart speed up in excitement and she thought about climbing to the very top of this building and seeing what it was like.

Tony joined her after a moment, leaning his arms on the railing. "What do you think?" he wondered, and she looked back at the balcony which was big enough for several people as well as the two chairs that sat against the wall.

"It's outside." she whispered the words with a kind of reverence and he grinned, not looking so sad anymore.  She wondered if he was happy to be home.

"Yeah. Cool, huh?"

"What...what do I do?"

He contemplated her for a moment, then looked back out at the city. "I have a meeting with the Avengers today, and then I can show you the rest of the tower. Well, the parts where we live. The other stuff is pretty boring. You're welcome to stay up here if you want."

Penny didn't know what she wanted. Didn't know what the right thing was to say or what she should be doing. Was she supposed to say yes? Did he want her to see the other Avengers again? But asking too many questions was dangerous. She'd known that for a long time. So she just nodded. "Okay."

"Bruce made you a protein shake to have for lunch. Maybe we can try some real food for dinner tonight?"

She nodded again, and he reached out, squeezing her shoulder for a moment. "Alright, kid. The protein shake is in the mini-fridge." He pointed through the glass doors to a little box beside her desk. "I'll be back in a few hours. If you need me, just tell Friday. She's everywhere, so you can just say her name."

"Okay," Penny agreed again with a nod, and then he left her on the balcony, shutting her bedroom door behind him, and for the first time in her memory, she was actually alone.

Sure, she'd always been alone in her room until the soldiers or the people in white coats had come in, but the other children had been right next door in their own rooms. She'd been able to hear their heartbeats and the way they would sometimes talk to themselves. Their breathing and soft crying on bad days after the White Room. The footsteps of solders and people in white coats and teachers as they'd moved around other parts of the school. But now, when she closed her eyes, she could only hear the soft hum from the cars below and the occasional voices of far away people. If she stepped into her room and closed the door to the outside, she could hear only her own breathing. Her own heartbeat.

"Penny?" The soft voice made her jump and she looked around only to remember Friday. "Boss has asked me to let you know that if there is anything you need assistance with, that I am available at all times."

"Like what?" she asked, moving over to the bed and hesitantly sitting. The bed sunk under her, and she flung herself back, sinking into the soft mattress.

"I have files on any information that you would need to know as well as maps of all areas of the tower that you are able to access."

Penny stared at the ceiling, then closed her eyes, burying her face into a pillow, pulling her knees up to her chest and making herself comfortable. She'd never been comfortable...not at the school. But her whole body sunk into the mattress and she was warm! Actually warm! And outside was just a glass door away and she could go back outside if she wanted! "What do I need to know?" she wondered.

"Boss was unsure as to what information would have been withheld from you, so I have access to information on New York City, the United States of America where this city is located, the Avengers, and your family."

Penny almost sat up, but the bed was too comfortable, so she stayed where she was, turning so she could see the bright blue sky through the glass. "You know things about me?"

"Yes. I have information on the building you were being held in, and the changes to your DNA that caused your mutation."

"Tell me," Penny whispered, watching clouds float by.

"What would you like to know?"

"Everything. Start with my parents. Then tell me what they did to me."

Not daring to close her eyes lest the sky disappear, she listened to the story of her parents, a scientist and a spy. She listened to the voice from the ceiling as she learned about Richard and Mary Parker, and about their work. She learned a bit more about the meeting between her father, Tony Stark, and herself. Then the plane...a trip that had ended abruptly when their plane had been shot down and she'd been taken.

There had been a memorial service for her parents. Tony had gone. He'd led the search for her. And then her aunt and uncle had been killed, her last relatives.

Friday switched to her then. Penelope Parker. She had a last name and it was Parker. Taken when she was less than two years old. The development of memories typically didn't start until later, so of course she wouldn't remember.

"In what appears to have been an attempt to replicate the super soldier serum given to Steve Rogers, you were injected with the venom from a spider exposed to radioactivity. This radioactivity altered your DNA and, after causing radiation poisoning that you eventually recovered from, gave you the ability to stick to any surface, as well as your enhanced strength and metabolism. You are able to heal from wounds more quickly than non enhanced humans if you are given adequate nutrition. However, you are more susceptible to cold and may have reactions to substances such as peppermint, and any sort of chemical used to kill spiders and insects. The people studying you hoped that you would develop the ability to produce your own web, but trials were not successful."

Penny didn't remember that and she was glad. She was glad for every memory of that place that she didn't have. Sniffing softly and wiping a hand over her face, she forced back the tears, reminding herself that she was out now. Free, whatever that meant. Tony had given her a room in his home for...well, she didn't know how long. He had mentioned school before...when she'd been in that place. A school where children went and made friends and then came back home? Would she have to do that? She had never been allowed to use her powers. Was she allowed now?

That last question, she thought, bore asking. "Friday? Am I allowed to use my powers?"

"The only parameters boss has informed me of are that you not to leave the tower unless accompanied by himself, Miss Potts, or one of the Avengers, until you are familiar with the city. He has also required that I inform him if you are in distress."

That was it?  That was the only rule?  That...didn't sound right.  Penny frowned, starting to ask if Tony had guns.  Or what would happen to her if she left the tower on her own.  But she stopped herself, clarifying her first question instead.  "So I can climb on the walls?"

"To my knowledge, yes."

Penny jumped out of bed then, hurrying to the balcony and relishing the air and the sun once more. She didn't think anyone could see her this far up, so she pressed her hands to the outside of the building, which was slightly warm from the sun. Her hands stuck fast, so she pulled herself up and began to climb.

After all, she wasn't allowed to leave the tower.  But he hadn't said anything about climbing it, and Penny had always been too curious for her own good.

Thanks for reading! 

Chapter Text

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing.  Just to let you all know, I'll be taking a week off, so the next chapter will be two Sundays from now :)  

Into the Light of the Sun

Penny lay on her back, foot dangling from the side of the A she lay on top of, wind whipping past her and ruffling her hair. She giggled at the feel of if, unable to wipe the grin off her face as she stared at the bright blue sky. She'd never seen anything so blue. Had never dreamed that the world could look like this. She had her hands pressed to the top of the A in the word Avengers that was attached to the front of the huge building, keeping her firmly in place despite the wind. Her bare foot dangled over the city, and she thought about rolling over and looking down at the city again, but the sky...it was so beautiful. She didn't understand the people down below, how they were able to go about their day without staring at it.

After a moment, she did roll over, right to the edge, her fingers and one foot sticking fast to the A. It was a drop like none she'd ever seen, and it made her stomach flip in excitement. Giggling again, she watched the people, wondering if any of them could see her. They were so small. What were they doing? Did they go to school? Or did they have jobs? What kind of jobs? What did Tony do? And the Avengers? Did they just...wait for people to need help? What did people do for jobs?

Penny watched them for a moment, looking out across the city. Where had her parents lived? Had they lived somewhere close to here? Where would she live? Tony had given her a room in his tower...but for how long? When they'd been in the school that hadn't been a school, he'd told her that she could stay with him. But he hadn't said for how long. Penny sighed, closing her eyes and rolling over once more, feeling the sun soak into her skin. It felt so nice...so warm. She'd never been so warm before. She felt like she could fall asleep...and she might have if she hadn't heard a somewhat familiar noise.

She'd only heard it once before, and she started to roll over to figure out what had made it when Tony's panicked, slightly robotic voice made her freeze.

"No...don't!" She jumped back when the robot suit flew into view, and she backed away from Iron Man on instinct, hairs standing on edge as she shrank back. The faceplate came up then, hands facing her, and she could see the repulsers. "Hey...woah, Penny." He spoke softly, landing with a clank on top of the letters that were stuck to the front of the tower. The front of the suit opened, and Tony stepped out, hands up. But this time, it was just Tony's hands. No repulsers. Nothing that would shoot her. "Sorry...hey, I didn't mean to scare you."

Penny didn't answer, swallowing hard to wet her suddenly dry throat.

"I'm sorry," he apologized again, kneeling beside her. "I was afraid you were going to fall. What are you doing out here?" He sounded almost upset. Almost frustrated.

Did he have a gun?

"I wouldn't fall...I can stick." Penny reminded him, voice soft and confused. Why would he think she was going to fall?

"Right…" He sighed, running a hand through his hair, and she wondered if he was angry. Upset. "Right, but when I got back and you weren't in your room...and Friday told me you we're out here...I was worried."

"Why?" She cocked her head.

"You're...you're my responsibility, kid. You know?" He sighed again, this time trying for a smile that was almost tentative. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just...I didn't know where you were."

"Oh." Had she broken a rule? "Friday said I wasn't supposed to leave the tower but I thought...I thought as long as I was on the tower that...that I would be okay…"

Was he angry? Was he like the soldiers? Had she broken a rule?

Did he have a gun?

"Hey." The man shook his head, hand up again. "I'm sorry...I didn't exactly go over any of this with you yet. I didn't want to overwhelm you. Look, if it's safe and you're sure you won't fall, you can come up here anytime you want."

"I…" She swallowed, dropping her eyes and shrinking in on herself a little more. "I don't know the rules."

His eyes narrowed and he scooted forward, glancing over at the edge as if afraid he was going to fall. She would never let him fall, so she wondered why he was afraid. "Hey...I'm not mad, Penny. It's okay." He shook his head, opening his mouth as if to speak, then closing it.

"If I broke the rules…" Her voice trailed off, lost in the wind that made his hair stand up on end, and he reached out, hand resting on her upper arm.

"You're not there anymore. Penny?" His voice was raised to carry over the wind, and she risked a glance at him, meeting his eyes for only a moment before dropping them again. "You aren't there. You'll never have to go back. We destroyed that place. Put the people that worked there in prison. You don't ever have to go back." She swallowed hard, not sure how she felt about that. "If you…" He looked around, almost exasperated, but not angry. "Think we can finish this talk inside?"

Penny nodded, then swung her feet over the side of the building, waiting for him to climb into his suit before she began her descent, the two of them reaching her balcony where the door still stood open. He gestured for her to go inside and he followed close behind, her taking a seat on her soft, comfortable bed.

"Right. So...I talked to the others," he told her, stepping out of his suit once more. The suit folded itself into a little briefcase and she stared at it for a moment, wondering how it did that, before turning back to him. "The Avengers. The usual protocol would be to put a child without any family left in foster care...but with the circumstances being what they are...well, I told you you could stay here, and I meant it. We'll have to do some paperwork at some point, but we can worry about that later." She was quiet and he clenched his hands together, looking almost nervous. "So...what do you think? About staying here?"

"With you?"

He nodded with a smile that grew a little softer. "Yeah. With me. I'd technically be your guardian, but I don't expect to be...I mean...I'll be the one that's responsible for you. We'll get it all sorted with Shield and someone might come to talk to you. But for now, all you need to know is that you have a home here. You don't have to worry...you can stay with me for as long as you want."

"I can stay here?" she repeated, voice barely a whisper.

"Of course, kiddo. Your dad was my friend and...I'm glad to have you here. The rest of it...we'll figure it out as we go. I promise."

Penny studied his face for a moment, unsure. But he looked like he meant it. Tony had only ever been kind to her. He was a superhero. He rescued people. And he really seemed to want her to stay. "Okay." She gave a shy nod and he clasped her shoulder, squeezing firmly and looking relieved.

"Alright. Did you drink the smoothie?"

Penny shook her head, flushing just a little. "No...I...I wanted to…" She gestured toward the balcony door and he chuckled, sitting back and crossing his arms.

"Go ahead and drink it. We'll talk about food later. But there's someone I want you to meet if you're up for it?"

"The Avengers?"

"Not exactly...although I do want you to meet them too. Just...not all at once. They're a bit much all at once." He grinned and she did too when she realized it was a joke. "I want you to meet Pepper."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Yep. Also the CEO of my company. What do you say?"

"Um...okay." To be honest, Penny had no idea how to say no. It wasn't that she didn't want to meet Pepper or the Avengers or whoever Tony wanted her to meet. She trusted him, as much as she could trust anyone. But would he get angry if she didn't want to do something? Penny grabbed the smoothie from the fridge and took a long drink, glad to notice that it tasted nearly the same as the one she'd always had. She didn't know if she would have been able to handle any more new things at the moment.

She carried the drink with her into the living room, following behind Tony and drinking as she walked. The hallway was long and wide, just like everything about this place. Every room was big, with plenty of room to walk around. In the school, everything had been exactly as big as it had needed to be. The classroom had been just big enough for their desks and a space at the front for the teachers. The cafeteria had been just big enough for their tables and a place to walk, and they'd had to sidestep between tables most of the time. The White Room...Penny pushed that thought down. She didn't want to think about the White Room. Not now, not ever. She wanted to forget.

She wasn't there anymore. She was safe. She never had to go back.

The woman waiting for them in the living room was tall, with blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She wore strange clothes like the man Osborn had worn, a dark gray jacket over a white top and matching dark gray pants. On her feet were pointed shoes with a heel in the back that made her even taller, and her smile was hesitant. Professional, just like her teachers had been over the years. Almost afraid. Was this woman afraid of her? Penny balked when she held out a hand, wanting to go back to her room, back to the letters on the tower where she could look at the sky. But Tony was here and he wanted her to meet this woman. She was his girlfriend...did that mean she was going to be responsible for Penny too?

"Hi, Penny. I'm Virginia Potts, but you can call me Pepper," the woman introduced herself when Penny only stared. After a moment, she forced her feet forward, holding out a hand and placing it in the woman's like Tony had taught her.

"I'm Penny."

"It's nice to meet you. I'm glad to see you're feeling better."

"Thank you." It was the only thing she knew to say, and she struggled to keep her eyes from the floor.

Tony seemed to be waiting for something, and when she looked over at him, she saw him exchanging a look with Pepper that she hadn't seen before. She quickly darted her eyes away, not wanting to get caught, and decided to go back to staring at the floor. They'd tell her what they wanted her to do eventually...right? Or did she have to guess?

"Alright. Why don't we head down to the lab? I can show you the training room too," Tony offered, clapping his hands together and smiling at her.

Penny nodded, not meeting Pepper's eyes as she followed him to the elevator once more. Had she messed up? Was she supposed to say something else? Miss Blue...no...Cho had taught her how to say hello and how to introduce yourself. She'd done that. What was she missing? Was she allowed to ask? Waiting until they reached a floor and the doors open, she gathered all of her courage and forced herself to speak.

"Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"Did I do it wrong?"

His footsteps faltered halfway between the elevator and the sprawling room that seemed full of mats and bags hanging from the ceiling. Black objects sat on racks that she couldn't identify, and there were gloves too...big, red gloves. "Did you do what wrong?" Tony asked, cocking his head and turning to face her. The elevator doors were still open and she wondered if they would close on him.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she admitted in a whisper, lowering her eyes to the spotless elevator floor. Did someone clean it? Did Tony?

"Do? You don't...you don't have to do anything, kiddo. I just wanted to show you the places you might want to see in the tower."

"With Pepper," Penny clarified. "I don't think she wanted to meet me. Did I do it wrong?"

Tony sighed then, giving her a sad smile and gesturing for her to step out of the elevator. She did, following the unspoken command without hesitating. Without thought. When she reached his side, he started to lift his arm to wrap it around her and she wasn't sure she wanted him to. Wasn't sure she wanted to be touched. Not knowing how to say that, she stiffened and tried to ready herself for it, but the contact never came. He'd stopped, arm half-raised, and then he dropped it.

"Pepper did want to meet you. I think she's just concerned." He crossed his arms, stepping slightly away from her, and she relaxed, just a fraction. "She doesn't know you and you'll be staying where we live, so she's a little nervous."

"She's afraid of me. Because I'm dangerous," Penny muttered.

"No," he corrected firmly. "No, she's not afraid of you. Bringing a new person to your home is always an adjustment. But this situation is not your fault. You deserve a safe place to live, just like every other kid."

"Did you ask her if I could live here?"

Tony made a strange face, somewhat amused. Taken aback. Just like when she'd asked how old he was. Had that really been only a week ago? A week ago she'd been in that place. It was a strange, painful thought. "We both discussed it while you were recovering. She was surprised, but she thinks we should give it a try."

"What if it doesn't work?" Penny asked, fighting back heat in her eyes at the thought. Apparently now that she'd cried in front of him, she wanted to do it all the time.

"Why wouldn't it?"

She shrugged, then whispered her response. "I don't know the rules."

"The rules?"

"We always had rules. And if we...if we broke them...they had guns. I didn't know if you…" Penny stopped talking at his horrified expression that he struggled to contain a moment later, looking sad again.

"Okay. Let me make this very clear. I'm not going to hurt you. I thought...I should have made that clear from the moment you woke up here. I thought I had but...that's...I'm sorry. I won't ever hurt you. We have weapons here, in the armory, but I don't have a gun in the penthouse and even if I did I would never use it on you. None of the people that live here would. No one here is going to hurt you and if they do, then I want you to come to me. Okay?"

Penny nodded, crossing her arms as tightly as she could, holding herself. She wanted to go back outside. She wanted to go back to the letters on the building back where it was simple where she didn't have to deal with people that might or might not want her there.

"As for the rules…" He ran a hand over the back of his head. "I don't know, Penny. That's not really how things work here. I mean...don't hurt anyone." He shrugged. "This isn't your school. It's not a prison. I want it to be your home. I want you to be comfortable here. No one is going to give you orders...you don't have to follow orders. I mean…" Tony sighed. "I have to make sure you're safe, so I want you to stay in the tower unless someone is with you. At least until you get used to the city."

"I don't...I don't know what it means," she admitted. "A home. I don't...I've never had that. Not that I remember."

"I know." He started to reach out, then paused. "If you don't want someone to touch you, you don't have to let them. Not me, not anyone. If you feel uncomfortable, or if you need space, or if you need to leave a room...you can always do that. Okay? You don't have to explain yourself. You can always go. Just ask Friday if you need help."

"Okay." She released a breath, giving him a weak smile. How did she know if she could believe that? She remembered his words from just a few days ago. She was going to have to decide that for herself...wait for time to pass. See if she really could trust him.

"Do you want to finish the tour?"

Penny was very aware of the change in his phrasing. Not 'let's' finish the tour. 'Do you want to?' A question. Something she was allowed to refuse. She nodded. Yes. Yes she wanted to finish the tour. But she didn't have to. It was a strange feeling, and the tension from her shoulders seemed to melt away. A choice. She had a choice. Everything was a choice now, and she didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but at the moment, it felt pretty good.

Thank you for reading! 

Chapter Text

I hope you guys are all staying safe!!!  Enjoy the new chapter:)

Penny ran her fingers along the spines of the books that sat on the bookshelf in Tony's office. They were dusty, and her finger left a trail. She cocked her head and moved her face a little closer, then read the titles. All had to do with science as far as she could tell, and one or two had Bruce Banner's name on them. She knelt, running a ringer over his name. Had Bruce Banner written them? She wondered when she would meet the Avengers...what they were really like. She wondered about outside and if Tony would let her go there anytime soon. But mostly, she wondered what her life was going to be now.

She would live with Tony. She knew that much. And Pepper lived here too. So she would have to figure out how to talk to Pepper. And the others. And...school? Didn't she still have to go to school? A real one? Would she have to fight at school? She was a pretty good fighter, Penny thought, but she didn't know how the other kids had trained. What if they were better? What would happen to her if she lost?

"And this is Dum-E."

Penny turned around at that and found Tony standing across the lab, his hand on a robot's arm. She'd never seen a robot, although she knew they existed. Never had she even imagined what a robot looked like, and as she hurried over, she studied the thing, from it's claw to its large body. The robot made a little beeping noise and she paused in her tracks, nearly pitching forward when she stopped too quickly.

Tony reached an arm out, ushering her forward. "Don't worry. He doesn't bite."

"Do other robots bite?"

He gave a startled laugh, then shook his head, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her closer. "No. It's just an expression. Dum-E, this is Penny. Pen, Dum-E."

The robot reached out his claw and she held out her own hand, hesitant and wounding if it could shake. The claw delicately closed over her fingers and moved it up and down, then let go, tapping the top of her head, beeping quietly. "Hello," Penny greeted with a hesitant smile, wondering if that's what the beeping meant. "Does everyone have robots? Can you buy them? With money?"

"Not like Dum-E. I built him."

She had read about money in her books...knew that some people had a lot of it. It seemed like Tony had a lot of it. She decided to ask. "Oh. Do you have a lot of money?"

His eyes widened, and she wondered if she'd asked another bad question, but then he softened. "That's kind of like the age question. But yes, I do have a lot of money."

She dropped her eyes, cheeks heating up, feeling stupid. She didn't know how to talk to people...what she was allowed to ask and what was supposed to be secret. Why was she only allowed to ask certain things? Why were some things not okay to talk about? How was she supposed to know the difference? Penny had never felt stupid before. Had never felt like she had no idea how to navigate the world because her world had always been the school. The school with the rules she understood and the teachers that didn't want to teach her and the people in the white coats that didn't look at her and the soldiers that hated her. At least then, she knew where she stood. So where did she stand now?

Tony squeezed her shoulder, peering closely at her face. "You want to look around some more?"

Penny nodded, pulling away and heading back over to the bookshelf. What was she doing here? What was she supposed to do now? Kneeling down, she looked at the bottom shelf and looked at the folders. She pulled one out at random, and found Tony's name on the front. Tony Stark. She opened it, looking at the paper in the front and frowning. Behind her, she heard Tony's footsteps, and she waited for him to kneel beside her before looking up.

"You?" She asked, showing him the paper she'd read so many times, thumb rubbing over his name at the top where before there had always been a black bar.

"What?"

"You wrote this?"

"Um…" He squinted a little, looking at the title, then nodded, seeming confused. "I...yeah. This is my first paper on the arc reactor." Suddenly something seemed to occur to him and he smiled. "That's right. Helen gave you this paper, didn't she?"

"You invented the arc reactor?"

"My father did," Tony clarified. "I managed to miniaturize it so that it could power my heart. After Afghanistan."

Penny frowned down at the paper again. She knew almost all of those words, but it didn't really make sense. "What's Afghanistan?"

"Um...it's a place. I had shrapnel in my chest...a bomb exploded and pieces of the metal were going to hit my heart. So I used the arc reactor as a magnet...it kept the metal away from my heart."

"Do…" She bit down on her lip and dropped her eyes. Was she allowed to ask? What was she supposed to be quiet about?

"You can ask me whatever you want, Penny. Promise. There are things that you shouldn't ask other people, and I'll tell you, but you can ask me anything."

Was it true?

"Do you still have the arc reactor?"

"It's not in my chest anymore, no. I was able to have the shrapnel removed, along with the arc reactor."

"Are you okay?"

He smiled, giving a quick nod. "I'm fine, kiddo." Tony stood, sweeping an arm out. "You want to keep looking around the lab or take this tour down to the gym?" When she hesitated, he held out a hand. "We can always come back. Or you can keep looking in here. Whichever you want."

A choice. Choices were hard. But Penny took his hand, replacing the paper where she'd found it. "Gym?"

"Sure thing."

The gym was a huge room, with mats on the floor, racks of weights and bags hanging from the ceiling...and in the middle of the room, a boxing ring. Just like the one she'd fought on almost every day. She balked when he started to lead her over, and he paused, seeming confused.

"Kid?"

"Why do you have that?" she asked, voice catching, one foot taking an involuntary step back. "Why…". Her heart was pounding in her ears, and Tony moved, turning to face her and blocking her view of the boxing ring.

He started to reach out for her, but seemed to think better of it, lifting his hands. "Have what?"

"The boxing ring?"

Tony glanced back at the object in question. "Um...it's for sparring."

"I don't…". She swallowed hard, shaking her head and blinking away flashes of the people in the lab coats. "I don't want to…"

"Okay...you don't have to, Pen. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

"Why do you spar?"

"It's part of our training. We train together so we get better." Something seemed to occur to him. "You sparred? At the school, right?"

She nodded, closing her eyes. She'd never reacted like this to the idea of fighting. She'd been fighting for as long as she could remember. Why would it bother her now? Why would the sight of a boxing ring bother her so much?

Because she'd thought she was safe. Because she'd finally let herself relax after not even knowing how afraid she'd been for so long.

"No one's going to make you do fight here, Penny." Tony's voice was a murmur as he approached, getting just a little closer, hands still up as if in surrender. "No one is going to hurt you here. There are things you have to do, like eat enough, and eventually you'll have to meet everyone. Maybe go to school when you're ready. But no one here is every going to make you fight and no one is going to hurt you if you do decide to spar with us. There are no consequences to that. If you ever want to leave a room, if you want to be away from someone...you're free to do all those things. Okay?"

She nodded, breathing back under control for a moment as she placed her hand against her chest, feeling her heartbeat slow. "Okay."

"Okay," he said again, clapping her on the shoulder. He seemed to like contact. Well, Helen too. Maybe it was something common to people who hadn't grown up in….school? A prison? Captivity? She knew the words but didn't know which ones applied. "So this is the gym. You're welcome to come down here anytime you want. Why don't we check out the pool? Do you know how to swim?"

The thought had never occurred to her and so she shrugged, making him smile.

"I'll take that as a no. We'll teach you, don't worry."

After a tour of all the amenities in the upper levels of the tower, including a dark room with huge chairs meant for watching movies on a screen that took up the entire far wall, she was led to a different floor. It was just under theirs, and Tony told her that it was where the Avengers lived. "I thought we'd start small. Steve and Rhodey are up here. And Sam…" He trailed off, thinking. "I think that's everyone. I didn't want to overwhelm you. What do you say to a quick meet and greet?"

She cocked her head at the term but nodded. She could meet a few more people. She just hoped she didn't mess it up like she felt she had with Pepper.

The first person she saw as they stepped into the kitchen of the floor that belonged to the Avengers was a man with no hair that stood quickly from the stool he'd been sitting on, giving Tony a look Penny wasn't sure how to interpret. For a moment he looked like he was trying to ask the man something, but instead of actually doing it, he turned to Penny instead, face softening into a smile as he held a hand out. "Hi. I'm Jim. Nice to meet you."

Penny took his hand in hers, trying not to look nervous. The way Tony looked at this man told her that he was important. Just like Pepper. She didn't want to mess up again. "It's nice to meet you," she parroted. "I'm Penny."

"Jimmy here has been my friend for years," Tony told her, clapping the man on the shoulder, and Jim gave him a fond grin. "His full name is Jim Rhodes. I call him Rhodey."

"Are you a superhero too?"

"He sure is," Tony answered for him, grinning when Jim shot him a look before turning back to Penny.

"I'm in the air force. Military. For the government."

Penny felt the blood start to drain from her face but she forced herself to stay in place while checking his hip for a gun. "You're a soldier."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Sort of…"

"Do you have a gun?" As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. Judging by the silence, that was something she wasn't supposed to ask. "I'm sorry…"

"I'm not like the soldiers that kept you in that place," Jim interrupted. "They weren't real soldiers, just like it wasn't a real school. Real soldiers are supposed to help people. They don't keep kids locked up in a prison."

She blinked at him, glancing over at Tony who gave her quick nod. "So...what were they?"

"Assholes," Tony said under his breath.

"Assholes?" She repeated the word carefully and he cleared his throat.

"That's, uh...probably another one you shouldn't say."

"Another one?" Jim asked.

"Like fuck" she clarified, and Jim's eyes widened, arms coming up and crossing over his chest.

"You've known this kid for what, a week? And you're already teaching her to talk like that?"

"It means something is bad," Penny put in, just in case Jim didn't know, and the man's lip twitched.

"What means something is bad?" Another voice interrupted their conversation, and two men, one with skin paler than Tony's and one with skin as dark as Jim's approached. They were both tall, and she had to fight the urge to run. She couldn't mess this up. This was important to Tony. No one here would hurt her.

"Fuck," she answered promptly, and Jim snorted when the blond man's eyebrow's lifted.

"Okay," Tony interrupted, clapping his hands together, then dropping one arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him, head cocked, and he gave her a quick smile. "Penny, this is Sam and Steve."

"Captain America." She knew him. Well, she knew his picture and she remembered what she'd been told about him. She also remembered him sitting in the jet. "They called you 'Cap.'"

"They do," he confirmed, holding out a hand. "You can call me Steve. Or Cap." He squeezed the hand she placed in his and shook his. "It's nice to officially meet you, Penny."

"You too."

"Hey, kid. I'm Sam. Nice to meet you." The other man did the same, and neither seemed afraid of her. Did they know what she was? Or what she could do? She couldn't remember which superhero Sam was, but she was sure he was one. So they were Avengers, a word that still sent a shiver down her back, but Pepper wasn't. Pepper was Tony's girlfriend. So many new people to keep straight, and she hadn't even met all of them yet. But Tony was there, right by her side, and he didn't look upset, so she tried to relax a little. These men seemed okay with her.

"He's Falcon," Tony put in, gesturing to Sam. She nodded, putting the imagine of the man with the wingsuit and goggles together with this man in her mind.

"You know who we are?" Sam asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"They told us about you. At the school." Penny wanted to correct herself as soon as she'd finished speaking...Tony had told her that it wasn't a school, but she didn't know what she should call it.

Sam grimaced at that, him and Steve exchanging looks, and she dropped her eyes. Had she messed up?

"Tony, think we could talk?" Steve asked, which was a strange question, since they were talking at that moment. Then, when Tony's eyes cut to her, she realized that they meant without her there. Penny flushed a little, taking a step back.

"I'll go…"

"No." Tony held a hand up, and she froze in her tracks. He seemed to regret the action, lowering his hand and nodding over to the sofa. "You can wait in here if you want to. We just need to have a quick meeting."

About her. That part was unspoken but so obvious that Penny doubted anyone would be fooled. Still, she nodded, not willing to risk making him angry no matter what he'd said about her being allowed to do what she wanted, and headed over to the couch across from the TV. To her surprise, Jim joined her as the other three men left the room, sitting down a few feet away.

"So…" Jim clasped his hands, turning to her with a friendly smile. "Tony told us you were thirteen?"

Penny nodded.

"When's your birthday?"

That took her aback. Birthday? "What's that?"

He blinked, swallowing and furrowing his brow. "It's...the day you were born. The day you're a year older."

She shrugged. "It's a different day every year. This year it was Tuesday."

Jim was quiet, something sad passing over his face that he tried to hide. "It's a date. Like, Tony's is May 29th."

Penny felt her cheeks get hot. She'd known about months. Years. But she didn't know which one they were in, or what day of the month it was. They'd never needed to know that. Had never been told. So it had sat in the back of her mind, unused information, until now. They had all gotten older on the same day at the school. "Oh...then...I don't know." It hadn't been part of the stuff that Friday had told her.

"I'm sure we can find out."

It felt like all of the questions that had been asked of her, along with the others she thought to ask, were questions Penny wasn't supposed to ask. How old are you? Do you have a lot of money? Do you have guns? What had she talked to Susie about? School work and eventually going home to their families. Would that work?

"Do you have a family?" she finally asked, fingers tangled together in her lap. The TV was off and she wasn't sure if she wanted it on. It was so strange, but it might be a distraction.

Jim nodded. "Yeah. My mom lives a few hours south of here. And I've got a brother that works in California. Other side of the country."

She tried to put all that together in her mind...they didn't live together? "Did you ever live with your family?'

"I did. Up until I went to college. Then I joined the air force."

Her questions didn't seem to bother him, just like they hadn't bothered Tony, so she risked another one. "Why are you an Avenger?"

That one took a moment for him to answer, and she almost started to worry before he finally spoke. "Tony's like my brother. When he needed help, I put on one of those suits and came to help him. Then...well, I wanted to help people."

"They said you would kill us. Because we were mutants," Penny whispered, refusing to look at him.

"They lied. None of us would ever hurt a kid. We wanted to get you out of there. Save you. That's what superheroes do." He went on before she could think of another question. "Tony said you learned to fight?"

"Um...yeah, they had a spar all the time. Like they were training us." Penny felt unease grow in her chest but tried to push it back. She didn't have to fight. Not if she didn't want to. Tony had told her that over and over.

"Do you know why?"

She shook her head. "I thought that's what all kids did. I thought...they told us our parents would pick us up when we turned eighteen."

"Did anyone's parents ever come?"

Penny clenched her hands together. "They said they did...but they didn't."

There was silence between them then, but it wasn't a bad silence. He didn't ask her any more questions. Instead, he grabbed a small black box from the table and pointed it at the TV, and then, like magic, it came on. She jumped when the picture went from black to bright colors, two people talking with a picture in the corner. He seemed to notice her surprise and turned just a little to face her. "Did Tony show you the TV?"

Penny nodded. "He told Friday to turn it on."

"Yeah, you can do it that way. Or you can use this." He handed the little box over and she stared down at the colorful buttons with little words underneath them. "This turns it on, this controls how loud it is, and this changes the channel."

With so many questions swirling around her brain, she had no idea which one to ask, so she asked none of them.

"You want to watch something else? We can go through the channels and see if there's anything you like."

"No thank you." It was the first time she'd really told someone no like this, and she flinched, waiting. He just nodded, though, turning back to the tv where people were talking, turning the sound up enough so he could hear. She turned her head slightly toward the door where Tony had disappeared with Steve to no avail...she couldn't make out their words over the sound of the people talking on TV. For the moment, though, this was...okay. Maybe this was what normal was supposed to feel like.

Thank you for reading! Stay safe!

Chapter Text

Thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing! I hope you enjoy the new chapter and that you're all staying safe!

It had been two weeks since Penny had woken up in the tower. Fourteen days. Penny knew this because every day when she woke up in her comfortable bed, she asked Friday what day it was, and every day, despite the fact that this whole thing felt like a dream, Friday's voice would tell her that another day had passed. That she was alive, the daughter or Mary and Richard Parker, born, apparently, on August 11th, and nearly fourteen years old. That she lived in New York now with Tony Stark and the Avengers who were superheroes, not murderers. Who had been nothing but kind to her.

She had a routing again, which was comforting in a way. She woke up every morning at seven when Friday turned her lights up slowly, opening her curtains and giving her a view of the city. Then she asked what day it was, and Friday would recite the date, day of the week, and year. Then she would get up and get dressed in different clothes every day. Blue jeans and shirts in different colors. Soft sweatpants and socks with patterns.

And then she waited for Tony to knock on her door, usually between 7:30 and 8:00. He kept insisting that she could go wherever she wanted...that she could go into the kitchen without him, but she didn't know if she could, really. She didn't know if her hand would turn the doorknob or if her legs would take her down the hall.

They'd been experimenting with different foods, him introducing them slowly on a schedule that Bruce Banner had written up, and so far nothing had made her sick. She had found that blueberry pancakes were her favorite, with the chocolate ones a close second. After that, they went down to the lab and she would read papers and make her way through workbooks that Tony had given her which would, he said, help her when it was time to go to school. Most of it was easy...english, math, and science were nothing she hadn't seen before. But history was all new and geography was a puzzle she could barely make sense of. Tony helped her though, always patient. Always promising that she had plenty of time.

He'd taken her to the indoor pool a few times, and she'd officially met Natasha. They'd all stayed in the shallow end while Penny had become accustomed to being covered in water. She'd met Wanda who had read her mind, but who promised not to do it again. She'd also met Clint Barton, who was Hawkeye, and who had told her that he had a daughter her age. Thor had been the last person she'd met. He'd been sitting in the kitchen when Tony had brought her upstairs for lunch a few days ago. The man had stood when he'd seen her, towering over her by why felt like several feet, with arms bigger than her whole body. But he'd smiled, eyes soft and gentle as he'd held out a hand, and she had known what to do.

Penny had shaken his hand, her tiny fingers disappearing in his. "Nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you as well, Penny. Why don't you both join me for lunch?" That was also the first day she tried macaroni and cheese, another new favorite.

It had been fourteen days now, and Penny found herself staring at the ceiling. Friday hadn't turned on her lights yet. But Tony had told her that she could always talk to Friday if she needed something. So she sat up, trying not to think about the dreams that had woken her...dreams of the white room and people in white coats. "Friday?"

"Yes, Penny?"

"What time is it?"

"It is currently 4:03 am. Would you like me to wake Tony?"

"No." She didn't want that. She didn't want to bother him any more than she felt she already was. He spent almost all of his time with her, and she couldn't imagine that it was very enjoyable for him. Tony ate all of his meals with her and took her to the lab with him and took most of his phone calls with her in the room. The only time he got with his girlfriend, who Penny did her best to avoid, were the evenings when Penny would excuse herself at exactly 8pm every night to go to her room.

The first night she did it, she had just stood up from the sofa and walked out, leaving Tony and Pepper sitting in silence on the sofa. Tony had come after her only a moment later, tapping on her door. "You okay, kiddo?" He'd asked. She'd only been staying with him for a couple of days then, and as soon as she'd seen him in her doorway, she'd shrank back.

"I thought...I thought I could…"

"Woah...hey, it's okay. You can leave a room if you want. It's okay. I just wanted to make sure nothing was wrong. Usually when you leave a room like that, you say something."

She had tilted her head. "Like what?"

"Just...uh...like, you could say you were going to bed. Or...to your room. Just to let people know. You don't have to. It's just...it's the polite thing to do." He'd seemed to be floundering, so she'd just nodded as if she'd understood.

The next night when she'd stood up, she'd turned to Tony and Pepper. "I'm going to go to my room."

The words had felt heavy and awkward in her mouth, but Tony had nodded, eyes soft, smile friendly. "Alright, kiddo. Good night."

"Good night, Penny," Pepper had offered, and Penny had tried to maintain eye contact while she'd smiled back.

"Good night."

Penny made sure to excuse herself every night at 8 so that they could have plenty of time together. But she felt like she still took up too much of Tony's time. So she definitely didn't want to wake him now. She knew that she could watch TV, but she still didn't quite get the point. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she hopped up and changed into comfortable clothes that were appropriate for leaving her room in. Tony had told her that she could go around in her pajamas if she wanted, but had also explained the difference between normal clothes and pajamas, and she'd decided to only wear pajamas in her room lest she get it wrong.

Once she was dressed, she walked right up to her bedroom door, placed a hand on the doorknob, then froze.

"I'm allowed out of my room," she whispered, a reminder to herself. "He said I could leave my room. I'm allowed to be in the tower. If I'm not allowed in a room, the door will be locked." She took a deep breath, not thinking of her room at the school. The prison. She was allowed to leave this room. The door was not locked. If she turned the doorknob, it would open. It would open. It would open.

"Penny?"

She jumped, looking up automatically at the ceiling when she heard Friday's voice. "Huh?"

"Would you like for me to open the door?"

Penny dropped her hand, shamefaced. "Please."

"Of course, Penny." And then the door was swinging open, revealing the dark hallway. "I have been instructed by boss to remind you that you are welcome to explore the tower any time you'd like. And if you are also welcome to have me contact him if you need anything."

"Can I leave my room?" Penny finally asked, swallowing hard against the sudden heat in her eyes.

"Yes, Penny. You may."

And, taking a deep breath, she took a step into the hallway, then another. And there was silence. No men with guns. No alarms. No screaming. Just silence.

Penny let her feet take her to the place her mind had been for days, walking into the elevator Friday took her straight down, opening the elevator doors and depositing her exactly where she both wanted to be and never wanted to be. Something in her was drawn to that room...maybe because it was the most familiar. But as soon as she stepped into the training room, her heart sped up, palms sweating, and still her feet took her right to the boxing ring in the middle of the room.

The mat was blue, with red ropes strung around it, just like the one in the training room. They hadn't always sparred in the ring. Sometimes they'd sparred on mats, or on the concrete floor. There had been no rhyme or reason, really. The only constant had been the fighting. The bruises and cuts. The punishments for the loser.

"Penny?" She jumped, spinning around, fists clenched at her sides as she searched the man approaching her for a gun. He seemed to notice her posture and hesitated, hands up. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to scare you."

Usually she would have heard him. How had she been too lost in thought not to notice someone approaching her? Did she really feel that safe here? "I'm sorry." She didn't know what she was sorry for but figured it was a safe bet. Steve Rogers shook his head, though.

"Nothing to be sorry for. I was just coming down to do some training. Couldn't sleep." He dropped his hands, giving her a warm smile. "Did you want to join me?"

"Join you?"

"Sure. I usually hit a punching bag but…"

"Tony said you sparred." The words felt like something dry in her mouth, but still she said them. Tony had said that no one would make her spar. That no one would make her do anything. But maybe she had to do this. Maybe she had to face it.

"Uh...we do. Sometimes. In training."

"We did too."

Steve tilted his head, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft. Gentle. "Do you want to spar?"

"What happens if I lose?" Tony had told her but she needed to hear from someone else too.

"Nothing," he assured her. "Nothing happens if you lose. Or if you win. And we don't have to spar. We have punching bags. I can show you how to hit those."

"They hurt us if we lost," she whispered, looking over at the boxing ring once more, and he came a little closer.

"I won't hurt you. None of us will." There was silence between them for a moment, and then he went on. "How about we jump in the ring. Go a few rounds."

If she fought him and lost, and he didn't do anything...then it would be real. All of it. She would be safe. Penny didn't know how to feel about that. How to process any of it. So she nodded, walking purposefully over to the ring and ducking under the ropes, followed closely by Captain America who she called Steve now.

She had to force her body to stay upright as he stood across from her, rather than crouching in the usual position she'd assumed for as long as she could remember. Fists up, knees slightly bent, low to the ground, ready to strike like the snakes she'd read about but had never seen. She'd always liked the idea of snakes. Small and fast like her. Dangerous like her. On the other side of the mat, Steve put his fists up, but she stayed frozen.

"We don't have to…"

"I want to," she cut him off, knowing that cutting people off was rude and not having the mental capacity to care. Then, finally, she lifted her hands and balled them into fists so tight that her nails pressed painfully into her skin.

"Okay. We usually just go until someone taps out." He must have seen the confusion on her face so he went on. "It means they want to stop, so you can say so or just tap the mat." He crouched down, slapping his hand against the mat. "So if you had me down on the ground and I wanted to stop, I'd tap the mat and you'd let go."

Right. She could do this. She could fight. And then she could stop thinking so much about this place. About the school and the mats there and the people in white coats who punished the losers. About all the times she'd been the loser.

Penny nodded to show that she understood and and Steve gave his own sharp nod, shifting forward and signaling that this was the beginning. That the fight had started. Before she could really think about it, Penny darted forward, wanting it to be over and wanting her point to herself to be finally proven once and for all. She could fight Captain America if she wanted and if she wanted to stop, she could. Or maybe, she thought as she ducked under a strike sent her way, she needed to prove to herself that she could beat him if it came down to it.

Maybe she didn't know what she was trying to prove after all.

Pivoting on her right foot, she started to bring a leg up, then saw that he was faster than she'd expected. Abruptly changed gears, she went down instead and ducked under his leg that had lifted to deliver a kick of his own. But before his foot could touch the floor again, she grabbed his ankle, yanking up and throwing him off balance. He staggered backwards and she struck again, sweeping her foot under him and knocking him to the ground. He blinked at her, seeming stunned, and she paused, not sure what to do next. They'd never fought with the intention to kill. Had never wanted to seriously hurt each other. The people in white coats did enough for all of them. But how did this fight end?

Steve stared for a moment, then chuckled, holding a hand up. Recognizing the signal, she grabbed it and pulled him upright. She'd beat him. She'd knocked him down and he wasn't angry and he hadn't retaliated.

The man seemed to nod to himself, eyes bright as he grinned. "Alright. Guess I don't need to hold back, huh?"

She narrowed her eyes in confusion. "Hold back?"

"You want to go again?"

This time, it was her that ended up on the mat and she quickly understood his comment about holding back...his fist had made contact with her shoulder once and it had nearly stunned her. He wasn't as strong as she was, but he was obviously well trained. Had he gone to a school too? Either way, she knew she'd have a bruise later. This didn't bother her, but it was a thought that distracted her for long enough that she found herself on the mat after a kick to the ribs. She twisted to stare up at him, wide-eyed, waiting to see what would happen next...to see what he would do and how hard she'd have to fight.

But he just held out his own hand, grinning. "Not bad, kid. You just get distracted too easily." It was said not quite as a joke, but not as an insult either. Not as anything meant to hurt her. Friendly. He was being friendly. Penny risked a little smile of her own as he pulled her to her feet. She had never really gotten distracted while fighting before. Well, she had...but she'd known the consequences of losing.

"Nothing happens? If you lose?" Penny clarified, and Steve shook his head, assuming the fighting stance.

"Nothing happens."

It was a promise she was starting to believe.

Tony saw the bruise later that day. Her skin tended to bruise quickly, and they'd fade by the next day, if they even lasted that long. She was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, still marveling at the strange clothes as she stepped into the living room. Penny wanted to ask if they could leave the tower yet. If Tony would take her into New York and let her see the people and the cars and the little animals she sometimes spotted from her window. Birds. Cats. Dogs. Squirrels. But she didn't yet dare ask much of him beyond letting her trail after him just about everywhere.

Today, though, she thought that might change. She'd gone somewhere by herself. She'd left her room and sparred with Steve and nothing bad had happened. At least not until she stepped into the living room. Tony glanced up from his cup of coffee, a pleased smile on his face. "Hey, kiddo. Where you been?" It wasn't until she stepped fully into the room, turning to face him, that his eyes darkened a little, and immediately her hair stood on end, senses flaring. "What happened to your arm?" Before she could answer, something passed over his face, and he held a hand up. "Penny...hey, it's okay. I didn't...I'm not mad. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

That's when Penny realized that she'd taken several full steps backwards without seeming to notice. Steadying herself and swallowing hard, she kept her eyes on him as she answered. "Steve hit me."

"He hit you?" Tony demanded, obviously fighting to keep anything but curiosity from his face as he stood. "When?"

"This morning. I went down to the training room. Friday said I could."

"You can." Tony spoke carefully, pushing himself to his feet and approaching slowly, a hand outstretched to touch her arm. She let him. It didn't hurt. "Why did he hit you?"

"I hit him too. We were sparring."

"Did you want to spar with him?"

Penny nodded, confused. "I wanted to see what would happen. If I lost."

Tony gave a little sigh, a wry smile twisting his lips. "Next time lead with that, huh? If you just say someone hit you, I'm going to assume that they hurt you." She just stared at him. "It's not okay if people hurt you. If someone hurts you, I want to know so I can make sure they don't ever do it again. Okay?"

"Oh…" It was a weird thought. "Is that what parents do?"

He went stiff, eyes widening, hand still on her arm, but after a moment, he let out a little sigh that was also a laugh. "Yeah, Penny. That's what parents do."

"Okay...Steve kind of hurt me. But it didn't hurt much, and I hit him too."

"Yeah, that's fine," he told her with a chuckle, patting her back and leading her over to the kitchen. "Let's eat breakfast, huh? Then you can tell me all about how you knocked Cap on his ass."

"Is that like calling him an asshole? Is he bad?"

Tony pushed her toward a chair and headed over to the waffle maker, chuckling when she popped right back up to follow him and get a closer look at what he was doing. "Ass means butt, kid."

She thought for a moment about the word asshole and then crinkled her nose, unable to stop the tiny smile. "Ew."

He snorted, shaking his head and knocking his shoulder against hers. "Grab me the eggs, Pen. I'm going to show you how to make your own waffles."

"With the chocolate?"

"Sure. With the chocolate."

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

After sparring with Steve, Penny felt something in her loosen. Just a little. She felt like she could breathe just a bit easier. She ate her breakfast with Tony and together they headed down to his lab. Instead of sticking close to his side, Penny went to her regular stool and started on her packet of what Tony called her 'homework.' He had explained that normal schools had kids come in for a few hours, usually from about 7 until 2 in the afternoon, and that they were sent home afterwards. It was a strange concept, but one she was trying to understand. Apparently, children were then required to do even more work after school so they wouldn't forget all the work they'd done at school, which was an even stranger concept.

Regardless, she did the work he gave her, trying to learn from scratch the things that she would be required to know. He helped her whenever she asked, but Penny did her best not to ask him...to try and figure it out herself. Today, however, her mind wandered in the silence, punctuated only by Tony's soft muttering or the sound of his tools on whatever it was he was working on. His lab was always silent, just like her classroom, and usually that didn't bother her, but her brain kept going to her balcony...to the wide open skies and buildings below. To the people outside this tower that were living lives completely strange to her.

What were they all doing? What did the street feel like? Cars? The water that fell from the sky? Did the rain feel like the water in the pool, encasing you and making you weightless? She remembered her fourth day at the tower, when the woman named Natasha had given her a strange outfit specifically made for swimming. She and Tony had taken Penny to the pool, both of them climbing down the stairs into the shallow end with Penny following a little more slowly. It hadn't been cold, like the ice baths she'd been forced to take...but it hadn't been warm either.

For a while, she'd stood right beside the steps, anxious to know that she could get out. Pretty soon, though, she'd taken a few steps toward the deep end, with the water coming up to her chest, then her neck. She hadn't dared go any further after that, even though Tony had assured her that they'd teach her to swim if she wanted.

When she'd closed her eyes and ducked her head under the water, she'd been stunned by the silence...the gentle pressure all around her and the way she'd sunk right to the bottom, crossing her legs and just sitting on the smooth concrete floor until she'd been forced to stand up so that she could breathe. When she'd broken the surface, Tony had been halfway to her, an arm outstretched, expression concerned, but Natasha had been smiling.

"Pretty cool, huh?"

The next time they'd gone, Natasha had taught her to float on her back, and how to trust the water to hold her up. The third time, she'd started teaching her to swim.

Would the rain be like that? Or would it hurt? If it fell from the sky, would it hurt when it hit you? Or would it be like taking a shower?

"Pen?" The nickname pulled Penny out of her thoughts, and she lifted her head in surprise when she saw that Tony had put his tablet down and was watching her. "You need some help? You've been staring at that worksheet for almost ten minutes now."

"Does rain hurt?"

Tony blinked, and then seemed to gather himself. He almost seemed to be getting used to her random questions, thrown out whenever they came to her. He never got angry...never told her not to ask something unlike the people who had been her teachers. "No. Rain doesn't hurt. Not usually...unless it's really cold. Or, uh...sometimes if it's really cold in the atmosphere, hail falls from the sky instead. Like...balls of ice. And that hurts." He spoke slowly, as if unsure what she was getting at. "Why?"

"I want…" She cut herself off, dropping her eyes and scolding herself, but then he was moving over to her side, reaching out to touch her arm.

"You can tell me, kiddo. What's up?"

"I want to go outside. Please." Penny whispered the words, biting down on her lip.

Tony sighed, and she knew, somehow, that it was more complicated than she fully understood. She knew that Pepper spent a lot of time on the phone, and that sometimes Tony did too, both of them going through paperwork that she never tried to look at. Tony had said that he was her guardian, and that the technical term for what he was doing called 'fostering.' He had also mentioned that he was working on something more permanent. During the times when he would have meetings, she would go to her room, or sometimes, Jim, who Tony called Rhodey, would come into the living room and sit with her.

Rhodey would usually turn on the TV, and over the days, she'd gotten a little better at talking to him. He would tell her about his family, and she asked questions, telling him about her own life at the school. It always seemed to make him sad, though, so she tried not to talk too much about herself. Instead, she asked about his family, and learned that he had parents and a sister, and two nieces. She learned that he was called "War Machine" or "Iron Patriot" and that Tony liked the former better. She also heard some stories about Tony from when he'd been in college.

A lot of those stories started with Tony drinking a lot of alcohol, but she'd never seen him drink any...at least, not that she knew of, so she figured he must have stopped drinking it.

Penny regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, eyes dropping to the worksheet in front of her. Surely Tony had a reason for keeping her in the tower. Surely he wasn't doing it to be mean. This wasn't like the school, she had to remind herself. It was nothing like that place. No one would hurt her. Hadn't Steve proven that just a few hours ago?

"I know you do," Tony finally said, giving her a weak smile. "I know...and...I know you're probably tired of being cooped up here. We're still trying to get everything with Shield cleared away and...and the paperwork that says you can stay with me...it's been a lot. Pepper's been working on it, I promise." He drummed his fingers on his leg, then tried for a better smile. "How about this...why we go to the Compound this weekend? It's huge...lots of outdoor space. Pool. Bowling alley. Theater room. Running track. You can go exploring to your heart's content. We'll get food on the way...does that sound okay?"

"Is Shield who my parents worked for?" she asked instead of answering, sure she recognized the name.

Tony nodded. "Yeah. They're the spies. Basically. They know that you're from Norman's...uh...school, and the head of the organization, Nick Fury, wants you to...to stay with them. For a while. We said no," he hurried to assure her, lifting a hand. "I'm not letting anyone take you. I swear. It's just...complicated. So I want to make sure all of the paperwork says that I'm your guardian and you can't be taken away before we do things like get you in school. Understand?"

"Yeah." Penny tried her best not to sound dejected, but she could tell that Tony knew how she felt.

"So what do you think? Want to see the Compound this weekend?"

"Okay."

Tony gave a short, almost sad sigh, but seemed to try and brush it off. "Why don't we take a break from this? Take a walk?"

Beyond the initial tour, Penny hadn't spent much time in the other parts of the tower. Her life had pretty much been confined to the balcony, her room, the living room and kitchen, and the lab where she worked with Tony. Before that morning, she'd been afraid to go exploring. Now, however, she'd proven to herself that she was allowed...that no one would be upset with her for just walking around, a novel concept.

After glancing in the training room only to find it empty, Tony led her back to the elevator which took them all the way up to a floor she hadn't been on. The doors opened, revealing a wide open space with a few couches in the middle, tables spaced out around the room, and shelves filled with bottles on the far wall. The most impressive part by far, however, was the huge outdoor space beyond the open doors.

"That's where we landed the jet to bring you here. It's the only space big enough to land the jet. It's also where I used to have a set up to remove the Iron Man suit...back before I improved it….got it all to fit in a suitcase." he told her casually as they made their way over to the line of windows. "I've been trying to figure out nanotech...no luck so far. What do you think?"

"Can we go outside?" Penny asked, hand reaching for the door handle.

"Sure." Tony gestured for her to go ahead, and together they stepped out onto the huge outdoor landing pad. "You can come up here anytime you want. Just...don't drink from any of those bottles on the shelves."

"What's in them?'

"Alcohol. I used to use this room for parties. That was the bar."

"You don't have parties anymore?"

"Uh...not in a while."

"Do you only drink alcohol at parties?"

"I don't really drink it at all anymore. Some people do. I think Thor comes up here every once in a while for a drink. Sometimes Pepper has a glass of wine. But I used to...uh...I'd drink it too much. It can get you in trouble."

Penny turned to him, nodding. "That's what Rhodey said."

Tony's eyes widened. "He did?"

"Yeah. He said that when you were in college together, you used to drink a lot and do stupid things."

He snorted. "He did, huh? Well, why don't I tell you about the time he nearly got us kicked out of school when he convinced me to help him break into one of the physics labs?"

"But Rhodey said that was you…"

"Well Rhodey is a dirty liar. Let me tell you what really happened." And, with an arm thrown over her shoulders, he told a different version of the story she'd heard only a few days ago.

A few hours later found them eating lunch in the lab, Penny having an easier time concentrating for the time spent outside. Tony sat beside her, helping her with the chemistry homework which required her to balance equations. It wasn't anything she hadn't done before, but she did need occasional help, and he seemed happy to provide it. She felt calm...more relaxed than she had since coming to the tower. She was safe. She was...happy. Sure, she was anxious about school and Shield and going out in public, but she was excited too.

Penny would later wonder if finally feeling safe was what led to the nightmares starting up on the fifteenth night of staying in her own room. Had it really taken two weeks for her to realize she was safe? To know that waking up in the middle of the night, tears pouring down her cheeks and a scream caught in her throat, wouldn't be something that wouldn't lead to her being punished.

Jumping from the bed, Penny raced to the balcony. Her room was too dark...the walls too close. She was trapped again, stuck in that place, until she stepped outside into the fresh, warm night air. She gulped it down, sobbing as she stared up at the stars. There were no stars in that place...she knew that. There had been no outside. Only her room. She gripped the railing so tightly that it began to give under her fingers, and despite the tears, she refused to close her eyes. If she closed her eyes, how would she see the stars?  She didn't dare risk it...couldn't let herself close her eyes only to find herself in that room again...surrounded by people in white coats who stared at her but never helped her....who hurt her over and over...what if she closed her eyes and she was there?  What if all of this had only been a dream?

Staring straight up, Penny tried to focus on her breathing. "Friday?" she asked through gasping breaths.

"Yes, Penny?" came the gentle, almost muted question from the doorway.

"What time is it?"

"It is nearly one in the morning. Would you like me to get boss for you? You appear to be having difficulty breathing."

Penny shook her head, placing her hand against her chest. She'd had nightmares before...back when she'd been in that place. But never like this. Never before had she woken up unable to breathe. "No...no, I…" She tilted her head back, mouth open, struggling to get air. "No…"

"Penny, I need to alert boss…"

"Where is he?"

"Boss is currently in his office."

"Can I...can I go there?" Penny released the railing. Tony was still awake...he was in his office. She wanted to find him...needed to find him. Maybe he could help.

"Of course, Penny," the AI assured her, and Penny turned, stumbling back through her room and out into the hallway. She was about to ask where his office was...she knew she'd been there, but all the rooms suddenly looked the same...every door looked like the one that had led to her bedroom at the school...but then she heard the noise.

Penny had never heard a sound like that...had never heard anything close. Sometimes, the soldiers or the people in white coats would hum under their breath. Tony did the same thing when he worked. But this...it was...more. It was bright, clear sounds with darker undertones, flowing through her and making her heart skip, the air in her lungs in as she gasped, eyes filling with more tears. Not sad ones, though...Penny couldn't describe these tears any more than she could describe the noise. Her heart sped up, feet leading her to the left, then down a few doors until she reached one that was partially ajar.

She peered in, eyes adjusting instantly to the dim light coming from inside. Tony sat on a bench behind a huge, black...thing, fingers moving over it, and the noise continued. Lifting a shaking hand, Penny pushed the door open, just standing in the doorway and closing her eyes. Slowly, her breathing evened out, the pain in her chest loosening just a little until the noise stopped abruptly.

"Pen?" Her eyes flew open just in time to see Tony stand from the bench, hurrying over to her side. "Are you okay?"

"What is that?" she asked instead, looking past him at the large, black piece of furniture.

"It's...it's a piano. What's wrong, Pen? What happened?"

"I couldn't breathe."

Tony's eyes went wide with concern, a hand landing on her shoulder. "You couldn't breathe? What...why? What happened?"

Penny found herself at a loss to explain...how did she tell him that she'd had a nightmare and then, when she'd woken up, she'd been unable to breathe?  Unable to remember where she was or trust her own senses.  

"I believe that Penny experienced a panic attack after a nightmare, boss," Friday chimed in, and Tony moved his hand to wrap around her shoulders.

"Are you feeling okay now?" Tony led her over toward the piano, sitting down on the bench and pulling her down to join him.

"I think so."

"Okay…" His hand moved up and down her back, and the motion might have put her to sleep if she hadn't been so curious about the noise.

"What were you doing?"

"You mean playing the piano?" Penny nodded. "It's an instrument. It makes music." Then something seemed to click in his mind. "You've never heard music." His voice came out a whisper, and Penny shook her head. She'd never heard anything like what he'd been doing. "A piano can make music. Music is...I haven't been playing it in the lab because I didn't want to bother you while you were working. I'll play you some tomorrow, okay?" Tony hesitated. "Friday said you had a nightmare?"

"Yeah." Her voice was hoarse and painful sounding, and when he placed his arm around her, she leaned against his shoulders, eyes growing heavy.

"Can you tell me what it was about?"

"I was in the White Room…" She fought the sob that tried to escape whenever she thought about that place...about the nightmare. About people holding her down and the pain and...she didn't want to think about it.  Didn't want to cry anymore.  Didn't want that feeling in her chest, the tightness that stole her breath.

"Yeah?" he prompted, but she shook her head.

"Can you do it again? The piano?" Penny whispered, turning to hide her face in his shoulder, and he pulled her a little closer, squeezing her in a hug and sighing softly.

"Sure, honey. You want to go lay on the sofa?"

Penny shook her head. She wanted to be close to him. If she was close to him, they couldn't take her again.

"Okay." He scooted forward a little then, placing his hands on the keys, and closing her eyes, Penny let the noise called music wash over her and put her to sleep.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing!  I hope you enjoy the new chapter <3 

Penny stared out the window with rapt attention, watching as slowly, the massive buildings in the city full of people and animals and a million things she had no way to describe turned in a landscape of trees with the occasional house set far back off the road The trees were thick and close together, so tall that she couldn't see the tops as they drove by on the highway. Other cars continued to pass them or turn off on other roads, drive alongside them or behind them or in front of them, so that they were nearly always surrounded by the metal containers full of people and, sometimes, their dogs.

She didn't dare ask any questions, even though her brain was full of them, each one just aching to get out and be answered. Where did all these people live? How did they get cars? Where were they going? Where had they come from? Did everyone have a dog? Did Tony? How did you get a dog? What was a hot dog? Did the little booth outside selling them have anything to do with dogs? And birds! She had a thousand questions just about the little grey birds that seemed to be everywhere in the city.

But Pepper was in the front seat. So she kept her mouth shut.

When she'd woken a few days ago, her head on Tony's shoulder, his arm looped around her instead of playing something on the piano, her first thought had been of the time. When he'd informed her that it was nearly three in the morning, she'd jumped up, about to apologize, but not sure of what exactly she should apologize for. Keeping him awake? Keeping him away from Pepper? Making him sit there while she slept?

He'd stood as well, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. "You want to go back to bed? We've still got a few hours to sleep." Tony's voice had been kind...his eyes too, giving nothing away about the irritation he must have felt. At the schools, the teachers had always been irritated with them for any kind of inconvenience.

This wasn't the school. He wasn't a teacher. These were the words she had to keep telling herself, although most days, it was difficult to believe them. So she let her mind drift back to sparring with Steve, reminding herself that something like that never would have happened at the school. Tony had led her back to her room, and then had pulled the covers over her, brushing her hair back.

"If you need me, have Friday get me, okay?"

Penny had nodded, swearing to herself that she wouldn't do that. Not ever. She was already enough work for the man, she had told herself as she'd rolled over, curling up under the endlessly soft blanket. No way she was going to make it worse for him. Or Pepper.

Pepper was the one person Penny did her best to avoid, making herself small whenever possible, and keeping out of the way as much as she could. For her part, Pepper rarely spoke to her other than a 'good morning' at breakfast when she happened to be there, and quick flashes of smiles that Penny tried to return every time. She wanted the woman to know that she wasn't dangerous. Wasn't scary. Wasn't planning on making any kind of trouble. Not ever. But still, the two didn't speak. So Penny had been a little surprised that morning when, after breakfast, Pepper had joined them on the walk down to the garage, which Penny had seen only once before. Tony's girlfriend had climbed into the front seat,and Penny into the back when Tony had held the door for her, and then they'd been off.

Tony had turned on music, but not the soft piano kind that had been her favorite. This was the music that he played in his lab, that had made Penny jump the first time she'd heard it. He'd explained that this was rock music, with guitars and drums and people singing, and she still wasn't sure if she liked it. It sometimes made her heart beat fast like the piano had, but never quite in the same way. Still, she never complained, even when he played it just a little too loud. It seemed to help him concentrate in the lab, and Penny was sure that if she just got used to it, she could focus better too.

He'd told her that there would be no homework on this three day trip. Or any regular work for.. It was a vacation, he'd said over breakfast, and Penny had nodded, trying to remind herself to be quiet around Pepper even though she wasn't sure what a vacation was, or what she would do on one.

"And that means you," he'd told Pepper, pointing a finger, eyes twinkling. "No calls. No paperwork. No meetings."

"And who's supposed to run your company in the meantime?" Pepper had asked, an eyebrow lifted, but she'd been smiling, so not angry.

"The company is going to be fine for three days. Just let it run itself."

"Oh right, because that's how that works," Pepper had laughed, and the sound had made Penny smile a little at her chocolate chip waffles. Usually they had what Pepper called a 'somewhat healthy breakfast' of eggs folded into omelettes with meat and vegetables and with sides of fruit, but today, Tony had insisted on something special, because it was the first day of their first family vacation.

Pepper hadn't said anything, and Penny had gotten her message loud and clear. Penny wasn't family. Not really.

Still, she'd smiled and done her best to be excited about finally seeing something other than the tower. Not that she didn't love the tower. But now, she'd get to see more of outside! So she spent the entire car trip staring out the window, nose pressed to the glass, watching the world fly by until they finally pulled into a driveway with huge gates. Just the sight of them made her shrink back a little, and Tony caught her eye in the rearview mirror.

"This is a top secret, high security Avengers base. The gates are to keep other people from wandering in." With that, he'd held his hand out, pressing it to a scanner, and the gates had swung open.

He didn't drive the car into another garage. Instead, he parked it outside the huge white building, shutting it off and opening his door to the outside. Penny hesitated, waiting for Pepper to do the same before opening her own door….and then she was standing outside. On hard, white concrete that gave way to a seemingly endless expanse of grass edged by trees and, if she looked far enough, she could see the fence that surrounded the property. For a moment, all she could do was stand there, equal parts torn between staying close to Tony and just...running. Finding a tree and climbing as high as she could and finding an animal or a bug and watching them and rolling in the grass and staring up at the sky…

"Alright. Let me show you around the Compound and then you can explore," Tony prompted with a smile, breaking her out of her stupor.

Penny nodded, grabbing her bag and shutting the door carefully behind her.

The Compound was enormous. Bigger than the school and the tower combined. Well...it wasn't as tall as the tower. But it was big in a different way. The tower had floor after floor after floor stacked on top of one another, while the Compound only had six floors above ground, but it stretched out like the grass in the field, so that no matter how far they walked, it seemed there was always further to go.

She loved it.

The place where they lived was on the top floor in the back of the building, and Tony explained that all the Avengers had rooms on the same floor and shared the living area. "Some of them split their time between here and the tower, or come up here for more group training. There's more room for it." Tony explained as he and Pepper led her through the living room, him pointing out the kitchen where she was welcome to get something to eat any time.

And then he showed her her bedroom. It was down the hall from Tony and Pepper's, and looked similar to her room at the tower with an attached bathroom and balcony doors. She headed straight for the balcony, peering over the side down at the ground first, then twisted to look up at the roof.

"What do you think?" Tony asked, joining her on the balcony and placing his hands on the railing. She couldn't help the smile, surrounded as they were by grass and trees and all the things she'd read about but never actually seen.

"It's amazing."

"Yeah, it's pretty nice out here. I like to come here when I need a break from the city. We just built it a few years ago...there's a housekeeping staff on the lower floors, and a few Shield agents come and work from here sometimes, but for the most part we'll have the place to ourselves."

"Do you have a lab here?"

"Yep. But remember what I said. No work."

Penny wanted to tell him that it hadn't been work she'd been thinking of...that she wanted to learn to build things like he did...to make her own robots and to look at the tablets and know what she was doing. But the words were caught and she had no idea how to loosen them. So she just smiled, turning back to the world around her and trying to make herself be content with that. She was asking too much of him, she reminded herself. She wasn't really his responsibility.

"Alright, kiddo. Why don't you go explore. Lunch will be ready around one. Oh...just a second." Tony turned, hurrying back into the room, and Penny shrugged, leaning on the railing and going back to her inspection of the trees. Could she climb them?

When Tony returned, it was with a box, and she stared at it as he held it out to her. "Go on, Pen," he urged with a chuckle, and she took it with delicate fingers, careful as she pulled the lid open, only to find a...bracelet? She wasn't sure of the exact word. It looked almost like a watch, but unlike any watch she'd ever seen. A gentle tap of his finger on the face of the black square on a band brought up numbers, telling her that it was almost ten am.

"A watch?" she guessed.

Tony nodded, pulling it out of the box and taking her left arm. "Stark Watch. Made by me, for you. Only one in the whole world." He placed the watch on her wrist, then fastened the bottom. "Tells the time and comes with built in tracker. So, if you need me, I can find you." He gestured to a button on the bottom that stuck out just enough to be visible. "Press that twice if you need me. I'm working on a phone too, but I thought you might like to help with that."

"A phone?"

"Yeah, kid. If you're going to school in New York, you have to have a cell phone."

"I do?"

He chuckled a little. "You do. Now go. Explore. You've got a few hours." He had gestured back toward the bedroom, probably imagining that she'd take the door. Instead, she decided to take a short cut and leapt up onto the railing, then, before he could get more than her name out, she leapt, grabbing a nearby tree on her way down and clinging to it, marveling at the rough feel of bark under her fingers.

"Oh, right. So you're a jumping spider," Tony grumbled wryly, shaking his head, and she laughed, waving as he rolled his eyes and headed inside. "Have fun, kid."

Penny started with the tree, climbing as high as she could and feeling the branches grow smaller and smaller as she got closer to her balcony, until she reached the limit about a story and a half before she could have reached it. The branches split into other branches, with leaves sprouting from the ends, and occasionally, she would see bugs...smaller than she could have ever imagined as they went about their business. She followed an ant for a while, creeping along behind him, then switched to watching a bird that had landed a few feet away at the end of a branch, staying as still as she possibly could until a sneeze frightened it away.

Remembering that she only had a few hours, Penny climbed to the bottom of the tree and hopped off, heading around the side of the building to that endless grass field. Every part of her wanted to run...to see what she could do in wide open spaces like this...so she did. Taking off, she raced alongside the fence, sure that she'd reach the end of it eventually. She'd never moved like this before. Sure, she'd run in the school, moving through obstacle courses and even down the hall when there had been no one close by to scold her, but she'd never been in a wide open place, free to run if she wanted. Free to stop if she wanted.

Her heart sped up, just like it had with the music, and the laugh escaped without her noticing it build it. Free. She was free. She was finally, finally free.

There were trees at the back of the property and she leapt from the ground to the side of one of them, her body moving instinctively as she climbed higher and higher. This tree was taller than the one outside her bedroom at the compound, so she climbed and climbed until, when she was near the top, something in her went off...the sense that had made her duck when Susie would throw a punch her way, or when one of the soldiers would pull out a gun to hit her with...she jumped, gripping another branch just as the one she'd been on cracked. Looking down at the ground, it hit her how high she was...and what might happen if she fell.

It didn't scare her exactly, but it did remind her to pay attention.

She leapt from one tree to the next, then, swinging her way through the back of the property, forgetting about her watch and the time and lunch until she was half dozing in the shade of a tree that pressed against the fence, surrounded by other trees and bushes on the ground. It was getting warmer and warmer outside, and the shade kept her cool. She knew about shadows and the sun...knew that the sun was hot and only got hotter during the day, but she'd never actually experienced it before.

The sound of soft, unfamiliar footsteps woke her, and her eyes shot open just in time to spot Pepper Potts, flat shoes on her feet as opposed to the heels she always wore, her hair loose around her shoulders. She didn't look scared, exactly, which was good, but she did look wary. "It's almost time for lunch if you want to come inside and eat," Pepper told her, staying a good ten feet away from her. Penny stood fluidly, nodding and dropping her head.

"Sorry...I didn't look at the watch," Penny admitted.

To her surprise, Pepper smiled. "You sound like Tony. He can never keep track of the time either."

And then they were walking together to the Compound. They didn't talk, but the silence didn't feel heavy or unfriendly like Penny had thought it would, and she let out a breath, relaxing a little more as she and Pepper headed inside to eat lunch.

A vacation, as Penny quickly learned, was a time where you were allowed to do whatever you wanted in a place that wasn't your home. For her, it wasn't much of a change from life at the tower. The tower wasn't really her home, she was sure. Pepper wasn't her family, and as much as she liked Tony and hoped she really could stay as long as she wanted, it was hard for her to imagine living with him forever. Sure, he acted like a parent did...but he never said anything about actually being her parent. And that was okay. He hadn't been expecting to find her, she was sure. She was just glad he had.

Penny spent the entire first day outside. Now that she was allowed to be outside, she couldn't get enough of it. She ran along the concrete path that wound around the Compound and climbed trees and followed the fence and by the end of the day, when the sun was starting to sink below the horizon, she climbed up as high as she could into one of the trees, feet dangling from a branch as she watched the sky change colors. On her wrist, the watch beeped once, but she ignored it, mesmerized by the pinks and purples on the horizon that she couldn't stop watching.

Her watch beeped again, but the sun was going down...she could actually watch it disappearing and she leaned back against the trunk of the tree, hands in her lap, watching, unable to tear her eyes away. She'd missed so many sunsets...she'd missed so many days like this, of being outside and touching the grass and climbing trees.

All around her was dark, and her eyes adjusted. She'd always seen better in the dark than the others, even Susie. They'd tested it before, putting them all in a dark room, with the objective to the last person standing. Penny had won, but she'd been laid up with a broken wrist that Susie had given her. She'd apologized later.

Penny traced her wrist with her thumb, remembering. Remembering the way Susie had slammed her foot down onto her wrist in the dark, knowing what she was doing. How, just a month ago, Penny would have done the same thing. Would have broken her friend's arm to stay out of the White Room, even knowing that her friend would be sent in her place. Those people had made her dangerous. Had they made her bad too?

"Penny? Kid?" Tony's voice came from below her, and she jumped, wincing when the light from a flashlight hit her face. "Geez, kid...you okay?"

"Yeah." Penny's voice was weaker than she'd meant it to be, and she cleared her throat, wiping hastily at her eyes.

"It's getting late. You wanna come in and eat something?"

She did. She wanted to go inside and eat and be with Tony and forget all about these thoughts. But they weren't going away. "Am I bad?" she asked, the words blurted in the dark, and she missed the moment where the sun finally disappeared.

The man frowned, brows furrowed. "What? No...why? What makes you think that?" Tony took another step toward her, a hand resting on the tree as though he could climb it.

"Susie broke my wrist...it wasn't that long ago. We were fighting and she stepped on my wrist and...it took almost a week to heal." Tony was quiet for a moment, waiting for her to finish, and when she continued speaking, her voice was thick. Pained. "She was my best friend...she was the only friend I've ever had. But I would have done the same to her. I would have hurt her if...I did! I did hurt her, to keep them from taking me into that room and hurting me."

"I can't climb up there, kiddo, so come on down," he urged, and Penny did, the thought of disobeying never occurring to her.

As soon as her feet touched the ground, he reached out, a hand landing clumsily on her shoulder. Just the contact made her eyes hot, and she closed them, wishing she hadn't remembered. Wishing those memories would disappear like the sun had. But there was no way to unknow what she knew. She was dangerous. She had done bad things.

"You're not bad, Penny."

"I hurt people."

"Because you had no other choice. They would have hurt you if you hadn't done what they wanted...hell, Pen, they did hurt you. I saw your file. I know what they did to you." The words were gentle but they still made her flinch. "Any kid would have done the same if they'd been brought up the way you had. You were put in an impossible situation. You had no choice. But now that you're out, you do." She sniffed, wiping at her eyes and refusing to meet his eyes, but he continued regardless. "Do you want to hurt people?"

"No." Penny shook her head, eyes wide and earnest. "Of course not."

"Of course not," he repeated, squeezing her shoulder. "You don't want to hurt anyone. You don't hurt people when you don't have to. You're doing the very best you can to get ready to go to school and you're trying to learn what it means to be a part of a family. You're kind. You're brave. You care about other people. Those things make you a good person, Pen."

Penny swallowed hard, sniffing back the tears that wanted to fall, and he reached out, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close, the only light coming from the flashlight in his hand.

She had hoped that the nightmares would be a one-time thing. She had hoped after a night of watching the sun set and eating dinner with Tony and Pepper...after watching a movie that was funny and had made her laugh, and after eating cookies made special by Pepper, she'd thought that she would sleep through the night like she almost always had at the school. Like she had for the first two weeks at the tower. But her dreams were once more full of the white room and people holding her down...of the scientists cutting into her and the soldiers pointing their guns at her and when she jerked awake, Penny ran right to her balcony, throwing the door open and taking gulping breaths of the cool night air.

She couldn't forget. Why couldn't she forget?

Without putting much thought into it, Penny jumped, grabbing the tree on her way down and then dropping to the ground, bare feet landing on slightly cold, damp grass. It was strange...something she'd never quite felt before, and she would have been more excited about that if she hadn't been fighting to breathe. She just wanted to forget. She just wanted to move on with her life and explore the outside and go to school and be in a family and…

Forget.

They were gone. The soldiers and Osborn and the teachers...and her friends. Tony hadn't told her that they were dead, exactly...only that she was safe now. That they were gone. Right? The best thing would be to forget them. To move past it all and enjoy her new life. Knees buckling, she let herself fall, shivering as she sat on the cold, wet grass, back pressed against the rough tree bark. Lips trembling, she let her head rest against her knees, closing her eyes tight to fight the image of the White Room and the classrooms...the lab where she had been held down in a tub full of ice and the room where poison had been pumped into her veins...where she'd screamed and begged and sobbed and bled and no one had even looked at her.

"Penny?"

The voice made her jump, and she looked up to find Pepper Potts standing across from her, a robe wrapped around her that she pulled off, hurrying in bare feet to Penny's side where she draped the robe over Penny's shoulders.

"You're freezing...are you okay? How long have you been out here?"

"I'm sorry…" Penny's voice broke and she hid her face again, shaking from the cold but not wanting to move. She had no idea how long she'd been outside...no idea how much time had passed since images of that place had played on a loop in her mind. Susie with her head on her dress and Kimmy on the mat, nose bleeding from where Penny had punched her. A gun slammed into the side of Jo's head. Mark crumbling when something was shoved into his side. A bathtub full of ice or a dark room or needles or scalpels…

"Penny? Hey, look at me. I need you to take a breath, okay?"

"I...I'm sorry, Pepper...I know...I know you don't want me here...I'm so sorry…"

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Pepper was kneeling in front of her, hands on Penny's arms as she tugged her to her feet. "Sweetheart...look at me, okay? Just...hey, I need you to look at me."

She finally did, dragging her eyes upward as soon as she was on her feet. Pepper's eyes were soft and sad, a hand pressed to her cheek. "I'm sorry…"

"You don't have to apologize. I'm not angry. I don't…" She paused, a thumb brushing under Penny's eye, wiping a tear away. "I do want you here, Penny. I'm sorry if I've done anything to make you feel otherwise. I just...I know that you and Tony are close. He's become something of a father figure to you and I wasn't sure if you'd want me to...well, I wasn't sure exactly where I would fit in." Pepper smiled, the expression somewhat self-deprecating.

The expression tugged at Penny's heart. Had the woman thought that Penny wouldn't want to know her? Wouldn't want to be a member of their little family? "Pepper?"

"Yeah?"

"If...if Tony is like...like a father, does that mean...are you like a mother?"

Pepper stared at her for a moment, wide-eyed, the light from the stars barely illuminating her. But then she smiled, eyes going soft, and she cupped Penny's cheek, wet from the tears. "Yeah, honey. If that's...if you want that, then...yes. I am. I will be." She pulled Penny close, rubbing her back over the robe. "Let's get you inside, okay? You're freezing."

Nodding, Penny let herself be led back into the Compound, Pepper's arm around her shoulders, and with every step her breath came easier.

Thank you for reading!  

Chapter Text

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing! I appreciate you guys so much! I'm sorry this chapter took a bit longer. I've been working on a big upcoming fic that will be coming out in June. I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Pepper led a shivering Penny into the kitchen, rubbing her back as she gestured for her to take a seat. The kitchen was a place that Penny had started to get more comfortable in, and even though this kitchen was in a different place, it had all the same things. A refrigerator filled with food that Penny didn't really know how to make herself. A stove that Penny was afraid to try and use on her own. A microwave which she had used to heat up leftovers one or twice. She felt like things were finally starting to feel familiar...like her new life was something she could get used to.

"Are you cold?" Pepper asked as she moved over to the refrigerator and pulled out a gallon of milk and a container of chocolate syrup.

"I'm okay," Penny assured her, trying to stop the shivering, but Pepper's expression didn't shift. "I was cold a lot," she confided, feeling strange doing so. She hadn't spoken much about the school...not with Tony or anyone apart from a few snippets. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to, or if she even wanted to. She knew she couldn't forget. Not really. But those things always made other people sad, like when she'd told Rhodey that she didn't know her birthday. Or...well, the entire time that Tony had been at the school, he had been sad. She didn't want to make them sad. She wanted to forget.

"At the school?" Pepper asked, pouring some of the milk into a pot and placing it on top of the burner of the stove. Penny watched her turn a knob, and then watched as a tiny flame appeared under the pan.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Penny shrugged, keeping her eyes downcast. "It was cold there."

"Did you have a blanket? Warm clothes?" Penny watched the woman pour chocolate syrup into the milk and stood, moving closer so that she could watch.

"We didn't wear clothes like this." Penny pointed at her shirt and blue jeans. "We had...it was one thing. All together. Pants and a shirt. And we had numbers. We weren't allowed to use our names, but we did...we just had to be really quiet when we did." The words burst out of her, and she stared at the light brown liquid as she spoke, tears filling her eyes for reasons she didn't understand. "I had a blanket in my room...but it was never warm. I couldn't...I couldn't ever get warm. Sometimes they put me in cold water and…" Lips trembling, she closed her eyes, nearly jumping out of her skin when a warm arm draped over her shoulders, pulling her in close to Pepper's side. Penny allowed it, resting her head on the woman's shoulder. "I couldn't get warm after that."

"I hate to be cold," Pepper confessed softly, stirring the chocolate, and together they watched it for a moment. "If you're ever cold here, you can tell Friday. She works here just like at the Tower, but only in our rooms. Tony set her up so that only some people can talk to her. You can tell her if you're cold, and she'll raise the temperature. You don't have to be cold here. And we have blankets on the couch. And in your room. You can use any of them." Pepper rubbed a hand up and down Penny's arm, and she closed her eyes, yawning and feeling sleepiness start to settle over her.

Pepper's robe was still wrapped around her shoulders, and Pepper tucked it around her, tying the little cloth belt, then turning off the fire. "Can you get me two mugs?"

Penny nodded, wiping at her eyes, then stood on her tip-toes to grab the cups. Pepper gestured for her to place them on the counter, then used a ladle to portion out two cup-fulls. Then she grabbed a can from the refrigerator, topping the chocolate milk off with white foam. "Whipped cream," she explained, then handed one of the now full mugs to Penny.

She held the warm cup with hands that shook a little less as they leached out the warmth. It nearly burned her hands, but not quite, and when she took a sip, the hot liquid seemed to warm her from the inside out. Pepper put an arm around her, leading her into the living room where all the lights had been shut off. "Friday, can we get lights at 10%?" the woman asked, and slowly, the room became just a little brighter. "Why were you outside?"

The words surprised Penny, and she looked up from her drink as Pepper reached back, grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around the both of them. Shyly, she took another drink, then licked the whipped cream off the top. It was just as good as the chocolate. "I had a bad dream," she admitted.

"Have you been having them often?"

Penny nodded. "I...I wake up and I can't breathe."

To her surprise, Penny didn't seem sad, exactly. Just concerned. "Have you told Tony?"

"Once...he was playing the piano. It...it made it better."

"To hear him play?"

Penny gave a short nod, embarrassed for a reason she didn't understand.

"Do you think you could tell me what you have nightmares about?"

Without realizing she was doing it, Penny had somehow curled up on the sofa closer and closer to Pepper, and as soon as she asked the question, the woman wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to her side, just like she had in the kitchen, the gesture warm and natural as though she'd been doing it forever. As though any woman had ever acted this way with her, except for Ms. Blue the few times she'd risked giving Penny a hug. Once more, she felt her eyes fill with tears, and she risked placing her head on Pepper's shoulder again. The woman didn't ask her to move or push her off. Instead, she ran her fingers through Penny's hair, the motion so soothing that Penny could have fallen asleep. But Pepper had asked her something. And she didn't want to disappoint Pepper.

"The White Room."

"What is that?"

"It...it was a room. At the school," Penny started, closing her eyes and saying the words that wanted to lodge in her throat. "Every week...they...they took us there. It was...it was at the end of the hall. And there were…" Penny took another drink, trying to wet her dry throat. "There were beds. And a big tub. And they...they did things to us in there." At her side, Pepper was silent, fingers still massaging her head and gently working through her curls. "The first thing I remember from the White Room is...they made me like this. I was really really sick and then when I woke up, I could climb walls and I was strong...and cold. And then, every week...it was different every time. Sometimes it was poison. Or they would electrocute us. Or put us in cold water. The last one was the poison they gave us all...the poison that killed everyone."

Her voice had broken off at the end, and Pepper squeezed her in a hug, putting her own hot chocolate down and turning to take Penny's too, placing the nearly-empty cup on the table. But now that Penny had started, she couldn't stop.

"They just stared at me. It hurt...it always hurt and I screamed. When they gave me the poison or put me in ice water or locked me the dark...I screamed and I begged them to stop. I…" A hot tear ran down her cheek but she couldn't wipe it away. "The people in the white coats just watched and they wrote things down and I was...I was always scared…"

"Oh, baby girl…" Pepper whispered, rocking her just a little, a hand rubbing up and down her back. "Oh, honey...I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry they did that to you."

"They made us fight. Every day. And the loser had to go to the other room...it was like the White Room. I hurt my friends. I hurt them so I didn't have to go. I didn't want to go!"

"I know. I know you didn't. No one would have. Oh, honey...anyone would have done the same." It was the same thing Tony had said to her. Was it true? Would anyone have hurt their friends to save themselves? "Sweetheart...what they did to you was wrong. You know that, right?"

Penny gave a tiny, unconvinced nod. It had been school. That's what they'd always been told. Everyone went to school.

"It was horrible and illegal and wrong. No one should have done those things to you. You didn't deserve to be hurt. Not ever. And you can't blame yourself for what you did to survive."

She closed her eyes, hiding her face in Pepper's shoulder, and the woman wrapped the blanket more tightly around her, stroking her back and hold her close. No one but Tony had ever held her like this. Could it be possible that she had two parents now? That these people were going to take care of her? That this new life was going to last? That this was real?

In her nightmares, she forgot about her new life. In her nightmares, the past was real and all of this, the chocolate waffles and working in the lab and Tony holding her and talking to the Avengers who were actually the good guys, all of this was the dream. How was she supposed to know what to trust?

"I'm scared," Penny confessed, tears making a wet spot on Pepper's shoulder. The woman didn't seem to mind.

"What are you scared of?"

"That it's not real. That I have to go back."

"Sweetheart...you never have to go back. Not ever. You're safe now, I promise. Tony and I will keep you safe. The Avengers will keep you safe. You don't have to worry about those people anymore. They can't hurt you anymore."

And those words, along with the feeling of Pepper's arm wrapped snugly around her, were the last things Penny knew before she let herself drift back into sleep.

Voices woke Penny. She stayed where she was, curled up in a ball on the sofa, her head resting now on Pepper's lap. The woman had tucked the blanket around her, and rested a hand on her side. She was warm. So warm. And comfortable. And safe. And part of her never wanted to get up.

"Pep? Is she okay? Have you two been out here all night?" Tony's voice was soft and worried, and Penny hated worrying him...but she also didn't want to open her eyes and explain. Thankfully, Pepper seemed willing.

"She had a nightmare. I found her outside around 3...she was having trouble breathing," Pepper murmured.

"Why didn't Friday wake me?"

"She tried," came Pepper's almost amused response. "You were dead to the world."

"I'm sorry. I'll make sure…"

Pepper cut him off. "Hey, it's fine. She's okay."

Penny heard Tony hesitate, then felt the sofa shift as he must have sat near her feet. "She keeps having these nightmares...Friday tells me she wakes up almost every night. I don't know what to do."

There was so much regret in his voice...so much pain, and Penny wanted to make it better. To apologize and promise to try and be better. But before she could, Pepper spoke up. "Right now, the best thing we can do for her is be there. She told me a little of what her nightmares are about...about what they did to her in that place. Anyone would have nightmares after that."

"Sam suggested a therapist." Penny frowned a little at that, grateful that the blanket covered most of her face. She didn't want them to know she was awake...she wanted them to keep talking. "I just...I don't know. Would she even talk to a therapist? How could we find someone we trust? And she's just now getting comfortable with us. Would bringing in another person be the best idea?"

"I don't know," Pepper admitted softly. "She told me that she's afraid she'll have to go back."

Tony was quiet for a moment. "Back to Osborn's lab?"

"Does she know…about Osborn?"

"No. I didn't want her to worry about him." Tony sighed. "It doesn't matter. We're going to find him, and then we're going to end it."

Pepper sighed, and under her blanket, Penny's mind began to race. Find him? Did that mean...Osborn was gone?

It didn't matter, she told herself harshly, shifting a little under the blanket to get more comfortable, and Pepper ran a soothing hand over her side atop the blanket. She was living with the Avengers. She was strong. She was dangerous. And she would never let that man hurt her again.

"Pen?" Tony asked, and she felt his hand shake her shoulder a little. "Kiddo? You ready for breakfast?"

Penny opened her eyes and yawned, pretending to wake as Pepper pulled the blanket down a little. "Breakfast?" she repeated, making it a question.

"Yeah. I was thinking waffles. With fruit, to appease Pepper."

She grinned when Pepper snorted above her. "The blueberry kind?"

"Only if you help me make them."  Tony told her with a soft smile that made her heart feel warm.  He cared about her.  For the first time, two whole people cared about it.  It seemed too good to be true.

Penny nodded, sitting up and rubbing a hand over her eyes. She didn't want to think about Norman Osborn, the man she'd only met once, but who had been the one to ruin her life. To kill her parents and lock her away in that awful place. She didn't want to know that he was still alive, or think about the nightmares that plagued her nearly every night. Penny wanted this new life to be true. She wanted to be safe and find out what a normal life was really like. And she wanted to help the man who was kind of like her father and the woman who was kind of like her mother make breakfast.

And so that's what she did.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

Thank you all so much for the reviews, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter! It's a bit of a transition into the next part :)

Penny stared down at her packet of work, trying her best to ignore the music playing in the background, foot tapping impatiently against the side of her chair.  They’d just returned to the tower the night before, and already she missed outside.  She missed the grass and the trees and the bugs and the fresh air and the waffles they’d had for breakfast every morning.  But Tony had promised upon seeing her expression when it had been time to leave that they would come back soon.  That she would get to go outside again.

He promised.  He promised that she would get to go outside again.  And Penny thought that if she didn’t, it would break something in her.  So she had trusted him, not letting herself think about that school or Osborn as she had climbed into the back of the car.  At least she had Pepper now, Penny thought as she stared unseeing at the worksheet.  The woman had turned around, offering her hand and squeezing Penny’s, her eyes kind.  

“We’re doing the best we can to get everything sorted so that you can start school.  Real school.  Once the papers are filed and everything is finalized, we’ll take you on a tour of the city.  I promise.”

And so Penny had believed her.  Now it was time to work again, and there was something comforting about the familiarity of Chemistry and Algebra.  She knew these things.  They were the same now as they had been when she’d first learned them in that classroom where she’d spent so much of the last few years.  Back when Susie had been her only friend and the others...the others had been like family.  But also competitors.  Sometimes she thought of the ones who hadn’t come back.  The ones who had turned eighteen.  The ones who had left early.

Were they all dead?  Could they really all be dead?

Why train them to fight only to kill them?

Penny drummed her fingers on the table, letting out a little huff of irritation, either with herself or the work, she didn’t know.  Or maybe it was the music.  It was so loud.  The beat of it thrummed with her heartbeat and made her head ache until she dropped the pencil and placed her head in her hands, squeezing her hair until she was nearly pulling it out.  

And then the volume was turned down, and footsteps approached.  Tony’s footsteps.  “Kid?  You okay?”  Tony asked, not touching her but standing close enough that she could almost feel him.  Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she tried to focus on the feeling of her feet pressing into the floor and her fingers digging into her scalp.  This had happened before, at the school.  She’d felt this way before after the White Room, or after a morning spent in the other room when she had lost.  There had been times when her brain had focused on every single noise and everything had been too loud and her head had pounded in pure agony and the guards would sometimes take her back to her room and let her lay down until it went away.  Could she go to her room now?  Would Tony let her?  She was supposed to be doing work.  “Penny?  Talk to me, honey.  What’s wrong?”

“Can I go?” she asked, voice coming out a whisper so she wouldn’t hurt her own ears.  

“Go?  Go where, kiddo?”

“My room?  Lay down?”

“Fri, shut off the music.  Here.”  A hand slipped under her arm, another wrapping around her shoulders and urging her to her feet.  “Come on.”  Every movement felt like it might be the thing that caused her to shatter, but it wasn’t a long walk to the sofa at the edge of the lab.  Her knees practically buckled, and he pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa up over her, tucking it around her shoulders.  “Better?” he asked, and she flinched at the soft question.  Placing a hand on her temple, he ran his thumb in slow circles, and it almost helped.  Almost made the pounding in her head retreat a little.

But she could still hear the pounding of her own heart and the pounding of Tony’s and the fluorescent lights and the hum of the air conditioner and every bit of it hurt.  “Yeah,” she whispered, the lie coming out strained, even that little bit of noise hurting her head.  

“What’s going on, Pen?”  When she didn’t answer, he spoke again, sounding almost afraid.  “Was it the music?”  She shrugged and he swore under his breath, another one of those words he said sometimes that he told her that she shouldn’t use.  “Kid...you have to tell me…”  he cut himself off and a little sigh.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t think about it being too loud.”  

“It’s okay.”

“From now on...just...tell me, okay?  Remember how I said no one should hurt you?  That includes me, even if I don’t mean to.”

“I can do my homework somewhere else,” she murmured.

“I don’t want you to do your homework somewhere else because you think you’re bothering me, kiddo.  This is your home now.”  He hesitated, then sighed as if remembering that she’d never had one of those. Not really.  “You live here now, Pen.  I want you to feel safe here.  If something is bothering you, you can always tell me.  I’ll never be mad.”

Penny swallowed, looking up at him and biting her lip.  “The music is really loud.  It hurts my head and I can’t focus.”

He nodded, looking almost ashamed.  “I’m sorry, Pen.”

“I want to go back to the Compound...I want to go outside.”

Then he just looked sad, like he had back when they’d been at the school.  The hand on her hair paused, then continued rubbing small circles as she fought tears.  “I know.  I’m sorry, honey.  I promise, all of this will be over soon.  Just give it a few more days.  As soon as the paperwork is done and I’m officially able to adopt you, I’m going to take you on a tour of the city.  I promise.”

Adopt her.  It was a strange word, and she wasn’t 100% sure what it really meant, but she nodded anyway.  He would be her guardian, she knew that much.  He was like her father and Pepper was like her mother and they were going to keep her.  She would stay with them and go to school and...and the rest of her future loomed in front of her, wide-open and uncertain.  And then what?  What did people do when they finished school and turned eighteen?  Get jobs?  The whole world was a question to her, and she didn’t know where to start.  So instead, she just closed her eyes, the feeling of Tony’s fingers in her hair lulling her to sleep.

When Penny woke, the lab was quiet and she was warm.  A thick blanket was pulled up over her shoulders and tucked around her, and when she looked around, she found Tony standing at his workstation, something dangling from his ears.  She could sort of hear music, but it was soft and far away.  Yawning, she sat up, glad that the pain in her head was gone, then threw her legs over the side of the sofa, socks slipping just a little on the floor. 

As soon as she approached, Tony looked up, and he pulled the thing out of his ear.  The music got just a bit louder and she realized that they were the source of the sound she’d been hearing.  “Earbuds.  They let me listen to music without bugging you.  How are you feeling?”

“Better.”  He smiled, reaching out and ruffling her hair.

“Alright, kiddo.  Get your work done and we’ll go find some lunch.”

Penny did her best.  She focused on her work and tried not to think about the outside or the Compound or the fact that, if this didn’t work and if, for some reason, they weren’t allowed to keep her...that someone could take her away.  And what would she do then?  What would she do if someone tried to take her away?  She tried not to dwell on that, instead focusing on her work while Tony listened to music through earbuds and played the piano for her in the evenings.  Pepper joined them that afternoon in the pool and Penny submersed herself in water, listening to the silence at the bottom of the pool for as long as she could.  All the while, she kept telling herself that she would get through this.  That it would end.  That this was just the time where she had to wait and there would be a time when she could go outside again.  

It was five days later that Penny was woken by a hand on her shoulder.  Yawning and stretching a little, she opened her eyes to find Tony standing there.  Nightmares had woken her more than once that night, and she could have slept for a few more minutes...or hours, but Tony looked happy about something and she was intrigued.  “Tony?  What’s wrong?”  she asked around another yawn, wiping her hand over her eyes, and he held out a hand, pulling her upright.

“I have to show you something.  Here.”  He reached out, grabbing a robe and tossing it to her.  “Come on.”  

Confused but as curious as ever, Penny pulled the robe over her shoulders and wrapped it around herself, then followed him out of the room and down the hall, her hand securely in his.  Every few seconds, he’d glance back and smile at her, then resume his walk until the two of them were standing in the doorway to the kitchen.  Pepper was standing at the counter, and Tony went to join her, the two turning to smile at her.  

Between them, on the counter, was what, if Penny had to guess, was a cake.  She’d had cake once before, but it hadn’t looked like this.  On the top of the white surface in colorful letters was the word ‘Congratulations.’  She stared at it, then up at the people who were like her parents.  “Can you eat cake for breakfast?”  Penny asked, and Pepper chuckled.

“On special occasions, you can.”

“Is today special?”  Was there a holiday she didn’t know about?  To be fair, she didn’t know about any holidays other than her own birthday.  Was she supposed to know what today was?  Had Tony mentioned it?

Tony reached out a hand, capturing hers once more and pulling her close.  “Today is special, because today is the day we got a phone call telling us that you are officially our kid.  For keeps.  Nothing anyone else can do about it.”

Penny blinked a few times, trying to process that.  “You...you adopted me?”

“Sure did.”  Tony told her with a grin.

She swallowed, staring at the cake, and then up at Pepper who was smiling at her.  “So...no one can take me?”

Pepper reached out, pushing some hair behind her ear.  “No one can take you.”  

And then Penny was throwing her arms around Tony, and Pepper came up beside them, Tony opening his arms to hug the both of them.  It took Penny another minute to put the dots together.  “Does this mean we can go outside.”

Tony chuckled.  “Yeah, honey.  We’re going to go outside.  How about we eat some cake first?”

Penny scarfed down her cake in record time, then raced off to her room to get dressed while Tony continued to eat his own cake and Pepper sipped her coffee.  By the time she returned to the kitchen table, Tony was drinking coffee as well.  “Alright, kiddo.  Take a seat so that we can have a chat before we go.”

Despite the fact that she was dying to get out of the tower, Penny nodded, sitting down and clasping her fingers in her lap.  She was finally going to see New York!  Tony and Pepper were going to let her leave and maybe, soon, she could leave whenever she wanted!  Practically vibrating in excitement, she bounced a leg under the table, and Pepper reached out with a smile, grasping her hand.  

“We know you’re excited,” the woman started kindly  “And I know that you’ve been waiting a long time.  We just wanted to go over a couple of quick ground rules.”

At the word rules, Penny straightened, nodding minutely.  Rules.  She could do rules.  She knew all about rules.  But something made the smile from Pepper’s face drop, and she exchanged a look with Tony.  

“These rules are just to keep you safe, okay?”

Penny nodded again.

“Just stay close to us,” Tony put in, leaning forward over his cup of coffee.  She’d tried coffee once and hated it.  It was bitter, even when she put the cream and sugar in it, and although she’d tried one of Pepper’s special coffees too, one with lots of milk and chocolate and sugar,  she could always taste the bitterness.  Blinking a few times, she tried to force herself to refocus.  “Stay close to us and don’t climb anything.”

That made sense.  Stay close so she wouldn’t get lost and don’t climb anything so that other people wouldn’t know what she was.  She could do this!  When she gave a determined nod, he reached out and patted her hand.  “One more thing.  You know that I’m an Avenger, right?”

“Yes..”  Of course she knew that, Penny thought with a confused tilt of her head.  It was how they’d met.

“So I’m kind of famous.  People might want to take pictures and Pepper is preparing a press release to go out soon.  I don’t think anyone will bother us, but if they do, just stay close to me.  My driver, Happy, will be standing by to get us somewhere safe if reporters start following us.  We’re telling everyone that you are a distant relative of Pepper’s that came to live with us.”

Penny nodded.  She could remember that. 

Then Tony squeezed her hand.  “Alright, kiddo.  Let us get ready and we’ll get the tour started.”

Instead of taking a car, like Penny had assumed they would, Tony and Pepper, both wearing hats called baseball caps pulled over their faces, took Penny out the side door of the tower, the three of them stepping out onto the sidewalk and then...and then Penny was outside.  She was standing by the street she’d looked at from her balcony and...and she was just there.  Like it was no big deal.  Like the whole world had been right here all along and all she’d had to do was step out a side door.

Pepper and Tony waited for a moment as she took it in, closing her eyes and focusing on the noises for a moment.  New York was...loud.  So loud.  Louder than the tower and louder than the Compound.  It made her heart beat fast like the piano music Tony played sometimes and...and she could hear music.  Music like she’d never heard.  Or….no, it wasn’t just one type of music.  It blasted from the cars that drove by, different songs, some with words and some with loud beats that seemed to make the car windows shake.  Every few seconds a car horn would honk and people were talking to one another as they passed and never before had she been in a place that felt so..alive!

Then the smells hit her.  The smell of something unpleasant under the smell of food...foods...different types of foods that all hit her at once.  A hot dog cart was set up not to far away and she could smell them, whatever they were, and she could also smell what must have been actual dogs that people walked at the end of a leash.  She wanted to run across the street and touch the huge brown dog that glanced over at her as it passed, but she remembered the rules at the last second.  Stay close to Tony and Pepper.  Don’t run off.  

“You can ask questions if you want,” Tony reminded her, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her back to herself.

“Can we pet a dog?  Or a cat?”  

Tony blinked at that, as if that hadn’t been the exact question he’d been expected.  Still, he gave a hesitant nod.  “If we run into a friendly dog, then maybe.  You have to be careful.  You always want to ask the owner if a dog is friendly.  Some dogs bite.”

Penny couldn’t imagine an animal biting...or what it would feel like or if it would hurt.  Still, she nodded.

“Are hot dogs made out of dogs?”

He laughed a little at that one.  “No.  Hot dogs are usually beef or pork.  Cow or pig.”

“Among other things,” Pepper murmured, and Tony gave her a playful swat on the arm.  

“Hey!  Hotdogs are a New York tradition.  You want to try one, Pen?”

She nodded, eyes wide, and Tony headed for the hotdog vendor, Pepper and Penny trailing behind, Pepper keeping an arm around Penny.  Apart from the occasional glance their way, no one seemed to be paying attention to them, so Penny wondered if Tony was really as famous as he worried he was.  

“We thought we’d take you for a walk around the block.  Let you get familiar with this area,” Pepper explained as they waited for Tony to order the food.  Ordering food was another thing Penny thought she might have to learn to do.  You paid with money, she knew that part.  But how much?  Would they tell you?  Or did you just give them some?  Also, where would she get money?  “We’re going to be enrolling you in school within the next few days.  I’m going to call the school and explain that there are some...extenuating circumstances.  We were thinking about having you apply to a school called Midtown School of Science and Technology.  It’s a good school, with a big focus on science, so we thought you’d be comfortable there.”  Pepper told her, an arm around her shoulders still.  It was nice and grounding as what felt like thousands of people walked past dressed in strange clothes and talking on phones and to each other and eating and drinking coffee and driving...it was all so much.  But Pepper’s arm around her shoulders kept her from losing herself in the madness, helping her to focus on the woman’s words.  “We’ll drive you to school for a while, but once you get used to the city, maybe you can take the subway.”

Penny nodded, not sure what the subway was but wanting to be agreeable.  She didn’t want to put them out, so she’d figure out a way to get to school on her own as soon as she could.  School...it was something she hadn’t thought much about.  Well...that was a lie.  It was something she’d nearly obsessed over, but not something she wanted to think about.  She knew that she would go there and that she would learn...and then come home.  Every day.  She didn’t have to stay there.  It would be different than her old school...no, not school.  Tony insisted that that place hadn’t been school.  It had been a prison.

And he’d promised that she’d never have to go back.  But if Norman was still alive…

Penny was pulled out of her thoughts when Tony handed her what she assumed was a hot dog.  He was carrying one of his own, and he handed one to Pepper who sighed.  “Tony, it’s not even ten am.”

“What better time to introduce Penny to a hot dog?”

“I can think of a few…”  

Penny took a bite, chewing thoughtfully.  “What do you think?”  Tony asked, cutting Pepper off.

“It’s really good!”  

“Yeah?”  Tony took a bite of his own, then smiled.  “That is good.  C’mon, Pep?  It’s second breakfast.”

Pepper snorted then handed Penny her hotdog.  “No second breakfast for me, thanks.  Why don’t we get back to the tour?”  

“Good idea!”  Tony gestured to the hotdog vendor who didn’t look up from his phone.  “Pen, this is our local hot dog man.”

“Is this where you get food?”

“Sometimes.  You can also go to restaurants.  Grocery stores.  There are lots of places to get food.  Just be careful about buying food from carts.  Some of it might not be good.”  Before Penny could ask how you could tell, and what ‘not good’ meant when it came to food, he was walking again, and Penny followed, listening intently as he pointed out the sights along the way.

Penny wasn’t sure if she’d ever remember any of this...even the parts of the city she was seeing seemed so vast, like a maze she could never find her way out of.  Pepper seemed to notice, and an hour or so into their walk, bringing them all to a stop.  “If you’re ever out and you get lost, just look up,” she suggested, scanning the sky and pointing at the familiar tower that rose up over the other buildings, the bright blue ‘A’ standing out in stark contrast.  “You can see the tower from anywhere around here.  That way, you can always find your way home.”

It was a reassuring thought, and Penny smiled, about to say thank you, when her blood went cold, the hair on her arms standing up.  Confused, she looked past Pepper, trying to figure out what had activated her weird danger sense, when she saw it.  A flash of long hair.  A familiar face.  Two eyes that she knew better than her own.  Penny went still, as if she’d been doused in ice water.  Again.  Just like the ice baths in the White Room.

“Penny?”  Pepper leaned into her field of vision, making Penny’s heart skip a beat. “Honey?  What’s wrong?”

Before she could even think about it, she was shaking her head, a lie slipping out.  “Nothing.”

When the woman nodded, seeming concerned but apparently not about to press, Penny’s eyes shot back to the alley they’d been walking past, but she didn’t see any sign of her old best friend.  

It couldn’t have been.  Susie was gone.  Right? 

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

Midtown School of Science and Technology was a huge building with giant gates that made Penny’s stomach clench in what she thought might be fear...or maybe nerves.  She’d been allowed to take the exam at the tower, filling out the answers on the computer a few days ago.  Tony had gotten a call the day after she’d taken the exam that she’d passed with flying colors, although her strongest subjects were science and math, while she’d be placed in easier classes in subjects like what Tony called social studies, which she still wasn’t great at.  Apparently her scores had been enough to impress the principal though, so she was in.

Tony was the one to drive her, pulling into the parking lot by the huge black gates.  For a moment, she clutched her seatbelt, watching the groups of kids her age walking into the building.  They were all different sizes and colors, all wearing different clothes and hair styles and it hit her, then, that she would be in the building with all of these people and...would she have to learn who they were?  Would she need to learn their names?  Or talk to them?  Would they have to fight?

Tony shut the car off, then turned to her with a little smile.  “Alright, kiddo.  You ready to head inside?”

She wanted to lie and say yes, that of course she was ready and that of course she could do this but she found herself shaking her head instead, heart pounding.  Tony softened, clasping her on the shoulder.  “Do I have to?”  she asked, her voice hoarse and afraid.  

“Yeah, honey.  You have to go to school.  But remember, this is nothing like the other place.  You’ll go to your classes and then you’ll come home.”

“Do we...will we have to fight or…”

“No.”  Tony shook his head, face serious.  “No, and if anyone does try to hurt you, I want you to fight back and then I want you to call me.  You have your phone?”

Penny nodded.  The phone had been sitting on the table that morning along with her breakfast of chocolate waffles, which he’d said were acceptable because this was a special occasion.  Digging into them, she hadn’t paid the phone much attention until she’d finished her breakfast. 

“Alright, kiddo.  This is your phone.  Built special, just for you.  You know how your watch has a button where you can call for me?”

She had nodded, glancing down at the watch strapped to her wrist. 

“This phone has my number, Pepper’s number, and Rhodey’s number programmed it, plus the line that will ring upstairs because Captain America insists on his landline.”  That part had been said with a smile, and Penny had laughed a little, recognizing that it was a joke but not quite understanding.  Pointing at the touch screen, he’d walked her through how to find contacts, how to send a message with the keyboard that appeared at the bottom of the screen, and how to make a call.  

She had been familiar with phones as communication devices, but never, in her entire life, had she ever considered that she might own one.  Nor had she connected the idea of a communication device with the little boxes that the guards and teachers had played on when they’d been bored.  When they should have been teaching them.  So now, to own one of her own...well, she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.  She had also been warned, by both Tony and Pepper, that she wasn’t allowed to play with it in class, so she tucked it away in her backpack where it sat now on the floor of Tony’s car.  

“Alright, kiddo...let’s head inside.   We don’t want you to be late on your first day.”

In fact, Penny would have been happy to be late for her first day and never have to go back, but according to Tony, that wasn’t an option, so she nodded, took a deep breath, grabbed her new backpack which was full of notebooks and pencils and folders and other things that she would apparently need for school, and climbed out of the car.  Tony waited for her, holding an arm out that he draped over her shoulders, leading her toward the school.  “You’re going to be fine, Pen.  I promise.  Hell, you need to meet some kids your own age before you get bored with me.”

Penny turned to him with wide eyes.  “I wouldn’t get bored with you!”

Tony chuckled, squeezing her shoulder before dropping his arm and patting her back.  There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t identify, and his mouth opened like he was going to say something, but instead, he just gave her a soft smile and opened the front door of the building, ushering her in.  Penny hesitated for just a moment, then, steeling herself, she took a step inside.

The walls in the school building were a creamy white, with glass cases filled with trophies and pictures right in the entrance.  Tony led them toward a room off the side with a plaque that said ‘office’ past a man holding a gun that nodded to them, and Penny turned to him, eyes wide.  “Security guard,” he explained softly.  “He just watches the door.  Makes sure that no one who isn’t supposed to be here stays out.”  

Swallowing hard, Penny nodded, moving a little closer to Tony.  She had to do this.  She had to.  He’d told her that she had to and so she would do it.  He had explained security guards to her before...had explained that they, for good or bad, were stationed at schools all over the country.  He opened the door, stepping into the room ahead of her and saying hello to the two ladies that sat at a desk.  Penny said hello as well, a bit more shyly, and the women gave her warm smiles, directing them to yet another door where a man stood up from behind his desk, holding out a hand.

Shaking hands means a promise but it also means saying hello.

“Miss Parker.  It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.  I’m Principal Morita.”

“Hi.  It’s nice to meet you,” Penny parroted the words she’d learned to say, giving him her best smile.  

“Mr. Stark.”

“Good to see you again.” Tony greeted, and she envied him the ease with with he shook the man's hand and seemed to know exactly what to say.  

“Well, Miss Parker, your test scores were quite impressive.”  He gestured for both her and Tony to sit in the chairs across from his desk.  “I have your class schedule here,” he slid a piece of paper across the desk and, after a squeeze on her wrist from Tony, Penny reached out and took it.  It was a typed list of classes and numbers and times that she stared at for a minute, unsure of what she should say.  After a moment, he spoke again.  “I have also recruited one of our top students to show you around for your first day.  She’ll be joining us in a moment.  I wanted to see if you had any questions.  I know that this will be your first time in a traditional school setting.  I wanted you to know that my door is always open if you need anything.”

Penny glanced at Tony before giving a quick nod.  

“Can I get a copy of that schedule?”  Tony asked, and the principal nodded, clicking something on the computer keyboard.

“Of course.”  A machine behind him whirled to life, and then he handed Tony a piece of paper identical to her own.  

“She has a phone that I want her to keep on her, but I’ve told her not to use it in class.  If she needs me, though, I want to make sure that her teachers will excuse her from class to make a call.”

The principal nodded.  “Of course.  I have already explained the situation to all of her teachers.” 

“And her lunch account is all set up?”

“It is.”  

“Alright.”  Tony turned to her, squeezing her wrist.  “What do you think, kiddo?  You ready to do this?”

No.  She was not ready.  But Tony was looking at her like he knew she could do it, eyes soft.  He needed her to be ready, so she would be ready.  He’d saved her life.  She would do anything for him.  Even go to school.

And so she nodded, and he reached out, tugging on her ponytail.  “Aright, kiddo.  I’ll see you today at 2:15 sharp.  Okay?”  

Penny nodded again, even though all she wanted to do was grab onto his arm and refuse to let go.  To beg him not to leave her here in this strange place with people she didn’t know and a guard who might have a gun and other students she wasn’t supposed to fight.  Tony had warned her not to use her powers at school...that other kids might not understand if she decided to climb a wall.  She hadn’t done that much at the tower, but he’d warned her not to do it at all in school.  So she’d agreed.  It wasn’t like she’d been allowed to use her powers much in her other school anyway, nor was she comfortable with the idea of standing out more than she was already going to.  

The three of them stood together, the principal leading them into the office, Tony keeping a hand on her back as if to urge her forward.  Penny had to fight the instinct to cling to him, and instead kept her hands clasped in front of her as Principal Morita stepped aside, revealing a girl with long, curly black hair who waited with her hands in the pockets of her blue jacket.  “Ah, Miss Jones.  Just in time!”  The principal smiled between them as Penny stared at the girl, unsure of what to do.  “Penny Parker, this is Michelle Jones.  Michelle, this is our newest student, Penny.”

The other girl nodded.  “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Alright, Pen, I’m going to head out.  See you this afternoon?”  Penny nodded and Tony gave her a quick pat on the shoulder, nodded to the other girl who nodded back, and then he was gone.  Out the doors.  And she was alone with this stranger and these other strangers in a building full of strangers. 

“Okay, so Michelle is going to show you where your classes are.  You have several classes and lunch together, so that should help.  If you have any questions, just ask her.”

Michelle led Penny to her first class, the two of them silent as they navigated a hallway full of other kids.  A few turned to look at her, but most seemed caught up in their own conversations.  And there were so many conversations...so many people talking and laughing and fighting that Penny couldn’t keep track of it all.  There were adults walking around too, maybe teachers, but no guards that she could see.  No one with guns.  Moving a little closer to Michelle, Penny risked a question.  

“We’re allowed to talk?  Whenever?”

Michelle glanced at her, an eyebrow lifted, but then she nodded.  “In the hallways, yeah.  Just not in class.  Unless you want to ask a question or whatever.”  

That made sense.  That was how their classes had been in her old school...but they had only been allowed to talk at the end of the day, and even then it hadn’t been encouraged.  Depending on the moods of the guards, getting caught being too friendly with other students could mean anything from being yelled at to being dragged away.  

“So this is English with Ms. Davidson.  Next, we both have Chemistry together.  Um...I’ll wait out here for you?”

Penny nodded, dropping her eyes and crossing her arms, shifting from foot to foot.  “Thank you.”

“No problem.  See you soon.”  

Penny stepped into the classroom and looked around the classroom full of students.  The woman standing at the front holding a clipboard gave her a warm smile.  “You must be Penelope.  I’m Ms. Davidson.  This is for you,” she told her, grabbing a folder from the large desk in the front of the room.  “We’re reading The Great Gatsby so here’s your copy.  We just started last week, so try to finish by the end of the week.”  

“Thank you.”

The woman smiled just as a bell rang, and Penny jumped, looking up at the ceiling with wide eyes, then glanced back to find several of the students were starting at her with open curiosity.  “Why don’t you take a seat and we’ll get started.” 

Penny did as she was told, slipping between desks and ignoring the twenty-eight pairs of eyes following her back to the only open desk by the wall.  But as soon as the teacher began to call attendance, with Penny realizing that she was supposed to say ‘here’ when her name was called, all of the students turned around and the class began.

Each of her morning classes passed that way.  Her teacher would greet her, she would go to her seat, and then, after saying that she was ‘here,’ the teacher would teach.  Actually teach.  Some wrote on the chalk boards and some had screens projected onto the wall, but in every single class, she pulled out a notebook and took notes, wondering if this was how school was supposed to be...if her other teachers had been assigned this job too...of if they’d just been in charge of watching them.  

But why?  Why bother teaching them?  Why bother training them?

Had that really been Susie?

Penny hadn’t told Pepper or Tony what she’d seen...or what she’d thought she’d seen.  Because it had to have been...a mistake?  A hallucination?  Something.  Because Susie was gone.  Dead.  She’d already come to terms with that.  Had shoved thoughts of her friend as deep as she could so that she wouldn't have to remember...she didn’t want to remember.  She couldn’t help but wonder...should she have told them?  Should she have followed the girl she’d thought was Susie?  Ask her what had happened?  

Or should she just try to forget?  Forget the school and forget Susie?

“Hey, you’re Penny right?”  

She jumped, pulled out of her thoughts from where she’d been staring at the square pizza on her tray.  She needed to eat...she knew that.  When she didn’t eat, her hunger was the only thing she could focus on and Tony had reminded her more than once that she had to eat.  So she opened the little container of chocolate milk and turned to the boy who had spoken.  He was a larger boy, with dark eyes and dark hair, and his face was round and friendly, his smile making her return the smile without conscious thought.  Michelle, who had sat at the same table as her, pulled a novel out of her backpack, and started reading, didn’t look up.  

“Yeah.”

“I’m Ned.  Ned Leeds.  We’re in Chemistry together.”  

Penny vaguely remembered that. Mr. Harrington had put her at a table in the back to catch up on a few things, mostly papers talking about lab safety, and had told her that the next day, she would be partnered up with Ned Leeds.  “Oh.  You’re going to be my partner.”

“Right!  Yeah, since the class had an odd number I was always by myself but, uh...yeah, it’ll be good to have a partner.  What were you guys doing at your old school?  Or were you in Chemistry or…?”  The boy trailed off, and Penny stared down at her food.  She doubted she was supposed to tell people the specifics of her old school, or what exactly they had done there.

“We read a lot of papers,” she told him after a moment.  

“Oh...so, like...you haven’t done lab work?”

“No.”

For a moment, she worried that he’d think that was weird, but he breezed past it.  “Cool.  I think you’ll like it if you like science.  You live with Tony Stark, right?  I read that you were, like, his cousin or niece or something?  And that he was going to adopt you?  Do you get to work in his lab and stuff?”

“Um….yeah.  I do my homework in the lab while he works.  Or I read papers.”  She shrugged, taking that opportunity to take a bite of her food, then another.  She was starving!  He sat back, starting on his own food, but that didn’t stop him from asking more questions.  

“So, where was your old school?”

Penny swallowed, casting her mind back.  Tony hadn’t told her where the school had been...all he’d ever said that it wasn’t too far from New York.  So she went with that.  “Not too far from here.”

“Yeah?  Well Midtown’s a really great school.  It’s cool that you were able to transfer mid-semester.  Are you going to join any clubs?  Because I’m on Academic Decathlon, and so’s Michelle, and we could always use another team member!”

“What’s Academic Decathlon?”

He blinked at her a  few times, mouth dropping.  “Your old school didn’t have an Aca Dec team?”

“We didn’t have any clubs.”  Clubs were another thing that Tony had told her about the day before, which had mostly been spent prepping her for the American high school experience.  Everything from raising your hand in class to go to the bathroom to clubs and extracurriculars and extra credit and grades and how to buy lunch had been covered.  The thought of spending even more time in school when all of these kids had families to go home to seemed strange to Penny, but she didn’t say that out loud.  

“Like...none?”

She shook her head.

“What school did you go to?”

Penny bit her lip, wondering if she should have lied...or just kept her mouth shut.  “Um...it was...a private school.”  She told him, grabbing another term that Tony had taught her out of thin air.  “Religious.”

“Ahh.”  He nodded, so she figured that made enough sense.  “So Academic Decathlon is so cool.  We answer questions and compete against other teams from other schools and we go all over the country for competitions.  This year, our big competition is in DC!”  

She filed away the question of what DC was in the back of her mind as she nodded along.  He didn’t stop there, though.  For the next ten minutes, she got a complete crash course on Academic Decathlon and how he’d joined and why he loved it as she ate her pizza and little bowl of corn.  He ate too, speaking between mouthfuls.  It was nice, hearing someone chatter while she ate.  Meals at her old school had been silent.  Or else.  

But Ned told her all about Academic Decathlon and how much he loved it and how she should try out and she liked listening to him talk.  

Her next class, a history class, was one that she apparently shared with Ned, but not Michelle.  She knew this because he grabbed her schedule from the table, told Michelle that he would walk her to class, and then they were sitting in desks right beside each other and he was telling her all about the class and the teacher.  And Penny found herself missing it when the teacher started speaking and she had to take notes.  

Before she knew it, the day was over, and somehow, Ned found her despite the fact that she didn’t have her last class with him.  But there he was, waiting outside the door, a familiar face in a sea of strangers, and Penny felt a smile grow on her face as soon as she saw him.  He stood out like a lifeboat as though she’d known him for her whole life, and, deciding to just go with it, she slipped through the crowd and came to a stop at his side.  

“Are you taking the bus home?”  He asked, stepping to the side along with her so they didn’t block the other students who were practically running to get out of the building.

“Uh...no, Tony’s going to take me home.”

“Cool.  I’ll walk with you.”

And that, it seemed, was that.

Chapter Text

Sorry for the delay!  I was trying to wait until AO3 got their emailing system fixed!  I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Tony looked up from the phone he was staring at, eyebrows raising as he caught sight of the boy walking along beside her.  Penny glanced at him, then at Tony, hoping she wasn’t doing something wrong.  Beside her, the boy who had been at her side since first meeting her was practically vibrating in excitement, and when she looked back at Tony, he looked...not quite upset.  But something like it.  

She turned to Ned, pausing mid-step, and he paused with her, confused.  “Penny?”  he asked, eyes dating back to Tony who was watching their interaction, an elbow resting out the car window.  

“Do you know Tony?”

The boy’s eyes widened.  “Do I...uh...no, I’ve never...I mean, he’s Iron Man so...so yeah, I know who he is!  He’s a superhero!”  

Penny crossed her arms, well aware that Tony was watching and feeling a prickle of discomfort at feeling on display.  She’d been on display before.  She’d been on display so many times.  Her whole had been on display.  And now, as she stood in the school parking lot, her arms tight across her chest, feeling disappointment and nerves mix in her stomach.  Was she doing this wrong?  Was she making a mistake?  Did Ned just want to talk to her so that he could meet Tony?  

The thought made her stomach hurt.  

“Is that...is that why…”  She wasn’t sure how to ask and Ned’s eyes widened.  

“What?  No...no, that’s…”  He leaned in, lowering his voice, eyes impossibly wide and earnest.  “I didn’t talk to you because I wanted to meet Tony Stark.  I mean, it’s super cool that you’re his kid and stuff but…”  He shrugged, looking right at her.  Not glancing at Tony in the car or the other students walking around them.  And she knew that she might have it wrong but she believed him.  She thought that he was telling the truth.

A tiny smile curled the edges of her mouth and she dropped her arms.  “Really?”

“Yeah, of course.”  Ned hesitated, looking once more at the car, but Penny kept her eyes on him.  “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Penny nodded. “Okay.”  And then he was walking away, throwing a wave over his shoulder and heading in the opposite direction toward the street.  Penny wondered if she could do that too.  If she could walk home.  If she was allowed to.  Would she be able to find her way home?  Would she be able to take the trains or a bus or just walk?  Finally, realizing where she was, Penny gave her head a short, sharp shake, pulling herself out of her thoughts and turning back to Tony who was once more looking down at his phone.  

As soon as she slid into the passenger seat, placing her backpack onto the floor between her feet, he looked up.  “Hey, kiddo.  Everything okay?”

Penny nodded, feeling some tension in her melting away.  She was with Tony.  She was safe.  He was...he was like her home now.  She had a home.  “Hi, Tony.”

He chuckled a little, reaching out and putting an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a half hug.  She leaned into it, closing her eyes and letting herself be held.  For a moment, they just stayed there, oblivious to the people walking around their car.  “Hi, Penny.”  He rubbed a hand up and down her arm, then patted it.  “How was it?”

“It was…”  she hesitated, trying to find a word.  “It was not like school.”

He snorted.  “I should hope not.”  He placed his phone in the cup holder then put the car in drive.  “Who was that?”  He jerked his chin in the direction that Ned had gone in. 

“Ned Leeds.”

“Did he show you around today?”

“No.  Um...not at first.  Michelle did first, but then he was talking to me and he showed me the rest of my classes.”  

“Yeah?  What’s he like?”

“He’s nice.  He really likes an old movie.  It’s called Star Wars.”  She pronounced it carefully and Tony laughed.  “Have you seen it?”

“Yeah, Pen.  I’ve seen Star Wars.  It’s a pretty good one.  You might like it.”  He hesitated, then, as he pulled up to a stop light, he turned to her with a grin.  “Maybe you should invite him over some time and you can both watch it.”

Penny tilted her head, thinking it over.  “I can...I can invite him over?”

Tony lifted his eyebrows as he pushed the gas pedal, driving the car forward.  “Of course you can, Pen.  That’s your home, too.  You can have people over.  Just, let me know first.”

“Oh.”

He smiled over at her.  “So, what about your classes?”

“They were better than my other school.  The teachers talked to us.  At the other school, they didn’t want us to ask questions, but they let us here.”

“You can always ask your teachers questions.  That’s what they’re there for.  Me too...and Pepper.  You know that, right?”  

Penny nodded.  She did know that now, despite the fact that it had taken her a long time to believe it.  

“Do you have homework?”

“Yeah.”  Penny nodded as they pulled into the tower’s garage, and together they climbed out of the car, her throwing her backpack over her shoulder.  

“You can get that knocked out while I make dinner.  How about you choose tonight?  In honor of your first day?”  Tony asked, bumping his shoulder against hers.  Penny thought for a moment, then smiled.

“Mac and cheese?”

He grinned.  “Really?”  Penny nodded.  “Alright, but I’m making it from scratch.” 

“You can do that?”  

Tony snorted.  “I can.  When you don’t have so much homework, I’ll show you.”  In his pocket, Penny heard his phone chime, but he didn’t check it, instead leading her to the elevator.  “All you have to  do is…”

“Boss?”  Friday interrupted, and the elevator slowed down.  Tony put a steadying hand on her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly.  

“What’s up, Fri?”

“Miss Potts wanted me to inform you that you have a guest in the penthouse.”

“Don’t leave us in suspense here, Friday.  Who's here?”

“Nick Fury, sir.”  Tony went still and immediately Penny felt her heart rate spike.  She stared up at him, watching the indecision play across his face, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.  

Finally, Tony spoke.  “Did he say why?”

“He did not.  He, Miss Potts, and Captain Rogers are speaking in the penthouse.”

“Okay…”  Tony glanced at her, then made an effort to smile...to project calm.  But she could hear how his heart sped up and could tell that he was nervous.  That Nick Fury wasn’t someone he wanted to talk to.  But why?  Since coming to live with Tony, he’d never had a visitor besides the other Avengers...at least, none that she knew of.  And she’d been at his side for the majority of the time.  “Alright, kiddo.  I guess it’s time you met Nick Fury.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s the director of Shield.  The organization your mother works for.  Well...officially Shield has disbanded, but he’s still plenty powerful, trust me.”  The elevator stopped at the penthouse, the doors opening slowly and revealing the familiar rooms.  He stepped out first, and Penny listened for unfamiliar voices, which she heard after a moment.

“Thank you, Miss Potts.”

“Of course,” Pepper told the man that Penny couldn’t see yet.  “Tony should be here any minute.”

“With the girl?”

His voice was more curious than hostile...still, Penny wanted to balk in the doorway.  To take the elevator back down to the street level and leave the tower...find a place to hide and stay there until Nick Fury was gone.  Even his name was scary.  But Tony had rested a hand on her upper back and was ushering her forward with him.

“It’s okay.  We’re just going to have a quick chat with him.  He’s not going to hurt you, promise.”

“Does he want to take me away?” She remembered him talking about the people who wanted to take her...who wanted to have her stay with them.  But Tony shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter.  He’s not going to.”  

Penny hesitated a little, wanted to ask if she had to do this.  If it was absolutely necessary.  But Tony looked serious and determined so, she thought, it seemed she did have to do this.  She wasn’t going to be a baby, she told herself.  Wasn’t going to whine or fight him on it.  She’d gone to school by herself.  She’d met new people and stayed in a building without Tony all day.  Now she would meet a man named Nick Fury.  Besides, Steve was there too.  That’s what Friday had said.  Between Steve and Pepper and Tony, she would be fine.

Everything would be fine.

Penny followed Tony into the living room, forcing herself to step forward when the man who must have been Nick Fury stood, along with Steve.  The man was bald with a black eye patch over one eye, and as soon as he caught sight of her, he lifted his eyebrows, glancing at Tony who moved to stand slightly in front of her.  “Nick.  I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

“I was in the neighborhood.”  The man reached out a hand that Tony shook as Steve gave Penny a small smile.  They hadn’t trained that morning since Penny had been getting ready for school, and she’d missed it.  “And you must be Penelope.”

“Penny,” Tony corrected, stepping a little to the side as Nick reached out a hand to her.

“Nice to meet you,” Penny told him, even though it wasn’t, reaching out a hand to shake his.  She was always careful when she shook hands, not wanting to hurt the other person, but with Nick, she squeezed just a little, wanting him to know that she was strong.  That she would defend herself if she had to.  He smiled a little, though, lifting an eyebrow.  

“It’s nice to meet you too.  That’s quite a grip you’ve got there, Penny.”  He gave a nod and pulled his hand away, crossing his arms over his chest.  “So, you started school today?”  The man sat back down and Penny did the same, following Tony and sitting beside him on the adjacent sofa.  Tony and Steve were both between her and Nick Fury, and as soon as she sat, Pepper came to join her, sitting on her other side, a hand coming to rest lightly on her back.  

“Yes.”

“What did you think?”

Penny wondered what he meant.  What did she think?  She thought that school was nothing like what she’d been led to believe, and that other kids were allowed to be her friend and it was strange but good.  She thought that teachers that actually taught her were amazing and wondered what the purpose of the teachers at her old school had been.  Why bother teaching them when they were just going to kill them?  But she didn’t say any of this.  She might tell Tony one day.  But she didn’t know Nick Fury.  Didn’t trust him.  Not yet.  So she just shrugged a little.  “It was good.”

“Speaking of school…”  Tony started, but Nick Fury went on.  

“I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about the place you were in before.  The school.”  

Penny stiffened a little, and Pepper continued to rub her back.  Beside her, Tony clasped his hands in his lap but didn’t speak.  

So Penny nodded.  It would be fine.  She was safe.  “Okay.”

Steve sat back a little, hands clasped in his lap, and Tony sat back as well, giving Fury a better view of her.  “I was wondering if you knew the names of any of the people that worked there?  The teachers?  The soldiers?”

Penny shook her head.  “The teachers didn’t tell us their names...we just called them whatever badge color they had.  Like Helen was Ms. Blue.”

Nick Fury nodded.  “Okay.  So you didn’t speak to the guards either?”

She shook her head again.  “We weren’t allowed.”  That was true.  They hadn’t been allowed, and the consequences had been dire.  

“What about the other children?”

“We have files on the other children.  Natasha gave them to you,” Tony put in. 

“So you didn’t know about their families?  Last names?”

“We had numbers,” Penny told him simply.  

“Numbers?”

“We weren’t supposed to use our names.  I was 024.”  

Like Tony had, Nick Fury repeated the numbers.  “Zero Two Four?”

Penny nodded.  “We weren’t supposed to use each other’s names.  I didn’t know anyone’s last name...I didn’t even know mine.”

“Like we said, the children weren’t given any information,”  Steve put in, giving Nick Fury a look as he sat forward.  “We gave you all of the information we have on Osborn’s facility.”

There was a tense moment of silence, and Penny wondered what these men really wanted to say to each other...what they were holding back.  Finally, though, Nick Fury gave a terse nod, turning to her with what appeared to be a genuine smile. “Sorry for dropping in.”  He held up his hands, nodding to Tony.  

“You’re welcome to stay for dinner if you can refrain from being a spy for a few hours,” Tony offered.  “We’re having mac and cheese, made from scratch.  Stark family secret recipe.”

Nick Fury chuckled them, relaxing a little.  “Thanks, but I’ve got another stop to make before I call it a day.”  He placed his hands on his legs.  “It was nice to meet you, Penny.”  He started to get up, then hesitated.  “One more question?”

“She’s got homework, Nick,” Tony told the man, his voice a warning.

“I know, but it’s a fast one.”  He turned back to her.  “Since you’ve been living in New York, have you seen any of the people from Osborn’s facility?  Teachers or guards or scientists?  Any of the other kids?”

Penny had plenty of practice making her face blank.  Every time Susie had dared her to do something, be it take an extra roll at dinner or sneak a book out of the classroom, she’d gotten a chance to perfect a bland, pleasant smile.  So she did that now, not letting her mind wander to the flash of familiar hair she’d seen only a few days ago.  Because it couldn’t have been her.  Susie was gone.  She had to be.  

“No.  I haven’t seen anyone.”  

As the adults all stood, saying their goodbyes, Penny fought to keep her expression normal.  Fought to keep her smile sincere as she told Nick Fury goodbye and headed off to do her homework, managing to keep up the facade until she reached her bedroom, shutting her door and dropping onto her bed.  There, finally, she dropped her face into her hands and took a dee breath.  

It hadn’t been a lie because Susie was dead.  The guard had so much as told her so.

So why did she feel guilty?

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

As it turned out, homework was, for the most part, no harder than the work Penny had been doing before.  Before long, her life was once more a routine.  School every weekday, spent with learning from real teachers and talking to Ned.  She ate lunch at the school, usually greasy foods that were surprisingly good after what she was used to, even though the other kids complained.  Sometimes Ned brought his own lunch, something she hadn’t thought to do, but she never asked Tony if she could too.  She figured he was probably glad to have time to himself once more, and honestly, although there were times she missed Tony, it was a nice feeling, being on her own like this.  Going to a real school and learning from real teachers and being with people her own age.  

It was almost strange being in a place where the people, with the exception of the armed guard in the front of the school, didn’t have guns and no one threatened them.  It wasn’t long before she thought of Ned as her friend, although Michelle was nice too, and one Thursday, about a month after she started school, she asked Tony, sheepishly, if Ned could come over and watch the Star Wars movie that he kept talking about. Tony agreed easily, suggesting he come over that weekend, and so, the next day, Penny waited until they were sitting together at lunch to ask.  

“Ned?” The boy looked up from his slice of greasy pizza.  “I asked Tony if it was okay, and he said yes…”  Ned narrowed his eyes in confusion so Penny went on quickly.  “Would you like to come over to the tower tomorrow and watch the Star Wars?”  

Ned most certainly did.  She’d never seen her friend’s eyes get so big before, and his jaw literally dropped before he nodded so quickly she wondered if he was hurting his neck.  “Yeah!  That...that would be amazing!  Oh my god...the tower?  The Avengers tower?”

Penny didn’t know why she was nervous to have Ned over.  Tony had said that it was okay.  Pepper had set up one of the spare rooms that had a sofa and a TV that they could use to watch their move, and said she would order them pizza for dinner.  Still, when school was out and Penny and Ned headed for the familiar black car, her heart was fluttering a little, stomach swimming in fluttery nerves.  Ned, oblivious to her worry, chattered non-stop about how he couldn’t believe he was going to meet Iron Man and how cool it was that she lived with him and he was like her dad.  

Other kids had, over the last month, come up to her at lunch or between classes, demanding to know if she really was Tony Stark’s kid.  Since he had adopted her, she usually nodded and told them that yes, he was her dad.  A few people seemed to think she was lying, mostly friends of a boy named Flash that Ned told her was just a bully and that she should just ignore him.   Others wanted to talk to her about Tony, even though they’d never spoken to her before.  None of them were like Ned, who seemed to actually like her, so she mostly gave them short, one word answers or shrugs until they went away.

It was something she’d brought up after sparring with Steve one Saturday morning, the two of them sitting on opposite sides of the mat, drinking from bottles of water kept cold in the small refrigerator in the corner of the gym.  “Steve?”

“Yeah?” he’d asked, taking a swig of water and wiping sweat from his forehead with a small red towell that he held balled up in one hand.  

“Is Tony really as famous as he thinks he is?”  

For some reason, the question had made Steve bark out a laugh, head dropping as he’d chuckled.  Penny had just tilted her head, which had set him off again until a tiny smile was on her face too.  She wasn’t sure what was so funny, but it had been so rare for her to hear laughter before.  Now she heard it all the time.  It made her relax...surely someone laughing wouldn’t hurt you.  

“He, uh...yeah, Penny.  I think he is,”  Steve had finally told her.  “We’re all pretty famous.  Comes with being superheroes I guess.  Why do you ask.”

Penny had taken a drink of her own water, embarrassed for reasons she couldn’t articulate.  “Kids at school talk to me because of him.”

Steve had narrowed his eyes, sitting up and crossing his arms.  “What do you mean?”

“Not Ned...but some of them just want to ask me about Tony.”

He’d nodded his head, looking kind of sad before smiling.  “Yeah, some people are like that.  What about Ned?”

“He really likes Tony too....he calls him Iron Man.  And he thinks you're really cool.  He asked me if I could get your autograph and I said probably not but I didn’t know what it meant so I had to ask Friday when I got home,” she had admitted, and he’d laughed again before softening.

“But does he talk to you about other things?”

“Yeah.”  Penny had nodded quickly.  “He talks about Star Wars and the club he’s in, and he asks me about my other school…”  She’d shrugged.  “I told him it was a private school that was really religious...I have to make things up.  I wish I didn’t.”

“Have you talked to Tony about telling him the truth?”  

She’d shaken her head.  “No...I don’t think he would like it.”

“Maybe after you know Ned for a little while longer, you can ask Tony about it.  Maybe not about your mutation...but you could tell him a little about the school.  If you wanted.”

Penny thought about that as she and Ned climbed into the back seat of the car, and Tony turned around, draping his arm on the seat.  “Hi, Ned.  Nice to meet you,” he’d greeted, offering a hand that Ned gripped in his own, and her usually chatty friend was suddenly struck dumb.  

“I...Mr. Iron Man...sir…”

“Tony,” the man had corrected, his eyes nothing but friendly.  

“Mr. Tony, sir...it’s...it’s an honor!”

“We’re glad to have you over.  Pepper’s ordering pizza for dinner.  Is that okay?”

“Oh, yeah...yeah, of course!”  

Penny gave him a look and he gave one back.  By this point, she knew him well enough to almost read it, and had he been able to talk, he would have been telling her how amazing it was that he was finally meeting THE Iron Man and how cool he was and how this was possibly the best day of his life.  The thought made her smile, and she turned away to hide her laugh.  

“So, you kids have homework?”

When Ned just stared, wide-eyed, as if he’d somehow forgotten what those words meant, Penny snorted under her breath, then tried to compose herself.  “Not much.  I have to finish reading a book for English, and I have to do some math problems too.”

“That’s not too bad.  What about you, Ned?”  The gentle, pointed question seemed to finally pull her friend from his stupor, and in a halting voice he told Tony about his own homework, not relaxing until they were nearly back to the tower.

Once the two of them were set up in the spare room, the movie up and ready to play, and two boxes of pizza and two liters on the table, Ned finally turned to her, wide-eyed.  “I just met Tony Stark!”

She had to smile, nodding a little.  “Yeah.”

“He’s...he’s...like...a normal dad?”

“Most of the time.  Sometimes he goes out in the Iron Man suit or has meetings with the Avengers...but I think he’s normal.”  She didn’t have much to compare him with, really.  She’d never had a dad before.  But she’d watched TV shows a few times now, and sometimes there were dads on TV.  He kind of acted like some of them.

“He asked me about my homework!  And he knew my name!”

“I told him about you,” Penny explained, then went on when he just stared at her, apparently stunned.  “And Steve too.  He said you sound nice.  Oh, and he said that if you wanted, he would sign his name on something for you.”  She shrugged, not seeing the appeal herself.  When she’d told Steve as much, the man had laughed again.

Ned just blinked for a moment, then shook his head.  “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.  Maybe he’ll be around after the movie.”  She wasn’t sure...he and Sam had been talking about something important sounding that morning after they’d sparred, so she’d left them to it without getting the chance to ask.  

“Do you get to spend a lot of time with Captain America?”

The name still sent a thrill of residual fear down her spine...Captain America, the man that would tear her apart if he ever found him.  So instead, she thought of him only as Steve.  “We spar every morning.”  

That made him nearly drop the slice of pizza he was holding, jaw dropping.  “You spar with Captain America?  Like...you fight him?”

“Yeah...I mean, we don’t hurt each other...not on purpose.  I accidentally hit him one time…”  She trailed off when he just stared, cheeks heating up a little.  “What?”

“You hurt Captain America?”

“I...I mean, I didn’t mean to.”

“Are you...do you have superpowers?”  He hissed, leaning in, eyes going so wide she wondered if they would pop out.  

Penny felt her heart pound in her ears and she shook her head, air coming in a gasp that made her chest hurt.  She hadn’t meant to tell...hadn’t meant for him to know.  She wasn’t supposed to tell!  Tears sprang to her eyes as she scooted away, biting into her lip, and a hand came up to cover her mouth.  “No...no, I…”  

“Penny?”  He reached out for her and she had to force herself to stay still...to squash the urge to shove him away.  He was okay.  He was safe.  But Ned wasn’t supposed to know!  

“Please...please don’t say anything,” she whispered, a tear dripping down her cheek.  Tony would be so angry.  Would he yell at her?  Stop letting her go to school?  He’d asked so little of her and in return he’d saved her life.  Given her a life.  And she couldn't even keep this one secret.  

“Okay...Penny?  Don’t...don’t cry!” Ned hissed, looking around wildly as if Tony would magically appear.  “I’m sorry...it’s okay.  I won’t tell!  I promise...I won’t tell anyone.  Please don’t cry.”

She tried to stop, turning away from him, but his hand landed on her shoulder in a clumsy form of comfort.  “I wasn’t supposed to tell,” she confided, wiping at her eyes and looking around, hoping Friday wouldn’t tell on her.  “It’s a secret.”

“That you have superpowers?  That’s, like...the coolest secret ever,” Ned murmured, leaning in and looking so earnest.  Do you help people?  Like...do you wear a costume and go out and save people?  Are you one of the Avengers?”

Penny narrowed her eyes, shaking her head.  It had never even occurred to her to put on a suit like the other people she lived with...to go out and help people.  But that’s when she realized...she liked the idea.  She liked it a lot.  Tony had done so much for her...the Avengers had.  She was strong like them.  She could climb walls and stick to things and, most importantly, she could fight. So...could she be an Avenger too?

“Well...anyway, it’s really cool that you have superpowers.  And I won’t tell.  Your secret is safe with me.”

Looking into his eyes, Penny knew that he was telling the truth.  That her secret really was safe with him.  Still, she had to make double sure.  “You promise?”  

He held out his little finger then, and she stared down at it, perplexed.  Shaking hands meant a promise or a greeting.  What did holding your little finger out mean?  “It’s a pinky swear,” he prompted, and she tilted her head.  

“What?”

“It’s...it means that I swear not to tell anyone.  Here, give me your pinkie.” 

She did, holding her little finger out, and he wrapped his around hers, shaking her hand up and down.  

“A pinkie swear,” she repeated slowly.  

“Yeah.  It means that I’m making you a promise that I can never, ever break.  Like a blood oath.  But...no blood.”

Penny wasn’t sure what a blood oath was, but considering the name, she thought she’d rather not know.  So she just nodded.  A pinky swear would have to do, and she would just have to hope that Tony never found out.  It seemed that the list of things she was keeping from Tony was starting to grow...first Susie, and now this.  But, she reminded herself, Susie was gone.  It hurt, but she had to face it.  Susie was gone and the person she’d seen was just someone that looked like her.  There were so many people in the world...some of them were bound to look alike.

Pinky swear completed, Penny and Ned started the movie, and Penny found herself enjoying both it and the commentary that came with it via Ned.  He told her all about the actors and how it was filmed and even though she didn’t totally understand everything, it was fun to spend time with Ned in the tower, just the two of them.  They ate their pizza and drank soda and occasionally talked about school and watched the movie and Penny found herself smiling nearly the entire time.  Still, though, in the back of her mind, she wondered if she and Susie would have done this.  Would her friend have liked Star Wars?  Would she have understood it any more than Penny?  Would she like Ned as much as Penny did?  

Had Penny really seen her?  

The weekend passed in a blur of waffles for breakfast and homework and sparring with Steve, and then the week came and went.  Then another.  Her life felt almost normal.  It felt almost normal to be able to leave her room whenever she wanted...to be allowed to climb up the side of the tower and rest on the letters, legs hanging off the sides.  It felt normal to take walks with Tony and Pepper who taught her how to ride the subway, which she loved, and how to take the bus.  They taught her which streets to look for that were close to home, and how to find her way from school to the tower if she needed to.

Not too much later, she was allowed to go home with Ned after school for the first time, with Tony agreeing to pick her up when they were done hanging out, and for the first time, it was just her and someone her age on the subway.  Ned lived in a part of town called Queens, and she met his parents, both of whom were just as nice as he was.  They watched the rest of the Star Wars movies in the order Ned insisted, and Penny screamed when she found out that Darth Vader was actually Luke’s father.

The next day, she asked Tony and Pepper if she could take the bus home from school instead of having him pick her up.  

They agreed, with the stipulation that she texted them when she was on her way home, and that she come straight to the tower unless given permission to go somewhere else.

Two months after having Ned over to the tower found Penny taking the bus to and from school every day, carrying her student ID and money in her backpack along with her pass to get into the tower if she ever took the side entrance.  School felt easy.  She was even thinking about asking to join Academic Decathlon next year, which would be her sophomore year of high school, or tenth grade, apparently.  She had asked Tony why the grade had both a number and a name and he’d shrugged before asking Friday to look it up.  Penny spent her days in school, or spending time with Ned, or sparring with Steve, or working with Tony in his lab, each day thinking more and more about Ned’s question.  Why didn’t she help people too?  Could she be an Avenger?

This question was at the forefront of her mind one warm day at the end of the semester.  Finals were coming up, and Tony had promised to take her to the Compound plenty of times in the summer, and that they would swim and spend time outside.  It would be just her and Tony and Pepper...her and her parents, and she found herself excited for something...actually excited.  Before meeting Tony, the only thing she’d ever been excited for was going home.  Meeting her parents.  Leaving that place when she turned eighteen.

She and Ned had talked more about her mutation...about the school and about her family.  She’d told him nearly everything in bits and pieces, up to and including the part where she’d seen Susie in the city.  Ned had been aghast, insisting that they look out for her every time they went out somewhere.  And so she obliged, giving him a description that they both kept an eye out for whenever they stopped at Ned’s favorite sandwich place, Delmar’s, or rode the bus or the subway to a store or movie theater or wherever Ned wanted to go.  Penny felt like she was just along for the ride most of the time, but she enjoyed their excursions into this city that she was starting to love.  They were fun, and she felt so...so alive, surrounded by people.  It would hit her sometimes, that she was outside.  Among people.  Real people.  That she was free. 

Penny was on her way home when it happened.  She and Ned had split up at the school gates, him waving over his shoulder and her telling him that she’d see him the next day.  She sent a text to Tony like she always did, letting him know that she was on her way home.  And as she walked, her mind was on the Avengers.  On superheroes.  Maybe she could ask Tony if she could help people too.  If she could have a suit like he did.  Not a robot suit...just, something to keep people from knowing who she was.  He might even help her build it.  She and Ned had been talking about the fact that her mutation had come from a spider bite, and he’d suggested figuring out how to shoot webs like a spider did, and her mind had been stuck on that for days.  

Webs.  She could shoot webs...use them to get around!  Or she could use them to tie up criminals!  She wouldn’t hurt people, she knew.  Not unless she had to.  But she could tie up bad guys until the police could arrest them.  

But what would Tony say?  

If she didn’t ask, he couldn’t say no.

She was lost in thought, heading for the bus stop where she waited every day for about seven minutes until the bus that always took her by the tower stopped for her and anyone else waiting, when she saw it.  A flash of long black hair...that alone wouldn’t have stopped Penny in her tracks.  Their hair had been short at the school.  Short and choppy...the people in white coats had cut their hair every few weeks with blunt scissors, nearly shaving the heads of the boys.  Now Penny’s hair was almost to her shoulders, and Pepper had taught her how to brush it back and put product in it, to spray hair spray to keep it in place and how to use a flat iron and a curling iron.  It stood to reason that Susie’s would have grown out too.

It wasn’t just the hair.  Wasn’t just the posture.  No...it was the eyes.  Those bright green eyes locked in on her from across the street.  Penny felt herself stiffen, jaw dropping.  Susie...it was Susie.  Susie was alive.  It wasn’t a flash or a glimpse...there was Susie, her best friend, standing across from the bus stop where Penny always waited for the bus.

They locked eyes.  Susie stared at her, eyes narrow as if she were confused, and then she spun on her heel, taking off in the opposite direction.

Penny didn’t even think.  Barely checking to make sure there were no cars coming, she sprinted after her friend, gripping the straps of her backpack where she’d just shoved her phone.  Susie...Susie was alive.  They’d been wrong.  Those people hadn’t killed her.  “Susie!” she called, brushing past a man on his phone that almost didn’t step out of her way in time.  The girl kept walking, taking a sharp right turn into an alley, and Penny raced after her, heart pounding.  She could take Susie to Tony...he would take care of her!  The Avengers would protect her!  Where had she been?  Had someone saved her?  Had someone gotten her out of that place?  Had her parents really picked her up like that soldier had said?  

“Susie, wait, it’s…”

Her words cut off as the ice cold feeling tricked up and down her back.  She knew that feeling...it was the feeling she got right before a punch connected with her body, but stronger.  Danger!  There was danger!  Susie was waiting at the end of the alley by a dumpster, cold green eyes trained on her, and that was the last thing Penny saw before something pricked her in the neck and her world went dark.

Chapter Text

Part 3: Back to the Cave

“And now, I responded, consider this: If this person who had gotten out of the cave were to go back down again and sit in the same place as before, would he not find in that case, coming suddenly out of the sunlight, that his eyes were filled with darkness?" - Socrates, Allegory of the Cave

The mission had been Tony’s idea.  And it had been a simple idea, although not one that Steve had been a huge fan of.  In fact, he’d been flat out against it.  

“You want to get yourself captured,” Steve had demanded, voice flat, as they’d all sat around the long table in one of the conference rooms at the compound.  He’d been working on the plan all night, ever since the night before when Friday had sent him an alert in the middle of his work, letting him know that she’d managed to break through one of Norman’s firewalls.  And then...and then she’d said the name.

“Boss, I believe I’ve found information in Norman Osborn’s server on Penelope Parker.”

That name had hit him like a tidal wave slamming into his stomach, making his lunch threaten to make a reappearance  Penelope.  Penny.  Baby Penny Parker.

All these years, the toddler had never left his mind for long, with her tiny fingers tugging at his beard, then patting his face.  Her little smile.  The way she’d waited patiently for him to roll her sleeves up in the middle of a bar.  And then...the news story.  They’d never found her body.  

She wouldn’t be a baby anymore, he’d reminded himself, clutching the edge of the table where he’d been working, leaning over and taking deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth.  She would be a teenager.  If she were alive.  For a long moment, he hadn’t dared ask.  Hadn’t dared to have Friday report.  When he’d switched over to Friday, one of the first things he’d ordered her to do was to continue the running search for the girl.  He wouldn’t give up on Penny Parker.  Not ever.

Finally, he’d stood upright, taking one last deep breath before waving a hand and summoning a screen.  “Give it to me, Friday.”

And she had.

The images that had filled his screen had made his stomach turn, and he’d only gotten through three of them before he’d finally lost his last meal, heaving into a metal trash can at the sight of a girl, maybe ten, covered in bruises and submerged in a bathtub full of ice, lips a dull blue color, eyes open and staring into nothing, a single tear running down her cheek.  Not Penny, he’d told himself, because Penny hadn’t had black hair or nearly black eyes.  

But, he’d thought, this was another child.  Just like the children in the pictures that Richard had given him that day so many years ago.  

It was these new pictures that Tony had finally pulled out of a folder in the midst of Steve’s rant about how bad an idea this was, spreading them out on the table in front of him, and the super soldier had cut himself off, jaw closing with a soft click.  Natasha had blinked hard, looking away for just a moment while Bruce had grabbed the closest one, then had dropped it as if burned.  That one had been a boy, probably thirteen or fourteen judging by the peach fuzz on his cheeks, covered in bruises with electrodes attached to his head.   The number on top of the picture had been 021.

Later, much later, Penny would be in Tony’s lab and she would see that picture.  She would find the folder and her hand would freeze over the photo, mouth open, eyes wide and horrified.  Tony would put a hand on her shoulder and start to close it, but the boy’s name would fall from her lips like a plea.  “Andre.”  

She would name the others, too.  The girl in the bathtub was Kimmy.  Kimmy, who hadn’t survived the virus.  Kimmy who had been best friends with Willa and who had liked to read books and play basketball, even though she hadn’t known the rules.  Willa, Penny had told him, pointing to a picture of a girl with a needle in her arm, back arched, photo capturing her mid-scream, had once snuck a pencil and a piece of paper out of the classroom and had drawn a picture in her room, hiding it under her mattress.  A picture of what she thought a tree looked like, and a picture of a house.  

Jo and Mark had been friends, Penny would tell him, placing the pictures of the two boys side by side, explaining that for the most part, the boys stuck together, as did the girls.  She would point to Mark, his arms wrapped around his knees in the greenish picture, explaining that they sometimes left them in dark rooms for hours or days, no light or sounds...only their own heartbeats.  She would point to Jo and the cuts lining his arms and tell Tony that they had all been introduced to things like dirt and broken glass ground into wounds to test their healing.  To test which drugs worked on them.  And then she would tell them that Jo had kissed her once when they’d been hiding in the back room where she and Susie had read books together, and where she’d climbed into the vents to meet him on that fateful day.

At the time, however, Tony had only known the numbers of these children, eyes lingering on the photo of 024.  All the girls had short hair, and more than one had brown hair, but this girl, the one an IV in her wrist, brown eyes wide open and staring at the camera, struck a chord in him.  Penny, he’d thought, staring at her number.  024.  Was it her?  Could it be?

The Avengers had stared at the photos, all looking sick and disgusted and so, so sad, but Tony hadn’t let them think for long.  “He’s stealing children.  Kidnapping then and experimenting on them and...we can’t just sit back and let it happen.

It had been Natasha’s idea to send Helen in first.  At first, Tony had been opposed, but, Natasha had reminded him, they needed someone on the inside.  Really, truly on the inside, and no way Osborn would buy any of them.  And so they’d brought her into the room.  Showed her the pictures.  Asked if she’d be willing to take something like this on.

She’d agreed without hesitation.

Helen had been working for Osborn for a month and a half when Tony had gotten himself captured.

And Penny hadn’t taken but one day to investigate.  He’d been laying in his cell when he’d heard the soft noise of what he thought were footsteps.  And then he’d turned to find a child climbing backwards down the wall, her short brown hair familiar from the photo, her gray jumpsuit and red 024 stitched on the back unfamiliar.  

She’d been so afraid at first.  And never would Tony have thought that things would turn out the way they had.  He’d wanted to save those children, but the moment he and Steve had burst into the White Room, the sound of a gunshot had filled the room, and the girl in the bed close to Penny’s had gone still, eyes open, a bloody hole in the center of her forehead.  

They’d been about to shoot Penny when he’d shot the scientist in the face with his repulsor, Steve’s shield slicing through the air and slamming into the head of the scientist who had just killed the girl that Tony would one day learn had been called Willa.  Her jumpsuit had said 009.

There were more children, he knew.  More children out there being experimented on and tormented by Osborn’s scientist and guarded by the cowards who called themselves soldiers.  But he hadn’t been able to go after them...instead, he’d been forced to leave that to the others.  Mostly Natasha and Clint.  Because as he’d carried Penny Parker out of that building...when she’d looked up at the stars for the first time and gasped, he’d known that there was no one in the world that he would trust with her life.  No one but himself.  He would take care of her.  He would be...he would be her father.  Or as close to her father as he could get. 

He hadn’t expected to love her so much.  He hadn’t known that he was capable of loving anyone as much as he loved the girl who had become his daughter.  Who looked to him to for direction and who was so afraid of messing up but who wanted to be good so badly.  Who still had nightmares at least once a week of being sent back to that place, and who, on the days after those nightmares, would try to stick extra close to him. 

But he did.  He loved her.  And Pepper loved her.  And the Avengers all cared for her.  And for once in his life, he felt like he had a real family.  

Penny got out of school every day at 2:15.  She caught the bus right after school, and was typically home by 2:45 at the latest, although usually closer to 2:30 if she managed to catch an earlier bus.  At first, he’d been afraid to give her these freedoms...to send her to school and to let her spent time with her new friend Ned, but Pepper had pulled him aside on the girl’s first day of school, pulling him out of a spiral of ‘what if I’m doing the wrong thing’ and ‘what if something happens to her’ with a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“I know you love her, Tony.  I love her too.  But our girl is strong, and she needs these experiences.  We have to let her have some kind of normal life.  It’s what she deserves.  Even if she’s scared.  Even if we’re scared.”

And so Tony had done everything in his power to step back a little...to give her an age-appropriate amount of free time.  Soon, the girl had developed her own routine of sparring with Steve and going to Ned’s and getting herself to and from school every day.  He still asked that she text him when she was on her way home, or when she was running late, and he still occasionally broke into her school’s security system to catch a glimpse of her in class, just to make sure she was okay.

She was.  She was okay.  She was being a teenage girl, even occasionally rolling her eyes or sighing when inconvenienced, and the sight never failed to fill Tony’s hear with a wave of awe and love and so much pride.  All he had to do was remember the scared, confused girl he’d met on that first day...how she’d turned around after hopping off the wall, jumping back and meeting his eyes with her own frightened ones.  How she’d asked him how old he was and stared at his hand before he’d explained what a handshake was.  That girl had come so far...but he didn’t think he could ever stop worrying about her.

He was in a meeting with the Avengers when he got her text letting her know that she was on her way home.  Smiling a little at the words, he pocketed his phone before getting back to business, ignoring the little knowing smirks on the faces of his teammates.  They all thought ‘fatherhood suited him’ or some shit like that.  

It did.  It truly did.  Even if he’d never admit it to Steve Rogers.  He loved it more than any job or project or mission he’d ever had.  But the only one allowed to tease him about it was Rhodey.  And Pepper.  Occasionally Helen.  Possibly Bruce.  But not Steve.  

“How is she?”

“She’s fine,” Tony told the man, rolling his eyes.  

“She’s going to be better at hand to hand than me pretty soon.  Natasha, we’re going to have to bring you down to train her.”

Fine.  Maybe Steve too.  But only because he loved her.  Anyone that loved Tony’s kid was alright in his books.  

“As I was saying,” Steve continued, smiling a little at the papers in front of him before quickly sobering.  “We think we have some leads on more Osborn facilities.”  

“You mean...more of those schools?”  Thor asked, eyes narrow.  “With children?”

“There are at least seven more possible locations.  Penny said there were more children?”

Tony shook his head.  “She mentioned that the numbers changed, and that there were younger kids, but I haven’t asked her much about it.  I’m guessing they keep the younger kids separate.”

“How many children do we think there are?” Wanda wanted to know.

“I don’t think there’s any way of knowing until we clear these places out.”

“When do we get started?”  Clint asked, obviously more than ready to go.

“I was thinking we’d split up into teams and hit as many as we can at once.  We don’t want to give them a chance to keep moving these kids.”  

Or killing them, Tony thought.  But that part didn’t totally make sense.  Why take these kids, raise them, and train them only to kill them when they turned 18?  If they even made it that long.  So...why?  Why kill them if they made it to 18?  Unless...unless they were doing something else to them.

That’s why they needed to find Osborn.  

For the next hour, they worked out a plan, Tony arguing that he should be on one of the teams and Steve shooting him down every time.  “No way.  You’ve got a kid, Tony.”

“So does Barton!” he’d cried, gesturing to Clint.  

“Yeah, but their mother stays with them.”

“So does Pepper!”

“Tony, you can’t leave her right now,” Natasha murmured, shaking her head.  “None of us expect you to.  It’s only been a few months...we can’t risk something happening to you.”

And he opened his mouth to argue, but deep in his chest, he’d known that they were right.  Just the thought of leaving Penny...of something happening and him not coming back...it was unbearable.  How would she survive that?  How would she cope with losing him?  He’d just adopted her.  She’d just started to get comfortable with her new adoptive parents.  How could he put that at risk?

It was almost four when he finally stretched, yawning and leaning back in his seat.  “Alright.  Not that this isn’t riveting stuff, but I’d better go make sure my kid gets dinner.  She’s still pretty hopeless in the kitchen.”

“Maybe I’ll come by.  Give her some lessons?” Wanda suggested.  He nodded.

“Sounds good. I’ll ask her when she wants to have a play date.” 

They all laughed as he stood, and Rhodey rose as well.  “I think I’ll come up with you.  I haven’t seen my new niece in a while.”

“Okay, but I’m warning you, she just watched another Star Wars movie with her friend Ned so that’s probably what she’ll want to watch again if we have movie night.”

Rhodey chuckled.  “That’s fine with me.  And don’t tell me you don’t still love Star Wars.”

“Hey, Star Wars is fine until your kid wants to watch it every week.  She expected me to be surprised when Darth Vader told Luke he was his father.  I had to break it to her that I saw that movie in the theater...then I had to explain that yes, we did have theaters and movies when I was young.”

Rhodey chuckled as they stepped into the elevator and was still grinning when Friday deposited them on Tony’s floor.  The living room was dark, just like he’d left it, and he hesitated for a moment before stepping into the room.  Usually Penny did her homework in the living room if no one was around, but it wasn’t unheard of for her to work in her room.  So, with Rhodey trailing behind, he heeded for the girl’s bedroom and tapped his knuckles against the partially open door.  

“Pen?”

Her room was dark.  

That’s when the panic first started to rise in his stomach.  

“Penny!”  he called, stepping into her dark room and noticing that there was no backpack on the floor where she usually left it.  Her bathroom door was open, and the room was empty.  Catching on quickly, Rhodey turned and tapped on Tony’s bedroom door.  

“Penny!  You in there kiddo?”

Nothing.  His apartment was silent.

“Friday?  Where’s Penny?”

“Penny has not yet arrived home from school.”

His panic turned white-hot, threatening to choke him, and Rhodey pulled out his phone, stabbing the screen and holding it to his ear.  Penny always answered her phone.  Always.  

“Voicemail,” Rhodey whispered, and Tony knew something was wrong.  Nothing would keep Penny from coming home.  Nothing would stop her from answering her phone.

Rhodey put the phone to his ear again as Tony put his glasses on.  

“Get me her location.  Now, Fri!”

On the screen of his glasses, he watched the little red dot that was her location zero in on an alley a block and a half away from her school.  “Get me a live feed!”

The screen changed from a maze of streets to actual security footage.

“Cap?  Penny’s not home...we don’t know where she is!”  Rhodey barked into his phone.

The alley was empty, and Tony was moving before he was aware of it, the Iron Man suit forming around him as he raced toward the window that opened for him.

“Tony’s tracking her watch now.  She’s not answering her phone!”

That was the last thing Tony heard before he was shooting across the sky, repulsers at full blast as he moved from panic to bargaining.  If she was okay, he wouldn’t yell.  He wouldn’t let her know how terrified he had been.  He wouldn’t be angry.  He would explain very calmly that he’d been worried and that she always had to tell him if she was going somewhere after school.  That she was allowed but that he had to know.  Always.  He would take her to the movies, just the two of them, and get her popcorn and candy and all the soda she wanted and they’d watch whatever movie she wanted.  He would make her waffles for breakfast, with the chocolate chips, and mac and cheese for lunch.  He’d take her to the compound or take her to the beach or a fancy restaurant or Italy or wherever the hell she wanted to go if only she were okay.  If only she was in that alley, reading a book or doing homework or making out with Ned...anything.  Anything.

He landed with a clank, stomach churning when the alley was empty.  “Penny?” he whispered, voice lodged in his throat.  As he moved toward the place in his display where the red dot blinked, he spotted it.  Her backpack, laying in a heap by a dumpster.  Her cellphone, crushed as if under someone’s shoe.  And placed neatly on top of her backpack, as if intentionally, was her watch.

Thank you for reading! 

Chapter Text

Hello everyone! I want to thank everyone who has been reading and reviewing, and for your patience! I hope you enjoy the chapter :)

When Penny came to, every part of her ached. She groaned, bringing a hand up to her head. Her bed felt strange and her blankets weren't as warm as usual. In fact, she was cold. It was strange...she hadn't been cold in a long time. Friday always kept her room warm, but she didn't quite remember going to bed. Was she sick? She hadn't been sick since Tony had brought her to the tower. "Friday?" she asked, shivering and huddling under the blankets. Blanket. "Where's Tony?" Silence. Her room was silent and she huddled even more, pushing her face into the pillow that didn't feel as comfortable as before. "Friday? Can you turn the temperature up?"

Nothing.

She cast her mind back as she tried to wake herself up. She had gone to school the day before, she remembered that. Had talked to Ned and taken notes in class. Had left school...had she done her homework? Was it time to get up? What day was it?

Groaning and rolling over, she reached out for her cellphone which she'd begun using to tell the time, and to text with Ned and even Tony sometimes, when her hand met nothing but air. She frowned, shifting on the bed and lazily feeling again, trying to find her nightstand. Instead, her hand found nothing but the wall.

Penny froze, then opened her eyes, heart in her throat.

No.

No, no, no. This wasn't real, she told herself, slamming her eyes shut once more as they filled with tears. This wasn't real because there was no way...no way she was back in that place. That place was gone and she was...she was seeing things. Because she was safe now. Tony had saved her and now he was like her father and Pepper was like her mother. The Avengers were something like friends. And...and she was safe. At home. In her room.

"Tony?" she asked in a whisper that shook, a tear escaping as she curled up under a too-familiar blanket. He was in the other room. He was right down the hall. And Friday would tell him that she needed him and he would come and tell her that it had just been a nightmare. That she was okay. That she was home and safe and that she never had to go back to that place. "Tony! Tony!" She threw the blanket off, screaming like she'd never screamed before as she looked wildly around the room that she knew...jumping up, she raced to the door, the door she knew, the door she'd seen so many times in life and in nightmares. Her fists came up to slam against it, the sides of her hands bashing against the metal so hard that it left dents but never broke through. "Tony! Tony! Tony! No!" she wailed, tears coming down her cheeks and dripping onto her shirt...her gray shirt. No...not a shirt. A jumpsuit. That's what it was called. And on her chest, the red number.

024.

"No!" she screamed again, feeling herself fall apart as she beat her fists over and over against the door, turning her hands so that her knuckles took the brunt on the impact and before long, her hands were bleeding, the skin of her knuckles busting open. But she didn't care. This couldn't be real. She couldn't be back here. This place had been destroyed and Tony had said that she never had to come back and Susie…

Susie. She faltered, resting her forehead against the cold door and trying to remember. She'd seen Susie. Why hadn't she told Tony? Why had she tried to follow Susie?

She took a step back, then another, backing up until her back hit the wall, then slowly slid down to the floor, breath coming in short, painful gasps. Pressing a hand to her chest, she took deep, gasping breaths, shaking her head and closing her eyes. She couldn't breathe...she couldn't breathe! It was just like her nightmares only it wasn't a nightmare because her hands were bloody and throbbing with pain and the tightness in her chest was real. This was real.

Taking a shuddering breath that proved nearly impossible, she began to hum the song that Tony had played on the piano that first night after her nightmare...the one he'd played for her so many times that she had it memorized. Humming the notes, she tried to put herself back in that room with Tony and the piano the first time she'd heard music. She remembered her head on his shoulder, and his hand in her hair. The way he played until she fell asleep. One shuddering breath turned into two until she could breathe again, but tears still streamed down her cheeks.

She wasn't at home. She was in this place again...but it was impossible! They'd said the school was gone.

How was she supposed to get home now?

The door to her room opened and she jerked her head up at the light, bloody hands balling into bloody fists.

"024. It's good to see you again," came the familiar voice...Osborn. Norman Osborn.

"That's not my name," she snarled, glaring and jumping to her feet. It wasn't okay for him to hurt her. It wasn't okay for anyone to hurt her! She wasn't going to let him hurt her again! "My name is Penny!"

"I knew we'd have some work to do...but I have to admit, it's worse than I expected. Stark really did a number on you."

She lunged, ready to fight...ready to take him down, but the gun he pulled and pointed at her made her stop in her tracks. She wasn't bullet proof. Glaring but freezing in place, Penny watched him.

"Now, 024, there's no need for that," he soothed, giving her a patronizing smile that made her bristle. "This is your home. Surely you remember the rules."

Of course she remembered the rules. Of course she knew every single one as if she'd never left. And that's what scared her the most...what if she'd never left? But she had! She'd gone with Tony and she'd lived in the tower and she'd explored the Compound and...and...and she'd gone to school! She'd met Ned and MJ and Tony had adopted her and...and it had all been real. She'd left this place once. And she would leave it again.

When she only stared at him, Norman lowered the gun, that patronizing smile still there. "Well, now that we've got that settled, I'm afraid there were a few changes in your absence. We had to move to a new facility, and we are no longer able to employ teachers. Also, we've been forced to amend the time table a bit. It seems you were able to survive the virus...both you and subject 019 have proven to be most resilient. Further testing will be done, of course."

"Where do you send us? After we turn eighteen?" she demanded. He closed his mouth and tilted his head with a little smirk. "I know our parents don't come for us...you killed my parents!"

"Well, I didn't personally kill them…" he trailed off, waving a hand. "Like I said, you won't have to wait until you turn eighteen to find out. I'm thinking a few weeks should do the trick."

"Find out what! Where do you send us? Why have us train and go to classes just to kill us!"

"Well, every citizen needs a basic education," he told her with a shrug. "No matter where you end up, we assure that a quality education has been given to all subjects. Critical thinking skills, etc. Of course, it doesn't really matter most of the time, but we couldn't exactly train you 24/7, and keeping children locked in cells for half the day is bad for morale. Thus, school. Books. Free time." He shrugged "I'm not a monster, 024. The experiments are a necessary evil to prepare you...and to weed out the weak, of course. We have to know how your bodies work after we introduce the various serums. We've never been able to perfectly recreate the Super Soldier Serum that was given to Steve Rogers, but with every trial we're getting closer. Yours...well, we went a little off book with the spider, but…" he shrugged. "It all worked out."

"You're trying to make super soldiers?" she asked, shaking her head. "Why?"

"We are making super soldiers, 024. Maybe not ones as good as Captain America and the Winter Soldier, but we're getting closer every year, hell, every day. Pretty soon, we'll crack it. In the mean time, we have children like you who will grow up to be very valuable."

"Valuable," she repeated, voice flat, wheels in her brain spinning. "To whom?"

"Look at you. Stark sure did help you work on those communication skills. Maybe we should start encouraging bonds between the subjects. Having a confidant, or several confidants, might bring something new out in our subjects." He thought for a moment, seeming to speak to himself. "Of course, we always had to make sure that no one got too close. We couldn't have any sexual activity between subjects...and we didn't want to risk them banding together. It would be a shame to have to eliminate an entire class because of a rebellion." Norman shook his head and gave her another one of those smiles that set her teeth on edge, his voice cold. "Anyway, the organizations that can make use of our subjects have the technology to make all of it irrelevant if they choose."

"All of it? All of what?"

"Confidants. Education. That scientific mind of yours. I know that Cho was sneaking you papers. I'll admit, I was impressed. Some organizations prefer an educated subject. Some don't. It all depends on what they choose to do with them."

"You sell us," she whispered, throat suddenly dry.

"To the highest bidder," he told her agreeably. "A subject like you, with the abilities you have...I doubt a foreign government would be able to outbid Hydra quite honestly. Not for someone with your potential. A veritable 'spider-girl.' Can you imagine? The wall climbing, the strength...you could do great things for them."

Hydra. She'd never heard the name...did they have anything to do with the Avengers? Penny didn't ask. Norman was stepping away from her door, obviously done with their conversation.

"Well, anyway, I'm sure you have a lot to think about. Classes are no longer available, I'm afraid, as we seem to have lost most of our staff. But your day starts tomorrow at seven sharp, same as before. Training. Breakfast. More training. Unfortunately we're down to just a few subjects but we'll see about having more brought over. I'm sure the Avengers are going to be bothering us soon enough, so we might have to speed up the process."

"Is Susie here?" Penny demanded, brushing off thoughts of 'speeding up the process.' She wasn't sure she even wanted to know what that meant.

"019? Yes. I'm sure you'll see each other soon enough. We've been testing out some new procedures. I think you'll be impressed."

And then he was gone, leaving her alone in the tiny room. A cot with a thin gray blanket. No windows. No more outside. No more training with Steve or working in the lab with Tony...not here. Just a cot, a blanket, a toilet, and a door.

Penny sat down hard on her cot, dropping her face into her hands and trying to keep it together...tried to pull the pieces of her together into a whole, grasping at the frayed edges. Tony would come, she told herself. The Avengers would come again. She was going to get out. She'd see the outside again. She'd be free again. It was going to be okay.

Everything was going to be okay. It had to be. And hopefully, she'd never find out firsthand who Hydra was.

Norman hadn't been lying. After an evening spent pacing her room, climbing the walls and pressing her ear to the door, Penny was served a bowl of stew just like before. With the first bite she was crying again, tears of frustration and fury and fear...fear that this was it. That this was once more her life. Only now, she knew better. Now, she knew about mac and cheese and waffles with chocolate. She knew about pizza and fresh bread and Pepper's tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich. Compared to all that, she thought that if she had to eat this every night for the next few years, she'd go insane...but she ate the bowl of soup anyway, taking deep breaths and reminding herself that Tony would come. Her father would come. The Avengers would come. In the meantime, she would breathe and she would stay alive.

When the light in her room came on, Penny knew that it was seven am. Not allowing herself to think about the mornings spent warm and comfortable in her bed at the tower, in her real home, followed by sparring sessions with Steve, long hot showers, and breakfast with Tony, she took the breakfast smoothie that a solider (no...Rhodey had said that these weren't soldiers...these were assholes) that an asshole handed her, swallowing it down and ignoring the taste. She'd never thought about how bad it was...had never known that breakfast could be eggs and sausage and toast, or pastries covered in icing and filled with jam, or the waffles that Tony had taught her to make.

She drank it anyway.

And then she followed the asshole down the corridor, eyes darting around, looking for windows. Doors that might lead to the outside. There weren't nearly as many guards as there had been before, and most of the doors they passed looked like the door to her room. Made of thick metal that would take her a bit of time to break through with a tiny window at the top. All probably locked.

Tony was coming. She was getting out. All she had to do was bide her time. But if she could escape first, that would be even better.

The training room looked the same as before, with a boxing ring just like the one she sparred with Steve in...that she'd spent most of her life sparring in. People in white coats stood around, watching as she was brought in, and she glared at them, something she'd never dared do before. They weren't scientists. They were monsters. What kind of people did this to kids?

It was wrong. Tony had told her and she believed him. It wasn't okay for people to hurt her. To keep her locked up in this place. Jerking her arm away from the guard who went to grab it, she glared at him too. "Asshole," she snarled, taking a tiny grain of pleasure in his eyes that widened in surprise. Whirling around and praying he didn't shoot her in the back, she approached the boxing ring, knowing she had no choice. Knowing that they would do awful things to her if she refused. So she would win. She wouldn't go back to the White Room. Not today.

She didn't recognize the boy that was led in by another guard, with his shock of blond hair and wide blue eyes, his face almost blank as he regarded her. What did he know about her? Had he heard that she'd gotten out? Where had he come from? How many children did they keep in this place...in these places? How many schools were there?

She slid one foot back, fists up, assuming the position she'd known for as long as she'd been alive. The boy did the same, and with a lump in her throat, Penny stepped forward, ready to hurt someone else to keep herself safe. She had no other choice...but she knew as soon as her fist made contact with his nose, that the nightmares were only going to get worse.

Thank you for reading.

Chapter Text

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing!!  I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Penny fought the blond boy over and over that day. In the boxing ring. With the lights turned off. In a tiny, enclosed room the size of the one she slept in, the two of them locked in until the fight was over...until one of them was knocked down. Never before had she been forced to fight the same person over and over until it was time for lunch, once more in her room in the dim light coming from a single bulb in the ceiling. Despite repeated attempts to speak with him, to get his name, the boy had refused to speak to her, instead, focusing with everything he had on the fight.

It hadn't been enough.

The people in white coats had nodded approvingly over and over, and Penny had felt herself getting ready to scream every time. To demand to know why they were doing this! Why they were making her hurt the boy she only knew as 116. Again and again she knocked him to the mat, and she knew that the two of them were bleeding and bruised, just like she'd always been before. Tony would be upset. But, she reminded herself, he'd be glad that she was fighting back. He'd want her to fight back...wouldn't want her to let herself be hurt.

No part of her wanted to fight him. No part of her took pleasure in knocking him down over and over. But she knew what would happen if she refused to fight. She knew what they would do to her if they suspected her of going easy on him. So she fought. She kicked and punched and remembered sparring with Steve and her lifetime of training for this. And she hated herself for it.

And then, when the training was finally over and it would have been time to go to class, she was instead taken back to her room and locked in. For hours.

Penny managed to last for three days. For three days she did exactly as she was told. She fought. She trained. She paced all evening in her tiny cell, feeling her mind start to unravel. She tried to focus on her memories of outside and of Tony, of being safe in her room or of laying on top of the tower, one foot hanging over the side as she watched the sky. And for three days, it worked. Each day she would fight the same boy, his face bloody and bruised, and she tried not to hurt him too much. Tried to talk to him.

Every day he refused.

And then, on the fourth day when the lights came up and her door opened, the same guard stepping inside with her smoothie, something in her snapped. Taking it in a shaking hand, she turned, pulled her arm back, and threw it at the wall, keeping eye contact with the guard as the glass shattered the green smoothie dripped down the wall. The guard pulled out his gun, about to step forward, and, not caring that what she was doing was stupid, Penny grabbed it, crushing the metal in her fingers, then bringing back a fist. Her fist made contact with his nose, just like it had the blond boy's more than once, and the man dropped to his knees. Bringing up her own knee, she got him in the nose again, then slammed a fist into his temple, watching with satisfaction as he hit the ground.

And then she was running, moving in the opposite direction of the training room and where the cafeteria had been before. There were cameras, of course...she knew that there were cameras in this place, but maybe no one was watching. Maybe she could get out! For a moment, she thought she should have grabbed his gun, or searched him for another one, but she knew that she'd never be able to shoot someone...to kill them like that. 

Bare feet slapping against the white and black marbled tile she ran, arms pumping, turning the corner and pausing when she found herself at a dead end, doors all around her. Panting, she looked up and around, finally spotting the vent cover. Pressing her hands against the wall, Penny hoisted herself up, trying to be silent as she pulled the vent cover off, slipped into the vent shaft, then carefully replaced it. And then she crawled, trying to be quiet and praying that no one had noticed yet. The guard had been in her room. He'd been hidden from view in the hallway...so maybe it would take a minute for the others to notice.  They were understaffed compared to before...not nearly as many guards as before.  So she had a chance.  There was a chance!

Penny didn't have her watch. She didn't have her phone. She had nothing to lead Tony to her. And so, she thought as she crawled forward, heart pounding, she would escape. She would get out and find him and she could live in the tower and go to school and she would never think about Susie again! She'd never wander off. She'd never break the rules. She would be the best kid in the whole world if only she could get out of this godforsaken place!

Practically holding her breath, Penny crawled forward. She needed to find a way out. Needed to find...something. Some way out. Or some way to communicate with Tony. That would work too. She crawled as quickly as she could, looking down as she did so and peering through the vent covers into the rooms. Most that she passed were empty and she kept moving, her heart pounding in her ears. This was her one chance...and she hadn't even planned it! Why hadn't she planned it?

Just as she was starting to despair, taking rights and lefts and random and trying to make it as hard as possible to follow her while praying that there were no cameras in the vents, she saw it. Below her was a room. A room filled with filing cabinets and a single desk. And on that desk was a phone. It was beige, with push buttons unlike the phone that Tony had given her, but she had seen pictures of phones like this. Could Tony track it? She had no idea. But she knew his cellphone number. It had been something he'd insisted she memorize, along with the address of the tower, just in case. In case she was ever lost. In case she ever needed him.

She couldn't afford to hesitate. Couldn't afford to let them catch her before she at least tried to get out.

So she removed the vent cover, trying to be quiet, then leapt down to the floor, immediately looking for a door. There was one to her right, a normal wooden door so unlike the door to her room, and it was almost all the way shut. Racing over, she gently pulled it shut, then clicked the lock before running back over to the phone. All around her were filing cabinets, all with drawers shut tight, but she paid them no mind as she dialed the number, listening with her heart in her throat as it rang.

And then he picked up, his voice as haggard as she felt.

"Hello? Who is this?"

The tears immediately flooded her vision but she spoke through them, not letting herself waste a single second. "Tony...Tony it's me. It's Penny," she whispered, her voice barely a hiss. "I'm at the school….a school...not the same one. Norman Osborn...he's here and…"

"Penny? Oh god, Penny!" he cried, sounding like he, too, was crying, and she gripped the edge of the desk in a grip so tight she felt the wood splinter. "It's okay. You're okay, honey. I'm tracing the call. Friday, trace it!" She blinked hard, lips trembling as she fought the tears. "Where are you? Are you hurt?"

"When...when the guard...he came to my room...I'm...I'm back in that room…" She broke off with a sob but did her best to soldier on. "I just...I hit him and I ran. I climbed into the vents like before…" She pressed a hand to her mouth and glanced back at the door, listening. How many guards were there? She'd only seen four at the most. How many scientists? How many people with guns. "He had a gun...but I grabbed it…"

"Okay, you're okay. You did good. What happened then?" he asked, his voice gentle despite what sounded like tears. Her heart was beating too fast and she couldn't stop staring at the door, waiting for guards to burst in with guns.

"I found a room with a phone," she whispered. "You said I had to memorize your number."

"I did. And I'm really glad I did, honey. Are you alone?"

"Yeah. But...they're going to find me."

As if her words had summoned them, she heard footsteps, and she knew suddenly that this could be it. This could be the last time she ever spoke to Tony.

"Okay, just hang tight. I'm having Friday trace the call and…"

"Tony," she interrupted, wiping at the tears still falling down her face. She wanted to tell him what it was like...how scared she was and how they were making her fight and it was all as if she'd never left this place. But she didn't have time. The footsteps were coming closer.

"What, sweetheart? What's wrong?" he demanded, voice urgent.

"I…" She swallowed. "I love you so much. You saved me...you saved me and you...you're my dad. You're the only dad I remember and I love you."

"Penny…"

"I love you. I love you." She whispered it again, two, three times, ignoring his increasingly anxious voice before she pulled the phone away from her ear. Picking up the cradle, she placed it on the back of the desk, then placed the receiver gently down on the desk beside it. On the other end of the table was a stack of folders and she slid them over, blocking the phone from sight, not bothering to read them. She could still hear him yelling, but hopefully they couldn't...not without her enhanced hearing.

Moving over to the door, she pressed herself to the wall beside it, climbing up above the doorframe, waiting and listening for guards as Tony screamed her name, his voice far away and almost too soft to hear. She didn't have to wait long. In seconds, there was a body slamming against the door, then another, the wood splintering and the door flying open. As soon as the guard stepped inside, she reached down and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him up as hard as she could and slamming his head into the ceiling before letting him drop. Dropping, she hit him hard enough to knock him out...maybe enough to kill him.

Either way, he went down.

She lunged for the second one, ducking under a punch and grabbing him by the throat, then delivering a punch that would have knocked Steve out had she ever managed to land a blow to his temple...and had she ever wanted to. Ducking down, she dodged a punch that wasn't a punch...the man was holding a syringe. In the background, Tony kept yelling for her and she wished that he would hurry up and trace her! And that he would be quiet.

She needed to concentrate. Moving instinctually, she dodged the syringe again, grabbing the man's hand, twisting it, then grabbing the needle he dropped as she snapped the bone in his arm. Shooting a hand out, she stuck him in the shoulder with it and depressed the plunger, then dodged another guard with a syringe. It was a small room, and they only had so much room to maneuver...and there were three more guards.

One picked up his gun and aimed it, ignoring the shouts of the other guard. "We can't harm the subject!"

"We have to contain it!"

Penny jumped, landing on the ceiling and scurrying forward. She needed to lead them away from the phone. They couldn't know that Tony was still on the line...she needed to give him as much time as possible. So she headed for the vent once more, climbing inside as quickly as she could just as a 'boom' filled the air...and her leg exploded in pain. She screamed, the sound echoing in the vents, but she didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Her heart was pounding and as she forced her hands and one working knee to propel her forward, taking a left at the first fork, then a right, leaving a trail of blood in her wake, she kept her lips pressed together hard, doing her best not to let a sound out.

Finally, listening to shouts and footsteps below, Penny eased herself to a stop, turning over to sit and take a look at her knee, but all she could see in the darkness was that it was covered in blood. With a shaky hand, she pulled the fabric of her jumpsuit away, wincing at the smell of blood that was quickly becoming overwhelming in the tiny space, then ripped part of her sleeve off to press against it. She couldn't tell if the bullet was still inside, but either way, she hoped her healing would take care of it soon. Pressing her head gently against the metal behind her, she took a deep breath, then another. She had to stay calm. She had to trust that Tony would find her.

And then she heard movement.

Opening her eyes, she watched a figure crawl toward her, moving quickly, the entire vent shaft shrouded in darkness. But then, as they got closer, moving with one hand in front of the other, she knew...she knew exactly who was coming.

"Susie," she whispered, tears running down her cheeks. Had she been crying the whole time. "You have to help me."

The girl paused, and in the dim light, Penny watched her blank face falter a little, eyes narrowing. "What?"

"Susie. It's me. It's Penny!"

The girl shook her head. "You're out of bounds, 024. I've been instructed to bring you back using whatever means necessary."

"Susie! You know me. Don't you remember?"

"You're out of bounds, 024. I've been…"

"Stop!" Penny cried, lip wobbling as she took a gasping breath. "This isn't you. Please...what they did to us was wrong! I've been outside! You have too! I lived with the Avengers and they're not bad, Susie! I even met The Black Widow! Remember...the spy! You always loved spy novels. She's a real spy, and she taught me how to swim, and I ate different food and...and I went to a real school!" The girl just stared at her, puzzled but not upset as far as Penny could tell, so she went on, tears pouring down her cheeks. "Tony Stark adopted me. He's my dad. And you could stay with him! He could adopt you too, or find you a family! You can go to school and meet my friends, please...please if you help me, we can get out!"

The girl that Penny had known for years, who had been her only friend for so long, stared at her, and for just a second, her eyes softened. "Penny," she started, and Penny reached out for her hand. They could hold hands. No one could stop them. Susie took it, eyes conflicted for just a moment...and then there was a prick against Penny's skin and she looked down, watching the plunger press forward under Susie's thumb.

"You're out of bounds. I've been instructed to bring you back through whatever means necessary."

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

When Penny woke, she was laying on a table.  Her hands were strapped down, just like the White Room, but when she opened her eyes with a gasp, she knew she wasn’t in the White Room...this room was a light blue with clouds painted on the walls.  Frowning, she started to sit up, then was forced back down when the restraints came up short.  Yanking hard, she tried to free herself, but her body still felt heavy...weak.  Groaning as her head spun, she dropped back down to the bed, noticing that there was no pillow.  No blanket.  

Tugging uselessly against her restraints, Penny felt frustrated tears fill her eyes but blinked hard, swallowing and trying to to hold them back.  This wasn’t the White Room.  She’d called Tony.  Things might be okay.  Maybe he’d been able to trace the call.  Maybe she’d kept him on the line for long enough for him to trace it.  She’d done her best and now she just had to wait...to stay alive until he came.

Her leg was throbbing, and when she lifted her head to get a look as best she could, she saw that her leg right above her knee was wrapped in a thick white bandage.  There was no blood, so that was something.  Trying to sit up more slowly this time, she tried to keep her leg still and managed to get a look around the room.  There were two more beds, both empty, both right beside hers.  On the other side of the room were a line of cribs, all with little blankets draped over the sides.  She stared at them, then at the walls covered in clouds.  

Clouds just like she’d seen in her picture book.  But not real clouds.  She’d seen real clouds.  These were like clouds from a cartoon, big and puffy, and she found herself staring at them, eyes drooping as she felt her head spin.  They’d drugged her...what with, she wasn’t sure.  So she stared at them as they seemed to move on the wall and before long, she was asleep again.

When she woke again, someone was standing over her and for just a moment, for a fleeting second, she thought it was Tony.  A tiny smile turned the corner of her lips and she blinked, his name on her mouth, when she opened her eyes and saw Norman Osborn.  Jerking back, she dropped the smile, glaring at him instead.

“I have to admit, 024, I didn’t think you’d be such a problem so soon.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped, going through the worst words she knew and choosing that one.  

“Tony Stark has certainly had an influence,” he told her dryly, and she yanked on her restraints again, this time bending the metal.  “024, if you don’t stop I’ll be forced to drug you again and really, I’d rather not.”

She paused, dropping her hands onto the bed.

“Now, if you think you can manage to behave yourself, I think we can have you sent back to your room.  You’ll need to take the rest of the day, but I’ll expect you back in training tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“What if I can’t walk?” she snapped, tugging again on her restraints.

“Well then, you’ll have learned a valuable lesson about following the rules.”

A man with a white coat came in then, releasing her from her restraints, and then one of the guards was standing in the doorway, showing off a black eye and a crooked nose.  Norman and the man in the white coat left, and the guard grabbed her arm, yanking her from the bed and ignoring her when she stumbled.  Opening her mouth to protest, he shot her a look, tightening his grip and dragging her forward.  Her leg gave after a few steps, a throbbing pain making her gasp and almost fall, and the guard grabbed her other arm, throwing her against the wall.

“Are you going to walk or am I going to have to drag you?”

“I’m trying, asshole!’

The fist that connected with her nose hurt less than the gunshot wound in her leg, head snapping back and banging against the wall.  Immediately, her nose was gushing blood, and the guard grabbed her by the arm and made good on his threat to drag her, paying no mind to the blood dripping on the floor and leaving a trail all the way to her room where she was unceremoniously thrown, legs buckling as she dropped onto the floor.  He slammed the door as he left, and Penny brought a shaking hand up to her nose, pinching her nostrils shut and trying to stop the bleeding..

Tony would come soon.  He had to.  Preferably before more of the guards got their revenge.  

Penny picked herself up from the floor and managed to limp over to the bed.  Easing herself back, she took her blanket, folded it, and propped it under her knee, trying to remember everything she knew about injuries.  Because she had to be able to fight the next day.  She didn’t have a choice...she wouldn’t go back to the White Room.  Not ever.  So as impossible as it felt, she lay in bed for the rest of the evening, keeping as still as she could, and eating the dinner that was brought to her.  

By the morning, her leg felt somewhat better, and she managed to stand without swaying too much, forcing it to take her weight and wondering if Tony was coming soon.  If the Avengers would burst in any time to take her away from this place.  Because they were coming.  They would come for her.  Tony would come for her.  He loved her.  She was his daughter.  She told herself these things over and over as she limped along just a little, forcing herself to keep up with the guard whose eye had nearly healed.  She didn’t doubt he would be happy to take it out on her if they were late and it was her fault.

The boxing ring stood in the center of the room, surrounded as always by the people in white coats.  Scientists, she knew now.  People who wanted to study her.  Who didn’t even see her as human.  She glared at them as she limped just a little up to the ring, climbing inside and turning to face her opponent who was being led by their own guard.  Only it wasn’t the blond boy.

It was Susie.  

Penny swallowed hard, bringing her fists up and assuming the position as Susie did, their eyes meeting and locking in.  Just like so many times before, Susie shifted, her own fissts coming up, and Penny knew that she couldn't beat her.  Not with her leg the way it was.  Not with a still-healing bullet wound.  So they would take her to the White Room?  Or would she just have to lose to Susie over and over until they dragged her back to her cell.

It was the latter.

She gave everything she had, ducking and dodging, relying on her senses to move as quickly as she could, but an hour in and her leg almost refused to hold her weight, and Susie’s fist hit her nose with such force that she felt it snap and her whole body was thrown backwards, head bouncing against the floor as the world spun too quickly around her.  

The only sound for a moment was the scratch of pen on paper, and she listened to it as she breathed, trying to get her bearings.  Tony was coming.  Her father was coming.  She was going to be okay.  She was going to get out of here.  She had to.  She would not die here.

“024, on your feet!” one of them demanded, and Penny pressed her hands to the mat, teeth gritted as she forced herself upright.  Susie waited, her eyes flat, as Penny got her feet under her and stood, wiping her hand over her nose and glancing down at the blood covering her hand.  

And then they were back in position.  “Susie,” Penny whispered, voice pleading as she glanced over at the scientists.  

“We can’t talk here, 024,” Susie muttered.  But her eyes were different...different than they’d been in the alley.  Different even than they’d been in the vents.  They were normal.  Not dilated or laser focused.  Just normal, the eyes that Penny had looked into so many times.

What had they done to Susie?  Which Susie was she talking to now?

“So where?” Penny demanded under her breath.

“Nowhere.”

“We have to talk!  We can get out of here,” Penny hissed, ducking as Susie threw a punch, doing her best to step to the side in order to keep her leg from buckling.  “If we work together,”

And then she was on the mat again, head pounding, nose doubly broken.  Was that possible?

Susie stood over her, eyes still flat as she glared down at her.  “We’re never getting out of here,” she hissed, mouth barely moving.

Once she was on her feet again and they were close enough to speak, Penny tried again.  “You’ve seen the outside.  You know what it’s like,” she whispered, finally managing to land a blow.  Susie staggered back and Penny followed, landing another one to her side.  “If we worked together,” she started.

Susie ducked a third blow and spun around, grabbing her wrist and starting to bend it behind her back.  “They will kill all of us,” she hissed, squeezing hard and shoving Penny away before breaking her arm.  

She could have broken her arm.  

Before, Susie might have done it.  But what about now?  Her friend had been outside.  They both had.

Sweat ran down both of their faces, and Penny wiped a quick hand over her forehead, trying to put her weight on her good leg.  “Not if we take them out first,” she whispered, lowering her eyes and glancing at the scientists who were scribbling on their clipboards.  

“They have guns.”

“We can still take them.”  

Susie shook her head, and then the fight was on once more.  

At the end of the day, she was left laying on her cot, her whole leg throbbing.  She had to get out...she had to.  

Tony was coming for her.  He would come for her.  

Sitting up a little, she looked at the bandage around her knee, poking at it tentatively and flinching when she caught sight of the blood on the side of the bandage.  Dropping back onto the cot, she closed her eyes and took deep breaths, imagining the sky and the clouds that would float by.  Her bedroom with her warm bed covered in pillows.  The pool filled with cool water and learning how to swim with Natasha.  Sparring with Steve. 

The piano.  Music.  Laying with her head against Tony’s shoulder as he played music for her.  Tony was coming.  She’d called him.  Maybe he’d been able to track the call.  She’d done everything she could.  

The next day was even worse.  Her leg nearly refused to hold her weight, and when Susie spotted her from the boxing ring, something passed over her face.  Something like worry.  But this time, Penny didn’t bother trying to talk to her.  Didn’t have the energy.  Instead, she forced herself to fight until she couldn’t fight anymore, a kick aimed at her ribs knocking her down and her body refusing to pick her back up.

“Get up,” Susie snapped under her breath, and all around them were the people in coats and the soldiers with guns and Penny felt a tear run down her cheek.  Was this her life now?  “Penny, get up.”  

If she couldn’t fight, what would they do to her?  Did it matter?  Her leg refused to take her weight and she clutched her hands into fists at her side, frustrated tears breaking through as she fought a sob.  She couldn’t get up.  She couldn’t fight anymore.  She couldn’t stand this.  Where was Tony?  Why hadn’t he come for her yet?

“Take 019 back to her room,” one of the scientists ordered.

“Penny, get up,” Susie whispered, face paling as a soldier approached.  “You have to...they’re going to…”

“And take 024 to the White Room.”  

She wanted to fight.  Wanted to scream.  Wanted to break out of this place somehow and find Tony and go back home and never, ever leave again.  But all she could do was stare up at Susie who looked suddenly so sad and so afraid and so angry all at the same time.  

“It’s okay,” Susie whispered before stepping back, glancing at the approaching soldiers.  “It’s going to be okay.”

And then hands were hauling her up, ignoring her cries of pain as the foot of her bad leg knocked against the floor.  Susie was led away while Penny was carried down the long hallway that had haunted her dreams, the door in front of them the same as ever even if they were in a different school now.  

No.  Not school.  This wasn’t school.  She’d been to school.  School was safe.  School was where Ned was, and where she learned things.  This...this place was a prison.  And cold terror seized her as the door to the White Room opened and she was dropped onto a bed, the straps wrapping around her wrists and ankles.  

This wasn’t okay.  It wasn’t okay for people to hurt her.  

Penny screamed, trying to yank her arms away from the straps, but the scientists ignored her like they always ignored her and there was a needle plunged into her arm and she screamed as fire filled her veins, making her vision go fuzzy...making her whole world turn into pain as she burned from the inside.

And then the world went black.  But she dreamed.  It wasn’t like before, when she’d been sick at the tower with Tony.  Now she heard voices all the time.  Voices that told her things and it felt like her body was moving but it couldn’t have been...right?  Because she was asleep.  At least, it felt like she was asleep.  Her knee throbbed and she wanted to beg for pain medicine but her mouth wouldn’t work.  Voices gave orders that she couldn’t obey because her whole body was weighed down with burning lead and her hands hurt, the bones in her fists aching but that didn’t make any sense.

“Penny!”  The voice was anguished.  Pleading.  And that word made things come rushing back, her brain shoving hard against whatever had been weighing it down until she was blinking, the darkness giving way to fuzzy shapes and colors that made no sense for what felt like several minutes.  People were murmuring in the background and there were so many heartbeats and the world was so sharp and bright...but she wasn’t in the White Room anymore.

She was standing over Susie, the girl’s bloody face looking back at her from the floor of the boxing ring.  But...she’d been in the White Room!  So why were her knuckles split open, dripping blood?  Why was her knee covered in blood that soaked through her jumpsuit?  Why did her head pound in time with her heartbeat?  Why were the scientists writing things down and nodding to one another, whispering about a successful trial?  

“Penny?”  Susie whispered, loud enough that the scientists could hear, and Penny shook her head.

“Susie?  What….”

“Take 024 and 019 to the White Room and inject them both with X03.  It seems the subject is able to override the drug given enough time but….”

Penny stopped listening as Susie’s face paled, the pieces clicking into place.  The drug...they’d given her a drug and then...then she’d fought Susie.  She hadn’t known what she’d been doing...had they done the same to Susie.  If they gave them both the drug...if they made them fight each other on the drug...they were developing something that made them...what?  Follow orders?  Without them even being conscious of it?  Her mind raced as the soldiers approached.  

Susie was staring at her and Penny knew that they couldn’t let the soldiers take them to the White Room.  She wouldn’t let them give her that drug again and she wouldn’t let them give it to Susie.  Tony was coming.  He had to be on his way.  How long had it been?  A day?  Two?  

Looking down at Susie, she gave her old friend a long look.  “Wait,” she mouthed, the two of them frozen in place as the soldiers approached.  It was all happening too fast but there was no choice.  They couldn’t just keep fighting and hope that the Avengers would save them.  They had to get out.  Now.  Before they could make this drug any better.  

What if Tony came and she fought him?  What if she killed him?  He was just a human.

The soldier stood at the edge of the ring, obviously waiting for her, and Penny kept her eyes locked on Susie as another approached from the other side.  “Hallway,” she hissed under her breath, then turned to go with the soldier, Susie pulling herself slowly to her feet and swaying.  Penny tried not to look at the bruises on the side of her head, or the blood dripping down her cheek.  Tried not to think about how she’d done that.  

It hadn’t been her.  She hadn’t made that choice.

She felt like a coiled spring as she limped out of the room, the soldier’s hand firm on her upper arm, his gun in his other hand.  They were approaching the door at the end of the hall just like she had what felt like mere minutes ago, but it must have been longer.  How long had she been under?  What had she done with that drug in her body?  

They were five feet from the door when she made herself stumble, praying that, behind her, Susie would see.  She came to a painful halt, not having to fake the cry of pain, and she heard the soldier behind her stop.  

Please Susie, she prayed, willing her friend to hear her thoughts against all odds.  Please.  

Not letting herself think anymore, she slammed her elbow into the soldier’s side, feeling something crack under the force, and the man cried out, starting to double over.  Penny twisted, getting in front of her and bringing her knee up to his face, using every ounce of strength she had in her good leg, and a fountain of blood exploded from his face.  Not daring to look back at Susie and the soldier guarding her, Penny grabbed the hand reaching for his gun, squeezing until she felt something under her fingers pop. 

The deafening blast of a gunshot froze her in place, though, and she turned, wild-eyed, keeping her grip on the soldier who had screamed when she’d broken his wrist and who still tried to break free of her grip.  But he was just a human and they had made her dangerous.

Behind them, the other soldier was crumbled on the ground, his head blown open, a sight that made Penny’s stomach turn.  And before she could say anything, Susie aimed the gun that was too big for her at the soldier in Penny’s grip, pulling the trigger, and the man slumped to the floor. 

Chapter Text

“Susie…”  Penny stared down at the dead men on the floor, her stomach revolting, but Susie was already moving, shoving the gun into Penny’s hands and reaching for the other one on the floor.  The gun was too heavy in her arms, and Penny lost her battle with her stomach, turning and losing the breakfast shake she must have had on the floor in a painful, convulsing splash of vomit.  Susie didn’t even look up, grabbing the gun and glancing back at the White Room where Penny knew other scientists waited.  Penny panted, eyes shut tight as if the dead men might just be a dream.

“Let’s go,” Susie snapped, grabbing her arm and shaking her.  “If we’re going to get out we have to do it now.”

“Susie…”

“I dare you!” The words jolted Penny out of her panic and she looked up at her friend.  The girl was smiling at her, just a little, with tears filling her eyes, and Penny realized that Susie didn’t want to be here either.  Didn’t want to have just killed two men, no matter who they were.  Didn’t want this life that had been forced on her.  Susie had seen the outside world too.  She knew that there was a whole world out there.  And then she’d been dragged back into this place.  But she would do what it took to survive.  

And so would Penny.  It’s what Tony would want.  He would want her to fight for her own survival.  And she’d do anything for Tony. 

“Okay,” she whispered, and Susie gave her a tear filled smile, leaning her head forward until their foreheads touched, eyes close together. For just a second, they were close again like they’d been before, back when they’d hidden in the back room, shoulders touching, a blanket thrown over them, the closest thing to comfort and love Penny had ever known.  

But she knew they couldn’t stay there.  Already she could hear footsteps.  “Which way?” she asked her friend.

“The vents.”  

Penny nodded.  The vents.  Of course they would go into the vents...the only relatively safe place.  Their only chance of escape. Susie looked up at the vent cover in the corner by the White Room, then back down the hallway as if afraid to be caught.  Penny understood.  They weren’t supposed to use their powers.  Had never been allowed to use their powers.  But Penny could now.  Tony had let her.  Hadn’t minded if she’d climbed the side of the tower.  Hadn’t been bothered when she’d sparred with Captain America, using her full strength.  

“It’s okay,” she whispered, smiling encouragingly.  “We’ve already broken the rules, right?”

Susie smiled, then narrowed her eyes at the vent cover that lifted off of the wall, and Penny put the gun down, gesturing for Susie to hurry.  The other girl climbed onto her back, and she noticed that Susie kept her gun, but Penny didn’t have a free hand...nor did she want to carry a gun.

She hated guns. Had hated them for as long as she could remember.  From the moment she’d seen what they could do...what the soldiers would do to them, she had wanted nothing to do with them.

Climbing as quickly as she could, Penny hesitated right under the vent cover which wasn’t big enough for both of them, and without being asked, Susie got off of her back, climbing inside ahead of her.  Penny followed, and then the vent cover floated back up to her.  She replaced it, even though she doubted Osborn didn’t know where they were.  He had to know.  They had cameras, and the soldiers had found her before.  Already she heard footsteps in the hallway.  “Let’s go!” Susie hissed, already crawling, and Penny followed.

They couldn’t call someone.  They couldn’t wait anymore.  They had to get out.  But Penny resisted the urge to say it.  Susie already knew that.  So they crawled in silence, Penny’s knee throbbing.  When she glanced down at it, she flinched at the trail of blood she was leaving...was it infected?  It felt swollen, and she knew that she needed to be resting.  But there was no time to rest.  Not yet.  As much as she wanted to wait for Mr. Stark...as much as she hoped he’d been able to track the signal, she knew they couldn’t wait anymore.  

Susie crawled in a straight line, the two of them looking into every room they passed for windows.  It wasn’t long before the alarm started to blare, and for a moment, the two girls looked at each other, faces pale and drawn.  “I won’t let them take me again,” Susie whispered, her voice barely audible, but Penny could hear her.  They could always hear each other.  

“They won’t.”  Penny wouldn’t let them.  She wouldn’t let them take either of them.  Wouldn’t let them use those drugs on them ever again.

Reaching back to touch the gun, Susie nodded, then began to crawl again.

Penny couldn’t help the scream when the gunshots started, and Susie gasped, pressing a hand to her arm as she collapsed, the gun on her back starting to slide to the side.  Grabbing it, Penny placed it back on her back and tried to get a look at the wound on her shoulder that dripped blood, but it was hard to see in the dark.  “We have to go!”  she cried, shoving Susie forward as the bullets continued until one of the men screamed for the others to hold their fire.  

“You’ll kill them!  Osborn wants them alive!”  

That was good at least.  Susie faltered, then tried to crawl forward, her body jerking unevenly as she did her best to keep her weight off of her right arm.  They had to get out of the vents...had to find a window!  

And then they did.  

The footsteps were still filling the rooms beneath them, and Penny was sure that the soldiers would climb into the vents soon.  They’d officially been missing for at least ten minutes.  They were short on staff, but she knew that Osborn would send every single soldier after them.  But just when Penny was going to suggest they climb out of the vents and just fight, despite the twin blood trails they were leaving, she spotted the windows looking out on what looked to be water…a lot of water.

“Susie!” she hissed, already turning toward the vent cover and pushing it out of the way, then turning it sideways so it would fit in the vent beside them.  Her friend was right behind her as Penny jumped down, leg buckling under her and throwing her to the ground.  She bit down hard on her lip, pressing a hand to her mouth to fight the scream as Susie climbed down herself, dangling from the vent until she dropped the last few feet and her feet touched the floor.  What little food was left in her body threatened to come up, but Penny swallowed over and over, refusing to let it out.  She couldn’t throw up again.  They had to move!

“Get up!” Susie ordered, running to the window, the gun still on her back, and Penny forced her leg under her, standing and listening to the pounding footsteps as they approached.  Susie yanked the window open despite the growing red stain on her shoulder, turning back to her as Penny limped over to join her, the two of them looking down at the ground that seemed so far away.  But Penny didn’t have time to contemplate the drop.  The door was opening and she grabbed Susie, throwing herself out the window and maneuvering Susie so that the girl was on her back.  At the last second, Susie sent a spray of bullets at the window, and Penny just caught a glimpse of soldiers falling before she was crawling backwards down the wall, the sound of the gun nearly deafening her.

They were on what must have been the third or fourth floor of the building, but Penny moved as fast as she could, her leg threatening to give every moment as she crawled backwards down the wall.  Susie gripped her tight and the constant drone of the alarm made her head clench in pain and it was too much...but she couldn’t panic.  Couldn’t let herself feel any of it.  Not yet.

They had to keep going.  

They couldn’t afford to stop.

The gunshots exploded through the air and bullets rained down on them but miraculously, Penny kept moving and Susie clutched her and she didn’t dare ask if Susie was okay.  Didn’t even want to risk speaking.  She couldn’t stop.  

When they reached the ground, Penny had to grip the wall to keep herself upright and Susie jumped off her back, the gun at the ready.  A few feet away was a cliff...it was a sheer drop down to the water.  But they had no choice.  “Can you swim?” Penny asked, voice shaking.

Susie hesitated, then shook her head, and Penny swallowed hard.  

“Okay...okay,” she whispered, thinking back to the pool in the tower.  To Natasha teaching her how to move her arms...how to glide through the water.  How to stay afloat.  She could do this.

She had to do this.

Doors were being flung open and Penny let go of the wall, racing toward the cliff, holding out a hand that Susie grabbed.  Her friend dropped the gun and ran with her, the two of them launching off the cliff and curling up into balls as they fell, hitting the icy water with two splashes that could barely be heard over the blaring alarm in the background.  They both sank under the water, and for a moment there was silence.  The soft sound of water pressing in on her from all sides.  It was dark out, and Penny wondered what time it was...either way, the dark would work in her favor, she knew.  Maybe the soldiers wouldn’t be able to see them.

Not soldiers.  Assholes.  And she never wanted to see them again.  

What she wouldn’t have given to see Rhodey right then.  

Penny kicked her legs, trying to focus, and even though one of her legs almost refused to move, she managed to get herself and Susie back to the surface, the two of them breaking the surface with twin gasps.  Susie gulped down air, looking around wildly, and Penny grabbed the other girl’s arm and threw it over her shoulders.  “Hold on to me,” she whispered, still afraid to speak too loudly, and Susie did.

And she started to swim toward the city skyline.

Penny moved her hands through the icy water, trying not to think about how cold she was as she glanced over at Susie, the other girl’s arm slung over her back as Penny dragged the both of them away from the white, nondescript building that looked like the buildings she’d passed when Tony had driven them to the Compound.  He’d told her that there were usually offices inside.  Doctors and businesspeople, lawyers and realtors.  She’d never been in one of them, but she was sure that they were different.  That they didn’t torture children...but she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to step into a building like that again.  

The waves kept coming, making it almost impossible to keep swimming, but she kept swimming anyway.  Her knee ached and she felt hot along with the cold, but she didn’t dare stop.  Her whole leg felt too heavy and swollen, and bending it was almost too painful to contemplate, so she kept it as still as she could, using her arms and kicking one leg as best she could.  Their progress was slow but she didn’t feel like they were in danger.  Didn’t feel like they were being followed.  Glancing back once more, she winced at the blood trail that dispersed behind them, wondering how much was from her knee and how much was from the hold in Susie’s shoulder.  

Turning back around, she tried to focus on the skyline of what she hoped was New York.  Even if it wasn’t she reminded herself, she knew what to do.  Tony and Pepper had told her what to do if she ever got lost without her phone.  Go into a store.  Ask to use the phone.  Say it was an emergency.  Call them.  She knew Tony’s number.  It was branded into her mind along with the White Room and how to spar.  She knew what to do.  It wasn’t like before.  

They had made her dangerous.  Tony had taught her how to be strong.

Susie’s head started to dip under the water and Penny hurried to support her, the two of them floating for a moment as she pressed a hand to the hole in Susie’s shoulder.  “Susie?  Stay awake,” she urged, shaking her a little.  “We’re almost there.”

It wasn’t true.  The shore was still in the distance and Penny had no idea how long it would take to get there, especially considering how cold the water despite the fact that it was supposed to be summer.  Were they in New York?  Or were they somewhere else now?  How many days had it been since she’d called Tony?  

No matter how quickly she moved, no matter how much time passed, the city didn’t seem to get any closer.

“M’cold,” Susie whispered.  

“Me too...but we have to keep going!” Behind them, she could see the building and she still didn’t see anyone coming out of it but there were still people inside!  Still kids inside!  Maybe even kids younger than them.  Would they kill them?  Would the Avengers be able to save them?  Should they have tried to save them?  To fight the soldiers?

To kill Osborn?

Shaking herself back to the present, Penny moved Susie’s arm more securely around her shoulders.  They would be fine.  They were going to make it to land and they were going to get help and Penny kept telling herself these things as she forced her body forward through the constantly moving water.  That was all she could do.  Move forward and tell herself that it was going to be okay.  That she could do this.

But as the minutes passed and they inched closer and closer to the shore, her arms grew heavier and heavier, her vision going foggy as she shook in the water until her whole body was numb.  She thought Susie was still holding on to her but she couldn’t be sure and keeping her face out of the water was almost impossible.  “Susie?” she whispered, her voice barely audible as she swam and then all she could do was tread water, eyes closing of their own volition.

Her friend didn’t answer.

She wasn’t going to make it.  

They weren’t going to make it.

And then there was a roar above them and Penny looked up just in time to see a jet fly overhead.  And out of that jet came two suits.  Two very familiar suits.

War Machine reached them first, his arms wrapping around Susie as he lifted her out of the water.  “Penny!” he called, holding Susie with an arm under her back and one under her legs.  She tried to smile at him.  Tried to tell him that she was fine.  To thank him for helping her friend.

But then Iron Man’s cold arms were around her, lifting her out of the freezing water into the freezing air, but she didn’t care about how cold she was anymore. Penny clung to him with every last scrap of strength she had.  Sobbing, she closed her eyes and hid her face against his chest, and the arms around her squeezed her firmly.  She was safe.  He was there.  He had come for her.

“Tony!” she called out his name even though he was right there, hot tears turning cold as they ran down her cheeks.  “Tony!”  

“I’m sorry...I’m so sorry, Penny, I’m so sorry.  I came as fast as I could.  Friday was trying to track you but they were blocking the signal and…”  his robotic voice came out just as devastated and exhausted as she felt and Penny clung to him, shaking her head.

He was there.  He had come for her.  He was really there.  Tony was there.

“I knew you’d come,” she whispered, pushing back the tiny voice in the back of her mind that protested...that reminded her that she’d been afraid he wouldn’t.  That reminded her that she’d laid awake in her bed in her cell and felt cold fear grip her heart.  Fear that she would never see him again.  But the bigger part of her had known.  Regardless, the words kept spilling out of her, along with the tears.  “I knew it...I knew you’d come for me.”

“Of course I did.  I’ll always come for you.  I’m so sorry it took me so long.  I’m so sorry, Penny, I love you so much.  I’m so sorry.”

She wanted to tell him that she understood.  That she loved him so much.  That she was so happy to see him.  But her whole body ached, especially her knee, and she was so, so cold, so she closed her eyes despite his pleading with her to stay awake, knowing that she was safe with her father.

Chapter Text

Ten children.

Osborn had been keeping ten children in that place.  

Four of the children were around Penny's age, including Penny and Susie, along with two boys, both of whom had refused to speak to Sam and Steve who had coaxed them into the jet.  The boys were sitting huddled together on a bed across from where Tony saw with Penny, their shoulders not quite touching, Sam sitting on one side of them as he knelt forward, speaking softly.  Neither boy would look at him...at any of them, although one of them shot looks at the girl in Tony’s arms. Did she know him, Tony wondered.  He hadn’t seen the kid before...how many children did Osborn have hidden away? 

The other children had been found by Natasha and Clint in what they had described as a nursery on the other side of the building.  The oldest was six years old, according to the records Natasha had been able to find.  The youngest had just turned two...just about the same age Penny had been when they’d taken her.  Clint held that little boy in his arms, while Natasha held two girls on her lap, both of their heads resting on her chest as they slept.  Thor held another little girl, her tiny fist clutching his shirt as she slept, and on Steve’s lap was a small boy who kept staring around the room with wide, stunned eyes.  The last child, the oldest, was curled up in Wanda’s arms, a steady stream of tears running down her cheeks.

They were tiny, small even for their young ages, and they all looked days away from starvation.  Had Osborn done experiments on them yet?  Had they been forced to fight?  He’d never found out how old Penny had been when they’d forced her to fight.  Did these children have families?  Were there people waiting for them?  Tony desperately hoped so.  

And in Tony’s lap, her hands still stuck to his suit which he hadn’t been able to take off yet, was Penny.  Penny who had passed out in his arms seconds after he’d lifted her out of the water, her lips nearly blue, her face so pale it didn’t seem possible that blood still flowed in her veins.  She was shaking in her sleep as Bruce cleaned and rewrapped the wound right above her knee.  He’d cut the leg off of the jumpsuit, and Tony couldn’t wait to burn the thing and get her into normal clothes again. 

The suit reminded him of that first day...the day she’d crawled down the wall with her back to him, hopping down and turning to face him.  And he owed a lot to that day...he’d gotten a daughter out of that terrible trip.  But he didn’t want to think about how she’d been when he’d first rescued her...afraid to even come out of her room on her own, terrified and fascinated by the world outside their tower...and even in it.  Forced to slowly add new foods to her meals lest she get sick.  In the weeks and months since she’d become his daughter, Penny had started to live a normal life.

And Osborn had almost taken it all away.  

Tony rubbed her back as Bruce finished rewrapping her knee, wishing he could get out of the suit.  But he didn’t want to wake her and her fingers were superglued to the back of his suit, so he just waited, content to hold his daughter.  Content to know that she was safe.  That she’d escaped and then he’d saved her.

A few feet away, Rhodey sat in a similar position, although he had managed to get out of his suit, and Susie was laying on the bed, her shoulder already bandaged, a thick blanket wrapped around her.  But Rhodey’s hand was wrapped around hers, and she showed no signs of letting go.  Tony met his friend’s eyes, one eyebrow lifted, and Rhodey smiled a little, nodding toward Penny questioningly.

“She’ll be okay,” he murmured, willing it to be true.  Willing his daughter to be okay.  Willing it into existence that she could get back to the happy teenger she’d been before.  Pepper had been beside herself with worry...he needed to call her.  To tell her that their daughter was okay.  That he was bringing her home.  But he couldn’t let her go.  Couldn’t bring himself to wake her when she’d clung to him so desperately, sobbing and telling him that she knew she’d come...but he’d seen the truth in her eyes.  

She’d worried that he wouldn’t.  She’d been afraid.  And just for that he wanted to kill Osborn.  But Osborn was in a holding cell along with the few guards that they’d been able to find, and the five scientists.  This operation had been much smaller...but...ten children.  There had been ten children in that place.  Natasha planned on interrogating him once they were back at the tower...once they had found the families of the children spread through the jet sitting on beds or in the laps of various Avengers.

A few feet away, Susie groaned, turning her head and shaking under the blanket, and Bruce injected her with something that made her settle, her hand going lax once more in Rhodey’s.  The Avengers were all silent.  Solemn.  The ones that held children rubbed their backs or rocked them gently.  Sam clasped his hands together in his lap, apparently giving up on talking to the boys, and Tony had never been so glad that Friday could pilot the quinjet on her own.  

“Friday?” Tony murmured, his soft voice breaking the silence.  “Call Pepper.  Let her know we’re on our way with the kids.  And call Helen.  Let her know what we’re looking at, and start looking for families.”  None of the kids looked at him, but the girl on Thor’s lap stirred, sniffling as she blinked awake and looked around.  Thor leaned down, murmuring something Tony didn’t catch, and the child moved closer, clutching him almost desperately.

They weren’t allowed to touch, Tony remembered.  Penny had told him that much.  They weren’t allowed to be friends.  And he doubted that any of the scientists or armed guards had bothered picking them up and holding them.  Treating them the way children deserved to be treated.  Tony pulled Penny a little closer, pressing his lips to her hair.  His daughter.  She was safe.  For the first time since he’d realized she wasn’t home on time, his heart beat normally and his whole body unclenched.  Home.  He was going to take her home.

It took 3 and a half hours to get from the base off the coast of Seattle to the tower, and as soon as they landed, the Avengers with children on their laps lifted them and carried them straight to the medbay.  The two boys stood when the others did, giving Tony long looks as they let Sam lead them off the jet.  Rhodey scooped Susie up, and Tony stood as well.  He didn’t want to take her to the medbay.  He wanted to take her straight to her bedroom so that she could wake up at home.  So that she could know that she was safe now.  But he had to get her checked over.  Just like all the other kids.  And so he followed Rhodey down to the elevator where, once more, he found himself unable to get her to let go...not that he tried too hard.

The whole med team was working, with Helen going straight to Susie who, apart from Penny, had the worst injuries, although all of the kids had visible bruises.  Tony sat on the bed in her room, leaning against the headboard and rocked her gently, rubbing his metal-covered hand up and down her back.  And then Pepper was bursting into the room, leaving the door open behind her as she dropped onto the bed where Penny should be laying, placing a shaky hand on the girl’s cheek.  “Tony...is she…”

“She’ll be fine,” Tony assured her.  

Pepper had sobbed when he’d come home from that alley...when he’d stepped, defeated into the room while Friday had run in the background, trying and trying and trying to find his kid.  She had dropped into a chair, hands covering her face, and cried like he’d never seen her cry before.  And no amount of holding her and apologizing and promising that she would be okay had made either of them feel any better. “He took her...Osborn took her, and he’s going to put her back into that...that place!” Pepper had sobbed, turning to hide her face in his chest as he’d held her. 

The Avengers had come into the room at some point.  Rhodey first, dropping on to the sofa beside them, a hand on Tony’s shoulders, then the others.  All of them worried.  All of them anxious to help.  But Tony’s brain had been at a standstill, his arms wrapped around the most important woman in his life already mourning their daughter.

Now Pepper stroked her thumb over Penny’s face, lingering on the bruises there.  The girl had a fading black eye, and her lip had been split recently.  They’d wrapped a blanket around her, but she’d refused to let go of Tony so that the doctors could change her out of her wet clothes, and even though they were almost dry, he could still see the worry in Pepper’s eyes.  “She’s so cold…”

“We just have to get her into some warm clothes.  She and Susie were getting out...they escaped.  We found them in the water.  They were swimming for shore.”

Pepper smiled, pushing some of the girl’s wet hair out of her face.  “That’s my brave girl.”  She hesitated, then scooted closer.  “We need to get her out of those clothes.”

“Helen is going to stop by soon.  She’ll look her over.  Make sure she’s okay.”

She shook her head.  “We need to get her into dry clothes...and she’ll have to let go of you to be examined.  Plus, you need to get out of that suit.”

Tony shrugged.  “I’m fine.”

She pursed her lips, tapping a gentle finger over Penny’s cheek.  “Sweetheart,” she coaxed, voice soft and persuasive.  “Penny?  Honey, can you hear me?”

Tony felt the girl’s grip tighten a little, and she shifted in his arms.  Part of him wanted to stop her...to tell Pepper that Penny was fine.  That she didn’t want to let him go...that he didn’t want to let go either.  She was his kid and he’d failed her and all he wanted now was to hold her for as long as he could because she was safe in his arms.  It was the only place she was safe!  She wasn’t safe at school and she wasn’t safe on the streets of New York.  She was only safe with him.  

But Pepper knew better.  Pepper always knew better.  She coaxed the girl out of her unconscious, and Penny blinked up at him first, then turned her head to look at Pepper, the confusion and worry melting away into a smile as her hands unstuck themselves from Tony’s suit, and she practically jumped into Pepper’s arms, paying her knee no mind.  Pepper wrapped her in her arms and rocked her back and forth, pressing her lips to Penny’s hair.  “Baby...you’re okay,” she murmured as the girl cried once more, her shoulders shaking with the force of it.  “You’re home now, baby.  You’re home.”

Tony let the suit disengage, stepping out of it and placing his hand on the back of Penny’s head.  The crying girl reached up and gripped his sleeve, obviously not wanting him to leave either.  So he sat on the bed and held them both, feeling whole again.  His family was safe.  They were both safe.  And as long as they were safe, he was happy.  Truly happy, in a way he hadn’t been in so, so long.

It took Penny a moment to catch her breath and calm down, but once she did, still shivering and damp, Pepper gave Tony a meaningful look before smiling at the girl.  “Alright, sweetheart.  I’m going to run to your room and get you a change of clothes, okay?  You must be freezing.”

Penny nodded, huddled next to Tony who wrapped her more tightly in the blanket and his arms, but the girl still shook.  Pepper stood, hurrying to fetch the clothes, and Tony pressed his lips to her hair.  “How are you feeling?” he asked, and the girl shrugged.

“I’m fine.”  It was such a normal thing for her to say that he snorted, smiling a little and shaking his head.

“Wanna try that again, kiddo?”

Penny closed her eyes, hiding her face once more and shaking her head.  “I’m sorry.”

That took him aback, and he stared down at her, frowning in confusion.  “Sorry?  For what?”  he asked, cupping the back of her head.  

“I didn’t get on the bus.”  Penny swallowed, clutching his shirt as though he would leave.  As though he’d be able to pry himself away from her, his little girl that he’d nearly lost.  “I know I was supposed to...that I wasn’t supposed to wander off but...but I saw her!  I saw Susie and...and I followed her.  I just...I had to know.”

“Honey,” he started, shaking his head and stroking her back.  “I’m not mad at you.  I couldn’t be...not for something like that.  You saw your friend.  You needed to know if she was okay.  I get that.”

“I woke up in that room,” her voice broke and he held her impossibly tighter.  “I...I thought it was a nightmare but then...then you weren’t there and I was in that room again and I thought...I thought I’d never have to go back…”

“I’m so sorry, Pen.  I…”  he swore under his breath, shaking his head.  “We got Osborn and all the people working there.  We got all the kids out.  We’re going to find the other schools too, and we’re going to shut them down.  No one’s going to take you again.  You’re safe, Pen.  You don’t have to go back.  Not ever.”  The words felt hollow, even to him.  He’d said that last time.  Had promised her that she’d been safe before.  How was he supposed to convince her that it was true now?

It didn’t matter.  He’d do it.  Whatever it took.

“Is Susie okay?” Penny asked after a moment, shifting on his lap and flinching when she must have jostled her knee.  He’d almost forgotten about that.

“She’s with Rhodey and Helen right now.  She’s going to be okay.”

The girl hesitated.  “Where...where will they go?  You said there were other kids?”

“We’re going to see if we can find their families.  Friday is working on that right now.”

“What if Osborn killed their families?”

“Then we’ll find them new families.”

That seemed to placate the girl, and she seemed on the verge of passing out again when Pepper stepped into the room with a bag in hand.  He knew that healing made her tired...Helen had explained as much the first time she'd been in the medbay.  But he wanted her to stay awake.  He wanted to sit with her and talk to her and assure himself over and over that his daughter was okay.  Alive.  Safe.

Tony was quickly shooed out of the room then so that Penny could get changed, and despite the fact that he just wanted to press himself to the door and wait until he was allowed back in, but instead, he took the opportunity to check on the other kids.  Namely, Susie.  The girl that he’d barely gotten a glimpse of before Rhodey had lifted her and carried her up to the quinjet, and ever since, he’d been focused solely on Penny.

When he tapped his knuckles on the door, Helen was the one to open it, smiling at him a little.  “How’s Penny?” she asked first thing.

“She’s awake.  Pepper’s getting her into some dry clothes.  How’s Susie?”

“Still unconscious.  But she’s looking much better.  She and Penny have a lot in common, including her increased metabolism and her lowered body temperature.  I believe she lost consciousness before Penny because she wasn't moving as much in the water.  James said Penny was dragging her through the water, and that she was unconscious when he got her out.”

Tony nodded.  Penny had been awake, but her friend hadn’t.  And he’d worried...he’d worried that the girl had escaped only to die in the water.  That Penny would lose her friend again.  

“How is the search for their families going?”  Helen wondered as she stepped out of the room, and Tony got a glimpse of Susie in bed, Rhodey still at her side.

He tapped his watch and a holographic list of names appeared in midair.  Penny was at the top, the word ‘adopted’ in green letters beside it, and he smiled at the word.  Below her was Susie, little dots beside her name telling Tony that Friday wasn’t done yet. And below her were the other children.  One or two had the word ‘orphaned’ next to them.  The rest had dots.  So Osborn had most likely worked to get as much as the information redacted as possible.  

It didn’t matter.  Friday would find their families if there were families to be found.  

“How are the other kids?”

“My team is checking on them.  No major injuries so far.  We’re seeing a lot of similar mutations in the two oldest through...increased strength, faster metabolism,” she waved a hand.  “He was obviously trying to recreate the super soldier serum used on Rogers, but with limited success.”  

“So we’ll need to find families that are able to handle children with...enhancements.”

Helen nodded.  “If anyone can do it, it’s you,” she assured him, still smiling.  “I’m going to look Penny over.  Did you want to come with me?”

He’d planned on going to see Rhodey...and Susie.  He’d planned on talking to her when she woke up, which would hopefully be soon, and giving Pepper some time with their girl.  But as soon as the question was out of Helen’s mouth, he was nodding.  Of course he wanted to see her.  Of course he needed to be near his kid.  So he aborted the failed mission and followed Helen back into the room he’d left only minutes ago.  

Chapter Text

Penny felt like she was dozing.  Not completely asleep, but not awake either.  In some strange, in-between place where she was warm and comfortable and safe.  Finally, finally safe.  Pepper had helped her change into sweatpants and a familiar shirt, both thick and warm and smelling like home, and now, for the first time since she’d been in that place, she could relax.  Her head was pillowed in Pepper’s lap, and her mother’s hand was stroking her hair, gently working through the knots and massaging her scalp.  Curling her legs up on the bed, Penny snuggled up under the blanket that they’d thrown over her, and took deep, even breaths.

It had been so long since she’d been warm.  So long since she’d been touched by someone that didn’t want to hurt her.  And Pepper was holding her like she was her daughter and it felt safe and it felt comfortable and it felt perfect.  The world spun around her and she didn’t mind because she was finally home and Susie was okay and they’d gotten out and Norman Osborn had been captured.  And she would never have to go back to that place.

The door to her room opened but Penny didn’t bother opening her eyes.  Not when she was so warm and comfortable.  Not when her mother was holding her like this.  She didn’t want to leave her warm, safe cocoon.  So she kept her eyes shut, nuzzling her face into Pepper’s leg as she tried to drift away.  Sleeping in that place had been so miserable and so hard and now she just wanted to sleep for a week.  Familiar footsteps approached and a new hand landed on her hair.  A hand she knew. 

“Is she asleep?”  Tony asked, voice pitched soft as it broke through the fog surrounding her, and she knew that he was wearing a fond smile that she’d seen so often.  

“I think so.  She’s exhausted.  Do we need to wake her?”

“Helen needs to look her over.”  

More footsteps came into the room, and Tony’s hand moved to her shoulder, shaking gently.  “Penny?”

She hummed under her breath, not wanting to wake up.  Not wanting to face any of it.  Tony just chuckled though.

“Come on, kiddo.  Open your eyes for a minute,” he urged, shaking her again, and Penny sighed, looking up at him and blinking slowly.

“Hi, Tony.”

He grinned.  “Hi, Penny.”  Ruffling her hair, he held out a hand and helped her sit up.  “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.”  It was mostly true.  She was exhausted, her whole body heavy and useless.

“I’ll bet.  Helen wants to check on you, and then we’ll get you up to your room.  Okay?”  

She nodded, rubbing her face and smiling when Pepper wrapped an arm around her, supporting her when she started to list sideways.  And then Helen was stepping into her line of sight, her white coat clean and crisp and so like the scientists that Penny felt herself flinch back before she even knew what she was doing.  Helen, she reminded herself.  That was Helen!  She knew Helen.  Still, her whole body went stiff and she leaned back until Tony’s hand on her back was the only thing keeping her from scooting all the way to the wall.

“Pen?”  Tony asked, his thumb rubbing back over her shoulder blade.  

Helen had frozen in place, her eyes wide as she stared at Penny, and then she put her tablet down and pulled the coat off, draping it over a chair.  “Is that better?” the woman asked softly, her voice gentle.  Penny nodded, forcing herself to take a breath.  To unclench her hands in her lap and bring her shoulders down from her ear.  “Those people, they weren’t doctors.  Not real doctors.  Real doctors don’t hurt children.  And I’m not going to hurt you.”

Penny nodded.  “I know.  I…”  She swallowed hard.  “I know.”  

Helen smiled, face soft.  “I wanted to check your leg and draw some blood, if that’s okay.  I’ll be quick.  I know you want to get back to bed.”  

The doctor was quick.  After drawing blood and giving her a bottle of pills for the pain from the wound in her leg, Penny was helped to her feet by Tony who kept an arm wrapped around her.  “How’s Susie?”  she asked before they even made it out the door, and he smiled.  

“She’s fine.  Rhodey’s with her, and the other kids are all fine too.  The Avengers have been roped into babysitting.  Friday is looking for their families as we speak.”

“Do you think they have families?”

“I’m sure that some of them do,” Pepper put in from her other side, the three of them stepping into the elevator.  “And we’re going to make sure the ones that don’t go to good families.”

“Susie...she told me that her dad took her to the school.  Do you think...do you think he’s still alive?”

“Friday will find him if he is,” Tony promised, leading her out of the elevator and into the kitchen of their home.  Home.  

The first time Penny had stepped into this room, she’d been so afraid.  So confused and uncertain and...and she hadn’t even been outside yet!  But now, stepping into the kitchen and walking through the living room, this was her home.  The first home she’d ever had.  And she’d never been so happy to be there.  

Tony helped her sit, Pepper easing a pillow under Penny’s knee, and then one of them pulled the blankets up to her chin but Penny wasn’t sure which one of her parents was tucking her in because her eyes were weighted down and her body knew that she was safe...that she was home.  That she didn’t have to be afraid.  The minute her eyes shut, she was sound asleep, and the last thing she was aware of were two gentle kisses on her forehead.  

When Penny woke, it was like she’d finally emerged from her fog.  Her leg ached, a dull throbbing that pulled her from a deep sleep, and her mouth felt dry and her head gave a dull throb that matched her leg as she started to sit up.  Rubbing a hand over her face, she sighed, stretching and looking around, taking in every detail of her room.  The comfortable bed she’d missed so much, piled with thick, cozy blankets and five pillows, along with a special long one that she usually ended up holding.  The desk and her backpack, which she’d thought she’d lost, and the mini-fridge and the bookcase with books she loved to read now.  

Her room.  Hers.  Her very own home and her very own room where she was safe.  Stretching and ignoring the sharper pain in her knee, she swung her legs over the side and, as carefully as she could, she placed her feet on the ground.  Doing her best not to put too much weight on it at first, she stood gingerly on her good leg, then carefully shifted her weight.  Her bad leg hurt, but she could stand, and when she took a step, that worked out okay too.  

Making her way over to the balcony, she pulled the curtain back and watched as the sun started to disappear over the horizon and the buildings.  Pulling the door open, she stepped out onto the balcony and took a deep breath of the fresh air she never thought she’d get to smell and felt a tear fall down her cheek.

There had been times when she’d been so sure...so sure that she would die in that place.  So afraid that Tony would never come for her.  Gripping the balcony railing, she dropped her head onto her hands and tried to breathe.  Tried to remind herself that she was free now and that Tony had come but her heart kept speeding up and her fingers dug into the metal, warping it, until a gentle hand rested on her back and a familiar pair of house slippers came to stand beside her.  For a moment, it just rested there, then started to rub circles on her back.  

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to see this again,” Penny whispered through her tears after a moment.  The hand stilled, then came to rest on her shoulder.  “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again.”  She stood straight, putting most of her weight on her good leg before throwing her arms around him.  “I was afraid you wouldn’t find me.”

“I didn’t stop looking.  I swear, from the moment you didn’t come to, to that phone call...and then...Friday finally, finally tracked the signal…”  Tony shook his head.  “I’m so sorry, Penny.  I’m sorry it took me so long…”

“I saw her!” Penny cried, pulling away just a little but keeping her arms around him.  “I...I saw her the first time we went outside with Pepper in the city and...and I thought I saw her another day and...I should have told you!  I should have told you that I saw her!”  

Tony sighed and gave a barely-there smile.  “Probably,” he agreed, closing his eyes for a moment.  “I wish you had.  I wish…”  Shaking his head, he squeezed her arms.  “Just...promise me something?”

Penny nodded.

“Promise me that if something like this ever happens again, you tell me.  First thing.”  His face was as serious as Penny had ever seen it, but at least he didn’t look angry.  That, at least, made it easier.

“I promise.”  She meant it.  She really did, despite that voice in the back of her mind that was still afraid...that still felt like she needed to be on the lookout for the next terrible thing that would happen to her.  That she needed to take care of herself just like she always had…to fight to keep herself safe.  But Tony loved her.  She knew that.  

The man who was like her father gave her a gentle smile, still holding her arms.  “It’s okay.  It’s over now.  Osborn is locked up and Susie is safe.”  

She sniffed again, wiping a hand over her face to try to stop the tears.  “Is she okay?”

“She’s going to be fine.  I just checked on her...she’s still in the medbay.  Rhodey’s been staying with her.  Friday found the families of the two older boys and three of the younger children and we’re contacting them now.  Natasha got Osborn to tell us where the other facilities are, and we’re going to find the rest of the kids.”  

“Does she have a family?”  

“I don’t know.  Friday is still looking.”  But Penny could see in his face that the search hadn’t been going well.

“What if she doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll find her a good family.  I promise, Pen.  We’re going to find her a family.  A family that will love her.”  

She swallowed hard, trying not to remember dragging her friend through the water.  Trying not to remember the fear that her friend was dead...that she was dragging her friend’s body away from that school that wasn’t a school...hadn’t even pretended to be a school this time.  

“Can I see her?”

“Yeah, kiddo.  We can go down to the meday for a visit as soon as you eat something.  Are you hungry?”

Now that she thought of it...yes.  She was starving.  And dying for something to drink.  So...despite her desperation to see that Susie was, in fact, alive and okay, she nodded, and Tony put an arm around her shoulders, leading her into the kitchen...the first one she’d ever been in.  She was home.  She was truly home.  But now, just like the first day she stepped into the kitchen, it all felt so shaky.  Like it could all be taken away again.  

She didn’t want it to be taken away.  Didn’t want to be yanked away from the only home she’d ever known.  She felt like she could fall apart at any moment...like she might crumble.  And Penny suspected that Tony understood, because he pulled out the waffle maker and a bag of chocolate chips and ushered her over to help him make the batter she’d made so many times before.  As she mixed it, he kept a hand on her back, protective and steadying all at once, and it helped.  It made it so much easier.  Because Tony was there and Tony had never done anything but protect her...try to save her.  Try to keep her safe.  From the day she’d first met him in that cage to now. 

“You know that I love you, kiddo?” Tony asked as she mixed, and she nodded, glad the tears had finally stopped.  

“I love you too,” she whispered, the words catching in her throat.  “I just…”  She swallowed hard, shaking her head and staring at the waffles.  “It feels weird.  Being back.  Like…”  

“Like you’re not sure if it’s real?  Like it could all be taken away at any moment?”  

Penny nodded, wide-eyed.  He gave a sad chuckle.  

“Remember when I told you that I’d been kidnapped?”  

She nodded again.

“I felt the same,” he confided.  “Like...like I might just close my eyes and I’d be back in that cave.”  He poured the batter onto the waffle iron and closed it, the sizzle of the batter a wonderful, comfortable reminder of happier days.  Penny took a deep breath, smiling a little at the familiar smell.  “It gets better.  It takes a while, but it does.”

“How long?”

His answering smile was sad.  “For me, it was years before I stopped having nightmares...but that could have been because of the traumatic shit that happened to me every couple of months.”  As the waffles cooked, the smell of chocolate filled the room, and Penny’s stomach growled.  “But that’s not going to happen to you.  Not if I can help it.  You’re going to be safe, Pen.  We’re going to get the other kids, and they’re going to be safe too.”

Could he really promise that?  Looking up at Tony as he flipped the waffle maker, she decided that it didn’t matter.  She didn’t care if it was true.  She just wanted to believe it.  Wanted to believe that Tony could actually protect her from all the terrible things that might wait for her outside of the tower.  So she just nodded, throwing her arms around him, and Tony held her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head.  It felt safe.  Tony felt safe.  He always had.  So she let herself believe it, if only for a little while.

She scarfed down the three waffles he made her, along with the syrup and strawberries and bananas, all of it fresh and delicious and it made her feel like she was alive again.  The food in that place had been the same every day and that alone had felt like it might be the end of her.  Now, though...now she could have whatever she wanted.  Waffles and fruit and pizza and salad and ice cream...all of it.  

The medbay was quiet, especially considering all the children inside.  But Penny wasn’t surprised.  She knew these kids...or...well, she knew what they had been through.  Knew what it was like to be them.  And she knew that, had she been taken away from the place where she’d grown up, she would have been quiet too.  She would have been too terrified to make a peep.  

Tony led her straight to a room that was a few doors down from where her own had been, tapping his knuckles softly against the wood.  It was Rhodey who answered, nodding to Tony, then smiling down at her.  “Hey, Penny.  How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.  Is she okay?”  Penny blurted, her heart beating too fast.  Susie was in there.  She was in there and she was okay and Penny needed to see her!

“She’s going to be fine,” Rhodey assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing.  “How about you?”  

Despite the fact that she thought she’d just answered that, she nodded.  “Yeah.  I’ll be fine.”  

Rhodey shared a look with Tony, the two of them seeming to communicate something she didn’t understand.  But it didn’t matter.  It didn't matter that she still felt like all of this might turn out to be a dream, and it didn't matter that she felt like she might shatter at any moment.  All that mattered was the fact that Susie was in that room.  And Penny needed to see her.  So, slipping past Rhodey who took a step to his left to get out of her way, Penny hurried into the room, then froze when she caught sight of her friend.  

Susie way laying in the hospital bed, a bandage wrapped around her shoulder, an IV in her arm.  She looked...overwhelmed.  Afraid.  But she was alive.  It was true.  They were both out and Osborn was locked up and her friend...her friend was alive and okay.  Hurrying the last few steps to the bed, Penny threw her arms around her friend, careful of the IV, and Susie returned the hug, her shoulders shaking as Penny held her.

“You’re okay,” Penny whispered, another tear running down her cheek.  She didn’t know why she kept crying...she hadn’t cried this much in her whole life, but now she felt...fragile.  Like any moment she might just shatter.  But Susie’s arms were just as tight around her, their cheeks pressed together, and Susie’s shoulders shook too.  “I was afraid...I thought…”

“I’m okay.”

Susie had been her first friend.  For most of her life, she had been her only friend, even though they hadn’t been allowed to touch or talk openly or even whisper to one another.  They had still been friends.  And now...now they were free.  Climbing the rest of the way onto the bed, Penny lay beside her best friend and rested her head on Susie’s shoulder.  Forgetting all about Tony and Rhodey, the tower and the Avengers and Osborn and the school that wasn’t a school, she held her best friend and felt more tears fall, but it didn’t matter because they were finally, finally safe.

Chapter Text

Okay, so this is it. This story is finally finished!  I have had such a wonderful time writing it and I hope you enjoy the final chapter! <3 <3 <3

26. The Final Outcome

Penny put her fists up, leaning back on her heels, then forward to her toes, and grinned at her friend who did the same. There was no one else in the training room, no people in white coats and no soldiers with guns. Just her and Susie, the two of them facing one another in the boxing ring at 2 in the morning. They wore matching tank tops and shorts, courtesy of Natasha who, after learning that they had trained together their whole lives, had bought them matching workout gear as a present.

Susie slipped one foot backwards, shifting her weight to her fight leg, a sure sign that she was ready to attack, her eyes darting down to Penny's feet, looking for clues. Penny did her best to remember her lessons with Captain America and kept her feet still, doing everything she could not to give away her plan of attack. She wasn't sure when Steve would join them...or if he would. The Avengers had been busy over the last four months, and Christmas had come and gone, complete with presents, which had been...a surprise.

Tony had explained the concept to her. He'd explained that it was a religious holiday, but lots of people who weren't religious still celebrated it by buying each other presents. Pepper had even taken her shopping, Happy trailing behind them as their security detail, to buy Ned and Susie and the Avengers and Tony presents. And then she'd gone shopping with Ned, Happy once more trailing behind them, as he was apparently her new bodyguard, and bought presents for Susie and Pepper.

And on Christmas morning, she'd woken early, slipping into the living room and gasping when she'd seen it...when she'd seen the tree and the lights and the pile of colorful boxes and bags on the ground under the tree. They hadn't told her about that part...and when she'd gone to bed that evening, the living room had been normal. No giant trees covered in lights or colorful boxes like the ones she'd hidden under her bed, or the one she'd given to Ned the last time she'd seen him. Ned had given her a tiny plant that now sat on her little balcony.

It hadn't been long before a hand had landed on her shoulder. "What do you think?" Tony had asked, giving her the same smile that he'd given her so often...a smile that showed her how glad he was that she was okay. That she was there, home safe with her new family. And she'd smiled back.

"It's amazing. I mean...I know you said something about a tree and presents but...this…" She'd never seen anything like it, of course, but still. The two of them had moved over to the sofa, his arm around her shoulders, as she'd just stared at the light. And it hadn't been long before Pepper had woken up, joining them on the sofa on Penny's other side.

Rhodey and Susie had arrived first from his apartment a few floors down, the two of them carrying gifts in their arms. Susie had looked better, and she and Penny had held each other for a long time before turning to stare at the tree and the lights and the presents while the adults had gone off to make breakfast.

Susie had taken a long time to adjust, and even now, with the two of them in the boxing ring, ready to spar, she knew that it was all so strange to her. That the world that Penny was slowly starting to accept was real and wasn't going to be yanked away from her once more was still an unbelievable place to Susie. A world where she went to school (with Penny and Ned, sharing most of Penny's classes) and then went home at the end of the day to her new father.

Well...at the moment, technically Rhodey was her guardian. Her foster father. All of the other kids had either been reunited with their relatives or entrusted to families that had been thoroughly vetted by the Avengers, and Penny hadn't even gotten to see most of them, other than the boy she had fought with so many times. Him she'd managed to see, sneaking down on her own to the medbay and finding his room and telling him that she was sorry. That she hadn't wanted to hurt him. He'd dismissed her apology easily, but had seemed wary of her still.

Susie took a step forward and Penny reacted, ducking the kick and slipping in to throw a punch at her friend's side. Not hard...not a blow meant to hurt her. Just throw her off balance. It was an unspoken rule between them that they would never hurt each other again. So when Susie stumbled, Penny went to knock her leg out from under her, but her friend recovered too quickly, catching her in the side with a fist and knocking Penny sideways.

Her friend had taken to Rhodey from the start, the man who had saved her from the water and who had sat with her in the medbay for days while she'd recovered. And, she'd confided in Penny one day when they were alone in the medbay, Rhodey had held her while she'd cried. While she'd let all of the terrible things spill out of her, about the White Room and the doctors and the drug that had made her hurt her friend and...and all of it. And Rhodey had just held her and he'd promised her that she wasn't a bad person, that none of it had been her fault.

And that's when Penny had realized that Rhodey was to Susie what Tony was to her. Her father. Someone that would take care of her. The exact thing that Susie needed. That all of them needed.

The first time Penny had taken Susie down to the boxing ring in the training room, Susie had reacted just like Penny had. Breathing hard and taking a step back, hands balled into fists, Susie had shaken her head before Penny had put a hand on her arm just like Tony had her. "It's just for training. Nothing happens if you lose."

Susie had looked over at her, lower lip trembling before she'd bitten down on it. "Nothing happens?"

"I promise. I spar with Captain America. He never hurts me. Nothing happens when I lose."

Still, it had taken weeks before Susie had come to her room in the night, knuckles tapping against her bedroom door until Penny had climbed out of bed and opened it. "I want to go downstairs," Susie had told her in a choked whisper. Penny hadn't been surprised. She'd remembered the compulsion. The way the boxing ring had seemed to call to her until finally, she'd given in.

"Let me get dressed," she'd told her, inviting her in while Penny had thrown on a pair of shorts and a tank top. And then they'd gone to the elevator, walking together in silence until Penny had reached down, grasping her hand and leading her toward the boxing ring, and Susie had followed, climbing in after her. Then Penny had put her fists up, taking the stance she always had. And Susie had followed suit.

For a moment, they'd stood together in silence, the two of them facing off. And then Susie had charged. Movements almost frenzied and uncoordinated, Penny had had no problem taking her down, and in the silence that followed, the only sound had been their heavy breathing. Penny had reached a hand down, tugging Penny to her feet and smiling.

"See. Nothing happens."

Then the two of them had gone back to it, Susie growing more and more focused as the time had passed, until they'd been panting with exhaustion and smiling as they'd gotten their energy out. Rhodey and Tony had come down to watch them a couple of hours later, neither Penny nor Susie noticing them in the doorway as they'd sparred over and over, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, and nothing ever happened to the loser. It hadn't been until Susie had managed to slip a leg under Penny and knock her off her feet, the two of them exhausted and covered and sweat and laughing that Penny had caught sight of them, both looking torn between amazement and concern. That had only made Susie laugh harder, and she'd dropped down to the mat cross-legged until her laughter had turned to tears, and Penny had shifted to hold her until they'd been joined by their fathers.

Now as they cleaned up, taking quick showers and then dressing in normal clothes, Susie turned to Penny, speaking in that soft, almost whisper that she'd used for as long as Penny had known her, her lips quirked in a little smile. "I saw what you were doing in Chemistry on Friday."

Penny lifted an eyebrow even though she knew exactly what her friend was talking about. Susie's table was behind Penny and Ned's, but she thought she'd been discreet. "I was taking notes."

"Were not. You were working on a formula."

"I was doodling. It didn't mean anything."

Susie shrugged, letting it go, and the two girls climbed into the elevator, Susie getting off a few floors before Penny who met Pepper in their kitchen. Her mom smiled at her, gesturing for her to join her as she stood at the stove, making eggs for breakfast. "How was sparring?" Her mom asked, and Penny nodded.

"Not bad. She won more times than me." It was said with a shrug, since neither of them were so desperate to win anymore. So what did it really matter if Susie won, or if she won? Really, it was just fun to spar with someone as strong as she was...other than Steve. Susie wasn't quite ready to spar with Steve though.

"Good. I think it's helping her...helping the both of you." She ran a hand over Penny's hair, then rested a hand on her shoulder. "How are you feeling?" she asked, leaning her head in close.

"I'm okay."

"Did you sleep last night?"

Penny lied with a nod. She'd had the nightmare again that night, jerking awake after images of that room...the White Room. And fighting. And the water. Without Beijing asked, Friday had started playing soft music through the speaker by her bed, the piano music she loved, and that had helped her relax, but she hadn't slept. And judging by the look on Pepper's face and the fingertip she placed on Penny's cheek to tilt her face, her mother knew it. Still, her mother didn't call her out. She just asked her to set the table and started spooning eggs into a large serving bowl.

Tony joined them for breakfast a few minutes later, and it was like any other day. Any other morning with the family she now had, only it was better now because her friend was a part of it too, only a few floors down with her own family. It was perfect...more than the dreams that Penny had had back in the school, images of a figure she couldn't even begin to imagine but had hoped for so, so desperately. Now she had the real thing.

But so many of the kids she's grown up with hadn't gotten that future. What had happened to them? The ones that had turned eighteen or even the ones that had disappeared before that? It was a question that Susie had asked more than once since coming to live at the tower, and Penny knew that she wanted to help the Avengers track them down, despite the fact that the two of them had been told outright that they couldn't help. That they needed to live their own lives and leave crime fighting to the Avengers. Those had been Rhodey's actual words. And Tony had seconded them.

But what about the other kids? What kind of life were they living now?

The thought was stuck in her mind all morning, as she helped Tony with the dishes and as she made her bed. As she carried her backpack down to the lab and as she got distracted helping Tony with a project he'd been working on instead of actually getting started on her homework.

Working in the lab with Tony was her favorite thing, right up there with sparring with Susie and listening to Tony play the piano and making breakfast with Pepper. On days when school had seemed to drag on for too long and she just hadn't been able to understand why other people behaved the way they did and she couldn't seem to connect with any of her peers, spending time in the lab with her father made it all go away. All of the fear and pain and uncertainty. The memories of the school that was really a prison and of Osborn and the fighting. All of it.

It was a Saturday, so she was able to spend almost two hours forgetting about her homework. Finally, though, Tony looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. "Didn't you come down here to do homework?"

"Yeah...but this is more fun."

He chucked, ruffling her hair, and she let him, smiling back. It still seemed unreal sometimes, this life she was allowed to lead. "If you hurry and finish your homework, we'll go get lunch. Your pick. Then we can come back down here and get some more work done."

"Okay," she said with an overly exaggerated sigh, making him laugh again as she jumped off her stool and ambled over to her little desk where her backpack waited. Beside it now was a second desk, one with a notebook and colored pencils belonging to Susie, along with various other supplies, from bright pink post it notes to highlighters. They often did their homework together at their desks but her friend was going to her therapy session with Rhodey in the city today, so she was once more on her own.

Dropping into the chair at her desk, Penny pulled out her chemistry notebook first, figuring she'd get that out of the way, and then she'd only have to read a chapter in her history book. And then lunch. Glancing up to make sure Tony was still on the other side of the room and not paying attention to her, Penny opened her notebook to the page she'd been doodling on the day before.

Susie had been right, of course. Her friend knew her better than anyone, and she had known what Penny had been doing. In fact, it had been partially Susie's idea.

"You were bitten by a spider, right? So what if you could make webs?"

It had been a part of a soft conversation whispered under Penny's comforter, the two of them huddled together in the bed as they'd wondered where the children they'd grow up with were now…what had happened to them. And if there was anything they could do to help them.

They were strong too. They had powers. So why couldn't they fight the bad guys that had taken their friends?

Penny hadn't been able to get the idea out of her head, and so the quest to create web fluid had begun, complete with tons of research on spiders both in books and on the computer at school. And she felt like she was almost there...she just needed to test it. That was the plan for Monday. She'd just put the beaker in her drawer and...well...pray it didn't blow up.

As she opened her notebook to double check the formula, though, a folded piece of paper nearly fell out. Frowning and checking on Tony once more, she unfolded it, blinking at the drawing and the bright pink post-it note. On the paper was a drawing...a suit covered in black spider webs with black eyes on the mask, colored in with red. Tiny notes were written in the margins, filling the entire paper. Some detailed possible materials and others gave ideas on how to get the lenses of the eyes to move and contract. Penny had to squint to see them all, eyes darting around the page trying to take it in.

And on the post-it stuck to the corner, were three words written in bold, black ink.

"I dare you."

The End

Thank you all so much for reading!