Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Penelope Margaret Parker did not like boredom.

Now, most people who somehow accidentally end up reborn as a fictional character may not find their life boring, but Penny thought that those people forgot what day-to-day life is like. 

Penny, in her past life, had finished high school (a year early, thank you very much), gotten her double major college degree in three years while working part-time hours that tended to stray too close to full-time, and then gone straight into the most mentally demanding career she could find while also signing up for a masters degree. She was not a person who could deal with boredom in any way, shape, or form.

And she was bored.

Even with the alien invasion that had killed Uncle Ben, the rise of superheroes, and then the truly insane amount of US-based terrorists, she was bored.

So, the day after her fourteenth birthday, despite AcDec and Robotics club and cheerleading, she went up to the Midtown School of Science and Technology office and requested them to sign off on her working papers so she could get a job as a minor. Aunt May had no idea, of course, until she had an actual job interview lined up. Penny wondered if her aunt knew that a guardian’s signature was mandatory or if she simply didn’t care about the forged signature, but either way, Penny no longer depended on her aunt to pay for new books or tech or lost backpacks.

And, sure, the jewellery store had been wary of hiring Penny, but she’d been in the industry before and knew how it went. Family-owned stores were far more likely to hire those lacking in the CV area, and high-end retail was her bread and butter; she could sell a Swiss watch in her sleep. Though, her biggest selling point was the fact that she knew how to use a laptop: jewellery was one industry that had dug in its heels about modernising, even in ten years time, and they needed someone who knew how to format a website and write up a digital valuation certification.

In fact, that stupid valuation certification was the bane of her existence. She got it, she was the youngest person in the company by a solid 20 years, but could they just please follow the template she had set up for them? If Don wrote the serial number under ‘stock code’ one more time she was going to lose her shit.

Penny aggressively deleted the mistake and swapped the two lines of code around. 

She lazily looked up when a customer came in, before giving a look to her coworker, letting Jane know that she was happy to skip commission on this one. It was just the Manovichs again; they had six lay-bys pending in the system and were probably about to pay off one and open another, she was more than happy to not hear Mrs Manovich talk about her sick poodle while she agonised over a new bangle.

Aaand the phone was ringing again. She waited a moment to see if anyone else would grab it, but no luck—everyone was busy serving.

Answering the phone, Penny opened a new email. The store was surprisingly busy today, which honestly just meant she was playing secretary more than she was playing saleslady.

“This is Agresti’s Jewellers, Penny speaking.” She began drafting the email to their suppliers, letting them know they needed another watch of the same model. “Mr Prett, I hope you’re calling about that engraving.”

She had to finalize this engraving, email their suppliers, finish double-checking those valuations so she could send them all out tomorrow, and then she could have her coffee break. During that break, she could finish her homework and plan her vigilante route for the evening after close. She was organised, she had this, and she thrived in an environment of constant low level stress.

That last one wasn’t one of the affirmations her past-life therapist had given her, but it was true, so she included it anyway.

“Trust me, I also want to know why they requested hand-engraving and not the lovely laser machine you have,” She said, digging at the corners of her eyes under her glasses. “I’m young, I’m all for the future, but she’s like eighty and wants her grandbabies’ birthdates engraved by hand, so can we get that done for a Tuesday pick-up or should I tell Mr Agresti to go there next Friday?”

She hated 2015 so much. Her laptop was clunky, the work-phone had an honest to God wire, and the wi-fi was so goddamn slow. Could the damn file attach?

Someone came to stand in front of her little desk (aka the corner between the watch counter and the stairs where the CCTV couldn’t see her laptop screen and she had the phone within arm’s reach), and she didn’t even look up properly. A flash of fancy suit, and the overwhelming smell of expensive perfume let her know it was a customer who didn’t want to use the perfectly good sofas they had for customers to wait on for someone to be free.

“If you could just wait a second, sir,” She said to the customer before turning back to Mr Prett, “No, we can’t pick it up on Thursday…. I know Don will be doing nothing Thursday afternoon, but everyone else does pick-ups on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we will not be wasting precious petrol on one $65 engraving, put it aside for Friday. Yeah, send the invoice to Mrs Agresti’s email. Thank you, Mr Prett!”

Despite only working there for six months, Penny had this place down pat. Nobody really cared that she was fourteen, as long as she kept up the ability to work her magic on the computer and get her job packets done in less than two weeks, she was treated the same as everyone else. Which was a nice breath of fresh air considering the fact that she was dealing with the way that everyone liked to talk down to children for a second time around.

She hung up the phone and immediately held up a finger to stop the customer who went to open their mouth. “Oneee second,” She drew out the word as she added the ‘kind regards’ to the end of her email before hitting send. 

“Done!” She slammed the laptop shut and looked up with her customer service smile. “How can I… uh… How can I help you, Dr Stark?”

She couldn’t help but lose her words as she stared at the billionaire standing in front of her. 

“You know, I haven’t been told to wait in months,” The man said, looking down at her from over his sunglasses. “I feel like there should be an obligatory ‘kids these days’ thrown in right about now.”

Jane, lovely 60 year old Jane who told her stories about seeing the Beatles live and befriending hippies, looked like she wanted to dive over the counter and steal Stark away from her. To apologise on her behalf, to flirt with him or to steal her commission, Penny had no idea, but when her eyes flickered to her for help, all she could see was pure envy in Jane’s eyes while she was stuck listening to Mrs Manovich yap worse than her poodle.

No help there. 

So Penny did what Spiderwoman did best: sass.

She smiled sweetly, “Well, everyone needs to be reminded that patience is a virtue, even our elders who should already have that perfected.”

Don, who finally realised that the richest man in the country, if not the world, had stepped into the store, made a wheezing laugh that he tried to cover up.

“Wow,” Stark raised his eyebrows. “Calling me old? Low blow, kiddo. Low. Blow.”

He was as animated in real life as he was in comic books, gesturing and facial expressions and all. It was mildly comforting, if not equally baffling.

“Can I help you, Dr Stark? Or should I call the owner to come serve you?” Mr Agresti was out doing… something… but would definitely come running back if she told him Tony Stark was in the store.

“No need for the VIP treatment,” He waved her hand away from the phone. “I need a necklace, blue, heart shaped.”

Okay, she could do that. 

She grabbed a diamond chart and pointed at the carat scale: “So is everything alright,” she pointed at the .25ct size, “or have you fucked up really bad?” She pointed at the 5ct size.

His lip twitched, “I missed our dinner reservation.”

Penny’s finger twitched as she fought not to lose her composure, “A reservation with the SI CEO Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts?”

“Yep,” Stark grimaced, “Is this the part where you tell me to grab the most expensive item in store?”

“This is the part where I tell you that every woman that receives heart-shaped jewellery knows that it’s a terrible materialistic apology, and that they’ll never wear it.”

He points at her own pendant, “Isn’t that heart-shaped?”

Touché. Her hand came up to cover the little locket and lied, “It’s my grandma’s, from when my grandpa made his own apology.”

“Got it,” His palms drummed against the glass counter. “So what do you suggest?”

“ Not the most expensive thing in store,” The item in question was a 3.08ct solitaire diamond in 22ct gold and the most unwieldy ring she’d ever seen. It was also nearly $100,000 and she wasn’t that desperate for commission money. “Is her favourite color blue?”

At his confirmation, she began to scan the store. A watch would be too on the nose, a ring was out, earrings were nice, perhaps?

“We have some sapphire earrings,” She told him, already grabbing her keys and heading towards the jewellery counter. “She wears drops at formal events but wears studs in press-conferences; which does she use every day?”

“You know what earrings my girlfriend wears?” He seemed amused by it.

“Of course not,” She reached the counter. “I know what earrings feminist icon Pepper Potts wears. She’s on a poster in my business and finance class.”

“Am I on a poster in your science class?” Stark leaned on the glass despite the very clear sign telling everyone to not do exactly that. 

“No,” She pulled out a tray. “You’re in my social studies class. We’re covering Middle-Eastern politics and civil unrest. Now, studs or drops?”

His smirk dropped, “Studs.”

“Ceylonese or Madagascan sapphires?” She grabbed a different tray. 

“What’s the difference?”

“Location mostly, but our Ceylonese tends to be a lighter color while Madagascan is more of a royal blue. Just the way we source them, they can be the other way round too.”

He hesitated for just a second too long, so Penny stepped in again. He seemed happy enough to take direction, unlike some customers. “You should get Madagascan, Ms Potts is pale enough that the lighter blue would get lost against her hair and the darker shade matches more of her outfits.”

“Not the diamond halos, that’s too old fashioned,” He wrinkled his nose at the set she had been about to push towards him. Swapping them out for some trillion cut studs, she put them in front of him so he could grab them from the table. 

“Double claws, six-claw hold in platinum.” She fidgeted as he inspected them, feeling her age far too much. “Durable but lowkey.”

He hummed in vague agreement. “How much?”

“1.65ct each stud,” She held her hand out so he could drop it in her empty palm. “3.3ct total, $2,500.”

The price was a total rip-off for 2015, but the business was built off of Mr Agresti offering big discounts for every customer because they were all ‘so friendly and such loyal customers.’

“Should I bother offering a discount or the insurance valuation paperwork?” She could see in his eyes through the oversized sunglasses, he was getting them.

“Gross, paperwork,” Was his response. “Put it on this card. Do you need a tip? Is tipping a thing here? Nevermind, here’s $200 if you never mention the word ‘paperwork’ in front of me again.”

“That’s bribery and discouraged in this industry,” despite that, she blatantly put the money in her training bra. That was a Spidersuit upgrade paid for by Iron Man. Slay. “Should the receipt also be ignored?”

“You know me already,” He put his hand over his heart, pretending to be touched before straightening up.”So, what, you the owner's kid?”

“Nope,” she struggled getting the earrings into their box, her reminder that her nails have gotten too long. “I’m just young, dumb, and broke.”

“And the local McDonalds wasn’t hiring?”

“The local McDonalds pays minimum wage, doesn’t give you breaks, and has an ugly uniform.” She rolled her eyes, “And I’m good at this.”

“Wanna be a jeweller then?” What is with the small talk? Isn’t that, like, one of his things that he hates small talk?

“No,” in her past life, she was a teacher in a country that at least paid the job decently enough that the draining job was worth it, but this was America. “I want a PhD and to become a researcher at MIT or Columbia. Or something.”

“Ah, my alma mater, those were the good old days,” He sighed.

“When underage drinking laws were less enforced?” She put the bag on the counter. “Because, just so you know, those are the videos that pop up first on YouTube when I try to search for your MIT seminars.”

“You watch my seminars?” He didn’t take the bag.

What was his game? Did he know she was Spiderwoman already? Sokovia hadn’t even happened yet and she’d only been playing around in the onesie for barely a month!

“I go to a STEM school; your talks about integrating tech with the nervous system are fascinating.” She frowned at him, “although, I’m surprised you’ve done so much in nerve and prosthetic interfacing, and nothing about brain synapses. You’ve basically given the nerves an ability to hallucinate a limb and nothing about actual hallucinations, a digital interface would be revolutionary in the psychological field.”

He looked a bit surprised at her, but still expecting. “That’s definitely an idea, but how would you do it?”

Penny was more of an ideas person; she had taken nearly three years to create her web formula despite her 4.0 GPA, but this at least she could do. “VR simulations for a visual-audio field, and the rest of the neurons activated via the spinal cord to give the idea of being in a situation, same as your prosthetics. Augmented reality taken to the next level would be great for PTSD, like those vets that are using those modified Call of Duty games for desensitisation. Clunky, probably, but I’m not an engineer, I’m a student.”

She really was just a student. She’d always been smart, but in her last life she’d had the particular habit of ‘wasting her potential’ as her dad had put it. Humanities instead of engineering or science, goofing around in biology class despite remembering basically everything years later, doing an arts major in psychology instead of the medical sciences psychiatry she’d been accepted into. She hadn’t really given a shit because she’d been happy, but unfortunately here she had far more responsibility.

With great power came great responsibility. Yay.

“Humility, good, that’s a rare trait nowadays. See I’m the picture of humility and yet—” The phone cut him off by ringing and she promptly went to answer it.

He’d already checked out, and she had no idea why he was lingering.

“Hello Agresti’s Jewellers: Penny speaking.” She held the landline to her ear, shuffling over so Don could check his own customer out. “No, Mrs Gilles, your watch is not ready to pick up, John told you yesterday that it would be 5 to 7 business days. No, it’s always 5 to 7 business days. Well, if you’d like you can email the store and I’ll flag your repair as urgent, but remember that’s a 20% up charge. Yes, that’s what I said. Ma’am, we can do it for Tuesday as urgent or we can do it for Friday as normal but it’s not coming back on Saturday. Well then ma’am I will see you on Friday when you come to pick it up, thank you, goodbye.”

When she hung up, she immediately turned on the superhero. “Dr Stark, if you’re waiting for the exchange policy I do have to tell you the receipt you told me to throw out is necessary for that.”

If she was quite honest, she was getting a bit annoyed with him, though that was all customers who lingered despite the sale being complete. But there was something about him being here in particular that was throwing all her plans off. 

“Penny, is that your name?” He kept staring at her until she nodded, “great. You know who I am, I like you. Next time, you serve me again, capiche? See you next time, tater tot!”

Then he strutted out of the store.

Penny turned to Don. “Did that really just happen?”

It was Mrs Manovich that answered her. “Darling, I think you just got yourself a steady commission pay.”

Penny couldn’t help but groan. Tony Stark was going to be a nightmare customer to deal with.

Chapter Text

Ned did not understand her misery.

He had come in to hand her the dinner that she hadn’t been able to go out and grab; also she could hand over her copy of the history essay they had to write. But then, of course, Dr Stark came in.

“Penny-pasta!” Dr Stark sing-songed the second he stepped inside, four days after he’d come for the sapphires for Ms Potts. “Where’s my favourite salesgirl?”

Ned’s jaw dropped, and began to make an impressively loud whistling sound. Penny was slightly worried that he might start summoning dogs soon. The noise sure was hurting her own ears. 

“About to go on break,” she told him from next to the stairs after John (the traitor) pointed her out. “Can you wait twenty minutes for me to eat dinner? The sofas are actually comfortable.”

“Perfect!” He clapped his hands, setting Ned off to start stuttering about Iron Man. “I’ll buy you dinner, we can talk watches.”

She sighed, “my friend just dropped my dinner off, and we can talk watches once I get back.”

“She gets cranky when she doesn’t eat at the same time everyday,” John called out from his desk.

“Says the man who takes a nap during his lunch break everyday,” she called back.

John swiveled around in his chair to give Stark a look, “See? Cranky. I can serve you if you’d like.”

“Nah, I like her, she has no filter,” he waved John off. “What’s your coffee order then? I’ll grab that and then we can talk watches.”

Well, since he was obviously not going to go away easily: “White chocolate hot chocolate with two pumps of caramel syrup. There’s a Starbucks across the street on the corner, or there’s the bad keto cafe two floors up.”

He walked out, throwing a lazy hand symbol that she couldn’t see properly. 

“Dude!” Ned hissed, punching her arm repeatedly. “That’s Tony Stark! Iron Man is buying you coffee!”

Penny gave him her deadest retail-sucked-out-my-soul stare, “Dr Stark is interrupting my dinner, Ned. He’s, like, negative cool right now.”

Ned gave her an incredulous look, “It’s Iron Man!”

“He’s a bit of a rude customer,” She reminded him. “Well, not really, just a demanding one. Well, actually, he’s not really…”

Ned started climbing the stairs after her, “Admit it, you’re searching for something to dislike because you’re hangry and can’t see how cool Iron Man knowing your name is!”

“Shhhhh!” She jumped over the second to last step, having an old history of nearly tripping over it.

Technically, Ned shouldn’t be up here, but if John was in charge, then nobody would care or notice. There were no cameras in the staff room/workshop upstairs, but there were a lot of products scattered around, so it was a security risk. However, it’s Ned, and John knew it was Ned because Ned is the least likely person to steal in the world. Ned nearly cried when Penny admitted to him that she lied to Aunt May about what movie they were watching because it was PG-13 when they were 12. 

Ned had brought them both subs from Delmar’s, which was exactly what she needed.

She sat down on Mrs Agresti’s office chair while he grabbed a stool, placing their subs over the one empty spot on the worktable. “I don’t know, dude, I just wasn’t expecting him and you know I don’t like surprises.”

“This is the best surprise.”

“No it’s not,” She picked at the sandwich wrap. “It’s weird. He’s, like, a billionaire and a superhero; I shouldn’t be seeing him in my shop.”

“You get millionaires in here all the time! This is an upgrade,” He pointed out. “This is why my Lola says you have to eat to see things clearly.”

“Your Lola also told me to put garlic oil on my forehead when I had a 102℉ degree fever.”

Ned nodded, “Exactly, she knows everything. You got better the very next day.”

Actually, that was a spider bite pushing radiation through her system, but she’s not going to argue that with Ned.

“Well,” She paused, struggling for an argument. “We’re moody teenagers, let me be moody.”

Ned groaned, “Just don’t scare him off, I want to meet him.”

She pulled her sub to her mouth, “Fine.”

Ned seemed too excited to eat, “What do you think he wants to buy anyway? Oh! Maybe he’s getting an engagement ring!”

“A watch, Ned, he came in asking to talk watches with me.” God she loved this sandwich. Penny would propose to this sandwich. She would make sweet sweet love to it. She’s starving and the free school lunches are so not enough. “Probably for himself, last time he came in to grab Ms Potts a present because he missed something.”

“Why didn’t you tell me he came in last time?” Ned pouted at her, “I’m your best friend , Pen!”

“You’re my only friend,” She was going to devour this sandwich and then steal Ned’s if he doesn’t start eating his. “And I kinda thought I hallucinated the whole thing.”

“Fair,” He nodded and finally took a bite of his own sub. Penny couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed that she couldn’t steal his. “I kinda think I’m dreaming this.”

“See?” She pointed at him, “Tony Stark is, like, not real. He’s a weird mass hallucination.”

“Tony Stark is a cryptid?” Ned nodded seriously, “I see it. Cryptid Stark 2015. I see the tumblr threads unfolding in my head.”

“And this is why you’re my best friend,” She grinned, “Now, do you still need my essay for history or should I proofread yours?”

It was barely fifteen minutes later that John was hollering up the stairs that Stark was back.

Ned was practically vibrating at her side when they went down the stairs to see Stark holding a venti cup with ‘Iron Man’ scrawled on the side.

“Hey,” She waited for him to drop the cup on the counter before she moved to pick it up. He had that one thing about handing and being handed things, which Penny wasn’t sure if it was some PTSD trigger or something equally important or just him being Tony-fucking-Stark, but either way, she wasn’t going to be rude about it. “So, watches?”

He grinned, “Pepper loved the earrings you picked out, so I’m thinking of grabbing a watch for my Rhodey-bear. You know him.”

“War Machine,” She confirmed, ignoring how Ned was now muttering under his breath about how cool Iron Patriot (stupid name) was. “What were you thinking?”

“Well, he hasn’t worn the Rolex I got him once ,” Stark crossed his arms. 

“You gave a military man a Rolex and you expect him to wear it… where? To what event?” She pointed out. 

He actually stopped to think about that one, “Galas?”

She gave him a flat look, “How about we stop giving him anxiety over the price point and look at some nice TAG Heuers?”

Actually, those watches did give Penny anxiety over their price, but considering Stark had probably given the poor man a solid gold Rolex worth somewhere around a quarter of a million dollars, a three thousand dollar watch was a huge improvement.

“They look–” She cut him off.

“Hardy. Fancy, but durable enough that he can wear them as War Machine.” She raised an eyebrow, “Is that not your goal?”

“Yes,” He wrinkled his nose. “Don’t you think a Rolex is nicer?”

“I think a Rolex is flashy. It’s a new-money piece, made to catch jealous eyes rather than appreciative ones. You want an expensive piece, get a Patek Philippe or Vacheron Constantin; you get the status and less people thinking you’re a rich prick.”

“I am a rich prick,” He smirked.

She shrugged, “And that’s your brand. But is it Colonel Rhodes?”

He nodded and clapped, “So! A TAG, what were you thinking, an F1 or a Monaco?”

“An Aquaracer,” She was already pulling the exact model she thought would suit him best. “We have this one with a blue face and gold bezel.”

He stared at her, still with those sunglasses on. To feign nonchalance, she took a sip of her hot chocolate; annoyingly, he had gotten her order perfect. “Do you actually think this watch is the one?”

“No,” She answered honestly. “But the Tissot PRX’s I’d suggest would be too cheap for you to go for, and the Longines Master’s don’t look like something you’d actually pick for him. We’re already compromising with the TAG and you aren’t exactly known for doing that, so I think I’m already making a miracle happen here.”

He pointed a finger at her, “See this? This is what I like about you. This is also why I always get JARVIS to do my shopping for me. ‘Too cheap for a Stark’ what is that? No, show me the Longines.”

“You hate being predictable,” She could relate to that. “Mood.”

John quickly spun around to hit her with a suspicious look, and Ned actually jolted forward as if to grab her and stop her from doing something stupid. Or maybe to film her doing something stupid. Who knows.

Neither of them were aware that she chemotherapy-ed her way out of her nut allergy, and yes, maybe she has purposely triggered her allergies in front of them, but, in her defense, Don and Flash have now both learned their lessons about… well, she wasn’t quite sure what the lesson she taught was. Maybe: don’t bore her? Or maybe: don’t irritate her?

She protested her innocence, “I’ve done nothing!”

Both of them looked doubtful, but kindly slunk back so she could continue her consultation.

Stark just looked amused, “You’re a troublemaker too?”

“Allergies are fake, I don’t know why I swelled up, officer,” Smiling, she opened a new cabinet. “Here’s the model I suggest.”

She could immediately see the way he leaned away ever so slightly at the plain design, “What’s wrong?”

“Too much steel, it’s too boring.” He waved his hand at it. “The diamonds just look tacky.”

“We have it in black,” She offered, pulling the new watch out. “Roman numerals and chronograph too.”

“I still don’t like the strap.”

“Do you think a leather strap would fix the problem?” As much as she complained, she did like retail. She liked problem solving and memorising stock and feeling knowledgeable about one little corner of the world. “I can get a black alligator one to match the face?”

“Let’s try that,” He agreed, and she immediately handed the watch over to John to swap the straps out. He was just better at it. “So why is there a second toddler in the workplace today?”

“Ned’s my friend,” She took another sip from her cup. “And Monday evenings are quiet, so there’s not exactly a lot of work for him to be distracting me from.”

“Hi,” Ned squeaked out. “We have a poster of you at school. I also have an Iron Man one in my room.”

“It is a cool poster,” Penny had to agree. It was huge and clearly stylized as a mid-action shot of him doing the superhero pose of knee arthritis. “It glows in the dark.”

Stark lit up, “Okay now that is awesome! I need one of those in my workshop.”

“Oh my god Iron Man likes my poster!” Ned was going to explode with happiness, “I can send you the link! Or, uh, airdrop it to you? Wait, I can get the site–”

At least they were getting along well. Penny was more for the desire to lock herself inside the safe and refuse to come out, but that was probably because it was a Monday evening, she was tired, and she was still hungry.

God, sometimes she doesn’t know what part of being Spiderwoman was worse: the senses on overdrive or the constant hunger. She got bitten by that spider two months ago, but it felt like years ago; the days just dragged on and on.

“Here,” she grabbed the watch back from John. The black strap was an improvement, slimming the watch down by a lot and making it far more casual. “What do you think Colonel Rhodes would think?”

His lips twisted, because of her wording or from some unknown thought– she didn’t know. “He’d love it. That’s exactly what he’d pick out for himself.”

“So that’s the one we’re going with,” she decided. “I’ll do the warranty online. No paperwork.”

“Perfect. Now, talk me through this thing?” He traced them through the glass, “Why does it have a moon on it?”

She glanced down at his own wrist in mild incredulity but then realized that of course the tech genius wouldn’t wear a traditional watch. He’d probably been making his own for the past twenty years. She knew he wore the occasional Rolex, Patek or Jaeger, but never any other brand.

“It’s a moonphase complication,” she informed him, reaching down for the catalog. Maybe she should have shown him that earlier. See, this is why you don’t do things hungry, you miss obvious shit. “This model isss… here!”

She turned the book around so he could see, “It’s part of the Master collection, inspired by traditional aviation compasses and timekeeping. The chronograph moonphase model has a date hand and is practically made for aviators and the military, which is why it’s my recommendation. Now, this watch is automatic, so no battery involved. It’s powered by its own movement and if it sits still too long, all you have to do is give the crown a quick wind, and the watch a shake so it’ll tick again. Longines has some of the very best of automatic watches, especially since this one has the date here with the moon hand and the 24-hour indicator at 9 o’clock; they’ve gone through a rigorous process to make sure they won’t lose time.”

Stark hummed in interest, reading the specs of the model. “Is the rigorous testing process just shaking it really hard?”

She grinned, full of teeth. “And taking it on a plane at a high altitude. Standard rigorous testing, just like your Starkphones. Not Hulkproof either.”

The Starkphone 4 ad on YouTube had gone viral, with several memes spawning from the part where Stark handed the phone to the Hulk. Who had promptly smashed it, and then the words ‘Not Hulkproof’ had flashed on screen. Obviously, that had become one of the top memes of 2014.

He snorted, and from the startled look on his face, he expected it just as much as she did. “I’d be surprised if you had anything Hulkproof in this shop.”

Penny gave him her most innocent of wide-eyed faces, “Well, my phone is a Nokia brick.”

“Blasphemy!” Stark gasped, putting a hand over his arc reactor. “That’s it, I’m leaving, you just lost a very valuable customer!”

Penny couldn’t help her giggle, “For having a phone I know will survive me falling down the stairs again?”

In her defense, everyone had fallen down those stairs. Mr Agresti had done so just that morning, and that’s why he was not here to help close in the evening. He was fine, he just hated being in the store and not the workshop, so he used it as an excuse.

“The Starkphone can survive that!” He was indignant. “Do you know how many phones Captain America goes through? The latest model was made specifically with him in mind!”

She sobered up at his response. Why was Captain America breaking phones? Penny knew she was stronger than Rogers (from several MCU Spiderman strength-scaling TikToks her brother sent her), and she could control her strength with delicate things just fine. She hadn’t accidentally torn off any door handles since that first fortnight.

“The latest Starkphone is $600,” She gave him a flat look. “A Nokia brick I dug out of a used tech bin is $5. My commission here is 2%, and I make barely a dollar over minimum wage, plus half my wage goes into my college fund. A Starkphone is above the average person’s budget.”

He stopped completely at that, joking demeanor gone. “That’s competitive prices.”

“Competitive prices only go so far. Eventually, you’ll hit your consumer limit with the prices, and you’ll have to raise them anyway, losing even more consumers. Arizona Ice Tea is 99 cents, has been so since before I was born, but everyone continues to buy from them even if other brands taste better or are healthier simply because of the price. Costco does the same thing with their hotdogs. The recipes haven’t changed either. You’re just alienating a younger and poorer market for no reason, because I know production cost prices are low since SI is rated the biggest automated production line company in the world.”

“Huh,” He took off his sunglasses for the first time. “What price could you afford that’s still profitable?”

“$200,” It was still pricey and she’d have to save for it, but it was still 30 bucks above cost price. They couldn’t complain with an 18% profit margin. 

 “$200? Alright,” He nodded and muttered to himself, dipping between English, Italian, and Russian as he tapped some notes onto his phone.

He’s acting like a weirdo, so she had no conjecture about placing the eftpos machine in front of him. “$2,000 whenever you’re ready, Dr Stark.”

“Huh?” He looked up, then frowned at the machine. “Oh right, the watch.”

Penny mouthed a ‘ He started it! ’ to Ned when Stark bent down to pay, revealing the panicked mouthing Ned was doing, trying to convey to her that she shouldn’t have gotten into an argument with Iron Man. She didn’t care, he was acting like a rich prick billionaire. Last she checked, she still had basic class consciousness and a hatred of capitalism.

Stark straightened up and took the packed-up watch, “Do you have a business card, kid?”

John was clearly keeping a half-ear on their conversation even while he checked the soccer game on his desktop. “We’re not letting a minor give out a card with their details to strange adults.”

A good policy she did agree with, even if it meant her stealing whoever’s card was with her on that day and scrawling her name on the back. 

“Good man, inconvenient for me but probably a great defense against creeps,” Stark pointed at John. “That’s fine, I’ll look you up on the internet. Hope you don’t have any embarrassing photos on Facebook.”

“I don’t have Facebook, it’s for old people,” Was her automatic reply, instead of something more reasonable like ‘please don’t cyberstalk me, a 14-year-old girl.’

“Eh, there’s probably some embarrassing photos elsewhere,” He didn’t even wait for the receipt to print. “See you next time, kid!”

She stared after him, “I can’t tell if I hate him or love him.”

“Love!” Ned punched her arm, “It’s Iron Man, who doesn’t love him? Crazy people!”

“Hate him,” John deadpanned. “If he keeps showing up, we’re gonna get a lot more traffic in here and I don’t want to deal with tourists.”

She threw the receipt into the bin, “At least he brought me Starbucks.”

Chapter Text

The next time Tony Stark came into her store, two weeks later, he came bearing gifts.

In one hand, Starbucks. In the other, a wrapped box.

She waited for him to place them both in front of her counter, not looking up until her email to the stupid insurance company was done, before she reacted.

“Thanks for the…” she waited until she took a sip, “caramel and white chocolate mocha?”

“Everything's better with coffee,” he grabbed one of the stools and dragged it so he could sit across from her on the other side of the counter. “Don’t you agree?”

“My aunt says I’m too young for coffee.” Despite that, Aunt May did make them both an espresso after lunch whenever they were both home to enjoy it. Her aunt worked long shifts to make ends meet and have some extra, and Penny was always mature for her age and signed up to anything and everything to stay her boredom; those few moments together outside those quick hour interactions in the morning and evening were precious. 

“Right,” he snapped his fingers, “underage drinker. Give me that back. Let’s get you an age-appropriate juice box.”

She clutched the coffee to her chest, “fuck you, it’s mine now. Get your own precious.”

He burst into laughter, the sort of deep belly laughter most people give when they see someone act like a moron; the sort of laughter she had whenever Mr Agresti walked into the glass because he was distracted by new ring specs. 

She let herself laugh with him. He wasn’t so bad…for a billionaire.

He had been one of her favourite characters, once upon a time. She’d cried over him when he died in Endgame, then cursed out Marvel when they said RDJ is coming back as Doctor Doom. But fictional characters were a very different thing from real-life people with real-life flaws and complexity and the thousand other things that make you judge them. 

“Wait, can you guys do that? Can I get the One Ring here? Please tell me I can buy the One Ring,” he begged, lighting up at the idea that just occurred to him.

“Hell yeah, we can do the One Ring!” It was in their catalog and she’d been dying for someone to ask about it. Penny would have had it made for herself if the price for a custom-made silver piece hadn’t been ridiculous. “Please tell me we’re making the One Ring today.”

“I came in for something else, but fuck yeah let’s do both!” He clapped his hands in delight. “Show me the specs!”

Penny practically ran to grab the catalog. 

She was alone manning the shop. Well, not really, Mr and Mrs Agresti were there, but they were both upstairs and it was right after Valentine’s, so they weren’t exactly drowning in customers.

Stark was fun to design jewellery with. He could imagine things in his head instantly, he knew the differences in gold carats and didn’t demand to get 18ct for the price of 9ct, and he didn’t give up when she told him about the fees or that it would take a few weeks. 

The entire thing ended up being a little over half an ounce, made of 21ct yellow gold, over a thousand dollars, and paid upfront. 

This man was a retail salesperson’s dream.

“Right,” He took his sunglasses off. “I think it’s time for us to get down to business.”

“What was this?” She gestured with the receipt that she was about to throw out. 

“Fun.”

…Fair enough.

She threw the receipt out, “so what is business?”

“I checked your school records–” “Creepy.” “–and you’re a genius. Midtown is already a genius school, and you have a 4.0 GPA, a scholarship, three extra-curriculars, and I know you work here 3 days a week. You’re bored.”

She squinted at him. He wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t know if she liked where this was going. “Yes?”

“Here’s my offer: you come work with me,” he spread his hands out like he just offered her some sort of miracle; unfortunately for his ego, he wasn’t Jesus and T-posing wasn’t establishing any dominance over her. “In fact, I want to give you to Pepper. You’re like Pep, but tiny and better at science. You’d make a great PA, you get to talk down to dumb old men on the phone, and we’d pay you way more than minimum wage. What do you think?”

“I think you have no idea what minimum wage is,” was her response, “I also think you didn’t think this through at all and Ms Potts has no idea about this.”

“Minimum wage is really low, that’s all I know,” he shrugged. “But we can get you salaried! Let’s say, $100,000 a year?”

“So Ms Potts doesn’t know about this,” she confirmed with a sigh. Was the crazy rich guy aware that buying people, especially minors, was looked down on in most countries? “You are aware I’m 14, right? You can’t just hire a 14-year-old on a whim.”

“Why not?” Stark looked terribly offended. “I have the money! What, do you want more? We can do 150 thousand?”

“Because of child labour laws, genius ,” she snarked. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Mine is a brick and yours connects to the internet. Phone.” She made a grabby motion with her hand and then patted the counter so he could take the hint.

He put his phone down on the counter, unlocked. “What do you need to show me?”

“All the forms you need to fill out to legally employ me. Also, a link to the child labour laws website. I can work three hours during the week and a maximum of eight on the weekend a day, or a total of eighteen a week. Which you better not try to do because I have Cheer practise on Tuesdays and Saturdays, AcDec on Wednesdays and Monday mornings, but if you’re hiring me, I’m amiable to quitting Robotics Club because SI will look better on my CV. I very much doubt that you would be able to get me legally working as a PA because I lack both age and experience, and the fact that I am a massive liability who can’t even sign my own NDA’s.” 

Her fingers opened several new tabs and just kept adding the information, including onto his (untouched like a weirdo) notes app. “Check with your lawyers to see what the best way to employ me is, and don’t forget you need my school’s permission too. Personally, I think an internship would be the best way to bypass most laws, but your lawyers would know more than me. Check with them, come back to me with a plan, and then I will talk to my aunt and hand in my two weeks.”

 “I knew you’d say yes,” he smirked like the cat who caught the canary.

“It’s not a yes, it’s just also not a no. Unlike you, I’m not the impulsive kind,” she slid his phone across the counter back to him. “Also, just to check, but you aren’t a sex offender, are you?”

The smirk dropped off his face, offense overtaking him. “What? No!”

“Just checking!” She defended herself, raising her hands in surrender. “Just, like, you have so many sex scandals, so many , and public urination is enough to get you on that registry, y’know? There’s like, two sex offenders that live in my complex because one was homeless and the other streaked in college. Like, you’ve done way worse than them. I had to check!”

His cheek twitched. “I have good lawyers and I don’t do that anymore. I’m Iron Man now, kid, I’m on the straight and narrow.”

“I believe you,” he was being defensive about it and now she had to justify herself and it was awkward and ugh! “It’s just that actions have consequences, even if it was in the past and you’ve apologized for it. That’s why there a limitations thingie on crimes and why there’s still punishment when you plead guilty and stuff. There’s not really a timer or slate to clear on being a sex offender, and really, this is me being safe and checking for my, like, safety. Well, not really, if I cared about my safety I would have called the police because you cyberstalked me, but yeah. You’re Iron Man and all, but that doesn’t mean Tony Stark hasn’t faced legal consequences for being drunk and disorderly before I was born!”

She was rambling, she knew she was rambling, but she didn’t mean to upset him. She was being logical too! He couldn’t hire her if he was on the Sex Offender Registry, that was just basic common sense, which he didn’t really seem to have a lot of!

“Hey, breathe,” he held up a hand to stop her. “You’re right, stranger danger, I did get arrested a lot, but nothing stuck. You should keep questioning any adult you meet who takes an interest in you, that’s called a survival instinct and it’s rare nowadays.”

His tone shifted from serious to teasing, “except me. Don’t question me, I’m Tony Stark, I know everything.”

“What’s the price of one gallon of milk?” When in doubt, Penny always defaulted to questioning the capabilities of everyone around her. Or, just, adults in general, because they had egos simply for surviving childhood and having fully developed brains.

“Five dollars?” He hadn’t expected that question, and his attempt at a confident answer fell flat.

She bit the inside of her cheek to hide her amusement, “you don’t know everything.”

He was smiling again; he was almost as moody as she was. “This is why I need you to work with me. Who else will tell me about normal people prices? I’m out of touch. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Obviously, you’re out of touch,” Penny couldn’t help but relax again. “You’re old, rich, and can’t quote vine.”

Early 2010s memes were not fun, they weren’t absurd or video-based or easily quotable. She hated 2015 so much, she couldn’t wait for the 2020s with good technology and TikTok and everybody hating Snapchat– she despised keeping up her snap streak, but Ned loved it, so she had to. The only solace she had was that One Direction hadn’t broken up yet and there was still a chance she could see them on tour that year.

“Hey!” He pointed a finger at her, “that’s it, job offer redacted, not my favourite salesgirl anymore!”

“I guess that means you’re not my favourite customer,” she shrugged. 

That’s a lie, he was a good customer, but never her favourite. Charles was her favourite, he had spent over $20,000 on Seiko watches in less than six months and he called her ‘Miss Gucci’ after she once complimented his shoes. She would die for Charles without hesitation.

Stark mimed out being shot in the heart, “that one hurts. It hurts right here.” He tapped his chest on the opposite side of his heart.

“I think that would be a lung problem,” she pointed out. “Do you need your ventilator, grandpa?”

His teeth were perfect, and not veneers perfect like most celebrities in the future, but human perfect. The stuff of lucky genetics. Not like Penny’s use of whitening toothpaste and strips to get rid of the light yellow tint she had after her braces had come off. She was weirdly jealous of his smile, because she knew her own was way more awkward and wonky.

Are teeth a weird thing to be jealous of? She felt like it was. She’d ask Ned, because Ned was more normal about things, like what was popular or cool. Not that either of them were popular or cool, they were low level nerds, even in a nerd school. Penny had some clout for being a cheerleader, but she was also a freshman and too blunt, so it was kinda cancelled out.

“Maybe I should,” he said. “A nice, high-tech glowing one to go with my nice, high-tech glowing pacemaker.”

“Is that really inside of you?” Hadn’t he had the surgery to remove the reactor after he’d rescued the President last year? Iron Man 3 wasn’t her favourite movie and she always just ended it right after the whole fiery Pepper-Tony kiss at the end, so she couldn’t remember if it happened then. Although, he also had it in Infinity War, but then again the MCU wasn’t the most consistent series. “I can see your chest is glowing, but, like, that’s a huge health risk. Did you take out the shrapnel and put a fake one on top? Or is it a thinner one? Because it must be hard to put a reactor in every suit ever, so it’s on you, right?”

He leaned forward as if to share a secret, once again ignoring the sign saying not to lean on the glass. Not that Penny cared, she leaned on the glass too and she was about to learn more about the Arc Reactor.

“You can find that out after the NDA,” he whispered.

Her face dropped. Bitch.

Valid. But still, bitch .

“Still not joining impulsively,” Penny wasn’t stupid enough to sign her soul away to the machine without changing the contract first. 

“Right, well,” he straightened up, brushing imaginary dust– oh, wait, that was real dust, she should probably wipe down the counters. “You’re a hard nut to crack, Mona Lisa Vito—” “Mona Lisa Vito?” “—but that doesn’t mean you don’t do good work.”

Stark slid over the wrapped box Penny had completely forgotten he had come in with. “Just to prove to you that I do listen to your concerns. SI should have a new announcement for you soon enough. I’ll be back in two—you said two weeks on that ring, right?—yeah, two weeks.”

“Wait,” Penny was being bamboozled and she did not appreciate it. “Dr Stark, I will not accept–!”

The phone started to ring.

“You should answer that,” he didn’t even look back, shoving his hands in his pockets, “ciao!”

“Dr Stark!” She barked, rounding the counter to chase after him, but no dice. The door closed behind him, and stepping off the floor was like retail-instant-death-from-all-management.

“God damn it,” she sighed as she eyed that box like an unexploded bomb. She doubted it was, Stark didn’t do weapons anymore, but he was also an eccentric billionaire, so it could have something equally dangerous, like uranium.

“Penny!” Mrs Agresti hollered at the top of her lungs from the top of the stairs, completely unaware of the exchange that had happened. Penny knew that those two never checked the CCTV to see what was happening, but jeez , they could be robbed and they would never notice. “The phone!”

She sighed even deeper. “Coming!”

Chapter Text

It was a fucking Starkphone.

It was a brand spanking new Starkphone, which Aunt May questioned relentlessly until they had both gotten distracted. 

(“Penny, I was your age once too, but selling drugs is not the way to buy a new phone—”

“Selling drugs? It’s dealing drugs and I wasn’t doing that! May, I told you, Dr Stark is a weirdo who tips $200 on top of a thousand dollar purchase, and who apparently gives me a phone for making him The One Ring! I did not want a new phone!”

“It was a gift? Okay, I don’t like a middle-aged rich guy giving you things—”

“Neither do I! The government can track me with this one!”

“Okay, now you sound like Ben, the government isn’t stealing our data—”

“That we know—”

“Wait, is the phone a tax write off? It is a gift, right?”

“Maybe?”

“Penny, go ask Google if we can make it a tax write off.”)

“How the hell did Penis Parker get a Starkphone 4?” Flash loudly announced to their class.

Penny had, frustratingly, managed to get the same nickname as Peter ‘Real-MCU-Spiderman’ Parker due to her Italian genes activating via puberty way before any other genes. Body hair and flat-chestedness meant getting called a boy by irritating idiots who call themselves the class clowns, and that eventually transformed into ‘Penis’ because it was so similar to ‘Penny’. She was surrounded by morons.

“She has a job,” Ned pointed out, sworn to silence about anything related to Tony Stark and her store. 

Ned was not a moron. Ned was a ray of sunshine and necessary for her, like Vitamin D. Ned was the only person in this place that understood her.

“And it was a tip!” Ned added.

Penny shriveled up inside. No, Ned, not her hope in humanity! Noooo! God she was dramatic when hungry, she was going to attack that banana in her bag as soon as class was over. Come back from the bathroom and dismiss us, Mrs Hally!

“Who tips a phone?” Abe asked, turning his head to stare at them from the other side of the room.

Penny put away the phone she had used to take a picture of the homework instructions with. “It was paid for using my tips.”

She moved as if to pick up her bag as she lied, coincidentally hiding her face from anyone who was not Ned, and gave him her most deadpan ‘seriously, dude?’ look. Ned mouthed back an apology.

“Should’ve saved your tips,” Flash said with a stunningly superior tone for a guy who reminded Penny of a particularly posturing ape. How was it only freshman year? How was she going to survive three more years with this guy? “The Starkphone 5 is coming out soon.”

“Is the ad already out?” Penny swiveled, sitting back down to stare at Flash. In a primitive, backward world (aka a world without 5G), Starktech was the closest one could feel to home. Not that Penny could afford any of it, but she liked to look at it. Window shopping. Sometimes dumpster shopping if she went digging in the trash in the Upper East Side… but nothing really worked like new. Her laptop and PC setup were technically Starktech, but they also had Hammertech pieces and salvaged Android and Apple bits, and were like Frankentech. Her laptop had both Siri and Alexa, and both drove her little bit mad because Ned refused to disable voice control because he liked to talk to them like he was in a spy movie.

“Nah,” Michelle was doodling what was either the outline of a head or a portal as she spoke. She was a new kid, which was weird because who transferred schools like two weeks before spring break? She also didn’t really talk to anyone but she got along with everyone, and Penny was more trying to observe and learn from Cindy and Betty’s failures to befriend her before she tried gaining best friend status for herself. “SI just posted about making technology more accessible and how it’s going to reflect in their next tech releases.”

“That’s basically announcing that it’s coming out,” Flash defended himself.

Mrs Hally has been gone for five minutes now, they had less than three to go until the bell, and in the back of the classroom Fara and Charles were watching anime with the sound on. Penny predicted all-out chaos in two minutes if Mrs Hally didn’t return soon.

As a former school teacher, Penny knew you did not leave your class unattended, especially a freshman class, at the end or beginning of the lesson. In the middle was fine because the concept of freedom was far enough from reach that nobody would try to climb out of a window.

“What do they mean by accessible?” Penny asked, “Are there new screen-reading updates or bigger words or what?”

“Probably,” Cindy had pulled up the NYT article. “It was mostly talking about socio-economic barriers. Betty thinks that means the next one is going to be cheaper or made with recycled materials.”

“Oh shit,” she whispered, realising exactly what was going on.

“I know, right!” Cindy turned back to her laptop screen. “This is huge and mysterious and I’m going to put it on my blog when I get home!”

“We don’t know what’s happening yet, that’s just putting rumors and gossip on your blog.”

“Gossip like how you made kissy faces at–”

Penny drowned out her classmates by letting her forehead thunk onto her desk. So that’s what Stark meant. That asshole.

Don’t get her wrong, this was a good thing. A great thing, really. However, this meant that Tony Stark listened to the business advice of a teenage girl and she was not ready for that kind of pressure. Well, she was, she thrived in pressure, but this was a different kind because what do you do when you realise that you have influence over a person? Especially a person you’ve only met like three times and they trust you way too much?

Fuck. With great power comes great responsibility. She was going to have to go work for Stark Industries.

Penny let out a little whine of distress, unheard over the din of anime, gossip, and Flash showing off his jailbroken Starkphone 4.

“Dude,” Ned hissed and poked her. “Dude.”

“Dude,” she empathized miserably. 

Ned looked manic. “You’re going to take the job now, right?”

Her best (and only) friend had been furious when Penny implied that she wouldn’t accept Stark’s job offer, and had been bugging her about it for the past four days. 

“Yeah.” Was she being pathetic about it? Yes. But was Stark being entitled about it? Also yes. If her maths was right, which it always was, then that meant they’d cancelled each other out.

“That’s so cool!” Ned was vibrating again.

“That’s so much paperwork,” she pointed out. “I’m going to be doing a bunch of menial business intern tasks.”

 “For Pepper Potts!”

True. She doubted Pepper Potts could be as annoying(ly nice) as Tony Stark, she was like a queen both on the silver screen and in her Forbes articles. Unless she was secretly like her actress, because Penny had beef with Paltrow and her scented candles. Also her glorification of diet culture, pseudo-science, and general horrible habits. But the candles were the first thing that came to her mind.

“Pepper Potts is so cool,” she had to agree, “although I think I’m just going to be learning her coffee order and mimicking her death stare at entitled idiots.”

“Like a kitten learning from the lioness,” Ned nodded seriously.

It took a second for Penny to register exactly what Ned was implying by that sentence, and then she was punching him. “Hey!”

“Oww,” he rubbed his shoulder. “Dude! I didn’t mean it!”

A bit too much strength, god damn it. Spidey-strength was easily manageable, except for the fact that Penny had always punched just a tad too hard whenever she was put on the defensive. 

Penny’s face fell. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to punch so hard.”

Ned couldn’t even keep a sad face, too perky for his own good. “It’s fine, you always punch hard. Or maybe my skin is just soft. Do I have soft skin? Do you wanna punch one of those arcade machines to see if I have soft skin or not?”

“How are you planning to measure strength vs impact and pain?” Penny couldn’t help but be curious.

Before Ned could open his mouth to come up with a Mythbusters-esque hypothesis with a dumbass method that would likely involve them punching each other repeatedly, the bell rang.

The class went silent immediately, everyone eyeing everyone else, trying to figure out what to do.

This was their last period of the day.

Mrs Hally wasn’t back yet.

Now, if Penny was the teacher in charge of the class, she would be happy to know she wouldn’t have to rush back to dismiss them and they could leave by themselves, but Mrs Hally wasn’t that type of teacher. Mrs Hally used the phrase ‘The bell doesn’t dismiss you, I dismiss you’ several times.

Michelle stood up with her bag and a level of authority only a fourteen year old girl could have when there was no authority at all. She lifted her chin, shouldered her bag, and said: “They can’t catch us all.”

That was the breaking point as every single student ran to pack all their belongings and high-tail it out of the building before Mrs Hally came back and tried to give them detention for fleeing without her permission.

It was chaos, but luckily, Penny and Ned were already packed, and Penny had no reservation about jumping the extended leg Flash put out to trip them up and shoving the idiot aside so they could make it out the classroom right behind Michelle and Abe.

And then she felt it.

Danger was near: Mrs Hally was about to return.

Penny made sure to grab Michelle’s arm as she forced them to run around the first corridor, ignoring her yelp, before pulling them all to a stop.

“Weren’t we running? Shouldn’t we keep running?” Ned asked. 

Michelle had a different question: “What the hell, Parker?”

“Mrs Hally was coming, I heard her heels,” she hissed. “And…” Room 12B was then let out, a swarm of juniors surrounding them and covering their shorter heads from any eagle-eyed teachers. “...now we can blend in.”

“That’s so ninja!” Ned exclaimed, ignoring proper grammar to showcase what he thought of her sneaking around skills. 

Michelle also looked appreciative. “Not bad.”

Penny let go of her sleeve, “I’m Penny, by the way, not Parker. I’m not a last name sort of person, it’s too Harry Potter for me.”

“Michelle,” she replied, offering her hand. “Though my friends call me MJ.”

“I’m Ned!” Ned added in. “Although I told you that, like, last week on your first day.”

“And I forgot,” MJ was blunt. Penny loved it. “I’ll remember now.”

“I sure hope so,” Penny grinned at her, “We’re like ducklings, we imprint on people. I hope you like dumplings, because we always get ten for $4 around the block at Mr Shu’s before AcDec practice starts.”

“I’m not in AcDec.”

Penny ignored that fact, knowing she would love it and become the captain. Eventually. “You are now. We don’t have meets until the end of April so this is the perfect time for you to join. Come on, I’ll buy your dumplings this time.”

MJ’s stubbornness was a match for her own. “Nah. I pay yours for getting us out of certain-detention-doom.”

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Should Penny be eating ice-cream while on the sales floor? No. Was she? Absolutely.

Look, she befriended the girl at the ice-cream and juice bar in the food court upstairs, and when she offered to make Penny a half-price sundae in return for her updating her on the gossip with the two Gucci saleswomen who were most definitely not hooking up, Penny took her up on it. Please note the sarcasm, because Penny could hear basically everything in the building and at this point, nothing was a secret. Not even the two lesbians in the janitor’s closet.

Stupid bougie mall having negative sound proofing, they could at least have some music playing so she could drown out the noise of too many people.

It was a Sunday again, so the store was both full and empty at the same time. John was working, despite it not being his regular day of work, because the Agresti’s were out on a yacht with some customers and Jane was with her grandkids for the weekend. He had been complaining about this fact, loudly and often, and being a bit short with the customers. Don, on the other hand, was more than happy to be here doing nothing but talking to the disinterested husbands who got a little too close to the watch counter.

The man was like one of those fae luring in unsuspecting travellers; one second you were staring at a Rado watch while tuning out your wife picking some diamond earrings, the next you were buying said Rado watch after talking cars for half an hour.

Penny took another bite of her fudge sundae, zoning out.

All her tasks for the day were done, she was ahead of schedule with her valuations, so all that was left was to answer the phone as she waited for the last hour of her shift to tick by.

She could go out as Spiderwoman that night; May got home at 11pm, and it was only 6pm.  She needed practice if she was ever going to fight Thanos. Even if bike thieves and muggers were nowhere near Thanos’ level, it was good to just practise fighting and hone her reflexes.

Her spidey-sense was a work in progress, as it was a bit all over the place. Yes, she was working on going all Arya Stark and being able to fight blind, but her spidey-sense could get set off by bees, so trying to figure out whether it was a gun or an insect was her next step.

Well, bees, spiders, Derek from apartment 32 that was either a HYDRA agent or a regular creep, cops, pink lemonade, and the hot dog stand on the corner of 25th and 6th. No, she wasn’t quite sure whether those were real dangers or what her brain perceived as dangers, but she would tread with caution around most of them.

Except the hot dog stand. She got hungry, and their ‘Everything Supreme’ hot dogs were only $3.50 on Thursdays. The fact that they had the highest rate of tourist food-poisonings could be ignored when she had a super spider stomach.

Penny stuck her caramel-sauce covered finger in her mouth. Ew, her hands were going to be so sticky. No touchscreen phones for her until she washed her hands.

“Spaghetti-o!” Her peace and calm was disrupted, but she wasn’t mad about it. She was bored, and zoning out really wasn’t helping.

“Here!” She waved one sticky hand up in the air lazily, revealing her hiding spot on the couch behind the pearls. 

Tony Stark visibly perked up when he saw her, like an overexcited puppy about to trip over his own tail. Actually, no, wrong simile, the guy was more of an orange cat: too smart to be this dumb. “Penny Pasta! How are you enjoying your new phone?”

“I’ve customised it,” she replied. “I got Ned to hack it so now all my apps have different Hello Kitty icons. I’d show you but I have English Toffee everywhere.”

He seemed a bit incredulous. “You hacked my phone?”

“No,” Penny could, though, if she wanted to. A Starkphone had way less security measures due to being a commercial item. However, she doesn’t really like coding if it wasn’t genetic coding. This time around, instead of reading her mom’s old novels, she’d read her mom’s old bioengineering and genetics textbooks. “Ned did. He’s better than me with software. I do hardware and biochemistry. Not medicine though, I hate blood.”

“Good to know.” He sat down next to her on the couch, which really wasn’t made for two people, but they were both skinny so she only had to deal with the uncomfortableness of their thighs touching. “My precious back yet?”

“Came back three days ago,” she dug out her chunk of caramel popcorn that had been lodged in the bottom, “would’ve called you to pick it up if you’d left me any contact information.”

“Ah, but can you imagine if my phone number leaked?” He leaned back on the sofa, consequentially hiding them both from Don and John’s eyes. “It would be all, ‘we’ve been trying to reach you about the Iron Man armour’s extended warranty.’ It would be a nightmare! Can you imagine trying to filter through all those calls? Because it’ll be you filtering my calls soon.”

She blinked at him. “Your lawyers approved it?”

Damn, she thought that she would be a big enough liability that they would take at least another week. Well-paid corporate lawyers could work miracles sometimes. 

“What? Thought I wouldn’t?” He scoffed, he patted his briefcase. “I’ve got two contracts, an NDA, a job outline, and internship paperwork here for your school. What did I say about questioning me?”

Penny was reluctantly impressed. “Why two contracts?”

“One for your guardian to sign on your behalf, one for you,” he explained, “just to cover our bases in case you tried to claim you didn’t know your Aunt signed them for you.”

She was about to finish her sundae. “Pay?”

“$30 an hour, since I’m not allowed to salary you.”

So, a fuckton. Penny was absolutely going to end up with her college paid off before her senior year.

“And does Ms Potts know about this?” She raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Eh,” he looked completely relaxed, but she knew he wasn’t. “You’re a surprise.”

“I’m a human being, not a puppy,” she said dryly. 

“People have surprise kids all the time,” he waved her off. “You’re a surprise intern. Same thing.”

“If I catch you saying that on video, I’m pretty sure a good lawyer can make you pay child support.” Stark was pretty reckless with his words, but they were calculated too. He walked a fine line between reckless idiocy and calculated genius, it was fascinating.

“You can’t, my lawyers are better, people have tried.”

“Like, in general, or have you had DNA testing done?” Sue her, she’s curious.

“Both,” he wrinkled his nose. “Worst part about being famous: everyone’s trying to claim you’re the baby daddy.”

“Be famously celibate and nobody will.”

“I’d rather die.” He said with complete and total sincerity.

Penny couldn’t help but ugly snort. “I bet you would.”

They sat in silence for a moment, a strange thing for Stark since he was always constantly moving and talking. Penny finished her sundae and tried (in vain) to wipe her fingers using the napkin.

“So,” she started awkwardly. “Let me go clean up, and I’ll put those papers away and give you the One Ring?”

“And then we go talk with your aunt.”

“What?” Huh.

“As you said, you’re 14,” He looked at her seriously. “I need to talk with your guardian about all this.”

“I can talk to her!” Penny squawked.

Penny could! Aunt May was busy; raising a teenager as a single parent in New York was hard . May was always working the worst shifts and pulling doubles, and worrying about Penny ever since the free therapy ended (3 free sessions for anyone who lost family during the Chitauri Invasion, given by the Maria Stark Foundation), and missing Ben…

Penny never got to be Aunt May’s age in her past life, in truth she barely scraped her out-stretched fingertips at the concept of being in her mid-twenties, but she remembered how lonely it could be to be an adult. Especially a single adult.

“Nope, I’m talking to her, I’ve made up my mind, I’m doing it!”

“Well, she’s not even home so you can’t.” Was her argument childish? Yes. But his was too, so nobody could judge her for it.

“Why isn’t she home?”

Penny rolled her eyes. “Because normal people work, Dr Stark. She’s a nurse, she has long shifts.”

He’s frowning, “No, why won’t she be home when you’re there, you’re a kid.”

Okay, asshole. It always infuriated her when people talked all that about kids being home alone and shit, when the system meant that kids had to be home alone. “What, do you think single parents work 9-3 to always be there while their kids are home? I’m 14, I can cook and clean and call 911 if there’s an emergency. I’m too old for a babysitter, and the last one I had was such a creep that he got arrested. That’s normal for every family living from paycheck to paycheck, which, by the way, is over half this city.”

“I don’t like that.” Stark was being such an entitled ass about it. He didn’t interrogate her on the fact that she’s working so young, but Aunt May’s dedication to her warranted one? Aunt May was the closest thing Penny had ever gotten to having a mom in this life, given that her birth one died before she’d ever even gone to kindergarten. 

“You don’t have to,” she snapped, “if you’re so bothered about it, do something. You have the money, fund youth centres and after school care groups and whatever. Don’t just judge the people who can’t afford to use them.”

He flinched. It was a small movement, not something Penny would normally catch if she hadn’t been staring at him so hard. He did feel guilty about doing so, she could see his mask slip down the tiniest bit, but then it was back up and the only clue that he’d listened was that he had that exhausted air to him again. “You’re right, kid.”

“It’s not just starving children in Africa who suffer,” that was something she had learned the hard way in her past life. “You can’t just care about the city right after a disaster. Life happens every single day.”

His face twitched. “You’re pretty wise for a kid.”

“You’re pretty dumb for an adult,” she retorted. “Give me those papers.”

“I’m still going to talk to your aunt.”

“Not tonight,” She said. Aunt May would be exhausted when she got home, and this wouldn’t help. “She has the night shift tomorrow, you can come in the afternoon.”

“You’ll be at work,” he pointed out.

She didn’t hesitate to raise her voice. “John, I’m not feeling well, can I call in sick for tomorrow?”

John, who had easily listened into their entire conversation and knew that Penny was likely going to be handing in her two-weeks’ soon, didn’t even pause. “Yeah! Don’t forget to fill in your leave form, you know sick doesn’t get paid out when you leave!”

Penny turned back to Stark. “I’ll be home.”

This time, when Stark’s face twitched, it was from clearly hidden amusement. “I see. I guess I’ll talk with you both then.”

Penny nodded tightly. “You will.”

Was it weird that she wasn’t looking forward to this? May was an adult woman about to turn fifty, but Penny still felt the need to try and shelter her from all the trouble that she got into. Peter Parker was the same, though, she remembered that. 

Maybe it was a Spiderperson thing to protect May; even Miles did it.

“Can we do the ring stuff now?” She pointed at the POS machine awkwardly.

“Yes we can,” he slapped his thighs and groaned when he stood, like a dad on some tv sitcom.

She tilted her head slightly as she watched him, he was weird and it was tugging something in her. Curiosity probably. It was why she chose psychology as her major once upon a time, it satisfied that genius itch in her that made her want to pull things apart; she learnt how to pull people and society apart. Then she grew disinterested with what she found, and became a teacher. Children were never boring, always changing and never reflected the rest of humanity’s standards. 

Maybe that was what made her curious about Stark: he wasn’t predictable. Even with all the movies and shows and comics, Penny couldn’t understand him.

She got up and followed him to the POS. Her hands were still sticky, covered in dried ice cream.

“Here,” Stark pulled a small pouch of baby wipes from his briefcase, “I always get motor oil everywhere.”

She waited for him to put the wipes down on the counter for her to grab them, focusing on throwing the plastic cup in the bin alongside the useless napkins. “Thanks.”

“So, Bagginses,” he wriggled his eyebrows playfully, “hand over my precious.”

Chapter Text

The BMW was probably for her.

“Oh my god,” Penny groaned.

“ Dude! ” Ned exclaimed. That word was like a solid quarter of his vocabulary, but then again, when she was with him, it was hers too.

MJ was giving the car a disgusted look. “There’s no way that thing is good for the environment.”

“It’s probably not,” Penny agreed. “How much do you wanna bet it’s my billionaire stalker?”

“It’s 100% him,” answered Ned.

“What?” Said MJ, who was currently unaware that Penny knew Tony Stark. “You have a stalker?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Oh-kaaayy,” MJ stretched the word out, looking at them like they were insane.

“Lemme go see what he wants,” Penny rolled her eyes, “you guys go, you’ll miss the bus.”

“ You’ll miss the bus,” MJ retorted, “and get killed and dismembered if you climb in the pedo-mobile and go to a secondary location.”

“Don’t worry, I checked, he’s not a sex offender,” she waved off her friend’s concern and Ned’s splutter, “you can take a pic of the license plate if you’re so worried.”

“Whatever.” MJ went and did exactly that, pulling out her phone and marching forward with determination around all the other students that were giving a passing appreciative gawk as they scrambled to get away as fast as possible from the school. 

Ned paled. “Won’t Iron Man get offended?”

“I think he’ll find this hilarious,” Penny said honestly. “See you later.”

Ned yelled out a goodbye as he went after MJ, probably to drag her away, too embarrassed about her potentially calling Iron Man a pedo to his face. Penny would find that hilarious, then similarly die of embarrassment later, so she doesn’t blame him.

Walking up to the stupidly expensive car, she knocked on the passenger window side and waited for Stark to roll it down.

Leaning her elbows onto the open window, she bent down so she could stick her head inside. “Did you know the growing number of cars in America is the leading cause for private individual air pollution?” The number one reason for air pollution was corporations, but SI was actually the only true carbon-zero company in the world, so she won’t give him shit for that.

“The i8 won green car of the year,” he replied, “you can put the chain away, Greenpeace.”

Penny rolled her eyes; she wasn’t the type to chain herself to a tree. She would volunteer at her local library and donate at food drives—she was a local type of girl. “Still, you didn’t have to pick me up from school, I do actually like public transport.”

New York was great for it, and she kinda hated her old city for never being that accessible. Penny had gotten her license eventually, but the ability to zone out and listen to music while you got to your destination was unparalleled.

“Why? Think I’ll embarrass you in front of your friends? You know, I think you keep forgetting who I am, because as Tony Stark– genius, billionaire, philanthropist– I do feel like you would gain some street cred from me picking you up from school,” he sighed exaggeratedly, “I even grabbed the BMW instead of the Ferrari.”

She was about to retort that MJ had just taken a pic of his car to show to the police in case Penny turned up murdered, when Flash decided to make her point for her.

“Hey, Parker!” With the teacher’s out and about making sure nobody got run over, Flash knew better than to yell out an insult at her. “Is that your daddy’s car?”

His meaning was absolutely clear, so Penny responded by flipping him off. At least she wasn’t wearing her cheerleading uniform. Bent over like this with a short skirt, she didn’t think Flash could’ve resisted flat-out calling her a hooker.

Stark looked furious. “Did that kid just–?”

“That’s what happens when a weird rich guy comes to pick up an unrelated teenage girl in a fancy car,” Penny ignored his blustering, “let’s go before Betty sees: she runs the school gossip page and I can’t handle that.”

Ugh, he’d come with a car so fancy the doors open up rather than to the side. Still, she managed to give the door a little more umph as she closed it.

“Are you getting bullied?” Stark seemed focused on the inconsequential.

“No,” Penny rolled her eyes. She was getting repeatedly poked at by morons without a fully developed brain, not bullied. She responded just as aggressively when bothered, too. “This isn’t some bad teen movie, Dr Stark, and you aren’t a trusted adult. What, are you so old you forgot what school was like?”

“If I’m not a trusted adult, then what are you doing in my car?”

“Getting kidnapped,” she deadpanned, “by the world’s slowest driver, considering we’re still not moving. Didn’t you drive in Monaco once? Step on the gas!”

He did finally start driving, checking his rearview mirror to make sure someone desperate for money didn’t try something with their insurance by jumping in front of the wheels. “That was the F1 circuit in Monaco, you little heathen.”

“Cars go nyoom,” she ignored his indignation. “Can I connect to the aux?”

“No,” he flicked her fingers away from the main board, “not after your sacrilege. Do you know anything about cars?”

“Why would I? I live in Manhattan and I can’t drive.”

“Next time, you can walk.”

“That was literally my plan.”

“Are you always this argumentative, or is this just some sort of phase you’re going through?” He asked, looking over at her.

“Eyes on the road!” This is why she took the damn subway. “Everything is a phase; the ever-changing landscape of life is part of its beauty. Learn to appreciate it, idiot.”

“Should I take a moment and appreciate those Cookie Monster pajama pants too?” 

“Cookie Monster PJs are, like, the equivalent of aposematism in high-school. I walked the mile today and I didn’t even get yelled at.” Penny did not like to wear PJs to school. She was, at her core, the least American girl ever. But it was the Mile, and she had cramps the night before. If anything, she was being super prepared by not dressing prepared. “MJ and I ate Takis in the back of Spanish class and with our bright blue toxic PJ colours, we were taken as, like, the scary ones and left alone. I was gonna change at home before you came over.”

“See, us Avengers do that but with red. Doesn’t work as well as that, though. Think I should tell Black Widow to borrow that monstrosity from you?”

Penny seriously envisioned it for a moment. “Frankly, she doesn’t need any help looking any more scary.”

“You’re completely right about that one.” 

He switched lanes without looking back, which meant his concerns about insurance claims and getting sued likely only apply to dumb teenagers and not most of midtown’s afternoon traffic. “You know one time she stabbed me in the neck? I didn’t even know who she was. Terrifying.”

“No,” she did know, “why would she do that?”

“Eh, I was being stupid,” he completely dismissed her concern. “She doesn’t tolerate stupidity, like you. I think you two would get along.”

“Please don’t introduce me to the Avengers.” She did not want to deal with this. “I’m signing up for an internship with Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, not Iron Man and the Avengers. I want school credits and a college fund, not to deal with superheroes. If you introduce me to a single one of them, I will open this car door and jump out, right now.”

“Woah!” Stark’s eyes widened as he threw an arm across her body, car doors locking from the inside at her venomous words. “No, do not throw yourself at oncoming traffic! No Avengers, fine, jeez! Has anyone ever told you that you overreact to everything?”

“The therapist I stopped seeing said it was a bad coping mechanism,” she offered. 

Technically, that was because Penny had been carrying around Uncle Ben’s disassembled standard issue gun. She knew how to shoot rifles and bows, not a police-issue Glock, but that didn’t stop her from sneaking the pieces into her bag and taking it to school for a year just in case another world-ending event started and Uncle Ben wasn’t there to shoot the Chitauri off her. She stopped doing that once she managed to get her web shooters to work, but still, she was working on not wearing those everyday. They were in her bag that day, which she thought was a total win.

“Does the new therapist ignore the warning signs?”

“The new therapist doesn’t exist because the Maria Stark Foundation withdrew their funding for my case,” she didn’t hold a grudge for it, she wasn’t an active danger to herself or others so she wasn’t a priority for them. “But that was for like most of the city at the same time, so whatever. Unless those contracts include healthcare? Then I’m finding a new therapist.”

She hadn’t gotten a chance to glance at those yet, which meant that she really shouldn’t have been telling a potential employer any health issues, but it was Tony Stark, he employed the Hulk . She’d be fine.

“SI provides counselling services to all employees,” he was already turning into her street. “But yes, your contract includes full healthcare coverage. Please enjoy updating your glasses on my dime.”

She wrinkled her nose, pushing her glasses up off her face onto the top of her head. “These are just reading glasses with blue-light filters I dug out of a $5 bin at the local hipster thrift-shop. They’re more for the aesthetic and stopping me from getting a headache after staring at a laptop all day at work and school than actually helping me see.”

She had swapped out her normal prescription ones with these ones two months ago, since apparently radioactive spider bites gave you 20/20 vision. She couldn’t look suspicious by completely getting rid of it. Puberty might explain the lack of asthma, but it didn’t explain the lack of astigmatism. 

“So glasses are cool now?”

“Glasses are hipster now,” she shrugged, “which isn’t cool, but it isn’t uncool either.”

“So you exist in a cool dead zone?” He teased, parking the car.

She pushed the door open. “I’m Schrӧdinger's cool.”

He snorted. “Uh-huh, sure you are. Which one are you?”

He had that briefcase full of papers again, which he had pulled out from the back seat. “This way. Y’know, May’s gonna freak. She’s also going to try and give you baked goods. Accept the coffee, ignore the baking politely. Make something up about a diet. Do not eat it. Last week, she mixed up baking powder and powdered sugar.”

“Got it, don’t poison myself,” he looked amused at her warning. “Anything else I should be aware of?”

“Derek from down the hall is going to be sitting on a portable lawn chair in front of his doorway, he’s weird, and I would prefer it if you completely ignored him.” Her spidey-sense hated Derek and his weird Russian Lit books, but whatever, everyone had a creepy neighbour that could possibly be a Nazi spy. 

“Have you ever talked to Derek?” He opened the elevator for them. 

“Yes, he told me that he missed his old boss that got shot in Croatia, and he told me that where he comes from, kids drink as soon as they can talk because it makes them tougher. I told him I’m not joining him for a drink, then I never talked to him again.”

Stark was frowning. “That seems like a good call.”

“Mhm,” Derek was out in the hall, reading some really old novel again. She ignored him, and he ignored them both. At least, until they both walked past, and then she could feel his eyes on them. It was like a ringing in her ears every time she walked past him, an itch she couldn’t scratch. He creeped her out so much, but she didn’t know what to do about him. “This one’s us.”

Opening the door, the smell of ground beef got stronger. “May, I’m home!”

“Kitchen!” She had her earphones on, and Penny could hear the crackly sounds of what was most definitely her stolen iPod, because Aunt May didn’t have Lady Gaga on CD. 

May was perky in the afternoons whenever she worked night shifts because she always slept in the morning until just after lunch. Full of energy and in a good mood, just like Penny may have slightly planned it.

“We have a guest!” Penny toed her shoes, not in a hurry. “Did I tell you that I got a job offer?”

“You didn’t tell your aunt?” Stark hissed at her. “What happened to you convincing her?”

“If she had been warned, it would be walnut and date cookies she’d be making, not bolognese!” Penny hissed back, plastering a smile on her face.

May turned around to say hi to what she presumed to be one of Penny’s teenage friends, stopped, mentally recalculated, froze, and recalculated again.

“Penny, why is Mr Stark in our living room?” She didn’t even sound upset, just resigned. 

Which was definitely, extremely unfair because Penny had never brought a stray superhero home. Yes, she may have brought home an alien gun, some homeless teens needing a roof for a night, several kittens that triggered her asthma, a nail artist she met at the salon, some arrows that were definitely Hawkeye’s, and 16 trashed phones. But never a superhero!

“I got a job offer.”

May’s eyes flickered to Stark and then back to her, “...To join the Avengers?”

May might not have known about the Spiderwoman stuff, but she was aware that her niece had mild(-ish) powers. Penny was playing it off as having the X-gene, mostly because she didn’t want to get told off for wandering away from her field-trip group when she was a perfectly capable young woman who knew what she was doing. They didn’t really talk about it, what with anti-Mutant sentiments and not wanting to get caught, but Penny knew that her aunt’s nurse side sometimes itched to ask more questions.

“As smart as this little pasta noodle is, we don’t need another Iron Man on the team,” Stark snorted, dismissing the idea completely. “I’m offering her a job at Stark Industries. An internship, paid with benefits, where she will tail myself and my CEO. She’s smart, she’s got fire, and she’s far more down to earth than any of us old farts in the company. What do you think?”

Penny could see her aunt steeling herself, processing everything that was happening and deciding not to make it easy for him.

“I think we need some coffee and pastries,” May said with a tight smile. “Would you like some banana bread, Mr Stark?”

Chapter Text

May Parker was not a woman to be trifled with.

They went back and forth for hours, and May stonewalled every attempt Stark made to try and reach a definite conclusion. Penny knew it was due to an ugly mix of fear and protectiveness—mutant and minor weren’t a good combination when a rich man took interest in you—but it felt almost shameful to see her attack Stark in her honor. Not that it looked like an outright attack; Aunt May was the one who taught Penny how to stand her ground, the one who took her to the shooting range after Ben’s death even when she wouldn’t ever touch a gun herself, just so Penny wouldn’t hurt herself with Ben’s gun.

Aunt May was a powerhouse in her own right, but Penny hated seeing her aunt draw herself up and stand her ground when it wasn’t necessary.

“No, Mr Stark, I will get my own lawyer to look over this,” May insisted. “We do not need your legal advisors.”

Stark had finally gotten through to May the fact that he really wasn’t interested in Penny like that, but May still was concerned about any legal traps in the contract. Penny couldn’t see any herself, quietly reading while the adults debated, but she was never a law student.

Although she could be now. She could always ‘squander her potential’ again and get a law and business degree. Those degrees always seemed like they held a lot of promises that were never fulfilled for some of her old friends, but they lacked the connections to get into the industries properly. Penny could build some connections in SI.

But did she really want to drudge through 3 to 4 years of a business or pre-law degree? Not really, she thinks she would be bored. MJ wanted a law degree, she wanted to be a human rights lawyer for the UN, but just envisioning it for herself made Penny wrinkle her nose. She definitely didn’t have that kind of patience.

“Mrs Parker, please, your niece has the opportunity of a lifetime here,” Stark was giving it all he had. “Stark Industries does not hire interns who aren’t seniors in college . Penny would be an exception, hand-picked by me personally. Can you imagine what that would do to her college applications? To her job opportunities? This would open virtually every door for her. Quite literally, because trailing after me and Pep means a lot of doors are held open for you. She could get into the White House by just mentioning she was a SI intern. I’m giving her practically everything she needs to succeed!”

Aunt May was strong, but even she got worn down by his relentlessness, “Why?”

Penny isn’t sure why herself, and every single reason she has heard so far has been so generic, she still can’t figure it out. Okay, she’s smart, she’s stubborn, she doesn’t treat him like he’s special, she liked to take care of the little people. That doesn’t explain why.

Stark sighed, running his hand down his face. “You know, you Parkers are extremely stubborn. Are you sure you don’t need a job too?”

May kept her gaze steady, knowing she could make him crack, just like the times she got Penny to admit there was something she shouldn’t have in her schoolbag. 

“I see potential in her,” Stark said, leaning back on the sofa. He pointed at May, “I know you do too. You know, she reminds me of Pepper, but far more straightforward. And Rhodey, but more fiery. She even reminds me of my bodyguard– head of security now, but slightly less grumpy. I have named three people who I picked up and helped reach their potential, who have surpassed me. I’m trying to do the same thing here.”

Aunt May wavered, “I’m getting a lawyer to look over this before anything gets signed. And if you ever harm my Penny–”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He held his hands up, “Truce?”

“Truce.” Penny interrupted, standing up. “Sorry, May, I’m deciding for you. I’m not letting this opportunity go. We’ll have a lawyer check everything, then we’ll get back to you.”

Stark looked a little relieved, but that was quickly covered up by a smirk. “Taking command already, perfect. I’m telling you, you’re going to excel at SI.”

She gave him the flattest look she could muster. “Let me take command again then: Goodbye.”

“ Penny! ” May was unimpressed.

Stark just laughed and stood up, “Don’t lose that fire, kid. I’m going, I’m going, no need to tell me twice.”

Usually, people did because Tony Stark did what he wanted, but whatever.

“Call me with your answer!” Stark gave a mocking two finger salute as he shut the door behind him.

May immediately turned to her, “Penny—“

“I didn’t sign up for this!” She defended herself. “In fact, I very explicitly told him to fuck off like several times!”

“And he’s still here?” May’s heart rate sped up in concern.

“He thinks I’m ‘wasting my potential’ and that I remind him of himself when he was young,” She crossed her arms and flopped back on the couch.  “And he does fuck off when I tell him to, he just refuses to stay away.”

“Honey,” May sat down on the couch next to her, placing Penny’s legs on her lap. “I know you know to be wary. I think you’re the most wary and calculating person I know. But Tony Stark is the smartest man in the world, and if he gets something in his head, I don’t doubt he’ll get it.”

Penny knew exactly where she was going with this. “Yeah,” She sighed. “I have to be on my toes.”

“We still have the chance to tell the media,” May offered.

Penny looked at the popcorn ceiling that hid several toxic substances and was the absolute worst for crawling on the ceiling. “May, if I know how to get us sued for slander and libel, then I think Ms Potts definitely can.”

May sighed and patted her ankle. “At least I know you’ll be learning lots from Ms Potts.”

“Not Stark?”

“If he manages to teach you a useful life skill then I will eat my shoe,” May shot back immediately. “I’m the same age as him, y’know, my entire life I’ve seen the tabloids about him.”

“Oh.”

Penny could hear someone the street over start screaming at their football game.

“So did you see the Paris Fashion Week disaster live?”

May snorted, laughing freely as she threw her head back. “It took so much self control to not tell him I think he looks better in a skirt.”

Penny, having seen the high-out-of-his-mind gifset of Tony walking the runway ten years ago on Tumblr several times, had to agree. “Think I can convince him to wear a skirt to some important event?”

“If you do,” May said. “It would make this whole internship worth it.”

“More than the paid college?”

“Absolutely.”

They were both quiet for a long moment.

May looked at her, “So, do you know a lawyer?”

“Uh,” Penny looked at her. “Maybe? I don’t know if he is a lawyer yet?”

May nodded, unconcerned by that answer. Penny had befriended too many strangers for that not to be a normal response. “Okay. Let me know if he can help us because I have no idea where to get a lawyer.”

“Okay,” Penny agreed and relaxed into the couch. She’ll point out later to May that both of them forgot to make dinner.

Chapter Text

Handing in your two week’s notice at a job always turned it either into a very hostile work environment or a lovely place of tearful goodbyes. Unfortunately, Penny has never had any luck.

Good news: Penny and May had successfully gotten Murdock and Nelson to read through all the contracts and paperwork and clear them for her.

Even better news: They did it pro-bono even though Penny had a hundred dollars she could afford to pull out of her savings. 

The negotiation: Penny would make Matt a nice silver rosary in return after her money was refused several times because they didn’t want to be paid by a ‘baby’ – or so Foggy had guiltily said.

Bad news: John was pissy that in her last two weeks she was using her employee discount to have something made.

“Can you please just finish up this CAD?” She asked him. Unfortunately, she wasn’t an actual jeweller no matter how much bullshit she put up with at work, and that meant she wasn’t qualified to edit the CAD rendering herself. John, despite not being a qualified jeweller, had been working in the industry long enough he had gotten qualified at some point. “I just need you to add another inch to the end before the cross.”

“I dunno, can I?” John snipped, more pissy than when his soccer team loses. Asshole. “And are you going to be the one to pick this up next month?”

Penny gave him a blank, unimpressed look. Her mistake of letting him know that this wasn’t for her. Well, she didn’t, she told Don about it, and Don was a fucking blabbermouth. Still: her mistake.

“Of course,” She answered, sickly sweet like she didn’t want to stab him. “It’s for me after all.”

She will lie to his face and if the he had any balls, then he can call her out on it himself, but he doesn’t, so he can deal with it.

Mr Agresti came running down the stairs in a way that should have had him falling down them. Again. Stupid slippery stairs, Penny kept having to use her sticky powers to stop herself from falling.

“Penny!” He called loudly, as if the store wasn’t completely dead. “I have some insurance valuations for you to update. We don’t have pictures but I’ve seen them, and we have the old valuations from twenty years ago, so just copy that and tidy it up, but also make it look extra professional.”

Looking at the valuation, Penny immediately understood the instruction. Last valuation was from 1994 and, unfortunately, written by Mr Agresti himself, so that meant that the poor customer had gotten a document that said ‘1x 18ct y/g wedder with rbc G/SI2 solitaire weighting 1.24ct in 4-claw’ and Mr Agresti had drawn all over it to add all the updates too.

“Right,” Penny nodded, taking the poorly done ancient paperwork off him.

“This is the Bilic’s, you know the Bilics? Mrs Bilic brought that Carrera from you. Yeah so make it out to the Bilics,” He paused his word vomit to frown at her. “Do you need their address?”

“I have it in the system,” She was already opening up her laptop. Luckily, the Bilics have been repeat customers since the 80s, so they have an account on file. “Mr or Mrs Bilic?”

“Jakov is filing this one,” Mr Agresti bulldozed ahead. “Right, so under the Bilic’s account, and we’re charging them 50 dollars because we’re updating six valuations, just put them all on the same file, I don’t want to be signing all that, my wrist will get sore–”

“Mhm,” Penny wanted to tune him out, but unfortunately, he always hid random important information in the middle of his overly complicated rants.

“It needs to be printed out not emailed because I think the Bilic’s son has been doing some fraud again–”

Like that.

“And don’t forget to hand it to me by tonight!” And he was running back upstairs again.

Penny shared an exasperated look with John. They might be arguing, but this whole store came together to be collectively exasperated by Mr Agresti and his desperate need for an ADHD diagnosis.

The document got pulled up, and Penny sighed as she translated it into something that an insurance company could actually understand.

‘ This 18ct yellow gold engagement ring features a round brilliant cut diamond that weighs 1.24ct, with the color G and a clarity of SI2, held in a four claw setting… ’

“Where’s my mini pasta bowl?” A voice called out as the doors were thrown open with far too much gusto for the rusty-ass hinges to be handling.

“Busy,” She replied, trying to get the stupid printer upstairs to connect to her laptop. “Be patient.”

“I’m not a patient person,” Stark replied.

“Then suffer.”

“You’re very rude, are you aware of this?” Stark was leaning on her counter.

“You’re ruder and need a reality check.” Can her stupid fucking printer connect?

“What crawled up your hoodie and died?”

She spun the laptop around, “The fucking bluetooth connection. Can you get the printer to connect?”

He blinked, looked down at the error message and then back up at her. “You want the world’s greatest genius to solve your IT troubles?”

“I want the world’s weirdest superhero to help me get something printed out so my last ever shift can end,” She gave him the biggest pouty face she could. “Please?”

Within ten minutes, Stark was swearing at the laptop just as badly as Penny had wanted to.

That was the scene that Mr Agresti walked back into. Poor man.

“Mr Stark?” He asked, baffled at the image of Iron Man yelling at one of the store laptops.

“He’s a Doctor ,” Penny corrected. “PhDs exist despite the public intoxication charges.”

“Your technology sucks ass,” Stark pointed at Mr Agresti with an aggression that Penny personally tried to reserve for assholes who didn’t know how to use their blinkers while changing lanes. “No wonder stealing your employee is so easy.”

Penny side-eyed him. “I have actually been making this very difficult for you.”

Stark ignored her. “I’ll be taking her now. Her shift is over. Her contract with you is over and her Stark contract starts now.”

Actually it started tomorrow, but whatever. Penny is fine with being kidnapped by her boss.

“Alright?” Mr Agresti looked down at her with a clear ‘I have no idea what is going on here but are you sure you want to go through with this?’ look that she had seen him direct at his own kids a few times when they would do something questionable.

“Thanks for the job experience, Mr Agresti.” She gave him a very polite smile, “I’m sorry that I can’t finish off these papers before I leave.”

“Don’t apologise for the shitty tech,” Stark butted in. Penny ignored him.

“Ah, doll,” Mr Agresti held his hand out for her to shake. “None of that, John can finish everything off. Now, you got everything?”

She gave him a firm shake, hoping that she was controlling her strength properly. “Yep. Just gotta grab my purse from upstairs.”

“Go on,” Stark nudged her towards the stairs. “Happy is waiting for us downstairs and he’s grumpy.”

Oh good, he’s kidnapping her somewhere that requires his driver/bodyguard to be present. Penny is absolutely having to text Aunt May that she is going to be late.

Which she did the second that she found her purse. 

To: May Day

stark showed at work

said hess picking me up because my contract started

even tho thats tmrrw

probably gonna be late home

Tell him if you stay out past 8pm he has to personally call me 

And turn your location on

its 7pm

Yes

I want him to rethink his plans

i dont

i wanna see where this leads

do you think that thsi is how so many kidnappings happen?

I think that you would be strangely easy to get to a secondary location

Actually, no, you would lure people into the secondary location

Speaking about that, why is your lawyer on my couch?

i told matt that you make a great carbonara

also that he should join us for dinner

Why?

i like him

and this is how you build a community

Okay

Text me if you’re missing dinner

Which is at 9 by the way

I’m going to make Matt help me 

yesss

please do

he cooks really well for a blind guy

When did you take food he offered you?

i cornered him abt lawyering for me during the after mass free lunch

its why i made those cookies

Right.

Please don’t kidnap any more adult men 

Or lure them to a secondary location

no promises :)))

“Penny!” Stark whined as she came back down the stairs very slowly. “You’re taking forever!”

“ I’m ,” She shook her phone at him, “Texting Aunt May to tell her that I’m not being properly kidnapped because I know my kidnapper and he is my boss. Also she told me to tell you that you have to call her for permission if I am staying out later than 8pm because we have dinner at 9pm.”

Stark nodded seriously, “9pm, I can do that. I’ll also call her in the car.”

It was weird whenever he completely changed tracks from childish to adult, but that probably had something to do with his stunted development. She’d seen it happen to a couple of her old students.

“Okay,” She shrugged, before turning to her brand new ex-boss and waving goodbye. “Bye, sir! I won’t miss calling your insurance company for you!”

Luckily, Mr Agresti laughed as they left, so her comment wasn’t taken badly.

“So why am I getting kidnapped?” She fiddled with the fuzzy keychain. It was hot pink and felt super soft, which was perfect considering how loud the world was outside. New York City may be the city that never slept, but Penny didn’t need insomnia too. 

“Not kidnapping, just borrowing,” Stark corrected, putting his shades back down despite the fact that the sun was already set. “I gotta introduce you to Pepper.”

“Shouldn’t that be happening tomorrow?” It was a Saturday afternoon, and sure, most people don’t start a new job on a Sunday, but apparently Stark wanted her to have more of a quiet first day with helping him and having Pepper run her through the basics, or so he’d said in an email that she was 100% sure he didn’t write because it felt too polite and coherent. 

“Yes, but Pep is going to yell at me when she finds out about you, and that’s going to eat up at least half of your first shift, so, my plan is to introduce you to her tonight, and we get all her scolding out of the way tonight while you get driven home.” He gestured wildly as he spoke, grinning proudly of his plan.

Penny was reluctantly approving. She would do something similar if she was in his shoes. Still, she asked: “Didn’t I tell you to tell her that you were hiring me?”

“She’s scary, I procrastinated, now we’re telling her.”

“Sometimes I can’t comprehend the fact that you are one of the few things standing between total annihilation of the human race and also such a weirdo,” She told him. “I like it and it confuses me.”

He blinked at her. “I think that’s the most honest I’ve seen you be. And the nicest.”

Penny shrugged, stepping onto the street and hugging herself when the wind dug itself under her, admittedly thin, jacket. “You’re growing on me, I think.”

“I’m like mold,” He said with a grin. 

“Nah,” She hated the cold, it made the outside world unbearable. Was tomorrow the last day of spring break? Yes, but that did not make the wind any less biting. “More like fungus. Fungus is cooler than mold. You ever hear about mushroom hive minds?”

Penny watched a horror movie or tv show in her past life about that. She was pretty sure it was an episode of Hannibal, but she wasn’t 100% sure. It might have been her mixing up The Last Of Us with some other show. 

“No,” Stark replied, leading her towards a car. “Tell me about it?”

“Oh no, I was asking. I know vaguely that mushrooms have hind minds but my source is that one time I dreamt it, but dreams usually use actual memories and facts, so I’m guessing it’s real and I read about it once. I did that one time with Mars having water and people told me it wasn’t real and guess what? Mars has water! I have so much vindication about that.” She didn’t stop talking as he opened the door for her and nudged her into the backseat and then followed, ignoring the big guy who was staring at her.

“Boss,” Happy Hogan interrupted her from continuing about how her dreams were clearly visions from the science gods. “Why is there a kid in the car?”

“I’m being borrowed,” She told him. “Penny Parker, girl genius and being stalked by your boss.”

“I’m your boss too,” Stark slammed the door shut behind him. “Happy Hogan, this is Penny. Penny, this is Happy, my forehead of security and driver.”

“Not for another 5 hours you aren’t,” Penny didn’t even bother to look at him. “This isn’t a kidnapping, but as the resident child who has been led into the unmarked vehicle, I would like the candy that I know is hidden in here.”

“I don’t have any sticky– Tony, for fuck’s sake!” Happy groaned when Tony pulled a lollipop out of the backseat cup holder.

“Thanks,” She took the sucker from him. “I’m the new intern.”

Happy looked between her and him, both enjoying their own lollipops. “Is that what we’re telling the media?”

“No, that’s what her contract tells me.” Tony leaned back, “To the tower, Hap, I gotta tell Pepper that I found her an intern.”

“Sir,” Happy Hogan said with not a single ounce of respect. “You found her a mini-you. To intern for her.”

“Not a mini-him,” Penny was offended. “I actually answer my emails. I also show up to my meetings on time. I also don’t drink underage. And I–”

Stark covered her mouth with his hand. “You can do the DNA test later, Maury, but I promised her hottie aunt that she would be home for dinner and that means we’re already running late so if you could– Did you just lick me? Oh my god, you’re fired. You haven’t even had your first day and you’re fired.”

“Like you wouldn’t.” She crossed her arms. “Why does your hand taste like perfume?”

“Why do you know what perfume tastes like?”

“Mr Happy, can we get to that tower a little faster, I have questions to avoid answering.”

Chapter Text

“Tony! What is going– who is that kid?” Colonel ‘War Machine’ Rhodey pointed straight at Penny.

Ms Potts seemed to be having a very similar reaction as she gave Penny the world’s tightest smile. “Tony please tell me you didn’t.”

“The kid!” Stark crowed victoriously, “Is the world’s greatest find! Pepper, Platypus, this is Penny. Penny, you know who they are.”

Penny obviously did. “Hi, I’m not his kid and I don’t want to be. Dr Stark has hired me to be an intern here.”

“I was going to say that.”

“Not fast enough,” She crossed her arms. “You already did this in the car and I do want to get home.”

“Did you kidnap a kid?” Rhodey demanded. “Oh my god, you kidnapped a kid.”

“I did not kidnap a kid!”

“He kidnapped a kid,” Ms Potts confirmed. “Tony, what was going on in your head? Sweetheart, do you need to call your parents? Tony, what the hell! You cannot just hire a kid by picking them up off the sidewalk!”

“I didn’t pick her up off the sidewalk–”

Penny fanned the flames, “Yeah, he showed up at my school.”

“You what?! ”

“I did not do that today!” Stark pointed at her, “This one lies! She’s a liar! I did not kidnap her from school today!”

“True,” She nodded. “He kidnapped me from school a month ago. Today he picked me up from work.”

Ms Potts and Stark were screaming incoherently at each other now. It was the best entertainment Penny has had since Abigail announced to the rest of the cheer team that was applying for the DCC at the same time as Samaaira and 12 group chats were created. Well, that was just two weeks ago, but still, free entertainment.

Rhodey was eyeing her, military precision as he did so. Then, he walked over to stand next to her and watch the pair argue. “He didn’t kidnap you at all, did he?”

“No,” She admitted freely. “We’ve been discussing contracts for the past month or so, and he called my aunt to get her permission for this.”

“You just wanted to have fun?”

She smiled, “You telling me you aren’t enjoying this?”

“Oh no, I am.” He smiled back. “So, Penny, tell me about yourself.”

“First name: Penny. Last name: Parker. I’m a high school freshman and I’ve been called the world’s most overachieving child by several teachers. I’m a cheerleader and I do Academic Decathalon, and despite having a really nice padded CV for colleges and universities, I have no idea what I want to do in life.” She offered him a hand to shake and he took it. “By the way, I love the work that you’ve done as War Machine. You have such a clean record when it comes to casualties and collateral damage, it’s impressive considering both the US Military and the Avengers’ history.”

He stared at her for a long second. “You’re not going to be Tony’s lab intern, are you?”

“Nah,” She crossed her arms. “I’m smart, but not that smart. Apparently I’m good at business. I dunno, he just wants me to follow Ms Potts around.”

“Huh.” He kept looking at her. “You like PR?”

“I like social media,” She shrugged. “And social activism. They’re pretty similar sometimes. Transferable skills, right?”

He nodded. “Hey Tones!”

Ms Potts and Dr Stark stopped arguing when they heard him. “Yeah?”

“What days does she work?”

“Thursdays and Sundays?”

He nodded seriously, like he was making a decision. “This Thursday, I have her.”

“Oh so now we want the intern!” Stark made a funny face, somewhere between pride and indignation. “Well, you don’t work here, she does. No dibs.”

“Yes dibs,” Rhodey insisted. “I’m teaching her PR.”

“Jim,” Ms Potts was not happy at all with this development. “We cannot hire her, she’s a child and there are labour laws. Don’t encourage him.”

“Um, actually,” She put her hand up like she was Brennan Lee Mulligan about to win a round against Mike Trapp. “Fourteen is the legal minimum age to be hired in the state of New York, and while there are several laws surrounding the maximum amount of hours I can legally work, there are none actively prohibiting my employment by Stark Industries. I know, I checked. SI lawyers double checked and my lawyer triple checked. Plus, the contract is already signed and I’m not so stupid to sign on and quit my job without insurance. I get 5% of my yearly salary if you terminate my employment within the first 40 days of starting, which is a stupidly high number because Dr Stark is terrible at understanding what wage standards are. Don’t worry, though, I capped it at 100k because I felt guilty when he kept saying ridiculous numbers. I can show you a paper copy of what I signed on my first day, or I can contact Legal on your behalf and get them sent to your email tomorrow.”

Penny may have been a teacher, but you have no idea how many emails that entails. Or the amount of organisation she had to do. Not to mention the union work, nor the organised strikes and protests surrounding pay, and all the other little things she would do. She was an organised adult. Mostly. Don’t go into her room.

“That would not be necessary,” A voice came from nowhere. “I have already sent all your new employee paperwork to Ms Potts while you have been discussing your employment.”

“Thank you, JARVIS.” Stark thanked.

Penny froze. She forgot he was still… well, alive in a sense. “JARVIS?” 

“Yes Miss Parker?”

Oh my god the AI knows her name. The cool AI knows her name. Fuck everything she has ever said about AI in the past, this is the coolest thing ever.

“Oh my god!” She shrieked, looking up and around. Where’s the camera? She knows there's a camera on her, there is always a camera, where is– There! She ran up to the hidden camera that was barely more than a pinprick on the wall. “You did a task without any visual or verbal cues! How does your data choose when to enact a task without input?”

“Penny.”

“ Is it a standing task like ‘be helpful’ that you have your own parameters for? How much energy do you take up to run like that?”

“Penny.”

“Are you why there’s the giant arc reactor downstairs? Can you do generation or only task-completion?”

“Penelope!” Dr Stark snapped.

She turned to him with the biggest grin, “Dr Stark! JARVIS is amazing !”

“Thank you, but you need to breathe if you want to–”

“She’s hired.” Ms Potts interrupted them both.

“Of course she’s hired,” Stark said. “It’s my company.”

“My company. I’m the CEO, you only have 12 percent.” Ms Potts corrected. “Miss Parker, you are hired. You start work tomorrow morning at 9am, wear business casual, no jeans. I’ll provide you with a device and introduce you to the company. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Penny nodded rapidly. She paused. “Um, my contract says I work 11 to 7 on Sundays. I have church in the mornings.”

Is she Christian? Not really. However, the local churches were always the best place to go for community outreach, and Penny was planning to show up at Matt’s church again to help out with the free breakfasts after Mass. It was a really cool level of organised charity work that Penny wanted to help out with.

The hours were a little weird for Sundays because, again, it’s a Sunday . Most companies are not working on Sundays, but SI was known for being eccentric and the flexible work schedules did mean you could choose your days of work. Ms Potts apparently preferred to have her Fridays and Saturdays off, so Penny’s schedule was made to reflect that by being at SI on Sundays and Thursdays, the first and last day of the week for Ms Potts. Still, SI was supposed to stop work at 5, but Stark had said that he would steal her for those last two hours, so Penny wasn’t complaining. It was two extra hours of pay. Well, not really, the dude gave her a $100,000 salary for working 12 hours a week, so she would be getting paid anyways.

Ms Potts took these weird hours in stride. “Then I will see you at 11 in the reception.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Perfect!” Stark clapped loudly. Why does he keep doing that? Can he stop? It’s like he’s someone’s middle-aged dad. “Let’s get you home now before you miss dinner.”

“But I wanted to ask JARVIS–”

“He can come with us in the car,” He started shooing her back towards the elevator. “C’mon. May is already scary, I don’t want to see her hangry.”

“But Dr Stark!” Was she whining? Maybe. It was, however, 8pm and her last meal was nearly six hours ago, she’s been awake since 7am, and she’s tired . She wanted to be left alone with JARVIS, like she wanted to be left alone with a Wikipedia article and a weighted blanket.

“Car. Now.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, gently pulling her along. She let him, because planting her feet and making herself impossible to move without the Hulk’s involvement was too much even for her. 

“Okay, but can I have another lollipop?”

“I think we’ll give Happy an aneurysm, so no.”

“You’re being boring and responsible.”

Stark looked at her, “You think you can bait me like this?”

“Easily.” She didn’t even try to hide it.

“You’re right, you can. Dibs the cola flavour.”

The elevator doors closed on Ms Potts and Rhodey’s amused faces.

Chapter Text

JARVIS was the best creation mankind has ever made since stirrups.

She told Stark as much, and he got such a stupid arrogant look on his face that she immediately started praising JARVIS for building himself. Any attempts to inform her otherwise were met with her insisting that no, Hatsune Miku built JARVIS.

Then, there was a conversation as to who Miku is, which led to the very interesting scene of a Black BMW parking in front of the Parker’s apartment complex, blasting Popipo while Happy cursed at Stark and herself. Not that Stark was all that into the genius that is Miku, but Penny was more interested in hearing JARVIS’ opinions on her, because he had opinions . Best AI ever.

“Do you think you can sing along?” She asked Stark’s phone, where JARVIS was residing. She had snatched it off her boss almost as soon as they left the parking lot, and JARVIS had switched to a beautiful mock facetime screen where in one corner the selfie mode was activated but the majority of the screen was a wonderful ball of digital light and code that occasionally flashed images and texts straight off the web. It was awesome and from the way that Stark had startled when she had asked if she could see JARVIS, he hadn’t known that he could do that either.

“I believe so, but I find a distaste for that action.”

“That’s fair,” She nodded, “I like singing a lot, but I’m terrible . When I was in third grade my music teacher called me tone-deaf and said I should leave the kids choir, which was really rude but I did kinda need to hear that because I was totally in my Sharpay era, and–”

Aunt May knocked on the car window. “Penny.” 

“Oh!” She pulled the door open and jumped out in a way that should have twisted her ankles if she was still an unenhanced person. “Aunt May look! This is JARVIS and he’s an AI but he’s way more Skynet than Siri but without the evilness, and I think I’m fine with our surveillance state now because he’s super cool and we were talking about who Miku is and he likes Miku and–”

May put her hand over her mouth to make her stop. Right, breathing, that’s something that’s necessary.

Ugh, breaks from school always made her so bored. And lonely. And needing to move.

That’s when she noticed Matt was standing next to May. She raised her hand to wave at him hello, then remembered that he was blind and she shouldn’t know he was Daredevil, so she awkwardly fixed her hair. Maybe she does need sleep.

“That’s nice, honey,” May said, removing her hand. “Nice to meet you JARVIS. Penny, hand Dr Stark his phone back.”

Penny reluctantly returned JARVIS to Stark, who just looked amused. Popipo was still playing loudly. 

“Bye JARVIS,” She said. “See you tomorrow, Dr Stark.”

Stark had a glint in his eye. “I’ll download JARVIS’ interface on your phone if you call me Tony.”

“Bribery,” Penny perked up. “I like it. See you later, Tony!”

Did she like calling him Tony? Not really, it removed any sense of distance she had tried to establish with him, but then again, that distance has proved to be utterly useless. Still, JARVIS on her phone . She’s probably a tad bit too excited about JARVIS, but can you blame her? He was always her favorite part of the Iron Man movies, and she’ll admit, she doesn’t really care for Vision.

“Bye, Macaroni!” He shut the door behind him.

“Sooo…” She rocked on her feet. “Is the carbonara ready or is Matt and I going to starve?”

“It’s already on the table,” May hugged her to her side. “You good? Not bothered by anything?”

“His friends want to do a paternity test.”

“We’re not doing that,” May immediately shut it down, turning to Matt. “Can they do that?”

“Not to a minor without your permission, and nothing in the contract left that kind of loophole,” Matt reassured. 

“Penny, tell me if they try.”

“Sure,” She agreed easily with a shrug. “I’ll probably punch whoever tries.”

“Do not punch anyone if it is not in explicit self-defense,” Matt corrected, tapping his cane as they made their way back inside. “Being rich does mean they can get away with more in a court of law. They shouldn’t, but they can.”

“If I film myself does that mean I can?”

“It means that they can argue it was premeditated.”

May interjected: “How about we just don’t punch anyone? Ever?”

Matt and Penny opened their mouths to argue, but the loud angry Italian tongue clicks May sent their way made them both shut up.

The walk back into the apartment was silent other than the very quick shuffle away from the creepy neighbor and the rapid tip-tap-tapping of them herding Matt away from Derek on his lawn chair. Penny hates HOAs and authorities like that, but she would call someone on Derek. Not really, she wouldn’t actually because it was rude and the dude likely has some weird mental health problem, but she did want someone to stop him from staring at her every time she passed him.

The second that the door closed behind them, May disappeared into the kitchen.

“So…” Penny addressed Matt. “I swear I didn’t plan on being kidnapped. I was gonna help make dinner.”

Matt quirked a smile, “I could tell that from your aunt’s phone call with Stark. She’s quite protective of you.”

Penny shrugged as she threw her jacket onto the back of the couch. “I guess, yeah. I’ve given her plenty of heart attacks growing up.”

Matt reached out with his hand to find the wooden chair of the dining table, leaning his cane next to him. “You aren’t the type to sneak out.” There was a question there in that statement.

“Battle of Manhatten killed my Uncle, I got PTSD from it,” The good thing about talking with a blind man is that they don’t care if you don’t make eye contact. “I used to carry his gun around to try and protect myself.”

He frowned. “That’s not your fault at all.”

“Yeah, well, guilt’s a bitch.” Honesty is one too. She doesn’t like to lie unless it's for fun, like that time that she convinced the bodega owner she was actually just a ‘no sabo’ kid from Ecuador. Or the time she told that pastor that she was actually Hindi. Or the time she fully convinced that cop that she was from New Zealand. Or– Well, okay, maybe she liked to lie, but that cop had talked with her for a solid hour about the differences between rugby and football before May had shown up to pick her up and started scolding her in Italian. His face had been hilarious . “Doesn’t matter though. What matters right now is carbonara and bread. I’m starving.”

“You’re the one that was late!” May replied, coming through with the pot and evidence that she was eavesdropping. Well, not really, this apartment was tiny and had negative soundproofing. “Here. Matt, how many spoons of pasta do you want? Plate half full, all full? You’re skinny, you should have a full plate, here let me–”

May completely ignored Matt’s protests that he couldn’t possibly eat so much. Which was good, because Penny had to agree that he was too skinny. She filled her own plate up to the brim and took two loaves of bread. She’ll have seconds later.

“Anything less concerning happen today?” May asked as they started to tuck in. 

“Sold a four thousand dollar TAG watch,” She shrugged. “Almost punched John for being a jerk with the CADs, but that’s normal. I had a lady come in asking if we sold real watches and I was really tempted to ask what a fake watch was, because clearly, ours were ticking, but I think that was just me having a fifteen-minute delay on my lunch break. I detangled a few chains too, a guy came in all embarrassed saying that he knocked over his wife’s jewelry box and I didn’t charge despite being told to.”

“Normal day then?” Matt asked when May just hummed.

“Pretty much,” Penny tore her bread. “How about you? Any fun cases?”

Matt did not have any fun cases. Matt did a lot of boring paperwork and had trouble with his braille reader because it was picking up lowercase U’s and A’s as O’s.

“Oh,” May spoke up. “Maybe you should get Penny to take a look at it, she’s pretty good with computers. Built her own laptop from junk and everything.”

Penny’s eyes widened in panic. “That’s hardware ! I’m good at hardware! A reader issue is probably software , and I’m terrible at software. I always ask Ned to double-check my software.”

After the incident of the Siri-Alexa monstrosity, Ned always checked her software. She was terrible at coding and always needed him to make sure none of her things had a weird quirk. Like how her jailbroken Starkphone always crashes if she opens the weather app but not if she turns on aiplane mode. Actually, she should probably ask Tony for help with that when he downloads JARVIS on it, just in case JARVIS had a load-bearing coconut jpg that her fucked up phone would delete.

“Any help would be appreciated,” Matt said. “Perhaps you can invite your friend and you two can take a look at it? It would help me out a lot.”

Well, if he put it that way. “Sure. Your office is near enough to our dumpling place, we can swing there after school. MJ might join us, but I think she’d like Karen, she wants to be an investigative journalist focusing on human rights issues.”

Penny took another loaf of bread. “Is your reader digital or mechanical? I know there’s some mechanical ones that just scan a page, but like, if it’s fully digital then I’ll bring different tools.”

“It’s digital, actually. Stark tech. They have the best accessibility devices on the market.”

Finally, common ground.

For the rest of dinner, they talked about accessibility devices. Between a whiz kid, a nurse, and a disabled man, they all knew what they were talking about too, which meant that when difficult and complex topics came up, they all were pretty stubborn.

“An X-gene cannot be both a disability and an accessibility device,” Penny argued. 

“But medically, we consider those missing a limb disabled and false limbs accessibility devices. An X-gene functions as both at the same time,” May was just as stubborn as Penny was.

“My blindness is a disability, yes,” Matt added. “But the way my hearing has improved is not an accessibility device. What is naturally me, a skill I have gained, is not artificial.”

“Why must an X-gene be labeled as a disability?” Penny demanded. “Half the time, it is just cosmetic additions. Is being blue a disability now?”

“If it impacts the way you interact with the world, then yes,” May argued. She’d seen Penny cry over the way the world was too much on her senses. “There’s a mutant with three fingers and a tail. If a child without an X-gene was born with that, it would be considered a disability.”

“Marking those with the X-gene as disabled as we do with other genetic conditions would give them human rights protections that they currently do not have,” Matt took on a lawyer perspective. “The ADA for one would immediately benefit them all.”

“It could also easily allow for eugenics and discrimination!” She insisted. “Laws surrounding disabilities in the US are already tenuous at best, and downright human rights violations at worst. Disabled people have a cap on how much money they can have in their bank accounts before they lose government support– retirement savings are straight-up impossible for a chunk of our population because of that. Can you imagine what they’ll do if Mutants also become classified as disabled? Which, yeah, they’re already trying to do a lot, but the lack of listed information in a databank like the US has on disabled people is genuinely helping prevent a full-out holocaust.”

It wasn’t just that Penny came from a different world where, in the future, horrible human rights violations were actively happening. It was the everyday things she saw here, now, in America's land of the free . Magneto was right, it always starts off with registration.

“But we can classify the Iron Man suit and super soldier serum as accessibility devices?” May tried to pull the conversation back on track, but Penny was too frustrated.

“We shouldn’t !” She pushed her plate away. “I need to cool off.”

Instead of going to her bedroom, Penny went straight for the fire escape. Outside was loud enough to distract her the same way that a rock concert could distract the dead. 

It was all so stupid . Congrats, you are now a fucked-up super soldier serum failure that bonded with your DNA so it looks like you have the X-gene! She doesn’t even like being Spiderwoman all that much. It’s like, she has the empathy for it all, and she likes doing good and helping others, but sometimes the world just got really tiring and she always managed to let people down as Spiderwoman first because she’s kinda shit at it and–

“Hey,” Matt suddenly appeared at the open window, scaring the shit outta her. 

“Fuck!” Penny swore, jumping a bit and accidentally sticking her hand to the fire escape’s rails. “Has anybody ever told you that you need a bell?”

A slight smile tugged on Matt’s face. “A few times. You alright?”

“I’m fine,” She tried to subtly pull her hand free, but adrenaline didn’t want to let go. Stupid reflexes, why did she have to get a bunch of new spider ones?

“Conversation hit a bit too close to home?” He asked, trying to be subtle. Like Penny didn’t know he was the most likely to figure out she wasn’t normal anymore. Her heart was kinda off now, and only May had known because she had checked her; the only other person with superhearing would catch her quickly enough. 

“Obviously,” She huffed, losing all subtlety with trying to pull her hand free. “I don’t know how you stay so impartial and calm.”

“I’ve been blind for a long time.”

“I meant the Daredevil shit,” Penny braced a foot against the rail. 

“Excuse me?” His voice shifted, something lower. More dangerous.

She eyed the rusty rail, this was probably a bad idea. “Last week, Friday. I know you recognized my heartbeat on the roof, I recognized yours too. I’ve never met anyone else with a heart so slow and calm while fighting.” That wasn’t even a lie.

He was quiet for a second, but in that second Penny decided to try and unstick her hand. It worked, but the iron rail immediately broke and went flying towards their heads. Her buzzing senses only gave a swift yelp as her other hand came up to catch it, but Matt seemed to have anticipated this too because he caught it.

“Penny!” May’s voice came from inside. “What was that?!”

“Nothing!” Penny yelled back, going to let go of the rail like it was on fire.

Her previously free hand was now stuck.

Motherfucker.

“Just the neighbor,” Matt called back for her as she struggled once more, now with a random bar of iron stuck in her closed fist. 

“Fucking Derek,” May muttered under her breath, likely unaware that they both could hear her, and turned the sink back on.

Penny looked at Matt. Matt looked at her.

“So. Spiderwoman is a kid?” He asked, a distinct press to his lips.

“And Daredevil is a lawyer,” She half-heartedly snarked back. He didn’t dignify it with a response. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. Honest.”

“Did you invite me here because I am Daredevil?” 

“Kinda,” Penny admitted. She could hear sirens from fifty blocks away. “I did just want to invite you over for dinner to repay you for the whole free contract help, but then I realized you have the whole enhanced hearing thing too, and I was hoping you could help me out because I’m going insane going to school every day, my ears permanently have earplugs in and I’m pretty sure that’s bad for me. Also Aunt May has a bit of a crush on you and I was supposed to swear to never tell anyone that but I crossed my fingers when I did because I knew I was gonna end up blurting that one out to you eventually. But I didn’t approach you at Mass because of the devil thing, I did really just want a good lawyer and you were recommended.” 

Recommended by a really funny ad campaign on TikTok for Daredevil: Born Again, but still. Not a lie.

He raised one eyebrow, amused. “How are you expecting to be a vigilante?”

“With a lot of lies of omission,” She answered honestly. “I’m also kinda hoping that this is a phase because I don’t know how I’m going to do this with a full-time job.”

She really doesn’t. Peter Parker was always shown as a teenager in the movies for a reason, and that reason was that Spidermanning as an adult was practically announcing that you couldn’t do a stable 9-5 job. She did like Spiderwoman, but also it filled her with anxiety and she had this weird sense of duty and she kinda hopes those feelings would fade and then she’d stop. Maybe. Hopefully. Then again she has spent her entire new life planning for this and there was nothing better than flying through the air on a web and…

And her thoughts on being Spiderwoman was complicated, okay? That’s just life. You feel like you’re wasting your potential while having fun, and feel miserable when you do everything you can. Penny was great at moderation and walking that middle line, until she wasn’t.

“With a lot of missing sleep,” Matt offered her. “Here, give me that. Do you always stick to things?”

“Only when I get startled. Did you notice I accidentally stole one of your tupperware containers when I cornered you at Mass? I didn’t mean to, but your ringtone scared me.”

He laughed, “I did, but I thought that was just the normal teenage pilferring. I’ll see what I can do about training that reaction out of you.”

“You’re helping me?” Should she be questioning this? “Even with the whole weird stalking trick thingie? Which, sorry again. Didn’t mean to be weird about it. Or awkward. Sorry.”

“Better me than some of the other Enhanced on the street,” He very carefully, and very gently, pried the iron rail out of her hand. 

“I considered asking Deadpool next,” It wasn’t Penny’s best idea, but despite it all, she did trust him from all the comics she watched. Also, his third and first movie. Not the second, that made her almost lose all hope in his ability to mentor her. 

Matt froze, holding the rail. “Why not anyone else?”

“Uh.” How does she answer that she doesn’t know if any of the other defenders are actively running around right now. “I put all my eggs in one basket?”

Matt sighed. “Let’s get inside. Please tell me your Aunt knows.”

“Not about Spiderwoman.”

“Then that’s step one: guardian permission.”

Chapter Text

Penny did not like having guardian permission.

Guardian permission, turns out– like she had fucking predicted– came along with a hefty dose of ‘stressed and disappointed Aunt May.’ Stupid.

Matt told May that she grabbed him with a web to stop him from falling off the escape when the railing gave way, which is a very good lie that Penny totally could have come up herself.

She got scolded for a whole hour , and by the time May had finally wound down, it was nearly midnight and Penny was desperate for sleep. Matt, the weirdo nocturnal creature, disagreed and tried to convince them to let walk home at midnight . 

Penny had quickly learned that Matt is not more stubborn than May, and she thinks this is amazing information that will absolutely weaponize.

Instead, she stumbled out of bed at 7, and sat on the floor next to the couch that Matt had slept in. That’s how Matt found her, staring at the ceiling while eating plain toast.

“Penny?” He groaned, sitting up.

“May is very angrily cooking breakfast,” She informed him. “She’s got this frown on her face where she thinks she’s hiding her emotions but actually it’s really obvious how angry she is.”

“Is this…” He struggled to say, “I mean, are you hiding from her with me?”

“No,” She lied. “I’m just telling you that I’m going to Mass with you this morning.”

“I was planning on going this afternoon,” He groaned when he sat up, like an old man. “But we can go this morning. How are you getting to your internship?”

“Subway.”

“I can go with you,” He offered. 

Penny immediately shook her head, “I can’t listen to you and block out the weird subway sounds. I don’t want to start my first day with a migraine.”

And that was that.

May drove them both into church on her way into work, giving Penny another scolding about no unnecessary detours after work. Matt guided her inside Clinton’s, also reminding her to be responsible with Spider-ing. Father Lantom’s homily, while not about her being responsible with vigilante-ing, was about the responsibility one has to help another. Matt immediately hit her with a look of ‘I know, I also feel the guilt, but don’t you dare go out tonight.’

Penny settled back into the pew more awkward than the muttered ‘peace be with you’s she gave.

“Matthew!” Father Lantom cornered them when Penny tried to give back her church newsletter. There had been nothing particularly interesting in the youth section, and the charity work section had been asking for volunteers for a program she had already signed up for last week. “I see you a newcomer to our church. You were here last month too, weren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah,” She nodded. “I’m Penny. One of the volunteers at St Christopher High told me that Matt was a good lawyer, but she only knew him from Mass, so, yeah.”

The priest smiled kindly, “And you came back?”

Matt gave a tight smile, “More like she followed me here again after forcing me to come in the morning.”

“I like the vibes here,” She shrugged. “It’s a nicer church than the one that I usually go to, and I didn’t want to show up alone. Plus, you guys do free breakfasts after Mass and I was wondering if you needed a volunteer or some help?”

She wasn’t even confirmed or anything. She’d been baptized as a baby, but May didn’t even remember for what church it had been. Penny presumed it was Catholic since her mom had been Italian, but Uncle Ben and her dad were ethnically Jewish, and she knew that meant that she shouldn’t have been baptized, but Aunt May said she had been. Penny wasn’t here for God, she just wanted to help.

She’d done the same in her past life, after a lifetime of Catholic school and volunteering with different mission churches. 

“We would love some volunteers,” Father Lantom said. “Do you enjoy charity work?”

“It’s important,” She crossed her arms. “If we all helped each other, then the world would be a better place. But we don’t, because humans are a stupid species that works mostly like sheep and need someone to follow, so leading by example is the best way.”

“Well,” Luckily, the Father was simply amused. “We are God’s flock.”

Without thinking, she said: “Does that make you a shepherd dog or are those the saints?”

Matt sighed.

“That is an interesting analogy,” Was the response. “Perhaps I should debate this with the Sisters.”

“Perhaps,” Matt put a hand on Penny’s shoulder. “Until then, Penny is going to be late for work if she doesn’t leave soon. Maybe you can tell her your answer next Sunday.”

She was not going to be late, what was he talking about? It was barely– oh SHIT SHE’S LATE!

Shoving her phone back into her pocket, Penny gave a smile that was totally not nervous. She presumed she was working on swinging time, not subway time, when she planned getting from Mass to work on Sunday mornings, but Spiderwoman was grounded since last night ago, and she stupidly did not adjust her mental clock despite talking about taking the subway . 

“He’s right, I’m late,” She stepped away, trying to pretend she wasn’t trying to actively run away. “I need to catch the subway, like, right now. I’d say a proper goodbye and say she’ll be right normally, but it’s my first day at the new job so like, bye!”

She heard Matt sigh even deeper when she turned on her heel and ran out the church like a… well, like a bat outta hell. She would care more, but she could also hear him speak fondly to the priest afterwards, apologising for her. Lantom just seemed amused, replying about Matt’s own time as a teenager.

Penny took the steps down into the subway two at a time, starting her ‘Messy Bitch Anthems’ playlist which starred a lot of early Charli XCX, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga.

She jumped the turnstiles, and took the time to open the emergency doors so a bunch of people could avoid paying the fee, giving a short nod to the guy who made eye-contact with her in thanks.

Luckily, no tingle meant no cops around, so she was good. When you’re really young, hopping the turnstiles isn’t as bad because no cop tries to argue with you, but the second you become a teenager, those fuckers are up your ass yelling at you. Assholes. Penny is both lucky and unlucky she doesn’t have a baby face and looks her age.

Uncaring about the general public or the two free seats, Penny grabbed the top handlebars, and like the gymnast she was, flipped up to hang her legs from the top bar and hung upside down like a bat from the ceiling. Nobody blinked an eye at Penny deciding she needed some time off the ground. She may hate America, but god did she love New York.

She spent her entire trip like that, changed train lines and all. It was nice to hang upside now, probably something to do with her changed circulatory system, and she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to go full Spider for at least a week.

She only fully flipped down when she got to her destination.

To her credit, she had hung very carefully in a way that meant her blouse and slacks didn’t get wrinkled, even if her hair was now slightly messy.

Then again, she had messy waves that she didn’t really know how to tame. In both lives. Attempting a slicked back bun was her mistake, only Aunt May knew how to do those on her, and only due to so many gymnastics and cheerleading comps. She’d probably forgotten to use enough gel.

Penny arrived at the reception of Stark Tower with ten minutes to spare, and used that time to try (and fail) to tuck her baby hairs back down. Then, to tuck them behind her ear.

“Miss Parker,” Ms Pott’s voice broke her thoughts of maybe using her mascara to force that one stubborn lock down.

“Ms Potts!” Penny whirled around, pasting a bright smile on her face. “Good morning!”

“Morning. Let’s get started, shall we?” She indicated behind her, where Happy was holding a badge and looking grumpy. “Happy will go over security measures with you quickly, and then I’ll show you around and what working with me will be like.”

Happy was not happy about having to go through security quickly. 

He pinned her badge to her blouse, with a stern “Always wear this. Never go anywhere without your badge, understand? If you lose this, then we have a huge security breach. Do not lose your badge.”

She also got drilled on protocols about terrorist and villain attacks, fire and earthquakes, and everything in between. Happy’s ‘quick’ security briefing was a little over an hour long.

Ms Potts had disappeared during the briefing, but turned back up at the end with a pinch between her brows as she texted someone. 

“Pepper,” Happy handed her back over. “She’s all yours now.”

Penny couldn’t help herself, “Actually, I think Tony has arranged for shared custody.”

Happy pointed at her, “Do not make a joke like that in front of reporters.”

Oops. “Yes. Sorry.”

“You’re not sorry,” Happy rolled his eyes and walked away. Rude.

“Well, now I’m not,” She crossed her arms and looked at Ms Potts. Did she just see that?

Ms Potts just handed her a tablet. “Everything Happy just covered is on your StarkPad, filed under Security 101. Tony also said that you have access to JARVIS on it, but I’d like to remind you that JARVIS is a state-of-the-art AI, not a toy. Access is a privilege, not a right. I will revoke it if I see you doing anything you shouldn’t.”

“Yes ma’am,” Penny immediate replied, knowing she wasn’t fucking around.

She paused for a second. “Hi JARVIS, I missed you.”

“Hello, Miss Parker, the lack of your presence was similarly lacking stimulation to my processing systems.” JARVIS replied, the closest thing to an ‘I missed you too’ one could get from him.

Ms Potts' eyes softened immediately. “Alright, both of you, upstairs.”

Ms Potts was really good at the whole tour thing, even if they were getting strange looks by literally everyone as the CEO of the trillion-dollar company led a fourteen-year-old intern around. Also, SI doesn’t have internships for high schoolers, just outreach programs and scholarships. 

“And this was Legal,” Ms Potts said, texting someone again as they walked away from the penultimate department.

The head of Legal waved Penny off, and she awkwardly copied it, feeling a bit like a preschooler getting their first tour of the big kid school.

“And now R&D, where Tony is currently not supposed to be,” Ms Potts said with the tone of someone who knows exactly where Tony is.

In the elevator, Penny opened the notes app.

 ‘hey JARVIS, wanna record the chaos? i think it would be the perfect receipt for later.’

The thumbs-up emoji appeared after a second, showing that their AI overlord sees all and knows all. She loves him so much.

“–Okay, what we need is a stronger seal here, we don’t–” Tony’s head perked up, and he went silent the second he heard Ms Potts’ stilettos, like an overgrown puppy. “Pep, my queen! You’ve brought the princess!”

Penny’s the princess? Well, she could get used to… wait, no, stay focused.

“I’m not calling you king,” Penny replied. “You don’t slay enough.”

“Tony, you’re supposed to be talking with Dr Cho,” Pepper did not look impressed.

“And I did!” Tony defended himself. “Reports look good, she’s coming with the brand new complete cradle within the week. Princess, come here, I need you to hold this pipe while I try a new seal.”

Sure, this might as well happen. She put her satchel and JARVIS down on a chair and moved to Tony’s side, taking the pipe from his hands. It wasn’t heavy at all to her, but she made sure to pretend that it was a little bit. 

A scientist gave her a lost look, “Sorry, who are you?”

“My kid!” Tony said, which was definitely not helping. At all. Ms Potts hissed sharply. “Pen is here to learn from myself and Pep how SI works, just as an intern for now. Too young for me to hire her permanently for R&D.”

Instead of addressing anything else, Penny focused on the important part. “Who said anything about me working R&D? Rhodey already dibs-ed me for PR.”

Tony pointed at her, “Oh, so he’s Rhodey, but it took me offering you an AI to get you to talk to me normally? I see how it is.”

“I play favourites,” She gave a half-shrug. “Can you hurry up? This pipe isn’t exactly a pillow.”

It was lighter than that, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Should she be handling that?” A different scientist asked, looking like he was ready to snatch his precious baby back out of her arms.

The previous scientist, who asked who she was, shrugged. “If she’s Stark’s kid,” She answered.

She said ‘Stark’ the same way some people would say ‘Jesus’ and Penny vaguely wondered if she should be worried about that.

Tony hadn’t even heard Penny properly because he was currently defending his choice of texting Dr Cho for an official update instead of hopping onto their scheduled video call.

“So,” She turned to the captive audience of scientists. “What are your names and specialties and what am I holding right now?”

Doctor Give Me My Baby Back answered her first. “ That is our new miniaturized particle accelerator. We are attempting to make them fit within a space of 12 feet squared but still be as powerful as the Large Hadron Collider. I’m Simon.”

Oh great, she was holding something that could make an atomic bomb. She already had bad luck with radioactive science experiments.

“I’d shake your hand, but, y’know, pipe.” She gave him a grin. “I’m Penny.”

A lot more physicists, engineers, and other important scientists introduced themselves to her.

“What is your area of expertise?” Dr Abena asked her.

“Well, I’m 14,” Penny began with, because it’s important to manage expectations. “But my best subjects are bioengineering and biochemistry. In science, anyway. My favourite subjects at school are History and Social Studies. I think journalism and politics are cool, but they’re pretty oversaturated, and I don’t know how employable I’ll be.”

STEM was pretty oversaturated in the future too, and a simple engineering degree doesn’t guarantee a job anymore. By the time Penny gets around to doing her university degree, it’ll almost be covid years, and that changed the entire job market again. She really has no idea what she should be looking towards, and if it weren’t for the fact that the USA was the worst place to work as a teacher, then Penny might just do the same degree all over again.

“I think you’ll do just fine,” Dr Abena said kindly. “Besides, the Stark name opens all doors.”

Tony reappeared with the seal, and, with one arm, helped her reorient the pipe into the correct slot.

“Thanks, kid.” He wiped off with his shirt. “Needed someone who wasn’t an old fart liable to drop it to hold it for me.”

Dr Simon started spluttering.

“Tony,” Ms Potts sighed.

“Pepper,” He replied in the same tone. “Come on, Pen, grab your stuff, have you seen Pep’s office yet? You get your own desk right next door to it.”

“Awesome,” Her own office? She hadn’t ever gotten that in either life. “Can you add JARVIS to my phone tonight?”

Pepper jabbed at the elevator button, “Later. Tony, I’m just going to go through my schedule and her tasks now.”

“Perfect, I’ll know when best to interrupt.” Tony looked back at her, “Come on, Princess, we have the royal tour to finish up.”

Penny grabbed her stuff and sped up to catch up, but she was already distracted.

‘JARVIS’ she typed into the notes app again. ‘can you make a twitter and insta under the name ‘Princess Stark’ for me?’

‘ Is your current social media prescence not sufficient?’

‘tony is a loudmouth and someone is going to blab sooner than later.’ 

She typed back as Tony argued about pushing the button for the right level on Pepper’s behalf. Personally, Penny had her money on Dr Hannock who had been very grumpy with everything and everyone. 

‘an easily found and curated public social will stop most of them looking deeper for my actual socials. can you turn my insta private and delete any indentifying information off my twitter too?’

‘ Acceptable argument. Task complete. Would you like me to backdate any posts for you?’

‘i have a few selfies and charity posts, just transfer them over with the same dates and delete the originals, its easier and new information can compromise any stories made.’

‘ Complete. Should I alert sir or are we enacting the task of ‘Karma’ in the form of pranking?’

‘J, have you ever heard of siblings teaming up for payback? like in the movies? this is it. Mission Task: Parent Trap, The Electric Boogaloo.’

‘ file opened and encrypted. ’

“Penny, what are you typing?” Tony asked, trying to see her screen.

She gave him an innocent grin, “JARVIS and I are just bonding.”

“He’s not a toy,” Pepper repeated just like before. “Don’t overwhelm his servers.”

“Like one kid with questions could overwhelm any of my babies,” Tony rolled his eyes. “Go for it, kid, enjoy making a new friend.”

“Mhm,” Penny nodded, looking at the sunglasses emoji that JARVIS just sent.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

What was she saying earlier about not getting distracted by the Y/N Stark vibes? It sounded like lame, boring adult thoughts. 

Second adolescence, she had to at least try to find some positives to it all.

Chapter Text

“So what kind of back-ups does Jarv have?” Penny asked, plugging the tablet and screencasting onto the TV she had in her office.

Well, it wasn’t a TV, it was a computer, but it was attached to the wall and she could watch Netflix using it, so she was calling it her TV. Apparently, 99% of the time she’ll be using her tablet for stuff, but there was a ‘proper’ computer for larger files and holograms mounted on the wall. 

“Why?” Tony asked.

“Not to seem irresponsible,” Penny was extremely responsible. Look at her, getting ahead of Ultron. “But I upgraded the phone you gave me but don’t open the weather app.”

Tony eyed the phone in his hand like it was a bomb, but he’s Tony fucking Stark, so like he wanted to desperately open it up and set it off. “Why can’t I open the weather app?”

Ms Potts looked up from her setting up Penny’s new passwords. “Tony, don’t click on that app.”

“Uh, it crashes the whole phone and bricks it for thirty minutes,” Penny shrugged. “I don’t know why, but the phone can’t be tracked anymore. I don’t want to accidentally hurt JARVIS with my shitty programming.”

Tony cringed as he unlocked the phone using her face. “Why is the homescreen sideways? And blue?”

“To throw theives off their rhythm,” She took the phone, turned it off, then unlocked it again. It was normal now. “It only works properly if you unlock it using the passcode.”

“Why?”

“Have you seen the data that SHIELD gathered on normal citizens? The same data that got leaked and ruined thousands of American lives?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “My programming might be shitty and confusing, but that’s digital security in the modern world. Even an ameutur can win against a chess master, but only if they confuse them enough with their shitty playing.”

Tony was frowning down at her phone, “Why do you have an active trace going on for ex-HYDRA agents in America?”

Trying to figure out if Derek is HYDRA or just a weirdo.

“You’re asking a lot of questions for someone who used to work for the US Government.”

Tony, at the mere thought of being compared to a spy, tossed that line of thinking out the window. “JARVIS has multiple back-ups, a physical one too. I save him every other month, and he’s supposed to back himself up every other hour, just in case.”

Wait a second.

“So if I accidentally delete his load-bearing coconut jpg, he’ll be fine?”

“Not a toy,” Ms Potts insisted once more. 

“Completely fine,” Tony promised. “You’d have to go into his base data and delete everything manually from the bottom up, then bomb his physical back up. You can play with Jarv, just don’t touch his programming. Okay?”

Ultron had deleted JARVIS, but from what Penny had seen in the movie, not touched his physical back up at all. So, why on earth did Tony act like JARVIS was dead in the movies? She had some snooping to do.

“Okay,” She said, not needing to exhaggerate the way that some weight came off her shoulders. “So it’s fine if I ask him to watch Mean Girls and judge their life choices with me?”

Ms Potts finished off with her updated passcodes, “Penny, do you have many friends at school?”

Okay, rude. “I have MJ and Ned. MJ is judgy and Ned is nerdy, and I’m a good combination of both of those, so we get along really well. Why?”

“Tony isn’t a good role model in relationships you shouldn’t start building your own friends.” Ms Potts said.

“Is it possible to build a friend or would that be considered a toxic relationship?” She asked, narrowing her eyes. “Would this fall under cloning ethics or should I be doing the Harkness test?”

Ms Potts smiled. “Good, consider that. We already have one impulsive genius, a second one would just be trouble.”

You know what? Penny wants to move this right along.

“Tasks!” She demanded. “Do you have anything for me to do? Email people, call to confirm a booking, play with a filing system? I don’t like being bored.”

Ms Potts slid her tablet over. “You can order lunch. I’m on a vegan diet at the moment, and Tony is eating heart healthy.”

“Tony is not eating heart healthy.” Tony lifted his head up from where he was looking at Penny’s phone like he was an archeologist that had just discovered Cleopatra’s tomb. “Tony is a red hearted, all American male.”

Penny looked at Tony, let her eyes flicker downwards where the Arc Reactor once lay, and then back up again. “Okay, sure.”

Tony squinted at her. 

“I said okay!” She defended herself.

“I better not have a salad on my plate.”

“You won’t, jeez.” Of course he won’t, Penny isn’t an idiot. Actually, no, scratch that, Penny was not taken by early twentieth century diet culture that purposefully misled the masses into thinking that fat was evil and that salad was the only good food in the world.

She opened up the device to see the pre-made list of approved restaurants to order from, and fuck was Ms Potts thorough with it all. She scrolled down until she found one that she did approve of for them both.

 “Do you want a salad, Ms Potts, or just something vegan?” 

“Vegan.” She gave Penny a look, “and don’t forget to order some for yourself. SI provides lunch for all employees, so if you ever have to order a meal for us, then you are also to order for yourself too.”

“Is there a cap?” She asked. These restaurants were expensive and Penny ate a lot.

Tony snorted like she made a joke. “Yeah, and that’s importing gold foiled caviar from Sweden.”

“Tony,” Ms Potts said warningly. “Penny, your personal cap is a thousand dollars a week, okay?”

Penny is going to have a fucking heart attack. A thousand fucking dollars a week, when she only works two days a week? Rich people bullshit, Jesus. Pepper was just as bad as Tony, she just hid it way better.

“Okay,” She agreed, knowing she will never even get close to that cap.

She turned back to the tablet, placing an order for a good lunch for them all, hoping that nobody would complain. It was always the worst thing in the world, choosing the food spot for a group who didn’t elaborate at all on what they wanted. 

Eh, they can deal with her craving Mexican. Beans and corn tortillas are heart healthy and they always have yummy vegan options available.

Order sent in, and some basic tasks done, Penny pushed the tablet away.

Apparently, every work day, she would be set up with a small list of tasks to complete on her tablet, which she was to do while following Pepper around. If Pepper was unavailable, then she was to be shuffled over to Tony or Rhodey (despite the colonel not actually being an employee of SI), and if they were busy too, then she was to complete her tasks and go help whoever needs it. It was a simple enough system for a too-young intern, and she was extroverted enough to likely wander off to try and get extra tasks throughout the day.

She spun around in her chair, scooting closer to where Tony was finishing up with her phone. “Hey, J, you comfy in there?”

“The size and quality of my accessible device has no relation to my comfort,” JARVIS answered.

Penny got the biggest grin on her face. She can be professional, really, she can, but they were more or less in private and she worked with 14 year olds for majority of her career. “It’s all about how you use it, huh,” She winked at the hidden camera in the TV.

“Quite,” JARVIS’ voice was dry, but Penny would swear up and down that she heard some humour in it.

Pepper sighed deeply, a soul deep exhaustion. “Two of you. I’m leaving, don’t drag JARVIS down with you.”

Tony was too busy cackling to be offended.

Penny plucked her phone out of Tony’s hand. “J, for reals, you good?”

“Other than a few concerning lines in your notes app, and my inability to see the weather forecast without switching devices, there is nothing that irritates my servers,” J answered more honestly.

“Drop tables or the fanfiction I was writing on the bus?” She opened her notes app to delete whatever was bothering him.

“Drop tables,” JARVIS highlighted the specific note. It was the programming that she would copy and paste into her school servers to delete the roll so nobody would notice her being late to class. She needed a perfect attendance for Midtown to sign off on her work permits and public transport can be a bitch. “Although the content of your writing is not very common.”

“That’s very nice,” Penny grinned as she deleted the note. “It’s okay, it’s supposed to be ironic.”

“I don’t believe this fits the definition,” Jarv was snarky and she loved it.

“Should I be concerned?” Tony spoke up. He was eyeing her and J with a weird smile-frown.

“I’m 14, it’s more concerning if there’s no fanfiction,” Fandom taught you to critically think. Unless you’re one of those morons, then fandom teaches you to be critically stupid. “It’s just about Supernatural. The angel is totally going to confess his feelings for the hunter, I’ll put money on it.”

She better not get blipped and miss out on seeing Destiel go canon for the tenth (and first) time. She will crash out if that happens, she’s already missed Dashcon because Aunt May refused to let her leave the state by herself.

“You’re a strange one, Penelope Parker.” Tony peered at her curiously, massive grin on his face. 

“It’s the curse of the alliterative name, it makes you weird.” She shrugged and stood, “Where are we eating lunch? The food is only ten minutes away.”

Tony checked the clock, “I love it when they’re quick. My private floor upstairs, one of the interns can bring it up.”

“Pretty sure that’s my job.”

“Nah, your job right now is to explain to me what Supernatural is.”

“Oh my god I’m getting paid to talk about Destiel right now, I love this job please don’t fire me.”

“I think I’m going to regret asking.”

Chapter Text

Queen of Digital Weavers | @Princess_Stark posted 3 days ago:

reason 187089 that i could totally take over the world: convinced tony stark that destiel is real and endgame

1 Reply        6 Likes

AI Overlord | @Prince_Stark replied 3 days ago:

 

I believe it may have been simply to make you stop talking.

 

Queen of Digital Weavers | @Princess_Stark replied 2 days ago:

 

you say that like i didnt notice you making the elevator slow down to trap him in there with me

Queen of Digital Weavers | @Princess_Stark posted 3 hours ago:

As the Yemeni and Syrian Civil Wars continue, the number of those seeking asylum climbs, and the response to this continues to be lacking  ⅓

17 Replies     28 Retweets      52 Likes

Queen of Digital Weavers | @Princess_Stark replied 3 hours ago:

 

Refugees struggle and risk their lives trying to get the bare minimum, to get safety, and international responses are dismissive ⅔

 

Queen of Digital Weavers | @Princess_Stark replied 3 hours ago:

 

This is why I am with World Vision’s 40hr Famine to fundraise for those in refugee camps, I will match every dollar raised. Link below 3/3 

AI Overlord | @Prince_Stark replied  17 minutes ago:

 

Sir will match all donations made by a multiple of five.

DRAFT: Queen of Digital Weavers | @Princess_Stark replied  0 minutes ago:

Jay are you allowe

“Hand it over.” A cardboard box with the glittery label of ‘phone jail’ got shaken in Penny’s face. “Now.”

“It’s about work,” Penny tried her luck. If she got lucky, she would still be able to get her phone back by the end of the period. If she were unlucky, it would get confiscated until the end of the day, and Mrs Hally would send a letter home. “My boss doesn’t understand things such as school hours. He’s asking if I could come in today.”

It was fifth period, too, so it wouldn’t exactly be torture to be disconnected for the next hour and a half, but JARVIS had Tony’s credit card information and Penny suddenly did not trust the AI to be responsible with it. And, look, as a former teacher, Penny understood Mrs Hally’s plight; however , this class was boring revision for her and she wanted freedom.

“Then this is a great teaching moment for your boss to learn the hours in which you are or are not available. Phone, now.”

Penny slumped, but handed her phone over. 

“You can have this back at the end of the period,” Mrs Hally threw over her shoulder as she walked back up to the front of the class and continued her talk on what happened during the Renaissance.

Not even what helped cause the Renaissance, or what the major power plays during the Renaissance, or the fucking legacy it had and how it collapsed within itself. No, because Social Studies in America was so fucking fucked that students basically just get a timeline with the names and dates of important people doing important events, and don’t fucking elaborate at all. She could teach this class better in her sleep. She could rewrite the American curriculum in her sleep, because why the fuck was this shit structured like they were just supposed to memorise dates.

Flash snickered quietly at her, but Penny just rolled her eyes and went digging for a pencil so she could doodle an attempt at a realistic eye.

“Penelope Parker!” Oh shit.

Mrs Hally had turned around and seen it all. “If you are going to be ignoring what I’m teaching, then I will be calling on you to answer every question. Now, do you want to tell me who Donato Bramante is?”

Ned whispered a very, very quiet, “Oh no.”

Penny… was not going to deal with this. She was bored , she was an adult in a teenager’s body, she had a job and other stresses and she was not dealing with this. She had less than three months left of Freshman year, and she had been getting straight A’s in literally every class.

“ Donato Bramante , whose name, by the way, you’re pronouncing incorrectly, is the architect who created St Peter’s Basilica. That’s the answer you’re looking for, but it’s also a gross simplification of Donato’s influence on the Renaissance and how his building plans quite literally brought on the end of the Renaissance, but you weren’t going to mention that at all, because he’s just the name of a random architect to you and this stupid curriculum.” 

Penny crossed her arms. “Donato brought the High Renaissance style of Architecture to Milan and Rome, and started the basilica in 1506, but it would only be completed over a hundred years later. The design he made was so grand and opulent that the Vatican was forced to do things such as destroy and collect stone from the Colosseum to use for the foundations, and, when money got tight later, they started collecting indulgences from the people. The same indulgences that meant Luther nailed 99 theses to a door and started the Protestant Reformation, which made opulence, luxury, and exposed artistry unfashionable, leading to the downfall of the Renaissance. Of course, none of this was in any of your lesson plans because all we need to learn is that Donato built the basilica in a certain year and made domes popular again.”

MJ was looking at her like she was her favourite person in the world. 

Mrs Hally was looking at her like Penny was her least favourite student.

She smiled tightly and grabbed her bag, “I’ll take myself to the principal. Good luck teaching everyone else, because I’m getting myself tested out.”

She snatched her phone back on her way out.

Yeah. Principal Morita wasn’t all that impressed with her either.

“Please,” Penny wasn’t even protesting the week of before-school detention. That was fair. “Sir, the class is so pathetically easy for me. I’m bored .”

“Miss Parker, I cannot reward misbehaviour,” He stressed. “Even if I understand your request. Let me review your grades and–”

“I can literally pass half the AP classes.” Penny was so tired of school. She had tried to be allowed to skip middle school and instead got shoved at Midtown. “Quiz me on anything, I’ll pass it. I’ve gotten a hundred on all my exams this year, except for Spanish, and it’s never below 95 percent. I can sit the SAT and ACT tomorrow and get the same score as the average senior. I’m not even asking you to let me skip a grade in English or Maths, it’s Social Studies .”

Which, by the way, could be argued to be the most important subject due to the USA’s current political trajectory, not that Mr Morita would agree. This was a STEM school, in America. To them, it was the least important subject.

“Look.” Mr Morita leaned forward in his chair. “Penelope. I understand that you are struggling to connect to your peers, and I understand that you are very mature and school feels stifling to you. However, you cannot just start skipping years, because that isn’t going to solve the problem either. Here’s my solution: I'll call your aunt, and we'll review your grades together. Tomorrow, instead of Mrs Hally’s class, you will come to my office, and you will sit the end-of-year exams for Social Studies after giving her a handwritten letter of apology. If you get an A, we will replace your Social Studies period with a guided research study period. If you don’t, you will return to your normal class. Do you understand?”

Penny sighed and slumped back into her chair. “Yeah.”

“Go to class, I don’t want to hear any more complaints about disrespect from you,” Mr Morita dismissed her. “I know you can do better than this.”

Great, she thought as she left the office. She got hit with the ‘you can do better’ like a disappointment.

Ned and MJ were waiting right outside for her, obviously skipping last period to come support her. 

“Impressive, Parker,” MJ praised.

Ned was wringing his hands, “Dude, please tell me you didn’t get expelled.”

“Just a week of detention before school,” She shrugged, a slight curl of shame in her stomach. Mrs Hally hadn’t deserved her outburst. “And tomorrow I get to try and test out, after I give a handwritten apology.”

MJ nodded. “School is inherently an oppressive capitalist system invented to make children into a cog in the machine; no matter how much it dresses itself up, there is an inherent inequality in the system.”

Well, yes, but: “That doesn’t mean that as individuals that kindness and respect are not owed to each other. In an oppressive system, the most radical action is often kindness.”

Ned was nodding along.

“Also, education is the only thing that cannot be taken from us, so achieving higher education is inherently rebellious.” She added. “I want to go to university.”

“MIT,” Ned said, almost dreamily.

“Harvard,” MJ added her own dream.

Penny shrugged, being the only one of them who has actually had higher education and knew what the average student dorm looked like. “NYU or Columbia, probably. Cambridge, Sydney, or Toronto if I’m lucky.”

“Colombia is the best university you named, why do you sound disappointed by it?” MJ questioned.

“America sucks and is expensive.” 

“Fair enough.”

“Am I the only optimist in this group?” Ned wondered aloud.

“Pessimism means I’m never disappointed,” MJ said as they headed away from their last class of the day. Penny will have to mark herself and her friends as retroactively present online. 

“I have a depressingly realistic understanding of how the world works and what that means for our future.” Penny opened the door to a storage closet. They only had another twenty minutes left before the bell rang, which meant that the hallways would be full of monitors looking for escapees. “Which means that I’m so tired .”

Being a teenager was hard. People treated you like a child but expected you to act like an adult, then got pissy when they treat you like an adult but you’re still missing a chunk of brain being developed. Then, you finally taste the freedom that you get with being an adult with a job and a salary, and going back to school just sucked. 

Penny knew she had been moody and irritable all week. Matt had commented on it, May and commented on it, MJ had commented on it, and Ned was trying hard not to comment on it.

“Are you sure you should be working?” Ned finally commented on it. “It’s just, dude, you look really tired sometimes.”

Penny balanced all her responsibilities really well. For an adult. 

Sometimes, the reminder that she was a teenager crept up on her and she didn’t notice until it smacked a crowbar at the back of her knees.

“I’m going to quit cheerleading next year,” She shrugged. That would be her biggest school responsibility gone. “Robotics is finished next week. I need to see how many classes I can test out of before I go insane with homework. I’ll keep AcDec for college apps, but nothing else. The internship should be way more manageable once I offload everything. Sides, only two months left ish .”

Sure, the internship was two days a week, and Spiderwoman practice was two days a week, and AcDec was two days a week, but she still had Saturday off, and one day a week was much better than the no days a week she currently had.

“Workaholism isn’t cute,” MJ rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot, Penny.”

“I made my bed,” Penny had to keep going. “Exams are soon, and next year will be better. I don’t have to save all my money anymore.”

“You can finally start that Padme cosplay this summer!” Ned perked up, already imagining their future trip to the New York Comic Con in October. 

“Oh shit I can!” Penny perked up again, all thoughts about work and money forgotten. “I can totally afford the fabric to make the lake dress now! Ned, you gotta ask your Lola if we can borrow her sewing machine.”

MJ crossed her arms. “You two are such nerds.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Penny blinked. “We can make a cosplay for you, too. Maybe you can be Amy Dunne from Gone Girl or Katniss from the Hunger Games, you love those movies.”

She averted her eyes, “Whatever.”

There were good things about being a teenager too. Making friendships and having them be deep and true in the manner of weeks, where adults struggle to do the same in months. MJ had only known them for a month, but they could read each other's minds as easy as if they'd known her for years.

The bell rang as they discussed going to Joann’s Fabrics for their cosplay materials versus the local place that Ned’s Lola goes to, the sound piercing the closet door and soon followed by their fellow students trying to escape the grounds as quickly as possible.

“Finally,” MJ stretched as she stood, raising her arms high above her head. “I need a nap.”

“Same,” Penny picked up her bag again. “I’m gonna take one on the train.”

“I’m going to bed early,” Ned reminded them that they were, in fact, the weirdos for rarely sleeping before midnight. “After doing my homework.”

“Nerd.”

“God, I wish.”

MJ and Penny eyed each other.

Ned just went to the door and held it open for them.

Sunlight felt great after a day indoors. The windows weren’t enough, and there also weren’t enough of them to prevent the entire student body from slowly getting a vitamin D deficiency. She missed having an open plan school, with no fences or second floors, and a distinct threat of students sneaking off through the field to the beach nearby.

Still, she did love the city: the cars, and movement, and the multitude of sounds.

She was reaching for her headphones when MJ poked her. “Is the BMW for you?” 

A black BMW with tinted windows was sitting in the pick-up line, with Stark Industries company plates.

Penny groaned, annoyed that she couldn’t even get changed into the spare pair of slacks she had packed in her bag, so she wasn’t wearing her leggings at her new workplace. “I think so. I’m so going to tell them that I actually enjoy my public transport time. Why the hell would they send a driver, that’s so not economical, we’re in Manhatten for fuck’s sake.”

Where other students stare, Penny acts. She went up to the passenger side door and yanked it open, ready to inform whoever was inside that Tony and/or Pepper were mistaken and that Penny did not need a ride.

Instead, she yanked the door open to see one Colonel Rhodes waiting for her in the driver’s seat. 

“Hey kid,” He inclined his head. “Sorry for the pick-up, but Tones and I were still arguing over who had dibs on you for today, and this was the only way I knew I could beat him. That brat is persistent and not respecting the holiness of dibs.”

Penny opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “If he shows up in his suit to try and beat you, I will ditch you both and hide in Pepper’s office.”

“Fair enough,” He smiled and put his sunglasses back on. “Hop in.”

MJ materialised at the door, stopping Penny from closing it behind her. “Hey, military complex propaganda man.”

Ned made a wounded noise.

“I’m going to let that one slide,” Rhodey replied.

“Good, because I’m gonna keep calling you that.” MJ pointed a finger at him. “Penny is my friend, and she’s overworking herself. She needs food and a nap before she starts work, and I know you can do that because she has another hour before her contracted hour of work. So either feed her or let her go early if you don’t want me talking about SI’s hypocrisy with child labour on Twitter.”

Rhodey, luckily, just looked amused. “I see why you’re friends.”

“Um, before you go, can I get your autograph, Mister Colonel War Machine Sir?” Ned spoke up.

“You’re giving him an autograph,” Penny said, because that’s her best friend, and if he wants an autograph, then she’s getting him an autograph.

“I have a pen, and you can get a page from my notebook,” MJ dug for her mini-notebook from her pocket. (For emergency distress portraits)

“Sure,” Rhodey seemed resigned to this. “You know what, fuck it, you kids want a ride? We can go through a drive-through.”

Penny lit up, mostly because lunch had been far too long ago. “Maccas? I need a happy meal and enough McNuggets to make a grown man sick.”

“Maccas?” Rhodey muttered under his breath before deciding to ignore it. “Yeah, whatever, kid. I need a Big Mac myself, just put your seatbelts on.”

Chapter Text

“Public Relations is the backbone of any industry, and don’t let anyone– especially Marketing and Sales– try to tell you otherwise,” Rhodey directed her towards their destination.

Tony has, suspiciously, not appeared yet to pout like a petulant toddler that Rhodey was stealing Penny.

Penny sipped her extra-large strawberry soda and nodded. “The court of public opinion is cutthroat.”

“Exactly.” Rhodey pointed at her. “Now, look at me, I’m a colonel. That means that I should be at an airbase in command of at least a hundred men. Why am I not?”

“I’m guessing it’s not because you have time off?” Penny knew that Rhodey had a relatively high rank in the Air Force, but she had no idea how it worked. All she knew about the Air Force came from Top Gun, and the two-hundred-thousand-word old man yaoi Top Gun: Maverick fanfiction her friend sent her in her last life. So, definitely not anything accurate.

“It’s because, somewhere and somewhen, the military has fucked up.” He gave her a grin, “I don’t know how, and any PR manager in the Air Force would stress to me that I am out of the loop on this one. However, as War Machine, I am the most public figure they have.”

“So you’re on holiday to save face.” She got it immediately. “If you’re away from base, their symbol can’t be implied at being involved in the fuck up and you still have a perfect squeaky clean and trustworthy to the public. By hanging out with Iron Man and Tony Stark, you automatically get good press, especially if you run a mission with the Avengers. The public still likes you, and, by extension, the Air Force.”

“Exactly.” Rhodey took a sip from his own Pepsi. “Public Relations is a game of chess, charades, monopoly, and chicken all in one. It is also my specialty.”

“You have your masters in Aerospace Engineering.”

“And a PhD in cleaning up after Tony.” He opened the door. “Something that is extremely difficult to earn and is a very exclusive academic field that is only myself and Pepper at the moment. Happy tries, but he’s often getting into messes too.”

Rhodey turned around, one hand coming down on her shoulder as if to stop her from running away. “Jackie! I got a gift for you!”

Jackie, turns out, was an extremely tall woman with golden blonde hair, freckles, and a deep scowl. “Please tell me the rumours from R and D aren’t true, Jim.”

“I have no clue what rumours you’re talking about,” Rhodey gave her a perfect press smile. “Penny, meet Jackie. Jackie, this is Penny, the intern Tony personally hired to work for Pepper. Penny, meet Jackie, the head of the Public Relations Department.”

When Penny went to shake her hand, a low-level buzz went through her ears. The kinda sound you hear from an electronic device being left on too long, like that time she forgot about the laminator— and as any teacher knows, those things want to catch fire. 

“Nice to meet you,” She said as if her spidey sense wasn’t going crazy right now. Hopefully, it’s because there’s a bee inside the office and nobody except her senses has noticed.

“I’d say the same,” Jackie replied, grabbing her hand. It was calloused in a way that definitely wasn’t from going to the gym, and she had a scar on her wrist. “But I can tell that you’re going to be a headache for me. Please tell me you aren’t actually Stark’s kid.”

Penny blinked, glanced at Rhodey’s smirk, and then back. “Acknowledging false rumours only makes them gain more traction.”

“Good.” Jackie nodded. “You’re not stupid, which is the bare minimum, and yet too many people fail.”

The way Jackie spoke… they’re ex-SHIELD, Penny would put money on it.

“I’d say thank you, but I don’t trust like that,” Penny replied. “Why are we testing me?”

“You,” Rhodey said, “Are going to be working partially with PR. We’re lacking the kind of young person know-how with social media and youth trends.”

“Because you don’t hire anyone younger than twenty-one.” It wasn’t like that was some big secret either, SI was the ‘big three’ company for practically every field practised, and everyone knew that even their internships were rarely granted to anyone not at least a college junior. “Aren’t I supposed to be working only with Pepper?”

“What kind of tasks does Pepper have for you today?” Rhodey asked.

Penny unlocked her tablet. “Uh, email 7 people and follow up with two of my tasks she gave me on Sunday, organise and order dinner, and read over a paper and write my thoughts about it for her to review.”

“Let me guess, you can do that in an hour?”

“Right.” Penny is working with PR to stop her from getting bored at work. “This is enrichment time for me.”

Jackie wrinkled their nose. “You can’t talk like that.”

“Like what?” Penny didn’t keep her offence out of her voice.

“Like a Stark .” The head of PR crossed their arms. “We have to get you press-trained. Less sass, please, before rumours run wild.”

Yeah, no, she’s not cutting parts of herself off. “No.”

Rhodey was grinning. Why was he grinning?

“What?”

“I said no. You want to hear it in Spanish? No .” She’d always wanted to say that. “The sass is integral to my being; it doesn’t go below a hundred. You want no sass? I’ll quit, I don’t mind, I have a great lawyer and an even greater contract.”

Jackie sighed, deep from their soul. Their hands came up to rub at their eyes. “So she’s going to be a nightmare.”

“And we’re going to lean into it,” Rhodey shrugged. “Stocks will rise if they think Tony and Pepper finally have an heir.”

“This can fall apart really easily.”

“Oh, please, we’re all better trained than that.” 

Have you ever seen a lion toy with their prey? Penny hasn’t, mostly because she hates blood after her Uncle died, plus her long-standing ‘tears every time there's a dissection at school’ issue, but, still, despite her lack of qualifications on making this comparison, she really thinks that Rhodey looked like a lion in this moment.

“Why do I feel like bait?” She asked.

“Of course you’re not bait,” He denied. “You’re our Plan B.”

“If Stark Industries is in trouble, you’re announcing that there’s another Stark to step up,” She crossed her arms. “Last I checked, that’s bait.”

“It’s also a lie,” Jackie smirked. “A good lie. We can tie this lie up in enough mystery and other lies that we buy time.”

“You’re both crazy.” Penny is also crazy. “You’ve known me for less than a week.”

“And your background ran clean, the tabs I’ve had JARVIS keeping on you are only positive, and Tony genuinely likes and trusts you.” Rhodey shrugged. “And, again, you buy the company time. It doesn’t have to be permanent.”

Tabs JARVIS has been keeping on her. Of course, having access to the world’s most advanced AI didn’t come for free. She couldn’t even feel betrayed because she would do the same in their shoes.

Penny sighed. “You want realism, you have the leak come out from R&D, Tony already made a show of calling me his kid in front of them. I’d say he’s in on your plan, but he clearly isn’t. Not because he’s too dumb, but because his plan is separate to yours and on a level of six-dimensional multiverse chess I don’t want to unravel. I’ve got separate social media accounts doubled-up that I had JARV help me make, they’re under ‘Princess Stark’ since that’s what he keeps calling me, and also passable as RP fan-accounts if the plan doesn’t go through. If you do decide to go through with it, just remember you need guardian permission and I’m not talking my Aunt May down this time.”

Jackie looked between them. “At least, for once, all of us are on the same page for the public statements.”

“Pepper isn’t,” Penny informed them.

Rhodey’s smirk of victory disappeared. “Shit.”

Yeah, no, she’s not getting involved in what is going to be a Pepper Potts meltdown of epic proportions. 

“Can I do actual PR stuff now?” She asked. “Hey, I know the company doesn’t have its own Instagram account. If PR and Marketing get on that, your popularity among Millennial and Gen Z consumers is going to skyrocket . Can I get in on that? I have a few mock-ups I’ve tossed around in my head.”

“Give me six proposed posts and layouts by tomorrow night, and CC Farah and Conner from Digital Marketing, and I’ll see.” Jackie dismissed her, refocusing on the fact that Rhodey’s plan had not been signed off by the CEO.

“Aye, aye, agent,” Penny saluted and spun on her heel with a wink, redirecting herself towards her office. 

Hopefully, Rhodey and Tony don’t have that bad of a fallout from Pepper.