Chapter Text
The hospital was a sterile fortress of white walls and antiseptic sharpness, the kind of place that promised healing but delivered exhaustion in equal measure. Metropolis General’s emergency wing thrummed with controlled frenzy: monitors beeping in syncopated rhythm, nurses calling out orders, the low murmur of worried families blending into white noise. Mary sat on a hard plastic chair in the paediatric waiting area, knees pressed together, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles blanched.
Penny, Mary had started calling her that in her head the moment the girl whispered the name during intake, had been whisked away almost immediately after they emerged from the alley. A kind-eyed paramedic had pried the child’s fingers from Mary’s coat with gentle insistence, murmuring reassurances while another wrapped Penny in a foil blanket. Mary had protested, voice cracking. “She’s scared. She won’t let go of me.”
“We need to check her for injuries, ma’am. Protocol. You can wait right here.”
Protocol. The word tasted like ash.
That had been hours ago. Now the fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, and Mary’s eyes burned from staring at the same linoleum square for too long. Her phone had died somewhere between the third coffee and the second round of forms. She hadn’t noticed until a nurse asked if she wanted to call someone.
There was no one to call.
A doctor finally appeared, a tall woman with grey-streaked hair pulled into a severe bun. Dr Patel, her badge read. She carried a tablet and a careful expression.
“Ms Fitzpatrick?”
Mary stood too quickly, knees wobbling. “Yes. Penny, how is she?”
“Physically, she’s remarkably fine. No fractures, no internal injuries, no signs of exposure to toxins or radiation. Her vitals are stable. We’ve given her something mild to help her rest.” Dr Patel paused, eyes flicking to the tablet. “We drew blood for standard panels and next-of-kin matching. She’s… not in any database we can access. No missing child reports match her description in the tristate area. Not even in the national system.”
Mary’s stomach twisted. “She fell out of a portal. Of course, she’s not in a database.”
The doctor gave her a look that was equal parts sympathy and professional distance. “We’re running DNA through the expanded registries, CODIS, and international adoption records. It’s going to take a few days. In the meantime, Child Services will place her in temporary foster care unless—”
“Unless what?” Mary’s voice was sharper than intended.
Dr Patel softened. “Unless someone steps forward with a credible claim. You found her. You’ve been here the whole time. If you’re willing to act as emergency guardian while we sort this out… we can release her into your custody. With conditions. Home visit, follow-up appointments, the usual.”
Mary stared at her. The words felt like they belonged to someone else’s life.
“I’m not… I don’t have kids. I live alone. My apartment’s barely childproofed.”
“Many first-time guardians start that way,” Dr Patel said quietly. “She trusts you. That matters more than a perfectly organised nursery right now.”
Mary thought of Penny’s small hand clutching her coat, the way the girl had said You’re warm like it were the most important fact in the universe.
She swallowed. “I’ll do it.”
The paperwork took another hour. Signatures, disclaimers, emergency contact forms. By the time Mary was handed a small paper bag containing Penny’s clothes (washed and folded by some unseen hospital elf) and a discharge packet, night had fallen over Metropolis. The city lights glittered through the windows like scattered diamonds.
Penny was wheeled out in a hospital-issue wheelchair, looking impossibly small in oversized scrubs they’d given her to wear home. Her own clothes were too dirty, too strange. The girl’s face lit up when she saw Mary, pure, unguarded relief.
“You came back,” she whispered.
“Of course I did.” Mary knelt, brushing a curl from Penny’s forehead. “Ready to get out of here?”
Penny nodded vigorously, then reached up. Mary lifted her without thinking, settling the child against her hip. She was lighter than she should have been, bones delicate under soft skin.
The cab ride home was quiet. Metropolis at night was a different beast, neon and motion, the distant whoosh of the elevated trains, the occasional streak of a superhero silhouette against the skyline. Penny stared out the window, wide-eyed, fingers twisting in Mary’s coat sleeve.
Mary’s apartment was on the fifteenth floor of a mid-tier building in the quieter part of downtown, close enough to LexCorp for commuting, far enough to escape the constant corporate hum. One bedroom, one bath, a living room with too many books and not enough colour. She’d never needed more.
She flicked on the lights. The space felt suddenly inadequate: no toys, no cartoons on the walls, no safety gates. Just her life, pared down to essentials.
Penny looked around slowly, taking it in.
“It’s… different,” she said.
“Different from what?”
“Home.” Penny’s voice was small. She set the paper bag down and wandered toward the couch, trailing her fingers along the armrest. “But it smells like you. Like coffee and that green soap.”
Mary’s throat tightened. She busied herself filling a glass with water, then hesitated and added a straw. Kids liked straws, didn’t they?
“Here. You must be thirsty.”
Penny took it gratefully, sipping. Then she sat on the couch, knees drawn up, and looked at Mary with those impossible blue eyes.
“I’m from another world,” she said plainly, as if stating her age or favourite colour.
Mary froze mid-step, glass still in hand. “Penny…”
“I know you don’t believe me. That’s okay. Grown-ups never do at first.” Penny shrugged one shoulder. “But it’s true. There was a big light, and everything spun, and then I was falling. I think… I think the world broke a little and I fell through the crack.”
Mary set the glass down carefully. She sat on the coffee table, facing the girl. “Okay. Let’s say I’m listening. Tell me about your world.”
Penny took a breath, like she was gathering courage. “My mommy and daddy died when I was five. Plane crash. I live with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They’re nice. Aunt May makes the best pancakes, and Uncle Ben tells stories about spiders.”
“Spiders?” Mary thought that was a strange choice, but children were strange.
“Yeah. He says they’re important. That even small things can be strong.” Penny paused. “My daddy… he was a bio... biochemist. He was really smart like Mummy and me. Daddy was adopted and very good at gymnastics like me. Daddy's European, which means exotic; he also came from a circus, but when I asked to live with a circus daddy said no. I think daddy was scared cause I'm better than him.”
The room tilted. Mary gripped the edge of the table.
“And my mommy,” Penny continued, softer now, “she worked with small things called gene and also the brain. She had red-gold hair, and she smelled like flowers and chemicals. She used to sing when she thought no one was listening. Old songs. And she had a little scar on her left wrist from when she was a kid and tried to climb a tree.”
Mary’s hand went automatically to her own left wrist. The thin white lines were still there, faded but unmistakable. She’d gotten it at twelve, showing off for neighbourhood kids.
Penny watched her, waiting.
Mary’s voice came out hoarse. “What… what was your mommy’s name?”
“Mary,” Penny said, as if it were obvious. “Mary Parker like mine. But before she married Daddy, it was Fitzpatrick.”
The air left Mary’s lungs in a rush. She stood up abruptly, walked to the kitchen sink, and braced both hands on the counter.
Mary closed her eyes. The memories came unbidden, sharp as broken glass.
It had been near the end of March, five, no, almost seven years ago. She and Dick had been together for two years, the kind of love that had started as wildfire and slowly settled into something warmer, steadier.
They’d found out about the baby in January. The test had been positive on a Tuesday morning, just like today. Dick had laughed, then cried, then kissed her so hard she tasted salt. They were happy. Scared, yes, terrified, really, but happy. The relationship had shifted somewhere along the way, less lovers and more partners, best friends who still shared a bed. But they were going to do this. Co-parenting, they’d joked. Late-night feedings and diaper runs. They’d make it fun.
She’d felt restless that day. Dick had been tense, warning her about some major operation near the Fashion District, Joker and Scarecrow working together, a nightmare combination. “Stay home, Mary. Please.”
But she’d needed air, movement. Diamond District felt safe enough, far from the reported activity. She’d gone shopping for maternity clothes she didn’t need yet, just to feel normal.
Then the gas came.
It wasn’t the usual Joker laughing gas. This was something worse, Scarecrow’s fear toxin mixed with something new, something that burned going down. People screamed, clawed at their faces. Mary had tried to run, but the cloud rolled in too fast. She remembered vomiting until there was nothing left, stomach heaving, terror so absolute it felt like drowning.
She’d woken in the hospital, Dick at her bedside, face grey. The doctors had been kind but blunt. The toxin had triggered a cascade. She was miscarrying. There was nothing they could do.
Dick never blamed her. Not once. He held her while she sobbed, told her it wasn’t her fault. But the guilt lived in her anyway, a quiet poison. Every time she looked at him after that, she saw the empty space where their child should have been. Every time he looked at her, she imagined he saw the same.
They drifted. Not angrily. Just… apart. The love had already been changing; the loss finished it. When she was well enough, she packed her things and moved to Metropolis. A small biotech firm first, then LexCorp. She rebuilt. She survived.
Dick sent birthday messages. She sent them back. That was all.
Now this child sat on her couch, wearing his eyes and her hair, speaking truths that should have been impossible.
Mary turned slowly. “If you’re from another world… how old are you going to be this year?”
Penny brightened a little. “Seven. My birthday’s August tenth. Aunt May always makes a big cake with strawberries.”
Mary’s mind spun the numbers automatically, the way she used to calculate lab dilutions in her head.
End of March. If the pregnancy had continued… gestation was forty weeks. She’d been maybe sixteen, seventeen weeks when it happened. That put conception around late November, early December. Due date…
Late August.
She stared at Penny. The girl’s birthday was two months away. August tenth.
The timeline snapped into place with terrifying precision.
If the baby had lived, he or she would have been born in early-to-mid August. Almost exactly the same time.
Mary sank onto the couch beside Penny, legs unsteady.
Penny reached over, small hand finding Mary’s. “It’s okay if you’re scared. I was scared, too. But you caught me. You always catch me.”
Mary looked down at their joined hands, hers pale and trembling, Penny’s warm and trusting.
She thought of Dick’s smile, the way it had softened when he talked about being a father. She thought of the nursery they’d never painted, the name they’d never agreed on.
She thought of the guilt that had shadowed her for years, the quiet voice that whispered you should have stayed home.
And she thought of the little girl in front of her, who had fallen through worlds to find her.
Mary took a shaky breath. “I don’t know what this means yet. I don’t know how any of this is possible. But I believe you’re telling me the truth. And I’m not going to let you go back to being alone.”
Penny’s eyes filled with tears, but they were different this time, relief, not fear.
Mary pulled her close, tucking the girl’s head under her chin. Penny smelled faintly of hospital soap and something sweeter, like strawberries in sunlight.
“We’ll figure it out,” Mary whispered. “One day at a time.”