Chapter Text
Persephone Fern Rogers-Stark knew she'd made a mistake as soon as the arachnid sunk its fangs into her soft flesh - yet somehow, couldn't quite bring herself to be too concerned.
Peter looked horrified, his hand still suffocating his own arm with its identical puncture marks, two pinpricks of ruby-red. The poison which flowed into his bloodstream licked flames up his limb, fizzing as it travelled further and further into his body. He didn't know much about spiders, not like Percie did, but he was sure that this was going to kill him, and now he'd gotten his best friend killed too. Distantly he recognised that panicking probably wasn't the solution here, he should tell an adult and get help from somebody who knew what they were doing, perhaps there was an antidote somewhere in the building. Surely people get bitten all the time.. right? There must be an antidote.
Movement drew Peter's attention from his spiralling thoughts to the oversized spider on Persephone's arm, the fangs withdrawing from her skin and leaving behind two wounds, identical to the ones marking Peter's arm. Its movements were slow and sluggish, nothing like the quick, darting fashion in which it had sped along the floor and up Peter's leg when he had first seen it; there wasn't even an opportunity to swat it away. In fact, the spider was now so slow that it was almost as though the two children had drained it of it's life. This is the thought that echoed around Percie's head as she watched with a sort of morbid curiosity as the arachnid flexed its limbs a few times, as though preparing itself to move, before seemingly giving up all together. The creature seemed to stiffen up, lose its sticky grip, and fell abruptly to the linoleum floor.
And that was where it ended for the spider which the children later dubbed 'Colin'.
("Because, Daddy, just because he bit us doesn't mean he is undeserving of an identity. Why shouldn't he be a Colin?").
Percie knew she should be upset, for one, her spider knowledge had failed her, and then there was the fact that her and her best friend had definitely just both been poisoned by an Oscorp spider. Oscorp were definitely unethical, she didn't need her dad to tell her that, which probably meant that her life was in danger and that they definitely wouldn't care and that was something she should have been worried about.
But she wasn't.
All she could think about was the fact that if she died then Papa would probably never know.
"We can't tell anybody", Peter's voice quivered on every word, Percie raised her eyes to meet his, "we aren't supposed to be in here, we'll get in trouble".
She nodded slowly, still not saying a word. It made sense, both of her dads hated her already, if there was a way to prevent aggravating them even more then she would make sure that was the path she took. There was no reason to alarm anyone if she was going to die anyway. "Okay.. we should get back to the group".
They tiptoed across the floor, dancing around shattered glass and spilled chemicals, slipping out through the same door they entered in and leaving the room exactly as they found it, save for the spider in the middle of the floor.
Maybe, if the bite mounted to nothing then nobody would ever know..
They were both too intelligent to even convince themselves to believe that.
---
The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, nobody had even realised they were gone. A few more hours of monotonous tour guide babble and Flash throwing in snide comments at any given opportunity came and went, and soon enough she was sat in the back of Uncle Happy's car, face pressed against the glass and thoughts slowing by the second. Her foggy brain filtered out Happy's concerned glances in the mirror, that and the fact that she was beyond the point of caring. Happy would assume that she was just upset about Papa leaving her to suffocate in her dad's mourning and that would be that, no questions asked.
Well, there was a "You alright squirt?" as she hopped out of the car in the dimly lit garage and headed for the elevator, but a nod of the head was enough of a response for her uncle to let it go for then, and that was all that mattered. The haziness in her head had filtered out any rational thought processes except for keeping everybody off of her back for the time being.
---
Dad was distant, like usual. He didn't seem to notice that anything was up, and if he did then he couldn't muster the energy to respond. Percie decided that it was probably better that way, if he found out about what she'd done then he'd just be angry and she didn't want him to get angry again. All she had to do was keep her head down until the nausea passed or she keeled over and died, whichever came first.
Maybe he wouldn't even notice then.
She headed straight to her room, burrowing under the duvet and attempting to sleep. Dinner time came and went, her dad didn't call her and so she didn't leave her room. He'd probably forgotten to eat again and with Percie out of sight she was also most likely out of mind. That was fine.
The night passed with no sleep, only tossing and turning, sweating and whimpering and wishing that Papa was there and Dad was Dad again. With her rising temperature came more distress and she found herself getting more and more worked up. Jarvis asked if she was okay a few times, he probably alerted her dad that she was distressed, but it was like he wasn't even there.
Physically, he was the same as always, if not a little more bruised, but trying to talk to him was like conversing with a brick wall. He was hollow.
By the time the sun crept into the sky, Persephone had decided she couldn't take it anymore.
She dragged her aching body out of bed, every part of her protesting the movement. Her vision blurred and span, causing her to reach out to hold onto the wall until her cotton-wool-stuffed head could catch up with the minor change in altitude. Heavy and nauseous, her body carried her on autopilot to the kitchen, steadying herself on the counter as soon as she reached where she needed to be.
Tony Stark was sat at the breakfast bar, staring at the polished marble and wishing for an imperfection, a problem to work on and solve and fix, something simple enough for him to not mess up, but with enough of a challenge that it could drag his brain away from the knowledge that his husband left him and their daughter for another man.
Another man who killed his parents.
He registered Percie's entrance, that something was off, but interacting with her meant facing the reality that he was a single parent now. The baby he adopted with Steve was solely his responsibility and she couldn't be more perfect, way way too much purity for him to taint and twist. He should've taken her with him, Steve and James could have raised her, given her a good shot at life without the possibility that Tony could just fuck it all up with the slip of a tongue.
"Dad?".
He'd ruined the relationship between her and Steve, he knew that much. With such a clever kid he should've taken better care of the footage, destroying it completely would've been the best way to deal with it. But no, he left it lying around, drowning in self-pity, and of course she hacked into his suit to see it. She wanted to know what made her Papa leave, what left her Dad a ghost of his former self. And she did. He'd found her, a miserable mess of tears and snot on his workshop floor. It took hours of rocking her to calm her down to a level of coherency, at which point she told him over and over that she never wanted to see him again. She never wanted to see her Papa again. She never wanted to see him again.
"Daddy?".
And now he was neglecting her, unable somehow to shock himself out of the trance he fell into as soon as his husband drove that goddamn piece of vibranium into his heart. He was awful, god he was so awful. Who the fuck decided it was okay to leave him with a child? What was he supposed to do when she had nightmares about the man who co-raised her for eight years? What was he meant to say to a ten year old child who kept asking if he was okay? He forgets to feed her, to send her to bed, to tell her he loves her. Who the fuck decided it was okay to leave him with a child?
"Daddy please", the words that leave her mouth are a miserable cross between a whine and a moan of pain and he finally shifts his eyes to look at her. She's flushed and sweaty, her eyes glassed over. He doesn't know what to do with a sick child. She's been sick before, but he always had Steve.
"Morning Seph, make sure you eat breakfast before school".
She whimpers, rubbing the back of her hand against her closed eyes, "Don't feel good".
He doesn't know what to do with a sick child.
"You'll be fine, Percie, go to school".
To Tony's frustration, she only gets more upset. "Please Dad, I don't feel good".
He doesn't know what to do with a sick child. He doesn't know what to do with a sick child. He doesn't know what to do with a sick child.
"Fucking hell, Persephone, suck it up and go to school!".
For a moment she looked as though she was going to burst into tears, eyes wide and shocked. But the tears never came, because almost as soon as his own words hit him, her eyes rolled back in her head and she hit the floor with a sickening thud.