Chapter Text
“What school do you go to?”
“Wow! An intern for Tony Stark, must be exciting right?”
“How old are you, sweetie?”
“Aren’t you a little young to be here?”
“Can’t believe Stark has his fifteen year old intern here.”
The last one wasn’t directed at Penny, but she heard it. She flinched and tried to tune out the conversation as she scanned the room and sipped her non-alcoholic drink that Mr. Stark had gotten her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be here. Mr. Stark had been so kind to her, she felt like she should at least go to his party. But there were so many people and it was so loud and her enhanced senses were beginning to get to her.
Penny excused herself from the adults that seemed to have forgotten she was there and slipped off to a corner of the room where it was less crowded. She set down her drink and snuck her phone out of her handbag.
Ned 8:43
whats it like? are there any avengers?
May 8:45
Hey honey, how’s it going?
Penny sighed and slipped her phone back into the handbag. She glanced up and looked around the room again. Mr. Stark was on the opposite side of the room, looking bored out of his mind and not even trying to hide it as Norman Osborn seemed to drone on and on about something.
Mr. Stark caught Penny’s eyes as Norman looked at the woman next to him. “You ok?” he mouthed.
She nodded, forcing a smile and holding a thumbs up. He narrowed his eyes at her. She knew he didn’t buy it for a second but Norman had resumed talking.
Penny gazed around the room. She leaned against the wall, halfway hoping it would just swallow her right then and there. She felt so awkward being the youngest there. The Avengers were here and they’d all made several efforts to talk to her, which she appreciated. They had only known about her secret identity for a couple weeks now, but they’d all been so welcoming.
Well sort of. They had been cautious and skeptical of a fifteen year old with spider abilities at first, but after they’d seen her in action during a training session, they quickly realized she could handle herself.
She watched Captain Rogers and Dr. Banner over by the bar talking. She’d had a mini fangirl moment when she met Dr. Banner. She’d had so many questions and he answered all of the ones he could, patiently and slightly shocked at this fifteen year old’s vast knowledge of quantum physics.
Penny felt herself being pulled out of her thoughts when she felt someone staring at her.
There. A boy around her age stood not too far from her, staring at her with confused eyes. A small smile pulled at his lips when they made eye contact.
He made his way over to her as a song began playing and people headed to the dance floor for a slow dance.
“Hi there. Um, have we met? You look really familiar,” the boy asked. His curly red hair was fighting whatever had been put in it to tame it.
“No, I don’t think so. Um, I’m Penny. Penny Parker.”
“Harry Osborn,” the boy replied, holding out his hand.
Penny shook it, feeling a little less awkward now that there was someone else her age here.
“So what brought you to this party, Penny Parker?” Harry asked.
“I’m Mr. Stark’s intern,” Penny said for what felt like the millionth time that night.
Harry’s eyebrows shot up into his mop of curly hair. “Really? Wow, I didn’t know he had interns.”
“Yeah, it was a program with my school,” Penny replied, still feeling guilty for the lie even though she must have told it at least a hundred times now.
“What school do you go to?”
“Midtown School for Science and Technology. You?”
“Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics."
“Wait, are you on the AcaDec team?”
“Yes! That’s why you look familiar! We were against each other one time, right?”
Penny grinned and nodded. “Yeah! We kicked your guys’ butts.”
Harry laughed and said, “Our team sucks, they deserved it.”
Penny laughed with him. The two gazed at the dancing couples before Harry turned to his new friend and held out a hand. “Wanna dance?”
Penny froze for a split second, feeling her cheeks turn pink. “Uh, I’m-I’m not very good.”
“I’m not either. Do you think we should let that stop us?”
Penny felt herself smiling as she took his hand. She doesn’t know why she said yes, she hasn’t slow danced since she was little and she would stand on Ben’s feet, but she didn’t regret it either.
“So did I really look familiar or were you just looking for an excuse to get out of that conversation you were in?” Penny asked quietly, moving slowly to the music.
“No, you actually looked familiar, but you also looked like you needed rescuing.”
“Rescuing?”
“From the boredom that was eating you alive.”
Penny smiled. “Well, thank you for rescuing me from the human eating boredom.”
Harry grinned and said, “Anytime.”
Her senses went off almost instantly, sending chills up and down her spine and arms.
Then someone was shouting and a gun was firing.
Penny yanked Harry down to the ground with her. Harry swore as an Iron Man suit flew in and formed itself around Mr. Stark. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as Harry grabbed Penny’s hand and followed the crowd that Colonel Rhodes was leading out of the building.
“C’mon!” Harry shouted.
Penny let them get separated in the crowd, only running to join the fight when she saw Harry get out the door safely.
“Kid, get out of here, we got this!” Mr. Stark shouted.
Again, things seemed to move in slow motion. She heard the gun fire. She didn’t see it, but she heard it. It was aimed right at Colonel Rhodes.
She wasn’t sure how it happened, but she managed to shove him out of the way just as something burned in her stomach and Natasha fired back. The shooter went down instantly while Colonel Rhodes stared in shock at Penny.
“Penny!”
“I’m-I’m ok,” Penny muttered, despite the growing red spot on her previously cream dress.
She let Mr. Stark catch her when her legs gave out. He was shouting something, but she couldn’t get herself to focus on what he was saying.
Her dress was probably ruined now. She felt bad, Pepper had probably paid a lot of money for it. But it was better than Colonel Rhodes getting shot. Pepper won’t mind about the dress, right?
“No kid, Pepper’s not going to care about the dress, I swear,” Tony said as Penny realized she’d just said all of that out loud. Colonel Rhodes was up now and Tony was laying Penny down.
Sam Wilson appeared in Penny’s vision right before everything went black.