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The kid is a brat. The first day, Tony has to sit her down and lecture her about why she can't go around screaming her lungs out because she doesn't want to be here. He tries to lecture her and she kicks him in the shin and runs down the hallway. They fight a lot - not physically, but they have frequent screaming matches, followed by her giving him the silent treatment for a couple of hours. It's ridiculous is what it is, getting bested by a kid; her name is Penny, she's twelve, four foot and seven inches but way too skinny for her age.
Tony remembers seeing her smiling picture in her file. The picture of a curly-haired, brown-eyed girl scalpelling its way into his heart. A lot of people don't know why he's doing this, a lot of people keep asking him why he's doing this. And why did he choose this troubled, restless, loud and vulgar kid of all kids? The answer to all those whys, he doesn't know and he doesn't think he'll ever know.
Her aunt was a dealer, sent to jail for charges of possession only a few weeks ago. The agency had told him it was an emergency, that they needed to get her placed somewhere as soon as possible. So of course, having an ego as big as the Grand Canyon, Tony agrees, thinking - how hard could it possibly be? It's only a few months, he can handle a kid for a months.
In the end, it's way harder than he'd imagined.
Penny spends the first week running around the penthouse and crashing into Tony's furniture. She doesn't like vegetables and throws a massive tantrum whenever Tony sets a plate of anything containing any greens in front of her. He's trying to get her to eat more, she's only a few pounds away from being underweight and he doesn't want the kid to get any worse under his care. Penny slams doors and curses at him for the smallest of things but by the second week Tony easily figures out she's only doing it all to get on his nerves and test his limits.
"Look kid," he says to her one night. She's squeezed into the corner of the couch, watching some god-awful sitcom on Comedy Central. She's wearing the same hideously large hoodie she's had on since the day they met each other for the first time. "I know you think I don't want you here but - but that's not the case, alright? If I didn't want you here I would have brought you back ages ago. I care about you, okay? I want to help you, if you'd let me." he's still not very good at being sincere. It's a work in progress.
Eventually, she looks up at his standing figure and blinks, making a small noise at the back of her throat. "Whatever." she grumbles, eyes quickly focusing back on the TV.
"Wow, I can't believe it. She speaks." Tony smirks, hands on his hips and that's that.
By the end of the month, the arguments are far and few between. They don't get along like best friends but the kid is definitely less defensive and hostile than she was a few weeks prior when she first came to live with him. She behaves, for one. Actually listens when Tony tells her to do something or not to do something. She doesn't snap back or scowl when he reprimands her, although she still gives him the silent treatment, slams the door when she's really mad.
He's typing up a report in his office one morning when she creeps in and flops down on the couch in the corner.
"You need something, kid?" he asks and looks at her over his monitor screen.
Penny groans, waving the worksheet in her hand. Although school hasn't started yet, Tony figures she can't spend an entire summer in front of the TV. He prints out worksheets for her to complete everyday - and the kid, turns out, is actually a genius in math, having already moved on past basic middle school algebra weeks ago.
"Can I watch TV now?" she sighs, voice bored and flat.
"Lemme check your equations, kid. C'mere," he beckons her over, despite the fact that he already knows most of her work is correct. She's a smart kid, but she chooses not to show it. Penny leans against his desk, idly breathing when he tells her to fix the mistake she made in problem two before turning the TV on.
"Um, sorry for being a jerk." she suddenly blurts out. She's pulling on the strings of her hoodie, Tony can tell she's nervous. "I guess I just... I just thought you wouldn't hurt me if I acted like one. A jerk, I mean."
Tony puts a hand on her back. "Why would I hurt you?" he calmly asks.
"'Cause you don't want me." she explains in a low voice, shrugging like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Sometimes my aunt would yell at me 'cause she didn't want me."
"Penny, listen kid, you wouldn't be here if I didn't want you. Your aunt - your aunt was wrong for not wanting you, okay?"
She nods, slow and stiff, eyebrows still conflicted. "Right."
Tony tousles her hair and pretends not to notice the aching in his chest. "Yeah." he sighs, closing that chapter. "Now, do you want pizza or takeout for lunch? Or maybe both - but only if you promise to eat your broccoli tonight."
He decides to start taking her outside more.
"You can't just keep her cooped up inside forever, Tony." Pepper constantly tells him, though she's very weary about how they'll handle the PR of it all of they ever get papped. "She's a child, not a prisoner."
So he pulls a cap on her head and takes her out. To the library, to museums, to see movies at nearby theaters. They got various different stores, their favorite one being a record store in SoHo. Tony makes sure they keep a low profile as he explains the fundamentals for rock music to a twelve - I'm almost thirteen, she always corrects - year old. They walk past a costume store one day and Penny sees a particular wig sitting in the window storefront display.
"You want what?" Tony asks, bemazed and kind of amused.
"I want my hair to look like that," the kid repeats louder, as if he's growing more and more deaf by the minute. Which he might as well be. It's a brown, short-haired wig dyed blue at the tips. To Tony, it's the most hideous thing he's ever seen. But he looks at the kid and the moment his eyes lock with her wide, pleading ones he gives in.
He takes her to a hair salon and even though he's pretty sure the lady at the front desk has a hunch about who he is, they go through with it anyway. By the end of the day, when they get home, the kid can't stop looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. Tony takes a picture and sends it to Pepper who, in response, sends him a what did you do, Tony?
He laughs when she later sends him a chain of pleading face emojis.
A few days before her birthday, he gets a call from her social worker who tells him that Penny's aunt has been sentenced to five years for her involvement with a number drug rings around the city. He immediately tells her in light of the news and she asks - "Does that mean I'm staying here forever now?"
Then original plan was to foster her for six months until she could be placed somewhere more permanent. She came to live with him in late May, it's been four months. Tony is starting to reconsider his options. "Well, is that something you'd want?"
Penny shrugs and pretends to not care about the outcome of these decisions. "You're pretty cool, I guess."
She turns thirteen and starts seventh grade a week later. When Tony picks her up from school in the afternoon, she's all tears and red cheeks as she climbs into the front seat.
He takes his sunglasses off and grips the steering wheel with a tight fist. "So, I'm guessing you didn't have a good first day?" he says and that only makes her cry even harder. He softens. "Hey, underoos, what happened?"
"T-the kids at school are assholes," she chokes out. "they kept making fun of my haircut,"
Tony's never seen her cry before and seeing her sob into her hands doesn't sit right with him. He doesn't know what possesses him but he reaches across the console and pulls her into his arms. It's an awkward angle but they've never really hugged before, he realizes. "Look, those kids? They don't know what they're talking about. If you ask me, they're only making fun of you because they're jealous of how good you look."
Head rested on his chest, skinny fingers clinging and clawing at his shirt, she laughs. "I'm not five. You don't have to say that."
"You think I'm not being serious? Kid, you pull off this haircut more than that wig ever could. More than anyone ever can. You're a great person, Penny. I've never met a kid as smart, funny, and as brave as you. And, you know what? Fuck those people at school, anyone who makes fun of my kid gets an all expenses paid ticket to my list of sworn enemies."
"Your kid?" Penny croaks.
Tony's heart thumps inside his ribcage. My kid, he said. "Yeah, you're my kid, right?"
"Yeah. I think I am. Does that mean you're my Tony?"
"Your Tony?" he snorts. "Okay, kid. I'm your Tony."
"You gotta stop calling me kid, man." she groans.
And Tony swears he's never laughed harder in his life.
They stop for ice cream - he gets her a sugary monstrosity of a sundae - and writes an email to her social worker because there's no way he's letting this kid fall into someone else's hands.
Their days draw on, dull and mundane. Rhodey visits and Penny doesn't hesitate to tell Tony how cooler his best friend is and Rhodey's ego grows bigger at the prospect of being uncle number one. He starts giving her an allowance and she spends it on clothes at least a size bigger than her because she likes them baggy. They make a ritual out of going to their favorite record shop every week and binge show after show on Netflix.
They go to court and wait for their adoption hearing date to come out. The kid even brings a friend home at one point - Ned, a sweet boy who shares Penny's love for all things nerdy and together, they develop a love for those tiny brick toys - they're not toys, Tony, they're collectibles - that he almost steps on everyday because his kid is messy and terrible at being organized. And sometimes they get into fights because they disagree with each other, but she never stays mad at him for long like she used to and usually comes apologizing an hour after she stomps into her room to stew.
By the end of January, he's had her for nearly a year.
He's doing laundry one morning when he hears his name being called from the kid's room. "Good morning, kid. What's up?"
She's stripped her bedsheets from the mattress and is clutching her pajama pants to her chest. Tony already knows what's happening - he sends her to the shower, gathers her sheets and her pants and puts them into the wash before calling Pepper because he did not know that pads came in different sizes. And Pepper, of course, only laughs at him and saves him from the hours he could have spent standing in the menstrual products aisle. He smiles at the girl at the cash register and makes his exit.
Penny silently climbs into his bed that night, dressed in sweats, dark bags under her eyes. "I think - I don't want to be a girl anymore."
Tony closes his book and sets it aside. "Yeah?"
"I don't think I've ever been a girl, really. Is that... is that okay? If I'm a boy, I mean. Because I am."
And this is big, Tony realizes. "You're still my annoying, bratty, smart kid right?"
The kid cranes his neck to look at Tony from where he's lying on the other side of the bed. "Yes, of course I am. You'd be so lonely without me." he giggles.
"Then, yeah, kid. It's okay. I'm proud of you."
So proud that he asks the kid if it okay first before taking a selfie of them both and logging into the Twitter account he almost never uses. Hey, check out my kid. He's pretty cool. And it's one bombshell of a tweet. People are way too invested in his personal life, his page starts trending in a matter of minutes.
Of all the notifications blowing up on his phone, he receives a single text from Pepper; What the HELL did you do???