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Another wire is put into place just as thunder rumbled outside. It echoes a little bit, and the lab feels slightly more vulnerable. For as strong as the tower was, Tony couldn’t help but think that its creator was not as strong.
He should be in bed where it was warmer, tidier, calmer, and more importantly, where he would be asleep…ideally. But Tony knew he’d just lie awake with a buzzing head instead. Pepper was gone on a business trip in Tokyo, and even if she were here, he’d only keep her up with his tossing and turning. She insisted it was harder to sleep without him, but he’s tested that. Their sleep ended up misaligned and groggy.
If he hadn’t told Penny to go to sleep once the clock hit ten and he noticed her spacing out, she’d be here working on this suit, too. The kid was devoted nearly to a fault, and he honestly couldn’t tell if that was his influence or if it was just her on her own. Regardless, he was trying to be a better mentor and influence on her, so Tony wasn’t going to keep her up. God knew she needed the rest.
Between the Vulture and school and many run-ins with criminals of many sorts, her plate had overflown like tearing down the wall of a dam. Penny’s chirpiness had dialed from a ten to a two, she wasn’t as on-her-feet when they worked on stuff in the lab, and looking at her face was like looking at a mirror. It scared the fuck out of him.
Tony finally broke down and asked her what was going on earlier the day before, though he really should’ve been asking a week or two ago. Penny took a few seconds to respond. She better not say ‘just tired’, but when does he ever get what he wants?
“Tired?” he repeated.
“Tired,” Penny confirmed. “I’ve just been pretty busy.”
“Yeah, I think the eye bags give it away, kiddo,” Tony said gently. He was definitely no stranger to them. His only had one solution, and hers would, too.
Penny stilled. She had already noticed them. “They don’t look that bad, do they?”
“No, but that’s not the point…” Penny just looked at him wide-eyed as if she was expecting unconstructive criticism. “You wanna let your guard down here for a minute?”
“…Huh?”
“You haven’t been yourself lately, Pen. What’s goin’ on?”
Penny’s posture relaxed in her seat, and her alert expression faltered to one of thought. She took her time, and Tony waited patiently (it had never been one of his strong-suits, but it seemed to be easier when it came to Penny).
“Um,” Penny started in a mumble. She cleared her throat while temporarily averting her eyes. His never left her, and not even for a second. “I guess I’ve just been kinda anxious lately? …And a little depressed.”
It was like her words chipped a piece of his heart away. Tony already knew that from the way she’d been acting, and how she smiled a lot less with no spark in her eyes. More than ‘kinda’ anxious, and more than a little depressed. Somehow, it hurt even more to hear her admit it as if she didn’t really think he’d notice. It was difficult to watch her hurt. It was really difficult to watch her not seem to do anything about it.
“But it’s okay,” Penny insisted optimistically. “I’m seeing the counselor at school sometimes. And, uh, May and I are trying to find a therapist our insurance covers,” she explained like it was no big deal. That managed to be even worse.
There was a disappointed piece inside him. They hadn’t known each other for a lifetime, but they’d grown to be on the same page during the past two years. Penny had gotten to a place where she was willing to open up, and, surprisingly, so had he. And now, it was like she was a turtle back into her shell.
“I didn’t mean to make you worry.” She sounded guilty, more like she’d dropped a tool on his hand, or blown up the lab, or something, rather than disclose the fact that she was seeking out a therapist.
“Kid, I always worry, and it’s something you can’t help.” Penny opened her mouth in protest, but it quickly closed like a clam. “You know I’d be happy to help you find a therapist, right? Not to brag, but I kinda have the insider access to anything medical-related since, one, I’m rich, and two, I’ve almost died half a dozen times.” That managed to get a snicker out of Penny, and he couldn’t help but grin. “So, if you need help, I’m here. Always am.”
They settled on talking about it with May once Penny went back to her apartment Sunday night. Friday night ended with a movie, and Saturday night was still going strong for him while Penny was, hopefully, sleeping. The storm outside could make or break the so acclaimed eight-to-ten hours of rest all kids and adults needed.
There’s a distant flash of light so bright that it damn well might’ve been Thor. At that thought, Tony just rolled his eyes and picked up a pair of pliers. What next, Steve would show up at the lab door needing a favor?
He had his issues just as much as the sky was blue. The team was broken, he was betrayed, and was left to the unforgiving Siberian cold all in under two weeks. And that wasn’t even mentioning all the, dare he say it, previous trauma. Seeing a therapist and being more open with those closest to him helped. It didn’t fix it, but it did help some, and he wanted to help his kid if he could, but who knew having her in his life would come with this kind of worry? The kind of worry that nearly made him ask Friday if Penny was okay three times in the last fifteen minutes?
After giving him plain-Jane answers that she was okay, his A.I. just tells him there’s a severe thunderstorm warning, and he continues tinkering away at the iron suit. As if the thunder and heaviness of the rain weren’t enough, Tony finally turns on some music. It would help keep his mind occupied with something other than Penny’s mental health or how Pepper was doing in Japan or the fact the Avengers were broken.
The music sharply plummeted and stopped. “Boss, Miss Parker is having a panic attack and is unresponsive.”
It took nothing else to get him out of the lab.
Tony’s normal instinct to knock on the door went out the window and once he’s inside, the room is black and white. Black until there was yet again another strike of lightning. That’s why he sees Penny’s figure beneath the mangled layers in bed.
And in a second, he’s there, too, next to her on the bed. Penny’s snuggled deep into the mattress though the weight of the outrageously heavy blanket was probably making it worse. He knew what these felt like. They made you feel unable to breathe, and he knew when his kid had these that she couldn’t breathe.
Tony knew Penny was saying something, but her words were buried in the sateen sheets, and it made them incoherent. He pulled most of the covers off her, and it was just two words: “can’t breathe…”
“I know, kid, I know—”
“Can’t.” Penny squirmed, and he was able to get a better glimpse of her face. Puffy, stressed, and eyes closed. Both hands were curled against her chest and neck like she’s done in the past, and it always made her look so small.
“Focus on me. Focus on my voice, ok?” Tony hesitantly brushed a few frizzy strands of hair from her face before tugging one of her closed hands into his own. Penny finally opened her eyes and looked at him. “Focus on me. Just focus on me, sweetheart.”
He waited a minute to let Penny adjust a little, but it didn’t calm her. She didn’t speak, she just breathed as erratically as she had before, except now with one hand held by his with another cradling her head.
“Pen, I’m gonna squeeze your hand, and when I do, I want you to breathe in, ok?” She didn’t reply with anything but a noise that was barely a whimper. “Breathe in,” Tony said while squeezing her hand for six seconds. “Breathe out,” he said while letting go. “Breathe in…Breathe out.”
It took a few minutes of the routine for it to begin to kick in on Penny. She kept her teary eyes open, the trembling started to cease, and each inhale and exhale were usually slower than the last. It took a while, but Tony didn’t care how long it was taking or how long it would take. He needed his kid to be okay again.
Penny leaned up a few minutes after that, so he took one hand away from her head and kept the other in her hand like it had been the whole time. After that, she sat there frozen as if she was in shock. She stopped looking at him and started looking who knew where. When the light finally caught properly, Tony looked closer. Penny wasn’t really looking at anything. She was still just catching her breath.
And then, she sniffled. Penny abruptly yanked her hand away from Tony’s, and he wouldn’t lie to himself that it hurt. “I’m sorry, I know that you were—”
“Stop.”
“—busy, but Friday—”
“Penny, stop.” That time made her quickly shut her mouth. “I’m never too busy for you, you understand me?” She looked at him shocked with tear-stained cheeks before eventually nodding. “I came as soon as Friday told me you were having a panic attack, ok?”
Penny winced like she was just realizing what happened. “…It’s fine, I was going to go back to—”
“Don’t shut me out.” It came out more forceful than he meant to. Penny looked at him like he’d just shaken her worldview. “…Please.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I just—I can’t really sit up; my chest still hurts.”
“Ok, then lie down.” Penny looked at him a little skeptically before doing so, lying on her right side facing him. “Feel better?” She hummed. “You need anything?”
“…There’s lavender in my purse.”
“Where’s your purse?”
“In the closet.”
Without another word, Tony lifted himself off the luxe mattress, and went to the closet. Once Friday turned on the lights, he found her purse was on the wood island, lonely with just a few articles of clothing Penny kept at the tower just in case off to the side on hangers.
For a second, he almost opened up the inner pocket to find whatever form the lavender took place in since it’s not like it would just be the raw plant sitting somewhere deep inside the tote bag (or maybe it was, his kid was full of quirks and surprises). With her anxiety at a high, it wasn’t a good idea to be rummaging through her stuff, so he took the tote out of the closet, turned the lights out, and went back to the room.
Penny was still lying in bed the way she was when he left, still and mostly uncovered by her covers, so it was just pajamas keeping her warm. Tony sat back down on the bed, giving the tote to his kid. She deftly opened the button clasp, the inner pocket of the purse, pulled out a little pouch, and palmed it against her face. He listened to the relief in the way she breathed in and sighed a couple of times. Scents never really helped him as much as other things, but at least it helped her.
Tony paused. He squinted his eyes a little bit and found himself mistaken. “A teddy bear?”
“…It’s something Ben gave me when I was little,” Penny explained quietly. “You can put stuff inside it to smell or heat it up for cramps…It helps a lot.” He hummed before she continued. “I also carry around some hand cream.”
“So that’s why your hands are so soft and smell like some fancy botanical garden, lately.” Usually, Penny would giggle, and it’d be the most adorable thing in the world. Now, she just looked at him and nodded in confirmation. Panic like that stripped everything away, especially this late at night.
For a few minutes, Tony let her be. He pulled her covers back onto her, making sure that the weighted blanket was even and up to the start of her neck like he’s seen her with blankets before. The second it hit her, Penny’s eyes fluttered closed. Her face was still flushed, and her eyes still a bit swollen from tears, but a wave of peace just bloomed in her expression, and something released inside his chest.
Part of him says he should scram and let his kid sleep. More of him wants to talk it out, knowing that she’ll probably just stay up and spiral into more anxiety and tears. Tony’s been told enough times that she was a lot like him, and he knew better than to ignore the commonalities between them.
So, Tony slid down from the headboard and turned onto his left side to face Penny. For a minute that felt like a lifetime, his kid stared at him wide-eyed. “What were you doing up anyway?”
“I wasn’t.” His brows creased. “…Nightmare woke me up.”
The dots connected. She went to bed, slept a little bit, had a nightmare, and descended into a panic attack. Got it. He’s been there before. Tony could only imagine what it was like for Pepper to watch the time or two it’s happened to him while she was right next to him, or Rhodey a few times over the years. It was one thing for him to ride that shitty rollercoaster. It was a whole other to watch his kid get on board and be dragged in by the monster.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
Her face changed, and the floodgates opened once more, so Tony brushed the streams away from her eyes. It made the receding flush reappear.
Penny cringed. “I’m sorry.”
“You know, I think we’re gonna have to put a ban on the apologies for tonight, don’t you think? Say ‘sorry’ one more time, and it won’t even sound like a word anymore—that’s how bad it is.” Penny chuckled a little bit, and he swore his heart skipped a beat. His thumb paused on her cheek. “There’s my girl.”
The look on her face changed a little when he said that, but it quickly went away. It felt like a sign to stop holding her face, so he removed his hand. Too much? Probably.
“…Whenever I have nightmares, they’re usually about something bad happening. Someone gets hurt, or someone dies, or they… leave? And sometimes, I can’t even tell the difference,” Penny explained hoarsely. “But, um, yeah.” She paused, and he watched the frown in her face grow like she was watching it all in her head again. “…Promise you won’t judge?”
“Promise.”
Penny took a shaky breath. “I watched you leave. Or—or die. I don’t know which it was. But you were really badly hurt, and you left, and when I woke up, I was here, and I didn’t know why for sure even though I knew it was just a dream, and I just freaked out.” He didn’t reply instantly, but Tony guessed two seconds was all Penny needed to add onto it. “It’s probably some weird subconscious thing, that’s why I was asking you not to judge ‘cause you probably think it’s really, really weird that you were in my dream and—"
“Slow down, slow down,” he cut in. She stopped talking, and Tony took a moment to think of what the hell to say to her. “You’re scared of me dying,” he finally murmured.
“…W—well, it’s like you said. You have almost died a lot, you know.”
“I don’t want you to worry about me, Penny, it’s my job to worry about you.”
“Yeah, but maybe that’s what kills you!”
Tony drew a blank. “What do you mean?”
Penny didn’t reply to that right away. What he listened to instead was how the intense splattering on the windows reduced to a gentle rain. How poetic.
“Ben left and he died.” The puzzle pieces snapped together. “And I think I did something really stupid, and that’s why we were hurt…Every time I try to do better, in the end, someone else just gets hurt,” Penny explained before sniffling and blinking away more tears. “Or pushed away. Or killed.”
Well shit. She really was a mirror, sometimes, huh?
Before Tony could try swiping away the tears off Penny’s face, she did it herself, murmuring more apologies along the way that he couldn’t bother correcting. This was her time to talk.
But when she didn’t say anything else in the next minute or two, Tony had to think about what to say in return, and a million ideas for that came to mind.
“I can’t blame you for being scared,” he says quietly. “You’d have to be crazy to not be scared, right?”
“Right.”
“…I’m scared all the time of something happening to you, you know that?” By the look on her face, he had his answer. “Penny, you’ve got to know I worry about you, and I’ve been worried lately because you haven’t been yourself.” Tony took a breath. “But, screwing up, yeah, I’ve made a lifetime of mistakes. Ones that have hurt people. And I’ve pushed people away, too. Between Ultron and Siberia, I lost some of the closest people to me. Some came back and others didn’t…But you know what I gained?”
“Hm?”
“Besides lessons learned? You.” Confusion came over Penny’s face like a veil. She just stared at him. “Even with the shitty stuff that happened, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and part of that light was you…Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
It was painful how quick she was to argue. “Yeah, you would, like for the other Avengers to come back, or, I don’t know—”
“Nope, not even that.” Penny opened her mouth to protest. “They made their choices, I made mine, and finding you is one I’m plenty fine dying with.” He thought of the Penny he met that day in her apartment, nervous, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, diving head-first into an unreasonable request from a desperate billionaire needing to solve his issues. Issues no reasonable adult would’ve involved her in. “Granted, I wish the circumstances were different, but I could’ve never met you at all, and things would be…different.” Not as good.
“Be easier,” Penny muttered.
Tony hated how convinced she sounded. “Maybe…But I guess we’ll never know.” Maybe it was easier to not watch over a teenager in a super suit worrying about them getting hurt, but there was risk and reward, and Tony wasn’t a stranger to risk. What was one more when it looked at him with a cheerful smile?
But Penny still looked like she was thinking all of it over and banging her head against the wall. “The point is, kiddo, it’s not all bad a hundred percent of the time. Even when you screw up, I won’t leave you. Not when you screw up, not for any reason…I won’t leave you, Pen.”
She tears up again, and Tony remembers that Penny seems to have an infinite tear supply. “Sweetheart, I don’t think you drink enough water to cry this much of it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Think I broke your brain. Too much sappiness for one night?”
Penny thumbed away the tears on her under-eyes, looking nervous while she did. “No, not really.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I guess you are the touchy-feely one out of the two of us.” Penny just laughed, and for a moment in time, she looked at ease. His kid was looking at him like he hung the stars, and for all the anxiety it gave him, just seeing her laugh was worth everything.
Tony’s hand returned to Penny’s head, smoothing down the strands and, occasionally, loosely twirling a bit around his finger. Her eyes fell closed, and he glanced out the window to the city. It’s foggy with the heavy rain that still fell, but it calmed down as did the thunder, and the lightning struck once or twice without a sound.
Penny eventually opened her eyes again, and he couldn’t have even begun to nail down how long it’d been. Didn’t really matter, anyway. “…Mr. Stark?”
“Mm?”
“Why do you still have Friday tell you if I’m having panic attacks?”
Tony’s hand slowed down in her hair. She’d always done it if something happened, and he never really thought to change it. “Like I said. ‘Cause I worry.”
“But it’s the middle of the night.”
“A, I already had that in place and, B, I was up already, anyway.”
“And Friday would’ve just woken you up if you weren’t awake?” Tony nods. “No, that’s not right. You need to sleep.”
This kid. “Again, let me worry about you.” Penny’s eyes changed, like she was tempted to argue. But inside them was also that exhaustion anxiety and sleeplessness that exuded inside out. It all won.
“But Friday doesn’t have to do that, anymore, I get it,” Tony offered. A bit of her hair was curled around his finger, and he imagined it in the natural curls Penny rarely showed since she usually straightened or brushed them out.
She paused and looked at him emptily. “…I don’t know. I probably would’ve taken a lot longer to calm down, but…” She finally nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“No problem.”
“But, um…if I really need you, I’ll get you. You helped,” she confessed.
And there it was. That trust that he needed her to have in him. The trust in him that would, hopefully, keep her healthy and safe. The trust that would make her feel safe enough to ever go to him if she were in trouble. He could see it in Penny’s eyes that it was there, she was just hesitant about it.
“Um.” She blinked at him, suddenly stiff. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, of course it’s okay, Pen.”
“…What time is it?”
“What? Looking to kick me out,” Tony joked lightly.
“N—no!”
His brows creased at how fast she responded. Tony started to lean up off the bed, his body feeling heavier than it was when he got here. “Do you want me to leave?”
For a moment, Penny just gaped at him wide-eyed, and it was kind of unsettling. Did he make her uncomfortable or overstep her bounds, or something—was it something he said because, yeah, he could get chatty—
“Would you stay? Just—um—until I fall asleep?”
The words repeated in his head, and something inside his chest grew warm.
“You don’t need to, though, um, I’m really sorry if that was weird, or childish, or anything—oh?” He was already sliding back into bed and straightening the covers while she spoke. “Oh, ok.”
Tony snickered a little bit at the surprise in her voice as he settled into the mattress, tucking Penny’s shoulders well into the covers while he was at it. “Would anything else help you sleep? Whale noises, or somethin’?”
“Whale noises?”
“Don’t tell Happy I told you this since he doesn’t know I know this, but that helps him sleep.” Penny giggled with crinkled eyes. “Yeah, that, and probably some silk eye mask with Pomeranians on it, or something.”
“Why Pomeranians?” she asked incredulously.
“He looks like an angry Pomeranian sometimes, Pen, don’t you see it?”
“I’m thinking more like a Schnauzer.”
“A Schnauzer.”
“Yes, Mr. Stark, a Schnauzer. A grumpy-looking one.”
“Weird imagination in that big brain up there. I don’t think brilliance and weirdness are a package deal.” Penny laughs, and Tony just hopes that means her chest isn’t hurting her anymore. “Seriously, do you need anything?” Penny shook her head before closing her eyes. “Ok.”
Instead of twirling his finger in his kid’s hair, Tony simply ran his hand up and down the strands. A few seconds in, he wondered if that even helped, but once Tony heard a happy little sigh, he had his answer.
For a little while, Tony observes the little bubble he's fallen into with his kid and the rain on his left, beneath comfy bed covers that aren’t his own. Penny doesn’t say anything else, and that’s fine. She turned over a couple of times and when he eventually asked in a hushed volume if she was awake, Tony didn’t get an answer.
He could leave now if he wanted to, just as long as he was careful not to wake her on the way out. But one minute from the moment Tony was sure Penny was asleep became two. Then three. It was more difficult to get out of bed than he thought. Penny could wake up and she’d be alone with her head. Sometimes, she slept really deeply and, others, she was light as a feather. It was hit or miss.
Besides. Being in the lab at this hour tinkering around with something superfluous was no better than being here.
Then, Tony loses the choice.
He blinked, warm weight rolled into his left side, and lavender flooded his nose. Penny’s face was mere inches from his chest, as was her body to his.
Tony’s brain abruptly hit the brakes. For a minute, he just listened to how Penny breathed so much calmer than before. It was tired, but nothing like him or anyone his age or that had his experiences. It was peaceful like a kid’s should be.
“You alright?” he asked just in case she was awake and wanted to, he guess…cuddle?
Tony waited. No answer came. Not even in movement.
So, he lightly laid one arm across her and pulled her in. For a second, Tony heard a sound that made him freeze, and she adjusted her body so that her cheek and ear rested against his chest, but once he realized that Penny was still truly asleep, he set his arm down. The bed was warm, but now, Tony was warm outside and inside. She curled up against him like he was a life-sized teddy bear rather than the little one that was around there somewhere.
Tony breathed out and just like that, the tension in his body seeped out of his body.
He’s had his arm wrapped around Penny’s shoulder and lied on the sofa watching TV with her plenty of times, plus hugs here and there, but this was beyond that. Two years ago, this would’ve just felt odd and wrong if not inappropriate. Now, it only felt natural.
But…was it fine for Penny, though? She was asleep, after all. But if he got out of bed, he’d wake her.
It was like his kid read his mind which, quite frankly, seemed plausible, sometimes. Her eyes slowly open up with a little flutter of her lashes.
“This fine?” Tony asked immediately. Penny didn’t say anything and just closed her eyes for the last time of the night. “Guess that’s a yes. Ok. That’s okay.” For a teenage girl who almost matched his height, snuggled up like this, Penny just seemed serene, little, and child-like. Things that Spider-Woman wasn’t. Things that he wished she’d hold onto for a little while longer.
He took one final glance past Penny and out the windows, now a foggy watercolor painting of lights and rain droplets. The rain is light, and so is each breath Penny took and before he realizes it, Tony’s listening to it all like a song. Definitely a much better song than whatever was playing in the lab last, as much as he loved his playlists.
Then, his eyes just rested on Penny. Tony felt the edges of his lips curl, and he didn’t try to resist it. He carefully dipped his chin and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Sweet dreams, baby,” Tony whispered, and he didn’t speak for the rest of the night.
Not for hours of the early morning, either. The room’s dimly lit blue, and everything inside just looks dark, but nice. He can still make out a bit of Penny’s face and once Tony does, he can’t help chuckling a little to himself. She looked so messy and sleepy, a bit of hair in her face that Tony brushed away, and this little snore that was more amusing than even Pepper’s. What did she do after they passed out that got her like that? Penny had to have been tossing and turning, but that normally kept him up…
The lavender. Yeah, it was the lavender kept him asleep. Absolutely the lavender and nothing else.
His eyes eventually catch the clock on the wall, and it read half past nine. Tony wouldn’t have guessed it from the looks of the sky, but it was probably just going to be really cloudy and or rainy. That was fine. Unless Penny did, he didn’t feel like leaving the tower, anyway.
Tony had been out like a light, and he had no idea how Penny would feel about it when she woke up. On weekends, she usually got nine hours of sleep, and that was just about what she’s had now. That, then breakfast, like the cereal she’s been craving lately.
He looked at Penny as he ever-so-slowly turned over and got off the mattress. Tony slid his shoes back on and with one last check to make sure she was still sleeping; he left the room and went to the kitchen to pour his kid a bowl of cereal.
In the end, it takes him ten minutes to put together the bowl of Lucky Charms plus a cup of coffee the way Tony was pretty sure Penny liked hers (the exact opposite of his with a lot of sugar and milk), and just another couple to get it to her room.
He gently knocked on the door in case he woke her when he left. Nothing. Tony waited a few seconds and just when he was going to knock one more time, a small voice said, “yeah?”
So, he opened the door and inside, Tony found Penny sitting in bed with her legs crossed, and she’d turned the lights on. Her sleepy eyes lit up when they focused on him. “Mr. Stark, you didn’t have to do that!”
“Well, I did, so.” Tony closed the door behind him with his foot and handed Penny both the cereal and coffee.
She thanked him again before taking a sip of coffee and eating a spoonful of cereal. Penny would need something with more nutrients later, but that little spark in her face when he came through the door was just something else. Simple and innocent, he guessed.
Penny was scarfing it down, much to his amusement. She was better than yesterday. Granted, Tony could still spot the unsureness radiating from her—that nagging on-edge feeling, but she seemed to be okay enough.
And, suddenly, she just stops, and looks at him. With a curious expression, Penny asks, “when’d you get up?”
“Little while ago.”
Her brows pinched. “That’s weird, I thought I would’ve noticed.”
“I thought so, too, but maybe that means you were sleeping well enough.”
Tony watched her lips press together and avert her eyes like something was wrong. Like she’d done something wrong, and she was going to be called out for it.
“Um…” Penny set her bowl down in her lap and swallowed. “Why did you stay with me?”
Tony opened his mouth to answer, but she started rattling off reasons he didn’t have to, like his bed being more comfortable, or that she snored like a freight train, and that she liked her curtains open at night while he probably didn’t. “My bed’s only more comfortable when Pepper’s there, you don’t snore like a freight train, and the curtains being open doesn’t make much of a difference to me.”
“Then why?”
“Well, you had me trapped there for a while.”
Penny’s eyes came back to him, and she looked mortified enough to make him regret even saying anything. “Oh…I remember,” she muttered.
“I thought you were asleep?”
“Um…Kinda?”
“Kinda?”
“Kinda…”
“You were awake or were you not awake?”
At this moment, Penny looked like either she was going to bolt out of the room, or crawl beneath all of the covers and never come out. “…Mostly awake. I was really, really sleepy and I wasn’t thinking.”
Tony expected an apology, not that he needed or wanted it at all. Something was off once he knew he wasn’t getting one.
“But you could’ve just asked me, and I would’ve just got up.”
And here was the awkward part. Tony meant to say that if he left, she’d wake up and probably stay awake for hours if not the whole night. But something possessed him. Instead, he just says, “I didn’t want to leave you.”
Penny froze, and it hurt to see her look this shocked. Did she really think he cared about her that little?
However, they weren’t known for their communication skills. And when Tony remembers that he cursed under his breath.
“What—what’d I do?”
He fucking hated how genuine and fearful it sounded coming out of her mouth. “Nothing, you didn’t do anything.” But she continued to look at him worried, and Tony chewed a bit of his lip for a second.
Right. Time to communicate, even if he was bad at it. Parents communicated first as May told him. “If you asked me to stay and hold you, I would’ve.”
Penny remained frozen, yet, she seemed to just shrink, eyes filled with anxiety and endless questions.
Maybe it was the wrong choice, but Tony hugged her, and she was still stiff in his arms. Not as bad as before, but still. He needed her to let go of her doubts and fears, and he probably needed to let go of his own.
“…See, this is the part where you hug back—”
Arms wrap around him, and they wrap around tight. Her chin and jaw rested over his shoulder. Penny finally melted.
He closed his eyes and breathed out. If he was honest, the hug was like blood pressure medication, and almost better, too. “I didn’t learn how to do any of this growing up...Taking care of you," Tony said quietly. "…I’m trying, though. And I won’t stop trying unless you want me to, through good and bad…Ok?”
“Ok.”
“Ok.” He held her in his arms for a couple of minutes, rubbing her back a little bit halfway through. Tony could feel almost the same kind of calmness when she practically rolled into his arms the night before. She wanted to trust him. He just needed to make himself more trustworthy. More available.
Tony was trying. Even if it meant stuff he wasn’t super used to, but for Penny. It was worth it. It always would be. She deserved better than he had. Even if it meant making stars shine that couldn't, he would still try.
“You know, we don’t have to go down to the lab today. Wanna watch a movie or a show or somethin’?”
“Yeah, that sounds nice, actually.” To his surprise, Penny pulled away first and put her half-full bowl and mug on the nightstand. Then, she grabbed the remote and lied back against the headboard next to him once she adjusted the pillows.
Tony wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled blankets over the two of them. “So, what’cha thinking?”
“You have any ideas?”
“Mary Poppins.” Penny gave him a skeptical look. “No, I don’t have a clue.”
“Friday, choose something you think I would love and Mr. Stark would hate watching.”
“So, basically, over half your Netflix watchlist?”
“More like a quarter. Getting you to like an anime is a badge of honor I wear with pride.”
“Fine by me.” Tony pecked a kiss on Penny’s hairline and looked at the screen, curious of his A.I.’s choice in television.