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Sometimes, Tony thought that he and Penny were just magnets for trouble and that it’d be that way from the cradle to the grave.
Penny was on patrol for an hour before hell broke loose. There was some freak ice mutant causing havoc in Long Island that she couldn’t contain, “Queen Elsa gone apeshit”, as Penny had so eloquently put it. There was just ice everywhere, as if there hadn’t already been enough in the dead of the notorious New York City winter, spiky shards shooting into the air, plenty to coat buildings and trap people inside. She sounded worried about his reaction, but he would’ve been more upset if she hadn’t called for backup. This was something Penny couldn’t handle alone.
Tony headed to Long Island as soon as possible. Everyone else was either out of state, or out of the country, so it’d just be him and Spider-Woman taking down “Queen Elsa”. And here he was thinking he would have a quiet night.
The scene is eerie. For a few blocks, the streets are devoid of people. What’s left is a pretty good mockup of the ice age or arctic Greenland. The ice was that large and that prevalent, that blocky and that overwhelming. NYPD would be having a fun time with this one.
“Boss, there’s something you should see. Turn onto fifty-seventh up ahead.”
His first thought is Penny since he didn’t know where she was yet. She was hurt, he wasn’t fast enough, and the mutant had been too strong for her to hold off for that long. Tony amps his thrusters and does as his A.I. says. He’s prepared for it to be Penny, and it’s all coming down on him all at once, the anxiety and the panic—
It's not her. It's a corpse with ice entering through his chest and coming out his back. The ice is blue and red, and thin streams of blood drip off slowly onto the concrete below like a leaky faucet.
Tony should’ve been relieved. He was dead, but his chest hurts and his throat closes, anyways. He was dead, but what if Penny paid the ultimate price for it?
“Miss Parker is fifteen fe—”
He doesn’t let Friday finish and, instead, finds Penny on the ground leaning against a brick wall alive. Bruises, bruised ribs, and a mild concussion are all Friday reports. She held him off for almost an hour when he could’ve easily killed her.
Penny’s balance is unsteady like she was about to fall over, and her voice wobbled when she spoke. “Mr. Stark—”
“You okay?” he asked, but Tony just felt stupid once he asked. Did she look okay?
“Uh-huh.” Penny nodded, her still-masked face meeting his eyes. “I…trapped him,” she says shakily. “Got…got him to impale himself on his—on the ice.”
That was the least of his worries, for now, but there’s a piece inside of him that’s proud. Tony damn well knew what she was capable of, but from the footage, the attacker was out of his mind. One wrong move and she was done for. “You did good, kid, you did good.”
Penny lazily shook her head before it returned to hanging down from her neck. “I don’t,” she began out, completely out of breath, chest heaving. “I don’t think so."
“Nope, none of that, yes you did. Now, let’s get you out of—”
“Mr. Stark—”
“Boss—"
“Kid, we can talk abou—”
It was his fault. Tony wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings, and he wasn’t listening to Penny when her voice pitched. It was his fault he wasn’t fast enough to even try to stop the tons of ice that came crashing down on them. The only thing he was fast enough to do was cover his kid and brace.
As if being crushed by many cars almost two years ago wasn’t enough, this iced the cake. Worse than that, it’s just more intense. Less targeted, anything from tiny crumbles to large chunks thudding and knocking his suit. He can’t even tell if it’s more ice, concrete, rock, or what. The deeper they went, the harder it would be to get out of this.
Finally, Tony thinks it’s stopped. Friday rattled off the damage, but he cut her off without a beat. “Where’s Penny?” She wasn’t underneath him, anymore—he swore she’d been swept out to the right, but it’d been so fast. She could be anywhere.
Tony heard a whimper. If he could hear her through all the other noise, she had to be pretty close. “Penny?” There’s just a half-whimper-half-yell.
The rubble directly above him was heavy, but not heavy like he was completely sandwiched in the rubble. Friday confirmed it, as well as noting that many of his suit functions were down including what was probably going to be the key to getting out of here: the repulsors and lasers. No, that would’ve been too easy and too nice. Not to mention the sudden lack of a crucial heater.
Slowly, Tony emerged out of the pile just to find that for probably seven feet above them, it was hollow like a mini-cave. A mini-cave that was going to crush them if they didn’t get out.
He turned his head and there she was, lying in a crook of the rubble with blood showing through a tear on her arm.
Friday started reporting Penny’s new injuries. A couple of broken bones and cuts. It was relatively minimal, but it didn’t ease his head.
There wasn’t enough space to fly, and just barely enough to walk. Tony made his way over to Penny. She wasn’t moving. If there was something really wrong, Friday would’ve noticed, but—
She starts coughing. Coughing descends into hacking and near-wheezing. Tony tugged her so she was sitting up with his hand on her back. “Pen?”
A couple of more coughs and then a string of words he couldn’t hear. “Huh?”
“Stupid Parker luck…” Tony stared at her, waiting for elaboration, even though her life spoke for itself. “I’m buried under a building again.”
He freezes. Like a video, he sees the moment Penny casually mentioned a building falling on her while in pursuit of The Vulture all over again. Just like back then, an ocean’s guilt returned to drown him only, this time, they were both here, and getting out was going to be an issue.
Tony huffed, uncomfortable just thinking about it. He shifted his eyes from Penny to the environment around them. All that was left that was falling were sheets of fine dirt and tiny pebbles. Everything else— the rebar, ice, and chunks—looked stable. Emphasis on ‘looked’.
Like on queue, Friday started giving him an analysis of their surroundings. She wasn’t even done, and Tony wanted to groan. No repulsors, no lasers, no way out. And even if he still had them working, it was too risky. They’d end up crushed again. Their best hope was first responders slowly but surely making their way through everything above, or Rhodey made his way back from New Jersey. Neither was that reassuring.
Tony’s thoughts break apart. They were under all this rubble and, yet it was pretty quiet. The loudest thing in their little pathetic cocoon was his breath even though Penny was the breathless one since she’d just fought off the worst incident New York’s seen in a while…
His stomach churned. “Kid, you alright? You’re pretty quiet.” Tony scans her over. Did he miss an injury?
“Um.” Penny blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She says it emptily, almost as if she was in a daze. Maybe she was—maybe this was all too reminiscent of the very thing she’d just mentioned a few minutes ago.
Tony didn’t have his kid’s senses, but something was off. She was in shock; he missed an injury. He came closer to her, breathing out weak in a way that made him shudder. Next thing he’d know, there’d be rebar sticking out of her, or he’d cradle her head just to stain his palm crimson. “Where else you hurt?”
“What?”
“You have a concussion, bruised ribs, a couple of broken toes, a big cut on your arm, might as well continue the list.”
“I’m not hurt anywhere else,” Penny swears. Tony finally gets out of his suit and continues looking, ignoring the unstable environment and the harsh cold. He takes a gentle hold of her face and head, pulling off her mask in the process. Just because there wasn’t anything on her face didn’t mean there wasn’t anything hidden in her hair or on the nape of her neck. He used his sleeve to clean the blood from the cut on her arm while he was at it. “I’m not…W—what about you?”
“I’m fine, kiddo, you’re the one who fought off psychopath Jack Frost and got people out of harm’s way.”
“Yeah…but you’re cold.”
“I’ll be fine.” Eventually, one hand paused on her cheek rosy from cold, and the other on the back of her curls. No blood, just soft springy curls. It makes him remember that when they first met, her hair was just straight and fluffy. The first joke that had come to mind was wondering if she was really part-spider or if it was just a cover for her Pekingese-persona. She’d changed a lot since then. “We’ll be out of here in no time, ok?”
Penny barely acknowledged him, but a little nod was better than nothing, and he let her go.
The quietness continued for a couple more minutes with his kid sitting there with nothing for her injuries while he tried to find a way out of this. They’d get home, she’d get treated, and he’d get her a big ass cup of hot chocolate with plenty of marshmallows as soon as Helen cleared her…Or before that—the kid took down an ice-making mutant alone, for God’s sake, give her a break.
“…It’s cold.”
Tony snapped his head to her as soon as she spoke. He almost laughed because, yeah, no shit, there was probably enough ice up there for five generations of penguins to roam free on the streets minus the seals and whales wanting to eat them.
It replays in his head. It didn’t have the tone of a quip or a complaint. “…Your heater’s still working, right?”
The look Penny gave him, big-eyed like a deer in the headlights, was going to haunt him like everything else did for the foreseeable future if not forever. She shook her head.
Penny’s mentioned it many enough times, and he listened. It’s why she slept with so many blankets at home and with down bedding at the tower. It’s why she would wear thick fuzzy socks and big sweatshirts in the tower whenever it was chilly. It’s why during wintertime, she was bundled up almost double what everyone else wore.
“Spiders can’t—” Penny began in a whisper.
“Can’t thermoregulate. Yeah.” If his suit heater was working, Tony would’ve got out and made her get in his suit because he wasn’t going to let his kid sit like a shivering baby duck, but maybe Stark luck was a thing, too.
If he didn’t get her out of here soon enough, she’d go into a hibernation state. That’s what they were pretty sure would happen. It’s not like he, Helen, and Bruce wanted to find out.
God, why didn’t she say something? There was nothing he could do—Friday already sent out messages and signals to Rhodey and the team whether they could do anything or not, and the first responders were going to have a hell of a time doing anything with this magnitude of ice. So not only was his kid bruised and bloodied, but she was also at risk of freezing herself into hibernation.
His eyes dart back to Penny and the sight alone was enough to make the situation a million times worse. Her knees and feet are tucked to her chest, and she just stares off into space with a tear running down her cheek. Penny robotically wiped it away, not even blinking, and not even sniffling.
He’s reminded that death by a thousand cuts was real with a prime example right in front of him. It was going to get worse before it got better. All he could do was try. If he couldn’t stop the bleeding, he had to make it through until he could before healing.
“Come ‘ere, Pen.”
She turned her head and blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“I said come here,” Tony repeated. “I’m not going to let you freeze until we get out of here.”
Penny looked at him cautiously for a few seconds before she scooted over beside him. He pulled her into his arms, feeling the tension in her body release like pulling a pin from a balloon. It was more of a hug than a huddle, but she needed both, anyway. She was scared out of her mind.
Her jaw rests over his shoulder, and his chin sits on the top of her head. He presses his hands over her ears, realizing that they were absolutely freezing, so he keeps them there for a minute to warm them up. A minute more, and he takes a breath. “Maybe Stark Industries should get into perfume.”
“Why?”
“Come on, you just invented the scent of the ages. Georgia peach, Arabian jasmine, and Long Island concrete with undertones of fragrant Big Apple dirt and mutant-fighting sweat.” Penny snorted. “That’s gotta be a best-seller. Sell it for four-hundred-bucks a bottle with cheap-ass packaging, you’re set for life. Can buy a private island and everything.”
“I don’t need a private island.”
“Ok, a little tiki hut in Florida? Or better yet, we’ll just build you a little casita beside the farm Pepper and I are thinking about. Keep an eye on you, you’re not homeless, it’s a mutually beneficial agreement.”
“I’ll take the tiki hut in Florida.”
“I’m disowning you.” Penny just giggles and it’s music to his ears. “I give you multi-million dollar suits, enough food for a football team, farm casitas, and you want the fucking Florida tiki hut.”
“Maybe I just think the manatees need to be rescued from the alligators more than you need to keep an eye on me.”
“Circle of life, kiddo. Besides, I think the algae gets to them first. Tell you what, you move into the casita, and the Stark Foundation cleans up the Florida coast and swamps.”
“Hmm, deal,” Penny murmured, seemingly tired of the banter. She relaxed further into his embrace and Tony realizes he’s been slightly rocking her this whole time. He slowly breathed out and rubbed his hand down her back repeatedly. It probably calms him more than it calms her…Oh, well.
He didn’t stop trying to look around for any openings or stop thinking of any ideas, but everywhere Tony looked had a drawback too big to consider. It was all just so unstable that in the back of his mind, he wanted Penny to get in the suit just so she wouldn’t be crushed to death.
His jaw tightened. Rhodey was in New Jersey and probably on his way to New York. First responders would be there soon. Maybe they’d bring in cranes or something—he didn’t know—but maybe they could do something. Or he was just too preoccupied with his kid’s well-being to properly focus on getting out. It was a hard balance to strike.
“I led him into a trap.”
Tony’s hand slowed on Penny’s back, but it didn’t stop. “Yeah?”
“He was really bent on killing me.” He felt Penny swallow and she pulled away from his embrace and, God, it was cold. “I don’t think he was thinking straight, so I led him into an—into one of his own ice picks.”
Tony could sense the guilt a million miles away. It was in her voice, how she looked away from him, and how she trembled a little more, though that also could’ve been the cold.
“Webbing him up wouldn’t have worked, he would’ve broken free and hurt more people—there was nothing else I could do.”
“Penny, you did everything right,” Tony says firmly. “You got people to safety, you sent out a signal to the team, you called me, and you didn’t try to play hero and do anything stupid.”
“Doesn’t mean I like it any more than I do, because I don’t.”
He sighed. “No. No, honey, it doesn’t.” Tony finally decides to take a hold of Penny’s hands to, one, stop them from shaking and, two, so they’d stay warm. Rough skin met soft, icy skin. He squeezed over her fingertips, her fingers, knuckles, and palms. His hand curls hers into a fist, and he takes his other to wrap it over Penny’s wrist and then her hand. She had to stay warm. She just had to.
Penny readjusted herself so that one foot was tucked in the crease of her knee, but once that happened, Tony just insisted she have his shoes, even if they were a little oversized. After that, he was able to coax her into settling down in his arms. Penny was only an inch shorter than he was, but she looked and felt so much smaller right now. Penny was Spider-Woman, but she was also just a teenage girl trying not to freeze to death. She was just a kid.
Tony’s always been impatient, but this was so much worse. It’s not impatient just for his sake, but for Penny’s. Every time she shivers or shakes, he’s pulling her closer if she’s pulled away, or he’s asking where was coldest so he could help her warm up. Eventually, he’s sharing his sweatshirt sleeves with her, palms intertwined, even if it is a little snug—remind him to buy ten oversized sweatshirts two sizes up when they got out of here. She murmured that he smelled like coffee, and she doesn’t say anything after that.
Then, he just gets frustrated. It bubbles inside like lava. He’s not going to let his kid freeze to death over ice and concrete and dirt and rebar no matter how much of it there is, so he checks with Friday in his earpiece. No developments. He can’t let her freeze and yet, here he is holding her, unable to think of anything to do besides just make sure Penny stayed warm as possible instead of fixing his mess.
Tony almost swears, but he feels Penny tremble again. Then, a sniffle. It stabs him in the heart and twists in a full circle. “Don’t cry, Pen, we’re gonna get out of here. I’m gonna get you out of here, ok?”
“I don’t know what happens if I go into hibernation,” she says thickly.
“You’re not going to,” Tony reassures. “There’s first responders up there trying to make their way through, and Rhodey’ll be here soon.” New Jersey wasn’t that far away. The city had put millions more into funding first-response since the Chitauri. Granted, it was southern New Jersey, but—fuck, it was really cold. He curls his toes and if his hands aren’t comforting Penny, they’re underneath his sweatshirt against his chest.
It was cold. Mind-numbingly, Antarctic cold. Time makes it worse, and Penny was the nail in the coffin for his mental state. She stops shivering after a while, and his stomach turns inside out.
Tony gasps and searches for Penny’s pulse. It’s not as strong as it should’ve been—his kid was so cold to the touch. It jolted him. “Hey, Pen?” He doesn’t get an answer. No, no, no, it hadn’t been that long. He cupped her face, but her eyes were closed. “Sweetheart, can you wake up for me? Please?” Was she asleep or tired or—
Penny whimpered. It was too much. She was too cold, and he was useless. He’d been trying so hard to keep her warm—
“Boss, Miss Parker’s temperature has dropped to eighty-eight degrees.” Tony shuddered. “She’s entered moderate hypothermia.”
It was so fast. It was too fast—she’d been fine however long it was ago. “What do I do?”
“Colonel Rhodes is twenty minutes out, as well as Captain Rogers and Mr. Wilson.” He gasps out of relief. “Keep her as warm as possible until then.”
Ok. Tony could do that. He had to do that. He makes sure every limb, every finger, and every toe are warm if possible. He can’t get her body any more huddled or close to him—he’s never taking his bed for granted again, or the heating system, or cuddling with Pepper or Penny.
“—Ny…Tony?”
“Hm?”
“It’s going to take a little while, it’s a lot of ice and rubble to work through. Just hang on, ok?”
“She’s not good,” Tony whispered. It was the most he could manage. “Rhodey, she’s—”
“We’re working as fast as we can. If we make a wrong move, the rubble will collapse—it’s like Jenga up here. Just hang on.”
He closed his eyes. He listens to the tune of the hollow little cave they were holed up in, ice-cold and huddled as closely as could be. Penny was cold, but her heart was still beating. That was a good sign, right? Just keep her heart beating. That’s all he could do.
Tony can’t close his eyes. She’s so close. “I got you, honey. Ok? They’ll be here soon, I promise. I promise.” He sniffles. He doesn’t care.
At first, Tony thinks it’s the wind he heard and that the voice was just in his head. It’s not. It’s Penny. And it was so quiet, he was horrified. “I love you, too, Penny, but you’re not going anywhere. You’re not going anywhere—they’re almost here.” They were almost here. He curled her up against him as much as possible. Almost…
Noise. So much noise. Tony shielded Penny with his back—something was about to fall on them, and there wasn't enough time to put her in his suit.
It never does. Instead, there’s just voices. He questions them until he’s hoisted up, and it makes his grip on Penny tighten as much as possible.
Tony lethargically tilted his head up, eyes adjusting to the newfound light and the fine sheaths of dirt and dust coming down. He breathes out a laugh. “I didn’t think angels wore War Machine armor…” It’s the last thing he says before it all goes hazy and numb.
Everything else is far away. Tony wasn’t unconscious but he might as well have been. The most efforted action he made was that he tried to hold on when Penny's hands were pulled away. Her skin was replaced by blankets and what felt like a millennia later, warm clothes and warm air. It was warm again. His kid was warming up.
Tony didn’t get to see her, though. They were treating her somewhere else in the tower, and apparently, his hypothermia was mild. It didn’t feel mild. It felt like his heart was ripped out and he was freezing while it happened. What was mild about that?
Eventually, he’s in bed. It’s warm and he’s never taking it for granted again. Warm with sheets and the duvet and five blankets up to his neck. Warm with a kiss on the forehead and listening to his fiancé say she’d check on Penny’s condition for him. Warm’s finally letting his guard down, even though it’s cold with his kid floors away. It’s all he thinks about as he falls asleep. When he wakes up, she’s the first thing he asks about.
Penny didn’t go into hibernation. Barely. The hypothermia wasn’t severe, but they guessed it didn’t need to be for her to do so. She was recovering just fine, broken bones, cuts, cold, and all. Far from completely okay, though. And far from him.
It’s not really best he gets up just yet, but fuck it, it’s already been ten hours of pure sleep. His hypothermia was ‘mild’, but you know what his impatience wasn't? Definitely not mild.
Tony opens the door to Penny’s hospital room, and his only relief is that it could’ve been worse. She’s here in this medical bed resting with an I.V. in her arm. He loathed it with every fiber of his being.
He closed the door behind him and set the mug of hot chocolate down on the side table. For a moment, Tony just looked her over. She was a lot better now. Still, a long way to go, but Penny would be okay. Not that she should have ever had to have, but she was good at hanging on.
For a moment, he debated sliding into the bed beside her. It was big enough, it’d help her warm up—why was he still just standing there thinking about it? Just ten hours ago, he was holding her almost bone-crushing-ly tight trying to save her life.
Carefully, avoiding messing with the medical equipment as he did, Tony slid into the right side of the bed and gently readjusted her. Penny’s head rested on his shoulder with his arm wrapped around her. His eyes flutter closed, and he sighs heavily and slowly. A wave of calm finally came over him. She was fine.
At one point, Tony briefly considered turning on the TV and watching something on low volume, but it was too serene and calm to even want to pick up the remote. This had been the missing piece since he got out of the rubble. This was the last thing to de-thaw.
Penny shifted in his arms, and he felt her lift her head. “Ms’sr Stark?”
“Hey, kiddo,” Tony says softly. “Feeling better?”
“Mm-hm!” Her doe eyes met his and that alone, he swore, made the room shift.
“Good.” For a minute, Tony’s just satisfied looking at her and hearing her voice for the first time in a day…But she’d probably want the hot chocolate being the little sugar gremlin she was. “I brought you hot chocolate.” Tony nudged her to lean up just a little so he could stretch his right arm out to grab the mug and hand it to her. “Here, sit up. Don’t want you spilling it—hypothermia’s no excuse to spill hot chocolate all over you.”
“Ah, come on, that’d be the cherry on top.”
“Yeah, the cherry on top to lead to my mental breakdown.” Penny giggled—one of his favorite sounds, hands down—and took the large mug into both of her hands before sipping. “…I’m never drinking anything else again.” From there, she just gulps. Good thing he didn't make it too hot.
Tony would say something back, but he’s just happy to see his kid return bit by bit to her normal self that all his words slip his tongue. She wouldn’t have to if only he’d been faster.
“I should’ve been listening to what you were trying to tell me back there—I’m sorry.” Tony ignored the confused look on her face. “I was just trying to make sure you were okay and get you out of there as soon as possible ‘cause you looked exhausted.”
“It’s not like you created the ice.”
“No, but I could’ve moved faster, and…” Penny just looked at him completely lost, brows pinched, but intent. From there, the apology fell flat on its face, and she just drank more of her hot chocolate.
When Penny finished, Tony put the mug back on the side table for her and wrapped his arm back around her. She easily accepted it, matching the affection by cuddling up to him. Penny sighed serenely and sweetly before closing her eyes once more. In just a minute, he closed his, too.
“I love you, too…” Tony murmured. “I don’t know if you heard me back there, but I love you, too, Penny.” He had a feeling she did, but it didn’t hurt to have an excuse to say it again.