Chapter Text
A year can sit in a room like weather. It doesn’t shout. It presses.
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Tony had known this date was coming for weeks. He’d pretended he didn’t.
He’d let himself believe maybe it would slide by quietly, that maybe it wouldn’t land like a piano dropped from orbit. But he’d still put it on his calendar. He’d still slept badly.
He found Bruce and Sam in the conference room the night before Lab Friday, three mugs of coffee going cold between them.
Bruce had a legal pad.
Sam had his hands folded, therapist-calm, watching Tony unravel in small, precise spirals.
“Anniversaries are accelerants,” Bruce said quietly. “Memory gets vivid. Somatic recall spikes. Intrusive imagery, shame, fear responses. We could see regression. Increased ideation. Renewed urges toward self-harm.”
Tony stared at the table. Every word landed.
Sam leaned forward a little.
“Or,” he said, steady, “we see a hard day.”
Tony looked up. Sam held his gaze.
“She’s stable,” he continued. “She uses her supports. She tells on herself now. That’s huge. The day might hurt, but she’s not alone inside it anymore.”
Bruce nodded reluctantly. “Both can be true.”
Tony rubbed his face.
“So what do I do?” he asked.
Sam didn’t hesitate.
“Give her control,” he said. “Options. Don’t make the day a secret, but don’t trap her in it either.”
Bruce added, softer, “Watch for the quiet.”
Tony huffed a humorless breath.
“I always watch for the quiet.”
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Penny arrived Friday afternoon.
Sixteen.
Alive.
Tony kept his tone easy.
“Hey, Penn.”
“Hi.”
He waited until she set her stuff down.
“I was thinking,” he said carefully, “we’ve got options today. We can talk about it. We can absolutely not talk about it. We can pretend it’s any other Friday. Or we can ditch all of this and go upstairs.”
She studied him. Not suspicious. Measuring.
“May did that this morning,” she said quietly. “Like a menu.”
Tony nodded. “Good system. Big fan of menus.”
A pause. Penny looked down at her hightops, her voice dropping an octave.
“I couldn’t eat breakfast,” she admitted. “MJ and Ned… they knew something was off. They kept looking at me like I was made of glass, asking if I was okay or if I wanted to skip Calc.”
She let out a frustrated, shaky breath.
“I never told them the exact date. I didn’t want to. It felt like if I said, 'Hey, it’s been exactly 365 days since my life fell apart,' it would sound… I don't know. Dramatic. I hate being dramatic. It feels like I'm asking for a parade or a funeral when I just want to be a person.”
Tony’s expression softened, but he didn't give her a pitying look. He leaned against the lab table, crossing his arms.
“First of all,” Tony said, his voice firm but kind, “you aren't being dramatic. You’re being accurate. There’s a difference.”
He caught her eye, holding it.
“And second? You’re allowed to have a secret calendar, Penn. You don't owe anyone the GPS coordinates to your bad days. Look, MJ and Ned? They’re good kids. If you told them exactly what today was, they’d show up. They’d get it. They’d probably bring enough snacks to fill a bunker.”
He shrugged one shoulder, his expression leveling out into something deeply honest.
“But you don't owe them that. You don’t have to bleed in front of people just because they’re willing to hold a bandage. If you want to be 'just a person' with them, be just a person. But with me?” He gave a small, lopsided smile. “I already know where the bodies are buried. You don't have to edit the script for my benefit. If it’s a bad day, it’s a bad day. I’ve had plenty of them; I’m a pro at the 'dramatic' stuff. You’re just an amateur.”
A tiny, breathless huff of a laugh escaped her.
Then, silence.
“Can we go to the roof?” she asked.
Relief moved through him so fast he almost swayed.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we can do that.”
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The city was loud in the distance, traffic threading itself through the afternoon.
They stood near the edge, not too close, wind tugging at her hair. For a while she just looked.
Breathing. Existing.
Tony let the silence stretch. He knew better than to crowd it.
Finally she said, “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”
“I know,” he answered.
She gave a small, crooked huff.
“You used to make me narrate while I peed,” she said.
Tony blinked.
What.
“And you wouldn’t let me have pajama pants with a drawstring,” she went on. “You were like, ‘elastic only, kid, them’s the rules.’”
Tony stared at her.
Then he laughed, startled out of him, half horrified.
“Oh my God,” he muttered. “I was a monster.”
She shrugged, a little smile ghosting across her face.
“You were scared,” she said.
And the fact that she could say it like that, without venom, without collapse, hit him somewhere deep.
She remembered.
She survived long enough to remember.
Had that only been a few months ago?
They went quiet again.
Wind. Glass. Sky. Tony watched her hands; they were steady. No picking at cuticles. No hidden tremors.
Then Penny inhaled. The kind you take before stepping somewhere without railings.
“It was not my fault,” she said.
Tony felt the world tilt.
Her voice shook, but she kept going.
“He came into my room when I was sleeping,” she said. “He chose to rape me.”
The word rang, clear and terrible.
“I froze,” she whispered. “That’s just what happened.”
Tony’s hands were on her before he realized he’d moved.
He pulled her in. She broke. Not the panicked, spiraling kind.
This was grief leaving the body.
She sobbed into his chest, fingers twisted in his jacket, and Tony held on like gravity depended on it.
“I was so scared,” he admitted into her hair, because honesty was the price of this moment. “God, Penny, I was so afraid we were going to lose you.”
She nodded, crying.
“The perimeter kept me alive,” she said, words catching. “I hated it. I hated it so much. But I wouldn’t be here.”
Tony closed his eyes.
They stood there a long time. Until the crying eased. Until breathing came back. Until the city sounded like a place people lived again. Tony didn't let go until she moved back first, asserting her own space.
The drawstrings of her hoodie gently swayed in the breeze.
Eventually he brushed his thumb under her eye.
“You ready to go down?” he asked.
She thought about it. Then nodded.
“Can I stay tonight?” she asked.
“Always,” he said.
She pulled out her phone. Texted May. A moment later she tucked it away, something settled in her shoulders.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
Tony pretended to consider.
“I’m thinking lightsabers,” he said.
Her mouth tipped up.
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Later, in the dim of the living room, the opening crawl of Star Wars lit her face gold. Penny leaned into his side. Tired. Wrecked. Here.
Tony wrapped an arm around her and let the story begin again.