Chapter Text
When Penny woke up, she didn’t immediately notice something was wrong. Despite the almost constant noise outside her window in Queens, Penny had grown somewhat accustomed to waking up in silence due to the nights she spent at the Avenger's tower, where the window was made of extremely thick noise-resistant glass, designed especially for her by Mr. Stark. She’d told him that the noise didn’t really bother her, but she had to admit, she’d been having a harder time sleeping since she got her powers. Her super-hearing caused even distant noises to sound as if they were right outside her window, and the ones that were actually right outside her window to be even louder, so it had been nice to be able to sleep in quiet on occasion.
No, it hadn’t been the lack of city noises that alerted her something was wrong, it was the five other heartbeats she could make out faintly in the quiet, one of which she recognized as the slightly off-beat pulse of her mentor, Tony Stark. It took her a moment to realize that while four of the heartbeats had the slow and steady rhythm associated with sleep, the fifth was rapid and erratic—someone else was awake.
Penny opened her eyes and sat up quickly, though the action made her head spin a little. She didn’t feel particularly fuzzy, but she must have been given some sort of sedative when she was captured. She scanned the room and was startled to find the Captain America sitting against the wall a few feet to her left, staring at her. He looked concerned and a little confused, and it occurred to her that he probably had no idea who she was. He stared a moment longer before clearing his throat awkwardly.
“Are you okay? I’m Steve Rogers.”
Penny nodded but made no effort to introduce herself. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to know who she was yet. He looked as if he wanted to continue the conversation, but didn’t say anything. Penny surveyed the room to find Mr. Stark lying next to her on her right, and Black Widow, the Falcon, and the Winter Soldier lying in a row a few feet across from her. Okay, so this was bad. Anyone able to kidnap six literal superheroes is not someone you want to mess around with. Penny could still feel Steve’s gaze on her as she turned towards Tony, gently shaking him by the shoulder.
“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark, wake up," she tried. He didn’t respond.
“You know Tony?” Steve asked, sounding even more confused. Penny didn’t know what to say, and she honestly didn’t particularly feel like interacting with him after the way he’d betrayed her mentor, so she ignored his question, instead electing to try and wake Tony again.
“Mr. Stark?” She tried again, nudging him a little harder this time. It seemed to work--he knit his eyebrows and squeezed his eyes slightly, starting to wake up. He made a sort of “hmm” sound in the back of his throat and she pressed further.
“Mr. Stark, you need to wake up. We seem to be in a... situation.”
“Oh great,” he responded with sleepy sarcasm, eyes still closed, “I love being in ‘situations’.”
“Who is this kid?” Steve asked. Mr. Stark opened his eyes and shot up to a sitting position, whipping his head towards the familiar voice in alarm. He stared at Steve for a few moments, his expression somewhere between anxiety and rage, before turning to Penny.
“Are you okay?” He asked, apparently ignoring Steve’s questions as well.
“I’m fine,” Penny assured. She heard stirring from the other side of the room and looked over to see that the other three had begun waking up. That introduced new data—if she had been given a strong enough dose that she only woke up a few minutes before the non-enhanced people in the room, their captors must have known she was Spider-girl, meaning that it was only a matter of time before the rogue avengers knew it too. She stood and began to help Mr. Stark up as well while the rogues got their bearings. It wasn’t long before they noticed her.
“Who’s the kid?” Sam directed the question at Tony, clearly sensing that they knew each other. Tony took a step forward, subtly putting himself between her and the rogues.
“None of your business.” He stated, a hint of aggression in his voice. Sam raised an eyebrow but didn’t question further. Natasha was looking at her with narrowed eyes, clearly trying to figure her out. She glanced at Mr. Stark and then back at Penny, and understanding seemed to pass over her. Penny’s chest tightened a little as she waited for her to say something, certain she was about to blow her cover, but the woman remained silent.
“Any idea why we’re here?” Steve asked, trying and failing to defuse the tension that was almost palpable.
Everyone glanced around the room. It was fairly small, lit dimly by a few pot lights on the ceiling—though with Penny’s enhanced senses, it seemed almost normal. There was a thick-looking metal door on the wall to her left with a small window that Penny could probably shatter, though it was too tiny for even her to fit through. It became clear that no one had any idea what was going on, so Steve continued the questioning.
“Does anyone remember how they got here?”
Penny thought back to the last thing she remembered. It had been a lab night, and Mr. Stark had suggested that they get ice cream after a breakthrough on the project they were working on. They’d been walking down the street… and then nothing. Penny glanced over to Mr. Stark, hoping he remembered a little better than she did. He shrugged before glancing around at everyone else and then back to her.
His expression was one she recognized as his ‘please be quiet and let me handle this’ face, except… more nervous than usual. Penny knew he still struggled with what happened between him and Cap—not even nine months ago, at this point. He seemed anxious to be in the same space as the rogues again, and Penny couldn’t blame him after seeing the state he’d returned from Siberia in.
“As much as I love a good family reunion, I’m a busy man so I’d appreciate it if we could spend less time trying to figure out how we got here and more time figuring out how to not be here,” he snarked, clearly trying to mask his anxiety. Without a word, Steve walked over to the door and punched it with a grunt. There wasn’t even a dent.
A seventh voice echoed through the room.
“Sorry Captain, you won’t be able to punch your way out of this one.”
It was a man with an accent she couldn't identify—Russian, maybe? The heroes glanced around the room, attempting to locate the source of the speaker and how he had known what they were doing. Tony took a step backward so that he was closer to Penny, holding his arm out in front of her slightly as if he could protect her from a voice.
“It’s a pleasure to have you all here in our lab.”
A lab… that wasn’t good. Labs meant experiments, and Penny had already been experimented on one too many times for her liking.
“Yeah, can we maybe skip the weird fake pleasantries and move on to what the hell we’re doing here,” Tony said impatiently.
“Don’t interrupt me Stark,” the voice warned, “I won’t tolerate disrespect, and I don’t think you’ll like what happens if I run out of patience.” Tony rolled his eyes at the obvious cliche of what the voice said, but didn’t speak. “As I was saying, I’m extremely pleased to have all of you here, especially you Ms. Parker.”
Penny’s blood turned to ice. She looked with uncertainty towards Mr. Stark, who had noticeably paled as well.
“What the hell does that mean?” He demanded, stepping even closer to Penny.
“Well, there’s already been tons of research on the Super Soldier Serum. It did start out as a government-sanctioned program after all, not to mention the tons of hydra files on it from the Winter Soldier. But a human fusing their DNA with that of a spider? That’s never even been heard of before.”
“Wait, spider DNA?” Sam interrupted. Suddenly, all eyes were on her, and Penny’s chest tightened again.
She was totally screwed.
“You’re Spider-girl,” Steve stated, visibly shocked. She didn’t blame him—most people expect superhero vigilantes to, at the very least, be adults. Penny gave an awkward wave, internally cursing her social anxiety.
“You didn’t know?” The voice asked innocently, “I’d assumed you all knew each other’s real identities, but I suppose it makes sense. Spider-girl didn’t start working with the Avengers until you were already halfway out the door.”
“What the hell, Tony?” Steve asked accusingly, “You let a, what, twelve-year-old kid fight criminals?”
Penny couldn’t help the hurt that seeped into her face.
“I’m sixteen,” she corrected, though she knew it probably wouldn’t make much difference. “And I was fighting criminals long before Mr. Stark stepped in. All he’s done is make it less likely that I die in the process.”
Steve didn’t look all that placated, but he at least seemed to understand that now was not the time for this discussion. Tony turned his head back towards the ceiling and continued his questioning.
“So you want to experiment on us? That still doesn’t make sense. Half of the people in this room aren’t even enhanced.” He pointed out, gesturing towards Nat and Sam.
“Not yet.” The room tensed a little more and the voice continued explaining, though Penny was pretty sure she could guess where this was going. “But if I can figure out how to replicate Ms. Parker’s enhancements, then who better to receive them than the Black Widow herself! And Mr. Wilson, being as fit as he is, is a prime candidate for the super-soldier serum.”
“What about me?” Tony questioned.
“We need your brain, Stark.”
“And what makes you think I’d help you?”
Penny already knew the answer, and it scared her.
“You’ve grown rather close to Ms. Parker in the time you’ve known her, yes?”
Tony didn’t say anything, looking up to where they’d assumed the camera was with what appeared to be an attempt at a neutral expression, though Penny could clearly see the dread in his eyes.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I assume you know what I’m getting at here?” The man asked. Mr. Stark remained silent, giving an almost imperceptible nod. “Good. Unfortunately, Ms. Parker will have to be subjected to some... unpleasantness either way, but I assure you, I can make things much worse than they need to be, should you not cooperate.”
“This still doesn’t make sense,” Natasha interjected. "You brought us here to… give us powers? And then what? Us having superpowers doesn’t help you.”
“It does, actually—considering I’ll be controlling your minds.”
A blanket of dread seemed to cover the entire room, especially over Bucky, who didn’t seem particularly excited at the prospect of reverting back to his old days as a mind-controlled murder puppet. Understandable.
“Besides,” the voice continued, “I don’t think you will particularly like the methods I’m going to use to acquire these powers, so getting you involved optionally wasn’t really a choice.” Penny felt the pit in her stomach grow heavier. She hated being experimented on. “Well, I’ll leave you be for now, but we’ll be getting started in a few hours.”