Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. I appreciate all of you so much! hope you like this chapter, and there will be a follow up tomorrow.

When She Bleeds
(Part 1)

The first pictures came to Tony's office, through his mail, placed in a large manilla envelope with no return address. Nothing with no return address, especially something addressed to him in black sharpie, got through to his mail. Most things, from hate mail and threatening letters to random birthday party invites and personal letters went into their own piles to be sorted through later. But this particular envelope was opened and then closed once more by his staff, and Erin Duong, a fairly new SI employee who worked in his mail room, came to his office personally, the envelope in his hand.

Tony looked up from his work when her knuckles tapped against his open door, and it took a moment to place her name. "Miss Duong. How can I help you?" he asked, pushing himself to his feet. The woman's eyes darted down the hallway, and that's when he'd known that something was wrong. "Please, come in," he urged, stepping around to the other side of the desk as Erin stepped into the room, hesitating only a moment before shutting the door behind her.

It was strange, and they both knew it. Mailroom staff didn't come to his office. It wasn't that they weren't allowed. They just...didn't do it. Ever. Once or twice a month, he made a point to take a tour of the building, checking in with employees he didn't usually see and doing his best to commit their names to memory. He'd met her a few weeks ago, and occasionally Friday would bring up photos of his employees while he was working and quiz him on names.

He had a 43% success rate, which he argued wasn't that bad.

Erin hesitated for a moment, then when she spoke, her voice was soft. Subdued. "Sir...I was in the mail room, looking through today's mail, and...I found this. I believe...I think you'll want to see this."

Eyes narrowing in confusion, he nodded, taking the envelope when she placed it in his hands. Opening the already ripped flap, he glanced inside, then pulled out the photos, his blood turning to ice as soon as he saw the first one.

Penny, backpack thrown over her shoulder, a smile on her face as she turned to Ned who seemed to be speaking, the two of them in front of her school. The next one, Penny, leaving her apartment building, a scarf wrapped around her neck, a purse slung over her shoulder. In the third, she was climbing into the back of Happy's car. He could vaguely see his head of security, the man, arm thrown over the front seat, body twisted around as he spoke to her.

And in all of the pictures, there was a target on her face. He reached into the envelope, heart pounding in his ears, but found nothing else. No note. Nothing.

Then he flipped the photos over then, eyes scanning the blood-red letters, written in dripping ink on each photo, a dozen times before his brain managed to make sense of them.

'Such a pretty girl.'

"Has there been anything else like this?" His voice was cold. Flat.

"No, sir."

"Anything about Penelope Parker?"

"No, sir."

"There's no stamp...so...so someone dropped it off?"

"Yes, sir, but I don't know who." The woman's eyes were glued to the floor, as if waiting for a reprimand, and Tony forced himself to take a breath.

"Okay. I'll have Friday try to figure it out. Thank you. Can you keep an eye out for anything else involving my interns?" As if he had more than one.

"Of course."

Tony didn't tell Penny. But he did tell Happy. Warned him to keep an eye out. He also stationed several of his security staff around her building. And her school. All plain-clothes of course. And he started having her over to the tower more often, giving no explanation for the more frequent movie nights and lab days. But she noticed, of course. And three weeks after he got the letters, while Penny was sitting next to him on the sofa, the two of them sharing a bowl of popcorn, she finally asked. "Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah, kid?"

"What's going on?" She didn't ask angrily. Didn't complain about the fact that he'd been picking her up from school several days a week, or that he'd asked her not to patrol after dark, or that he'd been checking in with her every day. In fact, he thought he was happy about those things. Happy to spend more time with him. And he would have felt the same way if it weren't for the pictures in the Manila envelope that he'd given to Happy to file away as a security threat.

His old friend had paled when he'd seen them the first time, swallowing hard and shaking his head. "What the fuck, Tony?"

"I know."

"Who the hell would send you this?"

"I'm going to find out." The rest was implied. That he would demand answers from them. That he would hand them over to someone smiled in interrogation and maybe even torture to find out why the hell they'd thought it was a good idea to threaten Tony'a kid.

Unlike Happy, Penny's voice was small. Hesitant. Almost afraid. And he couldn't lie to her. Not when someone might be after her because of him. Not when she was in danger.

"A few weeks ago, I got...some pictures. In the mail here at the tower."

"Pictures?" she asked, looking up from her popcorn. He gestured to the TV and Friday paused the movie.

"Pictures of you."

"Me," she repeated, brow furrowing in confusion.

"You. Penny Parker. Nothing about Spider-Girl. I've got security watching May 24/7. Your building. Your school. Whole nine yards."

"Okay…" Penny murmured, nodding and trying not to look afraid. She never wanted to look afraid. Instead, she tried to seem serious and ready, which should have been his first clue as to what would happen. "So...who sent them?"

"No idea. I've got Friday on the lookout."

And that had been it. She'd apparently trusted him.

He should have known better. Why hadn't he known better? Why hadn't he nipped it in the bud right there? He should have known that Penny Parker didn't let things go.

The news stories on the New York Lady Killer came too late. By the time it was big enough to gain enough attention to get on the news that Tony was watching, it was too late. They thought it was a man. Assumed it was a man. The women skewed young and were mostly found in alleys by the river, with marks on their wrists that looked to be left by rope. Thin rope, tied too tightly. A few of them were drugged. One was strangled. Three of them were found with their throats cut. All young. All women. But other than an assumed gender, they'd known nothing.

Penny went missing after school on a Tuesday.

That's when Tony got the next envelope, Erin Duong using the emergency override to take the elevator to his penthouse where he stood in the living room with Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy. The only ones he had left. Ever since the call from May, letting him know that Penny hadn't come home after school, and that she couldn't reach her, his heart had been racing, jumping into his throat and staying there. Penny was gone. Her phone was turned off. But it wasn't until he saw Erin standing in the elevator, the envelope clutched in her shaking hand, that he truly started to panic.

Rhodey was the one that grabbed the envelope from Erin's shaking hand, dumping the photos out and staring at the them along with the Tony and Pepper. They were all Penny, sans target this time. All in full color, showing off the blood that ran from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Face too pale. Eyes unfocused. Hands tied to a headboard, body limp on a bare mattress, ankles tied together to the footboard. Drugged. She had to be drugged.

And on the back, in those same red, dripping letters, was another message.

"She's even prettier when she bleeds."

Tony threw up in the trash can, dropping to his knees as Pepper clutched his shoulders, and Rhodey pulled out a cellphone, pressing it to his ear. "Steve," he heard the man say in a clipped voice. "We need your help. Right now."

May practically moved into the tower as Tony and the Avengers combed the city, with Happy alternating days spent with her, making sure security at the tower was foolproof, and driving around the city. They found her phone first, cracked and covered in blood in an alley. An alley by the river. Penny has no reason to be by the river. She had no reason to be there.

So, Tony realized, she had known. She'd used herself as bait. And he couldn't even be angry because every minute of every day he felt like throwing up. Like he might lose it at any second. Steve Rogers and the rogues were helping, looking in every warehouse and every alley. Tony went on the news and offered a cash reward. He doubled it every night. Pepper went on live TV daily, giving updates on the search and asking for the public's help.

The Lady Killer typically held the women for a week, the news reported before showing Penny's school photo. It had been eight days. Every day, Tony waited for the report from Friday or one of the news outlets or one of the rogues to give him the inevitable news. To tell him that Penny was gone. Truly gone. That he couldn't save her. That he'd failed.

Sam Wilson was the one to find her, and he called Tony immediately. "Tony? We got her."

Tony didn't ask about her kidnapper. He knew that if Natasha was around, she would take care of him. Instead, he flew straight to the coordinates that Sam had given him, bursting through the front doors of the house. A house. A normal looking house in the suburbs. Penny had been held in the basement. The basement of a blue house with a white door and a christmas wreath in the suburbs.

Sam was kneeling beside her, and he must have searched the house for a blanket because she was covered from neck to ankle with a throw covered in puppies. Her wrists bled sluggishly, arms limp at her sides, and the man was rubbing her bare feet. "She lost circulation. We've got to get her to the tower, now. She needs medical"

Tony just nodded, dropping to his knees at her side, a hand coming to rest on her pale cheek. She didn't look at him. Didn't even open her eyes. "What did they give her?" Tony choked out, his voice breaking as he held his fingers to her throat, feeling for a pulse. She looked dead. But she couldn't be dead. Not her. Not Penny.

She was breathing. She wasn't dead because she was breathing and her lips were tinged blue but she was breathing.

"I've got all of the drugs in my bag. Guy's name is Fred Martin. He's a vet. He was giving her horse tranquilizers by the bucket. She's having trouble breathing. We have to get her on oxygen. She lost circulation to her hands and feet." Sam muttered the words as if to himself, jaw tight, eyes staring at her pale, bluish feet with a laser focus. The man wasn't seeing her as Spider-Girl, Tony knew, even though the rogues all knew now...had been told on the off chance that the information might help them find her. He was seeing her the same way Tony did, as a fifteen year old girl. A child. A scared, hurt child. It was why Sam's hands shook as he tried to warm her feet and why his shoulders were so tense they were nearly up to his ears.

"What else?" Tony demanded, grabbing one of her hands and rubbing it gently, adjusting the blanket over her shoulder.

"Her clothes are ruined but she was dressed. Wanda is upstairs looking for clothes and a first aid kit. There's a lot of scarring on her stomach and her legs. I think he figured it out...he was testing her metabolism. Seeing how fast she could heal."

"Nat has him?" Tony confirmed.

"Yeah."

"Did she kill him?"

"Not yet. She's getting information."

"Here." The familiar voice made Tony jump, and he turned to find Wanda, a bag in her hand. He hadn't even heard her come downstairs. "I'm going to get her changed."

Tony didn't want to leave. Didn't want to let go of the girl's hand. He was crying, he realized, his heart racing in his chest, and he felt like he might throw up again any moment. But he stood anyway, following Sam out of the room. As soon as the door shut behind him, he dropped, sitting down hard on the floor and gasping into his knees as tears ran down his cheeks, heart racing.

She could have been dead. How much longer would she have survived? How much longer until that murdering psychopath would have gotten bored with her?

"Tony…" Sam murmured, kneeling at his side, a hand resting on his shoulder and squeezing. "Hey, we've got her."

Tony shook his head. "She was trying to catch him."

"She's going to be okay."

He glared up at the other man, knowing his anger was misplaced. "She was using herself as bait! And now…"

"And now she's safe." Sam cut in, voice hard. "And when she's hooked up to oxygen and pumped full of pain meds, you can talk to her about using herself as bait to catch serial killers. Until then, she needs you. Okay? She needs you, and that means you've gotta pull it together. And if you can't, you have to take the time you need to pull it together somewhere. Because that girl is going to be traumatized and scared and she needs you in your right mind. Okay? If you start freaking out, she's going to freak out."

Tony took a deep breath, forcing himself to nod.

"You gonna be okay to ride with her while we get her to the tower?"

"Yeah." He had to. He had to be okay with it. Because Penny was his kid and she'd just been through hell and he was going to be there for her if it killed him. So when Wanda called for them to come back in, Tony went straight to her side, glad that Wanda had cleaned her up and dressed her in what looked to be warm clothes, then rewrapped her in a new blanket, this one with a wolf howling at the moon.

Still, the girl didn't move even when Tony took her hand, squeezing gently and wincing at the already-bloody gauze that Wanda had wrapped around her wrists.

"Hey, honey. I'm right here. I'm gonna be right here with you, okay?"

If the girl heard him, she didn't give any indication. But Tony didn't care. He was never letting this kid out of his sight ever again.