Two: Sniffles and the Flu

"Whoa what happened to you? You look like you go ran over with a car."

"You look terrible."

Penny sniffled as she glared at her two best friends who were looking at her with concern. Couldn't they hide how terrible she looked for 5 minutes at least. Penny knew that she looked terrible. They didn't have to rub it in her face. She reached into her purse for some Kleenex so that she could rub her raw nose.

MJ frowned when Penny sneezed several times. "Uh, Parker should you even be in school? Are you that excited about Algebra?"

Penny's face was flushed bright red and she had dark circles under her eyes and she couldn't stop sniffling to save her life. She pulled on her tights as if that would help to stop the cold. "No, but I can't miss any more school. The school already gave me a warning, and I don't want Aunt May to get into trouble."

For the past semester she had missed 32 days of school thanks to a combination of Spider Woman injuries and a handful of missions overseas. May had already warned her that if she missed any more schooling she would confiscate the suit.

MJ nodded as she cocked her head to the side. "Why have you've missed so much school. You've been MIA for a while now."

"Uh," Penny and Ned exchanged looks. MJ rolled her eyes. "Fine, don't tell me. I'll figure it out." She grabbed her bag and headed to Art class.

Ned looked at Penny with concern, Penny was leaning against the wall, half asleep. "Are you sure that you don't want to go home? I'm sure May could pick you up."

Penny shook her head, hating how much her head throbbed. May was on her 4th 12 hours shift of the week and her aunt was exhausted. The last thing that she wanted to do was bother her. "I'm fine Ned, don't fuss."

They headed to their first period art class, the only excited one was Michelle since the only thing Penny and Ned exceled at was drawing stick figures and that wasn't going to get them A's anytime soon. Today they were working with watercolors and Annie (the art teacher who refused to be called by her last name or by using the word Ms. like other great artists) was explaining how they should play around with color.

Penny was trying to listen, she really was, but it was so hard to concentrate, not to mention that she just felt hot all over as if her entire body was burning. Her head throbbed and the only thing that she wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep.

Ned started poking her side with a paintbrush. He was slightly frowning at her. "Are you ok?" Penny gulped slightly as she tightened the scarf around her neck. She was so hot, she just wanted to take off all her clothes.

"I'm fine, Ned." She croaked back. She looked at the clock and she felt as if her heart dropped. Seven hours to go. Annie was passing out water colors and chattering excitedly about all of the wonderful things that they were going to create.

MJ passed her some red paint. Penny looked at the red paint. It was the same shade as Tony's suit. The same shade of red as the lipstick that May always wore. The same shade as human blood.

Everything was spinning, and she suddenly heard scampering and her classmates hurrying over as everything went black.

She felt something cool pressing against the back of her temple. Penny felt her throat throbbed and it took her a moment for her to realize that her head was currently resting on someone's lap. "Easy squirt, you have a pretty high fever and we wouldn't want you to faint again, believe me we don't need any replay of the incident in the classroom. Rumor has it that it's all over the school's Instagram or was it Twitter? Which is more popular?"

She immediately sat up, her cheeks flushing bright pink at the realization that she had been using Tony's lap as a pillow. Tony would never let her live this down. "Mr. Stark, I am so sorry-"

Tony raised his hand, waving away her apologies. "I don't want to hear it, now stop looking at me as if you are going to burst into tears. Crying isn't going to solve anything you know."

"I don't want to cry," she insisted, but even she had to admit that her voice cracked a little. Usually Tony would have teased her even more, but this time he simply looked concerned, she didn't know which was worst.

Tony pressed a hand against her forehead and gave a low whistle when he realized how hot she felt. "Any reason why you're in school when you should be in bed? Is school Algebra that exciting?"

She gave a nervous laugh. "I've missed too much school already. Wait, why did you come? Why didn't May, is she-"

"Hold your horses May is fine," Tony said noticing the panicked look on Penny's face. "They couldn't reach her, they said that her phone must have died. Does that usually happen?"

She gave a slow nod, May usually forgot to charge her phone, Penny usually charged it for her, but she had been so sick lately that she usually fell asleep first. "So the school called me," Tony tried to sound casual, but Penny saw him fidgeting like he usually did when he was nervous. "Apparently, I'm second on the emergency contact list. When did that happened?"

Now it was her turn to fidget. "I don't know, May didn't say-"

"Don't sweat it," Tony said interrupting her as Happy pulled into Avengers HQ. "I'm just glad that it's me and not Cap. So do you need help getting up-"

"I'm fine." She said quickly as she grabbed her school bag and headed towards HQ. It was bad enough that she had fallen asleep on Tony's lap. Penny was still feeling incredibly tired and what she wanted was to crawl into bed, but for some reason she felt shy and kept fidgeting.

"Your room is down the hallway to the left," Tony seemed to read her thoughts.

"I'm not sleepy." She lied.

"Penny, you need to sleep."

"Can I stay in the living room for just a little while with you?" Tony nodded as they headed towards the living room. Penny curled against one of the couches feelings her muscles throbbing in tiredness. Her eyes fluttered in tiredness as she heard Tony fumble around in the kitchen.

A few minutes later he came back with a cup of tea. He handed it to her. "Here. Drink. It will help your fever."

"I didn't know you could make tea." She quipped.

"Don't be a smart mouth," Tony said. "And drink."

"Sorry, I'm late I brought Thai." Pepper paused when she saw Penny passed out on the couch and Tony comfortably playing a game on his I-Pad. "What's wrong? Did-"

"Pep, she's fine. The school called me when they couldn't get ahold of May. I brought her to the compound. She is sleeping off that nasty fever that she's got."

"I'm surprised that she even went to sleep. You know how shy and self-conscience she can be."

"Oh, I know, that's why I dropped a couple of crushed sleeping pills in her tea earlier.'

Pepper glared at him. "You did what?"

"What? It won't kill her, I'm not an idiot. I knew she wouldn't sleep if I asked her to, no matter how much I asked, so I took matters into my own hands."

-End of Chapter Two-

Thanks for your kind reviews!