Prompt from a reviewer, Yolandaa: "Penny has PMS and wants to hide it but Tony is totally cool about it."
This was actually a story idea I'd thought of on my own and then I got the prompt so...
PMS
Penny crouched in front of her locker, teeth gritted, as the wave of pain crashed over her, then withdrew. Taking deep breaths, she gripped the door of her locker, careful not to dent the metal. She was at school. She had to be careful. If people saw her breaking her locker door, they'd start to suspect something.
But it hurt so much.
"Here." She glanced up at MJ who held out a little bottle, but Penny waved her off.
"They don't work." She told her friend with a groan. Ever since the bite, regular drugs didn't work on her, and she couldn't exactly ask Mr. Stark for the super drugs because she was having cramps. Not only was it not an emergency, it was humiliating. So she forced herself to stand, grimacing at MJ. "Thanks, though."
"You might want to talk to someone about that." Her friend suggested. "You need any stuff?" Penny shook her head, jaw tight.
"I'm good. Thanks." Michelle nodded.
"Alright. See you on Monday? We have practice until 4...the meet's coming up."
"Right. I'll see you then." Waving, she pulled her phone out of her pocket when it buzzed.
"I haven't got all day." The message told her, and she typed a quick one back.
"Sorry, Happy. I'm on my way!" Hurrying as best she could, she headed out through the front doors and immediately spotted the black car waiting for her on the street. All but running to the car, she climbed in the back seat, clenching her teeth when another wave of pain hit her. "I'm sorry." She hurried to apologize.
"Save it, kid." Happy ordered, voice gruff. He didn't sound any more irritable than usual, but for some reason, tears sprang to her eyes. He hated her. Of course, he hated her. He had to drive all the way down here to pick her up on Fridays and drive her to the tower and he didn't want to and she was annoying and…. "Kid?" His voice was several degrees softer and Penny realized that a tear had escaped.
"Sorry. Allergies." She told him, forcing a cheerful smile as she fought the urge to curl up into a ball on the seat...she knew that if she curled up in a ball and managed to position her body in a certain way, the pain would be bearable. "Do you have a tissue?" She asked, praying that he bought it as she sniffed. There was no way on earth she was going to tell Happy Hogan, the man that hated driving her and hated dealing with her and probably hated her that she was on her period and her stomach hurt so bad and she couldn't help crying at the drop of a hat.
She'd rather jump out of the car.
"Yeah. Here." He reached into the glovebox, then tossed a packet of tissues back to her. "You sure you're alright?"
"Yeah. Just been stuffy today." She lied, blowing her nose and slouching in the seat, hoping he didn't see her wiping at tears.
She was quiet for the rest of the ride, willing herself not to cry or give into the impulse to curl up into a ball to ease the pain that didn't seem to be getting any better. She'd been getting terrible cramps with her period since she was thirteen, but ibuprofen had always worked just fine. Then she'd been bitten by a radioactive spider, and on the plus side, she was almost never sick anymore, and all of her injuries tended to heal pretty quick. Unfortunately, normal medicine didn't work on her anymore, meaning that, more than once since the bite, she'd been forced to miss school several times when the pain got so bad that she couldn't even get out of bed.
She'd gotten pretty good at hiding it, and also fairly good at knowing how to get in a position that eased the pain somewhat. That position happened to be curling up into a ball as tightly as she could, knees to her chest, a pillow under her side. And even that didn't work 100% of the time. Still, it wasn't a position she could exactly assume at school...or in the back of Happy's car, so she kept her eyes on the road and clenched her jaw, doing her best to breathe through it. Finally, after almost an hour of traffic, he pulled up to the tower, and she hopped out before he could open her door, hurrying inside on her own.
Mr. Stark looked up in surprise when she entered the lab, tossing the screwdriver he'd been holding onto the table and approaching her, eyes going over her critically. "Hey, kid. You okay?"
She ignored the painful cramping in her stomach as best she could, nodding. "Yeah, I'm fine." He reached out a hand, pausing when she flinched back.
"Easy, kid." He murmured, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead. Just like Ben had when she was sick.
No, she told herself firmly. She wasn't going to cry. Not now. Not in front of Mr. Stark. Not because of something so stupid! He was checking to see if she had a fever. He pulled away after a moment, eyes narrow. "I'm fine." She told him, stepping back a little. He let her, looking skeptical.
"You're kinda pale, Pen. You're not hiding some kind of life-threatening injury, are you? Because if you die in my lab…"
"I'm fine, Mr. Stark." She told him again, her voice bordering on exasperated. For a second, she was worried, cursing herself silently. Why was she being snappy with Mr. Stark who was just worried about her and she was so lucky just to have him worrying and now she was being rude!
He gave her another long look, then shrugged, apparently not bothered. "Alright. Do you want to start working on that web fluid? I thought we'd take a look at your web shooters when you're done...I had some ideas for making them a little slimmer. Maybe if we can make them smaller, you can wear them all the time...like bracelets? And I'm still working with the nanotechnology but…" He kept talking as she climbed into one of the stools, resting her feet up on one of the rungs of the stool and trying to curl up in a ball without arousing suspicion.
It hurt.
It hurt so much. It didn't make sense to her that other girls could just go through their days in this much pain.
The pain came in waves that crashed against her lower stomach and she bit down hard on her lip until she tasted blood. She wasn't going to cry...she wasn't going to curl up in a ball and worry Mr. Stark and admit that she was on her period and that she couldn't deal with the pain anymore. It was bad enough that he thought she was a little kid...what would he think if she started crying because she had a stomach ache?
She took deep breaths as she waited out the pain, hands shaking as she tried to focus on the beakers on the worktable. She just had to measure out the correct chemicals. She knew this formula. Knew it like the back of her hand. She'd come up with it! But when she went to pour from one of her beakers, another wave of pain hit her, and her hand clenched too tightly around the glass, tears suddenly pouring from her eyes as the glass shattered and the liquid poured down her hand and arm.
Penny jerked her hand back, pressing her other hand to her mouth as a sob escaped. It hurt. It hurt and she couldn't do anything right and she was just a stupid kid that couldn't do anything and as soon as Mr. Stark realized that, he was going to kick her out. He was going to yell because she was so stupid and she didn't belong here and…
A firm hand wrapped around her wrist and she flinched but didn't look up from where she sobbed into her other hand. "FRIDAY was it anything that could hurt her?" He demanded.
"No, boss, although she does appear to be in a significant amount of pain."
"Alright." He murmured, pulling the stool backward a little so that she was further away from the shards of glass covering the worktable. A rag wiped at her hand and she flinched when it burned. "Open your hand, Pen." He urged, and she did, fingers shaking as she did. He swore under his breath, and she flinched when her hand stung again. She finally looked up at her hand and was surprised to see the blood covering her palm and dripping down her arm. Thankfully there was no glass in her hand, but he still looked at the cut carefully before finally wrapping it tightly in another rag to stop the bleeding. "Pen? You okay?"
Penny nodded, sniffing and trying to wipe her eyes. "I'm fine." She told him, taking a deep breath, then biting down on her lip when the pain hit again, curling up a little to try to make it bearable.
"Yeah, I can tell. Come here, kiddo." Her mentor ordered, voice soft. She let him pull her off the stool and over to the sofa, and she curled up in the corner, knees tucked under her chin, cheeks flushing as she finally gave into the urge to try and relieve the pain, wrapping her arm around her legs and hiding her face once more. She needed to stop crying...but it hurt. It hurt so much. Nothing she took would fix it, so if she could just stay like this and if Mr. Stark would just leave her alone for a little while, she would get through it.
"Talk to me, Pen. What's going on?" Mr. Stark murmured, and she glanced over to find him crouching beside her.
"Nothing. I'm fine...I'm sorry." She told her knees, and she heard his joints pop as he straightened up, and then he was sitting beside her.
"Come on, kid." Penny felt his hand on her back and wiped at a tear that dripped down her cheek. "Whatever it is, I'll fix it. Okay? Just...talk to me. I can't help if I don't know what's going on." Her cheeks were on fire and she refused to look at him. She couldn't do this. Couldn't tell the Tony Stark that she was crying like an idiot baby because of some stupid stomach cramps because she was on her period. "Kid, you're scaring me." He confided, voice soft as he scooted closer, rubbing circles on her back. She didn't want to scare him. This was nothing! It was stupid!
"It's nothing, Mr. Stark. I"m fine. I can go home…"
"Nope. You don't have to go anywhere." He murmured. "Was it the chemicals? Did you burn yourself?" She shook her head, knowing that the longer she waited, the worse it was going to be.
"My stomach just hurts." She whispered.
"Okay." He spoke slowly, sounding confused but no less worried. "Okay...are you sick?"
"No." She murmured, miserable. "It's just cramps, Mr. Stark. It's fine." Penny forced the words out, her face practically on fire, more tears filling her eyes, and as soon as she said it, she wished she could just disappear through the floor. There was a moment of silence and she could almost hear the click as the man realized what was going on. "I'm sorry...I can go home…"
"Here." Mr. Stark shifted from where he was sitting beside her, putting pressure on her shoulder and pulling her down until she was laying down, her head resting on a pillow beside his leg. Then a blanket was draped over her, and she would have argued more, but it was so comfortable and she could curl up as tightly as she wanted and it eased the pain. There was a moment of quiet, and she heard him walk away, then approach once more, and something warm was placed in her hands. She opened her eyes to find a heating pad in her hands and pressed it to her stomach.
After a few seconds, he knelt back down beside her. "You can't take anything?" He asked. She shook her head, wiping another tear from her cheek.
"Nothing works anymore." She practically whimpered.
"I have some pain medicine that might work...it's what we used on Steve. I need to test it with a blood sample...make sure there won't be any reactions." He hesitated, then rested a hand on her shoulder once more. "You don't have to be embarrassed, Pen." He told her softly, leaning in. "I've been exposed to women in my life, believe it or not. I also live with one." She wiped her eyes once more, finally looking up at Mr. Stark who was kneeling beside her on the floor. "Plus, there's literally an entire genre of Youtube videos of me doing idiotic things while drunk, including the time I peed in my Iron Man suit at a party I threw for myself...so, compared to that, this is nothing. There's no need for embarrassment. None, whatsoever." He promised, squeezing her shoulder.
She smiled weakly. "I saw that video when I was nine." He sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.
"Right. I really hate to hear that." She giggled and he squeezed her shoulder again, eyes softening. "Alright. Let me take a look at those superdrugs, and we'll give it a try. Is the pain always this bad?" She nodded.
"Usually. I keep having to miss school…"
Mr. Stark grimaced. "If these don't work, we'll figure something else out, okay?" She nodded once more, eyes hot. He ran a hand through her hair, brushing some out of her face, that soft smile still on his face. "If you're hurting, you can tell me, kiddo. I'm always here to help you out." He promised, patting her back. "Rest until you feel better, Pen. I'll be right back. Also, when you're feeling better, I'll show you where Pep keeps her secret chocolates."
Thank you for reading!