Hello everyone :) This story was an idea that came to me a long time ago. I can't remember if a prompt gave me the idea, or if I dreamed it up, but either way, I've had parts of it sitting around in drafts for forever. I thought it would be a good way to start writing some Irondad again. I hope you enjoy!

A Proposal

Penny Parker sat on the bottom bunk of her bed, the one May had bought her for her birthday when they'd moved to their new apartment, fighting the tears that wanted to stream down her face. They'd spent a full two days putting it together, and the first night after it had been finished, Ned had slept over, him in the bottom bunk, her on the top. They'd agreed to take turns. Sitting there with her cellphone pressed to her ear, she remembered suddenly that it was his turn to sleep in the top bunk. And from now on, she thought, she'd have plenty of time for sleepovers. Heck, maybe she could even rejoin the chess club.

Harry Osborn picked up on the first ring, a testament to how rarely Penny called him. She sat on her unmade bed, the stupid "I Love New York" t-shirt Tony Stark had given her to wear on the ride home crumpled in the corner, dressed instead in a pair of old, warm pajamas. Tears ran down her cheeks as she sobbed, trying her best to be quiet. May was worried enough…worried about the internship she'd lost and the skipping school and all the other changes in Penny's behavior since the bite…since she'd taken up vigilantism as a secret hobby. Of course she should have known that May would be suspicious…that she'd notice, despite how busy she was, that her niece was dropping most of her extracurriculars and missing class. She just hadn't put two and two together, and now she never would.

Penny wasn't Spider-Girl anymore.

Not without her suit. Without her suit, she was just some teenage girl. An orphan with two actual friends who still dreaded Flash's smart remarks and whose crush didn't even seem to know she existed. Just the thought of going back to before, dressed in her old sweatpants and hoodie and a homemade mask, made her chest ache. She'd had a chance to be a real superhero. She'd been helping people! She'd been trying to stop the Vulture! But then…then she'd messed it all up! She'd ruined everything. Why did she always ruin everything?

She wasn't just angry with herself though. Mr. Stark hadn't listened! He hadn't talked to her! If he'd just explained that he'd called the FBI about the Vulture, then maybe she would have let them handle it! Why couldn't he have just taken two minutes to give her a call? Or hell, to text her! Happy could have done it! Sure, the man seemed to hate her, but couldn't he have sent a single text message? "Tony called the FBI about that guy you're worried about." That would have been enough! Instead, he'd let her think he'd just been ignoring her!

Had she been that much of a problem to deal with? Had he hated her that much? She'd tried so hard to please him! She'd called with reports and had worked so hard to help people and she'd even saved that criminal guy from getting hurt!

"Penny?" Harry asked on the other line, confusion heavy in his voice. Ever since they'd started high school, him going to a fancy private school and her getting a full scholarship to Midtown, things had been a little…different between them. Not bad or anything. They still texted plenty, and kept up with each other on social media. But it just wasn't the same. She loved Ned, but she still missed her oldest friend sometimes. "What's up?"

"Hey," she whispered, trying not to let on that she was crying. It didn't make sense for her to call Harry right now. Ned was the one who knew about Spider-Girl. But Ned…he was amazing and she loved him so much. He was her best friend. They built LEGO sets together and could talk about Star Wars for hours. But he didn't get it. He couldn't. He saw Spider-Girl as this amazing, fun adventure she got to go on. He thought she was basically an Avenger. And sure, that was her own fault. She just hadn't been able to make herself admit that Tony Stark had basically passed her off to Happy who hadn't wanted anything to do with her in the first place. It was too embarrassing!

Mr. Stark had seemed happy with her after she'd helped him out at the airport battle with Captain America. So what had she done wrong? Why had he cut all contact with her after giving her the suit?

"Can you come over?"

Harry would get it. Hell, Harry might have even met Mr. Stark! His dad was Mr. Stark's direct competitor, and they probably went to fancy parties together or something. So…so maybe Harry would understand. He was in this world, more than her or Ned ever could be.

"To…to your apartment?" he asked. She didn't blame him for being confused. It was almost nine pm.

"Yeah."

"Okay…yeah, of course. Are you okay?"

She didn't know how to answer that. May had left for a double shift just a few minutes ago after getting Penny to promise that she wouldn't leave the apartment until it was time to go to school the next day, and she intended to keep that promise. But May hadn't said anything about her having someone over. "I'm…yeah. I'm okay. I just…I have to tell you something."

"Alright. Sure. I'll be there as soon as I can."

Harry Osborn had been her first best friend. Sure, she'd had other friends before she met him in science club when they'd both been in first grade. Back then, the other kids in their science classes had just wanted to make papier mache volcanoes to watch the vinegar and baking soda explode, but she'd wanted to build robots, and Harry had been the only kid smart enough to try and help her. Her mom had always let her help in the lab, the two of them doing experiments together, and being in the science classroom with Harry had made her feel like that…like she wasn't alone.

She hadn't been. Of course she hadn't. She'd had her mother and then, when she was about three, her mom had married the man she'd quickly come to think of as her father. She'd had May and uncle Ben, too, the four adults acting as the four cornerstones of her life. She'd had the other little girls she played with at recess. She'd had the boy who lived down the hall that she walked to the bus stop with. But Harry…it was like they spoke the same language. Science. The same language her parents had spoken.

But now three of those cornerstones were gone. For a while, that had been okay, because she'd been a superhero. And now…now she was back to being nothing.

She didn't know if she could go back to being nothing.

Harry didn't bother knocking. He never did. Instead, he walked right into their apartment, and Penny threw herself into his arms, hugging him as tight as she dared. It had been two months since they'd seen each other, and that was way too long. But they were both always busy. Thanks to his dad, he had an internship with Oscorp and extra tutoring in Latin and his work with his school's Robotics club. And she had Academic Decathlon and homework and, up until recently, patrols after school.

"I wish you'd transfer to Midtown," she whispered when he hugged her back.

"Is that why you wanted me to come over?" he teased, pulling away and looking her over, brows furrowed when he saw her red-rimmed eyes. "What's going on, Pen?"

She didn't know why she hadn't told him about Spider-Girl, other than the fact that she hadn't told anyone. Mr. Stark had figured it out on his own, and Ned had seen her crawling on the ceiling when she'd tried sneaking into the apartment. So she didn't know how to actually say it to someone, but if there was anyone she could tell, it was Harry.

So she led him over to the sofa, the two of them huddled together, him uncharacteristically quiet. She wasn't sure if the stupid Hello Kitty pants and the New York t-shirt had been a punishment or if they had been the first thing Mr. Stark had been able to find her, but she was suddenly glad she'd thrown them in the corner of her bedroom floor. As soon as he left, she'd throw them away. "I have to tell you something," she whispered, like they could be overheard despite them being the only ones in the apartment.

"Okay…you're kind of freaking me out. Is it something bad?"

"Kind of."

"Is May okay?"

She nodded. "She's at work."

"What about Ned?"

Harry and Ned weren't exactly best friends, but they got along. Now that she'd have more free time, she wondered if she'd be able to get them together more. "He's fine."

"Then what's going on?"

"I'm Spider-Girl." She'd worried that she wouldn't know how to say it, but the words came out in a rush, and once she'd said them, she couldn't seem to shut up. "From Youtube. It was me. I got bit by a spider on that field trip you helped us plan to Oscorp and…and it was radioactive or something and then I was really sick. But when I woke up, I was strong and I could…do stuff. Like…like climb walls and jump really far. And I made myself a costume and I started going out as Spider-Girl."

Penny wiped her eyes, sniffing and trying to stop herself from crying. The tears came anyway, but Harry just stared at her, blinking slowly. After a long moment, he leaned in closer, lowering his voice.

"You…you're Spider-Girl?" He pointed for good measure.

She nodded.

He processed.

Then he leaned in, lowering his voice even more to a whisper. "You got bit by a spider at my dad's lab?"

"Yeah."

"Does he know?"

She shook her head, eyes wide. "No. He can't. No one can." Penny wasn't Mr. Osborn's biggest fan. He'd always been nice to her, and he'd been generous enough to give her class a tour of his labs, but she still didn't want him to know her biggest secret. She didn't trust him, and besides, she didn't think she could ever forgive him for how he treated her best friend.

Unlike Ned, Harry got it right off, nodding seriously. "Right. You can't tell anyone. Secret identity…but…you're…you're a mutant! Or…an enhanced? What's the right term?"

"It doesn't matter." She waved him off. "The point is, I'm Spider-Girl, and Mr. Stark asked me for help and made me a suit, and I screwed it all up, and I don't know what to do now!"

Harry grabbed her hand, stopping her mid-gesture. "Wait…Tony Stark made that suit?"

"Yeah. And…and he put all these safety protocols on it but Ned and I disabled them and…and then the stuff happened with the Vulture and the ferry was going to break apart…"

Harry held up a hand, stopping her again. "Slow down. Tony Stark found out about you being Spider-Girl?"

"Right."

"And he made you a suit and you helped him…with Captain America? That big fight in Germany? Where they arrested some of the Avengers?"

She nodded.

"Then what?"

Penny told him the story. All of it. Starting with Mr. Stark showing up at her apartment and the big fight in Germany and the hotel room with the free chocolates. She told him about Mr. Stark handing her off to someone else when he was done with her, and even about the text messages she'd sent that had never been answered. She told him everything, all the way through what had happened after the ferry. Her cheeks burned with humiliation when she got to that part…admitting how badly she'd messed up. But when she finished with Mr. Stark dropping her off by her apartment and finally managed to make herself meet his eyes, Harry looked pissed.

"Why didn't he tell you he called the FBI?"

She shrugged. "Because I wasn't supposed to be there anyway. He told me to leave it alone."

"You couldn't leave it alone! Not when people were getting hurt."

Penny agreed, but she couldn't let herself off the hook entirely. "But those people…on the ferry…they could have gotten hurt because of me."

"No, they could have gotten hurt because of that Vulture guy." He grabbed her shoulder, shaking her a little. "That wasn't your fault. And no one got hurt, right?"

She shook her head. "No. But only because Mr. Stark got there in time to help." Penny wiped a hand over her face, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

Harry was quiet for a minute, then he squeezed her shoulder, expression fierce. "Screw Tony Stark," he told her fiercely, and she looked up, wide-eyed.

"What?"

"He was an asshole! He could have just told you what was going on! And acting like that then passing you off on some guy that didn't even want to take your calls!"

"I called him a lot," she admitted, cheeks hot again.

"It doesn't matter. So he took your suit…so what? You're still Spider-Girl!"

"Harry, without the suit…"

"Without the suit, you're still you!" he interrupted. "I saw you on Youtube. You kick ass, Pen!"

She had to laugh at that, a watery laugh, but a laugh nonetheless, and he smiled, looking just like the little boy she'd first met eight years ago in science club. She should have known she could talk to him. Harry knew her better than anyone. He'd always be on her side. "You really think so?"

"I know so. And…look, I think I have an idea."

"What do you mean?"

"You said you had an internship with him, right? Tony Stark?"

"Yeah? But it wasn't real." She shrugged, feeling another tug of regret. Why hadn't it been real? Why hadn't she been allowed to help with the suit, or even to come to Mr. Stark's lab and learn from him? Even once? He'd acted like he'd wanted to be a mentor to her, and then…then he'd dropped her. "It was just an excuse to patrol and stuff," she admitted. "So no one got suspicious."

"So…what if you could have a real internship? One where you could maybe build a suit of your own?"

She just stared at him, shaking her head. "What are you talking about? Mr. Stark isn't going to…"

"I'm not talking about Stark. I'm talking about Oscorp." When she was silent, he hurried to go on. "I think we can help each other. You need an internship for your application to MIT, and I know my dad's labs aren't as good as Stark's, but it's a real internship where you'd have access to the kind of materials and training you'd need to make your own suit! And I could help!"

"You think you could get me an internship with your dad's company?" It wasn't like Harry's dad didn't like her…the opposite, in fact. He was always nice when they crossed paths. But she also knew that some of his research tended to be…questionable, ethics-wise, and she also knew that he could be a real dick, especially to his son. Just because he was never a dick to her didn't mean she didn't hold it against him.

"I think my dad would be more than willing to give my girlfriend an internship."

She blinked at him, shaking her head, because out of everything he'd said, that made the least sense. Harry had told her that he was gay back in middle school when he'd first figured it out. In turn, she'd confided that she only liked girls when they were freshmen in high school before she'd told anyone else. It had been scary for her, coming out to May only a week after she'd told Harry, since her aunt was Catholic, but May had been supportive. Harry hadn't been as lucky.

And that's when she realized it actually did make sense. "Is he still giving you a hard time?" she asked, her voice going cold. She knew his dad didn't approve, and she'd never forgive him for that.

"Just…he makes these stupid comments sometimes," Harry admitted, shrugging, his expression telling her it was more than that. He'd always been too hard on Harry, at least in her opinion. From the time they'd been six years old, he'd been pushing his son…pushing him to be first in every single class. To learn whatever foreign language he thought might be helpful when he eventually took over the family business. To make friends with the right people and rub elbows with the children of other rich, powerful families. And no matter how Harry had felt about it, he'd always done everything he could to make his father proud.

It had been hard to watch, even when they'd been kids, and over the years, it had only gotten harder. More than once, Penny had held him while he'd cried over something his dad had said. She'd sat in his bedroom, listening to his father scream at him in the other room over some stupid mistake or another. And she'd spent at least two birthdays with him where it was just the two of them and May, her aunt buying him a cake because his father was out of town on business.

"I'm just saying…it would make my life easier, you know?" he admitted, breaking her out of her thoughts. "At least until I'm in college. The press is always trying to say I'm dating these girls I have to see at my dad's parties and…if I had someone to take with me…maybe he'd leave me alone, you know? He'd quit bugging me about it. And he already likes you. He knows how smart you are and he's always been really impressed by your work." He swallowed, lowering his eyes for a second. But then he was grinning at her, grabbing her hand and squeezing it, looking sheepish and hopeful all at once. "What do you say, Pen? Come to the dark side. We've got cookies and internships and fake boyfriends. Together, the two of us can build a suit that's way better than anything Stark could come up with."

In the end, Penny couldn't say no to that.

Thanks for reading!