Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, and/or their otherwise respective owners.
Author's Notes: Will I ever learn my lesson in the amount of fics I post? No, probably not.
Welcome to this story! This is the first installment of one series, and part of an overarching one called Into the Spiderverse. No, you don't need to read Into the Spiderverse to read this story or the rest of what will be the spinneret saga. Although, if you have, specifically if you have read heavy, dirty soul, you'll definitely come across some similarities between the two. I lovingly refer to them as sister universes, as up until the event in this chapter they basically have the same backstory for Penny. Everything else branches off after that, however. A lot of what happens to the heavy souls 'verse!Penny does not happen to this one, and the other way around.
Updates are...idk. I got this story planned out down to the chapter, but I don't have chapter titles figured out yet for all of the chapters and that impacts how I write a chapter, and I have other WIPs. It shall be finished, though! I have sequels to this story already planned out as well...for the most part haha.
Anyways, hope you enjoy. Until next chapter,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~the spinneret saga~
~birth of a heroine~
~prologue~
Penny remembered the car accident.
It happened on the night that her parents took her to go see Disney's The Princess and the Frog. She remembered being so excited to see it as her mom finished buttoning up her coat, the one that she always had problems with despite being eight years old and practically a full-grown adult already. "Are we going to get popcorn?" she asked her da – Richard excitedly.
Richard grinned at her as he mussed up the top of her hair, since the rest was pulled into pigtails. "Yeah, we're gonna get popcorn," he said, hazel eyes filled with delight. "Are you gonna want salt on yours?"
"Uh, huh."
"And butter?"
"Of course!"
"What happens if they're out of both of those?"
"Dad!"
"Rich, don't start," her mom warned. The last of the buttons done, she smacked a kiss to one of Penny's cheeks loudly, causing her to giggle. "Is your dad saying things he knows won't happen?"
"Yeah." She looked up at Richard. "Don't be such a worr – a worrier – " she still had problems with her "r's." It wasn't bad enough for speech therapy (yet), but she did have to concentrate on saying them " – Dad."
"I'm not!" he retorted, laying on his defensive but playful tone. "What if we get there and they have no salt and butter? Which one of us will be laughing then?"
Her giggles turned into full-blown laughter. "Stop, Dad!"
He raised his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright, I'll stop."
They went out to the car, all three of them. It was parked in front of their brownstone in Manhattan. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms. There was a little old lady named Mrs. Ditkovitch who her parents rented the garden apartment out to. As she pulled the door to her seat shut, she looked out through its window towards Mrs. Ditkotvitch's front windows. The elderly woman had a lot of cats, who Penny always liked to play with when the woman babysat her on her parents' date nights, or the business trips they had to go on every once in a while. Katya, the tortoiseshell, was sitting in one of the windows, having somehow managed to get herself up underneath the blinds to observe the street.
"Mom, look!" Penny said. "Can you see Katya?"
"I see her," her mom replied as she strapped herself in.
The ride to the movie theater did not take long. When they got there, Richard let her and her mom out, before he parked the car. He walked up to them a few minutes later, shaking the falling snow from his hair. "Alright, are we ready?"
"If you are," her mom answered blandly.
"Then let's go, my pretty ladies."
Richard held onto her left hand and her mom her right as they went into the building. Her parents got their tickets and then their refreshments, and sure enough the concessions had both butter and salt. She munched on a few pieces of popcorn happily as they went to find their theater number, and watched the advertisements and movie trailers with wide eyes once they'd found their seats. There were always so many things coming out, like the new superhero movie from DC. Although, in her opinion, the real life superheroes were so much cooler. Well, there was only one, him being Captain America from WW2, but still, he was so cool. Superman had nothing on him.
The movie was a lot of fun to watch. It was really cool to see Tiana, who wasn't a princess herself, become one by falling in love with and then marrying Prince Naveen. She'd never much cared for any of the princes in the Disney princess movies, but she did like him. He was kind, and handsome, and charming, with a good sense of humor. Maybe one day, she thought, she would find her own Prince Naveen. Someone who would sweep her off her feet, and wouldn't be as gross (or mean) as the boys she went to school with.
As if reading her thoughts, Richard leaned down to whisper to her towards the end, "Don't get any ideas, little bug."
"Dad!" she protested. "I'm trying to watch the movie!"
As the credits began to roll, her parents moved to collect their trash – and her purse, in her mom's case. "Did you like the movie, baby?" she asked.
Penny nodded eagerly. "It was so good! I think Tiana's my favorite Disney princess now."
"Oh, you don't like Mulan and Ariel anymore?" Richard teased.
She scowled. "I didn't say that! I said Tiana's my new favorite. Ariel and Mulan are still really cool."
When they walked out of the theater, Richard scooped her up in his arms, making her laugh as he pulled at her pigtails and pressed several kisses to her cheeks. "Guess what?" he said. "My favorite princess hasn't changed."
She shook her head. "I'm not a princess, Dad!"
"You don't think so? Well, I've got news for you, little bug: you're Princess Penelope, princess of the spiders."
"Richard," her mom said then. Her tone was so sharp, even as Richard continued to twirl her around, that Penny looked at her over his shoulder. Her mom offered her a smile when she saw what she was doing, but her golden-green eyes, turned completely gold by the light of the street lamps, were serious. "Watch what you're saying."
"I am," Richard griped, opening up the car door to deposit her into her seat and buckle her up, even though she could've done it herself. Lower, so low Penny doubted that anyone except for them would have been able to hear him, he went, "I didn't say anything out of the ordinary. Penny is the princess of the spiders. Has been ever since she was a baby. Our little Arachne."
"You don't know who's listening," her mom retorted.
"Nobody's listening. There's no bugs here except for our Penny."
Penny rolled her eyes. "Spiders aren't bugs, Dad. They're arthropods."
"I know, I know." But he wasn't just talking to her with that. Turning back to her mom, he whispered so low Penny had to strain her ears to listen, "I personally checked when I came home from work today. There were none."
Her mom frowned, but she said nothing in reply except for an, "Alright," before pressing a kiss to Richard's cheeks. Penny wrinkled her nose at this; her parents kissing was always so gross. "If you're sure."
"Surer than I've ever been," he agreed. "You need to relax, Mare. Nothing's wrong yet."
"'Yet,'" her mom muttered. "It's the 'yet' that I'm worried about."
Penny was used to her parents talking like this because of their jobs. She didn't know what, exactly, it was that they did: she knew that Richard worked at Oscorp, and that her mom didn't, but that their work was still somehow connected anyways. She knew that the bugs they were talking about weren't actual bugs, but didn't know what they were, and wouldn't for many more years to come. She knew that she wasn't supposed to repeat what her parents said, the half-riddles they spoke in all the time, because the man with the eyepatch that'd come to talk to them once when she was four and another time when she was six had made her promise not to. He'd been so terrifying, and she'd never seen him again because of her mom yelling at him for something about "indoctrination" and how she wouldn't let him "do to her what your predecessors did to me," but still Penny kept her promise.
She always kept her promises.
The snow was still falling as Richard pulled out of the parking lot for the movie theater. Christmas music played on the radio. She sang along to the songs that she knew, loudly, causing her parents to share a fond look. They always said she was very musical.
One of the traffic lights was red when they were about halfway home. Richard rapped his fingers against the steering wheel, waiting. "God, I hate traffic near Christmas."
"You always hate traffic," her mom said. "It's New York."
"Yeah, but it's always worse around this time of year. Tourists, people visiting family – " he waved one of his hands emphatically " – awful."
Her mom didn't sound like she believed him. "Uh, huh. You know, for a New York native, you complain about the traffic an awful lot."
"So you've told me. But may I remind you for the umpteenth time, I was born in Texas, not New York." He paused. "You know, maybe next year we could go to Iowa for Christmas."
"Do you really think we'll be done by then?"
"I don't know, but – "
"What's in Iowa?"
Both of her parents turned around to look at her. "Nothing," her mom said quickly, just as soon as the light had turned from red to green, illuminating their faces in the same light.
"The light's green," Penny pointed out.
"I see it, I see it."
Richard started to drive the car through the intersection."
Before he was even halfway across, a bright light shone out of the corner of her eye. Frowning, she turned to look at it, and –
"Richard, watch out!"
Sirens. Voices speaking above her. Radio intercoms. Do You Know What I Hear? by Bing Crosby playing.
She cracked her eyes open blearily, her head pounding something awful. At first, she had no idea what she was seeing. It wasn't because her eyesight was blurry, but rather because what she was seeing was so unusual. She was sitting in her parents' car, still strapped in, but instead of tall buildings and the night sky, there was asphalt in front of the windshield, along with slick from melted ice and snow. Her parents were still in their seats, but her mom's hair was standing up like it was upside down, and Richard's head was –
"...Daddy?" she whimpered. She was at the age where she didn't call him that often anymore, only when she was sick or especially upset, bit it seemed to be very much warranted right now.
It was then that she became aware of her own hurts. Her right arm was in absolute agony, and so was her left leg. Tears welled up in her vision from the pain, but instead of going down her face, she felt them go past her eyes, which now didbecome blurry, and up towards her hair.
"Daddy?" she called out again when there was no response. "Daddy, wake up!"
She heard her mom moan, her head turning slightly.
But Richard remained eerily silent.
Suddenly, there was a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She shrieked, gripping the left armrest of her seat as tightly as she could.
"Relax, you're alright!" a voice shouted, masculine and with a distinctive accent to it: a Southern drawl. Accompanying the voice was a buttoned-up grey detective coat with a black scarf, and then the face of a man who looked a bit older than Richard, with greying blonde hair and sharp blue eyes. "Everything's alright, sweetie. You don't have to be afraid."
But everything was not alright.
Penny sniffled. "Are you – are you a detective?"
"Wha – ?" He looked down at his coat. "No, I'm not. But I am a police officer. My name is Ben Parker. What's yours?"
Parker. He had the same last name as hers. Given, it wasn't an exactly uncommon surname, but...
"Penny," she said, and was unable to say anything more than that right away. She sniffled again. "What's – what's going on, Mr. Ben?"
He seemed to get a slight kick out of her calling him that, despite the situation. "You and your parents were in a car crash, Penny," he explained. "Another car hit yours. But we're gonna get you out, okay? The paramedics are on their way."
"...Okay." She reached for the buckle to her seatbelt.
"Don't unbuckle yourself," he warned. "The paramedics are going to do that for you, okay? Right now, I need you to do something for me. Can you tell me where you hurt?"
"My arm, my leg, and my head."
"Okay. What about your parents? They are your parents, right?"
"Yeah."
"Can you tell me if you see any injuries on them?"
"I don't see anything bad on my mom..."
"Good girl. Okay, what about your dad?"
She started to whimper.
Ben heard this. His expression softened. "Penny, can you tell me what's going on with your dad?"
"His skull..." she began, but was unable to finish.
Because she was pretty well-versed in anatomy, or at least as well-versed as an eight-year-old who was interested in everything science could be. And she knew what the white, curved thing resting on what would be the top of the car in any other situation was. She knew, too, that the top of his head should not be that pink nor red, nor showing the ridge marks of his brain.
Moreover, she knew without it needing to be said, that Richard was dead.
No one could survive an injury like that.
Before she could tell Ben anymore about Richard's skull, or the fact that he was dead, her mom startled awake. "P – Penny?" she moaned. She turned her head, right at the same time as Ben's face abruptly became slack. "Richard? Oh my God, Richard!"
Her mom's scream chilled her to the bone.
"Mo – Mommy!" Penny cried. Just like with Richard, calling her "Mom" just didn't seem right.
Her mom tried to turn around to look at her, but couldn't. "Penny? Penny, are you okay?"
Ben sprang into action, backing up towards her mom. "Mary. Mary, I need you not to move," he said.
...Wait, Ben knew her mom?
Her mom turned her head as much as she was able to look at him. "Ben?" she asked. "Oh my God, Ben, is that you?"
"Don't move," he repeated. "Mary, you've been in a car accident. You could have a spinal injury. The paramedics are on their way; they should be here any second."
Then her mom said something that would change their lives forever, outside of the fact that Richard was dead:
"Ben, my legs...I can't feel my legs!"
The paramedics arrived not long after, in all actuality probably only a minute or two. They worked on getting her and her mom out. They got her out first, pulling her out of the car once they got a collar wrapped around her neck and her back on a stretcher board. Both of them itched.
"Mom!" she cried out, reaching out her arms to her. She tried to sit up, but was pushed back down by the paramedics. "Stop! I don't wanna leave my mom!"
"Penny, it's okay," her mom tried to soothe her.
"Mom! No!"
"Ben," her mom said then. The man was still sitting down next to the car. His face was pale, and there were tears in his eyes. He looked like he was going to cry. "Ben, I need you to go with her."
Ben looked reluctant. "Mary..."
"Just go!"
That seemed to spring him into action. He stood up and started walking with the paramedics after they'd transitioned her over to a proper stretcher and wheeled her away, grabbing her hand in his. His presence calmed her; unwillingly, she started to settle down.
As she did, however, she saw a flash of white out of the corner of her eye.
...Huh? she thought.
Although it was almost impossible and Ben and the paramedics were telling her to lay down straight on the stretcher and not look at anything, she looked to see what it was. She saw another car, black and expensive by the looks of it. There was a person underneath a white sheet near it, with the sheet being tinged red in certain places.
But the sheet was not what had caught her eye: it was the symbol on the car. It wasn't like anything she had seen on most cars before. The symbol was a white "O," except it had a chunk taken out of it. In fact, it almost looked like –
She was loaded onto the ambulance before she could think anything more of it. Ben sat down next to her on one of the benches, the paramedics shutting the door behind them. Within seconds, they began to move. Ben kept her hand in his all the while.
Strangely, now without any distractions, Penny couldn't help but think that he looked familiar. She felt like she should know him. "Who – who are you?"
"I told you, my name is Ben. I'm your – " he stopped himself, putting his fist to his mouth to calm himself, and he shuddered in a breath before he spoke again. "I'm a friend of your mom and dad's."
Well, that certainly explained why her mom knew him.
But it didn't explain the full truth, she didn't think.
"I've never seen you around before," she noted.
Of course, she'd never really met any of her parents' friends before. She'd heard them talking about them sometimes, like a man named Clint, but she'd never met them. But she'd never heard them talk about a Ben before, most of all one who shared their last name. Or at least, not a time that she remembered.
"Are you...are you my uncle?" she wondered out loud.
Shock, then sadness flashed across Ben's features. He chuckled brokenly. "You're a smart cookie, aren't you?" he questioned rhetorically. "Yeah, I'm your uncle."
"Why have you never been around before? I've only ever heard of you." That was a lie. But Penny had heard of her her aunt May before, her mom's half-sister, once or twice in passing, even though she'd never had a face to put to the name. Her parents had said she'd had a...falling out of sorts, with them, long before Penny had been born.
Ben evaded answering her directly. "It's a long story. But don't you worry," he spoke as she made a face. "I'm here now, and I'm not gonna leave you."
And he didn't.
When they got to the hospital, Ben remained with her as they performed an exam to make sure she didn't have a concussion or any head trauma (she didn't), X-rays to check on her arm and leg, casts when they'd confirmed she'd broken each of them, and etcetera. He remained in the room they'd given her afterwards, admitting her for the night after the doctors had said they'd wanted to for observation, as a nurse gave her some medication to help her sleep.
"I don't...I don't wanna sleep," Penny complained, even as her eyelids were already falling shut.
"I'll be here when you wake up," Ben promised.
Indeed, he was there when she woke up too, and he was the one to take her home when she was released the next day, since her mom was still in the hospital. He stayed with her at the brownstone as he started to get all of the affairs in order for Richard's funeral. Mrs. Ditkovitch visited them every single day, even bringing over her granddaughter, Ursula, who was Penny's age, twice. "They're going to move, aren't they?" she asked Ben once when they each thought Penny wasn't listening.
Penny saw Ben's mouth harden. "I don't think they're going to have a choice."
He was right. The doctors had already told her mom she was never going to walk again, and the brownstone wasn't a building that could easily be made wheelchair-accessible. Ben and her mom talked about it when she got back home; ultimately, they decided it would be better for her mom to sell the brownstone and move the two of them into an apartment that would be more catered to her needs. But it wound up being not just the two of them, as Ben moved in with them, too.
Over the next several years, Penny forgot many things. She forgot the bugs her parents had talked about, and the man named Clint, and whatever it was that was special about Iowa. She forgot the "O" she'd seen on the black car that had caused the crash, and the image of the top of Richard's skull on the car, although she didn't forget the sheer dread and horror she'd felt seeing it. She forgot a lot about him, too, in the way that was inevitable as children grew older: she still remembered him clearly from that night, but the memories she'd had of him before that...they became few and sparse between, more of imprints than actual memories.
But besides her memories of Richard that night, of the car accident that night, there was one other thing – or rather person, that she remembered: the man with the eyepatch. He'd shown up to Richard's funeral, standing near the trees of the cemetery he'd been buried in, where he couldn't have been easily seen. But Penny had seen him: she'd seen the lines of his face made imperceptibly harsher by grief, and the way he'd looked at her and her mother. He hadn't said anything or approached them, hadn't given any reaction to the fact that she'd obviously seen him, although he had left before her mother could do the same.
It wouldn't be for many more years to come that she finally figured out who he was, either.
Word Count: 3,576
Next Chapter Title: a head full of dreams
