Chapter Text
Penelope Brielle Parker simply knew that things were going to change from the very moment in time she spotted a girl from space fall from the sky.
It was just a normal training day when Friday alerted them to something crashing through their atmosphere, crashing and obliterating some of the freshly trimmed lawn. It was definitely the least of their worries, though. Their bigger worries included that a girl just came from nowhere, looked so human with her caramel skin, yet looked so alien with a golden light gently glowing around her body that lacked energy.
Call her shallow or say it’s not the best thing to come first to mind, but Penny immediately noticed how absolutely gorgeous she was (wondering if the alien even had a gender was a useless thought at the moment). Short curls of chocolate brown and freckles with violet and cerulean bioluminescent glow were quite enchanting on her. It ignited a fire of curiosity in the teenage trainee upon sight. Besides her observations, however, she was completely on the same page as the others: what happened to her?
Her injuries were not too gruesome, thankfully enough. While bandaging up a cut on her hairline, the tall figure’s eyes flutter open, revealing orbs of cognac behind her lids and whimsy lashes. Her lips come open to speak, but someone beats her to it.
“Everything’s alright,” Natasha Romanoff smoothly assures, standing beside the medical bed where the alien girl lied. “We’re treating you for some cuts and a fracture in your left hand, but there’s nothing else. It’s weird considering how hard you fell.”
She sighs. “Yeah, I can’t believe I’m not dead. You, uh,” She jolts up to sit upright, noticing the other people in the room, some looking tenser than others such as the brunet man against the wall directly across from the bed and a man twirling around a drumstick in a corner to her right. “You really have a nice atmosphere for me to not have died while coming in. Didn’t think Terra was that nice.”
“Terra?” One of the men in the room squints his blue-green eyes in confusion. He stands straight with his arms crossed.
“Yeah, this is Terra. I, uh, have heard it been called Earth, but Terra’s the official name for this place...I need a name, I can’t keep thinking of you as tall blondie with a shield on his back.”
“Steve Rogers, ma’am,” He answers warmly, not feeling too threatened. She looked like a kid, not to mention unsure about her surroundings. It didn’t look like he’d need to worry about her trying to kill everyone, or at least for the moment he wouldn’t.
The girl just looks at him for a few seconds. “...Stove Ruggers mom?” Her brows scrunch. It looked like she just swallowed foreign dirt.
Penny erupts into a huge, obnoxious snort, causing her to slap her hand over her mouth when she realizes what she’s done. She tries to ignore Tony’s commentary beside her about it.
“Wait!” The girl puts a finger up. She pulls out a petite device from her ear which everyone stares down as she messes with it. Soon enough, it’s back in her ear and she suppresses embarrassment. “Sorry, repeat your name again?”
“Steve Rogers,” He replies, but with a bit more discomfort this time.
“Steve Rogers!” The girl repeats with a grin. “That sounds so much better than Stove, no offense to anyone named Stove.”
“There’s no one named Stove here,” The man with a drumstick, known to the others as Clint, pops into the conversation.
“Okay,” She nods. “Well, I’m Galira Gahn and I’m looking for something. You know if you could help me find it?” Her face is full of hope and optimism, her complexion glass-like and healthy in the room’s light. It was almost like she didn’t realize her hand was fractured.
“Would you mind telling us where you’re from first?” Natasha inquires curiously, sitting at the foot of the bed with a facial expression of patience, but also anticipation from her. She took a sip of the post-workout shake she made only fifteen minutes ago. These fifteen minutes, however, felt more like a whole hour.
Galira pushes some of the covers off of her, revealing the top half of the semi-metallic gold suit that hugged her curvy body. She kicks her legs around so she’s sitting in Indian pose. “I’m from Chamano?”
All she receives in response are non-understanding stares from everyone surrounding her, almost as if they’d seen the mouse on a computer move all by itself.
“Where’s Chamano?” Penny meekly wonders aloud. Her posture is a bit shortened, obviously nervous. That’s kinda what happens when an alien girl crashes on Earth. At least she didn’t seem hostile or like she wanted to kill anyone.
“Oh, yeah, you’re right, the planet is a bit isolated,” Galira looks at her wrist and pulls up a holograph, tapping around with ease to show a graphic of her home planet. She gestures to the screen. “Chamano,” The girl points, then zooming out to display the planet, a moon, and other planets orbiting the sun of Thasis. “You know the Thasis sun?”
“We only know our own sun,” Steve replies.
“Well, we know of other suns, but we’ve never actually traveled to them,” Tony contradicts. “It’s all Nasa’s work.”
Galira bites her lip. They did say Terra was a bit backwater, but it didn’t bother her as much as it bothered some. “Alright, well, we tracked a meteor crash to here,” She swipes over to another graphic depicting fire and smoke on a cloudy August day. “This was a year ago. Is the meteor still there?”
“Uh,” Tony starts over to the bed, Penny deciding to cautiously follow behind. “That was cleaned up a week after it happened,” He recalls clearly. His own crews assisted with it. “Just south of White Plains.”
“Yeah. See, here’s the thing,” Galira begins an explanation. “Our DNA, that which travelled with the meteor after the Hushulian attack. Our Autralan DNA? We need it back. We need whatever it’s infected, whoever it’s infected. It can pass from thing to thing, creature to creature. Then,” She shows a map. “It infected something and traveled into your city to right here,” She taps her finger over the location.
A gap grows between Penny’s lips, eyes large with the memory. “...Oscorp,” She whispers, a disturbing tone of horror in her voice. This couldn’t have anything to do with that spider or Norman Osborn...right?
“But then here’s the kicker,” Galira continues. “It travels throughout the city consistently every single day. Its common locations include here,” She shows a location in the one and only Queens neighborhood.
“You’ve been to Oscorp, Pen,” Tony turns to look at the five-foot-five girl beside him. “Anything suspicious?”
“Uh-um,” Penny blinks and stutters, then comes a swallow. “...The spider.”
Tony looks back at the screen. She’s told him the tale of the spider that bit her, leading Penny to the Spider-Girl persona. That couldn’t be it. The spider was just another lab experiment from the scam that Oscorp was. The zig-zag path includes Midtown High School, the Parker residence in Queens, the very compound they stand in right now. He takes a good moment to think, comprehending the map and possible factors.
“Oh. The DNA? It’s in this place right now.” Galira taps a button.
Penny jolts, shutting her teeth against each other, gritting out a swear and then gasping for breath when the pain was over. When Tony starts to fire questions at concern of her as Steves barks out a question at the alien, she gestures to him in a fanning motion to signal that she was fine. “I’m...not Autralan. Autralan, you said?”
“My species, the native superior one of Chamano,” Galira clarifies. “...Yeah. Yeah you are.”
“I’m fully human, Terran, whatever. I’m not an alien,” Penny shuts her down clearly with strength. “Both of my parents were human, my aunt is human, my uncle was human, period!”
“You were human. Now you’re quarter Autralan when the DNA got into your system,” Galira explains. “Don’t worry, you’re not some grotesque slimy alien, I promise,” She laughs, giving off a brilliant smile, white teeth behind her lips are identical to a human celebrity’s.
“Miss Gahn,” Steve interrupts. “I think we’re gonna need to sit down and explain from the beginning.”
The story of a civilization’s birth, catastrophic half-death, and uprising was enough to definitely have Penny stressed out. Not to mention that their dead monarch’s DNA was hers, now.
The teenage spider-child lies flat on the bed of her compound guest room. Yes, the TV was on, but she was not listening. She was too much part alien to be listening to the TV. Penny didn’t even know. She thought she was bitten by a radioactive spider that was Oscorps lab freak, not a spider that was infected by alien DNA. Let’s not even mention how they need the DNA-infected to come back with her to Chamano, a planet far away from Earth and a planet that was not Earth, and for a reason not known to her yet.
Penny was clueless as to what she was supposed to do, as were the Avengers probably debating it outside in the living room or somewhere far from where she was. She hadn’t told May or Ned or MJ. She was freaking out alone, no idea how she could even talk to someone.
But then her stomach growled. She could at least stop her hunger.
She took a moment to slide off of the bed, dressed in a maroon-colored sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. Her hair was tied on top of her head with a scrunchie in a fat bun. The skin of her face was without makeup, some hormonal acne on her chin showing up but she didn’t care, at the moment. All she cared for was a sandwich or something.
Penny steps out of her room, slippers gently making noise against the immaculate floor of the compound. Noise is minimal, the only thing heard besides her presence is the TV in the living room. Hoping no one was there, she enters the space to find only one person: Galira.
Her eyes fall to the floor, hoping she could quietly sneak past her and barely utter a word to her. Penny didn’t loathe the girl, but it was really terrifying to face her right now.
“I know Kinhda at home will kill me, but Terra is just not that undeveloped. In fact, it’s a lot like us,” Galira acknowledges, body lying down on the sofa, eyes peering to the tv until she leans up and gets onto her feet. Her eyes find the blonde girl’s. “I like your name, by the way.”
A strange micro-expression snaps in and snaps off of Penny’s face before she looks up. “I’m sorry?”
“Your name is pretty,” Galira softly repeats, strolling towards the quartz counter-top and sitting on it in Indian pose.
“Thank you?” Penny blinks before going back to making a peanut butter jelly sandwich out of the healthy bread with seeds that Pepper liked as a substitute to white bread. “I actually thought the same of yours,” She hesitantly adds. If she was blushing, right now, she was surely screwed. At least the lighting was dim, most lights off beside one in the kitchen and the tv never ceasing. Maybe it hid her expressions enough.
“Ah. It’s just a family name. My mom’s sister’s and now mine. Not as bad as, uh...Cocaine?”
Penny nearly chokes on a bite of sandwich she was taking. Thankfully, she’s able to eat it without trouble. “...Cocaine?” She repeats in shock.
“Yeah, it was normal before I learned it was a powdery drug here on Terra. Now I can go back to Chamano and tease him about it,” Galira smirks.
Penny can’t maintain a quiet, all-to-self manner, anymore. She lets out a giggle because she was dying and Ned would be, too, when she told him. “Is-is there someone named Marijuana, too?”
Galira’s jaw drops. “...Yeah.”
Penny’s head drops onto the icy counter and her laughter is muffled against her sleeves. She bangs her fist against the quartz a few times to add to it.
“What’s Marijuana?” Galira tilts her head in innocent curiosity.
Penny finds the strength to lift her head and show her face, taking in the girl’s breathtaking freckles. Again, she better not be blushing. “Another drug.”
“Lovely,” Galira shakes her head. Her expression changes to one that shows concern, however, instead of the playful and cheery one. “How are you feeling about stuff?”
Penny pauses, putting down her sandwich and her eyes drooping to the counter. “Um...Okay.”
“Well, okay is better than I want to throw myself off of a cliff, right?”
“Oh, well I feel that a lot, actually,” Penny clicks her tongue. “...I wish I knew sooner.”
“I do, too,” Galira slides away from the counter to stand again, starting towards a tense Penny. “But know you know. It’s your choice to come back or to stay here.”
“That’s a huge choice for me, Galira,” Penny frowns, tucking her hands in her sweatshirt pockets.
“You can call me Gal if you like,” Her lips purse just a bit, Galira’s eyes having the ever-so-slightest of a golden glow in its beautiful color.
“Gal…” Penny nods. “B-But yeah, it’s actually kinda, uh, monumental for me. I’ve never been to space.”
“That’s okay,” Galira assures. “Chamano’s atmosphere is safe for humans. It’s safe for almost all species, anyways, so you’ll be okay. As for the planet itself? It’s actually a stunning planet. May I show you?”
“Oh!” Penny takes a bite of her sandwich and then nods. “Yeah, of course.”
Galira brings up a holograph from her wrist gauntlet. “Basically, it’s a mostly ocean planet, but the ground there is completely crystal. All the grass is artificial and such. The days are similar to here’s. Sun rises at seven in the morning, eight at night. I swear the planet is your planet’s twin, sometimes. Creepy, right?”
Penny’s blue-green orbs stare into the imagery Galira swipes through. The oceans are purely turquoise, almost like a tropical place, but everything surrounding the beaches was definitely not tropical. The small sand beaches were pale blue, fine and with people walking on it gracefully. Behind the sand led to the normal crystal land she spoke of: semi-transparent, but with a beautiful pearlescent sheen that was not irritable to the eye. In the next picture were markets, a flood of colors attacking Penny’s eyes. People looked pleasant, food and items plentiful, the same thing for them shopping at what looked like a shopping mall with higher technology and sleeker design, maybe eight stories high of stores and looking like a place that had the pristine scent of a five-star resort. Then an incredible palace was shown soaring into the sky, wide just as it was tall, multiple skinny spires shoot up into the sky like ice crystals.
She sees the amazement in her eyes, escalating Galira’s pride. “Our palace is five times the height of your planet’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa?” She swipes into some interior pictures of the architectural masterpiece.
Penny’s eyes felt like they were nearly bulging out of her skull. “Five times the height of Burj Khalifa?” She clarifies in a state of absolute awe.
“Yeah, it’s absolutely massive. Biggest thing on the planet. I can show you around since I’ve been to every nook and cranny.”
“That would be amazing,” Penny whispers. She’s barely able to comprehend the flood of different places and things in her vision. Can her eyes even handle the saturation? She was sure not. “That’s really bright,” Penny shuts her eyes tight.
“Oh, don’t worry, these pictures are enhanced, I swear it won’t hurt your eyes in person. Anyways,” Galira swipes the photos away to leave a blank screen. “What’cha thinking?”
“Uh,” Penny blinks. She was thinking about a lot of things. There was the fact that she was quarter-alien and that the government of Chamano wanted her to come to their home because she held their DNA. God, she’s never even been to space before. This was all an intriguing, yet torturing reminder that there were bigger things than herself, and not just the Avengers or Shield, but beyond her own planet and in an infinite universe of infinite things and people. Despite all the entities in her brain, all that came to her mouth was a simple, “Nothing.”
“That’s not true,” Galira insists with the shake of her head. “Tell me. Correct me if I’m being nosy or peculiar, but opinions are meant to be voiced.”
“Well...I don’t know if I can go to Chamano,” Penny admits, twiddling her thumbs against the counter top.
Galira tilts her head. “How come?”
“It’s dangerous, unknown, my aunt has no reason to let me go, especially not without her, and someone has to make a living for two people in one of the most expensive cities in the country.” Penny didn’t feel like giving her aunt a heart attack while she was at work, and she never had the urge in her life. Besides, there was school, all the homework, the tests, missing Ned and MJ, probably many other factors she didn’t even think of yet.
The Autralan girl hums, about to suggest solutions when Penny continues and she lets her lips close for moments more.
“And it’s not like Mr. Stark would let me go, nor would the other Avengers. They would need to come with me and I don’t know if they’d be up to that.”
By this time, Galira has started to randomly forage through the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. “Oh, he’s not your father? Can I drink this, by the way? Should I pay for it?”
“Huh?” Penny looks up and to her right. “No, you don’t need to pay for it, you can have it. And Mr. Stark? He’s not my father, absolutely not,” She answers adamantly.
“Really?” Her voice is legitimately surprised. “It’s just that you stood close around him. Uncle?”
“No, we’re not related. He’s…” Penny trails for a few seconds, scraping around her brain for a good adjective. People have mistaken them for father and daughter before, the Daily Bugle once having wrote a hideous article about them when there was a fancy gala and he had her as a guest (she was sure that was the most beautiful she’s ever looked in her life). “He’s my mentor,” She settles.
“Oh. Well, you two seem to be on good terms?” Galira’s voice is somewhat meek, aligning with the look in her eyes.
“Yeah, he’s actually really great. A while after I got the spider bite, he found me on Youtube and recruited me,” She explains casually. It was crazy how time flew from him spitting out May’s walnut loaf to him sighing about her putting on Spongebob on the living room tv. It was amazing how she was here, who she was around, the relationship she’s developed. There were many ways you could interpret the relationship, but for Penny, it was exactly how she verbally depicted it: a mentor and a mentee, or at least that is what she says to herself.
“That’s cool.” Galira gulps down some water. “Wow. Even the water is nearly the same.”
Penny playfully squints her eyes and laughs. “Lovely observation you’ve made. You writing them down, too?”
Galira hums. “You know, I think you should talk to Mr. Stark about the whole Chamano thing. I don’t think you’ll regret at least visiting. There’s a lot out there to see.”
Ah, yes, Mr. Stark. Penny really did hope she wouldn’t need to argue with him, that would be the worst thing in the world, and don’t even get started with her aunt. She loved her to bits and pieces, but there were no words to describe how much she wanted this. And it wasn’t even just May, she had realized that Mr. Stark was always trying to watch out for her, a painful way to think of it considering that was exactly like Ben. So when that idea popped in her head, she had to shut it down, and shut it down she did. As for the opportunity to see outer space? “...Yeah, I know.”
“Think about it for me? ‘Cause I’m going to bed. I was offered a guest room out of the kindness of their hearts.” Galira yawns and starts away, water bottle being tossed from one hand to the other. “Goodnight, Penny.”
Penny stands upright. “Uh, goodnight Gal,” She rushes to return as her willowy body exits the room, leaving her own figure alone in a dimly-lit kitchen. Yeah, Galira was plenty right that she should talk to Mr. Stark and May, but how?
“Is Mr. Stark asleep yet?”
“No, he is actually heading your way, Miss Parker.”
Penny sighs. “Even better,” Her voice is quiet and sarcastic. She pulls a hairband from her pocket and starts playing with it, even when he comes in and greets her. “Hey,” She replies.
Tony’s in a baggy ACDC t-shirt and some black sweatpants, hair a bit ruffled as if he’s been in bed or just lied down on a sofa. “You doing alright, kiddo’?” He inquires softly as he makes his way over to the teenage girl.
“Um, okay,” Penny murmurs nervously. “...What about you?”
“I’m just glad Galira wasn’t some alien warlord plotting to implode the planet,” Tony lowly jokes. “On a brighter note, she’s a teenager like you. Not to mention super-powered and crashed from space. I think she has flight-skills just like Carol.”
Penny nods in silent agreement to the reference about the intergalactic heroine they met half a year ago when she came to check on the Earth. She got along well with her, Tony, and Penny was sure she had a bit of a thing for Natasha, but that never bloomed into anything to her knowledge. The Avengers and the captain had settled on an agreement that she would come by at least every six months, providing them with updates and such.
“Do you wonder if you have those flight skills? There’s supposedly more in your fancy alien DNA than you’ve uncovered.”
“I’m primarily concerned about the fact that I’m being offered to travel off-planet.”
“Yeah, I don’t know about that one,” Tony shakes his head a bit. “Theoretically, we could, but what guarantees we don’t get attacked on the way or ambushed once we land?”
“Chamano barely has the population of Norway, I’m sure it’s safe,” Penny tries confidently, although sure that her attempts would be futile.
“There are also people outside of Chamano.”
“Galira said the sector is generally pretty safe as well.”
“She could be saying that just to get you there.”
“Well...trust goes both ways.”
Tony leans against the counter where the sink is across from Penny, the blonde girl turning around when he moves. “Why do we need to trust her?”
“It’s a nice feeling to.”
Tony bites back the urge to say that he didn’t know what that felt like, but he remembers things have changed with time towards Steve and the others. It’s not as bad as it was before. He actually considered each and every one of them his friends. It wasn’t that way for the first few years. Wanda was still a personal tough cookie for him, but they weren’t enemies. He and Barnes had broken some of the ice, but the rest would probably melt with time. However, all he sees in Penny is this innocence and positivity, not yet ruined by life’s events. Wow, that really reminded him of how old he was. “Do you trust my opinions?”
“Yeah, of course I do,” Penny does not skip a beat in her response.
“Kiddo, you’re not a space alien, first of all-”
“Never thought I was,” Penny interrupts him. She decided to shoot her hairband like a bow and arrow and it lands over a decorative fake peony flower in a ruby red vase on the counter.
The corner of Tony’s lip curls for a second before continuing. “Second, do not have an identity crisis. This doesn’t change the fabric of who you are. Now you just have new information to have in your huge library that is your brain.”
“Incredible words from Tony Stark, huh?” Penny smirks sarcastically.
“You bet’cha. But tell me the truth, Pen,” His voice gains gravity, eyes heavy with the paperweight of fear. “Do you want to go to Chamano?”
The expression on her face is immensely and utterly perplexed. “Of course I do, why would I not?”
“Well, I sadly can’t use homework as an excuse anymore since it’s the middle of June, right?”
Penny rolls her eyes, starting to walk around the kitchen randomly, somewhat of a coping mechanism of talking to him and many people in general on tough topics. “No...But she showed me the planet. I have no words to describe the wanderlust and the pretty much desperation to go.”
“Would it kill you to not go?”
“Yes?”
“I think it could kill you to go.” It hurt to be negative, but the anxiety seemed to be the puppeteer of his words. “We don’t know what’s out there-”
“Well, what if I said I trusted you to keep me safe?” Penny blurts out, but by the time she realizes she’s said something a little odd, Tony’s brain gears are already visibly spinning. “That’s…” Penny starts slowly. “What the Avengers have always done. Sometimes I wonder how the world would spin around without you all.”
Tony bites his lip a bit harshly, but he doesn’t care. All he sees is Penny’s eyes and all he feels is worry and fear, remembering the Chitauri was a stab in the chest, not just like if Penny got hurt. But he sees her eyes…”Let me call May.”