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Location: Gotham City
Six years ago.
It had been raining when she arrived.
Penny Parker had woken up in an alley that smelled like rust and wet brick, her body aching, her suit torn, her mask half melted. The air was thick with smoke and sirens, colder than any New York night she’d ever known.
And when she looked up, the skyline was wrong.
No Avengers Tower. No Daily Bugle. No familiar hum of home.
Just jagged silhouettes, flickering neon, and the distant echo of laughter that didn’t sound human.
She’d been eighteen years old — hungry, exhausted, terrified — and for the first time since getting her powers, utterly alone.
The first month was survival.
She slept in abandoned subway tunnels and on rooftops. Scavenged tech from dumpsters, scrapped food where she could.
She patched her suit with duct tape and stolen fabric, and made a new pair of web-shooters out of spare wires and the motherboard from a junked laptop.
Even then — even starving, scared — she still couldn’t stop herself from helping.
A mugging in the Narrows? She swung in, tripped over a fire escape, and still managed to web the guy to a lamppost.
A runaway kid being chased by gang members? She scooped him up, left him on a fire station doorstep, and disappeared into the smoke.
She was messy. Clumsy. Too bright for Gotham’s darkness. But she was trying.
And Gotham noticed.
The First Encounter: Batman.
It happened two months after she landed.
She’d stopped a drug deal near the docks, webbing up the dealers and leaving a note that said: “You’re welcome. — The Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Woman.”
Batman found her before she could even swing away.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he’d said, voice like gravel and thunder.
Penny, panting, blood dripping from her temple beneath her mask, tilted her head. “I mean, I could say the same about you, Mr. Pointy Ears.”
He’d stepped closer, shadow swallowing her whole. “You’re reckless. Untrained. You could get yourself killed.”
“Yeah,” she’d said with a grin too wide for someone so tired, her mask stretching as she did. “But at least I’ll go down trying.”
He didn’t reply. Just… looked at her. And for the briefest moment, she thought she saw pity.
He vanished a second later, but the next night, she found a medical kit and protein bars left on the rooftop where she slept.
The Second: Oracle.
It started with a voice in her comms.
“Spider-Woman, is it? You’ve been tripping GCPD surveillance grids all over the city. Who are you?”
Penny blinked. “Uh, who’s asking?”
“Oracle. And you’re either the bravest or the dumbest person I’ve seen in a while.”
“Can’t it be both?”
A pause. Then, a soft laugh.
Barbara Gordon became her first real ally — patching into her web-shooters to help her track rogue activity, teaching her how to hack Gotham’s encrypted networks, occasionally scolding her for swinging into bullets.
“You remind me of someone I used to know,” Oracle had said once.
“Yeah?” Penny asked. “Hope they had better luck with laundry than me.”
The Third: Nightwing.
She met Dick Grayson during a hostage situation in Blüdhaven.
He’d been halfway through disarming a group of armed robbers when Penny crashed through the ceiling, webbed one guy in the face, and then shouted, “Hi! Sorry! Wrong building!”
Afterward, he’d offered her a hand up and a teasing smile. “You always make an entrance like that, or should I feel special?”
“Depends. You offering to pay for the ceiling I broke?”
They teamed up more after that. He taught her how to move quieter, hit smarter. She taught him how to weaponise sarcasm more efficiently.
Before long, she was his shadow during Blüdhaven sweeps — a blur of webbing and laughter beside the city’s golden boy.
The Fourth: Red Hood.
Jason Todd had heard rumours.
“A spider freak swinging around my city?” he’d grumbled. “Last thing we need is another bug in the belfry.”
Then she saved his life.
It had been an ambush in Crime Alley — three gangs, one Red Hood, a lot of bullets. Penny dropped in mid-firefight, deflecting gunfire with reinforced webbing and pulling Jason behind cover before he could reload.
“You’re welcome,” she’d said, panting, her suit torn again.
Jason stared, incredulous. “You intercepted live rounds with web fluid?”
“Yeah,” she said, shrugging. “I’m fast. You’re reckless. Thought I’d balance the scales.”
He’d scowled at first, but over time… the scowl softened.
They started working together more. Watching each other’s backs. Arguing, teasing, laughing.
And one day, Penny realized she didn’t just look out for him. She loved him.
The Fifth: Red Robin.
Tim Drake didn’t trust her at first.
She’d broken into one of his safehouses to steal parts for a new web-shooter. He caught her mid-theft.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Penny froze mid-reach. “…Borrowing.”
“With what plan to return them?”
“Uh, the ‘in spirit’ kind?”
But when she showed him the schematics for her multiverse stabiliser — the tech she’d been building in secret — Tim couldn’t help but be impressed.
“You built this out of scavenged WayneTech scraps?”
“Yeah. You should really fix your encryption.”
After that, he visited often. Sometimes to help, sometimes to argue theoretical physics until 3 a.m. They became friends in the language of caffeine and genius.
The Sixth: Robin.
Damian Wayne had drawn his sword the first time they met.
“Who are you?”
“Uh… Spider-Woman?”
“Ridiculous name.”
“Cool, and you’re Robin. Totally not redundant.”
He’d glared, she’d smirked, and Batman had to step between them. But months later, after she saved him from a League assassin, he’d nodded once — sharp, curt.
“Your form is sloppy,” he said. “But your courage is admirable.”
“Wow,” Penny grinned. “That’s like, the Robin version of a hug.”
He’d rolled his eyes. But later, he asked her to teach him how to swing using webs. She agreed — and from then on, he called her “Spider-Sensei” with just enough irony to make her proud.
The Seventh: Spoiler and Orphan.
Stephanie Brown had been the first to invite her for a girls’ night.
“You fight crime all week,” Steph had said, tugging Penny toward a diner. “You deserve pancakes.”
Penny, halfway through a plate of waffles with her mask tucked under her nose, smiled like it was the first real meal she’d had in years. “I think I love you.”
Cass (Orphan) had been quieter, but they’d bonded through motion — sparring, balancing on rooftops, learning to communicate without words. Cass saw through the jokes, through the pain, and accepted her anyway.
They became sisters.
The Eighth: Signal.
Duke Thomas had met her when she stopped a car crash in broad daylight.
“You’re real?” he’d asked, awed. “I thought you were a rumour.”
“Flattered,” she’d said, helping him to his feet. “But I’m more of a public nuisance.”
They partnered up for daytime patrols. He showed her how to navigate Gotham’s chaos in the sun; she taught him how to web-swing without screaming. (He still screamed. A little.)
Over time, the wariness faded.
The Batfamily didn’t just tolerate her — they embraced her.
She became their glue, their warmth, the balance between Gotham’s grim and Gotham’s good.
When she cracked the multiverse theory a year later, Bruce offered her lab space. When she chose to stay instead of leaving, Oracle said simply, “Welcome home.”
And when Jason finally asked her to marry him — on the rooftop where they’d first met — the entire family was there, pretending not to cry.
Now, years later, when Penny swung through Gotham’s skyline — laughter echoing against steel and storm — she wasn’t the lost kid who’d fallen through worlds anymore.
She was Gotham’s Spider.
Wife. Friend. Sister. Daughter.
The light in the city’s endless night.
And every time she landed on that old rooftop — the one where Batman had first told her she didn’t belong — she smiled, whispered softly into the wind:
“Guess you were wrong, Bats. I belong everywhere there’s someone worth saving.”