Chapter Text
If anyone looked at Penny Parker’s life on a piece of paper, they would say that had suffered many losses in her life, but she had bounced back and was prospering. Thriving even.
She was a straight A student in all the honors and a handful of AP classes at one of the toughest high schools in New York. (A school she had to take a bunch of tests to get into on a scholarship mind you).
She had a personal internship with the Tony Stark. A man who’s relationship with her had grown past the strictly mentor/mentee relationship that it once was, into a more father figure/daughter figure relationship and Penny was happy with that.
She lived in The Avengers’ Tower and had become close to all of the habitants. She had grown pretty close with all of them. But she had grown really close to Natasha and Clint who had volunteered to train her the second they saw her form for a punch. (The punch might have been aimed towards one Red White and God Bless America man, but that's all semantics.)
She loved to geek out with Dr. Bruce about science. Pepper had become her third maternal figure, with Nat as a close fourth obviously). And Thor was almost never there but he was always great for hours of storytelling and the god would always slip her Asgardian mead when he came to visit.
She had two of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Ned and MJ. Who never failed to make her laugh when she needed it. Or take notes for Penny when she was too exhausted from a night of patrolling to actually do any school work.
And she was Spider-woman. Sometimes it sucked. Liked when the person she was trying to save died. Or she wasn’t able to stop a crime before someone was hurt. But Penny also found it thrilling and rewarding. She wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world.
She should be happy. Right? Everything was perfect on paper, so Penny should be enjoying her life and have everything she wants out of it, right?
But that wasn’t true at all. Penny was suffering. Penny constantly felt like she was drowning and needed someone to help pull her above the water. She felt like she had this bar above her head she was constantly trying to reach but it was being pulled higher and higher as she was being pulled down.
You see, Penny had a secret. A secret that only one person who was living or dead knew of.
And that was the fact that Penny struggled with self-harm.
It all started about six months ago.
It had been the end of the school year and she had been struggling to keep her grades up and them all be at or above 93%. (Which at her school was an A).
It was a stupid thing to be upset about, but throughout her whole educational career, she had always been smart. It had basically become part of her identity.
“Of course she got an A on the test.”
“Ask Penny, she always knows the answer.”
“If Penny didn’t do great on the test then we’re all screwed.”
“How did I get a better score on this than Penny?!”
It made Penny feel like she wasn’t valid unless she had perfect grades. And the worst part was, Penny didn’t feel like she deserved to be smart. She felt like it was just a fluke in the cosmos that she was smart.
And that’s when it all started.
At first it really was just a coping mechanism for Penny. She would be having a bad day and all the voices would be deafening, and all she had to do was make a couple slits with her shaving razor and it would all be silent.
But Penny knew that this wasn’t the right thing to do. So she stopped. She got one of those apps that would help her stay clean, and she told herself it was just a moment or two (or ten) of weakness and that she was okay and there was nothing wrong with her.
Penny basically gaslit herself into believing that there was nothing wrong with wanting to hurt herself when things got hard.
She even told MJ. MJ had always been one of her closest friends and when Penny told her about what had happened, MJ had confided in her that she too had also suffered with using self-harm as a coping mechanism. And Penny didn’t feel as alone.
But then it got worse. Penny found a razor blade in a random tool cabinet in Mr. Stark's lab and she couldn’t help herself. She told herself it was for ‘just in case’ scenarios. And that she would never use it.
But a mere two days after she had told MJ, she cut herself.
Penny had also moved on from it just being a coping mechanism. Sure it still quieted the voices in her head. But she also felt like she deserved it. She felt like she deserved the pain. And when the cuts changed to little white scars on her hips and the top of her thighs, they were nice reminders of all the times she hadn’t been enough.
Of all of the times that she had been a burden to everyone around her. Of all the times she had been a failure and let someone in the real world die because she couldn’t get there in time to save them.
And throughout the whole school year and the start of her junior year, she cut.
One time after she did it, she told MJ. MJ wasn’t disappointed like Penny expected her to be. And it was nice that someone knew. But the next time she did it, Penny didn’t tell MJ.
Or any of the times after that.
Penny knew she was suffering and that she should tell someone. She knew that it wasn’t a healthy way to deal with anything. And she knew that if she told one of her housemates, they would most likely be understanding and get her the help that she needed.
But what if they weren’t understanding? What if they called her a freak and kicked her out of the tower? What if they told her she was just doing it for attention and made Penny feel even worse?
So Penny didn’t tell anyone. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
It was like a routine for her. Every Sunday she would cut. And any day during the week that she had a bad day, she would cut. Only two days in a row if it was a really bad two days though.
It kept her grounded.
Every time after she cut herself, she would tell herself that was the last time. But it never was. And the world kept on spinning.
Penny sometimes failed to see the issue with her hurting herself. It wasn’t like any of the cuts were life threatening, they were just sort of there. A nice reminder of all the times she had done something wrong in her life. So Penny didn’t think she needed help.
But Penny didn’t want to think about any of that today. Because today was Saturday. And Saturday meant family dinner day.
It was her turn to cook and Penny decided that she was going to make some filling pasta seeing as it was now late October and winter was approaching. There hadn’t been any snow yet, but it was in the 40s most days.
Penny had just gotten back from a pretty uneventful midday patrol where she hadn’t had to stop any high level crimes and had only had to get one cat stuck out of a tree. So Penny was having a good day.
She entered through her bedroom window that she had FRIDAY open and was currently getting changed out of her suit.
As she walked into her walk-in closet (that Pepper had filled with every style of clothes possible within the day that Penny had officially moved in), she caught sight of her scars in the mirror.
Her stare lingered on them for a second before she walked into the closest and selected a pair of high-rise black leggings and her favorite oversized white crew neck that she might have stolen from Clint.
Clint had the best comfy clothes.
Penny walked back into her room and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked normal. The sweatshirt hid her larger than average muscles and the pants hid her scars. Everyone looking at her would think she was just a regular teenage girl.
Even if she was secretly drowning.