Chapter 1

She thinks the worst part is that he was genuinely nice.

Like, he always joked with her, and willingly helped her with homework (sort of. Her homework was apparently a little advanced for him. He always ruffled her hair and called her a little Einstein. She had liked it at first), and let her eat as much as she wanted, which given her metabolism was a lot. She had actually liked him at first.

She hadn't trusted him, of course. She didn't trust anyone but Ned and MJ nowadays, plus her spider sense had been a little tingly from the moment she met him. But she hadn't thought that much about it - her spider sense had been vaguely going off constantly since May died, and the group home had been fine. So she hadn't been suspicious or anything.

On the fifth night, her juice (which she was having with dinner) tasted a little funny. She once again hadn't thought much about it. She felt unusually tired that night, but she hadn't been sleeping very well since… well, she'd never been a great sleeper, to be honest. Losing her second set of parents within a few months of each other hadn't exactly helped. So she assumed that her body was finally accepting that it was safe enough to sleep.

Of course, the opposite was true. But she wouldn't realize that until she woke up to hands groping her.

It took her a few seconds to figure out what was happening. She processed in stages - waking up a little, feeling the hands, realizing what they meant, freezing, feeling he hands pause, realizing she'd been drugged and should be asleep right now, and forcibly relaxed. He still stopped only a few seconds later, thankfully, and left the room.

Penny proceeded to have a massive panic attack.

—

The thing is, Penny knows she's unlucky. Who else would manage to become an orphan twice over before she could drive? She'd gone on a field trip at the end of 8th grade, gotten bitten by a fucking radioactive spider, thought she was going to die for a week, woke up with superpowers, and before she could process that fact her uncle was shot and bled to death in front of her. And she knew it was her fault. She could have stopped that robber. She just let him go because she was upset and angry and annoyed and wanted the cashier to be punished for being a jerk to her a few minutes before. And to make it worse, the only reason Uncle Ben was there at that time was because he was following her. So yeah, it was her fault, and yeah, she's super unlucky. She supposed that her only grace of God was that she didn't have to blame herself for May's death - she hardly caused the aneurysm that took her aunt. The single death that wasn't her fault.

So it would only figure that her first true foster parent - not counting the group home she'd spent a month in after May died - was a pedophile interested in drugging and molesting her. Maybe even raping her.

Oh god she was just molested.

After she starts getting her breathing under control and the tears slow down, she lets herself actually think about what to do next. Her first, obvious, thought is that she should report him. Except she has no proof. So maybe she should wait and get proof, and then report him? But what if he gets out of it? Everyone would label her as a liar, and she'd still be getting molested. That is, if she wasn't transferred because of it, but if he's found innocent, he can get a new foster kid, and do it to them, and -

Here's where Penny takes a second to slow her thoughts back down. She forces herself to think of the facts.

She has no proof. She will struggle to get proof. Even if she has proof, there's a high chance he'll get away with it anyway.

If she just runs away, he'll get a new foster kid and just continue where he left off. Ditto if she asks for a transfer.

He had drugged her first.

That last point manages to break through the last of her panic. He'd drugged her - he had wanted to to be able to sleep through it. He didn't want her to have to remember. The only reason she knows at all is because of her stupid enhanced metabolism. If she can counteract it… if she can find a sedative strong enough for her, she can get through any nights he comes, and then he won't be able to do it to anyone else.

Mind made up, Penny finally lets herself fall back asleep, pleased with her plan.

—

She steals as many sedatives as she can get her hands on from a pharmacy a few miles away. She chooses one she never goes to, just in case, and dresses in black and wears a mask and everything, but as it turned out, superpowers are pretty helpful when breaking the law. She gets in and out with no trouble at all.

Now all she has to do is experiment.

—

It takes longer than she'd like to figure out the exact right dosage. Luckily, her enhanced senses make it easy to tell when her juice is drugged, so she never wakes up right in the middle again, but she wakes up towards the end the first two times, and the third time takes so many she sleeps through her alarm and well into the afternoon. The fourth time is nearly perfect. The fifth time is perfect. She tastes her juice, finishes dinner, goes to her room, puts on her pajamas and brushes her teeth, takes her sedatives, and falls asleep. The next morning, she wakes up with her alarm, no more tired than she normally would be in the morning, and she has no memory of the night before. The only evidence anything happened is a weird bruise on her breast.

It worked.

If she can just keep this up, she can keep Skip occupied with her until she turns 18, and by then she'll be able to put together real evidence and then he'll never be able to hurt anyone after her. It's foolproof.

—

A week later, she wakes up sore between her legs. Rather than let her mind register what that probably means, she takes a long, hot shower, scrubbing her skin until it's raw. She gets out, dries off, puts a panty liner in her underwear in case she starts bleeding or something (all while pretending everything's fine), and goes downstairs to eat breakfast. Skip comments on how long her shower is - "you're not usually such a girl! I hope you don't make a habit of it, lord knows I can't afford that sort of water bill!" She laughs lightly and says she just didn't feel well and needed a long shower to help, but she won't do it again without permission. He ruffles her hair and says, "You're such a good girl to me, Einstein. My pretty little penny."

She smiles at him.