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: So originally the chapter title of this was gonna be after the Queen song Now I'm Here, but I decided to make it from their song Play the Game instead. I think it fits a lot better, although it's not 100% perfect. Still might change it in the future, idk.
Updates are still kind of in wonky territory. Continuing to aim for weekly updates, but idk, we'll see. Will say I was not expecting this to get the feedback it's gotten so far, and that has been encouraging. Also terrifying lol!
Hope you enjoy,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~somebody to love~
~chapter 2: play the game~
Penny had never been on the helicarrier before, but once upon a time she had seen some of the plans for it, and it was as impressive in person as it was on paper.
It was located out in the middle of the ocean, where no civilians or spies would be around to view it. As she got off of the quinjet Fury had personally flown to get them there, she saw a variety of personnel on the upper deck, doing a variety of things.
She also saw Phil Coulson walking away from two individuals, a man with blonde hair and a woman with curly red. Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, her mind supplied.
"How long has he been out of the ice?" she asked Fury, the alpha trailing after her.
"Couple months now," he replied.
Then he left her there by herself, standing awkwardly.
With a sigh and a grumbling about crotchety old bastards and how this had become her life, she approached the other would-be Avengers. "Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff," she called out, causing the two of them to turn around. As a third gravitated towards them, she nodded to him as well. "Dr. Banner."
"Who are you...ma'am?" Rogers questioned.
"I am a ma'am. The name's Spider-Woman," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm sorry, I've been told I was a last minute decision to all of this," here, she waved her other at everything going on around them. "Fury didn't know if he was bringing me in or not."
"You use a pseudonym?" he inquired for clarification, accepting her hand.
At once, there was a feeling of electricity between them, no matter how diluted it was from the Spandex covering her fingers. She jerked her hand away, surprised, before she gave him a smile which he would've been able to see was all teeth, had she not been wearing her mask. "No one knows my identity except for Fury and a few others, ad I would really rather to keep it that way, if you don't mind." Or if you do, that's fine, too.
Thankfully, the super soldier accepted her answer. "I understand."
She turned to the scientist next. "Dr. Banner, it's an honor to meet you. I've read your work on anti-electronic collisions; you have a way with words."
Surprise flitted across his visage. "Th – thank you," he said, stumbling over the words. He grimaced. "I'm sorry, I'm used to the word on the street being – "
"That you're an amazing scientist who will be able to find the Cube?" When he blinked, Penny gave him a more genuine smile than she had the captain. "That's the only word on the street I care about, Dr. Banner."
Romanoff stepped forwards then, interjecting herself both physically and verbally. "Gentlemen, Spider-Woman, you might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little hard to breathe."
Rogers and Banner talked to each other some after that, saying things which made her chuckle to herself as the helicarrier started to take flight.
As the four of them made their way to one of the helicarrier's entrances, a breeze came past. Along with the salt of the ocean, it blew the scents of Banner, Romanoff, and Rogers her way, all of which were...unusual, no matter how weakened that side of her sense of smell was from the high dosage suppressants she was taking. Had to take, with her enhancements.
Banner's made sense, since his Hulk side wasn't even a delta, lacking a secondary gender or designation altogether. But Romanoff's and Rogers'...
She almost paused in her step, her expression lowering. If she hadn't known any better, she might've said the spy's scent was like patchouli and gunpowder, the super soldier's like oak and honey. They smelled good, going together, but she also knew that those scents didn't –
Abruptly, as soon as the thought had occurred to her, it vanished as the quartet she was part of walked through the helicarrier's doors.
After all, she had better things to worry about other than mysterious scents. Mainly, the possible end of the world as they knew it.
When they got to the bridge, it was Fury who greeted them. She smirked as she watched Rogers hand the other alpha ten dollars for some reason, but didn't have a strong enough desire to ask what it was about. It wasn't like it was the time or place for her to, anyways.
The others briefly discussed how to track Selvig, Barton, and Loki, Rogers looking like a lost puppy the entire time, before Romanoff and Banner headed off to the lab. Fury went over to Hill to speak with her for a moment, leaving only her and the captain at the conference table.
He looked at her, a line between his eyebrows forming, utterly perplexed. She didn't really have the patience to deal with such a thing, so she asked, "What?"
"How long have you been doing this?" he returned. His tone was not patronizing like some of the ones she was used to, simply...confused.
...Well, she supposed she would have reason to be, too, had she been stuck in the ice for sixty-some, almost seventy years.
She could humor him.
"You mean fighting crime in Spandex? Five years," Penny said. "Saving the world? That, I'm a little new to."
Rogers smiled slightly. "Me, too, at least on this scale." He shifted his weight. Idly, she thought about how uncomfortable the chairs probably were for him at his size. "Can I ask why Fury chose you for this? You don't have to tell me," he rushed to assure her, "but I had files on everyone else, and I'm still getting used to, as you said, all of this."
She crossed her arms. "To date, I've fought with a man who turned himself into a giant lizard, another who gained electrical powers after falling into a vat of eels, a third who got turned into a sand monster, a fourth who went insane after trying to replicate the serum that made you, and a woman who was mind-controlled by the robotic tentacle vest she made, among various other monsters-of-the-week." She didn't mention how all of them were directly or indirectly her fault, merely tilted her head. "That enough for you?"
"...It is, thank you," Rogers answered, his Adam's apple visibly bobbing.
He didn't ask anymore questions.
The hours passed by slowly. Some of the SHIELD agents were able to locate the place where Loki would be going to as Stuttgart, Germany. Fury walked over to her and Rogers, clapping the latter on the shoulder. "Captain, you're up," he said.
Rogers nodded and walked off, leaving her with the director.
She peered at him speculatively. "And just when will it be my turn in all of this?"
He glared at her. "Patience, Spider-Woman."
It wasn't until night that they got to Germany. Penny hung back with Banner as Romanoff and Rogers were sent off on another quinjet to capture the god and Barton. "I thought you would've gone with them," the male omega murmured to her.
"I'm not a team player," she replied, shaking her head. Not anymore.
Banner went back down to the labs, leaving her alone. An agent directed her to a room apparently set aside for her when asked if there was another place she could go, since she was about done staying on the bridge at this point. It had a mattress far comfier than the one in her apartment, which she laid down on. Turning on the TV opposite the bed, she flicked it to a channel showing House reruns. "Erdheim-Chester disease," she muttered as she popped another dose of heat and scent suppressants into her mouth, recognizing the episode immediately.
She didn't mean to fall asleep for all of forty-five minutes (not long enough for REM or dreams, thank God), but the next thing she knew there was a babyfaced agent at her door, telling her Loki was in custody and his brother had arrived: Thor, the thunder god. He filled her in on everything that had transpired on their way to the bridge, which wasn't much in her opinion. She didn't think much of it.
...Just like how she didn't think much of the motor oil and leather scent which clung to some of the hallways; it was a thought for another time.
" – does Fury even see these things?" Stark said as she walked onto the bridge, his back turned towards her. All of the others were there, save for Barton, who she'd been told was still MIA. They looked up at her arrival, but Stark remained woefully oblivious.
"He turns," she replied, her lips curling.
Stark spun around, surprised. "...Spider-Woman," he greeted. "Huh, color me surprised. I thought Fury's super secret boy band had been entirely assembled."
"It's not a boy band if two of the other members are women." She rolled her eyes. These days, she didn't care much for billionaires. "And like I told Banner, Rogers, and Romanoff, I was a last minute decision."
"...You're a Woman of Spiders?" Thor spoke incredulously.
"If getting bitten by a radioactive spider qualifies me as such, then yes." Sitting down at the conference table, she gazed at the others expectantly. "What are we talking about?"
Rogers stared at her.
"How Loki will be powering the Cube," Romanoff said. She instinctively leaned closer – and there it was again, the patchouli and gunpowder scent. Penny wrinkled her nose. "Stark was just saying how the iridium will act as a stabilizing agent."
"Yes." The aforementioned billionaire clapped his hands. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he'll still need is a power source of high energy density. Something to kickstart the Cube."
Hill scoffed. "Since when did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"
"Since last night," was the flippant response. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers – am I the only one who – ?"
Penny was tired with his antics. "He'll have to heat the Cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulumb barrier." She stopped, her fingers drumming against the tabletop. "Unless, of course, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the Quantum Tunneling effect."
"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy-ion fusion at any reactor in the planet," Banner pitched in.
"Both of you speak English?" Stark blurted out. "Banner, I was expecting, but – "
"Oh, is that what that is?" Rogers muttered.
"A volte, si," she told Stark with a meaningful gaze, ignoring the super soldier. "But it's not going to be at just any other reactor on the planet. If Loki really wants to try to take over the world, he'll want to send a message. Probably from the now-most powerful building there is."
His face blanched. "Shit."
"And how do you know this?" Thor demanded.
Penny opened her mouth to speak, but Fury entering the room cut her off. "She has her ways, of that I assure you," he said, glowering her way. "Stark, I was hoping you might help Banner track the Cube, just to make sure his sights really are on your Tower."
"Could Spider-Woman help us?" Banner asked. "If she wants to, that is. She seems to know what she's talking about."
Fury didn't seem opposed to the idea.
After a hesitation, she shrugged and stood up. "Sure, why not."
"I'd start with that stick of his," Rogers offered. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."
"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube," Fury grumbled. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."
"'Monkeys?'" Thor quoted. "I do not understand – "
"I do!" Rogers exclaimed. When they all turned to look at him, he wilted slightly. "I understood that reference."
Stark made a show of rolling his eyes, then gestured to her and Banner. "Shall we play, Doctor, Spidey?"
She made a face. "Don't call me that, but sure."
"This way," Banner agreed.
She should have known better than to expect Stark to behave for more than five minutes, or even three.
He was quiet at first when they got down to the lab, which reminded her a lot of Dr. Connors', if his had been more compact and eviscerated. The three of them set out to work, Stark looking at the various screens for readings and Banner setting aside places for them to work.
The other omega nodded to her gloves. "You might want to take those off."
Penny briefly glanced down at them. "They don't come off."
"Don't or won't?" Stark butted in.
"Both."
Unlike her previous iterations of the suit, she actually hadn't made the gloves separate this time, or anything else besides the mask. It really was basically a giant onesie – she knew if MJ still remembered her, the beta would undoubtedly be teasing the hell out of her for it every chance she could.
But, she didn't.
Looking at the screen next to the Scepter, she hummed. "Looks like the gamma readings are consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's going to take weeks to process."
"Not if we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster. We can clock this at around six teraflops," said Stark.
Banner chuckled. "All I packed was my toothbrush."
Penny wished Stark would take the bait and engage in conversation mostly with the other scientist, instead of herself. She wasn't here to chitchat with the next Green Goblin in the making.
Unfortunately, the billionaire wasn't an introvert, not like her. He could handle talking to more than two people. "You know, you two should come by Stark Tower some time. Top ten floors are all R&D. You'd love it, Banner, it's candy land. And you could work on your webs there, Spidey, they're off the prehensile charts. Unless, of course..." He trailed off, and when she looked up she saw him with a vague look of disgust. "You don't produce them...naturally, do you?"
"No, they're synthetic."
If there was a trace of humor to her voice, it was only because of the memory of the last person who had spoken her that question.
God, she missed Ned.
"The chemicals to make them must cost a pretty penny. What do you do, make them at your university's lab?" He paused. "You're a college kid, right? You are in school?"
"Dropped out." When both Banner and Stark looked surprised at this, the billionaire spluttering, she shrugged. "Not everyone can afford higher education, Dr. Stark."
"But you're brilliant. You've been keeping up with us without a problem," argued Banner.
She smiled mirthlessly. "Even scholarships only cover so much. Besides, the people of New York need me more than I need a stupid degree. Just look at why we're here as an example."
"Well," Stark began. He walked over to her, a packet of blueberries – where did he even get those? – in his hands. He offered the mouth of it to her. "Like I said, those chemicals must be expensive. I could help foot the bill. Blueberry?"
She inhaled through her nose and smelled that scent of motor oil and leather. "No, thank you."
He lifted an eyebrow. "To both? You really don't want anyone knowing who you are, do you, Spidey?"
Penny stepped away from him, though she still remained near the Scepter. "When you can do the things that I can, and then you tell people about them? The bad things that happen to those people, because they know? They happen because of you," she breathed. "So no, I don't."
Awkwardly, Banner cleared his throat. "Yeah, I think I'm going to have to say no on that, too. Last time I was in New York, I kind of broke...Harlem."
She made a mental note to later thank him for his diversion, because it was successful. Stark, though she could still feel his appraising stare on the back of her head, started focusing on him and engaging in a banter with the other man.
This allowed her to focus on the Scepter. Reaching out, she allowed her fingers to ghost along the air in front of its gem. The energy of it was powerful.
Almost...too powerful.
The memories of what had happened six months ago flared inside her mind. Not of the battle at the Statue of Liberty, though Lord knew those appeared in her waking and sleeping moments often enough, but of a woman with airy features and wearing golden robes, a green Stone glowing from where it hung in a pendant around her neck.
If the Sorcerer Supreme hadn't been as affected by her spell as the rest of the universe, Penny might've tried to ask her what she thought about all of this. But, alas.
Closing her eyes, she tried to steady herself.
"Are you nuts?"
Jerking in surprise, especially at how her spider sense hadn't even warned her of the newcomer, she looked up at Rogers. The alpha was scowling, but his gaze wasn't directed at her. Rather, he was staring at Stark, who was holding a...taser in his hands, pointed at Banner.
She resisted the urge to groan.
Billionaires.
Or, perhaps more accurately as she watched the argument infold, alphas. Honestly, Captain America and Iron Man were supposed to be two grown men, but as they talked back to one another they acted a lot more like the "knot fights" she remembered from high school. And their pheromones were just as bad; the smell cloyed at her, abruptly giving her a headache. It was even worse than the ones she got from Murdock and Wilson bickering, the rare times they ever teamed up together. Had teamed up together, since they hadn't done so since November and probably never would again.
(A part of her wondered if the two of them even remembered knowing each other, since she had been the link between them.)
"I should probably look into that as soon as my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."
"I'm sorry, did you say – ?"
"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide."
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around."
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome."
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."
"Following's not really my style."
"And you're all about style, aren't you?"
"Out of the four people in this room, which one of us is a) wearing a spangly outfit, and b) not of use?"
"...Steve, tell me this doesn't feel a little funky to you."
Wincing, Penny put a hand to her forehead and rubbed at it.
Man, her head really fucking hurt.
Instantly, the bickering died – although it had already been heading that way. Stark, Rogers, and Banner eyed her, albeit the first two with more concern than the scientist, for whatever reason.
"Spidey, you alright?" asked Stark.
Somehow, the concern in his voice made it worse. The pain in her skull intensified, while something in her gut began to churn. She felt like she was going to be sick.
"Sensory overload," Penny bit out, stumbling back. The diagnosis made sense – no pun intended – to her since it had been a while since her last one, even if none of the warning signs she'd become accustomed to had cropped up. "'Think I need to go find a closet or something."
"The infirmary has ibuprofen," a new voice offered – Romanoff's. She was standing in the doorway to the lab, probably having just come back from an interrogation with Loki, if Penny knew Fury half as well as she thought she did.
She shook her head. "Unless they have enough to kill an elephant, there's no point. It won't do anything on me." Walking past the spy, she waved her hand towards Stark and Banner. "Just find the Cube, and make sure Barton and Selvig will be going to New York."
It was probably unprofessional of her to leave like that in their line of business, but at this point she didn't care. She felt like she was going to faint, and Stark had already called her a "kid." She didn't want to add fuel to his fire.
Besides, if they were truly to go back to New York, she had time to kill, and she didn't necessarily have to do it around a bunch of alphas who were secreting pheromones as they were. Not to mention those weird scents.
Going back to her room, she found the TV was still on and playing House. Apparently she'd forgotten to turn it off. With a groan, Penny lowered the volume of it to where she could barely hear it, but she didn't mute it outright.
Then, hooking her fingers underneath her mask, she pulled it off. In the safety of this room, there was no one around to see her face. Gasping, she ran a hand through her hair, before she breathed through her nose. The smell of Stark's and Rogers' pheromones were gone, but there was still –
Patchouli and gunpowder. Oak and honey. Motor oil and leather.
Clamping a hand to her mouth, she stood up from where she'd perched herself on the bed and ran into the ensuite bathroom. Kneeling down in front of the toilet, she heaved. There wasn't much sick to come up, between her enhanced metabolism and how she hadn't managed to eat much today.
...Maybe it wasn't a surprise she was having a sensory overload, now that she got to thinking about it. She already had a hard time eating enough as it was.
It was as she sat back, however, wiping at her mouth with a piece of toilet paper, she felt a sensation which gave her pause. The muscles of her lower back twinged. From in between her legs, she felt a trickle of wetness.
Her eyes widened.
Unzipping her suit about halfway, Penny reached into her bra – incredibly gross, she knew, but there was no other way to easily store things when you wore something skintight – and pulled out the pill packet for her suppressants. Holding it, she looked for the fine print she knew to be there.
DIRECTIONS: Take 2 pills twice daily for six months.
WARNING: Do not exceed dosage of 2 pills twice daily. If dosage is exceeded or overdose is suspected, call your local Poison Control Center. Overdose symptoms include fever, malaise, dizziness, excess slick production, uterine bleeding, and jaundice.
WARNING: Do not exceed six month limit unless directed to by a doctor. Long-term effects of scent suppressants include low bone density, suicidal ideation, mood changes, and jaundice.
WARNING: In cases of scent matching, medication may not work as prescribed. Symptoms of scent matching include acute hyperosmia, or heightened sense of smell, excess slick production, and –
. . .
. . .
Oh.
Oh, no.
Word Count: 3,892
Next Chapter Title: hammer to fall