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: Hey, y'all. I know, I know, it's not one of my WIPs. But I wanted to write something nice and fluffy, and giving vampire!Penny a good day wasn't something I could ignore. She deserves some good things in her life. ;)

As always, hope y'all enjoy,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the heavy souls 'verse~

~ride~

Penny let out a laugh as she flipped through the air, looking past her legs clad black with red spiderwebs while she thwipped a web towards another building to swing from.

It had been about a week since she'd become Spider-Woman, and three days since she'd saved Emily. Things were going well. Most people were still wary of her, but the news of how she'd prevented an assault was quickly spreading like a wild fire. Just this morning, she'd seen the anchors on one of the local news stations – yes, the local news stations! – talking about her. They'd praised her for what she'd done, although noting she was one of the many vigilantes to have popped up in the city in the last couple of years...her other persona, Lolita, being one of them.

But, whatever. She wasn't going to think about that.

It felt good, doing good for a change. Pretending like she wasn't actually a monster. For the first time in a long while, she felt...accomplished. Like she could breathe again. She didn't feel like she had three weeks ago, before...well, you know, and killing Norman Osborn. She didn't feel like she had back when all of this had started.

The grin she was wearing becoming a bit strained at the quick reminder, Penny stopped swinging down the street to land on the rooftop of a low-rise. Like a gargoyle, she perched herself on its edge, watching the cars and people driving and walking below. She'd never been much of a comics or superhero (and by that, she meant of superheroes that weren't real. The Avengers obviously were) fan, but sitting like this made her feel like Batman. The two of them did have some things in common: being orphaned at a young age, feeling they had a duty to protect their cities from harm, modeling their personas after animals nobody liked...

There was the broodiness, too. She could be broody when she wanted to be.

She puffed out her chest a little, giggling quietly now. Besides the obvious, the only differences between her and Bruce Wayne were that she technically had a biological father out there (who she wasn't going to think about right now either, no way), and he had a cape. She could theoretically make one to go with her suit. It would probably look ridiculous, definitely be a hinderance with how she moved around, but...maybe she should. It sounded fun.

She didn't have much fun these days.

After two or so minutes, she got back to her feet and resumed her swinging, heading back towards Brooklyn. Seeing an old lady looking rather lost about halfway to the garden apartment, she swooped down from the skies. "Hey there," she said, trying to sound as nonthreatening as possible. She didn't quite succeed: the woman still startled, letting out a "good heavens!" as she clutched at her coat. She didn't have a purse. "Are you alright, ma'am?"

"I – I'm fine, th – thank you," the elderly woman said through chattered teeth.

Penny was concerned. It wasn't that cold out, not for February at least, but the lady seemed to be absolutely freezing. "Are you sure? Do you know where you are?"

The woman looked around. When she saw the nearby intersection, she rattled off one of the street names there.

It was the wrong one.

"Uh, huh," Penny said. "Do you know where you live, ma'am?"

The lady nodded, relaxing some. "I live with my daughter and her family in Brooklyn. Rio. She's such a lovely girl. Her husband's name is Jefferson. My grandson, his name is...is..."

"Do you know what street they live on?" she tried instead. "The address?"

She was given it. It wasn't too far from where they were currently, but far enough it was clear the woman had wandered off without realizing she had done so. She probably had dementia. Certainly, some sort of disorder which caused her to lose lucidity sometimes.

"Is it okay if I walk you home, ma'am?" Penny asked. She held out her arm as an offering. "I promise I won't hurt you."

The woman narrowed her eyes. "Are you an Avenger?"

"No!" The negative response came out much more panicky than she'd intended it to. She coughed, before holding out her arm as an offering. "I'm just your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Woman. I'm new to the business. What's your name, ma'am?"

After some hesitation, the lady accepted her gesture. "Gloria. Gloria Morales." She paused. "Your arm is quite warm, Spider-Woman."

"It's 'cause of heaters, Mrs. Morales. A spider like me's gotta keep warm during this time of year somehow."

That earned her a chuckle. "Yes. Yes, I suppose so."

Gloria chatted to her on the walk back to her home. She was a lot like Dory from Finding Nemo: Penny lost track of the number of times she told her the same things, over and over. She remembered her grandson's name, Miles. He was seven, probably, as that was the oldest age Gloria remembered him as. Her daughter was a nurse, her son-in-law a police officer; she loved them a lot. Her favorite show was one Penny had never heard of before, probably because it was so old; she was worried she wouldn't be able to see today's reruns of it. Unfortunately, she wasn't of much help there.

There was a woman with curly brown hair sitting on the steps of Gloria's apartment building when they got there, dressed in nurse scrubs. Her expression was nervous and concerned, but as soon as she saw them both emotions crumpled into relief. "Mamá!" she exclaimed, getting to her feet and rushing over. "Oh, Mamá! Thank God!"

Gloria smiled. "Rio!"

Mother and daughter enveloped each other into a hug. "Where have you been?" Rio questioned, pulling away a little. "Jefferson's been looking everywhere for you. Oh, I should call him – " She reached into one of the pockets for her pants, presumably for a phone.

"I found her at," Penny interjected, giving her the street address.

Rio stopped going for her phone, glancing up at her, confused. She must've forgotten she was there. Penny couldn't really blame her. "I saw you on the news the other day," she remarked. "You're that...Spider-Girl, aren't you?"

"Spider-Woman."

"Right. Thank you," Rio breathed. "My mother, she has dementia. When she wasn't here when I brought my son home from school, I thought..." She shook her head, grabbing her mother's hand. "Oh, Mamá, you're freezing. How long were you gone?"

Gloria huffed. "Not long. Only twenty minutes or so." Well, that was wrong. At least, she doubted a little old lady could've walked so far in such a short time. "I wanted to go to the store to get some things for Miles' cake."

"Mamá, I told you, it's February. Miles' birthday isn't for another six months," Rio sighed.

Like a character in the background of a movie, Penny felt herself fade away from their minds. Gloria waved at her as her daughter led her towards their apartment with a, "Goodbye, Spider-Woman!" But both of the Morales women were clearly becoming focused on other things, as they should.

Her job here was done.

Penny started off towards the general direction of the garden apartment. She wasn't nearly as familiar with Brooklyn as she was with Queens, but she was getting better at it. She walked on foot for a little while instead of going by air; the city always looked so different on the ground than it did when she was dozens to hundreds of feet high. People gawked at her the entire time, but that was okay.

She was getting used to them.

When she came upon an intersection that she recognized, she activated her web-shooters. She was almost back to the apartment; she figured she could swing the rest of the way from here.

"Hey, Spider-Woman!"

She spun around in surprise. Standing in a large alleyway – more of a courtyard, really, from the looks of it – between two buildings on the opposite side of the street was a group of kids. They were all teenagers around her age, mostly boys. One of them was holding a basketball.

Awkwardly, she waved.

Several of them waved back. "Spider-Woman!" the kid holding the basketball shouted again.

Allowing a couple of cars to pass by, she made her way across the road. "Hey, guys," she greeted them. God, she sounded as unskillful in interacting with people her own age as she felt. She needed to get better at this. It wasn't like Harley would ever be around again to help her with her social clumsiness. "What'cha guys doing? You need my help?"

"Nah, we don't need your help," Basketball Kid said. "Just curious. Saw you on the news."

"You from here?" asked one of the other boys.

"I told you she's not," one of the two girls protested. "You hear that accent? She's from Queens, for sure."

Penny pointed a finger at her. "She's right, I'm originally from Queens."

The one boy and two others groaned.

"But you live in Brooklyn now?" asked another.

She shrugged. "I guess."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Basketball Kid took back over. "Alright, alright," he said. He jutted out his chin, smirking slightly. "You play ball, Spidey?"

"Uh...does playing basketball for gym class back when I was in school count?"

Half of the group laughed.

"Naw," Basketball Kid replied. He held out the ball to her. "You wanna learn how to play?"

...She kind of wanted to. These kids seemed nice, not like the ones sans Harley (and MJ and Ned) she was used to.

But it wouldn't be fair. She had super strength, and she didn't want to somehow accidentally hurt them, even though she had a mostly steady grip on her powers.

("With great power comes great responsibility.")

She shook her head. "Maybe another time. Thanks, though."

The kids all seemed disappointed. "Oh, come on, Spidey," one of them said.

She felt bad, but she was going to stand her ground on this.

"What about music?" the second girl questioned. "What kind of music do you listen to?"

"Depends," Penny answered. "Little bit of everything. Alt-rock, rock, pop."

"What about rap? Hiphop?" spoke up one of the boys.

She smiled abashedly, despite how none of them could see it. "Does twenty one pilots count?"

They all grinned. "Oh, Spidey, you did not just say that."

Like the tide upon the shore, they all pulled her with their excited chatter and pleadings further back into the courtyard. She knew she didn't have to follow them if she didn't really want to, but strangely, a part of her did. It was one of the upsides to being Spider-Woman. If they'd known she was Penny Parker, they wouldn't have wanted to hang out with her. If they'd known she was Lolita, they probably would've all fled from her.

But since they didn't, they did.

Inside the courtyard, there was a basketball hoop, some benches, and a stereo. The kids ignored the former two in favor of focusing on the latter, as one of them turned it on and fiddled with his phone. A minute later, the first song off of the Blurryface album began to play, almost too loud for her sensitive ears: heavydirtysoul.

She didn't care about the volume, though.

"Can you rap?" the boy she was now silently identifying as Brooklyn because of his earlier question shouted at her.

She laughed. "Not to this one!"

Despite what Penny had told them, the kids tried teaching her how to play ball anyways. They focused just on the simple stuff, demonstrating how to dribble and a few tricks to it. She got the hang of it quickly; by the time the stereo was halfway through Stressed Out, she was able to repeat their moves without looking too much like a complete idiot.

She learned their names, too. Basketball Boy was Davion, Brooklyn Jaren, the girls Aaliyah and Iesha, and etcetera. None of them tried to ask her for hers; they just called her Spidey. She appreciated it.

When Stressed Out was over, they tried again, Alex pausing the music on his phone. "What about Ride?" he asked. "Can you do that one?"

"Maybe," she allowed. "But I'm not doing it on my own."

Levar perked up. "Rap battle?"

"Rap battle!" they all repeated.

Before she could protest this, Alex started up the music again. Iesha took out her phone; by the way she held it and the slight jolt in Penny's sixth sense, it was clear she was recording.

If Penny still had a heartbeat, it undoubtedly would've picked up then. A light fear flashed through her. After all, what if her biological – what if Tony Stark saw this, once Iesha undoubtedly posted this onto YouTube? Or Harley? Would they somehow be able to connect the dots from the video alone? "Guys – " she said.

"Come on, Spidey, do it!" Jaren encouraged.

They were all staring at her with pleading eyes.

She felt her resolve waver. Her shoulders slumped. "Alright, fine. But I'm only doing the first part," she grumbled. "Alex, start it over."

The kids cheered.

Penny closed her eyes as the song began a second time. Her voice shook as she sang, "I just wanna stay in the sun where I find, I know it's hard sometimes. Pieces of peace in the sun's peace of mind..."

This wasn't one of her favorite songs by twenty one pilots, for multiple reasons. It had been back when the album had first come out, but...that was a lifetime ago. She wasn't that person anymore. The song felt way too personable now, in a way that was different and twisted when compared to heavydirtysoul.

Still, when she got to the fifth line, under the praises of the kids, she couldn't stop herself from singing more in earnest. They crowded around her, forming a circle. She backed up into it when the circle was over, shaking her head when they begged her to continue on. As she'd said, she was only going to do the first part.

Adarius and Ben stepped into the middle, doing the rest of the song. Following the others, she moved in time to the beat, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and clapping as Adarius finished the fastest part of the song without stopping to catch his breath. Not even she could do that, and she thought of herself as pretty damn good.

After the bridge, their entire group sang together, unable to stop themselves. Then, once the song was over, Alex changed the music to something more befitting of their group, and Iesha stopped recording.

"Not bad," Davion complimented her. "Not bad at all."

She chuckled. "Thanks."

Penny felt good, all things considered, in spite of how the song made her feel. Her chest felt lighter. It was like for the first time in a long time, she could breathe properly again.

"You're good," added Adarius.

"Not as good as you."

"Hey, don't knock yourself down. You know how long it took me to get like this? Long time." He held out his hands in front of him as a model. "For someone who only listens to twenty one pilots, you're good, Spidey. You just need some more practice, 'is all."

"Your voice is really beautiful," said Aaliyah.

Her cheeks did their thing. "Right."

"Seriously, you're cool, Spider-Woman," Ben pitched in, pushing past Adarius. He was shorter than almost all of them except for Aaliyah, but none of his friends seemed to mind. "You're from Queens and Brooklyn, you sing, and you played ball with us. You think Daredevil, the Punisher, Lolita, or any of the other vigilantes would do that? Or the Avengers?"

Technically, Lolita did just sing with you, she thought.

But, no. Spider-Woman and Lolita were separate entities. She needed to make sure of that.

"I'm sure the Maixmoff twins would."

"Yeah, if they ever came out of the A-Tower," snorted Davion. "Face it, Spider-Woman, you're one of us, and that's cool. Anytime you stop 'round here again, you'll be welcome." He held out his hand to her.

For a second, she stared at it, mystified. Then, realizing he was probably trying to do a handshake or something, she accepted it. Slowly, he showed her how to do the handshake he said he and all the others did.

It took everything in her willpower not to flinch, although she found it cool. It was strangely...touching.

"Be careful, Spider-Woman. It's supposed to snow tonight," said Ben. "We don't want you to die."

"I will. I was going back home anyways when you guys called me over." It was only five, but this was part of the schedule she was developing, pretending like she went home for an hour to eat dinner. But maybe she didn't have to go out tonight afterwards...for them. It was nice that these kids seemed to care about her, regardless of how they most certainly wouldn't if they actually knew who she was – nobody would. She saluted them. "See you guys around!"

"See you, Spider-Woman!"

"Bye, Spidey!"

"Nice playing with you!"

Jumping up in the air, Penny landed on the brick wall of one of the two buildings surrounding the courtyard, much to the kids' delight with their shouts and gasps of amazement. She climbed up the rest of the way to the rooftop then, with a running start, went back to flying through the air via her webs.

The thought of going back to the garden apartment all alone, with no family and no friends like the kids had, made her heart ache, the darkness creeping back into her, but she didn't let it bother her for long. She had Spider-Woman, and she had Lolita, and her superhero personas were all she needed. She wouldn't let the voices in the back of her mind tell her otherwise.

(...No matter how right they were.)

("Help me.")

Word Count: 3,022