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: Hi, everyone! Welcome back! Hope everyone is doing well. I'm not at my best rn, but I think with this chapter I'll have hit 100k for the year posted so far, so there is something special about that. I've been really fucking busy! :P

Chapter title comes from Saturday in the Park by Chicago.

Anyways, as always, hope you enjoy. Until next week,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~primis, omega, superhero, genius~

~somebody to love~

~chapter 19: saturday in the park~

The prank, surprisingly, turned out to be fun.

Barton knew the vents of the Tower like the back of his hand. He led her up to his and Natasha's floor, which was directly above hers, to his bedroom first. It wasn't quite what she had been expecting. Well, she didn't know what exactly she had been expecting, but it had not been a bed somewhat smaller than hers with a dark purple duvet, grey-colored walls, a modern black dresser with gold handles, and etcetera. The dartboard on his wall made sense, as did the pictures of his sister and family and, to some extent, the U2 band poster, but everything else...yeah, not so much.

Anyways, they were only in his room long enough for him to get several rolls of Christmas wrapping paper, of all things, out of his closet. After that, they went up another three floors to Rogers' floor, strapping the rolls of paper to their backs to carry them through the vents. According to Barton, the other alpha was out for the day for some reason she didn't really care to pay attention to, so that gave them plenty of time to act out their prank, which was to wrap everything in his study and bedroom – including his bed! – with the wrapping paper. This was something Penny was good at, as May had thought it necessary to teach her the art of wrapping, even if her aunt had hated the patriarchy and society's expectations of omegas just as much as she did. But to her surprise, it was something that Barton was good with as well: he was quick with it, deft, unlike what was stereotypically seen in alphas.

Then again, if she wasn't a stereotypical omega, then it stood to reason that her alphas wouldn't be stereotypical, either.

But she wasn't going to think about that.

The wrapping up of Rogers' things took them most of the late morning and early afternoon. His floor was mostly how she had expected it: while his bed frame (which seemed to be as sturdy as hers, so it didn't collapse underneath him) and dresser were modern and he did have a TV in his bedroom, there was an old-fashioned tint to everything. His curved mahogany desk was clearly from the 1940's, and his records were mostly of artists from that time, with a few Frank Sinatra and more modern ones added in. The Homecoming album by America almost gave her pause, forcing her to remember that conversation they'd had in the wake of the Battle of New York, before he'd gone off on his six-month road trip of the country, but she shook her surprise away quickly.

Honestly, she was kind of impressed that Barton had enough wrapping paper to pull this off, for no real or obvious reason. When they were done, they surveyed their work, and she fought back the urge to laugh. "Are you sure Rogers isn't going to be upset about this?"

"Steve? Nah, he's a total teddy bear. And I won't tell him you were involved, my lips are sealed," Barton said, waving her off. "But what about you? Have you had fun?"

That was almost exactly the same question Romanoff had asked her during their outing to Macy's.

But this time, Penny's response was different.

"Yeah," she said. "Thanks, Barton."

"Anytime."

She didn't get to see Rogers' reaction in person – neither did Barton, nor anyone else. But JARVIS recorded it for her, and she laughed quietly in her bed that night after getting back from patrol after all as she watched it. Rogers' face was forlorn and defeated as he entered his bedroom and saw what had happened to it, like a sad puppy's. With a sigh, he walked out of his room and inspected the rest of his apartment. She wasn't shown any of the footage of this except for his study, the room right next to his, like her guest bedroom. His sad puppy look intensified as he let out another sigh and shook his head, his lips twitching with amusement regardless. "You're going to pay for this, Barton," he muttered to himself.

She was not aware of what, exactly, Rogers did in retaliation to Barton. She was, however, aware that Romanoff had wound up getting her revenge in the end. The next time she saw Barton, he was sporting strawberry blonde hair, which made her start cackling again, unable to just giggle. She couldn't help herself. "Very nice, Barton."

He glared at her as he walked past her in the hallway of one of the conference floors for the Avengers, before flipping her off. "Fuck you," he said.

She was able to keep her voice level enough to say, "You wish."

Then she went straight back to laughing.

It wasn't until later that she realized she'd told him that, and hadn't felt about about it in the slightest.

The first Saturday of May was a nice one. The sun was out, there were hardly any clouds in the sky, the birds were singing. All in all, it was a beautiful day after the miserable month of April they'd had, when so much of it had been dreary and plagued by rain and just overall awful.

Because of this, when she went out for patrol that day after her shift at the diner, she headed off to one place in New York known for its bountiful green: Central Park. She usually went there quite a bit during the warmer months. People loved seeing their hero out and about in the park, just like them. They loved taking photos with her, offering her food from their picnics, or, in the case of the children, playing on the playgrounds with her.

And she liked watching them. Penny had been a people-watcher long before she had become Spider-Woman, but being the main guardian of the city was what made it even more special now. She was their protector, and she liked to make sure that they were alright, and that her city was safe.

Indeed, today was no exception. When she arrived at the park to the "oohs" and "ahs" of many children, she quickly became congregated by them and other people. The congregation was loose, as people wanted to interact with her, but they also wanted to respect her space. She signed many autographs, posed for some pictures, talked the talk. Once the people were satisfied, most of them went away. Some of them stayed to talk with her still, but she didn't mind this. She never did.

"Thank you, Spider-Woman," a little girl said, looking to be around seven or so. She was shy, but she wore a tentative smile on her face. "My grandma always says I won't get to be a superhero."

"Because you're gonna be an omega?" Penny asked, judging by the girl's implication.

She nodded. "Uh, huh. But my momma says to look at you. You're a beta, and you're a he – hero."

Penny crouched down so she could be eye level with her. "You bet I am," she told her, holding out her hand. The girl accepted it with a giggle. "And just remember, Dr. Banner's an omega, too. The Hulk might not be, but he is, and he's still a hero."

"And he's smart," said an older kid, a boy, who was also an omega, judging by his scent. He must've just presented, because he didn't look any older than twelve. "Super smart."

She grinned, even though neither of the kids would be able to see it. "Yep, he's smart, too. And nice."

"What about Iron Man and Captain America?" questioned a third kid. "Are they nice?"

"All of the Avengers are nice," Penny replied.

It was true. She had her problems with them because of the obvious, that was no secret. And Stark had a tendency of saying things like he just knew how to get under her skin, and Rogers...what was going on with him was better left unsaid. They hadn't really talked since that sparing session in the gym had happened. It wasn't for a lack of trying on his part, but she'd kept her conversations short and simple with him ever since then, and he seemed to understand why. Albeit, that did not stop him from giving her those sad puppy looks all the time when he thought she wasn't looking.

But that aside, the Avengers were nice, at least those present since Thor was still off-world. Additionally, they were good teammates. She'd been on one other mission with them since the Dulcetta fiasco, and it had gone well. She'd also been helping them research into HYDRA, to find out anything and everything about them that they could. Unfortunately, even with the prowess of JARVIS, Stark, Romanoff, and herself into deep web searching (and hacking), they hadn't been able to find much. But at least one of them was actively looking into possible leads every day, if that counted.

A fourth child, a boy around a year younger than the girl, silently held out a donut to her. She accepted it and pulled the bottom of her mask up, much to the shock of all of the kids surrounding her as their eyes widened. But since they obscured her from view with her crouched position, and since she knew her chin and mouth weren't that identifiable and most of the underground of the city knew she was white anyways from how often she frequented Sister Margaret's, she didn't mind them seeing this partial revelation of her face that much. Plus, her spider sense would activate if anyone tried to take a picture of her.

Taking a bite of the donut, which turned out to be cream-filled, she hummed. "This is very good," she said.

The little boy flushed. "My omi makes them."

"Tell your omi, then, that he is a very good cook."

The boy nodded jerkily before he went off to do just that.

When she was done with the donut and pulled down her mask, the other children seemed to sense she wasn't in the mood for strenuous activity today – at least, not in the park. Like the rest, they gave her her space, allowing her to lay down on the grass for a few minutes and look up at the sky, and to take in the fresh air.

Well. "Fresh" in relation to the city. When your senses were as enhanced as hers, the city never smelled clean. It smelled like a lot of things, but that was not one of them. But the scent of green and growing things in the park was nice, and she was able to focus on it rather than all the rest.

...So she was, anyways, until her few minutes were up. Then she heard the kids clamoring again, and one of them exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, you're Captain America and Black Widow!"

That had her sitting up in an instant.

Sure enough, the two alphas were not too far away from her. They were dressed in their gear, although Rogers didn't have his cowl on like he usually did. He looked a bit bemused as he and Romanoff quickly became crowded, like he still wasn't used to being both a superhero and famous, but he switched into the role very quickly. Romanoff had a soft smile as she greeted the kids, looking happy to see them.

Penny had no idea what they were doing here.

She had no idea if she wanted to be here when they were, either.

But, as she stood up, one of those kids came back to grab her by the hand and pull her over to them. "Spider-Woman, Spider-Woman, look!" he said. "Your friends are here!"

She would not describe them as her friends.

"Uh – "

"Did you plan this? Did you know they were coming?"

"Nope. No, I didn't," she swore. "I think the captain and Widow decided to surprise me."

"We did," remarked Romanoff, giving her an indecipherable look. "Hope you don't mind."

There were a lot of things Penny wanted to say to that.

But, mindful of the kids, she rolled her shoulders. "The more Avengers here, the merrier," she quipped.

Rogers snorted. "Don't let Tony hearing you say that."

"Iron Man's coming?" an eight-year-old exclaimed, looking like the news was going to make him pass out.

Romanoff was swift to quash the speculation. "No, it's just us three today," she said, briefly glancing over at Penny. "But you guys don't mind that, do you?"

Her question earned many shouts of, "No!"

Romanoff's hair had long since reverted back to red – which the same couldn't be said for Clint's, as his was still strawberry blonde from the permanent dye and him not bothering to change it, but she digressed. In the sunlight, her hair was more radiant than it was indoors. If Penny was feeling poetic, she might've said it was like the color of a phoenix, all bright and beautiful, or that it made her look like the Irish goddess Bridget (she had always imagined the goddess with darker hair than that of her Bridget), but –

Nope, she wasn't. Not at all.

"We really hope you don't mind," Rogers told her when she got closer to him and Romanoff, quiet enough that nobody could hear him except for her and maybe, maybe Romanoff. The spy gave no inclination either way. "We were gonna ask you if you would mind us patrolling with you today, but you left just as soon as you got back to the Tower, and social media said you were here. So – "

"You decided to come here and ask me instead of waiting another day," she muttered. "Nice."

The kids were oblivious to the way Rogers' smile became strained. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"It's fine," she replied, still in that same low voice. "Fine, fine, fine..."

And Romanoff must've been listening, because the corners of her mouth lifted upwards at this.

They interacted with the kids for a little bit longer. One of them had a soccer ball, and they wanted to see how high they could all kick it. Well, mostly they wanted her and Rogers to kick it, but Romanoff was technically enhanced as well, so she gave it a go. Romanoff was able to get it around eighty feet in the air, averaged between her three attempts. Rogers was able to get it to well over two hundred. Penny got it even higher than that without even really trying (of course), although with the unfortunate result that the ball came down flat. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, her cheeks flushing.

But the kids were all impressed. "Whoa," one of them said, looking a lot like the kid on the tricycle from The Incredibles, both in expression and appearance. "Spider-Woman, do you think if you really tried, you could kick a ball into space?"

She did not really know how to answer this question, and she'd spent a long enough time in the park anyways. So, she decided to make her farewells. "Ah, you know, I really should be going," she remarked. As the kids all groaned and protested, she laughed. "I can't be monopolized by you guys. The rest of the city needs me, too."

"And the rest of the Avengers!" a kid crowed.

"Yep. Yeah." She saluted them, making them all giggle. "See you around, kids."

Penny didn't bother to wait up for Rogers and Romanoff. There wasn't really a good immediate place outside of the park for them to do so, and besides, it was a good test to see if they really wanted to patrol with her, like Rogers had said. Romanoff was a spy. It wouldn't be hard for her to figure out what low-rise rooftop Penny had chosen instead of going immediately on her own way like she wanted to, if their intentions were genuine.

Let it never be said that she liked to do things easy. Far from it.

Twenty-five minutes later, she was almost surprised she heard footsteps behind her as she sat on the rooftop's ledge, dangling her legs in the air. "And here I thought you were trying to lose us," Romanoff commented dryly.

"If I wanted to lose you, I wouldn't have stopped here. I wouldn't have stopped at all," Penny replied. She stood up and turned around, slapping her hands against each other like she had just taken out the trash. Her head tilted subtly, as she observed them. Rogers' cowl was still gone, so his expression was clear for her to see. Neither of them seemed...mad at her, for ditching them. They seemed to have expected it.

Not like that mattered.

"We know," Romanoff said.

Penny whistled. Hopping off the ledge, she got closer to them. Their scents wafted over to her, and nothing had changed about them, and yet – it felt like they had. These were not the scents she had smelled a year ago, when the entire world had gone to hell.

But why was she thinking about that? Besides the fact it basically had been a year since the Battle of New York. That wasn't exactly an anniversary she wanted to celebrate.

"Why do you all of the sudden want to patrol with me?" she interrogated them, clasping her hands behind her back like she was a military superior, inspecting the new ranks. "You've never been interested in the little guy before, outside of the saving-the-world business or missions. And don't try to disagree with that," she added as Rogers opened his mouth to speak. "Actions speak louder than words."

Rogers looked pained at that, but he catered to her request. Rather than complain, he said, "We were interested to see what you do."

She made a noise in the back of her throat. "Couldn't you just get that kind of information on the news or in the newspaper? They like to report on me quite a lot."

Romanoff was further amused at her sass. She gave Rogers a look that he didn't see, in such a way she seemed to be trying to silently communicate to him, "Did you expect this to turn out any differently?"

Penny clenched her teeth at this, but she said nothing.

Romanoff was the one to reply. "We wanted to get into the minutiae."

"'Minutiae?'" Penny quoted.

"What you do is really amazing," Rogers piped up. "I know we haven't worked together outside of the Battle, Morbius, and the missions, but – "

"Zip it," Penny snapped. She placed a hand on her hip. "Why?"

"I – " and this wasn't lost on her, the usage of "I" by Rogers, not "we" – "wanted to see what patrolling the city for petty crime was like."

She lifted an eyebrow. "And you?"

Romanoff rolled her shoulders. "I wanted to come along for the party."

"Party."

She bit into her bottom lip so hard it was a wonder she didn't cut it open instantly.

The last time she'd teamed up with someone outside of the Avengers and that November from hell, it went without saying, was with Matt and Wade. Team Red was something that had worked. They all had their strengths, they all had their weaknesses. But they'd had a bond like that of siblings, the two men had been her brothers; the blood of the covenant for them had been thicker than the water of the womb. They'd trusted each other. Plus, it had helped that each of them had gone into the team-up with the desire to protect the city. If she was the Omega of the city, then they'd been her right- and left-hand alphas.

She wasn't sure if Romanoff and Rogers could do the same. It wasn't just because of the fact they were her soulmates even though she was pretending like they weren't, or because of her reluctance to trust in them. It was also because Penny didn't think it was fair to put them up to such a pedestal, plain and simple. They would never be Matt and Wade. They didn't have the same skill sets, the same passion, the same motives, or the same vibe with her. They didn't have any of it.

(If she was willing to be honest with herself, then she would've admitted that Matt and Wade weren't the only pedestal she was holding them to.

But, of course she wasn't.)

Rogers shifted his feet. "If you're uncomfortable with the idea, we don't have to – "

God.

Could Penny get him to not swing from one extreme to the other? First he looked at her lips, now in lieu of not being able to talk with her about it, he was trying to make up for it in other ways.

"Fine, you can come with me." She went back to the ledge, standing up on it. She turned her head sideways to look at them with a feral grin. "But only if you can keep up."

The three of them didn't get back to the Tower until late that night.

For all of her concerns, Romanoff and Rogers were good. Not as good as Matt and Wade had been, but bearable. Tolerable. They wound up stumbling upon a warehouse owned by one of the local gangs, used for drug manufacturing and dealing. Romanoff was the extra stealth they needed to bring it down, Rogers the extra muscle. The police were more than happy to take their statements afterwards, albeit they were a little surprised. "Are the Widow and Captain America going to be staples alongside you now?" asked one of the officers.

Penny glanced over at Romanoff and Rogers from where they were, talking with the police and ignoring the flash of press cameras.

"...I don't think so," she said. "You know how coworkers can be sometimes. Mild irritations, wanting to get all up in your business."

The officer barked out a laugh. "Yeah, I know how that is."

Afterwards, they went to a McDonald's and got a boatload of food on Stark's dime, which made her feel guilty, but whatever. They took their finds up to the rooftop of another building, and ate their food. Penny tore into hers with ferocious abandon, since the last time she'd eaten had been lunch, and she was starving.

Rogers, meanwhile, was a little reluctant. He held up his first hamburger, partially eaten, with a strange look on his face. "I'm not saying these are as bad as military rations," he began. "But how does anybody eat this?"

"Lo' of calories," she replied, her mouth partially full. She swallowed. "Also, it's cheap. Never doubt cheap, calorie-dense food."

"And it's fast," Romanoff pointed out, dunking one of her chicken nuggets in barbecue sauce. "Fast to get, fast to eat."

"Yeah." Penny wrinkled her nose. "Don't feel like you have to do what Romanoff's doing, though. That's kind of gross."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're dipping your fries in your milkshake," she deadpanned. "Who the heck does that?"

The spy rolled her eyes. "Don't knock it until you try it. But, if you must know," she added carefully. "It's something I picked up in Ohio."

"I didn't know Ohioans could be so weird," she mumbled.

"I heard that." Romanoff chucked a chicken nugget at her head, but Penny caught it in just the nick of time. She ate her reward without another thought.

Rogers was pensive. "You know, we're never going to make you do something that you don't want to do," he said. "But, I'd really rather prefer you call me by my first name. I don't mind Rogers, but I honestly prefer Steve."

Her good mood having vanished, she scowled down at her burger. "Yeah. Uh, huh. Sure."

She didn't start calling him Steve that night. They all went back to the Tower, and she went to bed, determined to call him nothing except his surname. He was her soulmate, but she wasn't going to let him get close, most of all if he had a crush on her like she thought. Never.

But then, when she saw him in the gym two days later once more, just as she was getting to leave, he said, "Hey, Spider-Woman."

And unthinkingly, she went, "Hey, Steve."

It didn't occur to her what she'd said until he gave her a beaming smile in response. Too startled at herself, she didn't take it back, just ran to the elevator without another word.

But once she started, she couldn't stop. Before she knew it, she was calling him Steve and all of the others by their first names, unless she actively prevented herself from doing so. Which she quickly gave up on, mostly out of frustration geared towards herself.

And it was only after a lot of crying, and a panic attack on top of that.

Harry, I'm falling apart and I don't know what to do...

Word Count: 4,178

Next Chapter Title: over my head