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! Still adjusting from my hiatus, but I'm excited to be coming back to this story. :)

This chapter is a...I don't want to say calm before the storm, but it's wrapping up the last few things we need to before the final chapters (and sequel!), if that makes sense. The title comes from Hold Me by Fleetwood Mac.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Until next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~primis, omega, superhero, genius~

~somebody to love~

~chapter 37: hold me~

A couple of hours after the marking of the seventh day, her heat ended.

Penny knew it as soon as she woke up, everything from the gauze to her cramps gone. She felt tired and sore, but at the same time refreshed – like she would be able to run a marathon or climb up a mountain, once she got some coffee in her.

To her surprise, she was laying on the bed without something inside of her (read: a cock buried in her sex or stuffed in her mouth. She'd gotten used to that with Harry, to milking him for everything that he had until the second her heat was over – and sometimes after that, too, if he'd been up for it). It looked like this time, her alphas were not the only ones who had been fatigued from the entire experience. She must've been, too.

Speaking of the four of them, she rolled over onto her back so she could more comfortably get a look at them. They were all asleep, which made her smile. Steve was right next to her, his mouth open and a trail of drool making a path down his jaw. Tony was on her other side, his expression utterly relaxed in a sharp contrast to how he usually looked even when he was asleep. Clint and Natasha were closer to the end of the bed, he with an arm slung over his eyes while her face was obscured by her hair.

Penny almost wanted to wake them, but she decided against it. They'd taken care of her for the past week; they deserved their rest.

Like with before, she used the ceiling as her method of getting out of bed. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she went into the bathroom, closing the door gently behind her. She checked herself out in the mirror before she got ready to brush her teeth, wincing a little. She'd definitely lost those pounds that she'd gained back with this heat and then some, the not-quite-healed bruises all over her body from sometime last night being proof of it; she hoped they'd clear up once she got some food in her. Other than the purplish marks, though, she looked good, and she was sure she would also gain the weight she'd lost back soon enough. Her mates weren't going to give her much of a choice otherwise with how they fretted over her.

"JARVIS," she said after spitting the toothpaste foam into the sink. "Can you order us all some brunch from that one place?"

"Certainly. I will place all of your usual orders," he replied. Then, "And if I may say so, I am happy that your heat went well, Miss."

She smiled again. "Me too, JARVIS. Me, too."

The hot shower against her skin was like achieving nirvana. She took her time with washing herself: scrubbing the loofah tenderly across her skin, digging her fingers deep into her scalp, and overall just deep-cleaning off the dried sweat and slick that had amassed in the past week and not been gotten to during the other showers for whatever reason.

It was well past an hour by the time that she was finished, which meant that their food would most likely be arriving soon. Penny spent long enough in the bedroom to pull on some pajamas and grab her comb, then she headed into the kitchen while beginning to rake the latter through her hair. Making sure through a quick check with JARVIS that the food would be another fifteen minutes or so, she momentarily set the comb aside to go through the motions of getting herself some espresso for an iced latte and starting up a pot of coffee for her significant others.

Of course, the smell of the brewing roast roused them. Her smile returned – not that it had ever really left her face, she had felt the pull of the relevant muscles remain ever since she'd talked with JARVIS – as she heard the changing in their breathing patterns and heartbeats. A few minutes later, they lumbered into the main room from the hallway, properly dressed in pajamas like her but looking absolutely wiped.

"'Morning," she said.

Tony glared at her. "How are you this awake?" he complained. He came over to her side, pressing a kiss to her cheek in his quest for the coffeepot, but was nevertheless clearly displeased. "You've been in heat for a week and fucked all of our brains out, you shouldn't be having this much energy."

"Sorry," she sort-of apologized. "I did order breakfast. It should be here any minute."

"The driver has already entered the building," JARVIS informed them.

She pointed her index finger at the ceiling. "See?"

Clint walked up to her just to slap a hand to her ass, to which she squawked, before he leaned against the counter and ran the palms of his hands down his face. Natasha kissed her other cheek, but she moved out of the way for Steve. He was in his mother hen mode, blue eyes full of concern as he looked her up and down. "How are you feeling?"

"Never better," she said.

He grinned, leaning in close. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Before his lips could brush up against hers, JARVIS announced, "The food is now in the elevator, Penny."

Cracking up at the look that settled on Steve's face, she managed, "Th – thanks, JARVIS."

As she should've expected, the AI had gotten them a bit more food than he usually did, but she didn't really mind. She was starving. Now that she wasn't in heat, her metabolism was kicking back into gear.

"So," she began in between shoving forkfuls of scrambled eggs into her mouth after they'd sat down in her living room – it had undergone some slight rearranging since everything had come out. The TV was on and playing the news, because she always liked to know what was going on in the world after one of her heats. "I was right?"

"Yes," Clint deadpanned. "Yes, you were."

"What Clint said," Tony grumbled, though there was no heat to his voice. He was merely cranky because he was tired, and he appeared to realize it. "Letting us share your heat with you was undoubtedly one of the best experiences I've ever had, but it was also a...lot." And they all knew his history.

Penny appreciated their honesty. She'd always want honesty more than them trying to spare her feelings, albeit she wasn't bothered at all here. It was basically what Harry had said after their first shared heat together. And again, she'd warned them. She'd told them.

Natasha echoed her silent sentiment. "You did tell us. It's our fault for not believing you."

Steve chuckled tiredly. "She has a point."

Penny grabbed his hand and squeezed it, as once more he was right next to her. "Well, from my perspective, everything went really well," she admitted. "It was...intense – " now that she was in possession of her complete mental faculties and had had some more time to think about it, it was clear to her that she and Bruce had been right after all about this heat being much more severe than her usual ones. And as she thought this to herself, she ignored Clint's huff of amusement " – but it was good. You guys did a good job. Definitely repeat-worthy material."

Her joke earned eye rolls from Nat and Clint and a smirk from Steve. It was Tony, however, who said as he stretched his arms dramatically behind his head, "That's going to have to wait for a couple of days, minimum. I feel like I need an ice pack."

She stood up, disregarding the surprise fluttering across his face at her taking his word so seriously. "I can do both of those things."

"Wait, Penny – "

"Believe me, you'll thank me later for it. I know from experience."

They had a lazy day when breakfast was over, retreating back to the bedroom for cuddles and dozing on the alphas' part, the opportunity to rest properly after a week of not really doing that too good to pass up. They watched some movies as well and had dinner, and then by eleven o'clock that night, Steve, Tony, Natasha, and Clint were all asleep. Penny fell asleep not long after them, as even with the loads of energy that she felt like she had (though she wanted to reiterate that she was still tired, too), heats always took a lot out of her. She was used to needing a day to recuperate.

The next morning, she had an appointment with Bruce to make sure that everything had gone well, so she got up at seven o'clock, letting the others sleep in some more. Or rather, that's what she thought, up until in the midst of her showering, the bathroom and shower doors opened and a warm arm pulled her into her alpha's midsection. "Did you really think that you were going to get away that easily?" Clint whispered into her ear, making her shiver.

"Clint..."

He teased the canal of her ear with one of his fangs. "You're not as quiet as you think you are," he chuckled. He reached the arm around her waist up to cup one of her breasts.

While Tony might have wanted a slight break from the sex (really, knowing him, that had just been a joke), it was clear that was not the case with him.

And now that she'd had her heat with them, the boundaries she'd needed before were gone, and she had no qualms about having shower-sex with him. She wanted him.

No, she needed him.

Now that she wasn't actively trying to run away from her soulmates anymore, she could recognize that she was a twenty-three-year-old omega who had certain needs that hadn't been fulfilled in a long, long time.

That didn't stop her from wondering just why Clint was so fascinated with her ass, but that was a conversation topic for later, when he wasn't pinning her wrists against the wall and saying things that would make almost anybody blush, then planting hickeys on her collarbone that he knew he really shouldn't be, and then fucking into her with abandon. It was probably a miracle that they didn't wake the others up.

After they were finished, Penny got ready, said and kissed goodbye the other three as they stirred awake for that sole reason, and went downstairs to MedBay. Bruce was already waiting for her. "Hello, Penny."

"Hi, Bruce," she said.

He gestured towards the examination room they'd be in today. "Shall we?"

It was continuing to be weird for him to be her physician in this matter, and she figured it always would be. She got changed into the hospital gown which was necessary for this kind of appointment. Bruce took her weight; she knew before he even said anything that he wasn't pleased.

She cringed. "Sorry."

He sighed. "You lost the five pounds you gained and what looks like another five on top of it. That's not necessarily dangerous yet, considering that some weight loss during intense heats is to be expected, but it is bad. We need to continue to work on this; I don't want to give you a feeding tube as much as you don't want one."

"I know."

They changed the subject to something lighter. She got settled on the exam table and he hovered over her, making sure he had everything he needed on the small table off to the side. "Did you have a good heat, other than that?"

"Yeah. No hiccups or anything." She didn't want to go into any more detail unless he asked.

Thankfully, he didn't. "That's good."

The appointment was a lot shorter than their previous one. Bruce didn't need to do as thorough of a physical exam since he was only looking for tears and the like, and the only tests that he performed were a blood test to see if she was pregnant (she wasn't – the birth control he'd been able to develop for her at the last minute was working perfectly) and a urine test to check for any infections (there were none). He gave her a plan B pill he'd also developed for her to pop just in case of pregnancy, because she was in no shape or form ready to have kids yet whatsoever. All of that said and done, he was ready to send her on her way.

Unfortunately, said way was not back up to her apartment. "Fury said he wanted to have a group debriefing as soon as you were ready for it," he informed her, chagrined.

Penny groaned. She should've expected this. "Did you hear that, JAR?"

"The others have already been informed and will be headed down to the appropriate conference room in a few minutes."

That was where they met up, Penny sliding into the seat between Steve and Natasha. Fury was waiting for her and Bruce; as always, he looked unamused. "Alright," he began as preamble, "now that we are all in an appropriate state of mind to talk about this, let's finally get down to business."

"To defeat the Huns?" she suggested without thinking about it. Fury's glare worsened. Clint hid his snort as best as he could by pressing his fist to his mouth. She wilted. "Sorry. Continue."

Fury did just that, sparing her no mercy. "Osborn, you let Iron Lad get away?"

His tone offended her. "I didn't let him get away," she snapped. "He ran, and I was a little otherwise...preoccupied by the turn of events."

She couldn't have told you why she was protecting Iron Lad. Now that her heat was over, there was no reason for her to keep him alpha-ordering her a secret anymore. She didn't need her alphas to be solely focused on her any longer. And it wasn't like Iron Lad didn't deserve their wrath, either. He absolutely did.

Her godfather wasn't impressed by her answer. "Fine, then. While you were 'preoccupied,' he got away without giving us any further information about HYDRA, and we still don't know his identity. Do you know what he even looks like?"

Penny tried to remember. She had a good memory, but it had been over a week since then and she understandably hadn't given him any thought. "Caucasian. Blonde hair, blue eyes," she recalled. "Based on his height, probably an alpha."

"That's helpful."

"I don't know what you want me to say," she defended. "I did the best that I could, given the circumstances."

Fury knew her inside and out: it was clear to her that he knew she was at least partially lying, yet her last statement was entirely truthful. "We still need him," he grunted. "Do you think you'd be able to sit down with a sketch artist?"

"...Maybe."

"'Maybe' isn't good enough. I'll get someone up here to do it immediately after this." He rearranged the files in front of him. "But Iron Lad is only one of several fucking topics we should've been discussing a week ago."

Steve, Tony, Clint, and Natasha all looked less than pleased at his choice of words. Miraculously, they kept their mouths shut.

Because of information that had come out since the attack (and Fury simply wanting to be the petty bastard that he was), the debriefing ran longer. By the time it and her session with the sketch artist was over, she was more than just a little hungry, having eaten only a light breakfast that morning.

This was where the others came into play, JARVIS included. "Already ordered lunch," Tony told her under his breath after she'd walked out of the conference room and found him and her other three alphas waiting for her and they started to walk down the hallway. "Italian. Got you that one fettuccine and truffle dish you like."

With Fury and Bruce – Hill hadn't shown up to this particular debriefing – already long gone, she had no qualms in standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. "Thank you."

Over the course of the next week, they got settled back into the routine they'd been beginning to start before the attack of the killer robots. Since she wasn't working anymore, she had a lot more free time on her hands. That didn't necessarily mean she spent all of it in their company: they were Avengers, so they had their priorities in paperwork, training, and other activities. She was still Spider-Woman, so she kept on patrolling in the afternoons and evenings, although she was slowly bringing her hours down bit by bit. And they had their own stuff to do as well, like Tony being the head of the R&D Department (and largest shareholder) of his company and Steve taking up a few hours a week at a VA office in Brooklyn, among other things.

Nevertheless, Penny was spending much more time with them than she had previously. It was becoming common for her to share breakfast and coffee with whoever had slept with her the night before (even in relationships like theirs where jealousy wasn't a big issue, space was good). Then she would lazy about the morning, giving her body a chance to finally heal from the past couple of years and getting done the Avengers-related stuff she needed to do. Usually, this would additionally include her bugging them all (Bruce included). After lunch, she would go out as Spider-Woman, and the people of the city were getting used to at least one of four certain team members joining her on her afternoon patrols. The evening patrols were reserved solely for herself, and they followed a dinner on the communal floor. She took quickly to helping out with the cooking, because outside of breakfast foods and some other items, only her, Bruce, and Nat could cook a damn out of the entire group. Sex was had either on one of their floors, in Tony's lab, or once...on some rooftop in Queens. Steve and Nat had been too persuasive, and she mortified but left unable to resist their charms.

It was all incredibly domestic, or so for people like them, who did what they did. The routine did remind her some of the one she'd had with Harry, but they were different enough that it wasn't something she thought about beyond maybe three times over the course of the week at the most, and only for a couple of minutes each time. She'd been a high school and college student then, now she was an independent woman whose life didn't revolve around classes, homework, and everything else that came with them. Her living style was completely different.

On the last day of January, there was a slight change in the routine. Upon coming back from her afternoon patrol and having some time to decompress on her own, rather than going upstairs to the communal floor for dinner, Penny rummaged through her closet. Finding what she wanted soon enough, which was a dark blue dress with elbow-length sleeves and a flared skirt that went down to right above her knees, she set it on the bed before she headed into her bathroom.

JARVIS knew what to do; she didn't have to ask. Music began to filter into the room through his speakers.

"Can you understand me? Baby, don't you hand me a line. Although it doesn't matter, you and me got plenty of time..."

It took her over an hour to get ready, mainly because she hadn't applied makeup in so long and learned the hard way how rusty she was. When she was finally able to survey the results in the mirror, though, she was more than happy. She gave a twirl, watching her skirt flare out from her movements. She batted her eyes at herself alluringly, blowing a kiss when the desire to struck her. She laughed at her own antics.

"Alright, I'm ready," she announced as she stepped out of the elevator, adjusting the strap of her purse.

The entirety of herself, her rational side and her omega side both, preened at the attention she received. Clint wolf-whistled appreciatively, while Steve's Adam's apple visibly bobbed. The super soldier summarized it with a simple, "Nice."

Penny was not a stereotypical omega, would never be a stereotypical omega, but she figured she could humor them just this once, so she did a pose. "Like what you see?"

"Yes," Tony said immediately. "Although, I will say, I still don't get why you're so obsessed with scrunchies. You weren't even alive during the '80s."

"You could make that argument for my music tastes, too," she pointed out. "I don't know, I just like them."

"We know," Clint said with a grin.

The boys went into the elevator first. Penny hung back, sensing Natasha wanting to do the same. The female alpha locked their arms together in the old-fashioned sort of way. "Ты выглядишь потрясающе, Омега," she murmured. "Но это платье обязательно сойдет позже."

Penny didn't know Russian, though it was now at the top of her list of languages to learn because of Natasha. But she could pick up on the context clues easily enough. "Nat," she whined, her cheeks going red.

Natasha smiled. "I only say it because it's true."

Penny's flush didn't really go away in the elevator. With them being the only ones in it and the alphas dressed up as nicely as she was, her mind went to...places.

She hadn't ever had sex in an elevator before. She was kind of interested in seeing what it was like.

"What the hell are you thinking about?" Tony asked inquisitively, humor lacing his voice. They could all smell the spike in her scent, indicating arousal and the beginnings of production of slick.

"N – nothing," she lied.

"You sure about that?"

She whirled around at him, placing her hands on her hips. "Tony..."

He raised his hands in the air. "I was just checking..."

Elevator sex sounded interesting, but she didn't want to have it now. They had to get through this first official date of theirs first.

Steve was driving this time, and she was squeezed between Tony and Clint in the back. As they exited the parking garage in the same black SUV they'd used before, a shiver went down the back of Penny's neck and down her spine. It was her spider sense...but it wasn't alerting her to danger.

She leaned forwards so she could look past Clint, which was where her spider sense was directing her to. For a moment, she thought she almost saw a guy wearing a tweed baseball cap and a brown bomber jacket staring at them from the sidewalk, his face hardened, with blonde hair and blue –

"What are you looking at?" Clint asked.

She sat back in her seat. "Nothing," she answered again, patting her thighs and giving herself brownie points for how her heart didn't skip a single beat. "I'm just anxious for where you guys are taking me. All you've told me is that it's a high-class restaurant."

Tony placed his hand over hers, giving her thigh a light pinch. "That's the point of a surprise, ma chérie."

"It's not much of a surprise if I've been to pretty much every single one of those restaurants," she pointed out.

He snickered. "Don't pout. But also, if it gives you any consolation, you haven't been to this one before. It only opened up in the past year."

"Tony, don't encourage her," Natasha said from the front.

"I'm not! I'm just saying..."

As the two (read: mostly Tony) bickered, Penny settled down. She tucked a stray curl that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear, then rested her head on Clint's shoulder.

"Don't tell me you're tired."

"I'm not." As if solely to prove her wrong, her body forced her to yawn. "O – okay, so maybe I am, but that's nothing some coffee can't fix."

"Better make that an Irish coffee," Steve supplied – unhelpfully.

Penny made a face. "I swear, you're all lucky that you're my mates – "

"Oh, yes, we're very lucky," Tony interjected, agreeing. His hand on her thigh tightened again. "Do you want us to prove how lucky we are?"

"T – Alpha...ah!"

. . .

(Let's just say: elevator sex sounded interesting, but by the time they got to the restaurant that her alphas had chosen, she was frazzled and thoroughly reminded of how good car sex was, too.)

Word Count: 4,109

Next Chapter Title: hungry like the wolf