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 I know what I said about this being a ~late January/early February upload and I know I don't have the last companion piece to heavy, dirty soul, doubt, posted yet, but fwegsdfd I finished this first chapter and I love it very much so here you go!

For those of you that didn't finish reading the summary, this is the sequel to my story, heavy, dirty soul. Unlike that one, there aren't really any CW's for this one. It's a more upbeat and lighthearted story, although it will have its moments. Still, nothing as bad as its predecessor, I promise. :)

Story title comes from Life in Technicolor II by Coldplay btw, and the chapter title comes from The Run and Go by twenty one pilots. the run and go was originally supposed to be the title of this story, but it didn't really fit, so...voilà.

Next update will be on Saturday. I'll decide the updating schedule then.

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

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis


~the heavy souls 'verse~

~heavy, dirty soul~

~chapter 1: the run and go~


"Hello, Penny. How are you today?"

Penny gave a small smile as she sat down on the end of the one couch in the room, leaning against the armrest as she folded her legs underneath her. "I think I'm doing okay," she said. Before she could be asked, she added, "I'm somewhere between a 4 and a 5 today."

"That's good!" was the encouragement she received. "That's good." A pen was scribbled on paper, taking notes. "So, just to clarify, you haven't wished that you were dead or would never wake up, thought about committing suicide, or actively planned to commit suicide more than once a day in the week since we last met?"

She bit her lip, becoming sheepish. "Okay...so maybe I'm just a 5. I've had that first one more than once a day. But I haven't had the other two, though!" Her shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry."

Her psychologist gave her a fond look. "Remember what we've said before, Penny. You don't need to apologize for your thoughts – "

" – Mental illness is not your fault," she finished with a mutter. "Yeah, I know. It just still feels like it is."

"And that's what I'm here for." Another notation. She didn't bother looking at it, no matter how much she very much wished to. The last time she'd done that and commented on it, she'd earned an even longer notation. No, instead, she settled for watching the pen be put down, the hands become clasped together. "So, what do you want to talk about today?"

She hesitated.

Penny had been seeing her psychologist, a woman named Anne Warren who had two children of her own with her wife, for about four months now, since January. They'd established a repertoire during that time. Although medication was staunchly off limits due to her body's inability to metabolize anything except blood and blood substitute as well as a heavily modified pain medication (which she was incredibly thankful for. It was nice not to have to endure the entire pain from injuries like gunshot wounds anymore, even if developing it had been a miracle and doing the same with every other medication was pretty much impossible), Anne, as she'd insisted to be called, had already tentatively diagnosed her with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. In order to do that, as well as to just perform her job as a psychologist in general, they'd had to have many...uncomfortable conversations, to say the least. She'd even walked out on one or two (read: four) of them in tears.

But, the diagnoses...and just talking in general with a third party, really, had helped. Penny felt better about herself, and her view of the world. A lot had been explained. That wasn't to say she wasn't still struggling, because she was, but. She knew she wasn't a monster, that her sludge was blood regardless of how different it was, it being confirmed on the molecular level. She knew that her mom's death wasn't her fault. She knew that her Penny Parker Luck™ didn't exist, that the universe wasn't out to get her at every single moment. It continued to feel a lot like it did, but that was alright. Her feelings were valid, and it didn't matter how much she or anyone else told her they weren't.

For the first time in a long while, ever since about a month ago or so, Penny felt like she could actually breathe.

When she hadn't spoken after a good ten seconds, Anne decided to prod. "Do you want to talk about what's happening Tuesday?" she asked. "The pardoning of the Rogue Avengers must be – "

"No!" Penny blurted out. She winced, shifting her position some. "Um, n – no. I don't want to talk about that, please."

Anne nodded. This time, she waited for her.

"Actually," she began. "I've been thinking a lot today about..."

Her session went well, as it usually did now. After it was over, she walked out of the room, going over to four-story-tall windows of the main food court of Stark Industries (they were smart windows, programmed not to show her, which was the only reason why she felt safe doing this). She watched the people below, talking and laughing and eating, grinning softly as she did. It was always a treat to see people going about their regular lives, especially when she wasn't wearing her suit. There was something...special about it. Probably the fact she'd never thought she would have the ability to do so anymore, not until five months ago.

"Penny," FRIDAY said overhead. "Seeing as how your appointment with Dr. Warren is done, I must remind you that – "

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I know, FRI," she replied. "Snack Time for the Baby Spider."

"That is what Boss calls it."

"You know, it would be funnier if I knew you weren't telling the truth."

"So you've said before. Unfortunately, memory alteration is not in my abilities."

"'Yet,'" Penny said playfully.

The AI didn't deign her with a response.

She took the elevator up to the penthouse. Once there, she shucked off her shoes and went to the kitchen. Grabbing her thermos from its drying rack and placing it on the island, she got one of her blood cartons out of her designated pantry. Filling up her thermos, she closed the lid, pressed the "on" button, and waited.

Knowing by scent that it was ready, she uncapped the lid, took a sip, and briefly closed her eyes. Perfect. As of last week, her dad had finally found a subtle change to the blood substitute that made it taste exactly like blood, and it was the best thing since sliced bread. She kept on sipping at it as she went over to the couch, sitting crisscrossed-applesauce, and turned on the TV with the remote. "The old-fashioned way," her dad liked to call it.

She called it not wanting to be lazy.

Finding a rerun of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she let it play as she drank the rest of her meal, and then on after that. Today was a Friday, she reminded herself. She did her schoolwork and homework for her online school up until around a quarter till two, then went downstairs to one of the conference room levels to have her appointment with Anne. After that, she did whatever she wanted to do until six, provided that her homework was finished and it wasn't Spider-Woman-related. So the latter had been ordered by Anne, because she believed that Penny would burn herself out otherwise, and her dad had agreed with that. The traitor.

...And granted, they were probably right, but still.

That did not mean she had to like it.

There wasn't much she could do that wasn't related to her being a superhero/vigilante/whatever else you wanted to call it, because she wasn't really quite sure where she stood right now. She could go down to the gym and train, that technically wasn't related to her being Spider-Woman, but it did defeat the purpose of a "break." Same went for going to one of the labs, unless she wanted to work on something else today, which she didn't. So her options were limited to watching TV, reading a book, or scrolling through her phone, and she didn't feel much like doing those latter two choices, either.

Besides, SVU could be...soothing. It was an unexpected outcome when she'd started to watch it. Seeing police who actually gave a damn about about the victims of sexually-based offenses, even through a work of fiction, was nice.

As the next episode ended, she heard the familiar ding! of the elevator behind her. She grinned, backflipping off of the couch and landed on her feet in a fluid motion.

"I'm never going to get used to that," her dad muttered.

Penny rolled her eyes. "Hi, Dad." Then she went over to Harley, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. He kept on getting taller and taller, while she remained the same height, and it wasn't fair. "Hi, Harley."

Harley grinned. "Hello, darlin'."

If she still had a heartbeat, it would've done something funny at him calling her the name. Five months ago, she never would've let him call her it, but. She'd made progress. Every two steps forward included one step back, which was often painful and frustrating, but that was part of the healing process. So Anne had told her, anyways. And it was worth it.

Case in point:

"What am I, chopped liver?" her dad joked.

With another eye roll, she gave him a quick side-hug. Never before would she have imagined being able to do that with any male adult figure in her life, her dad or not. But she knew he'd been only joking, and that he wasn't going to hurt her, and she trusted him. He respected her boundaries. On the days she didn't want to be touched at all or have anyone except Harley near her, he found other ways to provide her comfort, like watching movies on the opposite ends of the couch or working on their own projects in the lab.

"You know you're not." She started back over to the couch. "What are you guys eating for dinner?"

"Boss already ordered Thai thirty minutes ago. It will get here in about fifteen minutes," FRIDAY informed her.

"Oh, nice. Are Matt, Natasha, and Rhodey eating with us?"

"You already know they are," Harley ribbed, shrugging off his backpack at the end of the couch and settling down next to her. "It's Friday."

Yes. Fridays meant therapy sessions and a three-hour break from Spider-Woman, but they also meant Harley's internship and him staying over for the weekend, plus Rhodey coming down from the Compound to eat dinner with them. May did, too, when she could, but she'd already texted her today that she wouldn't be able to make it due to her job as a nurse. Tony had been trying to "sway her over to the dark side," or so her aunt liked to say, by having her work for him for months now, but he hadn't been having much luck. Penny didn't inherit her stubbornness just from the Stark side of the family, that was for sure.

Matt, Natasha, and Rhodey arrived a few minutes before their food did. "Hello, Penny," said the former, meandering over towards where she was in the kitchen, getting out another two blood cartons.

"Hi, Matt," she greeted him, smiling. "Nat."

The former spy leaned against the bar counter, her arms crossed. But she was smiling, too. "How did your therapy session go today?"

She told them the same thing she had told her dad: "Oh, it was fine."

Unlike her dad, they were willing to push what buttons they knew to press. "You're not anxious about Tuesday, are you?" Natasha questioned with a slight tilt of her head.

Penny felt her face flush. For someone who had been able to keep the secret of her being Penny Parker from them for almost a year, she really was bad at lying. Her eyes darted away nervously. "...No."

Matt huffed. "Penny."

"I'm not anxious!" she insisted weakly. Her shoulders slumped. "...Okay, so maybe I am a little apprehensive about the entire thing, and that is technically being anxious, but I know everything's going to be fine. You guys aren't gonna be gone that long, just – "

"The day before through halfway to the day after," Natasha interjected.

She swallowed. "Right."

"And then after that, Steve, Sam, and the Twins will be living here."

"Yes." She paused. "But it's fine, really! I'm not worried about them."

"No one would blame you if you were," Matt reminded her. "You're meeting people who know about you. You have a right to be nervous, even though they're not going to judge you or try to harm you. It's a big change."

"...You sound like Anne," she grumbled.

He beamed. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Their conversation was cut short by the arrival of the takeout. Not-so-secretly, Penny was glad. She prepared herself the first serving of her own dinner, and sat down next to Harley again as the news was briefly turned on. Rhodey was on her other side, diagonal due to the couch end. He looked at her over his carton of chicken phat kaphrao. "So, what have you been reading this week?"

"Persepolis."

"Do you like it?"

"Well, it's not really a book-book. It's a comic collection of strips made by the author, translated to English. They're kind of like a memoir about her growing up in Iran, before the Revolution, and her life afterwards," she explained. "I don't know, I like it. It's pretty interesting. I have a book report for it due on Monday."

"Like the other books you've read?"

"Yeah."

"Do you still think it's weird, writing book reports again?"

Harley snickered. "She still thinks it's weird to be doing school again, in general."

As Penny playfully swatted him on the arm, Rhodey chuckled. "I can understand that."

She decided to get her revenge. "What about you, Harley?" she asked, leaning into his side dramatically just as he was about to use his chopsticks with his right hand, making him scowl. "How was your school today?"

"Can I eat?" As she giggled, sitting up, he took a bite of his food before saying, "School was fine. Actually..."

He had a story to tell about Chemistry with Ned and MJ which didn't so much involve them as it did the idiots who were working near them. She listened to him more than the news, although she kept her eyes on the TV. They did some reporting on the Rogue Avengers being pardoned on Tuesday, talking about how it had been a year since the original signing of the Sokovia Accords and the disaster that had happened then, including King T'Chaka of Wakanda being killed and Daredevil signing the Accords and joining the Avengers. Natasha kidded with him about the picture they used, even though he couldn't see it, telling him it wasn't one of his most flattering ones.

"Ah, I'm sure it's better than any of Tony's," he teased.

Her dad glowered. "Why am I being brought into this?"

Matt didn't say anything else, just grinned.

Her dad was obviously thinking about changing the channel, but before he could, the news reporters switched to something else that wasn't as stress-inducing – for them, at least.

At six o'clock, Penny was already done with her second serving of blood substitute, her thermos being placed on the coffee table. She looked at her dad expectantly. "It's six o'clock," she said. "Can I go?"

He gave her a look back. "Is your thermos washed out yet?"

Cursing under her breath, much to everyone else's general amusement, she grabbed her thermos and hurried into the kitchen. Turning on the water from the sink, she washed it out. She always had to do this after she was done with the thermos, never right before she ate. It had to be perfectly, 100% dry when she needed to use it. Otherwise...

When she was done and the thermos was back on its drying rack, she ran towards the hallway where the bedrooms were located. "Bye, Dad! Bye, guys!" she called out.

"Be safe!" Tony shouted back.

"I'll see you later!" said Harley.

She knew she would. He would undoubtedly still be awake by the time she got home at eleven. And he would be waiting for her, in her bedroom. Her dad and his mom had decided to let them sleep at night together when he was here, provided that her door remained at least partially opened and sleeping was all they did. They weren't disallowed from doing...more(and God, that had been a mortifying and borderline panic attack-inducing conversation to have), but it wasn't like they were doing more in the first place, not since the one and only time in November, so they were fine with those rules.

She just wasn't ready to go back to doing more. Harley understood that. He'd never once tried to pressure her into doing so.

He really was the perfect boyfriend.

In her room, she closed the door behind her. Shimmying out of her clothes, she put them in the hamper before going to her closet. Taking the Spider-Woman suit her dad had made for her off its hanger, Penny put it on. The black-and-red fabric clung to her skin, as tight as her original suit had been. The only differences in the suit, besides the better heaters and a pacemaker that actually mirrored what her heartbeat would've been had she still had one, making it easier to resist the connections between her and Lolita, was that when she looked into the lenses, they flared to life with the blue of holoscreens.

"Hello, Penny," her personal AI, KAREN, said. "I take it you are well?"

The edges of her mouth curled upwards as she headed over to her windows, one of which opened so she could sneak out of it. "Hi, KAREN. I'm good, thanks for asking. What do you got for me today?"

"There is currently a police chase going on east of Stuyvesant Square. The suspects robbed a local bank. Would you like to assist the NYPD?"

Now that she mentioned it, Penny could hear the sirens, since the chase was only a mile away. "Of course I would. Show me the fastest way to get there, please."

The holoscreens lit up further.

In the past five months, the public had gotten used to the continued disappearance of Lolita and the fact Spider-Woman now patrolled all of the city and not just Queens, sometimes with the assistance of Black Widow and Daredevil. The news had dubbed her an "unofficial Avenger," because they knew she lived at the Tower. They'd wondered openly if she was going to sign the Sokovia Accords, to which her dad had had to do a press conference to say that, as of right now, that was not in the cards for her. Besides the Washington DC incident, she'd only operated in New York City and would continue to do so, which meant that she didn't have to sign the Accords or reveal her identity. She wasn't an international figure, wasn't even a national figure, only a local one, and had no interests in revealing her identity. If that ever changed in the future, he'd said, he would let them know.

It wouldn't, just for the record. Not until she was eighteen and her dad had found a way for her to be immunized for her crimes, and probably not even then. She liked her anonymity. She liked nobody knowing that she was Tony Stark's daughter or Lolita, because of all the drama that would come with each of those things.

She liked the majority of the world still believing that she was missing.

Within minutes, she came down from the air, landing on top of the armored truck the robbers had stolen. She heard them startle at the thud, cursing. "Fuck, it's Spider-Woman!" one of them shouted.

"Perceptive guys, aren't they?" she said, laughing a little.

"It seems they are," KAREN agreed.

"There's four of them, right? Two in the front, two in the back?" She could count them by their heartbeats.

"There are four heat signatures."

"Good. Easy."

Before she'd started training with Matt and Natasha almost a year ago, she probably would've gone after the two guys in the back first, pulling the cargo doors off of their hinges. But that would be messy, sloppy, allowing for money to fill the streets and more injuries than necessary of civilians and police officers to possibly happen. So instead, she jumped onto the front part of the truck and, hanging down from the side, knocked at the driver's window.

It spoke to the idiocy of the driver that he even rolled it down, giving her vibes of the guy from the plutonium heist that had also happened almost a year ago. "Hey, guys," Penny said in a mock greeting. "Does this truck belong to you? Whoa!" She moved away from the window as gunfire came at her. "Y'all are not very friendly, are you?"

"Y'all."

She grimaced. "Harley's rubbing off on me, isn't he?"

"It appears so."

"Not helpful, KARE."

"My apologies."

She went over to the passenger's side of the truck and broke the window. Launching herself in, she punched the guy in the passenger's seat out cold. The driver slammed his foot on the brake in surprise, and she used this to her advantage, webbing him in that position. Then she webbed his one hand to the steeling wheel as he used his other to reach for his gun, and knocked him out, too.

The truck having come to a stop, she jumped out of it and went to the back. Gunshots came at her before she could even finishing pulling the doors off their hinges, but she avoided them with the help of her sixth sense. She leaped into the cargo container, taking out the last two bad guys without much work. They must've been newbies, because for all that they had been able to rob a bank, they were pretty awful at the aftermath.

By the time she was done, the police had already formed a loose circle around the truck. She waved to them as she hopped out. "Hi! I stopped these guys for ya."

The police usually had a love/hate relationship with her, oftentimes with more emphasis on the "hate" part. But the leading officer was a guy she recognized as being one of the ones who was generally fond of her. "Spider-Woman," he spoke as his officers moved past her, going over to the criminals to handcuff them and escort them away. "It's good to see you. Thanks for your help."

"Yeah." She blew out a puff of air. "Anytime." Her eyes trailed over to the two who had been in the back and not knocked out, now being led over to two different squad cars. "Is there anything else you need me to do? Give a statement?" Sometimes, the NYPD required that. Usually only when they came upon the scene after she'd busted the bad guys but was still there.

The officer – captain, she reminded herself. He was a captain – shook his head. "I think we're good here. You can go. Stay safe, kid."

She pointed at him as she bounded away. "I'm not a kid!"

"Sure you're not!" he yelled back.

Thwipping a web at a nearby building as she jumped, she used it to propel her back into the sky. People marveled at her as they walked beneath her, seeing the nearby now-crime scene. A few of them waved. She waved back.

"Alright, KAREN. What else do you got?" Penny asked. It was a Friday night. She knew she would have something.

Sure enough:

"According to my surveillance, there is – "


Fifteen minutes before eleven o'clock, Penny crawled into her room through the same window she had used to exit it. The window shutting gently behind her, she pulled off her mask. "Hey," she said to Harley.

Harley was sitting on her bed, crisscrossed, his laptop resting on his lap. "Hey," he replied. "How was patrol?"

"The usual." She took off her suit, putting it back on its hanger. She unhooked her bra and threw it at the hamper, grinning when her aim was true (as if it wouldn't be), and put on the t-shirt and shorts that served as one of her sets of pajamas. When she laid down on the side of the bed she favored, even when Harley wasn't there, he leaned down to kiss her forehead. "What'cha doing?"

"Research project."

"Sounds boring."

"It is." He sighed. "But, it's also due Monday."

"And you're not putting it off until the last second." She clasped a hand to her chest. "Is the sky falling? Is the world going to end?"

He pushed at her right shoulder, causing her to wind up laying down on her back. "Hey, I don't always procrastinate."

"Yes, you do. Don't even bother trying to deny it."

Harley made a noise in the back of his throat, but said nothing.

She sat up a little so she could see what he was doing. His research project looked like it was on the Vietnam War. That sucked.

"Does it ever occur to you we're basically already a married couple at the age of fifteen?" she mused out loud.

"Penny."

"Harley."

"...Okay, yes it has," he admitted reluctantly.

She smirked. "You're just afraid because, out of the two of us, you're gonna be the one that's wearing glasses thirty years from now."

"Nope, no glasses for me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." His cheeks reddened. "Okay, maybe not, but Extremis shouldn't – "

She cackled. "See! Thirty years, I call it now!"

"Penny, I swear to God – "

A knock at the open doorway startled them both. "Everything alright in here?" her dad asked.

"Penny's bullying me," Harley said immediately.

"Harley!"

"Well, I can't help with that. I won't get in the middle of a lovers' quarrel," her dad deadpanned. As Harley spluttered, Tony focused his attention on her. "I saw your fight with the bank robbers on the news. Did you stay safe during your patrol?"

"Yes."

"You promise?"

She groaned. "Yes. I promise."

Her dad nodded. "Good. Okay, 'night, kids. Love you, honey."

"Love you, Dad."

As soon as he was gone, Penny sat up triumphantly. "You know I'm right," she said smugly.

Harley scoffed. "So what if you are? You better go brush your teeth before you crash."

With an "oomph," she got up to do just that. As she did, she knew one thing:

She might have been at a 5 on the scale she and Anne had developed for tracking her depression and suicidal thoughts, but today had been a good day. Everything about it was okay.

And she was okay, too. She was in a much better place than she had been before she'd come home, that was for sure.


Word Count: 4,398

Next Chapter Title: family man