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: Told y'all I'd get this one out to you soon. ;)
I know we're kind of kicking off with a slow pace here and the next two chapters (which will introduce Kate's and MJ's POVs) will kind of continue that but there's going to be a lot going on and world-building to do so...yeah. Oop. Pacing will pick up after that, I promise.
Next chapter will also be potentially posted soon. Idk, I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to add this to the rotation I've been meaning to create for my bigger-chapter fics or just go where my muse leads me since I'm kind of hyperfixating on this fic right now. We'll see.
As always, I hope you enjoy. If you're familiar with my stories, you know how the rest of this sign off goes,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~running up that hill~
~running up that hill~
~chapter 2: Harley~
Harley's morning started off great.
He woke up that morning at six o'clock, as he did every morning during the week. He turned off the alarm on his phone before he sat up, stretched, and grabbed the two bottles of medicine off of his nightstand – one a bottle of naproxen and the other gabapentin. Depositing two pills of the former and a pill of the latter onto the palm of his hand, he tipped his head back and threw the three pills down the hatch before he put the lids back on the bottles and put them back on the nightstand. "Not today, phantom pain," he muttered under his breath. It was the same thing he muttered every morning.
He went through his morning routine: brushing his teeth, taking a quick shower, drying off his hair with a towel before changing his clothes and styling his hair, then exiting the bathroom and his room altogether with his bag slung over his shoulder. All of this occurred within the span of twenty-five minutes, so he was good on time as he went down the hallway that led to his and his foster parents' bedrooms and entered into the main area of the penthouse.
"'Morning, Mary," he said to his foster mother, otherwise known as the Koroleva – the Russian word for "queen" – as he went into the kitchen to open up the fridge and grab one of the protein bars that were made for the two of them, Steve, and Bucky because of their enhanced metabolisms. The theta was leaning against the island counter, enjoying a cup of coffee, as she did every morning. "Is Tony doing okay?"
Harley had heard his foster omither, Iron Man himself, up late last night. Which, y'know, at face value was far from unusual, considering that he was always up late. He was an insomniac, just like Harley. But ever since he'd gotten pregnant, he was more tired than usual, and it didn't help that his so-called "morning sickness" was really more of nightsickness. His nausea was completely fine during the day, but once the sun went down all hell broke loose, and it had been particularly bad last night.
Mary smiled at him. "'Morning, Harley. He's doing better now, just sleeping. He'll probably be up by the time that Steve and Bucky get back from their run," she said. Harley nodded as he took a huge bite out of the protein bar; that made sense. "But you seem like you're in a good mood this morning."
"Is that to imply that most mornings I'm not?"
"With that sarcasm you use, yes," Mary deadpanned.
Harley snickered, gave a shrug, took another bite of the protein bar, and said around it, "I don' 'ow, I am 'n a – "
"Don't talk while you're eating."
" – Good mood this morning," he continued after he'd swallowed.
Mary eyed him speculatively, her golden-green eyes sharp. "You got a reason for it?"
Harley shook his head. "No...I just have this feeling. Today's gonna be a good day." He said the last part confidently.
Mary chuckled. But there was a bittersweet edge to her laugh, as there always was. It didn't need to be said why. "Well, I won't take that away from you...except, I will say that MJ's probably waiting for you."
"That's because she's my antithesis: she gets the perfect amount of sleep every night, whereas it's physically impossible for me to without sleep medication," Harley scoffed. But he was already moving towards the elevator.
"'Antithesis?' I can tell somebody's been studying for the ACT!" Mary called out after him.
Harley purposefully ignored her as he got into the elevator. Once the doors had shut, he said, "Avengers private parking garage please, FRI."
"Of course, Bionic Boy."
You would think, after four years of being called that name, he would be resigned to it by now, but alas, he wasn't. Another scoff fell out from his lips.
When the doors to the elevator opened on the floor he had requested, MJ was standing on the other side along with Happy, her arms crossed. It was her typical stance; it didn't mean she was angry or anything like that. "Hey, MJ," he greeted her, and directed a nod towards the man, "and Happy."
"'Sup, loser," MJ said. It'd been a year since she'd learned the word in that context, and she still wasn't sick of calling him – or anybody else she saw fitting to do so with, which was usually Ned – it. But he didn't fault her for that; it was basically part of her signature now.
Happy was disgruntled this morning, but that wasn't surprising. He basically always was. "Are you ready to go?" he asked.
Harley unceremoniously stuffed the rest of the protein bar into his mouth and nodded. "'Ow I am."
"Haven't your foster parents told you before to not speak while eating?" MJ questioned him.
Once he'd chewed and swallowed down his food on their walk to the SUV that Happy always drove them to school in, he grinned as he opened up the left back door and said, "Mary just said it this morning."
The look of the long-suffering appeared on MJ's face. "Of course she did." But she was joking.
Mostly.
The ride to school, all the way from the Avengers Tower to Midtown in Queens, was mostly uneventful. There was an article that popped up on Harley's phone when he checked to see what was in the news about the latest Aradnea killing that had happened last night, but while that was newsworthy, it wasn't exactly anything...new. She'd been doing this for two years now, after all, and she had one of the highest kill counts of all time for serial killers, so it wasn't like her MO wasn't well-known at this point. He knew even without clicking on the article that the two people she'd killed were either murderers or rapists who she'd caught in the act...and that the journalist reporting on the news probably had a scathing comment about the inaction of the Avengers, as they always did. People didn't understand how a teenaged vampire could have escaped from near-capture by the Avengers multiple times. They had no idea how clever and resourceful she actually was.
They also had no idea just how heavily debated the topic of catching Aradnea actually was among the Avengers, since their assumption was that she wasn't only drinking blood because she wanted to and her biology allowed it, but because she had to. It was unfathomable to them that she would solely be doing it for the fun of it. And a good percentage of the Team didn't want to throw her into the Raft when they thought that she didn't have a choice in killing and would potentially stop if an alternative was given, although they'd had no luck in making one so far.
(Plus, for the part about being reluctant in throwing her into the Raft, it didn't help that Aradnea was most likely the same age as Harley...the same age as Mary and Tony's daughter would have been, if she wasn't presumed dead.
Although, Mary would be the first to tell you that she disagreed with that presumption with every fiber of her being. Somehow, some way, she would insist that her and Tony's daughter had to be alive.)
Harley was inclined to agree with the Avengers about Aradnea, but that was neither here nor there, because he wasn't a member of the Team, and neither was MJ.
Yet.
When they got to Midtown with a good twenty-five minutes until class started (they liked to arrive early, okay), he and MJ went to their respective lockers to make sure that they only had enough stuff in their bags until they would be able to switch out again (which was different times for them, as they only shared four classes including Gym and lunch together), before they dropped their things off in their first class of the day, AP Calculus BC with Mrs. Lagunov. Mrs. Lagunov was a fairly nice teacher; she wasn't his favorite, because that title was shared between Mrs. Warren and Mr. Harrington, but she treated him and MJ like they were ordinary kids and not the foster children of the Avengers, which was nice. The same couldn't be said for some of the other teachers – Mr. Harrington first and foremost.
Once their bags were underneath their seats, they walked back out of the room to go find Ned. They found their friend easily enough in the library, where the three of them often sat. The noise restriction didn't begun until first period started, but nevertheless most of their classmates didn't like to come into the library before then regardless. And the ones that did they were all friendly with, like their Academic Decathlon teammate Sally Avril, who was sitting in a corner of the room with her headphones on. She looked up at him and MJ when they entered and waved at them. Harley waved back.
She wasn't the only one who did. "Hey, Harley. Hey, MJ," Ned greeted them. He stopped waving when Harley and MJ got close enough, so the two boys could go through their secret handshake that they'd developed years ago, back when Harley had been a scrawny, recently- and early-presented alpha and Ned hadn't even presented yet. MJ sat down on one of the armchairs in the small circle that Ned had claimed as theirs as they did.
"What's up, Ned?" Harley inquired.
Ned beamed. "I think I figured out what my parents are getting me for my birthday."
MJ's eyebrows furrowed. "Isn't your birthday two months' away?"
"It is," he agreed. "They like to plan ahead."
Harley, having sat down as the two talked, leaned forwards in his seat. "So?" he asked, drawing the syllable out. "What are they getting you?"
"The LEGO Millennium Falcon," Ned said. He paused for dramatic effect. "The one that's coming out next month."
Harley's eyes just about fell out of his head. "No way!" he exclaimed. "Isn't that one 7,541 pieces?"
"Yep," Ned confirmed giddily. "Over twice the size of the LEGO Death Star. It's gonna take us forever to build."
"Dude, that's awesome!"
MJ rolled her eyes, but she didn't comment on their obvious "nerdom" for a change.
They all chatted until it was close to the time for the bell to ring, in which case they all got up and exited out of the library together. The second that they passed through the doors, Harley's nose wrinkled. "Do you smell that?"
Ned was confused – which was probably typical, because he wasn't enhanced, not even mildly like MJ was. "Smell what?"
But MJ knew what he was talking about. "I smell it, too," she said.
"Something...someone smells really good," Harley explained for Ned's sake.
The smell was faint in the hallway, mostly drowned out by all of the other scents that came with a high school building, but it was there. It smelled like a perfume, but better, like pomegranate and juniper. It was sweet...almost sickeningly so. There was an undertone beneath it that added to the sickeningly quality, the hints of something like burning rubber. That part of it set him immediately on edge for reasons that he couldn't explain because, well...
...It kind of smelled like death.
Whoever the owner of the scent was, they had to be sick, and their illness had to be bad. And his instincts didn't like the thought of that at all.
"...Huh," Ned said. "Well, maybe someone's wearing a new perfume today?"
That was the reasonable explanation, even if the scent besides the sickness part smelled too natural to be caused by something like perfume.
"Maybe," Harley echoed. "Whatever. See you second period, man."
"See you," Ned said, before he went on his way.
Harley and MJ walked back to Mrs. Lagunov's classroom. Whoever was smelling as good as they did even with their sickness, they weren't in their first period.
He and MJ sat down in their seats, still with another two minutes or so until the bell rang, and it was here that she gave him a Look™ – with the "™" because it was the Look™ that Natasha and Yelena had taught her, which conveyed that you were supposed to know something that they already did and that they were disappointed in you that you didn't.
"What?" he yelped.
"That 'perfume' wasn't perfume," MJ stated.
Harley stared at her. Honestly, he was inclined to agree with her for the reasoning that he had already described, but he was curious, because it seemed like she had an idea of what it could be that he didn't. "What do you mean?"
She leaned in close to whisper it to him so that nobody else could hear: "What's the only reason why somebody could smell that way without the usage of some sort of fragrance?"
He continued to stare at her.
MJ huffed, leaning back. "Think about your parents, loser."
"Foster parents," he corrected her. Don't get him wrong, he loved Tony, Steve, Mary, and Bucky, but he'd had a biological parent – he didn't count his sperm donor as a "parent" – in the form of his mother who had loved and cherished him with all of her heart and soul, until she and his little sister Abigail had died in that horrible car accident that had led to him getting diagnosed with cancer as well. He missed them every single day, and he didn't want to disrespect their memory.
The unintentional dwelling on his mom and sister made him a few seconds too late on the uptake. But, once Harley realized what MJ was trying to say –
– His eyes widened. "No way," he breathed. "MJ, that can't be possible!"
She gazed at him, nonplussed. "Do you have another explanation for it?"
"...No," he admitted. "But the odds of it happening...do you know how rare it is?"
"One in a hundred million," she replied.
They weren't able to continue the conversation from there, because they'd had less time before the bell rang than they'd thought, as proven by the shrill sound occurring just as soon as MJ finished speaking. "Alright, class," Mrs. Lagunov said. "Let's settle down."
...But Harley, though he remained quiet, couldn't settle down. His brain was going too fast as he sat there, practically left dumbstruck.
See, what MJ was suggesting was that the two of them had just caught the scent of their scent-match – otherwise known as their soulmate, their primis. It was a thing: somebody who smelled so good to you, basically, that there wasn't anybody else for you. Well, there could be, because the pull of a scent-match wasn't binding or anything, it was just...nobody who had a scent-match before in documented history had denied them.
Scent-matches often came in what were called packs, centered on one person who was the scent-match of all the other parties involved: hence the term "primis." Usually, this person was an alpha...sometimes, they were an omega or a theta. He didn't think there had ever been a documented case of a beta primis before. Tony was not only the only omega on the Avengers Team, but he was also a primis: his scent-matches/soulmates were Steve, Bucky, and Mary, hence why they all shared custody of Harley. It was what made the fact that HYDRA had used one of his eggs to be fertilized by Mary's sperm and then had her carry the embryo, resulting in their daughter (who Tony had never actually met) so unbelievable, because there was no way for scent-matches to be known until they came across each other on their own...
But, he was getting away from himself. The point was, at odds of one in a hundred million – actually, less than that since the scent-matches of prima were included in that statistic, the chances of there being two prima in the circle of the Avengers were not merely astronomically high...they were almost impossibly so. Especially if they were the same designation, which Harley realized would have to be the case, because he was pretty sure that the pomegranate-and-juniper scent had carried with it the pheromones of an omega. Moreover, alphas sharing a theta just...didn't seem feasible.
But, to go back to probability...that was what MJ was suggesting. Not only that, but she was suggesting that they shared a primis.
Truthfully, the thought didn't bother Harley that much, and not just because, if she was right, the soulmates of a primis didn't experience as much jealousy as in normal relationships for reasons that had yet to be figured out, but were thought to be because of pheromones. Along with Ned, MJ was one of his best friends in the entire world. They'd only been friends for just over a year, ever since Natasha and Yelena had taken down the Red Room and saved MJ and the other "Baby Widows," as they liked to call them, from it, but MJ was great.
Besides, he was the foster child of a primis and his pack. He'd seen those dynamics happen in life-action. They weren't perfect, but then again no relationships were. But Steve, Bucky, Mary, and Tony made it work...in some ways that Harley didn't think would be applicable if he was in a pack, because while Steve and Bucky were pandesignation and attracted to alphas (i.e., each other), Harley was most certainly not. He was straight, okay.
...But that was "if" he was about to be in a pack. Because he wasn't exactly sure if he was.
We need proof, he wrote on a piece of notebook paper he'd torn out of his notebook and slid it across the desk to MJ. Meanwhile, Mrs. Lagunov was doing her typical lecture, completely unaware as to what was going on between two of her students.
MJ looked down at the note with a raised eyebrow. She scribbled down, What do you mean, "proof?"
Do you know if somebody's presented recently? Most of the kids in their year were already sixteen, but that didn't mean that their soulmate wasn't in one of the years below theirs...if they had one. If so, have they been sick recently? Because he hadn't forgotten that the person who had smelled so good was also sick, don't think that he had. Or is there some new student starting today?
MJ's lips pursed as she read those three sentences he'd written. She shrugged.
He scoffed and hoped it conveyed everything that he was thinking: "What do you mean, you don't know?"
"Harley, Michelle, everything going on alright over there?"
Both he and MJ looked at their teacher. Harley felt his face go red. "Yes, Mrs. Lagunov," he said.
Their teacher smiled. "Great, now if you would focus back on me, please."
MJ, at least, did as they were told, but not without writing back to him on the piece of paper: We'll get that proof. By the end of the day?
Harley wrote a response and made sure to bold it: Yes!
...As it turned out, though, it didn't take them nearly that long to get their confirmation.
The next period, which was Government with Mr. Dell, a class that Harley didn't share with MJ but he did Ned, he sat down next to his other best friend. "Hey," he said to the other boy.
"Hey," Ned said. His eyes were bright. "There's a new student here today. I sat next to her in my English class. She's pretty nice."
Harley froze. Now that he was thinking about it, he could smell that scent of pomegranate, juniper, and death on the beta...
But he had to make sure: "She wouldn't happen to be an omega, would she?"
Ned nodded. "Yeah!" Then, his eyebrows furrowed. "Wait...how did you know that already?"
Harley slid down in his seat. "Tell you later," he muttered.
...Okay, he thought. So, it was looking like he and MJ did share a soulmate; the ultimate proof would probably come later. No big deal.
Except – it kind of was a big deal, because he knew that his foster parents were going to absolutely lose their minds later, but –
His and MJ's soulmate was sick. Harley's instincts again curled in on themselves at the thought, which was really probably all the extra proof that they needed. He wondered if she knew that she was sick. Was she getting treatment for it if she did? Or was it something that was...untreatable? "Untreatable" was a relative term when it came to the Avengers: just look at him. He'd had terminal osteosarcoma that had spread to his lungs, but then Tony had broken into his previous foster mother's garage and taken one look at him and decided that he was going to save him, which had led to Harley being injected with a modified Extremis. Just like that, he'd been cured, and pushed headfirst into rut months before it should've been possible.
So, most likely, whatever his and MJ's soulmate was sick with and was causing her to smell like death, they'd be able to fix it. So, that was covered.
He wondered what she would be like. Since – not "if," he realized he wasn't saying that term – she was their soulmate, she was probably a bit like them. Probably chaotic, because MJ was as chaotic as he was, she was just better at hiding it. Probably feisty, with a strong sense of justice. Probably kind.
Most of all, he thought, she had to be kind.
When Government was over, which felt like an eternity to happen, Harley said goodbye to Ned quickly and hurried out the door. He felt a little bad about it, but he knew that once he and MJ told the beta what was going on, he would totallyget it. Ned was a good friend like that.
Harley was the first one to make it to AP Physics II with Mrs. Warren, his third period class that he shared with MJ. His face must've said it all as the female alpha walked into the room about a minute or so later, because she smirked as she approached him. "Did you find your proof?" she asked rhetorically.
He answered the question like it wasn't anyways. "Yeah," he whispered. "She's the new student."
MJ flicked him on the arm. "Told you."
Harley narrowed his eyes. "You know, you're taking this extremely well. Not to mention, you figured it out in what has to be, like, record timing."
"I was raised in the Red Room. Extreme observance was necessary for survival. I'm observant," she deadpanned.
...Okay, so she had a point.
"Do you think she has any classes with us?" Harley mused.
"You could find out," MJ pointed out.
That was true. He could hack into the school's database and look up her schedule, if she was in it yet; if she was, there probably wouldn't be a picture of her, so they'd have to wait to see her in-person. There was the slight hiccup of how he'd forgotten to ask Ned for her name, but Harley knew pretty much everyone in their school year. Her name would stick out like a sore thumb.
Harley got out his laptop from his bag, intending to do just that. Mrs. Warren wouldn't mind. In fact, the reason why she was his favorite teacher, besides how she didn't treat him and MJ differently than their peers like Mrs. Lagunov, was because she understood that he was a whiz at the course material and didn't yell at him when he multi-tasked. It made his ability to bear through his classmates' learning a lot better.
. . .
. . .
But, as it turned out, he didn't need to hack into the school's database.
Just as he was about to, the scent of pomegranate and juniper (and death) entered the room, so strong it was basically overpowering. His head snapped up, and he felt his eyes widen. His breath hitched right after hers did, and although MJ was outwardly more composed, with his enhanced hearing, he could hear how fast all three of their hearts were beating.
She was beautiful. Yes, it was clear from the color of her skin how sick she was, because he didn't think he'd ever seen anybody that pale before, but she was beautiful. She had a bob of curly dark brown hair that was messy but cute, with wide dark brown eyes. She was wearing all-black clothes, which he hadn't expected (he hadn't thought that much about her appearance) yet made perfect sense at the same time.
Harley listened as Mrs. Warren asked her if she was the new student, Penny Murdock. The name surprised him. It had the potential to cause problems in the future, because Penny had been – was the name of Mary's and Tony's daughter, too. But he knew that the conflict would be minimal, because it wasn't like his foster parents were going to judge and hate his soulmate just because of her name. They weren't going to hate her at all.
What was surprising, too, was how...familiar she looked. Harley didn't know why; there was just something about her that he couldn't place, a "je ne sais quoi" quality that nudged at the back of his brain, made him feel like he should already know her somehow for reasons that went beyond their connection. It wasn't her name, either.
Most surprising, however, was her reaction to seeing him and MJ. He could tell by first glance that she already knew that they were her soulmates, which was a little unusual for somebody their age, because more likely than not they wouldn't immediately recognize the signs like MJ had. But maybe she'd gone down a rabbit hole and done a bunch of research into the subject. Maybe she had even already found another soulmate besides them. The idea of a primis finding three of her soulmates, if not all of them, at the age of sixteen was astonishing, but things were already astonishing enough with all this. They could get more so.
It wasn't the fact that she knew that surprised him, though. No, as Harley looked at her along with MJ and she looked at him, his initial elation at seeing her gave way into confusion. She didn't seem to be solely surprised at meeting them in this way.
She seemed downright terrified.
Mrs. Warren took the form that Penny must've had to have all of her teachers fill out because she was a new student, signed it, and handed it back to her. Penny looked like she wanted to do nothing more than to run from the room, to flee, and the change in her scent let him and MJ know that it wasn't only for appearances.
She was terrified.
But Penny walked forwards, putting one foot in front of the other. Her footsteps were clunky, her legs stiff, as if she was walking towards her doom. She kept her eyes firmly on the ground, not daring to look at them as she had initially.
He and MJ exchanged a quick glance.
What the hell was going on with their soulmate?
Penny sat down next to him at the table. She didn't look up as she took her things out of her bag. Her hands were shaking.
Harley didn't know what to do. He hadn't thought about the possibility over the past hour or so that his and MJ's soulmate would be terrified of them. Why? Was it because they were the foster children of the Avengers? He knew that not everybody liked the Avengers, it was why the Accords were a thing now. Some people didn't think even that was enough; they wanted the Avengers gone for good. That wasn't going to happen, of course, but it remained that those people were out there. Was his soulmate one of them? Or was she terrified of him and MJ for...other reasons?
He'd never know if he didn't try to find out, he reasoned. Moreover, they were soulmates. They didn't have to be together, but he wanted to get to know her. He figured that Penny, as scared as she was now, was probably at least somewhat curious to know what her soulmates were like, too. If she wasn't, she probably would be in the future.
Probably.
Good first impressions, even with the haze of fear, would go a long way's towards accomplishing that.
"Hey," Harley said, his voice soft. "I'm Harley, and this is – "
"I know," Penny cut him off after flinching, actually flinching, at the sound of his voice. Her own was full of vitriol, although he had a feeling that it was nothing more than a bravado. She continued to not look at him or MJ.
He looked back at his best friend. She was as mystified as he was, her expression for once showing how completely off-guard she was.
The bell rang.
Mrs. Warren started the class. As with all of his other classes so far, Harley didn't really pay attention to her. Sure, he took down notes from the PowerPoint that she was using to present her lecture, but that was mainly just to give his body something to do. He was so hyped up from his confusion and the effect of Penny's scent all up in his space – it was making him slightly hard, okay, as he knew was to be expected from how Steve, Mary, and Bucky had talked about smelling Tony's scent for the first time in the past – and the effect of his and MJ's scents on her, as it was causing her to produce a little slick, that he needed a way to get the nervous energy out. It was at times like this that he wished that he had a fidget spinner, albeit he wouldn't have been using it right now regardless.
He kept on looking at Penny out of the corner of his eye. She refused to do anything except write down her notes. Her grip on the black pen that she was using was tight, so that the skin wrapped around her knuckles was even paler than the rest. He could tell by the indent in her cheek that she was biting the inside of it. That couldn't be a good thing, with how tight her jaw seemed to be clenched. He worried that she was going to wind up hurting herself because of it.
(It was almost funny, in a way, how fast he could wind up caring about her like this, even though she was his soulmate. Usually, it took Harley a while to warm up to people, he wasn't ashamed to admit it.)
This class more than any of the others seemed to drag on forever. Nobody noticed what was going on between him, MJ, and Penny, here where they were sitting all the way in the back. Her slick production was very slight, so it wasn't noticeable to anyone without an enhanced sense of smell, which was everyone in the room besides him and MJ.
Harley wanted to write a note to Penny, like he had to MJ earlier. He wanted to assure her that everything was alright, that he and MJ weren't going to hurt her, that she didn't need to be scared, although he understood that she had her reasons for being so.
But, he didn't do that. He didn't want to risk scaring her off even more.
At the end of the period, Penny shot up from her seat. She hurriedly collected her things, still without looking at either of her two alphas. "Murdock, wait," MJ said. She always defaulted to last names when speaking to other students at Midtown that she wasn't close with, so she probably thought giving Penny the same treatment here would be comforting, even if Penny wasn't aware of that detail yet.
But Penny was already gone. She was practically running for the door, her breaths coming out in shallow pants. It sounded like she was getting ready to cry.
He and MJ tried to catch up with her. But by the time they got into the hallway, Penny was nowhere in sight.
The two alphas looked at each other. "What the fuck was that?" MJ asked.
"I don't know," Harley said. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "But we're going to find out."
That, of course, shouldn't have needed to be said.
Penny didn't share her fourth period with them, and the teacher for that class, Mr. Sandoval, was much more stringent on his laptop policy than any other teacher at Midtown (he made them use that Guardian program, ugh, and he was one of the Computer Science teachers, too, so he knew how to detect if they were bypassing it), so Harley didn't get a chance to see what other classes she did share with them until the next period, lunch.
"What's going on with you two?" Ned questioned as he sat down after having gone through the lunch line and joined them. Harley had done the same, but he was barely touching his food, his focus solely on his laptop's screen. So too was MJ's, although she packed her lunch. She always did.
"Tell you later," MJ said absentmindedly.
Ned was used to their antics by now, so all he did was nod to the repeated response and say, "Oh, okay."
"Her lunch is supposed to be this period," Harley announced. He lifted his eyes from his laptop screen and craned his neck. "Do you see her? Is she here?"
"If she was here, we would be able to scent her, dumbass," MJ said.
"Hey," he protested mildly. He frowned. "I hope that doesn't mean she's crying in the bathroom because of us, then."
"Wait, what? What did you guys – ?"
"Later," Harley and MJ said in unison.
Ned settled back down.
"She has sixth period with you next, MJ," Harley noted. "Art."
"Are there any classes with her besides that?"
"Just ninth period. Gym."
MJ made a face. "We won't be able to talk to her, then."
"No," he agreed. "We won't." Coach Wilson probably wouldn't make Penny do anything today, since it was her first day. And even if he did, Harley didn't doubt that she would use the size of the room to her advantage, making sure that she stayed as far away from them as possible. She probably wouldn't interact with MJ in Art, either.
Harley, abruptly, became frustrated. His instincts weren't liking this turn of events at all. "Why does she hate us?" he groaned, resisting the urge to plant his head into his laptop's keyboard. "I don't understand."
"'Hate' is a strong word," MJ commented.
He glared at her. "Your point?"
She held up a carrot stick from her packed lunch. "Maybe she's scared because of something completely mundane. We're the foster children of the Avengers, some of the most famous people in the entire world. Maybe she's worried about all the attention she'll gain because of us when the world finds out."
"That's the first thing you would worry about when you first met your soulmates, if you were in her shoes?"
Ned's sandwich, which he had been holding in his hands as he'd been about to take a bite of it, fell back onto his lunch tray. "Dude!" he exclaimed.
Harley cringed. So much for them explaining what was going on to Ned being saved for "later."
Gym for Harley could not come fast enough. After he, MJ, and Ned exchanged in a very heated conversation for the remainder of lunch, though their heads were pressed close together and their voices hushed, they all went off to their respective sixth periods. He wasn't surprised when he got a text from MJ about ten minutes into sixth period saying that it was going much of the same way that their third period with Penny had: not well.
"Mr. Keener, I'd appreciate it if you would be more careful. I'd hate to have to explain to your foster parents how you sliced one of your own fingers off," Mr. Hapgood, the Woodwork teacher, said when he caught Harley texting with MJ.
Harley could've very easily told him that even if he did cut off one of his fingers, it would just grow back because of the Extremis serum (the only part of him that was exempt from that rule was his leg for reasons they'd never really been able to figure out), but he didn't. It'd just lead to more problems that he didn't want to deal with.
When Gym at last and finally arrived, he practically raced his way through the halls to the changing room for alphas, male betas, and thetas (if the latter so chose, because they could also use the changing room for omegas and female betas). It made his left leg twinge with pain, because even the robotic prosthesis he and Tony had made wasn't perfect when it came to running and stuff sometimes, but he didn't care. All that was important to him was getting to his Gym class. Because while he and MJ had just said that they wouldn't have time to talk with Penny, it couldn't hurt to at least try to do so. A few minutes of talking with her at the most was better than none at all.
He burst into the changing room and headed over to the area where his locker was, hurriedly unlocking it, taking out his gym clothes, and then shoving his backpack inside. He stripped down to his boxers, bunched up his regular clothes into one giant ball, and threw them into his locker, too. Behind him, he heard snickers. "What's the rush, Keener?" Flash Thompson, his teammate on the Academic Decathlon team who liked to view himself as Harley's rival (as if there was a competition between them at all), asked snidely.
Harley didn't so much as send a glance his way. Once his gym clothes were on, he was going out the door that led into the gym instead of the one that led to the hallway. MJ hadn't arrived yet, as he'd seen from in the changing room, but he knew that her eighth period class was farther away from the Gym than his. She would be here soon enough.
In the Gym, he saw that Penny was standing near its main entrance along with Coach Wilson, talking to him. She wasn't dressed in the gym uniform, as had been expected; her left hand was clutching the strap of her backpack tightly. Her entire focus was on Coach Wilson as he told her that she wasn't going to have to participate today and informing her that if she needed any accommodations she could give a doctor's explanation of them to the front office – it seemed like other people had realized even without her scent that she was really sick – so she didn't notice him. Not at first.
It was only when Coach Wilson walked away to go yell at some of their classmates that Penny caught sight of him. The expression on her face absolutely blanched and he was sure that, if her skin wasn't already practically the color of bone, the same would have been true for her face's color as well. She started briskly walking over to the bleachers, looking down once more.
"Penny!" Harley called out from where he'd been hovering about twenty or so feet away from her and Coach Wilson. He made his move to catch up with her. It wasn't a wise one, he knew, even with how he wanted to talk to her right now, but he wasn't sure of what else to do at this point. Give her some space, yeah, sure, that was probably the wise move, but everything in the fiber of his being didn't want that. "Penny, wait!"
Miraculously, Penny paused in her step at the bottom of the bleachers, allowing Harley to do what he wanted. He crossed the distance between them, which felt almost like a deep and penetrating chasm, a void, for more reasons than one. He suddenly felt the sensation that they were being watched, and he had a feeling that MJ was one of the culprits, but he wasn't going to turn around to make certain of it.
"Penny," he said again when he got close enough that she would be able to hear him at a voice lower than his normal pitch. Once again, he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. A nervous habit. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure of what to say. "Look, I – " What? Know that it's a lot? Know that it has to be overwhelming? I do, but that's not what you need to hear right now.
"Please, leave me alone," Penny whispered.
He blinked. "What?"
She tilted her head so that she could look up at him – a necessity, due to the nearly nine-inch difference in their height. Those dark brown eyes, doe's eyes, were gazing up at him, and he was reminded of how he'd thought earlier that she looked familiar, because he could've sworn that he'd seen that eye color before. He noticed, too, that whatever was making her sick, it had to be affecting the color of the blood vessels in her eyes: they were a darker red than they should've been, almost...wine-colored.
"I know what you are to me. I know what she is to me, too," Penny said. Her eyes darted past him briefly, presumably back towards MJ. Then she refocused. Her bottom lip was trembling. "It doesn't matter. Please, leave me alone."
She turned around and started walking up towards the steps of the bleachers.
Harley's instincts weren't liking the idea of "leaving her alone" at all, either. Just the very notion of it made his gut twist. Was she...
Was she rejecting him and MJ? After only having just met them today? That didn't make any sense!
"Wait, Penny," he repeated. How quickly the tables had turned, leaving him the one pleading.
She didn't. And the bell rang for the umpteenth time that day, cutting off any further attempts he could've made without making a scene, which he wasn't doing to do for her sake, as he and MJ had expected. Left with no choice, he walked over to where all of the other kids were standing, however not without a look at Penny, which was one of many by both him and MJ throughout the entire period. For all forty-five minutes of the class, it looked like she was practically on the verge of crying all over again.
At the end of the period and thus the entire school day, their soulmate jumped (not literally) down from the bleachers. In a pace that seemed almost preternatural, she ran out through the main entrance of the gym, her bag slung over her shoulders, leaving her two confused – and hurt – alphas in her wake.
Word Count: 7,212