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: Oh my gosh, so sorry about the late update on this! I've been going through some health issues again that culminated in a medical procedure on Monday, and while it was actually pretty mild all things considered, it's left me down for the count. But I am back now, and I hope to be updating again this weekend as per the schedule, even if it's a day late.

Chapter title comes from Let's Kill Tonight by Panic! At the Disco.

As always, I hope you enjoy,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the heavy souls 'verse~

~life in technicolor ii~

~chapter 7: let's kill tonight~

Penny fell, flew, and glided with grace over the streets of Manhattan. The wind ran past her body, whistled in her ears. Her world flipped once over as she did the movement in the sky like an acrobat, swinging from one web fluidly only to unleash another.

She was never going to get tired of this. Not the swinging from her webs, not the crime-fighting, not the feeling of being alive in a way she wasn't able to experience so often now with her heart not beating. None of it. Never.

"You've seemed to be in an especially good mood tonight, Penny," KAREN told her.

She shrugged. She knew her AI would sense it from the movements of her suit, even though she wouldn't be able to see it. "I don't know, I guess I am," she said.

"Is there any reason for this?"

"Do I need a reason to be happier than usual?"

"No," KAREN assured her. "I am just...curious. Your schedule does not indicate you have been up to anything different than usual."

"That's because I don't do anything different than usual," she retorted, although there wasn't any heat in her voice. Since it was hard to talk and swing at the same time, she found the rooftop of a building to sit on, as she sensed that KAREN wanted to have a conversation with her. That wasn't too unusual. KAREN was a self-learning AI; while she didn't really experience emotions herself, she was interested in how humans did – particularly Penny, seeing as how she was the one she was supposed to help and protect in whatever way she could. But Penny didn't really mind this. "What's up, KARE?"

"Nothing."

She felt there was a "but" there, despite her AI being quite literally that, and without the capacity for emotion that Vision had.

"But?"

KAREN didn't get a chance to reply, as there came a scream from not too far away.

"Shit," Penny said, standing up from the roof ledge she'd perched herself on. "Hold that thought, KAREN."

The scream, it turned out, was from a sexual assault in the process of happening. The perp had pulled a woman into an alleyway, gotten her purse from her and thrown it down to the ground before she'd been able to get out anything self-defense-related, and had her pinned up against a wall while he groped her through her clothes. Penny supposed she should've been grateful for the woman that he hadn't progressed any further than that yet.

But, she wasn't.

"Hey!" she shouted out. The guy jerked in surprise, although he didn't let go of his hold on the woman. His face was hidden behind a mask, so she couldn't see the widening of his eyes, but she did hear the picking up of his heart. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Shit, Spider-Woman," the guy went. He threw the woman to the ground behind him, making her cry out in pain. He pulled out a gun from his belt.

She didn't let him do anything more than that. Aiming a web at his gun, she flung it away from him, and went after him faster than he could probably blink. This was practically a routine to her at this point. She felt her fangs drop down from the roof of her mouth as she webbed him to the wall, as well as the familiar pooling of saliva in her mouth, but she was able to deal with the two via clenching her teeth.

As Batman and the Damian Robin had said in that one movie she and Harley had watched the night he, his mother, and sister had come back from Tennessee, "Justice, not vengeance."

Penny grabbed the woman's purse and gave it to her as she helped her up, asking how she was and gently instructing her to call the police. She heard two pairs of footsteps when she finished, and looked up to see a familiar sight at the end of the alleyway. "Daredevil, Black Widow."

"Spider-Woman," Matt replied. He turned his head towards the woman. "Everything alright, Miss?"

"Oh, it's – it's better now, thank you," she answered, adjusting her purse's strap on her shoulder. "Spider-Woman saved my life."

"Mm, I wouldn't go that far," Penny spoke.

The woman spluttered. "He had a gun! He – he could've – "

"Spider-Woman likes to downplay her own feats, don't worry," Natasha cut in. The last two words had a double meaning. "The police have already been called. They'll be on their way shortly."

"Th – thank you, really – "

"Spider-Woman," Natasha said again. Her eyes flicked upwards.

"Yeah, yeah," Penny responded.

She jumped up, using a brief spurt of webbing as leverage to pull herself up. She landed on the rooftop of the building to the left and stood, waiting.

Matt and Natasha weren't as quick as her, but they weren't slow on their feet, either. When they came to the top, police sirens were already going off in the distance. Natasha jerked her head. "Shall we?"

They went to a rooftop another few buildings over. Once there, she made a show of pivoting on her foot and crossing her arms together. "What do you guys want?"

"What, we can't check in on a certain little spider?"

"I'm not little," she told Natasha, scowling.

"You're five-foot-two, that's little."

"You're one to talk! You're five-foot-three!"

"Okay, okay," Matt said. His shoulders were shaking with laughter. "We were wondering if it would be alright for us to patrol with you tonight."

They always phrased it like this. Never was it them intruding on her, telling her that she had to let them patrol with her. It was left up to her to decide whether or not she wanted them to come along with her or not.

She'd never said no to them, however, and tonight was not going to be the first night that she did. "Yeah, sure, why not," she said. She let out a hum. "So, where do you guys want to go? Up as far as the Bronx, to Hell's Kitchen? Brooklyn? Queens?"

Matt grimaced. "I have intel that the Punisher is going to be in Hell's Kitchen tonight, and I'd rather not have you two meet up again tonight."

She snickered. "What? Afraid that your two favorite serial killers will gross you out again with their kill stories?"

That was what had happened the last time she'd met up with the Punisher, which was only the second and had been while Daredevil and Black Widow had patrolled with her. He'd known right from the start that she was Spider-Woman, because he'd apparently had it figured out for a while. "You never wanted to kill people. Figures you'd come up with a way to make up for when you did," he'd said. "The voice modulator is better than your high-pitched whine, by the way."

"Hey!"

"Just saying!"

Their conversation had quickly devolved. There was something about the Punisher that the dark and twisted part of her mind – the one that she pretended had gone away after she'd stopped forgetting people, as if it wasn't a Pandora's box that had been opened and couldn't be shut again – could relate to. Natasha had found the entire amusing, though she'd smothered her laughter with a simple, small smile. Matt...did not.

"Yes," he spoke, entirely serious. "I am."

"Why don't we go to Brooklyn?" suggested Natasha.

Not Queens, Penny noticed. But that made sense. It was a Wednesday night, so Harley was at his mom's apartment, instead of at the Tower, and it would be another night after this one until he came back around. Natasha probably didn't want her to be tempted to stay the night at his place, which was...fair. Penny definitely would if she could.

"Fine," she said. She put one leg in front of the other, making her way over to the ledge. But not without turning around briefly, to give her two mentors a smirk. "But only if you can keep up."

The last thing she heard before she took to the skies was Matt letting out an exasperated, but amused, sigh.

And then she was back to falling, flying, and gliding with grace.

. . .

. . .

No, this never would get old to her.

Brooklyn proved to be an interesting place that night. There was the petty crime going on, as there always was literally everywhere in the city. Their trio made their way down the west side of Brooklyn, sticking close to the Bay and then the Narrows. In the distance, since she at least was able to see it with her enhanced eyesight, Coney Island glimmered and gleamed in the night. A pang of guilt stabbed at her heart, as it always did when she went near to the amusement park.

It hadn't even been a full year yet since she'd crashed her dad's plane there during her fight with the Vulture, pretty much ruining the entire park. It hadn't been the same since. Too many rides had been destroyed, including the Cyclone. They were in the process of rebuilding some of them, but that one wouldn't be. It had already been decided upon. The owners of the amusement park did not blame her for it, nor did the city and state of New York, but they didn't want to rebuild the landmark. She couldn't really blame them for it.

Because more importantly, it hadn't even been a full year since she'd killed the Vulture. His death was one of many by her hands.

As much as she had liked to joke about most of them with the Punisher, and as much as she did have that dark and twisted part in her brain, she still couldn't shake the guilt she felt over the deaths of Flash and the Vulture. No matter how they had been in self-defense, or from a lack of understanding of her body's needs in the case of her former classmate, they still hadn't deserved to die. There was no justification in killing them.

But, anyways.

They wound up circling back to Sunset Park, a neighborhood on the waterfront. "I thought I saw something in the warehouses," Natasha said over the comms.

"Like what?" asked Penny.

"I'm not sure," was the only response she got.

They reconvened on yet another rooftop near the historic warehouses the neighborhood was known for. A nervous energy filled Penny, making her bounce on the balls of her feet. She didn't remember the last time Natasha or Matt had done something like this while they'd been out on patrol together.

...Probably because there hadn't been a last time. This was the first.

"Can you settle down?" requested Natasha, giving her a look. "You're going to bring us attention."

She cringed, stopping herself. "Right. Sorry." That was one of the first lessons they had given her, but it was hard to remember them all during times like this.

They crouched down some to avoid being seen, even in the darkness. "What do you see?" Matt prodded.

Penny looked at the warehouse Natasha had taken an interest in. It was one of the historic ones, but it hadn't been kept in the best of shape like the others. She doubted whoever owned it had been here to visit it in the past several years, even. It looked on the track to becoming condemned or taken over by the city.

But, despite its harsh exterior, there were definitely people inside. Not even she could hear heartbeats or breathing patterns from this distance, and she doubted that Matt could either, but she saw flickers of movements in the second-floor windows. There was also a truck pulled up to the building, with the driver sitting in the front seat. As she watched, he stepped out, right at the same time that six men came out of the building through one of its entrances. The driver did a fist-bump with the leader of them. They talked for a bit, then headed back over towards the truck.

"Spider-Woman?" Matt said again. She realized she hadn't said anything to him yet.

She opened her mouth to speak, but what she saw...

...It made her blood run cold.

"Human trafficking," she whispered into the night. "They're doing – "

"Hold on." Natasha grabbed her by the arm as she got ready to jump off of the rooftop, pulling her back. Penny could've easily broken out of her hold, but she didn't. It was obvious that the Black Widow meant business. "We need to talk about this before we act."

"But those girls!" Penny protested. "They – "

"Most likely, they can wait," Matt interrupted her. "Natasha's right. Did either of you two see any gang signs? Indicators of who they're affiliated with?"

Natasha shook her head.

Penny bit her bottom lip so hard it almost bled, and was glad it hadn't. That just would've made for another problem to deal with later. She raised her head to look back over at the truck. The young women and girls – girls younger than her – had already been led out of the truck, and almost all of them were already inside the building. But, she forced herself to focus on the truck. "It's one of those money trucks," she spoke quietly. "The kind banks use."

"Do you see a logo on it?"

"No. Wait." She narrowed her eyes at the truck's side. It was white, but there was a black symbol on it, small and barely noticeable. But she could see it, if she strained her eyes hard enough. "It's not something I've ever seen before."

She was fairly well-versed in the crime syndicates of New York. Not as good as Daredevil and the Punisher, obviously, but she knew enough. And she knew this symbol wasn't familiar.

"So they're most likely new," Matt surmised.

"And inexperienced," Natasha added.

"That bodes well for us, then," Penny said.

There was a beat of silence.

She turned around to look at her mentors, and sure enough, the expressions on their faces said it all. "Oh, come on!" she cried. "I'm already with you guys! Between the three of us, we could take them down tonight easily!"

"It's just after ten o'clock," Natasha reminded her. Like Penny couldn't see the time on the holoscreens of her suit. "Your curfew is in less than an hour."

"So, what?" She placed her left hand on her hip. "Those women and girls down there are being trafficked!"

Natasha didn't even blink. "So, you have to be home by eleven o'clock. And, may I remind you, those are rules that Tonycreated, not us."

"I think Dad'll understand that this night needs to be an exception."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then I get grounded. Not the worst thing in the world." She didn't mention that she knew Nat didn't want her dad to be angry at her again, because realistically, if he hadn't been that angry at her for keeping her identity a secret up until she'd died, he wasn't going to be that mad at her about this.

This was important. The gang didn't seem to have any ties to one of the larger crime syndicates, but even if they did, they were human-trafficking. Penny wouldn't – couldn't – allow them to keep doing that, and she knew the other two superheroes were of the same opinion. This had to stop, tonight.

Which meant they would need her muscle. Matt and Natasha could probably handle this just fine on their own, don't get her wrong, but it was better to go into a fight at least a little stronger than you needed to be, just in case. Especially when there were so many civilians at stake.

Natasha didn't look like she was willing to budge, so Penny took her tactics a step further. Taking off her mask, she held it in her hands and looked the woman dead in the eyes. "Please, Nat?" she begged.

Matt let out a snort. "Is she giving you her puppy eyes?"

"Yes," replied Natasha.

"Is it working?"

"...Enough." The former spy relented. "Fine. But you are going to do what we tell you to, and when we tell you to do it. Do you understand? Nothing more than that."

"Deal," Penny agreed.

"And put your mask back on, before you forget to. We don't want anyone discovering your true identity."

"...As if I'd ever forget," she mumbled, but she did as she was instructed.

"Spider-Woman?"

"...Yes, KARE?" Penny bit out. She gritted her teeth as she punched one goon – although maybe he was the henchman type, she couldn't say for sure – in the face, sending him collapsing to the floor, before she webbed another one up to the wall. She was getting closer to the room where they were holding the women and girls, but these guys just kept on coming after her. There were a lot more in the building than they'd originally thought.

"Are you sure you don't want to contact Boss yet?"

She dodged a couple of bullets, then charged at the asshole who had fired them at her. "Yes, I'm sure."

"It is ten minutes until your curfew. If you do not arrive back to the Tower by then – "

"I'm aware, KAREN, thank you!"

Her AI went silent at that, but she could practically feel her disapproval.

Whatever. It wasn't like she'd make it back in time for her curfew at this point, anyways, even if she dropped everything that she was doing and ran back at full-sprint.

Her dad was going to be pissed at her. Not just because of her staying out past her curfew, or helping Matt and Natasha take down a gang doing human trafficking, but also because she'd sustained a huge gash to her right hip. She'd been able to web it up before it could even drop a spatter of her blood onto the floor, obscuring both the strange liquid and her corpse-pale skin from view, but still. She hadn't informed him about it yet, because just the act of doing it would admit to guilt.

There were a good ten seconds where she wouldn't have been able to speak, even if she'd wanted to. More goons went after her all at once, and it was a delicate balance for her to incapacitate them all. When she was finished, however, she found herself at a set of doors, locked from the outside with chain wrapped around the handles. This had to be the room where the trafficking victims were being held.

"KAREN," she said. "How many heat signatures are behind this set of doors?"

"Approximately twenty-four," her AI told her.

"That's not 'approximately,'" Penny muttered. But she activated her comms anyways. "Devil? Widow? Where are you guys? I've found the room where they're being held."

"Still on the first floor," grunted Matt.

"Heading your way," answered Natasha.

Penny weighed her choices.

"KAREN, what's the ETA on the police?"

"Less than three minutes, Spider-Woman."

Well, she thought. Might as well.

The metal chains broke in her hands like they were twigs. She was immediately met with screams as she opened the doors, making her wince. "Hey, hey!" she called out. "I'm Spider-Woman! I'm with Black Widow and Daredevil right now. We're here to help!"

Several of them, the ones that were from New York and instantly knew that her words were true, that she really wasSpider-Woman, calmed down some. The rest followed suit, thanks to the pack mentality.

"Are any of you hurt?" Startled, they all shook their heads. "Alright, here's what we're going to do..."

Black Widow was running down the hallway when Penny poked her head out the door to check for more goons and/or henchmen. "Hey, you're here," Penny said. As Natasha came to a stop, looking at the terrified women and girls in the room, she gestured between the two. "Natasha, these are the ones we were looking for. Guys, this is Black Widow."

"Whoa," went one girl, despite everything that was going on.

"No shit," said another.

Natasha nodded to them once. "Hello." Her eyes went back to Penny. "You're leading."

She didn't bother trying to argue. Now was no longer the time or place. "Uh, huh," she replied. Spinning around briefly, she waved her hands for emphasis. "Alright, follow me! Stick close together! Black Widow's going to be taking up the rear."

Down the hallways they ran, heading for the stairs. They came across two more goons – Penny dealt with the first one by webbing up his entire face, Natasha dealt with the second. A part of her knew she should've felt bad for hers, because if someone didn't poke in air holes near his mouth and nose, he was going to suffocate to death. But she didn't have a lot of tolerance for rapists; he was lucky her Lolita days were done and over with, otherwise...

"I've got him," Natasha said lowly, as if reading her mind. The two goons had attacked them right after one another, so she was able to poke the holes in the webs and rejoin the group quickly. Penny doubted the victims running between them even noticed.

They were able to get outside without any real further hassle. The police had just pulled up, along with the EMTs. Her world became flashes of color and noise, as she helped the women and girls over to the ambulances and talked vaguely with the police. She wasn't too pressed to deal with them or give her statement yet, if they wanted hers. She had to help the victims first.

No, not victims.

Survivors.

Like her.

Finally, though, when she'd comforted the last one, a girl her age who'd been shaking and shivering as Penny had draped the foil blanket over her and not the EMT, she looked around and saw that Matt and Natasha were standing with who she presumed to be a police captain and some other officers. She meandered towards them, albeit not without a wince. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, her hip was beginning to hurt properly. A quick look down also told her that she was beginning to bleed through her makeshift bandage. Grimacing, she added an additional layer of webbing on top of it.

"KAREN, what time is it?"

"It is 12:01 AM."

...Shit.

"I should also inform you, Spider-Woman, that Boss is on his way."

Double shit.

...Well, to be honest, she probably should've been glad that he hadn't come any sooner. Her dad had probably thought when Natasha had placed the call and left out any mentions of her that she'd been on her way home, even if she would've been running a little late. By the time that he'd realized what was going on, he probably hadn't wanted to crash in on their plans, not when lives were at stake. Probably.

God, she was going to be in so much trouble.

"Did he tell you to give me any messages?"

"Just one: that he is proud of you, and that you are most definitely grounded."

...Yep, there was that.

"'Sup," she said, finishing her approach to Matt, Natasha, and the police. She nodded to the one she thought was the captain. "Captain."

Her guess must've been right, because he didn't refute her claim. "Spider-Woman," he acknowledged.

"How's your side?" questioned Matt.

Of course he would ask her about that first. "It's fine," she answered. "Nothing that Helen couldn't fix if she needed to." But she had more pressing issues to think about. "Did you find any indicators to connect this gang to another one?"

It bothered her, how a relatively new gang could have so many numbers and just instantly go into human trafficking. They had to have a connection to somebody, and she knew hints of that weren't just visual. There were things that Matt could pick up on that not even she could, since she didn't have the decades' worth of training to do it like he did.

But alas, he shook his head. "Nothing that I could detect."

"We'll have CSU go over the entire place, sweep it up top to bottom. And we'll interrogate the guys you found," gruffed the captain. "You did a good job tonight. All of you."

Penny felt her cheeks do their thing from the praise. "We only did what was necessary."

"Which was a good thing," Natasha argued. She raised an eyebrow. "Tony on his way?"

As if on cue, they all heard the sound of repulsers, and looked up to the sky. There was her dad, coming to land.

"He was," Penny said with a sigh. But she plastered a smile on her face even beneath the mask and hobbled over to where he'd landed. It felt good for him to be here, even with how much trouble she was going to be in. She only hated how she couldn't call him by the name she wanted to, not without giving everything away. "Hi, Mr. Stark."

"Spider-Woman," he returned, his voice already heavy with emotion. "Late night?"

Word Count: 4,205

Next Chapter Title: in the rain