Pen jogs into the Baxter Building lobby. Her thin sneakers squeak on the polished floors, and her satchel bag thumps against her thighs. She quickly veers into a side hallway and seeks out a single unisex bathroom to duck into.
In a way, being late to the meeting between the Fantastic Four and the Avengers is a good thing. There's no waiting, no time for her anxiety to creep up and consume her. She can't think about the terrifying enormity of being invited into the Baxter Building alongside the Avengers, a team she's only been apart of for a handful of weeks.
As Pen throws her bag on the closed toilet lid and unearths the spider suit stuffed between textbooks and empty chip packets, she doesn't think about how she's about to meet her longtime idols, the people who have decorated the walls of her bedroom since middle school. She throws the spandex over the basin and shucks off her mustard sweater and boxy glasses, and doesn't imagine herself in all her awkward, spluttery glory meeting the Four and word vomiting in front of the scientific genius that is Reed Richards. Or Janey Storm.
Pen carefully doesn't think about Janey Storm.
Pen reaches for her zipper as the door handle rattles. Peter only has enough time to whirl around before the bathroom door is pushed wide open.
Janey Storm freezes in the doorway.
Pen is half naked. Her boney, freckled shoulders and the faded sports bra she's had since high school are on display. Bruises from this morning's encounter with the Scorpion haven't had time to heal yet—purples and sickly greens tesselate over her ribs and toned stomach.
Janey can see every unedited part of Pen; her open knuckles, blood a sharp red against her pale skin; her unbrushed hair, grown out past Pen's jaw like a tangle of weeds; her loose jeans, slung low on her hips, with fraying ends and ripped knees. Janey stands there and sees Pen Parker, a half naked, wide-eyed girl choking on her heart.
"It's occupied," Pen manages.
"The lock," Janey begins, frozen with her hand on the door jam. "It breaks sometimes."
Pen wraps her arms over her bare stomach. "Why would you want to use a bathroom with a faulty lock?"
Janey heaves up a fuzzy make up bag. The products inside roll and clatter noisily. "Wanted to sneak out and do my make up without being teased, before the Avengers—" Janey quietens. Pen follows her gaze to the basin, red and blue spandex spread out on granite counter.
Janey says, breathless, "Spider-Woman."
Pen makes a show of looking around the bathroom. "What? Where?"
"Spidey." Janey flushes and raises a hand to touch her rosy face. "I—I didn't have time to—"
Janey glares at her make up bag like it's somehow wronged her. Pen glares at the general entirety of the tiled bathroom because she knows for certain that the universe has, in fact, been personally wronging her her whole life. This is the worst thing that's happened to her today, and she spent the morning being thrown through cement walls by a D list super-villain.
"I'm a mess," Janey continues, fiddling with the ends of her blonde ponytail. "I was coming down here to clean up."
Pen stares at the taller girl. Her clothes are nicer than anything Pen owns—shirt collar popped to reveal the hollows of her throat, pale skirt sweeping gently down to smooth thighs and heeled ankle boots. Pen glances at herself in the mirror. She's still in an off white sports bra and faded jeans, bony and perpetually awkward in front of last month's Teen Vogue cover.
"Erm," Pen begins, "don't worry about it? Please stop staring at my bruises? Don't tell anyone I'm Spider-Woman or all my super-villains will come and murder my family?"
Janey's eyes snap from Pen's bellybutton to her face. "Oh, I wasn't staring at your bruises, I was just—" She clears her throat and adverts her gaze. "Your face is safe with me. It's a great face."
"What," Pen says.
Janey scrubs a hand over her cheeks, eyes squeezed shut. "I mean, your secret identity is safe. I won't tell anyone what you look like."
Pen breathes slowly in and then out. Okay, okay. She's half naked in front of the Human Torch, but—okay.
"Okay," Pen says.
"Okay," Janey says. She stands in the bathroom threshold, make up case dangling from her hand.
After a long moment, Pen says, "Can I… can I finish getting changed?"
"Right," Janey blurts, and shuts the bathroom door.
In the quiet room, Pen rubs her hands over her forearms to bring some sensation into her tingling skin. It doesn't work. She feels hollowed out.
With numb hands, she pulls on her Spider-Woman suit, shoves her clothes back into her bag, and goes to meet her new colleagues.
Pen quietly slips into the living room. Her red and blue costume isn't discreet, no matter how small she might be. Sam sees her first and draws her in with an arm thrown over her shoulders, leading her to the couch. Natasha passes by and rubs a hand over her spandex scalp, like she's running her fingers through Pen's hair. Clint goes to noogie her but Natasha grabs him by the shirt collar and hauls him off to the kitchen.
The only reason Natasha isn't egging him on—or gently bullying Pen herself—is because they're in the Fantastic Four's space. Pen gets nervous in cramped social settings. It's one of many anxious nuances Natasha has picked up on.
Toni waves at them from the armchair. Her lipstick red grin—a sharp, dangerous thing that once threw Pen off, when she was still floundering vigilante and a high schooler—is familiar and comforting. Sam steers them towards the neighbouring couch.
"There's our tiniest teammate," Toni says loudly. She does most things loudly. Pen can't help but smile back, even though the mask hides it. "Richards, you should be blind with jealously. Spidey could do laps around you, intelligence wise. Probably literally, too."
Pen splutters. "I could not!"
Toni waves an unconcerned hand. "Maybe not now, but you're a fetus. One day, though. One day, you're going to be unstoppable."
Pen sits down on the couch. The leather back sticks uncomfortably to her spandex suit. "Why does future me sound like some kind of super-villain?"
"Scratch that," Toni says, snapping her fingers at the teenager. "You and me—lets quit the team and start our own super-villain tag team. You'd be my evil assistant. My evil apprentice. My tiny, evil lab monkey. It'd be amazing."
Sam frowns disapprovingly. "Spidey's been a part of the team for a few weeks, and you're already trying to coax her over to the dark side? C'mon, Stark."
"You can't join us," Toni tells Sam. "You'd be a terrible henchman."
"I'm taking that as a compliment."
Reed ignores Toni, and takes a seat beside Pen on the long couch. Pen feels a little light-headed at the proximity. Her eighth grade report on Dr. Richards and Dr. Octavius flashes through her mind. Hopefully, her encounter with Reed ends better than her encounter with the other scientist.
If Reed ends up like Ock—deranged and dangerously obsessed with Pen, closed off in the dank, watery lair wallpapered with intimidate scans of Pen's biology—she is going to be very, very disappointed.
"Reed Richards," he says, like she doesn't know. He holds out a hand for her to shake.
She takes it. Her gloves hide her sweaty palms. "Spider-Woman. I'd just like to say, for the record, I'd make a terrible super-villain."
"Super-villain apprentice," Toni corrects.
Reed laughs. "You should give yourself more credit. From what I've seen, the Daily Bugle is already pretty scared of you."
"If I was a super-villain, I'd have already webbed Jameson to the top of Statue of Liberty and left him dangling by the seat of his undies."
"But you're an Avenger now," Sam reminds.
Pen sighs dramatically. "Being a good person is so hard."
Toni points at her. "There we go. One step closer to running away and being my apprentice."
"Toni, no," Sam says.
"Toni, yes," Toni says.
Natasha and Clint are chatting with Ben Grimm on the other side of the room. To their left, spread out on the dining room table, are bowls of chip and dip and the cut up cheeses and cold cuts Pen only sees at grown up functions. Ben laughs and gives a low whistle, the sound echoing through the living room.
Janey scowls at her teammate from the doorway. Her ponytail is gone. Her golden hair tumbles past her shoulders and ends at the small of her back. She's thrown on a jean jacket over her dress. Her lips and eyelids shimmer beneath the artificial kitchen lights. Her thumb brushes over her lower lip, cleaning up her shiny lip gloss, and for a blinding moment, Pen forgets how to breathe.
"Look who got dolled up," Ben heckles. "You disappear after finding out Spider-Woman is joining us today and then step out looking ready for a photo shoot—"
Janey throws a burst of flames at him. They bounce off of Ben's rocky chest. Across the room, where she's been talking to Steve, Sue calls, "Janey! No flames in the house!"
Janey ignores her sister and stomps away from Ben. She pauses by the couch, catching sight of Pen.
Pen raises a hand. "Hey."
Janey swallows. "Hey."
"Janey, come sit down," Reed says, completely oblivious to the tension in the air. Toni and Sam exchange looks. "This is Spider-Woman. From what I've heard, she's smart as a whip and twice as brave."
"Kind of hard to breathe underneath all this praise," Pen says, laughing awkwardly. She's never been good with compliments.
"You must come by my lab sometime," Reed tells Pen.
"Get your own lab monkey," Toni says. Pen doesn't know how she got to this point in her life, sitting at the Fantastic Four's couch, a legendary scientist and engineer arguing over.
"Oh, no," Janey says, looking from Reed to Toni to Pen, "you really are a nerd, Spidey."
"There goes my reputation as unshakeably cool and collected."
"This morning I watched a lifestream of you screaming as you were thrown through cement walls by the Scorpion," says Janey. "You made a joke about hitting a wall in life and then he threw a Prius at you."
"I was a little concussed," Pen defends.
"The video had half a million viewers."
"I should've let him kill me."
Janey shakes her head. Her blonde hair dances around her face. "And then those glasses. That yellow sweater. Reed and Toni wetting themselves over you. I should've known you were a nerd."
Sam's eyebrows are raised. Toni's looking at Pen with newfound respect.
Pen stands quickly. "I'm going to go get a drink. From the kitchen. Goodbye." She shakes Reed's hand once more. "Pleased to meet you."
"Pleased to meet you, too," Reed says, bewildered.
Pen scampers past a snickering Ben and Natasha, ducks beneath Clint trying to rope her into their conversation, and hurries into the safety of the kitchen.
"Wow." Janey follows her in. She leans against the countertop, studying Pen. "You're smooth, too."
"There's a reason New York is in love with me."
"I know you're joking, but buddy, pal, they kind of are."
Pen blinks at her. Janey smirks back. That sharp smirk paired with those lips, that gloss, eyes friendly and so blue—Pen chokes out a breathy, "Huh?"
"The Bugle and anti-vigilante groups may be out for your blood—"
"Thanks."
"—but everyone else." Janey shrugs. "Well."
"Well," Pen says, even though she has no idea what Janey is talking about.
The Fantastic Four's kitchen isn't as big as the one in the main common room at Avengers Tower. It's huge compared to the Parker's, all stainless steel and dark marble countertops, dishes stacked away and cabinets gleaming. There's a chores chart stuck to the fridge.
Janey opens the fridge and makes a face, tongue stuck out. "We've only got fancy old people cheeses."
"Ew, adult foods."
Janey shuts the door and grins at Pen. "Want to ditch this place and get some real food? I vote fries."
Pen opens her mouth to protest—this is her first meeting with another superhero team, not even a month after she's joined the Avengers—but Janey grabs her wrist and tugs her out of the kitchen.
"I have super-strength," Pen says as Janey pulls her towards the elevator.
"Hot." Pen sighs. Janey grins like a shark. "Do you still have your bag?"
Slowly, suspiciously, Pen says, "Yes…?"
"Go get changed."
The elevator doors slid shut behind them. Pen pulls out of Janey's grip, cradling her hand to her chest. "You may not wear a mask, but I do—"
"I love going out in my suit," Janey says. Her hands are buried in the pockets of her jacket, and she leans lazily against the elevator wall. "Everyone comes and talks to me and thanks me for my service to the city. I come home with free food and a dozen numbers."
"People throw trash at me," Pen says. "Sometimes they throw their lunch. Does that count as free food?"
"No."
"The only people who have thanked me for my service to the city are, like, little old ladies who also tell me to stop wearing a costume that's so tight."
"I get that," Janey says, in the way of someone who's been shamed by adults for what she wears since she was much younger.
"Captain America thanked me once, though. That may have been the best moment of my life."
"He did not."
"He did too!"
"He did not."
"He did, he did." Pen grins beneath the mask "He even said I remind him of a younger version of himself. How about them apples?"
Janey looks at the carpeted floor of the elevator. "I can't believe this," she says with a sigh. "Spider-Woman is a liar."
Pen wonders why she was looking forward to meeting the Human Torch. Now, catching fire seems like a flashy gimmick compared to the scientific genius she left behind upstairs. She could have been hanging out with Captain America and the Invisible Woman, and yet there she stood, knocking elbows with another bratty teenager.
"How old even are you?" Janey continues. "Spider-Woman: tiny, lying middle schooler with a bad fashion sense."
"I'm 19," Pen insists, "and a very respectful height."
"We're the same age," Janey says, like she's thrilled by this conclusion. "And buddy. My pal. My dude." Janey leans over and rests her elbow on Pen's shoulder, using the shorter girl as an arm rest. "You're the smallest Avenger. And you guys have Ant Man on reserve."
"You're the smallest member of the Fantastic Four!"
"Nope," Janey says, popping the 'p.' "Outgrew Sue when I was 16. She was so mad."
Pen knows that Sue is taller than her. She's the shortest out of both superhero teams. "… Damnit."
"She swears, too," Janey marvels. The elevator opens to the glistening lobby and Janey runs out, avoiding Pen's sharp elbowed jab. "Come on, I'm hungry!"
When Pen steps out of the bathroom, glasses back on, sweater hiding her sports bra, Janey whistles. "There she is! You look so different. God, I don't even know your name."
Pen shoves down the panicky urge to run from this; she's never revealed her identity to anyone. Not her Aunt, not Daredevil, not even the Avengers.
It's too late to take this back. Janey has already seen her face. She can't help but feel naked beneath Janey's stare, but there's also something freeing about standing before another superhero in jeans, and saying, "I'm Pen. Pen Parker."
Janey cocks her head. "Like stationery?"
Pen rolls her eyes, and tries not to think about how light she feels, an unacknowledged weight pealed off with her mask.
Janey finds them a tucked away table in a cramped, overpriced diner a few streets away from the Baxter Building. Janey goes up to order. While she waits in line, Pen makes faces at her. Janey muffles her laugh in her palm, and makes even uglier faces back. Pen captures a photo with her phone—Janey's eyes are shut, her nose scrunched up, her tongue out—and Janey looks horrified.
"Your face is so deceiving," Janey says when she comes back, slipping into the opposite seat. "I want a refund. I've been tricked."
"It's just a face."
Janey scoffs. "You look so cute. I feel like I can trust that face to watch my bags while I go to the bathroom. Look at those dorky glasses. Who would suspect you're secretly a badass little shit?"
Backhanded compliments are still, unfortunately, compliments. Pen's cheeks grow warm. "I have resting nice face."
"A serious condition," Janey says sympathetically.
"It's incurable," Pen agrees.
The diner is overcrowded during lunch hour. Pen was born and raised in the city that never sleeps, but she's always found being around crowds of people—especially while interacting one-on-one with someone, a stranger, trying to maintain a conversation without it getting too stilted and awkward—tiring. Her dialled up senses make things all the more difficult.
But she doesn't feel overtaxed when talking to Janey. With other girl, conversation comes easy. There's no awkward pauses. Pen doesn't daydream about crawling up the walls and flinging herself out of the high, propped open windows, like she does when talking to her colleagues at the Bugle.
Their drinks arrive with a plate of fries. Pen immediately dunks a few fries into her milkshake and Janey recoils in disgust.
"I trusted you," Janey whispers.
"It's good!"
"You're willingly eating soggy, milkshake-y fries," Janey marvels. "Why did I want to befriend you, again?"
Pen mouths, milkshake-y? She douses another fry in her chocolate milkshake, and wonders if she can get away with dipping one in Janey's strawberry drink. Super-reflexes have to be useful sometime. "Don't knock it 'til you try it, man."
"I'm not drunk enough for this." Pen holds out a damp fry. Janey gags theatrically. "I take it back. I'm a great drunk. I would never eat that."
"You're a 'great drunk.'" Pen rolls her eyes. "Alcohol makes you a good person?"
Janey chokes on her mouthful of milkshake. Newspaper headlines and cameo photos of Janey Storm, notoriously underage and infamously prone to sneaking away from her superhero teammates to party, flash through both their heads. Pen has wondered how the other girl can get away with photos of her holding cocktails and dancing in nightclubs, bright colours flashing over her tan skin, while being both a superhero and a teenager.
Rich people, Pen thinks with a sigh.
"I don't mean alcohol makes me a good person," Janey corrects. "I mean… alcohol makes me honest."
"I wasn't going to do this, but I think you deserve it," Pen says, and takes a handful of fries and dunks them in Janey's milkshake.
Janey snatches her milkshake back too quickly. Half of it spills over the sides and onto her jacket and skirt. Pen laughs like the sympathetic person that she is. Janey flails, trying to brush the milkshake off with one hand, the other clutching her half empty drunk.
"Punishment," Pen says.
"I'm being punished for being an honest drunk?"
Pen pops the rest of her strawberry flavoured fries in her mouth, and reaches for the napkin dispenser hidden behind the salt and pepper shakers. "For being obnoxious," she corrects, handing over the paper napkins.
They return to the Baxter Building four hours after they initially slipped out, shoulders bumping together. Janey's clothes are sticky with dried milkshake.
They pause before the elevator.
"The Avengers have probably left already," Pen says. "No offence, but Toni really hates visiting you guys."
"Nah, I know. Reed can be… kind of a douchebag sometimes."
Pen shrugs. "So can Toni."
Janey laughs a little. Pen fiddles with the strap of her messenger bag. She won't go up with Janey, not like this, with only her boxy glasses to hide her bare face.
"I should go," Pen says after a pause.
Janey swallows. "Right. I'm sorry about before." At Pen's confused squint, she clarifies, "About barging in on you while you were changing? Uh. Not my finest moment."
Pen rubs at her face. "Do me a favour and forget about that. Cleanse your mind."
"Nope," Janey says. She presses the button to the elevator and steps inside, smiling impishly. "That memory is staying with me forever. I'll never forget that beautiful, ratty sports bra."
The elevator closes on Pen's horrified face and Janey's laughter.
(If Pen went up with Janey, she would've seen the knowing faces of the Fantastic Four as they'd taken in Janey's wide smile and the strawberry milkshake soaked into her clothes.
"And I thought she had it bad before," Ben says.
"So?" Sue asks, expectant.
Janey laughs, giddy and a little breathless. "She's—she's. God."
"Are you still mad at us for not telling you Spider-Woman was coming today?"
"We told her," Reed defends. At the other's looks, he winces. "Ten minutes before she arrived counts as forewarning, doesn't it?"
"I thought you were going to explode when we told you," Ben says.
Janey smiles privately. "I'm not mad. It worked out in the end.")
The Fantastic Four and the Avengers meet again in the aftermath of a Doom invasion. Metallic corpses of Doom Bots are piled up on street corners. Upturned cars and hunks of rubble scatter the road. Pen works on righting cars, and shifting debris, and occasionally directing frazzled civilians towards emergency services or family members.
Down the street, in a cleaned off section of the mall, Reed and Sue talk to a cluster of reporters. Press conferences, even impromptu post-mission ones, unnerve Pen. Clean up is easier. She enjoys being able to feel the difference she's making with her hands, seeing the asphalt reveal itself as she moves mounds of debris and watches parents embrace the lost children she returns to them.
A bright streak cuts through the sky. Janey lands beside a twisted motorbike, smoke trailing behind her. "Spidey!"
Pen blinks. "Torch?"
Janey's long legs eat up the space between them. Her flames extinguish, revealing gold skin and a long, swishing ponytail. "Call me Janey, dude. No aliases between friends."
"You just called me Spidey."
"You have a secret identity, it's different." Before Pen can escape, Janey swoops in and pulls Pen into a twirling hug.
"Oh," Pen says against Janey's shoulder, "you're a hugger?"
Janey releases her, but keeps an arm looped over Pen's shoulder. "I think it's a Fantastic Four thing."
"Oh my god, the Fantastic Four are just a team of huggers."
"You sound horrified."
"The Avengers are not huggers." Pen shudders. "Aside from Thor, but I've always chalked that up to cultural differences."
Janey laughs. The sound is easy and natural. Along the street, pedestrians are crowded—cooling after the hot panic of the invasion, or waiting by ambulances to see medics, or reuniting with loved ones. Their eyes follow the girls as they lean into each other's space and laugh.
Pen wonders what they're seeing. Two superheroes in the aftermath of a fight, or maybe two reuniting friends, laughing like they belong there, by the other's side.
"I'm starving," Janey says loudly. "Want to go get burgers or something?"
Pen gestures at the rubble. "I'm cleaning up. And after this, I'm going on patrol. You don't know who might need help after an attack."
Janey makes a face, but relents. "Another time, then. You owe me burgers."
Pen blinks beneath her mask. Her short braid is beginning to come undone. Sweaty hair sticks to her neck, bangs falling into her eyes. Her hair is unruly even when flattened under the spandex mask. It's getting too long. Pen vows to cut it that evening.
Janey pulls her phone out from a pocket on her boot. She slides off the flameproof cover, and hands it to Pen.
"Um," Pen says. The rose gold phone glints in the afternoon sun.
"Put your number in," Janey says, easy as anything. "That way I can hassle you about those IOU burgers later."
Pen punches in her number. "I'm not paying for burgers."
"I'll bring the cash, you bring your dazzling smile." Janey takes the phone back, and offers a graceless wave to the people beginning to take photos of the two heroes. Janey tosses her ponytail over her shoulder, and promises, "I'll see you later, webs."
Janey flames through the air with furious ease. On the ground, Pen watches her go.
Pen is heading out of a biology lab when her phone pings with a text.
You, me, burgers? it says, followed by the sunglasses and fire emoji.
Who is this? Pen sends back, even though she knows. She swerves through the crowd as she texts, heading towards the back of the campus. There's empty storage rooms she can go into and exit in full Spider-Woman costume without being noticed.
I'm offended. It's Janey.
How was I supposed to know that?
You owe burger dates to other people too? I feel cheated on.
Give me 5 mins to change into my suit, Pen responds.
If you don't come in the suit, I'll buy us drinks as well.
Pen stares down at the text. Someone a head taller and twice as wide bumps into her. She barely remembers to loosen her super strength and pretend to stumble, rather than stand still like an impossible 5'4" cement wall.
In the pause, Janey tempts, Sundaes too?
Pen looks down at her clothes and curses softly. She'd left the house in her spider suit and got in a quick patrol before changing back into her street clothes in a back alley.
Pen is not good at packing civilian clothes. She always stuffs the nearest, semi-clean things into her bag and hopes for the best when she changes into them later. She always ends up grabbing things that don't belong together.
At the moment, she's wearing the lace shift dress May had given to her for her birthday—one of the many feminine gifts May loves seeing her in; Pen can't deny her Aunt anything—and her Mathletes sweatshirt. Her long socks hide the healing scraps on her knees. Her beat up sneakers are falling apart, laces fraying, dirt scuffing the sides.
It's all different colours and styles and none of it matches. Pen feels like a disaster. More of a disaster than usual.
She checks her reflection in a window. Her mask hair is always worse when it's been cut recently. The back sticks up and the front sits in curly clumps.
I left my paper bag in my other jeans, Pen texts back. I don't want my face to put anyone off their food.
I like your face. :)
Pen glowers at the mocking smiling face. This is bullying.
I'm serious.
Pen looks down at her phone. The campus is packed at this time of day. Students pass her in distracted crowds, not passing her a spare look. The moment feels private. Like it's just Pen and the waiting glow of her phone.
Worried, Janey texts, If you're uncomfortable, you don't have to. Sorry for pressuring.
It's not that, Pen responds. There's something stuck in her throat. I don't have hero friends I meet outside of the mask. This is just different.
Bad different?
Pen inhales deeply, and replies, Good different.
Janey sends a final, I'll send you an address. Meet you in 10.
Pen waits in an alcove. She fiddles with her short hair, trying to flatten it out. There's nothing she can do for it, she knows. She cuts her own hair, does the best she can, but parts of it end up uneven, some strands cut shorter than others. It sticks up in odd angles. The hours spent in the suit don't help; Pen's has had perpetual hat hair since she was 15 years old. Perpetual mask hair. The same sweaty, tangled thing.
Her spider-sense hums in time for her to step to the side. Janey collides with the brick wall behind her. Pen, safely away from the other superhero's clinging arms, doesn't even apologise.
Janey squints at her. "Didn't your parents ever tell you not to annoy people who can set you on fire?"
Pen pretends to look surprised. "Pre-cognitive abilities. Not my fault I have powers."
"I have powers too, you don't see me using them to hurt others."
"You literally just threatened to set me on fire."
Janey laughs and slips an arm around Pen's shoulders. This time, her spider-sense is quiet.
"I missed you, webs," Janey complains. "What's the point in knowing the face under the mask if I have to wait over a week to see it. I can see Spider-Woman if I turn on the news or go onto the darker side of the internet, but I kind of prefer this."
Pen grimaces. "Stay away from the darker parts of the internet, dude."
Pen's spent many nights hunched over her laptop, the screen's glow fluorescent against the cave-like darkness of her room, earning herself dry eyes and a paranoia fostered by WebMD and the possibility of radioactive cancers. She's googled spiders and their abilities, spandex alternatives, and in rare fits of egotistical curiosity, her own hero moniker. Stumbling upon reddit threads speculating about Spider-Woman—what she might look like under the mask, her name, her cup size, what other superhuman abilities she might possess—had been eye-opening.
She had been 15 at the time. Knowing the weirder parts of the internet had a 'thing' for her had been a little traumatising.
At 19, with skyrocketing popularity, thanks in part to her new Avengers membership, Spider-Woman is beginning to creep into mainstream discussion. She's not sure if this is entirely a good thing.
The amount of reddit threads has gone up. Most of her internet presence is positive—like the time she found a genuine debate about her chances in a fight against Daredevil and the Punisher, with a large portion of fans on her side. Some of it, however, is still filled with uncomfortable discussions about how tight her spandex is and how far her resemblance to a spider goes.
Janey waves a hand in front of Pen's face. "Pen? You in there, babe?"
Pen shakes herself. "War flashbacks."
"Don't google yourself," Janey agrees, and laughs, tipping her head back. Beneath the midday sun, she looks impossibly alive.
"I've never left New York" Pen remarks, off hand.
Janey chokes on her soda. "What? Never?"
Pen doesn't know why this is such a big deal. The way Janey is gaping at her—sunglasses slipping down her nose, glossy lips hanging open in surprise—seems overdramatic.
Pen shrugs, fiddling with her straw.
"What? New York is great, don't get me wrong, I'm patriotic to our great city, but c'mon, our beaches aren't exactly great. There's so much out there. Fiji is gorgeous, the Bahamas are stunning. California is so much fun."
Janey reaches out and snags Pen's wrist, shaking her gently. Her smile is curled fondly, warmly, but it makes Pen's skin itch. The girl Pen has seen painted on billboards and magazine covers and the screens of her classmates for years doesn't understand why Pen favours threadbare sweaters and puts tape on her cracked, secondhand smartphone and has never been out of the country.
Pen shakes Janey off. The taste of cheap, tangy sauce and embarrassment sit thickly in her mouth. "I guess it's just always seemed more practical to pay the rent on time rather than save up for a trip I'd never be able to afford."
Janey's smile wilts. "Oh. I'm sorry—"
"It's fine, Janey," Pen says, regretting the previously bitter slant to her words. It's not Janey's fault she's friends with supernatural royalty and models who drive sports cars. "Tell me about it. I've been to the beaches in New York."
"It's crazy hot," Janey begins; the excitement is gone, replaced with a low simmering fondness.
Janey slides out from her side of the booth. She throws away their burger wrappers, and picks up their sundaes, and folds herself into Pen's side of the booth, legs folded under her, head tilted back. Her eyes are half-lidded. Her long hair curtains off the rest of the half-empty restaurant, a soft gold beneath fluorescent lights.
Their knees brush as Janey describes getting dumped by waves in front of her ex-boyfriend. Janey takes Pen's hand, dragging it into her lap and absentmindedly tracing her bitten nails and the faded bruises over her knuckles. Janey laughs and tells her about sand so soft it squeaks underfoot, the broad expanse of frustration that sweeps the beaches and gets into your bikini.
"A bikini," Pen echoes. She tells herself not to picture Janey in a bikini. She fails.
Janey hums. "It was blue and polka-dotted. You know, I almost bought the Spidey themed one. Glad I didn't. I can get one for you, now."
"You wouldn't catch me dead in a bikini, Storm."
"You seem more like a one piece kind of person."
"No," Pen says. Janey smiles like a shark, like a hunter, and Pen swats at her leg. "Stop thinking about getting me into a swimsuit, flame-face."
"Think about getting you out of one, maybe," Janey remarks. Pen snatches her hand back, pressing it against her warm cheeks. "Ha! Now who's the flame-face!"
"I'm leaving," Pen decides.
Janey puts her feet up on the table. Pen is trapped by the wall at her back, the table by her side, and the long, reclining form of her friend. "I don't think so, Parker."
"Oh, very clever. I'm so stuck. You've caught me. Whatever will I do."
"Guess you'll just have to stay here." Janey plucks her iPhone from her purse, unlocking it with a flick of her wrist. "Hm, what do you think, Pen?" She turns the phone Pen's way so the shorter girl can see the red one piece onscreen. "It suits you."
"Why? It's not even the same colour scheme as my uniform—"
"It's about as skintight, though."
Pen dives for Janey. The two flail out of the booth, colliding with the hard ground in a tangle of limbs. Janey shrieks. Her iPhone sails through the air, but Pen twists and catches it before it can land and shatter.
Pen thrusts the phone up like a trophy. "Saved it!"
"It doesn't count if you're the reason it was knocked in the first place, webhead."
"Does so."
"Does not."
"Fine." Pen lets herself go boneless over Janey. There's a few inches between their heights, but Pen is stronger and can stick to the floor if she chooses to. Janey isn't going anywhere.
"How are you so bony and heavy at once?" Janey complains.
"Dual insult. Nice."
"I try."
"Um." A worker comes up behind them, one hand raised as though he has a question, his eyes huge. "Miss?"
"Miss-es, plural," Pen informs him. She tips her head back against the tiles, squinting at him upside-down.
"That just makes us sound married, though," Janey says. "Like you're a missus."
"Is it a single plural, then? Like two moose are just moose and multiple sheep is just sheep?"
"Um," says the worker again. His eyes are even bigger. "Miss-es. Miss. Um. We're packing up soon and… you can't have sex on the floors."
Pen throws herself off of Janey inhumanly fast. She tugs at her clothes, shoves her hair back with one fumbling hand, and stutters, "I'm not—we weren't—"
Janey clambers to her feet. "Wellll…"
"Do not, Storm. Do not even." Janey blinks innocently. Pen shoves the iPhone at Janey with a huff.
"Take me home, J."
"I wonder if any stores will be open this late so we can buy you a swimsuit—"
"Home!"
"One of these days, I'm getting you into a swimsuit."
Pen sees New York from high above on a daily basis, but there's something about this, something about the Statue of Liberty that puts things in perspective. It's quiet, almost, with the thick divide of water between them and the city. The sounds are distant, barely audible even to her advanced senses, but she can still see huge stretches of her city.
Janey makes the entire experience considerably less quiet. Her iPhone rests by her foot, playing loud pop music that Janey bops to almost subconsciously, ponytail swishing behind her.
Janey digs into her packet of chips, scrunching her nose up when Pen dips a fresh oreo into a jar of peanut butter.
"Why did I invite you?" Janey wonders, watching with sick fascination as Pen bites into the biscuit and moans dramatically. She gestures at the jar. "Do you two need to be left alone? Should I go?"
Pen swipes two gloveless fingers into jar, eating spoonfuls shamelessly.
"I've never been jealous of peanut butter before—"
Pen scrunches up her nose. "Shut up."
"—but the way you're sucking up that peanut butter makes me pretty damn jealous, I have to admit."
Pen coats her fingers in globs of peanut butter again and shoves her hands at Janey's face. The blonde squeals. Chunky peanut butter streaks down her tan face.
Pen grabs another handful of peanut butter and goes for Janey's blue, unstained super suit.
The wind eats up Janey's feral laughter. She dodges Pen's sticky fingers, and throws the chip packet at her head.
"Are you wearing your web-shooters?" Janey asks.
Pen narrows her eyes. "Yes? Why—?"
"Put your mask on."
Pen hurries to put her mask on using her wrists and the tips of her sticky fingers. "Why?"
"Because," Janey says, and tackles her over the side of Lady Liberty.
Pen makes sure they don't fall to their death. The tourists amassed around the bottom get some amazing photos of Spider-Woman looking dazed, the Human Torch sprawled over her, laughing, face flushed, two peanut butter handprints on her blue back.
Janey's room in the Baxter Building is cleaner than Pen's, though this isn't saying much. It's not clean—dirty laundry has been kicked beneath the unmade bed and shoes are piled haphazardly by the door—but its spacious. The ceiling to floor window looks out over the city, shining afternoon sunlight into the softly coloured room. It makes the already sizeable room look twice as large.
Pen's room is dark and cramped and small like a rabbit's burrow. The walls are covered with geeky posters and family photographs. Books spill from her packed shelves and onto the floor. Homework and villain's case files and web-shooter pieces clutter her desk. Her sewing bin, stuffed with too big thrift store finds and ripped clothes, is overflowing. The only thing she meticulously cleans is her Spider-Woman things to stop Aunt May from stumbling upon them.
Janey doesn't apologise for the mess in her room. Pen admires her for that.
Janey sits at her vanity, make up spilt out over the tabletop. Pen, sprawled out over Janey's unmade bed, perusing Janey's comic collection, has been there since that morning. Janey had begged her to join the Fantastic Four for pancakes. Pen isn't stupid. She knows not to turn down free food, especially not free food offered by cute, super-powered girls.
Pen chews on a peanut butter cup. Janey's junk food stash is more extensive than hers. "Did Sue teach you that?" Pen asks.
Janey meets Pen's eyes in her vanity mirror. "What?"
Pen uses the spine of the comic book to gesture at Janey's face. "Make up," Pen clarifies. "Did Sue teach you how to do that weird and mystic art?"
"Weird and mystic art?" Janey rolls her eyes. "It's just make up."
Pen throws a peanut butter cup at her. Janey catches it and pops it in her mouth."I've taken down the Sinister Six on my own, and I still have no idea how to put eyeliner on."
Janey twirls her liquid eyeliner at Pen. The tube is thick, the felt tip tapering down to an sharp point. Like the make up spilt out on the vanity desk, it looks expensive and intimidating. "Want to try?"
"Really don't."
"Can I put it on you?"
"Erm." Pen swallows down a lump in her throat. "Don't you have a party to get to later?"
"Later," Janey echoes. She gets up and drags Pen from the bed. The Teen Titans issue floats from Pen's hand to the carpet. "And I might end up skipping it, anyway. You're much more fun."
"You shouldn't bail on you friends," Pen manages as she's pushed onto the stool.
Janey crouches down beside her. One hand cradles Pen's chin, keeping the shorter girl still, the other steadies the eyeliner. "Don't move."
Pen doesn't move. The eyeliner pen is cold and itchy against her eyelid. It's an uncomfortable, intimate sensation; the texture is all wrong against her skin, and her hyped up senses resist against something so pointed and wet being pressed against her eyes. But Janey is warm and hovering in Pen's space, and she feels feverish where Janey's skin touches hers.
Janey finally pulls away. She blows lightly on Pen's fluttering eyelids to dry the make up. "Okay," she says, satisfied. "Open."
Pen blinks her eyes open. Janey coos a little and brushes her thumb over Pen's cheekbone. Dusty pink eyeshadow looks pretty and ethereal on Janey. The skin around Pen's eyes just feels too tight.
"Let me do your make up," Janey begs, shuffling even closer. Pen, intoxicated, nods.
Janey fusses over Pen's hair and skin and lips. She refuses to put heavy foundation on, lest she accidentally covers Pen's light dusting of freckles.
"I'm a genius," Janey says.
"Huh?" Pen asks. Janey is so close. She runs unnaturally hot, flames hidden but always present beneath her skin.
"I'm a lot darker than you, but the foundation I picked up is exactly your shade. I'm that good."
It takes Pen a while to puzzle through that. "You… bought make up for me?"
Janey's hand cups Pen's jaw, angling her head. A fluffy brush ghosts down Pen's temples, and she shivers.
"No comment," Janey says.
"This was planned," says Pen, and Janey snickers.
After moving away from eye make up, the process starts to feel nice. The soft brushes sweep gently over her skin. The best part, the thing that keeps Pen sat on that stool, is Janey, leaning over her. Like this, Pen can sit and feel the foundation brushes skim over her cheeks and take in the minute details of Janey Storm's face.
Janey's make up looks perfect. Pen never wears the stuff—because of her mask, because of money, because of a dozen other reasons—but she wonders what it's like for Janey. What happens if she flames on outside of her flameproof suit? Her powers should melt the product from her skin. Maybe Janey nagged Reed for make-up capable of withstanding both sweat and flames. Then again, knowing Richards, the man probably was excited at the scientific prospects and did it without Janey needing to ask.
Janey paints Pen's lips last. The colour is a reddish copper, like rusted iron, earthy with tones of orange. Janey brushes her thumb against Pen's bottom lip to clean up the lipstick, and then pulls away.
"What do you think?" Janey asks, beaming. She directs Pen's gaze to the mirror.
"It's…" Pen begins. She looks like she normally does, but more airbrushed, almost. Her eyes are huge, the brown deepened by the black eyeliner. The lipstick is a nice colour, she thinks, and then smacks her lips together. The consistency is waxy, and she can feel it rub onto her teeth. "It's not really me. Sorry."
Janey pouts, but respects that decision.
Aunt May had tried to buy Pen make-up. MJ had been especially insistent. When they were 16, she had ambushed Pen and done her up and beamed proudly at the end product.
MJ work had been completely undone by that evening when Pen pulled her mask on and sweated through hours of crime fighting. Aunt May had started almost violently when Pen had walked in that night, sweaty hair curling around her ears, wet mascara smeared under her eyes like a raccoon.
Make up is not a friend of Pen's.
But sat like this, knees brushing against Janey's, watching the light catch on the glitter on Janey's eyelids, Pen thinks it's not so bad.
A figure crashes through Pen's window in a pile of limbs and a slurred, "Ow."
Pen flinches awake. It's been a long time since she was snuck up on, especially in her own bedroom. Her spider-sense didn't warn her.
Pen rubs sleep out of her eyes and untangles herself from her blankets. The person sprawled on her carpet shimmies onto their back, arms and legs spread like a starfish.
Janey offers her a mulish glare in greeting. "Men are the worst."
"Sure," Pen agrees. She bends down and steals Janey's iPhone. The other girl doesn't protest being quietly robbed.
6:45AM, the phone reads, above a large collection of texts and missed phone calls.
"Why are you even conscious at this hour?" Pen asks. "I know not even Sue can pull you out of bed before 9AM."
Janey levers herself onto her elbows. The deep red of her shirt and black of her leather pants seem out of place on Pen's greying carpets. Even Janey's make up—smoky eyeshadow and maroon matte lipstick—is at odds with the young sunlight spilling through the open widow.
Pen's pyjama pants are threadbare and Captain America patterned. Her baggy shirt displays the USS Enterprise. She feels sleep-soft and annoyed. None of her usual awkward insecurity next to Janey's drooping curls and bronzed skin.
"Haven't gone to bed yet," Janey says, showing her white teeth. "It's a Sunday, you square."
"You just called someone a square in 2016," Pen says, "but I'M the boring one?"
Janey falls back to the carpet and giggles. Pen may not have the time or money (or disposition) to go out drinking, but she knows tipsy giggles when she hears them. She's heard them enough on nighttime patrols. Drunk girls aren't her favourite to find—they're difficult to wrangle and vulnerable in a way that makes Pen's fists itch—but the easy laughter and steady stream of compliments are nice. Girls in towering heels and big eyes clinging to her arm and telling her how strong Pen is, how much they like her suit, how nice she looks in it. It's nice, sometimes.
Pen kneels by Janey's side. "Do the Four know where you are?"
"They know I'm hiding," Janey says. "They… also know I got wasted last night, so I'm going to get verbally ever—evis—erva—"
"Verbally eviscerated?" Pen supplies.
Wide eyed, Janey nods. "You're so smart."
"And you're drunk."
"I don't get drunk," Janey says. "I just get honest."
"Yeah, yeah."
Janey doesn't just get honest; she gets loud. She puffs out her cheeks, and insists, nosily, "I'm an honest drunk, Pen!"
Pen shushes her. Janey grins and shushes back even louder. Pen shushes that. They kneel on the carpet, leaning into each other's space, trying to out-shush each other for an embarrassingly long time.
Janey finally gives up. She rests her head on Pen's knees. "You're so soft, Pen. Pen. Penny. You're so good to me."
"Don't call me Penny."
"Penny," Janey taunts, because she can. "Penny, Penny, Pennnnny."
Pen scoops the other girl up under the armpits, drags her across the floor, and dumps her onto her bed. Janey wiggles on the comforters with a lopsided grin. Her hair spills into a halo beneath her. She's probably going to smudge foundation and pencil eyeliner on Pen's pillow covers.
Pen gets to work unzipping Janey's heeled boots. "I mean it, flames. I ditched 'Penny' when I was 14. The only person who got to call me that was—" She pauses with her hands around Janey's bare ankles. Thinking about Uncle Ben still puts a lump in her throat.
Janey squints at her. "Okay. Pen." Pen exhales quietly, eyes closed. Absentmindedly, she rubs her hands over the taller girl's ankles, trying to calm down and not think about her Uncle, about his loss, about the aching grief she's never been able to shake.
Janey asks, "Do you have a foot fetish? I mean, no judgement, but yikes—"
Pen takes her hands off of Janey's ankles quickly. Pen throws the ridiculous boots to the ground, and whisper-shouts, "I will throw you out of my window—"
"It's okay!" Janey whisper-shouts back. "This is a safe space, buddy! I have some decent kinks myself; there's something about girls in webbed spandex that really gets me going—"
Pen smothers Janey's furious, drunken laughter with a throw pillow before storming out of the room to find water and aspirin for her undeserving friend.
Aunt May is on the couch when Pen emerges, feeling too wake after two hours of sleep and a gruelling night patrolling the city.
She drops a kiss onto May's silvering hair. "'Morning," she says, before scurrying into the kitchen.
"You're up early," May notes. She's on the couch eating oatmeal and watching early morning news. She knows Pen doesn't have class until noon. Pen knows she doesn't have work until 10AM.
"I could say the same about you," Pen says evenly. She quickly fills up a water bottle and two cups of coffee. She makes a tiny mountain of toast while she's there.
Aunt May hums into her oatmeal. "A crash woke me up. Lots of voices, too." May fiddles with the remote and doesn't show Pen her tiny smile as she adds, "Guess the neighbours are being noisy this morning."
Pen hurries to spread peanut butter on her toast. "Guess so."
"They should probably keep it down."
"Yeah," Pen says, staring at the toaster, "they probably should."
She juggles with the water bottle, mugs, and the heaping plate of toast and tries to discreetly retreat back into her room. Thankfully, her Aunt is uncharacteristically focussed on the TV. Pen squints at the screen, lit up with footage of Janey Storm mouthing off to a gaggle of reporters.
Pen recognises the cut out top, the hugging leather pants, the golden curls. She recognises the vengeful expression on Janey's face moments before she throws a fistful of lukewarm flames at a reporter.
"I am so telling," Pen decides, feeling numb. She has Sue's number, doesn't she? The older Storm sister is going to be furious about this.
"What's that, sweetheart?" May asks. She smiles at the teenager, eyes twinkling.
"I said I'm excelling," Pen says. "Excelling at toast making. Yup. Okay. Goodbye, Aunt May." She shuts her bedroom door to May's soft laughter.
"Janey," Pen hisses into her quiet bedroom. The taller girl groans and buries deeper into Pen's blankets. "No, no—I'm mad at you right now—"
Janey emerges from the mass of blankets. She lights up at the mountain of toast in Pen's hands. "Breakfast!"
"You scorched a reporter? We're superhuman, Janey. We can't hurt civilians."
"You sound like Sue."
"Comparing me to Sue Storm is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me."
Janey goes quiet. She manages to sit upright in bed, the blankets pouring around her thighs. The shirt stretches over her chest, her hair a soft curtain of gold. Janey fiddles with her toast crusts, crumbs spilling out onto Pen's bed.
Finally, Janey says, "They were insulting you."
Pen startles. "Me?"
Janey looks at the toast. "We've been spending a lot of time together. In our suits, I mean. In public."
"Ah," Pen says. She's no stranger to the awful things people say about her. Her reputation proceeds her in the worst ways. Even now that her popularity is mounting, there's still so much hate.
Janey's hands ball into fists. The toast crunches beneath her shaking fingers. "They said—they said you were a criminal. That you were trying to get to me and I should stay away from you in case I ended up like that, and I just—they were just—"
"That's not the worst thing people have said about me," Pen says mildly.
She'd been hurt at fifteen, reading and hearing and seeing grown men turn their faces up at her heroics. She remembers the criticism; she was too short and too flat chested, her spandex obnoxious and shamefully tight, her jokes unfunny, her voice too high and grating. The speculation had hurt, too. The suggest that Pen was sleeping with the super-villain of the week. MJ, new to the school paper, had threatened to punch anyone who ran slurs about Spider-Woman. Flash, full of awe and the beginnings of a crush on her vigilante counterpart, had dutifully backed MJ up.
"I don't care!" Janey looks up and meets Pen's gaze. Pen's voice leaves her. "I'm not going to let them say bad things about you. They're not true. You're… you're one of the best people I've ever met."
"We've only known each other for a couple of months," Pen points out.
Janey goes a little red in the face. "They've been a pretty great few months."
"Yeah," Pen agrees, taking Janey's plate back. "Yeah, they have."
Janey is on screen, laughing with a morning show host. She fiddles with her hair, slung up in its regular ponytail. Pen feels her stomach twist, her breath hitch; she doesn't realise she's slipping her coffee until it splashes over and burns her knees.
She curses, mopping it up. On screen, Janey laughs again. Someone else has noticed how very long Janey's hair is, and has complimented her on it.
"I want to cut it short, actually," Janey says. The host makes a little disapproving noise in the back of her throat. "Short hair is nice! Actually…" Janey lowers her eyes, shy, wearing an unreadable expression. "A friend of mine keeps her hair short, and she…. she's always gorgeous. One of those nerd types, sure, but. But gorgeous."
The host nudges Janey. They're sat on couches, facing one another. They're aiming for a comfortable, friendly atmosphere, as though they're two friends sharing coffee rather than celebrities on national TV.
"Is this because of admiration for your friend or because of something else?"
The host gives Janey a meaningful look, eyebrows raised, but the expression goes completely over Janey's head. "Something else? It's a pretty style."
"On a pretty friend?" presses the host. Janey makes a confirming hmm. "Or is she more than a friend?"
Janey ducks her head. Her eyelashes are dark against her golden cheeks. Pen swallows. She scrubs her fingers through her short hair, catching on the knots.
"She's a very pretty friend," Janey admits. The host pushes for more, but Janey shakes her head and gets too flustered to answer. That, in itself, must be telling. The audience is cooing and hollering with Janey's every stuttered syllable.
"Pen," Aunt May scolds. "Stop picking at your hair, and go brush it."
The TV fades to an ad break. Pen gets up to find her hairbrush.
Pen is still amazed that Janey can get into night clubs with nothing more than a smile and an unsubtle namedrop. They know Janey's name, her face, her long, bare legs beneath her short skirt. She's the youngest member of the Fantastic Four, media darling; she's gorgeous and flirtatious and young; she's infallible.
She's very, very drunk.
Pen spots her from the air. Her light hair is visible from a distance. She's waiting outside a nightclub, a long line of people behind her. She teeters on red pumps, one hand splayed over the bouncer's chest.
It's obviously not her first stop of the night. Pen can smell the alcohol on her when she lands quietly behind the taller superhero. The nightclub is abrasive against Pen's senses, the music deafening, even on this side of the door.
"Hey, flame-brain," Pen says. Janey whirls around and clutches at Pen's narrow shoulders, steadying herself.
Flashing lights echo from the club's doorway, reflecting off of the red and blue suit like police lights. Janey gasps and throws her full weight at Pen. "Spidey!"
"Good to see you, too." The shorter girl tries to push Janey away, but the blonde holds tight. Janey presses her face into the crook of Pen's neck. Pen shivers.
Janey breathes against Pen; this close, Pen can smell her own worn suit and Janey's hair, strawberry shampoo and too much hairspray. If she shuts her eyes, it's almost like the smells are one. Caught up in each other's arms, skin against slinky spandex, fruity shampoo against the tang of her suit.
Janey has downed too many cocktails to censor herself. "You smell bad."
"Thanks. It's the smell of New York; hot dogs and sewer drains and old sweat."
"Gross," Janey says, and presses closer to Pen.
"It's not costume night," interrupts the bouncer. "Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?"
Pen points a finger at him. Her other arm slides around Janey's waist. "I'm going to let the short joke go just because of that killer Star Wars reference. Be grateful for my mercy. The Sinister Six aren't even disrespectful enough to resort to short jokes."
"Your fights with the Six are nothing BUT short jokes," Janey says. Slurs. "Who can blame them? Everything about you is little." Janey giggles into Pen's neck. She pokes at Pen's boobs and laughs harder. "Little."
"Dude," Pen says.
The bouncer puts a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing. "You should probably get her home. Also: I seriously hope you're the real Spider-Woman or I'm going to get smushed by the Thing for letting the youngest, drunkest superhero in New York get kidnapped."
"I will," Pen promises, extending her hand in the air, wrist up, "and the Thing isn't the one you should be scared of. Sue Storm is."
Pen presses Janey against her with one arm. With a thwip of webs and a jolt, Pen pulls them into the air. The crowd queuing up on damp cement cheer, calling for them with reaching hands, iPhones tracking their ascent. Janey tries to waves back, but smacks Pen in the face.
"Hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times."
"Sorry," Janey says. She clings to Pen, helpless against the pendulum swing through the skyscraper jungle. "You're Tarzan!"
"If Tarzan was 5'4", female, and hailed from Queens."
"I'm Jane," Janey realises, the rushing wind eating up her laugh. "If Jane was blonde, bisexual, and could burst into flames."
"We're a regular love story," Pen says. Janey laughs, the only thing between her and the hard cement 50 feet down is Pen's arm around her waist.
Janey has always been untouchable. Since high school, when Pen risked stopping in a bustling street to look at her, done up and smiling on a glossy magazine cover. Since her classmates sighed over her photos, Janey's golden face flashing over their phone screens. Since Pen saw the tail-end of her flight, flames stark against a backdrop of sky blue.
Since Janey pushed into that cramped bathroom in the Baxter Building where Pen had stood half naked—bony shouldered and freckled and unappealing, flushing and sweaty and nothing beneath that blue eyed stare.
Janey is unattainable even now—liltingly drunk with smudged eyeliner, stinking of hairspray and vodka. Her tiny pencil skirt draws Pen's attention to the crease of Janey's inner thighs. Her blouse dips agonisingly low. Her curls are wind-blown and loose and golden even under the dim, cityscape glow.
"How do you do this?" Pen wonders as she sets Janey down on a nearby rooftop. She needs to work out which rooms in the Baxter Building are unoccupied and have propped windows. Pen isn't about to get her drunk, underage friend in trouble with her teammates.
"I did shots," Janey answers. "They were sugar rimmed and everything."
"Not how you got drunk. How do you—you—" Pen flaps a hand over Janey's attire.
"You just gestured to all of me."
"Exactly!"
Janey stares at Pen. The sky crackles warningly. Janey asks, "Do you think we'd get struck by lightning if we were swinging through a thunder storm?"
"Yes," Pen says. She lets the issue drop. She needs to put her drunk friend to bed.
Lights are still on in the Baxter Building, though she's not sure how many are labs. Janey is no help, re-attaching herself to Pen's side, chin bumping Pen's forehead. Pen's distracted by the feel of her; the tickle of hair against her masked cheek, the careless fingers at the back of her neck, the press of their stomachs.
"Janey?" Pen asks, choked. "Can I have some room?"
"We can go get a room," Janey says, and dissolves into giggles.
Raindrops splatter the cement rooftop one by one. Pen looks at the overcast sky, and wills it not to pour.
The rainfall grows thicker and thicker. Janey shrieks and tips her head back. Her eyes close, her mouth opens, and she drinks in the heavy rain like a plant soaking in sunshine.
"Isn't tonight wonderful?" Janey shouts over the roar of rain.
"Not particularly," Pen shouts back. She pries her mask off; its too dark for anyone to see her face from this distance, and wet spandex against her mouth makes it hard to breathe.
Janey gasps at Pen's waterlogged, miserable face. "Pen! You're so beautiful!"
Pen throws the mask at Janey. "Don't tease me, you jerk."
Janey kicks off her heels. She steals Pen's hands, and pulls her in. Pen feels weak. She doesn't know what it is smothering her super-strength—the rain, or the anxious exhaustion that sits ever-present beneath her breastbone, or the wet, golden image of Janey Storm.
"You're drunk, Janey," Pen tries.
"I'm wasted," Janey agrees, and twirls them in a loose circle. "I'm wasted, it's raining, and I love you."
The rain pounds the cement rooftop. Janey's palms are wet and cold. Pen lets the taller girl dance, tossing her head, and stomping her feet, and spinning in wobbly circles.
"You're drunk," Pen says around the lump in her throat.
Janey tugs her close. She runs her hands up Pen's arms, over her bony shoulders, and cups her sharp jaw. The height difference isn't as noticeable without Janey's heels, but it feels huge and impossible as Janey leans down and kisses her.
Pen is small and cold beneath the warmth of Janey's lips. She doesn't move.
Janey pulls back. Her make up runs down her cheeks. Her blouse clings to her skin. Pen can see her blue bra.
"You're drunk," Pen says again.
Janey presses her mouth against Pen's forehead. "I don't get drunk," Janey says, "I just get honest."
Pen fiddles with a folder (from the latest Avengers battle in lower Manhattan; she'd managed to secure a photo of herself, Spider-Woman, getting thrown into a skyscraper. She knows Jameson is going to put it on the front page), when a hand snatches the photos from her.
"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Janey asks, holding the photos out of Pen's reach. Rumpled and hangover, she doesn't look as untouchable as usual, but Pen's stomach still swoops. In a messy ponytail and a slate grey dress, rose gold glasses slipping down her straight nose, Janey is a gorgeous as she'd been last night.
For a glorious moment, Pen hates her.
"I work here," Pen says, and jumps to snatch her photos back, "unlike you. Surprised you're sober enough to stand."
"If I don't move too fast, I don't get nauseous. And these help." Janey taps her sunglasses, still on in the cramped, dim office.
"Get out before you get me in trouble."
"No, Pen, I need to clear something up. Last night—"
Pen is not interested in this conversation. She would rather a super-villain crash through the Bugle window than stand here, trapped by financial obligation and Janey's pinning gaze, and listen to this. "I don't know what you're talking about. I took my very drunk friend home and tucked her into bed. The end."
"That's not it!" Janey pushes a hand through her hand. Blonde strands escape her sloppy ponytail. Janey doesn't look dishevelled like Pen does when she lets her hair long grow enough to tie into a nub of ponytail, choppy bangs thick around her face. On Janey, it looks purposeful. Effortlessly beautiful.
Pen swallows. "You should go."
"I kissed you," Janey says. Pen shushes her and glances around the office. They aren't an inconspicuous pair. "No, Pen. I kissed you."
"You were drunk—"
"I told you, I'm an honest drunk." Janey slides off her glasses. She's not wearing make up. Purpling bags sit beneath her eyes. Her mouth is chapped and pale. Pen can't look away. "When I get drunk, I do the things I want to do, but don't have the courage for."
"Or the sense," Pen argues.
"Pen," Janey says, "I've wanted to kiss you for a long time. Since the first time we met."
"When I was half-naked."
"I wanted to kiss you when you were half-naked in that bathroom, and when we ditched our team and went out for fries, and every time we met on the Statue of Liberty." Pen's breath catches in her throat. The office has disappeared; Pen's focus has narrowed to Janey's furiously blue stare. "I want to kiss you right now."
"Janey," Pen breathes, "I don't—"
"PARKER!"
Pen starts, jumping away. "Mr. Jameson! I was just—I have your photos—"
Jameson steps out of his office and scans the bullpen, a drill sergeant surveying his troops. Beneath his moustache, his scowl deepens. "It better not be more garbage."
Pen shakes her head, glasses slipping down her nose. "It's not. It's close up photos of the Avengers fight—"
"Doesn't mean it's not still garbage," Jameson interrupts. One hand on his waist, the other rubbing at his chin, his eyes skip over her as they always do, landing on— "MS. BRANT!"
Betty stands up at her desk. "Sir?"
"Why didn't you tell me Janey Storm was here?"
Betty looks from Jameson, to Pen, to Janey. Her dark mouth opens and closes. "I—I didn't know, sir. She doesn't have an appointment."
"Book her one!"
"I'm just here to see my friend," Janey says smoothly, sliding an arm around Pen's shoulders and squeezing. Pen winces at the feral stare Jameson pins on her.
"Friend?" Jameson asks. With raised eyebrows, he skeptically eyes Pen's cat patterned tights and the faded Star Wars t-shirt tucked into her pleated skirt. Pen would be offended if she didn't agree.
She really needs to get better at packing her bag with civilian clothes. Matching clothes into a passable outfit is hard when she's in a rush.
"Well, 'friend'," Janey says with a laugh and a wink. Betty's mouth is open again. "Pen's a photographer. I'm a model. It happens. I don't remember where we met, but she's so cute—"
"We'll be right back," Pen blurts. She grabs Janey's wrist and pulls her into the stairway.
"Ooh, super strength," Janey says, the door banging shut behind them like a clap of thunder.
Pen pushes her against the wall and crowds in close, hands on Janey's shoulders. "What are you doing here?"
"I told you, I wanted to make sure you knew that last night—" Janey stutters on her breath. She doesn't do that often. "That last night—"
Pen shakes her head. Her glasses slip down her nose, her overgrown bangs brush over her eyes, but she doesn't take her hands off of Janey. "You don't get it."
"What don't I get?" Janey asks. Her eyes are blue and searching.
"I can't do this." Pen lets go of Janey, and the taller girl stays there, back against the wall, watching Pen pace erratically.
"This?"
"Yes!" Pen says, scrubbing a hand through her short hair. "I can't keep doing this. I can't—I can't be near you when you pretend to flirt with me and lean into my space and have no idea how much it gets to me. It sucks, wanting you like this—"
Janey pushes off the wall. She snatches Pen's wrist and guides her back. This time, it's Pen crowded by Janey's presence, choking on each breath, gazing up at Janey with blown eyes.
"Janey," Pen says, and Janey leans down and kisses her, cracked lips hot and resolute against Pen's.
Janey breaks the kiss. Pen gasps for air like she's drowning.
"I wasn't pretending," Janey says, "when I flirted with you. That was real."
Janey waits for Pen to say something. Pen doesn't. She buries her fists in Janey's leather jacket and drags the taller girl down so she can kiss her until they're breathless, until their lips are numb, until someone goes looking for Pen and finds her there, pressed between the stairwell wall and Janey.
"I told you, I don't get drunk," Janey says. She's panting. Pen is too. Neither of them want to move. "I just get honest."