Chapter 4
So, as if Iron Man could predict the future, he was right, the Avengers were following her. They had been for weeks now. This was less than ideal but she had managed to lose them by the time she’d got to her apartment each time so far, so that should count for something. The first time she noticed she was being followed was when she was staking out a restaurant where two high-end gang members were eating. She had been watching from the roof across the street for at least three hours when her spider-sense began to tingle. Then she heard it, it was faint but she could hear someone breathing from the roof to her left. She focused in on the heartbeat and when she recognized it she sighed and stood up. She calmly turned and looked directly in Hawkeye Sr.’s direction. She saw him tense up clearly not expecting to have been spotted so easily, but then he put his hands up in a placating manner. She glared at him to the best of her ability as he crossed from his rooftop to hers, keeping his hands up the whole time.
“Nice trick you got there, what is it? Telepathy? Psychic?” he asked, finally letting his shoulders fall into a more relaxed position. Penny didn’t think he had any intention of attacking her, her spider-sense would tell her if that was the case, however she wasn’t going to take any chances so she turned and jumped off the building and swung away.
He would tail her a few more times over the week until he gave up, she enjoyed those two days of relaxation before it was taken away just as fast as it had come. In his place was now a calmer heartbeat, one belonging to a woman… and holy shit Black Widow was following her. Nuh-uh. She could run circles around Hawkeye, but Black Widow…?
Penny did manage to lose her that first night and then promptly refused to go out as Spider-Woman for a solid week and a half. DD told her she was being dramatic and that they probably meant no harm, but seeing as that was coming from the man that was even more evasive of the Avengers than herself, she wasn’t going to take his word as gospel.
Her first week back out in the city nightlife she solely patrolled with Matt in hopes that not even Black Widow would have the gumption to try to tail him. She seemed to be right as she wouldn’t come around again. However, only three days into her interning as Daredevil’s leech, a new heartbeat came around and oh my God she can not get a second can she? This one was the loudest one yet and she couldn’t help the way her jaw dropped when she realized that THE Captain America was tailing her. Matthew would deny it, but she saw every emotion in the world flash across that man's face when he too realized who that heartbeat belonged to. Hawkeye? Weird, but whatever. Black Widow? Terrifying, but okay. Captain America? She might just die. Unlike his teammates, The Captain didn’t even try to disguise the fact that he was tailing her, she thought that was nice; he didn’t underestimate her. Throughout his week of following her, he would try to get her to speak but she held herself back, despite the fact that every fangirl cell in her body was weeping at losing the chance to talk to Captain America. He continued to follow her even when she was back to patrolling by herself, however after nine days of her not saying a word, he too would stop showing up. She felt weirdly let down by that, but she didn’t want to think too hard about the implications of her missing a group of people stalking her so she pushed those emotions down. She would have assumed that The Captain would be the last one of them to follow her but she was sorely mistaken. The last one was just a much better hider.
Her first time noticing him wasn’t through the way she discovered his teammates. No, her spider-sense didn’t alert her to him, her enhanced senses didn’t pick up on him, it was only when he stepped into one of her fights did she realize he was there. And isn’t that terrifying.
She had been down at the docks sitting on top of a shipping container watching a group of about 17 men walk around doing various jobs in the operation. Some were shoving the children into the shipping containers, some were keeping watch, they all had roles and as much as she wished to step in right away, she couldn’t until they got the last kid into the container, she never risked any civilian getting caught in the crossfire of a bullet fight. After they had finally got all of the hostages inside and locked the crate she finally made her move, dropping down as quietly as she could manage she instantly began webbing as many of their weapons up as she could. The men whose weapons weren’t webbed up immediately began firing on her, but she was too fast for any of them to get a shot on her. She was careful to avoid getting anywhere near the crate housing the children, knowing that the bullets would easily pierce the material of the crate. All in all the fight took about fifteen minutes, she had eventually gotten all of the men either webbed up or unconscious, but just when she went to break the lock on the crate, her spider-sense went off, she turned and saw one of the men raising his gun at her, but before she could even think to fire one of her webs at him there was a cracking sound a blood splurting out of his head, someone had shot him. She looked around but she couldn’t see anyone, a sniper then. Her first thought was Frank Castle, she hadn’t met the man herself yet, but DD told her stories (not any good one’s, but still). She was confused as to why he wouldn’t have just come down to help but she put it in the back of her mind as she went and freed the children. The police came and she climbed up to where the shot had come from while they got everything sorted, however the sniper she saw was definitely not Frank Castle, this man was wearing all black, had long black hair and … a metal arm. Jesus, she really couldn’t catch a break could she?
“Nice shot,” was all she could think to say. She instantly regretted it as she realized that that was the first thing she had said to any of them since they began following her, and she regretted breaking her rebellious silence. He nodded his head and seemed like he too was at a loss for words, though more so out of awkwardness. They stared at each other in silence for about four seconds too many before Penny decided she’d get more stimulation out of staring at a wall. “Okay, well… bye I guess,” she said as she walked towards the edge of the roof.
She turned when she heard him finally say something, “Your plan sucked.”
“Excuse me?” she asked in genuine confusion, he follows her, watches her fight off a large group of child traffickers, offers one bullet of support, and then critiques how she fought? “Last I checked, I took out 16 out of 17 of those guys, and you took out one.”
“You took them out by throwing yourself in the middle of a gun fight,” he said it so calmly, in that stupid neutral tone she always does when she wants to piss someone off, but she got a feeling that that’s just how this guy talked. She rolled her eyes at what he said, heroes, always with their plans. She supposed DD was like that too… maybe it was just an adult thing. So, seeing as he was trying to use his adultness to win the fight she responded in the most mature way she could.
“Whatever,” and with that she jumped off the container and swung home.