AN: This story is set as a replacement for The Hofstadter Isotope. It is also very much a Sheldon/Penny story. It's also my first attempt at TBBT fanfiction, so I hope it's not horrible. I do not own TBBT and am making no money from this story.
Penny blamed Sheldon.
It had been Sheldon who had suggested she put her "affinity for weapons" and "Junior rodeo skills" on her resume. If he hadn't done that, she wouldn't have gotten the role in the pilot of a new action series. If she hadn't gotten the part, she wouldn't have had the still unexplainable need to tell him as soon as she had gotten the part. She didn't have the urge to tell any of her other nerds, but Sheldon had helped her get the part.
If he had just been in his office, she wouldn't have had to ask Kripke where he was, she could have just told him and gone home to 4B. Instead, she had to go find him in some lab where he was playing with something science-y.
If she was honest, it was her fault too, just a little. If she had bothered to knock, he wouldn't have been startled and dropped the superheated glass thing, and the two of them wouldn't have started choking on thick purplish gas.
Penny's eyes swam as she scanned the room as much as she could, before Sheldon hit a button. There was a loud noise, and Penny dropped to the floor, realizing a moment later that it was only some sort of super-powerful fan.
A moment after that, she realized that she had not dropped to the floor, she had dropped through it. At least halfway. Her legs were dangling somewhere below her, she could feel that much, but the floor of the lab was going through her waist. And she wasn't dead.
Panicking, she yelled for the scientist. "Sheldon! Help!"
As the smoke cleared, thanks to the fan, Penny saw Sheldon spot her, pale, and rush over.
It said something about her day that the weirdest part of it was not the moment when Sheldon hit the floor his hand to test the firmness of it, and a piece of floor gave way. It also said something about how strange a day this was, when as the piece of floor fell to the story below, Sheldon managed to reach out, catch her wrist, and pull her back up beside him, without so much as a grimace.
The two of them stood, staring between the floor and each other, before Penny managed to break her silence. "What the hell just happened?"
The last thing Penny ever expected Sheldon to say about something scientific then came out of his mouth. "I'm not sure." In his defense, he kept looking at the hole in the ground and his hands in surprise. "I suspect, however, that the compound I was working with had some...unexpected results on us when we were exposed to it in it's gaseous form." He looked as confused as she felt. "If this were a comic book. I'd say this is our origin story."
"Huh?" Penny asked, only able to follow half of that. Something her brain translated to: "The weird gas made weird things happen."
"I believe we have developed...superpowers." Sheldon said, still staring at his hands. "How long they will last or what effects they will have is unknown."
That she understood, but it still didn't make any sense. All she could do was stare at him.
