Years passed like months and soon Rick found himself both a detective and a father. As Penny grew up she grew to love the man as her own father. Though he tried to hide it he felt very much the same. He had found himself nicely surprised when she called him 'Dad' at age two. Having been the one to hold her first he felt a certain paternal bond with her. Taking the advice of Grant and Alex, Rick had Penny's legal last name made Barnes. For the first two years of her life she had had no last name.
Alex and Grant weren't the parenting type, but they allowed Penny to call them Aunt and Uncle. This gave them a comfortable relationship with her, Penny trusted them as her doctors.
Jessica watched over the girl till she was old enough for kindergarten, but by this time she and Rick had formed a relationship. Rick wasn't surprised by his feelings for her. She was as good a person as her sister and she was less scientific about life.
Alex was thrilled to know that Rick and her sister were together, she had always known Jessica would fall for a country boy. It seemed ironic that Alex had brought the country boy to her sister, even if it wasn't on purpose.
Alex's work got her recognition, and with that rivalries. Rick sometimes spent the night at the mansion standing guard. Threatening letters were usually just that, but a few extremists had taken action. Nothing stopped Alex, not even the news that the man who had killed McDowell was set free by a jury.
Rick's new rank as a detective gave him much more freedom. To commence the promotion Alex had presented him with a special gift. McDowell had given Alex the chore of designing a special garment for Project Guardian. With Grant's help she had taken a London Fog Trench Coat and turned into a defensive armed super coat.
Alex had had to start from scratch after the FBI stole the original. The coat was fitted with just as many toys as Rick was. It even had a few things Grant had added after Alex's original work.
Rick had been a little shocked by the gift. He knew it must have cost them a fortune and the FBI could never know that Alex had managed to sneak the blueprints out from under their agents' noses.
But he wore it with pride, it wasn't every day an expensive specially tailored trench coat was just handed to him. And as his life would have it, the coat proved invaluable. He had been saved on one occasion by the bullet proof rubber backed Kevlar that lined it. The rubber layer had prevented a downed telephone pole from electrocuting him. While the cyborg had seemed invincible a strong outside current of electricity was more than capable of killing him.
The coat was designed to withstand extreme temperatures, deflected any projectile attack, could double as a life jacket, contained a radio jamming frequency, had a built in parachute, flaps of fabric could extend from the sleeves to serve as glider wings, there was a camouflage setting, and the belt could double as climbing/repelling gear. To finish it off it was solar powered. The coat was a rather impressive article of clothing. All of these amazing features were controlled by a computerized wristwatch.
The watch had it's own added features like a video communication display, homing device, metal detector, smoke and gas alarm, and a GPS.
When Alex and Grant designed extras for Project Guardian they really did their homework. With the coat Rick had almost anything he could possibly need in any event. And it seemed that Alex was always finding something else to add to the tools he carried. She warned him that a fully equipped hat was coming next. He was almost scared to think what else she could possibly come up with.
Penny seemed not to care that Rick was different than everyone else. He didn't refrain from using the built in weapons and tools in front of her. Grant had been giving him a few pointers on how to explain Penny's own unique existence. One way to help her cope was to know that Rick was different too.