The Unknown Variable

(Beta'd as of 7/25/13...the reason this is Beta'd before the previous chapters is because I was stupid and sent my Beta the wrong chapter.)

If you think I own anything that belongs to Disney, Marvel, or JK then you should go get a mental eval. Because I don't, never have and never will.

My lungs were on fire, and my vision was filled with blood. I could see Tony floating in front of me, blood pouring out of the wound in his chest, the blood slowly turning the water red.

I tried to move towards him, but something held me down, my own Core screamed in protest against the water, and suddenly I was pulled up from the water, and Bald was standing over me, my Core in one hand, and Yinsen's bloody glasses in another.

I tried to cry out, but he covered my mouth his hand. Suddenly I saw Tony laying on a cot in the corner of the room, bleeding out and crying weakly for me.

"Penny…"

'TONY!' I tried to scream back, I struggled but Bald was holding me down. I was pinned to the ground, and my vision blurred as Bald got closer and closer.

I felt his hands crawling up my sides, and suddenly it felt as if I was on fire.

"Penny…" I watched as Tony's arm dropped to the side.

"DADDY!" I screamed as my world exploded in pain.

"DADDY!" I screamed, my eyes flying open as I sat upright. Sobs rocked my body as I curled up into a ball, pulling the sheet tight around my shoulders.

Memories flashed before my eyes, some of them real, others wild horrors that my brain created, that seeming even more real than the ones that actually happened.

My fists clenched tightly as I tried to calm my breathing and banish the memories.

A loud crash echoed through the house, startling me out of my tears.

"J…Jarvis?" I asked hoarsely, my throat raw from screaming and crying.

"Miss Penny," Jarvis's voice echoed through my dark room, was I just imagining it or did he sound relieved?

"I…I believe your father requires your assistance."

Something in his tone struck me cold, and wrapping the sheet tighter around my shoulders I quickly stepped to the cold wood floor. I was using one of Tony's MIT t-shirts as a sleeping gown. It reached my knees, so I wasn't worried about him seeing anything. Carefully wrapping my invisibility around my burns I carefully exited the dark bed room and made my way down stars.

I did not care that I was getting Tony's white sheet dirty, dragging it on the floor, all I knew was that I wasn't going back to sleep, not if those horrors were what awaited me.

As I passed through the living room I noticed that the clock read one twenty two, it seemed that I hadn't been asleep all that long.

"Tony?" I called softly, entering the still bright lab. I instantly knew something was wrong. There was a pile of glass laying by one of the walls, and one of his car's had a large dent in it that was not there a few hours ago.

What chilled me to the bone was my dad's still form slumped forward in the same car we had been sitting in, a shot glass in his hand and his Arc Reactor in his other.

"DADDY!" I yelled, not even aware of the word leaving my mouth. I ran across the glass covered floor, not caring that my feet were bare.

As I got closer I noticed that the Arc was still attached to his chest, but it was still in his hand and he was staring at it with a strange look on his face.

"Tony," I asked quietly, not wanting to startle him, climbing into the car beside him.

"Huh," he jumped, noticing me his eyes widened in surprise. "Penny," He said, as he recognized me.

It took a moment for his brain to come back from wherever it was, but Tony shook his head and said, "Did I wake you?"

I shook my head, "Nightmares." I stated lowly, not wanting to think about it.

Tony remained silent, and slowly, as I saw his mind slipping into whatever dark place it had been in, I pulled the glass (I assumed it was of scotch or something) from his hand and put it under the car.

I wrapped the sheet tighter around myself, it was chilly in the lab, and I wasn't wearing a lot of clothes.

"What's wrong?" I whispered, tugging on Tony's arm holding his Arc. Having his Arc out made me really nervous. Images of him bleeding out on the table, both real and fictional, flashed through my mind, and I couldn't help but shiver.

"I shouldn't be alive." His voice was hollow and I wondered if he even realized he was talking. "I shouldn't… I shouldn't have survived… they all… they all died because of me…Yinsen… I should be dead. I deserve to be dead…"

My breath hitched in my throat, and I hit his shoulder, hard, as hard as I could, and when that didn't make him stop, I grabbed his arm and sent a low level current of electricity up his arm.

It caused him to jump, and his mind to came crashing back to reality.

"No, you shouldn't be alive," my tone was harsh, and my words held less meaning than I hoped they would, but I kept going, "But you ARE alive, it's not your fault about what happened… you didn't know. Now you do, you can do something, you can change something, you can do ANYTHING!"

I saw Tony's dark eyes flicker for a moment before he slipped back into the dark pit, "My whole life depends on this little light… made from the scraps of the weapons I created…"

I took a deep breath, before interrupting him again by sending a wave of sparks up his arm, "I know what you are feeling right now. It's dark, it's deep, and it's easy to slip into!" I took a deep breath and continued, "You're not the only one who has to depend on something else to survive." I stated.

I closed my eyes, after making sure Tony's attention was on me, "I said that I was a sick child… that was an understatement. I lost count of how many times I almost died… and no one could ever figure out what was wrong with me. When I was about seven or eight, a doctor came up with this theory, that my body couldn't naturally create the electricity needed for it to run, that was why my heart would fail, why I was paralyzed, why my mind would blank out for days on end. His solution, literally plug me into a wall; I was already living in the hospital by then…so it wasn't a big deal.

I took a deep shuttering breath and continued, "Right before Mom died… I came up with something that would help me, something that would be able to give me a life…but…she didn't live long enough to see it finished."

I opened my eyes, and ignoring Tony's, I pulled down the collar of my shirt, removing the thin cover, and showed him my own Arc, my Core.

"It… It's the only way that I could survive. I couldn't live in the same room day after day anymore. I…I wasn't in the best place…" I took a deep breath, my eyes flooding with tears. "I… I probably would have killed myself… but somehow… I got it to work… took me months and months of work, and finally, after a rather difficult operation… I had a life.

"My Arc is different from yours… it… it's connected with my brain stem, and the top of my spine, along with my heart. It produces the electricity I need to stay…well… alive. Without it… I wouldn't even last five minutes…"

With a dark laugh I wiped the tears from my eyes but still didn't look at Tony, lifting my hand up I let the sparks dance between my fingers, showing Tony, up close, for the first time, my power.

"My sparks, as I call them or my gift with electricity, didn't come till after, and it took me even longer to control. I often wondered if it was all connected somehow, my lack of electricity and my gift with sparks. My doctor and I talked about it, a few months before I came here actually, and we theorized that it all might be some messed up Mutation. If the stupid X-gene didn't do something right, and instead of enhancing our natural ability to generate electricity, if fucked mine up hindering me from creating it, but gave me the ability to control it anyway… or something like that anyway."

I took another deep shuddering breath, and finally realized that I was still holding my collar down. Releasing the fabric from my grasp, my Core was once again hidden from view, though now, it shined through the fabric. I hadn't replaced the cover.

"I always used to wonder if it was worth it, if all the pain, all the loss, all the struggles, but then I met you." I told my father, looking up at my father, whose eyes were misty (though he denied it afterwards) "And I've had fun, I've had a life. Sure, getting stuck in the cave with the Ten Rings was horrid, and almost loosing you, and loosing Yinsen all … just horrible… but if it was a choice between that…this… and my old life… I wouldn't trade it for anything."

The end of my little speech was muffled as Tony wrapped me in a hug, after putting his Arc back into his chest. "I wouldn't trade you for anything either," he whispered.

I knew that Tony wasn't all that good with feelings… Mom always told me that she had to work really hard to get him to open up, and that when she left it probably ruined any progress she made, but maybe, just maybe, Tony would open up to me.

Tony pulled back when I coughed, my Core was flickering again, "Shoot," I muttered, banging on the metallic device; and sighing when the light stayed on.

I saw Tony's concerned and curious expression and replied before he could comment, "It's been acting up for a while now…didn't ever bother to make it waterproof…"

Tony nodded, obviously catching on to what I meant. "We both need new Arcs… Jarvis, order the necessary ma…"

"That won't be necessary," I interrupted him, "Jar, did those orders ever show up?"

"They did indeed Miss Penny, they are currently in the storage room." The AI replied instantly.

"Well," Tony said, brushing my hair aside and looked at my tear stained face, "Looks like we have some work to do."

"Let's get started." I told him with a grin.

Sure we were both really messed up and had a lot of issues; Starks don't play well with others, and at times are self-destructive. But hey, we never claimed to be perfect, brilliant, rich geniuses yes, perfect… sometimes.

And that was alright with me.

I am on such a roll today, I have written like… the last three chapters today and the last five/six in the last 24 hours… I kid you not! Anyway… thanks to all of you, and my beta, I promise to update soon.

Cp