The Unknown Variable

this chapter has been Beta'd as of 9/16

Hey all, Another update. I own nothing but my own thoughts so go bug some other girl who's having a bad day.

Tony was currently out, he had said something about Rhodey before leaving abruptly; and I had nothing it to do… sort of. I was just bored.

Pepper was set on ignoring me, and personally I was glad. For some reason she just got on my nerves. I had already set up my temporary room. I hadn't changed the guest room all that much; I added a few book to the top of the dresser, and threw some things out that had been left by previous guests.

I sighed as I glanced around the room once before walking down both sets of stairs to the lab. After typing in the security code I quickly found my laptop and sat down at my new desk. While my desk was neither nearly as nice nor as high-tech as Tony's, it was nice to have a personal workspace.

I powered up my Tablet, and synced it to my Laptop, transferring everything over to my laptop. Backing up files was a pain but also a lifesaver.

I groaned as I logged into my online MIT account, I had a lot of catching up to do. School work stunk.

By the end of the typical day I managed to get quite a bit done, even if I hadn't been in the mood for it.

Pepper had finally left for the night. She hadn't been happy when she discovered that I would be living in the mansion for a while, but thankfully didn't pursue it and let it go. As soon as Pepper was gone, Tony really started working.

"Jarvis, you up?" Tony asked as his bright blue keyboard, which was not in English, lit up.

"For you, sir, always." Jarvis replied instantly, oh, you gotta love that AI.

"I'd like to open a new project file, index as Mark Two." I heard Tony say, and I snuck a glance up from the physics paper I was reading to see him staring at his triple monitors; one holding the schematics for the original suit, the other two were running multiple programs and equations.

I quickly glanced back down at the incredibly boring paper. I had to read the twenty-seven page theoretical report and then create my own 'well thought out and argued' response. Whether I agreed or disagreed didn't matter.

While the subject of the paper was fascinating enough, whoever had written it clearly had terrible writing skills. It was a slow read and every other paragraph repeated statements that had already been said. It was practically useless.

My eyes snapped back towards Tony as Jarvis asked, "Shall I store this on the Stark Industries Central Database?"

I snorted, I doubt my father would place the schematics and plans there, too many people had access; and right now, they were being paranoid. They had both agreed on that this morning.

"Actually," Tony said using an electric pen looking devise to drag the schematics over to his holographic table, "I don't know who to trust right now. Till further notice, why don't we just keep everything on my private server?"

The hologram table was only the first step in Tony's new technology. He had created all of it himself and I knew that once he got going again, it would soon be updated.

"Working on a secret project, are we, sir?" Jarvis asked, almost sounding regretful. I would have to ask him if Tony had any secret projects before, and if they had ended badly.

"I don't want this winding up in the wrong hands." Toy replied, as he started removing and remodeling the hologram. "Maybe in mine, it can actually do some good."

I glanced back at the paper, and groaned. I so did not want to do this right now. But since I was over three months behind in work; I needed to catch up. So, giving one last jealous glance at Tony and his own, much more interesting work, I refocused on the paper. Maybe I would just work a few more hours.

As it ended up, I only managed to continue reading another forty minutes of the dreadful paper before I gave up, closed the program, and went over to help Tony.

He looked up at me as I stormed over, a scowl on my face.

"I thought you were working on schoolwork?" he asked, an amused expression on his face.

"Psh, I was. Too boring, now, how can I help?" I evaded his question before jumping into his project with him.

I gave him advise here and there, and my impute on some things he was contemplating. But in the end I ended up working on my own projects.

Pulling out my Tablet (I was sick of my laptop for the day) and started working on finding my internet worm that monitored all cybernetic activity connected to myself. On the internet or a private server, it had access to them all.

Sadly, when my stuff was sold, so was the hard-drives, computers, and algorithms that acted as an anchor for my worm, causing it to drift about in cyberspace. It took me about an hour to locate it, and another twenty minutes to hack into its frame work. I hadn't put a back door in, (I never do for my own work) and my worm was locked up tight.

As I quickly re-anchored it to my Tablet (I would connect it to my Laptop later) I brought up all resent searches; both on my current ID and my original one, just in case.

Thankfully, there wasn't much. A few light searches from the Media that happened around the time we disappeared. But my eyes widened as I found the latest and definitely most alarming search.

Apparently, that secret agency that was NOT part of the US government, as far as I could tell, now dubbed SHIELD, was digging around in my past.

It obviously wasn't I high priority search, or they would have discovered that my information was fake. While I was good, I had to ruggedly admit, so where they. They were still just pulling up the rather harmless, superficial information. The probe had obviously been put on the back burner, and wasn't a real search program. To me, it was obvious some rookie was handling the search and wasn't sure what he was doing.

While SHIELD wasn't close enough to discovering my façade enough to be worried, I was being paranoid. So, I added another job to my worm, to monitor the probe's activity closely, record anything they found, and alert me if they found anything to be worried about.

I blink slowly as I realized that I may have to hack my way into their database and plant another worm, so I could monitor their database specifically. I didn't want to stretch my star program too thin. That was how things slipped through the cracks.

I had never been the best law abiding citizen concerning the virtual world, and it was MY domain. I was not about to be found out now. I would disappear again if necessary; which would be hard considering Tony was now in my life. I wouldn't like it. But I would do it if push came to shove.

I sighed again as I pushed the thought out of my mind, and walked over to the kitchenette for a snack. For now, I just wanted to enjoy my time with my father.

I awoke with a start, a dream similar to the previous one hovered in the forefront of my mind. I was quick to push the struggling dream to the back of my mind. Something felt… off… I wasn't quite sure what. But I had learned long ago to trust my instincts.

"Jarvis? I called out, as I slipped from the warm bed and onto the cold floor. My voice echoed around my dark room, causing me to shiver as I turned on the lights.

I was in a long sleeve shirt and sweat pants. The shirt covered all of my burns completely. When I went shopping the previous morning, I had bought a large amount of long sleeve shirts, in various styles of-course. Even if I lived in California and long sleeves weren't the best option of clothing, I didn't want to have to keep my invisibility up all the time.

"Yes, Miss Penny?" Jarvis replied immediately, his voice drifting down from the surround sound speakers. I was thankful for the AI; I don't know what either of us would do without him.

"Is D…Tony still up?" I asked, catching myself as I almost called Tony "Dad".

"Your father is awake at the moment, Miss Penny…. He might appreciate your company tonight." Was Jarvis' hesitant reply. There was some underlying emotion in the AI's voice that confused me.

"What do you mean?" I asked my hand on the bedroom doorknob.

"You are not the only one with troubled dreams tonight Miss Penny." Jarvis' reply came, with a tone of slyness.

I practically smacked my head into the door as my mind translated Jarvis' semi evasive response. Tony was also suffering from nightmares. Of-course I wasn't the only one reliving the horrors of Afghanistan.

Tony also must've told Jarvis not to tell me, disturb me, or something along those lines. Thankfully, Jarvis had Tony's best interests at heart, and that meant finding loop holes in his orders at times.

Again, you gotta love that AI. "Thanks, Jar." I told him as I exited the room, and quickly descended the stairs.

I wasn't surprised to find Tony in the Lab; however I was surprised to find him sitting on the couch with a scotch in his hand. Perhaps I shouldn't have been that surprised.

He looked up at me as the glass door slid open, but his gaze returned to his drink almost instantly.

He wasn't drinking the amber liquid. Instead he was just swishing it around in the glass, contemplating drinking it.

I plopped down onto the brown leather couch next to him, and broke the silence.

"Couldn't sleep either I suppose." I asked, not really expecting a response. I wasn't sure what I was doing, or what I should do. I just hoped I could get my dad into a better mood.

After a long moment of silence, where I contemplated the next thing to say; Tony surprised me by saying,

"Not really. But sleeping's never really been my forte."

I snorted at that, I wasn't too big on sleeping either. I had slept enough while I was paralyzed, but Mom and Dr. Millod had always demanded I got at least seven hours of sleep. Not that I always did, mind you.

"Yeah, nightmares suck." I stated, agreeing to his unspoken message. Tony glanced at me in mild surprise, his right eyebrow elevated.

"Want to talk about it?" I said, before I realized just what I had said before snorting and added, "Okay, now that was cheesy."

That got Tony to snort and roll his eyes. Starks have never been good with emotion, aloud or mentally. I suppose I was a bit better, growing up with my Mom and all, but I was no shrink.

I wasn't sure what to say, I defiantly didn't want to leave Dad here brooding with alcohol. While I was sure it had happened many times before, I just wasn't comfortable with leaving him like that. Not now that he had me.

We just sat there in silence; I fidgeted every few seconds, and Tony still sloshing his drink. All of the sudden, Tony's gripped on the cup changed and I ducked as he turned away from me and threw it to the wall.

Then he sat back down as if nothing happened and turned to me, "So, tell me about your childhood."

Clearly puzzled, and definitely confused (I HATE being confused), but not going to tell Tony no I started tell him about the time Mom wanted me to learn how to play the Piano, and how it ended up with Dr. Millod having keyboard keys super-glued into his hair for a month because he refused to cut his hair.

Within five minutes I had Tony chuckling, and by the end of the story both of us were laughing our heads off.

The night continued with Tony and I trading stories, both hilarious and depressing, about the years we missed.

Later that night, or morning depending on how you look at it, when we both fell asleep once again on each other's shoulders, neither of us had nightmares.

Not a very important chapter, just a filter, but the end was cute. ^.^ SHIELD is becoming an issue, but that's still on the horizon. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Thanks to everyone, and Expecto Prongs my Beta,
Later,
Cp