The Unknown Variable

Beta'd as of 9/30

Nothing that belongs to Marvel/Disney is mine, nor anything JK Rowling has claim to. They own the rights, how could I?

This time, Tony managed to get up before Pepper showed up, so we didn't have a repeat. I crashed on the couch for about another half hour before slowly getting up, to re-attempt to shower.

Thankfully, Tony had some advice on this matter. "Just don't stick your face under the spray."

I wanted to slap my forehead against the wall, duh. I should have been able to think of that.

However, when I said that out loud, by accident, Tony just laughed and said, "It's good that there are some things your old man can still teach you!"

In return I sent him a mocking glare before marching up the stairs to get ready for the day.

After successfully showering without causing a flashback, I grabbed some toast off the counter (wondering how it got there in the first place) and went back down towards my desk to work.

When Pepper showed up, I both tried and failed to help her with Stark Industries paperwork. Pepper had refused my help, and when I complained to Tony he just said not to worry about it. I was getting 'paid' no matter what.

Shipments of various parts arrived around noon, causing me to gap. Tony must have really good delivery; we hadn't even been home the standard two days.

"But…when did you order all that?" I asked as Dummy, U, and Butterfingers slid the boxes down the driveway ramp.

Tony laughed and shook his head, "Yesterday afternoon. When you're a billionaire, overnight shipping means, overnight shipping."

Over the next few days Tony and I managed to get a lot done, in our respective areas. I got almost completely caught up in all of my class, (that paper was still giving me a headache though. I understood the concept of the theory, but the way it was worded and the rest of the paper was just frustrating me.) and I had restarted the program to rebuild Stark Industry's Firewalls, a new feature included scanning all outgoing data to check for security breaks as well as suspicious activity.

While I hadn't spoken to Tony about the matter, I had a feeling he had similar thoughts. No one outside of the top part of the company knew Jericho's demonstration was then and there. So we must have ether a bad bug, a spy, or a worm. Not in the digital sense.

Pepper had been avoiding me, though any time we talked, we were civil. Pepper just stopped coming down to the lab at all, which saved Tony from having to hide the guts of the new suit.

"ARG!" I growled as I put my head in my hands, I was not happy. This whole paper was one of the last things I had to do for Physics before I could start my dissertation. It Was Annoying Me.

"Next." Tony said to the bot, I wasn't sure which one, "Up," he said again.

I looked over to see Tony working on a boot of the armor with Dummy holding a magnifying glass.

The boot smoked for a moment and Tony said, "Not in the boot, Dummy. Right here. You got me?"

Tony moved over to work on another fuse and said, "Stay put. Nice."

Dummy moved slightly and I was unable to see what he did but Tony said, "You're of no benefit at all. Move down to the toe. I got this."

"Ok, I'm sorry," Tony said in response to a few whirls and Dummy's arm moving. "Am I in your way?"

The boot smoked some more, before Tony moved down to work on the top of the foot, where Dummy was now working.

"Up," Tony said as he saw were Dummy was. Dummy must have done something I couldn't see for Tony said, "Screw it. Don't even move."

I could tell Tony was getting annoyed so I stood up and walked over.

"You are a tragedy." Tony commented as I appeared over his shoulder.

He quickly blew out the small welder and put it in a block of foam. He pressed a button and the back of the boot opened up, there was now three parts to the boot and enough room to put his foot in.

Tony glanced up and spotted me, "Weren't you writing a paper or something?" at the same time I said,

"Need any help?"

I cracked a grin as Tony shook his head, a small grin also forming on his face. "Just finished this one up. You finish your paper yet?"

My grin turned into scowl and I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"It's annoying me." I stated my irritation clear in my tone.

Tony got a small smile on his face. "Well, let's see what's annoying you so badly. Hmm, I did it once I'm positive I can do it again."

Another grin split across my face as I realized that Tony was offering to help me. Once I had passed high school knowledge (before I was seven) Mom was unable to help me with school work. So anything I did have trouble with I had to figure out myself. It was nice that I now had someone to help.

"Well you see," I said, as I brought the Laptop over to Tony, "It's like this…"

An hour later, a lot of complaining from Tony, I fully understood what the paper was trying to say and practically had my whole paper worked out. How? Well, while we were criticizing the author we discovered that he had practically messed up and missed a big part of the theory.

Tony and I then had a long discussion on the topic, the pros and cons of the theory, and what parts were valid or not. Then we discovered the error, which I have a feeling was in there on purpose, and talked about the three different ways to fix it.

I was typing away quickly as Tony went over to Dummy, who had knocked over a soda onto the holographic table while we were talking. Thankfully the soda didn't do any damage.

Another two hours had both me and Tony standing in the middle of the lab. Tony had both boots on and all three bots around him. He was standing on a testing pad, and I was watching from the sidelines.

Because of the discussion with Tony, I had managed to get the paper done and handed it in to my teacher a lot faster than I thought. I only had my two dissertations to do for both Physics and Electrical Engineering. Sadly, I had discovered, that part of the Final for Electrical Engineering involved me actually building something was went along with my dissertation and was never seen before.

I wasn't that worried. With everything that was in the lab, and Tony's amazing delivery system, I was sure I could manage something. I just wasn't sure what yet.

"Okay," Tony said causing me to shift my focus off of project ideas and back onto Tony's reckless experiment. "Let's do this right."

Tony back up into the middle of the test pad and say, "Start mark, half a meter, and back, and center."

Tony was taping this, or, the bots were, that way we could go over the footage and see what needed to be recalibrated and improved.

Tony took a deep breath and turned to the robot, "Dummy, look alive. You're on standby fore fire safety."

I wasn't sure what came over my dad to give Dummy, who was known to love foam, a fire extinguisher, but I knew he spoilt those bots too much. Eh, probably me too, come to think of it.

"U," Tony said to the bot holding the camera, "Roll it."

Butterfingers was charging, he had touched something he wasn't supposed to and was 'grounded'. I had found it funny that Tony had been fathering long before he met me, he had the bots, which were very childlike.

Tony put both of the hand controls around his fingers, and shot me a smile.

"Be careful!" I exclaimed, ready on the sidelines in case something happened. He nodded to me and said,

"Okay, activate hand controls." Tony said, as he moved slightly back and forth in the boots, trying to figure out what would be the best position to take off. He kept his elbows close to his waist and held his arms out as straight as he could.

"We're gonna start off nice and easy." Tony said, causing me to raise an eyebrow in shock.

Tony, starting off nice and easy… not possible. Just not possible.

"We're gonna see if 10% thrust capacity achieves lift." Tony told the camera.

'Ah-oh,' I thought. "Um… Dad I don't think…"

"And three," Tony said, not hearing me. "two, one."

Tony pressed down on the buttons, and instantly I momentarily saw him fly through the air, do a back flip; and crash face first, upside down, into the wall/ceiling emitting sparks, before falling to the ground.

"Dad!" I yelled, and my eyes widened as I realized just what I said as I ran over.

'it's ok, he probably didn't notice.' I thought to myself. Just as Dummy sprayed Tony with the extinguisher; and kept on spraying.

"Are you ok?" I asked, putting up a shield to block the foam. I used my shield to wipe off all of the foam off of Tony and knelt by his side.

"….were right…." He mumbled in pain, his eyes blurred.

"What?" I asked, confused. I wondered if my impulse sparks could block the pain…hmm….

"You were right. Ten percent. Bad idea." Tony replied weakly.

"Well, at least Dummy was paying attention." I stated in a weak attempt of humor.

"Come on," I said, slowly helping Tony to his feet. "Let's get you some Aspirin."

" …'ta get these off…" Tony said lifting one foot a few inches off the ground. Those boots were heavy.

After getting Dummy to bring Tony's chair over I sat him down and slowly we began to remove the boots.

With every little movement, Tony winced. Biting my lip, after getting the boots off, I said.

"Stay still for a sec, I want to try something." I closed my eyes and concentrated. 'I hope this works…'

"Penny…" Tony said, eyeing me in caution… I think it was caution. "What are you…"

Before Tony finished his question my white sparks flashed between my fingers for the first time in days, and I grabbed hold of Tony's arm.

He went rigid as the sparks danced across his arm, but sighed and relaxed as they seeped into his skin; blocking out the pain.

"Ah," he sighed, "Much better than Aspirin. I'll tell you that."

"Good," I said and removed my hand from his arm. "My sparks should numb the pain for about an hour… not really sure. But I doubt it would be more than two."

After a moment of silence, Tony said. "We need to figure out just what your sparks can do."

My eyes lit up, and I asked, "Does that mean practice?"

Tony nodded and chuckled when I beamed. "So, let's see what you can do."

"Now?" I asked? It wasn't exactly the earliest time of day anymore. Even to Starks it was late. Not to mention normal people.

"Now." Tony replied with a nod. "But outside."

Another one in the bag. Hope you all are enjoying it. Thanks to everyone. Oh, and in a few chapters (not sure how many yet) Penny will meet her first Avenger! It will be awesome. Oh, and everything else will also be shifting a bit…heheh XD get ready. It's a fun ride.

Thanks to everyone and Expecto Prongs.
Cp