V

The ride back to her apartment was awkward as hell, not to mention there was tension and anger in the air. Penny and Mr. Stark rarely argued, but when they did it seemed that they had a habit of going over the top. Happy looked back at them through a review mirror, but he only saw both of them looking in the opposite direction.

Happy snorted, but didn't say anything. The next twenty minutes were filled with awkward silence until they reached Penny's apartment. Happy went to open the door for Penny, but Tony spoke up. "Hold on Hap, I need to talk with Miss Parker."

Penny could feel the irritability creeping in. She just wanted to go to bed and not stay here with Mr. Stark. Happy nodded and waited outside pretending to be interested in the minimart around the corner.

Tony turned back to Penny. "Are we really going to do this?" Tony tried to hide the agitation in his voice, but he wasn't really doing a good job. "Penny look at me." Penny finally turned around and the anger that Tony felt seemed to evaporate almost instantly.

When he looked at her heart shaped face and doe brown eyes, he remembered how young she was. Penny was smart and cute and so damn nice, so what the hell was she doing with that delinquent?

"What is going on?" he congratulated himself for being so calm. "What happened? You're lying to me, you are lying to May, you are sneaky around with this boy-Wade or Hayes or whatever his name is-and now your ass is in jail."

"I didn't mean to lie," Penny said softly, wondering how she could get out of this mess. "Wade isn't exactly the kind of guy you and May would approve of."

"No, shit." Tony blurted out. "The dude looks like a criminal. How did you even meet him, you and Ned hang out a decathlon meetings and bookstores. I thought you would meet and find some nice nerd to marry, not be dating a bad boy." Tony bit his tongue. Bad boy? Criminal? Marry? Dear lord Jesus he sounded more like his father every day.

Besides Penny was fifteen, for all he knew Penny had already lost her virginity. He wrinkled his nose, he didn't want to think about that. May was a nurse though, hopefully she had given her the "talk" already so that Tony didn't have too.

Penny's face glowered with annoyance. "Why do you care who I date?"

"Watch your mouth." Tony blurted out. "I just busted you ass out of jail. The least that you can do is be grateful."

"I didn't mean to get caught," Penny looked out the window. "Osborn is after me and I would rather not be a tester bunny. I just needed to find out if it was the truth."

"Then you come to me or Pepper, hell even Natasha." Tony said. "But you don't go out and get information from some loser than you've been dating."

Penny crossed her arms over her chest. "Can I go now?"

There was a stony silence and Tony threw her a dirty look. Penny was stubborn, he would give her that. If this had been any other time, Tony would have found her charming, but this time he just found her annoying and rude.

Tony almost wished that she would go fighting bad guys behind Tony's back if it meant that she was not dating that Wade guy. "Fine. You can go. Your grounded by the way."

That brought a reaction, Penny turned her head back at him with disbelief. Like a child whose had their favorite toy taken away. Which to put it bluntly he kind of had. "You can't ground me," she gave a humorless laugh. "It's not like you're my parent."

"No, but I did create you suit so that gives me certain perks. So give me the suit." Tony offered his hand, waiting for Penny to give up the suit. Penny didn't say anything for a few seconds until she pulled out the Iron Woman suit from her backpack and basically threw it towards him. "Fine. Keep it, I don't care." She was lying. "Goodbye, Tony." There was a hint of rebellion in her voice, by not addressing him as "Mr. Stark."

If Tony noticed he didn't say anything. "Night, Kid. Happy, let's go."

Happy threw a weary look towards Penny and Penny felt slightly embarrassed by her outburst, but didn't offer any comment. She headed towards her apartment, now she only needed to deal with another fire breathing dragon, May. Something told Penny that she was going to be much worse to deal with than Tony.

Her bag felt less heavy now that she had gotten rid of the suit, it made her heart throb with sadness. Penny made her way inside and saw Aunt May pacing, she looked like she was in near tears and in the mist of a panic attack. Which in all honesty made Penny feel worse.

Penny knew that Aunt May had been going through a hard time ever since Ben died, she didn't want to make her feel worse. "May-"

May turned to her and for the first time, Penny saw anger in her eyes. It even scared her a bit. May seldom got angry at her, but when she did it was not a pretty sight. "You're grounded for three months. I don't want to hear any excuses, you come straight home from school. I already talked to Tony and he agrees. You violated our trust Penelope."

"May, I'm sorry-"

"You're sorry?" she let out a humorless laugh. "Penny, do you know the kind of trouble that you are in? You broke into someone's personal space, you got arrested, how do you think that, that is going to look on your record? And you're sneaking around with this boy that I don't even know. I never forbade you from dating Penny, I made sure that you could always come and talk to me."

Her throat felt tight. "I know."

May no longer sounded angry. She sounded tired. "Go to your room, Penny. It's late. We are going to talk about this tomorrow. Both of us need to cool down and I'm sure Tony gave you a talking too."

Penny didn't say anything as she went towards her room. She hopped on the bed, today was a hot mess. Her phone buzzed and she picked it up. It was a text from Wade.

Wade: I'm out.

"Well, at least she's safe at home where May can keep an eye on her."

"Yeah, with a criminal record."

"She's an Avenger," Pepper rubbed Tony's back. "It's practically a rite of passage. Besides she's a teenager, she is bound to get into some messes. Now calm down you are going to give yourself a heart attack. I'm going to make you some vanilla tea. I heard that helps with stress."

Tony snorted. He doubted tea would help the situation that he was currently in.

Pepper ignored his sarcasm. "Natasha wants to see you, should I send her in?" Tony nodded. "Good. I'll bring you both some tea then. Play nice, ok?"

-End of Chapter Five-

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