The Secrets of Petra (Parker) Stark

16

Petra climbed in through the window of Ned's room. Harry and Ned were waiting for her. "What is that?" Harry immediately asked, noticing the glowy-rock-tech-thing in Petra's hand.

"I dunno. Some guy tried to vaporize me with it."

Harry was immediately on his feet. "Some guy tried to what?!"

Ned, on the other hand, was not worried at all. "Seriously? Awesome!" Petra and Harry both gave him a weird look. "Uh, not awesome. Scary. Very scary."

"It looks like a power source of some kind," Petra told them.

Ned stood up and studied the glowy-rock-tech-thing. "It's connected to all these microprocessors. That's an inductive charging plate. It's what I use to charge my toothbrush," Ned said, pointing to the tech parts of the glowy-rock-tech-thing.

"It seems like whoever made that weapon- I'm assuming it's part of a weapon- is combining alien tech with ours," Harry noted.

"That is literally the coolest sentence I've ever heard anyone say."

"It's definitely part of a weapon. But my question is why. And also... How," Petra said.

"I think we should start by removing this thing." Harry pointed to the glowing rock. "And then we can safely study the tech, and maybe run some tests on the rock."

Petra nodded. "That's what I was thinking too. But how can we do that?"

"I think you'll be able to just pop it out. But you will probably need some tools."

"We can do it in shop class tomorrow," Ned suggested. "The teacher doesn't pay attention so we should be good."

"Good plan. And then we can meet up and look at the stuff together. Hopefully we can solve it by the end of the week, before I leave."

"Already?" Petra asked. "But you just came back."

"I gotta go to school, you know. But it's okay. We still have until Sunday."

"That's three days."

"We'll make it work."

-

Tony walked into the living room and all but collapsed on the couch. 

"What's wrong?" Pepper asked him.

"The Spider-child getting into trouble."

"What did she do?"

"Got involved with an alien tech deal... Then got dumped in a lake."

"But you saved her, of course."

"Yeah, but that shouldn't have happened in the first place. I told her not to get involved with anything more dangerous than muggings or simple robberies. Then what does she do? She goes directly against my orders and nearly kills herself!" Tony fumed.

"Are you really mad at her, though?"

Tony looked at Pepper, confused. "What?"

"You told her to call you if she sees anything too dangerous, right?"

"Right."

"And she did call you, if I remember correctly. But you were busy."

"Pep, you're supposed to be on my side."

"I don't think there's any side here, Tony." Pepper rested a calming hand on his shoulder. "You're mad because you didn't make it in time. But you did, and she's fine."

Tony sighed. "Agree to disagree."

-

The next day, Petra hid the glowy-rock-tech-thing in her (new) bag, which May had gotten for her. She and Ned went about their school routine as usual, until shop class, where they worked on removing the glowing rock instead of their project. It took some effort, but they were able to pop it out.