What A Broken Family Looks Like

Chapter 1 - The Tower

• Narrator •

"Alright, as far as I can see. . . you're connected," Small fingers nimbly danced across at clacking keyboard, "We should, at this point, be able to safely communicate with you from now on. No one listening."

"You know," began a voice over the crackling intercom, the vocals ringing through the 200th floor of New York's grandest tower, "most kids your age are out there slacking on their science fair projects."

A small smirk, followed by more graceful typing and a high-ranged voice, "And that's exactly why those kids are called normal, obviously."

~♡~

"You're good on this end, ladies," Tony Stark's voice sounded distorted through his underwater microphone, the sounds of a laser cutter abruptly ceasing in the background, "and now the rest is up to you."

"You disconnected the transition lines?" Pepper Potts' higher voice echoed through Tony's comm, before her projected picture in his iron suit turned to look at someone off-screen, "Are we off the grid?"

The sound of a keyboard clanking resonated through the room yet again, before a familiar voice -one not of Pepper's- barely managed to make its way through Tony's comm, confirming, "According to all of the projected maps of the city, we are, yeah."

"Which means, Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining, clean energy." Tony's voice crackled slightly, the screen to Pepper's right showing his suit breaching the ocean surface.

"Wow," Pepper grinned widely as she placed a hand on their third partners shoulder, seeming almost shocked at the success, the smile becoming immediately contagious, "so maybe our reactor takes over and it actually works?"

"I assume," Tony responded casually, the screened visual showing him flying -hovering, if you will- directly in front of the tower which gave him a clean view of the design, "Light 'er up."

Pepper reached down below her, fingers flipping the necessary switches on with a jittery ease. All the while, her left hand side partner quickly typed in the lengthy confirmed access code before firmly planting the palm of her own hand down on the red activate button beside herself and Pepper.

Neither female technician responsible for the outer decoration could actually see the lights or the energy pulsing on the tower that were just outside the walls they stood in, although they had been at a partial response for it. But by basing their current hypothesis on their former projects from the months prior, they assumed it was quite a stunning thing to look at from the exterior.

And how right they were on that front. As the newly dubbed "Stark Tower" flickered and lit up from the outside, what with the giant lettering and all, the entire city sidewalk below the pearl white tower was brought into albicant light. It seemed to glow -take everyone aback- in the raven New York City night.

"How does it look?" Pepper's voice came out in a breathless question, not needing to see the tower to visualise what it portrayed for them, nor needing the visual to feel the raging adrenaline pumping in her veins, something the girl beside her prominently felt too.

"Like Christmas," Tony answered her decidedly, his description brief, "but with more. . . me."

"We gotta go wider with the public awareness campaign," Pepper stressed her words, bursting the moment's bubble and earning a seemingly invisible eye roll from the other two, "You need to do some press. I can do more tomorrow. We're working on the zoning for the next billboards."