Stones and Glass Houses (Book 1)

🕷(12) Rewritten Past

Brooklyn POV-

By midnight, many things had been accomplished. One of those was not her peace of mind or sanity.

Currently, Brook was trying to get comfortable on her temporary bed for the night to no avail. Though the room was 'hers', especially now that she was both a recruit and a Stark, she'd found it difficult to truly settle down after the events of the day.

The rain still poured outside her shut windows, creating enough noise that Brooklyn reluctantly turned on the TV. That was a quick disappointment. On screen, no matter which channel she opted for, her...Father...was there, footage of him giving a press conference from four hours ago still going strong.

After finally having access to all channels on a TV, it only made sense that the universe would despise her enough to only contain the moment had had changed her world indefinitely.

If her life was a skipping stone on a lake, this was one of those moments that had created a large ripple, big enough to spread thought the body of water that was her world. There was no other way to describe the mess that was her life that didn't involve heavy curses that would surely wake up her new neighbors.

"Why are sports channels ever showing this stuff?" Brook whispered to herself, fed up with seeing different points of the speech she'd thankfully hadn't been expected to attend.

Thankfully, only Pepper and Tony had gathered in the conference room for it, surrounded by a room full of cameras. No reporters had been allowed to come into the compound, not after the attack and then the hacking of course.

Still, Brook had sat upstairs with the other Avengers, watching everything going on downstairs within the safety of the superheroes' floor. Before the press conference started, a few of them had tried to ease her nerves, a curtesy they likely owed Stark as one of the members of the team.

She'd payed little attention to their worries and endless pacing (mostly from the Falcon, who insisted she call him Sam), Brook was mostly concerned with what would be said. 

She hadn't witnessed the 'final script' because Pepper sent her off to shower off the cold rain from her body. When she'd emerged back into the room with a blue silk pajama set from Wanda Maximoff, the group in charge of speech making (Stark, Pepper, Fury, Rogers, and Rhodey) were seemingly satisfied with the information on those cue cards.

Pepper had offered to let Brook read it over in case she wanted to change something, but not wanting to owe the woman any favors, the girl had declined the offer. But as Brook sat at large living space with the Avengers, she'd wished otherwise.

Once the local news screen went on, it showed Pepper and Tony standing by a large podium, with a giant silver sculpture of the Avengers symbol behind them like a guiding shadow. Both had changed out of their clothes from earlier, into more proper attire for such a big speech. It was interesting seeing then both practically stand side by side, black suit and dress that perfectly matched.

They looked like royals about to hold court, with all the world's ears listening attentively.

To Fury's expressed relief, Stark stuck to the predetermined cue cards, something he was apparently notorious for rarely doing.

With a pleasant smile, the suit-less Iron Man addressed some pleasant welcomes and apologies for secrets kept, even if it was only cameras in the room. Still, his voice had been strong and true no doubt thank's to Pepper's presence by his side.