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coruscteam (maxis AU; +)
• • • • •
The tower was going up whether anyone liked it or not, Pepper decided.
Stark Industries was providing the capital. Not content with leveraging the buyout for the city's bonds, Tony Stark was also financing the complete retrofitting of the decrepit structure that stood at the center of the city. In the process, he was scientifically proven to be losing his hair from the stress, Jarvis reported dutifully, and then added that he was still very handsome even so. Tony gave him a big mental hug since he couldn't give him a raise and turned around to face the others, slightly out of breath from having run up and down several flights of stairs to and from gray, empty storeys, late into the night.
"Who designed this thing? " he demanded. "Why are there so many non-adjacent blocks of condos? You handle this, I'm going to go make more Iron Man suits."
"We need your engineering expertise," Pepper insisted, patiently answering, "And we need the condos because this building is licensed to be mixed-use, even if they all need to be torn down and redone to maximize space. A portion has to be set aside for affordable family housing. I thought you cared about sustainability, Tony."
"I love sustainability," Tony said, his eyes blazing. "I could redesign this place to be zero emission in five minutes! But—"
"Someone also needs to put a stop to the mayor's nonsensical zoning policy and budgetary malfeasance and ad hoc development strategy," Pepper said. "That someone is us. We have a responsibility to the environment and the people. This is the first step to our making things right."
At the other end of the conference suite that was serving as the temporary headquarters of the Avengers, buried in blueprints, a concerned Steve asked, "Doesn't this seem excessive?"
Pepper leveled him a cool stare that had been the undoing of many a chief executive officer. "Steve," she said, in perfect equanimity, "we are taking over this town."
Tony was simultaneously smitten and afraid. Steve reluctantly thought the plan over. Luckily for him, he was made of less malleable stuff than most boardrooms, but he was immune to the common cold and most kinds of artillery, not Pepper's business rationale and near supernatural mastery of PowerPoint.
"Someone has to convince City Hall that we need more police and fire stations," he said slowly. "Public safety is at stake."
"No one puts sewage treatment plants next to hydroelectric generators," Bruce, sitting next to him, added, his face stormy. "Who do they think they are?"
"The mayor is bought and paid for, Bruce," Pepper said. "What we need is a change in leadership and a public relations vision. That's why we have to first concentrate on upgrading the tower infrastructure and holding it up as a model of common sense and design savvy." To Tony she said, "We definitely need more elevators. Stairs and escalators are not going to cut it except for the levels just above and below the main lobbies."
To this, Tony muttered that he was going to make personal jetpacks for everyone approved by the tower's co-op board, including cats, dogs, and hamsters. Trying not to look too interested, Steve made an encouraging remark and cleared off some of the conference room table for him.
"This city is rotten to the core," Natasha commented from her seat. She didn't really have a problem with this on a personal level, but she thought watching Pepper motivate Tony was an entertaining way to pass the time before her next mission. "Let's clean up this town. Team."
"I appreciate your support, Agent Romanoff," Pepper said.
"I just want to know if anyone cares about the infestation issue," Clint interjected. "You gotta do something about the ants, Hank."
Hank paused in the middle of discussing the jetpacks with Tony and Bruce and Steve and sighed deeply. "You all complain, but City Hall has nothing on ant politics." He grew pensive. "There is a lot of drama going on right now. A lot of drama. The red queen's daughters are agitating for changes to the primogeniture of—"
They listened to Hank drone on about the incredibly tacky, savage, and sordid invertebrate soap opera taking place underfoot, but thankfully not for too long, for Jan arrived with doughnuts to the silent cheers of everyone who was not Hank as well as a heartfelt "Hurrah!" from Thor. After distributing the goods and putting the remainder at the center of the table, Jan handed Pepper the copies of development contracts from the city's public records office that she had asked for and plopped down on the conference table.
"Whew," Jan said, brushing stray flakes of snow from her coat and toeing off her grime-encrusted heels. She tossed her car keys at Hank, who caught them neatly. "Ice and gridlock the entire way. I would have flown even with these temperatures, but that box is not aerodynamically optimal."
"I'll make you one," Tony said, at which Thor clapped him heartily on the back to show his sincere approval. With Thor distracted, Steve and Clint took the opportunity to make a grab for the last lemon cream only to be thwarted by Natasha, who didn't even like lemon cream. To their consternation, she handed it to Bruce, who didn't notice the dirty looks at all, too absorbed in reading the schematics for the recycling plant for the tower. Pepper furiously flipped through her notes. "That's another thing. Traffic reform."
"Revolution," Tony said absently, sketching jetpacks directly onto the table with a marker most helpfully provided by Steve. "We should more highways and trains to neighboring cities."
Pepper snapped her fingers. "Yes, and substantially expand the subway network while setting up rental bikes and parking facilities at major stations."
"We should have a subway station right inside this tower," Jan suggested. "Ooh, what else?"
"Nickelodeons," Steve said hopefully.
"Greenhouses," Natasha said.
"Arcades," Clint said.
"Health clinics," Bruce said, and looked at Tony, who said, "Free health clinics."
Everyone paused. "What is it," Bruce said.
"You get to have a fun one too," Pepper said magnanimously. Bruce thought about it for a moment.
"A ballroom."
The idea dazzled them all, Jan especially; she threw an arm around Thor's shoulders and danced him around the conference table, earning a moue from Hank, so she danced with him too, making him blush with embarrassment and pleasure.
"Approved," Pepper declared. However, her good mood didn't last: "Are you kidding?" she said as she went through the dozens of proposals for additions to the tower. "Cathedral?"
"I love it," Tony said. "Chartres. Make it happen."
"Tony."
"Chop chop," Tony said, and then at a look from Natasha that he mistook to be that of grave judgment instead of the unindulged laughter that it was, sighed. "Museum of modern art and architecture, fine."
"We should have a planetarium," Steve said, stars in his eyes. "Done," Pepper said, and then dropped her folder in sudden surprise.
"Santa Claus," she exclaimed, pointing at an eyepatched figure flying across the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the conference suite. All the Avengers crowded the glass to get a look except Natasha, who was listening intently to a communication on her earpiece. "Cap, we're getting reports of a giant laser-emitting robot at the city limits," she said.
"That's in Saint Nick's direct flight path," Clint calculated. Steve got his shield.
"We'll have to continue this meeting later," he told Pepper.
"We have deadlines to meet, so make it snappy," she said with a smile that covered up her worry. Steve gave her a smile back, Tony gave her a peck on the cheek, and the other Avengers promised to come back to help her fill out the forms for all the different building permits. The sleigh was flying out of sight, but Pepper made a wishlist as she saw them to the hallway outside that led to the building's one elevator. Santa Claus could lip-read, but he pretended not to have noticed anything, though he did wave—in the spirit of the season.
Last one out the door, Thor waved back.
• • • • •
• • • • •
The tower was going up whether anyone liked it or not, Pepper decided.
Stark Industries was providing the capital. Not content with leveraging the buyout for the city's bonds, Tony Stark was also financing the complete retrofitting of the decrepit structure that stood at the center of the city. In the process, he was scientifically proven to be losing his hair from the stress, Jarvis reported dutifully, and then added that he was still very handsome even so. Tony gave him a big mental hug since he couldn't give him a raise and turned around to face the others, slightly out of breath from having run up and down several flights of stairs to and from gray, empty storeys, late into the night.
"Who designed this thing? " he demanded. "Why are there so many non-adjacent blocks of condos? You handle this, I'm going to go make more Iron Man suits."
"We need your engineering expertise," Pepper insisted, patiently answering, "And we need the condos because this building is licensed to be mixed-use, even if they all need to be torn down and redone to maximize space. A portion has to be set aside for affordable family housing. I thought you cared about sustainability, Tony."
"I love sustainability," Tony said, his eyes blazing. "I could redesign this place to be zero emission in five minutes! But—"
"Someone also needs to put a stop to the mayor's nonsensical zoning policy and budgetary malfeasance and ad hoc development strategy," Pepper said. "That someone is us. We have a responsibility to the environment and the people. This is the first step to our making things right."
At the other end of the conference suite that was serving as the temporary headquarters of the Avengers, buried in blueprints, a concerned Steve asked, "Doesn't this seem excessive?"
Pepper leveled him a cool stare that had been the undoing of many a chief executive officer. "Steve," she said, in perfect equanimity, "we are taking over this town."
Tony was simultaneously smitten and afraid. Steve reluctantly thought the plan over. Luckily for him, he was made of less malleable stuff than most boardrooms, but he was immune to the common cold and most kinds of artillery, not Pepper's business rationale and near supernatural mastery of PowerPoint.
"Someone has to convince City Hall that we need more police and fire stations," he said slowly. "Public safety is at stake."
"No one puts sewage treatment plants next to hydroelectric generators," Bruce, sitting next to him, added, his face stormy. "Who do they think they are?"
"The mayor is bought and paid for, Bruce," Pepper said. "What we need is a change in leadership and a public relations vision. That's why we have to first concentrate on upgrading the tower infrastructure and holding it up as a model of common sense and design savvy." To Tony she said, "We definitely need more elevators. Stairs and escalators are not going to cut it except for the levels just above and below the main lobbies."
To this, Tony muttered that he was going to make personal jetpacks for everyone approved by the tower's co-op board, including cats, dogs, and hamsters. Trying not to look too interested, Steve made an encouraging remark and cleared off some of the conference room table for him.
"This city is rotten to the core," Natasha commented from her seat. She didn't really have a problem with this on a personal level, but she thought watching Pepper motivate Tony was an entertaining way to pass the time before her next mission. "Let's clean up this town. Team."
"I appreciate your support, Agent Romanoff," Pepper said.
"I just want to know if anyone cares about the infestation issue," Clint interjected. "You gotta do something about the ants, Hank."
Hank paused in the middle of discussing the jetpacks with Tony and Bruce and Steve and sighed deeply. "You all complain, but City Hall has nothing on ant politics." He grew pensive. "There is a lot of drama going on right now. A lot of drama. The red queen's daughters are agitating for changes to the primogeniture of—"
They listened to Hank drone on about the incredibly tacky, savage, and sordid invertebrate soap opera taking place underfoot, but thankfully not for too long, for Jan arrived with doughnuts to the silent cheers of everyone who was not Hank as well as a heartfelt "Hurrah!" from Thor. After distributing the goods and putting the remainder at the center of the table, Jan handed Pepper the copies of development contracts from the city's public records office that she had asked for and plopped down on the conference table.
"Whew," Jan said, brushing stray flakes of snow from her coat and toeing off her grime-encrusted heels. She tossed her car keys at Hank, who caught them neatly. "Ice and gridlock the entire way. I would have flown even with these temperatures, but that box is not aerodynamically optimal."
"I'll make you one," Tony said, at which Thor clapped him heartily on the back to show his sincere approval. With Thor distracted, Steve and Clint took the opportunity to make a grab for the last lemon cream only to be thwarted by Natasha, who didn't even like lemon cream. To their consternation, she handed it to Bruce, who didn't notice the dirty looks at all, too absorbed in reading the schematics for the recycling plant for the tower. Pepper furiously flipped through her notes. "That's another thing. Traffic reform."
"Revolution," Tony said absently, sketching jetpacks directly onto the table with a marker most helpfully provided by Steve. "We should more highways and trains to neighboring cities."
Pepper snapped her fingers. "Yes, and substantially expand the subway network while setting up rental bikes and parking facilities at major stations."
"We should have a subway station right inside this tower," Jan suggested. "Ooh, what else?"
"Nickelodeons," Steve said hopefully.
"Greenhouses," Natasha said.
"Arcades," Clint said.
"Health clinics," Bruce said, and looked at Tony, who said, "Free health clinics."
Everyone paused. "What is it," Bruce said.
"You get to have a fun one too," Pepper said magnanimously. Bruce thought about it for a moment.
"A ballroom."
The idea dazzled them all, Jan especially; she threw an arm around Thor's shoulders and danced him around the conference table, earning a moue from Hank, so she danced with him too, making him blush with embarrassment and pleasure.
"Approved," Pepper declared. However, her good mood didn't last: "Are you kidding?" she said as she went through the dozens of proposals for additions to the tower. "Cathedral?"
"I love it," Tony said. "Chartres. Make it happen."
"Tony."
"Chop chop," Tony said, and then at a look from Natasha that he mistook to be that of grave judgment instead of the unindulged laughter that it was, sighed. "Museum of modern art and architecture, fine."
"We should have a planetarium," Steve said, stars in his eyes. "Done," Pepper said, and then dropped her folder in sudden surprise.
"Santa Claus," she exclaimed, pointing at an eyepatched figure flying across the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the conference suite. All the Avengers crowded the glass to get a look except Natasha, who was listening intently to a communication on her earpiece. "Cap, we're getting reports of a giant laser-emitting robot at the city limits," she said.
"That's in Saint Nick's direct flight path," Clint calculated. Steve got his shield.
"We'll have to continue this meeting later," he told Pepper.
"We have deadlines to meet, so make it snappy," she said with a smile that covered up her worry. Steve gave her a smile back, Tony gave her a peck on the cheek, and the other Avengers promised to come back to help her fill out the forms for all the different building permits. The sleigh was flying out of sight, but Pepper made a wishlist as she saw them to the hallway outside that led to the building's one elevator. Santa Claus could lip-read, but he pretended not to have noticed anything, though he did wave—in the spirit of the season.
Last one out the door, Thor waved back.
• • • • •