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[color=375a87][b]#375a87[/b][/color] [color=2e2c2c]....[/color]|[color=2e2c2c].....[/color] [url=https://i.pinimg.com/736x/46/af/38/46af380ec87c344aef0e785485f4bd19.jpg][color=808080][b]outfit[/b][/color][/url] [color=2e2c2c].....[/color]|[color=2e2c2c].....[/color] [color=9b9b9b][b]descendant tower[/b][/color]
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[indent][indent][indent][indent][justify][color=808080]Morning came slowly in the tower, not with warmth, but with a kind of reluctant surrender. The first light was thin and colorless, a pale grey wash that crawled over the walls in quiet increments, turning the loft from a cocoon of soft dark into something gentler, more real. June woke before the sun fully breached the horizon, her eyes opening to the ceiling above her while the remnants of sleep clung to her like cobwebs. For a moment she didn’t move. She simply lay there in the borrowed softness of Jim’s bed, her body still, her breath shallow, while the nightmare that had dragged her awake curled at the edges of her mind like smoke refusing to dissipate.

It had not been vivid enough to name in full, just fragments, pieces, the shape of loss and the weight of blood and a voice that had followed her out of sleep like a hand around her wrist. [color=d6d6d6][i]Our compassion is what separates us from them.[/i][/color] Her father’s voice, low and certain, threaded through the quiet in the aftermath, lingering in the space behind her eyes. June swallowed hard against the ache it stirred in her chest, then turned her head slightly toward the warmth beside her. Jim was still asleep, his breathing soft and steady, the rhythm of it smoothing something jagged inside her one slow inhale at a time. He looked younger like this somehow, less Stark, less sharpened by wit and walls and expectation, more human than brilliant, more boy than genius, and the simple sound of him at rest eased the nightmare’s grip until it became something distant and manageable instead of immediate and suffocating.

She ran a hand over her face, fingertips dragging down from brow to mouth, pressing the last of sleep and unease out of herself by force. The urge to lean in and kiss him was immediate and embarrassingly tender, a pulse of want that had nothing to do with urgency and everything to do with the softness of dawn and the dangerous sweetness of new routines. But he looked peaceful, so unguarded that it felt almost sacred, and June could not bring herself to be the thing that disturbed that. So she slipped from the bed in silence instead, careful and practiced, easing out from beneath the sheets with the grace of someone who had spent a lifetime learning how to move through a room without leaving a trace. His loft remained as meticulously ordered in the early light as it had in the dark.

Downstairs, his workshop still hummed with life. Machines whispered and clicked in the background, the prototype printer still hard at work on the beginnings of their bracelet design, layers of possibility being built one precise filament at a time. June moved through the kitchen area attached to the lab with a quiet familiarity she had not earned but wore anyway, setting a pot of coffee to brew while the first true gold of morning began to catch against metal surfaces and glass. The scent filled the space quickly, dark and rich, and she found a notepad tucked neatly beside the counter as if Jim had placed it there for practical emergencies and not for soft domestic gestures. She wrote a short note in her clipped, elegant hand, something simple about coffee and the gym and asking him if he’d perhaps like to have lunch together, then left it propped beside his mug where he could not possibly miss it.

The elevator ride to her own floor felt like passing between worlds. Her penthouse had been designed with the same kind of exacting thought her father gave everything that mattered. Not ostentatious, not indulgent for the sake of it, but comprehensive. It was everything she needed and almost nothing she didn’t. Floor to ceiling windows turned the view into a living mural, while the interior wrapped itself in dark woods, black stone, and soft pools of amber light that made the space feel more like a sanctuary than a monument. The added touch of her favorite color sprinkled throughout the space was something that made her eyes burn. 

She took the stairs two at a time once she was inside, shrugging out of Jim’s borrowed pajamas as she crossed into the walk-in closet off her bedroom, folding them carefully. The space was immaculate, curated with the same ruthless efficiency she applied to the rest of her life, rows of dark athletic wear, tactical gear, tailored dresses, and a section for more casual wear, every piece arranged by purpose and function rather than vanity. She changed quickly, pulling on fitted black leggings and a compression top that tugged snug over healing skin, her movements efficient but not careless. Then she was moving again, back down the stairs, into the small gym space that had been built into her penthouse, before the softness of morning could convince her to linger in it. If she stayed still too long, she knew herself well enough to know she would start thinking, and right now motion was safer than thought.

The gym greeted her in shadow and silence, still untouched by the day. It was expansive in the same way everything in the tower was, sleek and dark and deliberate, with polished wood floors, black steel, mirrored glass, and a wall of windows like the rest of the penthouse. The equipment gleamed beneath recessed lighting. Free weights lined in military order, a squat rack set atop a slightly raised platform, kettlebells and ropes and medicine balls arranged with almost ceremonial precision. June started with stretches, careful and methodical, feeling where the cauterized line at her side pulled and where it no longer did. The sting of it was manageable. The ache in her muscles, the burn in her lungs, the strain that slowly unfurled through her limbs as she pushed herself through set after set, that was cleaner. Simpler. Pain she could choose.

She worked until the sun climbed higher and the room transformed around her. Grey dawn gave way to real daylight, gold spilling across the floorboards in long bright bands, catching sweat along her spine and turning the mirrors to sheets of fire. She kept going until her muscles trembled and her breathing came harder, until every strike, every lift, every measured repetition wrung the restless thoughts out of her body one ounce at a time. She was careful with her injuries because she had to be, because stupidity and recklessness were luxuries she could not afford, but there was still relief in the way her body obeyed her. Relief in strength. Relief in control. Relief in the knowledge that when the world cracked open, she would not be found unprepared. 

Afterward, she showered, steam curling through the dark stone room while she rinsed sweat and salt from her skin. By the time she emerged, toweling her hair dry, she felt more like herself— still tired, still carrying too much, but sharpened back into focus. She changed into clean clothes, practical and dark, and made her way to the office across from her bedroom. A vast, dimly lit command center carved from shadow and glass, with a broad central desk, multiple monitors, and holographic systems built seamlessly into every surface. Massive panes of glass framed the world beyond, while blue light from dormant displays reflected off polished wood floors and black walls, giving the room the feel of a cockpit waiting for ignition. June stepped to the central console, tossed the towel over the back of a chair, and pressed her hand to the interface as the system woke beneath her touch. 

[color=375a87]"J.A.R.V.I.S., pull up the plans on Spider-Man’s suit."[/color]

The room answered at once. Blue-white light bloomed in the air above the desk, spinning lines of code and layered schematics into existence, and the familiar shape of the suit rose between her and the windows as shutters fell over the glass, darkening the room. 

June lowered herself into the black leather chair with the ease of someone settling into a second skin. It was wide backed and expensive in a way Bruce Wayne had always favored, luxury disguised as practicality, every inch designed for long hours and longer work. She tucked one leg beneath her for a moment, and let her gaze travel over the suspended schematics in front of her. The holographic render of Spider-Man’s suit turned slowly in the dimmed room, piece by piece peeling apart into layers of fabric, web-fluid channels, reinforcement points, sensory interfaces. June hummed under her breath, some tuneless little thing she didn’t even realize she was doing, and leaned forward with her elbows on the armrests, blue light washing over the sharp planes of her face.

[color=375a87]"J.A.R.V.I.S., pull up everything you have on Daredevil and Hell’s Angel. I want to design a suit for her as well."[/color]

The AI’s voice answered immediately, smooth and measured, the kind of calm that made even alarming things sound civilized. [color=d6d6d6]"Very well, Miss Wayne. I will begin creating prototypes."[/color] At once, the display split in elegant silence. Spider-Man remained suspended to her left while fresh files bloomed to life on her right, Matt Murdock’s known combat patterns, radar-sense speculation, reinforced materials used in his gear over the years, and beside it all, fragmented mission footage and combat telemetry on Myla’s Hell’s Angel suit, red lined damage reports, neural feedback mapping, and notes on pressure-point vulnerabilities. June’s mouth flattened in concentration, the corners of her lips pulling faintly downward as she absorbed it all. She watched the early prototype skeleton of a new suit begin to construct itself in midair for Myla, sleek, lean, layered with possibilities, and then abruptly stood, because sitting still for too long had never been one of her strengths.

The kitchen greeted her bathed in sunlight and polished stone, all dark marble and dark blue cabinetry and clean brass accents. She moved through it with practiced efficiency, bare feet silent against the wood floors as she gathered ingredients without really needing to think about them. Spinach. Protein powder. Frozen berries. Chia. Oats. Almond butter. A banana. It was the kind of smoothie that was nutritionally perfect and spiritually offensive, and by the time it whirled itself into a thick greenish-purple sludge, June already knew it was going to taste like damp lawn clippings and punishment. She poured it into a tall glass anyway, took one dutiful sip, grimaced faintly, and muttered to no one in particular, [color=375a87]"Like drinking grass filtered through drywall."[/color]

She returned to the office with the smoothie in one hand and her focus already halfway back inside the machines. The leather chair accepted her again, and she curled into it with the same absent grace as before, one hand wrapped around the cold glass while the other danced over the controls. The holograms had evolved in her absence, Spider-Man’s suit now dissected into micro-layered systems with pressure-seal options, alternate weblines, improved sensory routing; Hell’s Angel’s prototype hovering beside it like something halfway between a weapon and a prayer, lighter armor plating where it mattered, a sleeker silhouette, potential failover systems built into the gloves and boots. June let out a soft hum, low in her throat, and then she was gone again, mentally, if not physically, falling into that terrifyingly elegant state of hyperfocus that made her look less like a girl and more like a machine built in her father’s image. 

[color=375a87]“J.A.R.V.I.S. send these to Jim, see if there’s anything he’d like to incorporate into his own plans.”[/color]

The next few hours became a blur of motion and logic that would have made anyone else dizzy. She bounced between projects with the erratic precision of lightning, shifting from one screen to the next, from one idea to another, as though every thread in her mind was connected by some hidden architecture no one else could see. Spider-Man’s suit needed upgraded insulation in the forearms if he was going to be fighting near high output power sources. Hell’s Angel needed a better spinal brace hidden beneath the plating if she took a hit wrong. Luke’s sample still sat sealed in a tray to one side like a problem waiting to become a weapon. Her fingers moved. Her thoughts moved faster. 

[color=375a87]"J.A.R.V.I.S., pull up everything we have on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s contingency plans for Hulk."[/color]

At once, the screens shifted again— old classified files, fragmented dossiers, redacted tactical plans, sedative formulas that had failed, restraint systems that had broken, simulations that ended in ruin. June took another sip of the smoothie and regretted it immediately, but she barely noticed. Her mind was already running ahead, splitting and branching and calculating, layering one contingency over another like armor over bone. Bruce’s voice lingered somewhere in the back of her head, [i]Our compassion is what separates us from them,[/i] and she hated, a little, how much compassion complicated the engineering of survival.

Time thinned. Morning passed in a blur. The blue light of the displays gave her skin an almost spectral cast, turning the room into something that felt less like an office and more like the inside of a thought. Then J.A.R.V.I.S. broke the spell.

[color=d6d6d6]"Mr. Lehnsherr has requested everyone’s attendance for a meeting in conference room 01 on the first floor at noon. Thank you."[/color]

June barely reacted at first. Her eyes skimmed over the notification like it was weather, duly noted, strategically irrelevant for at least another handful of minutes. She still had time. Still had a dozen things to finish, half-finished, or leave intentionally unfinished so her subconscious could keep working at them in the background. But then the AI spoke again, and this time it cut deeper.

[color=d6d6d6]"A message from Miss Barton has come through."[/color]

That made her pause.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. But enough that her hand stopped halfway to the next command, enough that the hum in her throat died unfinished. June reached for her phone almost on instinct, snagging it from beside the console and unlocking it with a flick of her thumb. The text glowed against the dark room, pale and immediate, and for a beat she simply stared at it as if the meaning might rearrange itself into something easier to bear. It didn’t.

A slow sigh left her, long and measured and far too tired for someone who had only just gotten her feet under her again. She leaned back into the chair, the leather creaking softly beneath her, empty smoothie glass abandoned on the desk beside a half-built future. Her eyes closed for one fleeting second, and when they opened again, the strategist was back, sharpened, distant, already adjusting the board in her head. [/color][/justify][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

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