Ch58. Stark Tower
Tony and Natasha were cuddling on the couch and watching a movie to which neither really paid much attention, opting to rather exchange a fleeting kiss or suggestive touch at times. They were enjoying a very slow-going and warm evening.
The advertisements suddenly started and JARVIS as usual instantly changed the channel, only to, in some unlucky coincidence, land at something that caused Tony to blanch.
Natasha stopped trailing gentle kisses all over his neck when she felt it and pulled away a bit to look at Tony in concern, "Something bothering you?"
Tony gave her a small, hopefully reassuring, smile and pointed towards the TV where Senator Stern was giving a speech about something most likely racist that appealed to the masses.
Natasha was half-hugging Tony and her back was turned towards the TV. She was also quite unwilling to let go as she felt quite warm, safe, and good right about now. So she uncomfortably turned her head for a moment, noticing what made Tony's reaction and...
Tony frowned as Natasha snickered and buried her face into his chest again, muffling her laughter.
"What?" Tony sullenly asked.
"N-nothing! It- It's just hilarious. Hehe." Natasha raised her head and her green eyes landed on Tony's brown as she smirked, "The great Tony Stark can face Thanos but Senator Stern makes him stiffen."
Hearing her, Tony mock gasped and put his hand on the top of her head before gently pushing it down and burying her face into his chest again, "The only one who makes me stiff is the cheeky redhead hugging me like a koala."
Something muffled came from her but Tony was still pressing her head down so it was unintelligible.
Well, Tony was sure it wasn't anything important. He wasn't holding Natasha's head strong enough to prevent her from raising it again anyway.
"What was that?" Tony teasingly asked, "I couldn't hear you through all that sheer awesomeness of my chest."
Natasha leaned her head back, huffing a stray strand of her red hair out of her line of sight as she put her chin on Tony's chest, "I said I can feel it." She cheekily said and wiggled her lower body a bit, causing Tony to stifle a groan.
"I don't think I can get stiffer no matter how much you try wiggling these juicy thighs of yours." He complained to her, his free hand landing just slightly below her posterior and squeezing a bit.
Natasha provocatively bit her lower lip and batted her eyelashes at Tony, "Mhm~, worth a shot." She lazily smiled and snuggled closer to Tony, getting comfortable.
It didn't hurt to try. In fact, it felt downright delightful to tease him.
"That reminds me," Tony leaned his head back, resting it on the couch while his hand on Natasha's head started to distractedly caress her hair. "I got a notice the Stark Tower is finally finished."
Natasha didn't react. Her eyes stayed closed and her body tightly pressed to Tony's as she sluggishly asked, "Will we be moving soon?"
She couldn't care less either way. Her home was wherever Tony was.
Tony pursed his lips but... he didn't answer straight away. Moving to the Stark Tower would be preferable but he got used to his house in Malibu. Plus the good memories of his time with Natasha he had in here were making the decision a bit harder than it should have been.
Despite that, Tony eventually sighed and morosely nodded, "Yes. I guess we will be moving soon."
"Mhm... okay." Natasha said in a sleepy voice, showing she was already half asleep and Tony gently smiled and closed his eyes too as JARVIS turned off the TV.
In the end, it didn't matter. They would simply have to make new good memories of the Stark Tower.
'Now that is something to look forward to.' Tony inwardly chuckled as he fell asleep.
...
The Stark Tower was even better than in Tony's previous life. He had a lot of improvements he could not previously implement but now that the Tower had to be built from nothing again, Tony could go wild.
One such thing was his nanobot technology.
The whole tower was teeming with it.
Doors, windows, even some devices were actually made from arc-reactor-powered nanobots that could transform into Iron Man golems at moment's notice.
This was Tony's very own built-in security.
The basement held a massive Arc Reactor powering up the entire building. Tony also made sure there was no possible way to access it via closing every path with his nanobots. There was an entire shell made of nanobots around the basement walls. Not even an ant could crawl in without JARVIS and FRIDAY knowing about it.
On the same note, Tony's two A.I. Artifacts could do the repairs of anything that was in the basement just as well as humans so there was no real need for anybody coming down there.
The lower floors were a normal hotel and offices for a few departments of Stark Industries New York branch.
When Tony announced he was moving to New York, Pepper also decided to move the headquarters of the company there.
The Stark Industries in New York saw a lot of renovation and expansion since then in their preparation to become the new headquarters.
Naturally, Stark Tower could not become that. The departments of the company that occupied the lower floors were mostly those that didn't need a lot of room and were not needed directly in the SI building like the tax department or the legal department.
The New York Stark Industries was otherwise located in the Bronx.
On the middle and most of the upper floors were laboratories, and Tony would never dare to stuff them into the middle of a skyscraper if he thought it dangerous. He was not his previous self!
Any explosive experiments could be done in the Stark Industries complex in the Bronx. These laboratories were mostly for researchers like Maya Hansen and Helen Cho. Those Tony valued most.
They could live and work in the same place, just having to go up several floors from their permanent hotel rooms, and it was in the very heart of Manhattan. How cool was that!?
Plus, Tony had these floors also enhanced with nanobots to prevent any unfortunate collapse of the tower in case some experiment went awry.
The ten uppermost floors were for Tony's personal use alongside a massive but cozy penthouse apartment full of the newest technology where he would be living with Natasha from now on.
The tour of the entire place took an entire day for Tony and Natasha when they came to check the building out and the moving took even longer.
It took a very busy month to finalize everything but...
But finally, they were settled in their new home.