EMILY

"So... What do you wanna do?" I ask Alex after she's dropped off at my house.

"Dunno. When's Sara coming?" Alex replies. I decided to have the whole friend triangle present.

"Her softball game is running late. She should be here by 7:30. Hmm... I have an idea for what we could do, but it's kinda embarrassing."

Alex smiles. "Spill it."

"I've always wanted to make a Harlem Shake video," I let out quickly, feeling myself blush. "I know they're not exactly the trendiest thing anymore... But it'd still be fun!"

"You. Are. A. Genius!" Alex exclaims, jumping in circles around my living room. "Let's do it!"

We sprint up the stairs and run into my room. While in my walk-in closet trying on crazy costumes together, I hear a familiar voice singsong in the hallway outside my bedroom. "I'm here!"

I immediately recognize the voice. It's Sara. "Come in!" I yell, still in my closet, one foot inside an orange Morphsuit.

Sara walks into my cluttered closet, her short blond air bouncing. I'm fully zipped into the Morphsuit, and Alex is next to me in a shark costume (don't ask why I have it).

"What in the world..." Sara's jaw drops, not exactly sure what we're doing.

"We're going to make a Harlem Shake video!" Alex shouts gleefully.

"I'm in!"

"Ready... Set..."

"Wait!" I interrupt Sara from counting down to the beginning of recording the crazy part of our Harlem Shake.

"What?" Sara turns away from Dummy, who's in charge of holding the camera, in annoyance. It's kinda hard to take her seriously though in her retro Harry Potter getup.

"Don't you think we need more than 3 people?"

Sara shrugs. "Yeah, but who else would want to do the video with us?"

I smile. "One word: Dad."

"C'mon, please do it with us! You can take a break from work!" I'm begging Dad to join our video. He's in the living room with the TV on playing a re-run of the press conference Dad held earlier today to give the public more information about Stark Tower, working on his computer, and eating Papa John's pizza. I dunno how he can do all that at the same time.

"I do like breaks..." he sighs. "Fine. I'll do it, but I don't want to see this all over the Internet."

"It's a deal!" I exclaim, feeling a smile light up my face.

"Oh. My. Gosh," Alex breathes.

"The video..." I start.

"IS PERFECT!" Sara jumps out of the couch we were sharing in Dad's workshop and begins to do an awful happy dance (don't tell her I said that).

We watch the video on my Stark Laptop for the billionth time. Dad's really rocking the Mark VII with a rainbow Afro. "We have to show this to Dad," I suggest.

"Let's go!" Alex exclaims as she attempts to get out of the sorta too-small shark costume.

Why do summer thunder storms always bother to make an appearance when you least want them to? I roll over in bed and look at my NASA space shuttle clock (don't judge). It reads 4:30 AM. Another wave of thunder rattles the house. I crawl over to the foot of my bed with my Stark Phone. Using the glow of the phone's screen as a flashlight, I check on Alex and Sara. They're both sound asleep, wrapped up tight in their sleeping bags. Yet another rumble of thunder makes me jump. I decide I probably won't be able to fall back asleep until the storm passes, so I might as well do something productive.

I creep out of my bedroom, careful not to wake Alex or Sara, and go down to Dad's workshop. In the back corner of the workshop is my area, where Dad lets me plan and create to my heart's content. Even though Dad isn't my actual father, I've still inherited some of his brains thanks to his sister. If it wasn't for my ADHD, I'd probably be in high school by now, but all my teachers don't believe I immediately understand everything they teach, even though I probably understood a concept before it was even taught. Not even my 95+ average in every class will sway them.

Crawling under my desk, I feel the bottom of it looking for the secret compartment I built. The compartment hides some of my most secretive projects from a very snoopy Dad. I find the small button near the back and press it until I hear a small "click". A small metal box slides it of the now open compartment. I re-seal the hiding place, put the box on the table and manage to hit my head on the metal desk while standing up.

I rub the back of my throbbing head, wipe some dust bunnies off my plaid pajama pants and MIT t-shirt, and open the box. It contains the pair of glasses I got a few years ago when I began to lose my eyesight. Now, I can barely see anything more than a foot in front of my face, so I wear contacts (They're the kind I can sleep in. Score!). I unplug my Stark Laptop from its charging dock, power it up, then use the small USB connector I installed into my glasses to hook it up to my computer. A file appears on my desktop titled "My Glasses". This is a good sign. My latest upgrades have been successful. I pull up JARVIS' computer files I have stored on my computer, and load them onto my glasses' drive. If these files load correctly, I should be able to have the same displays Dad has in his Iron Man suits on my glasses. About 5 long minutes later, the download finishes. I take out my contacts and place them in their container I brought downstairs with me. Now I'm practically blind. I feel around for my glasses, unplug them (Hehe it's not every day you get to say that), and put them on.

They work. Perfectly. I get up from my desk and walk around Dad's workshop. The glasses' inferface is exactly like the Iron Man suit (Ok, I admit it. I'm speaking from experience, but I only wore a suit once. It was a dare). Everything I look at can immediately be identified thanks to the microscopic camera in the corner of the right lens that took forever to install. I think my best idea was deciding to not install JARVIS' audio files. That AI really knows how to get on my last nerve. "Emily? Is that you?"

The microscopic microphone opposite to the camera (which also took eons to install) registers the voice as Sara's. I swiftly pull the glasses off my face, which automatically shuts them down, and hide them behind my back. A blurred figure, which I'm assuming to be Sara, reaches the bottom of the stairs. I walk to the door, tripping over a model of the Mark VII's hand randomly laying on the ground, and let Sara into the workshop. "Are you ok?" she immediately asks, noticing me trip.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I answer, trying to sound convincing, "I'm just tired."

I dunno why I'm so reluctant to tell Sara about my glasses. I guess I want to show them to Dad first to be sure he's ok with me using them.

"Why are you up so early?" Sara yawns.

"Couldn't sleep with all the thunder, so I decided to do something productive. How did you even figure out I was down here?"

"Alex was snoring my ears off, and when I noticed you weren't in your bed, I went to the only other place you're truly happy in."

I smile. "That was probably the deepest sentence I've ever heard at 6 in the morning."

"Let's just go back to bed."

"Ok."

I'm halfway up the stairs when I realize my contacts are still on my desk and my glasses are still behind my back.