"Pepper, can you come in here for a moment?" Tony Stark's voice came across her computer speaker, without any electronic distortion, telling Tony Stark's consummate assistant that her boss was -- for a change -- not encased in the gold-and-red Iron Man battle suit armor.
Pepper Potts had been just another secretary in the pool when she had corrected an accounting error made by Tony Stark, saving Stark International a small fortune but embarrassing her boss. Fortunately, rather than be angry, Tony Stark had been impressed with her keen eye for detail and her integrity in not letting the error slide. The next day she had expected a pink slip; instead, she had been pulled from the secretarial pool and given the permanent assignment as Tony Stark's personal assistant.
She stood, straightening her short skirt, and pulling her jacket on over her blouse, checking her short red hair and make-up. Pepper wore much the same outfit every day, with only the color of her outfit varying, but not by much. Just as Tony Stark wore his Iron Man battle suit into combat, she had her own uniform. Arming herself with her digital data pad, she felt equal to whatever new task Tony Stark might see fit to throw at her -- and knowing Tony Stark, her next project could be anything from calculating all the liquid oxygen used by S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft as propulsion fuel to how many graham crackers were sold nation-wide from the animal feeding stalls of giraffe exhibits.
Tony Stark was a genius, but he was an eccentric genius, and Pepper could never anticipate what interests he might want to pursue next. The electronic artificial intelligence, J.A.R.V.I.S., opened the door for her as she approached. J.A.R.V.I.S. was also tied into her data pad; J.A.R.V.I.S. was pretty much everywhere inside all of the Stark International facilities to one degree or another, and offered a voice interface for Tony to use while designing new electronics systems.
Pepper walked down the long office, approaching the desk where Tony was already on the telephone. "Senator Kelly, I'd be happy to come to a closed-door session of the Senate Committee on Super-Human Affairs and answer any questions the Committee might have on the Avengers' actions in Manhattan..." Pepper nodded to herself; after open warfare had broken out between Hydra and the Advanced Idea Mechanics organizations on the streets and in the skies of New York City, Maria Hill, the temporary Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was on the warpath, wanting the authority to arrest and detain the Avengers has nothing more than high-powered vigilantes.
Many of those who walked the ordinary halls of power in the nation's capital feared and distrusted anyone with superhuman abilities, and Senator Kelly was well-known for his fear and distrust of the growing mutant population.
Pepper heard Stark sigh; from the patient tones of his voice, he was anticipating a long, tedious call with the Senator. Tony Stark struck many as self-indulgent, selfish, and impatient, but that was more facade than truth; a useful pose in negotiations at times. Pepper had seen her boss negotiate massive electronic component supply contracts with the Japanese. He and the Mitsubishi negotiator had sat in silence for two and a half hours before one of them broke the silence and lost the upper hand in the negotiations - and it had not been her boss.
Pepper wondered why Stark had called her into his office when he was just beginning such a marathon of tedium until Tony motioned for her to come around his desk, a little-boy pleading look in his eyes. All of a sudden, all was made clear.
Stepping around Stark's desk, she whispered into her data pad. "J.A.R.V.I.S., institute privacy screen, code alpha-ten". She did not need to hear the telltale thud of locks closing and locking to know that J.A.R.V.I.S. had shut down access to both the outer and inner office, as well as the private elevators to Stark's workshops and armory on the levels below. Countermeasures to all forms of electronic surveillance had been instituted. Physical access and electronic communication were in abeyance until either Pepper or Tony ended the privacy screen, or unless there was emergency alert from either S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers themselves.
Not that Stark cared about his own personal privacy all that much; he was not particularly shy about is playboy antics nor reticent to express his appreciation of beautiful women. However, just as he was careless with his own privacy, he guarded Pepper's own with a mania bordering on obsession. Rumors about Tony Stark and his beautiful red-haired assistant were one thing, and impossible to address without giving them credence, but Stark would be thrice-damned before he'd give anyone any kind of proof that Pepper Potts was aught but the hyper-efficient assistant she was.
Pepper leaned against the desk, scant feet away from Tony's chair, and slowly unbuttoned her jacket. She licked her lips, making her lipstick glisten. One of her hands vanished beneath the jacket, and began to rub her own C-cup breasts through the raw silk of her blouse. She moaned, knowing that J.A.R.V.I.S. would use Stark's special voice-cancellation algorithims to make sure that the Senator on the other end of the telephone heard nothing untoward.
