"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.