Chapter Text
It was all one massive misunderstanding... An absurd situation born with neither rhyme nor reason. Waking up in the body of Virginia "Pepper" Potts on the very day Tony Stark disappears in Afghanistan is not something one can prepare for. It was a challenge to her entire corporate life, her experience, her endurance, and her ability to maintain a flawless poker face.
By eight in the morning, the spacious office of the CEO's personal assistant at Stark Industries resembled a disrupted beehive. The massive panoramic windows, offering a sweeping view of the sun-drenched Californian ocean, stood in stubborn contrast to the ringing, stifling tension inside. The phones on the heavy oak desk never stopped ringing for a single second. Three lines on the intercom flashed with an aggressive, crimson light. On the plasma screens mounted into the walls, breaking news updates cycled continuously, playing clips of burning military HMMWVs juxtaposed with old archival footage of a smirking Tony Stark. Outside, past the matte glass door of the corridor, a muffled, panicked hum of employee voices could be heard.
She stood by the desk, leaning her palms against the smooth wooden surface, staring at her reflection in the dark glass of a powered-off monitor. A pale woman with neatly pinned ginger hair and a light dusting of freckles stared back. A stranger's face. A stranger's body. Every single cell of it was currently vibrating with someone else's adrenaline shock.
Superheroes. Supervillains. Alien threats and shadow organizations. Such things were entertaining to watch from the safety of a comfortable armchair through a screen, but to find oneself in the dead center of the storm... No. She would have never chosen such an opportunity consciously, yet here she was, and this was now her reality. She would save the existential crisis and the fear for the moment she managed to get out of here. Right now, she simply didn't have the luxury of time to panic.
She was one of the finest crisis managers in one of the largest multinational corporations in the City of London, and for that reason, and that reason alone, she hadn't crashed and burned on day one. Navigating the treacherous waters of Stark Industries and keeping it from collapsing is not something a mere personal assistant could handle. The canonical Pepper Potts, for all her fierce loyalty, was an executive secretary accustomed to smoothing over the rough edges left by her eccentric boss. But now that the boss had vanished into thin air somewhere in the desert, the rough edges were all that remained. An open war to dismember the empire had begun.
The office door slid open sharply, and Obadiah Stane practically stormed into the room. A well-rehearsed grimace of profound grief rested on his groomed face, but a predatory, calculating spark danced in his eyes. Looming right behind him were three of the company’s top legal counsels, clutching thick, heavy folders of paperwork.
"Pepper, my dear, it's an absolute catastrophe," Stane boomed in his booming, well-practiced voice, throwing his arms open for a patronizing embrace. "The military is silent. The stocks plummeted sixteen points at the opening bell. We need to call an emergency board meeting immediately and sign the transfer of authority protocols, or the vultures will rip us to shreds before sundown. The legal team has prepared the paperwork to declare Tony temporarily incapacitated..."
She didn't take a single step forward to meet him. Instead, she drew herself up slowly in her chair, forcing her shoulders back and lifting her chin with cold pride. The gaze of her light-blue eyes, now uncharacteristically glinting with the silvery steel of a gloomy London sky as it swept over Stane, was so icy, professional, and detached that Obadiah faltered mid-sentence.
In the City of London, she had seen dozens of these "sympathetic" corporate sharks, ready to carve up assets before the owner's body had even gone cold. She had played against thirteen directors of British mega-holdings, and every single one of them was a no less formidable opponent than the man currently standing before her.
"Take a seat, Mr. Stane," her voice rang out crystal clear, without a single trembling note. It carried a dry, corporate steel entirely alien to the original Pepper Potts. "No incapacity protocols have been signed, nor will they ever be."
The lawyers behind Obadiah exchanged bewildered glances. Stane frowned, his mask of grief beginning to slip rapidly, exposing the nature of a cruel businessman:"Pepper, you don't grasp the scale of this. This isn't one of Tony's tantrums; this is the market—"
"I understand the scale perfectly," she cut him off sharply, stepping toward the central terminal and pulling up the live financial data. Her fingers flew across the touchscreen interface with practiced precision, summoning the necessary spreadsheets. "A sixteen-point drop is a speculative panic, not a systemic failure. Stark Industries holds over forty billion dollars in open military contracts, and our liabilities are fully insured. According to Section 4.2 of the corporate bylaws, the CEO’s personal assistant holds veto power over emergency structural changes until the owner's status is officially confirmed. We have received no official confirmation from the Pentagon."
She turned back to Stane, leaning against the edge of the desk, looking down at him. A heavy, ringing silence filled the office. The only sound was the steady, low hum of the climate control system filtering the conditioned air.
"The board of directors will be convened in two hours," she snapped. "But not to sign your paperwork, Obadiah. It will be to approve a stock buyback strategy using our reserve funds to stabilize the shares on the open market. I will authorize it myself. Gentlemen of the legal team, you are dismissed. I expect to see you in the conference room with an updated audit."
Once the stunned lawyers hurriedly left the room and Stane, spitting out a fake "you're making a mistake," stormed out and slammed the door, only Happy Hogan remained standing in the corner.
The loyal bodyguard looked depressed and tense. Now that they were left in the office completely alone, his broad shoulders slouched, and his gaze expressed confusion. He genuinely worried for Pepper and was terrified for Tony. The incident was so unexpected that it knocked the usually collected man completely out of his stride.
"Miss Potts..." Happy rasped, taking a tentative step forward. "Stane is right about one thing. It's been too long since the convoy was hit. People don't survive out there for this long. We... we really should prepare for the worst. Maybe Tony is already..."
She looked at Happy. Her business acumen and her entire past experience screamed that this world was insane, but logic whispered the most crucial detail: if there was anyone in this mad universe with enough boundless genius to rip through the fabric of space, solve a quantum equation, and send her back to her London apartment, it was Tony Stark. And she was going to hold his empire together, no matter what it took, just to give him something to come back to.
"This is Tony Stark, Happy," she stated in a firm voice that sent an almost palpable electric charge through the office. "He will come back. Do you hear me? He will claw his way out of that damn desert even if he has to build a suit of armor out of scrap metal. And as long as I am sitting in this chair, no one will dare declare him dead or rip this company apart piece by piece. Get back to the car and be ready to drive to the airport at a moment's notice. We are going to wait for him."
Happy stared at her, utterly speechless for a few seconds. He had never seen Miss Potts like this—strong, unyielding, standing like a monolith against the raging storm. In his simple, honest mind, it clicked in the only logical way possible: She changed because losing Tony burned away everything fragile in her, leaving nothing but a rod of iron to ensure his salvation.
"Yes, ma'am," Hogan replied quietly but firmly, straightening up and adjusting his jacket. "I understand. The car is always ready."
As the door slid shut behind him, she sat back down in her chair, keeping her spine perfectly straight, and pulled the tablet toward her. Her personal war for survival in this universe and the fight to reclaim her own life was only just beginning. And she had absolutely no intention of losing.