Work Text:
Ever since high school, Virginia “Ginny” Potts had wanted to be a journalist. She made it into a Bachelor program majoring in Media Studies for college, and soon talked the local paper’s editor-in-chief into letting her do unpaid clerical work while she studied.
It was only when she looked back on that time that she realised how much the man had manipulated her. He had told her from the beginning that he didn’t take on students - despite Ginny knowing others who had worked there in previous years - until she had begged to do anything around the office. He finally made a big show of giving in, and allowed her to type up handwritten notes, transcribe dictated letters, file paperwork and fetch coffees for anyone in the office who asked.
Halfway through college she had started warming him up to the idea of taking her on full time after she graduated. It took a few months, but eventually he agreed she would have a job when the time came.
He lied. When the time came, he shrugged and said he could only offer an unpaid internship, doing more of the menial tasks she'd already been doing. Ginny was disappointed, but she worked part-time at a grocery store and told herself a foot in the door was a valuable thing. She was sure it was only a matter of time before she would be writing the stories as well as typing them up.
It wasn’t. A year after graduating she takes her case to the man. When he explains that the paper is too small to need another journalist and admits he never really intended to hire her, she quits.
She moves away from her home town then, wanting a proper opportunity. She moves to New York instead, where news and media jobs abound. Her limited experience only scores her another entry-level position, more of the clerical work and coffee-fetching she had been doing before, but this time with the added bonus of being allowed to write some of the stories. She’s sent out alongside the paper’s more experienced reporters, and the whole thing is exactly what she wanted, except for the sexist co-workers.
She’d always been told this was a male-dominated industry, but she’s never experienced sexism firsthand like this. The flirty younger men don’t faze her too much but the leering older ones do. They assign her the ‘housewife stories’ and refuse to share the newsworthy events. All of them are inclined to get her to do their work for them, and it takes her a while to realise that typing up their interview notes isn’t supposed to be among her clerical duties.
She starts snapping back when they tease or catcall her, refusing to do work that isn’t rightly hers, and eventually it lands her in the manager’s office. There’s been complaints, he tells her, that she’s not behaving like a team player. She tries to explain, but the manager is old-school and doesn’t see the problem. “That’s how it is, love. You wanna work in this industry, better get used to it.”
She doesn’t intend to get used to it. She quits again.
She really liked her media studies major, but the reality of the industry is wearing her down already. She’s barely old enough to be feeling jaded, so a girlfriend suggests she join a temp agency for a while. It will give her the opportunity to work in a variety of industries and companies, while she decides what she actually wants to do next.
She finds she enjoys temping, and her co-ordinator at the agency, Stephanie, loves her. It’s a delight to manage a temp who not only presents herself well and turns up at their client’s offices on time, but is also genuinely good at jumping into the middle of a mess and doing a decent job.
Stephanie and Ginny build a friendship over the course of six months. They catch up for work lunches to discuss the jobs, which develops into Thursday night cocktails, to complain about their relationship statuses, work, and/or respective families. One night, Ginny admits she still has no idea what to do now that she’s sworn off being a news journalist, and only has general office duties in her work history. Stephanie tells her that - despite almost all her work reports coming back full of praise - the best ones are for jobs where she fills in for a sick or vacationing PA.
“I never considered being a personal assistant,” Ginny says. “I definitely didn’t dislike those jobs though.”
“Think about it,” Stephanie advises. “Being a personal assistant is rarely an easy job, but you’re good at it. And there’s money in it, if you work hard.”
The conversation does move on, but Ginny keeps it in mind, and after a few more months of temping she takes the plunge and starts applying for full-time PA jobs.
The first one is unimpressive as PA positions go - assistant to a middle-level manager at a moderately-sized retail chain - but she works hard and when she decides to move on, her manager hugs her goodbye and gives her a glowing reference.
The next job is for a middle-manager at an international manufacturing corporation. It keeps her busy and is challenging at first, though she soon adapts to the demands.
She still meets up with Stephanie for lunches, though it’s purely out of friendship and cameraderie now. One time she confesses to the worst part of temping: everyone called her by her full name. At least in long-term jobs everyone has a chance to get to know your preferred nickname, but in a job that only lasts two days, or a week? It’s more trouble than it’s worth.
When Stephanie presses, she admits her nickname isn’t much better - ‘Ginny’ sounds like an alcoholic’s nickname - but Virginia was her maternal grandmother’s name, and if it sounds too formal and old-fashioned, she does at least appreciate the family connection.
At this point both women are single and take delight in setting each other up on dates, and as a joke Stephanie starts introducing her with a different name each time. She goes on dates as Martha, Helen, Savannah, and Anita, and doesn’t bother to tell the men the truth unless they make it to a second date.
Then Stephanie sneezes at an inopportune moment. “Hey Adam, this is my friend - a-choo!” and then cracks up laughing. “That’s not her name, sorry, it’s pepper - a-choo!”
“Lovely to meet you, Pepper,” Adam winks, and Ginny laughs. They both know what Stephanie is trying to say, but she jokingly answers to Pepper for the rest of the night.
Adam doesn’t stick around past the second date, but the nickname does. Stephanie thinks it’s hilarious, and to her surprise, Ginny really likes it.
She continues to work her way up through the PA ranks, and lands a job as PA to a CEO. The CEO is an older man, who works her hard but treats her fair, and she feels like she’s found her niche. It’s an international company, with manufacturing, sales and development departments, so the job has a few more challenges but she learns to juggle and goes home satisfied at the end of each day. She stays there for a few years, and doesn’t see any reason to move on. She’s earning good money, with a job and boss that she likes.
But then her boss has an unexpected heart attack and dies. Ginny grieves for him like she would any friend. She keeps the company running for a few days, while the widow and the man’s son arrange the funeral. The company has been left to the son, and Ginny expects to help him settle into the role of CEO and stay on if he’ll have her, but the son decides to sell the business instead.
The company that takes over keeps her on for two months to make the transition smooth and then it's back to the job market.
The market’s not working in her favour though - unemployment has risen since the last time she was job hunting. There’s not many jobs going and plenty of competition for the few that are. She’s not overly keen on going back to temping anymore - it’s been almost a decade since she did that - but she can’t afford to stay unemployed much longer, so she goes back to Stephanie.
Unfortunately, things aren’t looking good in the temping business, either.
“I do have one thing though, a permanent PA job, not temp. Maybe you’d… wait, no. Never mind.”
“What? What’s the job?”
Stephanie sighs down the phone. “I couldn’t do it to you, Pepper. You’re my friend, and this guy is an asshole. I’d never forgive myself.”
“Seriously Steph, my finances are getting dire. Let me take a stab at it, and then even if it doesn’t work out, at least I’ll have a few more weeks of pay to get by on.”
“Alright, but I warned you: this guy is the worst boss you’ll ever have.”
“I get it already. Tell me where to go.”
“Stark Industries, Head Office. I’ll tell them you’ll start Monday.”
“Okay,” she says, scribbling down a note. “Who am I PA to?”
“Tony Stark.”
She drops the pen. “What?”
Stephanie sighs again. “Yeah, the playboy himself. I tried to warn you. Some of the people we’ve sent didn’t even finish the first day. We thought maybe - with his reputation, and some of the stories coming back - sending women was a bad idea, so then we sent a few of our male candidates, but it didn’t help. If you ask me, he needs a nanny, not a PA.”
Pepper asks to hear more about the stories from the PAs who didn’t stay.
Stark is as bad as his reputation. It’s not just the work, which is bad enough: a series of temporary PAs who didn’t stick around to leave notes for the next person means the meeting planner is unused, the inbox is overflowing with unread emails, and the filing system is non-existent. There doesn’t seem to be a set procedure for anything, apart from ‘However Mr Stark wants it done this time.’
But worse is the fact that the man clearly enjoys making his PA’s life difficult. He gives her the wrong details for meetings, so she walks in half an hour late and with the wrong notes. He waltzes into the office late without calling ahead to let her know, or sends her to make a coffee and then ducks out early while her back is turned. He refuses to learn her name; none of his PAs last anyway, so he’s decided they’re all called 'Jessie' (or Jesse, for the guys). Despite this, he flirts outrageously as though his charm will convince her to forgive every impropriety and every headache he’s caused.
Pepper sticks it out. Stark is a challenge, but neither Stephanie or the man himself believe she will last, so she becomes ever more determined. She’s dealt with sexism and constant flirting before. She’s dealt with challenging jobs in large international corporations. Granted, she hasn’t had to deal with such adolescent behaviour from her boss before, but if she’s good at anything it’s adapting to the conditions.
She calls around the office - or calls up clients, where necessary - to confirm meeting times and topics, so Stark can’t catch her out again. She stays late for two weeks getting the filing system organised and arranges remote access to the email inbox so she can sort it out from home.
After two months he starts calling her ‘Ms Potts’. The change is obvious; she wasn’t even sure he knew her real name, and she nearly drops his coffee in surprise. It’s also when he stops trying to make her look foolish by giving her the wrong meeting details, though he hasn’t caught her out since the second week and it’s a few more weeks before she’s certain he’s stopped trying for good.
Six months in, she starts visiting him at his New York apartment, or at the mansion if they’re in Malibu. She kicks him out of bed and gets him to the most important meetings on time, and meets Jarvis in the process. Then she and Jarvis start teaming up to make Stark sleep, eat and go about normal life like an average human being. Whatever she thought she knew about Stark before is blown away by how much she learns in a few short days of knowing Jarvis.
After that Stark starts asking her to kick out his overnight ‘guests’ in the morning. At first this seems a backwards step, having to deal with his one-night-stands, but after a while she realises it’s a sign of trust. Stark likes her.
His behaviour doesn’t improve any further - she still has to drag him to meetings like a petulant teenager - but there’s a new level of respect and understanding between them.
It’s also about this time that they leave a board meeting on a Tuesday afternoon and find Stephanie waiting outside the office.
“Pepper!” she shrieks, and even though she’s busy hugging her friend she can hear Stark in the background repeating “Pepper?”
They - the ladies, not Stark - go for cocktails, Tuesday night be damned. They’ve not been keeping up since Pepper took on a job that requires her to be available at all hours. Stephanie cannot believe that Pepper has stuck it out so long, and she explains it’s not actually all that bad - but that the nanny idea was basically accurate.
Stark asks her about the nickname the next morning, but she won’t explain it. It was just a silly moment that stuck, and she’s not sure the story would be as funny if she told it. It was a ‘had to be there’ kind of thing.
Stark decides to call her Pepper from then on, and every time someone questions it (or simply raises an eyebrow at the man) he concocts a new story to explain it, ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous.
“Because she has freckles like a scattering of pepper across her face.”
“Because - like ground pepper - she adds a bit of flavour.”
“She really likes pepper. Like really. Ground pepper sandwiches, would you believe.”
“Because her father owned a pepper farm.”
“Because I caught her eating it by the spoonful once. Strange habit.”
Pepper mostly rolls her eyes and refrains from commenting. It’s not like it matters.
She’s been with Stark for several years when Afghanistan happens. Once the initial shock and grief wears off, she’s surprised by how much she misses him. She throws herself into the company. Mr Stane and the board of directors keep making the big decisions, but it’s Pepper that handles the day-to-day issues and keeps Stark Industries going without it’s namesake. Stane drops in and thanks her for her hard work, even brings her chocolate or wine because he knows Tony used to sometimes and he thinks that what she wants. But she isn’t doing this for him. It’s for Tony. So he has something to come back to. Because he is going to come back, no matter what anyone tells her about statistical likelihoods. She’s certain he knows how much trouble he’ll be in if he doesn’t come back.
The call from Rhodey is both the best and worst moment of her life. Tony’s alive, and Pepper finally falls apart. She calls Steph, who comes over and and makes pancakes and puts comedies on, and eventually just holds Pepper until she runs out of tears.
She cleans herself up as much as possible before going to meet Tony’s plane, but a few more tears still leak out on the way to the airport. When he points them out, she tells him she hates job hunting.
It’s only kind of true. She was always good at the job hunt, but she can’t imagine starting over with a new company anymore. Being Tony Stark’s PA is more than just a job, it’s her life, and she doesn’t want to let it go while Tony lives. And when Tony goes on to announce the changes in Stark Industries' direction, she knows she's made the right choice.
Besides, no one could do the job better than she does. There’s a long list of ex-employees to prove it.