"Prodigal Son of Late Billionaire Missing"
Virginia Potts sat at her desk, reading the headline on her laptop. She didn't need to read further, nobody did, it wasn't hard to figure out who the story was referring to. Everybody and their dog knew of Tony Stark, the son of the greatest weapons designer in the world; they also knew of his self-centered pretentiousness and daddy issues that progressed to a point where he abandoned his title and responsibilities as an act of defiance, travelling the world with the Red Cross, helping the sick and injured. Everyone knew it wouldn't last, Ms. Potts knew it more than anyone. she'd seen his bank statements and transactions. Behind the ruse of the adventurous Samaritan he still maintained his party life-style.
The thought of her company footing the bill for his escapades made her wince.
She closed her browser and set her laptop aside, tapping her fingers against the veneer of her desk. She wore a scowl on her face, though only briefly as she started searching for the most sympathetic and patronizing smile she could find. She knew she'd have to wear it in the coming weeks. She leaned back in her chair and started mouthing some of the phrases she assumed she'd use. "thank you for your condolences", "we will all miss him", "I completely agree, he was far too young". She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, as if to cleanse her palette of the bullshit she just recited.
To say that Virginia Potts (known as "Pepper" by her friends... well, friend) was without emotion would be entirely incorrect. She had plenty of emotion, she merely directed it towards what she considered to be the finer things: power, respect, imperialistic rule over business and goals, and maintaining a degree of mental balance and elegance on par with that of the most devoted dancers and acrobats. She had no time for social contact, and she had thoroughly convinced herself that she had no need for it either. Her one excuse was her personal assistant, ex-boxer Harold Hogan, whom she'd formed an intimate friendship with. She was never sure why, her best guess was she enjoyed the irony of his pet name: "Happy".
Pepper digested the news slowly, already looking ahead. As much pride as she took in being CEO of Stark Industries, it frustrated her that all of her work went under his name, for his profit. She would never admit it, but Tony Stark dropping off of the map was more of a godsend than it was a tragedy. It was all hers now. Sure, he's only missing, but with a man of such dwindling social importance as Tony, people would be mourning his loss by the weekend, regardless if he was deemed dead or not.
Though in all honesty, when you're idiotic enough to get yourself captured by crime lords in a country that the average person can't pronounce, let alone locate on a map, you might as well be dead.
The prosperousness she assumed would fall to her excited Pepper greatly. So much so that a cracked grin escaped her, despite her best attempts to keep up a empathetic facade. It was then that two words formed in her mind that truly defined her emotion. Two words that she wasn't completely sure she had spoken out loud or not, until she heard them bounce around her lavish office. She sighed happily, breathing in the echo, treating it as her own mantra whilst concerning the presumably late Anthony Stark:
"Good Riddance"