In a change, I'm putting the author's notes at the bottom, lest I give too much away. So if you trust me, dive right in. If you're understandably wary about the Things My Mind Comes Up With, hit the notes at the bottom first.

Be warned: this story can easily be considered . . . polarizing. Talk to me about it, please. I would love know what people think of this . . . but stay calm, respectful, and reasonable. I will not engage in or allow any shouting matches or a flame war to erupt. Don't like it or agree with me? Fine, no problem. Tell me why. Scream at me or another reviewer, spew insults . . . anything other than calm discourse and constructive criticism will be deleted - and I fully intend to hold myself to that standard as well, so if I slip and don't realize it or correct it, let me know, please. Comments are an author's lifeblood and a good guide for readers, but only if they're helpful and relative, and I fully intend to keep things that way.

Lastly, TaleWeaver beta'd this one for me, and it is much appreciated. You rock, girl, and I cannot express my appreciation enough. Thank you!

D(iligence) E(xcellence) I(ntegrity)

Like any sane person, Pepper Potts hated press conferences.

Actually, no. 'Hatred' was really too mild a description. It would be considerably more accurate to say that she utterly despised them. In point of fact, the only reason she did as many of the wretched things as she did was because she lacked Tony Stark's uncanny skills of avoidance, not to mention his years of practice in said avoidance. And since they were collectively the face of Stark Industries, one of them had to attend the vast majority of press conferences related to the company (to be fair, Tony always got stuck with the Avengers PR and associated crap, and Pepper was honest enough to admit that she usually ended up with the easier end of the deal, despite the fact that she attended four times more meetings than he did).

So it stood to reason that she would be hoping desperately to be stricken with swine flu or possibly the plague, if it would get her out of giving this particular quarterly 'Health of SI' press conference.

And yet . . .

And yet.

To the astonishment of virtually everyone who knew her, Pepper was actually looking forward to this one. She knew perfectly well that not a single reporter would pay attention to the actual 'health of SI' report she was giving, and she also knew that the first question she would be asked once she finished giving a report no one cared about (and yet had whined incessantly about not hearing in the years before the PR department finally gave in and made it a quarterly announcement; was it any wonder she and Tony both hated the damn things?) would have nothing to do with the aforementioned report, given the recurring pattern that had been established in the last several months.

Because of this expectation, and thus in a shocking turn of events, Tony had been equally as gleeful about this conference. In fact, in a move that made Pepper actually swoon from shock (no, seriously: she passed out for a few minutes), he'd offered to either give it himself or attend with her, he was that eager to see the reactions — and prepared to shoulder the bulk of the expected negative responses. But after a great deal of thought and debate, they had jointly, albeit regretfully, decided that Tony's presence would do more harm than good, all things considered.

Most people would have thought she'd be offended at the notion of not being paid attention to by the people she was speaking to in a live event being done specifically for them, but there were certain universal constants. And topics covered/questions asked in a press conference, regardless of the reason for said press conference, were one and a half of those constants. Especially now. The after-conference subject would be one of two things, guaranteed.

Hence, her . . . anticipation.

Everything was normal: the blinding lights, the too-small room jammed with too many people, cameras, and — was that a dog? It . . . apparently, yes, it was. Well, why not? It was better behaved than the CNN reporter, so Pepper let it be and focused her attention on reading the cards in front of her, all while mentally smirking in preparation for what was about to happen. She glanced to her left, where Happy stood guard, and her internal smile widened when he subtly held up his phone, where he had Tony on a video call. She couldn't see her fiancé's face clearly due to the distance, but his playful wave almost made her laugh. There was little that Tony Stark enjoyed more than screwing with the heads of people who truly deserved it, and a room full of reporters would always deserve it. What was about to happen was simply extra cheese on the burger (and wow, Tony had rubbed off on her more than she'd realized).

She turned her full attention back to the room, finished her report, and took a deep breath.

Showtime.

"We have time for a few questions," she announced, eyes flicking rapidly over the crowd to make her final decision on who to select. She'd narrowed it down to five possibilities on first entering the room, but one never quite knew how people would actually behave once a press conference was underway, and more than one promising reporter had cost themselves the chance at a question by acting badly during the speech.

This statement naturally set off the insanity and for the next few minutes, the press room resembled nothing so much as the mosh pit at a rave.

Well. Minus the strobe lights, drugs, alcohol, and half-naked — whoops, no, there went Kerry Patton's shirt. When would the woman realize that sheer shirts were a bad idea at a press conference held by Stark Industries (or Amazon, honesty compelled her to admit)? And Tony wasn't even here, so Pepper really didn't understand the logic behind that decision.

Mentally shaking her head, she eyed her options again and liked none of them. Mentally sighing, she did another scan of the sea of people, saw a young reporter from the New York Times also looking around the room, a faintly annoyed expression on her face, and paused to take a closer look. Young, female, major media outlet, and apparently irritated by the chaos . . . she'd be hard-pressed to find a better combination at this point.

So she held up a hand, greatly amused at how the experienced reporters instantly fell silent, their eyes locked on Pepper as though she was a heat-seeking missile, while the rest of them kept yowling and jostling for position. Watching them slowly realize that there was no longer a need for said yowling and jostling was equally entertaining, but Pepper kept her face impassive. As much as she was looking forward to this, she still needed to play it carefully, lest it backfire due to simple carelessness on her part.

Once the room was quiet, she pointed a slim finger at the young NYT reporter and nodded. The girl blinked in utter shock at being chosen first, but recovered admirably quickly and stood up, an excited smile splitting her face.

"Ms. Potts! Does this report mean that we can finally start seeing more women on the board and in positions of power at Stark Industries?"

Her question was almost word-for-word what Pepper, Tony, and Paul McGinnis (the head of PR) had anticipated for this particular topic, and Pepper had to fight down another smile. Instead, she gave the young woman a raised eyebrow and simply said, "No."

The room went so quiet everyone heard the FOX News man drop his pen and the sound it made rolling under the table echoed for several seconds.

And then it was pandemonium.

Pepper said nothing and made no attempts to calm the room; this was exactly what everyone had expected and there was no point in trying to regain control until most of the crowd had gotten the shouting out of their systems. It took several minutes, during which time she exchanged a few amused glances with Happy on her left, a laughing Tony still watching on his phone, and some smugly pleased smiles with Paul on her right. Silence came in gradual waves as people realized Pepper wasn't going indulge them in a screaming match or vie for their attention — wouldn't, in fact, acknowledge them at all until they calmed down — and order was restored swiftly once the front row settled down. But the room was still tense and Pepper remained sensitive to that tension, nodding once more to the same NYT reporter in a silent bid for her to continue.

After a hard, nervous swallow, the young woman obliged.

"I — I'm sorry, Ms. Potts, I don't understand," she said slowly, clearly feeling her way through a conversation she'd never expected to have. "We all know how important diversity is, and equality and inclusion, so why would you not embrace that?"

Word. For. Word.

Damn. She was going to owe Paul an entire rented theatre of Wicked and a truly absurd amount of chocolate truffles before this was over.

Still, since it was exactly what she'd expected, she was more than prepared with her response.

"Do you know why Stark Industries is the leader in not just the tech industry, but the business world at large?" she asked, gently but firmly, and the journalist shook her head, looking dazed and very confused. Pepper nodded in response and allowed her eyes to scan the entire room, meeting every person's eyes for a few seconds, before focusing her attention back on the young woman. "It's because we have made it a habit to not just hire, but keep, people who are the most qualified for the job we hired them to do."

She paused to let the room assimilate that answer, unsurprised by the confusion that still clouded too many faces, and leaned forward a little to create the illusion of closeness with the Times reporter. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I didn't catch your name," she said quietly, smiling softly when the girl almost stuttered, "Taylor Robinson, ma'am," at her, awe now tingeing her words.

"Well, Taylor, tell me this: you're a woman, correct?"

A slow, still-confused nod was the answer and Pepper smiled. Her peripheral vision caught Christine Everhart straightening, eyes full of sharp speculation, and satisfaction bloomed in her breast. Good; if nothing else, at least one person would accurately report this, and that was all she needed. That knowledge made her next statement a little more pointed than it likely would otherwise have been.

"So, using the logic of DEI, if you applied at SI for the position of a biochemist in our Research department, and you were the only female applicant, I should hire you solely on that basis. Correct?"

"Uhh — well, I, uhh . . ." was the stuttered reply. Pepper said nothing this time; she merely waited patiently until the journalist realized she really had nowhere to go with her response, and then continued smoothly down that same train of thought.

"Does being a woman automatically makes you qualified than your male colleagues to do a job?" she asked, watching with thinly veiled amusement as several people in the room shifted uncomfortably, and didn't give the girl a chance to answer her.

After all, it had been a rhetorical question.

"And why should your gender, or skin color, or any factor other than your ability to not just do the job in question, but also be an asset to the job environment, come into play?" she demanded next, pulling back and straightening her shoulders as she allowed the CEO of Stark Industries to take over again. "After all, Taylor, you're a woman. Were you hired because you're a woman? Or were you chosen because you studied journalism and graduated with a degree in that field?"

She might as well have punched poor Taylor with brass knuckles, the girl looked so stunned. But Pepper had to give her credit; she rallied quickly. "I graduated cum laude from NYU with a Masters in Journalism!" Taylor exclaimed, looking and sounding affronted. But if she was expecting this to rattle Pepper, she was sorely disappointed.

"Oh," the CEO of SI replied coolly. "So . . . you had the experience and qualifications the company was looking for when they hired you? Or did you simply put 'female' in the 'job history' and 'education' fields?"

"Of course not! I had the qualifications and degree they wanted!" the girl snapped back, obviously insulted now, only to blink when Pepper merely nodded.

"So why would you expect Stark Industries to do otherwise?" she calmly inquired, watching as this logic slowly wound its way through the room and a lot more people shifted uncomfortably. "You see, at SI, we don't give a damn about your gender or race or anything other than your ability to do or learn the job we're hiring you to do. Being male does not automatically mean you're good at engineering, any more than being female instantly makes you a good receptionist or PA. This is why SI does not measure demographics: we don't care. Those numbers have exactly zero positive impact on how we do business; in fact, when we did keep track of those metrics, we found it to be detrimental to a lot of departments."

Three or four minutes of astonished silence followed this revelation, a silence that Pepper patiently waited out.

"I — how?"

This was voiced by the dumbfounded male reporter FOX News had sent and Pepper gave him a nod, forgiving his interruption because he was the only person other than Christine Everhart who appeared capable of speech — and Christine was savvy enough to realize that she needed to be an observer, at least for now. She was both too volatile and too well-known to risk interrupting yet, and that wasn't taking into account her habit of skewering Tony when she felt it necessary, whether he was present or not.

Of course, when she thought he was right, she was his most powerful media supporter. But there wasn't any way to know how this would play out, so Christine knew she needed to wait and observe so as to determine the best way to spin things, should that be needed.

But Pepper digressed.

"Because keeping track of external demographics means that instead of measuring successful output or active projects or whatever form of actual job performance, our department heads found themselves worried because in a division comprised of 25 people, we only had four black people or nine women or whatever," she replied, once more catching and holding the young reporter's gaze. "And when you're more concerned with checking off boxes instead of producing good, high-quality results, you stop producing good, high-quality results. So, across the entire company, covering four continents, an anonymous poll was conducted. Almost 92% of our employee base took the survey and more than 88% of the participants voted to discontinue tracking demographics."

Pepper paused there and took several sips of water, watching intensely (and with more than a little amusement) as the room absorbed her words. The majority of people still looked stunned, but quite a few of them showed understanding. There were even some flashes of agreement, though they were few and far between.

But it was a start.

"The only time our hiring managers ever consider external factors is when the division itself begs the question," she continued, mentally smirking when that got everyone's attention. "For example, our Level 3 Testing Unit in London is comprised solely of women, all of whom are above the age of 35. And no, I don't know how or why it happened, but that is the reality. Therefore, it would likely be a poor decision to hire a 23-year-old man for that department, as they would have little to nothing in common beyond education. Not that we wouldn't hire him, mind, we would simply offer him a position at a different location or see if there was another department he would be qualified for and interested in. But if we were looking to expand that department, then our hiring choices would be solely based on qualification. And the same principles hold true for SI's Board of Directors," she added, stopping that objection from CNN in its tracks.

"Again, being female — or not white or not straight or any other external factor — does not mean that a person has the knowledge, experience, or skills to do any or all jobs. Nor does being a white male automatically confer those abilities," she said plainly, unwilling to mince words or dance around the subject. "But it would be foolish in the extreme for me, for any person, to dismiss someone simply because they don't meet the required demographics, regardless of how qualified they are for the position or how good they are at the job. And since I am not a fool, it's safe to say that Stark Industries will continue to maintain our position as the number one company to work for, because our current business practices work, and work well. I am not going to change them simply to cater to the delusion that external factors not a single person has any control over are somehow more important than having and using the skills, abilities, and qualifications we require to work here. Nor am I so insecure that I feel the need to punish someone for a trait they were born with simply so I can feel superior. And I assure you: my accomplishments have nothing do to with the fact that I'm a woman. I've succeeded because I am damn good at my job, and I have and will continue to put in the work and effort it takes to succeed."

Again, there was silence.

But this one was a lot more uncomfortable.

Wow. She'd thought they'd reached the pinnacle of awkward with that second silence.

Then she saw the looks of utter disbelief and . . . confusion? . . . on so many of their faces, and understood.

For the first time in actual years, Pepper Potts was truly, genuinely furious. And that fury sparked her to do something rash.

She deliberately threw high octane gas on the fire and gleefully awaited the explosion.

"A lot of people have chosen to forget, or just ignore, the fact that Howard Stark was our founding CEO, followed by Tony Stark. He was our company's CEO for two decades, and he was very, very good at it. If you'll recall, he was the one who successfully navigated SI away from weapons and into the tech industry. And he was also the one who grew SI from a million-dollar, US-based business to a billion-dollar, international company. Tony Stark did that," she repeated, giving a hard look to several of the reporters and news outlets who liked to cause Tony unnecessary grief. "Not me. When he decided to make the transition to full-time head of R and CTO and appointed me as his CEO, that framework was already in place. Of course, I've had to work hard to maintain our growth and stability," she acknowledged, because she did have to work her ass off and she wasn't going to downplay that, or act like it didn't matter. But she also refused to let people dismiss Tony's achievements, and she sure as hell wasn't going to claim them as her own.

"But Tony is the one who made it possible and proved that such a drastic change could be done. And I'm very grateful to him for it, and so proud of him for having the courage to not just make the change, but succeed in it. And his constant, unwavering support in my abilities as I stepped into that role has been invaluable. Would I have succeeded without Tony? Undoubtedly. But it would have been an untold magnitude more difficult," she finished, watching with great enjoyment as many of the women in the room looked torn between pride that Pepper Potts, WOMAN, was the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, and disgruntlement that not only had a man had done it first, but she was openly acknowledging that fact. This dichotomy was a long-standing joke between Pepper and May Parker, and she and Hope van Dyne had developed a drinking game out of it.

Still, it was vastly amusing to call out the people who celebrated Pepper for many of the same things they criticized Tony for doing and watch them flounder.

However, she'd made her point and it was time to end things, at least for today. The cat had been set among the pigeons and the seed planted (yes, she'd mixed her metaphors. So sue her; it had been a long day), as proven by everyone's inability to offer a legitimate rebuttal to the points Pepper had made. Slowly and deliberately, she rose from her chair, wishing she had an actual microphone to drop, and what little noise there was died quickly. She met each person's eyes one last time before simply saying, "That's all the time we have today. Thank you for coming."

Naturally, that woke them up and shouted questions chased her off the stage, but Pepper never faltered as she left the room. Tomorrow's headlines were going to be . . . interesting . . . but even knowing how much of a migraine she'd just set herself up for, she wouldn't change a thing.

As Happy drove her home, Pepper sighed as she considered again her words, and the impact she hoped they would have. It was a fine, difficult line to walk, being a woman in the world of high-end corporate business. In no way did she want to discourage women from being ambitious and achieving their dreams. But it worried her to see so many of the younger generations sneering at men and disregarding their contributions, past, present, and future, simply because they were male. She wasn't stupid and knew that an astonishing number of people really did think she'd been the unofficial CEO of Stark Industries for years before Tony had promoted her, and nothing anyone said, including her, seemed able to change their minds. And that irritated her beyond belief, on his behalf and hers. She simply could not understand why so many people were threatened at the idea of an equal power balance between a man and a woman, but their inability to foster that kind of relationship was beginning to cause serious problems in the business world.

Of course, she often wished she could beat some of her Board members and more than a few department heads with a baseball bat — but surprisingly little of that attitude was due to them disrespecting Pepper for being a woman. In all truth, it was mostly because she had been promoted to CEO without taking any of the standard stepping stones, and thus, they all assumed she'd slept her way to the top. The fact that this was, in fact, impossible, utterly escaped them. In one of the most beautiful examples of irony ever seen, people either thought she'd only gotten the position because she'd seduced Tony into giving it to her, and was thus unqualified — though they were unable to explain her ability to do the job, and do it really fucking well — or they assumed that Tony had never really run his company, it had been her since she'd been hired, but they still somehow thought she wasn't qualified because . . . well, once again, they could never give a concrete reason. In other words, it was the perfect Catch-22 for them and a massive headache for her.

The other primary obstacle she dealt in the boardroom was because she often implemented solutions and introduced ideas that differed from or outright disagreed with theirs. And she also got a maddening amount of pushback from the Board's female members for really random reasons, though surprisingly little of it was envy. The problem was that she wasn't in a position to actually let the public know that small fact.

However, what few people knew — or considered — was the fact that about half of Stane's group of cronies had resigned immediately following his death and another third had left in a huff after Tony made her CEO.

But the rest of Howard and Stane's ilk who had stayed? Well, the aggravating truth was this: despite many of them being stubborn, intractable jerks, they were also good at their jobs. So she fought to earn their respect and trust while respecting their abilities, if not them as individuals, and got on with the business of running her company, because they were all adults and that's what adults did. The thing was, those same men had given Tony just as much grief, albeit in different ways, because that's the kind of person they were.

But the general public would never believe that, or understand it, so Pepper had to fight for change in a different way.

Hence, today's press conference.

After all, the future had to start somewhere. And as Tony met her at the door and pulled her into a strong embrace, murmuring his love and pride into her ear, Pepper smiled.

The future had to start somewhere, and she was engaged to The Futurist.

What better place to begin?

~~~
fin

Greetings!

Okay, so this one has the potential to be . . . polarizing. I do understand that and am more than willing to accommodate it - as long as things stay reasonable, respectful, and realistically calm.

This one came about from the increasing number of stories wherein Pepper is asked the 'see more women in power at SI' question and instantly says 'yes', with no hesitation or thought.

And on the surface, that's great.

Here's the thing: I grew up in the business world. My parents owned their own business before I was born and just retired a few years ago, so I have literally lived my life in that world, both corporate and mom-and-pop (no pun intended; I never actually worked for my parents because that tends to be a bad idea). My mom was the owner/CEO of the company and it was in a male-dominated industry - salt and feed for big animals, prisons, feed stores, etc. A lot of business in rural America, which is male-heavy).

So I saw firsthand how condescending men can be toward women, and it is absolutely infuriating. But I also saw firsthand how many men respected my mother and her abilities and trusted her with the dietary health of their livelihood, which could easily be a multi-million dollar risk. And I saw several companies replace qualified men, who might or might not have been jerks but still good at the job, with women who . . . weren't. Not always, of course, but it happened a lot more than it should.

On the corporate side, I can't tell you how many times unqualified people were promoted because of demographics, and how often that practice helped create a hostile and/or toxic work environment. Not always, of course, but a lot. And corporate being corporate, they would rather die or run off their employees than admit they were wrong or made a mistake, so unless the person(s) voluntarily left, we were stuck with them.

So it makes no sense to me that Pepper Potts, who is the dictionary definition of 'sensible', 'intelligent', and 'practical', would engage in business practices that did not guarantee the best results for her company. But I also don't believe she would denigrate anyone for a reason as nebulous as 'born this way'.

So . . . I present to you: D(iligence) E(xcellence) I(ntegrity)