Behind a Smile

C1 - A great first day

Although Pepper Potts was famous for dealing with Tony 'PR nightmare' Stark, she was just about to create a big one herself. Yes, even she had moments where she went against all logic in her brain telling her to plan things out and just said screw it and announced whatever it was. It was rare, but this was one of those occurrences. Sometimes it was because she was so passionate about it, she couldn't keep from talking about it. Other times she just couldn't keep a secret to put a reporter in their place. Like right now.

"Thomas Adamson from Youth Magazine. Stark Industries likes to present as this company that uses about 10% of its profits to give back to the community. How can you justify saying this and do nothing about the growing population of homeless people on the streets of New York and actually around the whole country and the average age?" The reporter asked, getting increasingly more aggressive in how he asked the question.

Pepper was furious. Not only can an organization only do so much, but instead of acknowledging that they, a multi-billion-dollar company spends 10% on of its profits, which is an extraordinary feat because these profits also need to be used to compensate for failed products, invest in new ones, could be pocketed by the stakeholders. They could be doing so many things and instead, they are using it to give back to the community. They are helping children go to college when they are less fortunate, they help veterans get the support they need, including medical expenses. They are helping transgender children get things they need for their transition. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

How dare he claim that they are doing nothing for the community because they can't immediately supply a solution for a rapidly growing problem that only increased significantly somewhere in the past of last year. They are not a relief organization, their support is not the main goal of their company and they have to deal with so much backlash from greedy stakeholders, legalities and it's just... It's infuriating because they would love to have solved the problem already and now they are accusing them because they haven't yet.

"Mister Adamson, although I would advise you to next time not ask a question so out of context from the original intention of this press conference about the appointment of a new Head of our Legal department, I would like to clarify that we are currently working on shelters across the country dedicated to youth, especially those from the LGBTQ+ community. This, however, requires time and space amongst other things. It requires people to run shelters, it requires places for the shelters to be, it requires all sorts of legal matters that the legal department is currently knee-deep in. So needless to say, we don't need to justify anything as your claim is false. I will not be further commenting on this project and will only be accepting questions about Mx. Ramirez's new position in our company. She proclaimed and continued on with the press conference.

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Meanwhile, Joan was sitting behind their desk and watching the press conference, groaning. They were going to murder Pepper. She can't just make these claims and not answer anything about it. Misinformation was going to be spread, the release dates were going to have to be moved up or the public would react negatively, and combatting the backlash about the fact that it would focus on teens in the LGBTQ community needed more employees than were scheduled to be present today. So yeah, they were going to murder Pepper Potts. But not right now, because right now they needed to think of how to handle this mess.

When they heard the phone ring, they eyed it wearily, it wasn't going to be more bad news, was it? One sigh later they picked it up. "Stark Industries PR Department, you have reached Joan, how can I help you?" they asked, trying their hardest to keep up the façade of being ready for every challenge and able to help everyone.