Captain America: Professional Best Friend

A New Job?

After leaving the hospital Emma finds herself at a hotel by the end of her taxi ride. She checks into a room for the night and runs a hot bath and plays her piano playlist to relax. While soaking in the warm water, the physical pain from the week subsides, but the emotional pain finally makes its full appearance. 

Emma tries to close her eyes, listen to the music, and just be, but her mind has other ideas. Behind her closed eyes are flashes of the week's events. The guns pointed and shot at her and Fury, the feeling of the knife being held to her throat, the masked man in her kitchen, the sirens blaring, having to witness Steve get shot, and watching the helicarriers going down with Steve inside.

The thoughts race through her head, unrelenting, and Emma finally breaks. Hot tears stream down her cheeks, but this time she doesn't try to stop them. Emma lets herself cry freely and lets out her emotions, not holding back. A few minutes pass and she feels a weight lift slightly off her shoulders in a moment of catharsis.

As Emma wraps herself into a towel after her bath, her phone begins to ring. Hoping it was Sam or even Steve, Emma quickly picks up the call, "Hello?"

"Hi, is this Emma Baker?" a female voice asks from the other end.

"Of course it's her, Pep, I know how to find people's contacts," a male voice chimes in from far away in the room. Tony Stark.

"This is her, yes," Emma replies, her curiosity peaking at what they could be calling her about.

"Great. So yes, Miss Baker, this is Pepper Potts, if you remember me from back in the day."

"Of course I do, it's good to hear from you. How have you been?"

"I've been good, thank you. Now, I know everything is still fresh and you may still need time, but-" Pepper tries to start off gently.

Suddenly, Tony's voice comes onto the call saying, "What she's trying to ask is if you want to have a job at Stark Industries since your former job at SHIELD is no longer viable. We could use a kickass reporter like yourself on our team."

"Tony!" Pepper scolds before saying, "He is right though, we were hoping that you would be interested in a reporting position with Stark Industries. You would be handling everyday reports to the public, press conferences, newsletters, and some aspects of the website."

"And anything Avengers related if it comes up," Tony adds on, "I know you and Spangles get on well."

"Tony!" Pepper scolds again with a slight laugh to her tone.

"Point is, you're good, we could use you on the team. Whatever tech you had at SHIELD I'll match it, actually, I'll make it better. So what do you say?"

Emma's jaw drops at the generous offer and is rendered speechless for a second, "Wow, I-thank you two so much. I would love to take you up on that offer, you have no clue how much this means to me."

"Great!" Pepper cheers. "We can have an interview in New York tomorrow? I know it's soon, but we want to get you settled into the position as quickly as possible."

"Tomorrow is perfect. What time?"

"Well we are having another agent from SHIELD interview with us at 2 pm, so would around 3 pm work for you? We know you're in DC right now, so Tony will send one of the jets there to get you two here on time."

"That works perfectly," Emma smiles. "Again thank you. A fast turnaround and change of pace are just what I need, I really do appreciate it."

"It's no problem at all, Emma," Pepper replies. "We'll see you tomorrow."