Behind a Smile

C1 - A great first day

"Yeah this is Kai, I saw the press conference, need me to head on in?" Joan could almost cry with happiness, thank god for Kai.

"Yes, yes, please. That would be great. Thank you so much."

"Don't worry about it, I get it. Wait until Tony pulls one of these, it's going to be twice as busy." Kai said, chuckling. "Well, I'm about ten minutes out, I was just at the skatepark but took a break to watch the press conference. Good thing I did, ain't it. Well, I'll see you in a bit. Go and do your thing, you got this."

"Thanks, Kai, you are a lifesaver." They said and with that, they hung up. "FRIDAY, can you remember me to look into Kai's performance? Is this something he does often? When is the last time he got a raise, that sort of thing."

"Of course, Mx Ramirez." FRIDAY responded.

"Oh none of those formal titles, although I'm glad you are using the correct one. Just call me Joan. You are going to make me feel old."

"Naturally, Joan. I would like to inform you that Miss Potts is video-calling you."

They hit their head against their desk a few times before responding. "Thank you, FRIDAY, accept please." A holographic screen appeared in front of her, the width of her desk and the right half was covered by Pepper's face. The other half had the current social media statistics displayed, as they had indicated when they set it up. "Ah, Miss Potts, to what do I owe the pleasure." They said, sarcastically. "It couldn't possibly be about a surprise announcement that someone decided was not worth discussing with the... I don't know, head of PR?"

Pepper smiled apologetically. "Sorry Jo, that reporter was just..." Pepper made a strangling motion with her hands. "That doesn't excuse it, I know. Let me know what I can do to help."

Joan waved the apology away. Even though it wasn't what they wanted their first day to look like and it would mean a lot of problem fixing, they too knew that they would probably have reacted the same way. It's what happens when you put together a bunch of passionate people and give them the opportunity, they are going to do something they are proud of and want to shout it from the rooftops. "Oh, can't whine about having to do my job. I would've preferred it once I had gotten to know my staff better, but we can't get everything in life. What you can do is go and talk to Legal, you know, the people who currently have the most to do with the project. Try to have them work even faster. Pull a few all-nighters, make it a pizza party I don't care. The public is expecting a launch date and it will ideally be within two weeks instead of the planned two months. I want legal to get back to me within two days so I know what to announce."

Pepper ran a hand through her hair. "Pizza party, yeah that could work. Create the best out of a bad situation. Keep up morale. Besides, the earlier this is up and running, the better. Kids being able to get out of abusive households, all that. Alright, I'm going to be in my office, trying to gather as many employees as possible and try to get enough pizza for everyone. Thanks again." Pepper was already hurrying off when FRIDAY ended the call. Joan inspected the now full-screen statistics. Twitter was raving about it, Tumblr even more so. The hashtag QueersStanSI was already trending. But there were quite a few comments on the demographic as well. Some saying stuff as kids pretending to be part of the community, just to get shelter. Sending out a message to all employees that whoever was free was encouraged to help with this PR emergency, paid in overtime. They got to work on reacting to the messages with the official Stark Industries account. This was going to be a long day, they could already tell.

____

Spider-man was swinging through the streets of Queens, looking around for people to help. The rain was pouring and he was already freezing, but it wasn't like crime stopped because of a little bit of rain. People still needed help and accidents still happened. So he wasn't surprised and was strangely relieved when his spider senses got significantly more noticeable as he saw a car crash waiting to happen when a car started slipping on the wet road. He managed to shoot a web to stop the car from hitting other cars and out of danger and went to check up on the driver. The driver was, understandably, in a state of shock. But instead of just needing to catch their breath and being filled with adrenaline, they were actually starting to have a panic attack. Thankfully, Spider-man had experience with those, so he knew a few techniques that could help them