Name: Virginia "Pepper" Potts Door: door pass, domCanon: Avengers: Infinity War Canon Point: right after she gets off the phone with Tony at the start of the film. Age: 46 Appearance: 1 & 2History: iron man general wiki / marvel wikis for movie 1, 2, 3, & IWPersonality: ❝ you are the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person i've ever met. ❞It might seem like kind of a cop-out to use a quote from Tony Stark to kick off this whole shebang, but really, it's the most direct and accurate statement made about Pepper Potts in the trilogy of Iron Man films, as well as her appearances in the other MCU films. At least, it's everything she strives ridiculously hard to be.
On the surface, and as most people know her, Pepper is the hardworking, relentless, dedicated, and capable CEO of Stark Industries. She's been with the company for nearly two decades, which makes it pretty clear she's ridiculously loyal on a professional ( and personal, but that's for later ) level. I say 'ridiculously' because she would kind of have to be in order to put up with Tony for years and years, as his personal assistant, handling his schedule and his, ahem, lifestyle choices. It's made clear that before the movies take place, he was definitely more focused on his tinkering and partying than actually running the company, and she's learned to take his antics in stride, as well as tactfully clean up after him when it's necessary. That said, she's a meticulous planner, highly professional even in the most awkward of situations ( escorting Tony's one-night-stands out the next morning seemed to be pretty standard protocol for her, before they started seeing each other exclusively later on in the movies ), and is very patient when it comes to doing whatever it takes to accomplish a task at hand.
However, her morals and.. well.. anxiety really do have a huge impact on the things she does and the decisions she makes, although that's gotten much more manageable over time. Multiple times throughout the different films she talks about how stressed she is, how she'll have to quit because she isn't sure she can physically handle the pressure. This is mostly a result of her reacting poorly to situations she can't possibly control ( sup, anxiety? ), letting her expectations get in the way of her being able to handle certain thing. In the first film she says she might resign because can't stand to see Tony going through the things he does as Iron Man. She doesn't ask him to stop being Iron Man, no, because she knows by now that it's what he feels is the right thing, what he's meant to do, but to be a part of it, to know his secret and not be able to help him in the same way she can as his assistant, it's nearly enough to drive her away. She's morally against violence, to an extent, again- mostly just in a personal way since she did work for a weapons manufacturing company until it changed directions. She won't try and dissuade people from doing what they want, but her personally, she'll never instigate violence or what she feels is 'wrong'.
On a more personal level, Pepper is fiercely loyal and protective of those she cares about, although she's very internal about it, introverted in most situations. However! If you're someone she's close to - like Tony, or Happy - you've likely seen her at her most snarky and outspoken when she feels the need to speak her opinion. ( She also has a habit of getting more than a little bit sarcastic when she's around people she doesn't respect very much [ see: Justin Hammer ], but shhhh, it's Tony's fault, Tony brings that out in her, and it's usually quite subtle. ) Although she's grown out of her quiet nature quite a bit since the first movie, she's more likely to listen and absorb information before reacting, to make sure she's responding to it accordingly. She works on intuition, sure, but when it comes to executive decisions, she will not do so without knowing all the facts.
Now, as CEO of Stark Industries, she's learned to be more outward and honest about her feelings, still very polite and sensitive in a lot of ways, but more direct, confident. She might be an emotional person at times ( ok she definitely is ), and if she's reached a certain point of urgency she'll express those feelings in a somewhat manic way, but otherwise she's very good about keeping things light and simple. Even now that she's in charge instead of running things more 'behind the scenes', she's still very competent, and despite the public opinion that she might not be the best person for the job at the start, she manages to keep things together, and by the time the Avengers Initiative is starting to come together, she's managed to make a lot of positive changes for the company. Like the decision to use arc reactor technology to have the Stark Tower run on 100% clean energy. Things like that. See! Big changes. She's doing alright for herself.
In Iron Man 3, we see a fully matured Pepper Potts, running the company entirely on her own ( with some heavy-lifting help from Iron Man ), and even standing up to Tony now more confidently, instead of waiting until she's reached breaking point to confront him about her concerns. Granted, they're.. in a relationship now instead of the boss/secretary situation they've been in before, but it's a noticeable development. She's more sure of herself now, more accepting of her position of power, yet she hasn't let it change her in a negative way. Well, she doesn't think so. But Killian makes a joke about her ego, and now her expectations of people ( her staff, specifically ) has stepped up even higher. She expects people to be the "best versions" of themselves, but sometimes her expectations are too, too high. She's a little less optimistic of how good people can be, but she isn't a cynic or anything, just.. smarter. She doesn't assume everyone is going to have people's best interests in mind, and she's gotten very good at reading signs of someone with less than savory intentions. ..Kind of. No, it's more like the potential for darker things. In the long run, she really does expect people to do the right thing, but she no longer ignores the possibility that they won't. This is entirely because of what she's seen on an executive level at SI, and from seeing the sorts of things Tony handles as Iron Man. The world is a pretty dark place, she knows this, and now she's pretty equipped to deal with it. Mostly, anyway.
And, because Tony Stark is, as she put it, "all she has", it feels appropriate to include the side of her we see when she's around him. She's actually a lot more comfortable being a little harsh with him, only in a blunt-truth way, very often choosing to be completely straight-forward with him, even if it's a negative statement. If not more often when it's a negative. She knows he's a genius, that he's capable of doing many great things with his life, so whenever she thinks he's doing something that works against that, she lets him know it. Usually in a somewhat sarcastic way, too. As stated before, Tony brings out her cutting, sarcastic wit at times, even if it's used against him more than anyone else. She's able to be pretty damn snarky at times, but it all comes down to Pepper holding very high expectations of people and what they should be bringing to the table, so to speak.
Even before they were together, the romantic sense, she treated him very much the same. Despite Tony's partyboy nature before the movies, it's obvious she has a certain level of expectation of him to be responsible and smart, that she gets really annoyed when he's doing things that prove that wrong. It's almost overbearing, in a way- someone without the same confidence as Tony might see it as incredibly bossy of her, but she's learned she kind of has to be that way when it comes to his impulsive nature. Luckily, now that he's named her the head of the company, that isn't such an issue anymore.
Now she mostly harps on him about making sure he's taking care of himself, and that he's not getting too caught up in the Avengers antics ( haa haa haa ) that kind of thing. Oh, and date nights. She really, really doesn't like when he messes up date night. Powers and Abilities: baseline human with a TINY bit of extremis left in her system - which is an enhancement that, at this point in her life, just helps her heal up fast when she's injured. before tony "fixed it" she was kind of a lava monster, but now she can just heal! and her hands are always warm. that too. Inventory: - her stark phone! which won't be able to be used as a communications device, but it has her apps on it, ok. Samples: tdm with a network starter and action spam starter |