• she’s a born leader. when thrust into precarious situations, her first instinct is to take charge of the situation. despite not being a superhero herself, she actually utilises the resources in her control to make the best of a situation; she leads shield agents to regular cops and directs them on what to do
• pepper is a strategic thinker, and whenever an issue occurs, not only does she take charge, her priority is the civilians (just like tony). this is pepper in im2, giving instructions to the local cops in order to help stop the damage:
Pepper: When they get here, I think you should station them at the south, east, and both west exits.
Cop: We shut down the 7th train in and out of willets point already.
Pepper: Well, have the city buses there to ferry people to operating lines.
• pepper actually stays back at the expo during vanko’s attack (despite there being no immediate need to do so), because she wanted to wait until ALL of the civilians were cleared.
• she’s NOT written in the typical rom-com way of “PA in love with asshole boss” (in mcu). in fact, it’s the opposite, while she may have feelings for tony prior to im1, at no point is she shown to be endlessly pining for him or being jealous of other women.
• in her relationship with tony, it is NOT her who has a hard time getting tony (the-playboy-billionaire) to commit, it’s the reverse. tony is the one begging her to marry him, to prepone their marriage, to have a kid etc. it’s such a wonderful trope reversal.
• she actually runs the largest tech conglomerate on earth (in tony’s own words). the only one who invests more time and energy into stark industries is JARVIS – a literal AI.
• she’s fricking incredibly brave. she went to obadiah’s office to steal information from right under his nose. she is no superhero, doesn’t know combat, isn’t a trained superspy, she’s just a civilian, who does it because it needed to be done.
• she is quite ready to kill someone she loves for the greater good. she did it back in im1, when there was no earth in danger, no alien attacks, but the only consequence was that obie might escape with arc-reactor technology. as peggy carter said, she respects the dignity of tony’s choice.
• she actually killed two out of three of the villains of iron man. it seems that she does take out the trash.
• she also planned to invite avengers into her home. (as you can see pepper & tony together planned the remodel of avengers tower with rooms for each avenger. and the stark tower was pep’s & tony’s home first.)
• she actually believes in the goodness of people. she consoles maya hansen and tells her not to be so hard on herself. this is tony’s ex-girlfriend, and also someone who works for a terrorist (both of which pepper knows at this point), but even so, pepper sees the best in maya.
Pepper: You can’t be too hard on yourself, Maya. I mean, you gave your research to a think tank.
Maya: Yeah, but killian built that think tank on military contracts.
Pepper: that’s exactly what we used to do. So, don’t judge yourself.
• also, notice how pepper uses “we”, and not “tony” or “stark industries”. that’s why tony & pepper make a good pair, because their values match – they hold themselves accountable. pepper takes responsibility for obie double-dealing weapons – despite the fact that neither pepper nor tony knew about it, despite the fact that she was “just a PA” when it happened.
• pepper believes in teams, she doesn’t say it as a catch-phrase, but it is evident in her actions – a failure on the part of the team (SI’s weapons manufacturing) will be shouldered by each member of the team (both pepper and tony).
• also, when pepper is ambushed killian, her first instinct is to tell maya to save herself. she’s genuinely concerned about others (just as much as tony).
• she’s not the emotional sounding board of the hero. pepper does try to help tony the best she can. she is one of the few (along with Rhodey & happy) who recognise that tony is having mental health issues, and she encourages him to sort it out. but the moment it seems to harm her, she steps back. i know that the fandom considers pepperony “toxic” or even “abusive”, simply because pepper doesn’t play the role of therapist for tony. but after a parade of female characters who cure male characters depression/ptsd/or general funk through the “power of love”, i for one am sure glad that we have a heroine who doesn’t act as a therapist or emotional sounding board to a grown man.
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