Pepper Potts

Pepper Potts is a supporting character from the Iron Man movies and comic books.

Pepper, originally in the secretarial pool, gets her job by fixing an accounting mistake made by Stark himself. Pepper is originally infatuated with Tony and responds to the attentions of Stark's chauffeur and assistant Happy Hogan with caustic remarks. This, almost immediately after her first appearance, coupled with Stark's growing affection for her, puts her in a love triangle between Stark and Hogan. Pepper is for a time interested in Iron Man, unaware that he and Stark are the same person. However, she eventually falls in love with and marries Hogan, eloping with him in Tales of Suspense #91, though that relationship is not without its troubles.

Pepper and Happy eventually leave Stark Industries, settling in the Rocky Mountains and then finally in Cleveland, where they adopt children after being unable to conceive, and disappear from the main Iron Man storyline. After being kidnapped by Obadiah Stane (Stark's rival), Pepper tells Tony to stay out of their lives. Pepper and Happy soon divorce after she had an affair with a former college boyfriend. After Tony Stark's return from the Heroes Reborn universe, Pepper and Happy join Tony at his new company Stark Solutions and once again become core characters. After some time, Happy and Pepper once again became involved and remarry, eventually considering conceiving a child to supplement their adopted children. Stark entrusted Pepper with a special remote that could shut him down. However, Pepper was tortured and was forced to hand it over. The trauma caused her to miscarry. Iron Man was able to deal with the remote, but felt guilty that he had placed her in such danger. After Happy sustains massive injuries in a fight with Spymaster during the Civil War story arc, Pepper requests that Tony turn off Happy's life support (using his Extremis abilities). The final pages of Invincible Iron Man (vol. 4) #14 shows the death of Happy; it is implied Tony complied with Pepper's request.

Pepper Potts resumes her activities as personal secretary of Tony Stark. When Ezekiel Stane (Stane's son) causes an explosion during a party hosted by Stark in Taipei, Pepper is trapped under debris and wounded by shrapnel. Suffering severe multiple internal injuries, she is far too weak to withstand a prolonged surgery, so Tony embeds a strong magnet (similar in appearance to the arc reactor of the movie) in her chest, essentially turning Pepper into a cyborg dependent on keeping her chest magnet engaged to stay alive, as he was once.

Pepper survives the less invasive procedure, but it is uncertain when, or if, the magnet can ever be removed. Pepper's body is further enhanced with new cybernetics and upgrades to the magnet, and she fears she is losing her humanity and has become a weapon. Tony tells her the enhancements are not based on Stark technology or weapons-based, but from Danny Rand's design for a new battery. Comforted by this, Pepper embraces her enhancements, exploring her new magnetic powered abilities, like gliding over magnetic lines.

When Tony is blamed for the Skrull invasion, S.H.I.E.L.D. is taken over by Norman Osborn, replaced with H.A.M.M.E.R. and Tony and Maria Hill are fired, along with the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. employees. Tony realizes that Osborn is after the secret identities of heroes, and he decides to go underground with Maria, and also to wipe the knowledge in his own brain. Tony makes Pepper the new CEO of Stark Industries, trusting only her to shut down the company in his absence. Pepper discovers a secret room in Tony’s office which contains a suit of armor that he made especially for her. When Osborn issues an arrest warrant for Tony and sends teams to seize all Stark Industries facilities, Pepper uses this suit to escape just before she herself is arrested.

While Pepper practices using her new suit, instructed by an on-board artificial intelligence patterned after the persona of Edwin Jarvis, a large earthquake hits and she rescues a group of students just before their school collapses on them. This causes her to be detected by H.A.M.M.E.R., and Osborn orders a large commercial jet near her to be shot down just to see what her suit is capable of. Pepper successfully catches the plane, but when she brings it to the nearest airport she is arrested by H.A.M.M.E.R. agents. Interrogated by Osborn, Pepper states that all components of her armor are legal and that the design specifications are available to anyone. She also insists she does not know where Tony is. Despite Osborn threatening her loved ones with prison if she interferes with his search for Tony or attempts any more heroic actions, after being freed she takes off to find Tony herself.

While meeting with the doctor who implanted her chest magnet, JARVIS informs her of a grain silo explosion, with the victims "calling for immediate rescue," which inspires Pepper to adopt "Rescue" as a codename. After helping, she heads to Russia, where she finds Tony. His mental condition deteriorated due to his progressive mind-wipe, Tony does not initially recognize the suit he gave Pepper and attacks her, believing she is an enemy sent by Osborn.

Tony eventually recognizes Pepper and halts his attack. Reunited, they sleep together, but are captured and tortured by Madame Masque, who was assigned by Norman Osborn to track Tony down. Tony admits that he had loved Masque in the past, but when pressed to make a choice, with his own life on the line, Tony chooses Pepper. While the Rescue armor, controlled by J.A.R.V.I.S., restrains Masque, Pepper urges Tony to escape while she delays their attacker. As he flees to Afghanistan, Masque and Pepper go hand-to-hand with each other.

Defeating Masque, Pepper disguises herself as the former, infiltrating H.A.M.M.E.R. while presenting the Rescue armor to Osborn as spoils of battle. Pepper reveals herself when she rescues Black Widow and Maria Hill from Avengers Tower, while the Rescue suit uploads a virus into the H.A.M.M.E.R. mainframe, taking control of the Helicarrier's armory of suits. They then retrieve the hard drive that Hill was assigned by Stark to get, escaping to give it to Captain America. As part of "re-booting" Tony (who has gone into a vegetative state), the magnet in her chest is removed and placed into his.

Tony's memories have to be restored from a years-old backup that he made of them, meaning that he no longer remembers the events of the superhuman Civil War nor his role in it and its aftermath. Equally, it means that he does not remember his affair with Pepper. Pepper survives the removal of her chest device, but demands that a new one similar to Tony's own chest repulsor be re-installed, which is done. Recovered, Tony also gifts Pepper with a new set of the Rescue armor, complete with JARVIS installed, as before.