Disclaimer: These characters are not mine.
Holes
Tony Stark was a genius. Correction: Tony Stark was a fucking genius - and he knew it too. That was the whole problem. Cocksure in more ways than one, the wunderkid grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and not surprisingly, made use of every advantage he had. Excelling early in school with access to the best teachers, supportive parents, and - most importantly - firsthand knowledge of computer engineering's coming of age in the early 1990s, Tony's brilliance was almost like the rising of the sun - expected, inevitable.
Virginia Potts was a different story. Only child to a quiet couple, she grew up in a small house in a small town where the streets were safe and night, and where people rarely locked their doors. Her world was small, safe... So it was not out of the ordinary when she chose to read accounting in college: that was just like Ginny.
Some at home thought her decision to join Stark Industries was impulsive - the Memphis belle must have been swayed by sweet-talking recruiters at the college graduation job fair, and lured away by the promise of bright lights. But the simple fact of the matter was that Ginny had done her homework and research, and Stark Industries simply was a safe bet. With two aging parents to care for, and no conceivable way in which she could account for inflation and rising gas prices, Virginia Potts' decision was nothing more than mathematical. Stark Industries was solid. Safe.
Moving into the city was less painful than she had imagined. California always seemed... so bright to Pepper. The company offered a generous moving allowance, and she had saved a bundle by driving across the country with her stuff in the trunk. She'd never been one to succumb to consumerism - though that was more a matter of necessity than desire. After a week of staying at a cheap motel, she found a nice place on the office bulletin board (someone was getting married and moving), moved in, and began building a life for herself.
She never thought it would be so boring. Stark Industries was at the cutting edge of research and development in numerous fields: jet propulsion and weapons research, sustainable energy sources, elemental reactor technology... but she had been assigned to the head of the audit department. There were no field trips into the wind tunnel labs, no tours of the algae biofuel tanks, no entry to the reactor rooms for safety reasons... just numbers to be checked, crunched, and then checked over again.
She signed up for pilates and yoga on the weekend, but found that while it loosened her tight muscles and toned her body, it did nothing for her mind. In a fit of pique at the sheer mundane-ness of the life she led in California, Pepper took up Stark Industries' generous employee development plan, and applied to read a Masters in Business Administration in Pepperdine University, taking the name of the Christian university as a good sign. It took the better part of two and a half years, but she finally finished it, and dedicated her graduation to her late father.
Her new qualifications gave her an upwards bump in her salary (which she promptly used to buy her first pair of Louboutins she'd been saving up for), and an unsolicited interview with HR, enquiring about her future goals in the company. She said simply, I want to be help us grow, even as I grow.