I wouldn't actually say that being canon stops something from being a rarepair in fandom spaces -- not arguing this for Pepper/Tony in specific, but just in general. Bruce/Betty, for example, is technically MCU canon, but it's not even got 1,000 fics; I'd consider that fairly rare. (I'm coming from MCU entirely, as I'm pretty low on comics canon knowledge.)
Hmm. Neither Rhodey nor Sam get nearly enough love or shipping and I wouldn't try to argue that; but I have a hard time calling Sam/Steve a rarepair with over 2k fics on Ao3. I don't have a hard line for where "rare" ends, but that seems past it to me, even in a fandom the size of Marvel. This may be a function of being a large fan of A) really random pairings and B) threesomes and moresomes -- I've definitely been into pairings, even in giant fandoms (even in MCU, actually), that had single-digit fic counts, so a couple of thousand is a pretty decent number in my book.
It also might be a function of where in the fandom you hang out. I saw a lot of people talking about Sam/Steve, or threesomes/moresomes that included them, and therefore even without fic, it didn't feel as rare to me. In contrast, in the areas I've been in, I saw Jane/Thor be brought up very rarely, and usually as an example of canon doing ships badly, so I felt like that was rarer. (It's not -- it has close to 5k fics, way more than I anticipated even accounting for "I mentioned this in passing cause it's canon, so I tagged it". Definitely not a rarepair.)
Also, in Marvel specifically, the subsections of fandom can make a difference, at least to me? What would be a rarepair in Marvel whole may not feel that way if it's really popular in a tiny corner of the fandom. Take Guardians of the Galaxy as an example: The most popular Guardians-specific pairing, Peter/Gamora, has only about 1k fics, which is low enough that it probably counts as pretty rare in overall MCU fics -- but since none of the other Guardians-specific pairings come close, it doesn't feel nearly as rare as, say, Bruce/Thor, which has around 1,100.
I'm not sure any of this is helpful and I'm a little zonked out, so apologies if none of this made sense, but I've been thinking about this myself lately, so I thought I'd put in two cents.
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Hmm. Neither Rhodey nor Sam get nearly enough love or shipping and I wouldn't try to argue that; but I have a hard time calling Sam/Steve a rarepair with over 2k fics on Ao3. I don't have a hard line for where "rare" ends, but that seems past it to me, even in a fandom the size of Marvel. This may be a function of being a large fan of A) really random pairings and B) threesomes and moresomes -- I've definitely been into pairings, even in giant fandoms (even in MCU, actually), that had single-digit fic counts, so a couple of thousand is a pretty decent number in my book.
It also might be a function of where in the fandom you hang out. I saw a lot of people talking about Sam/Steve, or threesomes/moresomes that included them, and therefore even without fic, it didn't feel as rare to me. In contrast, in the areas I've been in, I saw Jane/Thor be brought up very rarely, and usually as an example of canon doing ships badly, so I felt like that was rarer. (It's not -- it has close to 5k fics, way more than I anticipated even accounting for "I mentioned this in passing cause it's canon, so I tagged it". Definitely not a rarepair.)
Also, in Marvel specifically, the subsections of fandom can make a difference, at least to me? What would be a rarepair in Marvel whole may not feel that way if it's really popular in a tiny corner of the fandom. Take Guardians of the Galaxy as an example: The most popular Guardians-specific pairing, Peter/Gamora, has only about 1k fics, which is low enough that it probably counts as pretty rare in overall MCU fics -- but since none of the other Guardians-specific pairings come close, it doesn't feel nearly as rare as, say, Bruce/Thor, which has around 1,100.
I'm not sure any of this is helpful and I'm a little zonked out, so apologies if none of this made sense, but I've been thinking about this myself lately, so I thought I'd put in two cents.