I actually hadn't even known they'd ever interacted AT ALL when I started shipping them. I just heard about it, and then I really liked it because of the personality appeal. (Sort of an opposites attract type thing - uptight and bespoke with snarky and rugged). I figured it was like a Mystrade thing - Mycroft and Lestrade of Sherlock fandom, who were the second largest pairing in Sherlock fandom way back when even though they'd literally never interacted in the show and most likely didn't even know about each others' existences. I was quite pleasantly surprised when I heard Clint and Phil had shared some lines beforehand.
Some pairings with extensive interaction have small followings while others with little to no interaction hit it big. In most fandoms, I've noticed that canon interaction between the characters often has very little to do with the popularity of the pairing. Usually it's just the characters themselves, their histories personalities. If you look at (MCU) Steve/Tony fics, they often have very little to do with the tension built up in the movies - usually it's related to their personalities (very proper hero with the very improper anti-hero), their histories (daddy issues with Steve and Howard, anyone?), and their backgrounds (old-fashioned man out of time vs modern futurist). Usually, even when their canon interaction is brought up it's mostly in relation to those previous not-directly-canon issues rather than the interaction itself.
*shrugs* Really, most of fandom in general tends to just use canon material as a jumping point and run away from there, if you think about it. ANY pairing - from something as popular as Steve/Tony or canonical as Pepper/Tony to as remote as, IDK, Frigga/Tony (most obscure pairing I could think of that actually has fic for it) needs little to nothing - even if it'll happily take a lot - because most of fandom at large doesn't need that much to go on in the first place.
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Some pairings with extensive interaction have small followings while others with little to no interaction hit it big. In most fandoms, I've noticed that canon interaction between the characters often has very little to do with the popularity of the pairing. Usually it's just the characters themselves, their histories personalities. If you look at (MCU) Steve/Tony fics, they often have very little to do with the tension built up in the movies - usually it's related to their personalities (very proper hero with the very improper anti-hero), their histories (daddy issues with Steve and Howard, anyone?), and their backgrounds (old-fashioned man out of time vs modern futurist). Usually, even when their canon interaction is brought up it's mostly in relation to those previous not-directly-canon issues rather than the interaction itself.
*shrugs* Really, most of fandom in general tends to just use canon material as a jumping point and run away from there, if you think about it. ANY pairing - from something as popular as Steve/Tony or canonical as Pepper/Tony to as remote as, IDK, Frigga/Tony (most obscure pairing I could think of that actually has fic for it) needs little to nothing - even if it'll happily take a lot - because most of fandom at large doesn't need that much to go on in the first place.