Would Tony really care for sick Peter? Someone said he would just be grossed out, but I feel like his irondadness would just kick in.
I’ve heard this as well and here are *my personal* thoughts on this. Take or leave what you want of it:
In Iron Man Two we see Tony talking to Pepper, asking her if she’s sick, and then requesting that she wear a mask. It would be easy to interpret that as him being germophobic and that seems like a fair assessment but in more of an ‘I’m an eccentric billionaire and despite having access to the best medical care available, I don’t have time to be sick’ kind of way more so than a fear thing. Then again, he’s already aware that he’s dying from palladium poisoning. So, it seems like the idea that he might catch a cold would be pretty low on his priority list.
Which brings me to my next consideration.
Tony was being extremely defensive during that conversation and may very well have been using shock value to change the subject. I don’t feel like that would be much of a stretch coming from a man who lives and breathes quips.
By the time we get to homecoming, we can already see that Tony is starting to mellow out a little. He’s still kind of high strung but he’s clearly attempting to be something of a role model for Peter. That alone makes it pretty clear that he’s capable and willing to take responsibility for someone else even though he’s still sort of trying to figure out what that might look like coming from him.
We don’t really see anything else until Infinity War at which point, Tony is begging Pepper to have a baby with him. Baby’s are messy. They cry, there’re diapers involved and they get sick. He’s not stupid. Canonically speaking, he's a genius. He knows this but he wants it anyway because he doesn’t care. He’s willing to do those things for his child.
Later in the movie, we see Peter and Tony seamlessly fighting together. Peter back talking and Tony pulling the whole ‘dad talk’ thing, finger wag included when they’re on their way to space. Even Strange confuses their relationship, asking if Peter is his ward. That tells us that in whatever time has passed between homecoming and infinity war, they’ve grown much closer.
In Endgame, While we don’t see much Peter&Tony interactions we do see him with Morgan and there is nothing but soft fatherly love for her. He’s a good dad to her. You can tell that she is his entire world and you can bet that he would be taking care of her when she’s sick.
But, to get back to your question, yes, I think there was a point in their relationship that Tony would have taken care of Peter if he’d needed to. May is clearly the primary guardian and Peter’s not a small child who really needs a whole lot of coddling but I think that if Peter happened to be sick while in Tony’s presence, he would make sure he was taken care of/taking care of himself. Because, in my opinion, he’s at a point in his life where that’s something he just wants to do. He’s always cared about other people, hence the whole saving the world gig but it took time for him to get to where he was ready to do that on a more personal level.
Yes. Because, character growth.
