Tony had genuinely grieved for Coulson. The Agent was a guy who had been with him since the start of his Iron Man voyage, who had been present and helped keep Pepper safe when Obadiah was still a threat, and who had, albeit in less than complimentary fashion, been the representative who did his best to make sure he lived. Natasha didn’t count, not for that, because Coulson never lied about being an Agent, and he respected that.
So nearly four years of history, of working with the man both before and after becoming a consultant... Well. The only ones on the team who might have more claim to being upset about the men were the two agents in the collection, even if he didn’t do much in the way of sharing his sadness over him with them.
Instead, he’d helped defeat the guy who killed him, then did his best to move on. That lasted all of two years, and then those files. Steve and Natasha had done a hell of a number on the world with their little dump and dash maneuver, and Tony had spent weeks trying to clean it up. It was enough to see there were files on Coulson, though how they were marked was weird and he’d put it out of his mind in favor of a much bigger, and more important disaster.
The next time he’d looked, those files had been gone.
And then life happened, Ultron, the fight... Which was what he was rebuilding from now, doing his best to recover and rebuild, focused on the project he’d started shortly after the temporary base he’d built out of a storage facility was done. He’d never want to live there after all, and he’d known that. It was a temporary measure until he could get something bigger and better off the ground.
The fact that most of the people he’d wanted the facility for were suddenly just... not around anymore because of their own rather skewed perception on a fact of people, well. Nothing for it but to move ahead.
Of course, that there were tips, hints, and even cautious inroads to try to bridge the gaps when he wasn’t looking...
JARVIS would have told him immediately. FRIDAY, young as she was, took a little longer to notice, and to bring Tony in on the oddities. To SHIELD and the messes they’d been making.
He didn’t show up the way any normal guy would of course. He was Tony Stark, he didn’t do normal. Instead, he waited for the man to show in public, then simply sat down across from him, staring at him with a stern, level gaze as he took in his health, the way his face had changed in little ways in the years since he’d seen him last. The fact that he seemed more expressive, of all things.
Being dead had clearly been good for the man.