god there’s something so emotionally genuine about cap 3/avengers 3 tony in particular that’s just… it’s just these glimpses of casual, unassuming generosity. toward strangers. toward people he’s just met
he shares a patched up memory of the last time he saw his parents with a student audience, as part of a call to “reframe the future.” he acknowledges that the young people in that room are dealing with “some of the greatest challenges mankind’s ever known.” and he isn’t just talk, he’s there to fund all their research. he’s not claiming any credit for himself
the staff forgot to take pepper’s name off the teleprompter. they couldn’t have known how that would knock tony off-balance. he took both arms of the woman who came to apologize to him and told her it was fine
charlie spencer’s mother gives him a perfect opening, a perfect opportunity for some cocky comment: “it was nice what you did for those young people.” tony’s hurt and alone and he wants to leave quietly and he doesn’t want to talk and he’s never seen this woman in his life and he doesn’t take that opening to make the self-aggrandizing comment that the woman might have expected. he says that those young people deserved that money. he acknowledges his guilt to a complete stranger
he apologizes for how his hypervigilance manifested. he doesn’t interrupt ms. spencer a single time while she communicates her grief and blames him for what happened to her son. he doesn’t say a single word in self-defense.
he looks up charlie spencer. he looks at pictures. he memorized his GPA. he publicly acknowledges the way charlie had been more mature than him at his age. “that’s charlie spencer, by the way. he’s a great kid.” and his voice was barely steady.
“we’re taking a break,” tony tells steve, about pepper. “it’s nobody’s fault.”
he’d been developing suit upgrades for a kid he’d seen on youtube. he’d never met this kid. tony stark sits on a computer and he sees random kids in videos and he says: “i want to help them.” he gave peter his full attention and empathy while peter described his motivations as spider-man. not once did he invalidate the kid’s drive.
he goes on morning jogs with pepper. he talks to her about the dreams he’s had, the weird dreams where he had to pee, the good dream where they had a kid. he tells her and he’s so earnest. “it felt so real.” he wants to protect pepper from the monsters in his closet. there are so many monsters living in his closet.
“no more surprises,” he tells her. he’s trying his hardest to just make it work. he automatically reaches for her when he feels threatened.
tony takes bruce in his arms when he almost collapses.
he’s been carrying the phone steve sent him in his pocket wherever he goes. the mere idea of steve still hurts him, but for a moment there, he braced himself to put all his hurt aside to call him, because he recognized that the situation was bigger than that hurt.
there’s some kind of commotion outside. people are screaming. tony’s the first to step outside. the world is falling apart around him and he stops to help one woman up. he worries about evacuating civilians.
bruce can’t hulk out. tony tells wong to watch over him, and steps up himself.
“unlock 17A.” just how many mechanisms has tony created specifically to protect this one kid who’s dying to be like him?
he tell pepper he’s sorry. he still calls her “honey.”
he’s in space, he’s confronting his nightmare scenario, and he doesn’t want to route the ship back home. he can’t bring this fight to earth. he’ll go to an unknown planet to make sure this fight doesn’t happen where there’s people.
it’s all a scenario that has been haunting his nightmares for years. he’s gonna face it in the hopes that others won’t have to.
he tries to ground strange. he has “i know what it’s like when your mind tortures you” written all over him, all over everything he does and says.
the plan is almost working. they almost have that gauntlet. but a grief-stricken peter quill is about to do something very stupid. tony’s helmet disappears: “steady quill. we almost have him!” he knows what’s going on in quill’s head. he never invalidates the emotional turmoil. he’s without his helmet, risking his life to treat quill with as much sympathy as could be afforded in the moment. he never holds their failure against peter.
he tells strange not to do it. he’d rather die.
mantis disappears. drax disappears. tony turns to peter quill, and again: “steady, quill.” he’s watching everyone go and it’s his worst case scenario and he’s trying to stabilize the others.
“you’re all right,” he tells peter. he holds this kid until he goes away. it’s going to be in his head forever. peter and the whole world can come back a thousand times, but peter parker still sobbed into his arms, begging not to go, and he couldn’t do anything.
“and if you die, i feel like that’s on me,” he told peter once. he brought peter into this game. in the spaceship, when peter flippantly and nervously tells tony that technically it’s his fault that he’s in space, something about tony’s expression makes him immediately apologize.
“i’m sorry, i’m sorry,” peter tells tony before he goes. because he knows. he knows it will be hell on tony.
(and he’s so much like him. it’s his last words and he’s going to use them to say how sorry he is.)
tony’s heart is just hanging there on his sleeve, like, if anyone can’t see it at this point then just… i don’t know. i guess that’s what makes his story feel so real. the discrepancies between how he’s widely perceived vs how he actually is are just so real. and i don’t know if that’s something that can be explained by the masks he wears anymore. at this point is more about whether or not people can accept change when they see it, whether people can admit that growth is possible, whether people are willing to empathize. because really. all the masks and armors tony wore in infinity war were there to protect other people. it was all so he could look at someone else and say, “steady” and “you’re all right” when nothing was. when he wasn’t.
