#the moments where tony is alone with himself in the movies are honestly the most poignant and the most telling #like that gif of the scene where he looks up and says ‘got any more bad ideas?’ #it’s like every time he looks at himself that’s what he’s saying #’what else can i do to fuck everything up’ #and then he goes out and smiles for everyone #because he’s tony motherfucking stark and he can’t be anything but that
can i just
God, he looks so sad so much of the time. Especially when he’s alone. It just kills me.
His moments alone always kill me. And I probably always over analyze it, but Tony Stark owns my soul.
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I think it’s because in his heart he is alone. He doesn’t believe that anyone truly cares about him, has never had any proof of that and so, builds walls and employs defensive tactics to convince the world he is fine, but it’s one thing to sell it to a crowd and another to look in the mirror and convince yourself.
This man stole my heart so long ago that the statute of limitations has run out on the event.**
I always wonder if this was how he always used to look like when he was a kid, back before he learned how to construct walls and flash fake smiles. I read a lot of fics where his kid-self is described as a ‘terror’ or ‘chaos-inducer’ or something, but thinking about it, I don’t think a young Tony Stark would do things to make his father hate him even more. Like, as a kid, he’d actually want to be on his best behavior all the time to get his father, or his mom, to look at him and smile at him and tell him he’s a good boy. But over time, all he learned to do from that was learn how to smile and never mean it, and that no matter what he did, he would never be enough, which so isn’t true.
WAIT WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME ANGST. STOP IT.
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I agree. Tony would have gone out of his way (at least as a pre-teen) to be exactly what his father wanted him to to be and to avoid any negative behaviors that would have turn Howard’s temper, disappointment and hands onto him. I can see him acting out as a teen when he realizes that he will never be good enough for his father and hey, even negative attention is attention right? But as a small child he would have tried so hard to be a ‘good boy’ and I think that expression of loneliness and the vulnerability in his eyes as an adult springs from the childhood longing.
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I completely agree. As well, any flashbacks/time travel in the comics that involve Tony as a kid are all incredibly consistent in portraying him as quiet, curious, independent, and industrious. Sure he has a penchant for building things, (and trying to impress/get approval or attention from them,) and I’m sure that at some point there was the occasional crash/bang/explosion, but other than that he was a kid who would rather stick his nose in a book, (and has a thing for fantasy lit apparently,) than go running around purposefully making trouble.
In the issues I have that show bits from when Tony’d just been shipped off to boarding school, he’s greeted with a room full of boys that are all bigger and stronger than he is and are, by all accounts, looking forward to beating the crap out of the new kid, (which leads me to think that even there Tony was shipped off younger than most kids. He’s like a foot shorter than most of these boys which really makes me think he’s at least a couple years younger). And he doesn’t fight back, doesn’t lip them off, doesn’t use any of the defense mechanisms we’re familiar with in the adult Tony, he just kinda withdraws into himself. And then several panels later it talks about how he’d use his free time to sneak into the LIBRARY so he could read the books he really wanted to read, which the school administrators were denying him, (I take that to mean that Howard told them not to let Tony ‘waste his time’ with stuff like that,) which happens to those fantasy lit books. And you get a panel of Tony reading his books about knights, dragons etc. under a tree as far away from the main school building as humanly possible. It’s really quite striking. I’m quite convinced that as a little kid, before the rebellion and any-attention-is-good-attention phase, Tony mostly did a lot of running away, hiding, and making himself as small of a target as possible.
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See that’s one of the things that makes me despise Howard Stark so much.
He has this amazing, brilliant. loving and sensitive child and just systematically destroys him. To send him away at such a young age. What kind of message does that send to the boy? That not only isn’t he good enough for his father’s attention, that all his efforts to impress and to garner his love were fruitless but that his father not only doesn’t feel Tony is a good enough son, he doesn’t even want to look at him? That may not have been Howard’s reasoning but to such a small child, that is undoubtedly what Tony thought.
And the reading of fantasy by Tony as both a child and an adult is so telling. In fantasy there is not only a land that is leagues away from the life he is now living but there is always a hero and a quest and a purpose, and that hero is always eventually recognized for what he has done and accomplished. And the hero almost always wins the heart of his true love, someone who will love him for who he is. No matter what.
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I think you’re absolutely right. And it’s so heartbreaking that Tony ends up still thinking that Howard was right somehow. Because that’s how it sounds as Tony’s reliving all these memories. He’s not angry, he just sounds so resigned, like there was never any alternative.
You’ve also hit the nail on the head with the fantasy lit as far as I’m concerned. Not only is it escapist, but like you said, the hero gets recognized for his deeds and his true character…and he gets to find his true love. Those kind of worlds had to be irresistible to Tony.
For you, because I’m not near a scanner, a transcription of the three pages in question…Just in case this post didn’t already have enough feels.
Tony (narrating): I was seven when my father decided I was a disappointment to him.
As he grew older and more bitter, he glorified the strength found in a man’s good right arm—
—while the country of the mind became receded to an ever more distant shore.
He distrusted anyone who spent too much time there.
Particularly this changeling son of his, who would rather conquer books in a library than other boys on the playing field.
Maria (crying): Oh, Howard— Boarding school? He’s such a sensitive boy…
Howard: It’s for his own good. He needs discipline, Maria.
kid-Tony: I don’t want to go, sir. I want to—
Howard: Stop being such a coward, boy. You’ve been coddled by wealth, and its made you weak.
Listen to me when I tell you— gold is soft, and silver is brittle. Someday you’ll see the value of iron.
Tony (narrating): My mother’s pleading could not sway him.
I was to be remade in a crucible far from home.
Boarding school boy #1: Looks like we’ve got a new fish.
boy#2: Lookit him, little pansy.
boy#3: Bet he thinks his sweat don’t stink.
boy#1 (grabbing Tony’s bag): Whatcha got inna bag, eh?
kid-Tony: Hey, leggo!
(Tony’s robot falls from the bag to the floor)
kid-Tony: Hey! (rushes to pick it up off the ground)
headmaster: What’s all this, then?
Well. (takes Tony’s robot).
We’ll have no playing with children’s toys at this school.
Tony (narrating): Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended.
Discipline of body.
Strength of character.
But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school’s library.
At thirteen, I discovered Mallory, who showed me a whole new world.
A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself.
Of chivalry and honor.
And the fantastic deeds —
Of armored heroes.
(Tony’s reading Mort D’Arthur, btw).
In which Robert Downey Jr. compares horses to … cats.
Dead for almost 20 years…still taking me to school.
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