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Howard Stark and Maria Stark had not been good parents. Yeah. That was the understatement of the late 20th Century, as far as Tony was concerned. There was just too much going against them from the very beginning for them to figure out how to raise a child in a warm, loving environment. For one, they weren't in love with one another. Tony wasn't even sure they loved each other. At least he was pretty sure Howard didn't love his mother.
Tony wasn't certain if Howard had ever truly loved anybody beyond himself and Steve Rogers. Everything else was poorly recognized fondness. He was fond of Peggy Carter. He was fond of Edwin Jarvis. He was fond of the Howling Commandos. He was fond of Maria Stark. He was... Well, Tony could eventually admit that maybe somewhere underneath all of Howard's attempts to prove otherwise, he was even fond of his own son, for whatever that was worth (which really wasn't much). But, his mom... He thought maybe his mom had loved his father in her own way - not in love, but close enough. And maybe that love consumed her just enough to put up with his fondness and be the picture perfect partner he needed, nice and glossy like a gin and tonic until doors were closed and the only thing glossy were her eyes.
So it was a miracle Tony ever figured out how to love at all, really. He saw his father's fondness and he saw the consequences of his mother's love for his father. And he was caught in the middle, unaware of his father's fondness and uncertain of his mother's love for himself. It was enough to make him, early on, tremble at the notion of love. Who needed it? He didn't. He wouldn't make his mother's mistake of risking that kind of sentiment on someone who didn't deserve it and he wouldn't make his father's mistake of actually tying himself down to someone he didn't love.
But in spite of everything, he loved his mother. He was never sure if there were early good memories he couldn't actually recall, but somehow stuck somewhere in the back of his mind. He wasn't sure if it was just inherent. He wasn't sure if it was pity for her pain. He wasn't sure if it was in return for the few shining moments she tried to be a mother even if she was out of her depth. He just didn't know. He only knew that, for what it was worth (again, maybe not much), he had loved his mother and even told her so in his bravest hours of youth.
The miracle that made it possible for Tony to ever comprehend love was the presence of Edwin Jarvis. Jarvis taught him what it felt like to be truly loved, unconditionally. It was so powerful and so pure that it almost ruined him for anything else and left a hole in his heart that taught him the pain love could cause when Jarvis died. It was bitter and sweet and the guiding hand that Tony had needed. Jarvis was always there when he needed him with honesty, toughness, soothing words, reassuring hands on his shoulder, and the three words that Tony was afraid of saying to anyone other than his mother on rare occasions.
Jarvis taught him how to say "I love you" by always saying it to young Master Anthony when he needed to hear them. He was surprisingly, and thankfully, sentimental. Jarvis taught him that some people could say those words and not only mean them, but act on them and stand by them in good times and bad. Tony had never told Jarvis that he loved him too, but he had. And Jarvis seemed to understand and didn't expect him to say those words out loud. That Tony proved his love for the butler in other ways, like a handmade Christmas stocking or naming his first prototype artificial intelligence program after him, was more than enough.
Some days Tony wished he had returned the verbal sentiment at least once while the man had still been alive, but he had loved him and that love continued to spill out in his very real bond with the man's AI namesake. Jarvis would always be a guiding force in his life.
Obadiah Stane had been his lesson in betrayal and unrequited love. People aren't always what they seem and not everyone who says they love, do. The man pretended to be a Jarvis, but underneath lacked even the fondness of a Howard. He mixed love with hate and broke Tony's trust. Tony was only glad he had never said anything beyond a slurred "I love you, man" even if he had meant it at the time.
He wasn't sure if it was metaphorical or literal or both, but the man had destroyed his heart. He had broken it and left Tony to salvage the shattered pieces. It had changed him. It had brought him to a point of no return. Either he could continue to be his father's son or he could learn to be a man like Edwin Jarvis or a man like Ho Yinsen. He had chosen the latter and for that, the lesson in love that Obadiah had taught him had been an almost necessary evil.
The new Tony Stark would have to figure this love thing out and work harder to keep only the right people close. He would have to understand with love comes the risk of no reciprocation and decide if that was a risk he was willing to take.
Rhodey had been his steady lesson in what it meant to love someone as a brother, more than just a friend. He had been the first person to make Tony stop and wonder, "Is it possible for me to ever be in love with someone?" Because even if he knew he wasn't in love with Rhodey, the man was so familiar and so safe that for a time he almost wished he could have been. But that wouldn't have been healthy for either of them in the long run and so the notion was forgotten.
They were best friends and brothers. This meant more than every one night stand or short-lived relationship Tony had ever had combined. He was, for all intents and purposes, Edwin Jarvis' successor. They could love one another without words. They could prove their love for one another through shared secrets, petty arguments, real hugs, drunken nights, openness and concern. Granted, Rhodey was better at all of these things than Tony, but thanks to Rhodey's influence there would always be hope for Tony to improve. It was an example he sorely needed.
And even though they didn't have to say it, their "I love you, man" moments, slurred and sober, were always understood for what they were worth (and actually, they were worth a lot).
Pepper had taught him that some people deserved to hear the words "I love you" even if they already knew the words to be felt. She had taught him that there was still hope that his jaded ideals on "sentiment" and being "in love" could be completely worn down with the right person. She had almost been that right person.
He had been sure he was at least a little in love with her and she with him. It had been a beautiful and frantic relationship while it had lasted and if ever there had been an argument for platonic soulmates, even after a failed go at romance, it was them. She had taught him that some relationships transcend common sense. They can be broken, unbroken, stretched, plied, taken to the brink and back, braided, unbraided and all of that vulnerability can make it stronger.
She taught him that love can be needy and clingy and frustrating and emotional and fiery and confusing and frightening and very, very worth it. She taught him that gentility and compassion could go hand in hand with ferocity and self-assuredness. She taught him the importance of stability. She even taught him the value of monogamy. She had succeeded where Maria Stark had failed and that worried Tony just a little bit. He didn't want to do to her what his father had done to his mother, not even by accident.
At the end of the day, they needed each other in so many ways, but not in that way. They loved each other, but they weren't in love with each other. And, much to his surprise, that was okay.
Tony's inner circle was small, but that was okay too. If Pepper and Rhodey and his AI were all he had, it was okay. With them he finally understood that he was no longer the man who had everything and nothing. And truth be told, even with them, he was still eccentric and slightly neurotic. He still didn't play well with others. He still had a lot of character flaws and issues he would likely never work through. He didn't like that S.H.I.E.L.D. had pegged him as all of these things, but there was enough truth in them to remind him why he was more than okay with just being a consultant, an asset. Being on a team wasn't something that made sense for a man like him.
Until it did. He hadn't counted on loving his stupid, annoying, weird, screwed up, wonderful, time bomb of a team. But he did. It was confusing. It was against everything he'd ever could have foreseen. And yet the first five people he had loved had been like a lit path to this point, teaching him how to love them and not betray their trust. He knew it was a risk, putting himself out there for these people he barely knew - these people with problems and secrets and masks and trust issues. The chances of getting hurt at some point were astronomical. The chances of his being the one to hurt them, probably even more so. He was a futurist and the future might get better, might get worse. But he couldn't help himself. He loved them.
He didn't say it, but he showed it. He showed his love in building a base where they could live and bond and become a family. He showed love for a man he should have resented by trusting that man to lead them and by following him. He showed love for a man by respecting his culture and helping him adapt to theirs. He showed love for a woman by learning to trust her and by offering her a way to balance her ledger without compromise. He showed love for a man by tolerating his jokes and immaturity the way others had done for himself while still going toe to toe with him because he knew it made him feel like he belonged.
Of course, he also showed love for a raging monster by seeing beyond the rage, but that was a little different. He hadn't counted on loving the other four, but he had hoped he would at least like that one and his hope had not been thwarted.
It had taken him all of 2 seconds to love Dr. Banner. It probably hadn't taken much longer than that to fall in love with Bruce. It was such a blinding love that he didn't even realize it right away. He wouldn't understand all of the ways he'd shown his hand until much later. He hadn't realized that he had so fully given his trust to this man that within the first few hours of knowing him, he had invited him to his place and then intimately shared his deepest secret - that the arc reactor was a terrible privilege he considered part of him. He hadn't realized that his entire being had fallen at the knowledge that this breathtaking man had tried to take his life. He hadn't realized how it must have sounded, waiting on the other line for news that Banner had shown up to the battle. He hadn't realized it until later that the 'nice sentiment' he had proposed would turn out to be his saving grace. He hadn't realized until later how absolutely in love with Bruce Banner he was and when he did, he was relieved to find that Bruce Banner was in love with him too.
And all of the lessons he had ever learned in love found their resting place in the physicist. The bits and pieces he had long struggled with were slowly realized as he grew closer to the other man. Everything he had ever thought himself incapable of was shattered by his desire to prove himself wrong. This was every risk and reward of love combined into one overwhelming package that neither he nor Bruce had ever had much study in how to handle, but they were both geniuses and he was an engineer so one way or another they would figure out how to make it work.
Being in love with Bruce Banner had even made him pity his mother and father for what they had missed out on, but at least their loss had ultimately been his gain. This frightening, wonderful, crazy life was his because of what they started. And, selfishly, he realized he even loved them both for that.
Love had not come naturally to Tony Stark, that was true enough. But - on nights when the whole team managed to be together, during chastisements from Pepper when he had forgotten something important, when Rhodey was on leave and they could hang out, and on lazy mornings in bed or long benders in the lab with Bruce - he was glad he had figured it out eventually.