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Howard Stark wasn’t the man the world believed him to be. The headlines called him a genius, which he was, but brilliance didn’t make him a good father. Howard was smart — smart enough to know right from wrong. So how could he do so much harm? And not only that, but to inflict that on his own child?
Howard Stark’s obsession with creation and progress overshadowed his emotions.
Tony had hated his father. Or at least, he thought he had, as hatred was easier than disappointment.
When he really thought about it, no, he didn’t. Not because of the things he did for others, but because of the situations Tony himself had been put through. He understood, but that was not an excuse for Howard to be how he had been. It wasn’t that his father did not know love, but rather that he didn’t know how to express it.
While that wasn’t any better, Tony could understand that. But the biggest difference between Howard and Tony was that Howard had viewed emotions as weakness, had not tried to overcome suppressing them, while Tony did.
And Tony knew that his father would be disappointed by him to know that, but to him, it didn’t matter. Howard saw emotions as vulnerability within himself, and rebellion in Tony.
Tony had hated him for that. Emotions were not rebellion. They were human. And perhaps, that was Howard’s problem, as was Tony’s in his younger years.
Humanity. Mortality.
Tony had been “The Merchant of Death”, and that horrifying title had brought him pride. Why, if not seeking something godly? Why, if not searching for an escape from the prison called Earth? Both Tony and Howard had the same problem haunt them.
Intelligence.
Everything Howard had done was Tony’s consequence, everything Tony had to bear. Howard had gotten the praise, while Tony had gotten the curse of fear, insecurity. He had to be better. He had to do more. He had to be every bit the genius his father was.
The main difference between Tony and his father was how they coped: Howard isolated himself, put others at a distance. Tony hid with humor, sarcasm. Howard hid by suppressing his emotions, while Tony hid by showing them in a different light.
But the similarity?
Neither knows how to express their affection, regardless of how they coped.
Tony had learned too much from his father too soon, and his rebellion was the only way he knew to breathe. But maybe Tony didn’t hate him anymore. Maybe he just grieved what could’ve been.
For somebody so smart, Howard surely had his flaws with emotional intelligence. It was so simple, so apparent, it made Tony want to laugh.
Howard hadn’t been cruel on purpose — he had been scared, scared of vulnerability, scared of emotion. And Tony knew that now. He understood it, even lived it.
The difference?
Tony knew how to get over that fear, because despite being given the propaganda of strength, he had realized; vulnerability is not a weakness, but rather a strength in its own.
And if Tony hated his father, it was only the parts he knew his father had been taught by his own father. It was handed down from generation to generation, like a sickening legacy. And yet, that did not change the fact that Tony still hated his father, whether he was taught his bad ways or not. It didn’t change Howard, just as it didn’t change how Howard had been a bad person.
Did this mean Tony’s bad traits were the fault of his father? No, of course not.
While Tony and Howard were extremely similar, it was Tony’s fault he continued his bad traits. Like the philosophy of needing to build, needing to create. Because if you stopped, you would have to feel, you would have everything crashing down on you. And worse was if you failed, because failure meant the loss of respect, the loss of dignity.
And wasn’t Tony’s entire life a failure?
It had been loss after loss, especially with the Avengers. He had been classified a narcissist; He’d gone from self-centered to self-aware — only for guilt to send him spiraling into self-sacrifice. Because if he failed, somebody else would bear the consequence, just like him and his father. He had to try his best, to not fail, because there was no room to fail. Which meant, if there was a failure, it should be upon him, for him to carry, for him to bear the consequence.
Which is exactly what he did.
As he faced Thanos, the Infinity Gauntlet on his arm, he sacrificed himself without another thought, because better him than anyone else, especially after all he had done.
He deserved death more than anyone else.