Tony Stark was always known as the arrogant, heartless genius who made weapons used by terrorists. That was until his life changed when he was kidnapped and tortured – sparking the need for Iron Man. Since then, he has been on a huge journey – and one boy seemed to find a way into his heart.
Tony Stark and Peter Parker’s relationship has been one of the best-loved features of the later movies from the MCU.
From Captain American: Civil War to Spider-Man: Far From Home, audiences have tracked the relationship between these two blossom.
After Stark’s sad death at the end of Avengers: Endgame, fans would have expected that relationship to die with him.
Instead, Stark continued to show his love for Parker by giving him a huge gift – his technology, in the form of EDITH.
While grieving his mentor’s death, Parker struggled to see himself as worthy of this technology in Spider-Man: Far From Home, and instead was duped into giving it away to the evil Mysterio.
However, fans have watched all the MCU films with a microscopic gaze at the pair’s relationship, and seem to have come up with an idea as to how Parker could have ended up being the custodian of Stark’s most prized tech – even over his own wife, Pepper Potts.
According to one Quora user, this is a simple reason, based in Stark’s own sad journey from being the billionaire playboy to the self-sacrificial hero we saw in Avengers: Endgame.
The user wrote: “When Tony saw Peter Parker, a kid from Queens who had these extraordinary powers thrust on him and was using it to help people, Tony saw everything he thinks he isn’t — a hero.
“And then Tony actually meets Peter and what does this kid tell him?
‘When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t… and then the bad things happen… they happen because of you.’ (Yes, this is an Uncle Ben reference)
“Peter Parker is everything that Tony wanted to be. Peter is everything good that Tony wants to see in the world.
“He’s a kid, who wants to be a hero, who helps people, who’s smart and kind.
“Tony needs to support him, in any way that he can — suits, internship, encouragement, safety, etc. The support that Tony never really got.”
In another moment from one of the films, Tony even explains he is trying “to break the cycle of shame” he got when he never received help from his own dad.
And, one of the reasons why Avengers: Endgame was also quite cathartic, was in Stark’s ability to meet his own father, Howard Stark, through their time-travelling.
In this he finally understood his father and heard how proud Howard was of his son, meaning even after his death, their relationship could heal.
When Parker messes up, Stark’s love for him is made obvious when he tells him: “I wanted you to be better,” meaning he had not fully acknowledged how much his own journey had turned him from a selfish inventor to a hero.
“My dad never really gave me a lot of support… and I’m just trying to break the cycle of shame.”
In the end, when the Snap took place in Avengers: Infinity War, Stark’s worst nightmare came through, acknowledged in his first words from space being: “I lost the kid.”
The Quora user perfectly summed up their relationship when they wrote: “ Five years later, it was the possibility of bringing back Peter that pushed him to consider the crazy idea of time-travelling.
“The risk was worth having Peter back.”
The desire for Parker to be a better version of Stark and the pride he feels in the young kid from Queens is why EDITH could not have been placed in better hands.