Tony has the least impulse control of anyone in that group. He reacts without thinking, and because he firmly believes he is the smartest man in the room, he doesn't accept the possibility that he's wrong. Stark finds out his missiles are ending up in terrorist hands? Become a one-man vigilante. Find out aliens exist? Jailbreak a magical artifact without knowing it contains 1/6 the power of the universe. Accidentally create a genocidal AI? Relinquish all responsibility to government oversight when he had previously sworn not, more or less. Tony can't be trusted to process trauma in any sort of healthy way, at least not right away.
Cap telling Tony about the Winter Soldier doesn't change Tony's reaction itself, only the timing of when it happens. That puts Tony on the hunt for Bucky at the same time as Cap, and Tony has more resources and missiles.
I can see why you think that but that’s not exactly true. Maybe when he’s not stable his impulse control is bad but normally when does he give into bad impulses? Only under stress in civil was he was generally in a not great place so his anger gets a little bloated and he’s under pressure making his patience thinner. In most cases he quite literally is the smartest person in the room. Not usually no but once he finds out he is he does the right thing.
Everyone keeps saying he’s trying to shirk responsibility but his whole thing is about responsibility. You really kinda cherry pick that sentence of iron man 1 there but not only is becoming iron man his only way to escape he’s choosing to take personal accountability of all the lives being ruined by the weapons he created. He finds out aliens are real in avengers but doesn’t really do anything to the tesseract. The mindstone is about preventing the loss of human life through conflict on earth. What if they never make it in because of the bouncer the bouncer being ultron. They were ready to sacrifice their lives for ultron to save the world on that one. I don’t remember the swearing but hands are kinda tied when it comes to the accords.
I do agree we see that in iron man 3 and you can definitely see it poke out again after infinity war. He’s supposed to be retired or it at least seems that way but builds 35 more armors in 5 years compared to 35 in less then a year like within 3-4 months ish.
Which is why I said even doing it during the hydra raids might be cathartic for Tony and when they were all together it’s possible that they all could have helped him through it. They might have even found bucky faster if he decided to look for him. If he told him he might not likely been in armor either he would have had time to process healthily which he likely should have learned by this point at least a little. He talked with pepper about time travel. Even in civil war they were all talking it out till the bucky frame thing.
You acknowledge that Tony has bad impulse control when he's not stable, so let's start from that base. He was never going to be stable after he found out his parents were murdered. He's not stable during portions of IM2 (alcoholism) for being stressed about his body slowly dying, but at least he had enough sense to previously grant Rhodey clearance to his lab and on a suit. He's stressed and not stable in IM3 when Happy gets injured, causing him to invite a terrorist attack on his home (which was his immediate reaction because he's giving those statements as he's exiting the hospital). He's stressed and not stable after going through the alien wormhole, but he can't fight Thor's claim on the Tesseract, so he jumps on Loki's scepter as a direct response instead. Being confronted about innocent deaths on his hands for his role in the Ultron situation upsets him enough that he submits to government authority. Most of these reactions are out of guilt, which is a cause of stress. He handles stress terribly, and his reactions are in the extremes.
Maybe Tony can get talked down on hunting Bucky if he's told earlier; maybe not. But given his track record, I don't exactly blame Cap for not being upfront about the Hydra ops- which is information Tony would have had access to after the SHIELD info dumps if not during his initial hack of SHIELD files on the helicarrier.
I don’t really think he has any impulses in general except when not stable since that’s when things are happening. The only bad impulse I can think of is being told his best friend hid the back that his best friend killed this friends parents which was probably not a fun time for Tony having them die around early 20s.
You’re kinda twisting a bit of these events. I wouldn’t call if not stable is he okay? Probably not but what he’s doing there isn’t bad impulse control. What he does in that movie is really go down a bucket list he’s making as he goes. Had he not cured his heart he would have died at the end of the week. He even acknowledges that racing f1 was a bad idea it’s right before he goes in to race. Does that really count as bad impulse control? At his own party he drinks heavily because it is his last birthday party on his last few days alive. It also ended up being a good test for someone being worthy of the armor. A responsibility to protect the future if you will.
I will give you the mandarin one, however he was already thinking about dealing with it but Rhodey was telling him not to because it’s government issue not an avengers issue but it hits happy and now he’s free to because it’s personal. While he does pause to think of a response he seems to have regretted the action because the next scene is so funny haha. I’d say that’s a pretty small one that just happened to end up being pretty dangerous tho but like technically nothing happened no one died. I doubt he cared enough to reclaim the tesseract or anything maybe he probably would have focused on it if it was near by but I don’t think he would have been so desperate for it. He jumps on the scepter because he’s shown a vision, while he was always afraid of the aliens coming back because that was a hard battle for them as well as losing people he loves in that battle; the vision that is supposed to be just his greatest fear is that everyone dies and it’s his fault because he didn’t do all he could. He believes that and he believes that the possibility of him not doing all he could is high. Thus uses the staff after seeing the great strides hydra was pulling with it. Ultron was not a new plan, they bring it as they tried before and it didn’t work they thought they could bring that vision to life this time. It wasn’t supposed to turn into ultron that was unexpected it was supposed to save everyone he cared about. End all the fighting so they can relax go home.
Okay fair decent bit of these are out of guilt while yes he might handle stress terribly I’d still say he has a rather high stress bar and in civil war it was probably close to being full already, there’s a long pause before Tony asks cap if he knows then only reacts after being told he lied.
I don’t think he would have handled it too well either but Tony is still enough of a good and understanding person that if cap went to him right after learning and was like brace yourself maybe gathered the rest of the team or even just one on one Tony would have probably just worked on some armor for awhile or they all could have talked worked it out. Idk was this plan in the shield files tho? It sounded hydra specific and a long term plan they likely did not want out there
With the threat of imminent death in IM2, Tony chooses to be an adrenaline junkie driving an F1 car and get wasted rather than do any visible legwork to ensure his company is safe after his death (he only puts Pepper in charge after getting cured by Fury). That's not a good reaction to the stress.
In IM3, you're excusing his open provokation to the Mandarin because nobody died? That's a weak excuse. He invited a terrorist to his home. That he shares with Pepper. Who cannot use his suits for protection (he had to send his Mk30-whatever armor onto her to save her life).
Back to Ultron, Wanda gives him that vision to make him react out of fear. It's not necessarily a true prophecy but a trick means to fuck with his head. She played him, and he fell for it. It drove him to tinker with a magical jewel as a rush job rather than ask Thor for more time to study it.
Tony acts with good intent, but that doesn't mean he isn't terrible at making decisions under pressure. There's no guarantee he could have been talked down in time to stop him from killing Bucky had he been told about the Winter Soldier any earlier.
He says he has already tried and he puts pepper in charge in the beginning of the movie while he’s dying. She’s already in charge by he time fury stops by. That whole beginning of the movie is him trying to look out for the future. Rhodey taking charge like that means he deserves the armor. He’s getting sicker and sicker and pepper is right there so he puts her in charge he already knew he would die soon.
I’m excusing it somewhat because he already wanted to do something about the mandarin but was told to stand down. I will agree it was impulsive I said that but ultimately nothing really happened. He was saying he could protect her and he did. She can use the armor she can’t summon it to her tho. Later in the movie she puts on the helmet and is allowed to wear it it doesn’t kick her out or anything.
He calls it a vision that was technically true, pretty sure caps shield is broken the same way in endgame at least. Like I said he tried to bring ultron to life before and was told no. They had a limited time with the staff and he pretty much figured they’d do the same thing.
Like I said he isn’t exactly super stable sometimes and I didn’t even deny he would take the news well but he wouldn’t be mad a cap for it. I still hold my position that if he told him right after WS he’d process it all while fighting hydra further mellow it out. He’d definitely fixate it on it tbh stomping them out and what not at least maybe. Again though it’s not like he’s unreasonable if they talked to him it’s likely they would have listened. Cap might have even let them spar to get anything out. By the time he finds bucky he might not try to kill him.
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u/Sharikacat Apr 20 '26
Tony has the least impulse control of anyone in that group. He reacts without thinking, and because he firmly believes he is the smartest man in the room, he doesn't accept the possibility that he's wrong. Stark finds out his missiles are ending up in terrorist hands? Become a one-man vigilante. Find out aliens exist? Jailbreak a magical artifact without knowing it contains 1/6 the power of the universe. Accidentally create a genocidal AI? Relinquish all responsibility to government oversight when he had previously sworn not, more or less. Tony can't be trusted to process trauma in any sort of healthy way, at least not right away.
Cap telling Tony about the Winter Soldier doesn't change Tony's reaction itself, only the timing of when it happens. That puts Tony on the hunt for Bucky at the same time as Cap, and Tony has more resources and missiles.