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Heartwarming moments in Iron Man 3.

  • One in just the trailer:
    Tony: I hope I can protect [gestures to Pepper] the one thing I can't live without.
  • Just the fact that Yinsen is actually part of the opening flashback. Three movies later and this is how they chose to remember him.
  • Rhodey recognizes that Tony is having a panic attack and needs help. Tony doesn't let him help, but he tries.
  • Even though Tony picks on Happy for...well, everything when Happy calls him about Killian's meeting with Pepper, when Happy is caught in one of the Extremis explosions, Tony goes to his hospital room, waits there, and tells the nurse to leave Happy's favorite show, Downton Abbey, on and make sure everyone wears their security badges around him, knowing his friend is a stickler for protocol.
    • Tony referring to Happy as his "best friend" during his visit.
    • Speaking of Downton Abbey, here's the reason Jon Favreau chose that scene to show.
    • Driving down the highway, Tony's leafing through the file he got at the bar, eventually he slaps it down in the passenger seat in frustration muttering, "Happy, Happy, Happy." All of this got started because his friend got hurt and he couldn't handle that.
  • There are five Christmas stockings on the fireplace at Stark's home. One for Tony, one for Pepper and the last for JARVIS, "Dum-E" and "U". They may not be human, but they're still family.
  • When Pepper comes down to confront Tony in his workshop, we see a pile of twisted metal outside his workshop. Not too weird, he's had odd art in his workshop before, but if you look closely, you can notice the fact that the twisted metal in question is formula one race cars, meaning that it is likely the cars from Monaco, where Whiplash attacked and killed the other racers while trying to kill Tony. He took that metal and made a sculpture out of it, to give him a reminder of why he has to do what he does.
  • Tony's justification for constantly building new armors: "Things are different now. I have to protect the one thing I can't live without. That's you."
    • Now that we have the scene, it's even sweeter. The first sign that Pepper is angry with him for keeping things from her, he opens up and tells her why he's being so closed off and that he's not sleeping. Serious Character Development right there!
    • Pepper does everything she can to comfort him, going up to him while he looks at her like she's some kind of angel. She strokes his hair and he leans his head into her chest and hugs her back.
    • The Funny immediately following this is Heartwarming in Hindsight as you realize that Pepper's adding that Tony will join her in the shower was her first shot at getting him back in his game (if it were the usual Tony, he'd immediately remark that he'd meet her there).
  • Despite the fact that it's startling, the fact that the Iron Man suit is in Tony's bedroom during the night when he calls for it subconsciously due to his nightmares from Manhattan. Also, note who it's next to: Pepper. His first priority, operating on instinct, is to protect her.
  • When Tony's Malibu home is attacked, he uses his subcutaneous chip to summon the Mk 42 armor — onto Pepper. His first thought was to secure her rather than jumping immediately into fighting back. In addition to this, a moment of Fridge Brilliance at the end when you realise that Tony has calibrated his post-Avengers armors for Pepper, and not Rhodey, because Pepper is the one thing he can't live without. (Also because Rhodey can take care of himself.)
    • Pepper saves Tony.
    "I got you."
    "I got you first."
  • When Tony is trapped and helpless under water and under the rubble of his home, it's JARVIS who rescues him. He does it by taking control of one of the gauntlets to grab his hand. If there was ever a moment that proved JARVIS was his own person and Tony's friend, it was that moment.
  • When a despondent Pepper is standing in the wreckage of what was formerly Tony's house after it had basically been exploded, she's holding the helmet of one of the many, MANY Iron Man suits. She's mournfully pressing it against her face in a Call-Back to a previous moment between her and Tony, when she hears... beeping? Turning it over, she finds a red flashing light and, realizing this means the helmet had some charge to it, puts it over her head to hear a voice-mail Tony had left telling her he's completely fine, he's sorry for putting her in danger and will come back to her once he deals with the threat. Pepper breaks out into a smile at his voice, relieved and overjoyed.
    • She's clearly not listening to most of the message, just the knowledge he's alive. It's all she needs right now, because that's all that matters.
  • Most of Tony's interaction with his Kid Sidekick Harley, but especially giving the kid an advanced workshop at the end.
    • Harley lends him a girly watch that he is, of course, very embarrassed about wearing. After he's captured, a mook crushes it.
    Tony: Okay, that wasn't mine to give away, that was my friend's sister's watch! That's why I'm gonna kill you first.
    • If you look closely, Harley's workshop bench has a new watch on it to replace the one that was broken. Especially when you consider that it's a "limited edition".
  • Tony meets up with Chad Davis's mom at the bar. He looks at the file she hands him, but he stops and tells her her son didn't kill himself, he wasn't a murderer.
  • After learning that Rhodey's designation has been changed from War Machine to Iron Patriot, he mocks Rhodey as much as possible. When Rhodey is forced to admit that his password is WARMACHINEROX (even earning him mocking laughter from the terrorists he was holding captive), Tony merely comments that that is so much cooler than Iron Patriot. Bear in mind that he originally came up with War Machine as an insult.
    • Bonus points because not long before that, Tony phones Rhodes in his armor directly. Tony immediately starts rambling, confusing Rhodes, who still thinks Tony is dead. Then he asks who's calling him.
    Rhodes: Yeah, who is this?
    Tony: It's me, pal. [Rhodes immediately grins] As I recall, the last time I went missing, you came looking for me.
  • Maya and Pepper's developing bond through the course of the film; which just makes the former's sudden death all the more heart-wrenching.
  • Thirteen innocent people are free-falling out of Air Force One, panicking, without parachutes. What follows is heartwarming for both Tony and those falling. JARVIS tells him at best he can save four. Not only does he save all of them, but each one reaches for the others to complete a human chain that Tony can use to slow their descent. Terrified people falling to their deaths still found the strength to reach out to one another.
    • The survivors in the water cheering with complete joy at being alive.
  • When Tony confronts Slattery, the actor mentions the people who hired him knew about his drug issues, and Tony automatically assumes part of Slattery taking the job was due to a promise on their end to help him get clean. While Slattery immediately dispels this by cheerfully making it clear them continuing to provide drugs is one of the selling points, there's a sense Tony would have been somewhat sympathetic towards Slattery if the first had been true. Given Tony's own issues with drinking, there might have even been some empathy mixed in. And even Tony initially assuming a person who was complicit in doing bad things could be doing them in order to help themselves out of a bad personal situation, potentially so they could better themselves in the future, instead of for actively malicious reasons, says some good things about him.
  • After Rhodes frees President Ellis (who's in the Iron Patriot suit), Rhodes tells him that he "looks damn good". Ellis' smile just hits it home...and then Rhodes says he's gonna need the suit back.
  • "You're right, I don't deserve her. Here's where you're wrong. She was already perfect."
  • The entire conversation between Tony and Pepper after she kills Killian is one CMOH after another, but particularly Pepper being afraid that Tony will burn if he touches her because of the Extremis upgrade, which Tony unflinchingly sets about proving wrong. He comforts Pepper about her ordeal in his own way.
    Pepper: Am I gonna be okay?
    Tony: No. You're in a relationship with me. Everything will never be okay. But I think I can figure this out, yeah.
    • When Pepper is shocked and struggling to comprehend that she killed Killian, Tony calms her down and brings her back to Earth. Just like she always tried to do for him.
    • Pepper now understands why Tony has trouble giving up the suits, empathizing with his belief in their reliability after they helped her. She jokingly wonders what she can complain about now.
  • Tony destroying all his suits of armour at the end of the movie, as his Christmas gift to Pepper, who has been supportive of him despite the fact that she has never liked him being Iron Man. He promises to tone down his "distractions" to be the partner she deserves.
    • Averted for anyone who thought he had become useless in case the Avengers needed him again. This video says it all.
  • At the end when the fake Mandarin Trevor Slattery is taken to prison, he sees people cheering for him and goes to meet them. It's just so ironically heartwarming: he's the only "villain" in the story to get a good ending and for a while he was believed to be the Big Bad.
    • Also consider that he was a down-on-his-luck actor, and now he's receiving recognition for the greatest performance in his career.
  • The looks Tony's two best friends give him while Tony is being operated on are heartwarming, with the little thumbs up Rhodes gives. Pepper looks ready to burst into tears.
    • Rhodey has his arm around Pepper, giving her support.
  • After Tony has the shrapnel and arc reactor removed from his chest, he gives Pepper a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant containing the pieces of shrapnel on the chain.
    • And it nicely mirrors the gift Pepper gave Tony in the first movie - his original arc reactor in a glass case. "Proof That Tony Stark Has a Heart", indeed.
      • Arguably, the necklace is "Proof That Pepper Potts Has Tony Stark's Heart".
  • At first, it appears that Dum-E was destroyed in the destruction of Tony's home. At the end, when Tony is driving away, it's revealed that he pulled Dum-E out of the wreckage and is taking it home with him. It's small, but sweet. It gets even more heartwarming when you remember that Dum-E is the first robot Tony created, and always together with him for the entire time.
    • Dum-E was also the one giving him his old arc reactor in Iron Man saving his life. Which might also explain why Tony never dismantled and "fixed" him.
  • Something that hits you when the movie ends. Tony is healing, and has his happy ending. He's the man Yinsen said he could be. He has Pepper. He's no longer the man who has everything and nothing.
    • It's get better. It's practically an inversion: He has nothing (his old mansion destroyed, he already gave his company to Pepper, the only suit still remaining is in Rhodey's hand), but he has everything (Pepper, of course, but also all his friends, up to including "Dum-E" to Rhodey, Happy, Bruce Banner, and the Avengers).
  • While partly Played for Laughs, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are still great friends after hitting it off in The Avengers:
    Tony: You're such a good listener, did anyone ever tell you that?
  • Happy's comment about Tony and his "Superfriends".
  • The closing montage before the credits definitely counts. As noted above, nearly every character (save for the villains, of course) gets a happy ending, which makes the film one of the only Marvel Cinematic Universe films released thus far that has an unambiguously happy ending.
  • Tony Stark Will Return, the last thing we see before the film ends. We all know that this was the last film that Robert Downey, Jr. was under contract to make, and for the foreseeable future nobody knows if he'll decide to return to the character. Bittersweet as the thought is, this message reminds us that whether the Iron Man series continues with more sequels, or if Tony from now on only appears in Avengers films and cameos, or even if the character will now be taken on by a new actor, that this is not the last we have seen of the character. Robert and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole took a character well-known mostly to comic book readers (and, at the time of the first movie, most people hated him), and turned him into one of Marvel's best-known and best-loved characters. For that, we thank them.
    • Furthermore, it's the message that Tony Stark will return - not Iron Man, reinforcing the fact that Tony is his own man and a hero in his own right without the suit.

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