Stark could not stand this old-fashioned parental habit of meddling in everything. He was very proud. Thanos, you know? I chatted and laughed with him!
Stark was not a one- or two-year-old child, nor was he the teenage genius who had graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology at nineteen. He was fifty!
Being a superhero, going to prison, serving as a national leader—his life had been full of ups and downs, rich beyond measure. He did not need some old man nagging in his ear about the philosophy of life.
Sometimes, when he could not take it anymore, he would snap back. The father and son often argued, and Stark would get so angry that he would not even return to the villa. He took his wife and child and hid away in the mountains, building a wooden cabin in seclusion.
"Are you angry?"
"Do you feel resentment?"
"Do you hate?"
Whenever the dead of night came, he felt whispers murmuring something in his ear. Yet by daylight, all these abnormalities vanished completely, leaving him only in an abysmal mental state.
The prolonged lack of proper sleep left him haggard. His past experience in the Dream Dimension, combined with his long-term depression, made him unable to tell whether he had encountered something supernatural or whether there was something wrong with his mind.
He asked his wife, "Have you noticed anything unusual around me while I'm sleeping?"
Pepper handled company matters during the day, then had to take care of the children and her husband once she got home. On weekends, she even had to visit the elder Starks on behalf of the thickheaded Tony Stark. She was doing the work of three people by herself, so busy her feet barely touched the ground. The moment her head hit the pillow,