The best kiss in the MCU is a kiss on the forehead from a father to his daughter. After so much tragedy, watching Tony Stark be a good dad is one of the greatest joys of Endgame. He may not get to enjoy domesticity for very long, but in those years, Tony gets to be a loving husband and father in the middle of nowhere. Tony gets some of the most significant character growth in the franchise: It’s incredible to watch him go from rich playboy to world-saving hero to loving family man.
Iron Man made the MCU possible in 2008, and his relationship with his daughter, Morgan (Lexi Rabe), marks the beginning of the MCU’s heart-wrenching goodbye to his character. After he tells her a terrible bedtime story and says, “I love you tons,” he kisses her on the forehead. But it’s not his words that have stayed with the fandom ever since. Her declaration of “I love you 3,000” will reign as the four most powerful words in the MCU for a long while — possibly forever.
“Everybody wants a happy ending, but it doesn’t always roll that way,” Tony says. And that’s okay. But in a way, Iron Man dies the most fulfilled he’s ever been, and that’s beautiful. It’s only fitting that Tony’s final words to his daughter (through a pre-recorded hologram) are “I love you 3,000.”
