Tony Stark is quite the character. I don't just mean that he is a fictional person (we all know that!), but he is illustriously unique and arresting, with idiosyncracies and quirks for miles. But one of the ones you may have not picked up on is one I can't put down, especially in the post-Robert Downey Jr. era.

In our latest weekly Popverse series Marvel-ous where we revel in our favorite Marvel memories, I am grabbing with one of the MCU Iron Man's signature quirks that has been widely seen across the past 16 years - and actually has an explanation. What I'm talking about, of course, is how Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark hates to be handed things.

This isn't some casual one-off thing that we're extrapolating into something bigger - there are individual moments where this is brought up explicitly in all three Iron Man movies, and at least two of the four Avengers films. Of course, there are exceptions (we'll get to that), but first... as I know you like proof of this kind of thing, let's do it.

Proof that Tony Stark has a peeve

Let's start with the facts, from the movies: 

• Iron Man: He refuses to take something a fan was attempting to hand him
• Avengers: Tony Stark doesn't let Agent Coulson hand him the mission, saying "I don't like being handed things." 
• Iron Man 2: Tony Stark stops to buy strawberries from a roadside vendor, but when he's offered the fruits he deflects, saying "I don't like people handing me things. Just put it down there."
• Iron Man 2: He does it again when someone attempts to hand him a subpoena, which Happy Hogan accepts and brings up the idiosyncrasy, which Stark calls a "peeve."
• Iron Man 3: He refuses to take a business card Aldrich Killian attempts to give him.

That's five, with more to be found if you know what you're looking for. But in these five, it is called a "peeve" by Downey's Stark and is treated as if it is a known thing by Hogan and Potts adds up to it being a central part of the MCU character.

As I feel you trying to poke holes in this, I'll be the first to say this "peeve" isn't always avoided. There are six moments in the MCU where he accepts something handed to him, but there's one commonality in that - it's all from people he trusts. In the 2012 Avengers scene I mention where Stark refuses to accept a mission briefing from Coulson, Pepper Potts receives it and then promptly hands it to Stark who accepts without issue. There are similar moments with Thor, Captain America, and Happy Hogan throughout the MCU - and there's also a scene where he accepts a gift box from Pepper in Iron Man 2 - but only begrudgingly, noting the "peeve" out loud.

Where Tony Stark's "peeve" against holding things comes from

In a deleted scene in the first Iron Man movie, Tony and Pepper are shown entering a party where social norms encourage hand-shaking and the like, and he begrudgingly does it. But in a telling moment of where this "peeve" comes from, Potts has hand sanitizer at the ready for Stark to use after each skin-on-skin contact. 

This apparent germaphobia is reminiscent of another famous millionaire industrialist, the real-life Howard Hughes. In addition to being renowned as an aerospace engineer and corporate tycoon, Hughes was famously a germaphobe - to the point t where later in life he was reluctant to touch things when people offered them to him, going so far as to use tissues to hold them. 

In filming 2008's Iron Man, one of Hughes' old business complexes was rented as the movie's production offices - which director Jon Favreau chose with intentionality and something Downey has said he factored into his inaugural portrayal of Tony Stark. 

It goes deeper than that, as Iron Man co-creator Stan Lee has said on several occasions that the original character was based on Hughes. "I had Howard Hughes in mind when I came up with Tony Stark," Lee is quoted as saying. "Hughes was one of the most colorful men of the time. He was an inventor, an adventurer, a ladies’ man and a nutcase. He was incredible." It's no coincidence that Tony Stark's father Howard Stark shares the same first name as Hughes.

This fictional quirk is something that Downey himself has signaled is something in his real life. When it was brought up on social media, Downey commented "Life imitates art."

Why Tony Stark's "peeve" is catnip for me

I'm not someone who wants to see someone tortured for having their "peeve" triggered all the time, but this deft portrayal of it throughout multiple projects gives the character much more humanity. We all have peeves and phobias, and to see it played like this without it becoming some underlined, over-emphasized character trait reminds me of my own peeves that may not be something I want to have emblazoned on a billboard or put in my bio but are still part of who I am. They are a small detail in the overall tapestry that makes me, me.

And in how much the peeve was built up, for it to be relaxed in Stark's final movie for all the right reasons hits hard for me. One scene where the "peeve" seems to relax completely is in Avengers: Endgame when Stark travels back in time and gets to see his father Howard Stark one more time. In it, he readily accepts several things the elder Stark offers him - given the special moment that is happening. But again, you can feel the reasoning at that moment.

If you didn't feel the reasoning on the first watch, now that you know you can re-watch and let it hit you even more in the feels with this context.

That being said, if only Iron Man wore his armor all the time he might be able to avoid that, like Doctor Doom does. Oh, wait, we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit there.