Whatever else he may have been during his lifetime – “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” – Tony Stark was first, last, and always a futurist, and as such, he was never one to let even death get in his way. Whether it turns out that he backed up a copy of his mind onto an external hard drive like he did in the comics or not, it’s safe to say that the effects he had on the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be felt for a very long time, beginning with the emotional recording he left behind for his daughter to view at the end of last year’s Avengers: Endgame.
Now, Robert Downey Jr.’s personal assistant, Jimmy Rich, has shared video of the actor rehearsing lines (while apparently sitting in screenwriter Stephen McFeely’s chair) that seem to come from an alternate version of that recording. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s foundational hero reads off a little more than a dozen words, drawn from several points in the film’s narrative.
He begins by twice repeating the closing words of the inspirational monologue that Steve Rogers delivered prior to the team’s journey back in time: “Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.” The same line was later traded between Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff on the mountaintop of Vormir before the two dueled for the chance to prevent the other from making the self-sacrificial exchange for the Soul Stone.
The phrase “no fears; no regrets” is new, but sounds like something Stark might have said to convince himself to go through with “this time travel thing,” considering his initial reluctance to assist in the “time heist” for fear that doing so might cost him the life and family he’d built in the five years since the Avengers were defeated by Thanos.
The footage concludes with a line indicating that “part of the journey is the end,” which, of course, comes directly from the ending of his message to Morgan, immediately before he assures her that “everything is going to work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.” Those, in turn, were among the first words that any of us heard in relation to Avengers: Endgame, being included in the first trailer released way back in December of 2018.
