I’ve been thinking of this for the last goddamn year:
Okay, so, we know Tony had that goddamned flip phone in infinity war.
But listen, listen; Tony Stark is the kind of man who has enough work to do that it could last him for ten lifetimes. Plus, he’s Tony, the genius who uses technology like it’s a part of him.
So imagine the effort he’d have to put into keeping a burner phone in him all the time. All.The.Time. Meeting after meeting, every time he goes out, as Tony or as Iron Man (maybe he even had a special place in the suit for it, before he used nanotech). Every interview he might take, all the time he spends working in his workshop, the phone is always within reach. Also, since he keeps it on him all the time, it means he has to keep it charged all the time-
And come on, we’re talking about Tony here, it’s a miracle the man remembers to eat.
Never mind the fact that he could just have Friday save the number (because Tony is a sentimental bastard, is what he is, so of course he had to keep the phone), but we saw in Infinity War that he was reluctant in calling Steve. So that means, short of global (universal) catastrophe, even if Tony was dying, he’d rather pull himself out of the trouble than call Steve. So why keep it in him all the time then? He went three years without using it, clearly he had no intention in doing so, so why?
Well, a phone works both ways.
Maybe Tony wouldn’t swallow his pride and call Steve unless there were drastic circumstances involved, but that tells us one thing; he didn’t keep the phone in case he needed Steve.
He kept it in case Steve needed him.
