Writing a fanfic? Want some accuracy? Here is a (mostly) headache free and reliable timeline of the MCU as well as chapters discussing specific movies and timeline controversies. Spoilers guaranteed.
Best to read introduction before leaving comments...
Upon its release, Kevin Feige, producer and figurehead of the MCU, said IM3 takes place six months after Avengers. Here are the reasons he could be right.
The main events occur around Christmas which is technically six months after May, June, or whatever month Avengers seems to take place. Six months is also a standard amount of time after a traumatic event that one begins exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) like Tony does in the film. So these details fit.
But only if Avengers takes place in 2013.
First important date in the film is the technical conference Yinsen referred to in IM1, at which he is present and Tony is indeed as drunk as he recounts. It's also New Year's Eve {1999 Bern, Switzerland}
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When Tony ditches Maya Hansen the next morning, it's Jan 1, 2000. What's funny is that '99 is eight years after Howard & Maria die, making Tony 29-years-old. Robert Downey Jr., however, was forty-seven.
In the scene where Tony is investigating explosive incidences similar to the Mandarin's, we get a series of interesting images. To start with, many fans believe this one is a reference to Guardians of the Galaxy simply because it's in Missouri, but there's no evidence to back that up.
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Then this newspaper reporting the death of an Extremis test subject on a date that can't exist (great typo, Marvel) {02.31.2013}
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followed by photos of the victim and his fellow marines taken in December of 2012.
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Maya reappears in Tony's life, and when he semi-seriously asks if she has their twelve-year-old lovechild in her car, she sarcastically corrects him by saying, "He's thirteen." If they slept together in January of 2000, the kid would've been thirteen by December of 2013.
When Harley Keener hands Tony a newspaper announcing Tony's death, this date is practically zoomed in on {Monday, December 23, 2013}
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Harley is a paperboy, and since it's dark out I assume he's just received them and is meant to deliver them in the morning.
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A miscellaneous date appears when Tony is going through AIM files. The beginning date for Project Extremis tests was "06/25/09."
On December 23rd, when Harley watches in awe as pieces of the suit fly to find Tony, he's wearing a personalized sweater that says "2012 Science Club." There's pilling on the shoulders where his backpack straps would be rubbing at his sweater all day meaning he's worn this many times.
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That sweater must be from last year, and Stark mansion got leveled Dec 23, 2013.
Tony blows up his suits Dec 24. In the time it takes for Pepper and Tony to undergo surgery, for his shrapnel to made into her necklace, and him to return to the overgrown ruins of his estate in Malibu, it is surely January 2014.
In the after-credits scene he tells all to Bruce Banner in what must be the Avengers Tower.
Conclusion: Dec 22-24, 2013-Jan 2014
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