Hearing.

[quigonejinn]

One day, Tony has a visitor. A man in a blue suit. He stops in the middle of a word when he catches sight of you, wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, and then, he whips around and stares at Tony, whose face has gone stiff. Tony did not like the idea of the man coming in the first place, and now, he grips his friend by the shoulder, and they go into another room to argue.

" -- tell Fury, see if I don't."

" -- ahead. Have fun with that."

You could hear more of their conversation, you suspect, if you asked Jarvis to relay it to you, but you decide against it. In fact, it is such a long time before either comes back out that you fall asleep on the couch.

...

There seem to be only three actual persons in the world, though: you and Tony, of course. Jarvis seems human, though without a body, but it has been explained to you that he is only lines of writing inside a box. Like the robots in the shop that help Tony, he seems alive, but is not. Also, there are the anchors on CNN, but they do not feel real even as much as Jarvis or the robots do.

So yes, the third person in your world is Pepper.

...

After a while, the friend comes out of the room, and he sits down next to you. He has a curious hat in his hands, and he turns it around and around while. You study the way it looks in his hands, trying to recall where you've seen it before. Surely, you have. It looks so familiar. Even the shade of blue seems familiar. It ought to be right on the tip of your tongue.

"How're you doing?" he says.

You stop frowning long enough to give him the wide, content smile that satisfies Tony, but it doesn't satisfy this man.

"I'm Rhodey," he adds, and holds his hand out. You look at his hand, then back up at his face. What does he want you to do with it?

Tony comes and stands behind the couch. His voice is tight and strange-sounding, and you can see his hands curled up over the edges of the couch. "I didn't want you to come in the first place, Rhodey, so you should go now. While we're still friends."

Rhodey looks up at Tony then, with a look you've never quite seen on anybody before -- he almost seems sad, in fact -- and Tony smiles in a way that you've never seen before, either.

...

So yes, Pepper. You and Tony watch a movie one night, and the story is something about a girl in the city, who has a very complicated life. It is hard to follow the story, and it is, curiously enough, all in black and grey. You lie down on the couch and put your head on Tony's knee; he has a glass of whiskey in which he lets the ice cubes melt, and he works on something out of one of his electronic books from which he can draw out figures in three dimensions.

Halfway through the movie, you become aware that he is holding the notebook, but is mostly looking at you.

His hand rests on the side of your face, and out of curiosity, more than anything else, you press your lips against his fingers.

Tony goes absolutely still, and to see if you can get that response again, you kiss him again, a little higher, on the inside of the wrist. And then higher after that, to the crook of his elbow. Through his shirt, you touch your mouth to the edges of the arc reactor. Then to his neck. Then to the side of of his face. You take the notebook out of his hand, set it to the side, and climb into his lap and put your mouth against his mouth, and at that point, it abruptly stops being about seeing how he will react and more for the pleasure of having his mouth on yours because you have never imagined that Tony's mouth could have a taste to it, like something that could be drunk.

"Here," you say and turn your head so that his mouth brushes against your neck, and then you slide your hands underneath his shirt.

By that point, he's panting, and so are you. The only thing part of him really moving, though, are his eyes, wide and dark. They look from one side of your face to the other, not quite sure what to make of this, so you take his hand behind your head, then lean in and put your mouth on his: even that isn't quite right, though. It's nice, but somehow, not quite what you want.

You have, in fact, no idea what you want until he slides his hand underneath your dress, between your legs and underneath the fabric. His mouth is half-open, and he watches your face as he runs one finger along your body there.

...

"Did you do that with her?"

So yes, Pepper. Tony is pleased when you act like her, but he gives you so little information about her that it is hard to please. He likes it when you organize things and make them tidy. He takes a strange pleasure in having you tell him what to do so that he can ignore it or, on those occasions when he does what you suggest, act very pleased with himself.

The morning after the movie, though, Tony is strange, and you do not know what to make of his behavior. He seems to be taking efforts to keep from touching you. Over and over, he asks you what you would like to do today, whether you would like something else for breakfast, and while he is taking a blood sample from your arm to put into the machine for analysis and his records, you say, "Did you do that with her?"

He turns his head and looks at you. It is another expression that you don't have a name for, and a great deal of time passes before Tony says, "Not exactly."

...

You barely remember the beginning. There must have been a laboratory, you suppose, or something like that. Your first real memory is of being in a car next to Tony. The car is now in the garage, and the countryside that you passed through with Tony was somewhere else. He has other houses, you know. One in the mountains. Two by the sea. This one has neither mountains nor a sea, but it has you.

...

Rhodey somehow gets a message to you through Jarvis. You're not quite sure whether Tony knows about it, but if he does, he doesn't say anything about it, at least not before you go meet Rhodey -- Rhodey says that if you come down to the edge of the property the day after tomorrow, the two of you can talk. Tony doesn't say anything about it, and you don't give him an explanation for why you leave the house alone.

"You're -- "

"I know," you say and lean back in the seat of the car. It's soft, but rough at the same time, and it feels utterly different than the seats that Tony has in his cars. "He told me. He showed me some of her hair."

Rhodey stares at you.

"I want you to tell me about Pepper," you say. "How did she die?"

....

After you get out of Rhodey's car, you walk back to the house with shoes off because you want to feel the ground underneath your feet, and you find that Tony is sitting on the steps that lead from the driveway. He looks a little pale, and there's a pair of binoculars next to him. You move them aside, then sit down and lean your head against his shoulder.

Slowly, as if not quite awake, he reaches up and puts his arm around your shoulders.

....

Tony is the beginning and end of things for you. Walking down to the edge of the property to meet Rhody and walking back tires you for an entire day, and generally, you find that you sleep more and more. More and more, you wake only when Tony comes into the room and touches your cheek or your shoulder to wake you.

...

"What was Afghanistan like?"

It is during the period when he almost seems afraid to touch you, so he is sitting at the very far end of the couch and is pretending to ignore you, but he knows that you have nothing else to do but talk to him or watch television or a movie, so he looks up and answers your question.

"Cold. I lived in a cave for three months. And made this and the first version of the suit in the shop." He taps his chest, where you can just see the arc reactor glowing through his shirt, and he's quiet for a moment. "I had a friend there who saved my life twice."

"Rhodey?" you say.

Tony's face tightens, and you can see that he does not want to talk about it anymore. Later that day, though, he does let you help him in the shop.

...

One night, you are with Tony again on the couch. CNN is on, and you're watching something about a country very, very far away. As far as you know, Tony is watching you, not the television; you have your head in his lap, and every once in a while, he touches on the arm or the shoulder, and you wonder about the chances of getting him to touch you between the legs again.

Eventually, you turn over to kiss his hand because that seems to be the way that these things start, and you find that he is already looking down at you.

Slowly and very deliberately, you kiss the knuckles of his hand -- they're curiously scarred, and there's a hard place on his palm, probably right where it fits under the light on the suit -- and he closes his eyes, then slides down on the couch. He puts his arm under your hips, so that you are lying on it, and some instinct makes you put your legs over his shoulders.

You're wearing a long dress that day, and Tony pushes it past your knees with his mouth. His beard tickles on your skin, and you look down at him. He looks back at you.

A moment passes, and it's strange. You can tell the shape of the beard from the way it feels against your skin, and with two fingers and a little cooperation from you, he works your underwear off. You settle your leg back on his shoulder, and you're about to ask him to touch you with his fingers like he did before when he leans his head down and breathes directly onto your skin.

Fingers don't come until later, when you've got your hand in his hair and you can't stop saying his name.

...

"Car crash," Rhodey had said that day in the car. "That's how Pepper died. I didn't even know they were -- they were -- "

One day, Tony has to leave. You go down to the shop and watch Jarvis help him into the suit, and when he's left, you go back upstairs and watch Tony on CNN. You're too tired to understand what, exactly is going on, and when you wake, Tony has come back. He's taken a shower, but you can still smell smoke and something else on him. It seems baked into his hands and skin.

He climbs onto the couch behind you and puts his arms around you; his hair is still wet from the shower.

It's the first night the two of you sleep together.

...

The bruises from the shots and blood sampling from the before haven't faded, and this makes Tony frown. You are tired all the time now, and you have to lean your face against the wall while he takes today's blood sample. Half the volume of the usual, he says, and kisses you on the cheek. He seems more comfortable with doing that now.

"When I'm gone, will you make another one?"

"There's not going to be another one," he says. "You're going to live forever.

The wall is cool underneath your cheek. "What if I don't live forever?"

He says, quietly, "There still won't be another one."

...

Rhodey had said that Pepper was funny, so you have Jarvis find an assortment of jokes. You'd like to learn one and be able to repeat it to him -- it is hard to keep anything in your mind for very long, and you try to keep it straight. A door, an aardvark. A million miles.

That afternoon, you lose consciousness while trying to walk from the kitchen to the terrace.

...

As you deteriorate, you become too weak to walk, and you have difficulty staying awake for any length of time. Tony knows that you like hearing his voice, though, so he spends hours telling you things. He talks about his company and about SHIELD. He talks about Rhodey, how they met and how much they used to work together, and he even starts telling you a little about his parents -- Tony doesn't like talking about them, but he tells you about the day his his father took him sailing on Long Island Sound and they talked about the next generation of capacitors.

It's a happy memory for him, and after Tony is done telling you about it, you ask for water.

He goes and gets you one, and when he comes back with water for you and whiskey for him, you've opened up one of the hidden workspaces he keeps on Jarvis. The sheet is in your lap, and a three-dimensional model rises above it. A pair of spiral ladders, spinning very, very slowly, and you look at him, then a the model, then back again.

"This is the one, isn't it? The one after me."

Incision points are marked with arrows, and you watch the structure turn and turn. In fact, for the first time in your two month life, your eyes aren't fixed on Tony as he walks across the room. You keep your eyes on the ladders, the red and green and blue and yellow, even as he comes and sits and puts his face in your hair and doesn't say anything for a long, long time.

...

Tony had meant it, you think, when he said that there wouldn't be another one.

...

As you deteriorate, you become too weak to walk. Tony tries to save you, goes to great lengths to do it, in fact, but you have difficulty staying awake for any length of time. Your appetite, which had never been great, disappears. You remember the days when you grew so rapidly that you would wear a too-large shirt in the morning and have your wrists sticking out of it by afternoon, and to keep you at a healthy weight during it, Tony would bribe your week-old self with promises of ice cream. You didn't know what ice cream was, but you ate to please him, and you ate the ice cream, too, because you had the vague thought that the first Pepper had liked ice cream.

Would the first Pepper have been angry that he made clones to replace her?

Near the end, you cannot see anymore -- something about the muscles that work your eyelids, and you cannot speak well, either, so Tony stays by you constantly, holding your hand, talking to you. You sleep with your head on his chest, and the sound of the arc reactor fills your last hours. The newest version is almost silent, but hums just loud enough to cover his heartbeat: you live the span of your days with Tony Stark.

You die without ever hearing another person's heartbeat.

...

Some years later, Tony and Brigadier General Jim Rhodes are together. There's a grip-and-greet photo op to announce a new aspect of the cooperation between SHIELD and various government organizations, and Tony's hand feels clammy in Jim's. Tony doesn't look good, either, and this is the first time in years they've actually stood next to each other. It blows by. The speed, the flash of photographer's bulbs, and Rhodey swears that out of the corner of his eye, he sees a red-haired woman in black, waiting for Tony.





So yeah, I don't think it has the same HOLY SHIT SO THAT'S WHAT HE'S DOING element, but I'm happier with how this talks more directly about the clone and is less explicit about Tony's manpain. And works in the job of Iron Man better.

Written while listening to the Peaches remix of The Bird & the Bee "Fucking Boyfriend." I mean, this is the cover that goes with it on Amazon. In my head, this is the knock-knock joke clone-Pepper learns:

Who's there?
Aardvark.
Aardvark who?
Aardvark a million miles for one of your smiles.

Comments

MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the piece only really, really clicked in my head when I figured out that I had to lead off with Rhodey realizing that his BFF is cloning a deceased girlfriend. About a quarter of it was written, and then, I think it was that comment from gabby_silang about how Rhodey probably knows even though he doesn't want to admit it? And I started thinking about what Rhodey would do if he did find out. And how he would react. And the first half of the fic clicked into place. I made a half-hearted attempt to turn it into Agent Coulson, but Rhodey is really the guy for it.

In my head, he pretty much moves heaven and earth and is prepared to drive off with clone-Pepper that day in the car if she wants to leave. But the girl doesn't want to go (BECAUSE TONY IS HER WHOLE WORLD AND SHE CAN'T CONCEIVE OF THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF HIM and Rhodey is too much of a gentleman to lock the doors and floor it out of there).

And SHIELD is totally not interested in doing it and they'll step on anybody who interferes with their Iron Man. And Tony won't take his calls. And won't let him onto the property. And Rhodey just can't be friends with somebody like that, and it hurts like the dickens that Tony could do it, so he just drops it.

... my God, this comment is almost as long as the fic. But yeah, my idea was that Tony is totally isolated. Distanced Rhodey. No Pepper. In the movie, when Tony gets emotionally freaked out, he just shuts down. See: the cave until Yinsen yells at him. See: when Rhodey REEEE-JECTS him. See: when Obediah leaves him to bleed out on the red carpet.

The pressure of being Iron Man, which I gotta imagine is just physically punishing and emotionally draining, especially when the concept of collateral damage starts sinking in. And Pepper isn't even collateral damage. She's just damage from the process of living, like losing his parents was damage, and it even happens the same way. The hurt is all over, and booze and one-night ladies and being the coolest sonuvabitch on the block just doesn't cover it anymore. Rhodey is off doing his own thing, which he does so well and without any real help from Tony, and Tony just doesn't have anybody anymore.

SO HE DECIDES TO START CLONING PEPPER.

That's logical in the same way that building a GIANT FUCKING METAL ROBOT TO ESCAPE A CAVE, as you pointed out, is logical. XD

All of which is to say that I can't believe you've been so amazingly generous and awesome and supportive and omg. Before leaving for work, I read your FB as, you know. Support or something, because I'm just that much of a geek.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

SO HE DECIDES TO START CLONING PEPPER.

That's logical in the same way that building a GIANT FUCKING METAL ROBOT TO ESCAPE A CAVE, as you pointed out, is logical. XD

It is, it's so logical it's frightening. I think this is why I find him tragic, because he's so apt to try to solve his problems through engineering instead of, you know, trying to deal with them. I love how that conflict is there in the film, kind of half-hidden and not overemphasized. No anvils for us! But there are so many ways it could play out, and this is definitely a strong possibility.

And the fact that he *keeps trying* - as if he can perfect the design and get Pepper back. Gah.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

It's like all the different versions of the suit, right? And the different versions of his heart. Tony Stark! Nostalgic, but in the very, very, very worst way.

he's so apt to try to solve his problems through engineering

Man, that's a concise, concise way to put it. And exactly true, and accurate, too. After all, he was able to engineer his way out of a fucking cave in the middle of the Afghani mountains. With scraps. Surely, he can figure his way around a few simple biological problems.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

Man, that's a concise, concise way to put it. And exactly true, and accurate, too. After all, he was able to engineer his way out of a fucking cave in the middle of the Afghani mountains. With scraps. Surely, he can figure his way around a few simple biological problems.

TO me this is the very key to his character. I was discussing this in an earlier post, in that if you took Tony Stark's realizations about accountability to their logical conclusion he'd have to realize he can't solve these problems by building a better suit, because the suit is still a weapon. And by taking out his munitions, he's really not solving any problems, because people will just buy weapons from some other manufacturer. How far does his accountability extend? Does his responsibility include looking at his own government, at the role of his best buddy's employer?

And he's got these huge control issues that won't quite let him reach this end point. Because that would mean admitting he can never have control, and being able to live with that.

Thing is, he wants control but he's provided yet another way that someone can take it away from him, by surrounding himself with totally hackable tech and AI, a la the comics. Which is my vote for the plot of the second movie. Wouldn't that rock?

anyway. sorry to meta all over your lj.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

And he's got these huge control issues that won't quite let him reach this end point. Because that would mean admitting he can never have control, and being able to live with that.

This is me going: YES THAT. EXACTLY. That's who Tony is to me, at his core, a guy who can't admit there are somethings he can't control, that there are somethings that are just not fair, that sometimes you can lose both your parents at once and there was nothing you could have done about it, that there are things, simply, beyond your grasp.

Being a rich child prodigy, he was given everything he could have ever wanted, and on the surface it feels like control, but it's also saps it, to a degree. Being given everything you've ever wanted means you never had to work for it either, that means you always have to prove yourself worthy of it, and that's tiring, keeping that up.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

oh, what you said!

And add to that tasty background a nice dose of raging PTSD (RDJ in the scene after the gala when he blows shit up, including his own reflection, let me show you it) and you have a recipe for both disaster and even more control issues than he probably had before.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

even more control issues than he probably had before.

I think that's my favorite part of the way the movie ends. I mean, most superhero flicks end with everything settling into nice neat lines and the hero getting his life sorted out. Tony, though, decides to eff that. He escapes from prison in a giant metal suit? But no, things are about 100304234 more emotionally complicated when he gets home because Rhodey is pissed at him, Pepper and him get even more complicated, and oh, Obediah. He beats the evil villain? But no, it's time to come out to the world as Iron Man.

And. I want fic that really looks at Tony's PTSD. I totally hadn't even picked up the reflection thing until you pointed it out, but it's such an incredibly vivid image. And I bet Tony has mirrors in, ah, strategic places all over his bedroom.

Oh God, why hasn't anybody written this?

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

OH, totally, I'm trying to work PTSD subtly into my fic, without going all anvilly about it. Because the dude is a prime candidate, and if you squint is already showing symptoms in the film.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

WAIT. WAIT. I JUST READ ON WIKI THAT THE FDA APPROVED THE PROTOCOL OF USING ECSTASY DURING TALK THERAPY FOR PTSD.

Because it makes people more receptive to feeling empathy for others and for themselves.

Oh my God. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the idea of Tony rolling on E.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

OMG that shouldn't be allowed. The Tony on E thing. Because... oh.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

also, that brings up another point, in that as pleased with himself as he is at the film's end, he's totally setting himself up for failure, and underneath it all he *doesn't* have empathy for himself. He hasn't let himself process what happened at all - what does he do immediately upon getting back home? He builds a better robot suit. He escapes one cave and exchanges it for his... subterranean workshop. Where he builds another frikking suit. Tony, Tony, Tony. You have nonexistent coping skills, my friend.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

he's totally setting himself up for failure

Oh, dude. Totally. Totally. His coping skills involve a large bottle of whiskey and a monkey wrench. He's so bad at processing. I mean, Tony is what? Somewhere in his late thirties, and he hasn't even started processing his parents dying, which happened when he was nineteen. He only mentions his dad to talk about WHAT A GREAT HERO HE WAS or what he never had a chance to ask Howard, and you know. Never mentions Mom. At all. Ever.

And we're supposed to believe that he's over seeing Yinsen with a hot coal inches from his tongue?

I'm shameless, man. I don't even want subtle PTSD issues. I want a full-bore, nightmares and hypervigilance, Rhodey-recognizes-symptoms-from-guys-he-knows-who-came-back-from-Iraq wallowing in it all.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[gabby-silang.livejournal.com]

YOU NEED TO STOP HAVING SO MANY IDEAS. THIS CANNOT BE HEALTHY. PUT THEM BACK. GET THEM AWAY FROM ME.

By which, you know, I mean you're brilliant. Although I think I haven't thought about this yet because I had some PTSD for a while, and while I'm not into self-pity at all, it would break me to think of Tony in that place, with a big wibbly face, huddled under his work table, hugging himself, the awful things in his head battling with that other terrifying thought that someone might see him like this, get up already, man. But he can't come out just yet.

TONY.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry to hear that. I hope this discussion isn't triggering or anything, I hadn't considered that.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[gabby-silang.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, not at all what I meant, and no, not at all, I'm good. It was from a very big earthquake a long time ago, and eventually ran its course totally more than two years ago now, but the memories, of course, are vivid, but I've been cool with it for a while now. CONTINUE DISCUSSION PLEASE.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

Cool. I try to be aware of how these things can effect people but sometimes the ideas run off without me.

glad you're okay.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Shit, I'm sorry. Want me to back off the spam?

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[gabby-silang.livejournal.com]

See above.

For real, I haven't even thought about it in ages. These days my crippling social anxiety is more present in my mind. AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. ha. heh. Hm.


...GUYS COME ON TONY'S MANPAIN IS FASCINATING AND YOU ARE GETTING SIDE-TRACKED.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

SORRY, CAN'T TALK, FOOT IN MOUTH, SLIGHT FEELING OF BEING INSENSITIVE CLOD.

*returns to Tony's manpain forthwith*

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[gabby-silang.livejournal.com]

That's who Tony is to me, at his core, a guy who can't admit there are somethings he can't control, that there are somethings that are just not fair, that sometimes you can lose both your parents at once and there was nothing you could have done about it, that there are things, simply, beyond your grasp.

UTTERLY YES. If I'm ever stuck for writing Tony, I just look at the situation and think, "this is a guy who has never failed to solve a problem. this is a guy who never failed until he was shown that he'd actually been failing every single day, from the start. this is a guy whose world view is being attacked from every angle, but he's solving the problem. he's building his way out of it."

Yeah, I'm really annoying and meta and listy even in my own head.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

this is a guy who never failed until he was shown that he'd actually been failing every single day, from the start.

Wow, that's an excellent way of putting it. I hadn't really thought about it like that, but yes. a thousand times yes. And what do you do with that? Seriously, what do you do, after you figure out that jetting around the world mopping up your old weapons isn't enough?

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[gabby-silang.livejournal.com]

One of the morbidly fascinating things to me here is a Tony with no Captain America. Tony would hate to think it, but he really is one of those people who needs other people to be there for him and to lead by example for him, and historically, Cap has so much been that person for Tony, time and again, and played such a huge role in helping him understand his own heroism, its limitations, and its boundless opportunities. He still has Pepper, and he still has Rhodey, but in the end there's something about the weight of being the one who is actually capable of going out there and making a BIG difference that they just won't be able to grasp.

Until, of course, Rhodey gets his damn War Machine on. Because one way you can go from there is to get skunk drunk and try to disappear into yourself. And then somebody else has to be Iron Man for a while and show you how it's done. Hells bells, I love Rhodey for that.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

heh. Yeah, in the movieverse he still has no one to call him on his limitations, because while they try, he's so not listening to Rhodey or Pepper. Maybe a little to Pepper, but that's not stopping him. He's still at the point where he thinks he can engineer his way past his limitations. Literally. I mean, the guy managed to build his own miniature arc reactor to keep his heart beating. So yeah. Limitations and Tony Stark? Not so familiar, yet.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[gabby-silang.livejournal.com]

He's still at the point where he thinks he can engineer his way past his limitations.

I like to think he'll always sort of believe this. At heart, in his shiny metal heart, he's a futurist, and there's this technological optimism in that which nothing can shatter, because you can't stop believing in things that haven't even been invented yet. If the best thing you can build is yet to be built, then you can keep believing that it's perfect.

Oh, man, that gives me Ideas.

Re: MY BACKSTAGE WANKING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

also, I think the skunk drunk is sadly inevitable, even with Movieverse Tony, because he's not going to let himself be less than perfect. And if you can't do that, you can't help but totally fail yourself.