Five Times Obadiah Stane Cloned Tony Stark

[quigonejinn]

Yeah, I thought I was done with clones, too, but hrdazka started suggesting some variants that neither I nor jamaillith had thought of. Which, for those of you who are following along at home, jamaillith and me put together five fics about five different Clony Starks:

#1 - The Prototype. [PG - 490 words.]
#2 - The Golden Goose. [PG-13 - 404 words.]
#3 - The Ghosts In The Machine. [R - 4,871 words.]
#4 - The Patient Man. [PG - 1,440 words.]
#5 - The Happy Ending. [R - 2,584 words.]

#5 - The Happy Ending, which is 99.99% by jamaillith, is hands down my favorite. Read it if you don't read any of the others. It's just spectacular and heartbreaking. Seriously. She has an ear for the way that Tony and Rhodey talk to each other, and oh man. Oh man.

Comments

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

OW OW OW

only one number three, that's all i can take for now.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

OH IT GETS WORSE. BELIEVE ME.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Oh, meep. These are all fantastic. Including, as you say, number five, though I've a soft spot for the beautiful evanescence of the first one.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? jamaillith is fucking AMAZING. And that last line is just absolutely killer.

[caia-comica.livejournal.com]

....yikes. These are horrifying. But very well done.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Ahah. Your icon is amazing.

And glad that these were effective for you. :D

[obsession-inc.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned just how fucked in the head you two are? In a glorious, awesome way, naturally, but I have this insane desire to crack open your skulls to see what on earth you've stuffed your brains with that THIS is what results. (And to see how it is you can write so fast. Seriously.)

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Different kinds of fic, darling. You write frontal cortex stuff that's dense and plotty and requires lots of thinking and research. I mean, how intense are you about getting a plot re: Obie and Pep for TNF (the Neverending Fic)? And the Five Times fic you're working on re: Tony and the experiences? YOU THINK IT THROUGH AND CONDUCT RESEARCH INTO HOW TO DRINK SCOTCH.

Jam and I would just be like, eff that. Move stuff around, chop up the narrative, zoom close in on the action, and go for the porn. We're the limbic system, all instinct and adrenaline.

[obsession-inc.livejournal.com]

I know, I know, but I still study your ways. I feel that this ability you guys have to strip something down to its essentials-- more, to be able to identify what the essentials are in the first place-- is something that I lack, and is something that I would like very much to put in my toolbox. I tend toward "when in doubt, add more words", which does not always work.

I still need to go back to the Five Times. I may have identified what I got hung up on.

Also, it is your fault that A. spent an hour last night telling me about CLOBIE. And about the band: Rhodey and the Cloneys. AAAAAAGH. How can something so cracky in concept be so heartbreaking when you guys actually write it?

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

if either of you ever have Tony clone Obadiah, I'm going to hide.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Dude. jamaillith talked about this. It mostly foundered on the idea that we couldn't think of anything that Tony would want to do to them except KILL THEM OVER AND OVER AGAIN, but hradzka did come up with kind of the awesome idea that Obadiah ight have cloned himself -- as a far backup plan? And what happens when they find that clone.

Yeah.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

yeah, I could see that.


I could also see Tony cloning one just to observe it. Trying to understand.

and then he'd kill it.


and Pepper or Rhodey would find out, and be not a little creeped out. Especially if it wasn't the first time.



dammit, look what you've done to me.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Oh man, there's a story. There. Is. The story. Holy shit. And the setup -- Tony twenty years down the line, twenty years of being Iron Man and dropping out of the sky and saving people. He's in the limo and they pull over. A teenager gets into the car, and it's Obadiah. At, like, seventeen. And.

Man, the twist you could do with the reader expecting Pepper and/or Rhodey to just be furious with Tony. And they're not. Because it turns out this isn't the first time. Just a kind of resignation that Tony keeps going past the boundaries.

No, tell you what

[deiseach.livejournal.com]

Either Tony or Obadiah decides to clone (1) Howard (2) Maria (3) Howard and Maria -

- and I am running screaming out the front door into the night. Because.

Because, yeah, twenty years of being God in a suit of armour descending from the skies, and no-one able to or daring to make you stop and think, because you can buy them off with either money or tech or influence or playing upon their love for you, so boundaries? They're for mortals.

Too scary to go there.

I thought the "Tony clones Pepper" stories killed me, then resurrected me only to kill me all over again, but these - !

*is killed stone ded*

[deiseach.livejournal.com]

Oh my sweet Lord above. Yeah, rip out my still-beating heart, toss it on the floor, and dance the tarantella on top of it, why don't youse guys?


Poor Tony. Poor Jarvis. Poor Pepper and Happy. Poor, poor Rhodey.

Even poor Obadiah, because "He sends two vials of blood to the lab the next day and spends three hours haranguing them over the phone over the lack of answers over why Tony is suffering like this, then slams down the phone and goes outside into the snow to cool off" is not the reaction of a guy who's going "Experiment No. 2 is crashing and burning. Bummer. Ah, well, put this one down and fire up the Clone-A-Tron once again, I guess."

Damnation. I can't decide whether #4 or #5 are sadder.

Re: *is killed stone ded*

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Five gets my vote because it's Rhodey, kind of doing the right thing, and what does it get him? A mouthful of ashes and the realization that SHIELD was watching him the whole time, waiting to swoop in if he didn't do it. Plus, oh God, the Tony - Rhodey dialogue. jamaillith is a fucking genius.

not the reaction of a guy who's going "Experiment No. 2 is crashing and burning. Bummer. Ah, well, put this one down and fire up the Clone-A-Tron once again, I guess."

Dude is weak against a Tony that he can totally, totally control. And hee, I'm so glad that worked for you. I almost wrenched my arm out of the socket after I put the sentence together, so yay for it being vivid for somebody else.

Then again, Obie, MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP FUCKING CLONING THEM. Alas, I think his solution will be to have them more lab-raised.

Anyways. Thanks for reading. :D

No. 5 is the killer

[deiseach.livejournal.com]

No. 1 just has lovely writing and use of language.

No. 5 - there is always the remote possibility of doubt, in that could it really be Tony after all? And the little details, such as "Rhodey points at one of them, says "I bought him that shirt", and has to be escorted out of the room to calm down" - oh, heart-breaking.

And of course - why is Obadiah so easy about Rhodey showing up and heading off with Tony? Does he suspect what's going to happen? Is he glad (in a way) to have this charade end? Or does he reckon that S.H.I.E.L.D. will cut some sort of a deal with him?

Because what are S.H.I.E.L.D. going to do with Tony's body? Are they going to manufacture some kind of "Tonight, Tony Stark succumbed to his injuries sustained in the car accident" story to account for Tony being dead, or are they going to try cloning their very own Tony Stark, Engineering Genius?

And yeah, somehow I get the impression that Obie will be left in control of Stark Industries - as long as he plays ball with S.H.I.E.L.D. - because it's more convenient all round for everyone that way. Which leaves poor Rhodey being the guy who killed the (clone of) his best friend - and for what?

No. 4 hurts in a different way because we get hints of an Obadiah who had some kind of affection, at least at the start, for young Tony; who was a part of the Stark family (in all its glorious disfunctionality) and who is not completely 100% a total evil asshole. And of course, that just makes him scarier when he RIPS OUT TONY'S HEART ON THE COUCH, SMILING ALL THE WHILE. :-)

Re: No. 5 is the killer

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

"Rhodey points at one of them, says "I bought him that shirt", and has to be escorted out of the room to calm down"

GOD. I love that line. And I love how it's both integrated into the story, but also set apart. So great. So awesome.

why is Obadiah so easy about Rhodey showing up and heading off with Tony? Does he suspect what's going to happen? Is he glad (in a way) to have this charade end? Or does he reckon that S.H.I.E.L.D. will cut some sort of a deal with him?

I can't answer for sure for jamaillith, who is off at a music festival, but I'll point her towards this when she comes back. We were kicking around some ideas, though, when we were putting the piece together -- and yeah, Obadiah knowing that Rhodey was with SHIELD was one of the things we talked about?

No. 4 hurts in a different way because we get hints of an Obadiah who had some kind of affection, at least at the start, for young Tony

Yeah. There's something weirdly. . . intimate? About the way he goes about tearing Tony's heart out on the couch. It's nice and close and in your face, and it really makes want to put a spin on that bit from the red carpet scene during the photo op, when Obadiah's parting shot is that it was the only way to protect Tony. One way of reading it is that he thought Tony might still buy it. The other, which I'm trying to figure out works or not, is that he really. and honestly. thought it was how he went about keeping Tony from the dirty business. Sure, yeah, he'll kill Tony for control of the company, but he doesn't want Tony to be doing the double-dealing.

I don't have it straight in my head, but it's interesting. And it's interesting to think about what Tony's life would have been like if he'd just never stepped up to take a role at Stark Industries. Or if he'd left running the company entirely to O.

'Cos arms dealing is such a black-and-white business

[deiseach.livejournal.com]

"I don't have it straight in my head, but it's interesting. And it's interesting to think about what Tony's life would have been like if he'd just never stepped up to take a role at Stark Industries. Or if he'd left running the company entirely to O."

It raises a lot of questions. Like, if Howard was still alive and running the company, would Obie have had the opportunity to do the same kind of under-the-table deals? Did Obie start these kinds of deals when Howard was alive? Would Howard have gotten his hands dirty in these kinds of deals - that's a big question, and a hell of a one regarding 'the Stark legacy'.

If Obie had left Stark Industries early, would it have achieved the same level of success? I get the impression that Howard (and Tony even more so) were great at the inventing, great at the charming and the PR, not so great at the nuts and bolts details of running a company.

Obadiah probably is largely to thank for Tony being a billionaire (in the sense of building up the company to that level). How much of the business involved dodgy deals, though? Maybe an awful lot more than Tony would like to know about.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Gaaaah cry now.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

:((