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cap_ironman2010-01-29 02:04 pm
prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2010-01-29 02:04 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: From what I've tasted of desire
Title: From What I've Tasted of Desire
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
prettyarbitrary
Pairing: About as much Steve/Tony as in canon (that is to say, it's all in the subtext)
Rating: PG (light cussing)
Word Count: 807
A/N: A bit of something-something I found lying on my hard drive. It dates from the beginning of Dark Reign, before we knew how things would go down with Tony. One day I was reminded of Frost's poem "Fire and Ice," it occurred to me how apt it was for Tony at the time, and this happened. I distrust it, because I suspect it may be Artistic, but I'm posting it on the chance it might be a good read.
Tony had always known it would end in tears, but he'd thought he might be able to keep it from ending in fire.
So much for that.
While Jarvis milled quietly in the background, packing, Tony stared out the window of his penthouse (status of ownership to be determined), watching smoke drift across New York City. The broken shells of gutted and ruined buildings poked out from it, here and there, in tortured metal spikes. He sympathized. "I've learned my lesson," he muttered bitterly--maybe to Jarvis. He didn't know who he was talking to. "Just let it burn." Everything he'd built and bled for--testament to his desire to help--was being dismantled around him, and it felt like a knife twisting in his chest. Everything he'd put his hand to, to help, to fix, became an escalating series of disasters. Like the weapons he'd stopped making, so long ago. He should've taken that shrapnel as an omen.
Tony had things to do. He needed to fix his armor, pack up the tools and parts he'd need. He needed to clear out his old schematics, stow the old sets where no one could get to them. Maybe he should give them to Reed for safekeeping... The thought of having to look anyone in the face right now put a shudder down his spine. He couldn't swallow the disgust on the faces of the people he'd cared about. They deserved an explanation, but what could he tell them? That he'd done it for them? Yeah, a pack of superheroes would just love to hear that.
He thought he was glad Cap hadn't lived to see this. No. He'd rather burn in hell than see Cap dead. Too bad that hadn't worked out.
He needed a drink. Oh god. His hands shook with it. Thankfully he felt too drained to move. The liquor store seemed as far away as a time when his life hadn't been a wreck. Was there a time like that? He thought there must have been. Back in the Avengers' early days, when he still felt like a hero. Maybe when Rumiko was with him. When he and Cap had put the team together again. Those had been happy times.
He realized suddenly that he hadn't thought of himself as Iron Man since all this started. Iron Man was a hero. Tony Stark was a fuck-up. The armor had been something noble, once, but when he looked at it now he only saw a tank.
He was going to have to run. He needed to prepare, to put measures in place. He wondered why he should bother. Shouldn't he just let them come for him, toss him in the prison where he'd locked up so many of his friends? It'd be a good move, right? Keep Tony Stark from doing any more damage. Let somebody else take care of things.
They'd put Norman Osborn in charge. Norman fucking Osborn. After Cap's death, the Hulk, and then the Skrulls, if you'd asked Tony how it could possibly get any worse, he'd never have thought of that. That took real imagination on the part of some sick, twisted cosmic power. It was almost enough to make him believe in God.
Osborn would kill Spider-Man. He'd wreak havoc in revenge for those stupid nanites they'd used to keep him from murdering people as he saw fit (one thing that Tony really didn't regret). He'd raze everything he could touch to the ground to pay them back for leashing him, and he'd have people tripping over themselves to thank him for it. He'd come after Tony and take the armor just because he knew how to hurt people. He'd do things with the power they'd given him that Tony could only imagine because he'd grown up around psychopaths like that.
Tony really just wanted to lie down and die. Booze, prison, death rays, smothered by hot babes, pummeled to death by Steve's ghost, he didn't really care how it went. He was pretty sure he'd fallen as far as he could, but when he hit bottom (and oh, he hoped this was the bottom), it turned out he couldn't break anymore than he already had. So here he was, begging a God he didn't believe in for the luxury of giving up, and preparing to run the hell away from Norman Osborn and whatever authorities the suits who needed a scapegoat put on Tony's tail, in hopes of saving enough pieces to put them back together after everyone else discovered what a bad idea this was. It'd all end in flames, again, but he couldn't stop trying. God damn it, Steve, why can't I stop trying?
Some days he really wished he'd been allowed to freeze to death down in the Bowery.
And for your delectation,
"Fire and Ice"
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
--Robert Frost, Dec. 1920
Author:
prettyarbitrary Pairing: About as much Steve/Tony as in canon (that is to say, it's all in the subtext)
Rating: PG (light cussing)
Word Count: 807
A/N: A bit of something-something I found lying on my hard drive. It dates from the beginning of Dark Reign, before we knew how things would go down with Tony. One day I was reminded of Frost's poem "Fire and Ice," it occurred to me how apt it was for Tony at the time, and this happened. I distrust it, because I suspect it may be Artistic, but I'm posting it on the chance it might be a good read.
Tony had always known it would end in tears, but he'd thought he might be able to keep it from ending in fire.
So much for that.
While Jarvis milled quietly in the background, packing, Tony stared out the window of his penthouse (status of ownership to be determined), watching smoke drift across New York City. The broken shells of gutted and ruined buildings poked out from it, here and there, in tortured metal spikes. He sympathized. "I've learned my lesson," he muttered bitterly--maybe to Jarvis. He didn't know who he was talking to. "Just let it burn." Everything he'd built and bled for--testament to his desire to help--was being dismantled around him, and it felt like a knife twisting in his chest. Everything he'd put his hand to, to help, to fix, became an escalating series of disasters. Like the weapons he'd stopped making, so long ago. He should've taken that shrapnel as an omen.
Tony had things to do. He needed to fix his armor, pack up the tools and parts he'd need. He needed to clear out his old schematics, stow the old sets where no one could get to them. Maybe he should give them to Reed for safekeeping... The thought of having to look anyone in the face right now put a shudder down his spine. He couldn't swallow the disgust on the faces of the people he'd cared about. They deserved an explanation, but what could he tell them? That he'd done it for them? Yeah, a pack of superheroes would just love to hear that.
He thought he was glad Cap hadn't lived to see this. No. He'd rather burn in hell than see Cap dead. Too bad that hadn't worked out.
He needed a drink. Oh god. His hands shook with it. Thankfully he felt too drained to move. The liquor store seemed as far away as a time when his life hadn't been a wreck. Was there a time like that? He thought there must have been. Back in the Avengers' early days, when he still felt like a hero. Maybe when Rumiko was with him. When he and Cap had put the team together again. Those had been happy times.
He realized suddenly that he hadn't thought of himself as Iron Man since all this started. Iron Man was a hero. Tony Stark was a fuck-up. The armor had been something noble, once, but when he looked at it now he only saw a tank.
He was going to have to run. He needed to prepare, to put measures in place. He wondered why he should bother. Shouldn't he just let them come for him, toss him in the prison where he'd locked up so many of his friends? It'd be a good move, right? Keep Tony Stark from doing any more damage. Let somebody else take care of things.
They'd put Norman Osborn in charge. Norman fucking Osborn. After Cap's death, the Hulk, and then the Skrulls, if you'd asked Tony how it could possibly get any worse, he'd never have thought of that. That took real imagination on the part of some sick, twisted cosmic power. It was almost enough to make him believe in God.
Osborn would kill Spider-Man. He'd wreak havoc in revenge for those stupid nanites they'd used to keep him from murdering people as he saw fit (one thing that Tony really didn't regret). He'd raze everything he could touch to the ground to pay them back for leashing him, and he'd have people tripping over themselves to thank him for it. He'd come after Tony and take the armor just because he knew how to hurt people. He'd do things with the power they'd given him that Tony could only imagine because he'd grown up around psychopaths like that.
Tony really just wanted to lie down and die. Booze, prison, death rays, smothered by hot babes, pummeled to death by Steve's ghost, he didn't really care how it went. He was pretty sure he'd fallen as far as he could, but when he hit bottom (and oh, he hoped this was the bottom), it turned out he couldn't break anymore than he already had. So here he was, begging a God he didn't believe in for the luxury of giving up, and preparing to run the hell away from Norman Osborn and whatever authorities the suits who needed a scapegoat put on Tony's tail, in hopes of saving enough pieces to put them back together after everyone else discovered what a bad idea this was. It'd all end in flames, again, but he couldn't stop trying. God damn it, Steve, why can't I stop trying?
Some days he really wished he'd been allowed to freeze to death down in the Bowery.
And for your delectation,
"Fire and Ice"
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
--Robert Frost, Dec. 1920
no subject
Really, really nice character insight into everyone's favorite self-destructive genius engineer billionaire :3 And you got the Steve-related subtext right on. X3
I feel SO sorry for Tony, though, wtfuu D:no subject
Poor Tony. I was going back through old Iron Man issues a week or so ago, and in retrospect it's easy to see the long fall. Man, he was coming apart well before Avengers Disassembled.
no subject
"He realized suddenly that he hadn't thought of himself as Iron Man since all this started. Iron Man was a hero. Tony Stark was a fuck-up. The armor had been something noble, once, but when he looked at it now he only saw a tank."
The armor is Tony, in a way. And it isn't...
It's definitely his most recognized and personal art form.
There's something of Rudyard Kipling's 'Killing an Elephant' in this calling the armor a tank. -The sense that he's ceased to be able to guide events, and is now just following a hardwired set of dead-end and unavoidable decisions.
The death of the art of writing the future with your hands.
"Osborn would kill Spider-Man."
When he thinks of the horrors to come, that's the first one. The first, most personal, most indicative tragedy. Peter is one of the good ones. One of the men without whom the world becomes less bright, and more malleable to all the wrong people.
Someone like Steve, except that he's still alive. For the moment.
Tony has the ability to know some things ahead of time, to reach logical conclusions no one else can see. It's changed him. Made him more distant, more driven... harder for people to understand, really.
He sounds like he's either admitting to being able to do magic, or being unimaginably arrogant.
Except he's NOT. He -can- see some things. Some pitfalls, some traps before they snap closed on himself and everyone else.
That knowledge, equated in Tony's mind with the responsibility of keeping the future he saw from taking place, lead him to take on more than he could handle. Exponentially.
Because he already knew that nobody would really -believe- him, and only Steve would bother to try.
...The man who saw the future, and brought back the knowledge to save the world... then ended up burning it half to the ground because nobody would listen to him?
Wait a minute... these F%&*#! writers were listening to Black Sabbath, weren't they.
no subject
The depersonalization of the armor.... Tony was always so intent on the armor only being used for good; he saw Iron Man as being some pure part of him. But even before Civil War, I think he was losing that. With Extremis, the armor was more a part of him than ever, physically and psychologically. Between that and revealing his identity, Tony seemed to lose the compartmentalization that always protected his Iron Man side. If Tony was compromised, Iron Man was compromised. So in one sense, it's lifeless to him because it no longer embodies the part of him he values. In another, it's a depersonalization of himself, because of course the armor is only a symbol.
Sadly, it's possible Steve did believe him, but he still couldn't compromise his principles. It may even be that Tony didn't try harder to convince him because morally, Steve was right. It couldn't save Tony from doing what he had to, but Tony has always relied on Steve to do the right thing even when Tony couldn't do it himself. But I love this about Tony, that he lives in an infinitely more complex world than most of the superheroes. It gets him in hot water sometimes, but it also means that in really ugly, complicated situations, he's uniquely able to do something. But he also pays a really ugly, complicated price for doing so that few of his friends are in a position to really understand.
(As an aside, I suspect Tony and Steve weren't having the same argument as everyone else; the two of them were, as usual, disagreeing about ideals vs. reality. I think it was a failure of trust, really: Tony couldn't trust that Steve would find a way, and Steve couldn't trust that Tony wasn't being an elitist dick or influenced by Extremis. But I like to think Tony went in believing Cap'd find a way to make it better while he held the line.)
...these F%&*#! writers were listening to Black Sabbath, weren't they.
...I bet. Also the Iliad. Cassandra was one of roughly five people with any sense in that story.