{"id":280564,"date":"2018-10-17T13:08:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T13:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/17\/somethingjustsouthofbrilliance-2\/"},"modified":"2018-10-17T13:08:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T13:08:52","slug":"somethingjustsouthofbrilliance-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/17\/somethingjustsouthofbrilliance-2\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

somethingjustsouthofbrilliance<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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starkravinghazelnuts<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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kingpepperony<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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aslightstep<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Sometimes I think about the Tony that we had at the end of Avengers<\/i>, smiling with his girlfriend in their tower after he saved New York from a nuke, building a new home base for the Avengers.<\/p>\n

And then came the PTSD and the Maximoffs, Ultron and\u00a0\u2018together,\u2019 the Accords and\u00a0\u2018did you know?\u2019 and I think of the Tony we have now, sad, broken, tired. All his fault, always his fault<\/i>, right, Stark? Still trying, but not with the effervescent drive of Avengers<\/i>, but with the determination of a dying man.<\/p>\n

And I hate it, but sometimes I think the Avengers were the worst thing that ever happened to Tony Stark.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I love all the Avengers. I really do. But this is the damned truth. The Avengers are unequivocally one of the worst things to happen to Tony in his life \u2013 a life that was already full of worst things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tony\u2019s relationship with the Avengers begins when Nick Fury approaches him about joining in Iron Man 2<\/i>. Tony turns down any talk of the Avengers (\u201dI don\u2019t want to join your secret boy band\u201d)\u00a0because he\u2019s dying<\/i>. It\u2019s in this same scene Tony learns Pepper\u2019s new assistant\u00a0\u201cNatalie Rushman\u201d is actually an undercover spy for SHIELD who has been assessing him (an assessment done while he\u2019s on a self-destructive binge due to the whole \u201cdying\u201d situation).<\/p>\n

After Tony has cured his palladium poisoning and put an end to Vanko, he approaches Nick again, actually excited about the prospect of joining the Avengers team now that he\u2019s healthy, only to be turned down.<\/i>\u00a0Due to Romanoff\u2019s less-than-flattering assessment of his character, Tony is only wanted in a\u00a0\u201cconsultant\u201d capacity. While it\u2019s not overt, it\u2019s clear this is a slap in the face, but Tony brushes it off and waives his usually exorbitant\u00a0consultant fee solely to be a petty jackass to Senator Stern (because, get this, Tony still <\/i>wants in \u2013 even if in a small role).\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Tony\u2019s next brush with the Avengers is in the The Avengers <\/i>film itself. Tony is enjoying a quiet date night with Pepper when he\u2019s interrupted by Agent Coulson who basically drags him into the \u201cLoki stole the Tesseract from SHIELD\u201d mess. Tony reminds Coulson that he\u2019s a consultant<\/i>, and Coulson says,\u00a0\u201cThis isn\u2019t about personality profiles anymore\u201d to emphasize how dire the situation is. It\u2019s actually Pepper <\/i>who convinces Tony to get involved (or at least she\u2019s the one who gives him the go ahead), because Tony was fully willing to tell Coulson\u00a0\u201cno\u201d if Pepper didn\u2019t want him to go.<\/p>\n

We all know what happens next. The team doesn\u2019t gel quite at first. Steve Rogers and Tony especially don\u2019t get along. But then Coulson\u2019s death is that sort of rallying moment to make them put aside their differences. A nuclear warhead is shot at NYC, and Tony \u2013 the man who isn\u2019t even officially on the Avengers roster<\/i> \u2013\u00a0is the only one who can put it in the wormhole and save everyone. Tony does this unhesitatingly, without even getting to say goodbye to the woman he loves, fully expecting to die, but miraculously he survives <\/i>\u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n

But lives forever with the psychological scars.<\/p>\n

Iron Man 3 <\/i>details how Tony is coping with his near-death experience \u2013 and it\u2019s not good. He can\u2019t sleep. He\u2019s hoarding robots. He\u2019s a\u00a0\u201cpiping hot mess\u201d and he admits in a vulnerable moment that Pepper is the only constant in his life holding him together. By the end of the film, it seems he might\u2019ve resolved some of his trauma. He destroys his Iron Man suits. But then we see in Age of Ultron <\/i>that Tony is still not well. He\u2019s paranoid, jumpy, he still holds onto his suits. While helping the Avengers mop up HYDRA, Wanda Maximoff hexes him, making him see his worst nightmare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And his worst nightmare?\u00a0The Avengers \u2013 <\/i>this group he considers a family even after being rejected by them\u00a0\u2013 <\/i>lying dead around him while he still lives.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

In essence? It was Tony\u2019s love <\/i>for the Avengers that led to the birth of Ultron, because it was his fear of not doing enough to protect them that drove him to resurrect his and Bruce\u2019s old pipe dream of a\u00a0\u201csuit of armor around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course we see no reaction from the group to Tony\u2019s horrific vision because he he never tells them what he saw (he admits he can\u2019t<\/i>). Instead, they blame him, in one instance even physically assault him<\/i>, for his mistake \u2013 a mistake he made because he loves these people so much.<\/p>\n

Already we see a pattern with Tony and the Avengers. He\u2019s always the odd-man-out. For one, he was never really technically an original Avenger (he got shoehorned in because of desperation). For two, he was the villain of Age of Ultron <\/i>while the others got to be heroes\u00a0(nevermind why he did what he did or the circumstances that led to that decision).\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then? Comes Captain America: Civil War<\/i>. And it\u2019s Tony\u2019s desperate drive to keep the Avengers together that ends up breaking them apart. While Steve had already given up on the Avengers before the airport fight in Germany (as signified by the fact he removed his \u201cAvengers\u201d patch on his uniform), Tony was still trying <\/i>to prevent further damage to the team (because he\u2019s a foolish optimist). In his mind, he\u2019d rather the Avengers stick together even under the imperfect Accords than be forced into hiding from their own government, living on the run. By the end of the film, once all the fighting is over, Rhodey is paralyzed, Steve and Tony are no longer on speaking terms, the Avengers are into the wind, T\u2019Challa is back in Wakanda, and it\u2019s only Tony and Vision at the Compound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2026 And even then Vision leaves Tony too in Avengers: Infinity War<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019s very interesting that, in Avengers: Infinity War<\/i>, Tony doesn\u2019t interact with any Avengers except Bruce \u2013 and even then he doesn\u2019t fight alongside Bruce. Kind of intriguing that Bruce is <\/p>\n

ultimately <\/p>\n

the one who makes the call to get the Avengers back together even though Tony was the one who had the cellphone on his person for the past two years, right? Even more telling that, by the end of the film, Tony is the Avenger who is furthest from home<\/i>. He is literally light-years <\/i>away on an alien planet while everyone else is back on Earth. This is symbolic of the place he\u2019s always had in the Avengers \u201cfamily\u201d \u2013 left in the cold.<\/p>\n

Tony\u2019s love for the Avengers, his heart, has been the thing slowly undoing him from the inside out. He\u2019s never truly belonged to the team (as the films have plainly demonstrated), but he tries and tries and tries <\/i>to do right by them and protect them to the best of his ability. It\u2019s the saddest fucking thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hopefully Avengers 4 <\/i>finally offers Tony some comfort for all this. Maybe he\u2019ll finally find a family where he belongs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The original post was heartbreaking enough and you had to go and stomp all over my already bleeding heart @starkravinghazelnuts<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

somethingjustsouthofbrilliance: starkravinghazelnuts: kingpepperony: aslightstep: Sometimes I think about the Tony that we had at the end of Avengers, smiling with his girlfriend in their tower after he saved New York from a nuke, building a new home base for the Avengers. And then came the PTSD and the Maximoffs, Ultron and\u00a0\u2018together,\u2019 the Accords and\u00a0\u2018did you … <\/p>\n

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