TM 217: Ring & Book Image
More and more often these days, Tony finds himself feeling for a ring on his left finger, a ring he has never actually worn. Maria Hill noticed it, Tony's pretty sure, in a senior SHIELD staff meeting the other day. No doubt, she went straight to whoever her best placed sources were to try and find out if Tony had gotten married in Vegas at the poker tournament, how inappropriate the girl in question might be, and how she could use this ammo against him. Well, good, that should eat into her scheming time, and she'd be forced to use what was left for real work. So much, as King Claudius would have said, for her.
Internal politics at SHIELD are the last thing on his mind -- except insofar as they might involve brainwash-happy Nazis, or shape-shifting aliens. He doesn't care what people like Maria Hill think about him. He'll have time to worry about that at the point when -- and he is more and more convinced it would be soon -- the inevitable triumphant return of Captain America occurs. Tony still isn't sure how he is going to play that. Would it be better to admit he'd known all along? That truth might cost him his position with the agency, which isn't something that he likes to contemplate. It's sure as hell tempting to think about turning the political side over to somebody else, and just being heroes together; Avengers again. But he can't escape the uneasy feeling that leaving the politics to other people is what got them in this mess in the first place. At a time like this, doing the appealing thing and walking away could be an act of unforgivable negligence.
And that's starting to look like his biggest problem, the elephat in the room that he and Steve haven't mentioned even between themselves. Captain America will return, and Tony Stark will still be a politician, with a politician's problems and liabilities. In that pretty little world Wanda had made, he and Steve had gone public with their relationship, helping to turn the tide of support for this important change. And he has no doubt that, once he's back in the spotlight, Steve Rogers will want to do the same thing here.
Tony wouldn't like anything better than to live in the world where he and Steve had been a happy family with their daughter? But that was a different world, an ideal world; not one with all the compromises and necessary evils they'll have to face in this one. That was an an easier world.
But was it really? Tony finds himself thinking. Or does it just seem that way, looking back, because we won?
And whenever he has this thought, Tony reaches down to touch his hand, fiddling with a wedding ring that isn't there.
Prompt based on this image. This takes place at some vague point in TM-canon after Tony has gotten back with Steve and started to suspect that the Red Skull is infiltrating SHIELD, but before the ongoing rescue mission.
Internal politics at SHIELD are the last thing on his mind -- except insofar as they might involve brainwash-happy Nazis, or shape-shifting aliens. He doesn't care what people like Maria Hill think about him. He'll have time to worry about that at the point when -- and he is more and more convinced it would be soon -- the inevitable triumphant return of Captain America occurs. Tony still isn't sure how he is going to play that. Would it be better to admit he'd known all along? That truth might cost him his position with the agency, which isn't something that he likes to contemplate. It's sure as hell tempting to think about turning the political side over to somebody else, and just being heroes together; Avengers again. But he can't escape the uneasy feeling that leaving the politics to other people is what got them in this mess in the first place. At a time like this, doing the appealing thing and walking away could be an act of unforgivable negligence.
And that's starting to look like his biggest problem, the elephat in the room that he and Steve haven't mentioned even between themselves. Captain America will return, and Tony Stark will still be a politician, with a politician's problems and liabilities. In that pretty little world Wanda had made, he and Steve had gone public with their relationship, helping to turn the tide of support for this important change. And he has no doubt that, once he's back in the spotlight, Steve Rogers will want to do the same thing here.
Tony wouldn't like anything better than to live in the world where he and Steve had been a happy family with their daughter? But that was a different world, an ideal world; not one with all the compromises and necessary evils they'll have to face in this one. That was an an easier world.
But was it really? Tony finds himself thinking. Or does it just seem that way, looking back, because we won?
And whenever he has this thought, Tony reaches down to touch his hand, fiddling with a wedding ring that isn't there.
Prompt based on this image. This takes place at some vague point in TM-canon after Tony has gotten back with Steve and started to suspect that the Red Skull is infiltrating SHIELD, but before the ongoing rescue mission.
