Comment on A League of Their Own

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    1. xlenaleex (Turk_and_JD) on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Sep 2025 02:07AM UTC

      Oooh, good question! I think...maybe neither? I'll explain but please excuse the length; you asked like a super in depth question and I kind of took it and ran away with it, sorry 😅

      I don't think it's from the immediate trauma that happened in Civil War, or even that this specific trauma cemented it. I think it's an ingrained part of his character that his PAST has cemented. And I think most of that trauma centers around his father and the death of his parents. "Stark men are made of iron. Stark men aren't weak." These are ideals Howard instilled in him as a child, but the problem came in when there was no... acknowledgement of his efforts? Praise? Support? If you ask Tony he says "Howard was cold, calculating, he never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me. His happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school." Is that a person you would be vulnerable with? Probably not. Look up to? Yes. Aspire to surpass? Definitely. Open up to? Aaaaabsolutely not.

      Also I think we have to realize that he was a celebrity figure from birth. Surrounded by sharks that wanted to use his father's money and power and Tony's own natural talents and exploit them for personal gain. It's not hard to imagine that many of the people surrounding him on a daily basis were most definitely not individuals with which you should be vulnerable with. Case in point? Obadiah Stane. That man was like his uncle. He was sooo close to Tony and I'd say Tony was pretty vulnerable with him. And what happened? Stane backstabbed him and tried to take everything he and his father built and then attempted to kill him. So again, Tony hiding his vulnerability is honestly a very valid, and even instinctual, defense mechanism.

      Based on what we've been shown I believe the one person he really opened up to was his mother, and when she died I believe that destroyed an essential part of him that he struggled to regain during the entirety of the mcu. I think it's telling that the people he was closest to (besides Rhodey of course) was his assistant and his body guard. His employees. Not his peers in the tech world, or other corporate giants, but rather the hired personnel who took care of him day in and day out and see him without his mask on, with the walls down. Yes Pepper went from employee to girlfriend but that switch takes time, and would take time even if she hadn't started out working for him, because he was so traumatized in his childhood and more recently with Obadiah. We do see him trying to be vulnerable with Pepper, but it's warped because he's not good at it. Vulnerability takes practice, and what little practice he had opening up to others was most often shut down, so of course it's even harder to try again.

      But he does try again. And that is commendable. It's one of the things that I love about him.

      He just tries so damn hard despite everyone around him telling him he's the worst, and that he's so arrogant and doesn't care about anybody but himself, and that he is narcissistic, and too cowardly to "lay down on the wire", and ignoble because he builds weapons. When the truth is he didn't set out to create weapons. Howard built weapons, and Tony took over his father's business so of course he started out making weapons too, and when he realized how destructive it was in the wrong hands he righted the ship to focus more on tech than weapons. He's constantly thinking about how to protect people, which is where the defense network came into play as the goal was to SAVE lives. Yes it got twisted when the stone was in play, but I would hardly call that his fault. And what about all of the advances in the medical field and the improvement of prosthetics, and funding student's research projects; or the fact that he took a second to BUY the building that he brought down on the Hulk when he was mind controlled? Or that he seems to be the only one even attempting to do clean up after the attack on New York? These aren't the works of a narcissist. Flying a nuclear bomb in a most likely one way trip into an unknown portal, isn't the act of a coward. Yes he can be snarky and can have this air about him that makes him seem haughty if you don't really know him, but time after time he proves with his actions who he really is.

      Tony Stark IS Iron Man. He IS the hero.

      (And my bad, this has gotten way off track! Thank you for reading and for the question! I hope you enjoy the story! 😆)

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      1. Swarnim (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 30 Sep 2025 08:21PM UTC

        God! I felt so understood and satisfied after reading your comment, people don't see that tony wears a mask, it's all just a mask so that people think they can't hurt him, in reality he actually cares, if he was a selfish asshole he wouldn't funded avengers, made them personal quarters, became their legal liason, did anyone even thank him for all that he did for the avengers, he built them weapons and everything. He's literally trying so hard and his efforts gets judged and misinterpreted as acts of selfishness. He's blamed for every thing cause they have a mentality to hate the rich. Tony's defense mechanism is actually very very very valid.

        I love your insight on Tony's stark character, I've rarely seen people describing so accurately. He's someone who's judged the by the sins of his pasts despite always trying to fix them even at his own expense. His biggest effort is ignored and misconstructed and his smallest mistakes are called out. I love how you get tony stark. I love him. I love his character development and flaws.
        He has layers to his personality which makes for a very complex character.
        He reminds us "he's flawed and so are we"

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