A Dissertation to the Descent, an ironman fanfic

A/N: This started out as an attempt at a character analysis for Obadiah Stane (the movieverse version). Somewhere along the way, it twisted and morphed and went out of my control until this result came out. You may not agree with my version of events, or my take on the character, but this is what I got when I tried to take a look inside his mind.

I present, for your viewing pleasure, a look inside the mind of Obadiah Stane.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I can't say that I own them outside of wildly vivid fantasies.

And watch us spiral down and down

Obadiah Stane does not know his mother. She was not there to tuck him into bed at night, to brush her lips against his forehead and bath him in the mesmerizing scents of musk and wine and luxury before leaving for another extravagant party. He thinks that's what his mother might have done, smudge the lipstick from his cheek and caress his hair with manicured nails before vanishing in a cloud of perfume with his father's heart and maybe his sanity, gone off to who knows where and never to return.

He is fine with just him and his father, just fine with his father, the retired infantry soldier who was lucky enough to knock up the pretty young heiress with high hopes and bigger dreams.

For a time, at least, he likes to think he was fine.

The only sound that fills the room after the gunshot is his screams, loud and gruesome as they tear through the walls and into the apartment of his neighbors. In another ten minutes, they will manage to break down the door and whisk him away from the sight, but for now it is only him and his father, him and the blood pooling over the floor in a crimson puddle, him and the limp body of his only family while the gun smokes in his hand. The money dances through the air before settling around his body, forlorn flowers for an early funeral, and the colors match to make a morbid Christmas scene, complete with the snow drifting to the ground outside and the tree lighting up the corner.

His audible screams do not stop until he is forcibly taken from the room, clawing against kind hands while his voice echoes against the wall.

His silent screams, however, continue to reverberate through his skull for years afterward.

His first foster family lasts two weeks.

They send him back after they drive their son to the hospital, his blood a crimson stain on the marble floor.

Three years go by in a hazy blur before another family attempts to adopt him.

They last four days.

His third foster father teaches him chess, and he catches onto the mechanics of the game rapidly. There is something entrancing about having to calculate your opponent's weaknesses, forced to authorize strategies and predict moves in order to stay ahead. And even then, the outcome is never certain, the game is never won until the king is in checkmate and he once again rules the board.

He thinks this family might last, might help glue together the fragile pieces that have been wobbling apart for years now, but then he starts to compete in the amateur league.

They never outright accuse him of killing the dog, but his foster mother sees the scarlet stain on his collar and he returns to the orphanage a week later.

They lasted seven months.

His ninth family turns out to be the charm.

There, he learns how to play piano, to glide his fingers across the keys and fill the air with soothing, caressing notes that sweeten his thoughts. His foster mother teaches him the steps, hands down the sheet music she learned to play with as a little girl, and guides his hands through the movements until he can play Salieri and Bach and even Mozart from memory. Sometimes, she even plays the music she's composed, attempts at symphonies that remind him a bit of all her favorites, ground together perfectly into one harmony. When she tucks him into bed, surrounded by the waft of cleaning supplies and blueberry pie, she tousles his hair and tells Obadiah stories of the great composers, of her father who fought in the war and the legends of the gods.

One night, she tells him of the curse of the ninth, and he asks her if that's true. She laughs and tells him that she's composed her ninth symphony – the fact that her drabbled pieces don't really count as epic symphonies isn't mentioned – and hasn't died yet.

A week later, the car smashes against the tree, and he attends his second funeral.

He's seventeen and underage when he fights in the war. Unlike every other bright-eyed, starry-hoped patriot in this country, he doesn't have to be roped into the job, doesn't need to be dragged down to the recruiters with cotton in his stomach and fifty six reasons why he'd be a shitty soldier in the army. Instead, Obadiah Stane fiddles around with his birth certificate, forges a letter copied straight from his foster father's, and signs right up, front of the line and part of the battalion, if you so please. No one questions the tall, young man with hawk-like eyes and a deep, throaty laugh, they just let him on through and send him off to camp and then Vietnam, and then he's getting exactly what he wanted, except not really.

While in the camps, one of his peers starts a gambling ring. It takes approximately three weeks for him to be caught by the commanders, and another two days after that to be kicked out for drug rehabilitation. One week later, he's found with a bullet in his skull and a half-empty gun chamber next to his body.

He is nineteen when his fellow fighters trust him enough to join on their pillaging of the victims, and his first choice is a fragile waif of a woman with dark, expressive, chocolate eyes and ebony hair that curls limply around her harried face, worry lines etched along aged eyes that have seen far, far too much in her fourteen years of life. Her screams shatter something inside, something that's been waiting to break for far too long and now he's spiraling down the edge into a dark, dark abyss because he likes her anguished cries and her nails raking down his back as she bucks and claws beneath him.

He's filled with cold, hungry satisfaction at the way her slim neck snaps beneath his grubby fingers, and after that, all he wants is more.

More pain, more death, more dark waifs beneath his body as they futilely fight.

It's like an addiction, these desires of his. An addiction that burns his throats and sears across his gut with all the relentless force of a machine gun firing for his skull.

Exactly six months, two weeks, and seven hours since he's discovered this new side of him does he find out that his sergeant's been war profiteering, and then he has the epiphany that both sides are bad, neither is good, and really, if the fighting's never going to end, what's the harm in helping it along?

It takes him another six months to acquire contacts of his own and to work his way around the system to start his own trade of Grade A, American military weapons. At first, he betrays his country in exchange for money, and then he shows his true colors and starts pillaging for wives and children instead.

Sometimes, he wonders if he's more like his father than he originally thought.

While he's there, he receives medals upon medals for his bravery, his selflessness, his willingness to aide the American cause. At the party thrown in his honor, he laughs and drinks and wonders how long it will take for him to get to the brothel cornered snuggly between Sixth Avenue and Jamai Lane, where they've got a special group of olive-skinned, dark-haired Italian girls waiting instead, his newest delicacy after a quick stop in the land of wine on the way back from the war.

"Stane, I'd like you to meet another great patriot like yourself," his sergeant announces, fingers squeezing deeply into his shoulders. His breath reeks of expensive scotch when he whispers into his ear that this is an idealist, so he better not screw this up and let slip what really happens on the other side of life.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark," he rumbles, and then he sees the wife, and his blood rushes down because her eyes, her eyes are dark and chocolate brown as they peep up from her husband's side, warm and aged beyond her years and maybe just a little bit calculating as they commit to memory every detail, "Mrs. Stark, if I'd known women as lovely as you were going to be here, I would've put on my best suit."

She laughs, and he wonders if she sees the desire in his eyes and the throbbing between his legs.

He's half convinced the foreign minx is teasing him.

That night, he's especially glad when he receives a younger than usual shell of a girl as a gift from his sergeant, eyes an endless abyss of confusion and pain with worry lines etched along her child's face.

He meets Howard Stark again, and again, and before long, they've become something resembling friends.

As close as he's ever had to a friend, anyway.

They drink brandy and discuss schematics, debate about the Cold War and the communists, about Nixon as president and how Khrushchev's finally gone. Each time, he's one step closer to mentioning Maria Stark and one ache away from asking if he's the only man like this, if the perfect patriot that is Howard Stark has wants and needs like his.

He tries to ask once.

"You didn't fight when you were working on the Manhattan Project, right?" he questions, sipping on gold-flecked scotch that blisters its way down his throat.

"For a bit before, actually," Howard smiles ruefully, eyes distant in far off memories, "It's how I met Maria. They sent me off to Britain, where she was a refuge, before they figured out I was better with numbers then with guns. Been together ever since."

He plays with his wedding ring for a moment before settling it back on its hand. It's a nervous gesture he will see many more times in the years to come.

"I asked her to marry me the day we sent the bombs out to Japan."

After that, he knows that he and Howard Stark will never, never be the same.

He uses the money he's saved up over the years to buy a grand piano, an antique in perfect condition that stands as the centerpiece for his living room.

Somewhere along the line, Howard, idealist and dreamer that he is, gets the thought to create a company. He already creates military weapons as it is, and this way he'll be getting more profit out of it and he'll be his own boss. Obadiah thinks it's Maria's plan, Maria, whose father was the owner of a booming textile factory back in Italy and Maria, whose dark eyes analyze the potential profit in every move her family makes. In fact, it's Maria's suggestion that Howard ask Obadiah to act as the CFO, claiming he's better at all the business technicalities than her absent-minded husband will ever be and that no one will take her seriously if she takes the mantle.

He finds the sting of being second is best remedied with the racking cries of a yet another broken waif of a girl with dark, aged, chocolate brown eyes.

When he's done, her blood pooling down to drip onto the floor and his cum adding a new layer to the dirt covering the room, the owner offers up a shipment of his latest specialty, Irish gals in search of a job and American adventure.

He declines for the moment.

That night, he plays Beethoven's eighth symphony, and dreams about playing his ninth.

He shouldn't be surprised, but for some reason, he is when Howard begins to receive the credit in bundles. The company's in his name after all – Stark fucking Industries – and no one ever pays attention to the man in the shadows, the silent puppeteer who pulls the strings and works the machines. At the seventh anniversary of the company's opening – also the annual Christmas party – a member of the board makes a speech in his honor, beaming at the perfection that is Howard Stark's life.

"Not only has Stark Industries risen already to a top military contact for weaponry, but advances from our latest line of weapons has allowed for breakthroughs in the areas of medical engineering and aerodynamics as well," he announces, voice booming across the sea of drunk, young aristocrats of the business, all high on their successes in life, "And even better, Howard's son is already set to follow his father's legacy. I'm sure you all remember how little Tony built his first engine only a few months ago. And, as if Howard wasn't lucky enough, he's also been blessed with his lovely wife, Maria, and the aide of his old friend Obadiah Stane in bringing Stark Industries to the top. So here's to happy holidays and our founder's good luck continuing tenfold in the years to come!"

"To Howard Stark!" they chorus, glasses raised and voices joyous. He chokes down burning liquid before grimacing, entranced by the way the candle light refracts off his glass and through the air.

"That's Howard," he mutters, alcohol slurring his voice, "Always gets the good stuff."

He ends that night with his fingers flying across his grand piano, Beethoven flowing through the air and over the limp body of his Christmas bonus.

He decides that he has come to resent fathers, fathers with high hopes and bigger dreams who don't know where their breaking points lie.

On days when Howard Stark is down in his workshop, absorbed in a world where few can follow, Obadiah fancies himself as Tony's real father, fancies that this whole world belongs to him instead.

He ignores the babbles of genius from Tony's lips, the effervescent light to his eyes as he talks schematics with all the enthusiasm he should be having for battleships and gun fights, not for car engines and computer boards. After all, he is the one who takes Tony on his first trip around the city, to his first pizza joint for a slice of a New York pie, and who wipes his tears when he trips down the steps to their brownstone apartment.

He learns to ignore that it is not for him that Tony's eyes light up when they return from a long day at the office as well.

Somewhere along the cliff's fall to madness, resentment turns to gut-searing, blistering hatred.

When he crashes on the cold, hard ground, he makes sure to bring Howard Stark and his entire world with him.

Maria's screams quench his thirst and sate his hunger for the first time in years, and the horrified yelps of Howard shatter the shards that already litter the place where his heart might have resided once, a long, long time ago when he wasn't quite as broken or damaged. Or maybe, he thinks as he thrusts deeper inside and digs his teeth against her neck, he's always been like this, because it's genetics and bioengineering and some other bull he learned in school or under Stark's tutelage. After, when she's collapsed beneath him, exhaustion sending her off the edge, he unties Howard and calls for his valet to escort Mr. and Mrs. Stark home. His old friend feebly tries to break his nose and claw at his face, but Howard's never been very strong – it's why he didn't last long in the army – and his butler's more than happy to teach Mr. Stark some manners.

"The higher you climb, the harder you fall," he whispers to his friend, his final goodbye before patting him on the knee and sending them on their way.

On the way to their mansion, his valet swerves off the road to avoid a drunk driver, and minutes later, the car explodes in a fiery crash at the bottom of the cliff.

Meanwhile, he sits at home and plays Beethoven's ninth symphony in their honor, the music filtering softly through the air.

After that night, he starts taking the Irish gals instead, tracing accounting figures and shipping manifestos with his nails against freckled skin while the blood trickles down, the crimson blending in with tattered, tangled hair.

Five years later, Tony Stark's newest assistant enters his office to introduce herself and he thinks that maybe there's something tantalizing about the freshness of blue eyes and red hair, the bleeding colors brightening up the dark, chocolate brown he's thrived on for so, so long.

It is when he can no longer see little reflections of Maria Stark in her son that he decides to kill Tony once and for all.

He is the one who built this company up from the ground, who held it together while his godson drank booze and slept his way across the world on an impromptu road trip after Howard and Maria Stark died – after he killed Howard Stark and brought his entire world crashing down as well. He is the one who controls the assets and who secretly ships more Grade A, top of the line American weapons to the other side and manipulates the manifestos so that even the impeccably perfect Pepper Potts can't tell the difference, not the she has time to analyze the inscrutable mishaps among the thousands of papers she receives on a daily basis. No, Tony Stark has made sure that his one hope of ever even noticing something wrong within his company is too absorbed with shooing out blonde reporters before they start to wander and placating angry business associates who have been snubbed one too many times in exchange for a new idea and week old Chinese food.

The irony would be humorous, but he stopped laughing at life a long, long time ago.

Somehow, taking just his life doesn't seem like enough, so he decides to take away everything else he can get his grubby fingers on too.

Her eyes are not dark and chocolate brown, but they reflect all the high hopes and bigger dreams he has come to resent, and he can see the worry lines etched along her face while her eyes age quicker than her body.

He pours gold-flecked scotch and discusses his godson like he's some broken toy that's been lost by a rambunctious child and won't be put back together again. The alcohol coursing its way through his system throws him off balance, requiring every ounce of willpower to restrain himself. He knows, he knows the little minx is hiding something, hiding something for him, but he gives her a chance and a smile he can't quite hide the chill from. He leans in close enough to catch the gentle whiff of flowers and women and the underlying stench of metal and man that screams that this women has been claimed by a Stark man as well, has been claimed long before he decided she would be the last domino in the line to push Tony off the cliff's edge. Against the desk, his hand clenches and unclenches over her fragile wrist and he briefly contemplates taking her now, his cloudy mind picturing what it would be like to break her while everything's just begun to unravel, but he knows they'll be time for that later, after the fall's already accelerated past reason and all he needs is one last shove in the form of a broken body and empty eyes.

Only once she slips through his fingers does he realize that she's about to unravel all he's worked for, yank down the ground from beneath his feet with a few files and her dedication to Tony.

He grimaces, slamming his scotch onto the glossy wood, and then pockets his newest toy, ready to start the fall a little earlier than planned.

Tony's eyes – Maria's eyes – are a reflection of his last look at Howard's face when he mentions the final blow, and Obadiah thinks his screams would probably sound the same too.

The satisfaction at that sits coolly in his stomach; right next the gold-flecked scotch he's come to favor over the years. He pats Tony's knee affectionately, remembering the limp way his parents had laid beneath his hands last time too, before shutting the suitcase and heaving himself off the couch.

On the way out, he pours himself a shot, and the ice clinks against the glass as Obadiah quietly shuts the door behind him.

Walking briskly to his car, he decides to play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony when he arrives at home later that night.

After all these years, he's finally climbed back to the pinnacle of the mountain, and this time he will not come crashing down.

The muffled boom of the door unlocking sends a gentle breeze wafting through the room.

Moments later, the iron of the suit freezes his hands, and the clash of metal on metal grinds against his ears. The bulky mass of technology has always lain in a foreign world for him, ugly and brute compared to the delicacy of hard-earned screams and the graze of flesh against flesh. That, he thinks, is a practiced, refined art that he has mastered over the years, but for tonight, he will master this new skill.

She wanders right into his waiting arms, wide-eyed and cautious, and he cherishes her screams as she tries to run.

He doesn't know why he didn't see this coming, hadn't inexplicably known that Tony was Howard's son, and as such would have that frustrating Stark luck and find a way out of his chokehold. The final blow will have to wait now, and only he will be able to enjoy it, but there's something riveting about the pure power blasting beneath his hands that makes it up to him. It's intoxicating, this newfound addiction of his, and he chases after Tony with all the gleeful joy of a child chasing battleships. For the first time, he's better than Howard, better than Tony, and he will do this, and he will win, and it will all be his.

The crackle of ice in his ears as he falls is broken by the heat searing across his gut, and now there's no more tricks up Tony's metal sleeve, no more escapes, just him and his last obstacle to everything he's wanted, only not really, because he forgot about the arc reactor beneath him and the stubborn will of Pepper Potts.

Though her eyes are crystalline blue, he thinks for a second that it is Maria glaring up at him from the ground.

Head shooting back up, he catches a glimpse of Tony's face before the roof breaks, and the last picture in his mind is of dark, chocolate brown eyes, etched with worry lines and aged beyond their years.

As he falls towards the searing light against his back, he waits for the inevitable crash, laughter in his eyes.

After all, he's already gone this way before.

Spinning round, we spiral down

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