Thoughts about Avengers #29/Original Sin

[elspethdixon]

laireshi:

elspethdixon replied to your post “how can he ever forgive him”

The true tragic irony is that maybe Steve can’t forgive him, but that Tony ultimately did the right thing, because even though he’d rather die that lose Steve again, he couldn’t let himself doom the multiverse in order to keep Steve’s love.

My problem with the mindwipe is this: ultimately, I agree with Tony, because I would do anything to save my family. But no matter the reasons, mindwiping Steve was wrong. And I really don’t believe that they didn’t have a choice. Because okay, they don’t mindwipe him … then what? What could he do? He’s the moral compass, but I don’t believe everyone would be prepared to die to keep their hands clean. Survival instinct is too strong for that, for once.

And about Steve — even if he can understand Tony’s reasoning (and maybe he could, really, he does get that they have different opinions and it’s valuable Tony doesn’t just agree with him on everything), understanding this is one thing, but moving past this incredibly personal betrayal, this violation — this is something else.

I suspect a version of Tony who hadn’t lost his experiential memories of Civil War/The Confession would have found a way around actually committing the mindwipe, because he was so utterly broken emotionally by those events and by Steve’s death that I’m not sure he’d have had it in him to betray Steve no matter what + he’d have the knowledge on an emotional level where it mattered that he could survive Steve’s hatred and rejection but not his death, but without the memories of actually living through that + all the emotional damage it caused (learning about it afterwards and knowing what happened isn’t the same as viscerally experiencing it)…

And then, of course, given a choice between not doing the mindwipe and letting the big public argument over how far it’s acceptable to go to save the earth play out, and doing it, once Strange suggested the mindwipe…

Given a choice between “Putting off Steve hating me for just a little longer and removing the moral dilemma from his shoulders entirely and placing it solely on mine but then having no hope whatsoever of ever earning his forgiveness” vs. “everything will start being horrible RIGHT NOW but then maybe afterwards he’ll be able to forgive me,” we all know what option Tony’s going to choose.

The “hide all the evidence, deal with everything alone, as long as I’m culpable in this terrible decision I might as well blow up everything else I value at the same time because I deserve it, fuck it, BURN ALL BRIDGES” option.

The part where Steve deserves better than this and that betraying him like that is just as cruel to Steve as it is to himself is likely buried under the giant mountain of “NOW I SHALL MARTYR MYSELF EVERYONE SHOULD HATE ME BECAUSE I DESERVE IT I AM THE SIN EATER* OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE”

Granted, I've been spending half my time in Three Musketeers and Les Miserables headspace recently, so Grantaire!feels (everything is pointless I am worthless just let me die at your feet) and Aramis!feels (become the thing you once hated for the good of your country, causing the death of the one person who loved you the most) might be influencing my Tony!feels.


*Well, technically the sin eater of the Marvel universe is Ghostrider, but metaphorically it's Tony.