#but also I've played with the idea in the past of Obadiah destroying Carter's reputation in a way to regain control over her only to have i

[ironxkid]

((sdghdfhj okay okay, lemme try to explain my thoughts a bit better in regards to this post - pls bear with me bc I’m very tired and my brain has been basically dead all day rip

anyway, so what I need to do in general (and what will relate to my au idea), is rewrite the ikau verse to include that Obadiah had been working alongside Killian before his death during AoU. It’s all for the money, of course. After all, how could the government say no to them if they’re presenting ways to make the military stronger? Killian is offering extremis - a way to make enhanced soldiers, and Obadiah is offering armor - a perfected design of the Iron Man suit to create iron soldiers. Carter wouldn’t know about this - she wouldn’t be aware of Killian or extremis, and wouldn’t realize that, not only was Obadiah forcing her to keep the Iron Man mantle as a means to control it, but also so she could work on perfecting the suit for him, so he would only have to worry about production later down the line. In the ikau, Obadiah dies before that partnership begins to work out the remaining kinks - Ultron confronts him to find Klaue, and he tries to take control of a situation where he never had any; his own arrogance spelling his demise. But, Obadiah would survive for the au of the ikau, with Ultron never going to him to begin with, leaving Carter stuck under his control, and leaving her spiraling out. AoU is one of her final breaking points - she’s horrified by what Ultron’s done, and fully blames herself for everything that had happened - practically drowning in her own mistakes, and refusing to see how Obadiah had pressured her into creating Ultron to begin with. She’s giving up, and no longer sees reason to try and please Obadiah or anyone else. She’s fucked up, what reputation she has is in shambles (or so she believes), and she’s obliterated her father’s legacy (again, or so she believes) - she doesn’t see the need to make nice, or to make herself to be a soldier when she’s so clearly not one. Obadiah sees this, and sees this as a threat - much like how he viewed Tony before he plotted Tony’s death

Killian and Obadiah... don’t get along very well, but they’re dangerously good at business. They’re both manipulative, both in need to have control, and often clash with how to approach what to do - Killian cares more for money than who he gives extremis to, and Obadiah is set in his ways of creating weapons for the US military, though still has little care if he sells to the highest bidder under the table. Both want money, and both agree that combining their products can make them near invincible. But Carter starts figuring things out. Maybe she sees Killian one day, or maybe she sees or overhears Obadiah talking to him or discussing extremis. Maybe she doesn’t even know about any of that, and instead comes across proof of Obadiah’s involvement with her father’s kidnapping and later death. But she becomes a threat, either to Obadiah or Killian or both, but Obadiah knows he needs to be careful to push Carter out while keeping up his ruse. So, he figures out something that paints Carter as... questionable. Maybe she’s connected to things she shouldn’t be, or maybe he begins to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of others before eventually spurring it further to have them turn against her. Either way, Carter sees this, but... instead of defending herself, she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t fight back. Doesn’t deny any accusations or claims, but doesn’t accept them either. She stays silent, and her silence is louder than anything she could say. She sees the game Obadiah’s playing, and is figuring out her own way to play it, too - and to her, that means making him think he won while she worked off the board to bring him down

or... maybe Killian gets tired of Obadiah. He sees the Iron Man suits to be nothing more than a dream - that Carter would never allow her designs to be used for mass production, and that Obadiah was getting nowhere in claiming the designs from her. So, one day, it’s discovered Obadiah’s dead, clearly having been killed, and Carter’s nowhere to be found. No one wants to believe she would do such a thing, but it’s still suspicious either way, and she’s left hiding from the others as she tries to pull apart everything that Obadiah had gotten himself into, and trying to find a way to bring Killian down in the process. She goes about it alone, because she believes it to be safer for everyone if she went in by herself and took Killian down - because, that way, they would both be the ones dead rather than her dragging everyone else down with her. But... also because she doesn’t know who to trust, because the one person she had trusted the most had betrayed her in more ways than one and it destroyed the shaky foundation she had been standing on

either way, it’s not permanent. Her name is cleared and the truth is revealed, and Carter takes time away from being an Avenger - letting herself heal and recover and slowly come to terms with everything that happened, while staying with the people who actually love her (Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey, because they had been there from the start and she’s closer to them than to the Avengers if only due to the lies she had been fed by Obadiah), but is later dragged back into it when Thanos decides he needs to correct the balance of the universe

also I just want more ikau threads where Carter puts herself between another muse and danger to protect them dsfgjhdfj - she’s absolutely emotionally stunted to hell and back and may not act like she cares but she really does