Yeah, it’s finally over. I’m shocked as you. I figured putting it up the day of IM3 was a good idea.
Also, instead of a quote, you get my rambling, because, well.
It’s weird to say goodbye to this.
Obviously, work ends. And this was finished like, two months ago anyway. But it wasn’t complete in the eyes of the readers, and that’s where it matters.
I don’t know how to feel about it being over and done. I mean, on one hand, it really isn’t. There’ll be a few sequels, some side-stories, whatever. This thing spawned its own universe.
Plus, I probably owe you guys porn.
That said, it’s not the same. This was THE fic itself, the hugenormous story that launched almost four hundred thousand words of fluff and angst and daddy issues and things. Hell, I got another hugenormous story out of it, too. I’m glad this is ending, but I am sad to let it go. It’s done, and I don’t want that to mean it just gathers dust, you know?
It’s complex to say how I feel about the story itself. It was an exorcism, in a way, of all the meta and all the feelings I have on Tony. That led to a deluge of drama and angst and suffering, and sometimes, I admit, I cringe. Sometimes I go ‘oh my god, why did I write that?’
But it let me let his issues go; I can write him much more balanced now, like I’ve blood-let myself of all my need to write about his problems. I haven’t, but it’s a hell of a lot more reasonable now.
Sometimes I get frustrated with things because I spent a year writing this; things change, my grasp on dialogue got better, my sentence structure improved, but the beginning is still, well, where I was a year ago, and that does bother me a little. Sometimes I sigh because of drama, or sappy, or things I know better than to do now that I have a grasp on their characters.
But I wouldn’t have a grasp on their characters if I hadn’t written this. I wouldn’t know how to write them better if I hadn’t written them in this. Any of them.
And that makes this story worth it to me, still. It makes it confusing to new readers; to me, it’s like reading old fossil records of the writer I was, and the transition to something better is fluid throughout the whole fic, so. This is why we have editors for novels.
Anyways, I do love this story. As much as sometimes I get like, well, oh my god why did I write this, I’m glad I wrote this. I’m glad I improved, I’m glad I kept going, and I’m so, so glad I finished it.
But enough about me, onto you.
I love everyone who saw this story through to the end. It was a long slog, you had no obligation to read it, you did it anyway, and for that, I am immensely grateful. I cannot thank you all enough for doing this. I know it was a long read and sometimes I forgot to update and sometimes I punched you in the heart but I am so very grateful you stuck around anyway. It kept me going.
Thank you. Thank you. To everyone.
Enjoy this chapter, and don’t think of this as an end. It’s not over until you forget about it. Hopefully I wrote the story well enough so that won’t happen.
Actual notes on the chapter itself; okay, realtalk, this was basically setting up some more people in the MCU because lord knows we need them. And it’s sappy and sweet and stuff.
So Extremis has a healing factor, and I went more with the comics on this one, where that’s what fixed the reactor. I don’t want to say how different they are, I don’t want to risk IM3 spoilers, but if you’ve seen it, you’ll get it.
Hope you enjoy. Thank you.
![copperbadge:
In this issue, Steve and Tony send the rest of the Avengers to do PR at a county fair, so that they can play sweaty one-on-one basketball and then go out to dinner.
When you’re an Avenger, finding a babysitter is hard, okay? It’s important to make time for romance.
[From Marvel Adventures Avengers #27, 2008.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/aa320a89bb5c9a911a5849c544366e93/tumblr_mj4625gzdU1rsus6so1_500.jpg)
