alright a short list of aus/verses i am doing or wanna do with obie. most of these would make excellent group plots; many of them would probably make better fanfictions.
obadiah decides to roll with tony’s decision to stop weapons production instead of using the board to force him out, and manages to pin the arms dealing on someone else. possible permutations:
he tries pinning the arms dealing on pepper, not that i expect that that would hold up for long
tony actually kills all of obie’s ten rings contacts; obadiah never finds out about the suit tony made and tony gets a secret identity for longer than a hot second. tony maybe discovers what obadiah is up to as iron man, and then has to spend time as tony stark pretending everything is A-OK while preparing to take obie down
obadiah is playing the long game, probably because of HYDRA, and ends up as a liaison between the avengers and SI. he works subtly to undermine team dynamics, especially by keeping tony isolated, per usual. maybe his involvement with HYDRA comes out during the whole CAtWS mess, maybe it doesn’t.
obadiah moves more strongly against tony during/after afghanistan and ends up in full control of the company. possible permutations:
he fires pepper/gently suggests she move on after tony’s been gone a few months. probably starts with encouraging her to take some time off (paired with some sexist mumbo jumbo about her being “emotional”) and then eventually says she just shouldn’t come back. she’d get a good severance package and all (”it’s what tony would have wanted”) but he wants her out so he can, you know, do whatever he wants
he gets tony out of the company sooner and keeps him out, and probably plays it off like concern for tony’s mental health. maybe pepper stays with the company and obadiah works to keep tony isolated from both her and rhodey, and pepper likely has to play both sides; maybe pepper resigns from SI to keep working for tony – and possibly becomes rescue?
tony needs extra-legal aide getting his company back and finding information on the gun running. natasha and clint are free-lancers instead of shield agents and Tony hires them to infiltrate stark industries. clint probably joins obadiah’s security detail; Natasha ends up in the legal department and then as obadiah’s PA. possibly Natasha and Clint are actually still with shield and pretending to be free lancers because coulson/fury rightly figured tony wouldn’t trust some government agency.
obadiah pins the arms dealing on tony, who finds himself in hot water over it when he gets back.
steve is found earlier. he hella interrupts obadiah’s plans/life. possibly permutations:
steve comes back when tony is a kid/young enough that howard is alive. obadiah is suddenly not howard’s best friend or tony’s favorite uncle anymore. there’s hella resentment.
steve comes back right before howard and maria are killed. his hunt for howard and maria’s killer leads him (and tony, probably) straight into hydra and also straight to bucky.
steve comes back just before the events of IM1. obadiah probably tries to arrange to have steve killed too and it works even less well than his attempt on Tony’s life
steve comes back while tony is missing and obadiah uses that time to talk up how awful tony is. when tony finally comes back, steve is predisposed to think tony’s awful
obadiah is HYDRA and very tangled up in their projects
the arm bucky barnes has when he kills howard stark is full of proprietary stark tech invented by both tony and howard. obadiah and bucky have probably met, and obadiah absolutely chose Bucky to assassinate the Starks because he’s heard almost as much about Bucky Barnes as he has about Steve Rogers. possibly via one of the plots above, obadiah is still alive when bucky is brought in. maybe finding starktech in the winter soldier’s arm is the first hint that something is rotten in tony’s company.
obadiah survives the fight at the end of IM1 through the intervention if hydra-loyal shield agents. he probably has some injures, maybe gets some cyborg stuff going on, but overall is absolutely busy turning the supervillain dial up to 11. tony maybe finding out from wanda and pietro that obadiah is alive?
some straight up silly/self-indulgent ideas
i feel like ghost obadiah would be fun, if a little soap-opera-y. obadiah would haunt the heck out of tony and probably lowkey pepper.
howard dies but maria doesn’t and obadiah marries maria. possibly this happens when tony is younger than he was when they died in canon. possibly maria dies soon after under suspicious circumstances. things probably go really badly for tony.
howard and maria die and obadiah arranges for tony to be disinherited and everything left to him – or tony is a minor, and obadiah is in charge of his finances until tony is old enough.
obadiah hires someone to seduce tony and pretend to be in love with him and whatever. i’m thinking natasha. or maybe it’s a man! i don’t make the rules. anyway, this is part of some nefarious plot or maybe just to keep tony out of trouble or maybe to isolate him. it probably doesn’t go the way obadiah wants
(also: don’t feel like you need me to do any of these plots honestly…. even if you’re another obadiah stane roleplayer or something! just tell me so i can read along tbh)
