#also an obligatory nod to the OG top gun au aka Captain Marvel

[usuallydeepcoffee]

Fun idea that I KNOW you can turn into pure gold: Top Gun AU but with Steve!! Any paring is good!

NO ANON! You're not supposed to encourage me down this, admittedly delicuios, rabbit hole!

I think both Steve and Maverick have a lot in common. They’re both living legends. They share the same, disobey-your-superiors-if-it-means-saving-a-teammate tendency (although, I think Steve lacks the cockiness Mav has -as fun as it would be to imagine Steve asking Fury permission to buzz the tower and make him spill his coffee and go all "MOTHERFU-"). They both have lost their best friend in a sad incident (and wonder what they could’ve done to prevent that). And they love to ride their bikes in just a jacket + tight t-shirt and no fucking helmet on.

 Wait, I wasn’t supposed to ship them.

Also since catfa actually involves Steve disappearing on a plane, I guess you could keep this in your AUs as well; Steve was on a very dangerous mission, sacrificed himself and his plane crashed near the Artic, where they couldn’t find his remains. From there you could have:

Thundershield: an amnesiac Steve is rescued by a nice, Asgardian Norwegian God man who owns the local pub and who nurses him back to health. Once he gets better, he’s called back to Top Gun to lead one last, impossible missio- wait, wrong Tom Cruise franchise. Basically, Thor is Penny Benjamin in this lol.

Steggy: Steve is called back to Top Gun on Fury’s orders and is placed under ADM Peggy “Agent” Carter. Tbh I don’t have many thoughts, just head full of baby-faced!Steve x silver fox!Peggy Carter, because, yes.

Stoward: Omg. Imagine Howard being Steve’s WSO, getting to fly with him and believing he’s the best thing ever (I mean, literally canon). But then on the mission where Steve disappears, he ejects and the thought of leaving Steve behind torments him. ESPECIALLY when Steve turns up  a year later. Anyway, they get to go on one last mission together, so Howard takes a missile meant for Steve, who then swoops in and saves him in return -they make it back to the base, just like in the movie (only gayer because they kiss in front of everyone as Fury’s good eye twitches, but says nothing)

SamSteve/Romanogers/SamSteveNat: Enemies to lovers, Sam and Steve’s aircraft manages to take down two enemy airplanes, except Natasha and Yelena’s. The two end up in an impossible-to-win stand off, somehow manage to shoot each other down simultaneously. Both couples eject and they end up stranded on an island where they are forced to work together to survive. Yelena pretends she doesn’t understand English for a whole week. Anyway, in the end they maybe find out that both their govts wanted to fuck them over, or they wanted to fuck the whole world over so they uncover some big conspiracy. Or say fuck it and end up living on an island only wearing coconut shells for bras (looking at you, Steve). ALSO it’s the perfect setting for a volleyball/football scene.