#stevetony meta

[stevetonyisendgame]

OK so I'm relatively new and all I've been reading are fics circa 2012 🫣 Is there anywhere I can get to know their dynamic in Endgame, i.e a manifesto of sorts if there's something like that? Going off only the movie feels like jumping into the deep end w/ no gear. Thanks in advance!

Hi 🤗

There’s no Endgame-era SteveTony manifesto as far as we are aware but we’ve compiled a list of fan works, gifs and some meta posts we think might give you a nice introduction to EG SteveTony beyond the movie. We hope it’ll inspire you!

Also…we know writing a new ship dynamic can be daunting but please don’t be afraid about jumping into the deep end with EG SteveTony!

Here's the meta:

The Romantic Arc of Steve/Tony in the MCU by @sheronwrites

Endgame literally flowed like a stevetony fic and here’s why by @nomadicbeard

And the rec list is here!

[soliloquent-stark]

robert downey jr and chris evans in avengers: endgame (2019)

what i love about this scene is how powerful it is from the start.

sure, no trust, liar hits the most. but from the beginning it's so charged; tony pretending not to care, deflecting with jokes, because he's unable to slow down his feelings toward steve resurfacing in front of everyone, and he knows that if he starts, he won't be able to shut up. him being deeply affected by seeing peter's face along with everyone else they lost. the dreams, the vision, the years of paranoia and failed plans to stop the inevitable. the trauma, hunger, tiredness, ptsd of being in space. the guilt, the pain. missing steve. wanting steve. being pissed at steve.

i needed you giving so much more away than he means to.

steve's sigh and broken expression because he knows, he knows tony needed him, and he hates seeing him in pain, and he deserves it, but also — it's not like he wanted to be on the run for two years. he's in pain too. he was there, fighting thanos too. he's mourning too.

it's messy and complicated and they have a global crisis to tend to, but their unstable relationship is at the core of everything and will continue to fracture the avengers; but how do you even start attempting to fix it when you can't even speak of the problem without falling to pieces?

[ironshieldchild]

they really have a habit of thinking about each other when the world is ending, huh.

[cowboyhorsegirl]

Not My First Rodeo (An 1872 SteveTony Fic Reclist🤠💫)

This reclist is a fill for the @stevetonygames bingo square "Consequence" and the Resolutions Challenge for Team Future :)

a slow ticking wilderness by @starvels (2.4k, M)

Three weeks ago, Tony burned his hands in his forge. Since then, he's been unable to use them, useless and listless. Relying on the kindness of strangers ain't exactly his expertise. Luckily, Sheriff Steve Rogers has good hands and a heart hale enough to keep offering bits of help and hope to Tony, no matter that he ain't all that good at accepting them.

RATING: Five out of five heart-happy cowboys, 🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠

What if I told you this was literally the first (The First!!!) 1872 fic I ever read, which may have been a mistake on my part because it simply set the bar too high, devastatingly high, stratospherically high! This fic feels like wrapping yourself up in a warm blanket fresh out of the dryer while you sit by a beautiful, roaring fire and drink a delicious cup of spiced hot cocoa. Please fulfill all your wildest h/c dreams and desires in the embrace of this lovely window into established relationship 1872 stevetony.

To Break the Bridle by @deervsheadlights (25k, M)

If anyone had told Tony a year ago that he would be herding cattle up on some god-forsaken mountain, in deep winter and out of his own free will, he would've laughed in their face. Were they to show him the blond and blue-eyed reason for his sudden lapse of judgement, however, he might've just understood.

RATING: Two cowboys who are frequently secretly very fond of each other + a new appreciation for the pavlovian potential of duck fat, 🤠🤠🦆

Everyone gather round and say thank you deervsheadlights!! Thank you deer for writing the 1872 Brokeback Mountain AU that we have all been begging for since the moment 1872 comics hit the shelves! This fic was another early 1872 find for me and I simply cannot recommend it enough: the slow burn, the hurt comfort, the romance-this fic does it all masterfully.

but come ye back by @s-hylor (1.2k, T)

When the night is cold and the sky is open, Tony goes to talk to the past Sheriff of Timely.

RATING: one broken cowpoke's heart, but the hurt is tempered by the knowledge that the love perseveres on, 💔

If you have yet to heal from the hurt of 1872 Issue 2, then this is the fic for you. This fic is the best deconstruction of emotion following the Sheriff's death that I have read yet, savage in both it's sadness and it catharsis, and I cannot recommend this highly enough.

A Handsome Stranger Called Death by @isozyme & @sheshopelesse (3.5k, M)

Steve Rogers was an optimist, and he had no sense for the limits of one man with a six-shooter and a strong will, but he was canny enough to know that he wasn’t getting any good done as pig food.

RATING: 10/10 shakes of a rattler's tail 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

Close your eyes and imagine a story that combines Western gothic and desert mysticism and monsterfucking and domestic bliss and now open your eyes bc that fic exists and you're looking at it! The prose is gorgeous, the mythology is arresting, and the characterization is stunning. Plus! This fic comes complete with its own podfic, ready for your joint reading & listening pleasures.

Somebody's Darling by @laireshi (12.9k, T)

Steve wasn't always a sheriff, and Tony didn't always spend his days halfway down a bottle. They met long before Timely.

RATING: the best 1872 rom-com of all time, if rom-com was short for Romantic-Commentary on the Inherent Despondency of War

This fic!!!!!! Is wonderful and delivers a years-long sweeping arc of a wartime romance before dropping you off at the front door of 1872 canon. It's such a heartfelt exploration of love blooming amidst the chaos and tragedy of war, of the way two people keep getting drawn back to each other again and again, of second chances and third chances and fourth, all culminating in a freedom both precarious and precious to be found in the West.

The Strangers You Call Friends by Mireille (1.4k, T)

Stark frustrates Sheriff Rogers, but that doesn't mean he wants to see the man drink himself to death. Timely needs a blacksmith, after all.

RATING: two out of two prettiest blue eyes this side of the Mississippi, at least according to the cowboy locked in the Sheriff's cell for tonight 👀

An incredible pre-canon character study from the POV of Timely's favorite Sheriff. I feel as though this fic is so true to canon characterization and setting that it could honestly constitute the first page of an 1872 novelization. You really sink into Steve's mindset and his perspective on not just Tony's perennial drunkenness, but on his duties to the town as a whole.

Say My Name by citsiurtlanu (2.6k, G)

Steve reminds Tony that there's more to him than the war his weapons were used in.

RATING: a whole cowtown who has been irrevocably changed for the better by the love of two men, 🤠💞🫡🤠💞🫡🤠💞🫡🤠💞🫡

A beautiful canon-compliant fic that pulls at the thread of romance hidden in the rough, vibrant fabric of 1872. There's so much tenderness in this story, it aches in the best way :')

Paradise Blue in 1872 by @cowboyhorsegirl (oh hey that's me!) (500w, T)

Steve imagines this is what it feels like to commit blasphemy, looking at Tony Stark.

RATING: Sheriff Rogers' extremely Catholic-coded erection 🤨🤨

It's about!! the wretched devotion of love, the purgatory of the West, the discovery of a new God in the listless eyes of the saloon's resident patron! A bite-sized character & relationship study that slots itself very neatly within the first 5 pages of 1872 Issue 1 that I hope you read & enjoy :)

whistling dixie by @starvels (1.4k, M)

“Well,” Steve says, voice rough. He takes in another of those sharp breaths and when he exhales, Tony feels it like the forge, billowing heat out into his chest. “Mayhap you best keep that dry, Stark.” He sounds like molten metal, like the best slather of butter over a butt of bread, sounds fair peckish for something more than trail gruel and he’s looking at Tony like Tony’s the place he’s gonna get it. Yes, Tony thinks. It is. Take it. Take me.

RATING: one cowboy (me) who is so, so hungry for stew now 🤠🍲

A masterclass in the 'Food as a Metaphor for Love' ao3 tag, I recommend to all who are hungry for a bit of domestic Western romance or a hearty desert stew. At least one of these appetites will be satisfied by the end of the story, I guarantee!

Blacksmith's Hands by @everybodyilovedies (3.3k, E)

Based in Marvel's 1872 Western Universe, where Tony is a blacksmith and Steve is the town Sheriff. Blacksmith Tony hears Sheriff Steve's birth date is coming up, and decides to give him the present he deserves.

RATING: the number one best birthday present Sheriff Rogers has ever received 🤠🎁

The sweetest, tenderest and yet slightly rough around the edges 1872 PWP you will ever see. I adore Steve and Tony's banter in this fic, the dialogue at the beginning feels like it could have been ripped right out of the comic book panels. And!! There is simply nothing more delightful than the simple intimacy of going from "Stark" and "Sheriff" to "Tony" and "Steve" <3

Unseen, Unheard by @oluka (1k, M)

Tony and Steve have a furtive encounter. Tony wishes they could have more.

RATING: a Sheriff rougher to ride and wilder to tame than a stallion🐎

I could scream forever!!! about the parallels in this story between Tony's alcoholism and his addiction to Steve! The tug-of-war push and pull of their facsimile of a relationship, the hurt that Steve's internal shame over wanting a man inflicts on both him and Tony, the habitual way that Tony debases himself to play up the drunken act and protect him and Steve from any prying eyes. This fic does a truly masterful job of imagining what intimate encounters between Steve and Tony may have looked like within the real confines of the American West.

Going Blacksmithing by @bladeofthenebula27 (1.5k, T)

Blacksmithing only brings in so much money in a small town like Timely, so Tony has to make a little extra money through less respectable means. The Sheriff doesn't approve.

RATING: the prettiest cowpoke you ever did see 🥰🤠

Genderfuck!Tony with a side of possessive Steve all in the year of 1872, what more could one possibly want? There's absolutely nothing more that I love across the multiverse than SteveTony getting to explore their femininity, and this fic brings that dynamic to 1872 absolutely perfectly! :D

BONUS!!!

1872 Meta/Propaganda by @ghosthan

RATING: one out of one new, lifelong 1872 fan (me! 🤠)

An INCREDIBLE primer on the 1872-niverse, including panel screenshots as well as comparisons to 616 characterizations and backstories! I can personally say that this 1872 propaganda is extremely effective (after all, it convinced me to read!!), and gives you juuuust enough information on 1872 to acquaint you with the setting, the characters, and the dynamics at play without simply spoiling the series. In my opinion, this is a highly underrated resource for anyone interested in trying 1872 out, but unsure what to expect.

[nostalgicatsea]

Steve needs to be needed especially by Tony (I don't think he's ever shown to want this from someone and say he does as much and as frequently as Tony). To be there for Tony when he came back from space after two years of waiting for Tony to tell him that he needed Steve, to SEE that Tony needed him but then be deliberately pushed away and shut out after finally, finallyyy being able to be there for Tony...that must have messed Steve up bad.

If Tony had iced him out from the start, he would have been like a puppy waiting mournfully for the door to open, but since Tony opened it a fraction, it's like...Steve's at the door and he sees that Tony is in so much pain, but he can't do anything but witness it. He wants to get in, but he can't. He can't say sorry. He can't make amends. He can't try to be of service. He can't comfort and love him.

[carsonian]

The Avengers (team) as punctuation

Tony (Stark) and Steve are !!! Natasha (Russian) is … Bruce is ; Hulk is — Clint is , Thor is some secret sixth thing maybe an ! but perpetually bold and two font sizes larger

I am open to feedback & criticism

[silkspectred]

Double date scenarios for Spike/Buffy and Steve/Tony?

(Or swap or add Dean/Cas if that suits your fancy better)

❤️

oh my god okay i'm not good at this but i'm doing both because now i want to

spuffy + deancas: definitely the two worlds are pretty compatible, i'd say more than marvel (even though vampires are a thing there too of course). dean and buffy would be, like, INSTANTLY BFFS but buffy would also be kinda weirded out by the fact that actual angels exist (what with her having been to heaven - one heavenly dimension anyway, idk - and having seen no angels) but eventually she'd warm up to cas like everyone does lol even though he'd sometimes say something and she'd be like "i have no idea what he's talking about" because that's just how cas is and dean would look at her like "tell me about it girl". spike would be DELIGHTED by every single interaction he gets to have with cas and he'd be super interested in how the grace works. spike would ask dean to let him drive the impala and that would not go well as we all know, but then spike would back off and he'd watch so many movies with dean and they'd get into fights about their fave ships on their fave soaps. they would also start a trashy (affectionate) romance novel club. spike would convince dean to wear rings again.

spuffy + stevetony: i feel like tony would have such a hard time in the beginning surrounded by all these blondes lmfao then tony and spike would get into some terrible verbal battle of wits where they absolutely destroy each other until they both burst out laughing at the exact same time and they'd be besties from then on. steve and buffy would watch all this unfold in complete horror and then they'd be very relieved. spike would not get steve at first (and vice versa) but then he'd see his softer side and warm up to him especially when steve asks him to pose for his drawings because he has that super interesting face, with the cheekbones and everything (maybe buffy is the one who tells steve to ask because she knows spike can be a bit vain lol and it would also remind him of the old days with no photography). buffy and tony would talk about fashion and clothes and he would invite her to all the fancy fashion events like imagine buffy and tony going to the met gala lol. buffy and steve would be sparring partners and spike would touch every. single. thing. in tony's workshop and tony would complain but he actually does not mind one tiny bit and he'd let spike drive all his cars. tony would work on some technology to allow spike to go outside during the day and not burst into flames and spike would be very excited about it and buffy wouldn't think at all about a daytime wedding ceremony in the park. also at some point tony would throw some money at spuffy because these kids are dirt poor (yes tony would call them kids even though spike is very very old and spike pretends to be offended by it but he actually isn't).

these also aren't really double dates but more how they would interact/fit together if these couples were friends

[superhusbands-are-my-life]

i love steve rogers and tony stark. not just together, but as characters. i love them for being who they are because inherently and undeniably, they are good people. i love them, not because they're perfect or because they can do no wrong, or because they haven't done horrible things in the past or present. i love them, but not because they haven't ever made a mistake.

i love them because they're flawed, they've done terrible things, they've messed up, stumbled, failed, and fallen to the ground in pieces after hitting rock bottom. i love them because they learn from their fuck ups, and i love, love, LOVE watching them learn and fix things together. learning to compromise and talk, supporting each other and never giving up, because that's just how they're built.

i love them because, in the end, they are striving for the same goal even if the ways they do it are different. i love them because they clash, and even if they do, i have full faith that they can and will work through it and make their world a better place because of it. to deny them of their flaws and their mistakes is like only accepting a part of who they are and all the things that make them who they are as characters.

good people make mistakes. everyone does. and i love them all the more for it.

[thahiree]

Post CACW Steve has several aliases and personas he can assume for undercover work, it’s good to have a rudimentary backstory for these personas in case he needs to fake his way out. And while all these fictions men have different jobs, abilities, social standings, they all end up with one thing in common, all of them are divorced.

See, much like Nat’s whole “affection makes people awkward” thing, Steve’s found that “people stop wanting to question you if you start talking about your recent divorce”. And like, it’s different divorces for each one, infidelity reasons, finance, substance abuse, etc. and people really, REALLY don’t want to talk to you if you make it clear it was your fault it happened.

Like explicitly: “I cheated and they took the kids”, or subtextually: “APPARENTLY I wasn’t home enough or didn’t help out when I was can you believe that????” And added to the verisimilitude is post CACW Steve’s Big Divorced Energy he exudes, ain’t no one gonna say, hmmm you don’t seem like a man that has been divorced against his will and aren’t ok

Bonus points for Tony and the rest finding out about Steve’s Rolodex of divorced men he can assume at a moment’s notice and are like ??? But Sam and Nat are like, no trust us it works somehow??

(Captain Stevens in 1970 heist was divorced, it was quite the scandal at the time but it’s rude to talk about in polite company (his lavender marriage fell apart when his wife ran away with her girlfriend to France because he was away so often))

Anon I love this so much dggffh. Steve giving off Big Divorced Energy is so real 😵 (right after his Big Slut Energy!!!!! no you cannot change my mind on that!!!)

I uhh might've started writing a drabble inspired by this? 👀

[becci-chan]

Money

For the @stevetonygames 2023 Team Past Square "Money"

[onehandcd]

tags 2

[lazywriter7]

ALL OF THIS but also I personally maintain that the closest we got to Steve finding a home in the Avengers was Age of Ultron. The execution wasn’t the smoothest, but you still had the hammer-lifting scene showing how comfortable the Avengers had gotten with each other, Steve acting pouty and sullen when the team ~kept secrets~ from him, like he felt some way about said team, like he’d finally started developing an emotional claim. He has in-jokes with them, goddangit. And so he looks about him on this pseudo-military but still ultimately an Avengers base and says:

He isn’t all warm about it, like comics Steve would be, but he’s still found some measure of solidity. A place to put his head down and call his own. It isn’t the romantic ideal of a nuclear family with a wife and 2.5 kids, but did he ever believe he was going to get that, for most of his life before Peggy? 

But the kicker is that that very day is when Tony leaves. 

And so it is. WE WERE SO CLOSE DAMMIT. but instead we have found ourselves in a narrative cycle where when one chooses to stay and commit to the Avengers-as-a-home, one has to leave - a la Steve driving away on his bike in Avengers 1 and evidently not returning while Tony is redesigning the Tower for the team. When really what we should’ve had is two sides of a coin, the building blocks of a team. The family experiences that, as OP mentions, forms the basis of the trust and bond they should’ve had and Steve’s connection to the present day. The cherry on top of that shit sundae, is that what happens next is CACW, which narratively calls for Steve being isolated and stripped of everything that he cares about in the present day, put in a blender with his man-out-of-time trauma. So then we have this:

I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion all by yourself. We all need family.

The Avengers are yours, maybe even more so than mine.

So instead of them taking a leaf from the book of their comics counterparts and going to each other to say, ‘come back. there’s no avengers without you.’ Steve relinquishes all claim on the Avengers and says they were never (formally?) his in the first place. Like Steve and Tony hadn’t built this team together. Because in the MCU... they hadn’t. They were never allowed to. Steve was never allowed to accept a home, even when one was offered to him.

(Contrast that to TFATWS where one of Steve’s strongest ties to the modern world, Sam, is in fact able to open up his home to man-out-of-time Bucky and we see him flourish as a result of it - will make me unhinged so let’s not even go there) So there you have it, a Steve that did try to find his place in the world he’d been tossed into and got whapped on the knuckles by the meta-gods every time. Where every moment of Steve and Tony coming together to build something was undercut by a fight, or leaving, or being left. Somehow Steve in his mind has given Tony both the romantic and the platonic ideal of a family and kept nothing for himself, maybe because he thinks Tony will do better by them or that they were never ~meant~ for him, because he is of the past and Tony is of the future. And so while Steve returning to said past remains a stupid-ass narrative decision, it was a decision guided by stupider ones along the way.

i'm back on my "mcu steve was in the darkest timeline because he never experienced the canon event of tony stark giving him a home and a family" bullshit. post-ice steve was isolated, grieving, lonely, going through ptsd and survivor's guilt and he was constantly fixated on how he had no home or family or identity beyond cap. post-ice in the mcu, SHIELD stuck him in the costume and sent him back into the field, reinforcing the idea that he was nothing more than the empty shell of captain america.

"All my life I've tried to find a place for Steve Rogers—but still he lives under the more colorful shadow of Captain America… Perhaps it's Steve Rogers who's the legend—and Captain America who is the reality! Perhaps I was born to be a red-white-and-blue Avenger—and nothing more! But there must be more to life than endless combat! Others have found a home—a family—why can't I? Or, is Steve Rogers destined to walk alone forever—until the final battle—until he walks no more?"

— Tales of Suspense Vol. 1 #75 (1959)

"[...] But, even in the center of a crowd, I'm an outsider—a misfit! Only when I'm costumed as Captain America do I seem to come alive—to have a mission—a purpose! But, as Steve Rogers, I'm merely a name—a hollow shell—with no roots—no real life to call my own! Other men have friends—wives—loved ones!"

— Tales of Suspense Vol. 1 #92 (1959)

in the comics, the canon event of tony stark, the first person steve meets in the 21st century, giving him all of those things — a purpose, a home, somewhere to belong as himself and not just cap — changed his entire life.

"The first week after I came out of the ice… It was a dark time. I'd lost everything. My best friend. All my friends. All I had. I didn't know what I could hang on to. And then Tony Stark came in with this little… handheld cinema. Future technology. He showed me a newsreel. Right there, I saw a man walk on the moon. For all mankind. And in that moment, I felt hope again."

— S.W.O.R.D. Vol. 2 #6 (2021)

"Mr. Stark, when I woke up in this era, I had no one. Nothing. You gave me a purpose. Somewhere to belong… You gave me a home."

— Iron Man/Captain America: Casualties of War (2006) 

meeting tony and the avengers, creating those friendships and connections, living at the avengers mansion with them, gives steve hope that he can still find happiness and belonging in the present day.

i always found it ironic that in the mcu steve projects this ideal of happiness and domestic life onto tony. this scene in ca:cw is a perfect example of that disconnect between the reality and what steve assumed on the surface was tony achieving what he never could — having a partner, his own family and kids. (the fact that cacw tony is 4 seconds away from a heart attack at all times and too busy running around firefighting PR crises just further drives home the irony.)

and then in a cruel twist of fate, mcu actually gives tony all of these things: home, family, wife and kid. we see steve witnessing tony having these things and knowing it's all possible, but just not for him and not in this era. (and ultimately, tony only gets to have these things for a brief period of time before having to give it all up.)

mcu steve never got to have the experiences that have shaped every other universe's steve rogers. the presence of tony stark, his friendship, his home, his love (whether platonic or romatnic), that formed the foundation of steve's purpose within the avengers, is intrinsic to steve finding hope and happiness in the modern day. the mcu changing such a crucial canon event rewrote not only the core of mcu steve's story but the trajectory of the cinematic universe. and in the end, the writers sent steve back to the past because they believed after 6 movies and 7 years, he had nothing left to live for in the present and i honestly can't think of anything more tragic.

[soliloquent-stark]

besides the well-known fact that tony stark's arc reactor literally powered his heart and symbolised his second chance at life, it's been not just alluded to but clearly stated by marvel from the very first iron man film that it represents his heart:

this point is made very clear again when it's used to portray his death:

of course they did this; they're such obvious metaphors that are easy to rely on for beautiful visual storytelling. they undoubtedly were aware of the potential for these scenes and carefully considered them since the beginning.

but you don't really get to use each of these moments more than once if you want them to matter, so they had to choose which one of tony's stories needed to be told through carefully picked parallels.

and who did they use them on?

yup, that's right. steve rogers. steve, who literally ends their painful fight by breaking his heart.

steve, whom tony literally hands his heart and says "here, take this" while he's devastated, disappointed, and at one of the lowest moments of his entire life.

so, platonic, romantic, alterous — the intricacies of his feelings don't even matter. they're only for tony to know.

but what we as an audience know, what we were explicitly told by marvel, is that the feelings tony had for steve were so strong that they were the equivalent of getting his heart actually shattered into pieces, and being reduced to offering your desperate, mourning heart on a platter as a way of saying "take it all, there's nothing left of me that you don't own now".

these were not accidents. we were meant to understand how profound his feelings were. so many things spiraled out of their falling out — the entire universe's faith was at stake as a result. tony was not indifferent to him. his problem was that he felt too much.

tony's achille's heel was always steve rogers, and that will forever be the backbone of the marvel universe.

[cowboyhorsegirl]

HELLO STEVETONIES I am looking for a tumblr post that contained some stevetony sun/moon meta. The gist of the post is this:

It starts by acknowledging that people tend to view tony as the moon bc Tony typically gets cast as the more feminine partner between the two of them but actually! He is the Sun for several reasons: it’s reflected in the color scheme of his suit, he literally emits his own light through the RT/arc reactor, he sustains and supports the rest of the Avengers, and his unrelenting drive to create is analogous to the constant energy put out by the Sun.

Whereas Steve is the moon because again, the cooler tones of his suit evoke the moon, his best qualities as a leader involve helping other Avengers reach their full potential on the team like the moon reflects the light from other celestial beings, and the moon, like Steve, have narrative connections to the sea.

If you know this post can you PLEASE link it to me because i've been looking for it for literally forever and if I ever find it again I will pin it to my dash so that we can all enjoy it until the end of time &lt;3

[nostalgicatsea]

Steve's the first person Tony sees when Steve, Nat, and Scott visit him in Endgame and literally NO ONE ELSE is in the shot but him. And then later, Steve's the first person that he pours coffee for and he's not even standing the closest to Tony. Scott is. Tony has to make an effort to do that. This was so...TONY, you are being so obvious.

What did Steve think about this though? I NEED TO KNOW because Tony's reception is definitely not what he expected.

[transexualpirate]

oh my god YES. tony is very protective, it's in his nature to care for the people around him, to be a support for them. it's part of who he is. and steve needs that sort of support, he needs something (someone) he can fall back and rely on, someone that he knows will protect him so he can let his guard down. this is a big part of their dynamic that i can talk about for HOURS. like it's important to them and it's usually COMPLETELY IGNORED by fandom and it just drives me insaneeeeee

also the comic thing - one time i saw someone redrawing a panel of tony carrying a wounded steve bridal style so that it was actually steve carrying tony which is... why remake the whole panel just so they can switch places when you already had the original one and it was literally canon?

nothing against headcanons anyone can write and draw whatever they like. do whatever you want forever. but i do wish fandom had a better understanding of these two outside their simplistic heteronormative idea of "big guy is manly and protects tiny twink who's feminine". nothing wrong with that trope but aren't there enough ships like that already? let these two be themselves omg

bottom tony stark wouldn't be so common if rdj were just a bit taller because mainstream fandom automatically assumes that the taller = manlier which = top and therefore shorter = feminine = bottom. in this essay i will