Hawkeye was playing tag.

Robert Downey Jr. sharing what he has with Tony Stark, giving him a family life, a chance for happiness, is what got me emotional every time I think about it 🥺💗

We need you to look this over as soon as possible.

#tag yourself

hey, remember when →  Tony wanted to spend his last birthday with Pepper in Venice (instead of having a party).

God I cried multiple times watching this movie for the first time and I’m trying not to cry right now. Tony shows multiple signs of someone who is planning to commit suicide, like being uncharacteristically reckless and cancelling plans and passing on the company to Pepper, and that’s just off the top of my head. No, Tony wasn’t suicidal, but he was embracing what he thought was an inevitable death. He was dying and no one was able to pick up on the signs. To me it was like he was in the middle of a room with a big red flag, screaming at everyone that he was dying, but all they did was tell him to stop yelling. I don’t know, maybe it was just me.

When people say this is the worst of the Iron Man movies, it makes me angry. Nah, it’s not. It was so important to the development of his character. He’s in transition, here, still, from what he was, to the person he’s becoming. I love that.

i love iron man 2 so much and one of the reasons is because tony absolutely 100% IS in the middle of a room with a big red flag, screaming at everyone that he’s dying, but he’s also simultaneously doing everything in his power to try and stop the people he cares about from noticing his screaming. he’s so utterly convinced he can push them away enough that they won’t be sad when he dies, and he’s so completely wrong about that

it’s obvious to us that tony is dying, but to pepper and rhodey it looks like tony has just regressed back into his pre-afghanistan ways (which definitely says something very sad about tony’s mental state leading up to his kidnapping) and tony deliberately encourages that impression

tony throughout im2 is screaming for help while covering the ears of the people who could and would help him, and that’s what makes the film so fucking sad

#i have so many fucking feelings about this film #tony is so completely commited to trying to convince his family that they’re better off without him #that’s HORRIBLE #the tragedy of im2 is that none of the central 3 can really be blamed for their actions #pepper and rhodey can’t be blamed for not noticing something tony was actively trying to stop them from noticing #and tony can’t be blamed for reacting less than perfectly to literally facing down his imminent death #his death from a condition that can IMPAIR MENTAL FUNCTION #that’s one hell of a mitigating circumstance #and yeah #tony sythesised a new element in his basement one afternoon while working at less than full mental capacity #he is………so fucking smart #i love him so much (via @elphierix)

irrelevant to the discussion, but you know who noticed all the red flags? fury. he saw him struggling, sent in natasha, who checked out the situation, became tony’s assistant and in less than a week was able to report back exactly what was wrong with tony so that they can “take the edge off”.

Reasons to love Pepper Potts:

• she’s a born leader. when thrust into precarious situations, her first instinct is to take charge of the situation. despite not being a superhero herself, she actually utilises the resources in her control to make the best of a situation; she leads shield agents to regular cops and directs them on what to do

• pepper is a strategic thinker, and whenever an issue occurs, not only does she take charge, her priority is the civilians (just like tony). this is pepper in im2, giving instructions to the local cops in order to help stop the damage:

Cop: We shut down the 7th train in and out of willets point already.

Pepper: Well, have the city buses there to ferry people to operating lines.

• pepper actually stays back at the expo during vanko’s attack (despite there being no immediate need to do so), because she wanted to wait until ALL of the civilians were cleared.

• she’s NOT written in the typical rom-com way of “PA in love with asshole boss” (in mcu). in fact, it’s the opposite, while she may have feelings for tony prior to im1, at no point is she shown to be endlessly pining for him or being jealous of other women.

• in her relationship with tony, it is NOT her who has a hard time getting tony (the-playboy-billionaire) to commit, it’s the reverse. tony is the one begging her to marry him, to prepone their marriage, to have a kid etc. it’s such a wonderful trope reversal.

• she actually runs the largest tech conglomerate on earth (in tony’s own words). the only one who invests more time and energy into stark industries is JARVIS – a literal AI.

• she’s fricking incredibly brave. she went to obadiah’s office to steal information from right under his nose. she is no superhero, doesn’t know combat, isn’t a trained superspy, she’s just a civilian, who does it because it needed to be done.

• she is quite ready to kill someone she loves for the greater good. she did it back in im1, when there was no earth in danger, no alien attacks, but the only consequence was that obie might escape with arc-reactor technology. as peggy carter said, she respects the dignity of tony’s choice.

• she actually killed two out of three of the villains of iron man. it seems that she does take out the trash.

• she also planned to invite avengers into her home. (as you can see pepper & tony together planned the remodel of avengers tower with rooms for each avenger. and the stark tower was pep’s & tony’s home first.)

• she actually believes in the goodness of people. she consoles maya hansen and tells her not to be so hard on herself. this is tony’s ex-girlfriend, and also someone who works for a terrorist (both of which pepper knows at this point), but even so, pepper sees the best in maya.  

Maya: Yeah, but killian built that think tank on military contracts.

Pepper: that’s exactly what we used to do. So, don’t judge yourself.

• also, notice how pepper uses “we”, and not “tony” or “stark industries”. that’s why tony & pepper make a good pair, because their values match – they hold themselves accountable. pepper takes responsibility for obie double-dealing weapons – despite the fact that neither pepper nor tony knew about it, despite the fact that she was “just a PA” when it happened.

• pepper believes in teams, she doesn’t say it as a catch-phrase, but it is evident in her actions – a failure on the part of the team (SI’s weapons manufacturing) will be shouldered by each member of the team (both pepper and tony).

• also, when pepper is ambushed killian, her first instinct is to tell maya to save herself. she’s genuinely concerned about others (just as much as tony).

• she’s not the emotional sounding board of the hero. pepper does try to help tony the best she can. she is one of the few (along with Rhodey & happy) who recognise that tony is having mental health issues, and she encourages him to sort it out. but the moment it seems to harm her, she steps back. i know that the fandom considers pepperony “toxic” or even “abusive”, simply because pepper doesn’t play the role of therapist for tony. but after a parade of female characters who cure male characters depression/ptsd/or general funk through the “power of love”, i for one am sure glad that we have a heroine who doesn’t act as a therapist or emotional sounding board to a grown man.

The Avengers (2012) dir. Joss Whedon

the two people who has access to Tony’s lab + the person for whom Tony built a lab.

Bonus: The person who was never allowed in Tony’s lab:

You got a family? Yes. And you, Stark?

Iron Man 2 (2010) dir. Jon Favreau

↳ The Avengers (2012) dir. Joss Whedon

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) dir. Jon Watts

#same energy

#drag him 👏👏👏