All of this. Just all of it. But I must add this.

TONY STARK DID NOT TRY TO KILL STEVE ROGERS AND BUCKY BARNES.

Iron Man is lethal as fuck. The armaments on that thing, and the amount of boom they bring to the party, are terrifying IN THE FIRST ITERATION. By which, I mean the one with fucking flamethrowers that was made from bomb parts. After that, each iteration just got more and more terrifyingly, efficiently lethal. By the time of that whole mess in Siberia, Iron Man was fully capable of laying a fair-sized army waste SOLO.

And Tony Stark has shown, repeatedly, that he has ZERO compunctions with deploying those armaments in order to take an enemy down.

I can guarantee you that, Supersoldiers be damned, if Tony Stark had legitimately wanted those two dead, they’d have been nothing but bloody smears in the rubble precisely three seconds after he made that call. Neither one of them has *anything* that would let them survive Iron Man’s armaments.

bucky was so legitimately mad at steve in the beginning of cafta. soooo downright angry that his best friend kept trying to enlist in the army

like first he throws steves rejection letter into the alley

when he finds steve looking at a propaganda poster, he pushes him, & he pushes him hard enough for steve to be worried about who he’s going to see when he turns around

& finally, realizing steve can’t get his mind off of it long enough to spend bucky’s last night in nyc with him, he gives him This look

bucky is mad mad

not to mention he says that the only thing worse than steve getting caught trying to illegally enlist is if they actually take him. his worst fear is steve going to war and endangering his life. he really just wanted steve to stay safe on the home front 🥺

side note : the way he was so upset when he realized steve wasn’t by him at the expo anymore

What I want to see - because you KNOW it happened - was Bucky BITCHING STEVE OUT between the escape from Azzanno and their arrival at the Allied camp. That shit would have been *epic*. I’m willing to bet at least one punch got thrown. Foreign languages probably got spoken, because Steve is canonically Irish and even if Bucky is pureblooded ‘American’ stock, you KNOW he picked up some bits and pieces on the streets - and all the rude/crass bits, to boot.

I may never watch Infinity War, but this sequence will NEVER not amuse the hell out of me from start to finish. 

Tony Stark

Given everything else I’ve posted in the last couple days, I gotta. First thing first.

Tony Stark pre-Afghanistan? WAS AN ASS. He was, honestly, pretty much everything his anti’s accuse him of being even post-Afghanistan. Womanizing, irresponsible as hell, etc. Yeah. Not really that good a person, TBH.

The thing is, and his anti’s will deny this to their dying breaths, but Tony got a wakeup call, and from thenceforward, he did his damndest to become a better person.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? First off, it’s made REALLY clear that Tony had, at best, a contentious relationship with his father.

Now, to be fair to Howard, he’d seen some shit. Been eyeball deep in it, too. And back in the forties, fifties, and sixties, the mental health industry was … more quackery than it was anything else. And on top of that there was a serious stigma attached, especially for men, to appearing in any way ‘weak’ or lesser, so yeah. Not fun for Howard. And it’s also possible that some of what he pulled with Tony was deliberate, in an attempt to protect Tony, as ass-backwards as that might have been. Because as a weapons maker/dealer, Howard would have had a shit-ton of very powerful enemies who WOULD NOT have hesitated to kidnap or worse Howard’s beloved son and heir. If there was a public perception that Howard found Tony wanting or otherwise didn’t give a shit about him, it would have lessened his value as a target. Or so Howard probably hoped, if he was indeed pulling stunts on purpose.

Then Tony becomes an orphan at either seventeen or twenty-one, depending on which movie timeline you’re working with. And Stane is there. Given what came later, I have to think that Stane deliberately encouraged the worst of Tony’s behavior because it meant Tony wasn’t paying attention to SI and what Stane was pulling.

Which gets us to IM 1. It is made clear in the movie that Stane hired Raza and co to KILL Tony, and that it was their call to not. Given that Tony was responsible for a large percentage of SI’s innovations … I have to wonder. WHY did Stane decide to kill the golden goose?

My answer? Tony picked up on the illegal sales. I’m very sure he didn’t know how bad it was, or who was doing it, but I’m willing to bet he found out about a bombing somewhere with SI stuff that he *knew* for fact hadn’t been sold to anyone in the area and went ‘ok, something fucked up is going on. I’ma find out WTF is going on and then do something about it’ Given that, at the time, Stane was his mentor and business partner, I’ll even bet Tony mentioned his discovery to Stane because it would not have immediately occurred to Tony that Stane was the source. At that point, Tony became a liability that needed getting rid of.

Tony’s reaction to Everheart’s reveal was, therefore, less about ‘wait, this shit is happening at all?’ and more about ‘That much shit? There is no way some warehouse monkey can divert THAT much, not to mention all the shit I saw when Raza had me. This is way higher up the ladder than I thought … wait. Shit. STANE.’

And from there, Tony started doing everything in his power to undo what had been done in his name. Did he fuck up in the process? Hell yes. Sometimes even when he was in his whole, right mind (his birthday party does not count as such an incident, given he was less than three days from dying of heavy metal poisoning. At that point, his decision making capacity was shot to shit). Like, you know, giving out his address and basically double-dog-daring a terrorist to come kick his ass. What. The. Hell. Tony. Not your brightest moment, bud.

And lets make it REALLY clear that becoming a terrorist is in NO way an appropriate response to being blown off for … well, anything. Tony bears exactly ZERO responsibility for Killian’s decision making process on that front.

And while we’re on who bears fault for what … can someone PLEASE for the love of god explain to me WHY Ultron gets blamed solely on Tony when there were the following factors/fellow guilty parties?

1) Wanda and her mindfuckery

2) Bruce, who helped with the programming

3) That. Goddamned. Scepter. and the FUCKING MINDSTONE.

4) The power surge from Mjolnir

And while we’re at it, can someone explain to me why Steve, in Civil War, seems to think Tony either wrote the Accords or has the power to enforce them or … I dunno. Be anything other than a messenger of ‘well, this is a thing.’.

Yeah, Tony signed them. Which says to me that the Accords did NOT allow for the Avengers to become *anyone’s* attack dogs. Because Tony would quite literally be the last one to be okay with that shit. He is not, remember, a Team Player. He fought tooth and nail to keep Iron Man out of the clutches of anyone but himself. There is no way in fuck he would then sign on to become a government lackey/attack dog. Just no.

Yes, things went to shit regarding Bucky. There was definitely some fuckery going on, and in more than one place. BUT.

No one knew, at first, that Bucky hadn’t been responsible for the bombing. All anyone knew was that the Winter Soldier (regardless of who he had been before he got twisted into said Soldier) was seen in the area etc. Even if god and everyone knew Soldier was Bucky, it was in everyone’s best interests to bring Bucky in, because seriously, even without the activation words in play, Bucky was (very understandably) more than a little fucked up and NEEDED HELP. Especially if he was (as seemed to have happened from the point of view of the people in the movie) falling into and out of the Soldier’s mindset and (apparently) committing acts of mayhem and terrorism.

If things had gone right, minus the fuckery … yeah. Bringing Bucky in was imperative.

And yes, Bucky Barnes is innocent of Soldier’s actions. I don’t even begin to argue otherwise. Unfortunately for him, from the point of view of his victims/survivors of his actions … well. It was his face. His hands. His body.

And I personally defy ANYONE to watch the brutal, hands-on murder of a beloved parent - because whatever Tony’s thoughts on Howard might have been, he clearly loved his mother - with the ‘person’ who executed said murder standing not five feet away and NOT lose their shit. Absolutely no one is going to be capable of calmly, analytically going ‘No, he is not in fact responsible. That is on HYDRA’.

And no, Tony was not, in fact, trying to kill either Bucky or Steve. Beat their asses to kingdom come? hell yes. Kill them? Fuck no. We’ve all gotten a damn good look at the firepower Tony packs in his suits. If he’d wanted either man dead, Super Soldiers be damned, they’d be dead. He’s not shy about deploying his firepower even at close range to himself. Remember that Jonah moment in Avengers? Yeah. So no, he didn’t want them dead.

I’m replying to you directly because I just want to make sure we know where everything stands. There is nothing I hate more than when people reply to replies and you’re trying to run around in circles to catch up with everything.

For starters, you do you. You wanna headcanon Howard as having some kind of mental illness, great. You wanna headcanon Tony as being aware of the illegality of Stane’s actions, awesome. But quit trying to pass it off as actual canon. There is no indication in any of that first movie that he was even remotely interested in his company before Afganistan, let alone investigating illegal deals. And trying to pull off the excuse of “it’s how men behaved” in regards to the potential mental illness of the Starks is just bullshit. A: as if the Starks gave even the remotest shot of what others thought of them (canon proof: the movies) and B: that’s still not an excuse for their shitty behavior. There isn’t even the slightest notion that anyone wanted to get back at Howard through Tony, so maybe pull back a little.

In Tony’s defense, he did try to turn his shit around after Afghanistan. I know a lot of people argue that he only did so after he was personally effected (myself included) but let’s face it: he was a privileged white male who never really had to work for anything in his life… aside from his father’s affections. Afghanistan was a wake up call for him, and the only real fault I have with it is that it took him so long to hear it, to realize the negative impact his weapons had in the world.

As for Ultron, I will not place any of the blame on Wanda. It simply wasn’t her fault. She merely gave him a bad daydream. That’s it. Fast forward to later in the movie and she laid out over half the team, rendering three of them nearly catatonic. You expect me, or anyone with common sense, to believe that Wanda fucked with his head enough to make him make Ultron? I mean, that’s even if you put aside the very fact that it was mentioned in the movie that the Ultron Initiative was something that Tony had been working on for a while, potentially since the first Avengers movie, given his little speech about the nuke.

I do agree with you that Bruce is also responsible fo Ultron, because he did participate, without mentioning it to anyone else (despite the fact that he voiced his doubts in the film). As Stark said in AoU, Banner’s a bit of a pushover. That’s not an excuse, because he participated… twice!

As for the Mind Stone and Mjolnir, neither of those apply to this argument. For starters, Mjolnir wasn’t used until the creation of Vision, and that was after Thor had recieve some sort of wacky ass vision of his own. And the scepter, Mind Stone included, was not used on anyone involved with making Ultron, so trying to deflect blame there is pointless. Yes, the Stone did infect the Ultron program, but had Stark simply run his ideas by everyone else rather than continuously thinking he is the smartest person in the room and therefore knows better than everyone, Ultron probably never would have happened.

Now, the whole Accords/Bucky situation. This is the part that really has me fit to be tied.

For starters, did Tony write the Accords? No. Did Steve ever imply that Tony wrote them, as you said above? No. Did Tony know about the Accords before they were presented to the Avengers? We don’t know. It’s implied that he knew about them, given that he came to the compound with Ross on the day the Accords were presented to them, but the thing that really sticks out to me is that he doesn’t speak during the entire meeting.

When has Tony Stark ever been able to keep his mouth shut in situations like this? When has he ever resisted the urge to make the government officials who try to boss him around look like a dumbass? If you need a refresher, watch IM2, where he humiliates Justin Hammer at the Congressional hearing, as well as insulting the senators. Yes, it was revealed that the particular Senator in charge there was Hydra, but at the time, no one knew that. He was just a government official that Stark showed little to no regard for. Where was this attitude with the Accords?

But, you may be asking, if he didnt write the Accords, how could he promise Steve that they could be altered later? Answer: he can’t. That was a U.N. document that he had no power or authority behind, meaning he used that entire scene with Steve and the FDR pens to try and manipulate a man he considered his friend, mostly for his own personal gains (he wanted Pepper back. He said so in that scene.) And all of this isn’t even getting into Wanda’s internment.

And now the big kicker, Bucky.

Where do I even start with this mess? How about the fact that no, the government/police were not trying to bring Bucky in for either questioning or imprisonment. It was stated in the film, by Sharon Carter in Vienna, that they had orders to shoot him on sight. That was a kill mission. There is no other way to look at that. With only a blurry photograph (because someone managed to snap a pick on one of the world’s deadliest and most secretive assassins, realky?) the UN or who ever was in charge decided he needed to be killed on sight.

For the record, this is also an issue I take with T'Challa in this movie. The fact that he completely ignores the very Accords he and his country spearheaded to exact his own personal revenge is… just no.

Now the big finale.

Is Stark allowed to be emotional upon seeing the video of his parents’ deaths? Of course. That’s not even debatable. But him immediately trying to murder Bucky (and yes, he was trying to kill him. The directors and writers all confirmed this so that’s a canon fact) is not in any way okay. I don’t know how to impress upon you the concept that, though you may be angry, it is not acceptable in any way to try to murder someone, especially when Stark KNEW that Bucky was the victim of brainwashing. Hell, he’d seen Bucky activated less then two days before. For a man who often likes to profess how intelligent he is, he’s not very smart.

TL;DR: stop trying to pass off you personal opinions as canon events that took place in the book.

Replying in kind.

Firstly, I don’t necessarily headcanon Howard as being mentally ill. A drunk? Yeah. That’s canon. Nor do I headcanon any of the other stuff re: Howard. I was merely offering … possibilities … for WHY his and Tony’s relationship was so fraught. Though to be honest, the odds of Howard having had PTSD right after the war (before Tony was born) are really high. Whether he’d still have been having problems with it in the 70′s when Tony was born is an entirely different discussion.

And I NEVER said Tony twigging to the illegal weapons sales before Afghanistan was canon. I said it was *my* explanation for why Obadiah wanted to kill the golden goose. The only other reason would be Obadiah going batshit which, well … is always an option. And Tony twigging to it … wouldn’t necessarily mean him taking an interest in the company. All it takes is five minutes of attention at the right time under the right circumstances.

re: Wanda. No. It wasn’t ‘just a bad dream’. It was, explicitly, Tony’s greatest fear. That is a *factor* in Tony’s decision making process re: Ultron and its coding. So she does bear some small amount of blame for that clusterfuck.

regarding the mind stone … you’re forgetting that the damned thing is capable of altering people’s minds and emotions. And it was in the room with Tony and Bruce. Again, it’s a *factor* in the clusterfuck. I’m not trying to shift all blame for Ultron off Tony, but people need to realize that the whole mess was a lot more complicated than Tony going ‘I’ma build a murderbot for the lulz’. He definitely made some BAAAAAD decisions in that mess, but it wasn’t all on him.

Regarding Wanda’s so-called internment. I will grant that Tony could have explained that better, but … Wanda had just pulled some next level shit and people were NOT HAPPY. Her staying inside was for her own protection, until things settled down some.

And I agree that there was fuckery going on re: Bucky. I even said so in my post. I just said that *if* things had been done RIGHT, bringing Bucky in would have been a VERY good idea.

As for the Siberia thing … ok, let’s say, just for the sake of argument (despite copious evidence elsewhere to the contrary) that Tony was, in fact, trying to kill Bucky.

You (and a lot of other people) seem to think that Tony should have been able to watch that movie and then respond in a clear-headed, logical fashion. Which, LOL. NO. Tony just watched the brutal, bloody, hands-on murder of his parents. With the ‘person’ who committed the crime not five feet away. On top of that, he gets lied to by Steve about the whole mess.

Literally no one who loves at least one of said murdered parents is going to be capable of responding to that situation calmly and logically. They are GOING to lose their shit. Tony is no different. Even if he was trying to kill Bucky, it wasn’t him making a clear, cold, logical decision to do so. It was him going ‘HGAHFGFWEHBRWEHETNFDSWJHYRWBGRER!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ mentally and emotionally due to trauma. And you know what would have chilled that situation out, in a way that didn’t involve Steve ramming his shield into Tony’s chest? Showing a shred of empathy for the man. Verbally talking him down rather than escalating the situation to hell and gone. Hell, just grabbing Bucky and GTFO would have worked because Tony was in NO shape to follow and fight.

Better yet. If Steve (or Natasha) had, at any time in the three years prior, gone ‘umm, Tony … ‘ … SIBERIA NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. Because Bucky would not have been right there, and better, Tony wouldn’t have just watched his parents’ deaths. It would have just been one of the two going ‘yeah, HYDRA had your folks killed, and they used the Winter Soldier to do it.’ Which is fuck all less traumatic than watching the Winter Soldier beat your dad’s face in and choke your mom to death while they plead for their lives.

So Tony would have been pissed right the hell off, but without the added trauma, he’dve had time to calm the fuck down and THINK. And apply the blame where it truly belonged (ie, HYDRA) and then gone on a Ten Rings-esque revenge beatdown.

So the *entirety* of that is on Steve and Natasha (because she knew too). There is no ‘well Tony could have … ‘ because no, in point of fact, he couldn’t.

#he’s too pretty and too smart in this scene#its overwhelming

REBLOGGING FOR TAGS: #and Steve is never really surprised by how shitty people can be#just disappointed#very disappointed#Captain America is very disappointed

*THOSE TAGS*

*now has many thinky thoughts about Steve Rogers and Night Watch and Young Sam Vimes*

The third gif is what keeps getting me.

He sees all these people getting on preparing to attack him, and they are all the faces of men he has worked with over the last few weeks and months, maybe years.  Men he’s trusted.  Lives he’s saved.  Comrades in arms.  His team, as much as he’s had one.

That is the look of bleakness, as someone else gets on and Steve thinks, “You?  I liked you.  I thought you were better than this.  Oh god, don’t make me do this.”

(Sometimes the person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger)

But these aren’t people he’ll lie down for.  This is a fight he’ll pick his shield up after.  There’s nobody in this elevator he loves enough.

This whole scene is a masterpiece of subtle acting and one I don’t think Chris Evans gets nearly enough credit for. I mean, you can see the moment the penny drops and it’s minutes before everyone in that elevator thought it would. (I get the feeling he gets underestimated a lot at SHIELD—he’s big, he’s blond, he’s the man out of time, what can he know?) But that mind never stops working and the minute the penny drops, he knows what he’ll have to do to survive. 

This whole scene, tho. I mean, I HATE about 99% of Steve’s characterization outside of First Avenger. But this scene? This scene they did right. Because Steve figures out shit is going down with the *first people* to get on the goddamned elevator. *maybe* as late as the second set. He is specifically shown side-eyeing EVERY LAST ONE of them as they get on. And it is *glorious*. And I think boogie’s right. I’ll bet good, solid money most of SHIELD thoroughly underestimates Steve.

The man on the bridge. Who was he?

otherwise known as the moment your heart broke - if you were human. Seriously, I almost never cry/get emotional at movies and this? KILLED ME. This entire fucking scene just ripped my fucking heart out and stomped on it.

Because before this? You just see Soldier. Deadly. Competent. Focused. A machine. There is, *maybe* a quarter-second flicker of actual human expression on his face when Steve calls him by name. Maybe. But that’s it. And even then, it’s confusion, if it’s anything. Nothing even remotely like recognition or anything of the sort.

And then this goddamned scene. He’s confused, and starting to remember and *daring to question* and ... 

And so fucking broken, so fucking beat down that despite being, hands down, the deadliest fucking person in the room, he not only *lets* them put him in that fucking chair without a fight - he HELPS THEM. Actively takes the goddamned mouth guard.

I just ... I cannot. I fucking cannot. This scene KILLS me every fucking goddamned time.