A Lil Soft Bucky Whump.

How did Clint and Caps relationship evolve from the "fuck you old man" mess it was in the early avengers

to understand their original dynamic, we’ll have to go back to clint’s childhood. first, clint’s father abused him, then orphaned him at age 8 by drunkenly crashing a car. strike 1 for father/authority figures.

his next father figure, the swordsman, acts as a mentor teaching him swordsmanship, knife-throwing, how to improve his aim, etc. clint looks up to him and practices hard to be part of the circus’ act, but discovers swordsman is stealing some of the show’s earnings, so swordsman tries to kill clint, breaking both of clint’s legs in the process, and leaves him for dead. strike 2.

older brother barney thinks clint wasted a good opportunity for them to work with the swordsman, so he leaves too. kind of a strike 3.

while clint heals, trickshot trains clint extensively until he thinks clint is finally ready to earn his keep. clint complies to try to make him happy. turns out trickshot was just prepping clint for more criminal activity, and he ends up shooting clint to a tree and leaving. strike 4.

by now, clint’s been abused, abandoned, or both by all of his father figures. he tried acting like a better son, brother, or mentee to please these figures in the hopes that they would act better towards him in return. clint now sees that it did nothing. by now he’s old enough and skilled enough to perform as a main act in the circus circuit, incidentally still being mostly run by criminals, so all authority figures are running together as “not to be trusted” at this point.

when clint joins the avengers, he’s thinking he’ll be part of a bona fide, revered team, as an equal member. instead, he finds out that all the founding members of the avengers are leaving, the other members are barely-reformed young villains (which he also is but that goes over his head), and a recently thawed captain america is being put in charge. as you might expect, he’s not thrilled.

now, everyone clearly sees cap’s put in charge because (1) he’s captain america (2) he’s led platoons (3) everyone else is like 19 and was a villain’s lackey like 1 week ago, and (4) he’s captain america. but clint sees: (1) some dude thinks he’s the boss of me! (2) i don’t need some dude to be the boss of me!! (3) it never goes well when some dude is the boss of me!!! (4) bosses don’t last long anyways, so i should be the boss of me and everyone else!!!!

even though cap demonstrates effective leadership, clint’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. he trains with cap begrudgingly, because his last trainers had ulterior motives. with every instruction from cap, clint lets any possible objection he could have be known. if he can’t think of one, then he’ll just insult cap for being old. he completely resents cap’s authority over him.

but the other shoe never does drop. steve, being recently thawed and going through his own issues, left the team for a short period. clint thinks “a-ha! i knew he would abandon us!” but cap quickly returns. and unlike his other father figures, cap repeatedly shows genuine support, belief in clint, and concern for his well-being. as cap’s actions prove time and time again that he’s different, clint starts to warm to him; but still throws some insults to show that he’s ready to disobey an order at any moment. the insults become more half-hearted.

by the time hank pym comes back to the team, clint was regularly training with cap– and actually enjoying himself.

naturally, his defense mechanisms mean he’s still a little combative…

but over time, clint’s jeering shifts to friendly teasing. he always lets his objections be known and still argues often, but for things he has actual reasons for and no longer just because. soon enough, clint practically idolizes cap. everyone knows this because it’s completely transparent.

and so, cap will always have a soft spot for clint 

and clint will always call him old. and they will insult each other, forever

Coulson claps his hands, the resulting smack echoing around the abandoned subway tunnel. “I now bring this meeting of the Highly Advanced Prosthetic Arms Club to order!”

gay man on lesbian women violence is allowed when Billy does it because that was SO fucking funny. you know the billie eilish song was playing in his head. that was SO edgelord teenager of him. I'm still cackling

using athletes as a pose reference for Spidey is p fun

oh Clinton,,, how I’ve missed you,,,

Did they ever reveal how Captain America was thawed? Because I’m picturing a bunch of Shield agents with hair dryers and I don’t think that’s quite right.

Honestly, I don't think at any point Steve and Tony were friends. Maybe some comradery between allies but never true friends. But it is kinda funny to imagine that Tony is so used to his friends, Pepper, Rhodie and Happy staring at him with dead inside eyes constantly annoyed with antics that he didn't understand that when it came to Steve that wasn't a friendship when he did it

I'm now imagining Steve rolling his eyes and giving him that Disappointed Rogers™ look and Stark thinking they're now friends because everyone in his life has the same reaction to his bullshit 😂

They were never friends and I don't care what the Russos tried to claim in CW and subsequent movies. "He's my friend" - "So was I". Uh... when? When he kept the truth about Ultron? When he kept discussing his experience during the invasion as if the rest of the team hadn't been there too and were probably traumatized by it as well? When he made jokes at Steve's expense even though he had just been out of the ice for a couple weeks? When he refused to listen to him in the airport in Germany? When he declined to inform him of the Accords even though he knew about them beforehand and knew Steve, as an enhanced, would be directly targeted by them? When he almost murdered Bucky because he wanted to hurt Steve?

And those are only a few, there are more. I don't see a friendship there.

A point could be made that this is true for the entire Avengers team. TWS was a breath of fresh air as it gave us Steve, Nat and Sam as a group of actual friends and that was carried out until the end (even though I'm still pissed that Sam is not allowed to say anything about Nat, he never mentions her, I don't like that). But the others? Besides Steve and Bucky, the other relationships are romances: Wanda and Vis, Clint and Laura, Nat and Bruce. Thor seemed somewhat closer to Steve than anyone else but they never quite explored that -- which is a huge shame because in the comics they're AMAZING.

With Steve and Stark we're told they were friends and EG tries to paint them even closer but that's utter bullshit. They were co-workers who tolerated each other only when they needed to. I mean, who was Steve hanging out with at the party in AoU? Sam and Thor.

★I tried to shout, "I decide", but my voice betrayed me, breaking into a whisper: "Enough"★

Marvel. Bucky. Never over the grimy racoon look.