One of the things I complained about on twitter is that I legitimately don’t understand how Tony could think that he and Steve were friends — like BFFs on the level as him and Bucky or chill buds like he is with Sam. It’s been a few days since the Civil War trailer and I still don’t get it.

And this is coming from someone like me that thinks of Tony as neuroatypical and as someone that misses a lot of social cues in life due to reasons directly related to his neuroatypical nature.

Here’s my issue:

We’re not being told that Tony is seriously missing clues or reading into Steve’s behavior throughout the handful of years they’ve been working together (assuming that MCU time runs parallel to ours and the movie release date is the same as its setting as far as years are concerned.)

Instead of seeing Tony miss cues and stuff, what I’m pretty sure we’re going to see is them telling us (not showing) that in the time between Avengers’ films, Tony and Steve have been bro-ing it up.

Despite the fact that nothing in their MCU relationship makes me think that Steve thinks of Tony as anything more than “that guy whose dad was one of my few friends and helped change my life” with a side of “coworker that I want to throw out of a window sometimes”. A friendly rapport between colleagues does not a friendship make.

And seriously, when did this friendship happen?

In the Avengers where they basically had no respect for each other until the very end of the movie?

Or in Age of Ultron where Tony’s machinations nearly get them all killed?

In neither of those movies do Tony and Steve ride off into the sunset as the ultimate bros. In fact, it’s so weird to me that they didn’t bother to have Tony and Steve interact more or mention that they were hanging out at any point. We literally don’t know what their relationship is like but one thing is for sure —

Tony getting all sad-faced while looking at Steve like “I thought I was your friend” doesn’t make sense in the canon we’ve been given. The numbers don’t add up and the relationship doesn’t make sense.  And you know that it’s impossible to expect them to explain that away in a way that lends strength to Tony simply misunderstanding Steve and his interactions.

Seriously, I have no idea what Civil War is going to give us in terms of a Tony & Steve relationship but from the trailers alone I’m already a bit worried that they’re going to tell us that the Steve & Tony friendship was good and pure until Bucky showed back up.

I’m not writing the movie off over something like this but I really am curious about how we’re supposed to make sense o this relationship and the end of it. One thing about the MCU films vs MCU shows is that the shows have a lot more time to flesh out relationships and they use it for that purpose.

The movies basically are glimpses into a world that keeps on turning while the films aren’t onscreen and we basically have no idea what’s going on there unless Marvel deigns to put out a tie-in comic right before the movie comes out.

We don’t get to see what goes on in the movies between sequels, we’re just told what happens and expected to be cool with it and while that can work for the political stuff (especially with AOS to fill in gaps), it really doesn’t work for the relationship.

But okay —

I’d really love to find out if I’ve missed something in their relationship in the MCU because this is so weird!!