I know that road.
It took one glance to recognize it.
How many times did he drive out to that exact road and sit there
I think what people who blame Tony for “attacking Bucky” tend to forget is that the loss of BOTH of Tony’s parents while he was still quite young absolutely traumatized him. WITHOUT A DOUBT it led to his depression which caused him to become a feckless, seemingly uncaring “playboy,” gambler, drinker and all-around screw-up. He was in college at the time - a dangerous age for anyone - but imagine if you lost both your parents while you were in college. At least one parent that you loved wholeheartedly and unreservedly, and the other that you longed to impress and make him know you were worthy of HIS love and admiration. Tony never got “closure” – the loss of both parents tumbled him into a very dark, hopeless existence that was only overcome when he had to fight to free himself from captivity and, mostly, to make things right. Making things right – often by actually making things, which is his particular talent – becomes his driving heroic force.
And then consider that YEARS later you suddenly find out that your parents didn’t die in a car accident, as you’d always believed – that they were instead brutally murdered (as you watch the whole thing on film…in detail) – that a man you considered your friend and brother-in-arms KNEW about it and said nothing - and that the murderer (who you really don’t know much about at all) is standing right there in the room (and “remembers them all”).
You would have reacted exactly the same way.
I agree
Yeah seriously guys cut the bullshit “ugh he overreacted” get off the high horse if you were in that situation you would not have the guts to say that
And how did Steve and Bucky respond to Tony’s reaction? With a 2v1 supersoldier smackdown that, let’s be honest, Tony would absolutely have won if he had been trying.
We’ve all seen the kind of firepower Tony carries in his armors. Missiles, lasers, flares, miscellaneous explosives, and other specialized weaponry aside, those repulsors pack one hell of a punch. Also, speaking of punches, hello, it’s a gold-titanium alloy super-armor that can cause some serious blunt force trauma in hand-to-hand combat. Add on a state-of-the-art AI and all its gadgetry, and you have one hell of an arsenal to work with - especially when you consider the fact that the literal genius who invented and fabricated every single component of that armor is also the one piloting it.
Blow them up individually? Bring the building down on them? Laser spin of death like the one we saw decimate the Hammer drones in IM2? The possibilities would have been endless if Tony had been aiming to kill. Yeah, Steve and Bucky are supersoldiers, but I highly doubt they would be able to beat an Iron Man hell-bent on bringing them down by any means necessary.
But that wasn’t who they faced in that bunker.
They faced Tony.
Tony, Steve’s teammate and friend. Tony, who had always done everything in his power to keep the Avengers safe, happy, together, and alive - even trying to get Bucky into treatment instead of prison when he was accused of the U.N. bombing and the additional destruction caused while running from the military task force. Tony, who gave the team ample funding, customized tech, and several lavish places to call home. Tony, who intercepted a goddamn nuclear missile and flew it into an alien portal to save a team he’d just met and the rest of the world at the intended cost of his own life. Tony, who begged Ross to let the rest of the team bring Steve and Co. into custody rather than send in a unit of kill-sanctioned military operatives. Tony, who rushed to help Steve and Bucky the second he saw what Zemo had done, directly violating the Accords he had just signed having had no other viable choice and placing himself in the literal line of fire (military kill squad) should Ross discover what he’d done.
Tony, who was betrayed, ambushed, blown up via his own tech, kidnapped, held hostage, tortured, had his arc reactor ripped from his chest and was then left to die, and then was nearly killed again by the Iron Monger - all at the hands of Obadiah, his guardian, the closest thing Tony had to a parent after his were taken from him too soon.
Tony, the boy who lost his parents - and the man who saw them murdered.
His parents. Not snuffed by a tragic car accident as he had thought for the past twenty years, but cruelly executed by a monstrous puppet wearing the face of the man not 10 feet away. And Steve knew, or at least suspected Hydra’s influence in their deaths, and Steve didn’t tell him.
Tony knows Bucky was brainwashed, had clearly been briefed on the Winter Soldier to some extent and realized that the Soldier’s actions are not Bucky’s; he explicitly tried to get Bucky the treatment he needed in the aftermath of the U.N. bombing. If Steve had gone to Tony sooner, Tony would have had time and space to separate valid emotions from invalid reactions, to process things over time in an environment far less charged than that bunker. If Steve had gone to Tony sooner, Tony would never have snapped.
But Steve didn’t. Instead, all of this was thrown at Tony in a matter of minutes by a psychopath in a deserted Hydra bunker in the middle of the Siberian tundra.
So Tony snapped and lashed out in betrayal, disbelief, rage, agony. Yet he never entirely lost sight of just whom he was fighting, because if he had, you can be damn sure that they wouldn’t have walked away from it.
Even at his worst, Tony was never fighting at his full capacity - not to kill or even critically injure. Steve knew that, because he knows what Tony is capable of and that it could definitely have been a hell of a lot worse.
But at the end of the fight, as Steve raises his shield for the final blow, you can see it: the raw panic in Tony’s eyes, tangible fear as he throws his arms up in a last-ditch attempt to protect himself, completely neglecting the palm repulsors that were still live and entirely capable of a damaging, point-blank blast to Steve’s unprotected torso.
If only for a moment, Tony truly believed that Steve was going to bring that shield down onto his face - in what would no doubt have been a crippling or deadly blow.
But Tony still didn’t shoot.
So no, Tony was never truly aiming to kill or seriously injure. Certainly not Steve, and not even Bucky (whom he could have shot point blank with that missile, but shot the hinge of the silo door to stop his escape instead).
But, after Tony blasts Bucky’s metal arm off to protect the reactor, Steve seems to lose whatever composure he had left, and starts completely battering Tony. Watching Steve obliterate Tony’s helmet with punch after punch after punch - avoiding the arc reactor entirely, despite it already being damaged/made vulnerable by Bucky and it being the only surefire way to shut down the armor and stop the battle (without greviously injuring Tony), which was supposed to be Steve and Bucky’s goal, right? - watching Steve raise the shield up directly above Tony’s now-vulnerable head and neck, seeing the lingering shock and fear in both pairs of eyes after the final blow was dealt (shock at what all had been done, fear at what Steve could have done)…
Tony would not, could not severely hurt Steve or Bucky, not even lost as he was to rage and grief, not even when he thought - if but for a moment, looking up into Steve’s face, twisted with fury and blind with unknown intent - that his life depended on it.
Tony snapped, and blows were dealt, but Tony was never far gone enough to significantly harm a teammate, a friend; or an innocent man whose past he could not control.
Can Steve say the same?