>> Bucky pulling the whole parental act seriously lost any and all sympathy; <<
Bucky has one of the more serious cases of parentification in the group. That helps when he's taking a big-brother role, as long as he's gentle with people. But Bucky grew up in a pretty harsh setting, and this is the point when that starts to clash. People are beginning to look up to him, but there's a limit to how much authority they'll let him have. He needs to learn that you just can't be rough with the other Avengers.
>> it definitely made me feel that Tony had every right to do all of the posturing he needed to get Bucky to back off. <<
Agreed. Personal reasons notwithstanding, Bucky crossed some lines that weren't okay to cross.
>> (And seriously, I saw his violence as posturing to try and scare off a fight, rather than a willingness to get into a sustained fight.) <<
That it was, but shoving is still not okay either. That's what freaked out Bruce and Bucky. Tony just wasn't thinking well enough to realize that all he had to do was back away and let Uncle Phil de-escalate the situation. His own coping skills really aren't up to handling this kind of conflict. But Tony has way too much experience with having to rescue himself, so it's hard for him to remember that "let an expert handle this" is an option now.
>>Tony isn't one of the characters I empathize with most in the group, so suddenly doing so was pretty striking.<<
I'm glad it worked for you. I love writing Tony. He's so fragile and yet so valiant.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-08-30 11:15 pm (UTC)Bucky has one of the more serious cases of parentification in the group. That helps when he's taking a big-brother role, as long as he's gentle with people. But Bucky grew up in a pretty harsh setting, and this is the point when that starts to clash. People are beginning to look up to him, but there's a limit to how much authority they'll let him have. He needs to learn that you just can't be rough with the other Avengers.
>> it definitely made me feel that Tony had every right to do all of the posturing he needed to get Bucky to back off. <<
Agreed. Personal reasons notwithstanding, Bucky crossed some lines that weren't okay to cross.
>> (And seriously, I saw his violence as posturing to try and scare off a fight, rather than a willingness to get into a sustained fight.) <<
That it was, but shoving is still not okay either. That's what freaked out Bruce and Bucky. Tony just wasn't thinking well enough to realize that all he had to do was back away and let Uncle Phil de-escalate the situation. His own coping skills really aren't up to handling this kind of conflict. But Tony has way too much experience with having to rescue himself, so it's hard for him to remember that "let an expert handle this" is an option now.
>>Tony isn't one of the characters I empathize with most in the group, so suddenly doing so was pretty striking.<<
I'm glad it worked for you. I love writing Tony. He's so fragile and yet so valiant.