#(falling in love with Starker had a lot to do with developing the crossover)

[crossoverfamily]

I fell into MCU when we binged with my family years ago the first sequences of movies (the first two Iron Man, Hulk, Captian America, Thor, Avengers), although I still recall that feeling of loving the most Tony and Thor. So when new movies came out, I tried to keep up, but it felt like wanting to keep up with the storyline itself, while I was most happy with new Tony or Thor content, and especially happier with Avengers content.

Funnily enough, as much as I respect Tony/Pepper, I never truly felt much about the ship either? Like no bad feelings, but not the way I actually like Thor/Jane. Soooo imagine when I first saw Civil War, and later, Homecoming, and this amazing chemestry for Tony showed up.

I know I watched Civil War and Homecoming a while ago, but the Starker only truly became clear when, for Christmas 2023, we binged Infinity War, Endgame, and the three Spider-Man movies. As you might guess, that means I witnessed their whole relationship grow in one sitting, more or less, and that's when I fell in love with their dynamic.

And for me, I love to speak of what they have as just love. I love reading platonic/familial content as much romantic ones, and all the flavours of Starkers, because it feels like, intended or not, MCU gave us such a good dynamic to explore. Looking back on it, that binge for Christmas 2023 is when my Peter-muse first formed, as I just fell in love with that version of Peter, and how Tony is such a vital part of Peter's growth.

And it broke my heart, it felt unfair that Tony died, so much potential lost, Peter's life so hard without Tony. So after the binge, I had the visceral need to read fanfics, and that's when I realized that I wanted to read the romantic versions as much as the platonic ones. And that I felt like their story is a great representation of "if only we had met before" and "if only our births aligned better", because I feel like everything would have been so different if Peter and Tony met earlier. If they had more time to know each other.

The dealbreaker for me too, is that I felt like, up until the end, Pepper never truly loved Iron Man, only Tony. I see the way its portrayed as her worrying for Tony, and I understand where she comes from, but I just can't get behind the way that, seeing them in Infinity War, I had this realization that Pepper didn't want to fully settle down, for a family, unless Tony stopped being Iron Man. She seemed to love Tony for wanting to be Iron man, but not love Iron Man himself. Meanwhile, Peter loves Tony and Iron Man both. And yeah, he might be all starry eyed meeting him, who wouldn't in context? But to me its clear he's not blind that Tony is only human, and yet he still cares for Tony as a whole person.

And I have to also mention that what made me fall even harder is when I developed my Peter-muse, because the sheer need he had to show Tony what unconditional love is blew me away. He just wants to know every version of Tony has a Peter that will be there for him, as friends or family or rivals or lovers or anything in between.

The whole other aspect of why I fell in love with Starker is the sheer adoration for the idea that loves wins over every "barriers" they have. And once I loved that in their canon story and all the fix-it type of stories (or stories that ignore IW/Endgame or "Tony lives"), I love every versions.

So yeah, I got a bit rambly but that's the story of how I fell in love with Starker: the whole dynamic in canon alone made me love the ship, the fandom added to it, and my own muse cemented it!

ask time: what got you into starker?