knightinironarmor:

you know in aou when steve says “every time someone tries to stop a war before it starts, innocent people die. every time” and then tony just breaks eye contact and looks Troubled ™… and to me it feels like steve’s argument shut him up because once upon a time tony indeed was mister “the best weapon is the one you only fire once” “fear or respect, is it too much to ask for both?” like as a weapons person he absolutely operated on the gray fear area that’s implied by steve’s statement. tony used to say “fire the weapon once so that the enemy won’t even wanna come out” and steve’s saying “no innocent people die in that crossfire” and that…. that gets him. he looks away and stops arguing right there

anyway the point of this is: tony’s expression/bodily reaction to that statement? that was like. that was RDJ administering god damn CPR on tony stark’s character via the sheer power of his acting because like let me tell you age of god damn ultron confronts tony with the LEGACY OF STARK INDUSTRIES WEAPONS THROUGH WANDA AND PIETRO, and the writing itself does absolutely fucking NOTHING ABOUT THIS ????? my god the mcu kept like 65% of tony’s emotional and moral framework on ice for so long ?? like thank fuck for RDJ because literally there are points where his acting is like mouth-to-mouth to tony’s characterization like this guy and his microexpressions are single-handedly responsible for keeping tony stark alive through piles and piles of shallow writing and missed character opportunities