what people just don’t GET about the “no trust, liar” scene is that steve did nothing to keep the team together in civil war. this isn’t me hating on steve, or saying that the accords were good, or (god forbid) dredging up any of the old cw discourse. but the thing is, steve did not want to compromise in civil war (he had his reasons, etc. etc. this isn’t about the accords and i never wanna talk about those again). steve rejected compromise, steve rejected olive branches, he rejected meeting in the middle. steve didn’t see a way to keep the team together without these, so he let the team fall apart. because that’s steve – committed to his ideals (and his loved ones, as bucky was an important motivation in civil war), hell or high water. one of tony’s crucial motivations in civil war, by contrast, was expressly to keep the team together: “i’m trying to keep you from tearing the avengers apart!” “i’m doing what has to be done to stave off something worse.” “we need you, cap.”
there’s a reason for this, and the reason is that pivotal scene in age of ultron. “how were you planning on beating that?” “together.” and then, later, tony agrees: “like the old man said – together.” tony rejects the idea of ultron after it failed and blew up spectacularly in his face, and he accepts steve’s alternative plan: we will deal with the threat of extraterrestrial calamity (that tony saw coming for miles) together, as a team. the avengers is all we have to do that. that’s why tony is desperate in civil war to keep the team together. there is no more ultron, there is no more anything except them, to defend the earth against thanos [tony doesn’t know the name at this stage, but he knows the concept – existential threat to humanity from outer space]. tony rejects his own ideology, of ultron, because of the havoc it wrought, and accepts steve’s. “together.” he relies on this, because it’s all he has left. he relies on the fact that steve believes him, understands him, and understands what is coming – and he accepts steve’s way of doing it after his own was a catastrophic failure. “like the old man said – together.” tony listens – doesn’t try anymore to win the war before it starts, doesn’t try to end the team, doesn’t pursue any ultron-like projects, but holds onto the fact that being together is all that they will have when calamity comes.
then civil war happens. tony is clinging to “together” like a lifeline (because it is, to him) and steve seemingly forgets about it, or at least prioritizes the more immediate concerns he has over the concerns raised by tony in age of ultron. no more avengers is fine with him given the circumstances that the accords put him in. meanwhile, tony is desperate for the avengers to not be torn apart. you can say that he was misguided in his attempts, and he could have done more (i wouldn’t probably agree with you, but that’s a whole other thing), or he could have done differently, or he shouldn’t have signed, and this that and the third – but, regardless, there is no questioning one of his baseline motivations: the avengers need to stay together. by contrast, steve seems to have forgotten altogether about tony’s concerns re: extraterrestrial calamity in age of ultron – or he has re-prioritized, where tony has not. natasha also articulates this point, directly to steve: “staying together is more important than how we stay together,” which is a thesis steve explicitly rejects in this scene. say what you want about the two sides, but there was one party much more interested in keeping the team together than another, and that’s just a fact.
then infinity war happens – then, they lose. they weren’t together, and they lost. THIS is what steve lied about. the “liar” obviously has to do with their last scene together in cw, when tony finds out that steve lied to him about his parents for some time, but this is also obviously one of the connotations of “liar.” you said we would fight it off together, and you weren’t there. liar. this is why tony brings up his “vision” of calamity in the no-trust-liar scene, because steve either didn’t believe him or didn’t care to take it seriously enough, in tony’s view. he didn’t try to stay together, didn’t accept the olive branches and compromises, and then they were apart, and they lost everything. sure, tony could have tried mending fences (though, i don’t blame him for not trying), just as steve could have – but what tony is saying, ultimately and not exactly incorrectly, is that the reason they were not together – the reason that they were split in the first place – when thanos came was because of steve. steve didn’t listen, steve didn’t trust tony, steve didn’t heed the warning, steve didn’t stay together when that was all that they could do to stop what tony saw coming. again, this isn’t me saying steve was definitively wrong and tony was definitively right in civil war (that’s another whole post, again), but only that steve did not care as much about the team staying together, and that’s why tony has no trust. that’s why he blames steve.
and, for everyone saying he could have called steve…he did. or, nearly did, until thanos’s crew showed up literally at his doorstep. he’s the one who said steve rogers would know where vision is, he had the phone with him and was prepared to call almost as soon as he found out what was coming from bruce. just because he didn’t make the call in the end doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have, because everything in that scene in infinity war suggests that he would have had he not had to immediately prioritize the safety of civilians against the black order.
but that’s even beside the point. the point is, in age of ultron, tony thought steve listened and understood and trusted what his fear of the future was, and steve proved in civil war that he didn’t. then that exact fear came to pass in the most terrible way possible, and tony was exhausted, malnourished, ill, and horribly traumatized, and here was steve trying futilely to fix it after the fact, when it had been festering in tony’s mind for six years and he had tried so hard to prevent it, all within steve’s parameters, “together,” without “trying to win the war before it starts.” sure, maybe you could say tony had some blame in what he is accusing steve of in the scene, since he did not try to mend fences earlier, but he tried everything to stop the team from splitting back in 2016. and even if you think he is partly to blame, that doesn’t mean his anger and anguish is unwarranted, because it is so not.
