Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Stephen Strange (mentioned), Peter Parker (mentioned), Thanos (Mentioned), Pepper Potts (mentioned), Other Marvel Characters Additional Tags: Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Fix-It of Sorts, Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War Movie, 2018 Stony MCU Bingo Fill, Avengers: Infinity War, Angst, Drama, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Self-Blame, Depression, The Author Regrets Nothing, I'm working out my depression because of IW, i hate that movie, but love it to pieces, Not Beta Read, Do not Read if You haven't seen the movie yet, SPOILERS ABOUND, Pre-Slash Summary:

Tony finds his way back to Earth after their failed incursion in Titan to find out that he's lost so much more than he thought. He falls into depression, but Steve is there to, maybe, make Tony realize a few things.

My favorite author on AO3 updated her fic after being MIA for almost two weeks (she usually posts weekly and is pretty good at staying on schedule). I am geeking out SO hard over it. I do every time she post.  If you are a stuckony / Steve-Bucky-Tony fan, you like sloooooooow builds with great canon appropriate plot lines, you get a kick out of idiots acting like idiots because they’re in love, and you enjoy longfics (I’m talking 100,000+ words spanning multiple chapters), then you need to check out Love of Ours by emeraldine087. Seriously. Her story telling ability is my future goal.  Here is the summary pulled directly from her fic because my explanation doesn’t do any justice:

Chapters: 21/21 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Jane Foster/Thor, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Laura Barton Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts, James "Bucky" Barnes, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Scott Lang, Thor (Marvel), Jane Foster (Marvel), Wanda Maximoff, Bruce Banner, Sharon Carter (Marvel), Everett Ross, Laura Barton, Edwin Jarvis (mentioned), Maria Stark (mentioned), Howard Stark (mentioned), Obadiah Stane (mentioned), Sarah Rogers (mentioned), Nick Fury (mentioned), Maria Hill, Peggy Carter, Darcy Lewis, Maya Hansen, Christine Everhart, Pietro Maximoff, Other Marvel Characters, Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Neighbors, Celibacy Challenge, First Impressions, Frequent Intoxication, Sex Addiction, Mentions of way too many party games, Enforced Association, One Night Stands, Mutual Pining, Cynicism, Past Relationship(s), Relationship hang-ups, Cockblocking, delayed gratification, Getting to Know Each Other, Getting Together, Drunken Confessions, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Top Tony Stark, Bottom Steve Rogers, Top Steve Rogers, Bottom Tony Stark, Man-whore Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has Issues, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Author's issues have issues, Romantic Comedy, Sloooooooooow Build, Gay For You Series: Part 1 of Tony Stark's Dictionary 'verse (aka "Abstinence 'verse") Summary:

The Players - Steve Rogers is a conservative, introverted, socially awkward, dog-loving, stick-to-one romantic, who is a staunch believer in long-term relationships after having been a part of one for three years, and living next door to him is new tenant, Tony Stark, a philandering, fuck-anything-that-moves, confident, sarcastic, cat-loving, self-made Lothario whose relationships are about as lengthy and as meaningful as a fellatio (literally speaking).

The Challenge - Steve will go on dates, getting tips and tidbits from Tony to be able to get back in the dating scene while Tony will abstain from any and all sexual activity (including masturbation) for thirty days.

The Incentive - (mostly for Tony's benefit) A no-strings-attached one-night-stand between the socially awkward romantic and the philandering Lothario.

Rules: Tag 9 people you want to know better.

Relationship status: Single by choice and thrilled

Favorite colour:   Probably green

Pets: Six cats and a foster kitten

Wake up time: 6am to get my daughter off to school during the week. Closer to 7 on the weekends, because the princess wakes up starving and must feed the beast!

Cats or dogs: Cats, though I love dogs, too

Coke or Pepsi: Red wine...um, but Diet Coke.  Weirdly, I won’t drink Diet Pepsi.  Hate it.

Text or call: Text.  Don’t call me. Ever.

Chapstick or lipstick: Chapstick.  I’m obsessed with it.  I have probably 30 chapsticks?  I don’t even know.

Last song i listened to: Tell Your Heart to Beat Again by Danny Gokey, which is my “theme song” for Catching Lightning in a Bottle

I hope you don’t mind me posting this publicly, but I thought maybe other people wanted Smut Advice. I was going to read your WIP when it was done so I can’t say that I’ve seen the scene to know where it’s going, but in general... hmmm. Not that I am a giant authority, but things I have learned about writing smut:

1. It is awkward as hell at first. It gets easier. But I was writing for maybe seven or eight years before I actually finished a story with a sex scene in it (I have plenty of half-finished sex scenes from before that). But yeah. You can do this.

2. It’s okay to gloss over the actual physical stuff. You don’t want to write about anything throbbing? You don’t have to. It’s really all about how it makes them feeeeeel.

3. Writing smut is basically exactly like writing action scenes except everyone is naked. I’m not actually kidding. If you’ve written action scenes, the same basic principles apply: you tell enough to make sure people know what’s going on, you write it clearly, and you strike a balance between narration of events (so the reader understands what’s happening) and how the characters feel about it (so the reader has ALL THE FEELS, as we say these days). Like, say, “The AIM scientist punched Tony. Tony groaned low in agony and Steve watched him double over with the force of the blow. He realized he was straining against his own bonds. He had to break free and save Tony.” Really rough, but like, you’ve got: the action, the POV character, and how they feeeeeel about what’s going on. With smut you’ve got, IDK, “Steve slid his thumb across the corner of Tony’s mouth. Tony smiled and pursed his lips to kiss Steve’s thumb, and Steve shivered with desire.” Something like that. Neither of these are particularly great because I have just now come up with them, but you get what I’m saying, right? There are similarities.

4. Smut should have a purpose -- not because it’s smut specifically, but because every scene in your story should have a purpose. Sometimes the story is “in this story Steve and Tony have sex and it is hot” and, yeah, then you basically have to. Maybe the smut’s there because the story is a romance and you want to show their increasing intimacy and, yeah, sex is a way to show intimacy. Maybe they’re already intimate and you want to show how comfortable they are with each other. Maybe they’ve been sleeping together on and off for a decade and refusing to talk about it and the unexpected passion of the sex scene shows you how ~in love~ they are. Maybe you want to show how their relationship is fucked up. There are many reasons to write smut.

5. Not writing smut is also an option. Yay, fade to black. Maybe you don’t need to actually show them having sex to show how their relationship changes. Maybe the fact that they have had sex is enough.

6. If you do write smut, it’s probably a good idea to get a beta to make sure everyone has the right number of limbs and they all bend the right way. That kind of thing.