I was referring to the first.

Oh no problem. In my mind it wasn't a physically consummated romance but instead an on and off of them being together just not putting it together themselves that both wanted more than their emotional companionship.
Sorta like neither were both 'on' at the same time as the other explaining how they could go years and years with other people and not get how much one means to the other.

I think that you and I just have fundamental differences in our approach to fandom - neither of us is right or wrong in any way, of course, we're just different. I tend to be in fandom for the canon, first and foremost - so if it contradicts what I want to do with my fanon, I want to try my best to find a way to work with it and play with it, rather than ignore it, even if it's frustrating as hell. I'm also much more interested in single-character exploration than on the dynamic between two characters.

Plus, I think most slashfic, or fic in general, tends to revolve around the same plots. The most common being, "Woe, we have angst about something. Oh, look, we are actually in love with each other. Whee, porn time!" (Which, for the record, I am not at all opposed to, trust me. But it's pretty much the standard format, and can be overused.) It's all a matter of which of those stock setups we prefer, and how the writers who write them manage to make them feel fresh and original and interesting despite their repetition. Personally, I'm fascinated by breakup stories and sexuality stories, so this works for me, but I can totally understand why they wouldn't.

All of which, of course, doesn't answer your original question. I'm not sure how many other options there are to the girlfriend problem, if a breakup isn't involved. There's always cheating, but, well, Steve just wouldn't, and Tony - well, I'll leave that judgment up to those who know him better than I do. So... I'm really not sure what the alternative to ignoring them is, with those options eliminated. Hmm.

(As for Diamondback... I couldn't really tell you. The parts of canon with her in it I've only read sporadically, and she never made much sense to me. They did try to make the relationship feel organic, but it never actually succeeded, in my opinion.)

If you could get Steve to agree to a threesome, I think you would deserve a prize. The Steve in my head doesn't even have that word in his vocabulary.

Then again, I seem to make a habit of challenging you to write things I can't imagine for this character, so - challenge!

*nods* Yes, I could definitely see it working in that particular situation. Steve could never have a threesome just for the sex part, but a 3-person loving relationship he could definitely be happy with. Because he is so full of love, and as soon as he got over his ingrained perceptions of normalcy, he'd probably be very happy with the relationship. Being able to love everyone without conflict is totally what he would want more than anything else in the world.

Unfortunately, as you pointed out, it would pretty much have to be an OFC, because Sharon and Connie would probably be too jealous for that kind of thing, Steve and Tony weren't really close in the Bernie years, and Diamondback... well, I don't think I'd want to read that threesome. And OFCs are always a dangerous prospect in fandom, though I do love them when they're done well.

If the inspiration ever hits, I fully encourage it!

Yeah, that was the other thing I was thinking with the Bernie thing - I'm honestly not even sure she would like Tony if she met him, much less come to care about him on a level deep enough for that kind of relationship. If there was a Bernie/Steve/Tony poly relationship, it would very much be a balance of Steve/Bernie and Steve/Tony, with Bernie and Tony trying to be cordial but not really caring about each other, and I'm not sure Steve could handle something that separated and precarious.

And, yeah, Diamondback would be a BAD idea for Tony, you're very right.

(And hahahaha, to the Mary Sue thing. So true! But I think you could make it work, if you tried. :) )

Well, I manage to OTP both Wyatt/Josephine and Doc/Kate and Wyatt/Doc, so I've got relatively little problem working around Sharon and Rumiko (who, IMO, are the only serious challenges to slash, since Tony's other girlfriends were much more transitory, and Bernie was an obvious beard).

My personal take on Steve/Tony in canon is that they've loved each other most of their adult lives, but that neither ever actually acted on it in canon -- it's what makes The Confession so effective; despite the fact that Steve was the love of his life, Tony never told him, never actually verbalized it, so Steve never knew, and now it's too late (and likewise, Tony never knew that his feelings were returned). It's the great dramatic irony of the end of Civil War: Steve died thinking Tony no longer cared about him, not realizing that Tony loved him more than life itself (literally, given Tony's occasionally suicidal tendencies), and Tony, until he got that letter Steve left him, thought that Steve died hating him.

When you think about it, the structure of the end of volume five (which, as we all know, ceased publication after issue number 26 - ignore my previous comment about letters Tony may or may not have gotten) is set up so that Steve dies after being betrayed three times, by each of the three great loves of his life: America, Tony, and Sharon. Except that "America," which is Steve's great love the way France is Enjolras's mistress, isn't ever going to love Steve back, anymore than "truth" or "justice" can love you back, and Sharon and Steve are/were in love as much with the idea of each other as with the real people behind that idea. Sharon puts Steve on a pedastal to some extant: she's as much in love with "Captain America" as she is with Steve Rogers, which, considering that she grew up hearing stories about how awesome he was from Peggy, makes a certain amount of sense. And Steve, in return, occasionally puts Sharon on a pedastal: she's the one who's supposed to be "the girl of his dreams"; pretty, blonde, very similar in appearance to the woman he had a crush on during the war, and also a kickass SHIELD agent, which solves the romantic dilemma created by the fact that Steve's closest emotional ties are always with his comrades-in-arms. She's what he's supposed to want, and is as close as he can get in many ways to what he actually wants (which is essentially the kind of shield-brother relationship he has with Tony and arguably with Sam or Bucky, though I really, really can't see Steve/Bucky as sexual).

Tony's non-Steve significant others have all stabbed him in the back (except for Bethany Cabe, who ruled, and Janice Cord, who was actually in love with the second Crimson Dynamo), so they're comparatively easy to dismiss. For one thing, I have no doubt that Tony would have broken it off with any of them, even Rumiko, if given the chance to get together with Steve.

which cracked out canon romance made you go "WTF? Come on, the slash makes more sense than that!"

I'm tempted to say the Living Armor, but that actually makes a disturbing amount of sense, so: Diamondback. All I can say is, the sex in that relationship must have been very, very good, because nothing else explains what they could possibly have seen in each other.

Edited to fix my sucktastic spelling.

I can't speak for seanchai, but for me at least, RR&R was/is both my ship manifesto and my "half of fandom is wrongwrongwrong about Civil War, Tony is not evil, arg!" manifesto (our sekrit goals were to a) redeem Tony in the reader's eyes b) get everyone to join us in shipping Steve/Tony, and c) have as many people as possible hug Steve, because he deserves many hugs after the end of Civil War), so it's probably not surprising that my pet interpretation of canon is pretty close to the backstory we used in that fic.

Of course! I can't speak for Elspeth, of course, but I may be weird, but I'm generally very friendly ^_^.

I keep forgetting that I need to get back to actually using my LJ though...

Which is, imho, what turned the Steve/Tony aspect of Steve's death into a true literary tragedy instead of just a really sad event. It's on the level of Romeo and Juliet, it really is, even if you regard their love for each other as strictly platonic.

Somewhere in the back of my head is a long, rambly piece of meta on Civil War and The Confession as Greek tragedy, with the classic dilemma of loyalty to one's polis and/or ruler (Tony) vs. loyalty to higher principles/the gods (Steve). The Confession has some strong visual parallels to that Achilles weeps over Patroclus's body scene in the Iliad. Plus, like all great tragedy, it has those few moments when all could have been averted -- Casualties of War, where Steve is too angry to listen; right after Happy's death, when the other anti-Reg heroes crash their meeting; and in the first half of the Confession, where Tony walks away and leaves Steve in the helicarrier's brig instead of talking to him.