Place to discuss, rec, and generally squee over fan fiction about Steve Rogers and Tony Stark
Monday: Donate-a-Prompt #2
Don't we all know this feeling of having too many ideas to write and no time to write them all? Is there this one headcanon that you really want to read but can't write it? Or that frustration when you actually do want to write but you can't come up with anything?
If you have prompts or headcanons that you want to provide for your fellow writers and/or artists, here's the time and place! Anything is welcome, just take note to attach appropriate warnings if applicable :)
If you need resources:
- Here's a handy prompt generator
- There's an unholy amount of AU ideas on my tumblr
- Prompts on Writer's Digest
- Writing Prompts that Don't Suck
In case you create something based on these prompts, be sure to link to them here so we can all read them! Or maybe post a short fill directly in the comments :)




AU where they have jury duty
omg or not-AU where they have jury duty. just two Avengers doing their civic duty in the great city of New York.
There's no legal way for Thor to get jury duty is there?? Because I love the idea of all the avengers on a jury, but especially Thor
AU for this:
enemies to friends to lovers au where the insults slowly become endearments
(I've seen a bit of this in some steve/tony fics but I haven't read one specifically focusing on this premise)
_ omg i desperately want to write this, but...what would their insults be? I doubt the emotional wringer they put each other thru can ever become cute.
(So it's AA to the rescue. 'old man' and 'techhead'?)
I kinda thought of 'insults' as 'insulting nicknames' for Steve/Tony, and Tony's the one who nicknames everyone, so maybe they wouldn't necessarily be insults but nicknames that Steve takes offense to? Tony would probably use Capsicle and old man as jabs in their bickering arguments. Techhead could work for Steve (maybe somewhere along the way it changes to shellhead?), but I can also see him calling Tony 'Stark' less and less as they become friendlier, or maybe the way he calls him 'Stark' slowly changes from an insult to an endearment?
I'm so happy you like the prompt :) And AA always come to our rescue when it's fluff/happy endings time :D
I missed the enemies to friends part, so this is more like...disgruntled teammates to un-disgruntled teammates. Enjoy...?
OMG THIS IS AMAZING!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FILLING MY PROMPT :D And I definitely saw this prompt through the lens of "disgruntled teammates to un-disgruntled teammates" so you got it perfectly :)
Steve asking about the rent was such a Steve moment omg, I loved it, and having Steve call Tony 'Mr. Stark in both the first and last drabble was a really nice touch :)
I laughed so hard at this I swear people heard it outside my room, holy crap Steve, 'get off my lawn'?? Sassy-and-pissed Steve is the best. My reaction was pretty much Natasha's HAHAHA
Steve drawing a sketch for Dummy's birthday and being hesitant about buying art supplies because of the permanance of that action and him SHARING IT WITH TONY oh my heart HUGS STEVE AND TONY JFC "OUR FAVORITE CAPSICLE, I DIED AT THAT. Steve's his only Capsicle, and always his favorite :D THE PAUSE BEFORE HE CALLS HIM STEVE AT THE END ASFHGKJJK
Steve's soft confession broke my heart jesus christ, he was so vulnerable but so honest because Steve is always honest (cough CACW cough) even when it hurts him and of course Tony would turn away from it at first because he's not good enough to be someone's home, let alone Steve's home, and he'll just end up letting him down like he has everyone else cries but Steve fights for him and they're both so hopeful and Steve calling Tony "sweetheart" JUST LEAVE ME HERE WITH MY FEELINGS PLEASE.
OH, BOYS. <3 <3 <3
aaah! Thank you so much! This comment makes my day because you validated everything I was insecure about--including Steve 'get off my lawn' Rogers. I think at some point, the grumpy strategist in him would start owning his nicknames. At least that's what I was going for hehe.
And I'm so glad you liked the sappy parts!! Drabble 4 was kind of my favorite too, because I just loved the idea that Tony has no problem casually taking responsibility for Captain America, but the moment Steve acknowledges it, it's like /insert confused Mr. Krabs meme
Basically, they are nerds and i love them n_n
It's so lovely!!!! Please put it on ao3 so I can bookmark it and kudos it and reread it all the live long day!!!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and it's actually a tumblr post here!
Oh my god this is amazing. Their voices are perfect!! I adore 'get off my lawn' Steve and I totally agree with the interpretation that eventually he'd just own that stuff and take the power (as it were) out of it by making it his own instead of a pissy nickname.
"Get in line, or get the hell off my lawn!" literally made me cackle, because it's such old man talk for someone who's just pointed out that he's (a tiny bit) younger than Tony thinks he is.
Also, "I'm your only Capsicle" had me screeching, omg, because Steve could have said "I'm the only Capsicle" but he chooses "your" instead and I just /screeches
Thank you thank you! I don't write from Steve POV that often, so it's always fun when I can make him pissy and a total dork at once :D
Eeee, so I'm going to confess. Do you remember the part in the Lion King when Scar takes Simba out like, 'I just want to spend some time with my favorite nephew' and Simba goes, 'I'm your only nephew'? That was 100% where the Capsicle line came from, but your comment makes me happy because yessss, I live for Steve's (and Tony's) subtle revelations of thirst. Thank you so much!!
Thank you! You are a gem!
This is from a set of zombie apocalypse prompts I saw on tumblr:
I struggle with naive!steve so this might not be quite what you're thinking, but I did try... (Assume IM1+2 and CA:TFA happened, but nothing after that.)
The first day Steve Rogers showed up, dirty and dishevelled and still with an army bearing that made him formidable under all the muck, he had shaken Tony's hand like they were at a fucking gala and waited with a polite smile until he was asked to sit, and once he'd gotten permission he somehow made the place look like his with absolutely zero actual effort, the dick.
The second day he'd gotten a fire going and made coffee and the best breakfast this year, both delivered with a smile which both a) made Tony's heart flip over and b) set his teeth on edge to the point of almost wanting to punch the smug bastard.
Third day, morning, he'd vanished without a word and Tony thought, to be honest, good riddance. Third afternoon he came back with supplies to keep them stocked up for a clear couple of months. Food, clean water, ammo. Broken fucking technology. Tony eyed up the latter somewhat suspiciously.
“Where..?”
“Passed an abandoned trail post coming this way. I don't know where to start with that stuff but I figured some of it might be useful to you.”
“I'm not incapable, thanks.”
“Sure. But you're telling me a few working motors wouldn't help?”
“You've been in the back.” Made it sound grander than it was. Operating a workshop out of a long abandoned gas station had its perks, not least that before the fucking end of the world happened the place had apparently had a working auto shop, to say nothing of the working bulletproof shutters and mercifully still operational generator, so long as he was careful with the power. Didn't mean it was perfect.
“I like to know who I'm working with.”
“You knew from day one, Cap.”
“And yet it's taken you three days to do real introductions, Iron Man.”
A pause. Tony eyed up the hand Steve was offering out. “Call me Tony,” he said, turning away without taking it. A working engine, if Steve’d called it right, would be a hell of a help. Even a partially working one…
Fourth, fifth, sixth days, Steve made breakfast and dinner and went on supply runs and came back with news of the great outdoors, which was as usual thoroughly depressing.
Seventh day, he found whiskey somewhere in the great beyond (“Call it a hostess gift”) and they got to talking.
They'd both been in New York when it hit. Neither knew anything much about how it started. Everybody Tony knew and loved was presumed killed in action (or just plain killed). Steve… Steve hadn't had anyone left to begin with.
And yet it took a week to notice the sadness behind his eyes. He'd never let the polite, calm thing slip for a moment until that night, perched on the roof of the ex-auto shop turned Stark tech lab (that was definitely making it sound grander than it was), armed to the teeth, keeping an ear out below for hostiles and an eye on the stars above. Tony had thought more than once that the stress of The Future and, oh yeah, The Fucking Apocalypse had cracked him. Benign but completely freaking mental. And then Steve looked at him, really looked at him for the first time, and through a whiskey haze (it'd been four months; it hit him faster than he was used to) Tony saw a hundred years of hurt and pain.
And even then, even in that hellish moment, Steve Rogers had a hint of a smile. Small and sad, but entirety genuine.
“How do you do it?” he murmured. “How are you not fucking mad? Because I'm up here on my own, until a week ago, trying to fix the goddamn suit I crash landed in after something goddamn unholy took out every transmitter in the States, looks like; I've got no JARVIS, radio's coming up static, and for all we know we could be the last two living souls in the world, and you…” He shook his head. “You're mad. I'm mad.”
“Because what else can we do?” Steve said quietly. “What if we're not the last two living souls - just the best two left to save the others? If there's one other person out there…”
“They're probably already dead. Or… turned. To whatever.”
“So why are you trying to fix up that thing in the back? If there's no hope?”
He had him there.
“Because I have to.”
Steve nodded, just once, and gave him another tiny smile, like an offering.
“This is hell, Cap,” Tony said, but there was a small, sad, genuine smile back.
“Been there,” Steve said softly. “Done that. When you're going through hell, you keep the hell going.” He paused another long moment. Somehow they were fractionally closer, and Tony had no idea who moved, or if they both did. “Did any of the engine bits help?”
“Let's say there's a possibility we're not working on no hope any more.”
The smile that time wasn't quite so sad, and Tony thought, for the first time in four months, maybe he could keep going after all.
ooh, this is awesome! Loving it, thanks for taking up the prompt!
(tbh I actually prefer it when Steve isn't all that wide-eyed puppy innocence, so this is right up my alley)I love the idea of Tony holing up in an old petrol station for a post-apocalyptic workshop! Genius!
I loved this, Steve and Tony's voices are perfect here, and you nailed the balance between hopeful and sad with the tone of the fic. I loved their dynamic, and would love to read more :D Tony setting up workshop in an old petrol station is my favourite thing here omgg
This is great and i selfishly want 100k of them falling in love mid-zombie apocalypse
Nice!! I usually feel kind of conflicted about zombie aus-- on the one hand, I kind of hate them. On the other, I can't stop reading them and really I don't hate them at alllllll lmao and this was no exception I really enjoyed your take on it, though. I liked the structure, the numbering of the days-- the fact that they holed up in an old gas station. I could definitely read more of this-- the tone, you know, lonely but a little hopeful, and I'm so interested in how their relationship would develop from this!
how great! I love the tone too, really fitting for the end of the world, but with this uplift too because they did find one another and they're both too stubborn not to keep going and try to make things better, however they can
Ahh, thanks so much! I wrote this in like... 20 minutes so I'm surprised it's any good at all but very pleased you like it. :D I have to admit the petrol station idea made me smile a bit when I had that little "aha, what if... yep" moment. ;)
Thank you, thank you! I love the petrol station thing too (I could see it so clearly in my head. For some reason it looked a bit like a set from Supernatural... or, unsurprisingly, The Walking Dead). Glad I managed to hit the tone, too, cheers! :)
Ohh... Definitely no promises, but hell of a compliment ;) Thank you!!
Honestly, I've never written a zombie AU before and I'm not even sure I read one, so it's a great compliment that you like this one! No promises on any more, but the fact you like it makes me squeee ;)
Oh they're totally too stubborn to give up. Steve's just a little more self-aware about it sometimes!
Me, too!
Oh, I like this! My favourite thing about this fic is that it's Steve who points out that Tony's actions show that he hasn't given up hope.
Oh thank you! I'm pleased someone spotted that cos it's a thing I was a little nervous about. I figured Tony is just too stubborn and too bloody minded and just too good (and feels too guilty about the ex-weapons division...) to ever give up, but in this circumstance he doesn't see it as 'not giving up', he sees it as 'just gotta keep going because what else am I gonna do, drink myself to death? Well that sure sounds fun but I'm outta scotch' and lost the more hopeful connotation of the 'not giving up' interpretation. Steve, on the flip side, also has no idea what else to do but keep going, but consciously giving up hope (or realising he lost it if he ever did) would be the end of him.
Anyway, yes. Thank you so much! ❤️
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL! I love that Steve calls out Tony for not really being completely cynical to just give up. That's A+ Tony characterization right there.
Yay thank you! Characterisation compliments are the best! 😊
ummmmm... I did a little more. It's not 100k of them falling in love but I like arguing!stony and bamf!Tony too much so, uhh. Well, hope you enjoy. Heh.
So whatever it was probably wouldn't effect Steve, because supersoldier. And they definitely wouldn't get through the Iron Man armour. Problem was, the armour in its full form was still out of commission. And there wasn't actually a guarantee that Steve was immune, either.
Which meant defending their makeshift home kind of became an exercise in siege tactics.
The thing was, Steve, Cap, he was a strategist. A damn good one. They'd only met in person a few weeks ago but Tony knew that. Howard had never shut up about it, for one. Problem: Steve had a tendency to think he was the only damn good strategist the world had ever known. Like seriously, Hannibal, fuck that guy. Ulysses S. Grant? Balls to him too. Alexander, screw you and your library, dude. von Clausewitz could go to hell right with the other greats. Did they fucking do world history in public school in the thirties? No?
So when night fell sometime in the second week of their acquaintance, and they'd known the whatever-they-weres had been shambling closer to HQ for a few days, and Steve dropped down from the ladder in the auto shop leading up to the observation deck - okay, roof - and said, "Incoming. Get in back," Tony didn't have to think for more than a quarter of a second before he said "Like hell" and yanked the weapons cabinet (ex-tool cupboard) open.
"I'm not bullshitting, Stark, get in back. The office bit. Shutters down."
"Screw that." Tony had already abandoned rewiring the motherboard of the HUD in favour of diving over to open up the weapons locker (okay, tool storage cupboard) as Steve dropped the twelve feet down from the observation deck (okay, roof) with more grace than any three hundred pounds of solid muscle had a right to.
"I've got this, dammit. And if I don't, we're not both going down." Steve crossed the auto shop in three strides and leaned on the full-length door of the ex-cupboard. "What have we got? Carabiner would be good, M1 Carbine better. Thompson sub-machine gun, if only I'd found one of those out there..."
Okay, so, they were probably gonna die tonight and Tony had managed to scrounge up and hang on to enough scotch over the last two weeks to have a vague buzz on and the world had already fucking ended anyway, but that deserved a sharp, dry laugh. "Been through any munitions museums on your way down, granddad? Because that's where you're gonna find most of your Thompson subs these days."
"Cut the crap. We have maybe ten minutes."
"Good thing I had a plan before you showed up then, isn't it?" Such as it was. Honestly, a Thompson sub would have been better than most of this shit. Auto shop owning gas station attendants in the back of New York state's ass end didn't keep a supply of anti-zombie assault rifles to hand, it turned out.
But he did have an ex-suit, and a history.
"You right-handed?" he shot back over his shoulder.
"Right dominant, I guess. I can shoot either hand."
"Shield right, because you have freaky geometry skills. This left."
Steve took the gauntlet Tony was offering back underarm; Tony caught a look of confusion but at least he didn't question the shield part. Because he'd done recon on their surroundings too. And he knew there were enough reboundable surfaces to decapitate half a dozen incoming in one shot and sling it back up to base, too. Even though technically vibranium shouldn't rebound at all; the physical properties of the metal had next to no kinetic storage. Made it next to indestructible, and made Steve's ability to bounce it around fucking superhuman. Goddamn super solider strength, and the freaky geometry thing. If they got out of this alive, Tony was not gonna try hustling that guy at pool.
"Repulsors are out," Tony said over his shoulder, fixing up the right-hand one for himself, and an MP5 urban assault rifle Steve had brought in a few days ago, apparently from a special ops team ten miles away who hadn't made it (to wherever they were heading, which sure as hell wouldn't have been here). "But there's enough power there for the micro rocket launchers to fire. You only got nineteen though, so don't waste 'em. And they go off like grenades when they hit, so mind your target sites. Over here, I've got lasers. Should be enough to cut a few heads off. You know what kills them?"
Steve had questions, he could tell, but right now wasn't the time and thank fuck he recognised that. "Kills 'em? No. But if you take the heads off, even if the body keeps going - the transmission vector is saliva."
"Look at you, paying attention when I talk. Transmission vector. And yeah, saliva for sure, possibly other bodily fluids, so I don't want any of their blood getting in open wounds if you have any."
"I'm clean. You?"
"Like hell I am. We're staying up top though. Headshots first, then limbs if you've got the ammo for it. They're not smart enough to climb but--"
Steve was already right there with him. "--take 'em out at a distance, so we don't get a pile up they can just walk over."
"Right. Jesus, there's that many?"
"I reckon seventy to a hundred."
"Enough for a neat ramp if they had the sense to drop down by the walls, sure, but they're not that smart. One micro rocket to three and a half thems is shit odds if they're spread out, but I've got twenty minutes with the lasers and fifty or so rounds in the MP5."
Steve nodded, heading back to the ladder. "Sure you can handle that?"
Tony followed him with a shake of his head. "I looked a goddamn Jericho missile in the blast radius and came out walking. I know my way around this little guy."
They scrambled up to the roof together, Steve first with Tony quick behind. They sure as hell had incoming out there. Hot damn.
"How's your aim?" Steve murmured. "We have time for precision."
"Weapons manufacturer, Cap. Ex, anyway. Why do people keep assuming I can't shoot?"
"Maybe because you're half way to drunk."
Ah. Ouch. Okay, so that was a thing now.
"I've done way more precise shit than this in a way worse state, trust me. Plus I'm running the lasers off the best power source in the state." He flicked the quarter-inch wire which connected the laser gauntlet to the arc reactor. More questions in Steve's eyes, but he kept to the important ones.
"You get twenty minutes out of the best power source in the state?"
"I like not dying. And it might sting a little having a jump lead connected straight into this thing. I'll tell you all about it later."
Steve nodded. "Majority are coming from the west but there's stragglers East and South. You take that side. I've got these."
"We're gonna raise a lot of hell here. Loud hell. Might be best to split after we've got a clear run."
"We'll deal with that after we've got a clear run. Go."
Tony wasn't going to fight him for command dominance on that one. Survive first. Answer the endless questions and maybe deal with Cap's little attitude issues later. "Godspeed," he said, with a heavy dose of irony Steve either didn't notice or chose to ignore, and went to defend the position he'd been given.
PLEASE CONTINUE THIS IN AO3 AAAAH!! i love the worldbuilding!
Aaahhh omg thank you!! I don't know I'm tragically terrible at finishing things but maybe...?? Aghh 😂