Honestly? I suspect that most of my Steve/Maria love comes from Maria as a character archetype - the ice princess/lady of war.
I have a thing for female characters who are competent and in-control and stoic - the women who show less emotion rather than more. Sam Carter (SG1), Teyla Emmagan(SGA), and Ziva David (NCIS) are fairly key examples of it.
And then I tend to pair them up with the male action/hero character in their fandom - a guy, usually military or paramilitary, who treats her as an equal and a partner and who I can see watching her back as she watches his, and treating her with a measure of professional respect, even if they clash personally.
Canon-wise, Maria gives Steve this one appraising look when he comes onto the helicarrier bridge, she works with Coulson, so she'd have been told plenty about Steve over the years, and I imagine she'd be curious as to how that all added up in the real deal. From Steve's side it could be argued that Maria is along the 'type' of woman that Steve has previously been shown to be attracted to - intelligent, independent, cool, and a little belligerent.
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Honestly? I suspect that most of my Steve/Maria love comes from Maria as a character archetype - the ice princess/lady of war.
I have a thing for female characters who are competent and in-control and stoic - the women who show less emotion rather than more. Sam Carter (SG1), Teyla Emmagan(SGA), and Ziva David (NCIS) are fairly key examples of it.
And then I tend to pair them up with the male action/hero character in their fandom - a guy, usually military or paramilitary, who treats her as an equal and a partner and who I can see watching her back as she watches his, and treating her with a measure of professional respect, even if they clash personally.
Canon-wise, Maria gives Steve this one appraising look when he comes onto the helicarrier bridge, she works with Coulson, so she'd have been told plenty about Steve over the years, and I imagine she'd be curious as to how that all added up in the real deal. From Steve's side it could be argued that Maria is along the 'type' of woman that Steve has previously been shown to be attracted to - intelligent, independent, cool, and a little belligerent.
I'll repost this on tumblr for you. :)