The Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom inflicts this trope on not just canon love interests, but characters who aren't even canonically into each other just because they're part of a popular fandom pairing that conflicts with the fan's preferred one.
- Many Steve/Tony fics depict Bruce as an emotionally abusive coward who's only with Tony because Tony protects him, while many Bruce/Tony fics depict Steve as a self-righteous, bigoted asshole who treats Tony like shit or slut-shames him. And then there are the Loki/Tony ones where Pepper/Steve/Bruce/whoever is bashed so that Tony can run into Loki's arms, or Thor (who is depicted as being in a relationship with Loki, although the two are brothers) is bashed so that Loki can run into the arms of Tony. And then there's the inclusion of Tony's pre-Avengers best friend Rhodey, and how he's often villainized to keep Tony with the Avengers.
- Given that Steve Rogers is one half of two of the most popular ships in the MCU by far, fan favorites Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes have become victims to this trope as well. Stucky fans like to portray Tony as a spoiled, sociopathic bully who thinks he's entitled to Steve just because, and Stony fans present Bucky as an irredeemable psychopath who abuses Steve to a point where it's up to Tony to rescue him. There's a reason why fans joke about Civil War actually meaning Shipping War.
- Usually averted with Pepper—she's a popular enough character that fanfic writers will usually just pair her up with whatever guy Tony isn't banging or Natasha, which also quite conveniently keeps Natasha out of the way of Hawkeye/Coulson (in which case she is almost invariably Platonic Life-Partners or Better as Friends with Clint).
- Speaking of the MCU, lots of fangirls tend to do this with Theoric, who in the comics was engaged to Loki's wife Sigyn before Loki pulled a Uriah Gambit on him. If Theoric shows up in an MCU fanfic, he's almost always an abusive asshole who deserves to get Uriahed, despite the the original comic story actually had some of Sigyn's friends complaining he was too noble. This is especially hilarious because the fangirls could always just, you know, not bring him into an MCU story since he's a comics-only character with no basis in mythology.
- Similar to the above, Mockingbird gets this from Clintasha shippers. While she doesn't appear until the second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., she's been getting hate since Avengers hit big with shippers. Thanks to Clintasha being the most popular het couple, they have a very defensive fandom, and when many discovered that Hawkeye married someone else in the comics on which the films are based, they took up arms against her. It doesn't help that Natasha and Clint were once romantically together but broke up quicklynote while Hawkeye and Mockingbird were together for a very long time and both consider the other to be the love of their life note , meaning that, with Mockingbird joining the film universe, its very likely that Hawkeye and her will become canon. ), and it ignores the fact that, in the comics, both Natasha and Bobbi are very good friends with a lot of professional respect for one another.
- On the flip side of this, Bucky Barnes, who in the comics has often been depicted as Widow's longtime boyfriend and partner in espionage, gets this from some of these fans too, though to a lesser extent. Generally he's been portrayed a Domestic Abuser or is just a general psychopath, and Clint just needs to protect Widow from him (ignoring the fact that Natasha was able to hold her own against the Winter Soldier in their film, and is a far better fighter than Clint anyway).
- Sam Wilson/Falcon was introduced in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as Steve's new buddy who helps him save the day, and brought a lot of Ho Yay with him, to the point Sam fulfilled the usual tasks that a love interest would perform. Given the above examples, its no surprise he was walking into a minefield, and he has not been spared the same treatment for getting in the way of Avenger Ho Yay, with some having gone so far as to accuse him of being a secret HYDRA plant.
- Sharon Carter/Agent 13 gets a lot of hate from all sides despite being more of a prominent figure in the comics. Known for being Captain America's Second Love and also his primary love interest (which was originally going to be the case in the MCU as well), she's not only hated for getting between the Ho Yay Steve/Bucky and Steve/Tony shipping, but also gets flack from the ardent Steve/Peggy shippers. It didn't help that the Captain America films gave her very little screentime or relationship build-up with Steve, causing even non-shippers to feel that she was woefully underdeveloped as a Designated Love Interest.
- Oddly enough, Sharon's reappearance in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier as a Fallen Hero and a villain, namely the Power Broker, wound up getting her more hatred from Steve/Peggy fans who called her a disgrace to the family name and used it as evidence she was Evil All Along and was always unfit for Steve, despite the whole reason for the change happening because Steve left her in the dust instead of standing by her. On the other hand, those circumstances did help her regain favor with many fans of the non-Steve/Peggy ships she used to threaten, since they found her motives and circumstances especially sympathetic or interpreted her turn to evil as a case of gratuitous shipping-related character assassination and thus chose to embrace the change instead.
- After the release of Avengers: Infinity War, the Tony/Stephen Strange ship rose into popularity, and shippers went after Steve Rogers, painting him as a bitter and jealous ex or as a complete asshole. Most of it stems from many Tony/Stephen shippers being Steve/Tony shippers who jumped ship after Steve sided with Bucky over Tony in Captain America: Civil War. In the most extreme cases, they apply this Ron the Death Eater treatment to every single Avenger who sided against Tony in Civil War, just to lionize Tony, Stephen, and Peter Parker (who's commonly depicted as their surrogate son) as the "true" Avengers family.
- Aunt May Parker is often killed in fics, so that Peter Parker can be adopted by Tony and Pepper (or Bruce, or Steve). An odd variant since it's killing off someone who gets in the way of a platonic relationship rather than a romantic one (except of course for the fics where Tony and Peter's relationship is romantic...).
- For a long time, Peggy Carter avoided this fate, as she was originally intended to be a Romantic False Lead to Sharon Carter (see above). Her romance with Steve in The First Avenger was regarded as surprisingly well-written, and it was subjected to a pretty thorough Ship Sinking in The Winter Soldier, so she was well-liked and not considered a threat to other Steve ships. Then Avengers: Endgame unexpectedly refloated the Steve/Peggy ship by having Steve choose to travel back in time to be with her, and Peggy's popularity with shippers suddenly took a massive nosedive. Revenge fics where Steve goes to the past, breaks up with her, and immediately returns to the future to be with someone else materialized just days after the movie's release, and the more extreme haters started claiming she was either a willing HYDRA collaboratornote or an abusive Psycho Ex-Girlfriend note . The 2020s saw an increase in storylines and spinoffs focused on Peggy, including several entries that recharacterized the Steve/Peggy romance in various controversial ways, and there was at least one confirmed instance of a Peggy fan being a Writer on Boardnote , which resulted in further backlash from rival shippers, as well as some nonshippers who accused Marvel of subjecting Peggy to posthumous Character Shilling at the expense of other characters and their relationships with Steve Rogers. Even years after Endgame's release, Peggy is still a controversial character in certain groups.
- Steve's controversial choice to travel back in time didn't leave him smelling like roses either for people who were fans of his ships with other characters. Those who don't bash Peggy for getting in the way of their Steve ship, or who support pairing Peggy with someone else, instead aim their anger at Steve, calling him a reckless homewrecker and sociopath who cruelly abandoned his friends in the present to rot. Sam/Bucky fans were especially livid, frequently portraying Steve as having been an abusive ex to one or both of them before the other swooped in. Cartinelli, Peggy/Gabe Jonesnote , and Peggy/Sousa fans are also quite bitter about Steve, with the latter complaining that after years of being Peggy's implied Second Love, Sousa was suddenly subjected to Derailing Love Interests out of nowhere in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to clear the way for this relationship, and thus often portray Steve as having forced himself between the two even if Peggy and Sousa had technically broken up by then. It's also not uncommon to portray Steve as a sexist, cruel Standard '50s Father who turned Peggy into a Trophy Wife, or a bitter and resentful husband who treats her like garbage because he wishes he had married his One True Love (usually Bucky, Tony, or Sam, depending on the fan's preference.) In many cases, it will be heavily implied, if not outright stated, that Peggy is miserable with him and should have married someone else.
- Regarding Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daisy also gets this occasionally from Peggy/Sousa shippers thanks to her romance arc with Fish out of Temporal Water Sousa near the end of the final season. Some saw it as an egregious case of Pair the Spares, arguing that Daisy and Sousa had no chemistry with each other and had nothing in common besides their mutual lack of a love interest. Others thought the plotline that brought Sousa into the present was a major Ass Pull and expressed their dissatisfaction with it by hating on one half of the pairing. Not helping matters was the fact that Daisy had always been a Base-Breaking Character; while this was most prominent in the early seasons prior to her Character Development and the show Growing the Beard, she had a small contingent of detractors right up until the series’ cancellation, and they were more than willing to use the Daisy/Sousa ship as yet another reason to rail against her.
- Daredevil (2015): Karen Page is very polarizing to begin with, but some of the dislike for her does appear to stem from those who don't like that she's being set up as Matt's love interest, and would rather Matt be with Foggy, Claire, or Elektra.
- Sylvie from Loki (2021) is despised by a large portion of Loki's Estrogen Brigade due to being the one person he's canonically fallen in love with, and thus interfering with their preferred ship (or lack of one, in the case of Loki's large Dry Docking fandom.) This results in a lot of fans either accusing Sylvie of being a Mary Sue and ignoring the parts where she's acknowledged as a legitimately flawed character whose issues can cause problems, or going the other route and exaggerating her canonical flaws as a Byronic Hero to make her look far more malicious or manipulative, despite the canon indicating she truly did reciprocate Loki's feelings on some level.
