Hydra Steve!Clone and the Winter Soldier in the battle field.
Headofporridge suggested the clone cannot speak because Hydra surgically removed his vocal cords after the Winter Soldier “malfunctioned” and fatally wounded a lot of their staff due to the sound of the clone’s voice. Either way, he probably uses a combination of ASL and military signing on the field because it is imperative they both remain unseen and unheard.
I like the idea of Clone!Steve being the sniper and the Winter Soldier the brutal force, because eeee role reversals. Also, the Winter Soldier seems less built for stealth and more for absolute carnage, with the guns and machinery he’s packing. It stands to reason the weaker and smaller (for now) Clone!Steve would be his backup from afar, fatally silencing anyone who sees the Winter Soldier.
ALL THE SIGN LANGUAGE/ASL/NONVERBAL HEAD CANONS. ALL OF THEM.
what i want from cap 3 is sam and steve busting their asses going across the world looking for bucky and endangering their lives every 20 minutes and it cuts to bucky who is still safely in new york eating frozen yogurt
I’m imagining Bucky at every tourist trap in Manhattan and it’s g l o r i o u s.
Sam and Steve take out a HYDRA base. Cut to Bucky sitting at the Alice in Wonderland statue at Central Park with a picnic lunch.
Sam and Steve take out another HYDRA base. Cut to Bucky at FAO Schwarz, evaluating a Bucky Bear that’s almost as big as he is.
Sam and Steve have a heart-to-heart about the nature of goodness and what any of this even means, really. Cut to Bucky in the M&M store, thoughtfully selecting a mix of silver, black and red M&Ms.
Steve and Sam are holed up in a safe-house, not sure if their contact can be trusted. Cut to Bucky having his picture taken with the Naked Cowboy.
Natasha and Clint help Sam and Steve get out of Madripoor after it turns out their contact cannot, in fact, be trusted. Cut to Bucky riding a CitiBike through Central Park.
Steve’s first shield was neither the shield he had before he saved the 107th, nor was it the vibranium shield we’ve all become accustomed to.
Steve’s first shield was Bucky.
SHU T U P SHUT UP SHUT UP
And he was technically his last too.
It’s interesting to consider the parallels between FA and WS and how it seems to speak of some punishment from trying to upset the natural order of things. Bucky is Steve’s protector and savior. That’s the way the universe has seen fit to arrange things. Steve’s post-serum hero man persona started to flip this, but ultimately he couldn’t save Bucky because that is just not the way it works…that’s not his role and the punishment for trying to fit into it was failure.
And at the end of WS, you think the whole movie has been about Steve once again trying to save Bucky, but it’s not. Steve is the one lost and lonely and has nothing to make him happy. And then Bucky comes back. And, yes, Bucky is going to need some help (a lot of help), but essentially Bucky’s reemergence signals the start to Steve being saved. And at the end when Steve’s horribly injured and falling from the hellicarrier, that’s the moment the dynamic is starting to shift back to what it’s supposed to be and is, significantly, the thing that begins the Winter Soldier’s deprogramming.
And, even worse, Bucky is actually able to accomplish what Steve failed to do – save his friend from falling. Because that is the role he is supposed to play. That’s his “mission”, I suppose, in life. And while Steve can look out for Bucky and help Bucky, ultimately saving Bucky is not Steve’s mission.
But by letting himself be saved by Bucky, he is saving Bucky because he’s allowing them to play the roles they were meant to play, unlike what he did in FA. And that’s the only way either one of them can actually survive (and be happy).
Seriously though, this is brilliant.
Also *puts on reading glasses to continue my 3,000 word dissertation* I think Bucky’s natural role as savior and protector didn’t just extend to Steve (though Steve fit perfectly in place as his best friend because they complemented each other so well), I think Bucky, at heart, is this way with everyone. He naturally takes care of people and sticks up for people. It’s an intrinsic and inherent part of his personality.
Then you have poor Steve inadvertently messing with that in FA and it leading to tragedy.
Then, in WS, you have Hydra coming along and trying to do the same thing – twist Bucky away from his natural state of a giver/shield into someone who shoots through crowds of innocent people, if I’m recalling correctly, may have even murdered children (people more familiar with the comics can let me know if that’s hinted at like I’m remembering?) and, maybe most unnatural of all, is ordered to kill Steve. And they’re doomed to fail too because they’re upsetting the natural order of things.
Which is why I think – because so much of Bucky’s identity is tied up in saving/protecting, specifically Steve – that if Bucky has a brief appearance in AOU, it will be in some form of unexpectedly swooping in and saving Steve. Because I think he can hunt down Hydra and regain his memories, but he will never full be himself until he falls back into that role. Through shielding Steve, he will finally become who he really is at the core.
You are killing me with this. I hope the Russo brothers and Sebastian Stan are reading it.
in the 40s they thought asthma was psychosomatic. that must have pissed bucky off to no end. i bet when he finds out that we now know it’s physical, he tracks down the doctor to the retirement home he lives at and says, “i fucking told you it wasn’t psychosomatic, you shitstain.” and the nurse comes over like “sir, i’m going to have to ask you to stop harassing my patient”
Yep, was talking about this with my partner the other day, and I thought that maybe the confusion came about when psychotherapy took off and they conflated panic attacks (trouble breathing, heart racing, dying feelings) with asthma (same, but with occasional actual dying).
So, yeah, when Steve is told ‘you’d be turned down on your asthma alone’, it’s not because they thought he literally had a chest condition that could kill him in the field, it’s because they thought he had a mental illness, akin to hysteria, and they didn’t want hysterics in their theatre of war.
knitting in the dark 