Possibly
my favorite of Marvel’s numerous incredible friendships, which include the
likes of Jessica and Trish from Jessica
Jones, Matt and Foggy from Daredevil,
and Peggy and Jarvis from Agent Carter
(man, the TV shows are just on fire!)
This one is undoubtedly the most intense – it’s not for nothing that
they have so many shippers – and it’s one that I come back to time and again
(spoilers for all the Captain America
movies.)
In the
first Captain America, Steve and
Bucky’s relationship has a somewhat similar dynamic to Matt and Foggy, in that
Bucky starts the film as the “stronger” one, the friend who looks out for the
more vulnerable Steve and worries about his well-being but doesn’t patronize
him, but that dynamic shifts when Bucky realizes Steve has been made into a
superhero (although, in Foggy’s case, Matt is already Daredevil at the start of
the series – Foggy just doesn’t know about it yet.) It kills Steve that Bucky goes off to war
without him, both because Steve wants to join up himself and because he knows
the danger Bucky will be in. When the
initial results of the supersoldier program aren’t what Steve hoped for,
learning that Bucky may have been captured is the push he needs to step up and
be the hero he was made to be, dropping his war-bond shilling and mounting an
unauthorized rescue operation. It’s when
Bucky is broken out of his Hydra prison that he learns about Steve being
Captain America.
What I
really love about this is that there’s not even a hint of Bucky being jealous or wrongfooted about this. Having been used to being the alpha male in
the friendship – particularly in the ‘40s – it would have been easy for him to
feel displaced and struggle to figure out where he fits now that Steve doesn’t
need Bucky looking out for him, but we don’t get that at all. After a groggy “Were you always this tall?”
reaction upon first seeing Steve, Bucky immediately gets behind the new Steve,
working alongside him to escape the Hydra facility and leading the cheers for
Cap when everyone gets to safety. When
he joins Steve’s Howling Commandos, he makes it clear that he’s following, not
the famous Captain America, but “the little guy from Brooklyn,” his lifelong
best friend.
No
wonder it completely wrecks Cap when he sees what’s become of Bucky in The Winter Soldier. Here’s his best friend, who most likely would
have been dead by now even if he hadn’t seemingly been killed in the war, and he’s
been twisted and abused, fashioned into a weapon for the enemy. Shock, relief, and elation that Bucky is
still alive, still in the world, one of Steve’s final tethers to his old life,
but visceral horror at how he’s been victimized. How his mind has been ravaged and he doesn’t
even know himself, let alone Steve. How
Steve’s other friends tell him that Bucky is too far gone, and the only option
is to put him down before he kills them.
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