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Stucky
Stucky was obviously a queerbait because, their more than platonic feelings are shown throughout the trilogy through the cinematography, music, meta, and plot .
They are childhood best friend so they obviously mean a lot to eachother. The MCU’s Bucky Barns is a combination of the Bucky from the comics, and a character named Arnie Roth. Bucky got Arnie’s backstory. Arnie Roth is also supposed to be Captain America’s openly gay childhood friend. In The First Avenger you see that Bucky always looks out for Steve. In one of the scenes Bucky and Steve are on a double date with 2 girls. They go to a show where they see Howard Stark showing a flying car. In that scene we also have a reaction cut where the first person Bucky looks at is Steve. People are naturally going to check for their crush’s reaction when they see something cool or hear something funny. After the presentation, Bucky, Steve, and the 2 girls were supposed to go dancing but, instead Steve goes to try to apply for the army again. When Bucky walks up to Steve and asks why he’s applying again, towards the end of the conversation Bucky lovingly calls Steve a “punk”. In the 1940s, calling someone a “punk” was the equivalent of calling someone a “twink”. Not to mention that where Steve lives in the 1940s in the the MCU’s canon is in the middle of a gay, poor, and rough neighborhood.
Later on in the movie Steve learns that Bucky could be dead or captured by HYDRA and goes on a one man suicide mission to get him back. When Steve finds Bucky and they're escaping, Bucky crosses this beam to get to the other side of the building. It breaks and falls before Steve could cross, so Steve tells Bucky to go. Instead of escaping, Bucky stays and says, "No, not without you". This Line further shows that Bucky would rather die in that building with Steve than live in a world without him. After that there is the infamous bar scene. This scene revolves around Bucky. Before Peggy walks in, Bucky says something to Steve that sounds rather flirtatious. He asks Steve if he’s going to keep the suit. One could either read this line as Bucky making fun of Steve or him kind of flirting. When Peggy walks in both her and Bucky are in the center of the frame. Peggy is in the center because we (the audience) are supposed to be checking her out like the guys are and to see Steve’s perspective. Then when she flirts with Steve, it’s never just the two of them In frame. Instead, it’s all 3 of them forming this awkward triangle with Bucky being in the middle. During this whole conversation the reaction cuts are of Steve, then Bucky, then all 3. The pattern continues until Peggy says something about dancing. That’s when Bucky decides to cut in. At first glances it looks like he’s trying to flirt with her, but it could also be interpreted as him being jealous that Steve is giving her attention so he’s trying to distract her from him. Then she leaves and the lighting on Bucky’s face minimal. His face is completely in the shadows as if what he’s feeling in the moment is also in the shadows. It’s in contrast to the lighting on Steve’s face. Steve always has a lot of light on his face, as if that was because his emotions are out there. When Peggy is leaving it also looks like Bucky is glaringly at her. Then Bucky looks at Steve then quickly looks away as if Steve’s face was the confirmation he needed to know that Steve was choosing Peggy over him. Then Bucky says, “I’m invisible. I’m turning into you, it’s like a terrible dream,” that line seems like Bucky is bitter that Steve is giving her attention but is trying to hide it so he shifts it off to him being rejected. The lighting also indicates this because it’s dim and murky, like he’s hiding something. Through out this whole scene there is also a song being sung in the background. The song is called, “There Is a Tavern in the Town” by Rudy Vallée. Before Peggy walks in the lyrics being sung are,
“There is a tavern in the town, in the town,
And there my dear love sits him down, sits him down,
And drinks his wine 'mid laughter free,
And never, never thinks of me.
Fare thee well, for I must leave thee,
Do not let the parting grieve thee,
And remember that the best of friends must
part, must part
Adieu, adieu,”.
During her conversation with Steve the lyrics being sung are,
“kind friends adieu, adieu, adieu,
I can no longer stay with you, stay with you,
I'll hang my harp on a weeping willow tree,
And may the world go well with thee.
He left me for a damsel dark, damsel dark,
Each Friday night they used to spark, used to spark,
And now my love, once true to me,
Takes that dark damsel on his knee.”
The song is about an unrequited love. The men in the bar seem to be singing what Bucky is thinking. That Steve only has eyes for Peggy now and will never love him.
In the movie, Winter Soldier There is this one scene where Fury is at Steve’s apartment and the song that is playing is, “It's Been a Long, Long Time”. The song was released in the year 1945. The same year Steve lost Bucky. The song was about a woman welcoming her husband after the war. The lyrics are,
“Never thought that you would be
standing here so close to me
there's so much I feel that I should say
but words can wait until some other day
Kiss me once, then kiss me twice
Then kiss me once again
It's been a long, long time
Haven't felt like this, my dear
Since I can't remember when
It's been a long, long time
You'll never know how many dreams
I've dreamed about you
Or just how empty they all seemed without you
So kiss me once, then kiss me twice
Then kiss me once again
It's been a long, long time”
In the middle of this song Bucky comes back into the story by shooting Fury. That was his entrance into Steve’s life again. Not to mention that in TWS, Steve's apartment address is 1614 20th Ave NW. This is in Dupont Circle, which is the #1 gayest neighborhood in the DC area. Later in the movie, Nat is talking to Steve about why he can’t/ doesn’t want a partner. Steve says that the reason is because he can’t find anyone with the same life experience. The only person in this new world who has the same life experience, is Bucky. No one else. If that’s all it takes for him to have a romantic relationship with someone, then why not Bucky? Later on in the movie Bucky attacks the car that Steve, Nat, and Sam are in which leads to a fight scene. During the fight Bucky loses his mask, revealing his identity to Steve. Steve calls out Bucky’s name which confuses Bucky because of all the brainwashing HYDRA has been doing to him. When Bucky flees the scene, he’s with HYDRA again. He asks the leader who Steve was and the leader says that Steve is just “some guy” he met earlier in the movie when he tried to kill Fury. The leader then tried to reassure Bucky that he’s doing the right thing by killing for HYDRA. Bucky then sadly says, “but I knew him” before getting his head back in the machine to help him forget. The fact that the only thing Bucky needed to feel kinda guilty about fighting Steve was just Steve saying his name says a lot about their relationship, and his feeling towards him. After, the movie cuts to Steve on a bridge having a flashback to when him and Bucky were younger. In the flashback, Steve and Bucky are at Steve’s front door coming back from a funeral. Steve is upset while talking with Bucky. While they were mid conversation, Steve was looking for his keys and couldn’t find them so Bucky gets the spear and gives it to Steve. Thats when we get the close shot of they key in Bucky’s hand. This frame shows that Bucky is Steve’s home. Right before the flashback ends, Bucky says to Steve, “I’m with you till the end of the line”. That line is awfully similar to, “Till death do us part” which is a marriage vow. Before going to S.H.E.I.L.D to expose HYDRA, Steve goes to his exhibit in a museum and steels his old Captain American outfit to try and remind Bucky of who Steve is. Towards the end of this movie Bucky is fighting Steve in the last helicarrier. When Bucky is trapped on the ship and can’t get out Steve goes down and helps him. He then tells Bucky his full name, (James Buchanan Barns) Bucky yells at Steve to shut up before punching him. Then Steve says, “I’m not gonna fight you. You’re my friend” before dropping his shield. Steve’s shield is symbolic for who he is, and he willingly drops it for Bucky. Bucky then tackles Steve and starts punching him and says, “you’re my mission” in response to what had Steve said. Steve then says, “Then finish it, cause I’m with you till the end of the line” Not only is Steve willing to bet his life that Bucky won’t kill him, but it works. Bucky starts to remember him and stops punching. The floor underneath them breaks and Steve falls into a river while Bucky caught himself in time. Then Bucky jumps down and saves Steve from drowning. At the end of the movie, Nat gives Steve a file on Bucky. Steve looks and the file and sees a picture of Bucky before and after becoming the Winter soldier. This shot directly parallels what Peggy did in the first movie with a file of Steve.
In the beginning of the movie Civil War, Rumlow (a bad guy from HYDRA) distracts Steve by telling him that Bucky remembered him and got sad about it before they brainwashed him again. The phrase that got to Steve was when Rumlow said, "Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky". Rumlow knew that Bucky was a week spot for Steve, so he called him, "Your Bucky". This would have been read more as Rumlow implying that Steve had more romantic feelings for Bucky, if he hadn't have said, "Your buddy, your pal," before hand. This leads to Steve not being able to stop the bad guy from exploding himself in which Wanda has to stop the exploitation, accidentally moving the exploitation from the street to a building killing a few people. Later Steve checks up on her and reassures her by telling her that what had happened was his fault for being distracted. Steve says, “as soon as he said, ‘Bucky’ it was like I was a 16 year old kid again in Brooklyn” This line can easily be interpreted as Steve implying that he’s been in love with Bucky since he was 16. Later in the movie Steve is “flirting” with Sharon Carter at an elevator, until Sam comes up to Steve and tells him that Bucky was on the news. If Sharon could be seen as a “love interest” with so little build up, then why can’t Bucky with so much build up? Later Steve and Sam are talking near a bar and Sharon gives Steve a lead on where Bucky is. Steve finds Bucky’s apartment and finds a book or journal that belongs to Bucky and opens it up to a page where there is a picture of Steve as Captain America. Steve turns around to find Bucky behind him. Then he asks Bucky why he saved him from drowning in the last movie, to which Bucky responds with, “I don’t know”. Clearly the feeling are there but not the memories. Bucky also tells Steve that he didn’t bomb a place in Venice. This is the only time Bucky tries defend himself because he gets the feeling that Steve is the only person who would listen. The police then starts shooting at Bucky in his apartment. Steve helps Bucky escape by fighting the German police which would make him a criminal. Steve, Sam, Bucky, and T’chala get arrested for fighting each other. When they’re in the custody of the CIA, the antagonist pretends that he was sent by the UK to interrogate Bucky. He starts off by saying Bucky’s full name, to which Bucky responds by saying that his name is “Bucky”. He goes by the name Steve knows him by. Later the antagonist hypnotizes Bucky into fighting and killing a few people. Steve then goes after Bucky and captures him. Once he’s captured and snaps out of “Winter soldier mode” his first word is Steve. Steve then asks Bucky which him he’s talking to. Bucky then proceeds to tell him personal details, like how he used to wear news paper in his shoes. Later Steve goes to meet Sharon to get his and Sam’s weapons and uniforms to fight the rest of the Avengers. In this scene Steve kisses Sharon. It was the weirdest and most unnecessary kiss ever. It seemed like Marvel’s homophobic reaction to all the Stucky shippers, in a movie where Steve picks Bucky above all else. Later Steve starts a whole war with the avengers to save Bucky, and by doing so, he is also breaking laws and becoming a criminal in 117 countries. That is not something someone does for a person who is “just a friend”. After the fight, Steve and Bucky fly to a building were other super soldiers are supposed to be. When they go down the elevator there is so much tension. It feels like they’re going to kiss but never do. When Tony finds them and sees the video of Bucky killing his parents, Tony starts fighting with Steve and Bucky. Steve then says, “Sorry Tony, but he’s my friend”. Tony’s reply was, “so was I”, further indicating that Steve’s relationship with Tony and his relationship with Bucky are unequal. This is implying that the term, “friend” for Bucky, is insufficient. They have something more. The avengers were also his friends. In fact, they were like family. Yet Steve choose Bucky over all of them. When Steve is about to leave with Bucky, Tony tells Steve that he doesn’t deserve the shield. Then Tony says that his father made that shield. When Tony said this, Steve dropped the shield again for Bucky. The shield represents him as Captain America. It represents all he believes and he leaves it for Bucky again. Then when Steve and Bucky are in Wakanda, Bucky decides that it’s best for him to be frozen again until he can no longer be controlled by HYDRA again. In this moment it also seems like they are going to kiss, but they don’t.
In "Infinity war" Steve and Bucky barely get any screen time. The first time we see them together is in Wakanda. In that scene Bucky is greeting Steve and also smiling very big and very genuinely. Bucky only appears to smile like that when Steve is around. The next time we see them together is at the end. The Avengers lost and Bucky is the first to disappear. He disappears in front of Steve. It one of the most heart breaking scenes. Bucky's last word was, "Steve". He was calling out to Steve. Kind of like saying, "what's going on?" and "goodbye". When Bucky is turned to dust, Steve goes up to his ashes, touches them and falls to the ground. At this moment he realizes that he just lost the most important person in his life.
In the movie "Endgame", there is this scene in the beginning of the movie where Steve is at a meeting for people coping with the loss of their loved ones due to the snap. In this scene, people are talking about the friends and family they lost. Instead of talking about Bucky and/or Sam, Steve decides to bring up Peggy. Not only is this out of the blue, but it's extremely inappropriate. Steve's loss of Peggy is not comparable to the losses of everyone else. Peggy died of old age having lived a full life. She had a loving husband and kids. She even said in the movie "Winter Soldier" that the only thing she regretted was that Steve didn't live his life. Not that he didn't live his life with her, just his life in general. She also told him in that movie to move on from her. The fact that Steve didn't even acknowledge that Bucky and Sam disappeared in the snap and suddenly forgot that he previously got over Peggy makes no sense. During the first act of this movie, the Avengers are going back in time to get all of the infinity stones. When Steve sees his younger self from 2012, the younger Steve has the present Steve in a choke hold. The way present Steve tries to distract younger Steve is by saying "Bucky is alive". In this moment Steve could have said anything to distract his younger self to get out of his choke hold, but he knew that just saying Bucky's name would trigger something in his younger self. Later in the movie, there is a big fight between Thanos and the Avengers. During this fight there are several reunions between the avengers. For example Tony and Peter Parker, Peter Quil and Gamora, Hope and Scott. All of these characters have little scenes where they reunite but, we don't get a scene with Steve and Bucky. They fought next to each other. At this point Steve hasn't seen Bucky in 5 years and yet they don't interact with each other at all. They don't interact until the last few minutes of the movie where Steve goes back in time, and in doing so, he causes the biggest plot hole. How time travel works in the MCU's canon is that, if you change something you start a new timeline. Because Steve changed something, he should have stayed in the alternate timeline. The only way to get back to the original timeline is through the platform. Steve didn't do this. Instead he just reappeared as an old man. I feel that this bullshit scene was just made to kill the Stucky ship. Steve's whole ending is messy and doesn't make any sense. In trying to desperately make Steve "straight" (give Steve a straight ending) they caused a humongous plot hole. Not only was this ending a slap in the face but, at the ending scene where Steve is dancing with Peggy the song playing in the background is also "It's been a long long time" . It's the same song used for Bucky coming back into Steve's life. THEY ARE PLAYING STUCKY'S SONG FOR A STEGGY ENDING!!! If that doesn't piss you off, I don't know what will.
All of the reason above are why Steve and Bucky are one big queerbait. It’s because despite all of the evidence that they are in love. Through the cinematography, music, meta, language, and plot, Steve still leaves him for Peggy. This doesn’t just kill the ship, but it also kills Steve’s character arc and reduces Peggy to some sort of trophy. But what else do you expect from Marvel and the MCU? A franchise who’s only queer character is a nameless person that gets less than 5 minutes of screen time in the year 2019.