#SteveBucky meta

[a-hyperfixating-fanatic]

So I was rewatching Captain America: The Winter Soldier and it just dawned on me the symbolism of Bucky going to the Smithsonian to learn who Steve is and ends up also learning about himself.

That really just puts the helicarrier scene in an entirely new light for me. When Steve said his name that wasn’t what brought him back. Not even Steve stating how they are friends. No, it was the oath of devotion.

Bucky’s identity is fundamentally tied to Steve’s. I am not okay.

[buckrogers]

I keep thinking about what if that scene in Bucharest had played out differently, you know. Instead of there being such an urgency about it what if Steve had been able to slip in quietly, before the police had any ideas. What if he'd been able to spend time in there with Bucky with only Sam keeping tabs, giving occasional updates from his vantage point.

Bucky cagey and unsure but ... relaxing, little by little as the minutes tick by and there are no ambushes. As Steve tugs his helmet off and all that mussy blond hair is revealed, setting it on the table and doing his best to de-escalate, de-pressurize the moment. Maybe, eventually there's even a little joke, a quietly lobbed love what you've done with the place that's nudge and olive branch rolled into one and maybe, just maybe it gets a tiny snort in response.

Bucky hedging, peeling off his gloves until he hears it and his eyes tick over, nearly meeting Steve's before they jump away again but there's this tiny smirk there that lingers before he nudges back with a muttered still a punk.

And wouldn't you know it, that tension breaks with the answering smile Steve gives him.

"Jerk." He supplies, like a knock back through a wall, an old familiar tune he knows the words to.

[parkour-and-coffee]

.. so who's gonna tell Bucky that Steve is very much Not Focused At All whenever he's in the picture

Steve: *introducing Bucky to Avengers*

Steve: Hey everyone, this is Bucky, my boyfriend...no I mean my boyfriend...oh shit no I didn't mean that I wanted to say boyfriend...... ah fuck what's wrong with me what I really wanted to say is actually boyfriend......!!!

Bucky: *sigh* seriously Steve, these people are counting on you. I will be your boyfriend if you can focus on your work.

[rainbowsuitcase]

Thinking about Steve Rogers who gets out of the machine, healthy and cured, and terrified that the next time he sees Bucky, he will realize he doesn't love him anymore.

He knows - he thought he knew, that it's not a sickness, that at least that one part of him is not something to be fixed, but the fear is still there, because what if. What if they were right?

But when he sees Bucky in the factory - I love you, he wants to scream. I love you, I love you, I love you. The world is wrong and they always have been.

He regrets not saying it on the train and he sinks the Valkyrie with it on his lips.

It echoes in his mind on the bridge and it sits at the tip of his tongue on the helicarrier.

He wants to scream it again in Bucharest, beg Bucky with it to remember, to come home.

He gets to say it eventually. Not loud, like he'd always imagined, but quiet. He gets to wake up next to Bucky, already watching him, bathed in the morning light, cradle his face gently in his palms and whisper it to him between kisses.

And Bucky doesn't say anything, but with the way he kisses Steve, he doesn't need to.

[charcubed]

Disneyland's Rogers: The Musical, propaganda that turns Steve Rogers into more myth than man, and revisionist history (possibly) to a purpose

Any of my thoughts in this post could just be me reading too far into things. I'm very aware of that, and please know that this post exists just because this sort of thing is fun for me! This is a thought exercise where we propose "What if we live in a world where the MCU is actually doing a cool and interesting thing as a longcon?" If you have anger at Marvel, that's valid and relatable, but please don't get angry at me or imply I'm an MCU stan who doesn't think critically about the mouse. Thanks!

Breaking news: I'm back on my bullshit!

A quick personal recap: I infamously hated Avengers: Endgame for a long list of reasons (and I even rewrote the movie). One of those reasons is that I've always taken issue with Steve's ending. But in the years since then, and as the MCU's phase 4 has evolved, my frustration at Steve's "ending" has turned into an ongoing and legitimate theory that the MCU could be slowly leading into a loosely adapted Secret Empire plot line. I know we've all been joking about Steve being trapped or about an imposter Steve since 2019, but uhhh, it's kind of not a joke to me anymore? It feels weirdly plausible at this point and so I enjoy discussing the potential.

You can find a full elaboration on that here, where I wrote out my "Steve was snatched by HYDRA" theory in 2021.

In that post, one of the things I mentioned at the time was Rogers: The Musical being in the Hawkeye trailer.

[The musical's] very existence is an example of how in-universe the stories of the lives of the heroes are being commodified, especially (in terms of how they’re framing it) for Steve’s. The heroes are no longer seen as people, if they ever were. They are, as Kate Bishop says to Clint in a recently released clip, more about “branding.” Sam Wilson will be redefining the shield moving forward in a Cap context, but simultaneously, the world is still enamored by Steve Rogers as a symbol in his own right. And that is ripe for manipulation as a Trojan horse to control public opinion… whether in the context of things like this by themselves (is the musical portraying Steve accurately, or is it painting an inaccurate picture of him the world accepts as fact?) or in future (is this propaganda that makes the public see Steve a certain way and continue to love him, to set up a fake or brainwashed Steve coming on the scene later?).

Now a form of the musical exists in full, at Disneyland and all over Youtube. Considering some of its baffling content – which I will break down below – this perspective seems even more strongly worth considering.

I have two main reasons for why I'm defending examining this musical so closely:

1. It is (arguably) an in-universe piece of media that has bearing on the MCU canon. It isn't like any other typical Disneyland attraction; its very existence is meta and it was in canon first. Obviously it's seen in Hawkeye, but there are also posters for it in several different phase 4 properties. It's lurking in the background indefinitely. So what can this musical tell us about what the wider public within the MCU is being told about the life story of Steve Rogers?

2. This Secret Empire graphic – which is animated in the center of the stage of a prolonged period of time – feels like a literal sign to pay attention.

Granted, this is obviously still ancillary material. 99% of the MCU audience will never see this musical, whether in person or on YouTube. But just because it isn't a vital piece doesn't mean it's automatically an entirely irrelevant piece.

They've given me an inch with that sign and I'm taking a mile.

So if you're interested, please join me on this journey :)

For the record, let me just say that I salute the creative team behind this show. It's pretty fun and the songs are catchy, the sets and costuming are cool, and the cast is overall very talented.

It's also fucking maddening. LMAO.

Why? Firstly, because of the seemingly deliberate ahistorical inaccuracies. We all know Ant-Man is wrongly shown in the Battle of New York, which originally "came from [the Hawkeye showrunner] and Marvel, as something to further aggravate Hawkeye as he watched the show, and also as a comment on how movies and articles and people always get something wrong." It seems like they expanded those meta nods, but most inaccuracies are now in service of glorifying Steve and Peggy's "love story." Yes, romance objectively makes for good theater; but again, I feel that this is worth examining considering the full context.

And secondly, Steve's ending is framed as an offer presented to him, convincing him it's the happy ending he deserves because he's tired. In my mind, these two big elements go together, and I'll walk you through the details of what happens in the musical before I tie the thought threads back around into some theorizing.

For your reference, here's a list of the main songs and story beats:

• "U-S-Opening Night" - the Starkettes (who are basically a Greek chorus) frame the show's story, and then it turns into an ensemble that loosely takes place at the Stark Expo. • "I Want You" – Steve's "I want" song about trying to enlist in the army. • "Star-Spangled Man With A Plan" – Steve performing on the USO tour obviously, and then there's a reprise with an added voiceover that (very briefly) covers the Howling Commandos' rescue + the war via comic book imagery. • "What You Missed" – Fury and the Starkettes tell Steve some pop culture things he missed while he was frozen, + they tell him about the Avengers. Then Fury goes down a list of other hero characters, including the Guardians? Doctor Strange? Wanda?? It plays loose and fast with time, because many non-2012 characters are bafflingly mentioned in this nonlinear Avengers list – including the Winter Soldier (???). • "Save the City" – this is the song seen in Hawkeye, with the civilians + the Avengers all involved, but it's slightly different here and expanded to also reference other battles. • "End of the Line" – Old Steve presents main Steve with the time stone as an opportunity for his happy ending, and they reflect on things together. (Yes, this is insane.) • "Just One Dance" – Steve and Peggy reunite and sing about their love. • And then there's basically a reprise of "Save the City," with the Starkettes and the whole cast closing the finale out.

Right out of the gate, let's address this: the main reason you're going to see some fans pissed about this musical is not only that Steve and Peggy's ~epic romance~ is made a pillar of the story... but also that Bucky's importance/involvement in Steve's life is minimized as much as possible.

And they took Bucky-related elements from canon and made them center more around Peggy instead.

• For some weird reason, Peggy is in the Stark Expo scene. When a soldier is hitting on the Starkettes ("hey sweetheart, I wanna dance!"), Steve tells the soldier to show the ladies some respect. The soldier grabs Steve and throws him down, and then Peggy swoops in to yell "Pick on someone your own size!" and punches the guy before walking away. So she's given Bucky's TFA line verbatim, and she is given the role he had of saving Steve from bullies. There is blatantly no reason they couldn't have had Bucky still serve that function and be truer to "history," because he briefly enters this scene in uniform less than a minute later to announce he's shipping out to the 107th – and then he spins off with a date on his arm. (We don't see Bucky on stage again until the full cast comes out for the finale!)

• After the Star-Spangled Man show, Peggy rushes in to talk to Steve. Steve is excited about his USO performance (???) but she urgently tells him to listen as she says that the 107th has been captured. Peggy apparently knows it's Bucky's division, and she knows Steve is going to go, so she tells him that she's already arranged transport for him. This is a subtle twist from the truth of how it went down in TFA, in which Steve recognized 107 as the number of Bucky's division, and his dogged determination inspired Peggy to relent and help his rescue mission. Here, Peggy is given a stronger role in the Cap origin story. And before Steve rushes off, Peggy sings a short untitled ballad hoping for their dance, so Steve pauses before he leaves to ask her to go on a date with her when he returns. • The most egregious Bucky-to-Peggy change of all is the song "End of the Line," in which the infamous Steve and Bucky line/promise (that broke Bucky's brainwashing...) is re-contextualized to be about ???? Peggy waiting for Steve in the past??? Old Man Steve and regular Steve sing it together. But we'll go back to that in a minute.

Again, I get it, yeah? It's for theater. Whatever. But in reality, the obvious logical truth is that Peggy is centered (to the point of taking elements from Bucky's story, and in turn Bucky is downplayed) because they needed to convince the audience that Steve going back in time to be with her makes sense. Steve's time travel ending had to be justified, so the Peggy and Steve "love story" had to be a pillar in this with everything else being given lesser weight.

And the inherent selfishness of him doing something as big as going back in time also had to be justified... which is why they do their best to convince you Steve fought so much he deserved it.

Let me elaborate on that by describing the lead-up to the "End of the Line" song.

So, right before "End of the Line" is "Save the City" – which includes Steve belting "I can do this all day!" repeatedly, of course. It's the 2012 Battle of New York as the Avengers come together to win.

As they begin to disperse, the song then transitions to a voiceover alert mentioning Sokovia being under attack by artificial intelligence (a.k.a. Age of Ultron). The Avengers group rushes back to center stage to say "Save the city! Help us win!" together for battle again.

And then things get fucking weird.

Because the next voiceover threat is "Washington DC. Attack: the Winter Soldier." This is not accurate to the order of events! The Winter Soldier events were before Age of Ultron; the public of the MCU would also know this.

And suddenly on stage Steve is now in the center while everyone else gestures to him. Instead of singing with him, they're telling him "Save the city! Help us win!"

Then, another voiceover: "Wakanda, under attack" (Infinity War) and again, Steve is centered while everyone else points to him. The ensemble says, "Save the city, help us win! Save us all from the state we're in! Got to hear you, got to hear you, got to hear you say..." as Steve is buckling to his knees under their pointing. And as the lights go down to one spotlight on him and everyone else leaves, he says "I can do this all day" one last time, but now it's subdued.

The implication is that Steve has been fighting and fighting, people leave him or he loses them, and he's tired.

And then fucking Old Man Steve arrives.

He says "On your left," because yes, they gave him Sam Wilson's line. BATSHIT.

So now there's two Steves on stage! There has been no mention of Thanos or infinity stones or anything up to this point! (I can only assume that's because in the MCU universe no one would want to be reminded of the trauma of "the Blip" – though it's pretty wild that they're allowed to know about magical time travel?)

Steve is baffled by Old Man Steve's arrival. I, too, was baffled by Old Man Steve's arrival.

As Steve questions how this is possible, Old Man Steve shows him the time stone from his pocket – and only the time stone – which Steve recognizes.

OLD MAN: "You've got to remember where you've been to know where you're going." STEVE: "Where am I going?" OLD MAN: "A date with destiny." STEVE: “Destiny. So we’re the hero till the end?” OLD MAN: “That’s the thing about endings, Steven. They can be rewritten.”

Lmao???????

Steve starts singing about how he hopes this means they "win" and calls himself a "tired hero."

STEVE: "But sometimes I wonder, who will save the savior? Can we really do this all day? So here I am, now and also then. Just a man, looking back at where he's been." OLD MAN: "The road is rough but wounds are healed by a thing called time. You can't forget what's waiting at the end of the line."

Me, watching this: the fact that he says this out of the blue makes absolutely no sense.

There's a bit more singing, including "end of the line" repetition, and then Old Man Steve pulls out the time stone to essentially show visions of... I don't fucking know. Past, present, and future?

That's pre-serum Steve, Steve with Mjolnir, and Sam Wilson as the new Cap. This is the only reference to Sam in the whole thing.

More singing, and then: Peggy's silhouette.

OLD MAN: "Can't forget who's waiting..." STEVE: "I can't forget who's waiting..." BOTH: "Don't forget who's waiting..." STEVE: "At the end of the line."

At this point I'm like, what in the hell?

Did Old Man Steve just brainwash normal Steve into thinking "end of the line" is now about Peggy? Because uhhhh, sorry, that's what it feels like!

Then Steve uses the stone to go back in time, reunites with Peggy, etc. etc. finale.

It's truly some crazy shit.

[drags hands down face]

Look... there's a lot to unpack here, and there's a lot that gets me about it. I know this is dramatized for the stage! I KNOW! But the fact that Old Man Steve shows up to convince Steve he should go back in time makes me want to gnaw on furniture.

Another person essentially uses the lure of a life with Peggy to tempt Steve into doing this, dramatized or not. That is how it's framed.

It's a hell of a way to frame it, and it makes Steve's ending stand in even starker contrast to so many other things in phase 4. Desperately trying to go backwards when you shouldn't or to bring back a lost lover is an evil temptation, and it results in a trap or negative cosmic consequences for basically all of the other characters in the MCU.

• In Shang-Chi, Wenwu is tempted by the Soul Eaters beyond the Dark Gate. They use the voice of his deceased wife to convince him to set them free. • In "What If" episode 4, Doctor Strange becomes evil in a desperate bid to save Christine and he destroys his universe. Along the way, he tries to tempt/trap the good Strange who's fighting him by using visions of Christine, but good Strange knows she isn't real. • Wanda's grief and desire to bring back Vision leads to – well, you know. • In No Way Home, Peter trying to undo things is what causes the multiverse problems.

And the fact that they frame it as Steve being tired, so basically the argument is he deserves that time travel ending (just like MCU fans who defend Endgame say in real life)... Well.

There's no way to make it hold up, especially because in "What If" they explicitly subverted that and had Captain Carter not go back in time despite how she felt she'd "earned" it.

Lastly, in this musical as Steve decides to pursue time travel as his course of action, he basically has the meaning or memory of "end of the line" rewritten for him. I refuse to not think that is some nefarious shit. Yes, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it's just some general Disney erasing Steve and Bucky nonsense.

But... this is on another level to me. I do think that it's a blatant choice that they had to be aware even general MCU fans would call bullshit on. Everyone knows it's inaccurate. "End of the line" is embedded in pop culture consciousness as being connected to Bucky. It just is! Surely that means it's not a stretch to theorize it could be deliberate meta commentary.

How, in the MCU world, would the in-universe playwrights even know the phrase "end of the line"? How the fuck would it be accidentally applied to Steve and Peggy? Not to sound like a crazy person, but who the fuck was rooting around in Steve and/or Bucky's personal business or their brains in order to obtain that knowledge and then remix it, and why? Neither of them would flippantly mention it in the public eye or interviews ever. So where did its inclusion come from?

And in the finale ensemble, this is Bucky's line when he comes out on stage and salutes + points to Steve: "Don't forget who's waiting..." And Old Man Steve completes it with "...at the end of the line."

What on God's green earth am I meant to do with THAT?

Smh.

The vibes are fucked, folks.

The MCU public wouldn't know enough to say the vibes are fucked. The MCU public wouldn't know the origin of "end of the line" as a phrase. But us? The ones who know the "true story" via the movies? We can call bullshit.

Whether the creative team behind this musical did every aspect of this consciously or not, in my opinion the fact that they had to tweak canon "history" to A) make Peggy's involvement in Steve's life more central and B) emphasize Steve as a tired hero all works as commentary on and almost a condemnation of Endgame's frustrating ending. In a way, it's also what Endgame did with the compass and 1973 moment with Peggy as well.

Steve's ending had to be convincing.

It's theater.

And so, maybe the same is true for the in-narrative perspective of this musical in the context of the MCU world. What purpose would it serve to tell the MCU public a feel-good narrative about how all Steve Rogers wanted was to no longer be a tragic man out of time and get to make a life with his best girl? To frame it as being about how he fought so hard for years and so he earned a happy ending? To minimize and nearly erase Bucky's importance in his life?

Who would want to do that sort of propaganda, and why?

The MCU civilians are given this happy explanation and maybe don't widely question it. Who cares about the details or logistics if it makes a good story, I guess. It's a stretch, but maybe they mostly applaud it. Maybe they're happy for "America's favorite son" (not unlike people who uncritically liked Endgame). In a way, it's even a rehabilitation of his image (after the Accords) like putting the shield on the Statue of Liberty. And maybe they'd even be ready and waiting to applaud if Steve ever made a dramatically selfless and de-aged return to the spotlight or a position of authority.

But mostly, the public is being conditioned to not know or to forget that anyone else like Bucky Barnes or Sam Wilson would possibly know Steve Rogers the person well enough in the modern day to call bullshit on any of this – or on his hypothetical miraculous future return.

So. Sure, it's probably nothing.

But what if it's not?

-------

UPDATE: @faeriecap added to this post with some incredible information and further behind-the-scenes context about the MCU/Marvel stuff at Disney parks! Check it out here :)

[lnsfawwi]

Rumlow said Bucky and all of sudden I was a 16-year-old kid from Brooklyn

yes, Steve froze bc Rumlow said Bucky's name, but it's the 16 yro Steve that froze, not the 30ish Steve! which means 16yro Steve froze when Bucky was mentioned!

So imagine back when they were still in school, Steve overheard random classmates chatting in the hallway

Person A: Bucky won another boxing match. gosh, he's so cool!

Steve: *blushes for no reason*

Person B: we have math together. he's so smart, he even corrected the teacher today.

Steve: *heart pounding so hard he's gonna have a cardiac arrest*

(after school) Bucky: what's with the asthma attack today? what caused it?

Steve: nuthin'

[a-hyperfixating-fanatic]

@buckrogers hiding straight facts in the tags

Bucky having the best poker face and still manages to be a horrible liar is sending me

edit: thanks @luna-rainbow for correcting me btw TwT

In this crowning moment of Steve and Bucky both being idiots...one thing I haven't seen mentioned is Bucky, in his immense panic, answers Steve's question of, "Do you know who I am?" With an incredibly incriminating, "You're Steve." Which he then desperately tries to save with, "I read about you in ~a museum~"

Way to go Bucky! You just called a "complete stranger", and a celebrity at that, by his first name. Literally no one meeting post-serum Steve for the first time has called him "Steve". Everyone called him "Cap" or some version of it until they earn the stripes to call him "Steve". I think your cause is lost as soon as that name popped out of your mouth.

Of course, Steve being the bullhead that he is doesn't even notice this because he's been waiting 2 years to ask Bucky "why did you pull me out of the river".

[forcebookish]

bucky was muttering his rank and ID numbers to himself at the isolation ward in austria, trying so desperately to remember himself and in the end it's steve who says his name before he does. it's steve who reminds him he's bucky.

after years of being the asset, bucky doesn't even flinch when howard calls him sergeant barnes.

when steve says his name after their confrontation on the bridge, bucky asks him who the hell is bucky - but before he's wiped, it's not himself who he remembers. it's steve. "i knew him."

bucky doesn't remember his own name, he remembers steve saying his name.

[stevebuckytimeline]

Update: A first draft of the SteveBuckyTimeline is online!

To find the current timeline I’m working on, please go to https://stevebuckytimeline.tumblr.com/timeline

If you don’t want to go there via link, here’s another way: When you see the homepage, you can click on the plus button (top left corner) and there you can find the timeline page in the menu! I’m still adding more dates and events, but feel free to send in your own findings or corrections any time!

[cptn-merica]

i just watched argylle yesterday and the ending scene was literally scraped from stucky's fight in the triskelion. but just a heterosexual couple for a romcom. that's it.

it pissed me off to no end. the replication of trigger words with brainwashing. then the fighting the loved one, but they wont fight back bc they dont want to hurt the other. then the brainwashed one of the pair snaps out of it once a key thing was said right in time to save the other.

see, even done by other people, that dynamic is romantic!

(btw argylle was ok-ish, i rate it 2/5 stars)

[a-hyperfixating-fanatic]

Not to mention, once Bucky escaped Hydra the first thing he did was go to the Captain America museum. Bucky wasn't looking for information on himself, he found some by chance. Bucky wanted to understand who Steve is.

“…but I knew him.”

bucky, through brutal torture and conditioning, was made to forget everything about who he was, the people he loved, and his life before his capture

but…

despite all he endured the one thing hydra could never rob him of is his love and devotion for steve rogers, who is carved in bucky’s very soul

[the-littlefangirl]

tbh my biggest regret fandom wise is not getting into the stucky fandom until 2020. Like I shipped it and liked and reblogged things but my main source of fandom consumption was SOME fanvids (which, still, fucking masterpieces) and the ocasional meta. Maybe reading NEC at the ripe age of 13 would have changed me as a person but alas I got deep into the Stevebucky god tier fics in my very very late teens when it was mostly a graveyard.

[buckrogers]

Writing about Steve and his guilt for what happened to Bucky on that train always gets me thinking about whether or not SHIELD sent over Bucky's file with the rest of that stack we see him reading through in the deleted scenes of the first Avengers film. Did Steve actually write the report he mentions to Peggy in the aftermath of all that?

Do Steve's fingers hesitate over that faded scrap of paper? Is it neatly pinned to Bucky's file under that glaring red KILLED IN ACTION stamp? Imagine seeing that typed summation so many years later. A neat little rendition of assumed responsibility.

I can't imagine Steve then allowing anybody else to write up that report and I imagine the Steve of 2012 touching it carefully, holding every piece of information in that file so reverently.

Something about Steve writing it like a rite of contrition, alone in his tent.

[luna-rainbow]

Or add your own in the notes!

[lordzannis-blog]

Steve here after getting shot at by Peggy : on second thought bucky is the best partner.

Ok, but you guys do realize what this means right? So Steve gets this frankly less than platonic  100% heterosexual comment from Bucky, and then, knowing full well how Bucky feels about the uniform, proceeds to spend an indeterminate amount of time personally sketching out a revised uniform that retains most stylistic aspects of the old outfit. Now, I’m not saying it was all for Bucky, I’m just saying, it was all for Bucky.

[rainbowsuitcase]

Forever and always thinking about Steve Rogers, but today it's especially the fact that the only people who loved him when he was small, weak, and sick were his ma, Bucky and Peggy.

And it's the fact that when he was big and strong, everyone loved him and he could have anyone he wanted - except for the people who mattered the most.