#shieldra

[stuckyfingers]

"Bucky is still alive"

2012 Steve uses the knowledge transferred to him through Loki's sceptre to infiltrate HYDRA and demolish Project Insight. He victoriously kisses Bucky in the Triskelion- over the dead body of Alexander Pierce. Skyfall by Adele is playing in the background.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

I'm loving the Secret Invasion episodes, this series is so damn good. Spoilers after the cut.

First the TAHITI program, now The Harvest. I swear Shield and Fury at the time were absolutely ruthless and it kinda explains why Hydra found it so easy to infiltrate for decades. Of course Nick didn't know but my, my... those methods are so unethical that under the guise of "we're trying to save the world here" they felt entitled to do pretty much anything they wanted to.

Everyone has an excuse to do what they do, the good guys and the bad, and it doesn't surprise me that a project like Insight was given the green light because at this point... what's the difference? If Nick was okay with retrieving the DNA of every Avenger who fought on Earth, then pointing a gun at every perceived enemy and calling it "security" is a given.

I still love Fury but holy hell, this man is equal parts good and a goddamn villain. I guess that's why I love him.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

How long did Steve actually know Peggy?

(with pictures!)

[ post with just the images here ]

Short Answer: 

626 days total / 20 months, 15 days, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

Long Answer:

Steve got his last 4F / first 1A on 14th of June, 1943.

When Steve arrived at Camp Lehigh, Peggy introduced herself and the SSR.

Directly afterwards, Col. Phillips introduced himself and explained that they would be there for a week only before choosing someone to be given serum:

If they had any common sense, they would’ve said Steve was at Basic Training for a while before being drafted into Project Rebirth.

This being Marvel, however... 

[ full meta under cut ] 

What If...?, Marvel’s Instagram, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline book gave the ‘official’ date of Steve’s serum as June 22, 1943.

.

This means: 

Steve was enlisted June 14th 1943,

shipped out to Camp Lehigh June 15th 1943,

was there for just a week (til June 21st 1943),

Had a conversation with Erskine about why he was chosen on evening of June 21st.

and was back in Brooklyn and receiving serum on June 22nd 1943.

Poor lad barely had any time to pack and unpack! 😲

Sidenote:

The first date shown in the movie is March 1942:

When Red Skull acquired the Tesseract. 

This implies (but does not conclusively prove) that Dr Erskine must have been captured by the Allies before March 1942, because: 

when he has his conversation with Steve, he merely said Red Skull believed “that there is a great power hidden in the earth, left here by the gods.” IE. he wasn’t aware that Red Skull had successfully seized that power (the Tesseract).

Stark is flummoxed by Tesseract-related tech when he sees it, which he  surely wouldn’t be if Erskine had known about Red Skull having the Tesseract because Erskine could’ve just told him.

.

Anyway, back to the present and Steve was already in the local newspapers by Wednesday, 23rd June 1943:

Anyway, he and Peggy only spoke for 1-2 days during that time: June 22nd, the day he received serum, and (what was probably) June 23rd, the day after.

.

IMO it seems like it’s just the day after because: 

everyone who was at the blown-up Brooklyn base is there 👆 (wherever ‘there’ is) as if no time has passed at all...

...but we know that time must have passed, because Senator Brandt shows Steve a paper dated the 23rd [see above.] 👆 So enough time has passed for the newspapers to hear about Steve, for a journalist to write about it, print it, and for the Senator to get a hold of a copy. 

Enough time has passed for the SSR to get the saboteur’s Hydra sub out of the water at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in order for Howard Stark to be flummoxed by it, as he is in this scene. (And he is still in the pit with it; he hasn’t had long enough to look at it already. Ergo, not much time has passed.) 

You could say that it’s a later date, and Brandt just happens to have a newspaper from the 23rd. Except...

...Phillips mentions having talked to the president that morning... which makes more sense as something he would do immediately after the whole Hydra-saboteur bomb kerfuffle, not later. That’s not a phone call he could put off for days. That’s a call you make straight away. 

Although that doesn’t automatically mean that that-morning’s phone call is the first or only phone call Phillips has made to the President, since the Hydra-saboteur-kerfuffle, meaning this could be a date later than June 23rd. 

But the fact that:

everyone who was at the bomb site is still there,

Howard is still in the pit looking at the Hydra sub and admitting he’s clueless about it, as if that is new information he’s announcing,

they’re taking Steve’s blood, also not something to delay on,

and Brandt is asking basic questions about Hydra. If more than a day had passed, he would already know the answers to these questions, even if he had been distracted by the Press.

Suggesting it is very soon after. 

The lack of delay in Phillips’s actions also supports this idea. Earlier on in the movie he moaned to Erskine about having had to talk to senators multiple times before he could get the ball rolling on Project Rebirth. But now he’s cheerful and decisive. Which to me suggests he’s had one decisive phone call with the President, where they exchanged all the information they needed, and that’s it. (He doesn’t say “I spoke to the President again this morning,” for example.) 

Brandt asks Phillips what he’s going to do about Hydra. Phillips smirks and answers that the SSR is being re-tasked to go after them. As if he anticipated the question and got the President to sign off on that just prior; close enough to this moment that Phillips is only acting on those orders just now. 

"This morning" implies that this scene is taking place later on in the day of June 23rd 1943; after the morning, so that Phillips isn’t saying he called the president just now, for example. 

There’s strong sunlight coming in from the window behind Steve 👆, so I’d say we can place this scene at afternoon, June 23rd.

And we can infer that it isn’t evening yet, because Phillips refers to flying out “tonight,” as if if the night of June 23rd has not yet arrived.

.

(Another maddening possibility: it’s all happening on the same day, a day that Phillips just happened to have spoken to the President on the phone in the morning already, but either the prop makers got the date wrong on the newspaper or the official Marvel instagram got the date of Steve’s serum wrong. 🤦‍♀️)

.

So, timeline: 

June 22nd, 1943: serum, bomb/saboteur, Erskine’s death.

(possibly but not definitively) June 23rd, 1943: morning, newspapers reporting on Steve are printed (Senator Brandt sees them), the Hydra sub is shipped to dry dock for Howard to look at, and the President tells Phillips via the phone that the SSR is being retasked “as of today.” 

afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Phillips relays the President’s orders to him, Brandt, Peggy and Stark. Steve objects. Brandt recruits Steve for the USO. 

night, Phillips, Peggy and Howard fly out. 

.

Unless it’s all the same day, in which case the events go:

June 22nd or 23rd: 

morning, Phillips talks to the President who officially re-tasks the SSR, Steve gets serum, blown up, Erskine killed.

afternoon, the Hydra sub put in dry dock for Howard to examine, newspapers rushed out an edition about Steve, Brandt recruited Steve for the USO using said paper.

night, Peggy, Phillips and Howard flew out to London.

.

So Peggy was flown out to London that night, being (probably but not conclusively) the night of either June 22nd or June 23rd, 1943.

.

And then Steve was on tour with the USO for 4 months (from July 1943).

Probably starting mid/late July / early August, to give them enough time to find 20+ chorus girls, create and fit costumes, build sets, book venues, choreograph and plan a show, and do some rehearsals... though apparently not enough for Steve to have learned his lines. 🤦‍♀️ 

During this period, as the USO shows grow ever more elaborate (up to 40 showgirls, bigger sets, a fake Hitler, a military band, and harley davidson motorcycles) Steve also films multiple propaganda reels, signs autographs, takes photos with the public (and Senator Brandt), appears in his own comics, sneaks into the cinema to watch himself on screen, and travels to Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York! 😵

Senator Brandt’s smooth patter in recruiting Steve for the USO, how he acts during it, and the fact that there was a cameraman there to take photos of Steve just before he got serum, to me suggests that Brandt was planning to do this USO show with whoever the serum worked on. 

So it’s possible a lot of the show logistics and planning were already underway before Steve was even chosen for serum. That would mean the USO show kicked off much sooner after Steve got serum (which might account for why he’s so nervous on stage...)

And it would explain how they were able to cram so much activity into four short months.

.

Meanwhile, in October 1943, in Azzano, Italy...

And then Steve goes to Italy, five miles from the front

on the 3rd of November, 1943:

We can see that Steve and Peggy were not in contact in between these times / while he was on USO Tour, because: 

no reference to any such contact is ever shown or implied (and Kevin Feige said Steve was sleeping with someone else while on tour).

Steve looks surprised to see her when she shows up. He hasn’t invited her to come -- which he could, by letter -- and asks her what she’s doing there. 

She’s cagey about why she’s there/what she’s been up to; so she’s not someone who even can carry on a correspondence, given the classified nature of her work. 

If they had somehow been corresponding anyway, she would already have told Steve by now that she can’t talk about her being there/why. So he wouldn’t need to ask.

As well as Steve not knowing basic things about her, she also still doesn’t know basic things about Steve, that a casual correspondent of four months would know by now [see below].

.

We know the rescue of the 107 was on the night of November 3rd, 1943. 

Because Phillips cites that date when he’s typing up Steve’s official KIA letter:

The sequence before Steve’s rescue of the 107 also implies that Bucky et al were only captured very recently at Azzano, because:

the rest of the 107 are still there (haven’t been deployed elsewhere),

wounded are still being brought in, 

Col. Phillips is still engaged in writing up condolence letters about the lost soldiers when Steve barges into his tent.

(Why is the head of the SSR in Italy, writing condolence letters about the 107 when he specifically said he and his agents were flying out to London, where his HQ is? Here’s a clue from wikipedia: “Alsos personnel followed close behind the front lines in Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally crossing into enemy-held territory to secure valuable resources before they could be destroyed or scientists escape or fall into rival hands.”

However, those personnel would not include the head honcho (Phillips), the entire Army’s number one weapons contractor (Stark), or a desk jockey whose opinion is neither sought nor valued (Peggy). 

And the rest of the movie shows them back in London (and therefore not featuring in field footage of the Commandos), while Steve & Co. destroy Hydra weapons factories (not sweep them for intell.) 

And they stay in London, until the entire army hits a very important base at the very end of the movie. And even then, Stark isn’t shown attending!

So maybe he was just in Italy for the chorus girls...? 🤷‍♀️

.

Steve and the Howlies had to have to covered 35 miles as the crow flies (30 miles behind enemy lines + 5 miles to the Army base), with wounded soldiers, and through what Phillips describes as “some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe” which was also mountainous. They would’ve had to seek a flat route to get the jeeps through. And this with no resources -- like food, medicine, specialised clothing, etc. 

Covering 5 miles a day under those extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, it takes them a week to get back to Camp. 

(Sidenote, I looked up a modern estimate of hikers on the Swiss Alps, and it said they’d traverse a 105 mile trail over 7-10 days. Viz. potentially 10.5 miles a day!)

Making the day of Steve’s return 👆 at least, November 10th, 1943.

Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline confirms this:

.

Afterwards, it seems they went straight to London. 

(No contact with Peggy in transit is shown or implied).

.

Sidenote: although no other locations and no other interaction is shown in November, between the 107 returning and Steve being in London, it seems as if some time has passed. 

And once again, we can tell that because of Senator Brandt and newspapers.

There has been enough time for more than one newspaper (The Daily Mail, and Stars and Stripes), to publish stories about Steve. 👆

For Senator Brandt to announce that he’ll be giving Steve a medal for valour, and for that news to have travelled back to the UK.

And, at the very least, enough time has elapsed since the 10th of November for the Senator to believe that Steve could feasibly travel back to America in time to receive his medal in person. 

(Which he declines to do. LOLOL.)

So, say: 

11th: newspapers report (Steve & Co travelling back to London). 

12th: news reaches America / Brandt decides / announces the medal.

13th: Brandt expecting Steve to fly from Europe to America (which would’ve taken over 17 hours, then.) Doesn’t necessarily have to be the very next day, but based on past behaviour Brandt expects action to be taken the very same day as the press reporting on Steve! So...

14th: for the actual medal ceremony? (so that Steve isn’t travelling for 17 hours and then immediately appearing in public) Which seems like it’s happening simultaneously with Steve being in London; I don’t think he’d delay on relating his intell about Hydra.

(And that last day would also account for how the news has travelled back to the UK from the US in order to appear in The Daily Mail.)

We know that this day Steve is in London is supposed to be the day he’s receiving his medal, in person, because of this CATFA deleted scene: 

So IMO we’re looking at this date being 14th November, 1943 at a very strict minimum. 

NB: All this pre-supposes that it takes 4 days to move the Howlies from the Continent back to London, which it feasibly might if they had Stark and his plane, still in Italy. Stark’s deleted-scene surprise at seeing Steve in London suggests either he was not the pilot / his was not the plane responsible for flying Steve to London, or that he was / his was the plane but he expected Steve to move straight on back to the US. We know the SSR had at least one plane in the US Army base in Italy, because someone was flying multiple reconnaissance flights, trying to spot the 107 -- the last of which returned Nov 10th.

.

In London, Steve and Peggy are shown talking on 2 separate days, total:

1) In the London HQ, relaying the intell about Hydra weapons-parts factories, gathered from the Krausberg weapons-parts factory and from Bucky, when Steve tells Phillips he has got his own team together. 

And in the pub, on the evening of that same night, when Steve goes to Assemble the Howling Commandos for the first time. 

(I’m saying it’s the same night as that day^ because no time passing between these conversations is implied or stated, not via montage or any other means. It’s a straight cut, and Steve is wearing the same clothes. Also: assembling his team is not something Steve could delay on, after already telling his CO he  had one. In fact it’s kinda nuts Steve didn’t think to do this before telling Phillips he had a team already. What would he have done if they’d said no?? 😂)

2) in the London HQ, the morning of the day after (8am) when Peggy shoots at him.

(Won’t dignify either of those scenes with triggery screencaps!)

.

So Steve and the Howlies are officially a team from let’s say 14th November, 1943. 

(We know there must’ve been a bit of a time delay before the Howlies were deployed, to give Stark time to build Steve the version of the Cap suit he requested as well as supplying him with those Harley Davidsons WLA ‘Liberators.’ That Cap suit is the only thing Steve is shown fighting Hydra in, thereafter, meaning the Howlies did in fact wait until it was ready before deploying (they didn’t, for example, send Steve out in something else at first and then  get the suit shipped out later on. That isn’t shown.) 

Since Bucky was the one who suggested him keeping ‘the outfit’ I’ll bet he had some input on that suit. 🤔

So depending on how long you think that would take, could be the Howlies weren’t out on the Continent kickin’ ass ‘til December ‘43 or January '44. 

But despite this delay, no contact with Peggy is shown or implied in the interim.)

.

For the next 15 months & 15 days there is also no direct contact shown between Steve and Peggy, while Steve is on the continent and she is in London.

.

At first glance it looks like we can deduce roughly the dates of when Bucky died and Steve returned to London.

Because after capturing him Phillips tells Zola he sent a telegram about him*

*a prop which is not shown directly on screen

...a prop dated (the morning of) February 3rd, 1945: 

Soon followed by a tight 24-hour turnaround for the Howlies to go and attack the Valkyrie base in Austria, which we know from this 👇  piece of dialogue between Col. Phillips and Gabe Jones: 

But.

We don’t know: 

1) that the date on the telegram is accurate. This prop is not directly shown in the movie. And, in the scene, Phillips hints at this telegram being intercepted by Hydra and this being bad news for Zola (because it says he is working for SSR. The Foreshadowing is INSANE!)

So Phillips might have lied on that telegram -- backdated it to make it look to Schmidt like Zola had betrayed him and been working for the SSR since before the Howlies ‘captured’ him. Making the day of his interrogation... later than the Feb 3rd on the telegram.

2) that Zola Therefore told Phillips ‘you have 24 hours’ on February 3rd.  Since the telegram date could be false. 

Even if it wasn’t, Zola could’ve said this to Phillips on a subsequent day. He could’ve just told Phillips when the date Red Skull was planning to do something was, and not necessarily 24 hours before that date.

Meaning we can’t tell by the telegram what date the HQ briefing about the Valkyrie mission, and therefore what date the Valkyrie mission. 

However, Agents of Shield 2.01: Shadows...

and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline tie in book, put Steve’s only possible death date as: 

Thursday, the 1st of March, 1945. 

(AOS’s Morita and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt on 2nd of March, 1945, and Reinhardt remarks that Red Skull is dead. 

Given that Steve ‘died’ on the same day in March, and it’s already known about by the 2nd, that leaves the 1st of March as physically the only March date, before that point, at which the Valkyrie mission could possibly have taken place.)

.

And we know (from CATWS canon) that Steve’s death was reported (as a disappearance) on 

Monday, 5th March, 1945: 

So I think we can definitively state that MCU intends for Steve to have ‘died’ on Thursday, 1st March, 1945. 😥

.

And the KGB opened a file on Bucky on Friday the 23rd of March, 1945.

.

It is not categorically stated that the mission where Bucky ‘died’ happened immediately before these late-February scenes in London.👆 

He could, theoretically, have died in late 1944, as his exhibit in the Smithsonian in CATWS claims:

However, that exhibit makes multiple other errors... 

(Such as: listing two different dates of birth on the same display, saying Bucky enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbour (nothing in CATFA shows this and his dog-tag number suggests he was drafted), saying he shipped out to Italy and was captured ‘that fall’ of 1942, when that year was definitely shown as 1943, and the Marvel Timeline tie-in book also shows Azzano as happening in October ‘43, etc.) 

...So I think we can safely rule this out 👆 as a prop-maker’s mistake! 

Plus, Steve’s grief in the pub feels very raw, very immediate, which to me suggest a very-recent bereavement, not something he’s had a couple weeks or months to weep over already. Steve’s a pretty stoic guy. So we know Bucky ‘died’ near to March 1st/end of February 1945. 

The only canon suggestion of time passing between Bucky’s ‘death’ and the pub scene is Steve having already had a chance to get back to London and write a report about it, in order to mention said report to Peggy and feasibly expect her to have read it. 

If we follow the previous observations / logic in this meta, then Steve reports things ASAP and actions are expected to be taken ASAP.  

As a soldier with a CO to answer to, that report about Bucky/Zola is not something Steve could delay on delivering. If Steve drinking in the pub is afternoon/evening, say this was the day he delivered his report (probably in the morning). 

Well that’s enough time to reasonably expect Peggy to have read the report, and for Steve to be drinking after delivering it, but still be neatly groomed in his immaculate on-duty uniform, having just gone off-duty (not, eg. dressed down as if this is another, later day, a day off). 

On the surface of it, it looks like we can’t say for certain that Steve’s drinking day is the day before Phillips interrogates Zola. Even if it’s framed as if the stoicism he exhibits at the end of that sequence is the signal that he is now galvanised to act ASAP, ie. the very next day, with one scene leading to / causing another...

Bucky’s ‘death’ date might have been any number of days before.  

Except: Zola is a hugely valuable acquisition. 

I don’t think Steve et al would’ve captured and brought Zola back to London, at extraordinary personal cost, only for Phillips to waste days before interrogating Zola. 

I think Phillips would’ve been in to interrogate Zola immediately. 

That to me is the closest to ‘proof’ that Steve is back in London, delivering his report and then drinking in the pub, either on or as close to the day of Zola’s interrogation as physically possible. 

(IMO this can’t all be happening on the same day. I don’t think Steve is the kind of guy to deliver a report in the morning, go off and try to get shit-faced while still on duty / in uniform, and then go back to HQ after drinking for a mission-briefing.  Not under normal circumstances, let alone when the mission (to avenge Bucky! and stop Red Skull!) is so important!  Steve appears to know already that he can’t get drunk... but that doesn’t stop him from trying. I don’t think he’d do that if he knew he was expected back to plan the very-important Bucky-Avenging Mission on the same day. CATFA writers may disagree and say this all happened on the same day, but that idea’s kinda wild to me!)

So when was that interrogation date? 

I think we can deduce that it also must’ve been as-close-as-possible to the Valkyrie mission briefing date. 

The fact that Gabe is asking how long they have means that that intell was fresh information to the Howlies on the HQ mission briefing date (which was 28th of February = 24 hours before 1st March.) 

Now, if Phillips knew about 1st March being significant in advance of 28th February:

it would be incredibly stupid of him to not tell anyone until only 24 hours before.

he would’ve told the Howlies already / Gabe wouldn’t need to ask.

But if Zola only revealed the date of the Valkyrie Mission Day very close to the mission briefing date... that would explain why Phillips didn’t mention it sooner. Another point: A lot of what Phillips says in the mission briefing sounds like a summary and continuation of what we see Zola telling him in the interrogation scene. As if there has been no further interrogation / no more intell to relate since that interrogation, a point in favour of it being the only time he has interrogated Zola (meaning it must be happening on 27th of February).

As in: Phillips went into see Zola as soon as they got him (27th of February) and Zola told him the Valkyrie mission was happening March 1st, and that was their only interaction.

This interrogation scene comes before Steve is shown drinking, alone. (Implying Steve is drinking in the later pm, since it’s ‘dinner’ time for Zola, just before.)

Assuming Phillips’ telegram about Zola is false (which is neater, and it being a lie is mentioned in the scene, and although we have the prop the prop is not directly shown on-screen in the movie).

Sunday, 25th February. Bucky probably 'died?’

Monday, 26th February. Howlies flying back to London, with Zola?? And since Phillips wouldn’t wait days to deal with Zola:

Tuesday, 27th of February. Morning, Steve delivers his report.  Phillips reads the report, and sends a falsely-dated telegram about Zola to Washington via SHAEF HQ. Dinner time, Phillips interrogates Zola, tells him about the telegram, and Zola tells him about 1st March / Valkyrie Day. Steve goes drinking, alone.

Wednesday, 28th February 1945, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

Thursday, 1st March 1945, Valkyrie Mission day.

NB: This pre-supposes that it only takes a day to move from the Continent back to London, which it would if they had a plane like Stark’s ready to pick them up any time. 

They well might, given how important it is to get Zola back to London, and get the Howlies out to take down the Valkyrie base.

If they didn’t have such a plane, of course, it would take them longer. However, nothing in the movie (such as, eg. a travel-montage) does show it taking longer. It seems to imply a very short turnaround.

.

Sidenote: 

Steve never does anything Peggy says or does, always does the exact opposite -- which is the moral, heroic, selfless thing -- and also never asks what she thinks he should do. (They also try to create the illusion of Steve following Peggy’s orders, in the denouement, by having her irrelevantly interrupt to remind Steve to do what he was already doing anyway.*)

This is a symptom of poor / misogynist writing, whereby Token ‘Strong Female Character’ Love Interest is relegated to a Sexy Lamp with post-it note stuck to it* + behaving like a generic male bully in a female skin + idiot hetero-norms in writing that make any straight couple automatic foils, who must bicker miserably and be on the opposite sides of every argument in order to generate ‘Chemistry.’ 🙄 

Ergo, Steve never does what Peggy says, because as his foil what she says it always the opposite of what he says. Making what she says, defacto, the [unethical, cowardly, self-serving, tactically unsound] thing to Steve’s [moral, heroic, selfless, also tactically correct] thing.

. (disclaimer: any other aspects of Peggy being unpleasant must be put down to Atwell’s performance choices.) .

Her show erroneously claims that Steve relied heavily upon her for “courage, strategy, and moral guidance." 

Passing over the insulting and demonstrably-untrue suggestion that Steve needed external courage or ethical guidance...

(Metas on why this is untrue, and would actually make the plot impossible if it were true! HERE, HERE, and HERE .👈)

...If what Peggy is saying were true, this would mean Steve is somehow relying upon a person whom he doesn’t even speak to for 467 of the 473 days when strategic input was even relevant to his life. So he must have been clueless the vast majority of his life. 🤦‍♀️

The numbers don’t lie. Steve physically cannot have been relying upon Peggy for anything when they weren’t even in contact. That’s quite literally not physically possible. 🤷‍♀️

This simultaneously puts the lie to the idea of Peggy following the Howlies around Europe to collate intell in the places they hit.

A) because the Howlies aren’t shown sweeping these factories for information. They’re shown reducing them to fiery rubble, which you don’t do if you’re looking for documents. They’re not looking for documents; they’re looking for Zola.

B) even if the Howlies weren’t destroying the factories and were sweeping them for ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) Peggy isn’t the kind of specialist who would even know what to look for.  

She’s an intelligence liaison, not a scientist. Not even a linguist. That’s not her area of expertise at all.

Whereas the Howlies themselves by contrast are surprisingly well-qualified. They’ve worked in a Hydra weapons factory, so they know what’s important. Gabe is a fluent German-speaker. Frenchie knows ordinance. Morita looks like a radio expert / is shown operating captured Hydra tech more than once. Bucky as a sniper can do distance recon. And Steve has a photographic memory. 

So they really don’t need an eighth wheel telling them how to recognise or blow up Hydra factories (how would she even know?) 

That’s already their forte. 

C) even if Peggy was a technical expert somehow better qualified than them (which she isn’t), her opinion is repeatedly denigrated by Phillips who says she was a chancey (ie. ill-qualified) hire. 

He wouldn’t send someone to judge important documents who is ill-qualified to do so and whose opinion doesn’t carry any weight with him. He comes with an inch of firing her in this movie for this very reason. 

D) The only time she’s shown taking part in a mission, it’s actually more of a full blown Army Operation, where even the old man Phillips goes along in person. This is an unusual occurrence, i.e. not something she normally does.

AOS ineptly tries to retcon that she was with the Howlies more often.

(The Agent Carter show undermines this intent, because Dum-Dum is discombobulated by Peggy’s presence on a mission and doesn’t know how to act around her. 

This is showing that it’s not a familiar sensation for him, which it would be if she was an honorary Howlie. Ergo, even when they think they’re showing she was a Howlie, they’re actually showing she wasn’t. 

And this is why she didn’t join Steve on the mission to rescue the 107 -- that’s just not her job.)

But just like I can’t claim that Howard Stark fought alongside the Howlies in person throughout the war, if that is not what is shown, they cannot claim that Peggy did so either. 

Because that is not shown. 

*As mentioned: in the middle of the denouement, when Peggy asks Steve if he was about to do X important thing, and he goes ‘right!’ and carries on...

And later, her interrupting at a crucial point to make it about herself (to make Steve kiss her the same way Lorraine sexually assaulted him earlier on) and then telling him to carry on... 

Peggy telling him to do it is both the classic conditioning behaviour of someone who wants to control another person (by creating a mental association between their commands and the victim’s actions) and/or the behaviour of someone with a delusion of importance. 

They are ineptly trying to create the appearance of Steve doing what Peggy says, because she says so. But Steve is doing what he was already going to do anyway, before she spoke.

Her input is not a deciding factor in what Steve does, nor on the plot. Her net moral/strategic impact on Steve is still zero; and she’s still replaceable with a Sexy Lamp.

So that aforementioned claim that Steve relied on her, listened to her, would do what she says, etc. is false.

And they can’t claim he listened to her at any other point, because that is not shown; they weren’t in contact.

.

Conclusion...

Steve and Peggy knew OF each other for 626 days 

or 20 months & 15 days.

(From mid-June 1943 to the beginning of March, 1945.)

They spoke on 2 days max in June, 1943 (the 22nd and probably 23rd, the day of his serum and day after) despite being in the same place for a week prior and sharing a prior car ride!

They spoke on 4 days max in November 1943.

3rd day-- Nov 3rd, in Italy, pre-107 rescue,  4th day-- Nov 10th, in Italy, post-107 rescue,  5th day-- Nov 14th(?) In London, the day Steve relayed Hydra intell and told Col. Phillips he was assembling his own team, while Brandt was expecting him to be in America receiving his medal for valour; probably the same day the Howlies were founded. 6th day-- Nov 15th(?) 8am, in London, when Peggy shot him.

They spoke on 2 days in February & March, 1945: 

7th day-- in the pub in London (Tuesday, 27th February?) 8th day-- the day of the Valkyrie raid (Thursday, 1st March.)

(While they are shown in the same place on another intervening day, February 28th, when they are both at London HQ during planning for the Valkyrie Mission, and it’s possible or even plausible that they did interact at that point... they are not actually shown speaking to each other on that day.) 

Totalling: a maximum of 8 days.

(could be as low as 6.)

.

And 6 months later, Peggy, Stark and Phillips founded SHIELD and had already recruited Zola into it in order for it to be front page news by 

Tuesday, 14th August, 1945:

(Thus putting the lie to the ridiculous idea that they didn’t know they’d recruited Nazis or what they were up to, btw. 👆)

.

So of the 20 months & 15 days total they knew of each other, Steve and Peggy were only shown being in the same place and in contact during (but not for the entirety of) 4 months -- Jun and Nov ‘43, and Feb and March ‘45. 

For 19 months & 15 days of the 20 months & 15 days they knew of each other, they were not even in the same place: 

4 months while Steve was on one side of the Atlantic, during the late June-October USO Tour, she was in Europe. 

And 15 months & 15 days / 473 days when he was on the continent doing Hydra weapons-parts factory raids (from probably mid-Nov 1943 - Mar 1945) and she was in London. 

And this is deliberate by the film-makers, to depict theirs as a thwarted relationship-that-never-was, a Casablanca style ‘we never dated’ situation. Not a romance, but what could’ve been a romance, had circumstances been different. Them not being together is literally the point. 

.

They show zero direct or indirect contact between the two during those 15 months & 15 days, and multiple things imply that there was none. 

For example: 

She doesn’t know that Steve has a friend in the 107 (which a correspondent would). 

Steve is surprised to see her (a correspondent wouldn’t be). 

Steve tells her about what he’s been up to, as if it’ll be new information to her. (It wouldn’t be, to a correspondent.) Sidenote: as per She Hulk, Bruce Banner is under the impression Steve slept with some woman during this time. SIGH.

Despite Agent Carter show’s attempts to retcon her history with Bucky’s  stolen valour / war record (nonsensically, since he is a soldier and she’s supposed to be a spy), the film and script are clear that she isn’t in Europe with the Howlies. 

She complains about having every door shut in her face, professionally, and Phillips says she was only at a desk job because he “took a chance with” hiring her. Ergo she’s complaining about not being in the field. 

Steve wouldn’t be carrying a photo of someone he sees in person for work all the time. The compass is physical evidence that she wasn’t there.  Sidenote: Steve wouldn’t be dating anyone Period, since he specifically said he didn’t want to do that. And Peggy also said she wouldn’t date until after the war is over. But anyway!

And, logically, if she's supposed to be a spy she also wouldn’t have her face broadcast in cinemas, making any cover she had useless, as Steve would know. But anyway!  It just highlights how they’re not really doing their jobs of writing her as a spy properly.

Steve wouldn’t need to take a photo out of a paper or SSR personnel file (which is what it looks like) if he saw Peggy regularly in person for work, or if they had been corresponding by letter, because she could’ve given him a proper photo personally. 

(This simultaneously rules out the possibility that she went out with the Howlies, and then went back to London; because if she had, she still could’ve given Steve a proper photo of herself, either via letter or in person.)

Likewise, Peggy wouldn’t need to steal a photo of Steve out of a personnel file if they had been in regular contact, either in person or by letter. (Because he could’ve given her a proper photo if they had been in contact.)

Steve and the Howlies are shown in direct contact with... each other, easily implying a long-standing relationship without having to go to a lot of film-making effort, via montage... but she is not. 

Whereas she is shown in the montage, but not being in direct contact. If the film-makers had wanted to show direct contact between them during this montage, they very easily could have. But they didn’t. If she had been there with the Howlies, and it was the film-makers intention to imply that, she would be in the footage with the Howlies, not sitting in a cinema in London watching footage of a mere photo of herself in the newsreels. Whatever your headcanon, you cannot retcon/change what canon is; the canon is that she wasn’t there in person. 

By February 1945 she still isn’t on first-name terms with Bucky, Steve’s second in command. That would be odd, if she was there in person.

As mentioned earlier, in her own show Dum-dum Dugan is disquieted by Peggy’s presence and reacts to her being in the field with the men as if it’s a fresh, disorientating experience for him, and he doesn’t know how to act. If she had actually been in the field with the Howlies in WWII, this could not be the case. He couldn’t be disorientated by something he was already used to. 

Steve’s time in London in WWII was so minimal that when he goes drinking to grieve Bucky, he goes drinking in the Whip & Fiddle even though it’s in ruins. That pub is chosen for its emotionally significant connection to Bucky... but if Bucky (Steve & the Howlies) had been in London a lot, they could’ve gone to other places, too, and there would be no reason to attach any particular significance to that one pub. But Steve does. And no other footage of the Howlies in London is shown. Ergo, the Howlies were in London for such a short period that the pool of places Steve could be is so small there’s only one (1) option. The alternative is that they were in London for ages and drinking in loads of places (and they never showed it for some reason) and that Peggy had to go around loads of pubs until she found the one Steve was in. But that would be daft. 

We are never shown the Howlies returning to that pub or London at all until after Steve is also ‘dead’ (ie. no proof of them going there multiple times. They easily could have shown that, in montage, if the Howlies had been back in London. But they didn’t.) They treat it as a special, 'one-off Solemn Event’ type of place. Not a regular haunt. 

And Steve is still surprised to see Peggy there, meaning he doesn’t think she knows him well enough to guess where he would go / that he didn’t tell her he was going there (possibly one of the Howlies did). So the reason she finds him can’t be because they interacted prior. 

She still has to ask Steve whether he respected “your friend” Bucky (when even Col. Phillips knows to refer to Bucky as Steve’s oldest friend, by this point). 

Steve tells her he can’t get drunk and has to ask whether she knows that already or not. This is yet another example of something a close confidante or correspondent of 15+ months would know, and that Steve wouldn’t ask because he would know/assume she already knew, if they had been in continuing contact.  (It’s unlikely that Steve himself didn’t know, before this moment. Soldiers who founded their unit in a pub? haven’t done any drinking for 15 months and 15 days? Not likely!) 

CEvans’s acting lends an air of despair and futility to the scene, too -- Steve trying to drink away his sorrows, even though he knows it won’t work. Had his tone been different, it would’ve connoted something else, eg. ‘hey, I’ve just found this new thing about my metabolism, did you know?’

Not being able to get drunk is canonically the very kind of thing Steve would complain about to her (and canonically also the very kind of thing she would tell him more about). If Steve was in contact with Peggy then he would’ve complained about it before, eg. via letter, too. But he didn’t, because he doesn’t know whether or not she knows. So they weren’t in contact.

The Howlies are only shown being in Phillips’s War Rooms / in the bunker in London once.  But Peggy is shown being there through the war.  If the Howlies (including Steve) were there on a regular basis, the film makers could’ve shown that in the montage. Instead the Howlies were shown on the Continent. viz. they never went back to London, and Peggy never went out to the Continent, until the very last mission.

.

It is shown that the updated intelligence of what Steve and the Howlies are accomplishing in Europe during 1944 is being relayed back to HQ in London, because Peggy and other personnel are shown taking Hydra base flags off their maps, as Steve and the Howlies take them out. 

(As a consequence of Steve et al taking them out, it’s implied.)

However... it is not shown that Steve directly relayed that information to Peggy or that it’s Peggy’s job to gather that intell from them directly.

Peggy herself says that Phillips is in charge of devising strategy, not herself, and Steve soon disregards any strategy suggestions she makes anyway -- in fact, he gives her orders, not the other way around.

So if Steve was telling anyone what the Howlies are up to in Europe, it would be his superior officer Phillips. 

Not an agent like Peggy, of no military rank. 

(This is supported by the scene where Steve, having returned from rescuing the 107, goes straight to Phillips to report his successful mission. Not to Peggy, who is right there.) 

Plus, the Howlie shown handling communications isn’t Steve... 

...it’s Morita. 👆 (And guess who interrupts him and shoves him out of his seat?) 

So while the Howlies were in contact during the 15 months & 15 days of Howling Commando Hydra weapons-factory raids:

it would’ve been very difficult / limited / all shop talk. 

it must’ve been so insignificant that we don’t hear what was said, or see who said it, in the film.

(Given that they insist on showing us every possible plot-irrelevant* sexy lamp heterosexual interaction, the fact that they don’t show Steve talking to Peggy on the radio all year is the biggest proof that it didn’t happen. IMO we would’ve seen it.)

so either it’s considered grunt work and would’ve been done by eg. Morita(?) to a similarly lower-ranked person at HQ (maybe even Lorraine!), who at best would’ve relayed it to Peggy who then relayed it to Phillips. But that’s still no contact between Steve and Peggy.

or it’s so important that only someone as important as Steve would report it directly to someone as important (viz. Phillips) as Steve does when coming back from rescuing the 107 (still wasn’t significant enough to be seen in the film.)

While I can see Peggy kicking a lower-ranked person off their chair, to butt in on the call, if Steve was on the line -- as she later does to Morita -- the fact that we didn’t see that happen. Again, basic writing rules apply: if it isn’t shown it didn’t happen. 

there were only six prospective Hydra weapons factories mentioned as targets for Steve and the Howlies, so only six more occasions when they even might’ve officially interacted from the Continent: 

Roughly: 

And while there are more Hydra bases indicated as existing on the maps/via flags removed from the maps... 

...None of these 👆 are explicitly linked to Steve and the Howlies, there’s no indication that the existence of these was discovered or relayed (or that they specifically were destroyed) by Steve and Co. 

And it’s made out to be a Big Deal that they find out where the Seventh base is, (the base Bucky told Steve they were shipping weapons parts to). Because that’s where Red Skull is. 

In total the Howlies would’ve had 9 missions during this time:

6 Hydra factories

1 mission to capture Zola

1 mission in winter to save 1000 men  (if the Smithsonian footage is true)

1 mission on D-Day (if the Smithsonian footage is true)

the Valkyrie mission would be the 10th mission.

.

T I M E L I N E :

1943

JUNE: Mon 14th, Bucky gets his orders, Steve gets a 4F, visits the Stark Expo, meets Erskine, enlists and gets a 1A. Tues 15th, Bucky ships out, Steve arrives at Camp Lehigh. Mon 21st, Steve is chosen for serum. He and Erskine discuss it in the evening. Tues 22nd, Steve receives serum, Erskine is killed, Steve stops the Hydra saboteur, and is photographed by a NYE journalist. Wed 23rd morning, Phillips speaks to the President and the SSR is immediately re-tasked,  Steve appears on the front page of The New York Examiner, the Hydra sub is moved to dry dock. afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Stark examines the Hydra sub, Phillips relays the President’s orders, Brandt recruits Steve into the USO when he objects to Phillips's orders. night, Phillips, Stark, and Peggy, fly out to London.

.

JULY-OCT: Steve in the USO, travelling across America.

OCT/NOV: Bucky and the Howlies are captured by Hydra at Azzano.

.

NOVEMBER: 3rd, afternoon, Steve does USO show in Italy, 5 miles behind enemy lines. evening, Steve rescues 107.

10th, Steve returns to base with 400 soldiers of the 107, having safely travelled 35 miles including 30 miles of mountainous heavily fortified enemy terrain, with wounded in tow.

? 11th-14th, Steve's rescue is reported in Stars and Stripes, Senator Brandt decides to give him a medal for valour, news gets back to UK and appears in The Daily Mail. Brandt expects Steve to come back to the US to receive his medal in person. Steve declines. 

? 14th, London, HQ, Steve relays Hydra intell to Phillips and Peggy, night, Steve recruits Bucky & the Howlies, takes Bucky's input on the suit.

? 15th, London, HQ, 8am, Steve gets sexually assaulted, Steve gets physically assaulted (Peggy shoots at him), Steve picks the shield, Steve relays Cap uniform ideas to Stark. .

1944

Howlies deployed in Europe for 15 months and 15 days, taking out 6 Hydra weapons factories shown in Italy, Greece, France, Czechslovakia. and Poland. 

(The original CATFA script also mentions factories in Belgium and Russia, but these aren’t referenced in the canon movie. 

Avengers 1 deleted scene shows Steve taking part in the planning of D-Day, which would’ve put him and the Howlies in France, from 6 June 1944 - August. Probably means they would’ve had to be back in England in the run up to D-Day, to take part in rehearsals. 

If the Smithsonian mention of a winter blockade-breaking mission also happened, that might be part of the Battle of the Bulge, so that would be Dec-Jan ‘44-45. In total it would be 9 missions, and the Valkyrie mission makes 10.)

.

1945

FEBRUARY: (possible) Sun 25th, Bucky ‘KIA.’  (possible) Mon 26th, Howlies & Zola travelling back to London.

(possible) Tues 27th, London am, Steve writes/delivers a report about Bucky. Phillips (reads Steve’s report? knows about Bucky) sends a misleading telegram about Zola, back-dated February 3rd, to Washington via SHAEF. pm, Phillips interrogates Zola and finds out 1st March is Valkyrie Day. Steve goes drinking to grieve Bucky.

Wed 28th, London, HQ, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

MARCH:  Thurs 1st, Atlantic. Steve and Red Skull 'KIA.' Last contact with Peggy. Fri 2nd, Moria and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt. Mon 5th, Steve reported "disappeared" in newspaper. Fri 23rd, KGB opens file on Bucky.

APRIL: Surviving Howlies are mopping up remaining Hydra personnel in Europe? MAY. Tues 8th, V-E Day. London. The Howlies reunite at the Whip & Fiddle, for the first time since they were founded there, to drink a toast in remembrance of Steve.

AUGUST: Tues 14th, Stark, Phillips and Carter have founded SHIELD and recruited Zola and more, which is reported on front page news.

.

the number of individual occasions he spoke to her would be: 13

pre serum (22nd June, 1943)

post serum (23rd June, 1943)

pre rescue (day; 3rd November, 1943)

during rescue (night; 3rd November, 1943) 

post rescue (10th November, 1943) 

at HQ (day; 14th? November 1943)

in the pub (night; 14th? November 1943) 

at HQ (morning; 15th? November 1943)

at HQ (morning; 15th? November 1943)

in the pub (night; 27th? February, 1945)

pre Valkyrie (1st March, 1945)

pre Valkyrie (1st March, 1945)

during Valkyrie (1st March, 1945).

.

TL;DR: They knew of each other for 626 days total, (from 15th June 1943 - 1st March 1945), aka: 20 months 14 days; 19 months & 15 days of which they weren’t in the same place, and only spoke on 13 occasions over 8 separate days.

.

[16woodsequ]

NOT THE CABIN!!!!

your first headcanon is my canon because from agents of shield it sounds like steve lived in the cabin soon after he came out of the ice, and by the time the battle of new york comes around it's already been a year. he must have felt so lost and unwanted and abandoned when they took him to a place like that 😭

steve being stressed out when he meets the avengers because he doesn't want to be forced back to the cabin oh my god. i have to think about this nonstop for the rest of the year i look forward to rejoining society in 2025

the fact that shield/hydra had this cabin as well as that armoured van with supersoldier-sized shackles is so unsettling AAHH

(response to this post)

HEHEHEHE When I tell you I cackled getting this ask, because I love spreading Steve-cabin angst!!

I agree! It does sound like Steve went to the cabin soon after the ice. (Although I headcanon that Avengers was actually very soon after Steve woke up, I know the wake up scene was in a movie released in 2011 and the movies are supposed to happen when they were released, but in some of the deleted scenes for Avengers Steve is confused about wi-fi and he's looking over files of the dead Howling Commandos and his apartment is so bare, and just the way he acts like he hasn't been out for long, I tend to headcanon Avengers is soon after he came out of this ice. But! That doesn't really change the cabin headcanon, besides shoving two traumatic things closer together.)

Either way I think the cabin has a huge impact on Steve in Avengers. I think it's part of why he acts the way he does, and why he's repressing everything so much and playing the role of Captain America Super Soldier. Is it no wonder Steve reactions to Coulson's death the way he does? Tony is visibly upset and lashes out because he thinks Steve is acting like he should brush it off because their soldiers (Is this the first time you've lost a soldier? We're not soldiers) but I think Steve was equally effected, especially since Fury threw the bloody baseball cards in as a further emotional barb. But Steve keeps everything inside. He keeps it all locked down, and I have got to believe it's partially due to his experience with the cabin and whatever kind of twisted mental health screening he got from SHIELD after coming out of the ice.

He's not about to give anyone any more reason to send him back to the cabin to help him adjust to the future. I think that cabin had a profound impact on Steve's willingness to reach out to people and I think it made him reflexively cling to the only other option he was presented with: SHIELD. Which is exactly what SHIELDRA wanted.

Anyway, if you want an in depth look at cabin angst, I just finished a fic about it: Ice and Empty Spaces. Eventually this will lead to a Tony and Steve friendship, but first, angst.

[bedlamsbard]

running through plot ideas for The Next Big Fic in a "well everyone ELSE did this ten years ago but I haven't done it yet" *shows up ten years late with Starbucks* kind of way

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Had to jump in since I’ve done a couple metas on this subject before 👉(here) & (here)👈 

to point out something which it took me a while to notice, that emphasises what a nasty piece of work Zola really is:

We presuppose that Red Skull knew about and ordered Zola to do these serum experiments, but if you actually look closely at the movie again...

There is zero sign Red Skull knew anything at all about Zola’s experiments, or ordered them, and in fact a few things which suggest he very much wouldn’t approve.

Examples:

it’s explicitly stated that Red Skull wanted serum for himself alone (classic MCU villain behaviour) to become a ‘superior man’ so that he could seize the power of the Tesseract -- which he promptly did.

IIRC there’s no mention of Red Skull wanting serum to make a superior army, in the way Phillips says the US Army does.

Zola and Red Skull have been discussing Erskine at some point very recently, because Zola walks in and says ‘I understand you’ve found him?’ (without needing to specify who he’s talking about.)

Zola can immediately pick Erskine out from a series of surveillance photos of random men on the street, despite it being taken from a distance, and while Erskine is wearing a hat (I’d say baldness is his distinguishing feature, wouldn’t you?) Both Erskine and Zola were, until recently, Hydra scientists... To me, these things together suggest that Zola was part of the serum team when Erskine was there.

Zola hears that Red Skull has been looking into Erskine’s work post-Hydra... and then comes in acting all cagey about it, wanting to know more but trying to act like he’s not bothered, and despite Red Skull being a scary mofo he tries to dissuade Red Skull from looking into it any more. ( 'You disapprove’ /  ‘I just don’t see why you need concern yourself. I can’t imagine he will succeed... again.’)

Red Skull says he wants the serum destroyed, has ordered Erskine killed and his lab destroyed, and yet somebody high up in Hydra has told the spy Clemson to retrieve a vial of the serum in the process of blowing up the SSR lab. Why?

When Zola hears that Red Skull has already given the order for Erskine to be killed and the serum destroyed, he looks dismayed and tries to leave in a hurry...

In the 3-4 months after this moment with Red Skull, Zola is given control of a tesseract-weapons factory and, despite Red Skull specifically telling him he wanted the serum destroyed, starts doing serum experiments on American soldiers.

(Think how quickly he’d have to set up that factory and then get all the components for serum before he could start doing this; he must have been on this from the second he and Red Skull had that conversation... if not before?)

Zola is very clearly in charge alone at the Krausberg weapons factory, because there’s a scene where Red Skull takes an inspection and is given updates about their productivity (which wouldn’t be necessary if he was based there himself; we know he isn’t, because his main base is elsewhere in the Alps). IE. Zola has a secret place he can do things without Red Skull knowing.

Red Skull orders Zola to work the POWs harder, and Zola looks dismayed (then mentions he doesn’t think they have the... strength).

Red Skull orders Zola to work the POWs to death and then replace them

if Red Skull had ordered Zola to do experiments on them, why would he be treating these valuable subjects as if they’re expendable? 

why would he lace the factory they’re all housed in with explosives? (which Zola clearly doesn’t know about) 

why would he be so blase about blowing them up? 

(Red Skull doesn’t treat the POWs as if they’re important; ergo, shows no signs of knowing about Zola’s experiments at all.)

On two occasions (including in the factory) Red Skull meets Steve and is very visibly pissed off to face another supersoldier. He asks Steve what’s so special about him, that Erskine gave him ‘everything.’ Like other characters who greedily seize serum power for themselves, Red Skull is an egomaniac. He very clearly has it in his head that he (like Steve) is a special, unique, Great Man, great enough to harness the power of the Tesseract, and it should be he alone who gets to outdo ‘mere mortals.’

This outraged interrogation is not the behaviour of a man who: 

a) happily ordered for other supersoldiers to be created, or 

b) already knew what kind of person serum works on (Bucky). 

If Red Skull had known about Bucky, he’s the kind of guy to taunt Steve about Zola experimenting on his best friend; or about Steve not being special after all, since Bucky has serum too. But there is never any indication at all that Red Skull even notices Bucky, or knows anything about him or Zola’s serum.

tl;dr: IMO, all these human experiments with serum are entirely Zola’s baby, done  secretly / without Red Skull’s orders, and/or Zola doesn’t want Red Skull finding out about them.

So it’s very plausible that Zola had his own side plot going to recapture Bucky. Maybe even intended to be caught by the SSR all along...? 🤔

Time for some more rambling. I’m not sure if this is something that’s already been touched on in the fandom, but I was rewatching the The First Avenger recently and I’m pretty sure the train was set up by Hydra to be a trap for Bucky… 

Let’s start by looking at the scene where Steve rescues Bucky from the Hydra munitions factory. When Schmidt sees that Captain America has infiltrated the facility, he sets the building to destruct. Zola sees what Schmidt is doing and he freaks the hell out.

Now, Zola is normally a groveling worm when it comes to Schmidt. He knows better than to stand up to him; but there’s something that tips him over the edge here–if just for a second.  

We already know there are a handful of other munitions factories across Europe (which is part of the reason Schmidt can be so casual about blowing up this one). Wanting to save the weapons might be part of Zola’s reaction here, but that really isn’t reason enough for him to risk Schmidt’s anger (which can be deadly). At this point in time, there’s nothing in the factory they can’t afford to lose. 

Except for Bucky. 

Sergeant Barnes is the first one to show signs he might survive his stint in the isolation ward. He’s the first one to show signs that he might be responding to Zola’s attempts to create his own super soldier. That research is only located in one place, and Schmidt is about to send Zola’s breakthrough up in flames. The moment Zola realizes he can’t stop Schmidt, he makes a break for the lab to try to rescue his notes. Of course there’s no way he can carry Bucky out of there, so he has to make do with what he can get.  

In a painful twist of fate, Steve does Zola a favor by saving Bucky. 

Take a look at this standoff on the scaffold. Here the audience is meant to focus on Steve and Schmidt going head-to-head for the first time; but pay attention to Bucky and Zola. This is their standoff, too. Follow their line of sight. They’re not looking at Steve and/or Schmidt through most of this scene. They’re looking at each other, and you can almost see the realization on Zola’s face that his experiment might just be saved. 

Don’t you dare look at Bucky like that, you asshole. 

Also, can I just point out the look on Bucky’s face when he spots Zola?

If looks could kill. 

Not to mention his face when he sees what Schmidt looks like under the mask. Sure, Bucky’s line asking Steve if he has “one of those” is meant to be a joke for the audience; but I think Bucky’s experience as a character is a lot different from our experience outside the fourth wall. He’s genuinely scared–for Steve, for himself. You can see the trace of tears in his eyes. 

Bucky knows something awful has been done to him at the hands of Hydra, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to lose his humanity, too. 

Jump ahead and Captain America and the Howling Commandos are now laying waste to anything and everything Hydra. Things are looking bad for our villains.

This is an interesting line, because the movie doesn’t exactly tell us what Zola’s mission is. Maybe we’re supposed to think his mission is to make sure the weapons are finished in time to meet Schmidt’s timeline for world domination. Or maybe it’s to kill Captain America. And maybe those things are part of his job, but as Zola himself says, “I merely develop the weapons. I cannot fire them.” His primary job is research and development, not tactical planning and defense. 

Now that Hydra is up against a super soldier, it’s likely that Schmidt is anxious to get his own super soldiers into combat. The easiest and fastest way to complete that research, of course, is to retrieve Sergeant Barnes. (In theory, Zola could use Steve for experimentation if he caught him; but he would have to start the experiment from scratch. Peggy made it clear earlier in the film that it would take them years to find out the formula using Steve’s blood. Chances are good the same would apply to Zola. The work on Bucky is already underway, it’s Zola’s own handy work, and Bucky’s still weak enough to be an easy catch compared to Steve.)

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, directly after Schmidt gives Zola the ultimatum to “finish his mission,” we cut to the Howling Commandos laying in wait for the train. They’re hoping to catch Zola, whose location has somehow been leaked, and it quickly becomes clear that the scummy doctor hasn’t been caught by surprise. In fact, everything indicates that Zola was the one laying in wait for them. He’s surveilling the entire train from a command center and issuing orders to strategically placed Hydra soldiers.

When Steve and Bucky board the car, Zola deliberately separates them.

Divide and conquer is a tried and true tactic, but look at the difference in the opponents sent after them. Steve is given a huge opponent armed to the back teeth with a Tesseract energy gun. But Bucky? Bucky faces off against one traditionally-armed guard. (EDIT: In a subsequent viewing I noticed he actually faces off against two guards, but the second one is barely seen and is removed from the equation fairly quickly.)

Why wasn’t that guard given an energy weapon too? My guess would be because Zola didn’t want his guinea pig harmed too badly. Bullet wounds can heal, but disintegration is forever. 

It might also be telling that when Steve and Bucky are back in the same compartment together, Zola screams “kill him” not “kill them.” It’s up for debate who Zola meant for the guard to target; but since he was initially sent after Steve, it’s my assumption that’s who Zola meant for him to shoot.    

As we all know, the plan goes horribly awry on both sides and Bucky falls to his seeming death. Zola is captured and, when Colonel Philips tells him that “the last guy you cost us was Captain Roger’s closest friend,” Zola barely acknowledges it with a creeptacular grin. 

He knows. He knows whatever he did to Bucky would keep him alive. And, as it turns out, even as a captive Zola will gain the means to finish his little experiment. 

Fucker. 

[leihaddock]

I just realised that the MCU used Steve and Bucky's relationship like Shieldra used Steve and Bucky. Having them do what they wanted until they weren't useful anymore, then (attempt to) kill them off. Until the plot didn't need its love story anymore and they could send Steve back in time and force Bucky back into his role as a criminal.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

One of the biggest gripes I have with the MCU is that half of the heroes are (unintentionally) written as bad guys (EG Steve, Tony, Clint, Peggy...) and the other half is still friends with them and/or never call them out in any meaningful way (Bucky, Sam, Rhodey, Nat....).

Tbf I haven't watched new Marvel content since 2021 so this might not be true for all the new characters. But the characters I liked from the first 3 phases? In my eyes, none of their canon versions are good people anymore.

The MCU really is a superhero universe without any moral compass.

Agreed Anon, you're right.

(I likewise haven't been able to watch since EG, outside of that one Spidey movie where Tony remade Insight yet again and gave control of it to a teenage boy. 🤦‍♀️ MCU's Spidey is just his mini-me; completely missing the point of that character. I mean look at Sony's Spider-verse by comparison!)

I've used this term before, but the MCU has a problem of protagonist-centered morality, whereby villain-defining deeds are put in the hands of 'good' (as in: decent person) characters, and/or good characters are tarnished by their unforgivable inaction, when inaction is the very definition of un-heroism in that universe:

ie. "when you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” "If I see a situation pointed south, I can't ignore it." etc.

Taking Steve as a textbook example:

Even though Steve behaves accordingly in that scene (by calling Tony out for double-dealing re: the Accords) by the time Steve comes to say that 👆 he has already betrayed it in other ways.

Like: he never calls out Peggy for her mistreatment of him (in CATFA) and borderline rudeness to Bucky. It's like they wanted Steve to almost gloat about becoming superior to Bucky (who, mirroring that, they frame as dragging Steve on double dates he doesn't want to go on and not noticing he's being mistreated during them.)

In CATWS Steve never calls out Peggy (or Howard, or Phillips) for hiring Nazis and making one immortal (this is why they kept her 'visit' safely out of the way in Act 1).

Even though he does call out Fury and Nat for doing substantially less-heinous shit (as far as he knows at the time) and they are made to make it up to him before he will trust them again.

He never calls out Sam for being rude to Bucky in front of him, even though he will tell him off for being rude to a stranger (T'Challa).

(Again: a friend who will stop somebody actually killing you, but won't bother to stop somebody being rude to you? or bullying you? = Not much of a friend. Not much of a way to repay all the years Bucky did that for pre-serum Steve, is it writers? 🤷‍♀️)

Since they never bother to show how/when Steve finds out Bucky is a mind-controlled innocent, nobody therefore ever calls out Sam and Nat for being wrong about him either / for trying to dissuade Steve from helping him. And Sam continues to dehumanize him like a ticking timebomb, even after mind-control / his innocence has been established.

(Contrast: Clint, who tries to kill all of the Avengers while mind-controlled, and Nick Fury and Maria Hill, but is nevertheless welcomed into their ranks with open arms on the very same day. This without question, on the basis of nothing more than a Silent Nod of Approval from Natasha. And they're going to fight... the villain who still has the magic mind-control method, mind you. 🤪

Similarly stupid: to take Bucky to fight the same guy who just established that he can mind-control Bucky at the end of CACW? 🤦‍♀️ Bad enough to pick up the idiot ball, but then you don't even do anything with it? But I digress...)

Back to Steve: he never calls out Sharon for staying in SHIELDra while they were hunting him, Nat and Sam.

(Condoning both her and Peggy in a weirdly inccestuous way, since these idiots writers are so desperate for him to be demonstrably heterosexual, no matter how irrelevant to the plot. The corpse of Compulsory Female Love Interest No.1 hadn't even cooled before she pounced.)

Post-CW Steve never calls out Tony for tying to kill him and Bucky, for refusing to call when Thanos came, for refusing to help them undo the Snap initially, or for monologuing Hydra's rhetoric at him yet again. Just stood there like a plank while Tony hurled RDJ's improved abuse (was CEvans even allowed to improv? I bet it would've been cut if he had.)

And then, when he actually does get to do a thing that is unequivocally good (passing the shield onto Sam) ...they retcon that it was a bad, selfish thing, spread the blame off Steve onto (guess who?) Bucky (of course!) and then make him apologise (of course!)

...But don't hold Steve accountable for ditching Bucky to face the music on his own! (The apparently bad-now music.)

Wtaf, huh?

And that's not how accountability works! Holding white men responsible for specific actions, in-universe, doesn't mean anything if you haven't got the right white guy! Doesn't mean 'pick a random white guy.' Doesn't mean 'pick the only 'non' villain white guy in the cast.'

White character apologising to a black character for what white people generally do to black people = Fine. White guy apologising to a black guy for a specific trespass he did not commit against him? = Nonsense. Cheapens the whole point. If Steve has committed a microaggression it's his job to apologise for it, not Bucky's.

Picture Happy Hogan apologising to Rhodey for Tony gifting him the War Machine suit.

Perfectly valid for Tony to apologise: if gifting the suit had always been framed as a poison chalice for Rhodey (foreshadowing, folks. Basic writing skill.) But not if they had always been like 'hey isn't this War Machine suit great for Rhodey what a heartwarming gift wait no it isn't you bastard, Happy, shame on you for Tony doing that!' 🤔

Of course What If/post-EG skrull Steve has been nothing more than a cringe mirkin for Saint Peggy Sue. Back to being written like a poorly-written female character. 🙄

And all this is presaged by Steve waking up in the future, immediately being lied to by SHIELD, and... coming to work for them anyway? Even though he hates liars?

But he keeps working for them, even after they have lied to him again, and he has discovered it, in A1?

Steve's CATWS line about thinking he could throw himself back in and be happy, serving in SHIELD, makes no damn sense when you consider that he has known SHIELD ain't shit almost since the very moment he awoke in the future.

So actually, seems like canon Steve can ignore plenty! 😬

Much as I nevertheless like MCU Steve -- CEvans' casting and acting choices, his chemistry with his co-stars, his acting correctly (viz against the stupid script), etc. -- when you look at the Cap movie characters and realise just how much they've axed, warped, or insidiously inverted from the source material... it's hard not to see the MCU versions as a real hack job. 😥

[bedlamsbard]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again I love Singular Cap/Black Widow plotline and I will read it as long as you write it

Aww, thank you. <3 The benefit of being a relatively slow longfic writer is that it's not quite as obvious I keep using the exact same plot line in different settings because there's such a long time between stories, and I guess the settings of Home and Horizon differ pretty significantly.

[logansgaar]

considering Bucky "died" in his Commandos gear there're two possibilities for the exhibit outfit:

1. It's a recreation while the others, like Steve's suit, are the real thing or Bucky just happened to have two of the same jacket

2. It's also the real thing and SHIELD (SHIELDRA) did not even try disguising the fact they knew about Bucky all along, to the point they had his clothes to donate to the Smithsonian

I'd say option 1 is the most likely, since the left sleeve is intact, but given everything we know and how thoroughly Bucky was brushed aside after the war (with toasts made to Steve and other characters but not him, call backs to Steve but not him, etc.) option 2 isn't impossible

[freckled-words]

TaserTricks Misadventures

Just to get some rust off the wheels, I wrote a little intro to act as the base for where *most* of the stories will be connected to. Some will be stand-alone but still part of the whole, ya know?

If you prefer to read on AO3, here's a handy link for you CLICK ME

Let me know if you catch any spelling mistakes.

Darcy Lewis sometimes had to play “Connect The Dots” with the events in her life in order to make sense of just how she found herself in her current position.

The position of ‘Unofficial Avengers CareTaker’ that is.

Which just so happened to include Loki, God of Mischief, King of Assholes, and a condemned prisoner currently working off his crimes through community service.

Originally Darcy had come to the tower with her pre-established job parameters of keeping Jane healthy and functional, while also helping her with the data entry and machine lugging. Jane’s lab was neighbor’s with Tony and Bruce, and thanks to a connecting doorway, it was easy enough to include the Science Bros in the daily feedings and watering. (Bruce was pretty good at managing himself, but he never turned down Darcy’s cinnamon raisin cookies when she slipped them within reach.)

One trip to scary Ol’ England to fight space Elves later, and Erik came back to the Tower with them. Like Bruce he was pretty low maintenance, he just needed a gentle reminder to put his pants back on two to three times a day.

The real shift in her ‘caretaking’ parameters came when Natasha and Clint started coming by more often.

One night Darcy had been up late in the common room, the TV was on with the volume down low, an overly fuzzy blanket was wrapped around her body, and was doing her damndest to melt the nightmares out of her skull with the vibrancy of the cartoon dancing across the screen.

She swore she’d simply blinked (a super slow blink that lasted around a minute) and suddenly found Clint sitting on the couch next to her, the edge of her blanket draped across his lap and his head tipped back into the cushions with his eyes closed. As far as Darcy could tell, the infamous sniper was fast asleep.

Too tired to have much reaction (or give it much thought) Darcy shifted her blanket so it was covering both of them. She wouldn’t know if it was the presence of someone she knew to be super lethal, or just the sense of having another body around in general, but she managed to drop off into a heavy sleep pretty quick.

She got to know Clint a lot better over breakfast the next morning, and it became a friendly routine for them to crash on the couch on nights when one or the other was feeling rough. (There’d been a couple nights where Tony would stumble up from the lab and crash on whichever space was large enough, and on even rarer occasions, Steve would collapse into the recliner and do his best to sneak away before everyone else woke up the next morning.)

Natasha didn’t need caring for, so much as she opted to spend some of her free time with Darcy. 

Sometimes Darcy was suddenly dragged out of the lab for self defense training (she never made it back to the labs on those days.) But more often Natasha would pop up wherever Darcy was, and inquire into everyone’s wellbeing. It took Darcy a bit of time to put two and two together, and realize that Natasha would have these pop-up chats when she got back from her missions. (Darcy does her best not to think too deeply on this, as it puts a certain degree of weight on Darcy’s casual care-taking.)

At first Steve wasn’t really taken into consideration, as he had his own place to go home too, and when he wasn’t there or the tower, he was out looking for Bucky. (The shitshow of SHIELDRA had been a nightmare and a half that left both Darcy and Jane a little twitchy for a solid two months after.)

So of course that changed when he came home one morning, bruised, battered and bleeding, with Bucky in tow.

Darcy had been in the kitchen getting her first cup of coffee when the two soldiers stumbled in. Steve gave her a nod and a, “Morning Ms. Lewis” then promptly dropped Bucky and himself into a couple of chairs.

Still dressed in her Hulk pj pants, and Black Widow tank top, Darcy muttered a quiet “Fuckin’ Mondays.” And got to work making a mountain of pancakes, bacon, and eggs for the two to devour while their wounds healed. (There were a couple feeble attempts to help, and she’d just slapped them both away with her spatula.)

Given that Tower was a reinforced fortress in the sky, it only made sense for Bucky to hide out there, and Steve couldn’t even fathom leaving Bucky there on his own, so after some strategic room shuffling, Bucky moved into a room that was situated between Bruce and Steve.

Taking care of Steve was easy, and a lot of fun for Darcy. She helped him to work through his ever growing list of things to learn and catch up on, while also getting him to give her art lessons. (They did Bob Ross paintings every once in a while, and it was always hilarious, since Steve would try and make adjustments to outdo Bob.)

Bucky on the other hand was a bit more complicated. He had enough of his memories back to know who he was, and who Steve was, but he still had some brainwashing to work through. Like Bruce, he needed a calm, no sudden surprises environment. He’d stick to Steve most of the time, and other times he’d stay in his room. When Darcy started to notice how little he would eat, and how much weight he was losing, Darcy took matters into her own hands with a gamble.

Steve was in the living room working on a field report from their last mission, and Bucky had tagged along to sit on the couch and fiddle with his phone. It was just about time for lunch, and Darcy figured sandwiches would be fine, “Yo Barnes, mind giving me a hand with this? You slice and spread, I’ll assemble?”

For a brief second Darcy thought Bucky was going to refuse, as she’d called out to him so suddenly, his shoulders had gone back and his hands had frozen mid-fidget. Steve looked up from his papers and raised a brow at Darcy, trying to figure out what she was angling for. Bucky took in slow breath, and seemed to resettle before getting up. He had a confused, yet slightly amused expression when he joined her in the little kitchen space, “What did I do to warrant sandwich duty?”

“You looked bored, that’s what.” She chided back, and pushed a tomato into his prosthetic hand and a tiny kitchen knife into the other. 

He let out a huffed laugh, and settled into the task of prepping. 

While they worked to make a variety of sandwiches, Bucky would grab nibbles as he went. When the sandwiches were ready for distribution, Bucky took five of them for himself. 

Pleased her theory had been right, Darcy made sure Bucky helped her with at least one of the meals each day, and for the rest she had Jarvis send live video feeds to Bucky’s phone of the food being prepared. 

Natasha and Steve gave her private thanks for catching the problem and finding the solution. Bucky’s thanks came in the form of brutal game nights, where they’d square off with board games and video games. Some nights it was everyone in the tower playing (Pepper was banned from playing Monopoly), and others it was just the two of them (“I saw that Barnes! If you throw that blueshell I swear to Thor I will put ghost peppers in your soup tomorrow!”)

Three months after Bucky and Steve moved into the tower, Thor returned, and he didn’t come alone.

They’d all had a heads up that this might be a possibility, but no one had thought it would actually happen.

Loki, Destroyer of New York, God of Trickery and Chaos, was back on Earth…to finish his community service.

[lnsfawwi]

Can we talk about Chris' understanding of Steve and how much Steve being selfish means in CACW?

in an interview, Chris says Steve won't think things like 'ah another day to save the world' because that kind of thought is 'self-involved' and it 'requires a certain type of egotistical approach to his own awareness.' He also says Steve thinks the way he does partly because that's just who he is and also to keep his 'sanity.'

I don't always agree with Chris' interpretation of Steve but his acting choice is informed by his version of Steve and in this regard, considering how much Chris emphasized the selfishness of Steve's actions in CACW, it's a huge fucking deal.

By Chris' words, Steve's thoughts don't start with 'I'. It's not 'I'm going to do XXX' or 'I have this responsibility', certainly not 'I feel like doing YYY.' They start with objectives: 'Coffee. Gym. Beat bad guys.' To some extend I think it's almost mechanical. (no wonder he's never happy)

But in CACW it's not 'save Bucky', it's not 'for the greater good', it's 'I choose Bucky' (Chris famously said that Steve was fighting for Bucky not the Accords). It's a choice made out of emotions, it's personal.

So when Chris said Steve was selfish in CACW I don't think he meant that Steve was being, well, selfish, but rather he was for the first time acting out of personal desires. (still not true but you do you Chris)

Perhaps Chris thought Steve went to Azzano to save Bucky and the rest of the soldiers and crushed the plane for the greater good and burned SHIELDRA to the ground purely because that was the right thing to do, but even with all that, Steve in CACW just stopped giving a fuck about anything else. The world can burn I just want my Bucky back.

It's also interesting that Chris said Steve thought and acted that way for his sanity. This connects to the idea that Steve is just a giant black hole of repressed feelings and emotions, he knows that if he isn't careful those feelings - his dark side - will come out and cause serious damage as it did in CACW. Again, by Chris' interpretation, Steve making a personal choice is a huge fucking deal: Steve was losing control of his rationality and the cause? Bucky.

Is it a coincidence that Steve's dark side, his feelings and emotions are always connected to Bucky? Stucky was in the fucking narrative.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

I've recently done a meta working out exactly how long Steve and Peggy actually knew each other, and how much they interacted during that time.

(Here).

I found that they knew of each other for 626 days total, from 15th June 1943 -- 1st March 1945.

(That's 20.5 months; 19.5 of which they weren't in the same place),

And they only spoke on 8 separate days that we saw (and with no evidence of any contact in between; but, rather, evidence to suggest there was none.)

RE: them and Bucky:

We've suspected it for a while that Peggy and Howard knew what was happening to Bucky and didn't do anything about it (it's the only possibility, really).

But What If...? s2 confirmed it.

See (here) and (here).

This👆 plus the fact that Bucky is completely erased/never mentioned among the Howling Commandos in her show (while somehow simultaneously having every other trait stolen from him and given to her??) is another point in the 'he would not fucking befriend them' column.

(Plus, it's hard to picture the Howlies, who carouse in a pub (a place Stark is not shown frequenting, and where Peggy's entrance is treated as an Event), socialising with a millionaire and a woman who thinks the Stork Club is the sort of place a boy from Brooklyn would go.)

But it's much worse than them merely not mentioning Bucky's military or personal import to Steve.

Her show goes even further and has Edwin Jarvis claim that Howard Stark said:

“Captain Rogers relied heavily on you for courage, strategy, and moral guidance. You were his support."

About... Peggy??

This incensed me so much I did two metas on this nonsense:

here and here.

Steve doesn't need anyone else to give him courage or integrity, including Bucky, he already had these qualities in bucket fulls, which is why the serum worked on him and why he was chosen to receive it -- and she was not.

Her 'support' amounts to telling him to get over whatever he's upset about and stop moping. Which Steve ignores.

(Whereas what galvanises him into action and improves his mood, in every film, is Bucky.)

Steve never asked Peggy's opinion on strategy, ever.

(There's even a moment where Steve turns away from her to ask Stark to confirm whether something she just said was correct!)

The closest she comes to a strategic suggestion (which, again, Steve neither sought nor depended upon her for) is transporting him to Krausberg via plane, rather than jeep, and giving him a transponder so he can call to be picked up, after.

But we don't actually know for certain that it was she who suggested that! It could've been Stark, since it's his plane and his transponder.

(Steve tells her to let him go (basically pulls a 'move bitch, get out the way' on her), and she says she can do more than that ...But 'more than that' could mean anything. Could just mean hooking him up with Howard Stark!)

And if it was her idea, both aspects of 'her' plan immediately prove infeasible, and Steve abandons it.

Instead, Steve successfully transports the freed prisoners back via jeep and on foot… which was his original idea.

(Part 2 of 'her' plan -- if it was hers -- would've entailed Steve calling ahead, and probably asking to get transport sent out for the POWs. Jeeps and not planes, because planes in the 'most heavily fortified territory in Europe' get shot at. But coming back via jeep and on foot is what Steve was going to do anyway, even without her. So 'her' net impact on his strategy is still zero.)

TL;DR: on top of the fact that it simply never happened, and on top of the fact that they were never in the same place long enough until right before the Valkyrie mission, (and aren't shown in communication any other way), Steve taking strategic input from her would make no sense when she: a) isn't a soldier = isn't qualified to give any, b) her one attempt at strategizing proved unsuccessful.

Steve is a trained soldier, surrounded by other trained, seasoned, battle-hardened soldiers. She isn't one. Her input is not as valuable as literally anyone else's he could've asked. (Sniper Bucky, but also Monty is a Major, Gabe is a linguist, Frenchy knows the Resistance, Morita's good with radio. Literally what would he need Peggy for? To tell him Nazis will shoot at him? To give him transponders that don't work? )

We do see Steve strategizing over a map with all the Howlies around. That doesn't prove Steve took their input, either. But it IS proof that it was both plausible and physically possible for him to have done so, which isn't the case with Peggy. (They try to throw smoke in our eyes and make it seem as if she has input just because her picture is in a compass. 🤦‍♀️)

She herself said it was Phillips who devises the strategies that Steve ought to follow.

And yet in the one other strategic meeting we see in CATFA, it's Steve who tells everyone else what the strategy is going to be (even the much higher-ranked Col. Phillips). Not the other way around. Steve doesn't ask them what the strategy should be. He is quite literally The Man with The Plan.

And this isn't framed as a one-off. The whole room full of people looks intently at Steve, waiting to hear him declare what the Plan is. (They're not going 'what? Captain Rogers is deciding strategy now?' for example. And once Steve has spoken, nobody questions his Plan either -- as if it's usually in question whether he'll decide or someone else will.)

Even in deleted scenes, it's Steve making strategy decisions, with much higher-ranking people than Peggy -- like the (future President, then) General Eisenhower!

Contrast with Steve in the future, repeatedly looking to Natasha for her silent input (often a nod, headshake, shrug, etc.) and then deciding on a course of action (not necessarily on the scale of a Plan).

Happily taking strategy suggestions from both Sam and Natasha, mid-battle, even when he finds their suggestions unpalatable.

But still Steve is the one calling the shots, whom others look to, to decide on initial strategy. (And he doesn't ask others' opinions of overarching strategy first, only takes feedback once the strategy has already been tried and isn't working out, as happened in Avengers 1.)

Col. Phillips (viz. a military strategist who ought to be listened to, according to her own words) tells Peggy to STFU, more than once, as her opinion is not wanted, and claims he "took a chance with" hiring her for her current position...

Suggesting she is a nepotism/pity-hire? who either does not have the kind of job that requires specialist skills, or if it does require them that she doesn't have those skills that would've made her a non-chancey hire for that position, and that would qualify her to offer opinions on strategy.

And even if Steve had asked for her opinion... he never did anything she said anyway (and in fact, did the exact opposite on almost every single occasion.) 🤷‍♀️

They clumsily try to create the illusion of influence by her (in the same way controlling people do in abusive relationships!) by, for example, having her interrupt Steve while he's doing something, to tell him to do the very thing he was just doing anyway before she interrupted. Or having her 'tell'/remind Steve to do the thing he was already going to do anyway.

But Steve isn't doing those things because she said so; he's doing it because he wanted to, irrespective of her. Delete her from the scene and his actions would be the same. (If anything, he'd get things done even quicker, without her interruptions!)

Bucky was second in command for the Commandos therefore should've planned strategy with SSR as much as Steve. yet there's zero indication that the SSR personales knew Bucky well enough to even call him by his name??

Peggy has never addressed Bucky directly, even after his death Peggy used 'your friend' in her conversation with Steve. that's, if not avoidance out of jealousy of his relationship with Steve, detachment. there's no personal relationship between Bucky and her. plus Howard Stark calling him 'sergeant Barnes' which literally couldn't have been more impersonal.

the only logical conclusion is that the Commandos never spent time socializing with Peggy and Stark, they probably didn't even meet all that often cuz they were going around Europe fighting Hydra while SSR stayed behind doing their own stuff. Then how can Peggy possibly be the person Steve couldn't get over with, let along have any long lasting impact on him when they've barely spent time together?

popcorn movies are thoughtless and get criticized for this precise reason. the plot doesn't have to be properly developed bc audiences are conditioned to think certain ways and they complete the story in their head for the movie. 'oh that's a classic setup for romance, of course the hero falls in love with her.'

the thing is, it doesn't make sense, and when it doesn't, it shouldn't.

steggy is what happens when you let this thoughtlessness dictates how you percee a trope in a movie.

she never should've been the 'love of my life' for Steve. she simply couldn't have been. THEY BARELY KNEW EACH OTHER ffs.

[polizwrites]

Changes in Attitude

This is a fill for today’s @flashfictionfridayofficial  prompt [#FFF272 Change Of Tone] as well as the  September WinterIron Gets it Done Classic_1 Tower and  Author_3  500 Word Ficlet  squares.  

Fandom: MCU/Marvel Rating: General Pairing:  Tony Stark & Bucky Barnes Tags:  Avengers Tower,  Post Captain America: Winter Soldier canon divergence, Forgiveness, Developing Friendship Summary:  When Steve brings Bucky Barnes to the Tower; Tony has a lot to work through.  But who would know better than him that a weapon has no choice as to where it is aimed? Word Count:  512

Tony had definitely wondered at first whether it had been a good idea to allow Steve to bring his best buddy to stay at Avengers Tower.  Especially after they’d discovered – thanks to JARVIS’ work combing through the massive SHIELDRA data dump - that it was the Winter Soldier and not a car accident that had killed Howard and Maria Stark.  

But through that same source,  Tony also had ample evidence of what had been done to James Buchanan Barnes to make him into the Fist of Hydra.  The dispassionate descriptions of Zola’s  ‘experiments’ had made bile rise in his throat,  and seeing the schematics of the equipment they used to ‘reset’  the Soldier sent a chill down his spine.  Besides,  Tony knew perhaps better than anyone that a weapon has no choice as to where it is aimed or who it harms.  

That said, he had figured it was best to keep his distance while he worked through everything.  Barnes had made that easy enough, at least at first – barely leaving Steve’s suite  for the first couple of weeks.  And even then, when he ventured out, it was always as Cap’s shadow, barely speaking or making eye contact with anyone, much less Tony.  

But then there was one late night when it seemed neither of them could sleep, meeting up by chance in the communal Avengers kitchen.  Barnes immediately started backing away and apologizing; his reaction spurring Tony’s impulsive  nature. 

“Cool your jets, Sarge.” Tony said through a yawn; too tired to overthink the situation.  “This is neutral territory, after all.  How about some  symbolic breaking of the bread?” He turned to the large chest freezer.    “There should be some ice cream in here, unless Barton beat us to it.  Grab a couple of bowls from the cabinet, would you?” 

“Okay,” Barnes responded dubiously, but did as Tony had asked, setting them on the counter.  

Tony retrieved  a couple of containers from the freezer and set them down as well.  “Looks like we’ve got french vanilla, fudge ripple, and strawberry.  Pick your poison.”   

“Strawberry sounds good. Thanks.”   Barnes’ voice was rough, either from sleep or possibly disuse.  

Tony grabbed two spoons out of the drawer in front of him and handed one over. “Help yourself. I’m a choco-holic myself.”   He watched as Barnes scooped out the ice cream, his prosthesis making a discordant grinding.  “Is it supposed to sound like that?” he blurted out. 

Barnes’ cheeks darkened, as if he was embarrassed.  “No. When Steve and I … fought,”  he paused and swallowed hard,  “something got jammed up.  I’ve tried fixing it, but I don’t really know what I’m doing.” 

“Then it’s a good thing you’re living under the same roof with a mechanical genius,” Tony replied,  “I’d be happy to take a look at it, if you want.” 

Barnes looked up, meeting Tony’s gaze for the first time; his storm-grey eyes widening in surprise.  “Really?  I figured you hated me.” 

Tony shook his head.  “Not once I realized that you’re not the Soldier any more. And that you never wanted to be.” 

[widderwise]

Prompt: DP x DC or Marvel (Mostly Marvel on this one)

For the record when it comes to DP I can't swear to what is canon/fanon. My DC/Marvel knowledge is better but I can't say which timeline/version is which. They have too many versions of people/events.

So, going with the thought that destroying the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms would destroy the 'living' dimensions attached to it, it would serve to reason that more than just the "Earth" in that dimension would be at risk. Some fanon speaks of the possibility of 'pruning' dimensions that threaten the Realms sufficiently. Both Marvel and DC have extensive non-Earth people. Given that humans are threatening them, why wouldn't the Ancients turn to older or more powerful people in the 'problem' universe to shut down the upstart humans.

In DC, it could be the Green Lantern Corps. Forget Hal and them, just send someone to OA. It would be in the whole dimensions interest to stop the humans. I don't know GL lore well and I'm sure there are other groups that would come shut Earth down either diplomatically or taking it as an excuse to conquer. That's assuming Spectre himself didn't deal with the GIW and their backers himself. Given what he did to Constantine, he is more than powerful enough.

In a Marvel dimension, it could be the Nova Corps which I know even less lore about but are the closest things to space cops I know of. My original thought actually went to a different authority. Purely on Earth The Ancient One/Stephen Strange/Wong should be all over that kind of problem.

But! Outside of Earth there is a figure who claims to be the protector of the realms of Yggdrasil: (Niflheim, Muspelheim, Asgard, Midgard (EARTH!), Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Helheim)... ODIN!

Space cops are one thing, but Asguard is living mythology so the Realms, maybe a representative from Valhalla, sending a message (maybe a delegation of Ancients? Pandora, Clockwork, Vortex, Nocturne, Undergrowth, etc) to Odin that Earth is making trouble and it's his job to fix it? It lose lose for him if he doesn't. One, end of life for everyone there and two if he lets others investigate they might dig up his dirty little secret in Helheim (his 'dead' daugher Hela).

He is less than shocked of human stupidity and decides to send Thor to 'negotiate' and fix the problem. Timeline wise I'd say after Avengers but before Thor: Dark World. So Loki is currently imprisoned. Odin and Frigga think this will be an excellent chance for Thor to prove his ability to rule Asgard. The preferred method would be diplomatic, but Thor is expect to deal with the humans threatening the universe one way or the bloody way. Just in case, maybe Frigga has Loki ready to step in and actually be diplomatic.

So, Thor shows up back on Earth not to be a hero but to take on part (even if a very small part) of the US government. He announces his intentions loudly, maybe it gets overheard and his words (maybe not the smoothest ones) spread around.

Danny Phantom (ghost prince/king?) and his fraid (I know it's fanon, but I love it) get put in protective custody (likely with the Avengers) whether they like it or not. The Ancient actually stepping up and treating the kids like kids (horrors- Danny hates it-mostly) Tracking down Dani is harder, she probably gets in trouble with someone (GIW, Shieldra, etc). I feel like bad/especially dense Fenton parents might be prime pickings for Hydra.

I see a comedy of errors on Thor's part. Some angst from the ghosts being harmed by the GIW. A massive migraine from Tony Stark who is trying to be actually diplomatic, not piss off his own government, and deal with a small mid-western town that has an information lock down his tech hadn't detected before. (The whole of Amity disappeared for a bit) I see Steve taking Thor's declaration badly and not believing that 'ghosts' can destroy everyone. Shield/Hydra wants ecto-tech and has no issue 'detaining' ghosts.

I think I'll write at least the scene where Thor arrives back on Earth.

Other less fleshed out thoughts:

-Hela is totally at least part dead. Is she a halfa too? Hela mentors Danny eventually? O.O Maybe Danny decides he doesn't want to be KIng. Queen of Ghosts Hela. Maybe a less crazy Hela because she had ghosts to chill with all this time? Either way, Odin is in trouble now.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Another thing that makes me sick about B-15 character is that they show her as this happy helpful doctor as if that's supposed to erase the fact, she was pushing people and smiling about. We're just supposed to forget the line from the first season that stated she was quick to the trigger to reset timeline. Like Mobius she was a fascist who liked the power she was given and now the show is treating like she's a good nice person. Again the audience is ask to view the TVA as victims while constantly bringing Loki's mistakes.

The entire show is saying these fascists are actually "normal people" and are not to blame for their ignorance and complicity in the system while saying the god of outcast job is to sacrifice himself for them

Funny how they never do that with Loki, right? His variants all had negative traits and one of them had a few scenes where he spitted out all kinds of TVA propaganda framed as absolute truth regarding how bad and evil all Lokis are. [And it's no coincidence that the one variant protected by the narrative is the only Loki who rejects her identity.]

That's one of the biggest issues in the series. B-15 used to be good before she was taken by the TVA, Mobius was a father, Sylvie was an innocent girl... but Loki was always bad? He never gets any sort of redeeming scene, everything is "you're guilty and your trauma condemns you" whereas for the others it's "your trauma redeems everything you have done and your actions are swept under the rug".

It makes no sense when we've been told in TFATWS that Bucky has to make amends despite the fact that he had been brainwashed. The TVA agents knew what they were doing. They had been lied to and indoctrinated, but they knew what their actions entailed - and some of them, like B-15, enjoyed it. Not to mention they were pretty torture-friendly (Loki's torture chamber was Mobius' idea, no one else's).

So, the character who had no agency and no control over what he was doing has to make amends, but the ones in full control of their actions are patted on the back and framed as good people? 🤔

There's a lot of victim-blaming on Marvel but I can't let it go that in both those cases the organizations are defended by the narrative: as long as you put the focus and the blame on Bucky, you let Hydra/Shieldra/the US government off the hook; with the TVA the narrative ended up claiming they're a necessary evil and they even had Loki willingly work with/for them. Unbelievable.