Image source: karls
Avengers: Endgame was quite possibly the most awaited movie of its year, at least by me. I watched it the first day, and I exited the theatre brimming with emotion like many others.
However, unlike many others, I wasn’t overwhelmed with joy or nostalgia or the melancholy of the end to a beloved saga.
I stepped out of that theatre disappointed, in mourning and ranting at a pitch I think disturbed dogs.
See, I love Steve Rogers. So much so that my first tattoo was his shield. Steve Rogers, not Captain America, because I am not in the business of revering icons that overshadow individuals.
I love Steve Rogers, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier was my favorite MCU movie.
I love Steve Rogers and like him, I love Bucky Barnes. I love them as much as they love one another, and I will die on the hill of their very homosexual, very homoerotic, very gay love story. Sure, they’re best buds, but they’re also in love, your honor.
I don’t think I’m someone who looks for clues which aren’t there, at least not in this case. Their entire relationship is laid out for the audience, all of it one long series of romantic tropes.
From the first separation in Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve and Bucky have had a long road paved with romantic overtones. Steve was willing to walk to Austria for Bucky, after all. People remember him for saving the soldiers of the 107th, but they forget that he wasn’t there for any of those soldiers, he was there for only one man, James Buchanan Barnes. The entirety of the 107th were simply whatever is the opposite of collateral damage.
From their reconciliation, to a separation by death, to Steve finding out Bucky is alive and then getting separated again, the saga of Stucky is just one blow after another and yet, even death couldn’t keep them apart.
And then, at the end of it all, when the war is finally over and they can go home, Steve chooses to leave Bucky? Bucky, the guy he’s spent literal decades chasing and looking for, the guy he picked up the shield for and the guy he dropped the shield for, the guy who he shares a literal wedding vow with (Till the end of the line, anyone?), and he ups and leaves?
All that devotion, and it ends like that?
The fact of the matter is, if either Steve or Bucky had been a woman, this would’ve been a canonically epic love story spanning centuries. But since they are both men, the love story perseveres in fandoms and headcanons.
Avengers: Endgame is a disappointing saga in erasure. It is a testament to Marvel accidentally creating the most beautiful, poignant love story ever and then scrambling to take it all back.
In 2019, Marvel had a chance to create a beautiful closure for people who grew up with the Avengers, and all they had to do was stay true to Steve Rogers, who never gave up on Bucky Barnes even when Bucky Barnes gave up on himself, all because Bucky Barnes never gave up on Steve Rogers, even when Steve Rogers gave up on himself.
Endgame was not epic for me, it was not peaceful. It was another example of how heteronormativity crawls into spaces it has no place in, an example of how homosexuality still needs to fight to make space for itself.
When I came out of that theatre, I was glad I knew of fandom, because it was that community that got me through the grief. I mourned Steve, as I’m certain Steve would’ve mourned himself.
At the end, 5 years later, I don’t think of Endgame. I think of the Steve Rogers that lives on in fandom, the one that picks fights with Trump on Twitter, the one that lives in a brownstone in Brooklyn with Bucky, the one that is retired and in love and finally, after centuries of war and ice, is at peace.
I think of that Steve Rogers and I mourn the potential Endgame had. Because if I know something to be true in my Stucky-loving heart, it is that Steve Rogers has never and would never willingly leave Bucky Barnes behind.
After all, even when he had nothing, he had Bucky.
Some of my favourite Stucky fics:
- Cuts Like a Knife by StilesBastille24
- let me be buried under your name by tempestaurora
- We’re All in the Gutter, but Some of Us Are Looking at the Stars by chipofftheoldblock
- United States v. Barnes, 617 F. Supp. 2d 143 (D.D.C. 2015) by fallingvoices, radialarch
- And Don’t Forget About Me by MonocerosRex
- a road less traveled by Claudia_flies, cyclamental art (cyclamental), maichan, zilia
Prithiva Sharma is the writer of the column Captain’s Orders, a love letter to all things Marvel.