In Infinity War, it is Bucky that Steve sees disintegrating in front of his eyes, a position that is occupied, contextually and narratively, by the most important person a hero could lose. But for Steve, unlike any of the other heroes who lose their loves, this is not the first time he has watched Bucky slip from between his fingers, it is not even the second, it is not even the third. Time and time, movie after movie, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes battle fiercely for each other, defend each other, protect each other, and always, always, lose each other, and yet it is Peggy that Steve mentions in his therapy group as the loss that haunts him. Peggy who has been dead for almost eight years now. in Steve Rogers’s life. Peggy, who has nothing to do with the snap at all. Peggy, when it is Bucky who blew into the wind.
This repeats, egregiously, as the team suits up to fight Thanos for the first time in the movie, with Steve looking at Peggy’s picture in his compass before telling Nat that “if this doesn’t work, [he] doesn’t know what he’ll do.” But if it does work, it’s Bucky he’ll be getting back. Peggy has nothing to do with this narrative moment, and yet she stands in, where, for every other hero, the person they saw vanish, or whose vanishing they feel the most, is featured.
For instance, when Tony finally returns from space and Steve runs to him, Tony tells him, “I lost the kid.” [Peter]. Rocket yells at Thor to pull it together because he needs to get his family back. [Groot]. Carol and Nat both think about Nick, even though they didn’t see him vanish. Clint talks about nothing except for the loss of his family. But for Steve, Bucky is carefully removed.
This article nails it so perfectly! I watched the movie a third time yesterday and that moment with the compass was so out of the blue. It’s not about shipping a pairing rather than another, it’s just that from a narrative point of view there was no reason for Steve to look at that compass in a moment of the movie when time travel wasn’t even an option they had considered. It clearly only served as a way to make Steve’s choice at the end look less shoehorned. But I don’t think it worked out too well.
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