Rewatching the Marvel films, I've realized that maybe Bucky is giving longing looks to Steve, but Steve was sparking with Peggy, Thor, Sam, Natasha, Maria, and Sharon. There really is a difference in the way Chris Evans is playing it. He loves Bucky, yes, but fraternal not romantic. It really brings home to me how so much of the Endgame hate is people focused on Bucky not getting who/what he wanted, regardless of Steve's feelings and dreams.
Yeah, so here’s my take on that whole thing.
I personally agree with you that Steve had more/better chemistry with a lot of characters who weren’t Bucky, but that’s not even the point. Chemistry is absurdly subjective. Pairing choice is absurdly subjective. I see romance where others don’t, and vice-versa, and that’s fine. That’s a good thing, mostly. If all of us only cared about the canon pairings, how boring would that be?
My issue with the people you’re talking about is not rooted in, oh we interpret this piece of media differently. It’s as you said, the rampant, and frankly really gross implication that Bucky’s needs outweigh Steve’s. And the fandom’s frankly disturbing interpretation of, “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line,” and how that apparently means Steve isn’t allowed to want or need anything else in his life that isn’t Bucky.
With you til the end of the line does not mean that Steve is now dedicating the rest of his life to Bucky and only Bucky. He wasn’t canonically doing that in the first movie—fanon interpretation to the contrary—and he wasn’t doing it there either. He was saying look, kill me if you have to, but I’m not going to fight you, because I believe you’re still Bucky, I see that even if you don’t. I’m gonna keep believing that, and I’m going to keep trying to get you better, and you’re always going to be my friend.
In the context of that film—not the Stucky fandom version—that’s what Steve was saying, and he kept his promise. He kept looking for Bucky after Cap 2, he kept reminding Bucky that yes, you physically killed those people and that matters, but you were not in control. He kept reminding Bucky—and everyone else—of that so that Bucky wouldn’t take on burdens that weren’t his, wouldn’t blame himself more than he deserved to. He brought Bucky to Wakanda, to people who could help him get better in a way Steve himself never could have.
He kept his promise, within the context that it was made, which was not romantic. It doesn’t mean reading them romantically is invalid, but when the filmmakers have said flat out for years that, as far as they’re concerned it’s not a romantic love, you can’t cry queerbait. The longing looks that you’re seeing aren’t going to be seen by everyone else, just as the ones I’m seeing aren’t, and you can’t say you were cheated out of something you were promised when you’ve been actively told for years that no, you aren’t going to be getting that. You can be annoyed at not getting the thing you want, but you cannot say that you were promised something you didn’t get. The only people who have a valid claim there are Staron shippers, but anyway.
I was reading something recently about twin brothers who were both in therapy, one who, on the surface, was in much worse shape than the other. Paraphrasing something the psychiatrist said, “One brother’s treatment should not harm the other.” In this case, the more stable brother was basically ignoring his own needs, killing himself trying to save the other, and the doctor called him out on it.
Steve has trauma too. Steve deserves to heal too. Steve deserves to have the life that he wants too. ‘Til the end of the line does not mean that Bucky’s needs forever come before his own, nor should it.
