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 onetraditionally-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.
Steve puts the quinjet down on an empty stretch of tundra in the middle of god knows where. This far south, the snow has melted away; tall sheets of wiry grass ripple away from their landing site to the distant horizon. Somewhere behind them, the JCTC will be setting up a perimeter at the Siberian base. They’ll be gathering evidence, interviewing Tony and T’Challa, combing through the old files archived there. It won’t be long now before they start their pursuit.
A fine mist of exhaustion has descended over Steve’s eyes. It doesn’t matter if the JCTC are right on his tail, breathing down his neck; he needs to rest.
In the back of the quinjet, Bucky sits slumped in a shadowy corner on the narrow storage shelf where Steve left him. He’s asleep, or maybe unconscious. A thin string of bloody spittle hangs from his lower lip, dripping red down the front of his jacket. The stump of his left arm is a mess of torn wires and jagged plating. He needs first aid, but Steve has no idea where to start.
“Buck,” he says softly.
Bucky opens his eyes and blinks at Steve, sluggish and disoriented. His pupils are dilated – concussion, maybe. God knows he was hit hard enough. “Where are we?”
“Russian Steppe, I think,” says Steve. He can’t remember the last time he lost track of his coordinates like this. He’s been flying on autopilot, navigating on nothing but his own blind urge to get as far off the grid as possible. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” says Bucky. What a stupid question – of course Bucky’s not okay. He’s drooling blood, his fucking arm’s gone. “We’re stopped.”
Steve’s eyes feel scratchy when he blinks, dried out by too many days on next to no sleep. Every minute they spend grounded is a minute the government could use to catch them up, but he’s so tired that he’s run out of anxiety to spare for the thought. He needs to sleep – but first he needs to look after Bucky. “Hold your head still. I’m going to check your pupil response.”
Bucky’s eyes drift closed again. “Think I’ll just sleep this one off.”
“You could be concussed.”
“And what are you gonna do about it if I am? Stay out of my face, Steve.”
“Not until I’m satisfied you won’t fall into a coma while I’m asleep. God, I don’t know why you’re always like this.”
Bucky cracks an eye, just barely. “Always?”
“Since we were kids,” says Steve. Getting annoyed won’t do him any good. “One time we were playing ball with the neighbour’s kids, and one of the older ones knocked you down. You brushed it off and stayed out playing for hours. When you finally went home, your mom had to cut your pants off you because it turned out you’d bloodied your knees so bad that the fabric got all stuck in the wounds.”
Reminiscing about the past has always been a surefire way to get Bucky’s attention. But the magic doesn’t work this time, and Steve’s concerns about the concussion are deepening. A few silent moments pass, and it becomes clear that Bucky isn’t going to say anything. “Okay, fine. Tell me what year it is.”
Bucky’s mouth flattens to a thin, irritated line. “Two thousand and fuck off.”
“Why are you being like this?”
Bucky opens his eyes again, but he doesn’t look at Steve. His gaze is downcast; his throat bobs. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “It’s 2016, Matthew Ellis is is the president, the Sokovian Accords are signed and sealed and the whole world wants us locked up or dead. I’m banged up, but I’m not brain damaged and I don’t feel concussed. My memory’s no worse than usual. Can I go back to sleep now?”
The dim light and dark bruises make Bucky look gaunt and vulnerable. If Steve feels tired, Bucky must be worse. He’s been fighting for his life since Romania. Steve makes one more valiant effort to remember that.
“Come sit in the passenger seat, at least,” he says. “You’ll be a lot more comfortable.”
“I’m fine here.”
He could just admit that he’s in too much pain to move. Part of Steve wants to cry with frustration. “It’s only a few steps,” he says, as gently as he can manage. “It’ll be worth it. I’ll help you.”
“You’ve done enough.”
“Bucky,” says Steve through gritted teeth.
At long last, Bucky looks up and meets Steve’s gaze. There’s blood caked in his eyebrows and dirt and grime smeared all over his skin and forget tired, his eyes look dead – dark and bleak and drained of all life. “You’ve done enough,” he repeats without inflection.
If only he could think straight, Steve would know what to say in response. He’d see the guilt behind Bucky’s prickly bravado, the hopelessness, the self-loathing. He’d sit down on the bench beside him and wrap an arm carefully around his shoulders and tell him he doesn’t regret a single decision he made if it meant getting Bucky out alive.
Later, when he watches the glass frost over on Bucky’s cryo tank, he’ll blame himself for not speaking when he had the chance.
But right now, with the prospect of sleep dangling inches in front of him and Bucky’s sullenness the final obstacle, Steve doesn’t have the patience or the strength to see it through. “Fine,” he says. There’s a first aid kit in the overhead locker; Steve tosses it down on the bench in easy reach of Bucky’s remaining arm. “I’ll be up front if you need anything.”
The pilot’s chair, thank god, reclines almost horizontal. Steve falls asleep the moment his head hits the backrest.
are there any ww2-era cap fics, or even modern fics, that discuss/deal with the the widespread, military-supported use of amphetamines in their forces? the germans had pervitin–but the allies had benzedrine sulphate; benzedrine, i think, is still actually used to this day.
there’s a section in this old paper that goes “As the drug raises
the level of physical performance in the course of
prolonged effort by lessening the appreciation of
fatigue, it was considered wiser, when the emergency
was acute, to resort to the use of a drug
which makes men temporarily immune to fatigue
than to abandon the exhausted (Fetterman).On many a dangerous mission benzedrine helped
tired men to win the battle against sleep, when
they could not be replaced by rested reserves.”
if regular infantry kept popping energy pills to keep going, what about the theoretical drug usage of the howling commandos? From that same paper: “The responsibility
for the tactical use of benzedrine rests
with the commanding officer, who must decide
when the situation demands it. Distribution and
administration, however, is the responsibility of
the medical officer. When it should be used, how
much is needed, and what the effects will be are
matters of interest to every member of a tactical
organisation.” did all of them, including bucky, have to take above-average doses to keep pace with actual-superhuman captain america? did steve himself take benzedrine to stave off sleep when the mission stakes were too high to take an hour off to rest? would it be ineffective for him because of his metabolism?
what about the postwar consequences of prolonged drug use in returning servicemen? how did that affect the howlies when they went home, since they might have taken way, way more than was standard issue? was howard also on benzedrine to keep up his rapid R&D during the war? did that contribute to his postwar instability? did bucky go through a serious crash withdrawal with the russians during the early days of his confinement after his recovery, because they didn’t have supplies of benzedrine? what kind of supplementary dosing did HYDRA give him during the torture and reeducation? is modern-day bucky at a high risk for relapsing to amphetamines or other substances due to decades of drug dependency and experimentation? is he currently a drug addict? if he’s been ‘clean’ for at least a year, is he still suffering from various addiction-related psychological and health issues on top of his traumas and preexisting conditions?
what about steve? what’s his standpoint on performance-boosting drugs and drug dependency, given that his life was so fundamentally altered by the military-supervised application of an extreme and permanent performance-boosting chemical concoction into his body? his frequent dependence on medicine and health aids before the Rebirth procedure? smoking as a cultural norm during his original time period? would the serum have killed his nicotine addiction too, or would steve have kept smoking during the war as a social activity in the same way he kept drinking alcohol that wouldn’t get him tipsy? does he ever sneak away to smoke now when the nostalgia hits him, or is it the nostalgia that prevents him from finding comfort in the habit? (probably the latter. smokes aren’t the same nowadays anyway, just like bananas.)
My coworker is gun obsessed and she was telling me about snipers and how exceedingly rare it is for someone to be a successful sniper. Of course my mind immediately applied these random tid bits to Bucky Barnes.
As most of you may have already known there’s this thing called the coriolis effect. Basically, a long distance target, even if completely still, is technically a ‘moving target’ because the earth is rotating while the bullet is maintaining a relatively straight path. Thus, when shooting over 1000 yards (.56 miles) this needs to be factored in. (I’m not even going to go into spin drift: the rotating motion of the barrel of the gun).
Out to 1000 yards you could have nearly a full minute of correction because of coriolis effect depending on which direction you are shooting. Ie if you are shooting East your target is going to be dropping. If you are shooting towards the West your target is going to rotate up.
So, now-a-days we have automatic calculators for figuring out the coriolis effect quickly and accurately. Long distance shooters use daily updated data to build a drop chart or ballistic compensations. But, back when Bucky was a sniper they still used the mathematical formula for the coriolis effect to position their shots accurately. Bucky would have needed to know the relative motion of the object, the motion of the earth, and the latitude he was shooting from (as well as wind speeds etc) and then he would have had to compensate each shot almost to the tee in order to hit his targets.
Here’s the vector formula for the impact of the coriolis effect:
Bucky had to calculate this every time he positioned himself from his sniping position. In our fictitious MCU there is probably a tiny notebook floating around with Bucky’s scribbled equations.
If this doesn’t prove Bucky’s a fucking brainiac I don’t know what does.
“That line was an interesting moment. At the time, the choice I was making is that [Bucky] had realized there was no way he was getting out of there, and someone was gonna die, whether it was gonna be him, Steve or Tony. When he says that line, to me, it was a turning point
—
he was, like, ‘Okay, I know what you want me to say, and I’m just gonna say it.’ When someone comes at you over and over again, and they can’t hear you, they can’t see you’re pleading with them, you’re trying to figure out how to get through to them and they just won’t accept it, at some point you just give in, and you go, ‘that’s right, that’s what you want.’ Of course [Bucky] didn’t remember them all.”
—
Sebastian Stan
Wow. I had
honestly taken this statement at face value but if this is true then Bucky
lying about the extent of what he remembers isn’t an isolated incident, it becomes
a pattern, a strategy: Bucky intentionally
and deliberately using his memories, the only thing he truly owns at this
point, as a bargaining chip throughout the entire course of the movie to steer the
events if not in his favor, then at the very least toward what he considers an acceptable
outcome, namely sparing everyone else, and especially Steve, the pain of having
to deal with his shit. We talk a lot about Bucky’s lack of agency, but this right
here? This is him seizing and wielding the only tool at his disposal to exert
some influence on the narrative, despite having been left with almost no options.
In
Bucharest, he lies to make Steve go away. He wants Steve to distrust him, to
give up on him, and the only way he can see of accomplishing that is to pretend
that there’s not a “Bucky” anymore. He tries to shut Steve out completely, tries
to not even look (and fails, but he’s only human) as Steve is escorted away from
the glass cage. When he’s alone with the alleged psychologist though, he has no
reason to think Steve’s listening and no reason to lie, so he tells the truth,
a truth that is very important to him, especially in the face of being once
again trapped and examined by people who look at him and see only a weapon: “my
name is Bucky”.
Later, as
he wakes up with his arm trapped in the vice, he is hurt and disoriented and so
relieved when he sees Steve, that he can’t hide it. But it doesn’t matter,
because he quickly realizes that there’s no point in pretending anymore: Steve has
just done exactly what Bucky feared from the start: compromised himself for
Bucky in a way that he can’t take back. And Sam too. They made their choice, stupidly,
impossibly: they’re here for him. They need Bucky’s honesty now, or it will be
all for nothing. So Bucky gives it to them. He finally tells Steve that he
knows him, that he remembers him (the fact that it makes him so desperately
happy to be able to recite every trivial little detail, every hard won scrap of
memory that is a testament to how much Steve means to him, is made all the more
heartbreaking by the fact that he only does it because it’s become necessary). He
tells Steve and Sam about his encounter with Zemo, about the Siberian facility,
about the making and training of the other Winter Soldiers. The three of them
have a common objective now, a mission, and Bucky needs them, wants them, to
trust him.
It’s clear that
Bucky put a lot of effort into stitching together all the bits and pieces of
memory he could dredge up. And he did a good job of it. Does he already
know that there are still things he’s missing? Or does he realize that only when he sees the
beginning of that video? Given how committed he is to record and preserve in
writing whatever comes back to him, does that realization make him feel like he’s
failed all over again those people he couldn’t even remember killing?
Whatever the
answer, if we believe Sebastian’s words, in that moment up there Bucky is choosing
to lie again. Telling Tony what Tony wants to hear. Giving Tony the excuse Tony
clearly is looking for to just go ahead and murder him. He has reached the
conclusion that someone is going to die in that place, and he says what he
hopes will ensure that that someone will be him.
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