Tag: ca: cw

brendaonao3:

vindicatedtruth:

melrakki:

starkarya:

“We don’t trade lives”– Captain Steven Grant Rogers

That’s the thing about him. After Civil War, a lot of people argued that Steve’s actions were selfish because he acted simply out of love for his best friend rather than doing what’s right and honestly now? When someone says something like this I wonder if they know Steven Grant Rogers at all because let me tell you, he would do the same for a complete stranger who was in a tough spot and needed his help. I mean, Vision even fought against him in Civil War, and look at him.

I would actually propose that Steve’s decisions are always based on what he believes is right—even if it means standing up against the very people he loves.

I keep seeing people argue that he’s blindingly selfish when it comes to Bucky; people also seem to conveniently forget that he nearly died fighting against Bucky during Winter Soldier, because even his love for Bucky couldn’t stand in the way of saving millions of lives and keeping HYDRA from taking over the world.

What’s amazing and admirable about Steve is that he somehow manages to balance his beliefs about what is right with his unconditional loyalty to all of his friends. It’s especially apparent in Civil War:

  • He didn’t shy away from sharing or even completely owning up to the blame for what happened in Lagos, refusing to let Wanda carry that burden on herself.
  • After hearing about the UN bombing, his first instinct was to call Natasha to ask if she’s okay, because he didn’t take it against her that she took Tony’s side.  He respected her decision and just wanted to see if she was okay.
  • He took Bucky’s side this time instead of fighting him not because he was his best friend—although of course that’s part of the consideration—but because Bucky just revealed that there were five more Winter Soldiers just like him, and Steve’s initial understanding of what Zemo meant by toppling an empire was taking control of these Winter Soldiers to take down a country, and that is what he couldn’t allow to happen.  He didn’t even stop to consider what country it was, because his loyalty wasn’t confined to just America; he just knew that he couldn’t let any country fall if he could help it.  
  • He owned up responsibility to what happened to his friends when Secretary Ross incarcerated them, and took the risk of breaking them out, because he could never leave behind his friends, especially not Sam, who had been completely supportive of him despite voicing his own apprehensions; but also Scott, whom he was open to about the risks from the very beginning; Clint, whom he knew had a family to protect; and Wanda.
  • And most of all, he owned up to the blame on the pain he caused Tony, apologised to him while respecting Tony’s anger at him—even giving back his shield when Tony asked him to, despite his shield being such a integral part of who he is, the way Mjolnir was to Thor—and willingly gave Tony the space and time away that he needed; but also—and this is the most important part—promising Tony that no matter what happened between them, no matter what will happen between them, no matter what Tony feels towards him, he will always be there for Tony.  He gave Tony that phone because he wanted to give Tony the choice to contact him, wanted to let Tony have that initiative, and he wouldn’t impose himself on Tony if Tony didn’t want him to.  He respected Tony’s choice to cut him off, but—this should be stressed—he made it clear that he wasn’t cutting Tony off from his life.

And on a related matter, it should also be noted that the Steve Rogers of Civil War is also the Steve Rogers who had been betrayed by both SHIELD and HYDRA in Winter Soldier, who found out that the very organization he was working for was in fact using him covertly in their mission to take over the world.  

This is why he said:

  • “[The Sokovia Accords] just shifts the blame. [Organizations] are run by people with agendas, and agendas change. If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there’s somewhere we need to go and they won’t let us?”

It’s simply because he doesn’t want any of his friends to be betrayed by the government the way it happened to him; which is exactly what happened by the end of the movie anyway.   The point I’m trying to make is not that he’s right—the politics here is tricky and there’s no one way to do it right—but simply that he didn’t make his point out of selfish reasons and he sure as hell didn’t do it just for Bucky; he did it because he wanted to protect his friends from the agendas of organizations who might end up using them like they did to him.  

And most of all, he didn’t want to undermine the safety of anyone or any country just because of the ever-changing politics and agendas of people.

Fast forward to Infinity War, and people are criticizing his choice to save Vision instead of destroying the Mind Stone immediately (and killing Vision in the process).  Barring the fact that I find it highly disturbing that people are even suggesting murdering a friend (yes, I consider Vision as someone with life—but that’s a whole other issue that I’m willing to discuss another time), I also want to point out that Vision can also be considered as Tony’s son, in a much truer way than even Peter Parker.  

Bruce even said it directly: there is so much of himself and Tony in Vision, making them more like family—especially because there is so much of JARVIS and Ultron in Vision, both of whom are also Tony’s creations. In choosing to protect Vision, Steve in essence did the best he could to protect not only a friend and comrade, not only the person Wanda loves, but also Tony’s son, when Tony couldn’t be there to protect Vision himself, regardless of whether or not Tony has already forgiven Steve.

Steve did his very best to do the right thing for Vision, for Wanda, for Tony, because he unconditionally loves them all, regardless of how they felt about him.

And that moment in the Avengers compound when Steve was watching Wanda’s face crumple when Vision himself was suggesting that he should sacrifice himself, that moment was incredibly poignant too; because seeing the empathy flicker across Steve’s face, he must have been reminded of his own missed chance of a love and life with Peggy, and he didn’t want Wanda to experience that—precisely because he knew what the heartbreak felt like.

“We don’t trade lives,” Steve declared. And to the very best of his ability, he would always, always mean all of them.

You can trace this all the way back to The First Avenger, too – when Colonel Phillips told him Bucky was most likely dead, Steve still went behind enemy lines BY HIMSELF to rescue the 107th

Because Phillips and the US Army may have been written off the 107th as a lost cause, but Steve would have never been able to live with himself if he didn’t at least try to save as many men as he could, even if Bucky was already gone.

vulcansmirk:

i can’t stop thinking about the look on steve’s face as he watches tony process the footage of december 16, 1991.

he looks briefly at the screen, but isn’t at all surprised by what he sees, and before long he turns to look at tony, a little trepidatious, but strangely cold and considering, like i know what this is, i know what it will do to you, i want to see how you’ll respond.

and then tony sees the footage, watches it happen – bucky yanking howard’s head up by the hair, howard calling bucky by name, bucky rewarding him with two swift blows to the face, and howard falling, limp, to the ground; bucky circling slowly to maria’s side of the car, reaching out with his flesh hand, training his eyes coldly on something in the distance as he chokes the life out of her.

tony is heartbroken, he’s betrayed, and steve’s expecting that; when tony lunges for bucky, steve lunges, too, catching him before he can get any closer. and i think tony picks up on how quick steve’s reaction is, too quick even for a supersoldier, because he redirects his attention to steve then and asks him in this broken voice, did you know?

steve tries to sidestep the question at first – i didn’t know it was him – but tony’s too smart for that. don’t bullshit me, rogers! did you know?

and there’s this tense pause, because tony knows, we all know, what steve will say. he looks at tony and he’s totally shattered, his voice tiny and cracked in two as he finally says the word we all saw coming, but dreaded to hear.

yes.

this, finally, is steve’s dark side. it’s no angry, violent thing; it’s small and tender and sad. it’s the hole gauged out of him from too many years spent alone, and it’s all the terrible things he’d do – all the lies he’d tell, all the codes he’d break, all the people he’d hurt – to protect the one person who remembers what he was like when he was whole.

honesteve:

did anyone else notice when tony knocks steve down toward the end of the fight in siberia, and steve struggles to drag himself back to his feet, and we cut to a wider shot that makes everyone, but especially steve, look so fucking small, and it’s like steve is a little guy in brooklyn again fighting off the bullies, and he stands up and wobbles a bit just like he did in that scene in catfa, but his eyes are hard as steel when they meet tony’s, and he says, for the thousandth time, i can do this all day

then, even though he’s laid out on the cold stone, beaten and bloody and broken, even though he’s half-unconscious and he just lost his goddamn arm fighting tony, bucky takes steve’s words like a cue, drags himself toward tony as best he can, and his best isn’t that great right now, but it’s enough, because he grabs tony’s ankle and tony’s distracted from steve, turning around to fight off a defenseless bucky, which gives steve the opening he needs

did anyone else notice that even though he’s totally shattered and half-dead himself, bucky jumps into this fight same as the one we saw way back in 1943, same as all the other fights steve started back in brooklyn but couldn’t finish alone; did anyone else notice that even though this whole fight was about steve saving bucky, in the end, it was still bucky who saved steve?