I’ve written already about how lonely and miserable Cap is in this movie, but I think it’s fair to say that he’s not just lonely for all the friends he lost in the 1940s — he’s lonely for Bucky, specifically. “Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky,” he says, when he finds out who the Winter Soldier truly is. Steve certainly misses Peggy and the Howling Commandos, but that loss is bittersweet. He at least knows that Peggy lived a long and happy life, and besides, he only knew Peggy and the Commandos for a few months, whereas he and Bucky had been living in each other’s pockets since childhood. Steve’s scene with Peggy is upsetting because it’s the one moment that really highlights the time travel aspect of the Captain America story: he can never go back. Peggy went on without him — she had to. But Bucky’s absence is more like (to use a rather inappropriate analogy) a missing limb. Not only did Bucky never get anything remotely approaching a happy ending, but Steve never really got any practise in functioning without him. Within days of Bucky’s death, Steve was piloting an aircraft into the ocean, and when he woke up he was thrust straight back into active service, in a totally alien environment but with SHIELD governing his every move — even stationing a spy at his door.

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