People don’t talk enough how much Steve has lost. His father died in WWI, meaning he grew up fatherless in a time when it was much more difficult for a single mother to support and provide for herself an her child. When he was only 18 (and chronically ill himself) he lost his mother to a horrific disease. He saw the love of his life die horribly right in front him. He lost every person he’d ever known and woke up alone in a strange time. I feel like many ppl really gloss over Steve’s trauma.

iamnmbr3:

iamnotsebastianstan-archive-dea:

Right! And I feel like people gloss over it because the films gloss over it. Like, Tony stans literally do not shut up about everything Tony has gone through, everything Tony has lost, the issues that left Tony with – but they have 3 films that address that. The entire purpose of IM3 was to address Tony’s PTSD and Anxiety.

But with Steve, it’s just brushed passed. Steve is an orphan. When we first meet him in catfa he’s an orphan. He probably watched his mother die slowly, and rather horrifically in front of him. He never would have really known his father as Steve was born at the end of WW1 and his father died in it. When he enters the war he’s got 1 person, and that’s Bucky. He picks up people along the way – like Howard, like the Howlies, like Peggy – and however you see these relationships, there’s no doubt all of those people meant something to Steve, he cared about them. And then he watches Bucky fall, and that’s his world right there, it’s always been SteveandBucky, ever since they came home from school joint at the hip the first time. As long as he can remember, it’s been him and Bucky, and he’s watching half of his heart fall away from him. Then, all the rest happens and he wakes up in 2011, and it’s 70 years on nearly, and everyone he knows is dead. Literally every single person he knew is gone, it’s just him. And sure Peggy is still alive but she’s not really there, she’s also pretty much gone. And not only has he lost people, he’s lost his world. Steve Rogers literally woke up one morning in 1945, fell into a sleep he never planned on waking from, but when he did he was in 2011. Every single thing he knew, was gone, or different or changed somehow.

And the films literally never address that. They never address the extent of how much loss Steve has dealt with. They sorta briefly hint at the fact he could potentially have PTSD in regards to the war, and the shit he saw as a soldier, when he goes to visit Sam at the VA. But even that’s like subtext. But Steve lost everything, and he consistently displays reckless behaviour with little to no regard for his own safety or potential survival, which to me indicates that he’s probably severely depressed. And whilst he might not actively be suicidal, he’s also incredibly careless with his own existence, almost in a “I’m not trying to die but if I did, it’d be okay” way. Steve Rogers is going through so much shit, and the films do not do a god job at showing how much he’s mourning, how much he’s hurting and how much suffering he’s dealing with, and I don’t think fandom really does either.

Also remember, in addition to everything else, he was also very ill for most of his life and probably would have died quite young if he hadn’t gotten the serum. Personally I think some of his pre-Serum risk taking behavior was his way of coming to terms with his likely early death. I think he wanted his life to mean something. Maybe he even tried to sign up for the 107th because he thought the least he could do would be to die protecting Bucky in the war. Maybe the hope that his existence would have some significance was what drove him to throw himself on that grenade.

Steve shows all the signs of someone coping with severe depression doing a good job of hiding it. And he doesn’t even have to do a very good job, because he has literally no one to check up on him. Peggy’s elderly and in no condition to really look out for him. And she’s it. She’s the entirety of his support network until Winter Soldier when he meets Sam and bonds with Natasha. He has no family. No friends. Nothing.

Given everything he’s gone through it is, quite frankly, astounding that Steve is as functional as he is. I think it’s at least in part due to his stubbornness. But also I think, due to the fact that he doesn’t want Bucky to have died in vain. Remember, he wakes up and almost immediately Nick Fury briefs him on the tesseract. You know, the thing he tried to give his life to stop? The thing that led to Bucky’s fall. (Can you imagine how furious Steve must be, that after all that, they pulled it out of the water?) Even when Steve thinks he’s lost Bucky, he’s still fighting for him. He wants to make sure the world Bucky died to create doesn’t slip away.

So he keeps fighting. He keeps living. After surviving the plane crash he knows he may not be able to die anyway, so he falls back on the only other thing he knows. But he must be so tired. I think it’s significant that his fighting style really changes after he discovers that Bucky’s alive. Sure, he still takes risks, but he doesn’t take stupid ones, because now he doesn’t just have something to die for. He has something to live for too. 

It’s why we see him smile, and laugh in Age of Ultron. Because sure, his life is still tragic and difficult, he’s still lonely and heartbroken, but at least he knows that somewhere out there, Bucky’s alive.