Oh, and also, regarding your point: Steve's acceptance of James at the end, his willingness to let Bucky go, just slayed me.
Yeah, that part was hard. I think Steve, up to the point of walking out of the elevator, wasn't quite ready to accept James and give up on Bucky. After all, he'd spent all these years thinking about Bucky. But between Nat's talk and actually seeing "live and in technicolor" what it meant to have his Bucky back -- *that* was the moment when he realizes that (a) James is his own person, (b) his relationship with James is also valuable, and (c) maybe a perfect facsimile of Bucky wasn't what he wanted after all. At the heart of it, Steve is a selfless person, so once he realizes what's happening -- it's just not something that he can do to James. That's SOOO much worse than ordering James to have sex with him. And if it means consigning Bucky to the past ... well, them's the breaks.
(One of the things that always gets to me about Steve is both how selfish and how selfless he is. ugh Steve feels.)
Re: Mini-fill [2/2] Re: The Asset is genuinely thrilled with his new handler
Yeah, that part was hard. I think Steve, up to the point of walking out of the elevator, wasn't quite ready to accept James and give up on Bucky. After all, he'd spent all these years thinking about Bucky. But between Nat's talk and actually seeing "live and in technicolor" what it meant to have his Bucky back -- *that* was the moment when he realizes that (a) James is his own person, (b) his relationship with James is also valuable, and (c) maybe a perfect facsimile of Bucky wasn't what he wanted after all. At the heart of it, Steve is a selfless person, so once he realizes what's happening -- it's just not something that he can do to James. That's SOOO much worse than ordering James to have sex with him. And if it means consigning Bucky to the past ... well, them's the breaks.
(One of the things that always gets to me about Steve is both how selfish and how selfless he is. ugh Steve feels.)