More fundamentally, as the commenter below put it, he doesn't know that Bucky has lost his best friends and his main source of security and love. From Sam's perspective, he and Steve were abusers who frightened Bucky and subjected him to sex he hated.
This is wonderful, and it's also terrible, because coming from this frame of mind, everything Sam and Steve have done makes sense. Since we're following Bucky's perspective, we see the disastrous turbulence his life has been thrown into subsequent to the traumatic loss of his support structure. (And that also clarifies, retrospectively, just how crucial their love and companionship were in enabling him to survive the entire world of shit he had to muck through just to get along in daily life.) But from Sam and Steve's perspective, why would they see it as him losing his support structure? If they thought they had coerced him into a relationship that was 100% abuse and rape, then wholly excising that from his life could only help him and let him start to heal. They tried to make sure he did have support, Steve's offer to do or be whatever Bucky needed, his therapist, his other friends, etc. How could they know that he feels like his strength has been ripped away, his self-image has been destroyed, and he's been left alone and defenseless in a world that's terrifyingly unkind to him? And that's what makes this SO painful, because Sam and Steve have caused much WORSE pain trying to fix the problem than they ever did perpetuating it, and they have NO IDEA that it's like a botched surgery, they killed the patient trying to carve out the disease, and Bucky's in so much pain and I just need them to knoooow. Even if there's an absolutely miserable ending and Bucky DIES, my burning desire at this point is just for Sam and Steve to understand the depths of his agony and what caused it. I suffer :(
Everything you write about Bucky makes sense. My poor baby.
Re: more for less, 7c/~10
This is wonderful, and it's also terrible, because coming from this frame of mind, everything Sam and Steve have done makes sense. Since we're following Bucky's perspective, we see the disastrous turbulence his life has been thrown into subsequent to the traumatic loss of his support structure. (And that also clarifies, retrospectively, just how crucial their love and companionship were in enabling him to survive the entire world of shit he had to muck through just to get along in daily life.) But from Sam and Steve's perspective, why would they see it as him losing his support structure? If they thought they had coerced him into a relationship that was 100% abuse and rape, then wholly excising that from his life could only help him and let him start to heal. They tried to make sure he did have support, Steve's offer to do or be whatever Bucky needed, his therapist, his other friends, etc. How could they know that he feels like his strength has been ripped away, his self-image has been destroyed, and he's been left alone and defenseless in a world that's terrifyingly unkind to him? And that's what makes this SO painful, because Sam and Steve have caused much WORSE pain trying to fix the problem than they ever did perpetuating it, and they have NO IDEA that it's like a botched surgery, they killed the patient trying to carve out the disease, and Bucky's in so much pain and I just need them to knoooow. Even if there's an absolutely miserable ending and Bucky DIES, my burning desire at this point is just for Sam and Steve to understand the depths of his agony and what caused it. I suffer :(
Everything you write about Bucky makes sense. My poor baby.