idk how you watch catws and not pick up on the fact that sam is absolutely a mirror of steve… they even straight up say it in the film.
“I do what he does, just slower”
okay we gonna do this because Sam is a reckless motherfucker that absolutely mirrors Steve’s characterization and i’m goddamn tired of people grossly misinterpreting his character b/c it fits in better with their two dimensional therapy dog version of him
Sam doesn’t like taking orders, he’s not pliant or obedient. He does what he believes is right and damn the rules (sound familiar??). Theres a reason they fucking hit it off so well right from the start.
Following that we have Steve turning up on his doorstep looking like a building got dropped on him. And what does Sam do?
Yeah sure… I’ll let a couple of avengers who just told me everybody is out to kill them into my house. Sounds like a good time. It’s also a bit telling that Sam knows exactly where his suit is. Ten bucks says he’s actually tried to steal it before but couldn’t quite manage it on his own.
And then we start getting into really no holds bar Sam:
Y’all like to forget Sam brought a two inch knife to a gun fight and won. Not to mention, he clearly walks around with a knife on him at all times… not just in his car, but on his person.
Sam gives no fucks and will take you out. Winter soldier? Bitch try it
Some hydra fool who won’t stop talking Nazi nonsense?
Fuck this guy. he’ll take him on in nothing but a fucking t-shirt.
Oh and remember that building that Steve jumped out of? Might as well top that by jumping out of the same one, just about 20 stories up.
Cool, cool, cool.
Going feet first towards the rotor blades of a helicopter, knowing if you miss your legs are mulch?
No problem.
Steve wants to track down an international maybe still brainwashed assassin?
When do we start?
And of course, this wouldn’t be complete without the penultimate Steve/Sam comparison.
So to everyone who trashes him, or does him a disservice by making him out to be nothing more than a therapist who can fix Bucky and Steve I have one thing to say. In the immortal words of the legend Samuel Thomas Wilson himself, “Man, shut the hell up.”
okay okay okay but imagine during sam’s (numerous) visits to bucky in wakanda, one day bucky casually mentions the notebooks in kept in his backpack during civil war. or at least, he TRIES to be casual about it but sam can tell he’s really upset about losing them for potentially forever, but also he’s curious and he’s like “what’d you write in these notebooks ? russian soup recipes ?”
bucky chuckles a little and he explains, tells sam about how sometimes he would jump up in the middle of the night and scribble down some scattered memory before it could fade away and be replaced by nightmares. he explains how the good memories, the ones with his family and steve before the war and the serum and everything else, were sometimes the ones that were harder to keep, how they would become blurry and static like a tv that doesn’t work so he decided to write them down, and then the bad ones got written down too because even though they were his own personal hell, he felt like he needed to remember.
sam’s quiet for awhile and then he says, “after my dad died, i kept a journal and everytime me or my mom smiled, laughed, or made a joke, i’d write it down. i was just a kid and we were so sad for so long, the happy moments were few and far between, so i thought i needed to find a way to keep them forever. eventually i started to write about the days when we couldn’t laugh or smile, or the times i cried myself to sleep and didn’t immediatly run to my mom’s bedroom because she had a long day and needed the rest and i didn’t wanna upset her even more. i kept it until i was sixteen and when my mom found it she burst into tears.”
they don’t speak much after that but the silence is meaningful, one more little piece of the puzzle that is their relationship slotting into place.
sam is gone very early the next day (”ex-superhero, ex-captain america business, you civilians don’t quite get it” “i could still bench press you one-handed, wilson”) but when bucky wakes up he finds an expensive-looking, leather cover notebook and an equally expensive-looking pen on his bedside table and when he opens it he reads “for the memories” written on the front page.
a few days later, sam receives a pic on his phone and it’s just a page of bucky’s new notebook that reads “thought about wilson’s stupid goggles and cackled so loud i scared the goats” with a drawing of a very ugly bird next to it, and that makes sam laugh out loud in the middle of a mission briefing, great timing barnes.
i'll apple your turnover 