I went under, the world was at war,
I wake up, they say we won.
They didn't say what we lost.
The lack of care given to Steve after his awakening, especially in terms of addressing his grief, survivor’s guilt, and PTSD, will forever infuriate me.
THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hey dude, you should literally be catatonic from grief and loss and shock but how about you jump right into fighting this mess we made while you were under??? Oh and while we’re at it, you’re gonna be ridiculed, marginalized, and treated like nothing more than a real life action figure.
No one will be particularly kind to you and at the end of the movie, you’ll go off alone while we’re all paired up.
Sound good???
OMG YES, so much this. Two weeks. TWO WEEKS. That’s the only adjustment Steve had between ‘hey, welcome to the 21st century, we do so hope you enjoy your stay’ and ‘hey man, we have this little alien problem, you think you can help us out with that?’. And there form of catching him up is handing him a manila envelope with personnel files on the Commandos, Howard and Peggy and all but Peggy had big red DECEASED stamps on it. That’s so cold, so impersonal. He had to sit there, in a horribly lit apartment, and read those stamps, one right after another, alone.
It took two years for Steve to meet Sam, the first person to ask him how he was doing and if he was happy (and yes, to be fair, I realize that Natasha was trying to help, in her own way, by encouraging him to go out and meet people). Honestly though, just thinking about Steve during those two years breaks my heart. Especially since we have a basis for comparison. Steve’s awakening in the comics was nothing like that, there he had people who reached out to him and took it upon themselves to help him adjust from the get-go. The contrast is heartbreaking.
YES to all of this! Imagine how much more sense CACW would have made (and how even more heartbreaking it would have been), if Tony had reached out to Steve at the end of Avengers, given him a place to stay while they built the team together…*sings We Could’ve Had it AAAAAALLLL” Not blaming “Tony.” That was Whedon’s call to send Steve off on his Lonely Motorcycle Ride of Not Dealing With Things.
