So I have read quite a bit of Winter Soldier fic since the movie came out and I’ve got a problem with some aspects of it. Let me preface this by saying all viewpoints are valid, especially for something like fan fiction – that’s the point of the thing, to bring your own perspective to it.  But I’m gonna rant anyway.

Bucky Barnes (and Steve Rogers) were soldiers in WWII. They were active duty commandos for something like two years depending on the timeline you choose to follow. Bucky was a sniper. I’ve known snipers, both in my time in the service and afterwards and there is a mindset there about it. While it is happening, it is a job. There isn’t guilt involved or you don’t stay a front line soldier for long. It kills you or gets beaten out of you by the situation. 

And don’t take my word for it. Dig up a copy of the Band of Brothers mini-series. The last episode in particular has some stuff in it that is relevant to this particular point (Bastogne is a great ep if you want to learn more about Bucky being platoon sergeant but that’s a different rant.). 

It is very much a ‘you or them’ situation when you’re out there with a weapon in your hand. Now. Does Bucky have the right to be a vengeful bastard because of HYDRA? Yes. No question. Loss of autonomy is a horrible thing. Is he going to be torn up about the deaths he caused? Maybe. I think he treasures life that any non psychotic person but I suspect he also knows that he can’t change the past and can only go forward from here. There is no doubt in my mind that the Bucky that fell from the train was a soldier and knew what his job was. There was a Winter Soldier in him or they couldn’t have drawn him out and I suspect he is the type of man that will own that.

I don’t think that Bucky is a woobie that thinks his death count means he isn’t worthy of breathing the same air as normal people. And the Steve Rogers we see in Winter Soldier wouldn’t think so either. Steve is a bit of an idealistic idiot but he’s not naive and he wanted all of HYDRA dead at the end of TFA. He had no compuction about killing aliens that were clearly sentient in Avengers and the ‘being Nick Fury’s garbage man’ certainly implies black or at least gray ops to me.