I found it very interesting when in the “but I knew him” scene where The Winter Soldier is being “repaired”,
Pierce tells Bucky:
“Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we’re gonna give it a push. But if you don’t do your part, I can’t do mine. And HYDRA can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.”
Pierce tells this to a confused and broken Bucky, as if coaxing him with the idea of Hydra giving the world the “freedom it deserves” as a means to get him to snap out of his slump and back to The Winter Soldier.
When that doesn’t work, he gets wiped.
Bucky’s been brainwashed into The Winter Soldier for almost a century yet Pierce tells him this…
Why tell him this?
Maybe…for all these years, the brainwashing wasn’t just about being the perfect weapon but tricking him thinking what he was doing was right thing?
James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes…the man who willing sacrificed himself for his best friend and his country…
Could it be, this whole time…
he was so unflinching in his role as the Winter Soldier simply because he thought he was being the hero?
Maybe the tears in his eyes before being wiped…
aren’t only just for the confusion for his flashes of memory brought about by seeing Steve for the first time in seventy years…
but the realization that by chance HE wasn’t actually the hero…
He even had his own star…
You people need to stop with the insightful ideas. *crying again*

Pierce tells Bucky:
When that doesn’t work, he gets wiped.
Bucky’s been brainwashed into The Winter Soldier for almost a century yet Pierce tells him this…
Why tell him this?
James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes…the man who willing sacrificed himself for his best friend and his country…
Could it be, this whole time…
he was so unflinching in his role as the Winter Soldier simply because he thought he was being the hero?
Maybe the tears in his eyes before being wiped…
aren’t only just for the confusion for his flashes of memory brought about by seeing Steve for the first time in seventy years…
but the realization that by chance HE wasn’t actually the hero…
He even had his own star…