Bucky: I Have An Idea.

Bucky: I have an idea.

Tony: [turns in fear] Where did you come from?

Bucky: Tony, I’ve been walking next to you this entire time.

100% crack theory that is NOT supposed to be taken seriously, it's really just a combo of Bucky's absurd location hopping and coincidence.

Bucky's serum that Zola gave him was adapted using the Space stone and just happened to be compatible with Bucky's naturally high spatial awareness so it worked. It spatially locked him, ie making him immune to other people's spatial powers, and gave him the ability to slip in and out of space as flashy or subtly as he likes, and being Bucky/WS he's always gone the subtle route. It's how the Winter Soldier gained a reputation for being a ghost, and how Bucky seems to just disappear in a blink in scenes or implausibly show up in entirely different locations at speeds too fast for even a super soldier to be capable of.

Maybe he isn't really aware he can do it either and it escaped Hydra notice because it's bending space and reality in a specific way that mortals don't tend to be able to compute unless they're Wanda or a trained sorcerer. He uses it way more as the Winter Soldier because in that state he uses everything available to him to complete the mission, even powers he's only subconsciously aware of/uses like muscle memory or instinct. But as Bucky he's not so one track minded and can't consciously use something he's not aware he has.

Bucky can teleport in the comics but it's through the use of technology. It wouldn't be the first time Marvel has changed its characters' power sets and origins around, just look at the Maximoffs, Kamala and even Sam, who can talk to birds in the comics and has a real bird companion, but only has a drone in the MCU.

It really made me laugh rewatching CACW where he's just constantly showing up out of nowhere, popping up in completely different locations with not enough time for even a super soldier to get there and disappearing into thin fucking air so quickly it's frequently a running bit with the other characters doing double takes over where tf he just went. (I've seen so many commentators and reactors call out how the fuck he moves through the building so fast in CACW, and his dramatic exits? Where he's just gone? Outta nowhere? Even for a big scary elite Hydra super soldier that's ridiculous. It's not just editing weirdness either, it's something that's acknowledged IN UNIVERSE by multiple characters.)

On a final note it's fucking hilarious to imagine Bucky either somehow never noticed or just assumed it was something every super soldier could do too so never brought it up since they don't exactly go around stating their powers out in an itemized list lmao

the more I think about it the more I know if Bucky did end up doing the same thing as Steve and going back to live out his life from the 40s again he'd lose his goddamn mind within a week. This man has so many gadgets, he has all the gadgets all of the time, there's a theory that the flip phone he gives Raynor is a decoy because she expects being from the 40s that's what he'd use, and he's always playing around with tech and admiring cars

Bucky would miss modern tech way too much, he'd cry just seeing ONE single computer with a 5 byte capacity taking up an entire room

Although let's be realistic he wouldn't even last the week, he'd only make it ten paces the day of arrival before losing his shit at the first white person to open their mouth

I wonder if it'll ever be explained why they were never able to make a successful recreation of the serum from Bucky's blood. We know Hydra and the Soviets tried, presumably with his blood, but it always failed and they ended up having to steal from the Americans at least twice to be able to end up making Alexei and the Winter Soldiers into super soldiers. What about Bucky's specific strain, that presumably Schmidt had Zola perfect, meant it only worked for him? It's implied Bucky wasn't the first pow that Zola did this to, he's just the only one who survived.

I mean the Tesseract was in Hydra's possession at the time, so that might've been involved in Bucky's creation (and after some googling I've found out I'm not the only one who's theorized this). Hydra immediately then lost the Tesseract and therefore, without infinity stone's energy to trigger it, none of the serum recreations attempted from Bucky's blood worked.

Bucky's serum in the comics is the Infinity Formula given to him by Nick Fury, but it has no relation to the infinity stones. It wouldn't be a stretch to link them for the MCU though, considering how Bucky even became a super soldier in the first place is still mostly a big fucking mystery 13 years later, all we've got to go on is "Zola must've done something idk."

@azriona

Saw your tags and you raise a valid point, and I can believe that version of Bucky getting into politics since obviously he did, but that version of Bucky never went through any of the reasons I listed for why main MCU Bucky wouldn't willingly do the same

Secretary of State/Earth-82111 Bucky never fell from the train so he never got tortured by HYDRA, became an assassin, worked against multiple governments across the globe, or shared commonality with Isaiah Bradley that had been done by their own government rather than a shady Nazi society, was never put on a leash by the law for crimes he was also a victim in and victim blamed for, and has likely also never been to Wakanda. He had a whole different life.

They're two different people after all that, Sebastian Stan even said himself he was surprised when he saw his lines as Earth-82111 Bucky because he's so much different from primary Bucky

as someone who knows very little about the American governmental system... is it even realistic that Bucky is a senator/candidate, outside of the simple fact that it goes against everything we know about his character for the last 13 years and is deeply ooc and weird?

Can someone with his history actually become a senator? Dude has killed like...a lot of people, specifically American citizens to keep it relevant to this context, and he's openly broken the law and gone against multiple governments in some of the most wild displays of anarchy alongside Steve and the Avengers. Also I don't think he's been a consistent enough resident of any state even if you take out the Blip?? At least 9 years right? Bro has maybe been on American soil for 3 years, pre AND post Blip, and that's being generous assuming Thunderbolts takes place in 2024-2025.

I don't know how realistic it is that he's even able to run for senate? I'm not an expert, not American, but it just seems absurd.

The main take really is that Bucky Barnes as a senator is one of the stupidest things, what the hell

lol people are running out of things to say about the trailer why is there a whole article about how revolutionary the vibranium arm in the dishwasher is for the broader universe lore on water safe prosthesis in the marvel universe when Bucky took a whole ass dive into the potomac river in the first movie he appears with a metal arm in

the dishwasher is a comic relief bit I don't think it's intended to be that deep