I’ve also never read the comics, so I’m probably misinterpreting but to me Bucky was his BFF who always had Caps back when he was puny and dorky. Everyone loved super-soldier Captain America, but Bucky was his ride-or-die when he was just puny Steve. He always looked out for him and always inspired him to be the man he is today.

He also died on Cap’s watch, which probably gave Steve a lot of grief. Then Cap sacrifices himself, losing everyone he’d ever known or loved for the greater good ... Except he wakes up in this future, expected to keep fulfilling his duty as a soldier to fight for the greater good.

So he keeps slogging on, but learns Bucky never died. Instead, he learns the guy who’d always been there for him through thick and thin was tortured horribly, brainwashed and used by the other side to kill. Now he’s being framed and caught up in some bizarre mess.

More importantly I think Steve’s story arc is at first, revering the soldiers duty, to becoming disenfranchised by it and that your orders of what’s what’s ‘best’ largely depends on what side you’ve been trained by (Bucky vs Steve). He raises an important point when he asks what would happen if they were ordered to stand down or attack if they morally didn’t believe it was right?

To me, Tony was weird. One lady tells him her son died when they were busy saving the world from utter ruin, and he’s forcing this crazy law on all the Avengers? To the point where he’s jailing half his friends?

If Pepper was kidnapped and brainwashed, would he allow Cap to kill her on sight? I always found his story arc harder to believe because it was such a double standard.