Real quick, before we get into this, a note for those poor souls who read this headline and were like, “Uh, what the hell is a Stucky?: Stucky is a cutesy combination of the names Steve (as in Rogers, aka Captain America) and Bucky (as in Barnes, aka Winter Soldier), and the preferred nickname used by the precious fans who ’ship them — or, in more basic terms, they just wanna see these two super-friends become super-lovers.

That said, the new spot for Avengers: Infinity War has Stucky Twitter all riled up:

As you can see, one scene in particular — in which Hot Bearded Cap lands in Wakanda and is reunited with his Bearded BFF (these beards, y’all) — has offered the Stucky hopefuls enough #content to power their Tumblrs for the next year, at least.

It’s a brief moment between the beloved heroes played by Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan — the Avengers dubbed by their super-mates as Most Likely to Die and Most Likely to Become the Next Cap, respectively. But in that single, shining moment, as Bucky and Cap look upon each other with wistful affection, Stucky ’shippers were given reason to hope that, after all the silly villains with wacky accents and all the fights to save the world (and each other), maybe this time it will be different.

Maybe this time Cap and Bucky (and their beards) will finally know the joy of true love’s embrace.

Jokes aside, Stucky ’shippers have more than enough reason to want to see these two together. Disney — and by extension, Marvel and Lucasfilm — have thus far refrained from depicting gay relationships in their major blockbuster films. Fans have long sensed that a few notable favorites in the Disney universe may be gay or bisexual; Elsa from Frozen, Poe and Finn in Star Wars, Vice Admiral Holdo in The Last Jedi, Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok, and yes, possibly even Cap and Bucky.

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While Poe and Finn and Cap and Bucky’s relationships have been clearly depicted as bromantic (albeit some rather suggestive looks of longing) and nothing more, the filmmakers and stars have validated fan suspicions regarding the rest — yet the films themselves refrain from making their sexuality explicit. Only last year’s Beauty and the Beast attempted to give fans what was being billed as Disney’s first “exclusively gay moment.” But that scene, in which Josh Gad’s LeFou briefly dances with another man (who recently discovered, via the Wardrobe, that he enjoys dressing in women’s clothing), was hardly a big deal.

Black Panther offered further disappointment when Florence Kasumba revealed that a scene had been cut in which her character, Ayo, flirts with Okoye, the general of the all-female Dora Milaje, played by Danai Gurira. It sounds like such a small moment, but one that could’ve meant quite a lot to some LGBTQ fans — especially the younger ones.

Although many fans might feel like there isn’t much text in the MCU to support a Stucky relationship, these ’shippers aren’t wrong. The desire to see these two characters kiss it out is a valid reaction to the lack of LGBTQ representation in Disney movies. Maybe if we had a few openly gay characters in the MCU and Star Wars, people wouldn’t have to content themselves with fan-fic and memes.

Marvel has released 18 films; Infinity War is set to be the 19th. The fact that an openly gay or queer superhero is still just some Tumblr fantasy isn’t exactly making the MCU seem very heroic right now. By the time Captain Marvel arrives, it’ll have taken the studio 21 movies to give us one female-led superhero film. How many more before they give us an LGBTQ character?

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