If you’re not deep into internet culture, you may be unaware of the intensely devoted section of the Captain America fan base who consider Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), not Peggy Carter (Haley Atwell), to be the true object of Steve Rogers’ (Chris Evans) affection. Oh but they’re out there. Just search Bucky/Steve and you’ll see what I mean. But make sure you have the safe search mode switched on first.

Bucky and Steve are far from the first same-sex coupling to become a huge hit in pop culture fandoms. Recent fantasies about pairings like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner in The Avengers, Poe Dameron and Finn in Star Wars, and just about anyone in the long-running show Supernatural dominate the internet. In the past, creators have sometimes shot down these homoerotic fan theories, but lately there’s been a shift. Captain America co-director Joe Russo said during a recent interview in China, “People can interpret the relationship however they want to interpret it . . . People have interpreted that relationship all kinds of ways, and it’s great to see people argue about it what that relationship means to them. We will never define it as filmmakers, explicitly, but however people want to interpret it they can interpret it.”

Russo went on to clarify that his interpretation of the Bucky/Steve relationship is more fraternal than romantic:

For us, we’ve always interpreted the relationship as two brothers. They’re very close characters, they have a relationship with each other that is very deep. The bonds between the characters are very strong. That’s what motivates the storytelling. These are both characters that came from nothing. Captain America was basically an orphan, and Bucky’s family took him in… When he was sleep for several years, he lost everything that was dear to him. And when he took the serum and became Captain America, he gave away a large part of himself for a patriotic cause. So, you have a character who is searching for the only thing that he has left from his past… and that’s Bucky.

Evans himself has also addressed the intense fan reaction to Steve’s relationship with Bucky giving a lot of the credit to his co-star. Speaking with Buzzfeed he said: