During the events of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Steve Rogers and Bucky were very much out of the picture.
Following the events of Captain America: Civil War, the Avenger became a fugitive, while Bucky was cryogenically frozen in Wakanda under the watchful eye of Black Panther.
Nevertheless Cap had cameo in Spidey’s solo outing, appearing in a few scenes through pre-recorded exercise and detention videos – but it turns out Bucky also appeared in the movie.
The clue comes in the form of actor Kenneth Choi, who plays Principal Morita. He also played Jim Morita, a member of the Howling Commandos in Captain America: The First Avenger.
In the scene of Spider-Man Homecoming where Peter Parker is in Principal Morita’s office, you can a see a picture of Jim in his WW2 army uniform behind the desk.
Presumably the principal is a descendent, possibly even the son or grandson of Jim.
Now next to that is a photograph of the Howling Commandos, which includes none other than Bucky Barnes himself – before he was frozen for the first time and turned into the Winter Solider.
Bucky is played by Sebastian Stan, who recently spoke out on the struggles of shooting the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War.
Appearing at Rhode island Comic Con, he said: “It’s not something you always deal with. I feel like you always kind of have a script. But I guess, what I would say is, because we’ve done these characters for a bit now, there’s a little bit of a telepathic kind of knowledge between us and the writers.
“And you kind of can sometimes guess where they’re going to take it, a little bit. For example, this one was really hard, because we keep going in and out. I go back there for a week, and then I leave for a month.
“And then I go back there for a few more days. So it’s a little bit out of sync. But it still hopefully adds up in the end.”
Avengers: Infinity War will be released in UK cinemas on April 27, 2018.