Captain America (Earth-199999)

Captain America, born Steven "Steve" Rogers on July 4, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, is an American soldier, hero, and founding member of the Avengers. Rogers grew up a short and scrawny boy in New York, and a frequent target for bullies. Perhaps as a result of this, he developed an exceptional sense of valor, bravery, and selflessness. When World War II broke out, Rogers was desperate to serve in the military, but his physical shortcomings precluded his dreams until Abraham Erskine singled him out for his super-soldier project, recognizing his potential heroism. Rogers accepted, and was imbued with superior physical abilities. He came to be known as Captain America, a powerful symbol of the American war effort.

Thanks to Erskine's super-soldier serum, Captain America possesses incredible strength, agility, and reflexes, as well as a greater general wellbeing: his aging is slowed greatly, and he is incapable of getting drunk due to his cells' rapid replenishment. He also grew significantly taller and more muscular in the process. Through his early alliance with the Strategic Scientific Reserve, "Cap" was outfitted with signature red, white and blue attire, as well as a circular shield made of nigh-unbreakable vibranium and emblazoned with a white star. His participation in the war was a massive turning point for Allied forces, as he personally defeated Red Skull and put an end to Hydra's efforts for the time being. During the war, he fell in love with British agent Peggy Carter, though this relationship didn't get off the ground before Cap crashed Red Skull's Valkyrie into the frozen sea below, seemingly killing him.

In truth, Cap was preserved in the ice for over 65 years—he was likely able to survive due to the super-soldier serum. He was found and recovered by S.H.I.E.L.D. in 2011. Cap adjusted to the shock of living in essentially a new world, and began fighting on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a means of continuing his calling as a protector. In 2012, Loki stole the powerful Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D., and Captain America was one of a group of heroes called upon to protect Earth from the coming Chitauri invasion led by Loki—these heroes would be known as the Avengers. Cap soon grew tired of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s philosophy of defense at the expense of freedom, and his scrutiny helped lead to the exposure of a colossal, covert Hydra presence within S.H.I.E.L.D. With the help of Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Falcon, Cap took down this conspiracy, dismantling both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. In the process, Cap learned that his childhood friend and war buddy Bucky Barnes had been brainwashed into a Hydra assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Cap was unable to convince his friend to shake his coerced allegiance. Barnes is now missing, and Cap is determined to find him once more.

Biography

American hero

Steve Rogers was the son of Joe Rogers, a soldier who died when Steve was very young. Steve grew up deeply aspiring to be a soldier himself, despite his small size. His mother, a nurse who eventually died of tuberculosis, encouraged him to be a good man and fight for what he believed in, but above all to stay alive. In 1930, the weak but plucky boy Rogers was saved from a group of bullies by James Barnes, who called himself Bucky; the two became fast friends. In 1941, the United States entered World War II when the Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Barnes and Rogers both sought to enlist in the military, but Barnes repeatedly told his friend that he was too small and weak to do so. Steve asked Bucky, a YMCA boxing champ, to become a personal trainer of sorts. After weeks of sparring matches and marathons, Rogers was in the peak physical condition that his body would allow, but was nonetheless rejected when he attempted to enlist. By June 1943, Barnes had been accepted and was ready to deploy as part of the Army.

Rogers attempted to enlist several times, but was repeatedly rejected on account of his small frame and numerous health issues. Rogers was desperate and eager to fight for his country, feelings that were exacerbated as he watched Barnes prepare for his own deployment. Rogers was discovered by Abraham Erskine, a German American scientist with the Strategic Scientific Reserve, who recognized his aplomb and just motivations. Erskine fast-tracked Rogers into a special program codenamed Project Rebirth, in which a small group of enlistees were studied for their potential aptitude to become a "super soldier." The process was overseen by Colonel Chester Phillips and British agent Peggy Carter. Despite showing little to no physical capabilities, Rogers demonstrated bravery and character of the highest order, and was chosen for the program.

Erskine explained that he would be injected with a super-soldier serum—a special concoction that amplified a person's existing qualities. On the night before the operation, Erskine told Rogers about his past. Shortly after the Nazis rose to power in Germany, Erskine's serum was forcibly claimed and used by Johann Schmidt, head of Nazi research division Hydra. Schmidt was and remained obsessed with mythological artifacts, as he believed they existed somewhere in the world to be claimed by a "superior man," and that he would be that man. Besides the serum not being complete, Schmidt was unfit for its effects, as it simply made him more malevolent than before.

The operation was staged in a secret facility in Brooklyn before Agent Carter, Col. Phillips, and select government officials, as well as being partially overseen by Howard Stark. The operation went off without a hitch. Rogers was locked inside of a machine for a few minutes, injected with the serum all across his body, and came out of it more muscular and several inches taller. However, tragedy struck moments later when one of the officials at hand set off a bomb, ran off with a sample of the serum, and shot and killed Erskine. He was in fact Heinz Kruger, an agent of Hydra in disguise. Carter and Rogers each took off after him, and Rogers realized that he was significantly faster and more agile than before. He caught up to Kruger and took him down, shattering the serum vial in the process. Defeated, Kruger swallowed a cyanide pill kept in his mouth and uttered his last words, "Hail Hydra."

The invasion sparked the U.S. into beginning to attack Hydra directly, and Rogers was eager to join the fight, but was rejected by Col. Phillips, who saw him as an unproven experiment. Rogers was approached by Senator Brandt, who pointed out that his showing against the Hydra spy had drawn national news. Brandt offered Rogers to dress up as a patriotic mascot, "Captain America," and sell war bonds. Rogers reluctantly accepted under the pretense of indirectly helping fight the war, and spent the next several months touring the country as well as entertaining allied soldiers abroad. While in Italy that November, Rogers learned that James Barnes' unit, including Barnes himself, had been almost entirely killed or captured in a conflict with Schmidt's forces in Austria. Those who weren't killed were believed to have been taken to a base 30 miles behind the frontline. Rogers knew he had to save Barnes if he was alive. Agent Carter was apprehensive, but believed in Rogers' ability, and chartered a plane for the two of them with Howard Stark at the helm.

The plane came under fire near the Hydra base; Rogers airdropped down and infiltrated it by hiding out in a transport truck. The base was in fact a factory being used to infuse various weaponry with the energy from the Tesseract, an ancient artifact that Schmidt had recently claimed. Rogers found Barnes' unit, the 107th, being held in cages, and introduced himself as Captain America for the first time. He freed the prisoners, who informed him that Barnes was being held in isolation. The soldiers began fighting their way out of the base, prompting Schmidt to trigger a self-destruct sequence from within. Rogers was able to find a weakened Barnes, and the two made haste out of the exploding base. They ran into Schmidt and Arnim Zola, a leading Hydra scientist. Schmidt demonstrated his own super-soldier powers and peeled away a high-quality mask from his face, revealing the bright, red, disfigured face underneath—the namesake for his colloquial title, Red Skull. The Hydra men casually evacuated by elevator, as the Americans were forced to flee by the stairs. Cap and Barnes narrowly escaped from the exploding factory, and returned to base the following day with much of the 107th and a Hydra tank, just as Col. Phillips was writing Rogers' KIA letter.

For his remarkable act of heroism, Rogers—now being called Captain America regularly and with pride—was readily accepted into the U.S. military proper. Barnes informed him that Schmidt had had weapon parts shipped to a base at an unknown location before the factory's explosion, and allied forces soon made it their priority to find that base. Cap formed a team made up of some of the toughest soldiers in the 107th, including Barnes. He met with Stark regarding equipment, and equipped himself with a circular shield made of vibranium, the rarest metal on Earth: stronger and lighter than steel, and perfectly shock-absorbant. Cap also opted to wear an updated version of his war-bonds uniform, perhaps for its effect on morale. Rogers and Carter each began to feel attracted to the other, though this was somewhat strained when she witnessed him being forcibly kissed by a female private.

Captain America and his team fought across Europe, defeating Hydra forces and providing ample footage for newsreels along the way. Cap and the others soon infiltrated a train that had Dr. Zola aboard, intending to capture him. A fight with onboard Hydra soldiers ensued, during which Barnes was knocked from the train and down the frozen mountainside, seemingly to his death. Zola was captured nonetheless, conspicuously not taking a cyanide pill in the process. As Rogers mourned his friend's death, Hydra forces under Schmidt were reported to have grown significantly, and possessed potentially catastrophic destructive power.

Schmidt's base was soon discovered by allied forces, and Cap volunteered to lead the assault. When the time came, he allowed himself to be captured, and he was taken into Red Skull's private chambers. The all-out assault began soon after, as allied forces led by Col. Phillips stormed the Hydra base. Eventually, with help from Phillips and Carter—who shared a kiss with Cap—he was able to chase Skull onto a plane that was set to bomb major points across the world with explosives powered by the Tesseract. Cap fought his way to the cockpit and did battle with Red Skull, eventually throwing his shield and striking the Tesseract itself. The collision triggered something in the powerful artifact that caused a rift to open in space, sucking Red Skull in and closing behind him. The Tesseract, ultra hot from this event, fell and burned through the floor of the plane, plummeting to the ocean below. Cap found that the plane itself was bound for a crash landing in New York, and that his only option was to take it down into the ice nearby. Carter pleaded with him over the radio to reconsider, as he promised to dance with her one day before crashing. The allies' victory over Hydra was a key point in the war, which ended in defeat for the Axis soon after.

Captain America was frozen and preserved in the ice. There he remained for several decades, until S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists recovered him in 2011. S.H.I.E.L.D. thawed Rogers out, still unconscious but perfectly alive. When Rogers awoke, he was in a small, simple bedroom with a radio playing a baseball game—one that he had attended as a boy. Rogers deduced that this was some sort of trick, and fled from the room, which was indeed a construction. Leaving the building, he found himself in Times Square, where he was soon surrounded by S.H.I.E.L.D. forces led by Nick Fury. Fury informed him that the room was an attempt to ease him into the fact that he had been asleep for nearly 70 years.

The Avengers

Captain America spent several months acclimating to the modern world, until May 2012 when he was approached by Nick Fury with a mission. Loki had arrived on Earth and stolen the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody—Howard Stark had retrieved the Tesseract from the ocean shortly after Cap's crash. Rogers tacitly accepted the mission, warning Fury that they should have left the Tesseract in the ocean. While being flown to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Rogers met Phil Coulson, an executive S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who admitted to being a big fan of his growing up. Coulson would go on to demonstrate his admiration of Captain America as the mission went on, even asking him to sign his rare trading cards.

Rogers arrived at the Helicarrier, an aerial, stealthed base of operations. He met with Natasha Romanoff, a remarkably skilled S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, A.K.A. Black Widow; and Bruce Banner, a brilliant scientist tasked with finding the Tesseract, A.K.A. his monstrous alterego, the Hulk. Loki was soon located in Stuttgart, Germany; Cap was assigned to take him in, and was flown to the target area by Romanoff. Loki was standing over a crowd of frightened citizens, insisting that they secretly needed to be subjugated. Cap interrupted, taking the fight to Loki. The two proved evenly matched—though this may have been partly because Loki was trying to be captured—until the arrival of Iron Man, A.K.A. Tony Stark, the son of Howard. Iron Man's significant weapons arsenal in his mechanical suit convinced Loki to back down and surrender.

Cap, Iron Man, and Romanoff took Loki into Romanoff's S.H.I.E.L.D. jet to fly him to custody, but were soon interrupted by the arrival of Loki's brother, Thor. Thor landed on the roof of the jet, forcing it open, taking Loki, and flying away. Iron Man chased him down, insisting that Loki was needed to find the Tesseract, while Thor demanded that he brought to Asgardian justice. As they did battle, Loki casually watched from afar, allowing the heroes to dismantle each other. Captain America soon arrived as well, attempting to stop the fight, but only angered Thor further. Thor swung his hammer, striking Cap's shield, and causing a gigantic shockwave that leveled much of the surrounding forestation. With the battle brought to a standstill, Thor agreed to cooperate, and Loki was returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.

Back at the Helicarrier, the team discussed the fact that Loki had taken mind control of Erik Selvig, a leading scientist, and Hawkeye, a fierce S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and master archer. Loki was trying to use the Tesseract to open a portal to Earth and facilitate an invasion by the Chitauri alien race, becoming ruler of the world in the process. To make the portal large and stable enough to do so, he needed iridium, which Hawkeye had acquired during the display in Stuttgart; and a significant energy source, which he still needed. Rogers spoke privately with Banner and Stark, who were both growing suspicious over S.H.I.E.L.D.'s motivations. Despite Stark being the number-one name in renewable energy—having recently built a towering skyscraper entirely powered by a self-sustaining arc reactor—he was never contacted by S.H.I.E.L.D. when they had control of the Tesseract, the greatest energy source the world had ever seen. Rogers was outwardly skeptical of Stark's concerns, telling him to follow orders and find the Tesseract, but secretly found weight in his words. Investigating deep into the Helicarrier, Cap found a stash of old Tesseract-powered weapons from Hydra.

He returned to Stark and Banner's lab, where the rest of the team and Fury had gathered. Rogers and the scientists confronted Fury, as Stark had uncovered evidence of weapons development with the Tesseract in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret files. Fury admitted that S.H.I.E.L.D. had begun researching offensive uses for the Tesseract after the arrival of Thor and other extraterrestrial elements that had exposed the human race's relative lack of firepower. Tension in the room grew, as Rogers and Stark became outwardly hostile to each other, each attacking the other's character and value to the team. Banner began to openly resent that S.H.I.E.L.D. had set up a cage for his other self on the Helicarrier, until an attack suddenly shook the aircraft.

Hawkeye and a platoon of soldiers loyal to Loki had taken out one of the Helicarrier's turbines, and Cap and Iron Man worked together to repair it. Cap handled the groundwork, fending off Loki's men while the more technologically inclined Iron Man instructed him from above. The two got the turbine up and running, stabilizing the Helicarrier's flight. Loki was freed from his confines by an underling, killing Phil Coulson on the way out. Loki and Thor were sent from the Helicarrier to the ground far below while fighting their own battles, while Black Widow fought Hawkeye and jostled him out of Loki's mind control.

Coulson's death shook the team emotionally, and helped bond them together. Stark deduced that Loki would next be heading to Stark Tower to use its arc reactor as the needed energy source to open his portal. Iron Man flew himself there, while Hawkeye flew a jet behind him with Cap and Widow. Loki and Selvig had indeed constructed a device at Stark Tower with the Tesseract at its core. Iron Man attempted to destroy it, but it was surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable energy field. The four met up in the streets of New York as the portal opened in the sky, allowing the Chitauri to flow through. The heroes were soon joined by Thor and the Hulk, fully assembling the Avengers for the first time.

Captain America served as a leader for the local law enforcement, instructing them where and how to evacuate civilians. Moreover, Cap handled the smaller but still critical elements of the battle, saving groups of bystanders as the more blatantly powerful Avengers battled the Chitauri in the air. Eventually, Widow made her way to Stark Tower and discovered from a clear-minded Selvig that Loki's scepter could break the portal device's barrier. Hulk also arrived at Stark Tower, repeatedly smashing Loki to the floor and taking him out of the equation. Elsewhere, the World Security Council determined that the Chitauri invasion was unstoppable, and decided to nuke Manhattan to stem the tide. As the missile arrived, Iron Man caught up to it and carried it through the portal, throwing it at the Chitauri mothership. The resulting catastrophic explosion caused a massive feedback discharge, killing all of the Chitauri ground forces. The Iron Man suit powered down, and Stark plummeted back through the portal, with the remainder of the explosion following behind him. Widow used Loki's scepter to sabotage the device and close the portal behind him, and Thor grabbed him from the sky, safely delivering him to the ground. The Avengers assembled at Stark Tower, taking the injured Loki into custody once more. Thor took the Tesseract and brought Loki to Asgard for justice at last.

The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra

Rogers continued working with Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., coordinating with S.T.R.I.K.E. teams led by Brock Rumlow to enact S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interests around the globe. In late 2013, he, Black Widow, and S.T.R.I.K.E. stopped an attempted terrorist attack in Chicago involving the dangerous Zodiac bioweapon, which they had stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. after the latter had claimed Zodiac had been destroyed. Early the following year, Cap met a veteran named Sam Wilson. The two bonded and became fast friends. He was suddenly picked up by Widow for a mission from S.H.I.E.L.D., recovering a satellite launch platform called the Lemurian Star that was being held for ransom by a group of pirates in the Indian Ocean led by Georges Batroc. Among the hostages was agent Jasper Sitwell. A S.T.R.I.K.E. team led by Brock Rumlow carried Rogers and Romanoff to the ship in question. The team rescued the hostages successfully, but Cap's mission was complicated by the fact that Widow had a different mission: to recover and extract S.H.I.E.L.D. data from the ship's computers. As a result, Batroc was able to escape. Returning to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Triskelion headquarters, Cap complained to Nick Fury, who said that the design of the mission was simply a matter of "compartmentalization." Fury took Rogers deep underground in the Triskelion and showed him Project Insight: three Helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites that had been launched from the Lemurian Star. As a result of this design, the aircrafts could remain airbone indefinitely, and were heavily armed besides. Rogers morally objected to the notion of "protecting" the world by creating increasingly dangerous weaponry.

Rogers visited Peggy Carter, who was laying in her bed, elderly and ill. Tragically, her memory was failing to the point of re-recognizing him mid-conversation. Rogers continued to bond with Sam Wilson, learning more about his time in the military. That night, he returned to his apartment and found that music was playing from inside. He cautiously entered through the window and found Fury sitting there, bloodied. Fury made idle conversation while telling him through written messages on his phone that there were "ears everywhere" and that S.H.I.E.L.D. was "compromised." Suddenly, Fury was struck by a powerful gun blast from outside, sending him to the floor. He handed Rogers a USB flash drive and told him not to trust anyone. Rogers' neighbor across the hall came in wielding a gun and revealed herself to be "Agent 13" of S.H.I.E.L.D. As she tended to Fury, Rogers chased after the shooter. The man was partially masked and possessed a metallic arm emblazoned with a red star, which was capable of catching Cap's shield in midair when thrown. The assailant escaped, and Rogers went to the hospital where Fury underwent emergency surgery. Romanoff and Maria Hill were also there. As the three watched from the observation room, Fury flatlined—Hill took his body. Rogers stored the flash drive inside of an open vending machine, and was taken in by S.H.I.E.L.D. for questioning.

He met with Alexander Pierce, World Security Council secretary, at the Triskelion. Pierce asked him why Fury was in his apartment. Remembering what Fury told him, Rogers kept his thoughts close to his chest. Pierce showed him footage from Algiers of a captured Batroc, who he said had been hired by an anonymous source to hijack the Lemurian Star by someone named "Jacob Veech," whom Pierce believed to actually be Fury. He said that the hijacking was subterfuge for the sale of classified intelligence. Pierce said that he would solve Fury's murder, and anyone who got in his way would regret it. Cap left and took the elevator down, where he was joined by Rumlow and other S.T.R.I.K.E. soldiers. The elevator continued to fill up, and Cap detected conspicuous behavior from the men increasingly surrounding him. He was thus prepared when they suddenly attacked him, and after a brief fight they were left in a pile on the floor of the elevator. As armed S.T.R.I.K.E. officers approached the elevator, he jumped out of the glass elevator to the garage below, jumping on his motorcycle and driving away. He was further accosted by an assault plane, but was able to take it down with several well-placed shield tosses.

Rogers returned to the hospital undercover, where he found that the flash drive had already been taken from the vending machine. Romanoff came up from behind him, and after a heated exchange, she said that she knew who killed Fury: a mythical assassin called the Winter Soldier. She handed him the flash drive, which was equipped with a homing program that would activate as soon as it was used, giving S.H.I.E.L.D. their exact location and giving them a limited time to escape. They went in disguise to a computer store in a nearby mall, where Romanoff attached it to a computer. She couldn't access the files inside due to advanced protections, but did locate where they'd been made: Wheaton, New Jersey. The two narrowly escaped as S.T.R.I.K.E. homed in on their location, and commandeered a car to make their way to Jersey.

Following the file's coordinates, the two arrived at the camp where Rogers had been trained in the '40s. They broke into a conspicuous bunker, which turned out to be a concealed S.H.I.E.L.D. building. They found a further concealed elevator, leading to a room filled with computers deep underground. They activated a central computer: an A.I. that referred to itself as Arnim Zola. Zola had died in 1972, and he preserved his brain in the vast array of databanks among which they were now standing. Zola informed them that after he'd been hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. after the war, he'd helped foster the resurgence of Hydra from within. For decades, they had secretly engineered countless catastrophies and wars, even orchestrating the deaths of Tony Stark's parents and now Nick Fury. Now, Project Insight was to be the culmination of Hydra's ultimate goal to liberate humanity of its freedom: the data that Romanoff had retrieved from the Lemurian Star was Zola's algorithm, needed to make Project Insight function. Zola was merely stalling for time, as Romanoff detected a missile coming their way. Rogers hid the two of them in a vent under the floor, and they narrowly survived as rubble came crumbling down around them. Rogers recovered and escaped with the unconscious Romanoff as S.T.R.I.K.E. surrounded the area.

The two took refuge at Sam Wilson's home. Romanoff was distraught at the idea that she may have spent years following Hydra orders. The two deduced that Pierce was the only one with the authority to order the missile strike. They also concluded that Jasper Sitwell, present on the Lemurian Star with Zola's algorithm, was with Hydra. Wilson offered to help, showing them photos of the Falcon flying suit that he had used in combat. They covertly retrieved it from a military base nearby and hatched a plan to abduct and interrogate Sitwell. They soon got him onto a high rooftop and Widow shoved him off, causing him to fall a great height before Wilson—the Falcon—caught him in midair, afraid for his life. He revealed that Zola's algorithm was used to assess innumerable digital records of every person on Earth and determine threats to Hydra, both existing and in the future, by analyzing every detail of their past. Project Insight would then kill everyone chosen by the algorithm from the air. Cap, Widow, and Falcon took Sitwell captive with the plan to use him to get through DNA scans and shut down Insight's helicarriers—a risky plan, as Insight was set to launch in 16 hours.

As they drove down the highway with Sitwell in tow, the Winter Soldier landed on the top of their car, smashed Sitwell's window, and threw him into traffic, killing him. The Winter Soldier was soon accompanied by other Hydra soldiers, leading to a full-blown military combat in the streets of Washington as the underequipped heroes attempted to escape. Cap and Winter Soldier met in hand-to-hand combat, knocking off the latter's mask and revealing him to be Bucky Barnes. Cap said his name, but Barnes didn't recognize it. As he fled the scene, a legion of S.T.R.I.K.E. soldiers arrived and apprehended the heroes—a news chopper overhead prevented them from killing them outright. As they sat in the back of a S.T.R.I.K.E. van, one of the helmeted officers killed the other, revealing herself to be Maria Hill. The four escaped through the bottom of the van with a high-powered laser device, leaving S.T.R.I.K.E. none the wiser.

Hill led them to a nondescript building where Fury was laying in a hospital bed, greatly injured but alive. He had used a drug to slow his heart rate to 1 BPM, faking his death to throw Hydra off of his case. Fury and Hill presented their plan to stop Hydra's Project Insight: each of three helicarriers would have to have their targeting equipment replaced by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own hardware. Fury wanted to reclaim Project Insight for S.H.I.E.L.D., but Rogers asserted that all of it—Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D.—had to be taken down to assure humanity's safety and freedom. Fury reluctantly agreed. Cap took his uniform on display at the Smithsonian Museum to prepare for the climactic mission. With about two hours left until Insight's launch, Cap, Falcon, and Hill infiltrated the Triskelion and took over its P.A. system. Cap informed everyone in the building that Hydra was among them, including Pierce, all of S.T.R.I.K.E., and the helicarrier teams. Meanwhile, Widow was sent in to pose as a member of the World Security Council using advanced cloaking technology.

Cap and Falcon each boarded one of the helicarriers and managed to switch out their respective targeting equipment as Hill advised them from the Triskelion. The two arrived at the final helicarrier, only to be confronted by the Winter Soldier. He ripped one of Falcon's wings off and threw him down, forcing him to parachute to safety. Cap and Winter Soldier fought in the core of the helicarrier. With less than a second to spare before the algorithm's deployment, Cap, riddled with bullets, replaced the targeting equipment, which replaced 700,000+ enemies of Hydra with the three helicarriers. The crafts fired on one another, sending two of them into the river below and the one holding Cap and Winter Soldier careening toward the Triskelion. As it grazed the building, the helicarrier continued to explode from within, and the two former friends continued to fight. Cap soon stopped himself, refusing to keep fighting his friend. As Winter Soldier continued to pound away at him with his metal fist, clearly overcome by internal conflict, the floor fell from beneath them and Cap fell into the river below. Later, Barnes pulled an unconscious Rogers to the shore, leaving him there alone. As all of this was happening, Widow and Nick Fury crashed Pierce's meeting with the World Security Council, using his retinal scan and Fury's to grant the necessary encryption to publicly release all files related to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, effectively bringing an end to both organizations and leading to the arrests of many Hydra operatives. Pierce killed the rest of the Council with a device attached to each of their lapels, while Fury killed him more simply with a gun. Rogers awoke in a hospital bed, Wilson by his side. The two later met with Fury at Fury's grave: he told them that if anyone asked after him, they could find him there. Through Romanoff, Rogers acquired a file with information about the Winter Soldier, and he and Falcon got ready to go look for him.

See also

• Captain America of Earth-616
• Captain America of Earth-1610