WINTER
SOLDIER
⦕✩⦖

The events of Captain America: The First Avenger play out as they did, concluding with Steve crashing the HYDRA plane Valkyrie into the Arctic after Johann Schmidt is transported to space via the Tesseract.

Howard Stark finds the Tesseract months after the crash, and almost finds Steve, but calls off the search prematurely.

After the events of Avengers: Endgame, Steve from Earth-199999 returns all the Infinity Stones taken from their respective timelines, and decides to make up for lost time and make a life for himself with Peggy Carter. He goes back in time, arrives on Earth-199998, and basically goes on to steal the life of Earth-199998 Steve who remains buried in ice until 1980.

A Soviet expedition team stumbles upon and recovers the frozen body of Earth-199998 Steve.

Based on what little intelligence they’d been able to gather, the Soviets believe that the Steve Rogers (Earth-199999 Steve) who has been running S.H.I.E.L.D. since its formation in 1955 is an imposter of some kind, created to bolster patriotism among the American public. That assumption leads to the belief that the Steve Rogers they’d recovered from the Arctic is in fact the real Captain America who had not been seen since 1945.

Steve is taken prisoner upon recovery, and subjected to a reconditioning protocol based on a heavily modified version of Project MKUltra.

Steve’s reconditioning is successful, and he is presented as the Winter Soldier, the Soviet’s secret weapon against the United States of America. His identity is known only to a select few in the Soviet government.

Steve embarks on covert missions at the behest of the Soviets, assassinating high value targets to either protect Soviet interests or to grow their influence in strategic regions.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union brings the Cold War to an end, but a splinter group of Soviet militia continues to operate in secret, backed by the Ten Rings in an effort to destabilize global politics. Steve remains in the service of this Soviet militia as the Winter Soldier.

Soviet agents kill Peggy, while Alexei Shostakov kills Bucky during a confrontation with Earth-199999 Steve. Still under the Soviets' thrall, the deaths of his first love and best friend do not affect Steve in the slightest.

Steve is tasked to assassinate Howard and Maria Stark, and steal Howard's plans for a much more advanced arc reactor for Project: Crimson Dynamo. Howard and Maria die thinking that their dear friend (Earth-199999) Steve had betrayed them.

Natasha Romanoff ‘graduates’ from the Red Room. Steve is assigned as her handler, and soon begins an abusive relationship with her.

Natasha defects from the Soviets and joins S.H.I.E.L.D. She confides in Nick Fury with regards to Steve’s true identity, a fact that Fury already knows but chooses to keep secret. He asks Natasha to do the same.

Steve is told to stand down and not seek retribution for Natasha’s betrayal.

The Soviets task Steve to assassinate the President of the United States, in an attempt to frame Earth-199999 Steve. The ploy works, and Earth-199999 Steve is branded as public enemy #1.

Even though Fury knows the truth about Steve and Earth-199999 Steve, there is nothing he can do until he gathers enough evidence to prove that the Soviets had compromised Steve into doing their bidding. Fury, with the full might of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the U.S. military, stages an attack on the Soviets.

Earth-199999 Steve and Natasha go on the run, and Natasha reveals everything she knows from her time working for the Soviets and partnering with Steve, both professionally and romantically.

Fury is successful in gathering evidence of the Soviets’ Winter Soldier program.

Steve tracks down Earth-199999 Steve and Natasha, and Natasha nearly dies in the ensuing fight. Steve loses the fight against Earth-199999 Steve, and is taken into custody.

Hank Pym begins reverse-engineering Earth-199999 Steve’s time-space GPS based on the schematics he’d drawn up when he tried to help fix the device.

Steve is put on trial for war crimes and the assassination of the President of the United States, but is ultimately pardoned thanks to the evidence Fury presents.

Steve is made to undergo rehabilitation to undo the Soviet’s Winter Soldier protocol.

Steve's rehabilitation is a success, but he remains vengeful about having his entire life stolen. Despite regaining his mind and his agency, he has lost everyone he's ever known and cared about before his capture and brainwashing by the Soviets, and now the very country he had vowed to serve sees him as a traitor, and a monster.

Steve is granted conditional release under the supervision of S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of his rehabilitation and reparations. By all appearances, he seems genuine in his intentions to make amends for everything he’s done as the Winter Soldier, but in reality he takes advantage of the leniency shown to him to lull everyone into a false sense of security.

Steve joins Project: Avengers as U.S. Agent.

Hank, with help from Tony Stark, successfully builds a prototype of the time-space GPS that’s close to the one that Earth-199999 Steve uses to travel the multiverse.

Upon learning of Hank’s success, Steve kills the former Avenger, steals the time-space GPS, and pursues the one man who ruined his life through the multiverse.