After truly joining the fight in World War II thanks to his rescue of captured troops, including his old friend Bucky Barnes, Captain America quickly earned the respect and admiration. And it was not only from the soldiers he fought alongside, but also from British secret agent Peggy Carter, an expert on Hydra, who had served as Erskine’s assistant on the Super-Soldier program. After a series of battles overseas, Rogers, Barnes, and the Howling Commandos strike force staged an assault on a train carrying Hydra personnel, during which Barnes seemingly fell to his death. Grieving over the loss, Rogers nevertheless continued his campaign against Hydra, while also growing closer to Peggy.

Captain America took the fight directly to the Red Skull when he led an invasion of the villain’s base in an all-out attempt to break Hydra’s hold on the war. Rogers successfully boarded the Skull’s aircraft as it took off to launch an attack on the United States. But, when his foe’s powerful Tesseract energy source spelled the Red Skull’s doom, the Super-Soldier found himself with no other alternative then to purposefully crash the plane to stop its pre-programmed drive toward America. While Peggy Carter listened through radio communications with the aircraft, Steve Rogers took it down into the icy North Atlantic waters and apparently to his death.

Instead, Captain America entered into a state of suspended animation after the crash, and was recovered in the present day by S.H.I.E.L.D., the successor to Peggy Carter’s Strategic Scientific Reserve. Awakened, he learned of his current status and began the long journey to acclimating to a brand-new, modern world.

Almost immediately upon Steve Roger’s revival in the present, he was offered a spot in Nick Fury’s Avengers Initiative and took his place among other heroes, including Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk. The group first came together to battle Thor’s brother Loki. However, their initial teamwork was marred by internal strife, chiefly between Rogers and Tony Stark AKA Iron Man, the son of Rogers’ old wartime companion, Howard. The team eventually finally truly came together in the wake of their colleague Phil Coulson’s death at the hands of Loki.

In the ensuing battle in New York between the Avengers and Loki and his alien forces, Captain America took charge as a natural leader, coming up with an on-the-spot plan to contain the fight as much as possible to help innocent civilians escape. Loki was defeated. While the Avengers parted ways for the time being, the group had developed mutual respect for one another, as well as the desire to maintain the team when they were needed to address larger threats.

After filming a series of Public Service Announcements on different subjects for high school students, Captain America continued to acclimate to modern times and forged friendships with fellow Avenger Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow and a USAF operative named Sam Wilson. Rogers was spending much of his time assisting S.H.I.E.L.D. in the field.

Both Romanoff and Wilson aided him when it was discovered that Hydra had long ago infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and Rogers was on the run after an attempt to silence him. Rogers found another ally in Sharon Carter, an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he would later learn was Peggy Carter’s great niece. At this time, Rogers also discovered his old friend Bucky Barnes had not in fact died during World War II, but became a brainwashed sleeper agent and assassin for Hydra called the Winter Soldier. In the midst of stopping Hydra’s nefarious “Project Insight” program, Cap and Bucky battled, and Cap’s pleas to his old friend to remember who he was finally seemed to succeed, as Bucky saved Rogers from drowning, though he vanished in the aftermath.

Re-teaming with the Avengers to take out remaining Hydra cells brought Roger’s into contact with the enhanced siblings Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, as the Avengers retrieved the powerful staff Loki had used in his attempt to conquer Earth. After Tony Stark and Bruce Banner used the staff to help create a free-thinking robot called Ultron, only for Ultron to turn on humanity, Rogers took Stark to task over the situation, setting off a deep-seated disagreement between the two men. The Avengers, now joined by a regretful Wanda and Pietro, faced off with Ultron in the small nation of Sokovia, and although they defeated the robot, they failed to prevent the loss of Pietro or the devastation of the Sokovian people and their community.

Leading a new lineup of the Avengers, Captain America continued his work to fight criminals around the globe. But, when several innocents died during a confrontation with Cap’s enemy, Brock Rumlow, it set off a chain reaction that resulted in a United Nations-backed program called the Sokovia Accords, which would be used to register and control the actions of super humans and costumed champions. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark grappled with opposite opinions on the matter, with Rogers firmly against the concept of the Accords, which in turn led to the Avengers and various other heroes taking sides in the growing conflict. In the midst of this, Steve also had to deal with the death of the now-elderly Peggy Carter and was reunited with Sharon, who once again covertly helped him, while the two took tentative steps towards a romance.

During these events, Bucky also resurfaced after a lethal bomb was set off during a United Nation gathering over the Accords and the Winter Soldier was framed for the horrific act. The victims of that bombing included Wakanda's king, T’Chaka, leading his son, Prince T’Challa, the Black Panther, to seek revenge against Barnes. Inevitably, the tensions between Cap and his friends and their former teammates turned physical, with T’Challa among those fighting with Stark, as Rogers strove to protect Barnes and find the real culprit.

A truce was briefly called when Rogers and Stark both discovered the bombing was actually caused by Helmut Zemo, a Sokovian who lost his family during the Avengers battle against Ultron. However, the situation escalated again when Stark, as part of Zemo’s insidious plan to destroy the Avengers, learned that it was Barnes who had killed his parents years before and that Rogers had kept the information from him. In a bitter fight between Iron Man and Captain America, Rogers managed to eventually subdue Stark and walked away from the Avengers completely, leaving his shield behind. However, he sent Tony a message soon after, explaining his regrets over what had happened and letting Tony know he would be there for him should the need arise, leaving Stark a phone he could use to contact him if need be.

After breaking out the heroes who’d fought alongside him against Stark’s crew—and been imprisoned as a result—Steve Rogers accompanied Bucky Barnes to the technologically advanced nation of Wakanda to seek the aid of T’Challa, who also had learned of Barnes’ innocence in his father’s death. The Black Panther agreed to help his former foes, assuring Captain America it would be far from easy for any who may learn of Barnes’ presence in Wakanda and attempt to strike at him there.

For the next two years, Rogers remained on the run, staying in close contact with fellow fugitives Romanoff, Wilson, and Maximoff. Rogers eventually came out of hiding when Bruce Banner used the phone he’d left Stark to make contact, informing Rogers of the impending threat of Thanos, who was hunting for Vision’s mind stone. In Scotland, Rogers, Romanoff, and Wilson arrived in time to help fend off an attack against Maximoff and Vision by Thanos’ agents.

Briefly returning to Avengers headquarters in upstate New York, Rogers refused to accept Vision’s offer to have the mind stone destroyed knowing it would lead to Vision’s death. When it was suggested by Banner that there may be a way to remove the stone but keep Vision alive, Rogers once more sought help from T’Challa and the advanced science of Wakanda.

In Wakanda, Rogers and several fellow Avengers and allies, including Bucky, joined forces with T’Challa and his people to fight an army of Thanos’ followers, hoping to hold them off long enough for the stone to successfully be removed and destroyed. Despite their valiant effort, Thanos was able to gain possession of the mind stone, ripping it from Vision’s head and leaving him lifeless. Using his Infinity Gauntlet, now powered by all six infinity stones, Thanos snapped his fingers and extinguished half the life in the universe in one fell swoop. Rogers helplessly watched as many around him, including Bucky and other close friends, disintegrated before his eyes.