Captain America: The Winter Soldier 2014

Story/Plot:

Two years after the Battle of New York,^[a] Steve Rogers works in Washington, D.C., for the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., while adjusting to contemporary society. He is sent with Agent Natasha Romanoff and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s counter-terrorism team S.T.R.I.K.E., led by Agent Brock Rumlow, to free hostages aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. vessel from pirates led by Georges Batroc. During the mission, Rogers learns that Romanoff has a secret assignment from S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury to extract data from the ship’s computers.

At the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters, Rogers confronts Fury and is briefed about Project Insight: three Helicarriers linked to spy satellites, designed to preemptively eliminate threats. Unable to decrypt Romanoff’s data, Fury becomes suspicious about Insight and asks senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official Secretary Alexander Pierce to delay the project. On his way to rendezvous with Maria Hill, Fury is ambushed by assailants led by an assassin called the Winter Soldier. Escaping to Rogers’s apartment, Fury warns him that S.H.I.E.L.D. is compromised. He is shot by the Winter Soldier before handing Rogers a flash drive of the ship’s data and tells him to trust no one. Fury is later pronounced dead during surgery.

Pierce questions Rogers about Fury, but Rogers refuses to answer. He is branded a fugitive and is joined by Romanoff. They use the flash drive to find a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker in New Jersey where they activate a supercomputer containing the preserved consciousness of Arnim Zola. Zola explains that, after being captured by Rogers during World War II, he was recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D. and helped to secretly reform Hydra within its ranks, using the Winter Soldier to spread chaos. Rogers and Romanoff narrowly escape a S.H.I.E.L.D. missile that destroys the bunker, and realize that Pierce is Hydra’s leader within S.H.I.E.L.D.

Rogers and Romanoff enlist the help of the former’s friend Sam Wilson, a VA counselor and former USAF pararescueman who uses a powered “Falcon” wingpack. The trio capture S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell, a Hydra mole, and force him to divulge that Zola developed a data mining algorithm that can identify current or future threats to Hydra . The Insight Helicarriers would sweep the globe using satellite-directed guns to eliminate these threats. Sitwell is killed in an ambush by the Winter Soldier, whom Rogers recognizes as his presumed-dead best friend Bucky Barnes. Barnes survived due to Zola’s experimentation and has been repeatedly brainwashed and cryogenically frozen to perform Hydra missions. Hill extracts Rogers, Romanoff, and Wilson to a safehouse where Fury, who faked his death, plans to sabotage the Helicarriers by replacing their control chips.

After World Security Council members arrive at the Triskelion for the Insight launch, Rogers broadcasts Hydra plot to the building. Romanoff, disguised as one of the Council members, disarms Pierce. Fury arrives and forces Pierce to unlock S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database so Romanoff can leak classified information, exposing Hydra to the public. Following a struggle, Fury fatally shoots Pierce. Rogers and Wilson raid two Helicarriers and replace the control chips, but Barnes destroys Wilson’s wingpack and fights Rogers on the third. Rogers replaces the final chip, allowing Hill to take control and have the vessels destroy each other. He refuses to fight Barnes, who does not recognize him. As the Helicarriers collide with the Triskelion, Rogers falls into the Potomac River. Rumlow, another Hydra agent, is injured in the destruction. Barnes rescues the unconscious Rogers before disappearing.

With S.H.I.E.L.D. in disarray, Romanoff appears before a Senate subcommittee to defend her and Rogers’s actions. Fury, under the cover of his apparent death, pursues Hydra’s remaining cells. Rogers and Wilson decide to find Barnes. In a mid-credits scene, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker and his scientists at a Hydra lab examine an energy-filled scepter^[b] and twin test subjects who have been given superhuman abilities: one has superhuman speed, the other has telekinetic powers.^[c] In a post-credits scene, Barnes visits his own memorial at the Smithsonian Institution.