The closest thing to a daughter

One year later 1

A year later, when Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon and Scarlet Witch pursued the terrorist Crossbones to Nigeria, where he stole a biological weapon, the all-changing disaster occurred: Crossbones mentioned to Steve that Bucky Barnes had woken up from his Faustus brainwashing and taunted him. This distracted Steve and he didn't realize that Crossbones was going to kill himself and Steve with an explosive vest. When he detonated the explosives, Scarlet Witch intervened in time. She contained the explosion and hurled Crossbones upward into the air next to a skyscraper. She failed to hurl him high enough, however, and so the explosion killed Crossbones in the process, killing a group of merchants from Wakanda who were inside the building.

After the events in Sokovia, when Ultron wanted to wipe out humanity and the Avengers intervened, the governments of 117 states agreed that there should be a controlling body over the Avengers in the future. This should ensure that the superheroes only take action when instructed to do so. Or in the worst case, if they could pose a threat, to ensure that the person concerned is locked up, as was already the case with Abigail Novanoff before she was kidnapped. The details of this were to be decided by the United Nations in the Sokovia Agreement. Before this decision was made, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, Thaddeus Ross, already wants to obtain the agreement in principle of the Avengers to abide by this agreement.

While Tony Stark, who still felt guilty for the creation of Ultron, was in favor of the agreement, Captain America disagrees: his experiences with the government and S.H.I.E.L.D. made him afraid that the controlling authority could act contrary to the moral beliefs of the team. In his words, "What if they send us somewhere we don't want to go? Or we want to go somewhere and they don't allow it?". The rest of the team was also split on the issue. Iron Man receives support from Natasha, Vision and James Rodhes. Captain America led the resisters, including Clint Barton, Sam Wilson and the initially indecisive Wanda Maximoff.

After countless failed attempts to find her daughter, Romanoff is pissed at Ross but desperately needs his support. So Black Widow is now determined to support the treaty, and traveled to Vienna where it would be signed. She met King T'Chaka of Wakanda and his son T'Challa there. While T'Chaka was addressing the assembly, the UN City was the target of a bomb attack. Security cameras pinpoint Bucky as the perpetrator and T'Challa vows to avenge his father. Against Natasha's warning, Steve and Sam Wilson decide to search for Bucky on their own.

Sharon Carter gave Steve the crucial tip where Bucky was staying and that international special forces were already on their way there. Steve entered Bucky's apartment and tried to talk to him - but Bucky remained silent and actually attacked the arriving police officers. He was stopped on the neighboring roof by Black Panther, after which both Bucky and Steve and Sam are arrested. T'Challa enjoys diplomatic immunity and is therefore merely asked not to resist and to come along.

They are taken to Berlin, where Bucky is questioned by a psychiatrist. However, the man turns out to be Helmut Zemo, who had killed the actual psychiatrist and, with the help of a stolen book, now reactivated the brainwashing in Bucky. Zemo fled after receiving a piece of information from Bucky, while Steve was able to stop Bucky and bring him back to his senses.

Bucky told Steve that Zemo wanted information about the Siberian base of the Winter Soldier program. They want to fly there, but fear being stopped by Iron Man and being arrested again. Falcon therefore contacts Ant-Man to help them, and Steve calls Hawkeye to help. Clint also frees Wanda from the Avengers headquarters, where she was "held" by Vision on Tony's orders. Meanwhile, Iron Man also enlisted support for the planned capture of the "criminal Avengers" - in the form of Spider-Man. At the airport, a fight breaks out between the two teams after Steve refuses to give up and Tony refuses to believe in Bucky's innocence. While most of Cap's team is arrested, Natasha lets Steve escape with Bucky in a Quinjet, because despite disagreements, the two were closer than ever. Tony and War Machine are chasing the Quinjet when Vision hits War Machine's arc reactor with an energy beam meant to hit Falcon's engine. Rhodes crashes to the ground unchecked, injuring his spine.

Sometime later, Tony receives information from Berlin that reveals Zemo's machinations. He follows Steve and Bucky to Siberia and is in turn pursued by T'Challa. Steve and Tony make a truce and explore the base together until they encounter Zemo. He played them a surveillance tape from 1991 that showed Bucky killing Howard Stark and Maria Stark in order to steal super-soldier serum. In a blind rage, Tony then attacked Bucky and, when Steve intervened, asked him if he had known. Steve had to admit that he knew about the murder from the documents Natasha had left him in Washington D.C. years ago, but not that Bucky did it. The three struggled while Zemo looked for a place to commit suicide. He had lost his family in Sokovia and wanted to get the Avengers to kill each other - which he now thought he had accomplished. T'Challa prevents Zemo's suicide and found that he does not want to be completely consumed by revenge like Zemo.

Iron Man defeats Winter Soldier and rips off his robotic arm, but Captain America knocked Iron Man down and destroyed his arc reactor. He then left the base with Bucky, leaving his shield behind - accepting that he no longer deserved it. He then freed the other Avengers from Thaddeus Ross' prison and traveled to Wakanda, where T'Challa, at Bucky's request, was to "put the Winter Soldier back on ice" as long as nothing could be done about Hydra's brainwashing.