Avengers: Endgame concluded on an emotional note, as Cap decided to stay in the past and live out his life the normal way married to Peggy Carter. A fitting end for Steve Rogers it may have been, but fans are still confused about how exactly this worked out. Thanks to a fresh bit of official information, however, one person has now put it all together.
To start off, a recent WIRED video that looks at Endgame‘s special effects credits Old Man Cap as being 106 years old when we see him handing Sam Wilson his shield. Based on this, Reddit user u/Thanksredditformemes has been able to work out Steve’s post-Endgame life. And it seemingly confirms that he created a new timeline when he went back.
Given that Steve is canonically 37 in Endgame (post five-year time jump), that must mean he reunited with Peggy in 1947. They then spent 69 happy years together before she died in 2016, as documented in Captain America: Civil War. This would make him 106 in 2016 which must mean that, following his wife’s death, he then hopped back over to the main timeline, advancing a few years in the process to meet with Sam and Bucky by the lake in 2023.
Though I suppose, if you agree with writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus’ version of events, you could argue that this still backs up the theory that Steve didn’t create a new timeline and simply went back into the past. He just could have used the Pym Particles to move forward in time and not into a different timeline in 2016. And, if Steve did reunite with Peggy in 1947, that’s after Agent Carter wrapped up, which means it doesn’t clash with established MCU continuity.
That side of the argument might not be totally cleared up, then, but at least now we have a solid understanding of Steve’s age and the shape of his life following Avengers: Endgame. Whether he’ll return again in the franchise, though, that we don’t yet know.