Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is often seen as one of the most morally upstanding heroes in the franchise. While heroes like Iron Man or Black Widow have more complicated pasts, Steve Rogers when he was Captain America was pretty much a good guy from the start.
However, while he might be a good person and very heroic, he’s also not perfect. He has many flaws and makes missteps, and this actually made him a much more compelling character than many fans expected. But, some of his mistakes had major consequences in the MCU.
Leading Thanos to Wakanda
When Captain America learns about Thanos’ plan to gather the Infinity Stones, he makes the call to hide and protect Vision in Wakanda.
While this does make sense as Wakanda is clearly a place that has the technology and strength to protect people, he ends up leading the Children of Thanos and eventually Thanos himself straight to Wakanda for a large battle which destroys so much of this beautiful place.
Having an antagonistic relationship with Tony Stark
When Steve and Tony first meet one another, they aren’t big fans and instantly judge the other. They are both to blame for this, but Steve definitely should have tried to give Tony more of the benefit of the doubt.
The fact that both of them were resistant to working with one another and were always butting heads would have far-reaching impacts on the Avengers over the course of the movies.
Trusting SHIELD
When Captain America is found in the ice and brought back to the present day, he soon starts working with SHIELD. It makes sense that he would trust this organization given that Peggy had been one of the founders.
However, he put too much trust in this authoritarian structure. While this might have been a mistake, he did at least realize the organization needed to be torn down after learning of HYDRA’s infiltration.
Refusing to let the mind stone be destroyed
This point is a bit of a complicated moral question. Steve is adamant that the Mind Stone can’t be destroyed because he doesn’t want Vision to die. While there is definitely honor in this, it’s also a question of if it’s better to save one person versus millions or billions.
While Steve might have been trying to do the right thing, he should have let Vision make this call. Because the Mind Stone wasn’t destroyed, Thanos was able to wield the Infinity Gauntlet.
Taking up his Nomad identity
After Steve leaves for Wakanda with Bucky, he is clearly struggling to figure out who he is now that he’s no longer one of the Avengers.
While it’s admirable that he is still trying to help others by going on missions with Black Widow and Falcon, he should have tried to reconcile with Tony earlier and get the Avengers back together. Because they were so split apart when Thanos came around, they were automatically weakened.
Listening to Rumlow in Lagos
At the start of Captain America: Civil War, Captain America and some of the other Avengers are in Lagos searching for Rumlow.
When Steve finds him and confronts him face to face, he lets Rumlow goad him. While Rumlow clearly knew that bringing up Bucky would set Steve off, Steve should have been more careful. Because of this, Rumlow was able to ignite a bomb and this led to the loss of innocent lives.
Refusing to compromise on the Accords
The debate over who was right about the Sokovia Accords, Iron Man or Captain America, is one that fans are still having today. There is merit to both sides of this argument, and both of these characters made mistakes here.
However, Captain America was wrong to refuse to compromise and talk to Iron Man. They both were too stubborn and unwilling to trust one another, and this would have long-lasting consequences as things between them continued to devolve.
Fighting with Iron Man and leaving to Wakanda
When Captain America gets into the fight with Iron Man at the end of Civil War, he’s mostly just trying to protect Bucky. Truthfully, Tony was in the wrong to take things to the level of trying to kill Bucky, and Steve was right to keep him from killing Bucky.
However, he left the fight with Iron Man in a way that made Tony think Steve wanted to seriously injure or kill him. While going to Wakanda was the right thing for Bucky, Steve should have tried harder to mend the relationship with Tony.
Not telling Tony about his parents
The dramatic fight at the end of the film was the culmination of a lot of things that happened with Bucky, Steve, and Tony, but the main mistake Steve made in all of this was lying to Tony about how his parents died.
He might not have thought of it as lying, but he knew this information and kept it from Tony. This betrayal clearly impacted Iron Man a great deal, and it’s clearly a big part of why he reacted so strongly to seeing what happened to his parents so abruptly.
Going back to the 1940s
There has been no shortage of critiques about the way that Avengers: Endgame ended in regards to Steve Roger's story, and most of these critiques are extremely valid. Steve leaving back to the 40s so he could be with Peggy went against the time travel rules set up in the film, and it also made him seem selfish.
This decision seems to have erased any agency Peggy had by getting rid of the life she had already led, as established in Agent Carter, just so Steve could get what he wanted.