Feel like I read this weeks ago..

Just posted this as my Cap on the bench theory in an earlier thread:

"I posit a third option for Cap showing up on the bench.

It isn't that universes Captain America! Just as this timelines events unfolded with them traveling to an alternate timeline to temporarily steal the Infinity Stones then returning them to effectively lock the timelines from differing from the main path leading to Infinity War and End Game, so did these events unfold across an infinite number of similar timelines that only differ in minor ways.

I think that both the writers and directors are correct. What Ancient One is explaining isn't that there is only one timeline as long as the Stones are in place, but that the timelines all follow a basic path in unison, only differing in minor ways. When she shows the golden line signifying the timeline it isn't one line, but a flow of paths flowing down a stream, none branching too far out. Once a reality loses a Stone events play out unexpectedly and it leads to corrupted time lines.

So that means when they visited an alternate reality to steal the stones then have Cap return them and retire there, that this caused a domino effect where across the multiverse, because of the stones being intact correcting the timelines, that Captain Americas from across the multiverse, after their own personal End Games, also retired to alternate realities with alternate Peggy's.

This means that the Cap we see on the bench isnt actually the same Cap we saw leave, but a Cap from an alternate universe End Game who stole the stones from the main MCU timeline and returned them just as ours stole them from another universe!

This explains why he was already on the bench and why he has a shield and it isnt broken. In his End Game it never broke and he brought it back in time with him in that alternate universe.

See? It's simple."

Would be cool to see her in Doctor Strange 2.

That scene was probably one of my favorite scenes from Endgame. Also, I've really enjoyed their characterization of the Ancient One in the MCU, so I hope we get to see more.

Like I always say, Doctor Strange is one of the MCU's most underrated films, and Swinton is a big part of that.

It was cool to see her during the Battle of NY