"I have to take him with me."
Maria Hill looked at the devastated Natasha and felt a rare flicker of hesitation—but Nick Fury's body had to be moved.
Hill understood what Fury had meant to Natasha. Beyond commander and subordinate, beyond comrades-in-arms, there had been something closer to a father–daughter bond between them… even if, strictly speaking, Natasha was older.
Natasha turned and walked out of the operating room. Steve followed immediately, afraid she might do something reckless.
"Why did Fury go to you?" Natasha asked suddenly, spinning around. The question had been burning in her chest. Fury's death felt connected to Steve—too connected.
"I don't know," Steve answered.
His eyes shifted.
Natasha scoffed. "Your lying skills are awful. Absolutely terrible."
She could tell at a glance—there was more to this than he was saying.
At that moment, a special-ops agent who had participated in the launch-ship rescue mission approached Steve.
"Captain Rogers, HQ wants you back at S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately."
"Alright. I'm on my way."
"They want you there now."
"I heard you."
It made sense that Steve would be questioned—he had been the last person to see Fury alive. What didn't make sense was the urgency. Fury had just died. Why rush so desperately to bring Steve in?
Fury's final warning echoed in Steve's mind.
S.H.I.E.L.D. has traitors.
Before leaving the hospital, Steve hid the USB drive Fury had entrusted to him inside a small snack rack near the waiting area.
Just in case.
-----
At the Triskelion, Steve was escorted straight to the top floor.
Waiting for him was Secretary Alexander Pierce, the very man Fury had gone to see before everything fell apart.
Morning light had already broken outside, but Pierce's office remained fully illuminated. The Secretary had clearly spent the entire night awake, deeply invested in Fury's assassination.
"Captain Rogers," Pierce said warmly before Steve even entered. "Alexander Pierce. It's an honor. My father served with the 101st Airborne."
Before the conversation had even begun, Pierce was already lowering himself—building rapport.
On Pierce's desk sat an old photograph of himself and a younger Nick Fury, taken five years after they'd first met.
"I was with the State Department back then," Pierce began, reminiscing. "Insurgents took over an embassy. Fury got me out—but they took hostages…"
He spoke at length about Fury's brilliance, his unorthodox strategies, how Pierce had personally promoted him from Deputy Director to Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
It all led to one question.
Why had Fury gone to Steve's apartment that night?
"I don't know," Steve said again.
Pierce smiled faintly. He knew a lie when he heard one.
Since words weren't working, Pierce chose another approach.
He played a video.
On-screen was the raid leader who had hijacked the launch ship—now captured in a safehouse in Algeria.
"He was hired anonymously to sabotage the Lemurian Star satellites," Pierce explained calmly. "All communication was done via encrypted email. The payments passed through seventeen shell accounts before landing in a holding company."
Pierce leaned forward.
"The listed shareholder was a man named Jack Vincent. Died six years ago. His last known address? 1435 Amherst Avenue."
He paused.
"When I first met Fury… his mother lived at 1437."
The implication was unmistakable.
Pierce was suggesting that Nick Fury himself had orchestrated the attack.
Steve rejected it outright.
Fury would never sell out his country. That would be treason.
Pierce knew that too.
He spoke instead of ideals, of shared visions, of the compromises demanded by politics.
All of it circled back to the same point.
"Allow me one final question," Pierce said evenly.
"Why did Fury come to you?"
Steve exhaled.
There was no point lying anymore.
"He told me not to trust anyone."
Pierce's gaze sharpened. "Did that include himself?"
"That was his final message."
Steve turned and walked out.
The moment the door closed behind him, Alexander Pierce issued a top-level directive:
"Arrest Captain Steven Grant Rogers."
-----
Inside the descending elevator, more and more armed agents packed in. Steve was pushed toward the center.
He noticed a slim, dark-skinned agent near the wall. The man's lips moved silently.
Run.
The doors opened. Closed. Opened again.
When the elevator reached maximum capacity, Steve spoke calmly—his voice cutting through the tension like a blade.
"Before we do this… does anyone want to get out?"
Chaos erupted.
Elite operatives clashed in the confined space—every strike lethal, every move precise. Bodies hit the floor one by one.
Watching through surveillance feeds, Agent Sitwell stared in disbelief as his men were systematically taken down.
He ordered strike teams to converge on the twenty-fifth floor.
When the elevator doors opened, dozens of gun barrels greeted Steve.
He destroyed the elevator—sending it plummeting several floors—only to find yet another armed unit waiting.
With no other option, Steve shattered the glass of an exterior elevator shaft and leapt.
From over ten stories up.
Using his shield to absorb the impact, he landed without injury.
Watching from the control room, Sitwell swallowed hard.
Captain America isn't human.
"He's heading for the garage! Seal the bridges!"
Steve roared out of the Triskelion on his motorcycle, shield strapped to his back.
A Quinjet awaited him on the route ahead.
Using flawless control, Steve dodged its gunfire, then hurled his shield—crippling the jet's turbine.
The Quinjet crashed onto the bridge in a fireball.
-----
The moment Steve escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Sitwell activated every surveillance network under their control.
Washington, D.C. went into lockdown.
Traffic lights turned red across the city. Airports, train stations, and highways were sealed.
Entry allowed.
Exit denied.
"Respectfully," one agent spoke up, "if S.H.I.E.L.D. is issuing a manhunt for Captain America, we deserve to know why."
Many of them had grown up idolizing Steve Rogers. Turning him into a fugitive without explanation shattered morale.
Alexander Pierce stepped forward.
"Because he deceived us."
Silence fell.
"Captain Rogers has knowledge regarding Director Fury's death and refused to cooperate," Pierce said coldly. "As difficult as this is to accept, Captain America is now a fugitive of S.H.I.E.L.D."
The words spread like wildfire.
In an instant, the city was on edge.
And Captain America was the most wanted man in Washington, D.C.
--------------
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