Before Steve had gone back to the hospital and picked up the USB, STRIKE had taken him back to SHIELD where Steve is brought to Alexander Pierce who is currently talking to Agent 13. "For whatever it's worth, you did your best." Pierce reassured her.
"Thank you, sir." She replies before turning to leave, only to stop when she sees Steve standing there. "Captain Rogers." She nods her head slightly in respect to him.
"Neighbour." Steve replied coldly before walking over to Pierce.
"Ah, Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce." He introduces himself.
"Sir, it's an honour." Steve tells him, shaking his hand firmly.
"The honour is mine, Captain." Pierce replies. "My father served in the 101st. Come on in." He opens the door and they enter Pierce's office where he shows Steve an old photo of Fury with Pierce. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, 'No, we'll negotiate.' Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorised military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."
"So you gave him a promotion." Steve smiles slightly.
"I've never had any cause to regret it." Pierce admits, sitting back. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"
"I don't know." Steve answers.
"You know it was bugged?" Pierce asks.
"I did, because Nick told me." Steve replies.
"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Pierce said smoothly and Steve just stands still, obviously having not previously known this information. "I want you to see something." He presses a button on the computer, bringing up footage of Batroc being interrogated.
"Who hired you, Batroc?" The agent on the footage asked, his hands gripping the table.
Steve looks back at Pierce. "Is that live?" He wonders.
"Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers." Pierce answers.
"Are you saying he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line." Steve argues.
"No, it's more complicated than that." Pierce admits. "Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."
"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Steve wonders, raising an eyebrow when Peirce hands him the file.
"Not likely." He replies. "Veech died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick; his mother lived at 14-37."
"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?" Steve asked.
"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death." Pierce explains, slipping up slightly.
"If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true." Steve tells him.
"Why do you think we're talking?" Pierce questions. "See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry." He stops talking, waiting a moment and looking back up at Steve. "Captain, you were the last one to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"
"He told me not to trust anyone." Steve tells him.
"I wonder if that included him." Pierce says and Steve pauses a moment before replying.
"I'm sorry." Steve apologises. "Those were his last words. Excuse me." Steve picks up his shield, places it on his back and starts to make his way out of the office.
"Captain." Pierce calls out and Steve stops and looks at Pierce, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly, waiting to hear what he has to say. "Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it." He waits a few moments. "Anyone." He warns.
Steve gives the man a small nod. "Understood." He answers before quickly turning and leaving the office. He makes his way down the hall before entering into the glass elevator. "Operations control." He tells the computer system.
"𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚍."
The doors to the elevator were about to slide shut when an arm sticks through the gap, causing the doors to open back up again, showing Rumlow standing there with two other STRIKE agents in tow. "Keep all STRIKE personnel on site." Rumlow orders them, barely even taking a glance of acknowledgement at Steve, focusing away from the man and standing facing the door.
"Understood." One of the agents answered.
"Yes, sir." The other one says.
Rumlow looks up at the ceiling slightly, at a hidden camera connected to the system. "Forensics." He tells it.
"𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚍."
Rumlow looks over at Steve and gives him a nod. "Cap." He greets.
"Rumlow." Steve replies looking away before the elevator doors close and they start riding down.
"Evidence Response found some fibres on the roof they want us to see." Rumlow informs him. "You want me to get the tac-team ready?"
"No, lets wait and see what it is first." Steve answers.
"Right." Rumlow replies, looking towards the front. Steve then notices that one of the agents is touching his weapon suspiciously, his hand keeping his hand on the holster. The elevator then stops again and more SHIELD and STRIKE agents enter.
"What's the status so far?" An agent asked another.
The other agent doesn't ask, and looks up slightly. "Administrations level." The inform the computer.
"𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚍."
The agent looks over at Steve. "Excuse me." He tells him, sliding past.
"I'm sorry about what happened with Fury. Messed up, what happened to him." Rumlow gives his condolences.
"Thank you." Steve replies before looking around, feeling something is off. Steve looks at the agents in the elevator and notices one of them is sweating but before he can do anything, the elevator stops and more agents enter.
"Records." A STRIKE agent says.
"𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚍."
As the elevator doors closes, Steve notices that from where he is standing, that he is completely surrounded by agents. "Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?" Steve asks, a sly smirk on his face. His hands are behind his back, his shield attached to the magnetic strap on his back. He looks at them all, eyeing each of their movements in response to what he had said.
There's a moment's pause before suddenly one of the agents turns and uses an electric rod to give Steve a shock. He groans slightly, and the others use this momentary shock to grab him and try to strap his wrists with magnetic cuffs that were taken off the handle of the briefcases. One of his hands is securely restrained to the side of the elevator, locking it in place. However, Steve manages to knock some of the agents away, stopping them from strapping the other cuff in place. Rumlow uses his rod and roughly strikes it into Steve to give him a shock.
In a control room, Sitwell is watching it all play down on the monitor. "Mobilise STRIKE units, 25th floor."
Back in the elevator, Steve manages to free himself from the magnetic cuff and knock all the agents down, he turns to Rumlow. "Whoa, big guy." Rumlow says, trying to sound kind. "I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal." He waits a few seconds before quickly attacking him again with the rod, only for Steve to quickly defend himself and knock Rumlow out cold.
"It kind of feels personal." Steve admits, looking down at his unconscious body before he picks up his shield from the ground. He forces open the elevator doors, and sees a group of STRIKE agents standing there, pointing their weapons at him.
"Drop the shield!" One of the STRIKE agents order, their hands on the trigger. "Put your hands in the air!" Steve uses his shield to break off the elevator wires, which sends the elevator down. As he forces the doors open again he sees more STRIKE agents approaching him, he closes the door and looks for a way out.
"Give it up, Rogers!" The agent tells him. "Get that door open! You have nowhere to go!" Steve turns around and looks around before he breaks through the glass in the elevator and plummets down to finally hit the ground floor.
From his monitor Sitwell watches in shock as Steve gets up and starts running off. "Are you kidding me?" Sitwell groans before turning to the STRIKE agents. "He's headed for the garage. Lock down the bridge!" He orders.
"Are you kidding me?" Sitwell groans before turning to the STRIKE agents. "He's headed for the garage. Lock down the bridge!" He orders.
Steve rides out of the SHIELD garage on his motorcycle, evading the obstacles laid out but then a Quinjet emerges ahead of him. "Stand down, Captain Rogers." The pilot orders over the speaker, hovering in front of him. "Stand down." When Steve doesn't make a move to surrender, the Quinjet lowers its machine gun, pointing it right at him. "Repeat, stand down." The pilot says again, this time more as a warning. As Steve doesn't stop they start shooting at him, Steve throws his shield into the propellers to jam it, giving him an opportunity to hop onto it and do more damage to the jet with his shield before jumping off as the jet goes crashing down and he escapes.
Sitwell grains, his hand bashing against a desk in slight frustration before he looks at all of the other agents. "Eyes here." He orders in a commanding voice and everyone, including Agent 13, looks at Sitwell, "Whatever your op is, bury it. This is Level One. Contact DOT. All traffic lights in the district go red. Shut all runways at BWI, IAD and Reagan. All security cameras in the city go through this monitor, right here. Scan all open sources. Phones, computers, PDAs, whatever. If someone tweets about this guy, I want to know about it."
"With all due respect, if SHIELD is conducting a manhunt for Captain America, we deserve to know why." Sharon argues.
"Because he lied to us." Pierce replies simply, looking at Sharon, trying to gauge her reaction as he enters into the room. "Captain Rogers has information regarding the death of Director Fury, he refused to share it. As difficult as this is to accept, Captain America is a fugitive from SHIELD."