"Hey, hey—no need to aim that thing at my pretty little forehead." I said, flashing the most disarming smile I could manage. "I'll be a good boy on the Quinjet, promise."
The muzzle of the pistol didn't move. Natasha's finger was rock-steady on the trigger. Her face? Unreadable. But her silence said more than a mouthful of threats ever could.
"Come on." I tried again. "Can't we just forget everything for a second and focus on the mission? Save the execution until after, at least."
Still nothing.
"Natasha." came a stern voice behind us. "Stand down. He's necessary for this op."
Sam Wilson. The new Captain America. Vibranium Wings. The Shield. And a grin that spoke that he knew it all.
But Natasha didn't even blink.
She pulled the trigger—not on me, but on Sam.
Bullets sparked off his vibranium wings and ricocheted off the shield on his arm like angry fireflies. He didn't flinch, didn't backpedal—just absorbed the attack with practiced precision. Not a single round made it through.
When her clip was empty, she tossed the gun like an insult and stormed into the Quinjet. As she passed me, her eyes locked with mine—and for a second, I saw it. Not just fury. Not just betrayal. There was grief. Raw, sharp, and tangled with something else she wasn't ready to admit.
I opened my mouth to say something.
She was gone before I could.
"What the hell did you do to piss her off?" asked a voice beside me.
I turned to see a younger guy extending his hand. Fresh face, clean armor, curious eyes.
"Joaquin Torres." he added with a nod. "Falcon. The new one."
I shook his hand, firm grip.
"Lover's spat." I shrugged. "It happens."
He blinked. "That was a lover's spat?"
I smirked. "You should've seen the foreplay."
"Torres." Sam snapped, striding over. "Stay away from him. He is just a necessity for the mission. Not a target to be chummy with."
Torres stepped back slightly, caught off-guard.
"Why?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Scared he might grow a personality?"
"You're a fugitive." Sam said coldly. "A degenerate. And a walking national security threat. You're not a teammate. You're a ticking bomb."
I placed a hand on my chest, mock wounded. "Man… is it the wind, or does the 'NEW' Captain America hate me? Is it the color of my skin? Or is it because I wiped the floor shiny with your face?"
Sam didn't answer. Just glared. That told me plenty.
"Damn shame." I went on. "All I wanted was to say how much I admired Steve Rogers. There'll never be another like him. Especially not if even the one HE chose, fought for something so small. So insignificant. So little. Even Walker could be a better Captain America. Its sad that both you and Barnes made sure he could never be one."
Sam's jaw tightened. He didn't rise to it. He didn't need to. The venom in his eyes was loud enough.
Torres looked between us, clearly uncomfortable. I gave him a pat on the shoulder.
"Don't sweat it, Torres." I said. "You've got potential. But fair warning—you're shadowing a guy with no sense of humor and a stick so far up his ass, it's tickling his spine."
Torres didn't reply, but I saw the corner of his mouth twitch.
Sam stepped forward. "You're..."
"What? You don't want me in the quinjet?" I matched his tone.
"Wasn't planning on hitching a ride anyway," I said, stepping back and holding my arms out wide. "Watch closely, boys. This is how we really fly."
"Go Turbo: Flight."
A shimmer of energy crawled across my skin like liquid chrome. My jacket disintegrated into data, replaced by high-density nanotextile laced with glowing circuitry. The suit formed over my body in cascading plates—sleek, aerodynamic, layered in obsidian and cobalt. The faceplate closed last, locking with a hiss and a pulse of light across the visor.
Twin thrusters spun out from the back of my suit—compact but deadly. Wings extended, not feathered like Sam's, but more angular and serrated, with adaptive flex points and real-time wind compensation tech.
No feathers. No pageantry. Just sharp edges and survival instincts.
This suit wasn't made to inspire hope—it was made to outlive it.
I hovered a few feet off the ground, the pavement cracking slightly beneath me from the thrust pressure.
"You boys enjoy your Quinjet snacks." I said through the comms, voice slightly modulated now. It was easy to hack into. "I'll scout ahead. Wouldn't want to slow you down with my degenerate presence."
And with that, I took off—into the sky.
"Natasha. My super spy, speak to me."
I kept my voice low, pitched only for her comm.
"I know you can hear me."
I sighed. "Look… I'm not gonna ask for forgiveness. Hell, I'm not even gonna pretend to apologize for what I did."
Silence answered me.
"I did what was necessary. That's it. Time will chew on it and spit out an answer eventually."
Still nothing. I could practically feel her presence through the static, stone-silent and unyielding. I changed my tone, more out of instinct than strategy.
"And Torres?" My voice sharpened. "Eavesdropping on private conversations is bad manners, rookie."
I didn't need confirmation. I could feel him listening in. The kid had hacked into my signal—sloppy, but gutsy. He was good. Not great. Not yet.
"You become a peeping Tom following Captain Replacement around?" I snapped.
A surge of energy danced across my fingers—crackling blue and hungry. I focused it, precise. One jolt.
BOOM.
A small explosion echoed through the Quinjet. A crisp, techy pop. I smiled as Torres yelped in the background, the feed scrambling for a second.
"That's your eavesdropping device, by the way. A little demo."
"Ranger." growled Sam Wilson over the comms, his voice dropping into that gravel-throated military bark he loved so much. "You're stepping out of bounds. Again. Stay in control or I will put you down."
I could hear his patience grinding like worn-out gears.
"You damaged a high-tech government asset." he added. "Out of spite."
"And what if I did?" I said, mock-innocent. "What you gonna do about it, Captain I need no Serum to be a hero? Toss your frisbee at me and hope I sit still?"
"That conversation wasn't yours to keep private." he said, tone shifting into that official, clipped cadence. "You forfeited your rights the second you were caught for killing a member of the Security Council. Everything you say is subject to monitoring. You're a potential terrorist, a wildcard and an unnecessary liability."
He was trying to sound professional. Above it. But he wasn't. Not even close.
"And I'm not Fury." he added, voice like iron. "I don't play the long game. I eliminate threats before they grow too big to manage."
There it was. The truth, raw and bare.
I laughed—quiet and bitter.
"Big words." I said. "For a man so damn small."
Silence.
I pressed on.
"You keep hiding behind protocol, like it's your bulletproof excuse. Like saying the right words in the right tone makes it okay to turn your paranoia into policy."
Sam said nothing. But the tension in the channel was thick enough to chew.
"Steve chose wrong." I said, voice low and tight. "He handed his legacy to someone too busy playing cop to remember what the hell that shield stood for. Even Walker wore that shield better. You? You should've stayed the Falcon."
I heard Torres let out a small breath—uncomfortable, like a guy caught in a bar fight he didn't mean to start. Poor kid.
Sam finally spoke, and his voice was colder now. More precise.
"You don't deserve to say Steve's name."
I didn't flinch.
"And you don't deserve to carry his shield."
Another beat of silence.
"We're not the same." I continued, tone turning razor-sharp. "You're not carrying Steve's fire. You're wearing his ashes. He passed you hope. Something you could never inspire."
I could hear Torres try to speak but Sam hushed him. "The way you think. Your actions. Make you quite a dangerous man." He threatened. "We tend to put down dangerous man."
"No." I said. "I'm dangerous because I don't lie about what I am. And what I am right now is nothing but a man speaking truth."
The comms fell quiet. Just the hum of flight. The sound of my pulse in my ears.
Natasha still hadn't spoken. That silence cut deeper than Sam's lectures ever could.
She hated me right now. I'd accept that.
But Sam? Sam hated me because I reminded him the legacy he was trying so hard to live up to wasn't his. And no amount of wings or red-white-blue paint would make it fit.
He was fighting to preserve an ideal. A ideal he could never carry.
I was fighting because I knew what it looked like when that ideal broke you.
And lucky for me?
I always made it personal.
"The world's not paying for what I did. It's paying for who Steve trusted."
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MCU timeline- After Captain America: Brave New World with many big and minor changes.
PS: I don't hate Sam Wilson Captain America. Just felt that Marvel had so much good material to use. Hell, I can even say few stories that would be much better than the movie storyline.
Anyway if you have any questions regarding the MCU timeline just ask. Aside from spoilers, I am happy to reply.