FALLEN ─ marvel

VIII. Corruption

Chapter Eight
John

I found a spot on the sidewalk outside of the prison to sit on, and it's where I have been sitting silently for the past fifteen minutes. Guards have been passing me by and giving me weird looks, but they leave me alone once they see my expression. No one wants to talk to an angry man, tears in his eyes, with the Captain America shield strapped to his back.

Wilson walks towards me at around the twenty minute mark. He doesn't say anything, he just silently sits down next to me, resting his arms on his bent knees.

It's about three minutes later that he speaks. "I was out of line. I shouldn't have said that about your brother."

I look down at the asphalt, nodding my head once. "Is it really that obvious?"

"I guess since I'm chasing a shadow, I recognize that so are you." Wilson murmurs.

I shake my head, bringing my eyes up to look at him. "I was out of line, too. I didn't mean what I said, I guess...I guess I'm jealous."

"Of what?"

"Of you."

"Me? Why? You're the one who has the shield, you're the one that's beloved by the governments of the world, you have the public's trust."

"Because despite all of those things, I'm still in the shadow of my brother," I admit. "No matter how hard I try to be a hero like him, I will never be. And if I thought trying to be my brother was impossible, now I'm trying to be him and Rogers."

"You shouldn't put that pressure on yourself."

"And neither should you. I'm never going to be Rogers and neither are you."

Wilson lets out a sigh, his voice low as he replies: "Yeah I know. I've been so angry, so jealous...I think both of us need to stop trying to be something we're not."

"What the hell have you been jealous about?" I ask.

"Of you, isn't that obvious."

"Sam," I say with a shake of my head. "I'm the last person you should be jealous of. That shield might have been given to me, but you're the one who's earned it. You have nothing to prove."

"It doesn't feel that way."

"You may not be Captain America, but you're a hero, an Avenger. You don't need the shield for that, but me, I'm nothing without it."

"You're not nothing, John."

There's a long moment of silence that lingers between us, and thankfully Sam is the one to break the silence. "What are we going to do about McAllister?"

"We're going to get on a plane and go to Louisiana, then we'll capture her, and then we will never tell Soroya about this. If she found out that I talked about my feelings, she would get all supportive and proud and I can't handle that right now."

Sam chuckles, "She is oddly emotionally available for someone with her kind of life."

"So is Barnes. He acts nothing like how I thought the Winter Soldier would."

"That's because of Soroya," Sam says, standing up off the sidewalk. "I knew him before they met, he used to be far different then he is now. She really changed him."

I guess that's a common thing with her. I stand up as well and gesture to the car parked a couple yards away. "You ready to go catch a hacker?"

Sam nods firmly, a half smile on his face. "Let's do it."