You have my full permission to hate me because I promised you Bucky in this chapter and unfortunately will not deliver. He will DEFFO make an appearance next Chapter, though.

Also, if you're struggling to mentally picture Goodwinson, I think of him as looking a bit like Jake Abel (i.e. Adam from Supernatural). Also, I know that there's a bit of unsureness of what colour eyes bucko has, I originally wrote this story saying that they were green but have changed it to blue, so if you spot that I've said they're green, hit me up and ill change it x

Alrighty on we go.

After what seemed like an age, but was more likely just a few hours, Erin managed to finally drag herself from the wooden chair and limp back to the small mattress, collapsing onto it in a heap. The floor, at first a dull white, was now stained red from her last run-in with Pine. She, on the other hand, was surprisingly clean. Her legs were covered in deep gouges but were surprisingly blood-free.

She remembered vaguely a pair of bright blue eyes set in a dark, handsome face but apart from that everything had turned into a blur of colours. For all she knew, she could have hallucinated them.

No. On second thought there was something very definite about that shade of blue which was stuck in the back of her head. Erin didn't think that she could make that vivid colour up.

Once finally sat in the least uncomfortable position she could find, she got to examine her legs. They were a mess. She winced mentally as she remembered how her 'interview' had gone with Colonel Pine. The man was a sadist, pure and simple. He had seemed to enjoy mauling her skin like she was a piece of meat in a butchers. At one point, before she had fallen unconscious and he had got bored and left, the man had taken out a small knife, about an inch in length, and stuck the entire thing into her left thigh, thankfully avoiding any main arteries. She looked at the scar now, crusted over with the viscous brown of drying blood, and sighed to herself.

This wasn't going to be as easy as she had expected it to be.

Lying back down, grunting slightly at the pain, Erin placed her hands over her stomach and wondered to herself if S.H.I.E.L.D had even noticed that she was missing. There were hundreds of science workers at the Washington Branch, it made sense to think that she hadn't been rescued in a daring mission yet.

Maybe she never would be.

She shook the thought from her head instantly. She was not going to start losing faith now. Bruce would surely notice she wasn't there, he saw her almost every day.

The thought comforted her a small bit. Maybe she wouldn't die here in this hell-hole after all.

Erin didn't know how long she spent there, lying on her back staring at the ceiling but after some time she was interrupted by the squeaky clang of the thick metal door beginning to open. Her heart dropped to her feet but she kept her eyes closed. The small fearful section of herself thought that if she ignored them, they would go away. She must be dehydrated because that was just plain stupid, the logical part of her brain supplied in a tone which sounded oddly like Bruce.

The door closed with a bang and Erin groaned, pulling her eyes open. It looked like the fun was about to begin again.

"You guys aren't the biggest fans of refractory periods are you?"

She turned her head to the side and was surprised to see that it wasn't Colonel Pine who was standing awkwardly at the door with his hands clasped tightly in front of himself, but was instead a skinny tall boy with his blonde hair scraped behind his ears.

Private Goodwinson.

Erin's eyes widened and she shot into a sitting position, screwing up her face in pain as the sudden movement caused one of the deeper scars on her leg to re-open, the burning sensation beginning to return.

"You little-" she began, and Private Goodwinson, held up his hands in surrender, not happy with the confrontation.

"Listen. I'm sorry-"

"SORRY?!" Erin yelled, somehow seeming to exude more power than Goodwinson, despite the fact that she was sat on a blood-covered mattress and he was stood up to his full height. He winced at her incredulous tone.

"You're sorry?! If standing up right now wouldn't cause me to lose consciousness I would come over there and punch you in the fucking nose!"

He rolled his eyes at her comment and walked towards her slowly as if approaching a wounded animal.

"Fucking traitor," Erin spat out but he continued nonetheless, walking up to the wooden chair, the blood on it now long dried, and taking a seat on it before crossing his legs over each other. He looked so young, Erin thought, barely out of his teens. It wasn't fair that he had been brought into this life, a life of blood and torture and secrets and espionage.

"Tell them what they want to know, Erin." His voice was surprisingly soft.

She rolled her eyes at him.

"And what? Have one of the most powerful formulas in the world at the hands of a guy who takes his pleasure in turning somebody into a human voodoo doll?" She gestured to the patchwork of cuts and stab wounds on her bare legs. One of the scabs had opened, and was oozing red fluid.

Goodwinson averted his eyes, unable to look at them.

"Please, Erin."

For once, Erin didn't have a sarcastic quip. The tone of Goodwinson's voice was something that she had never heard before. He was begging her. He was desperate.

"They're never going to stop, you know. You don't deserve this." He continued. His eyes found hers, blue on brown, and she could see his supposed sincerity.

"You're bloody right I don't" She replied, more of a mutter. Why did James Goodwinson suddenly care so much about her well-being? He was the one who caused her to be brought in here in the first place.

"Erin. You'll die here."

"Why the fuck do you care, James?"

His reaction was instant. At the sound of his first name, his eyes snapped up in shock, wide and blue. His whole body language was tense, his scrunched shoulders and the way that his thumb was tapping quickly on his thigh.

"I can't help but feel responsible-"

"You are responsible-"

"I don't want you to get hurt, Erin."

She stopped, shocked. James' face was red, the blush highlighting his cheekbones, his eyes were looking everywhere but at Erin.

"And I don't want to see you die here." he continued.

Well. That was unexpected.

She pushed herself up from her sitting position, wincing and muttering out a low curse at the pain. James stood up in shock.

"No. No don't move. You'll hurt yourself..." He moved forwards to catch her slightly as she stumbled, his hands grabbing hold of her upper arms. His skin was warm in comparison to hers.

"It's a bit fucking late for that."

He let out a small chuckle at that, and Erin felt the corner of her mouth lift up into a smile. Despite the fact that he was a traitor and a mole, he had worked with her at S.H.I.E.L.D. The familiarity was nice. He half-helped half-carried her to the chair, where he sat her down, and kneeled down in front of her. He wasn't unattractive, she noticed. He had a nice face. Friendly.

"Tell them what they want, Erin. Please."

He was flat out begging her now.

"You know I can't do that," she replied in earnest, still slightly in shock from what was happening, "How many people are going to get hurt if Pine can make anyone tell the truth?"

He broke eye contact with her, looking down at his hands, which he was anxiously wringing together. He knew that she was right. Standing up, Goodwinson placed a hand on Erin's shoulder, and unlike she had with Pine, she didn't shake him off. Instead, she looked up at him, still confused, still slightly dazed.

"I need to go," He said, looking at his watch, "They only sent me in here to check you were still breathing..."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Everything that was happening right now was too much, and maybe if she'd had a good night's sleep and enough to eat, she would be able to understand it. As she was, dehydrated, and down roughly a pint of blood, her sluggish mind was taking longer than usual to catch up.

"Well that was nice of them..."

He shook his head at her, and muttered, "Be careful, Jefferson," before removing his hand and walking around her to the door. Erin heard the distinct metal clang of it opening and closing, and was once again left on her own in the silence of the room.

What in the fuck had just happened? Was she hallucinating again?

It made no sense, she had only spoken to the guy on one or two occasions, certainly not enough for him to have developed any feelings towards her, yet what she had seen in his eyes, the desperation. He couldn't have faked that.

She let out a long breath that she didn't know she'd been holding in.

"Shitting hell, Jefferson. What have you gotten yourself into?"

OKAY please review because I want to know what you guys thought of that chapter WTF IS GOING ON? Nobody knows! I don't even know and I'm fucking writing this thing!

Bucky will appear next chapter (with muchos heroics) I promise x