Sophie had never traveled by bus before and now she was glad she hadn't because it was legitimately the most boring thing she'd ever done in her whole life (discounting the fact that she was actually the victim of a kidnapping, was sitting next to a very dangerous man, and was on her way to being delivered to a villainous organization that was surely going to use her skills for bad things). She'd woken up pretty much draped across Winter, which had been extremely embarrassing. Thankfully he didn't make a comment or even really seem to look at her, which was good because she knew her whole face was pink. Then Holly had woken up and literally would not shut up for the entire day. Sophie was beginning to want to murder this woman and this was interesting because Sophie had never had violent urges towards anybody before (not including Winter, obviously). She studied Rob a few times, when he wasn't looking, and determined that he was a quiet, easy-going man. She had no idea how he put up with someone like Holly. Perhaps opposites really did attract…

The landscape changed as they made their way through Peru. The craggy peaks of the Andes mountains turned into silhouetted shadows and shapes, eventually fading into the barest of blurs left behind them, mere pointy smudges on the horizon—always here and there but never as imperiously, or as continuously, as they had been before.

And the heat! Sophie was embarrassed to admit it to herself but the heat really was one of the most bothersome things. She'd lived such a privileged and sheltered life before this insane experience that she'd never had to live without air conditioning for even a minute. She'd never traveled anywhere where air conditioning wasn't available. She'd hardly even traveled to warm places where air conditioning was available.

And now here she was, in South America during the summertime, wearing a thick dress and a woolen sweater, sitting in a cramped bus filled with people and no air conditioning.

She combed her fingers through her limp hair, wiping her sweaty forehead and fanning the back of her neck. She heard a chortle from her left and her heart sank. Oh, for god's sake. LEAVE ME ALONE. She tried to ignore her but of course, Holly refused to let herself be ignored. "You look so hot!" she said. "Why don't you take your sweater off?"

In a way, she was right. The sweater was thick and heavy and it was definitely making things worse. But Sophie kept it on because it felt like…armor. It felt like protection, something she could shield herself with. Ihuicatl had given it to her and Sophie felt the more covered up and cocooned she was, the safer she somehow was. A stupid sentiment, really.

And not one she planned on explaining to Holly.

She smiled listlessly at the back of the seat in front of her but ignored what Holly said, half-pretending she hadn't heard her. So naturally, Holly repeated her question louder. Sophie turned and gave Holly a tight smile. "It's not so bad. I like having it on."

"You look like a lobster," Holly laughed. "Your face is so red, sweetheart. You really should take it off."

And you really should mind your own business. The mean words sprang to the tip of Sophie's tongue and she swallowed them back with considerable difficulty. Just then the bus rolled to a stop in a larger town and to Sophie's immense relief, Holly leaped to her feet and tugged Rob to his feet as well. They didn't bother asking Sophie or Winter if they wanted to accompany them this time since they'd refused the first two times the bus had stopped.

South Americans were quite casual about their travel, she had noticed. They weren't too fussy about times and schedules and hurrying to get to their destination; the driver stopped in every major town they passed to let people off and own—but he took a decent-length break himself and encouraged people on the bus to get off and get food, drinks, use the bathroom, before he returned. (There was a secondary driver who took over when the main driver needed to sleep.) People on the bus—Peruvians and tourists alike—got off to get sodas and stand around chatting amongst themselves, stretching. Little kids played outside until it was time to go again. Sophie knew their slow pace was making Winter antsy by the way he would tremble every now and then, breaking his glacial stillness, his fingers twitching in his lap, but she appreciated the slow pace. She would gladly take as long as possible before he delivered her to Hydra.

She just wished Holly wasn't here to ruin the peace.

"Take off the sweater," Winter ordered in a low voice.

She looked at him in surprise. "I beg your pardon?" Then she winced. Why had she made herself sound so uptight?

"You're dying in the sweater," he stated.

Well…he wasn't exactly wrong. Sophie hesitated, fingers plucking absentmindedly at the buttons on the sweater, even though she felt drenched in sweat inside.

"Take it off or I'll take it off for you," he offered. The words sounded threatening but his tone was calm. She glanced up at him and saw absolutely nothing in his eyes and wondered for the millionth time if this man had ever been a person with a heart.

"I don't doubt you would," she muttered and she pulled her sweater off, folding it and clutching it to her chest like a shield. Instantly she felt cool relief, felt as if her body had gotten ten degrees lighter. The sweater had been roasting her like a turkey in the oven at Thanksgiving dinner (which was ironic because Sophie's mother always had a gourmet turkey ordered from a fancy deli nearby and always pretended she'd made it herself and Sophie and her father had always gone along with her lie to appease her).

Eating a home-cooked roast turkey for Thanksgiving. Yet another thing she was never going to do again. She felt oddly placid at the thought. Perhaps because turkey was kind of gross.

The sun was moving downwards in the sky, though it was only five p.m. and it wasn't due to set for quite a while. The sky had turned a lovely cornflower blue with a deep golden tint to it that signaled that the end of the day was on its way. Sophie leaned past Winter to stare at it and he shoved her back in alarm, snapping, "What are you doing?"

"Looking at the sky," she shot back at him. "Would you relax?" She leaned forward a bit again and studied it, memorizing the way it looked. She hoped she would be able to remember it in future times. She didn't know what Hydra had planned for her and she didn't know if she would ever be free again. She wanted to memorize everything she saw so she could recall it in darker days. She'd done that in the horrible, dark weeks after the college thing had first happened and she'd hidden in her room, refusing to go outside.

"Why?" he asked tetchily.

She pulled back and looked at him in surprise. "Why not? It's pretty."

"So?" His tone indicated that its prettiness was of no importance and suddenly Sophie just felt so irritated with him.

"Haven't you ever thought something was pretty?" she demanded. "A sunset? A flower? A—a lake or something?"

"No," he said flatly.

"What about a person?" she demanded. "Haven't you ever thought a person was pretty?"

He gave her a blank stare. "Why would I do that?"

"Aren't you human?" she cried in frustration and his eyes narrowed, slamming a hand over her mouth and slowly raising a fingertip to his lips, indicating that she needed to keep her voice down.

She shoved his hand away and furiously whispered, "Well? Aren't you human? Or are you a robot? Or some kind of alien?" Thor had just popped into her mind; he wasn't human, was he? He was from outer space or something. Perhaps this man was like that—from some outer space realm where they didn't have feelings or empathy or hearts.

"I'm not an alien," he snapped, looking taken aback and somewhat offended. "And I'm not a robot."

She narrowed her eyes. "So you are a human?"

He stared at her, his expression unreadable.

"And if you are human…you must have thought something or someone was beautiful before," she almost pleaded.

He kept staring but his eyes widened a fraction of an inch.

"Well?" she whispered.

He straightened up abruptly and turned away from her, staring solidly out the window. Sophie sighed and straightened up as well, returning to staring at the seat in front of her, feeling very weary and dejected. Well, she'd tried. He hadn't given anything up but she'd—

"The sky is pretty." The words were stiff and mechanical but he'd said them. Sophie's ears seemed to ring in the awkward silence after that but she smiled to herself and slouched in her seat slightly. He'd said the words. He'd admitted something was pretty. And even if he was lying, he'd said the words because she'd questioned his humanity—meaning he was defending his humanity in a subtle way…whether he realized it or not.

And that meant there was someone truly human in him, buried deep beneath the surface.

Well, if Sophie was heading to her own personal hell, she was going to pull that person out from his shell before she left. This was why she'd stayed. This was why she was almost helping him take her to Brazil. The mystery of him—of who he'd been—of who he was…had almost started to overpower her fear of what was coming next. Oh, she still got aches and nausea in her stomach when she thought about what was possibly coming for her…but at this point, she wasn't entirely sure she could walk away from Winter now. Not after realizing what she'd been slowly realizing about him for quite some time now.

The bus driver got back on the bus and honked the horn several times. The people who'd just been using this place as a rest stop filed back onto the bus, settling into their seats. A handful of new people who were departing from this stop climbed on as well, looking around for empty seats. Sophie wished one of them would take Rob and Holly's seat but stupid Holly had left their parkas behind on the seat, asking Sophie to watch them. It had taken all of Sophie's willpower not to "accidentally" stuff them under the seat. She didn't understand where this spiteful streak was coming from but she didn't entirely mind it. Perhaps one needed to be slightly spiteful now and then to stand up for themselves (even if they were only standing up for themselves in their mind).

Holly and Rob settled back into their seats and Holly regaled Sophie with a story about something amusing that had happened to them. Rob nodded along with her. Winter folded his arms and stared out his window. He wasn't doing his part at all to act like her boyfriend but Sophie didn't really blame him at this point. If she could have ignored Holly, she would have too.

The bus drove on through the evening and inexplicably, at some point, someone pulled out a banjo and began strumming it. The Peruvians on the bus all began singing some folk song they all knew, interspersed with claps and snaps, and Sophie listened, bewildered (where had this all come from?) but amused as well (because why not?). Winter looked stony-faced but when she whispered, "Fun, right?" to bother him, she saw his eyes roll a tiny amount and that made her feel better. It was such a human gesture. He'd gifted her with two human moments today and those were priceless at the moment. She didn't have much to cling to so she clung to those.

Four hours later, she regretted not getting off at the last stop. She hadn't realized there wouldn't be another stop for this long. In fact, what if they didn't stop again till tomorrow? Neither she nor Winter had any food. She was just debating swallowing her pride and asking Holly for some of her snacks when the bus pulled into a small village and trundled down some small roads before parking in a clearing. The driver stood up and spoke in Spanish and everyone cheered. A few people grumbled.

"What did he say?" Sophie wondered aloud.

"He's stopping for dinner," Holly told her, "and he encourages us all to stop as well."

Sophie felt surprised. "Is this normal?"

Holly nodded. "They're very relaxed up here. It's like a tourist bus, though not everyone's a tourist, I guess. It's supposed to be fun." Her tone sounded slightly accusatory, as if she thought Sophie was flouting the social rules somehow.

"We should go eat," Sophie told Winter quietly. He nodded once and they both stood up. Holly looked gleeful and said, "Come eat dinner with us!" Sophie had no real reason for saying no and Holly spoke much better Spanish than she did, so she pursed her lips but nodded, trying to look excited at the prospect. Holly wouldn't have been so bad if she ever let someone else control the conversation—but no. It was all about her stories and her questions.

Holly led them all off the bus and they stood in the dirt clearing for a moment, stretching. Sophie tied her sweater around her waist elementary-school style and suppressed a bittersweet grin at what her fashionable mother would say if she saw Sophie now. The air was warm and honeyed, smelling of smoke and things roasting and greenery. The town seemed alive, shops and stalls lit up with lanterns, fire-sticks, and strung-up lights. Sophie understood why it was one of the stops on the tour bus; it was completely charming. She looked up at the dark night sky, hoping to see some stars, but there were too many clouds tonight.

Holly explained to them that Latin American people ate dinner very late which was why they were stopping for dinner around nine-thirty p.m. Sophie tried to ask questions as they followed Holly wherever she was leading them but the woman wouldn't let her get a word in edgewise. At one point, Sophie stopped and said, "Oh no…"

"What is it?" Holly's head snapped up, detecting a possible problem like a bloodhound.

"We—" Sophie glanced uneasily at Winter, who was looking at her with questioning eyes, but she didn't see how she could dance around the topic in any way. "We don't have that much money…" She'd found a money pouch filled with money in her sweater pocket during the wagon ride and had silently thanked Ihuicatl with all her heart. However, she didn't think it was enough to spend on food. They had to keep it for the bus ride. "We—um, it was stolen," she explained, seeing Holly's curious look. "By some pick-pockets."

"And you didn't have any backup cash?" Holly asked incredulously.

Sophie shrugged and tried to look young and silly. It wasn't that hard. "Our first time traveling out of country so…" She giggled. "We didn't plan things very well."

"I'll say," Holly said. She thought for a moment. "Listen, it's okay. We'll pay for you."

"What?" Sophie said. "No, no we couldn't p—"

"Nonsense," Holly scoffed. "Of course we can." Her smiled gleamed in the darkness. "It's so nice to help people out, isn't it?" And there it was—the real reason why Holly was helping them. Sophie had figured it out long ago. She was the nosy, interfering type who liked to mother and smother and "help" people so she could feel like a saint. And normally Sophie would have felt bad about using her but she was starving and figured it was the least Holly could do, after boring their ears off with her endless stories.

They found a small sit-down restaurant filled with locals and one of the other tourist families. It was a tiny, cramped place that bore no pretensions: no decorations, no music, not even a bathroom in sight. But the place smelled good and Holly was paying so Sophie wasn't going to complain. She glanced at Rob out of the corner of her eye to see what he thought about his girlfriend tossing their money about so freely but he seemed unconcerned.

Sophie ordered some seafood dish that was a mix of seafood, noodles, and spices tossed in a buttery sauce. It was pretty delicious once she got over the shock of seeing crab claws in her bowl. Trying to stop Holly's chatter, Sophie turned to Rob and tried to strike up a conversation with him. But talking to him…was bizarre. He was a pleasant enough man and responded to all of her questions politely and properly…yet he never offered more. She would ask what he liked best about what he'd seen in Peru, he would respond thoughtfully—and that was it. He wouldn't ask her what she liked best about Peru or continue the conversation in any way. After Holly's nosiness, his lack of interest was a bit jarring. He gave her a funny feeling, though he smiled nicely and talked normally. He felt a bit…empty. Or boring.

Or perhaps he just paled in comparison to his over-the-top girlfriend and Sophie was judging him unfairly. Yes, that was probably it.

Winter contributed nothing to the conversation, as she'd expected. She'd stomped on his foot once but she didn't think he felt it through his thick combat boots. He hadn't even eaten that much, had just folded his arms and looked bored, looking around the restaurant. His eyes had rested on Rob a few times and Rob had always looked away. Sophie didn't exactly blame him; the Winter Soldier staring directly at you was an intense thing, even if you didn't know the truth about who he was.

At the end of the meal, Sophie had to use the bathroom. She got Holly to ask the one server where it was and he told her that there was no bathroom in the building—but there was one lone outhouse beyond the restaurant, out back.

Sophie nodded and stood up, promising them (while keeping her eyes locked on Winter so he knew who she was really talking to) that she'd be right back. The food had been good but she'd drunk way too much lukewarm water and now felt uncomfortably bloated. She hoped she wouldn't get sick from eating and drinking foreign food and water but there was nothing she could do about it now.

The outhouse was a tiny, skinny wooden shack that looked like it could barely hold even once person. It was situated about twenty yards behind the restaurant, swathed in darkness, and it had taken her a full five minutes to even find it. I can't believe no one's put a lamp next to it, she grumpily thought to herself. What if it was an emergency? I'd have peed myself by now. The walk through the dark should have been creepy but it felt peaceful, stepping away from the village and Holly's babble.

The outhouse had a tiny, dim light inside that flickered dully while flies buzzed around it. The whole place smelled…well, disgusting. Sophie realized that the "toilet" was actually one of those ground toilets, surrounded by cement, a pipe leading to who knew where. She took a deep breath, regretted her decision immensely when she inhaled the smell of the outhouse, hiked up her dress, yanked down her tights, and did her business. When she was done, she covered the hole back up with the large wooden board that had rested on top of it before and crouched, slowly washing her hands in the tiny spigot sticking out of the ground next to the toilet. The water was warm and smelled slightly tinny.

She wiped her hands on her dress and turned, opening the door.

"WHOA!" She took a half-step back in alarm, her hand flying to her chest. Rob stood directly in front of the outhouse door, blocking her path completely. "Rob!" she said breathlessly, her heart still pounding from the sudden fright. "You—you scared me!"

She could barely see his features in the darkness but she saw him smile. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I just wanted to use the bathroom and I was waiting—"

"No, no, it's fine," Sophie said, feeling a bit claustrophobic trapped in the bathroom. She felt uneasy, standing here and chatting. "Sorry, let me just squeeze past you real quick—"

"Are you sure?"

His voice was so quiet that Sophie didn't even really hear it. "What?"

"Are you sure?" he repeated, slightly louder. "That you want to go back?"

Sophie's heart began to beat uncomfortably again and her palms suddenly felt sweaty. She had a very, very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach but she forced herself to remain calm. It was what children did when they were scared at night: If you can't see the monster, then it can't see you either—or hurt you. If she acted normally, hopefully she could force this encounter go normally. "What?" she repeated, trying to keep her voice normal, even though she could feel the shakiness beneath it.

"I've noticed you, you know," he said, taking a step further into the outhouse, forcing Sophie to step back. "And I've noticed you staring at me."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, trying to sound lightly indignant, as if this were all some kind of funny joke. "I haven't been staring at you."

"Yes, you have!" he snarled suddenly, frightening Sophie into freezing. He sighed. "I'm sorry…my temper's kind of on edge. Holly won't shut the hell up, but what else is new with that woman?" He took another step and Sophie took a hasty step back. Her back hit the wall.

There was nowhere further to run.

"I've noticed you looking at me," he repeated. "And I admit…I like it. You're really pretty, you know that? You're kind of pale and sad-looking but it's pretty cute on you." He laughed to himself and squeezed in further, closing the outhouse door behind him.

"Rob—" Sophie's breaths came out in choppy waves. "I swear to god—I will scream—" Her voice barely rose above a whisper as she held back half-formed sobs. Her stomach was churning sickeningly. How was this happening to her? Did she have the word VICTIM printed all over her body? Why did everyone have to try and violate her? If she survived this, she was going to get a gun license and then buy a machine gun and keep it with her at all times.

"Oh yeah?" he murmured. "And who's going to hear you? Your silent boyfriend? Please." He snickered. "We all know that's a lie. That dude isn't your boyfriend and if he is, he's a pretty shitty one. He hasn't looked at you once this whole time. We're far from the restaurant."

"Don't do this to Holly," Sophie said, her voice high-pitched and unnatural-sounding. "She—she—loves—"

"Don't talk about Holly!" he spat. "Dumb bitch. Always yapping, yapping, never shutting the goddamn hell up, thinking I care about her opinions. She's got money and she's obsessed with me and so whatever, I put up with her. But she's not even that hot! Not like you, Sophie," he added softly and Sophie felt a wave of nausea threaten to take her out. "You're unbelievable. I love that haunted orphan look you've got, like you're just waiting for someone to rescue you."

Sophie opened her mouth to scream just as Rob slammed his mouth onto hers. She fell sideways with a crash, her leg twisting painfully beneath her, and let out a strangled shriek before he covered her mouth with his again, forcefully kissing her so hard it hurt. She tried to rake her nails across his face, jam her leg up into his stomach, anything, but he grabbed her wrists painfully and twisted them. It felt like her arms had erupted in flames, and tears of pain and shock sprang to her eyes.

"Get—off—of me!" she screamed, her fear and anger nearly blinding her. How dare he—how dare he put his disgusting hands on her? She bit his face hard and he let out a strangled yell and then slammed into her even more forcefully, breathing hard and laughing to himself, "You really are something, you know that?" before kissing her again, his hands ripping at her sweater and sliding up and down her body. She turned her head to the side and tried her best to push him off of her but his weight was too much and she slipped sideways even further, her shoulder slamming into a wall. The whole outhouse seemed to shudder as he pressed down on her throat with his hand and kissed her, biting her lip, biting her neck

She let out a strangled, spluttering sound, incoherent due to the pressure on her windpipe, and saw her vision start to go fuzzy around the edges as he tried to slide his right hand up her dress, grabbing the waistband of her tights—

NOOOOOO! She didn't know if she screamed it in her mind or out loud but all she knew was that it tore out of her with a furious force and she slammed her head forward as hard as she could. Their foreheads collided and he fell backwards, hitting a wall, with a strangled yell. She staggered to her feet, trembling and panting, and groped along the wall, frantically feeling for the door—there it was! Right behind her!

Before she could undo the deadbolt and wrench it open, he threw himself at her again, grabbing her face with his hands and kissing her forcefully, wrenching a strangled shriek out of her—

And then the door behind her simply vanished and she fell backwards. One minute it was there, a solid wall that was keeping her trapped in here with Rob, and the next minute it was gone. She only fell for a nanosecond before she fell into someone's arms, her legs giving way and almost collapsing to the ground. She staggered into a semi-upright position and clutched at whoever had saved her, looking up to see Winter.

A wave of relief swept through Sophie, so strong that she felt for a moment she might pass out. "Winter—Winter—" she half-whispered, half-sobbed, her words coming out twisted through her choked up throat, almost weeping with relief, clinging to him. "H-he—he tried to—he was going to—"

But what Rob was going to do, Sophie never got to say because Winter flung her away from him and strode into the outhouse. It didn't really matter since they both knew what Rob had planned to do to her. She hit the ground hard and scrambled backwards, putting herself well out of harm's way, and watched with half-fascination, half-horror as he dragged Rob out by his collar and threw him violently to the ground. Rob landed a few feet away from Sophie and she scrambled backwards even further, terrified of him touching her again. She clambered backward onto a piece of wood and looked down, realizing she had climbed onto the outhouse door. Winter had ripped the entire door off its hinges and flung it aside.

"Wait—you got the wrong idea," Rob rasped before Winter got to work.

Sophie had never had a taste for violence (unless it was being done by the hero against the villain in a fantasy book) but she found she couldn't look away now. She was transfixed. Partly because she wanted to see Rob get what he deserved but also because it was just…mesmerizing. The way he moved. Like an enormous jaguar, powerful and lithe.

She knew he went easy on Rob because he didn't kill Rob. But he thoroughly beat him up, tossing him physically a few times, kicking him, punching him repeatedly, sending him staggering this way and that. He ended up kneeling over Rob's chest, punching him repeatedly in the face and neck and stomach until Rob could only let out whimpering moans in protest. Sophie had heard several cracks during the fight (if something this one-sided could be called a fight…more like an assault—except it was justified) and knew he'd broken a few bones.

She heard what he said at the end, too. He knelt over Rob's faintly-stirring body, leaned in close, and harshly whispered, "If you ever so much as look at her again—you won't live to tell the story next time. And you'll tell everyone some locals jumped you and did this—or else I will find you and rip your trachea out and make you eat it." Then he punched Rob one more time and Sophie thought she heard another snap.

She sat paralyzed, trembling, staring at Rob's limp silhouette in the darkness. A wave of revulsion crawled over her as she thought about what he'd tried to do to her and she had to fight down the urge to throw up. Her entire body felt icy-cold and white-hot all at once and she knew her breathing was raspy and choppy, daggering in and out of her, but she didn't know how to stop it. She felt numb and raw all at once. Winter knelt by her and looked at her as if to gauge what she would do next and she wildly grabbed the front of his shirt, stammering, "H-he—he was going to—he tried to—oh m-my…" She stifled a whimper as her eyes filled with horrible tears.

"I know," Winter whispered and he moved closer to her, blocking her view of Rob.

"He—he touched me," she said, her voice high-pitched and trembling. "H-he—he put his hands up m-my dress—he kissed me—" She seemed to be locked in place, still trapped in the moment, unable to do anything but vocalize what had been done to her, what he'd tried to do to her—

"I know," Winter repeated and in her hazy, ringing ears, she thought she heard a note of gentleness in his voice. But she could have been wrong. She was probably wrong. She was wrong about everyone and everything and really, why did she trust people? When she clearly understood nothing about them and—

"Sophie." He gripped her face with his hands, looking serious, his face swimming in her wet vision. "Breathe."

He used my name.

She'd never heard him use her name before.

Wait, am I not breathing?

She realized she wasn't—she was gasping for air, shaking, blinking blurry tears out of her eyes. Heart hammering. A panic attack. She hadn't had one in quite some time.

It was his usage of her name that calmed her down more than anything else. How long had it been since someone had used her name like this? Quietly. Normally. As if they knew her. She focused on her own name and tried to regulate her breathing with it. So-phie. So-phie. So-phie. In-out. In-out. In-out.

Eventually she calmed down, her breathing returning to normal, her heart losing its thundering speed. Everything was still trembling and a cool sheen of sweat covered her entire body but she felt…semi-okay. His presence next to her felt solid. Dependable. Deadly, but in her defense. He was still gripping her face, trying to hold her steady.

Oddly enough, she realize she felt safe with him.

Huh. What a funny thing.

And then all of a sudden her dinner came back up in a rush. She wrenched herself away from him and hunched over on her hands and knees, vomiting up everything she'd eaten earlier, tears streaming out of her eyes. She felt her arms wobbling beneath her as she tried to support herself and was vaguely away of his hands—one warm, one cool—holding her hair away from her face as she threw up. When she was done, she wiped a shaky hand across her mouth and then collapsed.


His heart felt like it was racing. That was a very strange thing. His heart didn't usually pick up speed; it stayed pretty well-regulated mostly. It was a part of his enhancement. His heart only picked up speed when he needed that rare, sudden burst of adrenaline to get the job done. Otherwise, he'd learned to control it so it stayed calm.

But it felt like it was racing tonight.

He'd known there was something off about that Rob character. Had sensed it due to decades of instinct and training. He didn't know if it was the oddly empty look in the man's eyes or his bland smile, but something had whispered in his mind that this man was to be watched.

And tonight…he'd almost failed. He'd almost failed her. Failed to keep the mission safe. The Rob character had almost gotten her and the Winter Soldier could have killed himself for being so stupidly careless, for not realizing earlier how much trouble she was in.

He hadn't noticed at first. She'd been gone a while but he figured she needed some privacy after that odd meal they'd had. The food hadn't looked like it had agreed with her. And then Rob had excused himself as well, saying he needed to use the bathroom or he was going to burst. And he had been so stupid, he'd been taken in by the man's casual manner and had actually wasted precious minutes staring off into space before his spine had tingled, letting him know something was wrong. Rob had been gone a while and the girl had definitely been gone too long; where was the girl?

And then he had known.

He knew he had to keep the mission safe from others. This was why he was protecting her. He was allowed to use force with her because he knew his limits; Hydra had allowed him this. But others were definitely not allowed near her. She was too valuable to Hydra, apparently, and if anyone else damaged her, he would have failed in his mission. He wasn't about to let that happen, especially after all that had happened for him to make it this far. So that was why he was angry about what Rob had done. He knew that.

What he couldn't explain was the almost terrifying wave of white-hot rage that had risen up in him like a snake as he had ripped the outhouse door of its hinges and seen the last glimpses of Rob all over the girl, his hands, his mouth, touching every bit of her that he could. The Winter Soldier sternly told himself it was for the mission's well-being that he'd reacted so violently—

But if he was going to be…

Well. Honest. He knew there was something else.

He just didn't know how to name it or explain it.

All he knew was that seeing Rob all over her, her desperately trying to get away from the man, hearing her ragged sobs as she fell against him for safety—it had kindled his rage like no other. He hadn't felt this kind of fury since the early days after kidnapping her, when she'd spoken back to him—and truly, even that anger hadn't been like this. Here…now…he'd wanted to rip this man from limb to limb for what he'd done.

And he'd come so close to doing so.

Except he'd realized that the girl was watching, frozen and horrified, and realized she was the bigger priority. And leaving a body behind was only going to make their situation more difficult.

She'd fallen against him, clutched at his chest, tears flowing down her face and then she'd started having trouble breathing. He'd panicked, not sure on what to do to calm her down, and it had slipped out without even thinking about it: her name.

Sophie.

Sophie.

He'd never said it out loud before.

In fact…he'd never even consciously thought it before.

But there it came—and he felt strange, shaken, as if something had drastically changed between them because he'd said her name. Was it the fact that he'd acknowledged her humanity? That she was a human being with a name? A flesh-and-blood person with a name and a history and likes and dislikes?

Someone who deserved…

Better than this, a strange voice in his mind whispered.

He shook it away angrily.

Then she'd thrown up and he'd held her hair away from her face, feeling very strange and out-of-body as he did so, and then she'd collapsed. He picked her up in his arms, cradling her. She felt as light as a feather to him. He vaguely thought about the fact that he'd never held her like this before; he usually threw her over his shoulder quite roughly as if she was a sack of flour. He walked back to the bus, which was silent and empty, and settled in a seat far away from Holly and Rob's, laying the girl on the seat so she curled up into a ball, her head resting on his lap. Normally he would have been very uncomfortable with this but tonight, he couldn't even bring himself to care. He stared moodily out the window, thinking about everything and nothing all at once, checking a few times to make sure the girl—

Sophie

—was still breathing. In the dim light, he could see her mouth was swollen, her neck and cheeks bruised. He suspected her arms and stomach and legs would have bruises on them, too. She looked sticky and beaten up, her dark hair a mess. He swallowed down another swell of curious anger.

Half an hour later he heard the screams he'd known were coming since the moment he stepped onto the bus. And then he waited. Sure enough, twenty minutes later Holly stormed onto the bus, two men carrying Rob with them behind her, and made her way directly to his seat, shrieking incoherently at him. He stared calmly at her while the rest of the passengers began boarding the bus, curious and shocked at this bit of after-dinner drama they hadn't anticipated, staring in horror at Rob (who looked near-dead after his beating). And he'd held back as he'd beaten him. He wished he hadn't had to.

It took him a moment to realize Holly was screaming at him. "YOU DID THIS!" she was screaming. "YOU WERE OUT THERE WITH HIM! YOU AND THAT FREAK, THAT UNGRATEFUL BRAT, I KNEW YOU TWO WERE TROUBLE—"

"I've been here this whole time," he said with awful coldness and he saw her flinch at his icy tone.

She turned purple with rage, screaming, "NO, YOU WEREN'T, YOU BASTARD! YOU ATE DINNER WITH US!"

"Prove it," he said carelessly.

"I WILL!" she screamed.

The bus driver got on the bus, looking alarmed, and began demanding in Spanish as to what the hell was going on. Or at least that was what the Winter Soldier guessed he was saying. It didn't take a genius to figure out what the portly man meant.

Holly began hysterically shrieking in Spanish, pointing dramatically at the seat where Rob was laying and moaning, and then at him and the girl, clearly blaming him for Rob's assault. He watched with careful, narrowed eyes, waiting to see what happened next. If they believed her and tried to kick him off the bus, he could vanish into the night with Sophie—or he could kill everyone on this bus and take off with it. He was more inclined to do the latter. He was nearing the end of his patience by now.

"She's lying!" a bald man suddenly shouted, popping up from one of the seats near the front. The Winter Soldier felt slightly shocked; he hadn't even realized the man was on the bus with them. "The soldier's been here the entire time with his girlfriend." He repeated the same thing in Spanish at the bus driver, who now looked extremely bewildered and upset by this perplexing drama.

He had no idea why this random bald man was defending him when he didn't even know him but the bald man nodded respectfully at him and after a pause, he nodded tersely back at the man, slightly unsure as to what he was doing. Still—the man had helped his story. So.

"THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!" Holly screamed at the top of her lungs. "Who's believing this shit? WHO'S BELIEVING IT?"

"Holly," rose up Rob's croaking groan and everyone froze, staring at his seat. "Hollyyyyy…"

"Yes, Rob!" she rushed over to his seat and bent over him. "I'm here, honey! I'm here! Tell them what happened, baby! Tell them Will jumped you!"

Who the hell was Will? It took him a good moment to remember the girl's idiotic codename for him. Will. Such garbage.

"It…wasn't…him," came Rob's slurred moan. "Buncha…boys…"

Holly's face blanched with shock. "But—b-but—but Rob! Honey! How…are… What are you saying, Rob? It has to be them! They—they didn't even— Tell them, Rob!" she implored, a hard edge to her voice. "TELL THEM!"

"Boysss," Rob called, slurring through his broken teeth and possible concussion.

Actually, he definitely had a concussion.

"See?" the Winter Soldier asked lazily, almost enjoying her humiliation. Wretched woman. This was the best punishment he could have given her, glutton for attention that she was.

The bus driver shouted something in Spanish, throwing his hands up in exasperation, and the bald man said something back to him in Spanish. Then the driver replied, clearly frustrated, and clambered into the driver's seat, starting up the engine. The Winter Soldier looked at the bald man with cool detachment, waiting for an explanation, and the man eagerly said, "The driver was asking what the hell was going on, so I explained what that dude said—it was a bunch of boys who beat him up—and the driver said that unless someone wanted to get off and go to the police right now, he was leaving. He doesn't need this shit on his bus. End of story."

He nodded and turned away from the bald man's curious gaze. Holly sat in the first seat behind the driver with Rob, bending over him and crooning softly. The rest of the passengers filed in over the next twenty minutes, speaking and gossiping in hushed voices about the strange event that had just taken place, the story making its rounds throughout the whole tour bus. He knew he and the girl would be the center of attention in the coming days and hoped they reached their destination soon. He didn't want to be in the limelight. He wasn't made for it, wasn't trained for it. He was made for the shadows.

And the shadows existed for him.

He looked down at the girl as the lights on the bus dimmed, the engine roared and rumbled, and the bus slowly pulled out of the disastrous town.

She slept on him through the entire night.


A/N: What do you guys think of this sudden turn of events? Do let me know!