Chapter 3

Months went by and Sophia still could not wipe the smile of her face. She and Steve had been going strong ever since that first, interrupted, date. He was gentle and kind and tremendously funny when he got comfortable around people. He had been a true gentleman and Sophia felt blessed for having met him. He made her happier than she thought she could ever be.

Sure, it had not all been sunshine and daisies. Sometimes he would have to cancel their plans for a mission. Which, while she understood, still really sucked. And whenever they went out, he would have to disguise himself, or they would be hounded by people who wanted to talk to and gawk at Captain America. And as much as she tried to be understanding of those people, she had been one of them after all, it was still hard. It made their relationship anything but typical. And it was certainly never boring.

All that said, they were yet to have any big arguments, which she was truly grateful for. And whenever they did have a disagreement, making up was so fun, they quickly forgot about it.

Sophia knew they had been lucky in terms of his job. Steve had not gotten too many long missions and was around quite often. Zoe and Janet had taken a liking to him rather quickly and the other avengers had treated Sophia with nothing but kindness. They had quickly accepted her and played pranks on her, as much as they did on each other.

Things were good.

So tonight, in honour of their six month anniversary, Steve was taking her out to dinner. He had planned to take her to the diner where they'd had their first date. Followed by a nice walk through Brooklyn.

Sophia couldn't wait. Dinner would be nice, surely, but it was the walk she longed for. Steve often let his guard down a little during those walks. Telling her about his dreams for the future. Things he wanted to happen, things he wanted to see. She loved listening to him as he spoke of these dreams. The world at their feet and every opportunity to take flight.

Of course his future wasn't as open en free as those conversations would imply. They were both very much aware of that. Still it was nice to dream, and to dream together.

Steve took her hand in his, as they walked across the Brooklyn bridge, and kissed the back of it. She smiled at him. They were walking to the middle of the bridge as they had done many times, to enjoy the view from there. It was a chilly night and Sophia pulled her scarf closer around her neck. On the bridge, wind was always a little tougher to avoid.

"Are you cold?" Steve asked as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him.

"Just a little, I'll be fine" she said, leaning into his chest, "I'll never get sick of this view" she added as she looked up at the starry sky. On the bridge, away from the many city lights, it got a little easier to see the stars. Of course, it wasn't the same as, for instance, the starry sky in the Australian outback, but it was beautiful nonetheless. She could only imagine the amount of stars they would be able to see if all the lights of the city would be turned off.

"Neither can I" Steve said, but he wasn't looking at the stars. Sophia laughed and pushed him a little.

"So cheesy" she said, turning around in his embrace to face him and hugged Steve close.

"You know you love it" Steve said, holding her close to him and kissing the top of her head.

"I do. And I love you" she said as she looked into his eyes.

"I love you too" he replied and placed a tender kiss on her lips.

Behind Steve a light flickered on and off, but they paid it no mind. It wasn't until Sophia saw a bat swinging towards Steve's head that either of them noticed that they were no longer alone on the bridge. Sophia screamed and Steve turned around to stop their attacker.

They were quickly overrun by a group of attackers and as Steve tried to keep Sophia between him and the railing, the attackers closed in on them. Whoever they were, they had come prepared and knew just how Steve fought. Countering many of his moves and pushing him, and Sophia, back towards the streets of Brooklyn.

There, the open space was no friend to them and men were able to pull Sophia away from Steve.

She kicked and screamed as best she could, fighting to stay close to Steve, just as he fought to keep her. But to no avail. They were stronger than Sophia and in large numbers. Even Steve could not fight his way through quickly. And quick he had to be. Seemingly out of nowhere a van appeared and Sophia was unceremoniously pushed inside, her shoes falling off in the process.

Steve shouted after her and started running after the van, while calling for Tony with his phone. Tony had luckily installed his number as quick dial number one. Steve could type that in blindly. Which helped him keep his eyes on the van in front of him.

It took Tony less that five minutes to have several people joining Steve on the ground, while he and Sam took off for an areal view of Brooklyn. However, no matter how quick they had been, nor how fast Steve had run, the van was gone. And so was Sophia.

It took some coaxing to get Steve back to their quarters to device a plan. Steve wanted to keep running, his anger getting the better of him and his common sense lost.

It wasn't until Natasha smacked him over the head that he stood still. Looking at her with surprise on his features.

"Good" she said, "now that you've snapped out of it, lets make a plan" she said and he solemnly nodded as he followed her to her car. Above them, redwing was still scouring the sky in search of the van that took Sophia away.

Steve got into the car and let Natasha drive them back to the tower. Natasha let him sit in silence. She knew he would not be ready to talk. And there was nothing she could offer up to make this better. Not yet. Though she good hope that they would figure this out.

As soon as Steve and Natasha walked into the conference room, he was met by de rest of the avengers. Tony had put several maps on display and was talking people through his idea for a grid search. He was already sending small teams off and looked up to meet Steve's eye.

"Steve, I teamed you up with Nat and Sam. Hope you're okay with this" Tony said carefully, knowing full well that the captain usually took charge. He also knew that Steve was in no mental state to think strategically. Steve just nodded and left the room, not speaking to anyone or even looking at any of them. He was too preoccupied.

He quickly walked towards the elevator and took it down to the armoury. Here he put on his suit and grabbed his guns and shield. Before he was done strapping everything on, Natasha and Sam joined him and got ready to leave for their part of the grid search.

None of them talked much as they set off on their mission. No words were needed between them. Luckily, because neither Sam nor Natasha had any words of comfort or encouragement to give at this point.

The next three weeks the Avengers searched the larger part of New York state and some of New Jersey as well. Quickly it became clear that there were actually three possible compounds that Sophia could be held at. Hydra bases. That Hydra was involved had been Steve's biggest fear. Bucky was a prime example of just how ruthless they were.

The avengers each took turns in scouting all three places to determine where Sophia would most likely be held. Steve did everything in a bit of a blur. His team-mates pulled him through it, while he went crazy with worry. He was never the kind of guy to worry about things he did not know, but his knowledge of Hydra actually scared him more than he would care to admit. He did not know what they were doing to her, but he knew very well that it would be bad.

In the mean time Sophia was slowly going out of her mind. She had no idea how much time had passed, as she was held in the dark. Not to mention the torture that she had endured. This had quite the disorienting effect, she had discovered. Sophia had been prodded and beaten and even water boarded. Her body felt heavy and her mind was sluggish. Even if she managed to get off the table she was on, there was no way she would get out of this room without falling down. She knew that there was no escaping this hell on her own.

After the last beating she took, she had passed out and she had only just woken up. She was slowly trying to take in her surroundings. It didn't take long to notice that they had brought her to a different room. Before there had been a mirror in the room. She had assumed it had been a two way mirror and that her attackers, whoever they were, had been watching her endure the torture they ordered for her. Probably a bit of a sport for these people, she thought sarcastically.

She was wondering why they had moved her, when someone in a hazard suit walked in. Without saying anything they simply took her temperature, checked some vitals and drew blood. Sophia tried to find a face behind the mask, but it was too dark in the room. The only light in the room now coming of the flash light the other person was wearing on it's head.

She tried to speak, but found her throat too sore to do so. She imagined she would not have gotten many answers any way. They had been ignoring every word she said and every sound she made, ever since they took her.

They had not asked her any questions either, which she had expected. After all why did they take her of not to get information on Steve and the avengers? It's not like she could have told them anything, but they didn't know that, right?

Instead of questions she had immediately been thrown in a dark room where the humidity was so high that there seemed to be a mist hanging. The mist had nearly chocked her, when they first threw her in the room. Seemingly engulfing her whole and clinging to her. She was frozen, laying on the floor. Uncertain of what was happening to her or how long they left her there.

When they took her out a short time later, she felt different. Like the humidity still clung to her skin. That feeling hadn't left yet. She could still feel it, along with all the bruises and needles marks that covered her body. Water, clinging to her skin. Beating to the drum of her heartbeat.

A tear fell from her eye, sliding down the side of her face, just passing her ear, before landing on the table beneath her. Everything hurt and all hope was quickly fading.

This was the first story I wrote for the MCU and the first after years of not writing fanfiction. Please let me know what you think.