It was four fifty five and Mallory's stomach was sick with excitement. Her date with the Rumlow was tonight and she had been looking forward to it all day. As she was retouching her eyebrows to sharpen the lines, her mother called. Mallory put down her eyebrow pencil and picked up the phone.

Her mother answered without greeting. "Mal, honey have you eaten yet?"

Mallory had been too nervous to have a snack. "No not yet."

"Oh that's good. I have a chicken and the Johnston's are coming for dinner. You know their son George – you remember George don't you? - is getting a divorce? There'll be food, cake, tea..."

Mallory was grinning from ear to ear and she crossed her legs, feeling how smooth they were from the amount of shaving she'd done. She'd nicked her legs as always, on the back crease where her knee was.

"I can't." Mallory was beginning to sound smug. "I have a date."

There was a pause. Then with all of Mallory's sexual and romantic encounters, an explosion uttered out of her mother's mouth that would eventually rival the one that Yellowstone was hiding beneath the layers of rock.

"A date?! Who with?! What's his or hers name? Honestly sweetie I didn't think you'd be able to nab anybody but look at you!"

"Well..." Mallory ignored the final barb from her mother and walked barefoot from the bathroom to her bedroom, peeking out of the window to check if the car had arrived yet. "His name is Brock, he's an agent at my workplace and yeah he's really cute."

Her mother was laughing delightedly. "Oh honey that's great. What does he look like?"

Mallory squinted at the window, seeing her dressed and made up reflection in the glass, attempting to remember.

"He's got dark hair, quite dark hazel eyes, and he's... oh he's just gorgeous Mom."

"Oh well. I'll tell the Johnston's you'll be here next time." Her mother giggled. "Maybe with this Brock guy!"

Mallory talked as she walked back into the kitchen, picking up the eyebrow pencil and leaning close into the mounted mirror on her bathroom wall to squint properly at her reflection. She'd framed her light brown eyes with lashing of black mascara and eyeliner, perfecting the cat like flick at the end (of course, the first attempt on the left eye had ended in disaster and she'd covered the slight smudge with her foundation). Grey sparkly eyeshadow smoked her eye lids and blended into a lighter silver in the corner and the crease. Her hair was still warm from the curling iron, flowing naturally down her back but of course styled hard. She wore a blue dress and matching strappy shoes which she'd recently purchased lay on the bed to be worn; she had prayed to every God she could remember that they wouldn't pinch her feet.

"It's just a date, Mom." A car horn beeped outside. Mallory's heart lurched. "Oh God he's here! I have to go."

"Okay. Love you sweetheart and good luck!"

"Thanks! Love you too!" Mallory hung up quickly and finished with her eyebrow pencil. She dashed round the apartment, collecting keys, phones, emergency paracetamol, makeup for any retouches, a hair tie in case her hair went wrong, some blister packs and a pepper spray which had been abandoned at the bottom of her bag. The car horn beeped again out of impatience and she heard Rumlow's voice yell towards the general direction of her building.

"HURRY UP, MAL!"

Laughing, Mallory strapped her shoes over her feet. Taking a last look in the mirror for luck, she deemed herself acceptable and clacked down the stairs, through the main lobby to the sight of Rumlow in a suit holding a lily by the pavement.

"Looking good, Dr. Smith." He said, as she took his outstretched arm and they walked to the car together. "Hey. This is for you."

She took the pink lily – her favourite flower – with the white bordered edges and twirled the stem in her hand. "My favourite. How did you know?"

"Lucky guess. C'mon. I think this taxi driver is going to murder us for waiting." The driver tutted when they entered the car together, and the pair shared a laugh at his disbelief.

Rumlow had chosen the restaurant, an Asian place with paper lamps and a friendly hostess who had greeted them and guided them a table tucked near the back. Mallory ordered a light dinner, sushi with that seaweed which wasn't really seaweed, and a large glass of the white house wine.

As dinner arrived and was cleared, Mallory had learnt a lot about the once mysterious agent Rumlow. When he worked with S.H.I.E.L.D on a weekly basis he was a member of their STRIKE force and had met infamous Agent Romanoff numerous amounts of times. After she'd questioned him extensively, he'd revealed that she was a high-ranking, mysterious woman but Rumlow found her a "bit of a bitch". The bitch comment had thrown her off course but as she liked him so much she was prepared to forgive that slight mishap and ignore it. He was a half Italian, half American boy who had been raised in America ever since he was young, although he spoke of his Italian childhood rather fondly. His birthday was in June. His favourite colour was blue. He used to have a yellow Labrador but he had to get rid of it as his landlord didn't like pets on the premises. And she noticed he joked a lot, and had a tendency of rubbing his neck almost nervously whenever he mentioned work. Mallory had smiled at him and made him laugh with details of her boring childhood, explaining the story of how she had broken her wrist after falling off a swing set when she was a child. As he reached over the table to take her wrist to have a look at her scar, he held it for a moment longer and smiled at her deeply. Mallory had felt the jolt of electricity and couldn't keep the grin off her face.

"This was nice." He said, and Mallory had to agree. It had been a nice dinner. And now they were leaving.

As the cab pulled up outside the restaurant, Rumlow guided her in and placed his arm on the backrest of Mallory's seat; Mallory found her head rested against his shoulder as if they were already dating. Excitement swirled with alcohol in her stomach and she could tell that she really really liked Agent Rumlow. She considered asking him upstairs so they could have sex, weighing up the pros and cons in her drunken mind. Pro; it would end her practically six month dry spell after ending it with her last boyfriend Todd. Con; it might ruin the possibility of a future relationship with Rumlow. Pro; he looked like he knew how to pleasure a woman. Con; she was afraid she'd be too drunk to remember.

Eventually, logic won and the cons won out and Mallory resigned herself to a night of sex-free activities. As the car stopped outside her front door, Rumlow stepped out with her.

"So..." It had gotten colder and Mallory hadn't brought a coat. She held her hands to her opposite forearms and smiled at Rumlow warmly. "This was fun."

"Yeah it was." A high blush had crept over Rumlow's cheeks and Mallory reckoned he was drunker then he was letting on; he'd been chugging Jack Daniels as if it was water all throughout their dinner almost nervously. "I really like you Mallory."

A glow set in Mallory's stomach, and a smile so wide crept on her face it hurt. "Well I really like you as well, Rumlow."

He laughed. "I told you, call me Brock."

"I like Rumlow better."

The pair shared a laugh and Rumlow took her hand; Mallory felt the glow spreading across her entire body and she nervously chuckled as he pressed his mouth to the flat upper side of her hand.

"Can we do it again some time?" His thumb brushed over her knuckles and as her hand dropped he tightened his grip to give her a squeeze of reassurance. Mallory nodded, giggling girlishly.

"Of course." He then lent forwards and kissed her once, very softly on the mouth. Mallory stopped breathing and tried to desperately snapshot that moment forever. When they pulled apart, she smiled at him. "Goodnight... Brock."

"Goodnight Mallory."

The fairytale hysteria lasted with her as she went up the four flights of stairs - abandoning her heels on the second set – and into her apartment. With her back to the door, Mallory slumped to knees and let out another laugh which echoed throughout the silent and dark apartment. The date had gone well, and the glow of new found... romance was with her all throughout the evening.

At night, she experienced the same dream as the night before, of the metal-armed man with the cold eyes who whispered her name in a fever.

"Vitals?" Mallory asked to the empty, cool air of the lab.

The automated computer answered with assurance. "80bpm."

She stared down at the glass coffin of her Soldier and felt a warmth towards him, even though they had barely spoke. The warmth was of friendship, as one feels to a platonic friend they feel they have known their entire lives. She'd been working in this compound for two weeks now but it felt like even longer; the secrecy of the ride to work no longer thrilled her, the ultimate-security vibe of the Bunker no longer intrigued her thirst of curiousity. Even the technology didn't shock her anymore. Mallory Smith had officially, as of two weeks from her start date at the HYDRA base, became an integrated HYDRA medical officer. It felt good to no longer feel like the new kid stumbling blindly from task to task. Frowning at the glass, she rubbed her sleeve on the fingerprint marks she had smudged all across the top of the cool circular glass lid of her Soldier's prison and wondered how often the cleaners got in to wash it. She mused on Pierce and how she hadn't seen him since they'd had that awkward conversation in his office. The man was at S.H.I.E.L.D's headquarters, the big shiny building in D.C named the Triskelion. He was to be there for the rest of this month, and the team was instructed to carry on their normal business as if he was still presiding over them like a big metaphorical shark.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in."

A young HYDRA agent entered, his head thrown back as if he was mid-laugh. His standard-issued boots clacked horribly against the tiled floor, but when Mallory spotted the blood that was poured in a direct stream from his nose to the floor, Mallory leapt up.

"What happened?" She was caught between a motherly amusement at someone's injuries and the doctoral criticism that welled in her throat.

"Someone caught me on a mission. Lucky shot." The young man laughed. "You should see the other guy."

Mallory laughed and told the soldier to hop up on the examination table.

She'd found a pastime when she wasn't looking after her Soldier. HYDRA, STRIKE and S.H.I.E.L.D agents found themselves slowly drawn to her door as if she was a regular medical practitioner and this was her clinic, asking about dormant rashes, STD's, curious looking moles and general worrisome items upon their body. So far she had discovered a numerous amount of STD's and found herself laughing about them to Brock the day after.

"Just tell me who it is!" He had teased lightly, as the armoured vehicle drove her home from work. Mallory had slumped in her seat and mock-glared at him.

"No! Patient doctor confidentiality." She shoved him hard. "Anyway you'd tease them so much until they quit due to harassment. You can be a real asshole, Rumlow."

"You love it."

"Fuck off."

"You love it!" Rumlow had insisted, with that jerk type smirk that Mallory had come to have a love hate relationship with. He'd then proceeded to press his body against her and kiss her lightly on the mouth. Mallory drank each kiss even deeper, feeling drunk and lusty on the taste of his lips and the feel of his two day old stubble giving her burn on her cheeks. Not realizing she was grinning, the agent with the broken nose frowned at her.

"What?"

Mallory composed herself. "Nothing. Looks like a simple fracture; broken clean in two." She got to work silently, trying not to think about Rumlow or how she had felt that familiar warming sensation in her underwear. She cleaned the agent up and was in the process of explaining what she was going to do when the coffin beeped.

The computer commanded her attention. "Recovery complete." The coffin clicked open.

Although nobody had specifically told anybody that her main priority was the Soldier and not a random HYDRA agent, the HYDRA agent knew this instinctively. He jumped down from the examination table immediately and smiled nervously.

"I'm gonna go... do stuff." The agent assured her, glancing nervously at the coffin.

His race from the room was almost fast enough to beat the world record. Mallory found her gaze drawn towards the blood he had dripped on her floor when he'd entered, before she ran back to the coffin as the Soldier woke up.

"Hey."

The Soldier blinked as light shrank his pupils. "What... what happened?" His voice seemed lower than normal.

Mallory kept it short and sweet. "You were out on a contract. You'd been stabbed... we put you in the machine and ran the protocols. You're fine now."

The Soldier nodded and Mallory moved so he could get up. Shirtless and hungry looking, his sweatpants hung from his skinny hips. He managed to haul himself out of the coffin with ease but when it came to walking, he staggered like a drunk and held his hands out for balance. Mallory was next to him in an instance, her arm around his waist.

"Easy... just take it slow... don't strain yourself." She coaxed. The Soldier seemed reluctant to be so near her, but he resigned himself to having close contact with her and allowed her to practically carry him towards the examination table. As he eased himself up, Mallory called for the computer.

"Run cleaning programme on the coffin."

"Cleaning programme commencing."

Mallory then started her usual examination on the Soldier. Reflexes, speech patterns, questions of pain, sickness or dizziness. He responded well, his hand lightly prodding his side where a shiny new scar displayed on his chest.

"Is that the..."

She finished for him. "Stab wound? Yeah." Treading lightly, Mallory attempted to make her tone casual. "So do you remember who stabbed you?"

The Soldier nodded. Mallory raised her eyebrow.

"Not going to tell me?" He shook his head. Mallory gave up and moved onto the mental exercises.

"How do you feel?"

He was used to this and he tilted his head back, his long unkempt hair falling backwards in almost gently curled waves. "Hungry." He answered with the number scale through familiarity. "About a nine."

"Any pain? Discomfort?"

"A little pain. A five or a six."

Mallory searched the cupboards and found some aspirin and some bottled water; they kept water in the cupboards, but no food.

"Here. Take this." The Soldier obeyed without question. Mallory smiled. "We'll get you some food later."

"That's what you said last time." The Soldier narrowed his eyes critically. Shocked, Mallory reeled slightly.

"They didn't feed you?"

The Soldier shook his head. Mallory's jaw dropped open; how long hadn't he eaten? The question ran forward without being prompted.

"When was the last time you ate?" He seemed to frown at her slightly but she watched as his seemingly large frame suddenly relaxed as if he had been tense this entire time.

The Soldier shrugged, choosing to use actions instead of words. Mallory's eyes widened. The decision clicked within her mind and her stomach growled at the outcome of her decision, her mouth flooding with saliva. She rummaged round the lab until she found her coat and located a twenty dollar bill crumpled in her jacket pocket.

"Wait here." Mallory went outside, clutching the bill intently and tracked down an agent; once assuring them of her identify and knowledge, she requested what she needed.

"Dr. Smith I haven't done that type of mission before." The agent was a hard faced female who's mask of steely eyed determination was cracked due to her request.

"I'm begging you." Mallory smiled kindly. "Just stay with it until it's done and bring it straight back. Okay?" She pressed the bill in the agent's hand.

The agent glanced at the office as if Pierce was still inside, and glaring at her. Then she nodded.

"Okay."

An hour and a half later, the agent returned carrying a pizza box and Mallory's change. In return for her kindness, Mallory allowed the agent to take slice of the the 14" margarita and she had, walking from the lab with a huge grin plastered across her face.

When she returned with the still-warm pizza box in her hands, her Soldier was sitting on his glass coffin with his elbows resting on his knees, staring into the distance blankly. At her noise, he'd swung his legs down and glared at the box as if it was an enemy.

An enemy against a diet, perhaps. Mallory grinned at him and set the box down on the examination table.

"What is that?"

She opened the lid and briefly ignored him, leaning forwards to smell the freshly cooked dough and the bubbling cheese. "Pizza. Have you ever had it before?" The Soldier eyed her with that blank look only this time, there seemed to be something whirring in his brain as if he was thinking about it.

"I'm not sure."

"Well it's food. You said you were hungry." She lent in to take a slice.

Mallory got lost in her own world of taste sensations, chewing on the now mashed up mixture of dough and cheese and tomato sauce in her mouth. The taste caressed her taste buds in a way a man never could, and Mallory stifled a groan. It had been too long since she'd eaten pizza. Too long.

The Soldier walked over curiosity and sniffed at it. "Nobody's ever bought me pizza before."

Mallory stopped mid chew, eyeing him as he hesitated to pick up a slice. His statement welled up sympathy within her, even more to add to the already growing pile of sympathy for this poor Winter Soldier. After watching her intently as Mallory took another big bite and swallowed it – probably assuring himself that it wasn't poisoned – the Soldier took a slice gingerly and began eating with small bites. As he ate, he walked over to the glass coffin, and ate it with his back towards her. Mallory didn't mind; she knew he was just a little cold towards her. Not unkind, just frosty.

"Cleaning programme complete."

Mallory spoke with a full mouth, thickly and with great difficulty. "Thanks. Send update on the Soldier to Pierce." She'd bitten off more then she could chew, literally.

Her mouth must've been too full as the computer responded with, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that."

She heard a soft chuckle in the corner where the Soldier stood, more like a grunt really. He was laughing. She'd never seen him crack so much as a smile yet with his back to her and eating the pizza she'd bought out of her own pocket, he was laughing at her. Mallory found herself smiling at his back, glad he'd worked up some sort of confidence to feel comfortable with expressing that.

She swallowed still grinning. "Sorry. Send update to Pierce."

The computer whirred. "Update sent."

As Mallory finished her slice and was looking through the notes on her clipboard, in the vague silence of lab amongst irregular beeps of machinery she could hear the Soldier creeping back up the table. The box rustled as he took another slice. Mallory made her tone as casual as she could, fearing if she turned to look at him he'd scuttle away like a frightened rabbit.

"You can have most of it if you're hungry. Just leave me like one more slice."

The Soldier responded with his usual low voice and lack of words. "Okay."

As the Soldier ate all of her pizza, Mallory was busy editing her notes to look through when she got home. She wrote in a neat cursive, making her writing slow and soft and easy to understand. They were simple commands really, a to-do list. Wash dishes. Call parents. Do washing up. Make dinner.

She'd crossed the last command from her list as the pizza would count as dinner and she was sure there was some leftovers if she did indeed feel hungry later on. And, as she heard her Soldier rustle the box to grab another slice, she added at the bottom with a grin on her face:

Note to self – he likes pizza.

That would make her smile when she went home. Mallory turned and saw the Soldier in front of her, holding a slice of pizza and looking a little lost.

"Something wrong?"

"The other doctor... Dr..." He frowned and looked at her for understanding. Mallory cast her mind back and tried to remember his other doctor's name.

"Harriet."

Although he didn't smile, his eyes showed appreciation by widening a little. "Dr Harriet used to put me straight back in cryo-sleep." He was clearly asking if he was going to go back into it soon. Mallory smiled.

"According to some of the research I read, the developers of the technology recommended a break every now and again." It seemed to relieve him. He nodded, face blank as he took a bite of his slice of pizza. "Good?"

He looked confused. Mallory nodded her head towards the pizza. He nodded in understanding.

"Uh yeah."

He wasn't a talker but Mallory was enjoying this time with him so she pressed him gently.

"I was wondering... how did you know my name? You called me Mallory when you were screaming in pain over the stab wound."

The Soldier took a bite of the pizza, waited until he had chewed and swallowed before answering quietly. "Pierce mentioned you. And Reznak when they were in the office."

Oh. The explained it. Mallory smiled. "You can call me Mal if you want. I don't mind. In fact I prefer it – Dr. Smith makes me sound like a boring professional and Mallory is an old woman's name."

He surprised her by staring at the floor and saying lowly. "I like it."

He was offering opinions... Mallory felt like she'd made a breakthrough so she kept him talking.

"You like the name Mallory? Seriously? Not many people do." She'd spent her entire life being hounded by the horrors of having a name like Mallory. She despised her name. It sounded so old and stupid. She was named after a hotel, in fact. When she'd asked her mother where the name had come from in her youth her mother had shrugged and mentioned her own mother had stayed at a hotel near Leamington Spa in England called Mallory Court Hotel. Who gets named after a hotel?

He seemed uncomfortable with the prolonged conversation but still he answered all the same. "Yeah. It's... antique." What a strange word choice. Mallory frowned a little.

"Antique? What do you mean by that?"

"Its the word that came to me." Even he seemed confused. Mallory knew it obviously had meant something to who he was before the frequent memory wipes and decided to let it drop.

"Anyway, just let me know when you wanna go back in the machine."

"Okay... Mal."

Mallory hid her smile as she grabbed the second to last slice of pizza, leaving the final and rather larger piece for the Soldier. They'd barely exchanged many words but somehow, Mallory felt like the Soldier had finally come to trust her a little more

It was late at night and Mallory was channel surfing. Rumlow had just signed off to bed with a lovely worded goodnight text and they'd arranged to go on another date after the success of their first one.

Mallory had grinned with satisfaction at his lovely text but had forgotten it quickly, her brain slowing with tiredness but unable switch off. She clicked the remote through the channels aimlessly, sighing as she pressed the Guide button to check what was on each channel. More and more of the same, repeats and reruns of shows that aired in the 90's, shows of the same format that had never really matched their success since they'd ended. As a last resort, Mallory switched to CNN and drew her feet up, muting the TV and sipping her tea as events played out on the screen silently. She squeezed the bridge of her nose with her free hand in an attempt to get rid of her sudden blaring headache and lent back on the sofa, hoping some simple silence would cause her brain to switch off.

Out of the corner of her eye however, the breaking news headline caught her attention. Mallory found herself more awake then ever, leaning forwards to put her cup of tea down and unmuting the TV to grab the last end of the report the straight haired, blonde newscaster was presenting. She spoke with urgency and a seriousness that Mallory could not ignore.

"-untimely suicide of business man and oil entrepreneur Oswick Owen. His family have released a statement requesting privacy at this delicate time. Paul Riviera, our business correspondent, brings you more news. Paul, the details are currently a little sketchy can you tell us what happened?"

The screen cut to a grey and sallow faced man standing outside of a large house with gated iron bars, his hair blown left, right and center by an unruly wind.

"Well, Tiffany, it seems that Oswick Owen had deliberately crashed his car into oncoming traffic as a suicide attempt that has unfortunately succeeded. Initial reports said onlookers witnessed another car, a black SUV slamming into Owen but local police have found no evidence on site of the crash and are ruling out foul play. This has been officially stated as a suicide."

The screen cut back to the pretty, grave-faced blonde in the slightly less windier studio. She shuffled her papers and talked urgently. "Thank you Paul. In other news, the Kim Kardashian mobile game app has broken records for being the fastest downloaded app in 23 countries-"

Mallory's head was whirling. The death of an oil baron... everybody knew who Oswick Owen was. A party man, always making headlines not because of his cutting edge business deals or his cut-price oil but because of his sex scandals, his infamous burlesque parties and the legendary oil spill of '09. Owen's rampant and erratic personality put his business on the map and had increased business in Saudi Arabia with the local oil barons. An angry oil baron at the door of her Soldier requesting to see him who had a penchant for killing off the competition and now the dead body of one of his main market competitors was dead? It was too coincidental to ignore.

She stared around her apartment and found her gaze falling upon the single pink and perfect lily Rumlow had given her, displayed ornately in a tiny glass vase. Instead of reminding her of Rumlow like it should of, she felt herself remembering the Soldier's laughter.

Pierce was hiding something. And Mallory, because of this insane maternal streak she had developed towards the Soldier, wanted to find out what.

A/N: The response has been amazing: you guys are awesome. Please tell me what you think of this chapter! Thank you and have a lovely day