All right! Finally got this chapter typed up! School and Marching band have been keeping me busy.

And on another note, I won't be able to get any writing in at the moment because I have to read The Grapes of Wrath for a Language Arts project, which means all of my writing time will be spent reading instead, sorry guys. But it shouldn't be too long. As soon as I finish the book I'll get started on writing. I have another chapter after this one written down, so I'll try and get that up here as well, but figured you all should probably know why my updates will take a while after this point.

But, anyway, enjoy the chapter! :D

We arrived in America once we had everything sorted out. The plane ride to his home city, New York, was very uneventful and quite boring. I had fallen asleep on the plane. New York had a different time than Russia did. We had departed from Moscow at eight in the morning and the time at New York when we arrived was about nine in the morning. This was really weird and confusing for me because Steve had informed me that the flight itself was about ten hours long. Apparently the world was split up into different time zones, and New York was eight hours behind the time Moscow was. So, I guess I somewhat time traveled there. And it was the most boring thing in the world because all we did was sit in a chair and wait around for hours on end.

The plane ride caused my body to be confused about the times, and I felt much more alert than I normally would have in the morning, probably because it should've been about six in the evening or later back in Moscow. Another downside was that I also couldn't feel my own ass. I had never thought it would feel so good to finally be able to stand up. I stretched out my legs, which were screaming in protest for having to be still for so long, and followed Steve out into the city. I looked around at the tall buildings and the bustling traffic that surrounded the area. The look and the feel of the place were completely different from Moscow. People seemed to be more out and about here. However, I didn't feel too out of place. Well, aside from my more ragged clothes and this silly little fact that I couldn't understand what the hell anyone was saying! I looked to Steve helplessly for answers, and he glanced at me and chuckled, "They're speaking English, which is the language used here. You're gonna have to learn it in order to understand anything."

I sighed, "Great, I have to learn a new language."

Steve smiled, "You should be okay when learning it."

"You sure?"

"I am."

"Anything else I need to know?"

"You could learn to read and write, and learn some math."

"Math?" I tilted my head to the side.

"You know, adding, subtracting, that kind of thing. We use numbers and then do something like that to get a different number."

I contemplated this for a moment. I had never heard of math. Sure, I've heard of reading and writing, but no one in Hydra ever mentioned math to me. They were more concerned with me learning how to fight and spy for them. After considering this weird thing that was called math, I crossed my arms and looked away, "Math sounds useless!" I scoffed.

Steve laughed, "Math isn't useless! Granted, some people don't like learning it, but it's not useless!"

"Whatever floats your imaginary boat," I replied.

He chuckled and then changed the subject, "Here, let's get you some new clothes and then head back to where your new home will be." He took my hand and led me down the street, through the massive crowds of people and down to a store. There, we walked in and he let me look at whatever I wanted to get. The only thing they had for girls were dresses, so I settled on getting the darkest dress I could. Apparently I needed more than that, though, because Steve helped me find a few more. We got a blue one and I picked a brown one. And then I was forced to get pink because they didn't have any other colors that I liked. I'll probably burn that one when no one's looking. After we got the new clothes, he led me back down the sidewalk until we reached a small building and went inside. It had a homely feel to it, with a nice little kitchen, and some comfortable looking furniture. I smiled slightly at the sight of it, it was devoid of barred windows and stone floors. A simple little house. "I know it's not much," Steve said, breaking my thoughts of the simplicity and warmth of the house, "But it's all I really have."

I looked up at him and widened my smile a bit, "I like it." It wasn't a prison. It was an actual home.

"I only have one bedroom, but . . ."

"I can sleep on the couch," I interrupted.

"You sure?" he asked, his voice betraying surprise.

I went up to the couch and plopped down on it, relishing just how comfortable it felt compared to my previous sleeping arrangements. "Yeah, I can definitely sleep on the couch."

"All right, if you're positive."

I nodded and leaned back into the brown couch, "So, what can I do around here?"

"Well, my house is your house, so anything really, as long as you don't break things."

I was silent for a moment. I had never really had this much freedom before. Life on the streets let me do whatever, but I had spent most of the time trying to stay alive. In comparison to this, where I don't have to worry about it, it seemed a lot less free than being here with Steve. This realization made me feel so small and unsure. ". . . Like what?" I asked quietly, suddenly sheepish about asking such a question.

Steve smiles kindly at me, "You could watch TV, read a book, draw, write, anything at all."

"Can I wash myself?" I asked.

He chuckled softly, "Of course! There's no need to ask for permission."

"Okay. Uh, where's the bathroom?"

"Just down the hall over there and it's the first door on your left." He indicated where the location was with a point.

I nodded and silently walked to the door, pulling it open and looking around curiously. The floor was tiled with white and there were red colored rugs next to a few of the odd appliances. I had never seen a bathroom like this, but I could at least recognize the sink and the toilet in the room. However, he didn't have a bath, at least, not what the baths I had rarely seen looked like. Instead, he had a small area slightly raised up from the floor with a drain and a silver spout with knobs on the wall beneath it. Bubble glass surrounded the area and I saw a silver handle where I assumed a slider door was located. I stared at it for a few moments before calling out, "Steve?"

I heard his muffled response a few moments later, "Yeah?"

"Your American bath confuses me!"

There was a slight pause where I assumed he was laughing softly at my statement before I heard him say, "Hold on, I'm coming."

I stood there patiently, still trying to figure out how that little space in the corner functioned as a washing area before I heard Steve open the door. I looked to him and pointed to the glassed area, "How do you work this bath thingy?"

Steve laughed softly, "It's called a shower, Robin."

"Then how do you work this . . . eh . . . shower thing?"

Steve chuckled and opened the glass door, "See this knob here?" He laid his hand on one of the simple, round knobs. "This turns on the shower. This one," he put a hand on the knob to the right of the first one, "controls the temperature. The colors above it tell you which way to turn it. Blue is cold and red is hot."

I blinked, stood silent for a few moments, and then slapped my forehead in shame. "Agh! I'm so stupid!"

Steve chuckled, "It's okay! You've never seen a shower before, right?"

I nodded.

"So it makes sense that you didn't know how to use it."

I sighed, "Yeah."

He smiled, "So don't be so bummed out about it."

I nodded, "All right, fine, I won't be."

Steve nodded, "Well, now that you know how it works, I'll leave you to your shower." He exited the bathroom promptly.

I stared at the shower in confusion a bit. I thought the idea behind this whole thing was very odd, but oh well. I entered the shower and turned the knobs experimentally. I was immediately hit with freezing cold water. I jumped back in surprise, nearly slipping in the shower, but, thankfully, managing to catch myself. After I got over the small shock of almost slipping, I turned the temperature knob to the warmer spectrum. Soon after, I was immersed in refreshingly warm water. Now I had to figure out the soaps. I couldn't read the labels to find out which soap was which. They only had two or three languages on there for the labels, and none were in Russian. Deciding that I didn't want to spend forever trying to figure out the soaps, I took all of them and used them for everything, body, hair, and anything else that needed to be washed. Afterwards, I exited the shower and wrapped myself in a towel. My hair was still dripping wet, but I was too lazy to squeeze out the water. I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink and sighed a little dejectedly. Without all of the grime on me from the streets, the scars all over my body were much more apparent. A painful reminder of who I was and all that had happened.

I dried myself off and put on one of the new clothes I had bought with Steve earlier. I decided on the black dress and then promptly combed my wet hair out with my fingers. When I felt ready, I left the bathroom and went back to Steve. I plopped down on the couch and leaned back into a comfortable position.

"Shower work okay?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," I answered.

"That's good! You all settled in?"

"For the most part."

"All right. And now that I'm also back, I have to go report for duty. I need to figure out what to do with you. I can't just leave you here by yourself. . ."

"I'd be fine on my own, Steve," I responded, "I mean, I did live on the streets for about three years."

"I know, but things are a lot different here . . ."

I was about to retort that being in a house by myself wouldn't affect me at all, but it looked like he was thinking, and so, I left him to it. I sat quietly and waited as patiently as I could for him to say his idea.

He looked at me thoughtfully, "I can take you to my friend Peggy. Maybe she could help watch you, and then you wouldn't be here all by yourself. And who knows, she might help teach you a few things here and there, as long as you don't get in the way of her job."

I nodded, "Okay . . . sounds good, I guess. Does this Peggy speak Russian?"

He sighed, "No. . ."

"Then we will probably have speaking issues."