Chapter 3

Robin followed him in an underground parking and watched him choose a car to steal. He approached an old Civic but she stopped him.

"You should think about stealing the Crosstrek over that old Civic."

"We need a low profile car."

"And that's why we should take the Crosstrek. It's a normal, everyday car. It's a stick so more tork and power if we need to run. Plus it's a 4-wheel drive, a better escape car than that one."

He sighed.

"You know how to drive stick, right?"

He didn't answer, instead he gave her a look she interpreted as you anoy me. She jumped in the passenger seat and he drove out of the city.

They stayed silent for a while, she could hear his thoughts, which were going a thousand miles per hour, but decided to ignore them. Actually a thought came to her mind, she doesn't even know that guy, but still she got into the car with him. She had a feeling she could trust him.

"I'm sorry about all this. I know you tried to stay clear from that whole HYDRA thing. I didn't know what to do when they approached me."

"It's fine."

"Thank you for helping me. I really appreciate."

He stayed silent, concentrating on the road.

"I'm Robin, by the way."

He looked at her, she had her right hand opened over the console. He gave her his hand and shook them.

"Bucky."

"Nice to meet you."

Her phone started to ring. They both held their breath as she took out her cellphone from her back pocket. She looked at the screen and a picture of her mother appeared.

"It's my mom!" She slid her finger on the screen to start the conversation but Bucky tried to take the phone off her hand.

"Robin, don't!"

"Mom!"

The video call opened on a man with a smirk on his face.

"Hello darling. Your mother is sorry cause she can't come to the phone right now, she's busy."

"Who are you?"

"I'm a good friend of your mom. Actually we've been going out together for a while now. How do you think we got all those informations on you?"

"That's not true. My mom never dated anyone after my dad died. You're lying."

"Am I? Maria, honey, can you tell her what we did together?"

The man turned the camera around and showed Robin's mom sitting on a chair, her hand tied up behind her back, a piece of ductape over her mouth. She had smeared make up on her face, like she had been crying for a while.

"Mom! Are you ok? Mom!" Robin screamed in the car, Bucky could see her tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

"Just tell you mother where you are going and she will be free. Don't and she'll die."

"Let her go. It's me you want, I'll tell you."

"Robin, don't." Bucky warned her.

Robin saw the phone being set up and the man walked next to her mother, taking out a gun and pointing it next to her mother's temple. She heard the clicking noice.

"No! Don't! Let me speak to her first and I'll tell you where I am."

"Deal." He took the ductape off her mom's mouth.

"Robin, honey. I love you, with all my heart, but don't do it. Save yourself. I lived my life. I'm ready to join your father."

"Mom! Listen, I'm not letting him kill you. I can't loose you. You are the only family I have left." Robin was sobbing like her mother.

"Robbie, I did not raise a monster. I raised a courageous, strong woman. You can do it without me."

"Mom, please..."

"No! I'm not letting them use you. Just kill me already!" She yelled to the man.

"Well, this is going nowhere..." The man pushed the gun to her head.

"Mom!"

The gunshot resonated in the car as she screamed for her mother. Horrified, she saw her mother's head move with the impact of the bullet entering her skull and coming out the other side. The blood splattered on her clothes and the ground. Her cry broke Bucky's heart, he didn't know what to do or what to say, but his anger for HYDRA just grew even bigger.

"Now, look what you made me do, Robin. You should have told me where you are." He walked to the camera, wipping the blood from his face, with a smirk on his lips. "You killed her by hiding. It's your fault she's..."

Bucky grabbed the phone from her hand with his left arm and crushed it in pieces before opening the window and throwing it over the edge of the bridge. Robin was in shock, shaking and sobbing. Bucky didn't know what to say, or what to do. He stayed silent to not aggravate the situation. Her breathing became shorted at every breath she took, she was having a panic attack. Bucky put a hand on her thigh to help calm her down but it didn't work.

"S...Stop..."

"What?"

"S...Stop...Ca...Car..." She mananed to speak before starting to gag and opening the door of the car

Bucky stopped the car in a second on the side of the road, afraid she was going to jump off. She hurried out of the car to throw up her last meal. Bucky jumped out and walked around the car to meet with her, kneeled down in the dirt, still trying to find her breathing back to normal.

"Robin, look at me..." He kneeled down next to her, forced her to look at him, then cupped her face. "Hey, look at me."

She couldn't focus, she was trying to look somewhere else, but he hold on tight.

"Listen to my voice. Look into my eyes... Breath. You need to breath. I did not save you so you could die of asphyxiation. So breath for me." He said following her eyes, trying to keep them on him.

It took him almost ten minutes to calm her down to a normal rythm. She was still crying but at least she was breathing. He took her into his arms, hugging her as he felt that was what she needed. He broke the silence, but not the hug.

"We should get going. Before they found us."

It took her another minute before backing up from his hug and wiping the tears on her cheeks. Without a word, she got back into the car, buckled her seatbelt and waited for Bucky to do the same. Bucky took back the road and opened the radio to find a classical music channel. The music calmed her down even more. After a few hours, he heard her sigh.

"Thanks..."

"You're welcome. I'm sorry for your mom. I know she meant a lot to you..."

She took a deep breath to not start crying again.

"How did you know this music would calm me?"

Bucky chuckled, knowing he was gonna exposed himself.

"The day I was in your appartment, let's just say I arrived early and let myself take a look around. I saw you really enjoyed music, especially classical. I took a chance."

"Well, now you know more about me than I do about you."

Bucky took a second to think about what to say. It was hard for him too. He didn't remember a lot about himself.

"I... I don't know much about myself to be honest..."

Robin looked at him.

"How come?" She asked before realizing she knew a little of him from his mind. "I mean... I know you had it hard in the past. But I don't understand some of the things I saw in your mind."

"What did you see exactly?"

"There was the HYDRA part where you were brainwashed and used and hurt. But there was a part I don't understand how you could have done this."

"Which one is it?"

"I saw you in the war... Not any war, the World War II. And I saw you with that guy... Captain America... And I felt you being scared when you fell down the train and down the mountain... But that would make you..."

"97 years old?"

She looked at him for confirmation and he seemed calm, showing honesty.

"So what are you exactly?"

"Human... But they also call me a Super Soldier."

Bucky told her his story, the parts of HYDRA, which he remembered. She completed with the parts from before, when he was a kid, before and during the war, parts she saw he forgot about, making sure he was aware of everything that happened to him.

"So the whole taken hostage during the war and the experimenting was all for you to work for them? Being control by HYDRA? I'm really sorry your life was taken from you, Buck."

She suddenly felt a weird sensation coming from him.

"I'm sorry. I'm not reading your mind, it just... I have no control over that thing. I don't have my music to cover it up but I just felt like you remembered something that made you happy..."

"You call me Buck..." He chuckled, sadly.

"I did something wrong. Shit... I'm sorry."

"No. Don't worry. I got called Buck before. It's just... It's been a while since someone said my name like you just did."

She smiled lightly.

"Do you need me to drive? You've been at the wheel for hours. You might want to rest."

"I'm a Super Soldier. I can stay awake for days if I wanted to. You are the one that need to sleep, with everything that happened today."

She felt her heart tightening, like the start of another panic attack.

"I... prefer to stay awake. I'm not sure I can go to sleep right now. Hum... You want to talk about anything at all? Like the moon landing, the JFK assassination, the World Trade... Wait. JFK was not one of your missions, was he?"

"What if we talked about music?" He changed the subject. "I love listening to music but it changed so much since the before the war, I just don't know what to listen to.."

"Well, 40's music was great but each decades the styles changed exponentially. The worst was the 2000's. And even this decade. It's bad. Most of them are about sex and drugs. We had the chance to have a few good hits but it's not like before..."

He listened to her talk for hours about her favorite songs, which then turned to movies. He asked a few questions along the way but she did most of the talking. For what she was saying, he missed a lot during his years as the Winter Soldier, but he promised her he was going to get it all back.

She finally fell asleep during one of the stop he had to do for gaz. He bought a blanket with the money she gave him because she would say she was fine but he knew she was shivering. When he got back into the car, he saw her peacefully asleep. He carefully place the blanket over her and then pushed her hair off her face. She was so beautiful. He felt his heart skip a beat, just like it did in the past when he fell for a girl. He shook the idea off the second he caught himself thinking that way. It wasn't time to fall in love. It was too dangerous for her to be with him, even on the run like this. He could get back into his Winter Soldier's mind set and kill her any given time.

"I need to get you to somewhere safe before I leave. I promise you'll be fine." He whispered before getting back on the road.