Haunted By Him

Chapter Eight

There’s a medic on the train who looks at the Winter Soldier’s ankle once they board an hour or so later. He isn’t comfortable being left alone with a stranger and lying on tables with people standing over brings back bad memories, so he makes Natalia stay in with him. She’s leaning against the wall and crossing her arms, and she looks irritated, but that’s not unusual. He’s busy biting back the panic and the pain while cold fingers prod at his swollen ankle.

“There’s a minor fracture,” the doctor says and he rewraps the Soldier’s ankle tightly. “Just try to stay off it, and if it gets any worse within a week or so, go to the hospital.”

He pulls himself off the table as soon as the doctor is finished and mutters a thank you and bursts out, hobbling as fast as he can back to their new compartment.

“Hey, slow down,” Natalia says and she hurries after him. She slips her arm in his and forces him to walk slower. “I gotta deliver you unharmed, you know.” He doesn’t answer and he doesn’t relax either until the door to the compartment is shut behind them and he collapses onto a chair.

“I don’t want to be here,” he says, looking up at her. She rolls her eyes.

“I basically walked you across Russia,” she says. “You think that was a picnic? You should be thanking me.”

“Thanks for putting me right back where they’ll all find me again,” he says and he know’s he’s being accusatory and probably unnecessarily rude, but he’s exhausted and afraid and in pain and he’s falling apart.

“You’re welcome!” Natalia says.

“This isn’t a joke!!” He cries and Natalia sucks in a breath so her whole chest inflates and she glares at him harder than she ever has before.

“You’re unbelievable,” she cries. “I’m doing everything I can!”

“I’m unbelievable?” The Winter Soldier responds. “You’re trying to make a quick buck off your dead lover.”

“He was not my lover,” Natalia replies angrily. “And it’s not like that. He’d want me to have this money.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” the Winter Soldier says. “How do you sleep at night?”

“I’ll be sleeping comfortably, thank you!” Natalia says.

“On the piles of Steve Rogers’ money?” The Winter Soldier shoots back and she raises her hand and he thinks for a minute that she might hit him and he flinches hard. The anger drains from her face and they both freeze and she stares at him.

“What was that?” She gasps.

“What?” The Soldier mumbles, staring down, now mortified, gripping the edges of his chair. Just pretend it didn’t happen, he begs her in his mind.

“You thought I was going to hit you??” She says incredulously.

“No,” he says.

“You jumped a foot into the air!” Natalia cries. He looks up and then back down. “No, hey, stop that, look at me.” He raises his eyes slowly and reluctantly to her face again to see she’s still staring. She studies his face. He thinks she’s realizing the results of everything Hydra did to him and she swallows loudly. He feels vulnerable. He wishes she’d stop looking at him like that, like everything anyone had ever done to misuse him was laid out bare in front of her. He can’t help feeling overwhelmingly ashamed. “I’m not gonna hit you,” she tells him gently.

He leans over his knees and puts his face into his hands and refuses to talk for the rest of the night.