IV: The Girl Who Ran: Red Eve

III: Mr. and Mrs. Virtue

Steve took the paper bowl containing beans and a tamale gratefully from Oriana. He couldn't remember the last time he ate... yesterday, maybe? The day before? It didn't really matter now, anyway. "Thank you." The girl had barely finished bandaging his shoulder when Mrs. Virtue had yelled for dinner.

Oriana smiled, "You're welcome! At least someone is grateful." She eyed the kids sitting at the plastic tables. "Adults sit at the wooden table, kids at the plastic ones or on the floor!"

"But I wanna sit beside Tio Bucky!" One of the little blondes he'd met after Siberia-- Robyn?-- argued. Her little hands curled into shaking fists, making her bracelets jingle.

Oriana glared at her, "Do I look like I care?"

"Mama!" Robyn yelled. "Ori's being mean!"

Mrs. Virtue opened the refridgerator, "Listen to your sister, Robyn."

Robyn muttered something under her breath and Mrs. Virtue closed the door abruptly. "Do you want to come over here and say that to my face, girl?"

"No," Robyn trailed off.

"No, what?" Mrs. Virtue said, placing the hot sauce on the counter.

Robyn huffed, "No, ma'am."

The other kids had fallen into an empathetically embarrassed silence. Steve walked slowly over to the table and set his food down in the empty spot that Robyn had vacated beside Bucky. "Sounds like you have a little follower, Buck," he said to the man, who was staring at his beans intently.

"Yeah, she just started following me around. I didn't figure she'd remember me," Bucky said.

Nat interrupted their short conversation with a question pointed to Mrs. Virtue, "I'm sorry, but, what the h*** are we doing here, exactly?"

Mrs. Virtue had gotten her own bowl and moved to sit at the head of the table, with Oriana right behind her. Mrs. Virtue frowned, "Little ears."

Oriana raised her eyebrow, "So, Tati just told y'all to come here then she konked out?"

"Yeah," Steve answered, peeling the corn husk away from his tamale.

Oriana glanced at the ceiling, "Never one to waste a chance for drama, I guess."

"You didn't answer our questions," Wanda-- a little politer than Nat, but not by much-- persisted.

"We're her family, idiots," Oriana said, rolling her eyes.

Sam's brow furrowed, "All of you?"

A smile curved Mrs. Virtue's lips, "Oh, good Lord, no. I only have nine living kids. The rest are from the orphanage."

"And, before you ask, no, we did not adopt them all," a gruff, accented voice sounded from the entryway.

"Papa!" A bunch of little blonde heads sounded all at once and dog-piled the dark-haired man who appeared at the doorway to the kitchen.

"Your food's in the microwave, Tomas," Mrs. Virtue gestured towards the machine. "Guess who decided to come visit."

The man-- whom Steve assumed to be Mr. Virtue-- dragged himself toward the microwave, "From all of the new faces at the table and the plane parked in my spot, I'd say Tatiana."

Oriana snorted, "Lucky guess."

"She bring the cousin this time?" He asked scooping some beans into a bowl.

Robyn ran over to Bucky, "Papa, he's right here." She jumped up and down.

Steve watched Bucky frown, then glance at Steve. Steve shrugged.

Oriana chuckled, "Let me guess, she didn't tell you that you were related, hmm? Good grief, we need to work on her communicating skills!"

Mr. Virtue walked around the table to sit at the other head. He had darker skin than Mrs. Virtue, but he was a bit taller. His shoulder slouched slightly as if he was used to looking down. The man sat and looked at Bucky for a moment, "Well, you look a bit like her, I suppose."

Oriana frowned, "They just came here. In the middle of the day!"

Mr. Virtue's bushy black eyebrows shot up, and he remarked gravely, "Oh, the travesty."

Oriana smacked her forehead with her palm, "It's not funny, Papa!"

Mr. Virtue shrugged, "I never said it was, mija."

"Alright, come on, let's see if we can explain things to our guests, you two," Mrs. Virtue reprimanded them.

"Shouldn't they be explaining why they're here and why the heck Tati's been shot?" Oriana crossed her arms.

Mr. Virtue glanced down the table at Mrs. Virtue, "She has a point."

Oriana smiled triumphantly, "See! We need to know what they did to her before we just decide to keep 'em here. After all, they were Feds until a couple months ago."

Zemo finally spoke up, "For the record, I was never enlisted by the American government."

Oriana frowned, "You have other issues we need to discuss." She looked back and forth at both of her parents, "Personally, the only ones I want to keep are Blondie, the Sokovian girl, and the cousin. The rest are pretty dangerous to have around the kids."

Steve heard Bucky grumble under his breath, "I have a name."

Oriana heard him, "Yeah, I know. Bucky, James, Snowy; y'all are always changing it."

"Oriana, behave," Mrs. Virtue commanded.

Oriana huffed, "Come on, Mama..."

But Mrs. Virtue had already moved on, her eyes darting from one person to another around the table, "So, let's start at the beginning. What exactly happened to my daughter?"

Steve told them the story, with Sam and Wanda intervening every so often to add little details. The Virtue's didn't show any signs of surprise when Steve told about how she'd killed people, granted he had glazed over it a little. He'd also left out the part about Bucky killing Tatiana.

"D***." Mr. Virtue said when he'd finished.

"Tomas!" Mrs. Virtue exclaimed.

Mr. Virtue frowned and pinched his nose, "Give me a break, woman."

Nat folded her hands and rested them on the table, "Did she ever talk about anything like LAZARUS or HYDRA?"

Oriana tapped her chin, "Well, not really. She's really secretive to be honest. She only really talked to Lucia."

"Who is--," Mr. Virtue interupted Sam.

"My eldest. She went to heaven in 2013," Mr. Virtue said, his frown somehow becoming deeper.

Mrs. Virtue glanced at Mr. Virtue for a moment, and Steve felt like they were having a conversation without words.

Mrs. Virtue stood up, breaking the contact, "Well, you are going to have to wait to ask her."

"How long until she wakes up?" Zemo asked.

"Given how malnourished she looks, I would say maybe tomorrow," Mrs. Virtue said as she dumped her bowl in the trashcan. "In the meantime, you have to stay in the house."

"Why?" Steve asked, immediately suspicious.

"There's a gang war on now. You'll get killed if you go out," Oriana said simply. "The orphanage got blown up in the crossfire. That's how we got all these kids."

When no one responded, she smiled cheekily. "Welcome to Gotham, birthplace of organized and semi-organized crime and vigilantism in America."