There was nothing in the book and Sarah was just about to give up and alert her teachers when the phone rang.
The teen looked at the screen and saw that a woman named Natasha was calling. If the woman's name was in Lainey's phone, then they must be close, so Sarah answered the call, and put the phone to her ear. "Hello? Ms. Natasha?" She spoke hesitantly.
"Hello? Who is this? Can you put Lainey on the phone?" Natasha asked, confused as to why someone besides Lainey would be picking up her phone.
"She's gone. Lainey's gone." Sarah's voice cracked.
She didn't get am answer, but she did hear what sounded like a phone hitting the ground.
Chapter Nine: What Do You Mean, She's Gone?
"Natasha!' Tony called the former assassin to get her attention.
She was sitting on the couch, reading a file on Lainey and her mother, trying to find out more about the psychotic woman.
"Hmm?" She responded, still looking through the file.
Tony rolled his eyes at her lack of attention and continued. "Those papers you asked me for? I had to call in a couple of favors from some judges…...but I got it done." He held a folder out to her.
"Stark, if you're playing games with me-"
"-How could I be playing games with you? The folder is right here! Open it!" Tony moved it closer to her just to prove his point. "Why would I fool you about something like this? I said I'd help you, and I did. Open it."
Natasha looked at the billionaire warily, before taking the folder into her own hands, studying it. It isn't that she didn't trust Tony. She did, but the favor she asked of him was a big one and she wasn't feeling very optimistic towards the outcome. This is something she really really wanted to happen. Nothing this great has ever fallen into her lap so easily. So when Tony told her that he did it, she didn't want to get her hopes up, just in case something went wrong.
"Are you going to open it, or not? Because I can just take it and-" Tony joked, reaching out for the folder.
But Natasha growled and pulled it away, making him jump back. Clearly, she wasn't in the mood for any jokes.
He watched as her nimble fingers undid the thread and opened the folder. He wasn't at all surprised to find her speechless when she read off of the papers in front of her. "Can you tell me what it says?" He asked to humor her.
"Congratulations Ms. Romanov, you are now the [adoptive] mother of Alayna Taylor...…" The redhead spoke with tears pooling in her eyes.
Tony didn't comment on her uncharacteristically high display of emotions, because he was no stranger to her story. When she came to him, asking him to help her get the necessary papers, without alerting the press or anyone who could potentially slow the process down, he had asked her why she wanted this so badly. He knew that she loved Lainey, but he also knew that there was something deeper going on.
That's when, without hesitation, Natasha told him about the Red Room. She had been raised and trained in that place and then had to go through a 'Graduation Ceremony'. They had sterilized her. They took away her gift and ability to bear children, under the guise of making things 'easier'. Who were they to decide what would be easier on her? Who were they to mess with her body like that and then tell her that it was for her own good? So as soon as he and Natasha finished speaking, he immediately phoned some of the best judges he knew and insisted that they do this as soon as possible.
How could he not? As much as he and Natasha butt heads. She was his sister and he loved her. He'd be a horrible person not to do this for her after all she's done for him.
"Tony…...I don't know what to say…...thank you." Natasha snapped out of her trance.
"How about, 'Thank you, your majesty. You're too kind?" Tony joked. He'd never really reveal how much he loved the people in this makeshift family.
"I don't think so." Natasha shook her head and got up to stand in front of him. Grinning lightly, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, before ruffling his hair.
Yeah, he'd never reveal it…...but somehow, they knew.
"Are you going to tell Lainey soon?" He asked suddenly.
A thoughtful look crossed the redhead's face, before she answered his question. "I think I'll head to Queens and tell her myself. Missing half a day of school won't kill her." She wiggled her eyebrows playfully.
"Okay, tell her I said hello and congratulations." Tony nodded and left to go back to his lab to finish some work on his repulsers.
Natasha couldn't keep the goofy grin off of her face as she put on her jacket and picked up her phone to glance at the time. Lainey always texted her during her free period, which was around this time, so she decided to give the brunette a call.
"Hello? Ms. Natasha?" A small voice answered the phone.
That was odd. What was someone else doing answering Lainey's phone? "Hello? Who is this? Can you put Lainey on the phone?"
"She's gone. Lainey's gone."
Natasha's breath hitched as she tried to calm herself after what she just heard. Her heart raced and she felt like everything was happening in slow motion. She was panicking. She never panicked. She was trained not to panic. She needed to get herself together.
"Ms. Romanoff? I am sensing very high levels of distress. I will alert the team immediately." F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice rang in her ears.
Before she could tell her not to alert anyone, the entire team rushed into the room to see what the fuss was about, freezing when they saw Natasha looking so…...unlike herself.
"Natasha? What's wrong? Steve asked, voicing everyone's thoughts.
"I just called Lainey's phone…...She's gone." Natasha managed to calm herself down so quickly that it startled the rest of the team. "I wanted to call her, to let her know I was going to pick her up, but a friend of hers picked up the phone. She's gone. Someone took her." She ran a hand through her bright red hair as her anxiety morphed into anger at the drop of a hat.
"Hello? Is anyone still there?" Wanda picked up the phone that had dropped from Natasha's numb fingers a few seconds before.
Who would want to take Lainey? And why? She was just a kid!
"H-Hello?" The small voice answered, clearly having heard the audio to Natasha's mini meltdown.
"Are you a friend of Lainey's? Do you know where you saw her last?" Wanda asked gently, putting the phone on speaker mode.
Sarah wasn't at all confused by the different voices coming through the phone, because as she continued to listen to them talk in the background she put two and two together. They were the Avengers.
But this wasn't the time for all of that.
"Y-Yeah, we're friends. I'm Sarah…...It's our free period now, and Lainey was reading a book by herself, so I thought maybe she'd like to play a game…...so we played hide and seek…...I couldn't find her and at first and I thought that she was just really good at this game, but when I went to look behind the big oak tree, I found her phone on the ground…...I'm sorry, this is all my fault…...If I had just left her alone, she'd be here-"
"-No Sarah. None of this is your fault. Listen to me carefully, okay?" Sam spoke up.
"Okay."
"I want you to go to the nearest adult and tell them exactly what happened. We're going to find Lainey and she's going to be just fine. Okay? Don't blame yourself for something you had no control over."
"Okay…"
"Take care of yourself and thanks for letting us know." Sam told her before ending the call.
"Suit up. We don't have any time to waste." Steve spoke authoritatively.
And he was right, every second they spent trying to figure out what to do, was a second away from them finding Lainey and bringing her home.
"Keep watch of the news stations, someone may have seen her and can give us a lead."
"I'll give my number to the public as a way of contacting me if they've seen her." Tony told everyone.
They were getting Lainey back no matter what it took.
"Get out."
Lainey's eyes widened as her kidnapper stopped the car and came around to open her door. She obviously didn't want to follow his orders, so she tried to look for ways to get out.
Noticing that all the doors were unlocked now, Lainey kicked at the man and opened the opposite door, taking off as fast as her legs would let her go, losing a shoe in the process.
She could hear the man curse under his breath and take off after her, but she didn't dare look behind her. Luck must not have been on her side that day, because as soon as she was ready to cross the street, a car hit her.
The brunette screamed as she hit the ground and everything seemed so far away. Her mind was swimming and she heard voices, but she couldn't really make out what they were saying. She thought that she felt someone lift her up and for a minute she let herself believe that it was Steve or Tony, but she knew better. She'd probably never see those two again.
"Sir, you should probably take her to a hospital, she's hurt." She heard someone say, when the fuzziness left her ears. "You can't take her home like that."
"She's my kid, I'll do with her as I please. You were the one that hit her, you're lucky that I wont press charges."
And in that moment, Lainey's brain started to work again. "…...Help…...Help…..." She groaned, trying to get her larynx to allow her to scream.
But the impact from the crash, was affecting her head. She couldn't quite process what was going on, but since she thought she heard was a new voice, she was willing to push through all the confusion in her brain and get herself some help.
"See man? She needs medical attention." The man sent a pointed look in Lainey's direction.
The girl's eyes were completely out of focused and the longer they stood there, the more pale she grew.
"Help…...me…...please." Lainey coughed. "He…...isn't my…...father."
"Don't pay attention to her. Her mother and I just got married and she's been a little rebellious as of late." Her kidnapper lied through his teeth.
"N…...not…...my father…...please…...Stark…...Tasha…...Need…...Tasha…..."
"She doesn't know Tony Stark or Black Widow…...she's hallucinating."
The man looked at Lainey and shook his head. There was no way this kid was hallucinating. He had heard the news over the radio about a girl who had been kidnapped, and the stories matched.
But he schooled his features so that he could help Lainey. He couldn't let this man know that he was onto him.
"I did hit her pretty hard…...just make sure she's okay. She might have a concussion."
"Will do. Thanks a lot." Lainey's kidnapper smiled and turned to walk away.
The man who hit Lainey with his car, waited a few moments, before taking his phone out and dialing Tony Stark's number, hoping that he wasn't too late as he watched the man take Lainey into an abandoned warehouse.
He just wished there was more that he could do to help.
"I got a lead." Tony told the team, hanging up his phone.
That got Natasha to stop what she was doing and look at him, her eyes full of hope in a way he thought he'd never see.
"Some guy just called and told me about a kid who ran right in front of his car and got hit. He says some man grabbed her and refused to take her to a hospital, and he strongly believes that it's Lainey." He explained. "She asked for you and I."
Natasha perked up just a little bit. Lainey was alive, that means that they weren't too late. And thanks to this man who accidentally hit Lainey with his car, they were one step closer to finding her.
"Did he say where?" Wanda asked.
She was anxious to find Lainey. They didn't speak much, which was odd, because they were closer in age than anyone else (besides Peter). That didn't mean that she didn't care for her. Sometimes, she'd hear her while she was having a nightmare and sneak into her room before using her powers to give her some good dreams to help her sleep better. It was the least she could do for her after everything she had been through.
She just hoped that one day, she'd be able to go into Lainey's room and find that she didn't need her to give her good dreams, because she was making some of her own.
"Yeah, the Bronx…...near the Willis Avenue Bridge. He said whoever took her, carried her into an abandoned warehouse."
It was right then that Natasha snapped out of her panicked, yet hopeful state and put her game face on. Whoever decided that they could just take that kid, was in for a very rude awakening.
"How hard did that car hit her?"
"I don't know, pretty hard. She was slipping in and out when I got to her."
"And did anyone see you?"
"Yeah, the idiot who hit her. I convinced him that I was her father."
Lainey's eye scrunched tightly as she began to regain consciousness, listening to the voices in the room.
"She's waking up. We can start now."
Start? Start what?
Lainey's eyes shot open and her flight or flight kicked in as she tried to get up and run. Unfortunately, she couldn't go anywhere, because she was handcuffed to the chair that the two men put her on.
That, and she was still concussed. She was in no condition to get up and run.
Now she was starting to panic. She couldn't move to call for help or even scratch her nose. How was she supposed to get out of here? What did these people want from her?
"You don't need to be frightened by me Alayna." A man in a brown blazer and blue jeans made his way over to her.
He had brown hair like she did, with green eyes and pale skin. He had a tired, yet longing look on his face that creeped Lainey out.
As he drew closer, Lainey couldn't help but scoot as far away from him as the handcuffs would permit. Her heart was aching with how hard it was beating and her breathing was becoming very shallow.
How did he know her name?
"I haven't seen you since you were a toddler." He began, sensing her complete and utter confusion. "I didn't think you'd recognize me. I was right."
"What are you talking about?" Lainey asked, flinching as he reached a hand out for her.
"Don't you know who I am? Allison didn't tell you?" He didn't seem to be phased by her reaction and brushed a hand through her messy curls.
And if Lainey hadn't been handcuffed to a chair in the middle of who knows where, she may not have felt threatened by the gestures. But that wasn't the case. She felt sick to her stomach.
"How do you know my mother?" Shivers travelled up and down the twelve year old's spine when the man didn't move his hand, no matter how much Lainey let it be known that she didn't want him to touch her.
His hand was rough and littered with callouses that scratched against Lainey's hair and skin. She tried her best not to gag or bite his hand.
"She really didn't tell you?" He laughed despite the fact that there was nothing funny happening. "Lainey, sweetheart. I'm Ryan Taylor. I'm your father."
Those three words sent Lainey's entire world crashing down on her. She grew up thinking that she never had a father. Her mother told her that he had died one day, coming home from work. When Lainey asked her about it, she refused to elaborate, but she always thought it was because it was too painful to talk about. So she never asked about him again and moved on with her life. She never knew what he looked like, because there were no pictures of him in the house, but again, she didn't question it because she thought that that was her mother's way of grieving.
Until one day, Lainey went snooping in Allison's room and found an old picture of the three of them in an old unlocked trunk. She was a baby in the picture, but she liked the picture so much because both of them looked happy.
So she stole it.
Of course her mother found out and confronted her about it. Lainey vehemently denied having ever been in her mother's room, let alone stealing the picture. She didn't know why she lied, but she guessed the picture must have been pretty special to her. She had never even met the man in the picture, but she made up different stories in her head about what he was like and what he did for a living before he met her mother. Or if he loved her. Or if he would love her now that she had stolen the picture. Would he be angry like her mother? Or patient like she had seen other fathers were with their daughters.
Her mother knew she was lying and proceeded to yell at her about stealing and trust.
Lainey thought that Allison was just going to yell at her for a while and send her to her room for the rest of the day, before coming in a few hours later to talk calmly with her, the way she always did.
No. This time was different.
Lainey could see the rage on her mother's face. She remembered trying to calm her down, apologizing, and she even offered to put the picture back where she got it from. Her mother wasn't having any of it. That was the first time Allison had ever laid a hand on her, but she couldn't say that she didn't deserve it. By the time Allison got tired and stopped, she practically dragged Lainey to her room and threw her onto her bed, telling her to stop making so much noise and to 'Keep the damn picture'. It didn't mean a thing to her anymore. That deadbeat got whatever the hell he deserved, but she'd be damned if Lainey turned out just like him, stealing, cheating, and lying. She told her that if she ever did something like that again, she'd break every bone in her body and let them all heal that way.
Needless to say, Lainey never went into her mother's room again. In fact, she didn't dare leave her own room until she was sure her mother was at work for at least a week. That's how she learned to fend for and take care of herself. But she never threw the picture away. She put it in her paperback version of Matilda and carried it everywhere to give her something nice to think about when she needed it.
She was so stupid.
How could she have not seen this coming?
She had been carrying the evidence with her for years.
She could feel her lips growing dry and her head began to ache as she thought about what else her mother could've been hiding from her.
"Your hair has grown quite a bit since the last time I saw you…...It was just a mop of curls back then…...Now look at you." He father moved his hand from her hair and cupped her chin, making her gasp. "I missed out on so much."
"Boss, should I get everything ready now?" The man who kidnapped Lainey asked, ruining the moment for Ryan.
"Go ahead Frances." Ryan waved him off. "The sooner we get started, the better."
"The sooner you get started on what?" Lainey eyed, her father warily.
"The new world."
Lainey's eyes widened in realization. She had heard of that kind of thinking before.
From HYDRA.
"No...…Tell me you're not. Just, please. Tell me you're not HYDRA?"
"I think you know the answer to that question. But don't worry, pretty soon, you will be too. This is what your mother and I always wanted for you. You're going to be greater and stronger than you've ever been before."
Frances smirked and handed Ryan a long needle filled with a purple liquid. "I thought you should be the one to do it Boss, you are her father."
Anyone who knew Lainey was aware of the fact that she was petrified of needles. She couldn't even look at them without feeling sick. So when her father began to dab iodine on her arm to put the needle through, she went ballistic. But Ryan and Frances made her that she was tied down enough for them to do their jobs.
Her thrashing and screaming was futile.
Ryan tried to soothe her as he pushed needle after needle in, but it only worsened her condition. She was in hysterics.
The room echoed with the sound of her shrill voice, shrieking for all of this to end.
But all she was met with was a harsh slap to her face that made her fall silent.
"I'm sorry I had to do that sweetheart, but you might have hurt yourself. That was the only way to stop you."
Surely there were other ways of stopping her, but it seems that Lainey's parents only ever used force.
They were made for each other. It was a wonder they split up.
"I love you. You're too precious to me. I can't allow you to hurt yourself." Ryan grimaced at the horrified look on Lainey's face that contrasted with the growing bruise on her cheek.
The twelve year old looked like a complete and utter mess. Her hair was all askew, there were tears pouring down her face, her throat was sore, there were bruises on her wrists from the cuffs and burns on her ankles from the ropes that held them in place. She was so tired, from resisting for so long. There was no fight left in her.
"I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but it's for the greater good. You understand that don't you?"
Ryan received no answer. Lainey didn't even seem to acknowledge him talking to her. The fear had left her eyes and was replaced with a glossy look of shock. She was far away now.
"Now, I know you don't like needles, but there's only one more left. I need you to be brave about this for me. Okay?"
Once again, Ryan was not dignified by a response. But he stuck the needle in her arm anyway.
As the liquid ran through the girl's veins, she suddenly felt cold as her heart rate dropped. Almost as if someone had just given her an ice bath. Lainey involuntarily shivered as her teeth chattered and her skin grew pale. The feeling didn't last very long, her heart began to beat faster and she grew hotter and hotter. It felt she was being burned. She screamed as sweat seeped out of her pores, drenching her hair and clothes. Finally, her brain decided that she was in way too much pain to be awake, and put her body to sleep. Lainey's eyes rolled to the back of her head and she slumped over and relaxed.
"If all goes as planned, she and the Winter Soldier will be unstoppable as they fight side by side." Ryan told Frances, keeping his gaze on his unconscious daughter, not at all fazed by what he had just witnessed.
When he didn't receive an answer from his sidekick, he turned around to find Frances gasping for air, with a red mist surrounding him.
"Did you really think we wouldn't find you?"
Of course Captain America would be the one to try to stop him.
"You're too late. What's done is done. She is unstoppable now." Ryan smirked at the super soldier.
"What did you do to her?" Steve asked, eyeing the the empty syringes.
There must have been at least fifteen.
"We modified her to become something better." Unbeknownst to Steve, Ryan reached for a small handgun he hid in his blazer and pointed it at him.
But before he could pull the trigger, a shot rang out, sending him to the harsh ground beneath him with a sickly sweet smile on his face.
"Who's your handler?" Natasha growled dangerously, successfully scaring everyone in the room.
"Hail…...HYDRA…..." Ryan spat before taking his last breath.
Wanda gasped and let go of Frances, causing the man to collapse in a coughing fit, unable to pick himself up.
Sam slapped some cuffs on his wrists and pulled him up onto his feet, looking at Steve for instruction.
"Put him on board the jet and keep a close eye on him. Don't let him slip away. He has information we may need."
"Copy that." Sam nodded before shoving the cowering man towards the door. "Move."
"Let's get her out of here. She needs medical attention." Wanda looked at both Steve and Natasha, who were practically seething in anger.
And with a flick of her wrist, the handcuffs on Lainey's wrists unclasped and the ropes around her ankles fell to her feet. But before her unconscious body could hit the floor, Natasha caught her and lifted her up into her arms, holding her close for fear of losing her again.
The walk to the quintet was quiet, but once they got there, Natasha laid Lainey down on a stretcher and brushed a hand through her hair. The gesture, though very tender and heartfelt, seemed to wake Lainey up.
But not in a positive way.
The poor girl shot up and screamed as best she could with her strained vocal chords, jumping off of the stretcher to escape from what she thought was a dangerous situation.
"Lainey!" Natasha tried to grab her, but the brunette only slipped from her grip, crashing onto the floor hard enough to break something, giving Steve the opportunity to grab her. "Lainey, stop! It's us! We're not going to hurt you!"
"She isn't going to stop. She thinks she's still there." Bruce told her, holding a syringe full of sedatives. He hated to do it, but what else was he supposed to do? "And she has to be calm for me to find out what these psychos injected her with."
Frances smiled sinisterly and decided to enlighten them. "HYDRA's own little version of the serum. She's going to powerful enough to make entire empires fall, take down multiple countries, and never be seen in the process." He nodded towards Lainey's thrashing body. "I wouldn't inject her with anything if I were you. Her body is very sensitive right now."
"We need to figure out how to flush all of that out of her system. Who knows what's it's doing to her body." Tony spoke from the pilot's seat.
"There's no 'flushing' this out of her body. This is permanent. This is what she is now." Frances grinned as Lainey continued to wriggle and thrash around in Steve's arms. "She is no longer yours. She belongs to HYDRA n-"
Frances never got to finish his sentence because Natasha got tired of listening and smacked the butt of her gun over his head, knocking him out cold.
Damn fool.
A/N: Hi everyone! I know, I know. I keep putting Lainey through things even some adults don't go through, but she has to go through all of this for greater things to come. But hey! She's going home now and she was just adopted! I have a question though, after I'm finished with this arc, would you guys like me to go into the Civil War arc? I have a few ideas for it, but I'm not sure if you'd like me to. I have, however been thinking of publishing a book of one-shots with Lainey and the Avengers. So if you have any ideas, let me know! They don't have tie into the BTSE timeline! Thanks for reading! Until next time! XOXOXO.
