"We're back online, systems are up, reinforced, and if anyone so much as fucking touches my shit again I am hunting them down." Tony slammed a cup down on the counter, "No, I am hunting that mo-"

"Language, Tony." Natasha smirked, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. After they had ensured that the compound was clear Tony had set straight to getting 'his damn shit back'. It had been surprisingly easy to get rid of - yet another proof to her that they had come for one very specific target and it definitely wasn't Stark Industries.

Now, here they all were in the common room with Nadia calmly eating a bowl of noodles while she was questioned by those in the room. Besides the couch and the blood on her face, the room looked like nothing happened.

A good reminder that this girl was not just any child. She was a trained assassin with probably more kills under her belt than Natasha did by that age. None of them seemed to bother her either. That was the concerning part. At least the people Natasha knew who had come out of that lifestyle, herself included, had shown remorse for their actions. Not Nadia. In fact, she seemed more relaxed than she had been since coming back from the diner.

"So everyone is dead?" Sam asked, glancing around, "And there were eight of them?" He was doing well covering up the pain in his ankle, merely favoring one side. The boot was working well but he needed actual medical attention soon.

"Ten and yes, all dead." She took another bite. Her nonchalance was a testament to what her life had been so far. Really, it hadn't been much different for herself at that age.

"I'm just surprised you cleaned all of it up." Natasha swiped her finger across the counter as though there might be residual blood lingering somewhere.

Nadia scoffed, putting down her spoon, "Mama didn't raise no slob."

There was a moment of silence at that comment. Mama?

The girl gave a bit of a smile, "Sorry, a phrase I learned a while back. It stuck and generally disarms a situation - with civilians. Especially since none of them know that I've never actually had one of those."

Clint chuckled, "Well, never thought I'd hear that come out of you but okay." He thumbed over at Natasha, "But hey, you've got one now."

And just like that, Natasha felt the rock fall in her stomach. She'd been properly detached from the situation. But now she was invested in what the girl might reply.

Nadia's smile turned distant, "Yup."

"Where are the bodies?" Steve looked around as though they might be hiding somewhere nearby, his discomfort over the direction of the conversation evident. Now wasn't the time to talk about that sort of thing.

"I bagged, categorized, and relocated them to my room as I wasn't sure where they should be put for identification." Finishing the bowl off, she went to the stove where the pot of soup was still steaming, "Anybody want some soup? Must be hungry after whatever the hell you were doing out there." The noodles smelled amazing and was the only thing she had been taught to make so far.

"Let's see the men first." Steve answered, in full Captain America leader of the Avengers mode.

"Weird way to keep up your appetite but okay." Nadia shrugged, the motion made her shirt stay farther up from where it had been, revealing a cut on her upper arm with minimal bandaging. Was she okay?

"I thought you said you were okay!" There was the concerned father. Natasha had to admit, concern had come at seeing it as well. But if there had been ten men and this girl was still well enough to go through her own cleaning detail then she was more than likely okay.

Nadia was already walking away but gave a dismissive wave, "I am fine, Captain." She led them to her room. "Nothing that won't heal within 24 hours."

The door opened and in two neat lines were ten suspiciously body sized, black trash bags tied and numbered with what seemed to be duct tape, above each numbered bag was another, smaller ziplock bag that seemed to be holding something that had the same number on it. At least two makeshift body bags had two bags above it instead of just one. The extra bags were also dark ones you couldn't see into it.

There was another moment of silence, though for different reasons this time, before Clint finally shrugged, "Impressive." Nodding to the bags, "Their bodies and then a hand or fingers from the looks of it." He paused, "But what are the extras?"

"Their heads." She answered shortly, looking the bodies over, "Did what I could with what I had. Glad you have a pretty darn good cleaning closet, Stark. Weird that you had no fabric cleaner, though. Otherwise, I would have tried to clean the couch up." Bringing her gaze back to them, she quirked an eyebrow at the group clustered in the room, "Now, is there a better place we can bring these corpses or am I gonna have some new, silent roommates?"

"Hold up," Sam pointed his finger to the bodies, "The extra ones are their heads?"

"Yes," Nadia said slowly, as though it were the simplest thing in the world to understand, "I decapitated them during the fight." She shifted, looking annoyed, "Now, can someone answer my question?"

"My lab for now before they'll be shipped off to be looked over." Tony pursed his lips, looking a bit green, "I can pull a few strings so that the media isn't all over this."

"You decapitated them?" Sam repeated almost incredulously.

"Does it matter how I killed them?" Nadia grabbed the top of one of the bigger bags, dragging it towards the door, "Or was I supposed to say, 'why, yes, I would love for you to kill me or bring me back to The Weasel. How did you know?'?"

"Touché." Sam grabbed a bag and followed.

xxx

Nadia sat on the shredded couch, all the bodies had been relocated and most of the Avengers had also relocated to another room to talk. Only most because Wanda had been not-so-subtly placed on babysitting duty. She'd tried to talk a bit but after the responses had been short or nonexistent she'd given up. It was hard not to hate her. Or at the least strongly dislike her. It didn't matter whether everything that had been done was for a good reason. Telepaths had no business existing.

Closing her eyes, Nadia concentrated on everything she heard, finally picking out the sounds she wanted. Voices. The new war council room wasn't far away and with her hearing it wasn't terribly hard to pick up what they were saying.

"... Said it was a man named Doctor Grante, he's part of Hydra - or was." The Captain's voice.

"You know what they say, though." Mom's - The Widow's.

"If it is then we have some digging to do."

"I've never heard of this Grante person." Sandwiches' voice, "Any intel on him come up?"

"Nothing. It's as if he never even existed."

"He better exist, otherwise, I'm going to have to find someone else to hunt down for messing with my shit." Stark's.

"We need to see what information we can get and work from there." Her father's voice, "But in the meantime, what protective measures are we going to have?"

"She already never leaves the house and almost always has someone with her. What more can we do?"

"I'm locking my system up tight, completely reworking it." The sound of Stark taking a drink, "I don't like being showed up and damn it I'm not going to let that happen again."

They were getting nowhere and knew nothing about the man. The plan was thin at best. Worst yet, they just wanted to go into some lock down. Did they know nothing? Oh wait, they didn't. She'd given very little information. Habit mostly. Not her best plan either.

What did the Weasel want? Her obviously. Why? She was a missing experiment. An experiment gone wrong at that. Objective and reasoning, check. His plan of retrieval failed. What would he do? Not try the same thing twice. Threatening was a cheap man's method that rarely worked. He may try to play the long game. Or he'd simply get her to come to him. What better way than to play into his hands?

"Witch, I can hear every word they're saying. If you don't let me go I'll just yell loud enough to get them over here." Nadia opened her eyes and stood, not waiting for an answer.

A/N ~ Sorry this took so long to update! But I've recently broken my foot so maybe I'll have more time to write than before. XD