"Nice to meet you kid."

The assassin smiled at the preteen and moved closer to shake her hand.

Lainey smiled back and took it, making sure her grip was firm and that she wasn't looking at the ground.

Natasha was pretty impressed with the kid's grip. It was strong, but she could still practically smell the fear coming off of her. She was right. She was going to have a lot of fun with this kid.

Lainey noticed the redhead's smile right as it morphed into a smirk and couldn't help but feel the shivers that ran up and down her spine.

What had she gotten herself into?

Chapter Two: Just Getting Starting

That very question made its way to the back of Lainey's mind and remained there as she watched the Avengers dive into their food at the table.

They were all animals.

Well, all except Wanda, Natasha, and Steve. They ate like normal human beings should.

"So Alayna, that's your name? Correct?" Tony asked, attempting to strike up a conversation with the kid.

"Yeah. No one calls me that though, everyone calls me Lainey." The brunette kept her eyes on her fork as she twirled around the pasta in her plate.

It had been Steve's night to cook, and he was craving some Italian food, so he cooked up some spaghetti and meatballs for everyone.

And Lainey had to admit, it was one of the best meals she had ever had in her life. It was also the most fun she had in a very long time, through no fault of her own.

"Okay Lainey." Tony wiggled his eyebrows to make her laugh. "What gets you up out of bed every morning?"

Lainey stopped twirling her fork and cocked an eyebrow. What got her out of bed in the morning?

"Sorry Lainey, you'll have to excuse him. He's very, uh, forward." Steve sent her a small smile.

"Yeah, what he means to say is, what do you like to do?" Sam spoke up. He was trying to get her to open up more the entire night.

"Oh…..well I like to read…a lot."

Peter smirked at his friend and decided to help her out. She was just being shy like always. It was one of the things he loved about her.

"You know Natasha, Lainey likes to dance." He spilled the beans without even batting an eye.

The fact that Natasha didn't seem to be affected by the statement made Lainey wonder what exactly Peter had been telling the superheroes.

"Really?" The redhead spoke with a tone that lacked any emotion. "What genre?"

"Ballet, but my form is terrible. I'm a lot better at contemporary."

But before Natasha could respond. Lainey's phone went off, causing the young girl to look right at it.

Natasha noticed her eyes widening in alarm as she read the message that had been sent to her. She could see the fear on her face as she typed a response and stood up softly.

"I'm sorry, I have to go…Thank you for the meal, it was delicious…I have to go."

The joy that had been consuming the girl was now replaced with dread. Her tanned skin had paled and she looked as if she would be sick at any given moment. Her slim fingers shook as she put her phone in her pocket and grabbed her schoolbag.

"Wait Lainey, why don't you let me drive you home?" Steve stood up and moved to grab his keys.

As soon as he grabbed them, Wanda pulled him to the side and whispered something in his ear that made his eyebrows scrunch together.

"No! No. I can get home by myself. It's fine."

"No you can't. You don't even live in the borough. Come on Lainey, let him drive you home." Peter tried to plead with her.

Lainey looked at everyone in the room and saw that they all agreed with him.

How could she deny them?

"As long as it's no trouble."

"Trust me. I want to do this."

Lainey allowed Steve to lead her downstairs to his car and sat in the passenger seat as he slid into the driver's seat and turned the key in the engine. He made sure that Lainey was wearing her seatbelt before he even considered pulling away from the curb, which Lainey thought was really sweet.

The car was a blue 1978 Volkswagen Beetle with a chrome bumper and noisy transmission.

But it was a really cute car despite its flaws.

"So…..did you have fun?" Steve asked as he and Lainey rode on the FDR Drive.

There was a bit of traffic, and he noticed that Lainey had begun fidgeting while checking the time on her phone.

"Yeah, I had a lot of fun. Thank you for having me."

"Well you're welcome anytime. Any friend of Peter's is a friend of ours."

The statement calmed Lainey down just a little bit as traffic let up.

The rest of the ride was ridden in silence. Lainey was too far in her own mind to speak to the super soldier sitting beside her. She wasn't trying to be rude, and he knew that.

"Is this it?" Steve asked, pulling over in front of a brick building.

"Yeah. Thank you so much. I hope this wasn't any trouble."

"Don't mention it." He waved her off.

"Well I really appreciate it." Lainey smiled and opened the car door.

But before she could leave, Steve put a hand on her arm.

And the reaction he got from it was something he was hardly expecting.

Lainey flinched violently and wrenched her arm away from Steve, stumbling out of the car as if she had been stung.

"Woah! Be careful." Steve looked at her with concern, jumping out of his car to come to her aid.

But Lainey wouldn't let him touch her. She quickly stepped away from him in an attempt to catch her breath and calm down. Once she did, she looked at Steve with regret etched in her features.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"-Is something going on at home?"

"What? No! I was just daydreaming and you really caught me off guard, you know? I just got startled is all. I'll see you soon, okay?"

Steve nodded and watched her enter the building before getting back into his car to drive home.

He knew something was wrong, he just couldn't do anything about it because he didn't exactly know what was wrong.

And that feeling of helplessness bothered him to no end.

"You were right."

Wanda looked up from the book she was reading to turn her attention to Steve.

He was standing in the doorway of her room, looking troubled. The way he usually did when he was feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Right about what?"

"Lainey." He sighed, making his way over to her. "There is something wrong. I just don't know what."

"What happened?" Wanda furrowed her eyebrows.

During dinner she had pried through the kid's thoughts, but she didn't go too far. She wanted Lainey to trust her, not fear her. She had found out that there was something or someone in Lainey's life that she was terrified of, but the girl had pushed those thoughts so deep in the back of her mind, that it was hard for Wanda to look without alarming her.

So she left it alone and told Steve that something was up before the two left.

"She was fidgeting the entire ride and she was so quiet that it was hard to make any type of conversation with her." Steve ran a hand through his hair. "When I got her home, she opened the door to step out of the car…I was going to give her my number so she could call if she needed anything, so I put a hand on her arm."

"Did she freak?" Wanda asked, already knowing the answer to the question.

"She flipped. She flinched away from me and jumped out of the car! And after she calmed down enough to speak, she apologized to me!"

"There is something that she is afraid of."

"And we're going to find out just what that is."

Meanwhile, Natasha was sitting on her bed, typing away at her computer, searching.

She was searching for any information she could find on Lainey that would confirm her suspicions.

It didn't take long for the spy to find what she was looking for and click the link.

Woman pleads not guilty for allegations of child neglect. The title of the article read.

39 year old Allison Taylor denies all claims to brutally breaking her child's left arm and locking her out of the apartment the two share for more than three days.

On Wednesday, July 21st of 2012, a neighbor of Taylor's called police on suspicions of child neglect as she claimed to have seen nine year old Alayna Taylor sitting in the hallway of the building, clutching a broken arm.

The adult and child continuously denied any allegations and the court case was closed due to lack of witnesses and the fact that Alayna herself confirmed that she had gotten hurt on the way home from school, riding her skateboard and was sitting in the hallway because she had lost her keys.

Just as she thought.

Lainey was abused.

A/N: Hello! Thank you for reading this far! This is a little story I've had in my head for a little while now, and I've finally decided to share it with you all. I know what I have in mind for the next few chapters, but if you have any ideas of what should happen after that, just let me know!