As the doors closed, Lainey looked back to find that the man had disappeared. But the sinking feeling in her stomach didn't. Why would anyone be watching her? What were they trying to find out? Maybe she was just overreacting. It could just be someone from the press who has seen her leaving the Tower and wanted to expose Tony for having some illegitimate love child or something. She needed to stop overreacting. Not everyone was out to get her.

Or so she thought.

As the train pulled away, the man in black looked at the empty train tracks and grinned like a cheshire cat.

"Hey Boss? I found her. Today she wasn't alone, but don't worry. Once I find her on her own, she's all yours."

Chapter Eight: If You See Something, Say Something Dammit!

A/N: The dream sequence and Lainey's reaction may be a trigger for some (it isn't gory or anything, just a little abusive) so please be careful :) XOXO.

"Lainey, you know how to get home from here now, right?" Peter asked the girl. He practically had to yell above the noise in the crowded station.

Lainey nodded her head, but wondered why Peter wouldn't be coming home with her. It had sort of become their thing to ride the train home together after school. Then Peter would have dinner and go home before May got back from work.

"Why aren't you coming by today?" She voiced her curiosity.

"Didn't Natasha tell you? May is sick. I have to go home and take care of her. It's just a cold, but she always takes care of me, so I want to return the favor." Peter explained. "I'll see you on Monday, okay?" He smiled as his train stopped in front of them.

"Okay. Let me know how May's doing…...and tell her I said hi…...and I miss her."

"I will. Take care of yourself." Peter smiled as the doors closed and the train left the station with him on it.

Lainey didn't mean to feel needy, but she really wanted Peter to come home with her. She didn't want to ride the train alone. She didn't feel safe knowing that someone was probably watching her. She hadn't told anyone, because she didn't want to alarm them, but now she was regretting that decision.

Looking around, Lainey didn't see anything or anyone that could be perceived as a threat, so she relaxed just a little bit. She was in a train station, surrounded by people, in broad daylight. No one was going to harm her, right?

Wrong.

She gasped as two unfamiliar arms snaked around her waist and covered her mouth, before lifting her off of her feet.

Lainey tried to scream as her legs kicked frantically and her body wriggled wildly against her kidnapper. But nothing worked. His grip was too strong,

And as crowded as the train station was, no one seemed to notice her distress. They all continued to do whatever it is they were doing without batting an eye.

"We've got you now. Boss has big plans for you." Her kidnapper hissed in ear before everything went black.

Lainey couldn't see anything. She thought she had fainted, but her senses were still at work. All except her sight. Everything was still black.

She tried to open her eyes, but they felt as if they were being glued shut. She even tried to move, but none of her limbs would budge.

Panic set in, and she began to breathe at a faster rate than normal as her heart pounded in her ears.

She was alone. In the dark. It was one of her worst nightmares coming true.

How was she supposed to get out of here if she couldn't move? How would she get home? Would anyone be looking for her?

"Lainey…...Lainey wake up." A soothing voice called the girl, easing her panic ever so slightly.

Lainey tried to tell the voice that she actually was awake and she just couldn't move, but when she went to open her mouth, nothing happened.

"Lainey." The voice tried again. This time it sounded a lot like Natasha. "You have to wake up honey. Dinner's ready and you skipped lunch to take a nap. Wake up."

A nap? She was being kidnapped! She wasn't home! Was she?

Lainey tried to open her eyes again, and this time, it worked. But when she looked around for Natasha, she didn't see her. What she did see made her blood run cold.

She was back at her house in the Bronx and her mother was standing over her with her arms crossed.

"Mom?" Lainey spoke softly, afraid to set the woman off.

But all Allison did was pull her into her arms and embrace her. "Where have you been? I was worried sick about you! Look at you! You're soaked!"

Maybe everything was a dream. Maybe she hadn't really met the Avengers and her mother had never laid a finger on her.

And that was completely okay with her. She had her mother back. She didn't need anyone else.

"I was...…I don't know where I was…...I had the weirdest dream." Lainey shook her head and took in her mother's familiar scent.

The woman no longer smelt like alcohol, but of lovely lavender. She must've been going out somewhere nice, because she only smelled like lavender when she was going to a fancy restaurant or hotel.

"Where are you going Mom?" Lainey asked.

And just as quickly as Allison's agreeable attitude came, it went. "Where am I going? What the hell do you mean, where am I going?" She spat. "I'm going out to look for you!"

Now that didn't make sense. How could she look for someone who had already been found?

"But Mom, I'm right here…..."

Lainey was rewarded with a slap in the face and an angry glare as her mother dug her nails into her bicep.

"Don't be a smart-aleck. I swear it's like no matter how hard I try, the disrespect never ends." Allison laughed maniacally and shoved Lainey towards the wall.

Lainey panicked and tried to reach out for something to slow her descent, but there was nothing to grab onto, so she continued to fall.

A scream escaped her throat as her body hit the ground and everything around her went black once again.

Lainey awoke with a jolt and her eyes flew open. Her heart was palpitating at a speed that could rival a hummingbird and she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She immediately looked around to see where she was this time, and found herself on the floor of her bedroom in the Avenger's Tower. She and her covers must've fallen off of the bed when she was pushed in her dream.

She knew it was a silly thing to do, but she felt around her body for any bruises and found none, except for some dents in her skin that looked as if they were from fingernails. And they were fresh. Lainey knew that her mother couldn't have done that, so he looked at her hands and found blood underneath her nails.

She had to clean it off before she got an infection, so she pushed the covers off of her body and froze. The covers were soaking wet…...and so was she. So, gingerly bringing the sheets up to her nose, Lainey sniffed and prepared for the worst. Thankfully, they were just wet from sweat, allowing Lainey to just put them back on her bed and change out of her drenched pajamas before putting everything in the washing machine a few doors down.

The twelve year old was very shaken by her dreams, and even debated on whether or not she should go to Natasha's room and talk to her about it, but eventually decided against it. She didn't want to bother the redhead with something like that at three in the morning.

So she decided to go and get herself a cup of coffee. It wasn't like she was going to get any more sleep. It wasn't like she wanted to get any more sleep. Not if she was going to be subjected to more nightmares.

"It's a little early for you to be up, isn't it?"

Lainey gasped and whirled around to find Bruce sitting at the island with a cup of what Lainey could only assume was tea. Bruce couldn't have stimulants for fear of setting off the Hulk.

"I'm not tired." Lainey let out a breath of relief before going back to the counter to make her coffee.

Bruce noticed the sweat that glistened on her forehead and the bags underneath her eyes, and he immediately knew she had suffered a night terror.

And as bad as nightmares are, night terrors are much worse. Whenever someone suffers from them, they can't be woken up or comforted until the ridiculous, vivid bad dream ends with them in a cold sweat.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked gently, slowly approaching her and taking her newly made coffee and pouring it down the drain, much to her displeasure.

"No. It was a stupid dream and I don't even remember it anymore."

That wasn't true and they both knew it. She was trembling like a leaf.

"I won't judge you, if you decided to tell me." He tried again. "Everyone in the Tower has nightmares from time to time. Sometimes we wake each other up and we're adults. But we never judge each other and we never make fun of each other for it."

"I…...She…...I was-" Lainey breathed out.

"-Slow down. Take a deep breath." Bruce coached her until her breathing went back to normal. "Take it slow. I'm not going anywhere."

"It was about…...It was about my mother." Lainey explained, conveniently leaving out the part where she had been kidnapped. That was just her imagination running wild. It wasn't important.

"What about your mother?" Bruce asked with no trace of malice in his voice, though he hated the woman with every fiber of his being.

"She was dressed up and ready to go out…...but then I came through the front door and she dropped everything…...and…...and she was worried about me. I asked her where she was going…...and she said she was going out to look for me...…but she was holding me! And I asked her why she was going to look for me when I was right in front of her, but she hit me…...and she dug her nails into my arms and pushed me into a wall…...that's when I woke up." Lainey shrugged.

It wasn't until that moment, that Bruce noticed the dried blood on Lainey's arm. "Honey? Did you do this to yourself?" He asked cautiously, not wanting to se her off.

"No! Not on purpose! It was an accident! I thought…...I thought…...She did it to me…...She did it to me…..." Lainey trailed, breaking down in quiet sobs.

Bruce led her over to the couch and sat down with her, to calm her down. "I know you didn't do it on purpose…...Sometimes when we dream, we do the things that are happening while we're asleep. Then we wake up and see the results. Through no fault of our own of course."

"You don't think I'm crazy?" Lainey looked up at him with such wide and desperate eyes, Bruce nearly openly cried with her.

"No honey, of course not. It happens to everyone on this floor. And no one is going to hurt you. We're all here for you. You don't have to turn to coffee to stay awake. If you ever have a bad dream and you come out into the living room, I guarantee there's going to be someone sitting here going through the same thing."

"Even you?" Lainey asked, cuddling into the gamma scientist's side, much to his surprise.

"Especially me. None of us are perfect, but we manage because we lean on each other when we have nothing left-"

Bruce looked down at Lainey and found her with her eyes closed and a relaxed look on her face.

"Goodnight honey." He smiled fondly, brushing a stray curl away from her face before getting comfortable, closing his own eyes to drift off into a dreamless and fruitful slumber.

"Hey Lainey!" Sarah called the brunette.

Lainey stopped reading and waited patiently for Sarah to make her way over to her.

"I just wanted to ask you if you'd like to come over tonight? You don't have to if you don't want to, but I think it'd be fun." Sarah smiled sweetly.

Even though they were pretty good friends now, they still hadn't hung out outside of school yet.

"Yeah, I'd like that." Lainey smiled and put the book she had been reading down. "It does sound like fun."

"Really? I was afraid you'd say no." Sarah beamed. But not the way that Clara used to. Sarah's smile wasn't annoying and blinding. Hers was contagious, she couldn't help smiling back.

Lainey thought that making friends would be hard, but it was only a week or two in, and she had already found a good friend.

"Do you want to play tag or something?" Sarah asked, looking at everyone either eating lunch, or playing games during their free time.

"How about hide and seek?" Lainey suggested sheepishly.

She felt as if it was a childish request, but she really did like that game. She couldn't really be blamed for it, because her childhood had been taken away from her by her mother.

Apparently, Sarah didn't think it was childish at all, because she immediately announced that since she was older, she would be it and Lainey had to hide.

Lainey's smile grew larger in size and she looked around to find the perfect hiding spot. When her eyes landed on it, she grinned. There was a large oak tree near the sidewalk that would be perfect to hide behind. So grinning as if she had just pulled one over on someone, Lainey quietly made her way over to the tree and hid behind it, glancing every now and then to see if Sarah had stopped counting.

It seemed as if Sarah had counted to thirty to give Lainey enough time to find a suitable hiding spot, before running off to find her.

Lainey hid her giggles behind her hand as she watched Sarah look in places she thought she might be.

Her giggles didn't last long, for as soon as she started, she heard a weird rustling in the bushes near her. And it didn't sound like it was coming from the movements of any animals.

Lainey furrowed her eyebrows and looked at the bushes next her to see what was in there, but before she could get a good look, a hand snatched her waist and covered her mouth before carrying her away from the building.

This was all too familiar. Lainey thrashed as much as she could and even tried to bite down on her kidnapper's hand, but nothing work. Whoever had her, was clever enough to bring her down the block and into an alleyway, before shoving her into a black car and driving away.

Lainey thought that he was stupid for not tying her up and used that to her advantage, banging on the windows and screaming at the top of her lungs, hoping that someone who see or hear her and help, but nothing worked. The windows must've been tinted. So she tried to unlock the doors and unroll the windows to jump out, but he must've put the child lock on, leaving Lainey with no means to escape.

The twelve year old slumped against the backseat, clearly having given up all hope of getting home and allowed her tears to fly down her face. She would've used her phone to text Natasha or call the police, but she knew that in the struggle, it had fallen out of her pocket. No one would be able to track her, or find her now.

Meanwhile, in Midtown, Sarah was growing worried. She had looked almost everywhere for Lainey and she was nowhere to be found. She looked behind trees, bushes, under the benches, and even behind people. She couldn't find her anywhere. So either Lainey was seriously good at this game, or something was seriously wrong.

Though she could be wrong. There was one tree she still hadn't looked behind yet. The far oak tree by the sidewalk.

Sarah smiled, thinking that she was going to win this round and ran over to the tree. But when she didn't see Lainey, her heart dropped. Something was wrong. Lainey would never just leave like that.

Looking at the ground for any traces of Lainey, Sarah found the girl's phone on the dirt and quickly picked it up, walking back to the bench where she had originally greeted Lainey.

The phone was locked and Sarah clearly didn't know the password, so she decided to look through Lainey things to see if there was something that could give her a clue as to what the password was.

Her book was still on the bench, open to the last page she had read. As far as Sarah knew, Lainey didn't go anywhere without that book. It was Matilda. Sarah never full understood why Lainey liked it so much, but she always figured it had something to do with the fact that both she and the main character were practically geniuses. She didn't know that there was a deeper reason. She didn't know that Lainey's mother had abused her the same way Matilda's parents abused her, and more. And she didn't know that Lainey had found a friend in someone who had gone through just as much as Ms. Honey, if not more. And she definitely didn't know, that Lainey and that special friend had found a family in each other. It wasn't just a book to Lainey. It was a symbol of hope. It was her story just as much as it was Matilda's.

There was nothing informative 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 an answer, but she did hear what sounded like a phone hitting the ground.

A/N: This is getting pretty intense...Lainey's having night terrors and now she's been kidnapped. Her life has never been boring has it? Thanks again to AzarelleTheGamer for reviewing! I know I'm putting Lainey through a lot, but her life will get better. She'll be happy one day! Until next time (hopefully this week). XOXOXOXO!