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.

Chapter Ten:

"Stupid kid." Allison muttered under her breath, watching her daughter with such repugnance, one would have trouble believing that she was the one who had given birth to her.

But Lainey was used to it. Her mother's verbal abuse always bothered her, but it happened so often that she forced herself to suck it up and deal with it. She couldn't let Allison see that she was affected by her words or it would just get worse.

"Why the hell doesn't she listen to me?" She growled, beginning to look like an animal, stalking its prey. She was watching, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

"She's a smart-aleck." Her father interjected, taking a swig from the beer bottle he held in his hand. "Damn kid thinks she knows more than us. That attitude should disappear once the serum sets in her blood. She won't know her ear from her elbow." He laughed sadistically.

That's when Lainey began to panic.

What serum did they inject her with? What was going to happen to her? Why couldn't she move?

"Get up." Her father threw his beer bottle in her direction. The bottle narrowly missed her face and shattered against the wall behind her, the liquid splattering all over her hair and her back, staining her clothing.

The impact helped Lainey regain control of her limbs, allowing her to shoot up and run as fast as she could, tripping over her own feet in the process. She ran out of the apartment and down the three flights of stairs, refusing to take her chances with the elevator, eventually making her way out of the building and onto the semi-busy streets of the Bronx.

Her body was screaming for her to stop, but she refused to give in. Even when her breathing

became shallow, she didn't slow down. She had to get away from those people she had once

called family. They were nuts.

As her feet kept pounding on the pavement, a tall, purple looking alien came into view and blocked her path. Everyone around them seemed to disappear, leaving just the two of them standing alone.

"Relax child. It's for the best. One day you will see." He spoke so calmly that Lainey didn't immediately feel threatened by him. "The time is drawing near, but when it comes, you will be ready."

"Lainey?"

The brunette's eyes shot open, instantly regretting it when she was nearly blinded by the familiar bright lights of med-bay.

Wait. Med-bay? How did she get back to the Tower? What was going on?

A rush of emotions flooded through the twelve year old, as she frantically looked around to make sense of her predicament. She was hooked up to an IV again and had a heart rate monitor on her finger, which was the first thing she took off.

That beeping was giving her anxiety.

"Lainey?" A voice snapped her out of her panic just enough for her to be able to listen clearly.

Natasha had been sitting on a chair next to her bedside, anxiously waiting for her to wake. She had practically been guarding her, making sure that no one made one wrong move near her. Everyone thought it was sweet. She didn't let many people in, but when she did, she held them close.

Knowing that she probably wasn't going to get a response from the child, she decided to make idle conversation.

"You don't know much about me personally, do you? How about I tell you some things? My favorite color is green." She started, deciding to rattle off things that she knew Lainey would love to know. "Everyone assumes that it's red, because of what…..who I am."

Lainey didn't blink. It was like she was right next to Natasha, but millions of miles away. It was horrible to see the once bubbly and bright girl who was so full of life, lay in bed with no emotions, sporting a blank look on her face.

"Okay, kid. Move over, I'm coming up." Natasha sighed, realizing that the small talk wasn't working. "We're going to do something different, I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen. I won't let you sit here and deal with this on your own. Понимаю?"

Lainey didn't open her mouth to speak, but she did nod and acknowledge that she was being spoken to. She even moved over, allowing Natasha to climbing next to her.

She wouldn't say so, but the extra comfort was what she needed.

"I was kidnapped too." The redhead began a tale that no one but Clint and Laura knew. This piece of information wasn't even in her file. She had made sure of it. "I was much younger than you..…maybe five or six. It was back in Russia. It was my mother's birthday, so we celebrated the entire day, and when it got dark, she sent my younger brother and I to bed so she and my father could celebrate on their own." Natasha swallowed a lump in her throat and took a deep breath before continuing. "I fell asleep with my brother in my arms...….and a fire woke us up. I heard my parents screaming for the both of us and I held my brother tight while the flames grew. But it wasn't enough, soldiers burst into the house and ripped me away from him…..."

Lainey surprised her by cuddling close to her and taking a hold of her hand to comfort her so that she could continue.

"I don't remember anything else that happened that night, except for the fact that I ended up in a place called, Балетная консерватория мадам Би для девочек. It was the Red Room. They had me train in dance, ballet specifically. When we got old enough, they trained us to kill. I grew to be very skilled, so I graduated earlier than expected…...and in the graduation ceremony, I was sterilized." The Russian sighed. "I didn't tell you all of that for you to be more upset than you were. I told you that, so you would know you're not alone."

"Tony told me that too." Lainey's small voice surprised Natasha. "What's sterilized?"

"Tony was right." The redhead pretended to shudder, making Lainey crack a smile, before continuing her story. "When someone's sterilized, they can't have children. It makes everything easier, even k...…things that shouldn't be easy. But then I met a friend. He was meant to take me out, but he made a different call."

"Was it Clint?" Lainey asked softly, slowly coming out of her shocked state.

"Mmhmm." Natasha hummed. "It was Clint. He saw something in me that I didn't even know was there…...but there was always an empty space in me that I could never fill. Until now. Until you."

"Until me? I haven't done anything for you." Lainey furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

She really didn't believe she did anything to impact Natasha's life. All she had been doing was living in her house and eating her food. It was Natasha who did everything for her. She was the one who showed her how a mother should behave towards her children.

Oh.

Lainey's eyes widened as she turned to face the former assassin, who had a knowing look on her face. She didn't mean that, did she?

"I was going to tell you when you felt better, but now is just as good a time as any." Natasha cupped Lainey's cheek. "I already had custody of you, and I had Tony pull some strings. The adoption papers were finalized two days ago."

Lainey's heart stopped and with it, the entire world. In that moment, the earth stood still. She couldn't say anything, she couldn't hear anything, and she couldn't see anything except what was in front of her. It felt as if she was having an out of body experience. None of this could possibly be happening. It had to be in her head.

But it wasn't. She was really laying in med-bay, in the Avenger's Tower, and Natasha adopted her. Just thinking about that caused a whole mess of emotions to run through the preteen. She wanted to cry, but she wanted to laugh. She felt like smiling, but she also felt like jumping up and down!

Someone wanted her. They weren't just keeping her around out of obligation. They wanted her. She wanted her.

And that meant the whole wide world and then some to Lainey.

"I don't have to go back?" Lainey asked, wanting to be 100% sure that this was true.

"Never. You belong with me now and that's where you're going to stay." Natasha smiled reassuringly. "You're mine and I'm yours."

And there was something about that last statement that made Lainey's muscles relax so she could throw her arms around Natasha.

She belonged to Natasha now.

And despite the abuse, the kidnapping, and the experiments, and the nightmares, she was the happiest she had ever been. She knew that she would have to talk about what happened at some point, but for right now, she was content just to be in Natasha's arms.

She was safe and she was loved. That was all that mattered right now.

Понимаю? - Understand?

Балетная консерватория мадам Би для девочек - Madame B's Ballet Conservatory for Girls

A/N: I know it's been a while, and I'm sorry that this is so short! I've had a major case of writer's block. I wrote about two other versions of this chapter and I despised them, so I decided to give Lainey a break. I'll address everything that has happened to her in the following chapters, along with a surprise :)