Chapter Fourteen
"Where is he?"
There were no need for formalities, no need for politeness, or acknowledgement. Lainey was missing and all that mattered was getting her back. Everyone would do everything in their power to make that happen.
Whoever these people were, they messed with the wrong kid.
"In there." Tony pointed to the interrogation room Maria Hill set up for him a while back. "He's not giving me anything."
It was true, before Natasha had arrived, he tried to get a little information out of the man to make things easier, but he wasn't very successful.
After all, he wasn't a spy.
"Oh, he'll give me exactly what I need." Natasha growled, storming right into the room, allowing the door to slam behind her, making the man inside jump in surprise.
The woman studied him carefully, fighting every urge to just knock him out and wait for him to regain consciousness to do it again. His brown eyes were wide and his pupils were dilated, he probably didn't realize it, but his teeth were chattering lightly, and his leg was bouncing. He desperately tried to look anywhere but her eyes, but was failing miserably.
He was afraid.
Good.
"What's your name?" She asked, keeping a gruff tone of voice. She didn't have time for any niceties. This man was partly responsible for what was happening to her child.
But in her obvious anger, she was proud of Lainey.
She put up quit the fight before she was taken. It was evident by the injured man in front of her.
"Verdict…..Ethan—"
"—Speak up!" She glared, slamming her hands down on the table.
Ethan let out a very involuntary whimper and tried to cower away from the woman, but couldn't really go anywhere due to the handcuffs that had him tied to the metal table.
"Ethan Verdict." He spoke a little louder.
"Good. Now we're getting somewhere."
Ethan wished he had just stayed out of this whole thing. Because the smile the Black Widow was giving him sure wasn't friendly.
She was going to show him exactly why they called her the 'Black Widow' and he wasn't the least bit prepared for it.
That desk job his firm offered him a few months ago was looking better and better. He was an idiot for turning that down in favor of doing someone else's dirty work for them just because it payed better.
It wasn't worth it now. Not even a little bit.
"Do you think she got anything?" Wanda nervously bit her nails. "Shall I go in and help her?"
"No." Steve shook his head. "She wouldn't want you to see that."
He knew from experience that Natasha's interrogations could get very ugly, very fast. This one would be even worse because it was personal. Wanda didn't need to see or involve herself in that kind of thing.
"See what?" She questioned, not understanding Natasha's brutal reputation for performing interrogations.
As soon as Steve opened his mouth to answer, he was cut off by an agonizing scream.
"Oh." Well, that answered her question.
"Don't worry, Wanda." Clint offered her an uneasy smile. "Nat knows exactly what she's doing. She'll find out everything we need to know and we'll have Lainey back here by tomorrow."
Originally, the plan was for both him and Natasha to do the interrogating, but right at the very last minute, Natasha refused to let him go with her. Something about her having to do this on her own for Lainey.
He knew it was more than that, but he didn't push her to tell him. If anything happened to Lila, Cooper, or Nate, he'd be just as on edge as she was. He wasn't going to question her decisions.
"Do you think she is alright?" Wanda's voice was just above a whisper. "What if she is hurt and she needs her mother?"
She remembered her days as Strucker's lab rat. How cold and scared she had been. She wanted nothing more than for her mother to be able to hold her and sing to her. She wanted to feel the woman's arms wrapped around her, and she wanted to hear her beautiful voice tell her that everything was going to be okay. But it never came. No one would save her from Strucker and the mistake she made.
But she always had Pietro.
Wanda's heart broke thinking about how Lainey was all alone. How she might be feeling helpless and afraid.
It burned her up inside.
"She's a strong girl, Wanda." Vision offered some comfort. "I'm sure she's trying to be brave. You must do the same for her."
Lainey was such a brave girl. She would get through this.
"Let's go." Natasha came bounding out of the room, interrupting their little moment.
"What'd you find out?" Clint asked.
"She's in a warehouse in Queens. Idiots didn't even think to hide her away. Let's move. I want my kid back."
"Mama...…"
"Looks who's finally awake." An unfamiliar voice roused Lainey from her involuntary sleep.
The child blinked away the blurry vision in her eyes, spotting a man in a lab coat, standing near her. She had been strapped down once again, but this time, she couldn't feel any of her weapons in her pockets. In fact, the straps were on tighter now than they had been before. They must've learned from her escape attempt.
"I wasn't sure how long you'd be out, but in no way did I think you'd be unconscious for two hours."
Two hours? She had been out cold for two hours?
In that moment, her heart began to race. Two hours was a long time. Anything could've happened to her during that time and she'd never know unless this lunatic told her. What was in this sedatives? Why hadn't she fought harder? Why did she just give up?
"You know, I knew your mother." He smiled, though, to Lainey, there was nothing warm or attractive about it. "She's a beautiful woman. Kind, sweet."
"My mother?" Lainey furrowed her eyebrows, subtly feeling around for a way to free herself. "Allison?"
"Is that what she goes by these days?" The man questioned with an air of amusement in his voice. "Allison?"
"What else would she go by? That's her name." Lainey gave him an odd look, ignoring the slight headache she had, probably as a result of being punched by fully grown men.
For all her life, her mother's name had been 'Allison Serrano'. Lainey didn't know of any other names, nor had she heard any.
This guy was crazy.
"It's a beautiful name." He continued as if she never said anything at all. "A beautiful name for a beautiful woman…..we were…..involved once upon a time ago. Back when you were young."
"I've never seen you before." The child grunted, still trying to reach down to her leg through the tight restraints, maybe there was a knife that hadn't been taken away from her. It was worth looking into.
"I wouldn't expect you to remember. You were very young." He explained, sticking a needle into her arm. "It's an IV. We don't need you to get dehydrated."
"How nice of you." She snarled, making sure that he knew she wasn't his biggest fan right now.
There was no way that he and her mother had been involved, she would've known. Her mother would've told her.
"Your mother and I were so in love. But between the spy work and the lab…..we had you, thinking we could make it work."
We had you, thinking we could make it work.
"What?"
"I'm your father."
Lainey stopped what she was doing and took a look at him. A really good look.
This man had blonde hair, green eyes, and had a muscular build to him. He wore a white lab coat with a tactical suit underneath it. It was probably in preparation for the unexpected, because Lainey couldn't see why someone who worked in a lab would need to be in tactical gear.
When he smiled, his eyes never lit up and his lips looked as if they were forced into an upright position. There was nothing genuine about him.
And yet he claimed to be her father. Was she just…..supposed to believe that? She's never met her father. She's never even seen pictures of him! And Allison certainly never mentioned him. If they were so 'in love', then why wouldn't she talk about him in passing?
But then again, Allison was a spy. A very good one at that. She managed to get herself on the Avengers' radar without Lainey finding out until the group of vigilantes broke into her apartment.
Maybe he wasn't lying. Maybe he was right.
And the fact that that could very well be a possibility, scared Lainey out of her wits.
The man was a lunatic! Why would she want to share DNA with him?
"I'm surprised Ka— Allison never mentioned me."
"She never mentioned much of anything." Lainey began searching once again. She didn't care if this guy was telling the truth or not, she was getting out of here, with knives or without.
"Looking for these?" He smirked, holding up the two items she was searching for. "I must admit, for such a small girl, you are quite the fighter. You took out three of my men all by yourself before we managed to detain you. Where'd you learn that? The Red Room?"
"What do you know about the Red Room?" Not many people knew about that horrible place. Lainey was right to be skeptical when he mentioned it in passing.
"I know a lot more than you think I know. And something tells me you know a lot more than those Avengers think you know, too."
"I don't know much about the Red Room." It wasn't a lie. Lainey was sure that Allison hadn't told her everything she knew about the Red Room. The ten year old had been shocked to find out that Natasha couldn't have babies because of the rules there. And she was almost positive that there was a lot more horrible things that happened there that no one would ever tell her about because she was too young.
"You're a liar." He laughed maniacally, making her flinch.
"Why am I here?"
"For a purpose."
"What purpose?"
"Since the Winter Soldier went rogue, Hydra has needed a new face to carry out its operations." He looked at the IV bag to make sure the liquid was being distributed properly before turning his attention back to the child. "You are perfect for the job."
So that's what this was. Her 'father' or whoever this man was, worked for Hydra and he quite literally volunteered her to take the Winter Soldier's place in the organization.
Lainey felt herself growing very sick. Her stomach was in knots and her heart thumped painfully against her ribcage, echoing all the way up to her ears to the point where it was hard to hear. She didn't want to be with Hydra. They were the bad guys. S.H.I.E.L.D. fell because of them. They tried to kill Fury!
She thought that D.C. had been the end of them. But like, Zola said that night in the bunker, 'Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place'. Lainey didn't understand it that night, but she sure did understand it now. But now it was too late. She was in their hands, ready to become one of their heads.
And she was terrified.
"I won't do it."
"It's too late. It's already been done."
"What? What did you do to me?"
"I have…..how do I say— 'enhanced' you. You are no longer that girl that walked in here this afternoon. You are better, faster, brighter. It was a bit difficult with that serum running through your veins, but now, you have capabilities that Hydra can and will have use for. It took nearly two decades to gain complete control of the Winter Soldier. But you, you my girl will take even less time than that. You can be molded, trained. And when you are, you will be unstoppable."
Lainey looked over to the little metal table beside her and found several syringes. They were empty. Her breath quickened and her hands balled up into fists as she realized exactly what this man meant.
He had experimented on her. He injected her with something that would change her and he did it while she was asleep.
The ten year old was used to adults making decisions for her, and she had no problem going along with what they did, but this…...this was different.
She had been changed. Permanently.
There was no going back now. Whatever was done, was done. And now she had to live with it.
There was no use fighting anymore.
She lost.
"Natasha?"
"What'd you find?" Natasha jogged over to Wanda. The Avengers had split up in order to best find Lainey and put a stop to this whole operation, staying on comms to communicate.
Walking carefully through the hallways of the abandoned warehouse, Wanda made sure to keep a close eye on everything around her. She didn't know where she'd find any clues and she wanted to be sure to cover all her bases.
That's when she saw it.
A large man just lying on the middle of the floor. He was breathing, but he was unconscious with a syringe sticking out of his leg.
"Look." She pointed at her find.
Natasha's eyebrows scrunched together as she bent down and pulled the syringe from the man's leg. "He's definitely out cold."
"How long do you think he's been like this?"
"Looks like a few hours at least." The redhead studied the left over liquid inside of the item, trying to get a gauge on what kind of sedative had been used.
Whatever it was, it was strong. This man hadn't even stirred since they found him.
"Romanoff?" She heard Clint on the other end. "We found something."
"What?"
"A body." He answered dryly. "A woman; a doctor. She's alive, but she's hurt. Looks like a knife did it. Accurate, too."
"Why would these people be attacking each other if they all have the same agenda?" Wanda asked, tilting her head.
"They're not." Natasha corrected.
"Lainey is." Steve concluded.
"Lainey did all this?" The Sokovian's jaw nearly dropped. She knew that Lainey could defend herself and she knew that the girl had some experience in martial arts. But today she was finding out just how experienced she really was.
To Wanda, Lainey was just a small, playful child who couldn't and wouldn't hurt a fly. But now she realized she was wrong. No one really explained the child's past to her and not being one to pry, she didn't ask, nor did she look into her head. If Lainey wanted to tell her, it would be in her own time.
Lainey was in danger and she did everything she felt she needed to do to keep herself safe. No one could or would fault her for that. It was just hard to see just how well trained she was at her tender age.
"Sure did." Clint examined the woman's wound, sharing a look with Steve. They both knew just how excellent the kid was with knives. And they were glad that it came in handy today.
But it was still a tough pill to swallow.
Their baby niece had done all this.
And she shouldn't have had to.
"Your mother raised you well."
Lainey looked up at her 'father', but didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. She felt hopeless and weak.
And at this point, she didn't care whether or not she got out of here. She could get used to the dim lights and the paint peeling off the walls. She just didn't care anymore.
She was so out of it, that she didn't even react when Steve's shield came hurtling through the door, bouncing off the wall before flying back to him.
In any other circumstance, she might have been glad to see him and the rest of the team. She would've been relieved that they had come to save her, even though she knew they would. She would've called for her mama, wanting nothing more than to be hugged and loved.
But all she could do, was stare.
For her, time stood still while everything and everyone else was moving. She could faintly hear what was happening inside the room they were in, but she wasn't fazed in the slightest. Her eyes were glossed over and her muscles were relaxed.
She was so far away, she didn't notice when her mother rushed over to her and untied the restraints, pulling her into her arms.
She could feel the woman's arms around her and she could feel her warmth, but she didn't feel her love. The love she had been wanting since this whole thing began. She just didn't feel it.
She couldn't feel much of anything.
"Lainey, Honey, are you alright?" Natasha rubbed her arms very gently with her hands. "Are you hurt?"
But Lainey didn't respond. She just stared off into space and blinked.
She wanted to answer, but something was stopping her. It was like she was trapped in her own mind, fighting to get out.
She felt the woman cup her chin to examine her. But at the sight of her hand reaching out to touch her, she flinched.
Natasha retracted her hand as soon as she noticed and bit back tears. They couldn't possibly be at this stage again. Not after all these years of being together. She worked so hard to give Lainey the life she deserved and some man just swooped right in and stole it all away.
All the progress was gone.
And they were right back where they started.