Ghost Widow

Guilt

"Is that true?" Natasha asked, emerging from the group.

The super soldier met her eyes and nodded slowly. "Yes, I knew."

"What?" Yelena said, staring Alexei down.

"I knew she was being kept there and they were running all those experiments on her."

Ana chucked and shook her head, "No, Alexei. Tell them the whole story."

Alexei looked at his feet and played with his hands nervously.

"I saw her there..." he said.

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Alexei got out of the jeep that they had entered the gates of the Mongolia Facility in. He pulled his coat tighter around his body and blew hot air into his hands.

He walked to catch up with Dreykov. They had been invited by the Project Enlightenment general to come and see a potential. They entered the building and were led to a glass booth above a fighting ring by 2 soldiers. The super soldier took his seat at the front amongst leading figures in both the Red Room and HYDRA. He peered down to see 6 people come in the room. Most of them looked the same age and were all of a similar height, except for one.

This one was smaller than the rest and skinnier. When the bags were removed from each of their heads. His eyes scanned everyone. Four of them were boys -he guessed to be teenagers - and two of them were girls. One of the girls was significantly taller than the other and looked like the oldest in the room. However, the last girl was small and probably around 9 years old.

Suddenly, it hit him. This wasn't just a girl, this was his girl. It was Ana. He leaned forward more, eyes glued to her face. She furrowed her brow and looked at each of the other subjects, analysing them.

The fight started with a loud noise coming over the speakers. Everyone ran to attack each other, apart from Ana - who stood back to let the others pick a few off first. One boy stood out from the rest; killing two other opponents by snapping their necks. He grabbed a knife from the table in the middle and threw it at girl who was near Ana. She reacted fast and pulled the blade from the dead girls chest and slashed it across another boy coming to attack her. He fell to the ground behind her, Ana running at the last opponent. The boy had another knife in his hand and swung it as Ana's body, but she dodged out the way. She jumped on his back and stabbed the knife into his shoulder repeatedly, however the boy still managed to fling her onto the floor. He attempted to plunge the blade into her sternum; Ana rolling out of the way as he landed in the floor instead. Ana kicked him in the side, rolling him over and stabbing the blade into his eye. He screamed out, but it was cut short as he gave out.

The girl, turned around and laid down on the floor with her hands behind her back. She glanced up at he booth to see people clapping. As she did, her eyeline met her dad, who stared back frozen. Her face dropped and she stood up. She ran towards the booth, but was tackled by 3 guards. However, she fought them all off, elbowing one in the jaw and continuing her path. Infuriated, she screamed at the glass and everyone looked at her confused; Dreykov turned to Alexei who was still staring at the girl. Another 5 guards came towards the girl, one tazing with a stick, knocking her out on the floor. Alexei put his hand up against the glass and looked upon the men carrying her out with sorrow.

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Ana laughed, "You've really got nothing to say for yourself?"

The super soldier couldn't look at her, he just stood there speechless. She rolled her eyes and stormed out of the room and up the stairs. Natasha ran after her.

"What is wrong with you?" Yelena frowned at him, "You let her suffer there alone! Do you even feel bad?"

He didn't answer. The blonde scoffed, "No. Of course you don't."

Natasha found Ana pacing in the hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms. She watched as the girl screamed and hit the wall in a rage. Her knuckles began to bleed but she kept going. Nat intervened and held the girl by the shoulders.

"Look, he's an asshole and what he did is unforgivable but please just stop." she tried to reason.

Ana broke down against the wall, "He left me there. He just left..."

Natasha pulled her into a hug and the girl came apart in her arms, the red head supporting her as she almost fell to the floor. The two stayed like that for a while until Steve came and found them.

"Wanda made dinner, if you wanted any." he said from a distance.

Nat stood them both up and took her sisters hand as they walked silently to the kitchen where only a few people were, including Bucky, Wanda, Yelena and Melina. Steve said that the rest were on a small mission in Mexico for a few days and Alexei was going to stay on the jet.

Ana took a plate of pasta and a glass of water and began eating slowly. The team didn't ask any questions and talked amongst themselves. The girl zoned out and stared ahead, not moving. Yelena nudged her from her thoughts and smiled softly.

"So you guys have freed a lot of widows then?" Bucky asked as Ana tuned into the conversation.

"Yes, we engineered the antidote so that it can be more affective and you can use one vial to free 2 widows at a time." Melina told him.

Wanda said, "Where do they go once they're free?"

Yelena answered, "Well they can go wherever they want, that's the whole point - they can make they're own choices. But a lot of them have never experienced the outside world so they can stay with us as long as they want."