Ghost Widow

Missing

"Hey, Steve. Have you seen Ana?" Natasha asked the man sitting in the kitchen reading a book.

He looked up at her, "The last I saw, she was heading to the gym. But that was an hour ago."

"Okay, thanks." she left the room to go downstairs. 

I was late and Natasha wanted to talk to her sister about what happened today before they all went to bed; check if she was alright. If Tony had said those things to her, he would be in the hospital with a broken nose and a fractured orbital bone in a heartbeat. Nat knew that the only way Ana kept her cool was because she thought she was to blame. The guilt was consuming her daily. 

As she opened the door to the training room, she found that the lights were off and no one was in there. It was 10:42 pm so maybe Ana had gone to bed already. 

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Ana woke up with a banging headache. She had a bag over her head and her hand were tied together with something she couldn't break out of. In fact she couldn't use her powers at all. No matter how hard she tried, the girl couldn't manage to break free or find out how many people had taken her. 

She figured that she was in a car or a van because every now and again, she would rattle around slightly. Her head thumped back against a cold metal surface so she guessed she was in a van. If she listened close enough, Ana could hear someone shuffle around too. They were sat opposite her and she could tell they were nervous. This was obviously their first kidnapping. 

"You couldn't put the air-con on, could you? It's freezing in here." Ana spoke, testing the person she was with. 

No response. They must have been briefed before. 

The girl sighed loudly, "You know, these cuffs are quite heavy. New model?"

The made the person snigger slightly, interesting. 

"Oh and look, I don't have my powers either. So I'm guessing you brought power dampening cuffs. That was clever. Otherwise I would bust out of here in an instant." she taunted.

"Of course you would." the person responded. 

Not briefed well enough then. Oddly, the voice sounded familiar. It was a woman. 

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Natasha stood outside Ana's door. It was closed. She always slept with it open a crack. Something was wrong.

The red head opened it and flicked the light on. The room was empty. 

"F.R.I.D.A.Y. tell the team to look for Ana." she announced to the emptiness. 

Someone came running up the corridor. It was Bucky, "She's missing?"

Natasha nodded and the pair began a sweep of the whole floor looking for the girl. They met the rest of the team in the training room. Ana was gone. 

"Okay, Bruce. Since Tony's not here, you look at the security footage of the whole compound. Maybe the people behind this were caught on camera. Everyone else keep looking around; look in places you wouldn't expect." Steve listed orders and the team got to it. 

Natasha followed Bruce into the lab to look at the cameras with him. They took her sister and she was going to do anything to get her back safely. He pulled up the footage and flicked between each camera. The last time she was seen was in the gym, throwing knives. Then the cameras cut out and an empty room was pasted on the screen. Someone had tampered with them. Even F.R.I.D.A.Y had blocked out 20 minutes of her memory. 

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The van came to a halt and Ana was wrestled out. She was injected with something in her neck and she couldn't move from the spot she was placed in. They waited for a moment and Ana heard another vehicle pull up. Four people got out and she could hear their feet crunching across gravel. 

Someone to her left took the bag off her head. Standing in front of her were four men in Project Enlightenment uniforms; guns strapped to their hips and badges gleaming in the low light. One of them grabbed her face and smiled maliciously. He inspected her and released her.

"Subject 04, returned to us at last." the man spoke with a thick Russian accent. 

He turned to the person next to Ana, who was just out of view. 

The Russian outstretched his hand, "Mr Stark. Thank you for returning our most prized soldier."

Tony took a step forward and shook the man's hand. He didn't look at Ana, but he could feel her eyes burning into the back of his skull. 

"Now, what we agreed on the phone. The kid." Tony took a serious tone.

The man nodded, "Yes, of course. Возьми мальчика." (Get the boy.)

One of the men walked over to the blacked out van and opened the back door. He grabbed Peter, who was limp, and dragged him over. Pepper raced forward to get him form the soldier. His face was battered and dirty. They had put him in some casual clothes compared to what he was taken in but they had been ripped and had blood on them.  

Pepper's eyes met Ana for a second. Guilt flashed through the woman, but she turned to focus on the boy instead. Tony turned to join Pepper; still not looking at Ana. Betrayal spread through her as she was pulled across the floor by two of the soldiers, further away from the family she had just found.