Taken

Chapter 4: New Missions

Two months after Anna's kidnapping...

The Asset held Anna on his lap while she ate dinner. Anna was very clingy and claimed that she would rather sit on his lap while she ate. The Asset complied as he loved holding her and pushing locks of her dark hair behind her ear. His baby had stopped hesitating just last week when he asked her name and who he was. She was also quick to give him hugs and kisses.

"Papa hungry?" Anna asked in a small piping voice, bringing the Asset's attention back to her small hands playing with the scruff on his face. Anna was fascinated by the scruff and couldn't keep her little hands from touching it. A warm smile touched the Asset's lips.

"Papa will eat later. Papa wants Anna to eat," The Asset said, kissing her forehead gently. Anna stood on his knees and pressed a wet kiss to his cheek. Anna hadn't quite learned the concept that a kiss didn't involve drooling all over someone's cheek, but the Asset didn't have the heart to correct his daughter as she was no longer hesitating about her name and had accepted that this was her life now.

"Papa no send Anna away?" Anna asked, pressing her face to his muscular chest and wrapping her little arms around his neck. The Asset dragged his flesh hand through her dark hair that he had just cut. Anna hadn't wanted a haircut, but it had gotten too long and it was for the best that he cut her hair. At least she had stood still while he cut it.

"No. You're Papa's baby," the Asset said, lowering his head to kiss her forehead.

"Anna love Papa," Anna said in a slightly drowsy voice as she fell asleep in his arms.

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The Asset woke up from the latest freezing his mind slowly coming to his daughter. Anna had been frozen with him. He had no idea how much time had passed in the freezing. Anna should be almost five if they allowed her to age properly, but with the freezing she looked like a small child who just turned four. Anna had stopped screaming when HYDRA decided to freeze her five months after he had taken her. In the first days of her being with him he had held her in his arms as they pumped her full of the drugs to relax her. She had screamed and cried until the drugs took her over and she would lay her head on his shoulder.

The Asset then climbed out of his container and went to the container that his daughter slept in. "Soldat, the child can go with you on your next mission. No one questions a man with a child. The girl's mission will be to make everyone think she is your daughter and get their eyes off of you while you complete your mission," Karpov explained.

"What do I need to do to prepare her?" The Asset asked as the doctor pressed the buttons to unthaw Anna.

"She is to act like your daughter and call you her father in public like she does here," as the Asset took his baby in his arms and tucked her head under his chin. The drugs to relax her before the freezing should be activated and Anna would sleep for another hour or two.

"She can do that. She doesn't hesitate any more on her name or what she calls me," the Asset said, hugging Anna tightly to his chest, her soft breaths brushing his flesh arm.

"Very good. We will have some clothes delivered to your cell for her and you need to shave and cut your hair, Soldat," Karpov said as the Asset walked away to the cell he and Anna called home. He laid his baby on her cot and covered her with the blanket. When she woke up, he would get some food into her and tell her that she would go on this mission with him. He didn't think she would have any problems acting like his daughter in public as she treated him like her father in private. It had been over a year. Karpov may have thought Anna was still the girl they had stolen, but she had accepted that this was her life now.

The Asset sat beside her cot, gently stroking her dark head with his flesh hand when Anna woke up. "Papa?" Anna asked, blinking her blue eyes sleepily.

"How's my girl?" The Asset asked as she got out of bed and onto his lap, pressing her face into his chest.

"Papa, Anna hungry," Anna said in a muffled tone.

"Of course you are. Food's coming and some new clothes. Anna's coming with Papa on a mission," the Asset said, kissing her through her shoulder-length hair. Before the freezing he had cut her hair. Anna still didn't like having her hair cut, but the Asset had explained why he had to cut it and she had accepted it. Anna was a good child who did everything he said. Sucking on her thumb was non-existent. The Asset had pulled her thumb out of her mouth, put soap on her thumb and had even spanked her for it once or twice. By now Anna had learned not to.

"Where we go, Papa?" Anna asked, standing on his knees and giving him one of her trademark wet kisses on his cheek.

"Papa doesn't know yet, baby. But it can't be too bad if I can bring you with me," the Asset said.

"Anna love Papa," Anna said.

"Papa loves Anna too," the Asset said as the door opened and one of the women brought in clothes for a little girl.

"Karpov says that these should fit her and make her look like an American," the woman said in a dull flat tone as she laid the clothes on the only table in the room. The Asset looked at the clothes. It looked like the shirt had a bear on it with the sun on his stomach. The name Care Bears came to mind. He had seen them once before on a mission after Anna came to live with him and he thought she would enjoy that. The rest of the outfit was sunny yellow like the bear on the shirt.

"Spasibo," the Asset thanked her in Russian and she left the room.

"Papa, I don't like yellow," Anna complained as she looked at the shirt.

"Anna, you have to wear it. Put these on and Papa will do something with your hair," the Asset said and she took the clothes reluctantly.