MCU ⚡
[ pre iron man 2 - black widow ]
In which a 10-year-old shows up on Tony Stark's doorstep, claiming to be his daughter.
{ the first book in the "Little Light" series }
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Running.
That's all she could do at the moment, all she could think, was running as fast and far.
Her legs burned, her body hurt, and her hair had nearly completely fallen out of a bun she had done. She couldn't let herself stop, she couldn't let any of the tears in her eyes fall - the shock and hurt from how she escaped felt like it was canceling out the pain.
Her mind spun so much that she wasn't sure how she could keep moving, but she couldn't stop. Not even when she was bumping into things, parked vehicles, signs- she even clipped a corner of building at an alleyway with her shoulder and fell against the opposite wall, but she just scrambled to her feet while ignoring the fresh scrapes on her palms.
She only slowed down to try and look around herself - no longer in the gated private property that was just a block away.
12 hours ago, she had tried to take note of every road, every path, every structure - but now they all blurred together. It had been daylight when they came through these streets of buildings, old structures that were very lived in, paints chipping, stones and such cracking. Clothes hanging from railings, and the alleyways almost reminded her of a prettier version from New York, color wise. Instead of bricks or cheap construction, it was stones, some a pale pink or pale blue, some a yellow color. But lights were all over, strings holding up clothing to dry over it.
She could hear the truck she originally escaped in, coming from another street while guys were shouting from it - words that she used to understand without even thinking about it, but right now, she just knew one thing. Whoever she escaped from, owned this area, meaning she wasn't safe.
She needed to find somewhere she knew from when she was younger.
But as she turned to start running, she stumbled and grabbed for the wall as she leaned her head back - closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to hold, before letting it go through her trembling lips, then she opened her eyes again and looked back the way she came, before the other way... then looked up. Able to see the stars in the sky, through the string lights that were a warm dim bulb, as it was starting to brighten up because night was starting to turn into morning. It couldn't be more than 5 am.
She leaned her back against the wall as she tried to breathe, a hand going up to rake strands of hair back out of her face - and despite her open eyes, she couldn't stop thinking of Paige. She couldn't get the blonde out of her mind, couldn't stop seeing it.
Paige, who had been with her nearly every minute of the 12 hours, especially when Nick had basically collapsed from the injury to her leg. When all of them from the dock, had been locked into a room with just mattresses and some waters, some bags of food that all of them had been too scared to touch, let alone eat.
Paige, who kept checking to make sure Nick didn't have a fever, who had basically told off the guards despite her own fear - that the girl would be useless if she caught anything, which forced them to change her bandage and then got something for the pain. Which none of the other kidnapped ones let any of the armed men or women, any of the ones keeping them there, with those neck tattoos that was basically a sign of whoever they worked for - give to the girl. They protected her as much as they could, but Paige stayed beside her.
