Natasha woke up to something smothering her face. Her eyes shot open to see a darkly dressed figure sitting on top of her and pressing a rag to her mouth. She immediately moved to push him off of her, but another figure was holding down her arms while a third held her legs. She thrashed, trying to throw the man off but not succeeding. She managed to pull one foot loose and kicked the third person in the face. They stumbled back and Natasha used her legs to throw the first man off of her. He fell off, but quickly regained his position on top of her while keeping the rag pressed to her face. She held her breath and continued to fight back her attackers and move her face out from under the rag.

"I told you it wouldn't work," the third person said in Russian. Natasha's blood ran cold and her eyes darted between the three figures. She didn't recognise them, but that didn't mean they weren't people she knew. "Use the other one." In one swift motion, the man on top of her pulled something from his pocket and slammed it into her shoulder. She grunted loudly at the sharp prick but the rag muffled the sound.

The man pulled the needle out of her arm after he'd emptied its contents into her bloodstream. She began to feel her body get heavier and couldn't thrash around as hard. She fought to keep her eyes open, trying to stay awake and reach for her phone so FRIDAY could call Steve, but whatever drug they'd filled her with was strong. She'd just managed to grab her phone, stretching out from where she was still trapped under the first man, when her vision went dark and she lost consciousness.

* * *

Steve came home to an eerily silent home. The sun was setting outside even though it was only about 4:30PM and casting shadows in the living room. He flicked on a light, scanning the house for any sign that Natasha was home. She hadn't texted him after her nap like she'd promised and he knew there was a possibility she was still asleep, but something felt off.

"Nat?" he called, walking further into the house. He peered into every room he passed but they were all empty. When he came to the bedroom, he found the door was shut and locked. He knocked but didn't get an answer. He knocked harder, but there still wasn't any response. "Natasha, are you in there?" he asked. He knocked hard enough to dent the wood but she still didn't respond. Beginning to panic, Steve shouldered the door and forced it open. It came flying off its hinges and clattered to the floor, but Steve hardly noticed as he looked around the room.

Natasha's phone was upside down on the floor and the bed was a mess. There were books on the floor that had fallen off the shelf and the patio doors were unlocked. He walked over to them and pulled them open. There was no sign anyone had used them, but they never left the doors unlocked.

"Natasha!" Steve yelled. His voice echoed across the lawn and through the house, but he got no reply. He hurried back into the room, shutting the glass doors too hard and they shattered. He picked up her phone and unlocked it. His contact was open and he knew she'd been about to call him before whatever had gone down here had happened. He shoved her phone in his pocket and ran back out to the garage.

He sped the entire way back to the Compound. Tony was getting into his car, talking to someone on the phone, when Steve jumped out of his car and ran over to him. Tony looked up at him in confusion before hanging up on the person he'd been in the middle of talking to. Steve looked downright terrified which was not something Tony was used to seeing. In a rush, Steve told him what he'd found at the house and that Natasha hadn't been there.

"She's gone, Tony, and I know we haven't been out on the field in a while, but she still has enemies," Steve said, nearly in tears in the drive way. "Please, please help me."

"What? Like I was gonna say no?" Tony retorted. Steve looked both relieved and annoyed at his response but didn't say anything. He followed Tony into the Compound and down to his lab. "Does she have anything that we can trace? A tracking device on something she wears?" Tony asked, logging onto his computer and booting up his lab.

"No, she doesn't like that kind of thing," Steve told him. Tony rolled his eyes.

"Neither does Pepper, but her ring is still a tracker," Tony said. Steve sighed, disappointed that he hadn't thought ahead enough. Natasha probably would have figured it out, though, if he knew anything about her, so it would have defeated the purpose. "The alarms didn't go off when someone broke in?"

"They weren't set," Steve groaned. The first year or so they'd lived in the house, the alarms had been on 24/7. They typed in a code every time they wanted in or out, but after a couple years of no trouble, they'd stopped keeping them on unless they were sleeping or gone.

"God, I make you an alarm system and you don't even use it," Tony muttered. He typed something into his computer and multiple windows popped up. Steve immediately recognised the area as just down the road from their house. He frowned, wondering how Tony could get this sort of feed, but Tony answered before he could ask. "There's a camera each direction every mile or so starting ten miles from the Compound. I just wanted a way to see who was headed this direction in case it was bad news." He glanced up at Steve. "Before you get mad at me, realise this is the only thing we have to find Natasha with and rethink your lecture."

"I don't approve of it, no," Steve admitted, watching as Tony sped up the feed and watched for cars that drove by. "However, I do appreciate it right now." Tony nodded, pleased with himself, then paused the videos as a car passed. He typed in the plate number and wrote down the person's name and address.

Aside from Steve, Pepper, the Bartons, or any other Avenger, only three cars had gone down the road past Steve and Natasha's house in the three hours Steve had been gone. One car belonged to a Patrick Morris, another to a Lydia James, and the third didn't have a plate at all. Tony checked every angle he could to see inside the cars, but no faces were visible. He wrote down all the identifying marks of the car and used them to track it through New York. However, it never showed up in any city. After it had passed the last camera Tony had set it, it was never spotted again. The light it would have had to go through further up the road didn't have video of it going through, which meant they would probably find it on the five miles between the light and the last camera.

"Let's go," Tony said, leading the way out of his lab and toward his car. He made a mental note to tell Pepper he wouldn't be home that night or for a while until they found Natasha. He may not be as close to her as Barton or Steve, but he wasn't just going to leave her with who knew who while he had a nice night with his family.