#thanks to the document if something/someone disappears or gets flagged without warning I can easily know what/who/when

[lulu2992]

Thank you, Tumblr, for rectifying my follower count last month and finally removing all those “ghost bots” from October 2019 ♥

The few of you whose names are hidden in the list aren’t included in the displayed number anymore either, unfortunately, but at least I know who you are and that you’re real :)

[marvel-lucy]

The Ultimate Weapon, chapter 8

Be warned, I gave the character a name in this chapter. I didn’t know that wasn’t allowed, it was my first fic! Someone told me I’d ruined it for them. Jokes on them, the bad writing was doing that anyway!

I think I stopped breathing when I heard that. ‘We think we know who you are’. I felt my heart start to race, and sweat stood out on my forehead. Last time Bruce had asked me my name, I’d blacked out. My identity had been playing on my mind for weeks now – I could remember most of my time with Hydra but there was a dark hole before that and I was terrified to look into it.

“You ok? Is there anything you need?” Sam’s voice broke through the whirlwind in my head, and I looked up. He was sitting on the bed opposite my chair, Bucky standing, arms folded, next to him. Both were looking at me, waiting. I sat up straighter and took a steadying breath, tried to calm my mind. It didn’t matter who I was, I was a weapon, weapons were without emotion… but I wasn’t convinced. I wanted to ask them not to tell me, because there could be no good story behind losing my identity, my past, but if Sam and Bucky knew, then the team would know, and I couldn’t live with them knowing while I didn’t.

“OK. Yes, I’m OK.” I breathed deeply again. “Start from the beginning”.

Sam spoke again. He was the one chosen as the most compassionate, they must have thought he’d be able to gauge the best way to tell me.

“Tony’s had Jarvis searching databases: missing person’s reports, medical records, school photos, anything and everything they could find” He paused. “They found a possibility, a coupla days ago, and have been looking into it, trying to verify things. Looks like Hydra covered their tracks pretty well, and… well… there wasn’t anyone left to try and find you once they’d finished”. That made me look up sharply. So there was no family out there waiting to welcome me home with open arms. That should have made me sad but in fact it was a relief. I couldn’t become part of a family, decorate Christmas trees and carve pumpkins, I didn’t have that in me. I had a feeling that sadness would come though, in time.

Sam continued. “Jarvis found a missing person’s report, from Colorado. Six years ago. A girl was taken, when she was 14. She’d been identified by SHIELD as a person of interest because she had certain abilities. The Hydra faction inside SHIELD obviously picked up on this and she was taken. Hydra deleted most of the SHIELD references to the girl, we guess so nobody else went looking, but Jarvis found references in the local news, just a few. Nat’s been out to the town and looked through the police files – all the computer files were deleted but she found paper records, and school records and photos. Hydra were careless, they left too much behind, they obviously thought no one would ever go looking. I’m sorry, but there’s no relatives there, but we did find some medical records that were in storage – again, they wiped out the computer data but obviously didn’t clear everything. We’ve been able to match DNA from a relative’s record. We’ve pulled everything together that we’ve found. Do you want to look through it on your own?”

They both watched me. I could practically feel my brain trying to process all this. Colorado? It meant nothing to me. I felt as if each sentence was slowly filtering through my consciousness. “Wait, six years? Are you saying this girl… I… have been with Hydra for six years?”

Bucky spoke. “It fits what we’ve been able to find out about the Hydra facility. They took a few kids like you when they could, kids SHIELD had picked up on. That gave them plenty of time to do what they needed to do”.

Six years. Six years lost to becoming the ultimate weapon. Family gone, history wiped out, everything. “What’s my name?”

“Do you want us to tell you, or do you want to read about it first? Just… don’t be disappointed if hearing your name doesn’t bring it all back. It’ll take time, don’t put yourself under pressure to take it all in at once, ok?” Sam looked concerned, maybe they were afraid I’d break down or black out or something. Maybe I was afraid too. I didn’t know what to expect – everything to come back, nothing to come back. What if it triggered some kind of killing rage?

“You should probably go. I’ll read it on my own. Thank you, all of you, for finding… for looking”. They both started walking towards the door, I knew they’d give me all the time I needed. “Wait”. They both paused, Sam’s hand on the doorknob, and looked at me. “Just… say my name will you? I want to hear it spoken, not see it written down, first time”.

Bucky spoke. “Ruby. Your name is Ruby.” They shut the door behind them.

---

I stood there for a few minutes, rolling that name around in my head. When Bucky had said ‘Ruby’, there’d been no bright lights or fireworks going off. I was aware I was holding my breath and let it out slowly, then walked into the bathroom, pulled down the towel covering the mirror, and looked at my face for the second time that afternoon. Chopped hair, bruises, broken teeth. I said ‘Ruby’ out loud, my voice betraying me by cracking slightly. Nothing. Anyone who’d known me then wouldn’t know this broken weapon as Ruby now. Maybe I’d have been better off not knowing, but now that I did…

I turned, and walked back into the bedroom, sat in the chair and pulled up the screen that Tony had shown me how to use. “Jarvis, can you please pull up everything you’ve found related to Ruby’s… my background? And Jarvis, thank you for finding me”.

‘A pleasure to help, Miss Ruby’. That made me jump. Bucky had said my name, but Jarvis had called me it. This would take some getting used to.

‘I have taken the liberty of creating an outline of your past’. The document appeared on the screen. ‘You’ll see links to all the evidence alongside the document. Please do ask for any clarification’.

I was lost in the files for hours, unmoving except for my fingers sliding across the screen, reading school reports, dentist’s records, newspaper clippings, the ephemera of a life that Hydra hadn’t managed to erase. Jarvis had ordered everything and I went through systematically, reading every document more than once, cross-checking facts, but all the time ignoring the box on the screen marked ‘images’. So here it was, the story of a life – my life, so it seemed, although so far beyond the occasional tickle at the back of my mind, a vague sense of familiarity, this could as easily be about someone I’d never met.

So I was 20. I felt older, but was also only aware of six years of life. I’d been born and brought up in a small town in Colorado. Unremarkable childhood. An older brother, two parents. I read their names but nothing clicked. Dates and school names followed, details of minor operations – tonsils, a broken arm falling from a jungle gym. So far, so normal. Then age 10, it seemed there were notes from SHIELD, reconstructed by Jarvis. ‘Unusual’ activity had prompted SHIELD to investigate and found that I had mental abilities that were starting to develop. A teenager bullying my brother had been checked into hospital after breaking his own nose headbutting a wall, and mumbling about how the ‘kid’ had weird eyes that had looked at him. A schoolfriend, unable to swim, told her parents that when she fell out of a boat on a school trip, I’d stopped her sinking. A fire in our kitchen started with a faulty toaster oven was suddenly extinguished when I broke free of my Dad’s arms and ran back into the house. So far, so weird, but there were rational explanations given for each one by the people involved. Concussion from a fall leading to the bully imagining things; a child’s active imagination brought on by fear; a sudden gust of wind blowing out the fire. SHIELD knew better. I was on a watch list now, with suspected telekinesis and other unknown powers.

And that list was what had got me here. A Hydra agent inside SHIELD flagged this up and at the age of 14, they pounced. I’d been walking home from school at the end of term and vanished. Jarvis had noted that I was probably tranquilised to prevent me using any mind forces, but most records had been deleted. My parents must, surely, have filed missing person reports; made pleas on the local news for my safe return. Maybe my school friends held a candlelit vigil and secretly revelled in the excitement of all the fuss, unable to quite comprehend the reality. There were few notes to back this up, Hydra had done their job well, but Nat had spoken to some old school friends who reported a range of stories. ‘Hadn’t I been found but the family had moved away?’ ‘I heard she died and so the family left?’ ‘No, she never came back, didn’t her parents die too?’ It seemed Hydra misinformation had confused the facts. There were no records of any family left, anywhere that could be found. The Missing Person report had been concluded and deleted. Police officers ‘remembered’ hearing that I’d been found with relatives in another state, although they couldn’t remember who’d confirmed it. Turns out it’s easier to lose someone than you’d think. There were no references to my family after that though, it seemed that they'd disappeared. I didn't think there could be a good story behind that.

I straightened my back and heard it click. I’d been sitting in the same position for hours now and needed to move before I carried on. I went back into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, then paced the room, thinking. So far nothing had stirred, but I couldn’t avoid the pictures any longer, although I was afraid of what they’d reveal.

I sat down and picked up the screen again. My finger hovered over the ‘images’ icon, then angry at my own hesitation, I clicked. Yearbook photos, newspaper photos, x-rays, neighbourhood photos from yard sales and street parties. Driver’s licences for my parents. A passport photo for my brother. Jarvis had collated everything he could find. I blinked once, and clicked on the first image.

Action