I was once a normal girl, lazy and such, who thought herself stronger then she was. I was a girl with a life-long illness that made it so I would never work a day in my life—at least it freed up time for reading and playing my games.
Then I died and I was shown how exactly weak I was. I was broken down into a bloody, weeping, mess and rebuild stronger, sharper, faster, better.
I had become a survivor, a fighter, a warrior.
I was trained by a Ghost, by assassins and mutants, I was the partner to a Legend, I had earned the respect of Gods and I had stared fearlessly into the eyes of a Raging monster and earned his own version of loyalty and respect.
Then I died again, and again.
I grew up, matured, and became colder perhaps.
I had hunted Nazis, but I never let the skills my teachers taught me dull. My friends, new family, called me Ambrosia—immortal because that's basically what I've become.
But I have another name, a name I had built up in secret, covered in blood and creeping from the shadows.
I am a Ghost, much like my first teacher, but better known. Governments whisper about me in darken corners, crooked men and men with many powerful enemies worry I will appear to give them death.
Other assassins raise their glasses to my name, though in their hearts brewed envy and greed.
I am Reaper and perhaps it was time to let the world know that the Reaper was protecting mutants.
It hadn't really sunken in until the compound was attacked that being 'secret' agents was dangerous, but it hadn't truly sunken in that they may have to kill someone until they watched Ana expertly slipped belts and such filled with knifes, checking her gun was loaded and ready before strapping it to her lower back.
Her hair was tied back harshly, all the stray strands painstakingly pinned out of her face. The multiple pierces that filled her ears were replaced by simple plastic studs and none of her normal jewellery was adorned. She had been the first dressed in the simple navy blue and yellow suit that Hank had made for them and it hugged tightly to her toned frame.
She glanced up as the others padded over and Raven was struck with how comfortable Ana looked dressed like that, in a tight-fitting cat-suit with weapons strapped to her, and could finally see Ana as an agent for some government.
Her glacier eyes were a touch colder, sharper, and her stance was confident and almost aggressive. Raven could picture Ana easily surrounded by bodies and covered in blood, it was different from the stance she had taken to the defend them.
She had been unmoveable then, defensive, but now she was ready to strike, coiled like a cobra, and it almost scared her.
But then Ana smiled as she reached up to adjust the collar of Alex's suit and Raven's fear was gone. She was still Ana, and Raven knew that Ana wouldn't ever hurt them.
"Where's Hank?" Sean asked as he looked around.
"I'm right here,"
Raven glanced up at his tone, it was resigned for some reason, and bit back a gasp. He was blue and furry.
"What happened to you?" Alex blurted out as he stared in disbelief at Hank, automatically ducking out of the way of Ana's chiding hand.
Hank barely glanced at Alex, his gaze—his blue eyes now had a golden undertone, Raven noticed—was fixed on her as he explained that his cure hadn't worked, that it had attacked the cells and turned him into this.
But Raven didn't care, despite how he hurt her the other night, she still cared for him and loved him. It didn't matter to her that he was blue and furry now, but she could tell from the sound of his voice that it mattered to him, could see it as he gripped Erik's throat after he suggested the name 'Beast', and realised that their relationship—still so young and new—was over before it could really begin.
"Let him go Hank," Ana's voice was like ice, cold and cutting, and broke through the anger that surrounded Hank and he released Erik, almost startled that he had been near killing him with one hand.
"I wasn't mocking you," Erik said, his voice hoarse as he rubbed at his throat and Hank looked guilty as he stared at Erik and knew bruises would soon form a collar around his neck.
Hank glanced at Ana and almost flinched away from her look, never before had her eyes been as cold as the glaciers that they resembled. Never had she given any of them such a cold look.
Ana moved so she was almost shielding Erik as she stared unblinking at Hank, most of them forgot that Erik and Ana had survived together because Ana was so friendly with them and didn't automatically move to his side like Raven sometimes did with Charles. But Hank realised in that look she gave him that it didn't matter how much she liked him, how fond she was of him, she would always place Erik—his safety, his happiness, his well-being—ahead of everybody else's accept for Alex maybe.
They had been her friends and family long before the group had come together and slowly became a family.
It wasn't that Ana minded flying, it's just she didn't like heights and had been young when 9/11 happened. She had always watched too many movies where the planes were crashed or taken over to ever feel safe on a commercial plane.
She had also had the delight of almost plummeting to death when the SHIELD's air-carrier was attacked by Loki's goons.
But despite all of that Ana didn't mind flying, as long as she was in control of the plane.
Which she was not, Hank was flying the plane and didn't trust her word when she had told him she learnt to fly on a lot more advanced planes. She wasn't even co-pilot because there was no room for a co-pilot—a serious under sight on Hank's part.
A warm hand wrapped tightly around hers and she glanced over at Erik. He didn't smile to reassure her, didn't smirk at her obvious—at least to him and Alex—nerves—read fear—and didn't say something stupidly encouraging.
He just held her hand and it was in that moment that Ana realised that whatever happened in Cuba, if she didn't talk Erik away from his war-plans, then she would still follow him.
He wasn't Logan, he wasn't Bucky, he wasn't Steve, but he had become as important as them. She would have walked through Hell and back for those guys, they had been her partners. Erik was her new partner, and she would walk a very dark path with him if he chose too.
She had spent twenty odd years with him, had taught him to defend himself, and had been his confident and such. She had spent more years with Erik then she had with Steve, Bucky and Logan combined.
Ana was cruel, cold, distrusting, jaded and a sadist but she was also loyal to those that earned her loyalty and trust—something that she didn't as readily give as some people thought.
"Whatever happens," she began, ignoring the gazes turning to them. "I will stay with you."
"Ana?" Erik's voice was confused and in a flash he was replaced by the young teen that she had broken out of Auschwitz with, the young boy that had screamed out in rage and grief at the sight of his dead mother and brutally bent metal to his will.
"You're going make a choice soon, Erik," she told him. "Don't follow Shaw's path."
His dark brows furrowed together, a dark cloud settling over his features.
"Kill him, yes. Let him ruin your life? Let him colour your view of the world? No," she cupped his cheek with her free hand. "Don't become Shaw, don't become me."
"You're nothing like him," he hissed, blue eyes flashing with fire.
She just smiled back as she let her hand drop back to her lap.
It was sweet that he actually thought that, that he truly believed that. She was worse then Shaw, at least in his own twisted mind, he was trying to help other mutants while Ana had admitted in the past, and wouldn't be afraid to admit in the future, that as long as the few people she gave a damn about lived and was okay then she would freely damn the rest of the world.
Other people would flinch away from that thought, they would have it but they would never voice it though. That type of thought was heartless and selfish to a criminal degree, but it was true.
Ana had always been selfish, she had just learnt how to be more selfish and heartless through the shit that she had gone through.
"I FUCKING HATE PLANES!" Ana screamed out as Hank struggled to keep control as they flew—crashed—towards the beach and Alex choked out a laugh.
They could be about to die and of course Ana would find a way to show her displeasure, he thought with half-hysterical amusement as the plane shook madly before with a mighty crash they landed and rolled on the beach.
"Everyone alright?" Charles called out worriedly as Erik finally released his iron grip on the metal of the plane that had kept them in place—lucky bastards.
"Yes, those who are dead, shout out," Ana sneered as she sawed through the belts that kept her strapped to the seats, her knuckles white as she gripped one of her knifes tightly.
Charles threw her a look but she ignored it and clambered her way towards him, it was when she was right in front of him that Alex realised that her hands were shaking slightly and her pupils were so large that only a thin circle of pale blue was visible.
But her grip on her serrated knife didn't falter as she firmly cut through the belts that kept Alex in place.
"Are you alright?" she asked quietly, a soothing and comforting hand brief settling on his shoulder.
"Yeah," Alex startled himself with how shook up his voice sounded and Ana's lips thinned dangerously before she faked a smile, her eyes cold and flat.
"Don't worry," she told him. "I'll make sure everything is alright."
And Alex believed her, like he believed her when she told him she would help him control his new—and frightening—power.
Azazel could be a cold hearted killer at times—he was Shaw's assassin after all—but he didn't take joy in killing children and that's what the boys fighting them were.
Simply children—though the boy that could throw around red disks and fire burning beams was nearer to being a man then the others—and he didn't honestly want to kill them.
So he let himself be distracted by the sudden appearance of Shaw—no matter how wrong his gut shouted at him that it was wrong—and was almost taken down by the blue furred guy—he seemed to be a new addition—but was taken down by the woman he remembered staking to the floor in that Compound.
Her icy eyes reminded him of the cold and harsh winters in the Soviet. She pinned him with her weight, his arms caged to his body by her long legs, a knife had almost taken off his pointed tip of his tail and another was pressed tightly against his throat, barely breaking the skin.
This wasn't a child like the boys, this was a woman that could most likely smile as she drew her knife across his throat with ease that spoke of her blood stained past.
So this was what it felt like to meet the gaze of an assassin, to stare at the face of your killer and see your death reflected back in their eyes.
"Comrade," she spoke softly, "your boss is most likely dead so I would stop fighting if I was you unless you want to join him, then I'm happy to fulfil your desire."
"My dear lady," he attempted to charm her and only got an amused quirk of her mouth in return—it did nothing to warm her gaze. "I like living a lot more then I like Shaw."
"Good answer," she told him before she twisted and threw the blade that had once been against his throat and pierced through the wing of Angel—she screamed as she crashed down on the sandy beach. "You shoot fire-balls at my boys again Angel, I will hack off the wings and mount them on my wall."
Angel said nothing in return, she was hunched over and carefully touching her almost severed wing as she sobbed.
"Bloody hell," the ginger boy—the one that Azazel remembered near-crawling towards this assassin above him that night so long ago it seemed—said as he stood gingerly up and brushed off sand on his practical suit—why Shaw wanted them to dress up like they were going to a party was beyond Azazel's understanding. "That was scary, amazing but scary."
Anastasia, as Azazel remembered Shaw calling her, lifted herself up from her place on his chest and offered him a hand.
"You attack my boys and I'll kill you," she promised as he wrapped his hand around hers and she helped him up.
"I wouldn't dream of it," he told her, hissing out a pained sound as he gingerly moved his tail.
"Good," she barred her teeth at him. "Because I think I'm going to like you and I would hate to kill you."
But she would, Azazel knew it.
Shaw made a huge mistake by letting this woman slip through his fingers.
