Ruby was in pain. But only the good kind. Anthony had really gone crazy on her, and she had loved it. This next part was pretty nice too, Felicia was thick and soft and being held by her felt nice. Ruby wasn't used to feeling content, her mother had spent years pushing her to be better, to be more, to be Hydra. When she had gotten this mission she had been so excited. It had been her first real mission in the field and she was eager to prove herself. She had trained with undercover agents several times at the academy. She'd even had lessons with Grant Ward and John Garrett. Most people weren't even cleared to know they existed in the Hydra chain of command but Ruby was special.
Ruby had thought it was stupid when they kept telling her not to get attached, not to care about the target. Believing your own lies would hurt and it was important to maintain emotional distance. Ruby had scoffed at that. She was Ruby Hale, she had emotional distance from everyone. Even her own mother was barely someone Ruby considered a loved one. It had been easy at first. Teenaged boys were stupid, even brilliant ones, and after some time researching him she'd figured out the girlfriend would be a good in. Felicia was a gorgeous friendly airhead, even if she wasn't really stupid and matching her personality had been childs play for someone of Ruby's training.
Everything was going according to plan, she was a combination of friendly and wounded and earnest and needy with a dash of sex kitten thrown in and they were eating it up. Ruby was crushing it. Until they went to Coney Island. Nobody had ever won Ruby anything before. Hell Ruby had never even gotten a gift. And Anthony seemed to have an almost supernatural way of saying things that unintentionally caused Ruby to fumble with her mask and let real details of her life slip. He wasn't doing it on purpose. He was a hilariously bad liar, she could tell when he was hiding something (he and Felicia had some big secret but no rush, she liked it here and she could wait) but he just seemed to turn getting to know her into an artform.
That was another thing that made Ruby feel odd. Anthony was...shockingly good at nearly everything he did. His cooking was fantastic, and sometimes she caught him moving up behind her without making a sound or leaving a trace. Sneaking up on her to tickle her or mess up her hair or something, but the stealth showed when he put his mind to it was like...Hydra level scary. Which he definitely was not. He was something she knew. She could see some training in the way he carried himself but it looked weird and old. Maybe Pankration. But not stealth, if he had stealth training someone would have taught him not to use it in public and he sure as hell would have noticed hers. He just seemed to randomly be a stealth genius. Now Felicia had some kind of training. She moved nearly silently at almost all times and was VERY flexible but it didnt seem to have a combat bent. She was so weirdly innocent about it that it was almost like she didnt know someone had been teaching her to be a ninja.
That was another thing, she actually liked Felicia. The girl was sweet and sarcastic and fun and ridiculously hot. Ruby had scoffed at her teachers when they said not to get attached but she had done just that. She cared about them, they were...her friends. She'd never had friends before, never had anybody. She glanced over at Anthony cuddled against her and Felicia on her other side and smiled slightly. She'd been taught from a young age that she could have anything she wanted, and she wanted to stay here, in this unusually well furnished bedroom in an orphanage in new york, with the only people in the world she really cared about besides her mother. Her mom would be fine, she had the rest of Hydra to look after, but Anthony and Felicia needed her. She smiled to herself as she snuggled with her friends, Hydra had demanded the best from her for her entire life. She wondered how quickly they would start to regret it when she finally gave it to them.