January, 2000

Los Angeles, CA

In a private, secure office of the SHIELD Los Angeles base, Jason Gideon sat by himself and silently contemplated the information on the board in front of him.

On that board sat every bit of information that SHIELD currently had on Spencer Reid, Codename: Erinyes, as well as what they knew about the place that had held him before he'd come here. A place Spencer had only ever known as "The Facility."

But in their hunting of them, SHIELD had learned a lot more about them. Not much, but enough. There was so much more to this than just the Facility. That had been more the name of the place where Spencer had been held between missions than the actual group name. Their ties to other groups weren't as tight as they could've been, but if one followed those threads, traced them back and back, it didn't take too long to find where they connected.

Hydra.

Of course it was Hydra. Wasn't everything? Jason sat back in his chair and folded his hands together over his stomach. His eyes stayed fixed on the wall in front of him where he'd tacked everything up. They'd been able to salvage a little from the fried systems when they'd taken the Facility. Some sort of virus had been released and wiped most of it. Still, they'd saved some. A bit of security footage that, combined with their own surveillance, gave them some faces. Faces that had then been matched up with names, the information and connections carefully documented.

The information SHIELD had gathered about the Facility, both before they took it down and afterwards, strongly suggested that Hydra was somehow connected to the Weapon Plus program somehow. The very same program that had helped to bring about Captain America with Weapon I, Project: Rebirth.

Weapon VII, Project: Homegrown, experimented on human soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Weapon X brought one of the second most notable of experiments—Wolverine.

The Facility was an offshoot of those programs, controlled almost entirely by Hydra as far as Jason could tell, and the things it looked like they'd done were enough to make the man sick. They'd continued on those experiments from the Weapon Plus program, only with the added resources and cruelty that seemed to come with any Hydra project. They'd documented quite a lot of what they'd done to create Erinyes—Spencer. More than the kid probably realized.

Jason often wondered just how much Spencer actually knew about what had been done to him. It was obvious this group had kept him secluded in a lot of ways. Yet, he was a telepath. There were plenty of things he'd probably picked up. Things he might not even realize were important. There was no telling what his bright mind had managed to piece together.

However, they were almost positive that Spencer had no idea about the Facility's connection to Hydra. How would he react once he knew that? How would he react once he knew the kind of things that SHIELD now knew?

There were countless reports that Jason had on Spencer. Piecemeal bits that mapped out a childhood horrific enough to have destroyed the average individual. Spencer hadn't stood a chance against these people. They'd been involved in his life since before his birth. From the looks of it, they'd been involved as far back as the start of Diana Reid's pregnancy, assisting her and her husband in being able to become pregnant. Why they'd chosen her, Jason had no idea. But there was a clear progression of events after that. They'd picked her, used her, and created themselves a new weapon. One that seemed to combine different pieces of the various programs, all brought together into one, innocent child.

As best as Jason could tell from the reports, the only mutation that was Spencer's, that should have been his if his life had been left alone, was the gender switching. The telepathy, empathy, and the healing factor that Spencer hadn't really mentioned to anyone, those were all likely credited to whatever they'd done when they'd helped Diana Reid become pregnant. Whatever they'd done to that embryo, and later on to the young child with their serums and experiments, had created the psionic powers and amped up the healing factor. What worried Jason, and what he knew worried Fury as well, was what else they might have put in there. What other things would show up in Spencer? What other powers? Were there some in there that hadn't manifested… or some that weren't documented and that he hadn't shown?

It was logical to guess that there was some form of the super soldier serum in there. Not a perfect form, no. No one had been able to recreate that. But, something like it, maybe? Or was there something else? Something new? Something they didn't understand?

Spencer wasn't anything like what they'd expected. He was a killer-one of the most efficient that Jason had ever seen. The files he'd read through had proved that. He was more than just intelligent. He was a certified genius. The educational material the Facility given him had all been absorbed with an ease that was astounding. The things that SHIELD had done since then to test him, the books and tests they'd given him to try and quantify the intelligence inside of hi, had only served to show his brilliance even more. With an eidetic memory, a capability of reading what had been clocked as twenty thousand words per minute, and an extremely high IQ, he was a genius in his own right. It was likely how he'd managed to master so much of what they taught him. Languages, martial arts, hand-to-hand, everything an assassin would need to know, he'd been trained to do.

Fury had some sort of plan, Jason knew. Something he was planning on using Spencer for at some point. It wasn't too hard to guess what. Even amongst SHIELD, there were still the types of jobs that agents wouldn't take on, things that needed done that no one else would do because they were supposed to be the good guys. The things that had been done to Spencer and the things he could do made him perfect for that type of work.

The knowledge of the things that had been done to make Spencer was a dangerous thing. It wasn't something Fury was going to trust to just anyone. Jason knew, because he needed to know to be able to handle Spencer, but beyond that they were keeping quiet.

So far Fury had managed to keep Spencer out of medical except for the basic checkup. Jason agreed with the choice. They didn't want people getting a hold of Spencer's blood, not with the things they thought might be in there. Fury was still trying to get in contact with someone he swore would be able to be trusted for something like that.

"Are you sure you want to let him out in the field before that?" Jason had asked when they'd met to discuss things.

Fury hadn't even hesitated to nod. "We have a lot of use for someone like Erinyes. I'd be a fool not to take advantage of it. Besides, what chance do we have of her telling us anything if we don't find a way to get her to trust us?"

It'd been on the tip of Jason's tongue to point out that calling him Spencer instead of Erinyes, and maybe taking the time to use the proper pronouns for the moment, might be a good start. Most of the people around SHIELD stuck with using 'Erinyes' and 'she' when speaking about Spencer. That was the part that Spencer used for missions. It had just sort of graduated into something that was used around the base, too. Spencer wasn't often in male form. Not unless he was hanging out quietly in Jason's office, drawn in by conversation and chess, or if he was with Clint.

Now that was a friendship that made Jason want to smile. He didn't believe it was a forced one, though he had no doubt Fury wouldn't have hesitated to slip the two together in the hopes Spencer would trust someone that Fury might be able to use. No, Clint was with Spencer because he wanted to be. He'd taken the kid under his wing, so to speak, and everyone around was quickly learning no one messed with Spencer who didn't want to have to deal with Clint later. The last time someone had tried picking on the young genius, maybe stupidly figuring they were safe because Clint had been on a mission, Jason had watched and waited until Clint came back and then sat back and enjoyed as Agent Murray had spent the next week suffering from every single childish practical joke Clint could come up with. It hadn't ended until he'd finally confronted Clint and actually, openly begged, right there in the mess hall, for him to stop.

From his seat near the far wall Jason had watched as Clint had turned, two trays held in his hands, and his usually smiling face was set in hard, cold lines. It was a reminder that this man wasn't just the goof he liked to portray. He was just as deadly in his own right. "Not so fun, is it." Clint had said flatly, his voice quiet and cold, yet the whole room was listening. "It's not exactly fun being the butt of everyone's jokes, picked on and embarrassed and gossiped about while everyone else just sits back and watches. While no one steps up to help you. Maybe the next time you want to pick on someone who hasn't done a thing wrong, you'll remember what it feels like. Or I'll have to jog your memory."

That said, he'd turned and left.

People didn't often pick on Spencer anymore. They left alone Clint's 'little sister', as he'd taken to laughingly calling her since their first mission together, and that seemed to content Spencer. The kid didn't really seem to need to be friends to work with people, and his preferences for dealing with or working with Clint were clear.

The decision to bring Spencer into SHIELD had been one that not everyone approved of, but as Jason got to know him more and more, it was a decision he was glad had come about. Spencer was more than what the Facility had tried to make him into. More than any of them had even suspected.

Jason smiled to himself as he stared up at the pictures. He couldn't wait to see what Spencer became.