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Chapter Text

Rayanna Martha Something- she could never quite remember her last name but she was sure she had once had one- woke suddenly as she heard the shrill alarm start pounding. Eyes flying open she was met with flashing red lights and the sight of the other operatives-her siblings, Father called them- doing the same, rising from their sleeping places with tense curiosity, and she wondered faintly if they would be called from their room to defend the facility.
If Father was in the building in a situation that resulted in the alarms sounding than he would certainly require protection, but he had many sources outside of the operatives where that protection could come from. She slowly placed her feet on the floor and moved to a sitting position, her back straight, ready to spring into action if necessary. Beside her Colin did the same, his lips pressed into a light frown.Colin was the frailest of the operatives, not counting the small one who had been recently acquired, and as such was hardly a useful asset, with thin shoulders and pale skin, and was prone to failures of composure on occasion. Rayanna thought, in those times that she allowed herself that luxury, that the only reason that he remained an operative was for his skill in infiltration. But of course, it wasn't Rayanna's place to be questioning the decisions made by father or the facility. Father had been in today, had read them bed time stories at o-eight-hundred just as he always did when he visited. Had smoothed back her hair and smiled, had patted Colin's shoulder, kissed Drucilla on the forehead, and left.
Father was a cold man, but much can warmer than most of the other men in the facility. Yet Rayanna had some sense that men called father should be much more warm than he ever was.
The alarms continued to blare as the red light flashed, and Kirianna stood up beside her, jaw set and ready for battle. Colin grabbed the small one- Isaac, Father had taken to calling him- and held him so that he could not become a nuisance should fighting become expected of them. Isaac was, as of yet, too small to be useful, though the same could have been said for tiny Magnolia if it were not for her strange abilities.The small girl in question stood tensely at the foot of her own bed, eyes flickering around the room.
After waiting for approximately three hours and fourteen minutes the alarms suddenly ceased their cries.
The operatives exchanged careful looks.
The door hissed open and smoke billowed in.
Rayanna moved in towards the door, motioning for Daniel to flank her as she inspected the circumstances.
The facility had been abandoned.
It was nearly empty, a mix of broken equipment and rubble.
The operatives had been abandoned.
Rayanna mobilized. The operatives were to be useful. If the facility had been abandoned it would not do for them to be found there and captured by those who were enemies of the facility.
So the operatives left, slipped quietly unnoticed past the emergency vehicles and flashing lights.

They found an abandoned building several miles from the ruins of the facility that would be a sufficient base of operations for the night. Close enough that if Father came looking for them they would be found, but far enough that the people who had been searching the rubble with their flashing trucks would not become suspicious of their presence.

Kirianna carried the two mattresses that had been in the building to the room that Rayanna had decided to operate out of- one window, one door that pointed into another room, close enough to the front of the building that any intruders would be heard with plenty of notice, a sink on the wall and a small table in the corner- so that they would have some where to rest.

Something in the back of Rayanna's mind whispered "kitchen", but she was used to ignoring those whispers. Father disliked them.

They sat down on the yellowing mattresses, the small one sleeping on top of Colin, and began to plan.

"We need sustenance." Daniel said, his yellow hair standing on end and wide dark eyes serious, "it's past time for both first and second meals."

While they all could and had gone much longer without sustenance, it would not do for the operatives to be in less than ideal conditions while they were out in this unknown.

"That should be a priority," she nodded.

And so Kirianna, the one of them closest to appearing full grown, and the least likely to call attention to herself, left to acquire things that they might need.

She returned with a bag full of what the whispers in Rayanna's mind immediately called 'food'. It was different than the liquids and powders that the operatives were given for sustenance, but Rayanna was certain it could serve the same purpose.

She glanced to where Daniel and Colin were couched over the map that they had retrieved from a small vendor of sorts nearby.

She sat at the small table with Kirianna and sorted through the food.

A few days passed like this before the operatives moved on.

Rayanna took Colin with her to buildings that appeared to be open for public use, learning how to blend in with these people, feeling surprise each time she realized that she had known something before they truly had learnt it.

The most useful place they encountered was called a "library" and as soon as Rayanna had seen the sign she had know, somehow, that it housed books.

The two of them spent half of their days in the library reading and observing and learning.

Rayanna had stumbled across psychology books on accident, but she was fascinated and horrified. The more she read the more the horror grew.

She did not want to believe in what she felt in the deepest part of herself was true.

Father was wrong. They were children. Children that was the word for people who had not reached full maturity.

They were all children. And Isaac, she thought, might closer fit the definition of a baby closer.

They were not meant to be weapons.

Father had been wrong. Had mistreated them. Had-she choked at the thought- stolen them.

She pushed away the implications of the strange half memories and began to bring the smaller operatives- children, she'd remind herself- along to the library, sitting Isaac and Magnolia in the story time room and leaving Drucilla in the children's section to spend their days learning the world outside of the facility.

Chapter Text

Rayanna kept track of the date. She couldn't clearly remember a time before the facility, but she was certain that that was where all the half memories of a woman with dark hair and the man with the mask came from. She had no idea how long ago that had been, and she had trouble thinking of her time in the facility in a negative light.

She remembered the pain, the punishments from failure, but she also remembered the hand that smoothed her hair back, soothing her when the punishment was over.

She remembered the tight hugs and the words that were repeated after each one:

"I care for you," Father, who she knew probably wasn't actually her father, would look on her sternly, "I just want you to be your best.”

And she wanted to be better for him, and all the books said that the pain and the comforting and the punishments were bad.

So Rayanna tried not to think about the facility or Father much. Which could be difficult when Drucilla would sternly demand to know when they were returning, why Father hadn't come for them, and why hey weren't looking for him. Patience had never been Drucilla's strongest point.

So Rayanna piled on platitudes and kept track of the date. She didn't want to loose the time again.

It had been about two months since they had left the facility when they ran in to Clay.

Clay was special, like many of the operatives, and quickly became what Rayanna thought other people might describe as 'friends' with Kirianna, who he playfully called Kira. Clay would take them out to dinner, and the cashiers wouldn't make him pay. He would play with Isaac, lifting him into the air in a purple light and bouncing the boy around. He would show up with new clothes for Kirianna that fit her seamlessly and couldn't be found on the rack anywhere nearby.

Rayanna thought that they probably wouldn't have made it through those months without him.

Clay was older than Rayanna estimated the oldest operative to be, nearing full growth, close enough that people didn't question them as much when he was with them in public.

Rayanna was never sure how exactly Kirianna had met the strange boy, only that she had know him sometime before she brought him back to the warehouse they had been sleeping in at the time.

Within a week Clay had them set up in an apartment in a building owned by a man who didn't ask questions and a wad of money that he wouldn't say where came from. It was... Nice.

Not nearly as secure as living in the facility, and they still lacked control, but it was better than switching abandoned buildings every few days, so Rayanna tried not to question Clay too much.

"You're so prickly, Litttle Sting Ray," he had said the first time she had challenged him, after the first time Kirianna hadn't come back to the apartment for a few days. His grin hadn't faltered, but had somehow seemed darker with his amusement. They way his inky hair had fallen into his face, covering his eyes made her feel uneasy, and in that moment Rayanna could have sworn that he wasn't human.

Clay stuck around until late March, about eight months after they left the facility, and it was with Isaac, Magnolia, and Drucilla all enrolled in the local elementary school, Kirianna working at a small diner near the apartment, and Rayanna having a decent amount of connections in the local criminal underworld.

Two years later Rayanna, Colin, and Daniel were working with a man who went by "the Spear". From her understanding the man considered himself a super villain, though she couldn't seem to find anything truly villainous about him, barring perhaps his sense of dress.

The Spear and the Operatives, as they were know in the less than legal side of business, were both answering to the same guy on a theft, not getting payed too much, but enough that they'd make rent that month.

Rent was easier now that Rayanna had made a name for herself in the underground and since Kira had gotten a raise at her job at the diner.

The Spear was a little man, capable, but filled with more bluster than Rayanna preferred in the people she worked with. The job was simple, and Rayanna suspected the goal was corporate espionage, examining the plan to sneak into the basement of the local Luthor Tech lab to steal a prototype weapon.

She wasn't a fan of doing jobs in labs, it always brought up conflicting feelings. She generally turned them down but Kira had had to take off a few days from the diner on account of her sudden development of flight. So they needed the money.

Colin, who had yet to give up his boyish looks, went right to the front door. With dirt snugged on his face, a grass stains on his knees, wild hair, and his blue eyes wide he stumbled to the front desk.

"Mister," he said desperately to the security guard at the desk, "can you help me find my parents?"

The guard looked taken aback, examining the boy head to toe.

"You want to call them?" He asked gruffly.

Colin nodded, eyes tearing up.

"Yes please."

"Alright, kid what's their number?"

"Number?" Colin teared up more.

While this exchange occurred Rayanna gave Daniel the cue and he ran behind the guard, fast enough that is Rayanna hadn't know to look she wouldn't have seen him, and moments later the power in the entry went out.

Rayanna nodded to Spear who was beside her, here solely as muscle, and the two of them entered the room where the security guard was swearing.

"What the-" He didn't get to finish before he was on the ground, Rayanna own foot on his throat. Another swift movement and he was unconscious. Colin moved from where he had stepped back against the desk and gave her a toothy grin.

Spear waved them on as he stepped behind the desk to take the guards uniform as the power came back on.

With luck no one else in the building would have noticed anything unusual happening.

Rayanna and Colin moved silently though the building, heading to its underbelly where the less publicized experiments occurred. They found themselves in the labs unchallenged and separated, examining the shelves and tables quickly, searching for the target.

Daniel joined them.

"Footage is on a loop. We've got about eight minutes."

"I would disagree, young man," came a cold voice from the door way, and Rayanna whipped around staring at the source in shock.

Colin stumbled forward for real.

"Father?" His voice was small.

The man smiled, and Rayanna tried to fight the warmth that expression filled her with, even alongside the horror that crept up her spine.

"I've been searching for you a long time, my children. "

Chapter Text

The room that Father had brought them to was different from where Rayanna and her siblings, the rest of the operatives, had lived before the fire.

There was only one bed, made of steel with a thin mattress, no pillow, and a flat sheet rather than a blanket. The old room had held six beds and a crib, each with cushy mattresses and thick blankets to comfort against the cold of the underground. It seemed that Father was no longer in the mood to play house. The rest of the room was bare but for a metal toilet and sink in the corner.

Rayanna, Colin, and Daniel had been alone in the room since they had been lead in at gun point, at least six hours prior by Rayanna's count.

They sat side by side on the bed, pressed closely together, reluctant to spend to much time on the cold cement floor.

Daniel sat stiffly against her left while Colin had been silent, leaning into her right shoulder, and looking moments from tears since Father had made his presence known.

It was clear to Rayanna now that this job had been a trap from the very beginning, and she cursed herself for not realizing that highly trained child operatives would be noticed.

After what felt like much longer than Rayanna knew it had been the heavy steel door swung open with an angry sound and Father stepped inside, flanked by an armed guard on each side.

Rayanna stood up, careful not to move to fast lest she risk the guards getting nervous, and rested in an easy stance. No need to appear threatening.
Father sighed in a way that Rayanna wasn't sure if it was meant to sound find or irritated. Likely both, given the mans propensity for mind games.

"Rayanna, dear, why is always you who is the ring leader in these charades?" He asked, as if he were an exasperated father.

Rayanna smiled, with just enough teeth to warn that she was dangerous.

"You know me Father," she held on to the feeling of ice that filled her veins, "I was never meant to be a follower."

Father locked his eyes with we own, as if digging for something he couldn't quite find but knew was there. His face was bare of humor when he responded.

"No, I suppose you weren't. A failure on my part."

"Yes, you ought to think more clearly next time shown deciding which child to kidnap and raise in an illegal laboratory. It really doesn't reflect well upon you when your experiments escape."

"Oh, I do despise that word. You were my children, never experiments."

Rayanna stared at Fathers face, and stifled her internal fury at his almost lazy expression, as if they were discussing the weather.

"Yes well, it's not exactly a favorable review of your parenting when your children feel the need to run away either"

Colin's wide blue eyes were flickering between her and Father rapidly, as if he wasn't sure who he should be watching more closely.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Rayanna. Perhaps even you should join me for a little chat in private."

It was phrased as a suggestion, but the to guards moved forward to flank her, and she knew that she would be following the bald man out of the room either by choice or by force.

She walked forward as gracefully as she could in the situation.

"How kind of you to offer."

"Rayanna?" Colin whimpered from his place on the bed.

Rayanna smiled at him.

"Everything's fine, Colin. I'll be back soon. Sit with Daniel."

And she followed her father out of the room, swallowing harshly at the heavy clank if the door sealing shut.

Chapter Text

Father was full of questions. It seemed that he knew little of what had been going on in the lives of Rayanna and her siblings since they had been abandoned at the labs. Based on his line of questioning she gathered that he had only known to set them up due to whispers in the criminal community.

Stupid, she reminded herself, it had been plain stupid not to think that he wouldn't notice that there were highly trained children running less than legal operations with descriptions matching those of some of his science experiments.

Plain stupid.

She met his eyes across the table. He hadn't tried torture. He knew better than that. He had to, because she was certain that it had been under his orders that she was trained to resist torture.

Instead he asked questions and made sure that she wasn't able to see his leverage. That leverage being, of course, her two brothers who were locked in a room surrounded by guards that answered to Father, and even if she managed to escape they would be stuck in this place.

"Where's Kirianna?" Father asked with a hard smile.

Rayanna smiled back just as harshly.

"Who knows," she replied dryly, "Kirianna likes to go off on her own a lot."

Father looked at her sternly
"You expect me to believe that you have no idea where she is?"

"I'm telling you, we went our separate ways a few years back. She took Isaac, Magnolia, and Drucilla with her. Haven't seen them since. Me, Colin, Daniel decided to try to make our own way in crime. Figured we'd be good at it."

Father looked at her as if he didn't believe her. She hadn't exactly expected him to.

"Let's try that again, and with honesty this time, please dear."

Rayanna's stomach turned at the endearment even as she felt that awful warm feeling in her chest that had always come when her father said kind things or showed affection.

She hated that a simple term of endearment from him made her heart warm with pride, as if belonging to him was some sort of accomplishment. It wasn't, she reminded herself. Hejaz stolen her. He had probably stolen them all.

"Like I said," she gazed up at him, wide eyed, "I don't have a clue where she is"

And so it went on until Father seemed to tire of getting the same answer over and over, and she was returned to the cell with Daniel and Colin.

The next day it repeated, except she was returned sooner and Father took Daniel after, returning him hours later.

"What'd he want?" Rayanna asked neutrally, certain that their interactions were being recorded and examined.

Daniel rolled his eyes lightly.

"Wanted to know where Kirianna is -always knew she was his favorite- and made me use the treadmill for a bit. Seemed pleased." And Rayamna could see, by the pink of Daniels ears and the barely there pride in his eyes fighting with disgust, that Father must have been pleased with the results he had received. He had to have expressed it too, because only praise or another show of affection from Father would bring that kind of conflict to any of the siblings.

Rayanna nodded, and Daniel seemed pleased that she understood. Colin said nothing but pulled their brother onto the bed beside him in order to curl into Daniels side.

Rayanna was concerned about what would happen when, inevitably, Father would request that Colin accompany him from the room. Colin had always been a favorite of sorts of Fathers, and had taken the realization that they had never been anything more the weapons harder than any of them. It would be easy really, if Father played his cards right, to convince Colin to trust him again, to exchange affection for information.

It frightened her. Knowing that this could all be for nothing, that Father might be able to just collect them all up, have all his weapons back, nice and shiny and lined up just how he wanted them, and really, she reflected painfully, it wouldn't take much to make any of them vie for his approval again. She knew it to be true with every stab of pain she felt when he directed that disappointed gaze at her.

In the end they made it three more days before Father pulled Colin from the room.

The boy was a sobbing mess when he was returned barely an hour later by Rayanna's count. Daniel pulled Colin into his chest as he stumbled through the door and sat shushing him and stroking his back but Colin kept shaking his head roughly.
"I told him-I told him I didn't know, and he was- he was so upset with me," he choked out the words between heavy sobs and Rayanna felt a burst of pride and affection for Colin.

And so it went on. Father kept demanding locations on the rest of their siblings, Kirianna in particular, but like Daniel had said, no big surprise there. Kirianna had always been his favorite.

He had Daniel running, short bursts, sustained speeds, tests just like the ones they had under gone years ago.
They were put in the work room and when Rayanna had tried refusing the orders to participate in target practice a guard had walked over calmly and slammed the butt of his gun into Colin's face.
The order had been repeated and Rayanna had assembled the weapon they wanted her to shoot and followed orders for the rest of the day.

Fathers priorities seemed to shift from gaining information to continuing their training, as they spent less time separated in the interrogation room and more time being forced to spar in pairs while the third stood surrounded by guards.

It might have been comforting knowing that, with all the effort put into getting them back and now into training them, Father wouldn't have them killed. It might've been, if it weren't for the fact that these were the same people who had taught Rayanna how to make someone beg for the mercy of death.

Two weeks in Daniel tried to turn his gun on the gaurds in the training room. He downed four of them before the three that had Rayanna restrained between them employed their weapons, not on the Daniel, but on her.

Daniel had dropped the gun and Colin had pleaded with them to stop.

They did for the moment, but later that night Father and another rotation of guards had entered their cell with the intention to address the days wrong doings.

Daniel had sobbed as he was forced to watch Colin and Rayanna take the punishment for his escape attempt.

Father, it seemed, was no longer interested in playing house, she had reflected as he and the guards left her and her brothers alone in the cell, her and Colin bleeding and bruised while Daniel tried, between his his tears, to beg for their forgiveness.

Rayanna felt the overwhelming desire to completely destroy Father and everyone who had ever worked with him.

Chapter Text

Really, being stuck in father's labs was nothing special after a while. It kind of felt like waking up after a really good dream and finding yourself back in reality.

And it just so happened that Rayanna's reality involved training, assassinations, corporate espionage, interrogations, and occasionally being tortured or watching her brothers get tortured when they stepped out of line.

It had been about three months of this return to normal, with the new addition of the not so creative- but effective- punishments for mis-steps, and Rayanna and her brothers had maintained their lie about not knowing a thing about the rest of their siblings whereabouts.

Which, if Rayanna had been smart, might not have been much of a lie anymore.

Logic suggested that after they had been missing for more than a few weeks with no word Kirianna should have relocated with the younger children, for safety's sake.

Rayanna hoped that was the case but sometimes Kirianna didn't have the best judgement.
She was sentimental, and didn't like change.

If Kirianna could avoid it Rayanna doubted she would want to change jobs and pull the little kids out of school. Not to mention leaving the apartment that Clay had got them.

But Clay was smarter than that, Rayanna reflected, and if he had stopped by since they had been gone he might have had the sense to get the rest of her siblings away.

She hoped so. It was less than ideal, with the progress Dru, and Isaac, and Maggie had been making at school and adjusting to normal life. But it would be more unfortunate if father managed to get his hands back on them.

They didn't need to deal with this again.

Father sent her on her first assassination since she had been brought to this new facility.

Rayanna hadn't taken any since they had left the old one, purely because she had the option not to.

She didn't like dropping bodies, preferred other assignments. She might have been okay with it- not pleased, but not any angrier than she was about anything else- if she had known that her target had done something to deserve it.
But father never gave justifications for their assignments, just orders and punishments if they failed.

Rayanna was brought to an airport with a guard, both dressed in the same street clothes that she had gotten used to in the past few years, both artfully made to blend in.

The target was waiting in what Rayanna recognized it now, with years of experience outside of fathers labs, as an expensive cafe.

The hairs did not enter the shop with her, but stood with his eyes directed to the signs declaring the flight times.

He appeared to have fooled the passerbyers and the target, but Rayanna knew that she was being watched strictly.

After all, Father couldn't have her escaping again.

She walked up to the counter, slid the cash that she had been supplied with for the mission to the cashier and ordered a large mocha latte with extra whip cream.

She thought that she may as well indulge if Father was footing the bill.

She sat down at a table near the target to wait, with a magazine in her hands, and she knew that anyone who noticed her would think she was reading it.

The barista called out "Janet", the name that Rayanna had been told to supply, and the target flinched in a barley there movement.

Interesting. So the name must have been a deliberate choice.

She rose, pushing the magizene into the purse that she had been given, and as she walked past the target she brushed the back his hand lightly, leaving behind a dissolvable slow acting poison that would deep into his pores and mimic cardiac arrest.

The man would be dead within a few hours, and there would be one less balding man with dark hair and over priced suits in the world.

Rayanna almost let herself wonder about his family, but she brushes the thought aside quickly.

The task had to be done. For her family.

Chapter Text

Rayanna had nearly forgotten the feeling of relative peace by the time the concept became an opportunity for her again. She had long since lost count of time, and all she could really judge it on was how many meals they were given, and how many jobs she had preformed.

She thought, based on her knowledge of human biology, that the facial hair that Colin had begun growing at some point meant that a couple of years has to have passed, but she wasn't certain.

Until one day the cell door groaned open and Kiriannas face stared inside to wear Daniel gazed into the open air and Colin jolted on the bed.

Rayanna met the other girls eyes, searching.

Was this a rescue, a betrayal, or had Father finally caught up with the rest of the operatives?

She kept her breath deep and slow, inhaling the bleach flavored air, left over from cleaning up Colin's blood from Daniel's last mistake.

"Come on." Kirianna said, gentle but firm, and turned away, leaving the door open wide behind her.

And they burnt it all down.

Father was Lex Luthor, business mogul, scientist, billionaire.
Rayanna had learned some of it while with him, and some from Kirianna and the smaller children after they had pulled Rayanna, Daniel, and Colin out of fathers clutches.

Of course the small children weren't all that small any more, and three years had passed, and really, it had felt like longer.

Drucilla was, as far as they could estimate, about eleven years old, which they were fairly certain was about how old Rayanna had been the first time they had escaped, five years ago.

Baby Isaac was not a baby, and blessedly, had no memories of anything prior to the escape, though his memories of Rayanna, Daniel, and Colin seemed to be few and far between as well.

Magnolia, who looked like a doll with her whispy blonde hair and pale blue eyes, had grown lean and tall, was proudly attending the third grade.

Rayanna barely had a concept of how grades worked, but she knew that it was so far from what she had left the girl in.

Clay, it so happened, hasn't managed to convince Kirianna to pack up the children and move, but had done his best to keep the safe these past few years, and had been the one to find out where Rayanna, Daniel, and Colin were being kept.

Going into the world was more difficult this time around.

Rayanna felt like if she tried to grasp to hard to it, to the people around her, that it might be ripped away as easily as it had been the last time.

And as hard as they tried to grasp normalcy, Daniel and Colin couldn't really find it either.

Like how Colin jumped and trembled when Drucilla spoke too loudly, or when Isaac moved to suddenly.

How Daniel carefully ate bits of Rayanna and Colin's servings of food before he would let them, because anything dangerous in it would move through his body much quicker and safer than it would move through either of theirs.

Like how after the first couple of nights they all gave up and went back to sharing a room, and many nights, a bed because then at least they could be sure that the others were breathing.

Rayanna was only really sure of one thing, and it was that one day she was going to see fathers lifeless body. And that when she did, she would be spitting in his eye.