Elizabeth Barton/Ghost (Avengers Fanfiction)

Epilogue

     A young agent sat in his quarters at one of the many S.H.I.E.L.D. bases that were spread around the world. There were a few in the US and the one he was at was in Texas. Liam was very interested in the Avengers when he heard about them and the plan for them. Impatiently, he had waited and waited for any news or any information that was going to be released to all of S.H.I.E.L.D. on them. Liam had jumped for his I-pad when he got the notification that information on the Battle of New York was being released. He had received a video. When he played it, he was able to watch pieces of the battle.

He watched Iron Man fly through the sky above the cities, destroying all the Chitauri soldiers he could. Agent Barton was as amazing as ever, his sharp eyes taking in everything and never missing when he shot his arrows. Agent Romanoff was so swift, so in control and powerful, she scared Liam. He definitely would not want to be her enemy. Ghost was just as incredible. He had never met the three agents, but he had heard a lot about them and had always wanted to.

Hulk though, was Liam's favorite. His size, his, strength, the raw power... He was an untamable beast. Thor was a big surprise. Liam knew that he hadn't been originally a part of the Avengers list, but then again, neither had Tony Stark. And then there was Captain America. He was a very interesting person. How he could have survived being frozen and preserved for over seventy years was beyond anything anyone could understand. And he hadn't aged at all in all that time. Liam had been assigned to be sort of like a security guard as Steve Rogers was defrosted. He had seen the man in person, even though he wasn't awake. Ghost had also been there with Agent Colson. He had seen her though he hadn't talked to her or really met her.

Liam's eyes widened when he saw Ghost turn into a cat and race to the leviathan. How had he not realized it before? He had seen her in person for crying out loud! He knew what she looked like and yet he had never made the connection until now. She had the same abilities as... Liam watched the rest of the video and watched Ghost closely. Yes, she had the silver in her hair and the silver eyes just like him too. He felt like such an idiot. How had he not seen it?

Liam ran down the halls, spurred by excitement, and dodged the agents he passed. He went to the Rec. Room and burst through the door. Two agents played cards on the dark blue carpet. The wood walls absorbed the sunlight coming through the wide windows, heating the room up and giving it a cozy feel. One guy played pool by himself. Liam's excitement greatly contrasted to the relaxing energy of the Rec. Room. His best friend was lounging lazily in an armchair, watching the card players. His eyelids drooped over his mysterious grey eyes, but he forced them to stay open. His dark hair was very rumpled, the dark grey streaks standing out. He was always here when he got back from a mission. Instead of sleeping off his exhaustion, he always muscled through it. Liam knew that nightmares plagued the poor boy's sleep every time and that was why he refused to take naps, but sometimes he wondered how he survived it.

"Henry, Henry, you have to see this!" Liam tapped the screen of the I-pad to play the video from the beginning again before dropping it in Henry's lap. Henry picked up the I-pad and watched the Battle of New York play out.

"Yeah, she's like you." Liam said when he noticed Henry's eyes going wide. "That's why I wanted to show you so badly. I guess you weren't the only GECS subject reeled into S.H.I.E.L.D."

Henry shook his head, trying to find his voice as he watched her closely. He watched her fight off the Chitauri with all she had. "But that's Elizabeth. She's... alive?"

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that your friend, the one who supposedly was killed by the experiment, is Agent Elizabeth Barton? The friend you made through the GECS experiments is Ghost? Hawkeye's little sister?"

Henry looked up at his friend and gave him a pained smile. "Ghost? That was the codename they gave her when they communicated her test results to each other. I can't believe she kept the name."

"She didn't. Others who heard her story gave it to her. It just fit. What was yours?"

"Shadow," Henry's mind whirred as he exited the battle video and searched through S.H.I.EL.D.'s database for the file he always feared opening. It was the file that held all the information S.H.I.E.L.D. ever found on the GECS experiments. He was granted access to it a long time ago, but he never could bring himself to look through it. Now a newfound urgency motivated him to do just that.

He skimmed through it until he found what he was looking for. His eyes alighted on the word TRANSFER written in bold and read the passage. It told him that subject Ghost was moved from Facility A-09 to Facility A-24. Both subjects were fed a story to make them believe the other was dead. The Operators had acknowledged that a growing friendship was growing between the two and that it needed to be crushed immediately. They were hoping that once the subjects had been injected with the right serum, they could train the subjects to be great spies, killers, and people void of emotion. A bond between the two would make that very difficult.

At the end was a report made by the rescue teams and what they found. It was detailed in both his rescue and Elizabeth's. He shivered when he read the description of what Elizabeth was like when they found her. It was almost like he could really see her screaming and violently convulsing. He remembered doing the same so it wasn't hard to imagine what she felt when being injected with that last serum.

"Hey, are you okay?" Liam put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Henry blinked out of his reverie and realized a few tears had slid down his cheeks. He wiped them quickly. "Y-yeah, I'm... I'm fine. It's just hard going back, remembering."

"I can't even imagine." Liam murmured. No matter how much he tried to, he really couldn't. He wished he could so he could understand what Henry had gone through.

Henry smiled, a rare thing. "You have no idea how much lighter I feel knowing she's still alive. This huge weight has been lifted off of me." He flipped through some more pages on the I-pad and landed on a recent picture of her. She was with Agent Barton and she was smiling gently. She was very pretty. "It has been so long... I wonder if she still remembers me." The thought filled him with a deep ache, one just as strong as the one he felt when he was told that her body hadn't been able to hold out against the testing anymore and she had died. He hadn't believed it at first and waited in the darkness for her return, but of course she never did.

Liam laughed. "Henry, how could she forget?"

Henry shrugged forlornly. "It's been almost eight years."

"You have nightmares every night that prevent you from sleeping. Don't you think that maybe she does too? After everything you two have been through, I would be amazed if she didn't. You were there for her almost the entire time, weren't you? How could she forget the friend that kept her going in that awful place?" Liam's confidence in this gave Henry hope. "So what are you going to do now that you know she's alive?"

Henry didn't even have to think about it. "I'm going to find her."

If anyone is interested, I will be posting Silver and Grey as a separate story. So please look it up and check it out!