Rapture (An Avengers Novel)

Chapter Two: Falling On My Ass

Quick A/N: sorry if you guys don't like swearing. I'm no sailor, but I've got a mouth to me sometimes

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During the first week of training I thought I was definitely going to die a couple of times.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that too.

When I first got there I was immediately thrown into the wonderful reality of paperwork which included background checks, medical histories, GPA's and bored desk workers who had gone through all of this at least five times today before I showed up.

When that was all done I was handed a new file, my file. It had a large red stamp on the front of the folder that stated "approved" and I was told that I would be shuffled along to the academy sometime soon and most likely put into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy of Operations, but Barton had stated otherwise.

Apparently I had gotten the special permission from the Director to go into what's called "supervised training". This simply meant that Barton had pulled just the right strings to get the approval to mentor me himself. A lot of the other agents got a little bit ruffled at this news and Barton had only ignored the questions as to why he chose to do it.

But boy did he take his job seriously. I was almost instantly shoved into combat training, working with firearms, weight training, espionage and my least favorite, linguistics. It all quickly began to blur together as days past and molded into one big lump of exhaustion.

Eventually my body didn't feel like it was put through a meat tenderizer after our physical training. I was actually getting a whole hell of a lot stronger.

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After about four painfully strenuous weeks I got to meet Barton's partner, Natasha Romanoff. She was somebody I had hear people talk about, even warn me about because I was working under Barton.

I was working with a different agent today (Clint was currently watching us with amusement) and we were focusing on various techniques on how to break someone's jaw and ways to shatter the ribcage. This was none other than agent Romanoff, who was basically attempting to murder me at the moment.

The instant that I met the fiery redhead, I knew this highly skilled assassin was cold, hard and calculating. I quickly got the feeling that she quite disliked me. I couldn't focus on that now, if I did, it would be my jaw that was split in two.

By the time we were done for the day I was more bruised up than a peach in a clothes drier. I felt awful. Not only physically, but mentally. I must have ended up on my ass at least eighty times today. Barton had to step in every once in awhile just to make sure I would walk away in one piece. I spit the blood out of my mouth and wiped my brow before ducking under the ropes. I was never gonna get it right.

Agent Romanoff and Barton were talking quietly to themselves so I snatched up my gym bag that was on the bench next to the ring I'd been training in and headed off to my on-base room for the night.

I had just managed to make it out of the doors to the rec. hall when Barton caught up to me. He slowed down to my pace and fell instep next to me, "Hey, try not take it too personally, Romanoff is one of our best agent. She's been doing this stuff since she was way too young to even be doing it" he said, trying to make me feel a little but better. "I mean hell, she could hand me my ass if she felt like it" He chuckled at his own words.

I stayed silent as we wove through people and ended up at the elevator. I leaned against the hip level hand rail and crossed my arms, wincing when I hit a bruise.
We stood in heavy silence until the elevator reach its destination. the door had begun to open but Barton hit a red button on the panel that stopped it.

"Now listed cause I'm only saying this once, today was your first day sparring with someone that wasn't me. The fact that you came out of the ring with only a couple bruises is honestly a first. Nat's usually not aloud under any circumstances to work with new people. So lighten up.... You did well today" he said before punching that tempting red button again and stalking out with his hands buried in his pockets.

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A/N: it's a slow start, I know. Stick with it I promise it'll pick up soon!