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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦
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Truth loved training.
A lot of her free time was dedicated to learning a new martial arts technique, mastering a new weapon, or freestyling. It wasn't necessary for her to refresh what she already knew, and so she mostly sought for ways to improve and expand her skill set.
In addition to training herself, she also enjoyed training others.
It had started with her brother, who didn't have her gift of an exceptional memory. His was better than most, but he still ran the risk of growing rusty. In the years before their career as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., they would go to the training room every day and Truth would teach him all that she knew.
Next was Clint Barton. She had caught him practicing archery in the gun range and approached him about a technique she'd learned recently regarding the bow. He didn't believe her at first—because, in his words, "I know every technique there is"—but she had shown him, and he had demanded she teach it to him then and there.
From there, Maria Hill had found out and soon Director Fury visited the training room to watch the twins spar. This was early on in Truth's career as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and she had been very shocked to have gained the Director's attention. He had complimented her skill, and it was then that he had realized that she was more than just her gifts.
Fury told her that he was running short of teachers.
Truth hadn't said no.
And so, that was how Truth came to hosting martial arts classes. She preferred teaching her more experienced colleagues, but sometimes she offered to take on a couple of trainees and teach them the basics. It was the only kind of public service she did, and the trainees always scrambled to get a spot in one of her classes. They didn't usually know who she really was because the other agents only ever told them that she was hot and good at her job.
Let's just say that Truth wasn't the only one in the building who liked giving the trainees a hard time.
In fact, Michael was probably the one who had started the whole movement.
Dressed in the bodysuit she usually wore for training, Truth was busy pulling on her finger-less gloves when the doors opened.
She smirked. Speak of the devil.
"How was breakfast?" she asked without looking up as her brother walked up to her, his footsteps silent in the empty room.
"Awkward," Michael answered. "And that's coming from someone who can charm his way out of any situation."
"I'd beg to differ," Truth muttered under her breath before taking a hair tie off her wrist and handing it to her brother. She moved to sit down in a discarded chair, leaning back so he could begin braiding. "Why awkward?"
Michael scoffed.
"Awkward because Natasha Romanoff glared at me until I left. She probably thinks I was in on it, which I wasn't."
To emphasize this, he tugged on her hair, making her head jerk back. Offended, Truth clenched her jaw and turned to glare at her brother.
"Try that again, and I'll drop your ass on the mat in front of my class."
"Oh," Michael said. He straightened her head so he could continue his work. "So, you're feisty today. Speaking of feisty, seriously, what was up this morning? Are you trying to piss her off?"
Truth shrugged, feigning innocence. "I just wanted to have a little talk." Then she tilted her head back to smirk at her brother. "Can't just let her take my title without defending it, can I?"
"Wow." He pushed her head back down with a hand, and she rolled her eyes. He was having a little too much fun doing that. "You're a worse sore loser than I am."
"I hardly lose. You almost always do. Maybe that's your problem."
"You cheat! Like, more than I do."
Truth laughed, her entire face brightening with the size of her smile.
"And when you cheat you still lose," she sang.
Luckily, Michael had just tied off the end of her braid, giving her the freedom to duck beneath his swat, stand up, turn, and kick her chair into his leg with another laugh.
"Get out of my training room," she demanded, though the amusement in her voice lessened the strength of the command. "How am I supposed to scare the new kids if you keep making me laugh?"
"Come on, I'm five months behind," he complained, though he did begin to back away towards the exit. "I bet that was the first time you laughed this year."
Truth gave him a look. "One, that's not true, and two, even if it was, we're only three weeks into the year so far. I'm not that bad."
Michael raised his hands in surrender.
"If you insist."
Truth made sure to throw a blue stress ball at him on his way out.
As the trainees began to file in, Truth watched from one of the overhead metal beams that ran across the room about twenty feet off the ground. This was her usual method of starting her classes, especially if she had never taught anyone in the group before.
Her students came in little cliques of two or three, suggesting that they had all been accepted from the same program. They were familiar with one another, which meant she'd have to be stricter for them to be quiet and pay attention.
The class, overall, consisted of twelve students. Not too big, which was good because Truth noted that they'd need more one-on-one attention. Eight males, four females. As usual, the young men were rowdy, teasing the women with flirtatious jokes, which were staved off with eye rolls and playful shoves. It was easy to spot the bad boy, the studious girl, the jokesters, the secluded. It took her less than a minute to profile all of her students, and by the time she was done, a smirk had settled on her face.
This was going to be fun.
She dropped down into the middle of the makeshift circle they had created, and their conversations cut off with sharp gasps and even a few stumbles as a few of the young men jumped back at the sudden sight of her.
Unimpressed, she raised an eyebrow.
"If this were the real deal, you'd all be dead," she informed them as she straightened out of her crouch. She turned to meet every set of eyes, projecting her voice to make sure it was heard.
"It doesn't matter where you are, or who you're with..."
Her gaze stopped on Mr. Troublemaker, who had quite the smirk on his face for someone who was still sitting flat on his ass. Giving him an apologetic smile, Truth offered him a hand.
"...your guard always stays up."
He was only halfway up when she let go and swiped a leg at his feet, landing him on his back.
"You're not here to make friends, Lawson. Get off your ass and get to your spot."
The goal of the day was defense. Basic defense. Unfortunately, basic wasn't basic enough for all of her students, so Truth had to break it down.
She walked them through the three-step rule: seize, control, disarm. It was easier in theory than in practice, so she focused specifically on the push-pull principle. Pull on the wrist, push on the weapon.
Lawson scoffed.
"That doesn't sound too hard."
Famous last words.
For the second time that day, Lawson fell on his ass.
"Anyone else want to try?"
No one volunteered.
"Romanoff?" she questioned, and her students followed her gaze to the redhead who leaned against the wall by the door, watching with interest. Truth had known the moment she had slipped into the room not ten minutes ago, though the same couldn't be said for her students. "Anything you'd like to add?"
Natasha did, in fact, have something to add. At the opening, a half-smile formed on her lips as she sauntered into the lower, padded area, grabbing the attention of everyone in the room with every sway of her hips.
"Push-pull is good, Castello," she said, grabbing one of the wooden poles leaning against the wall with a shrug. "I just always consider the thumb technique to be more...efficient."
Truth raised an eyebrow. "I don't disagree, but it's not the easiest to grasp for a beginner."
"Oh, come on," Natasha drawled, before turning to face the class with a sultry wink. "Give them a little credit."
Natasha could feel Truth's hard stare settled on the side of her face and smirked.
Truth knew what the redhead was doing—she wasn't stupid, after all. From what Natasha had already observed, the dark-haired agent preferred to play the role of "hard ass" in front of her students (and looked hot while doing it too). Add in a little good cop into the scene, and Natasha would already be a fan favorite.
Now, Natasha had no interest in stealing Truth's place as a teacher, but she just thought she'd make things a little bit difficult for her. After all, she didn't get to eat her bacon that morning.
Debating her choices, glancing at her class who already watched Natasha with sparkling eyes, Truth clenched her jaw and threw her pole aside.
"Fine," she said before she addressed the trainees. "For those of you interested, Romanoff and I will teach you the thumb technique. The rest of you, I want you practicing against each other. I will be assessing you one-on-one before the end of class."
Truth demonstrated the new technique a few times on Natasha before instructing them to walk through the moves a few times on themselves. The two older agents observed as the trainees stumbled over themselves. They called out their mistakes until they were few and far in between.
"They're still a little sloppy," Truth commented to the agent beside her. Natasha shrugged.
"Not perfect, no. That's why they practice."
Truth's eyes were drawn to a duo attempting Natasha's technique. Wells and Harris, two females she believed had promise. Still, Wells, couldn't quite seem to get Harris' weapon out of her hands.
Nodding toward them, Truth said, "Still think it's better?"
Following her gaze, Natasha shrugged again.
"I never said it was easier than push-pull. I just said efficient."
"Efficient: 'performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort,'" Truth quoted. "Easy: 'causing or involving little difficulty or discomfort'. Relatively the same thing."
Natasha's eyebrows furrowed and she turned, but Truth continued to stare at the students.
Did she just—
A hint of a smile pressed at Truth's lips.
"Yeah, I did."
Then, she turned to face Natasha.
"How do you feel about a little more competition?"
That was how Natasha and Truth ended up standing in the center of twelve trainees, both women armed with a wooden staff.
The rules were simple: each trainee had to pick an agent to spar against using the technique that respective agent had coined. Truth was push-pull, Natasha was thumb. Whoever disarmed one of the agents first would get a free one-on-one lesson with Truth in the future. They had been a little disappointed when no lessons were offered with Natasha, to Truth's displeasure, but had nevertheless been motivated to do their best.
However, unbeknownst to the students, Truth and Natasha had an alternative goal between them:
One assassin had to beat all of her opponents before the other.
They had planned it so they'd each have six students between them, and they had even given the students the added "advantage" of teaming up and continuously jumping into the fight so long as they could still get up.
Let's just say that they all thought their odds were pretty good.
How very wrong they were.
Because Truth had knocked each of her opponents down at least three times within the first minute, and the young men fighting Natasha had to take a few beatings before realizing that they couldn't both stare at her breasts and stay on their feet.
The first one out fell face first on the mat when Truth sidestepped his overconfident tackle. When he didn't get up within five seconds, Truth called it out.
"Ruiz!" Duck, trip, throw. Two more fell down but quickly got back up. "You're dismissed."
Next were two trainees who thought they could surprise Natasha from behind. She quickly put that notion to rest when they fell on top of each other in a heap on the mat.
"Walsh, Martinez! Out!"
As she defended herself against three on her left, someone pulled Truth's wrist. Truth twisted, using the momentum to swing the end of her pole and sweep her offender off their feet.
"Gotta work on your guard, Wilkinson."
After sending three students stumbling, another grabbed Natasha's armed hand and attempted to press down hard on her thumb. The redhead gave the young woman a second before switching the pole to her left and knocking the student down breathless.
"Nice try, Wells."
Lawson got up, heaving as he stared Truth down before running at her with a battle cry. Truth dropped down to a knee, holding her pole horizontally over her head and using it to send Mr. Troublemaker tumbling over her shoulder. In the same move, she made a sharp turn left, sending her pole into the gut of another student aiming to run at her while she was distracted.
"I'm surprised you lasted this long, Lawson," she commented before glancing at her other victim. "Sorry, Sutton. I'd put some ice on that."
As of now, Truth was down to two and Nastasha to three. Less than three minutes had passed since they had started, and neither assassin was breaking a sweat.
"McCall! I'd leave while you still can."
"Walk it off, Campbell."
"Hodge, you're done. Your Bambi legs aren't going to get you anywhere."
And then, both were down to one.
Harris' dark hair was plastered to her face, and Miller wasn't looking all too hot either. Still, they got up one last time.
"Guard your left, Harris," Truth instructed. "Elbows down."
Nastasha ducked under Miller's punch, feeling the whoosh of air at the force behind it.
"Nice swing, Miller..."
Sliding on her knees, she twisted to the left, swinging her pole around to trip him. He hit the mat with a thud, and she shrugged.
"...but, next time, don't miss."
Within two more seconds, Truth had Harris on her back. Both agents waited, but when neither got up, they gave each other a look of puzzlement.
Then Natasha threw her pole aside.
"Mine fell first," she answered for the both of them. Then she walked out of the room, Truth's gaze glued to the movement of her hips.
Looking down at what was the remainder of her students, she sighed.
Damn. Now they were tied.
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