Author's note: Part one of two series. Set on how to teach new recruits about how certain things and people are off limits. I decided to write these two after seeing two similarly titled fictions and not liking how they were written at all. Not that the other one was terrible as much as they displayed the Agents as being terribly flashy and that just doesn't seem like their style. This is written from Agent Hill's POV simply because I wanted an outside observer's.
Original fic was written by PercyJacksonTheAwesome- u/2785132/PercyJacksonTheAwesome
The eyes of the recruits were bright as they walked into the SHIELD lobby were bright and interested. They always were. They were the best of the best after all, being offered a chance to work for an exclusive agency that only takes the top of the top. An agency famous for the world's Superhero team, The Avengers.
It was a relatively small group, filled with both male and female recruits, all a little over twenty. There were whispers that Agent Hill heard as she began to walk the group down the halls. She was used to it by now.
"Morning, Hill." The agent nodded lightly as a slightly less than famous archer pushed by, two cups of coffee in his hands.
"Who was that?"
"I don't think I've seen him."
"He's gotta level six clearance badge,"
"Wait, wasn't he part of the Avengers?"
The whispers went through the group and the sandy haired agent glanced over his shoulder, his curiosity masked by his sunglasses before he kept going.
Agent Hill ignored most of the titters as she brought them into the observation room, giving a spiel about the intensity of training. "Of course, you will be tested, this is the training room below us, where all agents of every level train. If you're lucky, you'll catch a glimpse of the best of the best. You'd do well to stay out of their way and try to learn from them."
She glanced over her shoulder as she saw a familiar flash of red hair walking into the middle, followed by the same archer. She sighed as the titters broke out again. He handed a coffee to the redhead. He jabbed his thumb up to the observation deck before walking towards where his bow was. The redhead rolled her eyes obviously and walked towards the end of the range, under the deck or to train at the rings, it was unclear. Perhaps she was just over the show, she'd probably seen it more than once. Everyone knew Clint liked to keep himself, just as much as his partner, but he had been a circus performer once. And he still liked to perform.
He began to shoot, glancing up at the deck without his sunglasses and electing to smirk in the direction of the deck and Hill already wanted to rub her temples at the migraines of soft sighs and smiles, despite the attempts from agents to remain professional.
"Recruits." Agent Hill said with a sigh and it was quiet. "As charming as Agent Barton, also known as Hawkeye-" here she had to wait for the titters to die down again. "-is, Please know that he already has a partner." She put emphasis on the word partner. Everyone in SHIELD knew it was more, even if the agents themselves didn't.
No one mentioned it, but everyone knew the obvious. She heard a few sighs as she began to lead them out of the deck and onto the floor. "Well its not like that means anything, they swap partners yearly, it's part of procedure." Hill hears the voice of someone who read the manuel too well.
She stopped, a hand up. "I'll say this once and only once. He belongs to Agent Romanoff. If you wish to survive here, there are certain things you simply do not mention."
Speak of the devil and he appears is how the saying goes and Barton is beside Hill in an instant after she finishes her statement. "The range is all yours, Hill." He said with a grin, walking towards a redhead that was watching. She knew that Clint's hearing wasn't as amazing as his eyesight, but sometimes Hill wondered if Natasha's made up for it. Especially when she saw the redhead's bright green eyes narrow as she watched two female recruits watch Clint as he walked back towards her. He didn't even seem to notice as he began fiddling with his arrows, seeming to be working on those.
Hill almost wants to laugh as she stalks forward, dangerous as a predator, but still seeming to look at ease. "Does anyone want to try sparring with me?" She offers politely, almost sounding bored as she looks directly at the two female agents who had been discussing her partner's backside. One deflates, looking down. The other sticks her chin up defiantly, thinking that there's no way another agent would harm a fellow recruit, that she was safe. She might have been if it had been any other agent but Romanoff. Hill wished she could explain just how possessive the former Russian is about things she felt like were hers. How her possessiveness extended doubly so for her partner.
"Yeah, I'd try it." She said and Hill wanted to shake her head. Clint looked up for a second from his spot, tilting his head curiously and then shrugged, looking back down at his arrows.
As the sparring match began it, Hill was already radioing down for medical. "Now we're going to walk towards medical with Recruit Martin, which some of you will probably see more than your own apartment." She said in a firm voice as she passed by Natasha who was toweling her face off.
She could hear the archer talking to the assassin as they passed, "What just happened?" he asked curiously, and she shrugged, blank faced and he started laughing and Hill couldn't help but shake her head this time. As soon as the group was clear of Strike Team Delta, Hill spoke up again. "Like I said before, there are a few things you'd do best to learn while you're here and just not question. Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton's partnership is one of them."
