Date: September 14th, 2007

Location: S.H.I.E.L.D Academy of Operations

'Neil Michael Carter'

That's what the door read. His name was written in gold, contrasting against the dark brown door. If not for the name, Neil wouldn't have been able to tell the difference from the rest of the doors lining the corridors. One and the same they were (Doors and people), conformity pushed to a maximum.

Good old S.H.I.E.L.D mind tricks.

Breathing a sigh, Neil walks into a small, plain room, furnished only with bare necessities. The bed was stripped, the sheets having been folded into a bundle on the side drawer. There is a desk to the side with papers all neatly placed onto it. Putting his bags on the floor, Neil sits on the chair next to the desk and starts to read the pamphlets as his gran said he should.

He reads them and can't help but smirk; from the map of the academy to the secrecy contract to the rules of S.H.I.E.L.D and the academy, gran had guessed correctly about everything in the welcome package.

Neil thought it wasn't smart to underestimate Peggy Carter of all people.

He spent the next little while putting his clothes away and generally making the room up. It was just as he was finishing, toiletries in his hand, on the way to the toilet to put them away, that he heard a sharp knock on the door.

"Just coming!" Neil shouted, jogging into the toilet. He jogs back out after putting the toiletries away and opens the door to a pale-skinned, tall woman with short black hair who carried herself with a sense of authority.

"Hi." Neil greets, his tone slightly questioning.

"Hello, Mr Carter. My name is Director Yvonne Farley, though you will call me Director Farley." Her tone is pleasant, but the inflection makes Neil believe that he really shouldn't call her Yvonne. Instead he just nods, and she continues, "Good. Now, I have just come to welcome you to the S.H.I.E.L.D Academy of Operations. Should you find yourself in need of it, my door is always open, though you will be punished for wasting my time as we run a tight ship."

She pauses then, and, after a brief hesitation that Neil didn't think was common for her, continues, "You may need to prove yourself to your peers, Mr Carter. Legacies often do. It is the reason your cousin hasn't revealed her surname, I believe."

Neil shrugged then, his mind flashing to pictures of Peggy Carter and the Howling Commandos "I'm proud of my name. And if it means having expectation thrust onto me, then I'll deal with it."

It was a familiar argument; Neil hadn't really liked Sharon's decision to keep her name hidden and that had led to fights between them. It didn't stop them for long of course, neither distance nor time could break a family bond, and something as silly as this came nowhere near it.

"If that is all, Mr Carter, then I will see you in a month's time for a reviewal of your work." Director Farley said.

"Course, ma'am, see you then." Neil said, his northern accent that his gran had told him he would have to get rid of breaking through.

Neil finished his room and started to read the rules of S.H.I.E.L.D. It wasn't long after however, that his alarm rang, telling him it was time to head to the hall where he would get to make his course choices.

As he walked out his room, he sees a black-haired, short woman from a few doors down walking out of her door also. She wore a black skirt and a white blouse, and she looked Greek to Neil, though he had never been one to guess those sorts of things.

"Hey." Neil called. She turned, raising an eyebrow at him "You going to Event Hall?"

She looked him up and down as though evaluating him, which, knowing S.H.I.E.L.D, she probably was. "Yes, why?"

'Definitely a Greek accent.' Neil thought to himself.

"I'm going there as well." Neil informed her "Walk together?"

She narrows her brown eyes, before shrugging "Of course, Neil."

Neil isn't sure, but he thinks he might have fallen in love with that accent. Knowing that she must have got his name off his door, he looks at the name on her door as they walk past it.

'Isadora Demetriou'

"Isadora, eh?" Neil comments, "Greek?"

"Correct, Neil." Isadora says, glancing at him. Her eyebrow raises slightly "You are on the young side, are you not? For S.H.I.E.L.D?"

Neil gives a wry smile, thinking about the help that Sharon had gave him over the last few years "I think I'll manage. Age doesn't really matter after all. Even if I am slightly underage."

Isadora gives him a devilish smirk at that "Skill over experience? But don't all men think they have skill?"

Neil snorts. He hadn't exactly been thinking like that, but fair enough. They continue onwards, talking about their choices all the while, only stopping at the Wall of Valor, where the names of the SSR and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that had died in the line of duty.

His gran had known near everybody on that list from before the 2001. It was quite sad when you think about it.

They go into the Event Hall and notice all the stalls set up. Some were filled with students. Pilot training seemed to be very popular for example. Some, however, had no-one there. Kayaking wasn't exactly a skill that would come up very often after all. There was somebody at every stall to answer questions. His gran had told him that the only reason they were this nice was that they didn't want to scare off the fresh meat.

Neil had already made his choices back home where he could call his gran and Sharon and ask their opinions and talk to his dad. He had leaned slightly heavier towards combat, which was what he thinks he would favour from what he had been taught from Sharon. He also picked French and Russian as his minimum of two languages that he had to learn as well as Pilot training.

If Neil had leaned towards combat courses, then Isadora had positively swan dived towards the more conventional spy skills. Neil didn't even know that upside-down lip reading was a thing but apparently it was more useful than you would think. Neil just left that to her.

The rest of the day was acclimatising to the academy to the point where he knew it inside out. Kind of, at least. There were multiple buildings and he wasn't even allowed in some so he did his best. His gran had said something when he was a kid about "knowing the terrain" and he took it too seriously so now Neil does it everywhere he goes.

The only thing that had made the day slightly annoying was the amount of comments from the instructors about how much he looked like Peggy Carter.

No shit!

As he was laying in his new bed that night, all Neil could think was that the academy was already like a home, and he had been there less than a day. A psychologist would probably love to analyse why he was so comfortable sleeping in a building with trainee assassins, but Neil was content in thinking that he was home because he was in S.H.I.E.L.D.

And S.H.I.E.L.D was a home for all Carter's.