Skye slashed and jabbed, but she could not get a single hit in. This Romanov chick knew her stuff. She was in the middle of her first assessment, and she couldn't help but feel like it wasn't going well. Agent Romanov had barely spoken two words to her.
At least she hadn't been taken out straight away. Although she hadn't been doing well on her attack, she had only let one of her opponent's blows land. They continued for what seemed like forever, before Skye changed tactics.
If you let your opponent learn your style, it is easy to anticipate, so she completely changed her attack, reverting to kickboxing. She managed to get one hit in, elbowing her in the side before Romanov realized what she was doing. At least it had worked. Skye continuously switched between styles, from boxing, to street fighting, to the martial arts. She utilized everything she had learnt at shield academy, when she thought, what about how she defended herself before the training? She ducked a punch to the head, and picked up a water bottle from the floor, sprayed it in Romanov's eyes, and in her momentary blindness, moved behind her, and pulled agent Romanov into a choke hold. She filled with pride, but as she felt frantic hands scraping at her arm, she relaxed her hold, scared she was choking her. As soon as she loosened her arm, she felt the world spin, as she was flipped over Agent Romanov's shoulder. She landed on the mat with a thump, and the breath was knocked out of her.
Agent Romanov peered over her.
'Never show mercy to the enemy, that's what will determine your life or death...Good work,' Agent Romanov added, almost grudgingly.
It was almost a compliment, and she was gonna take it. Turning back to the rest of the room, she saw two students fighting Agent Barton and Trip. Agent Coulson and the rest of the 20 students looked at her, a mixture of loathing and respectful faces. Skye guessed she had done well. She took her seat in the corner, and was surprised to see Simmons and Fitz had been watching.
'Hey guys, were you there the whole time?'
'Wow, Skye, that was brilliant, you are the first person to gain the upper hand on Agent Romanov all week!'
'You'll be sure to get into the top five.' Fitz added, having cooled his scrutiny slightly since their first meeting.
Skye smiled, but it wasn't over yet, she still had her independent tests, and then the actual mission if she made it.
Skye's next test didn't happen for another week, and it put her on edge, the constant waiting.
Agent Coulson had made a renewed list, the original having been cut down to 15, of who had passed the first assessment, and Skye was on it.
No one knew what the individual tests entailed, Agent Barton had threatened everyone who had already had theirs, and no one was going to oppose one of the deadliest assassins in Shield.
Skye was quite unprepared when she entered the empty classroom. There was a single chair, but the room was otherwise bare, or so it seemed. She sat down, and surveyed the room, looking for any clues for what was about to happen. There were a couple of recruitment posters on the walls, and the signature Shield emblem, and window. Finally, she looked up. She saw a ventilation shaft, and as the light hit the slits in the cover, she saw a silhouette.
'Agent Barton.' Skye acknowledged.
The silhouette removed the cover and swung down, holding a stopwatch in his hand.
'Skye, I presume. 47 seconds, that's good.'
Skye grinned. 'I saw you enter the room. You had to be somewhere.'
Barton gave her a toothy smile. 'Congratulations, you passed the first test, are you ready for the next?'
Skye gave a, somewhat uncertain, nod, and Agent Barton launched into the examination. She spent what felt like hours running through hypothetical missions, making situation specific decisions, going through random protocols. She went through the routines for 084's, the welcome wagon, surveillance missions, it went on and on. Finally, Barton seemed content with her results.
'Okay, okay, now for the final test. Well, its not really an official test. Agent Coulson told me you were a hacker, but I cant believe you hacked into shield in under 2 hours, I want to see for myself. I want you to hack in again, and find a mission report in the database. Operation BlackHawk.'
He grinned smugly at Skye. That file was level 9 access only, she would have trouble with that.
Skye only rose to the challenge, and pulled her laptop out her bag, and opened it up.
'Oh, and you have 2 hours.'
Skye set off, her fingers tapping furiously. She had already been in and out of the shield database multiple times over her time at the academy, finding reports and the like, to help her with her projects for the covert class, and she had perfected the coding for the hack. It was ingrained in her brain. She was in the database within half an hour, and she began searching for the right file.
'Um, Agent Barton, this file is level 9, are you sure you want me reading it?'
He stared at her in shock. 'you're alrea-?! If you can get into it, you deserve to read it,' he answered in shock.
She went back to typing, sending feeders throughout the encryption, trying to find the weak spot. Code was like the body, You had antibodies to find and get rid of harmful bacteria, but if it were a harmless, or even helpful bacteria, it ignored it. Hacking was like this. She found the weak spot, and wormed her way through the crack in the metaphorical shield that was the encryption. Finally, the file loaded on to her screen.
'Project BlackHawk. Agent Barton, AKA Hawkeye, was sent on an assassination mission to eliminate the threat of Red Room agent Black Widow, identity at the time, unknown.' Skye began to read out loud.
Agent Barton stared her in a mix between admiration and shock. 'Wow, Coulson said you were good, he always had an eye for these things. 1 hour and 3 minutes, that's a record. You can finish reading it if you want, but don't tell anyone you saw it, that's an order,' he said almost playfully.
Skye grinned, and read the rest of the file.
'Wow. So, you were meant to kill Agent Romanov?'
Barton looked her in the eye, 'I made a different call, good thing I did, shes saved my ass enough times.'
Skye chuckled. 'Is that everything?'
Barton nodded, and Skye rose to leave.
She looked at the time and saw everyone would be in the dinning hall for dinner. She walked to the canteen, and was quickly seated in between Simmons and Trip.
'Hey Guys, hows it going.'
'Skye! You were in there for hours, we were worried Agent Barton had killed you!' Simmons joked. Skye playfully pushed her.
'Yeah, how long did it take you? The hack?,' Trip asked. 'There was a camera behind one of the posters,' he added at her confused look.
She grinned at him, 'Sorry, that's classified,' she deadpanned.
Trip let out a burst of laughter, and continued to badger her about it.
'An hour and 3 minutes,' she finally relented.
'Skye, have you been practicing?' Simmons reprimanded. Skye only gave her a mischievous smile.
'Oh, don't give me that look, I thought Coulson told you nothing illegal while you were here.'
Skye pouted, deciding to ignore the scolding.
Simmons only found it unbearably cute.
Meanwhile, in a room on the other side of campus, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov sat at a table, looking over everyone's results.
'Well, I think we can scrap these 4, their personalities alone are a definite No. We need to get on with each other to work well together,' Clint said, picking up four of the files, and placing them on a pile at the end of the table. Natasha nodded in agreement.
Phil picked up another file, 'She was way to nervous, she would freeze up in the field,' placing it in the No pile. It continued on like this, until, all that were left were 10.
'I cant decide, they got better physical results, but their analytic skills were amazing,' Clint sighed, resigned.
'Well you two know what I think, but as I have a personal interest, I don't believe I can make an impartial choice... Even if she was the best,' Phil said, 'You will have to decide from here on out.'
The two nodded. 'Give it a few days, observe them, don't make a rushed judgement.'
The new list was posted in the early hours the next day, and at breakfast, people were clamoring to see it. Finally, when the crowd had dispersed, Skye glimpsed her name on the list, and went to her friends with renewed hope.
And over the course of the next day, it didn't dwindle... Until, night came.
Skye had just finished her drink at the boiler room, and had set off for her room, wanting to get an early night. Apparently, she wasn't the only one to have this idea, as a group of students soon followed after. It was dark out and she had just passed the last street lamp for a couple hundred meters, and everything was cloaked in darkness. Suddenly, she felt herself being dragged into a wall, held down by several people.
She should have seen this coming, people had been giving her a hard time since day one.
Skye hissed as she meet the rough edge of the wall, and struggled against her captors. Eventually, her eyes adjusted, and she realized what this was really about.
Tasha watched the students from her perch at the edge of the bar, a bottle of beer in her hand that she wasn't drinking. About seven of the ten students who had made the cut were there, 5 of them in a group, and others mingling with their own friends. Skye, Coulsons favorite, however, was by herself, throwing darts at a board, each one hitting its target dead on. Tasha wondered why she wasn't talking with the others, she had seemed quite nice, and Clint thought she was brilliant, yet she was alone, in the crowded room. She watched as the group nudged each other, whispering together, all of them watching Skye as she gave a resigned sigh, and downed her drink in one. For spy's, they weren't exactly the best at subtlety, barely controlling the loathing in their eyes.
Tasha watched as their eyes trailed after Skye as she left, and they quickly followed. She quickly signaled to Clint where he would be hiding from the rafts above, and tailed the group, an ominous feel in the brusque air.
She heard a hiss from ahead and she quickly found a place to observe from the shadows.
She saw the five students from the boiler room had grabbed Skye, and remained where she was, wanting to see how the events played out.
'What are you doing? Get of me,' Skye hissed again, clearly irritated, although not surprised, it seemed to Tasha.
'You what I want to know,' one of the students began to tirade. 'I want to know how a scumbag like you ended up in the top ten in our class.'
Skye scoffed at him. 'Err, maybe its because you needed four of your buddies to help hold me down,' Skye said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
There was a rumble of outrage through the group, before a girl in the group spoke up, ' Or maybe its because you are screwing agents assessing us.'
Skye looked at them in disgust, 'Please, Trip is my best friend, I would never date him.'
They all laughed in unison. 'We weren't talking about him, Agent Simmons can barely keep it in her pants.' one of them sneered.
Skye looked at them in shock. 'Simmons doesn't.. We aren't-'
'You know, if I was gonna screw to get ahead, I wouldn't pick that fucking dyke.'
Skye let out a cry of anger, and flew at the person who had spoken, with a new burst of energy, fueled by the anger at someone insulting one of her best friends.
Tasha tensed, ready to intervene, before realizing Skye already had two of them on the floor.
She circled the remaining three, eyes darting between them and the ones on the floor, keeping alert.
'I wonder how hard a mission would be with a few broken bones,' a girl taunted, before lunging at her, but she did not hit her mark. Skye dodged to the side, and grabbed her arm, and twisted hard, feeling it crack.
'I don't know, why don't you tell me later?' Skye spat out, her voice murderous.
She whimpered, and backed off, but it only seemed to enrage the other two. She felt a hard punch to her face, but she only responded with a grunt and a kick to their ribs.
Before long, the other two had risen from the ground, joined the attack. Skye was a blur, dodging between her attackers, until she felt something cold slice into her arm. Two of the attackers had produced knives, and had continued their relentless attack. She managed to kick the man who had punched her, again in the stomach and felt a rib crack, and watched as he shrunk to the back, with the girl with the broken wrist.
Finally, Skye had had enough. She grabbed the hand of one of the knife wielding attackers, and pried their fingers loose, pulling hard enough to break them. She swung her fist around into the face of the other, breaking their nose. She glared at the final opponent, and raised an eyebrow. He slowly backed away, and Skye sighed. Storming past them she called back to them over her shoulder, 'That's why I'm in the top ten. And. Don't. Insult. My. Friends.'
Skye walked away from the groans, and was amazed no one had come to see what the noise was about.
Natasha walked over to the injured students and glared at them. 'Looks like you didn't make the final cut, I'm sorry,' Tasha said, not showing the slightest bit of remorse behind her words. 'Get to the Med Bay before it closes.'
The next day, a new list was posted at breakfast, showing the final cut. People could not stop talking about who were going on the mission, but as five students walked in, bandaged and bruised, everyone stopped. Overall, they had a collection of 2 broken ribs, a broken wrist, nose, and 3 broken fingers, as well as 2 concussions. There was complete silence, until, the first voice spoke, and suddenly everyone was shouting, rumors were flying round.
The five wouldn't say what happened, obviously too embarrassed, but ten minutes later, it soon became clear as Skye entered the hall, to get something to eat. She was covered in fresh, red cuts, all down her arms, and had a dark blue black eye. As soon as she had passed the five, they limped and stumbled out of the room as fast as they could, fear on their faces. As she sat down next to Simmons, who looked at her with wide eyes.
'Are you okay?' she mouthed, and Skye nodded.
'Romanov saw what happened, she told us... thank you,' she continued tentatively.
Skye only nodded again, quiet, and continued with her food, but feeling sick to the stomach with every bite.
Hey guys, i'm soo sorry i haven't written in ages, i have been so busy with school, but i finished my History coursework today so i thought i deserved a break from school, and this is the product. I hope you like, We saw some bamf skye and hulk skye, but next chapter i think we need some confessional skye/simmons. I go on half term tomorrow so in between the revision, i will try to write (this fic and the others). Send a review of what you think. xx