Ethan woke up early the next day, the sun had barely risen and he couldn't hear a sound in the house, Nat and Phil had gone home, but they barely lived ten minutes away so that didn't matter much.

Breathing deeply he got up and silently went downstairs. Lacing up his trainers he opened the front door before realising that Clint would freak if he was missing, so he scribbled a note out and then left.

Ethan loved the feeling running gave him, everything breezing past. He could let all his distractions go as he sped up. People were turning to watch as he ran by. He was running faster than most sprinters and yet he had already been running for 45 minutes.

After an hour he arrived back at Clint's house and knocked on the door. It was quickly opened by Lilia who pulled at him. Apparently she had wanted to watch cartoons with him but it was to late now.

They walked through to the dinning room where Clint and Laura were talking. After he entered they both stopped their conversation and turned to him.

"How was your run?" Laura's voice was friendly but Ethan realised that he had interrupted something. "Sit down, Clint made waffles. You two've got a big day ahead of you."

"It felt good, thanks" Laura looked sadly at him, Ethan was worried that he had offended her, he wasn't used to thanking people so he quickly moved on. "What were we doing today, are we stating training?"

Laura flashed an evil grin. "Ha, no today you get the day off, both of you are gonna spend the day with me and Nat, which means both of you are coming shopping!"

Clint groaned but Ethan felt a spark of excitement in him, his first day in normal society.

Shopping actually turned out quite well. Once Nat realised that Ethan didn't have anything but the clothes on his back, she managed to buy an entire wardrobe for him. He got hoodies, jeans, t-shirts and trousers, as well as some formal shirts and even a tie.

"I could get into anywhere with these clothes, I could look so different just by changing shirts." Ethan was rifling through the pile on the counter.

"Did you pick anything out?" Clint's eyes were questioning.

"I didn't see anything else that would be useful. Most of the clothes don't have pockets or are to thin or-" Clint cut him off by raising his hand

"Did you not see anything that you liked?" Ethan looked confused at Clint

"What do you mean? Just buying something for no reason?" He had a really puzzled face on, like what Clint was saying was an alien language

Clint just sighed, "basically, yeah. Most people if they see something they like, that's what influences them to buy it."

"What that's just dumb. If somethings not useful or efficient why don't people get rid of it." Clint looked at him. Ethan felt as if he had said something wrong, this commercial world was difficult to break into. "I'm sorry if I-"

Ethan was surprised when it was Laura who spoke, "You should never feel bad about learning what the real world is like Ethan, it won't help you if you constantly feel bad. I think it's great that you get to see what life would be like if you hadn't grown up like you did." Laura gave him another warm smile, before pulling out her phone. "Oh shoot, I've gotta run Clint, they need me at the hospital, look after him. And don't buy any more guns, we've got enough already" She kissed Clint on the cheek before running off, though Clint just scowled at her,

"Someone can never have to many guns"

Nat, Ethan and Clint walked around the shopping mall for another hour, Ethan looking into shop windows and marvelled at some of the most mundane things.

"How can a shop only sell shoes, does it even stay in business?" Clint just smiled at Ethan, he wasn't looking forward to explaining girls to him

After the long walk around the shops, the trio went to find coffee and a place where they could talk quietly.

"We need to find out some things about you now Ethan, like the Red Room, or the work you did." Ethan almost smiled at Barton. Ethan braced himself, he was ready for it knowing it had to be coming.

"My full name is Ethan Jacobs. The Red Room took me when I was four. They killed my dad and then they had me tortured. What they did to me, it made my mind stronger in different ways. It made me a lot smarter, I wouldn't called myself the cleverest person but I pick things up quite quickly." Clint had the feeling that the boy was being modest about himself.

"When I lived back in the Red Room, my bunk had a small cot and a mat in it, all the bathrooms where shared and my closest one was down the hall. I didn't share it with anyone though, I was alone in my corridor. At least towards the end. It was better to keep an eye on him, though it was good that the boy was opening up about his previous life a bit now.

"What else can you tell us?" Nat said quietly.

"You know what the training was like. The work, the PT... the Arenas." Ethan said stuttering slightly.

"They pit you against girls?" Nat asked but Ethan just dropped eye contact with her. He obviously didn't want to relive that yet though he might tell them one day.

The day passed by quickly after that. After getting home Ethan had sat down in the living room only to be assaulted by Cooper who was wearing his combat fatigues and then jumped on by Lilia who insisted that he helped her with her maths homework. He would be fine, it turns out that early school maths is quite easy.

Clint helped Laura make dinner, and set the table for the whole family. Phil and Nat weren't coming over that night.

After what felt like a long day for he finally flopped into bed.

He was walking down the corridor. He remembered this place, the training centre... His training centre. She stood at the end of the corridor. With her smile that did nothing to conceal the evil that was clearly deep inside.

She stood and motioned for Ethan to come to her but Ethan shook his head. He wouldn't go, wouldn't go back to her. He had escaped and left, suddenly he was grabbed from behind

Ethan flung himself up in bed, he was covered in a cold sweat, a hand was holding his shoulder. He grabbed hold of it, swinging around, ready to break the attackers arm. But he quickly tensed as he realised that It was Clint who was holding him.

Ethan quickly let go and scrambled backwards. Clint looked with concerned eyes. "Do you want to talk about it? Your nightmare, I found you tossing and turning, covered in cold sweat."

Ethan shook his head, "it was just a bad dream, I'm fine." He looked up at Clint, half expecting him to run away but Clint just turned around and walked out the door, calling behind him

"Better hurry downstairs, breakfast is ready and training begins today."

It felt very different for Ethan, walking into SHIELD HQ for the second time, walking forward with Clint and passing through the barriers using his temporary ID. Everyone around him shot him strange looks, but Ethan saw some glares as well. Not everyone knew who he was but the news would trickle out fast, and then he was going to be a hated man in the building.

Walking to the lift, they climbed quickly to a mid level floor in SHIELD. The elevator opened into a gym that was full of huge men and women, most of them at least twice Ethan's size and Ethan noticed that several were lifting weights heavier than him. He realised that this is where the STRIKE teams that where based in New York liked to hang out.

Ethan remembered learning about STRIKE. It had been a part of his training, to learn the strengths and weaknesses of his enemy.

They looked at him as he stepped out of the lift. At least in here Ethan knew that he wasn't welcome. There must have been four STRIKE teams in the room and all of them knew what he was, at least that was what the glares indicated.

He quickly followed Clint as he crossed the room to a firing range that filled the back quarter of the floor.

"We need to start by seeing what you can do, I know your training must have been extensive but I've got to know if there are any gaps in it that I have to plug." Clint walked to a storage locker that was open against a wall, he reached in an pulled out a huge Glock 23 pistol. He threw it to Ethan who caught it nimbly.

Ethan checked the magazine and was surprised to see it loaded with live rounds. Clint obviously had put some trust into him, to let him run around with a loaded gun. He walked over to the firing range.

"You've got six shots, we can total your score at the end. 10 for a headshot 5 for a body and 1 for any other part of the target, you can start when you were ready."

Ethan had already started firing before Clint had finished talking, causing everyone nearby to jump, including Clint. Ethan had shot all 6 bullets in rapid succession, leaving no time to readjust or even to breath out.

Once the smoke had cleared, Clint pressed a button on a console which brought the target closer. Ethan was pleased with the reaction he got out of Clint, the agent hadn't hidden the look of surprise on his face at all. Ethan had scored a perfect 60 points, the bullet holes where close enough together that it was debatable if he had fired more than one or two shots, as the rest had just passed through the hole that had already been made.

Clint just laughed an turned away, "ha, Nat won't be pleased when she hears how you beat her shooting record when she first tried that, come on we've still got plenty of other tests to run."

The rest of Clint's test pasted in much the same manner, with Ethan scoring maximum marks in each case. Ethan ran the obstacle course in record time, managed to score full marks on a theory paper set on gun mechanics and weapons handling and even fared quite well when he two of them did some one on one sparing. Though Clint really started enjoying himself when Ethan first met STRIKE team Alpha.

Ethan and Clint had gone over to the gym section of the training floor to complete some basic strength exercises, Ethan was much stronger then he appeared to be, lifting almost 100kg which couldn't be far off of double his total weight. Ethan felt a bit uneasy as a group of STRIKE team members had peeled of from their normal exercises to watch his progress.

Ethan didn't realise but there was a extreme competitive streak in these burly men and women and so when he started on the chin up bar, 4 others decided to join him. All of them where from strike team alpha, Ethan could see an alpha symbol on their workout shirts, and they all had 150lbs on him.

Ethan was surprised when he heard Barton callout to them, "this isn't going to end well for you Rumlow, even if you don't have any testosterone left in your body anyway." The only answer the biggest man gave, who Ethan realised must have been Rumlow, the leader of alpha team, was to take one hand off and start doing 1 arm chin ups.

Ethan wasn't about to let the challenge go unmet so he took one hand off the bar. After about 40 chin-ups, the other three members of Rumlow's team had all given up but Ethan barely felt any exhaustion in him. At around sixty, Ethan started to feel as if his arm was becoming strained, how the hell was Rumlow still going?

75... 76... 77... 78...

Ethan could keep going for much longer, though his fingers where now starting to go numb from gripping the bar so tightly. He looked across as Rumlow, who now has a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. Ethan looked around to see the whole floor had gone quiet to watch the battle that was going on.

95... 96... 97...

All of a sudden Rumlow fell of the bar and collapsed on the floor. Ethan smiled as he dropped down, looking around and the group of people who all had shocked looks on their faces, all except for Barton who was just sniggering.

"He's barely out of breath..."

"Rumlow just ran out of energy, how's that even happen..."

"Is this kid even real..."

Ethan just walked over to where Rumlow was slumped now, massaging his arm and breathing deeply. Ethan held out a hand and Rumlow reached up to grab it, pulling himself up on Ethan.

"Well kid" Rumlow's voice was hoarse from exhaustion, "You want to do some good?"

Ethan didn't breath, he knew that if Rumlow didn't accept him, than none of the strike team would and he would be an outcast for-

"Welcome to SHIELD" Rumlow interrupted Ethan's thoughts and caused a wave of relief and happiness to wash over Ethan as everyone around him started applauding and cheering.