Over the next week, Ethan's training progressed well. Clint was training him in the finer arts of hand to hand combat. He was progressing well on the knife combat and throwing, even though he had extensive training before SHIELD and Clint was also showing him how to be, in his words, "a sneaky little ninja."
This mainly involved Ethan trying to sneak up on Clint who was standing in the middle of a darkened room. Ethan quickly found out the Clint had some superhuman senses, being able to hear the faintest scuffle of his shoes or the quietest breath. Ethan was learning fast though, getting closer to Clint every time, until one try he was able to drop on Clint from above without Clint even noticing him moving.
He was also getting to know some members of the STIRKE teams as well, doing training sessions with them as well, mainly because Clint seems to think that they made good punching bags for sparring sessions as none of their hand to hand combat skills were a match for his. The news had gone around that Ethan was working for the good guys now, and people thought that that was good enough after seeing the dedication that Ethan was putting in.
His favourite sessions had to be the staff training though. As Clint put it, "where ever we go there will always be a drain pipe or a lead tube or something of the sort which could be used as a weapon so it would be useful to know how to fight with them." Ethan especially liked it because it was the first training he was given that he had never done at the Red Room, it obviously not being that high on their priorities.
He was progressing well, almost mastering the art by the end of the week. The long pole of wood or metal just felt perfect in his hands, he could swing it very quickly around, taking out multiple people at once, and the extra reach it gave him was useful considering his small build. Unfortunately it had lent to Clint calling Ethan "Triton", no matter how many times Ethan pointed out that Triton used a trident, not a quarterstaff.
Ethan had to admit that he was having a lot of fun down in the labs as well. He never considered himself to be that clever but it turns out that his advanced mental processing caused his mind to accelerate his learning patterns. In other words, he was really smart. Some of the scientists down there were a bit hesitant to have him in their labs, unqualified as he was. But when after a while, they realised that he wasn't trying to interfere and was just genuinely interested to learn they accepted him quite openly. He especially enjoyed his time with Dr Kleinehart, who headed the weapon research devision, though the fun there might have been something to do with the shared passion for explosions.
Ethan loved the availability of resources SHIELD had, and how easy they were to get a hold of in the weapons lab. It meant that he could make his passion project quite easily and with only a bit of help from Dr Kleinehart. Pulling out the metal tube, Ethan smiled because he couldn't wait to show Clint, and maybe beat the hell out of him with it as well.
Ethan walked into Barton's office with his new toy in his hand. It was a foot long metal tube that had several buttons down the length of it. The biggest central one that sat just under the palm of his right hand when holding it down extends both ends of the tube until he is holding a 6 foot staff. Some of the other features Ethan hadn't quite tested yet but he couldn't wait to see if they worked.
Ethan was about to start talking when Coulson walked into the office behind him.
"Are you two ready, you've got a mission" Ethan felt his heart race, this would be his first mission for SHIELD, was he ready for it or is this just another test to see I'm he is loyal or not.
Coulson turned to Ethan and looked him in the eye, Ethan couldn't see deception in them. "Agent Jacobs, I have this for you." Coulson held out a leather wallet. Ethan took it and opened it to see a shield ID and a badge with the eagle crest burnished in gold. "Congratulations, agent Barton has spoken highly of your training. Are you ready for this though, your first mission?"
Ethan looked at the badge, he smiled as he looked back to Coulson. "Yes Sir, thank you sir, I'm ready to get out there and do some good for a change."
"What is the mission though?" Clint was rifling through a draw in his desk, pulling out a few knives and what looked like a frag grenade.
"Agent Romanov has supplied information about an illegal weapons shipment coming in, top of the line stuff, and guarded by at least 8 mercs who have special forces training. They will be accompanying 3 tech workers who are there to ready the ordinance. Now get down to outfitting because it's wheels upon 5, I will be coordinating your strike from Control."
Clint immediately got up and started walking swiftly down the hallway, Ethan almost had to run to keep up. Once they reached their lockers, Clint dove into his to retrieve a metal recurve bow and quiver full of arrows. Ethan almost felt intimidated by the sight of Clint but knew that Clint was deadly accurate with his bow so he had nothing to fear from him.
"Where has Natasha been anyway? I haven't seen her for the last couple of weeks, not since my first day here." Ethan looked around for his own locker though he didn't think he had gotten one yet.
Clint just pulled him to a storage room, where he handed him a combat vest which provided some protection from bullets, though still being remarkably mobile. Ethan put a few knives in special slots and put his new staff in the special thigh holster he had made for it. He also grabbed the Glock 22 that he had been using in training sessions, holstering it safely.
"She said something about being Tony Stark's wetnurse and she didn't sound happy about it, though I don't know how she hasn't killed Stark yet, apparently that he is the worst sort of person, especially after he got all high and mighty about being Iron Man."
Ethan remember seeing news footage of Iron Man, that suit of armour looked so awesome, especially after he got to see its proper combat uses. Stark did have a lot of experience building weapons and he did know how to make them look flashy.
"Yeah that doesn't sound to much fun for her, then again Stark might make her life harder for her, especially after Monaco." The footage had come through just a few days earlier and Ethan didn't feel sorry for Nat if she had to keep Stark safe from electric whips, though it had given Ethan a new idea for a button on his staff.
After the two of them had suited up, they made there way to the hanger, which was on the top floor of the building. A Quinjet was waiting for them with the pilot already finishing his preflight checks. The moment they both were on board the jet took off.
"You gonna teach me how to fly one of these things?" Ethan said making Clint laugh. The jet felt odd to Ethan, it ran almost silently, with inertial dampeners that Ethan didn't even think existed outside of Sci-Fi films, which meant that the jet could preform advanced manoeuvres without the passengers feeling like they had done more than a small turn. "If you won't let me fly one of these, you have to let me at least drive the Lambo around at some point."
"Buy your own, SHIELD might actually pay you at soon, though I'm not quite sure what we would put on your drivers license." Their banter in the back of the jet quietened as Coulson came over the radio.
"UAV scans show that there are 9 hostiles in the dock, 4 are patrolling on board the boat and the other 5 are patrolling the dock. You are to terminate them quietly, and then secure the tech workers and the small boat crew. Everything clear."
Clint was the first to speak, "I will take out the boat and secure the ordinance onboard. Ethan you've got the dock, you ok with that?"
Ethan nodded as he felt the Quinjet touch down. The ramp descended as Ethan and Barton quickly got off. They were at the edge of the port, containers to one side of them and a chain fence on the other
"Line 1 secured, Hawkeyes ready to engage."
"Line 1 secure, Triton ready to engage."
"Hey Ethan, try not to get shot on your first mission, sets a bad precedent." With that, Barton ran of into the darkness.
Ethan jumped up onto a container, running silently across the top of it, crouching down at the edge of one when he spotted the weapons crates.
"I have a visual, 3 guards around the crates, two more patrolling and three civilians inspecting the crates, do I have permission to engage?"
Coulson came over the radio, "permission granted, good luck Triton."
Ethan didn't even wait for Coulson to finish before jumping down from the container, landing in an alley between to crates. He crouched behind a big man before jumping up on his back, pulling his arm across the guards head and falling of his back, bringing his neck around in a quiet snap.
The guard slumped to the floor and Ethan moved on, turning a corner and taking out the other patrolling guard in a similar fashion before running forward into the open and pulling out his Glock and executing the three remaining guards around the case. One of the techs tried to play a hero, pulling out a hidden pistol and firing at Ethan. He felt a slight pinch on his right arm, but ignored it as he ran forward at top speed. The three techs had wide eyes with shock at the boy flying at them, but they didn't have long to be scared as each was knocked cold in quick succession.
"Dock is secure, Clint you ok in there?" Ethan scanned the boat, trying to see what was going on inside.
"Almost, just give me a sec." Ethan fell back as an arrow imbedded itself in the container next to him. Barton zip lined down and landed deftly next to him.
Ethan scowled, "10 out of 10 for showing off, though your timings leave something to be improved."
"Yeah yeah smartarse, where are the weapons?" Ethan pointed at the three techies and the crates, two of the men where still out cold but the third was rolling around. Ethan walked over to him with Clint close behind.
Ethan kicked out at the man rolling on the floor, he groaned and curled up. Ethan pulled his arm and pushed him onto a crate. "Where are these weapons going, who ordered them?" Ethan's voice was deadly, like a viper about to strike.
The tech obviously valued his own life more than trade secrets so immediately stammered, "Hammer, Hammer Industry. He has something new, big drones who need guns, I don't know what they are for. Ok, just please leave me alone now..."
Ethan stepped away, pressing on his ear. "Coulson you read that? What are we dealing with?"
Coulson was quick on the reply, "Justin Hammer is Stark's closest competitor. The two have had a rivalry since school. This might be the link we needed to Ivan Vanko, that Russian whip guy from Monaco. Hammer is set to go on stage at Stark Expo in about ten minutes. Agent Romanov is already on the ground, but Triton, I'm sending you in as backup. You are ten minutes by jet, Hawk will deal with clean up from this raid. A STRIKE team will rendezvous with you there, you need to get moving now though."
Ethan started running to the jet, jumping up the ramp he yelled out, "get us in the air now," and the pilot didn't hesitate, taking off almost instantly. Ethan looked at the mission clock, he was ten minutes out meaning that Hammer would already be on stage when he arrived. He pulled out a communicator and found a number in the secure mission file and rang it.
"Hello? This is Pepper, who is this?" A loud voice came through the speaker, it sounded authoritative yet young, though she was almost screaming over the loud noises around her. Ethan guessed that she must be the sitting in the audience.
He gasped as he reached out to touch the screen, realising that that stinging on his arm was actually where a bullet cut into him. It was deeper than he thought though, his arm pumping out large amounts of blood. He grabbed a compression pad out from the medical box on board and wrapped it around his arm.
"Sorry Miss Potts, this is Agent Jacobs of SHIELD, would it be possible to put your assistant on the phone, this is a very urgent matter" Ethan heard the phone scuffling as was handed over.
"Ethan what is it? What's gone wrong?" Nat sounded worried, she must have thought that someone had been hurt.
"We found something, we've linked Hammer to drone weapon programs and they are armed heavily..." Ethan was cut off by a loud scream.
"I know, Hammer just unveiled them" Ethan could barely hear her over the cheering.
"No you you don't understand, they were made by Venko, those drones are more dangerous than you could know. You need to get to Hammer Industries, that's the most likely place that the signal is broadcasted from, I'm coming in to to pick up Hammer."
"Ok, I've got it, see you soon Ethan." The phone cut off as Ethan leaned out to look through the window. He could see the massive stadium where Hammer was just in time to see a figure flying out of the roof. It had to be Iron Man, nothing else was that small and that fast. At least Ethan thought that until he saw several other figures flying close behind him.
"Get me as close to the stadium as you can." Ethan patched himself through to the STRIKE team, "I want you on the ground, clear the area and protect civilians. Do not try to engage hostiles, they are armed and severely dangerous." Ethan was pleasantly surprised when he heard conformations through the radio, expecting the team to hesitate at him giving orders.
The Jet sat down just outside of the main doors and Ethan ran inside, a huge amount of people were running away from the stadium. Ethan pushed against the crowd, finally managing to run through a staff door which led backstage. From the explosions he could hear behind him as he ran, the machines were making a mess of Stark's expo.
He ran into an area backstage which was filled with computers and had two people in expensive suits yelling at each other. They had to be Pepper Potts and Hammer. Ethan ran forward pulling out his gun as he ran.
"Step away from the computer Hammer" the man reeled at the voice turning to see Ethan walking towards him with his gun out. "You are under arrest for extortion, robbery, gun smuggling and terrorism."
Hammer just smirked, as if he saw the funny side, "what kid? I'm seriously supposed to believe that you could arrest me and anyway you can't seriously blame me for this, I've got nothing to do with these drones going wild"
"Can it Hammer, I just came from the docks and I found some quite interesting things there, though I dare say that they won't be falling into your hands anytime soon." Hammer's smile faulted, realising the game was up he turned to make a run for it but Pepper stuck out her leg causing him to fall.
"Nicely done Miss Potts, eliminating the competition." He said from the floor. Ethan smiled at her as he tied Hammer's hands together with a bit of wire from a computer. He turned to a man sitting at a computer, "Are you the drone operator?" When the man nodded Ethan motioned for him to get up and Ethan sat down at the computer. He pulled out his communicator and keyed it into the frequency the mission was using.
"Coulson do you read me, I'm at drone control but it's Venko used his own language to make the program, it's also in Russian by the way." Ethan was furiously typing on a keyboard, windows flashing by on it. Computer hacking was like riding a bike, you didn't forget how to do it.
Coulson's voice came through the speaker, "can you stop them from there?"
"No, I've only got access to basic functions from here, Ivan has the Hammer techs out of the loop."
Pepper lent in close over his shoulder, "aww Phil, it's good to hear your voice. You know where Hammer's office is? That's where Venko must be."
It was Ethan who replied, "Agent Romanov... Er I mean Natalie is already on route, she should be in by now." Ethan pressed another button on his communicator, accessing the frequency Nat and Stark were on.
"Romanov, do you read me, are you in Hammer yet? Is Venko there?"
He heard Nat's voice strained over the radio, "gimme a minute." Ethan heard the sound of a man being chocked out and then defiantly the sound of electricity and two more men's screams. "I'm in, no sign of Venko though."
"Good, you needed to find his computer and give me access to the drone controls" Ethan waited for less than a minute before his computer flashed up with more screens, he had access to ten drones. His hands started flying across the keyboard again, trying to crack the crazy Russian security that Venko had put in place.
Pepper lent in again across his shoulder, "Sooo, it's Agent Romanov now is it? I suppose I'm not surprised, your resume really was too good, and nobody really speaks Latin."
"solum cum amicis meis epularer" Ethan smirked whilst Pepper scowled. Ethan`s latin was excellent, it came from reading so many books in the language as he was growing up
"so you are just a miniature of Natalie then Agent Jacobs? I take it that is your real name or are you too much of a spy to even have a proper name?" Ethan smirked again from hearing Pepper called Nat 'Natalie'.
Ethan watched through the onboard cameras of the drones as Stark and his sidekick steadily took out the drones one by one, ending in a massive showdown where Stark ended up using a massive laser to cut through a dozen of the robots at once. Ethan lost the feed after that and turned to face Pepper. he heard through his communicator had secured the area and were awaiting orders.
"Another team is here to bring them all in, I want them in holding cells within the hour.'' Ethan knew that most of the techs were innocent but they had helped a mad man and a Russian almost kill a lot of people so a night in a cell might do them some good.
Suddenly Stark's voice came through the comms. "Venko is down, I repeat Venko is down, but he's rigged all the machines to blow, everyone needs to get outta there now."
Ethan swivelled back around, able to see on his screen that the drone where indeed set to blow. he furiously mashed into the keyboard, typing commands so quickly that his hands started to blur. "Oh no you don't, I'm not letting you win today."
A small timer starting at 10 appeared in the top left hand corner of the screen and was quickly counting down. With half a second left Ethan finally broke through and the countdown stopped. Ethan leaned back in his chair whistling.
"Nicely done boy scout." Tony Stark, wearing an Iron Man suit was standing right behind him.
Ethan stood up as he turned around, holding out his hand for Stark. "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr Stark, I'm Agent Jacobs"
"What's Fury doing letting boy scouts into SHIELD, I though you lot were meant to be all sneaky spy's and stuff. What do you do, put cameras in the cookie boxes?" Ethan now could see why Clint had mentioned about Nat killing Stark.
"Just ignore him, he's always an as-" Pepper was cut of as Stark swept her off of her feet and kissed her. Ethan smirked at the surprised look on Pepper's face, this was obviously not the norm.
"I'll just... um go wait outside." Ethan grabbed Hammer, lifting him up and pushing him out the front door. The STRIKE team had already gone back to base, not wanting to confront the media which was just arriving so Ethan handed over Hammer to the NYPD that were waiting, ignoring the odd looks they gave him, even after he flashed his SHIELD badge.
His communicator bleeped and he groaned. "What is it?" Stark and Pepper had come outside to find him.
"No rest for the wicked, I've been ordered to escort you two home to Malibu."
"Yeah we really don't need that, Pepper bring the plane around." Stark just waved his hand through the air, Ethan couldn't decide whether he was joking or not.
"I'm sorry Mr Stark, I've been ordered to take you both home on our SHIELD Quinjet. Im sure you will find it perfectly comfortable. If you would step this way please." Ethan walked over to where the Quinjet was parked, feeling sorry for his Pilot who now had another two or three hour flight ahead of him.
Once the two passengers where inside the Jet immediately took off. Pepper looked over at Ethan.
"So, Agent Jacobs, how did you get started at SHIELD, and if I might add so young as well, you can't be more that 16?" Pepper looked interested, Ethan couldn't tell if she was actually interested or just polite.
"Please Miss Potts, call me Ethan. Im sorry though, how I was recruited is classified. All I can say is that I have a... Unique skill set and SHIELD helped me to put it to good use, and I'm only 15, my birthday isn't till next week."
"Well Fury has you trained well doesn't he, perfect little spy, won't say a word." Tony's voice was rude but that might just come from him being a billionaire, used to getting what he wanted.
He was fiddling with the arm of his suit, looking at the firing mechanism of a missile that would come out of his arm.
"What's the problem. Is it with the firing mechanism?" Tony just scowled at Ethan
"I doubt you would understand, its just that a basic electromagnet which triggers the servo to move the arm also warps the metal around this fir-"
"and you need to figure out how to stop the polarising effect because it could mess with the propulsion system. All you need is a small circuit in there that will reverse the electron flow and neutralise the magnetism" Tony's eyes turned from annoyance to confusion and then laughter before turning to Pepper.
"Can we keep him, pretty please" Ethan and Pepper both laughed. Ethan seemed to have won a seal of approval from Tony Stark, though he wasn't quite sure how good a sign that was.
The rest of the flight went by Tony and Ethan talking about improvements that could be made to the suit whilst Pepper was working away on her phone. To Ethan it sounded like she had just bought most of Hammer Industries but he may have been wrong.
They landed on the driveway of Starks house not long after. "Don't be a stranger boy scout, I'm going to get you out to Stark tower in New York after its finished, top ten floors, all R&D, you would love it."
"Thanks for everything you've done, I don't know where we would be if you at Nat hadn't shown up like you did."
The two passengers quickly got off. Ethan was surprised when Coulson got on though.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were still in New York" Coulson just smiled at him.
