sorry about that. i don't know why it glitched out. anyway, here is your originally scheduled chapter. enjoy because oof this is a long one.
The actual SHIELD place that we were to spend our probation at was down in DC, so we had to catch the plane. I'm gonna be honest, as a first time user of an airport, it was not fun for me.
Ugh. People. There was this one kid who kicked the back of my chair for the entire four hours from New York to Washington, and another lady who was vaguely strumming something (or playing a ukulele song on her phone) for the whole fucking flight. Who the fuck plays the ukulele on a plane? Also the turbulence was insane, jolting us up and down almost constantly. Not gonna lie, it felt like the pilot was trying to murder us or something. Which did wonders for my seemingly perpetually frayed nerves, I'm tellin' ya.
Anyway. I spent the entire trip in the pressurised tin can being flung across the upper atmosphere at stupid speeds, trying not to commit a murder.
All in a day's work, I guess.
Clint and I stumbled out of the airport at the other end, hoping that Coulson has had the foresight to book us a taxi or something. Turns out that he hadn't booked a car, but had sent out someone to collect us. The short dude that was picking us up, Jasper, as he called himself, was bald and annoying - much like a naked mole rat. He grinned weakly at us. His whiteboard read 'Mr Jackson and Mr Barton' in messy capitals.
"That's us." Clint spoke up, surprisingly.
Jasper beckoned us towards the car park, before ushering us into one of those fancy black sedans that like to pretend that they aren't related to the government in any way, shape or form. I took rather too much satisfaction in chucking my bag into the boot in as untidy a way as I could before I got in. Clint did much the same before cramming himself into the back of the car (he'd had a growth spurt those past couple of months and now he was tALLER THAN ME and it was just so unfair? Why do all of these things happen to me? But one upside of his sudden growth was that he kept walking into things and he hadn't quite got his coordination with his now-longer limbs, so he was quite easy to trip up.).
"So," Jasper started a meaningless conversation, "how did you guys get recruited to become field agents?" His teeth were bared at us semi-menacingly in his rear-view mirror.
"Oh, I'm the regional swimming champion and semi-fluent in Russian." I provided my explanation of what I think Coulson was thinking.
"I'm an assassin." Clearly Clint's mission was to intimidate Jasper as much as possible.
The aforementioned driver's eyes widened slightly and he glanced back at one of the world's deadliest assassins sitting in the back of his car, who was picking his nails boredly. His voice only had a slight tremor when he answered with, "That's nice. So SHIELD decided that they wanted you to work for us instead of just killing people for cash?"
Clint snorted a little. "Well, if you beat 'em, join 'em, and all that." He glanced up, fixing his Scary Intense Stare™ on him in the mirror.
Jasper looked hastily back at the road, fingers clenched around the wheel rather too tightly. I heard the engine whine in complaint as he pressed down a little harder on the accelerator. "So, regional swimming champion? And the Russian?" he said, hastily steering away from the subject of Clint (as well as literally from the motorway). The car stayed in high gear, obviously breaking the speed limit. But hey, maybe SHIELD privileges extended to being above petty laws about speed limits as well as the larger ones to do with murder.
"I've always loved to swim and am really glad that I managed to go far after I had to quit for a while because we couldn't afford it. And a friend of ours is Russian and I wanted to join her in judging people but them having no clue what we're saying."
"Ah." Jasper swallowed audibly as he pulled across a road towards a large set of buildings by a lake. "Here we are." He pulled into a loading bay outside the biggest and got out of the car, Clint and I quickly following. We grabbed our bags from the back of the car before hurrying towards the doors of the building.
"Your quarters for probation are on the fifth floor. You'll be called to separate floors if you are needed for missions, or otherwise. There will be a briefing at 1800; meet in the lobby, and you would do well to be on time this time around." He glanced nervously at Clint, who narrowed his eyes a little at him. "Boss's words, not mine!" he yelped.
Clint nodded curtly, eyes still narrowed, as we pushed open the glass doors. Jasper did a little sort of bob and pretty much legged it.
Clint somehow, somehow, held it together until we crashed open the doors of the stairs (after being pointed to them by the receptionist, who looked unimpressed when we asked for the lift). As soon as the heavy fire door closed behind us, he collapsed in fits of laughter. "You had to've seen his face!"
I chuckled in agreement before looking up at the flights of stairs above us. "So, fifth floor lobby. And we have to take the stairs." I started at them at a jog, preparing myself for the hard exercise that we were going to be forced into for the rest of our careers (read: lives. You don't exactly just retire from this line of work. You get retired. Usually by a machine gun.) Clint quickly followed and overtook me as we reached the second floor, using his (really long) legs to run quicker than me.
I sighed, deciding to play dirty in order to win. As we rounded the next flight, me still hot on his heels, I slung my duffel low and hard at his ankles.
Clint cursed, stumbling forward, still quite uncoordinated thanks to his growth spurt. Fortunately, he didn't fall and break his nose, but he stumbled significantly enough for me to dash past him and continue to pound up the stairs two at a time.
We hit the fifth floor almost at the same time and burst through the double doors to find the rest of our training group staring at our red faces. I grinned at Jason, James and Graham in their corner
Clint broke the silence. "Hey guys! Any idea where the dorms are?" The cheerful look that he painted onto his face was so false that I wanted to burst out laughing again, but the slightly steely glint in his eyes was mildly terrifying, and I was his friend.
Some random guy pointed wordlessly down the corridor. Clint gave his best shark like smile as we passed him, and he flinched minutely. Either Clint's real background was known, or he was just really good at being scary. We sprinted down the corridor, hoping that we'd have separate rooms, but no such luck.
I swung the door with our names on it open to reveal another bare bunk room that looked like it was sleeping the five of us. Excellent. I don't love my privacy at all. Like honestly, I love Clint; I really do, and the others were okay, but just we're adults; why can't we have our own fucking rooms?
I dumped my stuff on the closest free bed and Clint followed suit, before racing back down the corridor to meet the others. Coulson was already there, glaring at us disapprovingly. "Now that Barton and Jackson have returned, we can get on with business." He dusted off his hands on his suit's trousers. "This is SHIELD. You are the best in the world." Graham exchanged a look with James of what appeared to be wry disbelief. "The next three months will be hell for all of you; you will work harder than you have at any point in your life. If you are successful, you will leave your probation period as a fully-fledged junior field agent. If you are not, a desk job will await you. This is just as vital as any other role in the company, but just no playing Galaga on my watch." He gave the faintest hint of a smile. "Each week, you will have five hours of language lessons, seven of self-defence, three of shooting and weaponry, and five of research and learning. Being a field agent is not all fun and games, despite what films like Bond and Bourne might make you think. There's a lot less glamour, and the likelihood is that you will get killed or injured too badly to return to the field. The average career length of a field agent is three years." He stared down at us sternly. "Your food will be served in the dining hall at 1900 sharp and then free time will be from 2000 until 2200, then probation mandatory curfew will be at 2230. This will remain the same throughout this time period.
"Occasionally, a few of you will be sent on missions. Earlier on in training, it will be practice missions; later on, it will be serious missions that are appropriate for your clearance level. That will probably mean low-level surveillance missions without engaging or protective details, but those with particularly honed skill sets," his gaze paused for a microsecond on Clint, "may be sent on hits. We will see, I suppose." He clapped his hands together. "Well, we are going to head down to the shooting range now to sort out your equipment and to do your initial assessments."
Yikes, that did not sound promising for me, as someone who had never touched a gun before.
Coulson turned and left through a plain grey door, swiping a card, which led to another corridor. We followed nervously.
This should be fun.
o0O0o
It turns out that Clint is not only good with a bow, he is also fucking fantastic with a gun. There was an array of different ones of varying sizes and terrifying-ness, of which we had to give them all a try.
Clint picked each one up (Coulson made him go first for some reason), flipped it over, thoroughly studying it, held it up to his eye so he could look through the scope, tossed it up and down a couple of times (which terrified the rest of us to death), then loaded it without any discernible effort, aimed, and shot the entire volley into the bullseye of the target.
For every single gun.
There was a small bin at the end of the range with 'MISC' printed on it in huge letters. Once Clint had finished and set the bar at the ceiling, Coulson asked if he wanted to have a look through it and try shooting something a bit random.
Clint beamed when he fished out the recurve. Beamed, I'm telling you. "Excellent," he muttered before grabbing a couple of arrows from the back wall and nocking one of them between the notches in the bowstring.
I heard a couple of other recruits mutter "Is he crazy?" behind me as Clint pulled the bowstring back to his ear and let loose the arrow. It hit the perfect centre of the target he was looking at. He nocked the other arrow in the direction of the same target. My breath caught in my throat as I realised what he was going to do; he was going to 'Robin Hood' this shit and split the arrow. I hoped that Coulson wouldn't mind. The arrow went flying towards the target and hit it dead centre, thus splitting his previous arrow, the fletching hanging to the left and right of the shot.
I heard Graham mutter 'yikes' as Clint turned around and took a mocking bow as the rest of us stood there in stunned silence. Coulson smiled the strongest smile I'd seen him give anyone. "Who wants to go next? There is no pressure; Clint here has already had some quite rigorous training in handling weapons and we do not expect anyone to get a perfect score on their first assessment."
One of the other recruits stepped up to shoot, while Clint returned to the group of us huddled at the back of the range. James clapped him on the back. "Rigorous training, huh? What does that mean?"
Clint's gaze darkened. "It means that life in the circus isn't a picnic. You learn how to learn fast."
James swallowed audibly and gave an awkward "okay", before backing off again. We watched quietly as the other recruits each had their go at shooting at the targets that had been practically destroyed by Clint's volley of bullets. Coulson eventually coughed out a "Mr Edwards" and James stepped up to the shooting line, hands shaking as they gripped the gun. He made a little muttering noise as he released the safety and let the bullet loose. His hands didn't stop shaking and the bullet went into the target to his right. Agent Coulson made a noise under his breath as he made notes on his clipboard.
He smiled as he called my name: "Jackson". I'm not sure why; did he actually expect me to be good because Clint was? I stepped up to the mark, hoping with all my being that I wouldn't miss completely. I positioned my stance like Clint had: standing dead straight on and grasping the butt of the gun with both hands, knees a little bit bent but trying not to look like I was sitting on the toilet.
I drew the gun towards me again and clicked a little slide on the side, next to the trigger. Then I aimed and prayed that it was a semi-automatic.
Okay, so I was right in not locking my arms straight because that recoil was painful.
I squinted through the dust at the target, shocked to find that I had clipped the outer edge of the innermost ring. Not a bullseye by a long shot, but not bad given that I had never held a gun in my entire life.
Graham clapped as he stepped forward to grab the gun from me. His go wasn't quite so successful as mine, just hitting the edge of the target, but not missing horrifically.
Coulson gave a sort of half-aborted clap and said, "Right then, that's all done. Next!"
Jason walked over, looking like he thought the gun would attack him. "Okay," he murmured, "you can do this." He slipped off the safety and shot at the target as quickly as he could, dropping the gun at the recoil. He chuckled nervously. "Well, that packs a punch." He squinted at the target. "Where's the bullet gone?! He leaned into Graham, trying to establish a clear location for the hole in the target.
Coulson hummed as he made more notes on his clipboard.
Jason continued to squint at the target for a few more seconds. Coulson cleared his throat a little. "Just outside the seven-o'clock," he said softly. Jason nodded as he found the hole, which wasn't actually on the target.
Agent Coulson then turned to the rest of us. "Tomorrow will be capabilities testing - physical, psychological and emotional. Then we'll have some tests for intelligence and language aptitude, determining which language you will be learning and, thus, which region of the globe that you will be assigned to later in your career. I suggest that you all get showered fairly quickly. Dinner doesn't wait."
Then he swept out.
We clamoured after him before the door closed and left us stuck.
o0O0o
The 'aptitude tests' were actually like psychoanalysis from a professional psychologist, which was absolutely terrifying. She towered over me in her wire-rimmed glasses as she wrote notes on her clipboard. "Have you been through any trauma, Perseus?"
Besides being called Perseus? "My stepfather was murdered in 2012, which was pretty traumatic for me and my mum. Uh, my dad's never been around. I was almost kidnapped a couple of times as a child. I've been mugged a few times, and my stepfather abused me for approximately seven years." I breezed through the list as quickly as possible, trying to ignore the stinging sensation in my tear ducts as I hit the final point.
The shrink nodded curtly and made a note on her clipboard. "So, Perseus, would you say that these events have in any way affected your daily life?"
I snorted loudly and rudely at that. "Yeah, I'd say so. Not super seriously, but I do have minor trust issues. You know, just a little." Sarcasm dripped from my voice; my usual defensive reflexes kicking in at even a hint of vulnerability.
"Okay, have you had any issues with health or anything?"
I blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Not particularly. I've had a few broken bones, but nothing of much consequence."
The psychologist pressed further, "Which bones?"
"Nose, leg, collarbone, wrist and probably ribs, but my movement hasn't really been affected by that much. "
"Interesting." A couple more notes were made on The Clipboard.
I sat there awkwardly in silence, bouncing my leg to try to make the time go faster, as she just wrote stuff down on her clipboard. God, I felt like Will Hunting in one of those weird silent therapy sessions. She looked up suddenly, clearly surprised to see that I was still there. "You can go now." She made a shooing motion with her left hand, still writing with her right.
I stood up awkwardly and left quietly, trying not to let the door make any sound.
The pen scratching stopped for a brief moment as I left, then resumed with extra fervour.
I closed the door as silently as I could. I had quite a lot of experience in moving quietly, so it wasn't too hard, especially since the door was fairly new and not too creaky.
Onto the next tests then.
o0O0o
Physical testing was hell. Ah, yes, not only did we make you do a ton of this stuff at your little introductory week, we're gonna make you do it again, but this time with a 25 kg rucksack on; thanks, SHIELD.
But hey, they made us swim again, so that was chill. Unfortunately, it was also with the aforementioned rucksack, because you 'need to be able to swim to safety with all of your gear' like you wouldn't just ditch it instead of drowning.
But then came 'linguistic capabilities testing', or whatever the bullshit was called, which of course Clint aced, because he apparently speaks every language under the sun.
The section where you had to listen to sections of a made-up language and work out what they were saying was, I found, weirdly easy. Also, don't put Cyrillic transliteration into a test where at least three people are fluent in Russian. That's just stupid.
Then came the universally dreaded 'problem solving' exam. All of us were told to sit in a room and one by one were called through a dark grey door. Nobody came back through it again, so I sort of just assumed that they were going out a back way and SHIELD weren't murdering their new recruits, because that would be kind of counterintuitive.
Coulson looked down at his list and smiled faintly as he said my full name. "Perseus."
I sighed deeply, sinking further into the chair for a moment before standing up and following him through the door. Inside was what looked like a training room, maybe. Or a concert hall. The ceiling was high-vaulted, steel rafters exposed. The walls were bare, but held what looked like attachments for climbing ropes or clip-in ladders, maybe.
Coulson led me to the very centre of the room, where a cross was marked out by two strips of yellow tape. I was asked to stand there and shut my eyes until I heard a signal. He didn't tell me what said signal would be. I stood there for about an age, before hearing a faint rumble. "What the fuck?"
Coulson had apparently disappeared and I was left on my own, with no on to answer my question.
So I opened my eyes, and nearly jumped out of skin to see myself surrounded by smooth grey walls that, upon touching them (because why not) felt like a weird plastic composite thing.
So I guess I had a problem: surrounded by fifteen-foot walls with no discernible foot or handholds. The walls were too far apart to brace one foot on each and frog-hop. Yay.
Now to solve.
I placed the palm of my hand on the wall and walked slowly around in a circle, trying to find a join in it which might be weaker or serve as a foothold. There! A tiny notch was in the corner of one of the walls. I poked my finger at it, hoping that there might be something inside. Whoopdeedoo, I was in luck. I felt a small metal item.
Okay, so sticking my finger in it may have also have given me an electric shock. My hair frizzed out in all directions. Oops.
So, yeah, it was electric.
I scanned the floor, trying to find something that wasn't me to poke in the hole and try and short out the system. I spotted the yellow tape that they had forced me to stand on at the beginning of the task and grabbed it, bundling one strip into a ball and holding onto the other one for later. I shoved my little wad of gaffa tape into the hole and watched as the walls fell instantly, revealing another set of barriers. So, I didn't short the circuit, but hey; it was a button so all was well.
Except that these walls were taller. I looked around the barren space again, eyes locking on a small sort of fracture in the wall. I ran over to it and pushed my fingers in, grabbing the section and pulling it has hard as I could. Ah, yes, a secret door, a very sensible place to keep anything important.
The door swung forward to reveal a set of ropes and couple of paper files. I grabbed the files first and flipped through them, hoping for some kind of clue. There: a set of blueprints for expanding walls. I flicked through the prints, looking for the section with the secret door, hoping that it would give me a clue about what else this section was hiding.
So, it wasn't going to be quite that easy, I noted, upon seeing that the precise section of the blueprints had been neatly cut out. However, the remains of the drawings of a couple of fixtures on the walls remained. My head rocketed to look upward as I tried to work out if I could feasibly put the ropes into said fixtures.
I could fling it and hope.
Yeah, why not.
Okay, so five minutes and a rather potent headache later, and I decided that my tactic maybe wasn't working. I rotated the blueprints, seeing if I could get any information from them in some sort of stupid invisible/hard to see message.
I wondered if the numbers written as lengths and other values were actually accurate.
There was a little scribble right in the bottom corner of the page, but it was written in very small and spidery writing, so my dyslexic brain didn't have a chance at deciphering it in the poor lighting of my nice cage.
I lay the rope on the floor and measured the length by arm-spans, passing it through my hands as I did. It was six spans, and I was about 6 foot, so that was 36 feet of rope, give or take. If I chucked the rope and the top just grazed the top of the wall, a little bit of rope was left coiled. After another measurement, this proved to be more than two spans but less than three, so probably about 15 feet.
So 21 foot walls. That's a lot of wall.
I studied the blueprint again, checking the numbers. The scale said that this set of walls should only be 12 feet high, so that was an issue.
12 feet…
I scanned the wall at halfway up, looking for anything that could resemble a join or discolouring.
There was nothing. I studied the tip of my rope, surprised to see that there was a slight glint of something metallic buried a little way in.
Maybe it was magnetic. I swung the rope at the 12-foot mark (or thereabouts), absolutely shocked to see it stick. I tugged a little, but it didn't give, so proceeded to yank myself up the wall.
Success! Or, maybe not, but hey. I got to 12 feet and was just wondering how I was going to make it up the second 12 feet when the wall just dropped. I ended up lying on the slightly-sprung floor of the training room, very winded, as the wall slid neatly back into the corner of hell that it crawled from and Coulson reappeared, making a note on his damn clipboard as if nothing had just happened.
Spies, hey?
o0O0o
About half of the trainees 'dropped out of' (were dropped from) the program after that particular bit of rigorous testing. It was down to twelve of us, which felt a bit intense; clearly this spy organisation didn't need that many spies.
Coulson paced in front of us. "You are now officially out of training and into the probationary period. This means that you have all been upgraded to Level 3. Congratulations, agents." Pardon? Were we ever Level 1 or 2 to begin with?
The room exploded into uproar, but Coulson silenced it with a simple wave of his hand, everyone still slightly on the petrified side of him and his emotionlessness.
"Do not assume that this means that you will be sent out immediately on missions or that your training is over." Every set of shoulders in the room slumped at that. "To put it at its simplest, you are now officially the dogsbodies, the bottom of the pile. Do not expect to be able to integrate truly into this organisation until your probation is over and you are sent into the field for real. Be aware that this may happen at different times for different people. You are no longer a cohort, but a group of individuals. Perhaps you will end up with a strike partner from this group, but do not expect it. Only high-ranking agents are truly 'strike' agents and even fewer become members of a proper strike team."
He paused for a moment, but continued to pace ceaselessly. It was terrifying. "Some of you may become specialised agents in particular fields. Some of you may decide that the espionage world is not for you, but don't worry about that. Now that you have reached this stage, you will always have a job offered to you by SHIELD, unless you are discharged, retired, or disavowed. Is that clear?" A mutter of affirmation came from across the group. "Now if you will follow me to your quarters. Be aware that these will be yours permanently, unless you acquire your own accommodation, move to a different base, be it in California or Washington, or even somewhere further afield, or you are successfully promoted to Level 10 or above, in which case you will receive improved quarters with your own bathroom.
"This is your entry group's corridor." Coulson maneuvered us down a narrow, but well-lit corridor. "Women on the left, men on the right. I suggest you stake your claim, then go to collect your personal effects. Anything left in the dorms after midnight will be destroyed. Good night."
o0O0o
The next couple of months passed with relatively little incident. One of the guys in our little group-that-wasn't-a-group broke his leg falling off the parkour course, which, now we were agents, we could use.
We trained and trained and trained, and not much else. I got really good with a gun. Clint stayed brilliant at everything long-range, but had to have specialist hand-to-hand classes because literally anybody could beat him into the ground with a couple of hours of training.
But gradually, gradually, the two of us began to draw closer again in skill. Clint could still beat me with a bow, obviously, and I couldn't hit a fly from two hundred yards, but both of us could reliably strike down a target from an impressive distance, using an impressive range of weaponry. Both of us got quite frightening with a knife (although I preferred to use mine in a close-range attack and Clint liked to throw his), and both of us got so good at hand-to-hand that we weren't allowed to train with any of the other guys on probation (although I always beat him. Well, nearly always. He may have been fractionally taller than me, but I had more strength despite my lean build.).
Three months on, and we met up on the roof (our unofficial meeting spot. We loved to challenge one another to get up or down without being seen by any cameras.). It felt so much like that second meeting we had ever that I almost had to take a step back from it all.
Clint was balanced impeccably on the very edge of the roof on one hand, gazing down the too-many storeys towards the ground, as I crawled out of the skylight to join him. The cooling autumn air ruffled m y wet hair and made me wish for a hat. "Hey." I spoke softly, so not to startle Clint to the extent that he fell off of the extremely tall building; that would most definitely not be good. I'd noticed that he was startling quite easily again, like when we met. I hadn't notice it recede, but I was definitely noticing it now.
Clint, to the benefit of his health and three-dimensional-ness, didn't startle when I spoke, and gracefully turned himself the normal way up, still sat on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the edge. "Hey."
"Did you hear about Madeline?"
"The girl from down the hall? The one that just got murdered on her first fucking mission." He glared up at me and gave a short, harsh laugh. "Yeah, I heard."
I sighed and pursed my lips. "You're not going to like my news, then."
Clint's eyes narrowed. "No, I don't think I am."
"Coulson's just about to issue the order. He told me earlier. The two of us are scheduled for a field trip. He said it should be a walk in the park, but he wants to be safe after what happened and send out his 'most able'. I don't really agree with that statement; I mean look at us, but whatever Coulson says, goes. We don't really have a choice. If it goes well, we may well get promoted though. Our probation will be over, anyway."
Clint nodded, looking down. "I guess we'd better get sparring then, if we want to live. " He laughed again without humour, jaw clenching almost imperceptibly.
I gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Let's go do this."
He quirked an eyebrow, suddenly joking again. "Your funeral. I'm gonna beat you this time."
"Of course you are." I gave my best condescending smile and slid back into the skylight.
"This time, I will! I swear!"
I flipped the bird as I dropped through with a chuckle.
o0O0o
The day came far too soon. Coulson introduced us to our mission handler, some irritating mid-level agent called Lawrence, with instructions not to murder one another.
The mission brief was simple: ensure that the suspected mafia (or something, my brain just inserted 'mafia' when Coulson told us) base was actually a mafia base, and when we were sure, go in all guns blazing and raze the establishment to the ground. He said that they were sure that it was only a small cell and that they had few to no weapons, but to always expect the worst. Lawrence snorted and said that we shouldn't expect a damn thing.
Apparently this mission was supposed to be a cakewalk, especially, as we were told by Coulson, who dragged us aside for a few moments after sending Lawrence off to check the equipment and stuff, for 'agents of your calibre and potential'.
That wasn't a lot to live up at all , now, was it?
Lawrence then returned, looking sulky (it seemed to be his default expression), grumbling in a monotone about us having to get in the damn car before it drove off without us.
This was going to be fun.
o0O0o
The safe house was pretty much completely bare save a metal table, an old fridge, one small cupboard containing three (3) plates, one (1) bowl, two and half (2 ½) glasses, two (2) knives and one (1) bent fork and a single camp bed. Beds were apparently such a luxury that SHIELD could only afford for one of us, and Lawrence wasn't going to share.
The first thing he did was drop his enormous recon bag on the lonely table, open it, and spread all of his 'Overwatch' crap all over it.
We opened our duffles and he hissed at us to not leave any evidence of being a spy in the open. Uh huh, sure dude.
We flipped off his back and sat down on the cold floor to check our weapons and other spy-type gear. Both of us quickly secured our comms to our ears and did a quick one-two to check that they were actually working before strapping on some bulletproof undershirts on and each putting on a normal shirt to go with our suits. Now it was starting to feel James Bond-ish.
I got first turn in the horrible bathroom with the cracked and scummy mirror, and attempted to get my hair to lie flat. I virtually emptied an entire bottle of hair gel into the nest on my head and there was still that tuft just sticking up like nobody's business. I gave up and went out, muttering to myself about feeling like a greaseball.
Twenty minutes and a bajillion checks later, and we were ready to go. Lawrence glared at us from his desk and made a vague shooing motion, which we took as our cue to leave.
Time to infiltrate a mafia cell at a huge, swanky party. Awesome.
Blend, Jackson. You're a spy, remember.
o0O0o
Ten minutes into our recon/infiltration mission, and we were doing pretty well. We had confirmed that everyone there was mafia, of some description, and Lawrence said that as soon as we could, we were to leave covertly and return all guns blazing to obliterate the spot.
Sounded festive.
As instructed, the two of us slipped from the party nice and subtly to find our cache of weapons that we'd placed a couple of blocks away. Most of the stuff we grabbed was discreet, as both of us opted to keep hidden until the last second, much to Lawrence's irritation. There were more people there then we'd hoped, so getting numbers on our side was the logical and right thing to do. Our 'senior agent' didn't seem to get that, though, and was thoroughly pissed off when we overruled him.
So we returned to the party, armed to the teeth in a subtle fashion. We decided to take out stragglers and outliers first with knives, quietly, before making our way into the main party and stabbing a bunch of people there.
Wow, that sounded dark and terrifyingly like a terrorist attack, but whatever, it was cleared with the government apparently.
So, now for some totally legal fun.
o0O0o
For about ten minutes, it was going great. Well, as great as it can be going when you're literally killing people for your job, but hey.
We had just headed for the main party when there was a burst of static from my comms, followed by silence.
My head snapped up, eyes instantly searching for whatever the cause of the sound had been.
I could distantly hear loud voices snapping at the person on the other end of the comms, but I had no way of knowing whether it was Clint or Lawrence that they were talking to, and I was in an area that was completely full of people. Trying to confirm would give away my position.
I decided to go ahead with the mission regardless, taking a deep breath before grabbing for the twin guns hidden on my person and firing without any more qualms.
Until I heard what was unmistakably a cry of pain from the comms.
And I most definitely knew who that belonged to.
More static. A kind of crunching. More silence.
I froze up for the briefest of seconds. It was enough time for someone to draw their own weapon and fire it in my vague direction. Lawrence screamed in my ear, something about getting my arse and moving-
Ah, right. Moving. I lifted the guns again and continued with my destruction, bodies dropping all around. I could feel a cold sickness rising in my throat, but I tamped it down and strode on, relentless, giving no quarter.
I registered a distant crash from somebody else's comms unit, before grunts and scuffles began to come through. A piercing screech sounded: metal on concrete.
And after that, came a harsh exhalation, and the muted and funnelled sound of a gunshot.
There was a dull thud, and the harsh thunder of several pairs of boots, before silence.
I didn't know what had happened to my team, but I was alone in what was now an official shitshow of a mission. I stopped for a few seconds and listened to the sound of my breathing as I considered what to do next.
There were screams and shouts of fury ringing from the main hall area. I would have to finish that, but what then? I had no backup and no way of contacting SHIELD. The only person who could do that was Lawrence, and he was also offline. I growled in frustration and loaded fresh clips into my handgun, deciding to just wing it. I sprinted as silently as I could to the door that led to the main hall and then unloading them into the crowd until they were completely spent, before holstering them again (because throwing away your gun like a spy in a film is really wasteful) and leaping over the balcony, whipping out my knives again until the only person standing in there was yours truly. I wiped blood from small cuts on my face (some lucky bitch smashed a glass on me, and another nearly took half my face off with a broken bottle), then straightened my jacket (ruined as it was) and walked outside, snapping the lock that I had heard Clint give confirmation of sealing such a short time before.
Somehow I found myself in an alley down the side of the building, hands trembling slightly as the true implications of the past few minutes caught up to me.
There was a cry from above me, and my eyes snapped up just in time to see a dark-suited figure dive from a window, landing heavily but rolling into the impact all the same. There was blood everywhere, but now wasn't the time to check injuries. There was only one person I knew that was crazy enough to do that.
I grabbed Clint's elbow and yanked him into the shadows.
o0O0o
We hobbled through town, me supporting almost all of Clint's weight. A wraithlike fog had settled on the town, giving the whole place an eerie feel, but more importantly offering us some cover as the pair of us stumbled in the half-light. To any onlookers, we would probably look like a pair of drunks.
It took far too long to get back to the safehouse, but just as I was about to drag him over the threshold, Clint dragged his feet and stuttered out a soft "Stop."
I froze. "What?"
He shook his head furiously, eyes darting to the entrance.
I chewed my bloodied lip thoughtfully. "I've got to go in. We need the med kit and the contact with SHIELD. I'm going to leave you here with this," I yanked the gun from its holster and loaded it with my last clip, "okay? You just sit here until I get back. Use that if you need to. There's no silencer so I'll hear it. If I'm longer than ten minutes, assume I'm not coming back and you're on your own."
He nodded wordlessly, and I slipped inside to survey the damage.
The steel table was mangled almost beyond recognition. Glass crunched underfoot. I decided to screw stealth and dash upon seeing the lifeless bodies of three men on the floor, one of them obviously Lawrence. The med kit was easy to find, but I had to rummage a little for the satellite phone. Fortunately, I was standing still at the time and able to hear the telltale crackling as another person entered the room. I spun out of reflex, knife drawn before I had even formed a thought.
A low laugh echoed through the room as my opponent drew a pistol. "Game over," he snarled, eyes flashing with a sadistic glee.
I took the page from Clint's book and tore it out for safekeeping, throwing the knife with more force than I had believed that I could muster. The gun went off, a cracking report in the near-silence.
The impact of the bullet caused me to stumble, but boy was I glad for SHIELD's tech upon the discovery that I wasn't dead. My would-be killer toppled to the ground, eyes wide in shock as blood pulsed from his throat. A couple of minutes later, and I had grabbed the satellite phone, cleaned my knife, and was on my way back down to Clint.
We were going to get out of this. I was going to make sure of it.
o0O0o
After finding an alley halfway across town, we eventually made the call back to HQ about how many agents we'd lost and our current situation. Coulson helpfully just asked for our coordinates and then told us to stay put in a dark dead end of an alley. That was already ominous.
I set Clint down in the back corner and tried to make him comfortable, not that comfort was going to be a concern of his in a minute if he didn't stop bleeding. My eyes flicked every two seconds to the opening, hoping and praying that nobody was following us. My fingers twitched on the handle of the gun by my side every time the briefest shadow passed over the mouth of the alley.
I tore open the med kit, finding gauze and pressing it against the shallow (I hoped) cut on his forehead that was bleeding everywhere, grabbing one of Clint's worryingly lax hands and pressing it on with strict instructions to 'hold'. Yes, head wounds always look worse than they are, but blood is important inside your body, and I only needed to glance at Clint to see that he was struggling on that front.
Next job was to pick up his somewhat mangled left leg, thank any deity listening that he was flexible, and hold it up against my shoulder for the whole 'keep wounds above the heart' thing, given that I didn't want to press on what looked like the edge of a throwing star that poked out from just above his heel.
These guys knew how to cripple a guy, I'm telling ya. I grimaced down at the edge of the throwing star, before covering the open edges of the wound in gauze and leaving the star itself embedded. I muttered what I was doing to Clint, so that he knew why his ankle was still not moving at all.
I turned to the rest of the leg on my shoulder, wiping it clean with alcohol antiseptic wipes that were inside the first aid kit. Clint winced and made a half coherent moan, but barely reacted apart from that as the entirety of the crusty blood was ripped from his bare skin (where did the bottom half of his trousers go?). I grabbed as big a bit of gauze as I could and some medical tape and covered the majority of the cuts on his leg, securing it with way too much medial tape, but whatever. Not dying was the best option, and Clint wasn't really in a state to care about the quality of my field dressings. If they stopped the bleeding, they were good.
We sat there in stunned silence for what felt like eternity, listening to the sound of each other's laboured breaths. Night was really setting in, the light from the street going from grey to an artificial orange under the streetlamps. Our breath misted in front of us. Clint began to shiver uncontrollably, but I didn't have anything with which to keep him warm and simply prayed that SHIELD were actually coming to rescue us, rather than expect us to find our way back to New York.
Silence reigned, until it didn't.
A soft clatter was accompanied by a loud curse, and a lot of shushing.
Three broad shapes blocked the lamplight from the mouth of the alley.
I froze for a second, before sitting as still as I could and reaching very slowly for the gun lying next to me, feeling the cold metal beneath my numbing fingers and closing my hand around it, before inching it up with the same agonising slowness, carefully easing the hammers back and trying not to wince at the soft click that it gave, which sounded to me loud enough to give us away. My breath shuddered from my chest, clouding the three, who stalked into the alley as a single unit, speaking in low, rumbling undertones to one another.
One of them gave a loud exclamation upon stepping in something, and I heard Clint's breath hitch in his throat. I lifted the gun again, carefully aiming and knowing full well that the second I fired, they would attack. Clint's fear was all I needed to confirm that these were the remains of the group that had (I assumed) singled him out to try and kill him.
Even in the darkness, I fancied that I could see the glint in the leader's eyes as his gaze landed on the pair of us. I couldn't see the twisted smile on his face, but I could hear the laughter in his voice. "Look what we have here."
I fired the gun. The man staggered backwards, but didn't fall. Goddamn mafia and goddamn paranoia and goddamn body armour screwing up my elegant half-baked plans.
The three exploded into action, guns appearing from under coats all at once.
I fired again, aiming most definitely for the unarmoured heads and praying that my hand would remain steady.
I heard five shots, but was sure that I only fired three, maybe four.
All three men toppled to the ground with almost comical slowness, and in my freezing and fear I didn't even notice how much more difficult it was now to breathe.
o0O0o
Time slipped into meaninglessness, seconds bleeding into hours as surely as… wait, what was it again? My vision blurred into near-blindness, a soft orange globe drifting through the gentle greys that filled my world. A crushing weight sat on my chest and shoulder. I was so dissociated from reality that I could hear the ragged, laboured sounds of my breathing, but couldn't remember where it was from or why it sounded like that. I could just about feel a warm trickle down my chin, and wondered vaguely if I'd bitten my lip, and why there was another weight pinning down my hand, and why everything was so cold.
All I knew was that I had to stay awake, but why? For whom? There was only me in the near-silence. Well, whoever was breathing like that. I couldn't feel or hear my heartbeat and considered what it would mean if it wasn't beating at all.
Dark blurs covered the warm glow, moving as if in slow motion towards us. I felt threatened, but didn't know why. Why was I here? Where was here? What sort of world is only a blurred greyscape with the tiniest hint of colour?
My head lolled to the side as the shapes bent down next to me, removing the weight from my shoulder. I felt a lot colder with its absence. Why couldn't they take the weight from my chest as well? Why did I feel so broken, like I'd failed, when they removed that weight? Why did they sound like they were shouting down the length of a mile-long tunnel at me? Did they expect me to be able to hear what they were saying?
Darkness beckoned, and, unlike the creatures before me, I could understand what it wanted, and let myself fall into its warm, waiting embrace.
o0O0o
Everything hurt, and a mammoth weight pressed down on my chest, causing my breath to wheeze uncomfortably. I didn't want to try and open my gummed-down eyelids, but tried to anyway, and was greeted by a lance of agony into both of my eyes at the harsh whiteness of the room surrounding me.
So I kept my eyes closed, and listened. Apart from my (I was pretty sure it was mine) noisy breathing, there were a few other sounds: a soft beeping and the gentle whirring of electricity.
There was the sound of a plastic curtain being scraped against more plastic curtain and plastic loops against a plastic curtain rail. That is to say, a cacophony.
"Agent Jackson?" asked an unfamiliar male voice. Sounded young, sort of awkward. "Are you awake?"
"Could you turn the lights down?" I somehow managed to rasp out, although unsure if my words were coherent given the unbearable dryness of my throat.
"Of course." There was a pause and a rustle. "There."
I slowly attempted to pry my eyes open for a second time, now only minorly attacked by the intensity of the light and not full-on assaulted. I swivelled my gaze (somehow even my eyes hurt. Is that even possible?) towards the guy that had just come in, who was studying a small screen display next to my bed and making notes on a clipboard. He glanced up and gave a lock that said 'one sec', so I kept my mouth shut.
After a pregnant and rather awkward pause in which I squinted a little and tried to sit up, which I instantly regretted and gave up on after moving my left leg about two millimetres, he came back around the side of the bed.
"This will sound stupid, but how are you feeling?" he asked, tentative. Poor boy looked exhausted, I noticed, blue-black circles ringing sunken eyes. The hand holding his clipboard trembled almost imperceptibly.
I gave the very definition of a dry laugh, which sounded a little bit like sharpening a knife sounds. "Like I was hit by a bus," I answered after a brief, but excruciating, bout of coughing.
The corners of his mouth twitched a little. "That's to be expected, I'm afraid. Would you like me to grab a glass of water?"
Gee, thanks for noticing that I sounded like I was gargling nails. "Please."
He darted out, returning after a brief moment with a large plastic cup that was full of tap water. To me, it looked like the elixir of life.
He pressed a couple of buttons, which caused the thin bed that I was lying on to adjust position so that I was almost sitting up without actually having to sit up. He guided my right hand in towards me and handed me the glass, eyes flicking up to me as if I was about to jump out of bed and strangle him. As if I could do that in my current state.
I carefully closed my fingers around the cup, before trying to engage the muscles in my arm to move it to my lips. Took a while, but it worked. After being timidly told to not drain it at once, I begrudgingly took little sips until the glass was nearly empty.
I decided that I wanted to know why he was so jumpy around me. I was an invalid, after all. So I asked. My voice still did not sound good by any means, but it was fractionally less painful to engage my vocal chords as I asked, "Why are you so scared of me?"
He jumped a little at the sudden question, but answered me all the same. "Your friend, who you were found with? He woke up a few hours ago and jumped straight out of bed. I think he was trying to strangle me, but he obviously couldn't put weight on his leg and just fell. I just thought, well, I guess… I was being, I dunno," he admitted.
Ah, Clint. Sounded just like my idiot. I gave a small chuckle, this time a little less terrifying but still painful on my chest. I didn't want to know what was wrong with that. "That sounds like Clint," I agreed. "Does that mean he's okay?" I asked, the hours before our rescue flooding (mostly) back to me.
He nodded slightly. "Yeah, we think he's gonna be okay. He's not going to be able to walk for ages, though, and PT'll be a bitch." I noted that I little confidence was returning to his voice as he spoke and felt quite pleased with myself.
"When is it not?"
He gave a small shrug.
I took the opportunity to ask before the chance slipped away from me. "What actually happened to us? I can remember up until… I, Clint was hurt and I- I don't know." My brain ached from the effort of trying to remember, but all I had were broken flashes. Guns and pain and blurs and silence, all sure to haunt my nightmares, but very little of the event itself.
He worried his lip a little. "Don't worry if you can't remember. Retrograde amnesia after an event like that is not uncommon. As for exactly what happened to you, well we don't really know. Your commanding agent breached protocol as soon as the safehouse was compromised: he didn't tell you that the location wasn't safe and he didn't activate the backup comms link to base, so we had LOS pretty much straight after that, because I think the table was flipped, so all of the instruments were smashed. We can give an idea, though. You kept going with the planned mission, while Agent Barton was captured briefly and a bit roughed up. He-"
I cut him off with a derisive snort. "Sorry, a bit roughed up ? I'm pretty sure that getting hamstrung is not the same?"
Doctor Boy shook his head a little. "He was hit by that on his escape from them, we think. He wasn't that coherent when we were talking to him. But Agent Barton jumped out of a window and into the street, correct?"
I nodded, fairly sure that he was right.
"And you guided him back to the safehouse, where you picked up the field kit and satellite phone. At some stage in the proceedings, you were shot at, but your vest stopped the round. You killed the attacker with a knife to the throat. You then exited the safehouse, and called us." His hands wrung each other nervously, and he was still stood a safe distance from the bed. I supposed that caution is probably wise in a place like this, where you never really knew who was going to wake up and how they would react. "We told you to find a place a distance away that could be easily defended, and you chose a dead-end alley, so there was no chance of an ambush. SHIELD instructed you to stay put, so you settled down and performed first aid on Agent Barton. I might add that he's very grateful."
My brow furrowed. "He said that?"
The boy shook his head slightly. "No, but you saved his life and I've been told to say that you did exactly the right thing by elevating his leg instead of trying to get the weapon out yourself. The surgeons nicked an artery trying to sort him out once he was in. Had that happened in the field, there would've been nothing you could do."
It felt very strange to be congratulated about something that I couldn't remember doing, but I gave a small nod regardless, and a tiny motion with my hand for him to continue.
He gave an awkward sort of bob, before continuing. "It looked like three guys escaped and came to find you, which they did. They'd all got their heads neatly blown off, so you fired three shots, and neighbour reports say that they heard six, so we had a quick scout for them and found one in one of the guys' vest, one in the wall literally two inches above your head, and one in your chest."
Yikes, so that's why my chest hurt. "Oh. Okay."
"You seem unsurprised." The guy held his hands out cautiously as if to balance himself, or possibly me if I went crazy.
"I'm not actually that surprised. It explains a lot. One question though: wasn't I wearing a vest?"
"It was an armour-piercing round." The guy seemed pretty done with the fact that I knew nothing about the equipment I had been given. I guess it was fair considering the fact that he was a medic, or at least I assumed so, and knew more than I did.
"So why wear a vest at all?"
"You're pretty lucky that you were wearing a SHIELD vest: they're literally the best there is. A normal vest and you'd be a lot more dead than you are now. As in medically dead. People don't generally survive having their chest cracked open like an egg."
I wrinkled my nose. "Dude, I did not need that picture. So I'm going to assume that my chest wasn't 'cracked open like an egg', but what's actually wrong with it?"
"You cracked your sternum." Yikes. "The vest was slightly compromised by the previous shot to a similar spot."
"Um, ow . Also why did you say that I cracked it? Like, I didn't shoot myself?" The medic glared at me. Okay, not a person for light humour.
"As I was saying, you will be on injury leave and then deskbound for at least the next six weeks. You-"
"Deskbound? I'm dyslexic , man. I can't fill out paperwork if it smacks me in the face!"
" As I was saying , you will be given a full physical exam after the six week period. If you have not healed to the satisfaction of the examiner, you will be deskbound for a further two weeks. After being cleared, you will return to a reduced training schedule until your PT is complete and you are cleared for a second time for active field duty. This-" he gestured to a little remote that was attached by a cable to the side of the bed, "is your bed control. You can use it to sit up or recline without doing it yourself. This," a handy red button, "is your call button. Press if you need anything. Do get some rest, Agent Jackson."
He practically legged it from the room.
I sighed deeply. What sort of bullshit advice was get some rest after unloading all of that on a guy?
o0O0o
Agent Coulson dropped by two days later. "How are you holding up?" He asked in the most casual voice I could never imagine for him. He was still wearing his impeccable two-piece suit, though, so I wasn't totally convinced that I was either hallucinating or dying and seeing a vision of Coulson.
"Everything hurts, but apart from that? Fine."
His lips twitched imperceptibly. "Have you been authorised to see Barton yet? He was in a wheelchair this morning and raring to explore. By 'raring to explore', I mean 'dying to burn down the med bay'. I think that he might go insane."
I snorted a little and instantly regretted it, spending a brief moment schooling my features into neutrality and trying not to curse as the top of my lungs. " He's restless? I'm the one with ADHD."
"Which is why I was hoping to wheel him in to see you. That is if you are ready for him." Coulson sent a knowing wry smile in my direction.
"I think I'd better take him off the hands of the staff for a few minutes."
Coulson stood, smoothing out invisible crinkles in his suit. "I thought you might say that. I'll tell him not to break you. After all, you are one of our best junior agents."
I called at his retreating back, "Tell him not to break himself!"
I could've sworn I heard Coulson chuckle at that as he left. Was he even the robot I knew and loved anymore?
Three or so minutes later, he wheeled in the most hyper Clint that I had ever seen, and all but legged it from the room.
Clint wheeled himself over to my bedside as quickly as he could, eyebrows raising and crinkling the gauze on his forehead. "Yikes, and I thought my broken leg-slash-blood loss-slash-snapped Achilles tendon was bad."
"Yeah, getting shot twice in the sternum would do that to a guy, even if it was through protective body armour, because apparently armour piercing rounds exist. What's the point in wearing a vest if it's not gonna save you?" I slumped as softly as I could against my pillows.
"You hope for the best?" Okay, fair. "Besides, if they'd gone for the head you'd already be dead."
"Thanks, and they did. Look." I tilted my head a little so that he could see the bullet crease that just nicked the top of my left ear. "Never gonna be symmetrical again."
Clint snorted. "You never were with your crooked nose."
I raised a hand to my nose, suddenly a little self-conscious. It wasn't that crooked. "Okay, but the guy who punched me was totally asking for it!"
"What, your stepdad ?" I couldn't tell if I was happy, or ticked-off that we could joke about what I'd been through like this, but I let it slide, because it didn't hurt too much; who ever said that humour was an unhealthy coping mechanism?
"Yeah, so? I actually started the fight that time around. Anyway, enough about how hideous I am, what about you? Nobody's told me anything . I can barely even remember it."
"I'm gonna be unhelpful there, I'm afraid, given that I spent most of that time barely conscious. I do remember being jumped, being told to 'run like a hare' and cut down as they laughed, and chucking myself out of a window. Not my finest hour. After that, it's pretty patchy. I was cold, I think." His voice tailed off a little, dejection behind the drugged brightness of his gaze. He perked up again a second later. " But I've been told that I'm gonna have a wicked scar here on my arm," he raised his left arm to display a huge bandage, "where I was apparently stabbed by glass, which I don't remember, and on my heel."
"Well, I'm gonna have a bullet scar so I win on coolness." God, we sounded like three year olds bickering about whose toy car was the best, or nine year olds discussing their Nerf guns, not full-grown adults who had genuinely nearly died just a few days prior.
Clint's face dropped comically all of a sudden, and he leaned dangerously far forwards to whisper conspiratorially (i.e. really loudly because he was super high), "but we're gonna be stuck on DESK JOBS for all eternity! Is this worth it?"
"One, no , two, how high are you? One to ten?"
He wrinkled his nose a little as he considered, pulling himself back to seating with some effort, "about nine and a half? The pain meds made me super spacey so I'm on something else that's made me really hyper."
"Thanks for that, Sherlock," I replied dryly. "Nobody here had any idea that you were hyper."
"They didn't?" His eyes widened again. " Really ?"
Oh God, hyper Clint didn't get sarcasm. " No , doofus, we all realised."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Anyway," I rubbed my eyes, "I get out of bedrest in a week and into PT. What about you?"
Clint sighed. "I've been in PT for the past two days and, honesty, it's a bitch. Stick to bedrest." There was normal Clint. " But I'm supposedly not actually allowed to do anything that could resemble actual exercise for at least six weeks."
I gave the tiniest semblance of a shrug. "I'm not allowed to breathe too deeply for six weeks, but I also have to breathe deeply or I'll get pneumonia and die. It's like: breathe deeply. No, not like that. Like this, i.e. what I just did. It's great, honestly."
"Also," there was a pleading note in his voice that I didn't like, "they're saying that a good way to strengthen up my leg again is to swim. The issue is..." he hid his face and mumbled, "I'm not actually sure how to swim apart from like doggy paddle." Yikes. Although I had to admit that I'd noticed during the training thing.
"So you want me to teach you?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah."
I considered for a moment. "Sure. But in six week's time, if not longer."
Clint threw his head back dramatically and gave a loud, long-suffering groan. " Really? "
"Dude, you're in a wheelchair . And you're in plaster to your knee. And I'm not allowed to move. What, did you think I'd jump out of bed and into the pool?"
He shrugged. "Sorta?"
"Oh, you idiot." But he was my idiot.
o0O0o
If Clint was ever right about anything, it was that PT was a goddamn bitch.
Weeks listening to your trainer trying to psych you up and 'control your breathing, Agent Jackson, that's right', while your stupid bones healed so slowly it was agonising. Metaphorically and literally, I mean.
Six weeks in, and I was so ready to be cleared, even if just partially. But nope, not happening, because that stupid good-for-nothing bone in the middle of my chest still had a crack in it. Stupid body.
And all the paperwork . Stupid senior agents chucking us their mission reports to type up and process and file and make coffee for them and read . Coulson also took our injury leave as an opportunity for us to brush up on our theory and learning, so we were given even more books to read. Because I just love reading, because it's so incredibly easy for me to do. Luckily, after a couple of days he realised that he'd made a mistake and emailed some audiobooks to my SHIELD email address. This was doubly great, because I didn't have to read the stupid books and I could ignore people under the pretense that I hadn't heard them.
After my additional two-week torture, I was finally cleared for a 'reduced training schedule', which basically meant 'do what you like to make yourself strong again'.
Which meant swimming lessons, which I had most definitely not forgotten.
So that was how Clint and I, the limper and the one who can't breathe, ended up in the SHIELD pool at stupid-o-clock because who actually sleeps anyway. I spent a good ten minutes trying to work out the controls for the floor (the floor moved up and down: how cool is that?), before eventually just pressing random buttons until the display read '5ft', which Clint could stand in, just in case he started drowning.
Unfortunately, my technical prowess didn't extend to the main lights, so we were lit only by the 'night-lights', which were a few muted strips in the ceiling and rows of little spots just under the water level (once again, awesome). Never mind, who needs to see?
"Show me your best front crawl," I instructed Clint.
"My what?" Jesus Christ, this was going to be a long hour. Clint's indignant voice echoed in the near-darkness (swimming pools literally always have terrible acoustics).
"Okay, float in the water on your front, but hold up your face so that you don't drown. No, not like that. Okay, okay, stop, you're going to die. Watch me. This is called 'sculling', and will help you to not drown." I demonstrated, arms and legs spread eagled, gently kicking my legs and drawing my arms back and forth over the surface of the water.
Clint looked bewildered, and proceeded to flounder like a dying fish. He was worse than those nine year olds I taught.
"Stop, stop. We're going to the side." I led him over to the edge of the pool, and instructed him to place his hands on the side and kick gently to try and get his body position right. "Float! Float! Float!" I chanted. He glared at me, but kept kicking.
"Is that better?"
"Shockingly, yes. Next, we're going to get you a pull buoy, don't ask, and teach you what to do with your arms."
I climbed out and found my way to the (relatively well-stocked) cupboard, finding a pull buoy in one of the equipment bins (like a storage bin, not a rubbish bin) and lobbing it at Clint, who caught it with the most confused expression I have ever seen, and I've taught nine year olds. "Put it between your legs, just above your knees." He complied, before pitching forwards as his legs floated to the surface, a look of mild terror visible on his face as it entered the water with a dull splash.
I sighed, and climbed back in, picking him up by his shoulder. "Body position was good. Put your goggles on." He groaned, but did as instructed. "Now, the easiest way to do this is to watch me do it above water slowly and try and mimic my actions. You need to have a high elbow when it's above the water, and fingers face down and not over there somewhere. Fingers enter the water just before your arm is fully extended." I demonstrated the technique slowly, and gestured for him to try.
He copied my technique almost perfectly, eyes narrowed in concentration under his clear goggles, dark scar on his forehead wrinkling slightly.
"Good. Now float on the water and try that."
Clint lowered himself back onto the water, and tried to get his arms to move properly. The movement was sort of half-aborted and jerky, but not bad for someone who had literally never done it in their life. After about four strokes he came up for air, gasping a little.
I shrugged. "Not bad for a first try. Now try to make the whole thing one action. Nice and smooth."
"What about breathing?"
"Overrated. One thing at a time. Go on then."
He glared at me without any heat, and tried again, movement visibly smoother, but he was still clunking his hand into the water at the front of the stroke. It was a start, though. Maybe he had a point with breathing.
"Okay, so we'll do breathing now because you have a point. Basically, you breathe to the side during a stroke, like this." I exaggerated turing my head to take a breath as I mimed a long stroke.
He nodded slowly, then proceeded to gulp in about half the pool as he attempted to do it, coming to the surface in spluttering indignation. "What was that for bullshit advice?" he demanded, without that much heat.
I shrugged. "You're the one who did it wrong."
He gave a petulant glare.
"Try again," I ordered. "Keep kicking while you breathe, and tip your head far enough. But don't look all the way up at the ceiling."
He tried again, with a little more success (i.e. not more choking). "I think I'm getting the hang of this!"
"You're learning fast, I'll give you that. Now go again."
o0O0o
Nearly two hours later, and Clint was dead on his feet, but pretty pleased with himself. We'd continue working on swimming every morning until he was confident enough to use it for fitness and strength building. One morning, when I was heading back to my room to gather my stuff before heading to the office, while Clint was at the archery range (that I was pretty sure they had installed especially for him), I rounded a corner to find Coulson standing there.
"Hello, Agent Jackson." At this point, I'd learnt that if someone referred to you as 'Agent' they wanted something.
"Uh, hi."
"I've noticed what you've been doing with Agent Barton every morning." Oh, okay, Mr Stalker Dude. "I was hoping that while you were still desk bound you could help some other junior agents who aren't so strong on their swimming. Personally, I believe that it is a vital skill needed for missions." He folded his arms. "I believe you have a coaching qualification and also are a trained lifeguard."
"Yeah, I guess. I think my lifeguard certificate has expired, though. I need to take the test again, and-"
Coulson cut in before I could say anything ese. "Excellent, please can these lessons be every Monday morning at 7am. Thank you." And then he left. You know, like a jerk.
Fuck, what did I just sign up to?
I traipsed morosely down the corridor to go and find some paperwork .
o0O0o
Swimming coaching was pretty torturous, but not significantly worse than teaching nine-year-olds. Like sure, it was worrying how many of these 'elite' junior agents didn't know how to do anything beyond a doggy paddle or a half hearted front crawl, but they'd had The Whinge™ beaten out of them by now.
And the painstakingly slow recovery process for both Clint and I was worth it, if only for the moment I watched him execute a perfect somersault from the end of the parkour course and roll perfectly into his landing, standing up with the broadest grin plastered over his face and not the slightest hint of a limp in his stride. A surge of pride coursed through my body, and it was in that moment that I realised that I cared for him like a brother that I'd never had.
