The reports he was reading worried Fury just ever so slightly. It wasn't that miss Rhea Jaeger was some super human, or that she was apparently capable of massive and targeted destruction. (In fact Fury was comforted by this last point. He would rather have someone who could control their destructive tendencies rather than another wild card like banner.) No, what worried Fury were the other littler things; the things that most would probably over look. The sedative she had been given, the neural dampener, and that she had been back on her feet in only a couple of hours. He had a feeling there was much more to Rhea than one was given to believe, and this worried him. He liked to be the one keeping the secrets. His visit with her had gone... interestingly. She had agreed to work with SHIELD, and had seemed quite amiable. Then they had parted she had turned to Fury and said, "One more thing."

"yes?" he had asked.

"This isn't a draft. I'm not agreeing to any of this as some sort of final contract on my life. I retain the right to ultimately make my own decisions on the grander scale of thing, and that includes walking away freely from SHIELD should I ever choose to do so."

They had exchanged silent impassive stares for one tense moment. Finally Fury had said, "I don't see any problems with this request. As you say, this is hardly a draft. Besides," they had stood and Fury had opened his office door for her to leave. "Something tells me we couldn't really stop you even if we wanted to."

She had shook his hand, smiled sincerely up at him and said, "You will hopefully never know just how right you are about that," and left. It hadn't been a taunt, or a brag of strength. She had meant it. She had be truly sincere in that wish. That was nagged at his mind. That was why he read the reports, and worried ever so slightly about this Miss Rhea.

…...

"how's the apartment?" Coulson asked Rhea.

"SHIELD housing isn't nearly as bad as I expected. It is odd living in an apartment building full of kick ass trained agents. I think half my floor is gone on missions right now."

They were walking through the lower level of the headquarters buildings. Coulson was escorting Rhea to her first day of training. She was lined up for an intensive non-stop month long program and then she would have her first field outing.

"pretty soon you'll be one of those 'kick ass trained agents'," he said.

"that's hard to believe!" she laughed.

"really? It's hard to believe that the girl with super powers will be a trained field agent doing the sort of missions comic book super heroes do?"

"well when you put it like that, no."

"I'm glad you decided to do this, Rhea."

"Thanks Coulson. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be a bad decision."

"well after the brainwashing you won't really care anyways."

Rhea gasped,"I knew you were all just robots!"

"Please. We prefer the term, cybernetic organism."

"no way," Rhea laughed out loud. "terminator reference? That's why you are the greatest person I know. Well, that's really not a big competitive field right now, I know about five people. Your main competition is that agent Rumlow, and the chances of running into him again are pretty small." They turned a corner with a door way labeled GYMN.

"actually agent Rumlow is on suspension for multiple violation of several SHIELD codes due to his action in his attempt to rescue you." Coulson said casually.

"oh..."

"and since he won't be on any missions for a while I got him to agree to be the one to train you, so I think you'll be running into him a lot."

"what!? Coulson!"

Coulson pulled open the door. It opened into a small hallway-like room with a desk in it front and center. The man checking in with the desk turned around when the door opened. Rhea found herself face to face with Rumlow. Her stomach flopped down to somewhere around her ankles, and the tiniest of flickers flash over her skin.

"Ah," said Coulson. "excellent. You two can get started right away. Rumlow." he nodded to the Agent.

"Coulson," Rumlow returned the nod. Coulson wished Rhea well and turned and left. Rhea found herself wishing she was the one walking back down that hallway.

"Good to see you again Rhea," Rumlow said. "hope you're feeling well, we have a lot to do. Check in here and then head right through the door way there that says women. We'll meet in sparing room."

"Yes sir." Rhea turned and started to walk towards the sign.

"Rhea," Rumlow cleared his throat. "You forgot about signing in."

"haha oh right, of course."

"name" asked the man at the computer. Rumlow headed for the men's locker room.

"Jaeger, Rhea."

"Jaeger, Rhea C. checking in at 10:30am. Alright your good to go."

She walked quickly from the desk to the locker room, furiously willing the blush to dissipate. She placed her bag in a locker and pulled back her main of copper curls. Why was she so flustered about this? Well for starters she had expected to be trained by someone a little more female. It had probably been a baseless expectation but she had still expected it and now she was going to be training with Rumlow. Who was a man. And incredibly good looking. And a bit of bad boy. And right now she was feeling incredibly out of shape. This wasn't going to be like in the movies where your hair stays perfect and the light sweat on your skin made you look sexy. No, her hair was going to be a mess, she'd be all red in the face, and her clothes would be soaked by the time she was through. She filed nervously from the locker room down a narrow corridor and through the door labeled "sparring". Rumlow was waiting for her by a punching bag.

"We're gonna start with drilling you on the basics," he started right away. "first, we're going to work on punching. First we'll drill you on jabs and undercuts."

They moved through the basics punching, drilling for an hour or more. Rumlow occasionally stepped in and corrected Rhea's form. After that they drilled for another hour on blocking punches, and then they worked on putting what she had learned to practice. They moved onto kicks and worked on those for several more hours. Then Rumlow asked her to hit him.

"What?"

"Not in my face of course," he said. "I'm going to hold my hand up, and I want to hit it as hard and as fast as you can."

"you sure?" she asked uncertainly.

"I'll be fine," he smirked, and held up in his hand, bracing himself.

"okay," she said a little uncertainly. She struck at the target. Rumlow yelled and rubbed his palm.

"Yeah good," he hissed. "You're fast! That stung. But there's not a lot of force behind it. Go eat lunch, we'll hit the gymn after the hour."

"oh thank god I'm starving." she sagged and made for the locker rooms.

"By the way remind me," Rumlow called after her. "To go over a nutrition plan with you at the end of today." Rhea whipped around and gave him an aghast look.

"'Nutrition plan'?" she said. "You monster!"