Chapter: 10

Coulson took a deep breath as he stepped into the gym. It was early in the morning but the room was alive with the sounds of voices as the new recruits were getting warmed up for the days events. From the twenty-two men and women who had come to them, only nine remained standing. This was the final stage before they became actual agents. This is where they got tested on all the skills that they had been training for during their stay at the SHEILD base, and they had to make proficiency in every test if they wanted to join SHEILD. The usual feeling of nervous excitement was in the air as he walked through the humongous room, but there was also something else lingering there. He didn't have to guess too hard to figure out what it was, almost the entire base knew about the current, high-profile occupant. Coulson took a sip of the steaming coffee that he carried and tried to hold back a smirk at seeing Clint instructing the group of people. Judging by the look on his face, Clint wasn't having much fun. He walked over to him and handed him the second coffee he had in his other hand. "Rough morning?" He asked and Clint shot him a grateful look as he took a sip of the coffee.

"You didn't get to bed at a decent hour I see."

"Not now mother," Clint murmured under his breath. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and let out a soft groan. "I've already had to listen to two people complain that they're too sore to test today, one brag about how he was going to beat everyone else, then had to listen to the same guy argue with another egotistical ass about which of them was better, and then had to break them up before it turned into a real fight. I've had to tell one of the women that I'm not interested and when she didn't get the picture I had to tell her again." Coulson chuckled at that. "I also had to tell two of them that I don't know if the Black Widow will be joining us, and had to tell all of them that no, I don't know if she'll kill them all. That resulted in three of them saying they wouldn't test if she were here because they'd prefer to stay alive." Coulson shrugged and raised his cup to his lips again.

"You brought her here, your fault." He said before taking a sip. Clint scoffed.

"If I have to stay here much longer and a few of these recruits go missing, they won't have to worry about it being her fault," he said.

"Stop whining Barton," Coulson replied and Clint just rolled his eyes at his handler. There was a moment when the two just stood there watching the recruits do their warm-ups and drank their coffee.

"So-"

"I don't know Barton." Coulson said before he could finish.

"You don't even know-"

"I don't know what the Council said to Fury and I don't know if she'll be here or not." Coulson said without even looking at him.

"Lucky guess."

"Mmhm." Suddenly, the heavy gym doors closed behind them and the recruits seemed to freeze in place. They were all staring at something and the two men slowly turned around to see what it was. Their faces gave away nothing as Natasha Romanoff, followed by Nick fury and two guards, walked towards them. Her eyes met Clint's briefly when the group stopped in front of them.

"These are the guards that will be following Ms. Romanoff for the next couple of weeks. They'll make themselves scarce, I want her thoroughly tested on everything." The two of them nodded. He nodded in return and looked between them and her before nodding and heading out of the room. Natasha's eyes swept over the group of people who stood before her. She then glanced to each of her guards and raised an eyebrow at them. They instantly started to move.

"Good luck," one whispered to Barton while they walked past, only a few feet away, to the bleachers that were against the wall. The recruits still looked a bit shell-shocked. Her eyes swept over them again before landing on Clint.

"So," she said, breaking the slightly awkward silence, "Where do we begin."

"I don't see how they expect us to be at the top of our game while we're trying to watch our backs at the same time." The recruits had finally broken out of their spell as Clint lead them to the far side of the gym. They all walked a good couple of feet behind the Black Widow. Far enough so that the current speaker, Leanne Morrison, had thought she wouldn't be heard by the dangerous assassin if she whispered quietly. "I mean what are they thinking even letting her come here in the first place."

"I agree, have you heard what she's capable of, she's definitely up to something." A man by the name of Bryan Harris chimed in. Usually the men would stick to the other men and the women to the other women, so much for the week-long team bonding exercises they had to go through. However, it seemed that the new arrival had caused them to join together, at least a little.

"She doesn't look all that dangerous to me," the more egotistical of the group said. Frank Massey, the one who had been bragging and starting fights earlier.

"Dude, I bet she knows how to kill you in like, twenty different ways," another one chimed in. Massey smirked at that.

"Man, I bet if I had a few minutes alone with her I'd have her begging for me." He said and the women in the group rolled their eyes at him. "In fact if we were alone right now..." they all stopped dead in their tracks when Natasha stopped and spun around, a very serious and threatening look in her eyes.

"Actually," she said in a cold voice "There's about thirty-six different ways I can kill you just using my body." She locked eyes with Massey and gave him a dark smile. "If we where alone right now I'd make sure your body was never found again." Her features went dark again but she kept her eyes locked with his " and I don't beg for anyone."

"Romanoff," Clint said guards were starting to move closer, ready if she tried to act on the threat her voice held so clearly. She gave Massey one final glare before turning away and beginning to walk again.

"She's insane," Morrison whispered even quieter. It took him a few minutes but Massey eventually recovered and blew the whole thing off, trying to act like she didn't both him one bit. However he switched the topic off of her pretty fast and just continued to brag about his skills for the rest of the way over to the first test.

"Was it Fury's idea to have her tested with the recruits?" Clint whispered to Coulson. "I mean, even we can barely stand them." Coulson just shrugged and stepped aside as Clint turned to the group. He had to hide the smirk at seeing the way the recruits kept their distance from Natasha. "Ok, everyone. Here is your first test." In front of them there was a jungle gym. It was about raised about twenty feet off the floor. You had to climb a rope to get to the top, then go across some horizontal bars to get to the other side. Once there was a gap and you had to balance on a narrow beam to get to the other side, then there was another gap in which you had to swing across ropes that hung from the ceiling to get across. After that you had to climb down a rock wall and finally come to a stop at the finish line. "To be proficient you must complete the course in under ten minutes. So, who wants to go first?" Massey, of course, was the first to volunteer. He completed the course in eight minutes and thirty four seconds. One by one the other agents took their turns as Natasha watched from the sidelines. One of the guys fell off the balance beam and as a result finished the test in ten minutes and fifteen seconds. He left to go pack for the journey home. When they where all finished Clint turned to Natasha. "Your turn." He said and she let her eyes travel across the course. She heard Massey chuckle from somewhere behind her. No one had been able to beat his score, though one guy had passed his by only twenty seconds.

"I tried not to set the bar too high for you darling." Massey said louder than necessary. He wanted to make sure that she had heard him. She didn't glance back at him and instead just nodded to Clint. She pushed off the wall that she'd been leaning against and walked until she was standing in front of the rope.

"And start," Clint pressed the button for the timer to start and watched as she took off. She was up the rope in less than a minute and across the horizontal bars in one. Instead of walking across the balance beam like the others had she flipped twice, each time catching herself with one hand on the narrow beam, and was across in no time. Her feet barely touched the ground before she was jumping to the ropes. The momentum of her body allowed her to swing further on the rope, she had to use less than the others did in order to get across. Finally, she only climbed about halfway down the climbing wall before doing a backflip off of it and landing on the ground. She walked to the finish line. Clint stopped the timer and had to resist the urge to look back at Massey.

"four minutes and forty-eight seconds. That's a new record." She turned around and met his eyes.

"What was your score," she asked him. He smiled as he looked up from the clipboard he carried.

"Four minutes and fifty-four seconds." She simply nodded and he turned to the group of recruits that stood behind him."Ok everyone, on to the next test."