Hello everyone and welcome back to Repercussions! Thank you to everyone that has read/alerted/favorited/reviewed the story so far. Response has been overwhelmingly positive, and that makes me overwhelmingly happy. Here we have chapter 2, and I hope you all enjoy it. And know that reviews are beautiful and welcome. :)
As always, I own nothing.
Clint's eyes scanned over the range quickly of their own accord as the elevator doors opened up into it, revealing the expanse of the long, brightly lit, concrete room. It stretched, he knew, for a little over two kilometers, underneath both the base compound in itself and the expanse of runways that were behind it. Giving a slight glance to Flynn, he stepped out of the elevator and focused instead on the three occupants of the range that were all standing a few yards to the right where their rifles were set up, and the control panels were situated. One of the men he recognized and he cracked a smirk, giving a slight nod as he walked towards him.
"Well aren't I glad we were just finishing up." the older man - Agent Rivers - drawled, shaking a few long strands of greying brown hair out of his eyes and offering his hand to Clint as he stopped a few feet away, Flynn still a half step behind him. "I'd heard the director had gotten you back on base for a while."
"A week. Pulled me into newbie duty." Clint said with a slight shrug as he shook the man's hand, before his eyes flashed to his two companions, who were both eyeing him with an air of curiosity.
"Oh, this is Agent Garrett, and Agent Ambrose. Their teams just transferred in from Britain and South Africa respectively." Rivers said, taking a small step back and gesturing to the other two men before glancing to them. "This is Agent Barton; better known as Hawkeye."
Clint gave them a slight nod, keeping his expression unchanging as theirs revealed their shock.
"It is certainly an honor to meet the great Hawkeye himself." the stocky, dark haired man that Rivers had pointed out as Agent Garrett said lightly, starting to offer his hand, before apparently thinking better of it after seeing Clint's almost completely blank expression. "I've got to ask, is it true that you don't miss?"
"Haven't yet." Clint responded dismissively, before glancing back to Flynn. "If you boys don't mind, Recruit Flynn and I have a lot of training to get through."
"Of course, we were just leaving anyway." Rivers said easily, moving to grab the rifles that they had been using and put them away.
Clint didn't respond, instead going over to the control panel and beginning to pull up a staggered series of targets that went the width and length of the room, the closest being 300 meters, while the farthest was at two kilometers. It was a typical enough range test; he wanted to see what Flynn could do in a controlled setting before deciding what he personally needed work on. He'd seen the scores, but that didn't mean he didn't want to see the kid's set up and technique for himself.
"Barton, do you not have a rifle in here anymore?"
Clint looked up as Rivers spoke to him from the doorway of the weapon's room before he responded.
"Nah, mine's back home. Didn't know I was going to be training distance today." he said coolly, pressing the final button to solidify the targets' positions and walking over to him. "We'll just use one of the public ones. He's going to be doing most of the shooting anyway."
Rivers gave a nod of acceptance, stepping aside and making for the elevator for himself. Clint didn't spare the other men another second of his attention, waving for Flynn to join him as he stepped into the weapon's room for himself. Floor to ceiling lockers went the expanse of both side walls, with a long table in the center of the room stocked with the supplies needed to clean a rifle. Each locker had an agent's name assigned to it, and though the first locker to the left had a plaque that read 'Barton', it was currently empty aside from a few spare boxes of ammunition and an empty travel case. Clint bypassed all of them and went instead to the wide locker that went the length of the back wall.
"This back here is for the publically available rifles for training purposes and such." he explained, punching in his passcode and sliding it open. "You'll get your own locker wherever you're stationed, which is probably going to be the helicarrier, and the SHIELD techs will put together a specialized rifle for you once you've cleared training and are put on active duty. You don't have access to these yet either; you'll get that once you're out of general at the discretion of your handler."
As he outlined that for Flynn, he carefully pulled out one of the long range sniper rifles and set it on the table before turning back to the locker, grabbing a box of ammunition, and closing it again.
"Procedure is to clean the rifle before and after use. Have you ever used anything like this before?" Clint asked, motioning for Flynn to join him in front of the rifle while the recruit shook his head.
"Nothing really this advanced, sir." he admitted, and Clint nodded, having expected a similar response and beginning to take the rifle apart.
"I'll show you how to do it this time, and when we go to put it away it's all yours."
That announcement had Flynn shifting closer and watching his actions carefully. It only took Clint a few minutes to take apart, clean, and put the rifle back together, explaining as he went. Then he was handing it over to Flynn, along with the ammunition, and gesturing him back out into the range.
"One shot for each target, if you don't mind." he said, watching as the younger man took it to the platform and began setting it up, laying behind it and getting into position behind the scope once it was loaded and ready. "Take a few at the first one to get used to the rifle if you need to."
Flynn nodded to confirm that he'd heard before sighting the first target and squeezing off a round. Clint's eyes went to the screen set up to the right of the platform the recruit was on, showing the target he had just hit. He made an impressed humming noise when he saw the bullet hole had nicked the edge of the bullseye. For that to be his first time of ever using that kind of rifle, even just at 300 meters that was good. He didn't say anything though, simply watching as Flynn fixed his aim and shot again. This bullet was closer to the center of the bullseye and he saw Flynn give it a short nod of approval before turning the barrel towards the second target.
In less than fifteen minutes, a bullet had left a neat hole on all seven of the targets, none being any further than one ring from the bullseye. Clint gave an impressed blink and smirked, stepping up to crouch at Flynn's shoulder.
"Very good." he said matter of factly. "Now, I want you to look at the 1.7 kilometer target again."
That had been the kid's worst one, though it still was only at the edge of the first ring. He saw Flynn duck his head to the scope again, sighting the requested target and aiming the rifle towards it.
"What threw off your shot there? Why was it lower than the others?" Clint asked expectantly, already knowing the answer for himself, but wanting to see if the recruit could pick up on it.
Frowning, Flynn propped himself up on his elbows to scan the length of the room with narrowed eyes. It took him a few moments, but eventually Clint saw his head tip to the side and his eyes widen slightly, before he looked back to him curiously.
"The air vent?" he asked, jerking his head towards the ceiling for emphasis. Clint nodded and spoke, his own eyes going to the target and the grating in the ceiling.
"The tiniest air flow can disrupt the path of a bullet at that distance. Look at the target before and after, take the differences in distance to the center, and adjust your shot." he instructed, watching as Flynn's eyes narrowed as he looked intently between the three targets.
After a few moments, he ducked back behind his rifle and positioned it carefully, before letting out his breath and firing. Looking up to the screen, Clint grinned when he saw the new bullet hole firmly within the bullseye.
"Now, you aren't always going to have discrepancies to judge by like you did here, but it's an easy way to adjust your shot in a controlled setting like this. We'll get into how to deal with wind and the like later. For now, I want you to give me shots into each of the targets, with the same level of accuracy, in four minutes or less. That's more than half a minute for each target." Clint said as he took a small step back and ignored Flynn's gaping stare. He simply raised an eyebrow, challenging the recruit to tell him he couldn't do it.
After a moment, Flynn's jaw clenched and he turned back to the targets and his rifle, sighting the closest target quickly.
"Speed doesn't mean a damn thing if you sacrifice your accuracy. So don't do it." he pointed out coolly, just as Flynn's first shot rang out. Six more followed rhythmically, and Clint noted with satisfaction that each bullet stayed within a few millimeters of the original.
After the final shot, the archer looked down to his watch as Flynn turned back to him expectantly as well.
"4:34." he said, making the recruit scowl lightly. "Go again."
It took two more tries, but eventually Flynn was able to successfully sight and shoot each target within four minutes while still keeping his aim consistent. Clint gave him a nod when he sat up onto his knees after he finished, stretching out his back.
"That's good enough as far as shooting goes for tonight." Clint said, starting to motion for Flynn to grab the rifle to put up, but before he could, the recruit spoke up, tone curious.
"How fast could you do something like that, sir?" he questioned, and the archer just snorted.
"This is your training, not mine recruit." he reminded, but Flynn continued stubbornly.
"I just want to have an idea what I need to shoot for." he said innocently.
"You shoot to get better." Clint said dryly, giving a slight roll of his eyes and moving to get behind the rifle anyways. Flynn quickly moved out of his way, watching intensely as he sighted the first target and pulled the trigger.
He then squeezed it again, moving the rifle before the first bullet had even lodged itself into the target. There were barely seconds in between each shot, and when Clint sat up a little more than thirty seconds later, a neat bullet hole having been made in the very center of each bullseye. He caught sight of Flynn's gob smacked expression and smirked as he rose fluidly to his feet.
"I've been doing this for years; this was your first night on this kind of rifle. You'll get there." the archer said knowingly, before motioning for the recruit to collect the rifle. "You need to clean that so we can put it back into the locker."
"Yes, sir." Flynn moved to do so, carrying the rifle back into the weapons room, sitting it down, and beginning to take it apart as Clint had shown him how to do before. He was decidedly slower than the archer had been, but thorough, looking to him for conformation as he began sliding pieces back together.
Once the rifle had been cleaned and put back in its place in the locker, Clint led Flynn out of the room and back to the elevator. As he pressed the correct button to take them back up a few levels, the archer turned to the younger man and spoke.
"I've got one more thing I want to work with you on tonight before I let you go back to your bunk. From now on, do you want to do your training in the morning or evening? It's probably going to be an additional three hours a day to get you ready as quickly as possible, that way I can get back into rotation where they need me." Clint explained, and Flynn gave a slow nod, looking to him.
"To be honest sir, it doesn't make much of a difference to me." he said, and Clint mirrored his nod and responded smoothly.
"Then we'll do an hour in the morning and two in the evening, ideally, of course." the archer informed him before stepping out of the elevator. He went a few yards down a hallway before punching his access code into a pad to the right of the door and pulling it open to reveal a training gym.
It contained another obstacle course, but this one was absolutely nothing like the general course Flynn had run this morning. It was made up of building facades, windows, roof-tops, and railings among other things to create a faux urban environment. There was a green flagpole with a line on the ground a few feet in front of them, and a barely visible red one across the gym.
"This," Clint started as he closed the door behind them and came up to where Flynn had stopped, staring at what outwardly seemed to be a jumbled mess of obstacles. "Is a parkour course. You know what that is?"
"It's like free running; treating the world like an obstacle course." Flynn said, looking away from the structures in front of him and back to Clint.
"Close enough." the archer shrugged, before giving the younger man a slight grin. "But it's going to become your best friend. You are going to rely on getting across whole cities to track a mark or scout a vantage point and not being seen. And while it's all nice and fun to blend in on the streets and follow someone at a leisurely pace, you can't exactly do that with a rifle on your back. Now parkour courses and actually running an urban environment are two entirely different things, but this one is good enough to let you get a feel for it before I take you out into the city to practice."
The archer paused, starting to move around the structure, and waving for Flynn to follow him.
"While being able to manipulate your body into doing what you want it to is important, you also have to train your mind to be able to pick out a course between roof tops and fire escapes and drain pipes. Your ultimate goal isn't speed, it's stealth, but speed can sure as hell come in handy. With this course, your goal is to get from start-" he nodded back to the green pole and line they'd just passed, "- to finish-" he nodded to the red one across the gym, "- without your feet touching the ground once. Now I'm going to run it with you once to help you get started. It isn't necessarily going to be the easiest or fastest way. It's up to you to make changes to the course I show you to make it better when you start running it by yourself."
Clint started making his way back to the start line after letting Flynn get a look at the length of the course. The recruit looked torn between nervousness and eagerness, which made Clint smirk as he stopped at the line on the concrete floor. He then focused on the task in front of him and leapt up and forward, snagging a metal beam and swinging himself up to plant his feet on the edge of a fire escape railing. He launched himself off of it easily, landing one hand on the narrow opening of a windowsill and tucking in on himself to vault through it and land on a concrete ledge on the other side. Flynn could still see him clearly so he motioned for the recruit to follow him, watching carefully as the younger man took a deep breath before copying his movements. He was stiff and clumsy, but he got himself to land beside the archer without falling and breaking something, so he gave an approving nod.
"Relax." he said matter of factly, poking the man's stiff arm where it was holding himself steady in a crouch on the small ledge. "Your body has to move fluidly, one action to another. Trust your instinct."
As soon as he finished speaking, Clint lightly dropped off the ledge, landing on a wide railing a few feet below and starting across it with steady footsteps until he could leap off and grab a drain pipe, scaling it quickly up to a roof.
"Think of it like the balance beam in the agility course." Clint coached when he saw the recruit eyeing the railing apprehensively. "The only difference between the two is how you see it. Stop looking at everything for its singular purpose; look at an area for its cohesion."
As he finished speaking, Flynn dropped off the ledge and landed in a crouch on the railing with his hands supporting in front of him. He then stood carefully and started forward, eyes on the drain pipe that was his next target. Clint noted with satisfaction that it only took him a moment to find viable hand and foot holds to propel him up and within moments, the recruit was next to him again.
Clint continued through the entire course slowly, helping Flynn where he seemed stuck and showing him how to manipulate everyday objects into a path that would go unseen by most anyone not actively looking for him. By the time they landed on the other side of the gym, just past the red line across the floor, Flynn had only fallen twice, and slipped just a handful of times more. He did, however, look much more relieved to be back on the ground. That just made Clint smirk as he looked to him and nodded back around the other side of the course. "Now try it by yourself."
Flynn gave a short sigh but obediently jogged back around to the other end and started again. For every change he made in the route Clint had showed him, the archer had him explain why he thought it would work better. There were times he was right, and times he had to pick his way backwards and find another way. But Clint did note that the longer Flynn spent on the course, the surer his movements became and the better he was able to keep up his momentum before pausing again.
"Alright." Clint spoke up to stop him after he had landed across the red line for the fifth time, out of breath and sweating slightly. "That's enough for tonight. Tomorrow morning I want you to meet me in the lobby at 6:30."
"Yes sir." Flynn puffed his understanding, shaking himself out quickly and moving to stand with the archer. He tipped his head to the side slightly as they started for the exit to the gym, looking to Clint curiously. "What do you want me to tell the rest of the recruits, sir?"
"The truth." Clint shrugged, before smirking. "Unless for some reason you feel like lying."
"No sir." Flynn said with a slight chuckle.
Clint bid the recruit a good night before making his way off base and pulling out his phone as he stepped out onto the streets of New York.
'Jeeze, Barton, what are you doing? Burying a body?' Tony quipped as he answered his phone, making Clint roll his eyes as he stuffed his free hand into his jacket pocket. Early March still had a high possibility of being chilly, especially after the sun went down.
"Any more smart ass comments like that and it'll be yours." the archer returned sardonically, making Tony huff from the other end of the line. "Don't get all worked up, I'm on my way."
It only took him maybe ten minutes to make his way to the little hole in the wall bar he was meeting the others at, instantly spotting them at a table near the far end of the bar. The place was never really crowded and tonight was no exception, a handful of other patrons scattered amongst the tables and bar stools. There was a single bartender managing things, a man Clint knew to be the owner, Dominic. Steve liked to sit down and have a conversation with him in the mornings around coffee, and when Clint joined the Captain on his run, he didn't mind tagging along, though he usually didn't do more than listen.
Even so, Dominic flashed him a wave when he entered and Clint returned it quickly before making his way over to the table with the others, skirting around them for the open seat that faced the rest of the bar with its back to the wall beside Natasha.
"Where's Bruce?" Clint asked, noting the other empty seat between Tony and Steve. There was a half empty mug of tea in front of it, so Clint knew the doctor had been there.
"You missed it, Featherhead." Tony snickered, while Steve gave a long, exasperated sigh and a shake of his head, which caused Clint to raise a curious eyebrow. "Capsicle got to break up a bar fight."
"Here?" the archer asked, a slight note of disbelief in his voice as he glanced around the quiet bar room.
"Okay, so maybe it was a couple hippie wanna-be's that went for some hard stuff instead of their usual non-fat soy mocha lattes," Tony said with a small shrug, waving that fact off as inconsequential. "But at least four punches were thrown before Captain Boyscout got up and pulled them apart. It was actually kinda funny to be honest. Steve had one hand on each of their shoulders and they couldn't even try to go at each other anymore, then-"
"Alright, I think Clint gets the picture." Steve cut in there with a glance to Tony, who gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes, before he looked back to Clint. "Bruce decided to head home after that. Anyway, so how were the recruits?"
"You mean besides hell spawn?" Clint asked innocently, before pausing as Dominic walked over to their table.
"Here ya go," the older man said, setting an unopened beer bottle in front of the archer and earning a nod of thanks. "Anyone else need anything?"
"I think we're good." Tony tossed out, raising his three-quarters of the way full glass. Thor spoke up as the bartender walked away, the demi-god turning his attention back to Clint.
"So the young agents of SHIELD did not respond well to their training?" he asked, and Clint snorted, popping open his beer and taking a small sip.
"Sure, after a bit of prodding." he said dryly. "Fury has me training agility and marksmanship."
He detailed for them how his day had went, feeling himself relax as he did so. This was something he'd rarely ever had before. A chance to just sit back with friends and relay his experiences around a couple drinks. It was so normal it almost hurt and he loved it. For ten minutes, he wasn't acting as a master assassin, he wasn't shooting arrows at aliens or monsters or robots, his life wasn't hanging in the balance. His friends were engaged and interested in what he had to say, they cared. Natasha had casually laid her arm across his that rested against the table and leaned into his shoulder, listening to him speak with the smallest of amused grins on her face.
From his description of the recruits' training, Thor somehow got onto the subject of a warrior's training on Asgard, which led to Steve's experiences in boot camp for the Army, which Clint then supplemented with how the Army had changed its tactics over 70 odd years by telling them about what boot camp had consisted of for him. It took him a solid five minutes to realize that the information about his past had come as quickly and easily as breathing. He hadn't even thought about it before hand. And that just buoyed his mood even more.
By the time the five of them paused in their conversation and looked up, they were shocked to see that the rest of the bar was empty, aside from Dominic behind the bar cleaning glasses. Clint glanced to his watch and felt his eyes widen slightly at the sight that it was past eleven o'clock. He knew for a fact that the bar closed at 10:30.
"You should have just kicked us out if it was this late, Dominic." Steve spoke up, obviously having realized the same fact, but the balding man behind the bar looked up and simply waved off his concern with an easy grin.
"Don't worry about it. Not doing anything I normally wouldn't be." Dominic assured them, but even so the five of them stood by unspoken agreement and brought their empty bottles or glasses over to the bar. "You guys have a good night. And lady, of course."
He shot a grin to Natasha who returned it politely, before Steve spoke up with a slight nod.
"Yeah, you too. See ya later." the Captain returned before following Thor who lead them out of the bar and onto the street, the sidewalks still fairly populated even with the time of night.
"Ugh, I can't believe I let you people talk me in to walking here." Tony groused under his breath, eyes narrowing as he pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders. "It's two miles back to the tower. Do I look like I want to walk two miles?"
"You act like it's going to kill you." Natasha pointed out dryly with a raised eyebrow, making Clint snort his agreement. Their reaction only had Tony rolling his eyes and casting a mock-heated glare at them, which then earned a raised eyebrow from Clint.
"It's good for you to walk off all that Scotch, Tony." the archer said, hiding a grin under a placating expression as he lightly patted the billionaire's shoulder. Tony scowled at him then, shrugging his hand off in aggravation.
"I'll have you know that I am perfectly fit, thank you very much Barton." he retorted, but before the archer could retaliate, Steve raised a hand and waved it in between them.
"Alright you two." he said, the slightest note of firmness in his voice that had Tony rolling his eyes yet again, before he tossed an exasperated look at Clint who did grin then.
"The guy treats us like we're seven and incapable of getting into a good, verbal sparring match." Tony said lightly, earning a sigh from Clint and a slight shake of his head.
"Honestly, if I feel like verbally beating you into the dirt-," he started, only to look to Tony when the billionaire scoffed abruptly and cut him off.
"Oh, hold on a second Feathers." he said quickly, crossing his hands to make a 'T' shape and pausing in the sidewalk, making Clint and the others turn back to face him. "Like you would win an argument against me. I've got like... at least ten years' experience on you insulting the hell out of people."
"Oh right, I forgot. You're the one fast approaching the other side of the hill, aren't you?" Clint tossed back, making Natasha bite the inside of her lip and the corner of her moth twitch in a barely hidden grin, while Steve outright chuckled and Thor looked a small bit confused.
Tony on the other hand, had crossed from mildly insulted to outraged. Clint laughed at the expression, shaking his head once Tony shoved him lightly and stalked past, muttering under his breath.
"Serves you right, Stark, always calling Steve 'gramps'." Clint pointed out but Tony just scoffed and pretended to ignore him as the others caught back up.
"I'll remember that." Tony shot back at him, but Clint really wasn't concerned, looking to Steve as the Captain spoke up, looking to him.
"So this recruit you're training," he started and Clint gave a small nod for him to continue as they continued walking. "I gotta wonder why Fury wants you to do it. I'd think he'd want you more in the field than a training gym."
"You're right about that, but to be honest, there's no one else to train the kid." Clint explained, making Tony cast him a glance of slight disbelief.
"You can't be saying that you're the only one in the entirety of SHIELD that can man a sniper rifle with any level of accuracy." the billionaire scoffed, but Clint shook his head.
"No, of course not. There are other snipers. But it's not just about the marksmanship, and I am SHIELD's only distance assassin."
"And there's a distinction...?" Tony started, making the archer give a slight sigh.
"In the context of SHIELD, yes." he said, continuing at the curious glance from Steve. "SHIELD snipers work as part of a strike team providing aerial support and coverage for their missions. They aren't trained to track a mark through a city, or to work as a solo operative. If SHIELD wants Flynn trained as a distance assassin, which is what we need from him, I have to be the one to train him. Otherwise we throw him to the wolves unprepared and hopes he figures out a way to teach himself what he needs to do like I did."
"Gotcha." Steve nodded understanding while Tony just snorted, asking another question.
"Why are they so desperate to have another distance assassin now if they've just had you for the past eight years or so?" he asked and Clint shrugged.
"I haven't been going on missions with anything near the frequency of what I used to since New York. Neither has Tasha. We've been busy with the team, and everything's been kind of jumbled with us not being assigned a permanent handler since Phil died." the archer explained, his expression smoothing into nothing as he mentioned his former handler.
"Fury's tried." Natasha pointed out, earning a small angry snort from her partner. "But neither of us are exactly easy to work with and we won't just trust anyone. And not everyone trusts us. You get some idiot out in the field that wants to try to change the way we operate and nothing's going to go well."
"Sounds remarkably too complicated." Tony said dismissively, and Clint tilted his head to the side and shrugged agreement.
The next morning Clint spotted Flynn waiting for him in the lobby of base just like he'd asked as he passed through security exactly at 6:30. The recruit spotted him as well, standing as he approached and giving a slight nod.
"Good morning, sir." he greeted, and Clint returned the nod, before waving for him to follow as he started down one of the halls.
"This morning we're going to be working on how you're going to want to go about choosing a vantage point for a hit." the archer explained as they walked, Flynn instantly becoming even more alert and focused. "Most times it takes days of scouting your mark to find the best place and time to set up, but I can show you the basics of what to look for in a good point with a simulator to start with."
Clint paused as he got to a small briefing room he'd had Fury set aside for him for the morning and punching in his passcode to enter it. It was dimly lit as usual inside, a round table centered in the room. He went over to that as Flynn closed the door behind them and toyed with one of the touchscreens that were set into the glass table top, and within moments a holographic city block had flickered into being across the table. Flynn stepped up beside him, surveying it with an impressed air, before looking sideways to Clint as the archer began to speak.
"So we're going to assume your mark is here:" Clint reached forward to prod the hologram on a sidewalk outside one of the buildings. A red figure of a man appeared there, and the archer then took a step back. "Let's say it's around 10 pm. Where do you shoot from?"
"Uhm," Flynn's eyes narrowed as he considered the situation in front of him. After a few moments he pointed to a rooftop about 30 degrees to the left of the target across the street. Clint gave a small nod, simply asking another question.
"What's the range on your rifle?"
"About two kilometers, sir."
"The more of that distance you use, the harder it's going to be for anyone to spot you from the street. But with more distance, what do you have to be careful with to keep your shot accurate?" Clint prodded, twitching a grin when Flynn's expression clouded, only to clear after a few moments.
"Wind?" he asked, grinning when the archer nodded.
"Exactly. So you have to make sure there's something in your general vicinity that you can use to judge wind speed and direction. Flags can work." Clint told him, Flynn nodding in response before he continued. "All that in mind, where's a better spot to take your shot from?"
They continued like that, Clint teaching him how to use the sun's placement to his advantage when he was going to take his shot in the early morning or late afternoon. Flynn got better at choosing a vantage point without the archer's assistance steadily until Clint checked his watch and noted that they had fifteen minutes to join the rest of the recruit class in the training gym for agility.
The rest of the day, Clint noted that Flynn pushed himself even harder in training than he had the day before. Both of the sections they were doing were good leads ups into what the archer would have the recruit doing later that evening, and he apparently recognized that. That of course wasn't to say that the rest of the recruits weren't perfectly content to try their hardest to see which one of them he would shoot first.
Maxwell and Walker butted heads at least once per hour, steadily escalating in severity. It was impacting their training, as well as that of the rest of the class, and by the end of the day, Clint was done putting up with their squabbling.
"Maxwell, Walker!" he called both men back as the class made to leave the range that they had spent the last three hours in, working on marksmanship. Neither looked happy about being called back, glaring at each other accusingly as they made their way back towards where the archer stood, Flynn waiting off a few feet to the side. "Don't glare at each other; trust me when I say you're both equally at fault."
He waited until they were both in front of him, standing at attention before he spoke again, considering them both with slightly narrowed eyes and a cold expression.
"I do not care what differences the two of you have. You can do whatever you want with them before or after training. But during training, you are both to conduct yourselves professionally. You are to have the self-control to be able to work with someone, even if you don't necessarily like them, for the good of the assignment or mission as a whole. Anything less is sloppy, and I think you would have realized by now that this is not a sloppy agency. Simply put, if you do not conduct yourselves as SHIELD agents in training, you can be sure that you will not be put anywhere near the field as such, am I understood?" Clint asked pointedly, his gaze flicking back and forth between them.
"Yes sir." Walker was the first to respond, tone completely empty.
Maxwell on the other hand was content to glare a hole in the ground for a few long seconds before he grudgingly opened his mouth and repeated Walker's statement. Clint knew he wasn't going to get much better out of the recruit, so he gave a short nod before jerking his head towards the door.
"Dismissed."
He watched them both leave, door sliding shut behind them, before he glanced to Flynn who had a speculative look on his face.
"Who do you think's going to end up in the infirmary before the week is out?" he asked curiously, and the recruit snorted before responding without any hesitation.
"Maxwell." he said simply and Clint shrugged a nod of agreement, before waving him forward.
"Fair enough. Let's grab something from mess before we start."
And there we have it, I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to tell me what you think, or any questions you may have. Other than that, I'll see you all next Monday with the next chapter.
~Dogstar