This room that Alex had brought him to reminded Jack of the city he visited last night. There were bright lights and noises flashing around, and thumping music echoed off of the seemingly soundproof walls, as Jack hadn't heard anything before Alex opened the door.

It was strange, and foreign. People glanced his way, and moved to the other side of the room. Jack sighed. It seemed as though a lot of the agents still hadn't accepted him yet. He supposed he would have to get used to it.

"C'mon, we don't want to be in this part anyway. It smells like body odour and month old training boots." Alex joked, sensing Jack's obvious discomfort.

Jack trailed behind Alex as the skirted the edge of the surging mass of people. Jack and A,ex had relaxed in Alex's room for a few hours, basically killing time before they went to the 'Gaming Room'. Alex taught Jack what the TV does, expertly using the long thin device he called a remote, to change what he called 'channels' on the TV. Alex said there was nothing interesting on, and that they'd have to settle for a nature documentary. Jack wasn't exactly sure what a 'documentary' was, but soon found out that it taught you about different animals.

Jack had been fascinated by all the different species of fauna that flashed across the screen. It was a whole new experience, and if Jack looked at the screen too long, he found himself looking around the room as if to get a better look at the sandy deserts or jungles around him, only to realised he could only see what was on the TV.

He had cringed when a huge black wolf appeared, savagely ripping into some unfortunate animal. Jack had begun discussing his hate for the beasts, recalling a story about being attacked by a random one when he was nosing around in a small patch of woods.

This spurred a flurry of stories from Alex, and the red-head soon have Jack wiping tears from his eyes from laughing too hard. The guy was just too funny! He animated his tales with different sounds and gestures that made it all the more funnier. Jack was mid-way through telling about his fun time chasing a group of spooked wild horses through wide open fields when Alex's watched had beeped, signalling it was time to leave. Alex had advised Jack to change, so Jack rushed next door and put on his beloved hoodie and trousers.

And now, they were here, toeing their way past over-excited party-goers. After a tense couple of minutes, Jack and Alex broke free of the crowd, and made their way to the back of the room. This room was better, but still noisy in its own way. There were pools tables, and card games, and even a soccer match progressing to the right. In addition, a huge space of about 60 square feet was at the back of the room.

But the main thing Jack noticed, is that it was hot. Near frozen sweat was dripping down the side of Jack's face, in his immortal body's attempt to keep his internal systems moderately below zero. The spirit of Winter knew he couldn't stay in here for too long. This room was huge, surely there must be air-conditioning in here?

Jack had come to rely on air-conditioning. Fury made sure that it was cold in the training room, and Jack managed to keep himself moderately cool wherever else he went in the Helicarrier, but this room must've been about 90 degrees! Probably because the gaming rooms are sealed off from the rest of the ship to block out noise.

"Hmm, that's strange. There's usually a lot more people in here. I guess they moved all the speakers and stuff out into the lounge area, seeing as the AC in here isn't working." Alex commented.

Jack swallowed, and formed a fresh layer of ice under his clothes. He had found that after he got used to being in his SHIELD uniform for so long, he only needed to coat his body in ice when he got really hot. Like now, for instance, even though he was back to the classic hood and trousers. Jack knew it wasn't going to last long, maybe 10 minutes or so before water started to drop down his leg.

Alex looked at Jack with wide eyes. Well, they were always kinda wide. His green tinged eyes always kinda looked a little too big for his head, but they always held a glint of humour. Something that Jack appreciated in a person.

"Hey Jack, it is kinda hot in here, even for me! How are you holding?"

"I'll be fine for a little while. I've got a bit of a party trick that helps me keep cool." He covered his hand in a fine layer of frost to prove his point. Alex scoffed. "I wish I could do that. It would've really helped when the main aircon system spontaneously combusted one fine summers day. The whole Helicarrier felt like an oven, and us agents were all cooking alive."

Jack winced. He would've been clawing at the door to get out and fly away. But he could've just froze a couple of rooms and let everybody cool down in there. Wait a minute.

"Ugh. It is really hot in here, I don't think we should stay too long. Maybe I can introduce you to a few people before we leave." Alex stated.

Jack felt kind of glum. He'd been having a great day already. Asides from the rather harsh morning, Today Jack had played paintball (which was actually kind of fun) made what he considered a new friend, and even found a clue that could be the leading factor in unlocking his memories and finding out more about himself. Add that in with Alex's story-telling skills and you have a happy frost spirit. But take away the air-conditioning and his night out, you've left the immortal bringer of Winter feeling a little sour.

So for the next 20 minutes, Jack tailed Alex around, only speaking when someone spoke to him, laughing at people's jokes, and smiling nervously when he was introduced to a new person. There was only one person that he didn't mind too much. That was the woman that had walked up and shook hands with him in the middle of a paintball game after he and Alex had spent a while trying to get her out. Jack had made the hit, and the woman had smiled and shook his hand, complimenting the spirit on his keen shot.

She had been pleasant to talk to, somewhat serious, but also very sarcastic. Sometimes, when she was talking, Jack couldn't tell the difference. Alex didn't seem to know her very well, but she had seen them and introduced herself. Her name was Christine, and she had straight brown hair that framed her thin features and pale blue eyes, one's that always seemed to hold a challenge within them.

Alex seemed to keep his friends close, but his enemy's closer, it seemed. One of the more confident agents approached as Alex and Jack were making their way over to the soda machine, and sneered at the two. "Look's like you found the little reject, eh Summers? I bet you two are best of buddies, spend all of your time together. Is that a stick you got there, ice-boy? I bet Alex gave it to you, didn't he. We all know what a fan of sticks he is."

The man honestly reminded Jack of a rat. His features were too close of his nose, his mouth twisted into a sneer. But he was tall. Jack estimated him to be almost as tall as Steve!

Poor Alex was obviously embarrassed. His face was set into a permanent cringe, and he was choosing to look to the left instead of tilting his head upwards to stare at the man. Jack let out a bored sigh, and examined his nails, trying to pick minuscule flecks of red and blue paint from the tips.

"It's not a stick, you know. It's a staff, and it's a hell of a lot more powerful than you'll ever dream to be."

"I don't dream to be powerful, kid. I know I'm the best. Better than you, better than Alex, and better than anyone in this room."

Jack's ocean blue eyes had turned dark, and he took his most menacing step forward. "I don't know wh-"

"Oof!"

The Winter Spirit was shoved back by both of the mans meaty arms, and toppled over Alex. It was a tangled mess of limbs and hair, until Jack stood straight up, clutching his staff in the white knuckle of his right hand. Tensions were high in the gaming room, and many of the agents had turned toward the direction of the fight.

'Time to end this now.' Jack thought.

With a single fluid swing, the spirit waved his trusted staff at the sneering giant. "I'll give you one last warning. Back. Off." Jack growled. His voice was dark and ominous, and everyone but the bully had started to notice the frantic breeze bouncing through the room, and the sudden drop in temperature.

"Oh yeah? What are you-"

The guy was cut off when Jack pulled his staff back and swung it towards the brute's feet, adding extra energy to swiftly coat his ankles in a thicker layer of ice. A deep, rich colour of blue glacier-like ice weighed down the taller man's feet, and snaked up his leg. Jack felt kind of annoyed now, wishing he had picked a more original method, rather than freezing someone's lower half again. But, it was done.

Jack offered his right hand out to Alex and helped him up off of the tiled floor. Alex dusted himself off, gaping at the thrashing guy frozen in the centre of the room. The thicker ice had started cracking, and nobody moved to help him. All the agents stood crowded around him, half of them gaping and looking around with frantic eyes, but the other half were smiling. Some of them had smug smiles they tried to unsuccessfully hide with their hands, others were pointing strange flashing devices at the man, and the rest were downright laughing. One rowdy group of men laughed so hard the tumbled onto the floor, tears leaking out of their eyes.

Some of the crystal ice started to break off of where it stopped in the middle of the man's upper calf, and he looked near to tears. He was frantic in his movements, trying to escape the mocking stares of the rest of the room. Jack glanced over to Alex, who had joined the party of people who were trying to hide their smiles. The wind had ceased, and the temperature had gone back to normal.

The Winter Spirit shifted his gaze to the crowd. This man was downright nasty, and Jack had put him in his place, but he didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to be humiliated, with all of his peers laughing and staring holes at where he stood. Jack sighed. He had done this.

Steve Rogers stood at the very back of the room, with a disappointed frown on his face, and a resigned look in his eyes. He had been in this room all night, bearing the stuffy heat and coy glances from some of the female agents. All night he had been keeping is eyes on a particular frost spirit. He watched as Jack and his partner Alex Summers wandered through the vast room, mingling with some of the agents that didn't seem to enjoy the mini-club in the other room.

Jack was obviously a little shy, and Steve completely understood. His transformation into a super solider had opened up completely new pathways for him. There was always someone new to meet, some other person he had to impress. But thankfully, his mother had raised him well, and taught him manners how to socialise.

Jack had never learned any of these things, never had anyone to teach him. Steve got the feeling that this kid was always a bit of a loner, and the fact that nobody had ever seen him (this still confused Steve) for nearly 300 years, he the soldier guessed he wasn't very well socialised.

So he watched from the corner of the room. Jack seemed to be having a good time, and Alex didn't push him to meet new people, answering all of his questions and introducing the kid only when Jack stepped out from behind him. Steve could see these two already had a strong friendship. They way they walked beside each other, and their non-verbal communication reminded him of how soldiers acted on the battlefield, in a way.

Like they way that if Jack was feeling too shy to say hello, he would subtly shift behind Alex, and keep his head down. Alex would keep his conversation with this person as short as possible, and move onto someone else. And if Jack took an interest in someone, the red-head did as much as possible to ease Jack into a conversation with them. They had met about 20 people, Jack only really talking to a few of them, but seemed to be enjoying himself, until another agent approached the two.

Steve sensed trouble as the guy lumbered over, and his suspicions were confirmed when Alex went rigid, standing straight up where he stood. Jack seemed to notice and gave a quizzical balance at the man. Steve couldn't hear what the agent said as they were all the way across the huge room, but his super-hearing could detect the snarl in his voice. The hundred-or-so agents seemed to gravitate towards the escalating fight, and Steve began to close in, taking cautious strides.

He barely had time to blink before Alex and Jack were shoved over by the brute. Steve noticed the auburn-haired woman Jack was conversing with earlier begin to run over, but she was still too far away. Steve himself had begaun to break into a jog, but stopped in his tracks when Jack stood up. He looked calm, and sure of himself. Steve knew Jack could handle himself, and honestly wanted to see how he would deal with this particular situation.

Jack tilted his head up, and Steve began to back up to the corner he had been standing in as a few of the more observant agents shit him curious glances. Steve smiled to himself when he saw Jack trying to reason the situation, or at telecast that what's he presumed was going on. Steve's back hit the wall a little to the left of where he had previously been standing. He watched intently, observing the situation from afar.

The soldier sucked in a surprised gasp when Jack swung his wicked staff at the man, midway through the bully's sentence. It was like what happened with Clint all over again, only this time it wasn't funny. There were only three people in the room when Jack had frozen Clint, and it was only a monitor dent in his pride. Jack had done this in the middle of a huge room full of people, all watching and gaping at what had happened.

Steve observed that this man wasn't very well like among his co-workers. Nobody had moved to help to poor man, and the poor guy thrashed desperately trying to break free. Steve was so disappointed, as he watched some the agents laugh and point their tiny mobile telephones and take pictures of the scene. The man was now red in the face, and looked close to crying.

He was so disappointed in Jack, his friend. Steve Rogers sighed, and stepped forward to help the man unfortunate man. This wasn't right, nobody deserves this. Jack could've dealt with this so much better, just could've walked away, and left the man to himself. But he took petty revenge, and even though this man was a downright bully, and was very unreasonable in his approach, he didn't deserve this.

Steve was halfway there, when Jack took a careful, measured step forward. The frozen man shot Jack a glare of pure hatred, mingled in with a sliver of fear. Steve moved faster, attempting to stop Jaco before he did something he would regret. Like embarrass the guy further. But he didn't. He just stopped, and stared. His frosty gaze staring at the ice encasing the man's legs. And then, without a sound, he hooked the curved end of his staff at the top of the ice, finding a place where some of the ice had cracked off and left a gap between where skin met ice. He gave a small tug, as if to make sure the staff was secure, and the yanked it back. The ice started cracking.

With a determined expression, Steve saw Jack dig his bare feet into the tiled floor and pulled even harder. Large bits of ice started to fall off, and the trapped man started moving wildly, thrashing and twisting his waist in an attempt to free himself. Jack cringed. He looked like he was actually starting to feel very guilty.

With a final taxing tug, a large chunk of ice cracked down the middle and split from the frozen hill. The man wrenched himself from the remaining ice, and practically ran out of the room, his face bright red, from both effort and embarrassment.

Steve looked at Jack in a new light, not judging, but taking notice. Taking notice of the way his forehead creased when they agents began cheering, and wincing when some of the bolder ones walked up and cautiously patted him on the back. How he whipped around to Alex and began talking to him, checking if he was ok, asking questions. This kid could go both ways when it came to training. Either taking the aggressive and quick approach, or reasoning, and understanding. Steve wandered out of the room, deciding he needed to have a chat with Fury.

"Alex, I know it might be a little late to ask this, but who the hell was that guy?" Jack asked incredously.

His partner's eyes were still wide with shock, but the agent was grinning from ear to ear, his red locks falling into his eyes. "Jack! I can't believe you did that! You- that was frickin' awesome! He's Daniel, aka 'The Eagle' but nobody calls him that. It's a stupid name he made up himself."

Another agent walked by and grinned at a bewildered Jack, giving him a small salute.

"Ok, then. What is all that about?" Jack questioned, nodding his head in the direction of the passing agent.

"Well, he's kind of the Helicarrier's resident jerk, and he pissed off either every person in this room, or their friends."

Jack frowned, wanting to discuss this matter further, but he still had other questions. "So why did he pick us in particular?" Jack asked, cringing as a burly agent patted him on the back.

Alex's eyes turned dark, and looked towards the floor. "Well, uh, were were all kinda rookie agents, and still in training. At the time, we were working at a small SHIELD facility, and they gave us two hours to spar together every week. It was fine for the first few months, fun even. But Daniel, he had beat most of the people in the room, and really held his head high because of it, you know? Well, it was my turn. And he thought it was hilarious that I used a stick instead of knives or guns or something like that."

Jack nodded his head eagerly, beckoning Alex to go on.

"So, um, he said that he'll spar with a Bō as well. And, um, we did and he lost, and he got really mad, so he tried with knives." Alex gave a nervous smile. "And he couldn't get a hit in. So he got really really pissed off and tried to spar with the first person he saw." Alex's smile turned into a rueful grin. "Turns out Christine wasn't too happy about. She put him DOWN. So ever since that day, I've been the first one he turns to when he feels like punching something."

"Alex! What don't you defend yourself? You said it yourself, that you beat him!" Jack said, waving his staff around for emphasis. Some of the agents skittered away, though.

Alex's face turned solemn. "There's a strict rule about fighting in the game room. It's not allowed, under any circumstances. If there's even a whisper that there was a fight, Fury'll shut the place down for a whole month! and, well the only place Daniel tries to throw a punch, is, well, in the game room." Alex shrugged his shoulders.

Jack's cringe returned to his pale face. There had been a fight in the game room. He had frozen someone for God's sake! He desperately hoped that nobody will breathe a word about this out of the room.

Jack's somber thoughts were interrupted when he felt a small tap on his shoulder. He spun around, expecting to see another agent from the congratulatory committee, but all he saw was a very sweaty, and very nervous looking blonde girl. She was small in height and stature, with brown eyes and tamed curly hair. Jack noticed a group of people, who he presumed were her friends, staring at her from a distance. They must've put her up to whatever she was going to say.

"Umm, er," she stuttered, "uh, first, I uh just wanted to say thanks, about, y'know, before, but I also wanted to ask uh.." Jack leaned on his staff, his eyebrows raised. This oughta be interesting,

"Well, er, when you were about to, uh freeze that guy, uh Daniel, it got, uh really cold in here, and it was kind of um, nice, so I," she glanced nervously at her friends, who peered at her with wide eyes, "uh, we were wondering if you would uh, make it cold in here?" Her voice squeaked at the end of her stuttered sentence, and Jack gave her a surprised look.

"You want me to freeze the floor or something?" Jack asked.

The girl went very pale. "Uh! No! If you don't want to, I mean you don't have to freeze the floor, we were just wondering if... maybe?" The poor girl raced through her sentence, and Jack felt really bad for her.

He grinned at her, taking notice of how she held her breath and stared with wide, frightened eyes.

"Sure." He said. "That shouldn't be a problem. I guess it is really hot in here, I've been sweating all night!" He joked.

The girl breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at him, taking a few steps back. Jack noticed the rest of the room, leaning forward in anticipation, all holding their breath. Jack took a light step back, and surveyed the large room. There was more than enough space to ice a huge expanse of the floor without damaging the tables, chairs or snack machines that dotted the room. Jack decided that the large space at the back of the room, would do just fine.

He flew off of the ground, and to the other side of the room, ignoring the collective gasps that sounded as he did. With a deep breath, and a burst of energy, the frost spirit touched his staff to the ground and let the ice flow out from his fingers. He let the power be channeled through the staff and spread along the floor. It took about a minute, and pretty soon he opened his eyes to an icy floor and gaping faces. Alex was the first to take a running start, and flop himself down on the ice, in an attempt to cool his flushed cheeks. Everybody else joined in, either copying Alex, or sitting down.

For the rest of the night, Jack found himself surrounded by new faces and new friends. He and Alex chatted the night away, meeting new people and Jack realised that he was truly enjoying himself. He actually felt as if he belonged here, as if maybe, if he really tried, he could call this place a second home.

'MARP MARP MARP'

The obnoxiously us blaring of a white alarm clock shook Jack Frost from his slumber. He groaned in annoyance and slapped a pale hand onto the offending machine, turning it off. A few second later, Jack heard a banging knock at the door.

"Jack!" Alex yelled, "You better not make me come and try to haul your ass outta bed this morning, because I swear to god, you almost froze me to the damn roof when I tried yesterday!" The impatient man stuck his fiery-red head through the door, and narrowed his eyes at Jack's slumped form.

"C'mon, I know training has been sucky the past couple of days, but if it makes your morning better, today's the day you get to train with me! And you can take a guess at what I've got planned on your training schedule!" He taunted. Jack groaned once more, and threw a poorly formed, but very well aimed snow-ball at the blur of red he saw talking at his door. The door closed with a small slam just before the ball of snow hit.

With a hefty sigh, Jack stood from where he sat slouched on the side of his bed, and began to get ready for the day. It's had been three days since all the stuff that happened in the gaming room. Obviously, Fury wasn't too impressed at the huge puddle of water he found in the large room the following morning. He put Jack through a day or rigorous training, using strange machines programmed to attack him, and only him. Jack had actually found the event quite frightening, and ended up freezing the lot of them out of frustration and fear.

Fury didn't like that too much, so he assigned some agents to teach Jack some more basic defence manoeuvres, and they weren't as forgiving, or patient for that matter, as Coulson was. The first two were abrupt, impatient, and quite frankly, rude. They shouted at him to either stand straighter or put his feet in a certain place, and Jack found it exhausting. The third, though, Jack recognised from the gaming room, and he went a little easier, offering funny comments about the various tactics and poses they performed.

The next day, Jack absolutely refused to leave the comfort of his bed, and ignored Alex's relentless knocking. It came to the point where his partner had to actually come in to the room and try to rouse Jack from his rebellious slumber. The spirit had freaked out and in a half-awake frenzy, he had frozen Alex's sleeve. It really was a big stretch to say that he had tried to freeze him to the roof.

Training that day was much like before, only with tougher agents, and a lot more yelling. Jack had retired that night with a bruised body and a hell of a headache, and the only reason he didn't ice the door shut today is because Alex had mentioned that today he would finally be learning how to use his staff as a proper weapon. He wanted to be as good as everyone said Alex was, he wanted to learn how to properly use his beloved staff.

Something was going on around the SHIELD Helicarrier, Jack could sense it in the air. Everyone who was anyone around here knew what what was up, and it had them all on edge. Jack got the feeling there was a timer, counting down his time here, as if it were now or never.

"JACK! FOR GOD'S SAKE DEFEND YOUR RIGHT SIDE!" Alex screamed at him through the flurry of movements. It turns out Alex was another yeller, and Jack was getting sick of it. He had been in the air-conditioned training room a little over an hour now. The first half hour had been fine, as he and Alex had sat down and discussed how to properly hold the Bō, and what Jack's stance should look like when he swung.

Fury had been keeping a keen eye on them, even at one point insisting that if Jack were to train in Bōjutsu, he actually use a Bō, but Alex nervously explained that Jack's staff was a different shake and weight, and that if he were to switch from a Bō to staff after he had already trained with a Bō, his swing would be off, or something like that. Fury had only grunted in response.

But after the explanations were over and done with Alex Summers had gotten straight down to business. His process was to go slowly, and guide Jack through various swings and stances, and put them all together in the end. Jack was currently on his third match with Alex, practicing some of the 'slightly more advanced moves than the basic moves', as Alex had called it.

Jack went ok through the first two, but this time Alex had his focus on disarming your opponent. Jack's right side was open again, and Alex gave it a small tap with the end of his Bō. Jack almost screamed in frustration, and tried twisting his body to the left in order to avoid a well-aimed blow, but Alex took advantage of his precarious balance, and hooked the end of his Bō in the crook of Jack's staff and yanked the magical branch out of the winter spirit's hands. Jack was already off balance, and the extra activity made him fall over, flat onto his ass.

"Alex, I swear to god, take away my staff one more time and I'll-"

"Jack. Don't throw threats around. It's not a healthy habit. I was taught the only time you can give a threat is when the person has wronged you in a severe way. Otherwise, they are small and hold no meaning. It can show a sign of weakness, and you, are not weak. So get up, and we'll try again." Alex didn't speak in harsh of judgemental tones, he spoke as if from experience, with a tone of sadness in his usually cheerful voice.

Jack took the hand that was offered to him, and got up onto his feet. They sparred again, and Alex was trying to be as patient as possible, but he was getting a little antsy. Jack was practically tripping over his own feet in front of him. hHe needed to find another way to approach this. An thought sprang to mind.

"Jack, have you ever danced before?"

Jack's pale brow furrowed in confusion, and he shook his head. "I've only seen people do it."

"Well, when I learned to dance, I got good at it by watching my feet. I watched the person in front of me move their feet and followed the way they moved. So I want to try something different."

At the gesture of Alex's hand, the two moved back into position, with the two standing about 6 feet apart. "Now Jack, we're not going to hold hands or anything, but I want you to follow the way my feet moving. We're not going to move our hands, only our feet, and just watch the way I move as I go through the practice attacks, and follow."

Jack's brow was still furrowed, but he nodded his head, and focused on his feet.

Alex took a deep breath, praying that this would work. He put his left foot back, and Jack followed, taking a step forward with his right foot. Alex stepped back again with his other foot, and Jack followed. He took a step forward, and Jack stumbled a little, before regaining his composure and stepping back. After a minute, the two were moving in perfect unison, following each other's steps, getting faster and faster as they stepped and twisted around the room.

After a few minutes, the Jack seemed to get what was happening, and slowly, but surely, began looking up from his feet, and up at Alex, who was wearing his trademark grin.

"See? This is your footwork. The way you move with your feet completely depends on how well you're going to fight, if you're tripping over your own feet, or getting twisted up, there's no way you're going to be able to hold your own against your opponent." Alex said as they stepped through the moves.

After the 11th repeat of all the moves put together, Alex stopped and asked, "So, do you think you've got that memorised?"

Jack nodded his head, looking up and giving Alex a smug smile, his chest puffed out. "I had it on the 8th go."

"Awesome! Now pick up your staff and we'll try mixing in the hand manoeuvres."

Jack flopped down onto the sofa, his white bangs falling into his face. He was absolutely exhausted, and didn't even notice he had iced over the while sofa until Alex cleared his throat. Jack groaned. "I don't even care anymore. I'm done for the night." He threw his pale arm over his sweaty face and groaned again.

Alex smirked. "You've done so well today, I'm really proud of you. You still have a lot more to ,earn though, and I think patience is one of them, judging on how you almost snapped your Bō when you kept stuffing up the hand movements."

Jack could hear the smug smile evident in Alex's voice, so he didn't take too much offence. He just let out an exasperated sigh and shifted his weight to face the back of the icy sofa. Jack heard Alex scoff, and listened to his soft footsteps as he exited the below-zero room. As he lay side on, facing the back of the sofa, he thought about what Alex had just said.

He said he was proud? Of him? Nobody had ever been proud of Jack before. Nobody had said that they were proud of him for saving their friend, or helping them through the snow. But that was because nobody had ever seen him do it. Now, now he had people that could see him, people that were helping him. People that were his friends. Right then and there, Jack decided that he was going to put every ounce of effort into learning what Alex had to teach. He wanted to learn, he wanted to be able to kick every offending as out there, if it came down to it. But for some reason, that got him thinking. How was the research coming along with the strange statue? Jack got goosebumps just thinking about it. The sinister energy that the thing gave off was too strange to ignore. It felt so wrong, yet somehow Jack felt connected to it. Why would-

There was a knock at the door. Thinking Alex had forgotten something, Jack yelled for them to come in, and returned his thought to the mysterious figurine. There was a few brief seconds if hesitation before a beeping sounded and the door whooshed open. Heavy footsteps sounded in the far end of the living room, and Jack's brow furrowed. Those certainly weren't Alex's footsteps, they were too heavy-

Steve cleared his throat. To say Jack jumped would be an understatement. He damn well FLEW to the other side of the room, and collided with the wall in his haste, leaving the faint indentation of where his right arm had tried to brace his impact on the wall.

He recovered quickly though, and padded back over to Steve, grinning. "Steve! I haven't seen you in ages!"

Steve smiled lightly and settled himself down on the sofa opposite to where Jack had been lying on moments ago. "It's good to see you too. Seems like you were a little spooked, I, uh, apologise for, you know, scaring you."

The corners of Jack's mouth turned down to form a slight frown, and he floated over to the icy sofa and settled himself down. "I'm not the only one who seems a little spooked, Steve. What's going on? Is something wrong?"

Steve swallowed and sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought.

"Jack, I was there, in the gaming room that night. I saw what you did to that guy. I'm here to tell you this, because I doubt that Alex would've. Jack, that was a bad thing you did, that night. Horrible in fact. Sure, it was funny when you did it to Clint, it was just us in that room. But that night, there were at least a hundred people in there! Not only did you freeze that guy, but you embarrassed him in front of the whole room. He took the next plane boarding agents and decided to work at a SHIELD base, instead."

Jack's eyes had widened in disbelief, and he swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

Steve continued. "But, I didn't come here to grill you. That night, you also did something I bet most of the other agents in that room would've done. You swallowed your pride, and let him go." Steve paused, waiting for Jack to look up.

With a nervous swallow, Jack looked up and met Steve's eyes. "Jack, there is so much potential in you, and I saw even more when you let that man go. Fury must've seen it too, when he watched the security footage, because him and I had a little chat. You have your moral code, and it's one every soldier, or even anyone learning how to fight, should have, and stand by. Fury has had far too many agents go overboard with their training, they killed without mercy, or remorse. Most of them were fired from SHIELD and became mercenaries for bad people. SHIELD ended up having to hunt them down and either kill them, or lock them away for the rest of their lives. I'm not saying that you won't ever kill Jack, because whether you like it or not, when you work for SHIELD, it does happen. But what I'm saying, is that you should always stick to the number one rule: never kill without reason."

Steve seemed like he had more to say, so Jack nodded for him to go on.

"Jack, your powers are amazing, but they are also dangerous. Fury can't handle anyone getting hurt while they're trying to train you to use them properly. So, because of my 'super-human' abilities, I have nominated myself. Fury thinks it's a good idea, because I can take a hit. I'll teach you how to use your powers effectively, and, uh, mentor you, I guess, about tactics and ethics of battle. Does that sound good to you?"

Jack wasn't confused anymore, but more-so excited. He got to work with Alex and Steve?! He got to be trained to use his staff, as well as be trained to use his powers in proper battle? He jumped for his answer.

"Of course it does! I can't wait!" He grinned.

A/N - Hey guys! I cannot apologise enough for not updating for sooo long! I live in Australia and school has just started back up again, so I can't sit on my ass all day anymore :( which also means I don't have too much time for writing :( I will try to get a new chapter up ASAP with more stuff that happens I guess. I've got the story all planned out now so I actually know what I'm doing lol. Can't wait to hear from you! Tell me all the mistakes I made, and all the things I (hopefully) did right! Things you liked/disliked I want to hear them all. To all those lurking in the shadows, please Fav, Follow, Review!

P.S (If anyone out there is even remotely good at drawing, I NEED YOUR SKILLS! Contact me please!