Y'all in the last chapter when I first released it, it said the next workshop was gonna be with Steve and Bucky but by mistake it was supposed to be Natasha and Clint. I already fixed it but just in case someone read it right away. Also I would have to say sorry for such a long wait for this chapter, i got the fanfic writer curse that when you start writing all of a sudden life starts raining hell on you. I had some family issues that stopped me from having free time to actually sit down and write. I dunno, on to the show though :)
…the first part of that was written like what… 7 months ago? Almost 8? I didn't expect me to procrastinate so badly. I lost interest in the story. I started to only work on it like a Sentence a week. Today I just bit the bullet and wrote down the second half in the middle of Saturday school lmao. The fanfic writer curse got to me and alot of shitty things happened in my personal life making me lose motivation for a lot of things I enjoyed. I'm doing better, I'll try to not take half a year or more to update. My excuse to myself is that only what? 5 max people read this? But I dunno I hope y'all enjoy this chapter, sorry for starving yall -:
They were already going back to the upper levels with their boba by "already" they meant like 20 minutes later since the line was long. Peter got a strawberry banana while Elliot got taro.
Peter paid since Elliot explained that the intern was most likely against static because they are the light of the non-binary community. Elliot has heard enough of the arguments they try to use against static from it being childish to be hiding something from people to the actions being used to breed the children.
Elliot was always had the mentality that if you weren't an important person in her life she couldn't care less if you didn't accept her. Either if you looked down upon Elliot for being a lesbian or static for using they/them pronouns. Nevertheless Elliot is always ready to fight for pieces of her identity.
Still Peter buying the boba was appreciated and made Elliot smile that he was trying to make her feel better, even if there was no need. The only reason why she didn't bend his arm backwards and shove her own card into the machine was because she knew that their intern discounts took care of like 90 percent of the price. Thanks Tony.
"So do you think the workshop with Natasha and Clint is gonna go?" Peter asked after a sip of his drink.
"I'm not sure," Elliot said, "but let's be really honest with ourselves—what's making us go to this workshop?" Elliot was just tired and wanted to go home; by home she just meant going to her room upstairs.
"The team will be upset and we'll probably get detention for the umpteenth time." Peter then realized that Elliot didn't really care about that kind of stuff.
"Oh please the team would forget about it by dinner and all i have to do is pop in an earbud and do homework for an hour, the consequences wouldn't be that bad." Elliot walked out the elevator and they walked down the long hallway of training rooms.
"At least you can tune out during detention, I can't and I can basicly recite the whole psa by heart by now." Peter huffed
Elliot then cleared her throat. "So you got detention…" she's proudly been practicing her Steve impression.
Peter got goosebumps but laughed. "Stop, it's giving me ptsd or something. The voice is solid though"
Elliot continued, pulling out the voice from deep in her deopham. "You know what you did is wrong but the question is, how are you going to make it right?" Peter snorted and playfully knocked into her and Elliot returned the gesture.
They laughed together until they reached the door. "Are you absolutely sure you want to go inside?" Elliot asked one more time.
Peter sighed, "We have too. You can leave if you want.". Elliot rolled her eyes and lightly smacked his arm, "As if I'd let you go through this alone.". With that they opened the door.
This gym looked the same as the last except no window to the outside access since it wasn't in the perimeter. But… 2 things right away felt off. First, the class was looking at both of them really closely, maybe because they were late but they were staring with anticipation. Second, Clint and Nat were nowhere to be seen.
That second one was true… until they got attacked from behind. Clint came up behind Peter, put him in a headlock and started ruffling his hair with his knuckles. Natasha went all the way, she pounced on top of Elliot and pinned her to the ground, 1 knee in the center of her back, the other holding down her legs, 1 hand pushing her face to the floor, and the other was bending her left arm back. Elliot ended up dropping her cup of boba but the plastic sheet stopped it from splashing out and only slowly dripping out.
"Clint stop it!" "Get off me Nat!" Both of them yelled at the same time. "No way Peti-pie, not until you tell us where you've been. We've been worried sick!"
"We were almost done with the machine we were working on but then something went wrong and we got delayed, NOW GET OFF." Elliot said while starting to try to wiggle out, But Natasha just smooshed Elliot's face more into the ground.
"Now Elliot if you keep squirming like that you might hurt yourself." Natasha said matter of factually.
Elliot kept squirming and started to try to use her free hand to get Nat off. But the only thing she could do was swat around. "The only thing that's hurting me is you pinning me to the ground!"
Natasha in response just shifted her weight so that her knee dug more into Elliots back. A pop could be heard, and not a nice pop that feels good, this one hurt. Elliot twitched upwards before giving in "Ow fine I'll stop!".
"Hey Peter if you 2 really got delayed in the lab, where did you get that boba from?" Clint asked cheekly.
"Um… Dum-e made it for us?" Peter sounded very unsure and you didn't have to be a spy to hear it.
"First that sounds more like a question than anything, second you know Dum-e only knows how to make motor oil smoothies." Clint laughed a bit. "Na I think someone convinced someone else to ditch for a bit."
"Nice going, you could have just told them that Tony ordered it for us for a hard day's work reward." Elliot by this point stopped trying to get free and just waited for this shebang to finish.
"I'm sorry that I'm not good at lying like SOME people." Peter said as if trying to start a fight.
"Hey, it's not that I'm good at lying, you're just horrible at it." Elliot was rolling with it although she wasn't necessarily upset or anything it's just fun to argue with Peter.
"I'm not horrible at it-"
"Lie to me right now then."
"What?"
"Lie to me right now, cash."
"I can't just-"
"Look into my blue eyes right now and tell me a lie-"
"What? Your eyes aren't blue."
"What? Yes they are. Have you seriously never noticed? And here I thought that blue eyes stuck out more. I got them from my moms side of the family."
"No, I never noticed, let me see."
Nat loosened her grip on Elliot's head and she turned her head towards Peter. Revealing a smile on her face and her very much brown eyes. "You see there's also the fact that you are very gullible. I mean how long have you known me? Like, what, 4 years?"
"Lying, lier, who lies!" Peter was pretend hurt that Elliot lied to him.
"Gullible, Gulliber, who Gullips!" Elliot 'countered'.
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"Yea I know, deal with it!"
"Children, settle down" Natasha said breaking up the 'fight'.
"She started it." Petter grumbled.
"Your honor, if you look at the transcript you will see-" Elliot started to say but Natasha bent her left arm further back and where her arm was before was already semi hurting. "OW ok ok I'll shut up!"
"Well kids this was fun but we have to continue our workshop" Clint said finally letting Peter go.
"Yup we only have like 30 minutes left so we have to make the most out of it." Natasha got off of Elliot and helped her up.
"Yup and we are just about to get in teams of 2 so hurry up and get with the group." Clint ushered them forward.
Elliot was gonna pick up her drink when a rag hit her in the head. She grabbed it and looked up. "Clean up that small spill no." Elliot saw the purple palm sized puddle of her drink and sighed. 'Yes ma'am' she said sarcastically under her breath. "What was that?" "Nothing"
Elliot quickly cleaned up the spill and headed over to her friends. Her teachers gave her a questioning look while Mrs Johnson gave her a 'we need to talk look' but it was only in her peripheral vision so Elliot just kept walking. "Hey guys, how was the first half of this?"
Penelope was the most excited about the workshops. Yea sure Ned always acts like it's the first time meeting the heros but over time it's died down. This was Penny's actual first time. "Oh my god it's been really cool so far. In this one Natasha and Clint have been giving us safety tips in case some weirdo comes around. They ain't really like punching and kicking tips though. She's showing us how to pin them down and immobilize them."
"Oh nice y'all having fun?" Even though Elliot said 'y'all' it was like she was only talking to Penelope.
"Yea, and oh you should have been there for the first workshop with Static and Spiderman. They had a quick q and then they fought together twice. It was so cool" Penny still sounded really excited about the whole thing and it made Elliots stomach fill up with butterflies. Ned Mj and Peter were all grinning from the side lines.
"And the fights didn't disappoint either; they were 100 times better than the random fights that happen at school sometimes." Penny said enthusiastically and that made Elliots face heat up. "Thanks" she mumbled a bit. "What?" Elliots widened a bit. "Huh oh no nothing" Elliot put her hands up to surrender. Mj shook her head, Ned loosened from when he tensed up, and Peter raised a brow good at lying my ass.
Then suddenly someone put their cold hand on Elliot's shoulder. Elliot got goosebumps and right away turned around taking a step back. "Oop did I scare you friend?" A fake cheery voice came from Mrs Johnson.
Elliot suppressed a stank face "No, I just don't like to be sneaked up on." And it's true Elliot didn't feel fear from that, just an uncomfortable feeling.
"Ha ha sorry I scared you. Listen, I wanted to talk to you and your friend right here, is that ok sweety?" Elliot clenched her jaw and unclenched it. "Yea sure"
The intern eyed her friends and back at Elliot and Peter. "Can I talk to you 2 more over here in private." Peter and Elliot just nodded.
As they were walking to the far corner Mrs Johnson put her hands on both of their shoulders as if they were gonna run away or didn't know where they were going. Peter just took it unbothered but Elliot kinda stepped away from the touch without even thinking. Molly gives her an amused look. "Well someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."
Elliot felt that annoyance bubble in her stomach but hid it very well. "Sorry, I just don't like being touched by strangers." She always hated touches from people she didn't know. Especially when they are out of the blue and unnecessary. Molly just shrugged and she clenched her jaw I hate this genre of white people
Once they were at the corner of the room Molly looked at Elliot and Peter. "I just wanted to ask why you 2 kiddos were late. You 2 missed the first half of this workshop. Don't you want to get this opportunity to see our world's heros? Also I didn't see you 2 in the 1st workshop" Elliot found it incredibly annoying that she was talking about the avengers fondly and literally argued with static and Spiderman for being in charge.
"We came back from helping Tony and Bruce with a project ma'am. We are their personal interns." Peter said calmly or at least as calmly as he could. Mrs. Johnson looked shocked at this information.
"Wait… you 2 kids are Tony Stark's and Bruce Banner's interns, oh wow I heard of you 2 but i thought it was like a ?." They both just nodded silently a tad bit awkwardly, this isn't the first time they've gotten a reaction like this.
Elliot cleared her throat, "so do you need to see some ID… or can we go back to our group…?" She trailed off a bit, she didn't normally like just having her internship on blast, feels off.
Mrs Johnson shook her head to snap herself out of it. "No no… it's fine… just hard to believe I suppose. I mean you 2 have a very important position at a very young age."
Both Elliot and Peter shrugged awkwardly and they tried to move from the conversation. It was always hard to explain and it always led to a lot of questions. Thankfully Natasha and Clint saw them and got their attention. "Aye, Peter, Elliot, come over here. Clint and I are gonna need your help"
The pair gave Mrs Johnson a look and she waved them off to go see what the heros wanted from them. Elliot and Peter didn't waste time in quickly shuffling to Clint's and Nats' sides. "Thanks for that" Peter thanked them quietly.
"No thank you 2, we didn't call y'all here for no reason. You 2 are gonna be our helpers." Clint said with a grin.
Peter sighed and accepted his fate. Elliot groaned "We just came from the first workshop and the last time we helped Tony and Bruce out we got covered in suds"
"Oh yea I heard of that, Tony wouldn't stop talking about it." Clint smiled but then shrugged. "Sucks to suck, yall are gonna help us if you want to or not"
Nat clapped her hands to get the group's attention. Everyone was in groups of 2 now. Penny and Ned got in a group while MJ was left to try to find someone else. She didn't struggle a lot. Penelope recommended Rose from theater, she was quiet and straight to the point kinda like MJ, she guessed they would get along well.
"Natasha and I are going to show you guys a self defense tactic. Sometimes you get into some trouble but you don't want to fight. First of all try to hold out on getting into conflict to begin with. Sometimes it's inevitable so the second thing is to verbally express that you don't want to fight. I know a lot of people will form a crowd because yall like to gossip but use that as leverage and you can get witnesses and someone may be recording so that'll help when you get sent to the principal's office or even jail." Clint gave that little talk before Nat took over.
"If you get in a fight that you don't want to participate in then your best shot is to restrain the attacker. Now we know that since we're avengers it'll feel unfair to unrealistic for us to give an example. After all we have official training so what you're about to see may feel unrealistic but it's very much do-able. For that reason, Peter and Elliot will give you an example on how to do this." Both Clint and Nat grinned and all of a sudden the spotlight was on Elliot and Peter.
"Huh!?" "What?!" They both narrowed their eyes. Ok first of all… that's false advertising, Peter and Elliot received similar if not the same training as Nat and Clint. Second of all they didn't wanna be used as examples!
Clint smirked "you heard us, thats what you get for skipping out on the first half of this workshop."
"Don't worry you 2, its the same hold we taught you when you 2 first became interns. You won't even break a sweat." Natasha tried to reaffirm.
Both Elliot and Peter didn't wanna do this. They knew the hold nat was talking about. It wasn't taught when they first became interns. It was taught when they first started training. She technically right, that restraunt hold is basic and they got it down perfectly with in the first hour of training.
They still didn't wanna be used as examples. It looked like they weren't gonna have a say in this judging on Clint and Nats looks.
"Fiiiiine, we'll be your examples."
They sighed and got to the mat where nat and Clint pointed at. They both had a stank look on their face but didn't say anything til nat or Clint told them to start.
"Well you 2 look chipper" Clint said sarcastically. Nat gave them a pity chuckle. The whole class of students were in awe that Peter and Elliot were gonna be showing them how to do this.
You know, at the start of this field trip the silver lining was that those who didn't believe they were real interns and though they were lying would finally see it was the truth. This definitely wasn't worth it. They didn't wanna do this. Clint and nat smirked to themselves.
Peter and Elliot just waited for the go. Natasha had a whistle, she blew it and they "rushed" towards each other. They just walked up, Elliot and Peter both knew what to do, they've done it a million times before. Elliot got close, she moved a leg to the side, gently got Peter by the shoulder, she lightly pushed him back and the leg she set aside was in the way of Peter's feet, as Peter tripped back Elliot twisted his his shoulders and his body kinda spun as he fell to follow the alignment of his shoulder followed him and pinned him to the floor, she was kneeling to the side with 1 leg but had the other lightly on Peter's back while she also pinned back his hands the the floor. Honestly all in all, they did it slowly and without much energy. If Natasha asks, they just wanted to make sure to not give much of a show in case anyone suspected they fought in the first workshop as spiderman and static… kinda a shitty excuse they knew but they just didn't have the motivation to do flashy stuff.
The class clapped and Elliot helped Peter off the floor. Natasha spoke up, hopefully she wouldn't make them do extra stuff since they both did that fight so enthusiastically. "Ok… I'm not gonna say anything on how you 2 did it with no energy but you know what, it's better that way since the class saw how to do it slowly."
Clint stood forward "Now, you guys will all now get into groups of 2 you guys will try to replicate this hold. As we explained before this is in case you're in a situation where a fight is insinuated but you want to end it as soon as you can. Listen when we say that once you learn this don't go pinning random people for fun. If you're in school you'll go to the principal's office, if you're outside of a school zone you'll just go to a police station. Get in your groups and we'll get started."
Peter and Elliot were gonna go back but Natasha stopped them. "You 2 no. You guys would be putting your pair at a disadvantage or anyone else you'd pair up with since you 2 already know it. Just stay to the side."
Peter and Elliot both looked at eachother, their mistake was to let their faces light up at the idea of them not having to participate because Clint chimed up. "On second thought you 2 will help us monitor and make sure people arnt doing it unsafely or not pulling back on their throws."
They both groaned and wished they stayed with a blank face. They stood with Clint and Nat to wait for the group to get ready.
Once everyone was in pairs on the mat they walked around to eye everyone's movements. For the most part everyone was doing well, their movements were just choppy and not too fluent since they weren't quite used to it. They followed instructions and pulled back their movements, when pinning they didn't put their full weight down, when they pushed it was like nudges. It was like they didn't want to mess up in front of 2 avengers so it made their job simpler.
Penelope, though, was having trouble trying to pin down MJ. Elliot saw and honestly had no idea what Penny was doing wrong but the pin wasn't good and the push itself looked off. She walked over and tried to see what's wrong. "...let me see Penny… I dunno what you're doing wrong… it looks fine, your movements are ok…"
Penny shrugged and looked just as confused. "I'm trying my best." They didn't notice MJ was holding in a smirk.
"Aver, lemme see try to pin me slowly but I'll face you to catch what you do wrong." Elliot suggested as she and Penny got on the middle of the mat.
Penny looked more nervous. Pinning down MJ was something, pinning down Elliot was another. She didn't want to hurt the other girl. Not that she didn't wanna not hurt MJ, obviously, but it was another place in her mind to accidentally hurt Elliot.
"It's ok, just relax your body, you have to do the movements without hesitating too much or else it'll be too sloppy to work right. If you pull back it's fine but if you do it too much it won't work out. If I get hurt it won't be too much plus I'll forgive you in less than a second." Elliot reassured forgetting about the people around her.
Penny nodded "ok… ok I'll do it without hesitating and without pulling back too much."
Elliot smiled and stood still as she faced Penny. Penny moved forward, she grabbed her shoulder, moved her legs, she pushed Elliot back… she did it correctly… why the hell- as she fell back it was like slow motion, her peripheral vision saw MJ close to laughing but holding it in… ooohh.
Elliot fell back correctly except that Penny didn't twist her shoulders. Penny tried to hold Elliot up but that didn't work out. She was about to kneel on her stomach so she moved her legs so that wouldn't happen.
A beat of silence between the 2.
Oh great. Penny on her, Elliot wasn't twisted right so she was on her back having to look up at Penny. Penny was basically straddling her, her wrists were down, it's not like their faces fell close to each other, it wasn't that cliche but the positioning was… well…
A second later Penny tried to quickly scram off Elliot. Elliot let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding. Her mind tried to process and find out what the hell just happened but once it clicked her face turned a deep red and her heart started to beat very rapidly in her chest it felt like a jackhammer. She was dazed and figured some stuff about it herself.
She swallowed and looked at Penny, her hands covered her mouth and she seemed shocked too. Elliot saw one of the few times her face turned a bit pink.
Elliot had no words, Penelope had no words. They both didn't wanna be the first person to say something.
Penny was the braver one though. "…are you ok?" Her words were like a whisper.
Elliot just barely caught them. "...yea… yea I'm fine… I'm good… you did it right you… just need to twist the shoulders." Elliot whispered and tried to be like it was no big deal.
Penny nodded. She reached out a hand to help Elliot up. Elliot nodded and went to grab her hand, she didn't notice the way her arm hairs were sticking up, the second her finger tip touched Penny's hand a small shock hit her. It was just as strong as touching a plastic slide but it just surprised Penny when she wasn't expecting to feel a small zap and hear a quiet pop so she quickly moved her hand away and shook it. "What the-?"
Elliot quickly sat up. "Oh damn that's weird. You good?" Elliot realized she looked weird at not reacting so she quickly shook her hand too. The charge came from her… it wasn't too suspicious but she wanted to cover it up. "Um… sometimes the mats can make a small charge since they're made of a thin sheet of plastic."
Penelope nodded and stopped shaking her hand "yes, yes it's fine, just weird but it didn't hurt a lot, just made a noise and surprised me." A couple beats later and it was still a bit weird between the 2.
Elliot nodded and got up on her own. She cleared her throat. Mj was the culprit, probobly doing something wrong on her side so that penny would pin her down, she probably got more that she hoped for. "...the pin was decent, just try again while twisting the shoulders and putting your knee on someone's back." She then moved to go next to Natasha and Clint to try to just cool off.
"...not a word about that." She whispered and the 2 just chuckled but spared her of any banter, surprisingly. The rest of the time ran out and everyone was put in 1 big group again.
Natasha nodded at the group " you guys did quite well, some better than others but overall you did better than expected."
Clint spoke up "Our hour is up, your next workshop will be with Steve and Bucky. Then it'll be Vision and Wanda and after those 2 you will finish off with Sam and Rhodey and the last 15 minute speech. The order got changed since this felt like it would be a better way to end things."
The time ran out, Natasha and Clint waved off the class and Mrs Johnson led them to the next room that they would be in.