Our final field test. I was most excited to write this one. I blame Black Widow being released for getting me in the mood to write it. Speaking of Merida's mother, she's important for this chapter.

Year Three: Field Test - Cadet #178 070 088 105

Standard Academy Testing Site 4 - 13:50 PM

So far, Merida got the field test she expected, the field test her profs told her and her classmates when preparing them. She was in her standard training uniform and got a weapon of choice (which was clearly her bow and a quiver of special arrows she's had time to practice using). She was brought to one of the standard testing sites; hers was an abandoned office building the Academy had that reminded Merida of the faculty building. It might as well have been an old building before they upgraded since the desktop computers and ugly linoleum floors look like they came from the '90s.

Despite those points making Merida feel at ease with her field test, she knows better. None of her Avengers kids friends got something that seemed this simple. They didn't get a choice of weapons or any weapons. They were brought to various places in the world and she was probably still in Jersey (she would know her exact location if it wasn't classified and if she didn't sleep on the car ride there). Xavier went skilling with a little extra snow, James went scuba diving and channelled his inner jellyfish, and Angela went on a joyride and had some stalkers. Pretty much a weird Tuesday for them.

Here she was standing on the seventh floor of a ten storeys abandoned Academy building, armed, with her SO standing nearby. Merida remembers what her friends told her about their SOs on their missions. They supervised or evaluated off to the side with a tablet. Hell, they were usually out of sight and not seen till the start and/or end. Merida didn't know why her SO was standing next to her, hands on her hips as if she's waiting for Merida to say or do something first.

"Aren't you evaluating me?" Merida asks, tightening her grip on her bow.

"I'll make notes later," Agent Iyu responds, circling Merida. She stops in front of the glass windows that show take up a whole wall and have a view of the outdoors. A fake view Merida noted earlier: a fake city landscape that looks like Lower Manhattan. Just put Stark Towers in the corner and she's at home. Agent Iyu turns back to Merida. "Barton, do you remember the Odessa Case Study in your Liabilities Course?"

"You mean something derived and modified from my mother's mission, yes." It changed the locations and occupation of the liability, keeping the main details the same for learning purposes, but Merida knows the whole story.

"Recite it."

Merida almost rolls her eyes. Stupid field test. "Agent Romanoff, my mother, escorted a nuclear engineer out of Iran. They got ambushed in Odessa on their way to her rendezvous point by people who wanted the scientist dead. Her tires were shot which sent them off a cliff. Mom got the engineer out of the car and tried to protect him with her body so they had to shoot through my mom to kill him. Case closed."

"Case reopened."

"What?" Merida asks. This doesn't look good for her.

A shadow whips past Merida's face. Something out the window catches her eye, right at the corner of a building top. Sniper. Merida squints her eyes as something shoots towards her, breaking the window. Merida doesn't react until her SO raises her arm, taking the shot in her forearm. Even then, Merida only blinks.

"What the hell?" Merida asks.

"Didn't see that?" Agent Iyu asks, glancing at her inner forearm and holding it against her torso. If it hurt, she didn't show it.

"I did and it would've missed my head by an inch, graze a curl at most. It's just a flash bullet anyways."

"I know you know that; it's a part of the test and it hurts like a bitch. Look, Cadet Barton, get us out of here before I pass out."

Merida pauses. "What?"

Then she realizes. The Odessa Ambush. Agent Romanoff escorting her targeted nuclear engineer. Cadet Barton escorting her injured supervising officer who took a "bullet" for her.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Merida says.

Rapid fire pours in from the window. Merida ducks, and forces Agent Iyu to do the same. Bullets fly overhead and glass shatters. Merida grabs Agent Iyu's good arm and the run to a wall, crouching as gunfire rains above them. Once it's silent, Merida loads her bow with a slender and standard arrow. Reload time gives her a few seconds. She leaps to her feet and points her bow where the tiny opening of the cylinder it before firing, aiming directly for the inside of the sniper rifle. Merida knows the extreme and quick physics when firing an arrow in different conditions. It's in her blood.

Now she bought herself another few seconds.

"This is the dumbest fight I've ever been in," Merida scoffs.

She leads Agent Iyu away from their wall and they turn a corner. They're running down a hall towards a staircase. Merida knows it's a better move than taking the elevator. Staircases have more possible escapes; elevators are bar-less cages.

She kicks down the door and immediately smells smoke. Merida peers over the railing, hands hovering since she can already feel the heat through her fingerless gloves.

Black smoke entering from below, blocking their exit with flames. When she turns around, she looks past Agent Iyu standing behind her waiting for her to make a move and sees black smoke entering the hallways and room they just came from through the vents and underneath doors.

Merida's worst problem would be if the floor collapses beneath them. She could barely breathe, eyes burning, coughing. Worst case scenario: she'll fire an arrow and hope for the best.

"This way," Merida says, taking her SO back where they came through.

A flash passes Merida's eyes once they're in front of the big opening window. Merida knows that her profs want her to exit through there, rappel down, even if Agent Iyu's face gives no indication. Merida glances upwards and catches the sniper still there. Just to be safe, she fires an arrow (just a simple shock one, nothing major).

That's the last thing she can do before an unexpected explosion from behind pushes her and Agent Iyu forward and out the building. Either that bomb was planted and caught flame or finally detonated, or the fire caught onto something explosive.

Agent Romanoff got driven off a cliff in Odessa. Cadet Barton gets blown out of a building in maybe-Jersey. How fitting.

It makes sense to Merida that her profs would put her in a fire, letting her have a weapon she could barely use.

Agent Iyu quickly caught a ledge and swung her leg over. Merida catches it and hits the side of the building, cussing to herself in Russian.

"This shit wasn't in the training manual!" Merida yells.

Agent Iyu laughs a little. "I'll add it later since you passed."

She isn't surprised. "Really?"

"Yes."

"That was quick."

"All the field tests are. It evaluates your quick thinking." Agent Iyu looks down at her and smiles. "Congrats, Cadet Barton."

"On what? Passing?"

"And finishing year three."

I figured why not use an Agent Romanoff mission in here.

We still have a few more chapters in Year Three and, as I'm writing (and publishing) this chapter, I still have to plan (and write) Year Four.