Recruit

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

At Clints I stay in the same room I stayed in before, except now I have Baby. Which is so much better. Also, there isn't any storms in the forecast for the next two weeks *happy dance*.

During the day we train relentlessly, from five in the morning, lunch at noon for an hour, then to seven in the evening. The base upstate has many rooms we work in. We work without using any 'unfair' advantages (my powers/Aminee).

Clint teaches me about distributing my weight, how to work with my body type, and how to work with my opponents weight. As well as other tactics, seeming nervous, scared or inferior, then overtaking. He even brings in other people for me to work with in the first two days.

One of the agents I met at Thanksgiving, Agent Ward. Good looking fella, but something seems...dark about him. Anyway, he joins me, Clint yells out how I should block, how I should strike. After that he lets me go, I fight Ward without instruction.

I start off with shaky, obvious, breaths. Then speeding my heart up. I let him take me down right away. He seems sorry yet pleased, I'm sure clint talked me up to him.

"No-no. I'm okay. Let's keep going." I insist, Clint chuckles in the corner, knowing exactly what I'm doing.

"I don't know, kid. Maybe you just aren't ready yet."

"C'mon, give her a chance to redeem herself." Clint bargains.

"Okay..." Ward shrugs.

He comes at me again, this time I pull all the stops. I try and think about what Natasha would do. Ariel stunts, predicting his next move, performing practiced techniques. The agent can't even keep up. In the end, I leave him panting my the floor.

Clint is a laughing mess.

"Maybe now you'll take me serio-" Ward charging my cuts my sentence short.

We fight again. Learning each others weaknesses.  The sparring continues, eventually I do win.

Over the days, I face bigger and bigger opponents. Clint and I work on this and weaponry for the four days. I find myself becoming aware of how little I knew about things before. The way I fight, the way I shoot, the way I take steps changes. Everything is becoming tighter, neater, more professional, more practiced.

The whole time I manage to keep my mouth shut about the Natasha thing. He doesn't even seem to remember it,

After that hop on a short flight to Avengers Tower with Tony. My goal is to keep him as sober as possible so I can actually learn something.

As soon as we touch the landing pad at The Tower, Pepper greets me. She is dressed nicely, White House Black Market pencil skirt and blouse. Her strawberry blonde hair in a frazzled up-do and adorning a pen.

"Keegan! Lovely to see you, Tony got called out for a quick fix, one of our clean oil pipes displaced it's self, nothing big but Tony prefers to do it itself. So, he left it to me to give you the grand tour. Vip access included. So if you'd like to put your bag down I'll show you your room." She offers cheerfully, but the stress radiates off her. I can feel it rattle down to my core.

"Oh, I know where it is, I stayed there just week ago." I want to give her a chance to sit down.

"Oh, that old thing? No no no. We figured you might be calling this place a home away from home, everyone else does. So Tony and I agreed, why not make it homey? We wanted to have it done when you were here last but your bed was specially made. It just came in, the wood is hand carved Norwegian." Now her excitement seems genuine.

The echoes of Peppers shoes and Baby follow us down the hall. I'm about to comment on going out of her way, about causing her trouble, but she open the door on our right and I can't find words.

I feel like I've stepped into a holler-tucked cabin. Cherry wood beams line the ceiling, color popping against a creamy brown color. The bed is a raised nook wedged in a sunken wall against a window.

It looks almost like an open hot-tub or a human sized dog bed. It has a wooden counter top backing the wall. When Pepper said imported wood, she was referring to the small leaf-less trees supporting an overhead canopy.

With my bed sleeping quarters tucked away in such a fashion, it frees tons of sitting space. Towards the back sits a full bar with snacks. It seems like more of a loft than room.

"I'll be in the living room, I'll take the shock and awe as a compliment." Pepper chuckles at me.

"That's understatement." I tell her as she leaves.

My duffel bag drops heavily off my shoulder and onto the floor. I hurry to sit on the bed and look out the window. It the afternoon sky looks so perfect, skyscrapers covered in pure, in tarnished snow. No homeless on the street below, it's almost fake.

"The window is a synthetic image of the city. It actually overlooks Mr. Starks primary work place." The AI know as Jarvis tells my, pulling back the curtain so I see robots moving amongst Tony's work.

"That's awesome." I retort unintelligently.

"Ma'am, if it is convenient with you, would you like to program the settings for your room?" He asks, a translucent tablet revealing itself from a seamlessly hidden cubby.

"Sure, can I see a blueprint of the room, like how many hidden computers and things there is."

My wish is answered, a sketch of the room glows on the screen. Marked cubby holes where computer screens of all sizes hide, waiting for a purpose.

After Jarvis and I set who can and can't come into my room under what restriction, I walk out to Pepper who is resting on the couch.

We go to lunch, she shows me around every inch of the tower. It's very interesting. Jarvis, I'm learning, isn't just a creepy robot voice in the walls, he's very helpful. Eventually Stark shows back up, telling me that he's working on a thing and insists on taking my measurements before I go to sleep.

The next morning I'm greeted in the kitchen by a disgruntled Tony making coffee. He begins to teach me about robotics and machines. He tells me about the make of his suits. What he uses to make them, how he makes them.

My three days I with Tony is mostly learning mechanics, studying my languages. Every night I was there Tony and I would have late nights in the lab, him just teaching me things. Which led to finishing some bottle of alcohol becoming ritualistic.

Tony and I had finish those tracking devices I asked for a Thanksgiving for Sam, Dean and Kevin. Tony gives them completed to me as Baby and I load a jet bound for Washington.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Omg,
I wrote this a long time ago and it's really cringy. For everyone who has stayed with me this long, a round of applause for you, friends.

Nothing really now rn, but I wanted to say that I'm totally chill with y'all telling me when I misspell things or if a sentence makes zero sense and I'll fix it if I can.

Also thanks to everyone who was understanding of my situation in so glad to be back.