The Academy

Chapter 10

"Skipping out on doing your work?" a voice asked.

Skye sighed and spun on her heel. She faced Natasha and frowned, "do we have to do Russian?"

Natasha nodded, "Russian is one of the best languages to know for this job. It gets you out of a lot of trouble," she commented. "Or into it," she decided not to say.

She ushered Skye back into her room and out of the hallway, closing the door behind them. Skye plopped down on her couch and pulled out her textbook. "I've already got the 'alphabet' memorized," she explained.

"Good, what about vocabulary?" Natasha asked in perfect Russian.

Skye frowned and flipped to the back of her book with the translations in the back. "Um..."

"Judging by how well you answered, I'm going to say that you probably haven't been working on vocabulary," Nat smiled as she grabbed a beer for herself and sat across from Skye in a chair. She popped the lid off the beer and started to drink as she helped Skye with Russian. Once they had been studying for about an hour, Nat pulled out her phone and looked at the time. "How about lunch?"

Skye nodded eagerly as Natasha ordered Chinese food over the phone. Natasha nodded towards the door at Skye, telling her silently that she should go pick it up at the front gate. Skye quietly slipped out of her room and walked through the hallways and lobby towards the front doors. She walked through the courtyard without drawing any attention and she reached the fence. She chose a spot by a hedge and used the hedge as cover while she scaled the fence. She dropped down the other side and hid in the trees until a car pulled up. She walked down the extremely long driveway to meet the driver and pay him before taking the bag of food from him. She made it back to her room in fifteen minutes and glared at Nat, who was waiting for her. "Soup, really?"

Nat shrugged. "I was craving it. Did you spill it?"

Skye sighed and pulled it out of the bag. "No, but I was extra cautious and it made me slower. Hope you're happy."

"Well," the Russian commented as she started to eat her soup, "then maybe you just need practice."

Skye crossed her legs as she sat on the couch and started to eat her food with the long, wooden chopsticks that she was given. "Fine," she sighed, "if it means I get Chinese then I'll deal with it." Natasha nodded in agreement. Skye broke the silence a few moments later. "So how did Fury react yesterday when he found his car covered in sticky notes?"

Natasha chuckled. "He was furious, obviously. He tried to get us to take them all off but Clint and I hid in the air ducts," she shook her head, "honestly, you would think that he would look for us up there once and awhile but he still hasn't figured out that that's our hiding place."

Skye smiled as Natasha chattered on about Clint's and her prank the day before. Skye checked her watch as she threw out the garbage from lunch and she ducked into her bedroom to get changed. "I have class," she offered as an explanation.

Natasha nodded and stood up, letting herself out and shouting, "good luck," in Russian.

Skye emerged from her bedroom a moment later in her S.H.I.E.L.D issued uniform, a catsuit-like outfit with the S.H.I.E.L.D logo on it. She threw her hair into a tight ponytail and walked down to the gym to meet Sarah. Sarah greeted her with a smile when she arrived and Skye smiled back, standing beside her and listening as their teacher spoke, "so as soon as class is over, I want you to practice this with your partner before tomorrow."

There were a few groans of, "but I have classes all day today," but Skye and Sarah just shrugged, not having any complaints. They went through the exercises and then started fighting. It wasn't anything that Ward couldn't have taught her, in fact, he already had. Skye went through the rest of class with ease and she handed Sarah a water when class was over, taking one for herself as well.

"Do you want to come to my room tonight?" Sarah asked, "my roommate won't be there, she has class so we can practice."

Skye smiled, "why don't you come to my room? I think it might be a little bit bigger."