The Captain (The Attolian #1.5)

Chapter 2

I arrive to my training lesson a little early so I sit down on a mat and look through the gift Coulson just gave me. He had to leave me about halfway to the training wing due to the fact that Fury needed him for a meeting. I open the box and see a tiny square with a screen on the front of it and a circle surrounded by another circle. I lift it up and find a pair of earbuds under it along with instructions. Once I find the ON switch, I wait for the screen to go from an apple to the normal screen. Once there I go to the music part of the shuffle, I look at the playlists and smile at the names of them: Sassy Sixties, Sweet Seventies, Classic Rock Eighties, Alternative 90s and the final was Music of Today! I smile because this was a really unique gift from Coulson.

I pick up the earbuds and see a small post-it note on the bottom of the box, it read "There's a hundred dollars on the account, spend it wisely! -Coulson." At the bottom it read a password and username for the shuffle. I plug in the headphones put them in my ears and shuffle through the playists. I finally go to Sweet Seventies and press shuffle. It begins to play some sort of song called Hooked on a Feeling and I smile due to the beginning of it.

After listening to a few more songs my instructor finally came in. I train on my own because Fury doesn't want others to know about my abilities. I smile at her and she smiles back, setting down her items she brought for training today. She put her red hair up in a braid which is kind of strange of her since she always wears it down. She begins to stretch and I follow suit, I put the shuffle in my pocket as I listen to the music. After a few moments I feel a light tap on my shoulder. I take the earbuds out and look at her.

"What was the reason you had received these today." She asks knowing that I have never brought these before. She was really good at that.

"Um, Coulson got them for me. He said it was 'for my birthday'" I say making air quotes to symbolize that it most likely isn't.

"Oh that reminds me." She runs over to her bag and takes out a large gift. "Here you go." She hands me the box and I can't wipe my grin off of my face.

"Thank you." I say and she nods as she gets back into stretching. "No really thank you, Ms. Romanoff"

She stops, looks at me and smiles. "You're welcome, now let's start with kick boxing."

She tosses me a pair of boxing gloves, I quickly put them on and we begin. Her few loose red curls twist around her face as she throws a punch which I quickly deflect. She throws up a kick and I'm too slow to deflect it and she makes contact with my side. I gasp for breath and she smiles.

"What? Did you really think I was going to go easy on your birthday?" I laugh between breaths and raise my gloved hands up and stand defensively. She smiles and throws punches all around my upper body. I deflect them the best I can, while missing some of them, and I throw a few punches in but she of course blocks all of them. I throw one last punch and she grabs it and flips me. Her knees wrap around my neck as I slam onto the ground, I yield immediately. She gets up then helps me up.

"Alright nice warm-up, twenty sprinting laps.... go!" She shouts then goes to sit down by her things.

I continued my training with Ms. Romanoff for the next two hours, which mostly consisted of her correcting my fighting moves and cleaning up my punches. She ended the session early because Nick Fury also called a meeting with her.

"See you tomorrow!" I called out to her as she was picking up her things.

She walks out of the gym and I quickly run over to my bag to open the gift. I open my bag and take out the long box wrapped in black wrapping paper. I open it, and the box, to find clothing. I take both articles out and there is a pair of black pants with a black, sleeveless shirt that has the lining be a mixture of green, purple and yellow, along with a zipper that sits in the back. Under the clothing is a pair of combat boots, gloves and a mask that wraps around my eyes. A note rests at the bottom.

A true hero needs a uniform to wear, an identity to keep and a name to remember, welcome to the Avengers Initiative, Valiant.

~Natasha

I smile at the note and my new name 'The Valiant' and place all of the clothing back into the box and slide the box back into my bag. I look at the clock that rests above the door and see that it is 10:00 A.M.. I feel my stomach grumble and I get up to go find some food. I walk around the halls looking for the familiar machines and find them. As I stand in front of the vending machine trying to decide what to get, I see a girl with brown hair and a grey suit on come towards me.

"Hungry, too?" She asks as she swipes her ID card in the scanner.

"Yeah, I was just training." I say as I continue to look at all of the breakfast items.

"Yeah? Me, too." She says grabbing the granola bar she just got. "I'm Ava, Ava Starr." She reaches out her gloved hand towards me.

"I'm Grace, Grace Moriarty." I say smiling and taking her hand. "So are you part of the initiative, too?" I ask gesturing to her suit.

"No, no I wish, I'm just training to become an agent." She smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. "I'm not sure what use I would be with my powers."

"Do you have abilities too?" I ask wide eyed. She looks at me with a surprised look on her face.

"Yeah you?"

"Yeah." I say finally deciding on the role of donuts. I swipe my card and punch in the code. I grab the donuts, open them and offer Ava one. She takes it. "What can you do?"

"I can go through things." She says smiling. "Watch." I watch as she moves her hand to the glass of the machine. I jump back when her hand becomes transparent and goes right through the glass. She quietly whimpers and pulls her hand back.

"Does it hurt?" She looks at me and doesn't respond. "You know, making yourself do that?"

She nods as she cradles her hands. "What are your abilities?"

"Yeah." I say looking down at my hands. I muster the power and make a small, yellow flame show up between my fingers. I wiggle my fingers to make the flame dance around them and change to green and purple. I look back at Ava and see her with her eyes wide. "How did you do that." I just shrug and let the flame disappear when I hear someone coming down the hall. Both Ava and I look over and see a man dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans with a pair of glasses walking towards us.

"Hey, Ava you have to get back to training." He says once he reaches us.

"Hi Mr. Foster." She says smiling. "This is my new friend Grace." She says gesturing towards me.

"Hi." I say awkwardly and Mr. Foster just nods at me before redirecting his attention back to Ava.

"I guess I'll see you around Ava." I say offering her another powdered donut. She smiles and takes another one.

"See you Grace!" She shouts as we walk away from each other. I enter the room five minutes before my class starts and sit down in the only desk in the room. As I sit there, I finally eat my powdered donuts.