Natasha Stark: SHIELD

Chapter 3:

Tasha: I pulled up at the SHIELD LA HQ and went straight to the training room. In the room there were hundreds of black mats, along with a woman dressed in all black work out clothing. I noticed the room was like a sort of obstacle course, combined with a workout room with machines. There was also a boxing ring, like the one back at my house.

"Stark," she said, "I'm Barbara Morse, you're physical trainer."

"Barbara Morse?" I asked, "Mockingbird."

"One of many names I have been called," she said, "Let's start your training."

I started to do my exaggerated shrug, but she stopped me, "No suit."

"What?" I asked, "Why?"

"You have to train without the suit," she said, "For the day when you can't use it."

"What day will that be?" I asked, "Because I'll remind myself to stay in bed then."

"What happens when your AI, AVIS is it, gets knocked out?" Morse asked, "Or when your suit needs repairs and won't deploy. Or when you're suit it taken out of you by an evil villain."

"All of which there are counter measures against." I pointed out, "AVIS is embedded under my skin. In a low impact, extremely protected area. If impacted in anyway, she will warn me of her integrity. If the integrity is below 45%, she will activate my helmet. My suit has measures to deploy itself if the integrity is also getting low, and if it needs repairs while not deployed, it will begin measures to repair itself. It hurts really bad, but it works. And any evil villain, to get the suit out of me, would have to sedate me. It there is a risk to my suit, AVIS is programmed to send an electrical impulse through my neuro pathways to override any sedative or relaxant."

"The unthinkable tends to happen in our line of business, so you're learning without the suit," Morse said, her voice creating no room for argument. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

"First, anyone who is going to attack you is going to use whatever weapon they have before they go hand to hand. So I'm going to teach you how to disarm first," she said. She pulled out a small dagger from her belt, which I now realized had a gun, a tazer, and a place for a knife. She held it out, like she was going to stab me. Then she stopped.

"Disarm me," she said.

I reached for her wrist, grabbing and twisting, then taking my second arm to bend it, so she dropped the knife.

"Not bad," she said. I smiled. "Not bad, but not necessarily good. Chances are, it won't be so easy to grab the wrist. So go for something to throw them off first. Like, a kick to their feet, or a knee to the crotch. Something to get them off balance."

I nodded and tried again, adding a kick to her feet, so she tripped, then I grabbed her wrist and did the same combination as before. She nodded.

"Good," she said, "Now lets try a gun, the most common one."

I swallowed. Normally I had vibranium protecting all of my skin. She laughed, "I am going to be shooting, but they are sensitive paint balls. So if you have any paint on you, you failed."

"Great," I muttered sarcastically.

She started shooting and I ducked, avoiding them. I kicked to her feet while I was gone. When she came down, I sat on top of her, grabbing the gun barrel and turning it upwards so she shot into the air. I turned her arm until it was against the mat, where I put my foot on her arm and took the gun from her fingers. I pointed it at her.

"Very good," she said, "Where did you learn that?"

"I'm an Avenger," I said, "I have my ways."

"I suppose," she said.

I smiled. We went through the tazer, which was a lot harder, then the class was finished.

"Next class will be more about the computer tricks SHIELD agents need to know," Morse said, "But you should be a whiz at it."

I smiled. Then I thanked her and left for home.