When I Met You

Chapter 18: Training Trials

You walk into the building, taking a deep breath, feeling suddenly very nervous as you wandered the halls to where you are supposed to go, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone around you. You fail however when you see some of your fellow heroes waving at you and calling out your hero name, with you soon unconsciously waving back at them before catching yourself, now only wanting to escape as fast as possible. You fail again, as they quickly catch up and you tense up, distressed they'd be mad at you or something for hurting MJ, but they weren't, they were happy to see you, in fact, they were worried about you. They hadn't seen you in a week and thought you quit or something, but you told them no, you just needed time to process everything and apologized for making them worry. You then politely excused yourself, as you needed to speak with Nick Fury, but they told you that afternoon training was about to start and that you could talk to him afterwards. You looked down at your feet saying that it was important and that you'd see them later and before any of them had the chance to respond, you rushed off to go talk with the Director. 

"It's like I told you, Director, I still feel the same as I did the other night when I talked to you, I don't want to risk hurting anyone else," you faltered, feeling kind of bad about it, you wanted to help, you really did, feeling like you could fit in here but at the same time, you thought this was for the best. "Alright kid, if you say so," Fury stated before showing you your way out, over to Shield's Psychologist, Dr.Rebbecca Kaplan to talk before anything else happened. You told Fury you just wanted to train, you didn't really feel like talking but he insisted, "it will help, trust me, after what happened, both last week and back in December, it would be good for you to talk to somebody about it, somebody who understands". You never really been to therapy before, worried if you opened up to them about your problems, your mother would find out about you being a mutant, only going a couple of times when you were younger, when you were first diagnosed with A.D.D., but after seeing a few other doctors, the diagnosed was changed to Autism. But seeing as it was kind of a direct order, you decided to at least try, taking a deep breath before sitting down and properly introducing yourself to the doctor. 

You talked for a while, a lot longer than you thought you would, opening up a little bit to Dr.Kaplan about your fears relating to your powers as well as what happened with MJ and the incident in New York involving Doc Ock and that glowing substance. It helped a bit, more than you thought it would, Director Fury was right and you wondered if you should thank him for it or deny it and not say anything, like someone your age would typically do. You decided not to say anything unless it came up while talking with the Director again, going right to training instead, cautiously heading to the room Fury told you to go to, running over the exact directions he gave you to follow. You arrived and scanned your Shield I.D. Card, quickly entering as you felt weird as you had never been in this part of the Triskelion before, it gave you a strange feeling, like you weren't supposed to be there. 

The room was about the size of a school gymnasium, thick padded floors covered the room, it reminded you of the recycled tire playground flooring you see nowadays in newer parks. The walls probably weren't made of anything too outlandish, just different kinds of metal you figured but the pattern was interesting, you liked the industrial feel the room had, but of course, you loved that rustic-urban sort of aesthetic. Around the training room, there were what appeared to be medicine balls of varying sizes and weights, along with some other workout equipment along the one wall at the end of the room. The room itself was voice-activated, and you soon heard a feminine voice welcome you as Agent Aurora, which startled you a bit, as you had never been in a voice-activated room before. 

You spent the next couple of hours lifting the heavy-weighted medicine balls, holding them up as long as you could as well as moving them around, launching them at holographic targets the room summoned for you. You were doing okay, getting a little better as time passed, adjusting your techniques slightly every now and again to see what worked the best for you to accurately hit a target. You then decided to actually try fighting, yes you trained with a Shield-Bot and a few other heroes but it was never a real fight, you were more just learning hand-to-hand and how to evade and predict oncoming attacks. So you asked the room to please send in a couple of Shield-Bots and to set up a beginner battle for you, something easy, as you had never done one before and the room complies.