Spectrum ⇒ Avengers [ 1 ]

The worst day of my life, P2

"How do you get Dominos to deliver to a secret spy base, anyway?" I ask, balancing the pizza between my fingers. The pepperoni slice is in serious danger of slipping off, and I'm doing everything I can to stop it. Sharon winks.
"Perks of being a top agent." I tip the slice over my mouth and catch the pepperoni between my teeth, and chew it thoughtfully.
"Thank you." I say after a moment. "I could have- you know."
"Hulked out?" She suggests, putting her own slice down. We're sitting above ground, and it feels good to have wind on my face again. Despite the winding miles of tunnels and corridors, the underground base is claustrophobic.
"If that's the technical term, then yeah." I agree. "That was too close." There were hand-shaped marks in Doctor Chung's table now, from where I had crushed it. "Honestly, I'm having a bad time adjusting to all this."
"Day one's always the worst." Sharon says, sitting cross legged. The above ground buildings, the offices, glitter under the sun. "I remember my first day, I spilt soup all over Coulson." My mouth drops open, and the pizza almost drops with it.
"You didn't." I say, thinking of the sunglasses-wearing man.
"I did. I had to scrub the canteen clean for that. So there's your first tip- don't get soup. Ever. Or anything that can spill on a high-ranking official." She warns. "For the first month or so, it was all anyone knew me for."
"So what did you do?" I ask. I haven't seen anyone look at her with anything but complete respect.
"I got good," she gives me a wicked grin, picking up another slice of pizza. "And I beat them."

I'm still wiping tomato sauce from my face as we walk back inside. My watch has a tiny blue light on it, apparently indicating that I'm calm. I suppose I'm not panicked, but what I am is nervous. Perhaps pizza wasn't such a good idea, especially considering that I'm about to go into the part of the day I've been dreading the most- the physical fitness section. I still ache from the bruising, and I haven't slept well, which means this is probably going to be awful.

As it turns out, I'm wrong. It's not awful. It's worse.

"Get moving, ladies, we don't have all day!" I glare at the woman standing on a small platform at the head of the room. She's built like a bodybuilder, pure muscle and strength, in shorts, luminous nike trainers and a S.H.I.E.L.D vest top. "I expect no less than 38 sit ups in a minute, this is pathetic!" Unsurprisingly, her voice is red.

The rookies, the ones who are actually supposed to be training for this sort of thing, are panting. I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack. Yep, the pizza was a bad idea- and if this woman makes me do any more exercise, she might just see it reappearing.

I'm in shorts, too, and a vest similar to hers, covered in sweat and cursing under my breath. Every so often, one of the rookies- adults aged about 18 to 25- turns and stares at me. The most recent one is a ginger guy sitting a few metres in front of me, who quickly looks away as I glare at him.

"All right, let's go, 2 miles round the compound." There's a chorus of barely concealed groans, and our trainer growls. "And if anyone takes longer than 15 minutes, you'll be cleaning out this gym tonight." That gets everyone onto their feet. "And I mean anyone." She adds, looking over at me. I gulp. "Go, go, go!"

"I hear," someone gasps from the middle of the pack. "That they recruited her from the CIA's torture division to crack down on fitness in S.H.I.E.L.D."
"That's bullshit!" Someone else yells, a woman, this time. "Why would anyone in that job choose one like this?"
"Because torturing terrorists isn't an opportunity that comes around enough." Someone else counters. "She needs a steady supply of victims." There's a collective wheeze of breathless laughter.

I know two miles isn't a long way- I know it isn't. But after doing press-ups, sit-ups, sprints and pull-ups for an hour, it feels like I'm running a marathon. And eventually, I start to lag, and then I'm behind everyone. My legs are burning and swear pours off my face. I haven't had to run like this in a long time- not after being locked up for six months...