Miss Romanoff-Barton

Settling and Training

I own only the characters I create for the purpose of this story. Everything else is owned by Marvel.

Alexa's POV

I flip down from my bed gently and cross to my wardrobe standing at the end of it. Inside are all the clothes I packed, and the SHIELD issue ones.

I notice the other girls have changed into their uniforms so I decide to follow suit. Grabbing a light grey T-shirt and a pair of dark grey shorts (both with the logo on) I get changed in the ensuite attached to our room.

After changing quickly, I put my previously donned clothes away and fish around in the side pocket for a device I know mum stashed there.

The small black disc sits neatly in my palm as I pull it out, carefully to turn my hand away from the prying eyes I feel on the back of my neck.

I shut the doors as I stand and gently press the disk into the wood until I hear a soft thunk on the other side, indicating the lock is active.

This way my other roommates won't be able to get into my stuff, and going off of their reaction to my arrival? I don't trust at all.

Then again, I do tend to be fairly paranoid – that's not the point.

The black disc attached to the front of my wardrobe now has a faintly glowing blue ring around the edge. Indicating that it's working.

I press my thumb to the centre of the ring and it glows green before I hear another click as the lock disengages.

I pull the doors open again and open the duffle bag sitting at the bottom, rifling through to find the picture frames I stashed at the bottom.

One of the pictures is of mum, dad and I. The other is a group shot of the whole family.

I look at the second one a bit closer and take in the details.

In the photo, I'm hanging upside down on Thor's shoulder, my red face pointed to the camera. Steve is looking at Thor with a mischievous grin on his face, Tony is holding bunny ears behind Bruce's head and Peter in a headlock. Wanda is standing with Vision's arm around her waist, and dad has mum in a fireman's lift.

The chaos of the photo that I know was taken by a laughing pepper, captures our bizarre family dynamic nearly perfectly.

After climbing back up onto my bed and placing the photos by my pillow I exit the room and breath out heavily, not noticing the stifling atmosphere in the room until I leave.

I start walking in the direction of the gym and are about to turn a corner when I run headlong into someone. Knocking them backwards.

"Oh god" I say quickly.

I look down and a fairly handsome boy is lying on the floor with a grin on his face.

I immediately notice electric blue eyes. How are someone's eye even that blue? Not the time.

"Sorry about that" I say apologetically as I reach out a hand.

He grabs it thankfully and a shiver runs up my spine that I decidedly ignore.

I pull him up easily, taking in his tall frame and muscle. Similar to my build honestly.

"It's all good," he replies easily.

After letting my hand go, he offers it again as a handshake.

"I'm Liam"

I smile lightly.

"Alexandra"

His eyes widen and I know he recognises me. I sigh.

He opens his mouth to speak but I cut him off.

"Yes, I am their daughter, please don't be weird about it."

He laughs without awkwardness and I breathe a slight sigh of relief. Maybe this won't be as awkward as I feared it would be.

"I promise I won't be weird" he responds, "But, aren't your parents like, the most famous SHIELD agents ever?"

I grin slightly.

"Yep"

"Getting into SHIELD must have been a breeze then"

My smile falters.

"That's exactly the opposite of what I want people to think. I had to try just as hard as everyone else. I don't get favourited just because of my parents. And I'm not just my parents, I'm a combination of them both."

The tension I tried to avoid in the conversation had well and truly arrived.

I lock eyes with him and instead of seeing disbelief or maybe jealousy, I find understanding.

"I get it" he says with a shrug, effectively breaking the heavy atmosphere, "What level are you?"

My smile is back.

"1. I started today. Don't we need to be in the gym soon? I think we have our first training session today."

He nods in agreement before looking left and right, clearly at a loss for where to go.

I start walking in the right direction and stop after a few paces before beckoning him to follow me.

"How do you know where you're going?"

"I was running around here before I was seven."

His bright laugh was heard once again before he caught up to me as I started walking again.

After opening the double doors to the gym, I let Liam pass. Wanting to see his reaction.

The gym is by far my favourite place in the complex and the room is MASSIVE.

It has multiple fighting mats in one corner, a full gymnastics gym set up, a weights gym and a general fighting mat the size of a standard dance floor in the centre of the room.

An adjacent room, identical in size, that boasts an entire shooting range. Accessed through another set of large double doors on the right wall.

There's also recreational space in the main room that they use for specialised exercises but I haven't seen them use that yet.

Liam's jaw drops as I laugh before pushing him forwards to hurry up.

He spins in a circle as he enters, as if standing in a flower field and I resist the urge to do the same.

Instead looking towards the corner of the room. That's when I spot her.

Agent May. Standing in front of the fighting mats. Waiting.

One thing I've learnt in my seventeen years of life on this planet is that you never want to leave Melinda May waiting. It always ends in trouble.

"Liam we gotta go" I say quickly, effectively snapping him out of the happy daze he seemed to have fallen into.

"What? Where?"

I point to May and begin walking quickly across the room, he follows immediately. He learns fast.

"Who's she?" Liam asks quietly.

"Agent Melinda May, Level 10. Worked alongside my parents and Director Fury. She's insanely skilled and kinda strict. I would not want to be the other level ones when they get here. Especially considering they're late."

I look over to him and see his wide eyes. A reasonable reaction.

We come to a stop in front of Agent May.

"Where are the other trainees?"

"I don't know ma'am".

I gotta give it to Liam, he's got guts talking to her straight away. I was beyond terrified when I first met May.

"Wherever they are, they're late."

--

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