Wherever I Go (Avengers fanfic)

Chapter 3

20 years ago

‘Sweetheart, we can’t keep her here.’ I heard my dad’s soft voice say to my mum. ‘You see the problems she’s causing? She’s driving our family apart.’ My mum let out a small sob.

‘She’s our daughter.’

‘I know, I know. This will help her, when she gets back she’ll be a better person.’

‘She’s only five!’

‘We have no choice!’ They argued a lot, my parents, about me, mostly. They wanted to get rid of me, I “caused trouble”. They didn’t like me. They wanted to send me off to a “care home”, a home for “troubled children”.  I was considered a troubled child. They all hated me.

‘Emily what are you doing?’ My mum gasped loudly as she walked into the kitchen to see me drawing on the wall with a black marker. I’d found it on my sister’s desk. I’d seen no harm in what I was doing, I was just making art, at least that was until I turned around and saw the angry expression on her normally calm face. I’d finally gone too far. She couldn’t take it any longer.

They had sent me off the same day.

I followed Director Fury as he led me through the many hallways of SHIELD’s helicarrier. He led me into a room were a red haired woman was practicing with a pistol. He coughed and she put her weapon down and walked up to us, her hips swinging so badly I was afraid they were going to break. They didn’t and she safely reached us. She reminded me of her, Kennedy. The way she looked at me, the way she walked.

‘I already said no Fury!’ She hissed. ‘I do not want a trainee!’ And the way she talked.

‘I’m afraid you have little choice agent Romanoff. We know we can fully trust you on this one.’ This one, huh? I was an object now? Wonderful.

She glared angrily, she was obviously going to explode. I hid a smirk, I loved drama. In my eyes it would be great to see these two fight. But unfortunately, nothing happened. She just let out an irritated growl and spat out, ‘Fine. I’ll take the brat on.’  Wasn’t she lovely? I coughed awkwardly, letting her now I was still there and I could hear everything she said. She just looked at me and raised an eyebrow as if she was challenging me to say something. I decided against it, if I wanted that gun I was going to have to work for it.

Fury left, leaving the two of us alone to fight out any possible issues we might’ve had with each other. I sat down on a chair and kicked my feet up on the table, only to have them slapped off immediately by the red head.

‘Listen carefully,’ She started as she stared down at me. I supressed a small laugh as her eyes narrowed. ‘You will listen to me. When I send you on a mission, you will go. When I tell you to stand down, you will stand down. Have I made myself clear?’ I smirked and nodded.

‘Very clear, Natasha isn’t it?’ I recalled.

‘You will call me Agent Romanoff or Black Widow, understood?’ She snapped. I chuckled and raised my hands in defensive.

‘If that’s your wish. You seem to dislike me.’ I stated with a grin. ‘Any reasons for that?’ She just scowled at me before she turned her back to me. ‘Okay, apparently not.’ I realised my attitude wasn’t working in my advantage so I sighed and put on a fake smile. ‘Okay, Roma- Agent Romanoff. If we’re going to have to work together we might as well try to get along.’

And after that, we tried. We really did try but our personalities clashed constantly and we couldn’t finish a single mission without fighting. I was an aggressive bitch, according to her, and she was a whore in training in my eyes. It didn’t take director Fury long to figure out that this was not working. He came to collect me from one of the weapon closets after that red haired witch had locked me in there because I’d punched her. His face was serious and he looked worn out.

‘Emily-‘ he had started with a sigh. ‘This is obviously not working out.’ I huffed and tried to tell him that it was all her fault but he cut me off. ‘We decided to assign you a new teacher.’ I growled in annoyance, if I hadn’t needed that gun so desperately I would have run away already. I followed him out of the room and he led me through the halls until we came to a stop in front of one of the doors to the rooms I liked to call “dorms”. It weren’t really dormitories, I just used that term to make fun of SHIELD. The nameplate next to the door read “Agent Barton”. I had heard of him before, he was one of SHIELD’s most elite agents. I knew I wasn’t going to like him either, he was a friend of Romanoff. I had seen them talk to each other, heard her complain about me, it was obvious he liked her. I almost snorted at how cliché it was, two of the most elite agents falling in love. My thoughts were interrupted when Fury knocked on the door. The door opened after a few seconds and a man appeared in the door opening. He had short brown hair and green eyes. He looked down, his eyes finding mine, and smirked smugly. He was good looking, there was no denying that. He had broad shoulders and muscly arms and was a little over a head taller than me. I stared back , my face and eyes void of emotions.

‘So you are Emily Foster?’ I raised my chin and straightened my back.

‘You don’t say.’ I said arrogantly.  His smirk grew and he chuckled as he leaned back against the wall.

’I guess that means Nat was right, you do have a bad attitude.’ He crossed his arms in front of his chest. ’Twenty push-ups Foster.’

‘What?’ I questioned. He couldn’t be serious.

‘You heard me, twenty.’ I looked at director Fury who just turned his back on us and left. ‘Maybe you will then learn who’s in charge.’

‘You’re joking.’ I hissed venomously.

‘I’m not. Drop and give me twenty.’ I glared at him one last time before lowering myself to the ground. The gun, Emily. You need it. I reminded myself one last time.

_

A few loud knocks on my door woke me up. I pushed myself out of bed and checked my alarm clock while doing so. 4.30 AM. ‘Are you kidding me?’ I muttered tiredly as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and stumbled towards the door. I pushed the door open to see none other than Hawkeye. ‘What do you want Barton?’ I snapped in annoyance. ‘It’s fucking 4.30 AM! What the hell is your problem.’ I wasn’t a morning person, not at all. Especially not since it was hardly even morning yet. He didn’t seem at all affected by my harsh words nor did he seem affected by the early hour.

‘Training.’ He said simply.

‘This early?’ I snapped again.

‘There won’t be anyone there yet. So yes, this is the perfect time.’

I wanted to slap him. Working together with him was going to be horrible, especially since he was my boss.