Hello everyone, and welcome to Repercussions, the sequel to Ties That Bind within my Protective Reasoning universe. If you missed it, my AN above the new chapter of Retrograde last week explained a whole slew of things, including why Glass no longer exists. Go check that out if you're interested. If you're new to my work, welcome! This story is fourth in my Protective Reasoning universe. It can be read alone, but some parts will reference back to the other stories.

Now, this story is already completely written, and I will be updating once a week to give me time to finish writing the next story so it's ready by the time this is done being posted. Maybe if I'm feeling generous I'll put out a chapter or two within the same week, but for the most part, I'm going to stick to Mondays.

The first three/four chapters will focus more on Clint's relationship with SHIELD, for reasons you'll see once we get further along. Then again, you can probably guess by the summary.

All that taken care of, I'll leave you to enjoy. If you have any other questions feel free to leave a review or PM me. And if you have the time to spare, reviews in general are awesome and I do try to respond to most of them. So, thank you for reading, and enjoy.

Clint grumbled quietly to himself as he held his hand to the scanner outside one of SHIELD's training gyms before punching in the correct access code and watching the door in front of him open. He should have known when Fury didn't come down on him with some bullshit mission within a month after the whole Menendez issue that the director was planning something much worse. And sure enough, just under a week ago, Fury had kindly informed him that he would get to spend a week training SHIELD recruits.

It wasn't that he didn't like the training aspect of this assignment. It was that, more often than not, SHIELD recruits had egos the size of Texas and they were being forced into the same room to do things that they were absolutely sure they could already do better than anyone else. What made matters even worse, was that this was this particular class of recruits' last week of training before graduating to the status of a full SHIELD agent.

Clint just knew that before the first day was over he was going to want to strangle at least one of them.

He knew he had been the same way, probably even worse, as a recruit himself, and that his trainers and Phil had dealt with him without killing him, but he had never claimed to be patient outside the scope of a mission. He had also never claimed to be qualified to train recruits in the first place. He was a field agent; an assassin. But this wasn't the first time Fury had pushed him into the role, and he doubted it would be the last.

The only saving grace in this situation was the fact that he was training them in the skills of agility and marksmanship. At least Fury hadn't been completely heartless and stuck him with something like SHIELD protocol.

Another only slightly better than miserable aspect was that recruits were never trained on the helicarrier itself, and thus he was on the New York base instead. At least here not every agent stared at him like he was about to snap and kill them all. In fact, he was even friends with a few, from his days living on this base during his earlier years at SHIELD.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Clint checked his watch and noted that the recruits were due to meet him in ten minutes before he looked around the gym at the obstacle course that occupied it. It was simple enough, by his standards, consisting of a 25 yard tire run, 10 foot balance beam, net climb, a field of six-inch wide, four inch tall foot poles, stretch of quickly swinging punching bags that had come on with the lights, and a long length of glorified monkey bars.

The fun obstacle courses came during specialized training depending on the class of an agent. These recruits were just going through general training, and thus, had the easy course. That being said, agility was normally ranked 2nd in the list of worst training sections, only beat out by SHIELD protocol. Clint, on the other hand, thought it was enormous amounts of fun and held the course record. Which was why Fury usually chose him to train it, along with marksmanship. The only other section he'd ever trained was hand-to-hand combat.

He looked up sharply when the door to the gym opened, a quietly murmuring group of ten recruits filing inside the gym. Quickly realizing their instructor was waiting, they lined up attentively, eyes watching Clint as he walked over to them curiously.

"Morning." he greeted easily, surveying them. At least now he was at the point where the recruits were at least a year or two younger than him. It had been awkward the first time Fury and Coulson had pushed him into training, and every single one of the recruits had been older than him. "Welcome to your last week of general training. I wish I could tell you it was going to be easy."

He gave an almost predatory smirk with those words, just wanting to mess with them, and garnered a few nervous-sounding chuckles from the line.

"I'm Agent Barton, you can call me Hawkeye. This week, we're going to be meeting here for three hours in the morning for agility, and three hours after lunch in the shooting range for marksmanship. I will be your trainer for both sections, and at the end of the week, providing I don't kill you, you'll graduate to full agent status. Any questions so far?"

One male recruit of average height and lithe build on the end of the line raised a hand hesitantly, eyes slightly widened, and Clint rolled his eyes and spoke without having to hear his question.

"No, I'm not actually going to kill you. I do have a sense of humor, as outlandish as that may seem. Anything else?"

"Sir," a taller, broad-shouldered man of about 23 spoke up from near the middle of the group, and Clint nodded for him to continue. "We've, ah, heard a lot about you."

Clint felt his shoulders stiffen slightly, but he kept his face outwardly blank. He'd been expecting this after all, and it certainly shouldn't surprise him. Not after how the general SHIELD population had reacted to the whole fiasco with Loki.

"Care to tell me what you've heard, Recruit…" he trailed off for the man's name, not able to see the back of his shirt at the moment.

"Jones. We've been told you're one of the best agents SHIELD has, sir. And that we're under no circumstances to piss you off." the man said with a slight smirk before faltering slightly as if deciding whether or not he wanted to continue. "Agent Tena was also under the impression that you were a traitor sir."

Clint gave an impressed blink, hiding his resignation at Tena's continued hatred of him, as the rest of the recruits stared at Jones like he'd lost every marble he'd ever had. He could understand their shock, seeing as it had the same cause as his impressed expression. It was extremely gutsy to inform him so lightly that another agent considered him a traitor.

After no less than a heartbeat, Clint raised a single eyebrow and responded, meeting Jones' gaze.

"Well, recruit, do you think that Director Fury would have forced me into training the lot of you if he thought I was a traitor?" he asked rhetorically, and the other man actually gave a smirk.

"I wouldn't guess so, sir."

"Alright then." Clint moved on pointedly, looking down the line of recruits again. "Let's get started. Agility is something mostly picked up through practice, so a majority of our time is going to be spent looking at specific aspects of this course and running through them until you train your bodies to be able to react quick enough to avoid falling on your face." he watched with an almost amused expression as a few of the recruits eyes turned toward the swinging punching bags. "But, my offer to all of you for the entire week is that if you can run that entire course in five minutes, you can sit back and drink lemonade in the mornings while the rest of the class trains."

It was no less than he expected to suddenly gain every single recruit's much more focused attention. The prospect of getting out of a three-hour morning training session was far too much temptation to ignore.

"Sir," one of the three female recruits in the class spoke up, sounding confused, and Clint turned to her. "SHIELD average for the course is seven minutes. Agent Brighton told us we weren't expected to run it any faster than that when we started out training."

"You're not." Clint agreed far easier than any of the recruits expected. "And I'm not going to mark down on your evaluations if you don't. But the last thing you should shoot for is to be average."

"Can you even run that course in five minutes?" another of the recruits challenged cockily, and Clint gave a wolfish smirk. Easiest way to prove to the recruits that he was serious? Prove it to them.

"Why don't you tell me?" he retorted, before starting the stopwatch that had been in his pocket before tossing it to the recruit and taking off at a dead sprint for the tire run that signified the start of the course.

Instead of simply running through the tires, he used his momentum to flip across them three at a time, alternating as to whether hands or feet landed in the center of the tires. It took him six flips to clear them, landing smoothly on his feet and taking off again, this time across the balance beam. His footing and speed didn't so much as waver, and within moments he was making his way to the net climb.

He gave a smirk as he neared it, and then veered suddenly to the left. He managed three steps straight up the gym wall before his momentum gave out and he launched himself up and off, hands landing firmly on the beam at the top of the net. Vaulting over it with ease, he landed in a graceful crouch, perched precariously on a single foot pole.

He took off across them nearly instantly with quick confident strides, again not giving so much as a second thought to his footing. Reaching the last one, he looked ahead to gauge the movements of the swinging punching bags and hesitated for maybe a fraction of a second before ducking into a roll to slip around the first bag. Leaping to his feet smoothly, he twisted and spun around the following bags, sometimes leaving no more than an inch of space between him and them. Spinning expertly around the last bag, he took off towards the monkey bars, leaping up and practically flying across them two or more at a time. Coming to the last one, he made a show of swinging back to gather momentum before launching himself forward and off the bar, flipping neatly.

When he landed, it was mere feet from where he'd started, near the other end of the line of recruits. Fluidly he stood, raising an eyebrow to the open-mouthed stares he was receiving.

"Well, recruit, what was my time?" he asked lightly, looking to the man that had challenged him, who held the stop watch up weakly while staring at him, clearly embarrassed.

"3:28, sir." he more or less mumbled, offering the stop watch out, which Clint took back easily.

"I wouldn't ask you to do something I couldn't." Clint said wisely, moving to stand more in the middle of the line of recruits. "And I definitely don't expect you all to be able to do something like that. Not yet anyway. Which is why I say that five minutes is good enough to get you out of morning training. I'm not to lie; I'm a field agent. I want to train you to be ready for real-life scenarios, not what someone can cook up in a training gym." he gazed around at all of them individually before clapping his hands together. "So let's get started, shall we? I'm going to get a preliminary run from all of you to see where the class needs the most work. Recruit Jones has kindly volunteered to go first."

Clint smirked as he cast a glance to the recruit, who looked vaguely peeved for a moment, before shrugging it off and stepping forward graciously, waiting for Clint's nod to start.

The archer gave it to him only a few moments later, sharp eyes following Jones' progress through the course, noting every misstep or fraction of a stumble for future reference. The man came up with a modest time of 7:56, dropping off the monkey bars as soon as he reached the end, breathing heavily.

Clint called all the recruits forward and onto the course individually, learning their names as he went. It was no less than he expected to see that the recruits' main problems lie in the punching bags and the foot poles, and after taking a short water break once the entire class had run the course, he waved them over to the length of foot poles for some more focused training.

Balance in itself seemed to be a good place to start.

Barely giving the action any thought, Clint hopped up onto one of the poles, both feet carefully sharing the small space. He then lowered himself into a crouch, looking back up to the openly curious recruits.

"How many of you think you could manage this right here?" he asked, glancing down pointedly to his position. As expected, almost every single one of the recruits raised their hands. He smirked, and gave a slight shrug before motioning them to the other poles around him. "Try it then." he challenged.

He wasn't expecting anything horrendous. SHIELD only took the best after all, and these recruits had already been through weeks of other training. He still took it as a sign that it was going to be a long week when some of them were wobbling in a standing position alone, while others couldn't even get both feet onto the pole steadily.

Clint followed the class into the locker room at exactly 11, leaving them just enough time to get showered before lunch started.

As was typical when he was on base without Natasha, Clint grabbed his meal, found a secluded corner of the mess hall and sat alone. The only difference was that now, even two months shy of a year after the Loki deal, he couldn't bring himself to put his back to any of them. True, this wasn't the helicarrier, and this base held a far different agent pool which included many that he had known for years. But call him paranoid, he wasn't going to risk it.

He ate quickly, leaving the mess hall as soon as he had finished and then making his way towards the range. He'd been allotted a smaller one off the main training gym for this group of recruits, and thankfully it was already empty. He didn't want to go through all the trouble of intimidating anyone out.

He set up a line of ten targets at a relatively close range before laying out an accompanying number of pellet pistols. He wasn't giving anyone anything with actual bullets in it on the first day. The SHIELD techs had come up with ones remarkably similar to an actual gun to use for training, so he might as well use them. By the time he was set up, he still had more than half an hour before the recruits were due to join him, so on a whim he ventured into the weapons' room.

He came back into the range with a triumphant smirk, a bow, and a small quiver of arrows only moments later.

They had been his a long time ago, left behind upon his move up to the helicarrier as a permanent base as opposed to this one. It had been Phil's idea to change home base, something about the helicarrier being more internationally accessible. In retrospect, he could understand that. But he had put up a bit of a fight initially. The New York base had been the closest thing he'd had to a stable, unmoving home in years.

Still lost in his thoughts, Clint jerked the bow open and pulled an arrow, notching it and pulling it back experimentally. The bow didn't offer any resistance, despite its lack of use, and within only moments and a handful of arrows he'd gotten the feel for it again and had taken to the rafters to give him some distance. He wove through and across the thin strips of metal gracefully, arrows beginning to pepper the bull's-eyes of the targets as time passed.

He only stopped, freezing in mid-shot, when the door to the gym opened. He blinked quickly as he realized that more time had passed than he had thought, before he let the tension out of his bowstring and crouched, perching himself on the rafter and watching the recruits curiously.

Once again, they had arrived en masse and he was curious to see what they would do with the situation presented to them. They would see the arrows, know they had to be his, but the question would be whether or not they would think to look up. He sincerely hoped that they did, seeing as this was their last week of training.

"Great, first marksmanship training of the week and our trainer's already late." one of the men said sourly, a recruit named Maxwell. Some of the other recruits looked similarly concerned, but a slim, blonde woman named Clark simply nodded to the targets.

"He's been here." she pointed out matter of factly, and the others' gazes followed hers. "The range is set up, and I don't know of any other SHIELD agents that would use a bow and arrow."

"Well he's not here now." Maxwell snapped in retort, and another of the recruits shot a disapproving glance at him.

"Get your attitude in check, Maxwell." Walker said shortly, earning the gazes of a majority of his classmates. "Hawkeye isn't going to take it, and I'm not running sprints or anything else because of your mouth. So keep your smartass opinions to yourself."

Maxwell scowled in response but didn't offer another retort. The silence was instead broken by Recruit Flynn, who was still ogling at the targets lining the room.

"The guy physically ran out of room on the bullseye." the recruit shook his head in wonder, and Clint considered him carefully. He gave a silent sigh when the recruit looked around the gym, but not to the ceiling. "He's probably letting us stew to see what we would do."

It was then Clint decided he'd seen enough.

He pulled the arrow he'd left notched on the bowstring in his lap back to the corner of his mouth, sighting his target. The arrow flew near silently, slicing its path through the empty air through the heart of the grouping of recruits, passing within inches of some.

Their reactions were instantaneous; getting themselves out of the supposed danger zone and looking around for the threat. He physically saw some of them pale when they realized it was an arrow that had so narrowly missed them. He dropped from the rafters into the now silent range, landing in a crouch before stalking over to retrieve his arrow from the wall.

"Let's pretend for just a moment, that I had actually meant for this arrow to kill any of you." the archer said, voice outwardly calm and cool, though he allowed a hint of anger to slip through. "How many of you wouldn't have even seen it coming?"

Slowly, without so much as making a sound, the recruits lined up in front of him again, their expressions ranging from blank, to ashamed, to nearly terrified. As the silence stretched, Clint snorted and moved around them, instead making his way over to the targets to retrieve his arrows there.

"I think I asked you a question, recruits." he said next, tone lowering with intensity.

"None of us would have seen it, sir." it was Flynn that spoke up for the group, tone short and emotionless.

"And why not?" Clint continued, stalking back around to face them, eyes narrowed as he scanned down the completely still and silent line.

"We weren't expecting you to be in the rafters, sir." Flynn was once again the only one to respond to him, and Clint snorted.

"It's nice to know that this is a class of one." he said scathingly, collapsing his bow and setting it and his quiver aside before crossing his arms over his chest. "So are you telling me that in the field you're only going to be looking for people where you'd expect them to be?"

"No, sir." Jones spoke up carefully, and Clint snorted.

"So why the hell do it here?" he demanded. "I have half a mind to cancel training and send you all back to your bunks because I am not wasting my time training a bunch who is probably going to end up dead in a week anyway simply because of a lack of basic observational skills."

That earned flinches from a majority of them, but Clint wasn't exactly at a point where he cared whether or not he hurt their feelings. If training this group had to be his responsibility, he wasn't letting them go anywhere near any form of mission or assignment when they couldn't even handle spotting him in a calm, danger-free environment.

"It won't happen again, sir." Walker spoke up calmly, and Clint snorted.

"You're right, it won't. Because if it does, this entire class is going to have loads of fun joining me with drills at 4:30 every morning for the rest of this week, am I clear?" the archer scanned the line of recruits sharply with his statement.

"Yes, sir." this time it was Jones that responded for the class, and Clint gave a short nod before walking over to the table where he'd set out the pellet pistols.

"After that little show, it goes against my better judgment to put any form of weapon in any of your hands." he said coolly, waving them forward even as he spoke. "Despite that, grab a pistol and set up across from a target. We're going to start with the basics. Like how to properly hold a gun and not shoot yourself. Because I'm starting to think it's something that some of you would be able to manage."

Miraculously, it turned into a fairly good training session, seeing how disastrous it had started out.

Clint explained a proper shooting stance before letting them have at the targets to see where they stood. Three hours, dozens of pellets, and considerable instruction later, a majority of them were at the point where they could hit within the realm of the bullseye on a close-range target. Really the only one that was still having problems was Recruit Robins. Giving a sigh, Clint looked around before giving a sharp whistle to draw the recruit's attention to him.

"Alright, we're done for the day. I'll see you all at 8 o'clock sharp tomorrow morning." he announced, and the recruits set their pistols on the table they'd gotten them from before moving to leave the range.

"Seems like I have perfect timing." Clint glanced up and turned when he heard Fury's voice, raising an eyebrow as the director stepped around the shocked recruits to blow into the room.

"Director Fury, I didn't know you were on base." the archer said lightly, turning back around and moving to unload the pistols and put them away. From Fury's body language, he knew the reason for the visit wasn't urgent.

"Just making sure I still had a full recruit class." Fury said mildly, watching as the remaining men and women quickly exited the room when his gaze turned to them. "Well?"

"They almost earned themselves 4:30 drills, and I may or may not end up killing Recruit Maxwell before the week is over." Clint explained without so much as glancing at the director as he continued in cleaning up the range.

"Promising." Fury sighed, making Clint give an amused snort. "How's their performance?"

"It's the first day, sir. There's a reason I do my evaluations at the end of the week." Clint reminded lightly, one eyebrow raising as he turned back to look at the director finally. "What are you fishing for?"

"If you're done I'd like to have this conversation in my office." Fury informed him and Clint gave a slight roll of his eyes, but shouldered the quiver he'd brought out before and picked up the case of pistols, returning both to the weapons' room before following Fury out of the range.

Once seated in the director's office, Clint relaxed back and turned his expectant, curious gaze to the older man who sat down behind the desk and rifled through a drawer before pulling out a file, flipping it open, and sliding it across the desk to him.

"Jacob Flynn was recruited out of the FBI academy. Looking at his preliminary scores, I think you can guess why we were interested." Fury said lightly, nodding down to the sheet that was offered up in the file.

Gaze now predominantly curious, Clint reached forward and picked up the file scanning through it as an eyebrow raised and he gave a huff of slight surprise. He could definitely see what had caught SHIELD's attention. The recruit's scores in marksmanship, especially distance, were phenomenal.

"He's not as good as you." Fury acquiesced, sitting back and steepling his fingers. "But he's the best that's come through this agency since we brought you in. And let's face it, Barton, you are the only distance assassin we have. We've made do with that for nearly the past eight years, but your main focuses have been elsewhere recently, and that's been making itself known. We've sent far too many close-quarters people into what should by all rights be distance territory. And since we haven't been able to figure out a way to get you in two places at once, there's one other way to fix the problem."

"I'm a field agent, sir, not a handler." Clint pointed out with a small frown. He got where Fury was going, but sitting through Flynn's training with him would take time, and subsequently take him off missions that cropped up.

"I know, Barton. You're not going to be his handler. But the time you're out of rotation to train him will more than make up for itself once Flynn gets into rotation." Fury pointed out before leaning closer, eye narrowing. "We were lucky when we brought you in. You already knew what the hell you were doing. This kid probably couldn't pick a good vantage point and stay unseen by his mark right now if he tried. You're the only one in the SHIELD network that can do those things effectively, and if he's going to be successful and not get himself killed, he needs to be able to."

Clint's frown deepened but he sighed and gave a slight nod, flipping through the rest of the file with muted interest.

"If anything relatively simple by your standards comes through, we'll let him shadow you." Fury continued once it became clear that the archer wasn't about to refuse. "You'll have the rest of this week to work with him either before or after general training."

"Does he know what you recruited him for?" Clint asked bluntly, and Fury met his gaze easily.

"He knows we recruited him to be a sniper. If he has an ounce of the brain capacity his records say he does, he should have a pretty damn good idea." the director said coolly, and Clint snorted but gave a acquiescing nod.

"When do you want me to start?"

"Go get him from his bunk room." the director ordered and Clint gave a slight roll of his eyes but stood and moved to exit the office, heading across base to the small wing set aside as recruit bunk rooms. There was a living room type area outside the collection of rooms, and this early in the evening, that's where he expected to find Flynn.

In fact, it was a majority of his recruit class that was milling around the room talking amongst themselves. Clint stopped in the door way and gave a few short raps on the wall.

"Recruit Flynn?" he questioned, eyes scanning the room until he found the slightly surprised man he was looking for. "With me if you don't mind."

"Yes sir."

The younger, dark haired, and lithely built man hopped to his feet and moved to follow him almost instantly. Clint led him back through the hallways, unsurprised when he spoke up questioningly after a few moments of silence between them.

"Can I ask where we're going sir?" Flynn asked and Clint responded without turning to look at him.

"Director Fury wants to speak with you." he said shortly, grinning slightly to himself when he practically felt the recruit stiffen. It wasn't often that Fury got involved personally, especially with recruits. That was bound to make him nervous.

They stopped at the director's door and Clint gave two quick knocks before taking a step back and turning around. He allowed his grin to show when he saw that Flynn's expression was blank and carefully masking confusion and nervousness.

"Relax." the archer said easily, making the recruit's eyes shoot to him. "You're not in any trouble."

Even that didn't serve to reassure the younger man, seeing as Fury's voice sounded heartbeats later, calling for them to enter. Clint opened the door and waved for Flynn to go inside the office and then followed, closing the door behind him and moving to take the chair he'd occupied before while Flynn stood in front of Fury's desk expectantly, back ram-rod straight.

"Recruit Flynn, I don't believe we've met yet." Fury looked up from the file he'd been reading, looking the recruit up and down consideringly. "I'm Director Fury. Have a seat."

Clint relaxed back himself as Flynn carefully did so in the remaining chair, still cautious.

"Agent Barton and I have been discussing your training." the director started again matter of factly a few moments later leaning forward and meeting the younger man's gaze. "What did Agent Hawthorn tell you about why we recruited you?"

"He said SHIELD needed me as a sniper, sir." Flynn said, tilting his head slightly to the side while Fury nodded.

"We do. Ultimately, SHIELD needs you in the same capacity as Agent Barton; a distance assassin." the director paused there, and both he and Clint studied the younger man's reaction carefully.

Flynn didn't seem surprised by the statement, though he was nervous almost, nodding shortly.

"Yes sir, I guessed as much. I just... I don't know if I'll be able to be as good as him." Flynn said, glancing to Clint quickly, causing the archer to smirk.

"Your preliminary scores are good." the archer told him matter of factly. "SHIELD wouldn't have taken you if they weren't. You're here because you're the best they've been able to find since recruiting me, and I physically can't be everywhere they need me. I can't guarantee you'll be as good as me, that's up to you, but we're going to be doing some training to get you as ready as I can possibly make you."

"Hawkeye will be conducting one-on-one training with you in skills that no one else at SHIELD could. All your other training will be conducted by your handler, to be assigned once you complete general training." Fury explained, leaning back as Flynn's expression grew almost awed. "In the interests of time, and wanting to get Hawkeye at least back into rotation as quickly as possible, you'll be starting training immediately, either before or after your typical training sessions."

"Understood, sir." Flynn nodded, but Clint just spoke up before Fury could continue, leaning forward and facing the recruit, eyes hardened and dark as he rested his elbows on his knees.

"Are you sure that this is what you want to be doing?" he asked shortly, tone completely serious. "This is not any easy job by any stretch of the imagination. You could die. You could get hurt; tortured. You'll make enemies, and if you're any good at this, there will be a price on your head for the rest of your life."

Flynn met his gaze squarely, jaw clenching. Then he nodded, which caused Clint to straighten.

"You're prepared to end the life of another human being." he said bluntly, more a statement than a question. His eyes narrowed when Flynn gave a mere heartbeat's hesitation before responding.

"Yes sir." he said stiffly.

"Why?" Clint got to the crux of his line of questioning, tone expectant. He knew why he could do his job and for the most part be at peace with it. He did it to protect people; to provide all the justice he could to those beyond the reach or means of any normal legal system. To even attempt to make up for the innocent lives he'd taken as a contract killer. He didn't know why Flynn – a young man with any number of other opportunities before him – would pick this path.

"Why does anyone choose to be a soldier or a police officer, sir?" Flynn asked rhetorically, and Clint tilted his head slightly to the side and listened as the man continued. "To keep people safe. To make the world a better place. As long as I can see that there's a lot of reason, I'm not going to lose sleep over taking down someone that's hurting or killing innocent people."

Clint nodded slowly, not contesting that reasoning as Fury spoke up.

"And I can assure you that ample evidence will be given to you for each mission." the director said matter of factly, before glancing to Clint with a raised eyebrow. "Satisfied, Agent Barton?"

The archer gave a smirk, knowing that from anyone else, the question would have been sarcastic. Fury knew better than to think he'd train anyone that he didn't think was doing it for the right reasons.

"Yes sir." he said easily, looking to Flynn as the younger man glanced to him as well, expression openly curious and still slightly amazed.

"Good." Fury nodded before looking to the recruit. "What are you going to be working with him on specifically, just so I can let his handler know."

"Distance marksmanship, obviously." Clint started, thinking quickly, before nodding to himself as he continued. "Surveillance tactics, how to pick a good vantage point, probably some parkour. I'll keep you in the loop."

"Very well." Fury gave a short nod of acceptance, taking a few quick notes. "The distance range should be mostly clear right now. The only people signed in are a few of our strike team snipers that are getting in a little training."

"Shouldn't be a problem. They know by now that I like to train alone." Clint said dismissively, looking to Fury expectantly.

"Dismissed." he said simply, and Clint stood, jerking his head for Flynn to follow him. "Oh, and Barton. Do I need to find you a bunk room?"

"Unnecessary, sir. Stark's tower isn't that far." the archer turned half way back towards the director as he held the door open. Fury nodded again and turned back to a file on his desk and Clint followed Flynn out of the office, closing the door behind him and starting down the hallway.

"Sir?" Flynn caught up and stayed half a step behind him, and Clint just cast a quick glance of acknowledgment over his shoulder. "I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to give me extra training, I mean..." he trailed off and Clint gave a short nod.

"You're welcome." the archer said lightly. "I'm the only other distance assassin SHIELD has. Someone has to get you ready."

"Who trained you then?" Flynn asked, sounding slightly confused. "You don't look that much older than me to be honest, sir."

"I've been with SHIELD almost eight years. And I trained myself." Clint said evasively, before reaching into his pocket as he felt his phone vibrate. He already had a pretty good idea who it would be, and a look to the caller ID confirmed it. "Hey Stark."

'Legolas, I would like to inform you, on behalf of mine, and everyone else's growling stomachs, that you are half an hour late.' Tony's mockingly aggravated voice came, and the archer rolled his eyes before responding.

"I'm not going to be able to make it, you guys go ahead." he said, pausing at the elevator.

'What, Cyclops pull you into some more super-secret bullshit to get back at you?' Stark asked teasingly, and Clint snorted and shook his head.

"I'll explain when I get home later. I'm just gonna be a couple extra hours."

'Tell you what, meet us at that little coffee house/bar thing you and Steve hang around sometimes. We'll get drinks and you can give us all the evidence you've accumulated today to back your claim that recruits are secretly demon-spawn.' Tony's voice was light and Clint couldn't help but to snort a laugh.

"Sounds like a plan, I'll let you know when I'm leaving." he said, pressing the button to call the elevator now that the conversation was almost over. Flynn was still waiting patiently by his side.

'See you later.' Tony said cheerfully before hanging up, and leaving Clint to slid his phone back into his pocket and step into the now waiting elevator.

"The distance range is on the level below the parking garage." the archer explained, pressing the corresponding button before stepping back and looking over to Flynn. "I want to see how you do with a rifle for myself if you don't mind."

"Of course not, sir." Flynn responded instantly, hiding the slightly curiosity that had formed on his face during the conversation.

"Good." Clint gave a slight smirk, leaning against the elevator wall as it descended.

There we are, and I hope you enjoyed that first chapter. Keep an eye out next Monday for the second chapter, and thank you for taking the time to read. Reviews are very loved and appreciated. :)
~Dogstar