A Different Call

A New History

Natasha's P.O.V.

I sat on the gym bleachers, that where May told us to meet once we had finished lunch. After around a half an hour the other recruits started to filter in, including my least favorite Neanderthal.

Hodge walked up to me and smirked, "Need any help, Romanoff?" I knew that he was referring to the conversation Barton and I had engaged in at lunch, I also knew that If he continued talking this group would be down one less recruit.

Right as I was about to do something I might regret – although probably not- Agent May came in and said, "Everyone, follow me." We all got up and followed her, heading to a lecture hall.

As we began to file in, May pressed some buttons on a remote and a projector began to whirl to life. "This will just be a quick slideshow over the history of SHIELD since most of you already know it," She glanced at me and then continued, "I also added some pictures of you SOs to make this a little less boring. I will give you some quick facts about them and a bit on their history of SHIELD then you are free to go back to your bunks and do what you would like till lights out.

The first slide showed an old sepia photo of two men and a woman, "SHIELD was created shortly after the end of World War Two in efforts to rid the trance amounts of Hydra that lingered after the death of the organization's founder, Johann Schmidt. The organization was founded by Howard Stark and Colonel Chester Phillips, with Peggy Carter from the SSR being brought in later by Howard to help build the young organization. It was at this time Carter realized that Hydra was not the only threat to mankind and that there were many other organizations and people who held that same threat, which marked SHIELDs move toward trying to help with global security."

We continued with history about how SHIELD had helped protect people and some of its many innovations and operations. It wasn't long before we moved on to the SO partition of the slideshow. "These pictures are organized by how long your SO has been at SHIELD when you see your SO raise your hand. This will help both me and you, as I'll be able to match cadet to SO and you'll be able to learn some facts that may be of use to you."

One of the first agents that came up was apparently Hodge's SO, "Ah Agent Garret, he is one of our older agents and was actually trained by Agent Fury, our future director." I roll my eyes, great something else to help inflate his ego. Only a few slides later Barton's face popped up and although I didn't raise my hand May knew he was mine, although given that both he and I were last minute additions it wasn't that surprising. "Romanoff, your SO is Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye. He's a specialist here at SHIELD and is one of the best snipers we have. He was also one of the youngest recruits in operations. Barton also has experience and knowledge; his SO was Agent Coulson who was also trained by Director Fury along with Agent Garrett. Coulson also ended up being Barton's handler which doesn't normally happen."

The show and tell continued for about another thirty minutes before we were finally released.