A Different Call

Training Day

A.N. In light of the announcement at Comic-Con, which we all knew was going to happen I just want to say that there is a possibility that I will alter this story a little bit depending on what happens in the Black Widow movie. This should also be the last chapter with angst betweens Skye and Nat.

Natasha's P.O.V.

The first thing I fully comprehended after I woke up was that I was my hands and knees and dry heaving onto the floor. The next observation was that my hair was stuck to the back of my neck with a sweat that I knew wasn't a result of my clothing choice, which was a sports bra and shorts because flannel and a shirt weren't going to provide much protection but it sure would get in the way.

This continued for longer than I would care to admit, but by the time I was finished with my little episode, the lights in the room were on and Coulson was standing there with a glass of water. I took no offense to the lack of reassurance via physical contact, Coulson learned long ago not to touch me when I was in that state, although I know first-hand that being put in a chokehold helps sear lessons into the mind.

"You want to talk about it?" Coulson asked, handing me the glass and taking a seat next to me.

I shrugged and took a sip, "It was just memories from training, they were just....different." I gave Coulson a look that told him to leave the topic there. I didn't want to divulge into the fact that Clint made in appearance in those memories. First, as one of the poor souls we used as target practice and then it shifted to him being one of the trainers during my more personal lessons. I wasn't sure which bothered me more but I knew that I didn't want to make them any more real by speaking them into the world.

"What time is it?" I asked, moving into a standing position.

"Almost five."

I nodded in response, "Well, thank you for helping me earlier and sorry for waking you up, but I should go get everything ready for training with Skye."

I left the office and made a brief stop at my room, grabbing the pointe shoes that I had left at Laura's as well as my phone, before making my way to the gym and getting ready for the one activity I knew would force everything to come into focus.

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"Wow, you're really driving home that whole Russian thing aren't you," Skye called out over the music. I got down from pointe and turned my attention to her.

"It helps me focus. It's like May and her Tai Chi, I just don't do mine as often." I walk over to where she is and take a seat, grabbing the tennis shoes that I set under the chair before being to take the shoes I had on, off.

"You know I took like one ballet class as a kid, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to have some kind of padding when you wear those things," Skye said, looking at my feet, which were an angry red around the toes.

I shrugged as I pulled on socks and then shoes, "That wasn't how the academy that trained me wanted us to do." No, they wanted us to learn to think through the pain, even embrace it. "So, are you warm?" I asked standing up.

"I mean a jogged over here?"

I give a terse nod of acknowledgment, "Ok, first warm-up and then I'll see what you can do?"

"So how did you meet AC?" Skye asked as she worked the heavy bag.

The girl was pretty tenacious with her questions – between her and Hunter I wasn't sure if I wouldn't be leaving this compound with another homicide on my file – so I decided she could ask as many questions as she wanted as long as she kept working and I was allowed to ignore any questions I didn't like.