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Fitz sat at the back of the room and tried his hardest not to be noticed. As the youngest person in the Academy, except one, he was teased mercilessly for even being in this class. It only got worse when they were paired up for scenarios.
Back at the beginning of term, he'd asked Agent Weaver if he might postpone taking the course until later in his academic career. Really, he just wanted to have a chance to learn how to do things the normal way before he learned how to do them as a spy. Unfortunately, it was an off-year course, meaning it was only offered every other year. At his current pace, he'd graduate before it was offered again. Or at least, he'd be close. It was a required course, after all.
So here he was. 17 years old and forced to sit in a room of 20-somethings as they learned how to seduce an enemy agent. Well, alright not really an enemy agent. They were in Sci-Ops, after all. But they were learning how to seduce enemy scientists into perhaps revealing enemy secrets. Or something.
He had a bit of a difficult time concentrating in class, so the finer points tended to get rather vague for him.
So it was, he was looking at his phone when their lecturer walked in. Normally, this wouldn't be anything to talk about, but today it prompted an avalanche of conversation that a stern female voice cut off with a terse, "Be quiet."
Even from the back of the room, he could tell who it was. The telltale red hair and all-black outfit gave it away.
Black Widow.
Eyes wide, Fitz swallowed hard in instant fear and slipped his phone into his back pocket. The last thing he wanted to do was anything at all that SHIELD's deadliest spy might consider disrespectful.
Natasha looked out over her audience and internally sighed. Externally, she showed no emotion. Years of practice made that easy.
Steve had all of the Avengers signing up to teach classes at the Academy. He said it was 'outreach' or some crap like that. Barton had lucked out and gotten weapons training, and she'd been stuck with seduction. Typical. She couldn't blame Steve for that, though. He'd recommended her for close quarters hand to hand.
Maybe next time.
At least with a group of nerds, she didn't need to worry about them getting themselves killed. They were taking this course so they could wheedle secrets out of fellow scientists at conventions and university parties and things, not so they could get close enough to an enemy agent to kill them.
She went over the basics: Meet the mark. Chat them up. Play to your strengths. Go in for the metaphorical kill. Get the intel. Get out.
At least they asked intelligent questions. Small favours and all that.
Then it was time to pull a volunteer.
She'd been scanning the room throughout her lecture, trying to find a good candidate. They were all fairly wet behind the ears compared to the operatives she dealt with in the field, so it felt almost like window shopping for a puppy.
That's when it started. The teasing and tormenting. She spotted the victim easily enough. He was a skinny little curly-haired kid, couldn't be more than about sixteen. He actually looked kind of like those pictures of Steve from before he was Cap. The poor thing was blushing so hard she worried he might have an aneurysm, and he clearly wanted nothing more than to drop through a hole in the floor.
"You," she said, pointing right at him.
Speaking of aneurysms...
Fitz just about pissed himself when Black Widow pointed at him.
"M-me?" he asked in a strangled whisper.
Of course, that just made everything worse. Now, instead of offering him up as the sacrificial lamb they were talking about how Widow was going to end up killing him. One way or another.
Swallowing so hard there was an audible gulp, Fitz slowly walked to the front of the room like a prisoner approaching the gallows. Widow, on the other hand, looked at him more like he was a cockroach approaching her dinner plate.
By the time he finally got right up in front of her, his heart was beating so fast he was worried he might have a coronary. Or at the very least pass out.
"Alright," she said crisply, looking him up and down. "Let's see how well you were paying attention."
Fitz's eyes somehow got even wider as he tried not to actually piss himself with fear.
This is a test. She's testing you. You're good at tests. For the love of god, pass!
Nat felt herself feeling sorry for the kid. He looked like he might wet himself, for god's sake. Trying her best to be nice to him, she put on a bright smile and held out her hand.
"I'm Natasha, but you can call me Nat. Nice to meet you."
The entire room stared at her.
What? They'd never seen a woman smile before?
The kid was looking at her as if she'd just grown a second head, so she decided to help him out.
"And you are...?" she asked, giving him her best 'I'm very interested to find out' look.
"F-f-fitz," Fitz stammered, still completely gobsmacked by the complete change in the woman in front of him. Her hair and clothes hadn't changed, but she still somehow looked like a completely different person. How had she done that?
He remembered himself a moment later and shook the hand she'd held out when she introduced herself.
"Leo Fitz, but everyone just calls me Fitz," he said nervously, pumping her hand a few too many times before letting go.
Then he wiped his sweaty palm off on his jeans.
"It's, ehm, it's nice to meet you, as well."
So far, so good. But that was just an introduction. He'd gotten the hang of those when he was five years old. The tricky bit was... well, he rest of the conversation, really.
Taking a deep breath, he gestured to one of the seating areas they had set up around the room to mimic bars and restaurants and cafes. This one had a sofa and a coffee table and two chairs.
"How, ehm." He cleared his throat. "How are you enjoying the conference so far?"
He tried not to look too surprised when she chose to sit on the sofa instead of a chair. This was a seduction class, after all. And this was the demonstration.
He was the demonstration.
Suddenly, he wondered which one of them was supposed to be the seductor and which the seductee?
And were those even real words?
Well, he got her seated and comfortable, so at least he'd paid attention to that much of the lecture. And he was sticking to topics he was familiar with.
Crossing her legs and smiling coyly, she patted the cushion beside her.
"It was rather boring," she said in a flirtatious voice. "But it's much better now."
He dropped into the seat beside her like a sack of potatoes and the class laughed. She shot them a glare, and they shut up.
Reaching out, she put her hand on his knee. Someone in the back actually gasped.
How old were these kids, anyway?
"What about you? Are you having a good time?"
Fitz stared at her hand like it was a live snake. Black Widow was touching him. Black Widow was touching him and he wasn't dead yet.
"Mmhmm," he agreed, nodding his head up and down rapidly while trying to disappear into the sofa cushions. "Lovely."
He closed his eyes in mortification as his voice cracked.
"Which, ehm. Which... which hotel are you staying at?" He cracked one eye open to look at her nervously. Then he opened the other because she looked... impressed?
Was he doing it?
Was he actually flirting with Black Widow?
"I've ehm. I've got a, ehm, a room? Upstairs?" He held his breath. This was at least as terrifying as doing all of this for real.
The massive "ooh" from the viewing audience didn't help, either. If he were any redder, he'd be able to go undercover in a field full of tomato plants.
"Someone's cocky," Nat chuckled. Then she glared at the class again. She'd have to have a word with their regular instructor about a little thing called manners.
"At least buy me a drink first."
She winked at him and licked her lips.
He gaped at her in shock.
He really wasn't completely horrible at this. He just needed to learn how to control his face, you know, at all. He was doing better than most teenagers would, that was for sure.
When he didn't say anything in response, she squeezed his knee. There was another gasp, closer to the front this time.
Seriously? Did someone thing she was actually going to seduce someone half her age?
Fitz heard the gasp but it was drowned out almost immediately by laughter. He looked out at his classmates and saw an awful lot of knowing elbow jabs and mocking kissy faces. Setting his jaw, he turned back to Black Widow.
"What'll you have?" he asked with more confidence than he actually felt. And then he waved over a classmate to act as their waitress. He'd chosen Jemma because at least she wouldn't laugh right in his face.
"Yes?" she asked, one hand poised over the other as if holding a pen to a pad of paper. He had to give it to her, she was committing to the role.
"Scotch rocks for me," he said, pulling a drink out of thin air. He didn't really like alcohol (and here in the States he wasn't legally allowed to drink it anyway), but he wanted to at least pretend to know what he was doing.
Much like he was doing with the rest of this ridiculous scenario.
"Vodka soda," Black Widow said.
She patted his knee again, and he just stared at her hand not knowing what to do.
Nat almost laughed at the look on the girl's face. She knew a crush when she saw one.
Then she looked over at Fitz and how shell shocked he still looked at having her hand on his knee. She was willing to bet he was totally clueless.
Maybe she'd add a good deed to her good deed today and help the kids out?
Shifting closer to Fitz, she leaned with her elbow on the back of the sofa and her cheek resting on her hand. She was close enough now, she could actually see his pulse racing in his neck. No way was this kid ready to be a spy. He had good instincts, but he'd need a lot more toughening up and life experience before he could survive in the field.
"Sooo..." she said, taking her hand from his knee and walking her index and middle fingers up his thigh.
This time the gasp came from almost right next to them. Just as she'd thought. The waitress.
"Upstairs, you said?"
She skipped over his waist and moved up to play with one of the buttons on his shirt.
"No fucking way!" stage whispered some idiot in the front row.
Fitz gulped hard and nodded quickly again.
"S'got a hot tub and everything," he chuckled weakly. He had no idea what else to say. He hadn't really stayed in that many hotel rooms in his life, but the nicest one he'd been in had had a hot tub outside of it so he just said that.
Jemma came back with their "drinks" - a half-empty bottle of water and a travel mug that she'd taken from two of their classmates.
"Anything else I can get you two?" she asked. There was something weird going on with her face, but he couldn't tell what it was. He was too busy trying not to squirm while Black Widow practically took his clothes off in front of their whole class.
"Just the bill," Nat said with another significant wink.
Then she picked up the water bottle and pressed the cap to Fitz's lips.
"Drink up," she said. "And then we can get out of here."
She moved her other hand over to run her fingers through his hair.
Their waitress let out a strangled sort of squeak, and it was all she could do not to look over at the poor girl.
Taking pity on the both of them, she stood up abruptly and turned to address the class.
"It's as simple as that," she said. "Then you get to the room, play nice til the drugs in the drink take effect, get the intel you need, and leave your mark a nice note and a lipstick print to remember you by."
She looked back over her shoulder at Fitz and smiled. "Lipstick print optional, of course."
Turning back, she was all business again. "Now pair up and I'll come around and coach you individually. One mark and one spy."
As the rest of the class started milling around, she turned back to Fitz and their waitress.
"You two," she said brusquely. "You're together. Sit down on the couch and figure it out."
And if they didn't? Well, she was pretty good at making people do what she wanted them to do.
She felt pretty confident they'd get together in the end.