Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or any of its characters. I only own Charlotte Jansen. Any of the story line that seems familiar, I most likely do not own.

Charlotte POV

It's not like I asked to be thrown into the life style I'm in. I didn't ask for it. But, you know how life is. You know how people are. I was raised into this way of life. I was taught the knowledge that at the time, I thought was the only way possible for me to convey.

Raising the silenced sniper rifle to my shoulder, I exhaled and took my shot.

Dead on shot. Like always.

I dropped the rifle down from my line of sight so I could scrambled away from the now crime scene. The longer I stayed present, the easier it would be to find me. The less evidence left behind, the better.

There's a reason my callsign is Shadow Spirit.

I scaled down the side of the building I had taken a perch on. Thinking over escape routes in my head, and coming up with the one that would be fast but also safe enough for me to escape without being seen. Once I had my path in my head, I took off in the direction I needed to go. My breath started to come in foggy pants, the frigid air nipped at my exposed nose. I continued my path towards the apartment I had been staying in for this specific mission.

As you have probably already guessed, I'm an assassin. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was a damn good one.

The man who had hired me for this mission should be waiting for me back at the apartment he had set up. Once I got my payment, I'd disappear until the next buyer called for me. It was just how my life went. Never changing, same old assassinations. True, it sounds morbid, but trust me when I say there's a moral to this story.

I was tired of being an assassin. I was tired of all of it. No, you can stop whispering 'suicide' because I now and forever will refuse the option. It's the easy way out. The coward's way out. For someone who was raised to kill without emotion, that was the only thing I had some feeling towards. Everything else was locked up tight in a safe, fortified behind the, what I thought at the time, were indestructible walls. I wouldn't let anyone break them down. I refused to let it happen.

Anyways, as I was sprinting back to the apartment, I finally heard the sirens in the distance.

Another tally to scratch into my rifle then.

I kept track of how many people I killed, as a reminder to myself as to why I stayed emotionless. Whichever weapon was use to kill another, that's the weapon that got the tally.

As of right now, my pocket knife had three tallies, crossbow had seventeen, and my sniper rifle had thirty two - soon to be thirty three.

You have to remember that I've been doing this pretty much my whole life. The first tally on my pocket knife was my first kill.

Together, I have a complete total of fifty three kills, if you include my kill from today.

I never did group assassinations, too messy and much more difficult to cover up my tracks. It's why I used three different weapons, although my crossbow and sniper rifle were the ones I used the most. Pocket knives were for close range, unless I was throwing knives. But what would be the point of tracking kills if I had to go retrieve my knife every time I threw it?

See, you're starting to catch on.

In my world, mistakes got you killed. Broken deals or promises got you tortured. Then eventually, killed. Double crossing was another sure fire way of getting yourself killed.

I never said this was an easy profession. But to be honest, I'd rather have a normal life, a normal job. But with my background history? Hah. I'm going to keep dreaming. I vaulted through the open window of the apartment. As to be expected, my buyer was sitting comfortably at the bar, sipping on a glass of wine.

"So? Is it done?" he asked.

"Can you not hear the sirens?" I sassed back.

"Just sirens doesn't mean the job is done. Is the target dead?"

"Yes. Killed instantly. There's no way he could come back from that shot. It was fatal."

"Perfect." the man in front of me got an evil smirk on his face.

I eyed him warily as he turned to face me, a tape recorder in one hand.

"God, you know how much trouble I went through to get that confession? SHIELD is paying quite a bit for your head to be served in on a silver platter. The assassination was just a bonus for me."

I heard the whirring of helicopter blades.

"You dirty double crosser." I growled, my fury reaching unbelievable levels.

I swear, if I had been in an accident like the Hulk, I wouldn't be human for long periods of time.

"It's only business honey."

It was my turn to smirk.

"Hah. And how do you think you're going to capture me? SHIELD's been trying for years. What makes you think this will be any different from my usual escapes?"

I saw a glimmer of fear flicker through the mans eyes.

"Well, I guess if I'm going down, you're going down with me."

He opened his mouth to retort right as I chucked my knife into his skull. Sneering at the dead corpse, I pulled my knife from the skull of my previous buyer. Tucking away the blood covered knife for a moment, I patted his pockets to see what he had on him.

"Wallet, nice." I mused.

Standing straight, I quickly grabbed my crossbow in the corner. Not a minute later had I grasped it, I heard shouting outside my door. Swearing under my breath, I looked for an escape. Seeing an air vent that was curiously large enough for me to fit in, I tossed my crossbow and duffel bag into the opening once I had pried the grate open. I heaved myself through the opening and carefully replaced the vent back literally right as my door was smashed in. Quietly picking up one of my beloved weapons and my small duffel bag, I slunk backwards through the vent as the SHIELD agents ransacked my-well, my ex buyer's, apartment. I barely breathed as I tried to quietly make my way to the end of the air vent. Finally, I reached what looked like the end of the vent. At this point, I was less concerned about noise and more concerned about just getting out of the building. Kicking out the grate, I dropped to the floor, noticing that I was in a separate apartment. I winked at the startled couple sitting on the couch as I pried open the window. Securing what stuff I had, I jumped out of the window. Hitting the ground, quite hard might I add, I began to run again.

Shouting started again behind me. I ducked into an alleyway. Only to freeze when I saw the figure leaning against one of the brick walls.

"So, we finally meet again." the stoic male straightened.

"So we do." I answered.

"It's been awhile."

"Let's cut the small talk. You and I both know that you're not going to let me walk out of here without a fight now are you? Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, I did win last time."

"No, you cheated."

"Tsk, tsk. And I was hoping to get away clean."

"Well, that's not going to happen. Not this time."

"Bring it on Hawkeye. Bring it on."