Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Marvel. I just have fun with their characters.

A/N

Hallo all, first of all I must say that the positive reception this story has gotten has made my week so a big thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited or reviewed! I was blown away that so many people favourite it on the first chapter, I sure hope that this story lives up to your expectations guys.

To Guest and Catzrule: you guys weren't signed in so I couldn't PM you but thankyou for your comments! Also a big thankyou to lederra, jaguarspot, fezwearingjellybananas and Carolinagirl117 all of who reviewed the first chapter.

I also wish to thank my beta readers Midnight Star26 and jaguarspot. Your input was invaluable to me during every step of the editing process. Any remaining mistakes that are found are mine as I am addicted to editing and always think something can be improved.

This chapter is a bit short with not much action, rest assured they will get much longer and action packed later. For now I hope that you enjoy chapter 2 and don't forget to let me know what you think in a review!

But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself. Albert Camus

Chapter 2: Now

Oslo, Norway: October, 1997

The shadows were lengthening as Hawkeye lay on a rooftop somewhere in Oslo observing his target getting ready to go out to dinner. Thanks to his phenomenal eyesight Clint could see his target's silhouette clearly through the drawn curtains even though he happened to be two blocks away and daylight was fading fast. Nikolai Aspen was a middle class man, seemed ordinary in every way and a really nice normal guy. Clint knew from his observations he had a date with a pretty blonde tonight at a nice little restaurant in a nice part of town, too bad he would never make it past his front door.

Clint grimaced, it was a shame, the blonde was actually very pretty, and as far as Clint knew Aspen hadn't actually done anything to deserve the fate he was about to be dealt by Clint's hand. Apart from somehow pissing off the wrong person, the kind who happened to have a lot of money and held a grudge, bad enough that said person now wanted him dead.

"Stop thinking like that Clint." He scolded himself. "If you don't kill him the contract still stands. At least this way he'll be dead before he knows what happened, an arrow straight through his heart, nice and quick. It's not like you torture people." These thoughts didn't give him much comfort and weren't exactly true, he did torture the marks' families by taking their loved ones from them. He was the one about to kill Aspen; this whole thing was on him. It had been ever since he'd accepted this job.

He was doing what he'd never wanted to do, be a bullet in the gun with someone else pulling the trigger and calling the shots. He hated himself more and more each day for what he'd become. Still, he needed to find some comfort somewhere in this whole stuffed-up situation he was in, or he just might wind up killing himself and while he'd always taken risks he'd never being outright suicidal.

It had been nine months since he'd escaped from the army, though everyone involved thought he'd died in that explosion. He knew that because later he'd gotten hold of the necessary documents (with a really high clearance level tag, don't ask questions if you wanted to live) that stated he was, to all intents and purposes, dead; on paper at least. This suited him just fine as he practically had a death sentence hanging over his head anyway, and if they'd ever found out he'd lied on his original enlistment papers he knew he would have been in very hot water.

He hadn't even been seventeen when he'd signed up, not that anyone had known. The forged papers he'd gotten hold of had done the trick beautifully. In retrospect, signing up to the army when you were only sixteen and a half probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. However, Clint hadn't been able to wait until he was legally old enough to join. He'd needed an out right then and there. He'd figured the army was the best bet; they were unlikely to look too closely at the papers he'd presented as long as they looked good. As Clint had pretty well nothing the prospect of three meals a day and a roof over his head had also heavily influenced his decision in that regard.

Once Clint was in the army for a few months and had proven himself as a marksman he didn't think it mattered much who he had been or what he had done before joining. He'd never breathed a word about the forged papers to anyone, seeing no reason to tempt fate. And now they were irrelevant anyway.

However, being dead created its own set of problems. For one he couldn't access his bank account with his army pay in it or anything else from before the army because that could show that he wasn't as dead as his papers said he was. Once he'd arrived in Paris he'd had to resort to some less-than-honest means of making money. Thank goodness for all those years spent in the circus, and for the old fortune teller, Madame, who had taught him to speak French when he was 12. Once he made enough money he'd had a fake passport made and had flown to the US to retrieve his bow and a few other belongings from an old circus buddy of his. This man was a genius who'd also hacked into the army database for Clint and found out about his supposed death. Thank goodness for favours, the guy had owned him one. Once Clint had everything he wanted he then flew back to Europe, nicely under the radar thanks to his mate.

At a loss at what to do with himself, (there aren't many jobs available for someone who had just officially turned eighteen, and who is also officially supposed to be dead) Clint had drifted through Europe for a few weeks. Then he'd gotten into a fight with half a dozen street thugs who were trying to mug a man in Geneva and easily won, which had been his first big mistake. His next big mistake was using arrows. News travelled quickly in the wrong circles and before the week was up Clint had been approached by a man with a questionable identity and asked if he would be interested in doing a little job for him, he'd be well paid for his trouble of course. Clint had been desperate for money for food and shelter and was terribly naive at that point so had jumped at the chance to earn some hard cash.

It had been pretty easy to take out the drug dealer the man (who he'd later found out was the leader of the local mafia) wanted dead, and the amount of money he received for taking that one shot seemed like more than he'd owned in his whole life. He'd decided then and there that maybe killing people with his skills wasn't such a bad thing, if the people in question really deserved it. And if he got paid enough; if someone wanted to use his skills then they had to pay his price, no arguments, his past had taught him the value of money. However, those first intentions had spiralled rapidly downhill not long after that.

Clint was brought back to the present as his target left the room. Rising to his feet he picked up his bow from where it was lying on the roof beside him and selected an arrow from his quiver. He readied himself to take the shot as Aspen exited the building; the perch he'd chosen had a clear, unobstructed line of sight to the front door. As the door was opening Clint drew back the bow string, ignoring the dull ache in his right shoulder from a month old bullet wound that was courtesy of a very determined security guard and hadn't healed properly yet, and fired. He knew as soon as he released the tension that Aspen was dead.

He didn't need to watch the smartly-dressed figure crumble onto the ground with a black shafted arrow protruding from his chest to confirm it. He'd shot millions of arrows millions of times, and knew exactly where his arrow was going to end up before he released it. The job finished, he silently headed back over the rooftops to where he was staying.

The derelict motel that had been his home for the past week was located in a shady part of town that no one with half a brain went near, no one who didn't have a questionable past or intentions at least. It was a seedy place where as long as you paid the price (way more than the accommodation was actually worth, for a start the water in the shower was stuck permanently between luke-warm/almost cold and the television set didn't work 99% of the time) no one would bother with you. No name was needed, there were no papers to sign, no cameras installed, and no questions were asked. If you wanted to pay by the hour it would oblige you without question. In other words it was just as Clint liked it to be. After having a quick shower (due to the odd temperature) Clint battled with the television set for a while before finally giving up and going to bed, not that he managed much sleep as he lay there trying to bury the guilt he felt for what he'd done.

In the morning he was leaving this place.

One thing Clint had learned very quickly was that once you'd taken the shot you got out of the city, or even the country, double quick, and you didn't draw unnecessary attention to yourself while you did it. He had already booked on a flight leaving at 9 am in the morning bound for Paris, and he was at the airport half an hour early, all packed and looking just like any other passenger. He managed to get through security despite having several knives on his person (he'd known in advance the security at this particular airport was shit which was the reason he'd chosen it, though it wasn't always easy to smuggle all that metal through customs) and had boarded his flight on time.

Clint then proceeded to read a newspaper he'd purchased at the airport before takeoff, or at least to appear too. He was actually taking in very little of what it said, partly because it wasn't written in English and he couldn't read much of the Norwegian script and partly as he was busy watching everyone and listening to everything that happened around him. Never mind that they were speaking Norwegian, he spoke Norwegian well enough to understand what was happening it was just the reading aspect that was virtually nonexistent.

Clint had discovered very quickly that he had an ear for languages, Norwegian being just one of the many languages he'd picked up as he was travelling around Europe and Asia. He found all he had to do was immerse himself in a language for a few days or a few weeks and before long he could speak and understand it without too much difficulty. Reading and writing the language was a different matter and Clint didn't know much in that regard but even only being able to speak it made his job a lot easier. It drew a lot less attention and made things a lot easier asking directions or shopping if you could speak the language of whatever country you were in. People also appreciated it and were more likely to help you with what you wanted.

Also, if there was one thing that Clint seriously hated doing if he didn't absolutely have to do it was drawing attention to himself. The last thing he wanted in his job was to sound American, he would stick out like a sore thumb if he did. It was much safer to pretend to be a French man travelling around European countries as it enabled him to blend in better than if he sounded American. Clint preferred to remain invisible; it was safer for him that way.

Though he kept alert the whole way the flight proved to be uneventful, and they landed in Paris right on schedule.

When Clint had first started making a name for himself in the world of contract assassins he had to decide on what he wanted to be called. Of cause he couldn't use his real name, so for lack of better ideas at the time he'd opted for the name he'd had in the circus, 'Hawkeye', maybe not his most original idea but it had a nice ring to it. Once he'd had a name it hadn't taken long for him to rise up in the ranks of the European underworld, and he was also well known in Asia.

Hawkeye, the master assassin who killed with an arrow and never missed became famous, a name to be feared and respected. Especially when it became widely known that those who'd tried to double-cross him hadn't survived long; more than one crew had lost its boss to Hawkeye's arrows. No one cared about his real name or his age anymore, or what he'd done before, and that suited him just fine. It was safer for him this way.

After Clint had become the assassin Hawkeye he'd changed. His once warm blue-grey eyes had become hard and cold. He couldn't allow himself to care anymore, so he ignored the guilt he constantly felt for what he did, burying it deep inside in a steel box with all his other emotions. It wasn't like he had a choice about what he did anymore; he was in this too deep to back out now.

After his imprisonment and experiences in Korea just over four months ago he'd realised he couldn't afford to have emotions in this business, they only succeeded in almost getting him killed. The scar across his neck and chest was a constant, physical reminder of that. He couldn't feel regrets or hesitate about doing anything he'd committed to, that just got him in trouble and hurt him. He'd learned that lesson a mere two months ago, and the scars from that incident were also permanent. Clint now possessed less than 80% hearing in both ears and had to wear aides all the time if he wanted to hear. Another reason to stay anonymous, if it was to become known that a feared master assassin was almost completely deaf it was a weakness that could be exploited and used against him.

And what else was there for him to do if he did back out of this life? He'd made many enemies, and the only way to keep them at bay was to have them fear him, to let them know that they wouldn't survive if they tried to double-cross him. If he wanted to live others had to die, it was that simple. Plus, making the amount of money he did was useful, even if most of it was in an offshore savings account. Who didn't dream of being a millionaire?

Deep down Clint knew all this was wrong, but he convinced himself it was the only way to survive so the despair and darkness he felt over his actions wouldn't crush him completely. Due to this he hadn't realised until later that he'd built a different persona to try and cling to his last bit of sanity. This persona didn't care about people or human life in general; all he cared for was a pay check.

Clint Barton was indeed dead; in fact he was deader than dead and buried under a different person. The cheeky and sometimes rebellious army sniper was long gone, replaced by the somewhat sinister, grim and emotionless master assassin known to the planet's criminal underworld as Hawkeye.

And so we end chapter 2. Clint is in a bad place and it will get much worse before it gets better, but rest assured it will eventually get better. Reviews are helping me write the sequel! (Yes, there is one! It is over half written.)