Around noon, Raven arrived at the building across the street from where her meeting was to take place. She made quick work of finding her way to the roof and settled in to do some reconnaissance. It wasn't that she didn't trust SHIELD and their intentions, well, if she were honest that was exactly the problem. But then, she didn't trust anyone.

It was her own fault she ended up on Nick Fury's radar in the first place. Several years ago she'd been given a contract to assassinate the Director of SHIELD. Rather than completing her task, she had followed Nick Fury until she had the opportunity to give him a message. She simply walked past him and placed the bullet with his name on it on the table in front of him. It was a warning that he took to heart, going underground until the person that initiated the contract had been dealt with.

Shortly after that, he attempted to recruit her for the first time. The second had been after she shot Agents Barton and Romanoff. Apparently Fury found her not killing himself and his agents an indication she wished to join SHIELD. Raven shook her head and looked through her scope at the building across from her again watching until she saw the familiar bald head of Nick Fury. Agents Romanoff and Barton followed him into the room and all three sat at the table in the middle of the room.

Another man followed behind dressed in a dark suit. He stood against the wall, hands clasped in front of him. He looked relatively non-threatening but if he was in that room with Fury and the others, there was more to him than what she could see. Raven pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed the phone number on the card Barton gave her the day before.

"Fury," the director answered. Raven watched him through the scope as she talked to him.

"Hello, Director." Raven all but purred the words. She smiled as Fury sat up straight in his seat and placed his phone on the table in front of him. She assumed he had put it on speaker so they could all hear.

"Ms. Sterling. I trust you are on your way to our meeting."

Raven shrugged though she knew the man couldn't see it. "Perhaps. Might I ask you a question, Fury?"

"It's not as if I can stop you, Sterling."

"Who is the man in the suit?"

Romanoff and Barton went from looking bored to full attention in seconds. Their gazes darted to the window as they searched for the threat, for her. The agent in question merely frowned. Nick Fury however looked completely relaxed.

"His name is Agent Coulson."

"Hello, Agent Coulson," Raven said and the man turned to the window and nodded a greeting. "Should I be expecting anyone else to join us?"

"No, Sterling. Just us. Now, will you be arriving sometime this afternoon?"

"Keep your trousers on, Fury. I'll be there shortly." Raven slipped the scope into the pocket of her coat. She made her way to the building across the street. Agent Coulson stood by the front desk waiting for her arrival.

"Agent Coulson," she said with a smile. "Did Fury not trust me to make my way to the room by myself?"

"Something like that, Ms. Sterling. If you'll follow me." The corner of the agent's mouth twitched slightly as if trying not to smile. He turned and headed to the elevators. She trailed behind, hands in her pockets as she examined the building around them. They stepped into the middle of the elevator and the agent pressed the button for the floor. He glanced at her as the box began to move. "How many?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"How many escape routes have you found so far?" His lips twitched but he didn't look at her.

Seven. "With or without casualties?"

He glanced at her then, as if taking her measure. "Without."

"Three."

He nodded and stepped out as the doors opened. She followed him into the conference room. "Agents. Director," she greeted as she stepped past them all and moved to the large windows. She made quick work of shutting the blinds and keeping anyone outside from being able to see in.

Fury snorted as she turned and took a seat across from Barton and Romanoff. "I was enjoying the sunshine, Sterling. Besides, no one but you would even think of taking that shot."

"Your kind doesn't enjoy the sun, Fury. You thrive in deep, dark holes." She waved a hand through the air as she spoke and she pretended not to see the amused expressions on the agents' faces. "And I have lived this long precisely because of my paranoia. I don't intend to start slacking now."

Fury stared at her with his good eye. Apparently he didn't find her amusing.

"So what's your angle this time, Fury?" She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. "I've already told you no twice."

He didn't say anything. Instead, he slid a file across the table to her. She flipped it open and scanned through the papers inside. Aliases, addresses, photos, everything she didn't want anyone to know about her was inside. It was the three pages at the back of the file that chilled her blood. It was a list of targets she had been hired to eliminate and hadn't, along with a list of the people that had hired her to make those kills. Even she didn't know who her employers had been. Fury could be lying through his teeth and she would have no way to know.

"You bloody bastard." She flipped the file closed and shoved it back across the table. Her eyes darted to the two agents on the other side of the table. Their reputations were well known. "Is that how he got you two to sign up? Join SHIELD or we expose you, let your enemies kill you?"

Romanoff turned to Fury, her eyebrows raised. "Is that what we're doing now?"

"She's an assassin Romanoff. She kills people for money," Fury bit out, annoyed.

"I kill people who deserve it for money, Director. Or did you forget that part?" Raven asked, starting to wish she had killed Fury all those years ago.

He let out a harsh laugh. "Ms. Sterling is the absolute worst kind of assassin. She only kills people that she thinks deserve it."

"Then how do you keep getting hired?" Barton asked, joining the conversation.

She shrugged. "Because I never miss. And if they're smart, they know not to hire me unless it's my kind of target." She raked a hand through her hair. "What do you need me for anyway? Don't you have enough people that want to work for you?"

"We've recently changed some of our thinking around here, Ms. Sterling," Fury answered. "You can work for us and be an asset or you can be a liability. Either way, you aren't walking out of here without making a decision. Make the wrong one and you aren't walking out of here at all."

Anger flared through Raven at his words. Wanker. "Is that how you inspire loyalty in your people? Threaten to eliminate them if they don't do what you want?"

He pushed another file across the desk to her. She stared at him as she clenched her teeth and worked the muscle in her jaw. When she didn't reach for the file, he shoved it at her again.

"Just open it, Sterling."

With a sigh, she did as he said and froze. Clipped to the front of the folder was a picture of the man she had hunted for seven years. Simon. Her eyes darted up to Fury. "You know where he is?"

The corner of his mouth jerked up in a smirk. "Yes."

She flipped through the rest of the file only to find no indication of where the man was currently hiding. Of course not. That would be too easy.

"Join us and you can go after him. Entirely sanctioned. You'll even get back up. And we erase your past. No warrants, no bounties. We take care of it all."

She ran her finger along the tabletop as she debated what to do. Bullying and blackmail didn't sit well with her. On the other hand, she'd been looking for Simon for a long time and had been unable to find him even with her considerable resources. He was a prize too big for her to pass up. "How long?"

Fury smiled then, knowing he had her. "One year. You still want to leave after that, we'll talk."

"Fine."

Coulson stepped forward with another file. He placed it in front of her and flipped it open before handing her a pen. Her eyes flicked down the contract as she read through it, not that it mattered. No court would actually enforce it. She signed her name with a sigh and slid it back to him.

The agent held out his hand and she shook it. "Welcome to SHIELD, Ms. Sterling."

"Okay," Barton said, drawing her attention. "You bullied her into it. Now, talk."

Apparently, Fury hadn't been willing to share information on her until she'd agreed to work for them. Interesting.

Fury punched a couple of buttons on the computer beside him and the screen on the wall behind him lit up with pictures and information about her life. It quickly switched to a slide show of her targets. They came up one at a time with their stats and 'deceased' stamped across their face. "Raven Sterling is one of the most sought after assassins in the world. She is proficient in any and all firearms and has broken every known record for sniper kills. As she said, she never misses."

Suddenly Fury's picture appeared on the screen behind him. 'Contact made' was stamped across his face. "Sterling was contracted to kill me five years ago and, rather than completing the contract, she warned me of the danger. That's when she ended up on our radar."

"So she saved your life and you're repaying her by threatening to kill her. Only you, Fury," Romanoff said with a shake of her head and Raven automatically liked her the more for it.

Fury's dark eye moved from Raven to Romanoff. He pushed a button on the computer without looking and Romanoff and Barton's profiles flashed up on the screen behind him, 'injured' stamped across both of their pictures.

Barton leaned forward. "Wait. Are you saying...?"

"Sterling has a very interesting signature. She engraves the name of her target on the side of the bullet she shoots them with." Fury leaned back in his seat, pursing his lips and steepling his fingers.

Barton braced his hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. "That was you?"

Raven leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest.

"I guess you missed at least twice," Romanoff said with a small smile.

"I never miss, Agent Romanoff."

Barton dropped back into his chair. "Well, we're still alive so evidently you do."

"I hit exactly what I intended to that day, Agent," she snapped. "Fury's smart enough to hide when warned someone wants him dead. You two...well, you wouldn't head underground would you? No, you'd keep hunting for them and get yourselves killed in the process. So, I put you out of commission, however briefly, and Fury eliminated the threat. You're welcome, Agents."

"You seriously want us to thank you for shooting us? Are you nuts?" Barton asked.

Fury stood. "Agent Coulson will accompany you to collect your things, Sterling. You will be residing at one of our facilities until we determine you mean to uphold your word. I'll see you tomorrow. Barton, Romanoff, let's go."

The two agents followed behind, Barton taking one last opportunity to glare at her over his shoulder. She shifted her gaze to Coulson as they left. "I believe I'm up to seventeen escape routes, Agent. Shall we go?"