Natasha had a hard time falling asleep. She kept playing the past few days over and over in her mind and nothing that made any sense brought her to where she was now, sharing a hotel room with the man that she had expected to kill her.

When she saw him in the lobby of her hotel, her first instinct was to run. It was obvious that he was there for her, and when an agency sends someone after you, it usually isn't to take you alive. Running would just mean putting off the inevitable, however. Once they wanted you dead, they didn't just go away because they were unsuccessful the first time. She would spend the rest of her life, however short that might be, looking over her shoulder and wondering when they would finally catch up to her. All for what? So that she could live on to take a few more detestable jobs from truly horrible people? She didn't see the point.

Perhaps this was better. She could die here in Russia where she was born and abandoned, only to be trained from infancy as a weapon for the Russian government. First the KGB when she was very small, then the GRU after the fall of communism. There was no life for her beyond what she was, and when the government shut the Red Room down, running and selling her skills to the highest bidder became her only option.

At first, she reasoned it as necessary. She was only 18 when she ran and she had to survive on her own. The good guys, or more accurately, the lesser of two evils, didn't hire people like her. She had to make her way into the seedy underbelly of society where they paid decently for a job well done. She was good at what she did, having been trained by the best that Russia had to offer and her particular talents were in demand. There was always another job. Always another person to get information from, another business to bring in line, another politician to destroy or another person to eliminate. After three years, she was tired.

For some of the things that she had done, she deserved death. She knew that. Things that she was sure she could never be forgiven for. The irony was that the job that brought her to Russia to meet her executioner was actually not one of those things. She was simply hired as an escort and body guard for Ilya Anvilov, an up and coming politician who seemed to actually want to change things for the better. She knew he wouldn't last though. Idealistic politicians couldn't survive in the cut throat world of Russian politics.

As she lay awake, she could hear the man who should have killed her snoring in his sleep. She was sure that he'd seen a file on her. He would know her crimes and just how dangerous she was, yet he was able to fall asleep with relative ease, leaving himself completely vulnerable. She wasn't sure if that made him very brave or very stupid. Then again, he was a trained asset for whatever group he represented, and likely one of their best. She suspected that if she made a move against him, he would be up before she got halfway across the floor.

She knew very little about this man, beyond the fact that he said his name was Clint. He was older than her, at least ten years if she had to guess, and American. That would narrow his organization down to the CIA or, quite possibly SHIELD. The efficiency that he demonstrated in taking out Vasily and two of his three goons told her that he was well trained at his job. The fact that a bow was his choice of weapon was odd, to say the least, but he was correct that it was as silent as it was deadly.

She still had no answer for why he'd brought her here instead of doing what he came to do or letting her get caught by the police, which would have the same effect. She assumed that he was lying when he told her that he had no intentions with her other than feeding her and giving her a bed to sleep in, and she had prepared herself for a fight. True, she may have entertained the idea of letting him just end what had become her life, but she meant it when she told him that she was nobody's whore. She didn't have to bother though. He kept his word and now was fast asleep on the couch as promised.

Realizing that she could replay everything in her head over and over all night and still have no answers, she finally decided that she would just have to wait until tomorrow to find out what his intentions were. For now, she came to one very important conclusion. This man who spared her life tonight made her realize that, perhaps she wasn't as ready to give up as she thought she was. What she was going to do about it, she was undecided.

Her hand slid instinctively to the corner of the bed and she gripped the headboard tightly. It was an old habit from childhood in the Red Room when the girls would handcuff themselves to their beds at night. She wasn't sure that it would ever go away, but she was able to relax her mind and finally sleep.

9999999999

She woke a few hours later as sunshine poured in through the window. Clint was awake as well, lying on the couch typing away at his Blackberry.

"Morning," he said, as she sat up in the bed.

She nodded as she made her way to the bathroom to attempt to clean up as best as she could. When she came out, he was once again typing fervently into the phone. He finished what he was doing before looking over at her again. "Don't suppose you had your passport on you last night, did you?"

She gave him an inquisitive look. "Of course I did. I wasn't planning to return to my room."

"Great. That will make things a lot easier."

"Easier for what?"

"I was about to get us a couple of train tickets from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, but you'll need a passport. The train will be easier and much quicker than trying to go through the countryside into a more friendly country." His phone beeped with a message, and she watched him curiously as he responded.

"What exactly is happening here, Clint?" She moved herself to a more secure position between him and the door. If she had to run, she knew that she would need any head start that she could get.

"Well, right now I'm trying to figure out the best way to get us out of here without getting caught, then I thought I might figure out what we should do about breakfast." He gave her an amused look. "Why don't you get away from the door? You could run for it, but you wouldn't make it halfway down the hall."

It wasn't a threat and it wasn't meant to be intimidating. It was a simple statement of fact and she considered him for a moment before taking a few steps back toward the bed and away from the door. "Why would I leave Russia with you? You were sent to kill me, no?"

Clint shrugged. "Yeah. I was. Still will if you make me." She wasn't at all surprised by the honesty in his eyes at the statement. "I thought maybe instead, we could get somewhere safer and talk about options."

"What sort of options do I have, really?"

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Truthfully? I'm not quite sure. What I do know is that you might have been trying to look tough and ready to die last night, but I'm pretty sure you're not. Not really. I've seen people who have truly given up, and they don't fight as hard as you were fighting against that Vasily guy."

"I did not want him to have the privilege of being responsible for my death," she responded.

"That may be true, but I think your survival instinct kicked in and you realized that you weren't ready to check out quite yet. Same reason that you left with me to get away from that alley before the police came."

"Even if that were true, why would I come with you now? The CIA will expect you to complete your mission, and I doubt that you are going to let me go once we are safely out of Russia."

He actually grinned at her. "Nice try. I'm not with the CIA. I'm SHEILD."

She shrugged at him. "I had a 50/50 chance. Fine. SHIELD will expect you to complete your mission. What reason would I have to go with you now?"

"Because maybe I'm offering you a chance to possibly change your situation? Look, it's pretty simple. You are either going to come with me, or I will just finish what I came here to do. You had a chance to take me out or run for it last night, but you didn't, so that tells me that you are at least curious. If I'm wrong, and you are just playing me? Well, You could fight me and see what happens, but I've seen you fight and I think that that it could go either way. Come with me? I can't promise what will happen next, but it has to be better than dying in an alley in St. Petersburg."

Natasha considered her options. She was very well trained in combat and she felt confident in her skills, but she was sure that he would be as well. Besides, he had all the weapons on his side, his hand resting close to the pillow where he'd stored the guns.

"If I go with you, what assurances do I have that SHIELD will not have someone else just finish your job?"

"I can't make you any promises. I just know that the people I work for are more than capable of seeing the potential hidden behind the mess. I know because I was once the mess that they had to deal with. Really, what do you have to lose? What's it gonna be Natasha? You gonna give up or hang around and see what could be possible?"

After a moment of silence between them, she sighed. "I am going to need something new to wear. I will stand out in this outfit in the middle of the day at the train station."

"Sure. There must be a place around here to get you something more appropriate to wear."

"I also must also have syrniki for breakfast before we go. No one in any other country I have ever visited knows how to properly make it."

"We can do that," Clint chuckled before calling the station and reserving two tickets on the 3:00 train.

Natasha had no idea what her next move was going to be, but for now she'd go along with Clint's plan until a better option presented itself.