17:00 25-AUG-09, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND: HOSPITAL

Moments after they saw SHIELD at the site where an explosion caused Barnes and Natasha to be put in a hospital, they began to form a plan. Clint was sitting on a lounge chair that he pulled right next to Natasha's hospital bed. Lying down, she realized how tired she was, but she couldn't fall asleep. SHIELD would find them within the next few days so they would have to keep running. Since they had gone rogue after stealing a Quinjet and completely ignoring Fury's orders, they would either be killed or dismissed without being able to give an explanation.

Clint had Natasha's and his earpieces in his pocket as the nurses would be suspicious otherwise. His bow and arrows, along with Natasha's and Barnes' guns, were stashed in a bush outside of the hospital where he was positive no one would find them. The hospital people looked at them strangely when they saw the strange, skin-tight outfits Clint and Natasha were wearing as well.

"So we have to leave tonight," Clint was saying.

"What about Barnes?" Natasha sat up straight. "He can't walk, much less run, in his condition."

Clint hesitated. He knew that leaving him behind risked the chance that Barnes would be captured by SHIELD. He grimaced at the thought that Barnes could possibly be tortured for information on Clint's and Natasha's whereabouts.

"Well," Clint started. "What do you think we should do, Nat?"

She rubbed her temples, thinking of anything that they could do to help the Winter Soldier. He could handle himself, but she wanted to talk to Barnes first. After the time where Barnes helped her escape from the roof of the Red Room, the last thing Natasha wanted to do was for him to, figuratively saying, take the bullet for her again.

Escorted by Clint, Natasha made it to Barnes' hospital room where he was laying in the bed with his broken leg in a cast. When he heard the door open, his lazily trained his gaze onto the two. Natasha hurried to him, a guilty look upon her face.

"James, I-" But Barnes gestured for her to shush.

"It's okay, Czarina," he said, reaching for her hand. She let him hold it. "I'm fine. I'll be fine… soon."

"Not soon enough," she said. She told him about SHIELD finding them and that they couldn't stay in one spot for too long. As Natasha spoke, his expression became solemn and he released of her hand. "And unless you're able to heal overnight… I'm sorry, James," Natasha finished.

He stayed silent for a moment. "Do you think they'll kill me?"

"No." Clint was at the window, looking down at the streets below. "Not right away. They'll want to know what happened to you."

"That's reassuring." Sarcasm dripped from Barnes' voice. He repeatedly hit his head on the hospital bed's frame, causing Natasha to lunge forward to stop him.

"What the hell are you doing, Barnes?" she spat, laying his bandaged head down gently back onto his pillow. "Do you want a concussion?"

"Maybe if I'm unconscious when this SHIELD comes, then they won't see me as too much of a threat."

"Damn it, Barnes," Natasha hissed. "You're making this even more difficult for me. I don't want to leave you behind again!"

Both Clint and Barnes looked at Natasha concernedly. Taking a deep breath to calm down, Natasha leaned against the bedside table, shutting her eyes. The outburst caused Barnes to look taken aback.

"Czarina. Natalia," he said more firmly when Natasha remained unresponsive.

Natasha's blue eyes flashed. "It's Natasha."

Rubbing his eyes, Barnes shook his head. "Just go."

She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she turned on her heel and quickly left, leaving the door wide open. Standing outside of the room, out of sight of Barnes, Natasha listened to Clint's voice.

"I'm sorry, Barnes," he said. "This sounds selfish, but we have to save ourselves. SHIELD will definitely not be as forgiving with us if we don't finish this mission."

She heard Barnes sigh. "Take care of her, will you? I see the way you look at her." He chuckled. "It's the way I used to look at her back in the Red Room. Take care of Czarina, Barton."

"Believe me, I always do."

17:53, 25-AUG-09, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND: AIRPORT

By the time Clint found her, Natasha was already halfway out her hospital room window. She had discarded her flimsy hospital gown and found some street clothes from the laundry room a floor below. They grabbed their weapons and stuffed them in a duffel bag they had stolen from the hospital as well. Taking a taxi to the Zurich airport, they paid the driver with money they had pick-pocketed from an innocent pedestrian.

They were awaiting their flight to Moscow which would be departing in an hour. After checking in under their temporary aliases, Clint and Natasha found a seat at a Starbucks and bought drinks. Sipping on her regular coffee, Natasha gazed at Clint who was flipping through a travel magazine. She was thinking about what she heard earlier in the hospital, about what Barnes was suggesting about Clint having feelings for her.

Having grown up in such harsh conditions, it made it difficult for Natasha to adapt to the relaxed lifestyle of teenagers in the present. Girls went on dates and had silly crushes so it was easy for those girls to read guys feelings. Natasha, on the other hand, only had experience on seducing guys with her outfits, only to kill them in the end. There was only one man that she ever loved, but he had died.

A champion test pilot, Alexi Shostakov, married her after the Soviet state arranged for their marriage. At first, Natasha was reluctant, but she unwillingly began to fall for him; he was charming and she had to admit that he was pretty good-looking. It was during her time in the Red Room that the Soviet state had tracked her down and married her and Shostakov. Eventually, she'd calmed down a lot, and she was distracted from her training in the Red Room. KGB wasn't happy with that, since they still needed her skills.

Then one day, a rocket test had gone very wrong, and Shostakov died. Natasha's grief drove her resolve deeper and she continued her education in the Red Room. Until this day, she couldn't forget her Alexi as much as she wanted to, even if he'd been dead for a long time.

"Tasha," Clint said. Natasha realized that she was still staring at him. "You alright?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I was- I was just thinking."

"About the R-" Clint hesitated, remembering her problem. "Um, your past?"

She nodded slowly. "I didn't have a flashback though." She furrowed her eyebrows, just realizing the fact.

"Maybe they're going away," Clint suggested, finishing up his mocha.

"I hope so." She truly did.

19:45 25-AUG-09, AIRPLANE TO MOSCOW

Natasha was dozing off, although she wanted to refrain from sleeping on the four-hour flight. Clint was sitting in the seat next to her in the aisle seat; Natasha always preferred being able to see where they were going so she sat in the seat by the window. Noticing that her eyes were drooping, Clint put an arm around her and pulled her closer to him.

"Sleep, Nat," he murmured. "I'll wake you when we get close."

Minutes later, Natasha fell into a deep sleep.

Natalia had been appointed title of the Black Widow after 'graduating' from the Red Room. She'd been doing jobs for the intelligence during that time. On one mission, she hadn't killed the target; an overwhelming sense of shame had washed over her as she saw the man with his family. Not knowing what had gotten into her Natalia had fled the area and didn't stop. The guilt of killing so many who might have had families to return to, had made her feel sick for the first time since her first kill in the Red Room. Then, pushing away the feeling of remorse, she had set her sights on another goal: finding out more about James Barnes.

She did, and that was the reason she was in the situation she was at the moment.

Plunging into the icy depths of the lake, Natalia's mind instantly cleared. Seconds later, the clarity began to fade, and blurriness began to take its place. Emerging her head out of the water, Natalia shook the water out of her ears. She looked around her and saw the Red Room building sitting at the edge of a cliff. To her luck, there was no one looking down from the roof.

James Barnes had just covered for her after she'd attacked Aleksandr Bogrov and had broken into his office. She knew that Bogrov would keep hunting her down until she was under the control of the Soviet intelligence again.

As of that moment, Natalia was considered dead because Barnes would tell everyone that he'd thrown her off of the roof. In truth, she'd rappelled down the side of the building with a fire hose tied around her waist then had no choice but to jump into the water after the hose ran out. Deciding that it was much too risky going back the way she had gotten to the Red Room, she had no choice but to go in the other direction.

Natalia swam, pumping her nearly frozen arms in the water. She supposed the only reason that she wasn't suffering from hypothermia yet was her enhancements; a curse and a gift. Within minutes, she reached shore, shivering, but alive. There weren't any people on the land, as the area was very remote. She wasn't even sure how soon she'd be able to find civilization.

Hours of trudging through the slush and snow, Natalia found her stomach growling, and tired and cold. She had passed a few empty cabins where she made a fire and warmed herself up. With no bed or chairs, she slept on the ground with only a thin blanket wrapped around her naked body; her clothes were laid out in front of the flames to dry.

The next morning, Natalia reluctantly awoke just as the sun began to rise. The fire was out, and she was cold once again. Seeing no point in re-starting the fire, Natalia fashioned the blanket on top of her clothes and set off to trek in the mountains.

Hours later, the sun was directly above the redhead, making her hair look as if it was fire in the wind. She contemplated the chances of her survival; at that moment, it was fifty-fifty. For a moment, when the harsh winds whipped across her cheeks, her hope dwindled a bit. One point in her journey was so treacherous that Natalia felt like curling into a ball, laying in the snow to wait for death. Her stomach felt so empty and her throat dry. She'd rather die quickly, than slowly and painfully.

Finally, it was evening again, and Natalia saw the sun set. It was bright, so Natalia turned away and waited for the sun to go down. When she looked back up, she noticed that there was still light in the distance.

Lights!

With her hope renewed, Natalia ran as fast as she could, avoiding the ice so that she wouldn't slip. Before she knew it, she was facing a village full of people. The street lights were all on, illuminating the quaint wooden houses and shops. People were going about their evening errands, most just walking home for supper.

The smell of food wafted from the houses up to where Natalia was perched, awaiting to see any dangers. Her rumbling stomach overtook her cautiousness and she set off into the nearest shop which was a bakery.

The scent of freshly-baked bread hit Natalia the moment she stepped in the front door. She nearly collapsed with relief. She would finally be eating after an entire day without sustenance.

"Hello, miss," the baker greeted, smiling warmly.

"Water," Natalia croaked, basking in the heat of the shop. "Please."

Sensing her urgency, the baker fetched a glass of water for her and she gulped it down greedily. Finishing the cup quickly, she sighed in content.

"Thank you," she said. "I have been travelling all day in the mountains."

The baker looked concerned. "A young woman all on her own in the cold? What could possibly have caused the need?"

Natalia leaned against the counter. "Train crash. There was a snowstorm and- and-" she sniffed, hoping to sound helpless. "I do not know what happened to the others."

That night, the baker and his wife allowed her to rest in their home. Their living quarters were directly above the bakery. The couple had their own room, bathroom and living room on the second story, the first completely dedicated as a bakery.

The baker's wife prepared a slice of bread with butter and a cup of hot chocolate for Natalia. Natalia was allowed to sleep on their couch and was given a change of clothes. Dressed in a new pair of trousers and freshly- washed shirt, Natalia sat on the floor with the food, munching slowly as to savour the taste.

The baker's wife, Helina Alkaeva sat on the ground next to Natalia, watching her closely as she ate. The woman looked old with streaks of grey in her hair and wrinkles, especially around her eyes. She didn't move like an old lady, but the wisdom in her grey eyes showed how much she had been through.

"What is your name?" Helina asked.

Natalia's thought for a moment. "Nadine."

"How old are you, Nadine?"

"I am 21." She didn't see any harm in telling the woman her real age, although she realized that it might have allowed more sympathy if she said she was younger. Natalia certainly looked as young as sixteen; her physical enhancements included allowing her to age slower than a normal human.

Despite that, Helina smiled. "One of my sons is that age. You are wearing his old clothes, actually. His name is Maxim." Her grin faded a bit as she said, "He is in the army now. We do not know when he will return. My other son travelled to England a year ago for work."

Natalia didn't know what to respond with, so she nodded grimly and took the last bite of her bread. The two women sat in silence, the fire crackling in the background. Then, the baker, Luka, bounded up the steps, a huge beam on his weathered face.

"Adam is back, Helina!" he cried, pulling his wife to her feet. "He is coming up now."

A moment later, a young man, a few years older than Natalia, entered the living room with a smile on his face. He looked just like his father, with short blonde hair, but his eyes looked just like his mother's.

Helina rushed to her son who welcomed her in a warm embrace.

"Oh, my dear son," Helina said, her voice muffled as she pressed her face into her son's shoulder.

"Mother," Adam said. "I missed you so much." His gaze found Natalia. "Who is that?"

"She hiked from a train crash in the mountains. Her name is Nadine. We let her rest here for tonight, until she can find a way home."

Natalia thought to herself bitterly, What home?

Jerking out of her dream, Natasha sat up abruptly, but remembered that she was on a plane, going back to the place that started all of her miseries.

She thought back to her flashback, wondering why they were in such a messed-up order. The memory of the ballet studio was many years before the one that she just had. She thought, perhaps, it was the way that the doctors in the Red Room adjusted her memories, as Barnes had told her about.

She and Clint were on a plane to Moscow, Russia. From there, they'd take a train to the closest stop to the Red Room and then they'd hike the rest of the way. They had composed a plan of how to infiltrate the building using Natasha's knowledge of the floor plan. It was a vague plan since they weren't sure if they would completely blow up the building, or just take out whoever was still running the program.

They would also have to steal weapons because they knew that they couldn't get theirs past airport security. Even if they flashed their SHIELD identification cards, they knew that it wouldn't do much good because no one was supposed to know about SHIELD in the first place. Not only that, but they were now classified as rogue agents.

"Whoa," Clint said, glancing to his left at his partner, startled at her sudden movement.

"Sorry."

"We should be landing soon so I'd start fixing that bird's nest of yours on your head." He patted her hair as if to smooth her curly locks.

Natasha made a face. "Of course you'd know all about nests, Hawkeye," she retorted, lightly shoving his hand away.

With a crackle of static, the pilot's voice came on the speakers. "Folks, we have begun our descent to Moscow, Russia, where the current weather is 74 degrees fahrenheit. We will be in the gate in about twenty minutes. We'd like the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for arrival and we want to thank you for flying with us today." He continued to repeat the statement in French and Russian.

Clint whispered into Natasha's ear, tickling the skin with his warm breath, "Welcome home, Nat."

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A/N: I don't want to sound desperate, but I would really like some more reviews so I can know how my readers are liking my story. But so far, thank you to all you readers favouriting, following etc.(-ing).