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Entry tags:
Avengers - Small Game
Inspired by the cold and snow, and also finally my first actual real bingo at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo this round. If I finish one other story, I get two more - yeah, do that math.
Title: Small Game
Genre: Clint/Natasha
Rating: R
Length: ~8,800 words
Synopsis: A blizzard hits while Clint and Natasha are chasing after smugglers of alien tech because, really, why wouldn't it?
Author's Notes: For the "natural disaster" square athc_bingo. Not quite the standard disaster, but blizzards are still classified as such, so I went with what I knew best.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
He didn’t like the cold. It was cliché and all that, but he still didn’t like it. He could deal with it, had dealt with it, would deal with it again, but it was still annoying.
It wasn’t even the wind chapping and blistering his skin, the burn of the ice and the cloying wet of any fabric that dared get near the snow that clung and hung and upped the risk of hypothermia by the second. It was the bulk of it all, really. The extra layers slowed him down, could throw off his aim even more than the wind that he could compensate for and the sheets of white that he had to squint against to find the target. The combination of everything tended to make him grumpy on a good day.
This was not a good day.
They were tracking smugglers of alien tech. Said smugglers had the bright idea to cross the border into Canada via Lake Superior forgetting that SHIELD was an international organization. A team of agents on the Canadian side were waiting for the boat to land and Natasha and Clint were to ferret out just what boat it was and to try to prevent an international incident and/or a tradeoff mid-giant body of water. No major harbors were likely to be used, but the area was lined with summer cabins and private docks and any and all were to be considered suspect.
Of course the idiots had to try it prior to the shoreline actually defrosting and of course there had to be a blizzard because that was just their luck. The Canadian agents were just as surprised as the Iowan and Russian, which was to say not at all. Iowa might not have been as far north as Minnesota or Canada, but getting a surprise snowfall in February wasn’t exactly surprising, and neither were the temps dropping into the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me range. In truth, February was usually worse than January, if he remembered correctly. It had been a long time though, with many desert missions in between, so while he had once been accustomed to it, it was not recently so.
Everyone involved was fairly certain even the group they were after was not dumb enough to try to cross Superior during a blizzard. The snow was near horizontal and the spray from the water was like little knives of ice and the whole “lake effect” thing that Clint himself wasn’t fully used to meant a crap ton of the white stuff was coming down at once and movement was totally overrated. It was because of this that they decided camping out in the woods was unnecessary. It was because of the nearest SHIELD safe house being an eight mile hike after a twenty mile drive that they decided the closest cabin-for-rent place that was still open was a viable option. SHIELD would reimburse them and, if they didn’t, the two agents both felt it was worth the relatively small expense to not get lost in the white-out conditions, sat-nav or no.
The lodge they chose was closer and lower key than the higher end resorts in Lutsen, and had the benefit of being literally across the highway from the lake with what would have been decent sightlines had there been anything to see beyond white and the occasional swath of gray. The main house was full, which was fine by them as they didn’t need anyone seeing them coming and going at odd hours if needed, and several of the smaller cabins were out of commission due to a broken pipe.
The clerk apologized for the inconvenience and gave them one of the larger cabins with the warning that it was one of the first on the lot and therefore a bit more old-fashioned than the others. It had heat, but the bathroom was an extension added on in later years and was known to be cold without the space heater on. They later learned that was an understatement of epic proportions but there was a fireplace and a tiny refrigerator and microwave and the wooden walls protected from the wind for the most part even if the honest-to-god wattle and daub construction had gaps in places. There was a porch that wrapped almost the entire way around and a little creek just off to the side but, most importantly, there was about a twenty yard walk to a cafe that was staying open and served hot food and warm cider amongst other, more heartier beverages.
They made it back to find semi-fresh footprints in the snow around the porch that had not yet been blown away or otherwise covered up. This set them both on high alert right up until they realized the prints led solely to a rather substantial pile of chopped wood and a note that the forecast was not expected to change for at least another day and a half. Clint still insisted on doing full once over outside while Natasha went inside to do the same, but found nothing amiss. Not even the animals wanted to be out on a night like this, but he rigged a few signals and finally slogged his way back to the cabin proper.
Natasha was in the process of peeling back the final layers of her outerwear and he joined in. There was a couch and a beat up end-table and they dragged those closer to the fireplace to lay their wet gear out across and they shivered more than a little while they got the fire going despite the heating system doing its best in the given conditions.
They eventually warmed up while watching a flickering television trying to get enough of a signal to broadcast the local news. Natasha gave up on that sooner rather than later and used her Stark-enhanced tablet instead to both review the weather and contact SHIELD. Even Tony wasn’t dumb enough to attempt a flyby in these conditions, but there was still a chance he would track the signal if he suspected their location. They added a coded note that they were fine and to stand down for the time being and hoped he would actually listen this time.
There was only one bed, but it was a queen size and it wouldn’t be the first time Tasha and he had shared. Besides, the extra body heat would be welcomed, whether either of them admitted it or not. She took the side that faced the door and he took the side that faced an old dresser with a giant mirror that was bronzed with age and both tucked their various weaponry within easy reach. The howl of the wind was a white noise that lulled him to sleep, the cold of the room with the banked fire and closed flue battling the warmth of the blankets oddly comfortable in a way it shouldn't be.
He awoke in the morning to a heavy scraping sound and a slight reverberation through the walls. He shoved his feet into his boots, ignored the fact that he was still only in his long johns and thermal shirt, and grabbed his bow. The noise was coming from right outside now, and Tasha hid behind the couch with her Glock while he whipped open the door. Finding the caretaker bundled up almost beyond recognition and armed only with a shovel was more than a little anticlimactic. The fact that said caretaker was nearly completely covered in clinging balls of ice and snow both made Clint feel for the guy and realize just how chilly it was in nothing but long underwear.
“You don’t have to do that,” he tried, shifting slightly to let the door block the worst of the wind.
The man scoffed and kept at it. “You’re paying customers, it’s the least I can do. I’d say uncovering that truck of yours is your problem, but I doubt you’ll be using it any time soon and you know any of us will help if needed,” he said as if that made perfect sense. He glanced into the room and shrugged, clumps of white falling to the ground around him. “Nice bow, though a bit much for the small game season."
Clint caught the undertones and the warning of what he was saying, and was quick to assure him of his non-poaching intent with, "The deer are smart enough to stay hidden in this weather, and I envy them for that. Some of the smaller game aren't quite as bright, and it keeps my skills up if nothing else."
The caretaker smiled, message received. "Doubting you’ll see much out and about in this, but maybe they’ll come out when it’s all over," he offered.
“We can hope,” Clint agreed with as much of a smile as he could manage. “It’d be nice to catch what I came up here for,” he added, and it was not a lie.
“Won’t be the first time someone went home empty handed because Mother Nature changed her mind,” the man pointed out. He turned back to his shoveling with admonition of, “Now close that door and keep what little heat you have in. The cafe should have breakfast ready soon enough, if you’re hungry.” That was apparently that as far as he was concerned and he stepped back away from the door where the wind would probably either mangle anything said to him or do its damnedest to carry it away.
It turned out that being essentially trapped in a cabin was really fricken boring. He'd been on ops stuck atop rooftops that at least had more to see than the same four walls and so he was more than happy to brave the cold he hated for a change of pace. The walk to the cafe and back involved many layers and a decent amount of muscle, but the waitress was nice and possibly related to the caretaker and she swore she lived close enough for it not to be a bother to stick around. They stalled longer than they needed to with yet another cup of coffee, and took to making up life stories for the various pieces of taxidermy on the walls. The game was picked up on by at least two other couples sharing their fate but, eventually, they couldn’t justify staying there and breakfast had already turned into brunch and was edging towards lunch when they bundled up and headed out again.
They cleared off the truck and made sure it started, but didn’t actually go anywhere. The roads were covered and the plows couldn’t keep up and they rather needed to stay in place anyway on the off chance they spotted their mark through the mess of weather.
Clint did a bit of recon because he could. Aside from Natasha doing the same, he only found some relatively fresh wolf tracks and a really stupid rabbit. He left the rabbit for the wolf, and Nat told him he was going soft for doing so, but they had a food source readily available without even needing to dig into their reserve supplies and the wolf did not, so he left it at that.
They defrosted themselves in front of the fire again and made use of some of the gift of coffee and powdered hot chocolate that had been left tied to their doorknob in a protective plastic bag that morning. The snow was taking on a distinctly wet heaviness that, with the changing temperatures and the near constant spray from the lake, did not bode well for anyone attempting to travel anytime soon. The bag included an invite to hot cider and board games at the lodge that sounded incredibly dull and boring but, if they were to keep up the façade of the stranded couple, they needed to accept.
It turned out that there were two types of cider, and one was nearly 80 proof. The board games were largely ignored but the foosball and darts were not. Natasha made him wait until the other guests were suitably sauced to play darts, and then made him choose a predetermined pattern that was decidedly not all dead center. Nobody recognized the mockup of Fury’s eye patch or Stark’s reactor as seen at a 30 degree angle or even the layout of a village just outside of Tel Aviv, but he caught Natasha rolling her eyes more than once while sipping freely from a glass that appeared to have Toucan Sam on the side.
He stole a sip of her eye-watering drink and neatly dodged the jab to the ribs for doing so. The couple he now knew as the Millers were setting up a game of pool on a severely scratched surface and he leaned on a cue and watched them bicker with a smile.
"Been together too long," Jonathan said with a shake of his dark head, but there was no heat to his tone. He gestured to where Tasha took a handful of popcorn from Clint's bowl and asked, "I take it the same's true for you?"
Both Clint and Natasha snorted at the same time and there was a knowing echo to his words when he replied, "Way too long."
That earned him a laugh and a, "I see that," and then an offer to side men against women instead of couple against couple. It was Clint's turn to shake his head though and he explained that even he wasn't dumb enough to ever go up against "Tanya."
Jonathan's extremely blonde and extremely practical wife Brianna agreed that he was a smart man and clinked her Smurf glass against Toucan and they began a friendly, if severely handicapped, game of pool.
A man Clint didn't recognize came down about halfway through the game and very stiltedly poked at the treats available, eyeing the frost covered door more than once. "Hey, Blumberg, is that brother of yours coming down?" Jonathan called in greeting.
"No, sorry, he's still not feeling well," the newly named man replied, still looking around like this was not the place he would prefer to be. "We're trying that cough medicine you loaned us, but so far he's still not there."
"Try the cider - it'll kill whatever's got him down, or at least let him sleep soundly enough to fight it off," Jonathan offered, raising his own glass as if in a toast.
It earned him a quick flash of a grin from the quiet man and a promise that he might do just that. Blumberg wandered over to where the popcorn was being made before Brianna huffed, "Brother my ass. He thinks we're all backwards idiots up here this far into the 'wilds of Minnesota' - I don't know how his partner talked him into coming up here, and I pity the man for falling ill and not being able to enjoy it even with this horrendous storm, but he should at least be able to be himself, you know?" She and Nat knocked glasses again and then she downed the last of hers in one go and handed it to her husband to refill.
"You so sure they're not actually brothers?" Clint asked, just to make conversation.
Brianna chalked her cue and did an eye roll that would have made Nat proud. "Let's just say 'Carl' is a little closer to 'Carlos' so either they're not related or he's adopted and extremely close - can barely get either of them to leave the other's side, it's a miracle Bret's down here without him."
They finished off that round and readied another, but hadn't even set the cue ball down yet when the room reverberated with a resounding crash and the lights flickered ominously. "What the hell was that?" Clint demanded, fighting the instinct to reach for at least one of the weapons secreted away on his person.
Brianna pulled back the curtains and they watched as lightning streaked across the blackened sky, revealing the swaths of white still coming down for a split second before leaving them in darkness once again. The room shook a second time about four seconds later, and she crowed, "Thunder snow!"
Jonathan offered her a high five, and nearly lost his balance doing so, before he chuckled, "Man, I love Minnesota. Where else can you get thunder snow and freezing fog? A bitch to drive in, but damned gorgeous when you see it."
Clint thought of many comments to make to that, most involving a certain Asgardian, but wisely kept his mouth shut.
The caretaker decided it was time to wrap things up so that those residing in the cabins might actually make it back to them, and so Natasha and he helped the others pick up before they started to pull on their gear and make the trek back to their wooden home away from home. They said their goodbyes and he nearly had his hand on the handle to the door when he heard Blumberg on the phone, adamantly insisting to someone, "Look, we're stuck here for the time being. Just keep things ready and we'll get there when we get there."
Jonathan mouthed, "Someone's not a happy camper," before he waved and made his way unsteadily up the stairs. Clint nodded in agreement and then braced himself for the biting wind that awaited. Eyes glowed against the shadows, lit by the beam of their flashlight, and he realized that they weren't the only one seeking shelter before the storm hit its peak. The tracks were swept away almost before they were made, and he wondered if the same fate awaited their own.
Neither of them had actually drank that much, but he was stone sober by the time they got back to their cabin. His teeth didn't chatter through sheer force of will, but it was tempting to give in if only for the hope that the extra movement would warm him. Natasha, of course, simply shook the snow from the few curls that had escaped her hat, tossed her outer layers to the side, and grabbed her tablet from its hiding place.
He struggled out of his own gear and prompted, "Thoughts?"
"Something's up with Bret and I don't think it's views on equality," she replied. "I managed to get a shot of his face, so I'm going to run it through the databases to see what comes up."
She didn't want a fire, or at least didn't want the hassle of starting and maintaining one, so he opted for a warm-ish shower followed by clean thermals and wool socks in an attempt to counteract the chill. He heated water in the coffee pot and made her a cup of lowbrow tea and himself some instant hot chocolate. He offered her the mug and sat down beside her, tugging a blanket over them both, before he asked, "Anything?"
She shook her head and wrapped her hands around the mug. "Nothing yet, at least nothing obvious. Maria is going to run a full records search, but we won't know the results until morning."
They sat like that for a little while, sipping their drinks and listing to the rumbles and howls, commiserating about the screwed over op, and blatantly stealing each others' body heat. Clint made the obvious comments about better ways to warm up, and Natasha countered with cutting comments about the timetable of such actions. Neither were actually serious, at least this time. They had a past and they accepted it. They might have a present and a future too, but neither would risk the distraction when there was technically an ongoing mission and technically an unknown player on the field who knew exactly where they were and would only have to brave the elements themselves to get to them.
That night though, when they finally turned off the lights and crawled into bed, she laid her head on his chest and an arm across his waist. He held her close and breathed in the scent of woodsmoke and cider and the almost ozone scent brought on by the cold and drifted off to sleep.
It was that same cold that woke him in the early hours of the morning. That, and the sudden absence of the faint hum of the heater. He couldn't see his breath, but suspected that was a near thing. His first thought was that a fuse blew. His second was that the power was deliberately cut. He knew which one Natasha opted for as she was already armed.
This time, he pulled on his snow pants, a jacket, and a hat and gloves before he dared to venture near the door. Nat checked the light switches and space heater and found not a spark of electricity among them. There was a fuse box on the outside of the cabin, and it looked like the main breaker had blown. He flipped it, heard the answering negative response, and flipped it again.
"It's no good," a voice called. His hand immediately found the pistol in his pocket, and he kept it there despite recognizing the caretaker's outerwear. It wasn't until the man was close enough for visual confirmation that he relaxed slightly, knowing his partner had the shot if he let his guard down. "Take a look for yourself," the man said, gesturing out towards the highway.
The wind and snow had died down to tolerable levels but, sometime during the night, the snow had turned to rain only for that rain to freeze again as the temperatures continued to drop. The landscape was shellacked in ice, with thick sheets of it hanging off of the trees and, unfortunately, the power lines. Well, the few that were still standing. Both poles and wires snaked out across the gleaming and rutted surface of the roadway, blue arcs of energy randomly cascading across the white and leaving smears of moist darkness in their wake.
"That's not good," Clint said unnecessarily. He wished for a scarf when his words seemed to hang frozen in the air before him.
The caretaker huffed in agreement. "We've got a call in to the company but, with the roads like this, there's no eta. Hopefully they'll shut it off at the source to limit the danger, but we've got other problems too."
"Such as?" Clint asked, fearing the worst.
"Both generators got hit. Ben's trying to get the one for the lodge up and running again, but the one for the cafe got hit by either a loose line or a direct strike," he sighed. "It doesn't look good for now. I'll keep you updated, but Mary's boiling water on the fire for tea and oatmeal if you need it."
Clint thanked him for both the information and the concern, and returned to the cabin to be completely unsurprised by Natasha already notifying SHIELD of their situation. She eyed the portable power source that Stark had created that was keeping their personal tablets and phones neatly charged, and then eyed the cafe through the window. "It's enough to run all of that and more," she pointed out. He noted she did not actually offer it up, not yet. SHIELD tech was not for public consumption, not to mention it was possible the smugglers were literally right next door and they would be both blowing their cover and their opportunity to stop them.
"Pull up the generator make and model and let's see if we can fix it," he offered instead.
She did, and they studied the specs while stealing Mary's idea by building a fire and heating water in one stoneware mug to be split between two others for instant coffee. That and a power bar comprised a meager breakfast before they headed out to look at the damage for themselves.
A few wires were fried and more than a single part was singed black, but a patchwork repair was possible. Natasha stripped the wires and jury rigged a fix while he took out various bits and pieces and either scrubbed or sanded them clean with the paper and cloth provided by a rather thankful Ben. The first try clanked warningly, but the second ran much more smoothly, and soon enough the lights came on one at a time.
Breakfast was on the house, as was possibly one of their nights in the cabin, Clint honestly wasn't sure. All he knew was that Mary the cook was a hugger and that she made him an extra large stack of pancakes and gave him an endless cup of damn good coffee.
They slipped and slid their way back to their cabin, the slight incline proving difficult even with the extra traction of their boots. Natasha went to go wash up and he grabbed his own tablet to see if SHIELD had any updates. It wasn't SHIELD that lit up the screen pretty much the moment he signed in though, but Stark.
"What the hell, Tony? You know you're not supposed to contact us on missions - how did you find us anyway?" he said by way of greeting. It was one thing to know he was checking up on them, but another thing all together for him to actually interrupt them.
Tony waved that off as unimportant and muttered something that sounded like, "Tracked your IP from that hidden little message earlier. Don't actually know where exactly you are, but I'm getting a lock on you now." He glanced away at something offscreen before he added, "Based on your all-hick decor, can I assume that you're in Back Ass Nowhere?"
"No, we're just north of there in Butt Fuck Nowhere, why?" Clint countered. The room had not yet fully warmed to its usual chill, and he surreptitiously tried to rub his hands together for warmth.
Tony made a face and shook his head before he said, "Yeah, I was afraid of that. If I were to guess, I'd say you're about smack dab between Lutsen and Grand Marais and damn near on 61?"
The preciseness had Clint's hackles up and so he drawled, "Why?" and debated hitting the little button that let Fury know Stark had finally crossed the line.
"Because we're getting weird energy readings from there that are probably fucking with the already less than ideal weather patterns," Tony replied. He pushed back slightly from the screen, the wheels of his stool squeaking against the shop floor. "Whatever tech you're undoubtedly after - alien, human, experimental, or magical - don't touch it. The patterns are approximating radiation levels at this point. I'd go into more detail but one, I don't actually have it right now, and two, it'd go over your head anyway. Suffice it to say, it does not-good-things and you should avoid it."
Stark rolled out of the picture entirely, and Thor leaned forward, his massive form filling the screen. "It is possible the source is a piece of the Bifrost from when it was shattered. If so, it is capable of enormous energy. It is also capable of enormous destruction. Use caution, my friends, and we will be there when we are able," he said gravely.
"The roads are solid ice and there is no place to land a Quinjet where we are," Clint warned. "Walking is a hazard at this point, so don't try anything stupid like landing a bright red and gold hockey puck to slip and slide around the place."
Tony pushed himself back into view, ducking under Thor's arm to do so. "There's a peak of horribleness in about a six-hundred meter radius around you, then there's a ring of it sucking slightly less, then it's trash again until it tapers out around a place called, I kid you not, 'Castle Danger' just outside of Duluth. We might have a window of getting in," he told them.
Clint shook his head. "We're finishing up a three day blizzard with an ice storm here. The snow's above my knees where it's not shoveled, and ain't no shoveling going to happen with this ice. Let us finish the job and get the tech and place it in a nice little box where it will hopefully not trigger yet another storm, and then we'll invite you up for cleanup and s'mores, 'kay?"
"Damn it, Barton, this isn't a laughing matter!" Tony snapped.
"No, it's not," Clint agreed. "But, for now, you're stuck out there and we're stuck in here with a damn good lead and the resources to use it. Let us do our job before we lose the lead, our marks, and possibly the goods by you blowing our cover with your arrival." He hung up before Tony could respond, but figured it really didn't matter anyway. If Stark could locate them within a two mile range based on his fancy readings, they were screwed. He gave themselves about two hours to find the tech and lock it away before the rest of the team gave in and headed their way. Given the travel time, they still had a bit of an extra cushion but not much, especially not if Thor decided to take matters into his own hands because he got bored.
He called updates to Natasha after he heard the water shut off, still online looking for an answer from SHIELD, and then possibly screamed in an entirely undignified way when she snuck up behind him and placed her ice cold hands on his neck. "The fuck, Tasha?" he asked, grabbing the blanket in defense of his exposed skin.
She had a lot more skin exposed, and he swore some even had a slight blue hue to it. She ignored that, and ignored him, and calmly pulled on about three more layers than she normally would have as she advised, "It would appear the water heater has not yet had time to reset."
He peeled off two of the layers so that she would not eventually overheat and set her in front of the space heater that was cranked up as far as he dared on the delicate circuits. He then stole one of the decent tea bags from her stash and made her a fresh cup to sip from while he updated her to Stark's recent adventures in privacy invasion. She seemed less than surprised and took from it the same thing he did, which was that they needed to step up their timeline before it was destroyed completely.
She avoided any pretense of waiting on SHIELD and called Hill directly. Maria was able to confirm that "Bret" had been seen in the company of those on active watch lists, but that he himself had an extremely limited record and so they were digging deeper. She also seemed to suspect that the waiting game was over and both wished them good hunting and reminded them that they would prefer the tech as-is for study if at all possible.
They went to the main lodge to check on the others, the precipitation now next to nothing but the drastic drop in temperature making the air itself burn their lungs with ice. Now that they knew to look for it, Clint saw the rough circle of white and gray centered above their little refuge, and a ring of the clearer pale blue slightly farther out. He didn't exactly hate Stark for being right, but it did serve as a reminder that the guy both knew what he was doing and had access to things he shouldn't. Or, in other words, was probably working on skates or some shit for the suit so that he could land and be his usual annoying yet helpful self.
Natasha returned from a feigned trip to the ladies' room with what accounted for a frown for her. It was bad news because of course it had to be. Bret and Carl, or whatever their real names were, were gone. There was also signs of a third and as of yet unknown person with them if the sleeping arrangements and gear were to be believed. Most of that gear was still there though, or at least the basic clothing and toiletries part of it, which could mean that they were out scouting for their escape before they made their break for it. It could also mean that they thought such things as disposable and not worth their while, but he was trying at being an optimist solely because it served counterpoint to Natasha's knowing pessimism.
She reported an increased scent of ozone as well as a lingering electric charge, enough to create static discharge on metal surfaces. They knew the smugglers were dumb to mess with alien tech in the first place, but they had thought them smart enough to not actively activate it. Both were willing to bet one of the three poked it with a stick, or did the scientific equivalent of it, possibly out of boredom at being confined and possibly because he or she failed at learning the scientific method in sixth grade.
The creek that wound down to the lake was was far too narrow and far too shallow to use as a launch point, but there was a small river a relatively short walk away. Still not the most ideal, and large sections were frozen over with quick rapids beneath the ice making it less than stable, but the solid snow along the roadside in that direction was scuffed and broken in places, keying it as a good place to start despite the nearness of the still sparking lines. The snowshoe path the lodge attempted to maintain would have made more sense but, considering there was a decent incline to get there and it was possible any transport was hidden directly off the lake, they stuck to the obvious for now.
He grabbed his bow and Tasha grabbed a lot more than that and they tried to sneak past the cafe to the river, but Ben stopped them with a call of, "You're not foolish enough to wander out in this, are you? I thought you brighter than that."
"If I had my way, we'd be inside by by the fire sipping on some more of that cider," Clint assured him. "We're just foolish enough to try to stop someone even dumber than us."
"You some sort of military?" he asked, eying their fairly decent gear.
"Once upon a time," Clint replied, not liking the delay or the attention, but knowing Ben was good people. "Now we're just trying to save a couple of idiots from natural selection."
Ben barked out a laugh at that and promised that there'd be cider ready and waiting for them upon their return. Clint knew they were being watched though, the only thing to see aside from white, green and brown topped with white, and blue-tinged white for miles. He kept his gait as light and steady and even as he could given the terrain, sighing internally in relief when they rounded a curve and out of sight.
His earlier suspicions proved correct and the river was not exactly in excellent shape either. There was no clear path to it, and the ice clung like petrified jelly fish to the chunks of stone that lined the banks. There were broken shards here and there though, skipped across the hardened surface and stabbed into the top layers of snow, and fairly obvious indents from both boots and what looked to be some unlucky soul's ass. In other words, his tracking skills were not exactly needed.
"Stay here or follow them?" he asked.
"If their goal is Canada through Superior, they will have to come back down," Natasha pointed out. "There's no sign of durable hiking equipment, so I doubt they went or will go far."
He eyed the height of the river, and the size of the bridge that overlaid it before it emptied out into the lake. "How the hell do they expect a boat to get through that?"
She smirked. "We already know they're not bright. Probably a smaller craft or even a couple of kayaks with the intent to meet up with something bigger for the main trek." There was a layer of ice surrounding the shoreline, but it was thinner at the mouth of the river, and it was entirely possible it could be broken to allow passage.
It was logical, which is why he immediately questioned if the men in question would go for it. He then remembered that there were multiple people involved, likely an entire organization of miscreants, and figured someone somewhere along the line probably knew how to plan, at least enough to come up with a rough blueprint of stupidity for the lackeys to follow. However, whoever thought up this latest scheme was totally unprepared for pesky little things like the northern hemisphere in winter and the fact that cold water turns solid and is not exactly great for sailing in.
They found a place sort of out of the way where they could see the bit of river right before the bridge and through to the other side. He estimated that they waited approximately twenty-two minutes, shivering and internally bitching the whole time, before they received their first signal that something was going down.
The word "signal" made it seem much more covert than it actually was. There was bickering, harsh and barely hushed, a trio of voices that alternately complained about each other and the situation as a whole and grunted directions to go left, no the other left, and not to break anything as it was worth more than they themselves were at this point.
"Do you even know how to operate that thing?" one of the voices asked. It was most definitely Bret from the lodge.
"Of course I do! Why do you think I'm even here?" a second voice replied. He didn't recognize that one, and the only accent he could identify was roughly Rhode Island-esque.
"To guide us to our frozen deaths?" a third and hopefully final voice sounded. This one was clearly stuffed up and hoarse from what was probably a decent cold. He figured they had finally found the illusive Carl who was possibly of the los.
Natasha looked like she wanted to bang her head against something solid like a nearby tree and he was tempted to join her. The men had no idea how much their voices echoed and carried off of the walls of rock. Given their lack of general sense so far, it was a wonder that they even managed to find the tech and survive long enough to make the smuggling attempt.
When they came into view, Clint was honestly mildly surprised that it was not a standard kayak that they were dragging in their wake. It was about the size, but it was higher tech and, based upon the design, possibly submersible. It was also far too light to break the ice on its own without help.
He reevaluated his previous assumptions and determined that the two not-brothers were probably to stay behind to keep their cover while Unknown made the trip with the tech to their checkpoint. He felt no need to explain the eval to Nat as she, unlike them, was not stupid. He was tempted to split up so that one of them could corral the two staying behind while the other took out the traveler, but figured they were being so nice and kind and sticking close enough together to be easily caught that it would be a shame to make a waste of it. Besides, given their apparent hate of all things winter-related, it wasn't like they would run off to hide in the woods versus go back to the nice warm lodge, so they had a fair idea of where to find them if they eventually focused on the one instead of the two as long as they were subtle.
Subtle went out the window the men triggered something that made the ground shake and created thick cracks along the frozen snow and ice. It was centered on or possibly in the river itself, the relatively thin layer of ice shattering to reveal the swiftly moving water below.
"They're going to start an avalanche," Natasha sighed.
Clint raised an eyebrow. "Can you have avalanches in Minnesota?" he asked. He'd seen avalanches, big ones, up close and personal. They had always been on mountainsides and had miles above and below to really get the death rolling.
Natasha kept her hands close but still gestured to the surrounding landscape. "Lutsen is a skiing community for a reason. It might not be mountains like you're used to, but there's elevation enough to do damage."
He looked closer now and noted the hilly terrain that tapered off swiftly right before the shoreline. There was definitely some decent height and some sharp-sided rockface that was currently teetering with far too much extra frozen weight. If it came down, most of it would hit the water, but it would have to get past the highway, not to mention possibly the very lodge they were staying at, first. "Awesome," he said with less than enthusiasm. He moved to stand and asked, "Shall we?"
She grabbed him by the bottom of his coat before he could reveal himself though, and tugged him back down. He was going to ask why, but a much larger version of the tiny submersible was breaking the surface just below the bridge. Still small and not the size you'd take out to sea, but large enough for three grown men and an alien artifact to fit into. The first one was either back up or how they originally intended to get out to the larger sub via the river. Leaving it behind would have been far more of a tell than two hapless vacationers going out for a walk in the woods and never making it back to the lodge, especially since the area would have been searched once Thing One and Thing Two were reported missing.
"Now we shall," Natasha smiled, weapons already in hand as she rose with barely a sound.
The trio were still bickering, and he would have called them The Stooges but that would have been an insult to Moe and the gang. Carl was complaining about digging the first sub out and that Bret had better attach it correctly and not undo all of his hard work. Unknown was countering with the fact he had carried "the artifact" the entire time. Bret was telling them both to shut up so that he could concentrate on both attaching the two and possibly still figuring out how to get into the one.
None of them knew what hit them.
It was scarily easy to take them down, even hampered by the ice. Apparently they had less than combat training, or said training didn't involve multiple types of terrain, because Bret ended up on his ass during an escape attempt and Carl slipped and cracked his head after some decent hand to hand with Nat. It was Unknown that caused the most problems: he made a run for the larger of the subs and nearly took a header directly into the water. The case he had been carrying flew from his hands, skimmed across the top of the still unopened sub, and looked as though it was going to end up with the aged shipwrecks in the silt and stone.
Clint did not want to think of what a device that could cause blizzards and ice storms would do to the greatest of the Great Lakes, and so he dove for it. The surface broke neatly and his body was nearly immediately surrounded by the tingling pain of impending hypothermia.
The case was caught in a current and he knew there was no way he could catch it, not with the weight of his gear and the sluggishness of protesting muscles to fight against. He did the only thing he could think of instead, and keyed what he hoped was the right sequence on his quiver, drew an arrow, and really hoped he was not about to blow up an alien energy source as he used damn near all of his willpower to make the shot.
A net bloomed up and around the case, still tethered to his bow, and he yanked it closer to him even as he tried to fight the current and break the surface. His first breath felt as though it froze his very lungs, and his next breath was knocked right out of him as something grabbed a hold of him and dragged him not to the nearby shoreline, but up into the sky above it.
It took him a stupidly long time to realize what held him was shiny and red and gold, and that realization was helped by the familiarity of Stark's voice as he said, "So it turns out the Quinjets are supersonic, as am I."
Tony set him down near where Cap had already jumped out to help Natasha round up the idiots while the jet landed half on the highway and half on a wayside rest near the bridge. It sank slightly in the unplowed snow, as did the rear hatch when it lowered to spit out a figure that was barely recognizable as Bruce behind the bulky layers that he wore. Banner made his way over to where Clint now sat shivering and gasping with the help of a couple of SHIELD agents and Thor and then immediately started to strip off the soaked layers, multiple thermal blankets at the ready.
Clint watched though the newly acquired crowd as Stark landed on the ramp and the suit began to unfold around him, yet another agent with a parka and boots standing by. He was distracted when his bare skin hit the frigid air and protested, "Hey, frostbite is not on the menu today, boys and girls."
Natasha took his bow while Thor took the net-wrapped case, and she chided, "You should have thought of that before going swimming in Superior in February without a wetsuit."
"Got the case," he countered, and wished his teeth didn't chatter quite so much.
Thor flicked the reinforced polymer of the net away like cobwebs and snapped open the case to reveal a glowing misshapen block of light. "Aye, you did, my friend," he agreed. He then flipped the block in his massive hand and whispered something Clint couldn't quite hear and probably wouldn't have understood anyway before the glow faded to nearly nothing. By the time he was done, it looked like a shank of quartz and nothing more, but the circle of gray above them was finally dispersing to reveal the faintest hint of sun for the first time in days.
"Let's get you to the Quinjet so you can strip the rest of the way in relative privacy," Bruce suggested.
"Like that's ever stopped him," Tasha huffed. She helped him stand though, and didn't even comment on the way his legs both locked and shook slightly with the action. She even helped him across the road with Bruce, leaning against him when he would have slipped on what he thought was solid ice and asphalt and was instead a snow covered rut.
Stripped, dried, and rewrapped in spare gear, he felt like he might actually be able to feel his toes again some time in the next month. An agent poured him coffee, and another gave him oversized mittens that were bulky and would in no way allow him to use his bow, but had the added benefit of having been warmed, either electronically or with the chem packs on the jet. He dictated a rough report with the promise of more detail in the final draft, and then used the excuse that they needed to transport the prisoners and that their personal gear was still back at the lodge to escape before they flew him home and possibly into the waiting arms of Medical.
Tony was all over the submersibles, but Bruce and Steve walked them back to their cabin while Thor stood guard over the tech/artifact/whatever they wanted to call it. Ben and Mary had come down to see what the ruckus was about, and a couple of the vacationers dared to venture forth, but most stuck to the safety of the lodge and the surrounding, non-electrified areas. The SHIELD agents were seeing to that as well, and he suspected the lines would be fixed and non-generator power restored by morning, possibly at the price of several non-disclosure agreements.
Ben promised him that drink and Mary promised to make Ben behave and, finally, they were back at the cabin where he could give up the pretense of being the intimidating agent and collapse face first against the mattress.
Both Steve and Bruce were appreciative of the classic construction of the place in ways Tony never would be. Steve marveled that the old 1930's design still held true while he built a fire in the fireplace, commenting on everything from the little vents set in the stone to the wattle and daub. Clint gave up on responding, just as he gave up on fighting Nat and Bruce when they stripped him of the very gear they had just gotten him into. They left him in nothing more than the long underwear he had stolen and one of the impossibly thin thermal wraps Bruce had taken from the jet and piled every blanket in the place on top of him.
He listened while Natasha told Bruce about the storm and thought he heard the open and close of the door but was more focused on staying perfectly still in the warm little cocoon they had made for him, and possibly drifting off to sleep. The door squeaked open again an indeterminate time later, and the small structure was filled with the smells of roasted meat and something oddly bread-like.
It turned out that Steve had grabbed food for them all from the cafe, as well as a large mug of something "a kind man named Ben" insisted was for Clint. Natasha sniffed it and then poured half into a mug of her own, using the original container to lure Clint out of his warm haven to eat and drink and to stop internally complaining about the cold and deal with the fact the mission was over and all was well with the world. Or at least as well as could be expected.
Later that night, after Bruce and Steve snagged an "old-fashioned" cabin of their own and Thor and Tony went back to Manhattan to analyze and protect the various tech, Tasha banked the fire and slid in beside him under the covers. The tiny resort was swarming with agents who had been assigned tasks that varied from going through the trio of idiots' belongings to fixing the generators and possibly even the broken pipes. Every room and every working cabin was booked. There was the scrape of plows on the highway outside, and of shovels on the multitude of pathways that circled the cabins. The place was packed, and Mary had been torn between elation at the extra business and worry that they would run out of food before they would run out of guests.
Natasha poked him in the shoulder and he turned to face her in the low light from the single bulb left on in their own private hideaway. "Hey," she said. She readjusted herself so that she lay on his shoulder, both tucked securely under the only slightly lessened pile of blankets.
"Hey yourself," he retorted with a smile.
"Mission's over, tech recovered, day is saved," she ticked off against his arm, finger by finger.
"And we caught the bad guys," he pointed out, because that didn't always happen.
"We did," she agreed with a nod. Her hair tickled his chin and it was a familiar comfort. Also familiar was the way her hand slid up his arm to his shoulder as she asked, "Still cold?"
Her body pressed up against him just so and his lips quirked into a smile. "A little," he admitted.
His hand lay against her back now, feeling the dip and curve of her spine as she stretched slightly, tilting her chin up closer to his own. "I know a great way to warm up," she offered, all feigned innocence and radiating humor.
He laughed at her game and dipped his head slightly, giving her an out if she changed her mind. He had a feeling she wouldn't when her legs twined with his own and she closed the final distance, the kiss sweet and almost chaste in ways he knew they soon would not be.
Later, when cool air brushed across his overheated skin in mirror to her fingertips, he spared a thought that, maybe, the cold wasn't so bad after all.
End.
End Note: The lodge in question is loosely based off of Cascade Lodge near Lutsen, Minnesota.
Feedback is always welcomed.
hc_bingo this round. If I finish one other story, I get two more - yeah, do that math.Title: Small Game
Genre: Clint/Natasha
Rating: R
Length: ~8,800 words
Synopsis: A blizzard hits while Clint and Natasha are chasing after smugglers of alien tech because, really, why wouldn't it?
Author's Notes: For the "natural disaster" square at
hc_bingo. Not quite the standard disaster, but blizzards are still classified as such, so I went with what I knew best.Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
He didn’t like the cold. It was cliché and all that, but he still didn’t like it. He could deal with it, had dealt with it, would deal with it again, but it was still annoying.
It wasn’t even the wind chapping and blistering his skin, the burn of the ice and the cloying wet of any fabric that dared get near the snow that clung and hung and upped the risk of hypothermia by the second. It was the bulk of it all, really. The extra layers slowed him down, could throw off his aim even more than the wind that he could compensate for and the sheets of white that he had to squint against to find the target. The combination of everything tended to make him grumpy on a good day.
This was not a good day.
They were tracking smugglers of alien tech. Said smugglers had the bright idea to cross the border into Canada via Lake Superior forgetting that SHIELD was an international organization. A team of agents on the Canadian side were waiting for the boat to land and Natasha and Clint were to ferret out just what boat it was and to try to prevent an international incident and/or a tradeoff mid-giant body of water. No major harbors were likely to be used, but the area was lined with summer cabins and private docks and any and all were to be considered suspect.
Of course the idiots had to try it prior to the shoreline actually defrosting and of course there had to be a blizzard because that was just their luck. The Canadian agents were just as surprised as the Iowan and Russian, which was to say not at all. Iowa might not have been as far north as Minnesota or Canada, but getting a surprise snowfall in February wasn’t exactly surprising, and neither were the temps dropping into the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me range. In truth, February was usually worse than January, if he remembered correctly. It had been a long time though, with many desert missions in between, so while he had once been accustomed to it, it was not recently so.
Everyone involved was fairly certain even the group they were after was not dumb enough to try to cross Superior during a blizzard. The snow was near horizontal and the spray from the water was like little knives of ice and the whole “lake effect” thing that Clint himself wasn’t fully used to meant a crap ton of the white stuff was coming down at once and movement was totally overrated. It was because of this that they decided camping out in the woods was unnecessary. It was because of the nearest SHIELD safe house being an eight mile hike after a twenty mile drive that they decided the closest cabin-for-rent place that was still open was a viable option. SHIELD would reimburse them and, if they didn’t, the two agents both felt it was worth the relatively small expense to not get lost in the white-out conditions, sat-nav or no.
The lodge they chose was closer and lower key than the higher end resorts in Lutsen, and had the benefit of being literally across the highway from the lake with what would have been decent sightlines had there been anything to see beyond white and the occasional swath of gray. The main house was full, which was fine by them as they didn’t need anyone seeing them coming and going at odd hours if needed, and several of the smaller cabins were out of commission due to a broken pipe.
The clerk apologized for the inconvenience and gave them one of the larger cabins with the warning that it was one of the first on the lot and therefore a bit more old-fashioned than the others. It had heat, but the bathroom was an extension added on in later years and was known to be cold without the space heater on. They later learned that was an understatement of epic proportions but there was a fireplace and a tiny refrigerator and microwave and the wooden walls protected from the wind for the most part even if the honest-to-god wattle and daub construction had gaps in places. There was a porch that wrapped almost the entire way around and a little creek just off to the side but, most importantly, there was about a twenty yard walk to a cafe that was staying open and served hot food and warm cider amongst other, more heartier beverages.
They made it back to find semi-fresh footprints in the snow around the porch that had not yet been blown away or otherwise covered up. This set them both on high alert right up until they realized the prints led solely to a rather substantial pile of chopped wood and a note that the forecast was not expected to change for at least another day and a half. Clint still insisted on doing full once over outside while Natasha went inside to do the same, but found nothing amiss. Not even the animals wanted to be out on a night like this, but he rigged a few signals and finally slogged his way back to the cabin proper.
Natasha was in the process of peeling back the final layers of her outerwear and he joined in. There was a couch and a beat up end-table and they dragged those closer to the fireplace to lay their wet gear out across and they shivered more than a little while they got the fire going despite the heating system doing its best in the given conditions.
They eventually warmed up while watching a flickering television trying to get enough of a signal to broadcast the local news. Natasha gave up on that sooner rather than later and used her Stark-enhanced tablet instead to both review the weather and contact SHIELD. Even Tony wasn’t dumb enough to attempt a flyby in these conditions, but there was still a chance he would track the signal if he suspected their location. They added a coded note that they were fine and to stand down for the time being and hoped he would actually listen this time.
There was only one bed, but it was a queen size and it wouldn’t be the first time Tasha and he had shared. Besides, the extra body heat would be welcomed, whether either of them admitted it or not. She took the side that faced the door and he took the side that faced an old dresser with a giant mirror that was bronzed with age and both tucked their various weaponry within easy reach. The howl of the wind was a white noise that lulled him to sleep, the cold of the room with the banked fire and closed flue battling the warmth of the blankets oddly comfortable in a way it shouldn't be.
He awoke in the morning to a heavy scraping sound and a slight reverberation through the walls. He shoved his feet into his boots, ignored the fact that he was still only in his long johns and thermal shirt, and grabbed his bow. The noise was coming from right outside now, and Tasha hid behind the couch with her Glock while he whipped open the door. Finding the caretaker bundled up almost beyond recognition and armed only with a shovel was more than a little anticlimactic. The fact that said caretaker was nearly completely covered in clinging balls of ice and snow both made Clint feel for the guy and realize just how chilly it was in nothing but long underwear.
“You don’t have to do that,” he tried, shifting slightly to let the door block the worst of the wind.
The man scoffed and kept at it. “You’re paying customers, it’s the least I can do. I’d say uncovering that truck of yours is your problem, but I doubt you’ll be using it any time soon and you know any of us will help if needed,” he said as if that made perfect sense. He glanced into the room and shrugged, clumps of white falling to the ground around him. “Nice bow, though a bit much for the small game season."
Clint caught the undertones and the warning of what he was saying, and was quick to assure him of his non-poaching intent with, "The deer are smart enough to stay hidden in this weather, and I envy them for that. Some of the smaller game aren't quite as bright, and it keeps my skills up if nothing else."
The caretaker smiled, message received. "Doubting you’ll see much out and about in this, but maybe they’ll come out when it’s all over," he offered.
“We can hope,” Clint agreed with as much of a smile as he could manage. “It’d be nice to catch what I came up here for,” he added, and it was not a lie.
“Won’t be the first time someone went home empty handed because Mother Nature changed her mind,” the man pointed out. He turned back to his shoveling with admonition of, “Now close that door and keep what little heat you have in. The cafe should have breakfast ready soon enough, if you’re hungry.” That was apparently that as far as he was concerned and he stepped back away from the door where the wind would probably either mangle anything said to him or do its damnedest to carry it away.
It turned out that being essentially trapped in a cabin was really fricken boring. He'd been on ops stuck atop rooftops that at least had more to see than the same four walls and so he was more than happy to brave the cold he hated for a change of pace. The walk to the cafe and back involved many layers and a decent amount of muscle, but the waitress was nice and possibly related to the caretaker and she swore she lived close enough for it not to be a bother to stick around. They stalled longer than they needed to with yet another cup of coffee, and took to making up life stories for the various pieces of taxidermy on the walls. The game was picked up on by at least two other couples sharing their fate but, eventually, they couldn’t justify staying there and breakfast had already turned into brunch and was edging towards lunch when they bundled up and headed out again.
They cleared off the truck and made sure it started, but didn’t actually go anywhere. The roads were covered and the plows couldn’t keep up and they rather needed to stay in place anyway on the off chance they spotted their mark through the mess of weather.
Clint did a bit of recon because he could. Aside from Natasha doing the same, he only found some relatively fresh wolf tracks and a really stupid rabbit. He left the rabbit for the wolf, and Nat told him he was going soft for doing so, but they had a food source readily available without even needing to dig into their reserve supplies and the wolf did not, so he left it at that.
They defrosted themselves in front of the fire again and made use of some of the gift of coffee and powdered hot chocolate that had been left tied to their doorknob in a protective plastic bag that morning. The snow was taking on a distinctly wet heaviness that, with the changing temperatures and the near constant spray from the lake, did not bode well for anyone attempting to travel anytime soon. The bag included an invite to hot cider and board games at the lodge that sounded incredibly dull and boring but, if they were to keep up the façade of the stranded couple, they needed to accept.
It turned out that there were two types of cider, and one was nearly 80 proof. The board games were largely ignored but the foosball and darts were not. Natasha made him wait until the other guests were suitably sauced to play darts, and then made him choose a predetermined pattern that was decidedly not all dead center. Nobody recognized the mockup of Fury’s eye patch or Stark’s reactor as seen at a 30 degree angle or even the layout of a village just outside of Tel Aviv, but he caught Natasha rolling her eyes more than once while sipping freely from a glass that appeared to have Toucan Sam on the side.
He stole a sip of her eye-watering drink and neatly dodged the jab to the ribs for doing so. The couple he now knew as the Millers were setting up a game of pool on a severely scratched surface and he leaned on a cue and watched them bicker with a smile.
"Been together too long," Jonathan said with a shake of his dark head, but there was no heat to his tone. He gestured to where Tasha took a handful of popcorn from Clint's bowl and asked, "I take it the same's true for you?"
Both Clint and Natasha snorted at the same time and there was a knowing echo to his words when he replied, "Way too long."
That earned him a laugh and a, "I see that," and then an offer to side men against women instead of couple against couple. It was Clint's turn to shake his head though and he explained that even he wasn't dumb enough to ever go up against "Tanya."
Jonathan's extremely blonde and extremely practical wife Brianna agreed that he was a smart man and clinked her Smurf glass against Toucan and they began a friendly, if severely handicapped, game of pool.
A man Clint didn't recognize came down about halfway through the game and very stiltedly poked at the treats available, eyeing the frost covered door more than once. "Hey, Blumberg, is that brother of yours coming down?" Jonathan called in greeting.
"No, sorry, he's still not feeling well," the newly named man replied, still looking around like this was not the place he would prefer to be. "We're trying that cough medicine you loaned us, but so far he's still not there."
"Try the cider - it'll kill whatever's got him down, or at least let him sleep soundly enough to fight it off," Jonathan offered, raising his own glass as if in a toast.
It earned him a quick flash of a grin from the quiet man and a promise that he might do just that. Blumberg wandered over to where the popcorn was being made before Brianna huffed, "Brother my ass. He thinks we're all backwards idiots up here this far into the 'wilds of Minnesota' - I don't know how his partner talked him into coming up here, and I pity the man for falling ill and not being able to enjoy it even with this horrendous storm, but he should at least be able to be himself, you know?" She and Nat knocked glasses again and then she downed the last of hers in one go and handed it to her husband to refill.
"You so sure they're not actually brothers?" Clint asked, just to make conversation.
Brianna chalked her cue and did an eye roll that would have made Nat proud. "Let's just say 'Carl' is a little closer to 'Carlos' so either they're not related or he's adopted and extremely close - can barely get either of them to leave the other's side, it's a miracle Bret's down here without him."
They finished off that round and readied another, but hadn't even set the cue ball down yet when the room reverberated with a resounding crash and the lights flickered ominously. "What the hell was that?" Clint demanded, fighting the instinct to reach for at least one of the weapons secreted away on his person.
Brianna pulled back the curtains and they watched as lightning streaked across the blackened sky, revealing the swaths of white still coming down for a split second before leaving them in darkness once again. The room shook a second time about four seconds later, and she crowed, "Thunder snow!"
Jonathan offered her a high five, and nearly lost his balance doing so, before he chuckled, "Man, I love Minnesota. Where else can you get thunder snow and freezing fog? A bitch to drive in, but damned gorgeous when you see it."
Clint thought of many comments to make to that, most involving a certain Asgardian, but wisely kept his mouth shut.
The caretaker decided it was time to wrap things up so that those residing in the cabins might actually make it back to them, and so Natasha and he helped the others pick up before they started to pull on their gear and make the trek back to their wooden home away from home. They said their goodbyes and he nearly had his hand on the handle to the door when he heard Blumberg on the phone, adamantly insisting to someone, "Look, we're stuck here for the time being. Just keep things ready and we'll get there when we get there."
Jonathan mouthed, "Someone's not a happy camper," before he waved and made his way unsteadily up the stairs. Clint nodded in agreement and then braced himself for the biting wind that awaited. Eyes glowed against the shadows, lit by the beam of their flashlight, and he realized that they weren't the only one seeking shelter before the storm hit its peak. The tracks were swept away almost before they were made, and he wondered if the same fate awaited their own.
Neither of them had actually drank that much, but he was stone sober by the time they got back to their cabin. His teeth didn't chatter through sheer force of will, but it was tempting to give in if only for the hope that the extra movement would warm him. Natasha, of course, simply shook the snow from the few curls that had escaped her hat, tossed her outer layers to the side, and grabbed her tablet from its hiding place.
He struggled out of his own gear and prompted, "Thoughts?"
"Something's up with Bret and I don't think it's views on equality," she replied. "I managed to get a shot of his face, so I'm going to run it through the databases to see what comes up."
She didn't want a fire, or at least didn't want the hassle of starting and maintaining one, so he opted for a warm-ish shower followed by clean thermals and wool socks in an attempt to counteract the chill. He heated water in the coffee pot and made her a cup of lowbrow tea and himself some instant hot chocolate. He offered her the mug and sat down beside her, tugging a blanket over them both, before he asked, "Anything?"
She shook her head and wrapped her hands around the mug. "Nothing yet, at least nothing obvious. Maria is going to run a full records search, but we won't know the results until morning."
They sat like that for a little while, sipping their drinks and listing to the rumbles and howls, commiserating about the screwed over op, and blatantly stealing each others' body heat. Clint made the obvious comments about better ways to warm up, and Natasha countered with cutting comments about the timetable of such actions. Neither were actually serious, at least this time. They had a past and they accepted it. They might have a present and a future too, but neither would risk the distraction when there was technically an ongoing mission and technically an unknown player on the field who knew exactly where they were and would only have to brave the elements themselves to get to them.
That night though, when they finally turned off the lights and crawled into bed, she laid her head on his chest and an arm across his waist. He held her close and breathed in the scent of woodsmoke and cider and the almost ozone scent brought on by the cold and drifted off to sleep.
It was that same cold that woke him in the early hours of the morning. That, and the sudden absence of the faint hum of the heater. He couldn't see his breath, but suspected that was a near thing. His first thought was that a fuse blew. His second was that the power was deliberately cut. He knew which one Natasha opted for as she was already armed.
This time, he pulled on his snow pants, a jacket, and a hat and gloves before he dared to venture near the door. Nat checked the light switches and space heater and found not a spark of electricity among them. There was a fuse box on the outside of the cabin, and it looked like the main breaker had blown. He flipped it, heard the answering negative response, and flipped it again.
"It's no good," a voice called. His hand immediately found the pistol in his pocket, and he kept it there despite recognizing the caretaker's outerwear. It wasn't until the man was close enough for visual confirmation that he relaxed slightly, knowing his partner had the shot if he let his guard down. "Take a look for yourself," the man said, gesturing out towards the highway.
The wind and snow had died down to tolerable levels but, sometime during the night, the snow had turned to rain only for that rain to freeze again as the temperatures continued to drop. The landscape was shellacked in ice, with thick sheets of it hanging off of the trees and, unfortunately, the power lines. Well, the few that were still standing. Both poles and wires snaked out across the gleaming and rutted surface of the roadway, blue arcs of energy randomly cascading across the white and leaving smears of moist darkness in their wake.
"That's not good," Clint said unnecessarily. He wished for a scarf when his words seemed to hang frozen in the air before him.
The caretaker huffed in agreement. "We've got a call in to the company but, with the roads like this, there's no eta. Hopefully they'll shut it off at the source to limit the danger, but we've got other problems too."
"Such as?" Clint asked, fearing the worst.
"Both generators got hit. Ben's trying to get the one for the lodge up and running again, but the one for the cafe got hit by either a loose line or a direct strike," he sighed. "It doesn't look good for now. I'll keep you updated, but Mary's boiling water on the fire for tea and oatmeal if you need it."
Clint thanked him for both the information and the concern, and returned to the cabin to be completely unsurprised by Natasha already notifying SHIELD of their situation. She eyed the portable power source that Stark had created that was keeping their personal tablets and phones neatly charged, and then eyed the cafe through the window. "It's enough to run all of that and more," she pointed out. He noted she did not actually offer it up, not yet. SHIELD tech was not for public consumption, not to mention it was possible the smugglers were literally right next door and they would be both blowing their cover and their opportunity to stop them.
"Pull up the generator make and model and let's see if we can fix it," he offered instead.
She did, and they studied the specs while stealing Mary's idea by building a fire and heating water in one stoneware mug to be split between two others for instant coffee. That and a power bar comprised a meager breakfast before they headed out to look at the damage for themselves.
A few wires were fried and more than a single part was singed black, but a patchwork repair was possible. Natasha stripped the wires and jury rigged a fix while he took out various bits and pieces and either scrubbed or sanded them clean with the paper and cloth provided by a rather thankful Ben. The first try clanked warningly, but the second ran much more smoothly, and soon enough the lights came on one at a time.
Breakfast was on the house, as was possibly one of their nights in the cabin, Clint honestly wasn't sure. All he knew was that Mary the cook was a hugger and that she made him an extra large stack of pancakes and gave him an endless cup of damn good coffee.
They slipped and slid their way back to their cabin, the slight incline proving difficult even with the extra traction of their boots. Natasha went to go wash up and he grabbed his own tablet to see if SHIELD had any updates. It wasn't SHIELD that lit up the screen pretty much the moment he signed in though, but Stark.
"What the hell, Tony? You know you're not supposed to contact us on missions - how did you find us anyway?" he said by way of greeting. It was one thing to know he was checking up on them, but another thing all together for him to actually interrupt them.
Tony waved that off as unimportant and muttered something that sounded like, "Tracked your IP from that hidden little message earlier. Don't actually know where exactly you are, but I'm getting a lock on you now." He glanced away at something offscreen before he added, "Based on your all-hick decor, can I assume that you're in Back Ass Nowhere?"
"No, we're just north of there in Butt Fuck Nowhere, why?" Clint countered. The room had not yet fully warmed to its usual chill, and he surreptitiously tried to rub his hands together for warmth.
Tony made a face and shook his head before he said, "Yeah, I was afraid of that. If I were to guess, I'd say you're about smack dab between Lutsen and Grand Marais and damn near on 61?"
The preciseness had Clint's hackles up and so he drawled, "Why?" and debated hitting the little button that let Fury know Stark had finally crossed the line.
"Because we're getting weird energy readings from there that are probably fucking with the already less than ideal weather patterns," Tony replied. He pushed back slightly from the screen, the wheels of his stool squeaking against the shop floor. "Whatever tech you're undoubtedly after - alien, human, experimental, or magical - don't touch it. The patterns are approximating radiation levels at this point. I'd go into more detail but one, I don't actually have it right now, and two, it'd go over your head anyway. Suffice it to say, it does not-good-things and you should avoid it."
Stark rolled out of the picture entirely, and Thor leaned forward, his massive form filling the screen. "It is possible the source is a piece of the Bifrost from when it was shattered. If so, it is capable of enormous energy. It is also capable of enormous destruction. Use caution, my friends, and we will be there when we are able," he said gravely.
"The roads are solid ice and there is no place to land a Quinjet where we are," Clint warned. "Walking is a hazard at this point, so don't try anything stupid like landing a bright red and gold hockey puck to slip and slide around the place."
Tony pushed himself back into view, ducking under Thor's arm to do so. "There's a peak of horribleness in about a six-hundred meter radius around you, then there's a ring of it sucking slightly less, then it's trash again until it tapers out around a place called, I kid you not, 'Castle Danger' just outside of Duluth. We might have a window of getting in," he told them.
Clint shook his head. "We're finishing up a three day blizzard with an ice storm here. The snow's above my knees where it's not shoveled, and ain't no shoveling going to happen with this ice. Let us finish the job and get the tech and place it in a nice little box where it will hopefully not trigger yet another storm, and then we'll invite you up for cleanup and s'mores, 'kay?"
"Damn it, Barton, this isn't a laughing matter!" Tony snapped.
"No, it's not," Clint agreed. "But, for now, you're stuck out there and we're stuck in here with a damn good lead and the resources to use it. Let us do our job before we lose the lead, our marks, and possibly the goods by you blowing our cover with your arrival." He hung up before Tony could respond, but figured it really didn't matter anyway. If Stark could locate them within a two mile range based on his fancy readings, they were screwed. He gave themselves about two hours to find the tech and lock it away before the rest of the team gave in and headed their way. Given the travel time, they still had a bit of an extra cushion but not much, especially not if Thor decided to take matters into his own hands because he got bored.
He called updates to Natasha after he heard the water shut off, still online looking for an answer from SHIELD, and then possibly screamed in an entirely undignified way when she snuck up behind him and placed her ice cold hands on his neck. "The fuck, Tasha?" he asked, grabbing the blanket in defense of his exposed skin.
She had a lot more skin exposed, and he swore some even had a slight blue hue to it. She ignored that, and ignored him, and calmly pulled on about three more layers than she normally would have as she advised, "It would appear the water heater has not yet had time to reset."
He peeled off two of the layers so that she would not eventually overheat and set her in front of the space heater that was cranked up as far as he dared on the delicate circuits. He then stole one of the decent tea bags from her stash and made her a fresh cup to sip from while he updated her to Stark's recent adventures in privacy invasion. She seemed less than surprised and took from it the same thing he did, which was that they needed to step up their timeline before it was destroyed completely.
She avoided any pretense of waiting on SHIELD and called Hill directly. Maria was able to confirm that "Bret" had been seen in the company of those on active watch lists, but that he himself had an extremely limited record and so they were digging deeper. She also seemed to suspect that the waiting game was over and both wished them good hunting and reminded them that they would prefer the tech as-is for study if at all possible.
They went to the main lodge to check on the others, the precipitation now next to nothing but the drastic drop in temperature making the air itself burn their lungs with ice. Now that they knew to look for it, Clint saw the rough circle of white and gray centered above their little refuge, and a ring of the clearer pale blue slightly farther out. He didn't exactly hate Stark for being right, but it did serve as a reminder that the guy both knew what he was doing and had access to things he shouldn't. Or, in other words, was probably working on skates or some shit for the suit so that he could land and be his usual annoying yet helpful self.
Natasha returned from a feigned trip to the ladies' room with what accounted for a frown for her. It was bad news because of course it had to be. Bret and Carl, or whatever their real names were, were gone. There was also signs of a third and as of yet unknown person with them if the sleeping arrangements and gear were to be believed. Most of that gear was still there though, or at least the basic clothing and toiletries part of it, which could mean that they were out scouting for their escape before they made their break for it. It could also mean that they thought such things as disposable and not worth their while, but he was trying at being an optimist solely because it served counterpoint to Natasha's knowing pessimism.
She reported an increased scent of ozone as well as a lingering electric charge, enough to create static discharge on metal surfaces. They knew the smugglers were dumb to mess with alien tech in the first place, but they had thought them smart enough to not actively activate it. Both were willing to bet one of the three poked it with a stick, or did the scientific equivalent of it, possibly out of boredom at being confined and possibly because he or she failed at learning the scientific method in sixth grade.
The creek that wound down to the lake was was far too narrow and far too shallow to use as a launch point, but there was a small river a relatively short walk away. Still not the most ideal, and large sections were frozen over with quick rapids beneath the ice making it less than stable, but the solid snow along the roadside in that direction was scuffed and broken in places, keying it as a good place to start despite the nearness of the still sparking lines. The snowshoe path the lodge attempted to maintain would have made more sense but, considering there was a decent incline to get there and it was possible any transport was hidden directly off the lake, they stuck to the obvious for now.
He grabbed his bow and Tasha grabbed a lot more than that and they tried to sneak past the cafe to the river, but Ben stopped them with a call of, "You're not foolish enough to wander out in this, are you? I thought you brighter than that."
"If I had my way, we'd be inside by by the fire sipping on some more of that cider," Clint assured him. "We're just foolish enough to try to stop someone even dumber than us."
"You some sort of military?" he asked, eying their fairly decent gear.
"Once upon a time," Clint replied, not liking the delay or the attention, but knowing Ben was good people. "Now we're just trying to save a couple of idiots from natural selection."
Ben barked out a laugh at that and promised that there'd be cider ready and waiting for them upon their return. Clint knew they were being watched though, the only thing to see aside from white, green and brown topped with white, and blue-tinged white for miles. He kept his gait as light and steady and even as he could given the terrain, sighing internally in relief when they rounded a curve and out of sight.
His earlier suspicions proved correct and the river was not exactly in excellent shape either. There was no clear path to it, and the ice clung like petrified jelly fish to the chunks of stone that lined the banks. There were broken shards here and there though, skipped across the hardened surface and stabbed into the top layers of snow, and fairly obvious indents from both boots and what looked to be some unlucky soul's ass. In other words, his tracking skills were not exactly needed.
"Stay here or follow them?" he asked.
"If their goal is Canada through Superior, they will have to come back down," Natasha pointed out. "There's no sign of durable hiking equipment, so I doubt they went or will go far."
He eyed the height of the river, and the size of the bridge that overlaid it before it emptied out into the lake. "How the hell do they expect a boat to get through that?"
She smirked. "We already know they're not bright. Probably a smaller craft or even a couple of kayaks with the intent to meet up with something bigger for the main trek." There was a layer of ice surrounding the shoreline, but it was thinner at the mouth of the river, and it was entirely possible it could be broken to allow passage.
It was logical, which is why he immediately questioned if the men in question would go for it. He then remembered that there were multiple people involved, likely an entire organization of miscreants, and figured someone somewhere along the line probably knew how to plan, at least enough to come up with a rough blueprint of stupidity for the lackeys to follow. However, whoever thought up this latest scheme was totally unprepared for pesky little things like the northern hemisphere in winter and the fact that cold water turns solid and is not exactly great for sailing in.
They found a place sort of out of the way where they could see the bit of river right before the bridge and through to the other side. He estimated that they waited approximately twenty-two minutes, shivering and internally bitching the whole time, before they received their first signal that something was going down.
The word "signal" made it seem much more covert than it actually was. There was bickering, harsh and barely hushed, a trio of voices that alternately complained about each other and the situation as a whole and grunted directions to go left, no the other left, and not to break anything as it was worth more than they themselves were at this point.
"Do you even know how to operate that thing?" one of the voices asked. It was most definitely Bret from the lodge.
"Of course I do! Why do you think I'm even here?" a second voice replied. He didn't recognize that one, and the only accent he could identify was roughly Rhode Island-esque.
"To guide us to our frozen deaths?" a third and hopefully final voice sounded. This one was clearly stuffed up and hoarse from what was probably a decent cold. He figured they had finally found the illusive Carl who was possibly of the los.
Natasha looked like she wanted to bang her head against something solid like a nearby tree and he was tempted to join her. The men had no idea how much their voices echoed and carried off of the walls of rock. Given their lack of general sense so far, it was a wonder that they even managed to find the tech and survive long enough to make the smuggling attempt.
When they came into view, Clint was honestly mildly surprised that it was not a standard kayak that they were dragging in their wake. It was about the size, but it was higher tech and, based upon the design, possibly submersible. It was also far too light to break the ice on its own without help.
He reevaluated his previous assumptions and determined that the two not-brothers were probably to stay behind to keep their cover while Unknown made the trip with the tech to their checkpoint. He felt no need to explain the eval to Nat as she, unlike them, was not stupid. He was tempted to split up so that one of them could corral the two staying behind while the other took out the traveler, but figured they were being so nice and kind and sticking close enough together to be easily caught that it would be a shame to make a waste of it. Besides, given their apparent hate of all things winter-related, it wasn't like they would run off to hide in the woods versus go back to the nice warm lodge, so they had a fair idea of where to find them if they eventually focused on the one instead of the two as long as they were subtle.
Subtle went out the window the men triggered something that made the ground shake and created thick cracks along the frozen snow and ice. It was centered on or possibly in the river itself, the relatively thin layer of ice shattering to reveal the swiftly moving water below.
"They're going to start an avalanche," Natasha sighed.
Clint raised an eyebrow. "Can you have avalanches in Minnesota?" he asked. He'd seen avalanches, big ones, up close and personal. They had always been on mountainsides and had miles above and below to really get the death rolling.
Natasha kept her hands close but still gestured to the surrounding landscape. "Lutsen is a skiing community for a reason. It might not be mountains like you're used to, but there's elevation enough to do damage."
He looked closer now and noted the hilly terrain that tapered off swiftly right before the shoreline. There was definitely some decent height and some sharp-sided rockface that was currently teetering with far too much extra frozen weight. If it came down, most of it would hit the water, but it would have to get past the highway, not to mention possibly the very lodge they were staying at, first. "Awesome," he said with less than enthusiasm. He moved to stand and asked, "Shall we?"
She grabbed him by the bottom of his coat before he could reveal himself though, and tugged him back down. He was going to ask why, but a much larger version of the tiny submersible was breaking the surface just below the bridge. Still small and not the size you'd take out to sea, but large enough for three grown men and an alien artifact to fit into. The first one was either back up or how they originally intended to get out to the larger sub via the river. Leaving it behind would have been far more of a tell than two hapless vacationers going out for a walk in the woods and never making it back to the lodge, especially since the area would have been searched once Thing One and Thing Two were reported missing.
"Now we shall," Natasha smiled, weapons already in hand as she rose with barely a sound.
The trio were still bickering, and he would have called them The Stooges but that would have been an insult to Moe and the gang. Carl was complaining about digging the first sub out and that Bret had better attach it correctly and not undo all of his hard work. Unknown was countering with the fact he had carried "the artifact" the entire time. Bret was telling them both to shut up so that he could concentrate on both attaching the two and possibly still figuring out how to get into the one.
None of them knew what hit them.
It was scarily easy to take them down, even hampered by the ice. Apparently they had less than combat training, or said training didn't involve multiple types of terrain, because Bret ended up on his ass during an escape attempt and Carl slipped and cracked his head after some decent hand to hand with Nat. It was Unknown that caused the most problems: he made a run for the larger of the subs and nearly took a header directly into the water. The case he had been carrying flew from his hands, skimmed across the top of the still unopened sub, and looked as though it was going to end up with the aged shipwrecks in the silt and stone.
Clint did not want to think of what a device that could cause blizzards and ice storms would do to the greatest of the Great Lakes, and so he dove for it. The surface broke neatly and his body was nearly immediately surrounded by the tingling pain of impending hypothermia.
The case was caught in a current and he knew there was no way he could catch it, not with the weight of his gear and the sluggishness of protesting muscles to fight against. He did the only thing he could think of instead, and keyed what he hoped was the right sequence on his quiver, drew an arrow, and really hoped he was not about to blow up an alien energy source as he used damn near all of his willpower to make the shot.
A net bloomed up and around the case, still tethered to his bow, and he yanked it closer to him even as he tried to fight the current and break the surface. His first breath felt as though it froze his very lungs, and his next breath was knocked right out of him as something grabbed a hold of him and dragged him not to the nearby shoreline, but up into the sky above it.
It took him a stupidly long time to realize what held him was shiny and red and gold, and that realization was helped by the familiarity of Stark's voice as he said, "So it turns out the Quinjets are supersonic, as am I."
Tony set him down near where Cap had already jumped out to help Natasha round up the idiots while the jet landed half on the highway and half on a wayside rest near the bridge. It sank slightly in the unplowed snow, as did the rear hatch when it lowered to spit out a figure that was barely recognizable as Bruce behind the bulky layers that he wore. Banner made his way over to where Clint now sat shivering and gasping with the help of a couple of SHIELD agents and Thor and then immediately started to strip off the soaked layers, multiple thermal blankets at the ready.
Clint watched though the newly acquired crowd as Stark landed on the ramp and the suit began to unfold around him, yet another agent with a parka and boots standing by. He was distracted when his bare skin hit the frigid air and protested, "Hey, frostbite is not on the menu today, boys and girls."
Natasha took his bow while Thor took the net-wrapped case, and she chided, "You should have thought of that before going swimming in Superior in February without a wetsuit."
"Got the case," he countered, and wished his teeth didn't chatter quite so much.
Thor flicked the reinforced polymer of the net away like cobwebs and snapped open the case to reveal a glowing misshapen block of light. "Aye, you did, my friend," he agreed. He then flipped the block in his massive hand and whispered something Clint couldn't quite hear and probably wouldn't have understood anyway before the glow faded to nearly nothing. By the time he was done, it looked like a shank of quartz and nothing more, but the circle of gray above them was finally dispersing to reveal the faintest hint of sun for the first time in days.
"Let's get you to the Quinjet so you can strip the rest of the way in relative privacy," Bruce suggested.
"Like that's ever stopped him," Tasha huffed. She helped him stand though, and didn't even comment on the way his legs both locked and shook slightly with the action. She even helped him across the road with Bruce, leaning against him when he would have slipped on what he thought was solid ice and asphalt and was instead a snow covered rut.
Stripped, dried, and rewrapped in spare gear, he felt like he might actually be able to feel his toes again some time in the next month. An agent poured him coffee, and another gave him oversized mittens that were bulky and would in no way allow him to use his bow, but had the added benefit of having been warmed, either electronically or with the chem packs on the jet. He dictated a rough report with the promise of more detail in the final draft, and then used the excuse that they needed to transport the prisoners and that their personal gear was still back at the lodge to escape before they flew him home and possibly into the waiting arms of Medical.
Tony was all over the submersibles, but Bruce and Steve walked them back to their cabin while Thor stood guard over the tech/artifact/whatever they wanted to call it. Ben and Mary had come down to see what the ruckus was about, and a couple of the vacationers dared to venture forth, but most stuck to the safety of the lodge and the surrounding, non-electrified areas. The SHIELD agents were seeing to that as well, and he suspected the lines would be fixed and non-generator power restored by morning, possibly at the price of several non-disclosure agreements.
Ben promised him that drink and Mary promised to make Ben behave and, finally, they were back at the cabin where he could give up the pretense of being the intimidating agent and collapse face first against the mattress.
Both Steve and Bruce were appreciative of the classic construction of the place in ways Tony never would be. Steve marveled that the old 1930's design still held true while he built a fire in the fireplace, commenting on everything from the little vents set in the stone to the wattle and daub. Clint gave up on responding, just as he gave up on fighting Nat and Bruce when they stripped him of the very gear they had just gotten him into. They left him in nothing more than the long underwear he had stolen and one of the impossibly thin thermal wraps Bruce had taken from the jet and piled every blanket in the place on top of him.
He listened while Natasha told Bruce about the storm and thought he heard the open and close of the door but was more focused on staying perfectly still in the warm little cocoon they had made for him, and possibly drifting off to sleep. The door squeaked open again an indeterminate time later, and the small structure was filled with the smells of roasted meat and something oddly bread-like.
It turned out that Steve had grabbed food for them all from the cafe, as well as a large mug of something "a kind man named Ben" insisted was for Clint. Natasha sniffed it and then poured half into a mug of her own, using the original container to lure Clint out of his warm haven to eat and drink and to stop internally complaining about the cold and deal with the fact the mission was over and all was well with the world. Or at least as well as could be expected.
Later that night, after Bruce and Steve snagged an "old-fashioned" cabin of their own and Thor and Tony went back to Manhattan to analyze and protect the various tech, Tasha banked the fire and slid in beside him under the covers. The tiny resort was swarming with agents who had been assigned tasks that varied from going through the trio of idiots' belongings to fixing the generators and possibly even the broken pipes. Every room and every working cabin was booked. There was the scrape of plows on the highway outside, and of shovels on the multitude of pathways that circled the cabins. The place was packed, and Mary had been torn between elation at the extra business and worry that they would run out of food before they would run out of guests.
Natasha poked him in the shoulder and he turned to face her in the low light from the single bulb left on in their own private hideaway. "Hey," she said. She readjusted herself so that she lay on his shoulder, both tucked securely under the only slightly lessened pile of blankets.
"Hey yourself," he retorted with a smile.
"Mission's over, tech recovered, day is saved," she ticked off against his arm, finger by finger.
"And we caught the bad guys," he pointed out, because that didn't always happen.
"We did," she agreed with a nod. Her hair tickled his chin and it was a familiar comfort. Also familiar was the way her hand slid up his arm to his shoulder as she asked, "Still cold?"
Her body pressed up against him just so and his lips quirked into a smile. "A little," he admitted.
His hand lay against her back now, feeling the dip and curve of her spine as she stretched slightly, tilting her chin up closer to his own. "I know a great way to warm up," she offered, all feigned innocence and radiating humor.
He laughed at her game and dipped his head slightly, giving her an out if she changed her mind. He had a feeling she wouldn't when her legs twined with his own and she closed the final distance, the kiss sweet and almost chaste in ways he knew they soon would not be.
Later, when cool air brushed across his overheated skin in mirror to her fingertips, he spared a thought that, maybe, the cold wasn't so bad after all.
End.
End Note: The lodge in question is loosely based off of Cascade Lodge near Lutsen, Minnesota.
Feedback is always welcomed.