If the two assassins trudging through the knee deep snow looked to be in a sorry state, it was safe to say that their moods were twice as awful. Well, at least a certain Russian was feeling less than cheery.
"For the last time, Natasha," Clint sighed, cracking through the crust of another footstep through the frozen wasteland, "this is not my fault."
He could practically hear her rolling her eyes as she shuffled along behind him. "You just had to stop for coffee, didn't you, Barton?"
"It was a good cup of coffee!"
"Well, it damn sure wasn't worth delaying our pickup."
"It's not like I asked for this blizzard to blow through."
The redhead didn't respond. So the pair kept marching along through their winter wonderland in silence… But not for long.
"I can feel you glaring, Nat," Clint shot back at her, a quick glance revealing his assessment of her facial expression to be correct. On second thought, maybe he shouldn't have looked. He'd bet good money that Romanoff could kill with her stare alone.
"Do you even know where you're going?"
"I'm just trying to find someplace we can shelter before the weather turns while we wait for extraction." He scanned the sparse landscape, looking for something, anything, his gaze only meeting a neverending stretch of snow. Wait… Squinting, the man was just barely able to make out a rocky outcropping through the flurry of falling snow.
Turning to his partner, he motioned towards his distant discovery, to which she nonchalantly shrugged in response. Nonetheless, the duo began hiking in the general direction in shared silence.
Sure enough, there was an alcove nestled in to the side of the hill. It wasn't a cave, per se, but it was somewhat sheltered from the wind, dry, and at this point Clint wasn't about to start complaining. The snowfall had picked up significantly during their walk, accompanied by a bone slicing wind.
"You're an idiot, you know," Natasha chimed as they hiked the slope to their future shelter, breaking the literally icy silence, "for wearing a sleeveless vest in Norway."
Clint shrugged in response. True, he was freezing, but a glance back at his partner showed she wasn't fairing much better. Stopping only briefly to scan the rocky nestle for any sort of danger, the two quickly stepped in to the shelter and out of the harsh blizzard.
"Barton, do you copy?" Clint startled at his earpiece suddenly crackling to life.
"What's the status, Coulson?"
"ETA about six hours, we can't get a bird down until this weather clears up. There's nothing we can do, just hold tight."
Clint silently scoffed. "Roger that, sir. Barton out."
Natasha, obviously, had heard the entire conversation, and her annoyance to the situation was evident. "We're just supposed to sit here for six hours?" She sighed, beginning to aimlessly pace around the small space. "I don't know which of you I want to strangle first."
Deciding to ignore her bitter mood, Clint poked around the cleft, managing to collect enough debris to support a fire. The tinder sparked quickly with a jump start from his lighter as the archer sank to the ground, closing his eyes and leaning against the cold stone wall with a suppressed shiver.
He didn't have to wait long until he felt Natasha's presence slide down beside him.
"So, thinking of giving up the Robin Hood stint and becoming the next Bear Grylls?"
That gave Clint a chuckle, popping one eye open to glance at his partner. She was sitting about a foot away, hugging her knees to her chest in likely a vain attempt to warm herself. Experimentally, he reached out the back of his hand to lay it against the exposed skin of her cheek.
"Jesus, Nat! You're freezing!" he would've retracted his hand, had she not leaned her head into it with a mildly content sigh.
"But you're not." She scooted herself closer to Clint, settling down where their shoulders grazed each other. But that wasn't good enough for him.
In a single, swift movement, he wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her into his lap, causing her to yelp in surprise. It never failed to amaze Clint how a woman who packed that much of a punch could still feel so small and delicate in his arms. Though he'd never say as much out loud, he wasn't a masochist.
The woman didn't protest, though, instead she settled herself back into his chest, crossing her legs to entwine with his and resting her head back against his shoulder, forehead pressed into the crook of his neck.
Taking the window of opportunity, Clint hugged her closer, feeling her smile against his skin.
"Careful, Barton," she muttered, "if it weren't this cold out here, you wouldn't get away with that."
"Good thing you love it, anyways," he retorted, planting a soft kiss on her temple. Within minutes, she had lulled off to sleep.
Sure, it was far from an ideal situation, and he was still fairly pissed at Coulson for delaying the pick up, but it was the small moments like these which Clint wished he could hold on to forever.