Chapter 1

"Might wanna hurry up with that red carpet," Clint said through the comm in Natasha's ear. His voice carried loud and clear over the rumble of the rapids that broke free from the ice-covered river just beyond the bridge. "Got a visual. ETA thirty seconds."

"Copy that." She dragged the spike strip behind her across both lanes, her breath white and jagged in the glare of her flashlight. Thirty seconds was plenty for what she needed to do.

She scanned the direction from which their target would appear as she pulled the strip another few feet. They were miles away from the nearest house, miles away from anything, and with Clint having killed the lights above the bridge the night before, the area was steeped in heavy 2 a.m. darkness. She couldn't see the headlights of the car yet, but Clint had a better vantage point. He was out there on the other side of the river, black-clad and hidden beyond the dense tree line, ready to cut off any retreat routes as soon as their target had passed him on its way to the bridge.

She dropped the spike strip on the ground. The snow was cement-hard, packed solid by traffic as he kneeled down. Using her teeth she pulled her glove off and armed the spike strip with a push of a button. A small LED gave two quick blue flashes, telling her it was armed and ready for use. The remote control in her pocket would allow her to deploy the spikes from a distance, at the moment of her choosing. She got back up and jogged towards the end of the bridge, the opposite one from Clint.

She slipped off to the side, not bothering trying to hide her tracks; the clumpy snow and ice left behind by plow trucks would mask her footprints. Behind the plow-bank the snow was undisturbed and knee-deep, and she crouched down next to the bridge post. In this position she was completely hidden from view. Unfortunately it also meant she had no sightlines, but that didn't bother her much. She would rely on her ears and on Clint until it was time to get up close and personal.

"In position," she reported.

The sound of the approaching vehicle told her their target had chosen the BMW X5 over the Jaguar tonight. It meant the jammer they had mounted earlier would earn its keep, because the SUV had something the Jaguar didn't - an emergency assistance function. It wouldn't help Fuller tonight; the thick blanket of electrical interference that wrapped around the bridge would make sure no automatically triggered call with crash data and information about the car's location would go out.

She turned off the flashlight. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, for the dark contours of her surroundings to become visible again. As she waited she tilted her head back and looked up, taking a few seconds to center herself further. A few high-altitude clouds hung above, painted silver by the crescent moon. Out here no urban light pollution obscured the stars, and as her eyes adjusted further a million little specks of light emerged in the blackness. The weather had cleared up during the early evening and the temperature had plummeted. By midnight it had dipped into the upper teens, and she spared a fleeting thought of gratitude for her warm winter getup.

The engine noise grew louder. She unzipped her jacket and retrieved the remote control, then pulled her gun from the holster. The plan was to box them in. She would stay in front of the car, taking out the driver to make sure they didn't try to escape on the rims. Clint would come up from behind, cutting off any retreat routes.

"He better not have the kid in the car this time," Clint said, his breath catching on a soft grunt, like he was heaving himself up somewhere. He, too, was getting into a final position. "The asshole really needs to learn to respect the custody agreement. It's Mommy's weekend."

After he had aborted the mission two days ago when he'd spotted the child in the car just seconds before the hit was to go down, they'd had to re-plan the whole thing. She had proposed they use an IED to take the car out on the bridge. Clint had vetoed that right off the bat, no room for discussion. Intelligence had been wrong once, it might be wrong again.

"He's leaving the country in six hours," she reminded him as she checked the magazine.

The pause was almost too short to notice. "I know."

"We can't afford to wait for another opportunity."

"I know."

Clint didn't like the prospect that the child might be in the car this time, too, but Natasha was satisfied with what she heard in his tone. He'd see the job through. But beneath the grim determination she also heard the not yet fully formed anger over what he might have to do. He might have to kill a six-year-old girl's father in front of her eyes. Natasha wasn't heartless; she would always choose another way if there was one. But sometimes there simply wasn't one, and the good that would come from stopping Fuller from selling the bioengineered virus he had developed to some very unscrupulous buyers would vastly outweigh the trauma to this one child. It was a grim equation, one she knew Clint grudgingly accepted as part of the job, but never quite resolved within himself.

Long, sharp shadows suddenly moved across the top of the snow bank next to her, driven into flight by the approaching car's headlights.

"Five," Clint said. "Four."

She placed her finger on the button. He would let her know exactly when to deploy the stinger.

"Three. Two. One. Go."

She pressed the button. Over the sound of the high-performance engine. The solid 'chink' was followed by a dull thump and the hard, scratchy sound of studded tires locking up, sliding across the wintery road. She put the trigger back in her pocket to the sound of metal, glass, and composite polymers impacting the guard rail. More skidding, another crunching impact, then all sounds of motion abruptly stopped.

"Beautiful," Clint said in her ear.

She still couldn't see the car from her position, but the red wash of the SUV's rear lights told her it must have spun and was now pointing in the opposite direction. When she cautiously peeked out, she saw she was right. The combination of shredded tires and slamming on the brakes had made the driver lose control. Judging from the debris that lay scattered across the lanes, the massive black SUV had bounced off the barriers on both sides of the road before coming to a stop at an acute angle against the right guard rail. The engine had cut out and all that was heard was the sound of violent, rushing water below. A tendril of steam rose from under the hood.

"How many in the car?" she asked quietly.

"Unknown. I didn't get a clear visual when they passed, the windows in the back are too heavily tinted. What I can tell you is you've got two up front."

A moment later the hard, flat 'thwap' of a bullet going through the laminated windshield was heard. Clint was using a silencer in a bid to keep the noise to a minimum. Despite the distance to the nearest house, it never hurt to be discreet. A moment later the horn started blaring, the sound sharp and loud in the silence of night. The driver must have slumped over the steering wheel. She grimaced at the noise.

"Correction," Clint said. "That's one up front now, hiding in the passenger footwell."

"Fuller?"

"Gato. The bastard refuses to stick his head out, so I have no shot. You're gonna have to deal with him."

"I got him." Natasha had seen Constantin Gato's rap sheet. He wasn't their primary target, but she wouldn't lose any sleep over killing him.

Inside the car, the immediate shock of the crash must have evaporated, because suddenly frantic shouting was heard.

"Heads up. Movement in the car," Clint said.

Natasha got to her feet; it was time to get this done. She leaned out from behind her cover and fired over the snow bank. Both of the SUV's tail lights went out, leaving the area behind it in darkness. All she needed to do now was wait until Clint got their attention, then she'd use the cover of dark to get up close and personal. As she ducked back into cover, she caught a glimpse of one of the SUV's headlights exploding, sending a glittering shower of plastic and metal fragments into the air. The other light meet the same fate and the bridge fell into darkness again.

"I'm coming in on the left," Clint said. "Your left. Watch the crossfire, please."

She started creeping down the outside of the bridge towards the abutment. "Jesus. You're still upset about that?" She didn't have to keep her voice down with the horn still going. "I said I was sorry. And besides, it wasn't even close."

"The hole two inches from my ear says otherwise."

"Exactly, it was two inches. That's not close."

"Right," Clint huffed. "Not close."

She followed the slope down the outside of the bridge. Clint would go high, scaling the metal structure of the bridge. She would go low and make use of the outside of the railing to get close. She holstered her gun and reached overhead to grip the massive horizontal girder that ran under the bridge. The freezing metal offered a good grip, so she pulled herself up by her arms before swinging her leg sideways, hooking it around the girder. "Are you ever going to let it go?"

"No. Never. It'll be on my headstone. Here lies the amazing Hawkeye. Who was almost shot dead by his partner."

The exchange was relaxed, but it was an auto-pilot thing for both of them, their full attention was on the job at hand. "If you'd stayed where you were supposed to," she grunted as climbed all the way up onto the metal beam, "it wouldn't have been an issue."

"Nice," Clint drawled. "Blame the guy who almost got smoked by friendly fire."

The metal was wide and solid, so balancing on it wasn't an issue, but it was icy and she had only taken a few steps when her boot slipped sharply. She managed to stay on her feet by the thinnest of margins.

"Widow?" The light tone in Clint's voice was suddenly gone. "You okay?"

She scowled at herself when she realized she must have made some small noise under her breath. Careless. Both the noise and the close call. She glanced down at the darkness behind her. It wasn't a huge drop; fifteen feet to water level according to the mechanical drawings, but it was more than enough to cause serious injuries. Especially when what she would be landing on if she fell wasn't water - which would be painful enough - but ice. She glared at the girder and scuffed her boot lightly over the surface, testing the grip. It wasn't great, but she could handle it. Clint wasn't the only one proficient in scaling precarious structures.

She started inching forward again. "I'm fine. Approaching the target from below. What's your position?"

"Reaching the bridge now."

She carefully made her way along the underside of the bridge. When she estimated she was where she wanted to be, she climbed up past the overhang and up to road level again. She got herself situated on the outside of the bridge railing, crouched down on the narrow ledge with one arm wrapped around a rail post. Peering through an opening she saw the rear of the SUV. And beyond it, she saw movement at the far side of the bridge. The moonlight was just enough for her to see Clint climb up on the railing. He started making his way soundlessly towards the car, moving from one bridge support member to the next, stopping a few seconds behind each before moving again.

"You in position?" Clint asked.

"Waiting for you. As usual."

She pulled herself up from her crouch and slipped over the outer railing at the rear of the car. She was making her way over the lower crash barrier when everything went to hell. She heard the car door open and a moment later someone fired from within the car, the muzzle flash bright in the darkness. Clint twisted sharply, backtracking to find cover behind the girder he'd just passed, but the move must have been just a little too sudden on the icy metal, because halfway through the turn he staggered and his arms shot out, grabbing desperately for a hold that wasn't there.

Then he was gone.

Natasha fired her gun into the back of the car, aiming at the rear door where the shooter must have been located. Her instinct told her to keep firing, to spray the rest of the backseat with bullets and do as much damage as possible, but there was still the small risk of a child being in there, and she restrained herself at the last moment. She crouched down, using the bulky SUV as cover between herself and the guns inside it.

"Hawkeye? Status?" He heart pounded against her ribs.

No answer.

She wrenched one of the small shock grenades from her pocket. Dammit. She should have warned him, should have told him the metal was icy. She pulled the grenade pin and started counting silently. Her eyes cut back to the railing where Clint had slipped and lost his footing. Come on, Barton. She willed him to climb back up, pissed off and embarrassed, but she saw nothing, just the naked skeleton of the bridge and the blackness behind it. Every cell in her wanted to drop the job at hand and race to the railing, but the risk of taking a bullet to the back if she did was too high. She had to secure the SUV before she could go to him.

She lobbed the grenade across the roof of the car. She faintly heard it bouncing off the hood over the sound of the horn. She got her feet under herself, staying low. She closed her eyes to keep the phosphor flash from messing up her night vision. A moment later the grenade exploded. She snapped her eyes open and took off in a sprint towards the back of the car. She took a running leap up on the rear bumper, using it as a stepping stone to get on top of the SUV. Her boots thudded against the roof as she crossed it in two long steps.

Gato was the one in Fuller's regular entourage who posed the greatest danger, so she needed to take him out first. She slid to her knees without slowing down and fired through roof. Momentum carried her forward over the edge onto the windshield, and she twisted as she slid down the glass, coming face to face with the interior of the car. Just as Clint had reported, Gato had taken cover in the footwell, but he wasn't a threat any longer; her bullets had found their mark. He was slumped over the seat, face down, either dead or gravely injured. With another two rapid rounds through the windshield Natasha made sure she knew which one it was.

She shoved away from the cracked windshield and rolled off the hood, coming to a low crouch in front of the radiator. "Hawkeye?" she tried again. "Do you copy?"

Still no answer.

She had to get to him fast, now, immediately, yesterday, but she still had the people in the back of the SUV to deal with. She didn't know how many they were, if it was just Fuller or more of his security team. Or if his daughter was with him. She quickly went through the past seconds in her head. She had fired three bullets at the shooter, five at Gato, so she still had eleven in the magazine. She was usually much more economic with her fire, but without any visual cues and with zero time for refinement she had gone in guns blazing. Literally. She needed to get to Clint fast.

She crab-walked along the front of the car, pausing at the shot-out headlight on the driver's side. She raised her gun and took a quick look around the corner down the length of the car. Clear. She crept forward. The side mirror had broken off in the crash and now hung down the side of the door, attached only by electrical wires. She wrenched it off and tapped it against the icy ground to dislodge the broken pieces of mirror that clung to the frame. She grabbed the largest piece of mirror, then braced her boot against the tire behind her. On the silent count of three she kicked off, propelling herself into a roll towards the rear of the car. No bullets came tearing through the car door as she dived past it, and she came to a stop by the rear tire. She took two deep, centering breaths before twisting and slamming the butt of her gun into the rear door window. A frightened shriek was heard as the tempered glass disintegrated into a thousand small, blunt shards. The sound had been the panicked yelp of an adult male. Not a child.

She wiped the mirror against her leg to get rid of the snow, then reached up and angled it to get a glimpse of the backseat, but it was too dark to see anything. She reached for the door handle and pulled the door open a crack. The interior dome light came on and Natasha used the mirror to take in scene. Fuller was on the floor, wedged behind the front passenger seat and trying to escape through the opposite door, but the car was too close to the barrier for anyone to get out that way. His fingers were wrapped in a white-knuckle grip around his phone, and eyes wide and terrified as he looked at her over his shoulder. Next to him was a child's booster seat. Empty. No child in the car. No one else, either, and that was all she needed to know.

She shoved to her feet and fired through the broken rear window, not even waiting until Fuller slumped over before moving to the driver's door and wrenching it open. She wrestled the driver off the steering wheel and the blaring horn cut off. Then she was flat out running.

She reached the spot where Clint had disappeared, skidding the last few feet and ending up half-hanging over the side rail as she scanned the darkness below the bridge. She called his name, clinging to the hope that he somehow had managed to catch himself and was hanging onto something on the outside, that his ear piece had been knocked out and that's why he wasn't answering.

But he wasn't hanging on. Her stomach tightened sickly when her eyes found the unmoving shape on the dark ice directly below her. She shoved away from the railing and ran towards the end of the bridge. Her boots slipped on the snow and ice as she took the turn too fast. She swore sharply, somehow managing to stay mostly upright. Using hands and knees and feet, she scrambled up and over the snow bank. The slope towards the river was perilously steep, and as she skidded down she grabbed for shrubbery and trees to stay on her feet. She tried to keep the rising worry at bay. Clint knew better than most how to minimize the damage of a fall, how to land and roll, but there had been nothing controlled about the way he'd gone over the edge.

The river bank finally gave way to the river and she pushed through the last of the dense, snow-covered shrubbery. The bridge had been built where the water went from wide and deep to narrow and significantly shallower, resulting in the raging whitewater rapid that emerged from the ice no more than a few feet downstream. Luckily Clint had gone over the edge on the upstream side, but he lay uncomfortably close to the boundary region between the dark ice and the even darker water.

Clint had been almost halfway across the bridge when he'd slipped and fallen. She eyed the distance between them, then started making her way towards him as fast as she dared. It was slow going, because every few steps she stopped and tapped her boot lightly on the ice in front of her, checking the strength. In this climate and at this time of year, a more slow-flowing body of water would be solidly iced over, but even before this river transformed into a turbulent rapid it ran fast, so she couldn't trust the integrity of the ice.

She was halfway when a low, wavering groan, barely rising over the rumble of the rapid, made her look up. Clint was still in the same position, still curled up on his side, facing away from her, but the sound had definitely come from him.

"Clint?"

This time she got an answer in the form of another wordless groan.

"Hang on. Just hang on. I'm coming."

She started moving faster, but just a few steps later she felt a sudden change in the ice, a fractional give under her boots, and she froze as it flexed minutely under her. A low, crunching sound from up ahead made her attention snap back to Clint. He shifted and raised his head an inch. The ice around him gave a sound of warning.

"No, stop," she told him. "Don't move." She carefully got down on her front to distribute her weight more evenly across the ice, then started dragging herself forward. As she crawled she kept her eyes on him. A strange sheen rippled in the darkness around him. Water on the ice, she realized. It must have fractured when he hit. It was a miracle he hadn't gone straight through. "Listen to me. You need to stay absolutely still. You hear?" The ice grew softer and more porous under her the further she got. "I'm not sure how close I can get, but I'm going to—"

With a groan Clint rolled slowly from his side to his front and braced his forearms on the ice. He made a sound of pain as he lifted his upper body a fraction. There was something clumsy and dazed about his movements, but Natasha still felt half a second of relief that he was in good enough shape to move. It vanished abruptly when he started pushing himself up.

"No! Clint, stop! Don't. Move!"

He paused at the sound of her sharp call, but the words must not have registered, because he mumbled something and resumed his sluggish attempt to get to his hands and knees.

"Lie down," she urged, desperate to get through to him. "Lie down. The ice won't hold, it will—"

With a sharp crack the ice collapsed, and Clint dropped into the water with a splash, his yelp abruptly cut off as he disappeared under the black surface. He reappeared a moment later, gasping and flailing, grabbing desperately for the crumbling ice edge. It took everything Natasha had to not throw caution to the wind and just get to him and pull him out, but one of them in the freezing water was bad enough, both of them would be a death sentence, so she rolled to her back, pulled the zipper down and tried to get her jacket off as quickly as possible.

"Hold on," she called over her shoulder as she worked.

She could hear him trying to say something, but he was gasping uncontrollably, hyperventilating from the shock of going into the freezing water. She swore as her uncooperative jacket wouldn't come off fast enough. She finally managed to get out of it and rolled back to her stomach just in time to watch him try to heave himself up out of the water. But the weakened edge wouldn't support his weight and the ice broke under him, dropping him into the freezing water again. He resurfaced and launched himself at the broken rim of the ice, coughing and wheezing, with a bright look of panic in his eyes. He reached his arms across the ice, stretching as far as he could. "Fuck," he gasped, his fingers scratching across the water covered surface, searching for a better grip. "The current," he managed to get out. "The current almost dragged me under."

She pulled herself a little closer, just enough for the jacket to reach when she slid it across the ice like a makeshift rope. The sleeve landed just to the side of him. "Take it."

He didn't need much encourangent and grabbed on with both hands. He started pulling himself out of the freezing water, and Natasha swore as she started sliding towards him and the black hole in the ice. She twisted, scrabbling across the surface for something to grab, for something to stop her from joining him in the water, but she found nothing. Clint must have seen what was happening, because he abruptly let go and sank back into the water. She shimmied backwards on her stomach, away from the edge. Clint folded his arm in front of him and put his head down. "Fuck," he panted against his arm, his jagged breath rising in white puffs around his head.

She repositioned the sleeve. They had to try again, because thirty-four degree water was merciless, and it was a matter of minutes before he would be too compromised to aide in his own rescue. "Again," she urged.

He shook his head jerkily without lifting it. "I'll pull you down."

"You have to get out of the water. Now. And this is the way."

He shook his head again, then lifted it and squinted at her, blinking water from his eyes. "Rope," he said. His teeth had started to chatter. "There's a rope in the car."

Yes, there was a rope in their car. But it was parked half a mile away, hidden from view on an old logging road. She couldn't leave him here; the thought of coming back to a dark hole in the ice with him nowhere to be seen was too horrible. Especially when they had a perfectly good alternative right here. She repositioned the jacket next to him. "Try again."

He ignored her and started to pull himself up on his own again. She grit her teeth in frustration, but pushed herself backward a foot, more to placate him than anything.

"Sideways," she told him. "Go at it sideways."

He kicked his legs to get himself a little more horizontal and tried to lift his leg onto the edge, but even this proved too much for the compromised ice. He made a desperate sound as it broke again. He managed to keep his head above the water this time, but now that she was looking for it, she saw how the current tugged at him, tried to twist him in under the ice.

Then it suddenly hit her. "Your knife! Use your knife to drag yourself out."

He clung to the edge. Water glittered in the moonlight as it dripped from him. "Yeah," he stuttered, his voice breathless in a way that told her he still couldn't quite control his breathing. "Yeah. That'll work." He grabbed the sleeve without being told. With a quick twist of his wrist he looped it around his hand. He took two deep, shuddering breaths before he twisted and reached down into the fast-flowing, black water for the knife strapped to his ankle.

He didn't pull on the jacket, he just held on, and this time Natasha didn't slide forward, but she could feel how close she was to the point where the fickle seesaw between friction and force would tip over in the wrong direction.

"Don't drop it," she warned when Clint kept fumbling under the water. His fingers would already be going numb, dexterity the first casualty to the freezing cold.

Finally he wrenched his arm up in a spray of water and drove his knife into the water-sick ice in front of him. Natasha held her breath, afraid that the ice would already be too weakened, that the knife would break it up even more, but Clint had reached as far from the crumbling edge as he could and it held.

"Jesus fuck," he gasped, hanging on to the knife with both hands, head bowed. Full-body tremors were running through him now. He gave a few kicks with his legs and positioned himself in the water. With a shivery grunt he started dragging himself forward onto the ice. It flexed and dipped an inch under the water's surface. He stopped, his chest heaving. When the ice continued to hold, he pulled himself up another few inches, black water splashing around his boots. He tried to bring his leg up over the edge, but aborted the move almost immediately. "Need to get further up," he panted.

She nodded. He would have to reposition the knife to do that, so she slid the jacket towards him again. "Grab it. That way you won't slide back into the water."

He obeyed. She shifted and tried to find a position that would give her more traction against the ice, because even if he didn't actively use the jacket to get himself up this would be dicey. Once he pulled the knife from the ice, gravity and the flowing water would try to drag him back down.

Clint cautiously pulled at the makeshift tether, testing it, and Natasha braced her arms against the ice.

"Ready?" he asked hoarsely.

"Ready."

He pulled the knife from the ice and, as predicted, immediately started to slide backwards, dragging Natasha with him. But only for a second, then he stabbed the knife into the ice again, further away from the edge. He dropped the jacket, desperately clutching the hilt with both hands. He stayed here for a few seconds, then started pulling himself forward.

"Go at it sideways," she reminded him.

He tried, but it took three attempts to get his right leg out of the water and onto the ice next to him. Finally he managed and he dragged himself further up, most of him now out of the water. Natasha reached for him, stretched as far as she could. He did the same, reached a shaking hand towards hers, but he was still too far away.

"Come on, you're almost there," she encouraged. "Just a little further."

He kept moving. He did everything right, he stayed flat, he spread his weight, and he was almost there, almost close enough for Natasha to reach him when the ice suddenly groaned. His eyes widened and snapped up sharply, locking with hers. For a split second it seemed like the ice was hesitating, like it hadn't made up its mind whether to hold or break, but then it gave another a wet crunch. Clint heaved himself forward as it disintegrated under him. Natasha made a desperate grab for him, but it was still too far, he was still out of reach and the tips of his wet fingers just brushed uselessly against hers.

Then he was in the water again.

Under the water again.

And this time he didn't resurface.