Okay so I am really sorry that I took so long to update. I was really busy and will probably be for the rest of the year, at least until Christmas. But I hope and semi-promised that I will finish this story by the end of the year! So, have fun with the chapter. (Also, can someone teach me how to properly write an author's note because I see some professional people doing it with the line and stuff, I just do some bold text in the beginning of the chapter)

Natasha gave herself another fifteen seconds to rest before she got up and took Kav by the legs, pulling him to the corner of the hut, right behind the door. If anyone checked on the hut they did not have to spot Kav right away. She estimated that the fight had taken about three minutes, plus the time that she spent cleaning up the mess it had been ten minutes that she was counting consciously in her head. She really had to hurry now. With her left hand she opened the door, with her right she clutched a gun that she had found on Kav's dead body. It felt heavy and unfamiliar but a weapon was her best shot at making it out of this hellhole alive. The cold hit her in an instant as the door opened and she grit her teeth as she stepped out, the snow crunching under her boots.

It took her a moment to figure out where exactly she was. The hut stood at the top of a small slope and even though there was a good foot of snow on the ground she could make out the perimeter of a path that led from the hut down through the trees. Natasha looked to her left and right, not being able to make out any branches of the path that led elsewhere; therefore she decided to go straight ahead. The cold was a nuisance but the spy forced herself to walk slow and controlled to avoid being seen by whomever Kav had employed as his bloodhounds. Once or twice she had to stop and crouch behind a tree because she thought that a branch had cracked under the weight of a shoe but there seemed to be no signs of life around her.

She advanced further down the path, passing more seemingly endless whites scenery. All of a sudden she heard a voice a couple of yards down the path and she took shelter behind the closest tree. The voice was male, deep, raspy, speaking in what sounded French. A second voice replied, also male yet much higher pitched. The voices where too far away for her to make out what exactly they said; Natasha could only make out a few bits and pieces. Even show she was fluent in French she needed to concentrate a bit to understand the language and the distance between her and the men was too far to do that. The spy edged forward a bit so that she could see from behind the tree she was hiding behind. In the distance she could make out the silhouettes of two men talking. Natasha considered hurrying up and shooting them both, but she heard something that made her hesitate.

"Yeah, he's still alive. But I'll only give him another ten minutes, tops. The water is already starting to freeze down there," one of the men said in a strong cockney accent.

The other man shook his head in disbelief. "How is he doing that? I would have said goodbye in the first fifteen minutes"

The cockney man shrugged. "I don't know man. He probably has some wicked breathing techniques. SHIELD is full of weirdoes, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a yeti doing seminars on how to survive in the cold over there."

They laughed. Then, to Natasha's surprise, they separated. The man with the cockney accent walked away from her while the other man, who she now could see wore an eye patch, approached her hiding place, unaware of the fact that he was not alone. She edged a bit closer to the path he walked along, ready to jump. As soon as he passed her, before he could notice the red on the white background, she leaped at him and flung her arms around his neck, pushing down with them just like she did with Kav and the rope. A few moments later and a body lay to her feet. She looked around, making sure that there were no other thugs of Kav around. Then she grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him away from the path into a ditch. She made no effort to hide him, but before she left him she took his jacket. It was slightly disgusting to wear the clothes of a dead man and it smelled like sweat but she knew that it was important to keep warm in this weather. Besides, Clint might need it more than the dead man or her once she found him.

Once her feet were back on the path she headed into the direction where the cockney man left his companion. Although the snowfall was heavy she could trace his steps along the path and her eyes constantly went from the ground back up to check her surroundings. She remembered the white suits that Kav's men wore when they had captured her and Clint to camouflage themselves and a shiver, not connected to the current weather, ran along her spine. What if she could not see another attack just like she had missed the first?

A loud, metallic noise like that of a hammer on an anvil distracted her thoughts. She turned into the direction of the noise and followed it, soon approaching a clearing surrounded by heaps of snow. Natasha quickly dropped to her knees, the snow cushioning her fall, and took cover behind of them. After second thoughts she pulled the hood of her jacket over her bright hair before she risked a look at what happened before her.

A group of men, she counted half a dozen, where assembled around a hole in the ground. Cracked brick framed the edge and a lid was carelessly shoved aside, exposing the interior of the hole. But to her, it looked more like a… well. Before a gasp could escape her lips her hands automatically clasped themselves over her mouth, muffling the noise she made. The men apparently did not hear her. One, who wore a pair of sunglasses, bent down over the hole, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Hey!" he scoffed down the hole.

There was no reply.

"Hey!" he shouted again, louder this time.

No answer.

Triumphantly he turned to the other men around him and pointed down the hole.

"You can pull him up."

Another man, a small guy who clearly shivered, snorted. "Why do we have to pull him up if he's dead?"

"Because Kav wants a nice propaganda picture, idiot," the sunglasses answered. Apparently that was good enough of an answer for the shorter man. He turned around to the others and gestured to the hole. Two of them uncoiled a thick rope while one tied a loop to one end of it. He took the end of the edge of the hole and put his foot into the loop. After a glance into the hole he looked at the two holding the other end of the rope, nodded at them, and jumped in. Immediately the two dug the heels of their boots into the ground and the rope tensed.

"More!" the voice from down the hole shouted and the men let a good meter or two more of the rope down.

"Perfect! I got him. Pull me up!"

They huffed and Natasha saw their breath form clouds of white in the air as they pulled the rope back. Just seconds later she could see the top of the hat of the man who jumped down the hole, then his head, then his torso. But it was what he had slung over his shoulder that made her heard stop.

It was a body. Unmoving. Blue skin. A painfully familiar mop of blonde hair. A wet uniform plastered to the rigid body. The body of Clint Barton was dropped into the snow.

Natasha fought the urge to burst through the snow and check on him. Something burned behind her eyes and she blinked several times to hold the tears back. Was he… He couldn't be.

The short man who had complained earlier nudged Clint's side with his foot, but Clint did not react. Another nudge, but it was nearly a kick. Natasha had to appeal to every bit of professionalism that was inside of her to keep herself from running at that short bastard.

"I don't know, seems dead to me," the sunglasses said and bent down, two fingers pressed against Barton's neck. "Ha, my own fingers are so cold, I can't feel anything. Or he's actually dead."

"Harris, even if he is not dead, he's on the verge of it. It's not like Kav will hand him a cup of tee and a hot blanket. All he wants is a picture and then we bury him alongside the woman," the man who pulled Clint from the well sneered and grabbed Clint under the shoulders. "Who's gonna help me put him in the trunk?"

His head gestured to the vehicle beside him. The sunglasses sighed and took a step toward him, but stopped dead in his tracks.

Natasha blinked. All of a sudden, something was off, but she couldn't quite grasp what it was.

"Fellows, did it just get a hell of a lot darker here?" the sunglasses asked and looked at the sky, one hand taking off the glasses that sat on his nose.

"Shit!" one of the men shouted. Harris dropped his sunglasses and nearly stepped on Clint. Natasha followed their example and looked up. It had indeed gotten darker, and Natasha had the feeling that she had never felt a more pleasant surprise.

She and Kav's men stared at the underside of a Quinjet, the grey 'A' that the Avengers sported on their jets and uniforms painted on the metal.