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Steve and Natasha get a little up close and personal while awaiting extraction.
• • •
It was cold.
Not like the typical winter wind that made you bundle up cold, but the frigid, lose-your-fingers cold that Natasha Romanoff hated.
This kinda' cold reminded her of Russia, her pathetic, miserable life with the KGB years before she joined Fury and became an Avenger. It reminded her of a time when she had to wonder where her next meal would come from and who was out to get her. It reminded her of her past, of those she'd murdered and just how cold-hearted she had once been. The cold reminded her of everything she had been trying so hard to forget, to move on from and be a better person, to do good in the world she had done some pretty terrible things in.
The chill of the wind seeped into her bones, her thick coat seemingly useless against the frigid weather of Alaska. In her head, she cursed Fury for sending her and Steve Rogers out on a mission... on Christmas Eve no less. Not that she had any plans because she lived quite the solidarity (sometimes lonely) life, but surely Steve had plans (to his credit, he'd been going out more) and both of them would much rather be anywhere else than fucking Alaska. She wondered what terrorists would even set up a base on a snowy mountain top. She had to give them some props, however, because surely no sane person would have wandered up here and come across their base.
Muttering a few Russian curse words to herself, she pulled the collar of her coat up higher and tucked her hands into the sleeves as she watched the camera monitoring inside the base. The heat had gone out in their makeshift camp over an hour ago, Steve still hadn't returned from infiltrating the building, and she hadn't seen anyone on the camera or detected a heat signature from inside the building since he'd gone in. She was worried, to say the least, even though she knew Steve could very well take care of himself. Nonetheless, she wasn't used to them splitting up in all the years they had worked together. After S.H.I.E.L.D. - well, Hydra - fell, they spent more time together than she would ever like to admit. After his search for The Winter Solider turned out to be futile, he had found her somewhere north of Seville, Spain and he hadn't let her get very far since then. Steve was her closest friend, next to Clint, and they worked together seamlessly. Not only that, but she enjoyed their regular movie nights and spontaneous dinners in Brooklyn because he insisted that she learn about the 'culture.'
She really tried hard not to think about how deep her feelings ran for him because it went against all her training.
Spies and soldiers were never really supposed to get along anyway.
However, it was times like these when she knew she was completely and utterly fucked because all she wanted to do was run into the building to make sure he hadn't gotten himself blown up. He had said that he trusted her to save his life, and she would unquestionably put herself in harms way just to make sure he was okay. It had been almost two hours since they had last made contact, and her patience had worn thin. She was just about to get up and start making her way to the building when she perceived the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow outside the tent. She turned around quickly with her gun cocked and braced in front of her as the door creaked open.
