Archangel

One

Leather boots stomped across the frozen earth, snow crunching underneath their feet as four figures crept through the woods. The air was frigid- the kind of air that freezes the inside of your nose and causes your breath to catch. Natasha cursed as she caught a glimpse of the setting sun in between the bare trees, knowing the temperatures would soon drop even lower. Turning around to glance at Clint, she noticed he was shivering as he walked behind her.

"Hope you're wearing your long johns", Nat teased.

He looked up with a scowl. Not watching the gound, Clint tripped into a snowbank, catching his foot in a semi-frozen stream. With a yelp, he fell into the snow. Stifling a giggle, Nat called out to the two supersoldiers who paced 20 feet ahead.

"Man down!".

Steve and Bucky turned with concerned expressions only to find Clint struggling to pull his foot from the ice. The two supersoldiers jogged back and Steve shook his head, fighting to keep himself from smiling. Bucky had no such reservations. Smirking, he held out his metal arm to pull Clint out of the snow.

"C'mon Barton, now's not the time for making snow angels."

Clint slapped his hand away, huffing as he stood up to brush the snow from his thick snowpants and shake the icy slush off his boot. He reached down and picked up the arrows off the ground from where they had spilled from his quiver.

"Whatever, man". 

He glanced at the others. Despite wearing the same thick black coat, wool cap, insulated snow pants, and waterproof boots, he seemed to be the only team member shivering.

Frowning, Clint said, "You've got to be kidding me. Are you three even cold?"

"The serum helps Bucky and I regulate our body temperatures better than regular humans", Steve explained. "I don't know about Nat though".

They turned towards her, and she shrugged.

"I was trained in Russia- I've faced worse than this".

Nat checked her watch and frowned. She knew it wouldn't matter how special they were- the team would be at risk for frostbite if they didn't find the vibranium soon.

She turned to Bucky as they continued to press forward.

"You catch anything on the scanner yet? Bruce said we'd know where the vibranium was once we came in a half-mile radius of it".

Bucky appeared frustrated as he not-so-gently shook the compact device in his hand.

"I thought we'd find it by now. The scanner is definitely picking up vibranium in this forest, but it can't seem to pinpoint the exact location".

Steve stopped to adjust his boots, lacing them up tighter as the sun descended below the horizon. It already felt colder. As he spoke, the air steamed around him.

"If we don't find it in the next thirty minutes, we're heading back to the Quinjet. We'll wait out the worst of the night and keep searching in the morning."

"Roger that, Cap", said Clint glumly. "We've been out here for three hours in the freezing cold with nothing to show for it. Great".

Natasha grit her teeth to keep them from chattering. She and the other three men had been sent to Maine in the middle of November to scope out a forest near Fort Kent. Abandoned in the 70s due to extreme weather, no one had given it much thought until Fury discovered it had been turned into an undercover HYDRA base. He lead a raid and arrested over 30 men, leaving the fort empty and nearly blown to pieces. The raid had been six years ago.

Fort Kent had been forgotten until Princess Shuri of Wakanda picked up a reading of vibranium near the fort on a scanner. Determined to not let it get into the wrong hands, the team set out Captain America, Hawkeye, the White Wolf, and Black Widow to find and secure any vibranium. They assumed it was left over from HYDRA's glory days- before Fort Kent had been blown to pieces.