Greetings from Ottawa, where it was -16 on March 1 and we woke up to 10cm of freshly fallen snow. Let us be perfectly clear on one thing: Winter Sucks. Especially when it lasts 4-5 months. I am totally, utterly, completely Over It and wish it would go away.

My head canon has Natasha hate winter even more than I do, because the Red Room would have happily used the freezing Russian cold for "educational" purposes. Basically, she tries to avoid it, and is not above citing "inability to function in the cold" as a reason for refusing deployment. She'll go, but she will kvetch and complain.

Clint, on the other hand, has a high metabolism and has no issues sitting in a stakeout in the middle of winter, provided SHIELD gives him the proper equipment (thermal long johns, slow-release heat cells). He doesn't like it -- he has his own childhood memories about being left in a cold house when his dad drank away the money that would have bought heat -- but he can live with it. He would take considerable care to note the impact extreme temperatures would have on the flexibility of his bow and arrows, of course. He hates snow because of the reduced visibility.

Winter does suck (Winter Sucks sounds like a good name for a ficlet :P). I am so over it. I grew up where it never ever goes below zero, so I'm a complete weather wimp. I used to think 10C was ridiculously cold, now it seems like unreachable paradise.

My head canon is also that Natasha hates outside winter. She can handle winter from inside a warm room, preferably with a fireplace and books.

Fireplace and books -- pretty much. You forgot the glass of red wine (and, in times of real emergency, the kidlet curled up around you for reciprocal heat). I have long resigned myself to the fact that I am an Indoor Canadian.

That said, the coldest I ever was was in the UK, the year I had a scholarship to work at the Middle Temple (where the heat is from the 17th century) and hubby was doing a masters at LSE. Our basement flat was equipped with an energy-saving heater that would heat up overnight, when the electricity was cheap, and radiate it back throughout the day. Problem was, by the time we usually came home from fencing, it had finished radiating ... Between that and those damp walls, it's amazing I didn't succumb to some tragic Victorian affliction of the lungs.

I'm trying to look for a job in a place where that won't be an issue, but if I stick around in the Frozen North, I guess I will become an Indoor USian for four months of the year.