A Gift From: gsparkle
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: in winter, where I was born
A Gift For: inkvoices
Rating:
Warnings: None
Summary/Prompt Used: I used the prompt: "Supernatural/fairytale, especially where one character is supernatural or fey and another character isn't initially aware of this." Natasha's self-control is put to the test when STRIKE Team Delta is assigned to go undercover as married for the holiday season.
Author's Note: I hope this is at least sorta close to what you were looking for! Title from "Snow Globe" by Kathy Fagan.


in winter, where I was born

“I have a problem,” Natasha declares.

“Apparently, so do I,” replies Maria, cool as ever even though Natasha has just climbed unannounced through the third floor window of her Georgetown home office. “A security one.” She studies the alarm serenely blinking ALL CLEAR in the thrust-up window sash. “I just upgraded that. Fuck.”

Most nights, Natasha would laugh. Most nights, in fact, Natasha would have twelve better things to do than climb into Maria’s window at midnight. Most nights, however, Natasha’s entire existence isn’t tilting swiftly into insanity.

“I’m serious,” she says. “Look.” Holding her hands out over Maria’s desk, Natasha focuses her thoughts, squeezes her eyes shut and concentrates hard. It takes a minute, but when she opens her eyes again, her hands are translucent, bluish-white and cold like the ice sweating in Maria’s whiskey glass, and dripping icy droplets of water over the latest report from Sarajevo.

“Well, shit,” Maria says. “That’s new.”

[---]

The name Natalia means “born on Christmas day,” and she was: on a cold, clear Christmas night while Volgograd slept under a foot of freshly fallen snow. Snegurochka, her parents called her, Our perfect little girl of snow. They were happy for five years, a warm little family cozy together against the cold of Russia. Even as she grew, attended school, met new children, there was no one in the universe Natalia loved as much as she loved her family.

That was the problem. “Goodnight, Mama,” little Natalia said one night, “I love you more than the moon.” They said this every night without fail. “I love you more than all the stars,” her mother replied; or, she should have, but on this night the only sound her mother made was a gasp that soon bled into a wail and then a sob that rent the air in two. In confusion, Natalia reached for her mother, but she couldn’t move: her feet were frozen to the floor, her hands were ice, and though it was all the way across the room, the fire in the hearth felt like a hand around her throat. In the center of her chest, the beat of her heart glowed red-orange, molten lava melting her from the inside out.

See, it turns out that Natalia, maybe because of her name or her birthday or some other cruel trickery of fate, was a real snegurka, the tragic creature of folklore new and old alike. If she loved, as little girls often did, the warmth in her heart would spread until she melted away for good.

And like any scared little girl would, she looked to her parents for help; but in their eyes she saw fear, foreign and cold as the ice overtaking her body. “Demon,” hissed her father, shepherding his wife behind him. “Monster!” Groping for the crucifix that hung on the wall, he brandished it at Natalia in broad strokes. “Begone! We will not harbor evil here.”

It did not matter how much Natalia begged, how many tears froze on her face; her parents refused to believe that they could have raised such a child. She was an unclean force, a malevolent spirit who had taken the place of the baby they’d truly born. A call was put out to the city orphanage. She was no longer welcome.

When the orphanage representative came the next morning, Natalia was seated by the door, coat on and small suitcase at her feet. She’d learned her lesson now: she knew the treacheries that love hid under its surface. “Hello,” she said to the shadow that filled the small cottage doorway. “I’m Natalia, and I’m a monster.”

“Hello, Natalia,” replied the man. His jacket had an acrid, smoky smell, one which she would soon know better than she knew herself. She took the hand he offered. “My name is Ivan, and helping monstrous little girls is my specialty.”

[---]

“I thought,” Natasha says in the present, staring into the drink Maria’s poured for her, “I thought it was just one of the character backgrounds the Red Room created for some role; they’re all jumbled up, you know, what’s real and what’s not.” She shrugs to avoid meeting the uncharacteristic pity in Maria’s eyes. “Anyway, so I didn’t think it was real, and then last month--”

Last month, in the dusty outskirts of Al Fashir, she wears the raging dust storm as camouflage and takes out four guerrilla fighters while Clint squints for a shot. “What do you even keep me around for?” he jokes after with unhidden admiration, and this buried version of her childhood surfaces so suddenly that she imagines her fingers are turning to ice. Freedom has given you an overactive imagination, she tells herself, directing her attention away from the way dust paints the chiseled planes of Clint’s face in beautifully sharp relief.

A week later, Clint’s in Arizona and Natasha’s in DC and they’re watching Mission: Impossible together over the phone. It’s always better to watch spy movies with another spy, although she can’t imagine calling up Maria or Phil or Fury to comment on the ineffectiveness of Ethan Hunt’s plan. “Even if I could imagine that, which I can’t,” Clint replies when she voices this thought, “I wouldn’t do it. We’re best friends! This is our thing. I’m not sharing. You still there?” he asks when she pauses, and Natasha scrambles to says she’s fine even as she watches frost spread from her fingers over the screen of her phone.

Then today, right in the middle of training new recruits, she gets a glimpse of Clint training with the bullseye across the gym. The thing about Clint is that, for all his personal failings, he’s so good at what he does that training is as mechanical as the workings of a gun. It’s not just the rhythm with which he aims, shoots, reloads; it’s the strength of his stance, the ropes of muscle standing out in his arms, the focus and discipline that blazes like a lighthouse lantern in the relative dim of the gym. He grins back when he catches her staring, impish confidence and pride and sheepishness all wrapped up in a single expression, and it hits Natasha like grenade. “Take a break,” she blurts to her class, and barely makes it to the locker room before her entire arm turns to ice.

“Wow, so: lots to unpack here,” says Maria, only the wideness of her eyes indicating the absurdity of the situation. “Number one: Barton? Really? He drinks coffee straight from the pot.”

“Um,” Natasha says, holding up the hands that, over the course of her explanation, have once again turned to ice. “Priorities?”

Maria rolls her eyes. “Fine, tabled until later. Well, what did you do when this happened in the Red Room?”

“It’s a brainwashing operation?” Natasha points out. “There’s not really anything to love there?” It becomes rapidly clear that the only worse person she could have asked for help was Clint himself.

“Right.” Maria shakes her head. “Duh. Okay, so: if you can’t turn always turn it off, and assuming you don’t want to quit or be reassigned…”

“I just want you to fix it,” Natasha, desperation bleeding on the edge of her voice. “Or tell me who can.” She allows Maria a glimmer of vulnerability: “I just want to be normal.”

To her credit, Maria doesn’t comment on the emotion in her voice, only turns to her computer and types furiously for a few minutes while Natasha tries to hide her mounting anxiety. At last she turns with an excitement that, in retrospect, should have been a warning. “Romanoff,” she announces, “I’ve got the perfect solution.”

---

[THIS IS NOT THE PERFECT SOLUTION!] Natasha texts Maria a week later. [ASSUMING I SURVIVE THIS, WE. WILL. HAVE. WORDS.] Natasha would never be characterized as an impolite texter; however, she feels that this situation merits the yelling.

Which situation? Oh, just the one where Maria, the worst person on the planet, has assigned STRIKE Delta to go undercover in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Together. For Christmas. Alone.

[The only reason you think you’re in love with Barton is because you’ve never had to live with him,] reasons Maria. [He’s disgusting. You’ll be cured by the end of the week. Have fun!]

The mission brief lists their aliases as Cole and Noelle Bridgewater, and Natasha watches Clint open the envelope with trepidation. “Hey,” he says, shaking out a set of rings. “Marry me?” He holds out her cover’s ring, which features an enormous cushion-cut diamond, and Natasha’s heart flares against her ribs like the sun through window blinds as he begins to slip it onto her finger. “God, Nat, your hands are freezing.”

She snatches her hand away and shoves the ring on herself. “That’s because you’re always running at, like, a million degrees,” she deflects, maybe a little more sharply than necessary, but it’s in the name of self defense. The worst thing she could do is let herself get caught up in little things like this, which don’t matter and which can’t ever become real. “Let’s go over our stories again.”

She’ll give Maria this: the mission is interesting. A group of suburban soccer moms and housewives, apparently unsatisfied with their current lives, have joined together to form a cult dedicated to raising some assuredly dangerous and unfriendly demon. While she’d prefer a quick and dirty meth lab bust, Natasha can at least give Maria points for originality. Especially since she’s taking points away for literally everything else.

Such as: having to observe Clint’s uninhibited, joyful smile at the opportunity to string lights along the frame of their little house just like he’s always wanted. Such as: the way his stone blue eyes brighten when he wraps an arm around her waist and introduces her as his wife to the neighbors that stop by scope them out. Such as: the snow that whirls past the bay window where they sit with their hot chocolate that night, making sure their neighbors see them argue, and tints Clint’s every movement like a series of black and white movies.

Romantic comedies always reference men reciting baseball statistics as a distraction, but for Natasha, it’s Glock models, measurements, capacities, weights. “Isn’t this fun?” Clint asks, the overdramatically angry lines of his posture juxtaposed with the cheer of his voice. “Going undercover sucks alone, but it’s always better with you.”

These are the things that make her lose her concentration, that turn her feet to certain icicles in her boots even as her traitorous heart flushes warm, bubbly happiness through her veins. “Everything is better with you,” she can’t help but agree, and hopes he thinks she’s teasing, hopes he can’t see how the hot chocolate in her cup is freezing over.

“Aw, you’re trying to make me blush,” he drawls, unfolding his long legs from the window seat. “Now I’ve gotta storm off or this fight is going to get too mushy to be believable.” He winks and storms off with all the drama he learned in the circus.

Alone, Natasha sighs and stares out the window, feeling equally as lost as the snowflakes that wander on the winter breeze. She doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing here, but at least she can convincingly portray Noelle the Sad Housewife, and she does so until the lights in the house across the street extinguish.

---

The fatal flaw in Maria’s plan is that, when you love someone, most of even their worst habits are made endearing. Clint might drink straight from the coffee pot, but he waits until she’s had hers, and the wide brilliance of his smile is doubled in the convex curve of the glass. Whenever she reminds him that he’s left the closet light on, he tells her, “I just didn’t want you to be alone in the dark.” Natasha can’t even bring herself to mind that she finds discarded socks in the weirdest places.

So, no, the plan isn’t working; if anything, it’s making the whole situation worse. This is not the first time they’ve been undercover together, not even the first time they’ve pretended to be married; but it is the first time Natasha’s looked around and not only wondered, but actually wished she could do this every day. I could get used to this, she thinks. I could wake up next to that bedhead every day and be happy.

Except, you know, the melting thing. To avoid having to stick her various extremities in the freezer four times a day, Natasha throws herself into the mission, trotting Noelle’s sad face out and ingratiating herself with the group of moms that walk the neighborhood’s three mile perimeter every morning. Her first suspicion--that the husbands of these women are abusive, unfaithful, or neglectful--turns out to be incorrect. Even under her skeptical assessment, Natasha can’t find any of the traditional reasons for the average American housewife to join a cult. After two weeks of investigation, the only thing that Donna and Becky and Louise and Helen and Amanda have in common is that they appear deeply, profoundly bored with their lives.

“Is that a good enough reason to create a cult?” she asks Clint as they make their way down the street to the neighborhood holiday party. “When you’re bored, what do you do?”

Clint nudges her with his elbow, careful not to dislodge the cherry pie she carries. “I just call you, usually,” he admits, scraping a hand along the back of his neck. “Phil makes me clean my kitchen, and Maria would just send me on a job. You’re the only person I know who’s, like, actually any fun, I guess.” This last sentence trails off into a mumble, but Natasha’s too busy willing her ears to stop freezing to notice the blush that flames wildfire-like across his cheeks. “Is your nose turning blue?” he asks, changing the subject under the orange light of the next streetlamp. He reaches over to tweak it. “Some Russian you are.”

Oh my god, this is so out of control. Mortified, Natasha bats his hand away. “The house is right there, Barton,” she hisses. “Stop being an idiot and act like you love me.” She throws up Noelle’s innocuous mask up as a defense against Clint’s soft gaze and hooks her elbow through his, nearly dragging him along in her quest to get to the comparative safety of the party, where, hopefully, she can distance herself from his dangerous presence and focus on her goddamn job.

---

Their hosts, Louise and Todd, help tremendously in this goal. “Todd and the boys are in the den watching the game,” Louise informs Clint, who smiles Cole’s milquetoast approval and wanders off. Alone together, Louise tucks Natasha under her arm and leads her to the bar cart. “You didn’t mention that your husband was such a dish,” she says conspiratorially. “Hasn’t given up on himself, has he? Not like my Todd.”

“That’s about all he has going for him,” Natasha replies, probably a little too quickly for Noelle’s character. Backtracking, she adds in Noelle’s mild voice, “I mean, he’s very sweet, but there’s, you know, not a lot going on upstairs.” She lends a shrug to her weary sigh. “We don’t have all that many, er, deep conversations.”

“What a shame.” Louise sniffs and turns a gimlet eye on Noelle’s unsure posture and bland sweater set. “With nobody to talk to at home, you must be so… bored.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Natasha demures, careful to put just the right out of hesitation in her voice. “He’s not stupid.”

“Of course not, dear,” Louise soothes. “Come over here, you haven’t met Martha yet.” Louise leads her around, making sure she meets every woman in the neighborhood like some sort of sorority recruitment event. Or, at least, that’s how Natasha treats it, making sure each little cluster of gossips hear her mention her husband’s idiocy, or her dreams of a doctorate in physics put on hold, or her need of something, anything, to fill up her time. It’s a good hour or so of spywork, and Clint’s just helping her into her coat when Louise, materializing from the basement, points above the front door.

“Our first mistletoe victims!” she crows, loud enough that there’s no way to pretend they didn’t hear. Clint’s smile for the assembled guests is all doltish happiness, but the actual look he directs at Natasha is intent, interested, heated in a way that’s wildly out of character for poor Cole Bridgewater. Wrapping one arm around her shoulder, Clint leans closer, close enough for the spice of his cologne to infiltrate her senses, so close that the warmth of his body nearly competes with the absolute inferno that her self-sabotaging heart has suddenly become.

This time it’s her feet again, snowflakes of frost climbing out of her boots. “Oh, we couldn’t,” Natasha babbles, not even attempting Noelle’s gentle delivery, but simply calling a fast goodbye over her shoulder before hurrying down the front steps and running for home as soon as Louise’s house falls out of sight. It’s hard going, running on feet half-melted and sloshing around; it’s all she can do to fill the kitchen sink with ice and clamber up on the counter to shove her wobbly feet into the mix. It’s a ridiculous picture, a thought which is confirmed when Clint shows up a minute later and stops short at the sight.

“Hi,” he says with exaggerated nonchalance, rummaging in the cabinets and pouring a glass of water from the faucet now jammed up against her knee as if this is something they do every day. “I told Louise that you’re incredibly shy about public displays of affection. I think she thinks I’m an idiot, so: mission accomplished?” He leans against the opposite counter, so much care and patience radiating from his relaxed posture that she feels her entire arms and torso going to ice now, too. “Uh, Nat? What’s, uh. What’s up with your hand there?”

She doesn’t have enough wherewithal to dissemble, not when she’s literally falling apart. “I’m in love with you,” she declares unceremoniously, shoving her hands into the ice with an equal lack of decorum. “It’s a problem.”

Clint takes this news with his usual easy going calm. “Cool, okay, sure,” he nods, a grin spilling across his face like a brand new sun. “I’m totally on board with that. And so, the ice is just…” He gestures vaguely with his glass, slopping water over the brim. “For fun?”

Natasha rolls her eyes and holds one icy arm out. “I’m melting, you idiot,” she says. His fingers feather shivers from her wrist to her elbow, the irony of which is not lost on her. Under his careful handling, the usual opalescent color of the ice fades to transparency, and Natasha snatches her hand back. “Whenever I start… feeling things, I start turning into ice.”

Clint’s eyes shine with entirely too much glee. “Feelings for me?” he wheedles. “Like, I think you specifically mentioned love. For me. Right?”

“Ugh.” Natasha grits her teeth. “Yes. Which is a problem, might I remind you. Stop smiling so much.”

“How is this a problem?” Clint asks, his incredulity mixed with effervescent joy. “You can turn into ice! How cool is that?!”

“Not cool!” Natasha shouts. Yanking aside the collar of her shirt, she reveals the fiery red-orange of her heart pulsating below the sweating ice that’s replaced her skin. “I don’t just turn into ice, Clint. The longer I feel this way, the more likely it is that my heart is going to melt me into a puddle. See?” She replaces the collar and presents the same arm he touched only minutes before. “It starts off opaque, like ice caves; but if I don’t do anything to stop its progress, I start losing stability and definition.”

Throughout this explanation, the smile has gradually slid off Clint’s face, the sun slipping into the cover of clouds. “How long has this been happening?” he asks quietly.

Natasha lifts one shoulder. “It first happened when I was a kid,” she says in the direction of the sink, unwilling to meet the sadness in his gaze. “Turns out Mom and Dad weren’t so interested in loving me once it turned out I was a demon, or whatever.” A furious sound begins somewhere in Clint’s throat, but she hurries over it. “The Red Room took me in, and obviously they weren’t so big on, you know, emotions of any kind, so. I had forgotten this could even happen until about a month ago, when I realized--well, you know.”

It’s silent in the kitchen for a long minute; when Natasha chances a look through her hair at Clint, he’s breathing deeply through his nose, curling his hands open and closed like he does when he feels about to lose control. “But I love you,” he says at last, barely louder than a whisper. “And you love me. We should be allowed to have this.” He plunges his hand into the ice and searches for hers. “You should be allowed to have this. After the way your family just abandoned you--” He refocuses, takes a calming breath. “Can’t I do something? Isn’t true love supposed to overcome all obstacles?”

The fire in her heart doubles in size, the flames of the bonfire racing under her translucent skin. He’s so deeply good and earnest, and it kills her to pull her hand away. “This isn’t a fairy tale, Clint,” she tells him, swiveling under his arm and sliding off the counter. “I don’t get to have a happy ending.” Barefoot, she pushes out the back door and stands in the snow for hours, waiting for Clint to turn off the lights and for her burning heart to break into fractured ice.

---

Clint’s gone in the morning, which is probably for the best, and Natasha drags herself out of bed for her daily walk with the neighborhood women. “Oh, Noelle,” says Louise, “No offense, but you look terrible.”

“Bad night,” Natasha shrugs. Sensing an opportunity to break through into the inner circle at last, she adds, “Cole, you know, he’s nice, but--Louise, you were right last night. I just finally realized last night how truly bored I am with my husband, my life.”

A murmur ripples through the group, a few amens and aren’t we alls. “Well, dear,” says Louise with some thrill in her voice, looking approvingly to the other women. “Perhaps you ought to join us tonight. We find that our little book club more than makes up for our everyday tedium.”

Natasha shows up to Louise’s house at six with a gun in her boot and a bottle of wine tucked under her arm. “Lovely,” says Louise, studying the label before setting the bottle down on the sideboard. “This will be great for afterwards.”

“After what?” Clint asks in her earpiece. It’s more than a little awkward to run a mission together in light of the previous night’s total meltdown--no pun intended--but Natasha will never admit that. She’s a professional, after all, and the safety of the greater Philadelphia area is more important than her personal discomfort. Plus, Maria owes her and then some for this catastrophe, and Natasha plans to collect via a paid vacation somewhere far from Clint’s over-honest eyes.

“Shut up,” Natasha coughs into her collar, following Louise through the house. “Where is everyone, Louise? Am I early?”

“Oh, no, dear,” says Louise tenderly, pulling open a door Natasha earlier pegged as one that leads to the basement. “You’re the last to arrive; we’re all just down here.” The temperature dips as they descend below ground level, deeper than normal suburban basements tend to be dug. Grimly, Natasha realizes that her earpiece isn’t going to be any use: she’s on her own this far underground.

The stairs open out into a large room, whose only other form of egress is one large wooden door, and filled with a crowd of women, none of whom are identifiable due to their hooded black robes. “Here’s one for you, dear,” Louise says, drawing a pair of extra robes off a shelf and handing one to Natasha. “We’ll be starting soon.”

Left with no other instructions, Natasha pulls on the robe and mixes into the crowd. On the whole, the other women she’s met in this small community are friendly and outgoing; but here conversation is minimal and nobody meets each other’s eyes. Only when Louise, clearly identifiable by the skull pinned to her robe, declares, “It is time to begin!” and throws open the wooden door does the group begin buzzing with chatter.

The flow of the crowd ferries Natasha into the next room, which is smaller and warmer. Here, candles are the only illumination, and she’s directed to join the others around a circle drawn with a thick line of regular table salt. Most giggle, poke at each other, shove elbows into ribs. These are children playing at magic, Natasha realizes with annoyance. This is no more a cult than SHIELD is.

She’s only half concentrating, trying to figure out how to politely extricate herself from the situation, when she sees Louise at the top of the circle. Unlike the gigglers, Louise stands perfectly still, head bowed over a book so old and deteriorated that its pages are crumbling to dust. “We gather here today to worship the might of Satana,” she intones, her voice deep with authority. “Satana, our Queen, we have done as you asked. Our cult now numbers 30 women who believe in your power and wish to see you rule over this land. Rise from your throne in Hell and release us from drudgery! Rid us of mundanity and restore women to their rightful leadership!”

It’s sloppy work, as far as cults go. For one thing, nobody even asked how she felt about raising denizens of Hell before shoving her into the room; for another thing, everyone’s been so eager to line up around the circle that nobody’s closed the door, causing a draft to flicker the candles’ flames. All the same, it’s an admitted thrill to see flames spring up along the wax circle before a woman with white hair, glowing red eyes, and two curling horns appears within their confines.

“You again,” sighs the woman, inspecting one sharp nail. “What is it this time?”

Under her scrutiny, Louise’s previous authority melts into servitude. “Your majesty, we have recruited another. Surely now you will take our case seriously. We will serve you; we will be your emissaries and bring you the souls you need!” We definitely will not, Natasha thinks, charting the fastest plan to wrap this thing up so she can go home. Clearly, Louise is the ringleader, so all she has to do is get Satana to go away, then apprehend Louise and cart her off to SHIELD for evaluation.

“Where is this new recruit?” Satana demands. “Is she worthy?” The entire circle of women turns as one to face Natasha, to whom Louise points with damning certainty. “You smell of frost,” Satana says, crossing her circle until she and Natasha are face to face. Leaning close, she contemplates Natasha’s face and figure, a slow but truly devilish smile overtaking her face. “Oh, but you are not like these others! They are soft, but you are hard, cold.” She turns back to Louise, dismissing Natasha entirely. “You have a traitor in your midst, my dear. This woman is here to destroy--” Breaking off, Satana turns towards the door, sniffing deeply. “Is there--do I smell a man?”

“You certainly do,” says Clint from the open door, his bow loaded and trained squarely on the demoness’ face. “Go on back to Hell like a nice demon and we won’t hurt you.”

Whirling on Louise, Satana’s beautiful features harden into a mask of demonic hatred. “You careless fool! See if I ever answer your summons again.”

There’s a bang and she’s gone, though flames still lick at the edges of the salt circle. Most of the women look around, nonplussed, but Louise rounds on Natasha in fury. “You’ve ruined everything,” she rages, slamming the book down with force. “After all I’ve worked for, after all I’ve put into this group--” She lunges for Natasha and three things happen in quick succession: Clint’s arrow looses, Louise’s foot scuffs the salt circle on the floor, and the hellfire still flickering balloons up and out with the fwoom of a gas stove coming to life, knocking about ten women backwards with a concussive blast. Natasha dodges, narrowly missing another cultist but managing to knock over a candelabra whose flames immediately begin climbing the black cult robes.
“Well, this is a shit show,” Clint remarks over the absolute chaos.

“What are you even doing here?” Natasha shouts back, whacking out someone’s robes. The hellfire, now given opportunity to escape the restraining circle of salt, has taken on a mind of its own, crawling up walls and setting everything it touches ablaze. The women not knocked unconscious by the blast have fled, but about fifteen women still lie in danger, including Louise, who’s been badly burned. “Never mind. What are we going to do?”

“That blast probably wrecked the foundation,” Clint says, pointing to the ceiling now positively dripping fire. “We’ve got to get these people out of here.” The truth is that they don’t have enough time to drag ten unconscious women from the blaze, but there’s no point in discussion; instead, they work as fast as humanly possible, recruiting some of the more cool-headed members of the cult to help. Still, there’s one woman left down the in the basement when the house begins to creak ominously, fire eating it from the inside out.

“Let go,” Natasha says when Clint tries to stop her. “There’s an innocent woman in there. I’m not going to let her die.”

“But you’ll die,” he insists. “Nat, I know you’re incredible, but even you can’t walk through fire without getting burned. Please.” As if to punctuate his plea, a whole segment of the roof comes tumbling down to the sidewalk, forcing a group of onlookers to jump out of the way.

The idea hits her just as the flaming roof is extinguished by the snow lying on the ground. “Yes I can,” she says slowly. “Clint, yes I can!” Stepping closer, she puts one hand on his shoulder and calls up every happy memory she has with him, every sunset he made her stop and watch, every conversation that lasted until the sun rose again. “Clint, I love you,” she says firmly, with purpose, shivering as her hands, arms, feet, and legs turn to ice. “I love you, and our love is going to save this woman’s life.”

“That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said,” Clint replies, which probably isn’t true, but his lips are on hers a second later, kissing her like they’ll never see each other again. We probably won’t, Natasha can admit to herself, but she decides instead to examine the feel of his hair beneath her glacial fingers, the taste of smoke still trapped against his tongue. For once, she’s not afraid of the heat that unfurls within her veins; in fact, she almost can’t feel it, so wrapped is she in the utterly novel and intoxicating experience of kissing Clint like this, of being in his arms. She could do this forever; it was a pity, really, that she’s probably about to die.

“Um,” says one of the onlookers. “Sorry, not to interrupt; it’s just that Diane, my wife, is still in there?”

“Yes, right.” Now made completely of ice, Natasha steps back and nods to Clint, whose expression is utterly bereft. “It’s okay,” she tells him. “I can do this.”

“That was never the question!” he calls, but it lands on her back; she’s already down what’s left of the stairs. Smoke chokes the room and hellfire has crawled sluggishly along the edges of the room. Curiously, Natasha can’t feel the telltale melting at the ends of her fingers as she steps through a wave of flames: perhaps because hellfire is magic? She sets the question aside in favor of finding the last cultist, who’d been farthest back in the room at the time of the explosion. It’s a far more treacherous route than their first escape, as the house collapsing on itself constantly changes the terrain. Precious minutes slip by as Natasha picks her way through debris, lifting slabs of flooring and wood. “Diane? Are you here?”

There’s a choking sob in response and Natasha digs, throwing wreckage out of the way until she uncovers Diane, her pulse faint. The flames are high and the smoke low now, but though the fire plucks at her suit, it can’t damage the ice of her skin. Lifting her rescuee high above the blaze, Natasha walks straight through it (and yes, she can admit that it feels more than a little badass). The stairs croak dangerously, but hold it together until she makes it up and deposits Diane in her husband’s arms. As if on a timer, the house gives up the ghost and finally caves in with a crackling roar.

“You’re--you didn’t melt.” Clint’s face is covered in soot, his hair three entire shades darker than usual, and he is the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen. Cautiously, he takes her hand, which is still solid ice, unmelting. “I--I thought I was going to have to tell Hill you went all Wicked Witch of the West down there.”

Upon closer inspection, the soot on his face is streaked with what looks suspiciously like tears. “You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Natasha says, brushing off some of the grime on his cheek. “In fact, I didn’t melt at all down there, even when I walked through the fire.”

Clint eyes her. “Can you… control it?” he asks slowly, turning her hand over in his. With a frown, Natasha concentrates and, seconds later, her hand is back to normal; in fact, her entire body is. “Huh,” says Clint. “Interesting. So what happens when I do this?”

When he kisses her this time, she feels the same explosion of heat in her heart, like firecrackers behind her sternum; but there’s no ice, no frost, nothing but happiness sending shivers up her spine.

“Hm,” Natasha says when they step back. “You don’t think it was because--”

“No,” Clint agrees, waving down the SHIELD truck just arriving on the scene. “That would be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous,” Natasha repeats. “Absolutely.”

---

“True love’s kiss cured you?” Maria says, incredulous, when Natasha climbs through her window a week later to give an update on the situation. “Come on. Even I’m not dumb enough to believe that.”