Cold as Ice - WinterWidow One-Shots

of all the safehouses in all the world

Summary: Natalia leaves for a mission on Tuesday and is officially missing by Friday. When James finally does get in touch with her, the last thing he expects is to meet a blonde girl who seems to be guarding Natalia's current safe house.

Natalia disappeared mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, muttering no more than a simple "I'll be back Thursday" and pressing a kiss to his cheek. She'd walked out of the Compound with a duffel bag stocked full of weaponry, snagged one of the quinjets from the hanger, and left her phone behind.

James hadn't worried. He'd nodded along, telling her to stay safe and contact him when she was on her way back. Despite not taking her phone with her, he knew she'd call. She always did and he never worried; not when the mission was casual enough that it didn't require the whole team and Natalia felt confident enough in her own skills not to share more information than her anticipated return date. Even when the quinjet returned the morning after she left, empty and on full autopilot, James had been confused but not worried.

It wasn't until Friday morning rolled around that he grew anxious.

"Where'd the quinjet arrive from?" he asked Stark with a frown. He'd tried to access the jet's log but hadn't been successful. His current hope was that Stark, with the assistance of FRIDAY, could get him an answer.

"FRI?" Stark immediately directed his attention upwards, much to James's amusement.

"No information was provided," FRIDAY responded. Stark joined him in frowning.

"What do you mean 'no information was provided'?" Stark echoed.

"The log was erased during the journey back," FRIDAY answered. Apparently, Natalia had managed to arrange for FRIDAY to erase all information regarding the quinjet's location partway through the return trip. "The jet's location registered over the Atlantic: coordinates 55 degrees―"

Stark cut off the AI with a wave of his hand and a muttered thanks.

"Did she tell you where she was going?" Stark asked. He pulled up the coordinates FRIDAY had started to read off, but James shook his head.

"Didn't say anything at all," James muttered.

He left Stark's lab with the intention to call Hill and ask where Natalia had been sent, but the results from that call were even less satisfying.

"If she's on a mission," Hill told him, "it's not from us."

It wasn't entirely out of character for Natalia to go out on her own, but she rarely did so without giving him more information as to where she'd gone. It might only be a name of a city or country, but it was more than he'd been given this time.

He called Barton, hoping the man wouldn't answer and that he'd accompanied Natalia, but he picked up on the first ring. After yet another dead end, James was growing more worried. With no clue as to where she could have gone, though, there was very little he could do.

He skipped dinner. Working with FRIDAY, he tried to plot out where the quinjet could have come from based on the information collected when it first came back on the map. Unfortunately, the results included most of Europe and much of Eastern Asia.

With a loud groan, he nearly put his fist through the desk only to be interrupted by a sharp ringing.

His phone.

James all but lunged for it. He fumbled with the device as he hastened to answer the unknown call.

"Natalia?" he asked anxiously.

There was a laugh on the other end of the phone and his shoulders dropped in relief.

"Yes," she answered in Russian. "It's me, love."