Son of the Storm

The heart of winter

Harry hunched against the blizzard, ducking his head beneath his shoulder and offering his body as a wind break, allowing Jean-Paul, who was visibly suffering, to gain some respite. He'd tried to offer a fireball, but Carol had, while herself sheltering Diana, who, though stronger and tougher than any adult human, let alone child her age, seemed to also be suffering, pointed out that this would just give whatever was hunting them a nice, shiny beacon to home in on.

Since Carol was also showing the effects of the cold, if not half as strongly – though the gleam in her eyes had suggested that she took this more as a personal challenge than anything else – this could not easily be contested on the grounds of 'it's all right for you'. Also, it wasn't exactly the first time that Harry had been hunted in a dark forest by hungry monsters.

This, he reflected, was just a little bit depressing.

Inwardly, he shrugged. At least it could be said that this was his first blizzard.

As for himself, he found that, strangely enough, the cold wasn't bothering him. He wasn't exactly warm, but the icy winds lacked the edge he'd expected. If anything, he was only cool, at worst, slightly chilly.

He'd have found this a bit more unnerving if he hadn't seen how Uhtred was calmly and determinedly ploughing his way through the snow, following the trail and forcing a path for the others. Indeed, he seemed to be in his element.

So, as it was, Harry put his resistance to the cold down to his latent Asgardian abilities and/or his ability with fire, and thought nothing more of it.

Under the circumstances, he probably should have done.

However, if nothing else, the occasional howl - getting ever closer - occupied more of his attention. After he'd first noticed that they were closing, and how fast, he'd exchanged a speaking look with Carol, then the two of them had started scanning their surroundings, trying to pick movement out from the whirling, vicious dance of the snow in the storm.

If they hadn't, they wouldn't have got off the mountain.

OoOoO

A howl echoed through cold, still air, a disquieting contrast to the howling mass of dark clouds that had coalesced around the upper reaches of the mountain.

"What was that?" Steve asked, voice tense and low.

Clint and Natasha exchanged a look. "Wendigo?" he suggested.

"No, it's too far south," Natasha said. She frowned. "One of my sources said that HYDRA were experimenting on werewolves, mutating them and using them as shock troops. SHIELD forensics teams found evidence that seems to corroborate the intel."

"Where?" Thor asked shortly, staring fixedly at the storm, jaw muscles bunching as he ground his teeth.

"In Britain. At the fall of MI13," Natasha said quietly. "MI13 possessed, and still possess, considerable resources. Conventional small arms fire didn't hurt them, rocket launchers only slowed them down and only a few of MI13's plasma cannons and the spells of their staff mystics managed to hurt them. It didn't stop them."

Another howl rose up, in communion with others, and Thor snarled, reaching for his hammer. "Then we shall see whether lightning stops them," he said.

"No," Steve said, voice hard and authoritative. "The storm's still growing, in size and strength. There are innocent people down here and who knows what it'll do to them if it gets down here. Can you contain it?"

Thor paused. "Captain, my son is up there, if I cannot retrieve him, then at least," he began.

"The kids will be safe," Steve said calmly, striding over to his bed and picking up a large, object wrapped in a string pull bag beside it. The covering came away with a brisk tug at the mouth of the bag, and, gleaming in the warm yellow light, the shield came free.