Once again, I own nothing :)

The mission was simple really. Well, simple for the team that was assigned to it anyway. Maria had originally ordered Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff to quickly get the job completed in two days tops. But of course, their previous fiasco had forced Barton to medical and by Doctors orders, was told to stay home and rest. Maria could have overruled the doctor, or simply assigned another Agent to tag along with Natasha, but there were few people Natasha could really stand to be around, let alone depend on in a life threatening situation. So Maria assigned herself, it wasn't everyday that she was able to complete a mission from the actual fighting ground rather than at her desk. Plus, she wanted to spend time with her girlfriend whom she hasn't seen in way too long.

At the moment though, it wasn't the ideal girlfriend time that she wanted, but she should have known that heavy gun fire in a now smoking and on fire abandoned mansion in the middle of greenland was Natasha's style of showing a girl a good time. "Nat, did you have to set the drapes on fire?" Maria was crouched behind a tipped over desk reloading her gun. The flames were about ten feet away from her and closing in.

"I thought you looked cold, a cozy fire for date night." Nat didn't take a moment to look at Maria as she spoke. She was behind a wall firing with perfect precision never missing a beat.

The huge house was very quickly being destroyed with bullet holes and not to mention the flames that were crawling up the tall walls to the ceiling. As Maria watched the flames go up, she realized the real reason Nat had started the fire. There was a balcony that the fire was slowly eating away at that was behind them. Men were up there with guns, but they were not able to fire on them without getting seriously burnt. It was quick thinking and great cover. This way they could focus on what was in front of them.

The only issue now was that they were slowly being trapped against the fire behind them and the guns in front of them.

"Nat! What is the plan on finishing this? I said two days tops and this is 3am on the third day!" Maria was shouting from where she was crouched. "And we are trapped back here, I love the nice thought, but I think I'm starting to melt..."

"Yea I didn't think about that fire too much... as for the extraction plan, you should know that I don't ever have one of those." She was standing with her back to the wall she was against while she fixed a jam in her gun. A man came out of nowhere from the other side of the wall and Natasha threw her gun at the man and knocked him out at the same time he fired his gun. She let out an irritated yelp as the bullet entered her right bicep. "Son of a bi-"

"Nat! Are you okay?" Maria duck and dove to Natasha's side examining her wound.

"Its fine Hill, nothing that wont heal. But we probably should work on that escape. That guy got passed my block-aid around the corner which means more are coming."

Maria was ripping a strand of curtain that hadn't been burnt up yet to tie around the bleeding hole in Natasha's arm. "Why do you always get hurt?" without looking away from her bandaging, Maria grabbed the knife from her belt a threw it at the man who was running towards them, hitting him square in the chest killing him.

Natasha looked at her with a smirk, "That was hot."

"Shut up and come on, we got to go." Maria grabbed Nat by her good arm and helped her up. "How much ammo do you have left?" she said as she checked her guns.

"Uhh I ran out about 40 minutes ago... that gun I threw was someone else's, mine would never jam." she said with a hint of pride that Maria didn't miss.

"I have about five bullets left and my knives." Maria sighed, noting that the gun fire had now stopped. Not good.

Natasha smiled and winked at Maria and Maria understood what she was saying, they were going to run out of here right through the middle. "I love you Maria, I'm ready when you are." Maria could hear the men slowly coming towards them. They were yelling words that Natasha probably understood. Nat had a cut on her lip and a bruise on her cheek as she stayed put waiting for Maria to give the signal. Maria leaned over and kissed the red head softly and smiled.

"Lets go home." Maria said in a demanding voice and Natasha stood straight ready for their escape.

The two charged around the corner and took the men by surprise, there were more than they thought. At least fifteen, but all were not expecting the two women to put up such a fight. Silly. Natasha had her Widdows bite and a few knives, and Maria was shooting the last of her gun hitting all her targets exactly where she wanted. Once she emptied her gun, she used it to knock a man unconscious.

Guns were firing all at once again. The women ran towards the main door. Smoke making it impossible to breathe or see very easily. Which is probably a good thing for cover. They were almost there when Maria had gone down. She had gotten two bullets to her leg, the first she could deal with but once the second hit, her leg gave out. Natasha was immediately on top of her firing a gun she mus have stollen from one of her victims. "Maria! Come on get up! We need to move, we are out in the open!" She kicked over another table next to the couch to make a sort of "V" shaped section of cover. The smoke was black and the fire had covered most of the mansion. Debris was falling around them which was causing a distraction for the moment.

Maria managed to move to a crouched position and tested weight on her leg. It was going to be rough, but she could do it. "Come on Maria, grab my shoulder, we are getting out of this!" That snapped Maria out of her trance and grabbed Natasha by the shoulder and she hoisted her up. "Ready?"

"Yea lets go." Maria could barely talk because every breath was filled with smoke. Nat shoved her to the side and they had barely missed being crushed by flaming ceiling. But Natasha had managed to get Maria back to her feet.

Men started to fall back in order no to be caught in the fire which had now covered about 98% of the room they were in. It was amazing how fast old wood catches on fire.

They made it to the over sized door and managed to exit the building. There were only a few men that were still alive and they were rushing to escape. Natasha gave a weak laugh as they breathed in the rush of fresh air. But they couldn't relish in their victory for long because they needed to get far away from this building.

Maria could hardly walk let alone run, and she cursed herself for feeling so weak from two bullets in the leg. She had had worse. But Nat insisted on moving quickly, it was snowing outside and they were leaving a very obvious trail of foot prints and blood. "Can we call for pick up now?" Nat had said quietly. Still holding most of Maria's weight. Maria almost didn't her her.

"We have to get just passed those trees. There is a clearing where the jet can land without taking fire." the snow was almost too much to handle after being so hot in that house.

Once they reached the edge of the treeline, Natasha slowed her pace, the trees provided a lot of cover and it didn't seem like anyone was following them. "You okay? I think your'e getting heavier." Natasha said, it almost sounded like a joke, if what she had said wasn't true. Maria felt horrible from blood loss and dizzy from inhaling the smoke way too much. Not hearing a response, she said, "I think we should stop. I need a breather too."

She stopped next to a tree and was looking at Maria's leg. Sure enough, there were three rather large holes in her leg. One from the bullet passing through her thigh which caused two holes, and the third being that the bullet was most likely lodged in her leg just inches from the first. Looking her over more, Natasha had found another bullet wound in her shoulder and a graze on her forearm. There was also a red looking burn on her forehead. "Jeez Maria. You are banged up." Maria gave a small laugh which made Natasha laugh too, then cough wildly.

"You okay there? You sound like you smoked 3 packs of cigarettes in ten minutes."Maria attempted a joke, but her humor turned to concern when Natasha had finally stopped coughing and there was blood on her lips and her girlfriend had a look of pain on her face. "Nat? Hey look at me." Maria reached out and grabbed the back of Natasha's neck to force eye contact.

"I'm fine, just smoke. Come on we are almost there." Natasha went to stand up but was forced back down by Maria who still had her hand on her. Maria pulled Nat's jacket back to reveal two wounds, one was a bullet in her upper chest that entered her back and exited her chest. The other was a knife wound in the left side of her stomach. Both bleeding profusely.

"Oh my God Natasha, why didn't you say anything? You could have died!" Maria was applying pressure to the cut on her stomach and Natasha let out a small groan of pain and another cough. "You have internal bleeding you moron!"

"You don't look too hot yourself." Natasha said with her smirk. "Thats a lie, you actually look very hot when your'e covered in soot and blood... My kind of girl."

Again, Maria wanted to laugh, but she knew Natasha, she had seen her talk like this. With her eyes fluttering, her terrible excuse of flirting and trying to make light of a situation. It was bad. Very bad. When Natasha got like this, it means she knows how bad it is and shes trying not to let Maria worry. But it wasn't working anymore.

Maria had lost a lot of blood, and with her leg and shoulder compromised, she wasn't sure if she could carry Natasha the rest of the way. But she had to try.

"Come on, I'm getting you to the jet. You better not die." Maria forced herself up and supported Natasha which acted as a support for herself too.

Going from a crouching position to standing did not sit well with either of them. Especially Natasha who had blood coming from her lungs or stomach with a rough round of coughing. But they both made their way through the dark woods. Maria took her communicator out of her pocket and signaled for evac. Hopefully they will be there by the time they reach the clearing.

Natasha had grown quiet and walked a little more sluggishly that before. "How are you doing Nat?"

Maria needed to hear the woman speak something.

"Thinking about us being in snowy greenland with no weapons and no evac jet." Natasha's voice sounded wet and ragged. "Isn't it funny that its called Greenland and its green? And like Iceland is super gr-cough-icey."

"I think your'e turned around babe. We are in Greenland... look around, what do you see?"

Natasha dropped her head to look at the ground they were walking on. "Blood." She said with no emotion. "Red blood. Reminds me of Russia. Red- cough- Red Ro- cough- om."

Maria was starting to fade while she listened to her girlfriend ramble when the woman she was holding dropped from her side into the snow. "Natasha!" She dropped too, seeing the snow beneath them both turn a shade of crimson. They both had lost too much blood, and they were both near ammonia."Nat, babe, come on, wake up we need to keep going." She turned Natasha's face so it wasn't all the way in the snow. It was pale. Almost the color of the snow. It made the wet blood on her lips stand out even more than before. How did she even have any left to bleed?

Maria tried and failed to drag her girlfriend the rest of the way, but her shoulder and leg would not allow it. That and the woman had practically gained 100 extra pounds because of the snow and blood that clung to them both. Maria sat in defeat and gathered Natasha in her arms. They were at least a little covered by the pine tree that blocked the wind and snow. She brushed the wet red hair from Nat's pale face. "I'm sorry Nat, I love you." And she kissed her girlfriend on her cracked and bloodied lips. And within minutes the icy world around them went dark.