The Snow Job, an ultimate spider-man fanfic

Title: The Snow Job

Author: Stormy1x2

Word Count: 8616

Notes: Thanks to a major snow storm shutting down the Niagara Region (and most of Ontario), I decided to take my irritation of the cold out on one of my favourite teams. :) I am hoping this counts as the obligatory 'blanket fic' that every author is required to toss out at some point. And while I admit to being a Peter/Sam girl, this fic was written with Gen in mind (though if you tilt your head and squint, it's not hard to see what you want), and I hope I conveyed it well. Thank you guys for reading the other stories in this series, and I hope you continue reading all the new ones you inspire!

~o0o~

The Snow Job

~o0o~

There would be a time, a time in the not so distant future, when Agent-Principal Coulson would have the last laugh on them, he told them. That they would regret their little tropical holiday over winter survival training more than they did. Peter had wondered about that, and then his massive guilt complex reared up its ugly head and said 'get thee to the library and study what we would have learned.'

Peter had no idea how grateful he was going to be to his guilty conscience, and how sorry he was going to be to Coulson.

But that came later.

~o0o~

"Fury owes me a new phone," was the first thing Spider-Man decided on out loud after partially freeing himself. He thanked his lucky stars that idiotic henchmen always seemed to forget to bind his web shooters, not just his arms when they strung him up on walls. Said phone was currently in approximately one thousand little pieces after he'd slammed it into the side of a bad man's head when he'd only had one arm free and his boot had been the only thing within reach. A new phone and an apology for this screw job that was apparently a mission. Bad intel all around, Spidey fumed to himself, there is just no excuse for these shenanigans.

It had begun with a call to Fury from Logan, who apparently went walk-about in the upper Canadian wilderness enough to know when something changed the landscape there. There was a mountain in the icy north of the aptly-named North West Territories that apparently wasn't supposed to be there. A small mountain, located on one of the one million islands made up of dirt and ice floating around up there between the Canadian mainland perimeter and the Arctic circle, and Logan knew it didn't belong because it didn't smell like a mountain. What mountains were supposed to smell like, Spider-Man didn't know. But apparently they didn't smell like electricity and the scent of fifty different foot soldiers running in and out of caves that didn't actually exist. Wolverine would have handled it himself, but he'd noticed it in passing while on the trail of Sabertooth and a dozen mutated wolves that were using a local Inuit village as a substitute for a buffet table, and so could Nick Fury take his best super team and have them go look at it? Also, beware – it's a little chilly out.

For that last comment alone, Spider-Man swore he was going to punch Wolverine in the nose as hard as he could. The nose was made of cartilage, therefor when the adamantium had been set to meld with his bones, his nose hadn't been a part of that. Which meant Spidey could break it and not feel guilty because the man-beast-thing that was the smelly mutant also had a healing factor and would be all fixed up within ten minutes. But until then, Spidey would be able to enjoy ten minutes of sweet, sweet, revenge.

A little chilly. That was like saying the Rhino was 'a little strong', or the Goblin was 'a little crazy.'

Thermal coverings did not do anything when you were captured by the other fifty foot-soldiers inside the mountain that turned out to not be a mountain at all, but a big, slow, heavily armed snow-covered fortress determined to absorb the icy cold of Canada in order to (slowly) bring it to New York, spray it across Manhattan and bring the Big Apple to a freezing halt.

"I think I saw this on an episode of Kim Possible, once," was the second conclusion Spidey came to after fully freeing himself.

Spidey leaped to the ceiling and sped-crawled across it, shooting web balls down at the polar-fleece-and-kevlar-clad idiots below him who seemed to have received training on how to fire a laser gun from eighties cartoon shows – fire often and without aiming. One by one he managed to nail down his opponents with web shots to the face, knocking them down and gluing them to the floor. It was all going fairly well – until he saw three of them heading for the door, obviously intent on letting some more of their buddies in to play. Spidey leaped across the deck, rebounded off the head of some guy in a bright red balaclava (really? When the idea is to be sneaky through snow? Seriously?) and kicked all three of the soldiers to the floor with what he decided was the worlds most awesome sweeper kick. "Yes, that was me. Ninja Spidey!" He then webbed up the slider grooves before punching his hand through the metal panelling and yanking back with a fistful of wires. Yeah. That door wasn't opening any time soon.

"Spidey! C'mon, man!" Power-Man's voice carried easily over the bedlam. Luke was being held back by laser grids that had already proven they could not cut through him exactly, but could damage his skin severely. That and the more easily bruised Danny and Ava in their confined areas, had been more than enough threat to get the big man to back down. But even though Spidey was free, he would need help getting the others out. That's what fearless team leaders did, right? If he got them free, then he could could concentrate on getting back their missing teammate... who was suddenly no longer missing.

"Stop right there!" One of the bigger guys, either a captain or a thug, Pete really couldn't tell the hierarchy with this group, had stormed onto the bridge (or whatever they called this area which seemed to encompass the entire second floor of a three story fortress and had absolutely no centre support beams, and that was just messing with Pete's sense of safe architecture), yanking Sam along by the neck. That was bad, because to have Sam by the neck, you had to have removed his helmet – which the guy had apparently done. It wasn't in the immediate vicinity either. Spider-Man hit the ground after webbing up the last of the free minions and came to a halt.

"Don't listen to this walking winter wonderland," Nova shouted, attempting to twist in the man's grip and trying to do something that could been stomping on his toes, or an attempt to kick his shins. Spidey wasn't sure.

"Hang on, Nova," Spider-Man called, holding his hands out, peaceably. "Let's be reasonable about this, hey, Frosty?"

The man dressed in furry white fatigues glared at him, while simultaneously slamming Nova against the metal wall. The young hero's head bounced off the panel with sickening force. Nova groaned, body going slack in the man's grasp. The man snickered and then hit two buttons, one after the other. The first one allowed a gateway on the other side of the deck to open, and a dozen armed soldiers came rushing in, guns raised. The second one opened a hatch in the side, leading to the outside and what had to be at least a two story drop into an icy, snowy night. Spider-Man barely had time to think of a quip before the man hurled Sam – sans helmet – out the hatch. Sam screamed all the way down until Spider-Man couldn't hear him anymore. The hatch slowly pulled shut, and the man smirked at him, aiming his rifle at Spider-Man's head.

Spidey blinked a few times, in shock. There was a ringing in his head, and for once it wasn't his spider-sense. His blood suddenly began boiling. Rage rushed through his veins like a jolt of caffeine to the nervous system, and he could hardly keep himself from growling like a certain feline-based teammate of his. And on the topic of teammates... that was his teammate, his friend that big furry idiot had just tossed out like yesterdays trash. His eyes narrowed, brain spinning at high gear covering all the bases he needed covered; mind taking in all of the targets and mapping the quickest route from where he was to the man just who threw his teammate out of the hovercraft, while still being able to take down the fresh new idiots who had just joined their little soiree. He let out one loud breath. "You shouldn't have done that," he snarled, a red haze settling over his vision. His fingers cracked ominously as he clenched them into tight fists. Then he attacked.

~o0o~

Luke watched wide-eyed as Spider-Man went to town on the group of polar-fleeced morons with a calm kind of ferocity that was kind of terrifying to witness. It was the same kind of moves and battle skill that took down the likes of the Sinister Six but seemed a lot...harder, when his opponents were simple humans. Trained soldier humans, but still. They were no legions of Rhino's or Scorpions. The worst part was that there was no patented Spidey-banter being thrown about – Spider-Man was cold, focused, knocking men down and webbing them up before most of them had time to take a step. A flip here, a rebound there and two more were unconscious on the ground, blood dripping down their faces from wounds born when Spidey slammed them together with devastating force. A swift, blunt-force kick to the midsection of another henchman had the guy doubled over and puking before passing out face-first into it seconds later. That was gross and righteous at the same time.

Power-Man had to admit, he was a little in awe of seeing his team leader acting like the powerhouse Power-Man was supposed to be. It was a reminder that beneath the goofy and gentle exterior, there was an experienced, battle-hardened warrior, and that was something they all seemed to keep forgetting at times. This was a serious reminder.

Turning away from Spidey going to town on fur-suited fuzz-heads, he looked across the way to where Danny was meditating, trying to conserve the air left in his airtight prison, and the adamantium netting pinning Ava inside a water-filled cell-block. Danny was sitting cross-legged on the floor, trying to slow his breathing, and Ava was trying to stave off a water-induced panic attack. The urge to help them was surging throughout his entire body but every time he moved, the lasers zapped his skin, making him yelp. He already had burns criss-crossing all over his arms and legs, and a few particularly deep ones on his chest. He could smell his own skin burning and that was just not right. If Spidey could just get to him, he'd get Danny first before his air ran out, and then Ava. He turned his gaze back to Spider-Man who was firing web blasts from a support strut, gunking up the weapons trained on him and causing them to backfire with brilliant explosions.

"C'mon Spidey!" he shouted, lending his support to his leader who continued his mad leaping about the room, taking out shooters like a deranged rabbit on crack. "Get me out so you can go after Nova!"

Spidey seemed to freeze for one moment before he gut-punched one of the last goons and webbed him to the floor. Power-Man grinned as he saw Spidey's eye plates turn and focus in his direction. Now they were talking.

~o0o~

Sam had never been this cold, not even while travelling in space. Okay, so his helmet protected him with a wicked-ass personal force field that repelled everything except oxygen and blunt force, but still. And now he was without said helmet, which meant his life sucked.

His suit was making a valiant attempt at keeping him warm, but without the helmet, it was more like wearing thermal underwear – if underwear was a leather body-stocking. His fingers and toes were going numb and he already couldn't feel his nose. Not that he was able to breathe much anyway. His ribs hurt – probably bruised from the rough landing in the snow drifts. Not broken – he'd definitely feel that, he knew from experience what that felt like, and that pain was not this pain. His head was aching but despite the hit he'd taken, he was pretty sure he wasn't suffering from a concussion. He hoped that his panicked scream as he'd been tossed through the door into this wintery-hell (was that an oxymoron?) would be taken as a manly yell by his teammates. At the very least, he hoped Spidey hadn't heard it. Though he most likely had. Because that was the way the laws of the universe worked with Sam.

He kept his head down, his hands clapped to his ears, and kept moving. Moving was good. If he stopped moving, that would be extremely bad. He had no idea how long he had been moving, but it couldn't have been that long. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes, right? Fifteen tops? Surely the Web Head had freed the others by now in one of his annoyingly amazing turn-arounds he always seemed to pull on the bad guys, and they were now scanning the tundra, searching for him.

And that was a stupid word – tundra. This was a land of icy cold death – it was like Australia had a polar opposite, where instead of trying to kill people with the heat, the flora and the fauna, it killed with the weather and the sheer lack of fucking cover anywhere. Sorry Wolverine, hate to tell you this, but Canada sucked. It was a land where the air hurt your face. Sam was there on a mission – he had no say in the matter because Fury was a sadistic man who loved to torture his teams. But other people lived here, some by choice, and that, he just couldn't wrap his head around. Why would you voluntarily live in a place where the air hurt your face?

A groan escaped him without his permission. He hurt. He hurt and he was cold. His hands slipped, his arms aching with cold and exhaustion and his ears began to freeze just like the rest of him. That hurt enough to wake him up to clap his frozen hands back over his ears. If he was going to have frostbite, it was not going to be on his ears, the adorable ears his mother had always claimed were one of his best features. His nose was a close second, but hell, he only had two hands. Maybe he could alternate.

Sam kept trudging, one foot after another, one stupidly inane thought after stupidly inane thought, mainly because he didn't know what else to do.

And that was scarier than the cold.

~o0o~

Spider-Man took out the last goon and then launched himself at Power-Man's restraint system, destroying the electronics with a hard punch right through the console. Power-Man's laser cuffs disappeared along with the grid and the other teen fell to the floor with a gasp. Spider-Man didn't waste any time, scurrying back over to the side hatch that Sam had been thrown from. "Get Ava and Danny loose! Then get Ava to lock onto my comm signal! Find Sam's helmet, asap!" he shouted and then punched the door lock. His eyes fell on something strapped to the side wall – he snagged it automatically, and then threw himself headfirst into the icy howling winds before Power-Man could even think about trying to stop him.

Ava was screaming at him, and so Power-Man just fell back on instinct and raced over to let her and Danny loose. He slammed a heavy fist against the wall keeping him from Danny - cracks sprouted beneath his impacted knuckles, and he grinned. Danny's eyes snapped open and he nodded at the Kung Fu master. Danny climbed to his feet. With a silent count to three, they struck at the same time. The enhanced flex-glass shattered under their combined forces and Danny stumbled a bit as he stepped free, grabbing Luke's arm to steady himself.

"Thank you for the rescue," he said, breathing a little heavier than usual. The air must have been getting pretty low in there. "We need to turn this ship around if we are to rescue Nova and Spider-Man."

"I'll get Ava free and find Sam's helmet," Luke snarled. "Go make sure no one else can join us on deck. And hurry."

This was now a race against time.

~o0o~

Peter hadn't been this cold in his entire life and once this op was over, he fully intended to spend some time looking into future retirement locations somewhere along the equator. Maybe near a volcano.

In the meantime, he was following his communicator through the northern tundra that was trying to drown him in wet, icy flakes. It was a good thing his suit, upgraded from spandex long ago by a horrified Doctor Connor, was a decent protection against the cold in comparison, but it wouldn't hold out any longer than Sam's suit sans helmet. Thankfully, his healing factor seemed to register potential frostbite as something to heal, and his body temp was churning way above normal. He didn't know exactly how long it would hold out, but as long as it did so just enough for him to find Sam, he wouldn't complain.

The wind was screaming in his face. His mask was doing an okay job at filtering some of it, but the ice buildup made it suffocating. He raked a hand down the front of it to clear the snow and then had an idea. Aiming his web shooters at his head, he piled up a layer of webbing. "Not the greatest hat in the world, but it will do." He could already feel a difference in the insulation. That was good to know. Raising his feet one at a time, he shot some webbed boots for himself. Toes were always the first thing to go in the snow, spidey-enhanced healing or not, and there was nothing for him to climb anyway. He scanned the terrain, clicking his night vision on, not that it did any good. The darkness wasn't nearly a hindrance that the sheer wall of white was.

He checked his tracker – thankfully the large hovercraft had sacrificed speed for large heavy weaponry and didn't seem to have Tony Stark's patented repulsor technology to help it out vertically, either. What this meant was that in the twelve or so minutes since Sam had been thrown out of the aircraft, he hadn't fallen very far down, and he couldn't be very far away. Still, that was over ten minutes in horrifyingly cold weather with his head and face completely exposed, and the clock was still ticking. Spider-Man was moving as swiftly as he could, but the snow was nearly four feet thick in some places, and the webs he shot at rocks to try and use as an anchor were being thrown off by the harsh winds. "Nova!" he shouted, finally managing to snag a large rock and haul himself up. His night vision was working overtime, trying to peer through the frozen mess being thrown at it, when suddenly, it locked onto a heat signature.

It was faint, but it wasn't far away. Nova had probably been trying to follow the hovercraft. He was less than two hundred meters away. Peter bounded off the rock in as large a leap as he could manage – and promptly floundered into a five foot snow drift. Snarling with frustration, he gathered himself like the Hulk and tried a huge, diagonal leap, throwing his arms and legs out for maximum strength. He probably looked like an idiot but he had cleared nearly ten meters before landing in an explosion of puffy snow that swamped him when it came back down. His thighs were screaming at him – apparently they did not like this kind of strenuous movement in the freezing cold. He could relate. "How does the Hulk travel like this?" he gasped into the frigid night air, breath steaming white and bright, and then he crouched down to do it again.

And then again.

Sam was going to owe him so damn big for this.

~o0o~

Ava clawed most of the way free of the loosened metal netting. Luke had crushed the controls on the locks and moved on to the back of the cell block, shouting something at her about Spidey's communicator. The cages had kept her from hearing what had gone on, but she had eyes and she had seen Sam being thrown outside the hovercraft without his helmet and less than fifteen minutes later, Spider-Man had gone after him. She could see Danny locking down parts of the hovercraft and securing the webbed prisoners with something a little more permanent.

Snarling, she tore the last of the netting off her legs and leaped clear of the water. She shook herself off and then moved swiftly towards the computer consoles lining the side of the craft. A quick check showed it was on automatic pilot – another check showed the controls being very similar in design to the Tri-Carrier. It was fairly easy to switch it back to manual, and to hover it in place while she set up a homing signal set to Spider's frequency. That took longer than she'd hoped. While some things were easy to recognize, she discovered very quickly that this was in no way near as technologically advanced as anything she was used to. "Oh my god, who built this piece of crap?" The mapping algorithms were about ten years out of date and if the heap had internet (which it did not, how was this even a modern hovercraft without internet access, Ava just didn't understand this) Google Earth would have provided them with better ground intel than what was spewing across the screens.

Danny eventually joined her at the controls, silently taking over steering and working on turning the clunky airship around. By the time he had the groaning, hulking behemoth reversed, Ava had finally locked onto Spider-Man's beacon. "They're just over a kilometre away," she said. "But this ship is still gonna take a minute or so to get there – it's so damn slow!" She pounded the console in frustration. "It's been thirty minutes at least. Maybe more. Did Luke find-"

"Sam's helmet, right here," said Power-Man, striding back up to them. Sam's helmet was cradled carefully under one massive arm. "Looks like they just ripped it off his head and tossed it away. Not smart." He nodded at the hatch. "Let me down over them – I need to get this bucket on Sam's head and both of them back up here before they freeze to death."

"According to Spidey's comm transmissions, their life signs are stable, vitals good," Ava said in surprise. The image she'd managed to get on the display was fuzzy and fritzing in and out like an old TV relying on rabbit ears to get reception, but there was no mistaking the two heart beats and the recorded body temperatures that were hovering in a safe range. "Is there a shelter down there that somehow managed to escape anyone's maps?"

"Nah, I bet it's just Spidey," Luke said with a grin of pure relief. "Homeboy always manages to pull a surprise from outta nowhere."

Ava had to agree. "He is a lucky big, isn't he?" she snorted, concentrating on following the transponder signal, but a small smile curved the corner of her mouth. "The bastard."

~o0o~

Sam cursed as he stumbled in the waist-high snow, trying to blink his eyes open but it was official – his eyelids were freezing shut. Or his eyelashes. Or there was just a sheet of ice covering his face preventing him from looking up and any minute now, he was going to die of...smotheration. Or something. Was that even a word? It should be.

His teeth were chattering hard enough to make his head hurt, and he knew he wasn't making much in the way of progress. This did not bode well. He stumbled again and fell to his knees. He took one hand away from his ears to plant it by his foot, to try and regain his balance, and... couldn't. Panic hit him, and he forced himself up – and then immediately collapsed back to his knees. His arms wrapped around himself automatically, and he shuddered hard, the reality of his situation hitting him. He was alone, where no one could find him, and he was slowly freezing to death.

"No," he sobbed out, suddenly terrified and angry at the same time. "Not like this." The wind pulled at his breath, yanked his whispered words out and away and replaced them with chunks of ice, burning down his throat.

Then suddenly the howling of the wind was joined by another sound. Sam jerked his head up, rubbing one cold hand against his face, trying to thaw the muscles there enough to let him peer through the darkness. Nothing. But he could hear it. His name?

"Sam!"

Sam blinked hard and suddenly white exploded in front of him, coating him with even more snow. He shook his head slowly and suddenly came face to face with a familiar blue and red suit. "Webs...?"

"Yeah, it's me." Spider-Man's voice was calm and it tore through the terror blanketing Sam. "C'mon, you did well this far, but we need to get out of this wind."

Sam wanted to cry with relief but he manfully held back. "How-" he choked out, and more ice tried to steal his breath away.

"Stop talking, Sam." He heard a strange sound, and then a weight was on his head, covering his hair down to his ears. "I'm getting better at this. It's not a designer toque, but it'll do for now."

A what?

"There's a rock over here... hang on, this isn't gonna be graceful..."

What the hell.. Suddenly Sam was gripped hard around the waist and he was... flying? But he didn't have his helmet, this wasn't right... Then they landed and Sam sputtered around the mouthful of snow he'd forcefully inhaled.

His leader was still talking. "Okay, let's dig it out a little here..."

Dig what?

A flash of light. "Okay, new use for flash webs, this is good to know. Also, overhang, very handy."

Sam was suddenly pushed and he blinked again, the flash having helped melt his face, staring at the semi-cave thing in front of him. Well, it was more of an indent into a rock with only about a foot of overhang, but it was shelter from part of the wind which was the main thing. Sam pressed against the frozen rock wall and turned back to see Spider-Man webbing the hell out of the landscape, creating... a tent? A lean-to? Sam blinked hazily, feeling drowsy, and he remembered that that was a bad thing. "Webs..." he managed to get out between chattering teeth. "Sleepy."

"I know Sam, but you have to stay with me for now, okay?" His team leader's voice was still calm, but also warm, which was strange to Sam. "Let me finish this to block out all the wind and then I'll get you settled."

Sam really, really wanted to argue that he could settle himself, but he couldn't muster up the energy and that was telling enough. The wind was all gone now, but the air was still biting cold, and Spidey was in that suit... "Why aren't you cold?" he chattered out, irrationally irritated by the idea that his leader wasn't suffering like he was.

Webs was ripping something open. "Oh, I'm cold, but thankfully my healing factor is treating it like a virus or something."

Sam had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"You'll see in a minute. But first..." Webs held up something – a blanket? Where the hell did that come from? "The carrier. It was well-stocked, for a floating criminal headquarters." Apparently the words in his head were now becoming words in his mouth. Webs laughed gently. "Yeah, that happens sometimes."

Then he was wrapping Sam partly up in the blanket, leaving one side open. "Webs..." Irritated or not, he wasn't gonna let the web head freeze alongside him. He tried to paw at the blanket, arms still not moving as he wanted them to. "You..."

"Patience, grasshopper." The words were still gentle, not mocking. Sam frowned, and then gasped as he – blanket and all – were picked up. "Gotta insulate this a little bit." Sam watched him spray more webbing on the blanket, against the wall, before setting Sam down against the rock again. He couldn't feel the cold coming through anymore – he turned his head and blinked at the wall of webs covering the rock. "Yeah, this stuff is pretty tough."

Then Spidey was joining him in the blanket, wrapping the other end around them both, making a Nova-and-Spidey burrito. Spidey was suddenly grabbing at Nova, rubbing his arms and back. Sam's eyes had somehow closed without his permission, which was why it took him a second to realize something. "Webs... is my face pressed against your chest?" he mumbled out.

A rumbling laugh vibrated against Nova's cheek. "Your face is freezing, Sam, and I'm radiating heat like a furnace. Take advantage of it while you can."

Sam wanted to argue, but Spidey really was warm and the ice chunks felt like they were finally melting in his throat. He decided that a personal sexuality identification crisis was not needed if the people in question were in danger of falling before the new ice age and so he flicked the switch in his head that turned Spidey, team leader, into Peter, older brother (and man this was a switch that did not get much use), shoved his arms around the web-heads back and snuggled up as close as he could. "Just so y'know," he grumbled. "M'gonna leech away all your heat an' keep it for m'self."

Spidey sounded amused. "You do that."

Nova grumbled some more but his hands were actually warm now, wedged between Spidey's back and the blanket, and his feet, tucked up under his leaders legs, were finally starting to thaw out. They were full of unpleasant tingles and fuzzies but he was too damn tired to care. "Safe t'sleep now?"

There was a click and a beep. Light washed out for a moment which Nova sleepily deducted was the scanner built into Spidey's communicator. "Yeah, Sam. Body core temps are levelling out. You're not gonna die of frostbite today."

"Gonna wake up?" Sam really needed to hear this. The fear of falling asleep was still with him. But he could trust Peter. Could trust Spider-Man. Just didn't need to tell him that. Head was big enough already.

There was a soft laugh from above him, and Sam wondered if he was doing that thing again, where the words in his head were coming out of his mouth but he was sinking down a warm, dark, hole and he didn't want to come out. "Yeah. You'll wake up, I promise."

Sam smiled and let himself doze off.

~o0o~

"I've got them!" Ava shouted. "Right below us, to the right. Luke, can you see them?"

Luke and Danny were peering through the hatch into the darkness. Howling winds tore at their costumes, trying to drag them out. Luke dug his fingers into the freezing metal between his feet as he crouched by the side of the door. "I can't see a damn thing," Luke snapped back. "Doesn't this heap have exterior lights or something?"

Ava cursed, something Spanish that Luke recognized and another one in French that he couldn't. "This heap is not the Tri-Carrier, Power-Man," she hissed back, punching more buttons to bring up schematics of the entire ship. Her fingers danced over the three-dimensional touch keypad, trying to figure out the illumination system. It didn't seem to be going very well – red screens kept popping up at her, denying her access with sirens complete with klaxon horns. "It's a poor-man's version of Stark's Helicarrier, stripped down, minimized, and poorly constructed. I'm surprised it got off the ground to begin with!" She punctuated her aggravated frustration with a swift kick to the lower panels of the console.

"Never mind," Danny interjected. His eyes were closed and one hand was extended out the hatchway, two fingers pointed downward, the rest folded towards himself. His hand was glowing with the power of the Iron Fist, but it seemed muted to Luke - a lighter colour, more of a glow than the inferno it usually was. "I can sense them. They are close. Get ready, Power-Man."

Luke blinked, but then shrugged. He wasn't about to dismiss the sensitive aspect of his teammates abilities – not if it helped them to find their two missing friends. "You tell me when," he said, gripping the cord he'd tied around himself and anchored to a metal cross-section in the wall. Once he'd found their two lost packages, Danny and Ava would haul them up if they were in no condition to do it themselves. Luke made sure the cord was firmly looped around a metal pole and then attached to the winch that lowered the hatch door – it would help them pull up the two smaller ones (though if they referred to Nova as small in his presence, he wouldn't stop complaining for weeks) if they needed it. Though Luke was counting on Sam flying them up if he were well enough to do so. Then either Spider-Man could lend his strength to pull up Power-Man, or Luke would haul himself up. Whatever. One way or another, they were all coming back on board as far as Power-Man was concerned.

Danny concentrated, his hand never wavering despite the frigid air trying to creep past him into the hovercraft in an attempt to freeze them all. And if it was that cold up here, then it had to be devastating down there. Luke really didn't like the idea of that at all. Then Danny's eyes opened as his fist suddenly glowed brighter. "Now, Luke. Go!"

Luke didn't hesitate, and threw himself forward through the hatch with a shout. The ice and snow began stabbing his arms and face where his costume didn't cover, but it was easy for him to ignore due to his power set. He fell fast through the cold night air, keeping his gaze firmly beneath him. The night vision capabilities in his sunglasses had been activated but they couldn't see through the snow, and Power-Man's only concern was that Danny's abilities had been too on-target, and he was in danger of landing on top of them. With that thought in mind as he neared the ground, he clenched iron fingers around the cord looped around his waist and his wrist, and jerked himself to a bone-jarring halt only a few meters above the snow. Then he let go and fell with a thump and a poof of displaced snow drifts.

"Not a graceful landing," he muttered, spitting snow out of his mouth. Ava's face popped up on his communicator and he held it close to his face to hear what she was saying.

"...the right! Go... right!"

"Got it!" Luke turned and began wading through the snow, brushing clumps of it off his glasses before he was completely blinded. They were close, and this was kind of perplexing because it was cold enough to freeze the ears off a brass donkey and yet he couldn't see any sort of shelter or building that would explain why his two lost teammates were actually doing pretty damn good for themselves. He continued to push through the snow, scanning the surrounding landscape – and came to a halt in front of a large rock. He would have dismissed it except at the top, he saw a flicker of red within the grey and white. He reached for it and pulled.

The object came free with a crackling of ice and left tiny bits behind. Luke blinked at Spider-Man's mask, sitting draped over his hand, and he looked back up to where it had come from. Spidey used his mask as a marker? Instead of leaving it on his head where it could help insulate him from the cold, he had taken it off and what – webbed it to the top of a rock?

Luke rolled his eyes and began circling the rock until he saw an unusual snow formation. It was piled much higher in different places. His GPS was telling him he was right on top of them. Luke blinked again and reached out a tentative hand to scrape it along the piled snow. Beneath it... Luke grinned and then laughed out loud. Webbing. Frozen webbing, but it was definitely webbing from Spidey's web shooters. He continued to scrape the snow off, and called out for his teammates. "Sam? Pete?"

He waited for a moment and then the webbing shook. A voice, faint under the howling wind, called back. "Hang on a second!"

Luke laughed again.

~o0o~

Inside the snug little cocoon (and to be completely honest, Peter was quite proud of his rather unorthodox igloo), Peter could hear sounds of scraping, and Ava had come through on his communicator. The transmission had been somewhat garbled, likely due to the weather conditions and the insulating properties of his webbing, but Ava told him the person next to them on the outside was Luke, and Peter would have to help break them out from the inside since Luke didn't know exactly where they were inside their little web-cave.

Peter looked down and smiled fondly at his teammate. Sam was curled up in a ball, clutching Peter's costume, safe and warm thanks to the blanket he'd managed to snag before free-falling outside the hovercraft. His webbing had provided great insulation, and his body temp was still higher than normal thanks to his active healing factor. Add in the cushioning piles of snow on top of the webbing and even the small holes he'd punched through at the sides for fresh air hadn't let in enough cold air to create a problem for them. They were sitting pretty well at the moment, but he was still glad to know his teammate had made it. "Sam?" Sam snuffled and rubbed his face against Peter's chest. "If you are rubbing your nose on me, you are hand-cleaning my costume."

There was a groan and a mutter as the younger teen came awake. "Like hell I would," Sam yawned, opening his eyes slowly. "Why the hell are you playing pillow? And why am I lying on you?" His dark eyes narrowed but his mouth was quirked in a grin. "Did you take advantage of me? Do I need an adult present?"

Peter rolled his eyes and shoved him upright. "Yes, Sam. While we were in danger of freezing to death, I groped you shamelessly and got it all on video. It's being uploaded to YouTube as we speak."

Sam yawned again and then shivered. "Yeah, sure. Why am I up? I'm cold again. I wasn't cold thirty seconds ago. I hate you, this is all your fault." He made little grabby hands at Peter's suit again. "You still have body heat I need to steal from you. Stop moving and let me leech."

"And there's the Nova we all know and tolerate." Spidey began pulling the blanket back, tearing away the webbed insulation as he did so. "Luke's right outside our little web-cave and he's got your helmet with him."

Sam's eyes snapped wide open. "My helmet? Gimme!" He began to assist Peter in ripping away the webbing. "C'mon webs, do that flashy thing and melt all this crud."

"My flash webs don't melt webbing," Peter said patiently. "That would be counter-productive. It melted the snow. Luke's brushing the snow off outside. Once we're ready, I'll cut it open." He pulled out a tiny pocketknife.

"Since when do you carry a blade?" Nova blinked at the small weapon. Free of the webbing, he nonetheless re-wrapped the blanket around himself in preparation for their exposure once again to the cold.

Peter rolled his eyes. "It's a jackknife, Sam. Frankly, I use the can opener function more than the knife." He pulled the tiny, two inch blade out of its slot and reached up, pressing the tip into the webbing over their heads. A tiny bit of spider-proportionate strength, and he tore it straight down, ripping the thick layers of webbing in two. Sam helped, reaching towards the rip and tugging it to the side.

Cold air swept in instantly, chilling them both to the bone, but then Power-Man was there, holding out Sam's helmet, and Spidey's mask. Peter accepted his gear gratefully and slipped it on before grabbing Luke's extended hand. The large teen had an even larger grin on his face. "C'mon, you two. Glad you're both okay."

Sam snatched his helmet back and jammed it onto his head so fast Peter winced at the impact sound it made. Seconds later, the familiar bluish-white corona that heralded the power of the Nova Corps surrounded Sam's body, and the younger hero stood up straight, flexing his muscles and stretching his arms and legs. The blanket, no longer needed, fell to the ground. "Oh man, I don't feel the wind anymore. Freaking awesome." He turned to the others. "My turn to be the rescuer, huh?"

The rest of the webbing dissipated in the wind, and Spider-Man shivered in an automatic response to the chill. Without comment, Nova reached down and snagged the blanket before it could fly off with the webbing, and wrapped it firmly around Spidey's shoulders. Peter grinned behind his mask but didn't say anything. Luke raised one (partially frozen) eyebrow. "Are we moving now, ladies?"

"Hang on to your butts!" Nova crowed. Gripping Power-Man and Spider-Man by the arms, he zoomed into the air and followed the cable that was still wrapped around Luke that led back to the hatch he'd initially been thrown from. It only took a few seconds to toss his teammate and team leader in before following himself and hitting the switch to close it behind them.

"Glad to see you all made it back," Ava said, joining them by the door. She smiled tiredly, pulling her mask and cowl back – a true sign, if ever there were one, that the mission was over. "I finally managed to make contact with Fury. A jet will be here to pick us up in ten minutes. SHIELD agents will take command of this flying deathtrap and handle the idiots trapped in the bays below. Coulson will debrief us on the flight back to New York so we can get some sleep before school tomorrow." Message finished, she tugged at the blanket wrapped around Spidey, silently demanding a corner of it.

Out of the wind, and his temperature still blasting, Peter surrendered the blanket to her and Danny who had walked over to make their little team complete. His mouth was dry but there was no water nearby unless someone wanted to lean outside again, catch some of the snow and melt it and Peter was not doing that. Nope. He'd just gotten away from the snow, and his ears were still ringing. Ringing?

"School?" Sam squawked, arms flailing. "I almost died of the freezing cold and I don't even get a day off from school?"

"If you were in danger of dying, you would," Luke said, nudging the smaller boy. "But you're not anymore." He grinned at the other teen who harrumphed and crossed his arms, apparently determined to sulk over the revelation that they would not get a 'snow day'. So to speak. Hey, Peter was kinda on board with Sam here.

"Indeed, these experiences that do not kill, only make us stronger," Danny said with a small laugh.

Wooziness suddenly swamped Spidey. "Oh, good," Peter said, suddenly feeling over-heated in the aircraft, and extremely dizzy. "Then I'm apparently going to live forever. And I'm just gonna take a nap then..."

The last thing he saw was his teammates coming towards him looking worried. Then he was out.

~o0o~

"You are an idiot," was the first thing he heard when he opened his eyes in the Tri-Carrier medical bay. Sam was hovering directly above him, eyes narrowed, mouth flattened into a firm line, and his arms folded. If he were on the ground, Peter had no doubt Sam's foot would be tapping.

"Good morning to you, too," Peter yawned, and slowly sat up, mindful of the wires attached to him. Something fell off him, pooling at his waist – he looked down, confused. It was the blanket from the hovercraft. He ran his hand over it automatically. "This thing is still with us?"

"Yeah, well, turns out you needed it," Sam said with a scowl. "Apparently you were pushing a fever of 104 degrees the entire time we were out in the snow. Once we were back inside the hovercraft, your healing factor tried to drop your temperature before your brains boiled. But you dropped too fast and too low and started contracting hypothermia right there in the hovercraft. The docs said your body chemistry was completely out of whack."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "The docs used the phrase 'out of whack'?"

Sam shrugged. "I translated."

"Did Sam already convey our displeasure to you?" Danny walked into the medical bay, still dressed as Iron Fist but his mask hung loosely in his hand. "You made a promise to start letting us know when you are not feeling one hundred percent."

That was completely unfair. "I think I passed out before I could even register that I knew I wasn't feeling well," Peter protested. "And I was too busy trying to keep Sam alive to think about it-"

"Don't blame me for this," Sam snapped. "And we're not talking about survival situations. We're talking about getting back on board that Helicarrier knock-off and no one having a clue until you passed out on us."

"Am I going to live?" Peter plucked at the wires running between him and the medical scanners. "What's this all for?"

"Mainly to distract you and make you ask questions." The medical bay doors slid open again, this time admitting Agent Coulson, Luke and Ava. Like Danny, she was still wearing her uniform, but her cowl was pulled back. Luke had changed into his civies at some point. "Ava, Danny and Luke were kind enough to debrief right away. I do believe it's your turns now."

"And here I thought I escaped," Sam moaned. "You've already heard the story three times."

"And I have yet to hear about the mission from your point of view, especially pertaining to the time after you were thrown from the aircraft." Coulson's eyes narrowed. "I am particularly interested in learning about how you handled the cold weather. You know, the stuff you all should have known, had it not been for your impromptu little tropical vacation two months ago?"

Sam groaned again and flopped to the ground in defeat, propping his head up. "No snow day, more debriefing, and a guilt trip. Three-for-three today, sir."

"I do try to keep my averages up when at all possible." Coulson focused his gaze back on Spider-Man. "According to Luke and what we were able to review from your comm recordings, you acquitted yourself well under adverse weather conditions. I am suitably impressed, Mr Parker." His eyebrow raised, apparently waiting for an explanation.

Peter shrugged. "I kind of went and looked up some of that winter survival stuff after we finished the whole Sand Man problem. Wondered what we missed out on." He grinned. "Gotta admit - it came in pretty handy."

"You were not assigned to do any additional catch-up," Coulson pointed out. "Your training was simply deferred, in light of your success in helping us handle the long overdue issues that came with 'the whole Sand Man problem.'" He used air quotes. Peter held back a laugh.

And this was easy to handle. "You made me team leader," Peter acknowledged. "You put me in charge, which means I'm responsible for my team. And someone needed to know what to do in case a winter scenario came up." Peter wrinkled his nose. "I have to admit – I kinda thought this assignment was actually a joke at first – payback for us skipping winter survival training."

"SHIELD never jokes about assignments, Mr Parker." Coulson cracked a very small grin. "Particularly written assignments due tomorrow, about the exact means you took to protect both yourself and a subordinate from inclement weather-"

"Who are you calling a subordinate?" Sam shouted. Ava grabbed the blanket from Peter's bed and dropped it over his head. "What are you doing?"

Ava smirked at Peter. "I was hoping it worked like a parakeet or a parrot. You know, you drop a sheet over their cage and they go to sleep because they think its night?"

Luke and Danny burst out laughing.

"Very funny," Sam muttered, his voice muffled from under the blanket.

"Once debriefings are finished, all of you are scheduled for a final check with medical before you are cleared for release. I expect you to spend your downtime resting." Coulson eyed them all firmly. "I will be expecting to see you all in class on Monday."

Sam burst up from the floor with a shout, dropping the blanket on Peter, and high-fiving Danny and Luke. Ava rolled her eyes but looked somewhat happy. Peter blinked. Their mission had been Wednesday. "What day is it? How long have I been asleep?"

"It's Thursday afternoon, Mr Parker. Thirteen hundred hours. Your aunt is under the impression all of you spent the night at an Awake-a-Thon being held at the school. She made a generous donation – I will see it returned to the cookie jar by one of our agents." Coulson winked. "Good work team." Peter joined in the round of high-fiving going on. "Sam, your turn. Let's go."

Sam whined but dragged himself after Coulson. Peter was about to detach everything that was currently attached to him, but Danny and Ava stopped him. "Sam's gonna be about an hour before your turn, and you still have circles under your eyes. Get some more sleep," she said.

Danny picked up the poor mistreated blanket and draped it over his team leader. "A true warrior knows to take his rest when he can."

Peter was about to argue when another yawn burst out of him. Luke smirked, lowering his sunglasses. "If you needed a hint.." he waggled his brows.

Peter raised his hands in surrender. "You win. An hour nap is not exactly a hardship," he said, and scrunched back down on the bed, curling up under the blanket. "Wake me when it's my turn."

~o0o~

Ava, Danny and Luke exchanged glances as their leader fell asleep almost instantly, proving just how exhausted the wall crawler was. Luke sighed, and then looked at Ava – and the backpack she had brought with her back from her debrief with Coulson. "You got them?"

"Yup." She opened the top and pulled out three textbooks with Property of SHIELD stamped across the covers. She also handed out blank notepads, a folder filled with diagrams of equipment, and then distributed pens and pencils from her pencil case. "Might as well get started."

Danny smiled as he accepted the text book Ava handed him and read the title to himself: 'Winter Survival Basics 101'.

Hey, if their team leader could take the time to make sure he could take care of them, it was only fair to return the favour.

~o0o~

End

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