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Sharon is seven months old the first time it snows.
Her mom and dad dress her up in a tiny white snowsuit with white mittens, white boots, and a white hat with a poofball on top. She can crawl, and she’s starting to grasp the concept of standing by pushing herself up from the floor, but standing itself never lasts more than two seconds before she falls on her butt. So her mom carries her around, marching through the seven inches and building of snow, while her dad shovels the driveway. A snowflake lands on her nose, turning into a drop of water that rolls to her chin. She tries to grab others before they float past her, but they all stick and melt within seconds. She doesn’t understand. Her mom laughs. There’s a snowflake on her eyelashes. Sharon’s face is cold.
Inside, her parents strip her back down to her long-sleeved pink onesie and green sweatpants, before putting her in her crib and going to do whatever grown-ups do. She tries to pull herself up by the bars of the crib to look out the window, where the snow is slowing but steady. She falls asleep after a minute of effort.
The December of Sharon’s first grade is the first snow day. Her mom usually wakes her up but lets her sleep in, and when she sees that it’s almost eleven and she isn’t at school. Her mom is also sleeping, having gone back to sleep and not appreciative of Sharon banging on her door, and quickly explains what snow days are before going back to sleep.
Sharon goes into her room and puts on as many layers as she can, then pulls on boots, a hat, and gloves before running out the door. She is too excited to know what to do – she has all day! She decides to make a snowman first, because she never made one before. She doesn’t know how long it takes to make the first giant snowball, but her arms are tired when she’s done. It’s up to her knees in the front yard by the mailbox. The next circle is a little smaller, and Sharon has to redo it when it breaks when she lifts it. The third circle is not very big, and it first snuggly on top. Two sticks make the arms, and she makes eyes and a nose with rocks from the neighbors’ driveway. She’s very proud of her handiwork.
Inside, her mom has hot chocolate ready, but Sharon is made to take off her outer layers of clothes first before she tracks snow past the foyer. Sharon drinks it slowly, and looks out the window to see her snowman sitting proudly in the front yard.
The snowplows ruin her snowman the next day, and to make it worse, she has to go back to school.
Snow isn’t always fun, Sharon finds out, when her family gets into a car accident when she’s eight. They slip on black ice and spin into a tree. Her mom has a concussion. Her dad gets stitches on his forehead. Sharon’s shoulder dislocated, but because she is unconscious for a few hours, it’s popped back in before she wakes up in a cast and sling, with her mom and dad sitting at her bed with white faces and wrung hands.
Their car is replaced with a newer one. The old one is crushed in on the driver’s side.
For four years, whenever it snows, Sharon’s parents refuse to drive, and won’t let Sharon go out of the house, in fear that it could happen again. Sharon doesn’t understand, and sometimes it makes her mad because she wants to sleep over her friends’ houses on some of those weekend nights, but she understands. She knows that it has to be scary when you’re a mom or dad looking at your kid knocked out in a hospital after getting really hurt. It has to be.
Even at the SHIELD Academy, they have snow days, surprisingly. These snow days are only allowed for those level three or lower, because their tolerance is built up enough to be tested against the extreme cold, which based on statistics has been proven the most dangerous weather for SHIELD agents.
She works on her thesis paper (a few high school friends she stays in touch with through email say this is common in many colleges, even if SHIELD isn’t like any other college) while her roommate Maria Hill studies a recently published guide to the more modern weapons. She sighs as she turns her pages, to the point where it distracts Sharon.
She asks Maria why she’s sighing so much. Maria rolls her eyes and says it’s unfair, because they should be training. Sharon says there’s nothing wrong with a day off. Maria counters quickly, saying that SHIELD agents rarely get a day off, and if Sharon wants one, than SHIELD isn’t the right place for her. Sharon says that desk work is just as important, and not everything is shooting people in foreign territories. The girls agree to disagree and go back to their reading and writing.
Russia is in the middle of another blizzard, and Sharon’s first level five mission is to pick up Agent Barton fifty kilometers outside of Stalingrad for a high-priority mission. Barton is level seven, and unless he’s injured, there’s no reason why this is still considered high-priority. It’s a kill mission. What’s the priority?
Sharon waits until she sees his flare from one hundred meters to open the doors. She and a level four man named Cameron walk out to meet Barton half-way. They both stop when they see the high-priority.
He’s leading the Black Widow, handcuffed, to the quinjet. She’s struggling, but has an arrow in her shoulder that holds her back. She snarls and spits in Clint’s face. He rolls his eyes and ignores whatever she shouts in Russian.
The medics handcuff arms into the large tubes that go up to her elbows chained together closely and tightly, before they try removing the arrow and treating the wound. They have to pause to muzzle her when she tries to bite a nurse’s nose off, then again when she catches Cameron’s head between her ankles and tries to snap his neck with her thighs.
Sharon stares at the now heavily-sedated Black Widow. She gives one hell of an impression. The pilot warns them that they’re takin off and going to hit a bit of turbulence. Sharon looks out the windshield into the blizzard. She wonders how Barton ended up saving the enemy. She can only imagine what Fury will say.
Natalia likes the snow.
Sharon is on guard duty (babysitting duty, basically) while it’s another blizzard – in upstate New York in an abandoned SHIELD base, where Natalia’s less exposed to technology and living beings, in case she escapes, not to mention the distant land mines soon to be installed.
The Black Widow is very… interesting. She insists on sleeping handcuffed to her bed. Blankets and pillows are forgone at her request, and any left behind are torn up in defiance. She only moves to pee and wash her hands. When it’s time for showers, she willingly lets anyone lather her and rinse her, regardless of gender, being the only prisoner thus far not to fight for what many see as their last shred of dignity and personal space.
Then there’s the snow. Natalia stops lying motionless and stands on her bed to look out the six-inch square window at the building snow.
Natalia says she wants to go outside, in a heavy Russian accent.
Sharon raises an eyebrow and says she wants a raise. Not everyone gets what they want.
Natalia’s expressions are schooled very well. She doesn’t let anything show to Sharon that could translate to disappointment.
Sharon switches with a level three to go on an hour break. The hour is cut to thirty-three minutes when the level three freaks out. Sharon rushes to see them pointing at the now dancing Natalia. She moves fluidly yet precisely, and at a mentally set pace that seems to match the snowfall outside. Sharon relieves the level three and watches Natalia through the clear wall.
Sharon meets Captain America during a snowstorm. It’s technically not a snowstorm in DC, but it’s enough to bury her car. She grabs an old broom and tries sweeping away the snow with no luck. The Captain himself appears out of thin air with a snow shovel and offers to help her clear a way out. Sharon switches into Kate the Nurse mode and thanks Steve for helping, spinning a story about how she would have been late to her shift at the hospital if it wasn’t for him. She then pretends that he looks awfully familiar, at which he gets flustered. She makes an offhanded comment about him having one of those faces before thanking him and driving to her real job.
It snows the day Aunt Peggy dies. Not in America, of course. She’s doing recon in Belarus when she gets the call, being the emergency contact at the nursing home. Sharon stays calm for the phone call, nodding at nothing and promising to be there tomorrow to arrange the funeral and collect Aunt Peggy’s belongings. When the phone call ends, she throws a nearby vase at the wall and watches it shatter, just like her world is. She falls to the floor and cries into her hands. When she looks up, the snow is so high that it covers the bottom half of the windows. She must have been like this for hours.
She calls her higher-ups and says she needs to trade off. The person on the other side gets an earful about being an insensitive prick for saying there’s no good reason to trade off, before saying he’s sending another person ASAP, as well as Sharon’s ride home.
Sharon looks back at the snow. She hates it.